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  <row Id="1" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2" CreationDate="2012-05-01T18:20:27.167" Score="35" ViewCount="5047" Body="&lt;p&gt;Once I encountered an opponent who used a very early a6 in his Sicilian Opening. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 a6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What could have been his objective with this move and how should I have have countered it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8" LastEditorUserId="1656" LastEditDate="2013-09-04T22:08:58.223" LastActivityDate="2017-02-23T14:22:26.090" Title="What are the consequences of an early a6 in the Sicilian?" Tags="&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1" CreationDate="2012-05-01T18:51:50.697" Score="37" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is called the O'Kelly variation of the Sicilian.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If white plays normally (i.e. &lt;code&gt;3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3&lt;/code&gt;), then black can eventually kick the d4 knight with &lt;code&gt;...e5&lt;/code&gt; when the knight doesn't have any great squares.  In this case, &lt;code&gt;2... a6&lt;/code&gt; keeps the knight from moving to the natural b5 square (as in the Sveshnikov Sicilian).  This will allow black to quickly play &lt;code&gt;...d5&lt;/code&gt; with equality.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White's best plan is to play either &lt;code&gt;c3&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;c4&lt;/code&gt; trying to prove that black's move &lt;code&gt;2... a6&lt;/code&gt; is not a good developing move.  When white plays &lt;code&gt;c3&lt;/code&gt;, the natural plan is to follow up with &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt;, and then if black plays &lt;code&gt;...cxd4&lt;/code&gt;, white will respond with &lt;code&gt;cxd4&lt;/code&gt;, gaining a classical pawn center.  When white plays &lt;code&gt;c4&lt;/code&gt; instead, white's plan is to set up a &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mar%C3%B3czy_Bind&quot;&gt;Maroczy bind&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An unambitious plan for white would be to play into a closed Sicilian - in the closed Sicilian, black frequently plays a6-b5 in order to get counterplay on the queenside.  Furthermore, in the closed Sicilian, tempi matter a lot less because the position will not change radically from one move to the next.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-09T20:31:16.707" LastActivityDate="2012-06-09T20:31:16.707" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1" CreationDate="2012-05-01T19:07:59.220" Score="16" Body="&lt;p&gt;As I understand it, the purpose of &lt;code&gt;2... a6&lt;/code&gt; is to keep a white piece (usually knight or bishop) off b5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems premature, because white might not want to go there anyway (for some time). Meaning that it could easily become a wasted move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As White, I would concentrate on king side development, knowing that b5 was &quot;off limits,&quot; but not caring, because I have &quot;better&quot; things to do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One disadvantage of a6 is that Black may want to play a5 later to try to &quot;chase&quot; a White knight on b3. But if he does so, he would have wasted a move with a6. As White, I might try to &quot;transpose&quot; into that variation so that Black has wasted a move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastEditorUserId="17" LastEditDate="2014-11-09T15:12:38.387" LastActivityDate="2014-11-09T15:12:38.387" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="68" CreationDate="2012-05-01T19:16:08.070" Score="29" ViewCount="5336" Body="&lt;p&gt;Handicapping is routine in the Japanese game &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_%28game%29&quot;&gt;Go&lt;/a&gt; (my best game). The basic strength unit is one stone, and a one-stone difference represents a full level of difference in strength.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I (about a 1500 player) once asked a 2100 player how much of a handicap she would need to give me so that we would have an equal chance to win. &quot;Probably a knight, maybe more,&quot; she answered. I once took a knight handicap against a 2200 player and lost, but it was a much tighter, closer game than one with no handicap.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That might suggest that a pawn is equivalent to about 200 points of rating. Apparently handicapping doesn't do much for say, a 50 point difference in strength (you just play and take your chances). But above that, there might be ways to use handicaps. Even giving someone the first move two times out of three (as was earlier done in professional Go) might do something.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or would it? Why hasn't handicapping been done much formally in chess, as in Go?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastEditorUserId="215" LastEditDate="2012-05-17T15:43:20.423" LastActivityDate="2020-03-06T15:51:05.330" Title="Is there a way to use handicaps in chess to bridge the gap between players of different skill levels?" Tags="&lt;handicapping&gt;" AnswerCount="10" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="7" CreationDate="2012-05-01T19:20:07.880" Score="14" ViewCount="1533" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've started playing blitz/bullet (fast) games and felt like I was getting moderately good at it (1 - 10mn games), but then I switched to correspondence chess (1 - 5 days/move) and it seems to me that it was affecting my fast games skills.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does correspondence chess really require a different set of skills than fast chess? Do you have any advice that may help getting the best of both type of games?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-03-03T20:03:37.650" LastActivityDate="2014-03-03T20:03:37.650" Title="Skills required for blitz/bullet vs. correspondence chess?" Tags="&lt;blitz&gt;&lt;online&gt;&lt;bullet-chess&gt;&lt;online-blitz&gt;&lt;correspondence-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4" CreationDate="2012-05-01T19:25:26.367" Score="27" Body="&lt;p&gt;Handicapping changes chess in a fundamental way that stones in go do not.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In go, getting an extra stone is roughly equivalent to having an extra move.  In chess, losing a piece is catastrophic, and in a game between two players that are within ~300 rating points, losing a piece means loss of the game.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One other reason that handicapping is not done this way is that while you (1500 player) might lose to a 2200 player (barely) without a knight, it is highly unlikely that a 2000 player would lose to a 2700 player at a tournament time control.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Handicapping was done before rating systems became so prevalent.  In clubs, players would be said to be &quot;knight players&quot; meaning that they needed odds of a knight in order to give a stronger opponent a good game.  Similarly there were &quot;pawn&quot; players and &quot;rook&quot; players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An easier handicap between two roughly equal opponents would be to give the weaker player white.  This is roughly equal to 25-40 rating points &lt;sup&gt;[&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.kaggle.com/c/ChessRatings2/details/Benchmarks&quot;&gt;1&lt;/a&gt;]&lt;/sup&gt;.  Another common handicap is for the stronger player to play &quot;blindfolded&quot;, meaning that he or she cannot look at the board, but has to call out the moves in order to play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12" LastActivityDate="2012-05-01T19:25:26.367" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5" CreationDate="2012-05-01T19:30:32.593" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;This skills required for blitz are the &lt;em&gt;opposite&lt;/em&gt; of those for correspondence. So I suggest that you concentrate on one or the other, but not both. Unless you're an insanely good mental juggler.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Blitz&quot; places a premium on tactical skills. Also, seeing things &lt;em&gt;faster&lt;/em&gt; than your opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Correspondence&quot; places a premium on strategical skills. Looking many moves ahead, and seeing &lt;em&gt;deeper&lt;/em&gt; than your opponent. Because you can both play through the various permutations from a given position at home. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-12T01:44:12.573" LastActivityDate="2012-06-12T01:44:12.573" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12" CreationDate="2012-05-01T19:33:02.200" Score="19" ViewCount="171878" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let's say I have only the King left.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've read several rules and posts of people saying there is a limit to the number of moves your opponent has to check mate you in, but there are some inconsistencies:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I found the number of moves varying depending on where I found the info. It seems to be 50, but I am not 100% sure.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It seems there are some exceptions and cases where the count is reset, but the information seems quite spread all over.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd like to understand this rule in detail and know all the special cases if possible, as it seems way too fuzzy for me and the people I play with.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="27" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2015-12-25T16:28:55.080" LastActivityDate="2016-09-22T23:58:55.390" Title="With only the King left, how can you get a draw?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;kings&gt;&lt;draw&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-05-01T19:35:09.173" Score="19" ViewCount="6742" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recently came across a game purportedly played by Napoleon (white) where he opened with &lt;code&gt;1. Nc3&lt;/code&gt;, and went on to win. I've never seen another game that did not open with a pawn. Does a knight opening have any inherent weaknesses? Was it ever popular?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="26" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-09T20:31:35.100" LastActivityDate="2018-06-07T20:42:37.157" Title="Opening with knight" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;knights&gt;" AnswerCount="9" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8" CreationDate="2012-05-01T19:37:57.890" Score="10" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;For the most part, a draw occurs when it appears that neither side will win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Draws are codified by various rules of chess including stalemate&#xA;  (when the player to move has no legal move and is not in check),&#xA;  threefold repetition (when the same position occurs three times with&#xA;  the same player to move), and the fifty-move rule (when the last fifty&#xA;  successive moves made by both players contain no capture or pawn&#xA;  move). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A draw also occurs when neither player has sufficient material&#xA;  to checkmate the opponent or when no sequence of legal moves can lead&#xA;  to checkmate.&#xA;      Unless specific tournament rules forbid it, players may agree to a draw at any time. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Ethical considerations may make a draw uncustomary&#xA;  in situations where at least one player has a reasonable chance of&#xA;  winning. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;For example, a draw could be called after a move or two, but&#xA;  this would likely be thought unsporting.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draw_%28chess%29&quot;&gt;Source&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18" LastActivityDate="2012-05-01T19:37:57.890" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9" CreationDate="2012-05-01T19:39:06.763" Score="18" Body="&lt;p&gt;While not &lt;code&gt;1. Nc3&lt;/code&gt;, the Reti Opening (&lt;code&gt;1. Nf3&lt;/code&gt;) is still today one of the most popular openings for white. It has frequent play at amateur and master levels and scores well for both.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The opening &lt;code&gt;1. Nc3&lt;/code&gt; is called the Dunst Opening and is seen much less often. There's a good breakdown of thoughts on the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R%C3%A9ti_Opening&quot;&gt;Reti&lt;/a&gt; and the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunst_Opening&quot;&gt;Dunst&lt;/a&gt; openings over at Wikipedia.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="29" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-09T20:31:48.470" LastActivityDate="2012-06-09T20:31:48.470" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8" CreationDate="2012-05-01T19:42:52.140" Score="20" Body="&lt;p&gt;If a player has a theoretical win, that person has a move limit (50 moves) with &quot;no fundamental alteration of the position.&quot; That means no captures of pawns or pieces, and no &lt;em&gt;pawn&lt;/em&gt; moves. The count is reset if either of these things happens.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There used to be an  exception for positions like king, bishop, and knight vs. King (a checkmate). It was known to be winnable in a maximum of 34 moves. But players got &lt;em&gt;twice&lt;/em&gt; this maximum, or 68 moves (Milton Hanauer, &quot;Chess Made Simple&quot;). Apparently, this, and other exceptions, were removed later, according to a comment below.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-12T17:31:26.687" LastActivityDate="2012-06-12T17:31:26.687" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9" CreationDate="2012-05-01T19:43:18.133" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessopening?eco=a07&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;King's Indian Attack&lt;/a&gt; can also be played starting with &lt;code&gt;1. Nf3&lt;/code&gt; and is widely played among amateurs and pros.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-09T20:33:18.467" LastActivityDate="2012-06-09T20:33:18.467" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9" CreationDate="2012-05-01T19:47:57.063" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just to add to what James and Soufiane have already added, and to specifically hit on your question about knight openings having weaknesses: this particular knight opening has the weakness of allowing Black control of the center. Nf3 does not have that same weakness.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-05-07T17:18:27.607" LastActivityDate="2012-05-07T17:18:27.607" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5" CreationDate="2012-05-01T19:48:39.920" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;While the two are vastly different, if you improve at one, you will most likely also improve at the other.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tactics are far more important to get right in correspondence chess.  The slightest misstep will be punished by your opponent simply because they have all the time they need to analyze all of the variations, and they can also use at least a board to assist them, and in some cases, even a chess engine.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In blitz chess, while attacks frequently win the game, unsound moves are not always refuted.  This means that if you are able to launch an attack, even at the cost of a piece, your opponent will most likely be forced to burn time in order to avoid mate, and this will give you an advantage on the clock.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In terms of long term planning, in correspondence chess, assuming a high level game where tactical blunders will not determine the result, plans become incredibly important.  A correspondence game is frequently a battle between two plans while in blitz chess, tactics and the clock rule the day.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So overall, correspondence chess is a much higher quality game.  Blitz chess is fun and quick (so you can play a lot more games), but in terms of getting better at chess, blitz won't really help you.  If you want to improve at blitz, practice tactics and play more blitz!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12" LastEditorUserId="12" LastEditDate="2012-05-01T23:48:23.943" LastActivityDate="2012-05-01T23:48:23.943" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9" CreationDate="2012-05-01T19:52:16.407" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;1. Nc3&lt;/code&gt; is not often seen because it blocks the c pawn.  In many openings, white wants to push the c pawn to either c3 or c4 in order to help control the center.  With the knight already on c3, this will take an extra two tempi.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;1. Nf3&lt;/code&gt;, the Reti, is more common because pushing the f pawn weakens the king's position.  Therefore, &lt;code&gt;f3&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;f4&lt;/code&gt; are fairly rare, and it is a safe bet that the f pawn won't be moved until later in the game when the knight may well have moved from f3.  Furthermore, with &lt;code&gt;1. Nf3&lt;/code&gt; white keeps his or her options open - white may play either &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt;, or &lt;code&gt;c4&lt;/code&gt; at the appropriate moment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-09T20:32:37.017" LastActivityDate="2012-06-09T20:32:37.017" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9" CreationDate="2012-05-01T19:54:21.017" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;1. Nc3&lt;/code&gt; is not a bad move. It is not a &quot;favorite&quot; move because it doesn't open up lines for a queen and bishop like &lt;code&gt;1. d4&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;1. e4&lt;/code&gt;. But you haven't ruled out these possibilities or otherwise wasted a moved.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;1. Nf3&lt;/code&gt; is preferred to &lt;code&gt;1. Nc3&lt;/code&gt;. One, because you've moved your knight for early king side castling, and 2) because it deters Black &lt;code&gt;...e5&lt;/code&gt; (&lt;code&gt;...d5&lt;/code&gt; would be protected by the queen). But &lt;code&gt;1. Nc3&lt;/code&gt; does support a later e4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The advantage of &lt;code&gt;1. Nc3&lt;/code&gt; is that it is a &quot;quiet&quot; move that allows you to &quot;transpose&quot; into other openings, such as the King's Indian Attack or the Vienna Game. But you retain the option, for a move or two, of WHICH of these other openings. It looks &quot;harmless&quot; but isn't. If Black disregards it, he could be in for a nasty surprise. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-09T20:33:06.423" LastActivityDate="2012-06-09T20:33:06.423" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9" CreationDate="2012-05-01T19:54:42.753" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;The opening starting with &lt;code&gt;1. Nb1-c3&lt;/code&gt; (long algebraic notation) or &lt;code&gt;1. Nc3&lt;/code&gt; (short algebraic notation) is called &quot;Van Geet Opening&quot;. It is in fact very rare to see this opening being played by either professional players or by amateurs who study the game seriously. White's c pawn gets blocked by the knight with this move, and this might be the reason why pros don't use it very often.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, Mikhail Chigorin (1850-1908), a strong Russian player from the 1800's played a similar move with the black pieces: &lt;code&gt;1. d4 d5 2. c4 Nc6&lt;/code&gt; and the opening got his name (Chigorin's Defense).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some opening manuals feature a few paragraphs on these openings (Van Geet Opening and Chigorin Defense) like, for example, FCO (&lt;em&gt;Fundamental Chess Openings&lt;/em&gt; by Paul Van der Sterren), &lt;em&gt;Chess Opening Essentials&lt;/em&gt; Vol. 2 and Vol. 4, among many others.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="31" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-09T20:32:16.877" LastActivityDate="2012-06-09T20:32:16.877" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8" CreationDate="2012-05-01T20:08:46.497" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;By the &quot;rules&quot; of chess, 50 moves without captures or pawn moves will result in a draw. When the ONLY pieces left on the board are two kings, a draw occurs. You can also ask the other player for a draw (&quot;I offer a draw&quot;).  Threefold repetition of a position will also result in a draw. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21" LastEditorUserId="21" LastEditDate="2013-06-26T01:39:38.203" LastActivityDate="2013-06-26T01:39:38.203" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9" CreationDate="2012-05-01T20:11:49.550" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Knight openings are common for my opponents. I've found that knight openings can result in quite strong formations later in the game. So among more casual games, knight openings are semi-common and have some advantages. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21" LastActivityDate="2012-05-01T20:11:49.550" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23" CreationDate="2012-05-01T20:18:55.610" Score="9" ViewCount="971" Body="&lt;p&gt;We can open games in many ways (any of the pawns or knights) and then go ahead with different strategies. The queen being the most important piece, I would like to get it out in the field without compromising the security of the king and using a minimum number of moves. Which types of opening and/or moves would facilitate this? Also provide any pros and cons to your strategy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="43" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-05-30T17:19:20.740" LastActivityDate="2013-01-18T22:11:32.397" Title="What is the best way to free your queen as soon as possible?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;queens&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;" AnswerCount="9" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="22" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9" CreationDate="2012-05-01T20:22:14.260" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;At the highest level of play, grandmasters such as Kramnik essay &lt;code&gt;1. Nf3&lt;/code&gt; on a frequent basis, and there are &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/9548782502&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;complete systems&lt;/a&gt; built around it. It also takes care of nuances such as allowing them to sidestep undesirable or unfavourable lines/openings that arise out of normal d4 systems, like the Nimzo-Indian or specific lines in the QGD/KID, or even the English opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that although it is technically known as the Reti Opening, it is seldom played for the purpose of getting into one, but for the transposition possibilities as mentioned above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="46" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-09T20:33:15.380" LastActivityDate="2012-06-09T20:33:15.380" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="23" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21" CreationDate="2012-05-01T20:24:19.563" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think that getting your queen out early should be your goal in the opening.  Fighting for the center, developing your pieces, and king safety should be your priority.  That said, e-pawn openings are your best bet to open lines for your queen as soon as possible.  Look into the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruy_Lopez&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Ruy Lopez&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5&#xA;2. Nf3 Nc6&#xA;3. Bb5 ...&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="44" LastEditorUserId="959" LastEditDate="2013-01-18T22:11:32.397" LastActivityDate="2013-01-18T22:11:32.397" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="25" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28" CreationDate="2012-05-01T20:26:27.577" Score="10" ViewCount="1006" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've read a few variations on the relative value of chess pieces ( Q=9, R=5, N=3, B=3, P=1 ), but I've yet to encounter a variation in value according to the side of the board the piece is on. With regard to rooks, bishops and knights, might there be a a different inherent value whether on kingside or queenside? For instance, I've always found a greater value to kingside bishops because of their inherent nature of attacking the opposing king's squares before and after castling.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Has anyone seen any documented systems based on this idea? I'm not looking for speculation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="29" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2015-12-25T16:53:39.840" LastActivityDate="2016-12-20T08:40:53.377" Title="Relative value of chess pieces on queenside vs kingside" Tags="&lt;point-value&gt;&lt;pieces&gt;&lt;kingside&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="27" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30" CreationDate="2012-05-01T20:32:34.343" Score="40" ViewCount="24799" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm looking for free software that automatically analyzes and annotates chess games (post-mortem), preferably marking blunders, suggesting good alternatives, pointing out missed tactics (forks, pins, skewers, removing the defender, etc.). Preferably it should also generate some printable output (e.g. PDF) so one could ruminate away from the computer, and in front of a chess board. What do you guys use for this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="37" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T15:16:36.733" LastActivityDate="2020-12-12T20:08:56.563" Title="Is there any free software to automatically analyze and annotate games?" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="12" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="15" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25" CreationDate="2012-05-01T20:33:53.127" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think that there's any value to where the pieces &lt;em&gt;start&lt;/em&gt;, but the value of the pieces changes drastically depending on where they are on the board at a given time.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, a white knight on d6 that can't be exchanged off is usually considered to be worth a rook.  Similarly, if black has castled kingside with pawns on f7, g6, and h7, and white has an unopposed dark square bishop, that bishop can be worth a rook (at least) if white can attack the black king.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only pieces that are inherently different are the bishops (one light, one dark), but they're still equal until the pawn structure has been determined.  A bishop is usually strong when the opponent's pawns are on its color (so they can be attacked) and the friendly pawns are on the opposite color (so they don't get in the way).  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12" LastActivityDate="2012-05-01T20:33:53.127" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="29" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25" CreationDate="2012-05-01T20:34:51.080" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think that there's a system to value pieces based on that.  As you get into the middle and endgame, the position dictates the relative value of the pieces and not the side that they started on.  Do a search on good knight vs. bad bishop.  Also take a look at Silman's books &quot;How to Reassess your Chess&quot; which discusses imbalances as a way of evaluating a position instead of a pure material assessment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="44" LastActivityDate="2012-05-01T20:34:51.080" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="30" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27" CreationDate="2012-05-01T20:38:51.917" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chessbase will do what you're describing (enter the game, then tell it to annotate), but it is not free.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://scid.sourceforge.net/&quot;&gt;Scid&lt;/a&gt; is a free alternative database program, but it will not automatically annotate your game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See here for more discussion: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/is-there-any-free-software-to-analyse-the-completed-game&quot;&gt;http://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/is-there-any-free-software-to-analyse-the-completed-game&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12" LastEditorUserId="56" LastEditDate="2012-05-01T23:05:03.947" LastActivityDate="2012-05-01T23:05:03.947" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="31" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="41" CreationDate="2012-05-01T20:39:31.257" Score="16" ViewCount="2308" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is anyone familiar with any open source chess libraries in any language that can do any of the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;parse PGNs and/or FENs&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;calculate valid chess moves based on position&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;process an entire chess game&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sorry, I should be more clear. I'm not looking for open source software, I'm looking for open source programming libraries.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="29" LastEditorUserId="29" LastEditDate="2013-02-10T16:31:11.223" LastActivityDate="2013-02-10T16:31:11.223" Title="Open source chess playing or pgn viewing libraries" Tags="&lt;programming&gt;&lt;open-source&gt;&lt;pgn&gt;&lt;fen&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="32" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25" CreationDate="2012-05-01T20:53:23.800" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;To the best of my understanding, in modern chess, the real values of pieces (or rather, the playing side as a whole) are largely dependent on the following factors: function (are they optimally poised to carry out particular goal(s)?), coordination between pieces (are they working together to fulfil multiple aims or getting into one another's way?), number of weaknesses inherent in the position (determined largely by pawn structure), tactics (although this can be explained by the earlier factors), and finally, the raw value of the individual pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the assignment of numeric values to individual pieces is relatively unimportant in the grand scheme of things, at least for players who are past the point of giving away pawns or minor pieces for nothing. Those values only serve as a rough gauge (e.g. bishop and knight are comparable in terms of value, but not identical in that regard), among other factors to be considered for the proper assessment of any given position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="46" LastActivityDate="2012-05-01T20:53:23.800" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="33" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31" CreationDate="2012-05-01T20:56:11.443" Score="11" Body="&lt;h1&gt;Crafty&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.craftychess.com/&quot;&gt;Crafty&lt;/a&gt; is a strong chess programm and can be used with Winboard, Xboard and Scid. So it is available for all major operating systems.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Scid&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://scid.sf.net/&quot;&gt;Scid&lt;/a&gt; can maintain databases of chess games, you can analyse (end) games.The software is available for all major operating systems.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Xboard&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://savannah.gnu.org/projects/xboard/&quot;&gt;Xboard&lt;/a&gt; is a user interface to the Internet Chess Server. It uses the X Windows System, so I assume this runs only under GNU/Linux. Xboard can be used as a viewer and supports all forms of chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="56" LastEditorUserId="56" LastEditDate="2012-05-01T21:02:24.883" LastActivityDate="2012-05-01T21:02:24.883" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="34" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="37" CreationDate="2012-05-01T21:04:50.357" Score="31" ViewCount="52087" Body="&lt;p&gt;What are some of the best sites for online chess?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Free sites with friendly communities are better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-12-02T14:23:19.410" LastActivityDate="2020-12-02T14:23:19.410" Title="What are some of the best sites to play chess?" Tags="&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;websites&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="16" ClosedDate="2012-05-07T21:35:22.573" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="35" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34" CreationDate="2012-05-01T21:07:10.100" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.redhotpawn.com&quot;&gt;Red Hot Pawn&lt;/a&gt; has a great chess community and is available for free, or with a paid subscription.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="29" LastActivityDate="2012-05-01T21:07:10.100" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="36" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34" CreationDate="2012-05-01T21:17:57.173" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess.com&lt;/a&gt; is very popular and free. It also has a Facebook app that you can use to play. You can also play with a time limit of days/weeks and this is very useful if you rarely can find the time to sit down and have a serious game straight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-12-20T08:39:24.517" LastActivityDate="2016-12-20T08:39:24.517" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="37" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34" CreationDate="2012-05-01T21:24:51.610" Score="26" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com&quot; title=&quot;Chess.com&quot;&gt;Chess.com&lt;/a&gt; has become a hot spot, with live and correspondence chess, along with tactical problems, articles, etc.  The live chess is OK, but not the best. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessclub.com&quot; title=&quot;ICC&quot;&gt;ICC&lt;/a&gt; or &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.playchess.com&quot; title=&quot;playchess&quot;&gt;playchess&lt;/a&gt; are the best for live chess, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.freechess.org&quot; title=&quot;FICS&quot;&gt;FICS&lt;/a&gt; if you want free, but it doesn't have as many titled players or features.  Those sites will also have video's, live commentary of top level tournaments, and much more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="63" LastActivityDate="2012-05-01T21:24:51.610" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="38" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34" CreationDate="2012-05-01T21:38:27.693" Score="10" Body="&lt;h1&gt;ChessCube&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesscube.com&quot;&gt;ChessCube&lt;/a&gt; has one of the nicest user interfaces, although it cannot be used with iPhone or iPads since it uses flash.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="65" LastEditorUserId="65" LastEditDate="2012-05-02T07:12:16.750" LastActivityDate="2012-05-02T07:12:16.750" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="39" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-05-01T21:54:18.983" Score="10" ViewCount="420" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the middle and the end of a chess game, there are visible consequences to almost every move you can make, there are more constraints limiting what is logical to move, and it is fairly straightforward to see what you did wrong when you analyze the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At the beginning of the game, it seems like there is a tremendous number of possible ways a game could progress--and not very many of the moves have any immediately tangible consequences. Because of this, I usually have no idea what I should do in the beginning of a game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there any things I should be thinking about at the beginning? Up to date, I've just been moving pieces haphazardly until what I need to do becomes obvious.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="64" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T15:16:15.867" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T15:16:15.867" Title="What strategies should I be thinking about at the beginning of the game?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="40" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21" CreationDate="2012-05-01T21:57:47.513" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;Bringing out the queen in the opening is in general not the correct decision. The point is that usually the other side will often be able to develop their pieces to attack the queen and gain tempi.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, if you still feel inclined to bring out the queen early, the only opening with a sound reputation I can recommend is the Scandinavian (&lt;code&gt;1. e4 d5&lt;/code&gt;) as black, and after the usual &lt;code&gt;2. exd5 Qxd5&lt;/code&gt; your queen is out. Be prepared for &lt;code&gt;Nc3&lt;/code&gt; and other moves that attack your queen, gaining your opponent a tempo, and allowing him to develop quickly. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="66" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-09T20:33:26.020" LastActivityDate="2012-06-09T20:33:26.020" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="41" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31" CreationDate="2012-05-01T22:02:49.020" Score="9" Body="&lt;h1&gt;Stockfish&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stockfish (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.stockfishchess.com/&quot;&gt;website&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/mcostalba/Stockfish&quot;&gt;github&lt;/a&gt;) is an open source and very strong &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Chess_Interface&quot;&gt;UCI engine&lt;/a&gt;. As such it can do all you are asking for, but usually requires a GUI in order to do so. You can however access all functionality via a command prompt/shell as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="65" LastActivityDate="2012-05-01T22:02:49.020" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="42" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="39" CreationDate="2012-05-01T22:06:12.073" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are a few regular things you should fight for out of the opening&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Control of the center&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Development of pieces&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Early castle&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Space&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So basically you want to get as many pieces out as quickly as possible, while attempting to control the center (the four middle squares and to a lesser extent the next ring of 12 squares). While not all opening strategies revolve strictly around these principles, it is found in the majority of games and especially good rules to play by when starting out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: Keep in mind these are not all rigid rules. I would also like to respectfully disagree with Tony. When starting out, memorizing openings is the very last thing you want to do. Feel free to look through an openings book (&lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1857443497&quot;&gt;The first, and very amazing, book on openings that I read&lt;/a&gt;) or database. However do not seek just to memorize and spit out moves until you reach a position you haven't actually thought about.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="66" LastEditorUserId="66" LastEditDate="2012-05-01T22:23:18.947" LastActivityDate="2012-05-01T22:23:18.947" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="44" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27" CreationDate="2012-05-01T22:12:05.903" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The best free chess software I've found is the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.triplehappy.com/&quot;&gt;Tarrasch Chess GUI&lt;/a&gt;. At the link you can DL the interface and a compatible engine of relatively strong strength. It provides a decent enough opening database, and will give you computer evaluations for each move. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="66" LastActivityDate="2012-05-01T22:12:05.903" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="45" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="39" CreationDate="2012-05-01T22:15:45.667" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Memorize three openings to several moves.  I recommend, as white, one opening, probably king-pawn opening.  Then memorize two openings as black so you can react your opponent's K- or Q- pawn openings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, I prefer a King's Indian Defense to &lt;code&gt;1. d4&lt;/code&gt;, and the Caro-Kann Defence to &lt;code&gt;1. e4&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When playing white, I play a Queen's Gambit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Memorize the most popular lines to 5 or 6 moves.  Then study them to find out why those moves are popular.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And to answer your question directly, you should be looking to take material or kill the guy's king, starting on move 1 (paraphrased from Bobby Fischer.)  Good piece development is a great start.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-09T20:34:12.100" LastActivityDate="2012-06-09T20:34:12.100" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="46" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="39" CreationDate="2012-05-01T22:16:05.197" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Agree with @JaredDef's answer which covers the big ideas. Some more specific opening strategies for beginners can be found &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesscentral.com/Chess_Strategy_a/201.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;make your first move with the&#xA;pawn in front of either your King or Queen &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;make good developing moves, and generally develop your&#xA;Knights before your Bishops &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;try not to move the same piece twice in the opening &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;your King's safety is crucial; castle early if you can&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;don't advance more than one or two pawns in the chess opening, and definitely not a pawns in front of your castled King&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;when you develop your pieces, try to make moves which threaten something&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;don't bring your Queen out early&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="65" LastActivityDate="2012-05-01T22:16:05.197" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="47" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27" CreationDate="2012-05-01T22:29:53.293" Score="14" Body="&lt;h1&gt;Arena Chess&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.playwitharena.com/&quot;&gt;Arena&lt;/a&gt; is a free chess application that has a rich and stable &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.playwitharena.com/?Features&quot;&gt;feature set&lt;/a&gt;. It should do pretty much all you need to do - except generate PDFs (not sure what you mean by that)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="65" LastActivityDate="2012-05-01T22:29:53.293" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="48" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5" CreationDate="2012-05-01T22:52:44.700" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;It really depends more on your personal level of strength for how play proceeds during each of these types of chess, however in general the same strengths and ideas are applicable to both. The difference in your blitz strength and correspondence strength can be for a number of different reasons. Perhaps you can assess and analyze quickly, or you don't spend as much time as your opponent analyzing during correspondence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The time control does not dictate whether it will be a &quot;strategical&quot; or &quot;tactical&quot; battle, but instead the choice of openings and player's styles.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="66" LastActivityDate="2012-05-01T22:52:44.700" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="49" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4" CreationDate="2012-05-01T22:58:00.667" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;Usually, handicaps in Go are used between a weaker and a stronger opponent to make the game more competitive, giving the weaker player more opportunities to attack and defend as would happen in an even game. This is done in turn to avoid the game from becoming a sweep by the stronger player, with the weaker player constantly fumbling defenses. The true underlying purpose of handicapping should be seen as accelerating the learning of the weaker player as opposed to making the game more enjoyable for the weaker player. If the latter is what the player wants, he should seek play with players of equal ability.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As described in Andrew's answer, unfortunately, there is no clear way to handicap a game of chess as there is in go. However, if the goal is to use handicapping as a means to accelerate learning chess between a tutor and a student, a common thing to do is to play a normal game of chess, and upon encountering a situation where the weaker player thinks he has a losing position a switch of sides is done upon request of the weaker player: the weaker player becomes the attacker, the stronger player becomes the defender. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From personal experience, a stronger player is a better chess player not because they have some magic ability, but because they see more possibilities and understand the variations better. In this sense, the stronger player is usually able to recover the weaker player's poor position (especially given the rating discrepancy between attacker and defender) making this a very instructive and hands on learning process. As a side effect, the weaker player is given the chance to practice executing attacks correctly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Obviously for this to work, both parties must agree that winning and losing doesn't mean much, and it is simply play for the enjoyment of the game and to accelerate the weaker player's understanding.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="72" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-06T15:49:27.497" LastActivityDate="2020-03-06T15:49:27.497" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="51" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4" CreationDate="2012-05-02T00:53:07.997" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;In some ways, the rating system &lt;strong&gt;is&lt;/strong&gt; the handicap.  It's very similar to the odds given to less impressive horses in racing, or the less favored boxer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you over-perform based upon you and your opponents respective ratings, you'll have a net gain of points, even if you don't win many (any?) games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I drew a master once and sheared him of many points.  When he beat me at another match, he got like 1 or 2 points because according to the his rating it was expected.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;edit, for the comment:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No, I understand the OP completely. The opponents one is paired with are based upon rating. When one's rating drops (or rises), one is paired with players in a similar skill level range. So the &quot;handicap&quot; is not having to play brutally better players as often.  There isn't a practical way to handicap individual games in chess like there is in Shogi.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At low skill levels, players drop pieces so any sort of handicap would be pointless. Even at my cruddy level, a single pawn adds 200 or 300 rating points, and a piece would add 500 or more. There simply isn't a lot of granularity in chess handicaps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2018-10-13T15:42:38.043" LastActivityDate="2018-10-13T15:42:38.043" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="52" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25" CreationDate="2012-05-02T02:03:48.437" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Pieces don't change value based on whether they are on the queen or kingside. They increase in value (based on placement) for other reasons. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance, former world champion Capablanca said in &quot;Chess Fundamentals&quot; said that getting a rook on the seventh rank was well worth a sacrificed pawn, and his opponent would do well to draw, even with a pawn ahead. In this case, a rook, normally worth five points, is worth at least six. Capablanca also said that a passed pawn was sufficient to win a game (all other things being equal). So a passed pawn might be worth two points instead of one. Likwise, a knight in a &quot;hole&quot; at e4, e5, e6, or d4, d3, d6 would be worth more than usual, perhaps four points, rather than three. Most masters would say that a &quot;bishop pair&quot; in an open position against a bishop and knight, or two knights is worth least seven points, not six.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2012-05-02T02:03:48.437" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="53" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25" CreationDate="2012-05-02T02:03:49.003" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Other than the classical 9,5,3,3,1 valuation of the pieces, there are many more, as in this &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_piece_relative_value&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia article&lt;/a&gt;.  But these still don't vary with the position of these pieces at the start or in later stages of the game.  However, most any computer chess engine will vary these values according to the position of the pieces.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even outside of computer chess, it's not unheard of for some to suggest that and a or h pawn is worth as little as 75% or even 50% of a pawn on the d or e files, and so on.  For example, one chess maxim says you should usually recapture with a pawn -towards the center-.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="69" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-12-20T08:40:53.377" LastActivityDate="2016-12-20T08:40:53.377" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="54" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="39" CreationDate="2012-05-02T02:11:44.307" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to world champion Capablanca, in &quot;Chess Fundamentals,&quot; your first priority is to get your pieces out as fast as you can. If White, you might take a detour to try to hinder black's development, in order to maintain your &lt;em&gt;relative&lt;/em&gt; advantage; if Black, you need to find tactical ways to parry White's threats.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Otherwise, you should be looking to &lt;em&gt;concentrate&lt;/em&gt; your pieces, particularly in areas left weak by your opponent. Did s/he leave parts of the board undeveloped or undefended to favor a few pieces? Then try to find a way to take advantage of that fact. Perhaps the opposing king is inadequately protected, and can be attacked. If not, your opponent may have started an a attack prematurely and left the so-called &quot;center&quot; (of the board) insufficiently guarded. If so, a successful center counterattack will stop most attacks. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastEditorUserId="17" LastEditDate="2016-07-10T20:09:50.053" LastActivityDate="2016-07-10T20:09:50.053" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="55" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="34" CreationDate="2012-05-02T02:20:45.940" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you would like to play a lot of quick games, I would recommend FICS, or the Free Internet Chess Server.  Using a good interface like BabasChess or Winboard, it's response time is a lot crisper.  It has a long history with a lot of &quot;culture&quot;, off-topic chat channels, 'bots', and a lot more master level players that some of the other sites.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess.com is also a good option.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="69" LastActivityDate="2012-05-02T02:20:45.940" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="56" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15672" CreationDate="2012-05-02T02:23:53.250" Score="15" ViewCount="930" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sometimes I end up getting the opportunity to play a friendly game with someone who has played a lot more chess than I have; these games seem more fun and interesting for everyone (and I seem to end up with a better chance of winning) when I can push play away from common positions without incurring a big early disadvantage. Are there openings that I can study to accomplish that more dependably?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="85" LastEditorUserId="12" LastEditDate="2012-06-04T03:25:34.510" LastActivityDate="2016-12-20T08:38:56.543" Title="What are good openings to study to get more experienced players out of their comfort zone?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="57" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21" CreationDate="2012-05-02T02:26:04.263" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;One common opening playable against most mere mortals is the Scandanivian:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 d5 2. exd5 Qxd5 3. Nc3 Qa5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This brings the queen out early, but white often plays his bishop to d2 and later attacks the queen here (often by moving a later knight placed on Nc3, giving a discovered attack).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Regardless, this opening is playable in spite of the early queen sortie, not because of it.  It's often used as an example of what not to do, but in this case isn't completely illogical.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="69" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2013-01-18T22:11:15.330" LastActivityDate="2013-01-18T22:11:15.330" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="58" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21" CreationDate="2012-05-02T02:29:33.583" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The best way I can think of &quot;free&quot; my queen is to play an opening in which two or three pairs of minor pieces or pawns were quickly exchanged. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a danger of a queen being trapped on a &quot;cluttered&quot; board, and being forced to exchange herself for one or two minor pieces. Once a few of these are gone, the queen has a much freer scope over the board, in combination with rooks (occasionally with one of the remaining bishops).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastEditorUserId="17" LastEditDate="2012-05-06T19:39:25.930" LastActivityDate="2012-05-06T19:39:25.930" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="59" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="60" CreationDate="2012-05-02T02:40:27.643" Score="29" ViewCount="4406" Body="&lt;p&gt;If a King, Knight, and Bishop are pitted against the opposing King, is it possible to force checkmate? I find it very hard to do, enough so that I'm not sure whether there's a clean method.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="86" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-12-20T08:30:16.227" LastActivityDate="2018-11-30T13:47:21.387" Title="Is it possible to force checkmate with King, Knight, and Bishop vs. King?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;knights&gt;&lt;bishops&gt;&lt;elementary-mates&gt;" AnswerCount="9" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="60" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="59" CreationDate="2012-05-02T02:45:02.957" Score="34" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, mate can be forced in 33 moves from nearly any position, according to &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bishop_and_knight_checkmate&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See the standard &quot;w&quot; maneuver cited in that article.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="85" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-05-23T15:57:43.953" LastActivityDate="2012-05-23T15:57:43.953" CommentCount="1" CommunityOwnedDate="2012-05-02T02:45:02.957" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="61" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="59" CreationDate="2012-05-02T02:49:55.623" Score="23" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes it is possible to force mate.  There's a phenomenal video explaining the process on &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessvideos.tv/forum/viewtopic.php?t=802&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;chessvideos.tv&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to practice the endgame, you can do so on the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessvideos.tv/endgame-training/bishop-knight-checkmate.php&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;same site&lt;/a&gt; as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2012-05-02T02:49:55.623" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="62" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="56" CreationDate="2012-05-02T02:53:24.090" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Gambits are often a good way to get your opponent out of their comfort zone.  As white, some good gambits include:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the Morra Gambit&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the Evans Gambit&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;4. Ng5&lt;/code&gt; in the Two Knight's Defense (black is sacrificing a pawn here though!)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For black, the Sicilian and the King's Indian are good ways to create a double edged game.  A line that you know by heart in the Sicilian is probably your best bet.  Against &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt; you can consider playing an early &lt;code&gt;...c5&lt;/code&gt; with the Benko Gambit or the Benoni - both of which can lead to an unbalanced game as well.  White probably has a fairly good idea of what to do against the KID because it is so common which is why either the Benko or the Benoni can be a nice change of pace.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-09T20:36:51.270" LastActivityDate="2012-06-09T20:36:51.270" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="63" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="56" CreationDate="2012-05-02T03:06:46.240" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benko_Gambit&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Benko gambit&lt;/a&gt; is good if you're playing black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. d4 Nf6&#xA;2. c4 c5&#xA;3. d5 b5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="959" LastEditDate="2013-01-18T22:09:18.610" LastActivityDate="2013-01-18T22:09:18.610" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="66" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21" CreationDate="2012-05-02T06:40:52.063" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Generally speaking, the queen likes open lines and lots of manoevering space, because she has long-range attack capabilities and being far away can't be targeted as easily by minor pieces. So if you enjoy playing the queen early despite all the dangers involved you should prefer openings that open lines quickly. Inbalanced positions with play on both sides of the board are preferable. Since the queen is an excellent attacking piece, look for gambits, too, because they usually aim at opening lines and sacrify material for speed of development, which is a must for a happy queen, since she usually needs support from at least another piece to work best. At example, look at the king's gambit or Latvian gambit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="94" LastActivityDate="2012-05-02T06:40:52.063" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="68" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4" CreationDate="2012-05-02T07:36:51.150" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;While giving an opponent the odds of a pawn or a knight might be fun to make the winning chances more distributed, it is by no means an exact method. I remember the exciting handicap match between Kasparov and Chapman. Kasparov won 2.5:1.5 by giving the odds of 2 pawns against an opponent of approx. 450 Elo points less. Since the 2 pawns given changed for each game, not all games were equally difficult for Kasparov. During an interview the former world champion said he feared the game most where he had to let go of the king's center pawn. So a pawn is not a pawn. And if I remember correctly he added that a two pawn disadvantage was much more than double a one pawn disadvantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hence I believe you can't construct a meaningful metric system of which handicap is worth how many points.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="94" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-06T15:50:25.770" LastActivityDate="2020-03-06T15:50:25.770" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="69" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="56" CreationDate="2012-05-02T08:08:55.590" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;You should focus on openings that require thematic or strategic understanding, as opposed to ones that require lots of book-knowledge/theory. Then you will get to positions that you are comfortable in and not have to learn the nuances of sharp and highly-analzyed variations that more experienced players will tend to thrive in.  Basically, an experienced player's &amp;quot;comfort zone&amp;quot; is beating a less-experienced player in a theoretical line: they have a risk free way of leaving the opening with an advantage. If you take away that theoretical advantage, I would argue they will be less comfortable facing you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;IM Andrew Martin discusses opening repertoires &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesspublishing.com/content/repert.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;. Based on the above, from his list of opening repertoires I would then suggest:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;For White: Trompowski and Pseudo-Trompowski&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1 d4 Nf6 2 Bg5! And 1 d4 d5 2 Bg5! A must here will be to get hold of as many Julian Hodgson games as possible- he has been carving up Patzer and Grandmaster alike for many, many years. At the heart of this repertoire is the limitation of Black's choices- you are conducting the game on your terms. The positions can be different too- White can opt for Pawn structure play or outright attack depending on how he is feeling.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;For Black: Scandinavian and Slav set-ups&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Rock solid. As Black vs 1 e4 play the main line BANKER with 1...d5 2 exd5 Qxd5 3 Nc3 Qd8! or 3...Qa5, in both cases following with ...Nf6, ...c6 and ...Bf5! And vs d4 and Flank Openings go for the solid Slav set up with ...c6 and ..d5, aiming for a similar structure. Truly an opening which can be learned in a minimum of time .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="65" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2012-05-02T08:08:55.590" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="70" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="56" CreationDate="2012-05-02T08:41:51.320" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can play a surprising opening, which your more experienced opponent has probably encountered very rarely, like a gambit or a rare sideline. Theoretically-wise you will stand on more even ground then. Even better, since you will play this line often, you will have more practice with it than him, improving the odds even more. But usually such openings are seldom played for a reason, at example because they are unsound, or you have to remember very complicated lines, or they offer less winning chances than competing opening systems. There are so many such opening systems (there are even periodicals dealing exclusively with them) I don't list any of them over others.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Apart from this general thought I would suggest a more detailed approach. Try to understand what the exact nature of the advantages of your opponent (or what your own disadvantages) are and act accordingly:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Tactically much better than you?  =&gt; go for quiet lines with focus on strategic plans,&#xA;use closed systems with few tactics so you deny him the use of his&#xA;advantage&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Much better theoretical opening knowledge? =&gt; use sidelines&#xA;and shaky gambits, and pray he doesn't know those ugly refutations&#xA;and critical lines&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Strategically much better? =&gt; choose simple&#xA;systems and learn the ideas behind them thoroughly. You will close the&#xA;gap soon and know the resulting structures as good as he.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Generally better in every aspect? =&gt; play what you like&#xA;most and learn from your defeats&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A word of warning, though. For a competing mind this might sound like a clever plan. True, it is fun to spring a surprise weapon at a stronger opponent and gain a victory this way. But, and this is a big BUT, in the long run your goal is probably to become a better player over time, and this means gaining a deeper understanding of all the chess topics. Remember you can't get better at tactics by avoiding them ;) When your opponent leaves his comfort zone, he may play weaker. But leaving your &lt;strong&gt;own&lt;/strong&gt; comfort zone makes you stronger - in the long run!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="94" LastEditorUserId="94" LastEditDate="2012-05-02T08:52:14.177" LastActivityDate="2012-05-02T08:52:14.177" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="71" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-05-02T08:44:28.260" Score="11" ViewCount="2896" Body="&lt;p&gt;The debate on which is the &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/34/what-are-some-of-the-best-sites-to-play-chess&quot;&gt;&quot;best&quot; chess website&lt;/a&gt; tends to be subjective and thus is inconclusive. On the other hand, the site that has the strongest players should be objectively ascertainable provided metrics are available.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So which is the strongest chess website in terms of:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Number of registered titled players (FM, WFM, IM, WIM, GM, WGM)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Number of active (routinely visit) titled players &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Number of super-GMs (&gt; 2800)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Or other verifiable metrics.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="65" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.193" LastActivityDate="2020-10-12T06:38:47.960" Title="Which chess website has the strongest players?" Tags="&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;grandmaster&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="73" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-05-02T09:01:26.190" Score="24" ViewCount="2722" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've stumbled upon &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jeremysilman.com/chess_bits_pieces/110103_blackmar_dmr_gmbt.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this article&lt;/a&gt; a while ago, and I've also seen refutations for the Muzio Gambit (Joseph Kling &amp;amp; Bernard Horwitz - Chess Studies on Endings of Games). I'm wondering what other gambits are proven to be unsound.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: I'm looking for refuted gambits in the strict sense of the word, followed by proof. Even though a gambit might be playable against someone who doesn't know its refutation, the gambit is still considered refuted if it is proven that the side who initiated the gambit loses in all variations worth looking at against best play. So yes, I'm looking for scientific proof.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, if a database of almost all games played in a particular gambit shows that the side that initiated the gambit wins almost all the time, this doesn't mean that there isn't a way for that gambit to be refuted, it just means that if there is a way, most people haven't played it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Above everything, I'm looking for material to learn from. &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.chessbase.com/post/rajlich-busting-the-king-s-gambit-this-time-for-sure&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;An article that says that Vasik Rajlich or someone else has used a computer cluster&lt;/a&gt; and came to a conclusion regarding a certain position, how will I benefit from it if there is no proof? &lt;strong&gt;(And please note that that King's-Gambit-busted-by-Rajlich article was in fact a Chessbase &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.chessbase.com/post/the-chebase-april-fool-s-prank&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;April Fools' joke!&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="75" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2014-09-20T19:10:54.613" LastActivityDate="2020-09-07T07:18:34.803" Title="What proofs for refuted gambits are there?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;gambits&gt;&lt;evaluation&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="74" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21" CreationDate="2012-05-02T09:35:09.300" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you play Black, &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Chess_Opening_Theory/1._e4/1...d5/2._exd5/2...Qxd5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Qxd5 Variation of the Scandinavian Defence&lt;/a&gt; is something that comes to mind...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 d5 &#xA;2. exd5 Qxd5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="99" LastEditorUserId="959" LastEditDate="2013-01-18T22:09:39.140" LastActivityDate="2013-01-18T22:09:39.140" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="75" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-05-02T10:24:39.117" Score="157" ViewCount="180857" Body="&lt;p&gt;One of my favorite openings is the &lt;a href=&quot;//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King%27s_Gambit&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;King's Gambit&lt;/a&gt;.  It is extremely aggressive, and makes for a sharp tactical game without sacrificing too much material.  It isn't played much at the highest level at standard time controls, but even today it is occasionally used &lt;a href=&quot;//www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1600009&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;in blitz&lt;/a&gt; by top level players such as &lt;a href=&quot;//www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1650151&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Hikaru Nakamura&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What other openings for black or white would force these kind of very aggressive, tactical, sharp and open games?  (Without putting yourself in &lt;em&gt;too&lt;/em&gt; bad a position.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="101" LastEditorUserId="2946" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-12-15T07:18:58.223" LastActivityDate="2020-12-15T07:18:58.223" Title="What are examples of very aggressive openings?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;aggressive-play&gt;" AnswerCount="30" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="82" CommunityOwnedDate="2013-08-09T01:11:05.007" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="76" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="238" CreationDate="2012-05-02T11:16:25.507" Score="19" ViewCount="895" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know about Chess960, and you can play that online at &lt;a href=&quot;http://lichess.org&quot;&gt;lichess.org&lt;/a&gt;. Furthermore, I like playing Go as well. But are there any good variants and other ways to train that you use, and you know to work well?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="102" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-09-23T05:58:24.573" LastActivityDate="2020-10-02T18:47:24.827" Title="What other games or chess variants are useful to improve your chess skills?" Tags="&lt;chess960&gt;&lt;training&gt;&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="77" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="75" CreationDate="2012-05-02T11:22:48.110" Score="23" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackmar%E2%80%93Diemer_Gambit&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Blackmar-Diemer Gambit&lt;/a&gt;: is an agressive opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Title &amp;quot;Blackmar-Diemer Gambit&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 d5&#xA;2. e4 dxe4&#xA;3. Nc3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-08-17T00:46:27.807" LastActivityDate="2020-08-17T00:46:27.807" CommentCount="0" CommunityOwnedDate="2013-08-09T01:11:05.007" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="78" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="73" CreationDate="2012-05-02T11:51:12.487" Score="17" Body="&lt;p&gt;As long as chess can't be calculated from beginning to end, it is very hard to scientifically prove an opening to be refuted (aside from lines that leave you with such hopeless situations like a bare king against king and rook, of course).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are satisfied with a less scientific proof, I'd say gambits are even less so refuted. In my opinion, nearly all gambits are playable, as long as you won't play it against a superhuman database/program or a world champion. In a practical sense, probably no gambit worth of having a name is refuted in the sense of not being playable. Even if a gambit is widely considered unsound and often results in a worse position, it might contain enough steam to give your chess skill ample opportunities to overpower your opponent.I even remember a game where I suffered terrible against the BDG because I didn't find any refutation over the board. I only won because my opponent terribly misplayed the late midgame, but from the opening point of view he should have won the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So my answer is: No gambit I know of is refuted to the degree of being unplayable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="94" LastEditorUserId="94" LastEditDate="2012-05-02T14:28:08.987" LastActivityDate="2012-05-02T14:28:08.987" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="79" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="73" CreationDate="2012-05-02T12:19:24.293" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;Many gambits are unsound. The proof is told by the number of these played at the highest levels of the game.  So, if you don't see the Blackmar-Diemer gambit at top tournaments, you can assume that its disadvantages outweigh its advantages.  The King's Gambit is one famously busted opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That being said, we're not top players. Most of us can't beat the players who can't beat the top players.  I'd wager, charitably, that 75% of the moves we make are wrong, technically.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In short, they're probably all playable.  As always, if you're going to take chances, book up first.  Understand the opening, know the main lines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-10T01:16:16.023" LastActivityDate="2012-06-10T01:16:16.023" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="80" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="83" CreationDate="2012-05-02T12:36:39.390" Score="78" ViewCount="20175" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is castling possible if any of the squares involved in the castling are under attack, or is this a problem only if the squares moved through by the king are under attack and not the ones moved through by the rook?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="105" LastEditorUserId="478" LastEditDate="2013-08-06T23:27:54.877" LastActivityDate="2021-05-02T15:02:52.163" Title="When is castling possible?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;kings&gt;&lt;castling&gt;&lt;rooks&gt;&lt;check&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="81" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="80" CreationDate="2012-05-02T12:45:43.623" Score="76" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, you can, as long as the king doesn't pass through or end up on an attacked square.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From &lt;a href=&quot;//handbook.fide.com/chapter/E012018&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Laws of Chess&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;The right to castle has been lost:&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;if the king has already moved, or&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;with a rook that has already moved.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Castling is prevented temporarily:&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;if the square on which the king stands, or the square which it must cross, or the square which it is to occupy, is attacked by one or more of the opponent's pieces, or&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;if there is any piece between the king and the rook with which castling is to be effected.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="99" LastEditorUserId="4186" LastEditDate="2020-03-10T08:54:05.450" LastActivityDate="2020-03-10T08:54:05.450" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="82" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="90" CreationDate="2012-05-02T12:51:12.013" Score="10" ViewCount="3291" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have usually found the Marshall Attack in the Ruy Lopez to be very potent and very hard to counter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Ba4 Nf6 5. O-O Be7 6. Re1 b5 7. Bb3 O-O 8. c3 d5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there any proven defensive lines or variations to use against this?&#xA;Just point me in the right direction, please.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="105" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2015-12-25T17:43:15.797" LastActivityDate="2015-12-26T19:51:19.487" Title="What is the best defense against Marshall Attack?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;opening&gt;&lt;ruy-lopez&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="83" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="80" CreationDate="2012-05-02T12:52:50.297" Score="45" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, if the rook is threatened, you may still castle. The threatened squares rule only applies to squares where the king passes (starting and final position included).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, in the case of white castling queenside, for instance, a threat to &lt;code&gt;a1&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;b1&lt;/code&gt; does not prevent the castle from taking place.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="29" LastEditorUserId="478" LastEditDate="2013-08-06T23:48:15.200" LastActivityDate="2013-08-06T23:48:15.200" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="84" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="97" CreationDate="2012-05-02T12:56:52.013" Score="11" ViewCount="1064" Body="&lt;p&gt;A few years back I used to play with a player who always accepted the queens gambit pawn and used to hold on to it and sometimes win with the pawn plus.&#xA;Is there any specific variation that can be studied in favour of black in queen's gambit accepted?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="105" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2014-10-01T16:03:30.687" LastActivityDate="2014-10-01T16:03:30.687" Title="How can I to hold on to the pawn plus for black in the Queen's Gambit Accepted?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;pawns&gt;&lt;queens-gambit&gt;&lt;sacrifice&gt;&lt;queens-gambit-accepted&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="85" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="108" CreationDate="2012-05-02T12:59:55.167" Score="7" ViewCount="375" Body="&lt;p&gt;Most chess literature offer sets of moves based on themes, but do not offer a method of accessing your performance in composing sets of moves relative to the flow of the game itself. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What would be the best way to segment sets of moves, and then assess the effectiveness of their composition relative to the board's state?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastEditorUserId="38" LastEditDate="2012-05-02T13:05:25.267" LastActivityDate="2012-05-02T19:59:43.330" Title="How to assess chess game composition?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="7" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="86" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-05-02T13:04:25.687" Score="16" ViewCount="992" Body="&lt;p&gt;I had heard from someone that Chess evolved from &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaturanga&quot;&gt;Chaturanga&lt;/a&gt; then &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shatranj&quot;&gt;Shatranj&lt;/a&gt;.  Are there any pointers towards this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would like to know counter arguments as well, if any.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="105" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-11T23:55:13.283" LastActivityDate="2021-02-25T17:54:08.343" Title="Is Chaturanga/Shatranj an early form of chess or is this altogether different?" Tags="&lt;history&gt;&lt;chess-variants&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="88" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="71" CreationDate="2012-05-02T13:09:49.600" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessclub.com&quot;&gt;ICC&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://playchess.com&quot;&gt;playchess.com&lt;/a&gt; are definitely the top two in terms of the number of registered titled players who play actively.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was able to find metrics on how many titled players are on ICC, seen &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessclub.com/help/titles&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;; I couldn't find the numbers for playchess, however they are similar.  Many titled players play on both.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="63" LastActivityDate="2012-05-02T13:09:49.600" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="89" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="536" CreationDate="2012-05-02T13:16:36.263" Score="17" ViewCount="2986" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I was young I used to play chess with the the old form of notation KB (King Bishop square number), even books used to have the same notation, then later found that everyone was using algebraic, is descriptive notation dead? Why? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="105" LastEditorUserId="12" LastEditDate="2012-05-29T19:47:32.573" LastActivityDate="2018-08-20T15:01:28.303" Title="When and why was the notation changed from descriptive to algebraic?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;history&gt;&lt;pgn&gt;&lt;notation&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="90" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="82" CreationDate="2012-05-02T13:19:04.317" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;A huge amount of theory has just been discovered in the Marshall Attack (I'm assuming you mean the line in the Ruy Lopez). However, this variation has recently fallen out of practice among top level GMs because white has been hard-pressed to find decent replies to the most critical lines. Basically, I would recommend playing one of the anti-Marshall games (&lt;code&gt;8. h3&lt;/code&gt; has been popular) unless you want to spend days studying opening theory to reach a suspect position with white.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Wikipedia has an article on the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruy_Lopez#Marshall_Attack&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Marshall attack&lt;/a&gt; which is worth reading.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="66" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-06-09T21:20:40.123" LastActivityDate="2012-06-09T21:20:40.123" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="91" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-05-02T13:37:08.240" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen%27s_Gambit&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Queen's Gambit&lt;/a&gt; is the opening given by the moves &lt;code&gt;1.d4 d5 2.c4&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.d4 d5 2.c4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White offers a pawn in order to gain more central control. This opening has been popular for a long time, and is still one of the most-played openings in the game. Around the time of its greatest popularity, the Queen's gambit appeared in 32 of the 34 games played in the 1927 world championship match between Capablanca and Alekhine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-06-22T09:35:20.877" LastActivityDate="2017-06-22T09:35:20.877" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="92" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-05-02T13:37:08.240" Score="0" Body="The Queen's Gambit is the opening given by the moves 1.d4 d5 2.c4. White offers a pawn in order to gain more central control." OwnerUserId="63" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-08-04T22:57:26.840" LastActivityDate="2012-08-04T22:57:26.840" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="93" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="80" CreationDate="2012-05-02T13:38:20.823" Score="21" Body="&lt;p&gt;The rules are that the king can't castle &lt;em&gt;into&lt;/em&gt; check, &lt;em&gt;through&lt;/em&gt; check, or when &lt;em&gt;in&lt;/em&gt; check. This applies to the king's square, plus the two squares to the right or left.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Castling is permitted when the &lt;em&gt;rook&lt;/em&gt; is under attack (on the rook's square). On the queen side, that would also include the knight's square. But not on the kingside, because the king would be castling &lt;em&gt;into&lt;/em&gt; check. He also can't castle if the bishop's or queen's square is under attack. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-12T01:43:50.513" LastActivityDate="2012-06-12T01:43:50.513" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="94" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="105" CreationDate="2012-05-02T13:41:48.213" Score="19" ViewCount="13514" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have observed that the King's Gambit is &lt;em&gt;usually&lt;/em&gt; not played at international level.  Is there any specific reason for this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="105" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-12T18:56:36.533" LastActivityDate="2020-02-25T16:42:50.240" Title="Why is the King's Gambit not played often?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;kings-gambit&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="95" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="59" CreationDate="2012-05-02T13:43:38.710" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, it can be done. The standard position is to force the enemy king into a corner of the same color as the bishop. Then there are four squares (the corner, the diagonal, and two lateral) squares that need to be attacked.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The bishop attacks the corner and diagonal squares, the king guards one of the lateral squares, and the knight the other one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/5N2/8/5K2/8/5Bk1/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;K + B + N vs K&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;White to play and win&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Ne5 Kh3 2. Kf4 Kh4 3. Ng6+ Kh3 4. Bd5 Kh2 5. Kf3 Kg1 6. Ke2 Kh2 &#xA;7. Kf2 Kh3 8. Be6+ Kh2 9. Bg4 {A waiting move to transfer a move to Black, so that the knight will arrive at its destination while giving check.} Kh1 10. Nh4 {The knight starts its journey to f1.} Kh2 11. Nf3+ Kh1 12. Nd2 Kh2 &#xA;13. Nf1+ {The all-important destination-check.} Kh1 14. Bf3# {Note: White's bishop can be anywhere on the c8-h3 diagonal (except h3) before this move, and anywhere on the long diagonal to give mate.} 1-0 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastEditorUserId="11245" LastEditDate="2016-09-26T19:43:56.450" LastActivityDate="2016-09-26T19:43:56.450" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="96" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="94" CreationDate="2012-05-02T13:57:12.363" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The King's Gambit is considered inferior because white is sacrificing king safety along with a pawn on move 2.  Furthermore, although white would get an attack going along the f file in Morphy's day, now the correct defensive ideas are known for black and white has a harder time of it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That said, the King's Gambit is a great weapon at the club level.  In fact, Quality Chess will be &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.qualitychess.co.uk/products/1/124/the_king&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;releasing a book&lt;/a&gt; on the King's Gambit very soon.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12" LastActivityDate="2012-05-02T13:57:12.363" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="97" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="84" CreationDate="2012-05-02T14:14:25.167" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Black can sometimes hold on to the Pawn if that is the goal.  Black has to play an early a6 and b5.  One possible variation is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. c4 dxc4 3. Nf3 a6 4. e3 b5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although Black will hold on to the extra C-Pawn, White can counterattack with &lt;code&gt;a4&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;b3&lt;/code&gt;, and &lt;code&gt;Nc3&lt;/code&gt;.  Black has neglected development, and according to MegaBase 2012, White scores &lt;strong&gt;60.6%&lt;/strong&gt; from the diagrammed position with the move &lt;code&gt;5. a4&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12" LastEditorUserId="652" LastEditDate="2012-12-18T15:08:51.180" LastActivityDate="2012-12-18T15:08:51.180" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="99" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="357" CreationDate="2012-05-02T14:44:13.430" Score="13" ViewCount="1068" Body="&lt;p&gt;I like &lt;a href=&quot;http://chesstempo.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chesstempo&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://chess.emrald.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chess.emrald.net&lt;/a&gt;[1].&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there any others?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit (25.12.2020)&lt;/strong&gt;: Since at least 2018, &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/82oyig/is_chessemraldnet_gone_forever/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chess.emrald.net has often not been responsive&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-12-25T22:59:44.597" LastActivityDate="2020-12-25T22:59:44.597" Title="What are some helpful chess tactics training websites?" Tags="&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;recommendations&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="8" ClosedDate="2020-12-25T21:44:07.240" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="100" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="99" CreationDate="2012-05-02T14:54:39.843" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/tactics/myhome.html&quot;&gt;http://www.chess.com/tactics/myhome.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Free: 5 problems/day &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18" LastActivityDate="2012-05-02T14:54:39.843" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="101" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="104" CreationDate="2012-05-02T15:10:06.253" Score="8" ViewCount="2694" Body="&lt;p&gt;There seems to be a pretty nifty attack for White after  &lt;code&gt;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 f6&lt;/code&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 f6 3.Nxe5 fxe5 4.Qh5+ g6 5.Qxe5+ Qe7 6.Qxh8&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've played as White with this opening several times, always to my advantage (usually Black panics and plays &lt;code&gt;4 ... Ke7&lt;/code&gt;, soon after which he finds ample reason to resign).  But once someone played as shown above, and went on with&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;6. ...     Nf6,&#xA;  etc.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;to try and put my queen on the spot.  Presumably he intended to follow up with moves such as &lt;code&gt;...b6&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;...Bb7&lt;/code&gt; or similar, &lt;code&gt;...Nc3&lt;/code&gt; or similar, &lt;code&gt;...O-O-O&lt;/code&gt;, and then &lt;code&gt;...Bg7&lt;/code&gt; forcing Qxd8.  Since it was a blitz game, best play was not made, and he made a mistake allowing my queen to escape, but it got me thinking.  Is there some way Black can recover from &lt;code&gt;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 f6?&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question especially regards &lt;code&gt;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 f6 3. Nxe5 fxe5 4. Qh5+ g6 5. Qxe5+ Qe7 6. Qxh8&lt;/code&gt; (as shown above) - is there a way to trap White's Q?  Or is &lt;code&gt;3... fxe5&lt;/code&gt; simply a bad move?  Should &lt;code&gt;2... f6&lt;/code&gt; be avoided altogether?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="86" LastEditorUserId="10867" LastEditDate="2020-06-01T18:01:14.540" LastActivityDate="2020-06-01T18:01:14.540" Title="Does 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 f6 have to be a bad opening?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;queens&gt;&lt;captures&gt;&lt;damiano-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="102" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="75" CreationDate="2012-05-02T15:13:58.837" Score="31" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latvian_Gambit&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Latvian Gambit&lt;/a&gt; (ECO: C40) is an agressive opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5&#xA;2. Nf3 f5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-08-17T00:47:05.533" LastActivityDate="2020-08-17T00:47:05.533" CommentCount="0" CommunityOwnedDate="2013-08-09T01:11:05.007" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="103" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="101" CreationDate="2012-05-02T15:19:29.210" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;This opening is also known as the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damiano_Defence&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Damiano Defense&lt;/a&gt; and it is just bad.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the line you gave, where black plays &lt;code&gt;6... Nf6&lt;/code&gt;, white's best plan is to play &lt;code&gt;d3&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;Bg5&lt;/code&gt;.  Black can't move the bishop because it is pinned (so the queen can't be trapped until black castles).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-09T21:22:07.690" LastActivityDate="2012-06-09T21:22:07.690" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="104" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="101" CreationDate="2012-05-02T15:23:47.857" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;After &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 f6 3.Nxe5 fxe5 4.Qh5+ g6 5.Qxe5+ Qe7 6.Qxh8 Nf6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;with ideas of trapping the queen, &lt;code&gt;7. d3&lt;/code&gt; followed by &lt;code&gt;Bg5&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;Bh6&lt;/code&gt; and there won't be any issues getting the queen out, e.g.:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;7.d3 d5 8.Bg5 Nbd7 9.Nc3 b6 10.0-0-0 Bb7 11.e5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black can try to minimize the damage after &lt;code&gt;2...f6?&lt;/code&gt; with something like &lt;code&gt;3.Nxe5 Qe7&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You aren't losing the exchange any more, but you've still destroyed your position with &lt;code&gt;...f6&lt;/code&gt;.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;2... f6&lt;/code&gt; should be avoided.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="63" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-11T23:57:10.817" LastActivityDate="2012-06-11T23:57:10.817" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="105" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="94" CreationDate="2012-05-02T15:34:48.677" Score="16" Body="&lt;p&gt;One of the more common lines for the King's Gambit is accepting, followed by &lt;code&gt;3. Nf3&lt;/code&gt;.  That is, &lt;code&gt;1. e4 e5  2. f4 exf4 3. Nf3&lt;/code&gt;.  After this, black can follow with &lt;code&gt;3... d6&lt;/code&gt;, &#xA;the so called &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King%27s_Gambit,_Fischer_Defense&quot;&gt;Fischer defense.&lt;/a&gt;  Fischer was extremely confident that this was a bad position for white.  He wrote an entire article about this line, and famously said, &quot;In my opinion the King's Gambit is busted. It loses by force.&quot;  On top of this he added, &quot;Of course White can always play differently, in which case he merely loses differently.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am not sure about other lines, but likely top grandmasters have analyzed them, and come to similar conclusions that white's position is not a good one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Remark:&lt;/strong&gt; Interestingly Fischer himself played the gambit a few times with great success, but he opened &lt;code&gt;3. Bc4&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="101" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-06-09T21:27:30.507" LastActivityDate="2012-06-09T21:27:30.507" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="106" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="123" CreationDate="2012-05-02T16:23:32.347" Score="38" ViewCount="4431" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there any specific point where the middle-game ends and end-game begins? E.g. after x number of pieces are exchanged, or say 40 moves, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="105" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-12T00:01:06.070" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T15:57:25.220" Title="When does the middlegame end and the endgame begin?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;middlegame&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="107" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="106" CreationDate="2012-05-02T16:45:03.137" Score="20" Body="&lt;p&gt;There isn't a clear-cut definition of endgame, or a set of criteria where you could draw a line and say &quot;after this move, we have reached the endgame.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Quoting Glenn Flear in his excellent book &lt;em&gt;Practical Endgame Play - Beyond the Basics&lt;/em&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The word 'endgame' is widely used and generally implies the final phase of the game  (however long!), assuming that there already has been significant simplification.  If we had to define the word more rigorously in terms of material then opinions vary.  Some specialists consider all queenless positions to be endgames, others those where both sides have limited material, for instance less than queen and rook.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So basically, once the position becomes 'simplified' to the point where more often than not you are using your few remaining pieces (including the King) to try and queen a pawn, rather than organize an attack.  Also included would be the end result of queening a pawn (or winning significant material), i.e. positions where you mate the King with only a few pieces on the board, like King and Rook vs. King.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="63" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-12T00:01:37.693" LastActivityDate="2012-06-12T00:01:37.693" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="108" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="85" CreationDate="2012-05-02T16:58:46.403" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would try breaking your games down by sub-goals and examine the moves leading up to achieving that sub-goal which gives you an easy metric on how well the set of moves performed.  Of course, the harder part is to assess your sub-goals.  Did you have the right overall plan?  Did your sub-goals improve your position?  I'm not sure if breaking your evaluation down to the &quot;set of moves&quot; level will ultimately be useful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance, you can set a sub-goal of controlling the c-file so the set of moves that contribute to doubling the rooks on the c-file evaluate as &quot;good&quot;.  However, if your opponent is invested in an attack on the king-side, your sub-goal might be faulty.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Take a look at some middlegame books, games collections, and/or tournament books.  Try something like IM Jeremy Silman's &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1890085138&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;How To Reassess Your Chess&lt;/a&gt;&quot; and/or GM Bronstein's annotations of the &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/0486238008&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Zurich 1953&lt;/a&gt; tournament.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The former will give you some ways to approach thinking about your position and formulating goals while the latter will delve into the thought process behind the moves of real games of grandmasters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="44" LastEditorUserId="44" LastEditDate="2012-05-02T19:59:43.330" LastActivityDate="2012-05-02T19:59:43.330" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="110" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="89" CreationDate="2012-05-02T17:51:56.877" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;To answer your question if descriptive notation is dead, I would say YES.  Even though it maybe more descriptive, it can be more confusing for newer players and the algebraic notation is so much more intuitive and simpler to understand.  I have read books with the descriptive notation and sometimes I scratch my head.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastActivityDate="2012-05-02T17:51:56.877" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="111" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="39" CreationDate="2012-05-02T18:07:11.880" Score="2" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Develop your pieces, not Pawns&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Try not to move the same piece more than once in an opening unless&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;you really need to. Gain control of the center Castle your king&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Develop/Connect your rooks Don't move too fast or you will blunder.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Take your time and view the whole board.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastActivityDate="2012-05-02T18:07:11.880" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="112" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-05-02T18:19:51.913" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;A Rook is a piece in chess which can move either up, down, left, or right (along rank or file), in any, but only one, available direction per move, and moving along any number of unoccupied squares per move. The Rook captures (see &lt;a href=&quot;/questions/tagged/captures&quot; class=&quot;post-tag&quot; title=&quot;show questions tagged &amp;#39;captures&amp;#39;&quot; rel=&quot;tag&quot;&gt;captures&lt;/a&gt;) by moving to occupy the square of an opposing piece. In standard chess, each player begins the game with two Rooks, one at each corner of his side of the board, next to the Knights.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One special feature of the Rook is its ability to castle (see &lt;a href=&quot;/questions/tagged/castling&quot; class=&quot;post-tag&quot; title=&quot;show questions tagged &amp;#39;castling&amp;#39;&quot; rel=&quot;tag&quot;&gt;castling&lt;/a&gt;) with the King.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Rook has an approximate value of 5 on a scale of 1-9, where a Pawn has the value of 1, Knights and Bishops each have the value of 3, and the Queen has the value of 9.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The symbol for the Rook in most notations (see &lt;a href=&quot;/questions/tagged/notation&quot; class=&quot;post-tag&quot; title=&quot;show questions tagged &amp;#39;notation&amp;#39;&quot; rel=&quot;tag&quot;&gt;notation&lt;/a&gt;) is &lt;code&gt;R&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For more information about Rooks, see the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rook_%28chess%29&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia article&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="86" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-06-21T17:53:13.427" LastActivityDate="2017-06-21T17:53:13.427" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="113" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-05-02T18:19:51.913" Score="0" Body="Questions relating to the Rook." OwnerUserId="86" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-05-02T22:25:31.367" LastActivityDate="2012-05-02T22:25:31.367" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="114" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="89" CreationDate="2012-05-02T18:33:19.553" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;The two forms of notation you are referring to are called &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Descriptive_chess_notation&quot;&gt;Descriptive Notation&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algebraic_notation_%28chess%29&quot;&gt;Algebraic Notation&lt;/a&gt; respectively. Descriptive notation was the most used form from recent antiquity up until about 1970 in English speaking countries. Algebraic notation has been around since the 19th century, but didn't rise to its current prominence until the 20th century. These days, descriptive notation is considered obsolete, though it is still permitted in tournament play in the FIDE. There are a minority of players that exercise this choice, though. Primarily, descriptive notation is learned and used for reading older chess books which were authored that way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are also some &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_notation&quot;&gt;other interesting notations&lt;/a&gt; in use around the world. Hope that helps clear things up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="29" LastActivityDate="2012-05-02T18:33:19.553" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="115" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-05-02T18:39:31.780" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In standard chess, a capture is effected by means of one piece moving to occupy the square occupied by an opposing piece.  The opposing piece is immediately removed from the board and hence from play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most pieces capture by moving normally to occupy the opposing piece's square; the exception to this is the Pawn (see &lt;a href=&quot;/questions/tagged/pawn&quot; class=&quot;post-tag&quot; title=&quot;show questions tagged 'pawn'&quot; rel=&quot;tag&quot;&gt;pawn&lt;/a&gt;), which captures by moving one space diagonally forward (to the right or the left), rather than a space directly forward, as it normally moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is one rare and specialized form of capture, called &lt;em&gt;en passant&lt;/em&gt;. This is effected by a Pawn which is in its fifth rank moving &lt;strong&gt;diagonally forward&lt;/strong&gt; (right if the opposing Pawn is to the right; left if it is to the left) to capture an opposing Pawn which is in the &lt;strong&gt;same&lt;/strong&gt; rank.  En passant is only allowed when the opposing Pawn has, in the immediately previous move by the opposing player, just been moved to occupy its position next to the offensive Pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The King (see &lt;a href=&quot;/questions/tagged/king&quot; class=&quot;post-tag&quot; title=&quot;show questions tagged 'king'&quot; rel=&quot;tag&quot;&gt;king&lt;/a&gt;) cannot be captured, as it is kept away from or immediately removed from attack at all costs.  In the event that the King is under attack, &lt;strong&gt;and&lt;/strong&gt; the only moves available to a player keep it exposed to attack, the game is ended in favor of the attacking player.  This is called checkmate (see &lt;a href=&quot;/questions/tagged/checkmate&quot; class=&quot;post-tag&quot; title=&quot;show questions tagged 'checkmate'&quot; rel=&quot;tag&quot;&gt;checkmate&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="86" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-05-02T20:48:41.447" LastActivityDate="2012-05-02T20:48:41.447" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="116" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-05-02T18:39:31.780" Score="0" Body="Questions related to capturing in chess." OwnerUserId="86" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-05-02T20:48:45.643" LastActivityDate="2012-05-02T20:48:45.643" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="117" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-05-02T18:44:38.917" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In standard chess, a checkmate is the only way to win a game (other than resignation of the game by a player).  Checkmate occurs when a King is attacked (i.e. threatened to be captured on the next move) by an opposing piece (attack against the King is called &lt;em&gt;check&lt;/em&gt;), and the only moves available to the attacked player cannot remove the King from check.  In such a case, the attacked player is said to be checkmated, and the other player wins the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The word checkmate comes from the Persian phrase &quot;Shāh Māt,&quot; which translates literally as &quot;the king is helpless.&quot; For more on the history of the notion of checkmate, see &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Checkmate&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this Wikipedia entry&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="86" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-08-02T02:14:37.133" LastActivityDate="2012-08-02T02:14:37.133" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="118" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-05-02T18:44:38.917" Score="0" Body="Questions relating to checkmating." OwnerUserId="86" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-05-02T21:31:16.917" LastActivityDate="2012-05-02T21:31:16.917" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="119" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-05-02T18:49:45.370" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_opening&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;opening&lt;/a&gt; is the first phase of a game of chess. The term can refer to the sequence of initial moves by either side, white or black. Typically, starting moves that have become well-established according to practice by professional chess players are referred to as ''book moves.''&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Additional information:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_chess_openings&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;List of openings&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/explorer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Opening explorer&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18" LastEditorUserId="3594" LastEditDate="2020-02-07T15:27:51.097" LastActivityDate="2020-02-07T15:27:51.097" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="120" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-05-02T18:49:45.370" Score="0" Body="Questions relating to the initial moves of the game and their aims" OwnerUserId="86" LastEditorUserId="3594" LastEditDate="2020-02-07T15:27:51.097" LastActivityDate="2020-02-07T15:27:51.097" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="121" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-05-02T19:13:20.847" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In standard chess, the King is the most important piece; the object of the game being to trap it so that any allowable move made cannot remove it from attack by any opposing piece (such attack against the King is known as &lt;em&gt;check&lt;/em&gt; - see &lt;a href=&quot;/questions/tagged/check&quot; class=&quot;post-tag&quot; title=&quot;show questions tagged &amp;#39;check&amp;#39;&quot; rel=&quot;tag&quot;&gt;check&lt;/a&gt;).  The King may move one square per move in any direction - up, down, left, right, or diagonally, but it may not move into check, and it may not move to occupy a square already occupied by one of its own pieces.  The exception to the one-square-per-move rule is &lt;em&gt;castling&lt;/em&gt; (see &lt;a href=&quot;/questions/tagged/castling&quot; class=&quot;post-tag&quot; title=&quot;show questions tagged &amp;#39;castling&amp;#39;&quot; rel=&quot;tag&quot;&gt;castling&lt;/a&gt;). This is a limited circumstance in which the King may move &lt;em&gt;two&lt;/em&gt; squares.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When the King is put into check, the attacked player must immediately, in the following move,  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;move the King out of check,  &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;interpose a piece between the King and the attacking piece (if there is only one - in the case of a double check, this option is not possible), &lt;strong&gt;or&lt;/strong&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;capture the attacking piece (again, if there is only one).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If none of these options is available, the King is checkmated (see &lt;a href=&quot;/questions/tagged/checkmate&quot; class=&quot;post-tag&quot; title=&quot;show questions tagged &amp;#39;checkmate&amp;#39;&quot; rel=&quot;tag&quot;&gt;checkmate&lt;/a&gt;), and the game is over.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The symbol for the King in most notations (see &lt;a href=&quot;/questions/tagged/notation&quot; class=&quot;post-tag&quot; title=&quot;show questions tagged &amp;#39;notation&amp;#39;&quot; rel=&quot;tag&quot;&gt;notation&lt;/a&gt;) is &lt;code&gt;K&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For more information about the King, see the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_%28chess%29&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia article&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="86" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-06-21T17:52:23.117" LastActivityDate="2017-06-21T17:52:23.117" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="122" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-05-02T19:13:20.847" Score="0" Body="Questions relating to the King" OwnerUserId="86" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-05-02T21:31:25.357" LastActivityDate="2012-05-02T21:31:25.357" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="123" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="106" CreationDate="2012-05-02T19:29:21.340" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;One old definition of the endgame was when the main objective is to &quot;queen a pawn,&quot; (as opposed to other goals such as forcing an imminent checkmate).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now there is an exception noted in the comments where one side will try to mate the other side's lone king with a king and two bishops, or a king, bishop and knight. But it's likely that one side obtained this material advantage by trying to queen extra pawns, and forcing the other side to trade pieces for them. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-10T01:18:20.750" LastActivityDate="2012-06-10T01:18:20.750" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="124" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-05-02T19:31:33.383" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;A &lt;em&gt;draw&lt;/em&gt; is a game in which neither player wins.  In the case of a draw, each player is usually ascribed 0.5 points, i.e. half a win. (Recently, some tournaments have experimented with a soccer/football style of scoring - in which a player receives 3 points for winning, 1 point for drawing and 0 points for losing - as an attempt to encourage decisive results.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A draw can occur because of&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalemate&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;stalemate&lt;/a&gt; (see &lt;a href=&quot;/questions/tagged/stalemate&quot; class=&quot;post-tag&quot; title=&quot;show questions tagged &amp;#39;stalemate&amp;#39;&quot; rel=&quot;tag&quot;&gt;stalemate&lt;/a&gt;).  This occurs when it is one player's turn to move, and his King is not in check, but no moves are legal.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threefold_repetition&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;threefold repetition&lt;/a&gt;. This occurs when the same position occurs three times in the course of a game, with the same player to move each time.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;the criteria of the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifty-move_rule&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;fifty-move rule&lt;/a&gt; being met.  This occurs when fifty consecutive moves by each side have been played, and those moves do not include a capture &lt;em&gt;or&lt;/em&gt; a pawn move.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;insufficient material.  This occurs when neither player has enough forces to checkmate the opponent or when no sequence of legal moves can lead to checkmate.  The possible combinations which are insufficient material are: (1) King vs. King, (2) King and minor piece (Knight or Bishop) vs. King and optional minor piece, and (3) King and two Knights vs. King (optional: two Knights or single minor piece).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For more information on draws, see the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draw_%28chess%29&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia article&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="86" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-06-21T20:07:35.643" LastActivityDate="2017-06-21T20:07:35.643" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="125" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-05-02T19:31:33.383" Score="0" Body="Questions relating to drawing in chess" OwnerUserId="86" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-05-02T21:31:21.143" LastActivityDate="2012-05-02T21:31:21.143" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="126" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-05-02T19:43:28.143" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Check&lt;/em&gt; is the term for an attack against a King (see &lt;a href=&quot;/questions/tagged/king&quot; class=&quot;post-tag&quot; title=&quot;show questions tagged 'king'&quot; rel=&quot;tag&quot;&gt;king&lt;/a&gt;).  This attack is defined as a threat by an opposing piece to capture the King on the next move.  As the King is the most important piece, the threat must immediately be removed; other moves are illegal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When the King is put into check, the attacked player must immediately, in the following move,  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;move&lt;/strong&gt; the King out of check,  &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;interpose&lt;/strong&gt; a piece between the King and the attacking piece (if there is only one - in the case of a double check, this option is not possible), &lt;strong&gt;or&lt;/strong&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;capture&lt;/strong&gt; the attacking piece (again, if there is only one).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If none of these options is available, the King is checkmated (see &lt;a href=&quot;/questions/tagged/checkmate&quot; class=&quot;post-tag&quot; title=&quot;show questions tagged 'checkmate'&quot; rel=&quot;tag&quot;&gt;checkmate&lt;/a&gt;), and the game is over.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="86" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-05-02T21:31:11.220" LastActivityDate="2012-05-02T21:31:11.220" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="127" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-05-02T19:43:28.143" Score="0" Body="Questions relating to check" OwnerUserId="86" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-05-02T21:31:12.733" LastActivityDate="2012-05-02T21:31:12.733" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="128" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-05-02T19:47:48.510" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Castling is a move in chess which can only be performed once, or else never, by each player in each game.  Castling consists of one move in which a player moves his King two squares toward either Rook (henceforth termed the &lt;em&gt;chosen&lt;/em&gt; Rook), and at the same time moves the Rook &lt;em&gt;around&lt;/em&gt; the King to the square immediately on the other side of the King. The conditions under which castling is legal are as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;the King and the chosen Rook must not have moved since the beginning of the game,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;there must be no occupied squares between the King and the chosen Rook,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;the King may not be &lt;em&gt;in&lt;/em&gt; check (see &lt;a href=&quot;/questions/tagged/check&quot; class=&quot;post-tag&quot; title=&quot;show questions tagged &amp;#39;check&amp;#39;&quot; rel=&quot;tag&quot;&gt;check&lt;/a&gt;, may not move &lt;em&gt;through&lt;/em&gt; check during castling, and, of course, may not castle &lt;em&gt;into&lt;/em&gt; check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The squares the king passes through must not be controlled by the opponent's pieces, though this is not the case for the rook.&#xA;The symbols for castling in most notations (see &lt;a href=&quot;/questions/tagged/notation&quot; class=&quot;post-tag&quot; title=&quot;show questions tagged &amp;#39;notation&amp;#39;&quot; rel=&quot;tag&quot;&gt;notation&lt;/a&gt;) are &lt;code&gt;O-O&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;0-0&lt;/code&gt; for Kingside castling (i.e. castling with the Rook closer to the King), and &lt;code&gt;O-O-O&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;0-0-0&lt;/code&gt; for Queenside castling.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For more information on castling, see the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castling&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia article&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="86" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-08-30T09:40:04.253" LastActivityDate="2020-08-30T09:40:04.253" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="129" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-05-02T19:47:48.510" Score="0" Body="Questions relating to castling" OwnerUserId="86" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-05-02T21:31:08.507" LastActivityDate="2012-05-02T21:31:08.507" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="130" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="131" CreationDate="2012-05-02T20:00:29.510" Score="16" ViewCount="2582" Body="&lt;p&gt;Wikipedia's article on the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifty-move_rule&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;fifty-move rule&lt;/a&gt; states:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All of the basic checkmates can be accomplished in well under 50 moves. However, in the 20th century it was discovered that some positions of certain endgames can only be won in more than fifty moves (without a capture or a pawn move). The rule was changed to include certain exceptions in which one hundred moves were allowed with particular material combinations. However, more and more exceptions were discovered and in 1992 FIDE abolished all such exceptions and reinstated the strict fifty-move rule.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have never seen an example of this, though I used to think the &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/q/59/86&quot;&gt;K, N, B vs. K ending&lt;/a&gt; was one.  When is it possible to force a win in 50 moves or more, but not less than 50 moves?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="86" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2021-02-27T22:58:00.010" LastActivityDate="2021-05-11T17:02:04.043" Title="Are there endgames which could be forced wins if not for the 50-move rule?" Tags="&lt;draw&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;50-move-rule&gt;&lt;pawn-promotion&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="131" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="130" CreationDate="2012-05-02T20:09:37.627" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, there are quite a few endgames that require more than 50 moves with best play from the defender.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endgame_tablebase#Endgame_theory&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt; has a list of material imbalances where it could take more than 50 moves depending on the specific position.  Here are a few examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Rook and bishop vs lone rook (often a draw though)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Two bishops vs a lone knight &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Two knights vs a lone pawn (the defender &lt;em&gt;must&lt;/em&gt; have a pawn)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Four knights vs a lone queen (would never happen over the board…)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Queen and rook vs queen and rook&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Two queens vs two queens&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12" LastEditorUserId="672" LastEditDate="2012-11-30T16:28:14.313" LastActivityDate="2012-11-30T16:28:14.313" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="132" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="136" CreationDate="2012-05-02T20:25:56.973" Score="38" ViewCount="36736" Body="&lt;p&gt;Grouping of initial moves of a chess game are well known, though I've never seen analysis of the worst possible opening move, any thoughts? If so, please provide more than just a move, but the exact reason why such a move would be the worst assuming such a move was against a GM.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-10T01:26:40.397" LastActivityDate="2021-02-26T21:11:41.650" Title="What is the worst opening move, and why?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="15" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="133" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="161" CreationDate="2012-05-02T20:36:40.330" Score="5" ViewCount="430" Body="&lt;p&gt;Assuming a player knows the rules, are there any free, one-player simulations that will rapidly teach a single player on their own how to move beyond opening with nonsense moves. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-10T01:26:57.570" LastActivityDate="2019-12-10T17:16:56.490" Title="What is the fastest way for a player to reach the stage where they are not opening with nonsense moves?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="134" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="132" CreationDate="2012-05-02T20:38:51.210" Score="27" Body="&lt;p&gt;I agree with Andrew on &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Chess_Opening_Theory/1._f3&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;code&gt;1. f3&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/a&gt; (Barnes Opening).  No first move can be decisively wrong, but some first moves are questionable.  In &lt;em&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Chess_Opening_Theory/1._f3&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess Opening Theory&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt; (Wikibooks):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Quite a rarely played passive starting move that gives up White's first move advantage. White's position is slightly weakened by the White King exposure to a check on the h4 - e1 diagonal. The kingside Knight's favourite developing square f3, is also not currently possible. In fact, this is arguably the worst possible first move by White.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No stats as &lt;code&gt;1. f3&lt;/code&gt; occurs rarely among serious chess players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Next on the list would probably be &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Chess_Opening_Theory/1._h4&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;code&gt;1. h4&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/a&gt; (Desprez Opening):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;1. h4&lt;/code&gt; is a rather useless move that does nothing to assist the important central squares. No top masters have ever used it in professional play, although some, most notably Hikaru Nakumura, play it during blitz. It could be said that White has made his position worse, as castling kingside is now less attractive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This move is rarely seen among serious chess players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="86" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T15:53:51.273" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="136" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="132" CreationDate="2012-05-02T20:43:53.300" Score="30" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;1. f3&lt;/code&gt; is almost certainly the single worst move.  It irrevocably weakens white's king position without doing anything useful.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other moves like &lt;code&gt;1. b3&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;1. g3&lt;/code&gt; prepare to develop a bishop, so they're not &lt;em&gt;so&lt;/em&gt; bad.  &lt;code&gt;1. c3&lt;/code&gt; doesn't do too much for white, but it also doesn't hurt him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;1. a4&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;1. h4&lt;/code&gt; both ignore the center, but they do help develop the rooks, and there are positions where &lt;code&gt;1. a4/h4&lt;/code&gt; can be useful (especially when the kings have castled on opposite sides of the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-10T01:19:37.363" LastActivityDate="2012-06-10T01:19:37.363" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="137" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="150" CreationDate="2012-05-02T20:44:16.327" Score="11" ViewCount="540" Body="&lt;p&gt;Pre-AI, it's hard to imagine that opening moves had changed much. Following the birth of computer engines, has AI changed opening theory, and if so, how? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-12T00:03:13.417" LastActivityDate="2012-06-12T00:03:13.417" Title="Has AI changed opening theory, and if so, how?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;engines&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="138" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="132" CreationDate="2012-05-02T20:57:36.053" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;I agree &lt;code&gt;1. f3&lt;/code&gt; is quite bad, but &lt;code&gt;1. Na3&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;1. Nh3&lt;/code&gt; aren't pretty either, especially as they have to move again to avoid a doubled pawn after &lt;code&gt;...d5&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;...e5&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="35" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-08-18T23:55:25.630" LastActivityDate="2020-08-18T23:55:25.630" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="139" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="133" CreationDate="2012-05-02T21:01:26.357" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the area of openings, I don't think a one-player simulation will serve you as well as a good read. For a start, I would suggest the Wikibook &lt;em&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Chess_Opening_Theory&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chess Opening Theory&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt;, perhaps after reading the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Chess/Basic_Openings&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;more basic version&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, experience playing with others will strengthen your opening a good deal, once you have the principles down.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="86" LastActivityDate="2012-05-02T21:01:26.357" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="140" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="132" CreationDate="2012-05-02T21:03:03.717" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The idea of the opening moves is to allow an early development of pieces. Therefore the worst moves would be the ones that allow you the least opportunity to do so. So I would say &lt;code&gt;1. a3&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;1. h3&lt;/code&gt;, and &lt;code&gt;1. f3&lt;/code&gt; would be the worst. You not only lose the race in developing your pieces quickly (the only piece you can develop after these moves is the knight), but you also give up control on the central squares.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="118" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-10T01:22:30.213" LastActivityDate="2012-06-10T01:22:30.213" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="141" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-05-02T22:01:06.800" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Queen is the most powerful piece.  It can move either up, down, left, or right (like a &lt;a href=&quot;/questions/tagged/rook&quot; class=&quot;post-tag&quot; title=&quot;show questions tagged &amp;#39;rook&amp;#39;&quot; rel=&quot;tag&quot;&gt;rook&lt;/a&gt;), &lt;em&gt;or&lt;/em&gt; diagonally (like a &lt;a href=&quot;/questions/tagged/bishop&quot; class=&quot;post-tag&quot; title=&quot;show questions tagged &amp;#39;bishop&amp;#39;&quot; rel=&quot;tag&quot;&gt;bishop&lt;/a&gt;), in any, but only one, available direction per move, and moving along any number of unoccupied squares per move. The Queen captures (see &lt;a href=&quot;/questions/tagged/captures&quot; class=&quot;post-tag&quot; title=&quot;show questions tagged &amp;#39;captures&amp;#39;&quot; rel=&quot;tag&quot;&gt;captures&lt;/a&gt;) by moving to occupy the square of an opposing piece. In standard chess, each player begins the game with one Queen next to his King.  For White, the Queen begins the game to the left of the King, and for Black (whose setup is mirrored by White), the Queen begins to the right.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Queen has an approximate value of 9 on a scale of 1-9, where a Pawn has the value of 1, Knights and Bishops each have the value of 3, and a Rook has the value of 5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The symbol for the Queen in most notations (see &lt;a href=&quot;/questions/tagged/notation&quot; class=&quot;post-tag&quot; title=&quot;show questions tagged &amp;#39;notation&amp;#39;&quot; rel=&quot;tag&quot;&gt;notation&lt;/a&gt;) is &lt;code&gt;Q&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For more information about Queens, see the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_%28chess%29&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia article&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="86" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-06-21T17:53:02.877" LastActivityDate="2017-06-21T17:53:02.877" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="142" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-05-02T22:01:06.800" Score="0" Body="Questions relating to the Queen" OwnerUserId="86" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-05-02T22:25:22.413" LastActivityDate="2012-05-02T22:25:22.413" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="143" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-05-02T22:05:53.473" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;A Bishop is a piece in chess which can move diagonally in any, but only one, available direction per move, and moving along any number of unoccupied squares per move. The Bishop captures (see &lt;a href=&quot;/questions/tagged/captures&quot; class=&quot;post-tag&quot; title=&quot;show questions tagged &amp;#39;captures&amp;#39;&quot; rel=&quot;tag&quot;&gt;captures&lt;/a&gt;) by moving to occupy the square of an opposing piece. In standard chess, each player begins the game with two Bishops, one next to the King, and one next to the Queen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Bishop has an approximate value of 3 on a scale of 1-9, where a Pawn has the value of 1, a Knight also has the value of 3, a Rook has the value of 5, and the Queen has the value of 9.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The symbol for the Bishop in most notations (see &lt;a href=&quot;/questions/tagged/notation&quot; class=&quot;post-tag&quot; title=&quot;show questions tagged &amp;#39;notation&amp;#39;&quot; rel=&quot;tag&quot;&gt;notation&lt;/a&gt;) is &lt;code&gt;B&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For more information about Bishops, see the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bishop_%28chess%29&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia article&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="86" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-06-21T17:52:38.813" LastActivityDate="2017-06-21T17:52:38.813" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="144" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-05-02T22:05:53.473" Score="0" Body="Questions relating to the Bishop." OwnerUserId="86" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-05-02T22:25:07.780" LastActivityDate="2012-05-02T22:25:07.780" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="145" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-05-02T22:15:06.457" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;A Knight is a piece in chess which can either move two squares horizontally and one square vertically, or two squares vertically and one square horizontally. The path it delineates is often called &quot;L-shaped&quot;. In moving, it may disregard all occupants of any squares other than its destination square; it may &quot;jump over&quot; both its own and the opposing pieces. The Knight captures (see &lt;a href=&quot;/questions/tagged/captures&quot; class=&quot;post-tag&quot; title=&quot;show questions tagged &amp;#39;captures&amp;#39;&quot; rel=&quot;tag&quot;&gt;captures&lt;/a&gt;) by moving to occupy the square of an opposing piece. In standard chess, each player begins the game with two Knights, each between a Rook (at the corner) and a Bishop (next to the King or Queen).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Knight has an approximate value of 3 on a scale of 1-9, where a Pawn has the value of 1, a Bishop also has the value of 3, a Rook has the value of 5, and the Queen has the value of 9.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The symbol for the Knight in most notations (see &lt;a href=&quot;/questions/tagged/notation&quot; class=&quot;post-tag&quot; title=&quot;show questions tagged &amp;#39;notation&amp;#39;&quot; rel=&quot;tag&quot;&gt;notation&lt;/a&gt;) is &lt;code&gt;N&lt;/code&gt;, to distinguish it from the symbol for the King (&lt;code&gt;K&lt;/code&gt;).  Early notations sometimes use &lt;code&gt;Kt&lt;/code&gt; as the symbol for Knight, but usage of this symbol is obsolete.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For more information about Knights, see the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knight_%28chess%29&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia article&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="86" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-06-21T17:52:49.893" LastActivityDate="2017-06-21T17:52:49.893" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="146" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-05-02T22:15:06.457" Score="0" Body="Questions relating to the Knight" OwnerUserId="86" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-05-02T22:25:17.047" LastActivityDate="2012-05-02T22:25:17.047" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="147" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-05-02T22:32:41.443" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;A Pawn is a piece in chess which can only move one square forward per move. An exception to this is that if a Pawn has not moved since the beginning of the game, it may move either one &lt;em&gt;or&lt;/em&gt; two squares for its first move, as long as the square it crosses and the square it lands on are both unoccupied. The Pawn captures (see &lt;a href=&quot;/questions/tagged/captures&quot; class=&quot;post-tag&quot; title=&quot;show questions tagged &amp;#39;captures&amp;#39;&quot; rel=&quot;tag&quot;&gt;captures&lt;/a&gt;) by moving diagonally forward (one square only) to occupy the square of an opposing piece.  It may not capture by moving directly forward.  It is the only piece to capture in a different manner than it moves normally. In standard chess, each player begins the game with eight Pawns, all on the second rank, and filling the second rank.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Pawn has two special features: the ability to be &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Promotion_%28chess%29&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;promoted&lt;/a&gt; (see &lt;a href=&quot;/questions/tagged/pawn-promotion&quot; class=&quot;post-tag&quot; title=&quot;show questions tagged &amp;#39;pawn-promotion&amp;#39;&quot; rel=&quot;tag&quot;&gt;pawn-promotion&lt;/a&gt;), and the ability to execute an &lt;em&gt;en passant&lt;/em&gt; capture (see &lt;a href=&quot;/questions/tagged/en-passant&quot; class=&quot;post-tag&quot; title=&quot;show questions tagged &amp;#39;en-passant&amp;#39;&quot; rel=&quot;tag&quot;&gt;en-passant&lt;/a&gt;).  &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/En_passant&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia's&lt;/a&gt; description of &lt;em&gt;en passant&lt;/em&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;This arises when a pawn uses its initial-move option to advance two squares instead of one, and in so doing passes over a square that is attacked by an enemy pawn. That enemy pawn, which would have been able to capture the moving pawn had it advanced only one square, is entitled to capture the moving pawn &quot;in passing&quot; as if it had advanced only one square. The capturing pawn moves into the empty square over which the moving pawn moved, and the moving pawn is removed from the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Pawn has an approximate value of 1 on a scale of 1-9, where Knights and Bishops each have the value of 3, a Rook has the value of 5, and the Queen has the value of 9.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The symbol for the Pawn in &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Descriptive_notation&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;descriptive notation&lt;/a&gt; (see &lt;a href=&quot;/questions/tagged/notation&quot; class=&quot;post-tag&quot; title=&quot;show questions tagged &amp;#39;notation&amp;#39;&quot; rel=&quot;tag&quot;&gt;notation&lt;/a&gt;) is &lt;code&gt;P&lt;/code&gt;, but in algebraic notation, the Pawn is referred to either by the file it occupied before capturing (when capturing; e.g. &lt;code&gt;exd4&lt;/code&gt;), or by the destination square (when simply moving; e.g. &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For more information about Pawns, see the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pawn_%28chess%29&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia article&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="86" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-06-21T17:53:34.230" LastActivityDate="2017-06-21T17:53:34.230" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="148" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-05-02T22:32:41.443" Score="0" Body="Questions relating to pawns in chess" OwnerUserId="86" LastEditorUserId="3594" LastEditDate="2020-03-10T14:23:31.547" LastActivityDate="2020-03-10T14:23:31.547" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="149" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="133" CreationDate="2012-05-02T23:07:30.790" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd be careful of the word 'nonsense' since it means different things to different people.  Kasparov would consider nonsense things that you or I would consider &lt;em&gt;totally groovy&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think a player can learn the main lines of a few openings and learn the basic principles behind those moves (occupy the center, develop pieces...) in not too much time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How long before you can find the correct response to the 10th move of a sharp variation of the Ruy Lopez?  Perhaps a bit longer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2012-05-02T23:07:30.790" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="150" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="137" CreationDate="2012-05-02T23:12:39.520" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;AI has changed theory by allowing theoreticians to grind through variations tirelessly.  Due to the tactical prowess of even common computer programs it's pretty easy to ensure that variations contain no unexpected barbs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2012-05-02T23:12:39.520" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="151" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-05-02T23:51:27.507" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damiano_Defence&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Damiano Defense&lt;/a&gt; runs as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; 1.  e4    e5&#xA; 2. Nf3    f6?&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="86" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-16T01:12:35.557" LastActivityDate="2012-06-16T01:12:35.557" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="152" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-05-02T23:51:27.507" Score="0" Body="The Damiano Defense is a disreputable opening characterized by the moves 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 f6." OwnerUserId="86" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-06-14T11:02:59.580" LastActivityDate="2012-06-14T11:02:59.580" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="153" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-05-02T23:55:18.283" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2012-05-02T23:55:18.283" LastActivityDate="2012-05-02T23:55:18.283" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="154" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-05-02T23:55:18.283" Score="0" Body="Questions relating to playing chess on the internet, as opposed to over-the-board chess." OwnerUserId="86" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2019-08-14T19:14:48.493" LastActivityDate="2019-08-14T19:14:48.493" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="155" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-05-02T23:56:31.993" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2012-05-02T23:56:31.993" LastActivityDate="2012-05-02T23:56:31.993" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="156" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-05-02T23:56:31.993" Score="0" Body="Questions relating to the vertical half of the board in which the two Queens begin the game." OwnerUserId="86" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-05-03T23:05:29.857" LastActivityDate="2012-05-03T23:05:29.857" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="157" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-05-02T23:57:05.910" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2012-05-02T23:57:05.910" LastActivityDate="2012-05-02T23:57:05.910" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="158" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-05-02T23:57:05.910" Score="0" Body="Questions relating to the four files on the half of the board in which the two Kings begin the game." OwnerUserId="86" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2012-06-04T03:27:30.780" LastActivityDate="2012-06-04T03:27:30.780" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="159" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-05-02T23:58:59.370" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruy_Lopez&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Ruy Lopez&lt;/a&gt; runs as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; 1.  e4    e5&#xA; 2. Nf3   Nc6&#xA; 3. Bb5   ...&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="86" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-06-21T17:53:58.053" LastActivityDate="2017-06-21T17:53:58.053" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="160" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-05-02T23:58:59.370" Score="0" Body="The Ruy Lopez (or Spanish Game) is the chess opening which begins with the moves 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5." OwnerUserId="86" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-06-09T13:15:47.277" LastActivityDate="2012-06-09T13:15:47.277" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="161" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="133" CreationDate="2012-05-03T00:09:24.390" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;The concept that caused me to stop making nonsense moves is &lt;strong&gt;control the center&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That meant moving out the d and e pawns, possibly with the c and f pawns, either abreast, or in support. More likely, I'd move a knight to c3 or f3 (c6 or f6 if Black), then a bishop or two. Castle as soon as possible, before undertaking activities on the wings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That eliminated a lot of bad opening moves like &lt;code&gt;b3&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;g3&lt;/code&gt;, and worse, &lt;code&gt;a4&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;h4&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-12T17:29:34.227" LastActivityDate="2012-06-12T17:29:34.227" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="162" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-05-03T00:24:28.597" Score="11" ViewCount="6609" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have recently heard that the only 5% percent out of entire chess players are women. I find this suspicious. Who says that only men can play chess? Is this statistic true, and if it is, why?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="79" LastActivityDate="2020-12-15T15:38:42.253" Title="Is it true that Chess is generally more played by men?" Tags="&lt;statistics&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="164" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="162" CreationDate="2012-05-03T00:56:48.423" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't know that it's 95%, but it's close.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why aren't there more female players?  Probably a combination of things certainly including cultural gender bias.  Women can surely play the game but American culture doesn't seem to reward them for it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In about 1990, my B-player rating would have put me in the top 50 women players in the country.  A little later, the US got a lot of immigration from ex-Soviet Bloc countries.  This included a very good number of strong female players.  I can only surmise that their cultures were more supportive of the women. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Further, I feel the game was invented as a war game by men for men and as such probably has a certain character that is best appreciated by men.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Compare to Go, a game of remarkable complexity, which has a &lt;em&gt;much&lt;/em&gt; higher level of female participation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2012-05-03T01:11:26.190" LastActivityDate="2012-05-03T01:11:26.190" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="165" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="132" CreationDate="2012-05-03T01:30:56.150" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;1. h4&lt;/code&gt; has been deemed the worst move by John Watson (author of the Mastering the Chess Openings series). Other people are saying &lt;code&gt;1. h3&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;1. a3&lt;/code&gt;. That is not true. Michael Basman is a noted unorthodox player that opens with &lt;code&gt;1. a3/h3&lt;/code&gt;, etc. and is rated &gt;2400. &lt;code&gt;1. a3/h3&lt;/code&gt; come out to be useful in a variety of openings, but it's certainly not what I would start with.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="107" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-10T01:23:47.433" LastActivityDate="2012-06-10T01:23:47.433" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="166" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="175" CreationDate="2012-05-03T02:04:02.850" Score="0" ViewCount="191" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm looking for an engine that will allow a full game to be loaded in an attempt to visualize the major turning points in the game. Are there engines that predict the outcome of current matches in real-time?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-10T01:28:03.827" LastActivityDate="2012-06-10T01:28:03.827" Title="Engines that predict the outcome of current matches in real-time" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ClosedDate="2014-03-31T21:21:59.250" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="167" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-05-03T02:18:46.310" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sicilian_Defence&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Sicilian Defence&lt;/a&gt; runs as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; 1. e4  c5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="86" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-06-21T17:54:10.157" LastActivityDate="2017-06-21T17:54:10.157" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="168" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-05-03T02:18:46.310" Score="0" Body="The Sicilian Defense is the opening given by the moves 1. e4 c5, and it is one of the most popular replies to white's 1. e4." OwnerUserId="86" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-06-11T12:19:03.347" LastActivityDate="2012-06-11T12:19:03.347" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="170" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-05-03T02:21:37.977" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King%27s_Gambit&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;King's Gambit&lt;/a&gt; runs as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. e4   e5&#xA; 2. f4  ...&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This opening is much less popular today than it was in the attack-happy &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romantic_chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Romantic era&lt;/a&gt; of chess, but it still appears occasionally at the highest levels of the game. Hikaru Nakamura, for example, who is in the world's top 10 as of this writing, sometimes plays the King's Gambit against elite players, e.g. &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1650151&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Nakamura-Adams (2011)&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After Black accepts the gambit, White has two main possibilities:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Nf3&#xA;or 3. Bc4&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first option leaves the knight possible to be kicked with g7-g5-g4. Black may also have the possibility to gain active pieces with 3...d5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The second option allows Black to give a queen check on h4. However, the queen can then be attacked by the g1-f3 knight, and White can gain a big center.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black can also decline the gambit, resulting in more positional games. The main line is 2...Bc5, stopping White from castling kingside. White usually plays Nc3-a4xc5, capturing the bishop, and then castling.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="86" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-09-14T09:32:11.897" LastActivityDate="2020-09-14T09:32:11.897" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="171" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-05-03T02:21:37.977" Score="0" Body="The King's Gambit is the opening that begins with the moves 1. e4 e5 2. f4, an aggressive sacrifice less popular today than in chess' romantic attacking era." OwnerUserId="86" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-06-11T12:18:38.357" LastActivityDate="2012-06-11T12:18:38.357" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="172" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-05-03T02:34:29.583" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are six separate types of &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_piece&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chess piece&lt;/a&gt;: the Pawn (see &lt;a href=&quot;/questions/tagged/pawn&quot; class=&quot;post-tag&quot; title=&quot;show questions tagged &amp;#39;pawn&amp;#39;&quot; rel=&quot;tag&quot;&gt;pawn&lt;/a&gt;), the Knight (see &lt;a href=&quot;/questions/tagged/knight&quot; class=&quot;post-tag&quot; title=&quot;show questions tagged &amp;#39;knight&amp;#39;&quot; rel=&quot;tag&quot;&gt;knight&lt;/a&gt;), the Bishop (see &lt;a href=&quot;/questions/tagged/bishop&quot; class=&quot;post-tag&quot; title=&quot;show questions tagged &amp;#39;bishop&amp;#39;&quot; rel=&quot;tag&quot;&gt;bishop&lt;/a&gt;), the Rook (see &lt;a href=&quot;/questions/tagged/rook&quot; class=&quot;post-tag&quot; title=&quot;show questions tagged &amp;#39;rook&amp;#39;&quot; rel=&quot;tag&quot;&gt;rook&lt;/a&gt;), the Queen (see &lt;a href=&quot;/questions/tagged/queen&quot; class=&quot;post-tag&quot; title=&quot;show questions tagged &amp;#39;queen&amp;#39;&quot; rel=&quot;tag&quot;&gt;queen&lt;/a&gt;), and the King (see &lt;a href=&quot;/questions/tagged/king&quot; class=&quot;post-tag&quot; title=&quot;show questions tagged &amp;#39;king&amp;#39;&quot; rel=&quot;tag&quot;&gt;king&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are two colors of pieces: a light-colored set (termed &lt;em&gt;White&lt;/em&gt;) and an otherwise identical dark-colored set (termed &lt;em&gt;Black&lt;/em&gt;).  Each set is controlled by one player during a game.  Standard chess begins with the first two ranks of the chessboard filled with the White pieces, and the opposite two ranks filled with the Black pieces.  The White pieces are placed in the following order on the first rank, left to right: Rook, Knight, Bishop, Queen, King, Bishop, Knight, Rook.  The second rank is filled with eight pawns.  The Black setup on the other side of the board mirrors the White setup.  In this way, the two Kings are located in the same vertical half of the board (see &lt;a href=&quot;/questions/tagged/kingside&quot; class=&quot;post-tag&quot; title=&quot;show questions tagged &amp;#39;kingside&amp;#39;&quot; rel=&quot;tag&quot;&gt;kingside&lt;/a&gt;), and the Queens are located in the other half (see &lt;a href=&quot;/questions/tagged/queenside&quot; class=&quot;post-tag&quot; title=&quot;show questions tagged &amp;#39;queenside&amp;#39;&quot; rel=&quot;tag&quot;&gt;queenside&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="86" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-06-21T17:53:46.597" LastActivityDate="2017-06-21T17:53:46.597" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="173" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-05-03T02:34:29.583" Score="0" Body="Questions relating to the chess pieces in a general, abstract sense; questions about physical pieces (e.g. identification questions) should be tagged [chess-set] instead." OwnerUserId="86" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-06-04T07:44:02.910" LastActivityDate="2018-06-04T07:44:02.910" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="175" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="166" CreationDate="2012-05-03T03:17:13.880" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Any chess program (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.craftychess.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Crafty&lt;/a&gt;, for instance) will do that.  Use analysis mode.  Key in the move, and it will produce a score.  The score implies how well one side is doing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="16" LastEditDate="2012-05-03T04:23:28.260" LastActivityDate="2012-05-03T04:23:28.260" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="176" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="180" CreationDate="2012-05-03T05:31:35.773" Score="5" ViewCount="7978" Body="&lt;p&gt;How can I break the King's Indian Attack? I think my h7 square is vulnerable to attack; what is the best way to break this strategy?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="91" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-07T01:14:15.707" LastActivityDate="2020-08-07T01:14:15.707" Title="What is the best defense against the King's Indian Attack?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;kings-indian&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="178" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="191" CreationDate="2012-05-03T07:04:46.763" Score="16" ViewCount="1015" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am interested in retrograde analysis problems, where the question usually is: 'What was the last move made?' or 'Where did the piece stand on the board before it fell from the table?'  etc. Currently I know of only two occurrences of retrograde chess analysis to have found its way into fictional literature. One is Arturo Pérez-Reverte's &quot;The Flanders Panel&quot;, the other is Raymond M. Smullyan's &quot;Chess Mysteries of Sherlock Holmes&quot;. The latter is not even a real novel, but retrograde chess problems presented in story format, so I am not sure whether I should have included it in my list.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do you know of any other fictional work using retrograde chess problems as an important element?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="94" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-12-20T21:03:57.447" LastActivityDate="2017-10-14T03:11:34.507" Title="Is there fiction dealing with retrograde chess analysis?" Tags="&lt;fiction&gt;&lt;retrograde-analysis&gt;&lt;studies&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="179" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21" CreationDate="2012-05-03T09:03:34.867" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;As others pointed out bringing the queen into play early is a double edged sword. That said, there are several main lines doing this. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Scandinavian was already mentioned. Then we have one Ponziani main line (although often the arguably weaker &lt;code&gt;3... Nf6&lt;/code&gt; is played): &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. c3 d5 (3... Nf6) 4. Qa4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you like to play aggressive, the Steinitz variation in the Scotch might be for you: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 exd4 4. Nxd4 Qh4 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However be aware that you have a hard time if white doesn't cling to the pawn but attacks your weak spot c7 with the knight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are plenty of other choices (e.g. the Middle Gambit).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="35" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2013-01-18T22:10:32.057" LastActivityDate="2013-01-18T22:10:32.057" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="180" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="176" CreationDate="2012-05-03T11:48:39.247" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;I doubt that the King's Indian Attack can be 'broken'.  It's a very solid position that White takes the time to setup, if Black is not careful, White may be able to gain space on the kingside, with moves such as e5, and develop dangerous attacks if Black has castled there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for h7 being weak, many things need to happen from Black in order for this to be realized (such as a semi-open h-file, Bg7 has been exchanged, in which case it is h6 that is weaker), so there may not be anything there worth exploring.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can't comment on what the 'best' defense would be, but there are many good ones, one such is the Botvinnik System.  Black makes use of the extra available tempi to set up a strong and flexible defense.  The typical structure would be pawns at c5, e5, d6, g6 and pieces at Nc6, Nge7, Bg7 and 0-0.  Black has a firm control over the d4 square and can potentially break with either &lt;code&gt;...b5&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;...f5&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="103" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T15:44:49.717" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T15:44:49.717" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="181" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="186" CreationDate="2012-05-03T11:50:51.453" Score="34" ViewCount="35866" Body="&lt;p&gt;Especially in blitz or bullet games, it is possible that a player makes an illegal move, for example castles through check. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If the opponent does notice the illegal move, then as far as I know the first player is obliged to make a legal move with the same piece, if one exists. What if there are no legal moves? &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;What if the opponent, being in time pressure, doesn't notice the illegal move and makes a move. What happens after they realize that? Does the person who made the illegal move forfeit? Or is the whole game cancelled?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there any standard rules for these kinds of situations?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="106" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-10T01:35:29.637" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T15:43:31.510" Title="I made an illegal move. What happens?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;illegal-move&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="182" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="183" CreationDate="2012-05-03T11:56:00.027" Score="19" ViewCount="1457" Body="&lt;p&gt;The reason for the 50-move rule, along with the triple-repetition rule is to make chess definitely finite. How did one arrive at the number 50? What would change if it was 40 or 60? Is the number 50 chosen carefully?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="106" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-03-12T18:28:59.330" LastActivityDate="2020-03-12T18:28:59.330" Title="Why was 50 chosen for the 50-move rule?" Tags="&lt;history&gt;&lt;50-move-rule&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="183" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="182" CreationDate="2012-05-03T12:33:34.037" Score="16" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;At one time, it was believed that all winnable endgames could be won&#xA;  within fifty moves. However, in the early twentieth century, some&#xA;  exceptions were found, including A. A. Troitsky's (1866-1942) analysis&#xA;  of the two knights endgame as well as the endgame of a rook and bishop&#xA;  versus a rook. The rules of chess were revised several times to admit&#xA;  exceptions to the fifty-move rule for certain specific situations.&#xA;  Early on, the fifty-move rule applied to tournament games but not to&#xA;  match games (Troitzky 2006:197).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;SOURCE: &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifty-move_rule&quot;&gt;Fifty-move rule&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastActivityDate="2012-05-03T12:33:34.037" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="186" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="181" CreationDate="2012-05-03T13:23:55.643" Score="34" Body="&lt;p&gt;This only really applies to over the board games (since online chess servers prevent illegal moves).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In a &lt;strong&gt;standard time control game, under USCF rules&lt;/strong&gt;, when the illegal move is noticed by one of the players, a few things happen.  First, the illegal move must have been made within the last 10 moves.  If not, then the current position stands, and play continues.  Assuming that the move is recent, the position is restored to the position immediately before the illegal move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then, the player that made the illegal move now must make a legal move with the same piece (if one exists).  If there are no legal moves, then the player is free to make any move.  This is due to the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Touch-move_rule&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;touch move rule&lt;/a&gt;.  Finally, if the offending player has pressed the clock, a two minute &amp;quot;bonus&amp;quot; is added to the opponent's clock to compensate them for any time lost and to penalize the offending player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is the relevant passage from the USCF rulebook:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;11A. Illegal move during last ten moves.&lt;/strong&gt; If, during a game, it is found that one of either player's last ten moves was illegal, the position shall be reinstated to what it was before the illegal move. The game shall then continue by applying Rule 10, The Touched Piece, to the move replacing the illegal move. If the position cannot be reinstated, then the illegal move shall stand. Move counters on clocks that have them may by readjusted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;11D. Illegal move.&lt;/strong&gt; If, a player completes an illegal move by pressing the clock, in addition to the usual obligation to make a legal move with the touched piece if possible, the standard penalty specified in rule 1C2a applies (i.e. two minutes added to the opponent's clock).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In &lt;strong&gt;blitz chess&lt;/strong&gt;, the rules are different.  According to the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_chess&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;WBCA&lt;/a&gt; (World Blitz Chess Association) rules, a player who makes an illegal move loses the game instantly.  This rule is frequently enforced in casual games too.  The most common way that this occurs is that one player doesn't notice that they are in check and makes a move that doesn't get out of check.  Then the checking player simply captures the king and claims a victory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because blitz is a much faster pace game, the illegal move must be noticed within two moves.  If it is not, then the current position stands and play continues.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At no point is the game cancelled due to an illegal move.  Pretty much once a game starts and both players make a move, a result of win, loss, or draw will be recorded.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T15:43:31.510" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="187" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="181" CreationDate="2012-05-03T13:30:21.890" Score="12" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A player who makes an illegal move must retract that move and make a&#xA;  legal move. That move must be made with the same piece if possible,&#xA;  because the touch-move rule applies. If the illegal move was an&#xA;  attempt to castle, the touch-move rule applies to the king but not to&#xA;  the rook. The arbiter should adjust the time on the clock according to&#xA;  the best evidence. If the mistake is only noticed later on, the game&#xA;  should be restarted from the position in which the error occurred&#xA;  (Schiller 2003:24–25). Some regional organizations have different&#xA;  rules.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If blitz chess is being played (in which both players have a small,&#xA;  limited time, e.g. five minutes) the rule varies. A player may correct&#xA;  an illegal move if the player has not pressed their clock. If a player&#xA;  has pressed their clock, the opponent may claim a win if he or she&#xA;  hasn't moved. If the opponent moves, the illegal move is accepted and&#xA;  without penalty (Schiller 2003:77).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;SOURCE:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rules_of_chess#Illegal_move&quot;&gt;Rules of Chess, Illegal move&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastActivityDate="2012-05-03T13:30:21.890" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="188" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="192" CreationDate="2012-05-03T13:40:11.420" Score="66" ViewCount="21062" Body="&lt;p&gt;What techniques do you use to analyze your games or other people's games?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How much time do you spend on analyzing the game?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there any tools (electronic or manual, such as a piece of paper) you use during analysis?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-03-06T08:16:31.287" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T15:40:39.237" Title="How do I analyze my game after playing?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;best-practice&gt;" AnswerCount="12" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="44" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="189" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="190" CreationDate="2012-05-03T13:55:28.973" Score="18" ViewCount="10628" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm wondering if there's any way to get an approximation of my FIDE rating by using one of my online ratings, say ICC or chess.com rating? If not, is there, at least, a correlation between how well you rank on those sites and your eventual FIDE rank?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18" LastEditorUserId="16057" LastEditDate="2018-05-17T06:29:38.557" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T15:38:49.997" Title="What's the correlation between FIDE rating and online rating?" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;fide&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="190" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="189" CreationDate="2012-05-03T14:07:52.683" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;I asked this on ICC once and was directed to the following link:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessclub.com/help/ratings&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chessclub.com/help/ratings&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;IMHO, I don't think there is a fail-safe way to approximate a FIDE rating based on online ratings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T15:38:49.997" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T15:38:49.997" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="191" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="178" CreationDate="2012-05-03T14:33:11.510" Score="20" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's also &lt;em&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://moonlightstories.magick7.com/2/3607.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;A Happy Solution&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt; by Raymond Allen.  It's a short story (under 6000 words), but quaint. It appeared in &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Strand_Magazine&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;The Strand Magazine&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt; in 1916.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The puzzle featured in Allen's tale was posted &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/forum/view/more-puzzles/an-old-puzzle2&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; in Chess.com's forums:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;2BK3N/NP1P1PPb/P4P2/3p1q2/1Q1P1b2/1pB1p1p1/p1p2pp1/1kr4r w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While Chess.com's puzzle is set up for Black to force mate, it is also the board that Kenneth Dale did a retrograde analysis on.  The game was between Sir James Winslay and Lord Churt.  When a banknote was found to have been pilfered, Churt's secretary Gornay was remembered to have been watching the game, but no one could vouch for how long.  Gornay's innocence appeared inviolate, as he was also remembered to have made several remarks on some of the past moves of the game at its conclusion:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;If the play was rather eccentric sometimes, I must say it was bold and dashing enough on both sides,&amp;quot; Gornay commented. &amp;quot;For instance, when Lord Churt gave up his knight for nothing, and when you gave him the choice of taking your queen with either of two pawns at your queen's knight's sixth.&amp;quot; He turned to Churt. &amp;quot;Possibly you might have done better to take the queen with the bishop's pawn instead of with the rook's.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After this, the missing note was found in the wrong envelope, and Dale suspected that Gornay may have been the one who had moved the note, in order to frame Dale in case of the note's being found.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Was he in the library all the time you were playing?&amp;quot; Kenneth asked.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;I can't say that,&amp;quot; Churt replied. &amp;quot;I don't think he was. I didn't notice particularly. But I am positive that he did not enter or leave the room while I was standing looking at Winslade's move, and he must have been there when Winslade offered his queen and when I took it, because he was commenting on those very moves after the game was finished, and suggesting that I might have done better to take with the other pawn. You heard him yourself.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Dale later proved that Gornay could have figured out those previous moves simply by looking at the resigned game, and therefore had been free to leave the room and do his dirty work while the game was still underway.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="86" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2012-11-19T20:04:44.100" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="192" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="188" CreationDate="2012-05-03T14:41:45.873" Score="55" Body="&lt;p&gt;Analyzing your own games is the best and fastest way to improve in my opinion.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As soon as possible after the game, write down the variations that you were thinking about during the game, especially the ones that were not played.  This will be useful when you come back to the game after days, months, or even years.  As you improve, it will be helpful to see what you were thinking during the game.  That way, you can pinpoint how you can improve your thought process in future games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you start analyzing, use a chess board, but don't use an engine at first.  Look for moves where you made a mistake or missed something important.  If you lost material, go back and find the moment where you blundered.  If you got into a bad position, try to identify the moves that led to that position and evaluate some alternatives.  Put everything you come up with into your chess program/database (you &lt;em&gt;are&lt;/em&gt; using some kind of a database, right?).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After you've gone over the game &quot;by hand&quot; (this should take at least half an hour for a slow game, even more time if it was a complicated position), now it's time to use a chess engine.  Go through all of the moves and take note of where the engine says that you either made a poor move or missed an opportunity for a better move.  Again, add variations to your database.  If it's not clear why something that the engine suggests is good, investigate it further.  Try out some lines and see what the engine says.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At this point, you have an awful lot of moves in front of you.  Now it's time to try to take away some lessons from the game.  Go back through the game again and decide what specific thing you could have done better.  Did you make a very poor positional move?  Did you blunder material?  Did you neglect development?  Did you put a piece on a bad square?  Asking questions like this will help you in future games during the game.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The last thing that you can do is to ask a stronger player for help.  Bring all of the information you have to the stronger player and then go through the game once more.  The stronger player can give you suggestions for how to think in certain positions.  Basically, a chess engine can tell you &lt;em&gt;what&lt;/em&gt; the right move is, but a stronger player is often needed to tell you &lt;em&gt;why&lt;/em&gt; a move is correct.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should try to develop your own analysis style as well.  If you are a strong tactical player, try to go through the game without making moves on the board, just analyze in your head.  If you are good at endgames, switch colors and analyze where your opponent went astray in the endgame.  Hopefully analyzing games is fun and not a chore!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Additional thoughts&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I didn't mention studying the opening moves because that is &lt;em&gt;less&lt;/em&gt; important than finding the specific points in the game where you made a mistake.  After you have looked at the game as a whole, studying the opening can often help you as well.  The best way to do this is to look for grandmaster games in the same opening that was played.  Find out what moves are commonly played, and then go through some games of stronger players in order to find good, general plans for the opening.  Try to see where you varied from these plans and determine &lt;em&gt;why&lt;/em&gt; you didn't do what the stronger player did.  This is much more important than memorizing moves (although you will probably find that you've memorized many variations just as a matter of course!).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12" LastEditorUserId="12" LastEditDate="2012-05-03T14:49:09.047" LastActivityDate="2012-05-03T14:49:09.047" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="194" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-05-03T15:00:44.863" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifty-move_rule&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;fifty-move rule&lt;/a&gt; in chess states that after fifty consecutive moves by each player which do not include a pawn move or a capture, the game may be drawn by either player on his turn (see &lt;a href=&quot;/questions/tagged/draw&quot; class=&quot;post-tag&quot; title=&quot;show questions tagged &amp;#39;draw&amp;#39;&quot; rel=&quot;tag&quot;&gt;draw&lt;/a&gt;).  The draw is not automatically declared.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="86" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-06-21T17:53:23.690" LastActivityDate="2017-06-21T17:53:23.690" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="195" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-05-03T15:00:44.863" Score="0" Body="Questions about the fifty-move rule" OwnerUserId="86" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-05-03T23:01:23.717" LastActivityDate="2012-05-03T23:01:23.717" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="196" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-05-03T15:05:24.373" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The term &lt;em&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacrifice_%28chess%29&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;sacrifice&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt; refers to one player voluntarily allowing the other to capture one or more pieces, either without material return or with less material return.  A sacrifice is usually only played when it results in an attack on the opposing king or some significant positional advantage for the one who plays it. One classic source is Rudolf Spielmann's &lt;a href=&quot;http://store.doverpublications.com/0486284492.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;The Art of Sacrifice in Chess&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt;, and a more recent work focusing on the positional side of things is Neil McDonald's &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1857441109&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Positional Sacrifices&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="86" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-06-22T08:55:57.210" LastActivityDate="2017-06-22T08:55:57.210" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="197" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-05-03T15:05:24.373" Score="0" Body="Question relating to sacrificing material in chess" OwnerUserId="86" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-05-03T23:05:43.710" LastActivityDate="2012-05-03T23:05:43.710" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="198" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-05-03T15:12:50.590" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; (pronounced /ˈfiːdeɪ/ - FEE-day) stands for &lt;em&gt;Fédération Internationale des Échecs&lt;/em&gt; (World Chess Federation).  Founded in 1924, it currently acts as the international governing body of chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For more information, visit the FIDE website (linked above) or this &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIDE&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia article&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="86" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-06-21T19:09:32.687" LastActivityDate="2017-06-21T19:09:32.687" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="199" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-05-03T15:12:50.590" Score="0" Body="Questions about FIDE, the international governing body of chess." OwnerUserId="86" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-06-09T13:16:32.050" LastActivityDate="2012-06-09T13:16:32.050" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="200" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="204" CreationDate="2012-05-03T18:38:57.167" Score="8" ViewCount="1286" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was looking at ways to improve my game by making it more sharp and be able to attack the kingside as quickly as possible, and I found a move that looks interesting called the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Prix_Attack#Grand_Prix_Attack&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Grand Prix Attack&lt;/a&gt; in Sicilian.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From what I've seen it looks something like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. f4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I wanted to get some feedback of people who actually used it, to me it seems the Black can easily get around it by playing &lt;code&gt;...e6&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;...d5&lt;/code&gt;, right?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any thoughts?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="27" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T17:53:23.823" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T17:53:23.823" Title="What are some of the main ideas in the Grand Prix attack?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="202" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="86" CreationDate="2012-05-03T19:39:18.153" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;Those two games are indeed early forms of chess. The pieces were similar, although their moves were different, and there were some chess rules that had not yet been invented; however, chess evolved from those early games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="47" LastActivityDate="2012-05-03T19:39:18.153" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="203" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="84" CreationDate="2012-05-03T19:42:29.490" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are ways to hold onto the pawn, but most of them leave Black with a dreadful position where his entire position is built around hanging onto the pawn.  Moves like &lt;code&gt;Be6&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;c6&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;b5&lt;/code&gt;, and &lt;code&gt;Qa5&lt;/code&gt; are examples of strategies that could be employed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the Slav and Semi-Slav defenses, there are in fact a lot of variations in which black is able to comfortably (somewhat) hold onto the pawn.  I would check those out if I were you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="47" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-09T21:30:51.813" LastActivityDate="2012-06-09T21:30:51.813" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="204" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="200" CreationDate="2012-05-03T19:43:46.823" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;You are correct in that Black's goal is to play &lt;code&gt;...e6&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;...d5&lt;/code&gt;, especially if White has played &lt;code&gt;Bc4&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some players will only play into the Grand Prix if Black has committed to an early &lt;code&gt;...d6&lt;/code&gt;, in that case, Black loses a tempo if he then plays for &lt;code&gt;...e6&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;...d5&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="103" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-10T01:41:03.403" LastActivityDate="2012-06-10T01:41:03.403" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="205" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="200" CreationDate="2012-05-03T19:46:04.697" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The point of the Grand Prix attack is that white either attacks the kingside with &lt;code&gt;f5&lt;/code&gt; or cramps black in the center with &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt;.  There are a lot of dangerous lines, but it is true that it's generally not played very often today.  In particular, the Tal Gambit has come to defuse it, leading many white players to start with &lt;code&gt;2. Nc3&lt;/code&gt; followed by &lt;code&gt;3. f4&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="47" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-10T01:41:43.823" LastActivityDate="2012-06-10T01:41:43.823" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="206" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="796" CreationDate="2012-05-03T19:53:51.050" Score="18" ViewCount="1328" Body="&lt;p&gt;I always thought it was interesting that chess players had openings named after them.  The game of chess has only been popular and organized for about 150 years, yet all the most popular openings and most of their sub-variations have already been named, many after players from the 19th or early 20th centuries.  In five hundred years, will all these basic openings still be named after Morphy, Steinitz, Capablanca, and Lasker?  But I digress.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which player has had the most openings or opening variations named after him?  My guesses would be Botvinnik or Aljechin (Alekhine).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="47" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T15:37:37.497" LastActivityDate="2020-12-26T10:30:44.673" Title="Which chess player has the most openings named after him?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;world-championship&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="207" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-05-03T20:00:56.613" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The world champions of chess are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Wilhelm Steinitz (1886-1894)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Emanuel Lasker (1894 - 1921)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;José Raúl Capablanca (1921 - 1927)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Alexander Alekhine (1927 - 1935, 1937 - 1946)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Max Euwe (1935 - 1937)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Mikhail Botvinnik (1948 - 1957, 1958 - 1960, 1961 - 1963)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Vassily Smyslov (1957 - 1958)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Mikhail Tal (1960 - 1961)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Tigran Petrosian (1963 - 1969)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Boris Spassky (1969 - 1972)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Bobby Fischer (1972 - 1975)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Anatoly Karpov (1975 - 1985)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Garry Kasparov (1985 - 1993)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In 1993, the title was split between FIDE and PCA.  The FIDE world champions were:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Anatoly Karpov (1993 - 1999)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Alexander Khalifman (1999 - 2000)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Viswanathan Anand (2000 - 2002)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Ruslan Ponomariov (2002 - 2004)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Rustam Kasimdzhanov (2004 - 2005)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Veselin Topalov (2005 - 2006)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Meanwhile, the PCA world champions were:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Garry Kasparov (1993 - 2000)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Vladimir Kramnik (2000 - 2006)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In 2006, the title was reunited with a match between Topalov and Kramnik, which was won by Kramnik.  Subsequently, the world champions were:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Vladimir Kramnik (2006 - 2007)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Viswanathan Anand (2007 - present)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="47" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-16T01:10:02.720" LastActivityDate="2012-06-16T01:10:02.720" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="208" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-05-03T20:00:56.613" Score="0" Body="Questions pertaining to the world champions of chess, as recognized by FIDE or the PCA, and/or discussion of earlier players who may have had rightful claim to the title." OwnerUserId="47" LastEditorUserId="111" LastEditDate="2012-05-03T23:06:49.497" LastActivityDate="2012-05-03T23:06:49.497" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="209" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="215" CreationDate="2012-05-03T20:02:28.857" Score="9" ViewCount="389" Body="&lt;p&gt;Based solely on chess exploits (not including success in other career fields), which player has been the most financially successful?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="47" LastActivityDate="2012-05-03T21:42:36.203" Title="Which chess player has been the most financially successful?" Tags="&lt;famous-players&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="210" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="258" CreationDate="2012-05-03T20:04:27.590" Score="19" ViewCount="3162" Body="&lt;p&gt;Computer chess has exploded in the last twenty years, with a computer world championship being established and many chess computer designers becoming quite profitable from their endeavors.  Some of the programs hide their source code, but a great many are open source, most notably Fruit, which served as the basis for a family of chess engines.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are some examples of heuristics or algorithms used by chess computers, and which have been most successful or are most popular?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="47" LastEditorDisplayName="user127" LastEditDate="2012-05-04T15:08:49.340" LastActivityDate="2012-05-04T15:16:54.183" Title="What algorithms and heuristics are popular in computer chess?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;chess-algorithms&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="211" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="75" CreationDate="2012-05-03T20:07:03.577" Score="29" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is difficult to force an aggressive position in any opening.  Even in the King's Gambit, Black can simply play &lt;code&gt;2...d6 or Bc5&lt;/code&gt; to reach a more positional type of position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With that said, some popular openings traditionally thought to be more aggressive include the Sicilian Defence, the Dutch Defence, the Albin Counter-Gambit, the Benko Gambit, the King's Indian Defense, the Blackmar-Diemer Gambit, and an array of gambits on &lt;code&gt;1. e4&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="47" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-08-17T00:47:32.803" LastActivityDate="2020-08-17T00:47:32.803" CommentCount="0" CommunityOwnedDate="2013-08-09T01:11:05.007" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="212" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="206" CreationDate="2012-05-03T20:07:41.397" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Using &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_chess_openings_named_after_people&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt; as a guide, I can see that Frank Marshall, Carl Schlecter and Akiba Rubinstein have about 5 opening variations named after them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="103" LastEditorUserId="103" LastEditDate="2012-05-03T20:35:20.330" LastActivityDate="2012-05-03T20:35:20.330" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="213" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="206" CreationDate="2012-05-03T20:45:23.017" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;Off the top of my head, there are a few players with multiple openings named after them:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siegbert_Tarrasch&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Tarrasch&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Tarrasch Variation against the French Defense&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Tarrasch Opening against &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt; (with &lt;code&gt;...d5&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;...c5&lt;/code&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the Open Variation in the Ruy Lopez is technically the Tarrasch&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Marshall_(chess_player)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Marshall&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Marshall Gambit in the Slav&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Marshall Gambit in the Ruy Lopez&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Marshall Defense against the Queen's Gambit (&lt;code&gt;1. d4 d5 2. c4 Nf6?!&lt;/code&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Marshall Variation against the Sicilian (&lt;code&gt;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 e6 3. d4 d5&lt;/code&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akiba_Rubinstein&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Rubinstein&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Rubinstein Variation against the French (&lt;code&gt;...dxe4&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;Nxe4&lt;/code&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Rubinstein Variation against the Budapest (&lt;code&gt;1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e5 3. dxe4 Ng4 4. Bf4&lt;/code&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Rubinstein Variation against the Nimzo-Indian (white plays &lt;code&gt;e3&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;Nf3&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;Bd3&lt;/code&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Rubinstein Variation in the Four Knights&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Rubinstein Variation in the English (&lt;code&gt;1. c4 c5 2. Nc3 Nf6 3. g3 d5 4. cxd5 Nxd5 5. Bg2 Nc7&lt;/code&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_Steinitz&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Steinitz&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Steinitz Defense against the Ruy Lopez (early &lt;code&gt;d6&lt;/code&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Steinitz Variation in the Petroff Defense (&lt;code&gt;3. d4&lt;/code&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the closed Sicilian is also called the Steinitz Variation&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Steinitz Gambit is &lt;code&gt;1. e4 e5 2. Nc3 Nc6 3. f4&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12" LastEditorUserId="10867" LastEditDate="2016-12-20T12:54:19.083" LastActivityDate="2016-12-20T12:54:19.083" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="214" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="76" CreationDate="2012-05-03T21:14:29.300" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Wikipedia has a pretty &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_variant&quot;&gt;complete listing of chess variants&lt;/a&gt; broken down by:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_variant#Chess_with_different_starting_positions&quot;&gt;Chess with different starting positions&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_variant#Chess_with_different_forces&quot;&gt;Chess with different forces&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_variant#Chess_with_different_boards&quot;&gt;Chess with different boards&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_variant#Chess_with_unusual_rules&quot;&gt;Chess with unusual rules&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_variant#Chess_with_incomplete_information_or_elements_of_chance&quot;&gt;Chess with incomplete information or elements of chance&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_variant#Multimove_variants&quot;&gt;Multimove variants&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_variant#Multiplayer_variants&quot;&gt;Multiplayer variants&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_variant#Single_player_variants&quot;&gt;Single player variants&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_variant#Chess_with_unusual_.28fairy.29_pieces&quot;&gt;Chess with unusual (fairy) pieces&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_variant#Chess_hybrids&quot;&gt;Chess hybrids&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_variant#Games_inspired_by_chess&quot;&gt;Games inspired by chess&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastActivityDate="2012-05-03T21:14:29.300" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="215" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="209" CreationDate="2012-05-03T21:20:51.287" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess playing has never been a very lucrative occupation.  The most money earned in the field of chess probably comes from prizes, and the big prizes are only awarded to the top players.  I don't have a definite source, but I would say that &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viswanathan_Anand&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Viswanathan Anand&lt;/a&gt; is probably the most financially successful, since the prizes have only increased since he began his reign as undisputed world chess champion in 2007.  The prize is generally split in half, or 60-40 between winner-loser, or in similar fashion. The prize for &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Chess_Championship_2012&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this year's tournament&lt;/a&gt; will be $2.55 million, split between Anand and &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Gelfand&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Gelfand&lt;/a&gt;.  For &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Chess_Championship_2010&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;2010&lt;/a&gt;, the prize was 2 million euros, 60% of which went to Anand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="86" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-05-03T21:42:36.203" LastActivityDate="2012-05-03T21:42:36.203" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="216" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="220" CreationDate="2012-05-03T22:05:26.943" Score="14" ViewCount="765" Body="&lt;p&gt;Over the past few years of tournament play, I've seen three games where the delay was not enabled on a digital clock.  In all of these cases, the clock was a Chronos set to display HH:MM until the last 10 minutes, when it would change to MM:SS.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In one game without the delay, I was playing white in a G/105 tournament.  I ran my time down from ~12 minutes to ~6 minutes, and my opponent had ~9 minutes.  On my next move, I noticed that the clock started right away and pointed it out to my opponent (we are actually the two TD's for the club, so we didn't really have anyone else to make the decision).  We agreed to turn on the delay at that point.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now according to a strict interpretation of the rules, we're stuck without the delay because that's how we started the game.  I usually make sure that the delay is set in the first few moves, but I just didn't notice that the clock moved right from 105 to 104 when he started it at the beginning of the game instead of waiting 5 seconds.  So after that, the only time I could discover the oversight was when we got below 10 minutes. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a reasonable way to deal with this? Am I just out of luck if my opponent tries to pull a fast one in the future? Theoretically he could be penalized for unsportsmanlike behavior, but that seems extreme if it really was just an honest mistake.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12" LastActivityDate="2017-04-05T21:35:38.313" Title="Delay clock with delay not set" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;uscf&gt;&lt;chess-clocks&gt;&lt;tournament-directors&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="218" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="296" CreationDate="2012-05-04T01:38:06.527" Score="9" ViewCount="2521" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've stumbled upon this opening a few times, and I'm pretty sure it must be known, but I couldn't find the name of it in my book:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 &#xA;2. Nf3 Nc6 &#xA;3. d4 ...&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is someone familiar with that opening? If this is a common opening, I'd appreciate if you could point me to its pros/cons.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not a pro and still learning chess gradually. Is this an opening in which I should consider progressing?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="27" LastEditorUserId="780" LastEditDate="2012-12-17T23:02:20.887" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T15:33:57.507" Title="Does this opening have a name? 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;scotch-game&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="219" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="218" CreationDate="2012-05-04T01:44:42.307" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;That'd be a &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scotch_Game&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Scotch Game&lt;/a&gt;; the (linked) Wikipedia article has plenty of information about its strengths and weaknesses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My personal expertise doesn't extend to this opening, so perhaps a more expert player would like to chip in - until then, at least you know the name of the opening!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T15:33:57.507" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T15:33:57.507" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="220" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="216" CreationDate="2012-05-04T02:02:07.157" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is an &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesscafe.com/text/geurt117.pdf&quot;&gt;article&lt;/a&gt; by Geurt Gijssen on Chess Cafe (4th question asked) that touches on the event that the clock's initial time control being incorrectly configured, but only noticed much later in the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He quotes the FIDE rules:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The Laws of Chess cannot cover all possible situations that may arise during a game, nor can they&#xA;  regulate all administrative questions. Where cases are not precisely regulated by an Article of the&#xA;  Laws, it should be possible to reach a correct decision by studying analogous situations, which are&#xA;  discussed in the Laws. The Laws assume that arbiters have the necessary competence, sound judgement&#xA;  and absolute objectivity. Too detailed a rule might deprive the arbiter of his freedom of judgement and&#xA;  thus prevent him from finding the solution to a problem dictated by fairness, logic and special factors.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Geurt responds:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I especially like the last part of the last sentence: a solution should be “dictated by fairness, logic and special&#xA;  factors.” With this in mind, I think it is quite unfair to change the time modus at the moment a player only has&#xA;  one second on his clock in such a way that he only has this one second left. Therefore, I see two possible&#xA;  solutions: Change the time mode after the first period; Change the time mode at the moment of the claim, but the player should be given a reasonable amount&#xA;  of time (at least one minute) for the remaining moves.  I prefer the second option.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your situation, it sounds like a reasonable action to stop the clock and set the delay correctly.  As for other cases, it looks like it lies to the TD to determine a fair trade-off.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="103" LastActivityDate="2012-05-04T02:02:07.157" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="221" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-05-04T02:16:53.717" Score="15" ViewCount="12536" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is evident that bullet chess has a different set of strategies from regular chess. It follows, therefore, that certain openings will be better or worse relative to their normal chess counterparts.  Hikaru Nakamura covers some examples in his book &quot;One Minute to Mate&quot;, but the coverage is very light.  What are some good bullet chess openings that are particularly strong due to the nature of bullet chess?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="47" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-12T00:20:53.563" LastActivityDate="2020-03-04T20:03:39.373" Title="What are good openings for bullet chess?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;bullet-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="222" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="283" CreationDate="2012-05-04T02:19:07.037" Score="27" ViewCount="1676" Body="&lt;p&gt;What openings are particularly typical of 21st century chess so far?  To be more clear, which openings are particularly popular in the 21st century relative to the 20th century?  For example, certain hypermodern defenses became a lot more popular in the latter half of the 20th century relative to the first half of the 20th century.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="47" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-08-07T00:11:45.947" LastActivityDate="2012-08-07T13:49:57.693" Title="What openings typify 21st century chess?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;history&gt;&lt;statistics&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="223" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="221" CreationDate="2012-05-04T02:40:02.787" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;The best bullet players can and do play standard openings.  The openings are theory because they &lt;em&gt;are&lt;/em&gt; the best moves.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to play something different, there are a few justifications.  If you play certain moves all the time, you can often make the moves faster and gain time on the clock.  Similarly, if you play something off-beat, you will most likely know some plans from the position and often have a better understanding than your opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With that lead in, one of the simplest openings to play is to fianchetto both bishops, play &lt;code&gt;e3&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;d3&lt;/code&gt;, and bring the knights to d2 and e2 (not necessarily in that order).  There is very little going on in the first 8 moves, so you won't have to look hard for tactics.  The downside is that you give your opponent a large space advantage.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The main plans of this opening are to develop all of your minor pieces and then decide to play either &lt;code&gt;c4&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;f4&lt;/code&gt; depending on how your opponent has deployed his or her forces.  You can castle (usually kingside) and then just play chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Personally, I have always had better success in online chess (especially bullet) playing standard openings.  Play openings that you are comfortable with, and you will be able to take advantage of your whole sum of chess knowledge, as opposed to just utilizing bullet &quot;tricks&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;sub&gt;While it is beyond the scope of this question, one of the best ways to improve at bullet is to work on playing better and faster when both players have 10 seconds.  Most games are won or lost in this time frame.&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-12T00:20:37.013" LastActivityDate="2012-06-12T00:20:37.013" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="224" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-05-04T03:15:31.703" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.uschess.org&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;United States Chess Federation&lt;/a&gt; (USCF) is the governing organization for US over-the-board chess. The USCF is a non-profit organization that maintains the national rating system for chess players. It also runs (or sanctions) national championships every year; more information about these events is available on &lt;a href=&quot;http://main.uschess.org/content/view/10014/624/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;their website&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Use the USCF tag for questions about this national organization, national events sanctioned by it, or rules specific to the USCF - especially those where USCF rules might differ from FIDE rules.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-08-04T23:43:30.603" LastActivityDate="2012-08-04T23:43:30.603" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="225" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-05-04T03:15:31.703" Score="0" Body="Questions about the United States Chess Federation.  The non-profit governing organization for US over-the-board chess." OwnerUserId="12" LastEditorUserId="12" LastEditDate="2012-05-07T16:56:15.490" LastActivityDate="2012-05-07T16:56:15.490" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="226" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="228" CreationDate="2012-05-04T04:36:53.973" Score="33" ViewCount="14044" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Ruy Lopez opening is characterized by the moves:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5&#xA;2. Nf3 Nc6&#xA;3. Bb5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why is this opening so popular? It does not appear to be particularly special/unique for white or black, so why is it a popular opening?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24" LastEditorUserId="672" LastEditDate="2012-12-14T05:43:07.340" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T17:46:00.137" Title="Why is the Ruy Lopez such a common opening?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;ruy-lopez&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="227" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="230" CreationDate="2012-05-04T04:41:25.230" Score="12" ViewCount="3368" Body="&lt;p&gt;It seems as though White can easily dominate the tempo in a blitz game through a strong, aggressive opening. Is this the case? What openings are strong for White when there is a short time limit (e.g., in blitz)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-03-03T20:02:41.380" LastActivityDate="2021-01-09T09:48:26.643" Title="What are good openings for White during a blitz game?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;blitz&gt;&lt;online&gt;&lt;online-blitz&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="228" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="226" CreationDate="2012-05-04T04:45:46.903" Score="34" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Ruy Lopez is pretty much the epitome of opening principles.  White opens with the king pawn to claim the center, and black counters in the same way.  Then white develops a knight (knights before bishops!) to attack black's pawn.  Black defends the pawn with a knight.  Finally, white develops a bishop to b5 where it works in harmony with the knight to attack e5.  White prepares to castle at the same time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So looking at the Ruy Lopez from that perspective, any other moves would violate some opening principle.  Obviously there are plenty of openings that are played, but the Spanish Game is one of the oldest and one of the best.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12" LastActivityDate="2012-05-04T04:45:46.903" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="229" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-05-04T06:32:40.617" Score="18" ViewCount="2314" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm a casual, semi-serious chess player and have been an active player for over 10 years. In my time playing, one of the most unusual openings I have had the pleasure of playing against is known as Alekhine's Defense:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 Nf6 2.e5 Nd5 3.d4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the above line I gave the usual move &lt;code&gt;3.d4&lt;/code&gt;. This seems like a very good position for white, and an underdeveloped position for black. I am, however, more interested in the less common variation &lt;code&gt;3. c4&lt;/code&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 Nf6 2.e5 Nd5 3.c4 Nb6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which is my usual line of play. From my perspective, the aggressive &lt;code&gt;3.c4&lt;/code&gt; seems like a better move, buying a pawn development move with a tempo (the pawn at c4 is defended by the white bishop after the response &lt;code&gt;4...Nb6&lt;/code&gt;.) In fact, there are over &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/explorer?node=737798&amp;amp;move=4&amp;amp;moves=e4.Nf6.e5.Nd5.c4.Nb6&amp;amp;nodes=21720.24911.737749.737750.737797.737798&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;300 tournament&lt;/a&gt; games along this line of play, indicating better chances for white in the final position above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have read in chess literature that if an attacking player is not careful with Alekhine's Defense, he may easily overextend his pawn structure, one of the subtleties of this particular openings. I'd like to know if the last variation I described above is already considered an overextended pawn structure, if so why, and if not, what must white be wary of in order to avoid overextending. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Furthermore, what does black hope to accomplish by placing his knight in peril so many times? Does the fact that white must overextend himself slightly in order to chase the knight multiple times outweigh the opportunity cost of moving the same knight 4 times in the first 4 moves?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="72" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2013-10-17T10:22:50.823" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T15:29:00.827" Title="Alekhine's Defense variation, understanding white's overextended pawns, black's multiple early knight moves" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;pawns&gt;&lt;alekhines-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="230" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="227" CreationDate="2012-05-04T07:48:31.020" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think this depends very much on how strong you are. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That said, I had some success with the Ponziani. It is not the &quot;best&quot; opening, but solid, and many players don't know it and lose some time thinking about the next moves. The theory is easy, and there are several traps black can fall into (my favorite is when black takes the &quot;unprotected&quot; e4 pawn with the knight and you can fork it with &lt;code&gt;Qa4+&lt;/code&gt;). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Generally it might be a good idea to play aggressive (e.g. Steinitz' &lt;code&gt;Qh4&lt;/code&gt; in the Scotch game) and to try to throw the opponent out of the book as soon as possible. Of course the opening must be still playable, and you need to know some theory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="35" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T15:29:29.087" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T15:29:29.087" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="231" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="229" CreationDate="2012-05-04T12:50:36.410" Score="7" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Does the fact that white must overextend himself slightly in order to&#xA;  chase the knight multiple times outweigh the opportunity cost of&#xA;  moving the same knight piece 4 times in the first 4 moves?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Consider that white has made four pawn moves, including moving one of them twice.  Further, black has a piece off the back row and white does not. Is that really any better?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Furthermore, what does black hope to accomplish by placing his knight&#xA;  in peril so many times?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you said, the idea is to encourage white to over-extend.  That's the whole point of Alekhine's Defense.  Note that that black's knight is doing fine.  There's no real peril to the peril!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;there are over 300 tournament games along this line of play,&#xA;  indicating better chances for white in the final position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well, that's when grandmasters play.  You're probably not a GM and won't be playing GMs. Amateurs waste tempi all the time and make imperfect moves most of the time.  The question for me is, &quot;which player has to excel in order to win the game?&quot;  And what I mean is, it's possible to have game positions where white can win if he plays like a monster, but black can win if he's average.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For this case, white has more space and has moved no pieces.  Black has full flexibility and has a piece out, and not on too bad a spot.  It's game on!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2012-05-04T12:50:36.410" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="232" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="229" CreationDate="2012-05-04T12:51:39.913" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your position is &lt;em&gt;potentially&lt;/em&gt; overextended. Because you have moved the c pawn all the way to c4, it can no longer be put on c3 to create a pawn chain with &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt;. This, your d pawn is &quot;weak&quot; because of the move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Experience has shown that Black incurs a greater disadvantage (multiple moves with the same knight), than White. If this is the &quot;only&quot; weakness White creates, you're fine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The problem comes with potential followup moves. For instance, if you are tempted to play the pawn to c5 to chase the knight, you might end up creating a &quot;hole&quot; on d5 for Black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-12T17:28:43.913" LastActivityDate="2012-06-12T17:28:43.913" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="234" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="255" CreationDate="2012-05-04T12:59:16.040" Score="20" ViewCount="5714" Body="&lt;p&gt;I understand why fianchettoing can be helpful, even deadly to an opponent, but should it really be done on the side which the King castles into?  I realize that the King's Indian Defense/Attack involves fianchettoing on the kingside as well as castling to the kingside, for Black and White respectively; and that that position is quite strong.  But I'd like to know the principle behind opening up the N-pawn above the castled King.  Is it a weak point?  And if so, should I be careful not to move my Bishop from the fianchetto square?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I suppose more generally my question is: what should I be careful of when advancing a pawn in front of a castled King in the early to middle game?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="86" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-09T17:30:19.443" LastActivityDate="2020-01-23T21:16:45.883" Title="Why is it a good idea to fianchetto above the castled King? If I do that, should I make sure to leave the Bishop there for a while to guard the hole?" Tags="&lt;kings&gt;&lt;bishops&gt;&lt;castling&gt;&lt;fianchetto&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="235" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-05-04T13:03:06.893" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fianchetto&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;fianchetto&lt;/a&gt; is a term for the development of a bishop to the second rank of the adjacent knight's file, after having moved the knight's pawn one or two spaces. The main idea behind such a development of the bishop is that it is placed on one of the longest diagonals on the board, potentially increasing its scope/activity, and it can increase central control by surveying two key squares (either e4 and d5, or d4 and e5).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="86" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-06-21T19:09:15.233" LastActivityDate="2017-06-21T19:09:15.233" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="236" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-05-04T13:03:06.893" Score="0" Body="To fianchetto is to develop a bishop on one of the long diagonals, at b2/g2 (for white) or b7/g7 (for black)." OwnerUserId="86" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-06-11T12:18:31.040" LastActivityDate="2012-06-11T12:18:31.040" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="237" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="234" CreationDate="2012-05-04T13:23:56.367" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;What should you be careful of?  Losing the fianchettoed bishop while your opponent  has that colored bishop and the Q.  You'll probably find all sorts of players who'd trade a rook for that bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Keep the bishop on the long diagonal unless there's a &lt;em&gt;compelling&lt;/em&gt; reason not to.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Defensively, the bishop is pretty good.  Offensively, it shoots through the middle of the board, peeks the opponent's rook and knight pawn, and sometimes adds pressure to the enemy K, depending on how the castling goes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2012-05-04T13:23:56.367" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="238" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="76" CreationDate="2012-05-04T13:30:46.657" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe that studying &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shogi&quot;&gt;Shogi&lt;/a&gt; added 50 points to my chess game.  They are related games and thus share some related concepts.  I believe &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shogi&quot;&gt;Shogi&lt;/a&gt; showed me things about chess I had not understood before.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2012-05-04T13:30:46.657" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="239" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="250" CreationDate="2012-05-04T14:11:47.370" Score="26" ViewCount="6121" Body="&lt;p&gt;For instance, in the Ruy Lopez, after &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4   e5&#xA;2. Nf3  Nc6&#xA;3. Bb5  a6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;why shouldn't I take the Knight?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;4 Bxc6 dxc6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now Black has a doubled pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/HTxMd.png&quot; width=&quot;300&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It isn't a very popular line of play, which is why I think I shouldn't play it; but as to the principle, is it because I'm opening up Black's game?  I don't see any significant advantages/disadvantages for either side.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="86" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2017-12-31T11:48:49.737" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T15:26:06.690" Title="What are the reasons why I should not try to take a Knight with my Bishop if it'll result in doubled pawns?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;&lt;minor-pieces&gt;&lt;doubled-pawn&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="7" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="240" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-05-04T14:14:10.127" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doubled_pawns&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Doubled pawns&lt;/a&gt; are two pawns of the same color in the same file.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance, after the following sequence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1. e4   e5&#xA;2. Nf3  Nc6&#xA;3. Bb5  a6&#xA;4 Bxc6 dxc6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black has doubled Pawns in the c-file:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/HTxMd.png&quot; width=&quot;300&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="86" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-05-04T15:53:22.800" LastActivityDate="2012-05-04T15:53:22.800" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="241" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-05-04T14:14:10.127" Score="0" Body="Questions relating to doubled pawns" OwnerUserId="86" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-05-04T15:53:27.403" LastActivityDate="2012-05-04T15:53:27.403" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="242" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-05-04T14:16:34.680" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The term &lt;em&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minor_piece#Minor_piece&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;minor pieces&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt; in chess refers to the bishops and knights collectively. They have this name because they are generally weaker than the so-called &lt;em&gt;major pieces&lt;/em&gt; (rooks and queens). This is reflected in the widely-used point system that provides players with a rough guideline as to the relative values of the pieces: pawn 1, knight 3, bishop 3, rook 5, queen 9.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="86" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-06-22T09:14:31.857" LastActivityDate="2017-06-22T09:14:31.857" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="243" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-05-04T14:16:34.680" Score="0" Body="The knights and the bishops are called the minor pieces, as they are typically weaker than queens and rooks." OwnerUserId="86" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-06-11T12:18:48.653" LastActivityDate="2012-06-11T12:18:48.653" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="244" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-05-04T14:21:19.137" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The term &lt;em&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minor_exchange#Minor_exchange&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;minor exchange&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt; refers to exchanging a Knight for a Bishop.  It is not a very common term, but used occasionally.  This is not to be confused with &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_exchange_%28chess%29&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;the exchange&lt;/a&gt; (see &lt;a href=&quot;/questions/tagged/the-exchange&quot; class=&quot;post-tag&quot; title=&quot;show questions tagged 'the-exchange'&quot; rel=&quot;tag&quot;&gt;the-exchange&lt;/a&gt;) which is exchanging a minor piece (see &lt;a href=&quot;/questions/tagged/minor-pieces&quot; class=&quot;post-tag&quot; title=&quot;show questions tagged 'minor-pieces'&quot; rel=&quot;tag&quot;&gt;minor-pieces&lt;/a&gt;) for the opponent's rook.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="86" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-05-04T15:53:35.500" LastActivityDate="2012-05-04T15:53:35.500" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="245" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-05-04T14:21:19.137" Score="0" Body="The minor exchange is the exchange of bishop for a knight (the two types of minor pieces)." OwnerUserId="86" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-09-13T05:47:10.077" LastActivityDate="2012-09-13T05:47:10.077" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="246" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="247" CreationDate="2012-05-04T14:25:50.563" Score="14" ViewCount="1096" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have always thought Bishops were better - I know that a KBB vs. K endgame is easily won, whereas KNB vs. K is difficult, and KNN vs. K is impossible; but then again, some people prefer Knights.  I realize there is a reason for each receiving the same point value (3) - they are so similar in strength, the Bishop on open lines and the Knight in close quarters.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But is there any concrete study on the point, such as someone analyzing thousands of games in which one player began the game with two Bishops and no Knights, and the other had two Knights and no Bishops?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="86" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-05-05T02:41:44.937" LastActivityDate="2020-04-29T16:11:36.480" Title="Which are better, Knights or Bishops?" Tags="&lt;knights&gt;&lt;bishops&gt;&lt;minor-pieces&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="247" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="246" CreationDate="2012-05-04T14:27:30.173" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;It depends on the board position. Both have equal points. But in a closed position, i.e, when the mobility of our pieces are blocked by the opponents pieces, knights have advantage. On more open board positions, bishops have advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user127" LastActivityDate="2012-05-04T14:27:30.173" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="248" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="239" CreationDate="2012-05-04T14:30:05.537" Score="4" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Some impressive people consider bishops &lt;em&gt;marginally&lt;/em&gt; stronger than knights,  though the board position is critical.  Reference below.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The black Q is freed, perhaps saving black a tempo.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The black w-squared B is freed, saving a tempo.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The white w-squared B is gone, after 2 moves were spent on it.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Black's pawns are doubled, but they still hit the d-file.  Not so bad.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the next 5 moves, it is possible for black to develop all 3 remaining minor pieces, the queen, and castle.  In short, black has a flexible position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some people have issues with the statement about bishops being stronger than knights.  &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_piece_relative_value&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;So check this Wiki page (OMG Wiki).&lt;/a&gt;  You'll see a chart down under 'Alternate Valuations.' You'll see &lt;em&gt;references&lt;/em&gt; that include names of knowledgeable people that rate the bishop higher.  No one listed on the chart rates knight higher, though many rate them equal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T15:26:06.690" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T15:26:06.690" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="249" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="86" CreationDate="2012-05-04T14:30:20.543" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chaturanga indeed is chess. In Hindi language Chaturanga (shatranj in Arablic), is what chess (which is in English) called.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user127" LastActivityDate="2012-05-04T14:30:20.543" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="250" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="239" CreationDate="2012-05-04T14:33:44.710" Score="18" Body="&lt;p&gt;This &lt;em&gt;is&lt;/em&gt; a variation that was played fairly frequently, but it has been more or less worked out to a draw, so it is less common at the top levels now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Ruy Lopez is a very concrete opening, and the capture on c6 has to be carefully considered as it relates to the exact position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In terms of opening principles, you're giving up a bishop for a knight in an open position.  If you could take the pawn on e5, it might be good, but the pawn is protected via the tactical shot &lt;code&gt;5.Nxe5? Qd4!&lt;/code&gt; when white has basically given up the two bishops for very little compensation in a wide open position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another downside to &lt;code&gt;Bxc6&lt;/code&gt; is that the black's light square bishop is developed by dxc6, allowing it to come to g4 without waste of time.  Indeed, one of the most critical lines continues &lt;code&gt;5. O-O Bg4 6. h3 h5&lt;/code&gt; when black is offering a piece for attacking chances along the h file.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With all of that said, this is a very common motif in the Ruy Lopez (&lt;code&gt;Bxc6&lt;/code&gt;).  The pawn structure after &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;exd4&lt;/code&gt; is very good for white.  If all of the pieces were traded off, white would win the king and pawn endgame by making a passed pawn on the kingside and black cannot make a passed pawn on the queenside.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are also many cases when spoiling your opponent's pawn structure is very good.  For example, if black has castled kingside, and a bishop can take on f6 and force &lt;code&gt;...gxf6&lt;/code&gt;, this is almost always good for white.  The king becomes very exposed with the g file open.  In the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Knights_Game#The_move_4.Bb5&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Spanish Four Knights&lt;/a&gt;, one player or the other will very frequently take on c6 or c3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2012-06-12T00:28:13.883" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="251" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="253" CreationDate="2012-05-04T14:34:04.867" Score="23" ViewCount="3786" Body="&lt;p&gt;Center control is an important aspect of playing chess, most openings are built around controlling the center, but why? Is center control really that important for winning a game?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-04-09T16:30:58.570" LastActivityDate="2019-10-22T00:45:34.163" Title="What is the theory behind center control?" Tags="&lt;theory&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;&lt;center&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="252" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="251" CreationDate="2012-05-04T14:36:13.063" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;The piece in the center four square can move to more positions than in it is in any other positions on the board. So if you can get control of the center positions, you have more options and this gives us an advantage over the opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user127" LastActivityDate="2012-05-04T14:36:13.063" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="253" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="251" CreationDate="2012-05-04T14:40:32.210" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;The center is the crossroads of the board. Controlling it will give you access to every other part of the board. At the same time, it will drive a wedge in the opponent's position that hampers communication between king and queen side.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Control of the center is usually a decisive advantage in your favor; unless your opponent has &lt;em&gt;heavy&lt;/em&gt; compensation (e.g. more than a pawn of material advantage), or a violent attack against your king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-12T01:43:11.030" LastActivityDate="2012-06-12T01:43:11.030" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="254" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="251" CreationDate="2012-05-04T14:40:41.467" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Controlling the center allows you to move your pieces to the other side of the board easier.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Further, some pieces (especially knights) have more moves if they're in the center of the board.  A knight in the center has 8 moves.  A knight on the rim has 4, 3, or 2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-12T00:29:08.360" LastActivityDate="2012-06-12T00:29:08.360" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="255" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="234" CreationDate="2012-05-04T14:42:26.857" Score="18" Body="&lt;p&gt;Fianchettoes are a very common and strong setup. But watch also for the 2 most common attacks against a fianchettoed position, which are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A. Launching the rook pawn up the board (against Black this would be h4-h5 etc.) and opening up the h-file. I have played this many times against the Pirc where Black &quot;castles into&quot; the attack. White plays h4-h5 followed by trading off the pawn and then plays &lt;code&gt;Qh6+&lt;/code&gt; with a very strong attack down the open file. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B. The sacrifice of a knight on f5 (where Black accepting the sac would play &lt;code&gt;...gxf5&lt;/code&gt;). This wrenches open the position and jacks up the pawn structure. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even if the opponent trades his same-color bishop for your fianchettoed bishop, you can still become weak on that color complex (e.g. the opponent's queen can roost on h6 for example and be a thorn in your side)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="107" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-12T00:27:17.550" LastActivityDate="2012-06-12T00:27:17.550" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="256" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="246" CreationDate="2012-05-04T14:46:45.667" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Usually in open positions the bishops are better. When the position is blocked up the knights are generally better. In an endgame with pawns only one one side of the board, the knight is usually better. In endgames with asymmetrical pawns on both sides of the board, the bishop is usually better. With a symmetrical endgame pawn structure you might like the have the knight and place your pawns on the opposite color of the opponent's bishop. Possessing the 2 bishops is also generally overrated and I have not really seen anyone &amp;lt; 2000 USCF really able to finesse the position to take full advantage of that. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Remember all these are general principles and the specific position must be evaluated always before general considerations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="107" LastActivityDate="2012-05-04T14:46:45.667" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="257" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="82" CreationDate="2012-05-04T14:48:40.437" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &quot;classic&quot; defense against the Marshall Attack was waged against Marshall himself by Jose Raul Capablanca, the future world champion, in 1918.  See &lt;a href=&quot;http://westernchess.blogspot.com/2009/12/capablanca-marsahll-new-york-1918.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this article&lt;/a&gt; about the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since then, lines have evolved on both sides, but the underlying principles remain the same. Master the one game, and you'll go a long way to mastering the defense as a whole.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-09T21:29:25.760" LastActivityDate="2012-06-09T21:29:25.760" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="258" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="210" CreationDate="2012-05-04T15:00:20.117" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Algorithms mainly used are based on searching the state space. The problem is that the possible positions a piece can make in the next move is very huge. But it is finite. It is basically a search problem. There is a valid position a piece can take. That is there is a known start state and a know end state. There is no probability involved like the problem of tossing a coin.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;A typical algorithm is to use brute force and compute moves for a fixed number of moves. MiniMax can be used in such cases. Alpha-beta pruning is also a well know algorithm used. Mostly the search spaces are represented using a tree based data structure.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Computer program also heavily use databases containing moves, openings, end-game positions etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user127" LastEditorDisplayName="user127" LastEditDate="2012-05-04T15:08:08.343" LastActivityDate="2012-05-04T15:08:08.343" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="260" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-05-04T16:00:52.210" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alekhine%27s_Defence&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Alekhine's Defence&lt;/a&gt; is a chess opening which runs as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1. e4  Nf6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black seeks to provoke White Pawn advances with his active Knight, in hopes of compromising White's pawn structure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="86" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-05-04T17:10:41.207" LastActivityDate="2012-05-04T17:10:41.207" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="261" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-05-04T16:00:52.210" Score="0" Body="Questions relating to Alekhine's Defense" OwnerUserId="86" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-05-04T17:10:43.733" LastActivityDate="2012-05-04T17:10:43.733" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="262" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-05-04T16:01:51.617" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alekhine%27s_Defence&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Alekhine's Defence&lt;/a&gt; is a chess opening which runs as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1. e4  Nf6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black seeks to provoke White Pawn advances with his active Knight, in hopes of compromising White's pawn structure. In this sense it is a &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypermodernism_%28chess%29&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;hypermodern&lt;/a&gt; opening, in which Black refrains from occupying the center with pawns, instead encouraging White to build a pawn center which will then become Black's object of attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="86" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-08-04T23:20:53.473" LastActivityDate="2012-08-04T23:20:53.473" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="263" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-05-04T16:01:51.617" Score="0" Body="Alekhine's Defense, named for the fourth world champion, is the opening beginning with the moves 1. e4 Nf6." OwnerUserId="86" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-06-09T13:16:25.217" LastActivityDate="2012-06-09T13:16:25.217" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="264" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-05-04T16:19:56.773" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;For example, the &lt;code&gt;1. e4 c5&lt;/code&gt; defines the family of moves known as the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Chess_Opening_Theory/1._e4/1...c5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Sicilian Defense&lt;/a&gt;. However, there are many branches off the tree, as it were.  &lt;code&gt;1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 g6&lt;/code&gt; defines the variation known as the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sicilian_Defence#Dragon_Variation%3a_5...g6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Dragon&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2012-05-26T15:49:13.867" LastActivityDate="2012-05-26T15:49:13.867" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="265" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-05-04T16:19:56.773" Score="0" Body="The discussion of the moves that follow a well-defined sequence of moves." OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2012-05-26T15:49:16.160" LastActivityDate="2012-05-26T15:49:16.160" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="266" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="234" CreationDate="2012-05-04T17:02:43.950" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The advantage of a fianchetto (for defense) is that it is a &quot;super pawn&quot; in front of your king. It also has offensive value in controlling two squares of the center.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The danger is that it can be exchanged. If you have a rook on f1 (f8) and a bishop on g2 (g7), the opposing bishop could go to the square on the h file, supported by his queen, pinning your bishop. So you need to be careful to move the rook so that your bishop can retreat to h1 (h8). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The other thing to be aware of is the potential for a knight sacrifice at f4 (f5) that threatens to remove either the bishop, or at least the g-pawn in front of it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-12T17:28:05.803" LastActivityDate="2012-06-12T17:28:05.803" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="267" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-05-04T17:23:01.767" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;A chess variation or chess variant is a game which is based on chess, but has different rules and/or layout and/or gameboard.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some common chess variants include:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Chess960 (also known as Fischer Random Chess): the pieces on White's first rank are randomly placed (though the Bishops must be on opposite-colored squares and the King must be between the Rooks), and Blacks setup mirrors White's. The rules are the same as in standard chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Bughouse: a game with a partner with opposite colored pieces playing against another partnership.  Pieces captured on your board are given to your partner, and he or she may place the pieces &amp;quot;in hand&amp;quot; on his or her board in lieu of moving a piece.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Cousins&amp;quot; of chess that are played in specific regions of the world, such as &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shogi&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Shogi&lt;/a&gt; in Japan and &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xiangqi&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Xiangqi&lt;/a&gt; in China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Displacement chess: a family of chess variants in which the rules are the same as in standard chess, but some of the pieces in the first rank of each player are transposed. Similar to Chess960, but not random.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Atomic chess: a capture results in an &amp;quot;explosion&amp;quot; which removes (aka. &amp;quot;kills&amp;quot;) all pieces in any of the eight surrounding squares, except for pawns, including the captor.&#xA;-Racing kings: The goal is to get your king to the other side of the board the first. Each side has all the major pieces, but no pawns, and they start on the 1st and 2nd rank.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Crazyhouse - pieces you capture from the opponent changes colour, and you can place them on the board. Similar to bughouse, but it is two-player, not four-player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Antichess: the goal of antichess is to force your opponent to capture all of your own pieces.  Similar to checkers, if there is a legal move that captures a piece, it must be made.  Check is ignored - the king is captured like any other piece.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For a more comprehensive list of chess variants, see &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_variant&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia's list&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-08-29T09:06:10.150" LastActivityDate="2020-08-29T09:06:10.150" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="268" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-05-04T17:23:01.767" Score="0" Body="Questions about variants of normal chess including bughouse, Chess960 (Fischer Random), atomic chess, racing kings, crazyhouse, antichess, etc.  " OwnerUserId="12" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-08-29T09:05:55.853" LastActivityDate="2020-08-29T09:05:55.853" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="269" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="272" CreationDate="2012-05-04T17:40:10.240" Score="18" ViewCount="1310" Body="&lt;p&gt;Which openings and middle game tactics are highly used when a player utilizes a hypermodern style of gameplay? What particular tactics are most effective when playing hypermodern?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24" LastActivityDate="2013-11-14T23:34:24.373" Title="Learning the hypermodern style" Tags="&lt;fianchetto&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="270" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="271" CreationDate="2012-05-04T17:51:40.387" Score="17" ViewCount="17894" Body="&lt;p&gt;The same question applies to Black where the dark-squared bishop is considered Black's best bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This was from the book &quot;Logical Chess Move by Move&quot; by Irving Chernev where he quotes Siegbert Tarrasch as saying the King's Bishop is the greatest attacking piece, so I guess it does pertain to mainly one player with one school of thought.  I found it interesting how Tarrasch at times would not even move his King's Bishop during a whole game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-12T17:36:51.033" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T17:30:49.023" Title="Why is the light-squared bishop considered White's best bishop?" Tags="&lt;bishops&gt;&lt;theory&gt;" AnswerCount="9" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="271" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="270" CreationDate="2012-05-04T17:57:44.547" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;The black king, will occupy e8 and g8 (before and after castling, respectively), both of which are white squares.  Also, the weakest point on the black kingside is f7, again a white square.  Because of this, if you are trying to attack the king, the white bishop can often be more valuable.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Perhaps someone else can add some more deeper reasons, but this has been my experience.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Added:&lt;/strong&gt; Also worth noting, attacks on h7 can often threaten mate, another white square.  Furthermore, just having the bishop on the diagonal attacking f7 would pin the pawn to a castled king.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="101" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-12T17:36:08.850" LastActivityDate="2012-06-12T17:36:08.850" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="272" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="269" CreationDate="2012-05-04T18:01:42.650" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;This website does a good job of explaining some principles:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.wikihow.com/Play-Hyper-Modern-Chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.wikihow.com/Play-Hyper-Modern-Chess&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;as well as this piece by Eric Schiller:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ericschiller.com/pdf/HypermodernChessOpeningStrategy.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.ericschiller.com/pdf/HypermodernChessOpeningStrategy.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastActivityDate="2012-05-04T18:01:42.650" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="273" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="227" CreationDate="2012-05-04T18:13:01.903" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;I personally don't think there is a best opening for blitz.  I think you just have to get your pieces out as fast as possible and control the center.  Blitz is more of a time issue rather than a material issue.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-05-09T23:29:02.303" LastActivityDate="2012-05-09T23:29:02.303" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="274" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="282" CreationDate="2012-05-04T19:35:16.797" Score="23" ViewCount="12024" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm still trying to improve my repertoire and building more towards aggressive openings which I find to better fit my playing style.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colle_System#Colle.E2.80.93Zukertort_System&quot;&gt;Colle-Zukertort&lt;/a&gt; seems like a popular one and I've seen it recommended a couple times for beginners.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are your thoughts on this, should I really include this as part of my regular play? Are there some other moves I could add to this to make my formation more robust?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="27" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-03-07T00:02:10.190" LastActivityDate="2020-03-07T00:02:10.190" Title="Is Colle-Zukertort a good way to improve beginner play?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;pawn-structure&gt;&lt;colle-system&gt;&lt;colle-zukertort&gt;" AnswerCount="15" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="275" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-05-04T20:51:16.590" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_handicap&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Handicapping&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt; is a term referring to restricting a stronger player's game (by various means) in order to heighten a weaker player's chances of winning. This is generally done by removing one piece or more from the stronger player at the beginning of the game, or by giving the weaker player extra time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="86" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-06-21T17:54:20.863" LastActivityDate="2017-06-21T17:54:20.863" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="276" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-05-04T20:51:16.590" Score="0" Body="Questions related to handicapping a player in chess" OwnerUserId="86" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-05-05T02:04:42.907" LastActivityDate="2012-05-05T02:04:42.907" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="277" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-05-04T20:56:30.313" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The rules of chess are generally accepted to be defined in the handbook &lt;em&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook?id=208&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Laws of Chess&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For more information, visit &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rules_of_chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this Wikipedia page&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="86" LastEditorUserId="13995" LastEditDate="2018-11-09T11:32:40.773" LastActivityDate="2018-11-09T11:32:40.773" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="278" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-05-04T20:56:30.313" Score="0" Body="Questions relating to the rules of chess" OwnerUserId="86" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-05-05T02:04:53.890" LastActivityDate="2012-05-05T02:04:53.890" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="279" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-05-04T22:00:14.057" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Use this tag for questions relating to the history of chess and chess organizations, whose origins trace to the ancient Indian game of Chaturanga.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Questions tagged history of chess includes&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;History of FIDE and other chess organizations&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Origins of chess&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Evolution of chess and chess organizations&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The different eras of chess&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/6Y1cD.jpg&quot; height=&quot;800&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.ichess.net/blog/history-of-chess/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.ichess.net/blog/history-of-chess/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Background&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is unclear where chess originally started; some say China, others Persia, others India. The game of chess has a long history, and the game evolved into its current form over a long stretch of time as it spread into Europe. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Definitions&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Romantic Era - 1880-1950 where chess players mainly relied on tactics and sacrifices to play games&#xA;Digitized Era - Computers join the chess world with PGNs, analysis, A.I.s, and online chess games. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Links to Learn More about the History of Chess&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can learn more about the history of chess at &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Simple English Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chesshere.com/resources/chess_history.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chesshere&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.ichess.net/blog/history-of-chess/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;ichess&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17301" LastEditorUserId="17301" LastEditDate="2019-01-18T12:05:06.737" LastActivityDate="2019-01-18T12:05:06.737" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="280" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-05-04T22:00:14.057" Score="0" Body="Use this tag for questions relating to the history of chess and chess organizations, whose origins trace to the ancient Indian game of Chaturanga." OwnerUserId="86" LastEditorUserId="17301" LastEditDate="2019-01-18T12:04:32.080" LastActivityDate="2019-01-18T12:04:32.080" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="281" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="274" CreationDate="2012-05-04T23:50:36.913" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;It looks like a reasonable system to me as the structure, and the ideas behind the moves look fairly easy to understand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for being aggressive, it's the type of aggression that slowly builds up with an aim towards the kingside, successfully doing this might be the hard part of this system.  If you don't follow through and restrict Black in some way, there is the danger that Black could get ahead of White in activity, especially on the queenside.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="103" LastActivityDate="2012-05-04T23:50:36.913" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="282" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="274" CreationDate="2012-05-05T02:43:12.877" Score="26" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Colle is definitely not an aggressive opening in the classical sense.  If you like the positions that you get with the Colle, by all means, play it to your heart's content.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Colle is a very conservative opening because white plays d4 and then really doesn't make any other moves to occupy the center.  Playing for theoretical equality as white might be okay if you just want to get a familiar position, but there are other openings that promise white a greater advantage, which is why top level games rarely, if ever, feature the Colle.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;System openings like the Colle don't really teach you how to play chess, they teach you how to play the Colle.  The reason that the Colle is recommended to beginners is that the ideas and plans are simple, and it works fairly well against any kind of play by black.  White does frequently get an attack on black's kingside, which can be decisive if black does not defend accurately.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The biggest downside to the Colle is this: other openings, like e4 e5, will teach you concepts and themes that will apply to all parts of chess.  For instance, how to maneuver your knights and bishops in order to improve the position.  In the Sicilian (as either color), you can learn how to attack and defend - always useful.  The Colle is really limited to learning how to free the dark square bishop and how to stir up an attack on h7.  If black is on top of things, the attack will never come to fruition, and black will get a good game after striking with c5.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So my personal opinion if you want to win lots of games: learn the Colle, study all the possible positions, and memorize the moves.  If you want to improve your chess, which will lead to more wins down the road, then play main line openings and only play the Colle occasionally for a change of pace.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;Some common &quot;system&quot; openings:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Colle (&lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;e3&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;c3&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;Bd3&lt;/code&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Colle-Zukertort (white plays the Colle with &lt;code&gt;b3&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;Bb2&lt;/code&gt; instead of &lt;code&gt;c3&lt;/code&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Stonewall Attack (&lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;e3&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;f4&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;Bd3&lt;/code&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;King's Indian Attack (&lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;d3&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;g3&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;Bg2&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;Nf3&lt;/code&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Notice that these openings don't try to occupy the center.  By not occupying the center, white avoids confrontation until later in the game.  This means that white can develop in a known fashion before initiating contact and only then follow the prescribed plans.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-12T00:31:34.503" LastActivityDate="2012-06-12T00:31:34.503" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="283" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="222" CreationDate="2012-05-05T03:49:58.363" Score="21" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here are a few openings that seem to be played more often in the last decade than previously.  This is just based on my recollection, so please correct any errors or add any other openings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catalan_Opening&quot;&gt;Catalan Opening&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The last few major matches have all featured the Catalan: Anand-Topalov, as well as the candidates matches leading up to the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.anand-gelfand.com/&quot;&gt;World Championship 2012&lt;/a&gt;. The &lt;em&gt;Grandmaster Repertoire&lt;/em&gt; by Boris Avrukh has also contributed to the recent popularity.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jeremysilman.com/book_reviews_jd/Berlin_Wall.html&quot;&gt;Berlin Wall&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Kramnik brought this opening to the forefront when he used it with devastating effect against Kasparov.  The queen-less middlegame has been deeply studied since the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_World_Chess_Championship_2000&quot;&gt;match in 2000&lt;/a&gt;.  This line is partially responsible for the rise of &lt;code&gt;1. d4&lt;/code&gt; and the fall of &lt;code&gt;1. e4&lt;/code&gt; in the last decade.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gr%C3%BCnfeld_Defence&quot;&gt;Grünfeld Defense&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;While the Grünfeld was played fairly consistently throughout the 20th century, only recently has it become the main weapon for black when playing for a win against &lt;code&gt;1. d4&lt;/code&gt;.  The Grünfeld doesn't surrender the center like the King's Indian Defense, and it has become more popular the more it is studied, as opposed to the Nimzo-Indian which has fallen by the wayside as the &lt;code&gt;Qc2&lt;/code&gt; lines have been examined.  &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other openings that have been featured in high level games have been the Slav Defense and, as always, the Sicilian.  I omitted these openings because, while new lines are always being developed, these openings have been popular consistently for a long time.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Additionally, as I mentioned in my comment, some gambits have also seen a revival.  The Morra Gambit, for instance, has come back to &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1630005&quot;&gt;high level play&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1888690321&quot;&gt;several&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1907982205&quot;&gt;books&lt;/a&gt; about it have been written.  The Evan's Gambit is another opening played at all levels.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12" LastEditorUserId="12" LastEditDate="2012-08-07T13:49:57.693" LastActivityDate="2012-08-07T13:49:57.693" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="284" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="287" CreationDate="2012-05-05T03:54:49.323" Score="17" ViewCount="2820" Body="&lt;p&gt;Besides the Queen's Gambit (which isn't really a gambit anyway), which gambits have been most successful as far as winning percentage and usage at high levels of play?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="47" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-06-22T18:20:13.670" LastActivityDate="2020-05-31T09:26:19.313" Title="Which gambits have been most successful?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;gambits&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="285" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-05-05T06:43:38.367" Score="10" ViewCount="5603" Body="&lt;p&gt;As I was looking for advice on Colle-Zukertort as described &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/q/274/27&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;, I found additional info about 2 other attacks that can be used to improve my repertoire pretty efficiently. Here is the information I found:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Colle-Zukertort and &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Defence&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Barry attack&lt;/a&gt; combined should provide a working repertoire for about 85% of my games played.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Colle-Zukertort, Barry attack and &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirc_Defence#150_Attack_and_Argentinian_Attack&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;150 attack&lt;/a&gt; combined should provide a working repertoire for about 90% of my games played.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are your thoughts on this? I'm surprised that having only these 3 tricks in hand seems so effective? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="27" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T17:20:56.713" Title="Do Barry attack and 150 attack really work that well with Colle-Zukertort?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;colle-zukertort&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="286" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="246" CreationDate="2012-05-05T08:52:18.877" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;None of them are &quot;better&quot; in a general sense, but they are different. As bishops are long-ranged and can theoretically control more space than a knight (up to 13 squares against 8), they tend to become more powerful in situations where there are open diagonals (space-aspect) or during endgames when pawns are at both sides of the board (long-range-aspect). On the other hand, knights have a great maneuverability, can attack more different pieces without being attackable from them in return and support pieces with different movement rules very well (like attacking the same spot, but from a different square). So they are different tools, becoming very powerful or useless depending on the board situation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your question can't be answered generally. You could ask as well, whether a spoon or a fork is the better eating tool. It all depends on whether soup or chips is the dish of the day ;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="94" LastActivityDate="2012-05-05T08:52:18.877" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="287" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="284" CreationDate="2012-05-05T10:10:26.687" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;http://studimonetari.org/edg/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;these statistics&lt;/a&gt; from 4 million games, the Marshall Gambit of the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semi-Slav_Defense&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Semi-Slav&lt;/a&gt; defense is the most successful with &lt;a href=&quot;http://studimonetari.org/edg/marshall6.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;58.4% wins&lt;/a&gt;. I only counted gambit openings that had more than 1000 occurrences in the database.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The least successful gambit appears to be the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latvian_Gambit&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Latvian Gambit&lt;/a&gt; with only &lt;a href=&quot;http://studimonetari.org/edg/lettone.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;41.1% wins&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that since the database does not discriminate against older games, the statistics may not necessarily reflect the possible outcome of an opening if it were played today.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="132" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-06-21T16:45:09.060" LastActivityDate="2012-06-21T16:45:09.060" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="288" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="270" CreationDate="2012-05-05T14:06:06.443" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Neither bishop is inherently better than the other.  Depending on your choice of opening, white's dark-squared bishop can be far more valuable to him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="84" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-12T17:34:48.447" LastActivityDate="2012-06-12T17:34:48.447" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="289" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="285" CreationDate="2012-05-05T14:26:45.607" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a book which recommended this repertoire, &lt;code&gt;A Killer Chess Opening Repertoire&lt;/code&gt; by Summerscale.  I used those lines myself when I was in the 1400 to 1800 range, but had to give them up as they were holding back my development as a player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a beginner, frankly you shouldn't be worrying about it.  Choosing a repertoire should be near the bottom of your list of 'areas to improve.'  How many games have you won/lost because of familiarity with the opening?  If anything, try to play good, normal, open lines, like &lt;code&gt;1.e4 e5&lt;/code&gt;, and just focus on the chess.  You'll get more out of that than by studying the nuances of the Barry Attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="63" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-11-25T17:09:40.640" LastActivityDate="2012-11-25T17:09:40.640" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="290" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="291" CreationDate="2012-05-05T15:14:31.693" Score="8" ViewCount="923" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's a lot of advice out there about how to improve your chess skills, some say, study openings, others say practice is more important that theoretical knowledge.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm aware that the advice depends on the current skills of the player asking, so feel free to share your knowledge by skill level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18" LastActivityDate="2012-05-09T13:18:06.060" Title="What is most important for improving chess skills?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="7" ClosedDate="2012-05-07T17:00:54.550" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="291" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="290" CreationDate="2012-05-05T15:32:44.177" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;Disclaimer: USCF B-player here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My advice would be to play marginally higher-rated players and ask them for help in determining what one could do better.  Most people will fall over themselves to help someone who puts forth an honest effort (hence, web sites like this one.)  At tournaments, I've never had an opponent unwilling to go over a game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have had some surprises by entering my games into Crafty and letting it analyze every move.  You can see pretty quickly where things go sideways.  At my level the reason I lose is always tactical.  That is, after my move, Crafty shows how I'm losing a piece ;-)  It is encouraging that my opponents don't always make the best move, either, so I am not wholly doomed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Back in the day I had an instructor (USCF Master) who advised A and B players: tactics, tactics, tactics.  That is, we could win all our games just by concentrating on the next 4 moves or so.  When that quit working, we'd be much better players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd advise:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;get an instructor who can beat you every time (+400 rating points, or so.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;learn a few openings pretty well.  It's hard to stay motivated when every game is a mess by move 7.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;study problems&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;focus on having good games, not on winning per se.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;don't be afraid to lose.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;play a lot, record your moves, then run them through the computer.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-05-09T13:18:06.060" LastActivityDate="2012-05-09T13:18:06.060" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="292" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="270" CreationDate="2012-05-05T22:34:00.400" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;White's light (king's) squared bishop stands on squares of the color occupied by the enemy king. This is true of his initial position, e8, and his likely castled positions, mostly g8, occasionally c8.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, the light squared bishop attacks important squares &lt;em&gt;around&lt;/em&gt; the enemy king. This includes f7 and d7 for both the original and castled positions (on the king and queen side respectively) plus h7 (king's side castling), or b7 (queen's side castling). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-12T17:27:52.557" LastActivityDate="2012-06-12T17:27:52.557" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="293" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="270" CreationDate="2012-05-06T01:08:51.693" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would say the values of the light-squared bishop vs the dark-squared bishop is negligible, but in any given opening, one is likely to end up more valuable.  It may be that if you average over -all- openings, the bishop that can attack f7 and h7 would be more valuable, but such averages are next to meaningless and counterproductive if you end in on of the 'exceptions' that happens 40% of the time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, when black plays the French opening one of his bishops usually ends up being quite terrible, at least for a while.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="69" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-12T17:34:25.343" LastActivityDate="2012-06-12T17:34:25.343" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="294" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="269" CreationDate="2012-05-06T16:40:38.983" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;One of the early pioneers, if not the actual founder of the Hypermodern style was Richard Reti, early in the 20th century. An example of this kind of play is his own Reti Opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The theory behind this is that center pawns on the fourth rank (or further) can become weak as well as strong. So the idea is to move out knights first, then pawns to the &lt;em&gt;third&lt;/em&gt; rank, followed by bishops, etc. Then wait till the opponent commits &lt;em&gt;his&lt;/em&gt; pawns to (his) fourth rank (your fifth) before deciding when to move &lt;em&gt;yours&lt;/em&gt; to your fourth rank.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An &quot;extreme&quot; example is Alekhine's defense, when Black plays &lt;code&gt;1... Nf6&lt;/code&gt; in response to &lt;code&gt;1. e4&lt;/code&gt;, to provoke further White advances, and (presuambly), weaknesses. The disadvantage to Black of moving the knight around seems to offset whatever disadvantages White may incur by advancing his pawns. &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/229/alekhines-defense-variation-understanding-whites-overextended-pawns-blacks/232#232&quot;&gt;Alekhine&amp;#39;s Defense variation, understanding white&amp;#39;s overextended pawns, black&amp;#39;s multiple early knight moves&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But if White opens &lt;code&gt;1. Nf3&lt;/code&gt;, he deters &lt;code&gt;...e5&lt;/code&gt;, and limits Black to playing &lt;code&gt;...d5&lt;/code&gt; (or &lt;code&gt;...d6&lt;/code&gt;, if he wants to enforce &lt;code&gt;...e5&lt;/code&gt;). Hence, &quot;hypermodern&quot; openings beginning with knight moves seem to work better for White, who has the advantage of the first move. This advantage does give White a number of options, including playing &quot;colors reversed&quot; openings with an extra move that Black doesn't have.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2012-06-12T17:27:35.337" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="295" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="226" CreationDate="2012-05-06T17:07:27.507" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Ruy Lopez is a &quot;basic&quot; opening. It was among the first to be invented and &quot;standardized,&quot; first by Sr. Lopez himself, then by Morphy, Steinitz, Alekhine, and others, who discovered variations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It involves both sides moving out their e pawns, then knights, in accordance with opening principles. Then white attacks Black's c knight with his bishop, Black parries with &lt;code&gt;...a6&lt;/code&gt;, etc., and the battle is on in a natural flow.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, you can use other openings involving other center pawns (e.g. the d pawns), other knights (White plays &lt;code&gt;2. Nc3&lt;/code&gt;, or Black plays &lt;code&gt;2... Nf6&lt;/code&gt;), but those are actually more complicated than the Ruy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T17:46:00.137" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T17:46:00.137" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="296" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="218" CreationDate="2012-05-06T19:40:15.693" Score="17" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is a Scotch Game. It was played a lot more in the 19th century than in the 20th or early 21st. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Nowadays,&quot; it is considered to be too &quot;easy&quot; on Black, because it offers the early exchange of a pair of pawns and knights, thereby freeing Black's game. Also, the White queen ends up in the middle of the board, where it might end up being chased by Black's pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White does have a microscopic advantage in ending up with a king pawn in the center. Also, the queen in the middle of the board hampers the development of Black's kingside.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For those who like to develop queens early, this is a good game. The exchange of one pair each of knights and pawns greatly reduces the chances of the white queen's being trapped.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/21/what-is-the-best-way-to-free-your-queen-as-soon-as-possible/58#58&quot;&gt;What is the best way to free your queen as soon as possible?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T15:33:49.553" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T15:33:49.553" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="297" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="301" CreationDate="2012-05-06T22:33:40.073" Score="15" ViewCount="808" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are there any openings that were once often played, but are now known to be very bad moves?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="37" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-06-26T14:27:34.370" LastActivityDate="2012-06-26T14:27:34.370" Title="What are openings which were once thought good, but are now shown to be inferior?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;history&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="298" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="285" CreationDate="2012-05-06T23:13:42.690" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I used the Colle-Zukertort for a while.  The 150 attack is fairly well known to Pirc players, and the Barry Attack is not good enough to hold you through if it doesn't work.  You can get by at the club level with this repertoire, but you're limiting yourself because, aside from the few examples given in books about those openings, few if any players over 2000 ever lose to them, because they can think them through.  If you're OK with just throwing away your advantage with the White pieces to players over 2000, go for it, but personally I would advise you to go with something more sophisticated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="47" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T17:20:18.220" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T17:20:18.220" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="299" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="297" CreationDate="2012-05-07T04:20:11.130" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'll play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;King's Gambit&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The Grob (&lt;code&gt;1. g4&lt;/code&gt;) a.k.a. The Spike&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Bird's Defense to the Ruy Lopez (ECO C61), though this may not qualify as bad, as such. It just has little going for it.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-12T18:04:41.123" LastActivityDate="2012-06-12T18:04:41.123" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="300" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="297" CreationDate="2012-05-07T05:27:59.363" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Giuoco Piano was quite popular around the turn of the 20th century (observe, for instance, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chess.pl?playercomp=white&amp;amp;pid=10016&amp;amp;eco=C50&amp;amp;title=Chigorin%20playing%20Giuoco%20Piano%20%28C50%29%20as%20White%20&quot;&gt;Chigorin's use of it&lt;/a&gt;.  Now, however, it is not seen as a good attempt at an advantage for White.  Similarly, the Evans Gambit was once given a lot of use by the best in the world; it is no longer taken quite seriously.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="47" LastActivityDate="2012-05-07T05:27:59.363" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="301" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="297" CreationDate="2012-05-07T06:32:57.293" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;Openings tend to go in and out of fashion. At example, the Berlin wall was considered to be very dull and unambitious, but then Kramnik played it against Kasparov to become World Champion. Nowadays the Berlin wall is a regular guest at top tournaments. The same can be said about the Scotch Game, which was rarely seen at the highest tournaments until Kasparov picked it up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So most of the time when openings are not often seen it is because of fashion. One more important reason is that there may be critical lines that lead to unfavourable situations (like that the opponent can force a draw by repetition). Usually it takes a few years, but then someone comes up with a different idea and the lines are playable again. I remember vaguely a game in the poison pawn variation of the Grunfeld Indian between top 10 players (can't remember who, sorry) that turned the evaluation of the whole line upside down. Such games can kill or revive a line all of a sudden.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More generally, in my opinion there are several phases of the way chess is played. In the early days attack was everything and theory was not well developed, so gambits of all kinds were played (Evans Gambit, King's Gambit,...). I'd call it the romantic phase. Then the scientific phase began with lots of general rules discovered and well researched plans. This led to different opening, more balanced systems becoming the mainstay of tournament play. If you followed the rules of thumb your opening were considered sound. Nowadays we have entered the computerized phase, where concrete variations checked by computers rule the tournament halls. This led to the rise of some very sharp, concrete opening systems that otherwise no-one would have dared to play. So, depending on the time in history your question is asked, you will get a different answer about which opening is a bad choice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="94" LastActivityDate="2012-05-07T06:32:57.293" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="302" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="304" CreationDate="2012-05-07T06:58:41.460" Score="14" ViewCount="830" Body="&lt;p&gt;I like to play &lt;code&gt;1. e4&lt;/code&gt;, as I favor open and dynamic positions, and feel comfortable with most black responses, but I there are some openings I don't like, e.g. Sicilian or French. My aversion might be unreasonable, but I would like to know how to deal with this situation psychologically. Should I play e.g. &lt;code&gt;1. d4&lt;/code&gt; instead in order to avoid these responses at all? Should I study these openings and try to overcome my aversion? Should I voluntarily use &quot;drawish&quot; lines like the exchange variation in French? Should I play unusual lines in order to throw the opponent out of the book (e.g. &lt;code&gt;f4&lt;/code&gt; in both openings)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="35" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-12T00:37:22.123" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T17:16:15.513" Title="How can I deal with defenses I don't like?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;psychology&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="303" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="302" CreationDate="2012-05-07T08:21:49.233" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;No matter what your first move will be, you will always run the risk to encounter some openings you don't like. It's the same with endgames. At example, I do hate mating with bishop and knight, but I had to do it once to win the game. Should I have avoided that endgame or agreed to an early draw instead, just because I don't like it (and because I forget half the time how to win this bloody endgame)? Avoidance is no option, sometimes you just have to endure unpleasantness. Never throw away a game by drawing early only because you don't like the opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Secondly, don't play something to &quot;punish&quot; your opponents because they played something you didn't like. Your opponents will &lt;em&gt;always&lt;/em&gt; try to play something which is unpleasant to you, like attacking your king and mating you ;) If you like the exchange variation of the French, then by all means play it. But if you play it just to annoy your opponent (&quot;hah, that will teach you to play the French ever again...&quot;), think twice. You are playing to win the game, not to eradicate the love for the French opening in the world! Only ever choose a line because it suits your goal (like getting a good position, winning/drawing the game etc.).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My suggestion is to look into the reasons of your aversion. Don't you like the resulting positions? Ask yourself why. Is it because you don't understand them or because your play is not as good in them as in other positions? Then you found a spot worth of improvement! Is it because you don't like the kind of play resulting from such positions (like too many or too few open lines, etc)? Nearly every opening offers lines to steer the game into different kind of waters. Have a look at some games of your unpleasant openings, pick the ones you would have enjoyed most to have played and then look deeper into the lines/systems that the White player employed there. In the long run, you need to hone your skills even in areas you are not interested in. For some people it's those boring closed positions, the next one can't stand pawn endgames, etc., but to become better, you have to master those situations as well. And as soon as you do, you will begin to like those situations. So this is the way to go to avoid unpleasant situations: Make them pleasant to you because you can handle them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That said, I must say that if you are &lt;em&gt;really&lt;/em&gt; unhappy with the openings your play produces, changing your opening repertoire might be a terrible good idea, indeed. Just don't expect you can avoid playing unwanted openings that way. Every opening move can lead to openings you don't like.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="94" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T17:15:53.547" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T17:15:53.547" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="304" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="302" CreationDate="2012-05-07T15:54:41.637" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;As Black, the Sicilian and French are my favorite defenses to &lt;code&gt;1. e4&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both White and Black want to have the initiative. If Black plays these particular defenses, it is specifically with the intent of taking the initiative away from White. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The best mind set is to take the defensive and play &quot;Black,&quot; but with an extra move. In this way, you will learn the advantage of having the first move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The other way so to play these defenses as Black, and find out what problems he faces. In the French, the light squared bishop can easily become &quot;bad,&quot; so if White trades the black squared bishops, and then your light squared bishop for a knight, White may have the advantage. In the Sicilian, Black risks getting overrun on the kingside, if his center-queenside play proves inadequate. These are issues he might not run into with the Ruy, or other defenses to &lt;code&gt;1. e4&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-12T00:37:42.030" LastActivityDate="2012-06-12T00:37:42.030" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="305" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-05-07T18:39:30.500" Score="14" ViewCount="4098" Body="&lt;p&gt;For my opening strategy in most chess games I play, I usually move my pawns forward two, then one in an alternating strategy, until I have a sort of WWW shape with my pawns. That way, if anyone takes a pawn at the top, a pawn at the bottom can avenge the pawn by destroying it. I've only ever used this strategy when opening, with mixed effectiveness. Is there any better way to execute this strategy, without diverging from its core too far?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT&lt;/strong&gt;: An attempt at algebraic notation: &lt;code&gt;1. a3&lt;/code&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;code&gt;(a4)&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;code&gt;2. b4&lt;/code&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;code&gt;(b3)&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/em&gt; etc. If A is 3, then B is 4, and C is 3 again. However if A is 4 then B is 3, and C is 4. This effectively renders one of my bishops useless.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="148" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-11-04T05:58:35.393" LastActivityDate="2013-12-10T12:48:53.710" Title="Is pawns supporting pawns a good opening strategy?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;pawns&gt;" AnswerCount="8" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="306" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="305" CreationDate="2012-05-07T19:40:36.383" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;Using pawns to support pawns is a common practice.  However, it seems you're taking it too far; in the beginning of the game you probably want to focus on controlling the center and getting some pieces into the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Moving pawns without reason can cause holes and reduce at least one bishop to uselessness.  It can make your king hard to defend.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Play through some master games and see how they do it; they don't move a lot of pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2012-05-07T19:40:36.383" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="307" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="305" CreationDate="2012-05-07T21:52:11.497" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;Maybe.&#xA;From what I know, in opening theory the closest thing to what you describe is The &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stonewall_Attack&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Stonewall&lt;/a&gt;. A few things to note:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;chess computers have been vulnerable to the Stonewall because the positions are usually without clear tactical lines&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;this could give you an easy early game because inexperienced players don't know how to stop it&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;if your WWW pawns are on white squares, your black bishop is more valuable than your white bishop (and vice versa) so you shouldn't trade your most valuable bishop early, this will leave you with holes in your position and your opponent can place pieces that won't be dislodged easily from those holes&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Instead of recommending books on the subject(I don't play the stonewall myself) I'll recommend &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7A74B7CAB5472D1E&amp;amp;feature=plcp&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this youtube&lt;/a&gt; playlist on the stonewall.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since you don't know algebraic notation yet, this might be more useful for starters than a book.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="75" LastEditorUserId="780" LastEditDate="2013-01-30T19:18:16.670" LastActivityDate="2013-01-30T19:18:16.670" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="308" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-05-08T12:46:26.517" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2012-05-08T12:46:26.517" LastActivityDate="2012-05-08T12:46:26.517" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="309" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-05-08T12:46:26.517" Score="0" Body="Questions relating to the best move in a given situation" OwnerUserId="86" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-05-08T12:50:16.700" LastActivityDate="2012-05-08T12:50:16.700" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="310" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="315" CreationDate="2012-05-08T12:55:23.950" Score="10" ViewCount="12244" Body="&lt;p&gt;As Black, I have never played the Scandinavian Defence, nor have I ever liked the Center Game for White.  It seems like &lt;code&gt;1. e4 d5&lt;/code&gt; wastes valuable time after &lt;code&gt;2. exd5 Qxd5 3. Nc3&lt;/code&gt; and Black's Queen must flee, while White can comfortably develop:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/fclis.png&quot; width=&quot;300&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The same drawback goes to White in the Center Game: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5. 2. d4 exd4 3. Qxd4 Nc6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But the opening, notwithstanding, appears to be still popular, and online players have often played it against me.  Is there some redeeming virtue that I'm missing in this defence?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="86" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2017-12-31T11:46:13.297" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T17:13:23.647" Title="Is the Scandinavian Defence inferior?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;scandinavian-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="311" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-05-08T12:57:48.237" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scandinavian_Defense&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Scandinavian Defence&lt;/a&gt;, also known as the Center Counter Game, is characterized by the following opening moves:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1. e4 d5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is generally followed by &lt;code&gt;2. exd5 Qxd5&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="86" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-05-08T13:06:03.423" LastActivityDate="2012-05-08T13:06:03.423" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="312" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-05-08T12:57:48.237" Score="0" Body="The Scandinavian Defence is the opening which begins with the moves 1. e4 d5, also known as the Center Counter Game." OwnerUserId="86" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-06-15T05:28:16.367" LastActivityDate="2012-06-15T05:28:16.367" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="313" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-05-08T13:07:04.120" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Center_Game&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Center Game&lt;/a&gt; is an opening which runs as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1. e4   e5&#xA;2. d4 exd4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is usually followed by &lt;code&gt;3. Qxd4 Nc6&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="86" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-05-08T13:38:15.270" LastActivityDate="2012-05-08T13:38:15.270" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="314" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-05-08T13:07:04.120" Score="0" Body="The Center Game is the opening which begins with the moves 1. e4 e5 2. d4." OwnerUserId="86" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-06-10T00:19:40.423" LastActivityDate="2012-06-10T00:19:40.423" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="315" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="310" CreationDate="2012-05-08T14:18:14.037" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here are a few reasons one may take up the defense:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Despite having the Queen kicked by the Knight, the Queen is in no real danger of being trapped, its most common escape locations being to a5 and d6.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Black's pawn structure is solid, in similar ways to the Caro-Kann.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The number of lines Black needs to know are fairly limited, this makes it an easy defense to get into.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It's not played very often, so the Black player will likely have more familiarity with the positions than White.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Black is able to develop all the pieces and castle in relative safety; notable is the ability to develop with the Bishop on c8 before &lt;code&gt;...e6&lt;/code&gt; is played.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="103" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-12T00:41:44.287" LastActivityDate="2012-06-12T00:41:44.287" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="316" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-05-08T14:56:04.553" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2012-05-08T14:56:04.553" LastActivityDate="2012-05-08T14:56:04.553" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="317" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-05-08T14:56:04.553" Score="0" Body="Questions relating to reasoning behind a move, plan, or idea" OwnerUserId="86" LastEditorUserId="3594" LastEditDate="2020-02-08T20:52:33.050" LastActivityDate="2020-02-08T20:52:33.050" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="318" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="310" CreationDate="2012-05-08T15:15:22.090" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Scandinavian defense is theoretically inferior because White will gain time with his actual, and potential threats to chase the queen. Unlike the Scotch game, the threats against the queen are real, because &lt;em&gt;no&lt;/em&gt; pairs of knights have been exchanged, and only one pair of pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But it takes very accurate play by White to realize this advantage. The black queen can be placed aggressively at a5, which can cause White some discomfort. Hence, it popularity in an online or club game, where mediocre (White) players abound.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-12T17:26:07.770" LastActivityDate="2012-06-12T17:26:07.770" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="319" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="297" CreationDate="2012-05-08T15:19:37.267" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In general, &quot;gambits&quot; used to be popular in the 19th and early 20th centuries, but are usually considered inferior nowadays. This includes not only kings gambit but the Evans gambit, and &quot;wing&quot; gambits such as the Muzio gambit or offshoots such as the Grob (&quot;Spike&quot;) opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Modern theory, with computerized simulations, show that with accurate Black play, an early pawn sacrifice is usually not worth it. One exception is the Queen's gambit, where the sacrifice is more apparent than real, because White will usually regain the pawn, or Black will have hard time holding it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2012-05-08T15:19:37.267" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="321" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="305" CreationDate="2012-05-08T18:03:51.327" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think you are taking it too far, at least in the beginning.  You should move 1 or 2 pawns at most in the beginning, but get some major pieces out for control of the center such as your knights and bishops.  If you move your pawns first while your opponent has brought their major artillery out, you will soon be severely behind in development.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastActivityDate="2012-05-08T18:03:51.327" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="322" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="323" CreationDate="2012-05-08T20:46:20.077" Score="6" ViewCount="5043" Body="&lt;p&gt;Many of my games as Black feature the Two Knights' Defence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.  e4   e5&#xA;2. Nf3  Nc6&#xA;3. Bc4  Nf6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes my opponent will play &lt;code&gt;4. Ng5&lt;/code&gt;, and I usually reply with &lt;code&gt;4 ... d5&lt;/code&gt;.  It is not uncommon for the play to continue &lt;code&gt;5. exd5 Nxd5&lt;/code&gt; (because neither of us knows any better - I'm still learning to smell &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fried_Liver_Attack&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;fried liver&lt;/a&gt;), and if my opponent is particularly bloodthirsty, &lt;code&gt;6. Bxd5 Qxg5&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I've just heard of the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Chess_Opening_Theory/1._e4/1...e5/2._Nf3/2...Nc6/3._Bc4/3...Nf6/4._Ng5/4...Bc5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Traxler Counterattack&lt;/a&gt;, in which I would play &lt;code&gt;4 ... Bc5!?&lt;/code&gt;.  How is that a seriously played course?  With &lt;code&gt;4... Bc5!? 5. Bxf7+&lt;/code&gt; White wins a Pawn without any compensation for Black that I can see.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The merit that I see in it for Black is when White plays &lt;code&gt;5. Nxf7&lt;/code&gt;.  Even that seems unsteady for Black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My options as I see it are 1) go for the Traxler (and maybe lose a pawn?), 2) lose a pawn (after &lt;code&gt;4. Ng5 d5 5. exd5&lt;/code&gt;), 3) face a possible fried liver attack (after &lt;code&gt;5... Nxd5&lt;/code&gt;), and 4) avoid  &lt;code&gt;1. e4    e5&#xA;    2. Nf3  Nc6&#xA;    3. Bc4  Nf6&lt;/code&gt; altogether, perhaps by playing &lt;code&gt;3... h6&lt;/code&gt; as I've seen some do.  Then again, the &quot;lost&quot; Pawn I've mentioned might be able to be avenged, but how?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="86" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2017-12-31T11:43:03.470" LastActivityDate="2017-12-31T11:43:03.470" Title="Should I go for the Traxler Counterattack?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;two-knights&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="323" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="322" CreationDate="2012-05-08T22:08:36.617" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Traxler can be a lot of fun to play if white plays &lt;code&gt;5.Nxf7?!&lt;/code&gt;.  If white plays &lt;code&gt;5.Bxf7+!&lt;/code&gt; instead, then it's a lot less fun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Before I go any further, let me recommend the following: instead of the Traxler, play &lt;code&gt;4...d5 5.exd5&lt;/code&gt; and now either &lt;code&gt;5...Na5&lt;/code&gt; (Morphy variation) or &lt;code&gt;5...b5&lt;/code&gt; (Ulvestad variation).  Both of these lines feature black sacrificing a pawn in exchange for quick development.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, back to the Traxler:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, the &quot;fun&quot; line, &lt;code&gt;5.Nxf7?!&lt;/code&gt;.  Black should play &lt;code&gt;5...Bxf2&lt;/code&gt;.  Now white can choose between &lt;code&gt;Kxf2&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;Kf1&lt;/code&gt;.  Both of these lines give black good attacking chances, although black will frequently be down two pieces.  You can take a look at an &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesscafe.com/text/kaiss23.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;article from chesscafe&lt;/a&gt; for some more information.  Those lines are not really up to date, but it's a good introduction.  If you're interested in these specific lines, that's probably worth a separate question for each since the variations get out of hand very quickly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The more sobering line, &lt;code&gt;5.Bxf7+&lt;/code&gt; can really put a damper on black's plans.  The best line now is &lt;code&gt;5...Ke7 6.Bb3! Rf8&lt;/code&gt;.  Now white scores an impressive 69.3% with &lt;code&gt;7.d3&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/pQ6X8.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Granted most of those games were not top level games, but black's difficulties are apparent.  White has not committed to castling kingside yet, and can start trades with a plan like Nc3-d5.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So to wrap up, if you want to play the Two Knights defense (&lt;code&gt;3...Nf6&lt;/code&gt;), you have to be ready for &lt;code&gt;4.Ng5&lt;/code&gt;, and you should take a look at the Morphy variation and the Ulvestad.  Both of these lines give black good chances for a win, even though black sacrifices a pawn.  Playing a quiet move like &lt;code&gt;3...h6&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;3...Be7&lt;/code&gt; is not really good, although both moves stop &lt;code&gt;4.Ng5&lt;/code&gt;.  The problem is that neither h6 nor Be7 really help black develop around the center, and white can react immediately with &lt;code&gt;4.d4!&lt;/code&gt;.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At the top level, black will usually play into an Italian game with &lt;code&gt;3...Bc5&lt;/code&gt; instead of the Two Knights.  The only real gambit in this case is the Evan's Gambit with &lt;code&gt;4.b4&lt;/code&gt;.  Again, all of these variations probably deserve their own question, but hopefully this is enough to get you started.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12" LastActivityDate="2012-05-08T22:08:36.617" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="325" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-05-09T00:37:24.140" Score="0" Body="&lt;h1&gt;Two Knights Defense&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Two Knights Defense a defense to the Italian Game.  It is characterized by the following moves:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1.e4 e5&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  2.Nf3 Nc6&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  3.Bc4 Nf6&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;3...Nf6&lt;/code&gt; immediately strikes in the center, in contrast to &lt;code&gt;3...Bc5&lt;/code&gt; as in the &lt;a href=&quot;/questions/tagged/giuoco-piano&quot;&gt;Giuoco Piano&lt;/a&gt;.  The Two Knights Defense usually leads to sharper play than the &quot;quiet game&quot;.  With Nf6, black puts pressure on white's e4 pawn.  White has several options in reply:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;4.Ng5&lt;/code&gt; is the most aggressive, and black usually sacrifices a pawn with 4...d5 in order to gain a lead in development.  &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;4.d4&lt;/code&gt; is another aggressive try, when &lt;code&gt;4...exd4 5.O-O Bc5 6.e5&lt;/code&gt; leads to the Max Lange attack.  Black can also play &lt;code&gt;5...Nxe4&lt;/code&gt; and white's center has been demolished, but white has a lead in development in exchange.  &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;4.d3&lt;/code&gt; is a solid option, frequently transposing back to the Giuoco Piano after &lt;code&gt;4...Bc5&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;4.Nc3&lt;/code&gt; is the last common move, attempting to defend the e4 pawn, but black can play &lt;code&gt;4...Nxe4!&lt;/code&gt; anyways, since &lt;code&gt;5.Nxe4 d5!&lt;/code&gt; regains the piece with a good game for black.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;ECO Codes&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;C55&lt;/strong&gt;: 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nf6&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;C56&lt;/strong&gt;: 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nf6 4.d4 exd4 5.O-O Nxe4&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;C57&lt;/strong&gt;: 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nf6 4.Ng5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;C58&lt;/strong&gt;: 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nf6 4.Ng5 d5 5.exd5 Na5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;C59&lt;/strong&gt;: 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nf6 4.Ng5 d5 5.exd5 Na5 6.Bb5+ c6 7.dxc6 bxc6 8.Be2 h6&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-06-21T17:54:42.107" LastActivityDate="2017-06-21T17:54:42.107" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="326" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-05-09T00:37:24.140" Score="0" Body="Questions about the Two Knights Defense (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nf6) and games featuring the Two Knights Defense.  ECO codes C55-C59" OwnerUserId="12" LastEditorUserId="12" LastEditDate="2012-05-09T19:52:15.330" LastActivityDate="2012-05-09T19:52:15.330" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="327" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="332" CreationDate="2012-05-09T01:10:19.683" Score="18" ViewCount="1816" Body="&lt;p&gt;I (about a 1500 player) once took White against a 2100 player, and played a Queen's Gambit. I lost of course, but the other player complimented my play. He said, &quot;You played well for about 20 moves, and made a small mistake on the 21st, which I took advantage of.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It certainly helped that I was playing White, which is sort of a form of handicap.&#xA;(See &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/4/is-there-a-way-use-handicaps-in-chess-to-bridge-players-of-different-skill-if-n&quot;&gt;Is there a way to use handicaps in chess to bridge the gap between players of different skill levels?&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't remember using a &quot;book&quot; variation, but played moves that seemed to follow common sense. Maybe I kept the game simple. Somehow, I managed to play &quot;neck and neck&quot; until I overlooked a combination that gave Black a pawn advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it as simple as that, staving off defeat is a matter of not making mistakes? (I finally made one, although it wasn't obvious to me.) Or does the weaker player (with White, anyway) have to do something to keep the stronger player at bay, like seize and hold the initiative (which I tried, but probably failed to do)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And to reverse the question, suppose you were playing someone of much less rated strength who was playing &quot;even&quot; with you, perhaps as the result of learning some book variation. Should you steer for complications, perhaps away from the book, into areas that your opponent might be less familiar with? Or should you just play your best game and count on him to make a mistake?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T17:07:03.590" Title="How can one get the best possible result against a player of very different strength?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="328" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="327" CreationDate="2012-05-09T02:07:27.943" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;The general rule is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Against weaker opponents, try and simplify the position.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Against stronger opponents, try and complicate the position.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reasoning is that a strong player will falter more in a complicated position than he would in a &quot;dry&quot;, boring position. Against much higher rated opponents, go for wild tactical melees and crazed positions. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In a &quot;normal&quot; game, the stronger player will simply wait and improve his position until the weaker player gives him something. As just an example, after a equal position after N moves, let's say that the 2100-rated player castles kingside &quot;N+1&quot; moves into the game, and then the next move by the 1500-rated player castles queenside, with the notable difference that no pawns are moved in front of the 2100's king, and the 1500's king has the a6-pawn sticking out. Bam! You just gave him something. The 2100 player would roll the queenside pawns forward and &quot;hook&quot; that a6-pawn. All things being equal you can count on the 2100 player's attack crashing through first.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I will emphasize that no matter who the opponent, that chess is a mix of prophylaxis (e.g. preventing counterplay) and aggression. Take time to study your plans, but don't forget about your opponent. Q: When should you be on the lookout for your opponent's possibilities? A: Every move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="107" LastActivityDate="2012-05-09T02:07:27.943" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="329" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="333" CreationDate="2012-05-09T02:55:16.340" Score="16" ViewCount="7777" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm always experiencing difficulties while trying to visualize what moves a tutorial (or an answer here for that matter) is talking about unless I have a chessboard with coordinates nearby. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this something I should fix, or is it fine to be using a chessboard? and what can you advise someone who want to memorize it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-05-09T13:05:29.600" LastActivityDate="2018-03-15T14:51:21.007" Title="Memorizing the board" Tags="&lt;memorization&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="330" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="327" CreationDate="2012-05-09T02:55:28.577" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;While I agree with Quantum Elf's general rule, there is also an advantage to complicating the position for someone much weaker (perhaps this applies to the weaker opponent being &amp;lt;1500). If you're able to calculate possibilities quicker than your opponent, moving into a tactical position intentionally will give you more opportunities to capitalize on any tactical mistakes they make.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="142" LastActivityDate="2012-05-09T02:55:28.577" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="331" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="310" CreationDate="2012-05-09T03:48:04.580" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I usually play the &lt;code&gt;2...Nf6&lt;/code&gt; line.  I play it because it is forcing and I can focus on one defense, and white usually isn't as prepared for it.  It gives black a lot of play and tactical choices.  It's a fun line.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="117" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-12T00:40:30.357" LastActivityDate="2012-06-12T00:40:30.357" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="332" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="327" CreationDate="2012-05-09T04:22:42.960" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;Statistically speaking, a 600 point rating disadvantage means that you have about a &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elo_rating_system#Mathematical_details&quot;&gt;3.07%&lt;/a&gt; chance of winning.  If you want to improve that, your best bet is to play a position that you are familiar with.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;sup&gt;This part of the answer might be more pertinent to a 2000 player playing a 2200 player&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;One way to do this is to play an opening that you know intimately.  If you have a pet line, this is the time to play it.  Especially if you've analyzed an unusual opening with a computer, this will shorten the odds.  Basically, the 3200+ rated computer will be playing your opponent for you.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;sub&gt;Ok, that's it for opening preparation&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One common suggestion is to randomize the position if you are the weaker player.  This makes a lot of sense.  Chances are that the stronger player is also better at endgames.  So you don't want to get to the endgame unless you will win easily.  I've frequently beaten lower rated players from an equal endgame or even an endgame where I'm a little worse.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In a &quot;randomized&quot; position, usually multiple pieces are hanging, one or both kings are weak, and most of the pieces are still on the board.  Now, unfortunately, truly good players thrive in these positions, and they will work out all the complications.  But you're probably not playing a 2600+ grandmaster, so this is still not a bad idea.  In these random positions, both players will be forced to use most of their time to make their way along the &quot;narrow path&quot;.&lt;sup&gt;[1]&lt;/sup&gt;  Once the players are deep in time pressure, anything can happen.&lt;sup&gt;[2]&lt;/sup&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is &lt;em&gt;NOT&lt;/em&gt; to say you should make bad moves.  If at any point you make inferior moves, well, the stronger opponent will probably take advantage of them.  Instead, just keep pieces on the board.  One trick you can use to complicate - when a piece is attacked, instead of moving it or defending it, just attack one of your opponent's pieces.  This is much easier said than done, but this will quickly complicate even a mundane position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ok, if you've made it this far, just a few more general thoughts.  The easiest way to beat a stronger player is to just get lucky.  Everyone has a bad day from time to time, you just have to be playing someone who happens to make a mistake and take advantage of it.  The key to this is to not make any terrible mistakes.  If you can stay in the game and not lose material, you can always win - even if you have a bad position.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Double check every move before you make it.  If you see a move that you think wins, spend &lt;em&gt;more&lt;/em&gt; time than usual, don't make this move quickly.  If you're right, being behind on the clock won't really matter.  If you're wrong, you won't make an inferior move.  One saying that I've always found helpful is &quot;never play a blunder quickly&quot; (source unknown).  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Personally, I'm not convinced that the right plan is to just complicate the position and hope.  While this is a good plan of last resort, everyone plays with the same 16 pieces.  Make solid moves, calculate everything you need to, and be inspired to play well.  Even if you lose, you'll learn far more from a well played game that you just barely lost than a game where one of the players blundered on move 12.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lastly, some rules that have helped me against lower rated players in the past:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Don't be afraid of endgames, even if it should be drawn with best play&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Similarly, don't be afraid of equal positions&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A small advantage is often enough to win, but even if you are down material, swindles are often possible, so don't give up.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Finally, as a stronger player, I've had good luck in complicated positions.  As likely as it is for a stronger player to blunder, it is even more likely for the lower rated player to also blunder.  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[1]: David Bronstein: &quot;When you play against an experienced opponent who exploits all the defensive resources at his command you sometimes have to walk time and again, along the narrow path of 'the only move'.&quot;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;[2]: Lev Alburt: (paraphrased from &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1889323101&quot;&gt;http://www.amazon.com/Chess-Rules-Thumb-Lev-Alburt/dp/1889323101&lt;/a&gt;) &quot;Having 15 minutes when your opponent has 5 is worth 200 rating points.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12" LastActivityDate="2012-05-09T04:22:42.960" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="333" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="329" CreationDate="2012-05-09T04:32:04.040" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;The easiest way to visualize the board is to practice!  I know that sounds trite, but there aren't really all that many shortcuts.  Go over games in magazines.  Start from one of the positions given as an image and then &quot;make&quot; as many moves as you can in your head.  Try to see the position and look for the threats and ideas of each move.  If you can only make one move, that's fine - it's a good start.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similarly, you can use a physical board when you're going over a game.  Play out the moves on the board and start to learn the squares by name as opposed to figuring out which square is which each time.  That's probably the first step.  After you know the &quot;names&quot; of the squares, the rest will start to fall into place.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/at7rZ.gif&quot; alt=&quot;Empty Chess Board&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12" LastActivityDate="2012-05-09T04:32:04.040" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="334" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="327" CreationDate="2012-05-09T10:23:51.430" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here's another point worth mentioning: you could try to steer the game into a draw by threefold or a tactic-less position (first two draws are not about what I'm saying here):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chesscollection?cid=1008234&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chesscollection?cid=1008234&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you're the much lower rated player I think in the short term this is the best you can do. In the long term, learn more about chess and turn your weaknesses into strengths.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="75" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T17:06:54.277" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T17:06:54.277" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="335" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="329" CreationDate="2012-05-09T10:33:02.113" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are books available that promise to directly improve your visualisation skills (like &quot;Chess Visualization Course&quot; by Ian Anderson, which I haven't read myself).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But the easiest way to improve your visualization skill that might even make you a better player in more regards is: &lt;strong&gt;Reading tactics books&lt;/strong&gt; (like &quot;1001 Winning Chess Sacrifices and Combinations&quot; by Fred Reinfeld). Trying to find the solution without the help of the board is a great way to learn thinking ahead. A great introductionary book to start with (beginning with 1-move-mates) is &quot;Chess: 5334 Problems, Combinations, and Games&quot; by Laszlo Polgar). This way you have tons of material to practice your visualization and hone your tactical prowess at the same time!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="94" LastEditorUserId="757" LastEditDate="2018-03-13T22:18:30.993" LastActivityDate="2018-03-13T22:18:30.993" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="336" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="338" CreationDate="2012-05-09T13:36:23.713" Score="11" ViewCount="9454" Body="&lt;p&gt;As white, I often encounter the Philidor Defense by black:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5&#xA;2. Nf3 d6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I usually play &lt;code&gt;Nc3&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt; on the next move, but is this the best move? What are some lines (advantages or disadvantages) against the Philidor?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T15:20:29.370" LastActivityDate="2020-08-05T02:01:39.350" Title="How should I play against the Philidor defense?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;philidor-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="337" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="336" CreationDate="2012-05-09T14:46:53.333" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Against the Philidor you might experiment with a line I developed myself (don't know how good it is), but if they surrender the center (i.e. exd4), then I develop a setup where I fianchetto the dark-squared bishop on b2, play f3 at some early point (with perhaps a later f4). I usually stick the other bishop on d3 then if they chop it with a knight I take back with the c-pawn, getting a better center than Black at the cost of bishop vs. knight. I usually can start up some sort of middlegame kingside pawn majority attack as a result of all this and create mate threats by Qe1-g3 along with the bishop at b2. It seems to work fairly well but I'm sure some IM/GM could refute the whole thing. Not like we regularly play against those guys though.  :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="107" LastActivityDate="2012-05-09T14:46:53.333" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="338" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="336" CreationDate="2012-05-09T14:50:53.183" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;3. d4&lt;/code&gt; is the usual move after &lt;code&gt;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 d6&lt;/code&gt;.  &lt;em&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Chess_Opening_Theory/1._e4/1...e5/2._Nf3/2...d6&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess Opening Theory&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt; states that it is probably the best move, and also concedes &lt;code&gt;3. Bc4&lt;/code&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The best move is probably &lt;code&gt;3. d4&lt;/code&gt;. White threatens a queen exchange with &lt;code&gt;dxe5 dxe5 Qxd8+ Kxd8&lt;/code&gt; and Black can forget about castling. It puts pressure on the center and the Black fortress may collapse at any time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another possibility is &lt;code&gt;3. Bc4&lt;/code&gt; leading to a more positional game, playable for both camps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/0671768956&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Fred Reinfeld&lt;/a&gt; suggests the following line (exclamation marks are his) as in &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1341027&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this game&lt;/a&gt;.  White maintains a sharp edge:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 d6 3.d4 exd4 4. Qxd4! Nc6 5. Bb5! Bd7 6. Bxc6 Bxc6 7. Nc3 Nf6 8. Bg5 Be7 9. O-O-O&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A good resource to study would be shredderchess.com's &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.shredderchess.com/online-chess/online-databases/opening-database.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;opening database&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="86" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2012-12-18T14:42:05.827" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="339" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-05-09T21:38:36.840" Score="12" ViewCount="10259" Body="&lt;p&gt;I stumbled upon the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stonewall_Attack&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Stonewall attack&lt;/a&gt;, and it looks pretty strong, and I especially like the fact that it is strong against computer programs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would like feedback on this attack, and if this is a move I should consider as a beginner in chess to improve my play?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="27" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-03-07T00:01:49.617" LastActivityDate="2020-03-07T00:01:49.617" Title="What are the advantages of the Stonewall attack?" Tags="&lt;pawn-structure&gt;&lt;stonewall-attack&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="340" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-05-09T23:31:39.167" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Blitz chess is chess played with very short time controls, typically 5 minutes per side or less. More information on this form of chess, including its history, can be found &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-06-21T20:54:01.210" LastActivityDate="2017-06-21T20:54:01.210" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="341" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-05-09T23:31:39.167" Score="0" Body="Blitz chess is chess played with very short time controls, typically 5 minutes per side or less." OwnerUserId="86" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-06-12T22:56:26.473" LastActivityDate="2012-06-12T22:56:26.473" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="342" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="75" CreationDate="2012-05-10T02:23:34.163" Score="25" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've tried out the Goring gambit several times, and it has worked in ~1500 level tournament play. I don't think it's sound at the master level, but it's fun and open with lots of tactical options along the diagonals attacking the kingside.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Title &amp;quot;Goring Gambit&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5&#xA;2. Nf3 Nc6&#xA;3. d4 exd4&#xA;4. c3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, the Evans gambit. Probably also not sound at the master level, but it's quite similar, opening up the diagonals to attack the kingside after getting those pesky pawns out of the way for fast development.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Title &amp;quot;Evans Gambit&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5&#xA;2. Nf3 Nc6&#xA;3. Bc4 Bc5&#xA;4. b4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="142" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-08-17T00:48:06.500" LastActivityDate="2020-08-17T00:48:06.500" CommentCount="0" CommunityOwnedDate="2013-08-09T01:11:05.007" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="343" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="339" CreationDate="2012-05-10T13:42:04.573" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The stonewall attack is a powerful and solid opening that prevents black from controlling the center.  Some key points are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;White will have control of the dark squares (d4, e3, and f4), so it&#xA;is important to take control of the light squares with his pieces&#xA;(&lt;code&gt;Bd3&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;Nd2&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;Nf3&lt;/code&gt;, etc)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;He must also prevent black from playing &lt;code&gt;...e5&lt;/code&gt; with a move like &lt;code&gt;f4&lt;/code&gt;.  If&#xA;black plays &lt;code&gt;...e5&lt;/code&gt;, he can gain space advantage and counterplay in the&#xA;center.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Castle your king early.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is an excellent opening for beginners, just remember to take your time with every move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-12T00:47:04.907" LastActivityDate="2012-06-12T00:47:04.907" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="344" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="339" CreationDate="2012-05-10T14:07:34.787" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;From the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stonewall_Attack&quot;&gt;Wikipedia article that you linked to:&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The downsides to the Stonewall are the hole on e4, and the fact that the dark squared bishop on c1 is completely blocked by its own pawns. If Black defends correctly against White's attack, these strategic deficiencies can become quite serious. Because of this, the Stonewall Attack is almost never seen in master-level chess any more, although it is seen occasionally among club players. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The problem is that although the fortress may be solid (at least to begin with), White's attacking options are limited by the bad bishop. In addition, by setting up the fortress the initiative is handed to black, who has various options to break down the fortress (generally a good opening for white would keep the initiative). The article suggests:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Black has several ways to meet the Stonewall. One choice which must be made is whether to fianchetto one or both bishops; Black can meet the Stonewall with a ...b6 and ...Ba6 aiming to trade off the dangerous white bishop on d3, and a kingside fianchetto with ...g7-g6 takes away White's idea of attacking h7. An early development of Black's light-squared Bishop to f5 also cuts across White's plans.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other obvious attacking options for black are to hit the base of the chain with b5 and b4, or to castle queenside and attack on the king side with g5. Setting up a fortress like this often seems strong, but in fact the opposite may be true, and in fact is simply providing &quot;hooks&quot; for the opponent to mount an attack. As also stated in the article&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Black playing the Stonewall Variation of the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_Defense&quot;&gt;Dutch Defense&lt;/a&gt; is seen occasionally at master level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and one could also surmise that such defensive formations are, in general, more appealing from black's perspective.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="134" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-05-10T22:15:35.610" LastActivityDate="2012-05-10T22:15:35.610" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="345" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="339" CreationDate="2012-05-10T15:18:21.763" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Learning just about &lt;em&gt;any&lt;/em&gt; opening well will improve a beginner's play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That said, the Stonewall is probably better in this regard than others, because of its strong emphasis on center control.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/251/what-is-the-theory-behind-center-control/253#253&quot;&gt;What is the theory behind center control?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another educational advantage of the Stonewall is the &quot;two sided&quot; nature of the opening (robust chances for both sides). The computers don't play it well because of this feature. But that's something that helps a human player improve.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2012-06-12T17:25:40.110" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="346" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="437" CreationDate="2012-05-10T15:29:59.557" Score="24" ViewCount="15644" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there a historic example of a chess game that has, to date, resisted all computerized attempts to find a better sequence of moves? In other words, a &quot;perfect&quot; game?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;CLARIFICATION&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I should have made it clearer that I'm not looking for a perfect (without the quotes) game. That probably will never exist.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But is there a game that no computer has ever been able to improve as of this date?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="153" LastEditorUserId="153" LastEditDate="2012-05-10T20:17:31.833" LastActivityDate="2020-08-16T09:22:38.397" Title="Is there a &quot;perfect&quot; game?" Tags="&lt;history&gt;" AnswerCount="8" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="347" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-05-10T16:48:36.120" Score="14" ViewCount="17380" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been interested for a while about a computer chess AI algorithms (and got the chance to work on one at some point) like &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimax&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Minimax&lt;/a&gt;, and as the core component of these algorithms is the so-called &lt;strong&gt;evaluation function&lt;/strong&gt; to determine what is a &lt;em&gt;good&lt;/em&gt; board configuration, and what is a &lt;em&gt;bad&lt;/em&gt; one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In other terms, given a configuration of your Chess board, how do you determine that it is to your advantage, and with what degree of confidence?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If you &lt;em&gt;own&lt;/em&gt; the center, this is rather favorable.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If you have more pieces than your opponent, this is rather favorable.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If you lost your Queen, this is rather not favorable.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If you have a pawn that is close to being promoted this is favorable.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;...&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I would like to ask for some advice on how to create a &lt;em&gt;good&lt;/em&gt; evaluation function, based on some expert knowledge about the Chess game in general. And if possible, a degree of favorability (say between 1 being very not favorable, to 100 being extremely favorable).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The idea in the end is to be able to create an algorithm that will look in the tree of possibilities up to a certain depth and evaluate what the most favorable configuration for next move is (taking into account several moves in the future) based on what is favorable to the player and not favorable to the opponent. But without a good evaluation function the algorithm is nothing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="27" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2014-09-20T22:02:30.593" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T17:02:11.260" Title="What is an accurate way to evaluate chess positions?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;&lt;evaluation&gt;&lt;chess-algorithms&gt;" AnswerCount="8" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="348" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="346" CreationDate="2012-05-10T18:02:31.923" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I honestly don't think you will ever find a &quot;perfect&quot; game just due to the fact that we are all human and we make mistakes.  Bobby Fischer was once asked to name his best game and said it was his game with Donald Byrne, but it wasn't perfect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hungarian Writer Tibor Karolyi said that Anatoly Karpov came close to playing a mistake-free game at the 1974 chess Olympiad, but a tiny error deprived him from a &quot;perfect&quot; game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But in the end, there is no perfect game and probably never will be.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T17:03:07.977" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T17:03:07.977" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="349" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="346" CreationDate="2012-05-10T20:00:54.493" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think there have probably been games that were perfect in that no one could substantively improve upon them.  This will surely be less and less common as computers get stronger.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2012-05-10T20:00:54.493" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="350" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="305" CreationDate="2012-05-10T21:04:21.337" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your opening strategy does not make the most out of your pieces, and I am not only speaking about the one bishop you're caging in (the &quot;&lt;strong&gt;bad bishop&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Your pawns&lt;/strong&gt; are not used very cleverly, too. Consider three pawns next to each other at the same rank. They control up to 5 squares in front of them. As they are your cheapest pieces, they effectively deny those squares to the fast minor and mayor pieces of your opponent. They create forbidden territory. Next move the pawn in the middle one rank up. Now you have produced holes through which the enemy might enter the ranks closest to your king. It is a much weaker construction, even though some pawns cover each other. But you have produced weak, uncontrolled squares which the enemy can use to penetrate. It's like having a strong castle wall, but leaving the front door wide open. So even if it might look sturdier, it isn't.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The abilities of &lt;strong&gt;your other pieces&lt;/strong&gt; get suppressed, too. They are not moved when you move pawns instead, although they are stronger than pawns. You can do more damage with minor and major pieces. Most of the time the goal of the opening is to develop your pieces as fast as possible. If you can attack full force while your opponent has still all his weapons in the storage area, you will win. Your heavy restriction on pawn moves means you will be the defender, because chances are your opponent is faster than you in launching an attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you really like closed positions where action is somewhat delayed, pick Colle, Stonewall or something similar, but do not rely totally on pawns. As you do not make the most of the potential of your pieces, you will lose against someone who does.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="94" LastActivityDate="2012-05-10T21:04:21.337" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="351" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2307" CreationDate="2012-05-10T22:19:58.197" Score="27" ViewCount="6204" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are complete (or nearly complete) six man end game table bases available for download, and even &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.k4it.de/index.php?topic=egtb&amp;amp;lang=en&quot;&gt;online&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the status of seven man table bases? Is there still active development in this area? How much progress has been made? Is there any estimated time for when it will be completed, or at least complete enough to cover all the common seven man positions that occur in real games?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="45" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2014-02-11T16:45:37.113" LastActivityDate="2020-04-29T18:13:03.743" Title="What is the status for seven man end game table bases?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;tablebases&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="352" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="346" CreationDate="2012-05-10T22:29:10.027" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;To know that a game is &quot;perfect&quot;, you have to solve the entire chess game space. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What you're really asking is whether grandmasters have played a game where a computer would have played the same moves (for both sides)? Assumptions about computer and the analysis time for the computer need to be made. I think it's possible to find such a game, but as you let the computer think longer and longer the number of results will dwindle to 0. If you limit it to only one side, you might find more games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="142" LastActivityDate="2012-05-10T22:29:10.027" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="353" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="351" CreationDate="2012-05-10T22:42:19.153" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;I researched this some last summer, and found &lt;a href=&quot;http://kirill-kryukov.com/chess/discussion-board/viewtopic.php?f=6&amp;amp;t=5815&quot;&gt;this post&lt;/a&gt;, which was inspiring because it was dated recently at the time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The threads related saw a bit of activity and died off:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;the &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://kirill-kryukov.com/chess/discussion-board/viewtopic.php?f=6&amp;amp;t=5816&quot;&gt;metric thread&lt;/a&gt;&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;the &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://kirill-kryukov.com/chess/discussion-board/viewtopic.php?f=6&amp;amp;t=5818&quot;&gt;file format thread&lt;/a&gt;&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In short, I don't think we have any working 7-piece tablebases (complete ones, anyway), yet. They're going to be quite large and the current programs need to be rewritten to support these new larger files. APIs need to be rewritten as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="142" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-12T18:06:26.940" LastActivityDate="2012-06-12T18:06:26.940" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="354" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="383" CreationDate="2012-05-10T23:55:02.197" Score="12" ViewCount="2883" Body="&lt;p&gt;The following &lt;a href=&quot;http://chesstempo.com/chess-problems/92441&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;tactics problem&lt;/a&gt; comes from ChessTempo, and was taken from a &lt;a href=&quot;http://chesstempo.com/gamedb/game/183362/8/3Q2pk/5p1p/5P2/5K1P/p3r3/b2n2P1/8%20w%20-%20-%200%2042&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;game between Anatoly Karpov and Alexey Kuzmin&lt;/a&gt;. It's white's move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The idea of the problem is to find white's best move from the shown position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But my question is slightly different: If both players play &lt;em&gt;perfectly&lt;/em&gt; from the position shown in the diagram, can white force a win, or can black force a draw?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/3Q2pk/5p1p/5P2/5K1P/p3r3/b2n2P1/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I tried using a few chess engines to analyze the position, leaving them running for hours. White gets a very favorable evaluation (about +4 or +5 depending on the engine). I'd normally consider this to be enough for a certain win. But after looking at the computer's best line it seems that after initially winning some material, white's queen just goes round in circles without making any further progress while the black king sits safely behind the wall of pawns. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I guess either the position is a draw, or the computer isn't able to plan far enough ahead to find the winning line. I can't see an easy way for white to win, but I'm no expert and it's possible I've overlooked something.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So what do you think: is it a theoretical win for white or can black escape with a draw?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="45" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-03-28T18:37:29.573" LastActivityDate="2020-03-28T18:37:29.573" Title="Is this endgame position a theoretical win or draw?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;draw&gt;&lt;master-games&gt;&lt;winning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="355" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="354" CreationDate="2012-05-11T02:40:57.760" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Actually, this looks like a win to me. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once you get the below sequence:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/3Q2pk/5p1p/5P2/5K1P/p3r3/b2n2P1/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Qxd2 Re5 2. Qxa2 Ra5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The computer engines get distracted because of all of the possibilities with the king moving over to assist the queen with that lone pawn, but really, if you mix things up and start trading pawns on the kingside, you're going to end up with a much more favorable position for White.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Look at:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/6pk/5p1p/r4P2/5K1P/p7/Q5P1/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;3. g4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which starts the action on the kingside. In fact, with Stockfish, this move alone wasn't recommended even after looking at the position for quite some time (it wanted me to march the king over to assist the queen in defending the queenside against the pawn and rook), but after I made it, the score immediately jumped up to 7+.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyway, a couple moves in from here and I started getting &quot;mate in 35&quot; reports, so I think this is definitely winnable once you start trading off (or winning) some of the kingside pawns, while watching out for the pawn on A.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Update after a bit more analysis:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most paths get to something like the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;7k/6p1/8/5PK1/8/8/Q7/7r b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Rh6 2. Kf4 Rb6 3. Qc4 Rd6 4. Ke5 Rh6 5. Qc8+ Kh7 6. Qe6 Kh8 7. Kd6 Rf6 8. Ke7 Kh7 9. Qxf6 gxf6 10. Kxf6 Kh6 11. Ke6 Kh5 12. f6 Kg5 13. f7 Kf4 14. Kd5 Kf3 15. Kd4 Kg3 16. Ke4 Kh3 17. f8=Q Kg3 18. Qf3+ Kh2 19. Qg4 Kh1 20. Kf3 Kh2 21. Qg2#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Where you have one white pawn left on the kingside, and the queenside pawn was taken care of. So, the fortress is gone once you push the pawn a bit more and trade them off. With perfect play, it is a loss in 20 moves according to &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.k4it.de/index.php?topic=egtb&amp;amp;lang=en&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this 6-man tablebase&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="142" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-10-26T15:19:02.880" LastActivityDate="2019-10-26T15:19:02.880" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="356" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="347" CreationDate="2012-05-11T03:39:43.070" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here's a good starting point. Material comparison is key (and easy), then you can tune that to consider positional aspects like open ranks/files/diagonals, pawn structure, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessprogramming.org/Evaluation&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.chessprogramming.org/Evaluation&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="142" LastEditorUserId="142" LastEditDate="2019-06-30T18:46:46.227" LastActivityDate="2019-06-30T18:46:46.227" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="357" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="99" CreationDate="2012-05-11T04:07:27.920" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chesstempo.com is the one I use. It's pretty excellent. I'd like to hear if there's a better one, though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="142" LastActivityDate="2012-05-11T04:07:27.920" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="358" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="75" CreationDate="2012-05-11T04:29:16.713" Score="103" Body="&lt;p&gt;The most (overly-)aggressive openings I know of that aren't &lt;em&gt;too&lt;/em&gt; bad would probably be the Danish Gambit (Accepted) and the Fried Liver Attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Danish Gambit Accepted&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.d4 exd4 3.c3 dxc3 4.Bc4 cxb2 5.Bxb2 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;White gets three open files and both bishops on open diagonals facing black's king; black gets two pawns.  Usually considered slightly better for black, but played occasionally even up to master level.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Fried Liver Attack:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nf6 4.Ng5 d5 5.exd5 Nxd5 6. Nxf7!? Kxf7 7. Qf3+ Ke6 8. Nc3  &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;White sacrifices a knight to get Black's king out right away.  Proper defense is extremely difficult over the board, but played correctly, black is thought to have a slight advantage.  In most lines, white wins their material back.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="52" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-08-17T00:48:38.137" LastActivityDate="2020-08-17T00:48:38.137" CommentCount="0" CommunityOwnedDate="2013-08-09T01:11:05.007" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="359" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="377" CreationDate="2012-05-11T05:55:37.777" Score="14" ViewCount="848" Body="&lt;p&gt;Say you have a database of a lot of games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How would you go about finding good tactics problems? I suppose you would search until there was a spot where the score shifted, and there was only one good move on the previous move. But that isn't the whole story, sometimes you need to go back a couple of moves to find where the tactic really started.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For now, ideas of how to do this manually is fine (with the help of an analysis engine), but automating this process is the idea.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="142" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-12T18:09:28.450" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T16:59:50.797" Title="How can I find good tactics problems?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;engines&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="360" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="75" CreationDate="2012-05-11T08:54:43.497" Score="32" Body="&lt;p&gt;As there other answers cover only white's options, let me throw in some black thoughts...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benko_Gambit&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Benko Gambit&lt;/a&gt; is a sharp, but sound and deep opening:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;1. d4 Nf6&#xA;2. c4 c5&#xA;3. d5 b5 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The aggressive, but not-so-sound &lt;a href=&quot;//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Gambit&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Budapest Gambit&lt;/a&gt;. However, if the opponent doesn't know the theory, she can be soon in serious trouble:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;1. d4 Nf6&#xA;2. c4 e5&#xA;3. dxe5 Ng4  &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally I like to play the &lt;a href=&quot;//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scotch_Game#4...Qh4.21.3F&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Steinitz variation in the Scotch game&lt;/a&gt;, especially in blitz. If the opponent doesn't know the theory, it's quite unlikely he comes up with the only correct plan Nb1-c3-b5 by himself:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5&#xA;2. Nf3 Nc6&#xA;3. d4 exd4&#xA;4. Nxd4 Qh4!?&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="35" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-08-17T00:49:31.483" LastActivityDate="2020-08-17T00:49:31.483" CommentCount="0" CommunityOwnedDate="2013-08-09T01:11:05.007" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="361" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-05-11T09:13:05.260" Score="10" ViewCount="1846" Body="&lt;p&gt;I read somewhere that on average a GM can think up to 10-15 moves ahead in tactical positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there any specific technique to improve this depth? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please do not provide a generic answer on how to improve one's game, I am only interested in understanding how to increase depth.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="105" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T15:19:28.777" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T15:19:28.777" Title="What are techniques to improve the number of moves thought through in advance?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;calculation&gt;&lt;board-vision&gt;&lt;best-practice&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="362" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="364" CreationDate="2012-05-11T09:16:25.270" Score="3" ViewCount="402" Body="&lt;p&gt;Who are the seconds for Anand and Gelfand in the WCC 2012?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="105" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-12T18:10:55.767" LastActivityDate="2012-06-15T20:32:20.227" Title="What are the names of the seconds for Anand vs Gelfand WCC 2012?" Tags="&lt;world-championship&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="364" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="362" CreationDate="2012-05-11T13:22:05.917" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Anand's seconds are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Peter Heine Nielsen&#xA;Rustam Kasimdzhanov&#xA;Surya Shekhar Ganguly&#xA;Radosław Wojtaszek&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Gelfand's seconds are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Alexander Huzman&#xA;Michael Roiz&#xA;Evgeny Tomashevsky&#xA;Pavel Eljanov&#xA;Maxim Rodshtein&#xA;Levon Aronian (to a lesser extent)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Gelfand discussed his preparation and seconds in a &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessvibes.com/reports/boris-gelfand-i-was-by-no-means-inferior-in-this-match-interview-part-1-of-2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;post-match interview&lt;/a&gt; with &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessvibes.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;chessvibes.com&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastEditorUserId="12" LastEditDate="2012-06-15T20:32:20.227" LastActivityDate="2012-06-15T20:32:20.227" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="365" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="359" CreationDate="2012-05-11T15:42:56.583" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you want to find extremely tactical games, start by looking at extremely tactical players (Alekhine, Tal and Fischer and any other crazy chess guy you like).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Second best would be games between any grandmasters, regardless of the century the game was played. Chess tactics almost always show up even in the most positional of games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to find tactics that win early on, search for miniatures (games that end in a win in, let's say, less than 30 moves).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are sites out there that let users save chess collections (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/collections&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chessgames.com&lt;/a&gt; is one example, there are a few good results if you search for tactics or famous players). But you said you have a database in which you wish to search, so you might not be interested in this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also not involving your chess database, you could find plenty of variety in tactics in books written by chess coaches or in video playlists created by chess coaches (my favourite example here would be &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/user/MatoJelic&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;MatoJelic&lt;/a&gt;, but there are many more).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to find games that involve a lot of captures, search for the number of &lt;code&gt;x&lt;/code&gt; occurrences (if you have a database with games in PGN &lt;strong&gt;and&lt;/strong&gt; you know regular expressions you could search for occurrences of &lt;code&gt;x&lt;/code&gt; in consecutive moves but that won't get you enough value for the effort, so i wouldn't recommend).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What you can't find are tactics that are avoided. At least you can't find them by looking at the game moves alone. You'll need a human to say &lt;em&gt;what if...?&lt;/em&gt;, then make the move, then check with a computer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="75" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T16:59:28.960" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T16:59:28.960" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="366" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-05-11T15:46:26.693" Score="13" ViewCount="18330" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a beginning chess player, and I want to learn more about openings, the middle game, and the endgame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can anyone suggest any good chess software that 'tutors' beginners?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="108" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-12T00:56:46.593" LastActivityDate="2017-01-10T07:32:50.180" Title="Is there any chess software that tutors beginners?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;software&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="367" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="366" CreationDate="2012-05-11T15:58:26.097" Score="16" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Chessmaster series.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;IGN said that &lt;code&gt;the series has always distinguished itself with first-rate chess teaching tools&lt;/code&gt; and this is the best selling chess franchise in the world. It virtually has no rival in chess teaching software, at least as far as my research goes. Chessmaster doesn't have the best chess engine though, so if you plan on playing professional chess you'll need a better engine after you reach master level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I owned a copy of Chessmaster 10k and it featured, from what I can remember:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;tutorials from Josh Waitzkin on the basics of chess, openings, endings, tactics, strategy, analysis of his own games&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;attacking chess by GM Larry Christiansen&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;chess puzzles by John Nunn&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;written analysis of 900 famous games&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;a searchable database of about 500k games&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="75" LastEditorUserId="75" LastEditDate="2012-05-11T16:05:09.613" LastActivityDate="2012-05-11T16:05:09.613" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="368" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="361" CreationDate="2012-05-11T17:49:33.633" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;My understanding is that masters can look 10-15 moves ahead in &lt;em&gt;some&lt;/em&gt; positions (ones they know well). An experiment once showed that they didn't do so well with &quot;random&quot; positions (ones where pieces were placed randomly on the chess board without regard to chess &quot;sense.&quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The way to this kind of understanding is to learn some (particularly complicated) positions five, then ten moves ahead, in the main variations. Then learn another position like this. Eventually, you'll have a repertoire of positions that you know 5-10 moves in advance. Then use them as a basis for comparison to other positions you might encounter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-12T17:25:13.730" LastActivityDate="2012-06-12T17:25:13.730" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="369" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="366" CreationDate="2012-05-11T18:00:41.457" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here are some:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Chessmaster (discontinued since 2008)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Fritz&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Shredder&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know you said just software, but there are a lot of good websites that will teach you openings, mid-games, and end-games.  Here are some:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.thechesswebsite.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.thechesswebsite.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chesstempo.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://chesstempo.com/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are more websites, just google it and you will find a bunch.  I will caution you as a beginner, your focus should be primarily on fundamentals (control of the center, developing your pieces early, castling your king, etc).  You should not worry too much about the opening, mid-game, or end-game for now at least.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastEditorUserId="8472" LastEditDate="2017-01-10T07:32:50.180" LastActivityDate="2017-01-10T07:32:50.180" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="370" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="373" CreationDate="2012-05-11T18:15:28.490" Score="27" ViewCount="36834" Body="&lt;p&gt;I often hear that you should castle kingside first, rather than queenside. What are the advantages of castling the king-side as opposed to the queenside? Sometimes I like castling queenside, because when I do, my rook ends up on an open file.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastEditorUserId="7726" LastEditDate="2021-02-18T21:42:30.227" LastActivityDate="2021-02-18T21:42:30.227" Title="Why is castling kingside more encouraged than queenside?" Tags="&lt;castling&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="371" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="381" CreationDate="2012-05-11T18:21:34.363" Score="9" ViewCount="871" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let's say you have been practicing a certain opening such as the Ruy Lopez and you have all the main lines down and suddenly your opponent makes some unorthodox move that you did not encounter while studying the Ruy Lopez, so you think to yourself, &quot;Does my opponent have something up their sleeve?&quot; or &quot;My opponent does not know what they are doing&quot;.  If you think the opponent has something up their sleeve like a trap, you might start to panic and blunder and make irrational moves yourself out of paranoia, but you might start to make irrational moves if you think your opponent doesn't know what they are doing when in fact they do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I guess the question boils down to this: How do you know when a move your opponent has made is a sound move (especially if you are a beginner) as opposed to a not so sound move? And once you have made the decision on whether the move was good or not, how do you proceed with development?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-12T01:40:54.823" LastActivityDate="2014-01-02T22:39:50.377" Title="How should one continue development against an unorthodox move by an opponent?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;theory&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="372" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="378" CreationDate="2012-05-11T18:47:46.280" Score="10" ViewCount="3587" Body="&lt;p&gt;I heard that Capablanca never liked to bother with openings, would never study chess or read books. Despite all this, he became world champion. Is this an exception to the rule?  Have times changed today were players are too strong and study is mandatory?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-12T01:40:44.947" LastActivityDate="2020-11-10T11:50:14.830" Title="How can one become a very good chess player without studying chess or openings?" Tags="&lt;theory&gt;&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="373" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="370" CreationDate="2012-05-11T19:04:09.387" Score="28" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's very difficult to answer without a specific position, but here are a few general thoughts:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Kingside&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It is almost always faster to castle kingside because only two pieces need to be moved out of the way, and those two pieces have very natural squares (&lt;code&gt;Nf3&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;Bb5/c4/e2&lt;/code&gt;).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The kingside pawns are usually left on their starting squares so the king is &lt;em&gt;usually&lt;/em&gt; safer on the kingside than it would be on the queenside.  This is in part because the a file can be weak after long castling.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In many positions, the move &lt;code&gt;c3&lt;/code&gt; (&lt;code&gt;...c6&lt;/code&gt; for black) is useful to support a &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt; (&lt;code&gt;...d5&lt;/code&gt; for black) push.  &lt;code&gt;c3&lt;/code&gt; is much safer after kingside castling.  After queenside castling, &lt;code&gt;c3&lt;/code&gt; makes the b1-h7 diagonal weaker.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;After short castling, it is possible to push the a and b pawns to try and gain space on the queenside without making weaknesses around the king.  For example, the move a4 is frequently useful in the Ruy Lopez and the Slav.  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Queenside&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Usually white is the one to castle queenside because white gets to move first.  White can use the initiative to develop faster and start an attack.  Almost all opposite castling games feature white playing &lt;code&gt;O-O-O&lt;/code&gt; and black playing &lt;code&gt;...O-O&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The biggest advantage of queenside castling is that the rook comes immediately to d1 (d8 for black).  This means that queenside castling basically saves a move over kingside castling (no need for &lt;code&gt;Rfe1&lt;/code&gt;).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Often white will need to play &lt;code&gt;Kb1&lt;/code&gt; to better protect the king (black can play &lt;code&gt;...Kb8&lt;/code&gt;).  This is another tempo that must be &quot;wasted&quot; after castling long.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The king is often exposed on the c1-h6 diagonal because the d pawn is usually moved early in the opening.  &lt;code&gt;Kb1&lt;/code&gt; mitigates this danger, but this is still something that must be considered.  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Additional Thoughts&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If you want an attacking game, castling to the opposite side of the board than your opponent is the easiest way to do this.  The reason is that then the pawns in front of your opponent's king can be pushed forward to participate in an attack.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If you want a safe game, for example when your opponent has a lead in development, castle on the same side as your opponent.  If your opponent tries to push the pawns on the same side as the kings, you will frequently be able to counter-attack.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When in doubt, kingside castling is almost never &quot;wrong&quot;, but queenside castling is sometimes a grave error.  In illustration, I present &lt;a href=&quot;//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boden&amp;#39;s_Mate#Typical_pattern&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Boden's Mate&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[StartPly &quot;28&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;simultaneous exhibition&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Budapest&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;1934&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Esteban Canal&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;B01&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 d5 2. exd5 Qxd5 3. Nc3 Qa5 4. d4 c6 5. Nf3 Bg4 6. Bf4 e6&#xA;7. h3 Bxf3 8. Qxf3 Bb4 9. Be2 Nd7 10. a3 O-O-O?? {Incredibly, castling queenside turns out to be a blunder which at the least loses the queen. In another book, Reinfeld writes, &quot;Black mistakenly thinks that [11.axb4] is out of the question. But White, seeing further ahead and relying on his excellent attacking position, has a stunning surprise continuation.&quot; Iakov Neishtadt writes, &quot;Black is convinced that his opponent cannot take the Bishop. This would indeed have been the case if he had played not 10...0-0-0, but 10...Ngf6.&quot; Seirawan and Minev advise, &quot;Motto: Think twice before castling on the Queenside!&quot;}&#xA;11. axb4!! {If a6, b7, and c6 are unprotected by black pieces, then Boden's Mate would be possible, so White starts to deflect the black queen from guarding these squares by force.}&#xA;11... Qxa1+ {If Black plays 11...Qb6 in order to protect a6, b7, and c6, then (besides already being a piece up) White could continue to attack the black queen with 12.Na4 [12...Qxb4+? 13.c3 Qb3 14.Ra3], and the queen will run out of safe squares to protect a6, b7, or c6.}&#xA;12. Kd2! {Another deflection. Black is doomed now, for after capturing the white rook at a1, Black loses the last chance to protect c6, and the black queen is unable to stay on the a-file to protect a6.}&#xA;12... Qxh1 {Reinfeld writes, &quot;Microscopically preferable was 12...Ne5 13.Bxe5 Qxh1 14.Qxf7 Rd7 (amusing would be 14...Ne7 15.Qxe6+! Rd7 16.Bg4 Rhd8 17.Qd6! forcing mate) 15.Qe8+ Rd8 16.Qxe6+ Rd7 17.Qe8+ Rd8 18.Bg4# !&quot;}&#xA;13. Qxc6+ bxc6 14. Ba6# {[%draw arrow,a6,c8, red][%draw arrow,f4,b8, blue]} 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12" LastEditorUserId="4186" LastEditDate="2020-03-10T08:53:06.967" LastActivityDate="2020-03-10T08:53:06.967" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="374" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="391" CreationDate="2012-05-11T19:35:21.003" Score="8" ViewCount="221" Body="&lt;p&gt;Given how huge an advantage real-time external feedback to a player during championship games would give the player, do any of the major chess championships deploy counter-measures to prevent the same sort of cheats you might expect to find at a casino? If so, are these counter-measures well known?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-12T18:20:30.993" LastActivityDate="2012-06-12T18:20:30.993" Title="What counter-measures for cheating exist?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="375" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="380" CreationDate="2012-05-11T19:46:33.430" Score="14" ViewCount="578" Body="&lt;p&gt;With so many combinations of moves possible, how do openings get recognized? For example, what is to prevent me from playing a series of moves and declaring it the &lt;code&gt;xaisoft gambit&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;xaisoft heart-attack&lt;/code&gt;?  What organization officially recognizes openings?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-12T01:03:01.233" LastActivityDate="2013-02-19T22:31:17.407" Title="How do chess openings officially get recognized?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="376" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="388" CreationDate="2012-05-11T19:56:40.953" Score="3" ViewCount="236" Body="&lt;p&gt;Which openings would be regarded as leading to a closed position and being defensive?  Specifically, openings that would be drawish, even against stronger players, but there is still always a possibility of squeezing out a win if played carefully and the opponent goes wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastEditorUserId="12" LastEditDate="2012-06-12T13:14:34.053" LastActivityDate="2012-06-12T13:14:34.053" Title="What openings are closed and defensive?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;closed-position&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="377" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="359" CreationDate="2012-05-11T19:57:42.410" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;One approach might be to go through all the moves of a high level game, and if the engine evaluation changes significantly, then save the position for human review.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this case, &quot;significantly&quot; is probably half a pawn or more, although you could also require it to be one full pawn for easier tactics.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The rationale behind only looking at high level games is that the score will really only change significantly with a blunder.  High level games won't have obvious blunders (i.e. hanging a piece) so the blunders will possibly be a not-so-obvious tactic.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This won't be perfect, but it might get some positions worth looking at &quot;by hand&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just one more note - if you allow the chess engine to search to a sufficient depth (14-16 in most positions should be good) - then you won't have to worry about missing the start of the tactic.  The engines will be able to see most tactics, even if they are complicated.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-12T18:09:40.150" LastActivityDate="2012-06-12T18:09:40.150" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="378" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="372" CreationDate="2012-05-11T21:37:32.723" Score="20" Body="&lt;p&gt;Capablanca didn't like to &quot;study chess or openings&quot; means that he didn't like to study &lt;em&gt;formal&lt;/em&gt; chess (as it was understood in his time).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, he studied more, and had a better grasp of chess principles, particularly as they related to the middle and end game. His best exposition of this was &quot;Chess Fundamentals.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because he focused on principles, rather than &quot;book&quot; moves, he was the hardest person in the world to surprise with a new line. He beat back the Marshall Attack that Marshall had reserved especially for him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nowadays, there is more and better book knowledge, so it's helpful to learn some of it. And the other reason is that not many players have the instinctive grasp of the game that Capablanca had.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-12T01:44:53.943" LastActivityDate="2012-06-12T01:44:53.943" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="379" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="370" CreationDate="2012-05-11T21:44:00.923" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are several reasons.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) Castling kingside is faster, because there are only two pieces between king and rook, as opposed to three on the queenside.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) When castling kingside, the king is placed to protect &lt;em&gt;all&lt;/em&gt; the pawns on that side. Queenside castling leaves the rook pawn unprotected, and the king has to make another additional move (to b1 or b8) to protect it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) Castling on the kingside leaves the queenside freer for endgame purposes, like trying to obtain an &quot;outside&quot; passed pawn on the a file.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That said, there is one advantage of castling on the queenside in that it puts the rook on a center (d) file. If you've moved up your queen, you can reinforce it with the rook. If you've moved your queen off the file, and your opponent hasn't, the rook has the opposing queen in its sights. In short, you castle queen side for positional considerations (as opposed to tactical ones like the three above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-12T17:24:53.467" LastActivityDate="2012-06-12T17:24:53.467" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="380" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="375" CreationDate="2012-05-11T22:38:41.767" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's no organization that officially names openings.  Generally, the first person to publish professional-level research for a sequence of moves gets to name it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many openings with modern names were first played 200 years ago.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2012-05-11T22:38:41.767" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="381" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="371" CreationDate="2012-05-12T00:31:57.923" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are reasons why the main variations of an opening are &quot;established,&quot; and why certain moves are seldom played. If a move is &quot;unusual,&quot; there is probably something wrong with it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So figure out why it is wrong. Maybe it gets the  other player behind in development, or exposes a queen, or weakens a pawn. Once you have figured out what is wrong with the move, it is relatively easy to play against it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: In the Ruy Lopez, you (White) and your opponent might play &lt;code&gt;1. e4 e5. 2. Nf3 Nc6. 3. Bb5&lt;/code&gt;  So far so good. But now Black plays &lt;code&gt;3... Nd4&lt;/code&gt;, a &quot;strange&quot; move that moves a knight twice in succession. It forks your N and B so the e pawn isn't really en prise. But now you play &lt;code&gt;4 NxN&lt;/code&gt;, and when Black recaptures on d4, he's got doubled d pawns, and has wasted a move. You can castle, &lt;code&gt;5. O-O&lt;/code&gt;, and have a significant lead in development.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastEditorUserId="17" LastEditDate="2013-12-24T17:00:29.803" LastActivityDate="2013-12-24T17:00:29.803" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="382" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="418" CreationDate="2012-05-12T06:13:13.527" Score="7" ViewCount="739" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm looking for statistics on the probability of a given opening being used in a game, and by what percent its use is growing or declining over some set timeframe, for example, over the previous year. How do I do this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-08-27T01:48:25.767" LastActivityDate="2012-10-20T18:11:27.460" Title="How do I obtain statistics on openings?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;statistics&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="383" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="354" CreationDate="2012-05-12T07:51:37.250" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think that the position is a &lt;strong&gt;theoretical draw&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While Freeman's answer is quite good, but I think he has overlooked that &lt;code&gt;1. Qxd2&lt;/code&gt; leads to a clearly drawn position because of Black's amazing response &lt;code&gt;1 ...Rb3!!&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/3Q2pk/5p1p/5P2/5K1P/p3r3/b2n2P1/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Qxd2 Rb3!! 2. Qxa2 Rb2!! 3. Qxa3 Rxg2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now I don't see any way for White to win. Black has created an impenetrable fortress and white's queen can do nothing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The 2400+ rated player Alexey Kuzmin missed the move &lt;code&gt;1... Rb3&lt;/code&gt; in the game, playing instead &lt;code&gt;1... Re5?&lt;/code&gt; which gives a theoretically losing position. All the engines I tried also miss the sequence &lt;code&gt;1... Rb3&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;2... Rb2&lt;/code&gt; and instead play a losing move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I suggest that &lt;em&gt;if&lt;/em&gt; there is a forced win for White then we must start looking at 1.Kxe3. This move doesn't win as much material as &lt;code&gt;1. Qxd2&lt;/code&gt;, but it leads to a more dynamic position. White can prevent Black from promoting thanks to black's wrong-colored bishop that is unable to protect the a1 square. White can also threaten to advance the g-pawn to attempt to disrupt Black's wall of pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However a computer analysis of &lt;code&gt;1. Kxd3&lt;/code&gt; seems to show that despite White's material advantage Black can still get a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm no expert, so there may be a mistake in my analysis, so please correct me if I'm wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="45" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-10-26T15:25:22.150" LastActivityDate="2019-10-26T15:25:22.150" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="385" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="412" CreationDate="2012-05-12T12:30:42.840" Score="15" ViewCount="612" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1665695&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;first game&lt;/a&gt; of the WCC 2012 between Anand and Gelfand, which was drawn, Gelfand had a &lt;em&gt;passed pawn on a6&lt;/em&gt;. Could he not have exchanged the major pieces and then tried to win with it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why was the passer ignored and the draw accepted?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Viswanathan Anand-Boris Gelfand,Anand-Gelfand World Championship Match, Moscpw Russia, 5/11/2012&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[startply &quot;48&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 d5 4.cxd5 Nxd5 5.e4 Nxc3 6.bxc3 Bg7 7.Nf3 c5 8.Bb5+ Nc6 9.d5 Qa5 10.Rb1 a6 11.Bxc6+ bxc6 12.O-O Qxa2 13.Rb2 Qa5 14.d6 Ra7 15.Bg5 exd6 16.Qxd6 Rd7 17.Qxc6 Qc7 18.Qxc7 Rxc7 19.Bf4 Rb7 20.Rc2 O-O 21.Bd6 Re8 22.Nd2 f5 23.f3 fxe4 24.Nxe4 Bf5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="105" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-10-26T16:52:45.700" LastActivityDate="2019-10-26T16:52:45.700" Title="In game 1 of the 2012 WCC between Anand and Gelfand, black ignored his passed pawn advantage. Why?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;world-championship&gt;&lt;gelfand&gt;&lt;anand&gt;&lt;passed-pawn&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="386" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-05-12T12:34:47.640" Score="9" ViewCount="1067" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there any website out there that takes PGN input and generates and hosts board positions (To show as image in the question or answer), till the time we get something like this done on this website itself, we can at least borrow?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="105" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-12T18:56:15.660" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T16:29:13.130" Title="Is there any website that generates and hosts board position with PGN as input?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;pgn&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="387" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="382" CreationDate="2012-05-12T13:02:36.550" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Any chess database (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesslive.de&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;chessbase online&lt;/a&gt;, for example) can give you general statistics on how often a move is played in a given position, which you can use to get a feel for how popular an opening is.  To see an opening's popularity over time, and other more sophisticated metrics, you could use a commercial product like ChessBase, which has options like 'Opening Report' which gives you graphs of frequency over time, top player games in the position, and the like.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="63" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-08-27T01:50:05.267" LastActivityDate="2012-08-27T01:50:05.267" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="388" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="376" CreationDate="2012-05-12T13:14:55.007" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;The openings which are considered more drawish are usually openings where you have no central tension and symmetric pawn structure, something like the exchange French/Slav.  It's asymmetry and tension that gives room for complications.  I can't think of many huddled, solid defensive lines where the goal is just to be closed and impenetrable, though you could argue a tamely played and unambitious Stonewall, Colle, or London could fit the bill.  Still, by playing this way, you are creating an imbalance in space and activity which isn't in your favor.  Not recommended.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="63" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-12T01:06:08.470" LastActivityDate="2012-06-12T01:06:08.470" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="389" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="374" CreationDate="2012-05-12T13:24:17.490" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;There have been tournaments that require the players pass through a metal detector, and play in an isolated environment with no spectator contact.  Still, there was the whole &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Chess_Championship_2006&quot;&gt;Toiletgate&lt;/a&gt; incident during the 2006 Topalov-Kramnik match, so even these measures might not seem like 'enough.'  Besides resorting to strip searching the players, what else can be done except isolate them from the outside world during the games?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="63" LastActivityDate="2012-05-12T13:24:17.490" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="390" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="375" CreationDate="2012-05-12T13:29:10.270" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;You don't need to publish it professionally to have an opening named under you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Take the example of the recently played Grunfeld defense in the game 1 of WCC 2012 Anand vs Gelfand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's a little-known fact that the first person to play Grunfeld defence was a &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gr%C3%BCnfeld_Defence&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Moheschunder Bannerjee in 1855&lt;/a&gt;, but because Ernst Grunfeld used it to stun Alexander Alekhine at Vienna in 1922; hence, the opening was named after Grunfeld.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you end up using it in a popular/famous duel then also it can be named after you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="105" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-12T01:03:42.263" LastActivityDate="2012-06-12T01:03:42.263" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="391" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="374" CreationDate="2012-05-12T13:30:23.247" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;See, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessbase.com/columns/column.asp?pid=190&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Cheating in Chess&lt;/a&gt;, by Frederic Friedel.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Abstract&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Nowadays, players at all levels of chess can profit from computer&#xA;  assistance during a game. This is a new development and a serious&#xA;  problem for the game. This contribution lists the main forms of&#xA;  cheating and provides some occurrences from practice. The most&#xA;  prevailing one (Allwermann at the Böblinger Open) is placed in a&#xA;  historical context by describing previously noticed cases of cheating.&#xA;  Finally, the problem of cheating is addressed at the highest level of&#xA;  play. What are the possibilities and how can we prevent cheating at&#xA;  this level? Since there is no clear solution, the issue of cheating&#xA;  remains on the list of issues to be addressed very seriously in the&#xA;  near future.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="38" LastEditDate="2012-05-12T13:38:26.263" LastActivityDate="2012-05-12T13:38:26.263" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="392" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="386" CreationDate="2012-05-12T14:19:51.703" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Found one, after &lt;em&gt;googling&lt;/em&gt; for quite a while!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is the diagram I just generated at the URL &#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessvideos.tv/bimg/3etzqdenimww8.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chessvideos.tv/bimg/3etzqdenimww8.png&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Anand vs Gelfand Game 1 Grunfeld Defence, WCC 2012&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/WUUst.png&quot; alt=&quot;Anand vs Gelfand Game 1 Grunfeld Defence, WCC 2012&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The website to generate the diagram is &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessvideos.tv/genboard.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chessvideos.tv/genboard.php&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;[Edit]&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;Found another one, this one is far better, it &lt;strong&gt;generates Animated gifs&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Anand vs Gelfand Game 2 Queen's Gambit Declined Semi-Slav, WCC 2012&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Ersd7.gif&quot; alt=&quot;Anand vs Gelfand Game 2 Queen&amp;#39;s Gambit Declined Semi-Slav, WCC 2012&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This can be done here &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.caissa.com/chess-tools/pgn-editor.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.caissa.com/chess-tools/pgn-editor.php&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="105" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T16:29:13.130" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T16:29:13.130" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="394" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-05-12T15:17:30.180" Score="17" ViewCount="5566" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a beginner. With reference to opening theory, which opening should I start learning?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My friends are suggesting Ruy Lopez...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="158" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-06-12T04:38:59.453" LastActivityDate="2016-09-14T19:39:36.117" Title="What openings are recommendable for beginners to study?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="396" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-05-12T18:05:09.473" Score="7" ViewCount="1228" Body="&lt;p&gt;How do I get Elo rating done for myself officially?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Do I contact a FIDE area representative?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Many of the users of this site mention their Elo ratings, how did you get these?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="105" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-06-12T01:24:23.953" LastActivityDate="2012-06-12T01:24:23.953" Title="How can I get Elo ratings?" Tags="&lt;fide&gt;&lt;rating&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="397" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-05-12T18:10:04.380" Score="16" ViewCount="2510" Body="&lt;p&gt;What software (preferably free) can I use to do a self assessment to determine my own Elo rating?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="105" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-06-12T01:25:43.033" LastActivityDate="2015-09-28T13:54:51.570" Title="What software can I use to self-assess my own Elo rating?" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;fide&gt;&lt;rating&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="398" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="396" CreationDate="2012-05-12T18:24:29.120" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;To get an official FIDE rating, you need to compete in tournaments which are FIDE rated. At least in the US, it's more common for tournaments to be just USCF rated, while larger events will also FIDE rate the top section(s).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="63" LastActivityDate="2012-05-12T18:24:29.120" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="399" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-05-12T18:48:31.107" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In 1886 Wilhelm Steinitz won the first match billed as a world championship, defeating Johannes Zukertort in a twenty-game match (+10 =5 -5). The crown then passed directly from champion to champion via match play until 1948, when Alexander Alekhine died as champion. At that point, FIDE held a match-tournament to determine a new world champion, which was won by Mikhail Botvinnik. The crown remained solely under the auspices of FIDE until 1993, when sitting champion Garry Kasparov broke away from FIDE to form his own rival organization, the PCA. This ushered in an era of &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Chess_Championship#Split_title_.281993.E2.80.932006.29&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;two split titles&lt;/a&gt;, which lasted until 2006, when Vladimir Kramnik (holder of the crown coming from Kasparov's branch) defeated Veselin Topalov (holder of the FIDE crown) in a reunification match. Since then, the crown has remained again under the auspices of FIDE.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="105" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-06-21T19:09:04.613" LastActivityDate="2017-06-21T19:09:04.613" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="400" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-05-12T18:48:31.107" Score="0" Body="For all questions related to the World Chess Championship: its holders, contestants, history, etc." OwnerUserId="105" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-07-03T02:02:33.347" LastActivityDate="2012-07-03T02:02:33.347" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="401" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-05-12T18:50:51.370" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Questions related to &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passed_pawn&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;passed pawn&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A passed pawn is a pawn with no opposing pawns to prevent it from advancing to the eighth rank, i.e. there are no opposing pawns in front of it on the same file nor on an adjacent file.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="105" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-06-21T17:57:22.940" LastActivityDate="2017-06-21T17:57:22.940" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="402" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-05-12T18:50:51.370" Score="0" Body="A passed pawn is a pawn with no opposing pawns on its file or any adjacent file, increasing its chance of promoting at the eighth rank." OwnerUserId="105" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-06-10T03:07:34.610" LastActivityDate="2012-06-10T03:07:34.610" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="403" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-05-12T18:53:08.200" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;For questions related to alternative forms of chess&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="105" LastEditorUserId="105" LastEditDate="2012-05-12T23:10:40.120" LastActivityDate="2012-05-12T23:10:40.120" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="404" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-05-12T18:53:08.200" Score="0" Body="For questions related to alternative forms of chess" OwnerUserId="105" LastEditorUserId="105" LastEditDate="2012-05-12T23:10:43.957" LastActivityDate="2012-05-12T23:10:43.957" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="405" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="397" CreationDate="2012-05-12T21:00:42.997" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Googling &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.google.com/search?q=ELO+Chess+Rating&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Elo chess rating&lt;/a&gt;&quot; provides a &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessmaniac.com/ELORating/ELO_Chess_Rating.shtml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;good answer&lt;/a&gt;, though it does not give any insight into what good answers are, or at least how that page is scoring answers:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question 1:&lt;/strong&gt; blank=1000; f6,f3=2600; c5,d4=1900; c6,d4=1900; b4,c3=1400; c8,a6=1500; f6,g6=1400; e6,e5=1200; c8,d7=1600&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question 2:&lt;/strong&gt; blank=1000; g2,e4=2600; g5,h7=1950; h5,g6=1900; g2,f1=1400; g2,d5=1200; f2,f4=1400&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question 3:&lt;/strong&gt; blank=1000; c5,c6=2500; g3,g6=2000; e4,e5=1900; g3,g5=1700; e4,d4=1200; d6,e5=1200&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question 4:&lt;/strong&gt; blank=1000; e5,e6=2500; b3,f7=1600; b3,c2=1700; b3,d1=1800&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question 5:&lt;/strong&gt; blank=1000; e3,c5=2500; f5,h6=2100; e3,h6=1900; f5,g7=1500; f2,g3=1750; c8,f8=1200; f2,h4=1200; e3,b6=1750; e2,c4=1400&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question 6:&lt;/strong&gt; blank=1000; g5,f6=2500; c3,d5=1700; c4,b5=1900; f2,f4=1700; a2,a3=1200; e1,e3=1200&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question 7:&lt;/strong&gt; blank=1000; f6,h7=2500; f6,e4=1800; g6,g5=1700; a6,a5=1700; g8,h7=1500&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question 8:&lt;/strong&gt; blank=1000; b6,d8=2500; c8,e8=1600&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question 9:&lt;/strong&gt; blank=1000; e3,d4=2500; e4,g6=1800; e4,h7=1800; e3,h6=1700; d7,b7=1400&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question 10:&lt;/strong&gt; blank=1000; d8,d7=2600; f6,e8=2000; h7,h5=1800; c5,d4=1600; c8,a6=1800; a7,a5=1800; f8,e8=1400; d6,d5=1500&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Note:&lt;/strong&gt; Given the scores available above, the highest possible score is 2530, and the lowest possible score given all correct, but worse possible answers, is 1460.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-06-12T01:26:28.040" LastActivityDate="2012-06-12T01:26:28.040" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="407" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="408" CreationDate="2012-05-12T21:20:12.410" Score="4" ViewCount="415" Body="&lt;p&gt;Given that Elo ratings appear to only have been around officially since 1970, how do you compare top chess players that were not scored using Elo (e.g. their careers came before ratings existed)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-06-12T01:23:09.150" LastActivityDate="2012-06-12T01:23:09.150" Title="How can I compare top chess players that were not scored using Elo?" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="408" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="407" CreationDate="2012-05-12T21:25:58.347" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Jeff Sonas at &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessmetrics.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;chessmetrics&lt;/a&gt; calculated ratings for players going way back, using the games we have available.  Gives a pretty good picture of players relative strength.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note this is up to around 2005, so you won't see players like Carlsen on there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="63" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-12T01:14:50.470" LastActivityDate="2012-06-12T01:14:50.470" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="409" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="397" CreationDate="2012-05-12T21:44:17.637" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chesstempo.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;chesstempo.com&lt;/a&gt;'s tactics/endgame problems (which give you a rating) are probably just as good an estimate as anything else. They might be a bit under or over, but all other assessments will suffer similarly. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similarly, playing on any of the online services (fics/icc are probably closest to reality) will give you a rating. Those are typically a bit inflated compared to FIDE or USCF.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="142" LastEditorDisplayName="user669" LastEditDate="2015-09-28T13:54:51.570" LastActivityDate="2015-09-28T13:54:51.570" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="410" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="411" CreationDate="2012-05-12T22:34:38.450" Score="14" ViewCount="3257" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been impressed with the way the &lt;a href=&quot;http://glicko.net/glicko.html&quot;&gt;Glicko&lt;/a&gt; rating system works. In particular:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;more games played recently cause your rating to stabilize&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;fewer games played recently cause your rating to fluctuate until you get several recent games under your belt&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;USCF modified their system to be similar a few years back (where there is a sliding scale to amplify or dampen the rating change for a given match), and now that Glickman (the inventor of Glicko) is on the rating board for the USCF, I imagine they'll eventually adopt an even more flexible system, like his own.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a reason (other than being resistant to change, or that they just haven't gotten around to it yet) that FIDE doesn't adopt a more accurate rating system? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="142" LastActivityDate="2012-06-12T01:16:45.057" Title="Why does FIDE still use Elo?" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;fide&gt;&lt;glicko&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="411" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="410" CreationDate="2012-05-13T00:41:38.717" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is not proven that Glicko is more accurate.  Glicko just solves the problem a different way, with a different emphasis.  Consider that all these systems abstract a human mind to a 4 digit number.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's a lot of politics in ratings; it's a touchy subject.  If FIDE were to adopt it, they'd produce a new top-100 list, and a lot of GMs would likely be upset.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The ELO system is very easy to understand; transparency is important.  More complex systems have immediate disadvantages.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2012-05-13T00:41:38.717" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="412" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="385" CreationDate="2012-05-13T01:01:30.233" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's a great analysis of the game here: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&amp;amp;v=lkqrRRmdbS8#!&quot;&gt;2012 FIDE World Chess Championship: Anand vs. Gelfand - Game 1&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to the video, it is easy for white to get one of his rooks behind that pawn especially when both players are left with 1 rook, 1 bishop each.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18" LastActivityDate="2012-05-13T01:01:30.233" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="413" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="417" CreationDate="2012-05-13T01:04:33.213" Score="6" ViewCount="2504" Body="&lt;p&gt;Fischer famously scribbled &quot;best by test&quot; on one of his score sheets after playing &lt;code&gt;1. e4&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yet when I look at &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/explorer/&quot;&gt;chess.com's database of games&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;code&gt;1. d4&lt;/code&gt; yields a larger win %age for while than does &lt;code&gt;1. e4&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Was Fischer wrong?  If not, what changed to make this so?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2012-05-13T03:00:13.583" Title="Fischer: 1. e4 &quot;Best by test&quot;" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;fischer&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="414" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="415" CreationDate="2012-05-13T01:21:58.120" Score="17" ViewCount="28860" Body="&lt;p&gt;How do Elo ratings compare with percentiles, and is there a chart breaking percentiles down by Elo rating ranges?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-06-12T01:23:49.493" LastActivityDate="2019-05-29T15:27:16.647" Title="Based on Elo rating, what percentile am I in?" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="415" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="414" CreationDate="2012-05-13T01:35:09.587" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;Dated 2004, but probably not far off: &lt;a href=&quot;https://web.archive.org/web/20080928012537/http://www.uschess.org:80/ratings/ratedist.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;USCF Regular Rating Distribution Chart&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/hg6sz.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/hg6sz.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The graphics on &lt;a href=&quot;https://web.archive.org/web/20130528072600/http://www.eddins.net:80/steve/chess/2008/06/06/131&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this blog post&lt;/a&gt; were interesting:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/L0n48.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/L0n48.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Jx8J3.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Jx8J3.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="142" LastEditorUserId="15793" LastEditDate="2019-05-29T15:27:16.647" LastActivityDate="2019-05-29T15:27:16.647" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="417" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="413" CreationDate="2012-05-13T01:46:20.133" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;Aside from the fact that the difference is only .3% at master level games on chess.com's db, I think Fischer was referring to his own personal results.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A search on chess tempo for Fischer's games reveals that this is the case:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chesstempo.com/gamedb/player/239563&quot;&gt;http://chesstempo.com/gamedb/player/239563&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;e4 (51.3% win)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;d4 (15.4% win)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;update&lt;/strong&gt;: The statistics above are skewed because Fischer never played d4 as white. See comments. Still, my initial point is valid. It was his preferred opening. I don't think .3% makes him wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="142" LastEditorUserId="142" LastEditDate="2012-05-13T03:00:13.583" LastActivityDate="2012-05-13T03:00:13.583" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="418" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="382" CreationDate="2012-05-13T18:49:37.120" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chessgames.com&lt;/a&gt; is an excellent website to view statistics on opening moves and analyze games overall.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-08-27T01:53:24.510" LastActivityDate="2012-08-27T01:53:24.510" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="419" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="410" CreationDate="2012-05-14T17:29:43.987" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;As far as I understand the Glicko rating system adds a reliability score to the rating number, which may provide a higher fairness regarding the rating score adjustment calculations. Obviously this might lead to the wrong assumption that there is a correlation between playing rated games and resulting playing strength (since not playing decreases the reliability score which in turns de-valuates your rating number somehow). I see a lot of problems connected to the reliability score, although I must admit I am no expert about the subtleties of the system. Just to pick three:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A player playing only the rare rated game might get no invitations anymore.  Imagine you are a tournament director inviting attractive players. Now you have to choose between 10 players, all of which have the same rating number, but different reliability numbers. Probably you will pick the ones with the best reliability numbers first. Over time the reliability gap between players with many rated games and less ones might widen.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Manipulation of rating numbers might become easier. Even the ELO system is not cheat-safe, because some people got ratings or IM/GM norms by playing in rigged tournaments. A good reliability score might make helping players with no reliability score very cheap - the good player gives rating points without losing much himself. As soon as money is involved, being cheat-safe is an important issues. I have the feeling the Glicko rating system is more prone to manipulations.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The communication and understanding of playing strength might become more difficult to the masses. When you communicate a ranking list, you run into problems. A player with a rating of 2000-50 has a &quot;real playing strength&quot; somewhere between 1900 and 2100. Another player has got 1950-2000, which translates to a number in the range of 1750 and 2150. So the player with 1950-2000 might be in fact the better player, but will probably be ranked below the other one, only because he played less games or against less reliable opponents. You make explaining your ranking system more difficult to people, without really guaranteeing more fairness. A GM which stops playing might gain &quot;potential strength&quot; and boast about his world champion potential, because his reliability number makes increasing room for deviation (mind it: in both directions, not only downwards!).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To sum it up: You might get more than you bargained for, because the whole package does not only come with improvements. And since there are heavy monetary issues involved when you look at the upper end of the ranking lists, I do not see the merits of changing an existing system.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="94" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-12T01:16:45.057" LastActivityDate="2012-06-12T01:16:45.057" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="420" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="432" CreationDate="2012-05-14T18:25:00.760" Score="22" ViewCount="1782" Body="&lt;p&gt;Statistically speaking, which white and black pawns are most likely to be queened?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-02T16:29:35.200" LastActivityDate="2012-06-02T16:29:35.200" Title="Pawn to Queen probabilities chart" Tags="&lt;pawns&gt;&lt;statistics&gt;&lt;pawn-promotion&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="421" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="430" CreationDate="2012-05-14T18:37:34.120" Score="11" ViewCount="919" Body="&lt;p&gt;After learning the fundamentals, should one start learning openings or should there be something else in between?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-12T01:19:01.277" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T16:26:23.030" Title="Should a beginner move from fundamentals to opening theory?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="422" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="447" CreationDate="2012-05-14T18:39:31.717" Score="9" ViewCount="699" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know this can be a subjective question depending on the opening, but in general, should on spend time on a few openings at once or should one concentrate on one opening for a while and play it every chance they get?  In general, how long should one spend on an opening, including the variations?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-12T01:19:21.010" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T16:25:54.013" Title="How much time should be spent on learning an opening?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="423" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="420" CreationDate="2012-05-14T18:43:34.970" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is almost impossible to answer, but I would say the pawns that are on the &lt;code&gt;a&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;h&lt;/code&gt; file or more likely to promote, especially if protected by another pawn and rook.  I would say this increases if the king has already castled on the opposite side of the &lt;code&gt;a&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;h&lt;/code&gt; file.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastActivityDate="2012-05-14T18:43:34.970" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="424" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="445" CreationDate="2012-05-14T18:45:08.427" Score="10" ViewCount="3399" Body="&lt;p&gt;Forcing players to maintain a mental model of the positions of the pieces by using blindfolds seems interesting, but I've been unable to find any &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.amberchess20.com&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;official rules&lt;/a&gt; for playing blindfold chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are the rules for playing?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-12T01:19:54.303" LastActivityDate="2014-10-01T14:25:34.240" Title="What are the rules of blindfold chess?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;blindfold-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="425" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="422" CreationDate="2012-05-14T18:56:55.867" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Practicing the opening until you've won one game using it with a player of greater or equal skill as you would likely mean you've gained meaningful mastery over the opening, though as you say, defining complete mastery would likely be subjective.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastActivityDate="2012-05-14T18:56:55.867" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="426" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="421" CreationDate="2012-05-14T19:01:31.930" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Traditionally speaking, yes, after the fundamentals rules of chess have been learned, moving onto openings makes the most sense. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastActivityDate="2012-05-14T19:01:31.930" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="427" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="431" CreationDate="2012-05-14T19:10:56.263" Score="5" ViewCount="447" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am confused about the differences between a transposition and variation.  I know that a transposition is when you start of with one opening and a set of moves after that leads to another opening and a variation is a deviation from the main line of an opening.  They seem really close to me, so can a set of moves be a transposition and a variation?  What/Who determines if a set of moves is a transposition or variation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastActivityDate="2012-09-22T17:41:52.397" Title="Can a set of moves be a transposition and a variation?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;transpositions&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="429" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2041" CreationDate="2012-05-14T19:29:02.257" Score="5" ViewCount="1151" Body="&lt;p&gt;On this &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_opening_theory_table&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;example chess opening theory table&lt;/a&gt;, what does &quot;Σ%&quot; and the number before it mean?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastEditorUserId="38" LastEditDate="2012-05-14T20:48:47.197" LastActivityDate="2013-02-20T22:36:34.270" Title="What is the meaning of this chess opening theory table?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="430" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="421" CreationDate="2012-05-14T20:20:17.263" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;Moving from fundamentals to memorization of openings is probably not recommended. I would instead recommend learning the fundamentals of openings (controlling the center, developing minor pieces, don't bring out the queen too early (usually), pawn structure), and then, as you say in your comment, focusing on tactics practice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If your goal is to play fast games, then studying openings is certainly going to help you increase the speed out of the gates. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If your goal is to improve your slow game, which is probably a good idea for most beginners: my recommendation is to consider each opening move as carefully as you would a move later in the game. Many openings are as tactically tricky as the middle game, so it pays to be careful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just my opinion. Obviously, there is a point where learning some openings will be helpful. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="142" LastActivityDate="2012-05-14T20:20:17.263" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="431" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="427" CreationDate="2012-05-14T20:41:25.253" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;A &lt;em&gt;transposition&lt;/em&gt; usually has to do with openings. Basically, it's all about move order, so while you might say that this is the modern defense (A40):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1. e4 g6 2. d4 Bg7 3. Nf3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If black follows with:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;3. ... c5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It effectively &lt;em&gt;transposes&lt;/em&gt; the opening into one of the Sicilian lines (B27):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 g6 3.d4 Bg7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that both positions are the same, only the move order changed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A &lt;em&gt;variation&lt;/em&gt; can be at any part of the game, and the notation is usually used while showing a &quot;what if&quot; scenario, to show why an alternative line is either better or worse than the main line of a finished game. Variations, in the context of openings, are alternative moves to the main line. Often, variations in openings have their own name appended onto the main opening name.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Continuing the line in the transposition above, a &lt;em&gt;variation&lt;/em&gt; on B27 is the:&#xA;Sicilian Defense/&#xA;Hyperaccelerated Pterodactyl/&#xA;Exchange Variation&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 g6 3.d4 Bg7 4.dxc5 Qa5+ 5.Nc3 Bxc3+ 6.bxc3 Qxc3+&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Update&lt;/strong&gt;: I think I failed to answer the &quot;title&quot; question explicitly. Yes, a set of moves can be both a variation and a transposition. In fact, there are often many names for a given opening sequence, depending on the move order, some of which will be variations, and some will be transpositions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="142" LastEditorUserId="142" LastEditDate="2012-09-22T17:41:52.397" LastActivityDate="2012-09-22T17:41:52.397" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="432" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="420" CreationDate="2012-05-14T21:52:41.957" Score="25" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have some partial statistics for the question, from the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.top-5000.nl/pgn.htm&quot;&gt;Million Base 1.74&lt;/a&gt; database, a collection of 1742057 games. 77218 of these games (4.4%) feature at least one promotion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I counted 49970 promotions for white (54% of all promotions) and 42519 for black (46%). Here are the &lt;strong&gt;destination&lt;/strong&gt; square statistics (meaning there is no track of the actual initial pawn square, because that statistic is a lot more difficult to gather), for all games and depending on the type of castling:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;White         a8    b8    c8    d8    e8    f8    g8    h8&#xA;all         15.8% 14.2% 13.8% 14.8% 11.5% 11.3%  8.7%  9.8%&#xA;with O-O    15.8% 14.3% 13.9% 15.9% 11.8% 11.2%  8.1%  9.1%&#xA;with O-O-O  17.1% 14.7% 14.2% 10.7%  9.9% 11.7% 10.8% 11.0%&#xA;&#xA;Black         a1    b1    c1    d1    e1    f1    g1    h1&#xA;all         16.0% 14.7% 14.4% 12.6% 11.8% 11.3%  9.0% 10.1%&#xA;with O-O    15.9% 14.8% 14.3% 12.9% 11.9% 11.3%  8.7% 10.0%&#xA;with O-O-O  13.5% 10.7% 10.9%  9.7% 12.4% 14.0% 14.0% 14.8%&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A few observations:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;queenside promotions seem significantly more common than kingside promotions&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;column statistics are quite consistent between black and white (except maybe when black castles long)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;castling long increases the odds of a promotion happening kingside&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="132" LastEditorUserId="132" LastEditDate="2012-05-15T08:52:24.613" LastActivityDate="2012-05-15T08:52:24.613" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="433" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="429" CreationDate="2012-05-14T22:04:05.953" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The two figures in the “Σ%” column are the number of games referenced in the database (so “Σ” should be understood in its mathematical meaning, “total” or “sum”) and the percentage of games won by White.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="132" LastActivityDate="2012-05-14T22:04:05.953" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="434" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="421" CreationDate="2012-05-14T22:55:10.507" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't believe in 'learn this, then learn that.'  Instead, you should be working on improving in general.  Tactics are always good; you'll be learning them your whole life.  In the meantime, learn a few openings.  Not the just the memorization, but the reasons the openings are the way they are.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2012-05-14T22:55:10.507" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="436" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="424" CreationDate="2012-05-15T00:10:38.113" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;These were the rules for the 2006 Amber blindfold tournament with many super-GMs participating:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;h2&gt;Rules of play&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Rules for the blindfold games&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Play will be governed by the FIDE Laws of Chess, except where they are overridden by the following rules.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Players are not allowed to record the moves.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;At the start of the game each player has twenty-five minutes on his clock. Before a player makes his move twenty seconds will be added to&#xA;  his remaining time.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;The computer clock marks the end of the time-control period.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;The monitor will show the players when the same position has appeared on the board three times or that the &quot;50 moves rule&quot; can be&#xA;  applied. In this case either player has the right to claim a draw.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;If a player makes an illegal move, the monitor will display the message: &quot;Illegal move, make another move&quot;. In this case there is no&#xA;  need for additional action by the player.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;If a player needs the assistance of the arbiter, he may call the arbiter. The arbiter will in this case interrupt the game;&#xA;  interrupting of the game takes about 5 seconds. In this situation the&#xA;  players may not leave the playing area of the playing hall and may not&#xA;  watch the position on the monitors.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Players, who leave the playing area without permission of the arbiter, will lose the game immediately.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Regulations in case of computer breakdown&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;After a computer breakdown, it is forbidden to speak to anybody except the arbiter.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;The games will be continued on empty boards in the two playing halls and, if three games are in progress, also in a room of the&#xA;  hotel.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;The time will be controlled using the Fischer clock; the time will be transferred as accurately as possible from the computer system to&#xA;  the Fischer clock. 25 seconds extra will be added for each move&#xA;  (instead of 20 seconds).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Two persons will control the game; the arbiter will write the moves down on a scoresheet, which is hidden from the players, and operate&#xA;  the clock. The assistant will play the moves on a pocket set, which is&#xA;  hidden from the players. The arbiter will check the intended move for&#xA;  legality, and if it is legal he will operate the clock and then write&#xA;  the move on the scoresheet. Note: it is possible that it takes a few&#xA;  seconds for the arbiter to check the move and press the clock, but in&#xA;  any case the time taken is not more than for the player to enter the&#xA;  move on the computer.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;The players shall show their moves on the empty board by pointing to the start and destination square of the move they intend to make;&#xA;  at the same time, they will speak the move aloud. If the move spoken&#xA;  differs from the move indicated on the board, then the arbiter shall&#xA;  say, &quot;What do you mean?&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;If a player makes an illegal move, then the arbiter will say &quot;Illegal move&quot; and he will not push the clock. For example, if a&#xA;  player says &quot;Rook takes d6&quot; and the move is not a capture, then the&#xA;  arbiter will say &quot;Illegal move&quot;, or if the player shows d1-d6 on the&#xA;  board and says &quot;Queen d6&quot;, but the piece on d1 is actually a rook,&#xA;  then the arbiter will again say &quot;Illegal move&quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;SOURCE:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=2993&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;ChessBase News, 2006&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastEditorUserId="1761" LastEditDate="2014-10-01T14:25:34.240" LastActivityDate="2014-10-01T14:25:34.240" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="437" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="346" CreationDate="2012-05-15T01:32:12.227" Score="32" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my opinion, it's almost impossible to say that a game is perfect &lt;em&gt;if you include the opening&lt;/em&gt;.  If you take the first few moves as a given (for example &lt;code&gt;1. e4 e5&lt;/code&gt;), then it &lt;em&gt;is&lt;/em&gt; possible to say that a series of moves is perfect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One example of a so-called perfect game is the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1250160&quot;&gt;Immortal Draw&lt;/a&gt;.  Carl Hamppe and Philipp Meitner played to a draw in 1872, and in the next century, no improvements have been found for the game.  It has stood up to all sorts of computer analysis and GM analysis. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Obviously the argument can be made that there is a &quot;flaw&quot; in the first 3 moves - maybe &lt;code&gt;1. e4&lt;/code&gt; is not best, or &lt;code&gt;3. Na4&lt;/code&gt; was an error, but if we ignore those 3 moves, every move starting with move 4 has held up as arguably the best move.  For instance, &lt;code&gt;7. Qe1&lt;/code&gt; is often given as an option for white, but black can once again sac his queen for a perpetual check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While there are certainly other lines that draw, the game line is the most beautiful IMHO.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Vienna 1872&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Carl Hamppe&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Philipp Meitner&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Vienna&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1/2-1/2&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;36&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nc3 Bc5 3. Na4 Bxf2+ 4. Kxf2 Qh4+ 5. Ke3 Qf4+ 6. Kd3 d5 7. Kc3 (7.&#xA;Qe1 Nf6 8. g3 Qg4 9. Bh3 dxe4+ 10. Kc3 Nd5+ 11. Kb3 Nc6 $1 12. Bxg4 Na5+ $11)&#xA;7... Qxe4 8. Kb3 Na6 9. a3 Qxa4+ 10. Kxa4 Nc5+ 11. Kb4 a5+ 12. Kxc5 Ne7 13.&#xA;Bb5+ Kd8 14. Bc6 (14. Nf3 $4 b6#) 14... b6+ 15. Kb5 Nxc6 16. Kxc6 (16. Ka4 Nd4&#xA;17. Qf1 Bd7+ 18. Qb5 Bxb5#) 16... Bb7+ 17. Kb5 (17. Kxb7 Kd7 18. Qg4+ Kd6 19.&#xA;Qe6+ fxe6 20. Nf3 Rhb8#) 17... Ba6+ 18. Kc6 Bb7+ 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12" LastEditorUserId="12" LastEditDate="2013-12-05T05:22:27.787" LastActivityDate="2013-12-05T05:22:27.787" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="438" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="440" CreationDate="2012-05-15T04:11:56.520" Score="10" ViewCount="930" Body="&lt;p&gt;From the other question: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/346/is-there-a-perfect-game&quot;&gt;Is there a &amp;quot;perfect&amp;quot; game?&lt;/a&gt; , an interesting game came up:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[title &quot;Hamppe-Meitner, Vienna&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nc3 Bc5 3.Na4 Bxf2+ 4.Kxf2 Qh4+ 5.Ke3 Qf4+ 6.Kd3 d5 7.Kc3 Qxe4 &#xA;8.Kb3 Na6 9.a3 Qxa4+ 10.Kxa4 Nc5+ 11.Kb4 a5+ 12.Kxc5 Ne7 13.Bb5+ Kd8 14.&#xA;Bc6 b6+ 15.Kb5 Nxc6 16.Kxc6 Bb7+ 17.Kb5 Ba6+ 18.Kc6 Bb7+ 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is, why is &lt;code&gt;8...Na6&lt;/code&gt; considered the best move? References to GM analysis would be great. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stockfish says &lt;code&gt;8...Nc6&lt;/code&gt; is better--in fact, &lt;code&gt;8...Na6&lt;/code&gt; is not even on the top 10 recommended moves. And I can see even in the short term that the knight on c6 instead of a6 might be nice: consider &lt;code&gt;...Na5+&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="142" LastEditorUserId="14079" LastEditDate="2018-09-17T07:29:12.183" LastActivityDate="2018-09-17T07:29:12.183" Title="Why 8...Na6 was played in the immortal draw?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;master-games&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="440" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="438" CreationDate="2012-05-15T17:28:48.717" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;I talked to National Master Dan Heisman about this game and according to him, the answer is really very simple:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At the time, black thought that &lt;code&gt;8...Na6&lt;/code&gt; was the best move.  Black's intention was to control b4 and get to c5.  After that both sides played almost perfectly which resulted in a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is also possible that the game was actually made up, but this is hard to prove 140 years later.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black probably would have played something else besides &lt;code&gt;8...Na6&lt;/code&gt;, but with no computer analysis at the time, it was thought to be best.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-12T01:22:09.370" LastActivityDate="2012-06-12T01:22:09.370" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="441" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="443" CreationDate="2012-05-15T18:15:34.427" Score="34" ViewCount="23317" Body="&lt;p&gt;In competition blitz games, making an illegal move and then pressing the clock forfeits the game if the opponent claims the illegal move as long as they do not make a new move, as a new move would void the previous illegal move according to FIDE blitz rules.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've seen all kind of forfeits because of this reason in blitz games, including one player taking one of his own pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, the most common case for illegal moves is neglecting that the King is in check or unprotecting the King. In this case where the King is checked, if the opponent takes the exposed king and presses the clock, are they making a new illegal move, hence voiding the previous one?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've been told that taking the King, even as a kind of &quot;joke&quot; to expose a previous illegal move, is an illegal move by itself, because the King cannot be taken, only mated. Is this true under FIDE rules?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="159" LastEditorUserId="11712" LastEditDate="2020-06-14T08:18:39.290" LastActivityDate="2020-06-14T08:18:39.290" Title="Is taking the opponent's king an illegal move?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;blitz&gt;&lt;illegal-move&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="442" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-05-15T18:35:58.860" Score="59" ViewCount="27912" Body="&lt;p&gt;My daughter is 4 years old, and she plays &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_draughts&quot;&gt;checkers&lt;/a&gt; very well for her age. She asked me if she can learn how to play chess too. So I am interested in what is the best age to start teaching her. Is it too early to do this?  Does anyone have any experience?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="164" LastEditorUserId="12" LastEditDate="2012-05-17T14:23:47.090" LastActivityDate="2021-02-23T23:19:40.487" Title="What is the earliest possible age to start teaching children how to play chess?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;scholastic-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="23" CommentCount="8" FavoriteCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="443" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="441" CreationDate="2012-05-15T18:40:58.137" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;Capturing the King is an illegal move according to FIDE.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Refer to Article 1.2 from the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fide.com/component/handbook/?id=124&amp;amp;view=article&quot;&gt;Laws of Chess&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The objective of each player is to place the opponent’s king ‘under&#xA;  attack’ in such a way that the opponent has no legal move. The player&#xA;  who achieves this goal is said to have ‘checkmated’ the opponent’s&#xA;  king and to have won the game. Leaving one’s own king under attack,&#xA;  exposing one’s own king to attack and also ’capturing’ the opponent’s&#xA;  king are not allowed. The opponent whose king has been checkmated has&#xA;  lost the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="103" LastActivityDate="2012-05-15T18:40:58.137" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="444" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="441" CreationDate="2012-05-15T18:53:00.963" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is actually very common in blitz games.  Taking the opponent's king is considered to be a claim of an illegal move.  You can see my answer to &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/181/i-made-an-illegal-move-what-happens&quot;&gt;this question&lt;/a&gt; for some more information.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since taking the opponent's king is a &lt;em&gt;claim&lt;/em&gt; instead of a move, it immediately ends the game.  In blitz games, the player &quot;capturing&quot; the king wins.  In slower games, taking the king is in fact illegal, and if a player did this, the position would be reset to the position before the first illegal move, and then any touch move rules would apply.  If there were time pressure considerations, one or both players could have two minutes added to their clocks at the arbiter's discretion.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fide.com/component/handbook/?id=125&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Appendix for Blitz and Rapidplay&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Article A.4.c:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;An illegal move is completed once the opponent’s clock has been&#xA;  started. The opponent is entitled to claim a win before he has made&#xA;  his own move. However, if the opponent cannot checkmate the player’s&#xA;  king by any possible series of legal moves, then the claimant is&#xA;  entitled to claim a draw before he has made his own move. Once the&#xA;  opponent has made his own move, an illegal move cannot be corrected&#xA;  unless mutually agreed without intervention of an arbiter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2012-05-15T18:53:00.963" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="445" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="424" CreationDate="2012-05-15T19:04:04.317" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The rules from Amber are a good start, but in slightly more casual blindfold games, different rules apply.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;sub&gt;Disclaimer:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I'm not aware of any official source for these rules other than common practice in my own blindfold games and observing many other blindfold games.&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The players must call out their moves verbally, and only after they have finished speaking is the clock stopped and the opponent's clock started.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Each player must make legal moves - if a given move is illegal, then the opponent/arbiter will say &quot;illegal&quot; and the player must make a different, legal move.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The game is lost by a player making two illegal moves.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It is permitted to use a relayer to make the moves on a physical board and to operate the clock if only one player is playing blind or if both players agree.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The main thing here is that two illegal moves loses the game.  In the Amber tournament, players have a computer in front of them in order to input moves - the rules above apply more to the situation where two players are just playing without any board (i.e. during a car ride).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12" LastActivityDate="2012-05-15T19:04:04.317" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="446" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="442" CreationDate="2012-05-15T19:16:30.443" Score="48" Body="&lt;p&gt;Depending on several factors, the age to start teaching a child to play chess can vary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The mere fact that she asked you how she can play chess is a good sign that she is interested in learning.  Interest is one of the key factors because we don't want to force-feed them the game.  If I had to pick an age, I would say 4 is a good age, but it depends also on maturity.  I would also say not to expect too much and let her have fun. A great place to start is &lt;a href=&quot;http://wwww.chesskid.com&quot;&gt;http://wwww.chesskid.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My 2 (almost 3 year old) stumbled upon &lt;code&gt;Chessmaster&lt;/code&gt; by accident.  He was more intrigued by the movie type intro to the game rather than the actual game itself, nevertheless, he remained interested and knows all the names of the pieces, but that is about it.  He knows that it is a game, but if I tell him something like &quot;Take the knight&quot;, he will take a pawn on some square and go all the way across the board and take it, lol, so based on my own experience, 3 seems to be too young in most cases.  I have really yet to see 4, but when my kid reaches 4, I guess I will find out, but based upon his reaction now, I think he would have a good grasp of the rules by age 4, maybe earlier.  As for now, I just let him have fun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastEditorUserId="109" LastEditDate="2012-07-10T19:20:28.807" LastActivityDate="2012-07-10T19:20:28.807" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="447" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="422" CreationDate="2012-05-15T19:59:35.133" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;You're right about this being a very subjective question. I've read a few books (sorry, can't think of good references) that suggest choosing a very limited set of openings to begin with. Use this exhaustively in every situation you play, whether appropriate or not. As you attack and defend in a variety of situations you will begin to learn the merits of the position in greater depth than simply reading about them. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for how long to stick with it, my best suggestion (and this is indeed subjective) is to stick with the opening until you stop being surprised. Once you feel you've &quot;seen it all&quot;, you're ready to branch out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you begin to spread to other openings, you may find it easier to use openings that can be transposed to from the openings you already know. The similarities will help you adjust more quickly and give you greater flexibility over the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="29" LastActivityDate="2012-05-15T19:59:35.133" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="448" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="442" CreationDate="2012-05-15T22:05:15.407" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;If she is interested, go ahead. Maybe you should start with one of the minichess variants: &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minichess&quot;&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minichess&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="35" LastActivityDate="2012-05-15T22:05:15.407" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="449" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="442" CreationDate="2012-05-15T22:15:30.167" Score="18" Body="&lt;p&gt;Any age, IMO. My father taught me to play at about 6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Oh, and lead by example - take your kid to your local USCF chess club and become a member.   Play, show good sportsmanship, etc etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess is empowering for kids; as long as they are polite they can &lt;strong&gt;kick the crap out of adults and people reward them for it&lt;/strong&gt;, lol.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-12T01:22:40.307" LastActivityDate="2012-06-12T01:22:40.307" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="450" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="451" CreationDate="2012-05-15T22:42:04.163" Score="9" ViewCount="1139" Body="&lt;p&gt;As has been said, Chess in 99% tactics/calculation.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, if a player is aiming to increase his tactical abilities should he play tactical openings like the King's Gambit, or can he play something like the English if desired, knowing that tactics will show up in the middle game?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another way to put this is as follows:  should a developing player master the tactical openings before the positional ones, given that tactics are much more important in the short term?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="69" LastEditorUserId="17" LastEditDate="2016-01-04T23:42:03.803" LastActivityDate="2020-10-28T01:41:21.427" Title="Must a player play tactical openings to learn tactics?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;training&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="451" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="450" CreationDate="2012-05-15T22:52:30.293" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;My chess instructor told me:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Tactics&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Tactics&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Tactics&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think you can win a lot of games at the sub-2000 level with raw tactical skill.  Thereafter, positional considerations start becoming important.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Regarding the opening, I don't think it much matters.  Play the type of opening that makes you happy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2012-05-15T22:52:30.293" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="452" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="454" CreationDate="2012-05-16T00:07:05.900" Score="9" ViewCount="381" Body="&lt;p&gt;What factors are important when selecting a website to play chess on, including but not limited to features and community?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Note:&lt;/strong&gt; Since asking for the &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/34/what-are-some-of-the-best-sites-to-play-chess&quot;&gt;best chess websites&lt;/a&gt; does not fall within the &lt;a href=&quot;http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2010/11/qa-is-hard-lets-go-shopping/&quot;&gt;rules for types of questions that are allow on Stack Exchange&lt;/a&gt;, I figured I'd attempt to ask basically the same question in a way that will not result in it being closed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2015-12-12T07:39:27.823" Title="How to find the best websites for playing chess?" Tags="&lt;software&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="453" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="452" CreationDate="2012-05-16T00:40:19.210" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;User interface&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Availability in your mobile device of choice&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Tournaments. I like tournaments.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Free version is good enough, or at least reasonable pricing&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A good rating system and stats (to track evolution)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Some kind of analysis tools&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18" LastActivityDate="2012-05-16T00:40:19.210" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="454" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="452" CreationDate="2012-05-16T01:25:58.183" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;It would depend to a certain extend on what your playing level is and what you want from the experience. Whether you want to play a few games for fun, or if you want to play to improve your game. Also whether you are looking for a free site or are willing to pay a subscription. &#xA;I play for fun as well as to improve my game, so I look for a site with a larger number of active players with a good range of rating. And if you are willing to pay the subscription there are sites like ICC and Playchess (hope it isn't against the rules to name sites) that offer very good learning materials like video lectures by very strong players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="126" LastActivityDate="2012-05-16T01:25:58.183" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="455" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="442" CreationDate="2012-05-16T01:30:52.433" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;Whenever she wants to learn. And let her choose the pace. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="126" LastActivityDate="2012-05-16T01:30:52.433" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="456" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="450" CreationDate="2012-05-16T01:38:26.767" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;In almost any opening, there will be plenty to calculate.  Unfortunately, most games don't give the potential for daring sacrifices and blazing kingside attacks, but every single opening requires intense calculation if you want to play the best moves.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So more important than playing and learning &lt;em&gt;tactical&lt;/em&gt; openings, I would recommend playing and studying &lt;em&gt;classical&lt;/em&gt; openings, at least when you're starting out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Classical openings are &lt;code&gt;1. e4 e5&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;1. d4 d5&lt;/code&gt;.  Play these openings for both colors.  &lt;code&gt;1. e4 e5&lt;/code&gt; is called the Open Game because the positions generally become open and require play according to general chess principles.  For example, develop, control the center, castle, etc.  So playing the English probably isn't the best bet if you are just starting out, but for a totally different reason.  The English violates some principles, namely occupying the center, and instead gives white other advantages (usually a good queenside bishop among other things).  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The single fastest way to improve tactics is to pick up a good puzzle book and just work through it.  If you play super sharp openings like the King's Gambit, that will more help you learn specific opening variations than tactics in general.  If you love the King's Gambit, one way to learn tactics might be to look at a dozen grandmaster games featuring the King's Gambit.  There will be enough tactics either on the board or hidden in the variations to help you improve your calculation as well as showing you some themes from the opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-12T01:24:40.210" LastActivityDate="2012-06-12T01:24:40.210" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="457" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-05-16T02:09:44.790" Score="10" ViewCount="1925" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am considering purchasing a &lt;a href=&quot;http://digitalgametechnology.com/site/index.php/products/electronic-boards/bluetooth&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;DGT Bluetooth Wireless E-Board&lt;/a&gt; for my school's chess club for exhibition games to be broadcast to a room without having everyone hovering over the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are these boards sufficiently stable and reliable that, once configured, they can be used weekly without requiring any expert attention? I'm thinking both of the ability to detect what pieces have been moved and also the reliability of the Bluetooth connection.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="187" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T16:17:19.097" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T16:17:31.167" Title="Is a DGT Bluetooth Wireless e-Board stable enough to use regularly?" Tags="&lt;chess-clocks&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="458" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="302" CreationDate="2012-05-16T02:16:38.977" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I agree with Ray. It seems you are facing some problems you can't solve in the positions resulting from the opening. I would suggest that you watch some games played by Grandmasters in the particular openings that you have problems in. And while you watch the game, try to guess the move the player is going to make. It is a good way to improve your overall chess skills as well. And if your aversion persists, it might mean that the variation you have chosen doesn't suit your playing style. If so, see games in other possible variations and choose the variation that results in positions comfortable to you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="126" LastActivityDate="2012-05-16T02:16:38.977" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="459" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="452" CreationDate="2012-05-16T02:32:52.967" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, my wish list goes something like the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Intuitive interface with no annoying bugs.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Mobile phone access.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A generous amount of free content. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;No cheating. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Large player base, so I can get a game fairly promptly at any time&#xA;of the day against players at my skill level.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;That the player base be skewed toward highly skilled rather than&#xA;lower skilled, because I would rather be challenged and improve than&#xA;stroke my ego, with perhaps incentives for highly skilled players to&#xA;be visible and get involved. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Controls that allow you to manage connections with other players,&#xA;like placing players that annoyed you into an ignore box and players&#xA;you enjoyed playing into a friends would-like-to-play-again box,&#xA;chat facilities, etc.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A vibrant forum for discussion and analysis.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Learning content.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Rating system and awards.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Tournaments and events.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Choice with regards to time controls.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="97" LastActivityDate="2012-05-16T02:32:52.967" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="460" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="302" CreationDate="2012-05-16T03:17:08.370" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Should I study these openings and try to overcome my aversion? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should do this. Face your fears don't avoid them. But you have to be very careful here to understand what &quot;study&quot; means in this context. It does &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; mean memorization, it means understanding. Set yourself a task of finding out what is going on in the first three moves of these openings, then build your understanding from there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another approach is to increase your knowledge of strategy and middlegame, then no matter what openings are thrown your way you can be at ease knowing the game is always going to move into an area you are comfortable with.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are a beginner I would hazard a guess that the most efficient approach would be a combination of understanding just the first few moves of these openings then putting most of your effort toward middlegame study.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="97" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T17:16:15.513" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T17:16:15.513" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="461" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="422" CreationDate="2012-05-16T03:32:01.830" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;My plan is usually as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Read an introductory book on the opening.  Usually if I don't actually like it I've figured it out during here, and if I do like it then I have a good idea of the most basic ideas or plans.  The &quot;Starting Out&quot; series is good for this.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Put all the moves into ChessBase and save it in an opening libraries database.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Play the opening on the ICC constantly.  I usually spend about a week doing this, I'm trying to get about 100 games with the opening.  After every game, analyze with Houdini to see where the opening/middlegame plan went wrong, even if I won.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Identify problem areas or variations and patch them.  &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If I'm confident with the opening by this point, then this is usually enough, and I'll keep playing it on the internet to get better and to memorize it.  If there's a variation that seems particularly popular or problematic, then I'll look up GM games or analysis on it, look at it with some friends, and use Houdini to come up with creative ideas.  I usually pick the ideas that seem most likely to throw people off based on the playing styles I've observed, not the ideas with the best evals.  Sometimes I even voluntarily go into negative evaluations when positive evaluations were available.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If I'm still not confident, I try to figure out if it's worth hanging onto.  I've never had it be worth it.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Eventually, if it stays in my repertoire for longer than six months, I'll buy more books on the opening that are more advanced, along with some monographs and ChessPublishing PDFs (if available), so I can not only supplement it with new ideas (so I can have multiple options if I play the same opponent multiple times) but also have an idea of what people are recommending for the other side.  Furthermore, the satisfaction of being an &quot;expert&quot; on the opening, having read a large amount of literature on it, is nice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's probably overkill, but that was always my chess studying style.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="47" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T16:25:12.840" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T16:25:12.840" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="462" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="133" CreationDate="2012-05-16T03:33:49.207" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Open with &lt;code&gt;1. d4&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;2. Nf3&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;3. g3&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;4. Bg2&lt;/code&gt; and then do whatever you want.  By that point, it's hard to find nonsense moves that aren't obviously nonsense.  Finding the best move is very difficult, but if you're a beginner you don't need to worry about it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="47" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-10T01:25:47.527" LastActivityDate="2012-06-10T01:25:47.527" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="464" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="467" CreationDate="2012-05-16T04:03:24.677" Score="9" ViewCount="770" Body="&lt;p&gt;How can I deal with two family members who are playing in the same section?  For example, my brother and I both played in the same local tournament (one section) fairly frequently.  Usually, we could avoid being paired (there were enough people, and the other players were willing to cut us some slack).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Occasionally, we would be leading the tournament and there was no way around pairing us.  The most drastic case was when we both had perfect scores and were playing for first place (and potentially third for the loser).  As a good big brother, I soundly trounced my younger brother.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now it's not far-fetched to imagine a case where the game between family members impacted prizes/tournament standings at the end of a cash tournament.  Is there a fair way to deal with the situation?  Obviously any kind of collusion would be grounds for a double forfeit, but it would also be very hard to prove that it was a pre-arranged result.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An interesting side note - I seem to remember seeing that former World Champion Kosteniuk used to play in tournaments with her sister, and she said that they would be paired in round one to avoid any conflicts later.  Is this a reasonable solution or is there a more equitable way to deal with things?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-12T01:25:20.067" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T16:17:00.647" Title="How should I deal with two siblings in the same section?" Tags="&lt;tournament-directors&gt;&lt;tournament&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="465" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="361" CreationDate="2012-05-16T04:52:59.507" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is going to vary wildly based on the individual and what works for each person.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One common teaching technique is to study endgames.  Since endgames have fewer pieces, there is less focus on finding the best move and more focus on calculating long variations accurately.  King and pawn endgames are especially good for this - you must be able to accurately count pawn moves in order to achieve the best result.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A simple example:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/hhB4l.png&quot; alt=&quot;King and pawn endgame&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And a very complicated position:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/rJTQL.png&quot; alt=&quot;Complicated king and pawn endgame&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both examples are white to move and win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For more generic thoughts on calculating and visualization, you can see &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/329/memorizing-the-board&quot;&gt;this question&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2012-05-16T04:52:59.507" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="466" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="361" CreationDate="2012-05-16T05:09:04.617" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;A good place to start for improving calculation is a famous book called &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/0713478853&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Think Like a Grandmaster&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt; by Alexander Kotov. There is some debate as to whether Kotov's Tree of Analysis is effective in improving calculating ability (such as from the first reviewer to the book on Amazon in the link above), but that discussion will lead you to other areas like pattern recognition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another book that discusses Kotov's ideas in depth is &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1857441567&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Improve Your Chess NOW&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt; by Jon Tisdall. In this book Tisdall suggests a more human-friendly selective approach to Kotov's Tree of Analysis, rather than the brute force computer-like approach of Kotov.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="97" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-08-27T02:01:43.797" LastActivityDate="2012-08-27T02:01:43.797" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="467" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="464" CreationDate="2012-05-16T06:47:31.623" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;The situation is not very different to two training partners or two friends being paired. The dilemma between sportsmanship and friendship is the same. Are you allowed to &quot;misuse&quot; personal information about weaknesses of your opponent? Should you pre-arrange a result to fit the needs of each other?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The keyword is sportsmanship here. You are playing in a chess tournament because you like the thrill of a tournament, the competition and over everything else: the game. You both share this love. Why should you sacrifice the idea of the sport at all? Trying to win against an opponent is not a personal affair, but a trial of strength between the two players. That is why you joined the tournament in the first place! If someone beats me, he might still be my best friend (at least, after my embarrassment of having lost is gone). If you pre-arrange a game, you harm the idea of the tournament and you harm yourself, because you get less excitement and benefits from playing there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are several cases of successful siblings competing in the same sport at the highest level. In Formula 1, the Schumacher siblings Ralf and Michael were competing for several years at the same races. In woman chess, the Kosintseva siblings Tatiana and Nadezhda are both ranked among the 20 strongest women. I think they attend the same tournament together very often. I doubt any of them would sacrifice the sport, nor did I ever hear someone voicing that opinion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hence I would suggest, the more professional the level of play is, the less you have to worry about siblings being paired against each other. As a tournament director my fear about cheating players would not increase only because there are siblings playing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="94" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T16:17:00.647" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T16:17:00.647" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="468" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-05-16T07:43:49.900" Score="20" ViewCount="22782" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to organize an amateur chess tournament inside the company I work for. I am looking for a convenient way of creating groups, keeping the scores, and getting some statistics.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there an online solution to organize a chess tournament? Do you have some examples, stories, or tips for organizing similar office/company tournaments? Please share them!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="170" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-03-06T16:40:50.123" LastActivityDate="2021-03-06T16:40:50.123" Title="How to organize a chess tournament" Tags="&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;tournament&gt;" AnswerCount="11" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="469" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="464" CreationDate="2012-05-16T07:44:03.247" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't really see the problem, and if I had a brother, I'd probably keen to compete. Just try to play your best game, and ask your brother to do the same. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe you should try to play against the position on the board, not against the person. And in the end, chess is still &quot;just a game&quot;. It would be sad if one of you couldn't deal with this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="35" LastActivityDate="2012-05-16T07:44:03.247" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="470" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="468" CreationDate="2012-05-16T11:20:46.947" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;This isn't an online solution but one program you could use is &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.swissperfect.com/&quot;&gt;swiss perfect&lt;/a&gt;, which manages tournaments and allows various options.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="187" LastActivityDate="2012-05-16T11:20:46.947" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="471" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="475" CreationDate="2012-05-16T12:09:39.530" Score="7" ViewCount="948" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm curious about this move duo.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I see this quite a bit, and I'm trying to figure out under which conditions that playing &lt;code&gt;Kb1(b8)&lt;/code&gt; is normally preferred.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In some openings, such as the Sicilian Dragon, White will castle long followed up by playing &lt;code&gt;Kb1&lt;/code&gt;.  In such cases, there are some rather real threats against the castled position there (&lt;code&gt;Bg7&lt;/code&gt; pointing at b2, open c-file with &lt;code&gt;Rc8&lt;/code&gt;, active Black Queen).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I'm more curious about some of the more quieter positions where there doesn't appear to be any obvious threats.  In some cases, I see players, and even computer programs, play &lt;code&gt;Kb1(b8)&lt;/code&gt; immediately.  I've analyzed some of these lines and never seem to find any reason why &lt;code&gt;Kb1(b8)&lt;/code&gt; is played.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've always been of the mind to just leave the King at c1(c8) unless there is some obvious threat.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why is &lt;code&gt;Kb1(b8)&lt;/code&gt; played in some of these positions?  What types of threats can the other player come up with to require &lt;code&gt;Kb1(b8)&lt;/code&gt; to be played? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="103" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2016-01-03T19:11:55.350" LastActivityDate="2016-01-03T19:11:55.350" Title="Playing Kb1(b8) immediately after O-O-O" Tags="&lt;castling&gt;&lt;king-safety&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="472" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="471" CreationDate="2012-05-16T13:44:03.863" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;Kb1&lt;/code&gt; is generally played to&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Defend the unprotected a2 pawn (from &lt;code&gt;...Qa5&lt;/code&gt; for example)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;remove the King from the dangerous c file&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If none of the above threats occur, &lt;code&gt;Kb1&lt;/code&gt; is not necessary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-12T01:27:54.293" LastActivityDate="2012-06-12T01:27:54.293" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="473" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="452" CreationDate="2012-05-16T14:01:43.233" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Factors to consider when finding the best site to play chess on I guess depends on what you would consider best, but some of my factors are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;User interface.  It must be intuitive.  I shouldn't have to guess what to do or guess what it is doing.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Strong community.  The community can be a mixture of ratings.  Another important thing about the community is that they must be nice.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Lots of learning content&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;No lag time&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Mobile phone access (this will be good once I get a smartphone)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Various time controls.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Tournaments&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;if it is free, then it is even better, but if it cost something like the ICC, I wouldn't mind paying for a membership as long as the pros outweighed the cons.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastActivityDate="2012-05-16T14:01:43.233" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="474" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="477" CreationDate="2012-05-16T14:36:36.133" Score="19" ViewCount="17204" Body="&lt;p&gt;The opening is definitely a weak area in my chess game and I always feel like my rooks sit unused until well into the middle game (?).  Is that just how things go, or is there a strategy that allows development of the rooks in the opening?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm aware of castling as a way to get a rook towards the middle files (of course).  But I always feel like I'm neglecting the rooks when I play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="199" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2016-06-19T12:26:54.497" LastActivityDate="2020-05-08T14:59:47.937" Title="How should rooks be developed in the opening?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;rooks&gt;&lt;development&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="475" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="471" CreationDate="2012-05-16T14:48:12.947" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are two main reasons to play &lt;code&gt;Kb1(b8)&lt;/code&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Prophylaxis&lt;/strong&gt; - Kb1 does many things, &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/472/12&quot;&gt;xaisoft's answer&lt;/a&gt; touches on some of them.  On c1, the king is very exposed to checks on the c1-h6 diagonal.  This means that a queen could check on g5 and pick off a loose piece on h4.  Or similarly, if black plays &lt;code&gt;...Bh6&lt;/code&gt;, the white king will be checked, or worse, a piece could be pinned to the king.  In most openings where white plays O-O-O, the center and kingside pawns are being thrown forward to try and mate black, so avoiding diagonal checks is almost always useful.  Some other reasons that Kb1 is useful are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Clearing c1 for a rook to help defend c2&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Protecting the a2 pawn&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Preparing to play &lt;code&gt;c3&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;b3&lt;/code&gt; to blunt an attack along the c or b file (although &lt;code&gt;c3&lt;/code&gt; is almost always wrong once &lt;code&gt;O-O-O&lt;/code&gt; has been played)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;A Waiting Move&lt;/strong&gt; - Since we have already established that &lt;code&gt;Kb1&lt;/code&gt; is useful, it is also important to note that there are very few drawbacks to the move.  Other moves might not be so good in the position though.  For example, in the Yugoslav Attack of the Dragon, in current theory white will play &lt;code&gt;12. Kb1&lt;/code&gt; instead of &lt;code&gt;12. h4&lt;/code&gt; because white is &lt;em&gt;not yet sure&lt;/em&gt; how best to deploy the kingside pawns.  Frequently white will just play &lt;code&gt;g4&lt;/code&gt; and omit &lt;code&gt;h4&lt;/code&gt; to speed up the attack.  &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.193" LastActivityDate="2012-06-12T01:27:39.317" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="476" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="474" CreationDate="2012-05-16T14:53:42.653" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;You want to get the rooks connected and you want to put them on open files.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastActivityDate="2012-05-16T14:53:42.653" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="477" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="474" CreationDate="2012-05-16T14:56:39.660" Score="22" Body="&lt;p&gt;That's actually not very surprising.  In many openings, the rooks don't participate until fairly deep into the middlegame.  You touch on the reason in your question - the rooks have to wait until all the other pieces are out of the way in order to develop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The specific strategy for rook development will depend on the position, but generally speaking, the rooks belong on the &lt;em&gt;open and half open files&lt;/em&gt; in the middlegame.  In the endgame, rooks belong &lt;em&gt;behind passed pawns&lt;/em&gt;.  Also in the late middlegame and endgame, rooks are very useful on the &lt;em&gt;7th rank&lt;/em&gt; (and to some degree the 6th rank as well).  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In most openings, the rooks for white will usually come to d1 and e1.  Obviously that's a huge generalization, so don't take that as gospel truth.  Larry Christiansen has said that &quot;when in doubt [about which rook to move], play the 'a' rook to d1&quot;.  The other rook (usually coming from the f file after &lt;code&gt;O-O&lt;/code&gt;) should either stay on f1 or move to e1.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One last comment - often the best way to make use of the rooks is to double them so that they can invade into the enemy camp.  Usually your rooks aren't going to reach the 7th rank in the middlegame because there are too many minor pieces still on the board, but they can still be very useful when doubled and on open files so that they &lt;em&gt;threaten&lt;/em&gt; to invade into the opponent's position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-12T01:29:16.333" LastActivityDate="2012-06-12T01:29:16.333" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="478" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1286" CreationDate="2012-05-17T01:36:17.163" Score="7" ViewCount="920" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the Nimzo-Indian Rubenstein, there's a solid line for Black that begins thus:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 Bb4 4. e3 b6 5. Bd3 Bb7 6. Nf3 Ne4 7. O-O f5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since I am Class A rated, I normally look for lines that class amateurs would tend to play against me and not IMs/GMs, etc. I think a lot of class amateurs would be really tempted to chop here with:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;rn1qk2r/pbpp2pp/1p2p3/5p2/1bPPn3/2NBPN2/PP3PPP/R1BQ1RK1 w kq - 0 8&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Bxe4 fxe4 2. Nd2 Bxc3 3. bxc3 Qg5!?&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus preventing the freeing break &lt;code&gt;f3&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The question is: If we just look at the position here structurally, this is basically sort of a Wedge formation but with the difference being that my pawns are doubled and I don't have a traditional Wedge structure outpost on d5. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since the opponent usually faces the more difficult time in the endgame vs. a Wedge formation, should I in general play this position like a traditional Wedge formation position with a possible kingside attack and generally trading down into a favorable endgame, or are there other nuances that make this type of position deviate from a traditional Wedge formation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="107" LastEditorUserId="652" LastEditDate="2013-01-22T22:18:09.897" LastActivityDate="2013-01-31T22:23:30.663" Title="Wedge pawn formation with slight differences" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;nimzo-indian&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="479" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="474" CreationDate="2012-05-17T09:16:20.620" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are some situations where rooks become active in the opening, but they are rare, and often only enabled by blunders of the other side.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One example: White has castled with a knight on f3, black has not castled and the black bishop pins that knight. Now sometimes &lt;code&gt;h3&lt;/code&gt; can be met with &lt;code&gt;...h5!?&lt;/code&gt;, and if white accepts the sacrifice with &lt;code&gt;hxg4 hxg4&lt;/code&gt;, the black rook enjoys suddenly an open file, and white is in serious trouble if the black queen can join the attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="35" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-12T01:29:05.180" LastActivityDate="2012-06-12T01:29:05.180" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="480" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="483" CreationDate="2012-05-17T10:41:59.810" Score="6" ViewCount="226" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have not played competitive chess since 1990 and I plan to start playing tournaments again. Are there any rule changes I need to know about?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="205" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-12T01:30:16.443" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T16:11:56.347" Title="What are any USCF tournament rule changes since 1990?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;tournament-directors&gt;&lt;uscf&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="481" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="478" CreationDate="2012-05-17T12:57:18.777" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here's my two cents' worth (from a Class C player). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Players of a given level, at least below master, come in different &quot;shapes and sizes.&quot; That is, one &quot;Class A&quot; player may be a 2000+ player in the middle game, and a Class B player in the endgame, while another one would be the reverse. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Perhaps you fit one or the other of those profiles. In that case, play to your stronger part of your game. Even if you don't, try to figure out if your opponent fits one of those profiles, and play to the WEAKER part of HIS game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2012-05-17T12:57:18.777" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="482" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="474" CreationDate="2012-05-17T12:58:53.377" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Rooks should usually be kept back in the opening and early middlegame, so they don't become &quot;fodder&quot; for minor pieces like knights and bishops. After some of those pieces are exchanged, then rooks come into their own.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When the time comes, the rooks should be placed on &lt;em&gt;open&lt;/em&gt; files (vertical lines where the pawns have been exchanged). These are usually the d and e files, sometimes the c or f files, occasionally the &quot;side&quot; files.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A single rook is a menace to unguarded opposing pieces on the file. &quot;Doubled&quot; rooks (one behind the other) are a menace to opposing pieces on the file unless they are &lt;em&gt;well&lt;/em&gt; guarded. The exception is if the opponent can &quot;close&quot; the file using a minor piece guarded by a pawn (exchanging a rook for such a piece and a pawn is seldom a good idea).&#xA;That's why you want at least some of the minor pieces off the board before you start deploying your rooks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastEditorUserId="9263" LastEditDate="2016-03-08T21:38:44.213" LastActivityDate="2016-03-08T21:38:44.213" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="483" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="480" CreationDate="2012-05-17T13:58:45.987" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The biggest thing that caught me was the new clock &quot;delay&quot; style. I had to buy a new clock to be able to use mine in a tournament, after taking a break from 2000 to 2010. My old, somewhat expensive digital clock only had &quot;Bronstein&quot;, where you add time each move. The newer digital clocks all support the &quot;delay&quot; setting, where you can delay starting the timer each move until a certain number of seconds in. In standard USCF tournaments, they now require a 5 second delay. (I'm not sure when it was implemented, but I assume sometime between 2000 and 2010).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Aside from that, there was something about allowing the new electronic pocket devices for taking down moves. This has caused some controversy, because some of the devices can run chess engines, and can be used for cheating, so TDs and players alike should be careful to note how they are being used. I personally prefer paper.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is also an entirely new method of calculating ratings, so forget what you knew from back then. (This isn't really a rule.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sorry if this isn't comprehensive, but hopefully it is useful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="142" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T16:11:56.347" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T16:11:56.347" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="484" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="498" CreationDate="2012-05-17T14:53:09.440" Score="7" ViewCount="222" Body="&lt;p&gt;How do I find events (free/paid) that would allow me to play chess locally with other players?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2016-01-03T19:16:35.200" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T16:11:11.610" Title="How do I find players to play in person?" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;clubs&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="485" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="491" CreationDate="2012-05-17T14:54:42.013" Score="9" ViewCount="576" Body="&lt;p&gt;Statistically speaking, for white and black, what is the last piece moved from its starting position, and why?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-12T01:31:06.300" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T16:10:17.303" Title="What is the last piece to be developed, and why?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;statistics&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="486" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="490" CreationDate="2012-05-17T15:01:36.810" Score="22" ViewCount="8029" Body="&lt;p&gt;Castling to me has always seemed like such a huge leap in terms of game play that I've always wondered how it came to be. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Does anyone know the history behind how and why castling came to be?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T16:09:29.043" LastActivityDate="2020-04-07T15:54:19.977" Title="How did castling originate?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;castling&gt;&lt;history&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="487" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="493" CreationDate="2012-05-17T15:07:53.540" Score="25" ViewCount="2319" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a followup to &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/442/what-is-the-earliest-possible-age-to-start-teaching-children-how-to-play-chess&quot;&gt;What is the earliest possible age to start teaching children how to play chess?&lt;/a&gt;, I'm wondering: What is the easiest possible &lt;strong&gt;way&lt;/strong&gt; to start teaching children how to play chess?  The point is that at such an early age, it's possible, if not likely, that the best way to teach an adult would not apply to a young child. Any suggestions?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastEditorUserId="10867" LastEditDate="2020-06-01T19:04:46.873" LastActivityDate="2020-11-15T15:33:31.083" Title="What is the easiest possible way to start teaching children how to play chess?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;teaching&gt;&lt;children&gt;" AnswerCount="12" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="488" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="442" CreationDate="2012-05-17T15:52:59.650" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've heard of high level chess players starting at a young age. One such story is Yelena Dembo. She played her first rated tournament at 3 years 9 months: &lt;a href=&quot;http://yelenadembo.com/about-me&quot;&gt;http://yelenadembo.com/about-me&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But there are plenty of high level players that start later, so I wouldn't consider early play a requirement to reach that level. Not that that is necessarily your goal, ha!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think the two key pieces are 1. interest and 2. attention span. If 1 is there but not 2, you should definitely start with some mini games, as recommended in another answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I sincerely hope I can instill an interest in mine when she's a bit older--partly selfishly as I'd like to have someone to play with, and it would be great if we could go to tournaments together. But I also believe that chess is a good developmental tool that teaches critical decision making, attention, sportsmanship, pattern recognition, among many other things, I'm sure. I've purchased the rather new &quot;Chess is Child's Play&quot; book, which I haven't looked at much so far--it has exercises for 2-4 years old, and instructions for teaching 4+.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My 16-month-old can't even lift my triple-weighted chess set yet (it's all in one bag--probably weighs about 5 lbs). She very much likes to take the pieces out (to give them to me) and I show her how they set up on the board. Then she likes to pick them up and give them to me to put them back in the bag (we do this a couple times a day--she goes over and points at the chess set when she wants to play with it). She likes the knights, especially. Little horses! If only there were a set with ducks as pawns, or something. I think that would be a hit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="142" LastEditorUserId="142" LastEditDate="2012-05-17T16:02:42.913" LastActivityDate="2012-05-17T16:02:42.913" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="489" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4" CreationDate="2012-05-17T16:05:30.577" Score="19" Body="&lt;p&gt;For &quot;fun&quot; games with players of different strengths you can use a chess clock and give the weaker player more time. This allows me to play against my son who is just learning a reasonable chance at winning. We often play where he gets 5 minutes on the clock to my 2 minutes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="205" LastActivityDate="2012-05-17T16:05:30.577" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="490" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="486" CreationDate="2012-05-17T16:17:34.447" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;Per Wikipedia:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Castling was added to European chess in the 14th or 15th century and did not develop into its present form until the 17th century. The Asian versions of chess do not have such a move.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The King seems to have always moved the same as at the present, except that the game used to be played until he was actually captured. Because of the King's vulnerability due to the Queen's enormous scope and power, several methods of &quot;castling&quot; were tried before the 16th century.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One method was to allow the King to move two or three squares on its initial move.&#xA;Another method was to allow the King to move directly to g2. &#xA;The present method of castling was documented as early as Ruy López's 1561 work &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libro_de_la_invencion_liberal_y_arte_del_juego_del_axedrez&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Libro de la invención liberal y arte del juego del Axedrez&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T16:09:39.150" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T16:09:39.150" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="491" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="485" CreationDate="2012-05-17T16:30:33.480" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think a good approach to this is to see what pieces most likely move first.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Central pawns normally always come out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The bishops and knights come out early&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you castle early, one of the rooks plus the king will have moved&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The other rook is sometimes left stationary unless there is an open file.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The queen normally gets into play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since you want to keep the king safeguarded, especially if castled, I would say most players would try to move the pawns in front of the castled king last or leave them on their original squares.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastActivityDate="2012-05-17T16:30:33.480" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="492" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="487" CreationDate="2012-05-17T16:33:12.673" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are some fundamental differences between adults and children. Namely, the attention span to focus on a long game of chess might not be there. There are also some psychological differences: An adult (most likely) already knows what it means to win and lose, where children may not have grasped that concept yet. Adults also probably can grasp the concept of a turn-based game very easily, where young children might not as easily understand that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, yes, it will be quite different than teaching adults.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't profess to be an expert in child psychology, but I've been exposed to some rather interesting ideas via books. I recommend reading: Nurture Shock, Chess Child, and Chess is Child's Play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you like movies and chess, check out &quot;Searching for Bobby Fischer&quot; (PG), and &quot;The Knights of South Bronx&quot; (PG). Also, &quot;Queen to Play&quot; (unrated because it's French, but doesn't contain much controversial material that I can recall), is about a woman who gets into chess as an adult. Aside from being good movies, they might serve as inspiration or even as a way to get your spouse excited about chess and the kids.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="142" LastActivityDate="2012-05-17T16:33:12.673" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="493" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="487" CreationDate="2012-05-17T16:35:13.810" Score="16" Body="&lt;p&gt;The easiest way depends on age.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If they are really young, just start simple with how a plain board and introduce the pieces one by one (where they go on the board and how they move). Then put all the pieces on the board and show how the pieces move together.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If they are a little older, I would play show them short games with tactical ideas and mating patterns.  No need to dwell too much on the opening yet or the endgame.  Stick to the fundamentals first and make sure they have a firm grasp on that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You probably will also find some tips on &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesskid.com&quot;&gt;http://www.chesskid.com&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesskids.com&quot;&gt;http://www.chesskids.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-12T01:34:36.953" LastActivityDate="2012-06-12T01:34:36.953" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="494" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="806" CreationDate="2012-05-17T16:44:49.760" Score="9" ViewCount="928" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was once told that you can determine an opening or transposed opening just by how the pawns are structured on the board.  Is this the method normally used to determine if an opening was transposed into another through a sequence of moves?  I have found it interesting how top players can usually see a transposition very quickly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-06-12T05:03:31.170" LastActivityDate="2020-03-06T20:13:33.360" Title="How can one determine the opening or transposed opening from the existing pawn formation/structure?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;transpositions&gt;&lt;pawn-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="496" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="499" CreationDate="2012-05-17T17:01:00.900" Score="20" ViewCount="2424" Body="&lt;p&gt;What activities, be they physical or mental, do you use to improve your chess? Have you recently taken up something and noticed a positive change in your game?  One thing I can think of is exercising such as walking or swimming. Are there any others?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-13T16:42:36.383" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T16:06:54.650" Title="What are some activities besides chess which help improve chess play?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;training&gt;" AnswerCount="9" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="497" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="500" CreationDate="2012-05-17T17:20:06.447" Score="10" ViewCount="346" Body="&lt;p&gt;Taking time control into account, how long should one take when looking for a combination?  Also, what factors should one consider when looking for a combination?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-12T01:40:14.433" LastActivityDate="2020-10-08T08:21:42.367" Title="What length of time should one spend looking for a combination, and what factors should one consider?" Tags="&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;combinations&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="498" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="484" CreationDate="2012-05-17T18:14:48.080" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;Almost every city has a local chess club. You can always join your local club and find other events or activities through your club.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastActivityDate="2012-05-17T18:14:48.080" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="499" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="496" CreationDate="2012-05-17T19:55:45.540" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't know of any correlations to physical exercise and chess skill, so I can't speak to walking or swimming.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's not much that matches chess in regards to tactics but maybe some similarities in games like &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_%28game%29&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Go&lt;/a&gt; or &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_of_the_Amazons&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Amazons&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What will probably give you the best return on your time would be memory enhancement exercises. These come in every style so I would just experiment and see what helps you. Any improvement on how much you can hold in your head will directly improve your chess game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also especially enjoy problems where you need to evaluate a board and determine the best move. I try to put time limits on myself to practice how quickly I can analyze a board without missing anything important.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-13T16:42:43.840" LastActivityDate="2012-06-13T16:42:43.840" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="500" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="497" CreationDate="2012-05-17T19:59:31.387" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;That's a very general question that I don't think you will get a solid answer for. The chance of a powerful combination being available depends largely on the pieces each side has available and developed. So the answer varies based on what stage the game is in and the positions of each side.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Instead I would focus on identifying the types of combinations you are comfortable with, and start to learn to identify boards where those combinations MAY be present, and others where the combinations is not present. If you can speed up your identification you can determine on the fly how much time to spend on evaluating each potential move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16" LastActivityDate="2012-05-17T19:59:31.387" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="502" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="484" CreationDate="2012-05-17T21:56:32.920" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;The USCF has a registry of all USCF-sanctioned chess clubs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://main.uschess.org/index.php?option=com_wrapper&amp;amp;Itemid=198&quot;&gt;You can go here.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2012-05-17T21:56:32.920" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="503" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="496" CreationDate="2012-05-17T22:05:09.027" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's probably no better way to improve chess than to study chess.  I did seem to make an improvement by getting obsessed with Shogi, however.  But this is a close relative of chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Actually, I would recommend a more physical hobby (rugby, rodeo clown, being a double-naught spy) to give yourself a break from the game.  If you don't get burned out, you'll probably enjoy the game more and improve naturally.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2012-05-18T03:43:11.383" LastActivityDate="2012-05-18T03:43:11.383" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="504" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="540" CreationDate="2012-05-17T22:47:47.920" Score="14" ViewCount="1104" Body="&lt;p&gt;Most chess clubs in my area struggle to gather more than 30 federated members with only one club past the 100-member count in a territory of 8 million people.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which is the largest physical chess club in the World and how many members does it have?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="159" LastActivityDate="2012-05-20T23:03:09.377" Title="Which is the World's largest chess club?" Tags="&lt;clubs&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="505" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="487" CreationDate="2012-05-18T09:07:29.193" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;My 5 cents to Wes' answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I disagree about understanding of &quot;turn-based game&quot;. From my experience it's easily possible. I agreed about duration of game. Long game will be broken! About win / lost, all children understand this, then tend to win of course and don't like to lost, tested :)! Children are small people. As adult they like playing. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think &lt;em&gt;playing&lt;/em&gt; of &lt;em&gt;playing chess&lt;/em&gt; is a way to tеach and using chess to disclosure of intelligence of the child.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="164" LastEditorUserId="164" LastEditDate="2012-05-18T09:20:40.813" LastActivityDate="2012-05-18T09:20:40.813" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="506" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="515" CreationDate="2012-05-18T10:55:45.820" Score="2" ViewCount="175" Body="&lt;p&gt;Does anyone know if the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessblog.com/2012/05/world-chess-blitz-championship-among.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;World Chess Blitz Championship for Chess Robots&lt;/a&gt; in Moscow is going to be streamed over the web? Sounds really cool and I'd like to see it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="205" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-19T00:31:32.187" LastActivityDate="2012-06-19T00:31:32.187" Title="Is the World Chess Blitz Championship for Robots going to be broadcast over the Internet?" Tags="&lt;blitz&gt;&lt;engines&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2012-07-20T03:06:02.127" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="507" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="464" CreationDate="2012-05-18T12:30:06.143" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;When my club attended tournaments, we'd just ask the TD to not pair us if possible.  We'd explain we played each other every week and would prefer new opponents.  The TDs were always understanding and accommodating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2012-05-18T12:30:06.143" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="508" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="496" CreationDate="2012-05-18T13:18:00.390" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;May I suggest meditation?  In my experience it improves concentration.  One or two daily meditation sessions of 15 - 20 minutes each increases my ability to focus on tasks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately, I have no personal experience to relate to chess playing at this time, as my chess playing is currently suspended, other than an occasional low level game against the computer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="224" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T16:06:54.650" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T16:06:54.650" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="509" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="511" CreationDate="2012-05-18T13:30:22.350" Score="17" ViewCount="1034" Body="&lt;p&gt;Most all analysis I've seen in chess focuses on pieces development, and not the development of unoccupied spaces. Is there any value in analyzing game play in this way, and if so, how is this done?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;NOTE:&lt;/strong&gt; The way I look at it is: there are four types of unoccupied spaces: attackable, under-attack, attackable-AND-under-attack, and attack-free. Beyond that, really have no clue, other than I know people tend to focus on positive space, then negative space, and that the rules for positive space in chess are much more complex than the negative space; in fact, I'm only able to think of one rule that applies to negative space, that being the king may not enter an under-attack space. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2013-10-25T01:43:31.153" LastActivityDate="2016-07-15T01:51:49.750" Title="Is game analysis based on &quot;squares&quot; instead of &quot;pieces&quot; of any value?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="510" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="513" CreationDate="2012-05-18T13:31:57.107" Score="10" ViewCount="2648" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there a free online website that attempts to generate &quot;legal&quot; random chess setups X amount of moves into the game?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-13T16:53:10.457" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T16:03:42.333" Title="How can I generate legal random chess setups?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;software&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="511" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="509" CreationDate="2012-05-18T15:00:08.390" Score="18" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think that this is a good question, but also that the most enlightening way to answer might be to point out what I think is a slight misconception behind it. You say that most analysis you have seen focuses on the development of pieces, rather than the development of unoccupied spaces. But when one focuses on the development of pieces, what does this mean? In particular, what is the overall &lt;em&gt;goal&lt;/em&gt; behind the development of one's pieces in the first place?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are of course many facets to this, but one (very) rough way to put it is to say that a proper development of the pieces is just one that helps the player to gain as much control as possible of the board, or the &quot;unoccupied spaces&quot; as you phrase it in your question. So, long answer short, I think that your proposed &lt;em&gt;two&lt;/em&gt; ways of analyzing game play are really just one. But I also think that your question points to a potentially very useful, guiding way of thinking about piece development.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One classic source that could plausibly be seen as particularly emphasizing this line of thought is the work of &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aron_Nimzowitsch&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Aron Nimzowitsch&lt;/a&gt; (e.g. &lt;em&gt;My System&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;Blockade&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;Chess Praxis&lt;/em&gt;), where he stresses in a pretty unified way the importance of restraining an opponent's play by developing one's pieces so as to control the center, overprotect important squares, blockade opposing pawns by plopping pieces down on appropriate unoccupied squares, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, one shouldn't take ideas like overprotection of key squares too far, as illustrated by Hans Kmoch's classic parody game composition &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1334664&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Nimzowitsch vs. Systemsson&lt;/a&gt; (follow the link for Kmoch's crucial Nimzo-style annotations to the game):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Composition&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Copenhagen&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;1927.??.??&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Aron Nimzowitsch&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Systemsson&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;C00&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;48&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 {AN INGENIOUS EXAMPLE OF MY SYSTEM by Aaron Nimzowitsch -&#xA;Anderssen started the sacrificial style, Morphy and Gruenfeld&#xA;the pure attacking style, Steinitz the positional style,&#xA;Tarrasch the scientific style, Lasker the style of styles,&#xA;Capablanca the mechanical style, Alekhine a style as brilliant&#xA;as sunlight. But it is a generally known fact that originality&#xA;and modernism were introduced by me as my own personal&#xA;inventions and enthusiastically imitated (without being fully&#xA;understood) by the whole world of chess. For the ridiculously&#xA;small sum of ten marks, the reader can confirm all this in my&#xA;monumental work, My System, published by B. Kagan. Before my&#xA;time, chess was so naive and undistinguished! One or two&#xA;brutal opening moves, each one involving a vulgar, obvious&#xA;threat, a common, banal sacrifice, a painfully elementary,&#xA;bestially raw checkmate - such, more or less, was the course&#xA;of chess games before my heyday set in. Then I appeared on the&#xA;scene and the chess world paid heed. The hegemony of matter&#xA;was shattered at a stroke and the era of the spiritual&#xA;began. Under my creative guidance, the chessmen, hitherto&#xA;nothing but highwaymen, pirates and butcher boys, became&#xA;sensitive artists and subtle instruments of immeasurable&#xA;profundity. But why waste words!--accompany me, dear reader to&#xA;the dizzy heights of the following game.} e6 2.h4 $1 {My very&#xA;oldest and latest thought in this opening. To the chess addict&#xA;nurtured on spineless convention, this move comes like a slap&#xA;in the face--but calm down, dear reader; after all, you cannot&#xA;be expected to understand such moves. (Forgive me - it is not&#xA;your fault, until now no one has opened your eyes and ears.)&#xA;Wait just a little while, and there will pass before you a&#xA;miracle of overprotection of more than earthly beauty. (I&#xA;assume that I rightly surmise that you are quite familiar with&#xA;my great theory of overprotection.)} 2...d5 { Black of course&#xA;has no suspicion of What is coming and continues serenely in&#xA;classical style. } 3.e5 $1 {A move of elemental delicacy. (We&#xA;detest, as a matter of principle, such words as &quot;power&quot; and&#xA;&quot;strength&quot;; in the first place, such banal expressions make us&#xA;uncomfortable; and, in the second place, we like even less the&#xA;brutalizing tendency which such words imply.) Wherein lies the&#xA;beauty of 3.e5? Why is this move so strong? The answer is as&#xA;simple as it is astonishing. The move is strong because it is&#xA;weak! Weak, that is, only in the traditional sense! In&#xA;reality, that is to say, it is not the move but the Pawn on e5&#xA;that is weak--a tremendous difference! In former times, it is&#xA;true, it was customary to reject any move which created a&#xA;weakness. Today, thanks to me, this view is obsolete. For,&#xA;look, my dear reader, the fact that the Pawn on e5 is weak&#xA;obliges White to protect the Pawn more and more until at last&#xA;the state of overprotection arises as it were of itself. But,&#xA;as we have seen (cf. My System), overprotection is practically&#xA;equivalent to victory. Hence it follows automatically that the&#xA;&quot;weak&quot; move, 3.e5, is a certain road to triumph. The rest is&#xA;more or less a matter of technique. } 3...c5 { All according&#xA;to a famous precedent.} 4.d4 {Here it is quite clear that it&#xA;is more profitable for White first to provoke c5 and then play&#xA;d4, rather than the other way round, which is the customary&#xA;course. For, if White first plays d4, there follows c5 and&#xA;White's d-pawn is under attack. But my clever transposition of&#xA;moves changes the situation completely. For now Black's c-pawn&#xA;is suddenly attacked by White's d-pawn!} 4...cxd4 {What else&#xA;can Black do?} 5.h5 $1 {All very clever, original and&#xA;decisive! Of course the ordinary run of people who envy my&#xA;every spark of genius but cannot follow my line of reasoning&#xA;for even three paces, outdo themselves in sneering at me with&#xA;the poison-dripping epithet, &quot;bizarre.&quot; The text move creates&#xA;confusion in the whole Black army and prepares for the&#xA;annihilating invasion by the Queen 18 moves later.} 5...Qb6&#xA;{Naturally not 5...Nc6 6 Bb5! etc. Why should Black play the&#xA;French Defence only to allow the Ruy Lopez Bishop move after&#xA;all?!} 6.h6 $1 {An avaricious dullard would never hit on this&#xA;deeply conceived Pawn sacrifice.} 6...Nxh6 {After 6...gxh6,&#xA;White has an even more comfortable game.} 7.Qh5 $1 {The reason&#xA;for this becomes clear after next move.} 7...g6 {Black&#xA;threatens to begin a successful siege of the weakling at e5&#xA;with Bg7. But White forestalls this.} 8.Qh2 $1 {To every&#xA;fair-minded observer, this move must come as a revelation! All&#xA;the previous manoeuvres now become clear! White has completed&#xA;his development brilliantly and proceeds to overprotect&#xA;e5. Against this, Black is helpless.} 8...Nf5 9.Bd3 {Note the&#xA;splendid cooperation of White's forces: while the e-pawn and&#xA;the King Bishop completely blockade Black's position, the&#xA;development of the overprotective forces takes place behind&#xA;the broad backs of these sturdy blockaders.} 9...Nc6 10.Nf3&#xA;{As a rule this is a routine move. But here it is strikingly&#xA;original and as such occupies a place in the treasury of my&#xA;intellectual property.} 10...h5 {Old stuff!} 11.b3 {A deep&#xA;trap, as will soon become apparent!} 11...Bg7 {How Black must&#xA;have rejoiced when he anticipated his formidable opponent in&#xA;the occupation of the long diagonal. But...} 12.Bf4 $1 {...how&#xA;bitterly disappointed he must have been to realize that 11.b3&#xA;had only been a trap and Bb2 had not been intended at all. The&#xA;position of Black's Bishop at g7 is now quite&#xA;pointless. 11...Be7 would have been relatively better.}&#xA;12...Bd7 13.Nbd2 Rc8 {Black no longer has any good moves!}&#xA;14.Ke2 $1 {Again, an extraordinarily deep move. White sees&#xA;through Black's plans, and in addition he prepares a&#xA;particularly powerful continuation of his strategy of&#xA;overprotection.} 14...Nb4 {Just what White was waiting for.}&#xA;15.Ne1 $1 {This was the point of his previous move! Black is&#xA;now forced to exchange off the attacking Bishop at d3. But,&#xA;with that, even White's King Knight enters the fray with&#xA;fearful effect at d3, while the square f3 becomes available to&#xA;the Queen Knight. Surely a grandiose piece of strategy. The&#xA;fact is that I'm a marvellous player, even if the whole chess&#xA;world bursts with envy.} 15...Nxd3 16.Nxd3 $1 {Naturally not&#xA;16 cxd3? which would have been quite inconsistent. The Pawn on&#xA;c2 is unimportant, and Black only wastes precious time by&#xA;capturing it.} 16...Rxc2 17.Rae1 $1 {White continues his&#xA;overprotection without much ado.} 17...a5 {This counterattack&#xA;has no punch. Black would naturally like to get a passed Pawn&#xA;plus a Rook on the seventh, but it is too late for that.}&#xA;18.Kd1 $1 {Now the menaced Rook must scurry back, for capture&#xA;on a2 would be much too dangerous.} 18...Rc6 $1 {At last,&#xA;Black gets the right idea: overprotecting his Pawn at e6. But&#xA;it is already too late.} 19.Re2 Ke7 {Introduced into&#xA;tournament play by myself. See note to White's 14th move. The&#xA;King overprotects e6.} 20.Rhe1 Re8 $1 21.Nf3 $1 {Completing&#xA;the overprotection of e5 and thus deciding the fate of the&#xA;game. Black has no defence. Note the aesthetic effect created&#xA;by White's position.} 21...Bf8 {Now Black threatens to&#xA;complete the overprotection of e6 by playing Ng7. But White&#xA;has prepared a brilliant combination.} 22.g4 $1 {Much stronger&#xA;than the obvious Bg5+ etc.} 22...hxg4 23.Qh7 $1 {Now one&#xA;clearly realizes the masterly understanding of position which&#xA;went into White's eighth move (Qh2!).} 23...gxf3 {Had Black&#xA;continued overprotecting by 23...Ng7 there would have followed&#xA;24.Bg5+ f6 25.Bxf6+ Kf7 26.Ng5 mate. Black's basic error was&#xA;that he started overprotecting much too late.} 24.Bg5# {One of&#xA;my best games! I am proud of it if only because Herr&#xA;Systemsson is one of the strongest Scandinavian players. The&#xA;game made an overwhelming impression on the players and&#xA;spectators as well as on my opponent. The game has become&#xA;famous in Denmark as &quot;the immortal overprotection game.&quot;} 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Despite Kmoch's humorous exaggeration of Nimzowitsch's ideas about overprotection, a very recent top-level game brought Kmoch's parody to mind; namely, it was &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1772668&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Caruana's destruction of Topalov&lt;/a&gt; during his unbelievable winning streak at the ongoing Sinquefield Cup 2014. In particular, if we compare the position after &quot;Nimzowitsch's&quot; move 21 above with that after Caruana's move 22 below, we see that Caruana has a similar array of forces buttressing the e5 pawn that clamps down on Topalov's position (though not the extreme-to-the-point-of-silliness buildup of every single piece directly supporting it).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Sinquefield Cup&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Saint Louis USA&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2014.09.02&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;2014.08.27&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;6&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Fabiano Caruana&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Veselin Topalov&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;B46&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;61&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 e6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nc6 5.Nc3 a6 6.Nxc6 bxc6&#xA;7.Bd3 d5 8.O-O Nf6 9.Re1 Be7 10.e5 Nd7 11.Qg4 Kf8 12.Na4 Qa5&#xA;13.Re2 h5 14.Qf4 g5 15.Bd2 Qc7 16.Qg3 h4 17.Qg4 Rg8 18.Rae1 c5&#xA;19.c4 dxc4 20.Bxc4 Bb7 21.h3 Rd8 22.Bc3 Nb8 23.Re3! Nc6? 24.Bxe6!&#xA;fxe6 25.Rf3+ Ke8 (25...Kg7 26.Qh5 Rdf8 27.Rf6! Rxf6 (27...Bxf6 28.exf6+ Rxf6 29.Rxe6 Nd4 30.Qxg5+) 28.exf6+ Bxf6 29.Qxg5+ Kf8 30.Qxf6+ Qf7 31.Qh6+ Ke8 32.Nxc5) 26.Qxe6 Rg7 27.Qh6 Nd4 28.e6 Nxf3+ 29.gxf3&#xA;Bf8 30.Qh5+ Ke7 31.Bxg7 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After Caruana's 22nd move, Topalov has no good way to create counterplay via a pawn break, because if the e5 pawn were to capture on f6, the power of his supporting pieces would be unleashed (as can be seen in the &lt;code&gt;25...Kg7&lt;/code&gt; lines given above; &lt;code&gt;25...Kg7&lt;/code&gt; was Topalov's original intent before he found the &lt;code&gt;27.Rf6!&lt;/code&gt; reply in his analysis). Because of that fact, Topalov's only productive try is to reroute his knight to d4; but he overlooked that &lt;code&gt;23.Re3!&lt;/code&gt; makes &lt;code&gt;23...Nc6?&lt;/code&gt; tactically unworkable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2014-09-04T16:31:02.463" LastActivityDate="2014-09-04T16:31:02.463" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="512" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="504" CreationDate="2012-05-18T16:25:41.677" Score="3" Body="&lt;h2&gt;Mechanics' Institute (250 members)&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessclub.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;The Mechanics' Institute Chess Club in San Francisco&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This just based on the size of &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.milibrary.org/contact&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;their staff&lt;/a&gt;, their membership fees are relatively low, hours of operation, and that it is the oldest chess club in the United States; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.sgzurich2009.ch/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Zurich has the oldest club&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That said, I was unable to find any chess club that post yearly counts for membership purchased and/or given; that said, games played onsite, and the average rating of those games would likely be a more useful numbers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;UPDATE:&lt;/strong&gt; So, according to &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_John_Donaldson&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;John Donaldson&lt;/a&gt;, Chess Director of the Mechanics' Institute Chess Club, he guessed 250 players use the club a month; reason for a guess is that it's complicated to know the exact count, since the membership is to the Institute, not just the chess club. Also, he said that the Tuesday Marathon attracts roughly 100 players. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastEditorUserId="38" LastEditDate="2012-05-18T18:34:17.727" LastActivityDate="2012-05-18T18:34:17.727" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="513" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="510" CreationDate="2012-05-18T17:06:05.527" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was unable to find an online tool to do this, but in terms of how, the following appears to be the logic that would be used:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Both white and black pieces would be in the correct starting positions;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;White would start;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Turns following white's start would be exchanged between white and black;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Any piece able to move during a turn would be a member of the list of pieces to be randomly selected to move;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Once a piece was selected, all squares for that piece that are legal moves would be added to the list of possible moves, and a move would be selected randomly from that list;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Attacks would not take place unless the attack was randomly selected as a move. If an attack does take place, then the attacked pieced would be removed from the board.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Iterations of randomly selected moves would stop once the number of moves into the game set before generating the board had been reached.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-13T16:54:56.087" LastActivityDate="2012-06-13T16:54:56.087" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="514" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="504" CreationDate="2012-05-18T18:31:52.457" Score="3" Body="&lt;h2&gt;Marshall Chess Club (500 members)&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.marshallchessclub.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Marshall Chess Club, New York, NY&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Roughly 500 &quot;active&quot; members; meaning the player's membership is currently paid in full. It's free to visit one-time, and there's blitz games on Friday for players of any rating for $20.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastEditorUserId="38" LastEditDate="2012-05-18T21:21:15.003" LastActivityDate="2012-05-18T21:21:15.003" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="515" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="506" CreationDate="2012-05-18T19:00:29.567" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Appears unlikely given it does not even appear that there's a website for the event, just press releases that were posted to weblogs like the one you linked too. Here's &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51b10w3nTS4&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;archival video of &quot;Vladimir Kramnik vs Robot&quot;&lt;/a&gt; for anyone interested in viewing the game play; just in case you thought a robot play a person is boring, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51b10w3nTS4#t=2m45s&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;watch the robot &quot;attack&quot; Kramnik, he almost loses his hand&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastEditorUserId="38" LastEditDate="2012-05-18T21:35:29.150" LastActivityDate="2012-05-18T21:35:29.150" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="516" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="510" CreationDate="2012-05-18T21:21:33.970" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Find an online database of games.  Choose a random game and a random move in that game.  Voila, an instant realistic and legal position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-13T16:55:09.410" LastActivityDate="2012-06-13T16:55:09.410" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="517" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="510" CreationDate="2012-05-19T01:01:53.677" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;I stumbled upon Chess Hero.  It looks very nice, but it is not online.  Per the website:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You supply a set of PGN files&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The program picks random positions from the PGN files and challenges you to guess the best move computed by a chess engine&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;On every attempt you are given a penalty (the difference in score between your move and the engine best)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The software can be found &lt;a href=&quot;http://innokuo.altervista.org/chesshero.html&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-13T16:53:55.993" LastActivityDate="2012-06-13T16:53:55.993" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="518" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="675" CreationDate="2012-05-19T03:36:57.540" Score="6" ViewCount="421" Body="&lt;p&gt;An example of what I mean would be &lt;a href=&quot;http://mw2mw.com/thinking-table&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Thinking Table&lt;/a&gt;, though the Thinking Table is not a consumer product:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Thinking Table is a series of works that explore the invisible, elusive nature of&#xA;  thought. Play chess against a transparent intelligence, its evolving&#xA;  thought process visible on the board before you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/IJibh.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;CAPTION:&lt;/strong&gt; The above image is three images, from left to right, the images are of the opening, middle, and end of the same game. The lines shown on the board are the engine's &quot;thoughts&quot; for one move during the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Each Thinking Machine is an artificial intelligence program – ready,&#xA;  willing and able to play chess with the viewer. If the viewer&#xA;  confronts the program, the computer’s thought process is sketched on&#xA;  screen as it plays. A map is created from the traces of literally&#xA;  thousands of possible futures as the program tries to decide its best&#xA;  move. Those traces become a key to the invisible lines of force in the&#xA;  game as well as a window into the spirit of a thinking machine. The&#xA;  pace of interaction is deliberative, unlike the rushed tempo of&#xA;  popular video games. Indeed the true subject of the piece is not games&#xA;  or chess, but contemplation and introspection.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-13T16:55:32.933" LastActivityDate="2012-06-13T16:56:42.340" Title="Are there consumer-level game play analysis systems that overlay the analysis on the board real-time?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;software&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="519" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="521" CreationDate="2012-05-19T03:59:34.250" Score="5" ViewCount="216" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there such thing as a chess playing signature? Meaning within x-amount of games the identity of a player is known based on the skill and game play of the player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-13T16:57:13.120" LastActivityDate="2015-08-18T11:50:29.460" Title="Is there such a thing as a unique chess playing signature?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="520" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="504" CreationDate="2012-05-19T07:46:12.067" Score="4" Body="&lt;h2&gt;Hamburger SK von 1830 eV (419 members)&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Located in Hamburg, second largest city of Germany with a population of approx. 1.8 Mio people. The number includes younger players, partly without national rating number. In Germany there are about 60 clubs with more than 100 members. Interestingly, to my information no club in Berlin (which is 2 times bigger than Hamburg) comes anywhere near the member count of the Hamburger SK. On the other hand there are 17 clubs in Berlin to choose from.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="94" LastActivityDate="2012-05-19T07:46:12.067" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="521" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="519" CreationDate="2012-05-19T13:32:17.370" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Unlikely.  The first several moves of any game by notable players are all book.  Thereafter, people who play notable games are able to play superb offensive and defensive moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, if you see some crazy sacrifice, you might think Anderssen or Tal is playing this game. Similarly, if you see some superb positional move, you might think Petrosian or Karpov is playing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But to see a game played by any of the top 20 players of all time and pick out who was moving the pieces based upon their styles, I can't imagine it.  There simply isn't the 'bandwidth' for such an individual signature in chess beyond someone playing more positionally or more tactically; that's pretty broad-brush stuff.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2012-05-19T13:32:17.370" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="522" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="544" CreationDate="2012-05-19T13:46:19.497" Score="7" ViewCount="582" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there software that tracks unassisted game play and categorizes player's strengthens and weaknesses in a way that allows the player to focus on the most valuable deliberate area practice relative to the player's strengthens and weaknesses?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-13T16:57:51.200" LastActivityDate="2012-06-13T16:57:51.200" Title="What software is good for deliberate practice in specific areas?" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="523" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="526" CreationDate="2012-05-19T13:48:01.987" Score="8" ViewCount="512" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are they tied to IQ and amount of deliberate practice, and if so, does that mean if you know the player's IQ you're able to estimate the time of deliberate practice spent learning?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-07-22T10:50:18.127" LastActivityDate="2019-07-22T10:50:18.127" Title="Are there innate limits in chess performance?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;iq&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="524" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-05-19T20:16:31.240" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Robert J. Fischer (1943-2008) was an American grandmaster and the 11th world chess champion.  At the height of his skills (1972) he was peerless. He was known for his meticulous preparation, deep understanding of the game, and mercurial temperament. After winning the world title from Boris Spassky in 1972, Fischer didn't defend his crown, and in 1975 the would-be challenger Anatoly Karpov became the champion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For more information, see this &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobby_Fischer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia entry&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-06-22T08:59:03.210" LastActivityDate="2017-06-22T08:59:03.210" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="525" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-05-19T20:16:31.240" Score="0" Body="Robert J. Fischer (1943-2008) was an American grandmaster and world chess champion.  At the height of his skills (1972) he was peerless. He was known for his meticulous preparation, deep understanding of the game, and mercurial temperament.&#xD;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-08-04T22:12:14.727" LastActivityDate="2012-08-04T22:12:14.727" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="526" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="523" CreationDate="2012-05-19T20:24:06.660" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;'IQ' is a notoriously flawed way of measuring intelligence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A high rating (NM and higher) is a sign of intelligence, talent, and hard work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Talent is missing from your equation.  It's why some people who play once a decade can mop up on normal club players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2012-05-19T20:24:06.660" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="527" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-05-19T21:37:03.277" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;A rating is a number that approximates a player's skill.  In general, by comparing two players' ratings, one can gain an appreciation for the likelihood of one player defeating the other.  Having ratings allows tournament organizers to group those with like ratings together, affording everyone challenging but winnable games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;The following describes the USCF rating system.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;United States Chess Federation (USCF) ratings are common for American players.  By participating in USCF-sanctioned events, players earn ratings that are based upon their performance against other rated players. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Remember, ratings &lt;em&gt;approximate&lt;/em&gt; skill.  They are ever-changing and adapt in accordance to the results of games played.  For the USCF rating system, players are playing for some share of the other players' rating points.  That is, points won by the winner are taken from the losing player; it's a zero-sum system.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Players with equal ratings have equal chances of winning.  A rating difference of 400 points means that the lower rated player has the virtually no chance of winning the game.  A difference of perhaps 200 points means the lower rated player will be challenged but should have a sporting chance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How are ratings points earned?  The more the result of a game mirrors the expectation based upon the players' ratings, the fewer points are won or lost.  Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If two players are equally rated, the winner will gain 16 points at the expense of the loser.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;According to the way the USCF system was designed, an 1800 should defeat a 1400 pretty much every game.  If this happens, their ratings are deemed accurate and change very little, perhaps a point or so; the result affirms the relative ratings are accurate.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;However, if the 1400-rated player somehow wins, she gains a whopping 32 points at the expense of the 1800 rated player (who now becomes a 1768-player.)  Their ratings are out of kilter and need a strong correction.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Finally, an 1800 is expected to defeat a 1600 most of the time, but certainly not all the time.  Thus if an 1800 defeats a 1600, the 1800 wins perhaps 10 points.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Conversely, if the 1600 player were to win, the 1600 would gain about 22 points. As before, the players' ratings are adjusted to better reflect reality.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The actual system in use has plenty of tweaks in it - the above simply shows how it works in general.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The average club player is rated at 1500; Club players have ratings from E (low) to A (1800-1999), then labels such as 'Expert' (2000-2199), National Master (2200-2399), and Senior Master (2400+)  The USCF does not grant International Master or Grandmaster titles.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, bear in mind there are many rating systems.  FIDE and the USCF both use similar systems invented by &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arpad_Elo&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Arpad Elo&lt;/a&gt;).  Other systems exist including the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.glicko.net/ratings.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Glicko system&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-06-21T19:08:52.470" LastActivityDate="2017-06-21T19:08:52.470" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="528" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-05-19T21:37:03.277" Score="0" Body="A number that approximates a player's skill.  The actual meaning of the number depends upon the issuing organization.  FIDE ratings are used as the international standard for over the board chess" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-06-26T14:32:12.313" LastActivityDate="2019-06-26T14:32:12.313" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="529" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-05-19T22:01:45.103" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2012-05-19T22:01:45.103" LastActivityDate="2012-05-19T22:01:45.103" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="530" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-05-19T22:01:45.103" Score="0" Body="The Glicko is a chess rating system.  It is similar to the Elo system currently used by the USCF but takes into account the quality of the rating itself.  It is considered to more closely approximate a player's strength than the USCF Elo system, at a cost of some complexity." OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-06-13T11:03:39.783" LastActivityDate="2012-06-13T11:03:39.783" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="531" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="532" CreationDate="2012-05-20T00:09:01.370" Score="9" ViewCount="801" Body="&lt;p&gt;Years ago, I was a bullet-chess (1 min. games) addict. I played daily and often. Then I stopped for about 4 years (and played off-and-on). My rating was mediocre - around 1400 on Yahoo Chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Recently I started again, 3/0 games and blitz games. I noticed that I play better overall, but I can't pinpoint what it is - I just know I can see combinations better. I wonder about this a lot, because as I age I should be slightly slower mentally (I'm close to 30).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="227" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-13T17:04:23.733" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T19:58:30.867" Title="Can you improve in chess subconsciously, over time?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="532" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="531" CreationDate="2012-05-20T01:04:36.960" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, saying you &quot;feel&quot; like you're better is does not appear to be very scientific, so keep that in mind when attempting to understand the events you're describing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, I don't believe what you're experiencing is related to the subconscious development of your understanding of chess, but you experiencing the difference between cramming knowledge into your brain, and what's called the &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spacing_effect&quot;&gt;Spacing Effect&lt;/a&gt;&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Let me know if this answer addresses your questions, or if there's something I'm missing.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastEditorUserId="38" LastEditDate="2012-05-20T01:36:22.530" LastActivityDate="2012-05-20T01:36:22.530" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="533" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="523" CreationDate="2012-05-20T01:16:00.403" Score="7" Body="&lt;h2&gt;The Role of Deliberate Practice in Expertise: Necessary but Not Sufficient&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://csjarchive.cogsci.rpi.edu/proceedings/2008/pdfs/p823.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Fernand Gobet (Centre for the Study of Expertise, Brunel University)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The Deliberate Practice Framework&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In an influential paper, Ericsson, Krampe, and Tesch-Romer (1993)&#xA;  proposed that expertise is acquired only through practice deliberately&#xA;  designed to improve one’s own skill. Deliberate practice (DP) consists&#xA;  of goal-directed and repetitive activities that enable immediate&#xA;  feedback. These activities, performed individually, are typically&#xA;  effortful and not enjoyable, and cannot be carried out for more than a&#xA;  few hours a day. Inherited factors are not excluded, but these factors&#xA;  are limited to motivation and general activity levels, with cognitive&#xA;  abilities being explicitly excluded. The DP framework has had a&#xA;  considerable impact in the field of expertise, and numerous studies&#xA;  have been carried out to examine the role of practice in domains such&#xA;  as art, sports, games, and professional activities.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;New Data on Deliberate Practice in Chess&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Much of what we know about expertise comes from chess (Gobet et al.,&#xA;  2004) and it is therefore a good domain for examining to what extent&#xA;  DP accounts for the development of expertise. Gobet and Campitelli&#xA;  (2007) collected data from a sample of 104 Argentinean players ranging&#xA;  from weak amateurs to grandmasters. They found that, while DP&#xA;  accounted for 34% of the variance in skill (measured by players’&#xA;  national rating), several results did not fit the DP framework.&#xA;  Although the average amount of DP necessary for reaching master level&#xA;  was considerable (11,053 hours), there was also a substantial amount&#xA;  of variability, with the slowest player (23,608 hours) taking nearly 8&#xA;  times as long as the fastest player (3,016 hours). Some players with&#xA;  more than 25,000 hours of DP never reached the master level. These&#xA;  results violate Ericsson et al.’s (1993) assumption that DP yields&#xA;  monotonic benefits. In addition, group practice was a better predictor&#xA;  of skill than individual practice, and the age at which players&#xA;  started playing chess seriously correlated with current rating even&#xA;  after the number of hours of practice was controlled for&#xA;  statistically.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Analyzing longitudinal data from the same sample, Campitelli and Gobet&#xA;  (in press) found that, after playing chess seriously for three years,&#xA;  masters had a higher rating than Experts although they had not&#xA;  practiced more. The Experts’ ratings did not improve much thereafter,&#xA;  in spite of substantial amounts of DP. This study also presented&#xA;  evidence that practice in chess is more complex than previously&#xA;  thought and is not limited to the kind of repetitive and feedback-rich&#xA;  activities described in the DP literature.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Other Factors Mediating Expertise in Chess&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If practice does not explain all of the variance, what are the other&#xA;  factors that are involved in the development of chess expertise? Gobet&#xA;  and Campitelli (2007) showed that chessplayers’ degree of handedness&#xA;  is weaker than in the population at large. Two studies have also shown&#xA;  a correlation between chess skill and intelligence (Bilalić et al.&#xA;  2007a; Grabner, Stern &amp;amp; Neubauer, 2007), adding to a complex pattern&#xA;  of data (Didierjean &amp;amp; Gobet, in press). Personality differences exist&#xA;  as well (Bilalić et al., 2007b). Finally, Gobet and Chassy (2008)&#xA;  discovered that expert chess players in the northern hemisphere tend&#xA;  to be born more often in late winter and early spring than the overall&#xA;  population. The results briefly reviewed here show that practice&#xA;  encompasses more varied training activities than argued by Ericsson et&#xA;  al. (1993). They also highlight the importance of individual&#xA;  variability and show that other factors play a role in the acquisition&#xA;  of expertise. Practice is a necessary, but not sufficient condition&#xA;  for reaching high levels of expertise.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;SOURCE:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;http://csjarchive.cogsci.rpi.edu/proceedings/2008/pdfs/p823.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Cognitive Science Society's Journal Archive&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastActivityDate="2012-05-20T01:16:00.403" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="534" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="531" CreationDate="2012-05-20T01:38:32.493" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Being older doesn't mean inferior.  I'm probably a better computer programmer now at 50 than I have ever been.  The frenetic power of youth does not always yield a superior result in situations where experience and discipline matter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Regarding 'subconscious' learning and chess... I don't believe there are any shortcuts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2012-05-20T01:38:32.493" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="535" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="537" CreationDate="2012-05-20T08:07:52.897" Score="7" ViewCount="251" Body="&lt;p&gt;(To best of my recollection) In the book a diagram was given with the side note something like X vs Y, 1920 or 1930 Morocco or some other place with the question &quot;what did black do?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After some careful examination it seemed like there is a win for black etc., but when looking up the answer at the end of the book:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A: If you said (insert combination here) black wins, you are wrong, as in actual game (black missed the winning combination) black resigned! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyone can suggest the book that contains this puzzle and answer?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="230" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-13T17:05:51.657" LastActivityDate="2012-06-13T17:05:51.657" Title="What is the book containing this puzzle with an unexpected answer?" Tags="&lt;books&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="536" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="89" CreationDate="2012-05-20T11:43:57.120" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;Though the previous answers have made some solid points, I think they have not yet given the main reason why algebraic notation has generally come to be preferred over descriptive notation: it is more &lt;em&gt;absolute&lt;/em&gt;, less relative, than descriptive notation. What I mean is just this: in algebraic notation each square on the chessboard receives only one name, while in descriptive notation each square receives a different name depending on whether a move by white is being notated or a move by black. This alone makes algebraic notation more transparent, because things aren't relative to which side is on the move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Consider, say, the g4 square (in algebraic notation). When white moves a piece there, descriptive notation says it is headed to KN4. But if black is moving a piece there, it is headed to KN5. There is just no need to have two names for this square, and it serves only to sow possible confusion in a way that algebraic notation does not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2012-05-20T11:43:57.120" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="537" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="535" CreationDate="2012-05-20T13:21:54.647" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, &lt;a href=&quot;http://timkr.home.xs4all.nl/chess2/resigntxt.htm#01&quot;&gt;here's a link that contains the game&lt;/a&gt;, probably.  I'd guess it's example #1.  This may give you more information for your research.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2012-05-20T13:21:54.647" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="538" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-05-20T22:07:37.070" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2012-05-20T22:07:37.070" LastActivityDate="2012-05-20T22:07:37.070" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="539" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-05-20T22:07:37.070" Score="0" Body="A combination is a series of moves that accomplish a well-defined goal and provide a tangible benefit.  Generally speaking, a combination will win material or provide a significant positional advantage." OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-05-29T12:44:00.157" LastActivityDate="2012-05-29T12:44:00.157" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="540" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="504" CreationDate="2012-05-20T23:03:09.377" Score="5" Body="&lt;h1&gt;Marseille Échecs (831 members)&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to the French Chess Federation, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.echecs.asso.fr/FicheClub.aspx?Ref=1648&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Marseille Échecs&lt;/a&gt; is the largest French club, totaling 831 officially registered players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Two other French clubs have more than 500 members, in the cities of &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.echecs.asso.fr/FicheClub.aspx?Ref=689&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Bois-Colombes&lt;/a&gt; (612) and &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.echecs.asso.fr/FicheClub.aspx?Ref=978&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Villepinte&lt;/a&gt; (584), both near Paris.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="132" LastActivityDate="2012-05-20T23:03:09.377" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="541" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="543" CreationDate="2012-05-21T03:51:05.803" Score="13" ViewCount="2568" Body="&lt;p&gt;Boris Gelfand has just won the 7th of 12 games (all previous drawn) in the FIDE World Championship match against the current holder of the title Viswanathan Anand. This puts him in a good position to take the title. Gelfand is currently ranked 20th in the world; over the past decade he has averaged approximately 13th in the world (&lt;a href=&quot;http://ratings.fide.com/toplist.phtml&quot;&gt;FIDE rankings&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If Gelfand does win, will his low ranking be without precedent or is this a common match-play aberration? Who has been the lowest ranked on the FIDE rankings list at the time of taking the title of World Chess Champion?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="97" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-13T17:07:43.480" LastActivityDate="2014-11-19T02:09:14.760" Title="Who is/was the lowest ranked World Chess Champion?" Tags="&lt;history&gt;&lt;world-championship&gt;&lt;statistics&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="542" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="541" CreationDate="2012-05-21T04:06:57.657" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;http://fidelists.blogspot.com/2007/12/all-time-list-by-arpad-elo.html&quot;&gt;this page&lt;/a&gt;, the weakest world champions would be Euwe and Steinitz.  The list is old, but we've had nothing but powerhouses since 1978.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2012-05-21T04:06:57.657" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="543" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="541" CreationDate="2012-05-21T13:35:38.907" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;To answer my own question, &lt;strong&gt;numbers shown in bold below are the FIDE ranking of the player at the time they were crowned World Champion&lt;/strong&gt;. Before 1964 there was no ranking system as far as I know. Ranking taken from &lt;a href=&quot;http://ratings.fide.com/toplist.phtml&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE rankings site&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://chess.eusa.ed.ac.uk/Chess/Trivia/AlltimeList.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this chess USA education webpage&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Undisputed world champions 1886–1993&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;?? Wilhelm Steinitz (1886–1894)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;?? Emanuel Lasker   (1894–1921)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;?? José Raúl Capablanca (1921–1927)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;?? Alexander Alekhine   (1927–1935, 1937–1946)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;?? Max Euwe         (1935–1937)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;?? Mikhail Botvinnik    (1948–1957, 1958–1960, 1961–1963)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;?? Vasily Smyslov   (1957–1958)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;?? Mikhail Tal      (1960–1961)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;01&lt;/strong&gt; Tigran Petrosian (1963–1969) (first unofficial rankings list 1964)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;02&lt;/strong&gt; Boris Spassky    (1969–1972)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;01&lt;/strong&gt; Bobby Fischer    (1972–1975)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;02&lt;/strong&gt; Anatoly Karpov   (1975–1985)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;02&lt;/strong&gt; Garry Kasparov   (1985–1993)  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Classical (PCA/Braingames) world champions 1993–2006&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;01&lt;/strong&gt; Garry Kasparov   (1993–2000)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;03&lt;/strong&gt; Vladimir Kramnik     (2000–2006)  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;FIDE world champions 1993–2006&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;02&lt;/strong&gt; Anatoly Karpov   (1993–1999)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;44&lt;/strong&gt; Alexander Khalifman  (1999–2000)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;02&lt;/strong&gt; Viswanathan Anand    (2000–2002)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;07&lt;/strong&gt; Ruslan Ponomariov    (2002–2004)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;54&lt;/strong&gt; Rustam Kasimdzhanov  (2004–2005)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;03&lt;/strong&gt; Veselin Topalov  (2005–2006)  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Undisputed world champions 2006–present&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;09&lt;/strong&gt; Vladimir Kramnik     (2006–2007)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;01&lt;/strong&gt; Viswanathan Anand    (2007–present)  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Next undisputed world champion ?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;04&lt;/strong&gt; Viswanathan Anand&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;20&lt;/strong&gt; Boris Gelfand  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And as I write this Anand has won game 8.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, an interesting quote from Alexander Khalifman responding to his very low ranking at the time of his crowning FIDE world champion in 1999: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;Rating systems work perfectly for players who play only in round robin closed events. I think most of them are overrated. Organizers invite the same people over and over because they have the same rating and their rating stays high.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course he would say that but perhaps some truth there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="97" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2014-11-19T02:09:14.760" LastActivityDate="2014-11-19T02:09:14.760" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="544" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="522" CreationDate="2012-05-21T14:15:46.610" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm confident in saying that there is no such software; though engines are of course incredibly strong players, and their numerical evaluations can certainly pinpoint poor individual moves that you might make, the kind of helpful feedback you describe is unfortunately out of reach for a computer program at this point in time. On the plus side, though, there is a fantastic (and cheap!) alternative to such nonexistent software: &lt;em&gt;human players who are stronger than oneself&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One of the best ways to get better at chess (and this is in common with most competitive endeavors) is just to play against the strongest opponents you can find, whether casually or in tournament play, especially if you can pick their brains in a postmortem afterward. You will come to learn where they saw you going wrong, and in what areas of the game you tend to make mistakes, and in time you will see more and more of these things on your own. And even if you don't talk through the game afterward, just the playing itself will be a boon to your development as a player, as there's no substitute for practice against the best, and steel sharpens steel.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-05-21T14:23:10.843" LastActivityDate="2012-05-21T14:23:10.843" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="545" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="547" CreationDate="2012-05-21T15:07:42.270" Score="18" ViewCount="8207" Body="&lt;p&gt;Generally, rooks are considered to be much better than knights.  Why is that?  Is it a myth or are they really better?  Are there situations where a knights may be better that a rook?  I usually think that rooks enter the game a bit later and this reduces their value during the early stages of the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="43" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-13T17:08:30.017" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T19:52:45.210" Title="Why are rooks better than knights?" Tags="&lt;knights&gt;&lt;rooks&gt;&lt;point-value&gt;&lt;pieces&gt;" AnswerCount="10" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="546" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="545" CreationDate="2012-05-21T15:11:15.813" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is always a situation where one piece can be better than another.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Rooks are superior to knights because they control more squares, and have more mobility.  Also since they control whole ranks and files, they are able to bound the enemy pieces while knights and bishops are much more limited in that regard.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="117" LastActivityDate="2012-05-21T15:11:15.813" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="547" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="545" CreationDate="2012-05-21T15:46:23.677" Score="24" Body="&lt;p&gt;Rooks are more suitable for open games where there are open lines. Knight are better for more closed games. Knights have the benefit of jumping over other pieces and rooks have the ability to move quickly whereas knights move very slowly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, remember that you can't checkmate with just a Knight and King, so Rooks are probably more powerful in the endgame especially when the board is wide open.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastActivityDate="2012-05-21T15:46:23.677" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="548" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="550" CreationDate="2012-05-21T17:36:15.643" Score="17" ViewCount="2610" Body="&lt;p&gt;Most advanced players know when it is time to resign, but many beginners don't.  What factors do you consider when it is time to resign?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2015-09-20T14:23:35.930" LastActivityDate="2020-03-04T03:16:44.670" Title="When is it the right time to resign?" Tags="&lt;etiquette&gt;&lt;resigning&gt;" AnswerCount="8" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="549" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-05-21T17:38:38.170" Score="3" ViewCount="1198" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the best defense as white against the Grunfeld Defense?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have been playing the Blackmar-Diemer Gambit over and over again, I suspect some opponents notice this, and open up with &lt;code&gt;1... Nf6&lt;/code&gt;, so this gets me off guard.  I usually try to continue the Blackmar-Diemer Gambit, but black normally goes a different route.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-12T01:42:03.603" LastActivityDate="2020-08-04T01:29:19.177" Title="How should I play against the Grunfeld defense as white?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;grunfeld-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="550" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="548" CreationDate="2012-05-21T18:05:03.707" Score="21" Body="&lt;p&gt;The right time to resign will vary from player to player, even if facing identical losing positions. But basically, the right time to resign is when, despite serious contemplation and effort of thought, you are convinced that there is simply no way to avoid a loss, and in addition you have lost all desire to play the position out. That said, there is nothing more frustrating than &lt;a href=&quot;http://timkr.home.xs4all.nl/chess2/resigntxt.htm&quot;&gt;resigning prematurely&lt;/a&gt;, and a saying I've heard before goes something like &quot;It's better to resign one move too late than one move too early,&quot; or &quot;It's never too late to resign.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some players can feel disrespected if an opponent plays on in what the first player considers a clearly lost position. But of course what one person can see clearly, others sometimes can't (or, not unlike the link above, the player who thinks it is already won might be mistaken). A player has every right to play until the bitter end every game without resigning -- &lt;em&gt;these times can even be great learning experiences&lt;/em&gt;, seeing how one's opponent goes about winning a won position -- and I believe it is never disrespectful to do so, provided that the player on the losing end isn't, say, just running out the clock, motivated only by a desire to be annoying and waste the opponent's time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2012-05-21T18:05:03.707" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="551" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="484" CreationDate="2012-05-21T18:10:13.780" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Searching for &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.meetup.com/find/?keywords=chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;&quot;chess&quot; on Meetup.com&lt;/a&gt; will return any meetup groups in your area.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="238" LastEditorUserId="38" LastEditDate="2012-05-22T22:10:57.923" LastActivityDate="2012-05-22T22:10:57.923" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="552" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-05-21T19:04:58.000" Score="25" ViewCount="2671" Body="&lt;p&gt;Evaluating 200M positions per second and having a search tree of 20+ moves might not be enough to beat a World Champion if a computer searches in the wrong direction or if it's evaluating positions a human opponent would never consider (either by instinct and/or reasoning). Coding tactics is easy, coding strategy is &lt;em&gt;hard&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Was Deep Blue human assisted when it beat Kasparov in 1997? Is there any evidence about that?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can a commercial software chess game running on a &quot;common machine&quot; beat a chess master nowadays?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-03-03T20:07:29.600" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T19:49:14.753" Title="Deep Blue vs Kasparov - Aftermath" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;history&gt;&lt;world-championship&gt;&lt;kasparov&gt;&lt;human-versus-machine&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="553" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="552" CreationDate="2012-05-21T19:13:11.893" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Kasparov accused Deep Blue of cheating, but I don't believe there is any evidence about this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anything can happen on any day, so yes, a commercial software chess game running on a &quot;common machine&quot; can beat a chess master.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastActivityDate="2012-05-21T19:13:11.893" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="554" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="545" CreationDate="2012-05-21T20:05:06.617" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;I agree with Xaisoft, and just want to add that in an open game, a rook can be very effective to reduce the opponent's pawns and keep the opponent's king &quot;in place&quot;. While it is true that knights can be mobile in a close game, they are also very predictable. That being said, personally I'd be happy to see an opponent lose both of his/her knights.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="241" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-13T17:09:38.393" LastActivityDate="2012-06-13T17:09:38.393" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="555" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="552" CreationDate="2012-05-21T22:15:57.513" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;It isn't hard to find machines/programs rated 2200+ nowadays, so yes machines can beat masters. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Kasparov's comments versus Deep Blue are sour grapes.  Kasparov once boasted that a machine could not beat him because he could create and a machine could not.  He failed to realize that sufficiently deep tactics are indistinguishable from creation ;-)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2012-05-21T22:15:57.513" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="556" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-05-21T22:38:25.380" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess computers are frequently broken down into two pieces - the user interface and the actual chess engine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With respect to this web site, the user interface isn't so important.  It can be a chess board that detects where the pieces are, a web page that allows pieces to be moved, a command line that allows moves to be typed in, or any number of other possibilities.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;em&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_engine&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;engine&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt; is what selects the moves on behalf of the computer, and is thus where matters of chess-specific interest lie. Some engines commonly employed on personal computers include &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.stockfishchess.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Stockfish&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.cruxis.com/chess/houdini.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Houdini&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fritz_%28chess%29&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Fritz&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crafty&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Crafty&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rybka&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Rybka&lt;/a&gt;, and &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fruit_%28software%29&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Fruit&lt;/a&gt;.  In 1997, IBM's &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Blue_%28chess_computer%29&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Deep Blue&lt;/a&gt; became the first engine to defeat a sitting world chess champion, Garry Kasparov, under classical match conditions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-06-21T20:53:38.033" LastActivityDate="2017-06-21T20:53:38.033" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="557" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-05-21T22:38:25.380" Score="0" Body="Questions relating to chess engines: any computer program that is able to play/analyze chess positions." OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="3594" LastEditDate="2020-03-10T13:31:48.057" LastActivityDate="2020-03-10T13:31:48.057" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="558" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-05-21T22:51:46.640" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The standard point values are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;pawn   : 1 point&#xA;knight : 3 points&#xA;bishop : 3 points&#xA;rook   : 5 points&#xA;queen  : 9 points&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This implies that &lt;em&gt;in general&lt;/em&gt; if you trade a knight for a bishop, you don't gain an advantage.  You would not want to trade a rook for a bishop, however, since the rook is generally worth more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Further, it is generally agreed on that two bishops are stronger than 2 knights or 1 knight and 1 bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_piece_relative_value&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;See the Wikipedia article&lt;/a&gt; for different opinions about point values.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bear in mind, &lt;strong&gt;position is everything&lt;/strong&gt;.  That is, there are cases where it's perfectly acceptable to trade a rook for a knight or bishop if the resulting position gives one enough counter-play to make up for the loss of material.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-06-21T19:07:10.923" LastActivityDate="2017-06-21T19:07:10.923" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="559" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-05-21T22:51:46.640" Score="0" Body="The chess pieces have been assigned point values to serve as a general guide as to  their relative worth." OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2012-05-21T23:14:04.163" LastActivityDate="2012-05-21T23:14:04.163" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="560" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-05-21T23:14:29.577" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Garry Kasparov (born 1963) became, at age 22, the youngest world champion in chess history in 1985 by defeating then-champion Anatoly Karpov. In 1993, while still champion, he split from FIDE to form the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professional_Chess_Association&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;PCA&lt;/a&gt;, which resulted in an era of two split world championships. Kasparov retained his own title until losing a match to challenger Vladimir Kramnik in 2000. Currently, Kasparov holds the record for the highest Elo rating ever achieved (2851).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He retired from professional chess in 2005, though he has remained active as a chess author, and at times as a coach to players such as Magnus Carlsen and Hikaru Nakamura. He also remains active in chess politics, having championing the failed candidacy of his lifetime rival Karpov for the FIDE presidency in 2010, and hinted at his own candidacy in the future.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-06-21T19:08:41.660" LastActivityDate="2017-06-21T19:08:41.660" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="561" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-05-21T23:14:29.577" Score="0" Body="Garry Kasparov was the World Chess Champion from 1985 to 2000.  He is often cited as one of the strongest players in the history of the game, if not the strongest." OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-06-26T21:47:53.030" LastActivityDate="2012-06-26T21:47:53.030" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="562" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-05-21T23:22:41.843" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2012-05-21T23:22:41.843" LastActivityDate="2012-05-21T23:22:41.843" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="563" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-05-21T23:22:41.843" Score="0" Body="PGN stands for Portable Game Notation.  This is a file format for storing chess games (both the moves and various header data such as players' names) that is easily read by people while also easy for programs to parse." OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-05-29T12:42:58.083" LastActivityDate="2012-05-29T12:42:58.083" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="564" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-05-21T23:24:55.150" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2012-05-21T23:24:55.150" LastActivityDate="2012-05-21T23:24:55.150" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="565" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-05-21T23:24:55.150" Score="0" Body="The Grünfeld Defense (ECO codes D70–D99) is a chess opening characterized by the moves 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 d5. It is named after the 20th century Austrian grandmaster Ernst Grünfeld." OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-05-29T12:43:32.153" LastActivityDate="2012-05-29T12:43:32.153" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="566" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-05-21T23:29:14.537" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2012-05-21T23:29:14.537" LastActivityDate="2012-05-21T23:29:14.537" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="567" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-05-21T23:29:14.537" Score="0" Body="Notation refers to any formalized method of recording chess games so they can be replayed and shared later.  Common notations include algebraic, figurine algebraic, descriptive, and the digital PGN format.  Descriptive notation is considered obsolete, though familiarity with it allows one to read older books that use it." OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-05-29T12:43:02.263" LastActivityDate="2012-05-29T12:43:02.263" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="568" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="545" CreationDate="2012-05-22T00:09:51.280" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Ditto to most of what is being said. However let me add my 10 cents worth. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Knights are the coolest piece on the chess board. They can jump around and are unpredictable not predictable. Which way will the L be?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes you are right they are less effective on an open chess board with few pieces or on the edges of the chess board but how many times did you get the beautiful knight fork with check and ended up loosing your rook for nothing?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While a knight and king can not force mate, a night and a rook or a knight and queen&#xA;are a different story altogether. What about the choking mate on the corner of the chess board with knight and queen? And please watch out for that knight check with a revealed attack on your queen or some other dignitary or else you will lose it!! King and queen forks? How many times have you had those in your Chess playing career? How did they effect the outcome of the game? Thanks to that elegant yet sneaky character called a knight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What about the defensive strength of the knight if used properly? I've had games against amateurs when my knight held their queen at bay and protected my king. What about those tight games where you cant move? The knights are worth their weight in gold then aren't they?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="245" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T19:52:45.210" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T19:52:45.210" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="569" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="548" CreationDate="2012-05-22T00:37:50.190" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;The right time to resign is when you are have a disadvantage that is so large that you will reasonably expect to lose. This depends on your strength, and that of your opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Between masters or higher, if one is behind by a clear pawn or more without positional or other compensation, it might be time to resign. On the other hand, as between beginners, even a piece behind might not call for a resignation, because the other beginner might easily lose it back.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2012-05-22T00:37:50.190" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="570" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="548" CreationDate="2012-05-22T07:07:52.630" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was able to draw or even win some games I considered &quot;clearly lost&quot;, especially if the opponent needed to know some theory (knight and bishop ending, Lucena and Philidor positions, opposition rules...). Consider the possibility of stalemate, or draw by repetition, too. This is often unexpected for the opponent, especially as you may launch a kamikaze attack and sacrifice lots of material in these cases.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="35" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T19:54:38.067" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T19:54:38.067" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="571" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="572" CreationDate="2012-05-22T14:49:15.057" Score="8" ViewCount="1617" Body="&lt;p&gt;Most of the time I see gambits are declined, but what are the advantages or disadvantages of accepting or declining gambits?  I know this depends on the type of gambit, but I am looking for a more general answer that might apply to all gambits.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-11-01T05:18:14.560" LastActivityDate="2019-11-14T04:44:21.277" Title="What are some advantages/disadvantages of accepting/declining gambits?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;gambits&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="572" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="571" CreationDate="2012-05-22T15:40:06.570" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;Since you are after general considerations:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Accepting a gambit.&lt;/strong&gt; The advantage here of course is that you are gaining a material advantage, which, if you can hold onto it, provides well for your long-term prospects in the game. But what makes something an established gambit, rather than a mistake or a blunder, is that the offer of material is supposed to be offset by some sort of positional compensation, e.g. a lead in development, as in, say, the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danish_Gambit&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Danish Gambit&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.d4 exd4 3.c3 dxc3 4.Bc4 cxb2 5.Bxb2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or better control of the center in, say, the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen%27s_Gambit_Accepted&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Queen's Gambit&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.d4 d5 2.c4 dxc4 3.e4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or open lines for pieces (like those bishops surveying two nice, long diagonals in the Danish Gambit).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the potential disadvantage of accepting a given gambit is that you may be left with positional problems by which your opponent can punish you, perhaps by winning back the sacrificed material and then some, or worse, mating your king directly. Whether the compensation for your opponent outweighs the extra material you'll be getting is something that has to be decided on a case-by-case basis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Declining a gambit.&lt;/strong&gt; Here the main advantage, in my opinion at least, is simply that you're not giving your opponent the kind of position that he or she wants. For example, the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sicilian_Defence,_Smith%E2%80%93Morra_Gambit&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Smith-Morra Gambit&lt;/a&gt; in the Sicilian Defense is very rarely played at the highest levels of the chess world, because the consensus among strong players is that white just doesn't get enough dynamic positional compensation (development lead, initiative) for the extra central pawn that black gets. But at lower levels, it can be much more dangerous to defend for black. Thus, if you're one to prefer slightly quieter positions rather than potentially needing to sweat under pressure for a while, one possible reaction to the Smith-Morra is to decline it by pushing d3 instead of capturing white's c pawn:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 c5 2.d4 cxd4 3.c3 dxc3 (3... d3 4.Bxd3) 4.Nxc3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now white is not going to get the sort of development that was envisioned (for instance, the white pawn that now remains on c3 takes away the square which was intended for the knight).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The main disadvantage of this approach is obvious: no free material. And one shouldn't be afraid of ghosts in chess. If material is offered, one should certainly be cautious, but if at the end of your thinking you believe it is worth any trade-offs, then you should take it. Sometimes you will be wrong and get punished for your greed, but mistakes can be made at any juncture in the game, so this isn't a problem particular to gambit play. And besides, some gambits cannot be reasonably refused, e.g. the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petrov%27s_Defence#3.Nxe5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Cochrane Gambit&lt;/a&gt; in the Petroff Defense:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.Nxe5 d6 4.Nxf7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is just like in many middlegames, where an attack will be launched with a sacrifice that cannot be refused, and one has no choice but to grab the material and hang on for dear life. So there is something to be said for not always declining aggressive gambits, because accepting can be good training for defending complicated positions, which aids one's overall development as a player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;In sum.&lt;/strong&gt; As stated above, the decision as to whether the material offered in any given gambit is worth whatever positional trade-offs are involved is one that has to be made case-by-case. But hopefully I've given some useful general food for thought here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-11-01T14:40:02.473" LastActivityDate="2012-11-01T14:40:02.473" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="573" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="574" CreationDate="2012-05-22T16:25:38.420" Score="23" ViewCount="2434" Body="&lt;p&gt;OK, it has been said that one of the opening fundamentals is to castle early, but I have a dilemma with this and it may very well be a natural dilemma that has to be dealt with or there many be signs that one could look for. Here is the dilemma:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I castle early, I feel my opponent has a slight advantage especially because now they know where to direct their pieces, but if I delay castling and my opponent moves their pieces to the one side of the board and I castle on the opposite, I feel I have gained some time because they have to work their way back to my castled side, however, I do know that if I do not castle early, I risk leaving my king wide open.  Further light on this would be helpful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-03-01T15:49:30.733" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T19:46:16.763" Title="What should I do about the dilemma of castling early?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;castling&gt;" AnswerCount="8" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="574" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="573" CreationDate="2012-05-22T17:41:25.503" Score="17" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think you outline the balance well, that is what it is. You are talking about attempting to misdirect an opponent. In any game, misdirection is a dangerous tactic that takes skill to know when to make your move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you can get to know your opponent you can try to judge how they will move on you. If you are dead set on castling to a particular side, and your opponent knows that, then delaying doesn't help you at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The best solution is to remain flexible and let your opponents over or under steps dictate which tactic to use. This is as true for when to castle as anything other tactic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16" LastActivityDate="2012-05-22T17:41:25.503" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="575" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="573" CreationDate="2012-05-23T00:34:33.710" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here I'll provide you a good example of castling too &quot;early&quot;. In the Pirc Defense, Black will usually get roasted in the line&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 d6 2. d4 g6 3. Nc3 Bg7 4. Be3 Nf6 5. Qd2 O-O?!&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this line White has not castled yet, and with the queen-bishop battery can just swap off bishops by playing &lt;code&gt;Bh6&lt;/code&gt;, followed by &lt;code&gt;f3&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;g4&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;h4-h5&lt;/code&gt; to ditch the h-pawn and then play &lt;code&gt;Qf6+&lt;/code&gt;, etc. with a tremendous attack. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But, the point to remember in general is not to castle into an attack for no good reason or compensation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="107" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-12-14T12:49:58.890" LastActivityDate="2012-12-14T12:49:58.890" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="576" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="634" CreationDate="2012-05-23T00:40:55.443" Score="10" ViewCount="943" Body="&lt;p&gt;The following tactics problem is &lt;a href=&quot;http://chesstempo.com/chess-problems/97369&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;problem #97369 from ChessTempo&lt;/a&gt;. It is a position from a &lt;a href=&quot;http://chesstempo.com/gamedb/game/1155017/6k1/5p2/1Pp3pb/2q4p/1rNpPP2/3Q2PP/8/5RK1%20b%20-%20-%200%2040&amp;amp;flip=true&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;game between Yuri Yakovich and Pavel Kotsur&lt;/a&gt;. It's black's move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The idea of the tactics problem is to find black's best move from the shown position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But my question is slightly different: If both players play &lt;em&gt;perfectly&lt;/em&gt; from the position shown in the diagram, can black force a win, or can white force a draw?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;6k1/5p2/1Pp3pb/2q4p/1rNpPP2/3Q2PP/8/5RK1 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I tried using a couple of chess engines to analyze the position. The lines they suggested gave black a positive score, but didn't seem to give a forced win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So what do you think: is it a theoretical win for black or can white escape with a draw?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="45" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-12-09T22:35:29.053" LastActivityDate="2012-12-10T18:51:52.660" Title="Chess Tempo #97369 - Theoretical win or draw?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="8" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="577" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-05-23T01:46:45.773" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;A gambit is an opening where one player sacrifices material - usually a pawn, but sometimes multiple pawns or even a piece - in order to gain some positional advantage, e.g. a lead in development or more space. Use of the term in chess &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gambit&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;originated with Ruy Lopez&lt;/a&gt;, and comes from the Italian phrase &quot;dare il gambetto,&quot; which roughly translates as &quot;to stick out one's leg to trip someone.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-06-22T08:25:07.300" LastActivityDate="2017-06-22T08:25:07.300" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="578" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-05-23T01:46:45.773" Score="0" Body="A gambit is an opening where one player sacrifices material - usually a pawn, but sometimes multiple pawns or even a piece - in order to gain some positional advantage, e.g. a lead in development or more space." OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-08-02T02:21:57.637" LastActivityDate="2012-08-02T02:21:57.637" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="580" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="576" CreationDate="2012-05-23T12:26:48.443" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;To answer your question directly, I don't think this is a &lt;em&gt;theoretical&lt;/em&gt; win or draw.  The reason is that the game is still too up-in-the-air.  There may be a forced win for one side or the other, but that's not the same thing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2012-05-23T12:26:48.443" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="581" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="101" CreationDate="2012-05-23T22:00:03.797" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;White has a forced win of a bunch of material after either &lt;code&gt;4... g6&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;4... Ke7&lt;/code&gt;, but if you're into silly &quot;psychological&quot; justifications for moves, you could argue that &lt;code&gt;4... Ke7&lt;/code&gt; makes White think a little harder to find the win, while Black can prep it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;4. ... Ke7 &#xA;5. Qxe5+ Kf7 &#xA;6. Bc4+ d5&#xA;7. Bxd5+ Kg6&#xA;8. h4 h6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is the only line that leaves White with an &lt;em&gt;overwhelming&lt;/em&gt; advantage; for instance, one game between relatively weak players continued:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;8. Qg3+? Qg5&#xA;9. Qxc7 Ne7&#xA;10. Qd6+? [h4!] Kh5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1600892&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Feng-Sloan 2010&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After which Black &lt;em&gt;looks&lt;/em&gt; hopeless... &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/w8qJK.png&quot; alt=&quot;chess diagram&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;...but is actually just bad.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, you may already know that if White plays correctly up to &lt;code&gt;8 ... h6&lt;/code&gt;, they have a killer 9th move that picks up material. Here's a diagram as an exercise for the reader:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/YW7sf.png&quot; alt=&quot;chess diagram&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1497133&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;answer&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="258" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-11T23:59:49.597" LastActivityDate="2012-06-11T23:59:49.597" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="582" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="101" CreationDate="2012-05-23T23:14:48.760" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, the Damiano Defense does not lose by force so it's not a bad opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you analyze it with a computer you won't be able to find a variation that wins for white against best play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After &lt;code&gt;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 f6 3.Nxe5&lt;/code&gt;, playing &lt;code&gt;3...fxe5&lt;/code&gt; will lose for black but playing &lt;code&gt;3...Qe7&lt;/code&gt; will hold the game. For example check out the game &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1255180&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Fischer vs McGregor&lt;/a&gt;, 1964 (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOMfveWenSw&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here's a version with commentary on YouTube&lt;/a&gt;), which ended in a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="75" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T15:58:06.347" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T15:58:06.347" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="583" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="585" CreationDate="2012-05-24T04:48:37.307" Score="31" ViewCount="30907" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would like to learn about a few checkmates using very few moves. I know a one where you develop the knight and march it directly towards the King. Does anyone know the name of this mate and suggest others?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="259" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-06-06T20:45:30.690" LastActivityDate="2021-02-28T00:19:40.757" Title="What are some of the checkmates with very few moves?" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;patterns&gt;" AnswerCount="12" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="19" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="584" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="583" CreationDate="2012-05-24T05:37:53.923" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's a 2-move checkmate, termed &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFKxKviVL1I&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;fool's mate&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;f3 e5 2. g4 Qh4#&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fool%27s_mate&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Fool's mate on Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="227" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T19:43:24.127" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T19:43:24.127" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="585" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="583" CreationDate="2012-05-24T06:51:06.773" Score="43" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are probably as many quick mates as there have been first time players (since we all get caught in these at the start!) but here are a few common ones:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Fool's Mate&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is the shortest possible checkmate in a mere two moves:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. f4 e5 2. g4 Qh4# 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;White can also play f3 instead of f4 or move the g pawn before the f pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Scholar's Mate&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This mating pattern is also sometimes referred to as &quot;Fool's Mate&quot; and there are two main patterns:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Bc4 (2. Qh5 Nc6 3. Bc4 Nf6 4. Qxf7#) Nc6 3. Qf3 Bc5 4. Qxf7# 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;The key is that f7 is insufficiently defended and mate is delivered there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Légal's Mate&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Légal's Mate (also spelled as Légall's Mate) is probably the mate referenced in the question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 d6 4.Nc3 Bg4  &#xA;5.h3 Bh5? 6.Nxe5! Bxd1?? 7.Bxf7+ Ke7 8.Nd5# 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12" LastEditorUserId="14549" LastEditDate="2020-06-06T18:36:55.237" LastActivityDate="2020-06-06T18:36:55.237" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="587" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="497" CreationDate="2012-05-24T12:09:06.627" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;The time spent on looking for combinations is a function of board position. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you have few active pieces, spend minimal time looking for combinations, and more time developing strategic plans.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As more pieces come into play you will look for combinations more, particularly if there are open lines for attack. Ideally, you eventually arrive at a board position where there simply must be a combination available. At this point you search until you find it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="216" LastEditorUserId="216" LastEditDate="2020-03-11T12:10:28.190" LastActivityDate="2020-03-11T12:10:28.190" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="588" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="589" CreationDate="2012-05-24T13:32:12.247" Score="19" ViewCount="8517" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is a bad bishop a bishop that is trapped by your own pawns? (For example, all your pawns are on dark squares, so the dark squared bishop is bad.)  Or is it when your opponent's pawns trap your bishop's mobility?  (For example, they control the dark squares which your bishop controls, so the bishop is bad).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-12T01:39:05.853" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T19:42:03.790" Title="What is the correct definition of a bad bishop?" Tags="&lt;bishops&gt;&lt;bad-bishop&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;" AnswerCount="10" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="589" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="588" CreationDate="2012-05-24T14:10:37.783" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;What you defined is an &quot;inactive bishop&quot;. An inactive bishop can be a bad bishop, but they are technically two different situations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A &quot;bad bishop&quot; is a bishop that is on the same color as it's own center pawns. An &quot;inactive bishop&quot; is one that is blocked by it's own pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16" LastEditorUserId="16" LastEditDate="2012-05-24T15:07:54.687" LastActivityDate="2012-05-24T15:07:54.687" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="590" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="591" CreationDate="2012-05-24T15:10:26.463" Score="7" ViewCount="8715" Body="&lt;p&gt;What are factors to consider when and when not to sacrifice? For example, imagine in a game where your opponent puts his bishop in direct sight of yours and you're not sure whether to take it or not? Is it safe to assume that one of the factors would be if your bishop is bad, then it might be a good idea to sacrifice it especially if the opponent has a good bishop?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastEditorUserId="11202" LastEditDate="2017-05-03T10:26:42.803" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T19:40:46.867" Title="How can I tell when to sacrifice?" Tags="&lt;sacrifice&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="591" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="590" CreationDate="2012-05-24T15:13:24.803" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;What you describe would not be a sacrifice; it would be an exchange - bishop for bishop.  And yes, if your bishop is bad (or generally unlikely to enter play without some time-consuming work), then it is a good idea to exchange, especially if your opponent's bishop is well-situated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To address sacrificing - you should only sacrifice material if you gain a significant positional advantage by doing so, as in a well-played &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classic_bishop_sacrifice&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Greek gift sacrifice&lt;/a&gt;.  Wikipedia's example fits here nicely: &lt;code&gt;1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.e5 Nfd7 5.Nf3 Bb4 6.Bd3 O-O&lt;/code&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/CviiC.png&quot; width=&quot;300&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now White plays the sacrifice: &lt;code&gt;7.Bxh7+!&lt;/code&gt;  After taking the Bishop (&lt;code&gt;7... Kxh7&lt;/code&gt;) Black is two points ahead, but severely exposed.  White takes advantage of this by &lt;code&gt;8.Ng5+&lt;/code&gt;, threatening &lt;code&gt;8...Kh8 9.Qh5+ Kg8 10.Qh7#&lt;/code&gt;, which Black cannot avoid without losing his queen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For another quick read on the topic of sacrificing, I would suggest &lt;em&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/the-art-of-the-sacrifice&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;The Art of the Sacrifice&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt;, written by an amateur only a couple months ago.  It goes through the main points of sacrifices, along with profuse examples.  Also, the ubiquitous &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacrifice_%28chess%29&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt; is not to be missed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Naturally, though, good chess reading costs money, so if you want some good, solid, on-your own instruction, you could consider purchasing some books on the subject.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="86" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-05-24T15:42:04.100" LastActivityDate="2012-05-24T15:42:04.100" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="592" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="588" CreationDate="2012-05-24T15:22:35.130" Score="19" Body="&lt;p&gt;When evaluating a bishop, there are two totally separate things that must be considered.  The first is whether a bishop is &quot;good&quot; or &quot;bad&quot;.  These are very much misnomers because they have nothing to do with the worth of the bishop.  The second consideration is whether the bishop is &quot;active&quot; or &quot;inactive&quot;.  Finally, there may be mitigating factors as well (is the bishop doing something useful?).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Good vs Bad&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A &lt;strong&gt;good&lt;/strong&gt; bishop is on the opposite color as its pawns.  A &lt;strong&gt;bad&lt;/strong&gt; bishop is on the same color as its pawns.  For example if the white pawn structure is c3, d4, e3, f4, then the light squared bishop is the good bishop and the dark squared bishop is the bad bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Active vs Inactive&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An &lt;strong&gt;active&lt;/strong&gt; bishop is outside of the friendly pawn chain (in the above example, if the bishop is on e5, then it is clearly both active and bad).  An &lt;strong&gt;inactive&lt;/strong&gt; bishop is trapped by pawn chains - either the player's color or the opponent's.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Mitigating Factors&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are two main mitigating factors.  The first can be remembered by a common phrase: &quot;bad bishops defend good pawns&quot;.  This means that a bishop might be very bad (same color as all the friendly pawns) but if it is defending them from attack in the endgame, then it might be enough to hold a draw.  Usually it is much harder to win with the bad bishop though.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The other main mitigating factor is if the bishop is defending its own passed pawn or stopping an enemy passed pawn.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12" LastEditorUserId="12" LastEditDate="2012-05-24T23:41:38.660" LastActivityDate="2012-05-24T23:41:38.660" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="593" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="594" CreationDate="2012-05-24T15:27:10.763" Score="18" ViewCount="13407" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have the book &quot;Logical Chess Move by Move&quot; by Irving Chernev and personally I find it to be a great book especially for beginners, but I heard that GM John Nunn has really criticized the book.  This makes me read the book with caution and slight paranoia.  Does Nunn have valid points?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesscafe.com/text/heisman118.pdf&quot;&gt;Here&lt;/a&gt; is a link from one of Dan Heisman's Novice Nook articles discussing Nunn's criticisms of Chernev's book.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-10-22T19:22:43.393" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T19:38:12.950" Title="Dr. John Nunn vs Irving Chernev's &quot;Logical Chess Move by Move&quot;" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;books&gt;" AnswerCount="8" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="594" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="593" CreationDate="2012-05-24T16:34:33.767" Score="31" Body="&lt;p&gt;It seems that Nunn (who is undoubtedly a stronger player than Chernev was) is correct in his criticisms of certain instances of analysis in Chernev's book, and also correct in pointing out that Chernev is sometimes too quick to dogmatically conclude an overarching general principle that doesn't properly allow for exceptions. But I don't believe this should cause you to read Chernev's book with caution (at least no more caution or skepticism than one should have when reading &lt;em&gt;anything&lt;/em&gt;), and certainly not with paranoia.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The criticisms Nunn directs Chernev's way in &lt;em&gt;Grandmaster Chess Move by Move&lt;/em&gt; are worthwhile things to hear &lt;strong&gt;for a player who is at an appropriate level to be reading Nunn's book&lt;/strong&gt;, but the intended audience for that book is quite a bit more advanced than is Chernev's. The fact that Chernev makes certain oversimplifications (and yes, out-and-out mistakes in some places) is a good thing to be discovered at some point in a player's chess development, but this doesn't necessarily mean that Chernev's book, warts and all, cannot be (very!) useful to a beginner. [Consider: an absolute beginner reading Nunn's criticisms of Chernev that you cited wouldn't be able to appreciate the points being made at all: they would sail right over his or her head.]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The saying &quot;One has to know the rules to break them&quot; is applicable here. If you were to try and take every word in Chernev's book as gospel for the rest of your chess career, you would indeed be leading yourself astray. The same would be true if you tried to dogmatically follow, say, &quot;knights should be developed before bishops&quot; or similar overly general advice which is routinely thrown at novices. That doesn't mean that that kind of advice doesn't serve a useful purpose by giving newcomers to the game some first, rough guidelines to start learning from. I think the same can be said for Chernev's work; after all, it's not for nothing that this instructional book from 1957 is still topical today.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-05-24T16:48:25.497" LastActivityDate="2012-05-24T16:48:25.497" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="595" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="598" CreationDate="2012-05-24T18:38:13.120" Score="7" ViewCount="1358" Body="&lt;p&gt;The game clock is used to prevent players from overly delaying the game (the keywords being &quot;overly delaying the game&quot;). Are there times in a timed game that stalling one's own development of the board makes sense, and if so, what would be the best example of this taking place?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2017-03-13T17:29:12.160" LastActivityDate="2021-01-18T07:32:24.083" Title="Does it ever make sense to stall for time?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;chess-clocks&gt;&lt;time-management&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="596" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="457" CreationDate="2012-05-24T18:51:41.083" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Bluetooth supports distance of less than 30 feet, or 10 meters, and 802.11b is roughly up to 200 feet, though both distances depend on a number of factors; mention WiFi since it's possible that might be a better solution for your needs. Here's the DGT manual for &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.dgtprojects.com/site/index.php/dgtsupport/manuals/doc_view/65-bluetooth-board-installation-guide&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Connecting your Bluetooth board to your Computer&lt;/a&gt;&quot;, which might provide additional information of value to you. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, it appears that the DGT boards do have problems, here's &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rw98SiCvI_M&amp;amp;t=1m30s&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;an example&lt;/a&gt;; note the pawn falls, and the screen does not report the pawn is not where it is suppose to be; note that the board is not the Bluetooth model, though in this case, I don't believe it matters; also, it's possible this is not a hardware issue, but related to the software used in the demo I've linked to just now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Given that the board appears to be $1000+, it's unlikely you're going to find enough reviews to judge if it's a good fit for your needs. My suggestion would be to make sure that you're 100% sure it's possible to return it at near to no cost given the price of the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While not a review of the Bluetooth model, here's a &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessville.com/reviews/software/dgt_electronic_board.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;review of a DGT board&lt;/a&gt; that appears to use the same technology, minus the Bluetooth.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T16:17:31.167" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T16:17:31.167" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="597" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="595" CreationDate="2012-05-24T19:27:40.617" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Overall, I don't see any reason to do this unless you want to annoy your opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If your opponent is advanced, I think you would just be wasting time, especially if you think your opponent is going to be psychologically tricked into making some sort of blunder.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If your opponent is a beginner, stalling may have some psychological effect as your opponent may think that because you took so long to move, you had to have calculated some long winning combination. Your opponent may then start to panic and look for what you saw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Regarding the stalling with a beginner, I know this is true, because it works on me. If my opponent takes a while to move, I usually think they have something up there sleeve unless it is some horrible mistake like hanging their queen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastEditorUserId="2946" LastEditDate="2021-01-18T07:32:24.083" LastActivityDate="2021-01-18T07:32:24.083" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="598" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="595" CreationDate="2012-05-24T19:29:26.857" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bughouse_chess&quot;&gt;bughouse&lt;/a&gt; variant a situation can definitely arise in which it makes sense to stall for time. If I'm facing checkmate next move on my board no matter what I do, then if my partner's opponent has less time on the clock than I do, I should just sit tight and hope that my partner can win on his board before my time runs out. (And if my partner's opponent has more time than I do in that situation, then he should just sit tight as well and force me to either accept mate or flag first.) But I realize you are actually asking about chess proper here, not bughouse.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can't think of any scenario in which it makes &lt;em&gt;objective&lt;/em&gt; sense, in terms of the game play, to stall for time, assuming you are talking about a situation in which: I already know what my next move is going to be (and have no intention of reviewing my decision any further), but I let my clock tick down instead of making my move immediately. But a player might have a &lt;em&gt;psychological&lt;/em&gt; reason to stall at times.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessintranslation.com/2012/05/two-cats-and-three-computers-sergey-shipov-at-work/&quot;&gt;this interview&lt;/a&gt; (with accompanying videos in Russian) of grandmaster and noted commentator Sergey Shipov, conducted just recently during the ongoing &lt;a href=&quot;http://moscow2012.fide.com&quot;&gt;world championship match&lt;/a&gt;, the topic arises as to the amount of time top players like Gelfand, Kramnik and Kasparov spend when making moves in positions that they've already analyzed during their home preparations. (See section &quot;6. Kasparov puts on a show.&quot;) Shipov opines:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;For example, when, in Kazan, Gelfand thought for almost 40 minutes about one continuation in that game against Grischuk it later became clear that he’d looked at it all before. [17. Rd1 in &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1622878&quot;&gt;game 6&lt;/a&gt; of the candidates' final] ... he was considering some nuances, subtleties. He’d looked at the plan itself, but perhaps he was clarifying some of the concrete details. That depends greatly on the chess player. Kramnik won’t, for example, think for 20 minutes, never mind 40 minutes, about something he’s already looked at. He’ll play quickly. &lt;strong&gt;Kasparov, on the other hand, might do that. With Kasparov a position could be absolutely familiar to him but he’d think for 20 minutes, look at it, make various gestures, and it seemed to everyone that Kasparov was creating and coming up with something at the board. In actual fact, however, it was a one-man performance based around the creative process.&lt;/strong&gt; (My emphasis)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Shipov doesn't indicate exactly what he thinks Kasparov's underlying motivation for this was supposed to be, but he is clearly suggesting that Kasparov wanted either his opponents or his spectators not to be sure when he was in his preparation and when he was extemporizing. So that's one possible answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2012-05-24T19:29:26.857" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="599" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="600" CreationDate="2012-05-24T19:36:09.483" Score="11" ViewCount="15068" Body="&lt;p&gt;What are some differences between playing online vs playing OTB (over-the-board)?  If you are used to playing online, like myself, would playing OTB have a big impact on your play?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-07-16T16:09:38.083" LastActivityDate="2021-03-21T20:43:14.170" Title="What are the differences between playing online and OTB?" Tags="&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;otb-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="9" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="600" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="599" CreationDate="2012-05-24T21:08:25.937" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;Disclaimer: I don't belong to any sort of chess club, so OTB might mean something a little different for me and others like me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One difference for me is the time constraints - OTB games for me are quite casual, and I don't own a chess clock, so while the players might rib each other during a particularly long &quot;think&quot;, there aren't any hard and fast time rules.  On the other hand, internet games always have the clock running, for obvious reasons.  My play is worse online, probably because of that.  For one thing, I never have the time to set aside an hour for an internet game, so I tend to choose the 10 min ones, resulting in shallower play.  My OTB games, on the other hand, tend to go a lot deeper.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I haven't noticed any objective effect on my OTB games from playing on the internet, though.  Since going online, I've been able to appreciate the lack of pressure in casual OTB games.  The net effect is that I feel I play better OTB, so I'm more confident than I used to be.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="86" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-05-24T22:09:12.943" LastActivityDate="2012-05-24T22:09:12.943" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="601" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="599" CreationDate="2012-05-24T22:08:15.550" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can expect many of your online opponents to use programs especially at slower time controls.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With OTB, there is none of that.  You sit down, you punch the clock, and play.  You talk to people about the game, get help from stronger players, play speed games between tournament rounds, and generally have a lot of fun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2012-05-24T22:08:15.550" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="602" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-05-24T22:19:28.860" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2012-05-24T22:19:28.860" LastActivityDate="2012-05-24T22:19:28.860" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="603" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-05-24T22:19:28.860" Score="0" Body="OTB = Over-the-board, versus playing online or by mail." OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2012-05-24T23:50:28.053" LastActivityDate="2012-05-24T23:50:28.053" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="604" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-05-24T22:24:55.280" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In chess, the &lt;em&gt;analysis&lt;/em&gt; of a position refers to the process of determining an objective evaluation of it, and what the best play for both sides would be going forward. This involves examining the various possibilities for each side at each juncture, and properly evaluating side variations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The term can refer to the analysis that a player must perform mentally in the course of playing a game, analysis performed in preparation for play, or analysis performed after the fact in order to evaluate players' performances and find improvements.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-07-22T02:33:29.563" LastActivityDate="2012-07-22T02:33:29.563" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="605" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-05-24T22:24:55.280" Score="0" Body="Questions relating to the objective assessment of a position. The assessment may entail which side has the advantage, or what the best move might be." OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="3594" LastEditDate="2020-02-07T15:31:21.830" LastActivityDate="2020-02-07T15:31:21.830" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="606" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="595" CreationDate="2012-05-24T23:53:12.353" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/598/12&quot;&gt;Ed Dean has an excellent answer&lt;/a&gt; about most cases (and even touches on what I'm discussing), but there is one situation that I can think of where stalling is an excellent idea:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This mostly only applies to stronger players (2300+), but the information is good...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes it is &lt;em&gt;very&lt;/em&gt; useful to spend a lot of time on an early opening move to try to confuse the opponent.  If the opponent thinks that you don't know the position, they are more likely to play natural looking moves.  This is frequently a bad idea, especially in complicated positions where natural looking moves fail to various tactics.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The idea behind waiting a long time before moving is to lure the opponent into making those natural looking moves, or to think that the opponent's position is good when really the position has been analyzed fully and is deemed to be good for the player.  Basically, the point is that the opponent won't be fully on the lookout for sharp tactics going forward, especially in double edged positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2012-05-24T23:53:12.353" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="607" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="610" CreationDate="2012-05-25T01:24:51.403" Score="6" ViewCount="659" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are there rules about when a player may use a chess engine to aid his game?  Is it always frowned upon?  Do you have to specially ask?  Not that you can stop your opponent from using an engine, but is it cheating, or is it ever acceptable?  Thinking about it, I'm not sure what the point of two players using engines would be.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="86" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2014-02-13T11:22:27.533" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T19:33:06.627" Title="When is it appropriate to use a program during games with a longer timeframe, such as correspondence chess?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;etiquette&gt;&lt;correspondence-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="608" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="607" CreationDate="2012-05-25T02:18:58.497" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Anything agreed upon by the participants is ok.  In the case of using a program, without some agreement this would be no more acceptable than having someone else play the game on your behalf.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2012-05-25T02:18:58.497" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="609" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="607" CreationDate="2012-05-25T05:19:04.597" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, two players using engines happens to compare the strength of engines (or the computers they're running on, but usually the first option). This is typically arranged as a computer chess tournament, or a &quot;free for all&quot; type match, where it is explicitly allowed to use engines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know that a lot of the chess websites actually have detection algorithms, where they compare your moves to those of popular engines, if people flag you as a potential cheater. Usually, the idea is to not use an engine, so that you're actually competing human to human. Often, in correspondence chess, it is acceptable to refer to books (and sometimes game databases), but not analysis engines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="142" LastActivityDate="2012-05-25T05:19:04.597" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="610" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="607" CreationDate="2012-05-25T06:10:47.657" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you haven't agreed before the game then you should assume that it's not allowed. It will usually be regarded as &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheating_in_chess#Cheating_with_technology&quot;&gt;cheating&lt;/a&gt;. If you wish to use a computer you should ask your opponent before you do so.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Playing with the assistance of a computer is sometimes called &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Chess&quot;&gt;Advanced Chess&lt;/a&gt;. If you agree before hand that it's allowed, then there's no problem and both can use a computer freely. Some Advanced Chess tournaments are also played with standard time controls.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Thinking about it, I'm not sure what the point of two players using engines would be.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The point of Advanced Chess is that a computer is strong at fast and accurate calculation but weak at strategy, while the human is stronger at strategy but more prone to errors in complex tactic situations. The human can use their strategic ability to guide the computer into strong strategical positions or won end game positions, while the computer can check that there are no blunders that the human may have missed. If played well, the playing strength of the human-computer team can be higher than each individual playing alone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="45" LastEditorUserId="45" LastEditDate="2012-05-25T06:18:57.927" LastActivityDate="2012-05-25T06:18:57.927" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="611" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="607" CreationDate="2012-05-25T06:34:15.220" Score="5" Body="&lt;h2&gt;Correspondence chess&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In earlier times we used to analyze actual positions of correspondence chess games of a club member to help him win his games. Nowadays it is more common to ask the computer instead to check the validity of positions. Therefore in my opinion nothing has changed, except that the computer is more of a tactical genius than the common club player. Although there is some truth in the saying 'chess is all tactics', I think most correspondence chess players use chess engines mostly for checking against tactical loopholes, while using databases to check for common motives or win probabilities. But for the strategy part of the game, it is the human mind that wins the day (as long as chess is not fully calculable from start to end). Except for playing strength levels where cheap tactics always decide a game, the help of a computer is not a replacement for thinking yourself. I know of several very good correspondence chess players which would gladly play any player who restricts himself to using chess engine moves, because they expect to beat such an opponent easily. The moment this won't be true anymore correspondence chess will be dead (or at the very least be reduced to a clumsily slow chess engine testing ground).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Tournament Chess&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Rules will usually try to regulate the allowed use of computers. The earlier practice of adjourned games was abandoned because of computer help becoming available, not the least because tablebases allowed perfect endgame play. In tournament halls the use of a cell phone or chess computer will often lose you the game instantly. In club matches the frequent use of the toilet room with a computer will be considered cheating, too. I remember some experiments with chess players being allowed the use of a computer during the game (&quot;advanced chess&quot;), but it never became popular. As long as you do not register the computer as a player (instead as yourself), the use of a database, cheat slip or chess engine is probably everywhere considered cheating. In the 80s there were some tournaments where chess computers where allowed to enter, and I remember dimly that former world championship candidate Robert Huebner forfeited a game once because he refused to play against a computer in such a tournament.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Online Chess&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Extremely critical is the use of computers during online play, because no one can see what you are doing in person (like setting up a second computer to calculate moves for you, while &quot;you&quot; play a game on the first computer). Most playing sites have special rooms where the help of computer is allowed - everywhere else this is considered cheating. Of course, the use of a computer is a must to play online at all, but only as a human interface device (for inputting and receiving moves). Mind you can often register a chess engine as a separate player, so everyone playing it knows he is playing against a computer. But if you state you are playing yourself although you use a chess engine I'd consider it cheating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="94" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T19:33:06.627" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T19:33:06.627" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="612" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-05-25T11:53:16.153" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Due to the slow nature of any game played by mail, games played by mail (etc) tend to be much deeper than games played in real-time.  Players can use books or other reference material to find better moves.  They may use alternate boards and play through variations.  The most important rules are&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;just like when playing face-to-face, correspondence chess is a game between two people.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;return your response promptly after the agreed on amount of time; don't leave your opponent hanging.  (Correspondence chess was invented in a more polite time...)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2012-05-25T23:04:31.180" LastActivityDate="2012-05-25T23:04:31.180" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="613" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-05-25T11:53:16.153" Score="0" Body="Correspondence chess is chess played by snail mail, traditionally.  Snail mail has now largely been replaced by email or other internet facilities." OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2012-05-25T23:04:29.213" LastActivityDate="2012-05-25T23:04:29.213" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="614" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="552" CreationDate="2012-05-25T13:10:19.637" Score="24" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0379296/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Game Over: Kasparov and the Machine&lt;/a&gt; is a decent enough documentary on the subject. The coverage does kind of imply that Kasparov was grasping at straws a bit. Like a typical World championship match there was a lot of behind the scenes tactics going on from both sides.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My feeling is that you only have to look at the ascent of Anand and other chess players who rely heavily on computers in their training and analysis to realise that, at the time of this match, there was a paradigm shift from human to computer as the dominant chess player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Addendum:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's a interesting tidbit in Nate Silver's “The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail—But Some Don’t.” In it he describes an interview with one of the engineers who worked on Deep Blue:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Nevertheless, there were some bugs in Deep Blue’s inventory: not many,&#xA;  but a few. Toward the end of my interview with him, [Murray] Campbell&#xA;  somewhat mischievously referred to an incident that had occurred&#xA;  toward the end of the first game in their 1997 match with Kasparov. “A&#xA;  bug occurred in the game and it may have made Kasparov misunderstand&#xA;  the capabilities of Deep Blue,” Campbell told me. “He didn’t come up&#xA;  with the theory that the move it played was a bug.” The bug had arisen&#xA;  on the forty-fourth move of their first game against Kasparov; unable&#xA;  to select a move, the program had defaulted to a last-resort fail-safe&#xA;  in which it picked a play completely at random. The bug had been&#xA;  inconsequential, coming late in the game in a position that had&#xA;  already been lost; Campbell and team repaired it the next day. “We had&#xA;  seen it once before, in a test game played earlier in 1997, and&#xA;  thought that it was fixed,” he told me. “Unfortunately there was one&#xA;  case that we had missed.” In fact, the bug was anything but&#xA;  unfortunate for Deep Blue: it was likely what allowed the computer to&#xA;  beat Kasparov. In the popular recounting of Kasparov’s match against&#xA;  Deep Blue, it was the second game in which his problems&#xA;  originated—when he had made the almost unprecedented error of&#xA;  forfeiting a position that he could probably have drawn. But what had&#xA;  inspired Kasparov to commit this mistake? His anxiety over Deep Blue’s&#xA;  forty-fourth move in the first game—the move in which the computer had&#xA;  moved its rook for no apparent purpose. Kasparov had concluded that&#xA;  the counterintuitive play must be a sign of superior intelligence. He&#xA;  had never considered that it was simply a bug.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="264" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T19:49:14.753" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T19:49:14.753" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="615" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="616" CreationDate="2012-05-25T14:31:11.500" Score="14" ViewCount="1882" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are there examples of high-level games which were resigned or drawn before any captures were made?  Along similar lines, what game had the most moves before a capture was made?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: I'm especially interested in longer games without captures (I'd like to see the strategies, etc); I'm not necessarily looking for the shortest game without captures.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="86" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-05-25T15:03:00.400" LastActivityDate="2021-05-02T05:02:31.013" Title="Are there any examples of high-level games in which the game was resigned or drawn without any captures?" Tags="&lt;statistics&gt;&lt;captures&gt;&lt;master-games&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="616" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="615" CreationDate="2012-05-25T14:57:13.103" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;Per &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_records_in_chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_world_records_in_chess#Shortest_game&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Shortest Game with no captures&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The shortest decisive game ever played in master play that was decided because of the position on the board (i.e. not because of a forfeit or protest) is Z. Đorđević – M. Kovačević, Bela Crkva 1984. It lasted only three moves (1.d4 Nf6 2.Bg5 c6 3.e3?? Qa5+ winning the bishop), and White resigned.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Fen &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;1.d4 Nf6 2.Bg5 c6 3.e3?? Qa5+&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There have been many forfeited games (which could technically be regarded as losses in zero moves), the most notable examples being Game 2 of the 1972 world championship match between Boris Spassky and Bobby Fischer, which Fischer defaulted, and Game 5 of the 2006 world championship match between Vladimir Kramnik and Veselin Topalov, which Kramnik defaulted. A game between Fischer and Oscar Panno, played at the Palma de Mallorca Interzonal 1970, went 1. c4 resigns. Panno refused to play to protest the organizers' rescheduling of the game to accommodate Fischer's desire not to play on his religion's Sabbath. Panno was not present when the game was to begin. Fischer waited ten minutes before making his move and went to get Panno to convince him to play. Fifty-two minutes had elapsed on Panno's clock before he came to the board and resigned.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_world_records_in_chess#Latest_first_capture&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Most moves without a capture&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Rogoff-Williams, World Junior Championship, Stockholm 1969, the first capture (94.bxc5) occurred on White's 94th move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastEditorUserId="11071" LastEditDate="2020-12-15T12:48:03.593" LastActivityDate="2020-12-15T12:48:03.593" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="617" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="615" CreationDate="2012-05-25T15:22:22.997" Score="19" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_world_records_in_chess#Latest_first_capture_in_a_decisive_game&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt; says that the longest decisive game without a capture is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1442039&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Nuber-Keckeisen, Mengen 1994&lt;/a&gt; lasted 31 moves without a single capture. In the end Keckeisen, facing imminent checkmate, resigned:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Fen &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 b6 2.d4 e6 3.Bd3 Bb7 4.Nf3 g6 5.O-O Bg7 6.Nbd2 Ne7 7.Re1 O-O 8.Nf1 d6 9.Qe2 Nd7 10.Bg5 Qe8 11.Rad1 a5 12.c3 Rc8 13.Ng3 Kh8 14.Qd2 Ng8 15.h3 e5 16.Bc2 h6 17.Be3 Rd8 18.Nh2 Kh7 19.f4 f6 20.Qf2 Ne7 21.Rd2 Rh8 22.f5 g5 23.Bd1 Rb8 24.Bh5 Qf8 25.Ng4 Ba6 26.Red1 b5 27.b4 a4 28.a3 Bb7 29.Rd3 Nc6 30.Bg6+ Kg8 31.Qa2+ 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_world_records_in_chess#Latest_first_capture&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;For a drawn game&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Filipowicz-Smederevac, Polanica Zdroj 1966 was drawn in 70 moves under the fifty-move rule, without any piece or pawn having been captured (Whyld 1986, p. 124).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Event &amp;quot;Rubinstein Memorial 4th&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Site &amp;quot;Polanica Zdroj (Poland)&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Date &amp;quot;1966.08.25&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Round &amp;quot;14&amp;quot;]&#xA;[White &amp;quot;Filipowicz Andrzej (POL)&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Black &amp;quot;Smederevac Petar (YUG)&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Result &amp;quot;1/2-1/2&amp;quot;]&#xA;[ECO &amp;quot;C00&amp;quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &amp;quot;2330&amp;quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &amp;quot;2450&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Annotator &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Source &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Remark &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e6 2.d3 Ne7 3.g3 c5 4.Bg2 Nbc6 5.Be3 b6 6.Ne2 d5 7.O-O d4&#xA;8.Bc1 g6 9.Nd2 Bg7 10.f4 f5 11.a3 O-O 12.e5 a5 13.a4 Ba6 14.b3&#xA;Rb8 15.Nc4 Qc7 16.Kh1 Nd5 17.Bd2 Rfd8 18.Ng1 Bf8 19.Nf3 Be7 20.h4&#xA;h5 21.Qe2 Ncb4 22.Rfc1 Bb7 23.Kh2 Bc6 24.Na3 Ra8 25.Qe1 Rdb8&#xA;26.Qg1 Qb7 27.Qf1 Kg7 28.Qh1 Qd7 29.Ne1 Ra7 30.Nf3 Rba8 31.Ne1&#xA;Bd8 32.Nf3 Rb8 33.Ne1 Bc7 34.Nf3 Rh8 35.Ng5 Bd8 36.Nf3 Be7 37.Qg1&#xA;Bb7 38.Nb5 Raa8 39.Na3 Ba6 40.Qf1 Rab8 41.Nc4 Bd8 42.Qd1 Ne7&#xA;43.Nd6 Bc7 44.Qe2 Ng8 45.Ng5 Nh6 46.Bf3 Bd8 47.Nh3 Ng4+ 48.Kg1&#xA;Be7 49.Nc4 Nd5 50.Nf2 Bb7 51.Nh3 Bc6 52.Qg2 Rhc8 53.Re1 Rc7 54.Re2&#xA;Ra7 55.Ree1 Ra6 56.Re2 Rba8 57.Ree1 R8a7 58.Na3 Ra8 59.Nc4 Nh6&#xA;60.Na3 Nf7 61.Nf2 Rd8 62.Nc4 Rb8 63.Nh3 Bd8 64.Na3 Ra7 65.Qh1&#xA;Bc7 66.Qg2 Rd8 67.Qh1 Nh6 68.Ng5 Qe8 69.Kh2 Rd7 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="86" LastEditorUserId="26869" LastEditDate="2021-03-05T13:21:28.500" LastActivityDate="2021-03-05T13:21:28.500" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="618" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="615" CreationDate="2012-05-25T16:39:23.203" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruy_Lopez#Zaitsev_Variation&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;drawing line&lt;/a&gt; in the Zaitsev variation of the Ruy Lopez that shows up from time to time I would think.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.O-O Be7 6.Re1 b5 7.Bb3 d6 8.c3 O-O 9.h3 Bb7 10.d4 Re8 11.Ng5 Rf8 12.Nf3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="103" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-12-12T17:10:13.710" LastActivityDate="2012-12-12T17:10:13.710" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="619" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="655" CreationDate="2012-05-26T10:45:23.940" Score="5" ViewCount="97" Body="&lt;p&gt;What resources are there, e.g. tutorials, for connecting engines to play automatically on remote servers such as ICC?  There are certain opening variations that I want to have a strong engine test and refine on a significant basis.  Modifying an engines book is another matter, though material on that would be nice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But the material I find, either on engines and interfaces themselves, or on automating engines to play on ICC, is either piecemeal, or far from comprehensive.  &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.horizonchess.com/FAQ/Winboard/Winboard2.html#%5BB.3%5D&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;This link&lt;/a&gt; is the best I can do, and as you can see, it in turn refers you to other material.  But I'm concerned about how up to date this is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user76" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-13T18:14:11.637" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T19:30:58.597" Title="What resources are there for connecting engines to play automatically on remote servers?" Tags="&lt;software&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="620" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="549" CreationDate="2012-05-26T11:59:31.817" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Chess_Opening_Theory/1._d4/1...Nf6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Try this link&lt;/a&gt;.  This will give you enough search words to find additional information about variations you might explore.  Ultimately, you'll have to decide what's best for you.  If there were a 'best' move, chances are &lt;code&gt;1... Nf6&lt;/code&gt; would be a blunder.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-13T17:12:43.350" LastActivityDate="2012-06-13T17:12:43.350" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="621" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="549" CreationDate="2012-05-26T12:43:18.113" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;First off, &lt;code&gt;1...Nf6&lt;/code&gt; against &lt;code&gt;1. d4&lt;/code&gt; is &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; the Gruenfeld Defense: this opening is defined by an order of moves 3 deep. See the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gr%C3%BCnfeld_Defence&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Wikipedia page&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your case after &lt;code&gt;1. d4 Nf6&lt;/code&gt; simply play &lt;code&gt;2. Nc3&lt;/code&gt; and you will be well on your way to getting a Blackmar-Diemer, because if Black doesn't play &lt;code&gt;2...d5&lt;/code&gt; you will play &lt;code&gt;3. e4&lt;/code&gt; and you will get your pawn to e4 without having to gambit it: almost like an improved Blackmar-Diemer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But if Black plays &lt;code&gt;2...d5&lt;/code&gt; in response to &lt;code&gt;2. Nc3&lt;/code&gt; then &lt;code&gt;3. e4&lt;/code&gt; &lt;em&gt;is&lt;/em&gt; the Blackmar-Diemer, after &lt;code&gt;3...dxe4 4. f3&lt;/code&gt;, just via a different move order (a &quot;transposition&quot;).  See Wikipedia's page for the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackmar%E2%80%93Diemer_Gambit&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Blackmar-Diemer&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user76" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-13T17:12:20.013" LastActivityDate="2012-06-13T17:12:20.013" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="622" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-05-26T13:21:19.127" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2012-05-26T13:21:19.127" LastActivityDate="2012-05-26T13:21:19.127" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="623" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-05-26T13:21:19.127" Score="0" Body="Games played by demonstrably skilled players such as FIDE IMs and GMs, or those of similar strength pre-FIDE." OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2012-05-26T13:35:23.383" LastActivityDate="2012-05-26T13:35:23.383" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="624" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-05-26T13:25:27.203" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Questions about chess statistics, e.g. the winning percentage of an opening, the probability of some event occurring in a game, or player statistics.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-06-09T13:16:02.317" LastActivityDate="2012-06-09T13:16:02.317" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="625" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-05-26T13:25:27.203" Score="0" Body="Questions about game statistics, e.g. the winning percentage of a &quot;line,&quot; the probability of some event occurring in a game, or player statistics." OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="17" LastEditDate="2013-04-28T13:50:33.333" LastActivityDate="2013-04-28T13:50:33.333" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="626" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-05-26T13:32:37.693" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;A bad bishop is one whose mobility is restricted by its own pawns. Sometimes such a bishop's mobility is so limited that it resembles little more than a &quot;big pawn.&quot; Since that's almost like being down a piece, a player will strive to improve the bad bishop or trade it away. Conversely, players also attempt to trade mediocre pieces for an opponent's &quot;good&quot; bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-07-29T20:47:13.953" LastActivityDate="2012-07-29T20:47:13.953" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="627" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-05-26T13:32:37.693" Score="0" Body="A bad bishop is one whose mobility is restricted by its own pawns." OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-07-29T20:47:13.953" LastActivityDate="2012-07-29T20:47:13.953" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="628" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-05-26T13:34:58.050" Score="0" Body="&lt;h1&gt;Endgames&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The endgame is the part of the game when there are only a few pieces left on the board.  Usually play revolves around one or both players trying to promote a pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See also &lt;a href=&quot;/questions/tagged/opening&quot; class=&quot;post-tag&quot; title=&quot;show questions tagged &amp;#39;opening&amp;#39;&quot; rel=&quot;tag&quot;&gt;opening&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;/questions/tagged/middlegame&quot; class=&quot;post-tag&quot; title=&quot;show questions tagged &amp;#39;middlegame&amp;#39;&quot; rel=&quot;tag&quot;&gt;middlegame&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Study of Endgames&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many strong players advocate the study of endgames because the opening and middlegame can be studied in relation to the endgame.  For example, the Ruy Lopez pawn structure (see below) is a win for white in a pure king and pawn endgame, so black must therefore make use of the two bishops in the middlegame.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/xtoty.png&quot; alt=&quot;Ruy Lopez pawn structure&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Theoretical Endgames&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Theoretical endgames are positions where the winning plan is known (for example, the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucena_position&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Lucena Position&lt;/a&gt;) so the outcome is based only on the stronger player's ability to find the correct plan.  Many theoretical endgames are not likely to occur in common practice (for example, the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_knights_endgame&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Halley's Comet Mate&lt;/a&gt;) but are interesting to study because certain relationships between pieces are revealed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Practical Endgames&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Practical endgames are endgames that arise in games quite frequently and should therefore be studied by players seeking to improve their play.  The most common example is rook and pawn endgames.  Many games reach an endgame with this material balance (frequently one side is up a pawn) and the player that better understands the endgame will be able to win (or hold a draw if down material).  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Classification&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Endgames are typically classified by the types of pieces that remain on the board: for example rook and pawn endgames would feature an endgame where both sides have a rook and one or more pawns.  A rook vs. pawns endgame would be an endgame where one side has only a rook and the other side has one or more pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-06-22T11:51:46.523" LastActivityDate="2017-06-22T11:51:46.523" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="629" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-05-26T13:34:58.050" Score="0" Body="Questions relating to the final stages of a game of chess, when only few pieces are left on the board.&#xD;&#xA;&#xD;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12" LastEditorUserId="3594" LastEditDate="2020-02-07T15:35:11.957" LastActivityDate="2020-02-07T15:35:11.957" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="630" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-05-26T13:39:40.943" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;e4 openings generally result in open games while games that begin with d4 generally produce closed games.  Games that are open on one side but not the other are 'half-open' games.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2012-05-26T13:41:21.907" LastActivityDate="2012-05-26T13:41:21.907" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="631" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-05-26T13:39:40.943" Score="0" Body="An open game is one in which the pieces are not blocked by center pawns.  That is, rooks, bishops, and queens can make effective use of their ranges." OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2012-05-26T13:41:27.493" LastActivityDate="2012-05-26T13:41:27.493" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="632" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-05-26T13:43:53.510" Score="0" Body="&lt;h1&gt;Middlegame&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The middlegame is the stage of the game after the opening has been completed and most of the pieces have been developed, but before the endgame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Common Plans&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the middlegame, the plans usually revolve around trying to improve one's own position and win material from the opponent, or sometimes, to deliver mate to the opponent.  Tactics are most commonly used to win material, and indeed, this part of the game is often rife with tactics.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Classification&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many times, the middlegame is classified by the type of opening that starts the game.  For example, a Sicilian middlegame is often dominated by opposite side castling and mutual attacks on the castled kings.  A Ruy Lopez middlegame is often one where white tries to take advantage of a space edge and black tries to make use of the two bishops.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12" LastEditorUserId="12" LastEditDate="2012-06-01T05:39:08.633" LastActivityDate="2012-06-01T05:39:08.633" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="633" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-05-26T13:43:53.510" Score="0" Body="Questions about the middlegame.&#xD;&#xA;&#xD;&#xA;The middlegame is the stage of the game after the opening has been completed and most of the pieces have been developed, but before the endgame.&#xD;&#xA;&#xD;&#xA;In the middlegame, the plans usually revolve around trying to improve one's own position and win material from the opponent, or sometimes, to deliver mate to the opponent." OwnerUserId="12" LastEditorUserId="12" LastEditDate="2012-06-01T05:39:10.740" LastActivityDate="2012-06-01T05:39:10.740" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="634" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="576" CreationDate="2012-05-26T13:48:06.213" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think it's a forced &lt;strong&gt;win for black&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black can start with &lt;code&gt;1...Qxc4&lt;/code&gt; after which the next five white moves are forced to avoid a fast loss.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;6k1/5p2/1Pp3pb/2q4p/1rNpPP2/3Q2PP/8/5RK1 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1...Qxc4 2.Qxc4 Rxc4 3.Rb1! Bf8! 4.b7! (4.e5!? d3 5.b7 d2 6.b8=Q Rc1+ 7.Kf2 d1=Q) Bd6! 5.b8=Q+ Bxb8 6. Rxb8+ Kg7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black is a pawn up and has connected passed pawns and should try to exchange pawns to simplify to a won end-game. The game might continue for example as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;1R4k1/5p2/2p3p1/7p/2rpPP2/6PP/8/6K1 b - - 0 6&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;6... Kg7 7.e5 c5 8.Rd8 Rc3 9.Kf2 h4! 10.gxh4 Rxh3 11.Rc8 Rc3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The computer still doesn't find a line that leads to an obvious win but it looks like a hopeless situation for white and the computer playing against itself gives a win for black. Here's an example way to continue the game:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;2R5/5pk1/6p1/2p1P3/3p1P1P/7r/5K2/8 b - - 0 11&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Rc3 2. Rc7 Kf8 3. Ke2 c4 4. Kd2 Rf3 5. Rxc4 Rxf4 6. Rc8+ Kg7 7. Rc7 Re4 8. Re7 Rxh4 9. e6 Kf6 10. Rxf7+ Kxe6 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The final position is a table base win for Black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you think there any errors in this analysis (in particular, weak moves for white that changed the value of the position from drawn to lost) then please let me know.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="45" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-12-10T18:51:52.660" LastActivityDate="2012-12-10T18:51:52.660" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="635" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-05-26T13:51:07.170" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some types of chess-related software (beyond chess-playing engines) include:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Database programs for storing/studying game collections, e.g. Scid, ChessBase, Chess Assistant.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Software for traditional or online chess publishing, e.g. tools for producing chess diagrams, fonts, videos.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Software for building and maintaining opening repertoires, e.g. Chess Position Trainer, Chess Openings Wizard (formerly Bookup).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Tournament management software, e.g. Swiss Perfect, TournamentService.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2015-01-11T15:18:20.770" LastActivityDate="2015-01-11T15:18:20.770" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="636" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-05-26T13:51:07.170" Score="0" Body="Questions about chess-related software, but not including chess-playing engines; there's a more specific tag for those questions, the [engines] tag." OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2015-01-11T15:18:37.523" LastActivityDate="2015-01-11T15:18:37.523" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="637" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-05-26T14:10:12.670" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are many types of chess clocks and many different ways to use them. Older chess clocks were literally two mechanical clocks connected in tandem. Each clock had a button on top. When a player pushed the button over his clock, a lever would stop his clock but start his opponent's. At the 12 o'clock position, there's a 'flag' controlled by gravity. As the minute hand approaches 12 it lifts the flag. As the minute hand passes 'noon', the flag falls by gravity. This generally signifies a loss on time. Before the game, the minute hands have to be set in exactly the right position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Modern clocks are digital. While fundamentally the same (there are two tandem clocks with a button controlling each) they allow for additional time control features that would be next to impossible with mechanical clocks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess clocks were invented when certain players known for the 'sitzfleisch' would spend hours on moves, delaying tournaments terribly, and rendering modern tournaments impossible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hand-in-hand with the clock are time controls - how the clock is used. There are innumerable variations, but a common time control is &quot;game in X minutes&quot; which means each player has a total of X minutes to win before they lose on time. There are certain rules to prevent a demonstrably lost player from winning on time. For example a bare K against K+Q will never win on time. Instead, a draw by insufficient mating material is declared.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-07-30T02:10:58.263" LastActivityDate="2012-07-30T02:10:58.263" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="638" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-05-26T14:10:12.670" Score="0" Body="A chess clock is a timing device used to keep games moving. When a player's time runs out, she faces some penalty, frequently the loss of the game. For questions about time controls or time management, use the respective tags time-control and time-management. &#xD;&#xA; " OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2014-06-26T22:57:42.610" LastActivityDate="2014-06-26T22:57:42.610" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="639" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-05-26T14:35:56.507" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Anatoly Karpov was the World Champion from 1975 to 1985 (and FIDE World Champion from 1993 to 1999 when Garry Kasparov broke from FIDE). Karpov obtained the title by default when, as the rightful challenger to Fischer, the latter refused to defend the crown.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-07-29T21:51:02.673" LastActivityDate="2012-07-29T21:51:02.673" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="640" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-05-26T14:35:56.507" Score="0" Body="Anatoly Karpov (born 1951) was the World Champion from 1975 to 1985 (and FIDE World Champion from 1993 to 1999 when Garry Kasparov broke from FIDE). He's known for his solid positional play.  Like Botvinnik or Capablanca, in his prime Karpov was almost impossible to defeat." OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2014-03-30T22:12:22.583" LastActivityDate="2014-03-30T22:12:22.583" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="641" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-05-26T14:47:33.327" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sometimes this applies to specific openings (e.g., the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruy_Lopez#Marshall_Attack&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Marshall Attack&lt;/a&gt; in the Ruy Lopez) and sometimes it relates to the game overall, such as discussions about &lt;em&gt;positional&lt;/em&gt; play or &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypermodernism_%28chess%29&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;hypermodern&lt;/a&gt; openings.  The common theme is the search for a deeper understanding of the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-06-21T17:57:45.513" LastActivityDate="2017-06-21T17:57:45.513" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="642" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-05-26T14:47:33.327" Score="0" Body="Theory commonly refers to the erudite study and the philosophy behind the moves in chess (like opening or endgame theory) but this tag can also be used for questions about the game theoretic study of the game itself." OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-11-28T08:01:41.060" LastActivityDate="2018-11-28T08:01:41.060" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="643" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-05-26T14:55:12.567" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2012-05-26T14:55:12.567" LastActivityDate="2012-05-26T14:55:12.567" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="644" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-05-26T14:55:12.567" Score="0" Body="Questions about how to improve one's chess game, how to help others improve, and other related matters." OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-05-29T12:43:19.580" LastActivityDate="2012-05-29T12:43:19.580" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="645" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-05-26T14:59:25.537" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2012-05-26T14:59:25.537" LastActivityDate="2012-05-26T14:59:25.537" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="646" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-05-26T14:59:25.537" Score="0" Body="Questions related to the games of World Championship matches, or to the mechanics of World Championship matches." OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2012-05-26T15:48:26.553" LastActivityDate="2012-05-26T15:48:26.553" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="647" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-05-26T15:12:58.743" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_tactic&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Tactics&lt;/a&gt; are the concrete maneuvers (e.g. forking two pieces with a knight, pinning a piece to the opponent's king, or unleashing a discovered check) that chess players use and combine in order to achieve their overall goals in a game. They are the building blocks which underlie successful strategies.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tactics represent the raw calculation side of chess, rather than the speculative, intuitive aspects of the game.  That is, perhaps, unless you're &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikhail_Tal&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Mikhail Tal&lt;/a&gt;, former world champion and so-called &quot;Magician from Riga&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="3594" LastEditDate="2020-02-08T20:56:36.667" LastActivityDate="2020-02-08T20:56:36.667" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="648" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-05-26T15:12:58.743" Score="0" Body="Questions relating to maneuvers that take advantage of short-term opportunities, such as forks, discovered attacks, skewers, etc. " OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="3594" LastEditDate="2020-02-08T20:56:36.667" LastActivityDate="2020-02-08T20:56:36.667" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="649" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="583" CreationDate="2012-05-26T18:40:07.800" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Scholar's and Fool's mates that others have cited are the shortest.  They rely on two different but highly important principles chess players should remember.  Scholar's mate relies on the opponent's insufficiently protected f2 (or ...f7) point, while Fool's mate relies on a weakening of the diagonal from h5 (or ...h4) to the opponent's king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While you can actively try for Scholar's mate (and many weak amateurs fall for it), Fool's mate pretty much relies on very poor play by the opponent -- advancing the f and g pawns such that the critical diagonal is fatally weakened.  A variant of Fool's mate is more likely to occur that involves several more moves and induces the opponent to make the required weakening moves.  Consider the following sequence; White's fourth move is a fatal mistake leading to the loss of his queen or getting mated along the ...h4-e1 diagonal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. d4 Nf6 2. Nd2 e5 3. dxe5 Ng4 4. h3?? Ne3 5. fxe3 Qh4+ 6. g3 Qxg3#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;An excellent old book that should probably be a new player's second or third book is &quot;The Art of Checkmate&quot;, despite being so old it still uses descriptive notation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/0486201066&quot;&gt;http://www.amazon.com/The-Art-Checkmate-Dover-Chess/dp/0486201066&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user76" LastEditorUserId="12" LastEditDate="2012-11-01T13:53:06.983" LastActivityDate="2012-11-01T13:53:06.983" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="650" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="654" CreationDate="2012-05-26T19:23:29.127" Score="13" ViewCount="1598" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can black force a win (against perfect play) after the following moves?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;6k1/5p2/1Pp3pb/2q4p/1rNpPP2/3Q2PP/8/5RK1 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;[StartPly &quot;3&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Rxc4 2. b7 (1. {Chess Tempo #97369})&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A quick summary of this position is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Black is initially an entire bishop ahead.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;White has a passed pawn that is dangerously close to promotion.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Black has connected passed pawns.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Background&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I recently asked &quot;&lt;em&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/576/chess-tempo-97369-theoretical-win-or-draw&quot;&gt;Chess Tempo #97369 - Theoretical win or draw?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&quot; about &lt;a href=&quot;//chesstempo.com/chess-problems/97369&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess Tempo problem #97369&lt;/a&gt; where I asked what the theoretical value of the position is. From &lt;a href=&quot;/a/634&quot;&gt;my own analysis&lt;/a&gt; (please feel free to check it for errors) I believe that black was in a winning position on the previous move, and at least one way to have won was to play &lt;code&gt;Qxc4&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only move that is accepted as correct by the Chess Tempo site is &lt;code&gt;Rxc4&lt;/code&gt; because it has a very high evaluation according to the site's engine (Toga II). However I'm not even sure that this move works against perfect play by white. If it doesn't work I will request the site's owner to disable the problem.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What do you think? Can black force a win from the position the diagram results in? If so, how? If not, why not? Opinions are welcome but using an engine to check your analysis is also encouraged.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="45" LastEditorUserId="4186" LastEditDate="2020-03-07T09:31:13.060" LastActivityDate="2020-03-07T09:31:13.060" Title="Chess Tempo #97369 - Is the problem's solution wrong?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="7" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="651" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="590" CreationDate="2012-05-26T19:37:02.963" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;A good time to &quot;sacrifice&quot; is when the true value of the piece you are getting is worth more than the value of the piece your are giving up, even though your piece has a greater &lt;em&gt;nominal&lt;/em&gt; value.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples:  1) You (White) have a rook on an open f-file, and your opponent has a knight on f6. You play &lt;code&gt;RxN&lt;/code&gt;, Black retakes with his pawn at g7: &lt;code&gt;...gxf6&lt;/code&gt;. Two things have happened. Black has lost a major defensive piece on the kingside, and lost pawn protection on the g file. Even though you have &quot;lost the exchange,&quot; what you have gotten is well worth a rook. 2) In another scenario, you might move &lt;code&gt;Nf5&lt;/code&gt; to coax &lt;code&gt;...gxf5&lt;/code&gt; from the pawn on g6. You recapture, having traded a knight for a valuable pawn that no longer protects the enemy king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Generally, you sacrifice in an area, usually the kingside, where you have preponderance of force. If you have four pieces to one, or five to two, you sacrifice one for one or two for two, even if your pieces have greater nominal value (sometimes a rook or queen for a minor piece). Then your remaining pieces crush the enemy king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T19:39:51.527" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T19:39:51.527" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="652" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="573" CreationDate="2012-05-26T19:41:02.223" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;The idea is not to castle early or late. The idea is to castle when it supports the &lt;em&gt;rest of your strategy&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In some games, you want to emphasize quick development, especially if your opponent has lost time. In that case, early castling is a feature of that development.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, if it's a game with emphasis on maneuvering, you may want to delay castling until your maneuvers are complete (or nearly so), in order to use castling to support your maneuvers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-12T17:20:18.120" LastActivityDate="2012-06-12T17:20:18.120" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="653" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="583" CreationDate="2012-05-26T20:20:08.597" Score="30" Body="&lt;p&gt;For a short mating possibility in a very standard mainline opening, one can look to the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caro-Kann_Defence#Smyslov_.2F_Karpov_.2F_Modern_Variation&quot;&gt;Smyslov-Karpov variation&lt;/a&gt; in the Caro-Kann Defense:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 dxe4 4.Nxe4 Nd7 5.Qe2 Ngf6?? 6.Nd6#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The most popular continuations are &lt;code&gt;5. Nf3&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;5. Bc4&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;5. Ng5&lt;/code&gt; (an aggressive try which Kasparov assayed a number of times against Karpov). The sneaky try &lt;code&gt;5. Qe2&lt;/code&gt; just sets up a pin against Black's e-pawn, making the intended followup &lt;code&gt;5... Ngf6??&lt;/code&gt; unplayable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are a mere 271 games in my database (out of several million) in which this 5. Qe2 appears, but one finds a few GMs giving it a go: &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Radulov&quot;&gt;Ivan Radulov&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/player/oleg_nikolenko.html&quot;&gt;Oleg Nikolenko&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Gallagher&quot;&gt;Joe Gallagher&lt;/a&gt; (against as strong an opponent as IM &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tibor_K%C3%A1rolyi_%28chess_player%29&quot;&gt;Tibor Karolyi&lt;/a&gt;), even some guy named &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Alekhine&quot;&gt;Alekhine&lt;/a&gt; (though, admittedly, only in a consultation game against a team of four amateurs). A 2300 player also tried it out against &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yasser_Seirawan&quot;&gt;Yasser Seirawan&lt;/a&gt; on the black side; Seirawan didn't fall into the trap of course, but the 2300 did manage to get a draw out of the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you're still reading, you're probably curious: out of the 271 games I have on record, in only 34 of them did black fall into the trap with &lt;code&gt;5... Ngf6&lt;/code&gt;. Alekhine's amateur foes were among the victims, and the highest rated victim was in a game Hans Speck (2140) - Nikolaus Mertens (2165) from the 1997 Liechtenstein Open. &lt;strong&gt;Most interestingly&lt;/strong&gt;, on two of those 34 occasions, the white player failed to reply with &lt;code&gt;6. Nd6#&lt;/code&gt;. One was a player rated 1873 who went on to lose to his 2202 opponent; the other was rated 2264(!) and managed to win anyway against a 2113 on the black side.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-11-01T14:19:25.570" LastActivityDate="2012-11-01T14:19:25.570" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="654" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="650" CreationDate="2012-05-27T03:33:17.873" Score="16" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe black can do no better than a draw from the starting position. First I'll give my own reasoning for it (and everything I'll say I've checked with Houdini, to rule out silly oversights on my part). Further below, I will suggest what I think is a very plausible explanation for why Chess Tempo's engine might have gotten it wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first move&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1... Rb4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;is forced, as it is the only way to keep white's b-pawn from queening without losing the rook. In turn, white's reply&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;2. Rb1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;is forced, because without the b-pawn white will certainly be losing. Now white is threatening &lt;code&gt;3. b8=Q&lt;/code&gt;, which would force black to give up the rook. Since &lt;code&gt;2... Rxb1+ 3. Qxb1&lt;/code&gt; doesn't help, black is thus forced to play&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;2... Qb6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Again white cannot let the b-pawn fall for nothing, and so has no choice but to play the sequence&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;3. Rxb4 Qxb4 4. Qa6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;to stop black's threat of &lt;code&gt;...Qxb7&lt;/code&gt;. Now it is black to move from the following position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;6k1/5p2/1Pp3pb/2q4p/1rNpPP2/3Q2PP/8/5RK1 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;[StartPly &quot;9&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Rxc4 2. b7 {Last given ply, white threatens b8=Q+} 2... Rb4 {First original move, prevent pawn promotion without loosing rook} 3. Rb1 {preserve pawn to avoid loosing}&#xA;3... Qb6 (3... Rxb1+?? 4. Qxb1 {pawn is just about promoted}) 4. Rxb4 Qxb4 5. Qa6 {black must now give perpetual check to avoid loosing}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black would love to consolidate the position by getting the bishop to a spot where it eyes the b8 square along with black's queen (say by &lt;code&gt;...Bf8&lt;/code&gt; followed by &lt;code&gt;...Bd6&lt;/code&gt;); doing so would eliminate any danger of white's pawn promoting, and allow black to regroup and win easily with the extra bishop. Unfortunately, if black tries &lt;code&gt;4... Bf8&lt;/code&gt;, then &lt;code&gt;5. Qa8&lt;/code&gt; threatens to promote and simultaneously pins the bishop, preventing &lt;code&gt;5... Bd6&lt;/code&gt;. In that case, black has no better option than to play &lt;code&gt;5... Qe1+&lt;/code&gt; and put white into perpetual check, draw. So &lt;code&gt;4... Bf8&lt;/code&gt; doesn't work, but any other direct try by black to impede the advance of the b-pawn will just be slower. The problem is that, from the diagram position (meaning my diagram), black's forces are just uncoordinated enough that he doesn't have enough time to prevent &lt;code&gt;Qa8&lt;/code&gt; and promotion of the b-pawn directly, and must instead go in for perpetual check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From a broad conceptual point of view, black has only one other idea to try and play for a win if he can't stop the b-pawn: to run his own d-pawn to promotion. But it's easy to see that that plan is also too slow. If black tries &lt;code&gt;4... d3&lt;/code&gt;, then after the white response &lt;code&gt;5. Qa8+ Kh7(g7) 6. b8=Q&lt;/code&gt;, black's queen is en prise and white is now threatening to mate. So black would again be forced to bail out and go for a perpetual check with &lt;code&gt;6... Qe1+&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;What I think went wrong here&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From your initial diagram position, an engine could search to a pretty healthy depth and keep seeing positions in which black retains a sizable material advantage (a full extra bishop). The reason for this is that though black cannot &quot;really&quot; stop the b-pawn from queening, he can give checks to push that event into the future, further down the engine's search. Now, of course, once an engine sees repetitions of the position in its search, it will recognize the draw and no longer see any advantage from the extra material. But ... (and this next part is indeed speculation, but it is not without sense)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A potentially problematic feature of this particular position, though, is that black doesn't just have, say, two checking squares from which the queen can carry out the perpetual. Checks can happen on e1, d2, d1, c2, c1, b2, b1 and in the meantime the white king could have at least 10 squares it could travel on; not to mention, a checking sequence could also get interrupted by, say, the white queen blocking a check, followed by the black queen getting back behind the b-pawn, and then the white queen returning to a6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The point being, there are very many possible paths here; it's all still just a perpetual check, but the great variety of options here could make it so that, at whatever search depth it's working at in the Chess Tempo evaluation process, the engine couldn't quite see a repetition yet, because it keeps seeing things like, e.g. &quot;Oh, I don't have to repeat with &lt;code&gt;...Qe1+&lt;/code&gt;, I'll check from d1 this time instead,&quot; pushing the recognition of a perpetual check beyond its horizon.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Again, I'm speculating, but it's at least not a nonsensical possibility.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="4186" LastEditDate="2020-03-07T09:28:38.867" LastActivityDate="2020-03-07T09:28:38.867" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="655" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="619" CreationDate="2012-05-27T16:21:08.210" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;WinBoard is the way to go, also check out...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.gnu.org/software/xboard/engine-intf.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.gnu.org/software/xboard/engine-intf.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.open-aurec.com/wbforum/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.open-aurec.com/wbforum/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The WinBoard forum is probably the best place to ask this question or the answer can be found there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="271" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T19:30:58.597" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T19:30:58.597" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="656" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-05-28T01:51:03.317" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikhail_Botvinnik&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Mikhail Botvinnik&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Ra%C3%BAl_Capablanca&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;José Raúl Capablanca&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tigran_Petrosian&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Tigran Petrosian&lt;/a&gt;, and &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatoly_Karpov&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Anatoly Karpov&lt;/a&gt; are towering examples of positional players.  The 'philosopher of positional play' was &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aron_Nimzowitsch&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Aron Nimzowitsch&lt;/a&gt;, who expounded his approach to the game in works like &lt;em&gt;My System&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;Chess Praxis&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;Blockade&lt;/em&gt;, and was a great player in his own right.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-06-21T19:09:43.480" LastActivityDate="2017-06-21T19:09:43.480" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="657" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-05-28T01:51:03.317" Score="0" Body="A style of play emphasizing capture of strategic squares and prophylactic moves." OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2012-05-28T03:15:40.767" LastActivityDate="2012-05-28T03:15:40.767" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="658" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="487" CreationDate="2012-05-28T03:54:15.780" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;Bill Kilpatrick and I wrote a book, which was recently published called, Chess Is Child's Play: Teaching Techniques That Work. This book teaches a parent to teach a child as young as four to play chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We made the lessons super simple, allowing the parent to learn the game along with their child, if the parent isn't familiar with chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We employ a “mini-game” strategy that is a lot of fun.  With mini-games a parent and child can focus on one element at a time, learning and perfecting it before moving on. It has been my experience that younger and older children really enjoy playing these mini-games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have used these techniques to teach adults chess as well as young children. It really works well!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's the link to the book on amazon: &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/193627731X&quot;&gt;http://www.amazon.com/Chess-Childs-Play-Teaching-Techniques/dp/193627731X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;amp;qid=1338048903&amp;amp;sr=8-1&lt;/a&gt;. Please do check out the reviews.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="273" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-12T01:35:08.887" LastActivityDate="2012-06-12T01:35:08.887" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="659" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="661" CreationDate="2012-05-28T13:53:30.180" Score="17" ViewCount="673" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have been following &lt;a href=&quot;http://chessbomb.com/o/2012-wcc/12-Anand_Viswanathan-Gelfand_Boris/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;12th game in World Chess championship 2012&lt;/a&gt;, and I just could not understand why a draw was offered.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it that they can see 10 or more moves ahead and think of the ending or is it that they want to play it safe and fight another day?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="275" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2013-08-04T16:51:13.160" LastActivityDate="2019-12-25T21:43:04.737" Title="Anand - Gelfand 12th game in World Chess championship 2012" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;world-championship&gt;&lt;anand&gt;&lt;gelfand&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="660" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="659" CreationDate="2012-05-28T14:38:01.877" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both players played a solid game and were unable to gain an advantage.  Trying to force an advantage where there is none to be found is asking for a loss at that level of play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2012-05-28T14:38:01.877" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="661" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="659" CreationDate="2012-05-28T14:59:32.550" Score="16" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are two levels at which this can be answered, I suppose: what were the personal motivations for offering/agreeing a draw, and what were the objective features of the position that grounded the decision? I think you're asking mostly after the second, but I've read many comments lately voicing frustration with agreed draws in this match, so I hope you don't mind me giving an answer that speaks to the first level as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First off, the position after 21 moves was as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;r2r4/4bkpp/5p2/p1Bbp3/7P/1P1P1N2/P4PP1/R1R3K1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Bxe7 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here Anand played &lt;code&gt;22. Bxe7&lt;/code&gt; and offered a draw, despite being a pawn up in material and having a significant time advantage (with still 18 moves left to the time control after what would have been Gelfand's obligatory recapture &lt;code&gt;22... Kxe7&lt;/code&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the post-game press conference, Anand was asked if he considered trying to play on his time advantage at the end, using it to hopefully induce errors on Gelfand's part. His reply:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;After &lt;code&gt;Bxe7 Kxe7&lt;/code&gt;, black's play is very easy. I didn't see any point in dragging it on from there.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In reply to a later question, Anand elaborated further on this and other agreed draws from the match:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;We only draw when it's obvious, at least to us, that the game is going nowhere.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One journalist spoke up for the amateur spectators, in the spirit of your question, asking why the contestants couldn't play out some more moves for the benefit of those who don't see why this position is a draw. Gelfand fielded that question, answering:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;First and foremost, here, we are competing in the match for the crown. We are not here purely to entertain spectators. Second thing, there are about a dozen professional, highly-qualified commentators, and with a little bit of effort they could explain to the thousands of spectators elsewhere the nuances of the game.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think this is a fair point; his and Anand's job right now is to make chess decisions based on personal competitive interests, and not to explain the games either verbally afterward or by playing on in a position each recognizes as clearly equal, and offering no realistic prospects of an advantage for his side.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which brings me to the second level of your question. I am not a highly-qualified professional, of course, but I think the concrete factors leading to Anand's draw offer are that, though he is a pawn up, it is a weak isolated pawn on d3, one which is hard to make use of, or to be rid of by advancing to d4. And his 2-to-1 pawn majority on the queenside is very immobile, with Gelfand's bishop and rooks having plenty of space and open lines to operate with and restrict Anand's pawns. Furthermore, Gelfand has not a single structural weakness in his position. In a nutshell, this is why Anand's extra pawn doesn't mean very much, and why Gelfand's play is easy enough in this position that Anand didn't consider the time factor to be terribly important.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2013-08-04T15:51:38.120" LastActivityDate="2013-08-04T15:51:38.120" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="662" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="666" CreationDate="2012-05-29T07:45:38.283" Score="10" ViewCount="5140" Body="&lt;p&gt;It depends on the position but with all things being equal how much material value would you say the bishop pair is valued at?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="271" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-11-01T05:19:40.363" LastActivityDate="2018-10-14T17:14:22.980" Title="What is the bishop pair worth?" Tags="&lt;bishops&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="663" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="671" CreationDate="2012-05-29T08:27:39.590" Score="24" ViewCount="6150" Body="&lt;p&gt;It isn't possible to force checkmate with King vs. King, Knight &amp;amp; Knight. A checkmate &lt;em&gt;position&lt;/em&gt;, however, is still possible to achieve, so does that mean the 50 move rule applies, or does insufficient material mean insufficient material to force checkmate?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="271" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2013-05-03T01:29:03.023" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T19:27:10.653" Title="Is it a draw by insufficient material if the board is K vs K, N &amp; N?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;rules&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;draw&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="666" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="662" CreationDate="2012-05-29T11:41:00.037" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a well known article called &lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.danheisman.com/evaluation-of-material-imbalances.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;The Evaluation of Material Imbalances&#xA;by GM Larry Kaufman&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;, first published in 1999 in Chess Life, winner of the 'Best Instruction' award from the Chess Journalists of America, that has the bishop pair valued at &lt;strong&gt;half a pawn&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A quote from the article (linked above):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;The bishop pair has an average value of half a pawn (more when the opponent has no minor pieces to exchange for one of the bishops), enough to regard it as part of the material evaluation of the position, and enough to overwhelm most positional considerations. Moreover, this substantial bishop pair value holds up in all situations tested, regardless of what else is on the board. This large a bishop pair value is surprising because in the opening grandmasters will often give up the bishop pair to double the opponent's pawns or to gain a mild lead in development, factors which are generally not worth half a pawn...&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That same article values the other pieces like so:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;King = 4 (endgame)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Queen = 9.75&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Rook = 5&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Bishop = 3.25&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Knight = 3.25&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Pawn = 1  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Whether you wish to rely on such figures is up to you. Personally I think you would be better off exploring why the bishop pair is considered an advantage, and when. The best explanation I've seen is in &lt;a href=&quot;https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/0346123216&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Ludek Pachman's Complete Chess Strategy Vol 1.&lt;/a&gt;. Some of the points he raises:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&quot;In open positions their effectiveness is an extremely important factor.&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&quot;...the opportunity of purposeful simplification.&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&quot;The side with the two bishops can bring his king to the centre more easily under their protection&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&quot;...helps by preventing the enemy king from using the otherwise weak squares of a certain colour.&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="97" LastEditorUserId="12523" LastEditDate="2018-10-14T17:14:22.980" LastActivityDate="2018-10-14T17:14:22.980" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="667" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="662" CreationDate="2012-05-29T11:49:25.157" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_piece_relative_value&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;This page&lt;/a&gt; values the Bishop pair from +1/2 to +3/4 points.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2012-05-29T11:49:25.157" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="669" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="663" CreationDate="2012-05-29T12:16:42.893" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;K+N+N vs. K is a draw or stalemate.  The knights cannot force checkmate though helpmate is possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2012-05-29T22:46:55.703" LastActivityDate="2012-05-29T22:46:55.703" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="670" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="672" CreationDate="2012-05-29T12:37:06.313" Score="6" ViewCount="482" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have come this far and am not sure what to do further in the game.  I have been doing some maneuvering here but it seemed quite disoriented.  What is a good plan that will help white win?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;2r2kr1/8/2b1p1q1/p2p1pP1/3P4/2N3R1/3QP3/2K2BR1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="43" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2017-12-31T12:23:34.250" LastActivityDate="2017-12-31T14:15:28.140" Title="What's the best plan for white in this position?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="671" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="663" CreationDate="2012-05-29T13:04:28.063" Score="16" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a complicated situation, and it is made even more complicated by the fact that USCF and FIDE rules differ slightly.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First and most importantly, the 50 move rule &lt;em&gt;always&lt;/em&gt; applies.  If 50 moves are made without a capture or a pawn move, then the game is simply declared drawn.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The rules about insufficient material only are important when one side runs out of time.  Basically, the rule says that if a player runs out of time, and the opponent does not have enough material to mate, then the game is declared drawn instead of the side with time remaining getting the win.  For example, if black has a lone king and white flags while trying to mate with a king and queen, the game is a draw.  If there is insufficient material to deliver mate, an OTB game can also be declared drawn even with time on the clock if a tournament director is summoned.  This will only apply for cases like K vs K or KN vs K.  Usually it is not an issue because the opponent will simply agree to a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So now to the specific case of KNN vs K:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;FIDE&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Under &lt;strong&gt;FIDE&lt;/strong&gt; rules for standard tournament time controls, if the side with just a king runs out of time, then the side with KNN &lt;em&gt;wins&lt;/em&gt; because a mating position can be constructed.  If the side with just the king avoids one move mates, however, then mate cannot be forced.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;USCF&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Under &lt;strong&gt;USCF&lt;/strong&gt; rules, if the side with just a king runs out of time, then the game is &lt;em&gt;declared drawn&lt;/em&gt;.  The USCF focuses on the fact that checkmate cannot be forced.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Online Play&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many online chess servers will automatically stop a game when there is not enough material left on the board to mate.  In the specific case of KNN vs K most servers do not automatically give a draw (following the FIDE rules).  One interesting case is KN vs KB when Playchess and ICC &lt;em&gt;will&lt;/em&gt; stop the game and award a draw (not following FIDE rules) while Chesscube follows the FIDE rules and continues play.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Practical Play&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now for practical play, if you are defending with just the king, it is very easy to avoid mate for 50 moves, even if you have almost no time remaining.  Make sure that you don't move to a square where mate can be delivered next move and you will never be forced into mate.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T19:27:10.653" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T19:27:10.653" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="672" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="670" CreationDate="2012-05-29T13:14:25.380" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;White should be winning in this position quite comfortably with the extra piece.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One relatively simple plan is to play &lt;code&gt;1.Rh3&lt;/code&gt; in order to move the rook to h6 to push the passed g pawn.  If black moves the queen, then &lt;code&gt;g6&lt;/code&gt; is very strong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1.Rh3 Bd7 (to defend the loose rook on c8) &#xA;2.e3 (Rh6 is not possible immediately because of Qxh6! winning both rooks for the queen) Qf7&#xA;3.Ba6 Rc7&#xA;4.Qb2 (Δ Qb8+) Bc8&#xA;5.Bxc8 Rxc8&#xA;6.Qa3+ (and next move white will take the Pa5)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another plan is to play &lt;code&gt;e3&lt;/code&gt; in order to free the bishop (so that white can make use of the extra piece), but this is less ambitious than playing &lt;code&gt;Rh3&lt;/code&gt; immediately.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-13T18:23:33.510" LastActivityDate="2012-06-13T18:23:33.510" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="673" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="497" CreationDate="2012-05-29T18:21:19.123" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;While good players are always alert for tactics, there are a few key &quot;signals&quot; that indicate that tactics and combinations might be available.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Loose Pieces&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If there are one or more enemy pieces that are hanging or under-defended, you should look for tactics that attack that piece.  For example, if a bishop is defended by an enemy queen and attacked by a friendly rook then the bishop is under-defended.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Weak King&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the enemy king does not have many friendly pieces around it, then it might be possible to stir up an attack.  If the king is castled, look for ways to disturb the pawn shield in front of the king, or look to see if the h7 square can be attacked.  For example, a &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_gift_sacrifice&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Greek gift sacrifice&lt;/a&gt; might be possible. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the king has &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; castled, then be alert for tactics based on the f7 square.  f7 is frequently weak because only the king defends this pawn.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Lead in Development&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you have a moderate lead in development (an extra piece or two developed), then it is frequently possible to do something useful with the extra forces.  Most usually this is an attack on the enemy king, but it could be something as simple as gaining a space advantage too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Enemy Piece Low on Squares&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If an enemy piece doesn't have many squares to which it can safely move, it might be possible to trap the piece.  This most often happens with the enemy queen, but it is possible to trap rooks, knights, and bishops as well.  Here's an example from one of my own games:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/fkdVQ.jpg&quot; width=&quot;250&quot; alt=&quot;Trap the white rook&quot; title=&quot;Trap the white rook&quot; /&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Solution:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1...Re1+ 2.Kg2 Be3! -+&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Moves to Consider&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you have decided to look for tactics, you should consider all of the checks available as well as all of the captures.  This may sound slightly radical, but almost all tactics will fall into one of these two categories.  Moves that place a piece close to the enemy king should also be studied.  Almost all chess tactics are based on double attacks (or double &quot;threats&quot;), so look for moves that unmask an attack (discovered attack) or that fork two pieces.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Amount of Time to Spend&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Depending on how much time you have left, you should spend as much time as you need to look at all of the possibilities.  If you have only 5 minutes left, then it might be prudent to just look at obvious moves fairly quickly, but if you have more than an hour left on the clock, there is no excuse for missing a winning tactic.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;With practice you will be able to look at all of the captures and whittle them down to one to three worth considering very quickly.  For example, sacrificing a queen for a bishop should at least be checked out (it's a capture), but almost all the time it is sufficient to look just another move further and decide that there is no follow up.  The best players spend over an hour on a single move if it is possible that there is a winning attack in the cards.  The biggest reason for this is that they are able to win with just a few minutes left on the clock, so it is worth the initial time investment in order to gain a winning position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To conclude, here's another example from one of my own games.  I was black, and I got to this position.  Notice that I am up a piece, but black now has a knockout blow to end the game immediately.  I spent some time looking for tactics because the enemy king is weak and the king is also low on squares (only can play &lt;code&gt;Kxg2&lt;/code&gt;).  Since it is likely that a successful tactic will win the game, I was willing to spend about half of my remaining time on the move (although I spent significantly less than that in the game).  I had about 35 minutes left.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/jO5SG.jpg&quot; width=&quot;250&quot; alt=&quot;Black to move and win&quot; title=&quot;Black to move and win&quot; /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1...Bxg3! 2.hxg3 Qh5 0-1&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T16:05:46.737" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T16:05:46.737" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="674" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="351" CreationDate="2012-05-29T19:43:03.873" Score="18" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the second link from Wes' answer, the joint work of &lt;a href=&quot;http://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Yakov+Konoval&quot;&gt;Yakov Konoval&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Marc+Bourzutschky&quot;&gt;Marc Bourzutschky&lt;/a&gt; is mentioned in passing, though not described at all, so I thought I'd give them a shout out here, as they have done a lot of work in particular 7-man endgames. This includes impressive work on pawnless endings, such as showing that in this position, where it is Black to move, White wins in 330 moves with best play:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;1k6/1b5q/N7/8/8/1Q6/8/B1K5 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1...Ka8 2.Nb4! Qh1+ 3.Kb2! Qg1 4.Qa4+! Qa7 5.Qe8+! Qb8 6.Qe1 Bf3 7.Kb1! Qf4 8.Qe8+! Qb8 9.Qe7 Qf4 10.Qd8+ Qb8 11.Qd2 Be4+ 12.Kc1! Qg3 13.Qd4! Qf4+ 14.Kb2! Qf3 15.Qd8+ Kb7 16.Qe7+! Ka8 17.Qe8+ Ka7 18.Qe5 Kb6 19.Ka2! Qf7+ 20.Ka3 Qa7+ 21.Kb2 Bh7 22.Qf6+! Kb5 23.Nd5! Ka5 24.Qc3+ Kb5 25.Nc7+ Kb6 26.Ne6 Qa5 27.Qe3+! Kb5 28.Nd4+ Kc4 29.Nb3! Qd5 30.Qc3+ Kb5 31.Qa5+! Kc6 32.Qa8+! Kd6 33.Qf8+ Kc7 34.Qg7+ Qd7 35.Qg1 Qe7 36.Ka2! Qe2+ 37.Bb2! Qa6+ 38.Ba3! Qe2+ 39.Ka1 Qd3 40.Qc1+! Kd8 41.Nc5! Qd5 42.Na4! Qd4+ 43.Nc3! Kd7 44.Qe1! Bg8 45.Qe7+! Kc6 46.Bb2 Bc4 47.Nb1! Qd6 48.Qe4+ Qd5 49.Qe8+! Qd7 50.Qe1 Qd3 51.Qh1+ Bd5 52.Qh6+! Kd7 53.Qg7+! Kc6 54.Qf6+ Kb7 55.Qe7+ Kc6 56.Bc3 Be4 57.Qe6+ Kc5 58.Qc8+ Kb6 59.Nd2 Bf5 60.Qb8+! Kc6 61.Qa8+! Kc5 62.Qa7+ Kc6 63.Qa4+ Qb5 64.Qa8+ Kd7 65.Qf3 Qa4+ 66.Kb2 Qc2+ 67.Ka3! Be6 68.Qb7+! Ke8 69.Qa8+ Kf7 70.Qf3+ Ke8 71.Qe3 Qa2+ 72.Kb4 Qd5 73.Be5! Qc6 74.Bd4 Kd7 75.Bc5! Qd5 76.Kc3! Qa2 77.Qe4 Qa5+ 78.Bb4! Qd5 79.Qh7+ Bf7 80.Qg7 Qa2 81.Qd4+ Qd5 82.Qa7+ Kc8 83.Qa6+ Kc7 84.Ba5+ Kb8 85.Qb6+ Ka8 86.Qc7 Qb7 87.Qc5 Bd5 88.Qf8+ Qb8 89.Qf5 Qd6 90.Bb4 Qc6+ 91.Kb2 Be6 92.Qa5+ Kb7 93.Bc5 Qa6 94.Qc3 Qc6 95.Qb4+ Ka6 96.Qa3+ Kb7 97.Bg1 Kc7 98.Qe7+ Qd7 99.Qb4 Qd5 100.Kc1 Qc6+ 101.Kd1! Kd7 102.Qd4+ Qd5 103.Qa7+ Kc8 104.Qa4 Qe5 105.Bb6 Qh5+ 106.Kc1 Qe5 107.Bf2 Bd5 108.Qa6+ Kd8 109.Qa3 Kd7 110.Qd3 Qc7+ 111.Kd1 Qd6 112.Bg3 Qc6 113.Qd4 Ke6 114.Bf4 Kf7 115.Be5 Ke6 116.Bh8 Ke7 117.Qb4+ Ke8 118.Be5 Qb7 119.Qc5 Qc6 120.Qa3 Qh6 121.Bc3 Qc6 122.Qa5 Kd7 123.Kc1 Be6 124.Qe5 Qh1+ 125.Kc2 Qd5 126.Qg7+ Bf7 127.Qg3 Qd6 128.Qe3 Bd5 129.Kd1 Qe6 130.Qd4 Kc8 131.Qh8+ Qg8 132.Qf6 Qg4+ 133.Kc1 Qe6 134.Qf8+ Kb7 135.Nf1 Qe4 136.Qc5 Qc4 137.Qe7+! Qc7 138.Qb4+ Qb6 139.Qf8 Qg1 140.Qe7+ Kc6 141.Qf6+ Kd7 142.Kc2 Qg2+ 143.Nd2 Be6 144.Qh6 Qd5 145.Kd1 Qc5 146.Qg7+ Ke8 147.Kc2 Qf5+ 148.Kc1 Qc5 149.Qg6+ Kd7 150.Qd3+ Qd6 151.Qe4 Qa3+ 152.Kc2! Qa2+ 153.Kd1 Qd5 154.Qe3 Qd6 155.Qa7+ Qc7 156.Qd4+ Qd6 157.Qg7+ Qe7 158.Qg1 Kc8 159.Qg6 Qd6 160.Qg7 Qf4 161.Kc1 Qe3 162.Qf6 Kd7 163.Bb4 Kc8 164.Kc2 Kb7 165.Bc3 Bd5 166.Be5 Qc5+ 167.Kd1 Kc8 168.Qf5+ Kd8 169.Nf1 Qg1 170.Bf6+ Kc7 171.Kd2! Qg2+ 172.Ke3! Bc6 173.Nd2! Qg3+ 174.Ke2 Qh2+ 175.Kd1 Qh1+ 176.Kc2 Qd5 177.Qf4+ Kc8 178.Bd4 Qe6 179.Kd1 Bd5 180.Be5 Qb6 181.Qf5+ Qe6 182.Qg5 Qg8 183.Qf4 Qg1+ 184.Ke2 Qg2+ 185.Kd3 Qg6+ 186.Kd4 Bf7 187.Ne4 Qg1+ 188.Kd3 Qd1+ 189.Ke3 Qe1+ 190.Kf3 Qf1+ 191.Nf2! Qc4 192.Qf6 Qe6 193.Qh8+! Qe8 194.Qg7 Qd8 195.Ke2! Qe7 196.Qh8+ Qe8 197.Qh3+ Qe6 198.Qe3! Qb3 199.Qc5+! Kb7 200.Qe7+! Ka6 201.Kd2! Bg6 202.Qc5 Qb6 203.Qc4+! Qb5 204.Qc8+ Qb7 205.Qc3 Qd5+ 206.Ke3! Kb5 207.Qb2+! Kc6 208.Kf4! Qc4+ 209.Kg3! Bc2 210.Kh2 Kd7 211.Qb7+ Ke6 212.Bg3! Bf5 213.Qg7! Qc8 214.Bh4 Qb8+ 215.Kg1 Qe5 216.Qe7+ Kd5 217.Qf7+ Kc6 218.Qb3 Qd4 219.Bg3 Bd7 220.Qb1 Be6 221.Qg6 Kd7 222.Qh7+ Kc6 223.Qc7+ Kb5 224.Qb7+! Qb6 225.Qe4 Bb3 226.Bf4 Qc6 227.Qh7 Qf3 228.Qd7+! Qc6 229.Qg7 Qc5 230.Kg2 Be6 231.Qb2+ Kc6 232.Qe2 Bf5 233.Qe8+ Kb7 234.Kg3 Qc3+ 235.Kh2! Qf6 236.Qb8+ Kc6 237.Qc7+ Kd5 238.Kg1! Qg6+ 239.Bg3! Qf6 240.Qc1 Qd4 241.Qh6 Bd7 242.Qa6 Bc6 243.Qe2 Kc5 244.Be5 Qc4 245.Nd3+! Kb5 246.Qb2+! Ka4 247.Nf4 Qb3 248.Qd4+ Qb4 249.Qa1+ Qa3 250.Qe1 Qf3 251.Kh2! Bb7 252.Qd2 Kb5 253.Bf6 Ka6 254.Be7 Bc6 255.Bc5 Kb7 256.Qb2+ Kc8 257.Qf6 Kb7 258.Qe7+ Kc8 259.Qd6 Kb7 260.Bd4 Ka6 261.Qc7 Kb5 262.Qb6+ Kc4 263.Be3 Kc3 264.Qd4+ Kb3 265.Qd3+ Ka4 266.Qc4+ Ka5 267.Bc5 Qe4 268.Qc3+ Kb5 269.Bd6 Qc4 270.Qe3 Bd7 271.Qd2 Bc6 272.Kh3 Ka6 273.Be5 Bb5 274.Bd4 Qf7 275.Kg3 Qg8+ 276.Kf3 Qb3+ 277.Be3 Kb7 278.Kf2 Kc8 279.Qd6 Qa2+ 280.Kf3 Qc4 281.Qf8+ Kb7 282.Kg3 Qc7 283.Qh8 Qe7 284.Qd4 Qg5+ 285.Kf3 Qf5 286.Qb6+ Kc8 287.Bd4 Qd7 288.Kg3 Qc6 289.Qa7 Qb7 290.Qc5+ Qc6 291.Qf5+ Qd7 292.Qe5 Qe8 293.Ne6 Qg6+ 294.Kf3 Qd3+ 295.Kf4 Qd2+ 296.Kg3! Qd3+ 297.Be3 Qg6+ 298.Ng5 Qe8 299.Qd4 Qd7 300.Qb4 Qd5 301.Bf4 Bc6 302.Qf8+ Kd7 303.Qg7+ Ke8 304.Qc7 Qg2+ 305.Kh4 Qh1+ 306.Bh2 Qd5 307.Kh5 Bd7 308.Bd6 Qh1+ 309.Kg6 Qc6 310. Qb8+! Bc8 311.Qb4! Qd5 312.Qb6 Qf5+ 313.Kh5! Qg4+ 314.Kh6 Qh4+ 315.Kg6! Qc4 316.Kf6 Qf1+ 317.Kg7! Qf5 318.Qe3+! Kd7 319.Nf7 Kc6 320.Qc1+ Kb5 321.Ne5 Be6 322.Qc6+ Ka5 323.Qa8+ Kb6 324.Qb8+ Ka6 325.Bc7 Qg5+ 326.Ng6! Qe3 327.Qa8+ Kb5 328.Qe8+ Ka6 329.Kf6 Qc3+ 330.Be5!&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm sure that appears complicated enough, but to really get a sense as to how complicated the optimal play is from the initial position, note that every move annotated with ! above is an only-winning move, i.e. any other move would allow a draw against best play from Black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They later showed that this position - again with Black to move and with ! indicating an only-winning move - is a win for White in 517 moves:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/1r6/8/6n1/5k2/1b6/3K3N/7Q b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1...Rd7+ 2.Kc3! Bd1 3.Qf1+! Bf3 4.Qc1+! Kf5 5.Kb2! Rb7+ 6.Ka3 Ra7+ 7.Kb4 Rb7+ 8.Ka5 Ra7+ 9.Kb6 Rb7+ 10.Ka6 Re7 11.Qf1 Re6+ 12.Ka7 Re7+ 13.Kb8 Re8+ 14.Kc7 Re3 15.Kc8 Rc3+ 16.Kb8! Kf4 17.Qg1! Ne4 18.Nf1! Rb3+ 19.Ka7! Rd3 20.Qh2+! Kf5 21.Kb8 Nf6 22.Nd2! Bd5 23.Qf2+! Ke5 24.Qe2+ Kd4 25.Ka7 Nd7 26.Qg4+! Kc5 27.Qg1+! Kb4 28.Qb1+! Kc3 29.Qc1+ Kd4 30.Qb2+ Kc5 31.Qc2+! Kd4 32.Qa4+ Kc5 33.Qa5+ Kd4 34.Qb4+ Ke5 35.Ka6 Kf5 36.Qb1 Ne5 37.Kb5! Bc6+ 38.Kb4! Bd5 39.Qf1+ Kg6 40.Qe2 Kf6 41.Qh5 Ke6 42.Qg5 Nc6+ 43.Kb5 Ne5 44.Qh6+ Kf5 45.Nf1 Bc6+ 46.Kb4 Rd4+ 47.Kb3 Rd3+ 48.Ka2 Bd5+ 49.Kb1! Nc4 50.Qh5+! Kf6 51.Qh4+ Ke6 52.Ng3! Rb3+ 53.Kc1! Rc3+ 54.Kd1 Re3 55.Nf1! Ra3 56.Qf4 Kd7 57.Ke1 Kc6 58.Qh6+ Kc5 59.Kf2 Rb3 60.Qh8 Ra3 61.Qb8 Kc6 62.Qb1 Rc3 63.Kg1 Ra3 64.Qc2 Kb6 65.Qf5 Kc5 66.Qf8+ Kb5 67.Qe8+ Kc5 68.Qe2 Rf3 69.Qe7+ Kd4 70.Qg7+ Kc5 71.Qg5 Kc6 72.Qh4 Kb5 73.Qe7 Kb6 74.Qb4+ Kc6 75.Qe1 Ra3 76.Qf2 Rf3 77.Qd4 Kd6 78.Qh4 Kc5 79.Nh2 Ra3 80.Ng4 Ra1+ 81.Kf2! Ra2+ 82.Kg3! Ra3+ 83.Kf4 Rf3+ 84.Kg5 Be6 85.Nf6! Ne5 86.Nh5 Rf5+ 87.Kh6 Ng4+ 88.Kg6! Ne5+ 89.Kh7 Rf7+ 90.Kh6! Ng4+ 91.Kg5 Ne5 92.Qa4 Rf5+ 93.Kh6! Bc4 94.Qa5+ Kd4 95.Qb6+ Kd5 96.Qd8+ Ke4 97.Qd1 Ke3 98.Qc1+ Kd4 99.Ng3 Rf6+ 100.Kh5 Kd5 101.Kh4 Rg6 102.Kh3 Bd3 103.Qf4 Rg8 104.Qb4 Bc4 105.Qd2+ Ke6 106.Qh6+ Kd5 107.Qh7 Kc5 108.Kh2 Rg6 109.Qe7+ Kd5 110.Qd8+ Ke6 111.Qf8 Kd5 112.Kh3 Bb5 113.Qa3 Bc6 114.Kg2 Rf6 115.Kh2 Nf3+ 116.Kh3 Rh6+ 117.Kg2! Nd4 118.Qe7 Kc4+ 119.Kg1! Rg6 120.Qf7+ Re6 121.Qf4 Kd3 122.Qf1+ Kc3 123.Qc1+ Kb4 124.Kh2 Rf6 125.Kh3 Bd7+ 126.Kg2! Bc6+ 127.Kh2 Rf3 128.Qd1 Kc5 129.Nh5 Kd5 130.Qh1 Ke6 131.Qg1 Ke5 132.Qg7+ Ke4 133.Qc7 Kd5 134.Nf4+ Kc4 135.Qb8 Rc3 136.Qa7 Be4 137.Qb6 Bc6 138.Qa6+ Kc5 139.Nd3+ Kd6 140.Nb2 Rb3 141.Nd1 Nf3+ 142.Kg3 Nd4+ 143.Kf2 Rf3+ 144.Ke1 Kd5 145.Qb6 Kc4 146.Qa7 Bb5 147.Nf2 Nc2+ 148.Kf1 Bc6 149.Qa6+ Kc5 150.Qa2 Nd4 151.Kg1! Rf5 152.Kh2 Rh5+ 153.Kg3! Rg5+ 154.Kf4! Rf5+ 155.Kg4 Bf3+ 156.Kh4 Rh5+ 157.Kg3 Rg5+ 158.Kf4 Rf5+ 159.Ke3! Re5+ 160.Kd3 Be2+ 161.Kd2! Kb4 162.Qg8 Bb5 163.Qg4 Re2+ 164.Kc1! Kc4 165.Nd1! Rc2+ 166.Kb1 Rd2 167.Qc8+ Bc6 168.Qg8+! Kb4 169.Nb2 Be4+ 170.Ka2! Nb5 171.Qb3+! Ka5 172.Ka1! Bd5 173.Qa4+! Kb6 174.Qb4! Rd4 175.Qe1 Be4 176.Nd1 Rc4 177.Qe3+ Kc6 178.Kb2 Rc2+ 179.Kb3 Nd6 180.Qh6 Rc5 181.Nc3 Bd5+ 182.Kc2 Kd7 183.Qg7+ Kc6 184.Kd1 Bf7 185.Kd2 Bc4 186.Ke1 Ra5 187.Qf6 Rf5 188.Qg6 Kc7 189.Qg7+ Rf7 190.Qg3 Kc6 191.Qg2+ Kc7 192.Qh2 Kc6 193.Qh1+ Kc5 194.Qh8 Re7+ 195.Kd1! Re8 196.Qh2 Re3 197.Kc2 Rd3 198.Qe5+ Kc6 199.Qh5 Rg3 200.Qa5 Rh3 201.Kd2 Rh2+ 202.Ke3 Rh3+ 203.Kf4 Rd3 204.Na4 Rd4+ 205.Kf3 Rd3+ 206.Kg4 Rd4+ 207.Kh3 Ne4 208.Qa7 Be6+ 209.Kg2! Rb4 210.Qa6+! Kd5 211.Kf3 Kd4 212.Qe2 Kd5 213.Ke3 Bd7 214.Nb2 Bb5 215.Qh5+ Ke6 216.Nd1 Nf6 217.Qh3+ Kf7 218.Kd2 Rd4+ 219.Kc1 Rc4+ 220.Kb2 Rb4+ 221.Ka3 Ra4+ 222.Kb3 Rd4 223.Nc3 Bc4+ 224.Kc2! Be6 225.Qe3 Rh4 226.Qa7+ Kg6 227.Ne2 Rb4 228.Kc1 Rc4+ 229.Kb2 Rb4+ 230.Ka3 Rb3+ 231.Ka4! Rf3 232.Qd4 Bd7+ 233.Kb4 Be6 234.Qc5 Bd7 235.Qd6 Bg4 236.Nd4 Rd3 237.Kc4 Re3 238.Nc6 Bc8 239.Qh2 Re4+ 240.Kc5 Bb7 241.Qg1+ Kh7 242.Na7 Rg4 243.Qh2+ Kg6 244.Nb5 Rg2 245.Qh3 Rg5+ 246.Kb4 Bg2 247.Qh2 Bd5 248.Nd6 Ne4 249.Nc8 Nf6 250.Qd6 Rh5 251.Qc7 Kg5 252.Qe5+ Kg6 253.Qe3 Kh7 254.Qd3+ Kg7 255.Nd6 Rg5 256.Ka4 Rh5 257.Qg3+ Kh7 258.Kb4 Kh6 259.Ka3 Rg5 260.Qc3 Kg6 261.Qc2+ Kh6 262.Nf5+ Kh5 263.Qd3 Kg6 264.Ng3+ Kf7 265.Qe3 Rg8 266.Nf5 Ra8+ 267.Kb2! Ra2+ 268.Kb1 Ra6 269.Qe7+ Kg6 270.Nd6 Rb6+ 271.Kc2 Rb3 272.Qe5 Rf3 273.Kd2 Bc6 274.Nc4 Bd5 275.Ne3 Be4 276.Ng4 Bb7 277.Qe6 Kg5 278.Ne5 Rf2+ 279.Kc3 Rf4 280.Nf7+ Kg6 281.Nd6 Be4 282.Kd2 Rf2+ 283.Ke1 Rf4 284.Qc4 Kg5 285.Qe2 Bg6 286.Qe5+ Kg4 287.Ke2 Bf5 288.Qa1 Nh5 289.Ke3 Bc2 290.Qa8 Bg6 291.Qd5 Ng3 292.Nc4 Nf5+ 293.Ke2! Ng3+ 294.Kd2 Kh3 295.Qc6 Re4 296.Qa6 Re2+ 297.Kc3 Be4 298.Qd6 Kg2 299.Kb4 Bf3 300.Ka5 Nf5 301.Qc5 Be4 302.Kb6 Rc2 303.Qb4 Kf2 304.Ne5 Ke3 305.Nd7 Nd4 306.Qa3+ Ke2 307.Ne5 Nf5 308.Qa6+ Kf2 309.Qa4 Ng3 310.Qb4 Ke3 311.Nc4+ Kd3 312.Nd6 Ke3 313.Ka7 Bd3 314.Qb6+ Kf3 315.Qd4 Be4 316.Kb8 Re2 317.Nf7 Bf5 318.Ng5+ Kg2 319.Qd5+ Be4 320.Qb3 Bf5 321.Qf3+ Kh2 322.Qb7 Re8+ 323.Ka7! Re2 324.Qd5 Rf2 325.Nf3+ Kg2 326.Nd2+ Kh3 327.Qc6 Kg4 328.Qc3 Rf4 329.Nc4 Re4 330.Ne3+ Kg5 331.Qc5 Re6 332.Kb8 Re8+ 333.Kb7 Re6 334.Kc7 Re4 335.Kc6 Re8 336.Kb6 Re4 337.Ka5 Re6 338.Kb5 Re4 339.Nd5 Nh5 340.Ne7 Ng3 341.Qc1+ Kh4 342.Qh6+ Kg4 343.Nd5 Kf3 344.Qf6 Kg4 345.Qg7+ Kf3 346.Qc3+ Kf2 347.Qc5+ Kf3 348.Ka5 Bg4 349.Nf6 Rf4 350.Qc6+ Kf2 351.Nd5 Re4 352.Qf6+ Bf3 353.Nf4 Ne2 354.Nd3+ Ke3 355.Ne5 Rf4 356.Qb6+ Nd4 357.Kb4 Ke4 358.Nc4 Kf5 359.Qh6 Be2 360.Ne3+ Ke5 361.Qh8+ Ke4 362.Qe8+! Kf3 363.Nd5! Re4 364.Qf7+ Kg3 365.Qg6+ Kf3 366.Nf6 Rf4 367.Qh5+ Kg3 368.Qg5+ Kf3 369.Kc3 Nb5+ 370.Kb3! Rc4 371.Nd5 Nd4+ 372.Kb2 Rc2+ 373.Kb1 Ke4 374.Nf6+ Kd3 375.Nd7 Bf3 376.Ne5+ Ke2 377.Qh4 Rd2 378.Nc4! Rd1+ 379.Kb2! Rd3 380.Qg5 Rb3+ 381.Ka2! Rd3 382.Qe5+ Kf2 383.Nb2 Rd2 384.Qf4 Ke2 385.Kb1 Bg2 386.Nc4 Rd3 387.Qh2 Kf1 388.Qh7 Rc3 389.Kb2 Rc2+ 390.Ka3 Rc3+ 391.Kb4 Ne2 392.Ne5 Rh3 393.Qf5+ Ke1 394.Nd3+ Kd2 395.Nc5 Rg3 396.Qh7 Ke3 397.Qd3+ Kf2 398.Qc4 Rc3 399.Qh4+ Rg3 400.Ka5 Kg1 401.Qe7 Kf2 402.Qf6+ Ke1 403.Qh4 Kf1 404.Qd8 Ke1 405.Nd3+ Kd2 406.Nb4+ Kc1 407.Qe7 Kd2 408.Qd6+ Ke3 409.Nc2+ Kf2 410.Qe7 Rf3 411.Qh4+ Rg3 412.Ka6 Bh3 413.Qf6+ Rf3 414.Qa1 Rd3 415.Qe1+ Kf3 416.Qb4 Kg3 417.Qe7 Kf2 418.Ka5 Rc3 419.Qf8+ Rf3 420.Qb4 Rc3 421.Qb6+ Kg3 422.Ne3 Nf4 423.Nc4 Rf3 424.Qc7 Rf2 425.Qg7+ Kh2 426.Qe5 Kg3 427.Qg5+ Kh2 428.Kb6 Bg2 429.Ne3 Bh3 430.Qe5 Kg3 431.Nd5 Kg4 432.Qd4 Kg3 433.Qe3+ Rf3 434.Qe5 Kg4 435.Nf6+ Kg3 436.Ne4+ Kg2 437.Qc5 Ne2 438.Qc4 Nf4 439.Qc2+ Kh1 440.Qc5 Bg2 441.Nf2+ Kh2 442.Ng4+ Kh3 443.Qg5 Rb3+ 444.Ka5 Ra3+ 445.Kb4 Rf3 446.Ne5 Nd5+ 447.Kb5 Rf4 448.Kc5 Be4 449.Nc6 Rh4 450.Qd2 Kg4 451.Qe1 Bg2 452.Qe6+ Kg3 453.Nd4 Nf4 454.Qb3+ Kh2 455.Qe3 Rh5+ 456.Kd6! Rd5+ 457.Ke7! Nh3 458.Qd2 Kg3 459.Qc3+ Kh2 460.Qe3 Rg5 461.Qe2 Nf4 462.Qf2 Rg4 463.Nf5 Nd5+ 464.Ke6 Rg6+ 465.Kd7 Rg4 466.Qe1 Nf6+ 467.Kc7 Ne4 468.Qc1 Rg5 469.Qf4+! Kg1 470.Ne3 Rg7+ 471.Kb6 Rg6+ 472.Ka5 Rg5+ 473.Kb4 Rg6 474.Qe5 Bf3 475.Qa1+ Kh2 476.Qb2+ Kh1 477.Qc1+ Rg1 478.Qc8 Rg3 479.Qh8+ Kg1 480.Qa1+ Kf2 481.Qd4 Rg5 482.Nf5+ Kg2 483.Qb2+ Kh3 484.Ne3 Rh5 485.Nf1 Kg4 486.Qg7+ Kh3 487.Qg1 Rh4 488.Ka3 Rf4 489.Qh2+ Kg4 490.Ne3+ Kg5 491.Nd5 Rf7 492.Qe5+ Kh4 493.Ne7 Ng5 494.Ng8 Ne4 495.Nh6 Rf6 496.Nf5+ Kg4 497.Ne3+ Kh4 498.Kb4 Rb6+ 499.Ka5 Rf6 500.Qh2+ Kg5 501.Qh7 Ng3 502.Qg7+ Rg6 503.Qe5+ Kh6 504.Qf4+ Rg5+ 505.Kb6 Be2 506.Qf8+ Kh7 507.Nd5 Bc4 508.Nf6+ Kg6 509.Nd7 Nh5 510.Qd6+ Kh7 511.Qe7+ Kh6 512.Qe3 Be6 513.Ne5 Bd5 514.Qd4 Bg8 515.Qd2 Nf6 516.Nf3 Nd5+ 517.Kb7 Kg7 518.Qxg5+&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note: &quot;win for white in X moves&quot; here means that, assuming perfect play, it will take X moves &lt;em&gt;for white to reduce the position to a won 6 piece endgame&lt;/em&gt; (for which there are complete tablebases available). It doesn't mean it's X moves until mate. So in the longer example here, for instance, no capture is made until exactly move 517, when a winning 6 piece endgame is reached.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In &lt;a href=&quot;http://kirill-kryukov.com/chess/discussion-board/viewtopic.php?t=805&quot;&gt;a post from 2006&lt;/a&gt;, Bourzutschky himself gives an account of some of their work involving 7-man&#xA;endings with pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-11-14T17:51:58.100" LastActivityDate="2012-11-14T17:51:58.100" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="675" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="518" CreationDate="2012-05-30T04:44:59.440" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm pretty sure Fritz has something like this, not to the extent of going as deep as the images you provided, but any potential patterns that it likes are represented graphically, using coloured arrows and squares, while analysing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Example of Fritz visual output:&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/BLH9T.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;SOURCE:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=3863&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Visualize search in Fritz 10&lt;/a&gt; (21.05.2007)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="271" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-13T16:56:42.340" LastActivityDate="2012-06-13T16:56:42.340" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="676" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="678" CreationDate="2012-05-30T11:47:35.697" Score="10" ViewCount="2712" Body="&lt;p&gt;How important is it to have more pawns in the endgame phase? Does the power of the individual pawns decrease or increase as the game progresses and why?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="288" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-13T18:24:24.087" LastActivityDate="2016-07-14T17:03:12.637" Title="What is the importance of pawns in the endgame?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;pawns&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="677" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-05-30T12:21:04.827" Score="8" ViewCount="1525" Body="&lt;p&gt;I enjoy the Colle System as white, because it often leads to a strong kingside attack for white without exposing my own King to significant danger.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, when my opponent castles behind a fianchetto on the kingside, I often struggle to understand how to attack it, as it significantly blunts the attack of my Bishop at &lt;code&gt;d3&lt;/code&gt;, and advancing kingside pawns would likely open my own King up dangerously.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can anyone point me to a good example of how to attack a fianchettoed king from the Colle system?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="216" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T19:25:36.077" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T19:25:52.033" Title="How can I play Colle System against Kingside Fianchetto?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;fianchetto&gt;&lt;kingside&gt;&lt;colle-system&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="678" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="676" CreationDate="2012-05-30T13:13:31.503" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;Having more pawns than one's opponent (assuming non-pawn material is even) is extremely important in the endgame. Many games of chess boil down to endings where one side has just a single pawn more than the other, and all the action centers around the attempt to promote. In fact, &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/106/when-does-the-middlegame-end-and-the-endgame-begin/123#123&quot;&gt;one could not unreasonably define&lt;/a&gt; endgames, as opposed to middlegames, as those positions in which the main direct objective is to queen a pawn. (There are plenty of alternative definitions as well, none of which can be perfect.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A one-pawn advantage is certainly not always enough to win, but the mere fact that having one extra pawn is very often a winning advantage shows just how important the pawn count is in the endgame, and in this sense I would say pawn &quot;power&quot; (to use your wording) does increase as the game goes on. It is a pretty reliable rule of thumb that the side with the material advantage should look to trade pieces and &lt;em&gt;avoid&lt;/em&gt; trading pawns; conversely, the defender usually strives to trade off as many pawns as possible in order to increase the chances of a draw. Again, this is just a rule of thumb, and one of the beauties of chess is that one constantly encounters exceptions to such &quot;rules,&quot; but this advice will generally steer you in the right direction.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2012-05-30T13:13:31.503" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="679" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="680" CreationDate="2012-05-30T14:36:35.517" Score="14" ViewCount="510" Body="&lt;p&gt;Boris Gelfand was just narrowly edged out by Anand in their match's rapid tiebreaks, and I thought I'd ask an oddball question related to him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The bishop chess piece is known by several different sorts of names in different languages. For instance, while in Icelandic it is referred to as a &quot;biskup,&quot; which is their equivalent of bishop, in German, Danish, Norwegian, Swedish and Finnish the piece is called by those languages' respective equivalents of &quot;runner.&quot; In Romanian it is termed a &quot;nebun,&quot; or crazy person, and in French it is called a &quot;fou,&quot; or fool/jester. (See &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bishop_%28chess%29#History&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this Wikipedia entry&lt;/a&gt; for more detail.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some languages, such as Russian and Turkish, use their terms for &quot;elephant&quot; to refer to the bishop piece, which harkens back to the Indian roots of chess in &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shatranj&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;shatranj&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaturanga&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chaturanga&lt;/a&gt;. Now as it turns out, &quot;gelfand&quot; is &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gelfand&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;the Yiddish word for an elephant&lt;/a&gt;,&#xA;and this got me wondering how the bishop is named in Yiddish. Despite my best googling,&#xA;which turned up useful references like &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.shakki.net/kerhot/KemTS/nap-pieces.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this one&lt;/a&gt;, I surprisingly found no answer&#xA;to this question, and I don't know any Yiddish-speaking chess players. And since Yiddish&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yiddish_language&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;is a fusion&lt;/a&gt; of Hebrew, German, Slavic languages and Romance languages, it's tough to guess which sort of bishop name it would end up with.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, getting to the point, can anyone tell me:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is the bishop referred to as a &quot;gelfand&quot; in Yiddish?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T19:24:55.137" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T19:24:55.137" Title="Does Boris Gelfand share his surname with a chess piece?" Tags="&lt;history&gt;&lt;bishops&gt;&lt;gelfand&gt;&lt;terminology&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="680" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="679" CreationDate="2012-05-30T14:36:35.843" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, just when I was writing the question up, I finally found the answer -- &lt;strong&gt;no&lt;/strong&gt; -- so I am &lt;a href=&quot;http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2011/07/its-ok-to-ask-and-answer-your-own-questions/&quot;&gt;answering my own question&lt;/a&gt;. Way down at the bottom of &lt;a href=&quot;https://sites.google.com/site/kopjikinternational/chess---yiddish-shakh&quot;&gt;this web page&lt;/a&gt;, it gives the Yiddish name for the bishop (once transcribed from the Hebrew alphabet) as &quot;der Loyfer,&quot; which is like the German name &quot;der L&amp;auml;ufer.&quot; So, assuming this is a reliable source (and it's the only one I could find), the Yiddish bishop is a runner, not an elephant. It's just not Gelfand's day I guess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2012-05-30T14:36:35.843" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="681" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="132" CreationDate="2012-05-30T16:22:33.327" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would say &lt;code&gt;1. Na3&lt;/code&gt;.  The reason is that it is the most useless move as far as building a setup around it.  Even moves mentioned like &lt;code&gt;1. h4&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;1. f3&lt;/code&gt; can be useful in some contexts - &lt;code&gt;1. f3&lt;/code&gt; can be useful if you play &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;Nc3&lt;/code&gt; and plan &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt;.  &lt;code&gt;1. h4&lt;/code&gt; can be useful because you discourage your opponent from fianchettoing his bishop, and you can push it again for cramping effect.  It is difficult, however, to imagine any setup where &lt;code&gt;1. Na3&lt;/code&gt; is a helpful move, and furthermore after &lt;code&gt;...e5&lt;/code&gt; you will have to move the knight or play &lt;code&gt;b3&lt;/code&gt; to avoid getting doubled a-pawns, which are probably the worst doubled pawns since the open b-file is rarely useful and they are not supporting anything or guarding any important squares.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="47" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-10T01:25:00.383" LastActivityDate="2012-06-10T01:25:00.383" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="682" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-05-31T00:59:33.297" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Gelfand&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Boris Gelfand&lt;/a&gt; has been among the world's elite grandmasters for many years. Here are a few highlights:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In 1988 he tied for first in the World Junior Championship (though Joel Lautier ultimately won the title).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;He finished joint second (behind victor Viswanathan Anand) with then-champion Vladimir Kramnik in the 2007 World Championship tournament.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In 2009 Gelfand won the Chess World Cup.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;That victory qualified him for the Candidates' Tournament for the 2012 World Championship, which he won through matches against Mamedyarov, Kamsky and Grischuk.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;His 2012 match against the world champion Anand was tied after the full slate of twelve classical games was played. Anand's single victory in the rapid play tie-breaks was enough to deny Gelfand the crown.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-06-21T20:15:45.793" LastActivityDate="2017-06-21T20:15:45.793" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="683" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-05-31T00:59:33.297" Score="0" Body="Boris Gelfand (born 1968 in Minsk, Belarussian SSR) is an Israeli super-GM of remarkable consistency. He represented the Soviet Union and Belarus before moving to Israel in 1998. He's known for his accurate positional play." OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2015-10-01T14:45:37.457" LastActivityDate="2015-10-01T14:45:37.457" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="684" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="676" CreationDate="2012-05-31T08:50:17.170" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is very important to have pawns during the end game, especially if it is a King and Pawn vs. King.  This scenario would most likely allow you to promote your pawn up the board and it would remain protected given your king is closest to it.  Also remember your pawns won't be as powerful if they lack structure, for example if they are unprotected or doubled up or the enemy king is in close range to eat them up.  Also remember that the power of the pawn increases if they are the only ones on the board and the ratio of your pawns to your opponents is greater, for example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;2 pawns : 1 pawn &amp;gt; 3 pawns : 2 Pawns. &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-13T18:23:52.513" LastActivityDate="2012-06-13T18:23:52.513" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="685" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21" CreationDate="2012-05-31T08:53:37.943" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is usually a good idea to NOT bring your queen out early. If you are not careful, you can lose tempo and development because your Queen will be chased around the board as your opponent continues to develop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastActivityDate="2012-05-31T08:53:37.943" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="686" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="696" CreationDate="2012-05-31T14:38:38.583" Score="7" ViewCount="466" Body="&lt;p&gt;For instance, it wouldn't be possible if the Pawn was on the verge of queening.  But is it always possible if the Pawn started off on its original square?  Is it usually possible?  Or is it only rarely possible?  How is it accomplished?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="86" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-03-12T19:08:03.100" LastActivityDate="2020-03-12T19:08:03.100" Title="In how many cases of K, P vs. K, N, N endings can the stronger side force checkmate?" Tags="&lt;draw&gt;&lt;pawns&gt;&lt;knights&gt;&lt;knight-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="687" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1093" CreationDate="2012-05-31T15:16:20.503" Score="5" ViewCount="220" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm looking for a reliable and user-friendly chess clock, but I don't want to spend $50 (under $25 would be preferable).  I'm not sure whether analog or digital would be better for me - so one question is: what are the pros and cons of each?  Also, if possible, I'd like it to show seconds, even for a couple-hour game.  If that's not possible, then at least for the last ten minutes or so.  What type or brand should I pay attention to?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: I've found a couple clocks I'd probably be interested in - one is the cheapest analog clock I could find: a &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ebay.com/itm/Chezmate-CHH-Precision-Quartz-Analog-Chess-Clock-/261028716916?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&amp;amp;hash=item3cc6862174#ht_2736wt_1040&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chezmate precision quartz clock for $20.99&lt;/a&gt;, and the other is the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ebay.com/itm/MASTER-TOURNAMENT-DIGITAL-CHESS-SET-GAME-CLOCK-TIMER-HANDHELD-ELECTRONIC-BOARD-/230765236283?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&amp;amp;hash=item35baae103b#ht_5271wt_1037&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;cheapest digital one - for $32.90&lt;/a&gt;.  I'd like to know if the analog one will be all I'll need, or whether it'll be worth it to go for a digital one.  The digital one seems to have a few more features, but basically, in terms of durability and reliability, which would be better for the price?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="86" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-07-22T00:48:32.627" LastActivityDate="2016-08-19T14:01:25.383" Title="Where can I get a reliable and user-friendly, but not extravagant, chess clock?" Tags="&lt;chess-clocks&gt;&lt;equipment&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="688" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21" CreationDate="2012-05-31T15:34:32.460" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;em&gt;right&lt;/em&gt; answer is &quot;don't do it,&quot; but the &lt;em&gt;straight&lt;/em&gt; answer &amp;ndash; which might be less helpful &amp;ndash; is that&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1 e4 e5&#xA;2 Qh5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;is the best way for White to get the Queen out early, if White is really determined to do so. It's goofy but at least forcing. Best play continues&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;2 ... Nc6&#xA;3 Bc4 g6&#xA;4 Qf3 Nf6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White has already squandered the initiative by this point, though; Black now threatens &lt;code&gt;...Nd4&lt;/code&gt; with a big gain of time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;5 Ne2 =/=&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another suggestion is to play the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evans_Gambit&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Evans Gambit&lt;/a&gt;, where White's &lt;code&gt;Qd1-b3&lt;/code&gt; is often available. But unlike &lt;code&gt;2. Qh5&lt;/code&gt;, that depends on Black's response.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="258" LastEditorUserId="258" LastEditDate="2012-07-10T07:31:28.823" LastActivityDate="2012-07-10T07:31:28.823" CommentCount="0" CommunityOwnedDate="2012-05-31T15:34:32.460" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="690" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="691" CreationDate="2012-05-31T16:28:26.560" Score="16" ViewCount="24482" Body="&lt;p&gt;Most of my chess preparation and studying used to revolve around ChessBase products.  I stored my databases and notes in .cbh files, used computers with the ChessBase interface to study and do preparation, and used the tools that Fritz 12 gave as an aid.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately, ChessBase doesn't seem to make these products for the OS X operating system.  What software is there that lets me study chess, open .cbh files, and use chess computers on a Mac?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="47" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T19:17:37.857" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T14:19:56.517" Title="Alternatives to chessbase on OS X" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;macos&gt;&lt;chessbase&gt;" AnswerCount="11" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="691" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="690" CreationDate="2012-05-31T18:30:55.550" Score="16" Body="&lt;p&gt;I highly recommend &lt;a href=&quot;http://scid.sourceforge.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Scid&lt;/a&gt; (&quot;Shane's Chess Information Database&quot;). Here's a screenshot of the Mac version (more to be found at &lt;a href=&quot;http://mac.softpedia.com/progScreenshots/Scid-Screenshot-38051.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Softpedia&lt;/a&gt;):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/OjrAR.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Softpedia screenshot of Scid on a Mac&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is completely free, has lots of functionality, and is fast (handles my 5.2M game database quickly and fluidly). I have only used Scid in its Linux and windows versions, not the Mac. But from what I understand there are no appreciable differences in the software across these operating systems, and I've certainly never noticed any real differences between the Linux and windows versions in my own use. A few notes:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1.&lt;/strong&gt; Scid cannot open .cbh files directly, but you should be able to use the ChessBase products you've been using to export to PGN, which Scid can then import into databases in its own format.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;2.&lt;/strong&gt; This doesn't apply to you, but for those who have never owned ChessBase but do have some ChessBase files that they'd like to import into Scid, there is a way to do so without buying any ChessBase products, at least on a PC. The old &lt;a href=&quot;http://freechess.50webs.com/fritz.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Fritz 5.32&lt;/a&gt; is now freeware, and can be used to convert ChessBase files to PGN. (Amazingly, I know of no other free program that can do this; maybe someone else does.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;3.&lt;/strong&gt; Scid plays very well with chess engines for use in analyzing games. I have Houdini 1.5 (the free version before it went commercial with 2.0), some version of Stockfish (free), and some version of Crafty (free) in use with my Scid.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;4.&lt;/strong&gt; One potential drawback, but only if you're on an older OS X: you can download the Mac version &lt;a href=&quot;http://cachivaches.chauca.net/scid/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;, and it is pointed out there that the executable is available only for Mac OS X 10.5 or later; if you're using an older version, you'll have to build the program from its source code. They have instructions for doing so though, so it might not be too big of an issue anyway.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;5.&lt;/strong&gt; While I'm at it, I'll point out that some other developer made a free android app called &lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.scid.android&amp;amp;hl=en&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Scid on the go&lt;/a&gt;, which I have used on my android tablet. It's scaled down from regular Scid quite a bit, and I've really only used it in a read-only way (data entry's not really fun on a tablet anyway IMO). But I have my big games database synced across devices using Dropbox, and it's nice to be able pull up games when I've only got my tablet with me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'll end by adding that Scid is the only database program I've ever really used, so do know that my recommendation comes without me having much experience with ChessBase or other commercial alternatives to compare it to. But that's also because I've never had any reason to; Scid really is great, and again, all the software I've mentioned here is completely free.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T19:19:22.223" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T19:19:22.223" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="692" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="687" CreationDate="2012-05-31T22:47:05.383" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you intend to play with any advanced time controls, the digital clocks are better or perhaps necessary.  For example, some blitz time controls don't start counting down until a few extra seconds pass. That is, if you play quickly, you don't run out of time. This isn't possible with analog clocks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have the cheapest analog clock and it's fine for normal tournament play, as far as I can tell.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2012-05-31T22:47:05.383" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="693" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-05-31T23:34:55.877" Score="32" ViewCount="33958" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm looking for a Chess tutoring/teaching app that I can dip in and out of on my phone. At the moment I use &lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.shredderchess.android&amp;amp;hl=en&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Shredder Chess&lt;/a&gt; to practice when on the move (which basically involves repeating the puzzles over and over) but I was looking for some sort of app which has structured lessons on openings, defenses etc. and explains the positions in depth like &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/chessmentor/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess Mentor&lt;/a&gt; does. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does anyone know if this type of app exists? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="264" LastEditorDisplayName="user4378" LastEditDate="2016-01-20T17:06:59.923" LastActivityDate="2020-08-13T08:58:25.937" Title="Are there mobile chess tutoring/training apps for Android or iPhone?" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;training&gt;" AnswerCount="17" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="11" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="694" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="695" CreationDate="2012-06-01T00:08:56.863" Score="16" ViewCount="3398" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've heard chess analysts use the words Zugzwang (being forced to make a bad move) and Zwischenzug (making an intermediate move which improves the outcome of the next move) in commentary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does anyone know how these German words found their way into the chess vernacular? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="264" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-02-14T12:27:07.750" LastActivityDate="2014-02-14T12:27:07.750" Title="What are the origins of the words 'zwischenzug' and 'zugzwang'?" Tags="&lt;history&gt;&lt;terminology&gt;&lt;zugzwang&gt;&lt;zwischenzug&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="695" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="694" CreationDate="2012-06-01T01:03:00.347" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess historian &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Winter_%28chess_historian%29&quot;&gt;Edward Winter&lt;/a&gt; has a page listing the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/extra/earliest.html&quot;&gt;earliest known occurrences&lt;/a&gt; of various chess terms in English, relying mostly on citations from the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.oed.com/&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;OED&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt;, though for these two terms he has slight improvements on those. For &lt;em&gt;Zwischenzug&lt;/em&gt; the earliest known use is in &lt;em&gt;Chess Strategy and Tactics&lt;/em&gt;, by Fred Reinfeld and Irving Chernev from 1933. For &lt;em&gt;Zugzwang&lt;/em&gt; the earliest known use is in the February 1905 issue of &lt;em&gt;Lasker's Chess Magazine&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As to why these terms caught on in English, I'd say the main factor, at least for &lt;em&gt;Zugzwang&lt;/em&gt;, is that German is good at packing a lot of meaning into a single compound word in ways that English isn't. In fact, though &lt;em&gt;Zugzwang&lt;/em&gt; was used as early as 1905 in English, Winter indicates in &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/extra/zugzwang.html&quot;&gt;another article&lt;/a&gt; specifically on &lt;em&gt;Zugzwang&lt;/em&gt; that usage of that term wasn't common in English chess literature until the appearance of the English translation of Nimzowitsch's &lt;em&gt;My System&lt;/em&gt;. He notes that the translator, Philip Hereford, wrote in his introduction that &lt;em&gt;Zugzwang&lt;/em&gt; was the only word he left untranslated&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;mainly, because the single word conveys an idea, or complex of ideas, which can only be expressed in English by a circumlocution.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sure enough, if you try to think of another way to say &quot;Player A is in &lt;em&gt;Zugzwang&lt;/em&gt;,&quot; you do find yourself needing to be much wordier, like &quot;Player A is compelled to move, to his own disadvantage.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The same reason doesn't seem as important for &lt;em&gt;Zwischenzug&lt;/em&gt; though, as it's no easier to call something a &lt;em&gt;Zwischenzug&lt;/em&gt; than to call it an &quot;in-between move,&quot; the literal translation of the term. I don't know, sometimes language is funny I guess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Speculative update:&lt;/strong&gt; Here's an off-the-wall guess. As Winter notes, the first use of &lt;em&gt;Zwischenzug&lt;/em&gt; in English was in 1933. And he also thinks that the English edition of &lt;em&gt;My System&lt;/em&gt;, which was shortly before in 1929, is what brought the use of &lt;em&gt;Zugzwang&lt;/em&gt; into widespread use. So maybe that simply made it &quot;fashionable&quot; at the time to use a similar term like &lt;em&gt;Zwischenzug&lt;/em&gt; as well. Chess players are already sort of like that, with openings coming into and out of fashion over time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-06-01T01:39:28.007" LastActivityDate="2012-06-01T01:39:28.007" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="696" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="686" CreationDate="2012-06-01T14:11:09.453" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let's assume that white is the side with the two knights, and black has the single pawn. The endgame study composer &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexey_Troitsky&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;A. A. Troitzky&lt;/a&gt; gave an analysis (in a lengthy supplement to his 1937 &lt;em&gt;Collection of Chess Studies&lt;/em&gt;) that established what is now known as the &quot;Troitzky line&quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/So8qU.png&quot; alt=&quot;Troitzky line&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So long as a white knight has the black pawn securely blockaded on one of these squares (or further back), then white can win &lt;em&gt;no matter the other arrangement of the pieces&lt;/em&gt;. Now there are also times when white can still win with the pawn already advanced beyond the Troitzky line, &lt;em&gt;but then it usually depends on the location of the black king&lt;/em&gt;; that is, the board usually breaks down into a drawing region for the black king, and a losing region for the black king. Establishing that was also part of Troitzky's work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd be way out of my depth trying to say anything about the details of Troitzky's analysis, and besides, he spent a good 60 pages or so working out the things that he did. But it's not too hard to get the conceptual idea behind the Troitzky line. The most basic winning approach for white is this: to blockade the pawn with one knight, then use the king and other knight to corner the black king, and finally release the pawn to move while bringing the blockading knight in to deliver checkmate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In order for this to work, white needs a fortuitous combination of (1) the pawn not being too quick to queen, and (2) the white knight not being too slow to deliver checkmate. Since the knight is most mobile - has the most travel options - in the center of the board (&quot;A knight on the rim is dim&quot; and all that), it stands to reason that the further away from the center the knight starts, the more time it will need for a win to be guaranteed in general, and so the further back the pawn needs to be from queening. This reality is reflected pretty clearly in the inner V shape of the Troitzky line.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But what about those far advanced rook pawns in the Troitzky line? Well, as often happens with rook pawns, they lead to special cases. Here, the reason white has this additional leeway is because of &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Checkmate#Stamma.27s_mate&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Stamma's mate&lt;/a&gt;, as is pointed out, for instance, in section 35.03 of &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesscafe.com/text/mueller35.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this article&lt;/a&gt; on ChessCafe by Karsten M&amp;uuml;ller (of &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.gambitbooks.com/books/fundend.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Fundamental Chess Endings&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt; fame).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One caveat in all this is that the Troitzky line does not take into account the 50-move rule; though there are wins in all those cases, some of them take longer than 50 moves to convert against perfect play. In the article I just mentioned, M&amp;uuml;ller raised the question of determining a &quot;second Troitzky line&quot; that does take the 50-move rule into account. And in a followup &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesscafe.com/text/mueller36.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;article&lt;/a&gt; he announced that Helmut Conrady solved that problem by using &lt;a href=&quot;http://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Rafael+B.+Andrist&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Rafael Andrist&lt;/a&gt;'s Wilhelm program to analyze the Nalimov tablebases. This second Troitzky line is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/eES3i.png&quot; alt=&quot;Second Troitzky line&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So if a white knight securely blockades the black pawn on one of these squares (or further back), then white can always win in under 50 moves. Note that while there's no guarantee of a 50-move win with either a b- or g-pawn, Conrady's analysis also showed that if the pawn is blockaded on b6/g6 or further back (as in the first Troitzky line), then &lt;em&gt;for over 99% of the possible positions there is a win in under 50 moves&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-07-30T03:10:54.723" LastActivityDate="2012-07-30T03:10:54.723" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="697" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="704" CreationDate="2012-06-01T16:45:25.793" Score="11" ViewCount="3284" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Ulvestad variation starts with &lt;code&gt;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nf6 4.Ng5 d5 5.exd5 b5&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;Now white's best is &lt;code&gt;6.Bf1 Nd4 7.c3&lt;/code&gt; leading to this position:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;      [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;      [StartPly &quot;13&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;      1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nf6 4.Ng5 d5 5.exd5 b5 6.Bf1 Nd4 7.c3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Usually play continues &lt;code&gt;7...Nxd5 8.cxd4 Qxg5 9.Bxb5+ Kd8 10.O-O! Bb7 11.Qf3&lt;/code&gt; and here black has tried both &lt;code&gt;11...exd4&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;11...Rb8&lt;/code&gt;.  I have had a game that continued &lt;code&gt;11...Rb8 12.dxe5 Ne3 13.Qh3 Qxg2+ 14.Qxg2 Nxg2 15.d4 Nh4 16.Bg5+ Be7 17.Bxh4 Bxh4 18.Nc3 Bf3 19.b3 Rb6&lt;/code&gt; and we arrived at this position.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;      [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;      [StartPly &quot;38&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;      1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nf6 4.Ng5 d5 5.exd5 b5 6.Bf1 Nd4 7.c3 Nxd5 8.cxd4 Qxg5 9.Bxb5+ Kd8 10.O-O Bb7 11.Qf3 Rb8 (11...exd4) 12.dxe5 Ne3 13.Qh3 Qxg2+ 14.Qxg2 Nxg2 15.d4 Nh4 16.Bg5+ Be7 17.Bxh4 Bxh4 18.Nc3 Bf3 19.b3 Rb6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think that this position is almost winning for white after &lt;code&gt;20.Bd3&lt;/code&gt; since the checkmate threats are covered.  For example, black can try &lt;code&gt;20...Rg6+ 21.Bxg6 hxg6&lt;/code&gt; but &lt;code&gt;22.Rfd1!!&lt;/code&gt; and white should now be winning.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;      [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;      [StartPly &quot;43&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;      1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nf6 4.Ng5 d5 5.exd5 b5 6.Bf1 Nd4 7.c3 Nxd5 8.cxd4 Qxg5 9.Bxb5+ Kd8 10.O-O Bb7 11.Qf3 Rb8 (11...exd4) 12.dxe5 Ne3 13.Qh3 Qxg2+ 14.Qxg2 Nxg2 15.d4 Nh4 16.Bg5+ Be7 17.Bxh4 Bxh4 18.Nc3 Bf3 19.b3 Rb6 20. Bd3 Rg6 21. Bxg6 hxg6 22. Rfd1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So my question: is the Ulvestad in trouble, or is there some other variation that makes it playable?  The only real alternative that I have found to the variation I gave above is &lt;code&gt;12...Nb4!?&lt;/code&gt;, but I have had several games as white where I won with &lt;code&gt;13.d4! Qg6 14.d5! Bxd5 15.Rd1! Rxb5 16.Nc3&lt;/code&gt; followed by Rxd5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;      [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;      [StartPly &quot;31&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;      1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nf6 4.Ng5 d5 5.exd5 b5 6.Bf1 Nd4 7.c3 Nxd5 8.cxd4 Qxg5 9.Bxb5+ Kd8 10.O-O Bb7 11.Qf3 Rb8 (11...exd4) 12.dxe5 Nb4 13.d4 Qg6 14.d5 Bxd5 15.Rd1 Rxb5 16. Nc3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there another option for black that keeps the Ulvestad alive, or should black be playing &lt;code&gt;5...Na5&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;3...Bc5&lt;/code&gt; instead?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2017-12-31T12:17:32.480" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T19:14:14.373" Title="Is the Ulvestad variation playable for black?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;1.e4&gt;&lt;two-knights&gt;&lt;italian-game&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="8" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="698" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="699" CreationDate="2012-06-01T17:49:46.150" Score="10" ViewCount="632" Body="&lt;p&gt;If I play blindfolded or don't look at the board and just visualize the board, pieces and position in my head, can this improve my regular style of play (physically looking at a board).  Is there any proof to improving regular play via blindfold play?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastActivityDate="2019-12-28T23:33:48.420" Title="Can playing blindfold improve playing non-blindfold?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;blindfold-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="699" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="698" CreationDate="2012-06-01T20:18:14.380" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think there's any proof (nor do I think you'll find any), but I think playing blindfold definitely helps as regular chess practice. The better you can play blindfold, the more you can visualize the board and calculate ahead, in my opinion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Better yet, try playing blindfold against someone who's not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="142" LastActivityDate="2012-06-01T20:18:14.380" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="700" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2066" CreationDate="2012-06-01T20:43:35.697" Score="19" ViewCount="961" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you've spent enough time in the world of chess, it's not unlikely that you've come across the following position, with white to move and win, or an essentially identical one. You'll see plenty of hits for it, for instance, if you google: chess breakthrough combination. And if you hadn't seen it before, now you have:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;6K1/ppp5/6k1/PPP5/8/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.b6! cxb6 (1...axb6 2.c6! bxc6 3.a6) 2.a6! bxa6 3.c6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The exact position can vary; the point is that the black king is far enough removed from the pawns that white can create a queen starting with &lt;code&gt;1. b6!&lt;/code&gt;, when one of the white pawns will get a clear path to promotion, and black's pawns are too far from the finish line to survive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Botvinnik uses this position to illustrate the very concept of combinations in his &quot;What is a 'combination'?&quot; That short piece first appeared in Russian in a 1939 edition of the magazine &lt;em&gt;Shakhmat v. S.S.S.R.&lt;/em&gt;, and it can be found in English as an appendix to his &lt;em&gt;One Hundred Selected Games&lt;/em&gt;. In it, he labels the given diagram simply &quot;An old Position,&quot; suggesting that to him it was a piece of chess folklore, without any specific known origin. So it might be too much for me to ask where/when this combination &lt;em&gt;truly&lt;/em&gt; first arose. Instead, I am only wondering:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;When did this breakthrough combination first appear in the chess literature?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One can hardly ever be entirely sure that something's really the first appearance of a thing like this, so I'd be happy with any answers pointing to earlier sources than Botvinnik's. It doesn't seem too unreasonable that there's something pretty old to be found, when things like the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_gift_sacrifice&quot;&gt;classic &lt;code&gt;Bxh7+&lt;/code&gt; sacrifice&lt;/a&gt; are known to appear at least as far back as &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessville.com/downloads/ebooks.htm#Giochino%20Greco%20On%20the%20Game%20of%20Chess&quot;&gt;Greco's chess manual&lt;/a&gt; of the early 1600s.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-05-31T00:10:31.597" LastActivityDate="2020-05-31T00:10:31.597" Title="What is the origin of this breakthrough combination?" Tags="&lt;history&gt;&lt;problems&gt;&lt;combinations&gt;&lt;botvinnik&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="701" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="703" CreationDate="2012-06-01T22:06:32.037" Score="7" ViewCount="5506" Body="&lt;p&gt;Along with that, I'd like to know what the highest rating of any human has ever been - including historical estimates.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="86" LastActivityDate="2015-11-20T21:28:18.883" Title="What's the highest rating any computer has ever attained?" Tags="&lt;history&gt;&lt;engines&gt;&lt;rating&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="702" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1092" CreationDate="2012-06-01T22:22:56.073" Score="11" ViewCount="873" Body="&lt;p&gt;After White's first nine moves in the Immortal Draw:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nc3 Bc5 3.Na4 Bxf2+ 4.Kxf2 Qh4+ 5.Ke3 Qf4+ 6.Kd3 d5 7.Kc3 Qxe4 8.Kb3 Na6 9.a3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why is &lt;code&gt;9...Qxa4+&lt;/code&gt; the best move here?  Doesn't Black have an advantage with White's King on the third rank?  What hidden (from me, anyway) resource does White have that causes the Queen sacrifice to be necessary?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="86" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-11-14T18:26:29.363" LastActivityDate="2012-11-14T18:26:29.363" Title="In the immortal draw, why is the Queen sac 9...Qxa4+ considered the best move?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;sacrifice&gt;&lt;queens&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="703" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="701" CreationDate="2012-06-01T23:18:50.560" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_top_chess_players_throughout_history&quot;&gt;This page&lt;/a&gt; has a lot of good info.  Kasparov is the highest at 2851.  However, such comparisons are fraught with peril as ratings inflate, and they really can't be compared from era to era.  I don't think it will be long before Magnus Carlsen takes the 'highest rating' crown. This won't mean he's stronger than Kasparov at his peak.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Computer ratings are trickier.  Rybka 3 claims over 3200 Elo.  If this is the true, then only about 6 GMs in the world have a statistical chance of defeating it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT - that 3200 rating is on specialized hardware.  I think on a common (but beefy) PC, the rating is about 100 pts lower.  This means that currently there are about 30 players in the world who have a statistical chance of &lt;em&gt;not losing&lt;/em&gt;.  &lt;em&gt;None&lt;/em&gt; of them have an appreciable chance of winning.  Don't be depressed - no human has an appreciable chance of beating a car at a race.  Somehow this didn't make track and field less interesting.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-12T02:15:50.130" LastActivityDate="2012-06-12T02:15:50.130" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="704" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="697" CreationDate="2012-06-02T10:25:03.113" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, I think this is an excellent question for this forum, so thanks for posting it. I'm going to use a mix of computer analysis with stockfish and crafty, and the chesstempo game database to respond.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your main question: Is Ulvestad playable for black? I think is a definite yes. There are many options unexplored still, but I think even in your specific game black can at least draw with &lt;code&gt;20. ... f5&lt;/code&gt; to counter &lt;code&gt;20. Bd3&lt;/code&gt;, and it's not a picnic for white, either--they have to play fairly precisely to keep it even. I'll get back to this at the end.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To avoid making this overly long (I can tell it's going to be long!), I'll just point out some of the unexplored options you don't cover in the question. For example, move 8 isn't set in stone with 8. cxd4, there are also:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;8. Ne4&#xA;8. Nxf7&#xA;8. h4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But we'll continue down your line with &lt;code&gt;8. cxd4 Qxg5 9. Bxb5+ Kd8&lt;/code&gt;, after which the options for white look like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;10. O-O Rb8 11. Bc6 exd4 12. d3 Qf5 13. Re1 Nf6 14. Nd2 Qxd3 ... (+0.80 D25 - stockfish)&#xA;10. Qf3 exd4 11. Bc6 Nb4 12. Bxa8 Nc2+ 13. Kd1 Bg4 14. Kxc2 Qc5+ ... (+0.56 D25 - stockfish)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After &lt;code&gt;8. cxd4 Qxg5 9. Bxb5+ Kd8 10. O-O&lt;/code&gt; there are another few potential options:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/NzxXf.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;10. ... exd4 11. Bc6 Rb8 12. d3 Qf5 13. Re1 Nf6 14. Nd2 Qxd3 15. Nb3 Qxd1 ...(+0.60 D29 - stockfish)&#xA;10. ... Rb8 11. Bc6 exd4 12. d3 Qf5 13. Re1 Nf6 14. Nd2 Qxd3 15. Nb3 Qxd1 ...(+0.60 D29 - stockfish) (transposes to above)&#xA;10. ... Bb7 11. Qf3 exd4 12. d3 Qe5 13. Nd2 Bd6 14. g3 a6 15. Ba4 Qf6 ... (+0.72 D29 - stockfish)&#xA;10. ... Qg6 11. dxe5 Rb8 12. Nc3 Nf4 13. Qf3 Bb7 14. Qg3 Nxg2 15. d4 Nh4 ...(+.80 D29 - stockfish)&#xA;10. ... Bg4 11. Qb3 Nf4 12. dxe5 Bd7 13. Qg3 Qxg3 14. fxg3 Ng6 15. Nc3 Bc5+ ...(+.84 D29 - stockfish) &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Again, we'll go with your line, &lt;code&gt;8. cxd4 Qxg5 9. Bxb5+ Kd8 10. O-O Bb7 11. Qf3&lt;/code&gt;, to which there are a few ideas possibly worth looking deeper at:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/BsYWQ.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;11. ... Rb8 12. dxe5 Ne3 13. Qh3 Qxg2+ 14. Qxg2 Nxg2 15. d4 Be7 16. Be2 Nh4 (+0.72 D26 - stockfish)&#xA;11. ... exd4 12. Re1 Be7 13. d3 Qf6 14. Nd2 Rb8 15. Bc4 Nb6 16. Qxf6 Bxf6 (+0.76 D26 - stockfish)&#xA;11. ... Qf4 12. Qxf4 exf4 13. Nc3 Nb4 14. Rb1 Bd6 15. d3 Nc2 16. d5 Nd4 (+1.01 D26 - stockfish)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Again we'll go with your line, &lt;code&gt;8. cxd4 Qxg5 9. Bxb5+ Kd8 10. O-O Bb7 11. Qf3 Rb8 12. dxe5 Ne3 13. Qh3 Qxg2 14. Qxg2 Nxg2 15. d4&lt;/code&gt;, and again black has several responses to explore:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/yRJcL.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;15. ... Be7 16. f4 Nh4 17. Nc3 Nf3+ 18. Kf2 Nxd4 19. Rd1 c5 20. Be3 Bf3 (+0.84 D26 - stockfish)&#xA;15. ... f6 16. Be2 Nh4 17. f4 Bb4 18. Nd2 Nf5 19. Nc4 Ke8 20. Rd1 fxe5 (+0.92 D26 - stockfish)&#xA;15. ... Nh4 16. Bg5+ Be7 17. Bxh4 Bxh4 18. Nc3 Bf3 19. Rab1 Rb6 20. Bd3 Kc8 (+1.01 D25 - stockfish)&#xA;15. ... Kc8 16. f4 Nh4 17. Kf2 c5 18. Be3 Bg2 19. Nc3 Bxf1 20. Rxf1 cxd4 (+1.05 D25 - stockfish)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We're almost to the line you left us, but you can see you probably had several other possibilities. We'll continue with the line: &lt;code&gt;8. cxd4 Qxg5 9. Bxb5+ Kd8 10. O-O Bb7 11. Qf3 Rb8 12. dxe5 Ne3 13. Qh3 Qxg2 14. Qxg2 Nxg2 15. d4 Nh5 16. Bg5+ Be7 17. Bxh4 Bxh4 18. Nc3 Bf3 19. b3 Rb6 20. Bd3&lt;/code&gt;, which presents us with an interesting position. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/HHcLP.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It looks like my f5 idea was pretty good, as it seems to be a solid draw for black if both sides play perfectly (as far as I can tell). Interestingly enough, computers don't tend to see f5 until they get 30 deep or so. The goal being to get the h8 rook involved ASAP. If white slips up, they can be in for some pain.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are two reasonable responses to &lt;code&gt;20. ... f5&lt;/code&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;21. Ne2 Rg6+ 22. Ng3 Rf8 23. Rae1 (+0.32 D28 - stockfish)&#xA;21. Bxf5 Rc6 22. Nd1 Rf8 23. Ne3 Bg5 24. Bg4 Rg6 25. Bxf3 Bxe3+ 26. Kh1 Bxd4 (+0.00 D28 - stockfish)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The rest look like probable bad news:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;21. e6 Rxe6 22. Bxf5 Rc6 23. Rac1 Rf8 24. Bd3 Bg5 25. Rc2 Rf4 (-0.92 D28 - stockfish)&#xA;21. exf6 gxf6 22. Bc4 f5 23. Rfe1 Rg6+ 24. Kf1 Rg2 25. Re3 Rxf2+ (-1.53 D28 - stockfish)&#xA;21. Rfe1 Rg6+ 22. Kf1 Rg2 23. Re3 Rxf2+ 24. Kg1 f4 25. Rxf3 Rxf3 (-2.14 D28 - stockfish)&#xA;21. Rfd1 Rg6+ 22. Kf1 Rg2 23. Rd2 Rxh2 24. Ke1 Bg5 25. Rdd1 c6 (-2.70 D28 - stockfish)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I let stockfish think about this position for several hours, and when it gets to about 30-31 deep, the score for both of the best moves dwindles to 0.00 or 0.08 (which indicates a likely draw). I played out several scenarios which involved different colored bishops and rooks that had easily defended pawns, but that couldn't obviously make progress. Or Rook+Knight vs Rook+Bishop. There were a few times that black had a bishop traded for a couple of pawns, but couldn't do anything with it. Never got to a 6 piece EGTB position--always too many pawns leftover. If someone can find a win for white with 20. ... f5, I'd like to see it!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Update 6-20-2012&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;21. Bxf5&lt;/code&gt; seems to be a bad choice after &lt;code&gt;21. ... Rc6 22. Rfc1 Rf8&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/t3SXO.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I haven't looked at other moves other than &lt;code&gt;22. Rfc1&lt;/code&gt; deeply yet (such as &lt;code&gt;22. Rac1&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;22. Nd1&lt;/code&gt;), but white doesn't have many good options at &lt;code&gt;23.&lt;/code&gt; &lt;code&gt;23. Bxh7&lt;/code&gt; looks like it has potential, but after &lt;code&gt;23. ... g6&lt;/code&gt; the bishop becomes hard to use. &lt;code&gt;23. Bd3&lt;/code&gt; is in second place so far, &lt;code&gt;23. Bd4&lt;/code&gt; is in third, and &lt;code&gt;23. Bb1&lt;/code&gt; is in fourth, but they all score negative with 30 depth.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;21. Ne2&lt;/code&gt; looks like it offers white a few chances for draw by repetition several moves in. This line, for example (I need to check some of the others for black to see if there's something better than &lt;code&gt;21. ... Rg6+&lt;/code&gt;, but that seems unlikely): &lt;code&gt;21. ... Rg6+ 22. Ng3 Rg5 23. Rac1 f4 24. Rc3 Rf8 25. Rfc1 c6 26. Bb5 fxg3 27. hxg3 Bxg3 28. fxg3 Rxg3+ 29. Kh2 Rg2+ 30. Kh3 Rg6 31.Bxc6 Rh6+ 32.Kg3 Rg6+ 33.Kh3&lt;/code&gt; ends with a pretty straightforward draw by repetition drawish looking position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/4nsC7.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another update: &lt;code&gt;21. Ne2 Rg6+ 22. Ng3 f4 23. Rfc1 Rg5 24. Rc3 Bb7&lt;/code&gt; looks promising for black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Update: Here is some analysis, if anyone is interested: &lt;a href=&quot;http://mongochess.skeweredrook.com/ulvestad-variation&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://mongochess.skeweredrook.com/ulvestad-variation&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="142" LastEditorUserId="142" LastEditDate="2012-07-01T04:51:33.267" LastActivityDate="2012-07-01T04:51:33.267" CommentCount="11" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="705" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-06-02T12:46:26.873" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2012-06-02T12:46:26.873" LastActivityDate="2012-06-02T12:46:26.873" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="706" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-06-02T12:46:26.873" Score="0" Body="In blindfold chess, players play without sight of the board.  They state their moves verbally while a referee makes them on a board, checking for correctness etc." OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2012-06-02T16:29:40.237" LastActivityDate="2012-06-02T16:29:40.237" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="707" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-06-02T13:52:11.953" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Botvinnik was a well-rounded player who was at the top of chess for 30 years. He had a hand in developing the way world championship matches were played (and titles defended.)  He is also credited with being the first player to systematically prepare for chess matches, including advocating exercise, studying one's own games as well as those of strong opponents, and preparing openings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Botvinnink lost his championship to Smyslov first, then Tal, but recovered the title the following year in both cases due to a 'replay' clause in the tournament rules.  Petrosian defeated him in 1963.  Botvinnik was 52.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikhail_Botvinnik&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;More here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2012-06-02T16:29:43.577" LastActivityDate="2012-06-02T16:29:43.577" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="708" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-06-02T13:52:11.953" Score="0" Body="Mikhail Botvinnik was a longtime world champion: 1948-1957, 1958-1960 and 1961-1963, having twice lost and regained his title (Vasily Smyslov, Mikhail Tal), before finally passing the torch to Tigran Petrosian." OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-06-09T13:15:33.423" LastActivityDate="2012-06-09T13:15:33.423" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="710" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-06-02T19:00:17.667" Score="11" ViewCount="4198" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there any chess engine that has an analysis mode that can show if a position is a forced draw by either side?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is common for engines to output evaluations of 0.0 when they detect a draw. But an evaluation of 0.0 can mean many things. For example, assuming it is white to move, an evaluation of 0.0 can mean:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The game is certainly a draw regardless of how either player plays (e.g. insufficient material).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Both players can force a draw. Neither player can hope to win if their opponent plays perfectly.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;No matter which move white plays, the computer is 100% sure that black can force a draw if he wishes to. White cannot hope to win if black plays perfectly. A draw is the most likely outcome, but a deeper search might show that black can force a win.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The computer is 100% sure that white can force a draw if he wishes to. Black cannot hope to win if white plays perfectly. A draw is the most likely outcome, but a  deeper search might show that white can force a win.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The computer has not found a forced draw for either side, but the evaluation so far is exactly level. A draw is the most likely outcome, but a deeper search may later show an advantage for one side.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just to give an example of when this might be useful, if white doesn't need to win and just wants to be as sure as possible of getting a draw then they might prefer to play a move with evaluation +0.0 and a known forced draw even though another move with a higher evaluation is available.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another example is that if you &lt;em&gt;need&lt;/em&gt; a win (i.e. a draw is just as bad as a loss) you might want to play a move with a slight negative evaluation to avoid giving your opponent the opportunity to force a draw. Even though this increases your chance of losing, it also increases your chance of winning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Obviously there are positions where it is difficult or impossible to be sure whether a forced draw is available or not. But if the engine announces a forced draw then it &lt;em&gt;must&lt;/em&gt; be possible to force a draw. False negatives are acceptable but there should be no false positives.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So in summary, I'd like to know for a specific position if one (or both players) have a forced draw available to them. Calculating the numerical evaluation of the position is not necessary, but if it also provides this at the same time, that's a bonus.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="45" LastEditorUserId="45" LastEditDate="2012-06-02T19:11:08.180" LastActivityDate="2014-03-09T01:05:51.540" Title="Is there any chess engine that can show if one side has a forced draw?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;engines&gt;&lt;draw&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="711" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="727" CreationDate="2012-06-03T00:28:24.570" Score="10" ViewCount="399" Body="&lt;p&gt;I always used to hate playing as black. But recently, I have used gambits more, and I feel it's so powerful, e.g. the &lt;code&gt;1... d5&lt;/code&gt; response to &lt;code&gt;1. e4&lt;/code&gt;. Most of us know that white has a statistical advantage (about 10% more), so it seems that only through gambits can black have a chance. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But what is the best gambit to white starting with &lt;code&gt;1. d4&lt;/code&gt;?  A gambit by black here seems iffy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="227" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-13T18:31:35.060" LastActivityDate="2013-01-12T04:50:50.793" Title="Is use of the gambit the main way for black to win?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;gambits&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="712" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="711" CreationDate="2012-06-03T00:35:12.760" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, the best way to win as black is to play better moves that white does.  Know your openings, be reasonably booked up, and follow established principles.  There's no reason to take unnecessary risks in the opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now if you &lt;em&gt;like&lt;/em&gt; taking risks, that's a different story.  But you don't have to in order to have a decent chance of winning with the black pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2012-06-03T01:43:21.737" LastActivityDate="2012-06-03T01:43:21.737" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="713" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="677" CreationDate="2012-06-03T04:01:02.557" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;If it conforms to your style of play, one possibility is to switch to a stonewall setup, which generally leads to a king-side pawn storm where the g6 pawn acts as a very convenient lever for opening up your opponent's king. It must be said, though, that an early king-side fianchetto followed by &lt;code&gt;...c5&lt;/code&gt; to undermine the white center is probably one of the best and most aggressive ways to meet the Colle system, so if you're not prepared to vary your approach, you shouldn't be surprised if black achieves easy equality immediately out of the opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="297" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-13T18:24:43.027" LastActivityDate="2012-06-13T18:24:43.027" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="714" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="702" CreationDate="2012-06-03T09:07:43.427" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Where has it been mentioned that &lt;code&gt;9... Qxa4+&lt;/code&gt; is the best move? but considering the alternatives it is the move that has made the game immortal, suppose black would have just followed up by playing positional chess only and managed to win, the game would have become just a case of positional example and hardly immortal. The rest of the game was not easy for white, number of times a playing a logical move would have lost white the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="230" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-13T18:29:10.667" LastActivityDate="2012-06-13T18:29:10.667" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="715" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-06-03T13:01:13.913" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1250160&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Click here to see this abomination&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2012-06-04T03:27:22.527" LastActivityDate="2012-06-04T03:27:22.527" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="716" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-06-03T13:01:13.913" Score="0" Body="This is an unorthodox game played by Carl Hamppe and Philipp Meitner in 1872.  After a series of insane attacking moves, black secures a perpetual check." OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2012-06-04T03:27:25.257" LastActivityDate="2012-06-04T03:27:25.257" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="717" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-06-03T13:04:37.030" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2012-06-03T13:04:37.030" LastActivityDate="2012-06-03T13:04:37.030" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="718" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-06-03T13:04:37.030" Score="0" Body="Questions relating to the first dozen or so moves in a game, where the goal is to get pieces into play according to the strategy selected." OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2012-06-04T03:26:14.680" LastActivityDate="2012-06-04T03:26:14.680" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="719" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="702" CreationDate="2012-06-03T15:40:08.833" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;Qxa4+&lt;/code&gt; successfully pulls the King out of the white position, and after &lt;code&gt;Nc5+&lt;/code&gt; there is no way back. In the following moves white had to play &lt;em&gt;very&lt;/em&gt; precisely to avoid loss (sometimes crazy looking moves like &lt;code&gt;14. Bc6&lt;/code&gt;). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.kenilworthchessclub.org/games/java/2009/hamppe-meitner.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this link&lt;/a&gt; for an analysis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="35" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-13T18:29:01.897" LastActivityDate="2012-06-13T18:29:01.897" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="720" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="722" CreationDate="2012-06-03T19:43:26.960" Score="8" ViewCount="536" Body="&lt;p&gt;Wikipedia quotes:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The Indian Defences by g6 coupled with d6, or b6 coupled with e6, were&#xA;  largely taught to European players by the example of Moheschunder and&#xA;  other Indians, to whom the fianchetto developments were a natural&#xA;  legacy from their own game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(The &quot;their own game&quot; in this instance meaning the older &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessplayer?pid=85637&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;variant&lt;/a&gt;.)&#xA;However, my understanding of Shatranj/Chaturanga rules do not allow fianchetto movements at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there another older variant that allows fianchetto movements that these people played?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="298" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-07-31T19:31:19.437" LastActivityDate="2012-07-31T19:31:19.437" Title="Did Indian systems really have fianchettos?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;history&gt;&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;fianchetto&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="722" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="720" CreationDate="2012-06-03T20:08:54.567" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;The page you linked to mentions that &quot;Mohishunder originally played traditional Indian chess, in which pawns did not have the option of moving two squares from the starting row.&quot; I think that reference to traditional Indian chess refers not all the way back to shatranj/chaturanga, but rather to &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_chess&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this 18th and 19th century variant&lt;/a&gt;, which has some significant differences from chess as we know it today, but seemingly does not in any way preclude a fianchetto. And since those rules do preclude any advance of a pawn by two squares, it seems reasonable that systems combining g6/d6 or b6/e6 would naturally arise as methods to develop the bishops in that variant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Updated References:&lt;/strong&gt; As the OP noted in a comment, the wikipedia entry I linked to doesn't indicate any source material. I found another page which describes this variant under the name &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessvariants.org/historic.dir/hindustani.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Hindustani Chess&lt;/a&gt;, and it includes a helpful pointer to the 1913 book &lt;em&gt;A History of Chess&lt;/em&gt;, a 900-page tome written by H.J.R. Murray, which details this particular chess variant in its Chapter IV. As it turns out, it appears that Skyhorse Publishing will be &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.skyhorsepublishing.com/book/?GCOI=60239108641190&amp;amp;&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;reissuing&lt;/a&gt; the book later this year. From their blurb:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;An epic work that took over a decade to complete, A History of Chess, originally published in 1913, was a historic undertaking that shattered preconceptions about the game upon its release. Over a century later, Murray’s research, in which he argues that chess originated in India, is still widely accepted by most chess historians.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-06-04T16:39:41.853" LastActivityDate="2012-06-04T16:39:41.853" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="723" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-06-03T20:33:45.910" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess960&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess960&lt;/a&gt; is a chess variant invented by world chess champion Robert J. Fischer. Originally called Fischer Random chess, it was renamed for marketing purposes to Chess960. The number '960' comes from the 960 possible starting positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first world championship officially sanctioned by FIDE, the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIDE_World_Fischer_Random_Chess_Championship_2019&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE World Fischer Random Chess Championship 2019&lt;/a&gt;, brought additional prominence to this variant. The winner was Wesley So, who defeated world chess champion Magnus Carlsen, by 4 wins and 0 losses, to become the inaugural World Fischer Random Chess Champion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="4399" LastEditDate="2021-04-19T11:48:13.847" LastActivityDate="2021-04-19T11:48:13.847" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="724" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-06-03T20:33:45.910" Score="0" Body="Chess960 is a chess variant in which the positions of the pieces are decided by lot. The point of Chess960 is to stress understanding and calculation, not memorization." OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2012-06-04T03:26:24.900" LastActivityDate="2012-06-04T03:26:24.900" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="725" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="726" CreationDate="2012-06-04T00:32:00.733" Score="23" ViewCount="7223" Body="&lt;p&gt;I understand the theory, and have seen examples, of endgames where a pawn promoted to a queen creates a draw and instead the player typically promotes to rook. My question is, has this ever occurred in a game at the international level?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Instances of a pawn promoted to a knight would be interesting, but not really the target of this question. I am interested in notable games where a pawn was promoted to either a rook or a bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-07T16:30:17.107" LastActivityDate="2019-04-19T07:34:26.800" Title="What are some examples of promoting a pawn to a rook or bishop?" Tags="&lt;pawn-promotion&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="726" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="725" CreationDate="2012-06-04T01:44:28.493" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Promotion_%28chess%29#Promotion_to_rook_or_bishop&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;wikipedia entry on promotion&lt;/a&gt; gives a position from a 2006 game at the Irish Chess Championship, in which a promotion to queen would allow stalemate:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/8/4Q3/8/5q2/8/1p2K2k/8 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1...b1=R! $19 (1...b1=Q?? 2.Qh3+! Kxh3 $10)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The same entry also points to the 1972 game between Aron Reshko and Oleg Kaminsky, where promotion to a queen or rook would allow stalemate, and promoting to a knight would be insufficient to win:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;4Q3/Pq4pk/5p1p/5P1K/6PP/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.a8=B! (1.a8=Q?? Qf7+! 2.Qxf7 $10) (1.a8=R?? Qf7+! 2.Qxf7 $10) 1...Qb3 2.Qd7 $18&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Rook and Bishop promotion is very rare in world class play.  Knight promotion is more common, but not as much as Queen promotion.  From the looks of it, it looks like Knight promotion is popular when promoting to any other piece would result in its immediate capture where as a Knight promotion would often be used to fork a King and a another piece resulting in material gain.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-11-21T05:10:51.237" LastActivityDate="2012-11-21T05:10:51.237" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="727" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="711" CreationDate="2012-06-04T07:35:02.510" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;You ask whether gambit play is the main way for black to play for a win, but instead of gambit play specifically, the issue is more generally one of &lt;em&gt;unbalancing the position&lt;/em&gt; (and this is true regardless of which color one has). Sacrificing material for some other type of compensation is certainly one way to do this, but it is only one of many. Generally speaking, the more unbalanced a position is, the more easily either side can end up playing for a win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Consider the following two somewhat extreme positions. Position A arises in the Exchange Variation of the Slav Defense after the following moves:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. c4 c6 3. cxd5 cxd5 4. Nf3 Nf6 5. Nc3 Nc6 6. Bf4 Bf5 7. e3 e6 8. Bd3 Bxd3 9. Qxd3 Bd6 10. Bxd6 Qxd6 11. O-O O-O&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Position B arises in the Sicilian Dragon:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 g6 6. Be3 Bg7 7. Qd2 Nc6 8. f3 O-O 9. O-O-O&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that material is entirely level in both positions, yet Position A is &lt;strong&gt;much&lt;/strong&gt; more drawish than is Position B. In my database, 1264 out of the 1285 games which reached position A ended in a draw, or 98.4% of them! At the same time, only 2829 out of 10788 games reaching Position B ended in a draw, a mere 26.2%.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason is that in Position A &lt;em&gt;everything&lt;/em&gt; is level: equal material, identical pawn structures and piece development, same-side castling, etc. In Position B, despite the material equality, the position is more unbalanced, in particular via the opposite-side castling, the differing pawn structures, and the fact that each side will need to develop pieces for defensive purposes near its own king and offensive purposes on the other side of the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In sum, I think it's a mistake to think that gambits are necessary in order to play for a win with black, any more than it's necessary with white, and instead one should strive to unbalance the position in order to create greater winning chances. But as with gambits, while unbalancing the position can decrease the likelihood of drawing, this is usually by increasing &lt;em&gt;both&lt;/em&gt; of the individual likelihoods of your winning or your losing. So by upping your chance of winning the full point, you are also taking on greater risk yourself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With that in mind, one should always take one's particular opposition into account. For instance, if one player is significantly stronger than another, he or she might even aim for something like Position A (maybe not quite that, but something like it) with every intention of playing for a win, and counting simply on greater skill and the opponent's inevitable mistakes in order to have very high winning chances without taking on any of the the risk of Position B, wherein the stronger player could have a bad day and make a mistake that, in that position, could be serious enough that even the significantly weaker player could then carry the day from the point when the mistake was made.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even more to the point: despite what I wrote above, it's important to be aware that at the amateur level, absolutely any result can come out of absolutely any opening, no matter how crazy or how lifeless it may seem (or even objectively be). Almost every game at lower levels will involve swings back-and-forth throughout the game, in terms of where the objective advantage lies, as both players make mistakes. So whatever the outcome of the opening phase may be, the game is still there to be had in the middlegame, and then again in the endgame if it gets to there. Thus what is most useful in opening play at the amateur level is aiming for positions that you understand, and that you are comfortable with, as this makes it more likely that you will do better in the middlegame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2013-01-12T04:50:50.793" LastActivityDate="2013-01-12T04:50:50.793" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="728" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="733" CreationDate="2012-06-04T16:23:14.807" Score="11" ViewCount="1216" Body="&lt;p&gt;Has a highly-rated GM ever lost to a low-rated opponent who didn't go on to become a GM?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, currently has there ever been a GM who lost to low-rated opponents on a consistent basis?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastEditorUserId="109" LastEditDate="2012-06-04T17:49:11.973" LastActivityDate="2020-11-22T10:50:21.087" Title="Has a highly-rated GM ever lost to a low-rated opponent who didn't go on to become a GM?" Tags="&lt;history&gt;&lt;famous-players&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="7" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="729" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="759" CreationDate="2012-06-04T18:39:53.100" Score="7" ViewCount="774" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was about to spend some time researching this, but realized someone might have already looked into it; if not, I may just answer my own question in a few hours.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Scid is pegging one core of the CPU, possibly trying to keep up with input from Stockfish? Stockfish is using 0% CPU, possibly blocking while piping output to Scid. That is just what I suspect is happening--haven't confirmed. In any case, stockfish takes a minute or two to get to 2 depth in analysis--usually after a few seconds I'm to 15 depth at least, so it's orders of magnitude slower.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I didn't change any of my UCI settings, just simply upgraded the executable. Same thing happens on Mac and Windows, so it's probably not platform specific, but something related to the UCI interface?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have hash size set to 1024MB, &quot;use sleeping threads&quot; = true, and multiple variations set quite high (100 or so), to see all variations scored and searched, which helps in analysis even though it slows down the depth search. The rest of the settings are default (I'm fairly certain).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="142" LastEditorUserId="12" LastEditDate="2012-06-16T15:12:35.277" LastActivityDate="2012-06-16T15:12:35.277" Title="Why is the latest Stockfish (2.2.2) infinitely slower (than 2.1.1) in Scid?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="730" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="732" CreationDate="2012-06-04T21:45:46.943" Score="29" ViewCount="15546" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know that it is makes no sense to promote a pawn to a bishop or a rook as the queen can compensate for both but a knight is something different. However, the queen is still much more powerful. So what situations would provoke you into promoting your hard-labored pawn to just a knight rather than a queen?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="43" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-12T02:14:24.920" LastActivityDate="2021-05-02T05:04:32.377" Title="Why would one promote a pawn to a knight?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;pawns&gt;&lt;knights&gt;&lt;pawn-promotion&gt;&lt;point-value&gt;" AnswerCount="10" CommentCount="8" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="731" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="730" CreationDate="2012-06-04T21:51:43.590" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you are down on time, and see a mate-in-1 with an additional knight?  :-)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18" LastActivityDate="2012-06-04T21:51:43.590" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="732" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="730" CreationDate="2012-06-04T21:58:26.437" Score="34" Body="&lt;p&gt;White to move:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/q1P1k3/8/8/8/8/6PP/7K w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since my example is rather contrived and artificial, I'll also say that the so-called &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albin_Countergambit,_Lasker_Trap&quot;&gt;Lasker trap&lt;/a&gt; in the Albin Countergambit gives a more realistic setting, and one where a knight promotion is the best option as early as move 7:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 d5 2.c4 e5 3.dxe5 d4 4.e3 $2 Bb4+ 5.Bd2 dxe3! 6.Bxb4 $4 exf2+ 7.Ke2&#xA;fxg1=N+ $1 8.Ke1 Qh4+ 9.Kd2 (9.g3 Qe4+) Nc6 $19&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Oddly enough, I happened across that line for the first time just earlier today.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Oh, and there are situations where underpromotion to a bishop or rook is necessary in order to avoid a stalemate that a queen might create. For instance, in the sequence of moves coming from the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saavedra_position&quot;&gt;Saavedra position&lt;/a&gt;, if white were to create a queen with &lt;code&gt;6. c8=Q&lt;/code&gt;, this would allow black to draw by stalemate, and so white must instead play &lt;code&gt;6. c8=R&lt;/code&gt; in order to win:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/8/1KP5/3r4/8/8/8/k7 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.c7 Rd6+ 2.Kb5 Rd5+ 3.Kb4 Rd4+ 4.Kb3 Rd3+ 5.Kc2 $1 Rd4 $1&#xA;6.c8=R $1 (6.c8=Q $2 Rc4+ $1 7.Qxc4 $10) 6...Ra4 7.Kb3 $18&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-11-02T20:50:31.863" LastActivityDate="2012-11-02T20:50:31.863" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="733" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="728" CreationDate="2012-06-04T22:22:30.903" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;There was one famous reported game supposedly won against Mexican GM Carlos Torres by an amateur, E.Z. Adams, who did not go on to gain additional fame in the chess world&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chicagochess.blogspot.com/2009/11/ez-adams-carlos-torre-new-orleans-1920.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://chicagochess.blogspot.com/2009/11/ez-adams-carlos-torre-new-orleans-1920.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But this game is &quot;suspect&quot; because Adams was Torres' financial backer. So there is a suspicion that the game was &quot;thrown&quot; by Torres, or even made up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2012-06-04T22:22:30.903" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="734" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="739" CreationDate="2012-06-04T23:43:49.207" Score="9" ViewCount="5990" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is anyone running a UCI-compatible GUI on a Mac?  Preferably something native and modern, so WINE and Rosetta (etc) are not needed.  My goal is to simply set up chess positions and let Stockfish analyze.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any suggestions would be appreciated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="10905" LastEditDate="2016-07-28T12:03:23.817" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T18:05:18.167" Title="What are good UCI-compatible GUIs for Mac?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;uci&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="735" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-06-04T23:44:32.920" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2012-06-04T23:44:32.920" LastActivityDate="2012-06-04T23:44:32.920" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="736" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-06-04T23:44:32.920" Score="0" Body="Questions about graphical user interfaces for chess programs.  Many are separate from the engine." OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-06-13T11:03:52.920" LastActivityDate="2012-06-13T11:03:52.920" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="737" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-06-04T23:45:42.950" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2012-06-04T23:45:42.950" LastActivityDate="2012-06-04T23:45:42.950" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="738" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-06-04T23:45:42.950" Score="0" Body="Questions related to Apple Macintosh computers." OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2012-06-04T23:46:45.163" LastActivityDate="2012-06-04T23:46:45.163" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="739" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="734" CreationDate="2012-06-05T01:41:35.330" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Scid is what I use. It's compiled to &lt;a href=&quot;http://scid.sourceforge.net/download.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;a native app&lt;/a&gt;. It seems to work fairly well for this purpose, although Stockfish 2.2.2 is acting weird, you might try 2.1.1 if you have problems. I actually &lt;a href=&quot;http://wes.skeweredrook.com/analyzing-chess-games-with-scid-and-stockfish-on-mac-osx-lion/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;wrote a howto&lt;/a&gt;, even though it's fairly simple.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've recently been running Stockfish with multiple variations turned up to 100, so it looks at all moves deeply, which you wouldn't want to do during a game, but for analysis that you plan to run a long time, it catches some unlikely good moves earlier.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="142" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T18:05:18.167" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T18:05:18.167" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="740" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="744" CreationDate="2012-06-05T06:54:52.850" Score="8" ViewCount="710" Body="&lt;p&gt;Usually a player feels comfortable with few &quot;positions&quot; (unless he/she is a GM). That's why sometimes it's said that a player should choose and begin to study openings whose outcome results in a position he/she likes.&#xA;It's said, for example, that positional players should open with &lt;code&gt;1. d4&lt;/code&gt;, while aggressive players with &lt;code&gt;1. e4&lt;/code&gt;; a Black who chooses Sicilian &lt;code&gt;1. e4 c5&lt;/code&gt; is more aggressive than one who chooses Caro-Kann, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Are there some lines which allow a &lt;em&gt;single&lt;/em&gt; player to change the aggressive or positional path of a game, in order to surprise the opponent?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, a Benko Gambit, despite the &quot;positional&quot; &lt;code&gt;1. d4&lt;/code&gt;, is a double-edged opening, but it's chosen by Black whether to play it or not. Is there an aggressive or very tactical opening that &lt;em&gt;White&lt;/em&gt; may choose after &lt;code&gt;1. d4&lt;/code&gt;?&#xA;Other examples: are there ways, for White, to lead a game to a strategic-positional slow battle when Black chooses a Sicilian Defense? Are there ways for Black to play positionally against a King's Gambit?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="279" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-13T18:37:56.817" LastActivityDate="2012-06-13T18:38:41.667" Title="Can a single player's choice of opening dictate a more (or less) aggressive game?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;psychology&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="741" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="740" CreationDate="2012-06-05T08:26:05.290" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;For the main opening moves, there is no way to do that, e.g. &lt;code&gt;1. e4&lt;/code&gt; can be met with &lt;code&gt;1. e5&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;1. c5&lt;/code&gt; and there is nothing white can do about it. However, there are openings where the response of the opponent is not as important as usual, e.g. in the Colle system. Such openings either delay confrontation, or are very &quot;positional&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="35" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-13T18:38:41.667" LastActivityDate="2012-06-13T18:38:41.667" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="742" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="747" CreationDate="2012-06-05T09:29:20.750" Score="-1" ViewCount="200" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there a quick way to learn to play chess?  How did you get started playing chess?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="306" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-05T14:45:02.160" LastActivityDate="2012-06-13T18:39:44.443" Title="Enthusiastic about learning to play chess" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2012-06-15T21:34:09.667" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="743" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="742" CreationDate="2012-06-05T10:04:47.917" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Find a good player who can teach you the rules and the basics, and then play with him. Playing is surely the easiest (and the most enjoyable) way to learn a game like chess: you'll improve quickly, even if at first you probably will get beaten very often. Then teach chess yourself to some friend of yours, or play with some beginner: this way you may play games with no difference of level (it can be frustrating losing every single game to a more experienced player!).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After that you may try starting playing online, in beginner's rooms of many sites. I'll suggest you to find a chess club near you, if there's any: you'll meet people with same passion as yours, and chess will become even more fun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a final advice, after having mastered the rules and played some games (20 to 100 more or less, it depends on you) go and read a beginner strategy-tactics book, there's plenty of them. Find some forum, and resources on the Net.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just like this site. :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="279" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-13T18:39:29.920" LastActivityDate="2012-06-13T18:39:29.920" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="744" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="740" CreationDate="2012-06-05T10:43:35.060" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;It feels as though you have already answered your own question. After &lt;code&gt;1. d4 d5&lt;/code&gt;, white may choose to offer the Queen's Gambit, and go for a somewhat more tactical variation, though black will likely decline. However, as you mentioned, white choosing &lt;code&gt;1. d4&lt;/code&gt; is already a choice for a more positional play style. The idea is that after &lt;code&gt;1. d4 d5&lt;/code&gt;, you are already facing a closed game, which, in general, will lead to a positional game rather than a tactical one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for the Sicilian defense, white can choose to play a closed Sicilian by not offering up a pawn on d4. This is typically done with the move order &lt;code&gt;1. e4 c5 2. Nc3&lt;/code&gt;, intending to eventually gain some king-side space by not blocking the f pawn with the g1 knight. For this reason, the Sicilian defense is known as a Semi-open line.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black has the option to decline the King's Gambit, though typically white will eventually (usually pretty soon) open up the position. Typically, the move order &lt;code&gt;1. e4 e5&lt;/code&gt; leads to an open game, which in general is more tactical.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, in attempt to answer the question: if you're playing white, and you're looking for a more tactical game, then you should probably open with &lt;code&gt;1. e4&lt;/code&gt; rather than &lt;code&gt;1. d4&lt;/code&gt;. On the other hand, if you want a closed, positional game, I would suggest &lt;code&gt;1. d4&lt;/code&gt;. I hope this helps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="295" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-13T18:38:19.530" LastActivityDate="2012-06-13T18:38:19.530" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="745" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="599" CreationDate="2012-06-05T11:00:05.983" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;I grew up playing Chess OTB with my father, but have since switched mostly to online chess. I sometimes attend a local chess club, and there we play more OTB games. When I play, I find that I'm a little bit less comfortable with OTB play, but not because of time constraints. For me, it's simply that I'm less used to the look and feel of the pieces compared to online. Even the slanted view of the board, and the fact that the pieces are 3D is sometimes strange after a long break from playing OTB.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, once I get used to the fact that I'm physically moving pieces and hitting a clock after each move, there's no real difference. The biggest difference at that point comes in how the time controls are set. Online, you can typically pre-move pieces (move during your opponent's turn, so as to use less time), but such an option doesn't exist OTB. The best you can do is have a &quot;delay&quot; setting on your clock.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="295" LastActivityDate="2012-06-05T11:00:05.983" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="746" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="442" CreationDate="2012-06-05T11:08:37.577" Score="18" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can teach your daughter how to play the game at any age, especially if she is curious. I remember asking my father to teach me around the age of 4, and while I was not very good at the game, I was at least able to understand how the pieces moved. It became my favorite game to play as a child, and I would constantly challenge my father to games, and even win some (I'm certain he let me win). If your daughter is asking, you should teach her.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="295" LastActivityDate="2012-06-05T11:08:37.577" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="747" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="742" CreationDate="2012-06-05T13:23:47.770" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you &lt;em&gt;really&lt;/em&gt; have nobody that can teach you chess, you can get the rules and some basic advice from the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Chess&quot;&gt;Wikibook&lt;/a&gt;, and for playing you can choose from a lot of free chess programs (e.g. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.playwitharena.com&quot;&gt;Arena&lt;/a&gt;) or websites (e.g. &lt;a href=&quot;http://chesstempo.com/&quot;&gt;chess tempo&lt;/a&gt;). Once you have some basic skills, you can try to play against humans as well (e.g. on &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesscube.com&quot;&gt;chess cube&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But it's definitely more fun if you find someone in real life to learn from and to play with...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="35" LastActivityDate="2012-06-05T13:23:47.770" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="748" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="742" CreationDate="2012-06-05T13:27:30.383" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;To answer both your questions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess can be learned in a very short period of time.  It only takes five minutes to learn the basics.  It is extremely hard to master, but you can get up and running with the basics in less time than you think.  Playing with stronger players and practicing will get you better, but it takes lots of time.  It depends on how good you want to be.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I started off just playing randomly, usually against my uncle who was a much stronger player than me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-13T18:39:44.443" LastActivityDate="2012-06-13T18:39:44.443" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="749" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="768" CreationDate="2012-06-05T17:54:25.590" Score="26" ViewCount="6918" Body="&lt;p&gt;I love playing chess, but I find that it is difficult to find people who are willing to commit time to play games with me. I'm not a great player (I've never memorized moves or openings) but I have played enough to know my way around. I invite people over to my apartment every week or so, and I provide drinks and snacks, but it seems that there are some common reasons people don't want to play:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;They aren't good at chess, or think it's too complicated to learn.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes, this answer is just a defensive comment so that when they do play they don't feel humiliated. But sometimes it is just an excuse not to play, and it doesn't matter how good I or any other opponents are. How can I convince people that they don't need to be &amp;quot;good&amp;quot; to enjoy playing a game?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&amp;quot;It's too big of a time commitment.&amp;quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is sort of the same reason that nobody will play Risk or Settlers of Catan with me. Especially since we've all heard of games that last whole weekends--and in chess games can last years! But the reality is that they aren't willing to dedicate just an hour or two to the game, while they are willing to sit in front of a TV for that same time period and don't see it as a problem. How can I convince people that it's worth their time?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&amp;quot;I'm a girl.&amp;quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think women tend to think a group of people playing chess will be a bunch of nerdy guys talking about and doing stuff they're uninterested in. How can this perception be changed?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&amp;quot;Chess is boring.&amp;quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I get this, because it looks kind of boring when you're watching, but once you get into it and you have a basic grasp of tactics and strategy, it's not boring at all. How can I help people see how fun chess really can be?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Other reasons?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are some other reasons people avoid playing chess? What are some strategies to help get people in the door for the first time, and what are some strategies to help people have a fun time on their first visit so that they'll want to come back again?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="283" LastEditorUserId="283" LastEditDate="2021-01-15T13:59:15.167" LastActivityDate="2021-02-20T16:06:55.937" Title="How can I make chess interesting and fun for beginners and doubters?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;clubs&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="750" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="749" CreationDate="2012-06-05T18:17:05.623" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Honestly, if someone does not want to play, I would not force anyone to play (don't get the wrong idea, I don't think you are doing this), but you can always attempt to try much shorter games at first, like 10 minutes, so you can keep someone's attention span.  You never know, in 10 minutes, they may become more interested.  I would also recommend not getting too involved in the game, maybe letting the other person get ahead in development or winning some of your pieces so they gain some confidence and want or desire to play more.  This is a mindset that people have to get into and it can't change instantly. It's like a sudden weather change; people have to become acclimated to it.  If all else fails, try going to a club where you find other chess players who would be willing to stop by and play some games.  Good luck!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-05T19:21:26.620" LastActivityDate="2012-06-05T19:21:26.620" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="751" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="239" CreationDate="2012-06-05T22:06:51.740" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;If the doubled pawns created after taking the Knight leave a b- or g-file half open against your castled King, it might be relatively easy to create an attack against your King if the opponent's Rook leverages the half open b- or g-file by building pressure against your King's castle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="159" LastEditorUserId="159" LastEditDate="2012-06-08T14:59:09.663" LastActivityDate="2012-06-08T14:59:09.663" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="752" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="742" CreationDate="2012-06-05T22:21:38.740" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you're in the US, check out the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.uschess.org&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;USCF web site&lt;/a&gt; and find a local club.  You'll have plenty of opponents then.  There are also many online ways to play - try &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;chess.com&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-13T18:39:36.533" LastActivityDate="2012-06-13T18:39:36.533" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="753" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="749" CreationDate="2012-06-06T00:55:47.280" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;I agree with what @xaisoft had to say, but I wanted to add a couple of points. In general though, someone who doesn't want to play won't enjoy the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For those who do want to try, but are hesitant, there are a few things you can do. Over the last 10 years I have kept a board in my office and encouraged software developers (as well as others) working with me to play the occasional game. It's a great mental exercise and fun way to break up the day.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First make sure that everyone has at least one individual who is a near match for them. If you are just playing bad to try and not be too competitive to a new player they won't appreciate their wins. Instead try and find two people interested in learning to play. They can then enjoy playing against each other and use games against you to improve their skills.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Second, when possible set your board up away from distractions. When I have been successful showing the game to children it has usually been away from technology. This might be in a library, or park, or a quiet room in the house without computer/TV.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T18:02:25.590" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T18:02:25.590" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="754" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="756" CreationDate="2012-06-06T08:11:13.570" Score="18" ViewCount="11933" Body="&lt;p&gt;If I remember well, Kasparov once said that, besides the Ruy Lopez, the Scotch Game is the only &lt;em&gt;serious&lt;/em&gt; attempt for White to get an early advantage in the opening after &lt;code&gt;1.e4 e5&lt;/code&gt;. Is that true?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Scotch Game begins with:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm only a discrete player, and my opening repertoire with White for open games includes Italian Game/2-Knights, 4-Knights ... and King's Gambit, just for fun. :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've tried the Scotch Game but perhaps I didn't understand the logic and the strategy behind its main lines, since I managed to win only against beginners that played &lt;code&gt;3... exd4 4.Nxd4 Nxd4 5.Qxd4&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, &lt;em&gt;what&lt;/em&gt; kind of &quot;advantage&quot; can the Scotch Game provide? And &lt;em&gt;how&lt;/em&gt; can White take it in its main lines? And why is it that openings like the Italian or the 4-Knights do not provide any &quot;serious attempt to get an advantage?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="279" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2017-12-31T11:58:17.983" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T17:59:00.043" Title="Can the Scotch Game really give White chances to get an opening advantage?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;kasparov&gt;&lt;scotch-game&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="7" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="755" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="754" CreationDate="2012-06-06T12:26:38.983" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;To answer your question, no, against a peer, the Scotch Defense will not give you an opening advantage.  &lt;code&gt;3. d4&lt;/code&gt; followed by standard positional play by white doesn't seem to do the trick.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scotch_Game#Scotch_Gambit&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Scotch Gambit&lt;/a&gt; is more daring.  If accepted, it yields an asymmetrical advantage of time versus material.  If you're tactically sharp you may score some points with it.  If declined, the game can transpose into a number of well known positions.  GMs don't often play it often, but we're not GMs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2012-06-06T12:26:38.983" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="756" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="754" CreationDate="2012-06-06T20:07:04.697" Score="17" Body="&lt;p&gt;I like your question a lot. Though I don't play either side of any &lt;code&gt;1. e4 e5&lt;/code&gt; openings, it got me thinking about the motivations behind playing the Scotch Game. Though you were clearly happy with &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/754/can-scotch-game-really-give-white-chances-to-get-an-opening-advantage/755#755&quot;&gt;the answer you accepted&lt;/a&gt;, I'm adding another answer because I don't personally understand how that one addresses the question as you asked it, and I think some further thoughts might be useful for others who come upon the question. So here's an alternative way of looking at things.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To answer your question, yes, against a peer, the Scotch Game really does offer chances of obtaining an opening advantage; Kasparov's record using it against his peers, including Karpov, is a case in point (even though, yes, he is Kasparov and we are not). The Scotch Game will not lead to an opening advantage against equal play by your opponent, but that is no different than with &lt;em&gt;any&lt;/em&gt; opening. For example, that is just as true for the Scotch Gambit which Tony's answer recommends as an alternative. (And, incidentally, if the opponent declines the Scotch Gambit, you can just end up in the Italian Game anyway. If we're dismissing out of hand the &quot;standard positional play&quot; in the Scotch Game as offering no hope for an advantage, as expressed in Tony's answer, then I don't know why we wouldn't do the same for the Italian Game. No reason has been given for dismissing either.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Regarding Kasparov's assertion that only the Ruy Lopez and the Scotch Game are &quot;serious&quot; attempts at obtaining an opening advantage for white after &lt;code&gt;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6&lt;/code&gt;, it is safe to say that he was speaking in terms of what he considered to be a serious attempt where he lived, i.e. the very highest echelon of the chess world. I am of course completely unqualified to confirm or dispute Kasparov's opinion on that matter; judging from the frequency of which openings appear after those moves, it does seem that that is the consensus among top players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In any case, while I won't compare or contrast the Scotch Game with those &quot;lesser&quot; alternatives, I will try to give you a bit of an answer to your question as to what kind of an advantage white can seek in the Scotch Game. As stated above, I don't typically play either side of this opening, and even if I did, I'm not a strong enough player to really be trusted. So I decided to look up John Emms' introductory book &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/185744387X&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Starting Out: The Scotch Game&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt;; the thoughts below come from the beginning of that book, and all opinions expressed here are those of Emms, not myself. (If you find any of this explanation enlightening, then consider it a good advertisement for the rest of his book.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After &lt;code&gt;3. d4 exd4&lt;/code&gt;, white has induced black to give up the center, and we have this pawn structure:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;4k3/pppp1ppp/8/8/4P3/8/PPP2PPP/4K3 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This structure is already inherently better for white, with greater control of the center and more space for the pieces. Since black typically wants to avoid &lt;code&gt;4... Nxd4 5. Qxd4&lt;/code&gt;, which centralizes white's queen in a nice way, white often ends up exchanging the knights himself with &lt;code&gt;Nxc6&lt;/code&gt;, when black has two choices for recapturing. If &lt;code&gt;...dxc6&lt;/code&gt; is played, then we have the following pawn structure, which is also typical of the Exchange Variation of the Ruy Lopez.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;4k3/ppp2ppp/2p5/8/4P3/8/PPP2PPP/4K3 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here white's structural superiority offers a significant advantage in the long-term. For instance, most king-and-pawn endings in this structure are wins for white, because of the ability to create a passer on the kingside, while black cannot do so on the queenside. Everything's not as simple as that, of course, as black can develop pretty painlessly and so has good short-term prospects; but white's structural advantage is the basis for his optimism.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If black instead recaptures via &lt;code&gt;...bxc6&lt;/code&gt;, then her central control is improved, and ideas of playing &lt;code&gt;...d5&lt;/code&gt; are in the air. White often pushes with e5, and we have this structure:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;4k3/p1pp1ppp/2p5/4P3/8/8/PPP2PPP/4K3 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now white has even more space, and the e5 pawn cramps black's position. Black will try to free her position with a &lt;code&gt;...d6&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;...f6&lt;/code&gt; pawn break, and white will try to prevent this, or make it as disadvantageous as possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In none of these scenarios does white obtain an advantage by force (though again, that's just chess for you), but we see that white has structural pluses which offer hopes for an advantage (especially in the long-term) in the Scotch Game. Here's a &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessville.com/reviews/DoubleShotofScotch.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;review&lt;/a&gt; of both Emms' book and a similar one by Gary Lane; if you want more guidance on this opening, that review, at least, is positive about both books.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.193" LastActivityDate="2012-11-23T07:36:27.487" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="758" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="762" CreationDate="2012-06-07T11:40:35.333" Score="33" ViewCount="29890" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm preparing an opening repertoire for a small &quot;open tournament&quot; that will take place in a few weeks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think I'm quite decent at tactical play, and I like situations that give me the initiative - that is, attacking; or counterattacking when my opponent is attacking, since I can't stand rocky but passive defense. I also like games in which I can concentrate my attacks against specific targets (isolated pawn, opponent's blocked center, etc.).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So far, my repertoire is built this way:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;with White&lt;/strong&gt;: basically &lt;code&gt;1.e4&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;against &lt;code&gt;1...e5&lt;/code&gt;, Italian (all variations) and 2-Knights (all variations), 4-Knights (all variations), and some variations of the Russian. Perhaps I'll add some variations of the Scotch Game;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;for &lt;code&gt;1...c5&lt;/code&gt; I've studied some of the main lines of the Open Sicilian, the Alapin and the Closed Sicilian;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;for &lt;code&gt;1...c6&lt;/code&gt; (Caro-Kann) I have prepared the Advance Variation and some of the main lines;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;against &lt;code&gt;1...e6&lt;/code&gt; (French) I know the lines of the Advance Variation;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Against other defenses, I've simply studied the strategical ideas behind the most famous &quot;lesser&quot; defences (Scandinavian, Pirc, Nimzowitsch, etc.), and I plan to play natural moves without searching for &quot;early confutation&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;with Black&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;against &lt;code&gt;1.e4&lt;/code&gt; I think I know kinda well Sicilian Kan, Paulsen and Sveshnikov, and many variations of the French Defense;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;against &lt;code&gt;1.c4&lt;/code&gt; I usually play the Reverse-Sicilian, and sometimes the Symmetrical English.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I cannot find a decent opening to play against &lt;code&gt;1.d4&lt;/code&gt; (just a lesser opening, indeed xD). And this can be a problem also against &lt;code&gt;1.Nf3&lt;/code&gt;, due to the many transpositions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I used to play the &quot;Nimzo-Indian + Queen's Indian&quot; pair, but recently I found that those openings do not suit my playing style, especially the Queen's Indian. I've looked something about the Slav Defense, but I'm really scared of the many transposition into Semi-Slav and Queen's Gambit Declined (and the study that lies behind!). And I'm even more scared of theory speaking of King's Indian and Gruenfeld.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, does anyone know defenses that may suit my playing style with Black against &lt;code&gt;1.d4&lt;/code&gt;? Do you think that, if I fill this void, my repertoire is complete enough?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="279" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-13T18:44:29.587" LastActivityDate="2019-11-16T22:52:47.333" Title="What openings are good for the repertoire of a tactical player?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="10" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="19" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="759" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="729" CreationDate="2012-06-07T14:12:24.493" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;So, I hashed this out some in a &lt;a href=&quot;http://support.stockfishchess.com/discussions/problems/163-performance-with-stockfish-222-vs-211&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;support thread on the stockfish forum&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically, you should skip 2.2.2 and compile &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/mcostalba/Stockfish&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;the latest from github&lt;/a&gt; (or just continue to use 2.1.1). I think I'll try this new code for a while to see how it does. The latest code from github works great in chesstempo's UCI connector. It's still a little slow out of the gates in Scid (and Scid acts like it's hanging and doesn't respond to UI commands), but it speeds up as it gets deeper in the search, so it's bearable after 30 seconds or so. I had trouble getting multipv (multiple variations) to work at high numbers, though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think Scid should not block the input from the UCI interface--buffering more, if need be. Maybe I'll take a look at the Scid code later to see if I can improve it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="142" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-13T18:35:19.957" LastActivityDate="2012-06-13T18:35:19.957" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="760" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="734" CreationDate="2012-06-07T14:59:08.040" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Wow, I usually wouldn't add another answer like this, but I've been quite impressed by the fork of Scid called &lt;a href=&quot;http://scidvspc.sourceforge.net/&quot;&gt;Scid vs PC&lt;/a&gt; (which is more actively maintained, and has a mac distribution called Scid vs Mac). I found it while looking for mac build instructions for Scid while trying to make scid do a better job of processing stockfish's input. (and by the way, Scid vs PC doesn't fix the stockfish 2.2+ problem, as it still depends on the tcl one line at a time input parsing).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="142" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-13T18:36:59.797" LastActivityDate="2012-06-13T18:36:59.797" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="761" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="442" CreationDate="2012-06-07T16:40:02.423" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;As early as &lt;code&gt;he&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;she&lt;/code&gt; can. But do not force it upon the child. Just show the path.  The child if interested (s)he will pick it up soon or a bit later in their life.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user127" LastActivityDate="2012-06-07T16:40:02.423" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="762" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="758" CreationDate="2012-06-07T19:11:25.193" Score="32" Body="&lt;h2&gt;TL;DR&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Good repertoire for fighting chess for white.  As black, you can play &lt;code&gt;1...c5&lt;/code&gt; against &lt;code&gt;1.Nf3&lt;/code&gt;, and against &lt;code&gt;1.d4&lt;/code&gt; I would recommend looking at the following openings and picking your favorite:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Grunfeld&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;King's Indian Defense&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Slav&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Dutch&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is going to be a long answer, so bear with me...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your white opening looks acceptable.  I won't really get into the merits of any of your specific choices other than to say be careful with the Advance Caro and Advance French - those don't always let you play a tactical game against strong opposition.  You could look into the French Tarrasch (surprising, I know, but even the closed main line gives white kingside attacking chances) and the Panov-Botvinnik Attack against the Caro.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Against &lt;code&gt;1.d4&lt;/code&gt;, almost all players have difficulty right now.  From the very best GM's down to the average club players, the last 5-10 years have shown that white has excellent chances for an advantage with queen pawn openings.  There are two openings that are currently &quot;in vogue&quot; at the top level - the Grunfeld and the Slav.  These two openings are by no means the only options, but current theory holds that black can maintain equality with best play, and additionally, black has chances to win with both openings.  I'll also mention the Dutch, the King's Indian Defense, the Nimzo/QID, and the classical QGD in this answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Grunfeld&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Grunfeld is one of the best openings for black against &lt;code&gt;1.d4&lt;/code&gt; right now.  Black does not occupy the center, but instead attacks it from afar with moves like Bg7, c5, Nc6, and sometimes e5 and Rd8.  White has not been able to find a clear advantage against black's best play, and most Grunfeld endgames favor black due to the queenside pawn structure.  I would recommend the Grunfeld for players who are not afraid to study theory - sometimes a LOT of theory.  Furthermore, Grunfeld players should be willing to take on certain disadvantages in exchange for counterplay.  Black will frequently have a large space disadvantage early in the game and it takes experience to push back white to get to an advantageous endgame.  That said, the Grunfeld offers EXCELLENT winning chances against lower rated players, especially in endgames that look equal at first.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Slav&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Slav is another very common opening right now.  If you want a crash course on the Slav, you can look at Anand's games in the last few matches that he has played.  The Slav is another opening that can require a lot of theory, especially when you get into the Botvinnik System and the Moscow/Anti-Moscow variations.  The biggest drawback to the Slav is that white can force a symmetrical game by playing an early cxd5.  The Exchange Slav is very boring, but if you are a higher rated player, it is still possible to grind your way to victory in the Exchange Slav.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Dutch&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Dutch is quite possibly the best opening for a tactical game, but black is really playing with fire.  It is very easy to slip into a lost position if you are not playing every move accurately.  Within the Dutch, there are a few systems that are all playable - the Stonewall, the Leningrad, and the Classical.  The biggest advantage to playing the Dutch is that white players that have memorized 25 moves in the Catalan won't be able to play by memory and will have to figure out what to do at the board.  Furthermore, black frequently will get a kingside attack going with the Leningrad Dutch.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;King's Indian Defense&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The KID is another opening where black can be positionally lost without many mistakes.  For example, if you play the Queen's Gambit Declined as black, you can make 3 or 4 subpar moves without really getting a bad position.  The Dutch and the KID are another story - one misstep and black might already be losing.  If you are willing to take that chance, or you are confident in your ability to deal with tactics, then the KID is a good choice.  It offers black a kingside attack (usually) and chances for the full point.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Other Openings&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just to touch on alternatives - the &lt;strong&gt;QGD&lt;/strong&gt; is always a solid choice, but black can have a very hard time finishing development.  The bishop on c8 sometimes cannot be developed until move 20 or even later.  If you are not comfortable playing a cramped position, stay away from the QGD.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;strong&gt;Indian Systems&lt;/strong&gt; (Nimzo and QID) are good choices, but per your question, I didn't mention them very much.  At the GM level, these defenses are still played, but white has found ways to get a good game against both the Nimzo (look into &lt;code&gt;4.Qc2&lt;/code&gt;) and the QID.  Furthermore, since the Catalan is so popular, you will frequently not get the chance to play a true Indian Defense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Final Thoughts&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You might notice that I did not recommend any gambits like the Albin Countergambit or the Budapest.  With good play, white gets a great position against both of those choices.  With quiet play, white still gets an equal position and black's initiative dries up quite quickly (for example g3 against the Budapest).  Additionally, the Benoni and the Benko Gambit are not mentioned because black has to solve quite a few problems according to modern theory.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ultimately, you will have to try out all of these openings and decide which one you like the best.  Personally, I play the KID, the Grunfeld, and the Dutch mostly.  The main point is that if you want a super sharp game, don't allow symmetrical positions (for example, your choice to play the Sicilian as black against &lt;code&gt;1.e4&lt;/code&gt;).  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12" LastActivityDate="2012-06-07T19:11:25.193" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="763" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="758" CreationDate="2012-06-07T20:19:05.403" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;Besides what Andrew had mentioned, I would also recommend looking into:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Von Henning Schara Gambit&#xA;Tarrasch Defense&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastActivityDate="2012-06-07T20:19:05.403" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="764" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-06-07T23:16:49.063" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2012-06-07T23:16:49.063" LastActivityDate="2012-06-07T23:16:49.063" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="765" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-06-07T23:16:49.063" Score="0" Body="Questions related to learning how to play chess and improving your chess skills. This can also be used for questions concerning &quot;learning&quot; chess engines." OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="10905" LastEditDate="2016-11-21T20:09:39.607" LastActivityDate="2016-11-21T20:09:39.607" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="766" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-06-07T23:19:51.527" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;If a player's pawn advances fully to the opponent's edge of the board (the eighth rank for a white pawn, or the first rank for a black pawn), then it is promoted to one of the other types of pieces - queen, rook, bishop or knight. In actual game play, promotion is nearly always to a queen since it is the strongest option. But &quot;underpromotion&quot; is a common theme in the composition of chess problems, and it can be useful or necessary in real games as well. For instance, see these questions and their answers:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;/q/730&quot;&gt;Why would one promote a pawn to a knight?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;/q/725&quot;&gt;What are some examples of promoting a pawn to a rook or bishop?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-06-22T09:22:31.297" LastActivityDate="2017-06-22T09:22:31.297" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="767" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-06-07T23:19:51.527" Score="0" Body="Questions related to techniques for promoting pawns, or the promotion itself." OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2012-06-08T02:16:04.993" LastActivityDate="2012-06-08T02:16:04.993" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="768" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="749" CreationDate="2012-06-08T03:06:13.897" Score="17" Body="&lt;p&gt;You need to show them &lt;em&gt;how to win&lt;/em&gt;! Letting them win, or going easy on them, I don't think is the answer. Communicating a few simple chess concepts can go a long way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's how I would approach it (once they understand the rules):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;play&lt;/strong&gt; a few games (noting the moves)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;show them &lt;strong&gt;a few simple concepts&lt;/strong&gt; such as the pin and the fork, the three opening principles, knights in pawn holes and good/bad bishops, the concept of the king net, and &lt;em&gt;some simple patterns&lt;/em&gt; such as the back-rank mate, KRRvK mate and the rook-roll, or KRvK mate.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;go over the previously played games and &lt;strong&gt;spot these concepts appearing&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;go on and &lt;strong&gt;play some more&lt;/strong&gt; games and &lt;em&gt;note their improvement&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The problem is, &lt;em&gt;most people have the mistaken impression that chess skill is directly related to intelligence&lt;/em&gt;. Because it's common for people to underestimate their intelligence, they don't believe they will be any good at the game and will most likely lose, while at the same time being perceived to be unintelligent because they failed at chess — no fun at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The key is to show them how to win via the communication of a few simple chess principles, which has the added benefits of improving their self-esteem, while at the same time giving them a glimpse into the underlying, invisible-to-the-non-chess-player beauty of chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="97" LastEditorUserId="672" LastEditDate="2012-12-05T02:21:56.800" LastActivityDate="2012-12-05T02:21:56.800" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="769" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="770" CreationDate="2012-06-08T09:15:26.163" Score="11" ViewCount="2425" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have been playing chess for the last two years. I am trying techniques like controlling the center, not allowing weak pawn structure, etc. Now I am trying to build up an opening repertoire. My question is where to start? Which openings should be checked first? Are there any techniques for memorizing these openings? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I study some openings and their variations, will that help in memorizing other openings? In other words, are there any patterns in these openings? Glad to hear from experienced players soon.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="223" LastEditorUserId="10867" LastEditDate="2016-07-26T18:35:52.500" LastActivityDate="2018-06-02T01:57:28.540" Title="How can I build my opening repertoire and memorization?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;preparation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="770" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="769" CreationDate="2012-06-08T10:17:25.143" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a pretty broad question.&#xA;But you can follow some simple steps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1. &quot;What kind of player am I?&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is the first question you should ask yourself. Do you like complicated tactical combinations that can give you attacking chances? Or your playing style is more quiet and you prefer positional battles, where you build your advantage little by little? Once you have answered this question, you can choose openings according to your preferences, finding positions you feel more comfortable with.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;2. Black and White&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To build a complete repertoire you may choose openings you like the most, and your choice should include openings for both Black and White side.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Instead of memorizing long sequences of moves, variants, and so on, I tend to privilege a different approach, more gradual and less &quot;automatic&quot;. To help you in this work, you'd better have a general &quot;opening book&quot;, or follow a general &quot;chess openings website&quot;. It should cover the most common openings, giving you also explanation for each move, and maybe some example games. And last but not least, it should be recent, since theory is running fast.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should start choosing your repertoire when you play with White, since it's easier.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's begin considering only the 2 more common moves for White, &lt;code&gt;1.e4&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;1.d4&lt;/code&gt;.&#xA;Are you a tactical player? Do you like attacking your opponent's King? Then you should start with &lt;code&gt;1.e4&lt;/code&gt;. Do you prefer positional play and a solid approach? Then go for &lt;code&gt;1.d4&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's assume you chose &lt;code&gt;1.e4&lt;/code&gt;. Now, what are the most common responses for Black? I think they are: &lt;code&gt;1...e5&lt;/code&gt; (Open games), &lt;code&gt;1...c5&lt;/code&gt; (Sicilian Defense), &lt;code&gt;1...e6&lt;/code&gt; (French Defense), &lt;code&gt;1...c6&lt;/code&gt; (Caro-Kann). Once you have found which are those responses, you have to face them &lt;strong&gt;ONE BY ONE&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, in case your opponent plays &lt;code&gt;1...c5&lt;/code&gt; and goes for a Sicilian, what should you do with White? Again, find the most common choices: &lt;code&gt;2.Nf3&lt;/code&gt; (Open Sicilian), &lt;code&gt;2.c3&lt;/code&gt; (Alapin), &lt;code&gt;2.Nc3&lt;/code&gt; (Closed Sicilian). Let's say you choose &lt;code&gt;2.c3&lt;/code&gt;. What are the most common responses for Black? ...and so on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To help you in your choices, read your opening book, and choose moves whose comments seem to adhere to your playing style (that's why step-1 of this answer is important). &lt;em&gt;Never&lt;/em&gt; choose a variation just because it's said to be &quot;the best&quot; or &quot;the most popular&quot;. Pick moves according to what you feel about it, unless there's a clear confutation to that move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After you've have arrived at a certain point (after 2-4 moves), you should go back and face the next &quot;mosto common choice&quot; you've left behind. Now, let's assume that Black plays &lt;code&gt;1...e5&lt;/code&gt;. What move should you choose? You find the most common moves, choose one, and go on a little bit. And again, and again, &lt;em&gt;until you exhaust all those &quot;most common choices&quot;&lt;/em&gt; you left behind.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With Black you do basically the same thing, with the exception that you have to face from the beginning different first moves by White (at least, you should find your responses agaist &lt;code&gt;1.e4&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;1.d4&lt;/code&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;3. Learning, not memorizing&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this way, little by little you build some &quot;trees&quot; of opening moves, one for White and at least two for Black. Each branch of those trees is a &quot;path&quot;, a choice you make when you make your move. But you should never &quot;memorize&quot; the move itself. You'd better learn the meaning that lies behind each move: &quot;why you play this instead of that?&quot; is the question you always have to find the answer to, when you study openings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At first, your trees might be very short, and you might get confused even after sequences of 3-4 moves. But if you play regularly, you'll manage to master the openings you've chosen, and then you can deepen your tree-paths, add branches (variations), and choose many of them during the game, thus varying your game (and this will improve your playing strenght, since you'll run into different tactical-strategical situations).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you'll feel more confident you can go and read books that focus on specific openings. You will widen your trees, play various kind of games, and learn that sometimes tactical-strategical ideas behind an openig are used also in a different opening. You'll learn evetually about the good and the bad in moves transposition, and how to manage them. But you'll have to work hard to get there. :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Take just one step at a time. :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="279" LastEditorUserId="279" LastEditDate="2012-06-08T11:22:48.953" LastActivityDate="2012-06-08T11:22:48.953" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="771" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="773" CreationDate="2012-06-08T14:58:27.370" Score="11" ViewCount="3702" Body="&lt;p&gt;After the first two moves of the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greco_Defence&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Greco Defense&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Qf6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;what should White's agenda be?  I see that the wikibook &lt;em&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Chess_Opening_Theory/1._e4/1...e5/2._Nf3/2...Qf6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess Opening Theory&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt; suggests &lt;code&gt;3. Bc4&lt;/code&gt;, but it doesn't go into detail.  I'm not used to this opening as White, and never play it as Black, so I'm not sure 1) what to aim for in order to undermine Black's early Queen advance, and 2) how to guard against a possible kingside attack.  For instance, should I castle Queenside, or isn't that necessary?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="86" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-07-26T17:01:13.090" LastActivityDate="2019-07-26T17:05:12.373" Title="What are White's advantages against the Greco Defense?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;attack&gt;&lt;defense&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="772" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="771" CreationDate="2012-06-08T15:54:30.423" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;As White, I'd concentrate on chasing Black's queen. &lt;code&gt;3. Nc3&lt;/code&gt; is a normal developing move, and threatens &lt;code&gt;4.Nd5&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another move is &lt;code&gt;3. d3&lt;/code&gt;, which threatens &lt;code&gt;4. Bg5&lt;/code&gt;. Black's most threatening countermove is &lt;code&gt;3.... Bc5&lt;/code&gt;, which can be met by &lt;code&gt;4. Be3&lt;/code&gt;. If Black exchanges bishops, it opens the &lt;code&gt;f&lt;/code&gt; file for the (castled) rook to chase the queen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No need to sweat this one because the Greco Defense is an inferior opening.  Just make good developing moves and Black will fall behind in development.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-08T23:33:37.457" LastActivityDate="2012-06-08T23:33:37.457" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="773" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="771" CreationDate="2012-06-08T16:14:25.983" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;2... Qf6&lt;/code&gt;, while not strictly unsound, is definitely an inferior move, not only because it develops the queen prematurely, but also (and more importantly) because it deprives the black king's knight of a very natural square on f6. Don't panic about a possible king-side attack -- black cannot mate with no minor pieces developed. There are a number of reasonable continuations for white:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;3. Nc3&lt;/code&gt;, a natural and flexible developing move that eyes the d5 square, threatens to chase the queen with gain of time, and doesn't commit to any particular pawn structure.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;3. d3&lt;/code&gt;, a perfectly valid move, but somewhat passive and has the distinct flaw of locking in the light-square bishop. Unless you strongly prefer to play slow, positional chess, I would develop with &lt;code&gt;3. Bc4&lt;/code&gt; prior to playing &lt;code&gt;d3&lt;/code&gt; (if at all). If you play &lt;code&gt;d3&lt;/code&gt;, the logical plans are either to prepare a central break with &lt;code&gt;c3&lt;/code&gt; and a subsequent &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt;, or to castle kingside and prepare &lt;code&gt;f4&lt;/code&gt; after re-maneuvering the f3 knight. Which of those plans is preferable depends on your opponent's development, of course.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;3. Bc4&lt;/code&gt;, versatile and potentially very aggressive, threatening an eventual &lt;code&gt;Ng5&lt;/code&gt; and pressure on f7 after white's d-pawn moves. This is definitely the move I'd favor in a rapid game, and I don't think it's objectively worse than &lt;code&gt;3. Nc3&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other moves, such as &lt;code&gt;3. d4&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;3. c3&lt;/code&gt;, are probably sub-optimal. An immediate &lt;code&gt;3. d4&lt;/code&gt; push is likely to lead to exchanges and a relatively drawish position (and might end up transposing to lines of the Scotch that are not particularly good for white), while &lt;code&gt;3. c3&lt;/code&gt; is slow and somewhat crude and might allow black to equalize with dynamic piece play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="297" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-08T23:33:42.963" LastActivityDate="2012-06-08T23:33:42.963" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="774" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-06-08T16:29:50.720" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greco_Defence&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Greco Defense&lt;/a&gt; runs as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1.  e4   e5&#xA;2. Nf3  Qf6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Though &lt;code&gt;2. ... Qf6&lt;/code&gt; defends the e5 pawn, it isn't the best way to do so, as the black queen can become a target after being developed so early and the g8 knight is deprived of its most natural developing square (f6). For such reasons, the Greco Defense doesn't appear in high-level games in current times.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="86" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-08-04T23:10:02.627" LastActivityDate="2012-08-04T23:10:02.627" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="775" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-06-08T16:29:50.720" Score="0" Body="The Greco Defense is the opening given by the moves 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Qf6." OwnerUserId="86" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-08-04T23:10:02.627" LastActivityDate="2012-08-04T23:10:02.627" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="776" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="771" CreationDate="2012-06-08T16:31:29.440" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;What about a gambit try?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Qf6 3.d4 exd4 4. c3 dxc3 5. Nxc3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and I like white's position, though maybe black has better 3rd and 4th moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I understand that one might not be willing to take on the risk in a situation where stable advantage is fairly easily obtained as shown by the other posts, but this an option that white has.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="307" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-07-26T17:05:12.373" LastActivityDate="2019-07-26T17:05:12.373" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="777" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="804" CreationDate="2012-06-09T01:26:58.860" Score="29" ViewCount="3670" Body="&lt;p&gt;A question of rulebook pedantry:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;One can claim a draw when the same position occurs the third time, the same player having the move.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Two positions are not the same if the earlier allows a capture &lt;em&gt;en passant&lt;/em&gt; and the later does not, though men of the same kind stand on the same squares in both positions.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So much I understand.  However, what if the pawn that could otherwise have captured &lt;em&gt;en passant&lt;/em&gt; happens to be pinned against its own king?  In this case, one might say that the pawn had the right to capture &lt;em&gt;en passant&lt;/em&gt; but could not exercise it.  Alternately, one might insist that a right that cannot be exercised is in fact no right.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I suppose that it comes to how one defines the word &lt;em&gt;right.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason this is a question of rulebook pedantry is because it might, conceivably, legally affect whether one could claim a draw if the position recurred.  For the purpose of the draw rule, are two positions indeed the same if, in the earlier position, a pawn had the right to capture &lt;em&gt;en passant but could not exercise it&lt;/em&gt; because of a pin?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To be clear:  My question does not regard how fantastically unlikely such a situation would be ever to arise in actual play, nor if it has ever occurred.  My question regards only what the rule would be if it did.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your answer merits extra appreciation if you can support it with any reasonably authoritative reference!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;THIRD UPDATE&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know no reason that anyone should be following these updates any longer -- and I rather suspect that no one is reading (if &lt;em&gt;you&lt;/em&gt; are not reading, you are probably wise) -- but, for the permanent record and in response to a reader's reasonable request, I have deleted parts of the second and first updates.  If the deletions still don't suit, further edits by interested others naturally remain welcome.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;SECOND UPDATE&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;@CraigYoung characterizes the first update [as originally written] as a &quot;diatribe.&quot;  I think that he has a point.  A Stackexchange question is not the right forum for the asker (me) to extemporize on the philosophy of rulebook writing.  As originally written, above, the question was indeed just a question -- and was not originally meant as anything other than a request for information.  What the answers seem to me to have revealed however is that no authoritative answer is possible at the present time.  The answers occasioned a discussion, and the discussion seemed worth preserving, whence the first update.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I called the original question &quot;pedantic&quot; to poke a bit of deserved fun at myself, of course.  My inner David Hilbert, as it were, wants the rules of chess to be logically complete; but the real, original David Hilbert was a wise man, a deep mathematician but also a shrewd judge of his audience.  He could approach such questions with a sense of humor and a light touch, understanding that the matter of logical completeness would not fascinate everyone as much as it did him.  Dr. Hilbert saved his earnestness for audiences prepared to appreciate it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you will let me don the cloak of earnestness for a moment:  Each chess player can judge for himself how much or how little chess loses by failing logically to complete its rules, but surely chess &lt;em&gt;gains&lt;/em&gt; nothing by this failure.  Chess has a body, the FIDE, whose reasonable, permanent decisions in such matters would command broad respect, except that the FIDE seems mired in endless scandal and has never clearly rendered the decisions in question.  So, if you're a Hilbert type like me, you're stuck, aren't you?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is no rule.  There could be.  There should be.  But there isn't.  I admit that I don't like that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;FIRST UPDATE&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;@JamesTomasino's fine answer below is recommended to all interested readers.  His logic looks pretty good, his angle is attractive, his judgment seems sound, and he may be right.  I do not disagree with him, but I am not yet convinced.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason is this.  There exists a school of rulebook construction with which I admittedly do not hold (and to which I do not suggest that @JamesTomasino belongs).  In that school, a rule is to be enforced even if the rule's writer never considered the point to which the rule is applied.  More precisely, the rule's &lt;em&gt;language&lt;/em&gt; is to be enforced.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Actually, this might be a tolerable way to construe a rulebook, except that we have ample experience to suggest that, in cases such as this, two, different, reasonable people will infer two, different rules from the same, flawed language.  Each reasonably believes that he stands upon &quot;the rock of the law.&quot;  The rules of chess however are to be a logical construct, not a linguistic one.  If we are arguing over what the words mean, and if no consensus exists, then it is the words that are at fault.  Such words shirk their duty.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anderssen v. Kieseritzky may be poetic.  The rulebook by which they play however is supposed to be precise.  If it is not, then this is a real lack in the rulebook.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here again is the useful reference @JamesTomasino has kindly provided to the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fide.com/fide/handbook?id=124&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE handbook, section 9.2.&lt;/a&gt;  After reading it thrice, I can only conclude that the rule is [hard for me to understand.]  What are &quot;the possible moves of all the pieces of both players&quot;?  Taken literally, &quot;all the pieces&quot; (what ever happened to the traditional phrase &quot;all the men&quot;? but let that pass) of one player have no moves at all, since it is his opponent's turn.  Now, of course, obviously, that is not what the rule means, but what it &lt;em&gt;does&lt;/em&gt; mean is far from clear.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To muddy the waters further, see &lt;a href=&quot;http://main.uschess.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&amp;amp;t=6113&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;the interesting discussion&lt;/a&gt; between USCF TDs @Andrew has discovered and brought to our attention.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems to me that the answer we are reaching here is that there exists no generally agreed-upon interpretation of the rules in these corner cases.  That's too bad.  I know what I think the rule should be, but what I think is irrelevant to this discussion, because I am no Staunton or Steinitz and no one cares (or should care) what I think.  My chief concern is not whether &lt;em&gt;this&lt;/em&gt; rule or &lt;em&gt;that&lt;/em&gt; rule might be the better, but only that there in fact be a rule.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Actually, it seems to me that there is a deeper problem.  The FIDE Handbook differs from the equivalent publication of the American Contract Bridge League in that the latter draws a clear distinction between the mechanics of the game and guidelines of player conduct.  In the FIDE Handbook, the two are sort of all mixed up together.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="315" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-07-26T16:42:41.227" LastActivityDate="2020-11-02T10:51:52.880" Title="Rules: en passant and draw by triple repetition" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;draw&gt;&lt;en-passant&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="9" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="778" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="779" CreationDate="2012-06-09T02:34:27.077" Score="13" ViewCount="13891" Body="&lt;p&gt;Does one style of play have an advantage/disadvantage over the other?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are today's GMs mostly tactical players or positional players?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What GMs should I follow if I want to be more of a tactical player or positional player?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-13T18:47:44.213" LastActivityDate="2019-07-26T16:24:12.443" Title="What are the differences between tactical and positional chess?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="779" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="778" CreationDate="2012-06-09T03:21:42.010" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think one style has an advantage, or at the GM level, there would only be one style; the other would be extinct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The very definition of a tactical player is &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikhail_Tal&quot;&gt;Mikhail Tal&lt;/a&gt; AKA 'The Wizard of Riga.'  Others include &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobby_Fischer&quot;&gt;Bobby Fischer&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garry_Kasparov&quot;&gt;Garry Kasparov&lt;/a&gt;.  &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatoly_Karpov&quot;&gt;Anatoly Karpov&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tigran_Petrosian&quot;&gt;Tigran Petrosian&lt;/a&gt; are great examples of positional players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Fischer himself said that tactics flow from a superior position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: I'd like to add that any of the top players can find the best move in a given situation. Where positional versus tactical considerations come into play is where there isn't a best move, as such.  That is, when there are several reasonable candidate moves.  Then some players show a positional tendency while others show a tactical tendency.  Petrosian, who is probably the most defensive GM, was more than able to uncork &lt;em&gt;technical savagery&lt;/em&gt; if his opponent let him.  However, he preferred to tighten the noose instead of looking for a brilliancy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-13T18:47:21.923" LastActivityDate="2012-06-13T18:47:21.923" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="780" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-06-09T12:15:56.760" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2012-06-09T12:15:56.760" LastActivityDate="2012-06-09T12:15:56.760" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="781" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-06-09T12:15:56.760" Score="0" Body="Questions concerning chess literature." OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-06-09T12:24:11.727" LastActivityDate="2012-06-09T12:24:11.727" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="782" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-06-09T12:47:50.730" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scotch_Game&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Scotch Game&lt;/a&gt; is a chess opening beginning with the moves &lt;code&gt;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4&lt;/code&gt;, and is so named because of its use in an 1824 correspondence match between players from Edinburgh and London. It fell largely out of use in the 20th Century until it was revived in the hands of Garry Kasparov.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-06-22T08:26:27.280" LastActivityDate="2017-06-22T08:26:27.280" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="783" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-06-09T12:47:50.730" Score="0" Body="The Scotch Game is a chess opening beginning with the moves 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4." OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-06-09T13:16:38.273" LastActivityDate="2012-06-09T13:16:38.273" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="784" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-06-09T12:52:36.807" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2012-06-09T12:52:36.807" LastActivityDate="2012-06-09T12:52:36.807" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="785" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-06-09T12:52:36.807" Score="0" Body="The Colle System is a development scheme for white involving a c3-d4-e3 pawn triangle, and aiming for an e4 push with moves such as Nf3, Bd3, O-O, Re1 and Nbd2." OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-06-09T13:16:27.993" LastActivityDate="2012-06-09T13:16:27.993" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="786" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-06-09T12:54:38.707" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colle_System#Colle.E2.80.93Zukertort_System&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Colle-Zukertort System&lt;/a&gt; is a variant of the Colle System for white, and is distinguished from the latter by a queenside fianchetto (b3 and Bb2). It is named for &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgard_Colle&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Edgard Colle&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johannes_Zukertort&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Johannes Zukertort&lt;/a&gt;. In the high-level play of more recent times, &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artur_Yusupov&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Artur Yusupov&lt;/a&gt; has been a major proponent of the opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-06-22T10:51:06.067" LastActivityDate="2017-06-22T10:51:06.067" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="787" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-06-09T12:54:38.707" Score="0" Body="The Colle-Zukertort System is a variant of the Colle System for white, and is distinguished from the latter by a queenside fianchetto (b3 and Bb2)." OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-06-09T13:15:37.433" LastActivityDate="2012-06-09T13:15:37.433" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="788" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-06-09T13:00:12.350" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2012-06-09T13:00:12.350" LastActivityDate="2012-06-09T13:00:12.350" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="789" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-06-09T13:00:12.350" Score="0" Body="The Grand Prix Attack is a white response to the Sicilian Defense, given either by 1. e4 c5 2. f4, or instead 2. Nc3 followed by 3. f4." OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-06-09T13:16:36.340" LastActivityDate="2012-06-09T13:16:36.340" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="790" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-06-09T13:03:24.687" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2012-06-09T13:03:24.687" LastActivityDate="2012-06-09T13:03:24.687" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="791" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-06-09T13:03:24.687" Score="0" Body="The grandmaster (GM) title is the highest title awarded by FIDE. It is obtained by both acquiring a 2500 Elo rating, and achieving three &quot;grandmaster norms,&quot; tournament performances of a sufficiently high standard." OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-06-09T13:15:41.693" LastActivityDate="2012-06-09T13:15:41.693" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="792" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-06-09T13:22:06.880" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2012-06-09T13:22:06.880" LastActivityDate="2012-06-09T13:22:06.880" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="793" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-06-09T13:22:06.880" Score="0" Body="The 150 Attack is not a specific opening, but a generic setup for white involving f3, Be3 and Qd2, which aims at removing black's fianchettoed dark square bishop in openings like the Pirc Defense, the King's Indian Defense and the Sicilian Dragon." OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-06-09T20:37:29.337" LastActivityDate="2012-06-09T20:37:29.337" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="794" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="777" CreationDate="2012-06-09T17:31:07.487" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;A pawn that is captured &amp;quot;en passant,&amp;quot; starts on the second rank and ends on the fourth rank, having gotten there via the &lt;em&gt;third&lt;/em&gt; rank.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &amp;quot;en passant&amp;quot; rule allows the opponent to &lt;em&gt;stop&lt;/em&gt; the pawn on the third rank, where he can be captured. (In war, if one army starts to march, it might provoke a &amp;quot;fire&amp;quot; from the opposing army.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In a three move repetition rule, the pawn on the fourth rank &lt;em&gt;started&lt;/em&gt; there, because it had &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; been captured en passant. If you have three repetitions that lead to a draw, it's because &lt;em&gt;all&lt;/em&gt; pieces started on the same square.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The three move rule specifically applies when &lt;em&gt;no&lt;/em&gt; pawn had been moved and no pawn or piece captured. An &amp;quot;en passant&amp;quot; situation is a violation of both these conditions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-08-16T22:40:02.680" LastActivityDate="2020-08-16T22:40:02.680" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="795" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="588" CreationDate="2012-06-09T17:55:14.913" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;A &quot;bad&quot; bishop is one that is not performing the normal function of a bishop. That is usually one behind its own pawns. The test is, &quot;if I replaced the bishop with a pawn, would it make any difference?&quot; If the answer is no, then it is a bad bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A Bishop can be behind a wall of pawns and still be very useful. Say there is a bishop on g7 in front of its king on g8, and behind pawns on h6, g5, and f6. As the &quot;linchpin&quot; of the defensive system, the bishop is very useful, even though it has little mobility. (Unless this is a situation where all the action is on the queenside, in which case the bishop would really be &quot;bad.&quot;) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2012-06-09T17:55:14.913" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="796" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="206" CreationDate="2012-06-10T03:01:43.240" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm way late to the party here, but would nevertheless like to mention the contributions of the seventh world champion (and my favorite player) &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasily_Smyslov&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Vasily Smyslov&lt;/a&gt;. Here are some of his many eponymous systems and variations in major openings:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;em&gt;Smyslov system&lt;/em&gt; in the Gr&amp;uuml;nfeld Defense: &lt;code&gt;1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 d5 4. Nf3 Bg7 5. Qb3 dxc4 6. Qxc4 O-O 7. e4&lt;/code&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;Bg4&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;, intending to follow up with &lt;code&gt;... Nfd7&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;... Nb6&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;em&gt;Smyslov-Karpov variation&lt;/em&gt; in the Caro-Kann Defense: &lt;code&gt;1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 dxe4 4. Nxe4&lt;/code&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;Nd7&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;em&gt;Smyslov system&lt;/em&gt; against the King's Indian Defense: &lt;code&gt;1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 Bg7 4. Nf3 d6 5.&lt;/code&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;Bg5&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;em&gt;Smyslov system&lt;/em&gt; in the English Two Knights: &lt;code&gt;1. c4 e5 2. Nc3 Nf6 3. g3&lt;/code&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;Bb4&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;em&gt;Smyslov defense&lt;/em&gt; in the mainline closed Ruy Lopez: &lt;code&gt;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Ba4 Nf6 5. O-O Be7 6. Re1 b5 7. Bb3 O-O 8. c3 d6 9. h3&lt;/code&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;h6&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;, intending to continue with &lt;code&gt;... Re8&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;... Bf8&lt;/code&gt;, where the inclusion of &lt;code&gt;... h6&lt;/code&gt; prevents a &lt;code&gt;Bg5&lt;/code&gt; pin.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Another &lt;em&gt;Smyslov defense&lt;/em&gt; to the Ruy Lopez, featuring an early fianchetto: &lt;code&gt;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5&lt;/code&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;g6&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;em&gt;Smyslov variation&lt;/em&gt; in the Queen's Gambit Accepted: &lt;code&gt;1. d4 d5 2. c4 dxc4 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. e3&lt;/code&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;g6&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;em&gt;Smyslov variation&lt;/em&gt; in the Slav Defense: &lt;code&gt;1. d4 d5 2. c4 c6 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. Nc3 dxc4 5. a4&lt;/code&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;Na6 6. e4 Bg4&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;em&gt;Reti-Smyslov variation&lt;/em&gt; of the King's Indian Attack: &lt;code&gt;1. Nf3 Nf6 2. g3 g6 3.&lt;/code&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;b4&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-12T00:17:00.887" LastActivityDate="2012-06-12T00:17:00.887" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="797" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="178" CreationDate="2012-06-10T08:52:03.107" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is also 'The Chess Mysteries of the Arabian Knights' by Raymond Smullyan which you probably already know.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="126" LastActivityDate="2012-06-10T08:52:03.107" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="798" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="778" CreationDate="2012-06-10T12:44:51.460" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Tactical playing style has no advantage on positional playing style, and vice-versa.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although, a &lt;em&gt;single player may have a psychological edge on another player with opposite playing style&lt;/em&gt;, in specific situations. In a tournament, for example, if a positional player knows that he's facing a tactical opponent that for some reason needs the full point, may choose a solid system with very few victory chance but no weak points. The tactical player will probably try to force combinations even if the position on the board wouldn't allow such tactics. Then the solid player will only have to defend (supposing he's good at this), and take the full point himself after the opponent's suicide. The same is true also when who needs a full victory is the positional player. He'll try to go for an aggressive play, but he will face a tactical opponent who feels more comfortable in complicated situations, and eventually the positional player will make a blunder and get punished by the opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The key is &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; the advantage that tactical play has over positional play (or positional over tactical). The key is that if you know that you're facing an opponent with a playing style that's the opposite of yours, you should &lt;em&gt;try to involve him/her in positions he/she doesn't feel comfortable with, while you are&lt;/em&gt;. Mikhail Tal was a master at this: his style was so complicated and filled with tactics that when he managed to catch an opponent in his net he had no escape. Petrosian was a master on the other side, playing sober games, choosing super-positional and kinda-drawish systems so that he'd never lose, and win when opponents tried with no hope to break the wall he built.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="279" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-07-26T16:14:45.717" LastActivityDate="2019-07-26T16:14:45.717" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="799" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-06-10T14:55:20.717" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruy_Lopez#Marshall_Attack&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;very promising line&lt;/a&gt; for Black.  White frequently changes his 8th move, instead playing an 'anti-Marshall' line.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2012-06-10T14:57:02.717" LastActivityDate="2012-06-10T14:57:02.717" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="800" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-06-10T14:55:20.717" Score="0" Body="An aggressive response by Black to the Ruy Lopez starting 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.0-0 Be7 6.Re1 b5 7.Bb3 0-0 8.c3 d5 (offering the pawn)." OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2012-06-10T14:57:06.273" LastActivityDate="2012-06-10T14:57:06.273" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="801" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="189" CreationDate="2012-06-10T16:37:16.143" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Online and FIDE ratings can't be directly compared or converted with any real accuracy.  They have a different pool of players and different constraints.  I'd be surprised if the actual mathematical rating method was exactly the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The 'pool of players' issue is one of practical import. It turns out, players' geographical isolation highlights an under-appreciated fact about FIDE's rating system.  The FIDE rating system doesn't tell you how good you are; it tells you how good you are &lt;em&gt;compared to other players&lt;/em&gt;.  Thus the ratings of isolated groups of players are effectively unrelated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2012-06-10T16:37:16.143" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="802" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-06-10T20:41:17.247" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2012-06-10T20:41:17.247" LastActivityDate="2012-06-10T20:41:17.247" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="803" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-06-10T20:41:17.247" Score="0" Body="A rank is a horizontal row on the chessboard." OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2012-06-10T21:51:49.233" LastActivityDate="2012-06-10T21:51:49.233" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="804" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="777" CreationDate="2012-06-11T02:53:25.627" Score="37" Body="&lt;p&gt;The basis of your question comes down to whether a piece is truly in position to execute an en passant if it is otherwised pinned. The answer can be found in the FIDE rules stated just before the explicit mention of the en passant:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;Positions as in (a) and (b) are considered the same, if the same player has the move, pieces of the same kind and colour occupy the same squares, and the possible moves of all the pieces of both players are the same.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The key point is &quot;the possible moves of all the pieces of both players are the same&quot;. The en passant passage is mentioned following this to give an explicit example one might overlook. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If in the first occurrence of the position the en passant was not an available move due to another limiting factor, than the list of all available moves would be identical when it appears again. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus, draw!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can find the details in the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fide.com/fide/handbook?id=124&amp;amp;view=article&quot;&gt;FIDE handbook, section 9.2.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="29" LastActivityDate="2012-06-11T02:53:25.627" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="805" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="494" CreationDate="2012-06-11T02:59:31.940" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Andrew Soltis' book &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/0812925297&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Pawn Structure Chess&lt;/a&gt;, he goes into great detail on the types of pawn positions you run into with specific openings, how they relate to other openings with similar structures, and when the transpositions are common. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd look into that resource and others like it for the specifics you're searching for.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="29" LastActivityDate="2012-06-11T02:59:31.940" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="806" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="494" CreationDate="2012-06-11T03:03:57.127" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;In one sense, I would simply say, &quot;Yes, the pawn structure would be the first indicator that one has entered/transposed into a given opening.&quot; But since there's no other answer here as of yet, I'm going to take the liberty to say a bit more, pushing a little further than the question as you asked it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not to put too fine a point on it, but here's one way to look at this matter: it is not so much that the pawn structure allows you to recognize what opening you're in (or have transposed to), but rather that the pawn structure &lt;em&gt;nearly defines&lt;/em&gt; a given opening. In fact, while at certain playing levels very precise knowledge of opening lines is definitely crucial, one can get quite far without focusing too much on particular &lt;em&gt;openings&lt;/em&gt;, but instead just on particular &lt;em&gt;structures&lt;/em&gt;, and understanding the sorts of plans and piece developments that are appropriate for given structures.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This kind of approach is very much in the proverbial spirit of being taught to fish, instead of being given a fish (read: an opening line). One can't be ignorant of particular lines entirely, as one could get &quot;move-ordered&quot; into positions/structures one does not want to play; my main point, though, is that I think many beginning and intermediate players overemphasize knowledge of particular opening lines, and can sometimes get too caught up on labels/names that, ultimately, don't really matter, and distract from more useful considerations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's an example of what I mean. Consider a game that starts with a Trompowsky Attack move order, &lt;code&gt;1. d4 Nf6 2. Bg5&lt;/code&gt;, which then proceeds with &lt;code&gt;2. ... e6 3. e4 Be7 4. Nc3 d5 5. e5 Nfd7 6. Bxe7 Qxe7 7. f4&lt;/code&gt;, reaching the following position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;rnb1k2r/pppnqppp/4p3/3pP3/3P1P2/2N5/PPP3PP/R2QKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This same position is reached &lt;em&gt;much more often&lt;/em&gt; via a French Defense move order: &lt;code&gt;1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. Bg5 Be7 5. e5 Nfd7 6. Bxe7 Qxe7 7. f4&lt;/code&gt; (in my database, there are only 23 games which include the previous move order, but 4050 which include this one). So, though we started off with a Trompowsky, we've ended up in a position that would now be termed the Steinitz variation of the French Defense. But what's in a name, really? If the Trompowsky was as old as the French, maybe it would be the other way around and we would say that in the latter case what started as a French transposed to a Trompowsky.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's my point: how we got here doesn't matter once we're here, and what we call it doesn't matter either for our chess playing. I have actually heard players say, in analogous situations, something along the lines of, &quot;Oh, so now I need to learn the French Defense too.&quot; But this doesn't really make sense, any more than it would for a French Defense player who goes for this position to think that she suddenly needs to start picking up books on the Trompowsky. What each player really needs is to understand the structure that arises, regardless of what move order is used to get there, and regardless of what name for an opening the position receives.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Having said all that, I should probably say something about &quot;learning to fish.&quot; One good resource is Andrew Soltis' classic &lt;a href=&quot;https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/0812925297&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Pawn Structure Chess&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt;, which examines appropriate plans in given structures via many illustrative games, in chapters that are broken down by opening families, with titles like: The Caro-Slav Family, The Open Sicilian-English, The King's Indian Complex, The Panov Formation, etc. You'll find that the reader reviews in the link generally solidly endorse Soltis' book; so do folks like &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jeremysilman.com/book_reviews/list_recommend_op_bks.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jeremy Silman&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another book which uses illustrative games to explain certain kinds of pawn structures is Dra&amp;#382;en Marovi&amp;cacute;'s &lt;a href=&quot;https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/1901983315&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Understanding Pawn Play in Chess&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt;. One difference from Soltis' book is that the chapters are broken down by the concrete aspects of various pawn structures, with titles such as Isolated Pawns, Doubled Pawns, Pawn-Chains, Pawn-Islands, etc. John Donaldson gave a &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jeremysilman.com/book_reviews_jd/jd_understanding_pawn_play.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;very positive review&lt;/a&gt; of Marovi&amp;cacute;'s book.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'll also mention Hans Kmoch's older work &lt;a href=&quot;https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/0486264866&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Pawn Power in Chess&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt; from 1959, because I bought that book early on when I got into chess, and though I wasn't really prepared for it at the time, I think it has a lot going for it. You can get a good sense of the book and its worth from the preview and the reviews in the link. But as everyone who ever mentions this book will say in one way or another, Kmoch tries to be overly &quot;scientific&quot; in his approach and introduces &lt;em&gt;a lot&lt;/em&gt; of unfortunate terminology that does more to obscure than enlighten. (For instance, &lt;em&gt;leucopenia&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;melanpenia&lt;/em&gt; are coined for light-square and dark-square weaknesses, respectively.) But if you get past that kind of jargon, by just ignoring it best you can, there is truly useful information in the book, and it comes in the form of a typically inexpensive Dover edition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="4186" LastEditDate="2020-03-06T20:13:33.360" LastActivityDate="2020-03-06T20:13:33.360" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="808" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="809" CreationDate="2012-06-11T14:10:09.353" Score="28" ViewCount="32444" Body="&lt;p&gt;Suppose we have a rook and the opponent has a knight next to his king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it possible to win this game theoretically?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;E.g., in the following position (white to move), is it possible for white to win?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/8/8/3n4/3k4/8/K7/R7 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="269" LastEditorUserId="269" LastEditDate="2020-03-13T19:31:36.877" LastActivityDate="2020-03-13T19:31:36.877" Title="Can a rook win against a knight in the endgame?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;knights&gt;&lt;rooks&gt;&lt;tablebases&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="809" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="808" CreationDate="2012-06-11T14:41:29.967" Score="34" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the specific position that you mention, the answer is a resounding &lt;strong&gt;no&lt;/strong&gt;.  The king and the knight will defend each other, and white will not be able to force mate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, the knight is a clumsy piece.  If the knight is not positioned perfectly, then the rook will frequently be able to drive the knight to a bad square and deprive it of moves.  Eventually, the knight may be captured, or the king might be checkmated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As an example of a position where the rook can win, take the following: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/1n6/8/8/2R2K2/8/5k2/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;[SetUp &quot;1&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;17&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Rc2+ Ke1 2. Ke3 Kd1 (2... Kf1 3. Rf2+ Kg1 4. Rd2 Nc5 5. Kf3 Ne6 6. Kg3 Kf1&#xA;7. Rd5 Nc7 8. Re5 Na6 9. Kf3 Kg1 10. Rg5+ Kf1 11. Ra5) 3. Rb2 Nc5 4. Rb6 $22&#xA;Na4 5. Rb4 Nc3 (5... Nc5 6. Rd4+ Kc2 7. Rc4+) 6. Kd3 Na2 7. Rb1+ Nc1+ 8. Kc3&#xA;Ke2 9. Rxc1 *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here, white can win starting with &lt;code&gt;1.Rc2+&lt;/code&gt;.  The plan is to drive the king to the first rank and then attack the knight while improving the position of the rook.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your question, you mention specific cases where the king and the knight are close together.  In these cases, it is very important to know two key positions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, in this position, black can hold the draw:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/5wZlu.png&quot; alt=&quot;Knight vs Rook Endgame where black holds the draw&quot;&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;No matter what white tries, the white king cannot approach the black king due to the knight.  Black will be able to squeeze out with &lt;code&gt;...Kb2&lt;/code&gt;.  Black's plan is to mark time by playing &lt;code&gt;...Na3&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;...Nb1&lt;/code&gt;.  White cannot make useful progress.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This position, almost the same, has one major difference - black can no longer mark time with the knight:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/LwSxo.png&quot; alt=&quot;Knight vs Rook Endgame where white wins&quot;&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;If white plays a waiting move, for example &lt;code&gt;1.Re2&lt;/code&gt;, then black must lose immediately.  Any move will lose the knight or allow mate in one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you're interested in a specific position, you can check out the Nalimov Tablebases &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.k4it.de/index.php?topic=egtb&amp;amp;lang=en&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;online&lt;/a&gt;.  They have completely solved every position with 6 or fewer pieces on the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12" LastEditorUserId="12" LastEditDate="2013-01-30T23:42:31.503" LastActivityDate="2013-01-30T23:42:31.503" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="810" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="730" CreationDate="2012-06-11T15:06:53.693" Score="18" Body="&lt;p&gt;After answering &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/q/808/12&quot;&gt;this question&lt;/a&gt;, I was reminded of another important situation where underpromotion is necessary:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/8/8/8/8/2K5/1p5R/2k5 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... b1=N+! (1... b1=Q 2. Rh1++)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this position, &lt;code&gt;1...b1=N+&lt;/code&gt; is the only move to draw.  Any other move will allow a quick mate, but after knighting the pawn, black sets up a drawing fortress.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While this is a slightly contrived example, it &lt;em&gt;does&lt;/em&gt; come in handy sometimes.  As an anecdote, I was playing a rook and pawn endgame where I was up a pawn.  In one variation, my opponent could sacrifice his rook for my last pawn and reach this position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/8/2K5/1p5R/2k5/8/8/8 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... b4  2.Rh4+ ( 2. Rc5+ Kd3 3. Kb5 b3 4. Ka4 b2 5. Rb5 Kc2 6. Rc5+ Kd2) Kc3 3.Kc5 b3 4.Rh3+ Kc2 5.Kc4 b2 6.Rh2+ Kc1 7.Kc3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was able to recognize that this is actually a draw because black can play &lt;code&gt;1...b4 2.Rh4+ Kc3 3.Kc5 b3 4.Rh3+ Kc2 5.Kc4 b2 6.Rh2+ Kc1 7.Kc3&lt;/code&gt; reaching the position above.  Due to this, I went into another variation and won.  Without knowing this idea, however, it would have been very hard to resist winning my opponent's rook.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-07-30T11:47:01.580" LastActivityDate="2019-07-30T11:47:01.580" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="811" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="812" CreationDate="2012-06-12T01:34:05.283" Score="33" ViewCount="16088" Body="&lt;p&gt;Other than castling, the only &quot;strange&quot; move that chess pieces can ever make is &lt;em&gt;en passant&lt;/em&gt;.  It seems a little odd to me that someone thought that such a &quot;different&quot; move was so important to include in the legal moves.  When and why did this come to be?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="86" LastActivityDate="2018-04-27T03:57:26.157" Title="When and why was en passant invented?" Tags="&lt;history&gt;&lt;pawns&gt;&lt;en-passant&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="812" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="811" CreationDate="2012-06-12T02:00:10.977" Score="19" Body="&lt;p&gt;From &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/En_passant#Historical_context&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Allowing the &lt;em&gt;en passant&lt;/em&gt; capture is one of the last major rule changes in European chess that occurred between 1200 and 1600, together with the introduction of the two-square first move for pawns, castling, and the unlimited range for queens and bishops (Davidson 1949:14,16,57). Spanish master Ruy López de Segura gives the rule in his 1561 book &lt;em&gt;Libro de la invencion liberal y arte del juego del axedrez&lt;/em&gt; (Golombek 1977:108). In most places the &lt;em&gt;en passant&lt;/em&gt; rule was adopted as soon as the rule allowing the pawn to move two squares on its first move, but it was not universally accepted until the Italian rules were changed in 1880 (Hooper &amp;amp; Whyld 1992:124–25).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The motivation for &lt;em&gt;en passant&lt;/em&gt; was to prevent the newly added two-square first move for pawns from allowing a pawn to evade capture by an enemy pawn. Specifically, the rule allows a pawn on a player's fifth rank the opportunity to capture the opponent's pawn on an adjacent file that advances two squares on its first move as though it had advanced only one square (Davidson 1949:16). Asian chess variants, because of their separation from European chess prior to that period, do not feature any of these moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2012-06-12T02:07:36.990" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="813" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="394" CreationDate="2012-06-12T04:36:27.130" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;To answer your question directly, your friends aren't wrong, and it's not a bad idea at all for you to play the Ruy Lopez, from both the white side and the black side. In fact, knowing nothing much about you or your exact level of play, it's still a safe suggestion that opening with either &lt;code&gt;1. e4&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;1. d4&lt;/code&gt; with white, and responding with &lt;code&gt;1. e4 e5&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;1. d4 d5&lt;/code&gt; with black is a solid way to begin to get your footing in the opening phase of the game. Of course, that's just move one (and only the two most popular options for that), and there are plenty of forks in the road beyond that point. Nevertheless, while my advice to you is that &lt;em&gt;playing&lt;/em&gt; the Ruy Lopez is a great idea, &lt;em&gt;studying it (or any other opening) in any great depth is not&lt;/em&gt;, at least not right now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Instead, you should focus on a few principles, like aiming to get your king safely castled in a timely manner, trying to control the center of the board with your pawns (our first moves above are a good start), and developing your pieces with the idea of using them to further control the center of the board. All of these ideas are visible in the Ruy Lopez, and that's one reason it is a good suggestion. After &lt;code&gt;1. e4 e5&lt;/code&gt;, we see that &lt;code&gt;2. Nf3&lt;/code&gt; develops a kingside piece and helps control the central squares d4 and e5, &lt;code&gt;2. ... Nc6&lt;/code&gt; fights for control of those same squares (and defends the e5 pawn), and &lt;code&gt;3. Bb5&lt;/code&gt; indirectly fights for those same squares by threatening the c6 knight, while also clearing the path for the white king to castle. Part of my point is that all of these moves make a great deal of sense, just for the principled reasons given here, and can be recognized as such and played confidently without needing to get your hands dirty with a lot of opening theory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To learn more about important opening principles, and what you should be thinking about in the opening phase of the game, you might consider checking out John Emms' book &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1857444191&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Discovering Chess Principles: Building Opening Skills from Basic Principles&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt;, which is aimed squarely at developing in beginners a good sense of how to make good moves in the opening. (You'll find good reader reviews at that link; for good measure, here's &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessville.com/reviews/DiscoveringChessOpenings.htm&quot;&gt;a review&lt;/a&gt; from Chessville as well.) In addition to that, I'd say what's most important is just to play a lot and have fun, keeping guiding principles in mind while you do, and &lt;em&gt;when things do go wrong, make a point of determining why&lt;/em&gt;. Try to figure it out yourself, and any time you can't, seek out an explanation from someone else. (Maybe come back here and ask!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2012-06-12T04:36:27.130" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="814" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="710" CreationDate="2012-06-12T05:30:34.287" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just as engines can, at certain points, see a forced mate some number of moves away, because there are forcing enough lines that the engine can see everything perfectly in the remaining depth until mate, there are also junctures in chess games that would allow an engine to see a forced draw for the same reason of being able to completely survey the limited possibilities in play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Moreover, it would be easy to tweak an engine's evaluation function in order to make it seek out and prefer moves that lead to such forced draws: just as achieving mate is typically given some enormous value that dwarfs all other numerical factors that the engine's evaluation algorithm considers in order to guide the engine's play toward the ultimate objective, one could instead give such an enormous numerical value to achieving one of the sorts of draws I have in mind.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance, automatically evaluate any position in which the opponent has insufficient material to mate as +1000000. Then, if the engine ever finds itself with the option of forcing off that much material of the opponent's, it will let you know. Also, tweak the evaluation algorithm to evaluate any three-fold repetition as +1000000 instead of the usual 0. Then, if there is a forcible repetition (as in a perpetual check scenario), the engine will love it and let you know about it. Similarly, give +1000000 if one can forcibly reach a tablebase draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You could also ensure that the engine will give these valuations only when there is complete certainty that the draws really are forcible (because the tree between here and there has been able to be fully checked), just as with an engine not announcing mate unless it is sure. Thus, you won't get any false positives, though there will of course be plenty of false negatives, which you sensibly/necessarily allow in your question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-06-12T05:42:09.780" LastActivityDate="2012-06-12T05:42:09.780" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="815" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="394" CreationDate="2012-06-12T12:34:51.173" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;For beginners I recommend one white opening and two black ones.  The point here is that you'll memorize and learn enough to be effective without getting buried in a lot of pointless memorization.  Learn a few openings, get to playing, then learn more, play more, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;About the openings, your choice depends upon what you're looking for in a game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want games that tend to be open and attacking, as white &lt;code&gt;1. e4&lt;/code&gt; is a great choice.  The Ruy Lopez is the greatest of the e4 moves, and has about a million variations.  For this reason you'll be unable to remember them all, and even if you did you wouldn't know what to do if your opponent made an 'out of book' move.  For this reason, learn the &lt;em&gt;purpose&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;philosophy&lt;/em&gt; of the openings.  Then you can make intelligent, guided moves when you're 'out of your book.'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For black, learn 2 openings so you can respond to &lt;code&gt;1. d4&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;1. e4&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the former, likely suspects for black include the Grunfeld or King's Indian (&lt;code&gt;1. d4 Nf6&lt;/code&gt;) or the Queen's Gambit. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the latter, the French and Ruy are both passable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you like nothing more than a quick brutal game, learn the Sicilian &lt;code&gt;1. e4 c5&lt;/code&gt;. Be advised, you'll lose frequently until you get it down. If you're booked up and you &lt;em&gt;understand the opening&lt;/em&gt; (can't stress that enough) you'll chop some heads.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All these openings are described in great depth in Wikipedia.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2012-06-12T12:34:51.173" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="816" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="819" CreationDate="2012-06-12T14:24:23.920" Score="7" ViewCount="891" Body="&lt;p&gt;What openings are usually good for a simul?  I'm assuming that it's an all-comers simul, so there could be strong players mixed in.  Does the answer change if the strength of the opponents is known ahead of time?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12" LastEditorUserId="12523" LastEditDate="2018-07-10T12:19:12.187" LastActivityDate="2018-07-10T12:19:12.187" Title="What openings should be played in a simul?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;simultaneous&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="817" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="821" CreationDate="2012-06-12T15:08:16.283" Score="4" ViewCount="1383" Body="&lt;p&gt;Fischer had a chess variation (chess960) but I cannot find any mobile app to play it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does anyone knows where I can get the best software (if possible free or cheap) to play it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="322" LastEditorUserId="322" LastEditDate="2012-06-12T18:25:16.830" LastActivityDate="2012-06-12T18:25:16.830" Title="Where can I find mobile software for Fischer random chess?" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;chess960&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="818" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="710" CreationDate="2012-06-12T15:10:53.297" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;The short answer to your question is &lt;strong&gt;no&lt;/strong&gt;, there is not a chess engine that can reliably show if one side has a forced draw.  For example, this locked position is quite clearly a draw to the human eye:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/7NLPu.png&quot; alt=&quot;Locked position, hopeless draw&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, notice that the evaluation is &lt;em&gt;0.17&lt;/em&gt;, not &lt;em&gt;0.00&lt;/em&gt;.  Houdini also give &lt;em&gt;0.05&lt;/em&gt; - ever so slightly good for white.  This is very important.  This suggests that the evaluation of &lt;em&gt;0.00&lt;/em&gt; is reserved by these programs for a specific reason, and indeed it is.  Basically, even in an &quot;equal&quot; position, the computer will not ever say that the score is &lt;em&gt;0.00&lt;/em&gt;, instead it will give a minute edge to one or the other side.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So with that background, on to the specifics!  First, if the game is just a draw due to the position (i.e. stalemate, insufficient material, etc.) most GUI's will pop up a message that says &quot;Game Drawn&quot;, or something to that effect.  That leaves the more complicated cases that you mentioned in your question.  In order to cover most of those, I'll introduce another position.  This is taken from Morphy-NN 1-0, New Orleans Blindfold Simul:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/gzgco.png&quot; alt=&quot;Morphy - NN 1-0, New Orleans Blindfold Simul&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Notice that Morphy currently has mate in 6 starting with &lt;code&gt;18.b4+!&lt;/code&gt;.  However, if Morphy somehow missed that this was mate, he still had a forced draw by repetition, which the computer quickly sees.  By increasing the number of variations that the computer displays, it is possible to see that after white plays a move like &lt;code&gt;18.Qxc3+?&lt;/code&gt;, white can still force a draw, despite being down a rook and a piece.  The evaluation of &lt;em&gt;0.00&lt;/em&gt; again tips us off that this is a special position in that the computer can calculate a perpetual check.  If the moves &lt;code&gt;18.Qxc3+? Kxd5&lt;/code&gt; are made on the board, then the evaluation will be &lt;em&gt;0.00&lt;/em&gt;, indicating that white's best continuation is to force a draw.  Failure to do this will lead to loss of the game with best play.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So to summarize, no existing engine can say with exact certainty that a position is a draw.  However, the evaluation of &lt;em&gt;0.00&lt;/em&gt; is special, and if that shows up as either the main score, or the score for a variation, that means that a draw is probably being forced in that specific line.  The easiest way to check is playfully called &quot;spacebar analysis&quot; - when the user hits the spacebar over and over again to force the computer to play the top recommended move.  Eventually you will get to a position that is obvious to a human as well as the machine.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And finally, to address your point about &quot;contempt&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Another example is that if you need a win (i.e. a draw is just as bad&#xA;  as a loss) you might want to play a move with a slight negative&#xA;  evaluation to avoid giving your opponent the opportunity to force a&#xA;  draw. Even though this increases your chance of losing, it also&#xA;  increases your chance of winning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is quite simply referred to as contempt among chess programmers.  Most engines will allow you to set the level of contempt in the settings.  A positive contempt setting (100 is usually a reasonable level for analysis) will tell the engine to try fairly hard (a pawn's worth) to avoid a draw.  A negative setting will cause the engine to seek a forced draw (i.e. insufficient material, stalemate, or perpetual).  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12" LastActivityDate="2012-06-12T15:10:53.297" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="819" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="816" CreationDate="2012-06-12T15:17:17.240" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've always heard that person giving a simul should strive for quiet positions, where they can use their superior understanding and not have to calculate much, and his opponents should strive for the opposite: complex, tactical positions. Even GMs can miscalculate while giving a simul, since they have so little time per move, and so many boards to worry about. This makes sense to me, and I think this holds regardless whether strength of participants is known in advance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Having said that, there are some crazy Morphy and Alekhine tactical wins in simuls, even blindfold simuls.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="307" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-13T18:48:40.283" LastActivityDate="2012-06-13T18:48:40.283" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="821" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="817" CreationDate="2012-06-12T17:35:20.337" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are a number of websites and tools listed on the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess960#Chess960.2C_servers_tools_and_software&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chess960 wikipedia page&lt;/a&gt;. Scroll to the bottom for the complete list. These should all be playable on your mobile device. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.lichess.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://en.lichess.org/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesshotel.com/play-random-chess.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.chesshotel.com/play-random-chess.php&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mychess.de/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.mychess.de/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="29" LastActivityDate="2012-06-12T17:35:20.337" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="822" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-06-12T19:08:10.857" Score="12" ViewCount="8798" Body="&lt;p&gt;What are some of the most common traps to be aware of?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am talking about examples such as&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1tc7wwhLNY&amp;amp;feature=plcp&quot;&gt;The Fishing Pole Trap&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_ED8vrQQlM&amp;amp;feature=plcp&quot;&gt;The Lasker Trap in the Albin Counter Gambit&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCn1i2iZKqo&amp;amp;feature=plcp&quot;&gt;The Rubinstein Trap in the Queen's Gambit Declined&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KskXvXxlkCM&amp;amp;feature=plcp&quot;&gt;The Noah's Ark Trap in the Ruy Lopez&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While such traps are easy to avoid in long games, they can come up and be quite effective in bullet games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="101" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-07-28T13:12:12.870" LastActivityDate="2020-03-28T06:11:31.553" Title="What are some common chess traps?" Tags="&lt;blitz&gt;&lt;bullet-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="823" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-06-12T19:10:17.717" Score="11" ViewCount="7207" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there a way to practice blindfold chess on the computer?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, are there any programs online which give only a transcript of the moves played, and allow you to type in your next move, rather than showing a board?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="101" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-07-28T13:12:06.963" LastActivityDate="2019-07-24T16:27:32.943" Title="What are ways of practicing blindfold chess?" Tags="&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;blindfold-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="824" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="827" CreationDate="2012-06-12T19:13:55.387" Score="11" ViewCount="1544" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was watching an interview with Kasparov which occurred before the Anand-Gelfand match was played, and he said:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;Nobody should be offended, it is just a fact, but it's the first time in a long period of time that a World Championship match, with the official champion and official challenger, doesn't have anything to do with fighting for the title of the strongest chess player on the planet.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why exactly would he say that?  Was it just because Carlsen was not playing, or are there deeper reasons?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="101" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-06-26T19:32:37.050" LastActivityDate="2014-05-25T03:01:47.173" Title="What motivated Kasparov's comments on the Anand-Gelfand match?" Tags="&lt;world-championship&gt;&lt;kasparov&gt;&lt;gelfand&gt;&lt;anand&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="825" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="822" CreationDate="2012-06-12T19:37:33.520" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can also think of the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%A9gal_Trap&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Légal Trap&lt;/a&gt; in the Italian Game or Philidor Defense (Black's 2&lt;sup&gt;nd&lt;/sup&gt; and 3&lt;sup&gt;rd&lt;/sup&gt; moves may be transposed).  It involves a Queen sacrifice:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 d6 4.Nc3 Bg4 5.h3 Bh5 $2 6.Nxe5 $1 Bxd1 $4 7.Bxf7+ Ke7 8.Nd5#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Wikipedia has a &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_chess_traps&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;list of common chess traps&lt;/a&gt;, though it's not exhaustive:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ordered by chess opening:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Albin Countergambit – &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lasker_Trap&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Lasker Trap&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Blackmar-Diemer Gambit – &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halosar_Trap&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Halosar Trap&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Bogo-Indian Defence – &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monticelli_Trap&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Monticelli Trap&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Budapest Gambit – &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kieninger_Trap&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Kieninger Trap&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Italian Game – &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackburne_Shilling_Gambit&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Blackburne Shilling Gambit&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Petrov's Defence – &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_Trap&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Marshall Trap&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Philidor Defence – &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%A9gal_Trap&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Légal Trap&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Queen's Gambit Declined – &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elephant_Trap&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Elephant Trap&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubinstein_Trap&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Rubinstein Trap&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Ruy Lopez – &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mortimer_Trap&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Mortimer Trap&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noah%27s_Ark_Trap&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Noah's Ark Trap&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarrasch_Trap&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Tarrasch Trap&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rombaua_Trap&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Rombaua Trap&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Sicilian Defence – &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnus_Smith_Trap&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Magnus Smith Trap&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siberian_Trap&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Siberian Trap&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Vienna Gambit – &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W%C3%BCrzburger_Trap&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Würzburger Trap&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many more opening traps, all ending in checkmate, are given under &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Checkmates_in_the_opening&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Checkmates in the opening&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, chess.com's blog has &lt;a href=&quot;http://blog.chess.com/view/traps-traps-and-more-traps&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;a post about traps&lt;/a&gt;, which includes some which Wikipedia doesn't (like the Fischer Trap), and you can play through them on that page.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="86" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2012-11-14T17:18:04.113" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="826" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="822" CreationDate="2012-06-12T19:49:03.350" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;One sort of not-always-obvious trap that players can fall into are pawn forks that aren't immediately apparent in a given position. For instance:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.c4 e5 2.g3 Nf6 3.Bg2 Bc5 4.e3 Nc6 5.Nc3 d6 6.Nge2 Be6 $2 7.d4 $1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here White wins material since &lt;code&gt;7. d4!&lt;/code&gt; gains time against the bishop on c5, and can then push on to d5. I've actually won with this exact tactic in more than one OTB tournament game, even against A-class players; and in internet blitz it's happened countless times. If you're not used to playing the black side here, I think it can be easy to miss the shot before you let go of the bishop on e6. This same kind of scenario can arise in other positions with a lot of centrally-located minor pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-11-14T17:10:07.080" LastActivityDate="2012-11-14T17:10:07.080" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="827" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="824" CreationDate="2012-06-12T20:01:28.700" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;Kasparov's reason for that statement may be no deeper than this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/RgiN3.png&quot; alt=&quot;Live ratings&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The current rating list does give a concrete, factual basis for his assessment, though it is certainly something with which others might disagree. Current world #2 Levon Aronian, for one, made a point of &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessbase.com/newsprint.asp?newsid=8197&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;contradicting&lt;/a&gt; Kasparov:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;I don’t think [what Kasparov said] is true. The player that made it through a very tough Candidates’ Tournament and the player that has held the title for so long are, by rights, the strongest players in the world.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ultimately, how one defines the &quot;strongest&quot; players is clearly a subjective matter. As for what underlying personal motivations Kasparov might have for saying what he did, we shouldn't speculate; so if that really is what you're after, then I concur with the current vote to close the question. But if you take the rating list to satisfy the &quot;why&quot; of your question, then it seems OK to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-06-13T06:08:42.563" LastActivityDate="2012-06-13T06:08:42.563" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="828" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="823" CreationDate="2012-06-12T20:17:57.167" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;One way to do this is to play at &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.freechess.org/&quot;&gt;FICS&lt;/a&gt;. Using the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.playwitharena.com/&quot;&gt;Arena&lt;/a&gt; GUI - and probably others too, I'm sure (but this didn't work for me when I tried e.g. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.babaschess.net/&quot;&gt;BabasChess&lt;/a&gt; just now) - you can login to FICS, and then enter &quot;set style 9&quot; in the console to set your &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.freechess.org/Help/HelpFiles/style.html&quot;&gt;style variable&lt;/a&gt; appropriately. Then just seek/play games as one normally would at FICS, and instead of the game being displayed on Arena's board, you will just be told your opponent's moves in the console, and enter your own there as well. One great thing about this is that you aren't limited to finding others who want to play blind as well, and you can switch between playing blind and playing normally as you wish by resetting the style variable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-06-12T20:25:27.483" LastActivityDate="2012-06-12T20:25:27.483" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="829" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="831" CreationDate="2012-06-13T01:12:38.927" Score="13" ViewCount="1542" Body="&lt;p&gt;I often get to play this opening :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Nf6 4. d3 d6 5. Nc3 Bg4 (5... Be7 6. Be3 Bg4) (4... Bc5 5. Nc3 d6 6. O-O Bg4)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes there may be other moves or developments before the pin, like in the variations. In any case, now that my light squared bishop is outside my pawn chain, it's hard for it to come back and defend my knight on &lt;code&gt;f3&lt;/code&gt;. So I usually feel like I need to kick the bishop from &lt;code&gt;g4&lt;/code&gt; with a move like &lt;code&gt;h3&lt;/code&gt;. After it retreats and &lt;code&gt;7.g4&lt;/code&gt;, I'll sometimes see my pawns captured :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;r2qkb1r/ppp2ppp/2np1n2/4p3/2B1P1b1/2NP1N2/PPP2PPP/R1BQK2R w - - 0 6&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;6. h3 Bh5 7. g4 Nxg4 8. hxg4 Bxg4 (7... Bg6)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I looked at this position in Rybka and used the Chess.com computers to analyze the position, both of which label &lt;code&gt;7... Nxg4&lt;/code&gt; as a mistake. However, I'm not sure how to punish this mistake, as afterwards, my knight is still pinned to the queen, and my bishop on &lt;code&gt;c4&lt;/code&gt; still can't find any good way to come back and defend.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can someone explain to me the correct way to continue this position as white? I usually find myself losing the knight on &lt;code&gt;f3&lt;/code&gt;, and eventually lose the position. Here is a link to the position in &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/explorer/index.html?black=0&amp;amp;ply=10&amp;amp;id=759938&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess.com's Game explorer&lt;/a&gt;. It isn't seen very often at master level play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="295" LastEditorUserId="672" LastEditDate="2012-12-08T19:55:55.593" LastActivityDate="2012-12-08T19:55:55.593" Title="How should I defend against this sacrifice in the Two Knights Defense?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;sacrifice&gt;&lt;two-knights&gt;&lt;italian-game&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="830" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="822" CreationDate="2012-06-13T01:23:58.907" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've won quite a few games in this line of Cambridge Springs in blitz.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 d5 4. Nf3 c6 5. Bg5 Nbd7 6. e3 Qa5 7. Bd3 Ne4 8. Qc2&#xA;Nxg5 9. Nxg5 dxc4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And black is winning a piece since, knight on g5 and Bishop on d3 are both attacked.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Notes:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1)&lt;code&gt;7. Bd3&lt;/code&gt; looks logical, but it not the best move (though it is not losing). Main-line moves are: &lt;code&gt;7. Nd2&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;7. cxd5&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2)&lt;code&gt;8. Qc2&lt;/code&gt; looks logical, it protects the knight on c3 and attacks the black knight on e4;&#xA;however, this move loses a piece. Better for white is &lt;code&gt;8. Bxe4 dxe4 9. Ne5&lt;/code&gt; with roughly equal position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="307" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-11-14T17:19:34.467" LastActivityDate="2012-11-14T17:19:34.467" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="831" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="829" CreationDate="2012-06-13T03:40:43.357" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;I almost always play &lt;code&gt;4. d4&lt;/code&gt; instead of &lt;code&gt;4. d3&lt;/code&gt;, to keep that line open for the bishop, and open up the game a bit as well. That's not to say &lt;code&gt;d3&lt;/code&gt; isn't ok.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Without computer analysis:&#xA;That said, once they make the mistake of sacrificing that knight, you should quickly play &lt;code&gt;Be3&lt;/code&gt; to defend against them double attacking your pinned knight. Once that is accomplished, you can play &lt;code&gt;Qe2&lt;/code&gt; with the plan of castling queenside and evacuating your destroyed kingside pawn structure. Your goal should then be to carefully simplify by trading down until you get to an endgame where you're up a minor piece.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Axjoa.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With computer analysis:&#xA;Stockfish recommends playing &lt;code&gt;9. Nd5&lt;/code&gt;, with the plan of playing &lt;code&gt;10. Ne3&lt;/code&gt; for most responses, attacking the bishop on g4 (causing him to retreat with &lt;code&gt;...Bd7&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;...Be6&lt;/code&gt;, probably. The great thing to notice here is that &lt;code&gt;9... Nd4&lt;/code&gt; is not actually a threat, even though at first glance it appears to lose the knight on f3. After &lt;code&gt;9... Nd4&lt;/code&gt;, White's tactic is as follows: &lt;code&gt;10. Nxd4! Bxd1 11. Bb5! Qd7&lt;/code&gt; (there is no other option to prevent mate, either &lt;code&gt;11... Qd7&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;11... c6 12. Nxc6 bxc6 13. Bxc6 Qd7&lt;/code&gt;). Bad news for black. After the dust settles it probably looks something like this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/4jW8l.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Back to the main line: &lt;code&gt;9. Nd5&lt;/code&gt;. Black can respond with a dozen reasonable moves (&lt;code&gt;...Na5&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;...Be7&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;...h5&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;...Qd7&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;...Qc7&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;...Qc8&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;...a6&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;...Rc8&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;...a5&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;...Rb8&lt;/code&gt;), all of which follow with &lt;code&gt;10. Ne3&lt;/code&gt; (except for &lt;code&gt;9... Bxf3&lt;/code&gt;, in which case &lt;code&gt;10. Qxf3&lt;/code&gt; is rather necessary). After this, you can start a kingside attack somewhat with &lt;code&gt;Rg1&lt;/code&gt;, and getting your pieces out of the way for a castle queenside. You can turn your destroyed kingside pawns to your advantage by starting the attack there. Plenty of options from here on. You end up with something like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/lXsF8.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For your second line, after you've already castled, I would not play &lt;code&gt;h3&lt;/code&gt; + &lt;code&gt;g4&lt;/code&gt;, which weakens your king's defenses (even if they don't sacrifice a piece there). If you really want to play &lt;code&gt;g4&lt;/code&gt;, you can still recover with &lt;code&gt;Be3&lt;/code&gt;, defending against &lt;code&gt;...Nd4&lt;/code&gt;. They'll probably bring out the queen to attack (&lt;code&gt;...Qf6&lt;/code&gt;), and you need to get your king out of there, undoing your castle to get your rook back outside of the king: &lt;code&gt;Kg2&lt;/code&gt; followed by &lt;code&gt;Rg1&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;Rh1&lt;/code&gt;. This situation isn't nearly as good for white; you'd be better off just avoiding &lt;code&gt;g4&lt;/code&gt; after castling, at least at this early stage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="142" LastEditorUserId="142" LastEditDate="2012-06-14T02:22:33.923" LastActivityDate="2012-06-14T02:22:33.923" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="832" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-06-13T04:02:06.840" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Italian Game is the opening beginning with the moves &lt;code&gt;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4&lt;/code&gt;. It is among the oldest of openings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-07-29T21:47:25.470" LastActivityDate="2012-07-29T21:47:25.470" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="833" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-06-13T04:02:06.840" Score="0" Body="A chess game that opens with `1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4`. It is among the oldest of openings." OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-07-29T21:47:25.470" LastActivityDate="2012-07-29T21:47:25.470" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="834" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="822" CreationDate="2012-06-13T06:55:08.993" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Videos on many of traps can be found at &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.thechesswebsite.com/chess-traps/index.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.thechesswebsite.com/chess-traps/index.php&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastActivityDate="2012-06-13T06:55:08.993" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="835" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="823" CreationDate="2012-06-13T07:20:25.123" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can do this with &lt;a href=&quot;http://chessmaster.us.ubi.com/xi/index.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chessmaster&lt;/a&gt; by checking &lt;code&gt;Blindfold Play&lt;/code&gt; in the &lt;code&gt;Rules&lt;/code&gt; Tab&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-13T18:54:22.037" LastActivityDate="2012-06-13T18:54:22.037" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="836" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-06-13T07:45:23.190" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2012-06-13T07:45:23.190" LastActivityDate="2012-06-13T07:45:23.190" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="837" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-06-13T07:45:23.190" Score="0" Body="A transposition is when a series of moves leads a game from one opening into another." OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-06-13T11:04:09.207" LastActivityDate="2012-06-13T11:04:09.207" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="838" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-06-13T07:48:57.307" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.stockfishchess.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Stockfish&lt;/a&gt; is a strong open-source chess engine, in the same league as commercial engines such as Houdini and Rybka.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-06-21T20:53:08.230" LastActivityDate="2017-06-21T20:53:08.230" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="839" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-06-13T07:48:57.307" Score="0" Body="Stockfish is a strong open-source chess engine." OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-06-13T11:04:40.470" LastActivityDate="2012-06-13T11:04:40.470" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="840" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-06-13T07:51:38.957" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2012-06-13T07:51:38.957" LastActivityDate="2012-06-13T07:51:38.957" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="841" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-06-13T07:51:38.957" Score="0" Body="A simul, short for simultaneous display, is an event in which one (usually quite strong) player takes on multiple opponents at once." OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-06-13T11:03:59.923" LastActivityDate="2012-06-13T11:03:59.923" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="842" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-06-13T07:53:49.657" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2012-06-13T07:53:49.657" LastActivityDate="2012-06-13T07:53:49.657" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="843" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-06-13T07:53:49.657" Score="0" Body="Scid is a free chess database program whose name is an acronym for &quot;Shane's Chess Information Database.&quot;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-06-13T11:04:36.960" LastActivityDate="2012-06-13T11:04:36.960" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="845" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-06-13T13:04:10.710" Score="9" ViewCount="395" Body="&lt;p&gt;I enjoy reading a book of chess on the outside, with my iPhone (and Stockfish) to explore situations. However, I spend too many time setting up the board manually. So here's a crazy idea (patent-free): &lt;strong&gt;Encode board positions (FEN) in QR-Codes!&lt;/strong&gt; Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/T1mpZ.png&quot; alt=&quot;QR-Encoded FEN&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What other simple ideas could improve the usability of current (printed) books?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="37" LastEditorUserId="37" LastEditDate="2014-10-19T00:17:57.990" LastActivityDate="2014-10-19T00:17:57.990" Title="Ideas to improve chess books usability in the XXI century" Tags="&lt;books&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ClosedDate="2012-06-20T14:16:45.703" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="846" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="811" CreationDate="2012-06-13T13:56:38.307" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In a &quot;real&quot; war, if one army moves a unit adjacent to the enemy army, it is likely to provoke a return &quot;fire&quot; from the enemy army. In chess, this &quot;fire&quot; is expressed by capturing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;En passant is a compensation for a pawn being allowed to advance two spaces on its first move. A unit that marched at &quot;double time&quot; would probably rest after half the journey, then resume its march to the destination. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So assume that the pawn marches one square, rests, then tries to complete its march to the second square. But if there is an enemy pawn on the adjacent file, that pawn might start a &quot;duel&quot; with the marching pawn when it is resting. That would result in an en passant capture.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-13T18:48:20.733" LastActivityDate="2012-06-13T18:48:20.733" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="847" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="845" CreationDate="2012-06-13T14:03:30.997" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've long felt that scripting short systems of moves in their chess notation would be very helpful as a teaching tool as well.  There are many, many projects out there that can replay a set of instructions, and it would make it much easier to not only show how to set up some of the basic openings, but also explore their ramifications in response to different positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="326" LastEditorUserId="326" LastEditDate="2012-06-13T15:44:26.143" LastActivityDate="2012-06-13T15:44:26.143" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="848" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="871" CreationDate="2012-06-13T15:15:55.477" Score="18" ViewCount="878" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been asked recently to try to put on a few chess exhibitions for some local kids and their parents in a mostly urban setting, and one thing that I'm keenly aware of is the basic 'uncoolness' that surrounds the game for some people.  I'm trying to fight that tooth and nail, and doing that means figuring out how to make the game Fun with a capital F.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One idea revolves around 'slam chess', which one of my acquaintances from DC introduced me to.  Basically it involves allowing extravagant moves (such as tossing your queen up in the air and catching it before moving her) and allowing mild smack talk if someone falls for a trap or something.  Doing some research, it turns out Maurice Ashley &lt;a href=&quot;http://hereandnow.wbur.org/2012/01/06/chess-grand-master&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;learned chess this way&lt;/a&gt;.  I've never been introduced to this before so I have no idea how people will react to it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another idea is to get deconstructionist and to not worry about the overall game as much as putting up a bunch of tactical problems that people can engage and solve, with people giving hints if need be, with the ultimate goal having people solve 3-5 tactical problems to frame chess as a bunch of little victories instead of one longer game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The big goal is to make the game exciting and get the human element involved in it; the two big pieces of feedback I heard when asking around were after the fashion 'nobody plays chess' or 'it's too much work to learn'.  The solution as I see it is to just make the game fun, then people play and it's not work to mess with it (it's fun).  I'm decently familiar with programming, video editing, etc so if anyone has a particular idea for websites or media production to help a presentation I'm all ears as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS: I saw &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/749/how-to-make-chess-interesting-and-fun-for-beginners-and-doubters&quot;&gt;this question&lt;/a&gt;, but it more related to talking to individual people than putting on a show for a group.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="326" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2021-04-11T06:39:43.503" Title="How can I make a chess exhibition exciting for 'laypeople'?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;clubs&gt;" AnswerCount="8" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="849" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-06-13T19:06:34.177" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2012-06-13T19:06:34.177" LastActivityDate="2012-06-13T19:06:34.177" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="850" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-06-13T19:06:34.177" Score="0" Body="Questions relating to chess training" OwnerUserId="86" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-13T19:15:30.967" LastActivityDate="2012-06-13T19:15:30.967" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="851" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-06-13T19:07:33.567" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Tournament directors are informally known as TDs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="86" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-13T19:15:23.977" LastActivityDate="2012-06-13T19:15:23.977" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="852" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-06-13T19:07:33.567" Score="0" Body="Questions relating to the responsibilities of tournament directors." OwnerUserId="86" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-13T19:15:28.487" LastActivityDate="2012-06-13T19:15:28.487" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="853" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="856" CreationDate="2012-06-13T22:17:45.727" Score="22" ViewCount="1169" Body="&lt;p&gt;The game &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1102400&quot;&gt;Saemisch - Nimzowitsch (Copenhagen 1923)&lt;/a&gt; has come to be known as the &lt;em&gt;Immortal Zugzwang Game&lt;/em&gt;, as a play on Anderssen's swashbuckling &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1018910&quot;&gt;Immortal Game&lt;/a&gt;. I am interested in finding other examples of what might be called a &quot;grand &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zugzwang&quot;&gt;Zugzwang&lt;/a&gt;,&quot; where there are still many pieces on the board (rather than a less-cluttered endgame position, where Zugzwang most commonly occurs) but one player is stuck in a situation where the compulsion to move will ultimately ruin his or her position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It turns out there is already a &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zugzwang#Zugzwang_in_the_middlegame_and_complex_endgames&quot;&gt;great wikipedia entry&lt;/a&gt; that lists several fantastic examples, including my personal favorite &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1581229&quot;&gt;Podgaets - Dvoretsky (Odessa 1974)&lt;/a&gt;, which includes the one move in chess history I would most like to have played: in the position&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;5r2/p5k1/Pp1p2p1/2pP4/6nq/8/1PP2PQ1/5RKB b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Mikhail Podgaets&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Mark Dvoretsky&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Dvoretsky played the spectacular &lt;code&gt;29. ... Rf3!!&lt;/code&gt;, leaving white completely paralyzed in a position where any move (after he runs out of pawn waiting moves) leads to immediate ruin. This brings me to my question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Can you point me to other &quot;grand Zugzwang&quot; games, ones that are not mentioned on the wikipedia page above?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since wikipedia can be a moving target, I'll list the games (beyond the two already mentioned above) that are on the wikipedia page as of my writing:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1132712&quot;&gt;Steinitz - Lasker (1896 Match, Round 3)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1289113&quot;&gt;Harper - Zuk (Halloween Open 1971)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Van Dongen - Wijsman (Eindhoven 2005)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Zhilin - Chernov (USSR Ch. 1960)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1008378&quot;&gt;Fischer - Rossetto (Mar del Plata 1959)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;An example from Euwe and Meiden's book &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/0486279472&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Chess Master vs. Chess Amateur&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-11-23T07:21:58.087" LastActivityDate="2012-12-08T16:31:41.420" Title="What are some chess games that feature Zugzwang despite many pieces remaining on the board?" Tags="&lt;history&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;&lt;zugzwang&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="854" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-06-13T22:20:31.760" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2012-06-13T22:20:31.760" LastActivityDate="2012-06-13T22:20:31.760" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="855" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-06-13T22:20:31.760" Score="0" Body="Zugzwang is a German term, literally meaning &quot;compulsion to move,&quot; which refers in chess to a situation in which any move by the side whose turn it is leads to ruin, but the player would be saved if only it were legal to &quot;pass.&quot;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-06-13T22:23:33.800" LastActivityDate="2012-06-13T22:23:33.800" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="856" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="853" CreationDate="2012-06-13T23:02:14.317" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;The game &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1012683&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Alekhine-Nimzowitsch&lt;/a&gt; immediately comes to mind; a great example of both a zugzwang in a position full of pieces and the infamous &quot;Alekhine's Gun&quot; (the tripled major pieces on the c-file):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Alexander Alekhine&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Aron Nimzowitsch&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 Bb4 4. e5 c5 5. Bd2 Ne7 6. Nb5 Bxd2+&#xA;7. Qxd2 O-O 8. c3 b6 9. f4 Ba6 10. Nf3 Qd7 11. a4 Nbc6 12. b4&#xA;cxb4 13. cxb4 Bb7 14. Nd6 f5 15. a5 Nc8 16. Nxb7 Qxb7 17. a6&#xA;Qf7 18. Bb5 N8e7 19. O-O h6 20. Rfc1 Rfc8 21. Rc2 Qe8 22. Rac1&#xA;Rab8 23. Qe3 Rc7 24. Rc3 Qd7 25. R1c2 Kf8 26. Qc1 Rbc8 27. Ba4&#xA;b5 28. Bxb5 Ke8 29. Ba4 Kd8 30. h4 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nimzowitsch resigned here, as Alekhine will be able to just sit tight, making waiting moves with his king, say, and once Nimzowitsch runs out of moves with his g- and h-pawns, any piece move will spell disaster:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The c6 knight is pinned to the queen.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The c7 rook has no squares.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The c8 rook and e7 knight can't move because both are needed to defend the c6 knight.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Finally, if &lt;code&gt;...Ke8&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;...Qe8&lt;/code&gt;, then the c7 rook is inadequately defended after the move &lt;code&gt;b5&lt;/code&gt; kicks&#xA;the knight away.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="63" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-11-23T07:26:18.147" LastActivityDate="2012-11-23T07:26:18.147" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="857" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="853" CreationDate="2012-06-13T23:20:53.820" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;And here's more. An &lt;a href=&quot;http://digitaledition.qwinc.com/display_article.php?id=214251&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;article by Larry Kaufman&lt;/a&gt; points to yet another nice example from Fischer, this one played against Daniel Collins in a simul in 1964:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Bobby Fischer&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Daniel Collins&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 dxe4 4.Nxe4 Bf5 5.Nc5 Qc7 6.Bd3 Bxd3 7.Nxd3 Nd7&#xA;8. Bf4 Qb6 9.Nf3 f6 10.O-O O-O-O 11.a4 Re8 12.a5 Qd8 13.Re1 g5 14.Bg3 h5&#xA;15. h4 g4 16.Nd2 Nh6 17.Nc4 Nf5 18.a6 b5 19.Na5 Qb6 20.Nc5 Nxg3 21.Re6 Nb8&#xA;22. fxg3 Rd8 23.c3 Rd6 24.Qe2 Rxe6 25.Qxe6+ Kc7 26.b4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the final position given here (which isn't the final position of the full game), note that:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The black queen has no safe squares.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;... Nxa6&lt;/code&gt; allows &lt;code&gt;Qd7+&lt;/code&gt; and impending doom.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;... f5&lt;/code&gt; allows &lt;code&gt;Qe5+&lt;/code&gt;, forking the king and rook.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;A rook move allows &lt;code&gt;Qg8&lt;/code&gt; and the bishop is lost.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;A bishop move allows &lt;code&gt;Qxe7+&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Black wasn't actually in Zugzwang yet, as he could have safely played &lt;code&gt;26. ... Kd8&lt;/code&gt;, but after &lt;code&gt;27. Nab7+ Kc7&lt;/code&gt; (&lt;code&gt;... Ke8 28. Nd6+ Kd8 29. Qc8#&lt;/code&gt;) &lt;code&gt;28. Kh2&lt;/code&gt; the Zugzwang would be in full effect.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="672" LastEditDate="2012-12-08T16:31:41.420" LastActivityDate="2012-12-08T16:31:41.420" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="858" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="860" CreationDate="2012-06-14T01:18:36.517" Score="9" ViewCount="1698" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm a (very) amateur player and have seen the use of en-passant only a couple of times in club games. Chess books I've read (Soltis, Weeramantry, Pandolfini,etc.) feature hardly any games having en-passant pawn captures.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Are there any recent championship games featuring a serious use of en-passant?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By &quot;serious&quot; I mean the outcome of the game depended substantially on this move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="67" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-03-12T17:39:08.343" LastActivityDate="2020-03-12T17:39:08.343" Title="What serious use of en passant has been made recently?" Tags="&lt;master-games&gt;&lt;en-passant&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="859" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="858" CreationDate="2012-06-14T01:57:44.127" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;In 12th (Final) game of Anand - Topalov match, en passant did come into play. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/eonpn.png&quot; width=&quot;300&quot;&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;em&gt;Position after &lt;code&gt;36...g5+&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;37. fxg6&lt;/code&gt; is an en passant capture. Topalov still lost the game; however, if he did not have en passant capture, he would've lost much sooner.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;World Championship Match&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Sofia BUL&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2010.05.11&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;2010.04.26&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;12&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Topalov&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Anand&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;D56&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;2805&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;2787&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.Nc3 Be7 5.Bg5 h6 6.Bh4 O-O 7.e3&#xA;Ne4 8.Bxe7 Qxe7 9.Rc1 c6 10.Be2 Nxc3 11.Rxc3 dxc4 12.Bxc4 Nd7&#xA;13.O-O b6 14.Bd3 c5 15.Be4 Rb8 16.Qc2 Nf6 17.dxc5 Nxe4 18.Qxe4&#xA;bxc5 19.Qc2 Bb7 20.Nd2 Rfd8 21.f3 Ba6 22.Rf2 Rd7 23.g3 Rbd8&#xA;24.Kg2 Bd3 25.Qc1 Ba6 26.Ra3 Bb7 27.Nb3 Rc7 28.Na5 Ba8 29.Nc4&#xA;e5 30.e4 f5 31.exf5 e4 32.fxe4 Qxe4+ 33.Kh3 Rd4 34.Ne3 Qe8&#xA;35.g4 h5 36.Kh4 g5+ 37.fxg6 Qxg6 38.Qf1 Rxg4+ 39.Kh3 Re7&#xA;40.Rf8+ Kg7 41.Nf5+ Kh7 42.Rg3 Rxg3+ 43.hxg3 Qg4+ 44.Kh2 Re2+&#xA;45.Kg1 Rg2+ 46.Qxg2 Bxg2 47.Kxg2 Qe2+ 48.Kh3 c4 49.a4 a5&#xA;50.Rf6 Kg8 51.Nh6+ Kg7 52.Rb6 Qe4 53.Kh2 Kh7 54.Rd6 Qe5 55.Nf7&#xA;Qxb2+ 56.Kh3 Qg7 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1582125&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1582125&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="307" LastEditorUserId="7726" LastEditDate="2019-07-25T11:34:59.307" LastActivityDate="2019-07-25T11:34:59.307" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="860" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="858" CreationDate="2012-06-14T05:01:26.387" Score="16" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'll give an example that isn't from a world championship match, and isn't recent either. In fact, it doesn't even have an en passant capture in it. (Bear with me.) It does have a world champion playing in it, though, and more importantly, I hope it illustrates the following: &lt;em&gt;even when no en passant capture actually occurs in a game, the fact that it is possible might be playing a very big role&lt;/em&gt;. This is not entirely unrelated to the old chess saying, &quot;the threat is stronger than the execution.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the game &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1012123&quot;&gt;Alekhine - Yates (London 1922)&lt;/a&gt;, we have the following position after black's thirty-first move:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;r3r1k1/2R3p1/2R1p2p/3pNp1P/p2P1K2/Pp2PP2/1P4P1/5b2 w - - 0 31&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. g3 1... Ba6 (1... g5+ 2. hxg6) 2. Rf7 Kh7 3. Rcc7 Rg8 4. Nd7 Kh8 5. Nf6 Rgf8 6. Rxg7! Rxf6 7. Ke5 7... 1-0 (7... Rff8 8. Rh7+ Kg8 9. Rcg7#) (7... Raf8 8. Rh7+ Kg8 9. Rcg7#)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Alekhine has boldly played his king forward with the idea of infiltrating the black position via e5. On the previous move, Yates had attacked his g-pawn with &lt;code&gt;31. ... Bf1&lt;/code&gt; and Alekhine replies simply with &lt;code&gt;32. g3&lt;/code&gt; to keep the pawn safe, ready to get back to business after that. Looking at the position, we can see that if Alekhine didn't have the en passant capture at his disposal, then Yates would be able to checkmate him with &lt;code&gt;32. ... g5&lt;/code&gt;. But since the rule is in effect, Alekhine's king is actually perfectly safe, and in a strong position to help his other forces attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now Alekhine didn't have to play &lt;code&gt;32. g3&lt;/code&gt; setting up this &quot;pseudo-mate&quot; possibility. But still the point is that the white pawn on h5 and its en passant threat plays a big part in Alekhine's suffocating clamp on the black position, and his successful invasion. Yates resigned only a few moves later, with Alekhine's king delivering the final blow on e5: &lt;code&gt;32. ... Ba6 33. Rf7 Kh7 34. Rcc7 Rg8 35. Nd7 Kh8 36. Nf6 Rgf8 37. Rxg7! Rxf6 38. Ke5 1-0&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yates must lose his rook, because if either rook moves to f8, Alekhine has mate in two with &lt;code&gt;39. Rh7+ Kg8 40. Rcg7#&lt;/code&gt;. To reiterate the larger point:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Many potential en passant captures that never actually occur, because the mere possibility of it discourages the other player from ever making the two-square advance in the first place, still play a major role in the game. This aspect - the most effective en passant is perhaps the one you never see - is one reason why, superficially, the en passant capture might seem like a less important/significant feature of chess than it actually is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="827" LastEditDate="2013-02-08T18:11:38.433" LastActivityDate="2013-02-08T18:11:38.433" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="861" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-06-14T08:13:08.793" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forsyth%E2%80%93Edwards_Notation&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Forsyth-Edwards Notation&lt;/a&gt; (FEN) is a standard notation for recording a particular chess position, including the location of pieces, which side is to move, what castling rights are available, etc. It originated with the 19th Century journalist David Forsyth, and was later extended for digital use by Steven J. Edwards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-06-22T11:47:55.483" LastActivityDate="2017-06-22T11:47:55.483" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="862" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-06-14T08:13:08.793" Score="0" Body="Forsyth-Edwards Notation (FEN) is a standard notation for recording a particular chess position, including the location of pieces, which side is to move, what castling rights are available, etc." OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-06-14T11:02:45.367" LastActivityDate="2012-06-14T11:02:45.367" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="863" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="870" CreationDate="2012-06-14T08:17:35.557" Score="8" ViewCount="804" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd like to study examples where a much weaker player succeeded against an IM or GM.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="35" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-14T14:07:33.523" LastActivityDate="2019-09-08T12:21:29.760" Title="What are some examples of wins by a much weaker player?" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="864" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-06-14T08:18:30.923" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2012-06-14T08:18:30.923" LastActivityDate="2012-06-14T08:18:30.923" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="865" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-06-14T08:18:30.923" Score="0" Body="Deep Blue was a chess computer developed by IBM. The first version lost a 1996 match to Garry Kasparov, but an improved version won a 1997 rematch." OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-06-14T11:02:39.937" LastActivityDate="2012-06-14T11:02:39.937" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="866" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-06-14T08:20:20.577" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2012-06-14T08:20:20.577" LastActivityDate="2012-06-14T08:20:20.577" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="867" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-06-14T08:20:20.577" Score="0" Body="A closed position is one in which the pawn structure on the board is such that there are few open lines for the maneuvering of pieces." OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-06-14T11:02:31.997" LastActivityDate="2012-06-14T11:02:31.997" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="868" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-06-14T11:23:40.300" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;En passant&lt;/em&gt; means &quot;in passing.&quot; This strange move was added to prevent players from creating passed pawns by using the pawn's 2-square first move to sneak past defending pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;En passant&lt;/em&gt; is a special type of pawn capture allowed only when one player moves a pawn two squares forward and in doing so, ends up being adjacent to an opponent's pawn. On the next move &lt;strong&gt;only&lt;/strong&gt;, the second player has the option to capture the pawn &lt;em&gt;en passant&lt;/em&gt; by capturing as if the first player's pawn had only been moved one square. It literally moves diagonally onto an empty square. The pawn previously moved two squares is captured.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/En_passant&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;More information is here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="3444" LastEditDate="2019-03-03T15:33:51.767" LastActivityDate="2019-03-03T15:33:51.767" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="869" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-06-14T11:23:40.300" Score="0" Body="En passant is a rule allowing a pawn to make a special-case capture." OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="3444" LastEditDate="2019-03-03T10:01:21.893" LastActivityDate="2019-03-03T10:01:21.893" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="870" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="863" CreationDate="2012-06-14T13:12:12.617" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;This game comes to mind:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It was a first game in a 2 game match of the first round knock out FIDE championship. Anand rated at 2770 was I believe the highest rated player in the event. Touzane, I believe, was not a professional player. Touzane won the first game. Despite the first game win for Touzane, Anand won the second, and then the tie-break. Nevertheless, Anand losing to a player rated 400+ below him was quite a shocker.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;FIDE WCh KO&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Moscow RUS&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2001.01.02&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;2001.11.27&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;1.1&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Viswanathan Anand&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Olivier Touzane&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;C42&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;2770&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;2368&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;78&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. Nxe5 d6 4. Nf3 Nxe4 5. d4 d5 6. Bd3 Nc6&#xA;7. O-O Be7 8. c4 Nf6 9. Nc3 O-O 10. Re1 Be6 11. cxd5 Nxd5&#xA;12. a3 Bf6 13. Be4 h6 14. Bc2 Nxc3 15. bxc3 Bc4 16. Nd2 Bd5&#xA;17. Rb1 Bg5 18. c4 Bxd2 19. cxd5 Bxe1 20. dxc6 Ba5 21. Qd3 g6&#xA;22. cxb7 Rb8 23. Bxh6 Re8 24. Qf3 Re6 25. Bb3 Rf6 26. Qg4 Rb6&#xA;27. Bg5 Qe8 28. Qf3 R8xb7 29. h4 Qd7 30. g4 Rxb3 31. Rxb3 Rxb3&#xA;32. Qxb3 Qxg4+ 33. Kf1 Qxd4 34. Be3 Qa1+ 35. Kg2 Bb6 36. Bxb6&#xA;axb6 37. Qg3 Qc1 38. h5 Qc6+ 39. Kf1 Qh1+ 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1209549&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Anand - Touzane&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="307" LastEditorUserId="20065" LastEditDate="2019-09-08T04:33:20.660" LastActivityDate="2019-09-08T04:33:20.660" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="871" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="848" CreationDate="2012-06-14T14:21:34.310" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been to a lot of events that have featured the live-action chess game. It's usually a big hit with people not normally into chess. Make a giant chess board with paper or tape or whatever and bring costumes along for people to act as the pieces. You'll want to run quick games that way so the people don't get bored. And be prepared for the kids to get antsy and run off. Having some backup players on the wings to take over can be helpful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Try to work up a crowd with a couple &quot;main events&quot;, and steer people around to the shorter things like your tactical idea on the side-lines. More often than not, a big crowd in one part will create interest for others, even if they wouldn't be interested normally.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="29" LastActivityDate="2012-06-14T14:21:34.310" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="872" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="873" CreationDate="2012-06-14T14:37:49.700" Score="9" ViewCount="395" Body="&lt;p&gt;One of the illustrative games featured in &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Reinfeld&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Fred Reinfeld&lt;/a&gt;'s &lt;em&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/0671768956&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;The Complete Chessplayer&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt; is a game between A. Muffang - P. Devos, France-Belgium 1948:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. c4 dxc4 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. e3 e6 5. Bxc4 c5 6. O-O a6 7. a3 Be7 8. Qe2 b5&#xA;9. Ba2 Bb7 10. dxc5 Bxc5 11. b4 Ba7 12. Bb2 O-O 13. Nbd2 Ne4? 14. Rfd1 Qe7 15. Rac1 Nxd2&#xA;16. Qxd2! Bb6 17. Qc3! f6 18. Nd4! Bxd4 19. Qxd4 Nc6 20. Qc5 Rfe8 21. Rd6 Nd8&#xA;22. Qd4! Bc8 23. h4 Kh8 24. Bb1! Rb8 25. Qe4 f5 26. Qe5 Ra8 27. Rc7!! 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The point in question is Reinfeld's commentary on move 16, after &lt;code&gt;16. Qxd2!&lt;/code&gt;; he says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A pretty variation is 16 ... N-B3; 17 RxN! BxR; 18 Q-B3 (&lt;em&gt;double attack&lt;/em&gt;) threatening mate and therefore winning the Bishop on QB6, with the victorious material advantage of two minor pieces for a Rook.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Translated into algebraic, that is &lt;code&gt;16... Nc6 17. Rxc6! Bxc6 18. Qc3&lt;/code&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;rn3rk1/bb2qppp/p3p3/1p6/1P6/P3PN2/BB1nQPPP/2RR2K1 w - - 0 16&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Qxd2! Nc6 2. Rxc6! Bxc6 3. Qc3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But what about &lt;code&gt;18... Qf6&lt;/code&gt;?  That not only parries the mate threat, but if now &lt;code&gt;19. Qxc6&lt;/code&gt;, then &lt;code&gt;19... Qxb2&lt;/code&gt;, bishop for bishop, and White cannot even continue with &lt;code&gt;20. Qxa6?&lt;/code&gt; (taking a vital unprotected pawn), for Black can then take White's other bishop - &lt;code&gt;20... Qxa2&lt;/code&gt;.  In fact, any line of play makes it hard for White to rescue the bishop after &lt;code&gt;19... Qxb2&lt;/code&gt;.  &lt;code&gt;20. Rd2??&lt;/code&gt;, the only possible move to protect the bishop results in &lt;code&gt;20... Qa1+!&lt;/code&gt; forcing mate in four.  And &lt;code&gt;20. Bb1&lt;/code&gt;, the only possible move of the bishop to safety results in the loss of his QR pawn - &lt;code&gt;20... Qxa3&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;r4rk1/b3qppp/p1b1p3/1p6/1P6/P1Q1PN2/BB3PPP/3R2K1 b - - 1 18&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Qf6 2. Qxc6 Qxb2 3. Bb1 Qxa3 (3. Qxa6? Qxa2) (3. Rd2?? Qa1+! 4. Bb1 Qxb1+ 5. Qc1 Qxc1+ 6. Rd1 Qxd1+ 7. Ne1 Qxe1#)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't see any way for White to justify the sacrifice of the Exchange with &lt;code&gt;17. Rxc6&lt;/code&gt;, since after &lt;code&gt;18... Qf6&lt;/code&gt; it looks as if Black can hold his own. (Yes, there is &lt;code&gt;19. Qxf6 gxf6 20. Bxf6&lt;/code&gt; winning a Pawn, but that doesn't make up for the loss of the Exchange.  And Black can also double White's pawns and steer toward the endgame with &lt;code&gt;20... Bxf3 21. gxf3&lt;/code&gt;.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Am I right in saying that Reinfeld made a mistake, or am I missing something?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="86" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-11-16T19:52:07.460" LastActivityDate="2019-07-22T21:12:27.403" Title="Did Reinfeld make a mistake?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;combinations&gt;&lt;master-games&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="873" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="872" CreationDate="2012-06-14T14:59:35.523" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, it does look like Reinfeld made a mistake, but white should still be doing well after &lt;code&gt;18... Qf6&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White should now play &lt;code&gt;19. Qc1!&lt;/code&gt; hitting the queen and the bishop.  Now black's best continuation is to sacrifice the queen with &lt;code&gt;19... Bxf3 20. Bxf6 Bxd1&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;r4rk1/b4ppp/p1b1pq2/1p6/1P6/P1Q1PN2/BB3PPP/3R2K1 w - - 1 18&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Qc1 Bxf3 2. Bxf6 Bxd1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One possible line from here is &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;r4rk1/b4ppp/p3pB2/1p6/1P6/P3P3/B4PPP/2Qb2K1 w - - 1 18&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Bxg7 Kxg7 2. Qxd1 Rad8 3. Qg4+ Kh8&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and white has a queen and a pawn for the two rooks, but a strong attack because black's king is so weak.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To summarize, it does appear that Reinfeld made a mistake because after &lt;code&gt;16... Nc6?&lt;/code&gt; white can simply play &lt;code&gt;17. Qc3!&lt;/code&gt; and win easily, but even the line he gives should be okay for white.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-07-22T21:12:27.403" LastActivityDate="2019-07-22T21:12:27.403" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="874" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="877" CreationDate="2012-06-14T16:34:58.010" Score="13" ViewCount="383" Body="&lt;p&gt;If one player (Black) gives another player (White) odds of x moves, stipulating that White must not move any man beyond his fourth rank until Black has made one move, what's the smallest value for &quot;x&quot; that would force checkmate by the time it is Black's turn to move?  And what would those x moves be?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="86" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-05T01:01:24.683" LastActivityDate="2020-04-05T01:01:24.683" Title="Giving moves as odds, what's the least number of moves by White which forces checkmate by the time it's Black's turn?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;problems&gt;&lt;handicapping&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="875" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="876" CreationDate="2012-06-14T18:47:13.760" Score="7" ViewCount="1859" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have hardly if ever seen 2 rooks being traded off for queen and pawn (or for just queen) in common games. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Under what conditions is this trade-off advisable? &#xA;  Why is it fairly uncommon?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="67" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-14T19:11:33.713" LastActivityDate="2012-06-14T20:02:31.060" Title="Trading off two rooks for queen and pawn" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;point-value&gt;&lt;rooks&gt;&lt;queens&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="876" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="875" CreationDate="2012-06-14T19:05:16.653" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;If anything, it would be advisable to trade one's queen for the opponent's rooks, not vice versa.  But it all depends on the position.  If my opponent's queen is particularly useful to him and dangerous to me, and my rooks haven't been well developed, especially if I'm already ahead in material, I wouldn't hesitate to exchange my rooks for the queen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, in the middle game, if my opponent's rooks are passive, and his king is exposed, I might prefer to exchange away my rooks in favor of having my queen to worry the king with.  In some positions, a queen and minor piece can be more effective than two rooks and a minor piece.  Such positions generally occur during the middle game, when the opponent's many pawns and minor pieces hamper most offensive rook moves.  In contrast, the queen can do very well with her great scope, especially when supported with one or two well-situated minor pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Two rooks for queen and pawn - well, it would depend a lot on the pawn, &lt;em&gt;and&lt;/em&gt; on the position.  I would almost certainly trade two rooks for a queen and passed pawn, but I'd regard the opportunity with suspicion if the pawn in question was an underdeveloped doubled pawn already amply guarded against by my pawns.  More than likely, I'd be able to pick up such a pawn later, if it turned out to be necessary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I would consider it a definite material advantage &lt;em&gt;at most times&lt;/em&gt; to exchange my queen for two rooks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The likely reasons why you don't see it much are that 1) the opportunity isn't all that common, and 2) the side getting the two rooks generally becomes stronger, so his opponent will want to avoid it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="86" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-14T20:02:31.060" LastActivityDate="2012-06-14T20:02:31.060" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="877" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="874" CreationDate="2012-06-15T04:23:18.913" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;Interesting puzzle. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I came up with this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 null 2. Qd2 null 3. Qf4 null 4. a4 null 5. Ra3 null 6. Re3 null 7. Nf3 null 8. h4 null 9. Nh2 null 10. Ng4 null 11. Rhh3 null 12. Rhf3 null 13. Nc3 null 14. Ne4 null 15. g3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After Black makes any move, it is a forced checkmate according Houdini. The best move is ’15... f6.’ It allows for mate in 10 moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="307" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-10-26T14:48:49.347" LastActivityDate="2019-10-26T14:48:49.347" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="878" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-06-15T05:27:10.723" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2012-06-15T05:27:10.723" LastActivityDate="2012-06-15T05:27:10.723" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="879" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-06-15T05:27:10.723" Score="0" Body="The Philidor Defence is the opening which begins 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 d6, and which is named after the 18th-Century French player Fran&amp;ccedil;ois-Andr&amp;eacute; Danican Philidor." OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-06-15T05:28:13.527" LastActivityDate="2012-06-15T05:28:13.527" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="880" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-06-15T05:32:09.187" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2012-06-15T05:32:09.187" LastActivityDate="2012-06-15T05:32:09.187" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="881" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-06-15T05:32:09.187" Score="0" Body="The hypermodern school of chess, expounded by the likes of Aron Nimzowitsch and Richard Réti, expanded upon the classical positional principles of Wilhelm Steinitz." OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="12" LastEditDate="2012-06-15T06:09:18.220" LastActivityDate="2012-06-15T06:09:18.220" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="882" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="823" CreationDate="2012-06-15T06:06:53.247" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not strictly on a computer in your sense I assume, and, depending on how good you are, potentially not challenging enough: A friend of mine did this with an old second hand chess computer. The kind that comes with a board and pieces. The board is touch sensitive to register your moves and has LEDs to indicate computer moves. He played without the pieces. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The advantage: Many of these take batteries and allow you to play anywhere.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="329" LastActivityDate="2012-06-15T06:06:53.247" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="883" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="897" CreationDate="2012-06-15T07:20:18.597" Score="28" ViewCount="11123" Body="&lt;p&gt;What's the &lt;em&gt;technique&lt;/em&gt; behind the moves of the stronger side in order to win?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there situations where the side with K+R can force a draw against K+Q?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've read plenty of examples of K+Q vs K+R, but they were only mere sequences of moves without explanation, and sometimes I didn't get the logic. The only thing I managed to understand is that the stronger side has to force the Rook away from his King, and then double-attack them with the Queen. But how can I make it happen?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="279" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2014-03-11T00:27:07.530" LastActivityDate="2020-08-04T22:03:22.050" Title="How do you win with a queen against a rook?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;rooks&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;kings&gt;&lt;queens&gt;" AnswerCount="11" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="884" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="883" CreationDate="2012-06-15T08:05:34.780" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;One possibility is to force a draw by repetition. E.g. if you have black Ka8, Qc8 and white Kb1, Rb2, then white needs just to check the black king forever. If he goes on the c file, the queen is lost. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;k1q5/8/8/8/8/8/1R6/1K6 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="35" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2014-03-11T00:31:06.873" LastActivityDate="2014-03-11T00:31:06.873" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="885" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="886" CreationDate="2012-06-15T15:06:01.803" Score="15" ViewCount="4253" Body="&lt;p&gt;Which are the most common situations in which pieces are worth more/less than their value, in point?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, I know that a protected Knight on 6th rank (3rd for Black) of columns d and e may be worth at least as much as a Rook (thus 5 points). The same for a very strong fianchettoed Bishop.  Another example: a Rook on 7th rank (2nd for Black) usually is worth a Pawn more than its normal value, while 2 Rooks there may be worth 3 Pawns more than their normal combined value (if opponent's King stays on 8th or 1st row respectively, of course).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there other similar situations?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="279" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-15T15:20:33.687" LastActivityDate="2020-08-13T08:34:42.680" Title="When are pieces worth more (or less) than their nominal value?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;point-value&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="886" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="885" CreationDate="2012-06-15T15:37:03.547" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;While I don't think it's reasonable to list every noteworthy situation, here are a few more that will probably be good general guidelines.  You can use rules-of-thumb like this in order to evaluate material imbalances in your own games:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the &lt;strong&gt;bishop pair&lt;/strong&gt; may be worth a &lt;strong&gt;rook and two pawns&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the &lt;strong&gt;bishop pair and a pawn&lt;/strong&gt; is worth a &lt;strong&gt;knight and a rook&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;a &lt;strong&gt;knight on the 6th rank&lt;/strong&gt; is worth a &lt;strong&gt;rook&lt;/strong&gt; if it cannot be traded off or chased away (and it is close to the action)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;an &lt;strong&gt;unopposed dark square bishop&lt;/strong&gt; is worth a &lt;strong&gt;rook&lt;/strong&gt; if the opponent has played g6 &lt;em&gt;and the queens are on the board&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;a &lt;strong&gt;rook on the 7th&lt;/strong&gt; is worth an extra pawn&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;doubled rooks on the 7th&lt;/strong&gt; is usually good for at least a draw&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the &lt;strong&gt;queen&lt;/strong&gt; may be worth &lt;strong&gt;two rooks&lt;/strong&gt; if the side with the queen can start an attack.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;three minor pieces&lt;/strong&gt; may be worth &lt;strong&gt;a queen&lt;/strong&gt; - take this with a large grain of salt, in every position, one side or the other usually has a decisive advantage so each case must be carefully considered&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;a minor piece, a rook, and a pawn&lt;/strong&gt; are sometimes worth a queen&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;however, the &lt;strong&gt;queen with a pawn&lt;/strong&gt; is usually stronger than &lt;strong&gt;two knights and a rook&lt;/strong&gt; (for some reason, the knights just don't coordinate well, I've never had this situation in my own games)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;three pawns&lt;/strong&gt; are worth &lt;em&gt;more&lt;/em&gt; than &lt;strong&gt;a piece in the endgame&lt;/strong&gt; but &lt;em&gt;much less&lt;/em&gt; than &lt;strong&gt;a piece in the middlegame&lt;/strong&gt; (unless they are advanced in which case they restrict the opponent)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Those are all of the strange imbalances I can think of off the top of my head.  I omitted things like rook and pawn vs two pieces or knight vs bishop because those are fairly common, and those especially depend on the position.  Again, every position needs to be considered on its own, this is just to get you in the right frame of mind when you have to make a determination.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12" LastEditorUserId="12920" LastEditDate="2019-02-01T21:59:45.240" LastActivityDate="2019-02-01T21:59:45.240" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="887" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="883" CreationDate="2012-06-15T17:12:55.680" Score="16" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are a few technical ways to approach this endgame, the most notable one being a &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philidor_position&quot;&gt;Philidor's Position&lt;/a&gt; (the KQ vs. KR one, not the KRP vs. KR one or the KRB vs. KR one).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you do a web search for 3rd or 4th rank defense, you should be able to find more complicated situations outlining ideas for how the defensive position can try to put up a fight while minimizing the effects of a K-R fork occurring.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="103" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-06-16T09:30:10.970" LastActivityDate="2012-06-16T09:30:10.970" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="888" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="895" CreationDate="2012-06-15T17:15:49.893" Score="7" ViewCount="507" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grandmaster_%28chess%29&quot;&gt;wikipedia article&lt;/a&gt; is a good starting point, but I'm also interested in how the specific regulations have changed over the years.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Currently, 3 norms must be achieved&lt;sup&gt;1&lt;/sup&gt; in tournaments that adhere to specific guidelines including foreign players, titled players, and a certain performance rating must be attained.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What was the origin of the current rules, and what were the earlier rules?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;1. Usually...  there are exceptions to this however.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12" LastActivityDate="2012-06-15T22:10:37.970" Title="How has the Grandmaster title evolved?" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;fide&gt;&lt;grandmaster&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="889" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="890" CreationDate="2012-06-15T19:13:12.600" Score="22" ViewCount="9418" Body="&lt;p&gt;I enjoy playing the French Defence as black against &lt;code&gt;1. e4&lt;/code&gt;, for the following reasons.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It often creates a closed position without wild tactics&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It takes white away from the more familiar lines (&lt;code&gt;1... e5&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;1... c5&lt;/code&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If black survives the attack, black will likely have a better pawn structure for the endgame.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It doesn't involve a kingside fianchetto, which never seems to work out for me.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm curious what would be a similar option against &lt;code&gt;1. d4&lt;/code&gt;. I find that when I try to play positionally, looking for long-term advantages, I often find myself in extremely symmetrical, drawish positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd like a system to play against &lt;code&gt;1. d4&lt;/code&gt; that is not extremely common and is reasonably safe, and not prone to symmetrical positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm strictly a club-level player that has no aspirations of being competitive with class-A players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="216" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-02-07T15:24:44.107" LastActivityDate="2021-05-14T14:04:42.600" Title="What is a good French-like defense against 1. d4?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;french-defense&gt;&lt;1.d4&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="890" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="889" CreationDate="2012-06-15T19:35:32.283" Score="27" Body="&lt;p&gt;One option is to play &lt;code&gt;1... e6&lt;/code&gt; against &lt;code&gt;1. d4&lt;/code&gt; anyways!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After &lt;code&gt;1. d4 e6&lt;/code&gt;, white doesn't really have a choice other than to transpose into a standard opening anyways.  If white plays &lt;code&gt;2. e4&lt;/code&gt;, well that's just the French Defense that you know and love.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If white plays something else, like &lt;code&gt;2. c4&lt;/code&gt; (as most Queen's Gambit players will), then you have a few options: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Queen's Gambit Declined&lt;/strong&gt; (&lt;code&gt;2... d5&lt;/code&gt;)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;You have to be prepared here because white will most likely know a few good openings.  There are some obvious similarities between the French and the QGD (black's light square bishop!), but there are a few key differences that you will need to practice.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Benoni&lt;/strong&gt; (&lt;code&gt;2... c5&lt;/code&gt;)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;If you don't want to deal with a symmetrical game, the Benoni is a good option.  However, this is likely to lead to a fairly tactical game after &lt;code&gt;3. d5 exd5 4. cxd5 d6&lt;/code&gt;.  Since you weren't thrilled about a tactical melee, that brings us to the...&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Dutch Defense&lt;/strong&gt; (&lt;code&gt;2... f5&lt;/code&gt;)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Although the Dutch Defense doesn't have the best reputation, it fits your criteria: it's not very tactical (at least the Stonewall, the Leningrad is a totally different story!), black will have some positional trumps (namely the e4 square), and it's offbeat enough.  Black's simple plan is to setup pawns on f5, e6, d5, and c6 and then stick a knight on e4.  The whole battle revolves around control of the e4 square, and black has had good results with the Stonewall Dutch.  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After mentioning all that, &lt;code&gt;1. d4 e6 2.c4&lt;/code&gt; can also lead directly into Indian structures with either &lt;code&gt;2... Nf6&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;2... b6&lt;/code&gt; (the Nimzo and Queen's Indian respectively).  If you are familiar with one of these openings, this is a good way to try to get a French, but fall back on a main line opening if your opponent doesn't oblige with &lt;code&gt;2. e4&lt;/code&gt;.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12" LastActivityDate="2012-06-15T19:35:32.283" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="891" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="894" CreationDate="2012-06-15T19:48:58.097" Score="20" ViewCount="2293" Body="&lt;p&gt;At the international level, I normally see games that are either decided by a draw or one player resigning.  It seems that players at the international level don't let the game result in an actual checkmate, and resign before that happens.  Do actual checkmates still happen at the international level, or has it pretty much stopped?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my own experience, which is not international, I used to play games to the very end; even if I knew I was going to lose, I always lost by checkmate. Later, I came to the realization that it was pointless to drag games on that I knew there was no chance for me to win, so I mostly resign now. This sometimes has a negative impact, especially against weaker players, because sometimes when you are losing there is still a chance to salvage a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-06-18T06:45:02.483" LastActivityDate="2014-07-24T02:30:17.700" Title="Are there still wins by an actual checkmate?" Tags="&lt;famous-players&gt;&lt;etiquette&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="892" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-06-15T19:59:08.093" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The French Defense begins with &lt;code&gt;1. e4 e6&lt;/code&gt;, and usually continues with &lt;code&gt;2. d4 d5&lt;/code&gt;.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/7dmBh.png&quot; alt=&quot;French Defense after 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black plans to play a solid setup and contest white's center with moves like &lt;code&gt;... c5&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;... Nc6&lt;/code&gt;.  The biggest drawback to the French Defense is that black's light square bishop is hemmed in by the e6 pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White has several options against the French Defense including &lt;code&gt;3. Nc3&lt;/code&gt; (the main line), &lt;code&gt;3. Nd2&lt;/code&gt; (the Tarrasch Variation), &lt;code&gt;3. e5&lt;/code&gt; (the Advance Variation), and &lt;code&gt;3. exd5&lt;/code&gt; (the Exchange Variation).  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12" LastEditorUserId="4182" LastEditDate="2015-04-07T19:38:56.917" LastActivityDate="2015-04-07T19:38:56.917" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="893" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-06-15T19:59:08.093" Score="0" Body="The French Defense begins with 1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5.  Black plans to play a solid setup and contest white's center with moves like c5 and Nc6.  The biggest drawback to the French Defense is that black's light square bishop is hemmed in by the e6 pawn." OwnerUserId="12" LastEditorUserId="12" LastEditDate="2012-06-15T20:20:18.820" LastActivityDate="2012-06-15T20:20:18.820" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="894" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="891" CreationDate="2012-06-15T20:09:46.323" Score="21" Body="&lt;p&gt;Generally speaking, it's true, high level games don't play out all the way to checkmate. But there are some exceptions, and the most typical scenario that I have seen for this is a game that features, say, a nice, well-conducted attack, perhaps with a pretty mating pattern or particularly nice combination, and the losing player allows mate to show up on the board as a gesture, a congratulatory &quot;hat tip&quot; to a quality piece of work. For example, I believe that was the case in the game &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1649581&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Adams - Short (London Chess Classic 2011)&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other than that, there are also the occasional instances where mate occurs during a time scramble. Or even more rarely, a top player might just overlook a mate in one and end up getting checkmated: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=3509&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;it can happen to the best of us&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;em&gt;Edited to add:&lt;/em&gt; Just the other day at the Olympiad in Istanbul, GM Dragan Solak of Turkey had a similar &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1687599&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;slip-up against Nakamura&lt;/a&gt;, overlooking the fact that a pin on his f7 pawn made possible a sort of &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Checkmate_pattern#Epaulette_mate&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;epaulette mate&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ZYKEy.png&quot; alt=&quot;Nakamura-Solak&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-09-05T22:38:39.027" LastActivityDate="2012-09-05T22:38:39.027" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="895" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="888" CreationDate="2012-06-15T22:10:37.970" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;One way it is evolving is with the informal 'super-GM' title.  At one time, there weren't many GMs.  Being a GM was being in an elite club.  Now there are a lot of GMs and the differences in their strengths are beginning to show.  (I'm not talking about a GM's performance degrading due to age...)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From the wiki linked below:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In 1972 there were only 88 GMs with 33 representing the USSR. The&#xA;  current FIDE ratings list includes over 1000 grandmasters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Perhaps 20 years ago, a GM rated 2600 was a 'super GM'.  Now 2700 could well be that mark, with some GMs peaking at 2850 or so.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also from the article:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;December 2008 saw a record number of GMs (1,192) and IMs (2,916)&#xA;  causing some FIDE officials to suggest that FIDE should consider an&#xA;  &quot;elite grandmaster&quot; title.[17] The unofficial title, &quot;Super&#xA;  Grandmaster&quot;, is often used by players to refer to those with a 2700+&#xA;  rating to distinguish the most serious world champion contenders.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grandmaster_%28chess%29&quot;&gt;Read more here&lt;/a&gt;.  This article also includes a synopsis of how GM and IM norms are earned, including rules changes by year.  It's very interesting.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2012-06-15T22:10:37.970" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="896" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="889" CreationDate="2012-06-16T01:22:50.273" Score="16" Body="&lt;p&gt;Rudolph Spielmann, a great advocate of the French Defense, would play e6 against d4, to give White the chance to transpose into the French defense with e4. When Rubenstein played c4 instead, Spielmann played f5 and went into a Dutch defense/Stonewall formation, rather than play d5, which seems to give White an edge.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If White plays c4 on the second move after your e6, an alternative to f5 is Nf6, which holds back the d pawn and in some instances heads for a Nimzo-Indian.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2012-06-16T01:22:50.273" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="897" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="883" CreationDate="2012-06-16T01:31:28.840" Score="16" Body="&lt;p&gt;In &quot;Chess Fundamentals,&quot; former world champion J. R. Capablanca noted that this was the hardest of the basic piece-only endgames to win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;His analysis was that the stronger side can win if it can force the rook away from the king, with double threats of checkmating the king, and forking rook and king. If the defending side can keep the rook near the king without getting checkmated, it can draw. Often, the win or draw is just a matter of a square or two; e.g., the rook's staying on the same or opposite square color as the king (it is easier to fork them in the former case).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-19T00:00:03.723" LastActivityDate="2012-06-19T00:00:03.723" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="898" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="885" CreationDate="2012-06-16T01:36:56.603" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;To add to the other answer, a protected passed pawn on the seventh rank (sometimes the sixth) is worth at least a minor piece, because that's what the defender will have to give up to prevent its becoming a queen. Hence, a passed pawn on the fifth rank or further is worth two ordinary pawns. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Bad&quot; bishops trapped behind pawns of the same color may be worth only two or so points instead of three. There might also be a one point deduction for similarly hobbled knights or rooks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A knight may be worth more than a bishop when its queen is on the board (Capablanca), because it complements the queen better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastEditorUserId="1732" LastEditDate="2013-09-22T23:39:01.967" LastActivityDate="2013-09-22T23:39:01.967" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="899" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="808" CreationDate="2012-06-16T01:53:05.913" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If the knight is close to the king, it is hard to win with a rook. That's because the knight will fend off the enemy pieces that try to approach the king. Most winning positions feature the knight and king far apart so that the opposing king and rook can pick them off one by one (checkmate the king or trap the knight).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An important exception to the above is if the knight is either on a corner square, or is a &quot;knights jump&quot; from the corner square. A knight has only two moves from a corner square, meaning it may not have enough maneuvering room. If the knight can find a safe haven on the open board it can defend its king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A similar thing is true with a bishop and king against a rook and king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2012-06-16T01:53:05.913" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="900" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-06-16T09:26:16.640" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-06-16T09:26:16.640" LastActivityDate="2012-06-16T09:26:16.640" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="901" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-06-16T09:26:16.640" Score="0" Body="Tablebases are databases that contain complete, exhaustively calculated moves and variations for a given collection of chess positions. E.g. the Nalimov tablebases contain full solutions for all endgames involving 6 pieces or less." OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-06-16T09:26:16.640" LastActivityDate="2012-06-16T09:26:16.640" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="902" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-06-16T12:04:15.343" Score="4" ViewCount="3178" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am learning artificial intelligence and chess programming. I want to analyze the architecture and read the code of existing chess engines. But I am confused between multiple choices. There are several free chess engines available, for example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Crafty &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;GNU Chess&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Stockfish&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;IPPOLIT&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Fruit 2.1&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;(Add your chess engine here)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am wondering which chess engine is most efficient in terms of CPU cycles used.&#xA;For example, if Crafty achieves 3300 ELO by thinking for 30 seconds on each move, and GNU chess achieves 2500 ELO by thinking 1 second on each move, I would consider GNU Chess to be more efficient.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So which engine is most efficient? What would lead me to choose one over another?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="333" LastEditorUserId="10867" LastEditDate="2016-07-26T17:03:40.957" LastActivityDate="2019-07-20T18:24:18.570" Title="Which is the most CPU efficient chess engine?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;programming&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="10" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="903" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="902" CreationDate="2012-06-16T13:23:53.373" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;If I were going to do this, I'd choose Stockfish, Fruit 2.1, and Crafty for no reason other than their high quality is proven.  Then I'd compare and contrast the techniques, algorithms, and choices made by each.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These aren't easy programs; it would be a lot of work to gain a true understanding.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2012-06-16T13:23:53.373" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="904" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-06-16T13:56:09.947" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;This includes discussion of algorithms, techniques, and architecture for writing or augmenting a chess engine, or the results and efficiency of these things.  It also includes similar for user interfaces or any other tools that enhance the chess playing experience.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2012-06-16T14:30:20.513" LastActivityDate="2012-06-16T14:30:20.513" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="905" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-06-16T13:56:09.947" Score="0" Body="Questions related to all aspects of writing software related to chess." OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2012-06-16T14:29:58.797" LastActivityDate="2012-06-16T14:29:58.797" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="906" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="824" CreationDate="2012-06-16T14:06:57.440" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Kasparov has been known to make controversial statements. He's just not politically correct. But it is the fact that the match winner will not be considered world strongest chess player by most. According to &lt;a href=&quot;http://ratings.fide.com/toparc.phtml?cod=213&quot;&gt;May 2012 FIDE Elo list&lt;/a&gt; Anand was no.4 and Gelfand no.20. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The part about it being first time in long period of time is questionable, recent FIDE world chess champions like Khalifman, Ponomariov and Kasimdzhanov were also not in the World's top few and Kasparov himself chose Kramnik for his &quot;classical world champion&quot; match who arguably was not the strongest player possible (but beat him anyway).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="334" LastActivityDate="2012-06-16T14:06:57.440" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="907" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-06-17T13:46:30.750" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2012-06-17T13:46:30.750" LastActivityDate="2012-06-17T13:46:30.750" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="908" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-06-17T13:46:30.750" Score="0" Body="1. d4 is one of White's two most common first moves. It tends to produce closed games." OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-22T18:33:55.203" LastActivityDate="2012-06-22T18:33:55.203" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="909" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="910" CreationDate="2012-06-17T14:47:25.190" Score="12" ViewCount="820" Body="&lt;p&gt;In &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/494/how-can-one-determine-the-opening-or-transposed-opening-from-the-existing-pawn-f/806#806&quot;&gt;response to an earlier question&lt;/a&gt;, I mentioned the 1959 book &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/0486264866&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Pawn Power in Chess&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt; by IM &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Kmoch&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Hans Kmoch&lt;/a&gt;. One of the book's most well-known aspects it that it introduced a glut of less-than-useful terminology that is rather more encumbering than enlightening. For instance, Kmoch introduces terms like &lt;em&gt;dispersion&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;distortion&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;interspan&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;leucopenia&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;melanpenia&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;pincer lever&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;quartgrip&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;telestop&lt;/em&gt; and more that never really caught on. (A further sampling can be found &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessville.com/Reference_Center/Pawn_Power_Glossary.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ultimately, Kmoch just ends up trying to be too exhaustive, giving names even to things that don't really need them, as far as understanding pawn play is concerned. In the long run, needless to say, this quirky jargon didn't really catch on in the chess literature. But I don't know that it didn't have some impact in the short term. So my question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Did any chess books appear, perhaps not too long after the publication of &lt;em&gt;Pawn Power in Chess&lt;/em&gt;, that did try to adopt some of Kmoch's unusual (and now largely ignored) terminology?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, it seems that the Austrian-born Kmoch isn't entirely responsible for this litany of unnecessary terms. An acknowledgement at the beginning of the book reads:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;We wish to express our gratitude to Dr. Walter Meiden of the Department of Romance Languages of the Ohio State University for his careful reading of the English manuscript and for his numerous suggestions both as to subject matter and to style.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You may also know Meiden from &lt;a href=&quot;http://books.google.com/books/about/Chess_Master_Vs_Chess_Amateur.html?id=Zds8f7czCBgC&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Chess Master vs. Chess Amateur&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt; by Euwe and Meiden.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-03-12T17:27:16.707" LastActivityDate="2020-03-12T17:27:16.707" Title="Did any authors ever try to adopt Hans Kmoch's pawn structure terminology?" Tags="&lt;history&gt;&lt;books&gt;&lt;pawns&gt;&lt;terminology&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="910" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="909" CreationDate="2012-06-17T14:47:25.567" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;This doesn't quite answer my question, but I find it interesting nonetheless, and think it's worth mentioning. While Kmoch's overload of terminology can serve more to get in the way of a person's understanding than to aid it, one sort of chess player has a very different kind of &quot;understanding&quot; and can actually benefit from Kmoch's taxonomy: chess engines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sure enough, the &lt;a href=&quot;http://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess Programming Wiki&lt;/a&gt; has an &lt;a href=&quot;http://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Hans+Kmoch&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;entry on Kmoch&lt;/a&gt;, as well as pointers from there to other entries on particular terms from &lt;em&gt;Pawn Power in Chess&lt;/em&gt;. So that's one place where Kmoch's terms and underlying ideas live on today. (While Kmoch makes no mention of computer chess in his work, it's worth noting that Claude Shannon's &lt;a href=&quot;http://archive.computerhistory.org/projects/chess/related_materials/text/2-0%20and%202-1.Programming_a_computer_for_playing_chess.shannon/2-0%20and%202-1.Programming_a_computer_for_playing_chess.shannon.062303002.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;pioneering work&lt;/a&gt; on the subject had already appeared about a decade before Kmoch's book, so the concept itself was definitely in the air in 1959.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In any case, my question still stands, as I am after other books written for human players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2012-06-17T14:47:25.567" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="911" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="902" CreationDate="2012-06-18T03:35:10.897" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is not a direct answer to your question — but because you're interested in Java, check out &lt;a href=&quot;http://code.google.com/p/magnumchess/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this link&lt;/a&gt;, which has a UCI compatible engine written in Java. Browsing through the code it looked quite readable. It loses to Crafty and Stockfish regularly, but that is to be expected — they usually looked ~4 ply deeper because of the speed difference.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think it will suit your needs as a fairly strong engine that runs on Java, if only to review the code.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="142" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-12-20T18:01:17.537" LastActivityDate="2016-12-20T18:01:17.537" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="912" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-06-18T06:41:16.700" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Any questions concerning what is considered proper chess behavior, either according to written rules or unwritten customs, would fall under this tag. Some examples that illustrate this sort of question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/q/548/&quot;&gt;When is it the right time to resign?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/q/607/&quot;&gt;When is it appropriate to use a program during games with a longer timeframe, such as correspondence chess?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/q/1122/&quot;&gt;Should you let your opponent know if they have forgotten to press their clock?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-06-21T20:55:22.110" LastActivityDate="2017-06-21T20:55:22.110" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="913" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-06-18T06:41:16.700" Score="0" Body="Questions regarding the written rules, or the unwritten customs, that concern proper behavior in the world of chess." OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-06-18T06:41:16.700" LastActivityDate="2012-06-18T06:41:16.700" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="914" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="915" CreationDate="2012-06-18T17:10:07.617" Score="8" ViewCount="3546" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have always liked the way Mikhail Tal played and I noticed on &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;chessgames.com&lt;/a&gt;, that &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessplayer?pid=14380&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;his most played openings are&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As White:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Sicilian (B46, B43, B82, B32, B40)&#xA;Ruy Lopez (C92, C95, C93, C96, C84)&#xA;Caro-Kann (B14, B17, B18, B12, B10)&#xA;French Defense (C07, C18, C09, C05, C16)&#xA;English (A15, A14, A13, A17, A16)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As Black:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Sicilian (B43, B40, B46, B22, B52 )&#xA;King's Indian (E94, E92, E98, E69, E62)&#xA;Queen's Pawn Game (E10, A46, E00, A40, A41)&#xA;English (A15, A14, A13, A10, A17)&#xA;Nimzo Indian (E48, E52, E53, E46, E56)&#xA;Modern Benoni (A56, A64, A61, A62, A65)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mikhail Tal is regarded as the best attacking chess player of all time, but are the openings above indicative of his style? Are they openings that are indicative of an agressive, attacking player?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know there is more to learning that openings, but basically my main question is if a certain player had a style, does playing their openings help you play with their style?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-03-01T15:29:48.743" LastActivityDate="2019-11-09T03:24:22.073" Title="Should I practice openings of a famous player if I want to play like them?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;learning&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;famous-players&gt;&lt;tal&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="915" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="914" CreationDate="2012-06-18T20:47:12.690" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;In general those are aggressive openings. Ruy Lopez and Sicilian especially are rated as some of the more aggressive openings available.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have not heard the French Defense called aggressive before, but maybe that is just part of the genius of Mikhail, sprinkle in some clogged openings so your opponent never truly knows what is coming.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black is a little harder to define what an aggressive opening is, since it is somewhat relative to the opening white began the game with.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Personally I think it is a great learning tool to use another GM's openings. The main reason is there is such an available database of the GM's games, so if you are playing electronically or notating your own game, you can always go back and see if historical games resemble your own and where the GM may have differed. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-18T23:34:45.877" LastActivityDate="2012-06-18T23:34:45.877" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="916" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="914" CreationDate="2012-06-18T22:53:02.120" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;The openings are a good start; they give players like Tal the opportunities for combinatorial wizardry.  But it's a lot to ask of oneself, to play like Mikhail Tal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They say that Tal played a lot of speculative sacrifices. That is, he felt the sacrifice was sound &lt;em&gt;enough&lt;/em&gt;, but he didn't calculate it out to be sure.  Maybe.  Be advised, however, that the man didn't get to be World Champion by guessing.  He could &lt;em&gt;calculate&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unlike mere mortals, Tal's brain could cash the checks his fingers wrote.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to play like him then develop your tactics specifically where unbalanced positions are concerned, look for opportunities, and don't be afraid to lose.  You'll have to be just as fierce, fearless, and skilled, relative to your peers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;NOTE - remember, what matters is that you win (or lose) the game well.  It does not matter if someone uses some computer to refute your moves after the fact.  The only refutation that matters is the one your opponent finds over the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-18T23:34:26.143" LastActivityDate="2012-06-18T23:34:26.143" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="917" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-06-18T23:18:59.590" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Mikhail Tal (1936-1992) defeated Mikhail Botvinnik in 1960 to become the eighth World Chess Champion.  Arguably regarded as the strongest attacking player the game has ever seen, 'The Magician from Riga' had the ability to conjure incredible attacks from seemingly unremarkable positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikhail_Tal&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Read it all here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-06-21T19:07:24.273" LastActivityDate="2017-06-21T19:07:24.273" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="918" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-06-18T23:18:59.590" Score="0" Body="Mikhail Tal (1936-1992) defeated Mikhail Botvinnik in 1960 to become the eighth World Chess Champion.  Arguably regarded as the strongest attacking player the game has ever seen, 'The Magician from Riga' had the ability to conjure incredible attacks from seemingly unremarkable positions." OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2014-03-01T17:53:31.230" LastActivityDate="2014-03-01T17:53:31.230" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="919" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="920" CreationDate="2012-06-19T17:39:13.017" Score="8" ViewCount="4516" Body="&lt;p&gt;(&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1008361&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;This&lt;/a&gt; is the game in question.) Is it because it was played by a 13-year-old Bobby Fischer?  Would it have been different if it were played by a much older player?  Who labeled it the &quot;game of the century&quot; and did this &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1139475&amp;amp;kpage=3&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;game&lt;/a&gt; between Tal and Smyslov (1959) miss being the &quot;game of the century&quot; by 3 years?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-06-20T09:55:02.797" LastActivityDate="2012-07-03T05:37:44.257" Title="Why is Byrne vs. Fischer (1956) regarded as the &quot;Game of the Century&quot;?" Tags="&lt;famous-players&gt;&lt;fischer&gt;&lt;tal&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="920" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="919" CreationDate="2012-06-19T18:03:17.480" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &quot;Game of the Century&quot; was a term coined by Hans Kmoch in Chess Review. In short it was a bit of sensationalism. While Fischer did show a talent for combinations and an impressive sacrifice, the real importance of the game was the story of a leading chess master vs a phenomenal prodigy about to begin his historic rise.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Still, it's helpful to note what &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/0004105885&quot;&gt;David Levy said&lt;/a&gt;: &quot;In my opinion, however, the game, attractive though it is, can in no way be held in such high exaltation. It was merely the fact that the combination was created by a thirteen-old boy that brought the game so much publicity. Had it been played in the Barnet League between two sixty-year-old men it is doubtful whether it would have been considered worthy of publication&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for the game between Tal and Smyslov, the similarities in age are easy to spot, but the chess playing doesn't really compare. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The full game and commentary can be found &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Game_of_the_Century_%28chess%29&quot;&gt;over at Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="29" LastActivityDate="2012-06-19T18:03:17.480" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="921" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-06-20T02:42:57.663" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Byrne&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Read the rest here.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2012-06-20T03:04:33.263" LastActivityDate="2012-06-20T03:04:33.263" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="922" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-06-20T02:42:57.663" Score="0" Body="IM Donald Byrne (1930-1976) was the US Champion in 1953 and one of the stronger US players in the 50s and 60s." OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2012-06-20T03:04:36.383" LastActivityDate="2012-06-20T03:04:36.383" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="923" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-06-20T02:50:23.143" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasily_Smyslov&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Read more here.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2012-06-20T03:04:38.863" LastActivityDate="2012-06-20T03:04:38.863" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="924" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-06-20T02:50:23.143" Score="0" Body="Soviet GM Vasily Smyslov (1921-2010) was world chess champion from 1957 to 1958.  He was known for his fine positional play and accurate endgame technique." OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2012-06-20T03:04:41.750" LastActivityDate="2012-06-20T03:04:41.750" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="925" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="919" CreationDate="2012-06-20T12:04:45.747" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just wanted to add, Jerry aka ChessNetwork, a USCF Master, did an &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsaD8GLw0qw&quot;&gt;analysis of this game.&lt;/a&gt;  It is worth watching.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When this game was played, it was the best game of chess ever by a 13 year old.  The combination of defeating a master in a beautiful way, being the one using the black pieces, and being only 13 years old is what gave this game so much attention.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="101" LastEditorUserId="101" LastEditDate="2012-06-20T12:33:19.040" LastActivityDate="2012-06-20T12:33:19.040" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="926" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-06-20T12:10:41.680" Score="10" ViewCount="1031" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Albin Counter Gambit starts &lt;code&gt;1. d4 d5 2. c4 e5 3. dxe5 d4&lt;/code&gt;, and there is a &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albin_Countergambit,_Lasker_Trap&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;well known and beautiful trap&lt;/a&gt; with a pawn to knight promotion if white plays e3.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Recently players such as Morozevich and Nakamura have been playing the Counter Gambit at the highest levels, and I found &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.kenilworthchessclub.org/games/java/summer05/albin-nge7.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this page which discusses things.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Essentially, I am looking for more discussion of the key ideas in the gambit.  How long should I try to hold onto the pawn on d4?  Where do I end up castling?  (I find occasionally I end up with some choice.)  Which squares and minor pieces are &lt;em&gt;usually&lt;/em&gt; the most important?  I am looking for some abstract goals and ideas.  What kind of plan should one have in mind when playing this opening as black?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="101" LastEditorUserId="11202" LastEditDate="2017-05-01T07:52:33.240" LastActivityDate="2017-05-01T07:52:33.240" Title="How to play the Albin Counter Gambit" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;aggressive-play&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="927" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="926" CreationDate="2012-06-20T16:40:25.237" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;Czechoslovakian Master Karel Prucha formulated some correct principles on how to play the Albin Counter Gambit and published them in Ceskoslovensky Sach 9/1962:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1. The Albin is playable only if it is treated as a pure gambit. &#xA;   Black should not try to regain the pawn by attacking White's e5-pawn, &#xA;   but must continue in gambit style with ...f7-f6.&#xA;&#xA;2. After that, Black must castle short. Long castling leads to mutual attacks where        &#xA;   White's extra pawn becomes a factor.&#xA;&#xA;3. Black should keep the d4-pawn at any cost.&#xA;&#xA;4. Black's Queen should be posted on d7 with the idea of exchanging of the &#xA;   light-squared Bishops by ...Bh3 and enabling additional support for the &#xA;   d4-pawn by ...Rad8.&#xA;&#xA;5. It is best to place the dark-squared Bishop on c5, which means that if White plays&#xA;   a2-a3, then a7-a5 is necessary to stop White's advance b2-b4.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastActivityDate="2012-06-20T16:40:25.237" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="928" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="931" CreationDate="2012-06-20T16:49:59.550" Score="15" ViewCount="1823" Body="&lt;p&gt;The 1997 match between Kasparov and &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Blue_%28chess_computer%29&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Deep Blue&lt;/a&gt; is likely the most famous chess match in history.  This is because it was ground breaking -  for the first time ever a computer had beaten the best player in the world.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The complete history of man versus machine contests &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human-computer_chess_matches&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;is on Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;, and it suggests that people lost interest after Kramnik lost 0-4-2 to deep fritz in 2006.  Since 2007 or 2008, there has not been another serious match.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this just because computers are so much better now?  What about odds matches?  I know Rybka on a regular PC managed to draw a Grandmaster with white, where white was missing a rook, and black was missing a knight.  Do people just find such matches boring? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there just no interest in watching a player such as Magnus Carlsen vs Rybka, or is it just that the players would never agree to it?  (Or both)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="101" LastEditorUserId="101" LastEditDate="2014-04-01T02:15:09.420" LastActivityDate="2018-11-16T03:52:48.783" Title="Why are there no more exhibition games between top players and computers?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;world-championship&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="929" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="930" CreationDate="2012-06-20T16:56:40.140" Score="13" ViewCount="3099" Body="&lt;p&gt;It seems every where I read, Magnus Carlsen is involved in a discussion on if he is or will be the greatest chess player of all time.  It also seems as if some are crowning him world champion even though he hasn't won one yet, so my questions are what makes Carlsen so good?  Why are people so confident in Carlsen?  Does he have something other players such as Aronian don't have?  I also saw that &lt;em&gt;60 minutes&lt;/em&gt; did a special and called Carlsen the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7399370n&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Mozart of Chess&lt;/a&gt;.  Where is all this coming from?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-07-20T11:33:55.393" LastActivityDate="2019-07-20T11:33:55.393" Title="What is it about Magnus Carlsen?" Tags="&lt;world-championship&gt;&lt;carlsen&gt;&lt;famous-players&gt;&lt;super-grandmaster&gt;&lt;talent&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="930" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="929" CreationDate="2012-06-20T17:57:34.307" Score="21" Body="&lt;p&gt;Carlsen is 21 years young and is currently the highest-rated player in the world. He scored a &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_308KNAuFkg&quot;&gt;win against Karpov&lt;/a&gt; and a &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjEmquJhSas&quot;&gt;draw against Kasparov&lt;/a&gt; at the tender age of 13 (Reykjavik Rapid 2004), and was the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_prodigy#Record_holders&quot;&gt;second youngest&lt;/a&gt; player to become a grandmaster (at the time he did it). Things like that are enough to brew confidence, garner world championship expectations, and draw superficial comparisons to a similarly precocious talent like Mozart.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I imagine that his main advantage over his current closest rival Aronian in terms of grabbing attention is just the fact that he is 8 years younger. And whereas, say, Sergey Karjakin is only a year older than Carlsen, and is the one who still holds the record for becoming the youngest grandmaster ever, he simply doesn't have the sort of tournament record that Carlsen does, especially in the highest-class tournaments of the last few years. (Note that Karjakin does have impressive recent wins like Wijk aan Zee 2009, Tal Memorial 2010 and Bazna Kings 2011; but Carlsen's success of late has been such that that trophy shelf pales in comparison.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyway, assuming the upcoming world championship cycle goes through as planned, then Carlsen will have his chance to justify all the chatter and expectations. But I'll be rooting for Kramnik or Aronian myself :-)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-06-20T18:43:21.327" LastActivityDate="2012-06-20T18:43:21.327" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="931" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="928" CreationDate="2012-06-20T19:24:06.173" Score="26" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are a combination of answers to this question. I will answer in what is, in my opinion, descending importance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;It's just boring now. Initially this was a case of human pride. A few decades ago it was a commonly held belief that no computer could ever perform at the master level or beat a grand master. It quickly became apparent that this was not the case. Due to the exponentially increasing power of computer hardware and sophistication of engine development grand master after grand master fell as systems went from needing to run on specialized hardware to beat a world class player to being able to run on a modern $1500 USD laptop. Notice that the rise of the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Core&quot;&gt;Intel Core&lt;/a&gt; processor seems to fit with your time frame for lack of interest.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;In the developed world we have become accustomed to the fact that computers can out-perform humans in nearly any field and I think most people just accept the fact that narrow AI will eventually have a place in every field - even if most don't have the vocabulary to express the idea in that way. Narrow (or Weak) AI is artificial intelligence that has expert, human level ability in only a single thing, such as chess. &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strong_AI&quot;&gt;Strong AI&lt;/a&gt; is the boogieman of the Terminator movies and the Matrix.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Because of number 1 and number 2 there is no money in it. IBM put a lot of money into the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Thought_%28chess_computer%29&quot;&gt;Deep Thought&lt;/a&gt;/&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Blue_versus_Garry_Kasparov&quot;&gt;Deep Blue matches&lt;/a&gt; for PR reasons. Now it's &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Watson&quot;&gt;Watson&lt;/a&gt; and language. And if there is no money, who's going to agree to play? &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;AI has moved on to driving cars and diagnosing cancer and heart disease. Chess was only ever just a stepping stone to more important things that can make money.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="41" LastEditorUserId="41" LastEditDate="2012-06-20T21:17:44.980" LastActivityDate="2012-06-20T21:17:44.980" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="932" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="929" CreationDate="2012-06-20T20:13:36.077" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just wanted to add a bit more to Ed Dean's Answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These are some fun facts:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In October 2005 he took first place at the Arnold Eikrem Memorial in Gausdal with eight out of nine points and a performance rating of 2792 at the age of 14.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When Carlsen was 18 years old, he became one of the few people in history to have an Elo rating over 2800.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Carlsen won the category 21 Nanjing Pearl Spring tournament, 2½ points ahead of second-place finisher Topalov, the world's highest-rated player at the time. He scored 8/10 (six wins, four draws, no losses), winning every game as White (against Topalov, Wang Yue, Leko, Radjabov, and Jakovenko), and also winning as Black against Jakovenko. By rating performance, this was one of the greatest results in history, with a performance rating of 3002&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Source:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnus_Carlsen&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="101" LastActivityDate="2012-06-20T20:13:36.077" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="933" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-06-20T22:43:23.440" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Magnus Carlsen (1990-) is a Norwegian Grandmaster and current World Champion. While Magnus is still a work in progress he's been developing a superb positional game and backing away from his earlier tactical tendencies. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Magnus Carlsen has been rated #1 in the world (off-and-on) since January of 2010. He hasn't been rated lower than #2 since (as of June 2012.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnus_Carlsen&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Read more here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="16057" LastEditDate="2018-05-29T13:53:33.387" LastActivityDate="2018-05-29T13:53:33.387" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="934" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-06-20T22:43:23.440" Score="0" Body="Questions related to the Norwegian Grandmaster and current (as of 2021Jan20) World Champion Magnus Carlsen." OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="4399" LastEditDate="2021-01-20T13:41:31.340" LastActivityDate="2021-01-20T13:41:31.340" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="935" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="926" CreationDate="2012-06-20T22:47:33.917" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;This answer is a counterpoint to Prucha's principles, as given in xaisoft's answer, in particular the first principle:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The Albin is playable only if it is treated as a pure gambit. Black should not try to regain the pawn by attacking White's e5-pawn, but must continue in gambit style with &lt;code&gt;...f7-f6&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As mentioned in the question, the Albin saw a revival at the highest levels in the last few years, primarily in the hands of Alexander Morozevich. And the approach that he has taken is precisely that against which Prucha recommends; namely, Morozevich (and Nakamura too) have responded to the mainline fianchetto with &lt;code&gt;5. g3 Nge7&lt;/code&gt;, with the intention of following up by &lt;code&gt;... Ng6&lt;/code&gt; in order to gang up on the e5 pawn. According to Nigel Davies' &lt;em&gt;Gambiteer II&lt;/em&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;This has been an Albin backwater for years, but now it looks like it might be the best way of playing the gambit. Naturally White can try to hold on to his pawn, but this can often prove to be a dangerous course.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Prucha's third principle, about maintaining the d4-pawn, seems to be generally good advice (though I wouldn't take that &quot;at any cost&quot; too literally). A nice example game where Black's play revolves squarely around the d4 point is &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1328801&quot;&gt;Sokolov - Morozevich (Corus 2005)&lt;/a&gt;, in which Morozevich maintains the pawn on d4 up until the point when it became a strong passer with &lt;code&gt;27. ... d3&lt;/code&gt;, and Sokolov resigned after move 34. In general, though, the Albin seems to be an opening where calculation and concrete details in particular positions carry the day more than a handful of guiding principles will.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2012-06-20T22:47:33.917" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="936" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="929" CreationDate="2012-06-21T18:21:24.853" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Carlsen is popular, young, and a semi public figure. He plays at the Internet Chess Club which generates a lot of fans. A turning point for my view towards Carlsen was his success in this tournament which had a lot of bragging rights to it. The &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chess.pl?tid=72529&amp;amp;pid=52948&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;World Blitz Championship&lt;/a&gt; from 2010 where Carlsen took out Hikaru Nakamura (who is by far my current favorite chess player)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="342" LastActivityDate="2012-06-21T18:21:24.853" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="938" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="914" CreationDate="2012-06-21T19:56:17.000" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, I cannot say yes enough times that playing a set of openings defines who you are as a chess player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are examining these games by Tal, then I suggest you look not only at commonalities, but more importantly at positions that he attempts to transpose to. Although using different openings, many times a similar attack can be observed. Looking at how that is approached and how tempos and pieces are used as diversions can give good insights into why attacks are successful and which ones are truly meant to be attacks instead of diversions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mastering the set of openings Tal played will certainly improve your chess and make you &quot;Tal-esque&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="342" LastActivityDate="2012-06-21T19:56:17.000" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="939" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="883" CreationDate="2012-06-21T20:04:20.190" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Goals in KR KQ:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Get your king to where you are attacking his rook.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Force his king to defend the rook while you attack it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Remove the king as a defender from the rook with your queen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do not allow your queen in a position where a rook could attack it with support of the king unless you initiated a check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="342" LastActivityDate="2012-06-21T20:04:20.190" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="940" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1062" CreationDate="2012-06-22T11:27:51.910" Score="11" ViewCount="2843" Body="&lt;p&gt;For example in the Exchange Variation of the Spanish &lt;code&gt;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Bxc6 dxc6&lt;/code&gt;, White gives Black the Bishop pair, but gains a potentially winning pawns-only endgame. Are there other situations where a player may ruin an opponent's pawn-structure thus gaining a (potentially) decisive endgame advantage?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, are there openings in which a player may decide to sacrifice his pawn structure in order to get other kind of advantages?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not looking for 'bad' pawn-structures, I'm looking for those which are winning/losing according to theory, if we remove all pieces from the board except the Kings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="279" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-11-10T05:32:23.307" LastActivityDate="2019-07-29T10:49:09.263" Title="Which openings give a winning pawn-structure in the endgame?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;pawn-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="941" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="942" CreationDate="2012-06-22T16:41:17.677" Score="10" ViewCount="1585" Body="&lt;p&gt;I find I am weakest in the endgame, which is arguably the most important part of chess.  Usually when I reach the endgame I have an advantage, often a pawn or a &quot;winning&quot; pawn formation, but I am not sure how to capitalize and convert this into the win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was wondering, what are the key ideas to keep in mind when playing the endgame, and what can I do to improve my endgame play? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I hope this isn't too general, but I believe it is an extremely common problem.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="101" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-22T16:59:28.943" LastActivityDate="2019-12-14T22:17:09.680" Title="Improving the endgame: Principles" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;learning&gt;&lt;pawn-structure&gt;&lt;theory&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="942" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="941" CreationDate="2012-06-22T18:01:46.747" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here are a very few principles which are key:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Centralize/activate/use your king.&lt;/strong&gt; In the endgame he is one of your strongest pieces, and needs to be utilized.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;When you have the advantage, exchange pieces, and don't exchange pawns.&lt;/strong&gt; Every exchange of pawns means one less potential promotion for the side with the advantage.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Passed pawns must be pushed, and outside passers are the best.&lt;/strong&gt; An outside passed pawn can be the most distracting to an opponent's king or other pieces, keeping them out of other action.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Principle of 2 Weaknesses.&lt;/strong&gt; One of the best way to convert an advantage into a win is to use it to induce another problem in the opponent's position, when he or she will then be forced to fight a war on two fronts. (For instance, this can be why an outside passer is so strong: while the opponent deals with it, a second weakness can be created and exploited on the other side of the board.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Do not hurry!&lt;/strong&gt; Here are some words from Shereshevsky, coming from his chapter with this title in his classic &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1857440633&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Endgame Strategy&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;How many endings have not been won, merely because the stronger side tried to win as quickly as possible, and neglected to make simple strengthening moves before embarking on positive action. Following the principle of &quot;do not hurry&quot;, it is possible to battle for a win in positions with a slight but persistent advantage. ... The logic behind the &quot;do not hurry&quot; principle is mainly psychological. It can be especially recommended to act according to this principle when the opponent is deprived of active counterplay.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;  Plenty more such principles can be formulated of course. These are just a few very general ones that can apply in most any endgame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One book along the lines of your question that I cannot recommend highly enough is &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1857441745&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Rate Your Endgame&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt; by Edmar Mednis and Colin Crouch (based on Mednis' earlier &lt;em&gt;Practical Endgame Lessons&lt;/em&gt;). It's now out of print, but if you can find a used copy, grab it. It offers its own explanation of endgame principles, and illustrates them with many examples, which are presented in a &quot;test your play&quot; format, where you are prompted to play one side of an ending from actual play. I got this book early on when I started &quot;really&quot; playing chess, and remember loving it, and learning a good deal. It is very much a general manual on &lt;em&gt;how to approach&lt;/em&gt; the endgame, rather than being a discussion of various theoretical positions/endings. I've never read a poor opinion of this book, and when someone like Mark Dvoretsky &lt;a href=&quot;http://theamazingchessworld.blogspot.com/2011/03/oldbut-not-forgotten-rate-your-endgame.html&quot;&gt;gives something praise&lt;/a&gt;, it's not to be ignored.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2012-06-22T18:01:46.747" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="943" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="952" CreationDate="2012-06-23T13:52:59.347" Score="23" ViewCount="8012" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the French Defense Advance Variation, &lt;code&gt;1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. e5 ...&lt;/code&gt;, there are some clear game plans for both sides, areas where you want a pawn break, where you want to attack, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, in the French Defense Exchange Variation, &lt;code&gt;1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. exd5 exd5&lt;/code&gt;, things are different. What are white and black's goals? Are there any key concepts or underlying strategies? After developing my pieces, and playing logical attacking and defensive moves, I start to wonder &quot;what I am trying to do?&quot; and I usually don't have a good answer to this question. It feels very strange to play this, and I am looking for some tips and ideas about playing the exchange variation as white.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="101" LastEditorUserId="101" LastEditDate="2014-08-02T19:56:34.653" LastActivityDate="2014-08-02T19:56:34.653" Title="Playing the French Defense Exchange Variation" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;french-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="944" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="945" CreationDate="2012-06-23T18:49:18.857" Score="4" ViewCount="731" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess can be such an emotional game, when your intelligence is paired up against your opponent's. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's great fun at times, but at other times, it seems like we get too sensitive. More so than, say, basketball or even billiards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm asking because I recently faced an opponent on chess.com who, after I offered and he naively accepted a series of gambits, very rudely typed a chat message. Now, we've never even met or played before. And this is a game, is it not? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So my question is: is there chess etiquette somewhere?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="227" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-23T18:54:01.697" LastActivityDate="2012-06-24T02:26:18.280" Title="Does the chess community have a problem with manners and sportsmanship?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;etiquette&gt;&lt;psychology&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2012-06-24T07:42:50.063" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="945" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="944" CreationDate="2012-06-23T18:53:09.733" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, you're right - there was a great lack of etiquette in your opponent, but it wasn't chess etiquette, it was simply general etiquette.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think you'll find that in every area of competition, there are several contenders who have a problem with etiquette.  It's not just chess.  You don't need a different level or standard of etiquette for chess than for other games; it's simply that good sportsmanship is more necessary in chess than in some other games, since it's a competitive game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="86" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-23T19:05:36.583" LastActivityDate="2012-06-23T19:05:36.583" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="946" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="944" CreationDate="2012-06-23T19:26:00.473" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would say that the chess community does very well in terms of sportsmanship as compared to other competitive endeavors. I think it's a mistake to compare the behavior witnessed in &lt;strong&gt;online&lt;/strong&gt; chess with the behavior witnessed in basketball or billiards (incidentally, two of my other most favorite kinds of competition). I'm sure that anyone who has played any significant amount of online chess has been needlessly attacked at some point (I know I have), but the relative anonymity of the internet is the culprit there far more than anything specific about chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have seen some bad behavior when playing over-the-board chess, but in my experience at least, it is &lt;em&gt;far less frequent and far less severe&lt;/em&gt; than typical bad behavior on the basketball court, or in the pool hall. Purely anecdotal, I know, but I still think it's fair to say that etiquette is as alive and well in chess as it is most anywhere else, so long as the participants have to show their faces, or attach their real names and reputations to what they do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2012-06-23T19:26:00.473" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="947" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-06-23T21:34:30.453" Score="4" ViewCount="3807" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there an Android client for the Free Internet Chess Server (FICS)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="347" LastActivityDate="2012-06-23T22:07:30.443" Title="Is there a FICS client for Android?" Tags="&lt;online-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="4" ClosedDate="2012-06-23T22:57:03.323" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="949" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="950" CreationDate="2012-06-23T22:15:47.023" Score="6" ViewCount="754" Body="&lt;p&gt;In bullet chess, well, it's frantic. And sometimes I find myself making dubious checks just to gain time. Or funny gambits. But it feels unbefitting of the royal game. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is bullet chess bad for the overall chess community's reputation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="227" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-06-24T11:48:09.037" LastActivityDate="2012-06-29T14:56:01.267" Title="In speed chess (especially bullet), are dirty tactics tolerated more?" Tags="&lt;etiquette&gt;&lt;bullet-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="950" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="949" CreationDate="2012-06-23T22:18:06.357" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Bullet chess and speed chess are different sorts of games; they favor those with more talent.  The clock is an integral part of the game.  Use it.  Embrace it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And no, it isn't any worse for the community than bughouse or any other insane variant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-25T14:04:54.767" LastActivityDate="2012-06-25T14:04:54.767" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="952" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="943" CreationDate="2012-06-24T07:10:46.553" Score="19" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, a side note: I play the black side of the French Defense almost religiously, and my results against the Exchange variation have traditionally been very good. It's not a variation that's feared by most French Defense practitioners. Neither, for that matter, is the Advance variation, which gives black a very clear plan of strategic counterattack based on undermining the white center, freeing the poor light-square bishop, and sometimes pressuring the white queen-side pawns. There are also lesser-known closed lines of the Advance involving a &lt;code&gt;...c4&lt;/code&gt; pawn push that, while objectively tend to lead to equality, are very promising for the black player who is more familiar with their nuances than his opponent. If you really want to give French players trouble, consider learning to play (one of) the Tarrasch, Steinitz, or Classical variations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyway, back to your main question. Normally, it's asymmetry of position that informs/determines the respective strategies that both sides attempt to realize. The exchange variation, however, is inherently symmetrical and therefore no clear, overarching strategies present themselves until the symmetry is broken by either white or black. There are a few proactive ways of creating asymmetry in this variation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;4. c4&lt;/code&gt; which usually leads to IQP positions with all the attendant and characteristic advantages and disadvantages. The player with the IQP is advised to play aggressive, attacking chess and avoid liquidation of material (unless doing so yields an obvious benefit), as the IQP could be easily blockaded and made into a major weakness in the endgame.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Preparing queen-side castling and launching a pawn storm if black chooses to castle king-side. This is highly double-edged and possibly questionable in its soundness, but a viable choice if you enjoy very sharp games and are confident in your tactical abilities.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other moves are mostly noncommittal and give black time to develop as he chooses. Ultimately, if neither side breaks symmetry in any substantial way, the game is probably going to revolve largely around control/occupation of the squares e4 and e5. Further, numerous minor piece trades are very likely to take place on the e-file in such situations, leading to drawish positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One general piece of advice I'd offer, if you insist on playing the Exchange variation at all, is to delay it by one move and play &lt;code&gt;3. Nc3&lt;/code&gt; first. In that case, if black opts for the Winawer variation with &lt;code&gt;3... Bb4&lt;/code&gt;, there's an argument to be made that, after &lt;code&gt;4. exd5 exd5 5. a3&lt;/code&gt;, black simply doesn't have any great choices (i.e., he must either effectively waste a move retreating the bishop, or cede the bishop pair, when the doubling of white's c-pawns could even be viewed as an asset in many situations because of their superior centralization). On the other hand, if black plays classically with &lt;code&gt;3... Nf6&lt;/code&gt;, he has lost the possibility of playing the pawn to f6 (often a good choice in many lines of the exchange variation because it helps to control the key e5 square and restrains white's minor pieces).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="297" LastEditorUserId="297" LastEditDate="2012-06-24T09:01:06.587" LastActivityDate="2012-06-24T09:01:06.587" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="953" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="883" CreationDate="2012-06-25T00:22:04.717" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;As long as we're mentioning ways the player with the rook can draw, the following is a very common setup in endgame puzzle books:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;8/8/8/8/8/2QK4/8/3kr3 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Black to move and draw&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Solution:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt; White is threatening to mate at c2, d2, and a1.  Black's &lt;em&gt;only&lt;/em&gt; move is 1.. Re3+! 2. Kxe3 1/2-1/2&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="52" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2014-03-11T00:32:55.727" LastActivityDate="2014-03-11T00:32:55.727" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="954" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="956" CreationDate="2012-06-25T05:48:50.557" Score="22" ViewCount="1130" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was playing in a tournament once, during a sequence of captures, my opponent could recapture my Knight about 4 different ways. He just removed it and carried on thinking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What should I have done?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="350" LastEditorUserId="10601" LastEditDate="2017-12-27T08:39:03.990" LastActivityDate="2019-07-24T03:16:04.347" Title="How quickly must a move be completed?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;etiquette&gt;&lt;best-practice&gt;&lt;captures&gt;&lt;otb-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="7" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="956" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="954" CreationDate="2012-06-25T07:15:46.410" Score="24" Body="&lt;p&gt;The mere act of touching one of your pieces obligates your opponent to capture it (if legally permitted) on his current move (at least according to USCF standards), unless he explicitly declares his intent to adjust the piece beforehand. Assuming the clock continued running on your opponent's time and he did eventually choose how to capture the knight, I suspect that what he did would be considered legal (though somewhat unorthodox). However, if he didn't end up properly capturing the piece after touching it and before punching his clock, you would've unquestionably been justified in complaining to the official arbiter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="297" LastActivityDate="2012-06-25T07:15:46.410" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="957" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="960" CreationDate="2012-06-25T10:46:25.247" Score="15" ViewCount="1858" Body="&lt;p&gt;When a pawn finally reaches the eighth rank, then it can be promoted to rook, knight, bishop or queen. It is not hard to imagine that a soldier who has achieved a lot could be promoted to an officer. However, it is almost incredible that a meritorious fighter would eventually become a queen, even though the old queen is still alive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So my questions are: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Is every pawn female?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Could a king marry more than one queen in ancient times?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="330" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-25T15:50:50.350" LastActivityDate="2013-02-23T20:29:18.203" Title="What sense does promotion to queen make?" Tags="&lt;history&gt;&lt;pawns&gt;&lt;pawn-promotion&gt;&lt;queens&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="958" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="957" CreationDate="2012-06-25T12:13:48.077" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;To answer your questions...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I never checked&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It's good to be the king - Mel Brooks&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the original game (and perhaps even today), what Europeans call the queen, the Indians call the Advisor.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's just a language thing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2012-06-25T12:13:48.077" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="960" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="957" CreationDate="2012-06-25T12:22:22.003" Score="16" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the original form of the game from which chess probably derived, &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaturanga&quot;&gt;chaturanga&lt;/a&gt;, there was no piece named &quot;Queen&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Queen of modern chess probably derived from a piece named &quot;General&quot;: in the beginning this piece could move 1 square only diagonally, then its movenemt became more and more similar to the modern Queen. But there's more: in chaturanga there were pieces very similar to pawns, &quot;Soldiers&quot;, that could become Generals after having reached opponent's King field.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When chess was imported in Europe, during Middle-Age and Reinassance, passing especially through Spain, pieces were renamed in order to give european players a more comfortable playing background. For example, the uncommon &quot;Elephant&quot; became &quot;Bishop&quot; (a very well known figure in catholic regions). And the General became the &quot;Queen&quot;. But they only renamed pieces without changing the mechanic of the game. Thus, a &quot;Soldier&quot; could (and can) still be promoted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="279" LastEditorUserId="279" LastEditDate="2012-06-25T12:27:55.460" LastActivityDate="2012-06-25T12:27:55.460" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="962" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="863" CreationDate="2012-06-25T20:30:04.170" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;In 2009, GM Nurlan Ibrayev of Kazakhstan (rated 2407 at the time) &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=5144&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;lost a classical time control game&lt;/a&gt; to 9-year-old Hetul Shah of India, who then had a FIDE rating of 1817. Shah's current rating, now three years after that game, is 1979, not so much higher than it was at the time of his upset victory. So this game wasn't a case of Ibrayev running up against some seriously underrated prodigy whose rating was about to shoot up several hundred points. To the contrary, this seems to be exactly the sort of game you are after: a much weaker player having a good day and taking a grandmaster scalp, with the black pieces no less!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;7th Parsvnath International Open&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Delhi&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2009.01.11&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;2009.01.11&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;1.36&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Nurlan Ibrayev&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Hetul Shah&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;2407&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;1817&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;88&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.O-O Be7 6.Re1 b5 7.Bb3 d6 8.c3 O-O&#xA;9.h3 Na5 10.Bc2 c5 11.d4 Qc7 12.Nbd2 cxd4 13.cxd4 Bd7 14.Nf1 Rfc8 15.Ne3 Nc6&#xA;16.a3 Bf8 17.b3 Nxd4 18.Nxd4 Qc3 19.Ne2 Qxa1 20.Qd2 d5 21.b4 d4 22.Nd1 Rxc2&#xA;23.Qxc2 Rc8 24.Qd2 Nxe4 25.Qd3 Nd6 26.Bb2 Qa2 27.f4 Qc4 28.Qb1 d3 29.Ne3 Qe4&#xA;30.Nc3 Qxf4 31.Ncd5 Qg3 32.Nf1 Qg6 33.Bxe5 Nc4 34.Nf4 Qb6+ 35.Kh1 Nxe5 36.Rxe5&#xA;Bd6 37.Re4 Bc6 38.Qc1 Qb7 39.Re1 Bxg2+ 40.Nxg2 Rxc1 41.Rxc1 Bf4 42.Rc3 d2&#xA;43.Rd3 h6 44.Kg1 Qb6+ 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-11-14T19:22:07.967" LastActivityDate="2012-11-14T19:22:07.967" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="963" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="964" CreationDate="2012-06-26T04:23:48.773" Score="13" ViewCount="647" Body="&lt;p&gt;I watched the following &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzniKxI0kDo&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;video&lt;/a&gt; on the Scotch Game by NM Dereque Kelley, and he clearly points out that &lt;code&gt;3...d6&lt;/code&gt; is not a good move on Black's part because it causes all sorts of problems, especially coming from &lt;code&gt;4. Bb5&lt;/code&gt; pinning the knight.  But if Black does play &lt;code&gt;3...d6&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;4. dxe5 dxe5 5. Qxd8+&lt;/code&gt; follows, we arrive at a position that I have been in many times as White and as Black.  As Black, I normally would play &lt;code&gt;5...Nxd8&lt;/code&gt;, but in the video, Dereque says that this is not an option because it leaves the &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt; pawn hanging, so Black must capture with &lt;code&gt;5...Kxd8&lt;/code&gt; and give up castling rights.  Is this really the best move given that castling is a fundamental part of the opening?  I understand that &lt;code&gt;5...Nxd8&lt;/code&gt; does leave the &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt; pawn hanging, but what is more important here, holding on to the &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt; pawn or maintaining the ability to castle?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-11-07T01:37:46.577" LastActivityDate="2015-09-05T16:30:53.213" Title="Should I recapture the queen with my king or knight in the Scotch Game?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;scotch-game&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="964" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="963" CreationDate="2012-06-26T12:19:16.067" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;As you say, each of the options &lt;code&gt;5. ... Nxd8&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;5. ... Kxd8&lt;/code&gt; has its own drawbacks: the former drops a pawn and the latter gives up castling rights. In this situation Kelley is right that losing the pawn is significantly worse than giving up the right to castle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In a typical middlegame that features a lot of firepower on board for both sides, a king stuck in the center of the board can be in a great deal of danger of facing a mating attack. But in this case, the king gets stuck in the center only after the queens come off the board, which means Black has much less to worry about in terms of facing an attack. This queenless middlegame is not so far removed from an endgame, in which &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/942/167&quot;&gt;centralization of the king&lt;/a&gt; is generally a plus rather than a minus. Now there are still a lot of pieces on the board, so it's not a walk in the park for the Black king; I'm just saying it's not as dire as things can be with the ladies still around.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This particular position still has certain problems for Black (which is one reason why &lt;code&gt;3. ... d6&lt;/code&gt; isn't the best choice); for instance, the king having been pulled to d8 means that the f-pawn is undefended, so with something like &lt;code&gt;6. Bc4&lt;/code&gt; White develops the bishop, and the Black either must waste a tempo moving the king back to defend the f-pawn, or play &lt;code&gt;6. ... Be6&lt;/code&gt; to defend the pawn, allowing White the chance to give Black doubled, isolated pawns by &lt;code&gt;7. Bxe6 fxe6&lt;/code&gt;. That's not the end of the world, and in this kind of position those pawns do at least help control some central squares. The main point: Black will probably end up with some structural problems, or lag behind in development for a bit, but this is better than the alternative.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Losing a pawn isn't the end of the world either, it's true, but here it's much closer. After &lt;code&gt;5. ... Nxd8 6. Nxe5&lt;/code&gt;, White is a clear pawn up without any compensating factors in Black's favor; in fact White has a lead in development as well. This is something Black definitely shouldn't allow, especially since we really are getting toward the realm of the endgame, where &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/678/167&quot;&gt;having an extra pawn is of crucial importance&lt;/a&gt;. Going this route puts White in the enviable situation of &quot;playing for two results,&quot; meaning that from here either a White win or a draw are nearly certain, with a loss for White being very unlikely (barring a big mistake later of course). That's one of the worst things Black can do to herself in the opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2012-06-26T12:19:16.067" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="965" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="963" CreationDate="2012-06-26T12:26:51.397" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Often losing the right to castle is OK for Black if queens are of the board. Take the Berlin Defense for example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&#xA;[StartPly &quot;16&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 Nf6 4.O-O Nxe4 5.d4 Nd6 6.Bxc6 dxc6 7.dxe5 Nf5 8.Qxd8+ Kxd8&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Kramnik used this opening to win the title from Kasparov in 2000.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="307" LastEditorUserId="4588" LastEditDate="2015-09-05T16:30:53.213" LastActivityDate="2015-09-05T16:30:53.213" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="966" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-06-26T19:35:12.617" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Viswanathan Anand (born 1969) of India entered the world chess elite in the early 1990s. In 1995 he earned his first &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PCA_World_Chess_Championship_1995&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;title match, for the PCA crown&lt;/a&gt;, which he ultimately lost 7.5-10.5 to Garry Kasparov. He held the FIDE World Championship from 2000-2002, and after Vladimir Kramnik unified the Classical and FIDE World Championships by defeating Veselin Topalov in 2006, Anand became the undisputed champion by winning the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Chess_Championship_2007&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;2007 tournament for the world championship&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since then, Anand has defended his crown against Kramnik (2008), Topalov (2010) and Boris Gelfand (2012).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-06-21T19:07:48.340" LastActivityDate="2017-06-21T19:07:48.340" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="967" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-06-26T19:35:12.617" Score="0" Body="Viswanathan Anand was FIDE world champion 2000-2002 and undisputed world champion 2007-2013." OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2013-11-22T17:33:11.517" LastActivityDate="2013-11-22T17:33:11.517" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="968" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="963" CreationDate="2012-06-27T16:22:57.333" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Capture with the king and hang on to the pawn. The value of the &quot;right&quot; to castle is greatly reduced after queens are exchanged. If it goes into an early &quot;endgame&quot; (with the exchange of a couple more pieces), having the king in the middle of the board would even be an advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2012-06-27T16:22:57.333" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="969" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="970" CreationDate="2012-06-28T17:00:42.377" Score="9" ViewCount="167" Body="&lt;p&gt;Team championships in my area have 10 boards per side. Board arrangements have to follow the Elo ranking to avoid tactical arrangements (such as putting a very weak player against the other team's star to try to have more strength in other boards). I think that a team of 10 is representative of the strength of a team as a whole. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why many national or international team tournaments have merely 4 players? Even if they are cheaper, they are not really representative of anything because just hiring a couple of strong players boosts the team strength, so what's the point of these tournaments with only 4 players (Olympics included)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="159" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-28T18:57:47.530" LastActivityDate="2012-06-28T19:39:45.190" Title="Why do many team championships have only 4 boards?" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="970" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="969" CreationDate="2012-06-28T19:39:45.190" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;To be concrete, I'll focus on the Olympiad; the same ideas apply more generally.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, the more boards we have on each team, the more representative the match will truly be of the respective populations. Now 4 players is indeed a small sample, but I am curious, what would your response be to someone who might pose the further question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;Why would a team championship have only 10 boards? That's not really representative of anything. I think that 20 boards would more appropriately represent the team's true strength.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We could of course push the same idea further and further. In principle, the only limiting factor for the number of boards would be the population of the smallest country participating, but of course things would become logistically impractical well before that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Whatever you think of my turning your own question around at you, I think the gist of a simple answer lies in the last thing I said: different countries have vastly different sizes. If you want to have an elite team event that all countries can realistically compete in, you just can't have all that many boards. Russia would be happy to make it a 50-board competition, since they have a large population that is as chess-loving as any in the world. (According to the current live ratings at &lt;a href=&quot;http://2700chess.com/&quot;&gt;2700chess&lt;/a&gt;, 12 of the top 43 players in the world are Russian.) But doing so would mean that far fewer countries have any real shot at doing at all well in the event; the caliber of player that, say, Israel would have to put on a Board 10 would be well below what Russia would be putting up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even with 4-person teams, &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_Olympiad&quot;&gt;only a handful of countries have done much medaling&lt;/a&gt; historically. But note that my example small country, Israel, got a silver medal in 2008 and a bronze in 2010. Things like that just wouldn't be possible with many more boards in play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2012-06-28T19:39:45.190" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="971" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="949" CreationDate="2012-06-29T14:56:01.267" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my opinion chess and bullet chess are a kind of sport or competition. Everything what happens on the board is legitimate, if it is according to the rules. There is no such thing as an evil or devious move. You may play risky, repeat moves or do moves for &quot;psychological&quot; reasons. If the opponent thinks there is something wrong with that she or he needs to show it by playing better. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes player continue playing a drawn position, because their opponent runs out of time and they hope that the opponent will blunder. That is fine, since time is part of the game. Anand won a game against Gelfand in this way in last world championship&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="363" LastActivityDate="2012-06-29T14:56:01.267" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="972" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="954" CreationDate="2012-06-29T15:16:08.050" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you are playing with clocks and he sticks to the rules then it is fine. So if he takes the knight off the board and can capture it then the rules oblige him to do it. The move is finished when the capturing piece is placed on the square and the clock is pressed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is a bad habit though. Normally, you shouldn't touch any piece on the board until you have decided which move you want to make. If he removes the knight first, he is obliged to take it. Thinking about it afterwards could lead to the conclusion that taking the knight is not the best move after all, but it is already too late.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another bad habit is the &quot;eagle claw&quot;. The players is about to move, but continues thinking while his hand hovers over the board, sometimes for minutes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Best thing is, think about your move, make a decision, write it on your score sheet and make the move without interruption. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="363" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-07-19T19:07:44.947" LastActivityDate="2019-07-19T19:07:44.947" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="973" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-06-29T18:57:15.317" Score="7" ViewCount="1345" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have to ask an engine-related question: after I installed the Stockfish 2.0.1 engine on my Winboard 4.5 beta, I can't analyze with it. What I mean is, it's giving nothing in the engine output; it can only analyze with the default engines that come along with it (Houdini 1.5a, Delfi and Phalanx). What may be the reason?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="364" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-06-29T19:10:54.380" LastActivityDate="2013-06-26T17:50:28.613" Title="Why can't I analyze with Stockfish 2.0.1 in Winboard 4.5 beta?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="974" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="976" CreationDate="2012-06-29T20:56:09.193" Score="4" ViewCount="305" Body="&lt;p&gt;Though the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professional_Chess_Association&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;PCA&lt;/a&gt; and the Classical Chess Championship have failed, the wish to reform, dethrone or replace the FIDE &lt;a href=&quot;http://chess.co.uk/twic/chessnews/events/staunton-memorial-dinner-2010/karpov-kasparov-press-conference-8-september-2010&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;evidently remains strong,&lt;/a&gt; at least in some quarters of the chess world.  &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=6710&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Some suggest&lt;/a&gt; that the present FIDE leadership remains entrenched with little authentic support.  I lack personal knowledge of the matter, but the press one reads does seem pretty one-sided, does it not?  The press seems implicitly to concur in the &lt;em&gt;premise&lt;/em&gt; (never mind the finding) that the FIDE were crooked.  The FIDE's present regime could be excellent for all I know but, if a credible defense of it exists, the defense does not seem to be appearing in any language I can read, nor am I aware of it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If this is correct, then conditions would &lt;em&gt;seem&lt;/em&gt; to be ripe for the rise of a new organization to contest the FIDE's authority.  However, I know of none such.  Is there such a new organization?  Is any serious effort in planning or underway to reform, dethrone or replace the FIDE?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;To be clear, I am not asking whether the FIDE is a good organization or a bad one, but rather whether and in what way a credible alternative does or soon might exist.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="315" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-06-30T00:53:41.483" LastActivityDate="2012-06-30T01:51:24.750" Title="Rivals to the FIDE" Tags="&lt;fide&gt;&lt;kasparov&gt;&lt;karpov&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="976" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="974" CreationDate="2012-06-30T01:51:24.750" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;One body which isn't exactly an alternative to FIDE now, but could perhaps become so down the road depending on how the future plays out, is the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessprofessionals.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Association of Chess Professionals&lt;/a&gt; (not to be confused with Kasparov's Professional Chess Association, mentioned in the question). It is basically a global union for any folks working in chess - players, organizers, journalists, and so on - rather than some sort of governing body like FIDE. So in this sense it is in no way a competitor to FIDE; nevertheless, it can act as something of a counterweight to FIDE, much as players' unions in other sports keep their governing bodies in check (e.g. the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_League_Baseball_Players_Association&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;MLBPA&lt;/a&gt; and Major League Baseball).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The ACP has grown in stature, at least somewhat, since its initial inception in 2003. Former ACP president GM Joel Lautier &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess-players.org/eng/news/viewarticle.html?id=293&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;said the following in 2005&lt;/a&gt;,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Some time ago it seemed that such collaboration [between ACP and FIDE] could indeed be possible, but at present FIDE avoids any contact with us, does not respond to our mails, and we don't expect any positive changes of the situation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Contrast this with FIDE &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessvibes.com/reports/acp-and-fide-agree-on-close-cooperation&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;recently giving the ACP a seat at the table&lt;/a&gt;, agreeing to make them a part of FIDE's decision-making process. Whether or not such an agreement actually means very much I certainly don't know. But it does demonstrate that FIDE now considers the ACP to be a body to reckon with, which implies that the ACP is gaining enough heft to potentially be an agent for change where FIDE is concerned, either from within or without.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2012-06-30T01:51:24.750" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="977" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="980" CreationDate="2012-06-30T06:41:37.050" Score="10" ViewCount="695" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm a beginner and I haven't gotten into memorizing games. I don't like the idea of memorizing but now I think I have to learn a few to get to a higher level. Can someone give me a list of prophylactic defenses that a beginner should learn. Taking into account the basics like the control of the center, early development of minor pieces et cetera. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't play aggressive. I like building up positions (prophylaxis). I need a few defenses that are an answer to most openings and doesn't block my minor pieces. Maybe I'm being naive?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="58" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-07-02T23:27:53.013" LastActivityDate="2012-07-12T22:29:00.113" Title="Prophylactic defenses" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;defense&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="979" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="981" CreationDate="2012-06-30T11:10:54.560" Score="12" ViewCount="2023" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have wondered about piece movement statistics, for example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;How many times is a piece moved in average (in general, but also per-piece, as I'm guessing the Queen moves more than any specific pawn)?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What is the average maximum number of moves for a specific piece?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="369" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-06-30T15:28:00.797" LastActivityDate="2016-06-26T04:16:04.947" Title="Piece movement statistics" Tags="&lt;statistics&gt;&lt;pieces&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="980" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="977" CreationDate="2012-06-30T13:01:32.067" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;You're not being naive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It sounds like you're a positional player.  You'll probably favor closed games.  Closed games are ones where there are pawns in the center, reducing the long-range power of many of the pieces on the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Too much memorization is unhelpful. You will need to memorize a a few openings, and not too deeply. As long as you understand what the openings are trying to accomplish and you know basic principles you'll be fine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For openings, play &lt;code&gt;1. d4&lt;/code&gt;, and work through some main lines of the Queen's Gambit.  From &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Chess_Opening_Theory/1._d4&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this link&lt;/a&gt;, you'll see that your play won't change much for the first few moves; there's a theme.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you're on the black side of the board, you have more choices.  You'll probably see &lt;code&gt;1. e4&lt;/code&gt; more than &lt;code&gt;1. d4&lt;/code&gt;.  For the latter, look at the 'closed game' and similar:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1. d4 d5&#xA;2. c4 e6&#xA;3. Nc3 Nf6&#xA;4. Bg5 Be7&#xA;5. e3 O-O&#xA;6. Nf3 Nbd7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See how black avoids lines where the center pawns get traded off?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Against &lt;code&gt;1. e4&lt;/code&gt; you'll be looking for the same thing - lines that leave the pawns on the board or at least, like this Caro-Kann, leave a solid position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1. e4 c6&#xA;2. d4 d5&#xA;3. Nc3 dxe4&#xA;4. Nxe4 Bf5&#xA;5. Ng3 Bg6&#xA;6. h4 h6&#xA;7. Nf3 Nd7&#xA;8. h5 Bh7&#xA;9. Bd3 Bxd3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's a link for a &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Chess_Opening_Theory/1._e4&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;plethora of e4 openings&lt;/a&gt;.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which opening to pick?  Narrow down the field by examining games of Anatoly Karpov, Tigran Petrosian, Aron Nimzovitch, and Mikhail Botvinnik.  Nimzovitch is the godfather of the 'prophylactic' style you describe.  You might get a copy of 'My System', one of the first books to collect, state, and explain the principles of positional play.  Be advised this book (and many others) are old and were written using the now-obsolete 'descriptive' notation.  You probably want your copies to be in algebraic or figurine algebraic notation.  If you buy a copy off of e-bay etc you should verify what you're getting.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2012-07-01T03:52:11.877" LastActivityDate="2012-07-01T03:52:11.877" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="981" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="979" CreationDate="2012-06-30T15:03:51.660" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found an interesting page featuring the results of &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.vanheusden.com/cchess/datamining_on_chess.html&quot;&gt;some data mining on a sample of 4,226,520 games&lt;/a&gt;, and from which answers to your questions can be extracted, at least for that large sample of games, which is probably reasonably reflective of what happens in general.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to the numbers there, the average game has a ply count of 57.63 (i.e. total number of moves by both White and Black). So the number of times a single piece is moved is, on average,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;57.63 / 32 = 1.8009&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The page also lists the total number of moves played in these games by each type of piece of each color, from which we can derive the following per-game figures:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;White piece moves&#xA;-----------------&#xA;P: 7.7708 total moves, .9714 per pawn&#xA;N: 5.1677 total moves, 2.5838 per knight&#xA;B: 4.6259 total moves, 2.3130 per bishop&#xA;R: 4.6985 total moves, 2.3493 per rook&#xA;Q: 3.5775&#xA;K: 3.1718&#xA;&#xA;Black piece moves&#xA;-----------------&#xA;P: 7.7998 total moves, .9750 per pawn&#xA;N: 5.1576 total moves, 2.5788 per knight&#xA;B: 4.3511 total moves, 2.1756 per bishop&#xA;R: 4.5364 total moves, 2.2682 per rook&#xA;Q: 3.4869&#xA;K: 3.2875&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These figures ignore the fact that some piece moves will have been made my promoted pieces, but on the whole such moves will be a very small piece of the pie, so these numbers shouldn't be too far off the mark.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2012-06-30T15:03:51.660" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="982" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1117" CreationDate="2012-06-30T16:39:25.670" Score="31" ViewCount="2249" Body="&lt;p&gt;This question is an offshoot of Ramon Snir's &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/q/979/167&quot;&gt;earlier one&lt;/a&gt; about how often different types of pieces get moved, on average, in a game of chess. My question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Do the relative numbers of moves for the given types of pieces differ when one looks at the games of stronger players as opposed to the games of weaker players? (For example, maybe the weaker players tend to make more pawn moves at the expense of piece moves, or they make too many queen moves. I don't know.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was able to give an answer to the earlier question using raw data that had been extracted from a large database &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.vanheusden.com/cchess/datamining_on_chess.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;by someone else&lt;/a&gt;. That data came from a sample of 4M+ games, ranging from grandmaster play down to weak amateur play, and the aggregate numbers for move totals that are given there don't discriminate on the basis of player strength. Answering my question will require getting separate data for games between strong players and games between weak players, and &lt;em&gt;I am looking for answers backed up by data rather than anecdotes&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's a more specific form of my question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is there some Elo rating threshold N such that, when one looks at the average numbers of moves in a game broken down by type of piece, there's a significant difference between what one finds in games featuring players above N, and what one finds in games featuring players below N.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It would be interesting if more of this sort of thing could be found too, i.e. concrete differences between stronger and weaker players that can be detected by data mining. Such findings could point to specific behaviors that hold players back, or conversely ones that propel them forward. Now, maybe there aren't any such differences to be found just by looking at this kind of data, but I'd be interested to know that too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2019-09-21T13:37:10.417" Title="Do strong players move their pieces with different relative frequencies than weak players?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;statistics&gt;&lt;pieces&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="7" FavoriteCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="983" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="943" CreationDate="2012-07-01T07:20:06.517" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;I play the French Exchange with &lt;code&gt;4. Bd3&lt;/code&gt;.  Control of the e-file, and its corresponding outposts supported by the d-pawns (e5 for White, e4 for Black) is paramount.  I usually follow on with &lt;code&gt;Ne2&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;0-0&lt;/code&gt; as White.  This allows me flexibility in developing my c1 bishop -- if Black likewise has played &lt;code&gt;...Bd6&lt;/code&gt;, I often trade off my &quot;bad&quot; bishop with &lt;code&gt;Bf4&lt;/code&gt;, but in other lines I play &lt;code&gt;Bg5&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This being said, I may look into Greg's idea of playing &lt;code&gt;3. Nc3&lt;/code&gt; first.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user76" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-11-27T19:20:00.173" LastActivityDate="2012-11-27T19:20:00.173" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="984" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="986" CreationDate="2012-07-02T02:37:26.563" Score="10" ViewCount="654" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've never played in a chess league or tournament before, but I am anxious to try one and find out where my true over-the-board rating stands. I'm too old for the school competitions (over 30) and I'm not sure where to go or what to do to get started.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What would I have to do in order to become involved with the USCF or FIDE, and what steps are involved in actually playing in such a tournament? Is there a standard format or guideline I can read to prepare?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="29" LastActivityDate="2019-12-06T19:32:48.870" Title="Joining a league or tournament" Tags="&lt;fide&gt;&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;uscf&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="985" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="984" CreationDate="2012-07-02T04:28:39.667" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Check the USCF web site.  They'll list &lt;a href=&quot;http://main.uschess.org/index.php?option=com_wrapper&amp;amp;Itemid=198&quot;&gt;chess clubs in your area&lt;/a&gt;.  Find one that suits you, pay your USCF membership, and play!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2012-07-02T04:28:39.667" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="986" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="984" CreationDate="2012-07-02T05:29:14.863" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;USCF has regular chess tournaments listed in different states each month and you can find tournaments such as &lt;code&gt;Chicago Open&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;Philadelphia Open&lt;/code&gt;, etc, in-which, you can play at any levels (Under 2200, Under 2000, etc). You have to be a USCF member to play these tournaments which is an easy process and you can register and pay it online at the USCF website.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also tournaments such as &lt;code&gt;Chicago Open&lt;/code&gt;,&lt;code&gt;World Open&lt;/code&gt; (which is starting today at Philly) are open to all USCF members and you can play at any level. At first, you will be having a provisional rating and if you play at any levels &lt;code&gt;Under 2000&lt;/code&gt; and under, and if you win that level you will not be able to win the full top prize due to your provisional rating. But if you play other higher levels - &lt;code&gt;U2200&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;U2400&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;Open&lt;/code&gt; - you will also get a &lt;code&gt;FIDE&lt;/code&gt; rating because these levels are usually FIDE-rated. You should always check with the tournament organizers to see which levels are FIDE rated, how much they pay out for unrated players who win and then can play them. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note: Not all USCF tournaments are FIDE rated. Only Big tournaments such as those mentioned above have FIDE-ratings. (Most of these Big tournaments are organized by CCA - &lt;a href=&quot;http://chesstournamentservices.com/cca/&quot;&gt;http://chesstournamentservices.com/cca/&lt;/a&gt; )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So playing in a FIDE-rated tournament in USA is as simple as finding the BIG tournament closer to your area and registering for it with a USCF membership. Usually these big tournaments have an entry fee of around USD 300. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These bigger tournaments have different ways to enter the tournament and play - 3 day. 4-day, 5-day etc. It all depends on your other-schedule and you can pick a type of play suitable for you. Some of these big tournaments all allow you to re-enter the same tourney if you lose the first few games and think that you can play well and want to play from the start again. You can always check with the tournament organizers about the rules. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From my experience of playing these big tournaments, playing 3-day tourneys is a hectic schedule where you would play 3 or 4 games in the 1st and 2nd days and then join with the regular round schedule for all day-games. Picking the 3-day tourney instead of 5-day or 7-day is basically based on your free time for that week and how well you can adapt to play all the games to win. It's more of a gamble paying 300 USD (unless playing unrated-level which has very less entry-fee but no prize money) and I don't play these tournaments anymore. I just moved from chess to poker.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you think you are a good chess-player and want to get a FIDE-rating,  then playing these big tournaments at Under2200 and above would give you a FIDE-rating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="220" LastActivityDate="2012-07-02T05:29:14.863" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="987" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="984" CreationDate="2012-07-02T12:18:07.343" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;It might be better to start in a smaller tournament group. I've had luck with meetup.com (where you'll find even smaller groups than the club list on USCF, sometimes), finding at least 3-4 clubs in my area that host USCF rated tournaments. The ratings might be inflated/deflated at the small clubs, because you get a lot of people playing the same people over and over, but it will still give you a rating and it's a cheaper/more informal way to get started. Some clubs only charge $1 or $2 for a tournament, hosted at a coffee shop or mall food court.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Signing up for USCF can be done on their website on a yearly basis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You might read over the rules, but most of them are pretty common sense; when in doubt, ask the TD. You'll probably want to have a clock with a 5-second delay option, and your own set and board. You want to have a notepad/pen so you can record moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="142" LastActivityDate="2012-07-02T12:18:07.343" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="988" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="977" CreationDate="2012-07-02T15:48:25.917" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think playing &lt;code&gt;1... c6&lt;/code&gt; against just about any move by White would be a good example of a prophylactic defense.  Against either &lt;code&gt;1. e4&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;1. d4&lt;/code&gt; if White follows on with advancing the other center pawn on move 2, you can follow on with &lt;code&gt;2... d5&lt;/code&gt;, the Caro-Kann defence, albeit in the case of the move order &lt;code&gt;1. d4 c6  2. e4 d5&lt;/code&gt; the defense has been reached by transposition, the normal move order being &lt;code&gt;1. e4 c6  2. d4 d5&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In any case see &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caro-Kann_Defence&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;the Wikipedia page&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;code&gt;1. d4&lt;/code&gt; player will probably be more inclined to respond to &lt;code&gt;1... c6&lt;/code&gt; with &lt;code&gt;2. c4&lt;/code&gt;, in which case following on with &lt;code&gt;2... d5&lt;/code&gt; gives you the Slav Defense (see &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slav_Defense&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I believe these lines meet your qualifications of &quot;defenses that are an answer to most openings and doesn't block my minor pieces&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user76" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-07-02T23:30:02.260" LastActivityDate="2012-07-02T23:30:02.260" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="989" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="990" CreationDate="2012-07-02T16:14:02.937" Score="7" ViewCount="718" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was taking a look at the &lt;a href=&quot;http://chesstempo.com/tactical-motifs.html&quot;&gt;tactical motifs on chess tempo&lt;/a&gt; and I was curious to know which motifs are encountered most often and which motifs are encountered the least?  Are their statistics for this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastActivityDate="2012-07-03T14:59:29.373" Title="Are there statistics on the frequency of tactical motifs?" Tags="&lt;statistics&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="990" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="989" CreationDate="2012-07-02T21:18:33.123" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm going to suppose that compiling this sort of data would be nearly impossible because the question is, while it seems very specific, is actually far too broad. As a database developer I face these kinds of scenarios very often. One of my special favorites is just the idea of a date and time. It seems so simple but the second you start to really look at it you see it is in fact very deep and has many facets.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's start breaking this apart.&#xA;1. We assume you mean in Grand Master level games only.&#xA;2. Do you consider only tactical motifs that actually occur in the game or do you consider positions that are directly threatened? These positions would actually be highly important for study because even though they do not occur in the actual game, both players needed to consider them.&#xA;3. If you consider positions that do not actually occur over the board, how deep in the analysis do you go?&#xA;4. Do you consider tactical motifs that are standard operations like a simple pin or do you only consider tactical motifs used in a combination?&#xA;5. Do you consider tactical motifs that occur in any combination or only those that actually work?&#xA;6. If you only consider those in combinations that work, what do you mean by &quot;work&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You see where I am going with this. There are so many things that need to be considered before the data can actually be transformed into something informative that it becomes impractical. This should not really be surprising for a topic that chess players through the centuries have had a difficult time defining: what is a tactic? What is a combination? Is a combination just a set of forcing moves even if it leaves the position exactly equal? What if it leaves the player who initiated it weaker? It's like the US supreme court justice said. We might not be able to define it, but we &quot;know it when we see it.&quot; But that sort of definition doesn't help us transform a mass of data into actual information. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="41" LastActivityDate="2012-07-02T21:18:33.123" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="991" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-07-03T00:53:16.230" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Prophylaxis is the taking of preemptive defensive measures in chess. Examples include overprotecting an important piece or square, or creating luft for a castled king in order to avoid back-rank mate threats later on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-07-03T00:53:16.230" LastActivityDate="2012-07-03T00:53:16.230" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="992" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-07-03T00:53:16.230" Score="0" Body="Prophylaxis is the taking of preemptive defensive measures in chess. Examples include overprotecting an important piece or square, or creating luft for a castled king in order to avoid back-rank mate threats later on." OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-07-03T00:53:16.230" LastActivityDate="2012-07-03T00:53:16.230" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="993" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="995" CreationDate="2012-07-03T05:04:27.787" Score="13" ViewCount="847" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why did Viktor Korchnoi/Kortchnoi leave the USSR?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe the answer could include a little more trivia since he is such an interesting character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="58" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-07-04T03:12:47.907" LastActivityDate="2012-10-19T22:03:01.560" Title="Why did Viktor Korchnoi leave the USSR?" Tags="&lt;history&gt;&lt;famous-players&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="995" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="993" CreationDate="2012-07-03T05:34:36.737" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;The short story is that the Soviet chess authorities at the time were blocking Korchnoi's progress and severely limiting his opportunities to play, as Karpov had been selected as their favorite son. It was the same sort of impediment that Kasparov later faced when he was on his own path toward dethroning Karpov, and it also echoed the scenario from decades before, when it was rumored/suspected that Paul Keres had been &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Chess_Championship_1948#Controversy&quot;&gt;forced to take a backseat&lt;/a&gt; to Botvinnik.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2012-07-03T05:34:36.737" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="996" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="989" CreationDate="2012-07-03T14:59:29.373" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/990/12&quot;&gt;Robert Kaucher's answer&lt;/a&gt; addresses some of the difficulties in finding an objective answer, but I'll do my best at a subjective answer based on my own game play:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In slow tournament games, pins and forks are far and away the most common tactical motifs.  Skewers are a distant third.  To be clear, I am lumping double attacks in with forks (i.e. threaten mate and a loose piece with one move to win a piece).  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my games, forks don't usually appear on the board because my opponents don't usually miss a one move knight fork, for example.  The threat of forks often dictates moves though, and one side or the other will use these threats to make some positional improvement.  Double attacks are slightly different.  In one of my slow games this month I was able to win the exchange from this position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ua1eQ.jpg&quot; width=&quot;350&quot; height=&quot;350&quot; title=&quot;White to move and win&quot; /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt; &lt;em&gt;1. Nd5!&lt;/em&gt; wins due to &lt;em&gt;1... Nxd5?? 2. Qxh7#&lt;/em&gt; The game went &lt;em&gt;1... e4 2. Nxc7 exd3 3. Nxa8&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I find that double attacks are usually only threats as well, but since they are usually more complicated to &quot;see&quot; over the board, the actual tactic happens in the game more frequently.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pins, however, are fairly common.  Players are much more likely to allow a pin (at least temporarily) because there is usually not an immediate loss of material.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a final note, in games between lower rated players and in online blitz games (usually lower quality than slow chess games), forks and pins are still the most common, but they are executed on the board more frequently as opposed to just being threatened.  I think this is because one player simply misses the threat and allows it to happen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.193" LastActivityDate="2012-07-03T14:59:29.373" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="997" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="998" CreationDate="2012-07-03T16:50:08.670" Score="11" ViewCount="1515" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have been playing the &lt;code&gt;Scotch&lt;/code&gt; main line every chance I get.  I have had a pretty good success rate with it, but I feel this is due to the my opponent not having a complete understanding of the &lt;code&gt;Scotch&lt;/code&gt;.  My play usually goes something like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 exd4 4. Nxd4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After this, I rarely encounter the classical move &lt;code&gt;4...Bc5&lt;/code&gt;.  Most of the time, black will play &lt;code&gt;5...Nxd4&lt;/code&gt; followed by &lt;code&gt;6. Qxd4&lt;/code&gt; and I usually find myself in a pretty good position here.  However, so far I have never encountered the moves &lt;code&gt;4...Bc5&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;5. Nxc6 Qf6 (threating mate)&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is this position that gives me most trouble, I know that my knight on &lt;code&gt;c6&lt;/code&gt; is lost because of the mate threat, so what is white's best move(s) if play continues with &lt;code&gt;5...Qf6&lt;/code&gt;.  I have found it very difficult for white to recover from this, especially since black has more development&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastEditorUserId="109" LastEditDate="2012-11-30T06:34:16.693" LastActivityDate="2012-11-30T06:34:16.693" Title="How should white continue after 5...Qf6 in the Scotch Game?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;scotch-game&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="998" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="997" CreationDate="2012-07-03T18:36:54.317" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, I'd note that the most popular move after &lt;code&gt;4... Bc5&lt;/code&gt; (according to the game databases of both &lt;a href=&quot;http://chesstempo.com/game-database.html&quot;&gt;Chess Tempo&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://chessgames.com/perl/explorer&quot;&gt;Chess Games&lt;/a&gt;) is actually &lt;code&gt;5. Be3&lt;/code&gt;, and I suppose there's an argument to be made that it's both the more ambitious and the more principled move because it attempts to maintain control and/or occupation of the d4 square rather than immediately ceding it. In those main lines, Black is generally seeking to play a freeing &lt;code&gt;...d5&lt;/code&gt; pawn break, when White's center is either liquidated or White is forced to push his pawn to &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt; (typically supported by a pawn on &lt;code&gt;f4&lt;/code&gt;), creating a structure where Black must blockade and aim to attack the head of the White f4-e5 chain while White seeks to bolster and ultimately advance it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's typical of most variations in the Scotch that Black gets a slight lead in development in exchange for White's superior pawn structure and has to use piece play (combined with timely pawn breaks like &lt;code&gt;...d5&lt;/code&gt;) to avoid the dreaded &quot;Scotch ending&quot; where White has a mobile king-side pawn majority while Black's queen-side pawns can be blockaded (due to the pawn doubling that normally takes place on the c-file in many lines).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the line that you specifically refer to, the only two common and respectable continuations are either &lt;code&gt;6. Qd2&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;6. Qf3&lt;/code&gt;. (I have seen &lt;code&gt;6. Qe2&lt;/code&gt; played, presumably with the idea of not blocking the dark-square bishop and intending on castling queen-side, but it's comparatively rare and, statistically, its practical success rate looks abysmal.) Of these, I've always preferred &lt;code&gt;6. Qf3&lt;/code&gt;, precisely because it doesn't impede White's development in the way that &lt;code&gt;6. Qd2&lt;/code&gt; does by blocking the dark-square bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In those variations, if Black does capture on &lt;code&gt;f3&lt;/code&gt; (which he almost always does relatively quickly, except in the lines with &lt;code&gt;6... Qxc6&lt;/code&gt;, which are the least common), White's pawn structure is not as compromised as it might superficially appear after the obligatory g-pawn recapture, and in fact gives White a solid central presence and open files and diagonals for his pieces. Those lines lead to relatively standard endgames where the dark-square bishops also normally get traded very quickly and White seems to do well. &lt;code&gt;6... Qxc6&lt;/code&gt;, which is rare, may be a good reply, where Black again aims for a &lt;code&gt;...d5&lt;/code&gt; pawn break and extremely symmetrical positions arise in which piece play dominates and major strategic themes don't particularly present themselves with any force or consistency.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If none of this sounds appealing, the only other (semi-)respectable way to play the Scotch is as a gambit line with &lt;code&gt;4. Bc4&lt;/code&gt;, appropriately but boringly called the &quot;Scotch Gambit.&quot; Notably, this was recommended in the book &lt;em&gt;Chess Openings For White, Explained&lt;/em&gt;. Unfortunately, none of the major lines are particularly forcing, and if Black is reasonably familiar with classical open games, he can transpose into lines of either the Giuoco Piano or the Two Knights Defense where he returns the pawn and easily equalizes (in fact, I'd say Black has a more pleasant position in the best of the Two Knights Defense lines than White does).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="297" LastEditorUserId="297" LastEditDate="2012-07-03T18:42:34.027" LastActivityDate="2012-07-03T18:42:34.027" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="999" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1000" CreationDate="2012-07-03T19:46:32.413" Score="7" ViewCount="612" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was reading the following &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Taimanov&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;wikipedia article on Mark Taimanov&lt;/a&gt; and I was very shocked (I guess I shoudn't be knowing how the Soviets took chess so seriously) that when Taimanov lost to Fischer 6-0 , the Soviet Government was embarrassed and found it &quot;unthinkable&quot; that he could lose a match so badly to an American, so they ended up taking away his salary and did not let him travel overseas.  Later, they &quot;forgave&quot; saying the reason for punishment was that he brought a book by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn into the country, but from the article, I guess many speculate that Fischer's defeat of Bent Larsen 6-0 probably had more to do with the Soviet government &quot;forgiving&quot; Taimanov.  So in a nutshell, do these things types of things still happen, not just with the countries that used to be a part of the USSR, but in other parts of the world?  This maybe difficult to answer, because I guess if it did happen, it would be kept very secretive?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastEditorUserId="61" LastEditDate="2012-07-05T00:05:21.487" LastActivityDate="2012-07-05T00:05:21.487" Title="How is chess viewed in USSR vs Post-USSR?" Tags="&lt;history&gt;&lt;famous-players&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1000" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="999" CreationDate="2012-07-04T02:44:25.290" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Authoritarian governments will punish its representatives who do not live up to the standards they set.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Iraq - &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uday_Hussein&quot;&gt;Saddam later appointed Uday head of the Iraqi Olympic committee and soccer federation, and ... tortured athletes who failed to win.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;China - &lt;a href=&quot;http://factsanddetails.com/china.php?itemid=1007&amp;amp;catid=12&amp;amp;subcatid=79&quot;&gt;Players that towed the party line and upheld Marxist values were rewarded. Those that didn’t were punished.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bear in mind, these standards are not necessarily reasonable or attainable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2012-07-04T02:44:25.290" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1001" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-07-04T02:53:46.057" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Korchnoi&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Viktor Korchnoi&lt;/a&gt; is a Swiss grandmaster who defected from the Soviet Union in 1976. He played two world championship matches against Anatoly Karpov (1978, 1981), losing both. Korchnoi is particularly noteworthy for his longevity, maintaining a high standard of play into his 80s, and he is often cited as one of the strongest players never to become world champion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-07-04T03:08:42.297" LastActivityDate="2012-07-04T03:08:42.297" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1002" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-07-04T02:53:46.057" Score="0" Body="Viktor Korchnoi is an ex-Soviet grandmaster playing under the Swiss flag.  He is known for his incredible longevity, having been a World Champion contender from 1962 to 1991.  He's frequently named, along with Paul Keres, as one of the strongest players to not win the world champion title." OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-07-04T02:57:28.613" LastActivityDate="2012-07-04T02:57:28.613" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1003" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1060" CreationDate="2012-07-07T02:38:04.860" Score="57" ViewCount="16716" Body="&lt;p&gt;Insofar as I understand, it appears that, before moving, all strong chess software&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;examines thousands or millions of possible, future positions;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;evaluates each future position according to some heuristic, called an &lt;em&gt;evaluation function;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;separately evaluates each future position for &lt;em&gt;quiescence,&lt;/em&gt; to decide whether to explore continuations from the position;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;chooses from among available moves by &lt;em&gt;minimax;&lt;/em&gt; and&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;uses an &lt;em&gt;opening book.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So far, so good.  However, the strength of a chess program seems mostly to depend on the quality of its evaluation and quiescence heuristics -- and also on its opening book which, from the computer's perspective, is yet another heuristic.  Such a chess program apparently, only, exactly knows as much about the game as does the human who has crafted the heuristics.  The program seems to have no insights of its own.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Has anyone ever written a chess program that does have insights of its own?  That learns the game on its own?  That trains itself?  Such a program would be provided with the rules of the game, of course, and would presumably further be provided with raw minimax and quiescence infrastructure, and would be able to recognize and prosecute a forced mate if it found one.  However, it would be provided no heuristics.  For example, it would not be told to open the game toward the center, nor to prefer rooks to knights, nor what is the Sicilian defense.  It would have to infer such principles (or, conceivably, to discover better principles) on its own.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In its pure form, such a program would never be provided master games to study, but only its own games, played against itself.  Only once fully self-trained would it be unleashed on human competition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does such a pure chess AI exist?  Has a mechanical chess autodidact ever appeared?  Indeed, can the old &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Turk&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Turk&lt;/a&gt; teach himself?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://satirist.org/learn-game/systems/neurochess.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Here seems to be a brief notice of a pure chess AI that failed.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/q/137/315&quot;&gt;A tangentially related question&lt;/a&gt; has earlier appeared on this site, regarding the computerized study of chess openings.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;UPDATE&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The question is graced by three different, illuminating answers at the time of this writing, by @WesFreeman, @GregE. and @Landei.  All three are strongly recommended and I am going to feel guilty when, according to site policy, I formally &lt;em&gt;accept&lt;/em&gt; one to the exclusion of the others.  Let me here give thanks for and express my appreciation of all three.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Questions want brevity.  A response to answers however might run longer.  The interested reader therefore can skip from here directly to the answers and then, if still interested, can return to read the longer update that follows.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I asked the question, I had in mind something like the following.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Suppose a hypothetical village on the outskirts of Shangri-La where the people have never heard of chess.  During your brief visit, you teach the village elders the rules of the game, but never instruct them in any of the game's principles.  Two of the elders play a game as the rest of the elders watch, while you (not wishing to disrupt the play by kibitzing) confine your commentary to questions of the rules.  No postmortem follows the game, nor is chess played or discussed again while you are remain in Shangri-La.   However, when you depart, never to return, you leave your chess set behind.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your absence, the elders teach the game to the people.  Some of the people later play a little during leisure hours, a few with growing enthusiasm, who fashion chess sets of their own.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It might not immediately be obvious to such villagers that a rook were better than a knight, but the people might still gradually work out the relative strengths of the chessmen over the play of many games.  Likewise, it might not immediately be obvious to them that 1. a4 were a poor opening:  they could but try it and consider the results.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To what extent would the villagers' understanding of the game eventually converge to that of the outside world?  Lacking an opening book, might they develop novel openings of their own?  Of course, one would not expect the villagers' openings to be very good at first but, given a couple of centuries of isolation, the villagers &lt;em&gt;might&lt;/em&gt; develop a respectable opening repertoire, for all I know.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Would any of their openings, independently developed, prove interesting to the outside world, when the next traveler passed through to take note of them, 200 years later?  Might Shangri-La give the world the new, novel, Shangri-La Defense?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If so, then, with respect to my original question on chess AI, what I had in mind was more or less this:  could a chess AI more or less duplicate the chess progress of the villagers on the outskirts of Shanrgi-La?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Considering Sussman's story in @Landei's answer below, it is undoubtedly true that my villagers would bring certain preconceptions to the game.  For example, they would bring an understanding that to possess more of a useful thing were generally better than to possess less of it, and therefore that to capture an opponent's chessmen were probably, usually preferable to suffering the capture of one's own.  How territorial the fictional people of Shangri-La were by nature is a question for literature, but one can assume that they would recognize a position that commanded more space as superior to a position that commanded less.  And any bright novice, once shown a chess set and instructed in the game's rules, can infer that a queen is likely better than a pawn, simply by that the queen has up to 27 moves available, whereas the pawn has no more than four -- and moreover, by speculative inference against the game's design, by the observation that a player begins with fewer queens than pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question therefore need not be construed to imply an absolute, Sussman-style injunction against bringing any kind of knowledge whatsoever to the chess board; but rather to imply a general injunction against preconceived, chess-specific knowledge.  After all (disregarding the matter of the evolution of the game's rules long ago), at some time in the past, the first game of chess was played.  Maybe the first player did open 1. a4; but eventually he learned better, and taught what he had learned to his disciples; who in turn learned more and taught more, generation by generation, to give us Kasparov.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could an AI not do something like that, only in weeks rather than centuries?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Plato would be skeptical, I suppose.  Hume would be more optimistic, but the question is no longer to be settled by philosophy alone.  We have electronic computers now with which to test the proposition, and I was wondering what the state of the AI art was.  The best chess AIs at present seem to be thoroughly unintelligent expert systems that beat everybody while intuiting nothing.  I wondered whether slightly broader AIs that, in some sense, actually think about chess, had had any considerable success at teaching themselves the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I gather that the answer is no, probably not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="315" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2018-05-15T13:07:14.043" Title="A purely self-trained chess AI" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;" AnswerCount="15" CommentCount="13" FavoriteCount="16" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1004" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1003" CreationDate="2012-07-07T05:16:57.920" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the main reason it's difficult to produce such an AI is because of the space required in storing the &quot;training&quot; to be effective. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also (as a response to your self-training comment), self training can be detrimental while trying to improve such an AI--I've done some research with tic-tac-toe (admittedly much simpler), and it found all sorts of horrible ways to win (and train those horrible ways) because both sides played horribly. It took much much longer to get reasonable performance with self-training than training against a good look-ahead AI in tic-tac-toe.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I think it would be interesting to see a hybrid that uses both deep search and &quot;training&quot;--some sort of stored database of positions for middlegame (instead of just endgame and openings). It would need a lot of space.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe you're thinking of a more &quot;real&quot; AI approach that would learn positional concepts rather than position win/loss/draw, but I don't think that would be very effective (compared to strong engines).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="142" LastActivityDate="2012-07-07T05:16:57.920" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1005" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1003" CreationDate="2012-07-07T06:26:19.517" Score="17" Body="&lt;p&gt;I suspect that what you're asking about would be classified as some sort of &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_algorithm&quot;&gt;genetic algorithm&lt;/a&gt; or &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_algorithm&quot;&gt;evolutionary algorithm&lt;/a&gt; approach. I suspect there's no realistic way of designing such an algorithm without intrinsically embedding some degree of human bias at a fundamental level, since the programmer still has to define the static features of a position (material count, pawn structure, color complexes, etc.) according to which the AI would classify and compare positions from different games. If you do a Google search on the above algorithmic terminology in the context of chess, you'll find numerous results, but probably little in the way of serious research that has actually been used to build successful, competitive AIs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The fact is that, as a consequence of &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore%27s_law&quot;&gt;Moore's law&lt;/a&gt;, computers are now such powerful calculating machines that extremely sophisticated AI methods are not only unnecessary (in terms of playing at a level higher than the best human opponents), but can even conceivably be counter-productive. Chess is the kind of game in which -- due mainly to its comparatively small search space of reasonable moves in any given position and the existence of forcing tactical combinations (comprising sequences of checks, piece captures, threats of mate or catastrophic loss of material, etc.) -- a brute-force approach with some conservative search-tree pruning is simultaneously the most algorithmically simple and the most effective approach. If you factor in the availability of endgame tables and opening books, the logic of that approach only grows. I understand that there's a still a great deal of theoretical interest and potential value in the sort of novel AI that you're talking about, but I suspect chess is the wrong arena in which to develop it. On the other hand, a game like Go, which is less tactical by nature and encompasses a vastly larger search space that renders brute-force approaches impractical, might be a better candidate for cutting-edge AI research.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="297" LastActivityDate="2012-07-07T06:26:19.517" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1006" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1003" CreationDate="2012-07-07T20:26:59.770" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;Please meditate about the following AI Koan:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In the days when Sussman was a novice, Minsky once came to him as he&#xA;  sat hacking at the PDP-6. “What are you doing?”, asked Minsky. “I am&#xA;  training a randomly wired neural net to play Tic-Tac-Toe” Sussman&#xA;  replied. “Why is the net wired randomly?”, asked Minsky. “I do not&#xA;  want it to have any preconceptions of how to play”, Sussman said.&#xA;  Minsky then shut his eyes. “Why do you close your eyes?”, Sussman&#xA;  asked his teacher. “So that the room will be empty.” At that moment,&#xA;  Sussman was enlightened.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Our applications have always preconceptions, whether or not you close your eyes...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="35" LastActivityDate="2012-07-07T20:26:59.770" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1007" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-07-08T12:56:09.270" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2012-07-08T12:56:09.270" LastActivityDate="2012-07-08T12:56:09.270" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1008" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-07-08T12:56:09.270" Score="0" Body="Questions dealing with how to defend against attack, and how to choose moves that are defensive in nature.  Note 'defensive' does not mean passive." OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2012-07-08T13:23:24.057" LastActivityDate="2012-07-08T13:23:24.057" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1009" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1012" CreationDate="2012-07-09T07:50:10.783" Score="7" ViewCount="1289" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to experience the best chess competition is where the most experienced players around the globe participate. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there such a contest? Or is it too boring to watch chess tournament because it takes too long to finish? Which TV station broadcasts the most supreme chess contests?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lastly, is a chess game as fascinating as El Clásico (a soccer game between FC Barçelona and Real Madrid)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="306" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-06-02T04:46:11.187" LastActivityDate="2020-06-02T04:46:11.187" Title="What's the most prestigious chess competition broadcasted on TV?" Tags="&lt;world-championship&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1010" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1300" CreationDate="2012-07-09T12:16:47.823" Score="18" ViewCount="2959" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit:&lt;/strong&gt; My mind played a trick on me after the fact. As Akavall notes in a comment, the Chadaev-Carlsen blitz game that I mention below actually proceeded &lt;code&gt;1. e4 g6 2. d4 Nf6 3. Nf3&lt;/code&gt;, a different gambit than the one my question asks about. So please ignore the references to Chadaev-Carlsen in reference to the Roscher Gambit here. (Incidentally, this means that Carlsen didn't buck the trend of highly-rated players avoiding &lt;code&gt;3. ... Nxe4&lt;/code&gt; in the Roscher Gambit; see below.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Roscher Gambit goes as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 d6 2. d4 Nf6 3. Nf3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I just saw Nikolai Chadaev convincingly defeat Magnus Carlsen at the World Blitz Championship using this line (where Carlsen accepted the gambit with &lt;code&gt;3. ... Nxe4&lt;/code&gt;). I realized I've basically never seen this gambit, and that I know nothing about it. (I even had to look up a name for it to ask this question.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is very seldom played, and especially so among highly-rated players: my database of 5.2M games contains a mere 99 games reaching the position after &lt;code&gt;3. Nf3&lt;/code&gt;, with the average White (respectively, Black) rating in the games being 1953 (1976). But there are 7 games in which 2400+ players tried the gambit as White against equally strong competition (and 2 games with 2500+ players). The most popular response over all games is indeed the obvious &lt;code&gt;3. ... Nxe4&lt;/code&gt;, being chosen in 46 of the 99 games. (Second most popular is continuing in Pirc Defense fashion with &lt;code&gt;3. ... g6&lt;/code&gt;; these two moves account for almost all the games, 83 of 99.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All of that is about what I would expect. But, interestingly, in the games I have in this line with the highest-rated players, Black consistently avoids &lt;code&gt;3. ... Nxe4&lt;/code&gt;, preferring the &lt;code&gt;3. ... g6&lt;/code&gt; Pirc approach, or instead aiming for the Philidor with &lt;code&gt;3. ... e5&lt;/code&gt; (or &lt;code&gt;3. ... Nbd7&lt;/code&gt; followed by &lt;code&gt;4. ... e5&lt;/code&gt;), Czech Defense with &lt;code&gt;3. ... c6&lt;/code&gt;, or even the Nimzowitsch Defense with &lt;code&gt;3. ... Nc6&lt;/code&gt;. The highest rated player I find playing &lt;code&gt;3. ... Nxe4&lt;/code&gt; has Elo 2245 (until this Carlsen blitz game of course).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The sample size here is quite small, and maybe the highly-rated players have avoided &lt;code&gt;3. ... Nxe4&lt;/code&gt; just because they are worried about stepping in to a well-prepared trap, instead preferring to head for more familiar ground. Nevertheless, the fact that the strongest players consistently avoid accepting the gambit - except for Carlsen, who got stomped, though it's just a blitz game - has made me curious:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the the theoretical status of the Roscher Gambit? Or is it too seldom played to even have a theoretical status?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And if it's the case that &lt;code&gt;3. ... Nxe4&lt;/code&gt; isn't simply good for Black, then why doesn't the Roscher appear more often, or at least have the same popularity among amateurs as something like, say, the Blackmar-Diemer Gambit?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I had no luck finding any prose account of the gambit by a strong player, and would appreciate any pointers to such.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2019-10-26T16:46:41.387" Title="What is the theoretical consensus on the Roscher Gambit?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;gambits&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="14" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1011" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1009" CreationDate="2012-07-09T12:55:23.500" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think there has been any televised chess tournaments in the English speaking world since the 90s with the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Chess_Championship_1993&quot;&gt;Short-Kasparov&lt;/a&gt; matches. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From the 1970s through the 1980s there was a show on BBC2 called &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Master_Game&quot;&gt;the Master Game&lt;/a&gt;. It seems that some of the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessvibes.com/reports/bbcs-the-master-game-on-youtube/&quot;&gt;episodes have been put on YouTube&lt;/a&gt;. See &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessville.com/keene/nationaldisgrace.htm&quot;&gt;this article&lt;/a&gt; as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I really think that the major problem with televised chess tournaments in the decade that we live in right now is 3 fold:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;There is not enough money in it to attract any but a niche network.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Serious chess coverage has migrated to the Internet and sites like &lt;a href=&quot;http://playchess.com&quot;&gt;PlayChess.com&lt;/a&gt; (from &lt;a href=&quot;http://chessbase.com/&quot;&gt;ChessBase&lt;/a&gt;), &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessclub.com&quot;&gt;ICC&lt;/a&gt;, and &lt;a href=&quot;http://chess.com&quot;&gt;Chess.com&lt;/a&gt;. Streaming video from these sites can reach a much wider audience than live broadcasts on BBC or ESPN.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The format is not very good for modern TV. The average viewer wants action. It's a sad comment on our society, but we live in the age of reality TV, not in an age where chess is actually appreciated. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="41" LastActivityDate="2012-07-09T12:55:23.500" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1012" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1009" CreationDate="2012-07-09T13:01:37.053" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Update to add a list of top regular events, per request:&lt;/strong&gt; These are some of the annual tournaments that are regularly made up largely of elite players (say, from the top 10 in the world).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Dortmund&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;London Chess Classic&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Pearl Spring Chess Tournament (Nanjing, China)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Tal Memorial (Moscow)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Tata Steel Chess Tournament (Wijk aan Zee, Netherlands)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some events like this which have recently struggled to exist, but which might come back, include Linares and the Bazna Kings tournament. And the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_Olympiad&quot;&gt;Chess Olympiad&lt;/a&gt; is a biennial international team competition (sort of the World Cup of chess).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can't speak to the situation globally, but in my country (USA) there certainly isn't chess programming to be found on television. (I do recall the sports channel ESPN experimenting with broadcasts of elite blitz chess in the late 1990s, including very enthusiastic commentary by Maurice Ashley, but the experiment was short-lived. And way back during the 1972 Fischer-Spassky match, &lt;a href=&quot;http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/01/18/fischers-epochal-matchshelby-lymans-star-turn/&quot;&gt;PBS covered it in a way&lt;/a&gt;.) Here at least, the problem is simply that the chess playing audience is way too small. Because of that, televised chess would indeed be boring to most of the population, but I don't think that the issue is with chess being &lt;em&gt;inherently&lt;/em&gt; too boring to watch. That is, while people who already have no use for chess would find it boring, I think chess fans very often do enjoy watching live coverage of events. (So in this regard chess viewing is no different from other sports or forms of entertainment.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is borne out when one looks beyond television, as there is plenty of live coverage of top chess events on the internet. Some that have had particularly well-executed coverage of late:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;http://moscow2012.fide.com/en/&quot;&gt;Anand - Gelfand&lt;/a&gt; World Championship match.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;http://londonchessclassic.com/&quot;&gt;London Chess Classic&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;American events &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.livestream.com/uschess&quot;&gt;hosted at the Saint Louis Chess Club&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Perhaps worth mentioning here: from 1976 to 1982, BBC2 in the UK ran a chess show called &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Master_Game&quot;&gt;The Master Game&lt;/a&gt;, in which top players of the day would compete in elimination tournaments, and voice-overs were edited in later, so as to appear to give the players' thought processes as they occurred during the game. (For example, here's an episode featuring &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6XfjaDNidrU&quot;&gt;a game between Walter Browne and John Nunn&lt;/a&gt;. Many more of these have been uploaded to YouTube.) I for one would love to see another show done in this manner.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The most recent Botvinnik Memorial rapid tournament (involving Anand, Kramnik, Aronian, Carlsen) tried to do something like this with its live stream. They actually paused the games halfway through each round, and got the players to give their thoughts on how the games were going. That didn't seem to work as well, in my opinion, as it just seemed like an awkward pause in the action, but it was a nice idea.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-07-09T13:40:54.163" LastActivityDate="2012-07-09T13:40:54.163" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1013" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1003" CreationDate="2012-07-09T14:26:45.850" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just want to expand on Greg's and Wes' answers here. The sort of AIs that thb is proposing simply do not exist with the sophistication that is required for this application. And even if they did, I suspect they would fail at this. It's as if thb wants a strong general purpose AI that can be taught the basic rules of the game and then be sent forth. But if you look at the general purpose AIs that are in development they are all being taught things like object and speech recognition at a 1 to 2 year old's level. Any general purpose AI would first need to have the sophistication to be able to understand what a game even is before it could understand how to play a game. You cannot design a general purpose AI and expect it to perform like a narrow or specialized AI. A general purpose AI would need to be taught chess like a person and you cannot expect to put two novice players with no knowledge of chess history together and spontaneously reinvent openings and strategic themes. It would take many hundreds of instances of the AI playing each other, each with access to the historical data of all of their games over many hundreds of thousands of iterations. And each AI would need to have certain distinct characteristics weighted at different levels.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It took humans nearly 500 years to get from &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruy_L%C3%B3pez_de_Segura&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Rodrigo (Ruy) López de Segura&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedro_Damiano&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Pedro Damião&lt;/a&gt; to &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Morphy&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Paul Morphy&lt;/a&gt; and then consider the further changes that occured between the play of &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_Steinitz&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Steinitz&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Alekhine&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Alekhine&lt;/a&gt;. And all of that change occurred through the dynamism of many hundreds of thousands of players with different temperaments and other influencing characteristics (such as randomly favoring knights over bishops or bishops over knights) not to mention playing styles and fashions. All of these things contributed to the dynamo of change that influenced chess through the centuries. No weak AI - even a weak general purpose AI- could duplicate that sort of dynamo because it lacks desire. Only desire can drive something to sit for hours over many days to analyze an opening with the &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;intention&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; of busting it or improving it after a rival &quot;busted&quot; it. Really it's this sort of drive for analysis and preparation that improved play over the centuries - not blind play of million of games between equally weak players. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's like taking a bunch of people who do not speak English and who never read their native tongue's masters of literature and putting them into a room with English as a Second Language books and expecting them to come up with something like the works of Shakespeare. It's never, ever going to happen. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT&lt;/strong&gt;: I should have known better than to make this claim because &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.kurzweilai.net/alphazeros-alien-superhuman-level-program-masters-chess-in-24-hours-with-no-domain-knowledge?utm_source=KurzweilAI+Daily+Newsletter&amp;amp;utm_campaign=fbbe6f18b3-UA-946742-1&amp;amp;utm_medium=email&amp;amp;utm_term=0_6de721fb33-fbbe6f18b3-282066226&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;it has happened&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;“AlphaZero was not ‘taught’ the game in the traditional sense,” explains Chess.com. “That means no opening book, no endgame tables, and apparently no complicated algorithms dissecting minute differences between center pawns and side pawns. This would be akin to a robot being given access to thousands of metal bits and parts, but no knowledge of a combustion engine, then it experiments numerous times with every combination possible until it builds a Ferrari. … The program had four hours to play itself many, many times, thereby becoming its own teacher.”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My continued, obviously baseless blathering:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We take for granted all of the implicit knowledge that we have about the world. In order to be able to understand that if I have to pieces of wood and a nail, then a hammer is more useful to me than a screwdriver I have to first understand that certain classes of things are more useful in certain situations than other things. I also have to understand that things have a use that can be applied to a goal. These are heuristics. If the AI cannot be told that certain pieces have more value than others, how can it even understand what mate is? If it cannot be programmed with specific heuristics, it must be able to extrapolate these ideas like &quot;value&quot; and &quot;utility&quot; form experience. And that is not the domain of narrow AI. It's the domain of general purpose, strong AI. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="41" LastEditorUserId="41" LastEditDate="2017-12-12T14:51:30.400" LastActivityDate="2017-12-12T14:51:30.400" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1014" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1016" CreationDate="2012-07-10T14:13:57.107" Score="5" ViewCount="1446" Body="&lt;p&gt;On this website: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.dwheeler.com/chess-openings/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.dwheeler.com/chess-openings/&lt;/a&gt;, it says that the Pirc Defense is &lt;code&gt;1. e4 d6&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;1. e4 g6&lt;/code&gt;.  Which one of them is the true Pirc Defense?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2014-01-31T17:15:36.360" LastActivityDate="2020-08-04T01:24:41.293" Title="What is the Pirc Defense (1... d6 or 1... g6)?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;pirc-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1015" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1017" CreationDate="2012-07-10T14:42:49.093" Score="4" ViewCount="1208" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the following &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garry_Kasparov&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt; biography on Gary Kasparov, I read the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;From age 7, Kasparov attended the Young Pioneer Palace in Baku and, at 10 began training at Mikhail Botvinnik's chess school under noted coach Vladimir Makogonov. Makogonov helped develop Kasparov's positional skills and taught him to play the Caro-Kann Defence and the Tartakower System of the Queen's Gambit Declined.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This got me thinking: does the Caro-Kann or the Tartakower System of the Queen's Gambit Declined help with positional skills or was this probably due more to the fact that Makogonov was familiar with it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-07-11T15:31:56.563" LastActivityDate="2020-08-04T04:18:35.420" Title="Does the Caro-Kann or the Tartakower System of the Queen's Gambit Declined help with positional skills?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;kasparov&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;&lt;queens-gambit&gt;&lt;caro-kann&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1016" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1014" CreationDate="2012-07-10T14:59:37.087" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;1. e4 g6&lt;/code&gt; could certainly transpose into a Pirc but it is not the first two standard moves. If you look at the &lt;a href=&quot;http://exeterchessclub.org.uk/content/eco-opening-codes-list-variation-names#RTFToC129&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;ECO entry&lt;/a&gt; for B07, B08, B09 you will see the standard variations for &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirc_Defence&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;the Pirc/Modern&lt;/a&gt;. I would say the link you give is wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;ECO B07&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;1. e4 d6&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;without &lt;code&gt;2. d4&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;2. d4&lt;/code&gt; without &lt;code&gt;2... Nf6&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;2... Nf6&lt;/code&gt; without &lt;code&gt;3. Nc3&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;3. Nc3&lt;/code&gt; without &lt;code&gt;3... g6&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;3... g6&lt;/code&gt; without &lt;code&gt;4. Nf3&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;4. f4&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;B08&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;1. e4 d6 2. d4 Nf6 3. Nc3 g6 4. Nf3&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;B09&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;1. e4 d6 2. d4 Nf6 3. Nc3 g6 4. f4&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="41" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-07-11T15:30:28.797" LastActivityDate="2012-07-11T15:30:28.797" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1017" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1015" CreationDate="2012-07-10T16:42:44.573" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;Based on the sentence syntax I don't believe that the author is intending to make a connection between the mentioned opening systems and positional skills. Every strong player must have good positional skills and must also be a good tactician. You could not become a world class player without both.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both of these openings do have strong positional ideas and Makogonov (who would be classed as &quot;positional&quot;) played them both. So it is likely that he taught them because he believed that they were instructive and because he was familiar with them. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="41" LastActivityDate="2012-07-10T16:42:44.573" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1018" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-07-10T16:49:22.523" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2012-07-10T16:49:22.523" LastActivityDate="2012-07-10T16:49:22.523" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1019" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-07-10T16:49:22.523" Score="0" Body="A semi-open defense with a well-earned reputation for producing solid positions that are sometimes a bit stodgy.  The usual move order is 1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5." OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2012-07-10T17:32:37.790" LastActivityDate="2012-07-10T17:32:37.790" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1020" PostTypeId="7" CreationDate="2012-07-11T16:20:30.060" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess Stack Exchange is for serious players and enthusiasts of chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-07-11T16:20:30.060" LastActivityDate="2012-07-11T16:20:30.060" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1021" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-07-11T21:24:53.233" Score="10" ViewCount="296" Body="&lt;p&gt;I played quite often in the mid 80's to mid 90's. My highest rating OTB was low 1300's (Edited, I had thought I reached 1415, but not according to USCF site-although that doesn't include my high school stuff in the 80's) under the USCF, with somewhat desultory study habits, although I did do a lot of reading on general tactics, pawn structures and some theory. Two best results were a round upset prize at the Western Open, and a $3000 check in the U1300 at the tournament in Vegas in December (Forgot the name).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have been getting interested in playing again, and started looking at what is out there, and I'm a bit overwhelmed with the tools that are available now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Where should I start? I'm probably way beyond most &quot;pawns move one or two squares&quot; beginner books, but probably not up to speed on even intermediate books, I vaguely remember bits of a couple openings, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And, what openings should I concentrate on learning first, that will allow me to expand? IIRC, I played Scotch, French and was toying with the Indian openings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I tried to phrase this so as not to encourage open ended debate, and I don't think it quite fits the suggested questions already existing. If it still is deemed too broad, make a couple suggestions and I can edit for fit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="394" LastActivityDate="2012-07-12T00:13:30.390" Title="Practical study for a former player?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;learning&gt;&lt;theory&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1022" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1021" CreationDate="2012-07-11T22:25:24.293" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, what is your goal?  If it's just to have fun, don't do anything but attend your local chess club and play in tournaments.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If your goal is to improve (1500 would be a fine goal) then new learning is needed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I recommend you get a chess engine (program) running. There are free ones that work fine, especially on the PC.  The reason is that you can use this to take your games apart to see where you made mistakes.  I took one of mine apart some time ago only to find I missed winning a piece and totally busting a 1900+ player.  Instead, I lost the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another recommendation is for you to find an instructor.  You only need an A-player (1800-1999) or expert (2000-2199), and these are easy to find.  According to the ratings, you don't have an appreciable chance of defeating either, so I would think that they'll be able to help you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, you can play online for free at &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;chess.com&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Between playing a lot, using a computer, and taking lessons, plus typical online (free) resources, you should have enough to keep you busy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-07-12T00:13:30.390" LastActivityDate="2012-07-12T00:13:30.390" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1023" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1021" CreationDate="2012-07-11T22:27:07.143" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am going to make a few suggestions on reading material.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pay a visit to Dan Heisman's column at Chess Cafe called the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesscafe.com/heisman/Novice_Nook_by_Dan_Heisman.asp&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Novice Nook&lt;/a&gt;. Pay special attention to what he writes on the topic of Real Chess (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.geocities.ws/goodchessclub/real.txt&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;article 1&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesscafe.com/text/heisman10.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;article two&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Focus as much as you can on this &quot;Real Chess&quot; idea in your studies and games. Always remember you will play the way you train. Therefore put a lot of training into proper &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesscafe.com/text/heisman89.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;over-the-board analysis&lt;/a&gt;. A book like &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1587368013&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Practical Chess Exercises&lt;/a&gt; can be useful for this as it has a mixture of tactical and positional positions so you are never certain if you should be looking for a forced sequence or a positional idea.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Honestly I would not spend a ton of time studying the openings. But software like &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesspositiontrainer.com/index.php/en/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess Position Trainer&lt;/a&gt; can help you a lot. As far as which ones, stick with the ones you enjoyed in the past and learn new ones that you see in your studies.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For literature I think Ludek Pachman's &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/0486202909&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Modern Chess Strategy&lt;/a&gt; is probably one of the first books you should read. I also really like &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1890085103&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Silman's Complete Endgame Course: From Beginner To Master&lt;/a&gt; for fundamental endgame theory that is highly practical.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="41" LastEditorUserId="41" LastEditDate="2012-07-11T22:37:36.507" LastActivityDate="2012-07-11T22:37:36.507" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1024" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1014" CreationDate="2012-07-12T00:16:47.570" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The normal development of the Pirc Defense is d6, which heads off White 2. e5. You'll have time to play g6 and Bg7 later. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;G6 can &quot;get you there&quot; if White plays, say d4, followed by piece development. But it is a &quot;soft,&quot; inferior method because it gives White too many options.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2012-07-12T00:16:47.570" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1025" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1029" CreationDate="2012-07-12T14:26:05.583" Score="5" ViewCount="3536" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the best definition of key squares in king and pawn vs king endgame theory? Please provide graphics if possible. Is there a difference between &amp;quot;key squares&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;critical squares,&amp;quot; or are these terms interchangeable?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="41" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-02-04T02:02:32.740" LastActivityDate="2021-02-04T09:03:53.247" Title="What are key squares and critical squares?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;pawns&gt;&lt;terminology&gt;&lt;kings&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1026" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="545" CreationDate="2012-07-12T16:06:12.893" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Place a rook on a center square (on an open board). It can move to 14 other squares.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Place a knight on the same center square. It can move to only 8 other squares.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The ratio of a rook's value to a knights is 5 to 3, roughly that 14 to 8 ratio.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A rook is considered to be worth a knight and two pawns. Each pawn has two potential captures, plus an extra move (total of three). Two pawns plus a knight = 3+3+8=14, the movement factor of a rook.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2012-07-12T16:06:12.893" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1027" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="545" CreationDate="2012-07-12T16:15:54.727" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;A rook can potentially land on every square on the board and protect/attack unencumbered stretches  on two planes at once; more squares, more power. Knights are great but rooks are more strategically muscular.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="398" LastActivityDate="2012-07-12T16:15:54.727" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1028" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="977" CreationDate="2012-07-12T16:16:46.220" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Petroff Defense (&lt;code&gt;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nf6&lt;/code&gt;) is a very defensive opening that tends to limit White's chances.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Playing against &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt;, I like &lt;code&gt;...Nf6&lt;/code&gt;, because it gives me the choice of either transposing into a Queen's Gambit, or playing an Indian (fianchetto) defense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-07-12T22:29:00.113" LastActivityDate="2012-07-12T22:29:00.113" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1029" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1025" CreationDate="2012-07-12T17:08:24.060" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;The terms &lt;em&gt;key squares&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;critical squares&lt;/em&gt; are sometimes used interchangeably in chess literature in king vs king and pawn endgames.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;A square is called a &lt;em&gt;key square&lt;/em&gt; when the occupation of it by the attacking king will secure a win regardless of which side is to move.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;2nd through 4th Ranks&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this example, the key squares for the White pawn are e6, f6, and g6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;8/8/8/8/5P2/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;A Pawn that Crosses the 5th Rank has More Key Squares&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this example, the pawn on f5 has two sets of key squares: e6, f6, and g6, as well as e7, f7, and g7. If White's king can occupy any of those 6 squares, they can secure the win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;8/8/8/5P2/8/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;The Rooks Pawn are Exceptions&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These positions show a draw regardless of which side has the move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;5k1K/8/7P/8/8/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;7k/8/7K/7P/8/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the first position, Black can simply shuffle his king between f7 and f8 and White makes no progress. In the second position, the move sequences 1. Kg6 Kg8 2. h6 K8 3. h7 stalemate. The sequence 1... Kg8 `. Kg6 Kh8 3. h6 Kg8 4. h7+ Kh8 with a stalemate, or loss of the pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Related Topics&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opposition_%28chess%29&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;The Opposition&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_and_pawn_versus_king_endgame#Rule_of_the_square&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Rule of the Square&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Resources&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_square&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia on key squares&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessvideos.tv/endgame-training/endgame-simulations.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Endgame Simulations&lt;/a&gt; (against a computer)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-skSzhY-ao&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;ChessDiary #2 - Monday Endgame Pawn Endgame - Key Squares&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="41" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-02-04T02:05:51.190" LastActivityDate="2021-02-04T02:05:51.190" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1030" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1035" CreationDate="2012-07-13T14:53:59.360" Score="19" ViewCount="4240" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was reading this &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.geocities.ws/goodchessclub/real.txt&quot;&gt;article&lt;/a&gt; by &lt;code&gt;Dan Heisman&lt;/code&gt; on playing 3 different types of chess:  &quot;Flip-Coin&quot;, &quot;Hope&quot;, and &quot;Real&quot;.  I think I am stuck in &quot;Hope&quot; chess where I make a move that I think is pretty could and hope it works instead of playing a move based on sound analysis, so how do I get from &quot;Hope&quot; to &quot;Real&quot; chess.  I know it is not a simple solution, but are there any techniques/tools that can help?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastActivityDate="2012-11-02T09:00:25.580" Title="How to get out of &quot;Hope&quot; chess into &quot;Real&quot; chess" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1031" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1030" CreationDate="2012-07-13T15:19:05.520" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;One thing to do would be to start choosing &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candidate_move&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;candidate moves&lt;/a&gt;.  Basically, this is a technique that promotes &lt;em&gt;systematic&lt;/em&gt; analysis.  See &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Kotov&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Alexander Kotov&lt;/a&gt;'s &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/071340356X&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Think like a Grandmaster&lt;/a&gt;.  Be sure you get an algebraic edition - older ones will likely use descriptive notation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also recommend you find an instructor. Whatever your USCF rating is, add 400 points, and that should be the minimum rating of said instructor - you want someone who will beat you every time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT - another thing to do is to solve problems.  One place you can do this is the &lt;a href=&quot;http://chess.emrald.net/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess Tactics Server&lt;/a&gt;.  I can't say I like it very much (I don't like the timed nature of the problems,) but it gets the job done.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's one I recall liking more:  &lt;a href=&quot;http://chesstempo.com/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;chesstempo&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2012-07-13T16:45:47.410" LastActivityDate="2012-07-13T16:45:47.410" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1032" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-07-13T15:24:24.547" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2012-07-13T15:24:24.547" LastActivityDate="2012-07-13T15:24:24.547" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1033" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-07-13T15:24:24.547" Score="0" Body="Dan Heisman is a National Master and long-time supporter of the chess community." OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2012-07-13T15:41:10.133" LastActivityDate="2012-07-13T15:41:10.133" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1034" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1030" CreationDate="2012-07-13T15:45:51.550" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;One major difference between &quot;hope chess&quot; and &quot;real chess&quot; is the fact that every move in &quot;real chess&quot; improves your position &lt;em&gt;even if your opponent replies perfectly&lt;/em&gt;.  Instead of making a move and hoping that your opponent blunders (or just makes a subpar move), instead ask yourself before you move &quot;How does this move make my position better and what can my opponent do to make my position worse?&quot;.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's not necessarily an easy question to answer, but it should stop you from making a move like &lt;code&gt;Na4&lt;/code&gt; in order to attack a queen on b6 that can easily move away.  Moving the knight away from the center doesn't improve your position at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One other major difference between &quot;hope chess&quot; and normal chess is that good players always have a plan.  The plan might not be terribly complicated, even something like &quot;I'm going to improve the position of my bishops&quot; is a valid plan, but the simple exercise of coming up with a plan and then seeing how both your moves and your opponent's moves affect it stops some of the &quot;hope chess&quot; moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12" LastEditorUserId="12" LastEditDate="2012-09-27T14:16:04.150" LastActivityDate="2012-09-27T14:16:04.150" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1035" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1030" CreationDate="2012-07-13T18:26:28.347" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just to ensure that we get the definitions correct, I will quote Dan Heisman on the definition of these two terms:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&quot;HOPE&quot; Chess&lt;/strong&gt; - This is NOT when you make a move and hope your opponent&#xA;  doesn't see your threat. Instead, Hope chess is when you make a move&#xA;  and don't look at what your opponent might threaten on his next move,&#xA;  and whether you can meet that threat on your next move. Instead, you&#xA;  just wait until next move and see what he does, and then hope you can&#xA;  meet any threats. In my first 3 tournaments I played Hope chess and&#xA;  never won more than 1 game in any of the three. The speed at which you&#xA;  can play Hope chess also explains why I usually took only about half&#xA;  an hour for each game in these tournaments, even though the time&#xA;  control was 50 moves in 2 hours. Most high school level players play&#xA;  hope chess, but almost always lose when they run into a serious player&#xA;  who plays &quot;Real Chess.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Real Chess:&lt;/strong&gt; In a nutshell, it’s making sure that before you make a&#xA;  move, you make sure you can safely meet your opponents checks,&#xA;  captures, and threats that he could play in reply to your move, and&#xA;  you must do that every move. So in terms of threats:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;3) Real Chess - you make sure you can meet next move's threat&#xA;  (actually checks, captures, and threats).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you still sometimes play Hope Chess you need to train it out of you as a player. The fact is, &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;you will play the way you train and thus you should always train the way you want to play&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;. Regardless of what sort of training you are doing you must always ensure that you are meeting the exceptions of &quot;Real Chess&quot;. If you are doing tactics puzzles DO NOT simply push your pieces into the most forcing moves you can find without having come to a real conclusion, instead think about the position. Make sure you have evaluated all of your checks, captures, and threats as well as your opponent's checks, captures, and threats. The same goes for training games or anything else you are doing. If you don't make a rigid habit out of it, you will not do it during an over-the-board game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my opinion the best way to train playing &lt;em&gt;Real Chess&lt;/em&gt; is ensuring that you are meeting the expectations in chess puzzles (those from real games), K+P(s) v. K(+Ps) endgame puzzles, &quot;solitaire chess&quot; and, of course, practice games against either a computer or human player at long time controls. I think &lt;em&gt;Practical Chess Exercises&lt;/em&gt; is a great collection of problems for this sort of training because it does not include only tactical positions but also has strategic themes and endgames all mixed together so that it really lends itself to this sort of training. Some of the positions even have bad combinations in them that don't work because they allow your opponent to equalize or even pull a combination of their own. Instead you have to find the best move, even if it isn't a forcing move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="41" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-07-13T20:38:49.200" LastActivityDate="2012-07-13T20:38:49.200" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1036" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1003" CreationDate="2012-07-13T21:21:51.290" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;See Wikipedia's page on &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_game_playing&quot;&gt;General Game Playing&lt;/a&gt;. It's an active research area. There is an annual GGP tournament in which programs are given the rules of a new game, get to think about it for a while, and then play the game against each other.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you give the rules of chess to a GGP program, I think you'll find that it plays much stronger than a human beginner and much weaker than a purpose-written chess program.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="405" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-07-14T15:33:44.970" LastActivityDate="2012-07-14T15:33:44.970" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1037" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="545" CreationDate="2012-07-15T14:11:14.273" Score="9" Body="&lt;h2&gt;Piece Characteristics&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are some things to consider when thinking about the strength of a knight vs. a rook (and much of this goes for other pieces in relation to the knight as well). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;At the height of their power a knight can only ever attack 8 squares. On an open board, if placed in the a1 square, the worst placement for a rook, a rook can attack 14. Due to its movement pattern it can take up to six moves to get from a corner square to a specific square on the other side of the board.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A knight has a special condition that if it retreats from one square, it cannot continue to attack or defend the squares it was attacking or defending before its retreat. For instance, if a rook is defending e6 from e3 and is forced to retreat to e1 it still performs the job of defending e6. The same cannot be said for a knight.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Knights do not cooperate as well as other pieces. There are many exceptions to this, though. This relates directly to point number 2. Two rooks can be a powerful force on an open file but the case is far more common that two knights can become &quot;redundant&quot; and get in each others way as a knight supporting a knight reduces the number of potential retreat squares of a fellow knight much more than two rooks supporting each other in most practical cases.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Exceptions&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A major exceptions is the board positions with limited numbers of open files where one side will &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_exchange_%28chess%29&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;sacrifice the exchange&lt;/a&gt; (rook for knight) in order to gain a positional advantage, keep a knight from being strongly placed, or destroy the kings pawn cover and remove a defender. A common example of this occurs in the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sicilian_Defence&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Sicilian&lt;/a&gt; when Black exchanges a rook for knight in order to continue his attack on the queen side.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/07jX8.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;FEN=2r1k2r/1b1b1ppp/p2p1n2/qp2pP2/1N2P1P1/P1NB4/1PP1Q2P/2KR3R b k - 0 1&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;16... Rxc3&lt;/code&gt; &lt;code&gt;17. bxc3 d5&lt;/code&gt; &lt;code&gt;18. exd5 O-O&lt;/code&gt; &lt;code&gt;19. Qxe5 Qxa3+&lt;/code&gt; &lt;code&gt;20. Kb1 Bxb4&lt;/code&gt; &lt;code&gt;21. cxb4 Nxd5&lt;/code&gt; &lt;code&gt;22. Qb2 Nc3+&lt;/code&gt; &lt;code&gt;23. Kc1 Na2+&lt;/code&gt; &lt;code&gt;24. Kb1 Nc3+&lt;/code&gt; &lt;code&gt;1/2-1/2&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1111510&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Boris Spassky vs Lev Polugaevsky, USSR Ch 1960&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Knight Endgames&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In general knight endgame theory is very similar to king and pawn endings. Normally if an attacker has a knight and pawn against a lone king the attacking side can easily win. But there is a special case of  &lt;code&gt;K+N+P&lt;/code&gt; v &lt;code&gt;K&lt;/code&gt; where the knight is unable to assist the attacking king because it suffers from an inability to lose a tempo.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here Black's king is badly placed and cannot win even with the additional material.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/jYqCx.png&quot; alt=&quot;FEN=7n/8/8/8/8/8/p2K4/k7 w - - 0 1&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;FEN=7n/8/8/8/8/8/p2K4/k7 w - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;1. Kc1!&lt;/code&gt; &lt;code&gt;(1. Kc2? Ng6 2. Kc1 Ne5 3. Kc2 Nd3&lt;/code&gt; White is in &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zugzwang&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;zugzwang&lt;/a&gt; &lt;code&gt;4. Kxd3 Kb2  -+)&lt;/code&gt; &lt;code&gt;1... Ng6&lt;/code&gt; &lt;code&gt;2. Kc2&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;Ne5&lt;/code&gt; &lt;code&gt;3. Kc1&lt;/code&gt; &lt;code&gt;Nd3+&lt;/code&gt; &lt;code&gt;4. Kc2 Ne1+&lt;/code&gt; &lt;code&gt;5. Kc1&lt;/code&gt; &lt;code&gt;1/2-1/2&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Endgame Positions where a Knight Defends against a Rook&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most positions where it is &lt;code&gt;K+N&lt;/code&gt; v &lt;code&gt;K+R&lt;/code&gt; are draws. The only exceptions being when the knight is separated from his king and when the defending king is at the edge of the board and subject to mating threats. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/U75Tw.png&quot; alt=&quot;FEN=3KN3/7r/8/3k4/8/8/8/8 b - - 0 5&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;FEN=3KN3/7r/8/3k4/8/8/8/8 b - - 0 5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;5... Ke6&lt;/code&gt; &lt;code&gt;6. Nc7+&lt;/code&gt; &lt;code&gt;Kd6&lt;/code&gt; &lt;code&gt;7. Ne8+&lt;/code&gt; &lt;code&gt;Kc6&lt;/code&gt; &lt;code&gt;8. Kc8&lt;/code&gt; &lt;code&gt;Rh8&lt;/code&gt; &lt;code&gt;9. Kd8&lt;/code&gt; &lt;code&gt;Rh7&lt;/code&gt; &lt;code&gt;10.Kc8&lt;/code&gt; &lt;code&gt;Ra7&lt;/code&gt; &lt;code&gt;11.Kd8&lt;/code&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/article/view/rook-vs-knight&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Rook vs Knight Endgames&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chesscollection?cid=1005918&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;ChessGames.com - Examples from Games&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you should see the reason why a rook is considered stronger is due to the way the knight moves which means that it can never attack or defend as many squares as easily as a rook can. A rook can have power in long range or close range battles and is effective on both sides of the board, knights are only strong when well positioned on or near the 6th rank (for white). Rooks can be less effective in close positions and require on open file to be effective. Knights can thus be stronger in scenarios where there is only a single open or half open file and the game can be decided quickly by dynamic factors. These situations, however, are far rarer to the ones where the rook is stronger.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="41" LastEditorUserId="41" LastEditDate="2012-07-15T19:47:58.183" LastActivityDate="2012-07-15T19:47:58.183" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1038" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="599" CreationDate="2012-07-16T15:31:54.723" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just wanted to make a comment regarding online ratings v. OTB ratings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most coaches that I have spoken to regarding OTB, USCF ratings vs an online long-time-control Internet rating suggest that the rating difference is generally between 100 and 130 points higher on the serious chess servers like ICC. This is generally said to be because either the pool of players is less skilled or the games are simply more informal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can personally move between OTB and computer-based play with no issues except for hitting the clock and writing down moves. When the game gets intense I frequently forget to write my moves and that is a very bad habit. But after 2 games or so I'm back in my stride and have all that worked out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hopefully come November when I get back to tournament play after years of not playing I will be able to just get back into the habit it without any issues.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="41" LastActivityDate="2012-07-16T15:31:54.723" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1040" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1044" CreationDate="2012-07-16T20:06:28.417" Score="6" ViewCount="2183" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't like the &lt;code&gt;Giuoco Pianissimo&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4  e5&#xA;2. Nf3 Nc6&#xA;3. Bc4 Bc5&#xA;4. d3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;because I find it very slow and boring.  The cramped center and overall board make me want to just resign, so as black how can I avoid the &lt;code&gt;Giuoco Pianissimo&lt;/code&gt; as black if white plays &lt;code&gt;4.d3&lt;/code&gt; (Although I guess this is not actually possible if white does play &lt;code&gt;4.d3&lt;/code&gt;),so instead, what are my options for basically blowing up the center and creating a wide open game after &lt;code&gt;4.d3&lt;/code&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2013-12-10T17:49:52.497" LastActivityDate="2013-12-10T17:49:52.497" Title="Options for breaking the Giuoco Pianissimo wide open?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;italian-game&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1041" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1042" CreationDate="2012-07-16T20:15:50.280" Score="12" ViewCount="2525" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I see the &lt;code&gt;Evans Gambit&lt;/code&gt;, I don't see the point of it, maybe because I am a beginning player.  It seems that after:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4  e5&#xA;2. Nf3 Nc6&#xA;3. Bc4 Bc5&#xA;4. b4  Bxb4&#xA;5. c3  Bc5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since the bishop can go back to &lt;code&gt;c5&lt;/code&gt;, it seems we are just back to the beginning and white has already lost a pawn.  After watching some videos on this, I have seen that white can build a strong attack if the queen moves to &lt;code&gt;b3&lt;/code&gt; which can then backup the bishop on &lt;code&gt;c4&lt;/code&gt; and eye the &lt;code&gt;a1-h8&lt;/code&gt; diagonal, and the critical &lt;code&gt;f7&lt;/code&gt; square.  Is this it's main purpose (especially if it is accepted)?  If it is, why is it accepted more than declined?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastEditorUserId="12" LastEditDate="2012-11-07T22:49:14.097" LastActivityDate="2013-11-30T00:58:01.367" Title="What is the main purpose of the Evans gambit?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;evans-gambit&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1042" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1041" CreationDate="2012-07-16T20:37:31.687" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;Black's choice of where to put the Bishop on move 5 is awkward, and any choice will give White some compensation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;5... Ba5&lt;/code&gt; would give White the possibility of &lt;code&gt;Ba3&lt;/code&gt; at some point to cut off the King from castling and the Bishop won't be very useful after White castles out of the pin on c3.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;5... Bc5&lt;/code&gt; allows &lt;code&gt;6. d4&lt;/code&gt;, taking control of the center with tempo after which White can develop quickly and try to attack.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;5... Be7&lt;/code&gt; is rather passive and blocks a square for the g8-Knight, and White can develop very naturally and aggressively.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason White is better off than before move 4 is that the c3-pawn supports d4. d4 is very strong especially when White can gain a tempo on the Bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Declining it with &lt;code&gt;4... Bb6&lt;/code&gt; is not unheard of, but &lt;code&gt;4... Bxb4&lt;/code&gt; is generally considered more challenging.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="396" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-07-17T02:53:26.677" LastActivityDate="2012-07-17T02:53:26.677" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1043" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1045" CreationDate="2012-07-16T20:51:30.417" Score="11" ViewCount="3679" Body="&lt;p&gt;This slightly confuses me.  If I have one bishop left - let's say it is the light-squared bishop - ss it better for my pawns to be on the light squares or dark squares?  Let's assume also that my opponent has a dark-squared bishop.  The way I look at it it is like this (which is probably wrong).  If my pawns are on the light squares, I can protect them with my bishop, but they block my bishop.  If my pawns are on the dark squares, they don't block my bishop, but I can't protect them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does it make a difference if the opponent has a bishop left that is the same color as yours, or has no bishop left?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-11-10T05:33:57.047" LastActivityDate="2012-11-10T05:33:57.047" Title="What color squares should pawns be on with one bishop left?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;bishops&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;&lt;bad-bishop&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1044" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1040" CreationDate="2012-07-16T21:30:41.417" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;After &lt;code&gt;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc5 3. Bc4 Bc5 4. d3&lt;/code&gt;, you could continue with &lt;code&gt;4. ... Nf6&lt;/code&gt; and aim to follow this up with an immediate &lt;code&gt;5. ... d5&lt;/code&gt; if you want to open the center. For instance, play could proceed with &lt;code&gt;5. O-O d5 6. exd5 Nxd5 7. Nc3 Nxc3 8. bxc3 O-O&lt;/code&gt;, and you would have a rather open game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But White need not allow this, and would likely instead play the natural &lt;code&gt;5. Nc3&lt;/code&gt;, bringing us into the Italian Four Knights, and stalling the idea of a &lt;code&gt;... d5&lt;/code&gt; push by Black. The thing here is, White has concentrated a lot of attention on the d5 square precisely so that it is difficult for Black to play this freeing &lt;code&gt;... d5&lt;/code&gt; move, which would immediately relieve Black of any hint of a cramped position. Black would now need to do some prep work in order to make this central advance happen, if that is what she wants. She might play e.g. &lt;code&gt;O-O, d6, Be6&lt;/code&gt; first, so that the move &lt;code&gt;... d5&lt;/code&gt; is properly supported. Of course White will be playing his own moves in the meantime, and if he wants to keep things quiet for a while, he can often make it so that Black can only upset this at her own peril. But with the sort preparatory moves I've indicated, ultimately White cannot prevent you from getting &lt;code&gt;... d5&lt;/code&gt; in and opening things up in a safe way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm going to speak below to something more general that your question brings to mind, as it might be useful. Feel free to ignore if not, though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One point worth making here is that some games just will be, to use your words, more &quot;slow and boring&quot; than others will. It's all well and good to prefer more open, dynamic, active games. But it can be a bad idea to insist upon a &quot;faster&quot; and more open game if doing so means recklessly putting oneself in danger, and it often can mean just that. An alternative approach (and one that will go far in leading you out of your beginner phase) is to try to see the slower, more closed phases of your games as not so boring after all, and realize that a lot can be going on &quot;under the hood,&quot; so to speak. (Besides, the moves you play during &quot;slower&quot; phases are crucial to your success/failure once the position does open up.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To illustrate this idea (very lightly), suppose our game proceeded, after &lt;code&gt;5. Nc3&lt;/code&gt;, by &lt;code&gt;5. ... h6 6. Be3 Bb6 7. O-O O-O 8. Nd5 d6 9. a4 Nxd5 10. Bxd5&lt;/code&gt;, and Black, desperate to open the game via an &lt;code&gt;... f5&lt;/code&gt; push, plays &lt;code&gt;10. ... Kh8&lt;/code&gt; in order to get out of the pin from the bishop on d5. White responds with &lt;code&gt;11. Qd2&lt;/code&gt;, and we have the following position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/UrMSc.gif&quot; alt=&quot;Italian Game&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So far, a pair of knights has been exchanged, but all the pawns (and everything else) are still on the board, and things have indeed been rather closed and quiet. &lt;em&gt;This doesn't mean interesting things haven't been happening&lt;/em&gt;, and in particular, White has developed his pieces well so that it &lt;em&gt;still&lt;/em&gt; isn't a good idea for Black to try and open the position without further preparation: &lt;code&gt;11. ... f5?&lt;/code&gt; is met harshly by &lt;code&gt;12. Bxh6&lt;/code&gt;, which wins a pawn because of &lt;code&gt;12. ... gxh6?? 13. Qxh6#&lt;/code&gt;. Instead, Black could play &lt;code&gt;11. ... Bxe3 12. fxe3 f5&lt;/code&gt;, and she has finally achieved the kind of opening of the position that she has been after.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My main point: sometimes one simply must be patient in chess, or else accept the consequences. Wanting to blast open the position only because, well, you always want to blast open the position, is going to lead you into a lot of trouble and missed opportunities. Sometimes you will find yourself in positions where it would be to your objective advantage to keep the position closed (maybe your opponent has a very cramped position that will ultimately prove fatal), but if you were to always blindly favor opening the game up, you would miss out on that kind of winning approach - or worse, you'll open yourself up to the kind of punishment illustrated above - and you will ultimately have worse results than you rightly should. Just something to keep in mind as you continue to explore the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2012-07-16T21:30:41.417" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1045" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1043" CreationDate="2012-07-16T22:01:26.757" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;The rule of thumb is that the stronger side (the side trying to win) should put the pawns on the opposite color of his or her bishop (so that they don't get in the way), and the weaker side should put pawns on the same color as their bishop in order to defend them an extra time (defended with the bishop and the king, the opponent can never win a pawn).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are obviously exceptions to this, though.  Each position really has to be judged independently.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One key idea, however, is that it is usually a good idea to block your opponent's pawns on the same color as the bishops (assuming that the two bishops are both light squared bishops or both dark squared bishops).  This gives you the chance to try and win the pawn later and it will restrict the movement of your opponent's bishop.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you have the only bishop on the board (your opponent has a knight, for example) it is almost always correct to put the pawns on the opposite colored squares of the bishop.  This is usually the only way to play for a win.  This touches on the &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/q/588/12&quot;&gt;good bishop/bad bishop question&lt;/a&gt;, but if your bishop is bad, then the knight will many times have the edge.  If your bishop is good, however, you can try to make use of the bishop's superior range.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.193" LastActivityDate="2012-07-16T22:01:26.757" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1046" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1041" CreationDate="2012-07-17T00:11:33.620" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;White gains time to develop his pieces (mainly the dark squared bishop, at the expense of a pawn whose absence won't hurt until the endgame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Evans has now been researched, and with correct play, Black can get to the endgame with an advantage. But before the &quot;modern&quot; understanding of theory, White could often get a winning middle game. Hence, the Evans can be used against inexperienced Black players, and in the &quot;old days,&quot; opponents who were generally less well schooled than today's players. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastEditorUserId="17" LastEditDate="2012-07-17T01:41:16.990" LastActivityDate="2012-07-17T01:41:16.990" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1047" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1043" CreationDate="2012-07-17T00:17:19.030" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;With a light squared bishop, you (usually) want your pawns to be on &lt;em&gt;opposite&lt;/em&gt; colored squares, i.e. the dark squares. This is particularly true because the opposing bishop is dark squared.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The pawns are supposed to protect &lt;em&gt;each other&lt;/em&gt; (on dark squares). In doing so, they block the opposing bishop. Your bishop is supposed to &quot;cover&quot; those (light) squares not protected by your pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If both your bishop and pawns are on light squares, the opposing king (and bishop) will be able to run all over the dark squares. Meanwhile, the pawns are in the way of your own bishop. This will put you at a severe disadvantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-07-17T02:52:10.627" LastActivityDate="2012-07-17T02:52:10.627" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1048" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1049" CreationDate="2012-07-17T02:32:13.460" Score="4" ViewCount="694" Body="&lt;p&gt;Have their been any statistics on how your knowledge on part of the game (opening, middle, end) corresponds to your rating or winning percentage?  For example, I have found that if I play opening moves a good number of moves in, my chances of winning go way up.  I am not sure how the middle game or end game affect this though. If player A was very strong in the opening, but semi-strong in the middle-game and player B was semi-strong in the opening, but very strong in the middle-game, does one player have an advantage?  The same goes for the end-game?  I have heard that the end-game is usually where the game is won.  Do masters of the past and current have any direct correlation with these statistics?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastEditorUserId="109" LastEditDate="2012-07-17T02:47:22.807" LastActivityDate="2012-11-28T07:35:11.853" Title="Statistics on how a rating or winning percentage corresponds to the (opening, middle, end) game?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;statistics&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1049" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1048" CreationDate="2012-07-17T06:00:38.770" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;No.  There is a rating system based on wins, losses, and draws, not for proficiency in phases of the game.  How would you quantify that?  Knowing the main line on the MCO for your openings?  People are always finding improvements to main and obscure opening lines.  This is the TN (theoretical novelty) that people search feverishly for.  So what might be sound play in the opening in January may be unsound by August.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Further, I have seen flawless openings and middlegames come to grief because of a tiny blunder in the endgame.  As Tartakower once said, the winner is the player who makes the 2nd to last mistake.  So there is not really an accepted method of tying knowledge of component phases of the game to winning percentage, because there are too many other factors at hand.  If the game 's phases could be defined down to a formula of what is good play in the opening, middle game or ending, computers would always win.  We still have imperfections of shortsightedness and obliging opponents, and time controls, and other distractions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="397" LastActivityDate="2012-07-17T06:00:38.770" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1050" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1052" CreationDate="2012-07-17T13:36:08.733" Score="30" ViewCount="6225" Body="&lt;p&gt;A recent &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/1048/statistics-on-how-a-rating-or-winning-percentage-corresponds-to-the-opening-mi&quot;&gt;question by xaisoft&lt;/a&gt; got me thinking about a problem I had as a novice player. When I first started to play chess, I thought that the moves in an opening were independent of the moves made by the other side. For example, so long as white played &lt;code&gt;1. e4&lt;/code&gt; I could play the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sicilian_Defence,_Dragon_Variation&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Sicilian Dragon&lt;/a&gt; regardless of White's second move. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So my question is, how would you explain to a complete novice what the objective of chess opening book moves? Not a specific opening but just the concept or idea of a chess opening in general.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not so much looking for an explanation of opening principles, but more about about how chess players use the openings in their games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="41" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2015-12-21T16:10:27.147" Title="How do chess openings work?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="10" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="11" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1051" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1050" CreationDate="2012-07-17T14:59:02.107" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Unless you have an encyclopedic mind coupled with an eidetic memory, it would be virtually impossible to memorize all the openings and their lines. A good thing that you could do to improve your game would be to study the concepts of popular openings, along with solid grounding in tactics and strategy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, the French Defense. White aims for control of the center with &lt;code&gt;1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5&lt;/code&gt;, while black is challenging for it. A lot of times this is going to be a somewhat cramped game in the center, with black generally developing a queenside attack and white generally developing a kingside attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you know the general theory (center control, kingside development, etc) behind a lot of the major openings, then you can at least muddle through well enough to get to a middle game. You have an idea of what to expect for moves without having to memorize individual move lines. Then, once you figure out your strengths, you can give a little more in depth study to openings and responses that favor what you are good at.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edited for the OP revision: For a complete beginner, the first things to concentrate on are the rules, piece moves, relative values of the pieces, and phases of the game. Tactics and strategy can be introduced, but in a very general sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The objective of an opening can pretty much be summed up as develop all your pieces, and get the king to a safe position. Different openings will set up you for different attacks in the middle game, which is what I was alluding to with the french example above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="394" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-07-17T18:57:43.253" LastActivityDate="2012-07-17T18:57:43.253" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1052" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1050" CreationDate="2012-07-17T16:52:25.997" Score="42" Body="&lt;p&gt;In improvisational music, like jazz for example, the musicians will play a song that has been composed in advance, but by choice they go &quot;off-script&quot; and, cooperatively, make their very own creation in the moment, guided by the structure of the composition but nevertheless doing something distinctly new with each performance. In order to do this well, and create something of beauty that actually sounds good, jazzers need to have a solid understanding of how and what to play; in a word, &lt;em&gt;they need to know what moves make sense&lt;/em&gt;, among the essentially infinite possibilities that are available to them, within the musical context that they're in. Far from being &quot;mere&quot; players of the music, they are composing on the spot.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Something similar - though different in important ways - happens when two players sit down to play a game of chess. The most notable difference of course is that here, unlike the musical setting, the play is competitive rather than cooperative. That is why there comes a point in every chess game where one is &lt;em&gt;forced&lt;/em&gt; to improvise. You can try coming in with a pre-composed script that you want to play, but your opponent most likely isn't going to play along. Each player will have to compose his or her half of the game on the spot.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can think of a chess opening that has its own name and well-known variations much like a good song with its musical score. Through much playing, it has stood the test of time (both on the White side and the Black side) and is recognized as something of worth. In this sense, such openings are a good thing for a chess player to become familiar with. (Consider this: would you rather listen to music made by someone who's already absorbed a lot of other music, or someone who's never heard any before?) But just as someone who has done nothing but memorize the scores of a few good songs would be at a loss if asked to compose a great new piece, a chess player who has focused too much on memorizing opening lines will continually run into points where he's at a total loss as to what to do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In each case - the composer and the chess player - what is truly useful for future performance is to seek an understanding as to what makes the individual components of a song/opening good or bad, and how they fit together to work toward a common goal, be it an aesthetically pleasing piece of music or a won game of chess. To make one's own worthwhile creations, it is more important to know how to find one's own way than just to know what others have done in the past. But the latter kind of knowledge can definitely help with the former, as long as one focuses on the ideas and principles underlying the moves, rather than just the moves themselves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As an addendum, here is an illustrative example of how &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; to use book knowledge in one's games. During a 1988 tournament, a strong GM was about to have a game as Black, and was skimming through the latest &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_Informant&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Informant&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt; for some up-to-date theoretical information. There he found a game in the Petroff Defense, in which Black managed to secure a draw, that featured what was listed as a theoretical novelty (TN) on move 5 for Black. Without thinking much about the value of the move, our intrepid GM decided to give it a go himself. The game played out so:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Alonso Zapata&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;???&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. Nxe5 d6 4. Nf3 Nxe4 5. Nc3 Bf5 6. Qe2 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black is going to lose a piece, so he decided to resign. What had gone wrong? Well, the game that had slipped into the &lt;em&gt;Informant&lt;/em&gt; had in fact been a pre-arranged draw between GMs Tony Miles and Larry Christiansen, in which they each mindlessly played out some moves and shook hands:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Anthony Miles&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Larry Christiansen&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1/2-1/2&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.Nxe5 d6 4.Nf3 Nxe4 5.Nc3 Bf5 6.Nxe4 Bxe4 7.d3 Bg6&#xA;8.Bg5 Be7 9.Bxe7 Qxe7+ 10.Be2 Nc6 11.O-O O-O 12.Re1 Rae8 13.Qd2 Ne5&#xA;14.d4 Nxf3+ 15.Bxf3 Qd7 16.c3 b6 17.Rxe8 Rxe8 18.Re1 Rxe1+ 19.Qxe1 Kf8&#xA;20.g3 ½–½&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If our strong GM had spent even a few moments thinking about the &lt;em&gt;why&lt;/em&gt; of the &quot;script&quot; he'd just glanced at, he never would have played as bad a move as &lt;code&gt;5. ... Bf5??&lt;/code&gt;. Note too how important it was for White to be ready to improvise; Black's fifth move is so bad that White couldn't have expected it to be played, but when it was, White rightly sensed that something was off about it, and duly found the appropriate punishment. The moral of the story: even the strongest of players need to be careful not to rely too much on book &quot;knowledge.&quot; It all ended well for our hero though, as he now enjoys the title of world champion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1018015&quot;&gt;Zapata - Anand (Biel 1988)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2014-01-04T20:55:07.500" LastActivityDate="2014-01-04T20:55:07.500" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1053" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1050" CreationDate="2012-07-18T08:22:35.690" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think Ed Dean's answer is quite beautiful; a very interesting take on the concept.  I will offer an alternative explanation as well, from a slightly different angle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess is a game of tactics and strategy - tactics being things that can be calculated, and strategy being longer term thinking, broad principles which tend to offer advantages at some point in the future (which is not feasible to calculate).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When a game starts, you could (try to) calculate your way through, i.e. purely use tactics.  This is obviously going to be quite difficult, since the number of possible moves is very high during the opening/midgame.  You could also use broad principles of development, and just place your pieces in good positions.  Doing this without considering tactics would often leave you open to clever tactics by your opponent, who may be able to get an advantage (material, initiative, structural, etc).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is where openings enter - they are moves which have been thought through by thousands of people over decades and centuries, certainly more time than you have during a single game.  If both you and your opponent have absolutely perfect knowledge of openings (which is pretty much impossible), you are likely to end up with a position which is more or less equal.  In this case, you have at least survived the first part of the game, and can now apply your own thoughts to defeat your opponent.  This is not a very likely scenario for several reasons:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The number of openings and combinations is staggering; unless you are a serious tournament player, you will only know a tiny fraction of them.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Players will often try to get the opponent &quot;out of the book&quot; by making moves which are unlikely to be known by the opponent.  This is a fairly common idea, especially at lower levels of the game, or if the opponent does not have a strong grasp of strategy and is blindly following the openings.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I feel it is important to stress again that a player should have a solid grasp of strategy, as well as be able to calculate well, before trying to use openings as a competitive advantage.  In the long run, those tools are typically more useful and valuable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To answer your actual question, players can use openings in several ways:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;To exploit holes in their opponents opening repertoire - &quot;quick&quot; wins by gaining material, early attacks, etc.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Ensuring their own safety by at least avoiding such attempts by the opponent.  In fact, every point has a similar counterpoint (I won't explicitly name them) - you are playing directly against your opponent, so anything that would give them an advantage, you have to stop them from doing.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Attempting to gain a slight advantage by taking the opponent into a line which they don't understand well, and having some prior knowledge on how to exploit this.  E.g. there may be a typical move towards the end of an opening which may seem logical, but creates a known weakness which can be attacked - a slight advantage, but often enough.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;By choosing the various branches of the openings (and the opening itself), attempting to guide the game into a style which the player is more comfortable with.  You have to be aware of the different options you are offering to your opponent with every move - if you open &lt;code&gt;1. e4&lt;/code&gt;, you should be prepared to play against &lt;code&gt;...e5&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;...c5&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;...e6&lt;/code&gt;, etc.  Each of those then branches, and you would typically have your favoured (and prepared) response to each, because you don't want to have holes in your knowledge that your opponent can exploit.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To summarise, in openings we find a large wealth of knowledge and ingenuity, cleverly worked out and nicely written down for us to consume.  Used correctly, they certainly are a competitive advantage, or at least something necessary to stay competitive at higher levels.  Many people feel that studying them is cheap, or unfair, but I think they are simply a part of the game.  Being better prepared for a battle is a fact of war, which chess is.  Your approach to openings (along with many other important aspects and skills) will play an important part in how your play chess.    &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="412" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-07-18T14:05:09.623" LastActivityDate="2012-07-18T14:05:09.623" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1054" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1050" CreationDate="2012-07-18T15:35:42.193" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess opening are like plays in the huddle of a football team. One could play football in the playground by simply improvising or making up plays, but this hardly will get a person to the Super Bowl. So if a novice wants to play chess without an organized and studied concept of what he is doing - great! However he will never leave &quot;playground football&quot;. If the player wants to play in the NFL, they need a well structured system on how an opening is played. Although all openings cannot be memorized, one can become an expert in the field of openings they choose to play. WCM Claudia Muñoz www.chesscampeona.com&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="413" LastActivityDate="2012-07-18T15:35:42.193" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1055" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-07-18T15:52:04.513" Score="13" ViewCount="871" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have run into two examples of hilarious annotations of games over the years.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One is the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1334664&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&quot;annotation&quot; of the fake &quot;Immortal Overprotection Game&quot; Nimzowitsch-Systemsson&lt;/a&gt;, written by Hans Kmoch as a parody of Nimzowitsch's rather arrogant mannerisms.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The other is the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1000105&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&quot;pipe game&quot; Marshall-Burn&lt;/a&gt;. Burn always smoked at the board, and Marshall explains in great depth Burn's difficulties in lighting his pipe. At the end, Marshall writes &quot;Poor Burn. I think I swindled him out of that one. If he could only have got his pipe going, it might have been a different story.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I find these both quite amusing. Does anyone know of any others?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="396" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-07-28T13:11:56.980" LastActivityDate="2019-07-01T18:02:16.807" Title="Joke Annotations" Tags="&lt;history&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1056" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="80" CreationDate="2012-07-18T20:44:32.487" Score="26" Body="&lt;p&gt;One nice example of this is in &lt;a href=&quot;//www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1104131&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this game&lt;/a&gt;, where a player named Feuer takes advantage of the ability to castle queenside while b1 is attacked to play a beautiful combination.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Belgian Championship&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Liege BEL&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;1934&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Otto Feuer&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Alberic O'Kelly de Galway&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;C73&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;25&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 d6 5.Bxc6+ bxc6 6.d4 f6 7.Nc3&#xA;Rb8 8.Qd3 Ne7 9.Be3 Rxb2 10.dxe5 fxe5 11.Nxe5 dxe5 12.Qxd8+&#xA;Kxd8 13.O-O-O+ 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="396" LastEditorUserId="4186" LastEditDate="2020-03-10T08:54:22.927" LastActivityDate="2020-03-10T08:54:22.927" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1057" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1055" CreationDate="2012-07-18T23:00:22.857" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;Best by test&lt;/code&gt; - Fischer, waxing poetic on &lt;code&gt;1. e4&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;...making Kotov's face quite red.&lt;/code&gt; Reschevsky, on burning Kotov with a tactic which exposed a back-rank weakness.  I wish I could find the game! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2012-07-18T23:00:22.857" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1058" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1050" CreationDate="2012-07-19T00:10:02.710" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;It helps to know the book moves and the main variations of the openings that you play. Realize that if your opponent deviates from them early in the game, he's probably making an inferior move. (Unless he's a world class player that can discover new lines.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the case of the Ruy Lopez, &lt;code&gt;g3&lt;/code&gt; is a bad move for White, particularly if he has castled king side. The reason is that his light squared bishop is on the queenside, which is to say that it can &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; protect the light squares on his king side. You're likely to be able to play your light squared bishop to g4 or h3 and really disrupt White's game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Amateur players tend to make moves that are inconsistent with what has gone before. You need to learn to identify such situations and take advantage of them. On &lt;em&gt;your&lt;/em&gt; side, you need to think, &quot;does the move I plan to make have a good relationship with &lt;em&gt;my&lt;/em&gt; previous moves?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-07-19T02:53:20.727" LastActivityDate="2012-07-19T02:53:20.727" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1060" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1003" CreationDate="2012-07-19T09:31:54.907" Score="30" Body="&lt;p&gt;You have some very interesting points.  I have a bit of experience in AI research (my M.Sc. was in this field), so I think I can provide some insights.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Reasearch in the area&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, research in this field is certainly happening - searching for &quot;evolutionary approach chess&quot; came back with &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cs.nott.ac.uk/~gxk/papers/cec2001chess.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this paper&lt;/a&gt; from 2001, doing pretty much exactly what you suggested, leaving the min/max approach and only modifying the evaluation function.  It's possible to dig up many more, and I'm aware of several people who were working in this field in general.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Theoretical possibilities&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my opinion, the only real limiting factor for the creation of a &quot;pure&quot; chess playing AI is computation time.  There is absolutely no reason why such an AI cannot theoretically be created using current approaches.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Practicalities&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are two main problems with using evolutionary or genetic approaches in evolving a chess heuristic function, the first is that even at its most basic, a heuristic function for chess is &lt;em&gt;hugely&lt;/em&gt; complex.  We're talking hundreds of rules, piece valuations (which may differ based on position, etc), positional analyses, etc.  You'd need a flexible computer language in which to describe these rules, and then these rules could be randomly generated, mutated, bred with each other, etc.  It's certainly possible, but I'm guessing you'd end up with a rule set that is comprised of several thousand entities.  That's a very large rule set to evolve dynamically.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The second problem is that to actually evaluate your newly modified rule, you have to play games of chess, and see who ends up winning.  If you want to do this &quot;correctly&quot;, you will want to give both players plenty of time to think, something similar to a typical game length.  However, playing only a single opponent is not enough, you'd want to play many different opponents, and perhaps even the same opponents, many times, before you can truly be convinced that you have found an improvement in game strength.  This would probably mean playing a couple of hundred games per individual in your population, and that gives you one generation of your algorithm.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Typically with these types of approaches, you'd be looking at least several hundred generations, or with such complex functions as a chess heuristic, several hundred thousand (or even millions of) generations.  Some quick maths should convince you that you'd need several thousand hours of CPU time for a single generation, even scaling this out a server farm of significant size, you will probably need several (possibly hundreds) of years to actually evolve, exactly as you mention in your update.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At the end of that time, you'd have an interesting algorithm which would probably have tons of insights into the game which have never really been discovered.  It's difficult to tell whether they'd be useful or even understandable to humans.  Why does &lt;em&gt;this&lt;/em&gt; rule exist?  Because over several thousand games, it seemed to work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Future&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have no doubt that these approaches will gain more an more popularity, as computing power increases.  Currently, we're at a point where a machine has just enough computing time to beat (almost all) humans, if it's intelligence is carefully hand-crafted.  In 20 years' time, it's quite possible that processors will have moved on so much that one or two extra moves in depth no longer give the &quot;hard-coded&quot; machines enough benefits, but are routinely beaten by evolved, strangely intuitive machines which have millions of hours of evolution behind them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Update 2018 May&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As Robert Kaucher mentions in a comment below, recent news deserves a mention here.  Specifically, Google's AlphaGo project seems to be the first truly viable AI-based approach to these types of games, and in late 2017, claims to have won against StockFish &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/news/view/google-s-alphazero-destroys-stockfish-in-100-game-match&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;2&lt;/a&gt;, after being re-purposed for the task.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="412" LastEditorUserId="412" LastEditDate="2018-05-15T13:07:14.043" LastActivityDate="2018-05-15T13:07:14.043" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1061" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1003" CreationDate="2012-07-19T21:53:40.803" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;A Google search like &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.google.com/search?sourceid=chrome&amp;amp;ie=UTF-8&amp;amp;q=chess+neural+networks&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; can turn up results like &lt;a href=&quot;http://satirist.org/learn-game/systems/neurochess.html&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most particularly, I believe you will want to look at &lt;a href=&quot;http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.72.4267&quot;&gt;this paper&lt;/a&gt;. They do give their engine some initial data such as piece values, so it's not exactly what you're asking for, but it performed quite well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="396" LastActivityDate="2012-07-19T21:53:40.803" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1062" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="940" CreationDate="2012-07-19T23:27:57.013" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here's a somewhat cheap answer: the Nimzowitsch Variation of the Caro-Kann Defense, given by &lt;code&gt;1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 dxe4 4. Nxe4 Nf6 5. Nxf6+ exf6&lt;/code&gt;. In the resulting position,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/5Tl11.png&quot; alt=&quot;Nimzowitsch Caro-Kann&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;if we were to remove all the pieces and leave a pure king-and-pawns endgame, then White would have a winning advantage, because he has a healthy pawn majority on the queenside which can create a passer, while the doubled pawns of Black's kingside majority make it so that White can prevent her from creating a passer. So this is an accurate answer to your question. The only reason I call it &quot;cheap&quot; is because the pawn structure here is just a mirror-image of the Ruy Lopez Exchange structure your question already mentions, but I guess that doesn't make it any less of an example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think one reason your question hasn't gotten any answers until now, though, is that for the resulting pawn endgame to really be a winning one structurally, it seems you need this feature that one side can forcibly make a passer while the other side can't, and that means having a workable majority for one side and a &quot;broken&quot; one for the other. That basically requires there to be (1) some doubled pawns for one player, and (2) two distinct sides of the board, in terms of the pawn islands remaining. (E.g. if the white e-pawn and black d-pawn hadn't been exchanged in my example, then the pawn endgame wouldn't yet be a winning one.) And there's actually not so many (truly distinct) ways for that to happen, at least not in realistic ways.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another common sort of opening that would at least feature a very favorable pawn endgame for one side is those in which one side has an &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isolated_pawn#Isolated_queen_pawn&quot;&gt;isolated queen pawn&lt;/a&gt;. The side that has the isolani could find his king being so tied down to its defense that the other side can force a win. But this won't always be the case, so I wouldn't give that as an answer in and of itself. If you want to find some further openings that at least get part of the way toward what you're after, ones with an isolated queen pawn would be a promising place to look.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All in all, for the reasons I've spelled out, I'm not too optimistic that you'll find all that many (essentially different) examples of what you're after, but I hope this helps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That said, there is an entire class of openings that provide truly cheap answers to your question: gambit openings. Since these would feature pawn endgames with a pawn deficit (at least), these will generally be lost for the gambiteer's side. I sure wouldn't want the pawn endgame from the Danish Gambit line &lt;code&gt;1. e4 e5 2. d4 exd4 3. c3 dxc3 4. Bc4 cxb2 5. Bxb2&lt;/code&gt;, for instance :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/c6UMU.png&quot; alt=&quot;Danish Gambit&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2012-07-19T23:27:57.013" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1063" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-07-19T23:33:50.257" Score="22" ViewCount="45107" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am only an amateur player, but have been playing for many years. Every now and then I come across people who are adamant that a pawn cannot put a king into check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The last person who I discussed this with was a high school student who played school competitions and pretty much convinced me. So much so that I have now convinced my father, who taught me how to play over 20 years ago that a pawn cannot check or take another piece to put the king into check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've just done a Google search to clarify, although most pages say a pawn can put a king into check it has so many results that it has made me curious:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Where did the idea that a king cannot be put in check by a pawn come from?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there are competitions / set of rules / types of games where this rule is enforced in the modern game?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Further question, can a pawn also be moved to put a king into checkmate?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="416" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-07-25T07:13:18.877" LastActivityDate="2019-09-21T17:24:43.143" Title="Can a pawn put a king in check?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;pawns&gt;&lt;check&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="7" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1064" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1063" CreationDate="2012-07-19T23:46:30.393" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have never heard this before... A pawn can check and also mate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chess.about.com/od/tipsforbeginners/ss/BasicCheckmates_7.htm&quot;&gt;http://chess.about.com/od/tipsforbeginners/ss/BasicCheckmates_7.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/forum/view/game-showcase/beutiful-pawn-mate&quot;&gt;http://www.chess.com/forum/view/game-showcase/beutiful-pawn-mate&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/solid-pawn-mate&quot;&gt;http://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/solid-pawn-mate&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="41" LastActivityDate="2012-07-19T23:46:30.393" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1065" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1063" CreationDate="2012-07-20T00:20:22.927" Score="20" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here's a preliminary answer to where such a belief about chess pawns could possibly have come from. In the Japanese variant Shogi, in which an opponent's captured pieces may be placed onto the board as one's own, &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shogi#Drops&quot;&gt;it is not legal to place down a pawn that gives immediate checkmate&lt;/a&gt;. It's still perfectly legal to drop a pawn that gives check though (and to check/mate normally with a pawn), so this a much less severe restriction than what your question asks about. But this is a case in which the pawns are singled out, because any other piece can be dropped to give an immediate checkmate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since Shogi and chess are both believed to derive from &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaturanga&quot;&gt;Chaturanga&lt;/a&gt;, perhaps there is indeed some historical variant in which pawns weren't allowed to check at all; but I'm just speculating at the moment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2012-07-20T00:20:22.927" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1066" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1249" CreationDate="2012-07-20T01:35:27.153" Score="14" ViewCount="4589" Body="&lt;p&gt;In discussion surrounding &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/1063/can-a-pawn-put-a-king-in-check&quot;&gt;another recent question&lt;/a&gt;, the fact came up that a &quot;dropped&quot; pawn in Shogi &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shogi#Drops&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;isn't allowed to deliver immediate checkmate&lt;/a&gt;, whereas any other type of piece can be dropped to deliver checkmate. This has gotten me (not a Shogi player at all) wondering why that distinction is in the rules:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is there a particular rationale, perhaps coming from the other rules of Shogi, for singling out pawns as being unable to deliver checkmate via a drop?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2021-05-19T03:13:11.220" Title="Why can't a dropped pawn deliver checkmate in Shogi?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;shogi&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1067" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-07-20T01:40:49.190" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Shogi is a chess variant, the most popular one in Japan. Like chess, its origins can be traced back to Chaturanga.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-07-20T01:40:49.190" LastActivityDate="2012-07-20T01:40:49.190" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1068" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-07-20T01:40:49.190" Score="0" Body="Shogi is a chess variant, the most popular one in Japan. Like chess, its origins can be traced back to Chaturanga." OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-07-20T01:40:49.190" LastActivityDate="2012-07-20T01:40:49.190" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1069" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="993" CreationDate="2012-07-20T05:01:10.673" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Korchnoi wrote a book about this, named &quot;Antichess&quot; (ISBN 5899590017).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately, it's in Russian and I don't know if there's an English translation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="419" LastActivityDate="2012-07-20T05:01:10.673" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1070" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="822" CreationDate="2012-07-20T05:18:06.327" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have noticed that new players who learn opening principles like &quot;don't move the same piece more than one time&quot;, &quot;concentrate on the center&quot; often fall into the trap of blindly following these general principles and totally overlook simple tactical threats. A typical blunder example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 Nc6 2.d4 e5 3.d5 Nd4?? 4.c3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black is toast because the knight is trapped.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="419" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-07-24T16:36:37.520" LastActivityDate="2019-07-24T16:36:37.520" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1071" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="386" CreationDate="2012-07-20T05:37:06.527" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.reddit.com/r/chess/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;r/chess&lt;/a&gt; on reddit does something like this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="419" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-07-20T14:36:33.810" LastActivityDate="2012-07-20T14:36:33.810" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1072" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="302" CreationDate="2012-07-20T05:41:01.607" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;While you can't control the moves of your opponent, you can always pay him with the same coin by choosing a less common move in a variation started by him. That'll stress him out a bit too :-)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="419" LastActivityDate="2012-07-20T05:41:01.607" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1073" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="386" CreationDate="2012-07-20T12:13:32.380" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a very nice web service called &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.eddins.net/steve/chess/chessimager&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chess Imager&lt;/a&gt; that generates a board diagram from a FEN string included in the URL and you can even &lt;a href=&quot;http://code.google.com/p/chessimager/wiki/SquareColors&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;change the color&lt;/a&gt; of the squares using RGB values that you encode as well. I have used this several times in my posts on this forum.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You just build the URL, which is not difficult, and then bast it in the image (from web) dialog box. The only think I do not like about it is that it does not included a method of identifying the side to move nor does it have an indication of which side is to move. But there may be other options for that that I am unaware of.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It would probably be easier to Google FEN to chess board image rather than PGN.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="41" LastActivityDate="2012-07-20T12:13:32.380" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1074" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1076" CreationDate="2012-07-20T18:11:41.547" Score="6" ViewCount="821" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have seen a ton of questions on how to choose an opening repertoire, but I haven't really seen anything on once you choose an opening, are there specific variations that one should start off with that are easier than others.  I will use the French Defense as an example.  Every time I played the French Defense, I instinctively played &lt;code&gt;3.e5&lt;/code&gt; (The Advanced Variation), but it was pointed out to me by stronger players that as a beginner, I should try to stay away from the Advanced Variation for now and stick to the&lt;code&gt;Main line&lt;/code&gt;3.Nc3&lt;code&gt;or The Exchange Variation&lt;/code&gt;3.exd5 exd5`.  Is the above true regarding the French Defense?  What variations of other openings are usually good for beginners to learn?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-07-20T20:07:38.413" LastActivityDate="2012-07-25T08:53:20.893" Title="What are some beginner opening variations after an opening has been chosen?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1075" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1081" CreationDate="2012-07-20T18:14:23.290" Score="10" ViewCount="1525" Body="&lt;p&gt;How does one prepare for an opponent (OTB or Online)?  Do you go through recent games?  How far do you normally go back?  Would certain factors about an opponent dictate how you prepare for them?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-07-31T19:30:43.953" LastActivityDate="2012-08-22T18:46:36.263" Title="How to prepare for an opponent" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;preparation&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1076" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1074" CreationDate="2012-07-20T19:21:40.763" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would say that it almost does not matter. I think that anyone under 1700 USCF will get far more out of the study of the basics of the opening phase of the game and the general strategic ideas of the specific opening she or he has chosen. From a practical perspective it is too difficult to say what you are going to get 13 moves into an under 1600 USCF game to really dedicate too much time to an opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the exact variation simply does not matter at the beginner level (assuming that is players under 1400 USCF). Notice in my terminology I consider a novice to be someone completely new to chess who has never played in a tournament and really only knows how the pieces move and the basic rules. I distinguish this from a beginner who knows a bit more about chess, may have played in a tournament, has a rating under 1400 USCF as mentioned before. I know these terms are generally synonymous but I think that it's important to distinguish between these two types of &quot;beginners&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So my suggestion would be that at the beginner level one just shouldn't be too concerned about picking the exact variation but instead dedicate more time to learning about the general ideas of more openings by studying GM games from a variety of openings in addition to the openings you have chosen to play and keep your memorized book to a minimum.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are some suggestions on how to study the opening from Dan Heisman:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesscafe.com/text/heisman37.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chesscafe.com/text/heisman37.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;When a player first starts out to learn the openings, he gets the most&#xA;  efficient use of his time by learning:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;General opening goals and guidelines,&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;A few main opening sequences (tabiyas), and&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;How to avoid making the same mistakes over and over.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="41" LastEditorUserId="41" LastEditDate="2012-07-24T14:14:55.577" LastActivityDate="2012-07-24T14:14:55.577" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1077" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1078" CreationDate="2012-07-20T19:43:45.087" Score="3" ViewCount="184" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was watching an episode of Sesame Street that had to do with playing chess.  In a short film, there is a chess master that was going over some moves with school kids and I remember one of the kids said something like &lt;code&gt;7f Queen&lt;/code&gt; to &lt;code&gt;3g&lt;/code&gt;.  This threw me off because the rank and file were reversed.  I am used to hearing &lt;code&gt;Qf7&lt;/code&gt; to &lt;code&gt;g3&lt;/code&gt;.  Is reversing the rank and file common or is this more of an isolated incident?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-07-20T20:09:01.940" LastActivityDate="2012-07-20T23:26:15.270" Title="Is it common to reverse the rank and file in chess notation?" Tags="&lt;notation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="7" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1078" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1077" CreationDate="2012-07-20T20:23:21.080" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's not common (I've never heard of it), and it's certainly not an official notation.  Without further information, I have no idea why the chess master would have accepted the strange notation.  Perhaps he didn't think it worthwhile to argue at the time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: as &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/1077/is-it-common-to-reverse-the-rank-and-file-in-chess-notation#comment1065_1077&quot;&gt;Tony Ennis&lt;/a&gt; notes, &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shogi#Game_notation&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;the notation for shogi&lt;/a&gt; is quite similar to what you are describing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The method used in English-language texts to express shogi moves was established by George Hodges in 1976. It is derived from the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algebraic_chess_notation&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;algebraic notation used for chess&lt;/a&gt;, but differs in several respects. It is not used in Japanese-language texts, as it is no more concise than kanji.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A typical move might be notated &lt;strong&gt;P-8f&lt;/strong&gt;. The first letter represents the piece moved: P for Pawn. (There is also &lt;strong&gt;L&lt;/strong&gt; lance, &lt;strong&gt;N&lt;/strong&gt; knight, &lt;strong&gt;S&lt;/strong&gt; silver, &lt;strong&gt;G&lt;/strong&gt; gold, &lt;strong&gt;B&lt;/strong&gt; bishop, &lt;strong&gt;R&lt;/strong&gt; rook, &lt;strong&gt;K&lt;/strong&gt; king, as above.) Promoted pieces are indicated by a + in &lt;em&gt;front of&lt;/em&gt; the letter: &lt;strong&gt;+P&lt;/strong&gt; is a tokin (promoted pawn).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[...] For example, the start of a game might look like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1. P-7f   2. P-3d&#xA;3. P-2f   4. G-3b&#xA;5. P-2e   6. Bx8h+&#xA;7. Sx8h   8. S-2b&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Perhaps that is what the child was thinking of.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="86" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2012-07-20T23:26:15.270" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1081" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1075" CreationDate="2012-07-20T21:02:09.853" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;There can be no one-size-fits-all as to how to prepare for an opponent, as this will depend greatly on the playing strengths of both the one preparing and the opponent, and what works for one person won't necessarily work for another. So I'm somewhat hesitant to answer at all, but I'm hoping that the following three vignettes of chess preparation will shed a little light on the matter for you, without being blatantly inaccurate or overly biased.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1. Bobby Fischer prepares for Boris Spassky.&lt;/strong&gt; Leading up to the 1972 world championship match, Fischer famously immersed himself in a deep study of all Spassky games he could get a hold of, going as far back as he could, to the point that he basically knew all Spassky games on record inside and out. (See e.g. the mention and footage of his &amp;quot;big red book of Spassky&amp;quot; at 8:10 of &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504803_162-57379319-10391709/1972-chess-champ-bobby-fischer-on-60-minutes/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this &lt;em&gt;60 Minutes&lt;/em&gt; report from 1972&lt;/a&gt;. The video's a little hazy, but you can make out that the book is &lt;em&gt;Weltgeschichte des Schachs 27: Spassky&lt;/em&gt;.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/sAr3m.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Red book of Spassky&quot; /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For someone of Fischer's prodigious talent and understanding, this kind of focused study could yield extremely useful insights in terms of both (1) concrete opening preparation for the match, and even (2) uncovering particular strengths/weaknesses in Spassky's middlegame and endgame play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is all well and good for grandmasters, as such particular preparation can be the best use of their time, especially as they necessarily have very strong general skills already. Most of us mere mortals, however, wouldn't be able to reap the same benefits from such an in-depth study of an opponent, for the simple reason that we don't understand enough about chess itself to truly glean much useful information from all that study, and besides, our time could be more efficiently spent improving our overall game. As to the specifics of preparation at that rarefied level of play, well, &amp;quot;whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nevertheless, here's an account of my own very limited personal experience down at my level, which should be taken with an enormous grain of salt.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;2. A relatively strong amateur prepares for a particular opponent.&lt;/strong&gt; Even if I found the idea of preparing for an opponent to be appealing (I very much do not), I still think it would usually be a mistake for someone of my level (~ 2100 USCF) to spend much time on a finely-grained study of a particular opponent (assuming one even has access to many of the opponent's previous games in the first place), for the basic reason I spelled out above: I don't know enough to draw the right conclusions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Despite that, I have lately found myself facing many repeat opponents because I've been playing a lot at my &lt;a href=&quot;http://pittsburghcc.org/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;local club&lt;/a&gt;, and without having set out specifically to do so, I have ended up getting a useful sort of individualized preparation from previous games. For instance, there is a fellow expert player who I've now faced 6 times. The first two games were hard-fought draws in which I was on the defensive each time, and somewhat fortunate not to lose. The crude knowledge I obtained about him from those games, and which has proved useful, was just (1) that he is &lt;em&gt;very&lt;/em&gt; aggressive and seemingly always looking for a direct attack, and (2) that apparently I could outplay him when things were kept quiet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the 4 games since, I have 3 wins and 1 loss, but that loss was only because of a fingerfehler when playing out what would've been mate-in-3 during a time scramble (probably the only time I've ever been &lt;em&gt;truly angry&lt;/em&gt; after a game). In terms of the objective chess play, things have gone very poorly on his end since my realization about how to approach him. We have nearly identical ratings, and I believe that my recent success against him can be directly attributed to this very rudimentary sort of &amp;quot;preparation,&amp;quot; namely: I know that if I play cautiously and sufficiently deaden the position against this opponent, then the resulting game suits me much more than it does him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But that's as fine a point as someone like me can put on the matter: &amp;quot;I like quiet, he likes chaos.&amp;quot; Big whoop. This is of course a far cry from the sort of preparation Fischer carried out, but that's as it should be, and even so it has proved useful for my own modest purposes. An important point here is that this information is something that I discovered naturally in the course of playing this opponent, and was not something I devoted separate time and energy to figuring out (which I maintain will often be quite a waste of time).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;3. A novice prepares for a particular opponent.&lt;/strong&gt; This really shouldn't happen, as the novice's energies should most definitely be focused on all-around improvement, rather than on any particular traits of an opponent's play. Taking what I wrote above a step further, the novice simply isn't equipped to draw many appropriate/useful conclusions at all from an opponent's earlier games, and should instead simply direct all effort toward playing good moves and a solid game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2012-07-21T01:46:11.363" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1082" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1075" CreationDate="2012-07-20T22:05:44.890" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;At my level (B player) I would not bother too much preparing for an opponent.  Sure, if you know your opponent only plays the Colle, you can book up some on that opening, or book up on an anti-Colle opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Games at my level are won or lost on tactics; little else matters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd agree with point #3 in Ed's post.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2012-07-20T22:05:44.890" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1083" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1074" CreationDate="2012-07-21T00:18:45.323" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd say, play the variations that best suit your temperament. &lt;code&gt;3. e5&lt;/code&gt; is a tough, fighting variation that will likely lead to victory for one side or the other. On the other hand, the exchange variation is an &quot;easier&quot; variation more likely to lead to a draw (although White does retain the advantage of the first move).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-07-21T19:48:56.150" LastActivityDate="2012-07-21T19:48:56.150" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1084" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="188" CreationDate="2012-07-21T00:23:13.773" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would focus on the &quot;turning points&quot; of the game. That is, I had a good game until I made move X. If, instead, I had made move Y or Z at that point, what would have been the result? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The idea is to discover your mistakes, first the most obvious ones, then the less obvious, and try to avoid them in future games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2012-07-21T00:23:13.773" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1085" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="650" CreationDate="2012-07-21T04:05:16.700" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to Stockfish, not only can black not force a win, but he only escapes by perpetual check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;6k1/5p2/1Pp3pb/2q4p/1rNpPP2/3Q2PP/8/5RK1 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;[StartPly &quot;4&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Rxc4 2. b7 {Last given ply, white threatens b8=Q+} Rb4 {First original move} 3. Rb1 Qb6 4. Rxb4 Qxb4 5. Qa6 Qb1+ 6. Kh2 Qb2+&#xA;7. Kg1 Bf8 8. Qa8 Qb1+ 9. Kf2 Qb2+ 10. Kg1 Qb1+ 11. Kf2 Qb2+ 12. Kf1 Qb1+&#xA;13. Kf2 Qb2+ 14. Kf1 Qb1+ 15. Kf2 Qb2+ 16. Kf1 Qb1+ *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I show black up by 2 pawns if we back up to the original game and play &lt;code&gt;1. ... Qxc4&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="4186" LastEditDate="2020-03-07T09:30:23.850" LastActivityDate="2020-03-07T09:30:23.850" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1086" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1087" CreationDate="2012-07-21T23:03:53.087" Score="10" ViewCount="5069" Body="&lt;p&gt;Because I'm odd, I'm interested in obtaining a nice-looking set (that need not be portable) for &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capablanca_chess&quot;&gt;Capablanca chess&lt;/a&gt;, the third world champion's chess variant which is played on 10 x 8 board and features two new pieces for each side: a &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chancellor_%28chess%29&quot;&gt;chancellor&lt;/a&gt; that can move like a rook or a knight, and an &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archbishop_%28chess%29&quot;&gt;archbishop&lt;/a&gt; that can move like a bishop or a knight. Is there a place that sells such sets?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2019-04-10T03:14:23.483" Title="Where can I get a nice set for Capablanca chess?" Tags="&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;capablanca-chess&gt;&lt;equipment&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1087" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1086" CreationDate="2012-07-21T23:03:53.087" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm recording this answer here because it took me quite a bit of searching to find something, primarily because I never found any sets going under the actual name &quot;Capablanca chess.&quot; I did find workable sets under the names &quot;Gothic chess&quot; (apparently because of someone's &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessville.com/gothicchess/gothicchessintro.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;fairly recent spin-off&lt;/a&gt; of Capablanca chess) and &quot;Grand chess&quot; (intended for a 10 x 10 board, see below).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've only managed to find one 10 x 8 board, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.houseofstaunton.com/product_p/brdwtrn225mh-gothic.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this one&lt;/a&gt; from House of Staunton. In addition, they have a full &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.houseofstaunton.com/product_p/mengoth.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;set of pieces&lt;/a&gt; (including pieces designed to be archbishops and chancellors, with a 3.75&quot; king height) designed to fit the board, so that's at least a working answer to the question. Unfortunately, that piece set runs $200, so an alternative would be nice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;MindSports in the Netherlands has a &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mindsports.nl/index.php/get/game-material&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;set of pieces&lt;/a&gt;, which they intend for a game they call Grand chess that's to be played on a 10 x 10 board, that would work as a Capablanca chess set; the design of the archbishops and chancellors even reflect their movements, as can be seen in this picture (f- and g-files):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/juzKO.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Grand chess pieces&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That set costs a more reasonable $40, but features a 3&quot; king, and so that set would unfortunately be out of proportion on the only 10 x 8 board I've found (the one above). If you're happy to use a 10 x 10 board (and ignore part of it for Capablanca chess), then this is one way to go.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From what I know now, the best alternative to the $200 set above for use on the 10 x 8 board would be the House of Staunton's &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.houseofstaunton.com/product_p/seirawan-coll.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;plastic piece set&lt;/a&gt; for &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seirawan_chess&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Seirawan chess&lt;/a&gt;. This set runs only $40, has a 3.75&quot; king height, and has a Hawk and Elephant piece for each side,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/fMDif.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Seirawan pieces&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which can be used to represent the chancellors and archbishops of Capablanca chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2012-07-21T23:03:53.087" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1088" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-07-21T23:26:32.090" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Questions about boards, pieces, clocks, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-07-21T23:26:32.090" LastActivityDate="2012-07-21T23:26:32.090" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1089" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-07-21T23:26:32.090" Score="0" Body="Questions about boards, pieces, clocks, etc." OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-07-21T23:26:32.090" LastActivityDate="2012-07-21T23:26:32.090" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1090" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-07-21T23:47:10.347" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Capablanca devised the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capablanca_chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Capablanca chess&lt;/a&gt; variant in the 1920s. It features a 10 x 8 board and two new types of pieces: archbishops (which can move like a bishop or a knight) and chancellors (which can move like a rook or a knight). Adding these kinds of pieces, and using a 10 x 8 board, had been done before Capablanca's variant. His differs from earlier ones primarily in the arrangement of pieces on the back rows (see the wikipedia article linked above).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-06-21T20:04:30.590" LastActivityDate="2017-06-21T20:04:30.590" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1091" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-07-21T23:47:10.347" Score="0" Body="Capablanca chess is a chess variant created by Capablanca, played on a 10 x 8 board with two new pieces, archbishops and chancellors." OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-07-21T23:47:10.347" LastActivityDate="2012-07-21T23:47:10.347" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1092" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="702" CreationDate="2012-07-22T00:36:51.940" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the diagram position, White has an extra bishop, and as compensation Black has both two extra pawns and, as you mention, prospects for an attack based on the fact that the white king is out in the open on the third rank. If White can secure the king, though, then his extra bishop will mean more in the long run than the two pawns, and White will be doing much better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With his last move, &lt;code&gt;9. a3&lt;/code&gt;, White is threatening to do precisely that, as he as opened a retreat path for his king to make use of (once he takes care of the fact that his a4 knight would be hanging at the moment). Thus if Black were to make some nothing move, e.g. &lt;code&gt;9. ... h6?&lt;/code&gt;, then play could proceed with something like &lt;code&gt;10. Nc3 Qf5 11. Ka2&lt;/code&gt; (though here White doesn't even need to be in a hurry rushing his king back, and could do something more productive instead) and White is just cruising.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In broad strategic terms, Black must act quickly to take advantage of the dynamic factors currently in his favor (White's exposed king and lack of development), or White's long-term static plus (extra material) will win the day. &lt;code&gt;9. ... Qxa4+&lt;/code&gt; does exactly that, giving up (much) more material, but in return forcibly drawing the white king further out into the open, where it turns out Black has enough firepower in reserve to draw with a perpetual check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One could try other ninth moves for Black of course, but again the point is that matters are urgent: something must be done now about White's consolidating idea of &lt;code&gt;Nc3 -&amp;gt; Ka2&lt;/code&gt;, and there's only so many moves that have potential. &lt;code&gt;9. ... d4&lt;/code&gt; keeps the knight from c3, but it also removes the attack on the knight, so White can play &lt;code&gt;10. Ka2&lt;/code&gt; immediately. Instead &lt;code&gt;9. ... Be6&lt;/code&gt; is a nice thought, with the idea of discovered check by &lt;code&gt;10. ... d4+&lt;/code&gt; keeping the white king out in the open; but unfortunately &lt;code&gt;10. d4!&lt;/code&gt; in reply stops that idea and leaves White firmly in control. (Incidentally, if White had gone ahead and played &lt;code&gt;9. d4&lt;/code&gt; instead of his &lt;code&gt;9. a3&lt;/code&gt;, he would have already killed off the attack and had a big advantage, but then we wouldn't have the Immortal Draw.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I could go on, but I think the above spells out the exigency of Black's situation. If you're still curious from here why &lt;code&gt;9. ... Qxa4+&lt;/code&gt; is the way to go, the best thing to do is probably some concrete analysis, toying around with possible variations starting from the diagram position above (with a trusty engine looking over your shoulder).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2012-07-22T00:36:51.940" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1093" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="687" CreationDate="2012-07-22T09:09:33.060" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just saw you asked this couple of months back but adding my answer if others are looking for something in this price-range.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do you have an iPhone? There are chess-clock apps which are pretty good. This is only for home games, as you don't want the other player scratching too much on your iPhone screen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should also search eBay. They are the best bet for low-prized yet pretty good digital chess clocks. Don't buy the cheap analog clocks as they have inherent problems and I have thrown away couple of them before switching to digital clocks. Always compare prices at Amazon before bidding on eBay. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note: Digital clocks outweigh the cheap analog clocks by miles for under $25. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Pleasing displays&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Lots of options for your game (e.g. extra seconds added for each move if you want it). &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;More lifetime than analog clocks at this price range (fewer mechanical problems). &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Their only drawback is they need batteries. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Some digital clocks require little knowledge of how to set the clocks, but reading the manual helps and it is not very complicated.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lots of good digital chess clocks on eBay (used/new; make sure it is listed as working) and Amazon. Good Luck.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="220" LastEditorUserId="10867" LastEditDate="2016-08-19T14:01:25.383" LastActivityDate="2016-08-19T14:01:25.383" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1094" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="188" CreationDate="2012-07-22T12:38:22.197" Score="21" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd have to disagree with @andrew about analyzing ones' own games.  The reason is, I'm a B-player. I make B-player moves. I perform B-player analysis. That's insufficient. Spending precious time to produce weak analysis is inefficient.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This may offend people.  But consider - if you had to make a home repair and you didn't know how, would you just figure it out on the spot or would you seek an expert/education to make you smarter? If you needed to shingle your roof, would you just get up there and start hammering? Or would you refer to several how-tos and learn a little first?  Maybe you'd talk to your brother-in-law who's a contractor?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Instead, I start with the engine, on a setting that I cannot beat.  This is analogous to have an instructor or how-to book.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I key the game into the engine and let it analyze each move (both sides.) If the computer produces a move and the score deviates too much (for me, a half a point), I stop to determine &lt;em&gt;why&lt;/em&gt; the computer chooses a different move.  Then I work to understand how the computer's move prevents situation the caused by my move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2012-07-23T12:02:56.413" LastActivityDate="2012-07-23T12:02:56.413" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1095" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1096" CreationDate="2012-07-22T14:35:09.100" Score="9" ViewCount="3901" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to analyze some of my games with the Stockfish UCI engine.  I'd like to make sure I'm interpreting the output correctly.  Using this screenshot as an example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/VVQuY.png&quot; alt=&quot;stockfish UCI analysis output&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can someone explain to me all of the output? Such as.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What does this line tell me?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;20 [-1.13]  7.c3 Bg4 8.h3 Bxf3 9.Qxf3 bxa4 (8.39)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What does this line tell me?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[-1.33] Depth: 27/40 Nodes: 550933K (4130 kn/s) Time: 133.41 s&#xA;  NPS: 4129627 Hash: ---- Load: ---- TB hits: ---- Current: c3 (1/25)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the first number is centipawns why does it continue to analyze positions that seem to give me a worse position?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="407" LastEditorUserId="10905" LastEditDate="2016-07-28T12:02:53.973" LastActivityDate="2016-07-28T12:02:53.973" Title="How do I use the analysis output of a UCI engine?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;engines&gt;&lt;uci&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1096" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1095" CreationDate="2012-07-22T17:57:52.380" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is showing you the results of the analysis for each depth it gets to, sometimes more than once per depth (I think those are upper/lower bound scores, actually). So at depth 20 it thought the best move was -1.13 pawns, and at depth 27 it now knows it's really -1.33 pawns (according to its evaluation).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I like to use the multi-pv setting (click the up spinner next to V++ to increase the number of root moves to analyze), which gives you a good overall perspective of your different options (you can compare &lt;code&gt;c3&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;Nc3&lt;/code&gt;, for example).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="142" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-07-24T19:09:45.610" LastActivityDate="2012-07-24T19:09:45.610" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1097" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1075" CreationDate="2012-07-22T22:34:27.520" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would try to play &lt;em&gt;other&lt;/em&gt; opponents with a similar style (positional, aggressive, etc.).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Failing that, I would try to &quot;model&quot; the opponent's game, and devise countermoves. Also learn some of his favorite openings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-07-24T19:09:31.973" LastActivityDate="2012-07-24T19:09:31.973" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1098" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="188" CreationDate="2012-07-23T09:16:08.003" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;Game analysis is important (both your own &amp;amp; other people's games).&#xA;I usually use some computer software-I am not great analysing only from a game scoresheet.&#xA;(if so I would try &amp;amp; make sure I had a board setup in front of me-but the computer chess software is very handy).&#xA;I have Fritz9 / Winboard / BabasChess and a variety of chess engines. I usually use these for my game analysis.&#xA;It can also be very helpful to have a chess coach or other good player look over the game with you to get another opinion.&#xA;Game analysis to start with is not easy but like most skills you can get better at it with practice and it can help you learn from your mistakes and successes-good luck with your chess analysis! :-)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="426" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T15:40:16.473" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T15:40:16.473" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1099" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27" CreationDate="2012-07-23T09:22:34.147" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;BabasChess is free chess software (good for play on internet chess servers) that has automatic analysis with Crafty chess engine feature. It is somewhat basic but is useful and I think BabasChess is good as free software!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="426" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-07-24T19:09:08.353" LastActivityDate="2012-07-24T19:09:08.353" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1100" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1074" CreationDate="2012-07-23T09:59:17.203" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well-I'm amazed at the advice you have had! &#xA;If as White you play against the French defence, imho the Advance variation is a fine variation to use! This variation has been played many thousands of times by GrandMasters and is a good opening!&#xA;I believe the theory for the Advance for White is less complicated than the mainline &lt;code&gt;3.Nc3&lt;/code&gt; where you can quickly get mired in the very tricky Winawer variation-which I do not believe is suitable for beginner chess players! The Advance gives an interesting game for both sides.I find the Advance variation as White interesting to learn and play, and as a lower-rated player very suitable and I get enjoyable games with it!&#xA;The Winawer however is fine for GM's (Bobby Fischer's favourite against the French defence) but imho not for beginners.&#xA;The French exchange variation is imho borderline alright! I find it a dull variation to play and I never play it as White. As Black when White plays it against me I am prepared for a boring game &amp;amp; generally get one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for other openings you may want to decide if you like &lt;code&gt;1.e4&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;1.d4&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;1.c4&lt;/code&gt;. &#xA;I like &lt;code&gt;1.e4&lt;/code&gt; and my favourite opening is the Scotch as there is so much less theory than the Italian or Ruy Lopez and not many people play it. &#xA;For &lt;code&gt;1.d4&lt;/code&gt; many players use a system opening such as Colle-Zuckertort and this is well suited to beginners; check it out.&#xA;&lt;code&gt;1.c4&lt;/code&gt; is the English opening - I have even less experience with this than &lt;code&gt;1.d4&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the main you need to decide what opening suits you and develop and study the principal variations from there. As a &lt;code&gt;1.e4&lt;/code&gt; player I often get &lt;code&gt;1...c5&lt;/code&gt; (Sicilian defence) played against me. There is a huge range of variations for Black in this opening-so to take Black out of some of the main variations I play &lt;code&gt;2.c3&lt;/code&gt;. This often unbalances Black who was hoping to play his pet Sicilian line and I am learning how to play this &lt;code&gt;2.c3&lt;/code&gt; Alapin variation and it is very interesting. You need to find similar opening variations you are comfortable with.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this helps-happy chess! :-)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="426" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-07-24T19:18:08.813" LastActivityDate="2012-07-24T19:18:08.813" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1101" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1050" CreationDate="2012-07-23T10:16:20.183" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess players should know the three phases of chess play, i.e. opening / mid / end game phases. The objective of any phase is get get an advantage over your opponent (materially, positionally or tactically) or at the least to have equality with the opponent in that phase.&#xA;If you get an opening advantage you need to maintain that advantage through the mid and endgame phases and it could help you win the game. If you are brilliant or lucky or both you can win the game in the opening (how many beginners know and/or fall for Scholars mate?!).&#xA;If you lose the advantage or equality in the opening then you need to play well in the mid and/or end game to try to win the game back. Simple!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope that helps...happy chess :-)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="426" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-07-25T13:19:34.147" LastActivityDate="2012-07-25T13:19:34.147" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1102" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="274" CreationDate="2012-07-23T13:50:12.987" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;To answer the question at the start of the post, I would say no. The system is easy to learn and play but that won't help you to improve. You want an opening that leads to sharp tactics. I just had a game on ICC against a slightly above average player and as soon as I saw the opening I thought, ok draw. It was. White risks very little but often gains very little. I was happy with a draw with black against a slightly higher rated player, but honestly I don't think I learned anything or feel like I was pushed, just traded things off and offered a draw. If you want to beat up your friends in chess games then you need to know and understand tactics, and I feel the easiest way to do that is with sharp opening play. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="427" LastEditorUserId="3757" LastEditDate="2015-09-29T20:43:32.213" LastActivityDate="2015-09-29T20:43:32.213" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1103" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1105" CreationDate="2012-07-23T15:11:33.810" Score="49" ViewCount="17356" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am trying to train tactics as well as my general understanding of the beginning/middlegame. I spent a good bit of time understanding endgames, per chessmaster recommendations and those I can understand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as tactics, I have been able to &quot;train&quot; them through chesstempo.com and &quot;see&quot; lots of variations through chesstactics.org. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But how do I learn to understand what I am training? I feel like I can execute tactics now without thinking, but I am not really sure what I just did. It just &quot;feels right&quot; because I trained it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So what I am really asking:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is there a good place to get a real understanding of the middle game, or is it just raw calculation? Maybe I am missing a positional understanding?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am thinking about getting a chess.com membership and going through the chess mentor courses. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I feel like by just doing raw training I am missing out on the real soul of the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="390" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-11-04T05:58:03.113" LastActivityDate="2019-10-30T03:16:11.737" Title="How do I learn to understand the middlegame?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;learning&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;training&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;" AnswerCount="10" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="28" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1104" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1103" CreationDate="2012-07-23T16:11:34.903" Score="21" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think you partially answered your question.  The main fact that you can &quot;...execute tactics now without thinking...&quot; is definitely a good start.  Also that fact that you said, it &quot;feels right&quot; is also a good start although you don't really want to play a tactic just because it &quot;feels right&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Information on tactics can be found from &lt;code&gt;Louis Holtzhausen&lt;/code&gt; site at &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess-strategies-tactics.com/chess-tactics&quot;&gt;http://www.chess-strategies-tactics.com/chess-tactics&lt;/a&gt;. Here is some information from that site:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Understanding why you would do a particular tactic can be made simple by the definition:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A Chess tactic is a move or a combination of moves whereby you force&#xA;  an advantage.  The advantage is usually to win material but it could&#xA;  also be to achieve a positional advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think the fact that you said you can make tactical moves without thinking much means that you have improved your chess tactical awareness.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can solve 1000's of tactical puzzles, but with no overall view of the specific skills you are trying to improve, solving them is not as effective.  The 3 main focus areas of training chess tactics skill are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1. Tactical patterns(how is the tactic executed)&#xA;2. Tactical themes(which elements of the position made the tactics possible)&#xA;3. Tactical awareness(knowing when to search for a tactical combination)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think for each tactics puzzle that you do, before you do the next puzzle you must have a deep understanding of &lt;code&gt;1) themes&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;2) patterns&lt;/code&gt; that made the tactics possible in the puzzle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See if you can figure out which aspects of the position actually made the combination possible.  This style of tactics training will hone your &quot;tactical awareness&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are tactical themes and patterns that you should be familiar with.&#xA;You can find many of these themes on chess tempos website &lt;a href=&quot;http://chesstempo.com/tactical-motifs.html&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Fork or double attack&#xA;Pins and skewers  &#xA;Sacrifice  &#xA;Discovered attack  &#xA;Deflection (or distraction)  &#xA;Double check  &#xA;Counter-attack  &#xA;Hanging (undefended) piece  &#xA;Exposed king  &#xA;In-between move  &#xA;Trapped piece  &#xA;Clearance – Opening a critical square, file or diagonal  &#xA;Blocking – blocking a critical file or diagonal  &#xA;Advanced pawn  &#xA;Attraction  &#xA;Zugzwang  &#xA;X-ray attack  &#xA;Weak back rank  &#xA;Removing the defender  &#xA;Overloading a defender  &#xA;Simplification into a winning endgame  &#xA;Indirect defense  &#xA;Domination in chess  &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are checkmate patterns you should be familiar with.&#xA;Checkmate pattern details can be found &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Checkmate_pattern&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Back Rank checkmate&#xA;Lolli’s checkmate&#xA;Epaulettes checkmate&#xA;Shepherd’s checkmate&#xA;Fool’s checkmate (fool’s mate or 2-move checkmate)&#xA;Scholar’s checkmate ( or 4-move checkmate)&#xA;Two Rooks checkmate&#xA;Mayet’s checkmate&#xA;Smothered checkmate&#xA;Anderssen’s checkmate&#xA;Pillsbury’s checkmate&#xA;The Arabian checkmate&#xA;Legal’s checkmate&#xA;Anastacia’s checkmate&#xA;Greco’s checkmate&#xA;Gueridon’s checkmate&#xA;Blackburne’s checkmate&#xA;Boden’s checkmate&#xA;Damiano’s checkmate&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Understanding the tactical themes is useful… but training your mind to recognize the theme instantly and apply it in your game is only possible once you have turned your understanding into a skill. So how do you turn your understanding into a skill? Practice, practice, practice. Practice till you can apply your understanding almost without thinking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even if you find the content on these chess tactics themes and patterns obvious – it won’t do any harm to go over it again. It is vital to make this knowledge your second nature. It is better to understand a few patterns deeply than to understand many patterns superficially. Patterns you understand deeply will be much easier to apply!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are some tactical articles that  will help you with tactics in the middle game:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.kenilworthchessclub.org/links/middlegame.html&quot;&gt;http://www.kenilworthchessclub.org/links/middlegame.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastEditorUserId="109" LastEditDate="2012-07-24T00:41:35.360" LastActivityDate="2012-07-24T00:41:35.360" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1105" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1103" CreationDate="2012-07-23T17:01:42.160" Score="30" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;In principle&lt;/em&gt;, the middlegame is indeed just raw calculation. In principle, the entire game of chess boils down to only that. But since the space of possible move sequences is so vast, chess is of course too complex from the standpoint of pure calculation for that to be all that we do when we play. And after all, even our computational superiors (chess engines) need to be guided with built-in positional understanding in order to play a good game of chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So yes, if you're feeling fairly comfortable with your grasp of calculation and the execution of tactical operations, but often find yourself &quot;not really sure what [you] just did,&quot; then it does sound like positional understanding is what you need to accrue. A good way to look at things is this: tactics are a means to an end - and at bottom they are &lt;em&gt;the means to all ends&lt;/em&gt; in chess - but it's not terribly useful to see tactics as the ends themselves, and that is where heuristic positional knowledge is most useful, as a guide telling you what purposes various tactics should be put toward.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance, former champion Vladimir Kramnik described the play of two of his predecessors thus:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;To a certain extent, Smyslov was the pioneer of this style, which was later brilliantly developed by Karpov, i.e. the gradual mounting of positional pressure based on the most accurate calculation of short lines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, regardless of whether you want to play like a Smyslov or Karpov, or more like an Alekhine or Tal, I point to Kramnik's words here just because they bring out this idea of letting positional considerations guide your hand, while your tactical acumen gives you the wherewithal to achieve your aims. OK, so how to acquire positional understanding?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here there are many many options. You mention chess.com's chess mentor course; I have no knowledge of that, and so have no opinion. I can point you to a couple of books that are designed to begin to steer amateurs toward an expert/master understanding of positional play:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;How to Reassess Your Chess&lt;/em&gt; by Jeremy Silman. This is perhaps the most widely-known book on the subject these days, and with good reason I think. Silman does a fine job of getting the reader to (1) look at positions through the lens of various types of &lt;em&gt;imbalances&lt;/em&gt; - e.g. who has more space, is one side's bishop better than the other's, is one king safer than the other's, etc. - and (2) begin to use those imbalances as guiding factors in determining what your plan/goals should be - e.g. I have two bishops against two knights, so I'd like to open up the position to make use of the bishops' long-range power.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;The Giants of Strategy&lt;/em&gt; by Neil McDonald. This book is less systematically instructional than Silman's, but it is still instructive. McDonald looks at examples of play from Kramnik, Karpov, Petrosian, Capablanca and Nimzowitsch in chapters grouped around positional themes (e.g. the seventh rank, outposts, pawn breaks, planning). This isn't an overly advanced book, and is probably well-suited to the same audience as Silman's. I wouldn't recommend this book alone for gaining positional understanding, but I think it can act very nicely as a supplement to Silman, say. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2012-07-23T17:01:42.160" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1106" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1103" CreationDate="2012-07-23T23:54:54.967" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;By definition, the middle game is the point in the game where the pieces are pretty much developed and the opening ends.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The middle game is &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; raw calculation. Calculation is just a skill we have to develop. The middle game is &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; just tactics, though tactical opportunities begin to present themselves in the middle game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At the beginning of the middle game, you start to &lt;strong&gt;formulate a plan&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;execute it&lt;/strong&gt;.  Without a plan, you won't know where to point your pieces and what you're trying to accomplish.  When you see a 'tactics trainer' puzzle, what you're seeing is the fruit of planning.  Those piece sacs and amazing moves didn't happen randomly; someone made the situation possible.  That's what you're doing in the middle game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An inability to plan is one of my greatest faults - I'm so unimaginative that I can't formulate a plan.  Therefore I am always end up playing defensively.  Now, I calculate pretty well for my category, so when someone attacks me (that is, they formulate a plan and execute it, lol) I frequently gain an advantage and get the win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2012-07-24T04:08:09.777" LastActivityDate="2012-07-24T04:08:09.777" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1107" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1108" CreationDate="2012-07-24T00:46:25.143" Score="20" ViewCount="3207" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think of analysis as the ability to mentally move through variations, recognize tactical ideas in those variations, and draw accurate conclusions regarding the fitness of the resulting positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have heard it said that the ability to perform proper analysis is the greatest factor in chess strength up to the USCF 2000 level. How can one improve this skill?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Based on Tony Ennis' and Goerge Jempty's answers I have devised the following training plan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Using &lt;a href=&quot;http://chesseye.alexander-fleischer.de/o/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;CVT Online&lt;/a&gt; I am performing board vision drills on a daily basis.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I am solving K+P ending problems using progressively complex problems (i.e. increasing the number of pawns) from a variety of sources in my head.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I am using &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/0713490713&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess Success: Planning After the Opening&lt;/a&gt; and a set of &lt;a href=&quot;https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B6IAC_cu-e0ReE5CSExJeDhkVGs&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;blank boards&lt;/a&gt; to go through the games &quot;blindfold&quot; - meaning in my mind. Once I get to a diagram I am drawing the position in my head using the blank board and then comparing it to the one in the book. I am also doing this with any variations that don't have diagrams. But that requires a manual check.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;When I am solving my typical tactic and other puzzles I am making an effort to move through my variations with my eyes closed and also performing my check of the final position for checks, captures, and threats without looking at the board as well.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I am also doing quick drills using the Fritz software from chess base to quickly recognize checks, captures, and threats. This training material is under the &quot;Training&quot; tab of the CHessBase user interface of their engine software.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the next 90 days I will edit with any thoughts or considerations that I have regarding the results of this training plan. Thank you to all who answered.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Related thread: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/1030/how-to-get-out-of-hope-chess-into-real-chess&quot;&gt;How to get out of &amp;quot;Hope&amp;quot; chess into &amp;quot;Real&amp;quot; chess&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="41" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.193" LastActivityDate="2016-10-31T02:32:25.107" Title="How can one improve their over-the-board analysis skills?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;learning&gt;&lt;training&gt;&lt;otb-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1108" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1107" CreationDate="2012-07-24T04:06:53.820" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are no shortcuts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Work tactical problems&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Read highly regarded books to learn &lt;strong&gt;why&lt;/strong&gt; you should make moves.  I wouldn't necessarily read, &quot;GM X's Best 50 games&quot;, but instead would seek out books about tactics or positional training.  &quot;My System&quot; is an example, though probably dated.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Get an instructor.  He can tell you what you're doing wrong and how you can fix it.  Figuring this out yourself is time consuming at best.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Play a lot, working to apply what you're learned.  Don't play for rating points, or even to win, as such. Play to learn.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Analyze your games with a machine to see what you - and your opponent missed.  Work hard to figure out why the machine thinks your moves were substandard, and how it's suggested moves prevent the problems caused by your moves.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2012-07-24T04:06:53.820" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1109" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1103" CreationDate="2012-07-24T12:41:07.733" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;Excellent question and you made a good assumption.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I feel like I can execute tactics now without thinking, but I am not really sure what I just did.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe I am missing a positional understanding?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's exactly what you are missing, because tactics are the consequence of good positional understanding (this is a startling claim, feel free to disagree!).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd like to recommend you some books to study for improving the middlegame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Think like a grandmaster&amp;quot; by Alexander Kotov concentrates on middlegame aspects. This book &amp;quot;feels&amp;quot; lightweight since it's very easy to read, yet I'd like to conventionally call it &amp;quot;middlegame strategy lessons for dummies&amp;quot;, because Kotov often quotes Steinitz (who pioneered the positional approach) yet explains his postulates in a way that's understandable by the average chess player, not only by grandmasters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;My System&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;My System In Practice&amp;quot; by Aron Nimzowitsch. These two books are widely acknowledged by many strong chess players as being the greatest chess manual ever. There's a shorter work of Nimzowitsch that literally translates from Russian as &amp;quot;How I became a grandmaster&amp;quot;. It's a short chess centric biography which describes the early Nimzowitsch as a strong tactical player who totally lacked positional understanding. Just like you, he would &amp;quot;see&amp;quot; combinations, but couldn't explain why they are possible. He tried to play in some tournaments against masters and failed, so he took a break trying to understand what's going on. And his deep understanding of strategy came from &amp;quot;scratching the positional itch&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="419" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2012-07-24T12:41:07.733" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1110" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1107" CreationDate="2012-07-24T14:34:06.780" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;Try your hand at blindfold chess.  It stands to reason, if you can visualize things without sight of the board, it will improve your visualization with sight of the board.  Speaking from my own experience, when I did this, my rating jumped from the 1700s into Class A and this included mowing through 2000+ rated players in at least one tournament.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are a number of different ways to attempt blindfold chess:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Some versions of ChessMaster software have an option for this.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You can use Mephisto dedicated chess machine, and simply press the indicated squares on the board, without placing pieces there.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I read somewhere, perhaps right here on chess.stackexchange, that fics has an option for this&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user76" LastActivityDate="2012-07-24T14:34:06.780" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1111" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1074" CreationDate="2012-07-25T08:53:20.893" Score="6" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;it was pointed out to me by stronger players that as a beginner, I should try to stay away&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I find such approach extremely boring and destructive. Are you playing 3.e5 and feel comfortable with it? Keep playing like that then! Don't get me wrong, it's ok if at some point you will feel the need to try another variation. That may happen because you played 3.e5 in 100 games and didn't achieve a desired result (a certain overall score), or didn't achieve a certain desired positional picture (pressure on kingside flank of black due to your advanced e5 pawn). This way you'll have a serious reason to consider alternatives, more serious than just &quot;stronger players told me&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your goal as beginner is to make progress in understanding the positions on the board, not to blindly learn some long variants which are being told to give you advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="419" LastActivityDate="2012-07-25T08:53:20.893" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1112" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-07-26T09:18:33.380" Score="11" ViewCount="2786" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &quot;Swiss gambit&quot; refers to the idea of intentionally lowering one's performance at the beginning of a &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss-system_tournament&quot;&gt;Swiss-system tournament&lt;/a&gt;, to one degree or another, in order to have an easier path through the later stages of the tournament. E.g. a highly-rated player in a field could take a half-point bye in the first round (instead of a likely win) in order to likely be paired against weaker competition for the next few rounds than would have happened otherwise.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It certainly shouldn't be the case that it's &lt;em&gt;always&lt;/em&gt; a good idea, or Swiss-system tournaments would be very poorly conceived. But depending on where a given player sits ratings-wise in the field, and the exact distribution of the ratings of players in the tournament, it is not inconceivable that such a Swiss gambit could increase a player's &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expected_value&quot;&gt;expected&lt;/a&gt; final score. Of course, intentionally giving points away at any point could obviously decrease the expected score as well. This is all I am asking for here:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Has any serious research been done concerning scenarios in which a Swiss gambit is/isn't effective, probabilistically speaking, in the sense of raising/lowering the gambiteer's expected tournament score?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pointers to any legitimately mathematical (and mathematically legitimate) discussions of the matter would be most appreciated, as would the creation of such in an answer of course.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-07-26T09:27:35.633" LastActivityDate="2018-01-26T00:21:15.930" Title="What merit is there to the so-called &quot;Swiss gambit?&quot;" Tags="&lt;statistics&gt;&lt;tournament&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="10" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1113" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1107" CreationDate="2012-07-26T09:26:04.073" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;As an experienced player I would say that the basics to improve in that way is first of all to have a solid base on resolving chess problems of mid-game and have your openings learned, with lot of games over them, to have the enough experience to develope the opening by the right way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the other hand, speed-games makes the player think faster and it consolidates your knowledge of mid game, leading you to think faster from time to time while playing more faster games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course if you don't have a solid knowledge of the middle game, playing like this just will make you lose all the games and don't even notice the mistakes you're doing. So you shouldn't make the second step without the first.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This will give you the hability to think a bit faster, so you can think about different variants of the game in the same time you would have probably thought about half of them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Apart from this, it's always important to analyse the normal time games with a computer, so you can see the mistakes and the best branches you should have taken.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="437" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-07-27T18:03:46.220" LastActivityDate="2012-07-27T18:03:46.220" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1114" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1075" CreationDate="2012-07-26T12:11:08.793" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;For club players with 1/2 - 1 hour:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Find out what colour you are likely to have and try to find out what your prospective opponent's favourite opening(s) is/are with that colour (ask friends, lookup online). If they play several, just have a guess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Decide if you have an opportunity to avoid this opening with something you prefer - e.g. if he likes to play the Spanish you could get in earlier with a Petroff - or if you are likely to end up in the opening of your opponent's choice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Spend time ensuring you learn something new about your prediction for the opening, e.g.: What are the key themes/critical squares? What are the common traps, or any recent interesting departures from book?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the predicted opening is played, you gain time and confidence at the board. If not, you've still learnt something that you should be able to remember for next time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="350" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-07-26T16:41:40.597" LastActivityDate="2012-07-26T16:41:40.597" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1115" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1075" CreationDate="2012-07-26T15:26:45.777" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;At one time I played in a slow time control club on ICC. I was ~1600 or so, so we weren't exactly the top level. One game, it was very clear that my opponent had looked at my recent games and found an issue in one of my opening responses. My team was pretty furious that I resigned after 10 minutes of play, but it really was a crushing hole in my opening that I've since avoided. Since then I've learned that you should clear out your history before a match, by playing random openings in bullet games or even an opening that you don't usually play, to lead them down the wrong path.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="142" LastActivityDate="2012-07-26T15:26:45.777" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1116" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="863" CreationDate="2012-07-26T18:52:33.790" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not very serious, but fun to watch: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&amp;amp;feature=endscreen&amp;amp;v=LMM2RV5-HVc&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&amp;amp;feature=endscreen&amp;amp;v=LMM2RV5-HVc&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="35" LastActivityDate="2012-07-26T18:52:33.790" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1117" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="982" CreationDate="2012-07-26T19:53:18.543" Score="36" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is a quick an dirty analysis based on the &quot;Million Base&quot; PGN database.  I did this in a bit of a rush, so there may well be errors in my programming or logic.  Please don't use it for anything too serious.  &lt;strong&gt;Update - Note:&lt;/strong&gt; Actually, I've just noticed I made a mistake with the data set, and limited it to the first 1 million records.  I'll post an update when I get some free time to run it again on the full thing.  In the meantime, these numbers should be interesting, nevertheless. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Obtaining the data:&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I obtained the Million Base 1.74 file from &lt;a href=&quot;http://rapidlibrary.com/files/old-million-base-1-74-rar_ulztvvxqf8i89on.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this URL&lt;/a&gt;, since the top-5000.nl site seems to 404 when you actually try to download it.  The file contains just over 1 million games in PGN export format (that is to say, easy to parse).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately, more than 60% of the games lacked any rating information (I was looking for &quot;WhiteELO&quot; and &quot;BlackELO&quot; tags), and even fewer had ratings for both players.  In the end, I decided to get as large a sample size as I could, and counted a player's moves if his or her rating was known, regardless of the other player's rating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Process:&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The games were parsed one by one, and if a player's rating was known, all of &lt;em&gt;their&lt;/em&gt; moves for that game would be added to the aggregate for the player's rating group.  I chose to divide the ratings into groups of 100, so e.g. 1600 to 1699 was a single group.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since the actual movetext in PGN is SAN, I used the following shortcut to count the moves:  Knight (N), Bishop (B), Rook (R), Queen (Q) and King (K) moves all begin with their piece's letter.  Castling (O-O and O-O-O) was counted separately, as a special case.  All remaining moves were counted as pawn moves without further examination.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No data cleanup was done.  There was no attempt to identify outliers and remove them (e.g. exceedingly short and long games, etc).  I kept, but did not include in the following analysis, the results from ratings below 1600 - the sample size for these games was well below 100, leading to large variations in results.  The raw data is provided at the end of this post.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some shortcomings of the information:  at the moment, I've only collected very basic totals, and provided averages.  I am pretty sure that in general, the data is NOT normally distributed, but won't be able to say more without actually outputting the raw counts and running them through a statistical program.  I may do so, if there's interest.  For the moment, this means no confidence intervals, or other information about the distribution of the numbers that those averages represent.  I also haven't checked how many years the data set spans - if it represents many years, it may be beneficial to attempt to correct for the overall strength of the field.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Some Trends:&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A word on player ratings - the most frequent rating groups encountered were, in order:  2400 to 2500, 2500 to 2600, and 2300 to 2400.  These rating groups provided 72% of the games counted.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Looking at the actual results, average game length was a bit of a surprise:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/AbtqU.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Average number of moves by rating group&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The sub-2000 rating groups all had significantly shorter games than the higher groups.  This may well be explained by the possibility that they were playing stronger opponents (see the average rating, above), and that they were defeated in fewer moves.  This seems to go against the slightly shorter games played by the top rating group, although that may be contributed to a smaller sample size.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The relatively large differences in average game length meant that providing the frequency of moving a certain piece, rather than the total number of times a piece is moved, is perhaps the more fair comparison.  Calculating the frequencies results in the following graph:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/z0Yz9.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Move frequencies by piece&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The following trends seem to be present:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The frequency of knight moves seems to trend slightly downwards with rating.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Bishop moves trend downwards until about 2000, then slowly trend upwards.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Rook moves trend sharply upward at roughly the same point, and stay more frequent than Bishop moves in high-level play.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Pawn moves seem to trend slightly downwards with increased rating.  A large exception is the top category, 2800 to 2900.  This brings us to the next point:&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The top rating category provides outliers or counter-trends in quite a number of measurements.  This may be explained in a variety of ways - 1) the sample size is fairly low at 363, not tiny, but 10% of the next smallest sample size included.  2) Since they are at the top of the ratings groups, they never play &quot;stronger&quot; opponents than themselves.  3) Or simply at this level, their play style has transcended the levels below them.  My guess would be a combination of 1) and 2).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The differences in queen moves and castling moves is very small without any real trends, other than a tiny trend downwards in both cases.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The frequency of king moves has some of the largest differences.  No clear trend is visible, and it seems to change direction 3 or 4 times.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Further Analysis&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some ideas for future analysis:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Basic statistical fixes:  I feel that extremely short and long games should probably be excluded.  Also, the distribution of the actual counts might be very telling.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Splitting the analysis further up may also yield interesting results.  For example, I would be interested to know how the frequencies for black and white match up (Are they the same, or different?  Why?).  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Categorisation by difference in rating might also be interesting, do players playing a much stronger opponent (say, 200 ratings above them) play with different move frequencies?  Unfortunately this requires both players' ELO to be known, which is rare in this data set.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Tendency to short vs. long-castle might also vary by rating.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Piece promotion statistics, some light structural analysis (e.g. incidence of doubled pawns, en passant, pins, forks, shown by rating) might be insightful.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;Heat-maps&quot; of piece placement on the actual board, shown by rating might also be quite intersting.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Aggregate data in CSV format&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For those who want to play with the data, feel free.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Rating Range,Sample Size,Average Game Length,Average Pawn Moves,Average Knight Moves,Average Bishop Moves,Average Rook Moves,Average Queen Moves,Average King Moves,Average Castling&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1100 to 1200,4,28.500,7.000,4.000,4.000,6.500,3.750,2.750,0.500&#xA;1300 to 1400,16,34.125,9.250,6.813,5.000,4.438,4.563,3.188,0.875&#xA;1400 to 1500,35,33.800,9.400,6.114,5.514,4.514,4.057,3.400,0.800&#xA;1500 to 1600,61,33.607,8.705,7.459,4.984,4.443,4.033,3.148,0.836&#xA;1600 to 1700,163,33.153,9.227,6.485,5.110,4.699,3.969,2.816,0.847&#xA;1700 to 1800,301,31.811,8.894,6.223,5.402,4.468,3.734,2.296,0.794&#xA;1800 to 1900,307,34.251,9.537,6.642,5.577,4.889,4.039,2.759,0.808&#xA;1900 to 2000,450,35.551,9.731,6.778,5.451,5.444,4.442,2.871,0.833&#xA;2000 to 2100,3958,38.731,10.302,7.095,6.072,6.242,4.668,3.481,0.871&#xA;2100 to 2200,11217,38.905,10.501,7.116,6.086,6.245,4.629,3.445,0.884&#xA;2200 to 2300,50848,39.446,10.595,7.167,6.174,6.420,4.717,3.484,0.889&#xA;2300 to 2400,79322,39.248,10.551,7.141,6.141,6.469,4.653,3.402,0.891&#xA;2400 to 2500,111867,38.394,10.398,7.013,6.086,6.294,4.542,3.168,0.893&#xA;2500 to 2600,92225,38.308,10.396,6.972,6.082,6.344,4.515,3.104,0.896&#xA;2600 to 2700,33193,39.340,10.565,7.061,6.295,6.579,4.630,3.318,0.891&#xA;2700 to 2800,4805,40.938,10.945,7.221,6.725,6.930,4.726,3.494,0.895&#xA;2800 to 2900,363,38.865,11.311,6.879,6.284,6.160,4.391,2.983,0.857&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="412" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-09-21T13:37:10.417" LastActivityDate="2019-09-21T13:37:10.417" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1118" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1063" CreationDate="2012-07-26T23:25:26.167" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;A particularly unpleasant pawn check happened to me in a tournament during the endgame. My opponent's pawn took my recently advanced g-pawn en passant delivering check to my king and attacking my rook. The pawn was defended.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd completely forgotten about en passant so hadn't spotted this winning move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="350" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-09-21T17:24:43.143" LastActivityDate="2019-09-21T17:24:43.143" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1119" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1130" CreationDate="2012-07-27T06:46:51.367" Score="6" ViewCount="1747" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am very curious as to how stronger players react to encountering weaker players in a tournament (say, more than 200 rating points below themselves).  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Specific questions that come to mind:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is it typically an indication that you will have an easy win?  Or do you worry that you will have a tough game nevertheless, and lose an opportunity for an easy win / rating, etc?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Does the stage of the tournament make a difference in the above?  E.g. encountering a lower rated player towards the end of a tournament may mean that they are particularly on form.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What is your strategy to get the most out of these games?  Do you vary your style (say, switch from calm to aggressive, or play safely for a sure win / draw, or do you just try to stay with your normal style)?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd be interested in answers regardless of your actual rating (it is the relative difference in rating which is important), although it would be useful to give an indication of the broad range that your rating occupies (say, e.g. 1700 to 1900, or 2200 to 2400).  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Update:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks for the answers so far, everyone.  It's given a pretty good insight into the psychology of the situation, and I will accept one of the answers soon.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Update 2:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just to clarify the question a bit, judging from the comment and some of the answers, it wasn't too clear.  The intention was to find out what goes through the mind of a player when they are paired with someone who is considered weaker than them (with the example being a difference of &gt; 200 rating points).  Do they anticipate an easy win and relax, or feel stressed that they are encountering someone who's on fire, and will be playing their best against them?  How does this affect their game plan, and specifically, what would they do (on the board) to ensure a good outcome (preferably a win?).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most of the answers seem to be along the lines of &quot;do not underestimate the opponent&quot; and &quot;play your usual game&quot;, with a bit of &quot;experiment with different play styles&quot;, which does actually answer my question.  Thanks to everyone for contributing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="412" LastEditorUserId="412" LastEditDate="2012-07-30T11:45:07.720" LastActivityDate="2020-08-19T04:25:22.027" Title="How do strong players react to being paired with a (much) weaker player in a tournament?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;tournament&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="2" ClosedDate="2012-07-30T19:44:58.690" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1120" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1119" CreationDate="2012-07-27T11:24:31.300" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think this answer applies to all types of competitions (individual or team).  In your scenario, I am usually the weaker player, so I can speak for that side, but on ocassion, I am the stronger player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is it typically an indication that you will have an easy win? Or do&#xA;  you worry that you will have a tough game nevertheless, and lose an&#xA;  opportunity for an easy win / rating, etc?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think this has to do with your confidence level.  If you lack confidence, then that is one problem all together, but if you are overly confident and think you have an easy win, then you could run into problems. I think the best approach would be to remain confident and except a tough game no matter what.  As a weaker player playing a stronger player, I tend to play better because I really want to beat the stronger player.  If I lose, I usually don't put to much into it because I just use the excuse &quot;he/she was rated higher, so it's no big deal, it was meant to happen&quot;, but I know this way of thinking is not good.  If I was the stronger player and I won, I would have the similar way of thinking in that &quot;it was meant to happen&quot;, but if I lost, I would be pulling my hair wondering why I lost or saying to myself, &quot;how could I lose to a lower rated player?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Does the stage of the tournament make a difference in the above? E.g.&#xA;  encountering a lower rated player towards the end of a tournament may&#xA;  mean that they are particularly on form.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Absolutely,  if you encounter a weaker player at the end of a tournament stage, the weaker player is probably full of confidence, so you be on top of your game and not take anything for granted.  This should apply to all stages though, not just the very end.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What is your strategy to get the most out of these games? Do you vary&#xA;  your style (say, switch from calm to aggressive, or play safely for a&#xA;  sure win / draw, or do you just try to stay with your normal style)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a stronger player playing a weaker player, I have tendency to play more haphazardly and aggressive thinking the weaker player will just blunder, this comes back and bites me because I am usually the one that blunders.  As the weaker player playing the strong player, I usually play more slowly and carefully and analyze each move the other player makes because I am really trying to win but also trying to learn at the same time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think at the end it all boils down to any given game any given tournament anything can happen.  Just like the saying in football, &quot;Any given Sunday&quot;. Whoever your opponent is, weaker, stronger, equal, every game should be approached with confidence and the will and want to win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastActivityDate="2012-07-27T11:24:31.300" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1121" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1119" CreationDate="2012-07-27T11:39:04.080" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not a strong player (1850), but to me one of the more intimidating circumstances is meeting a 'lower ranked' junior towards the end of the tournament with say 3.5/4. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Clearly they deserve respect, and are very much of an unknown. Juniors also tend to be very keen on the latest book developments so opening choice can be even more critical.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="350" LastActivityDate="2012-07-27T11:39:04.080" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1122" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1125" CreationDate="2012-07-27T11:51:10.060" Score="23" ViewCount="4225" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm in two minds here. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The good sportsman says you should always let your opponent know (maybe limited to once per game). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The more hard-nosed part of me says that managing the clock is part of the game and rules like anything else. If you are playing seriously then you should treat the clock no differently to for example, the 'touch-move' rule and expect no help from your opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does it matter whether one is playing a club game or a tournament with prize money at stake?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="350" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-03-21T20:10:01.730" LastActivityDate="2019-02-17T16:45:38.320" Title="Should you let your opponent know if they have forgotten to press their clock?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;etiquette&gt;&lt;chess-clocks&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1123" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="421" CreationDate="2012-07-27T12:03:51.817" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Once you have learnt the moves of the game, in my opinion it's time to have some fun and start playing lots of games, gain some experience and catch the chess 'bug'! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A good way to do this would be to search online for your local chess club and go along a few times.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once you have the 'bug', then you have more motivation for serious study later. In my opinion, in the early days, the best way to learn is to play lots of games, preferably against stronger players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Try to be ego-less, you are likely to lose a lot of the time!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Keep a chess notebook with the score of the game and another page for notes where you record a single thing that you can learn from the played game. If there isn't anything obvious to you, see if you can get a stronger player to go through your game with you and suggest things that you could work on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="350" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T16:26:23.030" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T16:26:23.030" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1124" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="218" CreationDate="2012-07-27T12:13:15.980" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you are interested in the history of this opening, there is a very interesting article &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.edinburghchessclub.co.uk/ecchist2.htm&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; on the Edinburgh Chess Club's website. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It tells of the series of correspondence games between Edinburgh Chess Club and London Chess club commencing in 1824, when it is believed the Scotch opening was first played. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the 1820's, the moves had to be relayed by horse and carriage, with moves taking up to a week to travel between London and Edinburgh.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="350" LastEditorUserId="350" LastEditDate="2012-07-27T12:23:02.547" LastActivityDate="2012-07-27T12:23:02.547" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1125" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1122" CreationDate="2012-07-27T12:47:53.617" Score="21" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my personal opinion, if you have noticed that your opponent has forgotten to hit their clock, the unwritten rules of good sportsmanship dictate that you should advise your opponent of such. It can become distracting to both players, though, if you have to do this more than twice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the real question comes down to the legal technicalities. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Are you even allowed to make your move before your opponent hits his/her clock?&lt;/strong&gt; The USCF rules, at least, are not very clear about this. But it does not seem to be illegal at all. Many people feel it is bad form to move before your opponent has pushed the clock, but such a rule would be unenforceable from a practical perspective. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;What about in sudden death?&lt;/strong&gt; Tournament Directors and Arbiters are generally directed to not interrupt the game to point out illegal moves when in sudden death. So even if this were a rule, it likely would be set aside in sudden death.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other than information about time delays and time controls here is what the USCF says about the clock:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;6.) Except for pressing the clock, neither player should touch the clock except:&#xA;   6a.) To straighten it.   &#xA;   6b.) If a player knocks over the clock a penalty may be assessed.   &#xA;   6c.) If your opponent’s clock does not tick you may press his side down and&#xA;        re-press your side; however, if this procedure is unsatisfactory, please&#xA;        call for a director.   &#xA;   6d.) Each player must always be allowed to press the clock after their move is made.   &#xA;   6e.) A player should not keep a hand on or hover over the clock.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Back in &lt;a href=&quot;http://main.uschess.org/content/view/8476/456/&quot;&gt;2008 there was a bit of a controversy&lt;/a&gt; about these questions regarding the clock. For the most part things have just been left up in the air. So in summary, it is not your responsibility to advise your opponent, many people feel it is good form to do so. But if it appears that your opponent is habitually forgetting to press the click, I would just continue on with the game and not advise him or her more than twice. There is no reason that this should interfere with your enjoyment of the game and ability to concentrate. Ultimately, in the USCF, the rules put the onus on the individual to press his own clock.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Kasparov v. Karpov, 1987&lt;/strong&gt; (pointed out by Tony Ennis) from the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.apnewsarchive.com/1987/Kasparov-s-Lapse-And-Loss-Surprises-Chess-Experts/id-d00b24ebff5eede461c2587317bcef62&quot;&gt;AP Archives&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;For almost three minutes, members of Kasparov's delegation looked on&#xA;  helplessly as his time slowly ticked away. Under the rules, neither&#xA;  they nor the match arbiter could warn Kasparov of his mistake. When he&#xA;  finally noticed, Kasparov had less than a minute left for 14 moves. As&#xA;  he desperately played move after move, Karpov closed in with a&#xA;  crushing mating attack. &quot;It's really a very bad psychological shock,&quot;&#xA;  Spanish chess writer Fernando Urias said. &quot;Kasparov has not only lost&#xA;  right at the start of the championship, but he also lost playing with&#xA;  the advantage of white.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="41" LastEditorUserId="41" LastEditDate="2012-08-01T13:46:11.303" LastActivityDate="2012-08-01T13:46:11.303" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1126" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1119" CreationDate="2012-07-27T13:21:56.160" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would say, to maximize your advantage, make it a &quot;long distance&quot; race. That is, the advantage of your greater ability will prevail unless you make a bad early mistake.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Capablanca, a world champion once lost a piece on move 9 against a much weaker master. He never recovered, and resigned on move 53. So don't let the weaker player steer the game into unfamiliar lines, perhaps one where he has &quot;booked up&quot; and you haven't.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is similar to the answer I received to my own question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/327/how-can-one-get-the-best-possible-result-against-a-player-of-very-different-stre&quot;&gt;How can one get the best possible result against a player of very different strength?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.193" LastActivityDate="2012-07-27T13:21:56.160" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1127" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1122" CreationDate="2012-07-27T14:05:25.860" Score="17" Body="&lt;p&gt;We are all humans and humans make mistakes. Including forgetting to press the clock when playing chess. Even top players. Personally, I was very impressed when I've read what Botvinnik did in such a situation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The following is my free translation from Russian:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In Nottingham (&lt;em&gt;Nottingham tournament, 1936&lt;/em&gt;) I didn't make any difference between my former countrymen - Alekhine and Bogoljubov (&lt;em&gt;first one emigrated to France, second one - to Germany. Both were labeled as &quot;traitors&quot; by Soviet propaganda machine, Bogoljubov was said to be a Nazi supporter even&lt;/em&gt;) - and other players. During our game Bogoljubov made a move and forgot to press the clock, I instantly told him about that. &quot;Was?&quot; did he ask in German (unfortunately, he wasn't thinking in Russian anymore), then said thanks and pressed the clock. Perhaps, Bogoljubov appreciated my sportsmanship and in last round resisted against the Cuban grandmaster, making a draw against him, which allowed me to share the first place with Capablanca himself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This may be from the book referenced on Wikipedia as &quot;Botvinnik, M.M. (2000). Neat, K.. ed. Botvinnik's Best Games Volume 1: 1925–1941. Moravian Chess. ISBN 807189317.&quot;, though I've read this in a Russian book named &quot;Analitical and critical works 1923-1941&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="419" LastActivityDate="2012-07-27T14:05:25.860" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1128" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1119" CreationDate="2012-07-27T14:39:08.707" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you define player weakness in terms of low rating only, expect unpleasant surprises. It is a good idea to consider the psychological profile of the &quot;weaker&quot; player. Some players play weaker after being defeated. Some keep playing at the same level. Paradoxically, there are players who play stronger after being defeated. A classical example is the young Alekhine playing in the St. Petersburg 1914 chess tournament. Conventionally, he could be considered a &quot;weaker&quot; player compared to other players in that tournament. In first round during finals, Alekhine lost to Lasker. At that point Alekhine was on the last place among finalists, by amount of points during preliminaries. He was a young and not very experienced master. Many would get frustrated in such a situation, yet Alekhine won his next game against Tarrasch. In second round, Alekhine lost to Lasker again. And after that he won against Tarrasch one more time, literally destroying him. So he played his best games immediately after being defeated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="419" LastActivityDate="2012-07-27T14:39:08.707" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1129" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="218" CreationDate="2012-07-27T15:08:49.767" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Other users have pointed out that this is called the &lt;strong&gt;Scotch Game&lt;/strong&gt;.  A simple google search would have provided that,  but I just wanted to point out some of my experience playing as&#xA;white since I have tried to play this opening every chance I get (well mostly every chance)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't believe it used as much on the professional stage, but more at an amateur or club-level.  I have noted a few things while playing:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Since it is not played often, you can definitely catch someone off&#xA;guard and this is especially good if someone does know the opening&#xA;and does not know what the correct response should be.  Normally, I have seen that if    someone knows the correct response (or the best response), it is usually an equal game.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If the move order continues &lt;code&gt;3... exd4 4. Nxd4 Nxd4 5. Qxd4&lt;/code&gt;, I&#xA;usually end up winning as white since white has developed the queen to&#xA;the center and has the pawn on &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; while back has virtually no&#xA;development and now has to catch up.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If black does not do &lt;code&gt;4... Nxd4&lt;/code&gt;, but instead does something like&#xA;&lt;code&gt;4... Bc5 5. Nxc6 Qf6&lt;/code&gt;, black I believe is very good here in that&#xA;they threaten checkmate on &lt;code&gt;f2&lt;/code&gt; and they are going to win the knight&#xA;back on &lt;code&gt;c6&lt;/code&gt; with usually &lt;code&gt;bxc6&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;dxc6&lt;/code&gt;, or &lt;code&gt;Qxc6&lt;/code&gt; although this is&#xA;not as good of a move as the others.  The advice I have been given is&#xA;usually you want to capture towards the center.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If black decides to play &lt;code&gt;3... d6&lt;/code&gt; to support the &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt; pawn, things&#xA;can go down hill very quickly, for example white can play &lt;code&gt;4. Bb5&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;pinning the knight, so &lt;code&gt;3... d6&lt;/code&gt; is not a good move for black. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In a nutshell, I  have noticed that the Scotch leads to very open game and can be semi-aggressive.  If you like this type of game, I would say it is definitely an opening to explore and learn as it is a lot of fun to play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastEditorUserId="12" LastEditDate="2012-10-02T03:59:25.417" LastActivityDate="2012-10-02T03:59:25.417" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1130" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1119" CreationDate="2012-07-27T15:41:28.137" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the best thing you can do when playing a player that is rated below you is forget about the ratings, and play the person across from you, not their rating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The last thing you want to do is this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hmmm.... If i make this not very strong move, my weak opponent has an&#xA;opportunity to make this blunder (and I am sure that they will), and I&#xA;get to win a game right away with a pretty tactic, and if he or she&#xA;plays properly I'll outplay him or her later anyway because I am&#xA;stronger. So I will go for it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The above is a recipe for disaster. I know from experience.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, I don't think that 200 point gap is very big. I believe that the weaker player is expected to score 25% (one win in four games or two draws in four games).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="307" LastEditorUserId="307" LastEditDate="2020-08-19T04:25:22.027" LastActivityDate="2020-08-19T04:25:22.027" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1131" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-07-27T22:32:01.970" Score="5" ViewCount="589" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know that &lt;a href=&quot;https://twitter.com/chessninja&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Mig Greengard&lt;/a&gt; used to have the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessninja.com/whitebelt/samples/036whitebelt.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;VisualEyes column&lt;/a&gt; in &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessninja.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess Ninja&lt;/a&gt;. In that column you were given a position and then a list of moves (say 3 or 4 moves forward) and then you were asked to solve the tactics problem from the position resulting from those moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there any books or other resources with positions that offer a similar experience?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An example might be like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/fW8zX.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;7. Qb3 Qe7 &#xA;8. Nc3 c6 &#xA;9. Bg5 b5&#xA;10...&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White to move and win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="41" LastEditorUserId="41" LastEditDate="2012-07-28T02:38:11.483" LastActivityDate="2012-07-28T02:38:11.483" Title="Specialized tactics books to improve position analysis?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;books&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1132" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1131" CreationDate="2012-07-28T01:42:11.290" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Larry Evans authored &quot;What's the Best Move&quot; in Chess Life for years.  It is what you describe - a position with multiple guess answers.  You're supposed to choose the right one, and say why.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He published a &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/B0006C4UX0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;book with the same name&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2012-07-28T01:42:11.290" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1133" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1119" CreationDate="2012-07-28T01:47:05.183" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;You never want to under-estimate an opponent - you only have to drop a piece to lose to someone 300 or 400 points lower.  That being said, I don't mind playing weakies and getting an easy kill because the next round... &lt;strong&gt;I'm&lt;/strong&gt; probably going to be the weakie. So it all comes out in the wash.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have to admit I experiment on C players. Not to see what I can get away with as such, but to try new things, be uncommonly aggressive, or sac a piece when it would be fatal to do so against a peer.  I have nearly been up-ended more than once, of course, but that's the risk and frankly half the fun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2012-07-28T03:27:58.677" LastActivityDate="2012-07-28T03:27:58.677" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1135" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1112" CreationDate="2012-07-28T15:46:04.473" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It would help to know the motivation of the gambiteer.  It never occurred to me to game the Swiss system, or that it was even gameable.  Does the gambiteer want prize money?  Rating points?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've seen far too many Swiss systems at the class level where the winner had a perfect score.  It's hard to believe that the goal is to win the tournament when the gambiteer voluntarily loses 1/2 point.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's start off by agreeing that surely, it is possible to get an easy 2nd and 3rd round if a player honestly loses or draws in the first round.  The question becomes, can a cheater manipulate the system in a meaningful way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, let's assume for the SG (Swiss Gambit) to work:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1. it's a class-level tournament (my world.)      &#xA;2. all players have the exact same rating.&#xA;3. the ratings are accurate.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't believe the SG would yield a positive result in this case; at best, the gambiteer would play people who might be off their games.  However, it's much more likely he'd just be playing someone who lost.  At the class level the games are almost always decisive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus, I draw the conclusion that the SG only works dependably if there's a wide range of rated players.  In large tournaments where players are grouped by class (D and under, C, B, A, Expert) I can't imagine a measurable result; the maximum difference between ratings is 200 points.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, I posit:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1. it's a class-level tournament (my world.)      &#xA;2. the brackets must include players of wildly different ratings&#xA;3. the ratings are accurate&#xA;4. the point of cheating is to get prize money&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;#1 implies draws are rare.  This becomes important once the ratings are widely distributed.  If the gambiteer secures the only draw, in round 1, he'll almost certainly end up playing in the &quot;0-wins&quot; bracket since the only other player with a draw would be his opponent and you can't be paired twice in a Swiss.  And because of #2, the &quot;0-wins&quot; bracket will contain mostly lower rated players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;#2 implies a small tournament where there aren't enough players to fill out class-specific brackets.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;#3 is a dicey assumption since I'd expect a cheater to sandbag his rating.  I'd also expect a cheater to also play with a cheesy style designed to knock out less experienced players.  For example I've seen players talk during play, make really fast moves in an attempt to psychologically rush the opponent, etc. This is probably not germane to the discussion, however.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;#4 is my assumption of the motivation.  This means the gambiteer wants to win the remainder of his games and be alone at the top.  It doesn't do much good to get a cut of 3rd place with 5 other people.  Because it's probably a small tournament (else #2 may not be true) the gambiteer needs very good score. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As I work through this, I begin to understand the SG.  The SG exploits the Swiss method of&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;a. pairing people with the same scores&#xA;b. not allowing duplicate pairing, and&#xA;c. splitting the brackets in half by rating and pair the top of the top with the top of the bottom.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the gambiteer scores a factional point in rd 1 in the hope he's always paired with someone in the group with the lesser score.  So in round 2, he's paired with the &quot;0/1&quot; group. Further, he'll be paired with a player whose rating puts him in the middle of that group.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Consider the last round of a 5-round Swiss: The gambiteer, at 3.5 points, will be playing a middling 3.0 scorer. Compare this to the others at the top - two 4's battling it out.  The Gambiteer is going to probably come out on top of one of them.  The &lt;em&gt;worst case&lt;/em&gt; scenario is that the 4's draw and all three of them share 1st, 2nd, and 3rd places.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Conclusion #1: I'm convinced it is easily possible to materially manipulate the 2nd round of tournaments that meet criteria #1 and #2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Conclusion #2 - the SG is real in theory if dicey in practice.  Draws, drop-outs, and the leeway allowed to the TDs can ruin the gambiteer's day.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Solution - group draws with the category above them, not below them.  This will stop the SG in its tracks.   That is, in rd 2, the gambiteer would be playing winners, not losers.  Further, because of their scores, the gambiteer would be playing someone at the bottom of the top half of the group.  Probably not the intent and certainly not a path to a prize-by-cheating.  In fact the first-round draw works against him now as he always gets paired up.  This may be too harsh.  It could be in rds 2 and 4 the fractional scores would get paired up and in rd 3 they would get paired down.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2012-07-28T15:52:49.133" LastActivityDate="2012-07-28T15:52:49.133" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1136" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-07-29T02:04:25.067" Score="6" ViewCount="1113" Body="&lt;p&gt;This question is a sequel to &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/137/has-ai-changed-opening-theory-and-if-so-how&quot;&gt; an earlier one &lt;/a&gt;. Just as in the openings, computers dominate endgames.  &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&amp;amp;rct=j&amp;amp;q=&amp;amp;esrc=s&amp;amp;source=web&amp;amp;cd=2&amp;amp;ved=0CG4QFjAB&amp;amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FEndgame_tablebase&amp;amp;ei=NJcUUP_JEYnG6AH494HAAQ&amp;amp;usg=AFQjCNHonUCR25059VSw4B5eYIJ5tAZOJg&amp;amp;sig2=or7QnMJkpHPE583udnm-vw&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt; Endgame tablebases &lt;/a&gt; provide an exhaustive analysis of endgame positions with a small number of chessmen. The undesirable side-effect is that  optimal endgame moves  are often &lt;a href=&quot;http://tiny.cc/odq6hw&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;extremely difficult &lt;/a&gt; for an endgame-expert to understand (see the last post by Bill Dubuque in the link above). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;How has this phenomenon changed grandmasters' preparation against computers?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, they may not allow a game to continue till the endgame when playing against a computer, unlike a human opponent. Or they may avoid endgames with complex variations. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that the endgame allows exhaustive search, and lacks exploitable phenomena like the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horizon_effect&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;horizon effect &lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="67" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2013-03-29T17:53:09.257" Title="How do grandmasters prepare against computer endgames?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1137" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1164" CreationDate="2012-07-29T05:35:28.470" Score="5" ViewCount="414" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm somewhat new to chess. I've been playing on and off for years but it is only in the last few months I have been playing with an increased frequency and learning about openings, tactics and such.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've never liked playing with a clock. I hate the extra pressure and feel like I don't have enough time to think things through. I think this is especially true for blitz type games, which I don't even consider playing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems to me that when you play for speed, you are relying on rote memorization rather than overall strategy. This would seem especially true for the blitz type games, where a player will choose the best move from memory in response to the move the opponent made.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Without the timer you have a chance to consider the overall board, possible moves your opponent will make and a greater opportunity to play strategically.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there any truth to this type of thinking? Is it just a matter of opinion? Are blitz games more than just rote memorization?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="73" LastActivityDate="2012-07-31T15:07:41.010" Title="Is a timed game less strategic than a non-timed game?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1138" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1137" CreationDate="2012-07-29T09:06:37.947" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;As far as I know, clock was introduced to combat abuse regarding time. So it's a needed thing. You say you don't like to play with a clock. And you immediately add about blitz. So it isn't clock that's the problem. It is that certain limited amount of time that makes you uncomfortable. To deal with this, I suggest you to just play longer games (though, with clock). I believe I understand your problem, since in some situations I feel exactly your pain: I am a slow thinker and I feel extremely stressed when I try to play chess with 10 minutes per game, but it becomes OK as soon as I get at least 15 minutes per game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While clock is a stress factor, as you correctly point out, it also has positive consequences. One of them is that when you think about a move - you &quot;float&quot; less between estimating the same variant over and over, thus wasting time. You learn to be disciplined and estimate each variant only once (and have a final look over the one you choose just before making the move on board).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="419" LastActivityDate="2012-07-29T09:06:37.947" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1139" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1137" CreationDate="2012-07-29T09:56:33.163" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think there's little truth to the idea that memorization plays a greater role in blitz than it does in longer time controls. When playing blitz, a player might tend be a bit more &quot;habitual&quot; in the opening stage than she would be when she can ponder a bit more, but in every game of chess (blitz or not) the point will come when memorization &lt;em&gt;can't&lt;/em&gt; be a factor because you're in brand new territory. In general, blitz isn't really a matter of memorization any more than slower play is, at least in the sense of specific memorized lines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Perhaps you mean something different by &quot;memorization.&quot; If you intend it to refer to reliance on an ingrained accumulation of typical patterns that arise in chess, then I would agree that it plays a large role in blitz chess, but it does so in slower play as well. And in fact the simple recognition of familiar patterns probably goes further than you think toward constituting &quot;strategic play&quot; in general.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The crux of the matter may be this: you write, &quot;It seems to me that when &lt;strong&gt;you&lt;/strong&gt; play for speed, &lt;strong&gt;you&lt;/strong&gt; are relying on rote memorization rather than overall strategy,&quot; but in your use of the universal you here, I think you're projecting your own blitz chess onto blitz chess in general. I don't mean this as a slight. Give even an &quot;ordinary&quot; master enough time to comfortably engage in some strategic thinking, say 30 minutes for the game. Now pit him against Aronian, giving the latter only 5 minutes. At worst, Aronian's going to be doing just fine in this contest. My point here is just that the time factor alone places no absolute limit on the potential strategic content of a game; it's a matter of who's doing it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only way I could engage in any kind of conversation with a Chinese speaker right now is if I were to memorize some phrases, but of course that doesn't mean that two Chinese speakers quickly prattling on with each other are relying on their memories to do so. At the moment, it may be that the only way you could imagine yourself proficiently &quot;speaking chess&quot; in the blitz setting would be from memory, but that can change. Someone like Aronian is essentially a &quot;native&quot; blitz chess speaker, while the rest of us are speaking a foreign tongue, but that doesn't mean we can't become fluent. I'm no great player, for instance, but even I craft actual plans during blitz (and occasionally successful ones).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2012-07-29T09:56:33.163" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1140" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1137" CreationDate="2012-07-29T12:58:06.440" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not convinced that better blitz players have memorized more of the game.   While chess (and life in general) favors people who know more, there's a considerable diminishing return on memorization.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Faster time controls favor players with more talent for calculating.  A faster time control will also favor a more dynamic, attacking style of play.  Not many people have time for a 60 move positional game in blitz.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2012-07-29T12:58:06.440" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1141" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1142" CreationDate="2012-07-29T14:38:57.760" Score="6" ViewCount="423" Body="&lt;p&gt;Consider the following position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/aM0SL.png&quot; alt=&quot;Bishops checkmate&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are the possibilities for checkmating the white king within 16 moves?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="451" LastEditorUserId="451" LastEditDate="2012-07-31T08:09:04.733" LastActivityDate="2012-07-31T08:09:04.733" Title="What are the possibilities for checkmating with two bishops here?" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;combinations&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1142" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1141" CreationDate="2012-07-29T15:47:28.693" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I put the black K at h1, which seems fairly worst-case, Stockfish says mate in 16.   This doesn't necessarily mean it's the fastest way, or even completely accurate; chess engines without end-game tables can be very awful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's the solution.  Good chance of being accurate ;-)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[FEN &quot;3K4/8/8/8/3b4/3b4/8/7k b - - 0 1&quot;]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1. ... Kg2 2. Ke7 Bc4 3. Kd6 Kg3 4. Kc6 Kf4 5. Kd6 Bf2&#xA;6. Kc6 Ke5 7. Kd7 Bb5+ 8. Ke7 Bh4+ 9. Kf7 Kf5 10. Kg7 Bg5&#xA;11. Kf7 Bf6 12. Kg8 Kg6 13. Kf8 Bg5 14. Kg8 Bh6 15. Kh8 Bg7+&#xA;16. Kg8 Bc4#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Again, I started the black K on h1.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am not surprised. Consider that the K needs 8 moves to get all the way across the board.  The adjacent bishops might need 8 more.  That's 16, so 9 moves remain for rearranging pieces.  No sweat.  B+N is harder.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2012-07-29T15:59:16.433" LastActivityDate="2012-07-29T15:59:16.433" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1143" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1161" CreationDate="2012-07-29T15:53:50.653" Score="16" ViewCount="1890" Body="&lt;p&gt;We've all worked tactics problems.  I can do those pretty well.  Yet I have never been able to pull off one of these amazing combinations in my games.  Not once.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These tactical situations don't arise from nowhere - they are created.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I had a bit of an epiphany recently.  I had viewed positional play as an alternative to Tal-like tactical play. You did one or the other, Karpov or Tal.  Now I don't think this is true.  Fischer said, &quot;Tactics arise from a superior position.&quot;  Now I think that positional play leads up to the combination by leaving the opponent no good squares.  When he moves on a bad square, a tactic likely appears.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would like you all to give me advice on how I can learn to find the moves before the combination.  I seriously think this is an enormous gap in my knowledge.  This is why my games are boring.  I shuffle my pieces without a clear plan, hoping for some combination to appear.  How can it, when I do not actively seek to make it happen?  When I win, it's because I defend well and the attacker destroys himself on me.  To make matters worse, when I realized I defend pretty well, I started concentrating on defenses that were solid.  A little is good, more is better, right??  This has probably only enabled me to strengthen my bad habits.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyway, please, save me from me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2015-08-01T10:53:32.880" Title="The moves leading to the winning combination" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1144" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1141" CreationDate="2012-07-29T17:00:41.270" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;This likely is not the answer you are looking for, but Jerry (A 2200+ USCF National Master) from the Chess Network has a nice video explaining the algorithmic approach to checkmate with two bishops.   I think it solves your problem in less than 25 moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uimbIq9h_7A&quot;&gt;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uimbIq9h_7A&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="101" LastActivityDate="2012-07-29T17:00:41.270" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1145" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1143" CreationDate="2012-07-29T17:04:10.067" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;One idea which helps a surprising amount when considering tactical possibilities is to look at what you are thinking about, and reverse the order of the moves.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you think you can checkmate the king by sacking the bishop first then the rook, try briefly considering the opposite, and then consider other permutations.  Doing this can make things clearer, especially if you are trying to calculate many moves deep.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="101" LastEditorUserId="101" LastEditDate="2015-07-24T14:30:31.667" LastActivityDate="2015-07-24T14:30:31.667" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1146" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1143" CreationDate="2012-07-29T18:28:33.813" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd say study some Alekhine. He is perhaps the best tactician before Tal and the best tactician ever IMHO (though, not flawless), since Tal was always somehow easygoing and missed Alekhine's steel willpower.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Amateurs would just praise Alekhine (he is known as the genius of combination, while Tal is known as the wizard of combination) and would judge him by the results of his games. Study some classical combination games played by Alekhine and commented by himself. You will often notice how he would invoke a reason for a possible combination (a weakened field, a material superiority on some board sector etc), how he'd start analyzing variants and find a defense, thus concluding that the combination is still premature. Then he'd make another preparation move. And at some point the position on the board just &quot;explodes&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="419" LastActivityDate="2012-07-29T18:28:33.813" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1147" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-07-29T19:07:37.010" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Evans Gambit is the opening given by the moves &lt;code&gt;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Bc5 4. b4&lt;/code&gt;, an aggressive variation of the Giuoco Piano. It is named after the Welsh mariner William Davies Evans, who introduced the opening to high-level play in the game &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1227672&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Evans-McDonnell (London 1826)&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-07-29T19:07:37.010" LastActivityDate="2012-07-29T19:07:37.010" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1148" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-07-29T19:07:37.010" Score="0" Body="The Evans Gambit is the opening given by the moves `1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Bc5 4. b4`, an aggressive variation of the Giuoco Piano." OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-07-29T19:07:37.010" LastActivityDate="2012-07-29T19:07:37.010" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1149" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-07-29T19:32:23.673" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Giuoco Pianissimo (Italian for &quot;quietest game&quot;) is the opening given by the moves &lt;code&gt;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Bc5 4. d3&lt;/code&gt;. It is one variation of the Giuoco Piano (&quot;quiet game&quot;), which is characterized by the first three moves just given.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-07-29T19:32:23.673" LastActivityDate="2012-07-29T19:32:23.673" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1150" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-07-29T19:32:23.673" Score="0" Body="The Giuoco Pianissimo is the opening given by the moves `1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Bc5 4. d3`, a variation of the Giuoco Piano." OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-07-29T19:32:23.673" LastActivityDate="2012-07-29T19:32:23.673" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1151" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-07-29T20:43:09.653" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Pirc Defense is the opening given by the moves &lt;code&gt;1. e4 d6 2. d4 Nf6&lt;/code&gt;, with Black continuing by &lt;code&gt;... g6&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;... Bg7&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-07-29T20:43:09.653" LastActivityDate="2012-07-29T20:43:09.653" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1152" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-07-29T20:43:09.653" Score="0" Body="The Pirc Defense is the opening given by the moves `1. e4 d6 2. d4 Nf6`, with Black continuing by `... g6` and `... Bg7`." OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-07-29T20:43:09.653" LastActivityDate="2012-07-29T20:43:09.653" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1153" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-07-29T21:00:07.853" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the realm of chess, retrograde analysis is prominent in the creation of &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endgame_tablebase&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;endgame tablebases&lt;/a&gt;, as well as in composed chess problems (known as &lt;em&gt;retros&lt;/em&gt;) in which the goal is to determine what move or sequence of moves immediately led up to a given position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-06-21T20:41:59.160" LastActivityDate="2017-06-21T20:41:59.160" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1154" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-07-29T21:00:07.853" Score="0" Body="Retrograde analysis is the method of deducing information by working backwards from a given position or outcome. This information can be about past positions of the same game, or may contain forward content, such as optimal play." OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="17363" LastEditDate="2019-01-09T14:45:24.480" LastActivityDate="2019-01-09T14:45:24.480" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1155" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-07-29T21:02:53.780" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Bullet chess is chess played at extremely fast time controls, typically 1 minute for the entire game (for each side).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-07-29T21:02:53.780" LastActivityDate="2012-07-29T21:02:53.780" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1156" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-07-29T21:02:53.780" Score="0" Body="Bullet chess is chess played at extremely fast time controls, typically 1 minute for the entire game (for each side)." OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-07-29T21:02:53.780" LastActivityDate="2012-07-29T21:02:53.780" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1157" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-07-29T21:36:21.960" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Bullet chess is chess played at extremely fast time controls, typically 1 minute for the entire game (for each side).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-07-29T21:36:21.960" LastActivityDate="2012-07-29T21:36:21.960" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1158" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-07-29T21:36:21.960" Score="0" Body="Bullet chess is chess played at extremely fast time controls, typically 1 minute for the entire game (for each side)." OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-07-29T21:36:21.960" LastActivityDate="2012-07-29T21:36:21.960" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1159" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1141" CreationDate="2012-07-29T23:22:03.747" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Endgame tablebases, which you can find at &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.k4it.de/index.php?topic=egtb&amp;amp;lang=en&quot;&gt;this website&lt;/a&gt;, will assure you that there is no placement of the Black King such that White can hang on for longer than sixteen moves if given the right to move first.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="396" LastActivityDate="2012-07-29T23:22:03.747" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1160" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1143" CreationDate="2012-07-30T08:10:32.550" Score="8" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I shuffle my pieces without a clear plan&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here lies the heart of your question, IMHO.&#xA;I'm not a GM, but I can tell you how I find my combinations during play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;Study the battlefield&quot;. Each opening has weak points. For example,&#xA;in the French Defense, Advance Variation, Black may have problems&#xA;with f7 and g7 pawns. Other example, in the Italian Game and many&#xA;gambits after 1. e4 the weak point for Black is f7. You should&#xA;always keep an eye on those spots, waiting for the right moment to&#xA;strike. Sometimes you can look for combinations related to those&#xA;squares (in the example above, a Queen exchange followed by a Black&#xA;King capture, then Nxf7 forking King and Rook), or try to exploit&#xA;other weaknesses when your opponent's pieces  overdefend those&#xA;squares. Of course, if you know where to watch you'll find those&#xA;combinations more easily.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;focus on every possible tactical problem your opponent may encounter. Then you'll spot them in the exact moment they appear. Does your opponent may be mated on the 8th rank? Does your opponent's Queen protect 2 vital squares at the same time? Does your opponent have a weakness and a hanging piece at the same time? And so on. Detect these situations, in 10-20% of the cases they may become the key for a combination.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;improve your position threatening something. If your goal is an aggressive play that might win a full point during the middlegame through a combination, you have to choose from many possible moves the one that make your position better AND threats an attack. If you are able to conduct your pieces well, then one of those threats will become the combination you search.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;when you're in great positional advantage, look for every possible way to worsen your opponent's position. If sacking a piece may crush a defense, don't exitate. Be careful, though: we're not Tal. :) If you find a safer way to win the game, DON'T force an attack.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I play always with these points in mind. I usually win my games during the middlegame, gaining decisive material advantage or even forcing a mate.&#xA;Of course you cannot forget the golden-rule: improve your position at every move. Don't go chasing combinations that do not exist. But I think you're not that kind of player. :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A final note: since you're a good defender, you may play solid games waiting for your opponent to destroy himself with his own hands. Petrosjan became World Champion that way. :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="279" LastActivityDate="2012-07-30T08:10:32.550" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1161" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1143" CreationDate="2012-07-30T11:12:50.180" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your situation sounds a lot like my own - in the past, I tended to use a very &quot;defensive&quot; style of play, preferring closed openings, subtle position play, etc.  If the opponent made a mistake and I could win a pawn with some clever tactics, it'd be enough to win the game, most of the time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This approach is probably perfectly fine if you are aiming for a respectable rating (as we've often heard, simply not blundering will see you through to the 1800s), but for some reason, I began to lose interest in chess (probably from too many draws and eeked out wins).  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After a break of several years, I started playing &quot;strictly for fun&quot;, with friends in person, and online.  This has given me the opportunity to experiment more with play style, and I found out that I actually prefer an aggressive style.  It was surprising for me just how often this style of play would lead to the opportunity for exciting tactics.  My experience on making the transition:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Play unrated games:&lt;/strong&gt; It's difficult to experiment (wildly) with your play style while trying to play your strongest game.  You should still review your games and try to learn from them, but you shouldn't worry if you lose.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Stop playing drawish openings:&lt;/strong&gt; Some openings are simply more suitable for aggressive play than others.  Prefer open games versus closed ones.  As white, you have a tempo advantage, and you should try to make the most of it.  As black, you can try to unbalance the game, as opposed to simply letting white run the show (e.g. Sicilian Defense).  I've always found the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danish_Gambit&quot;&gt;Danish Gambit&lt;/a&gt; to be a wonderful opening.  Get someone to play this opening with from the &quot;Accepted&quot; position, to appreciate what an aggressive style can lead to - you're two full pawns down, but have a huge advantage in development (aside - unfortunately, the Schlechter variation is strong for black, and almost everyone knows it nowadays). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Don't use your aggressive style on computers:&lt;/strong&gt;  Perhaps it's just me, but computers nowadays are way too good at tactics.  They see things coming a mile away, and simply won't walk into your clever tactics, unless they are 6+ moves ahead.  It's not fun to keep getting floored by the computer.  Humans make mistakes more often, but more importantly, do not see every possible combination to at least 4 moves (unlike computers).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Piece position is important:&lt;/strong&gt;  This goes without saying, but having the pieces there when you need them makes all the difference.  Attacks are often won or lost on a single tempo difference, so don't get tricked into giving up tempo, and try to get some from your opponent!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Build pressure:&lt;/strong&gt; If in doubt, build pressure, complicate the situation.  Look for a weak spot, and start aiming pieces at it.  Again, you'd be surprised at how often a tense situation can lead to a brilliant combo / quick win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These are all the basic, non-tactics related tips I have.  To reiterate, I think you should just play many games in a more aggressive style.  You will probably lose a lot at first, but you will also get a lot more practice in attacking, both strategically and tactically.  Eventually the results will come, and if you decide to switch back to a more defensive style, the lessons learned will stay with you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit:&lt;/strong&gt; To expand on the comment about playing against computers, I find that their simulation of &quot;weaker&quot; human players is quite badly done.  One well known program, for example, seems to change the player's heuristics in favour of different pieces (&quot;likes knights&quot;, etc), and throws in a few major blunders at lower levels, while playing 99% accurately most of the time, thinking many moves ahead, and having an excellent opening repertoire.  I don't really find this to be a realistic representation of a real player.  Setting the AI up yourself, to have a shorter think time than you (and to not think on your clock time) may work slightly better, although typically leads to weak endgame play.  In the end, it's more fun to just play against people, and with the internet, there's plenty of opportunity for that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="412" LastEditorUserId="412" LastEditDate="2012-07-30T12:03:58.810" LastActivityDate="2012-07-30T12:03:58.810" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1162" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1163" CreationDate="2012-07-31T09:56:00.767" Score="6" ViewCount="269" Body="&lt;p&gt;One of the lessons on the Chess.com site uses the Yusupov - Spiridonov match, with Black to play after &lt;code&gt;1.Nf6+&lt;/code&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;5rk1/pb3p1p/1pr5/8/2P1p1N1/qPQ1P3/4B1PP/3R2K1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Nf6+&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &quot;correct&quot; move to make here is for the rook to take the knight, which is fine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What I didn't understand was the explanation of why that is the correct move:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Had he moved his King to h8 White would have played Rd1-a1 after which&#xA;  Black loses his Queen to a discovered check with the Knight on f6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can't see anyway that black would lose his queen. The knight moving will put the king in discovered check, but the only way I can see black losing his queen is if white sacrifices a rook.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What am I missing?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="73" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2013-10-30T20:40:53.800" LastActivityDate="2013-10-30T20:43:02.773" Title="Yusupov - Spiridonov training question" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;check&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1163" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1162" CreationDate="2012-07-31T10:24:43.133" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;After the moves &lt;code&gt;1. ... Kh8 2. Ra1&lt;/code&gt; from your diagram position, the black queen is attacked and the only &quot;safe&quot; squares it has available (where it wouldn't be immediately captured on the following move) are then c5, d6 and e7. The text you quoted is pointing out that no matter which of those the queen might move to, there is a discovered check by the knight which nabs the queen anyway:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;2. ... Qc5 3. Nxe4+&lt;/code&gt; (or &lt;code&gt;3. Nd7+&lt;/code&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;2. ... Qd6 3. Nxe4+&lt;/code&gt; (or &lt;code&gt;3. Ne8+&lt;/code&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;2. ... Qe7 3. Nd5+&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At best for Black in those lines, he's losing his queen for knight. Because of that, after &lt;code&gt;1. ... Kh8 2. Ra1&lt;/code&gt;, Black could instead bite the bullet and play &lt;code&gt;2. ... Qxa1 3. Qxa1&lt;/code&gt;, hoping to &quot;only&quot; give up queen for rook (and I think that's the line you have in mind at the end of your question). Now as it turns out, from that position Black actually has no way to avoid a further loss of rook for knight (again because of discovered check threats that still remain), and so would ultimately end up with a net loss (starting from your diagram position) of queen for knight in that line too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;5rk1/pb3p1p/1pr5/8/2P1p1N1/qPQ1P3/4B1PP/3R2K1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Nf6+ Kh8 2.Ra1 Qxa1+ (2...Qc5 3.Nxe4+) (2...Qd6 3.Nxe4+) (2...Qe7 3.Nd5+) 3.Qxa1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2013-10-30T20:43:02.773" LastActivityDate="2013-10-30T20:43:02.773" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1164" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1137" CreationDate="2012-07-31T11:54:08.413" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's difficult to write a short answer to this question, but I will try.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, the human mind is incredibly powerful at pattern matching.  If you play chess for a long time, you will develop very strong &quot;gut-feel&quot; for a variety of positions - heuristics, if you will.  These are shortcuts that your brain feels are particularly applicable to chess, and allow you to forego much calculation to arrive at the same conclusion.  They are certainly incomplete, or only consider parts of the board.  E.g. I have a gut feel for any two pieces placed so that a pawn could fork them; it certainly doesn't take into account the rest of the board.  It is just one of hundreds of little &quot;tools&quot; I (subconsciously) use to make my calculations more efficient.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, you refer to this as &lt;strong&gt;rote memorisation&lt;/strong&gt;, but I'd prefer to call it &lt;strong&gt;pattern matching&lt;/strong&gt;, since the former implies a learned response, whereas my definition does not.  Your actual question was whether the relative importance of this skill in rapid games leads to less time spent strategising.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would argue that this is not necessarily the case.  In my own experience, long games are dominated by extensive, deep calculations (i.e. &lt;em&gt;tactics&lt;/em&gt;), not strategy.  Strategy is definitely present, but I don't think I've ever spent hours thinking about strategy in any one game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you shorten the game, you are taking away the possibility of truly deep calculations; players need to rely on extremely quick (and selective) calculations, guided by their gut feelings and learned patterns.  This &lt;strong&gt;may in fact lead to a larger percentage of their time being used to strategise&lt;/strong&gt;, although it's difficult to say for sure.  In any case, I would argue against the fact that blitz games are all about learned responses (although you absolutely must have high levels of pattern matching, to stay competitive).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Aside:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To be fair, I should mention the the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;During a blitz game, much of the opening may literally come from rote memorisation.  The set of openings is huge, but still small enough that you can learn many to this level.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You often see a complex, 5-move exchange take place in seconds, making it seem like rote memorisation is guiding the entire thing.  In fact, what's probably happening is that both players have (extremely rapidly) calculated that they would like to see this exchange through to a certain point before it began.  There is no use second-guessing themselves through the exchange, so they make the moves as rapidly as possible.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;During the endgame, rote memorisation can come back into it again, though to a lesser degree than during the opening.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Again, I think it's important to note that even though these seem to suggest your initial comment was correct, I don't think it necessarily means that there's less strategy, overall.  I'm sure there's less strategy - the game is much, much shorter - but there's less everything.  Percentage wise, who knows.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="412" LastActivityDate="2012-07-31T11:54:08.413" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1165" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1137" CreationDate="2012-07-31T11:58:57.227" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm posting a second answer here in order both to distill some of the back-and-forth that's gone on in comments, shedding light on where disagreements lie, and to perhaps to answer the question thereby.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I believe that the reason for the gulf between how Sonny has been thinking/talking about the question on the one hand, and how folks like myself have been on the other, is really just because there are two separate questions here which got more intertwined than they should have been in the original post. What I mean is this: two questions we might wonder about are&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is there less strategy in blitz chess than in slow games?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Does memorization play a greater role in blitz games than slow games?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;These are distinct questions&lt;/em&gt;, and a Yes answer to either one wouldn't necessarily imply a Yes answer to the other. But these two questions got rolled up into one big one in the question's text, and I think the root of all disagreements thus far is that Sonny came into the game with two background assumptions that some (e.g. me) think are inaccurate:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;First, that the answer to (2) is Yes.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Second, that that goes hand in hand with the answer to (1) being Yes.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is evidenced, for instance, by this comment of his: &quot;My question was whether or not a blitz game is less strategic than a game with longer time controls. &lt;strong&gt;Since it probably does rely on memorization to a greater degree, I think the answer is yes.&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; Thus when I suggested that the answer to (2) might be No, from Sonny's point of view that would seem like I'm also claiming that the answer to (1) is No. But I don't think that at all. So now, at the risk of beating a dead horse, I'm going to say my piece about each of these questions separately.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(1) Yes, absolutely, there is less strategy in blitz chess than in slow games. There's less time for strategizing, and so there's less of it. But there's also less time for calculation, and so there's lower quality tactical play than in slower games too. Really, blitz is just going to be lower quality chess in general since we require time to think through anything at all in life. This question can be answered that simply.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(2) Despite that, I maintain that the answer here is No, and that this matter has little bearing on (1). I don't have anything new to say on this that hasn't already been said in comments earlier. However much time you may have allotted for your chess game, a point is quickly (in terms of number of moves) going to come when you're in a brave new world and canned responses can't help. This is true in a 5-minute game or a 5-day game. Though this isn't a fair rhetorical move at all, I'll just end by saying that while you don't think so now, I believe you'll come to agree with this point as you accrue more chess playing experience.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2012-07-31T11:58:57.227" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1166" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1137" CreationDate="2012-07-31T15:07:41.010" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here's my problem with your question - You are somewhat new to the study of chess rather than just the playing of chess, and you have a host of experienced players that you are continually telling &quot;you're wrong&quot;. What answer are you looking for?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As alluded to already, yes, there is less tactical and strategic play the shorter the time control gets. What does come into play is NOT rote memorization, but the pattern matching through lots and lots of play and study.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance, when a certain pawn structure arises, you know some of the better ways to attack it, not because you've memorized it, but because you've seen and studied it in various games (regardless of opening).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, some people simply do better in blitz because it suits their style of play. Blitz does not lend itself readily to closed, complicated positions with minute positional changes. You simply don't have the time, and getting bogged down in that is a killer in a 2 or 5 minute game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know that when I first started studying chess, I sat there with a board in one hand and the MCO book in the other and tried to pick 6 or 7 openings to flat out memorize, and it is not as productive as you think. As soon as you deviate from the memorized line, you're lost. As you become more familiar with the INTENT of the openings, then you I suspect you will become more comfortable with the clock, and with faster play, because you will know what they are trying to accomplish. You can then play to block that objective while advancing your own.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, I really do advise you to make peace with the clock. Very rarely in tournament play (40/2, 20/1 typically) have I ever gotten into time trouble. Blitz is just fun, but if you obsess over the clock in any type of structure, then already your concentration is not on the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="394" LastActivityDate="2012-07-31T15:07:41.010" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1167" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1168" CreationDate="2012-08-01T15:32:53.353" Score="7" ViewCount="3457" Body="&lt;p&gt;So, now based upon the recommendation from this question, &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/1103/how-do-i-learn-to-understand-the-middlegame&quot;&gt;How do I learn to understand the middlegame?&lt;/a&gt;, I bought how to Reassess Your Chess. It's pretty interesting, but I am struggling some with visualizing the analysis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am used to some analysis, as I went through the course on &lt;a href=&quot;http://chesstactics.org&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chesstactics.org&lt;/a&gt;. However, this is usually only 2-4 moves long and doesn't generally include other variations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just getting through the first chapter took me a couple of hours. After each move I had to stop, visualize, consider, read the next move, stop, visualize, consider. It's slow moving. I can do it, but I am not very good at it, and I forget what he is talking about by the time I get through the analysis. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a good way to learn to be able to read this notation and &quot;see&quot; it without having to just pull out a board? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="390" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2013-02-18T10:10:30.033" Title="How do I learn to visualize algebraic notation?" Tags="&lt;notation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1168" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1167" CreationDate="2012-08-01T15:57:12.763" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think that improving your analysis and visualization skills is very important. I posted a question on this topic recently as well (&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/1107/how-can-one-improve-their-over-the-board-analysis-skills&quot;&gt;How can one improve their over-the-board analysis skills?&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But your question is more specific and I think you need to NOT try and study the &lt;em&gt;Reassess Your Chess&lt;/em&gt; book in your head. The material he covers is too complex to be followed mentally for a class player. Also, because your visualization skills are not well developed you are going to waste far too much time and energy on firming up the image of the board and not be able to dedicate enough of your mental CPU to actually digesting the ideas in the book.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Notice that I use the &lt;em&gt;Chess Success&lt;/em&gt; book in my visualization training. McDonald's book has diagrams every 5 to 8 moves and his analysis is very direct with shallow trees. It's really a great tool for doing visualization training. And even though I am fully able to follow the moves in this book and accurately draw the images I still go over each game with his analysis using a board after I do my training so that I am certain I have understood everything he has said.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You need to separate the idea of study and training. When you are studying a book like Silman's or Pachman's you need a physical chess board and a computer board as well to get the full benefit. Those types of books are for study. Use something simpler for visualization training.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.geocities.com/lifemasteraj/training.html#correct_study-method&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;is some advice&lt;/a&gt; from USCF Life Master &lt;a href=&quot;http://main.uschess.org/assets/msa_joomla/MbrDtlMain.php?10755751&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;A.J. Goldsby&lt;/a&gt; on how to study a chess book (from his &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.geocities.com/lifemasteraj/training.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Training Program&lt;/a&gt; page).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Many people think studying a chess book can be done by reading and&#xA;  occasionally looking at the diagrams. Nothing could be further from&#xA;  the truth!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The only correct way to study a chess book requires  AT LEAST  one&#xA;  chess set.  And a good little analysis set on the side. Maybe a&#xA;  magnetic set to boot. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Basically, to really get any real instruction from ANY chess book, you&#xA;  must set up the position and play through the example. (More than&#xA;  once.) NEVER (!)  (Even if you can play blindfold chess like me!!); &#xA;  think you can follow a series of moves in your head. Set up your board&#xA;  and  play through  every example  and every single variation!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;When I study, I often set up a chess board on my table. I have a&#xA;  little peg set off to one side, that I keep the current position on.&#xA;  And I also usually utilize one magnetic set. I play over every single&#xA;  move, line and variation. Often I will question a line, and spend a&#xA;  lot of time analyzing lines the author may not have even looked at.&#xA;  (As a Master, I have an obligation to try to find as many mistakes in&#xA;  analysis as I can. And on top of all this, if it is a very complicated&#xA;  game, I more often than not will have the position set up on at least&#xA;  one chess computer, analyzing the game and the variations.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even though we live in a very digital age I think it is important to use a real board as well as to keep another board with the current position so that you can quickly go back to the original position and consider it at the same time as you are looking at another position for analysis on your main board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="41" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2012-08-03T12:43:41.167" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1169" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-08-02T11:36:07.997" Score="2" ViewCount="1295" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm a Java programmer, particularly an Android developer. I'm also a good chess player. My question is where do I start if I want to program a chess engine, may or may not be from scratch. Later I want to integrate it into my Android app. Thank you for your answers!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="459" LastActivityDate="2012-08-02T14:40:06.307" Title="Programming chess engine" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;programming&gt;&lt;open-source&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ClosedDate="2012-08-02T14:48:17.207" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1171" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1169" CreationDate="2012-08-02T14:40:06.307" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;http://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess Programming Wiki&lt;/a&gt; is a good place to start .  As you will quickly find out, it's a rather large and complex problem space, with many challenges (conceptual as well as actual programming).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are plenty of open source engines out there which you could look at, to learn, or even to integrate into your engine.  I think you'll generally find that these are released under the GPL, which means you are going to have trouble making using them commercially (you would have to release your own code under GPL, if you made use of a GPL engine).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you're aiming to have a chess engine that plays at a decent level (say, 1500+), my advice would be to try to find an existing engine to use; unless you have large amounts of free time, and you are expert in programming (preferably with some background in AI). &lt;a href=&quot;https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2658743/best-chess-engine-under-permissive-free-software-license&quot;&gt;This question&lt;/a&gt; on StackOverflow lists several chess engines which are released under more permissive licenses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="412" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-05-23T12:37:05.403" LastActivityDate="2012-08-02T14:40:06.307" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1172" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1180" CreationDate="2012-08-03T00:03:52.913" Score="15" ViewCount="5742" Body="&lt;p&gt;Does there exist a theory of pawn breaks?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, there exists a theory of static pawn structure and good bishops; but I was thinking of rooks rather than bishops, and of aggressive pawns that open files rather than positional pawns that control squares.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are rules or principles taught that guide the chess student in placing rooks early, choosing the right pawn to push, and otherwise preparing pawn breaks?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Details follow, if helpful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;THE DILEMMA&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The question of pawn breaks seems to torment me whenever I have the black chessmen and my opponent opens 1. d4.  Opportunities seem to arise for my black pawns to force files open in such games, but when should one exercise the opportunity?  Under what conditions is a pawn break likely to help?  When is it unwise?  Is a standard tactic known to punish my opponent by advancing my knight during a thwarted break?  If either of two, connected pawns can lead the break, which should lead?  What position should the rook take before the break?  &lt;em&gt;Which&lt;/em&gt; rook?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When no pawn break is advisable, what should one do with one's rooks?  What should one do, period?  What kind of play is possible without open files, anyway?  Pawn-storm play on the wing?  But, if so, then how does one prepare the pawn storm? -- or, in other words, we are back to the original question regarding pawn breaks, except that this time my pawn structure is trashed before I even ask the question.  The pawn storm (done not because it's a wise plan but because I cannot think of any other plan) leaves me an out-of-position king and a losing endgame.  I don't get it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, there are a dozen or so ways of asking more or less the same question:  I have the black chessmen, you open 1. d4 and start to build a pawn center, I thrust a pawn in to break up your center -- yet, early or late, whether backed by a rook or not, whichever pawn I choose to thrust in, it always seems to be the wrong pawn.  Why?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Leaving aside the question of wing play to skirt a closed center, a big trouble my &lt;em&gt;central&lt;/em&gt; pawn breaks are repeatedly causing me is that, when I push the pawn, it tends to leave you not me the choice of which of the two files in question to open -- or the choice of locking pawns, opening no file at all.  If you are a strong opponent, then you choose well for yourself and ill for me.  Thus, my pawn breaks usually do not work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;HOW SUCH GAMES CONFUSE ME&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Moreover, such closed games broadly confuse me, because tempo seems less important in such games.  Using &lt;em&gt;scarce&lt;/em&gt; tempos wisely is a relative strong point of my game; so, when tempos are not scarce, I don't really know what to do with the extra time.  Shuffling rooks around aimlessly does not seem to help much.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;REQUEST FOR ADVICE RE PAWN BREAKS&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want an easy game, open 1. d4 against me, present a pawn center, and watch my play degenerate into purposeless futility.  I do not understand how to play these games, I keep losing them, and I should very much like to learn why.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(If relevant, I am officially unrated, put play at about USCF Class C, or FIDE Elo 1500.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/q/1181/315&quot;&gt;A related question, with answers, regarding the meaning of the term &lt;em&gt;pawn break,&lt;/em&gt; is found here.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="315" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2012-08-03T21:09:38.803" Title="The theory of pawn breaks" Tags="&lt;pawns&gt;&lt;pawn-structure&gt;&lt;closed-position&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1173" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1172" CreationDate="2012-08-03T00:48:11.457" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;To address this issue:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;A big trouble my central pawn breaks are repeatedly causing me is that, when I push the pawn, it tends to leave you not me the choice of which of the two files in question to open.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A player that is in a position to push for a pawn break is often stronger on BOTH files, leaving his opponent with a choice of evils.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another time to push for a pawn break is when a tactical advantage (e.g. a pin) forces the pawn break to go one way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the pawn break leaves your opponent with some advantageous choices, it is probably best avoided.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-08-03T18:34:46.053" LastActivityDate="2012-08-03T18:34:46.053" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1174" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1143" CreationDate="2012-08-03T00:54:53.007" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you want to get better at combinations, play tactical moves, such as pinning pieces with a bishop, moving rooks to open files, launching double attacks with a queen and a second piece, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In one of my first combinations (playing Black), I had a rook on a king file with two bishops between it and the enemy king. I moved the first bishop &lt;code&gt;e7xNa3&lt;/code&gt;. White had to recapture. Then I moved my light-squared bishop, &lt;code&gt;e6-g4&lt;/code&gt;, attacking the queen on d1, and discovering a check with my rook on e8. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you look for them, there will be plenty of opportunities to set things up. Then let your opponent look for a way to avoid them. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-08-03T18:34:18.830" LastActivityDate="2012-08-03T18:34:18.830" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1175" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="496" CreationDate="2012-08-03T01:03:32.187" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I play Go (the Japanese board game), which some players I know study to help them improve their chess. Go has a large variety of tactical motifs, including teaching players how to maintain sente (the initiative), while forcing players to keep track of the whole board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2012-08-03T01:03:32.187" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1176" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="421" CreationDate="2012-08-03T01:05:58.580" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;After learning fundamentals, learning &quot;book&quot; openings is a good way to add structure to your game. You have to start somewhere, and the opening is a good place to start.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;JR Capablanca based his game on &quot;fundamentals&quot; and was ignorant of opening variations (for a Grandmaster), but he was a world champion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2012-08-03T01:05:58.580" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1177" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="891" CreationDate="2012-08-03T01:08:00.447" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Usually, wins by checkmate are the result of an unexpected combination that catches the defender by surprise. Sometimes this person will be &quot;gallant&quot; by allowing the mate to occur, instead of resigning one or two moves from the end.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The games that don't get played to the end are the ones where no checkmate is in sight, but one player has a huge material, or other advantage, that it is obvious who will win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastEditorUserId="17" LastEditDate="2012-08-03T13:02:46.963" LastActivityDate="2012-08-03T13:02:46.963" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1178" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="421" CreationDate="2012-08-03T06:50:59.390" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe studying the openings is a good way to go. Now, you don't want to memorize it. Instead find a book or some site that thoroughly analyzes the openings. Why?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;You will learn of a way to approach a game with the type of style you prefer. Experimenting with different openings you get to learn more.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The opening is thoroughly studied and understood. Therefore, when you learn about each move, you will have in-depth knowledge where the 'whys' are completely explained. That way, you learn how much thought goes into each move, what is considered, how strategy is created and executed. When you play games with these openings yourself, you'll get the feel for its strengths and weaknesses.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="462" LastActivityDate="2012-08-03T06:50:59.390" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1179" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="496" CreationDate="2012-08-03T06:56:49.587" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The person recommending Go has a good idea, I believe. Go is more in-depth than chess, with a lot more abstract ideologies on how to attack, defend, and control space.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Physical activity keeps your mind healthy and fresh, so I recommend staying fit. I don't know any specific professionals that do this but I have heard before that professional players work out to stay on top of their game. Being physically healthy goes a long way to keeping your mind sharp, also in the mental endurance compartment. Cardio exercises matter more than strength, I suppose.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also it helps to do EASY problems. These keep you honest and focused, instead of always doing challenging, convoluted problem-solving. Not to mention it helps keep your confidence high.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="462" LastActivityDate="2012-08-03T06:56:49.587" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1180" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1172" CreationDate="2012-08-03T14:11:22.960" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;It seems like there are really 3 parts to your question:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When and how should pawn breaks be made?  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;How should rooks be placed to support pawn pushes?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;How should plans be made around pawn breaks?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a disclaimer, these questions are incredibly complicated, so take this answer as a starting point.  Entire books have been written about pawn play.  Furthermore, every position is different.  While there are general ideas, the features of a specific position must be the main consideration.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So to begin - pawn breaks should be made for one of two reasons - to improve your own position or to deprive your opponent of good squares.  This seems a little silly, but consider &lt;em&gt;how&lt;/em&gt; your position can be improved - either your pieces can get better squares and lines, or you can create a passed pawn.  A space advantage falls into the category of depriving your opponent of squares.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bearing that in mind, pawn breaks should only be made when you can guarantee that your position will improve:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If a pawn break will leave an outpost for an enemy knight, it's probably premature.  (ex. don't play d4 if there are pawns on e4 and e5 but white's f pawn is missing because e5 will be a permanent outpost).&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/bClBl.png&quot; alt=&quot;d4 would give e5 to the black knight&quot;&gt;  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Pawn breaks are useful if you can create an outpost for your own pieces.  (ex. black pawns on d6 and e6, pushing c5 will create an outpost)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/XbEZw.png&quot; alt=&quot;c5 creates an outpost on e5 for white&quot;&gt; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The last major consideration is space - in a closed or semi-closed position gaining space is incredibly useful because your pieces will have an extra rank on which to operate.  In these cases, push your pawns when you can do so safely while still keeping enough tension to favorably open the position later.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Moving on to part 2...  Simply, rooks should be posted on the files that will be opened after a pawn break.  While it frequently takes some calculation to figure out how everything will work out, once done, good squares for both rooks can be found.  Usually this is behind the pawn that you will push, but frequently it is on an adjacent file.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, the crux of the matter - how to plan for and utilize pawn breaks effectively.  Generally speaking, you should only open the position in a part of the board that you already control.  That means that if you have a preponderance of force on the kingside, for example, f2-f4 immediately should become a candidate pawn break.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you prepare a pawn break, frequently you will want to recapture the pawn with another pawn.  In this diagram, white has a space advantage but will eventually have to break the position open in order to win:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/F7sFt.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;1. f4&lt;/code&gt; immediately would be premature because black would gain the e5 square as an outpost for the knight.  Instead, white should prepare the break with moves like &lt;code&gt;g3&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;Rg1&lt;/code&gt;.  Only then should the break be seriously considered tactically.  With that said, f4 should also be the only pawn break considered.  Black owns the queenside, so a pawn break there would only serve black.  The center is locked, so a move like &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt; would only lose a pawn.  Finally, &lt;code&gt;g4&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;h4&lt;/code&gt; don't serve any purpose other than creating holes in the white position that black might later be able to utilize.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hopefully that gives you a reasonable starting point, but again, every position is different and must be considered based on its own merits.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12" LastActivityDate="2012-08-03T14:11:22.960" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1181" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1184" CreationDate="2012-08-03T15:11:19.187" Score="19" ViewCount="14998" Body="&lt;p&gt;I did some research (google), but it still unclear to me on exactly what a pawn break is.  I was reading this question: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/1172/the-theory-of-pawn-breaks&quot;&gt;The theory of pawn breaks&lt;/a&gt; about the theory of pawn breaks, but before I could understand this, it would be helpful if I actually knew what a pawn break is.  If someone can explain it simply and have some diagram(s), that would be best.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2020-12-13T18:05:25.627" Title="What is a pawn break?" Tags="&lt;pawns&gt;&lt;pawn-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1182" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="496" CreationDate="2012-08-03T15:15:27.210" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;While not directly chess related, the relationship between exercise and cognitive abilities has been pretty intensely studied since the early 1900's. It has been shown through numerous studies that exercise does increase cognitive ability both during and after exercise. Oddly enough, it's also been shown that shorter and more intense physical exertion has a greater effect than endurance type training, at least in short term.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most of the studies are looking at immediate effect, i.e. the cognitive task is usually done within minutes of finishing the exercise. Long term effects of exercise have gotten mixed results, however there are numerous meta-studies (more anecdotal in orientation than scientific) have reported many mental benefits to exercise.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One thing to note, is that exercise has definitively been proven to both help delay onset and mitigate symptoms of aging, such as cognitive impairment and dementia.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, while exercise may not have a provable effect directly relating to OTB play, I highly recommend it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One other thing to think about with this, even outside of physical fitness, is nutrition. Your brain soaks up a vast amount of glycogen to keep functioning even when &quot;idling&quot;. If you are concentrating for a few hours on a game, you are going to be using even more, so for extended matches you should be thinking about some sort of food to help replace it, and the better your nutrition, the better prepared you will be in that respect as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For those interested in reading some of the research/studies, go to google scholar and use a search term such as &quot;effects exercise cognitive performance&quot; or similar.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="394" LastActivityDate="2012-08-03T15:15:27.210" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1183" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1185" CreationDate="2012-08-03T15:23:06.427" Score="8" ViewCount="789" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know that professional chess players obviously have to have a wide repertoire and try to know as much as they can, but I was curious if they mainly stay consistent.  The reason for asking this was because I was watching the following &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sv2FbroFUNU&quot;&gt;video&lt;/a&gt; on &lt;code&gt;Bobby Fischer&lt;/code&gt; and in game 6 of the world championship against &lt;code&gt;Spassky&lt;/code&gt;, everyone was shocked when &lt;code&gt;Fischer&lt;/code&gt; played the &lt;code&gt;English Opening&lt;/code&gt;. It even shocked &lt;code&gt;Spassky&lt;/code&gt; as he was not prepared to handle the &lt;code&gt;English&lt;/code&gt; and according to the video gave &lt;code&gt;Fischer&lt;/code&gt; a standing ovation for outstanding play, so do players of professional level normally stay consistent?  Has this changed from the past until now?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastActivityDate="2016-01-23T08:51:15.143" Title="Do professional level chess players mainly stay consistent in their opening play?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;fischer&gt;&lt;spassky&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1184" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1181" CreationDate="2012-08-03T18:32:44.950" Score="19" Body="&lt;p&gt;A pawn break is a pawn move designed to free the player's position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Generally speaking, a pawn move is only called a pawn break when the moving pawn is on a file adjacent to two enemy pawns facing each other, and the pawn moves forward to the same rank as the player's other pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since a picture is worth a thousand words...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;8/8/8/4p3/3pP3/3P4/2P2P2/8 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White can play either &lt;code&gt;1. c3&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;1. f4&lt;/code&gt; and these moves would be considered pawn breaks because they attack a black pawn that is blocking a white pawn (the &lt;code&gt;d&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;e&lt;/code&gt; pawns respectively).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;1. f3&lt;/code&gt;, however, is &lt;em&gt;NOT&lt;/em&gt; a pawn break because it does not attack an enemy pawn.  Similarly &lt;code&gt;1. c4&lt;/code&gt; is not a pawn break, even though black could capture the pawn with &lt;code&gt;1... dxc3 e.p.&lt;/code&gt; and get to the same resulting position because again, it does not attack a black pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-12-13T18:03:34.960" LastActivityDate="2020-12-13T18:03:34.960" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1185" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1183" CreationDate="2012-08-03T18:49:23.043" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;No two people are alike, and no two chess players are alike either.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To begin with, world class grandmasters study chess all the time, and they can play just about every opening under the sun and score incredibly well.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, in order to get the very best results possible, most grandmasters will study and memorize moves and plans for a handful of openings for each color and each &lt;code&gt;1. e4&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;1. d4&lt;/code&gt;.  By doing this, they gain a slight advantage over their opponent in terms of a better position, using less time, or sometimes just a psychological edge.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since the top players spend so much time learning these openings, they tend to not switch openings all that frequently.  Changing one's repertoire would require redoing all the studying and memorization that had already been done.  Frequently though, as other players discover and show new ideas, the repertoires evolve.  A player might substitute one line for another or find an improvement in some opening line.  The advent of super-strong computers has definitely increased the speed with which opening lines change.  Nowadays players must constantly be looking for improvements and tweaking their lines in order to stay on top of things.  Another factor is the internet - minutes after completion, the game is available for anyone in the world to see.  Surprises can generally only be used once.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To discuss Fischer specifically, his entire career he mostly played &lt;code&gt;1. e4&lt;/code&gt; and the King's Indian Defense and the Najdorf Sicilian as black.  His openings did evolve and change over time, but he was fairly consistent, especially with &lt;code&gt;1. e4&lt;/code&gt;.  For this reason, when he played &lt;code&gt;1. c4&lt;/code&gt; against Spassky in the '72 World Championship, it was a huge surprise.  Spassky had spent his time figuring out how to meet &lt;code&gt;1. e4&lt;/code&gt; and had to readjust to play the Queen's Gambit Declined.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12" LastActivityDate="2012-08-03T18:49:23.043" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1186" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1181" CreationDate="2012-08-03T19:16:42.157" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;For what it's worth, when I asked the question you mention, I had in mind a position like this (black to move):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;rnbq1rk1/pppp1ppp/4pn2/8/1bPP4/2NBP3/PP3PPP/R1BQK1NR b KQ - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;[startflipped &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The question regarded whether black should push the c-pawn or the d-pawn, or push neither, or prepare something before pushing.  Of course, the question did not regard &lt;em&gt;this particular&lt;/em&gt; position, nor was it specific to the opening or to the midgame; but it regarded rather the principles that guide the black player to open files from such positions generally.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Update:&lt;/em&gt;  In response to helpful comments:  I do not know for sure how the term &lt;em&gt;pawn break&lt;/em&gt; is conventionally defined.  I should defer to @Andrew's and @TomAu's answers.  Nevertheless, &lt;em&gt;pawn break&lt;/em&gt; is the term I seem to have heard opponents use for the act of pushing a pawn with the intent to force a file open.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus, to answer the question directly, to the extent to which my terminology is correct, d7-d5 would constitute a pawn break in the position diagrammed, because the likely and intended effect of such a pawn move would be to open, or half-open, one or more files by trading off the pawns that occupy the files.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="315" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-12-13T18:05:25.627" LastActivityDate="2020-12-13T18:05:25.627" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1187" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-08-03T21:22:17.493" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The pawn structure during a game is one of the more static aspects of a position, as the pawns are the least dynamic soldiers in the game and their moves are irreversible. In this sense the pawn structure gives a sort of skeleton around which the game is played; it shapes the battlefield where combat takes place. Knowing what sort of structures to seek (and which to avoid), as well as generally how to handle structures that commonly arise (e.g. when to change the structure with an advance or a capture), are thus important factors in one's chess abilities.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-08-03T21:22:17.493" LastActivityDate="2012-08-03T21:22:17.493" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1188" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-08-03T21:22:17.493" Score="0" Body="Questions concerning the overall configuration of pawns in a game, e.g. what pawn structure features should be sought or avoided, when to alter the structure, how to work with one's pieces in a given structure, etc." OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-08-03T21:22:17.493" LastActivityDate="2012-08-03T21:22:17.493" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1189" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="711" CreationDate="2012-08-03T22:12:13.997" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;When playing Black, you should mainly &quot;take what White gives you,&quot; to quote Vince Lombardi the football coach. That is, you should wait for White to make a mistake, then try to take advantage of it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is when you are White that you can try to &quot;force&quot; errors, which of the leeway your first move gives you. But if you are Black and undertake a failed initiative, you've really put yourself at a disadvantage. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2012-08-03T22:12:13.997" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1190" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1107" CreationDate="2012-08-03T22:19:09.633" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The way to improve analytical skills &quot;over the board&quot; is to improve those skills &lt;em&gt;generally&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, analyze your own games after the fact. Second, read analyses of master games. At each point, try to guess the next move before looking at it. You will make a lot of &quot;mistakes&quot; early on, but improve over time. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The more practice you have with &quot;offline&quot; games, the more you will benefit in over the board situations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-08-04T18:02:44.713" LastActivityDate="2012-08-04T18:02:44.713" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1191" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1181" CreationDate="2012-08-03T22:42:32.040" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;A pawn break is a &quot;clash&quot; of pawns that results in an exchange of pawns. For instance, if White has pawns on d4 and e4, and Black has pawns on d6 and e6, White's move to e5 (or d5) might cause a pawn break if Black elects to exchange. If Black plays d5 in response to e5 or 35 in response to d5, he avoids a pawn break.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2012-08-03T22:42:32.040" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1192" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="954" CreationDate="2012-08-03T23:03:52.467" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is no time limit (except for the over all limit) on any &lt;em&gt;one&lt;/em&gt; move. If you have two hours to make X moves, you can take one hour and fifty nine minutes to make one move, and use the last minute to make X-1 moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you touch one of your pieces, you must move it. If you touch one of your opponent's pieces, you must capture it. (In both cases, it must be legal for you to do so). If you have multiple possible moves or captures, you can take as much time as you want to think about it, subject to the time constraints above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But it is &quot;unprofessional&quot; to start a move and take a long time to finish it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-08-04T18:02:21.453" LastActivityDate="2012-08-04T18:02:21.453" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1193" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-08-04T22:28:02.790" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Given its long history, and the geographic diversity that accompanied many of the big developments in the game, chess enjoys a rich tapestry of interesting terminology coming from various languages. A few examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The term &quot;checkmate&quot; &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Checkmate#Etymology&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;comes from&lt;/a&gt; the Persian phrase &quot;Shāh Māt,&quot; meaning literally &quot;the king is helpless.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The French term &quot;en passant&quot; means &quot;in passing,&quot; and is used to refer to the capture of a pawn which has just advanced two squares by another pawn that sits beside it on an adjacent square.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The term &quot;gambit&quot; &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gambit&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;derives&lt;/a&gt; from the Italian &quot;dare il gambetto,&quot; which translates roughly as &quot;to stick out one's leg to trip someone.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The German words &quot;Zugzwang&quot; (meaning &quot;compulsion to move&quot;) and &quot;Zwischenzug&quot; (&quot;in-between move&quot;) are in common usage.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-06-22T09:21:57.797" LastActivityDate="2017-06-22T09:21:57.797" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1194" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-08-04T22:28:02.790" Score="0" Body="Questions about the particular terminology used in chess" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-08-04T22:28:02.790" LastActivityDate="2012-08-04T22:28:02.790" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1195" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1196" CreationDate="2012-08-05T03:57:52.190" Score="12" ViewCount="2169" Body="&lt;p&gt;To disambiguate what I mean by the shorthand &quot;good&quot; in the question's title:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is there an English-language book that tells the story of the 1927 world championship match between Capablanca and Alekhine, and which includes substantial annotations of all the games?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If there's no single book that contains all of that, I'd be happy to cobble such together from multiple sources. Here are a few items I'm aware of that don't have all of what I'm after:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Volume I of Kasparov's &lt;em&gt;My Great Predecessors&lt;/em&gt; series includes a good deal of background and context on the match, and also includes annotations for 10 of the match's 34 games (Games 7, 11, 12, 20-22, 27, 29, 31, 34). What appears here is simply great, but I'd like annotations for the rest of the games as well.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Alexander Alekhine's Best Games&lt;/em&gt;, which is an algebraic edition of Alekhine annotations from his two-volume &lt;em&gt;My Best Games of Chess&lt;/em&gt; and from &lt;em&gt;Alekhine's Best Games of Chess 1938-1945&lt;/em&gt;, includes the following games from the 1927 match: Games 1, 11, 21, 32, 34. (So between this and Kasparov, there are 12/34 games covered.)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Capablanca's own book &lt;em&gt;World's Championship Matches, 1921 and 1927&lt;/em&gt; has the unfortunate feature that while the 1921 match is annotated by Capablanca himself, the 1927 match is annotated by Yates and Winter. All 34 games are annotated, but the notes are quite sparse, and decidedly light on explanatory prose.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So my secondary question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Barring a complete, top-quality book of the 1927 match, can you point me to sources with good, substantial annotations of any of the following parts of the match: Games 2-6, 8-10, 13-19, 23-26, 28, 30, or 33?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2013-12-01T20:15:16.040" LastActivityDate="2020-11-02T05:16:17.923" Title="Is there a good book on the 1927 Capablanca-Alekhine world championship match?" Tags="&lt;history&gt;&lt;world-championship&gt;&lt;books&gt;&lt;capablanca&gt;&lt;alekhine&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1196" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1195" CreationDate="2012-08-05T12:19:06.677" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am aware of &lt;strong&gt;ISBN 5278004010&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Cons:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the book is in Russian, I don't know if there's an English translation&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pros:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;contains all match games, most of them annotated (some games aren't annotated, contain just some short comments about particular moves at the end)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;annotations by Alekhine himself&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;contains other games played by Alekhine in tournaments before the match&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, Alexander Kotov wrote &quot;Alekhine's Chess Legacy&quot; (2 volumes), you may try looking for games from that match in those books. Kotov was a fan of Alekhine, a strong tactical style player and he was good at explaining chess to players below grandmaster level, so I think annotations authored by him would suit you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="419" LastActivityDate="2012-08-05T12:19:06.677" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1198" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-08-05T15:12:02.423" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Cuban grandmaster José Raúl Capablanca was the third world champion of chess (1921-1927). He won the title from Emmanuel Lasker, and subsequently lost it to Alexander Alekhine. Capablanca was known for his immaculate endgame play and his lightning-quick facility at assessing and judging positions. At times he was nearly impossible to defeat; between 1916 and 1924, he lost one game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-08-11T08:52:27.233" LastActivityDate="2012-08-11T08:52:27.233" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1199" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-08-05T15:12:02.423" Score="0" Body="Cuban Grandmaster José Raúl Capablanca (1888-1942) was the World Champion of chess from 1921 to 1927. He was known for his immaculate endgame play. At times he was nearly impossible to defeat; between 1916 and 1924, he lost one game." OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2014-03-01T17:53:12.743" LastActivityDate="2014-03-01T17:53:12.743" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1200" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-08-05T15:18:34.087" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2012-08-05T15:18:34.087" LastActivityDate="2012-08-05T15:18:34.087" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1201" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-08-05T15:18:34.087" Score="0" Body="Russian Grandmaster Alexander Alekhine was World Champion from 1927-1946. He was known for his brilliant attacking play and the ease by which he could create - and successfully navigate - devilishly complex positions." OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2012-08-05T15:36:03.993" LastActivityDate="2012-08-05T15:36:03.993" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1202" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1203" CreationDate="2012-08-05T16:47:04.100" Score="8" ViewCount="2985" Body="&lt;p&gt;How sound is &lt;code&gt;1.e4 e6 2.c4!?&lt;/code&gt;, the Steiner Variation in the French Defense, and would you actually recommend it? Does it work well in normal games, or is it more a surprise weapon for blitz?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="35" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-08-07T00:17:13.693" LastActivityDate="2015-01-10T10:06:23.347" Title="Experiences with the Steiner Variation 1.e4 e6 2.c4!? in French?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;french-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1203" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1202" CreationDate="2012-08-05T18:38:05.313" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's undoubtedly sound in the sense that it does not by force lead to any sort of catastrophic disadvantage for White, but it offers very little if any objective possibility of obtaining a theoretical edge.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you're specifically trying to reach an IQP position, it's probably preferable to play the Exchange Variation and only then follow up with &lt;code&gt;c4&lt;/code&gt;, since Black has other reasonable options against &lt;code&gt;c4&lt;/code&gt; on move two besides an immediate &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt; thrust. &lt;code&gt;2... c5&lt;/code&gt;, for example, can reach positions similar to those found in the Sicilian (i.e., various Maroczy Bind structures that crop up against the Kan, Taimanov, or Accelerated Dragon variations) and English Opening Hedgehog systems. That said, an immediate &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt; seems to be the most popular response, and it's probably what one would typically expect from a French player (and what I would likely play myself).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's certainly a viable way to play if you enjoy IQP positions and you want to avoid the well-trodden paths of main-line theory. It shouldn't lead to any advantage against correct play, however.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="297" LastEditorUserId="297" LastEditDate="2012-08-05T20:53:05.503" LastActivityDate="2012-08-05T20:53:05.503" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1204" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-08-07T15:40:56.973" Score="9" ViewCount="501" Body="&lt;p&gt;How can I prevent a game from dragging on, taking 60+ moves to get anywhere near finishing?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I mainly encounter this when playing people at or below my level (~1400). This never happens when playing someone better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I recall reading somewhere that most games should ideally be finished in about 30 moves or so. That seems reasonable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What can I do to prevent a game from dragging on without giving myself a disadvantage?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="73" LastActivityDate="2020-05-01T11:32:44.857" Title="How can I prevent games from dragging on?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1205" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1204" CreationDate="2012-08-08T00:59:09.190" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;Seriously, by checkmating your opponent.  If every game is going on for 60 moves, the bad news is that you don't know how to score the win.  The good news is neither does your opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But by merely recognizing something is amiss, you have gained a &lt;strong&gt;huge&lt;/strong&gt; advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, you have to sharpen your game.  The next step is for you to figure out why you can't win sooner.  The moves are there - you know that a GM could win either side of the board pretty much up to the bitter end.  The moves are there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't know if it is appropriate for this site, but post a game (you DO keep notation of your games, don't you??) and we'll look at it.  Post a typical game, regardless if you won it or not.  And don't worry about the quality of the game.  There's always a bigger fish.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit - I'm like a broken record on this, but another way is to run your games through a chess engine.  Every move, both sides.  Set the engine's strength such that it can beat you every game.  See the moves it suggests instead, and when it finds a move markedly better than the one you chose, find out why it made that choice.  Figuring this out is a lot of work, but getting better at chess is not often easy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2012-08-08T12:16:53.570" LastActivityDate="2012-08-08T12:16:53.570" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1206" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4" CreationDate="2012-08-08T04:18:07.797" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;For my niece and nephew (ages 5 and 7), I started spotting them four pieces of their choice ( minus K or Q) and each time they win the number decreases by one. We started by switching sides when things were going my way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="473" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-08-08T15:40:00.497" LastActivityDate="2012-08-08T15:40:00.497" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1207" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1210" CreationDate="2012-08-08T23:12:05.697" Score="31" ViewCount="3493" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I am playing friendly games with my brother, if one of us makes a big blunder that would make it pointless to continue playing, instead of quitting, we undo the move(s) to give a second chance (if we both agree, otherwise the one that did the blunder loses).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We do it frequently and the fun seems to increase since we can keep playing a balanced game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But is this a good habit? Are there negative consequences of doing this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="478" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-03-12T21:11:19.753" LastActivityDate="2019-09-23T10:11:48.400" Title="Is allowing takebacks in friendly games a bad practice?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;training&gt;&lt;etiquette&gt;&lt;best-practice&gt;&lt;blunder&gt;" AnswerCount="11" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1208" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1207" CreationDate="2012-08-08T23:20:50.957" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is a list of important points:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Pros:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Both can continue playing and have fun without the need of starting a whole new game.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Cons:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You don't take blunders seriously and increase the chance of making them on tournaments or important games.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="478" LastEditorUserId="478" LastEditDate="2012-08-08T23:28:54.223" LastActivityDate="2012-08-08T23:28:54.223" CommentCount="0" CommunityOwnedDate="2012-08-08T23:20:50.957" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1209" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1207" CreationDate="2012-08-08T23:47:35.780" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would say it's a bad habit, if it affects the final result. If you make a move on the board, you must accept the consequences. If you make a blunder and it obviously destroys your position - be a gentleman and admit you've lost the game. Of course you can keep playing, but would you consider yourself a winner if your opponent accepts your takeback request, you make a better move and finally outplay him (outplay as in &quot;even if he doesn't make any obvious blunders like you did&quot;)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="419" LastActivityDate="2012-08-08T23:47:35.780" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1210" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1207" CreationDate="2012-08-08T23:48:04.967" Score="34" Body="&lt;p&gt;Getting &lt;em&gt;too&lt;/em&gt; used to playing with takebacks could be somewhat detrimental if you were to transition to tournament chess at some point, since it downplays the importance of keeping your guard up and being vigilant about tactical possibilities in positions. Nevertheless, I think that in the setting you indicate playing with occasional takebacks (especially for really major blunders) is an instructive way to go, and so can be a good short-term practice for your long-term understanding of the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When some terrible blunder happens in your friendly games, there are basically three choices:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Resign and start anew.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Play on in a very lopsided (and probably not so instructive) position.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Take the blunder back and pick a different way to proceed.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Only the third option forces you to return to the position where the mistake was made and figure out something better to do, which in turn requires you to determine the nature of the mistake that was made in the first place. This is a good thing to do, at least if you want to emphasize learning over the competitive results of your friendly games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2012-08-08T23:48:04.967" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1211" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1204" CreationDate="2012-08-09T00:19:15.333" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is nothing wrong in ending games at 60+ moves unless this happens with frequency, in that case it usually mean you aren't very efficient at the endgame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Consider:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Using more aggressive openings&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Study endgame theory&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also remember that long games are not a problem if you know how to play them, so the question is, &lt;em&gt;are you obtaining good results on these games?&lt;/em&gt;, if the answer is 'yes', I wouldn't be worried on modifying my style of play (unless these are friendly games and are turning boring).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="478" LastActivityDate="2012-08-09T00:19:15.333" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1212" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1207" CreationDate="2012-08-09T10:49:08.823" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would say not; it's only games with your brother. Or think of it this way: does taking pieces away prior to starting the game increase the odds of you winning games?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="481" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-08-09T10:57:29.293" LastActivityDate="2012-08-09T10:57:29.293" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1213" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1207" CreationDate="2012-08-09T14:57:17.783" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;As evidenced by the previous answers, it has its good and bad points.  Primarily, you don't suffer the consequences of your bad moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, if you want, you can use it as a teaching tool (for either of you), in that you can see that the move you were contemplating (or the one that you missed) had horrendous consequences, why, and then you can go back and try another line.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One way that you could limit the impact is like the concepts of mulligans in golf. Usually a player gets one per round, or alternatively, one per 9 holes, where you can play a bad shot over. You could limit the number of &quot;moveagains&quot; to one or two per player, and if you goof after that, well, you're out of luck.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="394" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-08-18T18:17:58.997" LastActivityDate="2012-08-18T18:17:58.997" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1214" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1204" CreationDate="2012-08-10T18:09:57.163" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Get a chess clock and start using it.  Amateur games usually drag on because of lack of time controls.  If you set a maximum of 30 minutes per side, the game &lt;em&gt;will&lt;/em&gt; be over in a hour.  Because there is no time to waste, both players will be concentrating on the board instead of twiddling their thumbs while the other player thinks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="61" LastActivityDate="2012-08-10T18:09:57.163" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1215" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1207" CreationDate="2012-08-12T12:53:07.153" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;One rule that I have used: The person who makes the blunder has to concede a &quot;first game.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But gets to &quot;start&quot; a &quot;second&quot; game, from before where the blunder took place. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This rule allows you to finish the game from a reasonable, balanced position, while inflicting a loss for the blunder.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2012-08-12T12:53:07.153" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1216" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1204" CreationDate="2012-08-12T12:58:26.787" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The 30 move &quot;rule&quot; means that in most games, it is clear by that time, who has the advantage, or whether the game is likely headed for a draw. It doesn't necessarily mean that the game will end by that time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So study the game as of about the 30th move. Then figure out the best way, perhaps with the help of chess engines, the quickest ay to resolve it from there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is one scenario where long games might be to your advantage. That is you are usually at a DISADVANTAGE after move 30, but your opponents can't beat you even after 60.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In these cases, use the methods above to find out how YOU can be beaten.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2012-08-12T12:58:26.787" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1217" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1202" CreationDate="2012-08-12T13:06:47.320" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Against 1. e4 e6 2. c4, I'd play 2...e5. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, this moves the e pawn a second time, but White has weakened his black squares and created a &quot;hole&quot; on d4 with the pawn move to c4. It can't be moved back to c3, where it would have formed part of a pawn chain.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If White now plays d4 to repair his pawn position, capture the pawn from e5, then chase the queen with Nc6 when it recaptures.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2012-08-12T13:06:47.320" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1218" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-08-14T13:38:08.260" Score="25" ViewCount="1708" Body="&lt;p&gt;Single games of chess can routinely have a significant impact on opening theory, of course, but it should be quite uncommon for a single game to significantly advance &lt;em&gt;endgame&lt;/em&gt; theory, since that's a phase of the game where we can and do have some absolute knowledge that will never change, and since the chance combination of a situation that is ripe for something fundamentally new to be discovered along with a player capable of doing the discovering in the course of a game is a rare thing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nevertheless:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I am looking for pointers to historical instances where the course of a game's play revealed new theoretical endgame knowledge that was unknown before that game was played, e.g. an unknown winning method in a certain type of endgame, or an unexpected drawing resource that had escaped notice until that point.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2015-07-25T10:11:32.187" Title="Chess games that advanced endgame theory" Tags="&lt;history&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;theory&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1219" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1218" CreationDate="2012-08-14T23:05:28.893" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'll have to look for the reference, it was in one of my chess books, and I gave my library away.  But the game involved two GMs or GM-level players from back in the day, where one of them figured out that a K+N+N can mate K+P, if the P can move and prevent stalemate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2012-08-14T23:05:28.893" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1221" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1223" CreationDate="2012-08-16T06:24:13.830" Score="4" ViewCount="464" Body="&lt;p&gt;I play chess very infrequently. Whenever I restart, I take a bit of time to get up to speed. Which chess playing apps are best for a beginner? I would prefer apps that scale up in diifficulty according to a player's skill.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="150" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-08-16T14:49:24.073" LastActivityDate="2021-01-04T09:08:57.137" Title="What is the best automatic chess playing app for a beginning level player?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1222" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1221" CreationDate="2012-08-16T08:59:29.923" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you have a Microsoft Windows-based PC or laptop then there is no problem. They provide a very good chess game with different skill levels and appearances. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="497" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-08-16T10:39:28.517" LastActivityDate="2012-08-16T10:39:28.517" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1223" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1221" CreationDate="2012-08-16T13:18:01.727" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Back in the day, I found Chessmaster to be very beginner friendly, with a variety of AIs to choose from. It also had some instructional segments included, which were good at the time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now I lose against Stockfish whenever I'm looking for a good beating. I don't think it's very good for beginners, even if you constrain its skill quite a bit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="142" LastActivityDate="2012-08-16T13:18:01.727" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1224" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1221" CreationDate="2012-08-16T23:49:59.717" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Shredder is an awesome Chess Program.  If you have an IPhone or Android Shredder is present and if you want for Computer along with Shredder you can use Fritz also.  I personally like both of them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="500" LastActivityDate="2012-08-16T23:49:59.717" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1225" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1218" CreationDate="2012-08-17T15:27:22.983" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;By Capablanca's own admission, one of the games that advanced &lt;em&gt;his&lt;/em&gt; understanding of the endgame (and probably that of others) was his &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1267147&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;game against Richard Teichmann in 1913&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Berlin exh&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Berlin&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;1913.11.20&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;2&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Jose Raul Capablanca&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Richard Teichmann&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;D63&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;75&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 d5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.c4 e6 4.Bg5 Be7 5.Nc3 Nbd7 6.e3 O-O 7.Rc1&#xA;b6 8.cxd5 exd5 9.Bb5 Bb7 10.O-O a6 11.Ba4 Rc8 12.Qe2 c5&#xA;13.dxc5 Nxc5 14.Rfd1 Nxa4 15.Nxa4 b5 16.Rxc8 Qxc8 17.Nc3 Qc4&#xA;18.Nd4 Qxe2 19.Ncxe2 Rc8 20.Nf5 Kf8 21.Nxe7 Kxe7 22.Nd4 g6&#xA;23.f3 h6 24.Bxh6 Nd7 25.h4 Nc5 26.Bf4 Ne6 27.Nxe6 Kxe6 28.Rd2&#xA;Rh8 29.Rc2 Rc8 30.Rxc8 Bxc8 31.Kf2 d4 32.exd4 Kd5 33.Ke3 Be6&#xA;34.Kd3 Kc6 35.a3 Bc4+ 36.Ke3 Be6 37.Bh6 Kd5 38.Bg7 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It was a situation where Black's isolated queen pawn, and the resulting &quot;holes&quot; that it left in his position for White's knights, more than cancelled out the advantage of Black's Bishop pair. Later, these same holes (for White's king) enabled him to win with opposite colored Bishops and only one extra pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1095027&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;another game against Marshall&lt;/a&gt;, Capablanca sacrificed a pawn to get a rook on the &quot;seventh&quot; rank (Marshall's second), which was at least enough compensation. Hence Marshall had to &quot;play for a draw&quot; by exchanging all his other pieces, even with a pawn ahead. When he failed to do so and &quot;played to win,&quot; Marshall lost:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;New York&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;New York, NY USA&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;1918.11.01&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;1918.10.23&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;8&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Frank James Marshall&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Jose Raul Capablanca&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;D64&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;78&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 d5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.c4 e6 4.Nc3 Nbd7 5.Bg5 Be7 6.e3 O-O 7.Rc1&#xA;c6 8.Qc2 dxc4 9.Bxc4 Nd5 10.Bxe7 Qxe7 11.O-O Nxc3 12.Qxc3 b6&#xA;13.e4 Bb7 14.Rfe1 Rfd8 15.d5 Nc5 16.dxe6 Nxe6 17.Bxe6 Qxe6&#xA;18.Nd4 Qe5 19.Nxc6 Qxc3 20.Rxc3 Rd2 21.Rb1 Re8 22.e5 g5 23.h4&#xA;gxh4 24.Re1 Re6 25.Rec1 Kg7 26.b4 b5 27.a3 Rg6 28.Kf1 Ra2&#xA;29.Kg1 h3 30.g3 a6 31.e6 Rxe6 32.g4 Rh6 33.f3 Rd6 34.Ne7 Rdd2&#xA;35.Nf5+ Kf6 36.Nh4 Kg5 37.Nf5 Rg2+ 38.Kf1 h2 39.f4+ Kxf4 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-12-13T03:23:46.830" LastActivityDate="2012-12-13T03:23:46.830" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1226" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1218" CreationDate="2012-08-17T16:04:08.527" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;I do not think it's really a new technique discovery, still, this game has certainly inspired some people to fight harder in seemingly hard to win endgame positions: &lt;a href=&quot;http://chesspo.st/G4EN&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Martin Ortueta vs Jose Sanz Aguado&lt;/a&gt;. After &lt;code&gt;28 ... dxc4&lt;/code&gt; we enter an endgame where 3 pawns poorly structured manage to dominate a rook and a knight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Madrid&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Madrid&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;1933.??.??&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Martin Ortueta&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Jose Sanz Aguado&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;C00&quot;]&#xA;[Opening &quot;French&quot;]&#xA;[Variation &quot;King's Indian attack&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;70&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e6 2. d3 d5 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. e5 Nfd7 5. f4 Bb4 6. Bd2 O-O 7. Nf3 f6 8.&#xA;d4 c5 9. Nb5 fxe5 10. dxe5 Rxf4 11. c3 Re4+ 12. Be2 Ba5 13. O-O Nxe5 14.&#xA;Nxe5 Rxe5 15. Bf4 Rf5 16. Bd3 Rf6 17. Qc2 h6 18. Be5 Nd7 19. Bxf6 Nxf6 20.&#xA;Rxf6 Qxf6 21. Rf1 Qe7 22. Bh7+ Kh8 23. Qg6 Bd7 24. Rf7 Qg5 25. Qxg5 hxg5&#xA;26. Rxd7 Kxh7 27. Rxb7 Bb6 28. c4 dxc4 29. Nc3 Rd8 30. h3 Rd2 31. Na4 Rxb2&#xA;32. Nxb2 c3 33. Rxb6 c4 34. Rb4 a5 35. Nxc4 c2 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now it might be historical because Petrosian mentioned this endgame as having made a great impression on him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Related link : &lt;a href=&quot;http://timkr.home.xs4all.nl/chess/rxb2.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://timkr.home.xs4all.nl/chess/rxb2.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="460" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-12-13T03:27:03.707" LastActivityDate="2012-12-13T03:27:03.707" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1227" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1221" CreationDate="2012-08-18T00:27:24.783" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you want to improve your skills, maybe &lt;a href=&quot;http://gamezer.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;gamezer.com&lt;/a&gt; is useful. It's not an app, but a website you can visit with an iphone, ipod, or whatever smartphone. It also provides skill  levels.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="501" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-08-18T01:27:57.217" LastActivityDate="2012-08-18T01:27:57.217" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1228" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-08-18T07:58:07.740" Score="19" ViewCount="2626" Body="&lt;p&gt;I normally try to prevent my opponent from castling if possible, by forcing their king to move or keeping an attacking piece on a diagonal or file.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I tend to make this a priority, giving up the opportunity to capture a pawn or pursue a different strategy early on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does this make sense? Would I be better off capturing a pawn if I can? Is preventing castling something that should be given priority, or is it more of an afterthought?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="73" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-11-07T01:38:19.913" LastActivityDate="2020-10-28T05:15:49.620" Title="To what extent should you prevent your opponent from castling?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;castling&gt;&lt;attack&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1229" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="593" CreationDate="2012-08-18T08:25:43.687" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chernev is one of the best chess writers out there. I started learning chess very late in life in my 30's. If am even still trying to learn and play this game, it is because of Chernev's writings. I own about 200 chess books. Some of the grandmaster writings soon become esoteric for a beginner trying to get enough of the basics to continue developing and learning. Anyone who has read Chernev's work can't fail to see the joyful enthusiasm with which he brings out his ideas. While they may not be for all those who end up being grandmasters like Nunn, I think they are worthwhile to thousands like me who have continued learning this game because of their influence. Besides, I will not take Nunn's ideas at face value because he has a similar book published and I have never heard a competitor review the competitive product amicably. His ideas may be right but I think they should be delivered with respect for a man who is a very great writer and teacher of chess. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="503" LastActivityDate="2012-08-18T08:25:43.687" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1230" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1228" CreationDate="2012-08-18T11:56:10.227" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can you try answering &lt;strong&gt;why&lt;/strong&gt; are you trying to prevent your opponent from castling?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you think about this more - you realize that castling prevention is just a tactical weapon, nothing more. Of course you can win a game if you are good at tactics, if your opponent makes mistakes, but, to quote Alekhine: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;It took me many years to get rid of the bias that I can win in any&#xA;  position, even in a bad one, using some amazing combination&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The need for playing to prevent your opponent from castling is dictated by the position on the board. Of course it makes sense to follow this plan if you achieved some development advantage in the beginning of the game, your pieces are more active and you have good chances to start a massive attack against the enemy king that's trapped in the middle. Of course, sacrificing a pawn (or even more pieces) in this case is justified, since your positional advantage will compensate that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What if you can't prevent your opponent from doing multiple exchanges after you sacrificed a pawn? Losing many active pieces (due to exchanges) will reduce your attacking potential. And you will have to play an endgame without a pawn. If your opponent is better than you at endgame - he will force those exchanges with the endgame in mind - entering it in a better (or even won) position. Since he will have at least two advantages over you:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;+1 pawn&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;king in the middle (assuming you castled), which is considered an advantage in endgame&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is very important to consider, since often even a single exchange (of queens) serves as green light to endgame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="419" LastActivityDate="2012-08-18T11:56:10.227" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1232" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1233" CreationDate="2012-08-18T15:19:46.563" Score="18" ViewCount="1803" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm interested in this kind of position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are only 4 pieces on the board. If Whites goes first, they can checkmate in one move. If Blacks goes first, they can checkmate in one move. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/vqdRm.gif&quot; alt=&quot;Example&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The question is: How many such positions are there?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I find 3 main positions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/AuSlC.gif&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Each of them gives us another 6 positions. We can move the start position of the black Queen to 6 other 6 squares. So we have 21 basic positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/dt96D.gif&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Are there other basic positions?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For each basic position we can : &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) switch color x2&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) rotate the board x4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) mirror position x2&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So one basic position generate 2x4x2=16 positions.&#xA; And the final answer is: There are 16x21=336 such positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is this right?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="504" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2014-09-02T01:42:19.617" LastActivityDate="2014-09-02T01:42:19.617" Title="How many such positions are there? (chess/math checkmate puzzle)" Tags="&lt;puzzles&gt;&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;mathematics&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1233" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1232" CreationDate="2012-08-18T16:35:29.383" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your second basic position allows for 4 more variants beyond those you already gave, indicated by the following diagram:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;1q6/1q6/1q6/1q6/Q7/K7/8/1k6 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That brings the tally for &quot;basic positions&quot; to 25. Whether that addition makes the list exhaustive or not I'm not completely sure (though I think it does).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In any case, whatever the number of basic positions is, your extrapolation of the total number of positions from there (x2 for the color switch and x8 for transformations of the board) is correct since the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symmetry_group&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;symmetry group&lt;/a&gt; of the chessboard does indeed have order 8, as confirmed on p.334 of &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.confounded.org/~ipg/papers/GentPetriePugetFinalDraft.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this chapter&lt;/a&gt; from the &lt;em&gt;Handbook of Constraint Programming&lt;/em&gt;, for instance. (One does need to be careful about overcounting here, though; see below.) So at the moment I'd conjecture that the answer is 25 x 16 = 400.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm adding this mathematical digression because I see from your profile that you're interested in pursuing a further study of math. I may not be saying anything here that you aren't already aware of, but here goes anyway.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that there are some chess positions which will come out identical under different symmetries of the board. For instance, consider the act of reflecting across the a1-h8 diagonal. That symmetry of the board will generally change a given position, e.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/QQbQK.png&quot; alt=&quot;A position&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;becomes&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/NJ2gV.png&quot; alt=&quot;Changed position&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But of course some positions (namely those that only have pieces on the a1-h8 diagonal) don't change under that symmetry, e.g. the position&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/3WwSi.png&quot; alt=&quot;Another position&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;remains unchanged when we reflect across that diagonal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because of this sort of behavior, one generally needs to be careful not to overcount in this kind of counting problem. For your problem, that means being sure that none of your basic positions repeats itself under any of the (non-identity) symmetries, so that our &quot;x 16&quot; when obtaining the total number of positions from the number of basic positions isn't overcounting. In the present case, your basic positions are complicated/asymmetric enough that it's intuitively clear none of them will get repeated under these symmetries, so there's nothing to worry about, but in math it's often when things are &quot;intuitively clear&quot; that one needs to be most worried about mistakes. (In fact, there's a saying that if you want to find errors in a mathematical proof, start with anywhere it says, &quot;It is clear that ...&quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2013-01-27T04:01:53.373" LastActivityDate="2013-01-27T04:01:53.373" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1234" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1228" CreationDate="2012-08-18T16:42:34.180" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Capturing an extra pawn represents a &lt;em&gt;clear&lt;/em&gt; advantage. If I had the opportunity to do this, I'd do it before almost anything else.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Preventing someone from castling is an advantage, but only all other things being equal. If you can do this in the natural course of play, fine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But if you go out of your way to do this, you may incur a disadvantage greater than the other player's lost castling right. For instance, in the French Defense, White may play &lt;code&gt;Qg4&lt;/code&gt;, forcing &lt;code&gt;...Kf8&lt;/code&gt;. But this exposes the Q on g4 to attack by &lt;code&gt;Nh6&lt;/code&gt; (or &lt;code&gt;Nf6&lt;/code&gt;), and may represent the greater disadvantage. Against a &lt;code&gt;Qg4&lt;/code&gt;, the Black K is actually better placed on f8 than on g8 (where the pawn in front of it would be pinned).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-08-18T18:15:40.297" LastActivityDate="2012-08-18T18:15:40.297" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1235" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4267" CreationDate="2012-08-18T18:10:48.510" Score="7" ViewCount="2175" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would like to compare the Sicilian Scheveningen&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 e6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;with the Sicilian Najdorf&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 a6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please note that I am only concerned about positions where the two openings share a common pawn structure; meaning Black has pawns on e6 and d6 and not on the positions in the Najdorf where Black has played an early &lt;code&gt;...e5&lt;/code&gt;. In the lines where these two openings share a common central pawn structure, what are some of the characteristics that differentiate the two openings regarding piece placement and Black's minority attack on the queenside with &lt;code&gt;a7-a6&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;b7-b5&lt;/code&gt;? I am mostly interested in contrasting different middlegame plans and tactics based on piece placement such as the knight at b8 going to either d7 (typical of Najdorf) or c6 (typical of the Scheveningen) as an example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="41" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2013-12-10T17:53:05.093" LastActivityDate="2013-12-10T17:53:05.093" Title="Sicilian Scheveningen versus Najdorf: What are some of the characteristics that differentiate the two openings?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;&lt;middlegame&gt;&lt;najdorf&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1236" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-08-19T23:06:00.713" Score="33" ViewCount="25476" Body="&lt;p&gt;In 2001, Nigel Short went public with the &lt;a href=&quot;http://web.archive.org/web/20130630071150/http://www.bobby-fischer.net/Bobby_Fischer_Articles51.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;opinion that he had in fact played Bobby Fischer on the Internet Chess Club&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This was denied by Fischer himself, and the consensus seems to be that it was not in fact Fischer that he was playing. However, though I have the impression of reading something about who Short was really playing some time ago, I cannot remember this for sure and now cannot find a conclusive source on who Short's opponent actually was. Has there ever been a definitive statement on this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="510" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-05-25T19:47:05.633" LastActivityDate="2021-05-25T19:49:44.363" Title="Who did Nigel Short really play on the ICC in 2001 when he thought he was playing Fischer?" Tags="&lt;history&gt;&lt;famous-players&gt;&lt;famous-games&gt;&lt;fischer&gt;&lt;famous-events&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="7" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1237" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1240" CreationDate="2012-08-20T01:17:45.700" Score="10" ViewCount="432" Body="&lt;p&gt;Probably most chess players will have the intuitive notion of what kind of positions are not &quot;tension-filled&quot; and what kind of positions are. Usually these are middlegame positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's an idea of what kind of positions are &quot;tension-filled&quot;: In the position there are many pieces that are either hanging or, many times, a piece of lower material value attacks a piece of higher material value (which may or not be defended). Perhaps it could be defined in such a way as &quot;the total value of hanging pieces plus the total value of defended pieces which are attacked by pieces of inferior material value minus the material value of the pieces of inferior material value attacking the defended pieces&quot;, or something like this. This is just a &quot;materialistic&quot; attempt to define the concept, since it doesn't incorporate advantages or disadvantages due to positional factors. Perhaps one could consider &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1139582&quot;&gt;Tal vs Hecht, 1962 Varna Olympiad&lt;/a&gt; at move 21 as an example of a complicated position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nonetheless, is there actually an &quot;objective&quot; or &quot;mathematical&quot; way to quantify this idea which can distinguish a position which is not so complicated from one which most chess players would intuitively agree is &quot;complicated&quot;? Has this been done before?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="510" LastActivityDate="2014-04-18T21:07:00.897" Title="Is there an objective measure of how &quot;complicated&quot; or &quot;tension-filled&quot; a chess position can be?" Tags="&lt;middlegame&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1239" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1245" CreationDate="2012-08-20T07:19:38.050" Score="24" ViewCount="134656" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would like to clarify two things:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Is it possible to checkmate with only a knight and a king against a lone king?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;What will happen when one side has a king and knight and the other has just a king, does the game have to be drawn due to insufficient material? &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="451" LastEditorUserId="12" LastEditDate="2015-01-23T06:32:16.253" LastActivityDate="2018-12-10T23:43:00.887" Title="Is it possible to checkmate with knight and king against king?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;draw&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1240" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1237" CreationDate="2012-08-20T09:28:26.797" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;To me, a position looks &quot;tension-filled&quot; only when there are many threats on the board and (the important part!) - when these threats are mutual. A position that contains many threats but all of them being made by one player - that's rather realization of huge positional advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't know very well the quality notation of moves in English chess books, but in Russian ones some moves get the '&lt;strong&gt;!?&lt;/strong&gt;' quality notation, which means &quot;this is a slightly risky move that can give you advantage if your opponent fails to find the right countermove (which is not trivial to find, that's the whole point of the idea), otherwise your position will get worse&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="419" LastActivityDate="2012-08-20T09:28:26.797" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1241" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1239" CreationDate="2012-08-20T11:07:09.820" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Checkmate with K+N v K is not possible.  The game ends in a draw by insufficient material.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2012-08-20T11:07:09.820" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1243" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1235" CreationDate="2012-08-20T17:45:02.130" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Probably the biggest difference is the availability of an early &lt;code&gt;g2-g4-g5&lt;/code&gt; bayonet attack by White. As I recall, this attack is very nearly a bust to the traditional Schevenigen move order. However, with Black's &lt;code&gt;... a6&lt;/code&gt; in the Najdorf order, he has more freedom to play &lt;code&gt;... e5&lt;/code&gt; in response to White's flank attack, without losing time or fearing an annoying bishop check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="258" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-08-20T18:09:00.740" LastActivityDate="2012-08-20T18:09:00.740" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1244" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1218" CreationDate="2012-08-20T21:24:04.100" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;In &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1032347&quot;&gt;a game at the 1954 Olympiad&lt;/a&gt; in Amsterdam, Botvinnik had the white pieces against Nikolay Minev of Bulgaria, and reached the following position after &lt;code&gt;57. Qxe6&lt;/code&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/8/4Q3/k6K/8/6P1/8/q7 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In &lt;em&gt;Half a Century of Chess&lt;/em&gt;, Botvinnik writes,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Ten years prior to this game &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1032089&quot;&gt;I had such an ending against G. Ravinsky&lt;/a&gt; ... There I did not understand the specific character of the ending and I tried, as in a rook ending, to keep my king on the eighth rank to support the promotion of the pawn at g8 and, this made the win most difficult.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That earlier game against Ravinsky had been analyzed by Keres, but still little had been properly understood about this ending. For instance, in a note after &lt;code&gt;61. ... Ka4&lt;/code&gt; in the Minev game, Botvinnik points out, &quot;Minev willingly occupies a4 with his king, as this was recommended by Keres in a well-known article where he analysed the ending of my game with Ravinsky.&quot; Instead, it turns out that the best place for the black king in this situation would have been the corner a1 square. There was an adjournment at move 73, and Botvinnik notes,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Although I did not find the correct plan before the adjournment, nevertheless I instinctively avoided moving my king to the eighth rank. After thorough analysis I finally found the right way of playing this ending. ... The winning plan consists in placing the white king on the same rank (or file) as the black king, or on the adjacent one. In this case White has a good chance of sheltering his king from checks. &lt;em&gt;Once the method is found, of course, it looks simple.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, after White's 91st move, Botvinnik's plan had reached fruition:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/6P1/8/2KQ4/k7/8/7q/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Black has as many as three checks, but they all lead to the exchange of queens. Here the game ended, Black resigned, but &lt;em&gt;the first page of genuine theory was opened on the ending &quot;queen and pawn against queen&quot;&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For yet another source commenting on the ending to this particular game,&#xA;here is Giddins in his &lt;em&gt;The Greatest Ever Chess Endgames&lt;/em&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Relatively little was known about this type of endgame at the time this game was played, and despite a few inaccuracies in the play, &lt;em&gt;Botvinnik first demonstrated the winning method for such an ending in this game&lt;/em&gt;. ... &lt;em&gt;Without the aid of either tablebases or any substantial theoretical practice, apart from his own game against Ravinsky years before, Botvinnik effectively &quot;solved&quot; this ending in his adjournment analysis&lt;/em&gt;, identifying all the key elements of the winning method in such positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-12-13T03:21:03.027" LastActivityDate="2012-12-13T03:21:03.027" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1245" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1239" CreationDate="2012-08-21T00:03:50.210" Score="36" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you drive an enemy king into a corner, you still need to control four different squares to checkmate him. Your king can control two of those squares (but cannot approach the enemy king), your knight can control the third, but there is no way of controlling the fourth. That is, it is impossible for the knight to control both the corner square and the one adjacent to the enemy king (the one your own king doesn't control).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;So the result would be a draw -- insufficient material to win.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastEditorUserId="17" LastEditDate="2018-12-10T23:43:00.887" LastActivityDate="2018-12-10T23:43:00.887" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1246" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1248" CreationDate="2012-08-21T09:18:13.363" Score="35" ViewCount="18901" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm using GNUChess with the Knights client (Knights doesn't seem to be THAT mature; crashes are common). Is there any equivalent of Chessmaster on Linux? What about good clients to play on servers like &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.freechess.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FICS&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I currently use Jin to play on FICS. But I think Jin doesn't expose all the functionalities of the server, e.g. chat isn't there in Jin. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="520" LastEditorUserId="10867" LastEditDate="2018-05-23T12:14:08.707" LastActivityDate="2018-05-23T12:14:08.707" Title="Suggestion for a good chess engine on Linux" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;linux&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1247" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1246" CreationDate="2012-08-21T11:43:29.997" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;On the Mac, I use SCID as the interface and the Stockfish engine.  I've used Crafty and found it to be safe and effective if taken as directed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are probably Unix command-line versions for both, if that's what you're looking for.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT - Since I wrote the above I've spun up a Windows box. I'm running Stockfish and Arena.  I find Arena annoying but better than Tarrasch.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2012-12-16T14:44:04.970" LastActivityDate="2012-12-16T14:44:04.970" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1248" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1246" CreationDate="2012-08-21T12:36:54.910" Score="17" Body="&lt;p&gt;Engines:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Toga II (&lt;a href=&quot;http://packages.ubuntu.com/precise/toga2&quot;&gt;Package&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Glaurung (&lt;a href=&quot;http://packages.ubuntu.com/precise/glaurung&quot;&gt;Package&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fruitchess.com/purchase.htm&quot;&gt;Fruit&lt;/a&gt; (&lt;a href=&quot;http://packages.ubuntu.com/precise/fruit&quot;&gt;Package&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All three are installable via Ubuntu Software Center and all three are UCI compliant (ie. so runs in Chessbase Fritz, Chess for Android, and/or Arena GUI). Arena is used with FICS so you should be able to use all 3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Except for Glaurung I used both on occasion and was very satisfied with them.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Installation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;sudo apt-get install toga2 glaurung fruit&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="516" LastEditorUserId="780" LastEditDate="2015-06-20T19:28:29.750" LastActivityDate="2015-06-20T19:28:29.750" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1249" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1066" CreationDate="2012-08-21T12:59:53.763" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found this on the web:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The rule that a pawn can not give checkmate probably stems from the rule that a piece may not be placed in a position from where it is unable to promote or continue. A pawn may only give checkmate by being placed directly in front of the emperor; a position from where it is unable to move or promote. It can not take the emperor piece as it could with other pieces, and it can not be promoted until it moves again.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Shogi, violating rules such as &amp;quot;Two pawns can not occupy the same column&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;a piece can not be placed in a position where it is unable to move or promote&amp;quot; results in an immediate loss for the one who violated the rule. Thus, by placing a pawn in this location, the player automatically loses the game by violation of a rule. The checkmate that the player gives doesn't matter because it was obtained through the rule's violation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In certain Shogi variations, such as yari shogi, a pawn can be used to give checkmate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="516" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2012-08-21T12:59:53.763" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1251" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1253" CreationDate="2012-08-21T19:47:57.833" Score="37" ViewCount="6094" Body="&lt;p&gt;So, it was inevitable. I am making progress in the middle-game. I understand positions better and my tactics continue to improve. My end games are still solid/superior for my skill level so I generally get better as the game goes on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, now my opening play is suffering. I just get trounced on many openings. Many of the gambit openings just blow me away, particularly the King's Gambit, but others as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I can survive the first 10 moves, I usually win, but there are so many traps in those first 10 moves. I have a good understanding (went through all the chessmaster lessons) of opening principles. I also understand a lot of the basic tactics in the openings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But it's time to buckle down and study the chess openings and understand them. However, I am not an expert/master by any means (class C/B player), so I just want a more broad understanding.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In addition to my tactics/endgame and positional studies, what should I be studying in the openings to get a good understanding?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To get some ideas of what I currently play:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;As black, against new players I will play Petrov's Defence. This&#xA;is one I know well. I only like to play this for longer games, as for&#xA;blitz games the lines get too complicated to play well. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I enjoy the Ruy Lopez from both sides. Most of the standard lines work out well.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Against the King's Gambit, I always accept and then struggle mightily&#xA;to get my king to safety.  &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;As white, I like to sometimes play the&#xA;London System and sometimes go for the Ruy Lopez lines myself. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I am not a big fan of the Indian openings, although they generally don't&#xA;cause me much trouble, they just aren't as fun. The fianchettoed bishops take too much of the action&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I sometimes will play the Italian game instead of the Ruy Lopez, but it tends to lead to less exciting games.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In general, I like balanced games that can shift between open and closed, as being able to find the right plan is where it gets really exciting. I want to maintain as many options for as long as possible and not be locked down into any particular plan too early in the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most of the time, my problem isn't when things follow normal theory; it's when some trick is played. Or even when the normal line goes wildly against intuition (I've seen some openings books where the standard line is random-looking pawn moves). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="390" LastEditorUserId="10867" LastEditDate="2016-07-26T21:58:22.630" LastActivityDate="2020-09-17T19:27:56.547" Title="How do I get a well-rounded understanding of chess openings?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;learning&gt;&lt;training&gt;" AnswerCount="9" CommentCount="7" FavoriteCount="20" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1252" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1251" CreationDate="2012-08-21T21:05:22.413" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;At the amateur level, openings fall into two varieties: standard (book) openings, and &quot;trick&quot; openings used on other amateurs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My guess is that you are falling for &quot;trick&quot; openings. One way to fight this is to learn the book openings, and when your opponent deviates from the book, figure out why his move is bad, and punish him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance, in the Two Knights Defense, after &lt;code&gt;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Nf6 4. Ng5 d5 5. exd5 Nxd5&lt;/code&gt; White then plays aggressively: &lt;code&gt;6. Nxf7&lt;/code&gt; (Fried Liver Attack). But the sacrifice &lt;code&gt;5 ...Na5!&lt;/code&gt; poses White many problems, by driving back his Bishop. Black then gets a considerable lead in development due to White's (doubled) d pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastEditorUserId="12" LastEditDate="2013-02-18T18:10:37.097" LastActivityDate="2013-02-18T18:10:37.097" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1253" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1251" CreationDate="2012-08-21T21:40:29.157" Score="17" Body="&lt;p&gt;One book that I think you might find useful, both at your current playing strength and as you improve, is Mihail Marin's &lt;em&gt;Beating the Open Games&lt;/em&gt;. It is a repertoire book for Black based on &lt;code&gt;1. e4 e5&lt;/code&gt;, and it covers all book openings White can use in reply &lt;em&gt;except for the Ruy Lopez&lt;/em&gt;. (So for a complete repertoire, you would want to pair this with something on the Ruy Lopez. Not coincidentally, Marin has one of these as well.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One particular from the book that touches on an opening you mention in your question: it recommends, as I did in an earlier comment, declining the King's Gambit with the fairly quiet &lt;code&gt;2. ... Bc5&lt;/code&gt;, ignoring the free pawn, calmly developing a minor piece, and not insignificantly covering the a7-g1 diagonal that White's first moves have opened up, potentially causing some development headaches for White. Thanks to the fact that Marin's book is based on his own playing repertoire, it offers a pretty consistent and coherent approach to facing the various non-Ruy Lopez openings - e.g. this &lt;code&gt;2. ... Bc5&lt;/code&gt; response to the King's Gambit fits in well with his recommendation against a &quot;deferred&quot; King's Gambit via the Vienna Game, &lt;code&gt;1. e4 e5 2. Nc3 Nc6 3. f4 Bc5&lt;/code&gt; - and it is an approach that generally steers clear of the wild and crazy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One nice feature of the book - and this is mainly why I think it could be of use to you at your current playing strength and as you develop - is that it very cleanly separates a discussion of typical strategic ideas and considerations for each opening from an MCO-style table of theory for each, the latter of which you can choose to use to whatever level of detail you like (or ignore almost entirely) for the nitty gritty study of opening lines. The more idea-centric prose section on each opening alone can give you plenty to chew on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bottom line, it's a very well-executed book that, from how you've described your chess self, might be right up your alley in terms of its &lt;code&gt;1. e4 e5&lt;/code&gt; recommendations. If you search around a bit, you'll find that Marin's chess writings are &lt;em&gt;quite&lt;/em&gt; highly thought-of, and I think that reputation is well-deserved. Since &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/1103/how-do-i-learn-to-understand-the-middlegame/1105#comment1301_1105&quot;&gt;I know you're familiar with Silman&lt;/a&gt;, here's what he had to say about this book:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Beating the Open Games&lt;/em&gt;, joined with &lt;em&gt;A Spanish Repertoire for Black&lt;/em&gt;, is the greatest repertoire book(s) ever written for players 1800 right to grandmaster. Marin's legend as a serious chess writer seems to grow every time he puts his fingers on a keyboard.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lest the mention of 1800 give you pause, given that you describe yourself as a C/B player, note that others just as easily give a lower floor for it, e.g. Carsten Hansen writes, &quot;This book provides something for every level of player, from around 1500 to even strong grandmasters.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2012-08-21T21:40:29.157" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1254" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="75" CreationDate="2012-08-22T00:25:04.780" Score="25" Body="&lt;p&gt;Perhaps the most insanely aggressive opening that's remotely playable is the &lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;//web.archive.org/web/20121025210610/http://www.chessville.com/UCO/Halloween_Gambit/Part_1.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Halloween Gambit&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Title &amp;quot;Halloween Gambit&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5&#xA;2. Nf3 Nc6&#xA;3. Nc3 Nf6&#xA;4. Nxe5?!&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems to defy logic that White can sacrifise a whole knight for merely a pawn and a speculative advantage in space and time, but sometimes aggression has a logic all its own. The White pawns roll up-board, attacking moves come naturally for White, while Black mis-steps can rapidly lead to catastrophe.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Strangely enough, Black's best idea in practical play may be to &lt;a href=&quot;//www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1433474&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;calmly counter-sac his own knight&lt;/a&gt; and play for a slight but sure positional advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See also the &lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;//web.archive.org/web/20121014131226/http://www.chessville.com/instruction/Openings/CochraneGambit.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Cochrane Gambit&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;, a similar idea, but with a more distinguished pedigree.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="258" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-08-17T00:49:57.977" LastActivityDate="2020-08-17T00:49:57.977" CommentCount="0" CommunityOwnedDate="2013-08-09T01:11:05.007" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1255" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1251" CreationDate="2012-08-22T00:57:42.653" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the title of the question are asking about obtaining understanding of chess openings, but in the main body of your post you are stating that you have a problem of falling into traps. I don't think you are falling into those traps due to lack of understanding of opening principles. Most traps are counter-intuitive, that's why they are traps; hence, they are set up for people who follow the principles. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To reduce the number of times you fall into traps, you can probably find videos about traps on youtube, to get you started. You could learn about specifics of the arising positions (which might be at odds with general principles) studying GM games might be a good way to do this, and of course play a lot, and learn from your mistakes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Don't try to create a bullet proof opening repertoire, though, it is impossible, even best GMs fall into traps. But the time can be better spent studying middle game or tactics than trying to memorize loads of theory. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You seem to be on the right track, just learn the most common traps, and keep track of your mistakes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="307" LastActivityDate="2012-08-22T00:57:42.653" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1256" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="725" CreationDate="2012-08-22T05:50:49.497" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here's another example each of a rook promotion and a bishop promotion from actual play. Neither specific promotion was &lt;em&gt;quite&lt;/em&gt; absolutely necessary (you'll see what I mean), but neither one was at all a superfluous underpromotion either.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the game &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1271474&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Sajtar-Benko (Budapest 1954)&lt;/a&gt;, the following position was reached after &lt;code&gt;85...Kh6&lt;/code&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/5KP1/7k/8/6P1/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.g8=R! (1.g8=Q??=) (1.g8=B?? Kg5=) (1.g8=N+ Kg5 2.Nf6 $18) (1.g5+ Kxg5 2.g8=Q+ $18) Kh7 2.Rg6 Kh8 3.Rh6#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here promotion to a queen is stalemate, while promotion to a bishop allows Black to capture the remaining pawn with a draw by insufficient material. So the only promotions that win here are &lt;code&gt;86.g8=N+&lt;/code&gt; (which is a long, drawn out win after &lt;code&gt;86...Kg5 87.Nf6&lt;/code&gt;) and &lt;code&gt;86.g8=R!&lt;/code&gt;. Unfortunately, neither underpromotion is strictly necessary, as White could instead win more prosaically by just releasing the stalemate trap with, say, &lt;code&gt;86.g5+&lt;/code&gt; followed by promotion to queen. But still, the rook promotion is the move Sajtar played, and it's also the best, yielding mate in three.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The next position is from the game &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1287069&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Tomic-Winzbeck (Dortmund Open 1993)&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;2rRb2k/2P4p/6pP/p2B1pP1/Pp2pP2/1P2K3/8/8 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1...Rxd8 2.cxd8=B! (2.cxd8=Q?? $10) (2.cxd8=R?? $10) (2.cxd8=N $18) 2...Bf7 3.Bf6+ (3.Bxf7?? $10) 3...Kg8 4.Bxf7+ Kxf7 5.Bd8 $18&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black played &lt;code&gt;43...Rxd8&lt;/code&gt;, to which White responded &lt;code&gt;44.cxd8=B!&lt;/code&gt;, since promotion to either queen or rook would yield stalemate. Not unlike before, while promotion to anything stronger would give up a draw, it's also the case that the bishop promotion wasn't the only option: a knight promotion would win easily enough here too. Still, the bishop promotion was actually played, and is the most natural, immediately threatening &lt;code&gt;45.Bf6#&lt;/code&gt;. Black resigned after the promotion, but could have set up one more not-so-subtle trap by playing &lt;code&gt;44...Bf7&lt;/code&gt;, when &lt;code&gt;45.Bxf7??&lt;/code&gt; would again be stalemate. White would instead need to play something like &lt;code&gt;45.Bf6+ Kg8 46.Bxf7+ Kxf7 47.Bd8&lt;/code&gt; and win easily with the extra bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a bit off-topic, but since we're talking bishop promotions, I can't resist mentioning another example from &quot;actual play,&quot; this one the rather silly online blitz game &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1497429&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Rybka-Nakamura (ICC 2008)&lt;/a&gt;. The six bishop promotions in this game are of course entirely unnecessary, but the game itself is a good illustration of how an engine can go horribly wrong in a completely closed position in which it insists on trying to win with an entirely illusory material advantage that it has. The final position after &lt;code&gt;271...Bbc6#&lt;/code&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;K7/2bb4/1bbb4/3k4/8/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-01-06T13:12:36.407" LastActivityDate="2016-01-06T13:12:36.407" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1257" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1066" CreationDate="2012-08-22T12:10:13.973" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;As I wrote the comment on @Rinzwind's posting, I had an idea allowing me to expand on the 'too easy' comment I made some time ago:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Perhaps mate can't be delivered by pawn drop, but not because it's is too easy, but because &lt;em&gt;a pawn-in-hand is too easy to acquire&lt;/em&gt;.  It removes the challenge from the game.  It's really common to have a pawn or two in-hand.  Even if I don't, I could almost certainly get one easily, by 'sacrificing' a bishop, rook, or perhaps a lance.  Easy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Say you have a pawn defended by a gold.  If I need a pawn to give mate, I take the pawn with a rook.  If you recapture, you're mated because I have a pawn in hand.  Thus you must take some defensive move.  Now I gobble the gold with the rook.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Perhaps the 'get a pawn any way you can' tactic was just too common.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2012-08-22T23:25:44.597" LastActivityDate="2012-08-22T23:25:44.597" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1258" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="75" CreationDate="2012-08-22T18:30:44.513" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Indirectly &lt;a href=&quot;//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benoni_Defense&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Benoni Defense&lt;/a&gt; is one of the best opening for modern chess player. (A66)&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Title &quot;Beoni Defense&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 Nf6&#xA;2.c4 c5&#xA;3.d5 e6&#xA;4.Nc3 exd5&#xA;5.cxd5 d6&#xA;6.e4 g6&#xA;7.f4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="525" LastEditorUserId="4186" LastEditDate="2020-03-10T06:51:39.350" LastActivityDate="2020-03-10T06:51:39.350" CommentCount="0" CommunityOwnedDate="2013-08-09T01:11:05.007" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1260" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-08-23T11:14:47.357" Score="14" ViewCount="3939" Body="&lt;p&gt;I originally had this posted on &lt;a href=&quot;https://stackoverflow.com/questions/12054514/glicko-2-rating-system-bug-or-exploit&quot;&gt;StackOverflow&lt;/a&gt; as it could be a bug in the implementations, but some suggested I post to math. I just found this stackexchange, and I thought who better? Some of you may know off the bat rather this seems accurate or not, without the need of debugging. Any links to online calculators or alternative rating methods are welcomed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Glicko-2 is a rating system used in chess, but can be used in many other situations. Glicko-2 is an improvement on Glicko-1, which addressed problems of the older ELO rating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What makes Glicko-2 special in comparison to version 1  is that it incorporates a higher rating deviation (RD) the longer someone has been inactive. It does this with the notion of a system constant which relates to time/rating periods.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An example write up from the author is found here: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.glicko.net/glicko/glicko2.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.glicko.net/glicko/glicko2.pdf&lt;/a&gt;.&#xA;&lt;br&gt;Within this document, he explains:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The Glicko-2 system works best when the number of games in a rating&#xA;  period is moderate to large, say an average of at least 10-15 games&#xA;  per player in a rating period. The length of time for a rating period&#xA;  is at the discretion of the administrator.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Making an assumption that a group of active chess players play 10-15 games on average in a 1 month time period, the administrator would then update ratings at the end of every month.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I needed a PHP Implementation of the Glicko-2 rating system and came across the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/RobKohr/glicko&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Glicko-2 JavaScript Implementation&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The JavaScript had a small error, in which didn't let it match the&#xA;technical write-up example, the author found it close enough, and&#xA;didn't bother to debug.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://sourceforge.net/projects/glicko2phplib/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Glicko-2 PHP Implementation&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The PHP implementation was plagued with many bugs, but that wasn't&#xA;apparent unless you did more than one rating period (which the&#xA;technical write-up never shows expected values of)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.bjcox.com/?page_id=20&amp;amp;did=11&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Glicko-2 Calculator in Excel&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Finally the Excel calculator seemed to be error-free and the most&#xA;professional, done by someone in the chess community. Once the&#xA;JavaScript bug was solved, the JavaScript and Excel Calculator&#xA;matched very closely with each other (albeit not perfect, could be within rounding error)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I had fixed the bugs (and submitted issues/patches to the authors) I could find on the PHP and JavaScript versions to match as closely to the Excel Calculator&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now I am 99% confident that I have an accurate Glicko-2 implementation (between the 3 of them)  for analysis and that is when I came across something strange, and the topic of this discussion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Given the suggested default for Glicko-2 for a new player:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Rating:      1500&#xA;RD:           350&#xA;Volatility:  0.06&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you face an average opponent of rating 1378 and RD 99 (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/echess/players&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Source&lt;/a&gt;) only once every rating period (1 month) for the next 12 periods (1 year) you will have accumulated an assumed &lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/article/view/about-chess-ratings&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;National Class A&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; (1800-1999) rating of 1852 when in reality you have only beat 12 average rated players over a span of 12 months. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Month   Rating      RD      Volatility      Class&#xA;1       1625        259     0.059999        National Class B&#xA;2       1682        225     0.059998        〃&#xA;3       1718        205     0.059997        〃&#xA;6       1784        174     0.059994        〃&#xA;12      1852        148     0.059988        National Class A&#xA;24      1922        127     0.059976        〃&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you face 2 average opponents every rating period, you can get to National Class A about 4-5 months, facing only 8-10 average opponents.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Month   Rating      RD      Volatility      Class&#xA;1       1672        215     0.059999        National Class B&#xA;2       1733        183     0.059997        〃&#xA;3       1770        166     0.059995        〃&#xA;4       1797        154     0.059993        〃&#xA;5       1819        146     0.059992        National Class A&#xA;6       1836        140     0.059991        〃&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;Are these assumptions accurate? Is there a bug in my calculator? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it is not a bug, what are some ways of countering this besides: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Consider &quot;true rating&quot; to be lower bound of the deviation (Rating -&#xA;RD)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Do not show inactive user's rating&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Do not show users with less than N games&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="528" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-05-23T12:37:05.403" LastActivityDate="2020-09-06T19:38:34.143" Title="Glicko-2 Rating System: Bug or exploit?" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;glicko&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1261" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1260" CreationDate="2012-08-23T13:10:29.960" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;I worked on a Scala implementation a few months ago, although it was a bit unpolished--I should go back to finish it. I at least got some reasonable results from it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you win every game you play, yes, your rating will grow to be quite high even if you play against only low rated players. The probability that you will win every game against such an opponent is probably about what a class A player would achieve (although it probably is a bit inflated due to the relatively high RD, still).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The best way to counter, in my opinion, is to not consider someone with an RD over a certain amount to be a stable rating--i.e. consider it to be &quot;provisional&quot;. Also, in order to actually gain a title, at least in USCF, they have a system of norms, where you must perform at a certain level in a tournament of 4 games or more (4 times, I believe), which makes the likelihood of playing against a ~1378 for the whole tournament [four times] very unlikely.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is your goal to use this for chess? What is your use case?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Update:&#xA;FICS handles it by only considering people with an RD of &amp;lt;80 active. (They use Glicko-1, still, I believe.) &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.freechess.org/Help/ficsfaq.html#Q005.003&quot;&gt;http://www.freechess.org/Help/ficsfaq.html#Q005.003&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And by the way, Glicko-1 uses RD/time decay as well. Glicko-2's main improvement was the &quot;volatility&quot; factor, which allows people with erratic results or stable results to be calculated very slightly differently. I think it's a very minor tweak to Glicko-1 which causes considerable extra calculation--but like you, I was still interested in calculating it. I actually asked Glickman himself for some additional datapoints for testing, but he was too busy to supply them at the time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="142" LastEditorUserId="142" LastEditDate="2012-08-23T13:19:34.343" LastActivityDate="2012-08-23T13:19:34.343" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1262" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-08-23T18:21:52.900" Score="7" ViewCount="268" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would appreciate some links to recent (within the last 8 years) chess variant analyses and research. As to standard chess it seems like the source code for a lot of the computer chess programs usually contains a new tidbit gleaned from various pruning and optimization techniques. What's extremely difficult to find is new insight into games such as &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessvariants.org/hexagonal.dir/hexagonal.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Glinskis Hexagonal Chess&lt;/a&gt; or &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capablanca_chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Capablanca Chess&lt;/a&gt; or even &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_3D_Chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot; title=&quot;Millennium 3D Chess&quot;&gt;Millenium 3d Chess&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[Cameron Browne has done a lot of work on connection games and of course there are the small short games of no chance in the &quot;Games of No Chance&quot; books containing various papers on games; but, I'm really looking for some heavy information w.r.t. the above 3 chess variants.]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="530" LastEditorUserId="672" LastEditDate="2013-12-19T17:12:45.393" LastActivityDate="2013-12-19T17:12:45.393" Title="Recent research, or analysis sites, about some chess variants?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;capablanca-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1263" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1264" CreationDate="2012-08-23T20:03:15.137" Score="20" ViewCount="3920" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have been learning fairly rapidly lately (will probably go about 400 points in about a year), although I am sure that pace will slow with time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, my learning is actually slowed down because I like to play too much. That sounds silly because the whole point is to play and have fun. But what happens is I start playing a few games to try to apply what I have learned and then I just keep playing until I get tired and forget about whatever study I was doing. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As much as I like playing it's not as satisfying as learning. I know some like to win, some like to play, but I like to understand. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, knowing that my goal is to understand as much as possible, how do I get the right balance between studying and trying to apply my studies with games?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="390" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-08-23T20:48:10.607" LastActivityDate="2016-09-30T02:31:18.720" Title="How much time should be spent playing versus studying?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;study&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1264" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1263" CreationDate="2012-08-23T20:10:53.900" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think you are already on the right track.  Obviously the more you play the more you learn, so even though you may think you are not learning when playing, you are in fact learning something new with every game.  Finding the right balance is subjective, but what I would do is I would learn small things and try to apply them in as many games as possible, basically &lt;code&gt;lather-rinse-repeat&lt;/code&gt;.  For example, if you study checkmating pattern(s), you can try to apply some of the patterns you learned to some games.  I would not try to study too much and then apply everything you learned.  In a nutshell, learn a little bit, try to understand it, if you have trouble, just ask here for more clarification and play some games and try to apply what you have learned.  I did this with the &lt;code&gt;Scotch Game&lt;/code&gt;, basically applying what I had studied over and over again until I basically became one with the &lt;code&gt;Scotch&lt;/code&gt; and comfortable with it.  I was later able to come back and &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/1129/109&quot;&gt;answer&lt;/a&gt; a question on here pertaining to the &lt;code&gt;Scotch&lt;/code&gt; due to playing, learning, and understanding the opening that I would not have been able to answer before.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2012-08-24T20:02:30.050" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1265" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1263" CreationDate="2012-08-24T19:28:31.723" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In economics, the idea is to try to equate &quot;marginal utilities,&quot; in this case, between playing and studying.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You now seem to feel you are playing too much. So stop playing and start studying. Eventually you may feel that you are playing too little. Then study less and play more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2012-08-24T19:28:31.723" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1266" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="914" CreationDate="2012-08-24T19:32:40.163" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Copying the openings of a famous player will &quot;put you in his shoes,&quot; (as of the end of those moves).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From then on, it's up to you. You may try to mold yourself after a particular player, but depending on your talent and aptitude, develop differently.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2012-08-24T19:32:40.163" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1267" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1268" CreationDate="2012-08-27T16:33:40.400" Score="8" ViewCount="322" Body="&lt;p&gt;As part of a demo for a rules engine I'm dreaming up, I'd like to do an evaluation of a chess board that communicates each side's general strength at that point in time.  Advanced things like predicting moves or establishing mate patterns are way beyond the scope of this idea; I only need to think about what's in front of me for now!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also do not need to establish precisely how to reduce board strength to a number; that will be a lot of tinkering, this way and that, to find something that seems reasonable.  For now I just need to figure out the top, say, 3 elements to deciding how strong or weak someone's position is on the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My current thought is, in general order of importance:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Material (in pawns, so rook = 5, knight = 3 etc)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Open attack paths on the center of the board (critical area, goes to development)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Total attackable squares (development)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Am I missing a particularly important element in this evaluation?  Am I attempting to measure it wrong?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="326" LastEditorUserId="326" LastEditDate="2012-10-16T20:06:07.903" LastActivityDate="2012-10-16T20:06:07.903" Title="Elements to take into account when evaluating 'board strength'" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;engines&gt;&lt;evaluation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1268" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1267" CreationDate="2012-08-28T04:16:17.597" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It depends on how much accuracy you want to put in, but to have a precise strength, it needs to be able to build a tree of possibilities and look for moves ahead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just imagine a hypothetical case where one have tons of material, already developed everything, castled, some pawns close to be promoted BUT without being able to do anything to prevent getting mated. There is no way to give a correct read no matter how much elements you take into account without some alpha-beta searches.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More information can be found in &lt;a href=&quot;http://blog.chess.com/_valentin_/how-computers-quotthinkquot-in-chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this article.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I suppose that is too difficult to implement, some easier starting points to do are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Some things that chess engines do is to recognize end/middle&#xA;game patterns and also get help from opening databases.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You can also look for poorly placed pieces like bishops trapped by&#xA;own pieces or the king being too exposed.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Check for castling ability and how easy is to perform that (e.g pieces in the way or attacked squares)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;At the very endgame, be familiar with the terms &quot;wrong bishop&quot;, &quot;opposition&quot; and &quot;rook pawn&quot;, etc. (those are often decisive and should be easy to determine wins, loses and draws)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="478" LastEditorUserId="478" LastEditDate="2012-08-28T15:07:34.903" LastActivityDate="2012-08-28T15:07:34.903" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1270" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1271" CreationDate="2012-08-28T15:53:52.400" Score="20" ViewCount="1547" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the board game Go, for instance, it is often of great importance whether or not a stone can be captured in a so-called &quot;ladder&quot; (an often complicated formation). One of the things that separates professionals from beginning and intermediate players is that professionals can solve with a glance a problem that others struggle with.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there similar &quot;mechanics&quot; in chess (most likely the end game), that amateurs would do well to learn to greatly improve their game? Examples might include the ability of a king, or other piece to &quot;catch&quot; a passed pawn; the ability of a king to gain the opposition against the opposing king halfway across the board; the minimum number of moves needed for a bishop or knight to reach a certain critical square, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastEditorUserId="12" LastEditDate="2012-08-28T16:35:05.230" LastActivityDate="2013-12-01T16:09:22.507" Title="In Chess, are there simple &quot;mechanics&quot; that amateurs can learn to improve their game?" Tags="&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;patterns&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1271" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1270" CreationDate="2012-08-28T16:34:22.953" Score="25" Body="&lt;p&gt;Good question, and I think that there are a lot of different common patterns/tactics that improving players would do well to learn:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(very roughly ordered from simplest to most difficult)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;&quot;Simple&quot; tactics and endgames&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;knight forks and bishop forks&lt;/strong&gt; - get in the habit of just &lt;em&gt;seeing&lt;/em&gt; the squares that would be forked instead of needing to spend time looking&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;rook and queen forks&lt;/strong&gt; - very similar to the above, but sometimes these are more difficult to see for some reason (i.e. white king on g1, knight on g3, Rg2+ would fork the two if the rook is defended)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;king and pawn endgames&lt;/strong&gt; - as mentioned in your question, the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_and_pawn_versus_king_endgame#Rule_of_the_square&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;rule of square&lt;/a&gt; is crucial.  At the end of a long variation leading into a king and pawn endgame, just knowing whether or not the pawn will queen is often the difference between a win and a loss, and this trick will save a lot of time, often during time pressure.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;drawn bishop and rook pawn endgames&lt;/strong&gt; - again, if you know that a rook pawn and the wrong colored bishop will only draw, this will enable you to save time and half points.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;drawn knight vs pawn endgames&lt;/strong&gt; - sometimes a lone knight can fight successfully against the enemy king and pawn, sometimes not.  At a certain level (1900+?) it's important to know when the king and pawn win and when they only draw.  That's probably a separate question on its own...&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Rook endgames&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Lucena position&lt;/strong&gt; - the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucena_position&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Lucena position&lt;/a&gt; is the most common method of winning with a rook and extra pawn vs rook.  It's not terribly difficult to commit to memory either - spend 5-10 minutes and learn how to win when you get your king in front of your pawn!&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Philidor position&lt;/strong&gt; - the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philidor_position&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Philidor position&lt;/a&gt; is the most common drawing method if you are down a pawn.  Again, doesn't take much time to learn the basic position, and a good investment if you want to save a few draws in your games.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;cut off king&lt;/strong&gt; - if the enemy king can be cut off along a file or a rank, usually the stronger side will win.  However, learning the exceptions to this rule is important as well.  This is far less common than other winning rook endgames though, so less important if you just want practical knowledge.  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Piece relationships and domination&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;bishop dominates knight&lt;/strong&gt; - a picture is worth 1000 words...&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/kasJf.png&quot; alt=&quot;Bishop dominates knight&quot; title=&quot;the knight cannot safely move&quot;&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;king dominates knight&lt;/strong&gt; - similar to king and pawn vs lone knight...&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/YajZj.png&quot; alt=&quot;King dominates knight&quot; title=&quot;the pawn will queen&quot;&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;More complicated endgames&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;queen endgames&lt;/strong&gt; - learning how to win with an extra pawn in a queen endgame can be valuable, as can learning how to defend.  There are few very common tricks (walking your king close to the enemy king to allow for cross-checks, deciding which corner to run to when you are on the weaker side, etc.) that are useful.  Again, this might be worth its own question.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;bishops of opposite color&lt;/strong&gt; - many times bishops of opposite color are a quick draw.  Not always though!  Learning some of the patterns used to get a win with an extra pawn or two in this endgame will allow you to win as the stronger side, and avoid losing as the weaker side.  Common patterns/tricks include two pawns vs no pawns separated by a single file (many times a draw), learning how to win with two pawns separated by 3+ files (hint: king helps the pawn barricaded by the enemy bishop), and learning how to draw these positions.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Tactics and mating patterns&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Learning some basic mating patterns or typical tricks can be useful as well:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Greek gift Bxh7+ sacrifice&lt;/strong&gt; - if black doesn't have a knight on f6 and white has a knight on f3, queen on d1, and a bishop that is attacking h7, it's imperative to at least check this sacrifice.  The &lt;a href=&quot;http://books.google.com/books/about/Art_of_Attack.html?id=3euYQQAACAAJ&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Art of the Attack&lt;/a&gt; has a whole chapter dedicated to this common theme.  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Checkmate patterns&lt;/strong&gt; - spend an hour learning patterns - the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Checkmate_pattern&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;wikipedia article&lt;/a&gt; is a great start, but &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/0486201066&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Art of the Checkmate&lt;/a&gt; is the authoritative book and it is available fairly cheap on Amazon...&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well, that was a lot, please feel free to add or embellish this answer if you think of more patterns and tricks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12" LastActivityDate="2012-08-28T16:34:22.953" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1272" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-08-28T21:46:08.353" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess patterns are themes and ideas that are repeated in many chess games.  Strong players recognize patterns very quickly.  Indeed, this is one of the reasons that they can evaluate and find good moves in a short amount of time. Patterns include tactical tricks (forks, skewers, pins) and checkmating patterns (see also &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Checkmate_pattern&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;). Some other patterns are common endgame motifs, for example the Lucena position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are a few books (among many that are available) concerning checkmate patterns:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;1000 checkmate combinations&lt;/em&gt; by Viktor Henkin. This book was originally written Russian and translated into English.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;1001 deadly checkmates&lt;/em&gt; by John Nunn.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;Mastering checkmates&lt;/em&gt; by Neil McDonald.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One common way to improve tactical pattern recognition is to get a book on tactics and use a chess clock and give yourself a set amount of time to solve the puzzles.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-06-22T12:29:01.527" LastActivityDate="2017-06-22T12:29:01.527" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1273" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-08-28T21:46:08.353" Score="0" Body="Chess patterns are themes and ideas that are repeated in many chess games.  Strong players recognize patterns very quickly.  Indeed, this is one of the reasons that they can evaluate and find good moves in a short amount of time.  Patterns include tactical tricks (forks, skewers, pins) and checkmating patterns (see also wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Checkmate_pattern).  " OwnerUserId="12" LastEditorUserId="12" LastEditDate="2012-08-28T21:46:08.353" LastActivityDate="2012-08-28T21:46:08.353" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1274" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-08-28T23:14:09.727" Score="16" ViewCount="6999" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can you improve significantly in chess by playing mostly blitz (say, 3 0) games? Or will you eventually reach a wall where the only way to advance is by sitting down for lengthy periods analyzing board positions? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The way I see it, blitz is good because:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Lots of in-game experience&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Board vision&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Quick tactics practice&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What's say chessexchange? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="544" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-03-03T20:02:00.347" LastActivityDate="2018-09-22T14:48:09.337" Title="Is it possible to improve by playing mostly blitz?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;blitz&gt;&lt;online&gt;&lt;online-blitz&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1275" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1274" CreationDate="2012-08-28T23:24:40.683" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;Blitz is good for working out the kinks in an opening repertoire and reinforcing themes that you already know, but it won't help if you want to learn new tactics or ideas.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Blitz is too fast to be conducive to figuring out new plans, especially 3 0.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are some upsides to blitz, though.  First and foremost, blitz is fun!  If you have 20 minutes, a few blitz games are probably going to be more enjoyable than digging up an old master game and slogging through that.  If you go over blitz games afterwards, you'll definitely learn more about your openings as well.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In terms of reinforcing themes and working on tactics, if you make an honest effort during the game to look for the best move and work out the complications (as opposed to just making speculative sacrifices), then yes, it can be useful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So to summarize, nothing quite compares to going over games between two grandmasters, but blitz isn't terrible.  Make sure that when you do end up playing slow games you settle down and think long enough on every move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12" LastActivityDate="2012-08-28T23:24:40.683" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1276" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1274" CreationDate="2012-08-29T03:09:46.807" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my experience, Blitz will &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; help improve the game significantly. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It is fun.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It improves slightly to see all the hidden dangers (sacrifices/hidden bishops/etc) as soon as you see the position.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It does not guarantee in-game experience because you mostly exploit the mistakes of your opponents under time-pressure and not the positional-game.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It is addictive and will be a distraction when you play long regular games and needs to tame/shift your mind to the actual game.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Related to 4. It will not help you improve your positional tactical play which requires time and effort to learn.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Blitz will ruin your patience and that is one of the important tactics you develop playing chess which will help you elsewhere in life or in other games (poker).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;.000000001% Exception: You might be different and can see it differently and can help you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="220" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-08-29T13:08:19.093" LastActivityDate="2012-08-29T13:08:19.093" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1277" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1285" CreationDate="2012-08-29T08:47:35.120" Score="9" ViewCount="801" Body="&lt;p&gt;One well-known automaton is &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Turk&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;The Turk&lt;/a&gt;. What is the first one and when was it constructed, including fake ones?  [1]:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="150" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-25T14:25:17.070" LastActivityDate="2020-08-25T14:25:17.070" Title="What was the first chess-playing automaton?" Tags="&lt;history&gt;&lt;engines&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1278" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1294" CreationDate="2012-08-29T08:54:35.203" Score="8" ViewCount="1188" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to the following &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Grandmaster&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;wiki link&lt;/a&gt;,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The unofficial title, &amp;quot;Super Grandmaster&amp;quot;, is often used by players to refer to those with a 2700+ rating to distinguish the most serious world champion contenders&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When was this term first used and by whom?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="150" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-25T01:48:20.347" LastActivityDate="2020-08-25T01:48:20.347" Title="When was the term 'Super Grandmaster' first used?" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;history&gt;&lt;grandmaster&gt;&lt;terminology&gt;&lt;super-grandmaster&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1279" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1251" CreationDate="2012-08-29T10:16:48.653" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Most of the answers address the specific issue of playing &lt;code&gt;1.e4 e5&lt;/code&gt; and the usual problems that come with symmetrical king-pawn openings, but a very obvious answer that none has mentioned and will indeed pave the way to a &quot;well-rounded understanding&quot;, would be to pick up a copy of the &lt;s&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encyclopaedia_of_Chess_Openings&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;ECO&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/s&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/0812936825&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;MCO&lt;/a&gt; (it doesn't have to be the newest and is relatively inexpensive) and work through it methodically (play through the main lines once so you can roughly know everything that's out there from A00 to E99, but don't bother with memorising the tables, &lt;em&gt;unless&lt;/em&gt; you are really thinking of tackling the 5-volume mammoth).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another would be to invest in a repertoire book as Ed Dean has mentioned and gradually build your actual repertoire around it. John Cox's &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1857443993&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Dealing with d4 Deviations&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt; would be the d4 equivalent of &lt;em&gt;Beating the Open Games&lt;/em&gt;. Personally I like the structure in Larry Kaufman's &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/0812935713&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;The Chess Advantage in Black and White&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt;. It is really one of the most complete repertoire book that has been ever published. Usage of chess database software will also assist greatly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you really want to know the way around a specific trap and the usual tactical refutations associated with one, then there's nothing better than a direct engine check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Btw, the Italian Game is highly exciting for your level if you are willing to include the Evans Gambit as part of the repertoire. Also, my personal favorite against the King's Gambit is the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King%27s_Gambit,_Falkbeer_Countergambit&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Falkbeer Countergambit&lt;/a&gt;, as it opens up the position and offers excellent attacking chances for Black as well. &lt;code&gt;2. ...exf4&lt;/code&gt; is actually favoured by computers, but not so human-friendly. As you will no doubt find out, studying of the King's Gambit can be a whole endeavour by itself if you intend to specialize in &lt;code&gt;1. ...e5&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="46" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-08-29T16:58:43.450" LastActivityDate="2012-08-29T16:58:43.450" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1280" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1274" CreationDate="2012-08-29T13:06:15.247" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Most likely, &quot;you eventually reach a wall where the only way to advance is by sitting down for lengthy periods analyzing board positions.&quot; This would result from what the economists call the &quot;law of diminishing returns.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But playing blitz should enable you to improve your game for a long time BEFORE you reach that point. That's because it will teach you to think quickly, and think tactically, thereby sharpening your skills in both areas.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Especially if you are a slow, non-tactical player. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2012-08-29T13:06:15.247" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1281" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1274" CreationDate="2012-08-29T13:38:52.287" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;Mostly I agree with what everyone else has said. Blitz is great for practicing something you have already, or to just &quot;try it out quickly,&quot; but it's not a good way to learn. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In fact, I find that if you play enough blitz you will eventually start getting worse at chess. Your ability to really think through moves diminishes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, I would say, treat it like spice. A little here and there is really good, but it should not be your main course. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="390" LastActivityDate="2012-08-29T13:38:52.287" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1282" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1277" CreationDate="2012-08-29T20:22:17.623" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;In 1910 &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonardo_Torres_y_Quevedo#Chess_Automaton&quot;&gt;Leonardo Torres&lt;/a&gt; developed a machine he called &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Ajedrecista&quot;&gt;El Ajedrecista&lt;/a&gt;&quot;. It was capable of automatically playing K+R vs K endgames without human intervention. It was publicly demonstrated for the first time in 1914.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16" LastActivityDate="2012-08-29T20:22:17.623" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1283" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="188" CreationDate="2012-08-29T21:43:14.800" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Engine analysis can take care of the tactical bloopers, it is usually the strategic plans and more human stuff that is hard to figure out even for strong players, and Andrew's advice should help in that regard. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;About the openings however, I believe it was Edmar Mednis who mentioned that 50% of the time should be spent studying openings, and it is not just about memorizing lines but also about the associated motifs extending to the middlegame and possibly into the endgame for openings like the Spanish Exchange and Berlin. Examining opening moves with only an engine can be tricky as the playable candidate moves usually do not differ beyond one-third of a pawn (or roughly thirty centipawns) or even up to half a pawn, which means almost nothing to a human player. Cross checking the main lines with books and games between strong players is definitely more important here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="46" LastActivityDate="2012-08-29T21:43:14.800" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1284" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1262" CreationDate="2012-08-30T06:18:40.513" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure if this is the sort of item you might be interested in, but Dave McCooey generated complete (pawnless) 4-man tablebases for hexagonal chess on the 91-&quot;square&quot; board, and has a full &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessvariants.org/hexagonal.dir/hexendgame.html&quot;&gt;tabulation&lt;/a&gt; of the results; since there are no pawns involved, the analysis there is applicable both to Glinski's hexagonal chess that you mention, as well as &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessvariants.org/hexagonal.dir/hexchess2.html&quot;&gt;McCooey's own version&lt;/a&gt; (which differs from Glinski's where pawn movement is concerned). McCooey went beyond providing tablebases for the usual chess pieces, and also included a great variety of fairy pieces, including the Chancellor and Archbishop (called there the Pegasus) of &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capablanca_chess&quot;&gt;Capablanca chess&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Beyond the hexagonal chess board, he also created some &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessvariants.org/misc.dir/endgames.html&quot;&gt;4-man&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessvariants.org/misc.dir/endgame3.html&quot;&gt;5-man&lt;/a&gt; tablebases involving fairy pieces on the standard 8x8 chessboard. Those results involving only standard chess pieces along with Chancellors and Archbishops/Pegasi are somewhat relevant to endgames for Capablanca chess. Since Capablanca chess is played on a 10x8 board, the results aren't directly applicable to that game, but they are suggestive of how things would play out on the 10x8 board, and in any case they are directly applicable to &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seirawan_chess&quot;&gt;Seirawan chess&lt;/a&gt;, which uses the same piece set as Capablanca chess -- with yet different names: Chancellor = Elephant, Archbishop = Hawk -- but is played on the standard board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2012-08-30T06:18:40.513" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1285" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1277" CreationDate="2012-08-31T03:06:33.073" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;The first chess machine:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;In 1769 the Hungarian engineer Baron Wolfgang von Kempelen built a chess playing machine for the amusement of the Austrian Queen Maria Theresia. It was a purely mechanical device, shaped like a Turk. Naturally its outstanding playing strength was supplied by a chess master cleverly hidden inside the device. The machine was a fake.&quot;!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9qpsn.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;1769 fake chess machine&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessbase.com/columns/column.asp?pid=102&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;A short history of computer chess, by Frederic Friedel&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So &quot;the Turk&quot; that you mentioned was the first one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="189" LastActivityDate="2012-08-31T03:06:33.073" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1286" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="478" CreationDate="2012-09-01T00:29:36.117" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;While it's true that your &lt;code&gt;10. ... Qg5&lt;/code&gt; prevents the freeing break &lt;code&gt;11. f3??&lt;/code&gt; (due to &lt;code&gt;11. ... Qxe3+&lt;/code&gt; followed by &lt;code&gt;... Qxc3&lt;/code&gt;), White could get away with &lt;code&gt;11. f4&lt;/code&gt; in response if so inclined. If you respond by moving the queen, then white is no longer so cramped on the kingside and doesn't have to worry too much about an onslaught on that wing. If you respond with &lt;code&gt;11. ... exf3 12. Nxf3&lt;/code&gt;, your bishop has improved scope, but White has in effect achieved the freeing f3 break your tenth move was meant to prevent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe more problematic than &lt;code&gt;11. f4&lt;/code&gt;, though, is that White can play &lt;code&gt;11. Ba3!&lt;/code&gt; in reply.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;rn2k2r/pbpp2pp/1p2p3/6q1/2PPp3/2P1P3/P2N1PPP/R1BQ1RK1 w - - 0 11&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Ba3!&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This temporarily prevents castling, and things like &lt;code&gt;11. ... d6 12. c5&lt;/code&gt; are in the air, when White can have further ideas of play on the b-file (and against your bishop on b7) with &lt;code&gt;Rb1&lt;/code&gt; and/or &lt;code&gt;Qb3&lt;/code&gt;. It's not as though Black is in big trouble here, but I think there's no reason to speed up this queenside play with your &lt;code&gt;10. ... Qg5&lt;/code&gt;, especially since your move doesn't prevent a freeing f-pawn move after all. Better to wait a bit, perhaps, for a more opportune time to bring the queen into play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think you're absolutely right that Black should aim toward an attack on the kingside, but for the reasons just stated I think you should start off with the straightforward &lt;code&gt;10. ... O-O&lt;/code&gt; instead. It seems that White should still aim for the same kind of queenside play described above, but now you won't have any awkwardness involving castling (or needing &lt;code&gt;... d6&lt;/code&gt; to achieve it and helping White to start opening up the queenside with &lt;code&gt;c5&lt;/code&gt;). Now you'll try to get something going on the kingside while White does the same on the queenside, and unlike above it seems like the two armies are on a pretty even footing. After, say, &lt;code&gt;11. Ba3 Rf5 12. c5 Qh4&lt;/code&gt;,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;rn1qk2r/pbpp2pp/1p2p3/8/2PPp3/2P1P3/P2N1PPP/R1BQ1RK1 b - - 0 10&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... O-O&#xA;2. Ba3 Rf5&#xA;3. c5 Qh4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;each side is doing its thing, and I do think that Black should have a comfortable endgame -- though I don't know that I'd use your word &quot;favorable&quot; for it -- if White should arrange for a queen trade to relieve pressure on the kingside.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="959" LastEditDate="2013-01-31T22:23:30.663" LastActivityDate="2013-01-31T22:23:30.663" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1287" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1288" CreationDate="2012-09-01T12:24:11.857" Score="2" ViewCount="1945" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was playing chess this afternoon on my mac, as human vs computer. In the position below:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;6k1/5pp1/2p3bp/pqP1P3/2R3P1/PPQ5/4K3/8 w - - 0 24&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I tried to place the Rook in front of Black's Queen (b4), but this action was blocked and the Rook remained in the same place. Later I completed the game by making another move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why is this so? Why can't I place the Rook in front of Black's Queen? Please explain this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="549" LastEditorUserId="652" LastEditDate="2013-01-22T22:17:46.970" LastActivityDate="2013-01-22T22:17:46.970" Title="Why can't I place the rook in front of the queen?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;queens&gt;&lt;rooks&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1288" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1287" CreationDate="2012-09-01T12:37:54.590" Score="17" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Rook on c4 is pinned against the your King by the black Queen. Thus you can't move it without exposing your King to the Queen's wrath.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2012-09-01T12:37:54.590" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1289" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1204" CreationDate="2012-09-01T14:09:03.073" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Try to keep the pieces on the table. Don't do exchanges if you are not forced to. This will lead to more double-edged positions and positions where you could pick from a lot of different plans (more pieces ~~ more things to do ^^). Also as other have said sharpen your game but this usually happens if you keep the pieces on the table.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S. Try not to fall into a position where you could exchange the pieces easily (e.g. your opponent doubles his rooks and you double in front of him).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="391" LastActivityDate="2012-09-01T14:09:03.073" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1290" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-09-01T15:48:24.423" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Nimzo-Indian Defense is the opening characterized by the moves &lt;code&gt;1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 Bb4&lt;/code&gt;. It is named for &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aron_Nimzowitsch&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Aron Nimzowitsch&lt;/a&gt;, one of the pioneers of the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypermodernism_%28chess%29&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;hypermodern&lt;/a&gt; approach to chess openings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-06-22T11:51:57.343" LastActivityDate="2017-06-22T11:51:57.343" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1291" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-09-01T15:48:24.423" Score="0" Body="The Nimzo-Indian Defense is the opening characterized by the moves 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 Bb4." OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-09-01T15:48:24.423" LastActivityDate="2012-09-01T15:48:24.423" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1292" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="361" CreationDate="2012-09-01T20:52:32.903" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;A very common approach is to work backwards. Instead of studying openings first, followed by the middlegame and the endgame, you study endgames first. Once you know some endgame positions, it may be sufficient to calculate only three moves deep in a late middlegame position, because you know that the resulting endgame is won for you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's consider a position were you have a pawn, king and queen vs. your opponent's king and queen. You have the option to exchange queens and leave black's king too far away to stop your passed pawn. It takes you three more moves to promote that pawn and now you know that K + Q vs. K is easily winning, although it may take another 10 moves. Thus, you just saw 14 moves in advance by going from one position (K + Q + P vs. K + Q) to another (K + P vs. K) and then to a won K + Q vs. K endgame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is of course a very basic example, but the point is that grandmasters do not really calculate 30 moves ahead. They just know that the given position transforms into another, which leads to a won endgame. The more positions and the more patterns you know, the better you get at calculating. This might help you to improve that skill:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Learn the most basic endgames&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Learn essential checkmate patterns&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Learn tactical motifs and patterns&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Play games and go over them afterwards&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Those &quot;shortcuts&quot; should lead to fast improvement. After you did the above things (or while doing so) it might also be a good idea to practice your visualization. Try to say whether a given square is black or white, whether a given position is checkmate or whether a knight can reach some squares within one move. Furthermore, you should always imagine a combination in your head after a game. Try to move the pieces without touching them in reality and try to picture the position after some moves. A nice program to practice visualization is the freeware &quot;Chess Training Tools&quot;. You might want to check that out. An interesting website to learn tactics is &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesstactics.org/&quot;&gt;http://www.chesstactics.org/&lt;/a&gt;. It offers many examples and great explanations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="551" LastEditorUserId="551" LastEditDate="2012-09-02T11:57:18.173" LastActivityDate="2012-09-02T11:57:18.173" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1293" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1287" CreationDate="2012-09-02T19:30:26.057" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;You wouldn't &lt;em&gt;want&lt;/em&gt; to place the rook in front of the queen at b4. Because it can be captured by the pawn on a5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even if you do want to, you &lt;em&gt;can't&lt;/em&gt; move the rook in front of the queen (or anywhere else), because it is pinned to your king by the queen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's fortunate that &lt;code&gt;Rb4&lt;/code&gt; was an illegal move, because it would have been a big mistake. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should, instead, move the king to e3, unpinning it, and bringing it closer to your pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-09-03T18:54:14.160" LastActivityDate="2012-09-03T18:54:14.160" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1294" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1278" CreationDate="2012-09-03T12:19:49.157" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;As pointed out in the comments, it's nigh impossible to pin down the very first usage, but since you're after a rough idea, I'll get the ball rolling with an initial answer of the oldest definite use I'm aware of; it's from within the last 25 years, so maybe others can improve on this with better answers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In 1990, there was a tournament held in New Delhi called the &lt;em&gt;Triveni Super Grandmasters Tournament&lt;/em&gt;. The joint winners were Kamsky (#8 with a 2650 rating on the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.olimpbase.org/Elo/Elo199007e.html&quot;&gt;July 1990&lt;/a&gt; rating list) and Anand (#19 with a 2610 rating on the same list). I tried to find a full crosstable or participant list for the tournament, but have so far come up empty on such details.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I do know that Judit Polgar (then &quot;only&quot; #108 in the world, though she would crack the top 20 three years later, and the top 10 three years after that) and former champion Mikhail Tal both played. Additionally, it seems this wasn't a tournament exclusively for GMs, but rather one offering lesser lights the chance to play with some &quot;super grandmasters,&quot; as Kamsky mentioned in &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess-mate.com/mar91in.htm&quot;&gt;an interview&lt;/a&gt; after the tournament that no participants had achieved any &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norm_%28chess%29#Grandmaster_norm&quot;&gt;grandmaster norms&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Games&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1018142&quot;&gt;Anand-Kamsky, New Delhi 1990&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1066553&quot;&gt;Kamsky-Tal, New Delhi 1990&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2012-09-03T12:19:49.157" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1295" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1296" CreationDate="2012-09-04T00:52:13.947" Score="10" ViewCount="1637" Body="&lt;p&gt;A while ago there was a site made by NM Jonathan Hilton's father that did some analytics on player's USCF rating histories.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I thought it was a pretty good site, but it disappeared.  There are still some tools like that floating around.  I was wondering if there was some sort of USCF API, or how that sort of data might be grabbed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="47" LastActivityDate="2020-03-18T04:35:40.690" Title="Is there a USCF API?" Tags="&lt;programming&gt;&lt;uscf&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1296" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1295" CreationDate="2012-09-04T03:56:28.843" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not aware of an API, but they way they have it set up it's pretty easy to gather data via a technique called &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_scraping&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot; title=&quot;screen/web scraping&quot;&gt;screen/web scraping&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, a search on your name gives a link to a specific page with your member id in the URL. Then if you have a programming language/library that is DOM-aware, you can simply figure out where certain things will be, based on the design of the page. Using jquery selectors, and a couple of traversals, that page can be parsed to get the rating as such: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&amp;gt; $(&quot;td td td:contains(Regular Rating)&quot;).next().find(&quot;nobr&quot;).text();&#xA;&quot;2072  &#xA;2012-03(Current floor is 1800)&quot;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nice rating, by the way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's a bit painful, and even more painful if they ever decide to change the design of the pages, but eventually you'll be able to parse out all the data you want, and then build a way of collecting data for each member and storing it in your own database for analytics. It wouldn't be that hard to do, just iterate through member ids, and you can get their names, states, ratings, etc.--as much is available on their screens.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope that helps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="142" LastActivityDate="2012-09-04T03:56:28.843" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1297" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1298" CreationDate="2012-09-04T09:13:01.423" Score="6" ViewCount="510" Body="&lt;p&gt;There was a book of chess stories that I had read some time ago. In one, there were 3 sailors who had made a deal with Devil for a crystal because of which they were unbeatable at chess. They saw the move that they were to make in the crystal after each move of the opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any ideas as to the story title?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="150" LastActivityDate="2012-09-04T10:32:22.603" Title="A chess story about three sailors" Tags="&lt;fiction&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1298" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1297" CreationDate="2012-09-04T10:06:32.287" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The story is &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessville.com/misc/Fiction/ThreeSailorsGambit.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&quot;The Three Sailors' Gambit&quot;&lt;/a&gt; (1916) by &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Plunkett,_18th_Baron_of_Dunsany&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Lord Dunsany&lt;/a&gt;, who was an interesting character. Besides being a prolific writer, he was a winner of the Irish chess championship, and he managed a &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/extra/dunsany.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;draw during a simul by Capablanca&lt;/a&gt;. Dunsany was also a &lt;a href=&quot;http://alangullette.com/lit/dunsany/chess/problems.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;problem composer&lt;/a&gt;, some of them fairly typical chess problems and some of them more offbeat:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;White to Mate in 4&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/MkqXr.png&quot; alt=&quot;Dunsany&amp;#39;s Problem&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is very much a tricky problem.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-09-04T10:32:22.603" LastActivityDate="2012-09-04T10:32:22.603" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1299" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="822" CreationDate="2012-09-04T11:25:12.777" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are several traps in the Ponziani, e.g. leaving the pawn on e4 unprotected, and if the knight takes it, &lt;code&gt;Qa4+&lt;/code&gt; is winning the knight. Or pushing the d-pawn threatening the knight: If it goes forward instead of b8 or e7, it's lost.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="35" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-07-24T16:37:39.183" LastActivityDate="2019-07-24T16:37:39.183" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1300" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1010" CreationDate="2012-09-04T14:28:03.440" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've taken a look at this gambit before as I play it frequently in blitz games, and I don't have very much faith in it for white. (Usually my games are from a different move order with &lt;code&gt;c4&lt;/code&gt; included for white).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The biggest problem with the gambit is that it can be quite simply declined with &lt;code&gt;3... g6&lt;/code&gt; and what has white really accomplished?  There's nothing better than transposing into either a Pirc with &lt;code&gt;4. Nc3&lt;/code&gt; or a King's Indian Defense with &lt;code&gt;4. c4&lt;/code&gt; (incidentally allowing black another chance to accept the gambit in an even better way). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Obviously declining the gambit isn't the critical path, however.  Black's most challenging move is &lt;code&gt;3... Nxe4&lt;/code&gt; when white more or less must play &lt;code&gt;4. Bd3&lt;/code&gt;.  Any other move is inconsistent although there are a few move order tricks like &lt;code&gt;4. Bb5+&lt;/code&gt; which I will return to later.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now we see the biggest issue with the gambit - white doesn't get a &quot;real&quot; lead in development or force any concessions in the black position.  Black plays &lt;code&gt;4... Nf6&lt;/code&gt; (entire line so far &lt;code&gt;1. e4 d6 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. d4 Nxe4 4. Bd3 Nf6&lt;/code&gt;) and now both players can finish development naturally.  Black will play &lt;code&gt;g6&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;Bg7&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;O-O&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;Nc6&lt;/code&gt; with a perfectly acceptable Dragon formation.  On the other hand, white cannot mount a standard kingside attack with &lt;code&gt;g4&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;h4&lt;/code&gt; because the knight on f3 will allow the black bishop to come unmolested to g4.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White doesn't have any targets to attack in the black position and will be completely unable to stop black from castling.  These are the two goals of a gambit - force a concession and attack with the lead in development.  While the pawn sac is probably not bad in and of itself because white keeps a normal edge as in so many Pirc and KID positions along with the open e file for future use, after black castles kingside, the e pawn is quite immune from capture due to moves like &lt;code&gt;Re8&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;Kf8&lt;/code&gt;, and &lt;code&gt;Nc6&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So at last we return to white's tricky attempt &lt;code&gt;4. Bb5+&lt;/code&gt;.  If black plays &lt;code&gt;4... c6&lt;/code&gt; now white has something since the knight is deprived of the c6 square.  However, black simply plays &lt;code&gt;4... Bd7&lt;/code&gt; and there are no problems because the d7 square is not reserved for other pieces in the Dragon formation.  Both sides &quot;waste&quot; a tempo so nothing is gainer or lost.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;In fact, even after &lt;code&gt;4... c6&lt;/code&gt;, black can still claim barely equality, although this is a real concession in the position (Nb8 cannot develop naturally).  If I were to play white, I think that &lt;code&gt;4. Bb5+&lt;/code&gt; is the best attempt simply because many players will play the natural looking &lt;code&gt;4... c6&lt;/code&gt; to drive the bishop back.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Roscher Gambit&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Analysis&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 d6 2. d4 Nf6 3. Nf3 Nxe4 (3... g6!? {White has gained nothing over the usual Pirc move order}) 4. Bd3 (4. Bb5+!? c6?! {Black's knight is deprived of the c6 square} (4... Bd7!)) Nf6 {Both players will continue to develop normally and black doesn't have any weaknesses}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12" LastEditorUserId="12" LastEditDate="2012-11-27T15:25:07.190" LastActivityDate="2012-11-27T15:25:07.190" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1301" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="394" CreationDate="2012-09-04T21:57:41.440" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would recommend to start with the Accelerated Dragon for black (&lt;code&gt;1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 g6&lt;/code&gt;). It gives you a solid position and also has few nice traps at the beginning which work quite well for beginners. Then you could play the same moves with white and you will get a decent position (This could be called English opening or Reversed Sicilian). The important thing is that when you play it with white you play almost the same moves and 90 per cent of the time your pieces will be on the same position (e.g. pawns - c4, d3, g3; bishop - g2, knights - c3, f3; and so on ..) no matter what the black plays. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Against &lt;code&gt;1.d4&lt;/code&gt; I would recommend Slav, Semi-Slav or the Classical Queen's Gambit (&lt;code&gt;1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Bg5 Be7&lt;/code&gt;). They are usually simple (compared to the things that could arise from &lt;code&gt;1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6&lt;/code&gt;) and solid defences.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you face some weird starting move from white, then stick with the Dragon because, as I implied, it has very versatile possibilities.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="391" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-09-06T19:36:53.513" LastActivityDate="2012-09-06T19:36:53.513" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1302" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1306" CreationDate="2012-09-05T13:24:23.780" Score="19" ViewCount="6779" Body="&lt;p&gt;A naturally positional class-C player (c. Elo 1500), I have learned in recent years to push my f-pawn two squares early in the opening, to force myself to play tactical chess.  The King's Gambit (which I had never tried until three years ago) surprises me in how often it unnerves my black opponent:  I have won more games with it than I should have thought possible, mostly because of my opponents' blunders.  Even against the Sicilian, &lt;code&gt;3. f4&lt;/code&gt; has proved an interesting move though it lacks the sheer psychological impact of the King's Gambit.  With the black men, I have been trying the Dutch Defense &lt;code&gt;1. d4 f5&lt;/code&gt;.  I have been losing, but I have been trying it, and eventually I hope to figure the Dutch out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question therefore is this.  If &lt;code&gt;f4&lt;/code&gt;and &lt;code&gt;f5&lt;/code&gt; are such interesting moves in the opening, then why should Bird's Opening &lt;code&gt;1. f4&lt;/code&gt; be so much less common than the Dutch Defense &lt;code&gt;1... f5&lt;/code&gt;?  Is it only because the King's Gambit is better than Bird's, or is there some other reason?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To be clear, my question today is not whether pushing the f-pawn two spaces is wise or fundamentally sound.  Believe me, having tried it over and over during recent years, I have learned a lot of ways to lose by pushing that pawn!  My question regards rather, among aggressive players who will push the f-pawn, why black tends to push the pawn earlier than white does.  Given the increased risk black runs by pushing the f-pawn at the disadvantage of a tempo, one would think that white, not black, would be the leading f-pusher -- whereas 365chess.com has &lt;code&gt;1. f4&lt;/code&gt; in 0.6 percent of all games, compared against &lt;code&gt;1... f5&lt;/code&gt; in 3.6 percent of games that have begun &lt;code&gt;1. d4&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In light of the relative popularity of the Dutch, why should Bird's Opening be relatively so uncommon?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="315" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2013-12-07T21:51:39.363" LastActivityDate="2019-08-14T02:06:15.533" Title="Bird's Opening and the Dutch Defense" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;dutch-defense&gt;&lt;birds-opening&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1303" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1304" CreationDate="2012-09-05T13:36:43.417" Score="6" ViewCount="897" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was looking at my biggest upsets the other day and realized that the result was unsatisfying.  Most of them were 500-600 point upsets when I was still really low rated (i.e. 800 beating a 1300), while the upsets I consider the greatest have been the 150-200 point ones scored as an A player or expert.  Similarly, it would be a much bigger upset if a 2650 were to beat Levon Aronian than it is for a 1500 to beat a master.  It seems like the higher ratings go, the greater the points matter - a 100 point difference matters a lot more the higher up you go.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can anyone come up with a weighted or logarithmic way of representing Elo ratings on some sort of scale so that this is accurately represented and players can be compared in a consistent manner, or does such a scale already exist?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="47" LastEditorUserId="12" LastEditDate="2012-10-17T00:53:19.043" LastActivityDate="2020-02-08T16:49:56.167" Title="Weighted adjustment for relative Elo" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;elo&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1304" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1303" CreationDate="2012-09-05T13:54:22.170" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the phenomenon that you're describing is due to variability in play at lower levels.  Elo is defined based upon the statistical likelihood that one player will beat the other.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is the exact formula to get the expected score for a player (rating = Ra) vs an opponent (rating = Rb):&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/fzRd4.png&quot; alt=&quot;ELO Rating formula&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This means that an 800 player is theoretically as likely to beat a 1000 player as a 2200 player is to beat a 2400 player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Obviously this is not the case because at the lower levels, there is a much higher variance in the results.  This difference is captured quite well in the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glicko_rating_system&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Glicko Rating System&lt;/a&gt;.  Basically, a player has a rating as well as a ratings deviation (RD) which represents how well established a player's rating is.  So in your case when you were rated 800, most likely you were closer to 1100 or 1200 strength but your rating had not yet caught up to your strength.  It is one of the fundamental flaws in all rating systems that the rating always lags the strength.  If the USCF used the Glicko system, then these early wins would have resulted in a far greater rating jump than actually happened, and your opponent would also have lost fewer points.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So to summarize, while the rating systems are not perfect and your strength will frequently be above your rating, an 800 beating a 1000 and a 2600 beating a 2800 are both equally likely from a purely mathematical standpoint.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-09-08T17:55:01.633" LastActivityDate="2012-09-08T17:55:01.633" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1305" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1302" CreationDate="2012-09-05T14:01:16.357" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;Looking at some results drawn from 2,000,000+ games, we have these winning percentages for the two openings:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;        White Draw Black&#xA;        ----- ---- -----&#xA;Bird's  34    25   41&#xA;Dutch   42    30   28&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So White scores 46.5% in Bird's Opening, while Black scores 43% in the Dutch Defense. Going purely from those numbers, it might at first seem that, yes, Bird's Opening shouldn't be so much less popular for White than the Dutch is for Black, since it scores a higher percentage than the Dutch does. But of course that ignores the fact that the Bird's players are getting to play with White, and that's important.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Looking at some &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-move_advantage_in_chess#Winning_percentages&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;overall numbers&lt;/a&gt; that reveal White's winning percentage in different eras of chess play, we see that it sits somewhere in the range of 52.16% to 55.47%. Seen in that light, the Dutch's winning percentage of 43% for Black shows it to be a respectable, if perhaps slightly inferior, opening choice (and that seems to match its general reputation). But Bird's Opening comes out looking terrible, as its 46.5% winning percentage is well below that typical White range. So that is rather weighty empirical evidence that Bird's Opening fails to live up to what White's expectations should be, while the Dutch offers about the chances that Black should reasonably expect, and that is why the latter is significantly more popular than the former.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One crude way to think about the issue is this. The move &lt;code&gt;1. ... f5&lt;/code&gt; in response to &lt;code&gt;1. d4&lt;/code&gt; doesn't seem to be objectively best, but Black already starts off with a disadvantage anyway, and one thing this move can accomplish is unbalancing and complicating the game in an attempt to wrest away the typical persistent advantage that the first move can give White. On the other hand, because of the advantage that White comes to the table with, he has more to lose, and &lt;code&gt;1. f4&lt;/code&gt; accomplishes that unnecessarily.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-08-11T15:23:57.977" LastActivityDate="2019-08-11T15:23:57.977" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1306" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1302" CreationDate="2012-09-05T14:07:33.067" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;Good question, and to understand the differences, we have to first discuss &quot;reversed&quot; openings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The most common example of a reversed opening is the King's Indian Attack (&lt;code&gt;1. Nf3 2. g3 3. Bg2 4. O-O 5. d3&lt;/code&gt;).  Compare that to the King's Indian &lt;em&gt;Defense&lt;/em&gt; (&lt;code&gt;1... Nf6 2... g6 3... Bg7 4... O-O 5... d6&lt;/code&gt;).  The only major difference between the following two positions is which &quot;side&quot; has the move: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;King's Indian Defense&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[title &quot;White to move&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;rnbq1rk1/ppp1ppbp/3p1np1/8/2PPP3/2N2N2/PP3PPP/R1BQKB1R w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;King's Indian Attack:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[title &quot;White to move&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;r1bqkb1r/pp3ppp/2n2n2/2ppp3/8/3P1NP1/PPP1PPBP/RNBQ1RK1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the second diagram, white has a full extra tempo over black in the first diagram.  However, this extra tempo is not so useful.  Depending on what white does, black will adopt various formations to nullify white's extra move.  In the first diagram, black can wait to see how white develops before committing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In fact, Bobby Fischer said (somewhat tongue in cheek) that in the following symmetrical position, &lt;em&gt;black&lt;/em&gt; has the edge:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[title &quot;White to move&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;rnbq1rk1/ppp1ppbp/3p1np1/8/8/3P1NP1/PPP1PPBP/RNBQ1RK1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. ( 1. c4 e5) e4  c5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If white plays &lt;code&gt;6. e4&lt;/code&gt;, then black will respond with &lt;code&gt;6... c5&lt;/code&gt;, but if white plays &lt;code&gt;6. c4&lt;/code&gt;, then black will play &lt;code&gt;6... e5&lt;/code&gt;, in both cases leading to a fighting game.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So with that lengthy introduction, now we can look at the Bird.  To begin, after &lt;code&gt;1. f4&lt;/code&gt;, black can immediately strike with From's Gambit: &lt;code&gt;1... e5!&lt;/code&gt; when black scores incredibly well (&lt;a href=&quot;http://homepage.ntlworld.com/adam.bozon/stats.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;49.5% from the link in EdDean's answer&lt;/a&gt;).  White's best might be to transpose to a King's Gambit with &lt;code&gt;2. e4&lt;/code&gt;.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Furthermore, black will again have an edge that white usually does not have in the Dutch - the ability to see how white develops and then react accordingly.  White can certainly play a quiet system like &lt;code&gt;1. f4 2. Nf3 3. e3 4. d4 5. c3&lt;/code&gt; and play with that color complex, but if white does that, he is squandering his first move advantage and can claim only equality.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If white tries an enterprising system like the Leningrad Dutch (&lt;code&gt;1. f4 2. g3 3. Nf3 4. Bg2 5. O-O 6. d3&lt;/code&gt; with the plan to play &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt;), then black will have the opportunity to strike back with &lt;code&gt;h7-h5-h4&lt;/code&gt; when white will have to defend against a fairly vicious attack.  In the Dutch there are various ways to avoid this plan from white although they are beyond the scope of this question.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hopefully this gives you a bit of an introduction to not only the differences between the Bird and the Dutch, but also how to evaluate reversed openings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-08-11T16:35:04.460" LastActivityDate="2019-08-11T16:35:04.460" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1307" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1295" CreationDate="2012-09-05T16:16:53.700" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think that the USCF has a full API, but there are a few special url's that you can use for simplified screen scraping/data parsing:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://msa.uschess.org/thin.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://msa.uschess.org/thin.php&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://msa.uschess.org/thin2.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://msa.uschess.org/thin2.php&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://msa.uschess.org/thin3.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://msa.uschess.org/thin3.php&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In each of those &quot;thin&quot; pages, you can pass a member ID as a url parameter (for example &lt;code&gt;thin3.php?11111111&lt;/code&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The server response is very very lightweight - no extraneous markup.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These pages were designed for cell phone browser use by TD's the day of the tournament if I remember correctly, but they're also useful for extracting data.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12" LastActivityDate="2012-09-05T16:16:53.700" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1308" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="427" CreationDate="2012-09-05T17:27:48.200" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;While I don't disagree with the spirit of Wes' answer, I want to answer your question in a somewhat stronger way, one that I think goes further toward relieving any possible confusion about this issue. Your question is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Can a set of moves be a transposition and a variation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My answer would be that &lt;strong&gt;neither transpositions nor variations should be thought of as sets of moves&lt;/strong&gt;, and that doing so in the first place is what creates confusion here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While particular chess openings (e.g. the Sicilian Defense, the French Defense) are often thought of as consisting of a multitude of &lt;em&gt;opening lines&lt;/em&gt; (sequences of moves), for the purpose of making the distinction that you're after it is most useful to think of an opening as a multitude of &lt;em&gt;positions&lt;/em&gt; (which happen to be linked together by moves). If I show you the following diagram,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/4x30B.png&quot; alt=&quot;Scotch Game&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and ask you what opening we're in, you know that it's the Scotch Game, even though I only gave you the position and not the exact moves we used to get there. That's because the Scotch Game can be characterized by the positions that belong to it, whatever the move-orders involved might be.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similarly, a &lt;em&gt;variation&lt;/em&gt; can be seen as just a particular subset of positions from one opening, ones that we've decided to give their own special additional name. We recognize each of these positions,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/rRgmT.png&quot; alt=&quot;Sicilian Najdorf&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/j0qqt.png&quot; alt=&quot;Sicilian Dragon&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;as being part of the Sicilian Defense. Going into more detail, we say that the first one belongs to the Najdorf Variation, while the latter belongs to the Dragon Variation. Again, we didn't need to specify move-orders at all in order to make this classification, because a variation can be characterized by a set of positions rather than sequences of moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A nice thing about thinking of particular opening variations as sets of positions is that it is now clearer how transpositions differ from (and relate to) variations. A transposition is an &lt;em&gt;event&lt;/em&gt;; namely, it is what happens when a move is made that takes us from a position that is labeled as being part of one opening/variation to a position that is labeled as being part of another. Simple as that. After the moves &lt;code&gt;1. e4 d5&lt;/code&gt; we're in the earliest position that belongs to the Scandinavian Defense. If White continues &lt;code&gt;2. exd5&lt;/code&gt; then we're in another position that still goes by that name. But if White plays &lt;code&gt;2. d4&lt;/code&gt;, a transposition has occurred, because this new position is part of the Blackmar-Diemer Gambit family instead of the Scandinavian family.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In sum, an opening/variation can be seen as a family of &lt;em&gt;positions&lt;/em&gt; that are linked together by moves, and then a transposition is just when a move leads us out of one such family and into another.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-09-13T18:27:04.510" LastActivityDate="2012-09-13T18:27:04.510" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1309" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-09-05T18:58:32.497" Score="44" ViewCount="4581" Body="&lt;p&gt;I get into these rather vanilla, or as I call them, boring positions. Not much is happening tactically, and I can't fathom what the right course of action should be strategically. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is an example. I am White in this position. My pieces are in what I view as &quot;neutral&quot; (not good, not bad) position, I think the position is about even, and I have no clue what plans to form next. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;r4rk1/p2nbp1p/1qp1bpp1/3p4/3P4/2NBPN2/PPQ2PPP/R4RK1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Obviously there is no right answer for strategy, but maybe some more experienced players could give me some general heuristics to ponder as I plot my chess board domination. Walking through this example would help too =)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Cheers&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="544" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-08-11T11:58:00.293" LastActivityDate="2019-08-14T01:52:28.610" Title="Strategy in middlegame from boring positions" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;middlegame&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1310" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1309" CreationDate="2012-09-05T19:27:35.847" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm going to speak more to the general question and not the specific board that you provided.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my experience this is where it is important to know yourself, what you do well and what you struggle with. Additionally it is important to know your opponent as well as possible, but if this is your first game against someone that is not always possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some chess players are great attackers. These players excel in creating chaos on the board and slipping an attack under their opponents nose. This kind of player will take a trade of equal, or even lesser, value if it creates a break in their opponents defenses or if it just makes their opponent change plans.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other players are great defenders. These players excel in maintaining a balanced board until their opponent makes a mistake, and then take full advantage of that mistake. When two players of this type face off it can indeed seem very boring. I feel that I tend to fall into this category, so I focus on opening as many attacking lanes as possible while maintaining a solid defense until I see an opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, plenty of players don't fall into one specific category, but for the most part we all fall somewhere on this spectrum. If you don't know where you are on this spectrum then practice different styles. Play a few games aggressively and see how you do, then play a few defensively and patiently and see how you do. Try this against a variety of opponents. Eventually you will get a feel for what is comfortable for you, and where you excel. Then when you practice, be sure not to neglect what it is you struggle at so that you can continue to round out your game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-08-11T11:29:54.710" LastActivityDate="2019-08-11T11:29:54.710" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1311" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1309" CreationDate="2012-09-05T19:28:27.127" Score="36" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;Tactics is knowing what to do when there is something to do. Strategy is knowing what to do when there is nothing to do.&quot; -- Savielly Tartakower&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What follow are the most salient features of the position that jump out at me, and these are the sorts of things one needs to look for when there seems to be nothing to do:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You have no structural weaknesses yourself.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Black has a weak backward pawn on the c-file that could become a very nice target.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Black can attack down the semi-open b-file, but that's less significant since the move &lt;code&gt;b3&lt;/code&gt; leaves White's pawn secure.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;At the moment, Black's bishop pair isn't of much use due to the relatively closed nature of the position.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Having noted those things, it's safe to say that Black would love to get in the freeing move &lt;code&gt;... c5&lt;/code&gt;, which would allow her to exchange off her most significant weakness, while also starting to open up the position for her bishops. So a good course of action for White here is to try and prevent that move from Black, or at the least to make it as disadvantageous for her as possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With that in mind, a good start is &lt;code&gt;1. Na4&lt;/code&gt;, which leaves both the knight and the Qc2 eyeing the c5 square (and opens the way for the rooks to bear down on it as well), and doing so with tempo thanks to the attack on the Qb6. After &lt;code&gt;1. ... Qb7 2. Rac1 Rfc8&lt;/code&gt; (note: it's these rooks in particular because White might want his other rook being able to go to the d-file if &lt;code&gt;... c5 -&amp;gt; dxc5&lt;/code&gt; occurs, and Black might want her other rook to have access to the b-file), we see Black trying to support the &lt;code&gt;... c5&lt;/code&gt; break and White trying to stop it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;r4rk1/p2nbp1p/1qp1bpp1/3p4/3P4/2NBPN2/PPQ2PPP/R4RK1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Na4 Qb7 2. Rac1 Rfc8 3. Qe2 a5 4. Rfd1 c5 5. dxc5 Nxc5 6. Nxc5 Bxc5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this case, Black cannot be prevented from achieving the desired pawn break, and so White will need to switch gears and find new goals. For instance, here &lt;code&gt;3. Qe2&lt;/code&gt; (threatening &lt;code&gt;Ba6&lt;/code&gt;) &lt;code&gt;... a5 4. Rfd1&lt;/code&gt; is a good idea (as mentioned before), so that we will be well-positioned after &lt;code&gt;dxc5&lt;/code&gt;, with our rook on the newly half-opened d-file pressuring Black's isolated pawn. For instance, play might proceed &lt;code&gt;4. ... c5 5. dxc5 Nxc5 6. Nxc5 Bxc5&lt;/code&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;r1r3k1/1q3p1p/4bpp1/p1bp4/8/3BPN2/PP2QPPP/2RR2K1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. h3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now Black's bishop pair is improved, but d4 is an inviting outpost for the white knight. If Black were to trade the dark bishop for the knight after it lands on d4, and we could recapture with a piece, then our structure and our bishop would be significantly better than Black's remaining one, and we would have good prospects for strong pressure against the isolated d-pawn. With that in mind, a good next step is &lt;code&gt;7. h3&lt;/code&gt;, which prevents Black playing &lt;code&gt;... Bg4&lt;/code&gt; and trading off &lt;em&gt;that&lt;/em&gt; bishop for our knight instead, and has the side benefit of creating luft for our king. Unfortunately for us, everything is basically level, as Black has ideas like playing &lt;code&gt;... d4&lt;/code&gt; herself to open up her bishops and rid herself of her remaining weakness.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyway, I hope this gives you some idea of the kinds of thought processes that can be fruitful in &quot;boring&quot; positions like this one, the kinds of features that you should be thinking about when you're not calculating tactical possibilities (which you can never forget about!), and the sort of improvements that White could aim for from your initial position if Black were to fall asleep at the wheel.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-08-11T11:56:30.057" LastActivityDate="2019-08-11T11:56:30.057" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1312" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-09-06T15:48:04.613" Score="12" ViewCount="759" Body="&lt;p&gt;Does anyone know if there is a chess program on the market (PC or iPad) which provides force-move functionality while it is the computer's turn to play (the opponent tells the computer program which move it must make)?&#xA;I think that is the best option to practice one's openings serially.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's different from the &quot;switch side&quot; functionality which, as far as I know, can only be made while it is your turn to play. Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="564" LastEditorUserId="11202" LastEditDate="2017-05-18T06:33:35.537" LastActivityDate="2019-08-11T11:08:07.103" Title="Any chess software with &quot;force move&quot; facility?" Tags="&lt;software&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1313" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1312" CreationDate="2012-09-06T18:02:56.433" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;I do this all the time while in analysis mode using SCID and Stockfish.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2012-09-06T18:02:56.433" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1314" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1312" CreationDate="2012-09-06T19:30:02.153" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know Chessmaster does this (see Ubisoft's &lt;a href=&quot;http://ubisoft.custhelp.com/ci/fattach/get/218549/0/filename/CHES0026_PCS_Mnl2.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;list of controls for Chessmaster X&lt;/a&gt;), since I've used Chessmaster X.  In certain (i.e. non-competitive) game modes, Ctrl-F will force the computer to move during its turn.  It isn't a free program, but it has a lot of good resources for a beginner which IMO make it worth it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit&lt;/strong&gt;: It looks as if I have misread the question; I believe you actually meant the player can force the computer to make a &lt;em&gt;certain&lt;/em&gt; move when it is the computer's turn.  As far as I know, you cannot do this without setting up the board to a certain position, then playing from that position.  E.g. you are White: &lt;code&gt;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 ...&lt;/code&gt; and you want to make the computer play &lt;code&gt;2... f6&lt;/code&gt; to practice your advantage against this opening.  In this case, you would set up the board manually (which Chessmaster as well as most other chess programs allow you to do) as &lt;code&gt;FEN rnbqkbnr/pppp2pp/5p2/4p3/4P3/5N2/PPPP1PPP/RNBQKB1R w KQkq - 1 2&lt;/code&gt;, and play as White from there  In most programs, including Chessmaster, you can manually move around/add/remove pieces to attain the desired position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="86" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-12-01T19:28:49.210" LastActivityDate="2012-12-01T19:28:49.210" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1315" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-09-06T21:58:48.083" Score="8" ViewCount="2450" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there chess software out there that will try and rate your play? I vaguely recall an old Chessmaster software that did something similar, though by having you play through puzzles. I was looking for an actual engine to face you and gauge an estimated Elo rating somehow.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="544" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-09-06T22:26:37.820" LastActivityDate="2015-09-29T16:34:51.923" Title="Is there chess software to play against that rates your skill through actual games?" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;rating&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1316" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1315" CreationDate="2012-09-06T22:25:01.240" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I realize what I'm about to suggest isn't exactly what you have in mind, but still, it is technically software, and it rates your skill through actual games: play games online against other people, e.g. at &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.freechess.org/&quot;&gt;FICS&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://playchess.com/&quot;&gt;Playchess&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessclub.com/&quot;&gt;ICC&lt;/a&gt; or &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/&quot;&gt;chess.com&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Instead of using some software that would have you play games against an engine (perhaps with various &quot;levels&quot; that are &lt;em&gt;supposed to&lt;/em&gt; reflect various Elo levels), and then has some algorithm or other that tries to convert your results against it into your own estimated real-world rating, my suggestion cuts out the middleman and throws you right into a real-world pool. This way seems more efficient if nothing else (and probably more fun).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now any rating you get at one of the sites I mentioned will be on a somewhat different scale than that for, say, actual FIDE ratings, and they will differ from site to site as well. But you will usually have some way to translate your rating there into a percentile (within that site's playing pool), and that would give you better information about your playing strength than any purely algorithmic guess about it will.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2012-09-06T22:25:01.240" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1317" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1309" CreationDate="2012-09-06T23:12:32.827" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Actually this is a pretty interesting position. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You have two &quot;pawn islands&quot; (Capablanca's term) to three for Black. One of them is an isolated rook pawn, two of them are &quot;hanging&quot; c and d pawns. Black's king side pawns are doubled. You have an open c file on your side to attack Black's backward c pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Try to keep your pawns on dark squares to give your light-squared bishop as much mobility as possible to attack Black's pawn on the light squares. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black's only advantage is a the bishop pair, but that's not much of an advantage with so many pawns on the board. Note that Black's light-squared bishop is somewhat &quot;bad,&quot; so try to trade one of your knights for his DARK squared bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One way to try to do this is to move your c3 knight to a4, chasing the Black Queen. Your followup threats are a3, b4, and Nc5. If Black exchanges knights and you recapture with the b pawn, the pawn structures make &lt;em&gt;both&lt;/em&gt; of Black's bishops &quot;somewhat bad.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black can counter this threat by moving c5, offering the exchange of his c pawn for your d pawn. You gladly accept because this isolates Black's d pawn and gives your f3 knight a fine outpost on d4 (see the diagram in ETD's answer).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastEditorUserId="17" LastEditDate="2016-08-08T05:15:59.693" LastActivityDate="2016-08-08T05:15:59.693" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1319" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-09-08T15:46:51.307" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2012-09-08T15:46:51.307" LastActivityDate="2012-09-08T15:46:51.307" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1320" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-09-08T15:46:51.307" Score="0" Body="Questions related to the World Chess Olympiad conducted every 2 years, mostly after olympic games are over for other sports." OwnerUserId="105" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-09-08T16:04:45.667" LastActivityDate="2012-09-08T16:04:45.667" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1321" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-09-08T15:49:48.883" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Questions related to the World Chess Olympiad conducted every 2 years, mostly after olympic games are over for other sports.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the year 2012 the chess olympiad is held in Istanbul, Turkey and the official website is &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessolympiadistanbul.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.chessolympiadistanbul.com/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="105" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-09-08T16:08:48.420" LastActivityDate="2012-09-08T16:08:48.420" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1322" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-09-08T15:49:48.883" Score="0" Body="Questions related to the World Chess Olympiad conducted every 2 years, mostly after olympic games are over for other sports" OwnerUserId="105" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-09-08T16:08:03.460" LastActivityDate="2012-09-08T16:08:03.460" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1323" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-09-08T15:58:38.957" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Questions related to the World Chess Olympiad 2012 held in Istanbul, Turkey.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The official website for the event is &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessolympiadistanbul.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.chessolympiadistanbul.com/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="105" LastEditorUserId="105" LastEditDate="2012-09-08T16:05:41.390" LastActivityDate="2012-09-08T16:05:41.390" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1324" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-09-08T15:58:38.957" Score="0" Body="Questions related to the World Chess Olympiad 2012 held in Istanbul, Turkey." OwnerUserId="105" LastEditorUserId="105" LastEditDate="2012-09-08T16:08:16.970" LastActivityDate="2012-09-08T16:08:16.970" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1325" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1326" CreationDate="2012-09-08T16:17:07.160" Score="3" ViewCount="265" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are the board positions of the 4 players of each country determined by Elo rating in chess olympiads? Or is this something arbitrarily decided by the countries?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By board positions I mean, 1st seed/board, 2nd seed/board, 3rd seed/board and 4th seed/board.&#xA;I do remember seeing some players with higher Elo ratings sitting on lower boards, hence I am wondering what the regulations are.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="105" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-09-05T17:47:59.810" LastActivityDate="2016-09-05T20:36:02.697" Title="Are the board positions of the 4 players of each country determined by Elo rating in chess olympiads?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;chess-olympiad&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1326" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1325" CreationDate="2012-09-08T16:33:13.187" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Look for &lt;code&gt;fixed board order&lt;/code&gt; in the FIDE handbook's &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fide.com/component/handbook/?id=94&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Regulations for the Chess Olympiad&lt;/a&gt;. The essence is that the board order cannot be changed between rounds for the purpose of getting a strategic advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="46" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-09-08T16:44:50.110" LastActivityDate="2012-09-08T16:44:50.110" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1327" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1328" CreationDate="2012-09-08T18:12:44.070" Score="17" ViewCount="24194" Body="&lt;p&gt;What does the acronym ELO stand for in the context of chess, as in the ELO rating system?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2018-01-03T20:49:15.057" LastActivityDate="2018-01-03T20:49:15.057" Title="What does ELO stand for?" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;elo&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1328" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1327" CreationDate="2012-09-08T18:12:44.070" Score="38" Body="&lt;p&gt;It doesn't stand for anything at all, because &lt;strong&gt;it's not an acronym&lt;/strong&gt;. It should be &quot;Elo&quot; rather than &quot;ELO.&quot; The Elo rating system is named after the Hungarian-American physics professor (and 8-time state champion chess master) &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arpad_Elo&quot;&gt;Arpad Elo&lt;/a&gt;, who originally devised his rating system around 1960.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2012-09-08T18:12:44.070" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1329" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1330" CreationDate="2012-09-09T05:23:05.627" Score="13" ViewCount="17318" Body="&lt;p&gt;What happens in the endgame Rook + Knight vs Rook?  Is it a draw, or can the side with the knight win?  I came across this a few days ago, and I managed to win with the Rook + Knight, but I am not sure if that is just because my opponent made a mistake.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="101" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-07-29T11:35:01.333" LastActivityDate="2017-07-29T11:37:07.883" Title="Endgame: Rook + Knight vs Rook" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;knights&gt;&lt;rooks&gt;&lt;rook-and-minor-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1330" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1329" CreationDate="2012-09-09T07:23:33.110" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;Like its cousin endgame KRBvKR, your ending of KRNvKR is usually drawn. It's not always drawn, of course, but generally speaking KRNvKR is much less dangerous and easier to defend than is KRBvKR. In &lt;em&gt;Secrets of Pawnless Endings&lt;/em&gt;, John Nunn writes,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If the defending king is not in a corner there are a few situations when the rook and knight can win tactically within a few moves, usually by a combination of skewer and knight fork, but in general the rook and knight only have winning chances when the defender's king is very badly placed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The positions of KRNvKR are a part of existing tablebases, so we can be precise about how often it's a win: 35.9% of positions &lt;em&gt;in which the strong side has the move&lt;/em&gt; are winning (see e.g. Ken Thompson's &lt;a href=&quot;http://pdos.csail.mit.edu/~rsc/thompson86endgame.pdf&quot;&gt;&quot;Retrograde analysis of certain endgames&quot;&lt;/a&gt; from 1986). Note that since that says that giving the strong side the move (which is advantageous most of the time) in a random position yields a win only 35.9% of the time, the overall winning percentage for the strong side in KRNvKR is considerably lower than that; I am unable to pin the figure down from any source so far.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For your particular game, Nunn's words can give some inkling as to whether your opponent made a mistake or was already doomed, but if tablebases have taught us anything it's that optimal play can be quite seemingly random, and that heuristics are of limited use for a reliable verdict. If you have a record of the initial KRNvKR position that appeared on the board in your game, though, then a quick &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.k4it.de/index.php?topic=egtb&amp;amp;lang=en&quot;&gt;Nalimov tablebase query&lt;/a&gt; will tell you whether or not your opponent sealed his fate during that ending or before it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-09-09T07:43:15.067" LastActivityDate="2012-09-09T07:43:15.067" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1331" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-09-09T12:21:48.403" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2012-09-09T12:21:48.403" LastActivityDate="2012-09-09T12:21:48.403" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1332" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-09-09T12:21:48.403" Score="0" Body="Questions related to aggressive play" OwnerUserId="105" LastEditorUserId="105" LastEditDate="2012-09-09T13:08:14.997" LastActivityDate="2012-09-09T13:08:14.997" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1333" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-09-09T12:22:07.670" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Elo rating system is named after the Hungarian-American physics professor (and 8-time state champion chess master) Arpad Elo, who originally devised his rating system around 1960, as an improvement to the earlier Harkness system which was in use at the time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="105" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-11-27T21:54:27.977" LastActivityDate="2012-11-27T21:54:27.977" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1334" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-09-09T12:22:07.670" Score="0" Body="Use when the question is ABOUT the Elo rating system not when it mentions Elo" OwnerUserId="105" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-03-31T10:40:28.233" LastActivityDate="2019-03-31T10:40:28.233" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1335" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1338" CreationDate="2012-09-09T17:13:48.677" Score="26" ViewCount="4812" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm aware of several excellent youtube channels that are free and provide some great insight into the game, such as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/user/ChessNetwork&quot;&gt;Chess Network&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/user/OnlineChessLessons&quot;&gt;Online Chess Lessons&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/user/ChessFriendsDotCom&quot;&gt;ChessFriends.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/user/kingscrusher&quot;&gt;Kings Crusher&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/user/MatoJelic&quot;&gt;Mato Jelic&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/user/YMChessMaster&quot;&gt;YM Chess Master (IM Andrew Martin)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are a few other good resources (free only please!) that a new player can find and how can I use them effectively to improve?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="460" LastEditorUserId="12" LastEditDate="2012-09-09T19:21:57.917" LastActivityDate="2019-08-05T17:10:46.410" Title="Free learning material" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="8" CommentCount="9" FavoriteCount="26" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1336" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1335" CreationDate="2012-09-09T18:17:36.707" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;one best game one can download through torrent&#xA;that is &quot;KASPAROV CHESSMATE&quot;&#xA;there are such many examples to solve with kit ta have many ideas.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="567" LastActivityDate="2012-09-09T18:17:36.707" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1337" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="730" CreationDate="2012-09-09T23:27:44.513" Score="20" Body="&lt;p&gt;During round 9 of the Istanbul 2012 Chess Olympiads, at the Nakamura-Kramnik table of the USA vs Russia match, we've witnessed another one of those promotions to knight at move 62 by white.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The relevant position (white to play):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;8/2P1k3/8/8/5p2/5KbB/3pp3/3N4 w - - 1 62&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. c8=N+ (1. Kxe2? f3+ 2. Kxf3 Bxc7)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We can see here that if&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;62. Kxe2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;then&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;62. ... f3+&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and the bishop on &lt;code&gt;g3&lt;/code&gt; will take the &lt;code&gt;c7&lt;/code&gt; pawn next move resulting in a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To avoid that, Nakamura promotes his pawn to a knight with check to save his advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are 4 different commentaries of the game, pick your favorite one!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgBkRLzHpew&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess Network&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9--RNWsNuA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Online Chess Lessons&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Jlctw1Z6Kg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chessexplained&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7G1_KMVm5g&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;KingsCrusher&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="460" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-07-30T11:05:29.623" LastActivityDate="2019-07-30T11:05:29.623" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1338" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1335" CreationDate="2012-09-10T01:04:32.030" Score="16" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here are some sites that I have found to be of great value:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chessopenings.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chessopenings.com&lt;/a&gt; - NM Dereque Kelley explains openings very well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.thechesswebsite.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;The Chess Website&lt;/a&gt; - Excellent videos.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessvideos.tv/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;ChessVideos.tv&lt;/a&gt; - An abundant resource of top notch videos.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://exeterchessclub.org.uk/category/topic/coaching&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Exeter Chess Club coaching section&lt;/a&gt; - Excellent articles&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://web.archive.org/web/20140714190611/http://www.chesscafe.com/archives/archives.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;ChessCafe columns&lt;/a&gt; (especially Dan Heisman's &lt;a href=&quot;https://web.archive.org/web/20140714190611/http://www.chesscafe.com/archives/archives.htm#Novice%20Nook&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Novice Nook columns&lt;/a&gt; and Mark Dvoretsky's &lt;a href=&quot;https://web.archive.org/web/20140714190611/http://www.chesscafe.com/archives/archives.htm#The%20Instructor&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Instructor columns&lt;/a&gt;) - I can't recommend Dan Heisman enough,  his videos on ICC (not free) are excellent. Note: since the demise of the ChessCafe site these links point to the archive.org saved version.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.50chessgames.freeserve.co.uk/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;50 Chess Games for Beginners&lt;/a&gt; - I stumbled upon this. Looks helpful, especially since the games are annotated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.janmatthies.info/chess/cvt/cvt.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess Visualization Training&lt;/a&gt; - Improve your visualization.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-08-05T17:08:10.187" LastActivityDate="2019-08-05T17:08:10.187" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1339" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="218" CreationDate="2012-09-11T00:11:53.533" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is indeed the Scotch game. It is my favourite White opening. Why? It is really easy to learn as a beginner but has a fantastic pedigree of top level GM games to back it up!&#xA;So it offers great possibilities and I enjoy it (Kasparov &amp;amp; Blackburne have enjoyed playing it too so it really cannot be bad! Paul Morphy played the closely related Scotch Gambit with success)!I have played it for a few years and I am still learning new ideas in it (today I missed a 4 move mate in the Mieses variation but I still won the game). The mid and end game positions that may arise after this seemingly simple opening can get complicated and I have learnt lots from these. One day I might take up a real heavyweight theory laden opening such as the Ruy Lopez as an alternative because I prefer 1.e4 openings but the thought of tons of opening theory is not a prospect I relish! &#xA;I thoroughly recommend the Scotch opening but I agree the early release of central tension may not be liked by everyone! Enjoy your Scotch game!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="426" LastActivityDate="2012-09-11T00:11:53.533" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1340" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1345" CreationDate="2012-09-13T02:08:16.963" Score="13" ViewCount="892" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a novice player who is trying to brush up on the core principles for successful chess. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Instead of focusing on specific openings in the beginnings of a game, I am trying to play to certain principles, namely:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Control of the centre by a combination of pawn and minor pieces.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Early development of minor pieces&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Not losing momentum, or hindering development, by having to move the same piece twice.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Specfic Problem:&lt;/strong&gt; &#xA;I am currently having trouble with tripping over myself by moving pieces in the way of each other so that I end up not adequately defending pieces, or defending pieces come under attack.&#xA;I often lose a pawn in the center which I was trying to defend, i.e. I failed in taking a square I wished to hold (d4, e4). This tends to happen by a pawn being taken and then the attacker pawn is defended by another pawn, so that my developed minor pieces can't retake without losing material in the exchange. So I think I might be pushing forward too early with my pawns. (I usually move e4, then some variation of knights, then bishop. I also don't know where to place my bishops (the only places I know for tactical/strategic advantage are pinning an opponent's minor piece against queen or king, or to aim them at the opponents weakest square (f2, f7).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;General questions:&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;Are there any other early-game principles? What order do you generally develop? How many turns does it take you to make a push for the centre? What squares do you move your minor pieces to for strategic or tactical opportunity?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="580" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-09-13T02:28:50.200" LastActivityDate="2019-08-05T16:54:30.920" Title="Early-game Principles" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1341" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-09-13T05:44:31.877" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The King's Indian Attack, also known as the Barcza System, is an opening setup for White involving e4, d3, a kingside fianchetto and castling, and deploying knights to f3 and d2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-09-13T05:44:31.877" LastActivityDate="2012-09-13T05:44:31.877" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1342" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-09-13T05:44:31.877" Score="0" Body="The King's Indian Attack is an opening setup for White involving e4, d3, a kingside fianchetto and castling, and deploying knights to f3 and d2." OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-09-13T05:44:31.877" LastActivityDate="2012-09-13T05:44:31.877" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1343" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-09-13T05:54:22.203" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Studies are composed chess puzzles that ask the solver to find a winning or drawing line of play. They are closely related to chess &lt;em&gt;problems&lt;/em&gt;, but there are two major differences:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Studies usually just ask for best play (&quot;White to play and win&quot; or &quot;White to play and draw&quot;) and to obtain a theoretically won/drawn position, whereas problems typically seek mate in a specified number of moves (e.g. &quot;White to mate in 4&quot;).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;While both studies and problems are composed positions, those of studies tend to more closely resemble positions from actual play, while problems can be much more contrived.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-09-13T05:54:22.203" LastActivityDate="2012-09-13T05:54:22.203" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1344" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-09-13T05:54:22.203" Score="0" Body="Studies are composed chess puzzles that ask the solver to find a winning or drawing line of play." OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-09-13T05:54:22.203" LastActivityDate="2012-09-13T05:54:22.203" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1345" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1340" CreationDate="2012-09-13T18:59:37.400" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can probably benefit greatly by improving your tactical calculation. Doing some exercises on chesstempo.com will help you get used to calculating out those exchanges. What you are describing seems like a tactical issue and generally can't be addressed using strategic ideas. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That said, a good way to avoid those difficulties may be to specialize in some less complicated openings until you get comfortable with the tactics that appear in the opening. Maybe the London System (&lt;code&gt;1. d4&lt;/code&gt; ... &lt;code&gt;2. Nf3&lt;/code&gt; ... &lt;code&gt;3. Bf4&lt;/code&gt;) for white and the Center Counter Defense for black (&lt;code&gt;1. e4 d5&lt;/code&gt;). Both have some traps, but there are less to deal with. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Personally, those are the two openings I liked to use to get &quot;used&quot; to chess without having to really deal with the openings much. Especially if you are a more strategic, positional player, these two openings should feel pretty natural.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="390" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-09-14T22:43:51.250" LastActivityDate="2012-09-14T22:43:51.250" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1346" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1363" CreationDate="2012-09-13T19:37:21.857" Score="8" ViewCount="4482" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm looking for an attractive (probably all-wood external) magnetic chess set that has reasonably strong magnets and pieces of relatively normal size; I've had enough of the chintzy plastic ones with 1/2&quot; kings.  I'd also prefer it to be a one-piece board, not a folding one (though that's not important). I was thinking of purchasing one of these:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/B000NDL93G&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Link&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/S6sUq.jpg&quot; width=&quot;200&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/B006YJ8OEA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Link&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/KFf2G.jpg&quot; width=&quot;200&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was just wondering whether anyone has had experience with these or other similar sets and would like to recommend them for their strong magnets.  Again, I'd like its squares no smaller than, say, 3/4&quot;.  And a folding board is fine, though I'd prefer one with a drawer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: I'm looking for a set that wouldn't cost much over $50, but if there isn't really a good set available for such a price, I'd be willing to look into higher-priced sets (as in &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/1349/86&quot;&gt;Ed Dean's answer&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="86" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-08-05T16:22:34.970" LastActivityDate="2019-09-05T19:39:23.627" Title="What are some good quality magnetic chess sets?" Tags="&lt;equipment&gt;&lt;chessboards&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1347" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-09-14T15:03:06.137" Score="5" ViewCount="202" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would like to annotate my game not only with textual comments like &lt;code&gt;6. Be5 &quot;This move brings the bishop to a long diagonal&quot;&lt;/code&gt;, but also record such comments with voice. Is there any software package that supports this? I can't find this feature in SCID.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="585" LastEditorUserId="12" LastEditDate="2012-09-27T20:29:55.707" LastActivityDate="2012-09-27T20:29:55.707" Title="Is there chess software that allows storage and replay of media annotations?" Tags="&lt;software&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1348" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1361" CreationDate="2012-09-14T15:09:43.647" Score="14" ViewCount="2621" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would like to take an annotated pgn file, and convert it into an ebook I could conveniently read on amazon kindle (or its pc version), or android/Ios device. It might have to create diagrams where needed and make the book easy to go through without an extra chessboard. It would be good if the output format allowed to upload it to amazon store as well. Does such software/tool exist?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="585" LastActivityDate="2019-05-30T15:11:12.673" Title="What Chess Software allows creating a chess Ebook?" Tags="&lt;software&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1349" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1346" CreationDate="2012-09-14T16:55:08.543" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know you'd prefer a non-folding board, but since you say that's not a deal-breaker, I'll point you to the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessmate.com/chessmate1.html#travmatedel&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;ChessMate TravelMate Deluxe&lt;/a&gt; set. It has nice wooden pieces and quite strong magnets. If you watch the video available at that link, at about 40 seconds in the board is turned upside down and shaken pretty vigorously, and the pieces all stay in place; it's no trick. The downside for the set is that it's pretty pricey, but I do own this one (like in Wes' comment, I received this set as a nice gift) and I can say first-hand that it's a pleasure to use. They also have some other more and less expensive travel sets that I'd guess are of similar quality.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/dp4zp.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;TravelMate Deluxe&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In fact, I see that they have a non-folding set as well: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessmate.com/chessmate1.html#travelmatebox&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;TravelMate Box&lt;/a&gt;. It's just as pricey as the one I mentioned unfortunately, and I can't vouch for this one myself, but from their description at least it seems that its pieces have the same material and magnets as the one above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/sWJCy.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;TravelMate Box&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-09-15T00:05:07.577" LastActivityDate="2012-09-15T00:05:07.577" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1350" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1347" CreationDate="2012-09-14T23:08:07.420" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I haven't worked with it in a while, but I remember Fritz letting you do that.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="47" LastActivityDate="2012-09-14T23:08:07.420" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1351" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1335" CreationDate="2012-09-14T23:12:07.117" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;A bit of self-promotion, I put together &lt;a href=&quot;https://web.archive.org/web/20150921172649/http://www.lathamcity.com/docs/pawnstructures.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this PDF&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A solid understanding of pawn structures and their corresponding plans will improve your game by leaps and bounds, because books rarely do a good job of explaining this powerful area of chess knowledge so it will probably be mostly new information.  Hope you find it useful!  :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="47" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-08-05T17:10:46.410" LastActivityDate="2019-08-05T17:10:46.410" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1352" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-09-15T08:56:20.760" Score="5" ViewCount="422" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the best way to annotate one's game to derive the most instructive value out of it? In the search for critical positions - do you start from the beginning, or from the end (last move)? When do you consult a computer engine or computer database? Has any coach ever come up with a comprehensive guideline describing how to do this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="585" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-09-19T20:55:18.533" LastActivityDate="2012-09-19T20:55:18.533" Title="Is there a common list of steps to analyse/annotate one's game?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1353" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1359" CreationDate="2012-09-16T02:11:00.687" Score="6" ViewCount="725" Body="&lt;p&gt;A software like Fritz or Arena typically shows a graph for a game that is currently being analyzed/played. Fritz 5.32 also generates those graphs as it does automated analysis of several games in DB. But I want to keep those graphs available after I close a window, so that each game has a graph associated with it that I can easily retrieve. These are now getting available for live broadcasts like this one &lt;a href=&quot;http://superfinal2012.live.whychess.com/&quot;&gt;http://superfinal2012.live.whychess.com/&lt;/a&gt;, but I now want to do the same with my own games...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="585" LastActivityDate="2012-09-17T03:38:19.833" Title="Is there a chess software that allows to generate and store engine evaluation graph for a chess game?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;software&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1354" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1357" CreationDate="2012-09-16T06:12:41.050" Score="16" ViewCount="2631" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have a particular bad habit when I play chess. I play reasonably well (at least by the standards of people I play with), and am quite careful with my pieces. But in about 80% of games I play, once I get into a good position - one or two pieces ahead and in control of most of the board - I nearly always move my queen to attack something and then lose her. This is usually due to an unappreciated threat (sometimes I've even seen the threat a turn or two before).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this a recognised problem for many players, or is it just me? If it is recognised, are there any recommended strategies to overcome it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="156" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-03-12T21:10:22.230" LastActivityDate="2018-10-16T10:44:18.987" Title="How do I stop blundering my queen?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;queens&gt;&lt;psychology&gt;&lt;blunder&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="10" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1355" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1354" CreationDate="2012-09-16T15:14:19.143" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are you playing fast chess? If not: before touching anything on the board, take a deep breath and double or triple check the move you are considering; maybe even force yourself to take an extra minute to review a move after you think you've decided. Try to figure out what the opponent's best move would be in response to your move. I'm sure there are many other techniques to help you not blunder, but hopefully that will get you started.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are playing fast chess, then yes, blunders are relatively common. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="142" LastActivityDate="2012-09-16T15:14:19.143" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1356" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1354" CreationDate="2012-09-16T19:53:38.457" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;It seems like you are trying to &quot;push&quot; things, once you get ahead. So you put your queen out front and get it &quot;snapped off.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It should be other way. Once you are ahead, let your other pieces do the fighting, and keep your queen in reserve (except to trade off the other queen). Eventually, you'll end up with a piece ahead, with the queens off the board. Then your extra piece will win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2012-09-16T19:53:38.457" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1357" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1354" CreationDate="2012-09-16T23:06:37.133" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's certainly not just you. While you describe a particular blind spot involving your queen, the more general phenomenon of throwing away sizable advantages is a very common one in chess, and it can be tough to kick. Here's a well-known saying that seems to be due to longtime U.S. champion Frank Marshall (and I'm paraphrasing):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The hardest thing in chess is to win a won game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've read folks like Vladimir Kramnik echo this very point as well (as have thousands of others, I'm sure). So this kind of thing is something that affects the very best out there, not just you. There can be many reasons behind this kind of difficulty (e.g. stubborn, defiant resistance from the player on the losing end), but the primary factor that the winning player can remedy himself is simply to avoid &quot;relaxing&quot; too soon. After all, as your experiences show, even a huge material advantage can disappear if you let your guard down even a little bit and blunder away a queen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Something I noticed long ago in my own games is that if I allow myself during the game even just to briefly imagine a future in which I've already won (e.g. hypothetical thoughts of who I'll be playing in the next round of a tournament &lt;em&gt;once I've won&lt;/em&gt;), then things often become much harder the rest of the way, even if I immediately catch myself after the fact and refocus on the game. Is that real, or all in my head? It doesn't matter, because if it's in my head that's enough to affect my chess play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Refusal to consider any game won until it's &lt;em&gt;actually&lt;/em&gt; over, coupled with constant tactical vigilance, will go a long way to avoiding the pitfall you've described. Exactly how to arrange for that in your own head will vary from person to person, of course, but that general approach is important. Basically, what I'm saying here goes hand in hand with the nice point Wes makes in his answer (slow down, take a breather before moving); take &lt;em&gt;every&lt;/em&gt; move in the game just as seriously as any other, whether it's the first move of the game, or you're up three pieces, because the cruel truth of chess is that an entire game's worth of brilliant moves can be ruined with a single bad one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2012-09-16T23:06:37.133" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1358" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1353" CreationDate="2012-09-17T02:10:59.700" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It turns out that SCID does this - &#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/forum/view/chess-equipment/gui-to-make-analysis-graph&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.chess.com/forum/view/chess-equipment/gui-to-make-analysis-graph&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="585" LastActivityDate="2012-09-17T02:10:59.700" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1359" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1353" CreationDate="2012-09-17T03:38:19.833" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the case of recent versions of Fritz, I quote the following from the Fritz 12 Quick Guide:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If you perform a ‘Blunder Check’ on a game and store the ‘Evaluation’,&#xA;  then that will be used to populate the‘Evaluation Profile’ window&#xA;  whenever you open that game from the database.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="46" LastActivityDate="2012-09-17T03:38:19.833" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1360" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1354" CreationDate="2012-09-17T04:06:18.370" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;For standard time controls, this should only happen to beginners (at a frequency that is considered more than rare), and is not much different from other tactical blunders (unless you only have a problem with the queen but not other pieces, then please check with a certified psychologist). For faster time controls, practise more and improve your tactics (probably more of the latter).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To end, I might add the following quote by Teichmann:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Chess is 99% tactics.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course the quote isn't 100% accurate, but it is generally reflective of play between players under master strength, so don't feel bad unless you are planning to become a master. Masters may lose a queen, but not to simple tactics since they are supposed to be able to calculate longer lines and see deeper. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="46" LastEditorUserId="46" LastEditDate="2012-09-17T04:14:06.033" LastActivityDate="2012-09-17T04:14:06.033" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1361" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1348" CreationDate="2012-09-17T04:40:06.020" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can export to html/web with most if not all of the major chess database programs (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessbase.com/download/cblight2007/htmlexport.asp&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chessbase&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://chessok.com/files/bobpawlak/Articles/035_Web_publishing.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chess Assistant&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://scid.sourceforge.net/sample/sample.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;SCID&lt;/a&gt;). The problem is compiling the html pages into pdf/epub, as the formatting is usually not well-preserved for such conversions, but the book should remain readable with the diagrams. The converters are widely-available however, like &lt;a href=&quot;http://calibre-ebook.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Calibre&lt;/a&gt; (although I have not used that to convert ebooks specifically, but for managing my book collection)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="46" LastActivityDate="2012-09-17T04:40:06.020" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1362" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1348" CreationDate="2012-09-17T17:07:55.937" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;This may or may not be your cup of tea, but if you are a LaTeX user, then SCID's LaTeX export feature produces ready-to-compile LaTeX source that yields rather nice (IMO) PDFs quickly and painlessly. There are a few options regarding how/whether comments and variations are to be displayed, and diagrams are automatically included wherever you have inserted a diagram &lt;a href=&quot;https://sourceforge.net/p/scid/wiki/HowToExportGames/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;NAG&lt;/a&gt; &lt;code&gt;D&lt;/code&gt; into the game score (which can be inserted the same way that move annotations like &lt;code&gt;!?&lt;/code&gt; are when using SCID). Here's a cropped screen grab from the PDF output of a fake sample game:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/nygYq.png&quot; alt=&quot;Bad Orangutan&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="8472" LastEditDate="2019-05-30T15:11:12.673" LastActivityDate="2019-05-30T15:11:12.673" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1363" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1346" CreationDate="2012-09-18T19:59:48.593" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;After some research, as extensive as possible solely online, and aided by &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.thefind.com/search?query=magnetic%20chess%20set#filter%5Bsortby%5D=price_asc&amp;amp;local=0&amp;amp;price=1-$100000&amp;amp;page=7&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;thefind.com&lt;/a&gt;, I settled on these sets (click to go to the online store):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://web.archive.org/web/20111117090331/http://www.thechesspiece.com/proddetail.asp?prod=G-5LQ-DRW&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/88iBy.jpg&quot; width=&quot;256&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://web.archive.org/web/20121004055118/http://www.thechesspiece.com:80/proddetail.asp?prod=Mag612&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/csmxa.jpg&quot; width=&quot;256&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both are magnetic, and are alleged to have strong magnets.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first is a mere 7.5&quot; board, but it doesn't fold (which I like), and it has a drawer (meaning that I can set up and tear down without pouring pieces all over the place or even move the board).  The price: $29.99.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I went for size with the other: a folding board, since the price was much lower for a folding board of that size (12&quot;) than for a board with a drawer.  This one costs $39.99.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They have a claimed retail price of $79.99 each, which seems a bit exaggerated to me after seeing other stores' prices for similar sets.  I would place the value around $65 for the larger and $50 for the smaller based on other prices.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I considered buying their &lt;a href=&quot;https://web.archive.org/web/20121030154512/http://www.thechesspiece.com/proddetail.asp?prod=12MAGSQ1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;12&quot; drawer set&lt;/a&gt; ($79.00) in lieu of both the above, but decided against it, since it would end up costing more, and at this point I would rather have two sets.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another set I was seriously considering is sold by another store.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.houseofchess.com/magnetic_travel_chess_set_board_inside86teak.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/cuk8O.jpg&quot; width=&quot;256&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;sub&gt;(source: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.houseofchessstore.com/image/8x6-mag-brd-inside4_sm.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;houseofchessstore.com&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/sub&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I like this idea, since not only does it have a handy place for captured pieces to go, it also can be closed up in a certain position to be played later.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'll update later on how the ones I purchased turn out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit, a week later:&lt;/strong&gt; I've just received the sets, and though one was not the exact set I ordered (hinged w/ board on top instead of a drawer), the sales rep I contacted is going to initiate an exchange shortly.  The other set was better than my expectation, with smoothly finished wooden board and pieces, and inlaid wood squares.  No magnets are visible, and the pieces fit snugly in the carved felt inside the box.  It's a handsome size and convincing weight, and the pieces are the same.  I believe I would have paid more for it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My review of the other set will have to wait until it arrives...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit, two days later:&lt;/strong&gt; I talked to the sales rep again, and he let me know that they actually do not have any drawer sets of that size, and that a item number mixup led to advertising of a 7.5&quot; x 7.5&quot; drawer set instead of a 7.5&quot; x 7.5&quot; hinged top set.  He offered to pay return shipping as well as the refund, but also gave me the option of keeping the set and letting him send me a &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.thechesspiece.com/proddetail.asp?prod=Magnetic-5%22-x-5%22-Travel-Chess-set&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;5&quot; x 5&quot; drawer set&lt;/a&gt; free of charge or a $20 discount on a larger set.  Naturally I appreciated this offer very much, and accepted the 5&quot; x 5&quot; set.  So now I will end up with three sets.  I unpacked the 7.5&quot; set which I had set aside, and tested it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The magnets are not as functional as the ones in the larger set, and three of the pieces had virtually no &quot;stick&quot; to the board and would readily slide off when tilted sideways. (They would stick pretty firmly to the refrigerator, though, so that was partially the board's fault).  All the rest of the pieces wouldn't move if &lt;em&gt;carefully&lt;/em&gt; rotated sideways and upside down, but almost any motion while sideways would cause some pieces to slide slightly.  Other than that, it is another well-put-together set that seems as if it will last a lifetime.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now naturally I couldn't live with the three nearly nonmagnetic pieces, so I peeled off the felt of one of the faulty pawns, pried out the magnet, and had a look.  It was a cheap, grainy sort of magnet, but strong enough for its size that I almost gave up trying to come up with a better substitute.  Suddenly I bethought myself of some old &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetix&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Magnetix&lt;/a&gt; kits we had stored away.  Armed with pruning shears, I removed a magnet off the end of one of the toys.  It was about the same diameter as the chess piece's magnet - a smidgen smaller, but twice as thick, and at least twice as strong.  I drilled the pawn with a power drill to make room for the new magnet, fitted it tightly in, so it didn't need glue, and glued the felt back on with white glue.  Voila!  A pawn resurrected!  I did the same with the other two pieces, but after I placed them on the board, I discovered that I would like &lt;em&gt;all&lt;/em&gt; the pieces to be that strong.  For the next two hours, I removed Magnetix magnets, peeled off felt pads, pried out magnets, drilled holes, forced in magnets, glued on pads, and set the pieces on their sides to dry overnight.  The next morning, I was suddenly very fond of my chess set.  The only drawback to the stronger magnets is that the pieces tend more now to stick to one another if you are not careful with a piece in transit near other pieces.  It isn't on the level of a big problem, though, and I like the new magnets much better than the weaker ones.  Now I can shake the set while it's sideways, and only the Black king will move (I must have set the magnet too far in).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bottom line: I would recommend this set in its original form but with the warning that the pieces will not have very strong magnets.  Strong enough to carefully turn it sideways/upside down, but not much more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Later I will review the 5&quot; x 5&quot; drawer set.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit, nine days later:&lt;/strong&gt; The 5&quot; x 5&quot; drawer set was much better in nearly every aspect than I expected.  The magnets were strong enough to perform well even during such antics as I described for the other two sets.  No slipping at any angle, even with moderate shaking.  Yet they are not so strong they pose problems in sticking to one another.  And, as with the others, the board and pieces are very smooth and pleasantly glossed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The drawer slides with enough resistance that even when partially open, it cannot accidentally slide out.  It can be slid all the way out on either side, free of the board if desired.  It has a spring ball mechanism which fits into an internal groove for additional &quot;hold&quot; when the drawer is in its closed position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am very satisfied with these sets.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="86" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2019-07-13T14:11:24.907" LastActivityDate="2019-07-13T14:11:24.907" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1364" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1352" CreationDate="2012-09-19T20:48:59.370" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;As Andrew points out in a comment, the subject of your post overlaps substantially with an earlier one, whose answers address the general mechanics of analyzing one's own games, and would probably be of use to you. I'd like to address just one small part of your question that doesn't overlap:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In the search for critical positions - do you start from the beginning, or from the end (last move)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now whether a position in a game is &quot;critical&quot; or not isn't some objective feature of the position itself, but is rather a function of the position &lt;em&gt;and the player&lt;/em&gt; who faces it. What I mean is: many a position in which you or I would say that we have a critical decision to make, Capablanca or Fischer might recognize it as trivial, and in other positions where we might blindly think there's nothing important to consider, players like them might say instead that there are deep considerations to be made.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I don't think you need to be going through your game after the fact (forward, backward or any other way) trying to identify what the critical junctures were. You know what positions &lt;em&gt;you&lt;/em&gt; considered critical when you were playing the game (when you agonized over choosing between two moves, when you spent a looooong time thinking, etc.), and those are critical points where self-analysis can be especially beneficial.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One habit you could get into is making a note of such moments on your scoresheet while you're playing (circle the move, make an X, whatever). Then not too long after the game, try to record as much of what your thought process was at those points. Later on you can look at what you were thinking during the game in a fresh light, and try to find improvements to your in-game mental analysis. Speaking to another part of your question: checking yourself with an engine is a good idea, but you should try to catch your own mistakes first, and only then let Stockfish or whatever show you all kinds of things you never considered or noticed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2012-09-19T20:48:59.370" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1365" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1335" CreationDate="2012-09-20T03:11:58.503" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;I notice (unless I missed it) that no one has mentioned Daniel King's youtube channel &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/user/PowerPlayChess&quot;&gt;Power Play Chess&lt;/a&gt;.  You can subscribe for free.  I enjoy his &quot;what happens next?&quot; series, where he plays through a grandmaster game, stops at a crucial moment, and asks the viewer to pick the correct continuation from two possibilities.  The viewer then clicks one of two links to find out if they are correct.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="594" LastActivityDate="2012-09-20T03:11:58.503" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1366" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1371" CreationDate="2012-09-20T08:45:42.780" Score="14" ViewCount="2228" Body="&lt;p&gt;Whenever I play long tournament games, I find that I drink simply enormous amounts of water, far more than my typical rate in daily life (and maybe even more than when I am unusually physically active). I don't do this deliberately, or with any purpose in mind; it just seems that my body desperately seeks hydration when I play chess. I know that some famous players swear by particular drinks during games, e.g. Boris Gelfand during his recent match with Anand talked about an energy drink that he always has in his thermos, and Magnus Carlsen seems to keep plenty of OJ around:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/faSxZ.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Carlsen OJ&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More generally, what I'd like to get here is this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Pointers to any studies concerning the advantages or disadvantages of the consumption of particular foods or drinks during sustained, concentrated mental activities or competitions like chess (but not necessarily chess).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One interesting read I stumbled on is FM Mike Klein's article &lt;a href=&quot;http://chess.jliptrap.us/grandmasterdiet.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&quot;The Grandmaster Diet,&quot;&lt;/a&gt; which references some scholarly studies related to this matter, as well as items such as a survey by Roberto Baglione of the nutritional habits of 72 GMs and WGMs, which includes anecdotes like the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;[GM John Fedorowicz] won’t eat a meal if he cannot complete it at least two hours before a game (according to Fedorowicz, GM Walter Browne used to advertise a free steak dinner to his opponent, with the caveat it had to be eaten right before the round). ... Fedorowicz almost always shuns food during games as well, though he did confess to eating a piece of cheese during a seven-hour round at a U.S. Championship several years ago.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd appreciate pointers to any other reliable sources that touch on this general topic of food and drink consumption &lt;em&gt;during&lt;/em&gt; activities like chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="307" LastEditDate="2012-09-21T19:13:27.583" LastActivityDate="2012-09-21T19:13:27.583" Title="Are certain foods or drinks better to consume than others when playing chess?" Tags="&lt;training&gt;&lt;tournament&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1367" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1366" CreationDate="2012-09-20T16:02:16.780" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=4335&quot;&gt;Here&lt;/a&gt; is an article I came across a while ago.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is probably the key part:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Chess players should try to have breakfast daily.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Avoiding “heavy foods” or foods of difficult digestion before games&#xA;  must be adopted as a regular habit for chess players. The last “main”&#xA;  meal before a game has to be had at least three hours in advance. If a&#xA;  player wishes to have something to eat nearer the time of the&#xA;  beginning of a competition (one or two hours before, e.g.) he/she&#xA;  should choose among fruits (whole ones, fruit salad or juices,&#xA;  raisins), cereal bars, pretzels, cookies, low fat yogurt with fruit or&#xA;  cereals, sports drinks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;During the games, it is recommended fluid ingestion, and, if the chess&#xA;  player wants it (or when the game becomes long), solid foods. Mineral&#xA;  water, fruit juices, tea, coffee, sports drinks, cereal bars, fruits,&#xA;  raisins, dry fruits (almonds, e.g.), chocolate, cereal cookies, can be&#xA;  chosen. In all cases, moderate quantities should be taken.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The best strategy to hydration is to drink small quantities at regular&#xA;  intervals, instead of greater quantities at a few intervals, and avoid&#xA;  being thirsty. The same indication should be followed during board&#xA;  training and physical activity. It is also important to begin the&#xA;  activity properly hydrated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="307" LastActivityDate="2012-09-20T16:02:16.780" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1368" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-09-20T19:57:55.200" Score="17" ViewCount="1327" Body="&lt;p&gt;In &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1044724&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;game 11 of the 1972 World Championship&lt;/a&gt;, Spassky as white moves his Knight back to its &lt;code&gt;14. Nb1&lt;/code&gt; starting position. Apparently, this moved was received as &lt;code&gt;14. Nb1!!&lt;/code&gt;. But to me, it seems as a simple attack on the invading black queen to flush her out of the zone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What about this move makes it so interesting?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Shown below is after move &lt;code&gt;13. Kh1 Bd7&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;r3kb1r/1p1b1p2/p1nppp1p/8/4PP2/qNN5/P1PQB1PP/R4R1K w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="598" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-11-19T15:11:02.943" LastActivityDate="2013-12-01T15:35:11.637" Title="In Spassky v Fischer '72 game 11, why is 14. Nb1 considered such a great move?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;world-championship&gt;&lt;fischer&gt;&lt;spassky&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1369" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1368" CreationDate="2012-09-20T22:45:04.350" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;White has completed his development, and Black has not, giving White an advantage. The reason this is true is because of Black's queen moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, the way to prevent Black from completing his development is to harass the queen. When the smoke clears, White will have a clear advantage in development, going into the endgame, making him a heavy favorite. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2012-09-20T22:45:04.350" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1370" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1368" CreationDate="2012-09-20T23:07:10.620" Score="16" Body="&lt;p&gt;Taking a look at the comments in your link, I came across a post quoting GM Edmar Mednis:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A move which was invariably given two exclamation marks - 14.Nb1!!&#xA;  after the game. May I respectfully suggest that if Spassky had&#xA;  proceeded to lose this game it would have read 14.Nb1?? If we look at&#xA;  the nature of the position, it should be apparent that neither of&#xA;  these extremes is warranted. White has difficulties in how to&#xA;  continue, so he decides to first kick Black's Queen. However, this is&#xA;  an open position and White's QN is placed well on c3. Retreating it to&#xA;  b1 obviously cannot be a winning maneuver. It is simply an interesting&#xA;  concept, which works because Fischer has an off game. Under the&#xA;  circumstances 14.Nd1!? would also have probably won. As a historical&#xA;  note, it may be stated that those commentators who were loudest in&#xA;  applauding 14.Nb1!? neither played it themselves nor worried about it&#xA;  when their turn came.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="307" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-09-21T09:04:29.373" LastActivityDate="2012-09-21T09:04:29.373" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1371" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1366" CreationDate="2012-09-21T14:49:25.203" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;One of the problems is that in the human body, the thirst and hunger mechanisms are not always clearly defined, so that when you are hungry you can feel thirsty, and vice versa. I would posit that you are likely low on circulating glucose, and mistaking hunger for thirst.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The brain uses up vast amounts of glucose while kicking over, and while there haven't been any physical studies of the amounts used during concentration (at least not that I can find in humans, there are some in rats), it is known that higher concentration uses more glucose.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There have been numerous studies that show meal composition and timing have an effect on both mental and physical performance, with breakfast being an important component. Here are a couple of those studies (one for physical, one for mental):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://informahealthcare.com/doi/abs/10.3109/09637489709006958&quot;&gt;Cognitive Performance&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jappl.org/content/84/1/53.short&quot;&gt;Physical Performance&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I recall seeing a study that suggests sweet taste (such as hard candy, etc.) can also trigger the body to release extra glycogen, but I don't recall where. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would suggest that eating a balanced, healthy breakfast the day of matches, and mild snacking throughout the day (Other studies have shown that mental performance can be impaired immediately after meals - which is likely where the GM interview from the study you cite comes from) will help keep your body well supplied. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I generally suck on hard candy, or (since I also do endurance athletics) I have something like a GU gel or soft chew, which is basically quickly digestible, 100 calorie foods that help fuel the body during performance. You can find various types (Gels, soft chews, drink mixes) at most cycling/endurance stores (REI, multi sport stores, etc.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Experiment a bit and find what works best for you, each individual is different. I would suggest that high sugar drinks (such as orange juice, etc.) are ok if you don't gulp it and are done, but rather sip throughout. Otherwise you provoke other responses in the body that result in glucose spikes and dips, which won't help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="394" LastEditorUserId="394" LastEditDate="2012-09-21T14:55:12.373" LastActivityDate="2012-09-21T14:55:12.373" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1372" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1376" CreationDate="2012-09-22T12:50:32.640" Score="22" ViewCount="7901" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have been playing chess for a long time, and I have been around &lt;code&gt;1850-1900 ELO&lt;/code&gt; for quite some time. I have always wondered which are the &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;best ways to improve the tactics&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Does playing more and more games improve chess tactics?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Playing limited games but slow games?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Practicing board positions with sites such as &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesstempo.com&quot;&gt;chesstempo&lt;/a&gt;?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Analyzing others' and self games&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please feel free suggest any point that I have not covered.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="603" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-03-01T15:35:46.490" LastActivityDate="2017-02-02T21:35:19.280" Title="Best ways for improving &quot;tactics&quot;" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;training&gt;&lt;calculation&gt;&lt;best-practice&gt;" AnswerCount="9" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1373" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1374" CreationDate="2012-09-22T13:54:08.320" Score="8" ViewCount="1304" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been to a 15|2 (Fischer) tournament where it was not necessary to record your moves and I've also played in longer games where it was expected. My question is at what time limit are you no longer expected to record your games (generally speaking)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More specifically, would you expect to have to record your moves in a G30 tournament?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="550" LastActivityDate="2012-10-31T13:13:40.710" Title="At what time control do you stop recording your moves?" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;notation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1374" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1373" CreationDate="2012-09-22T16:45:18.947" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;Anything less than or equal to G/29 does not require you to record moves, according to USCF. Otherwise known as Blitz and Quick, they have a separate rating for those time controls.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Reference: &lt;a href=&quot;http://archive.uschess.org/ratings/info/intro.pdf&quot;&gt;An Introduction to&#xA;USCF-Rated Tournaments&lt;/a&gt; [PDF]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, yes, you do need to record your moves in a G/30, because that is considered Standard time control.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a rule that allows you to stop recording once you (or your opponent) have less than 5 minutes on the clock, in Standard time control games. See #7: &lt;a href=&quot;http://main.uschess.org/content/view/11750/668/&quot;&gt;USCF - FIDE Rule Differences - 2 Columns&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Additionally, if you have an increment of 30 seconds or more, it looks like you have to record moves regardless of the time left on the clock. (I wonder if people really have that sort of increment in tournaments.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="142" LastEditorUserId="215" LastEditDate="2012-10-29T00:01:53.370" LastActivityDate="2012-10-29T00:01:53.370" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1375" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-09-25T01:38:47.400" Score="8" ViewCount="603" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are there any famous games where castling occurred during the endgame?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="337" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-03-01T15:31:24.720" LastActivityDate="2019-12-22T19:37:06.583" Title="Castling during the endgame" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;castling&gt;&lt;famous-moves&gt;&lt;famous-games&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1376" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1372" CreationDate="2012-09-25T16:24:27.237" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;All of the suggested can improve your tactics skills. Anything that makes you think hard about chess positions (particularly sharp and complex ones) will. I would add &quot;perfecting the way you calculate variations&quot;, i.e. making sure that your calculation is as effective as possible. This was well described in some book, I think it was &quot;Think like a grandmaster&quot; by Kotov. Two points though:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Chess is not only tactics, the strategy, &quot;feeling&quot; for positions, is equally important. And one should always come with the other. In fact they make each other better.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Judging from your Elo, you are a hobby player. Getting better may need hard work which does not always agree with the word &quot;hobby&quot;, so pick the method that you enjoy and keep in mind that everyone has limits.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="334" LastActivityDate="2012-09-25T16:24:27.237" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1377" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1379" CreationDate="2012-09-25T19:06:19.660" Score="19" ViewCount="14846" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there any software (or web-based service) that allows you to keep track of local, club-level Elo ratings? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These ratings would not have any connection with official Elo ratings, it would be just an Elo rating within the universe of players in a club (i.e. games in various social tournaments would compute for the rating).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="159" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-09-25T21:34:43.650" LastActivityDate="2020-01-09T07:30:15.023" Title="Is there any software or web service for club-level Elo ratings?" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;elo&gt;" AnswerCount="9" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1378" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1372" CreationDate="2012-09-25T20:31:15.300" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;At your level, you should be thinking in terms of combinations, or &lt;em&gt;chains&lt;/em&gt; of moves. Beginners learn the basics, pins, forks and skewers, but you are a bit past that. Instead, you might be thinking in terms of preparatory moves that set up these tactics. That takes a bit more doing, but is a mark of advanced play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-09-26T15:10:40.727" LastActivityDate="2012-09-26T15:10:40.727" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1379" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1377" CreationDate="2012-09-25T21:13:24.817" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;Even if it is not available, something like this is not too hard to implement yourself. Here is an example with extremely silly and simple rating system that is just meant to give you an idea. But I don't think that using actual Elo formula that much harder.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT:&lt;/strong&gt; I edit my implementation to use Elo formula (not including floors) given by the formula &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elo_rating_system&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;def get_exp_score_a(rating_a, rating_b):&#xA;    return 1.0 /(1 + 10**((rating_b - rating_a)/400.0))&#xA;&#xA;def rating_adj(rating, exp_score, score, k=32):&#xA;    return rating + k * (score - exp_score)&#xA;&#xA;class ChessPlayer(object):&#xA;    def __init__(self, name, rating):&#xA;        self.rating = rating&#xA;        self.name = name&#xA;    def match(self, other, result):&#xA;&#xA;        exp_score_a = get_exp_score_a(self.rating, other.rating)&#xA;&#xA;        if result == self.name:&#xA;            self.rating = rating_adj(self.rating, exp_score_a, 1)&#xA;            other.rating = rating_adj(other.rating, 1 - exp_score_a, 0)&#xA;        elif result == other.name:&#xA;            self.rating = rating_adj(self.rating, exp_score_a, 0)&#xA;            other.rating = rating_adj(other.rating, 1 - exp_score_a, 1)&#xA;        elif result == 'Draw':&#xA;            self.rating = rating_adj(self.rating, exp_score_a, 0.5)&#xA;            other.rating = rating_adj(other.rating, 1 - exp_score_a, 0.5)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This works as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt; bob = ChessPlayer('Bob', 1600)&#xA;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt; john = ChessPlayer('John', 1900)&#xA;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt; bob.rating&#xA;1600&#xA;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt; john.rating&#xA;1900&#xA;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt; bob.match(john, 'Bob')&#xA;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt; bob.rating&#xA;1627.1686541692377&#xA;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt; john.rating&#xA;1872.8313458307623&#xA;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt; mark = ChessPlayer('Mark', 2100)&#xA;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt; mark.match(bob, 'Draw')&#xA;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt; mark.rating&#xA;2085.974306956907&#xA;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt; bob.rating&#xA;1641.1943472123305&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is my original python implementation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;class ChessPlayer(object):&#xA;    def __init__(self, name, rating):&#xA;        self.rating = rating&#xA;        self.name = name&#xA;    def match(self, other, result):&#xA;        if result == self.name:&#xA;            self.rating += 10&#xA;            other.rating -= 10&#xA;        elif result == other.name:&#xA;            self.rating += 10&#xA;            other.rating -= 10&#xA;        elif result == 'Draw':&#xA;            pass&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This works as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt; bob = ChessPlayer('Bob', 1600)&#xA;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt; john = ChessPlayer('John', 1900)&#xA;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt; bob.match(john, 'Bob')&#xA;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt; bob.rating&#xA;1610&#xA;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt; john.rating&#xA;1890&#xA;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt; mark = ChessPlayer('Mark', 2100)&#xA;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt; mark.match(bob, 'Mark')&#xA;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt; mark.rating&#xA;2110&#xA;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt; bob.rating&#xA;1600&#xA;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt; mark.match(john, 'Draw')&#xA;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt; mark.rating&#xA;2110&#xA;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt; john.rating&#xA;1890  &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="307" LastEditorUserId="307" LastEditDate="2012-09-25T21:54:03.893" LastActivityDate="2012-09-25T21:54:03.893" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1380" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1377" CreationDate="2012-09-25T21:31:18.447" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just downloaded and played around with a lightweight freeware item for Windows called &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.garnergaggle.org/papa/chess/ELORater/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;ELORater&lt;/a&gt; that seems to provide what you're after. You can create a &quot;group&quot; for your club, and then add players to the group, along with whatever initial ratings you want them to have. Then you can just input the results of any games that get played and the program maintains an updated list of player ratings for you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2012-09-25T21:31:18.447" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1381" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="573" CreationDate="2012-09-26T07:10:11.013" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is from the perspective of &quot;concrete&quot; chess:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In modern chess, there is no hard or fast rule, it all boils down to calculation and prep. As world champion Anand has demonstrated in his match against Kramnik: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1510272&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1510508&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; (just two games later, and again with Black!), &lt;em&gt;it is the results that matter&lt;/em&gt;. So don't worry about castling early or late, but whether you are finding the strongest moves and are satisfied that you have worked out the tactics that are befitting your playing level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="46" LastActivityDate="2012-09-26T07:10:11.013" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1382" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-09-27T01:45:34.993" Score="5" ViewCount="1130" Body="&lt;p&gt;With Epub, or other ebook formats, one can take advantage of the format and do things that are difficult to do in a paper book. Hyperlinking, extra diagrams, more page breaks - what else? Most books for kindle I can find on amazon have been &quot;converted&quot; from paper books, but have identical content to their paper counterparts. Is there a good example of a popular/good chess book that is much easier to study on electronic device?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="585" LastActivityDate="2015-10-03T11:18:59.220" Title="Is there a good example of a paper chess book converted to an ebook?" Tags="&lt;books&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1383" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1382" CreationDate="2012-09-27T13:03:39.807" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It depends on what you mean by an &amp;quot;electronic device&amp;quot;, but there has been ebook versions of chess books for quite some time, from publishers like &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.everymanchess.com/catsearch.php?area=ebook&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Everyman&lt;/a&gt;, although admittedly these are nothing like regular ebooks. Of course your device must be capable of running CB reader or an equivalent that can open the chessbase format files.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the more practical side of things, chess books don't sell very well and formatting even the printed copy is a lot of work. QualityChess has &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.qualitychess.co.uk/docs/13/faq/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;no intention&lt;/a&gt; of producing ebooks that can be easily copied:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Q: Will your books be available as pgn or ChessBase e-books?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: As long as it is easy to copy these forms of readers, it makes absolutely no sense. Why other companies choose to do this is a mystery.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="46" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2012-09-27T13:14:35.763" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1384" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1398" CreationDate="2012-09-27T16:24:34.257" Score="7" ViewCount="1312" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a chess novice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can someone suggest a good, free chess computer game that I can use to start to learn chess by playing against the computer?  Maybe with some different difficult levels...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="615" LastEditorUserId="12" LastEditDate="2012-09-27T20:23:22.157" LastActivityDate="2014-08-20T14:41:48.903" Title="Free chess computer game" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;engines&gt;&lt;software&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1385" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1207" CreationDate="2012-09-27T16:37:57.033" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'll buck the trend here and say it's a bad idea to give takebacks if the blundering player intends to play in tournaments at any point in the future.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are two reasons for this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, having to finish a blundered game brings home the pain of that blunder more clearly, and makes it more likely that the player will think ahead next time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But even more importantly, a blunder isn't the same thing as a loss.  Especially in games between young kids, it's quite possible that &lt;em&gt;both&lt;/em&gt; sides will make &lt;em&gt;several&lt;/em&gt; blunders during a game.  Perhaps you make a terrible move and lose your queen.  A few moves later your &lt;em&gt;opponent&lt;/em&gt; may make a terrible move and lose &lt;em&gt;his&lt;/em&gt; queen.  And suddenly the game is reasonably winnable again.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Until you're at grandmaster level, there's no such thing as a game not worth finishing.  The other player could blunder; he could run out of time; he could finish with a king and two bishops and not know how to checkmate that way.  Learning to finish the game you start, even if it seems hopeless, is very important at lower levels of chess skill.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="382" LastActivityDate="2012-09-27T16:37:57.033" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1386" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1384" CreationDate="2012-09-27T18:00:19.077" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;You could check out &lt;a href=&quot;http://lichess.org&quot;&gt;http://lichess.org&lt;/a&gt; as a free online resource. They have general chess discussion forums and the ability to observe previous or current games. Also you can play against a computer (at multiple difficulties) and other players. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="616" LastActivityDate="2012-09-27T18:00:19.077" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1387" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="573" CreationDate="2012-09-27T19:15:33.723" Score="17" Body="&lt;p&gt;The answer is twofold - learn your opening theory, and learn how to defend.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you can defend yourself against the attack, then you're not &quot;castling into the attack&quot;, you're simply castling.  Of course, you could be wrong, and castling could be a mistake, but that's chess - you have to make trade-offs, trust your instincts, and calculate the position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In most openings, opening theory tells us whether the risk/reward trade-off of castling on a given side of the board is worth it.  You never see white castling queenside in the Grunfeld, and that's because we know from opening theory that it's too risky.  An advanced study of the French and Sicilian defenses helps a player gain a better intuition for when it is and is not okay to castle kingside.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes, of course, we don't even know, and castling is a gamble.  In the Sicilian and Caro-Kann defenses, black often castles kingside without being sure whether or not it's a suicide move, and hopes that his counterplay and defensive abilities are stronger than his opponent's attacking abilities.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There really is no way to say &quot;in positions with these features, you can castle, and in positions with these features, you can't&quot; unless you're a computer playing computers.  Learn opening theory so you can get a good intuition for when it is and is not okay to castle (If you think it might be, it probably is) and then become a better defender so you can defend yourself against whatever attacks your opponents may choose to throw at you.  Unless you're playing Houdini or Kasparov, your opponent is unlikely to execute his or her attack perfectly, and it is a test of skill rather than a positional decision.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, sometimes it's really obvious that you shouldn't castle, like when you have a totally fractured kingside.  But categorizing such positions would be pointless because what matters is context.  Similarly, if all your opponent's pieces are on the kingside, that's also a sign that you shouldn't castle there.  You have to have faith in your defensive abilities, though, otherwise you'll find yourself being afraid to castle just because your opponent played &lt;code&gt;1. h4&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="47" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T19:46:16.763" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T19:46:16.763" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1388" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1375" CreationDate="2012-09-28T01:57:31.000" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;The game &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1259009&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Lasker - Thomas&lt;/a&gt;, Lasker could have ended with a castling checkmate, but instead he played “18.Kd2#.” Some versions of that game I've seen may have ended with “18.O-O-O#.”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Edward Lasker-George Alan Thomas, London, Casual Game, 10/29/19&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 e6 2. Nf3 f5 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. Bg5 Be7 5. Bxf6 Bxf6 6. e4 fxe4 7. Nxe4 b6 8. Ne5 O-O 9. Bd3 Bb7 10. Qh5 Qe7 11. Qxh7+ Kxh7 12. Nxf6+ Kh6 13. Neg4+ Kg5 14. h4+ Kf4 15. g3+ Kf3 16. Be2+ Kg2 17. Rh2+ Kg1 18. Kd2#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Was this an endgame? White did not have his queen on the board, and it was definitely the end of that game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="585" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-09-23T15:00:07.203" LastActivityDate="2019-09-23T15:00:07.203" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1389" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="218" CreationDate="2012-09-28T01:59:46.020" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is one of my favorite openings, but unlike others here, I prefer the gambit lines. After &lt;code&gt;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 exd4&lt;/code&gt; I (almost) always play &lt;code&gt;4. c3 dxc3 5.Bc4 ...&lt;/code&gt;, the Goering Gambit. I won't say this is a perfectly sound line, but it's a lot of fun and more threatening than you might think. In fact, I have read (though I can't remember where at the moment) that in this line, it's more dangerous for black to accept the second gambited pawn than to play a developing move like &lt;code&gt;Nf6&lt;/code&gt;. If &lt;code&gt;5...cxb2 6. Bxb2&lt;/code&gt; really opens things up. Most of my most spectacular wins (and losses!) have come in this opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="617" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-09-28T02:25:53.140" LastActivityDate="2012-09-28T02:25:53.140" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1390" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1532" CreationDate="2012-09-28T09:04:29.170" Score="21" ViewCount="3095" Body="&lt;h2&gt;Long-winded Motivation&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have recently noticed during my own tournament games that I am not infrequently closing my eyes, or at least looking away from the board, when engaged in in-depth calculation (or what counts as in-depth for me). This isn't deliberate on my part; it's just something I've naturally started doing more often. I know that some well-known players do this quite a lot, e.g. Ivanchuk has a reputation of very often staring up at the ceiling when calculating, and I think it actually makes a good deal of sense:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Having an image of the current position in front of you can be helpful if you're apt to lose track of it. But that's not a problem for someone like Ivanchuk, and so that &quot;plus&quot; is inconsequential. On the other hand, having the full current position right in your visual field might actually &lt;em&gt;interfere&lt;/em&gt; (for some folks) with the process of fixing projected future positions in your mind's eye, thus sometimes leading one to look away.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With that in mind, it seems not unreasonable to me that a lesser light than Ivanchuk might possibly benefit from the middle ground of staring at a blank chessboard while calculating like this. The current piece positions aren't there to interfere, while one still gets the image of the chessboard to serve as a potentially useful &quot;frame&quot; for the successful mental imaging of positions. I don't think that I'd actually find it very useful, and perhaps nobody would, but that's neither here nor there as far as my question is concerned.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Question&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;While one obviously can't use an analysis board when playing tournament chess, do the rules (e.g. FIDE or USCF) actually preclude having an empty chessboard nearby at which to stare while calculating?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many scorebooks already have scoresheets that look something like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/IC0M8.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Scoresheet with empty diagram&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus many tournament players already have a small empty board available to use exactly as I've described, if they so desired. So, is it technically permissible for them to place an empty board nearby before the game, and stare at it if they like? (If nothing else, I suppose one could make custom scoresheets featuring quite large empty diagrams ...)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="17" LastEditDate="2013-05-31T22:56:05.087" LastActivityDate="2019-12-15T18:57:59.283" Title="Is it permitted to stare at a blank chessboard during a tournament game?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1391" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1397" CreationDate="2012-09-28T16:15:54.063" Score="6" ViewCount="1435" Body="&lt;p&gt;Today, for the first time, I played against the Chrome app &lt;a href=&quot;http://chromefree.shredderchess.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Shredder Chess&lt;/a&gt;, and at the &quot;&lt;strong&gt;Hard&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; playing strength of the engine, I was easily able to beat it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am just about 1850-1900 Elo.  My question here is, what (Elo) strength does this engine play at? Can someone evaluate?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would suggest players to play against it to check its strength.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="603" LastEditorUserId="215" LastEditDate="2012-10-29T00:01:46.617" LastActivityDate="2017-05-26T11:54:23.687" Title="What is the strength of the Shredder Chrome app?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;rating&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1392" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-09-28T21:25:36.750" Score="5" ViewCount="974" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am building a chess website (www.uscfstats.com) and would like to get input from the chess community and raise awareness.  I've been out of the loop for a few years, ever since I stopped playing seriously, and don't really know what the most popular chess websites are anymore.  ChessNinja seems to have fallen off completely, while chess.com has gotten much more serious and chesstempo is more well known than that emrald site that everybody used to use.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are the most popular chess community websites?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="47" LastActivityDate="2016-09-17T01:15:14.247" Title="What are the most popular chess community websites?" Tags="&lt;websites&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1393" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1392" CreationDate="2012-09-28T23:18:07.347" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Obviously &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessbase.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chessbase News&lt;/a&gt; is another fairly active chess news site.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesscafe.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chess Cafe&lt;/a&gt; has been around forever, though I haven't really checked it out recently.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.co.uk/twic/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;The Week in Chess&lt;/a&gt; is another good one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="606" LastEditorUserId="215" LastEditDate="2012-10-27T18:07:17.220" LastActivityDate="2012-10-27T18:07:17.220" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1394" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="650" CreationDate="2012-09-29T15:05:53.193" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my opinion the answer to the question  is &lt;strong&gt;yes&lt;/strong&gt;, black can win from this position against perfect play. The play goes as follows.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;6k1/1P3p2/2p3pb/2q4p/2rpPP2/3Q2PP/8/5RK1 b - - 0 2&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;2... Qb5 3. Rb1 Rc1+ (3. Qb1 Rb4 wins the pawn) 4. Rxc1 Qxd3 5. b8=Q+ Qe3+ winning the rook (4. Kg2 Qxd3 winning the rook on the next move)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please analyze it and sorry if there is a mistake in the analysis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="619" LastEditorUserId="672" LastEditDate="2012-12-11T00:09:25.900" LastActivityDate="2012-12-11T00:09:25.900" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1396" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1392" CreationDate="2012-10-01T04:07:12.680" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;In no order of priority:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chess.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://chess.com&lt;/a&gt; is relatively new to the scene, but they have Pogolina on&#xA;board who will definitely pull in the traffic&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chessbase.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chessbase News&lt;/a&gt; is really a chess product site masquerading as a news&#xA;site, but they cannot be disregarded. They have relay services on their playing server (similar to ICC and FICS), but here we will limit discussion to the onsite features only&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chessintranslation.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chess in Translation&lt;/a&gt; is an initiative by mishanp to offer&#xA;translation of Russian content (particularly juicy commentary by&#xA;Shipov of chess.ru)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://whychess.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;WhyChess&lt;/a&gt; is known for its live relays (probably the most&#xA;feature-complete at time of writing, and have been used at several&#xA;official events) but they have expanded into news and blogs as well.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chessbomb.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;ChessBomb&lt;/a&gt; is a relay and playing site getting constant plugs from Susan Polgar.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chessgames.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chess Games Database and Community&lt;/a&gt; (and frogbert) probably needs no explanation.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chessok.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;ChessOK&lt;/a&gt; is a product and relay site, probably the first to integrate full Rybka (now Houdini) evaluations into its relays. The interface is not as fanciful as WhyChess but is clean and good.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="46" LastEditorUserId="215" LastEditDate="2012-10-27T18:07:25.910" LastActivityDate="2012-10-27T18:07:25.910" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1397" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1391" CreationDate="2012-10-02T10:15:07.430" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a response from the maker of shredder. Hope it helps!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;We are using a different Shredder version on the Chrom App so this is&#xA;  very hard to tell in Elo, even for us.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Best regards&#xA;Stefan Meyer-Kahlen&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="624" LastEditorUserId="264" LastEditDate="2012-10-08T09:41:24.790" LastActivityDate="2012-10-08T09:41:24.790" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1398" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1384" CreationDate="2012-10-04T14:14:09.220" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;It depends on which operating system you are running.  If you are running a Linux OS, there are many, many options for you to choose from.  One of the more-popular options is &lt;a href=&quot;https://live.gnome.org/glChess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;glChess&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/kJC2G.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;glChess&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It has a few features that make it a good game to learn on:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;highlighting possible moves when selecting a piece&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;ability to turn board numbering on/off&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;keeps a history of moves&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;has a mechanism that allows you to iterate through  the move history to see the development of the board.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;allows configuration of computer players using &lt;a href=&quot;https://live.gnome.org/glChess/ChessEngines&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;several existing engines&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once you get a little more advanced, a good one is &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.gnu.org/software/xboard/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;XBoard&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt;.  While designed to run on Linux, there is also a Windows port called &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.gnu.org/software/xboard/#tag-A1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;WinBoard&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qKJu8.png&quot; alt=&quot;WinBoard&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While it might not look as pretty as other games, it has plenty of options:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Like glChess, can be interfaced with several engines.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Can play over the internet.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Has an interface for Chess via email.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Maintains your games in SAN notation.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While very feature-rich, XBoard is probably a good one to get once you have a few games under your belt.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are on a Windows OS (Windows 7 or Vista) &lt;strong&gt;Chess Titans&lt;/strong&gt; is good for starting-out, too.  While probably scoffed at by many on this forum, the advantages of Chess Titans are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Several levels of play (1 through 10) of increasing difficulty.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If you have Windows 7 or Vista, you probably already have it installed.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Aesthetically-pleasing (if you care about that).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="511" LastEditorUserId="511" LastEditDate="2012-10-04T19:05:22.573" LastActivityDate="2012-10-04T19:05:22.573" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1399" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1401" CreationDate="2012-10-04T23:35:01.607" Score="8" ViewCount="953" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I started learning, I had lots of games where I lost lots of material through not being familiar with these sneaky attacks. I am talking about these:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/DlKmW.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are many more (two minor pieces being attacked by a single pawn, discovered checks that result in attacking important pieces, etc)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think it will be of great help to study them again and have them freshly in my mind (they often go unperceived, both when &lt;em&gt;spotting&lt;/em&gt; them, and &lt;em&gt;stopping&lt;/em&gt; them).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="478" LastEditorUserId="478" LastEditDate="2019-08-13T01:19:35.823" LastActivityDate="2019-08-13T01:19:35.823" Title="What common patterns should I look for in chess?" Tags="&lt;terminology&gt;&lt;patterns&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1400" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-10-05T00:31:04.470" Score="8" ViewCount="1409" Body="&lt;p&gt;I set the options in Scid VS. PC 4.8, so that Tablebase information shows up in game information window (when 5 piece endgame is reached. But when I turn on an analysis engine, it still does not recognize the tablebases, and continues to calculate, showing score +3.0, while the position is mate in 31 moves (as shown in game information window). Is there anything else I need to do? I tried several engines, with same results.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="618" LastActivityDate="2013-04-06T23:47:16.227" Title="Can SCID be configured so that engines use Endgame Tablebases?" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1401" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1399" CreationDate="2012-10-05T21:36:46.857" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;What you here call 'patterns' are more commonly called chess tactics. See the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_tactic&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia article for Chess Tactics&lt;/a&gt; for a list with some visualization.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These are the simple patterns. There are more complicated patterns that arise rather less commonly, but these complicated patterns tend to simply be a composite of the 'basic tactics'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A fine example of a more complicated pattern is the windmill: &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windmill_%28chess%29&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia article for Windmill&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="378" LastEditorUserId="378" LastEditDate="2012-10-05T23:21:21.983" LastActivityDate="2012-10-05T23:21:21.983" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1402" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1399" CreationDate="2012-10-05T23:51:01.437" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;These are standard tactics. One is called a pin, where a relatively weak piece is tied up in front of stronger piece. It can't move without exposing the stronger piece. Another is called the skewer, where the stronger piece is in front, and can't move away without exposing the weaker piece. The third is called a fork, attacking two pieces in two different directions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These are basic applications of a simple strategem: you win games by threatening two things at one time, and the opponent can defend only one of them. Basic players will have two pieces attacked at the same time. At the advanced level, it might be two smaller threats, maybe the advance of two different pawns can be supported into enemy territory by the same piece.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2012-10-05T23:51:01.437" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1403" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1543" CreationDate="2012-10-06T02:35:35.110" Score="13" ViewCount="959" Body="&lt;p&gt;The expression refers to aggressive attacking style where one side leaves multiple pieces attacked, but the opponent cannot take full advantage of it since &quot;they can only take one at a time&quot;. Was this said by Tal in an interview or in a book (assuming he was actually the one who said it)? Did he say it originally in Russian? If so - what is the exact Russian expression he used?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="618" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2018-09-22T12:55:13.220" LastActivityDate="2019-08-12T14:23:25.057" Title="What is the origin of Tal's expression &quot;They can only take one at a time&quot;?" Tags="&lt;history&gt;&lt;tal&gt;&lt;quotations&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1404" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1399" CreationDate="2012-10-06T15:21:35.260" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;As pointed out, the &quot;patterns&quot; you were looking at are largely covered more abstractly in the domain of tactics... My favorite guide when I was new to chess on that was Yasser Seirwan's book &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/0735606056&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Winning Chess Tactics&lt;/a&gt;.  Once you get the basic ideas, the only way to improve on those is practice.  I find the tactics sites like &lt;a href=&quot;http://chess.emrald.net&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;chess.emrald.net&lt;/a&gt; to be the best resource for rapidly improving your game.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But there are also genuine &quot;patterns&quot; to learn, which are also important.  The difference can be thought of as patterns tend to be less an abstract idea, but a specific implementation of several of these tactical ideas in a configuration of the pieces you will often see.  Most common are the mating patterns... which I'd reference you to my favorite chess book &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1857444000&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;The Art of Attack in Chess&lt;/a&gt;, one I think should be on any serious chess players book shelf.  &lt;a href=&quot;http://blog.chess.com/batgirl/mating-patterns-i&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Here&lt;/a&gt; is an online example of mating patterns, if you are interested.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="606" LastActivityDate="2012-10-06T15:21:35.260" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1405" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-10-08T18:16:18.293" Score="3" ViewCount="345" Body="&lt;p&gt;In high school I played on a chess team, but that was fairly straightforward because there were no rating restrictions for teams.  Every team just grabbed the 5 strongest players and then ordered them by strength.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In most other team tournaments (except for the Chess Olympiad), there is a rating limit (i.e. the average rating of the 4 players must be less than or equal to the limit).  Additionally, most team tournaments are comprised of teams of 4 players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That was all a build up to a request for the best strategy for a team of 4 in terms of ratings.  Given a rating limit of 2000 (as it is in &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesstour.com/etc12.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this upcoming tournament&lt;/a&gt;), what are the best strategies to create a highly competitive team?  Similarly, what are the average ratings on each board?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, a team of 4 equal rated players (2000, 2000, 2000, and 2000) would likely be at a disadvantage on the top 2 boards, but would most likely have a rating edge on the lower boards.  On the other hand, a top heavy team (2500, 2000, 1800, 1700) would be more likely to have an edge on the top board, but at the cost of the second board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A perfect answer would draw on statistics from past tournaments, but I would love to have personal anecdotes as well!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12" LastEditorUserId="4588" LastEditDate="2015-07-31T15:16:49.543" LastActivityDate="2019-12-28T06:00:38.743" Title="Team Tournament Rating Strategy" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;team&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1406" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1405" CreationDate="2012-10-08T20:22:19.827" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;My own experience (from high school, decades ago), is that balanced teams do better. That's because most opposing teams are unbalanced. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was first board on my team, and &quot;league average&quot; against other first boards. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But my lower boards were barely worse than me. They &quot;cleaned up&quot; against their counterparts, few of whom were &quot;barely&quot; weaker than me. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hopefully your first board will get you a &quot;random&quot; result, and the lower boards will prevail against their opponents. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2012-10-08T20:22:19.827" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1407" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="863" CreationDate="2012-10-08T20:33:07.037" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In a 1929 against Fritz Saemisch, a lesser master, former World Champion J. R. Capablanca blundered away a piece on the 9th move, and resigned some 50-odd moves later.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1066901&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1066901&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It was reported that Capablanca'ss wife or mistress (or possibly both) had just entered the room. In any event, the grandmaster LOST the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2012-10-08T20:33:07.037" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1408" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2775" CreationDate="2012-10-10T15:46:12.397" Score="18" ViewCount="19642" Body="&lt;p&gt;I always wondered about this! How many moves ahead can strong players like Anand actually 'see' during the game? How does the calculation of a supercomputer like Deep Blue differ from that of strong human players?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="610" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-03-01T15:32:31.757" LastActivityDate="2016-08-14T06:51:01.487" Title="How many moves ahead does Anand calculate in his mind?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;famous-players&gt;&lt;anand&gt;&lt;super-grandmaster&gt;&lt;calculation&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1409" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1408" CreationDate="2012-10-10T19:02:12.483" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is an ill defined question, similar to: what is my girlfriend thinking about when we ... ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But to stab at an answer, it would be completely dependent on the position. If the position has many tactical variations possible, the answer will probably be &lt;em&gt;very&lt;/em&gt; far, 5, 6 or more moves ahead. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the position is very closed, and positional strategy matters, the answer is probably that he is largely relying on his previous experience, understanding of positional strategy, and analysis of openings/other tournament games in guiding his moves. This usually means he has memorized the possible variations and can move with confidence knowing he is not blundering. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the position is considered an endgame position, once again, he should be able to see very far ahead since the number of tactics and variations is greatly reduced. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is mostly true of all chess players, the difference being that master and grand master players can perform all of these things to a greater degree than lesser players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In terms of how this applies to the development of a Chess Engine such as (Deep) Blue: it doesn't. Computers are largely computational beasts and other than large databases of known openings/endgame position and transposition tables they don't largely rely on previous experience. They simply search for the best move as defined to be the move such that the opponent's best (following) move is weakest (this is the principle behind the min-max search algorithm which is usually used in Chess Engines.) It is a well known trick that when a human is playing a strong computer opponent they should aim to create a largely positional game with few tactics in order to increase their chances of winning. Computers make far fewer mistakes than humans in calculating tactics and, in general, have poor positional play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="72" LastEditorUserId="72" LastEditDate="2012-10-10T19:08:02.320" LastActivityDate="2012-10-10T19:08:02.320" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1410" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1415" CreationDate="2012-10-10T21:20:31.883" Score="11" ViewCount="873" Body="&lt;p&gt;I usually get into this position, where I just recently moved the bishop to &lt;strong&gt;g5&lt;/strong&gt; (or b5), and his response is moving &lt;strong&gt;h6&lt;/strong&gt; (or a6):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/QYcUt.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Usually here, I only consider two possibilities:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Take the knight&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Retreat my bishop*&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Do anything else (rarely profitable)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;sub&gt;* either to &lt;strong&gt;h4&lt;/strong&gt; (or a4), or back in the long diagonal where it came from&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know this position strongly depends on how the other pieces are in the board, but I am sure there are standard responses, with their pros and cons.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would like to study this position in-depth, possibly read some books that talk about it, anyone can point me in the right direction?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, in case of moving it to &lt;strong&gt;h4&lt;/strong&gt; (or a4), is it considered a mistake for black to attack again moving the other pawn two squares?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="478" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-11-01T05:20:25.947" LastActivityDate="2019-08-12T13:52:54.640" Title="My bishop is attacked by a rook-pawn, now what?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;study&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1412" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1420" CreationDate="2012-10-11T11:53:46.153" Score="55" ViewCount="49452" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is so difficult to force stalemate and sometimes unintentional too, so why is stalemate a draw? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;As the opponent doesn't have a further move, why is it not considered a win?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="634" LastEditorUserId="2602" LastEditDate="2014-03-02T11:18:39.163" LastActivityDate="2019-08-11T16:58:20.283" Title="Why is stalemate a draw?" Tags="&lt;history&gt;&lt;draw&gt;&lt;stalemate&gt;" AnswerCount="10" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1413" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1412" CreationDate="2012-10-11T14:09:58.673" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;The objective of the game is to achieve a checkmate. If you leave your opponent no legal moves, then he/she is not in check, is not checkmated, yet can't move. It speaks to the ability of the player to recognize the possibility of stalemate, and avoid it while playing for the checkmate (or opponent resignation).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You haven't achieved the objective of the game, hence, a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="394" LastActivityDate="2012-10-11T14:09:58.673" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1414" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1410" CreationDate="2012-10-11T18:42:05.720" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;DISCLAIMER: I'm unrated USCF, but lost most of the games at the last tourney I went to.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It depends entirely on the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) If you can make something happen tactically when the knight is swiped, obviously do it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) If your opponent has to recapture with the g7 pawn, I'm biased towards doing it. That's a long term weakness, and doubled pawns aren't pretty after the king's castled. But then, I tend to undervalue doubled middle pawns in the opening anyway.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) If your opponent has a lot of weak squares of the color of your attacking bishop, keep the bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's no one-size-fits-all answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="378" LastActivityDate="2012-10-11T18:42:05.720" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1415" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1410" CreationDate="2012-10-11T19:25:27.520" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;Usually the bishop doesn't end up by chance on this square, so why did you move it there in the first place? I can think of three reasons:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;pin the knight in order demobilize it (e.g. an indirect attack on a pawn)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;pin the knight in order to take it (e.g. to give the opponent a doubled pawn)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;provoke a weakness in the opponent's pawn structure&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Be clear which of these motives apply in your case &lt;em&gt;before&lt;/em&gt; you move, then you know what to do afterwards. Obviously &quot;development&quot; isn't a motive, but just an excuse here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, if your bishop is on b5 and the bishop on c8 isn't developed, sometimes Qa4 is an option (axb5 Qxa8).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="35" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-08-12T13:50:15.663" LastActivityDate="2019-08-12T13:50:15.663" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1416" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-10-12T09:58:38.610" Score="9" ViewCount="499" Body="&lt;p&gt;Normally when I play against a computer I try to avoid any positions where I feel the knowledge-base of the computer would give it an advantage. For example I find computers very strong in typical protracted opening sequences and in endgames.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I seem to fare best against strong computer opponents when I play more positional, &quot;by the gut&quot; chess than when I attempt to apply a more strategic and tactical game plan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am wondering if this is something other people have experienced; if there is a practical basis for this belief and what type of chess situations have proved fruitful for them when playing against a digital opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="264" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-05-30T17:49:44.797" LastActivityDate="2017-05-30T17:49:44.797" Title="When playing a computer opponent what situations should I create to give myself a better chance of winning?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1417" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1416" CreationDate="2012-10-12T13:41:05.487" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, that generally happens with me as well. I have been playing a lot of chess at a younger age with my gut instinct and now, when I move to a more tactical game by seeing professional games and chess sites, and try to implement the same during my game, I am completely lost.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Gut-moves generally work well as these are the moves that one has generally made while playing for a considerable amount of time. Going for a drastic change from the &quot;Gut-game&quot; to a tactical game plan would be a hindrance as the board position would be something totally new to what one is acclimatized. A gradual move to a more tactical game plan is suggested.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also feel that the earlier in one's chess life, they learn the tactical game plan, the better it is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="636" LastActivityDate="2012-10-12T13:41:05.487" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1418" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1422" CreationDate="2012-10-12T14:48:50.513" Score="13" ViewCount="879" Body="&lt;p&gt;Arpad Elo described (chess life 1962) his ratings as &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;the measurement of the position of a cork bobbing up and down on the&#xA;  surface of agitated water with a yard stick tied to a rope and which&#xA;  is swaying in the wind&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus the Elo Ratings system is more a measure of Chess players' relative strength against contemporaries rather than one with a historical context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a way to adapt the Elo system to give it historical context or is there a superior &#xA;way to compare the relative strengths of players throughout history?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="264" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-10-12T19:07:19.637" LastActivityDate="2014-02-10T20:38:39.837" Title="The Historical Comparison of Players" Tags="&lt;history&gt;&lt;rating&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1419" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-10-12T15:16:59.607" Score="9" ViewCount="11739" Body="&lt;p&gt;Question arose with a friend when he he posted this picture on his blog.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/WAedn.jpg&quot; width=&quot;250&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a game where you could configure a game with the pieces like this? I know it is a bit odd, but he and I suspected it would be a somewhat fun diversion to actually play that board. Obviously you could do it with a physical board, but I usually play online or on my phone. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="638" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-10-12T19:06:36.503" LastActivityDate="2016-07-26T12:51:53.990" Title="Is there an online chess game or app that allows for custom setup of pieces?" Tags="&lt;online-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1420" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1412" CreationDate="2012-10-12T15:41:27.403" Score="35" Body="&lt;p&gt;Stalemate is a draw in classical chess yet there are other chess variants both historical and modern where stalemate is not a draw. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Very early versions of Chess, such as Shatranj Chess (props to Andrew Latham) declare the player causing stalemate the winner and even today there are callings to return to that rule.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;for example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Larry Kaufman Chess Life Sept. 2009 writes: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;calling stalemate a draw is totally illogical, since it represents&#xA;  the ultimate zugzwang, where any move would get your king taken&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A typical counter to this point is that Chess tradition dictates that a stalemate cannot result in a win for the stalemating player because it would require a suicidal move from the stalemated player (moving your king into check is, in most forms of chess, an illegal move). If there are no moves on the board that you are able to make (other then resigning) then in making the stalemating move your opponent has effectively ended the game without a definitive result (capture of the king) and is judged to have not won the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So.. &quot;In Classical Chess what is the probable origin of stalemate being considered a draw?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The earliest reference I can find to Stalemate being a draw in formalised chess rules is 13th century Italy where the version of Chess played declared that a game could only be won by checkmate or resignation. Stalemate, under those terms, describes a state where a player cannot make a legal move. In effect the game has stalled in a state where neither player can achieve Checkmate and is drawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stalemate as a draw then spread to Germany (1400s), Spain (1600s) and throughout Europe by 19th Century when the formal rules of what we know as classical chess were put in place. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;England was one of the final adopters of Stalemate as a draw in the 1800s (up until that point the stalemated player had actually been declared the winner).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Opinion:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes tradition does favors the player in stalemate but it has been that way for a very long time. The flipping of that advantage to the stalemating player would greatly change the nature of the endgame (and thus the game of chess and a huge amount of chess theory), which is probably why such arguments have not recieved too much traction.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="264" LastEditorUserId="264" LastEditDate="2014-01-10T12:54:41.173" LastActivityDate="2014-01-10T12:54:41.173" CommentCount="12" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1421" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1412" CreationDate="2012-10-12T18:18:50.870" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Simple reason - you cannot kill the king in his current place and the king is dead if he moves. So they maintain status quo till eternity, meaning stalemate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="636" LastActivityDate="2012-10-12T18:18:50.870" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1422" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1418" CreationDate="2012-10-12T18:37:24.773" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessmetrics.com/cm/&quot;&gt;Chessmetrics&lt;/a&gt;, and it attempts to assign inflation adjusted ratings, even create elo-type rating for players of earlier period.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am personally not a big fan of trying to compare great players across time. But it could be useful if you want to see who the top 10 players were in 1910 to 1920 time period.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="307" LastActivityDate="2012-10-12T18:37:24.773" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1425" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1372" CreationDate="2012-10-15T00:22:49.830" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In addition to the above answers I would recommend using &lt;code&gt;Computer Chess Programs&lt;/code&gt; for improving tactics. While playing with humans you sometimes get a false &lt;code&gt;high&lt;/code&gt; when an incomplete attack results in success (usually in the form of material gained). A decent computer program will rarely fall for immature tactics, thus providing a strong incentive to be thorough with your attack preparations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="243" LastActivityDate="2012-10-15T00:22:49.830" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1426" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1416" CreationDate="2012-10-17T01:09:12.877" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Interesting question, but it's a little bit hard to answer generally.  Any engine has its own quirks, but I'll try to give a few general hints and things to consider.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, any modern engine on sufficiently fast hardware is going to wipe you off the board.  Even top GM's lose to engines &lt;em&gt;with odds&lt;/em&gt;. &lt;sup&gt;1&lt;/sup&gt;  However, most engines have the hardest time in closed positions where long-term strategy is more important than tactics on any given move.  Games that are very closed (think classical KID lines) are won or lost based on chess understanding, and engines still don't truly understand chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One very interesting thing, however, is that some engines actually are vulnerable in extremely &lt;em&gt;tactical&lt;/em&gt; games.  Most notably, engines are not always as good as humans when one side has a large attack.  Engines are notoriously bad at overestimating defensive resources and going into a line that is losing for the defender.  However, there is absolutely no margin for error in this case since a single misstep means the loss of the game.  This method (i.e. attacking the computer's king), is a very easy way to win against slightly weaker engines - for example the ones built into Windows and Macs (also the chess games on international flights, but those are really awful...).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To finish, probably the only way to have good chances against a strong machine are to memorize the moves ahead of time.  This might sound fantastic, but &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessvibes.com/reports/ukrainian-beats-rybka-4-blindfolded/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;it's already been done&lt;/a&gt;.  The point is that the engine will spit out the exact same moves every game (under identical conditions), so it's possible to find a hole in the engine's repertoire and steer the game into this gap.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;1. Rybka has played many odds matches - most notably against &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=4837&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;IM Meyer&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rybka#Odds_matches_versus_grandmasters&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;GM Ehlvest&lt;/a&gt;, and &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=4919&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;GM Milov&lt;/a&gt; (who actually won the match!).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12" LastActivityDate="2012-10-17T01:09:12.877" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1427" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1416" CreationDate="2012-10-17T09:28:12.150" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Positional play, even sacrifices like &quot;poisoned&quot; pawns. The computer won't see an immediate threat and hence grab the material, but in the long run you can use that weakness (double pawn, bad bishop etc.) to your advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="35" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-05-30T17:46:51.807" LastActivityDate="2017-05-30T17:46:51.807" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1428" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="531" CreationDate="2012-10-17T19:03:04.577" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;Over time, I think that you may expect improvement via the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;Forgetting&quot; bad habits&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Adding to your experience in non-chess-specific but useful skills, such as reading the opponent, time management, and recognizing your own limitations.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;More capable or willing than before of purchasing help (lessons).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Specifically to your question, it's worth noting that 1 0 bullet is a far different game compared with 3 0, or 5 0. Also, sites will differ, and the site you mention (Yahoo) has changed over time. As you probably know, the specifics of each site's implementation has a dramatic effect on optimal strategy. For example, does the site allow premove? If so, is there a minimum amount of time which must come off the clock? So leaving 1 0 bullet four years ago and returning to 3 0 today is a far different game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the issue of whether you should be faster mentally at 25 or 30, I don't know if the difference would be discernible. But this is not my field of expertise.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="517" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T19:57:21.770" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T19:57:21.770" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1429" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1412" CreationDate="2012-10-17T20:54:00.020" Score="22" Body="&lt;p&gt;As Totero notes, changing stalemate in this fashion would drastically change endgame play. Currently, one must learn how to recognize different King/Pawn endings, and how other pieces interact with these endings. Opposite- vs same-color Bishops, Knight/Pawn vs Knight, Rook/Pawn vs Rook, and other basic variations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Changing stalemate to a win would throw much of that out the window. Who cares whether White or Black has the opposition? Just run that Pawn down the board. Rook/Pawn vs Rook? No worries, just force a trade, and the win is guaranteed. It might not be fair to say that this would trivialize endgame play in reducing it to mindless exchanges from material superiority, but it would be a drastic change.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Put another way, it takes more skill to calculate and remember ending positions than it does to march one's way to a stalemate, and the stalemate rule is intended to recognize that fact.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="652" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-08-11T16:50:22.667" LastActivityDate="2019-08-11T16:50:22.667" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1430" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1416" CreationDate="2012-10-18T00:24:49.980" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe that the OP's observation is correct. A computer is worst at evaluating &quot;intangible&quot; advantages, and best at calculating &quot;lines.&quot; So to the extent possible, a human player should aim for the former and avoid the latter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2012-10-18T00:24:49.980" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1431" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1410" CreationDate="2012-10-18T00:30:40.223" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In some cases, the WHOLE POINT of moving the bishop is to provoke h6, which often seriously weakens the king side.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One move worth considering is the sacrifice Bxh6 (after the opponent has castled). If the g-pawn retakes, the king may be exposed to a devastating check by say, Qg4. (Of course, you have to be sure of your followup moves before sacrificing the B.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In most other situations, retreating the B to h4, or elsewhere, is good enough, since it has done its job.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You need to be more careful about moving the B to b5 on the queen side. A6 often gains time for Black. Even so, it is the key move of the Ruy Lopez opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-08-12T13:52:54.640" LastActivityDate="2019-08-12T13:52:54.640" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1432" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-10-18T03:28:48.103" Score="26" ViewCount="1648" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know how to win the endgame with bishop and knight, but it is a slippery process and seems to be &lt;em&gt;just barely&lt;/em&gt; a win, with the enemy king very nearly escaping.  For this reason, I am curious about this endgame on other board sizes and if it will still be possible in the general case of an MxN board. Let's assume the 50 move rule doesn't apply.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are a few examples.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is there a forced win on a 10x10 board?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is there a forced win on a 7x7 board, with a bishop of the &amp;quot;wrong&amp;quot;' color (i.e. a bishop that can't attack the corner squares)?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="375" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-05-13T15:11:08.293" LastActivityDate="2021-05-13T16:01:27.940" Title="KBN vs K checkmate on nonstandard boards" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;knights&gt;&lt;bishops&gt;&lt;elementary-mates&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1433" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-10-18T03:34:45.660" Score="13" ViewCount="1491" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have seen that engines aren't particularly strong in the openings without access to a book. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How strong are modern engines in the endgame when they are not allowed access to tablebases?  E.g., can a computer typically win those difficult endgames such as KQ vs. KR and KBN vs. K in blitz games?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="375" LastActivityDate="2020-01-21T05:36:55.790" Title="Computer endgame strength without tablebases" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;tablebases&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1434" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1433" CreationDate="2012-10-18T13:24:00.183" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Win against who? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've seen KQ/KR draw between computers before, in 1 or 5 minutes (without egtb). They can drill pretty deep when there aren't many pieces on the board, but if the time control is fast enough, it's not always deep enough. Even GMs draw that one sometimes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Still, I imagine a normal person might make a non-optimal move in such a time control, also, that could tip the advantage to the computer. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="142" LastActivityDate="2012-10-18T13:24:00.183" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1435" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1410" CreationDate="2012-10-18T18:15:23.467" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would say that typically black WOULD NOT want to further chase the bishop after h6 Bh4, because typically black has castled kingside. I would also say that typically black WOULD want to further chase the bishop after a6 Ba4 (for the same reason). Getting space on the queenside when you have castled kingside is often desirable; &quot;getting space&quot; on the kingside when you have castled there is much more likely to be &quot;creating weaknesses&quot; and not getting space.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course there are tons of exceptions, and it all depends on the position. One example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In a closed position (such as in the King's Indian Classical), black will often advance his kingside pawns. The rule of thumb in closed positions is to advance pawns on the side where you have the space advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="517" LastActivityDate="2012-10-18T18:15:23.467" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1436" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-10-18T19:03:18.890" Score="14" ViewCount="1243" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there a book, or an article, which examines the relationship between these two openings? The Caro-Kann exchange (non-Panov) is &lt;code&gt;1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.exd5 cxd5&lt;/code&gt;, and the Queen's Gambit exchange is &lt;code&gt;1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.cxd5 exd5&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The positions are identical except for who is on move. I know that the Caro-Kann exchange is not considered critical, and I know that the Queen's Gambit exchange (via that particular move order, i.e. without &lt;code&gt;3.Nc3 Nf6&lt;/code&gt;) is also not considered critical.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But does anybody know of a serious discussion of these two openings, which on the surface seem nearly identical?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="517" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-10-18T19:35:28.817" LastActivityDate="2019-08-03T19:35:10.433" Title="Theoretical relationship between Caro-Kann exchange and Queen's Gambit exchange" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;learning&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;queens-gambit&gt;&lt;caro-kann&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1437" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1436" CreationDate="2012-10-18T19:34:08.787" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;Soltis' &lt;a href=&quot;http://books.google.com/books/about/Pawn_structure_chess.html?id=_-8XAQAAMAAJ&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Pawn Structure Chess&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt; is a good book which treats all the common pawn structures that arise from popular openings. Its focus truly is on the pawn structures themselves and typical plans associated with them, rather than on the particular opening move-orders by which they arise. And the structure described in your question is treated in section &quot;C. The Orthodox Exchange Formation,&quot; located in the chapter devoted to the Queen's Gambit family of structures. Soltis writes:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Kmoch named [this formation] after the exchange systems (&lt;code&gt;cxd5 / ... exd5&lt;/code&gt;) in the orthodox (read &quot;normal&quot;) variation of the Q.G.D. It also occurs with colors reversed in the Caro-Kann (&lt;code&gt;1 e4 c6  2 d4 d5  3 exd5 cxd5  4 c3&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;... e6&lt;/code&gt;) and some rarer openings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Kmoch reference here is to the book &lt;a href=&quot;http://books.google.com/books/about/Pawn_Power_in_Chess.html?id=FT7hpAiec3EC&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Pawn Power in Chess&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt;, which also gives a short account of this structure, in the form of annotations to the game &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1040980&quot;&gt;R.Byrne-Eliskases (1952)&lt;/a&gt;. Kmoch has further discussion of this structure in his chapter on pawns and rooks; see pp. 100-103 of the Dover edition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-10-18T19:46:49.693" LastActivityDate="2012-10-18T19:46:49.693" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1438" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1412" CreationDate="2012-10-18T19:56:04.470" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;I remember reading somewhere once which advocated that stalemate should be (could be) 3/4 point. Unfortunately, a quick google search turned up nothing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The idea is interesting. It seems that you gained more by stalemating your opponent than you gain if the position is completely equal. By similar logic, the stalemated side seems to have not lost as badly as he would have if he had been checkmated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="517" LastActivityDate="2012-10-18T19:56:04.470" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1439" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1436" CreationDate="2012-10-18T20:51:23.003" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think that this question really highlights the value of the initiative and the white pieces.  In the Exchange QGD, the position is nearly equal according to theory, while in the Caro Kann, the position is &lt;strike&gt;nearly equal according to theory&lt;/strike&gt; ...complicated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't know of any books that compare the two simply because the Panov is still available.  It can get incredibly crazy in so many lines when white takes on an IQP.  On the other hand, black almost never willingly accepts an IQP in the QGD because he or she is down a full tempo (the Tarrasch is a different story).  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1880673851&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;My System&lt;/a&gt; does touch on some of the ideas of these positions (i.e. locked center with d4 and d5), but much of the theory (Carlsbad position, ideas in the minority attack lines, etc.) was developed more recently.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In terms of general ideas of the position (which would be a good starting point for trying to decide if the extra tempo makes a big difference), &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/3937549064&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Kasparov's videos&lt;/a&gt; do a pretty good job of showing how the two sides fight with concrete ideas.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12" LastActivityDate="2012-10-18T20:51:23.003" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1440" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1432" CreationDate="2012-10-18T21:12:27.323" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let's start with the 7x7 question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a forced win on a 7x7 board, with a bishop of the 'wrong' color?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This seems to be the easier of the two questions to answer. First, convince yourself that this is the only mating pattern (the Black king could also be on the dark square immediately to its left).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;8/8/8/8/8/4B1NK/8/7k w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The key point is that it is not possible for White to force this position.  Black's king would have been stalemated on the previous move.  Alternatively, if Black's king is moved one square to the left, the only legal move that white could have just played would be to move the bishop onto that diagonal, delivering mate.  If this were the case, where was Black's king before that? It would have been on f2 (two to the left, one up). So Black was not forced to move into the corner and could have instead avoided the mate.  To conclude, there is no way to force mate in the wrong corner; shortening the board doesn't change this fact.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now the first question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a forced win on a 10x10 board?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this case, White &lt;em&gt;will&lt;/em&gt; have a proper corner, but let's assume that White can force the Black king into the wrong corner.  n the standard 8x8 board, White has to release the king from the side for a few moves in the process of driving the king to the mating corner. See &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bishop_and_knight_checkmate#The_.22W_manoeuvre.22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt; for a complete tutorial. Here is the normal position when Black flees the edge (temporarily).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;8/2kN3B/4K3/8/8/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black usually plays Kc6, and then after Bd3!, the king has no escape. On a 10x10 board, however, Black could play Kb7, followed by Ka7, and finally, Kz6, as we will call the first file to the left &amp;quot;z&amp;quot;.  White has no way to get the king and knight over to help prevent the Black king from escaping the bind.  So again, it's a good thing that the board is only 8x8, otherwise, the bishop and knight would never get to mate the king!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;sub&gt;Disclaimer: I have not proven any of my assertions with tablebases&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-05-13T15:14:52.647" LastActivityDate="2021-05-13T15:14:52.647" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1441" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1433" CreationDate="2012-10-18T21:23:53.867" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, I'm not convinced that engines are necessarily weak without their books.  Without an opening book, modern engines might not play the most testing lines, or lines that would get them into a position where they thrive, but any top engine will still crush any human GM without an opening book.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As an interesting aside, if you leave your engine on for a while, it usually finds the Spanish Four Knights as the best line from the starting position, but I digress...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the endgame, it totally depends on the engine and the position.  Without tablebases, engines might not know that a rook pawn and wrong bishop is only a draw.  If the programmers added that exception, then they'll figure it out, but otherwise, they might trade down thinking that they'll win with an extra bishop and pawn only to draw via the 50 move rule.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In more elementary endgames, like KBNvK, the stronger side will almost always win.  The longest mating sequence is 33 moves if my memory serves.  Most engines will stumble onto a forced mate in that time because their heuristics will have them make good moves that get closer to mate (and they can probably see 15-20 moves deep).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In terms of KQvKR, the stronger side will almost always win against a human.  Humans are pretty bad at defending this position, and the computer will instantly see ways to pick off a loose rook.  Against another computer, it's a little bit harder, but as Wes says in his answer, it is still likely that the stronger side would win (the Philidor maneuver is only ~5 moves long, plenty short enough for the engine to see it) given enough time.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12" LastActivityDate="2012-10-18T21:23:53.867" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1442" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1195" CreationDate="2012-10-19T21:39:56.870" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;Substantial' is a subjective term, but if you like Informant-style annotations the Chess Stars' book (Volume 2 of the three volume set of Alekhine's games, ISBN 9548782235) has some detailed analyses. It's possibly repeated in ISBN 9548782065, Vol 2 of their 2-vol set on Capablanca. I haven't done a detailed comparison of the two.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Game 2 is fairly short, about 1 column, but Game 3 is almost three pages of dense variations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="657" LastActivityDate="2012-10-19T21:39:56.870" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1443" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="993" CreationDate="2012-10-19T22:03:01.560" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;While the 1974 match with Karpov was the last straw, it had been building for a decade or more. Korchnoi was never one to just blithely do what he was told, and he felt that Petrosian, especially, was working against him consistently.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In 1963 he was USSR champion, but Petrosian was sent to the Piatigorsky Cup, not him. The Americans sent three tickets, for Keres, Petrosian, and him, but only two were allowed to go.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He complained frequently that Petrosian was being allowed to shake the table in their 73 match (game 5) Korchnoi won, but after the game Petrosian complained that Korchnoi had spoken to him and wanted the match annulled. A very large dispute arose, ending with Petrosian refusing to play, resigning on health grounds. The score at the time was +3=1-1 in favor of Korchnoi.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Korchnoi writes about his early career is &quot;Chess Is My Life&quot; ISBN 06680445280 a slim volume that stops with 1976, right after his defection to the west.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="657" LastActivityDate="2012-10-19T22:03:01.560" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1444" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="690" CreationDate="2012-10-20T15:58:05.147" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;For native OSX databases you're pretty much limited to SCID and &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.exachess.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Exachess&lt;/a&gt; unless you want to go the Parallels route and use windows software from there. You might be able to rig up WINE and run it on the later versions of OSX; not sure, never tried it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In both of these you'll be missing the high-end features of chess base, such as the opening report. I'm not aware of anything on OSX that opens the .cbh format files. ChessBase got really closed after the older (CB6 and earlier) file format was decoded and distributed. I'm not aware of anyone who has decoded their cbh format.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ChessBase, back in the day, tried to create a Mac product, but it was slow, buggy and under-featured compared to their Windows version, and when it didn't sell well they blamed the Mac user base instead of their own lack of skill for it and vowed never to build another version for the Mac.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for &quot;use chess computers,&quot; I suspect you are referring to top chess-playing software. Fritz, being a CB product, will never appear for OSX. However, most of the rest of the top names already have an OSX version: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.hiarcs.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;HIARCS&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.shredderchess.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Shredder&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://stockfishchess.org&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Stockfish&lt;/a&gt;; Rybka and Houdini have yet to appear on OSX.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="657" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T19:19:51.550" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T19:19:51.550" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1445" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="730" CreationDate="2012-10-20T17:00:52.617" Score="7" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/2P5/8/8/3r4/8/2K5/k7 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. c8=Q? (1. c8=R!) Rc4+ 2. Qxc4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you said it made no sense to promote to a Rook or Bishop, it brought this position to mind. Here, if White promotes to a Queen, the game is drawn, but if White promotes to a rook, White wins.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;on 1. c8/Q Black would answer 1 ... Rc4+ 2, Qxc4 stalemate. But on 1. c8/R 2. Rc4+ White can capture the rook without fear of stalemate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes the queen is &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; the most powerful piece available. Every position is different, and the extra move possibilities of the Queen can work against you sometimes. Whenever you promote, think. Most of the time, yes, a Queen is the best choice; but not always. Look around and see if a different piece would be better, or if there is a danger of stalemate posed by the queen's extra moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="657" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-07-30T11:59:22.153" LastActivityDate="2019-07-30T11:59:22.153" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1446" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1048" CreationDate="2012-10-20T17:27:13.863" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can contribute a personal study, but it conflicts with your experience. While I was coaching a HS team, we started talking about how important the opening was (my position was &quot;not very;&quot; they weren't convinced).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So we looked at my last half-dozen or so tournaments. I had won 19 games during that stretch, and had been standing noticeably worse coming out of the opening in 14 of them. So, from that data, it would seem that opening knowledge wasn't contributing much at all to my winning percentage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's a complexity here in this that is not being accounted for, though. There are two players in a chess game, and the knowledge/ability of your opponent has an effect on this. The basic rule is the better your opponent, the less likely they are to make mistakes, therefore the more important your own opening knowledge becomes. A player with a reasonable tactical ability can recover in the middle game from an opening blunder against someone under 2000USCF, because the chances are they will make mistakes that will produce the opportunities. Against Carlsen? Yeah, good luck with that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's why the traditional advice has been to start improving from the back end of the game forward. You can steal back some half-points and full points later in the game that your opening ineptitude gives away.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="657" LastActivityDate="2012-10-20T17:27:13.863" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1447" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="485" CreationDate="2012-10-20T17:43:19.070" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are &lt;em&gt;so&lt;/em&gt; many factors that would affect that. Player strength, for one, as weaker players tend to play heavy pieces first (beginners &lt;em&gt;always&lt;/em&gt; have to be told not to push their rook pawns and bring their rooks out in front of their pawns).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Next, the opening choice affects it strongly, because that can dictate both castling and pawn structure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since &lt;code&gt;O-O-O&lt;/code&gt; is rarer than &lt;code&gt;O-O&lt;/code&gt;, a good guess for the last piece is the QR, because every other piece has to move before it can. But pawns figure in as well, and given the rarity of queen side fianchettoes I'd guess the b-pawn might even nip the Rook for last moved.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What's the purpose of the question, aside from idle curiosity? Is there a principle you're aiming for?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="657" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-10-22T18:12:41.883" LastActivityDate="2012-10-22T18:12:41.883" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1448" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="382" CreationDate="2012-10-20T18:11:27.460" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The old surveys in the New In Chess Yearbooks used to have that for the opening being surveyed, but they've dropped that in recent years. Some old books by Elsvier used to continue the tradition of the ancient and long out of print Blue Book of Charts by printing frequency along with won/lost statistics of each move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you're willing to settle for recent years, Mark Crowther's fantastic This Week In Chess series would be useful. Every week he publishes for download a package of games played in international chess that week. Download them, load them in to SCID, and you're on your way, for an investment of no extra money.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For games older than that, if you wanted to keep the cost at free, you could try the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.pitt.edu/~schach/Archives/index2.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;University of Pittsburgh Archives&lt;/a&gt;. They have lots of games, just be aware there has been little or no QA work done on them, so there will be lots of duplicates, as well as fictional games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Better QA work has been done for both the usual suspect (Chessbase) and for &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessok.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chess Assistant&lt;/a&gt; where you can bring in 5+ million games for under $100US, but you'll have to pay for the editing. Even then, these games collections aren't perfect, just better. With the commercial databases you can walk the opening tree and see popularity of moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd caution you, though, popularity of moves doesn't yield good moves. If a given position occurs 30 times, then one side discovers a tremendous advantage, the advantageous move will only get played a couple of times, while the weaker moves may have been played a dozen times or more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="657" LastActivityDate="2012-10-20T18:11:27.460" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1449" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1251" CreationDate="2012-10-20T18:34:07.167" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;A simple suggestion: learn the lines your opponents play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you finish a game, check the &quot;book&quot; moves for the variation that showed up on the board. Figure precisely how you should have played &lt;em&gt;that game&lt;/em&gt; and remember it. Then, the next time you feel lost in an opening, repeat the process.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nothing can be more discouraging than spending weeks memorizing book lines, just to have no one play them against you. But by using the choices your opponents make to set the priority for the lines you study, you're preparing yourself for the style of the players you play most often. As you do this, you'll discover, either on the board or in the books, links between the variation you're playing now and the one you played last month, and you'll start putting together variations, even complete openings, to play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you do this, look for ways to transpose what you're playing into another position you're more comfortable with. For example, as an e4 player, you can almost force Black into taking the Black side of a Blackmar-Diemer gambit in every circumstance except after e5 or c5, so if you look at some of those lines and feel comfortable with them, go for it. Many Pirc positions easily transpose into Sicilian lines if you'd rather play them that way. Closed Sicilian lines can end up as Nimzo-Indians. Transpositions, when you find them, can be fun for you, while puzzling to your opponent. (Hey! How'd I end up in a Queen's Gambit?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The success of a trick opening is dependent upon surprise. Don't be surprised, and when faced with one, don't overreach. Remember, the object of the opening is merely to reach a playable middle game. Play reasonable moves and wait for the middlegame to win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="657" LastEditorUserId="657" LastEditDate="2019-10-31T13:21:45.607" LastActivityDate="2019-10-31T13:21:45.607" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1450" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1372" CreationDate="2012-10-20T18:42:58.810" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Best trainer I've ever seen for tactics: &lt;a href=&quot;http://chessok.com/shop/index.php?main_page=product_info&amp;amp;cPath=7_26_29&amp;amp;products_id=312&quot;&gt;CT-ART&lt;/a&gt;. Full stop. It's relatively cheap ($20US, give or take) and walks you through thousands of tactical positions, showing you all sorts of techniques, and relentlessly drilling you in them. I'm a Mac user, and I keep parallels around mainly for this program.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To start out with it, I'd put it in test mode for 15 positions or so. If you get lost trying to figure it out, step over to practice, or even theory for a while, but you'll get the max benefit from it with test, because then it just shows you the position, tells you who is to move, and the rest is up to you; no hints until you make mistakes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="657" LastActivityDate="2012-10-20T18:42:58.810" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1451" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="75" CreationDate="2012-10-21T04:16:13.773" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;Two interesting gambit trees to be aware of are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) The Scotch/Goring/Italian/Danish gambit complex (there's a lot of opportunity to transpose among them). These start out with:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1. e4 e5 2. d4 ed 3. c3 (Danish)&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 ed 4. c3 (Goring)&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 ed 4. Bc4 (Scotch)&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Bc5 4. d4 (Italian)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The transpositions among them (and into both the Two Knight's and the Max Lange) should be enough to gratify anyone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) The Blackmar-Diemer Gambit. The basic line of this is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1. d4 d5 2. e4 de 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. f3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But the utility of this gambit lies in the great potential for transposition from semi-open &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; defenses:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1. e4 d5 2. d4 (from Center Counter)&#xA;1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Be3 de (from French)&#xA;1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 Bb4 4. a3 Bxc3 5. bc de 6. f3 (also French)&#xA;1. e4 Nf6 2. Nc3 d5 3. d4 (from Alekhine's)&#xA;1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 de 4. f3 (from Caro-Kann)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can basically run any response to &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; except &lt;code&gt;...e5&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;...c5&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;...d6&lt;/code&gt; into a BDG (and with the Sicilian or Pirc, you might find enough life in the &lt;code&gt;f3&lt;/code&gt; systems to keep you playing some sharp games even then).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="657" LastEditorUserId="657" LastEditDate="2019-08-21T19:10:15.323" LastActivityDate="2019-08-21T19:10:15.323" CommentCount="0" CommunityOwnedDate="2013-08-09T01:11:05.007" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1452" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="188" CreationDate="2012-10-21T04:42:31.230" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;You have to have a certain degree of ability before you gain &lt;em&gt;a lot&lt;/em&gt; from analysing your own games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Certain points you can discover by yourself, but is it just a move or two, or is your whole plan bad? Often you'll not be able to answer that on your own. You can guess, but your guess isn't likely to be that much more reliable than your play in the original game. You'll learn from your own games faster if you find a stronger player to look at them with you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you can't do that and have to do it on your own, here's a suggested program:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Play through the game, observing it like a movie. Don't launch yourself into deep thinks. On this pass you're only looking for obvious tactical blunders, so spend only a couple of seconds looking for ways you could have lost or won material. Note them down somewhere for further analysis later. Reset the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Play through the game again, five moves at a time. Every five moves stop and ask yourself which side is better, if any. Mark that evaluation on the sheet. Watch, and when that evaluation changes, somebody made a mistake; go back and look through those five moves to see if you can find it. Maybe you can't, but if you can (and you've found it only if you find an alternative that maintains the evaluation) circle the move that caused the change.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Only after that should you fire up a computer to look at the game. Right now, you're checking your own conclusions against the computer. Walk the computer through the game, comparing its evaluations with your own. If they're different, spend 10 minutes or less finding out why (it's rarely productive to spend more than 10 minutes on things like this). If you can't, mark it and go on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What you're looking for here is whether your evaluations agree with the machine, and most especially if you &lt;em&gt;and&lt;/em&gt; the machine pick the same &quot;turning points&quot; in the game. You're trying to correct your thinking here, train yourself to evaluate positions better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If, after the end of this exercise you still don't understand the computer's evaluations of some positions, set the position up and play 5-10 games against the computer, starting from that position and taking first one side and then the other from that position and see what happens. Let the computer show you what it sees, and try your ideas against it. Learn to implement the ideas and evaluations you're learning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But seriously, the best training games to analyse are games by players a couple of classes higher than you. If you're a C/D player, Carlsen's games aren't going to do you a lot of good; that's like a a guitarist that can manage three chords trying to learn from listening to Segovia; improvement is possible, but not all that likely. A D player can much more readily understand how to play like a B player than like a Grandmaster; it's like steps in a stairway.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="657" LastActivityDate="2012-10-21T04:42:31.230" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1453" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1436" CreationDate="2012-10-21T18:50:38.353" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I heard a master talk about exactly this yesterday. The essential differences he highlighted were regarding minority attacks and using the open files.  In the exchange Caro, black has a central majority and a strong minority attack on the a and b files.  White tries to gain counterplay against the black in the form of a strong kingside attack.  In the queens gambit exchange, it is then white who has the minority attack on the a and b files, and white hopes to win the black c pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The master went much more into depth discussing certain bishop trades as well, but these were the main points I took from his lesson.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="101" LastActivityDate="2012-10-21T18:50:38.353" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1454" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="984" CreationDate="2012-10-22T12:36:36.827" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Start here: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.pscfchess.org/clubs/&quot;&gt;Pennsylvania State Chess Federation&lt;/a&gt;. The state organizations almost always have a better list of clubs than the USCF.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You join the USCF simply by paying them money. There's nothing else required. But you can show up at a local club without a USCF membership, just to get a &quot;feel&quot; for how tournaments run and how players behave. You'll have to join before playing in a rated event, but some clubs aren't so dedicated to tournaments that there won't be a player or two there not too busy to help show you around.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I seriously second the recommendation of staying away from the big tournaments; they cost a lot of money to enter, and are just in general a less friendly environment for the player new to tournaments. Play in some local club events first, until you get the hang of things, then move up to bigger events as you get comfortable with tournaments.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are few chess leagues around the country outside of scholastic circles, but if there are any in your area, your local clubs will probably know about them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="657" LastActivityDate="2012-10-22T12:36:36.827" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1455" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1456" CreationDate="2012-10-22T15:37:23.073" Score="9" ViewCount="728" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chigorin played this opening five times in his match with Steinitz, 1889:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 d5 2.Nf3 Bg4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It looks like black is playing a Trompowsky attack.  I never seen this line except in these games.  Chigorin scored 1 win and 4 losses, which is maybe why nobody plays it.  But is this worse for black than the Trompowsky is for white?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="661" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-11-29T07:09:21.093" LastActivityDate="2012-11-29T07:19:02.167" Title="How bad is this reverse Trompowsky?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1456" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1455" CreationDate="2012-10-22T16:58:20.713" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;My database has 1603 games in the line &lt;code&gt;1.d4 d5 2.Nf3 Bg4&lt;/code&gt;, with Black scoring a poor 41.3%. (Contrast this with White scoring 54% over 38,587 games in the Trompowsky.) In particular, White does very well with the two responses that Steinitz used in the Chigorin match: &lt;code&gt;3.Ne5&lt;/code&gt; leaves Black with a dismal 33.9% score, while &lt;code&gt;3.c4&lt;/code&gt; leaves Black with a 34.7% score. So the numbers tell the story that this line is considerably worse for Black than the Trompowsky is for White, which explains why it isn't played much. (Nigel Short appears to be the only top player in recent times to play the line even a handful of times; he did score a nice rapid game win against Kasparov with it in 1987 though.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why the disparity in results, though? Well, the only difference between what White is getting in the Trompowsky and what Black is getting in your line is that White has gotten in the extra move &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt;; but that's a pretty significant extra tempo. To illustrate with just one concrete line, after e.g. &lt;code&gt;3.Ne5 BF5&lt;/code&gt; in your line, White can strike Black's center immediately with &lt;code&gt;4.c4&lt;/code&gt; and have a good game. In the Trompowsky, on the other hand, Black couldn't really do the same with &lt;code&gt;2...Ne4 3.Bf4 c5?!&lt;/code&gt;, since White could kick the knight and then push ahead in the center with something like&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 Nf6 2.Bg5 Ne4 3.Bf4 c5?! 4.f3 Nf6 5.d5 d6 6.e4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;when White has grabbed a lot of space and Black will lag behind in development. This is just an illustration, but the point is that White having already gotten in &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt; is a significant plus.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So this line of Chigorin's really isn't good, but if you're interested in playing something like it, a better version can be had via &lt;code&gt;1.d4 d6 2.Nf3 Bg4&lt;/code&gt;, the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wade_Defence&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Wade Defense&lt;/a&gt; (which I play myself sometimes). Now &lt;code&gt;3.Ne5&lt;/code&gt; is no longer an option, and we have something much more playable for Black. Julian Hodgson himself (who greatly popularized the Trompowsky for White) has played this particular line quite a bit, which is good evidence that this is a fine way to play. (Not to mention, it's been played on occasion by folks like Petrosian, Anand, Grischuk, Ivanchuk, Svidler ...) Of course, playing &lt;code&gt;1.d4 d6&lt;/code&gt; means having to be ready for the transposition into &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; lines via &lt;code&gt;2.e4&lt;/code&gt;, but if you're OK with that, then this is a perfectly good choice for Black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-11-29T07:19:02.167" LastActivityDate="2012-11-29T07:19:02.167" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1457" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1458" CreationDate="2012-10-24T17:19:06.093" Score="6" ViewCount="456" Body="&lt;p&gt;If for example, the bottom-left square is light instead of dark &lt;strong&gt;AND&lt;/strong&gt; we place the queens in their colors:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/wJ9JW.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By &lt;em&gt;affect&lt;/em&gt; I mean psychologically, etc., because it is pretty obvious that everything you can do in a normal board will also be possible to do here and non-humans shouldn't care if they are swapped or not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, note the word &lt;em&gt;gameplay&lt;/em&gt; in the title, if the players are required to write down the moves, that will definitely affect them, but lets suppose someone else will do that for them and they will be 100% focused in the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is the gameplay affected?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Are there any studies about this?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Can this be used as a technique to see things you don't normally see?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anecdotally, I once played in my school the final match with human pieces in a 10&lt;sub&gt;m&lt;/sub&gt; board with the position of the king and queen swapped. The confusion arose because it was ambiguous which were the light squares as the fills were made with white chalk on a dark-green floor, allegedly the 'light' squares were the ones filled with diagonal stripes because &lt;em&gt;&quot;they contained more white&quot;&lt;/em&gt;. The stubbornness of the event organizer was big, he didn't want to make this last minute change and we ended up playing in a normal board without really looking to the human pieces because they were wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/5eHth.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="478" LastEditorUserId="478" LastEditDate="2012-10-24T22:17:49.723" LastActivityDate="2019-08-03T18:19:45.603" Title="Does swapping the colors of the squares affect the gameplay?" Tags="&lt;psychology&gt;&lt;preparation&gt;&lt;memorization&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1458" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1457" CreationDate="2012-10-24T19:33:10.660" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;The only difference would be that the players would be playing a mirror image of a normal game.  In fact, if you think about it, the play would be &lt;em&gt;exactly&lt;/em&gt; like allowing Black to go first on a normal board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't think this would seriously phase any level of player, simply because good players are able to calculate well enough to cope with the slight change, and bad players don't strategize properly even on a normal board, so it wouldn't make a big difference for them to swap the king and queen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Intermediate players might be put off a bit, since they may have memorized certain openings which are slightly changed on this new board, but I think the biggest thing to watch out for would be outright forgetting that the King and Queen are swapped and playing accordingly (e.g. accidentally exposing your King, thinking you're opening lines for your Queen).  As long as that can be avoided, I think any &quot;psychological&quot; effects are quite minor.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="86" LastActivityDate="2012-10-24T19:33:10.660" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1459" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="414" CreationDate="2012-10-25T10:51:24.067" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you have FIDE Elo, you can calculate your percentile as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Locate your FIDE Card at &lt;a href=&quot;http://ratings.fide.com/&quot;&gt;http://ratings.fide.com/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Look at your card your position in the word, your continent or your country.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Look up the FIDE Card of the player you consider their play deserves your appreciation of percentile 0%.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;With the positions obtained with both look ups, you can find your percentile in the world, your continent or your country on the basis of FIDE Elo by simply dividing the numbers in their category and multiplying them by 100.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="159" LastActivityDate="2012-10-25T10:51:24.067" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1460" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-10-25T19:50:34.070" Score="6" ViewCount="116" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would like to watch chess videos, and improve my German at the same time, and youtube has a a few videos with captions, but I can't find any videos that are chess-related AND in German AND with Captions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="618" LastActivityDate="2013-07-25T17:35:14.660" Title="Are there any good instructional chess videos in German with captions?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1461" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1465" CreationDate="2012-10-27T15:58:27.663" Score="3" ViewCount="652" Body="&lt;p&gt;For example an ECO index B33 can be used to describe opening theory that barely fits into a thick book. Is there an established system to classify variations further? I have seen examples of indexes that look like B33/01, or B33/22 but I wonder if those are well documented anywhere?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="618" LastActivityDate="2019-08-03T18:06:16.343" Title="Does ECO openings classification have an established more detailed specification - by sub indexes?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1463" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1461" CreationDate="2012-10-28T02:57:22.250" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;A particular ECO index might split further into sub-indices like B33a, B33b, B33c, etc. The number of such sub-indices varies (maybe it goes up to &lt;em&gt;y&lt;/em&gt;, or only to &lt;em&gt;t&lt;/em&gt;, or ...), and some indices don't have any sub-indices. As for a place where these are well-documented, the free database program &lt;a href=&quot;http://scid.sourceforge.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Scid&lt;/a&gt; does a great job. It automatically tells you what ECO classification you are in as you view/enter a game. More than that, though, you can bring up its ECO Browser that offers a summary of the ECO code you're in if you want to see the sub-indices laid out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance, when I opened Scid and entered the moves &lt;code&gt;1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6&lt;/code&gt;, the info panel below the board indicated that we had entered into ECO index B33a. That text is clickable, and doing so brought up Scid's summary for ECO B33, complete with variation names and clickable lines (which will bring the final position up on the board), as seen in the following image:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Lhj7J.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2012-10-28T02:57:22.250" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1464" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-10-28T14:48:16.357" Score="10" ViewCount="1793" Body="&lt;p&gt;ICC stores your last 20 games, some of the clients also allow storing them into pgn files as you play. But if you use a client that does not support it, you then have to manually go and get each game out of history by hand into a pgn - one by one - at least in &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessclub.com/download-software/blitzin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Blitzin&lt;/a&gt;. I want to get them all in one step into a pgn file as easily as possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="618" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-08-03T17:41:54.167" LastActivityDate="2019-08-03T17:56:04.233" Title="Is there a tool to automatically download a player's latest ICC games (history) into a pgn file?" Tags="&lt;software&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1465" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1461" CreationDate="2012-10-28T19:30:23.573" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The official ECO (Encyclopedia of Chess Openings) scheme is only A00-E99 (i.e. letter followed by 2 digits). There have been numerous attempts to further clarify various openings, but none have really caught on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is the &quot;/01-/99&quot; example that you gave in your post, and SCID has its own version of extensions with letters a-z following the main code.  Neither one is widely supported.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;New In Chess has a fairly robust classification system, but it is unrelated to the standard ECO codes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Perhaps the most prevalent and most successful system for specifying openings, however, is simply the full name of the opening.  For example, &lt;em&gt;B33&lt;/em&gt; is the &lt;em&gt;Sveshnikov Sicilian&lt;/em&gt;, and it can be further described as &lt;em&gt;Sveshnikov Sicilian with 9. Nd5&lt;/em&gt;, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12" LastActivityDate="2012-10-28T19:30:23.573" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1466" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1373" CreationDate="2012-10-30T10:28:17.403" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I always write my moves down even in 30 minute games; I get funny looks, but I can record 3/4 of the game before the position deems otherwise.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="678" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-10-31T13:13:40.710" LastActivityDate="2012-10-31T13:13:40.710" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1467" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1461" CreationDate="2012-10-31T01:21:52.637" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Those sub-categories E99/XX are likely from the &lt;a href=&quot;https://sahovski.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess Informant&lt;/a&gt; ECO, I have not seen them in other resources.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/YVvBT.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="46" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-08-03T18:06:16.343" LastActivityDate="2019-08-03T18:06:16.343" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1468" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="690" CreationDate="2012-10-31T04:53:45.963" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's probably a lot easier to install Windows (via &lt;a href=&quot;http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1461&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Bootcamp&lt;/a&gt;) on your Mac, which is hopefully not too old.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="46" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-10-31T13:13:17.810" LastActivityDate="2012-10-31T13:13:17.810" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1469" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1470" CreationDate="2012-10-31T16:14:32.613" Score="3" ViewCount="269" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is considered that diagrams make chess books easier to read, but there are obvious space limitations to how many of them can be included - mostly in printed books. An ebook has less of a concern for maximum number of pages, but is it still possible to make readability worse by having diagrams sprinkled too frequently in the notation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="618" LastActivityDate="2012-11-01T11:15:59.527" Title="Can a chess book (or ebook) have too many diagrams?" Tags="&lt;books&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1470" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1469" CreationDate="2012-10-31T19:43:29.787" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let's start by saying that that's a subjective question. What is &quot;too many&quot; for one person may be just right for another.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That being said, let's take a ridiculous case: A diagram for every move, whether main line or variation. The diagrams would get in the way of the exposition. It's safe to say that very few chess players would benefit from such a book.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &quot;most friendly&quot; chess books I have read include diagrams every 6-10 moves of the main line only, whether with or without exposition. There is a reason behind this. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.catb.org/esr/writings/taouu/html/ch04s06.html&quot;&gt;Buffering and Human Memory&lt;/a&gt; describes this phenomenon, with a full paper called &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.musanim.com/miller1956/&quot;&gt;The Magical Number 7&lt;/a&gt;. Briefly, humans can remember 7+/-2 discrete items without having to switch knowledge in and out of &quot;storage&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This will also arrange matters such that a reader &lt;em&gt;can&lt;/em&gt; follow the play without a board, but make it desirable nonetheless that a board be used. In addition, if the reader makes an error in replaying moves, 6-10 move intervals make reasonable &quot;checkpoints&quot; to return to.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="652" LastActivityDate="2012-10-31T19:43:29.787" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1471" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1469" CreationDate="2012-11-01T11:15:59.527" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The problem is not so much with the diagrams, but the amount of real content and how it is presented and organized (like proper indexes, a lot of books fail this criteria even today). Chess books of this day tend to have more diagrams but less content (as compared to the time of Batsford), so they can appear to be more readable but with little benefit, as they don't even have enough content to fill 200 pages most of the time. (not counting monographs such as ECO and Informators).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Except for beginner books and speciality books like puzzles, number of diagrams doesn't factor much in terms of readability. To properly read (or follow) a typical book, there's no real secret (or should I say shortcut), it's just a matter of having either the board vision to play out variations in your head, or diligence with the computer/a real board. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="46" LastActivityDate="2012-11-01T11:15:59.527" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1472" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1473" CreationDate="2012-11-01T19:42:04.953" Score="6" ViewCount="257" Body="&lt;p&gt;What are the strategic benefits to compensate for the fact that White's giving up the bishop voluntarily and so early in the game in the below variation? What does White hope to get back out of the opening?    &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. f4 exf4 3. Nf3 d5 4. exd5 Nf6 5. Bc4 Nxd5 6. Bxd5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="618" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-11-01T20:45:12.347" LastActivityDate="2012-11-01T21:58:13.560" Title="How does White justify giving up the bishop in ECO C36 - King's gambit declined" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;kings-gambit&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1473" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1472" CreationDate="2012-11-01T21:30:08.970" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think Jonathan Garber's comment about trying to gain time against the Black queen after &lt;code&gt;6...Qxd5 7.Nc3&lt;/code&gt; accurately describes what one motivation for &lt;code&gt;6.Bxd5&lt;/code&gt; can be, though I also think that Black happens to have nothing to worry about in that regard. While she is temporarily behind in development, she shouldn't have any troubles completing her development, while letting the extra pawn on f4 go and simply enjoying her bishop pair on an open board. Being fuzzy about it, I'd say that all in all, everything evens out here, and we have a quite level game on our hands after &lt;code&gt;6.Bxd5&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think another way to look at the reasons for &lt;code&gt;6.Bxd5&lt;/code&gt; is in &quot;what else?&quot; terms. According to my database, the only more popular move in this position (though it is about 3 times more popular) is the sensible &lt;code&gt;6.O-O&lt;/code&gt;, but after the most popular response &lt;code&gt;6...c6&lt;/code&gt;, Black will be happy to camp out with a nice healthy piece on d5, until White sees fit to exchange it somehow. (This could be the same response to other moves as well, e.g. &lt;code&gt;6.Nc3 c6&lt;/code&gt; and sit tight.) Perusing through some high-level games, it seems that White not infrequently ends up playing a later &lt;code&gt;Bxd5&lt;/code&gt; anyway (though certainly not all the time).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, one possible takeaway: the position is already quite level after &lt;code&gt;5...Nxd5&lt;/code&gt;, and the immediate &lt;code&gt;6.Bxd5&lt;/code&gt; is as good an option as White really has to try and create a favorable dynamic imbalance (of the sort Jonathan Garber mentions), even though IMHO Black has nothing to fear in this instance. One reason the King's Gambit isn't terribly popular at the highest levels - the occasional Nakamura game notwithstanding - is that Black does have some fairly reliable methods of defusing White's more ambitious prospects if she knows what she's doing, and this line for Black seems like an instance of that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As an example of how things can go well for White, here's Magnus Carlsen using this line (by transposition) against Wang Yue. Around the time of &lt;code&gt;11.Qe2&lt;/code&gt;, we have the sort of balance described above, where White has a lead in development and more central space and control, but Black has safely castled and has nice bishops in an open setting. Then Wang Yue somewhat perplexingly engineers a bishop trade himself, and plays rather passively the rest of the way, letting Carlsen do what he does and make maximum use of the remaining White pluses:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Bazna Kings 4th&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Medias&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2010.06.17&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;4&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Carlsen, Magnus&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Wang Yue&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;2813&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;2752&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;C36&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.f4 d5 3.exd5 exf4 4.Nf3 Nf6 5.Bc4 Nxd5 6.O-O Be7 7.Bxd5 Qxd5 8.Nc3 Qd8&#xA;9.d4 O-O&#xA;10.Bxf4 Bf5 11.Qe2 $10 Bd6 $6&#xA;12.Bxd6 Qxd6 13.Nb5 Qd8 14.c4 a6 15.Nc3 Nd7 16.Rad1 Bg6 17.Qf2 Re8 18.h3 Rc8&#xA;19.Rfe1 Rxe1+ 20.Rxe1 c6 21.d5 Nf6 22.Qd4 cxd5 23.Nxd5 Nxd5 24.cxd5 Qd6 25.Ne5 Re8&#xA;26.Re3 Rd8 27.Nc4 Qf6 28.Re5 h6 29.d6 Bf5 30.Nb6 Be6&#xA;31.d7 Kh8 32.a4 g6 33.Qc3 Kg7 34.a5 h5 35.h4 Rxd7&#xA;36.Nxd7 Bxd7 37.Qd4 Bc6 38.b4 Bb5 39.Kh2 Ba4 40.Rd5 Bc6 41.Qxf6+ Kxf6&#xA;42. Rc5 Ke6 43.Kg3 f6 44.Kf2 Bd5 45.g3 g5 46.g4 hxg4 47.h5 Be4&#xA;48.Rc7 f5 49.h6 f4 50.h7 g3+ 51.Ke1 f3 52.h8=Q f2+ 53.Ke2 Bd3+ 54.Ke3 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-11-01T21:58:13.560" LastActivityDate="2012-11-01T21:58:13.560" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1474" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4023" CreationDate="2012-11-02T01:16:21.417" Score="15" ViewCount="866" Body="&lt;p&gt;Black here has 3 weak pawns; if any one of them falls - he will very likely lose the game as well. If he lets White king break through via c4-c5(d5) - White will also likely win. c5 pawn is a passed pawn, but is not going anywhere. Evaluations like &quot;White is better&quot; are not precise enough - is it possible via analysis to prove that White definitely wins? Or that Black definitely holds? Variations or plans for both sides are welcome.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White to move:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;2k5/5b2/p7/P1p2p1p/P4P1P/2K2B2/8/8 w - - 0 64&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="618" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2014-02-23T09:09:44.367" LastActivityDate="2020-07-04T18:00:26.413" Title="Typical Good Bishop vs. Bad Bishop endgame - how to decide if stronger side has a definite win" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;bishops&gt;&lt;bishop-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1476" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1030" CreationDate="2012-11-02T09:00:25.580" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I agree that &quot;real&quot; chess needs ample time as the player would be required to really think things through and strategize properly before making a &quot;real&quot; move and not only move based on &quot;hope&quot;. And 15 minutes definitely isn't enough and that period of time could even be only sufficient for &quot;flip-coin&quot; chess where every move is a gamble as you need to chase time and all you can do is to just expect your opponent to make a silly move to let you win. Try playing a longer game maybe do the 30-minutes sets more often before you attempt the 1-hour matches. And remember to take each game seriously and use it as an opportunity for you to further improve your skills. I believe with much practice and determination, you can achieve to play &quot;real&quot; chess in a 15-minutes game, anytime.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="698" LastActivityDate="2012-11-02T09:00:25.580" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1477" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-11-02T14:21:14.810" Score="7" ViewCount="1395" Body="&lt;p&gt;Up untill now, I have used Rybka for analysis of my games.&#xA;What other chess engines have you used, and how helpful are they?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am not interested in a list of chess engines with their respective websites, the name of an engine you have just heard of. I want a fact-based review from someone who has used the engine mentioned in their answer for a long time, and found and helpful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What I am looking for in the mentioned engine is to find a way to calculate the accuracy of the game:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;How often the player was making good moves.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;How often the advantage in the game was changing &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Previously I saw such options in Rybka, but in my current version Rybka v4, I cannot see this option as available.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many thanks to @ETD for a helping hand in giving a direction on what exactly I want in an answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="703" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-08-02T18:42:34.730" LastActivityDate="2019-08-02T18:44:58.847" Title="Chess engines for analysing games" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;engines&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1478" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-11-02T14:45:33.893" Score="11" ViewCount="414" Body="&lt;p&gt;Does anyone know where it is possible to find a large number of chess positions in PNG, JPEG or any other image format? Quality, colour, size does not matter. The only thing that matters is that I'd prefer there to be some distortions in the image (like images scanned from books). Here is an example of a chess position such as I am looking for:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/VgO3l.png&quot; alt=&quot;example of chess position&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am creating a tool which converts an image of a position to the board representation, and for this reason I need to collect a lot of different positions. Up till now I am getting them from PDF books I have.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="703" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-11-03T18:50:13.947" LastActivityDate="2012-11-23T05:49:11.967" Title="Where can I find a large collection of random chess positions?" Tags="&lt;books&gt;&lt;websites&gt;&lt;studies&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1479" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1477" CreationDate="2012-11-02T17:07:54.107" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;I use Stockfish, and have found it useful for analysis largely because of its multipv support (I switched from Crafty a couple of years ago), and it being free. I feel it lacks &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endgame_tablebase&quot;&gt;EGTB&lt;/a&gt; support, so it's not up to par with Rybka in that respect, but haven't felt willing to shell out the money for Rybka yet, just for that feature. It sounds like it also might do a better job of reporting forced draws, but I haven't confirmed that myself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I agree with Ed, you should give guidance on what you want to hear in your answers. Rybka is a fine analysis engine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="142" LastEditorUserId="61" LastEditDate="2012-11-02T19:34:46.657" LastActivityDate="2012-11-02T19:34:46.657" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1480" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="94" CreationDate="2012-11-02T17:37:33.410" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;David Bronstein, in his book &quot;The Modern Chess Self-Tutor,&quot; gives an interesting explanation for not playing it. Don't forget, he's used it many times in GM practice, including memorable games against Tal and Petrosian (the latter was an exhibition game in which they explore more fully an idea from an Alekhine-Keres game).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;His reasoning for &lt;code&gt;2. Nf3&lt;/code&gt; being preferable to &lt;code&gt;2. f4&lt;/code&gt; is that like &lt;code&gt;2. d4&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;2. f4&lt;/code&gt; fully declares White's intentions too early in the game. White is better off playing something like &lt;code&gt;2. Nf3&lt;/code&gt;, when Black still has no idea what sort of game White is aiming for. He doesn't think it's necessarily worse, just that playing it makes Black's choices easier. &lt;code&gt;2. Nf3&lt;/code&gt; keeps White's options open.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="657" LastEditorUserId="652" LastEditDate="2012-11-02T19:34:26.950" LastActivityDate="2012-11-02T19:34:26.950" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1481" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1477" CreationDate="2012-11-02T17:37:45.827" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here's an obligatory post about the benefits of Rybka...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The biggest advantage to Rybka (especially Rybka 4) is that it has a very good positional understanding.  It is capable of giving a fairly accurate assessment of the initiative and king safety, subject to the same limitations of all other chess engines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Generally speaking, I find that Rybka is slightly slower tactically than Houdini or Stockfish, but that the positional &quot;understanding&quot; more than makes up for this weakness.  Granted, Rybka and I work well together and that's a personal preference, but I have tried all of the major engines in some tricky positions and Rybka always seems to make me more productive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12" LastActivityDate="2012-11-02T17:37:45.827" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1482" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1483" CreationDate="2012-11-02T22:41:05.797" Score="21" ViewCount="5641" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am making a research on validating FEN positions, at first it is obvious the basics things to look for, such as checking if there are only two kings and making sure the rows or columns add up and those kinds of things. But what other checks should I do to completely make sure a FEN is legal?.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="478" LastEditorUserId="478" LastEditDate="2021-01-11T06:08:09.120" LastActivityDate="2021-01-15T06:52:20.180" Title="How do you know when a FEN position is legal?" Tags="&lt;fen&gt;&lt;illegal-move&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1483" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1482" CreationDate="2012-11-02T22:41:05.797" Score="23" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is a well organized list that should validate 99.99%+ of common positions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Board:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;There are exactly 8 ranks (rows).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The sum of the empty squares and pieces add to 8 for each rank (row).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;There are no consecutive numbers for empty squares.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Kings:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;See if there is exactly one w_king and one b_king.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Make sure kings are separated 1 square apart.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Checks:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Non-active color is &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; in check.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Active color is checked less than 3 times (triple check is impossible); in case of 2 that it is never pawn+(pawn, bishop, knight), bishop+bishop, knight+knight.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Pawns:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;There are no more than 8 pawns from each color.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;There aren't any pawns in first or last rank (row) since they're either in a wrong start position or they should have promoted.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In case of en passant square; see if it was legally created (e.g it must be on the &lt;code&gt;x3&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;x6&lt;/code&gt; rank, there must be a pawn (from the correct color) in front of it, and the en passant square and the one behind it are empty).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Prevent having more promoted pieces than missing pawns (e.g &lt;code&gt;extra_pieces = Math.max(0, num_queens-1) + Math.max(0, num_rooks-2) + Math.max(0, num_knights-2) + Math.max(0, num_bishops-2)&lt;/code&gt; and then &lt;code&gt;extra_pieces &amp;lt;= (8-num_pawns)&lt;/code&gt;). A bit more processing-intensive is to count the light squared bishops and dark squared bishops separately, then do &lt;code&gt;Math.max(0, num_lightsquared_bishops-1)&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;Math.max(0, num_darksquared_bishops-1)&lt;/code&gt;. Another thing worth mentioning is that, whenever the &lt;code&gt;extra_pieces&lt;/code&gt; is not 0, the other side must have less than 16 pieces because for a pawn to promote it needs to walk past another pawn in front and that can only happen if the pawn goes missing (taken or playing with a handicap) or the pawn shifts its file (column), in both cases decreasing the total of 16 pieces for the other side.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The pawn formation is possible to reach (e.g in case of multiple pawns in a single col, there must be enough enemy pieces missing to make that formation), here are some useful rules:&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;it is impossible to have more than 6 pawns in a single file (column) (because pawns can't exist in the first and last ranks).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the minimum number of enemy missing pieces to reach a multiple pawn in a single col &lt;code&gt;B to G 2=1, 3=2, 4=4, 5=6, 6=9 ___ A and H 2=1, 3=3, 4=6, 5=10, 6=15&lt;/code&gt;, for example, if you see 5 pawns in A or H, the other player must be missing at least 10 pieces from his 15 &lt;em&gt;captureable&lt;/em&gt; pieces.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;if there are white pawns in a2 and a3, there can't legally be one in b2, and this idea can be further expanded to cover more possibilities.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Castling:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If the king or rooks are not in their starting position; the castling ability for that side is lost (in the case of king, both are lost).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Bishops:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Look for bishops in the first and last ranks (rows) trapped by pawns that haven't moved, for example:&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;a bishop (any color) trapped &lt;em&gt;behind&lt;/em&gt; 3 pawns.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;a bishop trapped &lt;em&gt;behind&lt;/em&gt; 2 &lt;strong&gt;non-enemy&lt;/strong&gt; pawns (not by enemy pawns because we can reach that position by underpromoting pawns, however if we check the number of pawns and &lt;code&gt;extra_pieces&lt;/code&gt; we could determine if this case is possible or not).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Non-jumpers:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;(Avoid this if you want to validate Fisher's Chess960) If there are &lt;em&gt;non-jumpers&lt;/em&gt; enemy pieces in between the king and rook and there are still some pawns without moving; check if these enemy pieces could have legally gotten in there. Also, ask yourself: was the king or rook needed to move to generate that position? (if yes, we need to make sure the castling abilities reflect this).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If all 8 pawns are still in the starting position, all the non-jumpers must not have left their initial rank (also non-jumpers enemy pieces can't possibly have entered legally), there are other similar ideas, like if the white h-pawn moved once, the rooks should still be trapped inside the pawn formation, etc.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Half/Full move Clocks:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In case of an en passant square, the half move clock &lt;em&gt;must&lt;/em&gt; equal to &lt;code&gt;0&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;HalfMoves &amp;lt;= ((FullMoves-1)*2)+(if BlackToMove 1 else 0)&lt;/code&gt;, the +1 or +0 depends on the side to move.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The HalfMoves must be &lt;code&gt;x &amp;gt;= 0&lt;/code&gt; and the FullMoves &lt;code&gt;x &amp;gt;= 1&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If the HalfMove clock indicates that some reversible moves were played and you can't find any combination of reversible moves that could have produced this amount of Halfmoves (taking castling rights into account, forced moves, etc), example: a side with many pawns and a king with castling rights and a rook (the HalfMove clock should not have been able to increase for this side).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Other:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Make sure the FEN contains all the parts that are needed (e.g active color, castling ability, en passant square, etc).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Note:&lt;/strong&gt; there is no need to make the &lt;em&gt;'players should not have more than 16 pieces'&lt;/em&gt; check because the points &lt;em&gt;'no more than 8 pawns'&lt;/em&gt; + &lt;em&gt;'prevent extra promoted pieces'&lt;/em&gt; + the &lt;em&gt;'exactly one king'&lt;/em&gt; should already cover this point.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Note2:&lt;/strong&gt; these rules are intended to validate positions arising from the starting position of normal chess, some of the rules will invalidate some positions from &lt;em&gt;Chess960&lt;/em&gt; (exception if started from arrangement Nº518) and generated puzzles so avoid them to get a functional validator.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="478" LastEditorUserId="478" LastEditDate="2021-01-14T04:57:03.967" LastActivityDate="2021-01-14T04:57:03.967" CommentCount="2" CommunityOwnedDate="2012-11-02T22:41:05.797" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1484" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-11-03T03:14:26.067" Score="11" ViewCount="938" Body="&lt;p&gt;White to move, here is a brief summary of my analysis where I attempted to determine exact evaluation. Number of pawns is equal but White's 2 pawns on the queenside are held by one Black's pawn, so in a sense Black has an extra pawn on the rest of the board.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;1. a4&lt;/code&gt; with pawn breaks on both sides of the board by both White and Black (!) leads to a difficult queen endgame for White.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;1. Kc3&lt;/code&gt; (played by me in the game) is a blunder that should lose after 1...f4! since then Black puts pawns on e4 and f4 and goes to the kingside with his king to pickup White's pawns.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;1. Kd3&lt;/code&gt; is possibly best as now &lt;code&gt;1...f4&lt;/code&gt; is met with &lt;code&gt;2.Ke4&lt;/code&gt;. But Black instead plays &lt;code&gt;1...Kf7&lt;/code&gt; and manoeuvres, waiting for zugzwang. Can Black win? Can a computer engine be used in this day and age to determine exactly if this position is a draw or win for Black?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a pawn endgame - which are supposed to be evaluated precisely... I feel this is likely a draw, but can't prove exactly. Is there Mr. Grigoriev in the audience?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;8/7p/4k3/1p2ppP1/1P5P/8/P1K5/8 w - - 0 38&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="618" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-03-01T15:33:42.387" LastActivityDate="2014-03-01T15:33:42.387" Title="Sharp pawn endgame - can it be calculated to the end? With Computer engine?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;pawn-endgame&gt;&lt;calculation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1485" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1484" CreationDate="2012-11-03T22:02:39.467" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's clear that Black has the following advantages:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) His king is better centralized.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) He has &lt;em&gt;two&lt;/em&gt; connected passed pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) White has &lt;em&gt;no&lt;/em&gt; passed pawns because one Black pawn holds up two White ones on both the queen and king sides.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White's main advantage is that he has two rook pawns, which could lead to &quot;outside&quot; passed pawns. Even so, it might take the sacrifice of a pawn for White to get a passed pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I would give Black the advantage overall, and say that he should win with proper play. White should draw with great difficulty if at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm basing this judgment on &quot;pattern recognition,&quot; because I am a only a 1500 player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-11-06T20:56:19.000" LastActivityDate="2012-11-06T20:56:19.000" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1486" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1474" CreationDate="2012-11-03T22:16:24.017" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This resembles another position referred to as the &quot;Iron Duke.&quot; Based on my knowledge of the &lt;em&gt;other&lt;/em&gt; position, I'd say that Black can draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason is that all the potential entry points (on the fourth rank) for the white king are either occupied or &quot;covered&quot; by Black.  There is a (blocked) White pawn on a4, b4 and d4 are covered by the Black pawn on c5, c4 is covered by the Black bishop, e4 and g4 are covered by Black pawns, and f4 and h4 have (blocked) White pawns. The Black bishop can continue to cover c4 while moving along the diagonal to protect whatever pawn White's bishop attacks (except for the one on a6, which the king can protect). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If White tries for an exchange of Bishops on c4, the Black K &quot;toggles&quot; between c6 and d6, and the White king still can't break through.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black &lt;em&gt;can&lt;/em&gt; lose by moving his c pawn or wrongly moving his bishop. But as the position now stands, White can't force a win. Neither can Black for that matter. If he moves his (passed) c pawn, he has losing chances.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-11-06T20:55:19.160" LastActivityDate="2012-11-06T20:55:19.160" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1487" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1482" CreationDate="2012-11-04T04:46:10.557" Score="12" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;\s*([rnbqkpRNBQKP1-8]+\/){7}([rnbqkpRNBQKP1-8]+)\s[bw-]\s(([a-hkqA-HKQ]{1,4})|(-))\s(([a-h][36])|(-))\s\d+\s\d+\s*&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's a regular expression that I use to ensure that a FEN string is actually valid.  It doesn't do any testing for a legal/illegal position, but it's a good starting point.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12" LastActivityDate="2012-11-04T04:46:10.557" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1489" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1531" CreationDate="2012-11-05T10:30:09.700" Score="11" ViewCount="1126" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have severe dyslexia which means that for the majority of chess books I find it very difficult to accurately read games (although having a board does help). My favorite chess book when I was younger was &lt;em&gt;Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess&lt;/em&gt; (which I am sure many of you have picked up at one time or another); its visual style really appealed to someone with my particular difficulties. Is there a series of chess books, or an author/website which uses a similar purely visual method to tackle the more in-depth aspects of chess?    &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="264" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-11-19T14:41:21.727" LastActivityDate="2019-08-02T16:17:48.187" Title="Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess - Visual Teaching of Chess" Tags="&lt;books&gt;&lt;fischer&gt;&lt;websites&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1490" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-11-06T14:06:12.160" Score="5" ViewCount="364" Body="&lt;p&gt;Capoeira was declared the national sport of Brazil by law in 1972. Sri Lanka legally declared volleyball its national sport in 1992.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm interested to know more about which countries have (or have had) chess declared a &lt;em&gt;de jure&lt;/em&gt; national sport or pastime and the circumstances surrounding the declaration?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not talking about a &lt;em&gt;de facto&lt;/em&gt; national sport or pastime but rather one which the law has declared as such.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="264" LastEditorUserId="10867" LastEditDate="2016-07-26T18:36:47.583" LastActivityDate="2016-07-26T18:36:47.583" Title="Chess as a De Jure National Sport or Pastime" Tags="&lt;history&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1491" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1490" CreationDate="2012-11-06T18:38:29.830" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not quite a national sport, but for the past several years, the second Saturday in October has been declared &quot;National Chess Day&quot; by Congress.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &quot;National Chess Day&quot; idea started in 1976, when President Ford declared October 9, 1976 to be &quot;National Chess Day&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many clubs have events on National Chess Day in order to take advantage of the additional chess publicity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12" LastActivityDate="2012-11-06T18:38:29.830" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1492" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1490" CreationDate="2012-11-06T18:41:50.210" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to the committe behind the Olympics, it &lt;em&gt;is&lt;/em&gt; considered a sport. However, I don't think any country is actively participating in it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Per Wikipedia:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Chess is recognized as a sport by the International Olympic Committee (IOC); since June 1999 FIDE has been the recognized International Sports Federation. As a member of the IOC, FIDE adheres to its rules, including, controversially, a requirement for doping tests. The prospects of chess becoming an Olympic sporting event at some future date remain unclear. The use of the name &quot;Chess Olympiad&quot; for FIDE's team championship is of historical origin and implies no connection with the Olympic Games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="712" LastActivityDate="2012-11-06T18:41:50.210" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1494" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1507" CreationDate="2012-11-09T21:47:20.737" Score="28" ViewCount="4301" Body="&lt;p&gt;Most games that involve taking turns, with one player going first by lot or agreement, have some sort of advantage to going first. Tic-tac-toe, for instance, is a guaranteed draw for player 1, assuming correct play. Connect 4 is a guaranteed win for player 1, assuming correct play. The first move in Go is considered so powerful that &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Komidashi&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;player 2 receives a bonus of 5.5-7.5 points&lt;/a&gt;. The first-move advantage in Chess is less obvious, although &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-move_advantage_in_chess&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;statistically speaking White has an advantage of ~52-56%&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White's advantage is essentially that of time. He can count on starting ahead of Black and in theory should not go behind except by choice. He can even attempt to trade material for time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black's advantage is that of choice, or response. She can let White develop the game as he chooses, or she can force the game into a different line of play altogether. Presumably she knows her purpose in playing her responses to White, and can take advantage of White's loss of choice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This being said, does it have meaning outside the highest levels of play? Is the game theoretically close enough that there isn't a way to equalize it 100%? (&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/4/is-there-a-way-to-use-handicaps-in-chess-to-bridge-the-gap-between-players-of-di&quot;&gt;Related previous discussion&lt;/a&gt; suggests that the first move is &quot;worth 25-45 rating points&quot;. However, the question didn't directly deal with the first-move advantage, instead referring to it tangentially in a discussion of handicaps.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="652" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.193" LastActivityDate="2019-08-17T04:09:59.970" Title="Does the first-move advantage for White have real meaning apart from the highest levels of play?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;statistics&gt;&lt;grandmaster&gt;&lt;advantage&gt;" AnswerCount="8" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1495" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1494" CreationDate="2012-11-10T22:55:09.493" Score="16" Body="&lt;p&gt;Since you asked for experience apart from the higher level of plays, I can give you myself as an example, with a rating of ~1900 (FIDE rating is 1871) I've never felt at a disadvantage playing black or advantage playing white.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most openings give a lot of play for both sides and small inaccuracies will trample the advantage white might have before you'll even notice it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've never played for a draw just because I was black and I know players up to 2200 that feel the same. I don't know what you consider &quot;highest level&quot;, but &quot;weak&quot; International Masters and Grandmasters already take this into account (of the 4 I got to talk to anyway).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="724" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-08-01T11:22:24.387" LastActivityDate="2019-08-01T11:22:24.387" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1496" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-11-11T02:04:09.420" Score="13" ViewCount="10701" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can't play chess very well, and want a computer game to play against. I've tried two so far - Chessbase (Fritz 5.32) and Crafty Chess. Both had the same problem that even on the lowest difficulty setting, the computer trashed me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm running Windows XP. Here are my criteria:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;100% Free (no nagware)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Lightweight: loads quickly, small filesize (say under 15 Mb)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Not system intensive. I don't need or want a 3d board.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Multiple difficulty levels, the lowest one being comparable to someone who's just been told what the legal moves are, and the highest one being... good. Good enough that I won't have to switch to a more advanced program for a while.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it could have a nice clean interface without clutter everywhere, like the current move list and advanced AI options and what not - which might be great for advanced players but I have no need for - that would be nice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you know of a program like this for other operating systems, go ahead and post them for future readers... but I'm on XP.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="725" LastActivityDate="2019-08-01T11:15:59.970" Title="Free, simple chess program for beginners" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="11" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1497" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-11-11T03:29:50.333" Score="5" ViewCount="154" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am looking for an electronic gadget that is a chess opponent, designed specially for children. I want to it be touch screen, where the pieces are large enough so you don't need to use a special pen to move the pieces. I also want the gadget to talk often, so the child feels interaction. It could say things like &quot;Good move!&quot;, &quot;Great Idea!&quot;, and so on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The closest thing that I've seen is &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.walmart.com/ip/17477216?adid=22222222227014443039&amp;amp;wmlspartner=wlpa&amp;amp;wl0=&amp;amp;wl1=g&amp;amp;wl2=&amp;amp;wl3=13698144550&amp;amp;wl4=&amp;amp;wl5=pla&amp;amp;veh=sem&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt;. That thing does not look right, plus 1/5 review, so I was hoping for something better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anybody come across anything?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Feel free to edit the tags for my post. I really wasn't sure what to use.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="307" LastActivityDate="2013-01-06T04:29:48.807" Title="Electronic gadget chess opponent for children" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1498" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1501" CreationDate="2012-11-11T05:00:52.197" Score="14" ViewCount="3047" Body="&lt;p&gt;So I am kind of new to chess and I have been playing online. I have been playing for a year and I consider myself a mediocre player, not too good and not too bad. Recently I got this invitation from someone to play a rated game. This person's rating is around 2100 so I said what the heck. Let's try it. As the game progressed, I saw that he was playing like a child. He made obvious blunders and simply offered me all of his pieces one by one. At first I thought maybe there is some deep strategy that I can't see but no. Now the game is about to end. I have a significant advantage in pieces and he will lose for sure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is, has this ever happened to anyone? Or is this common in the chess community? Is this some weird strategy like how politicians try to throw elections if it is advantageous in that particular voting scheme or how players throw games if money is involved? There is no money involved, no tournament/prestige/title. If anything, he'll lose points and I'll gain them. I don't even know this person. We are just playing anonymously against each other online for the first time. Why would such a highly rated player play against a much inferior player and then lose that game...and it looks like he is deliberately losing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Quite frankly it is boring and even a little condescending. I was expecting a much more exciting game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So here is the game. My pieces are white.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 d5&#xA;2.exd5 e6&#xA;3.dxe6 Bxe6&#xA;4.d4 Bb4+&#xA;5.c3 Bd6&#xA;6.d5 Bf5&#xA;7.Bd3 Qe7+&#xA;8.Be3 Bg6&#xA;9.Nf3 Nf6&#xA;10.O-O Nbd7&#xA;11.Bxg6 hxg6&#xA;12.Re1 O-O-O&#xA;13.Bxa7 Ne4&#xA;14.Nbd2 f5&#xA;15.Nxe4 fxe4&#xA;16.Qa4 Nf6&#xA;17.Bd4 Qf7&#xA;18.Bxf6 gxf6&#xA;19.Qxe4 Rh5&#xA;20.Qe6+ Rd7&#xA;21.c4 Qxe6&#xA;22.Rxe6 Rf7&#xA;23.Rae1 Bxh2+&#xA;24.Nxh2 Rfh7&#xA;25.Rxf6 Rxh2&#xA;26.f4 Rh1+&#xA;27.Kf2 Rxe1&#xA;28.Kxe1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So what do you guys think of this game? Any and all comments welcome.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="726" LastEditorUserId="726" LastEditDate="2012-11-12T02:01:31.153" LastActivityDate="2019-12-17T17:41:23.453" Title="Why would a player throw a game?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;psychology&gt;&lt;sacrifice&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1499" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1484" CreationDate="2012-11-11T05:31:29.870" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is actually a drawn position with correct play. As expected, the two sides with pawns are actually more important in the end-game than the center pawns (because the center pawns can be effectively barricaded.) Here is a full analysis done  GNU chess (your move kd3 is correct, however, the difficult moves come later on in the game when there are two queens on the board.) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;GNU Chess comes up with this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;8/7p/4k3/1p2ppP1/1P5P/8/P1K5/8 w - - 0 38&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Kd3 f4 2. h5 f3 3. Ke3 e4 4. g6 hxg6 5. h6 Kf7 6. a4 bxa4 7. b5 a3 8. b6 a2 9. b7 a1=Q 10. b8=Q Qe1+ 11. Kf4 Qh4+ 12. Ke3 g5 13. h7 Qxh7 14. Qb7+ Kg8 15. Qc8+ Kf7 16. Qd7+ Kg6 17. Qe6+ Kh5 18. Qh3+ Kg6 19. Qe6+ Kh5 20. Qh3+ Kg6 21. Qe6+ 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="72" LastEditorUserId="827" LastEditDate="2013-01-06T18:10:58.213" LastActivityDate="2013-01-06T18:10:58.213" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1500" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1494" CreationDate="2012-11-11T06:41:56.040" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would say the first move has a large advantage. I am not at the highest level (1), nor have I ever played against someone at the highest level, but I have played several GMs. I'll give two situations where I thought it was a large advantage. They relate to opening choice - which has a large impact on the rest of the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first I had white against GM Khachiyan, and he played &lt;code&gt;1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 Nc6&lt;/code&gt;, which I only knew vaguely. But the temptation for a GM to &quot;play to their class&quot; is strong, and they are willing to play weaker openings in order to achieve this. The game continued  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 Nc6 3.Nf3 e6 4.a3 d6 5.Nc3 g6 6.e4 Bg7 7.Be2 O-O 8.O-O Re8 9.d5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wasn't too familiar with the opening, but I knew enough to play &lt;code&gt;a3&lt;/code&gt; when I did, and the same for &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt;. I came out of the opening with a slight plus, the game was a little bit of a see-saw, and we agreed a draw around move 30. I attribute it to the opening choice of my opponent, which was in my opinion guided by the colors.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The second I had black against GM Ivan Ivanisevic. The game opened &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.Qc2 O-O 5.Nf3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was out of book already, only knowing &lt;code&gt;5.e4&lt;/code&gt; (not the strongest) and &lt;code&gt;5.a3&lt;/code&gt;, which is normal. So I figured, perhaps erroneously, that my chances lay in potentially transposing to the &lt;code&gt;a3&lt;/code&gt; lines, so I played &lt;code&gt;5...b6&lt;/code&gt;, which didn't work out so well after &lt;code&gt;6.e4!&lt;/code&gt; and white has a much favorable variation of the &lt;code&gt;5.e4&lt;/code&gt; lines. White might even be close to winning with equal opponents, and with a GM against me it was a bit of a bloodbath. As black against a GM, you really have your work cut out for you, and taking chances like this (trying to transpose into something you know) is not something I would do as white.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1: I'll consider highest level to mean a situation where both players are top 20, and the game is not an exhibition, or it is a world championship.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="517" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-08-01T11:28:33.403" LastActivityDate="2019-08-01T11:28:33.403" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1501" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1498" CreationDate="2012-11-11T17:19:07.273" Score="16" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are some possibilities that I can think of:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;His 8 year old sister, dog, neighbor, etc suggested some of these 'great moves'&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;He was trying to handicap himself to make it more challenging&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;He tried something new or crazy, possibly to end the game quickly (e.g sacrificing his own pieces to expose your king or free his pieces)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Maybe he tried a &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_chess_gambits&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chess gambit&lt;/a&gt;, first glance it appears you gain advantage, but this advantage is just an illusion.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My favorite is the Danish Gambit (it is rare that someone accepts it completely outside beginner level though)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot; w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.d4 exd4 3.c3 dxc3 4.Bc4 cxb2 5.Bxb2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Update:&lt;/strong&gt; now that I have seen the game, I can confirm it was a mix of points &lt;strong&gt;3&lt;/strong&gt; (the move &lt;em&gt;23...Bxh2&lt;/em&gt;) and &lt;strong&gt;4&lt;/strong&gt; (but he decided to improvise one instead of using an existing one). Maybe some of point &lt;strong&gt;1&lt;/strong&gt; too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="478" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-08-14T12:08:08.207" LastActivityDate="2019-08-14T12:08:08.207" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1504" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1494" CreationDate="2012-11-12T15:58:45.390" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Historically, the first move advantage of White is a real one, as evidenced by the larger number of White victories in tournament play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One way to balance this is to give Black &quot;draw odds,&quot; that is, Black wins if the game goes into a forced draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That might tilt the playing field too much toward Black, so White might have to get a second (or third) &quot;first&quot; move to compensate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But Go basically works along this principle, with the value of the first move having risen (in the eyes of the pros) from 5.5 to 7.5 points over time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2012-11-12T15:58:45.390" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1505" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1496" CreationDate="2012-11-12T17:10:59.387" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;You could try &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.gnu.org/software/xboard/#tag-A1&quot;&gt;WinBoard&lt;/a&gt;. WinBoard is a GUI, that you can use with thousands of engines. Two of the most famously weak engines, that you can use it with it are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://wbec-ridderkerk.nl/html/details1/Ufim.html&quot;&gt;Ufim&lt;/a&gt; 0.82 The limit strength can be set as low as 700 ELO&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://home.xmsnet.nl/vermeire/BrutusRND.rar&quot;&gt;BrutusRND&lt;/a&gt; This one literally makes random (legal) moves. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessforums.org/chess-software-recommended-websites/9553-searching-really-bad-chess-engine.html&quot;&gt;chessforums&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you outgrow those engines, it will be easy to switch to a stronger one. The advantage of having multiple Engines is, that they all play different and so you won't get bored as fast.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Additionally, you could also weaken any existing engine. Here is an &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.horizonchess.com/FAQ/Winboard/Winboard4.html#%5BD.4.7%5D&quot;&gt;example with Crafty&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="731" LastEditorUserId="731" LastEditDate="2012-11-12T17:22:54.090" LastActivityDate="2012-11-12T17:22:54.090" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1506" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1508" CreationDate="2012-11-13T05:07:43.650" Score="5" ViewCount="253" Body="&lt;p&gt;The title says it. Reading up on how to describe the position of a board, all of the requirements make sense (like two kings not being on adjacent squares and so on) except for the active color being in check. Why isn't that allowed? What is the rationale behind this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="726" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-11-13T19:26:00.090" LastActivityDate="2012-11-13T19:26:00.090" Title="Why isn't the active color allowed to be in check in a FEN legal position?" Tags="&lt;fen&gt;&lt;illegal-move&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1507" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1494" CreationDate="2012-11-13T17:51:21.663" Score="40" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think any real answer to your question will have to be statistical in nature.  There's rationale behind the advantages and disadvantages of having the first move, but really, we'd be mostly guessing regarding how important these factors are.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With that in mind, I quickly ran some code to check what patterns I could pick up through the million base PGN library (check below for disclaimer / methodology):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;ELO                  %W      %D      %B&#xA;1700: 56    games:  37.50 / 33.93 / 28.57&#xA;1800: 192   games:  34.38 / 35.42 / 30.21&#xA;1900: 736   games:  37.23 / 34.24 / 28.53&#xA;2000: 4682  games:  36.27 / 32.14 / 31.59&#xA;2100: 10568 games:  36.56 / 34.79 / 28.64&#xA;2200: 23486 games:  34.42 / 38.11 / 27.47&#xA;2300: 33444 games:  31.25 / 45.06 / 23.69&#xA;2400: 49706 games:  28.53 / 51.73 / 19.74&#xA;2500: 40264 games:  26.38 / 57.28 / 16.33&#xA;2600: 16946 games:  27.88 / 56.14 / 15.97&#xA;2700: 3581  games:  28.43 / 56.07 / 15.50&#xA;2800: 68    games:  27.94 / 55.88 / 16.18&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you can see, at the highest levels (around 2500 and above), the majority of games are draws (around 55%), and from the remainder, wins by White outnumber wins by Black with a ratio of around 1.75:1.  A very significant advantage, indeed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The ratio drops rapidly at lower levels, and by the time we are around 2000 in rating, it's closer to 1.2:1.  From here, it doesn't seem to change much, and I don't really have data for under 1700 rating.  Of equal importance is the percentage of drawn games - along with the White / Black win ratio, the number of draws drops significantly.  I would interpret this data along the following lines (although I'm reading a bit into the data here):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White does have a tangible advantage, but needs to play very accurately to capitalise on it.  At the &quot;lower levels&quot;, tactics (and thus mistakes) play a far larger role, almost drowning out the underlying small advantage.  It is still noticeable, however, even at the 1700 rating level, and with a small sample size.  So, to answer your question: yes, the choice of colour is relevant even at lower levels, although much less so than at GM level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Disclaimers and whatnot - I ran through the million base PGN library (+- 1.7 million games), and simply discarded any games with a greater than 50 rating points difference between the players, in order to select only games between similar strength players.  Statistically, this shouldn't make all that much difference (the &quot;unfair&quot; games should have each other balanced out, given sufficient numbers), but there are a number of exhibition and simul games in that library which I was attempting to exclude from the data set.  In any case, this is not meant to be strictly scientifically correct; it's just the results of a few minutes of programming.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="412" LastActivityDate="2012-11-13T17:51:21.663" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1508" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1506" CreationDate="2012-11-13T19:24:20.877" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The active color (i.e. the color which has the next move) &lt;em&gt;is&lt;/em&gt; allowed to be in check, and as &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/1506/why-active-color-isnt-allowed-to-be-in-check-in-a-fen-legal-position#comment1609_1506&quot;&gt;ajax points out&lt;/a&gt;, at most twice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But perhaps you meant the &lt;i&gt;in&lt;/i&gt;active color not being allowed to be in check.  Why is that?  The answer is: if the inactive color is in check, it would mean that at least the last move by the inactive color was illegal, allowing its own King to remain in or be exposed to check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="86" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2012-11-13T19:24:20.877" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1509" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1496" CreationDate="2012-11-13T23:07:24.777" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;If I'm not on my own computer, I use &lt;a href=&quot;http://chromefree.shredderchess.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Shredder Chess Online&lt;/a&gt;. You probably can't get much simpler than that. Unfortunately it has just 3 levels, but fortunately the middle level fits for me if I don't want to think too hard, and the highest level if I'm in serious mood :-)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="35" LastActivityDate="2012-11-13T23:07:24.777" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1510" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="94" CreationDate="2012-11-14T00:14:48.963" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;One item that is &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; a reason that the King's Gambit isn't played more at the international level is this specious article from Chessbase News: &lt;a href=&quot;http://chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=8047&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&quot;Busting the King's Gambit, this time for sure.&quot;&lt;/a&gt; In the article, Vasik Rajlich, the author of Rybka, claims that all moves but &lt;code&gt;3.Be2&lt;/code&gt; lead to a forced win for Black, while that move draws. &lt;em&gt;However, though this was posted on April 2, 2012, rather than on April 1, the article was in fact one of Chessbase's annual April Fools' posts.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="734" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-11-14T20:11:38.507" LastActivityDate="2012-11-14T20:11:38.507" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1511" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1512" CreationDate="2012-11-15T18:15:23.963" Score="8" ViewCount="2165" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have always struggled with this and I believe there is some rule that someone defined at some point, but I am not sure who (Maybe it was Steinitz).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When and why should I move my pawns in front of my castled or non-castled King?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, I would assume it matters if the King is castled or not?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I will state my logic behind this and someone with more knowledge can let me know if it is flawed:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I usually move a pawn so my Knight or some other piece does not get pinned.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I usually move a pawn to prevent my opponent from bringing his bishop down to pin my knight or some other piece to my king.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I usually move a pawn so the bishop or some other piece(maybe queen can't put King in check)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I usually don't like to do this because it weakens the king/queen-side depending on where I want to castle.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's look at some examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the first scenario,  I am thinking black might move &lt;code&gt;4...Bb4&lt;/code&gt;, which would put my King in check, so to prevent this, I will play &lt;code&gt;4. a3&lt;/code&gt;.  Is this the proper move or is there a better move?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    [fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;    1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 exd4 4. a3 Bb4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my second scenario, let's assume, my Knight was already on &lt;code&gt;c3&lt;/code&gt;, so to prevent black from &lt;code&gt;4...Bb4&lt;/code&gt;, I would again play &lt;code&gt;4. a3&lt;/code&gt;, to prevent the future pin if I wanted to move the &lt;code&gt;d2&lt;/code&gt; pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. a3 Bb4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my third scenario, let's assume I moved by &lt;code&gt;d2&lt;/code&gt; pawn, so black could check or pin my knight with &lt;code&gt;...Bb4&lt;/code&gt;, so to prevent black from &lt;code&gt;4...Bb4&lt;/code&gt;, I would again play &lt;code&gt;4. a3&lt;/code&gt;, to prevent the future pin if I wanted to move the &lt;code&gt;d2&lt;/code&gt; pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. d4 d5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Nc3 e6 4. a3 Bb4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's assume that black does succeed in checking my King or pinning my knight to my King, if my King is in check, is it better to do &lt;code&gt;c3&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;Bd2&lt;/code&gt;.  If my Knight is pinning, is it better to do &lt;code&gt;a3&lt;/code&gt; to try and force the opponent to either exchange or move his bishop or &lt;code&gt;Bd2&lt;/code&gt; in the event if he takes my Knight, I will just recapture with my Bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All of the above assume my King is not castled, but what if it was, my assumption is that I would not want to move any pawns in front of the castled king unless necessary, but I am not sure of when these times would apply.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastActivityDate="2012-11-15T18:30:22.933" Title="When and why should I move the pawns in front of a castled/non-castled King?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;theory&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1512" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1511" CreationDate="2012-11-15T18:30:22.933" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;You should only make a move like &lt;code&gt;a3&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;h3&lt;/code&gt; when the pin is so annoying that the loss of a tempo is a fair tradeoff.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Generally speaking, bishop pins are not that big of a deal.  The pin can be broken by moving a bishop (&lt;code&gt;Be2&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;Bd2&lt;/code&gt;), the knight can be defended by the other knight (&lt;code&gt;Nbd2&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;Nge2&lt;/code&gt;), or the pinned piece can move away (for white, frequently &lt;code&gt;Qd3&lt;/code&gt; will both break the pin and still defend the knight on f3).  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If this isn't possible, then &lt;code&gt;a3&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;h3&lt;/code&gt; can enter into consideration, but even still, the doubled pawns might not be such a big deal.  Especially for white, the move &lt;code&gt;a3&lt;/code&gt; is hardly ever played.  If black takes on c3, then the extra c pawn helps white far more than it hurts (additional control of the d4 square, half open b file, etc.).  &lt;code&gt;h3&lt;/code&gt; is far more common, especially in the Open game.  In this case, &lt;code&gt;Bg4&lt;/code&gt; is prevented, yes, but moves like &lt;code&gt;Ng4&lt;/code&gt; are also prevented, and someday white might expand with &lt;code&gt;g4&lt;/code&gt;.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the bishop is already on g4 or b4, then sometimes &lt;code&gt;a3&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;h3&lt;/code&gt; are decent moves because they will win a tempo or force an exchange of bishop for knight.  Black will nearly always play &lt;code&gt;h6&lt;/code&gt; after white plays &lt;code&gt;Bg5&lt;/code&gt;, for example.  The main reason is that the bishop has far less scope on h4 than it does on g5 (cannot return to e3 or d2, no queen battery is possible).  &lt;code&gt;h3&lt;/code&gt; is frequently played with a similar idea for white.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To summarize, &lt;code&gt;a3&lt;/code&gt; is almost always a weak move for white (&lt;code&gt;a6&lt;/code&gt; is a different story, it can be useful for black in many cases), and these pawn moves should only be played prophylactically when the pin is so bad that the loss of a tempo is more than offset by avoiding the pin.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12" LastActivityDate="2012-11-15T18:30:22.933" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1513" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1496" CreationDate="2012-11-17T04:03:33.683" Score="16" Body="&lt;p&gt;Download &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.babaschess.net/&quot;&gt;Babaschess&lt;/a&gt;, sign up for the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.freechess.org/&quot;&gt;Free Internet Chess Server (FICS)&lt;/a&gt; and start playing unrated games against real people. :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="745" LastEditorUserId="109" LastEditDate="2012-12-03T18:54:45.720" LastActivityDate="2012-12-03T18:54:45.720" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1514" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1457" CreationDate="2012-11-17T04:07:12.553" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, definitely. Try to feel 0 through 10 in the air, like you're doing grocery list calculations. For most people, across all cultures, we have a number line that starts small on the left and gets bigger to the right. &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synesthesia&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Synaesthetes&lt;/a&gt; actually see numbers in this way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I definitely have a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proprioception&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;kinesthetic&lt;/a&gt; sense for chess. I'd like to think I'm not very unique in this. Flipping the board horizontally definitely changes the weight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="745" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-08-03T18:19:45.603" LastActivityDate="2019-08-03T18:19:45.603" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1515" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-11-17T19:00:01.813" Score="19" ViewCount="4222" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found this guy who likes playing chess, but not enough to bother reading the rules; he only plays using a physical board with his sister (she doesn't know the rules either).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The made up rule was this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A pinned piece is &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; attacking the squares he can't reach the next&#xA;  move without exposing the king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which means, a lot of things can happen:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A king can move to an 'attacked' square if the piece is pinned.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;By removing the pin, the piece now attacks the squares he wasn't (this can result in discovered checks if the king was in one of these squares).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You can remove a check by pinning the attacking piece.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you think about it, it requires much more thinking process to play like this. I was at a disadvantage because it is really hard to see these new threats and tactics if you never played like this before.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My questions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Does anyone know if this is some kind of known &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_variant&quot;&gt;chess variant&lt;/a&gt;?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Should I tell them the correct rules even when I know they are not that serious about playing?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Are these rules more complex to understand than the official pin rules?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="478" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-02-11T18:15:24.577" LastActivityDate="2020-01-15T15:09:17.923" Title="Bizarre pin rule: pinned pieces do not attack" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;pins&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1516" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1515" CreationDate="2012-11-17T19:33:52.183" Score="11" Body="&lt;h3&gt;Answers&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;It sure &lt;strong&gt;is a chess variant&lt;/strong&gt;, and now that you brought it up, it just became of the &lt;em&gt;known&lt;/em&gt; kind. I take good note of it, even though I never heard of it before. It does sound illogical, as Daniel's comment highlight, so I don't think regular players would come up with it.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Tell them or not : &lt;em&gt;does it really matter ?&lt;/em&gt; Don't be authoritative about the standard ruleset, that would be pointless. If you can see a way to lightly mention the official rules, do it, maybe they care, but if they don't, that's it.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;These rules are illogical once one understands it's all about capturing the king, as Daniel very well points out. &lt;strong&gt;Yes, they are more complex to understand.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Strange things happening&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's a position where I think this ruleset allows strange things to happen :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/8/2Rr1k2/4n3/3B4/3K4/8/8 b - - 0 0&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Nxc6 {Is moving an actually pinned piece out of it's pinning direction legal ?}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here, the white rook pins the black one, so the bishop is not pinned, but the knight is. Altogether, white pins black. Black to play, capturing the rook would lead to a legal position, because it indirectly pins the bishop, &lt;em&gt;a posteriori&lt;/em&gt; freeing the knight, for there is no check from the just-pinned bishop. I argue this being a legal move is dubious, for the knight &lt;strong&gt;is&lt;/strong&gt; pinned, for the time being.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It could be in this ruleset, but I found that to make these rules highly paradoxical. Somehow, you shouldn't be able to get a pinned piece out of its pinning direction — even if later on, it comes back on the board to legitimate it had the right to go away. I feel there's a “meantime” in which the position isn't legal, hence the move shouldn't be.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's develop on that “delay” thing :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/3rPK2/2k5/8/8/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e8=P {what now ?} (1. e8=B {legal}) (1. e8=R {promoting to a non-bishop-behaving piece is illegal})&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the newborn consensus is right — a move ending up with a legal position is legal — then this promotion can only be made to a bishop-behaving piece. Again, I'm not liking the time during which the pawn lets the king vulnerable, but I'm more and more convincing myself that that's just my pinning intuition getting in the way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="672" LastEditorUserId="672" LastEditDate="2012-11-18T10:40:42.020" LastActivityDate="2012-11-18T10:40:42.020" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1517" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1515" CreationDate="2012-11-17T19:34:28.963" Score="18" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, it's a variant (since it's played by your friend and his sister, and probably at least some others), but not a well-known one.  I used to think this idea would be only logical until I realized that a King moving into a square attacked by a pinned piece could still be captured by the pinned piece, and even though the opposing King would then be exposed to attack, the first side would already have lost.  Note that though Black leaves himself in check with his move, he still wins because he theoretically captures the King first:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/8/5k2/4r3/8/2B5/8/5K2 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Ke1 Rxe1 2.Bxf6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Compare with a position in which it's a mate in one for whichever side moves first.  Say White checkmates, then Black has lost &lt;em&gt;even though he can checkmate in one move&lt;/em&gt;.  This is due to the same reason that Black won in the previous diagram.  Theoretically, White wins because he can capture the opposing King first:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;6k1/5ppp/6r1/8/8/1R6/PPP5/1K6 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Rb8# Rg1# 2. Rxg8 Rxb1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To your second question, I see no reason why you should not let them know the real rules.  You are the best judge of whether he'd be open to learning them.  Don't be overbearing and certainly be willing to play his variant if he obviously doesn't care for the standard rules.  Games are for fun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And to the extent that it requires consideration of more possibilities, it &lt;em&gt;is&lt;/em&gt; more complex tactically.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="86" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2013-11-07T02:07:10.123" LastActivityDate="2013-11-07T02:07:10.123" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1518" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1457" CreationDate="2012-11-17T19:47:51.213" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, it should have some impact, especially on players who learn strategic patterns of typical middlegame positions via visualizing themes like &quot;play on dark squares in King's Indian Defense&quot;. Even replaying opening variations you are familiar with - would take slightly more effort. Writing those opening moves down on a scoresheet would feel strange too ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="618" LastEditorUserId="618" LastEditDate="2012-11-19T20:42:13.983" LastActivityDate="2012-11-19T20:42:13.983" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1519" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29936" CreationDate="2012-11-17T21:02:08.917" Score="19" ViewCount="1262" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;While posting this question, I stumbled on &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/214/672&quot;&gt;this &lt;strong&gt;list of variants&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_variant&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;from Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;, which I must admit is totally awesome. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I know a few &lt;strong&gt;online servers&lt;/strong&gt; allow a few variants, but am not aware of places where &lt;em&gt;many&lt;/em&gt; variants players would gather, which would they be ?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Are there famous clubs for &lt;strong&gt;on the board&lt;/strong&gt; variants play ?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Collections of &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairy_chess&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;fairy chess&lt;/a&gt; &lt;strong&gt;problems&lt;/strong&gt; ? &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;This &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairy_chess_piece&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;list of &lt;strong&gt;fairy pieces&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt; is not at all bad, but could use a few more easy-to-understand diagrams, and some art for representations.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I guess there's enough to say on this topic for &lt;strong&gt;books&lt;/strong&gt; to be published on the subject ?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="672" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.193" LastActivityDate="2020-12-19T14:37:52.010" Title="Resources on chess variants" Tags="&lt;chess-variants&gt;" AnswerCount="8" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1520" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="221" CreationDate="2012-11-17T23:43:47.047" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Openings you are &lt;strong&gt;more familiar&lt;/strong&gt; with than your opponent, and in which it &lt;strong&gt;makes a difference&lt;/strong&gt;¹. If you want to take advantage of it somehow, and not just “play better”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore I'd propose to go for &lt;em&gt;gambits&lt;/em&gt; and very &lt;em&gt;open positions&lt;/em&gt;, in an aggressive style. Especially not well-known ones². In these openings, being familiar with the ins and outs of the arising positions will give you a big advantage if your opponent isn't. On the contrary, in a closed game, tiny mistakes can be a lot harder to punish, especially in this time frame (i.e. you don't want to have so safe-but-small an advantage that the first slip you do in endgame will ruin it).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore I suggest :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King%27s_Gambit&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;King's gambit&lt;/a&gt; after &lt;code&gt;1. e4 e5&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smith-Morra_Gambit&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Morra Gambit&lt;/a&gt; against &lt;code&gt;1. e4 c5&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackmar%E2%80%93Diemer_Gambit&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Blackmar–Diemer&lt;/a&gt; after &lt;code&gt;1. d4 d5&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Staunton_Gambit&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Staunton Gambit&lt;/a&gt; against &lt;code&gt;1. d4 f5&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And for black :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Budapest Gambit against &lt;code&gt;1. d4&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elephant_Gambit&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Elephant Gambit&lt;/a&gt; against &lt;code&gt;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Petrov or Scandinavian defenses could be options too.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you're ready to learn many more, you can delay them to later moves in most played lines, but that grows the repertory you have to master. You might want to have a look &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/75/very-aggressive-openings&quot;&gt;there&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;¹ I'd argue Andrew's suggestion of fianchettos is way too passive for that, as your opponent has virtually no chance of doing a mistake against that. (I've played this system for a long time.)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;² I'm not talking about Queen's gambit or the Najdorf, that is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="672" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T15:31:19.863" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T15:31:19.863" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1521" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1529" CreationDate="2012-11-18T01:44:02.510" Score="50" ViewCount="29707" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are a lot of online websites, where players can play chess in real time with each other. Most of the games are 5-10 minutes long. With the availability of chess software one can take an advantage by using Fritz or Rybka to suggest a move for him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance, I can just enter every move of my opponent and see what software will suggest for me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was thinking about a few features which can suggest that the player is cheating:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;number of times he switches the screen&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;speed of play (in easy and in really hard positions)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;accuracy of the game&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does anyone have any other ideas?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S.: It does not matter for me, which perspective you are thinking from (server or the client side).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="703" LastEditorUserId="18475" LastEditDate="2019-12-05T23:51:00.807" LastActivityDate="2019-12-05T23:51:00.807" Title="How would you determine that the player is cheating in online chess?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;cheating&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="12" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1522" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1521" CreationDate="2012-11-18T03:46:50.067" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;If your site give the users one-click get FEN positions or PGN &lt;em&gt;while the game is running&lt;/em&gt;, you should consider tracking these.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some cheaters cheat from the beginning, but others prefer to only start cheating when they are in trouble, and they will obviously use the copy FEN/PGN feature since it is time-consuming to set up the position manually.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should somehow store that along with the move at the time he copied it, this way you can compare from that point to the following moves and see if his strength greatly increased with the aid of chess engines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But it is very important that you use it only to help you decide if he was cheating, it would be unfair to use a script that uses no human intervention, there can be many false-positives, for example, I often like to copy positions while I am playing to later analyze them without the need of searching for my game or finding the exact move from the PGN. And I don't always leave it in my clip-board because fear of overwriting it so I move it to notepad (which means I switch windows just after copying it).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="478" LastActivityDate="2012-11-18T03:46:50.067" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1523" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1527" CreationDate="2012-11-18T08:43:43.430" Score="10" ViewCount="784" Body="&lt;p&gt;We have typical checkmating patterns (e.g. &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smothered_mate&quot;&gt;smothered mate&lt;/a&gt;). Similarly are there any standard setups/patterns useful specifically for defense?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am not looking for standard tactics like pinning/discovery/etc. I don't even know whether to call these what I look for as patterns. Just simple setups. For example&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is this interesting relationship between bishop and the pawn. They support each other.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;3r4/4B3/3P4/8/8/8/5K2/7k b - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similarly I could think of Knights supporting each other as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;8/8/5n2/1k1nQ3/8/8/7K/8 w - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="749" LastActivityDate="2012-11-19T08:53:58.923" Title="What are the setups/patterns useful in defence?" Tags="&lt;patterns&gt;&lt;defense&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1524" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1564" CreationDate="2012-11-18T10:40:26.350" Score="9" ViewCount="4303" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Fritz, I am interested to know the differences between the Full Analysis and Blunder Check. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The differences at the first look seem superficial. For example, I wouldn't mind if there is no natural language used in the analysis which comes with full analysis. Blunder check seems to give good number of variations. So it seems better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is natural language the only aspect missing in Blunder Check analysis compared to full analysis? I am trying to figure out what 'full' means here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="749" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2015-01-11T15:45:36.510" LastActivityDate="2015-01-11T15:45:36.510" Title="Fritz: Full analysis Vs Blunder check" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;engines&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;blunder&gt;&lt;fritz&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1525" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1523" CreationDate="2012-11-18T10:52:26.173" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm fond¹ of this one, after sacrificing my queen for some pieces and having to deal with all my additional material being forked all over the place :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/3P4/P2rP3/2p2Q2/8/3n4/8/5k2 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that in this setup, the knight is not bound to its square, as it can move and get back to other pawn-defending squares in no time. &lt;strong&gt;It's a very flexible pattern&lt;/strong&gt;. I marked these other squares with white pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems to be a little harder to reproduce with a bishop, without blocking too many lines, and when not being the bishop+pawn one you already mention (which nicely fits on top on it, though).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;¹ Also I love knights.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="672" LastEditorUserId="672" LastEditDate="2012-11-18T11:01:47.773" LastActivityDate="2012-11-18T11:01:47.773" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1526" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1523" CreationDate="2012-11-18T11:16:39.417" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my long (20+ years) chess career I haven't actually seen any book/article on 'defence setups'. Probably because there are not many general helpful setups and more often than not you have to adapt to the current position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But there are some obvious common sense ones. One obvious one is the Pawn+Bishop one you mentioned but many times you just don't want the bishop limited that way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One useful and well-known setup would be King+Knight, king defending the knight against the queen. It is well known that the knight can protect from eternal checks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And one nice setup but very rarely encountered is the following King+Knight+Bishop setup vs King+Queen, where the side with the queen can not make any progress:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/8/8/8/4Nk2/4q3/6B1/7K w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="146" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-11-18T18:48:51.893" LastActivityDate="2012-11-18T18:48:51.893" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1527" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1523" CreationDate="2012-11-19T08:53:58.923" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, there are some standard setups/patterns that are useful specifically for defense, and the most &quot;absolute&quot; such defensive setups in chess go under the term &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortress_%28chess%29&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;fortress&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt;, which are setups in which the stronger side is provably unable to make any progress toward a win. &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/1526/167&quot;&gt;Valentin's answer&lt;/a&gt;, for instance, already gives a nice example of a known fortress, wherein the white king stays in the corner and the bishop and knight coordinate to prevent Black from closing in and delivering mate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As Valentin points out, though, his is a rather uncommon example in practice. The article I linked to above gives a nice example of a sort of piece-down fortress that arises somewhat more often, and can be worth remembering:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/1b6/8/8/8/6p1/3k2P1/5K2 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Kg1 Ke2 2.Kh1 Kf2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The white king stays in the corner, and Black can't threaten the g-pawn without stalemating. Note too that the color of the bishop doesn't matter either; a dark-square bishop would of course be drawn too. Again, the linked article gives a fantastic instance from a real game, in which Gregory Serper's awareness of this fortress possibility gave him a clear path to a draw against Nakamura in 2004:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/8/8/3k2p1/4p3/2b1P1pP/4KNP1/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Nxe4! Kxe4 2.Kf1!&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Serper heads to the corner with his king, lets the e-pawn go, and will simply play &lt;code&gt;hxg4&lt;/code&gt; if Nakamura ever pushes the g-pawn. It's now clear that we have the essential fortress described above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Being aware of relatively common fortresses such as this one can be useful in the same way as knowing about standard book draws can be - e.g. bishop plus wrong-color rook pawn is a draw, Philidor's position is a draw in R+P versus R, two knights cannot mate a lone king, etc. At heart, these book draws and fortresses are really all just instances of the same thing: some particular board configuration in which (even a lot of) extra material is useless. (So, knowing that two knights can't mate a king is like knowing about a wonderful fortress you can safely retreat to that doesn't even need any walls.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In terms of more literal fortresses in which a relatively large amount of material is involved, another point from Valentin's answer is well-taken: widely applicable recipes are few and far between, and &quot;more often than not you have to adapt to the current position.&quot; For instance, in &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1667306&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Game 9&lt;/a&gt; of the most recent world championship match, Anand as Black succeeded in arranging an appropriate fortress setup against which Gelfand's queen could make no progress against his rook and knight:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Anand-Gelfand World Chess Championship&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Moscow RUS&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;9&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1/2-1/2&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Boris Gelfand&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Viswanathan Anand&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.e3 O-O 5.Bd3 d5 6.Nf3 c5 7.O-O&#xA;dxc4 8.Bxc4 cxd4 9.exd4 b6 10.Bg5 Bb7 11.Qe2 Nbd7 12.Rac1 Rc8&#xA;13.Bd3 Bxc3 14.bxc3 Qc7 15.c4 Bxf3 16.Qxf3 Rfe8 17.Rfd1 h6&#xA;18.Bh4 Qd6 19.c5 bxc5 20.dxc5 Rxc5 21.Bh7+ Kxh7 22.Rxd6 Rxc1+&#xA;23.Rd1 Rec8 24.h3 Ne5 25.Qe2 Ng6 26.Bxf6 gxf6 27.Rxc1 Rxc1+&#xA;28.Kh2 Rc7 29.Qb2 Kg7 30.a4 Ne7 31.a5 Nd5 32.a6 Kh7 33.Qd4 f5&#xA;34.f4 Rd7 35.Kg3 Kg6 36.Qh8 Nf6 37.Qb8 h5 38.Kh4 Kh6 39.Qb2&#xA;Kg6 40.Qc3 Ne4 41.Qc8 Nf6 42.Qb8 Re7 43.g4 hxg4 44.hxg4 fxg4&#xA;45.Qe5 Ng8 46.Qg5+ Kh7 47.Qxg4 f6 48.Qg2 Kh8 49.Qe4 Kg7&#xA;1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's not that this was an exact setup Anand already knew about; rather, he was just able to envision this possibility (among others) as the game played out. &lt;a href=&quot;http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2012-05-23/chess/31826092_1_boris-gelfand-viswanathan-anand-gelfand-anand&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;In his own words&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;My position was worse as he had two bishops for my knights,&quot; commented Anand after the game. &quot;My chances hinged on the fortress that I was going to choose. In fact, I had many options and I think I chose the right one.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2012-11-19T08:53:58.923" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1528" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1530" CreationDate="2012-11-19T10:04:40.523" Score="5" ViewCount="199" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am interested in the distribution of time (in seconds) that players take per move. To this end, I am looking for game traces that contain timing information.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have found a number of chess databases on Google, but none of their traces contain this information.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can somebody point me to a source of traces that contain the time when each move was taken?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="750" LastActivityDate="2012-11-20T17:26:12.583" Title="Distribution of time per move" Tags="&lt;statistics&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1529" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1521" CreationDate="2012-11-19T14:09:00.183" Score="39" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is actually a very complex question, and not one which has been solved in a satisfying way, to my knowledge.  Essentially, we're asking for an algorithm to perform a kind of reverse Turing-test, to differentiate between human players and computers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, client-side checks will always have weaknesses, unless you are in &lt;em&gt;complete&lt;/em&gt; control of the client environment.  Let's take the first idea - checking for switching between windows, it sounds good.  Unfortunately, it's trivially worked around by running a chess engine on a separate computer, or integrating my engine with the client so that no &quot;window switching&quot; takes place, or changing the client to report 0 changes in window, or...  There's no real way to be sure that it's &lt;em&gt;your&lt;/em&gt; code running on the client, really.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What we're left with is physically tightly controlled client environments (which isn't going to happen for any online games), or server-side checking, i.e. looking at the actual moves that were played (and perhaps the time between the moves, as you say), and trying to deduce the computer or human aspect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Server-side checking can also split a couple of ways.  You could probably try a &quot;top-down&quot; approach, which would be something along the lines of &quot;from past games in history, only 2% of humans made that move, while 50% of computers make it&quot;.  This would actually be a pretty good way to do it, if we had enough data for &quot;any given position&quot;.  The search space of chess is so large, however, that even very large data sets will not have a significant number of games matching your position, once you get past the early mid-game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Assuming that we don't have any reliable statistics on the human side of the equation, you could still present the position to a number of chess engines (with a number of different time settings each), and see how closely the players' moves match that of a computer.  By itself, this would also lead to many false-positives, however, repeated positives for the same chess engine and time settings would make it more and more probable that the player was cheating.  To further enhance this, I would probably look into a &quot;bottom-up&quot; approach of analysing chess positions; in short, trying to figure out why humans and computers play differently.  E.g. humans tend to recognise common patterns.  In a game with &quot;odd&quot; patterns, or unlikely situations, a human would be less likely to be able to play very accurately.  None of these, by itself, are particularly damning, but given large numbers of games, it would highlight trends to administrators.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To add a few specifics to your list, I would go along the lines of how professors detect plagarism in papers - by detecting a sudden change.  In chess, this is extremely difficult to define, but a sudden change in play style or play strength may indicate cheating.  Specifically, I'd look for uncharacteristically aggressive moves which tend to just &quot;work out&quot;, and have no downside for the player (too accurate).  Forced mates in 4+ moves from a player who normally puts knights on the edge of the board, etc (it's possible... just not likely).  How exactly this would work sounds like it could take up an entire book (or more), however.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT:  There was an article about &lt;a href=&quot;http://rjlipton.wordpress.com/2013/01/13/the-crown-game-affair/&quot;&gt;cheating and detection in top-level chess&lt;/a&gt; recently.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="412" LastEditorUserId="412" LastEditDate="2013-01-15T14:01:39.887" LastActivityDate="2013-01-15T14:01:39.887" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1530" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1528" CreationDate="2012-11-19T14:21:44.480" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ficsgames.org&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;FICS online game database&lt;/a&gt; has move times, however those are mostly blitz and rapid time controls, so the time used will not be indicative of tournament play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that you can filter the database to only allow for your desired time controls, as well as rating range.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2012-11-20T17:26:12.583" LastActivityDate="2012-11-20T17:26:12.583" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1531" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1489" CreationDate="2012-11-19T14:40:09.780" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Since you have yet to receive any answers involving books, perhaps my earlier comment may serve as an actual answer: these days, for those like yourself working through obstacles like severe dyslexia, there is an ever-growing body of video-based chess instruction materials that could be well-suited visual alternatives to typical chess book fare.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2012-11-19T14:40:09.780" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1532" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1390" CreationDate="2012-11-20T08:02:38.023" Score="17" Body="&lt;p&gt;FIDE rules 12.3a and 6.14 are relevant to this situation. The former rule is vague, but the latter strongly suggests it is allowed. Let's take a look.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Rule 12.3a&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;12.3a    During play the &lt;strong&gt;players are forbidden to&lt;/strong&gt; make use of any notes, sources of information or advice, or &lt;strong&gt;analyse on another&#xA;  chessboard.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This rule does not define the word &lt;em&gt;analyse&lt;/em&gt;, and hence, the verdict would depend on whether &quot;staring at blank chessboard&quot; constitutes analysis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Rule 6.14&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;6.14 Screens, monitors, or &lt;strong&gt;demonstration boards showing the current position on the chessboard&lt;/strong&gt;, the moves and the number of moves made,&#xA;  and clocks which also show the number of moves, &lt;strong&gt;are allowed in the&#xA;  playing hall&lt;/strong&gt;. However, the player may not make a claim relying solely&#xA;  on information shown in this manner.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since a board showing current position &lt;em&gt;is&lt;/em&gt; allowed, it is strongly implied (though not explicitly stated) that looking at a blank chessboard is allowed. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Used rulebook on the FIDE website &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fide.com/fide/handbook?id=124&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="587" LastEditorUserId="587" LastEditDate="2012-12-31T15:57:44.623" LastActivityDate="2012-12-31T15:57:44.623" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1533" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1496" CreationDate="2012-11-20T20:00:03.893" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://lucaschess.host22.com/&quot;&gt;Lucas Chess&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; is great! From the description of the program:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;The computer uses different chess programs (so-called chess engines) of various strength. The user starts playing against the weakest engine at first. Initially the engine plays with limited strength but as the user wins more games the engine will be given more calculation time and its strength will improve. Eventually the engine will reach its maximum level of strength and if the user continues to win he will be passed to the next stronger engine and so forth.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It comes with a tutor that watches over your moves.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Lucas Chess ships with several chess engines from very weak to very strong (Stockfish,Rybka) and thousands of training positions (mate in 2,3,4 .. etc.)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;For improving your openings try &lt;a href=&quot;http://innokuo.altervista.org/chesshero.html&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;ChessHero&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt; or &lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesspositiontrainer.com&quot;&gt;ChessPositionTrainer&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="721" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-11-21T14:04:20.903" LastActivityDate="2012-11-21T14:04:20.903" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1534" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1246" CreationDate="2012-11-20T20:28:57.613" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://stockfishchess.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Stockfish&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; is the strongest engine for linux AFAIK. The best FICS interface is &lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.babaschess.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;BabasChess&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; which is a Windows program but runs fine under Linux with &lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.winehq.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Wine&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; - i'm using it in OpenSuse 11.4 without any problems.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Another possibility is to use &lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.virtualbox.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;VirtualBox&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; (use the rpm version from site and not the opensource version from linux repositories !) and run Windows as virtual machine with your favourite chess clients - Windows XP is sufficiant. I'm running Fritz (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.playchess.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.playchess.com/&lt;/a&gt;, which has a free client also =&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fritzhelp.com/download/PlayChessV6Setup.exe&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.fritzhelp.com/download/PlayChessV6Setup.exe&lt;/a&gt;), and &lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://ctart.chessok.com/pages/game-zone&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;ChessPlanet&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; client from the russian ChessServer of &lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chessok.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Convekta&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; (ChessAssistant), also used &lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessclub.com/download-software&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Dasher&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; Client from &lt;strong&gt;ICC&lt;/strong&gt;.&#xA;&lt;br&gt;-- &lt;strong&gt;EDIT&lt;/strong&gt; after comment by Saibot --&lt;br&gt;&#xA;You're confusing a specification (= protocol) with a concrete piece of software&#xA;built / implemented for a specific operating system.&#xA;The UCI protocol (UCI = universal chess interface) only describes the communication&#xA;of a chess engine and a chess user interface.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The Stockfish Linux version won't run on a windows box, just as  the Stockfish Windows&#xA;version won't run on Linux, whereas both support the UCI protocol.&#xA;Some engines - f.e. Stockfish - provide multiple implementations for different operating systems,&#xA;but many engines are for windows only.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;So it's nothing wrong with best engine for Linux, best engine for Windows !&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Engines implemented in a cross-platform language as Java (&quot;write once run everywhere&quot;) will run on&#xA;several platforms, if Java VM is available for that operating system.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="721" LastEditorUserId="721" LastEditDate="2016-01-20T20:36:15.907" LastActivityDate="2016-01-20T20:36:15.907" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1535" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1536" CreationDate="2012-11-21T06:01:27.407" Score="3" ViewCount="493" Body="&lt;p&gt;How will the World Championship challenger be determined, and then how will the actual championship match between Anand and the challenger work?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;I realize that some of the details might not yet be determined (location and specific rules).&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12" LastActivityDate="2012-11-28T20:54:02.287" Title="How will the World Championship work in 2013?" Tags="&lt;world-championship&gt;&lt;fide&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1536" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1535" CreationDate="2012-11-22T00:58:36.770" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;The World Chess Championship 2013 will be a match between the World Chess Champion Viswanathan Anand, the winner of the World Chess Championship 2012, and a challenger.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The challenger to the match will be decided using an eight-player double round-robin tournament (the Candidate's Tournament), to be held in London from March 13 to March 31, 2013. The eight players will in order of rules announced by FIDE consist of:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Peter Svidler (Russia), Alexander Grischuk (Russia), Vassily Ivanchuk (Ukraine), Boris Gelfand (Israel), Magnus Carlsen (Norway), Levon Aronian (Armenia), Vladimir Kramnik (Russia), Teimour Radjabov (Azerbaijan).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The championship match is scheduled from November 6 to November 26, 2012. The match conditions (number of games played, time controls and tie breaks) have not been announced.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;FIde has not determined location yet, supposedly Chennai, India is being considered, but this has not been confirmed on the FIDE website.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can find more details here:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Chess_Championship_2013&quot;&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Chess_Championship_2013&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fide.com/index.php?option=com_fidecalendar&amp;amp;view=fidecalendar&amp;amp;ny=2013&quot;&gt;http://www.fide.com/index.php?option=com_fidecalendar&amp;amp;view=fidecalendar&amp;amp;ny=2013&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="757" LastEditorUserId="757" LastEditDate="2012-11-22T23:23:44.230" LastActivityDate="2012-11-22T23:23:44.230" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1538" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="372" CreationDate="2012-11-22T18:43:36.027" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Reading helps, unless you're Capablanca and can work it all out for yourself, which most can't, even the GM's. I would suggest do both, but you don't need to overdo it with either. Just concentrate on your weaknesses and read/figure out whatever is necessary for you to improve. Best of luck :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="762" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-11-22T20:13:35.210" LastActivityDate="2012-11-22T20:13:35.210" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1540" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="442" CreationDate="2012-11-23T03:05:56.790" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;My daughter just turned 4 and she knows how every piece moves, which is great IMO, but it is frustrating at times because I wish I could teach her more things at once.  However, I do not force her, it is actually the other way around  There is not a single day that she does not ask me something about the pieces or anything related to the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;She knows what is a rank and a file but she doesn't quite understand what is diagonal, she is starting to locate coordinates on the board but that's about it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I bought her a plastic chess set with figurines instead of the classic Staunton pieces, that way the queen actually looks like one, and so does the king and the rest of the pieces, believe me, that for a kid at that age it helps a lot, she can now set up the board and pretend to play with her 2 yr old sister, until the imaginary fight between the two sides gets real.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="757" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-11-27T19:21:55.303" LastActivityDate="2012-11-27T19:21:55.303" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1541" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-11-23T05:04:41.863" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;A series of chess games between a number of player, who compete for a set of prizes. Chess tournaments are of different formats and categories, and they can be open or by invitation only&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Formats: The three most common formats for Chess Tournaments these days are: Round-Robin (all play all, once or twice) Swiss style (fixed number of rounds, players meet others who have done equally well) and elimination (a loss means you don't advance).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tournaments have a TD (tournament director, the official) and a pre-set of rules.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="764" LastEditorUserId="764" LastEditDate="2012-11-23T05:05:38.510" LastActivityDate="2012-11-23T05:05:38.510" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1542" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-11-23T05:04:41.863" Score="0" Body="A series of chess games between a number of player, who compete for a set of prizes. Chess tournaments are of different formats and categories, and they can be open or by invitation only" OwnerUserId="764" LastEditorUserId="764" LastEditDate="2012-11-23T05:05:52.377" LastActivityDate="2012-11-23T05:05:52.377" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1543" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1403" CreationDate="2012-11-23T05:33:30.383" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have seen this referred to/attributed to a couple of Tal's games. It is quite likely that he used the saying more than once. If you study enough of Tal's games, you'll see that he developed a technique of &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; retracting his (minor) pieces when they were en prise. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first reference that I was able to find was in his &lt;strong&gt;Havana-1966&lt;/strong&gt; game against Bjorn Brinck-Claussen. (Quite likely this position, where he's just moved Ra8!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Tal v Brinck-Claussen, Havana 1966 &quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;R2r2k1/6pp/1p3pn1/3b2q1/3P4/P4QP1/BP3P2/6K1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The saying is also often  attributed to his &lt;strong&gt;1968 game against Chikovani&lt;/strong&gt;, where Tal plays 19 Bxe6 instead of retracting his dark-squared Bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Tal v Chikovani, 1968&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;1qrr2k1/p3bp2/bpn1Bnpp/6B1/3P4/P1N2N2/1PQ2PPP/3RR1K1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you can see, in both cases Tal leaves multiple pieces hanging, a psychological strategy that he's used to his advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope that helps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="764" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-08-12T14:23:25.057" LastActivityDate="2019-08-12T14:23:25.057" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1544" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1478" CreationDate="2012-11-23T05:49:11.967" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The easiest way I can think of is to write your own scraper (say) in Python.&#xA;I'd use &lt;code&gt;beautifulsoup&lt;/code&gt; and aim at several sites, including Google Images (within whatever limits they impose)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are familiar with Python, &lt;a href=&quot;https://stackoverflow.com/questions/257409/download-image-file-from-the-html-page-source-using-python&quot;&gt;this SO question&lt;/a&gt; is all you really need.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Start with Google Images, chessbase.com, and then make a round of the numerous chess websites that have tons of position images that you can scrape.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="764" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-05-23T12:37:05.403" LastActivityDate="2012-11-23T05:49:11.967" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1545" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1419" CreationDate="2012-11-23T05:54:21.137" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Almost any commercially decent chess software allows you to set up your own position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chessbase, crafty, and numerous other chess engines allow you to do that. However, in the picture that you have posted, there are more than 16 pieces of one color. Since this is not possible in a real chess game (not matter how wild) most of these engines will reject the position as being 'illegal.'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If a position is legal, you can set it up as the starting point and play against a computer engine, or get an evaluation for that position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope that helps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="764" LastActivityDate="2012-11-23T05:54:21.137" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1546" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="372" CreationDate="2012-11-23T13:27:15.293" Score="-4" Body="&lt;p&gt;In those days, people do not have to reckon with tactics and preparation at the level of silicon beings, they just need to play better than the other guy. If Capablanca were still alive today, he would be crushed by most elite players because general principles do not stand up to tactical refutations, especially if they came from the computer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="766" LastActivityDate="2012-11-23T13:27:15.293" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1547" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="221" CreationDate="2012-11-23T13:49:27.263" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my opinion, one must play an opening that one plays most often, as in bullet chess there is very little time to think. If you are receptive to go and learn a new opening, then I recommend Stonewall as it makes the game a very closed game while retaining a strong hold of the center. With black pieces, French Defence and Budapest Gambit serve as good openings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="767" LastActivityDate="2012-11-23T13:49:27.263" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1548" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1246" CreationDate="2012-11-23T21:35:54.037" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;For professional level engines, I run Houdini 1.5 (I imagine newer, paid versions of Houdini work as well) and Stockfish in SCID. The Houdini exe loads fine in SCID so long as wine is installed and the exe has been made executable. Both work very well for me, but I find Houdini's evaluations (e.g. -0.71 is a clear advantage to Black) to be the most meaningful. Stockfish evaluations are often inflated/optimistic (-0.71 might only mean a minuscule advantage to Black or +1.5 might not mean White is winning, but that Black in fact has strong compensation for the exchange. In my opinion, Houdini is particularly good at evaluating compensation for material deficit. I've tried the Toga, Fruit, and Glaurang engines; they are fine and , to my recollection, work well with SCID, but not as strong as Houdini and Stockfish.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For a simple chessmaster equivalent program, pychess (in the Ubuntu software center) might be suitable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also use Jin and Dasher in wine for ICC. I haven't tried FICS much.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="800" LastActivityDate="2012-11-23T21:35:54.037" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1549" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="943" CreationDate="2012-11-23T21:51:07.883" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am going to describe a system for Black that I play, but you can flip the situation around and play the system for White. I actually saw it played as White first (possibly by Serper?), and I decided to try it for Black. Play &lt;code&gt;Bd3&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;Qf3&lt;/code&gt;, and &lt;code&gt;Ne2&lt;/code&gt;, (&lt;code&gt;c3&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;h3&lt;/code&gt; are probably necessary at some point). I may bring the bishop out to f4 or g5 if allowed. The key here is to bring the e2 knight to f5 via g3. The other knight sometimes comes around via a3 to c2 to e3 to f5. The knight on f5 is very annoying, Black may weaken himself with g6 or give up the two bishops to get rid of the knight. Playing the strategy with Black, I have won at least a few games with sacs on h3 and g2 in these positions. Frequently, White players lack a strategy as you describe and after developing their pieces (&lt;code&gt;Bd3&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;Nf3&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;0-0&lt;/code&gt; and controlling the e-file), they are unable to coordinate them with any real purpose.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="800" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-11-27T19:19:31.233" LastActivityDate="2012-11-27T19:19:31.233" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1550" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1419" CreationDate="2012-11-23T23:16:45.623" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can use Xboard/Winboard depending of the OS you have and uncheck the option &quot;Test Legality&quot; at the general options menu, I did it myself with in my Xbord/Linux configuration and this is it:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/0rNu4.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="757" LastActivityDate="2012-11-23T23:16:45.623" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1551" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1552" CreationDate="2012-11-25T05:34:33.957" Score="15" ViewCount="2487" Body="&lt;p&gt;I started looking into the history of a few grandmasters such as Fischer and Carlsen, so I wondered: why does it seem that chess &quot;kings&quot; and queens&quot; start playing the game from a young age? Can anyone show me any grandmasters who started playing chess after becoming 18? Does this situation apply to other things such as physical sports or even more mental-focused skills such as doing math?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="773" LastEditorUserId="10867" LastEditDate="2016-07-26T18:35:16.950" LastActivityDate="2016-07-26T18:35:16.950" Title="How come chess prodigies seem to start at a young age?" Tags="&lt;history&gt;&lt;carlsen&gt;&lt;fischer&gt;&lt;grandmaster&gt;&lt;talent&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1552" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1551" CreationDate="2012-11-25T06:11:09.277" Score="17" Body="&lt;p&gt;In pretty much any endeavor that requires one to develop or acquire complex sets of skills, be it chiefly intellectual or chiefly physical, starting young will generally be a huge boon simply because of the fact that younger brains are more plastic than older brains; they can more readily adapt to new sorts of tasks and information. Because of that fact, chess will be no different from sports or math or whatever, and those who rise to the very top will tend to have started quite young, as that makes much easier the ultimate task of acquiring the specialized knowledge and skills that are necessary in order to play chess with the very best. Even so, some remarkably strong players have indeed gotten relatively late starts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikhail_Chigorin&quot;&gt;Mikhail Chigorin&lt;/a&gt; first learned the rules of chess at the fairly late age of 16, and didn't really throw himself into chess until he was already 23-24. A quote from Wikipedia:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;He became serious about chess uncommonly late in life; his schoolteacher taught him the moves at the age of 16, but he did not take to the game until around 1874, having first finished his studies before commencing a career as a government officer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All in all, I think Chigorin thus reasonably meets your criterion of having started after age 18. Technically, he was not a &quot;grandmaster&quot; in the sense of having that official FIDE title, but of course that's only because it didn't exist in Chigorin's day. He played two matches for Steinitz's world championship, and &lt;a href=&quot;http://chessmetrics.com/cm/CM2/PlayerProfile.asp?Params=199510SSSSS3S022318000000111000000000000010100&quot;&gt;chessmetrics&lt;/a&gt; places Chigorin in the world's top 4 players throughout the 1890s (peaking at #2 behind Steinitz and Lasker at different times).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In addition, Howard Staunton apparently started playing chess &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Staunton#1836.E2.80.9342.2C_First_steps_in_chess&quot;&gt;only at age 26&lt;/a&gt;. Like Chigorin, he of course was not technically a GM in the modern sense of the word, but he is generally recognized as having been the strongest player in the world the 1840s, and is sometimes referred to as an &quot;unofficial world champion&quot; the way that Paul Morphy often is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="773" LastEditDate="2012-11-26T09:02:54.507" LastActivityDate="2012-11-26T09:02:54.507" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1553" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1551" CreationDate="2012-11-25T22:39:18.077" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;Wilhelm Steinitz learned &lt;strong&gt;&quot;how&quot;&lt;/strong&gt; to play chess at the age of 12, but it was only after attending the Vienna Polytechnic that he actually began to play serious chess (sometime during his twenties).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Siegbert Tarrasch learned how to play chess when he was 15, but he was 20 when he first tried himself at a &quot;Hauptturneier&quot; (Chess Tournament) in 1882 at Berlin, he was eliminated from the tournament.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There should be more examples, but these two never really took chess serious before reaching their 20's, Siegbert Tarrasch was actually attending University of Halle-Wittenberg and at the beginning of his profession as a medical doctor he actually put chess in second place after his medical practice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="757" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-11-27T19:18:34.180" LastActivityDate="2012-11-27T19:18:34.180" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1554" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-11-26T08:54:08.453" Score="12" ViewCount="362" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's a question a friend of mine brought up and I found intriguing.&#xA;Let's say you have the records of a game from a certain move to the end, using standard notation (i.e. Qf6).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Either assuming random play or strong play (which is really hard to define), how many more moves on average would you need to restore the current position?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't really know how to approach this question, but it seems to involve retrograde analysis. The factors I could come up with are these.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Knowing where a piece moved to tells you it's possible locations.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Knowing where a piece moves tells you about empty squares (on the piece's way). This of course depends on it's original location.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Checks give you information about both the location of the king and empty squares around it&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Exchanges give you a lot of info, both about the exact position of a piece and about the squares around it.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Castlings give you info about 5-6 pieces.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another variant to this question is where the starting square of a piece is also given in the notation, i.e. Nd5-e3 instead of Ne3. This is not the most popular notation but it's still usable. How much would it affect the result?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S. Why does CSE have no &amp;quot;soft question&amp;quot; tag?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="724" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-09-14T04:32:30.610" LastActivityDate="2020-09-14T04:32:30.610" Title="Creating the current position having the rest of the game" Tags="&lt;retrograde-analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1555" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1554" CreationDate="2012-11-27T06:42:53.547" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Fascinating question! By definition, I can only come with a partial solution, or more accurately &quot;elements&quot; that will be part of the retro analysis. I know I'll be thinking about this more, but here are a few initial thoughts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just a few more 'factors' to add to your list:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;We'd need a certain minimum number of moves (in the latter part of the game) to make any meaningful analysis.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If the game is played out (i.e.) ends in a mate, that would help in recreating the 'start' position.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If the starting square is given, then it will help immensely.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Knowing the &lt;em&gt;move number&lt;/em&gt; would help. (Is it 19 Ne5 or 24 Ne5)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The idea of &quot;candidate squares&quot; for pieces. If Na1 was played, then the N must have been at b3 or c2. For a N to reach c2, it must have come from... In effect, we know there must have been a few moves to get the knight from b1 or g1.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Pawn moves give us 'definitive' information about the 'from' square (except for e2-e4 vs e3-e4 type double jumps) Bishop moves help because they stay in the same color. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We could infer more, but these is a start.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Alt. solution If you were allowed to &quot;cheat&quot; (lateral thinking):&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;you could feed the moves to a good-sized database and see if it can match up a game.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Chessbase has advanced search features which let you search for positions by pieces occupying squares, and also by a sequence of moves.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We could even do try this out with an actual snippet of a game. Publish, say the last 20 moves of a 50 move game, and try to recreate the position at move #30, without cheating or referring to a chessDB.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="764" LastActivityDate="2012-11-27T06:42:53.547" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1556" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1464" CreationDate="2012-11-27T18:44:04.220" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately, if you want to download them, you have to do them one at a time.  ICC does have a command &quot;mailstored&quot; which allows you to automatically have the games mailed to you in pgn or non-pgn format.  Here is more info on that:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;ICC Help: mailstored&#xA;Command:  mailstored &#xA;Examples:  &quot;mailstored darooha 8&quot; -- This mails game #8 in darooha's history. &#xA;           &quot;mailstored darooha POTZY&quot; -- mails the adjourned game. &#xA;           &quot;mailstored 5&quot; -- mails game 5 in your current search list. &#xA;           &quot;mailstored %5&quot; -- mails game 5 in your personal library. &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This command mails you the moves of the game you choose. You can email games from histories, libraries, database (search list), and adjourned games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To automatically email all the games you play right after you play them, type &quot;set automail 1&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;set mailformat 1&quot; to get the game in PGN notation. &quot;set mailformat 0&quot; to get them in a non-PGN format that also includes the move times. Or &quot;set mailformat 2&quot; to get them in PGN with the clock times (the time remaining after each move) in comments.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a limit on the number of games you can &quot;mailstore&quot;, due to the load the mailing puts on the ICC CPU. The limit is approximately 50 games in 12 hours. The games you get from &quot;set automail 1&quot; do not count towards the 50. There is no command to mail many games with a single command.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessclub.com/download-software/dasher&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Dasher&lt;/a&gt; and Blitzin, you can have every game you play automatically saved to a PGN file upon completion. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For Dasher:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www6.chessclub.com/helpcenter/Dasher/AutoSave.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www6.chessclub.com/helpcenter/Dasher/AutoSave.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For Blitzin:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Place a mark next to &quot;Log my Games&quot; on your Game menu. This will cause each completed game to be saved to a .pgn file on your hard drive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-08-03T17:56:04.233" LastActivityDate="2019-08-03T17:56:04.233" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1560" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="385" CreationDate="2012-11-29T01:06:06.573" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why? Probably because of subjective pressure of the first game of World Championship match. From what I recall when watching this game - the commentators were also surprised that Gelfand offered/agreed to a draw. His advantage was also not only in the passed pawn (which could e either a strength or a weakness) but also in having two bishops.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="618" LastActivityDate="2012-11-29T01:06:06.573" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1561" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-11-29T07:17:20.730" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_Steinitz&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Wilhelm Steinitz&lt;/a&gt; was the first official world champion of chess, and is chiefly responsible for ushering in positional principles of play that were largely absent in the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romantic_chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Romantic era&lt;/a&gt; of chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-11-29T07:17:20.730" LastActivityDate="2012-11-29T07:17:20.730" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1562" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-11-29T07:17:20.730" Score="0" Body="Wilhelm Steinitz was the first official world champion of chess." OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-11-29T07:17:20.730" LastActivityDate="2012-11-29T07:17:20.730" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1564" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1524" CreationDate="2012-11-29T16:31:50.310" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;The following can be found on &lt;a href=&quot;http://uscfsales.wordpress.com/2011/08/26/comparing-analysis-modes-in-fritzrybka-chess-software/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;USCFSales Steve's ChessBase Tips&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“Full analysis” mode is likely the better choice for less experienced&#xA;chess players, due to the relative brevity of the alternative&#xA;variations it provides, the short verbal commentary, and the fact that&#xA;variations are evaluated symbolically rather than with numerical&#xA;values.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Blundercheck gives much more &amp;quot;hard&amp;quot; information than does &amp;quot;full&#xA;analysis&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The core purpose in both forms of analysis remains the same: to show&#xA;where each of the players went wrong and what they should have played&#xA;instead. “Full analysis” mode provides the information in a much&#xA;simpler form.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“Blundercheck” mode will only show improvements, not “what if…?” moves&#xA;which are actually worse.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can find much more information on the website provided&#xA;above.  The author, Steve Lopez, has been the authority on ChessBase/Fritz software for nearly two decades.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2013-01-18T20:23:48.230" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1565" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1566" CreationDate="2012-11-29T16:36:10.373" Score="23" ViewCount="8203" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been using &lt;a href=&quot;http://chesstempo.com&quot;&gt;chesstempo&lt;/a&gt; for quite a while solving lots of problems per day. What I noticed is that I don't feel that my tactical skills were improving. My results in tournament games were not improving either.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However chesstempo's estimate of my rating is more or less accurate (around 1950). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the question is - did such websites help you to improve your tactic skills? if so, how many positions/hours per day were you solving? Did they provide accurate estimation of your rating (comparing to your real-life rating)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15" LastEditorUserId="15" LastEditDate="2012-11-29T17:22:25.413" LastActivityDate="2017-03-27T07:43:35.950" Title="Do you find websites like chesstempo useful for improving tactical skills?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1566" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1565" CreationDate="2012-11-29T16:46:54.710" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have not played enough or practiced enough on ChessTempo to really notice a difference in my tactical ability, but I am probably certain that if you spend enough time and I am not sure how long this is (it varies for each person) that your tactical skill will improve over time.  I also never paid attention to my rating on ChessTempo as I do not know what my actual rating is.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One thing I am certain of is that ChessTempo and other similar websites or puzzles in books will teach you to stop and think before making a move no matter what or will teach you to look for a tactic — whereas before, I would make the first move I saw without thinking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the end, it probably does improve your tactical skills, you just have to be patient and not assume that your tactical skills are not improving by the number of games you win or lose.  We often grade ourselves on whether we win or lose and I believe this is a big NO-NO. Especially if we lose, we often assume that we have not improved tactically, strategically, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastEditorUserId="672" LastEditDate="2012-11-29T18:39:32.793" LastActivityDate="2012-11-29T18:39:32.793" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1567" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1568" CreationDate="2012-11-29T17:29:25.103" Score="23" ViewCount="5568" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are there any psychological tricks that can be used in chess to throw off an opponent regardless of rating?  It also does not matter if it is the opening, middle, or end game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By psychological, I really don't mean rude/annoying gestures to upset the opponent, but more tricks or tactics that have more to do with making psychological moves to throw an opponent off and they can be specific instances, for example, a specific move for a specific line that might make the opponent wonder &quot;what is going on here...&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastEditorUserId="109" LastEditDate="2012-12-03T02:19:42.520" LastActivityDate="2019-08-15T08:06:34.913" Title="Psychological tricks in chess?" Tags="&lt;psychology&gt;" AnswerCount="18" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1568" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1567" CreationDate="2012-11-29T18:35:06.420" Score="25" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sometimes when your opponent is in zeitnot (English: &quot;time trouble&quot;), it can make him nervous if you repeat moves a couple of times. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also when your opponent is in zeitnot, it is a good idea to think on your moves thoroughly and not to try to play as fast as your opponent does. This also applies to when you're in zeitnot; you should at least try to make your opponent play as fast as you do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I often try to learn rarely used variations to disturb my opponent and make him think with his own brain instead of mindlessly replaying moves from theory. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I know that my opponent is rather a strategic player, I will try to play very tactical positions against him and to out-calculate him. When my opponent is better at tactics then I'll try to play more closed, maneuvering positions. In other words, when I know my opponent well, I'll try to play positions that he feels least comfortable in.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've heard of other tricks of questionable taste, and I personally don't think they fall under &quot;fair play&quot; in my understanding of it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another thing I always do (though it is hardly psychological), is that I never inform my opponent if he forgot to press his clock. I use his time for analyzing the position, and make my move only after the opponent pressed the clock.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-08-12T15:55:53.087" LastActivityDate="2019-08-12T15:55:53.087" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1569" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1584" CreationDate="2012-11-29T23:44:45.720" Score="19" ViewCount="2436" Body="&lt;p&gt;Often times, when I find myself going through the lines of a new opening, one that I would like to start using in my games I hit the concrete wall after a couple of days of studying it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Due to the fact that this is new to me, I simply don't understand every strategic line behind it, and since I've never played it I don't know what to expect in a real game. So my question is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;During the first stage of leaning a new opening, just memorize the different possible variations?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Deep dive in the theory behind each move until you acquire a thorough comprehension of the tactical and strategical motifs?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="757" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-03-06T08:15:25.423" LastActivityDate="2016-10-09T19:05:06.567" Title="How do I learn a new opening?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;learning&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;best-practice&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1570" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1569" CreationDate="2012-11-29T23:44:45.720" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Memorization by itself is not the most effective way to learn a new opening. Yes, you'll end up knowing every move and the corresponding (or possible) response to it, you'll memorize a set of positions that are commonly considered as the end of the opening or that have granted mobilization and development to your pieces but you will not know what to do next.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, get a good book about the opening you want to learn, one that has clear explanations about the tactical positions you may reach and explains how to get through with your plan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Play through annotated games in which the key elements of the opening are clearly identified. It doesn't matter if the game is 200 years old, it will provide you with a clear idea of what is the desired objective.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Don't try to learn every variation at once, start with the main line and implement it in your games, if during a game you do not know when exactly you moved away from the “book” analyze your game in an attempt to determine when did that happen and whether your move was good or bad according to “book” theory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is recommended that you learn the common traps of the opening as early as possible, to avoid unpleasant surprises and to take advantage of your newly acquired knowledge.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once you have gained a better understanding of the “theory” you'll realize that you have actually memorized a lot of moves, and you are ready to further enhance your knowledge about the opening. This would be the time to go through the latest games played by GM's at tournaments and analyze those games searching for new discoveries. GM's are not known for sharing their secrets, so dig in.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="757" LastActivityDate="2012-11-29T23:44:45.720" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1571" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1569" CreationDate="2012-11-30T00:11:26.843" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;The way I learned the few openings I now know is basically :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Playing them&lt;/strong&gt; a lot.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In the (soon few) games where your natural play gives you a crappy position out of the opening, go ask theory™ where you screwed up. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Learning lines as you make mistakes in them helps &lt;em&gt;a lot&lt;/em&gt; for remembering them, since you have to &lt;em&gt;confront&lt;/em&gt; what you thought to be correct to what &lt;em&gt;actually&lt;/em&gt; is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think the most important part of “learning openings”, far from being memory, is getting comfortable with the positions that are most likely to arise, and to know where you're going (i.e. have a &lt;em&gt;plan&lt;/em&gt; to fall back onto when you're out of your book). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Eventually, you'll learn about the tricks and traps that lie around as you fall into them, or your opponent overplays and you fail to punish. But most importantly, &lt;strong&gt;you'll learn the positions you get to play often first&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Last but not least : always play the same openings you're trying to learn, and don't learn many at once (for obvious memory overflow reasons).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that I don't hold a very high opinion of opening theory, and tend to advise most people to &lt;em&gt;care a lot less about it&lt;/em&gt;, and rather improve their actual thinking and play. If you get a decent enough position out of your opening, &lt;em&gt;then&lt;/em&gt; the fun begins (and that's where it incredibly helps to understand what theory got you into, what you're playing for, and what you should keep an eye on, etc.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="672" LastEditorUserId="672" LastEditDate="2015-08-07T14:51:52.623" LastActivityDate="2015-08-07T14:51:52.623" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1572" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="229" CreationDate="2012-11-30T01:00:53.440" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;In short, white may well be &lt;strong&gt;overextending&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From black's point of view¹, white is offering many targets for black to attack :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt; as &lt;code&gt;c3&lt;/code&gt; is not possible anymore, and if &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt; is traded for &lt;code&gt;d6&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt; if &lt;code&gt;d6&lt;/code&gt; gets traded for &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;c4&lt;/code&gt; if white's king bishop moves anywhere useful&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Behind the pawns&lt;/em&gt; is a lovely place to land knights (&lt;code&gt;d3&lt;/code&gt; &lt;em&gt;via&lt;/em&gt; &lt;code&gt;b4&lt;/code&gt; is not uncommon, &lt;code&gt;e3&lt;/code&gt; &lt;em&gt;via&lt;/em&gt; &lt;code&gt;f5&lt;/code&gt; seldom happens…)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once white's pawns are fixed, one can wonder about what advancing them actually achieved : white loses as much time pushing pawns as black moving the knight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;¹ which I adopt as an all-time Alekhine Defense player myself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="672" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T15:28:49.873" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T15:28:49.873" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1573" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1521" CreationDate="2012-11-30T08:26:13.797" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;To give my answer as to how I would approach this, I would use a simple idea:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Null Hypothesis Test&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The idea is that there are is a limited number of publicly available chess engines, lets say &lt;code&gt;N&lt;/code&gt; of them. This assumption of course precludes the possibility that the cheater has written their own chess engine (or is using some publicly unavailable chess engine) but for catching casual cheaters this should be a strong enough assumption.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The application of the &lt;strong&gt;Null Hypothesis Test&lt;/strong&gt; would be very simple: for each chess engine &lt;code&gt;X&lt;/code&gt; and for each subsequence of moves of the current game compute the probability &lt;code&gt;p&lt;/code&gt; of observing the played subsequence &lt;em&gt;assuming&lt;/em&gt; the &lt;strong&gt;null hypothesis&lt;/strong&gt; that the player is &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; using chess engine &lt;code&gt;X&lt;/code&gt; to make the moves for them. A naive assumption could be made that the player moves at random (or randomly chooses from a select number of top moves &lt;code&gt;d_i&lt;/code&gt;), then the probability for a given subsequence of length &lt;code&gt;k&lt;/code&gt; matching moves a chess engine &lt;code&gt;X&lt;/code&gt; would make would be computed as &lt;code&gt;(d_1)/(n_1) * (d_2)/(n_2) * (d_3)/(n_3) *...* (d_k)/(n_k)&lt;/code&gt; where &lt;code&gt;d_i&lt;/code&gt; is the number of possible (top) moves to make at the &lt;code&gt;ith&lt;/code&gt; turn, as rated by engine &lt;code&gt;X&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;n_i&lt;/code&gt; is the number of total moves available to the player at turn &lt;code&gt;i&lt;/code&gt; (or some reasonable subset.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then simply compute &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;p* = minimum p over all chess engine X, all subsequences y.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If &lt;code&gt;p*&lt;/code&gt; is less than a certain threshold label the player as a cheater since there exists a subsequence &lt;code&gt;y&lt;/code&gt; and chess engine &lt;code&gt;X&lt;/code&gt; that brings the probability that the player is &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; cheating below a desired probabiity.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="72" LastEditorUserId="72" LastEditDate="2014-01-21T08:56:54.900" LastActivityDate="2014-01-21T08:56:54.900" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1574" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="162" CreationDate="2012-11-30T16:43:05.593" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess tends to impersonate &lt;strong&gt;war&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;No one says women can't fight, but it's usually considered (culturally) as more of a men's activity, don't you think ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm very curious about the “why” aspect myself, but that probably calls for much socio-psychology I'm not near knowledgeable enough at, and probably isn't even well known yet, not to mention far from the scope of this site.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For real statistics, I guess scripting over a FIDE ratings database wouldn't be too hard, probably even mentioned in the introductory section of &lt;a href=&quot;https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/0899502326&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Women in Chess&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Most people (and other answers) cite a 5-15% figure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="672" LastEditorUserId="672" LastEditDate="2020-12-15T15:38:42.253" LastActivityDate="2020-12-15T15:38:42.253" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1575" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1122" CreationDate="2012-12-01T00:12:54.790" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;¹ Don't tell him. His clock, his time-management. &lt;em&gt;Especially&lt;/em&gt; if something's at stake.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pressing the clock requires incredibly low skill, but do you tell your opponent every time he blunders, or is it just part of good play to never, &lt;em&gt;ever&lt;/em&gt; make them ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;¹ I feel like an opinion is under-represented over here, so let's see what's it worth :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="672" LastEditorUserId="672" LastEditDate="2019-02-17T16:45:38.320" LastActivityDate="2019-02-17T16:45:38.320" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1576" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1567" CreationDate="2012-12-01T00:58:03.310" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;As mentioned in &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/1567/psychological-tricks-in-chess#comment1696_1568&quot;&gt;comments&lt;/a&gt;, staring at your opponent might off-balance some of them, just as behaving abnormally in anyway — constantly replacing pieces, or smiling as if there was a reason comes to mind.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As I mention &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/1575/672&quot;&gt;elsewhere&lt;/a&gt;, you can try the long-shot trick of not pressing your clock to distract them. Probably not achieving much though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Obviously nothing of that belongs to fair play, but I guess that's not much of this question's issue.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What actually happened to me in the last game of a 15-minutes tournament, as I had not much time remaining¹ was my opponent² — in an obviously losing position — play very fast, misplacing many pieces on the way, and, as I played my move and replaced some pieces on their squares, play his, and pretend I had touched the piece I was replacing, therefore had to play it³.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As I made the move I wanted, he would move the piece back and press his clock again, repeatedly, muttering some foreign words⁴ about “having to play”. In the end, he would keep his finger pressed on the mechanical clock, preventing me from stopping it. I lost most of my time to all of that, and wouldn't have had enough to mate would he have played till the end after the referee finally came and let me play the bishop. Hopefully, he just went self-righteous against the referee, so I won by “that”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not very psychological, will definitely get you a bad reputation, and unlikely to achieve anything in major events, but definitely throws-off your opponent, probably also for the next game. Rank pressure helps, especially after a tense game, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;¹ Like 4 minutes : well enough to win the endgame-with-a-bishop-advantage the combination we where playing lead to, but not enough to deal with nasty clock tricks.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;² Ranked ~150 better than I did, he was playing for a prize, I was playing for 4th place and to enhance a friend's prize.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;³ Hence faking a &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/chessopedia/view/trebuchet&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;trebuchet&lt;/a&gt; zugzwang where I was about to move the said bishop.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;⁴ It sounded like engrish, but in a French town that'll definitely catch off-guards your usual chess player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="672" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2012-12-01T19:12:07.877" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1577" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2397" CreationDate="2012-12-01T01:58:29.410" Score="11" ViewCount="541" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would appreciate references to sources, be they books or any other sort of media, that contain annotated games in the Makogonov Variation of the Grünfeld Defense (two possible move-orders for which are given below):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 d5 4.e3 (4.Nf3 Bg7 5.e3 O-O 6.b4) Bg7 5.b4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would imagine that some books specifically on the Grünfeld would have what I'm after, but I don't know that literature well at all, and the couple I've looked at don't have tons of info. For instance, &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/9056913719&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;The Kaufman Repertoire for Black &amp;amp; White&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt; proposes the Grünfeld against &lt;code&gt;1.d4&lt;/code&gt;, but the sum total of its coverage of the Makogonov (unless I missed something) is to give the following single line assessment, with no words or additional analysis:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 d5 4.e3 Bg7 5.Nf3 O-O 6.b4 c6 7.Bb2 a5 8.b5 a4 9.Ba3 Be6 $10&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I mention that only as a fact, not as criticism, since the Makogonov doesn't seem to be regarded as a critical test for the Grünfeld, and Kaufman has to choose where to focus.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Avrukh's &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.qualitychess.co.uk/products/1/103/grandmaster_repertoire_8_-_the_grunfeld_defence_volume_one_by_boris_avrukh/&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Grandmaster Repertoire 8: Grünfeld Defence, Volume One&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt; gives more to chew on, offering 4+ solid pages on the Makogonov in tree-of-variations form, and it mentions a handful of games where some of the lines come from. But still, that's not quite what I'm after; I'd like to find some Makogonov Variation games that are annotated &lt;em&gt;qua&lt;/em&gt; complete games, in order to get a &quot;feel&quot; for this variation. So, to recap:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Can someone point me to some complete, annotated games in the Makogonov Grünfeld?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2013-05-20T12:07:01.447" Title="Annotated games in the Makogonov Grünfeld?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;master-games&gt;&lt;grunfeld-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1578" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-12-01T22:12:08.403" Score="11" ViewCount="29162" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know that this question may be for a more psychology-focus forum, and &quot;great&quot; is an understatement for players such as Fischer; yet, I want to know your opinion on this question. Is it intelligence? Is it pressure? Or is it the game itself? Whatever is the ultimate answer, I wonder if the grand gift or talent has a big backlash, or even at a lower level of play, does playing game become harmful then?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;edit: Maybe I should rephrase my question a little bit. Why and how do some great chess players become mentally ill, and why and how do others stay mentally stable? I would like to hear more about the other side of the discussion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="773" LastEditorUserId="773" LastEditDate="2013-07-14T07:58:07.953" LastActivityDate="2014-11-20T04:54:53.340" Title="Why and how do great chess players become &quot;crazy&quot;?" Tags="&lt;fischer&gt;&lt;grandmaster&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="4" ClosedDate="2014-11-22T19:22:44.173" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1579" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1578" CreationDate="2012-12-01T22:17:53.680" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Great talent and great psychological instability go well along in an altogether very unbalanced life.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't think the game in itself causes that, nor that being crazy¹ helps to play, only that &lt;em&gt;concentrating the focus of a lifetime to a single thing can very wall harm one's sanity&lt;/em&gt;, especially as powerful minds are dedicated to it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georg_Cantor#Late_years&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Cantor&lt;/a&gt; comes to mind, relatedly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;¹ In all it's fuzziness. Define “crazy” if you want answers to try and be objective.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="672" LastEditorUserId="672" LastEditDate="2013-08-30T22:03:42.160" LastActivityDate="2013-08-30T22:03:42.160" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1580" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1567" CreationDate="2012-12-02T01:35:40.773" Score="18" Body="&lt;p&gt;This episode from a &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1032565b94&amp;amp;kpage=1&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;game in the 1961 Botvinnik - Tal match&lt;/a&gt; does not directly answer the question, but I believe is interesting enough to point out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One of the comments to the game quotes Botvinnik:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;After two days of play and two sleepless nights I was thoroughly&#xA;  tired out, yet I did not take my usual thermos flask of coffee with me&#xA;  to the adjournment session - this would be the most weighty proof that&#xA;  I would make just a few more moves and then resign the game. It was&#xA;  during these few moves that Tal had to miss the stalemate&quot;. -&#xA;  Botvinnik.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;match&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Ch World , Moscow (Russia) (20)&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;1961.05.08&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;20&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1/2-1/2&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Mikhail Tal&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Mikhail Botvinnik&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;B12&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;242&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.e5 Bf5 4.h4 h6 5.Ne2 e6 6.Ng3 Ne7 7.Nc3 Nd7&#xA;8.Be3 Bh7 9.Bd3 Bxd3 10.cxd3 h5 11.Nce2 g6 12.Qd2 Ng8 13.O-O-O&#xA;Bh6 14.Kb1 Bxe3 15.fxe3 Nh6 16.e4 Qe7 17.exd5 exd5 18.Qa5 Nf8&#xA;19.Rdf1 Ne6 20.Rf3 Qd8 21.Qa4 Qb6 22.Rc1 Ng4 23.Nf1 O-O 24.Ne3&#xA;f5 25.g3 Nh2 26.Rf4 Ng4 27.Ng2 Rae8 28.Qa3 Rf7 29.Rc3 a6&#xA;30.Rb3 Qa7 31.Qd6 Qb8 32.Qxb8 Rxb8 33.Rf1 Nh2 34.Rc1 Re8&#xA;35.Ngf4 Nxf4 36.gxf4 Ng4 37.Rb6 Kg7 38.Rh1 Nh6 39.Nc3 Rc7&#xA;40.Na4 Nf7 41.Kc2 Nd8 42.Kd2 Ne6 43.Ke3 Rd7 44.b4 Kf7 45.Nc5&#xA;Nxc5 46.bxc5 Ra8 47.Kd2 Ke6 48.Rg1 Rg7 49.Kc3 Ra7 50.Kb4 a5&#xA;51.Ka4 Ra8 52.Rgb1 Ra7 53.R1b5 Rg8 54.a3 Re8 55.Rxa5 Rea8&#xA;56.Rxa7 Rxa7+ 57.Kb4 g5 58.hxg5 h4 59.a4 h3 60.Ka3 h2 61.Rb1&#xA;Ra8 62.g6 Rg8 63.Rh1 Rxg6 64.Rxh2 Rg3 65.Rh6+ Kd7 66.Rh7+ Kc8&#xA;67.e6 Rxd3+ 68.Kb2 Re3 69.e7 Kd7 70.e8=Q+ Kxe8 71.Rxb7 Kd8&#xA;72.a5 Re2+ 73.Kb3 Re1 74.Kc2 Re2+ 75.Kc3 Ra2 76.Rb6 Kc7 77.a6&#xA;Ra1 78.Kb2 Ra4 79.Kb3 Ra1 80.Rb7+ Kc8 81.Rb6 Kc7 82.Rb7+ Kc8&#xA;83.Ra7 Rb1+ 84.Kc3 Ra1 85.Ra8+ Kc7 86.Kb3 Rb1+ 87.Kc3 Ra1&#xA;88.Kb3 Rb1+ 89.Ka2 Rb5 90.a7 Ra5+ 91.Kb3 Kb7 92.Rf8 Rb5+&#xA;93.Ka4 Kxa7 94.Rxf5 Rb1 95.Rf6 Kb7 96.f5 Ra1+ 97.Kb4 Rb1+&#xA;98.Kc3 Rc1+ 99.Kd2 Rf1 100.Ke3 Kc7 101.Rf7+ Kd8 102.Ke2 Rf4&#xA;103.Kd3 Rf3+ 104.Kd2 Kc8 105.Ke2 Rf4 106.Ke3 Rf1 107.Rf8+ Kd7&#xA;108.Rf6 Kc7 109.Rf7+ Kd8 110.Ke2 Rf4 111.Kd3 Rf3+ 112.Kc2 Kc8&#xA;113.f6 Kd8 114.Rf8+ Kc7 115.Kd2 Kb7 116.Ke2 Rf4 117.Ke3 Rf1&#xA;118.Rf7+ Kc8 119.Kd2 Rf3 120.Kc2 Kd8 121.Rf8+ Kc7 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="307" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2013-01-27T04:07:10.583" LastActivityDate="2013-01-27T04:07:10.583" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1581" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1582" CreationDate="2012-12-02T16:22:23.997" Score="11" ViewCount="3908" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a software engineer by profession, and a chess enthusiast (around 1600 rated).&#xA;I would like to know is there any professional university certified course like Masters etc. in chess?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can someone opt for Chess as a means of getting Ph.D or do some research in it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can tell me answers like becoming titled players is the same as that, but i am talking about academic university level course.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is yes, it is there? Can someone post me a link to that?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="806" LastActivityDate="2016-08-03T20:03:30.390" Title="Is it possible to get a professional degree in chess?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;theory&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1582" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1581" CreationDate="2012-12-03T04:32:39.107" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are a couple that come to mind, but I am not sure of the present status of them:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Texas Tech has &lt;a href=&quot;http://susanpolgar.blogspot.com/2010/08/obtaining-college-degree-while.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;SPICE&lt;/a&gt; (Susan Polgar Institute for Chess Excellence) founded by Susan Polgar and is the first chess institute of it's kind in the world.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Aberdeen University in Scotland was preparing to launch the world's &lt;a href=&quot;http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/1371143.stm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;first doctoral program in Chess&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as research goes, you can research anything you want about chess, but keep in mind that one normally does not research chess alone, but researches things build up to chess.  By things, I might mean certain data structures or algorithms that are found in chess software.  Other avenues of research can be explored besides the technical part of it as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Equating a chess title to a degree title is too subjective.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-12-03T19:06:49.443" LastActivityDate="2012-12-03T19:06:49.443" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1584" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1569" CreationDate="2012-12-03T19:09:28.013" Score="16" Body="&lt;p&gt;The following suggestions will work for players in the 1600-2000 elo range. If you are above 2000, you probably already have better techniques than these. And if you are 1600 or below, &lt;strong&gt;tactics&lt;/strong&gt; is arguably a lot more useful to learn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's an assortment of things I used to try when I wanted to learn a opening. Note: I had access to Fritz and Chessbase and that helped.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Get a book (or a chess video) on the major ideas in the opening or variation that you are interested in.&#xA;This is fundamental. Watch it, or read it multiple times to absorb the themes.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Get hold of a bunch of games with your opening of interest. (Chessbase or Fritz makes this really easy). Sort them in different ways into smaller databases for your own reference.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Play through the games in various speeds. Click the steps fast, every few seconds, or very slow to absorb what's going on.&#xA;(Ideally, you want to focus on the games where your color of choice wins. That way you'll know the winning themes.)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I often learned by playing through games of players who were a 100-200 points above me, rather than from GM's. The reason was that my opponents would deviate from theory very early on, and I could see how players of strength comparable to me handled the positions.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Pay attention to the &lt;strong&gt;minor pieces&lt;/strong&gt; and see which squares they usually occupy. Chessbase has a cool feature that plots the probability of a piece occupying each square in your opening of choice. I found that very useful.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Play through the games paying attention mainly to the &lt;strong&gt;pawn structure&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;For me, it was usually enough to learn the first 10-12 moves and then the ideas. If you play the same opening enough, you can increase that to a few more moves.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I learned this technique from Silman's book. I'd print out a position (from the opening I was trying to get familiar with) and then stare at it and try to write down a &lt;strong&gt;very detailed evaluation&lt;/strong&gt; of it. This was surprisingly difficult for me. I could come with a few basic points, and then I 'd go over someone's annotations and see that they could look much much deeper into the position. Doing this often can be quite beneficial.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I'd run my games through Fritz's analysis and watch in horror at the things both me and my opponent had missed. But I also learned not to miss those things the next time.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Keeping your own annotations is extremely useful. I'd write notes and keep adding to it as I learned more. Reading my own notes was often more helpful than reading the IM's and GM's who had much deeper knowledge.    &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope that helps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="764" LastEditorUserId="757" LastEditDate="2012-12-03T23:33:03.590" LastActivityDate="2012-12-03T23:33:03.590" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1585" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1587" CreationDate="2012-12-04T21:46:41.317" Score="11" ViewCount="1048" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am looking for some advice and pointers on teaching young kids about endgame ideas. (Say for children ~8 years old). I am asking specifically regarding my nephew, but I have seen this happen to other kids as well. Often, they know how to mate with K+R vs K, K+Q vs K and similar.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In their actual games, they will get a good position (often even a piece advantage) and then they are just meandering instead of casting a mating net. Here's the interesting thing, if my nephew is shown a mate in 2 or 3, he'll usually figure it out. But in his own games, he seems happy to just keep making the moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any suggestions and link/book pointers from parents, coaches welcome.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="764" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2013-10-06T19:09:32.327" LastActivityDate="2018-12-31T10:56:54.600" Title="Teaching endgame ideas to children" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;scholastic-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1586" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1585" CreationDate="2012-12-05T00:02:49.397" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;It looks like he didn't quite integrate that the point of making moves is to win the game in the end.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A piece advantage is just a means of capturing more of an advantage (often, a queen &lt;em&gt;via&lt;/em&gt; promotion), to easily crush defenses and mate. At least, that's what I'd go for with a piece advantage. If they don't have a piece advantage yet, then try and get it¹. I wouldn't call that endgame², though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, being 8 years old, I think that this will just come as he grows and thinks more in terms of goals in a fight, and less as a game where you play moves according to some rules. &lt;strong&gt;I don't think you should worry about that if he's happy as it is&lt;/strong&gt;. At least, not until he starts being bugged by “and now what” himself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/q/487/672&quot;&gt;This question&lt;/a&gt; might be of interest.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;¹ I wouldn't mind making capturing pieces the first objective of a young player once he knows checkmate is how a game ends. If he loses games while being ahead in material, he'll learn the difference.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;² Endgame, in my mind, is about more equal positions, how to win and not draw, or how to get an endgame advantage. I'd call finishing a game with a piece advantage “finishing the work”, rather.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="672" LastEditorUserId="672" LastEditDate="2018-12-30T09:28:32.897" LastActivityDate="2018-12-30T09:28:32.897" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1587" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1585" CreationDate="2012-12-05T00:40:02.027" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;One great resource for teaching kids chess is &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesskid.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;www.chesskid.com&lt;/a&gt;.  In particular, if you want to learn more about teaching the endgame to children, you can checkout &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesskid.com/article/search.html?keyword=&amp;amp;cat_id=18&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;chesskid.com's articles on endgames&lt;/a&gt;.  A simple google search will yield you a ton more results, but this should get you started.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my opinion, the reason why kids and adults in general solve tactical problems in isolation, but fail the same tactical problem in an actual game is for a variety of reasons, some of which may include and in no particular order:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Nerves - Solving an endgame puzzle with no time to worry about or no opponent staring you down is a lot easier.  It is the only goal.  He is not looking to beat someone.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The goal is to solve the problem in an isolated endgame puzzle, but in an actual game, the goal is to win, therefore, he might get lost in the position and forget about the endgame pattern.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Learning to recognize endgame patterns in an actual game is also key to learning how to solve it during a game instead of with just a few pieces on the board.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One idea is after he has played a game, if he missed anything or even if he did not, go over the endgame with him and see if he recognizes it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastEditorUserId="109" LastEditDate="2012-12-05T01:17:41.640" LastActivityDate="2012-12-05T01:17:41.640" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1588" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="162" CreationDate="2012-12-05T00:57:23.987" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Despite all feminist claims, it's not cultural, but biological.  In countries where supposedly the culture is more supportive for equality in activities (like USSR), males are by far relatively predominant in chess, the same as in US.  It's the same with careers.  It hasn't made much of a difference now that engineering, for instance, has been a field accessible to women for a long time.  Most of them simply prefer social activities more.  As Desmond Morris says, the brains of men and women work differently from each other.  This doesn't imply any inferiority, simply there are activities more suited for men and activities more suited for women.  E.g. dyslexia is almost wholly an issue for men, not for women.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="816" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-12-05T14:56:45.303" LastActivityDate="2012-12-05T14:56:45.303" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1589" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1592" CreationDate="2012-12-05T12:35:01.837" Score="14" ViewCount="2803" Body="&lt;p&gt;The opening shown here is quite common. Is it generally a good or a bad idea to give up a kKnight and a bishop for the castled Rook and the f-pawn? In terms of their &amp;quot;standard&amp;quot; value, both pairs are generally considered as being worth 6 points.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Ng5 O-O 5.Nxf7 Rxf7 6.Bxf7+ Kxf7 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="587" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-12-31T01:58:33.687" LastActivityDate="2020-12-31T01:58:33.687" Title="Giving up a knight and bishop for castled rook and pawn" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1590" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="725" CreationDate="2012-12-05T12:51:10.963" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are a number of examples from international level games on this page: &lt;a href=&quot;http://timkr.home.xs4all.nl/chess2/minor.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Practical Underpromotion&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here I have copied some of the more interesting ones. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Vasuikov - Tukmakov, Erevan 1976&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/5p2/4p3/4P3/4K1k1/7r/7p/7R w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Rg1+ hxg1=R! ( 1...hxg1=Q??= )&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Simonson - Lasker, New York, 1892&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;2k5/8/2PK4/P7/8/8/8/8 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1...Kb8 2.Kd7 ( 2.c7+?? Kc8= ) 2...Ka8 3.c7 Ka7 4.c8=R! ( 4.c8=Q??= ) &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Badestein - Otto, Wernigerode 1952&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;5R2/8/4k3/8/8/8/5p1K/6r1 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1...f1=R! ( 1...f1=Q?? 2.Re8+ Kd6 ( 2...Kd7 3.Rd8+ Kxd8= ) ) &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Sokolsky - Ravinsky, USSR 1938&lt;/strong&gt; This is a very interesting game, but unfortunately, a &lt;em&gt;lot&lt;/em&gt; of variations have been analysed, and unfortunately, I do not have the patience to convert them to PGN. :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="587" LastEditorUserId="10380" LastEditDate="2019-04-19T07:34:26.800" LastActivityDate="2019-04-19T07:34:26.800" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1591" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1589" CreationDate="2012-12-05T14:28:42.730" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;That early in the game, it's a &lt;em&gt;bad idea&lt;/em&gt;. White is now very behind in development and won't be able to take advantage of the misplaced black king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Consider this: black is ahead by the &lt;code&gt;♞f6&lt;/code&gt; and the &lt;code&gt;♝c5&lt;/code&gt;. White is ahead by the &lt;code&gt;♖a1&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;♙f2&lt;/code&gt;. Which pieces are the most useful? Black's, definitely.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think this exchange is considered inferior in most cases, that is, it's a good idea when it leads to a powerful attack on the lone king, but no less. It'll often be easy for Black to capture the pawn back, with his “piece advantage”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;I&lt;/em&gt; do enjoy these exchanges, as they tend to unbalance the games (and I hate draws), but it's only a reasonable option if White's rooks can be quickly put to good use.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="672" LastEditorUserId="11202" LastEditDate="2017-04-17T19:09:06.897" LastActivityDate="2017-04-17T19:09:06.897" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1592" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1589" CreationDate="2012-12-05T14:38:04.147" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;This whole sequence is bad for white.  The minor pieces are stronger at such an early stage of the game.  White has virtually no development, while black now has more development and tempo.  Almost any player should value 2 pieces over 1 rook.  Just continue developing instead of the overly optimistic &lt;code&gt;Ng5&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This may be acceptable in the &lt;code&gt;dilworth attack&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;Open Ruy Lopez&lt;/code&gt; where black sacrifices 2 pieces for a &lt;code&gt;rook&lt;/code&gt; on &lt;code&gt;f2&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastEditorUserId="109" LastEditDate="2012-12-05T14:57:04.523" LastActivityDate="2012-12-05T14:57:04.523" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1593" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1596" CreationDate="2012-12-05T17:09:16.550" Score="15" ViewCount="4659" Body="&lt;p&gt;Although the Halloween Gambit is generally considered bad (and nearly losing for white), it is tricky to meet over the board, especially at the club level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How should black play in order to refute white's gambit?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[White &quot;Four Knights&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Halloween Gambit&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. Nxe5?! Nxe5 5. d4 Nc6 (5... Ng6)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12" LastActivityDate="2013-12-21T03:09:20.687" Title="How should black meet the Halloween Gambit?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;four-knights&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1594" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1589" CreationDate="2012-12-05T17:38:13.930" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;An interesting line after the Sozin attack (or Fischer attack) 6.Bc4 in the Scheveningen has gained popularity in the last years, and presents a similar concept:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 e6 6. Bc4 Be7 7. Bb3 O-O 8. Be3 Nbd7 9. Bxe6 fxe6 10. Nxe6 Qa5 11. Nxf8 Bxf8&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The sacrifice of two smaller pieces for a Rook and two pawns is not uncommon and the position reached after the exchange proposed here is considered &quot;dynamically balanced&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The mere &quot;pawn value&quot; is not enough to determine which side is better, one has to take into consideration the positional (relative) value of the remaining pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="757" LastEditorUserId="587" LastEditDate="2012-12-06T13:40:14.053" LastActivityDate="2012-12-06T13:40:14.053" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1595" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1593" CreationDate="2012-12-05T18:09:49.313" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;When meeting tricky (complex) positions, the best we can try is to simplify the position, this is for sure one of those tricky ones.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;5...Nc6&lt;/code&gt; seems like a good option&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;r1bqkb1r/pppp1ppp/5n2/4n3/3PP3/2N5/PPP2PPP/R1BQKB1R b KQkq d3 0 5&#xA;&#xA;5... Nc6 6. e5 Ng8 7. Bc4 d6 8. Bf4 dxe5 9. dxe5 Bf5 10. O-O Qxd1 11. Raxd1 Bxc2 12. Rd2 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="757" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-12-06T20:39:27.903" LastActivityDate="2012-12-06T20:39:27.903" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1596" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1593" CreationDate="2012-12-05T18:10:31.567" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;After &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. Nxe5?! Nxe5 5. d4 Nc6 6. d5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Instead of moving the &lt;code&gt;c6 Knight&lt;/code&gt;, black should continue with &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Knights_Game,_Halloween_Gambit#Pinski.27s_6...Bb4&quot;&gt;Jan Pinski's &lt;code&gt;6...Bb4&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/a&gt;. Black will just give away the &lt;code&gt;c6 knight&lt;/code&gt; and then black will take the &lt;code&gt;e4 pawn&lt;/code&gt; with the &lt;code&gt;f6 Knight&lt;/code&gt;.  White can't take the Knight because his own is pinned and if white moves their queen to &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt;, black can just move their queen to &lt;code&gt;e7&lt;/code&gt; to protect both the bishop and the knight.  A continuation might be something like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. Nxe5?! Nxe5 5. d4 Nc6 6. d5 Bb4 7. dxc6 Nxe4 8. Qd4 Qe7 9. Qxg7 Nxc3+ 10. Be3 Nd5+ 11. c3 Rf8&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you can see from above, if black plays accurately, there can be many discovered checks on white and if black wants, they can continue by taking the bishop on &lt;code&gt;e3&lt;/code&gt; eventually with another discovered check to follow or white will have to take the Knight, but either way, black will just take back with &lt;code&gt;Qxe3+&lt;/code&gt; and it is pretty much over for white.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is a professional game between &lt;code&gt;Grigor Minchev&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;Aleksandr Pretov&lt;/code&gt; where black was unable to defend properly and was devastated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;  1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. Nc3 Nc6 4. Nxe5 Nxe5 5. d4 Nc6 6. d5&#xA;  Ne5 7. f4 Ng6 8. e5 Ng8 9. d6 cxd6 10. exd6 Qf6 11. Nb5 Rb8&#xA;  12. Be3 b6 13. Qe2 Kd8 14. O-O-O Qe6 15. f5 Qxf5 16. Qc4 Qe5&#xA;  17. Qc7+ Ke8 18. Bd4 Qf4+ 19. Kb1 Ra8 20. Re1+ Be7 21. g3 Qd2&#xA;  22. Bg2 Qxg2 23. dxe7 N8xe7 24. Nd6+ Kf8 25. Qd8# 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-12-05T20:39:55.343" LastActivityDate="2012-12-05T20:39:55.343" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1597" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1521" CreationDate="2012-12-05T18:11:40.043" Score="23" Body="&lt;p&gt;In blitz, you can tell by how much time they're using.  People using engines use a consistent amount of time for every move, instead of blitzing through the opening and slowing down to a crawl in the middlegame like most normal players.  In particular, they can't play the opening fast, because they have to update their computer board after every opening move.  If they take five seconds on move two and five seconds on move twenty, they're probably using an engine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="47" LastActivityDate="2012-12-05T18:11:40.043" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1598" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1599" CreationDate="2012-12-05T18:45:26.873" Score="12" ViewCount="878" Body="&lt;p&gt;The reason I ask this is because according to this &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.panarmenian.net/eng/news/131417/&quot;&gt;article&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;code&gt;Magnus Carlsen&lt;/code&gt; is going to participate in &lt;code&gt;FIDE's&lt;/code&gt; pilot project on doping test.  &lt;code&gt;FIDE&lt;/code&gt; says the reason behind it is that the organization wants to be considered as an Olympic sport by the &lt;code&gt;IOC&lt;/code&gt; in the future, with anti-doping program set as a prerequisite.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I personally don't see how doping can increase the level of play, but I can see how it would decrease the level of play, but then there would be no point in doping. Also, is this a result of there has to be some anti-doping test for every Olympic sport regardless if doping has an effect or not?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastActivityDate="2012-12-05T20:24:38.883" Title="Can doping increase/decrease a player's level of play?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;fide&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1599" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1598" CreationDate="2012-12-05T19:48:48.103" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;One way to think about this - if there was no societal stigma or legality surrounding the issue, would the use of stimulants improve one's chess game?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A while back, there was &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/drugsmedications-to-improve-chess-performance-uncommon-other-means-to&quot;&gt;a thread around this topic&lt;/a&gt; on chess.com, though be warned that a lot of it is just noise.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Seems like an interesting choice that has to be made - short-term increase in concentration (there are drugs for that: taking Adderall, Ritalin or caffeine) versus stimulants that enhance right-brain thinking that help one see increased connections.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I read Jonah Lehrer's book &lt;em&gt;&quot;Imagine&quot;&lt;/em&gt; I thought of possible connections to chess. The book covers this at some length, especially as it relates to Bob Dylan's creativity. This &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/where_good_ideas_hide_PZviztE7ICvfVjU5NXVzlI&quot;&gt;NYPost article covers it well&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Stimulants increase the flow of dopamine, creating a state in which&#xA;  “the world is suddenly saturated with interesting ideas,” Lehrer says.&#xA;  “Dopamine makes even the most tedious details too interesting to&#xA;  ignore.”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So it is arguable that these dopamine stimulating drugs can make players see connections and become a better player, at least for a period of time. For concentration improving stimulants, with a lot of immediate incentives riding on it, a player might opt for the short-term gain, even knowing the long term deterioration. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="764" LastEditorUserId="764" LastEditDate="2012-12-05T20:24:38.883" LastActivityDate="2012-12-05T20:24:38.883" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1600" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-12-05T19:49:46.617" Score="19" ViewCount="15340" Body="&lt;p&gt;For reasons I'd rather not get into, what chess programs work well on the console (ie. does not require X Windows)? Something with an ASCII visualization of the board would be incredibly helpful (I'm still a chess newbie).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="822" LastActivityDate="2019-08-05T10:12:59.360" Title="Chess program for Linux/Unix console" Tags="&lt;software&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1601" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1598" CreationDate="2012-12-05T19:50:15.420" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;Erythropoietin (EPO) is a banned substance that does not specifically makes you look like Žydrūnas Savickas, it is a glycoprotein hormone that controls the production of red blood cells, which are responsible for delivering oxygen to the entire body, more oxygen = better overall, not hulk.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EPO is produced endogenous (meaning inside our bodies) and it is the administration of the exogenous synthetic protein that is banned from sports competitions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EPO plays a major role in the brain's response to neuronal stress and neuronal injuries. It makes perfect sense that FIDE wants to test for drugs like this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="821" LastActivityDate="2012-12-05T19:50:15.420" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1602" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1600" CreationDate="2012-12-05T20:00:58.437" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;What about &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.gnu.org/software/chess/&quot;&gt;GNU Chess&lt;/a&gt;? It has a plain terminal interface but supports visual interfaces such as XBoard.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastActivityDate="2012-12-05T20:00:58.437" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1603" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1600" CreationDate="2012-12-05T20:05:27.470" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;After installing GNU Chess run the command gnuchess from the terminal, it would look something like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;~$ gnuchess&#xA;GNU Chess 5.07&#xA;Adjusting HashSize to 1024 slots&#xA;Transposition table:  Entries=1K Size=48K&#xA;Pawn hash table: Entries=0K Size=32K&#xA;White (1) : e4&#xA;1. e4&#xA;&#xA;black  KQkq  e3&#xA;r n b q k b n r &#xA;p p p p p p p p &#xA;. . . . . . . . &#xA;. . . . . . . . &#xA;. . . . P . . . &#xA;. . . . . . . . &#xA;P P P P . P P P &#xA;R N B Q K B N R &#xA;&#xA;Thinking...&#xA;Looking for opening book in book.dat...&#xA;Looking for opening book in /usr/share/games/gnuchess/book.dat...&#xA;Read opening book (/usr/share/games/gnuchess/book.dat)...&#xA;Loading book from /usr/share/games/gnuchess/book.dat.&#xA;40304 hash collisions...  Opening database: 265053 book positions. &#xA;In this position, there are 11 book moves:&#xA; Nc6(71/77/22/32)  Nf6(54/113/88/113)  a6(75/3/1/0)  b6(67/11/3/9) &#xA; c6(52/451/376/743)  d6(52/178/153/229)  e6(52/651/582/970)        g6(59/155/88/117) &#xA; c5(56/2535/1691/2912)  d5(54/47/38/35)  e5(54/2518/1938/3369)  &#xA;&#xA; c5(1322)  e5(1312)  e6(376)  c6(277)  d6(141)  g6(136)  Nf6(109)  Nc6(108) &#xA; a6(76)  d5(76)  b6(70)  &#xA;&#xA;&#xA;white  KQkq  c6&#xA;r n b q k b n r &#xA;p p . p p p p p &#xA;. . . . . . . . &#xA;. . p . . . . . &#xA;. . . . P . . . &#xA;. . . . . . . . &#xA;P P P P . P P P &#xA;R N B Q K B N R &#xA;&#xA;&#xA;My move is : c5&#xA;White (2) : &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="757" LastActivityDate="2012-12-05T20:05:27.470" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1604" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1593" CreationDate="2012-12-05T23:27:05.233" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit :&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After posting this I realized that I just transposed to pretty common position, which I believe is not all that great for Black. But perhaps the idea of getting a crazy attacker to play a dry position is still valid, so I will keep my post up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What about returning the knight right away with &lt;code&gt;5.d6&lt;/code&gt;. I don't think that white has any better moves than &lt;code&gt;6. dxe5&lt;/code&gt; and then exchanging queens. Where white only has a slight advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. Nxe5?! Nxe5 5. d4 d6 6. dxe5 dxe5 7. Qxd8 Kxd8&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I realize that this is not everybody's cup of tea, and on pure chess level this is not impressive. However, this might be useful in practical sense. People who play Halloween Gambit love to attack; it is likely that the above resulting position is not to their taste. This would also take them out their opening territory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="307" LastEditorUserId="307" LastEditDate="2012-12-05T23:33:45.253" LastActivityDate="2012-12-05T23:33:45.253" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1605" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1607" CreationDate="2012-12-06T13:48:26.200" Score="9" ViewCount="380" Body="&lt;p&gt;Though queenside castling is less common, it is important enough to study. If your opponent has castled queenside, sometimes you have an opportunity to expose their King by sacrificing your Bishop for 2 pawns, as showed below. (I have removed other pieces from the board to avoid distraction.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;2kr4/ppp5/8/8/8/4B3/8/4K3 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Bxa7 b6 2.Bxb6 cxb6 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What factors should one consider before deciding to offer this sacrifice? To put it another way, in what positions is this sacrifice favourable and in what positions would it be unfavourable?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit&lt;/strong&gt; As per comment from &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/users/109/xaisoft&quot;&gt;xaisoft&lt;/a&gt;, I am posting a board with other pieces. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.d4 d6 3.Bc4 Nf6 4.Nf3 Nc6 5.dxe5 dxe5 6.Nxe5 Nxe5 7.Qe2 Bd7 8.Nc3 Qe7 9.Be3 O-O-O 10.Bxa7 b6 11.Bxb6 cxb6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="587" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2012-12-07T12:09:14.443" Title="Sacrificing Bishop for Two Pawns against Queenside Castling" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;sacrifice&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1606" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1621" CreationDate="2012-12-06T15:08:59.623" Score="7" ViewCount="243" Body="&lt;p&gt;My friend and I have done substantial research on a number of various lines over the years, and now that we are not really active anymore we were hoping to publish some of the gems.  Most of the analysis is in uncommon openings (Veresov, Bird's, Budapest) so we are pretty confident that it isn't already known.  Our goal was to see some of our lines in MCO or to have a variation make its way into ECO; we think it would be really cool to be using Fritz to look at a game and have it give the variation name as one that we analyzed.  How would we go about doing this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="47" LastEditorUserId="47" LastEditDate="2012-12-06T15:19:42.767" LastActivityDate="2013-01-07T14:41:43.773" Title="How to get opening analysis published and in ECO?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1607" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1605" CreationDate="2012-12-06T15:09:55.857" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd argue you never want to play such a bishop sacrifice if your opponent is willing to take it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, I think your question is rather “when can I take the undefended &lt;code&gt;♟ a7&lt;/code&gt;”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To answer this, I'd say you need&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Either a defense on the bishop (with a rook or a knight)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Or a crushing attack if you can sacrifice it. A queen around, or a rook coming on the open c-file, with pieces supporting that are mandatory. If the king can't easily escape to &lt;code&gt;e8&lt;/code&gt;, that's better.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Nothing better to do. That's just a far pawn, and it takes 2 tempi to take eat if you want to save your bishop. Your opponent need not take bigger of an advantage in the meantime, that you could defend from before taking the pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="672" LastActivityDate="2012-12-06T15:09:55.857" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1608" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1610" CreationDate="2012-12-06T15:41:42.727" Score="9" ViewCount="3932" Body="&lt;p&gt;What questions do you ask yourself before making a move?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do you have a mental check-list that you go through before deciding on which move is the best move in the current position?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The move does not have to be a candidate move because most beginners are not thinking in terms of candidate moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastEditorUserId="109" LastEditDate="2012-12-06T15:48:38.113" LastActivityDate="2018-05-19T15:59:09.580" Title="What to consider before making a move?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1609" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1644" CreationDate="2012-12-06T15:44:40.490" Score="16" ViewCount="3308" Body="&lt;p&gt;Do you have a thought process for finding candidate moves?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once you find all possible candidate moves, how do you narrow it down to your final choice?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Regarding the process, do you have a certain order of things you look at or is it in a random order?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-03-12T21:15:56.627" LastActivityDate="2020-01-03T19:42:41.190" Title="What thought process should one use to find candidate moves?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;training&gt;&lt;board-vision&gt;&lt;candidate-move&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1610" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1608" CreationDate="2012-12-06T16:09:51.980" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Before playing a move, I like to think I pay attention to the following :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Is some piece of mine undefended ?&lt;/strong&gt; If a few aren't, then I should bay a particular attention to them not being forkable, with anything (by a queen, mostly). If it is the case, I might decide playing something that safens this matter.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Is my &lt;em&gt;king&lt;/em&gt; safe enough ?&lt;/strong&gt; All checks my opponent can administer should be benign.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Is my move achieving something ?&lt;/strong&gt; Better have a wrong plan than no plan at all.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;What move am I expecting my opponent to play ?&lt;/strong&gt; A handful of possible moves is fine, as long as it's not “well, anything, basically”. Ideally, I see how neither of these moves are a problem to me.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Tactics&lt;/strong&gt; : Often enough, there is about one square of interest on which both players' pieces concentrate : is this square defended enough times, by the right pieces ? (i.e. defending with a rook and a queen a pawn that my opponent attacks with light pieces is not going to help) Is the checkmate I am defending from still not working ?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, once I thought enough about all of these, I'd expect not to lose any game, but 4. and 5. still leave the door open to surprises if one doesn't read variations into enough depth, “how many is &lt;em&gt;enough&lt;/em&gt; ?” still being an open question :·)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="672" LastActivityDate="2012-12-06T16:09:51.980" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1611" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1615" CreationDate="2012-12-06T16:20:24.497" Score="22" ViewCount="2515" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have been in a situation where I have not been paying attention and suddenly I move my queen to an unprotected square and it is taken.  My initial thought is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;Oh $*%!&lt;/code&gt; :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But if the blunder is mediocre or not devastating, how does one get into the mindset of remaining optimistic and still playing for the win?  I have lost my queen before and still went on to win, but this is mainly due to the fact that my opponent does not know how to take advantage of the opportunity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many players who make a blunder, obviously depending on how big it is, might just give up in the game when they actually still have a chance to win or at least draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-03-12T21:09:50.697" LastActivityDate="2021-02-11T14:29:47.250" Title="How to recover from a blunder?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;psychology&gt;&lt;blunder&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1612" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1609" CreationDate="2012-12-06T16:46:42.307" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I play chess, here's my process of thinking:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) Check defensive move:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I check pin, fork... against me&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I check move to support my pieces&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) Check offensive move:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I check mate&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If I don't find mate, I check possibilities to pin, fork... pieces of opponent&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Otherwise, I develop my pieces&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In general, I think defensive move first, then offensive move but this is my way of thinking. Each player thinks differently.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="813" LastEditorUserId="813" LastEditDate="2013-04-18T11:12:04.433" LastActivityDate="2013-04-18T11:12:04.433" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1613" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-12-06T16:48:04.597" Score="8" ViewCount="264" Body="&lt;p&gt;When reading chess articles or watching videos online, my criteria for often determining if it is worth reading or watching is if it is made my someone with a FIDE title (IM, FM, GM, etc), but what other criteria should I use to determine if someone or something is worth reading or watching?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some that I can think of myself are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The author of the article/video has a FIDE title.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The website where articles or videos are found has a large following.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The author is relatively widely known even if they don't have a FIDE title.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, are there any red flags that should indicate that if I watch or read this, I probably will get incorrect/stale information?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastActivityDate="2020-07-01T14:06:08.273" Title="Determining trusted chess sources?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1614" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1611" CreationDate="2012-12-06T16:52:33.263" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;You just can hope your opponent makes a mistake too or finding an awesome move to re-gain some advantage. If you do, draw is possible at least. Moreover, more concentration will help you in this case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In other case, your opponent has many chances to win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="813" LastActivityDate="2012-12-06T16:52:33.263" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1615" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1611" CreationDate="2012-12-06T17:12:10.083" Score="24" Body="&lt;p&gt;After you blunder, it's incredibly common to blunder a second time over the next few moves.  The most important thing you can do is to avoid this second blunder.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In order to do that, you should take a few deep breaths and even get up and walk around.  Although it's nice if your opponent doesn't know that you blundered (i.e. your &quot;blunder&quot; could be part of a deep plan so far as your opponent knows...), it's far more important to remain calm and stay focused on the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After this initial &quot;cool down&quot;, now it's time to re-evaluate the game.  First, are you hopelessly lost at this point, or is the position still unclear?  Perhaps you gave away your winning advantage, but you are still equal.  If you are not lost, it is crucial that you maintain your focus and play accurately - you still have a chance to win or draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, if your blunder was so egregious that your game is hopeless now, it's time to start thinking about &quot;tricks&quot;.  For example, if you hung a pawn or two for nothing, it's time to attack with abandon.  If you can checkmate your opponent, it doesn't matter that you're losing an endgame.  If you hung an entire piece, keep all other material on the board and maintain tension in the position.  The goal here is to try to win tactically (win material back from your opponent or go for an attack).  Another common theme is to introduce time pressure into the game.  Either play tricky moves and force your opponent to get low on time, or let your own clock tick down to a minute or two and pray that your opponent blunders in &lt;em&gt;your&lt;/em&gt; time pressure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a final note, when you are behind in a chess game, it's almost always good to trade pawns, but not pieces.  The rationale is that in an endgame, each pawn is a potential queen for your opponent, while on the other hand, pawnless endgames with an extra piece are notoriously difficult to convert to a win.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12" LastActivityDate="2012-12-06T17:12:10.083" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1616" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1609" CreationDate="2012-12-06T18:13:54.940" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is something I struggle with, I'm in the bad habit of honing in on one move, analyzing it, assessing it as OK, and then going with it, for better or for worse.  I think something that is going to help me instead is to scan &lt;em&gt;all&lt;/em&gt; of the pieces for each side, and take into consideration their prospects, either individually, or in tandem with other forces.  Pawns on the other hand are a different matter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user76" LastActivityDate="2012-12-06T18:13:54.940" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1617" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1618" CreationDate="2012-12-06T18:24:44.150" Score="4" ViewCount="438" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have heard that it is a good idea for white to trade dark-squared bishops because blacks pawns often end up on light squares leaving the dark squares vulnerable.  In the scenario below, it seems &lt;code&gt;5. Nh3&lt;/code&gt; is white's best move for reasons I will explain below, but are there any good reasons why white would choose &lt;code&gt;5. Nf3&lt;/code&gt; over &lt;code&gt;5. Nh3&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. d4 f5 2. g3 Nf6 3. Bg2 e6 4. c4 d5 5. Nf3 (5. Nh3) c6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If white does in fact play &lt;code&gt;5. Nf3&lt;/code&gt; and play continues with &lt;code&gt;5...c6 6. O-O Bd6&lt;/code&gt;, then if white's Knight were on &lt;code&gt;h3&lt;/code&gt; instead of &lt;code&gt;f3&lt;/code&gt;, white could easily prepare the move &lt;code&gt;Bf4&lt;/code&gt; without worrying about getting a damaged pawn structure.  With &lt;code&gt;5. Nf3 c6 6. O-O Bd6&lt;/code&gt;, white's best move is &lt;code&gt;b3&lt;/code&gt; aiming to exchange dark squared bishops with &lt;code&gt;Ba3&lt;/code&gt;, but black's &lt;code&gt;Qd7&lt;/code&gt; stops the dark squared bishop exchange for sometime.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Given the above, if white isntead decides to play &lt;code&gt;5. Nh3&lt;/code&gt;, white is preparing &lt;code&gt;Bf4&lt;/code&gt; for the exchange of the dark squared bishops and avoids the battery of the Bishop on &lt;code&gt;d6&lt;/code&gt; and the Queen on &lt;code&gt;d7&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Given that &lt;code&gt;5. Nh3&lt;/code&gt; has known as long as the stonewall formation has been known and masters of the past have played it frequently, so why is &lt;code&gt;5. Nf3&lt;/code&gt; more popular when it actually seems inferior to &lt;code&gt;5. Nh3&lt;/code&gt;.  Is it because &lt;code&gt;5. Nf3&lt;/code&gt; just seems like a more natural move or has a more natural feel to it?  Are there any other reasons to play &lt;code&gt;5. Nf3&lt;/code&gt; over &lt;code&gt;5. Nh3&lt;/code&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2013-12-07T21:50:13.560" LastActivityDate="2013-12-07T21:50:13.560" Title="Reason(s) to play 5. Nf3 in the stonewall dutch opening?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;dutch-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1618" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1617" CreationDate="2012-12-06T19:51:50.933" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;A couple thoughts:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;After &lt;code&gt;Bxf4&lt;/code&gt;, taking &lt;code&gt;gxf4&lt;/code&gt; is acceptable.  The g-file is open, black's ideas of &lt;code&gt;g5&lt;/code&gt; are prevented, you have a lock on e5, and can fix the pawn structure with &lt;code&gt;f3&lt;/code&gt;+&lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;After a &lt;code&gt;g5-g4&lt;/code&gt; push, h4 is often a better square for the knight than f4, to stop &lt;code&gt;h5-h4&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;f3&lt;/code&gt; points at e5, a better square than f4.  &lt;code&gt;f4&lt;/code&gt; is vulnerable to an &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt; push, and the e6 pawn is rarely weak.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="47" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-12-06T20:38:03.383" LastActivityDate="2012-12-06T20:38:03.383" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1619" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1611" CreationDate="2012-12-06T19:59:34.280" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;Let the one who hasn't blundered a major piece throw the first rock!&quot; Who among us is impervious to this? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Again, there is no definitive answer to this question, just a list of things we could do to cope.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;First, &lt;strong&gt;Go Easy On Yourself&lt;/strong&gt;. Don't make it worse by mentally kicking yourself incessantly. I often try to apply the Dennis Prager &quot;Flat Tire quota&quot; in life. We are all going to have a certain number of 'flats' at really bad times, but that is life, and especially an amateur chess player's rite of passage.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The game is probably lost, but don't let your opponent capitalize on it psychologically, just keep playing at least for a bit. The loss of a piece might actually allow for unexpected moves to throw the opponent off. Try to salvage as best as you can.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;What can you &lt;strong&gt;take-away&lt;/strong&gt;? Can you add something to your mental checklist to minimize (not eliminate) your future blunders?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="764" LastActivityDate="2012-12-06T19:59:34.280" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1620" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1236" CreationDate="2012-12-06T20:03:51.977" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;Nobody knows who he played, because nobody has come forward to take credit; however, some chess sleuths compared the moves against various engines and found that there was considerable evidence to support a particular engine (I believe it was called &quot;blitz tiger&quot;) as the mysterious Fischer.  Because of the incident where Short chatted with Fischer, there must have been a human behind the account as well (many accounts on the ICC are run entirely by computers without any human interaction at all).  The ICC can probably do some user profiling to figure out who the player is either by comparing the location/IP/e-mail to another user or by doing some internet forensics based on information they gathered from the incident.  However, it seems like they either don't care or if they did find out, they don't want to share (based on what xaisoft said) so it will probably always be a mystery.  And, to be honest, it's a better story that way, and because all this is is a good story, that's a good thing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="47" LastActivityDate="2012-12-06T20:03:51.977" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1621" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1606" CreationDate="2012-12-06T20:58:55.283" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just a few ideas for you to try:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Have you checked the latest Mega and Corr databases to see if your lines/variations are in there?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If have access to a few powerful engines (Fritz, Shredder, Houdini and many others) run some analyses on them to see how they fare in terms of evaluating your lines.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;You can make these engines play against these lines, and have your own &quot;run-offs&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Show these lines to some strong players (IMs and above) and see if you can interest them in trying it out, or at least in getting their opinions. (It would be tricky to find players who have these openings in their repertoire if these are uncommon openings.)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I've personally found the Chessbase folks to be very approachable. (I am talking about quite a few years ago.) You can write to Frederic Friedel and ask to be put in contact with their resident opening experts. If the lines are good, they will figure out ways to add them to their opening books. (But you'll have to do the other steps first before approaching them. I suspect that they get contacted by many.)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope that helps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="764" LastActivityDate="2012-12-06T20:58:55.283" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1622" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-12-07T00:27:41.503" Score="10" ViewCount="722" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm looking for a chess opening database that is reasonably complete and computer-readable. It should be available either under a liberal free license (like, say, CC-BY, &lt;strong&gt;no&lt;/strong&gt; GPL), or under reasonable commercial license.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there any?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="172" LastEditorUserId="172" LastEditDate="2012-12-25T04:11:20.800" LastActivityDate="2012-12-25T04:11:20.800" Title="A free chess opening database?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1623" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1608" CreationDate="2012-12-07T11:48:03.407" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I usually consider the following things before making a move:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Which squares is this piece controlling &lt;em&gt;now&lt;/em&gt; and which squares would it control from its new position? &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Which pieces is it defending &lt;em&gt;now&lt;/em&gt; and which pieces would it defend from its new position?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What are the various options for my opponent after I make this move?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;How does this move fit into a longer term plan, or to put it another way, what purpose do I want it to serve?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;How well is the piece protected in its new position? (Of course, this does not apply when I &lt;em&gt;want&lt;/em&gt; to give up the piece.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="587" LastActivityDate="2012-12-07T11:48:03.407" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1624" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="7822" CreationDate="2012-12-07T12:25:55.490" Score="14" ViewCount="567" Body="&lt;p&gt;Two evenly matched players have reached the endgame after exchanging off all their pieces except the King and 3 Pawns. Having castled on opposite sides, we have now reached the following interesting position. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;8/pppk4/8/8/8/8/4KPPP/8 w - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Quite clearly, this is now a race for pawn promotion. What should be the strategy in this position (for both players)? Should your King go after the enemy pawns, or lead your own pawns to promotion? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="587" LastEditorUserId="10867" LastEditDate="2016-07-27T01:15:45.200" LastActivityDate="2016-07-27T01:15:45.200" Title="Promotion race between three non-confronting pawns" Tags="&lt;pawn-promotion&gt;&lt;passed-pawn&gt;&lt;pawn-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="9" FavoriteCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1625" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1606" CreationDate="2012-12-07T15:28:00.377" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Regarding ECO,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;code&gt;Josip Asik&lt;/code&gt;, the CEO of &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessinformant.rs/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;ChessInformant&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In general, your analysis could be implemented in the ECO series. It would be useful to a to see samples of your work and to let them know if was made mostly as a personal/human chess work or as a computer generated output.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The ECO series is consisted of five bookes (and databases) that are not updated too often. For example, the plan is to produce ECO A and ECO B in 2013 and the openings you mentioned might not belong to those specific series.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In general, they prefer internationally well-known authors with a chess background (GM and IM titles).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, they would need further explanations from you and need to know if this is an enthusiastic or commercial based interest.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My recommendation is that you contact &lt;code&gt;Josip Askik&lt;/code&gt; to discuss more with him about this.  He is a very approachable person and would be willing to work with you and actually seemed enthusiastic in finding out more about your findings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2012-12-07T15:28:00.377" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1626" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1624" CreationDate="2012-12-07T17:49:41.820" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Unless there is careless pay, I see this ending up in a draw, play might continue:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/pppk4/8/8/8/8/4KPPP/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Kd3 Ke6 2. g4 a5 3. h4 a4 4. h5 Kf6 5. Kc3 b5 6. h6 Kg6 7. g5 a3 8. Kb3 b4 9. Ka2 Kh7&#xA;10. Kb3 Kg6 11. Ka2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black can't do &lt;code&gt;11... c5&lt;/code&gt;, because then it is basically over with:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  [FEN &quot;8/pppk4/8/8/8/8/4KPPP/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. Kd3 Ke6 2. g4  a5  3. h4  a4  4. h5  Kf6  5. Kc3  b5 &#xA; 6. h6  Kg6  7. g5  a3 8. Kb3  b4  9. Ka2  Kh7  10. Kb3  Kg6 &#xA; 11. Ka2  c5  12. f3 c4  13. f4  c3  14. Kb3  a2  15. Kxa2  c2 &#xA; 16. Kb2 b3 17. Kc1  Kh7 18. f5  Kg8  19. f6  b2+  20. Kxc2  Kf7 &#xA; 21. h7  Kg6 22. h8=Q&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastEditorUserId="109" LastEditDate="2012-12-07T18:03:33.550" LastActivityDate="2012-12-07T18:03:33.550" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1627" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1628" CreationDate="2012-12-08T02:23:05.633" Score="9" ViewCount="2164" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just read the description of FEN (&lt;em&gt;Forsyth–Edwards Notation&lt;/em&gt;) and EPD (&lt;em&gt;Extended Position Description&lt;/em&gt;), I have a basic idea of what they are, but I still have some points that are not entirely clear:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What are the main differences between those two?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When should I use one over the other one?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Which one is more common to see?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am trying to decide which one to use for a personal project, and I can't take this jump without knowing everything about them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="478" LastActivityDate="2012-12-08T02:56:39.677" Title="Differences between FEN and EPD?" Tags="&lt;notation&gt;&lt;fen&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1628" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1627" CreationDate="2012-12-08T02:56:39.677" Score="5" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What are the main differences between the two?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Extended Position Description is a standard for describing chess&#xA;  positions along with an extended set of structured attribute values&#xA;  using the ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange)&#xA;  character set. It is intended for data and command interchange among&#xA;  chess playing programs. It is also intended for the representation of&#xA;  portable opening library repositories. The first four fields of the&#xA;  EPD specification are the same as the first four fields of the closely&#xA;  related FEN specification. Like FEN, EPD can also be used for general&#xA;  position description. However, unlike FEN, EPD is designed to be&#xA;  expandable by the addition of new operations that provide new&#xA;  functionality as needs arise. More information can be found at this &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.drpribut.com/sports/standard.txt&quot;&gt;site&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When should I use one over the other one?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;EPD is more expandable by the additon of new operations and is more&#xA;  versatile and is used primarily in chess programs.  See bullet point one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Which one is more common to see?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Overall, I would say FEN is more common, but this is relative to what you are trying to do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastActivityDate="2012-12-08T02:56:39.677" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1629" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1624" CreationDate="2012-12-08T11:39:46.483" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;I used to think the following draw by repetition looked optimal for complicated reasons (detailed below), but now I doubt it. White may well have a winning strategy, involving putting Black in zugzwang on both sides. See &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/7822/672&quot;&gt;Stephen's answer&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/pppk4/8/8/8/8/4KPPP/8 w - - 0 1 &quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. h4  a5  2. h5 Ke7 3. h6 Kf6 4. g4 a4 5. Kd2 Kg6 6. g5 a3 7. Kc2 b5 8. Kb3 b4 9. Ka2 Kh7 10. Kb3 Kg6 ½-½&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Neither player can advance the &lt;code&gt;♟c&lt;/code&gt;/&lt;code&gt;♙f&lt;/code&gt;, or will end up in zugzwang.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;If White advances the &lt;code&gt;♙f&lt;/code&gt;, Black wins.&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/2p5/6kP/6P1/1p6/pK6/5P2/8 w - - 8 9&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;  9. f3 c6 10. f4 c5 (9. f4 c5) 11. f5+ Kh7 12. Ka2 (12. f6 Kg6 -+) c4 13. Ka1 b3 14. Kb1 c3 15. Ka1 c2 (13. Kb1 b3 14. Ka1 c3 15. Kb1 b2 16. Ka2 c2 17. Kxa3 c1=Q -+(16. Kc2 a2 17. Kxc3 a1=Q -+)) 16. g6+ Kxh6 17. g7 c1=Q# (15. Kc1 a2 -+)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;If Black advances the &lt;code&gt;♟c&lt;/code&gt;, White wins.&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Notice how it falls back to White playing &lt;code&gt;♙f4&lt;/code&gt; with reverse colors.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/2p5/6kP/6P1/1p6/pK6/5P2/8 w - - 8 9&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;  9. Ka2 c6 10. f4! c5 (9... c5 10. f3! c4 11. f4 +- see Wf4) 11. Kb3 c4+ 12. Ka2 +-&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wouldn't call that a full analysis, especially as the first moves are played so hastily, but I don't think neither player is in zugzwang &lt;em&gt;from the start&lt;/em&gt;, as back-and-forth moves on columns seem free. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As neither the rush of pawns work, nor helping one's pawns with one's king (which must stay in the opponent's far-pawn's square), I think the position is symetrical enough to be a fair draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="672" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.193" LastActivityDate="2014-11-22T09:18:55.443" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1630" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1631" CreationDate="2012-12-08T19:45:23.043" Score="14" ViewCount="383" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm working on a rating/ranking algorithm and I'm finally at a point where I can test some hypothesis but in order to do so I need real data. To be honest almost any board game could be used for this but I thought that chess is the board game with the highest possibility of having such a database.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was thinking of posting it on other stackexchange pages but in the end I thought going to the root would be most efficient. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What the database should fulfill:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;At least 50 players&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;At least 1000 matches&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Downloadable (maybe not required if I can parse it from the website chronological)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since I only play chess on rare occasions I'm not really too familiar with all the websites out there so I hope someone can help me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user834" LastActivityDate="2016-08-22T13:34:49.620" Title="Free chess match database" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1631" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1630" CreationDate="2012-12-08T20:15:35.863" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;Million Base 2.5 (available from a link &lt;a href=&quot;http://rebel13.nl/rebel13/rebel%2013.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;) and &lt;a href=&quot;https://sourceforge.net/projects/icofybase/?source=navbar&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;ICOfY Base&lt;/a&gt; are two free options that more than meet your given criteria, each providing millions of games in PGN format to draw from as you please. In particular, ICOfY Base includes well over 4 million games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="2311" LastEditDate="2016-08-22T13:34:49.620" LastActivityDate="2016-08-22T13:34:49.620" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1632" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1994" CreationDate="2012-12-09T10:52:09.917" Score="27" ViewCount="5328" Body="&lt;p&gt;Magnus Carlsen's draw in yesterday's round of the 2012 London Chess Classic assured that his rating in the next published FIDE rating list will surpass Kasparov's previous record of 2851. I've seen/heard passionate chess fans debate the relative merits of Carlsen's rating achievement versus Kasparov's versus, say, Fischer's. &lt;em&gt;To be clear, that's not what I'm after here.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One crucial element of such discussions is the notion of whether Elo ratings in general have undergone inflation over time: are there so many more 2700+ grandmasters today than there were 20 years ago because of a general rise in playing strength, or just because of some overall inflationary trend in the numbers? &lt;em&gt;I'm also not trying to solicit bare opinions about whether or not that's so.&lt;/em&gt; What I am interested in knowing:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What serious research attempts have been made to answer the empirical question as to whether FIDE Elo ratings have naturally inflated over time because of something other than a rise in overall strength in the player pool?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Wikipedia entry on the Elo rating system &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elo_rating_system#Ratings_inflation_and_deflation&quot;&gt;has a little bit to say&lt;/a&gt; about the matter, and also points to &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=5608&quot;&gt;an article&lt;/a&gt; by Jeff Sonas of &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessmetrics.com/cm/&quot;&gt;Chessmetrics&lt;/a&gt;. In addition to any pointers to work by others, I, for one, would also welcome an answer that gives a clear, concise summary of Sonas' main points.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="12" LastEditDate="2012-12-09T18:14:29.117" LastActivityDate="2019-05-15T09:57:17.130" Title="Has there been much research on rating inflation?" Tags="&lt;history&gt;&lt;rating&gt;&lt;fide&gt;&lt;kasparov&gt;&lt;carlsen&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1633" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1632" CreationDate="2012-12-09T13:29:07.053" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;I poked around some. You've probably seen these pages, but I'll post them anyway:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/extra/ratingstitles.html&quot;&gt;This page will interest you&lt;/a&gt;.  It includes a photocopy of a letter from Elo himself stating the possibility:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Thus over time the rating scale could drift unless some measures are taken to stabilize it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He further mentions that the ratings scale has no anchor, no fixed point. Compare to an athlete who runs a race in an hour; an hour now is the same as an hour 50 years ago.  &lt;em&gt;Time&lt;/em&gt; is such a fixed point.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;b. Also, hasn't the 'inflation' question already been answered by recent revelations of high ratings coming out of isolated areas?  &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.kaggle.com/c/ChessRatings2/data&quot;&gt;See the &quot;Pool of Players&quot; section of this page&lt;/a&gt; for an allusion to the issue.   &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessforums.org/general-chess-discussion/11013-evile-ratings.html&quot;&gt;Additional support&lt;/a&gt;, though it is not scholarly nor particularly informative. Search for &quot;isol&quot;.  &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/chessopedia/view/bloodgood-claude-frizzel&quot;&gt;Here's another anecdote&lt;/a&gt; showing what happens with isolated populations (and another candidate for the 'why are chess players crazy' thread!) I didn't fact-check it but should be easy enough to do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;c. The &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elo_rating_system#Ratings_inflation_and_deflation&quot;&gt;Elo wiki article&lt;/a&gt; talks about inflation as if it's an accepted fact.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;d. Here's a &lt;a href=&quot;http://members.shaw.ca/redwards1/&quot;&gt;germane article about inflation&lt;/a&gt;, and &lt;a href=&quot;http://members.shaw.ca/redwards1/update.html&quot;&gt;the followup&lt;/a&gt;.  Look at that smoking gun in 1986!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2012-12-09T14:09:43.310" LastActivityDate="2012-12-09T14:09:43.310" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1634" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1635" CreationDate="2012-12-10T15:43:30.693" Score="8" ViewCount="1155" Body="&lt;p&gt;Have there been any studies on using chess for therapy?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If so, what conditions or illnesses have benefited most from using chess as a therapy? Are there certain conditions or illnesses were it has actually been more stressful?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-06-12T18:46:08.363" LastActivityDate="2019-08-01T19:45:15.230" Title="Using chess for therapy?" Tags="&lt;psychology&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1635" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1634" CreationDate="2012-12-11T07:12:18.453" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am not an expert, but an active chess player at &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chess.com&lt;/a&gt; and participate in its forums. Yes, chess can be therapeutic. Playing chess involves co-ordination of different mental abilities like strategy, tactics, intuition, visual imagery, risk analysis, control of emotions, etc. Actively playing chess everyday keeps the mind sharp and attentive. In most cases, it has also shown improvements in mental conditions like ADHD, OCD, Depression, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, over indulgence into anything is bad and playing compulsively over long duration can effect the individual's thought process. Many schizophrenic persons who play chess start visualizing everything including this life, its people and events as chess moves. If the connection with chess is too deep, real life relations with people are affected. These studies are not confirmed, and are said to be more like &quot;adding order to chaos&quot; from schizophrenic mind's perspective.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="838" LastEditorUserId="838" LastEditDate="2019-08-01T19:45:15.230" LastActivityDate="2019-08-01T19:45:15.230" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1636" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-12-12T15:18:06.317" Score="7" ViewCount="597" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1116418&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;game between Jose Raul Capablanca and Viacheslav Ragozin, Moscow 1935&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.a3 Bxc3+ 5.bxc3 d6 6.Qc2 O-O 7.e4 e5 8.Bd3 c5 9.Ne2 Nc6 10.d5 Ne7? 11.f3 Nd7 12.h4! Nb6 13.g4 f6? 14.Ng3 Kf7 15.g5! Ng8 16.f4! Ke8 17.f5 Qe7 18.Qg2 Kd8 19.Nh5 Kc7 20.gxf6 gxf6 21.Ng7 Bd7 22.h5 Rac8 23.h6 Kb8 24.Rg1 Rf7 25.Rb1 Qf8 26.Be2! Ka8 27.Bh5 Re7 28.Qa2 Qd8 29.Bd2 Na4 30.Qb3 Nb6 31.a4! Rb8 32.a5 Nc8 33.Qa2 Qf8 34.Be3 b6 35.a6 Qd8 36.Kd2 Qf8 37.Rb2 Qd8 38.Qb1 b5 39.cxb5 Nb6 40.Qa2 c4 41.Qa3 Qc7 42.Kc1 Rf8 43.Rbg2 Qb8 44.Qb4 Rd8 45.Rg3 Rf8 46.Ne6! Bxe6 47.dxe6 Rc7 48.Qxd6 Ne7 49.Rd1  1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I understand that Black is in a bad spot, being two pawns down and almost the epitome of cramped (not to mention the promotion possibilities for White), but the game doesn't look obviously lost to me yet.  My suggestion would be &lt;code&gt;49... Nbc8&lt;/code&gt; forcing the White queen back and then &lt;code&gt;50... Rg8&lt;/code&gt; countering the sting of White's g-rook.  I've played several variations from this point and all of them end up with White keeping the two-pawn advantage, but not a quick win.  Am I missing a certain move by White to refute anything Black could do here?  How did Ragozin know that there was no chance of a draw?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: It has been shown that after &lt;code&gt;49... Nbc8 50. Qd2 Rg8? 51. Rxg8 Nxg8&lt;/code&gt; White wins at least the Black queen with &lt;code&gt;52. Qd5+&lt;/code&gt;.  However, if White plays &lt;code&gt;50. Qd2&lt;/code&gt;, Black has &lt;code&gt;50... Qxb5&lt;/code&gt; winning a Pawn and considerably uncramping himself (or so it seems to me):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;k1n2r2/p1r1n2p/P3Pp1P/1q2pP1B/2p1P3/2P1B3/3Q4/2KR2R1 w - - 0 50&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="86" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-12-12T22:04:03.660" LastActivityDate="2020-08-03T20:34:26.210" Title="Why did Black resign this game?" Tags="&lt;master-games&gt;&lt;capablanca&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1637" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1636" CreationDate="2012-12-12T16:09:05.613" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can understand fresh eyes still wanna fight this, but after 50 moves of despair, once the main diagonal and the &lt;code&gt;d&lt;/code&gt; file are so open, I can't help but support his resignation. Just flip the board, take the black pieces, and search for moves. Almost none are playable, as every piece already defends various threats, white still having 2 pieces with which to pile on more threats.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This looks like a reasonable analysis. Basically, Black has no moves, while White roams around &lt;code&gt;e6&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;kqn2r2/p1r1n2p/P2QPp1P/1P2pP1B/2p1P3/2P1B3/8/2KR2R1 w - - 0 50&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Qb4 Rg8 2. Rxg8 (2. Rg7 and Black has no good moves) Nxg8 3. Rd7 (3... Rxd7 4. exd7 Nce7 5. Qxc4  $18) Nge7 4. Bc5 Ng8  $7 5. Bd6 Nxd6 6. Qxd6 Rxd7 7. Qxd7 Qb6 8. Qe8+ Qb8 9. Qc6+ Qb7 10. Qxb7#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="672" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-09-02T10:27:21.417" LastActivityDate="2019-09-02T10:27:21.417" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1638" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1634" CreationDate="2012-12-12T19:47:35.863" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess is especially great for men. &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/006016848X&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;As you may know,&lt;/a&gt; when men are stressed out by really big problems it helps to divert their attention to a hobby. That way they can be working to solve smaller problems. People say chess makes you think hard. I think the guys who play it actually want to relax. It's like watching football.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;h2&gt;&quot;But I play chess to not think.&quot;&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;--CLUB PLAYER&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For me it becomes very zen, especially when just playing with my friends. In America our attitude is very task oriented or goal focused. When you're playing with a friend and you've got the game all wrapped up, it's more about being there. Asian cultures generally have this attitude. It's about the experience of the leaves, the air, the black tea, or the fountain behind you. The friendly curiosity of girls walking by on their way to class. Maybe the encouragement of a few spectators gathered around your board to watch.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="787" LastActivityDate="2012-12-12T19:47:35.863" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1639" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1632" CreationDate="2012-12-13T01:01:19.953" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;In absolute terms, Carlsen 2012 for sure is a stronger player than Kasparov 1985.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If Carlsen 2012 travelled in time played a match with Kasparov 1986, Carlsen would defeat Kasparov. This is simply because the technology-assisted preparation is a lot more efficient, and Carlsen has also an edge in opening theory, because he has the accumulated knowledge 1987-2012 that Kasparov does not have.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, Kasparov is probably a stronger player than Carlsen.  If we take the FIDE Top 100 List for June 2000 (the oldest one that can be obtained), we see that Kasparov with 2849 Elo competes with an average of 2641 for the 99 followers (Elo distance 208 points) while Calsen in Fide Top 100 for December 2012 with a 2848 Elo competes with an average of of 2702 for his 99 followers (Elo distance of 146 points).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Elo is about the difference of points, not about absolute values (100 points of difference for Elo mean that player A is 2 times better than player B, 200 points means 4 times better, and so on. So with that list, it meant that Kasparov was on average more than 4 times better than all his 99 followers, while Carlsen is probably less only 3 times better than the average of his 99 followers.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If we take the list were Kasparov has the maximum distance with his 99 followers and compare that distance with the best for Carlsen, we will be able to determine which player was actually the greatest, because with 99 data points, outliers (like another genius) get mitigate it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wonder however if Carlsen or Kasparov really care about who was better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="159" LastEditorUserId="159" LastEditDate="2013-02-12T13:10:19.243" LastActivityDate="2013-02-12T13:10:19.243" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1640" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1636" CreationDate="2012-12-13T02:22:56.467" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Stockfish says Black is crushed after &lt;code&gt;49. ... Nbc8&lt;/code&gt; even though this is black's best move.  White is up by 17 points.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;kq3r2/p1r1n2p/Pn1QPp1P/1P2pP1B/2p1P3/2P1B1R1/8/2KR4 b - - 2 49 &quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1...Nbc8 2. Qb4 Rh8 3. Rg7 Nc6 4. bxc6 Qxb4 5. cxb4 Rxc6 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A variation. After black's 50th move the wheels come off the wagon.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;kq3r2/p1r1n2p/Pn1QPp1P/1P2pP1B/2p1P3/2P1B1R1/8/2KR4 b - - 2 49 &quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1...Nbc8 2. Qb4 Rg8? 3. Rxg8 Nxg8 4. Rd8 Nge7 5. Bf3 Rb7 6. axb7+ Qxb7 7. Rd7 Kb8 8. Rxb7+&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why &lt;code&gt;5. Rb7&lt;/code&gt;?  Black is in zugzwang.  Black is down by 100 pts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another variation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;kq3r2/p1r1n2p/Pn1QPp1P/1P2pP1B/2p1P3/2P1B1R1/8/2KR4 b - - 2 49 &quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1...Nbc8 2. Qb4 Nb6? 3. Rg7 Nbc8 4. Bc5 Rh8 5. Rd7 Nb6 6. Rxc7 Qxc7 7. Bxe7 Na4 8. Bxf6 Qb6 9. Qxa4 Qe3+ 10. Kb2 Qc5 11. e7 Rb8 12. e8=Q Rxe8 13. Bxe8 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and black is down 30 points.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2012-12-14T02:15:46.917" LastActivityDate="2012-12-14T02:15:46.917" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1641" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1609" CreationDate="2012-12-13T06:25:36.890" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Thought process in a chess game is vastly different among novice, average, expert and grandmasters. It's a gradual learning which comes with time, experience and passion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The novice players see moves to immediately gain a piece, give check, exchange a piece, etc. They generally don't think one move ahead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Average players have acquired some tactics, strategic play, knowledge of positional advantage and make their moves according to these combinations. They scan the board hard to find a better move than the move they have decided to be the best.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Expert players develop intuitive knowledge about other players style of play. They are well verse with chess openings and can take advantage of other player's opening blunder. They are good in strategic play and see the board ahead after 3 to 5 moves combination. They normally play for checkmate rather than immediate positional advantage, or short term gains.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess grandmasters have excellent memory, and they can recall games similar to the position shown on the board. They don't think much, as their mind automatically thinks only about the best moves as it comes with experience. They are very good in analyzing variations in a chess position. They always tend to make moves that result in deterministic checkmate rather than non-deterministic positional play, although the later can be converted to former.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="838" LastActivityDate="2012-12-13T06:25:36.890" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1642" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1636" CreationDate="2012-12-13T20:11:13.913" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Black is down 2 pawns, pieces completely passive, the pawn on e6 is impossible to get rid of, pawn on h6 is also important, creating potential outpost on g7 for rook. White also has two bishops and controls both open files. There is no need for White to prove anything by concrete analysis. Unless Black has some immediate way to get material back - he might as well resign and save energy for next round.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="618" LastActivityDate="2012-12-13T20:11:13.913" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1643" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1578" CreationDate="2012-12-13T21:49:10.373" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/B002FL5J7Q&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;King's Gambit: A Son, A Father, and the World's Most Dangerous Game&lt;/a&gt; is about this. The age-old question is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Does chess make you mentally ill or are mentally ill people attracted to chess?&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Chess has the highest suicide rate of any sport by a long-shot.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Many chess world champions were mentally ill.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's a whole bunch of other supporting facts about chess being linked to insanity, but I'd have to re-read the book to recall all of them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All the insanely brilliant people in my life have some form of mental illness. I consider myself extremely fortunate to know these people. They're genius about things I can't begin to understand. There's two bipolar geniuses and two Aspergers geniuses. I know three of the four love chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And then there's my 135 IQ friend who's bipolar, her boyfriend from back in the day who was a genius and schizophrenic, my straight A friend who's depressed and maybe a little autistic, my aspergers 130+ IQ friend, my nerdy (aka autistic/aspergers traits) friend with depression who's 138.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So basically every intelligent person I can name has some sort of &amp;quot;disorder.&amp;quot; Remember that by definition, being intelligent isn't normal. Who's to say one is the correct or incorrect way to think? Just because the majority of people think at a normal intelligence doesn't necessarily mean that's the right way to think. That's just how &lt;strong&gt;almost everyone thinks&lt;/strong&gt;, so they only diagnose the exceptional people. Maybe you could argue that having a &lt;strong&gt;normal&lt;/strong&gt; level of intelligence should be its own &lt;strong&gt;mental disorder&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, normal people don't &lt;em&gt;get&lt;/em&gt; intelligent questions. Look at some questions on here written by geniuses and you'll see they're immediately flagged and closed. People rationalize it after the fact. It's unfocused, or too specific, or not a real question, or misguided, or all over the place, or off topic, or whatever. The kind of thinking that seems obvious to the intelligent person needs to be justified to normal people. Remember that as a society we villainize intelligence. Nobody normal is interested in big ideas. That's weird. All they care about is whether or not this is going to make their life more comfortable. And I'm not really sure why we were put on this Earth, but I'm pretty darn sure it wasn't to make ourselves comfortable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See where I'm going with this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My Calc professor left his copy of that book on my desk the day I went in to take my final exam for his class. He loves chess and mathematics. I'd visit him in his office after my class ended to say hi. We'd talk about intellectual giants and infinity and chess. Sometimes you can get caught on a problem, and start thinking about it forever. And eventually it'll drive you crazy. That's what happened to a lot of these mathematicians. Maybe these chess guys just got too absorbed in their own world. But it takes a tremendous mind to be capable of creating a world.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See where I'm going with this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="787" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2012-12-13T21:49:10.373" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1644" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1609" CreationDate="2012-12-13T22:02:59.590" Score="16" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is a basic checklist you should always consider (in order of priority):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Examine &lt;strong&gt;all&lt;/strong&gt; tactics currently available to &lt;strong&gt;both&lt;/strong&gt; players on the board within the next move; these take priority. Usually, each tactic has a purpose, such as check-mate (highest priority), winning material (secondary-priority) and securing a very strong position (tertiary-priority.)  &#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In the case of an opponent's tactics, search for &quot;in-between&quot; moves in the execution of the tactic. Many times one non-obvious in-between move can spell the difference between a beautiful defence and losing the game. To give an example of an &quot;in-between&quot; move, suppose your opponent has a discovered attack ready on your queen using a knight and a bishop. His goal is to win a rook for his knight by using the discovered attack and simultaneously attacking your rook and queen. He does not realize that your queen has an &quot;in-between&quot; check move allowing her to move to safety as well as your rook.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In the case of tactics available to you, also search for all &quot;in-between&quot; defensive moves available to your opponent. For example, suppose the previous example of the knight, bishop discovered attack on the queen was actually your tactic. After thoroughly investigating your opponent's options, you realize he can check and move his queen to safety with the in-between move. Therefore, you move your king to a square where a check is not possible, forcing the queen to move to a worse position this turn else face the wrath of the tactic the next turn.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Search all available tactics (as thoroughly as above) within 2,3,4, ... &lt;code&gt;n&lt;/code&gt; moves where &lt;code&gt;n&lt;/code&gt; is limited by the amount of time you have on the clock and your gut-feel for how important this position is vs. how sure you are your current best move is.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Search for guaranteed positional weaknesses in your opponent. In the lack of tactics available in the game, it can be hard to find a reason to play one move vs another. This may be a daunting task for a beginner, but rest assured there is almost always a best move. Almost all positional weaknesses deal with pawn positioning, specifically the colour your pawn chain sits on, or lack of being able to form pawn chains. In order to achieve positional weakness in your opponent, you may have to do it through a tactic so keep that in mind. I'll list some common positional weaknesses:&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A knight placed where an enemy pawn can not &quot;kick&quot; him off is substantially stronger when placed close to an enemy king. This is called a knight on an &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outpost_(chess)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;outpost&lt;/a&gt;. This is mainly because it opens up the possibility of many forking tactics. Often, when your opponent has no other means of kicking your knight, such a knight is worth at least 1 rook, sometimes 1 rook and a pawn. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doubled_pawns&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Doubled-pawns&lt;/a&gt; create long term weaknesses since they can no longer form pawn chains in one direction. &lt;strong&gt;DO NOT&lt;/strong&gt; consider this a considerable weakness in the early or middle game, because it is not, it is only a weakness in the endgame. &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doubled_pawns&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Doubled pawns&lt;/a&gt; near their king, especially if he is castled, &lt;strong&gt;are always a weakness&lt;/strong&gt; at every point in the game.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The colour your opponent's pawn chain sits on determines their &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bishop_(chess)#Good_bishop_and_bad_bishop&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;good bishop&lt;/a&gt; (the opposite coloured to that colour bishop is the good bishop) seek to trade their good bishop while keeping your good bishop, this is a minor advantage that becomes greater in the latter part of the game.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The first one to double rooks on a file usually owns that file for the rest of the game. There are notable exceptions and usually a great many tactics available to both sides when fighting for dominance over a file so be careful with this one!&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A rook on the same file as an enemy king or queen (even if there are many pawns and minor pieces blocking) is still a valuable position for the rook, as you can usually create interesting tactical variations by removing the pieces in the way 1 by 1.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Look for &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Back-rank_checkmate&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&quot;back-rank&quot; problems&lt;/a&gt; in your opponent (as well as yourself!) If your king or your opponent's king can be mated with one rook attack on the back rank this makes for interesting tactical options for both sides!&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Try to make your rooks &quot;pigs.&quot; A &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rook_(chess)#Development&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;pig rook&lt;/a&gt; is a rook placed on the second to back rank (either rank 7 or 2 if you are playing white or black.) A pig rook is very strong as he is usually both attacking undefended pawns as well as posing a considerable threat to the enemy king. If you can get doubled pig rooks this usually means a win or a draw for yourself. This is generally hard to accomplish as it takes a minimum of 2 moves (usually 4+), but look for tactics as this is almost always a win especially near end-game!&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarrasch_rule&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Rooks belong behind passed pawns&lt;/a&gt;, and always push your passed pawns, the closer they get to the other side the more they are worth!&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The three (or four) pawns in front of a castled king are extremely important. Enticing your opponent to move them (to kick a bishop or a knight) creates a permanent weakness in your opponent's defences. Always give your opponent the option of kicking your piece with these pawns, as when he does you know that you can take advantage of the new weakness he has created. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;With that last point, I would like to conclude this with two simple principles: the principle of two threats and the principle of every move leaves something behind. The first principle is easy to understand, create 2+ threats for your opponent and it will be hard or impossible for him to defend both. The second principle is much more subtle but just as important. Chess is a game of a delicate dynamic equilibrium. Every move you or your opponent makes gains some advantage but also creates some weakness, if ever so slight. Search for these weaknesses in yourself and in your opponent at all times.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="72" LastEditorUserId="72" LastEditDate="2020-01-03T04:15:10.263" LastActivityDate="2020-01-03T04:15:10.263" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1645" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-12-13T23:18:15.593" Score="1" ViewCount="2403" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm new to western chess and am still learning the rules and how the pieces perform.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is generally considered the best chess piece?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="845" LastActivityDate="2012-12-14T00:29:38.067" Title="What is the best chess piece?" Tags="&lt;pieces&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="6" ClosedDate="2012-12-14T08:18:01.220" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1646" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1645" CreationDate="2012-12-13T23:41:58.127" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The queen has the most squares available to land on, I recommend you get well acquainted with the rules of the game in the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fide.com/component/handbook/?id=124&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot; title=&quot;FIDE Handbook&quot;&gt;official FIDE Handbook&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="791" LastActivityDate="2012-12-13T23:41:58.127" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1647" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1645" CreationDate="2012-12-14T00:29:38.067" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;This question is subjective as the &quot;best&quot; piece depends on many factors such as how active a piece is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The most important piece is your &lt;code&gt;King&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In most cases, the &lt;code&gt;Queen&lt;/code&gt; is the most powerful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As an example, a &lt;code&gt;knight&lt;/code&gt; might be more powerful than a &lt;code&gt;Queen&lt;/code&gt;, possibly in a position where you are going to promote your pawn, promoting to a &lt;code&gt;Queen&lt;/code&gt; might end in stalemate, whereas, promoting to a &lt;code&gt;Knight&lt;/code&gt;, would end in checkmate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I urge you to do a search on &lt;code&gt;Chess Rules&lt;/code&gt; or something similar like &lt;code&gt;Beginner Chess&lt;/code&gt; and you'll find countless material.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastActivityDate="2012-12-14T00:29:38.067" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1648" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-12-14T19:54:58.140" Score="30" ViewCount="4220" Body="&lt;p&gt;While looking through &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.gutenberg.org&quot;&gt;Project Gutenberg&lt;/a&gt; I noticed that &lt;em&gt;Capablanca's Chess Fundamentals&lt;/em&gt; is there (I believe that should mean it is in the Public Domain). I was also able to find &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.openchessbooks.org/reti-mic/chapter1/combination.html&quot;&gt;Modern Ideas in Chess &lt;/a&gt; by Richard Rèti on line.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What other famous chess books are in the Public Domain and can be freely posted on a website? or how can I tell whether or not a book I own is in the public domain?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="791" LastEditorUserId="791" LastEditDate="2013-02-01T18:30:55.463" LastActivityDate="2019-09-02T10:15:54.743" Title="Which classic chess books are in the public domain?" Tags="&lt;books&gt;&lt;capablanca&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1649" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1648" CreationDate="2012-12-14T20:13:42.017" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can find more books at the following sites:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chesszone.org/lib/lib.html&quot;&gt;http://chesszone.org/lib/lib.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessville.com/downloads/ebooks.htm&quot;&gt;http://www.chessville.com/downloads/ebooks.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessmaniac.com/chess_ebooks/index.shtml&quot;&gt;http://www.chessmaniac.com/chess_ebooks/index.shtml&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://books.google.com/books?lr=&amp;amp;q=chess&amp;amp;as_brr=1&quot;&gt;http://books.google.com/books?lr=&amp;amp;q=chess&amp;amp;as_brr=1&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastActivityDate="2012-12-14T20:13:42.017" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1650" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1246" CreationDate="2012-12-15T02:34:16.870" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;I like &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.gnu.org/software/xboard/&quot;&gt;Xboard&lt;/a&gt;. Its a really cool interface for chess engines like GNUChess and it supports connecting to servers like FICS.  It can support chess variant engines too (including international variants).  It can be used to play Fruit Engine, (as another answer suggests.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is a quote from its website:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;XBoard is a graphical user interface for chess in all its major forms, including international chess, xiangqi (Chinese chess), shogi (Japanese chess) and Makruk, in addition to many minor variants such as Losers Chess, Crazyhouse, Chess960 and Capablanca Chess. It displays a chessboard on the screen, accepts moves made with the mouse, and loads and saves games in Portable Game Notation (PGN)  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It also has a Windows port.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="780" LastEditorUserId="780" LastEditDate="2012-12-17T03:58:28.890" LastActivityDate="2012-12-17T03:58:28.890" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1651" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1519" CreationDate="2012-12-15T04:37:06.173" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;del&gt;Unfortunately I don't know of a chess server where they play chess variants,&lt;/del&gt; (see update below) but I have a few other resources.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The program &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.gnu.org/software/xboard/#tag-A1&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Winboard&lt;/a&gt; has several variants, including Shogi, Xiangqi, Shatranj and Atomic.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also found a very cool &lt;a href=&quot;http://abstractstrategygames.blogspot.com/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;blog&lt;/a&gt;, the guy there goes over a lot of chess and checker variants.  Its pretty cool!&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://abstractstrategygames.blogspot.com/2010/10/fairy-chess.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Here&lt;/a&gt; is a article he has about Fairy Chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are also several books written on the subject including:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/9381115745&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess Variants &amp;amp; Games &lt;/a&gt;  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/0713485787&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Popular Chess Variants&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And the &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/0952414201&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Encyclopedia of  Chess Variants&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Update&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;In my ramblings I ran accross &lt;a href=&quot;http://www6.chessclub.com/helpcenter/tips/wild.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; page, indicating that the ICC allows chess variants.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Quote:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;ICC offers a number of chess variants.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also found a book on &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/0486226875&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Fairy Chess&lt;/a&gt;. Unfortunately it appears to be out of print.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="780" LastEditorUserId="780" LastEditDate="2012-12-17T04:12:27.727" LastActivityDate="2012-12-17T04:12:27.727" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1652" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-12-15T22:49:17.860" Score="14" ViewCount="718" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is always what gets me. I want to find a way to train myself to become more observant, and able to look at every piece that's about to murder me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="850" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-12-16T13:55:25.987" LastActivityDate="2014-03-07T02:38:37.677" Title="How can I train myself to become more observant of all my pieces?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;training&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1653" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1652" CreationDate="2012-12-15T23:07:29.260" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a matter of discipline.  When it's your move, look at every one of your opponent's piece's moves. Look at every capture, look at every check.  There should never be a time when you're surprised by a one-move &quot;peewee&quot; shot.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This flows into a discussion on tactics, of which I am sure there are many questions already posed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyway, when you're looking at captures and checks, be wary of moves that can pull your queen into the same line as your King, or pull a defending rook off the back rank.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you post an example, we can give more concrete advice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2012-12-15T23:07:29.260" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1654" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1652" CreationDate="2012-12-15T23:46:45.277" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;As I mention &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/1610/672&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;not having any undefended piece&lt;/strong&gt; greatly helps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Each move, you have to check out for all your pieces, and after a few games of paying attention, it'll most probably become natural to know what pieces of yours are under somehow in peril, and not.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;In case you missed some tactic, didn't count attacks and defenses well enough, whatnot, you always have at least one defender.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;You'll start noticing overloads, which is probably a tactical trick beyond your level right now.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Eventually, you'll &lt;strong&gt;constantly have a map in your mind&lt;/strong&gt; telling you :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;this is attacked twice, defended by this and this : ✓&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;this is attacked once and defended by that : ✓&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I can be put in check in various ways by his queen, but all my pieces are defended at least once : ✓&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;He just played this move, so &lt;em&gt;this&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;that&lt;/em&gt; are threatened.&lt;/strong&gt; I must find a move that defends both of them, e.g. moving one to defend the other, and I'll be fine.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then, go look for problems that arise after multiple moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="672" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.193" LastActivityDate="2012-12-15T23:46:45.277" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1655" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1656" CreationDate="2012-12-16T14:36:37.677" Score="10" ViewCount="3608" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have a provisional FIDE rating of 1980 based on my score of 1 (two draws) out of 4 at a FIDE-rated tournament earlier this year; see: &lt;a href=&quot;http://ratings.fide.com/card.phtml?event=2059100&quot;&gt;http://ratings.fide.com/card.phtml?event=2059100&lt;/a&gt; where provisional rating is Rp.  I am playing in another FIDE-rated tournament next weekend and I seem to recall it may take as few as 9 games against FIDE-rated opponents to obtain an official (&lt;em&gt;non&lt;/em&gt; provisional) rating, though I'm having a hard time authenticating this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is important to me as it's a 5-round tournament coming up and I want to know whether taking a bye may mean I have to play in yet another FIDE-rated tournament after this one to reach the plateau of 9, if that is indeed the correct figure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks in advance&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user76" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-12-16T16:35:10.483" LastActivityDate="2017-01-01T11:04:08.790" Title="How many FIDE-rated games must be played to obtain a *non* provisional rating?" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;fide&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1656" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1655" CreationDate="2012-12-16T16:15:36.220" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.metrowestchess.org/Compete/FIDE/FAQ_FIDE_Ratings.htm&quot;&gt;this site&lt;/a&gt; the answer is 9.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="852" LastActivityDate="2012-12-16T16:15:36.220" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1657" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1611" CreationDate="2012-12-17T11:48:16.113" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have had a situation similar to this plenty of times when I was learning. Once, during a tournament, I was having a bad day and was almost giving my pieces away, for free! And then, I spotted the golden opportunity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I could trick my opponent into taking my queen with his &quot;for free&quot;, I could then forcibly mate him in 4 moves. Given how I had been playing, sacrificing another piece &quot;for nothing&quot; wasn't that suspicious. My opponent took the bait and I won the game with about 14 points in pieces down.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Beyond mind games, though, I don't really have an answer for you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="857" LastActivityDate="2012-12-17T11:48:16.113" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1658" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1659" CreationDate="2012-12-18T15:13:36.383" Score="5" ViewCount="707" Body="&lt;p&gt;For a while, anytime I got the chance to play the &lt;code&gt;Scotch&lt;/code&gt;, I would as long as my opponent (being black) played the moves.  If they did not follow the move order, I would just continue with something else, but I noticed, the more I play an opening, the better I get at it (This is obvious).  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another way to view this question is, besides 1 or 2 move openings such as the &lt;code&gt;English&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;Caro-Kann&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;Sicilian&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;Pirc&lt;/code&gt;, etc which obviously have been defined as being reached after 1 or 2 moves, how can I force my opponent and this may not be possible, it may just be by chance, to play moves up to the point where my opening is defined?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Certain openings I have found this actually works pretty well such as the &lt;code&gt;Ruy Lopez&lt;/code&gt; because it has such a natural move order &lt;code&gt;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5.&lt;/code&gt;, but in other openings, it is not so easy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastActivityDate="2012-12-18T15:19:24.477" Title="How can I frequently practice openings that are more than 1 or 2 moves long?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1659" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1658" CreationDate="2012-12-18T15:19:24.477" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is where you have to understand the opening, not just play memorized lines.  If your opponent strays too far from the most popular lines, he's probably made an error.  It's up to you to understand the opening enough to punish him for it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So you can't force him to play the line but you can make him wish he did.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2012-12-18T15:19:24.477" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1660" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1664" CreationDate="2012-12-18T15:30:20.383" Score="5" ViewCount="246" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are these determined from historical play?  For example, when the &lt;code&gt;English&lt;/code&gt; was first played with &lt;code&gt;1. c4&lt;/code&gt;, why was the &lt;code&gt;English&lt;/code&gt; in this case determined to just be &lt;code&gt;1. c4&lt;/code&gt; and anything afterwards is considered a &lt;code&gt;variation&lt;/code&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastActivityDate="2013-01-07T13:41:58.160" Title="What determines an opening continuation vs an opening varation?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1661" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1666" CreationDate="2012-12-18T16:48:04.443" Score="17" ViewCount="2227" Body="&lt;p&gt;The King's Indian Defense is characterized by the moves &lt;code&gt;1. d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6&lt;/code&gt;. (As opposed to &lt;code&gt;2. . .e6&lt;/code&gt;, with the intention of developing the Bishop to the Queen-side.) Black aims for a strong King-side offense with sharp tactical play. The Classical line:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.e4 d6 5.Nf3 O-O 6.Be2 e5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nimzowitsch and others of the hypermodern school popularized the Nimzo-Indian and Queen's Indian defenses eary in the 20th Century. The King's Indian was known, but was seen far less frequently until David Bronstein started playing it in the 1940s and 50s.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, to the question, what factors brought the King's Indian to prominence aside from Bronstein? What developments in theory advanced its use compared to the other Indian defenses?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(To clarify: I'm coming at this as someone who's unrated and no more than a casual player at best. I'm looking more here for the historical aspects and understanding of the times, though I won't turn down discussion of modern theory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Additionally, I'm aware that this is subjective. I'm fairly confident it fits into &quot;good-subjective&quot;, given the nature of Chess.SE. There hasn't been any major discussion on the KID here, and I'd like to see what the minds here have to say about it, given how important it is in modern play.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="652" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-12-29T00:20:30.523" LastActivityDate="2017-11-13T09:49:47.777" Title="What influenced the development of the King's Indian Defense?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;history&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;kings-indian&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1662" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2012-12-18T16:53:35.760" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The King's Indian Defense (or the &quot;KID&quot;) is a semi-closed opening characterized by the moves &lt;code&gt;1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 d6&lt;/code&gt;. It is part of the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypermodernism_%28chess%29&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Hypermodern&lt;/a&gt; school. Its ECO code is E60-E99.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black's usual plans are to develop with &lt;code&gt;Bg7&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;O-O&lt;/code&gt; and then break in the center with either &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;c5&lt;/code&gt; depending on white's setup.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As is common with modern openings, black does not directly occupy the center, but instead counter-attacks white's center.  Additionally, the KID frequently leads to an unbalanced position where white attacks on the queenside and black attacks on the kingside.  While white usually obtains an overwhelming space advantage, black's attack is almost always directed against white's king.  If white can defend against the attack, the space advantage and queenside play is often decisive.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a result of the unbalanced play, there is a relatively high percentage of decisive games (70% according to statistics based on 2M+ games) compared to other black replies to &lt;code&gt;1. d4&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="652" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-06-22T12:26:21.270" LastActivityDate="2017-06-22T12:26:21.270" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1663" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2012-12-18T16:53:35.760" Score="0" Body="The King's Indian Defense (or &quot;KID&quot;) is a semi-closed opening starting with 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 d6.  Black develops with Bg7 and O-O and then either e5 or c5 depending on white's setup.  The KID often leads to unbalanced positions: white attacks on the queenside and black attacks on the kingside, resulting in a high percentage of decisive games." OwnerUserId="652" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-10-07T16:31:02.280" LastActivityDate="2018-10-07T16:31:02.280" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1664" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1660" CreationDate="2012-12-18T17:01:54.090" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;The original distinction was mainly so that chess players have a common vocabulary (for teaching, discussing, kibbitzing) there is the concept of a &quot;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;main line.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; Other reasonable continuations are said to be &lt;em&gt;variations&lt;/em&gt;. This helped the teachers and the players to learn the opening lines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, history did play a role in what was considered the main line, and which options were variations. Very often, variations would be given the name of the GM who first played it as a &lt;em&gt;novelty,&lt;/em&gt; or the one who plays it very commonly to good results. (Remember, this was in the days when most people learned about games printed chess magazines that showed up several weeks after a game was played.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These days, thanks to very powerful chess engines and massive databases, the &lt;strong&gt;mainline&lt;/strong&gt; is arguably simply the line that is the most frequent continuation (played by those with high ELOs.) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is also important to remember that as more games are added to the database, the mainline tends to shift to other moves, especially as &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;refutations&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; are discovered by the opponents.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope that helps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="764" LastActivityDate="2012-12-18T17:01:54.090" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1665" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="106" CreationDate="2012-12-18T18:38:20.250" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;strong&gt;middle game&lt;/strong&gt; starts as soon as the opening ends, and well, it is very easy to know when openings start and end, almost any opening (if not all) have names and are well known and studied. But if I were forced to say an specific moment in time, I would say around the time where they start castling or exchanging serious material to gain position advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, the &lt;strong&gt;end game&lt;/strong&gt; is harder to accurately say when it starts, my best guess will be somewhere where the kings start moving towards the center and players have &lt;em&gt;usually&lt;/em&gt; no more than 2 minor pieces or 4 pawns. Anytime where it is possible to calculate the result using &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endgame_tablebase&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Endgame Tablebases&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is also worth mentioning that the point where something starts and ends vary from game to game (e.g if the players decide to quickly exchange material they will get to the endgame pretty soon), and some games don't even have end games (or even middle games!) if they blunder or fall in traps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="478" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T15:55:45.023" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T15:55:45.023" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1666" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1661" CreationDate="2012-12-19T09:15:54.830" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;In all the Indian Defenses, in general, Black allows White to occupy the centre with his pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nonetheless, in Nimzo-Indian and Queen's Indian Defense Black has many moves to attack White's pawn centre very early in the game, thus White cannot gain too much space.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;King's Indian Defense (and Gruenfeld Defense), on the other side, really do not care that much for the first 4-5 moves of White, so that he can occupy the centre with an &quot;horde&quot; of pawns (see for example the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King%27s_Indian_Defence&quot;&gt;Classical Variation&lt;/a&gt;, the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King%27s_Indian_Defence,_S%C3%A4misch_Variation&quot;&gt;Saemisch Variation&lt;/a&gt; or the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King%27s_Indian_Defence,_Four_Pawns_Attack&quot; title=&quot;Four Pawns Attack&quot;&gt;Four Pawns Attack&lt;/a&gt;), with a huge advantage of space.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypermodernism_%28chess%29&quot;&gt;hypermodern principles&lt;/a&gt; in chess were born only in early 20th century, they were not universally accepted before '40s. And having such a big space disadvantage in the opening was seen with suspect (if not explicitly considered &quot;strategically losing&quot;). That's why, in my opinion, KID had to wait to be considered consistent enough to be played regularly by top players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="279" LastEditorUserId="279" LastEditDate="2012-12-19T13:40:49.960" LastActivityDate="2012-12-19T13:40:49.960" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1667" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="442" CreationDate="2012-12-20T07:12:36.247" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;My son is five years old, and he is an expert at making stuff with Legos like blocks and had learned preschool stuff before most of the other kids his age (in my locality). He also speaks/converses in 3 languages quite well. With this, I assumed he would be good at chess. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Two months ago I introduced him to chess, explained the rules, and within 2 days and 7-8 games, he managed to learn all the rules (I withheld en passant and castling). By game 15 he was moving all pieces correctly. Initially he had a problem understanding why the rook, which is smaller (shorter) than a bishop, was not to be exchanged with it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, he would be very careless in keeping pieces, especially knight and queen, where it would be at the risk of being taken. I tried training him with only few pieces on the board and showing how not to keep the pieces where it can be taken. Unsurprisingly he was very good at identifying the threats. I guess it is because there are only 3-4 pieces on board, and that makes it simpler to observe. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Its been quite a lot of games since then, almost 40-50, but he still does not keep supporting pieces when keeping/moving them in the front under threat. I notice that he is sometimes, or most of the time, interested in just moving his pieces, and does not pay attention to the opponent’s move.  He told me a few days ago that, and said “How come you are always winning?!”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He has actually not learned yet how to do addition and subtraction in school, and maybe that is why he does not understand losing 2 pieces in exchange for 3 is not good!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am almost concluding here that maybe he should have grasped the concept of profit/loss by understanding addition and subtraction before I taught him chess, now I have reduced the frequency of play, maybe none or 2 in a week. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think I will stop it completely and reintroduce it when he has learned addition/subtraction well and/or he is around 7 or 8 years old.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As with Garik’s tip, maybe I will teach him checkers!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="105" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T16:20:23.577" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T16:20:23.577" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1668" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1677" CreationDate="2012-12-20T13:13:30.050" Score="17" ViewCount="7074" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you have been to an online chess server, you will notice that almost all titled players always play quick games (3 0) at a max.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, if you go to tournaments, it needs cool thinking and not instantaneous moves. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am surprised, then how do they maintain this balance? Doesn't playing too many quick games spoil their overall playing ability?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="806" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-12-06T04:23:32.363" LastActivityDate="2020-12-06T04:23:32.363" Title="Why do titled players always play online (blitz) speed chess?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;master-games&gt;&lt;blitz&gt;&lt;online-blitz&gt;" AnswerCount="11" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1669" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1668" CreationDate="2012-12-20T14:09:23.363" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;Good chess players who play online prefer quick games like 10sec + 1 or 1 min because nobody can cheat with a computer engine for such short games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If a player tries to cheat with a computer, in this type of game, he loses the game on time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After many quick games, these players can maintain this balance easily. Indeed, they train brain to think very quickly. And those who can think quickly can think slowly. Thus, there is no problem playing slow games after fast games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Moreover, just for your information, &lt;em&gt;blitz game&lt;/em&gt; refers to all chess games where each player has up to 10 minutes for all the moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="813" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-12-22T11:11:39.447" LastActivityDate="2019-12-22T11:11:39.447" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1670" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1668" CreationDate="2012-12-20T14:32:47.663" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;They play quick games probably because it's more fun and doesn't take too much time.  Blitz only damages one's tournament results if played to the exclusion of one's studies.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2012-12-20T14:32:47.663" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1671" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1668" CreationDate="2012-12-20T15:09:02.993" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Very simple, playing and winning in the faster games such as Blitz  will give them confidence when they play games that lasts days together.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="870" LastActivityDate="2012-12-20T15:09:02.993" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1672" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1676" CreationDate="2012-12-20T20:35:25.640" Score="13" ViewCount="6713" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am often asked the question what type of chess player am I, but I am unsure how to answer this question because I do not exactly know what would define each type of player.  Interestingly, I am only asked in particular if I am an attacker or a positional player, but surely, there must be more types of players than these.  What are the types or different kinds of players? Also, if you could include a definition of each type and include any famous players as examples for types, that would be great as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastActivityDate="2016-09-19T09:35:59.673" Title="What types or kinds of chess players are there?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1673" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1674" CreationDate="2012-12-20T20:43:17.493" Score="10" ViewCount="396" Body="&lt;p&gt;How can I identify &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zugzwang&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Zugzwang&lt;/a&gt; opportunities, not only for myself, but for my opponent.  Often times, I run into Zugzwang, whether it is for my benefit or not, by accident.  Is this just a matter of looking at all the possible moves my opponent and I can make or is there more to it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2012-12-21T11:15:05.703" LastActivityDate="2018-03-17T22:07:43.763" Title="How can I identify Zugzwang opportunities?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;zugzwang&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1674" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1673" CreationDate="2012-12-20T22:05:18.950" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;Zugzwang positions happen naturally as you work to improve your own position by taking good moves away from your opponent.  Eventually, when every move is bad (or useless), your opponent will be in Zugzwang.  You'll probably find these positions more often in closed games.  &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tigran_Petrosian&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Tigran Petrosian&lt;/a&gt; was a master at balling his opponents up so they'd run out of moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's a recent thread where IMO Black is in zugzwang:  &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/1636/why-did-black-resign-this-game&quot;&gt;Why did Black resign this game?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.193" LastActivityDate="2012-12-20T22:05:18.950" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1675" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1672" CreationDate="2012-12-20T22:39:54.163" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think you will get a definitive answer that fits well into the structure of SA sites on this one, but you will find plenty of discussions threads online that cover this topic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The problem is labels on chess style are open to interpretation, not mutually exclusive,  and judged differently at various levels.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You have heard &quot;attacker&quot; and &quot;positional player&quot; the most because they are some of the more general terms and most players fit into one and not the other. Examples of other styles are&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Strong/weak opening&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Strong/weak endgame&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Great tactician&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;etc&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think you could come up with a single list of terms that rarely overlap, then analyze various players to assign tags to them. As mentioned before though, this gets harder as you go up layers. I may think I have a strong endgame, but it is only relative to my other abilities. Sometimes being a positional player just means you are bad at attacking, sometimes it means you are good at attacking but truly excel at setting up position play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16" LastActivityDate="2012-12-20T22:39:54.163" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1676" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1672" CreationDate="2012-12-20T22:45:07.757" Score="25" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are two broad-brush categories of players: positional and tactical.  Positional players' styles tend to lead them to play moves that choke out their opponents.  They are patient and bide their time.  There's no better proponent of this type of play than &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tigran_Petrosian&quot;&gt;Tigran Petrosian&lt;/a&gt;. He's recognized as one of the hardest players to defeat.  A more recent example would be &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatoly_Karpov&quot;&gt;Anatoly Karpov&lt;/a&gt;, another player that was just so hard to defeat. Positional players keep taking their opponents' good moves away until nothing is left but bad moves.  &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aron_Nimzowitsch&quot;&gt;Aron Nimzowitch&lt;/a&gt; was the father of this type of play, though he did not invent it - he described and defined the style in publications such as &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_System&quot;&gt;My System&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are more tactical players.  These include pretty much all the darlings of chess - the ones scoring points with fireworks.  They tend towards open positions with lots of complexity, relying upon their tactical skills to force an error onto their opponents.  Examples include &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolf_Spielmann&quot;&gt;Rudolf Spielmann&lt;/a&gt;, a player from another age who made Tal look tame.  &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikhail_Tal&quot;&gt;Mikhail Tal&lt;/a&gt; is the more modern archetype - a player able to conjure devastating attacks from seemingly nothing at all.  Then there is Kasparov, Fischer, etc the list is rather endless.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In short, &lt;em&gt;tactical&lt;/em&gt; players do it to you.  &lt;em&gt;Positional&lt;/em&gt; players make you do it to yourself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At any semi-professional level of play, both styles of player can uncork combinational &lt;em&gt;fu&lt;/em&gt;.  So this isn't to say that a positional player avoids combinations and sacrifices.  You won't normally find one player who plays both styles; it is a philosophy sort of thing.  They believe one way is best and sharpen their skills to this belief.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2012-12-20T22:45:07.757" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1677" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1668" CreationDate="2012-12-20T23:59:14.823" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;When defending his title at the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Chess_Championship_2012&quot;&gt;World Chess Championship 2012&lt;/a&gt;, Anand defeated Gelfand in the rapid round. He was able to put time pressure on Gelfand in all four games. In the second game with white, Anand played his moves so fast that Gelfand was forced to make moves with very few seconds to spare.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Being able to perform well in rapid chess is a must for GM's in the modern days. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="757" LastActivityDate="2012-12-20T23:59:14.823" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1678" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1673" CreationDate="2012-12-21T01:06:19.130" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a lot more to it!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Zugzwang lies in the &quot;artistic&quot; side of chess, and as such it requires lots of concentration and study of the position which is time consuming and not always there for us during a regular game. It often demands abrupt and shocking sacrifices so that we then &quot;force&quot; our opponent to make a one and only legal move. This is certainly much more than just looking at all possible moves, it requires lots of creativity, deep tactical and positional analysis and a little bit of arrogance that comes from the thought &lt;em&gt;&quot;How can I checkmate my opponent right now?&quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="757" LastEditorUserId="757" LastEditDate="2018-03-17T22:07:43.763" LastActivityDate="2018-03-17T22:07:43.763" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1679" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-12-22T06:33:24.730" Score="10" ViewCount="6793" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to invest my hard-earned money to buy a chess engine which can help me to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;analyze games easily&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;experiment with different opening repertoire&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;strategical analysis&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;positional play&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't expect an answer like, all are good enough to beat a human player, etc. &lt;strong&gt;I am not looking for an engine whom I can beat&lt;/strong&gt;, as I know it's not humanly possible for a 1600 rated player to beat these engines, but my purposes are different (as given above).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, if you have or use any of these engines, &lt;strong&gt;please let me know a comparative detail on which one I should go for.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="806" LastEditorUserId="478" LastEditDate="2012-12-27T22:41:43.417" LastActivityDate="2016-06-25T03:16:46.120" Title="Deep Rybka vs Deep Fritz vs Houdini vs (other), which one to buy?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;learning&gt;&lt;software&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1680" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1668" CreationDate="2012-12-22T19:08:56.470" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Blitz allows you to collect game experience fast. Blitz could improve you in:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Quickly test some new moves and get adequate response in a real game.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Learn moves so that you will waste less time for thinking in a real game.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="862" LastEditorDisplayName="user10872" LastEditDate="2017-04-28T17:13:36.270" LastActivityDate="2017-04-28T17:13:36.270" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1681" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1679" CreationDate="2012-12-23T00:04:10.603" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would suggest you look into some open source engines. And tools for analysis.  These will be free. Some will be quite fully featured and very very powerful: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stockfish. Rating: 3121&#xA;Critter (free) Rating: 3207&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, look into SCID: an information database to which you can import millions of games and pair the database with analysis engines, add chess move-engines etc. &#xA;    -&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shane%27s_Chess_Information_Database&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shane%27s_Chess_Information_Database&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;note 1: there are millions (literally) of master games which have been annotated, and can be downloaded in zipped .pgn files, then which can be imported to SCID for play through etc. So analysis, openings, endgames etc, can all be analysed via scid though whichever engines you decide on (no reason to only have one). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;note 2: Crafty finished in second place in the 2010 Fifth Annual ACCA Americas' Computer Chess Championships. Crafty lost only one game to the first place winner Thinker.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;note 3: In various computer chess rankings Stockfish 2.1.1 was second or third behind the top gratis program Houdini and the free program Critter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Good Luck!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="865" LastEditorUserId="511" LastEditDate="2012-12-25T16:00:21.983" LastActivityDate="2012-12-25T16:00:21.983" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1683" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1622" CreationDate="2012-12-24T23:23:50.723" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;No.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason for a no, lies in your question. If you want &quot;liberal free license&quot; you are asking for free software and &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html&quot;&gt;“free software” is a matter of liberty, not price,&lt;/a&gt; since you specifically said &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html&quot;&gt;&quot;(no GPL)&quot;&lt;/a&gt; then your request is contradictory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, if you do want “free” (as in “free speech,” not as in “free beer”) opening database, there are some options.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can build small (1 MB), medium (25 MB), or large (58 MB) opening books for &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.limunltd.com/crafty/read-me.html&quot;&gt;Crafty&lt;/a&gt;, that will give you enough material for a couple of years, maybe even more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="757" LastActivityDate="2012-12-24T23:23:50.723" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1689" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1668" CreationDate="2012-12-25T03:00:28.850" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Playing speed chess makes you concentrate more during a match.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="881" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2012-12-29T17:56:09.707" LastActivityDate="2012-12-29T17:56:09.707" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1694" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1496" CreationDate="2012-12-25T19:44:43.940" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Another free chess program under Windows is &lt;a href=&quot;http://zillionsofgames.com/demo/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Zillions of Games&lt;/a&gt;. Zillions is a generalized game system that includes chess as well as other games. You can easily control its intelligence. There are different settings for&lt;br&gt;&#xA;1. Skill level&lt;br&gt;&#xA;2. How variable its move choices are&lt;br&gt;&#xA;3. How fast the computer moves   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I purchased the full version of Zillions, because I wanted to play more games than those included in the free download version.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="884" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-08-01T11:01:06.337" LastActivityDate="2019-08-01T11:01:06.337" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1695" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-12-25T19:59:08.627" Score="7" ViewCount="1513" Body="&lt;p&gt;I often use the Pulsar engine to analyze my Atomic games for better play (post-mortem). I definitely learn something, since I am not as smart as Pulsar. I am interested in doing the same thing for Losers chess. Pulsar is not very good at Losers, but Sjeng is better at this variant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I use both Pulsar and Sjeng under the WinBoard interface. Does anyone know of stronger engines that play Losers chess? I have Googled for several days, did not find any. Both Pulsar and Sjeng are free, but I would be willing to buy better software.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;PLEASE NOTE&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;Many sites have confusing terminology for variants. Losers chess is not the same as Suicide or Giveaway. In Losers chess, the King can be checkmated, and you must respond to check. This makes a big difference in the strategy for Losers chess compared to Suicide chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="884" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-17T02:29:14.667" LastActivityDate="2020-08-17T02:29:14.667" Title="Chess engine - Losers variant" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;losing-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1696" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1519" CreationDate="2012-12-25T20:07:47.123" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;I love playing chess variants. For playing live games, FICS supports the major chess variants: Suicide, Atomic, Losers, Crazyhouse and Upside-Down. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For playing correspondence games, I use both &lt;a href=&quot;http://schemingmind.com&quot;&gt;Scheming Mind&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://brainking.com&quot;&gt;BrainKing&lt;/a&gt;. They each have the normal variants (above), as well as a few unique ones. The ones unique to Scheming Mind include Benedict Chess and Chicken Chess. The ones unique to BrainKing include Ice Age Chess and Cheshire Cat Chess. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These sites are free, for a limited number of games. There are ladders and tournaments, so you can play against other people who enjoy the same variants. You can find me there under my real name (I do not use a handle).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="884" LastActivityDate="2012-12-25T20:07:47.123" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1697" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1496" CreationDate="2012-12-25T23:55:15.403" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I find that &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.sparkchess.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;SparkChess&lt;/a&gt; is fast and easy to beat on its lowest level.  It has a neat flash based interface, though you'll need &lt;a href=&quot;http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/?no_redirect&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Adobe's Flash Plugin&lt;/a&gt; to play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="780" LastEditorUserId="780" LastEditDate="2012-12-29T02:40:14.597" LastActivityDate="2012-12-29T02:40:14.597" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1698" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1705" CreationDate="2012-12-26T02:28:33.200" Score="5" ViewCount="1301" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am looking for images of chess players, pieces, as well as any other graphics related to chess - public domain only.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="618" LastActivityDate="2012-12-28T18:01:34.060" Title="Is there a collection of chess images in public domain?" Tags="&lt;history&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1699" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1704" CreationDate="2012-12-26T05:31:27.520" Score="7" ViewCount="727" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.365chess.com/eco/C39_King%27s_Gambit_Accepted,_Allgaier,_Horny_defence&quot;&gt;Allgaier, Horny Defense&lt;/a&gt; in the King's Gambit is given by the sequence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. f4 exf4 3. Nf3 g5 4. h4 g4 5. Ng5 h6 6. Nxf7 Kxf7 7. Qxg4 Nf6 8. Qxf4 Bd6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm a King's Gambit player, and I'm rated 1650 USCF, although I'm tactically much, much stronger (my biggest weakness is not knowing theory). This is a defense that my computer often plays against me (and assesses the position after the opening moves as +2 advantage for black, which doesn't seem reasonable to me), and I don't know how to deal with it. Any strategic/positional ideas that I should be aware of? I would also like to know how you guys would deal with the annoying&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.f4 Qh4+ 3.g3 Qe7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;as white. What kind of strategy should white adapt there?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please don't berate my opening choice, and refrain from telling me to read up on theory. While that is a good idea, I am more interested in strategic ideas of this variation of the King's Gambit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="885" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-12-26T11:11:24.170" LastActivityDate="2013-07-07T03:10:52.657" Title="How to play against the Allgaier, Horny Defense?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;kings-gambit&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1700" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1698" CreationDate="2012-12-26T06:29:07.600" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/greatest-chess-photos&quot;&gt;http://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/greatest-chess-photos&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Has probably some of the most epic pictures in chess history&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="886" LastActivityDate="2012-12-26T06:29:07.600" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1701" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1565" CreationDate="2012-12-27T08:27:46.190" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Perhaps it isn't the frequency of your usage, but the way of using it. Are you happy with your chesstempo tactics rating? If your rating has been stagnant for a while, find out why: do you have trouble with a certain problem-type? Or give up on problems after  a certain time? While the free version of Chesstempo doesn't offer targeted tactics, you can certainly deal with the second problem by just not quitting. Take an hour or more if need be, but make sure that you're completely satisfied with  your solution before playing out the moves. This got me from 17-1800 to 2100 on chesstempo, and helped greatly in tournaments. Also, if your playing strength is about 1900-2000, then tactics might not be the only reason for not getting better tournament results.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="885" LastActivityDate="2012-12-27T08:27:46.190" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1702" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1703" CreationDate="2012-12-27T09:01:52.967" Score="23" ViewCount="6684" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some relevant information: I've been playing chess for 4 years, and for 3 in tournaments, although I've only played in about 10 tournaments so far (3 big ones, like the Pan Ams and Chicago Open). My current rating is 1650 UCSF, and my chesstempo rating is 2100, if that is relevant. I'm fairly strong at tactics (and getting away with unsound sacrifices), and decent at positional play (I can recognize the value of controlling dark/light squares, using/creating outposts, securing open files, removing defenders, playing with a space advantage etc). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Problem: Theory. Although I play the King's Gambit as white, and the Alekhine's Defence/Grunfeld as black, all highly theoretical openings, I don't actually know theory beyond, say 5-8 moves at best. I'm a highly tactical player, so I just seek to create complications from the opening, and end up having a decisive game in the middlegame due to the ensuing fireworks. I've reached the endgame exactly twice so far (out of ~70 games, in tournaments), and hence have very little experience in them. But recently, I've been getting outplayed in the openings, and have decided that its time to man up and learn opening/endgame theory. Since its an arduous task, I request to you, wiser, more experienced players to give me advice on how to fight this monster. Where should I start? Is learning theory just rote memorization? How much is enough (certainly, 8 moves of theory won't do in the King's Gambit or Grunfeld, but may suffice in the Alekhine)? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've tried to read two books on chess so far: Silman's &quot;Reassess Your Chess&quot;, and Taylor's &quot;Alekhine Alert!&quot;. While both are highly interesting, I lose patience when they spit out a 50-move continuation after showing an interesting position, and due to not having a board around, I slam the book shut. Do you guys know of any books that don't do that/other resources to help learn theory in an entertaining way?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S. I'm very scared of the French and the English because they are highly theoretical, and score very badly against them because I keep trying odd responses (I play the KIA against the French to avoid having my d4 pawn targeted, but get crushed on the queenside anyway, and try the Dutch defence against the English to not lose due to boredom, but lose due to inferior pawn structure (mainly) anyway).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="885" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-08-01T11:42:16.393" LastActivityDate="2021-04-13T20:36:03.790" Title="Systematic approach to learning opening/endgame theory?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;aggressive-play&gt;" AnswerCount="9" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1703" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1702" CreationDate="2012-12-27T10:25:36.827" Score="31" Body="&lt;p&gt;I will preface this by saying that I'm a 2150 USCF player who has had the same issues that you are struggling with in the past. What I'm about to tell you comes straight from my own experiences playing chess all these years.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Don't study or memorize any theory straight up. I find it difficult to retain information like that and the potential for it to be used is minimal. The best way to learn theory is to first forget about it, and instead play games with that opening. Then after the game, when you are at home look up the theory for whatever variation you are playing and learn the theory AFTER you've played a tournament game with it. This usually consists of finding books related to the opening you've played, poring quickly through some GM games in the same line, and annotating the game you just played.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The amount of theory you need to know is enough that you&lt;br&gt;&#xA;1) won't fall into any opening traps and&lt;br&gt;&#xA;2) that you have a general sense of how to play your position once you are out of book. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There isn't a set number of moves you need to memorize, but these two criteria are questions you should ask yourself if you think the amount of theory you know in the opening is insufficient.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You might say that you are scared that if you don't know the theory, you might lose straight out of the opening. From my experience, you will win if you are the better player no matter what opening you play, and you will lose if you are the worse player even if you are armed with loads of theory. You say yourself that you feel that these other players outplay you out of the opening, but honestly, I have a feeling that they would've outplayed you no matter what the opening choice. Upping your entire game, and analyzing what you could have done better in the resultant opening and middlegame positions is far more important than a few temporary setbacks in tournament play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="886" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-08-01T11:45:12.620" LastActivityDate="2019-08-01T11:45:12.620" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1704" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1699" CreationDate="2012-12-28T03:16:24.427" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you type your moves into Google it will actually find games that open that way.  It's quite cool. I use the move numbers as well as the actual moves.  Basically, a copy-paste of the first few moves.  Your game seems to be a ECO &quot;C30&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For your Qh4+ question, I get &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chess.pl?result=1-0&amp;amp;gamekey=Qe2Qe7e4Qh4exd6Qxe2f4Qxe4fxe5d6g3e5/Nxe2Bxd6&amp;amp;notkey=Qe2Qe7e4Qh4exd6Qxe2f4Qxe4fxe5d6g3e5/xxx&amp;amp;title=1.%20e4%20e5%202.%20f4%20Qh4%20%203.%20g3%20Qe7%204.%20fxe5%20d6%205.%20exd6%20Qxe4%20%206.%20Qe2%20Qxe2%20%207.%20Nxe2%20Bxd6%20&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this link&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The gist is you get this continuation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. f4 Qh4+ 3. g3 Qe7 4. fxe5 d6 5. exd6 Qxe4+ 6. Qe2&#xA;Qxe2+ 7. Nxe2 Bxd6 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And you really don't have a lot to worry about.  In the games in the link above, White developed easily, Black's pawn structure was smashed, and White won pretty easy endgames.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2012-12-28T03:27:48.403" LastActivityDate="2012-12-28T03:27:48.403" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1705" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1698" CreationDate="2012-12-28T18:01:34.060" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Creative Commons search might be a good place to start:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://search.creativecommons.org/&quot;&gt;http://search.creativecommons.org/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It allows you search other sites such as Flickr and Google Images, while making sure you can legally use what you find.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="894" LastActivityDate="2012-12-28T18:01:34.060" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1706" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-12-28T19:05:09.140" Score="7" ViewCount="233" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can anyone recommend sites that they have personally had experience with to be good for learning by novices? I play chess regularly, but I have never studied theory and while I am doing fairly well against most of the regulars I play against, there are several people who are able to have a clear advantage by the midgame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd like to improve my openings by studying theory, but I've never looked at it before, so I wouldn't be helped much by a dry treatise on how to develop a pawn line against, for example, &lt;code&gt;1.d4&lt;/code&gt;. I'm looking for an objective analysis of websites that teach the theoretical principles of openings, with good examples and a minimum of references to various famous openings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="893" LastActivityDate="2013-01-31T15:53:17.333" Title="Which sites offer good tutorials for novices to improve?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;theory&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1707" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1715" CreationDate="2012-12-28T20:33:30.247" Score="12" ViewCount="2046" Body="&lt;p&gt;It’s white to move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/8/8/3k3p/3P3K/2P3R1/8/7r w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was white, and this was a blitz game which ended up as a draw because I didn't know what to do. My friend and I later analyzed this position, and he suggested that if I had played Rh3! here, then I would've won (of course, if black trades rooks, white wins). But I wasn't convinced, as the trade wasn't forced at all, and judging by the black king's position, I thought black could hold with perfect play (i.e. keep his king where he is, and use rook checks/occupation of the f-file to stop the white king from getting too close to the white pawns). We gave up analyzing after a while, and used an engine to check the position, and it gave +3 to white, which would imply (I think) that there is a forced win. But machines still tend to be wrong, and after my friend played out the line given by Fritz 12, no progress was made by white. The black rook simply occupied the f-file, and the white king couldn't get close to the white pawns. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this a draw? If this isn't a draw, how can white win?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="885" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-06T15:07:24.490" LastActivityDate="2020-04-06T15:07:24.490" Title="Is this endgame position a draw?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;draw&gt;&lt;rook-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1708" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-12-28T20:45:05.260" Score="8" ViewCount="2849" Body="&lt;p&gt;I should be able to google this, but I don't know what the name for this item is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm looking for a simple program that can be used to record and play back a chess game. I'm &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; looking for a computer program to play against, and I'm &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; looking for a client to connect to an ICS.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I just want to record the moves of an old-fashioned postal game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any suggestions for free programs that do this? I'd like suggestions for both Ubuntu and Windows.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Update:&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;I recall using &lt;a href=&quot;http://webs.ono.com/a.valverde/ectool.htm&quot;&gt;ECTool&lt;/a&gt; for this purpose in a previous century, but it seems to be not maintained beyond Windows XP.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="216" LastEditorUserId="216" LastEditDate="2012-12-29T00:37:18.140" LastActivityDate="2012-12-31T19:27:31.973" Title="Simple programs for recording chess games -- Like ECTool -- for Ubuntu and Windows" Tags="&lt;software&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1709" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1718" CreationDate="2012-12-28T21:16:25.787" Score="32" ViewCount="42215" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've faced the London System several times so far, and just don't know what strategy to adapt against it (I exclusively play Nf6 in response to 1.d4). I'm a highly tactical player, so I try following up with d5, c5, Qa5, Nc6, Rc8 etc. in order to break open the queen side when possible. But white just plays c3, e3 and curls up into an unbreakable shell. Then I end up getting outplayed positionally because I get frustrated and sac a pawn or two to get some activity. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, is it possible to play both soundly and aggressively as black, with 1. ...Nf6 against the London System? Is there a way to entice white into doing something reckless? Or does white have complete control over keeping the game boring? What are the main strategic ideas for black (in general, with preference to aggressive options)? Also, I heard that the Colle system has the same reputation as the London system, and they are quite similar strategically as well. Is there a common way to deal with both of these systems?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="885" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2015-01-18T21:14:44.547" LastActivityDate="2020-09-06T19:46:41.080" Title="The London System: Can it be broken?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;aggressive-play&gt;&lt;closed-position&gt;&lt;colle-system&gt;&lt;london-system&gt;" AnswerCount="17" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1710" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="496" CreationDate="2012-12-28T21:20:33.633" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would suggest solving basic mathematical/logic puzzles, or doing mathematical proof if that interests you. I've found that theoretical math and chess complement each other quite well, and principles of one discipline can be easily applied to the other.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="885" LastActivityDate="2012-12-28T21:20:33.633" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1711" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="75" CreationDate="2012-12-28T21:30:22.030" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Alekhine's defence (1.e4 Nf6) is also a great attacking weapon for black, as it is a highly aggressive and provocative opening that lures white into overextending its centre, which can then be targeted (generally) via the knights on c6 and b6, trading the knight on f3 for your light square bishop, and sometimes even castling on the queen side to really target white's d pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Take a look at the opening moves in the most common variations (Modern, Albert, Carlsen, 4 pawns, etc) and see if you like the resulting positions for black. It is a good practical weapon in tournament play, and white is frequently caught off-guard, as it is a rare opening (however, many world champions have played it (Fischer, Spassky, Tal, Capablanca, Alekhine, Euwe etc. and it is still sometimes used at the highest level today by Carlsen, Shabalov, Kamsky etc.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="885" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-08-17T00:50:38.913" LastActivityDate="2020-08-17T00:50:38.913" CommentCount="0" CommunityOwnedDate="2013-08-09T01:11:05.007" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1712" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1709" CreationDate="2012-12-28T23:06:14.207" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;The London System is ECO D02.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. Bf4  &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm liking c5 as it helps you clear some of White's pawns, offers the pawn in a sham-sacrifice sort of way (Qa5+ followed Qxc5) or allows the Bishop to move with tempo (Bxc5, similar to the Queen's Gambit.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's a sample game by Erik Lundin and Hans Ek, from 1963. Doesn't look too awful:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. Bf4 c5 4. e3 Qb6 5. Nc3 Bd7 6. dxc5 Qxc5 7. Bd3 e6 8.  O-O Be7 9. Ne5 Bc6 10. a3 Nbd7 11. Ne2 Qb6 12. b4 Nh5 13. Nxf7 Kxf7 14. b5 Bxb5  15. Bxb5 Nxf4 16. Bxd7 Nxe2+ 17. Qxe2 Qc7 18. Ba4 Rhd8 19. Bb3 Kg8 20. Qg4 Qe5  21. a4 Kh8 22. Rad1 Bc5 23. Rd3 Rf8 24. c4 dxc4 25. Bxc4 Rf5 26. Qd1 Bb6 27. g3  Raf8 28. Rb3 Qf6 29. Qe2 Rf3 30. Bd3 Qe5 31. Rb5 Bc5 32. Qb2 Qxb2 33. Rxb2 b6  34. Be4 R3f7 35. Rd1 g6 36. Rd3 a5 37. Kg2 Kg7 38. h4 Re7 39. Rc2 Rff7 40. Bc6  Rf8 41. Rc4 1/2-1/2&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black has the option of accepting the poisoned-pawn at move 6 which could be a lot of fun.  That's why I chose this variation for you to look at.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT&lt;/strong&gt; - Why did Ek play &lt;code&gt;9. ... Bc6&lt;/code&gt; ?  I believe that after &lt;code&gt;10. Nxd7&lt;/code&gt; he didn't want to recapture with the decent Knight on &lt;code&gt;f6&lt;/code&gt;, he surely didn't want to recapture with his King, and he didn't want the &lt;code&gt;b&lt;/code&gt; Knight sitting on the passive &lt;code&gt;d7&lt;/code&gt; square; he wants it on &lt;code&gt;c6&lt;/code&gt;.  The white-squared Bishop is fairly limited so he's willing to trade is for a Knight. With his move, if Lundin captures, he develops his Knight to the &lt;code&gt;c6&lt;/code&gt; square with tempo.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That being said, Stockfish calculated the following variation with an even game:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;&#xA;[fen &quot;rn2k2r/pp1bbppp/4pn2/2qpN3/5B2/2NBP3/PPP2PPP/R2Q1RK1 b kq - 3 9&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... O-O 2. Qf3 Nc6 3. a3 Rfc8 4. Qg3 Qb6 5. Rab1 Be8 6. Be2 Qa5 7. Rfe1 a6 8. Red1 Kh8 9. Bd3 Nh5 10. Qh3 g6 11. Nxc6 Bxc6 12. Be5+ Kg8&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I entered Ek's &lt;code&gt;9. ... Bc6&lt;/code&gt; and let Stockfish calculate the continuation.  There was no substantive difference between the score for this continuation versus what was actually played.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;&#xA;[fen &quot;rn2k2r/pp2bppp/2b1pn2/2qpN3/5B2/2NBP3/PPP2PPP/R2Q1RK1 w kq - 4 10&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Ne2 Nbd7 2. Nd4 O-O 3. c3 Nxe5 4. Bxe5 Bd7 5. Qb3 b6 6. Qc2 h6 7. h3 Rfd8 8. Rfd1&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, I entered the &lt;code&gt;10. Nxc6&lt;/code&gt; into Stockfish to gain some insights into what would happen had Lundin taken the Bishop.  The resulting score was about the same, with a slight improvement for Ek.  The moves look very computer-generated;  White's response is actually very sharp and seems to be intended to trap Black's Queen.  I am betting the position is actually razor sharp; we see that Black's Queen is relocated to the side of the board where nothing is happening.  In some variations White's Queen goes to &lt;code&gt;b3&lt;/code&gt; and, backed up by a Knight and both Bishops, begins an attack which wins material.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;&#xA;[fen &quot;rn2k2r/pp2bppp/2N1pn2/2qp4/5B2/2NBP3/PPP2PPP/R2Q1RK1 b kq - 0 10&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Nxc6 2.Bc7 Rc8 3.Na4 Qb4 4.c3 Qg4 5.Be2 Qf5 6.Bg3 O-O 7.Bd3 Qg4 8.Be2 Qf5&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2012-12-29T15:52:09.903" LastActivityDate="2012-12-29T15:52:09.903" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1713" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1708" CreationDate="2012-12-28T23:06:48.487" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;It sounds to me like what you want is a chess database program. If so, the one I would recommend is &lt;a href=&quot;http://scid.sourceforge.net/&quot;&gt;Scid&lt;/a&gt;, which is totally free, and comes in Windows, Linux and Mac flavors.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2012-12-28T23:06:48.487" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1714" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1709" CreationDate="2012-12-28T23:45:26.517" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Look through some &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chesscollection?cid=1023217&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot; title=&quot;games&quot;&gt;games&lt;/a&gt; where black wins against the London System. Some of these are won using a King's Indian Defense type setup.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="791" LastEditorUserId="791" LastEditDate="2013-01-03T23:13:11.940" LastActivityDate="2013-01-03T23:13:11.940" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1715" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1707" CreationDate="2012-12-28T23:53:22.777" Score="16" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, it seems to be drawn. First consider the following variation, but in particular the position after &lt;code&gt;2.Kxh5&lt;/code&gt; first:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/8/8/3k3p/3P3K/2P3R1/8/7r w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Rh3 Rg1 2.Kxh5 Rg8 3.Rf3 Kc4 4.Kh4 Kd5? 5.Rf5+!&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here we don't even need to consult an engine because there is a better oracle to be had. This 6-piece position is covered by existing endgame tablebases, and you can &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.k4it.de/index.php?topic=egtb&amp;amp;lang=en&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;confirm with a query&lt;/a&gt; that this is drawn. So we know for a fact that going this &lt;code&gt;1.Rh3&lt;/code&gt; route leads to a draw. (White could try delaying the pawn capture and making a more productive immediate move, but it doesn't help, and just leads to play like that coming after &lt;code&gt;1.Kg5&lt;/code&gt;, discussed at the end below.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As to the idea behind Black's play from here, it is to keep the pawns at bay with the king, and as you intimated in your original post, to use the rook to cutoff the white king as much as possible. It's difficult to say much more about the exact drawing method here, because the play can be very complicated (one reason to love endgames, by the way). To give an idea, consider the position after &lt;code&gt;4.Kh4&lt;/code&gt;. 10 of Black's possible moves keep the draw (including those that simply move the rook along the g-file), but the perhaps seemingly harmless &lt;code&gt;4...Kd5?&lt;/code&gt;, putting the king back where it was, is suddenly a loss for Black in 41 moves, &lt;em&gt;but only if White plays &lt;code&gt;5.Rf5+!&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/em&gt;, as all other fifth moves again draw. One way to get a good feel for the correct and incorrect play (and for the general notion of how impenetrable optimal play in technical endgames can be) is to toy around with moves at the link I gave above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White's only other first move option is &lt;code&gt;1.Kg5&lt;/code&gt;, and it's not too surprising that this draws if winning the h-pawn immediately already draws. It's true that White avoids getting his king cut off on the h-file, but the cost of leaving Black with a distracting outside passed pawn is too high. The point is that the black king and rook can easily stop the pawns if the white king isn't helping out his rook. But now if the white king does try to get involved, say via ideas like &lt;code&gt;Kf6-e6&lt;/code&gt; and pushing the d-pawn, Black can keep things level because she has her own passed pawn to play with.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-03-28T16:10:07.600" LastActivityDate="2020-03-28T16:10:07.600" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1716" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1648" CreationDate="2012-12-29T01:24:42.920" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;The International Chess Congress, St. Petersburg, 1909 is a classic by World Champion Emanuel Lasker was written in 1910 and is in the public domain. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[EDIT] ISBN: 1888690097, can be viewed online or downloaded in PDF at &lt;a href=&quot;http://archive.org/details/internationalche00lask&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://archive.org/details/internationalche00lask&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="791" LastEditorUserId="791" LastEditDate="2013-01-31T16:12:00.770" LastActivityDate="2013-01-31T16:12:00.770" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1717" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-12-29T04:10:00.537" Score="8" ViewCount="440" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am looking for a way within any of the common chess packages to search for a specific maneuver - rook takes bishop that is protected  (i.e. an exchange sacrifice)? I've heard of &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.rbnn.com/cql/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;CQL&lt;/a&gt;, but never used, so I would be curious if it supports something like this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="618" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2012-12-29T15:10:20.480" LastActivityDate="2012-12-31T04:50:44.470" Title="How to search a chess database for exchange sacrifices?" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;cql&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1718" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1709" CreationDate="2012-12-29T07:54:32.693" Score="32" Body="&lt;p&gt;The goal for Black in breaking the London System is to remove White's dark bishop from the game. This is present in almost every losing London System. Hikaru Nakamura plays the London, and makes it very clear he is not willing to trade his dark bishop - even going so far as to play h3 with the sole intention of hiding the bishop on h2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To break the London, trap / trade the dark bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Warning: This may contain multiple diagrams to display a progression of attacks and also possible positions&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Your Example&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With regards to your exact example,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. Bf4 c5 4. e3 Qa5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let me just stop you there. You are down a decent amount in this position, and are looking at dropping a pawn. I understand that you want to get into a game which is not closed, but that is still possible without being hyper aggressive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;My Suggestion&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lets get back to where you have a chance to start being aggressive and make a move which is subtly aggressive. I know it may not seem like it, but e6 here is very strong&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. Bf4 e6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;e6, but whhyy&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e6 allows you to begin to exert some control over the dark squares (which are White's weakness as their bishop cannot contest on them). It allows for a responsive aggression. Let us look at a few of the responses available.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;4. c4&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. Bf4 e6 4. c4 Bb4+&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nice, White tried to play into the Queen side and you got in a check (potentially White will trade their dark bishop in defense, but don't count on it). More than this, you gained a tempo, and can castle before White can; all while White's kingside is all locked up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;4. e3&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. Bf4 e6 4. e3 c5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White was trying to keep a closed position but this actually results in a torn open one. Now if White defends with 5. c3 Black can begin to really open this up, and hopefully trade off White's dark bishop. 5. c3 Nc6 will open the board up and still be in Black's favor positionally.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Remove White's dark bishop&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Consider this situation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. Bf4 e6 4. e3 c5 5. c3 Nc6 6. Nbd2 Be7 7. Be2 Nh5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White's dark bishop is toast, the game is open, and you have sacrificed neither material nor position. Game on!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even if you do not choose to be so aggressive here, you have most certainly opened the board up and prevented a closed position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="342" LastEditorUserId="342" LastEditDate="2012-12-29T08:50:02.767" LastActivityDate="2012-12-29T08:50:02.767" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1719" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2012-12-30T02:13:09.740" Score="17" ViewCount="1266" Body="&lt;p&gt;Many years ago, I was shown a problem involving three white pawns promoting to knights and ending up with a ring of five knights encircling the mated king. Does anybody know the starting position?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A few more thoughts:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(1) I think it was mate in seven.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(2) Unusually, every white move is forced because there is a mate threat from black.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(3) Unless I have the memory of the board upside down, the black king starts in the middle of the board and ends up on his sixth or even seventh rank surrounded by two pairs of white knights protecting each other and the fifth one executing the mate.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(4) The white king is somewhere really odd like h7 and the black mate threat comes from a minor piece - a bishop, perhaps?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="897" LastEditorUserId="780" LastEditDate="2013-01-01T23:34:20.083" LastActivityDate="2020-09-03T11:33:55.543" Title="Five Knights Problem" Tags="&lt;knights&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1720" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1723" CreationDate="2012-12-30T06:31:29.543" Score="13" ViewCount="3815" Body="&lt;p&gt;Fritz 12 with Rybka gave a friend of mine an evaluation of +3 for white in &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/1707/is-this-endgame-position-a-draw&quot;&gt;this endgame position&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;White to move&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;8/8/8/3k3p/3P3K/2P3R1/8/7r w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which turned out to be a draw. But I've heard that +3 from a computer means a guaranteed win with perfect play. Did I just hear wrong? How should computer evaluations be interpreted in general? What do opening advantages of &amp;lt;.5 even mean?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="885" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-08-19T16:38:20.063" LastActivityDate="2019-08-23T14:49:44.490" Title="Computer evaluations: How trustworthy are they?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;engines&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;statistics&gt;&lt;evaluation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1722" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1668" CreationDate="2012-12-30T08:17:15.363" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Who has the time for a nice 30 minute game anymore?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Being a titled player does not mean that all of your income comes from chess and that you live a life of luxury (If only! :P). Most titled players have jobs, families, or other endeavors to deal with on a daily basis. As such, it is nice to sneak in a few quick games when there is time to play. This is why it is popular, because it is easy to use no more than 6 minutes to play a quick 3 0 game and then be on your way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Why play one when you can play many?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More than that though is the appeal to play a larger amount of games and positions. Playing one game which takes many hours has its place and is great for your chess (I think slow chess makes my Blitz better), but it is still only one opening that was played. In an hour, it is possible to play up to 10 openings by playing 10 3 0 games. Or, if you are feeling in the mood for a good sprint, 30 1 0 games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Experience&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is also nice to build those natural reactions. When you play those 10 games in an hour, or perhaps in a week 100 games, then you begin to see positions that can be transposed into, or certain weaknesses in the opponent's position out of experience rather than a keen observation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="342" LastActivityDate="2012-12-30T08:17:15.363" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1723" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1720" CreationDate="2012-12-30T15:06:34.000" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are a couple of things here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, each program is going to have its own way of evaluating positions so the scores can't be directly compared.  For example, I was running StockFish against Rybka recently and found Stockfish's scores were about double those of Rybka.  I was surprised by this, but it's pretty clear that a score of 1 doesn't always mean &quot;1 pawn.&quot;  I think what we should look at is how the score changes.  Another curiosity I saw yesterday (while answering one of your other questions, coincidentally) was that Stockfish's evaluation algorithm doesn't like odd numbers very much.  In fact most scores were multiples of .04.  Given that the magnitude of the value is arbitrary, I would not assume any certain value means &quot;a sure win&quot; unless the machine is claiming it found a mate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Second, end game tablebases were created because solving end games requires a lot of search depth.  Computers playing at tournament speeds just don't do it well.  I was working through a different game a few days back and announced on this site that one side had an advantage.  Ed used a tablebase to show there was no mystery left in the position - it was theoretically drawn.  Of course, there's a huge difference between drawn-with-perfect-play and drawn; the players have to find the right moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The small value generally given to White in the early stages of the game basically means white can claim more valuable real estate.  For example, on move 1, White can claim e4 and attack e5 and f5.  Black can counter. But then White can play Nc3 and attack/bolster a4, b5, d5, and e4.  But Black can counter. So it means very little.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, to answer the question in your subject line - the evaluations are very trustworthy as they are based on hard facts and an impressive search depth.  Of course, the machines aren't infallible. But we b-players must remember that Stockfish (or Rybka) play at GM strengths on modest hardware.  On the best &lt;em&gt;common&lt;/em&gt; hardware, they estimate their ratings at FIDE 3200. This is so high that only the best humans have a slight chance of not losing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Consider what this means; I (USCF 1650-ish) have &lt;em&gt;no&lt;/em&gt; chance against a person (say, USCF 2050) who has &lt;em&gt;no&lt;/em&gt; chance against a person (say, USCF 2450) who has a &lt;em&gt;no&lt;/em&gt; chance against a person (say, USCF 2850) who has a &lt;em&gt;sliver of a&lt;/em&gt; chance against a top-flight commercial program (FIDE 3200).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus, when Stockfish says one move is better than another, I usually take it at face value.   When I hook up the endgame tablebases this thing's gonna start announcing mate-in-30s, lol.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2012-12-30T18:09:18.277" LastActivityDate="2012-12-30T18:09:18.277" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1724" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1719" CreationDate="2012-12-30T19:10:24.973" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't know about 5 knights, but it has been shown that 3 knights and a king can force mate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The method is given in Reuben Fine's Basic Chess Endings, ISBN 0-679-14002-6, my copy of which seems to have disappeared, along with the memory of its contents in this instance. I do however, distinctly remember that this endgame situation is covered in the book.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="852" LastActivityDate="2012-12-30T19:10:24.973" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1725" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1720" CreationDate="2012-12-30T19:42:18.797" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;Different engines have different &quot;scales&quot; for their numerical evaluations. For instance, in a typical middlegame position with plenty of play left, when Houdini says +2.00 or better, it is highly probable that White has a winning advantage (though even here I've included qualifications for a reason). But consider: one could modify the source code of Houdini and double the absolute values of all numbers involved in evaluations; one gets an engine of identical strength that produces identical play, but now +4.00 means what +2.00 used to mean. This illustrates that one shouldn't expect a uniform numerical threshold &lt;em&gt;across engines&lt;/em&gt; that typically indicates a winning advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More than this, though, it's important to understand that a numerical engine evaluation of a position (as opposed to an outright declaration of inevitable mate) &lt;em&gt;never&lt;/em&gt; strictly translates to &quot;a won game,&quot; even for a single, fixed engine. A key point is that numerical evaluations have no clear-cut &quot;meaning&quot; in broad chess terms, and are rather just a substitute for sentient thought that is used to mechanically guide an engine toward generally desirable outcomes by influencing which move it selects at each point in the game; in this light, what is ultimately most important to an engine's play is just the &lt;em&gt;difference&lt;/em&gt; in evaluation assigned to potential moves, rather than anything about the &lt;em&gt;absolute values&lt;/em&gt; involved. The numbers are useful to the engine itself, which needs something that concrete in order to make a decision for one move over another, but we humans shouldn't be too quick to read more meaning into the magnitudes involved with thoughts like &quot;+X means a win.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In particular, the further and further we get toward an endgame as opposed to a middlegame, the less we can use a rule of thumb (like my +2.00 for Houdini in middlegames above) about a certain threshold being enough for a win. One key reason for this is the difficulty that engines have recognizing fortresses, where an abundance of extra material still isn't enough to win. For instance, when I feed Stockfish this position,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;5k2/6p1/5r2/3Q3P/4K3/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;after a couple minutes thought it is giving an evaluation of about +7.00, and in a typical position, when Stockfish says that, you almost certainly do have a win on your hands. Nevertheless, this is a dead draw, and a human can see this easily once the fact is realized that Black can just shuffle the rook between f6 and h6, and so (1) the h-pawn is useless, and (2) the white king will never be able to help the white queen attack. &lt;em&gt;Eventually&lt;/em&gt;, Stockfish will recognize a draw here too, once it butts up against 50 moves, say, or finally runs out of different moves to try and finally can't avoid a repetition, but those events are way down the search depth line.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The endgame position from your earlier question that you linked to is akin to this sort of fortress, in that the extra connected passed pawns White has there are nice and all, but ultimately not quite enough to win in that position. If an engine were to calculate for enough time to see as much information as is contained in tablebases, then its evaluation would come down to 0, but in the meantime, its evaluation algorithm has nothing better to go on than to give a + for that extra material (that it doesn't yet know is meaningless).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-08-19T16:54:05.183" LastActivityDate="2019-08-19T16:54:05.183" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1726" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="545" CreationDate="2012-12-30T22:41:52.720" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I forget the source, but a Knight on the 6th rank supported by a pawn (i.e. on an outpost) is worth a rook and a pawn or two. Although my personal evaluation for such a piece is &quot;magnificent beast&quot;. It makes good sense, in certain situations, to trade such a knight for a rook in a closed endgame position, where another piece can then capture the pawn that was supporting the knight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="885" LastActivityDate="2012-12-30T22:41:52.720" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1728" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1702" CreationDate="2012-12-31T00:24:29.423" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;As an ex-player, I draw on a wider range of experiences, like go and scrabble. Most folk do not sit down and learn the tournament wordlist by rote starting AA and working to ZYZZYVA. You learn words with 'hooks', anagrams and high-probability pickups (the letters RETAIN combine with any letter except ABQVXYZ to make a bonus word). In the opening moves of go, you learn to apply general principles in specific situations. In chess, I guess one of the important factors is the way one opening line can transpose into another. MCO would be even bigger (and more inpenetrable) if it simply documented a hierarchy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Have fun&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="897" LastActivityDate="2012-12-31T00:24:29.423" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1729" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1719" CreationDate="2012-12-31T01:46:51.597" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;In one of my books I found this &quot;uncredited&quot; problem, it is probably not the problem you are referring to but I thought you may find it interesting, hope you like it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2018 Update, thanks to user @Evargalo for adding some light about the author, we can know it was composed by Gijs van Breukelen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;8/3P3k/n2K3p/2p3n1/1b4N1/2p1p1P1/8/3B4 w - - 0 1&#xA;&#xA;1. Nf6+ Kg7 2. Nh5+ Kg6 3. Bc2+ Kxh5 4. d8=Q Nf7+ 5. Ke6 Nxd8+ 6. Kf5 e2 7.Be4 e1=N 8. Bd5 c2 9. Bc4 c1=N 10. Bb5 Nc7 11. Ba4 Ne2 12. Bd1 Nf3 13. Bxe2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White, with material inferiority, must act energically:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;1.Nf6+ Kg7&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; if 1...Kg6 2.Bc2+! Kg7 3.Nh5+ Kf7 4.d8=Q and black has lost the possibility of check on f7.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;2.Nh5+ Kg6&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;  The black King cannot go to the last rank, d7 will crown with check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;3.Bc2+ Kxh5 4. d8=Q Nf7+ 5. Ke6 Nxd8+ 6. Kf5&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; This is the first part of the study: White has accomplished to place the black king in a mate position. In the next set of moves each defensive move by black will be forced.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;6...e2 7.Be4!&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; Threat on f3 the only move to prevent checkmate is a sub-promotion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;7...e1=N 8.Bd5!!&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; Threats 9.Bc4 10.Be2# &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;8...c2 9.Bc4 c1=N! 10.Bb5!&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; With the idea of checkmate on e8&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;10...Nc7 11.Ba4!&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; and 4 Knights cannot prevent checkmate&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;11...Ne2 12.Bd1 Nf3 13.Bxe2&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; followed by 14.Bxf3#&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="757" LastEditorUserId="757" LastEditDate="2018-03-06T02:20:15.617" LastActivityDate="2018-03-06T02:20:15.617" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1730" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1717" CreationDate="2012-12-31T04:50:44.470" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess Query Language does do this very well. The following short .cql file works like a charm to find all games in input.pgn in which one side is up an exchange (while allowing a difference in the number of pawns for each side) for 4 straight moves (picked so as to rule out, say, situations in which an equal sequence of trades happens to begin with a rook taking a minor piece, or other such temporary pseudo-sacrifices).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;(match&#xA;    :pgn input.pgn&#xA;    :output output.pgn&#xA;    (position&#xA;    :sequence(&#xA;        (position :powerdifference [Rr] -5 -5 :powerdifference [Qq] 0 0 :powerdifference [BbNn] 3 3)&#xA;        (position :powerdifference [Rr] -5 -5 :powerdifference [Qq] 0 0 :powerdifference [BbNn] 3 3)&#xA;        (position :powerdifference [Rr] -5 -5 :powerdifference [Qq] 0 0 :powerdifference [BbNn] 3 3)&#xA;        (position :powerdifference [Rr] -5 -5 :powerdifference [Qq] 0 0 :powerdifference [BbNn] 3 3)&#xA;    )&#xA;    :flipcolor&#xA;    )&#xA;)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Standard point values for pieces are used, so the &lt;code&gt;:powerdifference [Rr] -5 -5&lt;/code&gt; condition means that Black has one more rook than White, while &lt;code&gt;:powerdifference [BbNn] 3 3&lt;/code&gt; guarantees that White has exactly one more minor piece than Black. The &lt;code&gt;:flipcolor&lt;/code&gt; at the end does the same search with the roles reversed. By default, CQL inserts a &quot;MATCH&quot; comment in the games of the resulting output.pgn at the positions that warrant their inclusion, so you can quickly locate the exchange sacs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2012-12-31T04:50:44.470" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1731" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1732" CreationDate="2012-12-31T15:43:23.957" Score="17" ViewCount="2205" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the shortest known on the board game played between GM rated players that ended with a checkmate? &quot;Shortest&quot; does not mean the game has to be very short. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note: Edited this question twice clarifying some ambiguity. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="587" LastEditorUserId="587" LastEditDate="2013-01-04T12:11:42.613" LastActivityDate="2019-08-19T16:34:00.220" Title="What is the shortest known GM level OTB game to end with checkmate?" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;grandmaster&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1732" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1731" CreationDate="2012-12-31T17:32:31.657" Score="22" Body="&lt;p&gt;Keres-Arlamowski 1950, comes very close&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Szczawno Zdroj&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;1950&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Paul Keres&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Edward Arlamowski&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c6 2.Nc3 d5 3.Nf3 dxe4 4.Nxe4 Nf6 5.Qe2 Nbd7 6.Nd6# 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I heard Mr Arlamovski was an IM at the time - but given Keres' level, and the fact that there were many fewer IM's back then - probably puts the game into the GM level category.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="618" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-08-19T16:34:00.220" LastActivityDate="2019-08-19T16:34:00.220" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1733" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1708" CreationDate="2012-12-31T19:27:31.973" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I use Zillions of games to record moves for my correspondence games. Over a few years of playing, I have created more than 2,000 files. You can get it for free: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zillions-of-games.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.zillions-of-games.com&lt;/a&gt; and it knows other games than chess - and it also plays games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="884" LastActivityDate="2012-12-31T19:27:31.973" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1734" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1672" CreationDate="2013-01-01T11:34:44.810" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;After watching a video on chess.com (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/video/player/scientist-or-fighter-chess-personality-types---part-1&quot;&gt;part 1&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/video/player/scientist-or-fighter-chess-personality-types---part-2&quot;&gt;part 2&lt;/a&gt;) by GM Kaidanov, I learnt that players can also be classified into &quot;fighters&quot; and &quot;scientists&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to the video, a fighter is essentially a practical player, who values chess as played over the board, and isn't afraid to make positional/strategic concessions on the board in order to win. Such a player may purposefully choose a non-optimal way to win a game for the sake of beauty, or the resulting complications it would create for the opponent (i.e. exploiting the fact that your opponent is almost out of time). Nakamura comes to mind as a good example of a modern fighter. Carlsen as well, as he would often choose openings with &quot;dubious&quot; reputation, just to get opponents out of familiar territory. Of course, my favourite fighter would be Tal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A scientist can be described as a methodical chess player, who would almost always try to find the (objectively) best moves possible on the board. Such a player may spend more time studying chess just to find slight improvements in games/openings/endgames that have already been accepted as &quot;good&quot;, and will often employ &quot;textbook&quot; openings/moves in their games, as opposed to &quot;slightly inferior or dubious&quot; (as judged by modern chess engines) moves just to create complications for their opponents. You will find that most chess studies, notably endgame studies, come from the scientists. Petrosian, Kortchnoi and Karpov come to mind when thinking of such players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, you have a bit of both in most players, but if you were to classify players based on their methodology, then this would be one way to do so.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="885" LastEditorUserId="109" LastEditDate="2013-01-02T15:40:54.787" LastActivityDate="2013-01-02T15:40:54.787" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1735" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1736" CreationDate="2013-01-03T01:59:04.780" Score="6" ViewCount="896" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the difference between a &lt;code&gt;Tactic&lt;/code&gt; and a &lt;code&gt;Combination&lt;/code&gt;?  For reference, here is a game I played as white and I think I had a nice combination from move &lt;code&gt;16&lt;/code&gt;, but I am not sure if it is classified as a &lt;code&gt;combination&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;tactics&lt;/code&gt;.  This what my thought process from move &lt;code&gt;16&lt;/code&gt; was.  There are probably multiple mistakes made in the game, but I am not looking for a complete analysis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;16. Bc2&lt;/code&gt; - staring down the diagonal&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;17. Ned4&lt;/code&gt; - I am hoping he will take it so I can advance my pawn to &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;18. exd4&lt;/code&gt; - He takes the sacrifice which is what I was hoping for.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;19. Qxh7#&lt;/code&gt; - Apparently, he didn't notice the open diagonal and probably was concentrating on me attacking his bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 d6 2. Nf3 g6 3. d4 Bg7 4. Be3 Nc6 5. Bb5 Bd7 6. O-O e5 7. d5 Nce7 8.&#xA;   Qd3 a6 9. Bc4 b5 10. Bb3 f5 11. Nc3 f4 12. Bd2 Bf6 13. a3 Nh6 14. Ne2 g5 15.&#xA;   c4 O-O 16. Bc2 Qe8 17. Ned4 exd4 18. e5 dxe5 19. Qxh7#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastActivityDate="2019-08-19T16:28:40.970" Title="Difference between tactic and combination?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;learning&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;combinations&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1736" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1735" CreationDate="2013-01-03T02:40:50.677" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The United States Department of Defense Dictionary of Military Terms defines the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tactic_%28method%29&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;tactical&lt;/a&gt; level as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The level of war at which battles and engagements are planned and&#xA;  executed to accomplish military objectives assigned to tactical units&#xA;  or task forces. Activities at this level focus on the ordered&#xA;  arrangement and maneuver of combat elements in relation to each other&#xA;  and to the enemy to achieve combat objectives.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your ultimate combat objective is to checkmate, and for that you'll have to assign specific tasks to the tactical units you have deployed in order to achieve the desired objective.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;17. Ned4&lt;/code&gt; - Tactical sacrifice, in order to allow e4 pawn to advance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;18. e5&lt;/code&gt; is merely the completion of the tactical maneuver.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From the moment you are considering the diagonal b1-h7 as one of your attacking strengths you are considering a &quot;strategy&quot; which is to checkmate on h7, or in other words you are considering the &quot;combination&quot; of the specific techniques (tactics) involved in accomplishing such objective.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="757" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-08-19T16:28:40.970" LastActivityDate="2019-08-19T16:28:40.970" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1737" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1735" CreationDate="2013-01-03T03:52:39.483" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think this is subjective, but your combination is the entire sequence starting with &lt;code&gt;Bc2&lt;/code&gt;.  Your tactics are a knight sacrifice and a double attack (&lt;code&gt;Qxh7&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;exf6&lt;/code&gt;).  Kudos for forming a plan and executing it. But out of curiosity, how would you handle &lt;code&gt;17. ... bxc4&lt;/code&gt; ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2013-01-03T14:47:41.047" LastActivityDate="2013-01-03T14:47:41.047" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1739" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1735" CreationDate="2013-01-03T08:57:59.170" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;A combination is a more general term for a tactic. While both offer the player an advantage (when they're sound!), a tactic offers a very concrete advantage, such as material/mate. Whereas a combination is just a sequence of (sometimes) forced moves that doesn't necessary offer a very concrete advantage. It tends to be more positional in nature (i.e. a series of exchanges in the center may leave one player with a sizable space advantage, which can both support outposts for knight and also block in one's own bishops).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But really, it all comes down to semantics. To me, they are one and the same. But the connotation (to me) of tactics would be Tal and that of combinations would be Capablanca.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="885" LastActivityDate="2013-01-03T08:57:59.170" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1740" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2013-01-03T16:40:12.973" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Sicilian Najdorf is a variation of the Sicilian defense. This defense is characterized by the moves 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 a6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 a6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="813" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-09-29T14:05:28.943" LastActivityDate="2017-09-29T14:05:28.943" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1741" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2013-01-03T16:40:12.973" Score="0" Body="The Sicilian Najdorf is a variation of the Sicilian defense. This defense is characterized by the moves 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 a6." OwnerUserId="813" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-09-29T14:05:28.943" LastActivityDate="2017-09-29T14:05:28.943" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1742" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1744" CreationDate="2013-01-03T19:06:11.080" Score="5" ViewCount="621" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was involved in an endgame where it was my &lt;code&gt;King&lt;/code&gt; against my opponents &lt;code&gt;King&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;Knight&lt;/code&gt;, and &lt;code&gt;Bishop&lt;/code&gt; and I knew he could checkmate me, but he wasn't aware how.  I just kept going in circles, dancing around his pieces and he could not figure out how to checkmate me.  Into move 140, I was getting frustrated and thought about either resigning or asking for a draw.  I eventually asked for a draw and he agreed, so my question is whether you are on the losing end or the winning end, when is it time to mutually agree to a draw?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastActivityDate="2013-01-07T11:29:43.867" Title="Mutually agreeing to draw?" Tags="&lt;draw&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1743" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-01-03T19:14:19.597" Score="13" ViewCount="13882" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a member of &lt;code&gt;ICC&lt;/code&gt; and I find it useful although it may be a bit pricey. In a recent question about &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/1672/what-types-or-kinds-of-chess-players-are-there&quot;&gt;What types or kinds of chess players are there?&lt;/a&gt;&quot;, chubbycantorset pointed out a video on &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;www.chess.com&lt;/a&gt; by &lt;code&gt;GM Kaidanov&lt;/code&gt;. I started watching the video(s), but realized that they only show you the first few minutes unless you sign up, so what chess websites that require a paid subscription are worth it?  This may be subjective, but I will limit worth it to mean: Quality, Community Size, Features, and Price.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-08-18T13:06:50.610" LastActivityDate="2019-09-02T07:20:05.193" Title="What chess websites are worth subscribing to?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;websites&gt;" AnswerCount="13" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="7" ClosedDate="2019-09-02T07:21:28.953" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1744" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1742" CreationDate="2013-01-03T21:04:06.393" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;When to mutually agree a draw depends on the skill level and the position in question. An agreed draw is most logical when neither side believes they have real winning chances (Sometimes people just chicken out in complex positions...). In the case you describe, practically speaking, there are no real winning chances for either side. Alternatively, 2 GMs may rightly agree a draw in many drawn theoretical endgames where mortals such as you and I should probably play on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the rulebook perspective... the rules state that &quot;The game is drawn upon agreement between the two players. This immediately ends the game.&quot; It is correct to offer the draw after making the move but before pressing the clock. You and your opponent may agree to a draw at any time. In terms of etiquette, it is generally considered poor practice to offer a draw when losing or significantly worse. It is also poor etiquette to repeat draw offers and the TD may penalize you for &quot;annoying the opponent&quot;.  As a matter of preference, I offer a draw only when I believe that I have no real chance of losing. Rules such as 3 move repetition and the 50 move rule are there to ensure that your opponent cannot meaninglessly torture you in a position such as the one you describe. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your given situation, it may be useful to claim a draw by the fifty move rule. The fifty move rule states: &quot;The game is drawn when the player on move claims a draw and demonstrates that the last 50 consecutive moves have been made by each side without any capture or pawn move.&quot; The case of B and N versus King is a classic example where 50 moves may elapse without a pawn move or capture.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="800" LastActivityDate="2013-01-03T21:04:06.393" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1745" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="545" CreationDate="2013-01-03T21:36:49.087" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Whether rooks are &quot;better&quot; than knights depends on the current position pieces on the board. One could say that a centralized knight that cannot be dislodged by enemy pawns may be &quot;better&quot; than a rook that is on it's original square and has no mobility. It may however, decrease in relative value if pieces and pawns are exchanged and the enemy rook moves to an open file for example. So in a few words, it depends on other factors like time, mobility, and which side has the initiative.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="791" LastActivityDate="2013-01-03T21:36:49.087" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1746" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1743" CreationDate="2013-01-04T06:54:10.267" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not a pay site, but FICS (free internet chess server) is my go-to for online chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chesstempo.com&quot;&gt;Chesstempo&lt;/a&gt; is where I go for tactics and endgame puzzles (I think they have a subscription option, but I haven't subscribed, and so can't say for sure).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.playchess.com/&quot;&gt;Playchess&lt;/a&gt; is associated with ChessBase and although I haven't tried their online service, ChessBase is an amazing program and good company--- they also sell video tutorials.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Utlimately, I'd recommend using the money you'd spend on a subscription on a good chess coach--- nothing beats that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="912" LastActivityDate="2013-01-04T06:54:10.267" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1747" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1735" CreationDate="2013-01-04T06:56:46.457" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is the way that I see the difference, and the way it has been explained to me:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A &lt;em&gt;tactic&lt;/em&gt; is generally a short-term attacking sequence with little connection to the positional strategy. It is used to score points and gain an advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A &lt;em&gt;combination&lt;/em&gt; is typically a longer sequence and can involve a number of tactics. It also generally is connected to the positional strategy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="912" LastActivityDate="2013-01-04T06:56:46.457" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1748" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1743" CreationDate="2013-01-04T19:27:58.187" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess.com offers a &lt;strong&gt;free&lt;/strong&gt; trial for their highest membership (diamond) for a month. I highly, highly recommend trying that out. In addition to outstanding videos updated regularly by titled players on various aspects of the game, you also have a neat tactics trainer that allows you to customize what kind of tactics you want to do/how many at a time/what rating range you want/the option of timed vs untimed tactics, etc (although I &lt;em&gt;still&lt;/em&gt; prefer chesstempo for tactics!). Another excellent feature of full access to chess.com is something called &quot;Chess Mentor.&quot; I don't want to reveal much about it, but I certainly consider it the best feature on the site! (Even if you sign up for the free membership on chess.com, you can see some aspects of chess mentor, but you may find it too basic, depending on your level). Of course, the site also has a very nice opening explorer, a database of top level games, tournaments, etc. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It certainly wouldn't hurt to take a look (and try out!) at what the whole site has to offer for a month at zero cost. Only then you'll be able to judge whether its worth it to pay for the membership monthly/annually.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="885" LastActivityDate="2013-01-04T19:27:58.187" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1749" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1753" CreationDate="2013-01-04T19:43:32.670" Score="22" ViewCount="73022" Body="&lt;p&gt;I tried it when I first learned chess, and it was fascinating, because I had no ideas about strategy or tactics. But now that I have some experience, it seems pointless, as I know what my &quot;opponent&quot; is thinking all the time, and what my main ideas are for both sides. Should I still make an attempt to play against myself? Is there a deeper point behind doing so that helps one's chess ability? Do strong player (expert or above) do it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="885" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T18:47:02.343" Title="Is it beneficial to play chess against yourself?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="9" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1750" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1759" CreationDate="2013-01-04T19:44:19.740" Score="20" ViewCount="10441" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've played only two blindfold games so far, but it was against someone who was maybe at a 1000 uscf rating strength, and hence was fairly easy to beat, and once against my friend, who's also rated about 1650, like myself. I also managed to beat him with a sneaky tactical shot, but it was a lot more challenging, as I found it hard to remember where certain pieces were. I've also read that while it benefits your board vision for tournament games, it puts too much strain on your mind to be beneficial overall. Is this true? Any other arguments for/against playing blindfold chess?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="885" LastActivityDate="2020-09-27T06:36:05.977" Title="Is it beneficial to play blindfolded chess?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;blindfold-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1751" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1750" CreationDate="2013-01-04T21:47:18.247" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;From the following research I gather that the issue was/is under some debate though most people believe that it doesn't harm your health.  I personally don't have an opinion on the subject.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=857&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;In 1930 the USSR banned displays&lt;/a&gt; of blindfold chess because they thought it was bad for the health.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That same article states that:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Botvinnik spoke out against it, which may be why his top student, Kasparov, has declined to test his blindfold play. Most of the Melody Amber players agree that it is more tiring than a regular game even with a faster time control.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also found several older threads on the topic where the topic was debated.  One on &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/is-blindfold-chess-harmful&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chess.com&lt;/a&gt; and one on the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.redhotpawn.com/board/showthread.php?threadid=99226&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Red Hot Pawn forums&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A user from the Red Hot Pawn thread found a &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.wjh.harvard.edu/~cfc/Chabris2005b.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;study by several universities&lt;/a&gt; that goes into the subject on page 5.  They state:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Hearst and Knott (2005) generally find that supposed examples&#xA;  of serious health hazards from playing simultaneous blindfold chess are unfounded.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That study also says:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Similar training procedures were a commonplace part of&#xA;  instructional techniques in the Soviet Union, and even the three Polgar sisters, now among the&#xA;  best woman players in the world (Judit Polgar, the youngest, competes at male world&#xA;  championship level), have commented on how learning blindfold play at the age of 5 or 6 helped&#xA;  them to develop certain chess skills. However, we do agree with Gobet that the causality goes&#xA;  both ways: blindfold practice may improve chess skill, and the ability to play blindfolded&#xA;  improves as general chess skill improves. There is hardly any master we know who cannot play&#xA;  at least one or two games blindfolded, even without any special training at that form of chess.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="780" LastActivityDate="2013-01-04T21:47:18.247" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1752" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1750" CreationDate="2013-01-04T22:12:44.263" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would think developing your board vision must be somewhat useful although I doubt it means a significant difference in playing strength. Blindfold seems a handy way to improve board vision as it can be fun, and you have feedback when you forget the position. Intuitively, a nice benefit of improved board vision would be that it is easier to study. So many chess books and articles are provided with only occasional diagrams; consequently, readers are often utilizing the same board vision skills necessitated by blindfold chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="800" LastActivityDate="2013-01-04T22:12:44.263" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1753" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1749" CreationDate="2013-01-04T23:28:46.353" Score="21" Body="&lt;p&gt;Depending on exactly what you mean by &quot;playing chess against yourself,&quot; I would say it can be extremely beneficial, and that yes, strong players do this quite a lot.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Consider what you do when you have to decide what move to make when you're playing a normal game against an opponent distinct from yourself: you &lt;em&gt;analyze&lt;/em&gt; the position as best as you can in your head, which means needing to figure out what possibilities are available to &lt;em&gt;both&lt;/em&gt; players in order to get to the truth of the position. In essence, you play some portion of a game against yourself starting from the position you're at. But you don't just play straight through; you have to consider sidelines and various ideas and pitfalls that might pop up along the way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because this is such a fundamental part of playing the game, analyzing positions or entire games on one's own, freely exploring moves and ideas while trying to determine best play, is a fantastic way to improve at chess. Not only does this endeavor have the simple potential to open your mind by exposing you to more and more types of positions and ideas, but it also offers practice at just the kind of thought process that you continually need to engage in internally during a game. One can anylyze existing games, of course, be they grandmaster games or your own past games, but games initiated on the spot serve just as well to offer up new positions in which you have to figure out how to play for each side.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So if, when you play a game against yourself, you don't merely play an alternating sequence of moves until you get a result, but instead do some stopping, backtracking and general meandering, digging deeply to figure out how and why things could proceed differently, then really you're working to develop your analysis skills, and so it could definitely prove beneficial.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2013-01-04T23:28:46.353" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1754" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1750" CreationDate="2013-01-05T00:42:28.377" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;I cannot speak for whether it ever improved my chess, but I did try several Chess Visualization exercises. (This was a few years back, and I was inspired by the Amber Tournament where Super GM's played Blindfold games that blew me away.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you do a web search for &quot;Chess Visualization exercises&quot; you can find many leads, and some of them are worth it. (I don't recommend spending money on any though. There's plenty available for free.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One sample: &lt;a href=&quot;http://chesseye.alexander-fleischer.de/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess Eye&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I found two uses for these:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;When I had a few minutes to kill, I could attempt some of these exercises when I didn't have a board or computer in front of me.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The biggest value for me from these attempts at blindfold was that I could follow variations much more easily. If you watch high profile games on ICC, there will be a lot of people &lt;em&gt;kibbitzing&lt;/em&gt; lines non-stop. Being able to follow them made me better appreciate the positions.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other than that, I am not sure if full blindfold games have use, except to maybe impress non-chess players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="764" LastActivityDate="2013-01-05T00:42:28.377" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1755" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1756" CreationDate="2013-01-05T03:50:32.443" Score="8" ViewCount="644" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 exd4 4. Bc4 f6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How should I play from here? This move seems to head off the main ideas of my kingside attack; what is the best way to proceed with the plan of quickly developing and attacking?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="827" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-03-01T15:47:20.867" LastActivityDate="2014-03-01T15:47:20.867" Title="Scotch gambit: 4... f6" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;gambits&gt;&lt;scotch-game&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1756" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1755" CreationDate="2013-01-05T04:16:29.007" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think f6 is an uninspiring move.  It doesn't force anything, blocks the Knight on g8, and exposes the King.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.365chess.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;365chess.com&lt;/a&gt; says that Black's win percentage is wretched after f6; in fact it's the weakest reply with Black winning only about 16% of the games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Good continuations include the trade of Knights in the middle with &lt;code&gt;5. Nxd4 Nxd4 6. Qxd4&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;5. O-O&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stockfish sees&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 exd4 4. Bc4 f6 5.O-O Nge7 6.Nxd4 Nxd4 7.Qxd4 Nc6 8.Qd1 Ne5 9.Bb3 Bc5 10.Nc3 c6 11.Na4 Be7 12.a3 b5 13.Nc3 a5 14.Qh5+ g6 15.Qh6 Bf8 16.Qe3 Ba6 17.Rd1 Qc7 18.Qf4&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;...with a pawn-plus advantage to white.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's a sample game from 2001, Wolfgang Kuhn is White, Heinrich Lehr is Black.  I don't know the strength of these players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 exd4 4. Bc4 f6 5. O-O Nge7 6. Nxd4 Ne5 7. Be2 N7g6 8.  f4 Nf7 9. Nc3 Bc5 10. Be3 c6 11. Na4 Qe7 12. Nxc5 Qxc5 13. Nf5 Qf8 14. Qd3 d6  15. Nd4 Bd7 16. Rad1 O-O-O 17. Qb3 Qe7 18. Bc4 Rhf8 19. Be6 Rde8 20. f5 Nge5  21. Bxd7+ Nxd7 22. Ne6 c5 23. Nxf8 Nxf8 24. Bf4 Qxe4 25. Qxf7 1-0&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2013-01-05T15:58:44.157" LastActivityDate="2013-01-05T15:58:44.157" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1757" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1702" CreationDate="2013-01-05T06:11:03.980" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;With respect to learning more positional theory, I can't recommend Nimzowitch's &lt;em&gt;My System&lt;/em&gt; highly enough. If you haven't already read it, it is really wonderful. He gives plenty of examples but accompanies them with great exposition. My entire style of play has been modeled after the Nimzo hypermodern school.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My repertoire:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As white: I play your dreaded English. I tend to play it as a Reverse Dragon.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As black: Against 1. e4 I play the sicilian, aiming for the Dragon. Against 1. d4 I play the Nimzo-Indian. Against 1. c4 I go for a hyper-symmetrical english shooting for something like the pawn structure of the dragon.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What you'll notice about this choice of repertoire is that the pawn structure (excepting the Nimzo-Indian) is identical (or nearly so) in all of my games. I find that this is key to having a good positional strategy. By keeping the pawn structure the same, I am able to utilize similar tactics and positional strategy in all of my games. I know that I am going for a semi-open game that will focus my attack on the queenside. Following Nimzowitch, I am a fan of indirect control of the center--- every opening I play involves a fianchetto for one of my bishops (usually kingside, except the Nimzo, where it is a queenside fianchetto).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another thing that is good to learn is how to transpose openings into your preferred opening, or at least something relevantly similar.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One good reason to play the Sicilian Dragon: it is such a bookish opening that at any level below the master level, you will be in a position to exploit your superior knowledge of the opening. It is also a SUPER sharp opening, which should mesh well with your aggressive style of play. I tend to not like sharp openings (hence my preference for the English, which tends to be intermediate between the super positional and super tactical openings), but the Dragon is so bookish that you can utilize a nice stock of tactics.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All of this being said, my weak-point is tactics, my strong-point is positional play. I attribute this to my study of Nimzowitch, which really helped me understand position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for endgame play: I have to disagree with flicflac. I tend to think it is crucial, although admittedly it is less crucial at lower levels. The best resource for endgame study is &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1936490137&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Dvoretsky's Endgame Manual&lt;/a&gt;. Why do I think endgames are so good to learn? Well, I've seen Silman say that you can get to master level with only study of tactics and endgames. From what I've seen of very strong players, these aspects of their game tend to be very well honed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A great resource for positional strategy is also Keres and Kotov's &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/0486261549&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;The Art of the Middlegame&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt;. It is the only book I know of that focuses on a detailed and comprehensive study of midgame strategy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I hope this is of some use. No doubt a good portion of it is idiosyncratic, and may very well not be for everyone, but it has served me well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="912" LastActivityDate="2013-01-05T06:11:03.980" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1758" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1742" CreationDate="2013-01-05T07:53:50.013" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Dan Heisman (a great chess coach imho) suggests for beginners (where a beginner I think is anyone below around 1500 elo, this may very well not apply to you) to &lt;em&gt;never&lt;/em&gt; agree to a draw. His thought, and I tend to agree, is that playing out games that seem hopeless either due to draw or a losing position (in which case you might be considering resigning) is good practice. It is good to learn to play from behind or play to a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That being said. There are some cases where it is an obvious case of perpetual check or something similar. If you find yourself in one of those situations, then there is no value in continuing play. If one of the draw rules don't kick in (which they likely would), then a mutual draw would make sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="912" LastActivityDate="2013-01-05T07:53:50.013" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1759" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1750" CreationDate="2013-01-05T07:55:10.790" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;In my opinion&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I cannot speak to the health benefits or drawbacks of playing blindfold chess (which I find to be, in my opinion, baseless).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What I can say is from experience. I have attempted playing blindfold chess when I was not a very strong player and found it challenging and not worthwhile. However, as my chess progressed I found playing blindfold to be a lot easier, and was even recently able to play a game to the 62nd move where I checkmated my friend. It took 90 minutes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My main point is that that blindfold chess more than likely does not affect your chess ability. It is your chess ability that affects your blindfold chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Here is are some conclusions from an in depth study&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2972788/&quot;&gt;http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2972788/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In their review of the literature, Hearst and Knott document a number of notable conclusions that may surprise chess players and non-chess players alike:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;li&gt;The general memory of chess masters, including those able to play many blindfold games simultaneously, is no better than that of the average person.&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Highly skilled players can form long-term memories of full-board chess positions within seconds of viewing them.&#xA;&lt;li&gt;High level chess skill (not just blindfold chess) requires a recognition-action repertoire of some 50,000 to 100,000 features of chess positions and associated responses.&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Some of the strongest masters find the actual sight of a chess position to be more distracting than helpful when thinking ahead during a game.&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Practicing blindfold chess improves sighted chess skill.&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Some of the strongest blindfold chess masters claim that the strength of their blindfold play is similar to that of their sighted play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Bonus material&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In case you really want to read up on the subject: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.wjh.harvard.edu/~cfc/Chabris1999d.pdf&quot;&gt;http://www.wjh.harvard.edu/~cfc/Chabris1999d.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="342" LastActivityDate="2013-01-05T07:55:10.790" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1760" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1749" CreationDate="2013-01-05T07:59:34.027" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes! I find it extremely helpful to play chess against myself. &lt;em&gt;It is important to remain unbiased.&lt;/em&gt; At any given time, I have a chess board on a table which has an active game usually going for a week or two that I play against myself.  Playing against yourself will allow you to consider the tactics of your opponent more thoroughly because when you are playing against yourself, your opponent always knows what you are thinking. This can be important to consider, in that, if I have a forced mate against another player in 5 moves, it really does not matter that we both see it, because in the end, the mate is forced. My point is that even if your opponent sees the correct move coming, that does not diminish the move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="342" LastActivityDate="2013-01-05T07:59:34.027" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1761" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1755" CreationDate="2013-01-05T08:40:17.797" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Basically, &lt;code&gt;f6&lt;/code&gt; is a blunder, hands down. Take the pawn in the middle, keep your light bishop on the diagonal preventing Black from castling, and ride that positional advantage into the home stretch.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is what stockfish sees after a few (note that it is important to wait and allow stockfish to get to at least 20 moves of analysis - it can make a difference).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White to move, suggested Qd3 +1.57&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 exd4 4. Bc4 f6 5. Nxd4 Nge7 6. Nc3 Nxd4 7. Qxd4&#xA;Nc6 8. Qd2 Ne5 9. Bb3 c6 10. f4 Ng6&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="342" LastActivityDate="2013-01-05T08:40:17.797" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1763" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="188" CreationDate="2013-01-05T22:53:16.037" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think that the point in analysing your games is to point out in what conditions you are inclined to make a mistake (not necessarily a blunder, but also a sub-optimal move).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You do not study your games to improve your chess knowledge (for that you have to study Grand Masters games), but to improve your approach to the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Try to determine common situations in your games, give them a name and try to find a kind of behaviour to tackle them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just an example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Unexpected move:&lt;/strong&gt; this is when your opponent made a move you did not expect and you notice that you lost confidence and you made a suicidal move to find counterplay. &#xA;Then in your analysis you find out that your position was not lost at all!&#xA;It was you that reacted badly in that kind of situation. Take note of it.&#xA;The next time this situation arises, try to stay calm and be aware that usually a mistake is followed by a worst one in order to avoid it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are hundreds of situations like this that you have to find out yourself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Create &lt;strong&gt;your&lt;/strong&gt; kind of chess theory if you want to improve.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="918" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T15:40:39.237" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T15:40:39.237" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1764" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1497" CreationDate="2013-01-06T04:29:48.807" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This iPad/iPhone &lt;a href=&quot;https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/dinosaur-chess-learn-to-play!/id413237532?mt=8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;app&lt;/a&gt; looks promising based on the reviews. I haven't tried it personally though, so I can't attest to its worth.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.universis.co.uk/dc/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Here&lt;/a&gt; is the website of the developers. You can contact them to find out more about the features that they have. For instance, I couldn't find anything about whether it would speak to your child.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="912" LastActivityDate="2013-01-06T04:29:48.807" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1765" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-01-06T12:09:22.207" Score="6" ViewCount="751" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm looking for annotated games by top GMs featuring the Dutch defense.  These could be in a book with lots of other non-Dutch games.  Unfortunately Botvinnik's &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/0486206203&quot;&gt;&quot;Botvinnik: One Hundred Selected Games&quot;&lt;/a&gt; as I recall doesn't have quite a half dozen and they are all Stonewalls: I'd like some &quot;Classical&quot; variation games too.  How about &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/0486238008&quot;&gt;&quot;Zurich International Chess Tournament, 1953&quot;&lt;/a&gt;; Bronstein played the Dutch, didn't he?  Unfortunately with Amazon's &quot;search inside&quot; feature it doesn't look like the games were indexed by opening.  As you can tell I don't mind if the games are old-ish (and this will weed out lots of Leningrad Dutch's I'm not necessarily interested in at this point), though I'm also open to more recent games too.  Thanks in advance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user76" LastActivityDate="2019-08-14T13:27:44.290" Title="Best book with several annotated games by top GMs with the Dutch" Tags="&lt;books&gt;&lt;master-games&gt;&lt;dutch-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1766" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1750" CreationDate="2013-01-06T12:16:48.447" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;From my personal experience playing Blindfold is absolutely beneficial.  I tried it pretty consistently for several weeks many years back and suddenly, despite being rated around 1800, I was mowing through 2100 players at my local club at blitz.  Blindfold can only help your visualization ability since you not only only have to visualize future moves but also the current position.  And I find the &quot;strain on the brain&quot; argument to be utterly absurd.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user76" LastActivityDate="2013-01-06T12:16:48.447" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1767" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="474" CreationDate="2013-01-06T13:19:05.797" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;One way NOT to develop rooks in the opening is via something like&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;a4 d5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Ra3&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;h4 d5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Rh3&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I (a duffer) played a series of twenty or so games against someone who insisted on opening like this. He never won a game against me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Best advice is to follow the common wisdom that rooks are usually developed last.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="919" LastActivityDate="2013-01-06T13:19:05.797" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1768" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="132" CreationDate="2013-01-06T13:42:00.803" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm just trying to protect a move that's mentioned above as being perhaps one of the worst. Grandmaster Mednis years ago wrote a little opening theory book (&amp;quot;&lt;em&gt;How to play good opening moves&lt;/em&gt;,&amp;quot; Edmar Mednis, ISBN-13: 978-0679141099) in which he states that&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.g3&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;is one of White's &lt;em&gt;perfect&lt;/em&gt; opening move choices, when followed by&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.Bg2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He does mention some of White's &lt;em&gt;awful&lt;/em&gt; first move choices, but doesn't rank their badness.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="919" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2021-02-26T21:11:41.650" LastActivityDate="2021-02-26T21:11:41.650" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1769" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1773" CreationDate="2013-01-06T22:23:25.157" Score="5" ViewCount="1144" Body="&lt;p&gt;When does white do it? &lt;em&gt;Why&lt;/em&gt; does white do it? What kind of strategies should both sides adopt in such games? What kinds of games does it give rise to (i.e. positional or tactical)? Which players are well known practitioners of such a setup as white?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="885" LastActivityDate="2013-01-07T01:16:58.397" Title="Castling long in the King's Indian Defence (for white)" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;castling&gt;&lt;kings-indian&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1770" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1801" CreationDate="2013-01-06T22:25:24.093" Score="8" ViewCount="1204" Body="&lt;p&gt;When and why does Black castle long in the Sicilian? What kind of strategies should both sides adopt in such games? What kinds of games does it give rise to, i.e. positional or tactical? Which players are well known practitioners of such as Black?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="885" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-10-09T01:06:47.240" LastActivityDate="2020-10-09T01:06:47.240" Title="Black castling long in the Sicilian" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;castling&gt;&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1771" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="188" CreationDate="2013-01-06T22:42:51.697" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here are my 2 cents in addition to the already well-written answers:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Start your analysis &lt;em&gt;during&lt;/em&gt; your games instead of after. It really helps remember the critical points of the game rather than trying to recall them later (you're likely to not immediately start analyzing your game after a round finishes...). This will save you both time and effort. Here's how:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Mark moves where you took more time than usual (Do the same for your opponent's moves!).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Mark the point where you got out of opening theory (that you knew at that point), and check later with an opening database whether you played the next few moves accurately.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Mark the point where you got out of your comfort zone (when did the complications begin? when did your opponent sac a piece on you? etc.).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Refrain from giving ?s and !s on the scoresheet during your game (unless you want to use it as a psychological tactic against your opponent).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If there was a time when you wanted to attempt a tactical shot, but didn't; mark it as well, so that you can check later for its soundness. (I use an inverted &quot;T&quot; (for Tal) to mark such moves :P )&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Doing this takes little time, and saves a LOT of time during post game analysis. Good luck!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="885" LastActivityDate="2013-01-06T22:42:51.697" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1772" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1774" CreationDate="2013-01-06T23:00:13.310" Score="9" ViewCount="2462" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why is it generally uncommon (unsound?) for white to capture the knight on c6 in open Sicilians?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example (this is just an example; I'm not referring to this specific position, but similar positions in the opening from Dragons, Najdorfs, Sheveningens, Richter-Rauzers, etc.): &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 Nc6 6. Nxc6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I understand that not capturing the knight gives black the semi open c-file. But at the same time, capturing closes that c-file and gives it an isolated a-pawn and a semi-open b-file. Is it just because giving away the b-file to black is more dangerous than giving the c-file? I also understand that capturing the knight gives black an extra pawn in the center. But shouldn't white be able to quickly castle on the king side and torment black's a-pawn?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="885" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2013-01-07T01:18:20.190" LastActivityDate="2016-07-15T22:36:49.963" Title="Taking the knight on c6 in open Sicilians" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1773" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1769" CreationDate="2013-01-07T01:16:58.397" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;The most common way to end up with queenside castling for white in the KID is via the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King%27s_Indian_Defence,_S%C3%A4misch_Variation&quot;&gt;Saemisch Variation&lt;/a&gt; &lt;code&gt;5.f3&lt;/code&gt;. Black often attacks on the kingside in the KID, and the Saemisch is typically a way to avoid that, and ideally to attack on the kingside oneself. Of course, whole books have been written about what's going on in this variation, and I don't play either side of it myself, so this answer only addresses the last part of your question, concerning well-known practitioners.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The link above notes that&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The Sämisch has been played by numerous grandmasters, including world champions Mikhail Botvinnik, Mikhail Tal, Tigran Petrosian, Boris Spassky, Anatoly Karpov and Garry Kasparov.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;True enough, and so did Alekhine. But if my database is to be trusted, none of these champions has all that many games on record in the Saemisch, and even less against serious competition. For instance, Karpov played such a setup twice in his 1990 world championship match against Kasparov, scoring a draw (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1067301&quot;&gt;round 21&lt;/a&gt;) and a win (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1067300&quot;&gt;round 23&lt;/a&gt;), which is a nice endorsement. But he seems not to have played that way often; in my database, the only other classical game for Karpov in this setup against a player who is truly a peer of his is a draw against Timman from &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1069052&quot;&gt;round 18&lt;/a&gt; of their 1993 FIDE championship match.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The late Svetozar Gligoric has 18 games on the white side of this in my database (scoring 12.5 points), and his games could be particularly enlightening since he was a well-known proponent of the black side of the King's Indian; in fact, I also see him scoring 22.5/37 on the black side of this, so there's plenty of Gligoric games from boths sides to chew on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But the most frequent assayer that I find is &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florin_Gheorghiu&quot;&gt;Florin Gheorghiu&lt;/a&gt;, and he's also a very successful one, with a phenomenal 35.5/43 score. So if you want a &quot;hero&quot; to follow for this kind of setup, Gheorghiu might fit the bill nicely. (Or conversely, if you want to know what might be coming at you as black.) To whet your appetite, what follow are two of his wins, each with Gligoric playing black in fact. The first is from the 1966 Havana Olympiad:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Havana ol (Men) fin-A&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Havana&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;1966.??.??&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;4&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Gheorghiu, Florin&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Gligoric, Svetozar&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;E87&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;1966.10.25&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;81&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.e4 d6 5.f3 O-O 6.Be3 e5 7.d5 Nh5 8.Qd2 f5 9.&#xA;O-O-O Nd7 10.Bd3 Ndf6 11.exf5 Bxf5 12.Nge2 Qd7 13.g4 Bxd3 14.Qxd3 e4 &#xA;15.Nxe4 Nxe4 16.gxh5 Nc5 17.Bxc5 dxc5 18.hxg6 Rae8 19.gxh7+ Kh8 20.Nc3&#xA;Bh6+ 21.Kb1 Re3 22.Qg6 Qg7 23.Rhg1 Rfxf3 24.d6 cxd6 25.Rxd6 Rf8 26.Nd1 &#xA;Ref3 27.Qxg7+ Bxg7 28.Rg5 b6 29.a4 Kxh7 30.a5 Bd4 31.axb6 axb6&#xA;32.Rxb6 Re8 33.Rg2 Re4 34.Rc6 Rh3 35.Rd2 Kg7 36.Nc3 Re1+ 37.Kc2 Kf7 38.Nb5&#xA;Be3 39.Rd7+ Ke8 40.Rb7 Re2+ 41.Kb1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And the other is from the 1968 Lugano Olympiad:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Lugano ol (Men) fin-A&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Lugano&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;1968.11.03&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;10&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Gheorghiu, Florin&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Gligoric, Svetozar&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;2520&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;2575&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;E87&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;1968.10.17&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;95&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.e4 d6 5.f3 O-O 6.Be3 e5 7.d5 Nh5 8.Qd2 f5 9.&#xA;O-O-O Nd7 10.Bd3 Ndf6 11.Nge2 fxe4 12.Nxe4 Nxe4 13.Bxe4 Nf6 14.Bc2 Bf5 15.&#xA;Ng3 Bxc2 16.Qxc2 c5 17.dxc6 bxc6 18.h4 Qa5 19.Kb1 e4 20.h5 Qe5 21.Nxe4 &#xA;Nxe4 22.Bd4 Qe7 23.Bxg7 Kxg7 24.h6+ Kf7 25.Rhe1 Rae8 26.Rxe4 Qf6 27.Qa4 &#xA;Rxe4 28.fxe4 Rc8 29.Qxa7+ Qe7 30.Qd4 Re8 31.Rf1+ Kg8 32.Rf4 g5 33.Rf5 &#xA;Qxe4+ 34.Qxe4 Rxe4 35.Rxg5+ Kh8 36.Rg7 Re6 37.Rc7 Rxh6 38.Rxc6 Kg7 39.c5 &#xA;Rh1+ 40.Kc2 dxc5 41.Rxc5 Rg1 42.Rg5+ Kf6 43.Rg8 h5 44.Rf8+ Kg5 45.Rf2 Kg4 &#xA;46.Re2 Kg3 47.a4 h4 48.a5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2013-01-07T01:16:58.397" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1774" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1772" CreationDate="2013-01-07T03:26:45.310" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;White's d4 Knight is his best piece. Why would he trade it for a common Knight and improve Black's center?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Regarding harassing the &lt;code&gt;a&lt;/code&gt; pawn... you can have it.  While you're doing that, your opponent will be drawing a bead on your King.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Checking 365chess.com, we see that &lt;code&gt;Nxc6&lt;/code&gt; is a blunder at the sub-master level.  Black wins twice as often.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At the master level, &lt;code&gt;Nxc6&lt;/code&gt; is not played.  There are 2 games, the latest being from 2004.  Both ended with wins for Black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first game is from 9/4/2001 at Glifada.  It's an ECO B56.  Andreas Kofidis is White. Marijan Petrov is Black.  White is completely destroyed in this short game after Black sacrifices a Knight on f3.  Very nasty...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit - ...but survivable.  White lost instantly on &lt;code&gt;17. Bxf8&lt;/code&gt;. It's hard to believe he didn't see the mating attack since it's pretty easy.  So he must have though he was already lost.  Instead, &lt;code&gt;17. Qe3&lt;/code&gt; holds.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 d6 6. Nxc6 bxc6 7. Bd3 g6 8.  b3 Bg7 9. Bb2 Qa5 10. O-O Ng4 11. Qe1 O-O 12. h3 Ne5 13. Na4 Nf3+ 14. gxf3 Qg5+  15. Kh1 Qh4 16. Bxg7 Bxh3 17. Bxf8 Bg4+ 0-1&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This game is from 3/7/2004.  It's ECO B58.  Albert Bokros is White.  Veniamin Sergeev is Black.  Sergeev puts his Queen out there and Bokros tries to trap it.  It doesn't work out, and by move 22 Sergeev dominates the center.  White seems to be trying a cheap shot mate-in-one on move 33. Perhaps he's under time pressure.  It doesn't work out and he drops a piece.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit - I see now that the Knight on &lt;code&gt;a5&lt;/code&gt; is trapped. Black piles on the pieces until it falls.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 d6 6. Nxc6 bxc6 7. Be2 e5 8.  O-O Be7 9. f4 exf4 10. Bxf4 Qb6+ 11. Kh1 Qxb2 12. Qd2 Qb4 13. Rab1 Qc5 14. Na4  Qa3 15. Nb2 O-O 16. Nc4 Qc5 17. Be3 Nxe4 18. Qe1 Qd5 19. Bd3 Qe6 20. Na5 d5 21.  c4 f5 22. Bc2 Ba6 23. Bb3 dxc4 24. Bc2 Kh8 25. Bd4 Bf6 26. Bxf6 Rxf6 27. Bxe4  Qxe4 28. Qb4 Rg8 29. Rbe1 Qd5 30. Rf3 h6 31. Qc3 f4 32. Rf2 Rf5 33. Re7 Qxa5  34. Qh3 Re5 35. Rxe5 Qxe5 36. Qf3 Qe3 0-1&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But what's important in both of these games is that Black is granted counter-play out the wazoo - a Sicilian player's dream.  We see Queen sorties in both games on the &lt;code&gt;a5-d8&lt;/code&gt; diagonal.  The &lt;code&gt;b6&lt;/code&gt; square allows the Black Queen to get a bead on the traditionally weak (yet dangerous!) &lt;code&gt;b2&lt;/code&gt; square and also peer menacingly at the castled enemy King.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2013-01-07T12:23:14.310" LastActivityDate="2013-01-07T12:23:14.310" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1775" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1772" CreationDate="2013-01-07T03:29:08.040" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Overview&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is considered to be the classical variation of the Open Sicilian. The &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Chess_Opening_Theory/1._e4/1...c5/2._Nf3/2...Nc6/3._d4/3...cxd4/4._Nxd4/4...Nf6/5._Nc3/5...d6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;wikipedia article for this position&lt;/a&gt; states &quot;Of all the responses for white, Bg5 is perhaps the best&quot;. However, when analyzing with Stockfish, it suggests either Bb5 with a weight of 0.28 in White's favor.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Why is it generally uncommon (unsound?) for white to capture the knight on c6 in open Sicilians?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Control&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is my take on this, and it is just an opinion. In general, it is better when possible to allow your opponent to initiate a trade because it will usually allow you to end up still controlling that space. This is true in the current situation where, if allowed, Black's knight would take White's, and then White's queen would take.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Is it just because giving away the b-file to black is more dangerous than giving the c-file?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Tempo&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If White does take on c6, and then bxc6 Black actually has a lot of options. It allows for d5 to be played with support from the c file, and overall, it is good if you can manage to take towards the center of the board with your pawns. It also means that, possibly, Black's bishop could end up on a6 which could be problematic in some lines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;But shouldn't white be able to quickly castle on the king side and torment black's a-pawn?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Exactly&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White should be trying to castle and develop in this position. Both of which are achieved with &lt;code&gt;6. Bb5&lt;/code&gt;. This creates an attack, forces Black to defend with his Bishop on d7 (forcing generates tempo), and allows for White to castle all while Black's dark bishop is locked in at f8. Whichever direction Black aims for, you will have at least one move to prepare for it, and that little bit of gained tempo can be the difference in breaking open a position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lets just leave Black's a-pawn out of this. It is a tough cookie and will be around for a while.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Goal In My Opinion&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;&#xA;[fen &quot;r2qkb1r/pp1b1ppp/2nppn2/1B6/3NP3/2N5/PPP2PPP/R1BQ1RK1 w kq - 0 8&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="342" LastActivityDate="2013-01-07T03:29:08.040" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1778" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1772" CreationDate="2013-01-07T11:21:11.450" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's about the d5 square. Black's first move, ...c5, meant that the c-pawn could never cover d5 again. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then white got a semi-open d-file, and from then on, if black plays ...e6 to cover d5 then it means that pawn d6 is weakened. Also there may sacrifices on e6, or white sacrificing a piece on d5 (because ...exd5 exd5 opens a line to the king).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In some lines, these things are more of a problem than in others. For instance in the Dragon black has already played ...g6 and therefore he's very reluctant to play ...e6, making d5 really weak.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Exchanging the knight moves a black pawn to c6 where it controls d5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But of course, there are lines in which white does exchange on c6, perhaps to push e4-e5 immediately, or the knight was chased away from d4 by ...Qb6 or so and exchanging it gains some time. It's always a matter of pros and cons.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2013-01-07T11:21:11.450" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1779" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1742" CreationDate="2013-01-07T11:29:43.867" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to add that as the side with only a king, it is a bit against etiquette to offer a draw. Your opponent can already get a draw if he wants one -- by letting his clock run out, by giving away his pieces, whatever, the game is impossible to lose for him. He is the one who can offer a draw, you should concern yourself with writing down moves and counting for the 50 move rule (or threefold repetition).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this case, apparently you knew you were on move 140, so it's likely to you could already claim a draw based on the 50 move rule and didn't need to offer it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2013-01-07T11:29:43.867" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1780" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="663" CreationDate="2013-01-07T12:45:52.783" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;I only know FIDE rules.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;K+N+N v K is a position in which checkmate is still possible, therefore it is treated exactly like any other position in which checkmate is still possible (like, say, the opening position).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In particular, this means that:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;This position is &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; declared a draw, like dead positions are (K+B v K, for instance, is an immediate draw not requiring any claims)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If the side with only a King runs out of time, he loses&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But there are a few other rules to mention besides the 50 move rule:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If it's rapid or standard chess, there is no increment, and play is in the last time period (in which there's therefore only a limited amount of time for the rest of the game), if the defending side has less than 2 minutes on the clock, he can &lt;em&gt;claim a draw under Rule 10.2&lt;/em&gt; claiming that the position can't be won any more in normal fashion. Rule 10.2 is always complex but in this case it's obvious that the draw claim will hold.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;There is a rule against &quot;bringing the game of chess into disrepute&quot; and I feel that an arbiter should give a warning based on that rule to any player that knows better continuing this in a slow game.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But in Blitz, you are out of luck and need to press your clock faster than he does.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2013-01-07T12:45:52.783" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1781" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1770" CreationDate="2013-01-07T13:09:04.653" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Black castling long in the Sicilian is a rare thing indeed. I can think of a few reasons:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Black castling long is very rare in chess in general, only a few slow going openings (Caro-Kann, Scandinavian) feature it in general. It takes longer to prepare for long castling than for short castling, the king is less safe on c8 than on g8, white moves first so it's even riskier for black than for white.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;In the Sicilian, white generally gets quick development and an attack so it should be even more dangerous.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Black has moved 1...c5, making the queenside less fit as a home for a king. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Besides, one of the ideas of the Sicilian is to play along that c-file with a rook on c8, doesn't combine well with castling long.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So in general black only goes queenside if white has a full-force attack on the kingside and the center, and there is basically nowhere else to go.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can think of one exception right now in the c3-Sicilian, where the queens are off the board and black can castle with check: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 c5 2.c3 d5 3.exd5 Qxd5 4.d4 Nc6 5.Nf3 Bg4&#xA;6.Na3 e5!? 7.dxe5 Qxd1+ 8.Kxd1 O-O-O+ *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and lines similar to that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastEditorUserId="924" LastEditDate="2013-01-08T12:15:45.407" LastActivityDate="2013-01-08T12:15:45.407" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1782" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1660" CreationDate="2013-01-07T13:41:58.160" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There really isn't any regularity to the names of openings, there's never been any system behind it, it's always been very informal and the names sort of grew over the centuries. Almost every name has its own distinct history behind it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.c4 probably wasn't called the English right away, or everywhere. I don't know the actual story behind this one, but I guess that some time in the 19th century there were a few English players who were known for using it and after it got referred to as &quot;that opening of those English players&quot; it got the nickname &quot;English opening&quot;, and it happened to stick.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Openings like 1.e4 that everybody played never got a nickname.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2013-01-07T13:41:58.160" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1783" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1606" CreationDate="2013-01-07T14:41:43.773" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would send email to the authors of the relevant sections of chesspublishing.com . If they like the quality of your analysis, they can share it with the world in one of the site's updates, and then it's published with you as the source. If any book authors decide to use it, they should credit you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's unlikely that any analysis will actually be &lt;em&gt;named&lt;/em&gt; after you. For that, you should play it in a serious game against strong opposition, the idea should be so special or original that people in the worldwide chess community actually talk about it, and it should also have lasting power. A one-time fantastic novelty that means that variation is never played again won't get a name, but Zviaginsev's 1.e4 c5 2.Na3!? against Khalifman or the Gajevski (10...d5!? in the Ruy Lopez Chigorin) are new moves from recent years that are still played and analyzed, and people refer to them using their inventors' names, so they're basically named after them now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, ECO, being an encyclopedia, can't really contain absolutely everything, they have to edit heavily and only keep the most important stuff. I think it's more likely that your analysis will first end up on Chesspublishing, then in books on the opening your analysis is in, and if the variation stays around and is played a lot, maybe possibly in ECO.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2013-01-07T14:41:43.773" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1784" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1785" CreationDate="2013-01-07T15:34:11.703" Score="5" ViewCount="1087" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can someone explain the &lt;code&gt;x-ray&lt;/code&gt; tactical motif?  I have looked at this &lt;a href=&quot;http://chesstempo.com/tactical-motifs.html#xray&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;example&lt;/a&gt;, but I still don't understand it fully.  If you can provide other examples, that would be great too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastActivityDate="2019-08-14T12:59:56.433" Title="Understanding the x-ray tactical motif?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1785" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1784" CreationDate="2013-01-07T16:00:13.967" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Basically, if a defending piece of your opponent has one of your pieces with the same movement &quot;behind&quot; it, then it's not really defending anything, as your piece standing behind also &quot;attacks&quot; what you want to capture &lt;strong&gt;through&lt;/strong&gt; that defending piece of your opponent's.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the following exampe, the &lt;code&gt;♞g6&lt;/code&gt; is x-ray-attacked by the &lt;code&gt;♖b6&lt;/code&gt;, through the &lt;code&gt;♜d6&lt;/code&gt;, so once the other rook takes it, it is defended &lt;em&gt;through&lt;/em&gt; the black rook by the &lt;code&gt;♖b6&lt;/code&gt; (and the knight is lost).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;7k/4p3/1R1r2n1/P7/6R1/8/8/7K w - - 1 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Rxg6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="672" LastActivityDate="2013-01-07T16:00:13.967" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1786" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1784" CreationDate="2013-01-07T18:12:27.373" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Basically, an x-ray attack is one where, even if one of your long range piece (queen, bishop, rook) is being blocked by another piece, then you should still look at the squares that your blocked piece can attack &lt;strong&gt;through&lt;/strong&gt; the piece that's blocking it. Here's an &lt;a href=&quot;http://chesstempo.com/chess-problems/79954&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;example&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;r1Q2b1r/1p1R1pp1/p1b2k2/8/2q2Np1/2P1B2P/PP3P2/2K4R w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Bd4+ Kg5 2. Rd5+ Qxd5 3. Qxg4+ Kh6 4. Qh4+ Qh5 5. Qxh5++&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here, the queen's power is unleashed on the poor g4 pawn after the rook moves after which his majesty is thrown off the board. Always look out for tricks like this, and the one in the link that you posted in the question. An x-ray attack can be used simultaneously with discovered attack. But the basic idea is that one of your pieces &quot;sees&quot; through another.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="885" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-08-14T12:59:56.433" LastActivityDate="2019-08-14T12:59:56.433" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1787" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1743" CreationDate="2013-01-08T03:36:43.957" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;My brother once bought a paid membership upgrade on &lt;a href=&quot;http://chessgames.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;chessgames.com&lt;/a&gt; and it was interesting, the non-free features I found most useful were:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Guess-the-move, you play some parts of historic games, while keeping score when you find good/best best move(s).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Browse games with specific piece sacrifices or specific pieces vs pieces endgames from their databases.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;One-click button to download their databases in PGN format (*all games from X player, XY vs Z remaining pieces endgames, sacrifices, etc).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;sub&gt;*you can theoretically get every game from a certain player as a free user, but it will take forever, the one-click-download-all will not be available.&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It was not very cheap, but I really liked the option to download massively multiple games, I can now analyze them with Arena + chess engines and learn from these offline in my laptop when I don't find WiFi.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would rate it 7/10 overall.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="478" LastEditorUserId="478" LastEditDate="2013-01-08T04:02:00.737" LastActivityDate="2013-01-08T04:02:00.737" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1788" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1655" CreationDate="2013-01-08T12:34:46.107" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to add two details. First, FIDE does not have provisional ratings. The &quot;Rp&quot; you see on that page is your &lt;em&gt;performance&lt;/em&gt; rating for that tournament. It is based on the rating of your opponents and your score in the tournament.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Second, only games against FIDE rated players count. You've probably figure that out as only 3 of your games were rated while you were thinking of playing 4 or 5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2013-01-08T12:34:46.107" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1789" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1743" CreationDate="2013-01-08T13:34:33.353" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You could try &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.redhotpawn.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot; title=&quot;Red Hot Pawn&quot;&gt;Red Hot Pawn&lt;/a&gt;. It's free and really worth it. You can join tournaments, clans, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="926" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-08-18T13:17:48.220" LastActivityDate="2019-08-18T13:17:48.220" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1791" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1793" CreationDate="2013-01-08T15:53:50.723" Score="7" ViewCount="1053" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Nc3 Bb4 4. a3 Bxc3 5. bxc3 (5. dxc3)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I usually see &lt;code&gt;bxc3&lt;/code&gt; in this position and the main reason given is to capture toward the center, but doesn't &lt;code&gt;bxc3&lt;/code&gt; weaken the queen side and take the option of castling queen side away from white.  What is wrong with &lt;code&gt;dxc3&lt;/code&gt;?  Doesn't this open up the file for the &lt;code&gt;Queen&lt;/code&gt; and the &lt;code&gt;Bishop's&lt;/code&gt; diagonal?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastActivityDate="2019-08-14T12:33:09.223" Title="Always capture toward the center?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1792" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1791" CreationDate="2013-01-08T16:19:09.207" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;bxc3&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; gives you a &lt;strong&gt;majority of pawns in the center&lt;/strong&gt;, and support for the pawn break &lt;code&gt;d4!&lt;/code&gt;, possibly pushing &lt;code&gt;c4&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;em&gt;still&lt;/em&gt; having d4 pawn-supported. Big advantages in the long-term.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With &lt;code&gt;dxc3&lt;/code&gt;, you're right, the bishop is free, but with fewer pieces on the board, and Black to play, it's &lt;strong&gt;not much of an advantage&lt;/strong&gt;. The file for the Queen, “attacking” the &lt;code&gt;♟d7&lt;/code&gt;, which belongs on &lt;code&gt;d6&lt;/code&gt; where it is well defended, is worth nothing, and the possibility of castling queenside is not very relevant either (e.g. Black traded his f2- and h2-threatening bishop)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also keep in mind that the &lt;em&gt;c&lt;/em&gt; pawns are doubled for the time being, and you don't want this situation to last until the endgame. It will be a lot easier to &lt;strong&gt;trade the &lt;code&gt;♙c3&lt;/code&gt; on the &lt;em&gt;d&lt;/em&gt; file&lt;/strong&gt; than trying to support the &lt;em&gt;b&lt;/em&gt; pawn, or merely blocking the &lt;em&gt;d&lt;/em&gt; file for Black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="672" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-08-14T12:26:03.363" LastActivityDate="2019-08-14T12:26:03.363" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1793" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1791" CreationDate="2013-01-08T20:00:11.733" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Either is fine. &lt;code&gt;bxc3&lt;/code&gt; gives you a strong chance to push in the center successfully. It leaves a dangling pawn on &lt;code&gt;a2&lt;/code&gt;, but by playing &lt;code&gt;bxc3&lt;/code&gt; you should already have resigned this pawn's fate to some sacrifice for a tempo later in the game. Note you can not play &lt;code&gt;6. d4&lt;/code&gt; right away since black's response will most likely be &lt;code&gt;5. ... d5&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;5. ... Nf6&lt;/code&gt; putting pressure on the &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; pawn which is awkward to defend for you at this point. You should most likely respond &lt;code&gt;6. d3&lt;/code&gt; which dashes any hopes you had for a pawn charge to &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt;. Also, black can exert pressure on the doubled pawn at &lt;code&gt;c3&lt;/code&gt; which is also a bit awkward for you to defend. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I personally would play &lt;code&gt;dxc3&lt;/code&gt;. It is less committing. You no longer have to hope to pry open the middle with your pawn majority, and you have no dangling pawn you have to sacrifice eventually. You've opened up strong lines for all three of your white bishop, your dark bishop and your queen. Note this may seem not that important, but keep in mind your opponent just traded one of his bishops for your knight. If you can open up this game, you will have a strong edge on your opponent. Any attack on your &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; pawn can now be refuted, such as &lt;code&gt;5. ... Nf6&lt;/code&gt; comes in with a strong pin &lt;code&gt;6. bg5&lt;/code&gt;. Also, it no longer looks silly for your white bishop to travel to &lt;code&gt;d3&lt;/code&gt; to defend &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="72" LastEditorUserId="72" LastEditDate="2013-01-08T20:05:14.160" LastActivityDate="2013-01-08T20:05:14.160" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1794" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1795" CreationDate="2013-01-08T22:01:32.720" Score="5" ViewCount="102" Body="&lt;p&gt;Does this apply to OTB chess as well?  I was playing an online game on FICS and my opponent ran out of time, but I did not have enough material to mate, so the game was drawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastActivityDate="2013-01-09T01:27:13.633" Title="Game drawn without enough material to mate even if opponent runs out of time?" Tags="&lt;otb-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1795" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1794" CreationDate="2013-01-08T22:09:53.970" Score="7" Body="&lt;h3&gt;Yes.&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is an official rule, see &lt;em&gt;Article 6: The chess clock&lt;/em&gt; of the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fide.com/fide/handbook?id=124&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE rules handbook (E.I.01A. Laws of Chess)&lt;/a&gt;. Section 6.9 goes :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Except [in checkmate and stalemate cases, mutually agreed draws and resigned games,] if a player does not complete the prescribed number of moves in the allotted time, the game is lost by the player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;However, the game is drawn, if the position is such that the opponent cannot checkmate the player’s king by any possible series of legal moves.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="672" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2013-01-09T01:27:13.633" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1796" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-01-09T00:48:41.127" Score="10" ViewCount="1412" Body="&lt;p&gt;What known position has one side with a forced mate in N moves, with N the largest? I came across one with 517 moves using only 7 pieces, so there should be much be larger. (Ignoring the 50-move rule).   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Dont know if this is on-topic here, - but how large can we make N (asymptotically) on an nxn chess-board with any number of pieces and placements?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="928" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-04T23:21:32.183" LastActivityDate="2020-04-04T23:21:32.183" Title="Mate in N. What is the largest N known?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;records&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1797" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1791" CreationDate="2013-01-09T01:15:23.767" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Capturing toward the center with pawns is a general guideline that should be followed when appropriately, however, just like all the other positional guidelines. It should also be &lt;em&gt;ignored&lt;/em&gt; when appropriate. In the specific case of the Ruy Lopez: Exchange Variation (the opening you mention) it is &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/explorer?node=1112446&amp;amp;move=4.5&amp;amp;moves=e4.e5.Nf3.Nc6.Bb5.a6.Bxc6&amp;amp;nodes=21720.21721.21722.21723.21724.21725.1112446&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;more popular&lt;/a&gt; to capture with the d pawn because it gives your queen an open file, and keeps your pawn structure a little better (two pawn islands instead of three).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="791" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-08-14T12:33:09.223" LastActivityDate="2019-08-14T12:33:09.223" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1799" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1796" CreationDate="2013-01-09T01:41:53.377" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think answers to this question fall into 2 categories : problem composition and computer-driven few-pieced endgames' thorough analysis. The second one — to which your discovery belongs — being a tad bit more efficient than the first, that's probably all there is to say about it, if you're about sheer numbers. Art still has a long way to go on this road.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Regarding computer-driven endgames, the longest known so far is &lt;a href=&quot;http://tb7.chessok.com/articles/Top8DTM_eng&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;549 moves long&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;1n1k4/6Q1/5KP1/8/7b/1r6/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="672" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-04T21:18:13.587" LastActivityDate="2020-04-04T21:18:13.587" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1800" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1496" CreationDate="2013-01-09T01:53:58.353" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd like to answer my own question with a recommendation for &lt;a href=&quot;https://chessology-sampler.software.informer.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chessology&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Interface is pretty clean, and good difficulty settings, I found.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It also has an interesting feature: it colors squares of the board to reflect which player controls them. Red for black control, green for white control, with the color varying along a spectrum to represent weaker or stronger control (I think the formula is just Control = WhitePiecesThreateningSquare - BlackPiecesThreateningSquare, but I haven't done extensive testing). How useful that feature is I don't know because I don't know much about Chess, I'll leave it up to you esteemed gentlemen to discuss in the comments.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="725" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-08-01T11:05:59.500" LastActivityDate="2019-08-01T11:05:59.500" CommentCount="0" CommunityOwnedDate="2013-01-09T01:53:58.353" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1801" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1770" CreationDate="2013-01-09T02:42:16.670" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found that the ECO B96 and B99 Sicilians include a line where Black castles long:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 a6 6. Bg5 e6 7. f4 Be7 8. Qf3 Qc7 9. O-O-O Nbd7 10. Bd3 b5 11. Rhe1 Bb7 12. Qg3 O-O-O  &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is not a popular move, and probably not Black's best move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are 3 Master games.  Black fares poorly, earning 1/2 out of 3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Spassky v Fischer, 1972.  Fischer barely saves a dead lost position by finding a draw by repetition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 a6 6. Bg5 e6 7. f4 Be7 8. Qf3  Qc7 9. O-O-O Nbd7 10. Bd3 b5 11. Rhe1 Bb7 12. Qg3 O-O-O 13. Bxf6 Nxf6 14. Qxg7  Rdf8 15. Qg3 b4 16. Na4 Rhg8 17. Qf2 Nd7 18. Kb1 Kb8 19. c3 Nc5 20. Bc2 bxc3  21. Nxc3 Bf6 22. g3 h5 23. e5 dxe5 24. fxe5 Bh8 25. Nf3 Rd8 26. Rxd8+ Rxd8 27.  Ng5 Bxe5 28. Qxf7 Rd7 29. Qxh5 Bxc3 30. bxc3 Qb6+ 31. Kc1 Qa5 32. Qh8+ Ka7 33.  a4 Nd3+ 34. Bxd3 Rxd3 35. Kc2 Rd5 36. Re4 Rd8 37. Qg7 Qf5 38. Kb3 Qd5+ 39. Ka3  Qd2 40. Rb4 Qc1+ 41. Rb2 Qa1+ 42. Ra2 Qc1+ 43. Rb2 Qa1+ 1/2-1/2 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pilgaard v Herrera, 2002 (white wins, the score isn't showing up)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 a6 6. Bg5 e6 7. f4 Qc7 8. Qf3  Nbd7 9. O-O-O b5 10. Bd3 Bb7 11. Rhe1 Be7 12. Qg3 O-O-O 13. Bxf6 Nxf6 14. Qxg7  Rdf8 15. Qg3 b4 16. Nb1 Qa5 17. Nb3 Qxa2 18. Qe3 Kb8 19. Qb6 Nd7 20. Qxb4 Nc5  21. Nc3 Nxb3+ 22. cxb3 Rc8 23. Bc4 1-0&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Parimarjan v Krishnan, 2011&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 a6 6. Bg5 e6 7. f4 Nbd7 8. Qf3 Qc7 9. O-O-O b5 10. Bd3 Bb7 11. Rhe1 Be7 12. Qg3 O-O-O 13. Bxb5 axb5 14. Ndxb5 Qb6 15. e5 Nc5 16. exf6 gxf6 17. Bh4 Rhg8 18. Qh3 Bxg2 19. Qe3 Bc6 20. Nd4 Bb7 21. Nf5 Bf8 22. Ng3 Rg6 23. Nge4 d5 24. Bxf6 Rxf6 25. Nxf6 d4 26. Qe5 dxc3 27. Rxd8+ Qxd8 28. Qxc3 Qc7 29. Nxh7 Qxf4+ 30. Kb1 Be7 31. b4 Be4 32. Ng5 Bxg5 33. Qxc5+ Kd7 34. h4 Bf6 35. h5 Bd5 36. Qb5+ Kd8 37. Qa5+ Kc8 38. Qc5+ Kd7 39. h6 Bd4 40. Qb5+ Kc7 41. Rf1 Qxh6 42. Rxf7+ Kd6 43. Qb8+ 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This game is interesting because, statistically, &lt;code&gt;13. Bxb5&lt;/code&gt; seems to be a refutation of &lt;code&gt;12. ... O-O-O&lt;/code&gt;, with White winning 2 times as frequently as Black.  The percentage of draws is low, so if you play this you better be ready!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;13. e5&lt;/code&gt; may be an error with Black winning 2.5 out of the 3 games in the database.  There are no master games with this continuation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Look how Black's &lt;code&gt;g7&lt;/code&gt; pawn falls in the first 2 games...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2013-01-09T02:57:31.580" LastActivityDate="2013-01-09T02:57:31.580" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1802" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1803" CreationDate="2013-01-09T03:11:38.957" Score="6" ViewCount="1171" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 exd4 4. Bc4 Qf6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This move &lt;code&gt;4... Qf6&lt;/code&gt; defends both the &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;f7&lt;/code&gt; pawns; now if &lt;code&gt;5. Bg5&lt;/code&gt; to drive it away, &lt;code&gt;5... Qg6&lt;/code&gt; and the bishop becomes a liability, preventing White from taking on &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt;; furthermore the &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; pawn comes under attack as well. How should White play from this position after &lt;code&gt;4... Qf6&lt;/code&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="827" LastActivityDate="2013-01-09T12:08:18.513" Title="Scotch gambit: 4... Qf6" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;scotch-game&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1803" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1802" CreationDate="2013-01-09T03:31:28.710" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to the 365chess database, &lt;code&gt;5. Bg5&lt;/code&gt; yielded a 6-2-0 record for amateur players.  There were no master games.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The pawn on &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; isn't too much of a liability as long as Black's King is in the middle of the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's a game where White is a FIDE(?) 2095 player.  White's cute little combination on move 12 ought to tell Black he's in for a long day.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.  e4  e5&#xA;2.  Nf3 Nc6&#xA;3.  d4  exd4&#xA;4.  Bc4 Qf6&#xA;5.  Bg5 Qg6&#xA;6.  O-O f6&#xA;7.  Bf4 d6&#xA;8.  Nxd4    Bh3&#xA;9.  Bg3 Nxd4&#xA;10. Qxd4    Bd7&#xA;11. Bxg8    Rxg8&#xA;12. Qd5 Qf7&#xA;13. Qxb7    Rd8&#xA;14. Nc3 Qc4&#xA;15. Qxa7    Rc8&#xA;16. Rfd1    Qc5&#xA;17. Qxc5    dxc5&#xA;18. Nd5 Bg4&#xA;19. f3  Be6&#xA;20. Nxc7+   Kf7&#xA;21. a4  c4&#xA;22. a5  Bc5+&#xA;23. Kf1 Rgd8&#xA;24. a6  Rxd1+&#xA;25. Rxd1    c3&#xA;26. b4  Bb6&#xA;27. Nxe6    Kxe6&#xA;28. Rd6+    Ke7&#xA;29. Rxb6    Ra8&#xA;30. Rb7+    Kd8&#xA;31. a7  Rxa7&#xA;32. Rxa7    g5&#xA;33. b5  &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2013-01-09T12:08:18.513" LastActivityDate="2013-01-09T12:08:18.513" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1804" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1806" CreationDate="2013-01-09T08:04:41.277" Score="5" ViewCount="1579" Body="&lt;p&gt;As an example, I will use the &lt;code&gt;Ruy Lopez&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;C60&lt;/code&gt; is defined as &lt;code&gt;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5&lt;/code&gt; as well as host of other &lt;code&gt;Ruy Lopez&lt;/code&gt; variations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;C60&lt;/code&gt; is also the &lt;code&gt;Ruy Lopez - Cozio Defence, Paulsen Variation&lt;/code&gt; which is defined by the moves &lt;code&gt;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 Nge7 4.Nc3 g6&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;C66&lt;/code&gt; is the 'Ruy Lopez - Closed Berlin Defence, Chigorin Variation&lt;code&gt;which is defined by the moves&lt;/code&gt;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 Nf6 4.O-O d6 5.d4 Nd7`&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How do these codes get assigned?  In the case of the &lt;code&gt;Ruy Lopez&lt;/code&gt;, are the codes differentiated after the move &lt;code&gt;3.Bb5&lt;/code&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastActivityDate="2016-12-27T15:07:48.907" Title="How are the ECO codes for chess openings assigned?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1805" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1791" CreationDate="2013-01-09T09:05:09.477" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my opinion, always capture towards the center when possible in the opening with your pawns. There are caveats to this of course, such as making sure to immediately capitalize on your advances by ensuring no pawns remain doubled. Also if there are attacks or tempos gained from not taking towards the center then by all means go the other way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I would like to know why you would play &lt;code&gt;4. a3&lt;/code&gt;. To me, it seems like a blunder. I think that you should probably play Nd5 there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Nc3 Bb4 4. Nd5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I like this because it attacks the dark bishop for Black and gives White a nice tempo and some increased control over the center. More than likely Black will play Nf6 here, although Be7 would be possible to see as well. Either way it is beneficial to remove the bishop from the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="342" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-08-14T12:29:28.467" LastActivityDate="2019-08-14T12:29:28.467" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1806" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1804" CreationDate="2013-01-09T09:26:58.747" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;It looks to me like someone just went in order of these started with the b pawn, the c pawn, the d pawn, the e pawn, and then indexed those. and then went the other side and said these were responded to by the b pawn, the c pawn, the d pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Naturally, there is a more sophisticated classification of the whole deal. ECO stands for the Encyclopedia of Chess Openings. As with all encyclopedias, it has volumes. There are 5 volumes: A, B, C, D, E. Note that these correlate to the range of eco's which is A00 to E99. In your example, there are 40 entries for the Ruy Lopez (C60 through C99).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Each volume is broken down into a type of openings designated by, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;li&gt;Volume A: &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flank_opening&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Flank Openings&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Volume B: &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semi-Open_Game&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Semi-Open Games&lt;/a&gt; other than the French Defense&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Volume C: &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Game&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Open Games&lt;/a&gt; and the French Defense&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Volume D: &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Closed_Game&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Closed Games&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semi-Closed_Game&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Semi-Closed Games&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Volume E: &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Defense&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Indian Defenses&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and in general, the main eco codes break down into&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;A&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;White first moves other than 1.e4, 1.d4 (A00–A39)&#xA;&lt;li&gt;1.d4 without 1...d5, 1...Nf6: Atypical replies to 1.d4 (A40–A44)&#xA;&lt;li&gt;1.d4 Nf6 without 2.c4: Atypical replies to 1...Nf6 (A45–A49)&#xA;&lt;li&gt;1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 without 2...e6, 2...g6: Atypical Indian systems (A50–A79)&#xA;&lt;li&gt;1.d4 f5: Dutch Defence (A80–A99)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;B&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;1.e4 without 1...c5, 1...e6, 1...e5 (B00–B09)&#xA;&lt;li&gt;1.e4 c6: Caro-Kann Defence (B10–B19)&#xA;&lt;li&gt;1.e4 c5: Sicilian Defence (B20–B99)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;C&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;1.e4 e6: French Defence (C00–C19)&#xA;&lt;li&gt;1.e4 e5: Double King Pawn games (C20–C99)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;D&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;1.d4 d5: Double Queen Pawn games (D00–D69)&#xA;&lt;li&gt;1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 with 3...d5: Grünfeld Defence (D70–D99)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;E&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6: Indian systems with ...e6 (E00–E59)&#xA;&lt;li&gt;1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 without 3...d5: Indian systems with ...g6 (except Grünfeld) (E60–E99)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Source:&lt;/em&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encyclopaedia_of_Chess_Openings&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encyclopaedia_of_Chess_Openings&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="342" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-12-27T15:07:48.907" LastActivityDate="2016-12-27T15:07:48.907" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1807" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="523" CreationDate="2013-01-09T13:52:03.867" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is likely a cutoff around 110-130 IQ, where if you have higher than this it will have negligible impact on your chess performance, but if you have less than this you will likely not be able to reach the highest levels. The argument for this is, Kasparov had an IQ of 135, and many top players are quoted with IQ around 120, but does anyone know of a world class player with less then 110 IQ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="928" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-07-22T08:04:37.647" LastActivityDate="2019-07-22T08:04:37.647" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1808" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1860" CreationDate="2013-01-09T16:34:05.597" Score="2" ViewCount="107" Body="&lt;p&gt;In &quot;Scid on the go&quot; I can label games as favorites, but then the search filter on Scid Vs. Pc 4.8 does not show a way to search those favorites in the database. Is &quot;Favorites&quot; - Scid on the Go feature? Or am I missing something in SCID PC interface?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="618" LastActivityDate="2013-01-16T06:35:19.647" Title="Can 'Favorites' tagged with &quot;Scid on the Go&quot; be searched for in Scid on PC?" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;database&gt;&lt;scid&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1809" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1810" CreationDate="2013-01-10T02:45:56.757" Score="17" ViewCount="836" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 d6 3. Nc3 e5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've seen the Ukrainian/Old Indian Defence played in several GM games before 1970, and was wondering what black gained from willingly giving up castling rights in the opening. According to &lt;a href=&quot;http://chesstempo.com/gamedb/opening/1474&quot;&gt;this source&lt;/a&gt;, black actually scores better in the variations where white deprives black of castling rights by trading queens, such as by &lt;code&gt;4. dxe5 dxe5 5. Qxd8+ Kxd8&lt;/code&gt;. So where exactly is black's compensation for the loss of castling rights? I've heard that one can get away without castling if queens are off the board; but this is still the opening and the position looks fairly open (even centre control of both sides is more or less the same), so it seems to me that white can purposefully develop its pieces towards the now exposed black king, while black might have to spend several moves to get its king to safety. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="885" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2016-01-03T19:24:33.337" LastActivityDate="2016-01-03T19:24:33.337" Title="Willingly giving up castling rights in the opening?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;castling&gt;&lt;old-indian&gt;&lt;king-safety&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1810" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1809" CreationDate="2013-01-10T04:09:55.357" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;Weaknesses like doubled/tripled pawn structure, color complex holes, and right to castle only matter in chess to the extent to which the opponent can exploit them. In the Old Indian variation you gave above, yes, Black lost the right to castle, but is White in any real position to exploit it? The answer is no. In fact, Black's king is very safe after he plays c6 because he can then tuck his king into c7 and there isn't any real way for White to even check him. The pawn and c6 prevents Nd5 and Nb5 checks, and Bf4 check isn't gonna work because Black will probably post his bishop to d6 and/or play e5, so his king is clearly not &quot;weak&quot; despite the loss of castling rights.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is another position in the Sicilian Four knights that goes something like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 c5&#xA;2. Nf3 Nc6&#xA;3. d4 cxd4&#xA;4. Nxd4 Nf6&#xA;5. Nc3 e6&#xA;6. Nxc6 bxc6&#xA;7. e5 Nd5&#xA;8. Ne4 Qc7&#xA;9. f4 Qb6&#xA;10. c4 Bb4+&#xA;11. Ke2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While Ke2 aesthetically looks ugly because it loses castling rights and also blocks the light-squared bishop from developing, the point is that after Ke2 - f3, the king is extremely safe. If you look at that position yourself, I challenge you to even come up with a plan for Black to check the white king. If you can't, that's okay, because White's king is quite safe on f3. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is a counter example. This is from a game I played recently actually where I'm black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5&#xA;2. Nf3 Nc6&#xA;3. Bc4 Nf6&#xA;4. d3 Be7&#xA;5. Nc3 O-O&#xA;6. Be3 d6&#xA;7. h3 Na5&#xA;8. Bb3 Nxb3&#xA;9. axb3 d5&#xA;10. exd5 Nxd5&#xA;11. Nxe5 Nxe3&#xA;12. fxe3 Bh4+&#xA;13. Kf1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here, Black has sacrificed a pawn to force White to lose castling rights with the annoying Bh4+. Notice though that there are a number of factors in this position that makes losing castling rights much more serious in this position than in the previous position. First, Black has the bishop pair which alone is good compensation for the pawn. Second, White has all these dark square weaknesses on g3, h2, and f2, and Black has the dark-squared bishop. White also lacks his own dark-square bishop to protect those squares, so it only heightens the problems of losing his dark-squared bishop. Third, White's king position here impedes the development of his h1 rook, so his pieces are more awkwardly placed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can argue Black has lost a pawn, but I would argue that the pawn sac has forced White to lose a rook, because it will be very difficult to get his h1 rook into action. All these factors make losing castling rights here really really bad for White because Black has these compensating factors that allow him to take advantage of White's compromised king position and loss of castling rights.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the takeaway from this is that with any weakness&amp;mdash;be it losing castling rights, or pawn structure weaknesses&amp;mdash;a weakness is only a weakness if it can be exploited by the opponent. In all mainline openings where one side loses the right to castle, or takes on any other sort of weakness, it is because that side willingly loses the right to castle because his king position can't be exploited and because other aspects of the position trump king safety/castling rights.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="886" LastEditorUserId="914" LastEditDate="2013-01-10T22:14:07.023" LastActivityDate="2013-01-10T22:14:07.023" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1811" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1812" CreationDate="2013-01-10T05:46:22.033" Score="13" ViewCount="8194" Body="&lt;p&gt;I find the French more aggressive, as black gets easy queenside play with pieces and generally a pawn avalanche. However, my friend debates that the Caro is better than the French because the Caro allows a queenside expansion as well, but &quot;you get to play with all your pieces&quot; (referring, of course, to the bad light squared bishop in the French).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We both realize that the French bishop can be traded off in many lines with maneuvers like b6, Ba6, where either white trades the bishop, or has a difficult time castling kingside/coordinating kingside pieces. But it's not always possible, and even avid French players will admit that it's difficult to activate the slacker on c8.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What would be a good way to counter my friend's argument? Are there any other arguments (from an objective perspective, preferably) to support playing the French or the Caro Kann?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="885" LastEditorUserId="11202" LastEditDate="2017-04-20T06:49:26.320" LastActivityDate="2020-08-05T01:59:59.167" Title="French or Caro Kann?" Tags="&lt;french-defense&gt;&lt;caro-kann&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1812" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1811" CreationDate="2013-01-10T06:42:50.217" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can think of a couple counter arguments against what your friend says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) Sure in the Caro-Kann you can easily develop your Bishop outside the pawn chain, but there are several variations where the Bishop ends up being a target when developed to f5. The most prominent example is in the advance Caro-Kann:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. e5 Bf5 4. Nc3 e6 5. g4 &lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The fact that the pawn is on c6 means the b8 knight is deprived of its best square to pressure the base of the pawn chain on d4. Essentially you are trading your traditional bad bishop for a bad knight. You can't have everything!&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Because black played c6 first, a further c5 to pressure the center if not well timed is a loss of tempi compared to the french where you play c5 in one go. This means that in a lot of lines, black must do a lot of prep work before he can afford to play c5, meaning there is also less pressure against white's center. This allows white a lot more leeway as to how he wants to organize his forces. Compare this to the french advance where you quickly play moves like c5, Nc6, Qb6 to pressure the center. Those moves certainly aren't possible to play as quickly in the Caro-Kann. Furthermore, if black opens the center too quickly in the Caro-Kann, he may wish his bishop were back inside the pawn chain to guard against annoying checks on the a4-e8 diagonal!&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ultimately, a debate over whether or not the Caro-Kann is better than the French is fruitless. They are both good openings of equal strength, and your choice to play one over the other is a purely stylistic choice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="886" LastActivityDate="2013-01-10T06:42:50.217" CommentCount="14" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1813" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1815" CreationDate="2013-01-10T12:05:51.360" Score="5" ViewCount="228" Body="&lt;p&gt;Many times in literature there are statements like &quot;White/Black is winning&quot; or &quot;White/Black is better&quot;. How does one differentiate between the two? How could it be possible for White to be better and not be winning, or be winning and not better? Is there really a difference between the two or are they the same thing?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="230" LastEditorUserId="914" LastEditDate="2013-01-10T22:14:13.623" LastActivityDate="2013-01-26T20:23:22.527" Title="What's the difference between &quot;White is winning&quot; and &quot;White is better&quot;?" Tags="&lt;terminology&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1814" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1813" CreationDate="2013-01-10T12:21:44.443" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;Winning&quot; means that the advantage is large enough that one side can be expected to win, not merely draw. &quot;Better&quot; means that one side has an advantage but it is not necessarily enough to  claim a win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The terms aren't scientific; there can be a lot of grey.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2013-01-10T12:21:44.443" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1815" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1813" CreationDate="2013-01-10T14:37:01.800" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the late stages of the game, an advantage can be easily recognized to be enough to win or not. In the earlier stages (the end of the opening, typically), it's a lot harder to tell.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If White is better, &lt;strong&gt;and if he manages to obtain something sizeable out of this avantage&lt;/strong&gt;, then he will win. If Black fights well, he'll still manage to draw, or turn the tables and win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="672" LastActivityDate="2013-01-10T14:37:01.800" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1816" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-01-10T15:38:51.243" Score="3" ViewCount="213" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am looking for a &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;simple&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; and free opening editor where I can save openings and variations.  I know Chess Position Trainer is free, but I am looking for something much more simple.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastActivityDate="2013-01-11T05:52:19.447" Title="A simple free opening editor?" Tags="&lt;software&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1817" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1818" CreationDate="2013-01-10T19:56:29.313" Score="14" ViewCount="3564" Body="&lt;p&gt;How are ambiguities handled when writing the PGN when more than one piece of the same type can move into the same square?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;1R4QQ/R1R4Q/8/6pP/5P1P/8/NK1k4/1N1N4 w - g6 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Note:&lt;/strong&gt; It isWhite to move, with an en passant capturing square on g6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;What would happen if&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the top rook moves to &lt;code&gt;b7&lt;/code&gt;?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;one of the bottom rooks moves to &lt;code&gt;b7&lt;/code&gt;?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the left pawn takes &lt;code&gt;xg5&lt;/code&gt;?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the bottom right pawn takes &lt;code&gt;xg5&lt;/code&gt;?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the top right pawn takes &lt;code&gt;xg6&lt;/code&gt; by en passant_?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the top left knight goes to &lt;code&gt;c3&lt;/code&gt;?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;one of the bottom knight goes to &lt;code&gt;c3&lt;/code&gt;?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit (bonus question):&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What would happen if any queen wants to go to &lt;code&gt;g7&lt;/code&gt;?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="478" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-09-21T17:12:43.833" LastActivityDate="2021-02-23T13:47:46.617" Title="How are PGN ambiguities handled?" Tags="&lt;notation&gt;&lt;pgn&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1818" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1817" CreationDate="2013-01-10T20:25:42.413" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;From the &lt;a href=&quot;http://web.archive.org/web/20100528142843/http://www.very-best.de/pgn-spec.htm#8.2.3&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;specification&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A basic SAN [Standard Algebraic Notation] move is given by listing the moving piece letter (omitted for pawns) followed by the destination square. Capture moves are denoted by the lower case letter &amp;quot;x&amp;quot; immediately prior to the destination square; pawn captures the file letter of the originating square of the capturing pawn immediately prior to the &amp;quot;x&amp;quot; character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the case of ambiguities (multiple pieces of the same type moving to the same square), the first appropriate disambiguating step of the three following steps is taken:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, if the moving pieces can be distinguished by their originating files, the originating file letter of the moving piece is inserted immediately after the moving piece letter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Second (when the first step fails), if the moving pieces can be distinguished by their originating ranks, the originating rank digit of the moving piece is inserted immediately after the moving piece letter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Third (when both the first and the second steps fail), the two character square coordinate of the originating square of the moving piece is inserted immediately after the moving piece letter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1: &lt;code&gt;Rbb7&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2: &lt;code&gt;Rab7&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;Rcb7&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3: &lt;code&gt;fxg5&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4: &lt;code&gt;hxg5&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5: &lt;code&gt;hxg6&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;6: &lt;code&gt;Nac3&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;7: &lt;code&gt;Nbc3&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;Ndc3&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that this is simply how the specification is written. En passant captures should not be an edge case, but they are unlikely to be implemented correctly 100% of the time. You'll have to test your replayer to see whether it handles these cases correctly or not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="652" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2013-01-11T00:34:36.387" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1819" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1817" CreationDate="2013-01-10T22:55:23.490" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;We need to use the &lt;em&gt;first&lt;/em&gt; step that that removes the ambiguity:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Use the originating file letter (if the ambiguity was not removed, see #2).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Use the originating rank number (if the ambiguity was not removed, see #3).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Use both the file and rank from the originating square.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) &lt;code&gt;Rbb7&lt;/code&gt; (because &lt;strong&gt;#1&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;2) &lt;code&gt;Rab7&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;Rcb7&lt;/code&gt; (both because &lt;strong&gt;#1&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;3) &lt;code&gt;fxg5&lt;/code&gt; (no disambiguation needed)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;4) &lt;code&gt;hxg5&lt;/code&gt; (no disambiguation needed)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;5) &lt;code&gt;hxg6&lt;/code&gt; (no disambiguation needed)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;6) &lt;code&gt;Nac3&lt;/code&gt; (because &lt;strong&gt;#1&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;7) &lt;code&gt;Nbc3&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;Ndc3&lt;/code&gt; (both because &lt;strong&gt;#1&lt;/strong&gt;)  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now for the bonus example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/y98HI.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in the case of &lt;strong&gt;g8&lt;/strong&gt; queen to &lt;em&gt;g7&lt;/em&gt;:&lt;code&gt;Qgg7&lt;/code&gt; (because &lt;strong&gt;#1&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;in the case of &lt;strong&gt;h7&lt;/strong&gt; queen to &lt;em&gt;g7&lt;/em&gt;:&lt;code&gt;Q7g7&lt;/code&gt; (because &lt;strong&gt;#2&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;in the case of &lt;strong&gt;h8&lt;/strong&gt; queen to &lt;em&gt;g7&lt;/em&gt;:&lt;code&gt;Qh8g7&lt;/code&gt; (because &lt;strong&gt;#3&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="478" LastEditorUserId="478" LastEditDate="2013-01-11T22:13:59.967" LastActivityDate="2013-01-11T22:13:59.967" CommentCount="0" CommunityOwnedDate="2013-01-10T22:55:23.490" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1820" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1821" CreationDate="2013-01-11T01:06:32.307" Score="8" ViewCount="2133" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are these openings playable for white? I use the first move order to counter my friend's very well prepared Benoni, and manage to whoop him many times, but its only in blitz. I was wondering if early f3s are playable in &quot;actual&quot; i.e. longer games as well. I'm aware that the second position often transposes into Neo-Gruenfelds or Kings-Indians, but wasn't sure if the other positions below were playable/if they provided white with good attacking chances in compensation for creating the early king-side weakness.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;] &#xA;&#xA;1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 c5 (2... g6 3. f3) (2... e6 3. f3) (2... d5 3. f3) 3. f3 *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="885" LastEditorUserId="12" LastEditDate="2013-01-11T06:18:35.610" LastActivityDate="2013-01-12T20:33:39.523" Title="Early f3 in d4 openings?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;1.d4&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1821" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1820" CreationDate="2013-01-11T01:35:19.163" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 c5 3. f3&lt;/code&gt;  The first two moves signify an A56 Benoni but &lt;code&gt;3. f3&lt;/code&gt; does not show up in my database as a typical continuation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. f3&lt;/code&gt; is a playable E60 King's Indian.  &lt;code&gt;3. ... Bg7&lt;/code&gt; is a good followup for Black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. f3&lt;/code&gt;  The first two moves signify an E00 Queen's pawn game and are very drawish.  &lt;code&gt;3. f3&lt;/code&gt; is not a typical continuation.  &lt;code&gt;3. e3&lt;/code&gt; gives White more chances for the point.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 d5 3. f3&lt;/code&gt; The first two moves of this are also an A50 Queen's pawn game.  Again, &lt;code&gt;3. f3&lt;/code&gt; is not commonly played.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I suspect &lt;code&gt;3. f3&lt;/code&gt; isn't popular for good reason and would recommend you try another continuation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT - so, why is &lt;code&gt;f3&lt;/code&gt; bad?  In the first continuation, Stockfish believes it drops a 'pawns worth' of value:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 c5 3. f3 cxd4 4.Qxd4 Nc6 5.Qd2 e6 6.Nc3 d5 7.e3 Bc5 8.a3 a6 9.b4 Ba7 10.c5 O-O 11.Nge2 e5 12.Bb2 Be6 13.Rd1 Re8 14.Na4 Rc8 15.Qc2 h6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We see that by after his 7th move, Black is having a splendid game.  After the moves above, Black controls the center and is doing fine.  White hasn't even castled yet.  The problem with &lt;code&gt;f3&lt;/code&gt;, ultimately, is that it doesn't do anything to constrain Black.  It takes a good square from the Knight which will eventually deploy to the passive &lt;code&gt;e2&lt;/code&gt;.  Further, &lt;code&gt;f3&lt;/code&gt; looks silly if it isn't followed by &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; sometime soon.  White only manages the passive &lt;code&gt;e3&lt;/code&gt;. I don't like how &lt;code&gt;f3&lt;/code&gt; opens the &lt;code&gt;e1-h4&lt;/code&gt; diagonal and nor do I like how it allows a Queen or Bishop on the &lt;code&gt;a7-g2&lt;/code&gt; diagonal to look at the King which will likely be sitting on &lt;code&gt;g1&lt;/code&gt; in most variations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2013-01-12T20:33:39.523" LastActivityDate="2013-01-12T20:33:39.523" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1822" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1816" CreationDate="2013-01-11T05:52:19.447" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can go here: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.caissa.com/chess-tools/pgn-editor.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.caissa.com/chess-tools/pgn-editor.php&lt;/a&gt; and select the tab &quot;2. Game Moves&quot;, then make your moves. The fourth tab will show the &lt;code&gt;fen&lt;/code&gt; and the &lt;code&gt;pgn&lt;/code&gt; of the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as where to store them, create a folder somewhere named openings, and save each different set of fen/pgn as a text file with the output.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="342" LastActivityDate="2013-01-11T05:52:19.447" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1823" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1817" CreationDate="2013-01-11T05:58:48.700" Score="3" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;&#xA;[FEN &quot;1R4QQ/R1R4Q/8/6pP/5P1P/8/NK1k4/1N1N4 w - g6 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What would happen if:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1.&lt;/strong&gt; the top rook moves to b7?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;Rbb7&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;2.&lt;/strong&gt; one of the bottom rooks moves to b7?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;Rab7&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;Rcb7&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;3.&lt;/strong&gt; the left pawn takes xg5?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;fxg5&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;4.&lt;/strong&gt; the bottom right pawn takes xg5?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;hxg5&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;5.&lt;/strong&gt; the top right pawn takes xg6 by en passant?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;hxg6!&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;6.&lt;/strong&gt; the top left knight goes to c3?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;Nac3&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;7.&lt;/strong&gt; one of the bottom knight goes to c3?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;Nbc3&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;Ndc3&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;bonus&lt;/strong&gt; What would happen if any queen wants to go to g7?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When all else fails, be explicit. &lt;code&gt;Qh8g7&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;h8g7&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="342" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-09-21T17:13:13.587" LastActivityDate="2019-09-21T17:13:13.587" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1824" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-01-11T15:15:16.663" Score="11" ViewCount="360" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algebraic_notation_%28chess%29&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Algebraic Notation&lt;/a&gt; is the modern standard for recording chess games. It is easily human-readable, yet it can be parsed by computers without difficulty.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Descriptive_notation&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Descriptive notation&lt;/a&gt; predates algebraic significantly. Essentially all English-language chess literature from 1960 or earlier records moves descriptively. The Wikipedia article doesn't provide sources for who developed this notation or when it emerged. There's an unsubstantiated reference on the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_notation&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess Notation&lt;/a&gt; Wikipedia page to 18th century usage, and it claims that Philidor's defeat of Philip Stamma stunted the growth of algebraic notation. Hence the question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Is there any history as to when descriptive chess notation emerged, and who developed it?&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="652" LastEditorUserId="652" LastEditDate="2013-01-11T20:31:23.750" LastActivityDate="2020-02-20T01:05:19.230" Title="What is the origin of descriptive notation?" Tags="&lt;history&gt;&lt;notation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1825" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="56" CreationDate="2013-01-11T18:08:41.007" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alekhine&amp;#39;s_Defence&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Alekhine's Defence&lt;/a&gt; as black. It's a great practical, attacking weapon:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 Nf6&#xA;2. e5 Nd5&#xA;3. d4 d6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="885" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-12-20T08:38:56.543" LastActivityDate="2016-12-20T08:38:56.543" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1827" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-01-11T23:48:22.963" Score="8" ViewCount="273" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was browsing some interesting games, and &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1296605&quot;&gt;found this one&lt;/a&gt; &lt;em&gt;&quot;Jerzy Lewi vs Jan Adamski&quot;&lt;/em&gt; (1969):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;r1b2r1k/1pq3bp/8/3Qp2n/1P1n1pp1/2NP2P1/3BPPBP/1R2NRK1 b - - 0 0&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Qxc3 2. Bxc3 Nxe2+ 3. Kh1 Nxc3 4. Qb3 Nxb1 5. Qxb1 f3 *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(&lt;strong&gt;note&lt;/strong&gt;: the game continued, but I want to focus in this position)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From this position, the white bishop is inevitably going to be taken, so we can say with certainty that the captured material &lt;em&gt;difference&lt;/em&gt; is &lt;code&gt;R+B+B vs Q+(possibly a pawn)&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To my perspective, black's advantage is notably greater, however chess engines says that white is behind only by about &lt;code&gt;-0.70&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How is that this &lt;em&gt;apparently&lt;/em&gt; crushing advantage turns out to be just a small advantage? What am I missing here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="478" LastEditorUserId="478" LastEditDate="2013-01-12T00:41:46.847" LastActivityDate="2013-01-15T22:47:07.023" Title="Why isn't there a big advantage in this position for black?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;master-games&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1828" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1827" CreationDate="2013-01-12T02:35:29.117" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here's a variation from Stockfish.  What we see is that after the smoke clears, Black's advantage actually is pretty small.  Here's why:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If we just 'added up points', which is not a bad way to get an immediate feel for a position, we'd see White is down a single pawn, 13 vs 14.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;We also notice White has two pawn islands of two pawns each.  Black has two pawn islands but one of his pawns is isolated.  This is a slight advantage for White. Further, if Black connects his two-pawn island, his King will be completely exposed.  In reality, all of Black's pawns are isolated and will have to be defended by pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Black's King is exposed; with White's Queen on the board any mistake could lead to a perpetual check.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Black's Bishops obviously can't protect each other.  Given the exposed Black King, any of Black's pieces could be picked off by a Queen fork.  Black will have to be very careful to ensure he doesn't lose material to the rampaging Queen.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Items 3 and 4 will make it hard for Black to go on the offensive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[fen &quot;r1b2r1k/1pq3bp/8/3Qp2n/1P1n1pp1/2NP2P1/3BPPBP/1R2NRK1 b - - 0 0&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Qxc3 2. Bxc3 Nxe2+ 3. Kh1 Nxc3 4. Qb3 Nxb1 5. Qxb1 f3 6.Qc1 fxg2+ 7.Nxg2 Bf5 8.Rd1 Be6 9.Kg1 Nf6 10.Qc7 Nd5 11.Qxb7 Rab8 12.Qa6 Rb6 13.Qa5 Rxb4 14.Ne3 Nxe3 15.fxe3 Rfb8 16.Qc7 Rb1 17.Rxb1 Rxb1+ 18.Kf2 *&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2013-01-12T03:03:09.737" LastActivityDate="2013-01-12T03:03:09.737" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1829" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1567" CreationDate="2013-01-12T03:56:15.550" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;doing something like &lt;strong&gt;38.Qxd3&lt;/strong&gt; in &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1026352&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Emanuel Lasker vs Johann Hermann Bauer (1889)&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.f4 d5 2.e3 Nf6 3.b3 e6 4.Bb2 Be7 5.Bd3 b6 6.Nc3 Bb7 7.Nf3&#xA;Nbd7 8.O-O O-O 9.Ne2 c5 10.Ng3 Qc7 11.Ne5 Nxe5 12.Bxe5 Qc6&#xA;13.Qe2 a6 14.Nh5 Nxh5 15.Bxh7+ Kxh7 16.Qxh5+ Kg8 17.Bxg7 Kxg7&#xA;18.Qg4+ Kh7 19.Rf3 e5 20.Rh3+ Qh6 21.Rxh6+ Kxh6 22.Qd7 Bf6&#xA;23.Qxb7 Kg7 24.Rf1 Rab8 25.Qd7 Rfd8 26.Qg4+ Kf8 27.fxe5 Bg7&#xA;28.e6 Rb7 29.Qg6 f6 30.Rxf6+ Bxf6 31.Qxf6+ Ke8 32.Qh8+ Ke7&#xA;33.Qg7+ Kxe6 34. Qxb7 Rd6 35. Qxa6 d4 36. exd4 cxd4 37. h4 d3&#xA;38. Qxd3 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;hehe :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="478" LastActivityDate="2013-01-12T03:56:15.550" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1830" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1567" CreationDate="2013-01-12T04:28:52.683" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Something I like to do in online chess is if I lose a Pawn or more in material, and if I'm higher rated, I offer them a draw. That usually burns a few seconds on the clock as they try to  weigh the utility of accepting the draw while up material or whether or not they should play on and convert, but the opportunity cost of them even contemplating this decision means they lose time on the clock. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's kinda stupid, maybe disrespectful, and will definitely make your opponent rage if they decide to play on and lose, but just a little something I like to do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are interested in this topic, there is a book called &quot;How to get lucky in chess&quot; that you should look up and download (pretty sure there is a pirated copy somewhere online) that discusses issues you ask about in your post.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="886" LastActivityDate="2013-01-12T04:28:52.683" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1831" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1827" CreationDate="2013-01-12T06:05:50.833" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;So it's about this position, right ? Let's pick Tony's move for White, and see what happpens next :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;r1b2r1k/1p4bp/8/4p2n/1P3pp1/3P2P1/5PBP/1Q2NR1K b - - 1 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... f3 2. Qc1 fxg2+ 3. Nxg2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's count material : with ♕♙ for ♜♝♝ (&lt;em&gt;11-11&lt;/em&gt;), &lt;strong&gt;much depends on the pieces actual prospects&lt;/strong&gt;, and neither side is much better on these grounds.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;White&lt;/strong&gt;'s case is simpler : the &lt;code&gt;♘g2&lt;/code&gt; belongs to &lt;code&gt;f4&lt;/code&gt;, but it wouldn't be misplaced at &lt;code&gt;e3&lt;/code&gt;, attacking a pawn, and being well centralized. White can manoeuver with his queen and rook, essentially on the &lt;em&gt;c&lt;/em&gt; file and &lt;em&gt;h6-c1&lt;/em&gt; diagonal, to attack Black's many lone pawns. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The main problem White faces is his &lt;em&gt;lack of pieces&lt;/em&gt;, meaning he cannot attack anything more than twice, whereas Black can easily defend anything twice or &lt;a href=&quot;https://english.stackexchange.com/q/5580/26839&quot;&gt;thrice&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Regarding &lt;strong&gt;Black&lt;/strong&gt;'s pieces, it's a bit more of a comedy. The &lt;code&gt;♟e5&lt;/code&gt; is annoying &lt;em&gt;as hell&lt;/em&gt;, blocking the bishop, necessary &lt;em&gt;f4&lt;/em&gt; defender, &lt;em&gt;to be defended&lt;/em&gt; or the &lt;code&gt;♙d6&lt;/code&gt; is passed… The &lt;code&gt;♞h5&lt;/code&gt; really has nowhere to go in a nearby future, as White's own knight can prevent it from going to &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt;, and it cannot stay at &lt;em&gt;f6&lt;/em&gt; because of the hanging pawn. But it is to be moved, for &lt;code&gt;♟h5&lt;/code&gt; to be pushed at some point (and because you don't want to defend it where it stands right now).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hopefully for Black, the &lt;code&gt;c&lt;/code&gt; file is his for the time being, but it won't be long before White defends &lt;code&gt;♙f2&lt;/code&gt; with his king (and White's knight can chase Black's rook out of &lt;code&gt;f3&lt;/code&gt; anytime). And he has many pieces, but he'll have to defend them all, and soon link his rooks, without dropping the &lt;code&gt;b7&lt;/code&gt; pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think it all comes down to &lt;strong&gt;who will fix his problems fastest&lt;/strong&gt;, and how White's queen can outmanoeuver Black's many pieces. &lt;em&gt;If Black manages to settle down a strong defense&lt;/em&gt;, he should win because of numerous pieces, but that's easier said than done.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="672" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:38:45.690" LastActivityDate="2013-01-15T22:47:07.023" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1832" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1833" CreationDate="2013-01-13T14:57:28.743" Score="21" ViewCount="6317" Body="&lt;p&gt;Go to any online chess server, there are thousands playing and trying their best. These days there are even online coaches and titled players and people are ready to shed huge bucks for getting couple of hours sessions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But given all this, I sometimes think: Why do people want to become a chess grandmaster or a titled player? &lt;strong&gt;What do I really get out of that? A high paid job? NO. A green card to the US? NO. Free sponsorship? PROBABLY NOT. A lot of money? NO (because once you become GM you have to compete with others similar to you).&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then why? Why is there a craze to become a chess grandmaster, or a titled player?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If anyone has a good answer and a accurate ones, please reply with good points.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="806" LastEditorUserId="10867" LastEditDate="2016-12-08T11:22:08.097" LastActivityDate="2016-12-08T11:57:43.807" Title="Why is there a craze of becoming chess grandmaster?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;grandmaster&gt;" AnswerCount="9" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1833" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1832" CreationDate="2013-01-13T15:46:00.377" Score="17" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think it has to do with just having the title &quot;Grand Master&quot;.  Would I like to be a Grand Master? YES, but it probably would never happen in a million years.  Unless you are probably in the top 10, you probably won't make a living out of it.  I would suspect that those who don't make a living out of it, but still highly rated and play in international tournaments might have secondary jobs, but in the end, it is not about the money, it is about having fun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastEditorUserId="109" LastEditDate="2013-01-14T05:49:16.543" LastActivityDate="2013-01-14T05:49:16.543" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1834" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1840" CreationDate="2013-01-13T15:48:11.577" Score="5" ViewCount="227" Body="&lt;p&gt;How do blitz games help with your opening theory? I thought they would not help because you might tend to make a lot of mistakes during blitz or is this the reason, to keep playing them over and over until you make the right moves?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastActivityDate="2013-01-13T23:14:07.540" Title="Blitz games relation to opening theory?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;learning&gt;&lt;blitz&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1835" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-01-13T17:27:20.667" Score="14" ViewCount="1651" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the difference in mindset or technique that really makes the difference between an expert and a master?  I am trying to decide whether or not to start playing again and try to make that leap.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="47" LastActivityDate="2016-09-21T15:21:21.943" Title="Going from Expert to Master" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1836" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1835" CreationDate="2013-01-13T21:11:37.150" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I once wrote a blog post about becoming a master; several themes seemed crucial:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Playing regularly in tournaments&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Doing it while you are young&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Keeping in mind that the effort required per 100 points of ELO increases the higher you go. That applies &quot;across the board&quot; - endgames, openings, etc.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Having a &quot;mentor&quot; (not the same as &quot;coach&quot;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you have not played for while though, you might first want to make sure you are still as good as you were before stopping.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="618" LastActivityDate="2013-01-13T21:11:37.150" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1837" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1834" CreationDate="2013-01-13T21:33:19.600" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Blitz games allow you to test your understanding of openings. The time crunch makes it extremely obvious when there are gaps in your understanding of a particular opening. This should serve as an opportunity to go back and better analyze the opening. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="946" LastActivityDate="2013-01-13T21:33:19.600" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1838" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1842" CreationDate="2013-01-13T22:39:12.693" Score="10" ViewCount="12868" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's no real surprise when it comes to the strategy for the King's Indian Defence: storm white's king side, maybe sac a few things, and mate (ideally).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But what does a practitioner of the QID hope to achieve in terms of the opening and long term goals?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 b6&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="885" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-02-28T14:37:39.887" LastActivityDate="2014-02-28T14:37:39.887" Title="What are the main ideas and goals in the Queen's Indian Defense?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;1.d4&gt;&lt;queens-indian&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1839" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1832" CreationDate="2013-01-13T23:06:02.897" Score="29" Body="&lt;p&gt;Napoleon put it succinctly: &#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/n/napoleonbo108401.html&quot;&gt;A soldier will fight long and hard for a bit of colored ribbon.&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just a couple of points:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is the same reason that students love getting &quot;gold stars,&quot; and why there are so many badges on StackExchange itself. There have been volumes written on the power of peer recognition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In particular, chess titles (for the most part) are a direct result of chess achievement. FM, IM and GM titles are all well-earned. No matter how much we might not care for a person, we know that if they have a chess title, they earned it. A GM title is the highest formal title, and it serves to inform your peers (and often yourself) that a certain level of expertise was attained.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="764" LastActivityDate="2013-01-13T23:06:02.897" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1840" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1834" CreationDate="2013-01-13T23:14:07.540" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here are a few reasons for why players use blitz games to prep for openings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;There are only a limited number of standard games (normal speed 20-30 moves/hr) that one can play. However, you can run through a lot more blitzes in one evening.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If you want to try to familiarize yourself with the positions that result from some variation, you can play a few blitzes to get the feel for it.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Blitz games serve to remind you of the standard motifs that go along with certain openings. Also, you get to see how opponents not well-versed in the openings handle your moves.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Some players try out &lt;em&gt;new&lt;/em&gt; openings (to their repertoire) in blitzes before trying them out in tournaments.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I have encountered blitz opponents who will routinely resign after the first 20 moves or so (no matter whether or not they had a better position) just so that they can focus on the opening again. (They don't care for their blitz ratings.)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So in sum, blitzes can be of good help to the amateur, but it should not be the &lt;em&gt;only&lt;/em&gt; preparation for learning openings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="764" LastActivityDate="2013-01-13T23:14:07.540" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1841" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1824" CreationDate="2013-01-14T19:12:16.100" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;AFAIK, Edward Lasker (not Emmanuel) Lasker was the only master player resident in the USA to publish in Algebraic before the 1970s, substituting English initials for the German he would have used before immigrating. Not only are Bobby Fischer's books in Descriptive, so are his scoresheets.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't know about 18th Century usage, but I have read 19th Century British works that use a descriptive &lt;em&gt;phrase&lt;/em&gt; like &quot;King to his third square&quot; for K-K3, either Ke6 or Ke3 (the color being obvious by whose turn it is to play). The transition from phrasing to a strictly symbolic Descriptive notation, I can't help with.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="921" LastActivityDate="2013-01-14T19:12:16.100" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1842" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1838" CreationDate="2013-01-14T20:05:06.547" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;The key ideas for Black in the &lt;code&gt;Queen's Indian Defense&lt;/code&gt; is to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Restrain White in the center&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Quick Development&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;code&gt;Queen's Indian Defense&lt;/code&gt; can be reached after the moves:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;    1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nf3 b6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the &lt;code&gt;Queen's Indian Defense&lt;/code&gt;, black is going aim his light-squared bishop and knight at &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; in order to restrain the moves &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; and to prevent &lt;code&gt;d4 to d5&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White's most popular move is &lt;code&gt;4...g3&lt;/code&gt; in which white aims to complete development on the king side and counter black on the long diagonal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A key position is reached after the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;    1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nf3 b6 4. g3 Bb7 5. Bg2 Be7 6. O-O O-O 7. Nc3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the above position, &lt;code&gt;7...d5&lt;/code&gt; might seem like a logical move, but it is against the spirit of the opening which say's that Black should be waiting for the most opportune moment to make moves like &lt;code&gt;7...d5&lt;/code&gt; which occupy the center until the timing is just right. Also, after exchanging pawns on  &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt;, black finds himself with 2 problems, the bishop on &lt;code&gt;b7&lt;/code&gt; is blocked in and the &lt;code&gt;c pawn&lt;/code&gt; is on an open file and becomes vulnerable to attack.  For example, after white plays &lt;code&gt;Bf4&lt;/code&gt; to eye the &lt;code&gt;c pawn&lt;/code&gt;, Black would like to move his pawn to &lt;code&gt;c5&lt;/code&gt;, but after the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;    1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nf3 b6 4. g3 Bb7 5. Bg2 Be7 6. O-O O-O 7. Nc3 d5 8. cxd5 exd5  &#xA;    9. Bf4 c5 10. dxc5 bxc5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The above leaves Black with a hanging pawn formation. The d and c pawns are extremely vulnerable and if white can quickly generate an attack such as &lt;code&gt;11. Ne5&lt;/code&gt; generating a third attacker and pinning the pawn.  Black may continue &lt;code&gt;11...Na6&lt;/code&gt; and now white has &lt;code&gt;12. Nc4&lt;/code&gt; taking advantage of the pin with the mindset of getting his knight to &lt;code&gt;e3&lt;/code&gt;, so Black often plays &lt;code&gt;Qd7&lt;/code&gt;, but White just plays &lt;code&gt;Na5&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Going back to positon after &lt;code&gt;7. Nc3&lt;/code&gt;, we just illustrated that &lt;code&gt;7...d5&lt;/code&gt; is not a logical move for black, so instead he plays &lt;code&gt;7...Ne4&lt;/code&gt; directly occupying the &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; square making it impossible for white to play &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; and he wants to use his &lt;code&gt;f pawn&lt;/code&gt; to strengthen his hold over the &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; square and he won't block the diagonal of his bishop.  After the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;    1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nf3 b6 4. g3 Bb7 5. Bg2 Be7 6. O-O O-O 7. Nc3 Ne4 &#xA;    8. Nxe4 Bxe4 9. Ne1 Bxg2 10. Nxg2 d5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black is now willing to play &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt; because there is not bishop on &lt;code&gt;b7&lt;/code&gt; anymore and he can now gain share of the center and the position is about equal, so after &lt;code&gt;7...Ne4&lt;/code&gt;, white often plays &lt;code&gt;8. Qc2&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;8...f5&lt;/code&gt; looks like a natural response, but white plays &lt;code&gt;9. Ne5&lt;/code&gt; and would black would quickly find himself in trouble after:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;    1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nf3 b6 4. g3 Bb7 5. Bg2 Be7 6. O-O O-O 7. Nc3 Ne4 &#xA;    8. Qc2 f5 9. Ne5 d6 10. Nxe4 fxe4 11. Bxe4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the above diagram, black does not have time to capture the &lt;code&gt;knight&lt;/code&gt; because of the &lt;code&gt;bishop&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;queen&lt;/code&gt; staring down the diagonal, so instead of &lt;code&gt;8...f5&lt;/code&gt;, black should play &lt;code&gt;8...Nxc3 9. Qxc3 f5&lt;/code&gt;.  White still has in mind one other factor to gain an advantage.  In addition to still play pawn to &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt;, he also counts on the fact that blacks &lt;code&gt;e6&lt;/code&gt; pawn will become weak if black plays &lt;code&gt;d6&lt;/code&gt; eventually, so for example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;    1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nf3 b6 4. g3 Bb7 5. Bg2 Be7 6. O-O O-O 7. Nc3 Ne4 &#xA;    8. Qc2 Nxc3 9. Qxc3 f5 10. b3 Bf6 11. Bb2 d6 12. Rad1 Qe7 13. Ne1 Bxg2 14. Nxg2 Nd7 &#xA;   15. Qc2.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White is looking for small small initiative based upon the weakness of the &lt;code&gt;e6&lt;/code&gt; pawn, so in the end the fight for &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; is the major theme that holds the entire &lt;code&gt;Queen's Indian&lt;/code&gt; together.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastEditorUserId="109" LastEditDate="2013-01-14T21:52:55.733" LastActivityDate="2013-01-14T21:52:55.733" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1843" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1496" CreationDate="2013-01-15T01:06:08.650" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;My favourite chess engine is Numpty chess.&#xA;I am an &quot;average&quot;(?!) rated chess player and I have had hours of fun playing against this engine and look forward to more. It is not so highly rated like some other engines eg StockFish, Rybka, Fritz etc etc and is great for learning &amp;amp; improving at chess. This means you do get winning chances and so you do not get so demoralised as when playing super strength engines. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It needs a GUI to run in &amp;amp; is easily setup in Winboard or Arena chess gui. Chris Tatham is the engine author and a fine friend of mine (only through Numpty!).&#xA;Numpty is at &lt;a href=&quot;https://sites.google.com/site/numptychess/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Numpty chess engine&lt;/a&gt; and is freeware. Give it a game &amp;amp; enjoy!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="426" LastActivityDate="2013-01-15T01:06:08.650" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1844" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1845" CreationDate="2013-01-15T05:33:13.630" Score="7" ViewCount="4396" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've only played 1.e4 as white so far (in clubs, tournaments, online, everywhere!), in the past 5 years since I learned chess. And it has been very fun, but I want to explore the dark side as well, as I do enjoy watching good positional play in GM games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm sure some of you have attempted this before. I'd like to know what your experience was. Was it radically different? Did you experience withdrawal symptoms from not playing 1.e4? Did you have to learn a lot of theory just to get a playable position against well prepared Nimzos/Slavs, etc? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S. I know pretty much no theory in most openings beyond, say 4 or 5 moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="885" LastEditorUserId="18475" LastEditDate="2020-02-17T18:31:55.927" LastActivityDate="2020-02-17T18:31:55.927" Title="Switching from 1.e4 to 1.d4?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;&lt;1.e4&gt;&lt;1.d4&gt;" AnswerCount="10" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1845" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1844" CreationDate="2013-01-15T06:05:00.920" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think 1.d4 itself really makes the game slower; you can use 1.d4 to play aggressive chess. Kasparov and Alekhine did. Likewise, you can play positional chess with 1.e4, e.g. Ruy Lopez, (especially Karpov's handling of it).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So if you want to practice positional chess you don't need to switch to 1.d4, and if you switch to 1.d4 without changing your mindset, you won't necessarily be playing positional chess. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I first tried 1.d4 after playing for about a 1 year. I was really fascinated with the &lt;code&gt;Qd3&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;Bc2&lt;/code&gt; (or &lt;code&gt;Bb1&lt;/code&gt;) set up and tried to drive away black knight form &lt;code&gt;f6&lt;/code&gt; and mate on &lt;code&gt;h7&lt;/code&gt;, basically my whole plan revolved around that. I didn't find 1.d4 much harder to play or anything like that, but I am sure you are a stronger player than I was back then :).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="307" LastActivityDate="2013-01-15T06:05:00.920" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1846" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1851" CreationDate="2013-01-15T06:25:34.187" Score="19" ViewCount="2825" Body="&lt;p&gt;Say, in an age range of 7-12 years. One of my friends holds the opinion that you should trounce them at every opportunity, so that they can learn from their mistakes. Another says that you should allow them to win sometimes, so they won't lose interest/stay encouraged to play chess. Perhaps the answer lies somewhere in the middle. What do you guys think is appropriate in such circumstances?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Context: I volunteer at a local elementary school to play/teach kids occasionally. Some are highly motivated, others seemed to be forced to be there by their parents.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="885" LastActivityDate="2016-09-13T05:29:50.910" Title="How to play against little kids?" Tags="&lt;etiquette&gt;" AnswerCount="11" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1847" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1846" CreationDate="2013-01-15T08:09:35.880" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found myself in the same situation more than once.&#xA;And not only against kids. :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I started playing &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_handicap&quot;&gt;handicap chess&lt;/a&gt;.&#xA;You can play seriously, and if the handicap is well balanced you will have to struggle to equal the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course you have to find your opponents' level, and give each the right handicap.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this way you also have a way to record your kids' improvements: if an opponents beats you regularly with a certain handicap, then it's probably time to &quot;level up&quot;...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="279" LastActivityDate="2013-01-15T08:09:35.880" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1848" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1846" CreationDate="2013-01-15T11:40:23.287" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I like thinking children will be interested in playing chess by themselves. If I were you, I let them to win sometimes to hope they play at home in the future. In that case, they could learn with software or internet by themselves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Moreover, in several cases, you can try to explain them how their moves are bad to learn from their mistakes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think you can mix two solutions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Handicap chess as shuuchan proposed can be interesting to maintain equal chance to win bewteen children and you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="813" LastActivityDate="2013-01-15T11:40:23.287" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1849" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1844" CreationDate="2013-01-15T12:39:01.943" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you have no real opening knowledge anyway, switching shouldn't be any special problem. Just start playing it, and afterwards you lookup what the pros do in the opening you played.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You could also get a book. I think that until you're rated 1900 or so (and possibly until much higher), all you need is a book that explains the ideas behind all the openings. I also think that Van der Sterren's &lt;em&gt;Fundamental Chess Openings&lt;/em&gt; (FCO) is fantastic for that purpose. It goes way further than what you already know about 1.e4, and you can use it to learn about all the openings. It's all text, no tables of moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2013-01-15T12:39:01.943" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1850" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1846" CreationDate="2013-01-15T12:41:07.323" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's best for them to play people who are at the same level as them, or slightly better. If you can trounce them, you're not really the right opponent for them. Can't they just play each other?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2013-01-15T12:41:07.323" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1851" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1846" CreationDate="2013-01-15T14:14:14.457" Score="18" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the best approach is what I call &lt;strong&gt;live annotated chess&lt;/strong&gt;.  In this case you basically play normally but provide live feedback on the student's position and why you are doing the things you are doing.  This allows you to understand where the student needs additional help and allows them to learn from you.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This approach also allows you to adjust your play according to student needs.  If the student is making a lot of careless errors and doesn't seem too into it, you can tone down the annotation and your game and let them play more for fun.  If the student seems really motivated in a given game, you can introduce more challenge by upping your game and your discussion.    &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can even do this within a game if you sense the student getting frustrated or bored.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would also say that not all chess needs to be played by &quot;chess rules&quot; kids at that age get a kick out of manipulating the world around them. Let them make up new games that still teach chess principles but are not so rigid.  Let the bishops move like queens, or allow them to win back material for consecutive captures, etc...  I don't think these types of things teach bad practice because they let the student experiment with the &quot;world&quot; and understand how it reacts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="262" LastActivityDate="2013-01-15T14:14:14.457" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1852" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1846" CreationDate="2013-01-15T15:44:44.553" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Everyone, especially little kids, likes to win. So teach them a few easy mates, and let them get them in on you from time to time. The four and two move mates are easy to teach and have the added value of showing some strategy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Basic Mate in 4&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA; 1. e4 e5 2. Bc4 Nc6 3. Qh5 Nf6 4. Qxf7++&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Basic Mate in 2&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA; 1. f3 e5 2. g4 Qh4++&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Explain Your Moves&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For playing longer games versus children, it is nice to &lt;strong&gt;explain why&lt;/strong&gt; you are making your moves - especially the ones which seem to have to benefit such as developing, or building a pawn structure, or waiting so that a trap is timed better. Don't do it too excessively though, it will get annoying. Usually you can tell if your move confused the kid, or if they are unsure how to respond by it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Offer takebacks&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tell them they are allowed to have 2 takebacks per game. This will let them still feel like they are playing by the rules, but get to have a few second chances. Keep in mind, the goal is to have them legitimately win as much as possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Simple Tips&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although this is not the best approach for seasoned players, it can be beneficial to tell the kids to make the most &quot;annoying&quot; move possible. What I mean by that is, can they force a knight to move, or block a pawn going forward, or attack the queen, etc. Make as many harassing moves as possible. This can be amusing to the player doing the harassing, and also presents opportunities to win pieces in simple situations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Show them an opening&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Go into a little chess history lesson. Perhaps show them the movie &quot;Searching for Bobby Fischer&quot; so that they will get interested in at least one player. Then you can transition into other famous players such as tal, Kasparov, etc. When you teach them about a famous player, show them one of their more commonly used openings. Here is one that Fischer played a lot (the first 5 moves were his commonly played opening - I thought I would include a whole game as an example):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Ba4 Nf6 5. O-O Be7 6. Re1 b5 7. Bb3 d6 8.&#xA;c3 O-O 9. h3 Na5 10. Bc2 c5 11. d4 Qc7 12. Nbd2 Bd7 13. Nf1 Rfe8 14. Ne3 g6&#xA;15. dxe5 dxe5 16. Nh2 Rad8 17. Qf3 Be6 18. Nhg4 Nxg4 19. hxg4 Qc6 20. g5 Nc4&#xA;21. Ng4 Bxg4 22. Qxg4 Nb6 23. g3 c4 24. Kg2 Nd7 25. Rh1 Nf8 26. b4 Qe6 27.&#xA;Qe2 a5 28. bxa5 Qa6 29. Be3 Qxa5 30. a4 Ra8 31. axb5 Qxb5 32. Rhb1 Qc6 33.&#xA;Rb6 Qc7 34. Rba6 Rxa6 35. Rxa6 Rc8 36. Qg4 Ne6 37. Ba4 Rb8 38. Rc6 Qd8 39.&#xA;Rxe6 Qc8 40. Bd7 resign&lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Show them some chess puzzles&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Get out a book, or an online resource (chess.com has a daily puzzle), etc., and set up some mate in one positions, or two or three depending on skill level, and go through those. There are so many, you can give out unique ones to each kid. Finding a mate is always fun, and will teach them to look for moves, or to examine moves which do not work since those puzzles, for the most part, only have one acceptable move set. Here is a smothered mate:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[fen &quot;4r2k/1p4pp/1qn4N/2bQ4/8/1P6/5PPP/2R3K1 w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I could not seem to get the move list to work in this example, the solution, as I am sure you are aware is: Qg8+ Rxg8 Nf7++.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="342" LastActivityDate="2013-01-15T15:44:44.553" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1853" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1827" CreationDate="2013-01-15T16:07:53.960" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;At 26 moves of analysis, stockfish suggests white is behind &lt;code&gt;-1.57&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After the exchange, in this position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[fen &quot;r1b2r1k/1p4bp/8/4p2n/1P4p1/3P1pP1/5PBP/1Q2NR1K w kq - 0 6&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;at 26 moves of analysis, stockfish suggests white move Qb3 being behind &lt;code&gt;-1.77&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is important to wait for the chess engines to examine for a few minutes to get an accurate reading of their analysis. Only allowing them to check 15 moves ahead is not reliable. Anything less than 21 should be avoided.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This position only gets worse for white. White to move, &lt;code&gt;-2.06&lt;/code&gt; after 24 moves of analysis. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[fen &quot;r2r3k/1p1b2bp/5n2/4p3/1P4p1/1Q1PN1P1/5P1P/2R4K w kq - 5 10&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, I am not sure why you got back a lower advantage for black. There is a clear advantage here, and it only gets stronger as the game progresses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A note on stockfish: You must let it calculate for a while in order to get accurate analysis. Don't just use its first suggestion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="342" LastActivityDate="2013-01-15T16:07:53.960" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1854" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5011" CreationDate="2013-01-15T17:46:19.220" Score="10" ViewCount="1693" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have played 99% of my games &lt;strong&gt;online&lt;/strong&gt;, I have seen and learn almost everything related to chess with the fonts &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.enpassant.dk/chess/fontimg/alpha.htm&quot;&gt;Alpha&lt;/a&gt; or &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.enpassant.dk/chess/fontimg/merida.htm&quot;&gt;Mérida&lt;/a&gt;, either through diagrams or games, etc .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, when I play with actual &lt;strong&gt;wooden&lt;/strong&gt; set (or any other material), I blunder too much, I have trouble with my board vision, I completely miss threats and can't really focus well (I play with around half of my strength even with take-backs).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Anyone ever heard or read about this issue?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Are there some tricks I can use to make the process of getting used to them faster, different than the obvious &quot;&lt;em&gt;just play a lot on them&lt;/em&gt;&quot;?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Can this issue appear on people who play 99% wooden chess and then try online chess?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="478" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-03-12T21:09:33.397" LastActivityDate="2021-03-18T19:22:09.143" Title="I blunder too much on wooden sets?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;chessboards&gt;&lt;board-vision&gt;&lt;blunder&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1855" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1862" CreationDate="2013-01-15T18:31:40.610" Score="4" ViewCount="543" Body="&lt;p&gt;When learning a new opening, do you learn the opening every time you encounter a new variation or do you try to learn them all at once?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I read this &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/article/view/how-to-learn-an-opening-in-one-hour&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;article&lt;/a&gt; on &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;chess.com&lt;/a&gt; about learning an opening in one hour and wanted to know your thoughts (agreements and disagreements) with the article.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastEditorUserId="109" LastEditDate="2013-01-16T15:06:00.927" LastActivityDate="2013-01-16T16:38:04.893" Title="Approach to learning one opening and its variations?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1856" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1854" CreationDate="2013-01-15T20:34:18.673" Score="8" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I did know someone describing the same phenomenon, i.e. he had a very hard time playing on a 3D real board. He was mostly a bullet player, online, being used to premove, etc., which maybe augmented the discomfort OTB.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Apart from “get used to it”, I don't know any ways to accelerate that. Make sure you really wanna get used to it, don't stay in the “I can't play on this” mindset that would hold you back, even if it is tempting at first to raise that excuse all the time — maybe.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Totally. Many club players I knew told me they didn't play online because they couldn't see anything, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="672" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2013-01-16T20:35:01.403" LastActivityDate="2013-01-16T20:35:01.403" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1857" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-01-15T23:30:18.040" Score="3" ViewCount="283" Body="&lt;p&gt;In referencing the following &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/article/view/the-most-efficient-way-to-learn-openings&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;article&lt;/a&gt;, it is stated that one way to efficiently learn new openings is to study masters that were experts at the particular opening you want to study.  Part of the article states:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Say, you want to learn the Najdorf Sicilian for Black, then get the&#xA;  games played by Kasparov who was the biggest expert there.  Looking to&#xA;  play the Petroff?  Then Vladimir Kramnik is your man!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So what other masters were considered experts in certain openings?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I will limit the question to specific openings:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Grunfeld&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;English &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Ruy Lopez  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Scilian  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Kings Indian&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Queens Indian&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Nimzo Indian&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;French&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Pirc&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Caro-Kann&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Catalan&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastEditorUserId="109" LastEditDate="2013-01-17T05:56:42.393" LastActivityDate="2013-01-17T05:56:42.393" Title="What openings were former and current masters experts in?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ClosedDate="2013-01-17T06:02:54.513" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1858" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1854" CreationDate="2013-01-16T00:50:32.170" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I prefer to play OTB, even though I have played roughly 30,000 games online. I think it is easier to see the pieces, the board, where things will go.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you have issues playing OTB, then perhaps you should try to go through some &quot;mate in x&quot; puzzles with a real board. Other than playing with a real board though, there is nothing that is going to help. It should come quickly to you since you obviously know the game from playing online.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="342" LastActivityDate="2013-01-16T00:50:32.170" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1859" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1844" CreationDate="2013-01-16T05:35:30.730" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Allow me to suggest 1.&amp;nbsp;c4. You can aim for a number of Sicilian Reversed positions that will be familiar already, from the other side of the board, and with a move in hand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="921" LastActivityDate="2013-01-16T05:35:30.730" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1860" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1808" CreationDate="2013-01-16T06:35:19.647" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Found the answer - 'Favorites' in &quot;Scid on the Go&quot; show up as a &quot;User&quot; Flag in SCIDvsPC, and can be searched for that way as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="618" LastActivityDate="2013-01-16T06:35:19.647" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1861" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1854" CreationDate="2013-01-16T08:25:58.407" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The most annoying thing when you switch from online playing to OTB games is that you don't have a full vision of the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Getting used to play 2D, you probably have developed your calculating skills with an &quot;above vision&quot;. With this kind of vision a player can focus on lines and spots, and pieces do not interfere since they are &quot;flat&quot;. But when you play OTB, you have to look at the board only &lt;em&gt;from you side&lt;/em&gt;, with pieces messing around. Thus, you miss some threats that you probably would notice on a screen. And usually this is due to the fact that &quot;you don't see the lines&quot;. In my experience, I noticed that this happens especially with Bishops and Knights.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can't &quot;flatten&quot; real pieces, of course. And you have to get used to 3D pieces in order to &quot;see lines&quot; on a real board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the meantime, you can try to play chess looking the board &quot;from above&quot;: standing near the table instead of sitting, for example.&#xA;This will diminish (a little) the traumatic switch from 2D to OTB.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="279" LastActivityDate="2013-01-16T08:25:58.407" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1862" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1855" CreationDate="2013-01-16T16:38:04.893" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;When learning a new opening, I tend to stick to a line which suits my style. At first, I will play strictly to the book and usually end up in traps, getting a piece horribly out of position, or with a pawn structure that prevents defending myself. After a while I begin to realize the traps that are associated with the opening and can avoid those. Eventually I will have my pieces in the right alignments, usually by the 8th move or so. And after a long time, I will have become used to setting up the pawn structure so that I am well defended by the 15th move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once those basics are covered, I will begin to look for places in those first 15 moves where I can get in a simple tempo changer, like a bishop check, so that I can castle with tempo, or perhaps there is a nice trap somewhere. This is just me though, I am not sure how everyone fares with learning new openings or if they just pick them up right away.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An example of this situation for me was the English (1. c4 .. 2. Nc3). I really enjoy this opening, but figuring out how and when to advance the e and d pawn took me a while to learn. As did figuring out if or when I should fiancetto, or advance the f pawn after &lt;code&gt;0-0&lt;/code&gt;, or how to avoid a kingside pawn rush, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for the question of learning all the lines. I did not, I just learned the one which I felt was similar to my tastes, and then learned all the nuances to that one, including its transpositions to other similar lines. Sometimes I have noticed the English can transpose to the London, which I enjoy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Specifically about the article you link, I agree that playing towards an outdated but proven trap can be beneficial, but I honestly doubt your opponent is going to play that exact line. So in the mean time, you will have to deal with all the other facets of the opening you only learned the one trap for. Note that the author states &quot;All you need is a desire to learn new stuff.&quot;. I think that is the key to learning an opening. Learn the main line you like, and then play it for a while knowing you are going to get cheap shotted, trapped, blocked, out of position, and be in a funk while learning it. Once you get over having all that happen to you, then you will have that shiny polished diamond.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="342" LastActivityDate="2013-01-16T16:38:04.893" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1863" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1857" CreationDate="2013-01-16T23:47:44.387" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Black (1.d4):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;King's Indian: Fischer, Radjabov, Kasparov, Gufeld&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Queen's Indian: Anand, Karpov, Carlsen&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Grunfeld: Svidler, Ftacnik&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;QGD, Slav: Wang Yue, Sokolov&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;QGD, Semi-Slav: Shirov, Anand&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Nimzo Indian: Kramnik, Ivanchuk&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;QGD, Classical: Petrosian, Karpov&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After typing this, I realized that any answer covering all the common openings played at top level would be ridiculously long. I think you can make things easier for yourself by consulting &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;chessgames.com&lt;/a&gt; whenever you want to see top practitioners of any particular opening. For example, typing in &quot;Sicilian, Najdorf&quot; in the search box will give you &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessopening?eco=B90&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this page&lt;/a&gt;, where you can see which top level players employ it the most. Of course, this doesn't mean that they are the authority on said openings. But, given that the list will almost always include strong GMs (2650+), you can be assured that studying their games in said openings will allow you to learn a lot about those openings, which I assume, is the point of you asking the question in the first place.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another way of going about this is looking at the player profiles of some of the strongest players of all time (like World Champions, and World Championship contenders), and looking at their opening repertoire. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the end, &quot;expert&quot; is a very loose term in your question. So really, you'd be safe in assuming that some of the strongest GMs (and some IMs as well, such as Nezhmetdinov) of all time &lt;em&gt;are/were&lt;/em&gt; experts in whichever openings they employed the most.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="885" LastActivityDate="2013-01-16T23:47:44.387" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1864" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1867" CreationDate="2013-01-17T05:16:19.553" Score="8" ViewCount="486" Body="&lt;p&gt;From &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/1818/478&quot;&gt;the answer&lt;/a&gt; to my question &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/q/1817/478&quot;&gt;How are PGN ambiguities handled?&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In the case of ambiguities (multiple pieces of the same type moving to&#xA;  the same square), the first appropriate disambiguating step of the&#xA;  three following steps is taken: &lt;strong&gt;...&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After reading that, a new ambiguity surged from that disambiguation, it is not clear what would happen if the pieces that look like they can move to a same square are all pinned except one piece, is then a need to disambiguate even if only one of those pieces can legally move in there?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is an illustrated example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;4k3/8/8/8/8/8/8/q2NKN2 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Should I use &lt;code&gt;Ne3&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;Nfe3&lt;/code&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="478" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2013-12-15T21:46:24.587" Title="Is this case considered an ambiguity or not?" Tags="&lt;notation&gt;&lt;pgn&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1865" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1864" CreationDate="2013-01-17T05:50:48.120" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is not ambiguous for only one &lt;code&gt;Ne3&lt;/code&gt; is legal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="672" LastActivityDate="2013-01-17T05:50:48.120" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1866" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1864" CreationDate="2013-01-17T06:05:35.167" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;While it's not ambiguous (only &lt;code&gt;Nfe3&lt;/code&gt; is legal), it is better to be specific with &lt;code&gt;Nfe3&lt;/code&gt;.  Successful software can deal with both &lt;code&gt;Ne3&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;Nfe3&lt;/code&gt;, but not every pgn parser is perfect, and some beginners will appreciate the additional guidance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12" LastActivityDate="2013-01-17T06:05:35.167" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1867" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1864" CreationDate="2013-01-17T10:55:18.743" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Ne3 is perfectly fine, every normal pgn viewer knows legal moves and will perform it correctly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="954" LastActivityDate="2013-01-17T10:55:18.743" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1868" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1844" CreationDate="2013-01-17T11:24:12.683" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I made the switch to 1. d4 when i started getting on online chess teacher, if you can afford it, i highly recommend 2 hours per week with a GM or IM.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;GM Vladimir Kosyrev (Tankist on ICC) taught me all my opening knowledge as black and as white, it was extremely helpful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although it is very important to know ideas of early opening moves as well, GM Yasser Seirawan helped with that, read his books, study the games he goes through. Brillancies is one of them&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="954" LastActivityDate="2013-01-17T11:24:12.683" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1869" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1835" CreationDate="2013-01-17T11:26:35.083" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would definitely invest in a chess teacher, it will be worth your while, If you are poor this doesn't work, sorry.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="954" LastActivityDate="2013-01-17T11:26:35.083" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1871" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1743" CreationDate="2013-01-17T11:33:54.023" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://ChessLecture.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;ChessLecture.com&lt;/a&gt; is amazing&#xA;I won a free 15 day trial and with the TON of GM lectures on it I learned some new great opening theory that helped me win a few tournament games&#xA;I havent yet subscribed but I just may.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-Update: I just renewed my membership, it is great!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="954" LastEditorUserId="954" LastEditDate="2013-01-17T14:08:58.857" LastActivityDate="2013-01-17T14:08:58.857" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1872" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1874" CreationDate="2013-01-17T15:03:40.477" Score="8" ViewCount="4792" Body="&lt;p&gt;Recently I have been playing the Evans Gambit as many times as I can and for the most part, black plays &lt;code&gt;4...Bxb4&lt;/code&gt;, but someone played &lt;code&gt;4...Nxb4&lt;/code&gt; and I wasn't sure how to continue.  After the following moves below, how should I continue with the &lt;code&gt;Evans Gambit&lt;/code&gt; as white?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5&#xA;2. Nf3 Nc6&#xA;3. Bc4 Bc5&#xA;4. b4  Nxb4&#xA;5. c3  Nc6&#xA;6. d4  exd4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastEditorUserId="109" LastEditDate="2013-01-17T15:25:29.293" LastActivityDate="2017-05-30T16:40:30.810" Title="How should White continue after Nxb4 in the Evans Gambit?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;learning&gt;&lt;evans-gambit&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1873" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1835" CreationDate="2013-01-17T15:25:45.767" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;To become a master from expert, I think having a mentor is the most important factor. I know personaly a chess player who got elo rating from 2000 to 2300 with a well-known mentor from Switzerland.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Moreover, I think knowing theory and playing against very good players (2400+) can really help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="813" LastActivityDate="2013-01-17T15:25:45.767" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1874" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1872" CreationDate="2013-01-17T15:34:46.967" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;4...Nxb4&lt;/code&gt; directly transposes to the main line with &lt;code&gt;4...Bxb4 5. c3 Bc5&lt;/code&gt;.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In that line, white usually plays &lt;code&gt;6. d4 exd4 7. O-O!&lt;/code&gt;.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black cannot take the pawn on c3 because of &lt;code&gt;8. Bxf7+! Kxf7 9. Qd5+&lt;/code&gt; picking off the bishop on c5 with an overwhelming advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Bc5 4. b4 Nxb4 (4... Bxb4 5. c3 Bc5) 5. c3 Nc6 6. d4 exd4 7. O-O $1 dxc3 $2 8. Bxf7+ $1 Kxf7 9. Qd5+&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12" LastEditorUserId="12" LastEditDate="2013-01-17T16:16:29.017" LastActivityDate="2013-01-17T16:16:29.017" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1876" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1877" CreationDate="2013-01-17T16:29:01.957" Score="7" ViewCount="9509" Body="&lt;p&gt;It seems like the &lt;code&gt;Fried Liver Attack&lt;/code&gt; is too much for black to handle, so it seems it is best to avoid the &lt;code&gt;Two Knights Defense&lt;/code&gt; as Black.  An example of the &lt;code&gt;Fried Liver Attack&lt;/code&gt; is below and Black just seems lost.  Is there something Black can do?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5&#xA;2. Nf3 Nc6&#xA;3. Bc4 Nf6&#xA;4. Ng5 d5&#xA;5. exd5 Nxd5&#xA;6. Nxf7 Kxf7&#xA;7. Qf3+ Ke6&#xA;8. Nc3  Ncb4&#xA;9. a3   Nc2+&#xA;10. Kd1  Nxa1&#xA;11. Nxd5 Kd7&#xA;12. Re1  c6&#xA;13. Qf5+ Kd6&#xA;14. Qxe5+ Kc5&#xA;15. Nc7 Kb6&#xA;16. Nxa8#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastEditorUserId="109" LastEditDate="2013-01-17T16:35:47.873" LastActivityDate="2019-10-26T00:46:01.180" Title="Should Black avoid the Two Knights Defense because of the Fried Liver Attack?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;learning&gt;&lt;two-knights&gt;&lt;fried-liver-attack&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1877" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1876" CreationDate="2013-01-17T18:39:44.553" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Two Knights defense black doesn't have to play 5...Nxd5?! The main line is 5...Na5, where black sacrifices a pawn, but gets active play for compensation. The game could continue like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5&#xA;2. Nf3 Nc6&#xA;3. Bc4 Nf6&#xA;4. Ng5 d5&#xA;5. exd5 Na5&#xA;6. Bb5+ c6&#xA;7. dxc6 bxc6&#xA;8. Be2 h6&#xA;9. Nf3 e4&#xA;10. Ne5 Bd6&#xA;11. d4 exd3&#xA;12. Nxd3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Besides 5...Na5, Black also has &lt;code&gt;5...Nd4&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;5...b5&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A very interesting continuation is the Traxler attack (4...Bc5!?):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;r1bqk2r/pppp1ppp/2n2n2/2b1p1N1/2B1P3/8/PPPP1PPP/RNBQK2R w KQkq - 6 5&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black does not defend the f7-square, and it first might look like a blunder, since &lt;code&gt;5.Nxf7&lt;/code&gt; leads to a fork. However black has plenty of attacking resources after &lt;code&gt;5...Bxf2&lt;/code&gt;. Therefore, white usually plays &lt;code&gt;5.Bxf7&lt;/code&gt;, black is down a pawn, and loses castling ability, but has some compensation due to semi-opened file and piece activity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="307" LastActivityDate="2013-01-17T18:39:44.553" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1878" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1892" CreationDate="2013-01-17T18:56:37.683" Score="8" ViewCount="3311" Body="&lt;p&gt;If White will just get a pawn back at no cost, why is the &lt;code&gt;Queens Gambit&lt;/code&gt; a &lt;code&gt;Gambit&lt;/code&gt;?  Is it for historical reasons or something else?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastEditorUserId="109" LastEditDate="2013-01-17T19:02:29.247" LastActivityDate="2020-11-03T18:57:04.287" Title="Why is the &quot;Queens Gambit&quot; referred to as a gambit?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;queens-gambit&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1879" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1891" CreationDate="2013-01-17T19:25:00.230" Score="5" ViewCount="488" Body="&lt;p&gt;I once heard that you can sharpen your tactical skills by playing gambit openings?  If this is true, obviously you would and should improve your game.  Does anyone have any information or proof of this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastActivityDate="2020-03-06T15:52:03.150" Title="Does playing gambits improve your tactical skills?" Tags="&lt;gambits&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1880" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1878" CreationDate="2013-01-17T20:39:55.687" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;The fact that a gambit involves a sacrifice in no way means that the sacrifice is permanent. Very few mainline gambit openings for White leave the gambit player with no means of retaking his material.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gambit_%28chess%29&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt; does not necessarily make the distinction between a gambit and a sacrifice, I would contend that there is a difference:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;A sacrifice is intended as a permanent loss in material in exchange for a superior position.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;A gambit is a temporary loss to hasten development or secure a position. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Based on this understanding, there is no reason NOT to consider the Queen's Gambit as a true gambit, unless you wish to state arbitrarily that there must be more than X number of plies between the loss and the subsequent regaining.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="652" LastActivityDate="2013-01-17T20:39:55.687" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1881" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1879" CreationDate="2013-01-17T23:44:24.890" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Indeed, learning to part with material for minor and major positional advantages is a key in the recipe to learning to play on the &quot;edge.&quot; In a gambit, the player who is ahead (gambitee) must eventually &quot;give back&quot; some material, otherwise risk getting in a losing position. The player who is behind in material (gambiter) usually enjoys greater maneuverability and tactical lines. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is the goal of the gambiter to not necessarily trade back for the loss of material, but to gain a better position or a strong attack. It is the goal of the gambitee to &quot;give back&quot; the material in such a way that he does not weaken his own position, preferably he can strengthen it. The outcome of the gambit is usually determined by how &lt;em&gt;sound&lt;/em&gt; the gambit is and which player has more patient: the gambitee should not overextend to defend the material gain, the gambiter should not seek to immediately reclaim lost material.     &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="72" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-06T15:52:03.150" LastActivityDate="2020-03-06T15:52:03.150" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1882" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-01-18T04:00:48.337" Score="6" ViewCount="2149" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 exd4 4. Bc4 Nf6 5. Ng5 d5 6. exd5 Nxd5 7. Nxf7 Kxf7 8. Qf3+ Ke6 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now the usual move in the Fried Liver Attack is &lt;code&gt;9. Nc3&lt;/code&gt; attacking the knight on &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt;, but the &lt;code&gt;d&lt;/code&gt;-pawn heads this off. Is the Fried Liver Attack still viable in the Scotch Gambit/Two Knights Defense?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="827" LastActivityDate="2013-11-26T01:44:50.453" Title="Fried Liver Attack in the Scotch Gambit - Two Knights Defense?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;scotch-game&gt;&lt;fried-liver-attack&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1883" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1882" CreationDate="2013-01-18T04:32:53.160" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Given the moves in your post, the position favors White.  I think most White players would enjoy the seeing the Black King out there, suffering a pin, sitting on an open file, and flapping in the breeze on move 8 with Queens on the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's what Stockfish thinks after a reasonably long think:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 exd4 4.Bc4 Nf6 5.Ng5 d5 6.exd5 Nxd5 7.Nxf7 Kxf7 8.Qf3+ Ke6 &#xA; 9.O-O Ne5 10.Re1 c6 11.Bf4 Bd6 12.Qg3 Qf6 13.Nd2 Re8 14.Nf3 Kf7 15.Nxe5+ Kg8 16.Nd3 Rxe1+ 17.Rxe1 Bf8 18.Be5 Qh6 19.Bxd4 Be6 20.Bb3 a5 21.a4 Bf7 22.h3 Rd8 23.Ne5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;...with a small advantage for White.  I see both players having a good game here.  However, I suspect Black is walking a tightrope.  That is, to maintain parity, Black must play &lt;em&gt;much&lt;/em&gt; better than White.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2013-01-18T12:49:45.520" LastActivityDate="2013-01-18T12:49:45.520" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1884" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1887" CreationDate="2013-01-18T04:50:17.073" Score="21" ViewCount="11432" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have never studied opening theory.  The closest I've gotten was briefly reading about several openings in books, but never memorizing or using any.  While I haven't ever played in tournaments I have played strangers at conferences (where they had tables and chess sets out) several times and never done too badly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All the questions on this site about opening theory have lead me to wonder:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How important is knowing opening theory and what major advantages would I gain my studying opening theory?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="780" LastActivityDate="2019-10-31T01:18:06.350" Title="Is learning opening theory necessary?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;study&gt;" AnswerCount="8" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1885" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1884" CreationDate="2013-01-18T05:04:45.610" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Once you get beyond a certain point, you'll suffer from the time lost considering opening moves that people otherwise at your level have memorized, along with the implications for the future positions. Before you get to that point, it doesn't really matter--practicing tactics is far more important (if you want something to practice). Just my opinion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="142" LastActivityDate="2013-01-18T05:04:45.610" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1886" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1884" CreationDate="2013-01-18T05:31:28.143" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;sub&gt;As stated in the “&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/1569/how-do-i-learn-a-new-opening/1571#1571&quot;&gt;how to learn them&lt;/a&gt;” question : &lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I don't hold a very high opinion of opening theory, and tend to advise¹ most people to &lt;strong&gt;care a lot less about it&lt;/strong&gt;, and rather improve their actual thinking and play. If you get a decent enough position out of your opening, &lt;em&gt;then&lt;/em&gt; the fun begins (and that's where it incredibly helps to understand what theory got you into, what you're playing for, and what you should keep an eye on, etc.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;It is not very important&lt;/strong&gt;, at least before you reach &lt;em&gt;very&lt;/em&gt; decent a level (I'd say around 2100 Elo, ymmv.) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Playing through your favorite openings, you'll learn them on the way. Once in a while, your no-knowledge will make you fall into a trap you won't fall in twice, or give you not so good a position because of a particular line or move order you weren't aware of, but altogether, development ideas and patterns, piece activity, and strategic principles as a whole will go a long way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Supposedly, while you're not studying opening theory², you can still learn something else improving your game ? (&lt;strong&gt;I strongly suggest reviewing your games and learning from your mistakes.&lt;/strong&gt;) That will do a lot better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;¹ Of course, this is only meant to hold for people my advice is worth something for. I'm sure it doesn't apply anymore past some level, but then, people tend to ask these questions less, unsurprisingly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;² In fact, I strongly suspect opening theory is so much studied because it's so &lt;em&gt;easy&lt;/em&gt; to study³. Strategic principles you're forgetting or misunderstanding, &lt;em&gt;judgement&lt;/em&gt;, and tactics are a lot harder to “study”. But a lot more important nevertheless.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;³ Just learn lines and lines by heart, “&lt;em&gt;they're&lt;/em&gt; theory, &lt;em&gt;that can't possibly be wrong !&lt;/em&gt;” Only if you don't know what to do with the supposedly better position your book leads you into, the whole process is quite pointless don't you think ? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="672" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2013-01-18T05:31:28.143" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1887" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1884" CreationDate="2013-01-18T07:22:23.683" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;How important is knowing opening theory&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Opening theory is basically the idea that there is a certain way a game should start. This assumption is based upon the crazy idea that you do not want to start the game at a positional disadvantage. In order to accomplish doing that, some players will figure out what move set they struggle against, and then look up the &quot;book line&quot; for it. Where would you go to look those up? Well, you could start here: &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_chess_openings&quot;&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_chess_openings&lt;/a&gt; , but another good place to look is google or a chess engine if you have access to one. As for google, just search 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 and google will show you the name of the opening, and contain a link to wikipedia for that opening's basic nuances.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To me, knowing opening theory is more than just memorization. I do not know all the names, but I do try to keep track of the relevant sets of moves that are considered to be advantageous for the lines that I play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;What major advantages would I gain my studying opening theory&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Don't just study opening theory in general. Pick something you like, and study the ins and outs of just that one specific opening. You can move on to another one later if you wish, but do one at a time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The benefits are numerous. Mostly revolving around the fact that the more of these famous openings you know and are aware of, the more that you will be comfortable transpositioning into them, finding traps, building sturdy pawn structures, and recognizing solid development plans.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Don't wear yourself out trying to learn all of them at first. Pick one that you like, and then go with that. Or pick a player you like, and go with theirs. A couple famous players: &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobby_Fischer&quot;&gt;Fischer&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garry_Kasparov&quot;&gt;Kasparov&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikhail_Tal&quot;&gt;Tal&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_chess_players&quot;&gt;etc&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="342" LastEditorUserId="342" LastEditDate="2013-01-18T17:37:23.190" LastActivityDate="2013-01-18T17:37:23.190" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1888" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1884" CreationDate="2013-01-18T09:39:15.450" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my opinion, learning opening theory becomes important if you want to get a high Elo rating (2100+). Indeed, when you play against a strong opponent who knows opening theory, you risk falling into the traps you don't know or memorize (and just lose the game).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think that even Magnus Carlsen (who is a genius) needs to learn opening theory because he plays chess against players who know opening theory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I don't think you need to learn theory in all openings; you can concentrate efforts on two openings (one for white and one for black) you prefer to become a strong player with.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="813" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2015-02-06T05:28:32.750" LastActivityDate="2015-02-06T05:28:32.750" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1889" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1884" CreationDate="2013-01-18T11:42:51.160" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Learning opening theory as practiced by leading grandmasters is &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; necessary.  What is necessary however is developing your own opening repertoire, whether those openings are in vogue or not.  You don't need to read books to do this: just play the same openings consistently.  Soon you will learn which openings lead to positions you like, and which don't, and based on this you can hone your repertoire.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user76" LastEditorDisplayName="user76" LastEditDate="2013-01-18T12:07:13.707" LastActivityDate="2013-01-18T12:07:13.707" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1890" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1884" CreationDate="2013-01-18T12:09:15.220" Score="19" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, let's make a difference between knowing how to play in the opening and opening theory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You need to know how to play the opening. At first this means you need to know what your goal is in the opening (development, king safety, center control, preventing your opponent from reaching the same) and what that translates to in actual positions. Then you need to have some plan of which openings you want to play, and you must know what the strategic goals of each are, how to play them. Otherwise it's going to be hard to find good moves. After any serious game you should analyze it and figure out what went right and what to do differently next time, and that is true for the opening just as much as for the rest of the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, &lt;em&gt;opening theory&lt;/em&gt; is the almost scientific search for a White advantage. It is about specific lines and once it has been demonstrated that black can equalize in a certain line, opening theory stops being interested. Until the day that someone tries a move that hadn't been considered before and that does lead to a White advantage, until Black's answer to it is found... There are mountains of theory and it's impossible to know it all. If you know a lot of it, &lt;em&gt;and&lt;/em&gt; you get it on the board, &lt;em&gt;and&lt;/em&gt; it happens to be a line that Black hasn't equalized in yet, you might get an advantage. Which will be useless unless you are strong enough to convert that advantage into a win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It can be fun to follow opening theory, and if you learn it you can play the first moves like the top GMs do and that is fun, but I don't think knowing a lot of it helps your chess results at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance, take this position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Nf3 Be7 5.cxd5 exd5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Theory is not interested in this position, as it is a version of the QGD Exchange in which Black has it relatively easy, as he will soon be able to play ...Bf5 and equalize. Books on opening theory will tell you that if White wants to play the Exchange Variation, he should play 4.cxd5 and hold back the king's knight for now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sadler in his book on the QGD however notes that it is extremely important to understand positions like this really well, because he used to be beaten in these equal positions as Black again and again &quot;as a young IM&quot;. Understanding normal positions is the key to understanding an opening. But they're not interesting to theory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's follow Magnus Carlsen. He played 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.c3 a few days ago, the Ponziani. It is generally ignored by theory since Black has many ways to equalize. Then he just played chess, and eventually beat the #5 in the world. That's a lot of hours of studying theory saved.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Work to understand the normal positions in your chosen openings, by playing through instructive games, playing them and analyzing them a lot. Don't memorize theory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastEditorUserId="924" LastEditDate="2013-01-18T12:21:02.547" LastActivityDate="2013-01-18T12:21:02.547" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1891" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1879" CreationDate="2013-01-18T12:27:01.310" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think that there are important skills you can learn from playing gambits, like how to use an advantage in development and the initiative, or just the fact that material isn't everything. It's probably also useful to learn those things early on in your chess career.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure about them being better for improving tactics though. Every chess game has tactics.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2013-01-18T12:27:01.310" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1892" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1878" CreationDate="2013-01-18T12:32:29.017" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think that it's just because it looks like a mirror version of the King's Gambit, nothing more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2013-01-18T12:32:29.017" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1893" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1899" CreationDate="2013-01-18T15:37:48.597" Score="9" ViewCount="3792" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I encounter the &lt;code&gt;Sicilian&lt;/code&gt; as White, I often will play the &lt;code&gt;Smith-Morra Gambit&lt;/code&gt;.  My opponent played &lt;code&gt;4...e5&lt;/code&gt;, but this does not appear to be a very popular move as there are only 2 games on &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;www.chessgames.com&lt;/a&gt; that have it, one of them being &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1028842&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;, which is apparently the first ever &lt;code&gt;Smith-Morra Gambit&lt;/code&gt; recorded.  I didn't even see &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sicilian_Defence,_Smith%E2%80%93Morra_Gambit&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt; give it as an option, so I was curious to know why &lt;code&gt;4...e5&lt;/code&gt; is not popular or in other words, what drawbacks does it have?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. d4 cxd4 3. c3 dxc3 4. Nxc3 e5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-04T17:11:25.330" LastActivityDate="2020-03-04T17:16:45.317" Title="Why is 4...e5 not popular in the Smith-Morra Gambit?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;learning&gt;&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;&lt;smith-morra-gambit&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1894" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1893" CreationDate="2013-01-18T18:02:01.313" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;Simply stated, it's because of Black's backward d-pawn; see &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backward_pawn&quot;&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backward_pawn&lt;/a&gt; -- as opposed to other lines of this Gambit it gives White a definite weakness to focus on well through the opening and possibly the middle-game and beyond.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user76" LastActivityDate="2013-01-18T18:02:01.313" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1895" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1906" CreationDate="2013-01-18T19:44:28.013" Score="7" ViewCount="6276" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am at the point where I want to learn some simple openings for White and Black.  By simple, I mean, openings that do not have a deep theory and don't take a lot of moves to get into.  Currently, I have been playing the Evans Gambit and Smith-Morra Gambit whenever I get a chance.  I have heard that the Colle System and London System are good beginner openings (I am confused by the word &quot;system&quot; here, are these actual openings?), so if anyone can elaborate on this, that would be helpful.  If I don't get a chance to play the Evans Gambit or Smith-Morra Gambit, I just play to the opening principles.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2020-06-07T12:08:17.073" LastActivityDate="2020-06-07T12:08:17.073" Title="Simple (not deep in theory or moves) Openings for White and Black?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1896" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1895" CreationDate="2013-01-19T09:43:37.197" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my opinion, the &lt;code&gt;Scotch Game&lt;/code&gt; is an opening for beginners who play as White. Indeed, it's an open game that permits the player to have two free bishops. The opening theory (I know it well) is simple. Moreover, there are several traps for Black. It's fun to play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For Black, there is the &lt;code&gt;Sicilian Najdorf&lt;/code&gt; that is not hard to learn for beginners. It's strong against 1.e4 in general. Theory of this defense is a little bit harder than the Scotch Game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="813" LastEditorUserId="11202" LastEditDate="2017-04-17T17:25:23.210" LastActivityDate="2017-04-17T17:25:23.210" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1897" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1895" CreationDate="2013-01-19T14:01:48.500" Score="4" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;d4 and 2. Nf3 as White, and 1...c6 then 2...d5 as Black, comprise about the simplest system I can think of&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user76" LastActivityDate="2013-01-19T14:01:48.500" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1898" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-01-19T14:08:11.990" Score="7" ViewCount="187" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recently started an online game as White that began as follows.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;1. Nf3 f5  2. d3 Nc6  3. e4 e5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here I deliberately decided to lose a tempo with 4. d4 and transpose into a Vienna reversed with the Black pieces.  I knew what I was doing and therefore was able to avail myself of various resources (books/databases) on the Vienna game, but this got me to wondering. Are there any databases against which you can enter a position, and it will also look for the reversed position? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user76" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditorDisplayName="user76" LastEditDate="2020-03-28T16:35:25.423" LastActivityDate="2020-03-28T16:35:25.423" Title="Is there ant database that will return the reversed position?" Tags="&lt;database&gt;&lt;software&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1899" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1893" CreationDate="2013-01-19T16:50:58.883" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I could not find any master games which included &lt;code&gt;4. ... e5&lt;/code&gt;.  Of the amateur games I found, the move produced the worst '%age win' result for Black of all moves listed. (Black's best response?  &lt;code&gt;4. Nf6&lt;/code&gt;, being prepared to retreat it back to &lt;code&gt;g8&lt;/code&gt; if White pushes the e pawn.  How the Hypermodernists would grin.  These are all amateur games, remember... so you'll have to do your own analysis.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I see almost 80 games that include &lt;code&gt;4. ... e5&lt;/code&gt;.  White's wins about 70% of the time which is huge. Black's win percentage just under 21%.  The only responses recorded for White are  &lt;code&gt;5. Bc4&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;5. Nf3&lt;/code&gt; with the former being marginally more successful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are some sample games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This one is Erich Hoffman v Walter Geissler from the 2005 EU-ch Seniors.  ECO B21.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. d4 cxd4 3. c3 dxc3 4. Nxc3 e5 5. Bc4 Nf6 6. Qb3 d5 7. exd5 Bd6 8.  Bg5 h6 9. Bh4 g5 10. Bg3 a6 11. h4 g4 12. h5 Nbd7 13. Bh4 Qc7 14. Bg3 Nb6 15.  Be2 Bd7 16. Rd1 Rg8 17. Bd3 Qc5 18. Bb1 Qa5 19. Kf1 Rb8 20. Nge2 Rg5 21. Bh4  Rxh5 22. Ng3 Rxh4 23. Rxh4 Nfxd5 24. Nge4 Bf8 25. Nxd5 Bb5+ 26. Kg1 Nxd5 27.  Qxd5 Be7 28. Rxh6 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first thing that strikes me is White's 9th move, a uncomfortable attack on two of Black's weakest squares, &lt;code&gt;b7&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;f7&lt;/code&gt;.  Now Black's backward &lt;code&gt;d&lt;/code&gt; pawn is a liability as he can't easily block the &lt;code&gt;a2-g8&lt;/code&gt; diagonal.  Black is forced to give the pawn back.  That being said, I don't see White getting any real traction here.  If Black castled on move 10 instead of playing &lt;code&gt;g5&lt;/code&gt; he'd have had even chances.  The path he chooses instead leads to a back-rank weakness that ends the game.  Stockfish wasn't impressed with the entire adventure between Black's &lt;code&gt;g&lt;/code&gt; pawn and h-file Rook, or White's Bishop and &lt;code&gt;h&lt;/code&gt; pawn.  While both players miss some chances for improving their positions, Black's shattered King-side pawns remain.  The game is back and forth from moves 13 to 22; either player could have gained an advantage. However Black's &lt;code&gt;23. ... Nfxd5&lt;/code&gt; is tragic and ends Black's chances to survive.  After that he comes apart.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This one is Ondrej Gabris v Ladislav Kasas from SVK-chT1W 0405. ECO B21.  Both are rated between FIDE(?) 2050 and 2100 so these players are similar in strength to USCF Masters.  I'll post it without any Stockfish analysis as I am out of time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. d4 cxd4 3. c3 dxc3 4. Nxc3 e5 5. Bc4 Nf6 6. Qb3 d5 7. exd5 Bd6 8.  Bg5 h6 9. Bb5+ Nbd7 10. Bxf6 Qxf6 11. Nf3 O-O 12. Ne4 Qe7 13. O-O Nf6 14. Nxf6+  Qxf6 15. Nd2 Bf5 16. Bd3 b6 17. Rfe1 Bc5 18. Bxf5 Qxf5 19. Re2 Rad8 20. Rae1 e4  21. Nxe4 Rxd5 22. Nxc5 Rxc5 23. Qa3 Qd7 24. h3 Ra5 25. Qb3 Qd5 26. Qb4 Qc5 27.  Qxc5 Rxc5 28. f4 g6 29. Kf2 Kg7 30. Rd2 Rfc8 31. Re7 R8c7 32. Rxc7 Rxc7 33. Ke3  Kf6 34. g4 Ke6 35. Ke4 f5+ 36. Kf3 Rc4 37. Re2+ Kf6 38. Rd2 Ke6 39. Re2+ Kf6  40. Rd2 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2013-01-19T16:50:58.883" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1900" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-01-20T00:42:05.293" Score="10" ViewCount="4348" Body="&lt;p&gt;Consider the following beginning, quite typical of the advance variation of the French defense:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.e5 c5 4.c3 Nc6 5.Nf3 Qb6 6.a3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On what I have seen on the web, the recommended black's next moves are &#xA;&lt;code&gt;6. ... Nh6&lt;/code&gt;, or &lt;code&gt;6. ... Bd7&lt;/code&gt;. But what about &lt;code&gt;6. ... f6&lt;/code&gt; ? Lately this has been played &#xA;regularly against me with the white pieces, and I don't know what to do. Any idea?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Joël&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="964" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2013-01-20T01:14:04.013" LastActivityDate="2015-07-20T04:18:16.160" Title="A variant in the French defence advance variation" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;french-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1901" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1900" CreationDate="2013-01-21T00:04:39.103" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd suggest playing 7.Be2, followed by castling short soon. If black plays fxe5, just play dxe5 (even Nxe5 works, but you will simplify a lot, and not give black any problems), which deprives the knight of the f6 square. The g8 knight will likely take one of the h6-f5 or e7-f5 route to plop on h5, after which you may consider even Bd3, if you find the knight particularly annoying on that square. You could follow up with putting your rook on e1, preparing a later f4, etc. following Nimzowitch's overprotection idea of a central pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd also suggest not playing 6.a3. It seems very passive, and doesn't create any threats, doesn't help your pieces develop, and creates a weakness on b3. The position looks as if white is playing the black side of some variation of a QGD Meran system with an extra tempo or two. Instead, you may consider aiming for ideas like 6.Bd3 or 6.Be2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="885" LastActivityDate="2013-01-21T00:04:39.103" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1902" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1895" CreationDate="2013-01-21T00:15:42.123" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You could learn the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chesscollection?cid=1009316&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;hedgehog system&lt;/a&gt; for black, and the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King%27s_Indian_Attack&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;King's Indian attack&lt;/a&gt; as white.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both systems/setups are quite easy to learn, and are also &lt;em&gt;generally&lt;/em&gt; easy to reach, regardless of what your opponent does. Although they both have a decent amount of opening theory, it is nowhere close to the volume of opening theory in say, Sicilians or Queen's Gambits. But here's why they're helpful to &lt;em&gt;you&lt;/em&gt;. The move order to reach these setups is generally very flexible, so you don't have to worry too much about subtleties in their move order, which you may have to in other openings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="885" LastActivityDate="2013-01-21T00:15:42.123" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1903" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1898" CreationDate="2013-01-21T00:20:01.863" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not to my knowledge. Although, a simple solution would be to manually input the moves with sides reversed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="885" LastActivityDate="2013-01-21T00:20:01.863" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1904" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1900" CreationDate="2013-01-21T01:18:06.313" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think &lt;code&gt;6. ... f6&lt;/code&gt; is probably the best move for black at this point. The responses I'd try are &lt;code&gt;7. Bd3&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;7. Be2&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;7. b4&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;code&gt;7. exf6&lt;/code&gt; seems like it just gives black an extra minor piece developed with Nf6, but it doesn't seem horrible either. &lt;code&gt;7. b4&lt;/code&gt; looks the most interesting to me, followed by something like... &lt;code&gt;7. ... fxe5 8. dxc5 Qc7 9. Bb5&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;9. c4 Nf6&lt;/code&gt;. Still doesn't feel too great for white, but at least you're almost even.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In &lt;em&gt;Beating the French Defense with the Advance Variation&lt;/em&gt;, GM Andrew Soltis doesn't even discuss &lt;code&gt;6. a3&lt;/code&gt; as an option. You might consider his recommended line: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.e5 c5 4.c3 Nc6 5.Nf3 Qb6 6.Be2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At this point, the &lt;code&gt;6. ... f6&lt;/code&gt; move is reduced to 4th or 5th place for black's options, the best being:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[SetUp &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;r1b1kbnr/pp3ppp/1qn1p3/2ppP3/3P4/2P2N2/PP3PPP/RNBQKB1R w KQkq - 4 6&quot;]&#xA;[StartPly &quot;10&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;6. Be2 cxd4 7. cxd4 Nh6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You'll probably find yourself castling short soon, and maybe breaking out &lt;code&gt;a3&lt;/code&gt; a few moves later when it will make black feel more pain.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Disclaimer: I'm by no means an opening expert. Just some ideas to try...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="142" LastEditorUserId="142" LastEditDate="2013-01-21T19:45:49.733" LastActivityDate="2013-01-21T19:45:49.733" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1905" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1895" CreationDate="2013-01-21T09:02:14.550" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Usually, an opening can be considered &quot;difficult&quot; to learn if it has many variations, if its branches are very deep, and if it hides many tactical complications that can lead to unseen &quot;traps&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Colle System and London System are pretty good for beginners since they don't have none of the above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The drawback is that they don't put pressure on Black, that can easily reach equality (especially against the Colle).&#xA;Of course if your only objective is to reach a playable position after the opening, these will do the work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But as Black you will have less options.&#xA;You'll have to learn at least 2 &quot;simple&quot; responses to &lt;code&gt;1. e4&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;1. d4&lt;/code&gt; (and eventually also to &lt;code&gt;1. c4&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;1. Nf3&lt;/code&gt;). And usually &quot;simple&quot; responses are a little bit passive and slightly less effective than popular ones. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Against &lt;code&gt;1. e4&lt;/code&gt; you can try the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scandinavian_Defense&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Scandinavian&lt;/a&gt; or the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philidor_Defence&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Philidor&lt;/a&gt;. They are probably the most popular Defenses among &quot;simple&quot; ones.&#xA;You won't have to study plenty of books to master these Defenses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Against &lt;code&gt;1. d4&lt;/code&gt; you can try the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Indian_Defense&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Old Indian&lt;/a&gt; or the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benoni_Defense#Old_Benoni&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Old Benoni&lt;/a&gt; (sometimes called also &quot;Czech Benoni&quot;). They are both kinda passive, but they are solid and give perfectly playable positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="279" LastActivityDate="2013-01-21T09:02:14.550" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1906" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1895" CreationDate="2013-01-21T13:47:54.630" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;There aren't really any good openings without theory, but that doesn't matter -- you don't have to know the theory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As white, I think you should play 1.e4. The Morra and Evans gambits seem fine to me at low levels, although the latter can be avoided. If 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nf6, you will play against the opening I recommend you to use as black below. The game is likely to be quite equal for a while and the best player will win. Against 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nf6, there are a lot of gambits to play along the lines of 4.d4 or 4.0-0, 5.d4 that may be interesting.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Against the French and Caro-Kann you can get experience with isolated queen's pawn positions, more or less the most important of open positions at all levels. Isolated queen's pawn positions are tactical and show up in lots of openings. Play 1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.exd5 cxd5 4.c4 and 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.exd5 exd5 4.c4, and develop quickly (knights first, castle short, etc).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As black, play classically -- answer 1.e4 with 1...e5, and 1.d4 with 1...d5. Against 1.Nf3 and 1.c4 and the like you can usually play 1...e6 and 2...d5 to get something similar to your 1.d4 lines. The idea of the classical openings is to get a good foothold in the center, trying to get an equal game first and worry about getting a better position later.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Against 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3, why not the Petroff 2...Nf6. Black doesn't have many problems in the lines after 3.Nxe5 d6 4.Nf3 Nxe4 5.d4 d5, and can try to keep his knight actively placed on e4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Against 1.d4 d5 2.c4, play 2...e6. The goal is to stay strong in the center and develop, e.g. by Nf6, Be7, 0-0, Nbd7, b6, Bb7.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are of course many many more lines, but I won't put more in a single answer to a really broad question...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2013-01-21T13:47:54.630" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1907" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1911" CreationDate="2013-01-21T15:27:33.077" Score="4" ViewCount="130" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there a resource (book/online) that shows how many ways an opening can be reached?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastActivityDate="2013-01-21T19:25:41.837" Title="A resource that shows how many ways an opening can be reached?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1908" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1895" CreationDate="2013-01-21T16:45:53.273" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The truth is, that all the openings have deep and complicated theory. Even the relatively &quot;elder&quot; openings such as Evans gambit, Italian game or 2 Knights Defense used to have their theory to be developed real deep in 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries. But luckily there are openings that are relatively sound, but they are rare nowadays so by learning basics of such openings you can go well against the opponents who didn't learn these opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What I use:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;White&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Vienna Game&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Italian Game&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;2 Knights Defence&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The vast majority of your opponents after 1. e4 e5 would expect Ruy Lopez, so many are not ready to old good Italian or 2 Knights. Of course, these openings are not as good for white as Ruy Lopez and Black if plays correctly can have equal chances, but the point is that few people actually know how to play in these openings and I quite often managed to achieve superior positions against much stronger players than I am.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also when playing 1. e4 you of course should be ready to Russian game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Against Sicilian I play 1. e4 c5 2. c3. A sound and good variation that is not that complicated as the main lines of Sicilian. Also it can often end up as a classical variation of French defense (1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. e5 c5). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Against French defense I play just mentioned above classical variation. This allows me to feel comfortable in both variations as they can be very much alike.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Against Karo-Kann I play 1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. ed cd 4. c4. Panov's Attack. Gives white a strong and active position and it is you and not your opponent who chooses the variation, so you don't have to study anything but this variation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Black&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Against 1. e4 I always play Sveshnikov variation, though it is far from being &quot;not deep&quot; :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Against d4 I like using Volga gambit, you sacrifice a pawn but get 2 open lines for your rocks and your queen. In my memory I cannot recall losing a single game in this variation except when I played against IMs and GMs. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Against c4 I play as was advised above the hedgehog system. Which is also far from being &quot;not deep&quot; :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So to make a conclusion, I would suggest you to choose variations that you can enforce (such as Panov's Attack in Karo Kann, or Vienna Game after 1.e4 e5). When doing so you limit the number of variations you should learn and you can concentrate on learning them deeply. This will give you a huge advantage over an unprepared opponent especially when an opening is full of tactical tricks and traps such as Vienna Game, Sveshnikov variation or 2 Knights Defense. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Good luck!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T16:35:16.447" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T16:35:16.447" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1909" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1907" CreationDate="2013-01-21T18:11:04.643" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think so, because, for example, the french defence can be reached in the following way: &lt;code&gt;1.Nf3 Nf6 2.Ng1 Ng8 3.Nc3 Nc6 4.Nb1 Nb8 5. e4 e6&lt;/code&gt;. Of course, the knight moves can be repeated more times, with different combinations. Also, &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; can be delayed with &lt;code&gt;e3&lt;/code&gt;, when black &quot;wastes&quot; a move with a knight. Thus, it's not too useful to have such a resource.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="885" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2013-01-21T19:25:41.837" LastActivityDate="2013-01-21T19:25:41.837" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1910" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1634" CreationDate="2013-01-21T19:03:14.077" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Friends I really had an ill-fated childhood as one of my close relative was acute alcoholic and I had severe mental disorders like OCD and Social Anxiety. However with the help of caring people like parents and treatment in a international Bangalore based Deemed University today I walk free from the shackles of mental illness. I play chess for earning and I play it in India. No I am not that much successful and my ELO Rating is below  1800 but I enjoy playing the game . Though initially I had some problems regarding the physical aspect of competitive chess today with proper diet and exercise I have overcome that. Thankfully my chess coach is understanding and due to my exposure to life, chess has given me a new view  to life. High level competitive chess is helping me to do my other works nicely as it is helping me to have a definite goal and structured thinking pattern. Obviously I do not practice for hours as that can be detrimental but I do practice for about 7-8 hours weekly. I know that to do well  I should practice a little more, say about 15-16 hours per week but not more than that as everyone's brain has its limitations. Chess has really empowered me and due to the fact that I can count my blessings(that at least I am winning some games) I am happy with my life. Thank you chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="967" LastActivityDate="2013-01-21T19:03:14.077" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1911" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1907" CreationDate="2013-01-21T19:16:29.843" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;The point from &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/1909/167&quot;&gt;chubbycantorset's answer&lt;/a&gt; about the futility of seeking the number of &lt;em&gt;all&lt;/em&gt; ways to reach a position is a good one. Scid has a way of offering more limited (and more practically useful anyway) information than that. Its &lt;a href=&quot;http://scid.sourceforge.net/help/Reports.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Opening Report&lt;/a&gt; tool allows you to input a position, and then generate a comprehensive statistical report covering games that reached that position (in whatever database you have open). Among the data presented is a tally of how many move-orders were used to reach the position in question &lt;em&gt;that appeared in actual games from the database&lt;/em&gt;, as well as a list of the most popular.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance, in my big database of millions of games, when I generate a report for the standard Sicilian Scheveningen position&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;rnbqkb1r/pp3ppp/3ppn2/8/3NP3/2N5/PPP2PPP/R1BQKB1R w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;part of the information I receive is as follows, where the numbers in parentheses indicate how many games feature the move-order in question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;There were 82 move orders reaching this position. The top 8 are:&#xA;  1:  1. e4  c5 2. Nf3  e6 3. d4  cxd4 4. Nxd4  Nf6 5. Nc3  d6 (18538)&#xA;  2:  1. e4  c5 2. Nf3  d6 3. d4  cxd4 4. Nxd4  Nf6 5. Nc3  e6 (11028)&#xA;  3:  1. e4  c5 2. Nf3  d6 3. d4  Nf6 4. Nc3  cxd4 5. Nxd4  e6 (646)&#xA;  4:  1. e4  c5 2. Nf3  e6 3. Nc3  d6 4. d4  cxd4 5. Nxd4  Nf6 (597)&#xA;  5:  1. e4  c5 2. Nc3  e6 3. Nf3  d6 4. d4  cxd4 5. Nxd4  Nf6 (258)&#xA;  6:  1. e4  c5 2. Nf3  e6 3. d4  cxd4 4. Nxd4  d6 5. Nc3  Nf6 (144)&#xA;  7:  1. e4  e6 2. d4  c5 3. Nf3  cxd4 4. Nxd4  Nf6 5. Nc3  d6 (117)&#xA;  8:  1. e4  c5 2. Nf3  d6 3. Nc3  Nf6 4. d4  cxd4 5. Nxd4  e6 (92)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2013-01-21T19:16:29.843" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1912" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1900" CreationDate="2013-01-21T22:06:24.393" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Actually, the GM who taught me (Vladimir Kosyrev) plays c4! closing the structure then Na5 then Bd7 then Nb3, after Nxb3, you pin the N on b3 with Ba4! and you can leave the pin until the queen moves, of course castle long and f5 to break through on the king side&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;] &#xA;1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. e5 c5 4. c3 Nc6 5. Nf3 Qb6 6. a3 c4 7. Nbd2 Na5! 8. g3 Bd7 9. Bg2 Nb3 10. Nxb3 Ba4!&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Feel free to look up Vladimir Kosyrevs french games in this position after 6... c4!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="954" LastEditorUserId="954" LastEditDate="2013-01-21T22:13:26.987" LastActivityDate="2013-01-21T22:13:26.987" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1913" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-01-22T02:49:52.727" Score="9" ViewCount="227" Body="&lt;p&gt;Where can I find a free list of strong GM (2575+) annotated games?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="954" LastEditorUserId="10867" LastEditDate="2016-07-26T18:55:40.153" LastActivityDate="2016-07-26T18:55:40.153" Title="Where can I find a free list of a strong GM (2575+) annotated games?" Tags="&lt;master-games&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1914" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1913" CreationDate="2013-01-22T09:40:54.877" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;www.chessgames.com has a big collection of annotated games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="970" LastActivityDate="2013-01-22T09:40:54.877" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1915" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1898" CreationDate="2013-01-22T09:45:10.770" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chessok.com/?page_id=352&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://chessok.com/?page_id=352&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;I've been using this for my correspondence games at chess.com, hope this helps you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="970" LastActivityDate="2013-01-22T09:45:10.770" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1916" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1921" CreationDate="2013-01-22T18:55:28.267" Score="8" ViewCount="3266" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have &lt;code&gt;Pawn Power in Chess&lt;/code&gt; by &lt;code&gt;Hans Kmoch&lt;/code&gt;, but I can hardly understand what he is trying to convey in the book.  Maybe this has to do with my level of play or maybe it has to do with the way &lt;code&gt;Kmoch&lt;/code&gt; writes.  I do not have &lt;code&gt;Soltis'&lt;/code&gt; book, so I was curious to know if anyone has read it and if it is similar to &lt;code&gt;Kmoch's&lt;/code&gt; book?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2013-01-22T22:24:47.577" LastActivityDate="2020-05-21T20:42:44.693" Title="&quot;Pawn Power in Chess&quot; by Hans Kmoch vs &quot;Pawn Structure Chess&quot; by Andrew Soltis" Tags="&lt;pawns&gt;&lt;pawn-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1917" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1916" CreationDate="2013-01-22T23:17:41.037" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;“Pawn Structure Chess” by Andrew Soltis is reasonably clearly written and should be not too hard to understand. I enjoyed it when I was rated about 1900-2000.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="618" LastActivityDate="2013-01-22T23:17:41.037" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1918" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="56" CreationDate="2013-01-23T12:23:01.217" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;You should play the positions that &lt;em&gt;you&lt;/em&gt; play the most and are most comfortable in. Since it is unlikely that those same openings are also the most common for your opponent, you will be relatively more comfortable in them than he is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The problem with playing a special opening just against experienced players is that you will be just as uncomfortable playing them as they are. That is, unless the experienced player happens to know it, then it's actually only uncomfortable for you...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2013-01-23T12:23:01.217" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1919" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2173" CreationDate="2013-01-23T17:41:39.483" Score="15" ViewCount="1292" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Notepad++ or similar editors, one can get syntax highlighting for multiple file formats/languages. I'd like to have something usable on Windows that would let me do this with pgn files (see header tags, and annotations in different colors from main line moves).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="618" LastActivityDate="2013-03-16T22:12:55.593" Title="Is there a text editor with syntax highlighting for PGN files?" Tags="&lt;pgn&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1920" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1900" CreationDate="2013-01-24T02:39:07.383" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Strengths&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Positionally White has just blundered a little by playing &lt;code&gt;a3&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;code&gt;f6&lt;/code&gt; takes advantage White neglecting to develop a piece and begins to work on attacking &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt; from the king side ( obviously there is pressure on &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt; from the queenside as well). Black is listed as having a slight &lt;code&gt;-0.28&lt;/code&gt; advantage (23 moves).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Weaknessess&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A player who is not experienced defending may lose to a king side assault after moving &lt;code&gt;f6&lt;/code&gt;. However, to build the attack it requires White to sac a pawn, and that is all an experienced player needs sometimes to win the game. This would not be a gambit. Black is very strong at this point and &lt;code&gt;a3&lt;/code&gt; should seriously be reconsidered.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;White's Response&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Play defensively. Although the position favors Black, it is still very slight, and an equal slip by the opponent will even the game out. No material has been lost yet. It is very important not to give in to Black's traps. Of which, there are many here, and all include dropping a pawn. Avoid taking first, unless it is absolutely forced. This game is going to continue on with White being forced over and over to make the correct move in order to properly develop and retain equal material.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are, however, a few traps you may entice your opponent into&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Offer a &quot;free&quot; pawn for a positional advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;7. Bd3...&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a standard continuation of the position in question. Black will realize that by fiancettoing king side they can possibly win the pawn on &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. e5 c5 4. c3 Nc6 5. Nf3 Qb6 6. a3 f6 7. Bd3 fxe5 8. dxe5 c4 9. Bc2 g6 10. Nbd2 Bg7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At this point, allowing Black to take the pawn gives White an undeniable advantage. Here is a continuation if Black takes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. e5 c5 4. c3 Nc6 5. Nf3 Qb6 6. a3 f6 7. Bd3 fxe5 8. dxe5 c4 9. Bc2 g6 10. O-O Bg7 11. Nbd2 Nxe5 12. Nxe5 Bxe5 13. Nf3 Bf6 14. Re1 Ne7 15. Ba4+ Kf8 16. Ne5 Kg8 17. Qf3 Nf5 18. Nd7 Bxd7 19. Bxd7 Kg7 20. a4 Rad8 21. a5 Qd6 22. Bxe6 Rhe8 23. Bf4 Qc6 24. Bxf5 gxf5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Otherwise, you may be looking at a long grueling, semi closed position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. e5 c5 4. c3 Nc6 5. Nf3 Qb6 6. a3 f6 7. Bd3 fxe5 8. dxe5 c4 9. Bc2 g6 10. Nbd2 Bg7 11. O-O Nge7 12. Qe2 Qc7 13. Re1 O-O 14. b3 b5 15. Bb2 Bd7 16. a4 a6 17. bxc4 bxc4 18. Ba3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Summary&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What it all boils down to is, don't be overly aggressive, play defensively, and try not initiate a material trade (especially with pawns) when in this position. In my opinion, playing &lt;code&gt;a3&lt;/code&gt; is what makes &lt;code&gt;f6&lt;/code&gt; seem so disruptive, when the real result was a loss in tempo.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="342" LastEditorUserId="342" LastEditDate="2013-01-26T01:51:58.620" LastActivityDate="2013-01-26T01:51:58.620" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1921" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1916" CreationDate="2013-01-24T15:50:00.863" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I haven't read either but here's an excerpt from Dan Heisman's Novice &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesscafe.com/text/heisman17.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Nook #17&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A &quot;break&quot; move is a pawn move that “breaks up” an opponent's (fixed)&#xA;  pawn chain by attacking the opponent's pawns with that pawn. In his&#xA;  classic work Pawn Power in Chess, Hans Kmoch calls this move a&#xA;  liberation lever. Don’t be put off by Kmoch’s arcane nomenclature –&#xA;  Pawn Power is a great book for players in the 1300-1900 rating range.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[edit] Current world champion Viswanathan Anand also mentioned the book in &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=5234&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this interview&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this helps for something... I'm also thinking of buying one of these two books.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="791" LastEditorUserId="791" LastEditDate="2013-01-25T15:44:42.473" LastActivityDate="2013-01-25T15:44:42.473" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1922" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1957" CreationDate="2013-01-24T22:20:12.110" Score="4" ViewCount="954" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am reading the &quot;Move by Move&quot; books and was curious if anyone had read &lt;code&gt;&quot;The Art of Planning in Chess: Move by Move&quot; by Neil McDonald&lt;/code&gt;?  If so, can you write a simple review on it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I currently have &lt;code&gt;&quot;Logical Chess: Move By Move: Every Move Explained&quot;&lt;/code&gt; by &lt;code&gt;Irving Chernev&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;&quot;Understanding Chess Move by Move&quot;&lt;/code&gt; by &lt;code&gt;John Nunn&lt;/code&gt;. How does &lt;code&gt;McDonald's&lt;/code&gt; book relate to &lt;code&gt;Chernev's&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;Nunn's&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastEditorUserId="109" LastEditDate="2013-01-25T02:29:15.070" LastActivityDate="2019-02-07T14:22:56.823" Title="&quot;The Art of Planning in Chess: Move by Move&quot; by Neil McDonald review?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;books&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1923" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-01-25T13:41:33.377" Score="15" ViewCount="11174" Body="&lt;p&gt;I dislike open, highly tactical games. I wouldn't mind them so much if I won them, but that isn't what happens.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was recently destroyed by the Albin Counter Gambit. I'm curious if there is a known effective way of declining the gambit, blunting black's counterattack, or otherwise maintaining a closed position?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="216" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-02-14T12:28:49.037" LastActivityDate="2016-04-02T21:09:47.760" Title="How to blunt the Albin Counter Gambit?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;gambits&gt;&lt;queens-gambit&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1924" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1919" CreationDate="2013-01-25T16:59:20.960" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is an extension for Vim (a great editor) that provides syntax highlighting for PGN. You can download Vim &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.vim.org/download.php&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;. You can find the extension &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=677&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="912" LastActivityDate="2013-01-25T16:59:20.960" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1925" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1923" CreationDate="2013-01-26T00:25:50.710" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;A flexible and well respected approach is to take the e-pawn, put knights on f3 and d2, and follow up with a king side fianchetto. You will find &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesscity.com/PDF/Against%20the%20Albin%20Countergambit.pdf&quot;&gt;this article&lt;/a&gt; very useful on how to deal with it. Patience is the key. Don't try to &quot;refute&quot; it as soon as you can. It is a perfectly playable opening for black. But play prophylactic moves that develop and reduced black's counterplay, and you will be fine. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="885" LastActivityDate="2013-01-26T00:25:50.710" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1926" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1923" CreationDate="2013-01-26T02:28:30.137" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Declining the gambit&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not really. White is at an advantage accepting, and will fall to a disadvantage if the gambit is declined.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Maintaining a closed position&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well, considering White aggressively played &lt;code&gt;1. d4 .. 2. c4&lt;/code&gt; there is no closing this position up. The rest of the game will be open.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Maybe &lt;code&gt;3. e3&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This option is so-so.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. c4 e5 3. e3 Bb4+ 4. Nc3 Ne7 5. dxe5 Nbc6 6. Nf3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Blunting black's counterattack&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes. This is the route you should travel and it will bear fruit.  Be aware of Black's &lt;em&gt;main&lt;/em&gt; attack which is exploiting &lt;code&gt;e3&lt;/code&gt; when a bishop check &lt;code&gt;Bb4+&lt;/code&gt; is available. That can be very deadly and is known as the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lasker_Trap&quot;&gt;Lasker Trap&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;strong&gt;Do not allow Black to check on &lt;code&gt;Bb4&lt;/code&gt; while &lt;code&gt;dxe3&lt;/code&gt; is available.&lt;/strong&gt; Accept the advantage, fiancetto the king side, and move into a positional advantage, fully defended, and ahead in development:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. c4 e5 3. dxe5 d4 4. Nf3 Nc6 5. g3 Nge7 6. Bg2 Ng6 7. Bg5 Qd7 8. O-O Ngxe5 9. Nxe5 Nxe5 10. Nd2 h6 11. Bf4 Ng6 12. Nb3 Nxf4 13. gxf4 c5 14. e3 Be7 15. exd4 cxd4 16. Qxd4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="342" LastActivityDate="2013-01-26T02:28:30.137" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1927" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1923" CreationDate="2013-01-26T15:48:52.150" Score="17" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Albin Countergambit is not to be feared, particularly.  White does quite well after the simple &lt;code&gt;3. dxe5&lt;/code&gt;.  My chess database of master games shows that white wins or draws 80% of the games after &lt;code&gt;3. ... d4&lt;/code&gt; which is Black's best response.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Now, before I go down the rabbit hole, please bear in mind that strong masters probably don't visit this site.  For amateurs, almost anything is playable.  In any of the games we play, a master could win either side on any move as long as the game isn't blatantly lost.  The moves are there.  So temper everything I say regarding what is and isn't playable.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is one frequently played variation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. c4 e5 3. dxe5 d4 4. Nf3 Nc6  &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It yields a generally fun time for White. Tese are, statistically, Black's best moves.  However, there seems to be a trap of sorts: &lt;code&gt;5. g3&lt;/code&gt; is White's most common response but there are 7 games with the &lt;em&gt;uncommon&lt;/em&gt; Black response of &lt;code&gt;5. ... Bg4&lt;/code&gt;.  From 7 master games, Black wins or draws 5.  I'd avoid &lt;code&gt;g3&lt;/code&gt; :-D&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's a sample game where White did not.  Nathan Birnboim v. Itzhak Veinger, Munich 1987. ECO D09.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. c4 e5 3. dxe5 d4 4. Nf3 Nc6 5. g3 Bg4 6. Bg2 Qd7 7. O-O O-O-O 8.  Qb3 h5 9. h4 f6 10. exf6 gxf6 11. Rd1 Bh3 12. Bh1 Bc5 13. Nc3 Qg4 14. Na4 Bd6  15. Kh2 d3 16. Rxd3 Nge7 17. c5 Bxg3+ 18. fxg3 Bf1 19. Bf4 Bxe2 20. Rxd8+ Rxd8  21. Bg2 Kb8 22. Re1 Rd3 23. Qc4 Rxf3 24. Bxf3 Bxf3 25. Qe6 Qg6 26. Qc4 Bd5 27.  Qc3 Bxa2 28. b3 Qf7 29. Qd2 Bxb3 30. Qd7 Ne5 31. Qd8+ Nc8 32. Ra1 Qc4 33. Bxe5  Qe2+ 34. Kg1 Qxe5 35. Rf1 Qxg3+ 36. Kh1 Qxh4+ 37. Kg2 Bxa4 38. Rxf6 0-1  &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Everything looks normal until move 7, where Black's Queenside castling pretty much declares he's uninterested in a draw.  Such games are generally razor-sharp.  On move 8, Black announces he's uninterested in a &lt;em&gt;long&lt;/em&gt; game.  He believes White's King's position is weak and he's exploiting it &lt;em&gt;now&lt;/em&gt;.  &lt;code&gt;9. h4&lt;/code&gt; hurt my face. I had to invoke Stockfish which didn't have a huge problem with (or particularly like) &lt;code&gt;8. ... h5 9. h4&lt;/code&gt;. Stockfish didn't have a problem with &lt;code&gt;12. Bh1&lt;/code&gt;, either.  At move 12 White is ahead a little, but Black has chances.  Black's playing aggressively but White solves the problems. Stockfish didn't care for &lt;code&gt;13. ... Qg4&lt;/code&gt; and considered &lt;code&gt;15. ... d3&lt;/code&gt; a blunder.  If I can read the tea leaves, after move 15 Stockfish considers White up by about 2 pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To this point Black has had the initiative and has aggressively posed problems for White. Both players have erred between moves 15-19 but White has increased his advantage to the point he'll probably win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But a won game is sometimes hard to win! White starts to falter on move 24. Whites 24th, 25th, 26th, 28th, and 29th moves are poor.  Black plays well and erases White's advantage completely.  It's a horse race again!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So where are we?  on move 30, Black has a glaring back-rank weakness but the Knight on &lt;code&gt;e7&lt;/code&gt; protects &lt;code&gt;c8&lt;/code&gt;.  White's Kingside pawns are slightly better but the backward &lt;code&gt;g&lt;/code&gt; pawn negates most of the advantage.  White's Queenside pawns dropped like flies. Black's 3-to-1 advantage will eventually be worth a piece.  Black's Knights aren't aggressively placed but defend very well. Black's queen can rampage and is otherwise uncontained.  White's Knight is looking silly there on the rim but his Queen and Rook are well placed.  White's biggest problem is his exposed King.  While I couldn't foresee the position when he played &lt;code&gt;9. h4&lt;/code&gt;, I can't say I am surprised.  Black is always going to have a 'get out of jail free' card as long as Queens are on the board.  White will be better off if that Black Bishop is removed; the Bishop's mobility is devastating with the White king being so exposed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White loses the game on move 32. Ra1 is a terrible blunder. Here's what Stockfish recommended instead. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[fen &quot;1knQ4/ppp2q2/5p2/2P1n2p/N4B1P/1b4P1/7K/4R3 w - - 4 32&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;( I can't get the replayer to work: Here are the moves: &lt;code&gt;1. Nb6 axb6 2. cxb6 cxb6 3. Qh8 Bc4 4. Rxe5 fxe5 5. Qxe5+ Ka7 6. Qb8+ Ka6&lt;/code&gt; )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We see White start a combination that culminates in the destruction of the Black King's safety.  White counters his biggest problem by sticking Black with the same problem.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Back to the main line, the ghastly &lt;code&gt;32. Ra1&lt;/code&gt; sort of hits &lt;code&gt;a7&lt;/code&gt; while defending the misplaced Knight.  White loses tempos bigtime.  Black's &lt;code&gt;32. ... Qc4&lt;/code&gt; is menacing in itself, but now we see the Knight on &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt; is a monster.  If it makes it to &lt;code&gt;g4&lt;/code&gt;, it's going to be lights-out for White. &lt;code&gt;f3&lt;/code&gt; a good square too.  White kills the Knight but then gets a demonstration of a &lt;em&gt;Zwischenzug&lt;/em&gt; - an in-between move.  Instead of the knee-jerk recapture with the &lt;code&gt;f&lt;/code&gt; pawn, Black checks with the Queen, snags the Bishop, and forks the Rook and g-pawn.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Black threatens something like &lt;code&gt;1. ... Qxg3+ 2. Kf1 Bc4#&lt;/code&gt;  When White prevents this with &lt;code&gt;Rf1&lt;/code&gt;, Black scoops up both reminaing Kingside pawns then scoops up the Knight on &lt;code&gt;a4&lt;/code&gt;.&#xA;  Brutal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Backing waaaay up now, I'd choose a different move that &lt;code&gt;5. g3&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Instead, I'd consider the prophylactic (and most common White move behind &lt;code&gt;5. g3&lt;/code&gt;)  &lt;code&gt;5. a3&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;Black's best response is &lt;code&gt;5. ... Nge7&lt;/code&gt;.  18 games featuring other responses yielded -0- wins for black.  Ouch.  This seems to be one of those cases where both players have chances but one side (in this case Black) has to play &lt;em&gt;much&lt;/em&gt; better to achieve a good result.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first 10 moves are straight out of theory; there was no deviation in the master games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'll present the last games to amuse us - I have no more time for running the engine or providing b-player analysis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is an ECO D08.  White is Anatoly Karpov and Black is Rustam Kasimdzhanov - two heavyweights, to be sure.  This encounter is from the Keres Memorial at Tallinn on January 8th, 2006.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. c4 e5 3. dxe5 d4 4. Nf3 Nc6 5. a3 Nge7 6. b4 Ng6 7. Bb2 a5 8. b5  Ncxe5 9. Qxd4 Qxd4 10. Bxd4 Nxc4 11. Nfd2 Nd6 12. a4 Nf5 13. Bc3 Bc5 14. e3 O-O  15. Nb3 Bb6 16. N1d2 Nd6 17. Nc4 Nxc4 18. Bxc4 Re8 19. O-O Ne5 20. Be2 Be6 21.  Nxa5 Rxa5 22. Bxe5 Bb3 23. Bf4 Rxa4 24. Rxa4 Bxa4 25. Ra1 Bb3 26. Bf3 Bc4 27.  Rb1 Bd3 28. Rb3 Be4 29. Bxe4 Rxe4 30. Rc3 Rb4 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The game is blown wide open.  If Karpov can stand it, you can too. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are two more samples with the same 10 first moves.  The viewer may not show it but White wins both.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Fernando Peralta v Manuel Perez Candelario, Nov. 8th, 2006.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. c4 e5 3. dxe5 d4 4. Nf3 Nc6 5. a3 Nge7 6. b4 Ng6 7. Bb2 a5 8. b5  Ncxe5 9. Qxd4 Qxd4 10. Bxd4 Nxc4 11. e3 Nd6 12. Nbd2 Bd7 13. a4 f6 14. Be2 Ne7  15. O-O Nd5 16. Rfc1 c6 17. bxc6 Bxc6 18. Bc5 Nf5 19. Nb3 Nb4 20. Bb6 Bd7 21.  Bxa5 Nc6 22. Bb6 Be6 23. Nc5 Bxc5 24. Bxc5 Kf7 25. Rcb1 Na5 26. e4 Ne7 27. Nd4  Bd7 28. Nb5 Ng6 29. Nd6+ Ke6 30. Bg4+ 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And one more.  Mihajlo Stojanovic v. Branko Tadic, March 12th, 2007.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. c4 e5 3. dxe5 d4 4. Nf3 Nc6 5. a3 Nge7 6. b4 Ng6 7. Bb2 a5 8. b5  Ncxe5 9. Qxd4 Qxd4 10. Bxd4 Nxc4 11. e3 Nd6 12. Nbd2 Bd7 13. a4 f6 14. Bd3 Bf5  15. Be2 Ne4 16. g4 Nxd2 17. gxf5 Nb3 18. fxg6 Nxa1 19. Bxa1 Bb4+ 20. Kf1 hxg6  21. Kg2 O-O-O 22. Rc1 Kb8 23. Nd4 Rh4 24. Bd3 Bd6 25. h3 Rdh8 26. Bxg6 Rxh3 27.  Nf3 R3h6 28. Bd3 g5 29. Rc4 Rd8 30. Bf5 Re8 31. Bc3 b6 32. Rg4 Reh8 33. Re4 Rf8  34. Nd4 Rh2+ 35. Kf3 Kb7 36. Ne6 g4+ 37. Rxg4 Rh5 38. Be4+ Ka7 39. Nxf8 f5 40.  Rg8 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2013-01-26T22:03:00.977" LastActivityDate="2013-01-26T22:03:00.977" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1928" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1813" CreationDate="2013-01-26T20:23:22.527" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;White is winning&quot; means that White should be able to FORCE a win with proper play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;White is better&quot; means that White has a clear advantage, but if Black plays perfectly going forward, he will be able to draw (or win).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It often takes only one more advantage to get from &quot;White is better&quot; to &quot;White is winning.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2013-01-26T20:23:22.527" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1929" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1936" CreationDate="2013-01-27T08:03:36.933" Score="17" ViewCount="2356" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can someone provide a collection of GM games (I'll define a collection as 5 or more games played by a GM against a GM, to be specific), where the winning side featured, at some point in the game, a knight (of the winning side) on one of the corners (a8, h8, a1, h1).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Weird request? Yes. I've seen all pieces but the knight go to a corner square. But I've heard of top level games where it has happened for some brilliant purpose, and am interested to actually see some examples.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="885" LastActivityDate="2020-09-10T18:33:50.973" Title="&quot;A knight on a rim is dim&quot;, but a knight on a corner is ... excellent?" Tags="&lt;knights&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="8" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1930" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1929" CreationDate="2013-01-27T15:10:44.013" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is a nice one for you actually titled &quot;Knight in the Corner&quot;: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1480553&quot;&gt;Magnus Carlsen vs Michael Adams&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 Bb4 4. Qc2 d5 5. a3 Bxc3 6. Qxc3 dxc4 7. Qxc4 b6 8. Bf4 Ba6 9. Qxc7 Qxc7 10. Bxc7 O-O 11. Nf3 Rc8 12. Bf4 Nbd7 13. Nd2 Rc2 14. Rb1 Rac8 15. Nb3 Bc4 16. Na1 Ba2 17. Nxc2 Bxb1 18. Na1 Nd5 19. Bd2 e5 20. e3 exd4 21. exd4 Nb8 22. f3 Nc6 23. Bc4 Rd8 24. Kf2 Bf5 25. Nb3 Be6 26. Rc1 f6 27. a4 a5 28. Bc3 Bf7 29. Nd2 Nde7 30. Bf1 Nxd4 31. Re1 Ndc6 32. Nc4 Nd5 33. Rb1 Kf8 34. Be1 Ke7 35. Kg1 Nb8 36. Bf2 Nd7 37. Re1 Kf8 38. Rd1 Ke7 39. Re1 Kf8 40. Nd6 Ne5 41. Nxf7 Kxf7 42. Rd1 Ke7 43. f4 Ng4 44. Re1 Kf8 45. Bd4 Rd6 46. h3 Nh6 47. Rd1 Nf5 48. Bf2 Ke7 49. g4 Nh6 50. f5 Nf7 51. Bg2 Nf4 52. Rxd6 Nxd6 53. Bxb6 Nc4 54. Bc5 Kd7 55. Bf1 Nxb2 56. Bb5 Kd8 57. Bb6 Ke7 58. Kh2 Nd5 59. Bxa5 Kd6 60. Bd2 Kc5 61. Kg3 Nc7 62. Be3 Kb4 63. Bd2 Kc5 64. Bc1 Nc4 65. Bxc4 Kxc4 66. Bd2 Na6 67. a5 Kb5 68. Kf3 Nc5 69. Bc3 h6 70. Ke3 Kc4 71. Bd4 Na6 72. Ke4 Nb4 73. h4 Kb5 74. Bc3 Na6 75. Kd5 Nc5 76. Bd4 Nd3 77. Ke6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastEditorUserId="342" LastEditDate="2013-01-27T22:41:51.810" LastActivityDate="2013-01-27T22:41:51.810" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1931" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1846" CreationDate="2013-01-27T18:33:03.243" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;My advice is not to play them at all, instead pair them with other kids of approximately equal skills. You can go over their games afterwards and coach them through their mistakes. If you must play with them you can set up tactical positions and make it a game about finding the right move. Also a good idea is to play a game where the kid has to voice his thought on why he is doing a move, and you do likewise, try to find faults in his reasoning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="983" LastActivityDate="2013-01-27T18:33:03.243" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1932" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1846" CreationDate="2013-01-27T22:01:46.063" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The way I like to play against kids or new players is to communicate every few moves on the ideas that I might have - so that they can &quot;find&quot; ways to defend against it and allow them take backs if they want to.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically to ensure that I don't turn them off from the game, I try to keep things simple initially, introduce new rules (like en passant) slowly and ensure that they are comfortable and not getting bored/&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="118" LastActivityDate="2013-01-27T22:01:46.063" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1933" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1524" CreationDate="2013-01-27T22:10:39.963" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &quot;blunder check&quot; option is for errors only. The level of these errors can be controlled by the &quot;threshold&quot; value that you can define. This threshold also applies to full analysis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The threshold value is defined in terms of Pawn weights. A high value (say 200) will result in annotation of moves that are bad enough for +-2 pawn or greater change in evaluation, probably indicating immediate or imminent loss of material. A low value (say 30) will show also small improvements indicating where errors resulted in a positional loss equivalent to about a third of a pawn or more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Full analysis is more detailed and can create references to the DB games and also add visual cues to the commentary it generates.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both blunder check and full analysis show where the game was lost or won according to the threshold setting. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The full analysis helps in a more detailed study of how the game developed, additionally showing interesting possibilities both good and bad outside the threshold values. So, if one side plays the best move where there was a very tempting bad move (big improvement on small number of ply analysis but turning badly negative on higher number of ply analysis) it will often show the tempting bad move with appropriate commentary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="118" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2015-01-11T15:17:44.240" LastActivityDate="2015-01-11T15:17:44.240" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1934" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="305" CreationDate="2013-01-28T01:12:59.677" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The trouble with a &quot;hedgehog&quot; PAWN strategy, is that you cramp your pieces. Also, spending moves on pawns means that your pieces don't get to move until later.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If your opponent has a good mix of pawn and piece moves, he might be able to sacrifice a minor piece for say, two pawns, and then overwhelm you with superior piece activity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2013-01-28T01:12:59.677" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1935" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1589" CreationDate="2013-01-28T01:16:05.493" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;A knight and bishop together are worth SEVEN points, not six, at least in early part of the game because of the synergies. (Or, if you will three and half for the minor pieces).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, to make this sequence work, the knight and bishop make more moves, so White is actually sacrificing MOVES. Note that Black has two pieces developed, White none.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;World Champion JR Capablanca once let E Canal exchange a rook and pawn for a bishop and knight and still won the endgame. But this was because the exchange of queens was forced as  a result, increasing the power of Black's rook.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And then he was Capablanca.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastEditorUserId="17" LastEditDate="2020-12-31T01:09:18.813" LastActivityDate="2020-12-31T01:09:18.813" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1936" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1929" CreationDate="2013-01-28T13:39:26.510" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is another famous game: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1070485&quot;&gt;Piket - Kasparov, Tilburg 1989&lt;/a&gt;. Kasparov used the exact size of the chess board, combining Qa8-a7 with Ng3-h1 to win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Tilburg &amp;lt;Treppner&amp;gt;&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Tilburg &amp;lt;Treppner&amp;gt;&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;1989.??.??&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Jeroen Piket&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Garry Kasparov&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;E99&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;56&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 Nf6 2.Nf3 g6 3.c4 Bg7 4.Nc3 O-O 5.e4 d6 6.Be2 e5 7.O-O&#xA;Nc6 8.d5 Ne7 9.Ne1 Nd7 10.Be3 f5 11.f3 f4 12.Bf2 g5 13.b4 Nf6&#xA;14.c5 Ng6 15.cxd6 cxd6 16.Rc1 Rf7 17.a4 Bf8 18.a5 Bd7 19.Nb5&#xA;g4 20.Nc7 g3 21.Nxa8 Nh5 22.Kh1 gxf2 23.Rxf2 Ng3+ 24.Kg1 Qxa8&#xA;25.Bc4 a6 26.Qd3 Qa7 27.b5 axb5 28.Bxb5 Nh1 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2013-01-28T13:39:26.510" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1937" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="305" CreationDate="2013-01-28T13:46:13.970" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Remember that your pawns can never move backwards! Every pawn move you make creates squares that you can never cover with that pawn again. If you play 1.a2-a3, then the square b3 is weakened because there is one less pawn that can defend it for the rest of the game. Avoiding such weakness is especially important in front of your king -- once you've made a few pawn moves on one wing, you don't really want to castle that way anymore.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So you should only move a pawn if the benefits outweigh the drawbacks. Obviously you can't do without pawn moves, but they should have a purpose.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2013-01-28T13:46:13.970" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1938" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1567" CreationDate="2013-01-28T13:58:53.250" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;Draw offers are useful for psychological reasons, provided of course that you don't particularly mind getting a draw as a result of your offer now and then.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's say you have a more or less equal position, where both players have to play pretty cautiously, neither can really attack at the moment. Then you offer a draw, and your opponent declines. Now he will a) feel morally obligated to play for the win, and b) believe you are only playing for a draw! This leads to excessive risk taking by your opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another way to use them is to be just slightly obnoxious, when you know he isn't going to accept. Let's say you know he's traveled two hours to get here, he outrates you and you offer a draw after 8 moves. Irritated people have trouble staying objective and he's more likely to take excessive risks, again. Although I don't actually do this as I think it's over the line.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another thing I do is when I'm walking around while my opponent is thinking, and he is really using too much time for this move and seems unable to make up his mind, then I will continue walking around. The moment you sit down is often the moment they take a decision and make a move, I want to make them waste as much time as possible in those situations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, when I'm walking around, notice I've actually made a blunder but he may not have seen the combination yet, then I will sit down immediately hoping he'll promptly move... If he doesn't, just get up again.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastEditorUserId="924" LastEditDate="2013-09-14T19:36:42.330" LastActivityDate="2013-09-14T19:36:42.330" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1939" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1567" CreationDate="2013-01-29T13:47:43.807" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;TL;DR&lt;/strong&gt;: When your opponent has an extremely cramped position, sometimes they can &quot;crack&quot; and make bad moves (if you don't help them out of it, and give them time).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Chessmaster series of games had an (IMHO) excellent set of instructional videos by Josh Waitzkin.  Although probably nothing revolutionary, he had one regarding the psychology of chess, which I've found to be very interesting.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One of the concepts involved games where your opponent found themselves in a cramped (but otherwise balanced / drawish) position.  Here, if you are able to bide your time (in such a way that you don't give up tempo), you can often cause your opponent to attempt to break out of the cramped position without sufficient preparation.  In the video, Josh played quiet moves to bide his time, and without any obvious forced defensive moves to play, his opponent had to try come up with something new.  Unfortunately for the opponent, there were no &quot;excellent&quot; moves present; he really had no way to break the position open in a way that was beneficial (but neither did the other player).  Objectively, the position was equal, but one player felt that pressure was building up.  Eventually, Josh's opponent decided to open the game up, and ended up losing very quickly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I guess this would be the chess equivalent of &quot;give somebody enough rope (to hang themselves)&quot;, and it's also a pretty good example of legitimate psychological tricks in chess.  I'm not sure how this would apply at high levels of play, but it's certainly applicable up to low-level tournament play, in my opinion.  If you do decide to try this, just make sure you're not giving your opponent the free tempos they need to win the game (this is the hard part).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="412" LastActivityDate="2013-01-29T13:47:43.807" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1940" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1945" CreationDate="2013-01-29T16:21:27.547" Score="2" ViewCount="947" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my recent effort to play as many &lt;code&gt;Evan's Gambit&lt;/code&gt; games and an ocassional &lt;code&gt;Lolli Attack&lt;/code&gt;, I recently had this game as &lt;code&gt;White&lt;/code&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Nf6 4. Ng5 d5 5. exd5 Nb4 6. Nc3 Nbxd5 7. Nxd5 Nxd5 &#xA;8. Nxf7 Kxf7 9. Qf3+ Ke8 10. Bxd5 Bd6 11. Qf7#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;5...Nb4&lt;/code&gt; is the &lt;code&gt;Kloss Gambit&lt;/code&gt; and I have never seen this move played against me so was curious how &lt;code&gt;White&lt;/code&gt; should proceed?  Now I obviously played &lt;code&gt;6. Nc3&lt;/code&gt; to add a defender to &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt;, but according to some databases, &lt;code&gt;White's&lt;/code&gt; best move is &lt;code&gt;6. d6&lt;/code&gt;.  I also noticed that there is only one game (although I am not completely sure of this) that has the move &lt;code&gt;5...Nb4&lt;/code&gt; at &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;chessgames.com&lt;/a&gt; found &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1436343&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2013-12-07T21:46:31.230" LastActivityDate="2013-12-07T21:46:31.230" Title="Italian Game: Two Knights Defense, Kloss Gambit (C57)" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;learning&gt;&lt;two-knights&gt;&lt;italian-game&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1941" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="305" CreationDate="2013-01-29T17:08:35.047" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;This sort of thing is covered in the very first game of Euwe &amp;amp; Meiden's &quot;Chess Master vs. Chess Amateur&quot;.  After White's third move resulting in the following position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;1. f4 d5  2. a4 e6  3. b3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They write: &quot;Very likely the beginner made this move because he was fascinated with the pawn configuration a4-b3-c2 (converting to algebraic from descriptive), rather than because he understood its basic significance in relation to the requirements of the position&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user76" LastActivityDate="2013-01-29T17:08:35.047" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1942" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1706" CreationDate="2013-01-31T15:53:17.333" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;IMHO if you are struggling with the middle-game it makes more sense to study that particularly (as well as the endgame) instead of focusing on openings. I would advise you to learn to record your games in Algebraic Notation in order to learn from your mistakes (preferably with a stronger player). As far as online material you can use I can recommend &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesscafe.com/archives/archives.htm#Novice%20Nook&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Novice Nook by Dan Heisman&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.openchessbooks.org/reti-mic/chapter1/combination.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Modern Ideas in Chess by Richard Rèti&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="791" LastActivityDate="2013-01-31T15:53:17.333" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1943" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2013-02-01T10:39:22.733" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;A move that doesn't respect the rules of chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="813" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2013-02-01T12:34:35.347" LastActivityDate="2013-02-01T12:34:35.347" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1944" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2013-02-01T10:39:22.733" Score="0" Body="A move that doesn't respect the rules of chess." OwnerUserId="813" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2013-02-01T12:35:04.473" LastActivityDate="2013-02-01T12:35:04.473" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1945" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1940" CreationDate="2013-02-01T18:16:25.813" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;First of all I disagree with Andrew.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why exactly &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt; is the best move? There is nothing wrong with it and in fact it is nice, but in my opinion 0-0 better. Other nice moves (d4 is in the list)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;6) 0-0&#xA;6) d6&#xA;6) d4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Depending on what type of play do you prefer you can choose either of them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;0-0 is more aggressive. Idea behind it is that you are already one pawn up and there is no point to save that pawn. So you are developing (hiding your king and preparing to put the rook on e1 attacking the king of the opponent).&#xA;If your opponent is eating the pawn &#xA;6 ... Nbxd5 &#xA;7. Re1 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here you are ready for an attack. This type of game if for a strategical opponent who can understand that material is not the most important and opening are for fast developing and getting initiative.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Idea behind d6 is easy. You are trying to maintain this pawn (actually you are forcing to exchange it). The f7 square is under attack and only reasonable way to save it is &lt;code&gt;6) ... Nbd5&lt;/code&gt; which allows you to capture the pawn&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;7) dxc7 Qxc7&#xA;8) d3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the end you are one move from castling (and nothing can stop you) and 1 pawn up. Your opponent is two moves and has one piece more developed than you. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt;, as Andrew said d5 pawn is untouchable, and you are threatening e5 capture with attacking the knight. So if I were black, I would take &lt;code&gt;6) ... exd4&lt;/code&gt; after which white would castle. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S how are you guys adding PNG?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="703" LastActivityDate="2013-02-01T18:16:25.813" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1947" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="75" CreationDate="2013-02-02T10:57:59.943" Score="17" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Open Sicilian (1.e4 c5 followed by 2.Nf3 and 3.d4) counts, in my view. White immediately gets a lead in development and great attacking chances, in return for some positional sacrifice, most notably the 1v2 pawns in the center.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This opening is famous for its wild sacrificial attacks, in my opinion even more so than the king's gambit. Piece sacrifices on b5, d5 and e6, and black exchange sacrifices on c3 are the order of the day.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And best of all: almost all top players play it. It's actually &lt;em&gt;good&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-08-17T00:50:52.807" LastActivityDate="2020-08-17T00:50:52.807" CommentCount="0" CommunityOwnedDate="2013-08-09T01:11:05.007" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1948" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1954" CreationDate="2013-02-02T17:29:03.493" Score="13" ViewCount="6355" Body="&lt;p&gt;After &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6. Bg5 e6 7. f4 Qb6 8. Qd2 Qxb2 9. Rb1  Qa3 10. e5 dxe5 11. fxe5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;what are black's main strategic goals? As this is supposed to be extremely sharp and complicated, what are the pitfalls to avoid?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;rnb1kb1r/1p3ppp/p3pn2/4P1B1/3N4/q1N5/P1PQ2PP/1R2KB1R b Kkq - 0 11&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="952" LastEditorUserId="12" LastEditDate="2013-02-03T20:11:11.967" LastActivityDate="2014-01-23T16:56:55.907" Title="Najdorf Variation: strategy after taking poisoned pawn?" Tags="&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;&lt;najdorf&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1949" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1844" CreationDate="2013-02-02T18:16:12.610" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;An e4 opening tends to lead to more open, tactical games, featuring attacks on the king. D4 leads to more closed, positional games, featuring endgame advantages on the queenside. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To become a &quot;good&quot; player, you need to learn to play both types of games well. If you're good at one kind, but want to progress, learn to play the other. Even if it is the &quot;dark&quot; side for you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2013-02-02T18:16:12.610" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1950" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1784" CreationDate="2013-02-02T18:27:43.773" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;your example&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;4r2k/Bb1n2pp/2q1r3/1R1Qpp2/2P5/5P2/P4KPP/4RB2 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Rxb7 Qxb7 2. Qxb7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;when R x b7, your Queen on d5 is guarding the rook, even though it doesn't look like it. That's because if Black plays Q (c6) takes b7, your Q (d5) can take it back.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason &quot;it doesn't look like it&quot; is because the Black Q on c6 appears to be blocking the way to b7. That is, until the Black Q herself moves to b7. Thus, your Q d5 has &quot;xray&quot; power to b7 through the Black Q on c6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-08-14T12:44:42.460" LastActivityDate="2019-08-14T12:44:42.460" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1951" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="450" CreationDate="2013-02-02T18:29:54.053" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In order to learn tactics, you want to get into tactical &lt;strong&gt;situations.&lt;/strong&gt; These can occur in the opening, middle, or end game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But if you play tactical openings, you get a head start on these situations (and guarantee that you'll get some).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2013-02-02T18:29:54.053" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1952" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1749" CreationDate="2013-02-02T18:36:10.170" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you remain unbiased, playing against yourself will force you to try to find the best (or at least good) moves for both sides. It is actually a stiff mental exercise. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But it gets you thinking, if I do this, what is the other person going to do, and what do I do now, given that the other person has done this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The danger is that you will get into a &quot;rut&quot; and learn only certain types of positions that you are particularly suited for.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2013-02-02T18:36:10.170" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1953" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1749" CreationDate="2013-02-02T19:06:57.697" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't believe it is useful to literally play against yourself.  Instead, I'd recommend you spend that time analyzing your OTB losses from the chess club you ought to be attending weekly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2013-02-02T19:06:57.697" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1954" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1948" CreationDate="2013-02-02T19:36:59.850" Score="16" Body="&lt;p&gt;It would be strange it it were possible to give a short list of pitfalls for one of the most complicated variations in chess. I'll try to give some hints, I don't play it from either side but I'm an opening nut.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, you've chosen to include &lt;code&gt;10.e5 dxe5 11.fxe5&lt;/code&gt; but the interesting position is the one after &lt;code&gt;9...Qa3&lt;/code&gt;, where black has chosen to accept the so-called Poisoned Pawn. The other really big main line is &lt;code&gt;10.f5&lt;/code&gt;, and the strategy is similar (white tries to checkmate black).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also first, the current big fashion for black is to play &lt;code&gt;7...h6 8.Bh4&lt;/code&gt; before playing &lt;code&gt;8...Qb6&lt;/code&gt;. So if you're looking for recent games, look for games with that included as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the position after &lt;code&gt;9...Qa3&lt;/code&gt;, white has a huge lead of development. Black has an extra pawn and the better pawn structure. &lt;em&gt;Fundamental Chess Openings&lt;/em&gt; says &quot;It is in fact very attractive for White to offer this pawn, and it is equally attractive for Black to take it. An ideal setting for a ferocious fight!&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White's strategy is to go all-out to checkmate black's king, as he's burned his bridges already. Black's strategy is to survive the onslaught and somehow return to a normal position (develop his pieces, return his queen to a more normal square) and if he manages that, he'll often be winning. Theoretically, chess is of course a draw, which means here that many of the long, long calculated out lines end up with white having just enough attack to give perpetual check, but not checkmate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An example from FCO:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.Bg5 e6 7.f4 Qb6 8.Qd2 Qxb2&#xA;9.Rb1 Qa3 10.f5 Nc6 11.fxe6 fxe6 12.Nxc6 bxc6 { Now comes a second pawn sacrifice&#xA;to speed things up } 13.e5 dxe5 14.Bxf6 gxf6 15.Ne4 { This is the starting point of&#xA;variations, based on themes like } 15... Be7 16.Be2 h5 17.Rb3 Qa4 18.Nxf6!? Bxf6&#xA;19.c4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;It seems incredible that White should have sufficient compensation for the great &#xA;material sacrifices he has made, but Black's position is extremely uncoordinated and&#xA;his king has no safe place anywhere on the board. According to the present state of&#xA;opening theory, attack and defence are equally balanced, but... everyone is holding their&#xA;breath for future developments.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's Radjabov-Karjakin (1-0) from 2006 that helped make &lt;code&gt;10.e5&lt;/code&gt; be the most popular line for a few years again (source: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1433642&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1433642&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Cap D'Agde&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Cap d'Agde FRA&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2006.11.02&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;2006.10.30&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;3.2&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Teimour Radjabov&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Sergey Karjakin&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;B97&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;2729&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;2672&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;65&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 a6 6. Bg5 e6&#xA;7. f4 Qb6 8. Qd2 Qxb2 9. Rb1 Qa3 10. e5 dxe5 11. fxe5 Nfd7&#xA;12. Ne4 h6 13. Bh4 Qxa2 14. Rd1 Qb2 15. Qe3 Bc5 16. Be2 Nc6&#xA;17. c3 (17.Nxe6!! { White could have played this } Qb4+ {forced} 18.c3 Bxe3 19.Nc7+ Kf8 20.cxb4 Rb8 21.Bg3 {with the threat of e6}) Qa3 18. O-O O-O 19. Nf6+ Nxf6 20. Bxf6 Nxd4 21. Rxd4&#xA;Bxd4 22. Qxd4 gxf6 23. exf6 Qa5 24. h4 Kh7 25. Bd3+ Qf5&#xA;26. Re1 Rg8 27. Kh2 a5 28. g4 Qxd3 29. Qxd3+ Kh8 30. Re5 Rxg4&#xA;31. Rh5 Rg6 32. Qd8+ Kh7 33. Qe7 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's a Stellwagen-Anand, 0-1 in 2009, in the &lt;code&gt;10.e5&lt;/code&gt; variation. The early queen sacrifice is long-known theory, technically &lt;code&gt;17...Ra4!?&lt;/code&gt; is the first new move of the game but it's unclear how much was preparation. &lt;code&gt;38...Kb8??&lt;/code&gt; could have thrown away the game to &lt;code&gt;39.h6!&lt;/code&gt;, later &lt;code&gt;46.h6??&lt;/code&gt; is also a blunder.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;2008-2009 Bundesliga&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Baden Baden GER&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2009.03.28&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;2008.10.03&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;14&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Daniel Stellwagen&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Viswanathan Anand&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;B97&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;2605&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;2783&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;104&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 a6 6. Bg5 e6&#xA;7. f4 Qb6 8. Qd2 Qxb2 9. Rb1 Qa3 10. e5 dxe5 11. fxe5 Nfd7&#xA;12. Ne4 h6 13. Bb5 axb5 14. Nxb5 hxg5 15. Nxa3 Rxa3 16. O-O&#xA;Nc6 17. Rb5 Ra4 18. Nxg5 Ndxe5 19. Rxe5 Nxe5 20. Qc3 Nc6&#xA;21. Rxf7 Ra5 22. Rxg7 Bc5+ 23. Kh1 Rf8 24. Qd3 Rxa2 25. h4&#xA;Ra1+ 26. Kh2 Bd4 27. Qg6+ Kd8 28. Rf7 Rxf7 29. Qxf7 Bg1+&#xA;30. Kg3 e5 31. h5 Nd4 32. Qf6+ Kc7 33. Qxe5+ Kb6 34. Qd6+ Ka7&#xA;35. Qc5+ Kb8 36. Qd6+ Ka8 37. Qd8 Nf5+ 38. Kh3 Kb8 39. Ne6&#xA;Ra3+ 40. Kg4 Nh6+ 41. Kf4 Bh2+ 42. Ke4 Nf7 43. Qf8 Nd6+&#xA;44. Kd4 Ka7 45. Nc5 Ra5 46. h6 Bg1+ 47. Kd3 Bf5+ 48. Qxf5 Nxf5&#xA;49. h7 Ra3+ 50. Nb3 Bd4 51. Ke4 Bh8 52. Kxf5 Ra2 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: crap, I didn't realize the PGN viewer doesn't show comments. I only had a few, but they don't show, sorry.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastEditorUserId="924" LastEditDate="2013-02-11T13:48:37.353" LastActivityDate="2013-02-11T13:48:37.353" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1955" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1948" CreationDate="2013-02-02T19:37:19.920" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;If blacks knows this variation well, and white does not know it well, then black can grab the pawn and keep it to the end. As Fischer said, &quot;a pawn is a pawn is a pawn&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The idea is to grab the pawn, survive the opening, then end up in the middle game with an extra pawn. Once Black manages to survive the opening and develop, then he will actually be better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since this involves sharp variations, it is only played by those who know it well. It is not played much any more at high level. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are few books on this variation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="804" LastActivityDate="2013-02-02T19:37:19.920" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1956" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1648" CreationDate="2013-02-02T19:53:42.127" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Tim Harding's &lt;em&gt;The Kibitzer&lt;/em&gt; column on Chesscafe.com recently had an &lt;a href=&quot;https://web.archive.org/web/20140627072508/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/kibitz197.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;article about finding old chess books online&lt;/a&gt;. Basically he goes to Google Books and Forgotten Books, and searches for chess. See the article for details.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the article, he says he's found the following old chess books this way, although whether they are available to you or not depends on your country:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The exploits and triumphs, in Europe, of Paul Morphy, by Morphy's&#xA;late secretary (Edge). The English edition, with a slightly different title,&#xA;is probably also available.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A Popular Introduction to the Study and Practice of Chess…by an&#xA;Amateur (1851). This is an early manual that came out soon after&#xA;Staunton's Handbook. The author was S. S. Boden, a leading&#xA;contemporary of Bird and Morphy.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Chess Brilliants, One Hundred Games, selected by I. O. Howard&#xA;Taylor of Norwich Chess Club (1869)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The Chess-Player's Annual for the Year 1856, edited by Charles&#xA;Tomlinson (the only year that ever came out, but full of interesting&#xA;material). Also his Amusements in Chess.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Staunton's Chess Praxis, and other books by him.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Several George Walker books, including Chess Studies (the first large&#xA;published collection of actual play, over 1,000 games) and his Chess&#xA;and Chess Players, still a good read, which includes the articles he&#xA;wrote for Fraser's Magazine. Also his collection of Games Actually&#xA;Played by Philidor should be available.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Horae Divanianae, by Elijah Williams (1852), a collection of 150&#xA;games played at the Grand Divan in the Strand.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Willard Fiske's The book of the first American chess congress is well&#xA;worth obtaining.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The Principles of Chess in Theory &amp;amp; Practice by James Mason (1894);&#xA;this is one I got from Forgotten Books.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Some early books on chess compositions are also available, for&#xA;example A collection of two hundred chess problems, by Francis&#xA;Healey (1862).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: Now I see that this doesn't really answer your question. Perhaps see &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries%27_copyright_length&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here on Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt; to see how long copyright in the book's author's country lasts, to find out whether a book is in the public domain.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-09-02T10:15:54.743" LastActivityDate="2019-09-02T10:15:54.743" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1957" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1922" CreationDate="2013-02-02T20:16:53.793" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I haven't read it, so I can't review it. But since nobody else is replying, I'll just note that&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;There is a review by Jeremy Silman here: &lt;a href=&quot;http://wp.jeremysilman.com/book_reviews_js/js_art_of_planning_in_chess.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://wp.jeremysilman.com/book_reviews_js/js_art_of_planning_in_chess.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You can browse through the first pages on Amazon.com (and random pages with the &quot;Surprise Me!&quot; button)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in case you hadn't found those yourself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2013-02-02T20:16:53.793" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1958" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-02-04T03:15:59.573" Score="13" ViewCount="1630" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some people who I play always play the symmetrical variation, and I don't know how to play it for white.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.d4 d5 2.c4 c5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="881" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2013-02-04T04:55:39.793" LastActivityDate="2013-02-05T07:32:48.953" Title="What are some lines of the Queen's Gambit symmetrical variation for white?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;queens-gambit&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1959" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1958" CreationDate="2013-02-04T09:00:52.190" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's really unknown, I've never seen it actually played except for maybe one or two internet blitz games out of ten thousand. But I've looked up some lines for you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You play &lt;strong&gt;3.cxd5&lt;/strong&gt; and now black needs to decide what to do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The symmetrical &lt;strong&gt;3...cxd4 4.Qxd4&lt;/strong&gt; followed by e4 just loses a pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;3...Qxd5&lt;/strong&gt; allows white to chase the queen, getting a lead in development:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 d5 2.c4 c5 3.cxd5 Qxd5 4.Nf3 cxd4 5.Nc3 Qa5 6.Nxd4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So black plays &lt;strong&gt;3...Nf6&lt;/strong&gt;. Now a thing like 4.Nf3 cxd4 5.Qxd4 Qxd5 stays completely symmetrical, but white can play &lt;strong&gt;4.e4!&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Fundamental Chess Openings&lt;/em&gt; gives two lines, both a bit better for White because of better development:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 d5 2.c4 c5 3.cxd5 Nf6 4.e4 Nxe4 5.dxc5 Nxc5 6.Nf3 e6 7.Nc3 exd5 8.Qxd5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 d5 2.c4 c5 3.cxd5 Nf6 4.e4 Nxe4 5.dxc5 Qa5+ 6.Bd2 Nxd2 7.Qxd2 Qxc5 8.Na3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2013-02-04T09:00:52.190" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1960" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1968" CreationDate="2013-02-04T18:52:40.703" Score="36" ViewCount="36104" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a beginner in chess and I like to play some of my friends who are basically at the same level. Usually who wins is based on who makes that one amazing (and lucky) move and quite frankly I want to gain an edge over my friends. I have noticed that I usually just open randomly and this is what happens most of the time:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;One of the sides (or both) are neglected and both of my rooks are trapped for the entire duration of the game until most of my pawns are decimated and my rooks have some moving space. I have noticed that a lot of beginners/casual players have the same problem, since it seems to take a lot of moves to properly free up space for a rook.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Only the pieces which I gave space at the beginning (which usually are my queen, 1 bishop and both knights since they are never trapped by pawns and of course a couple of pawns) are used and the other pieces are totally neglected, kind of the same as the first point only more general. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some my final question is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Is there a &lt;strong&gt;simple&lt;/strong&gt; opening for beginners which frees up a lot of space for the powerful pieces to be utilized, especially rooks?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;p.s. -  I am aware that there exists no perfect opening, but keep in mind this is very low level chess. So I'm looking for an opening which is usually enough to have a nice setup and is not countered easily by &lt;strong&gt;weak&lt;/strong&gt; players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1009" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2016-01-03T10:46:07.630" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T16:44:47.073" Title="Good openings for a beginner (for white)" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;beginner&gt;" AnswerCount="17" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="17" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1961" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1960" CreationDate="2013-02-04T19:13:59.140" Score="17" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;code&gt;Scotch Game&lt;/code&gt; is definitively an opening for beginners (playing as White).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's opened game that permits to player having two bishops free easily (see behind). Moreover, theory is simple and this opening is not countered easily by weak players because few weak players know it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's a diagram:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="813" LastEditorUserId="813" LastEditDate="2013-02-05T17:07:24.607" LastActivityDate="2013-02-05T17:07:24.607" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1962" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1960" CreationDate="2013-02-04T19:35:20.153" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The best first move for a new player in my opinion is &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt;. It results in the most open game with less emphasis on theory. A specific opening to look up would be the &lt;code&gt;Ruy Lopez&lt;/code&gt; or the Spanish opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also follow these general opening rules:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Make only as many pawn moves as are necessary to get your minor pieces out.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Knights work better when placed near the center (&lt;code&gt;Nf3&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;Nc3&lt;/code&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Avoid moving the same piece multiple times (it is a waste of move or &lt;em&gt;tempo&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Take control of the central squares (e4, d4) and try to ensure the opponent doesn't.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="118" LastActivityDate="2013-02-04T19:35:20.153" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1963" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1964" CreationDate="2013-02-04T20:08:04.597" Score="9" ViewCount="10864" Body="&lt;p&gt;Have just started reading a bit about this line and was wondering if any one can explain the pros and cons of preferring &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; over &lt;code&gt;e3&lt;/code&gt; in the 3rd move - apart from the fact that &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; gives positional advantage at the possible expense of the lost &lt;code&gt;c4&lt;/code&gt; pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can see the logical advantages of &lt;code&gt;e3&lt;/code&gt; but why has &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; come to be the preferred choice now? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;rn1qkbnr/p2bpppp/8/1p6/2pPP3/2N5/1P3PPP/R1BQKBNR w KQkq - 0 7&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. c4 dxc4 3. e4 b5 4.a4 c6 5. axb5 cxb5 6.Nc3 Bd7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="118" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2014-10-01T16:02:37.363" LastActivityDate="2014-10-01T16:02:37.363" Title="Queen's Gambit Accepted line for white" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;queens-gambit&gt;&lt;queens-gambit-accepted&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1964" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1963" CreationDate="2013-02-05T01:33:34.243" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;That's known as &quot;D20 Queen's Gambit Accepted, 3.e4&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Queen's Gambit has two points:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Develop the King's Bishop with tempo&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Take the center that black abandons&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in that regard, &lt;code&gt;3. e4&lt;/code&gt; is the better move though masters play &lt;code&gt;3. e3&lt;/code&gt; with nearly the same frequency.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wouldn't worry about the loss of the &lt;code&gt;c&lt;/code&gt; pawn;  the purpose of a gambit is to gain time.  If you're going to offer a gambit, you must know enough to keep the pressure on, to keep the initiative on your side.  If White plays a non-threatening move and Black plays a move with good purpose, White has lost the pawn as well as the time gained when Black took it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;3... b5&lt;/code&gt; is not played often - it's not much of a move.  I checked your entire variation; it was only occurred in my masters database 3 times, yielding White 2.5 points.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's a master game demonstrating the Queens Gambit Accepted (D20).  White has an excellent game up through the middle game seemingly having the game in hand... and then he allows Black to make a passed pawn, and the walls came down.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Robert Aghasaryan vs. Tigran Kotanjian, 1/13/2013&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. c4 dxc4 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. e3 e6 5. Bxc4 c5 6. O-O a6 7. dxc5 Qxd1 8. Rxd1 Bxc5 9. Nbd2 b6 10. Be2 Bb7 11. Nc4 Nbd7 12. a3 O-O 13. b4 Be7 14. Bb2 Bd5 15. Nfe5 Nxe5 16. Bxe5 Bxc4 17. Bxc4 a5 18. b5 Rac8 19. Be2 Nd5 20. Bf3 Nc3 21. Rd7 Bf6 22. Bxf6 gxf6 23. Rd6 Rb8 24. a4 Rfc8 25. Rd4 f5 26. Kf1 e5 27. Rd7 Rc4 28. Rc1 Rc5 29. Bh5 Nxa4 30. Bxf7+ Kh8 31. Rxc5 Nxc5 32. Re7 Rb7 33. Re8+ Kg7 34. Bd5 Rd7 35. Rxe5 Kf6 36. f4 a4 37. Ke2 a3 38. Bc4 Ra7 39. Ba2 Ra5 40. Kd2 Rxb5 41. Kc3 Ne4+ 42. Kd4 Rb4+ 43. Kd3 Rb2 44. Re6+ Kg7 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's a game where black played &lt;code&gt;b5&lt;/code&gt;. Ruslan Ponomariov vs. Ivan Sokolov, 3/17/2007&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.  d4  d5&#xA;2.  c4  dxc4&#xA;3.  e4  b5&#xA;4.  a4  c6&#xA;5.  axb5    cxb5&#xA;6.  Nc3 Bd7&#xA;7.  Nf3 e6&#xA;8.  Be2 Nf6&#xA;9.  O-O Be7&#xA;10. d5  exd5&#xA;11. exd5    Qb6&#xA;12. Bf4 Bc5&#xA;13. Bxc4    bxc4&#xA;14. Qe2+    Kf8&#xA;15. Ne5 Bf5&#xA;16. Na4 Qb5&#xA;17. Nxc5    Qxc5&#xA;18. Nxc4    Qd4&#xA;19. Be5 Bd3&#xA;20. Qd2 Qxd5&#xA;21. Rfd1    Qxc4&#xA;22. Rac1    Qa6&#xA;23. Bxf6    Nd7 (23... gxf6?! 24.Qh6+ Ke7 25.Qe3+ Qe6 26.Qxd3 Nd7 27.Qa3+ Ke8 28.Qa4 Kf8 29.Rxd7 Kg7 30.h3 Rhd8 31.Rxd8 Rxd8 32.Qxa7 Qe2 33.Qb6 Rd2 34.b4 h5 35.Qc5 Rb2 36.Qd4 Qe5 37.Qc4 Qb8 38.Qh4 Qxb4 39.Qxh5)&#xA;24. Bc3 Bb5&#xA;25. Qg5 Nf6&#xA;26. Qc5+    Kg8&#xA;27. Bxf6    h6&#xA;28. Bc3 Re8&#xA;29. Rd6 Qb7&#xA;30. Qf5 Qe7&#xA;31. Qxb5     1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After Black's 6th move, it looks like maybe he'll be able to shove those pawns forward, overpower White's Queen's Knight pawn, and win. Sometimes, advanced pawns are not easy to support.  By the end of move 11, both players have developed some pieces but neither side is pushing very hard.  Black's Queen on &lt;code&gt;b6&lt;/code&gt; eyes the perpetually weak &lt;code&gt;f2&lt;/code&gt; square and the King hiding beyond while threatening, perhaps, &lt;code&gt;b4&lt;/code&gt;.  White's 14th exploits Black's uncastled King. Black's response seals in the Rook.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After 17, both Black rooks and a knight are in the box.  His King is exposed.  He has a good bishop and Knight and his Queen is well placed.  His &lt;code&gt;c&lt;/code&gt; pawn looks lonely and has to be defended by the Queen.  White has a great Knight and a good Bishop.  His isolated &lt;code&gt;b&lt;/code&gt; pawn is sad but not endangered.  His &lt;code&gt;d&lt;/code&gt; pawn is kinda hanging out. One of his Rooks is sort of developed and the other has good squares.  But White has sacrificed a piece and needs to make something happen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After  move 24, White maintains a slight lead, even though he's down a piece. Black needs to activate his rooks to win.  White must not allow this.  This is where every tempo counts.  White's 25th hits the weak &lt;code&gt;g7&lt;/code&gt; pawn while his 26th exploits Black's exposed King.  White's follow-up, &lt;code&gt;27. Bxf6&lt;/code&gt; exploits the overloaded Black Queen.  It protects the Bishop as well as the Knight since the last thing Black needs is for his pawns to be ripped open with Rooks on the board.  if &lt;code&gt;27... gxf6&lt;/code&gt; then &lt;code&gt;28. Rc3&lt;/code&gt; followed by &lt;code&gt;Rg3+&lt;/code&gt; and it's lights-out for Black.  White saves his Bishop but the cost is that Black now has time to develop a Rook to &lt;code&gt;e8&lt;/code&gt;.  The end of the game isn't spectacular, it looks like Black blundered in time pressure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2013-02-06T01:14:43.333" LastActivityDate="2013-02-06T01:14:43.333" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1965" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1960" CreationDate="2013-02-05T02:56:33.610" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;For White, the Ruy Lopez is your &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; opening.  It allows for rapid development, early castling, and a nice tactical game.  For your &lt;code&gt;d&lt;/code&gt; opening, a good ole Queens Gambit is hard to beat.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You'll also need to learn 2 openings for the Black side.  I like a King's Indian in response to &lt;code&gt;1. d4&lt;/code&gt; and a Robatsch for &lt;code&gt;1. e4&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They're all good in the beginning, however, so read up on some and learn the points of a few openings.  Try them to see if you enjoy the positions that result.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's really no such thing as a simple opening in chess.  All are loaded with gotchas or nasty traps, ready to snare the complacent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2013-02-05T03:05:05.603" LastActivityDate="2013-02-05T03:05:05.603" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1966" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1958" CreationDate="2013-02-05T07:27:39.013" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;The symmetrical defense is my favorite, here is how games with me playing as black usually turn out:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 d5 2.c4 c5 3.dxc5 d4 4.Nf3 Nc6 5.e3 e5 6.exd4 exd4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This line of play of course requires white to play &lt;code&gt;3. dxc5&lt;/code&gt;: it is quite a common variation I find. White cannot defend the &lt;code&gt;c5&lt;/code&gt; pawn effectively and black has a clearly dominant position including a passed pawn. A word of caution: in this position development of your pieces is more important that material equality so if white chooses to defend the &lt;code&gt;c5&lt;/code&gt; pawn simply allow him and develop, building pressure elsewhere or even on the pawn itself. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="72" LastEditorUserId="72" LastEditDate="2013-02-05T07:32:48.953" LastActivityDate="2013-02-05T07:32:48.953" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1967" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1960" CreationDate="2013-02-05T18:25:22.630" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is an excerpt from an &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/article/view/positional-or-tactical-chess&quot;&gt;excellent article&lt;/a&gt; by Grandmaster Gregory Serper:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;It was very common in the countless chess clubs of the former Soviet Union that coaches taught their young students to play gambits, sharp openings like the Greco Attack and the Sicilian Dragon. My recommendation for all my readers whose rating is about USCF 1300 or below: try to play open sharp positions as much as possible.  Even if you play 1.d4 or 1.Nf3 go for complications whenever possible! Only a chess player who is proficient in tactics can be a successful tournament player.  Don't forget the popular saying that &quot;chess is 99% tactics&quot;.  Don't be discouraged if you lose a game or two, the most important thing is to learn how to calculate variations and visualize a position, and you learn it best in sharp open positions!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="791" LastActivityDate="2013-02-05T18:25:22.630" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1968" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1960" CreationDate="2013-02-05T21:00:11.650" Score="17" Body="&lt;p&gt;I asked my chess teacher (rated 2100 USCF); she said &quot;E4 games&quot; (the Italian game, Ruy Lopez (Spanish), the Sicilian, the Vienna game or the Scotch). Her personal recommendation was the King's gambit. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I disagree; I like d4 and c4 openings, closed positions. Beginners don't know how to play against d4 or c4. There are these different openings like the Polish defense/Orangutan, the Nimzo-Larsen attack, and the Benkö, which I won't go into much detail. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;1.e4 games&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Open games&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Open diagonals&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Fluid or absent center pawns&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Tactics&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Attacks&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Gambits&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Combinations&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Fast&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Beginners usually like e4 games because they control the center, they develop quickly, and they get ready to castle (3 main rules in the opening) unlike in 1.d4 openings. A suggestion is to get knights out first, and bishops out next.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Italian (1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4)&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Giuoco Piano&lt;/em&gt; (Italian for &lt;em&gt;quiet game&lt;/em&gt;):   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Bc5 4. c3 (preparing to push D4 to gain space)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Two Knights Defense&lt;/em&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Nf6 4. Ng5 d5 5. exd5 Na5 (black should not take the pawn)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Blackburne Schilling&lt;/em&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;nd4 (Take the &lt;em&gt;knight&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; the pawn; otherwise lose a minor piece)  &#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;4&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;nxe5 Qg5 5. nxf7 qxg2 6.Rf1 qxe4+ if 7.be2 Nf3# if 7. Qe2 Nf3#&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(So white will have to give up a minor piece eventually to not get checkmated)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;Ruy lopez&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; (1. e4 e5 2. nf3 nc6 3. bb5)&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;3. a6&lt;/em&gt; (Bobby Fischer likes 4.Bxc6, but the main line is 4. Ba5 b4 5. bb3)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;3. nd4&lt;/em&gt; (The exchange variation either Be2 for white, or nxd4)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Vienna (1. e4 e5 2. nc3)&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Nc6&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;nf3 nf6 (transforms into the 4 knights game)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;f4 (turns into a gambit so you can take away from the center)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Nf6 3. f4±&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(the famous Vienna gambit. Varies on next move, but white is better)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Bc5 3. f4&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(it is extremely common to play f4 as third move for white, if he doesn't take, play nf3 the next move)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Sicilian (1. e4 c5)&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;c3&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(The Alapin variation, the most popular prepares to push d4 to white's advantage, by 2. nc6 3. d4 cxd4 4.cxd4, and white will have more space, so 2.e5 is an alternate, but leaves a hole for his knight on d4.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;nf3&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(The king's knight variation, very popular)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;f4&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(Grand Prix attack, 2. d6 3.nf3; I like white's position more.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;d4&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(The Smith-Morra gambit. 2. cxd4 3.c3 dxc3 4.nxc3. White literally sacrifices a pawn for attacking on the d and c files. or 2. cxd4 3.Qxd4 nc6 Black will gain a tempo on white's queen, I do not recommend to take.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Scotch (1. e4 e5 2. nf3 nc6 3. d4 exd4 4. nxd4)&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The center is broken quite early, but that does have advantages, I play 4. nf6 5. nxc6 bxc6 preparing to push d5, if 5. e5 then qe7 pinning the pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Usually, though people play 4.Bc5 5. Nxc6 Bxc6. It's really a question of whether you want your bishop or knight out for black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Scotch Gambit&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;strong&gt;My Personal E4 recommendation&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;e4 e5 2. nf3 nc6 3. d4 exd4 4.Bc4&#xA;             (a)4. Bb4+ loses for black because if 5.c3 then 5.dxc3 6.dxc3 if 7.Bc5 then 7.Bxf7+ 8.Kxf7 Qd5+ 9. king moves wherever Qxc5 +- Whites advantage. If Bd6 or Bf8, it either wastes a move and/ or messes up your position (undoes development/ blocks in pawns). Be7 is Game over, you might as well tip your king sideways due to Qd5!!.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;King's Gambit&lt;/strong&gt; 1. e4 e5 2. f4 white will try for the d4 square&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Accepted&lt;/em&gt; 2.exf4 3.nf3 d5 and so on. This was Bobby Fischer's favorite line for black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;declined&lt;/em&gt; 2.e6 3.Nf3 Nc6&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Falkerbeer&lt;/em&gt; 2.d5 3.exd5 d4 black sacrifices a pawn for a good centre and black has to cope with an annoying pawn&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Interesting line&lt;/em&gt; 2.nc6 if 3. fxe5 Nxe5 4.d4 Qh4+ black is better. if 3.nf3 then f5 trying for equality.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;French&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;&quot;D4, C4, Nf3 Games&quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; (I LIKE D4)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Closed Games&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Blocked files&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Blocked diagonals&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Blocked Center&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Positional Play&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Strategy&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Bind&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Regrouping&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Slow&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;D4&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Queen's Gambit&lt;/strong&gt; (MY FAVORITE OPENING FOR WHITE) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;accepted&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;declined&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Marshall&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Tarracsh&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Albin Countergambit&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Chigorin&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;King's Indian defense&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Pirc&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Benoni&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Blackmar-Diemer Gambit&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;C4/Nf3&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;English opening&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Reti&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;&quot;Other Openings&quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Open games&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Polish&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Nimzo-Larsen Attack&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Benkö&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I highly recommend the following books for openings: &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1889323187&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess Openings for Black, Explained: A Complete Repertoire (Revised and Updated)&lt;/a&gt;, and &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1889323209&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess Openings for White, Explained: Winning with 1.e4, Second Revised and Updated Edition&lt;/a&gt; by 2 Gm's&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*********************** Might not be finished, still be working on.....***********************&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="881" LastEditorUserId="12779" LastEditDate="2017-04-18T14:40:57.997" LastActivityDate="2017-04-18T14:40:57.997" CommentCount="3" CommunityOwnedDate="2013-02-05T23:04:01.913" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1970" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2391" CreationDate="2013-02-05T23:43:05.423" Score="19" ViewCount="4205" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is not the first time that I found a greatly superior move than the chess engine did, it even takes them a while to understand these moves after you make them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, the move &lt;code&gt;15 ... Bf2&lt;/code&gt; in the game below:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 Nf6 4. O-O Ng4 5. h3 h5 6. hxg4 hxg4 7. Bxc6&#xA;gxf3 8. Qxf3 Qh4 9. Qh3 Qxh3 10. gxh3 dxc6 11. Re1 Bxh3 12. f3 Bc5+ 13. Kh2&#xA;Bf1+ 14. Kg3 Rh3+ 15. Kg4 Bf2 16. Rxf1 Rg3+ 17. Kf5 Rxf3+ 18. Kg4 Rg3+ 19.&#xA;Kf5 f6 20. d3 Kf7 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The move remains unnoticed by the engine for a while, it is not until I move that it starts to see the rest of the iceberg.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know it all depends on how much time you give them to analyze though, but it is unacceptable that sometimes humans manage to find these moves in less time than computers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Why do chess engines fail to spot good moves in some positions? (I once read something about a 'horizon effect', maybe this is related?)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Are there other notable examples? (e.g &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessbase.com/puzzle/puzz16b.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this famous puzzle&lt;/a&gt;, it takes a while for computers to solve)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These questions contain useful information to partially explain some factors that might be causing this anomaly: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/210/what-algorithms-and-heuristics-are-popular-in-computer-chess&quot;&gt;What algorithms and heuristics are popular in computer chess?&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/1416/when-playing-a-computer-opponent-what-situations-should-i-create-to-give-myself&quot;&gt;When playing a Computer opponent what situations should I create to give myself a better chance of winning?&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/1720/computer-evaluations-how-trustworthy-are-they&quot;&gt;Computer evaluations: How trustworthy are they?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Notes:&lt;/strong&gt; The trap is known as the &lt;em&gt;Fishing Pole&lt;/em&gt;, I am aware I missed a mate in 3 (and a mate in 7) :(, the time limit per move was days (correspondence chess) but it took me like 5-10 minutes to finish calculating everything.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="478" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.193" LastActivityDate="2014-11-21T00:25:39.403" Title="Why do chess engines sometimes miss good moves (or take forever to spot)?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;engines&gt;&lt;evaluation&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="7" FavoriteCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1971" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1970" CreationDate="2013-02-06T10:22:30.127" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am trying this with Houdini 1.5 (the free version). At first 15...Bf2 doesn't show up in the top 5 moves, then when it reaches depth 15, it does, as #1. Takes about 19 seconds on my four year old computer, not that long.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So it doesn't fail to spot it, instead it only considers it the best move once depth 15 is reached. Apparently, as long as it only looks 14 ply deep, other moves are better (like the also winning 15...f5+).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Apparently 15...Bf2 is a mate in 8, which is 15 ply (8 moves by black, 7 by white). But at first it just considers it +10 or so, then +20, then mate in 10, then mate in 8.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The mate in 8 line is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 Nf6 4. O-O Ng4 5. h3 h5 6. hxg4 hxg4 7. Bxc6 gxf3 8. Qxf3 Qh4 9. Qh3 Qxh3 10. gxh3 dxc6 11. Re1 Bxh3 12. f3 Bc5+ 13. Kh2 Bf1+ 14. Kg3 Rh3+&#xA;15.Kg4 Bf2 16.Rxf1 Rh4+ 17.Kg5 Ke7 18.Rh1 Rxh1 19.Nc3 Rah8 20.Nd5+ cxd5 21.d3 R8h5+ 22.Kg4 R1h4#.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Clearly when Houdini 1.5 thinks 15 ply deep, it doesn't consider &lt;em&gt;all&lt;/em&gt; possible lines that are 15 ply deep, or it would see the mate in 8 the moment it finished its 15-ply-depth search.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think that is because of &lt;em&gt;pruning&lt;/em&gt;, it stops looking at some lines when it thinks they aren't promising enough. That way, it can spend more time on the promising lines, and the programmer thinks that the pros outweigh the cons. But I don't have an answer right now on what it decides to prune here (it probably makes millions of separate pruning decision at depth 15).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It may have to do with the silent moves ...Ke7, and ...Rah8, two non-check non-captures in a line where black is a piece down. It's likely that it decides somewhere that it's not useful to keep looking in this line. Only later, when it does continue the line and finds the mate at the end do other lines that prolong the game (with 18.Rh1 Rxh1 and so on) then show up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyway, it's known that it doesn't work that well to let a computer think for a few seconds only if you want to get to the bottom of something, a few minutes is better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2013-02-06T10:22:30.127" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1972" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1960" CreationDate="2013-02-06T15:58:42.693" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;To me it looks like you need to focus on the opening principles instead of particular openings.  Openings will come in time, but if you stick to the fundamental opening principles, you will actually find yourself naturally playing openings without even thinking of it.  Some opening principles include:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Control the center&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Develop your pieces (Knights, Bishops, etc) &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Castle early (this&#xA;    should connect your rooks)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Try not to move the same piece twice in a row&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Try not to move more than 3 pawns in the first 8 moves&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By sticking to the principles above, you will notice that you are in fact playing an opening and you don't even have to think about it, for now, at least.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's use the &lt;code&gt;Ruy Lopez&lt;/code&gt; as an example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;1. e4&lt;/code&gt; - controls the center and opens the diagonal for the &lt;code&gt;Queen&lt;/code&gt; and the &lt;code&gt;Bishop&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;1... e5&lt;/code&gt; - fights for center control and opens the diagonal for the &lt;code&gt;Queen&lt;/code&gt; and the Bishop&#xA;&lt;code&gt;2. Nf3&lt;/code&gt; - Gets a piece out and controls a center square, plus attacking blacks &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt; pawn.&#xA;&lt;code&gt;2... Nc6&lt;/code&gt; - Black gets a piece out and protects his &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt; pawn&#xA;&lt;code&gt;3. Bb5&lt;/code&gt; - Puts a pin on Black's &lt;code&gt;c3&lt;/code&gt; Knight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A possible continuation for &lt;code&gt;White&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;Black&lt;/code&gt; might be to castle, although with the &lt;code&gt;Ruy Lopez&lt;/code&gt;, this can wait a few more moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would also recommend if possible and this is only if you want to try and practice &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; openings, to either ask your friends if you can play as &lt;code&gt;White&lt;/code&gt; or seek games and play as &lt;code&gt;White&lt;/code&gt; for a while. I did this with the &lt;code&gt;Scotch&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;Italian&lt;/code&gt;, and &lt;code&gt;Evans Gambit&lt;/code&gt; and became much better after playing them from &lt;code&gt;White's&lt;/code&gt; perspective for a while.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You're gonna get moves from &lt;code&gt;Black&lt;/code&gt; that don't follow &lt;code&gt;1. e4 e5&lt;/code&gt; openings, but to illustrate an example from my own experience, just stick to the principles and you should be fine, no matter if you lose or win, you will learn something.  I will use the &lt;code&gt;Sicilian&lt;/code&gt; as an example.  I am not an expert in the &lt;code&gt;Sicilian&lt;/code&gt;, so when I play against it, I have no idea if I am playing an opening or not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;1. e4&lt;/code&gt; - I want control of the center.&#xA;&lt;code&gt;1... c5&lt;/code&gt; - Sicilian&#xA;&lt;code&gt;2. Nf3&lt;/code&gt; - I want to develop a piece&#xA;&lt;code&gt;2... d6&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;3. d4&lt;/code&gt; - I make this move because I want to break up the center and open the game up.  It kind of reminds me of the &lt;code&gt;Scotch&lt;/code&gt; a bit, but others might disagree.&#xA;&lt;code&gt;3... cxd4&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;4. Nxd4&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;4... Nf6&lt;/code&gt;- Attack &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; pawn and develop a piece&#xA;&lt;code&gt;5. Nc3&lt;/code&gt; - Protect &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; pawn and develop a piece&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you looked at the board now, you would notice that &lt;code&gt;White&lt;/code&gt; is close to castling, he has a &lt;code&gt;pawn&lt;/code&gt; in the center, and both &lt;code&gt;Knights&lt;/code&gt; are developed and there are open lines for his &lt;code&gt;Queen&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;Bishops&lt;/code&gt;.  &lt;code&gt;Black's&lt;/code&gt; next move is an important strategic choice, but I wouldn't worry too much about it, I would just play.  My main point above is that I had no idea how to play against the &lt;code&gt;Sicilian&lt;/code&gt;, I just played the moves that felt natural at the time and came to find out, this is called the &lt;code&gt;Open Sicilian&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastEditorUserId="11202" LastEditDate="2017-04-17T17:25:13.843" LastActivityDate="2017-04-17T17:25:13.843" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1973" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1960" CreationDate="2013-02-08T01:08:46.630" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Danish Gambit.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Don't be afraid to crush them. They won't play precisely enough to counter you, and you'll have &lt;strong&gt;tons&lt;/strong&gt; of space. Develop fast, rush towards &lt;em&gt;f7&lt;/em&gt;, gain material if you can, just don't lose time going after pawns. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. d4 exd4 3. c3 dxc3 4. Bc4 cxb2 5. Bxb2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Usually, you push &lt;em&gt;e5&lt;/em&gt; at some point, and sometimes it's yet another sacrifice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Common themes : &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;if black plays Bb4 (moving your king to f1 is acceptable and then) Bxf7+ Kxf7 Qb3+ wins the bishop back, a pawn, opponent can't castle anymore and files e and f are open for heavy pieces&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;if black plays Nf6, e5 dislodges it (even if d6 has been played, and if dxe6, Bxf7+ before taking the queen) and it has a hard time finding a good square&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Qb3 comes in handy in a lot of variations, especially if black moves the Bc8 and doesn't defend b7, which is also a target. e.g. 5... d6 6. Nf3 Be6 7. Bxe6 fxe6 8. Qb3, and 8... Qc8 might save the day, but Nd4 or Ng5 keep piling up the pressure.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;against c6/d6/Nc6 and otherwise passive play, get out with Nf3, O-O, bring your rook to e1 and pound on the king and weak white squares before he gets his pieces out.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the best defense for black in a lot of lines is to play d5, giving it back to relieve the pressure and get out faster, possibly trading the Ng8 for the Bd5, or blocking the white open lines if exd5.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="672" LastEditorUserId="672" LastEditDate="2017-06-08T04:46:22.537" LastActivityDate="2017-06-08T04:46:22.537" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1974" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-02-08T04:09:13.857" Score="6" ViewCount="4651" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 c5 2. d5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A lot of people play it against me as black, and I am also interested in it for both sides.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are some of the main lines?  Also, what are some of the key positions and ideas?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="881" LastEditorUserId="1201" LastEditDate="2014-03-27T21:14:48.657" LastActivityDate="2014-03-27T21:14:48.657" Title="How should I play the Old Benoni Defense as both White and Black?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;learning&gt;&lt;theory&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1975" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1976" CreationDate="2013-02-08T14:08:56.333" Score="11" ViewCount="2432" Body="&lt;p&gt;My kids are 5 and 3 years old.  I would like to teach them chess by playing alternative mini-game.  Where can I find those mini-game instruction?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1024" LastActivityDate="2015-02-11T12:37:07.657" Title="Best pseudo-chess game for kids to learn the basic?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;rules&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1976" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1975" CreationDate="2013-02-08T15:37:14.113" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;If your just looking for instructions, here is the wiki on &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minichess&quot;&gt;mini chess&lt;/a&gt;.  Make sure you checkout the external links.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To take Andrew's comment a bit further, I will give my own experience with my 3.5 year old.  This is what he knows now with limited time.  He can name all the pieces and he can set the board up, but that is about it.  If I ask him to move the bishop, he will swipe it across the board, but that is OK.  He does not have the concept that it is a game for two people and I am black or white (every piece is his :) ) Your 5 year old probably will get a better grasp on mini chess, but 3 may be too young for it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastEditorUserId="109" LastEditDate="2013-02-08T18:54:18.443" LastActivityDate="2013-02-08T18:54:18.443" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1977" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1978" CreationDate="2013-02-08T15:49:23.620" Score="4" ViewCount="6308" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was looking at some games between of &lt;code&gt;Rashid Nezhmetdinov&lt;/code&gt; and noticed he doesn't seem to be as popular (I don't know if this is the best word) or as well-known as &lt;code&gt;Mikhail Tal&lt;/code&gt;.  After reading some of the things said about him, you would think this is not the case:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;Nobody sees combinations like Rashid Nezhmetdinov.&quot; Mikhail Botvinnik&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Nezhmetdinov is &quot;the greatest master of the initiative.&quot; Lev&#xA;  Polugaevsky&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;His games reveal the beauty of chess and make you love in&#xA;  chess not so much the points and high placings, but the wonderful&#xA;  harmony and elegance of this particular world.&quot; Mikhail Tal&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;Rashid&#xA;  Nezhmetdinov is a virtuoso of combinational chess.&quot; David Bronstein&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is his most celebrated brilliancy vs &lt;code&gt;Lev Polugaevsky&lt;/code&gt;, featuring a stunning queen sacrifice:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 d6 3.Nc3 e5 4.e4 exd4 5.Qxd4 Nc6 6.Qd2 g6 7.b3 Bg7 8.Bb2 O-O 9.Bd3 Ng4 10.Nge2 Qh4 11.Ng3 Nge5 12.O-O f5 13.f3 Bh6 14.Qd1 f4 15.Nge2 g5 16.Nd5 g4 17.g3 fxg3 18.hxg3 Qh3 19.f4 Be6 20.Bc2 Rf7 21.Kf2 Qh2+ 22.Ke3 Bxd5 23.cxd5 Nb4 24.Rh1 Rxf4!! 25.Rxh2 Rf3+ 26.Kd4 Bg7!! 27...b5! and 28...Nec6#. 27.a4 c5+ 28.dxc6 bxc6 29.Bd3 Nexd3+ 30.Kc4 d5+ 31.exd5 cxd5+ 32.Kb5 Rb8+ 33.Ka5 Nc6+ 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Regarding the above game, Polugaevsky is quoted as saying, &quot;I must have beaten Rashid a dozen times. But that one loss was so good I would have traded them all to be on the other side of the board.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastActivityDate="2013-02-21T05:06:23.293" Title="Why is Rashid Nezhmetdinov not as popular/known as Mikhail Tal?" Tags="&lt;famous-players&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2013-04-09T13:07:15.250" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1978" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1977" CreationDate="2013-02-08T17:39:52.923" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Probably because he never made it to world champion, And Mikhail Tal did. Another great player that is not as popular as he deserves to be was &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akiba_Rubinstein&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Akiba Rubinstein&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="791" LastActivityDate="2013-02-08T17:39:52.923" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1979" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31" CreationDate="2013-02-08T18:18:22.250" Score="10" Body="&lt;h1&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://pychess.org/&quot;&gt;PyChess&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is a chess client built in Python. You can use it's chess logic libraries without much trouble.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://code.google.com/p/pychess/source/browse/utilities/arena.py&quot;&gt;http://code.google.com/p/pychess/source/browse/utilities/arena.py&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://code.google.com/p/pychess/source/browse/utilities/blunders.py&quot;&gt;http://code.google.com/p/pychess/source/browse/utilities/blunders.py&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are examples of how you you might use the libraries to control chess engines, but you can also use just the chess logic:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;from pychess.Utils.Board import Board&#xA;from pychess.Utils.lutils.lmove import toSAN&#xA;from pychess.Utils.lutils.lmovegen import genAllMoves&#xA;board = Board(setup=True).board&#xA;for move in genAllMoves (board):&#xA;    print (toSAN (board, move)))&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's very fast, since it's used for the built in engine, and it has many advanced features such as parsing long list of SAN moves, generating check evasions and static exchange evaluation (SEE).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1025" LastActivityDate="2013-02-08T18:18:22.250" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1981" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1991" CreationDate="2013-02-10T13:20:02.807" Score="11" ViewCount="8980" Body="&lt;p&gt;What are the best chess books regarding theory and such for beginners?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1031" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-07-28T13:11:42.733" LastActivityDate="2017-01-07T00:41:25.203" Title="Best chess theory books for beginners" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;books&gt;" AnswerCount="9" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="12" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1982" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="468" CreationDate="2013-02-10T17:40:02.657" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The biggest problem with Swiss pairing programs for desktop is that there is nothing that is fully free for windows. Also they are very old and ugly. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was glad to find &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.vegachess.com/tl/index.php/Home_page_English.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Vega Chess&lt;/a&gt; which is a very good chess pairing program available with the least limitations. It is also FIDE approved.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is fully free on Linux and free for 30 player tournaments on windows. It is also one of the better GUI compared to the more popular ones.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Android phones have a few interesting manager apps for organizing chess tournaments:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.hintzeit.swiss&amp;amp;hl=en&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Swiss System Tournament&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.dgnt.quickTournamentMaker&amp;amp;feature=search_result#?t=W251bGwsMSwxLDEsImNvbS5kZ250LnF1aWNrVG91cm5hbWVudE1ha2VyIl0.&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Quick Tournament Maker&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="749" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T16:14:45.547" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T16:14:45.547" CommentCount="1" CommunityOwnedDate="2013-02-10T17:40:02.657" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1983" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1985" CreationDate="2013-02-10T17:49:33.850" Score="22" ViewCount="6896" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this era of social networking, it is surprising there are no straight forward ways for sharing our games online.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sharing means a possibility of sending a link to some one, who can just step through the game and the analysis easily or post it to facebook / twitter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Having an embeddable player to put the game in our blog would be nice. But that's not the main thing I am looking for.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="749" LastActivityDate="2019-04-03T14:30:11.187" Title="Ways to share game(s) online" Tags="&lt;online&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1984" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1981" CreationDate="2013-02-10T17:50:52.527" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's a bit old, but I cut my teeth on &quot;Chess Fundamentals&quot; by former world champion JR Capablanca. Moreover, it's one of the few books in the public domain, so you can access it online. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2013-02-10T17:50:52.527" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1985" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1983" CreationDate="2013-02-10T17:52:59.447" Score="18" Body="&lt;p&gt;Answering my own question for documenting what I use. I will keep this answer updated as I discover more ways.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.lichess.org/paste&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;lichess&lt;/a&gt; This is the simplest and cleanest way I found. Just copy pgn text and paste. It generates a nice little shareable link. Very nice interface to playback the moves. As a bonus, it also provides automatic (stockfish) engine analysis identifying the inaccuracies, mistakes, and blunders for the whole game. (usually within few seconds!)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesspastebin.com/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess Pastebin&lt;/a&gt; is okay. It is good for games with minimal or no analysis. But the interface is cumbersome for games with a lot of analysis.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chessmicrobase.com&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess Microbase&lt;/a&gt; is good for storing many games.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;[NOT WORKING NOW] &lt;a href=&quot;http://chesspo.st&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;ChessPost&lt;/a&gt; is nice and simple. Particularly useful for the purpose the question mentions.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://pgn4web.casaschi.net/home.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;PGN4Web&lt;/a&gt; provides a good interface for a broad number of applications.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="749" LastEditorUserId="749" LastEditDate="2015-10-05T11:13:59.137" LastActivityDate="2015-10-05T11:13:59.137" CommentCount="1" CommunityOwnedDate="2013-03-21T01:28:35.350" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1986" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1988" CreationDate="2013-02-10T19:27:52.567" Score="20" ViewCount="48547" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would like to learn a good response against the Sicilian defense (in your opinion), for both blitz and slower games. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am looking for a more aggressive response, since it fits best my style. Currently I am trying to learn the Grand Prix attack. I have had good wins with this system but also crushing defeats, and I am wondering if it is the best system to use. I am rated around 1500.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="872" LastEditorUserId="872" LastEditDate="2013-02-10T21:27:32.357" LastActivityDate="2017-04-17T19:18:51.757" Title="What is a good, aggressive response against the Sicilian Defense?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1987" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1983" CreationDate="2013-02-11T04:01:19.833" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;In these times, sharing the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portable_Game_Notation#Movetext&quot;&gt;Movetext&lt;/a&gt; section from a PGN (and the starting position if needed) is enough to recreate the game. People can view the game using their favorite method (e.g PGN viewer, real board or maybe &lt;em&gt;visualizing&lt;/em&gt; the moves in their heads if they are prodigy enough).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But if you really want to just share a link that displays the game, my choice would be &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.lutanho.net/pgn/pgnviewer.html&quot;&gt;LT-PGN-Viewer&lt;/a&gt;, just fill everything and then click &lt;em&gt;Make Gamelink&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Note:&lt;/strong&gt; there might be a limit on the number of moves you can pass, since the game is stored in the URL rather than saving the game somewhere and passing an ID). Also, a good idea is to shorten the link since it will probably be lengthy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="478" LastActivityDate="2013-02-11T04:01:19.833" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1988" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1986" CreationDate="2013-02-11T10:34:12.023" Score="17" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Open Sicilian (2.Nf3 and 3.d4) is the most aggressive way to attack the Sicilian, as white immediately opens up the position for all his pieces and gets a nice knight on d4. Black has trumps, but first he lags in development and his advantages typically only start counting if he survives white's attack. It is also the best reply, or at least it has consistently been the most popular reply to the Sicilian on higher levels since forever.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I think that it's really the only correct answer to your question, which asks for the most aggressive and best response to the Sicilian.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That said, it is not the easiest. Black has like ten different ways to react to the Open Sicilian, and although white gets great chances of an attack in almost all of them, they are all different and often black knows them better than white. Spending loads of time learning everything is probably not the most efficient way to improve your chess right now. That is a general thing with chess, and life -- ambitious, good and easy, choose two.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You say &quot;I have had good wins with this system but also crushing defeats&quot;. That is good, that is exactly what you expect from aggressive openings, it seems to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You also say &quot;I am looking for a more aggressive response, since it fits best my style.&quot; That is less good. At top level, having a style at all is a sign of weakness, as it means you are biased. But you're 1500, you don't have a style. You simply have some parts of the game that you are bad at and some parts that you are less bad at. You should be busy identifying things you're bad at and working on them, not worrying about your style.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And, last, losing some games is the worst reason to switch openings! You'll just lose some more games in the next variation you chose, switch again... The Grand Prix is a decent variation, it didn't cause your losses. You made mistakes later on. &lt;em&gt;Find out where&lt;/em&gt;, and do better next time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Understand what happened more generally -- what plan did you choose, how did you expect it to work, why didn't it, is that a problem in general or is it just because of the moves he happened to play this time, in what kind of situations would it work? What other plans are there? Find example games. Regularly switch variations inside the Grand Prix attack, that way you'll see more typical positions and if your opponent does something unexpected, you'll have broader experience to draw from.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Become an expert in your Grand Prix.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2013-02-11T10:34:12.023" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1989" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1992" CreationDate="2013-02-11T14:41:11.087" Score="5" ViewCount="483" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would like an app for annotating my games and/or replay others' games.  Do you have any suggestions?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1024" LastEditorUserId="8309" LastEditDate="2015-10-03T19:52:40.243" LastActivityDate="2015-10-03T19:52:40.243" Title="I would like an iPad app for annotating my games" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;annotation&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1990" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="1993" CreationDate="2013-02-11T14:57:47.780" Score="4" ViewCount="732" Body="&lt;p&gt;Please provide a download link for a scoresheet for recording moves during match-play. I could format my own but why reinvent the wheel? I am happy to provide a sample as an illustration.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1035" LastActivityDate="2013-02-13T06:13:18.303" Title="Does a non-copyrighted scoresheeet exist that I can print out instead of purchasing pre-printed sheets?" Tags="&lt;notation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1991" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1981" CreationDate="2013-02-11T17:41:47.397" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;A book often recommended to beginners is &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/0713484640&quot;&gt;Logical Chess: Move by Move&lt;/a&gt; by Irving Chernev. It contains 33 games with text explanations for every single move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Dan Heisman also recommends other books in his &lt;a href=&quot;http://home.comcast.net/~danheisman/Events_Books/General_Book_Guide.htm&quot;&gt;web site&lt;/a&gt;, here are a few:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Chess: The Art of Logical Thinking - Neil McDonald&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A First Book of Morphy by del Rosario&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Most Instructive Games of Chess Ever Played - Irving Chernev &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Chess Master vs. Chess Amateur - Euwe and Meiden&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[edit] Here's a &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/download/view/chernevs-logical-chess-move-by-move&quot;&gt;PGN file&lt;/a&gt; of Logical Chess that you can play through using a game viewer like &lt;a href=&quot;http://scidvspc.sourceforge.net/&quot;&gt;Scid vs. PC&lt;/a&gt; while you read the book. Or you can just use a regular chess set.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="791" LastEditorUserId="791" LastEditDate="2013-02-11T17:48:08.753" LastActivityDate="2013-02-11T17:48:08.753" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1992" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1989" CreationDate="2013-02-11T17:50:47.650" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://stockfishchess.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Stockfish&lt;/a&gt; works well for this purpose; and it's free software.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="791" LastActivityDate="2013-02-11T17:50:47.650" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1993" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1990" CreationDate="2013-02-11T23:43:08.583" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have a scoresheet I created for my own use here: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://docs.google.com/folder/d/0B4uNw3C8V0SDZjZneGVUVTVaNlU/edit?usp=sharing&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://docs.google.com/folder/d/0B4uNw3C8V0SDZjZneGVUVTVaNlU/edit?usp=sharing&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have pdf versions in various colors and the MS Publisher file I used to create it.  So if you have MS Publisher you can modify it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The readme.txt file in that folder has descriptions of the files.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/WGQO8.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1036" LastEditorUserId="12" LastEditDate="2013-02-13T06:13:18.303" LastActivityDate="2013-02-13T06:13:18.303" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1994" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1632" CreationDate="2013-02-12T14:22:24.663" Score="19" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am surprised that the paper &quot;Intrinsic Chess Ratings&quot; by Ken Regan and Guy Haworth hasn't been posted yet. It is exactly what's asked for, serious research into rating inflation. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~regan/papers/pdf/ReHa11c.pdf&quot;&gt;PDF&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically they got games from three periods (1976-1979, 1991-1994, 2006-2009), in several rating ranges (e.g. both players within 10 points of 2200, within 10 points of 2300, etc), and excluded types of games that might be anomalous, like team matches. Read the paper, it looks quite thorough.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then they compared the games systematically with Rybka 3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some sentences from the conclusion: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;We conclude that there is a smooth relationship between the actual&#xA;  players’ Elo ratings and the intrinsic quality of the move choices as&#xA;  measured by the chess program and the agent fitting. Moreover, the&#xA;  final sfit values obtained are nearly the same for the corresponding&#xA;  entries of all three time periods.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my view, it's quite solid evidence against the existence of rating inflation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastEditorUserId="924" LastEditDate="2013-02-12T14:29:48.657" LastActivityDate="2013-02-12T14:29:48.657" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1995" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="468" CreationDate="2013-02-12T18:26:14.907" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here's another Swiss pairing solution (fully free :D)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://sourceforge.net/projects/oswiss/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;OpenSwiss&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;good luck with the tourney&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="791" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T16:15:17.270" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T16:15:17.270" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="1997" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-02-12T21:50:12.777" Score="15" ViewCount="14610" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the title asks it all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Under match conditions, would the best chess engines routinely beat the best grandmasters?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you say yes, have there been enough matches played under tournament conditions to offer credible evidence?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1040" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2013-02-12T22:53:17.777" LastActivityDate="2019-12-25T01:11:33.137" Title="Are the best engines better than the best humans?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;rating&gt;&lt;tournament&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1998" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1997" CreationDate="2013-02-12T22:29:09.950" Score="16" Body="&lt;p&gt;The engine alone is just one factor; the number of CPU's used, memory, etc. makes the engine stronger. The same engine on an Intel 286 will not be nearly as strong as on the Cray Titan supercomputer, for example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, the number of cores makes a difference too. For example, Houdini 3 can take advantage of 32 cores if available. But from the list below, which gives the PC configuration along with the Elo rating, it is clear that the best engine on these PC's is even much stronger than the best chess players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Houdini 3 64-bit 4CPU, &lt;strong&gt;3254&lt;/strong&gt; Elo  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Critter 1.6a 64-bit 4CPU, &lt;strong&gt;3177&lt;/strong&gt; Elo  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Rybka 4 64-bit 4CPU, &lt;strong&gt;3168&lt;/strong&gt; Elo  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Stockfish 2.2.2 64-bit 4CPU, &lt;strong&gt;3167&lt;/strong&gt; Elo&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://computerchess.org.uk/ccrl/4040/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;(source)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is why you do not see GM's play against computers any more (no GM wants to end up with 12-0 match result, even if it is against a computer).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, yes, we humans are no match to computers in chess any more, it is a lost case. But we still have the game GO where humans are much stronger than computers (still). So it is not all lost.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Go&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Go&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS: I was sitting in the theater in London watching the game where Kasparov lost to the computer in the 25 minutes chess game, I think this was in 1996 or so. Kasparov was really upset after the game. He rushed out of the theater surrounded by 10 or so of his entourage, and he did not look happy at all. This was what, 15 years ago?, I took many pictures of the match, since this was the first time I saw Kasparov in person. Here are 2 pictures from my personal collection: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/2NWa7.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/zMqNF.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;update:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I found 3 more pics that are better quality. Thought to post them. I think this event was the first time Kasparov lost to a computer in an official game. This was in 1994, not 1996. I found a &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/champion-checked-by-silicon-genius-kasparov-beaten-by-chess-computer-1445948.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;newspaper reference&lt;/a&gt; to this event&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&quot;THE WRITING is on the board for human domination of chess after &#xA; the world champion, Garry Kasparov, was knocked out in the first round &#xA; of the Intel Grand Prix by Pentium Genius 2, a remarkable piece of software &#xA; enhanced by a new super- fast processor.&#xA;&#xA; With each player restricted to 25 minutes' thinking time, the computer won &#xA; the first game with 8 minutes to spare.....&#xA; .....&#xA; He stayed at the board this time, hitting his head and pulling at his hair....&quot;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So these pics are from the above game !&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Cxzt0.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/rW5kl.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/z2TCA.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="804" LastEditorUserId="804" LastEditDate="2013-02-13T06:40:17.853" LastActivityDate="2013-02-13T06:40:17.853" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="1999" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1997" CreationDate="2013-02-13T09:42:07.447" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Engines just use brute force to find the best move. So better the hardware the better they will perform. In addition they use huge databases that contain the best games played by humans.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However the current hardware is not sufficient enough for any engine to build the entire game tree (and thus play perfect chess).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore there is still a chance (albeit small and getting smaller) that the best human mind can beat an engine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course the last major event that happened - Kramnik – Deep Fritz(2006) ended with Kramnik losing 2 games and drawing 4 (and winning 0).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I believe if the opening book is removed, then the GMs will have a good chance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="118" LastActivityDate="2013-02-13T09:42:07.447" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2000" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1974" CreationDate="2013-02-13T16:51:12.527" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;As white I have had a pretty easy time following up with the moves c4 - Nc3 - e4 - f4. Black will usually play e6 and exd5 - respond with cxd5. White ends up with a ton of space in the center. Look up the Taimanov variation in particular.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically I got this from MCO15 - the author mentions that many players use a different move order to reach the Benoni just to avoid this setup (they wait for white to play Nf3 blocking the f pawn). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="935" LastEditorUserId="935" LastEditDate="2013-02-13T19:31:54.317" LastActivityDate="2013-02-13T19:31:54.317" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2002" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1986" CreationDate="2013-02-13T22:08:23.020" Score="7" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I have had good wins with this system but also crushing defeats, and I&#xA;  am wondering if it is the best system to use.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You are not the only one who experienced this with the Grand Prix.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=7110&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt;: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The Grand Prix Attack is a lazy player approach to fighting the&#xA;  Sicilian Defense. It can lead to early knockouts as in Carlson's (sic)&#xA;  victory against Veselin Topalov, or getting busted in ten moves, as in&#xA;  Carlsen vs Anand&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The games in question are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Carlsen - Anand (Blindfold at Monaco)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;] &#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nc3 d6 3. f4 g6 4. Nf3 Bg7 5. Bb5+ Bd7 6. Bc4 Nc6&#xA;7. O-O Na5 8. d3 Nxc4 9. dxc4 Bxc3 10. bxc3 Bc6 11. e5 Qc7&#xA;12. Qd3 f5 13. Ng5 h6 14. Qh3 dxe5 15. Be3 e4 16. Ne6 Qc8&#xA;17. Nxc5 Nf6 18. Bd4 Kf7 19. Rae1 a5 20. Re2 b5 21. Nb3 bxc4&#xA;22. Nd2 Bd5 23. Rfe1 Qd8 24. Qh4 e6 25. Rb1 Qe7 26. Nxc4 Nd7&#xA;27. Qxe7+ Kxe7 28. Ne3 Rhb8 29. Rxb8 Rxb8 30. c4 Bc6 31. Rd2&#xA;e5 32. Bxe5 Nxe5 33. fxe5 f4 34. Nd5+ Bxd5 35. Rxd5 Rb1+&#xA;36. Kf2 Rb2 37. Rd4 Rxc2+ 38. Kf1 f3 39. gxf3 exf3 40. Rd6 g5&#xA;41. Rxh6 Rxa2 42. h3 a4 43. Rf6 Ra1+ 44. Kf2 a3 45. Ra6 a2 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm guessing that Carlsen is busted due to tripled pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Carlsen - Topalov (Rapid at Monaco)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nc3 d6 3. f4 Nc6 4. Nf3 g6 5. Bb5 Bd7 6. O-O a6&#xA;7. Bxc6 Bxc6 8. d3 Bg7 9. Qe1 Qd7 10. a4 f5 11. Nd5 fxe4&#xA;12. dxe4 Rb8 13. Ng5 Bxd5 14. exd5 Qf5 15. Ne6 Bf6 16. Qe2 h5&#xA;17. Ra3 Nh6 18. Rg3 Kd7 19. Rg5 Bxg5 20. fxg5 Qxd5 21. Nf4&#xA;Qd4+ 22. Be3 Qe4 23. gxh6 Rxh6 24. Nd5 Rhh8 25. Qd2 Rhf8&#xA;26. Re1 Rf5 27. Nb6+ Kc6 28. Bxc5 Rbf8 29. Bd4 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="307" LastEditorUserId="11202" LastEditDate="2017-04-17T19:18:51.757" LastActivityDate="2017-04-17T19:18:51.757" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2003" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2016" CreationDate="2013-02-14T16:28:18.983" Score="14" ViewCount="796" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am interested in the following exchange-down endgame (assume White to move):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;6k1/5ppp/8/8/1r6/5KP1/5P1P/5B2 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In particular, I am wondering whether this is objectively drawn (my hunch) or whether Black has a winning advantage. But really I'm after more than just the assessment of the position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;My real interest is in knowing whether a drawing method for White or a winning method for Black can be explained in a relatively simple way. (If it can, I'm hoping for a demonstration of that fact as an answer.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'll say a little more about what I'm after. (First, what I'm &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; after: a synopsis of your engine's analysis. I have engines too. And the fact that, e.g. Stockfish gives this position -3.00 or so just &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/1725/167&quot;&gt;doesn't signify all that much&lt;/a&gt;.) Consider the endgame where Black has no men left, while White has a &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wrong_rook_pawn#Bishop_and_pawn&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;rook pawn and the wrong-colored bishop&lt;/a&gt;. The drawing method there (assuming the black king has access to the queening square) is so simple that it can be quickly explained to a novice, and she'd be able to hold against any world champion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The endgame I'm asking about here is more complex, of course, and any reasonably complete explanation of how to handle it will be correspondingly more complex as well. But I'm still hopeful that a fairly concise explanation of how to handle it (either how to win for Black or how to draw for White) can be given; and like the rook-pawn-and-wrong-bishop ending, I'm hoping for the sort of explanation that a relatively weak player could use as a reliable recipe for correct play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No doubt, I'm setting a high bar for an answer here, but I think a good answer along the lines I'm asking for would be very valuable. And even if this particular position ultimately can't be explained well in this way, in more general terms, I think a large body of solid questions about common sorts of positions like this one, &lt;em&gt;and especially answers offering clear, short verbal explanations of these positions&lt;/em&gt;, would be well suited to this site, and could also make it a useful reference, offering a sort of free, collective middlegame and endgame manual. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2013-02-15T20:16:22.027" Title="Can this exchange-down endgame be explained succinctly?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;exchange&gt;&lt;quality&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2004" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2013-02-14T16:30:13.600" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_exchange_%28chess%29&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;The exchange&lt;/a&gt; is the material advantage of a rook against a minor piece (a bishop or a knight).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-06-22T12:26:57.647" LastActivityDate="2017-06-22T12:26:57.647" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2005" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2013-02-14T16:30:13.600" Score="0" Body="The exchange is the material advantage of a rook against a minor piece (a bishop or a knight)." OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-06-22T12:26:57.647" LastActivityDate="2017-06-22T12:26:57.647" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2006" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2013-02-14T16:34:21.143" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Quality is another term for &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_exchange_%28chess%29&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;the exchange&lt;/a&gt; (rook for minor piece).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-06-22T12:27:28.553" LastActivityDate="2017-06-22T12:27:28.553" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2007" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2013-02-14T16:34:21.143" Score="0" Body="Quality is another term for the exchange (rook for minor piece)." OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2013-02-14T16:34:21.143" LastActivityDate="2013-02-14T16:34:21.143" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2008" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2011" CreationDate="2013-02-14T18:30:00.557" Score="43" ViewCount="5302" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm looking to become a better chess player. I play online and sometimes with my friends offline as well. I've also started to study openings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is very difficult to get the right direction of study. What way should I move to progress in my play? What is the &amp;quot;path&amp;quot; of learning chess?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1044" LastEditorUserId="1044" LastEditDate="2021-04-16T19:58:52.073" LastActivityDate="2021-04-16T19:58:52.073" Title="The path of learning chess" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;training&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="36" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2010" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2008" CreationDate="2013-02-14T20:41:22.613" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are many aspects to becoming a strong player. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One of the very best books to read is called &quot;Think like a grandmaster&quot; . You can find it at Amazon. It helps you how to think. Chess is about analysis, and this analysis is done in the mind. Hence if you know how to organize this thought process, you'll become more efficient and actually can analyze more positions in the same amount of time. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another thing to do, is to get good book with good analysis. Like Fischer's my best 60 chess games, or Alekhine my best games, I mean a book that is annotated by the same strong player, and this way, you can see the thought they had when making moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And most importantly, play with players who are stronger than you. Losing teaches you a lot. Make sure you go over each game you played afterwords and try to learn why you lost, or even if you won, see if you might have missed better moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Getting good at chess is not easy (I mean to go over 2400 level or so), it is just hard work. Need to study a lot, read a lot, and practice a lot, and have some natural talent for the game. But make sure you are having fun doing it, else it is not worth it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Update&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just noticed that an important information is missing in this question. What is the level of the player here? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Advice to someone at 1500 wanting to improve to 1800 will be different from someone 1800 wanting to improve to 2200 level, and that will be different from someone at 2200 wanting to improve to 2400 and so on. For example, someone at 2200 level who wants to get to 2400 level, they have to spend more time on studying openings, more end game positions, play more games in stronger level international tournaments but may be spend less time on tactics since this is something they should have good handle on at this level. While someone still at 1500 level, the situation is different.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So hard to give one generic advice without knowing what level the player is at now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="804" LastEditorUserId="804" LastEditDate="2013-02-15T06:24:17.223" LastActivityDate="2013-02-15T06:24:17.223" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2011" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2008" CreationDate="2013-02-14T20:41:31.187" Score="51" Body="&lt;p&gt;Avoid the trap of studying openings, they don't improve your game. Say, at most 10% of your training time before you start making IM norms. They can be addictive and maybe even improve your results in the short term, but in the long term they just don't improve your chess playing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The basis of improvement: playing serious, slow games (say at least half an hour on the clock) against decent opponents, afterwards if possible exchange thoughts about the game with your opponent (go through the game again). Then, before you forget them, write down as much as you remember about your thoughts during the game. Why did you play moves, but also why didn't you play others. Which moves of him surprised you. Then, go over the game again and check your thoughts. Was the line you were afraid of when you didn't play that move really so dangerous? That attack looked good, wasn't there a way to win? And so on. &lt;em&gt;Find your mistakes, and don't make them again.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Play through well-annotated grandmaster games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Learn how to win endings where you're material up, or draw them even when you're material down.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Train tactics on Chesstempo.com.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Play real tournaments over the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once you're of sufficient strength (1600-1700ish over the board), start working through Yusupov's orange books. They have hard exercises covering a wide range of subjects you need to get good at. But that's probably for later.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2013-02-14T20:41:31.187" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2012" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2008" CreationDate="2013-02-15T01:41:26.123" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Go to your local USCF club.  Join and play.  This will get you a rating and introduce you to other players.  Once your strength is known perhaps you can get a instructor.   Your instructor will be able to spot your weaknesses and help you overcome them far quicker than you can do this yourself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;edit - As per the comment below, $40 to join the USCF, less if you ask them for options.  Beginner's gear is $50 (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.wholesalechess.com/chess/chess_sets/club_chess_sets/beginners_chess_gear_combo&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;example, ymmv, no affiliation, etc etc&lt;/a&gt;) and will likely be completely adequate for years.  Then there are state memberships, etc.  It's a racket to be sure but in the scheme of things... chess is a cheap hobby.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2013-02-16T15:44:04.907" LastActivityDate="2013-02-16T15:44:04.907" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2013" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2008" CreationDate="2013-02-15T06:54:19.317" Score="17" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a beginner just like you, so I will give advice from my perspective on some of the things that have helped me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Don't get too carried away with learning openings.  Focus more on learning opening principles/fundamentals such as controlling the center, developing your pieces, castling early, etc&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Practice tactics at &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesstempo.com&quot;&gt;chesstempo.com&lt;/a&gt;.  I don't do this as often as I should as I don't have time, but if you do, it will help.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Don't get frustrated if you lose.  Go back and look at where you made the mistake(s) and try not to repeat them.  You most likely will repeat them, but over time, your mistakes will lessen.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Take your time with each move.  A lot of things I notice beginners do is they move really fast even if they have plenty of time left on their clock.  I am guilty of this.  I noticed that this is the biggest cause of blunders for me which usually result in me losing.  So take your time to look at the whole board and think twice before your decide to make your move.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;There are many great books out there, I won't go into which ones are the best, I will just mention one that I found very useful even though it goes over some of the basics at first and that book was &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias=aps&amp;amp;field-keywords=bobby%20fischer%20teaches%20chess&amp;amp;sprefix=bobby%2bfischer%2bteaches%2bc,aps&amp;amp;rh=i%3aaps,k%3abobby%20fischer%20teaches%20chess&quot;&gt;Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Subscribe to some great chess channels, especially found on YouTube. I find the user &lt;code&gt;MatoJelic&lt;/code&gt; especially makes &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/user/MatoJelic&quot;&gt;great videos&lt;/a&gt; and annotates them very well.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Check out the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesscafe.com/archives/archives.htm#Novice%20Nook&quot;&gt;Novice Nook&lt;/a&gt; columns by &lt;code&gt;Dan Heisman&lt;/code&gt;.  If you happen to have a subscription to &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessclub.com/&quot;&gt;ICC&lt;/a&gt;, you can watch his &lt;code&gt;Improve Your Chess&lt;/code&gt; videos.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Last but not least, PLAY PLAY and PLAY. You mentioned in your post and keep playing.  Remember to keep have fun doing it, don't get frustrated and try to learn from every game.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastActivityDate="2013-02-15T06:54:19.317" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2015" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1567" CreationDate="2013-02-15T15:39:45.317" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Reading @RemcoGerlich's answer about walking around reminded me of a situation that happened between Tal and Fishcer:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Every player has his own habit: one will first make his move and then write it down, while another will do things the other way around.&#xA;  Incidentally, in recent years Fischer has actively objected to this&#xA;  'other way round', expressing the opinion that a scoresheet is not a&#xA;  black-board for writing down exercises. However, in our game Fischer&#xA;  first wrote down the move 22.Rae1!, without a doubt the strongest, and&#xA;  wrote it not in his usual English notation but in European, almost&#xA;  Russian! Then he not very deftly pushed the scoresheet towards me.&#xA;  'He's asking for an endorsement', I thought to myself, but how was I&#xA;  to react? To frown was impossible, if I smiled he would suspect&#xA;  'trickery', so I did the natural thing. I got up and began to calmly&#xA;  walk up and down the stage. I met Petrosian, made some joke to him,&#xA;  and he replied. The 15-year-old Fischer, who was essentially still&#xA;  only a large child, sat with a confused expression on his face,&#xA;  looking first at the front row of spectators where his second was&#xA;  sitting, and then at me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Then he wrote down another move. 22.Qc6?, and after 22...Rd7 23.Rae1+ Be7 24.Rxf7 Kxf7 25.Qe6+ Kf8! 26.Qxd7 Qd6 I held on to my extra piece and adjourned the game in a won position. When I later&#xA;  asked Fischer why he hadn't played 22.Rae1, he replied: 'Well, you&#xA;  laughed when I wrote it down!' - Mikhal Tal&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is the game:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]    &#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 a6 6. Bc4 e6 7. Bb3 b5 8. f4 b4 9. Na4 Nxe4 10. O-O g6 11. f5 gxf5 12. Nxf5 Rg8 13. Bd5 Ra7 14. Bxe4 exf5 15. Bxf5 Re7 16. Bxc8 Qxc8 17. Bf4 Qc6 18. Qf3 Qxa4 19. Bxd6 Qc6 20. Bxb8 Qb6 21. Kh1 Qxb8 22. Qc6 Rd7 23. Rae1 Be7 24. Rxf7 Kxf7 25. Qe6 Kf8 26. Qxd7 Qd6 27. Qb7 Rg6 28. c3 a5 29. Qc8 Kg7 30. Qc4 Bd8 31. cxb4 axb4 32. g3 Qc6 33. Re4 Qxc4 34. Rxc4 Rb6 35. Kg2 Kf6 36. Kf3 Ke5 37. Ke3 Bg5 38. Ke2 Kd5 39. Kd3 Bf6 40. Rc2 Be5 41. Re2 Rf6 42. Rc2 Rf3 43. Ke2 Rf7 44. Kd3 Bd4 45. a3 b3 46. Rc8 Bxb2 47. Rd8 Kc6 48. Rb8 Rf3 49. Kc4 Rc3 50. Kb4 Kc7 51. Rb5 Ba1 52. a4 b2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1044001&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;game at chessgames.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="307" LastActivityDate="2013-02-15T15:39:45.317" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2016" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2003" CreationDate="2013-02-15T20:16:22.027" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;This endgame is completely winning for black with best play.  While there are some cases where the weaker side can build a fortress, those only occur with 1 or 2 pawns per side, not with 3 undoubled pawns.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, here is the most common fortress (with 2 pawns each):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;6k1/1R6/4K1p1/7p/8/2b3P1/7P/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White cannot break down black's defense.  If the white king tries to come to g5, black prevents this with &lt;code&gt;...Bf6!&lt;/code&gt; when the white king appears on f4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Dvoretsky's endgame manual explains succinctly:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;With three pawns on each side a fortress, as a rule, cannot be build.  Salvation is possible only in exceptional cases: when the pawn structure of the stronger side has flaws.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As an extreme case, look at the most &quot;advantageous case for the weaker side, with the pawns in contact (the variation is from an actual game while the main line is black's best try):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;6k1/3R4/6p1/5p1p/5P1P/3K2P1/1b6/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Kc4 Kf8 2. Kd5 Kg8 3. Ke6 Bc3 4. Rd3 $1 Bb2 5. g4 $3 $18 fxg4 (5... hxg4 6. h5 Kg7 7. hxg6 Kxg6 8. Rd5 Bc1 9. Rxf5 Bxf4 10. Rxf4 Kg5 11. Ke5 g3 12. Ke4 g2 13. Rf8 Kh4 14. Rg8) 6. f5 gxf5 7. Kxf5 Kf7 8. Kg5 Be5 9. Kxh5 g3 10. Rd2 Kf6 11. Kg4 Kg6 12. Re2 Bb8 13. h5+ Kh6 14. Re6+ Kh7 15. Rg6 Bc7 16. Kf5 Bb8 17. Rb6 $1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now that we've established that the stronger side can win, even with the pawns in contact, let's look at the case in the question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black's winning plan is quite simple, bring the king to e1 to attack the pawn on f2 with both the rook and the king (forcing its advance to f4), and then black will bring the king back to e3, bring all 3 pawns to the 3rd rank, and finally push g6-g5, forcing weaknesses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is a sample line.  It is just a single example, there are many other options for both colors, but hopefully it illustrates the winning plan for the stronger side.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;6k1/5ppp/8/8/1r6/5KP1/5P1P/5B2 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;41&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Kf8 2. Ke3 Ke7 3. Bd3 g6 4. Kf3 Kd6 5. Ke3 Ke5 6. Kf3 Kd4 7. Be2 Rb3+ 8.&#xA;Kg2 Kc3 9. Bf3 Kd2 10. Bc6 (10. Bd5 Rb2 11. Bxf7 Ke1 12. Bg8 Rxf2+ 13. Kg1 h6&#xA;14. Bd5 Ke2 15. Be6 Rf6 16. Bc4+ Ke3 17. Bb5 h5 18. Kg2 Rf2+ 19. Kg1 Rc2 20.&#xA;Ba4 Rc4 21. Bb3 Rd4 22. h4 Rd2 23. Bf7 Kf3 24. Bxg6 Kg4 25. Kf1 Rd6 26. Be8 Rd8&#xA;27. Bb5 Kxg3 28. Ke2 Kxh4) 10... Ke1 11. f4 Rb2+ 12. Kg1 Ke2 13. Kg2 Ke3+ 14.&#xA;Kg1 f6 15. h4 h6 16. Bd5 (16. Ba8 g5 17. fxg5 hxg5 18. hxg5 Rb8 19. Bc6 Rb6 20.&#xA;Ba8 f5 21. g4 f4) 16... g5 17. fxg5 hxg5 18. Bc6 (18. hxg5 Rb5) 18... gxh4 19.&#xA;gxh4 f5 20. h5 Rb6 21. Be8 f4 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To finish this answer, consider the position if white has instead a dark squared bishop.  In this case, black's plan is very similar - attack the f2 pawn.  Black brings the king to e2, the rook to f3, and then advances the pawns (g7-g5, f7-f5-f4 - potentially including h7-h6 if needed) to break through.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hopefully this gives you all of the plans needed to win as the stronger side.  The defensive chances with fewer than 3 pawns each are also worth examination, but they're probably worth a question on their own.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12" LastActivityDate="2013-02-15T20:16:22.027" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2017" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-02-15T22:42:08.227" Score="31" ViewCount="40145" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is often debated that white has an advantage over black. Some even say that with perfect play on both sides, black simply cannot win. Is there any research that backs up this claim, or is it mere speculation by the greats such as Rauzer? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, if this has been or could be proven true, could the black pieces be given some sort of aid to make them equal to the white ones?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1051" LastActivityDate="2020-04-30T03:07:03.507" Title="Does white have an advantage?" Tags="&lt;theory&gt;" AnswerCount="14" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2018" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-02-15T23:58:50.417" Score="12" ViewCount="772" Body="&lt;p&gt;Everytime I read articles on chess, I see people who say that chess nowadays is dominated by computers. For example if you look for a thread on the subject 'fischer vs carlsen' (just an example) you see people comment that if fischer had access to computers, he would have been better. Why? What do modern GM's do with computers?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1031" LastActivityDate="2017-02-04T22:05:50.927" Title="Why do people say today's chess is dominated by computers?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2019" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1567" CreationDate="2013-02-16T01:55:04.417" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;One suggestion I read, and really liked -- is that your opponent is more likely to miss a tactic if it looks like an ordinary developing move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="935" LastActivityDate="2013-02-16T01:55:04.417" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2020" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2018" CreationDate="2013-02-16T01:59:05.433" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;Masters use computers as training tools.  They allow a master to quickly check the viability of variations and understand why some moves are good or bad.  Further, they afford searchable instant access to millions of positions and countless openings to the master.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In short, the computer is your sparring partner, second, and librarian, and who works for cheap.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2013-02-16T02:25:19.840" LastActivityDate="2013-02-16T02:25:19.840" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2021" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2017" CreationDate="2013-02-16T02:02:22.170" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The first move in chess affords a slight advantage.  This is why pairing systems try to alternate a player between the white and black pieces.  Some GMs are 'underrated' because over time, they have randomly been assigned the black pieces more often than is normal.  They are at a slight disadvantage and thus lose an unnatural frequency.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have never seen it demonstrated that with perfect play white (or black) will win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2013-02-16T02:02:22.170" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2022" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2023" CreationDate="2013-02-16T03:09:35.570" Score="7" ViewCount="1159" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was reading about FEN notation, and noticed the following line in &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forsyth%E2%80%93Edwards_Notation&quot;&gt;the relevant Wikipedia article&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If neither side can castle, this is &quot;-&quot;. Otherwise, this has one or more letters: &quot;K&quot; (White can castle kingside), &quot;Q&quot; (White can castle queenside), &quot;k&quot; (Black can castle kingside), and/or &quot;q&quot; (Black can castle queenside).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why do we need to mark the ability to castle each side separately?  I can't imagine a circumstance where one would be able to castle kingside, but not queenside unless the reason you can't do one is because it would be illegal to castle in one of the directions.  But if this is the only reason, why would this need to be documented when recording a game in FEN?  Maybe there is something about castling I'm misunderstanding.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1043" LastActivityDate="2013-02-16T03:22:52.777" Title="Question on FEN and castling" Tags="&lt;castling&gt;&lt;fen&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2023" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2022" CreationDate="2013-02-16T03:22:52.777" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;If one of the rooks has moved from its starting position, it is no longer legal to castle with that rook.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, if white plays &lt;code&gt;1. a4 2. Ra3 3. Ra1&lt;/code&gt;, white can no longer castle long, even though the king and rook are both in their normal positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For this reason, the FEN string must encode whether or not castling is legal (because both king and rook can be on the proper squares, but castling can still be illegal).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12" LastActivityDate="2013-02-16T03:22:52.777" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2024" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2065" CreationDate="2013-02-16T06:10:12.643" Score="9" ViewCount="1380" Body="&lt;p&gt;Does anyone have any information about upcoming &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess960&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess 960&lt;/a&gt; tournaments at the top level (i.e. GMs and IMs)? Even links to/information about past, major tournaments would be appreciated. I recently learned about Chess 960, and find it quite fascinating. I am also of the opinion that it would be more interesting to follow/study than regular chess early on in the game (since opening theory in regular chess goes as far as 25-30 moves in some openings), and beautiful novelties such as &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1704763&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Aronian-Anand, 2013&lt;/a&gt; can be prepared at home.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="885" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-10-30T16:27:18.980" LastActivityDate="2021-01-16T10:22:48.883" Title="Major Chess 960 tournaments?" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;chess960&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2025" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2017" CreationDate="2013-02-16T09:59:47.343" Score="39" Body="&lt;p&gt;These statistics come from a database of over 600,000 games:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;White wins   37.35%&#xA;Black wins   27.41%&#xA;Drawn        35.23%&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/chessstats.html&quot;&gt;http://www.chessgames.com/chessstats.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The stats suggest that White has a significant, measurable first-mover advantage. Not an overwhelming advantage, but better than the house advantage in any casino game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is that advantage structured into the game or psychological? Comparative stats on games between mature chess engines may help to decide that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1047" LastActivityDate="2013-02-16T09:59:47.343" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2027" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2017" CreationDate="2013-02-17T17:57:33.883" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think statistically it has been shown that White has the advantage, but as the saying goes, &quot;The winner of chess is the player who makes the second to last mistake&quot;. White only has the advantage on the first move and this would not matter if they make a horrible second move.  I would also say that White has more of an advantage at top level play because there are not likely to be too any mistakes, but at the lower level, being White or Black does not offer much of an advantage because there are probably many mistakes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastActivityDate="2013-02-17T17:57:33.883" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2028" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1167" CreationDate="2013-02-18T10:10:30.033" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's a good idea to train visualization. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A good start should be to train the coordinates till you can name any square in a second - without even looking at the numbers and letters on the sides. It's not hard if you train it with the board coordinates trainer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chess-skills.com/chess-tips/chessboard-coordinates-trainer/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://chess-skills.com/chess-tips/chessboard-coordinates-trainer/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1058" LastActivityDate="2013-02-18T10:10:30.033" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2029" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2018" CreationDate="2013-02-18T15:29:30.107" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Today, chess is dominated by computers, that's true because for the same calculating scale (ELO rating), we can compare ELO points of computers and ELO points of humans.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Today, the best ELO rating for a player (&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnus_Carlsen&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Magnus Carlsen&lt;/a&gt;): &lt;strong&gt;2872&lt;/strong&gt; (february 2013).&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Today, the best ELO rating for a computer (&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Houdini_%28chess%29&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Houdini 3 64-bit 4CPU&lt;/a&gt;): &lt;strong&gt;3320&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Moreover, best chess players use chess engines to analyze positions. For instance, Viswanathan Anand currently use Houdini for training.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="813" LastEditorUserId="813" LastEditDate="2013-02-18T16:17:57.430" LastActivityDate="2013-02-18T16:17:57.430" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2030" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2018" CreationDate="2013-02-18T16:44:48.170" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;All current chess players use computers to improve their game. This includes evaluating new positions in the opening resulting in better and deeper opening preparation. They also can set up a board and let the computer evaluate for hours to discover new lines that were previously too complicated to discover. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also all chess players maintain huge databases of games, this they can search for games played by a specific player (particularly useful in matchplay) or search through historical games that contained a given position. Thus the use of computers is a vital tool to improve ones game especially when dealing with the &quot;opening preparation&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An example of how new chess players are coming up - Hikaru Nakamura claims to have never read a single chess book and learnt completely off the computer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="118" LastActivityDate="2013-02-18T16:44:48.170" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2031" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2037" CreationDate="2013-02-18T16:45:07.577" Score="8" ViewCount="4083" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was reading &lt;a href=&quot;http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gouden_regels_in_de_schaakopening&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this Dutch article&lt;/a&gt; on chess openings, which basically states the following about openings:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Don't play the edge pawns &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Don't move your knight to an edge&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Don't use one piece too often&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Don't use your queen too soon&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And the &lt;strong&gt;3 golden rules&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Move pawns to the center&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Develop your knights and bishops early-on&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Castle to keep your king safe&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I understand most of these, but not all of them, these are my &lt;strong&gt;questions&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Shouldn't you move your knight to an edge because of the opponents bishops?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Edge pawns shouldn't be played because they don't remove any obstructions?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Why shouldn't you use your queen early-on?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1009" LastEditorUserId="1065" LastEditDate="2013-02-20T22:44:18.750" LastActivityDate="2014-12-21T16:06:34.297" Title="Why are the golden rules in chess openings true?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;rules&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2032" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2031" CreationDate="2013-02-18T17:02:34.237" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Indeed, these rules seem to me being golden rules!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Shouldn't you move your knight to an edge because of the opponnents bishops?  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Edge pawns shouldn't be played because they don't remove any obstructions?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In chess opening, the main idea is to &lt;strong&gt;develop your pieces&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;control the center&lt;/strong&gt; of the chessboard. In order to control the center, moving your knight to edges is not accurate move. Same reason for edge pawns. For example, moving your knight on f3 permits to control d4 et e5 squares.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Why shouldn't you use your queen early-on?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Moreover, moving a queen early-on can be dangerous because this piece must support other pieces at the beginning of the game. And queen is kind of protected if it is behind the other pieces and not attacked by your opponent pieces development.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;However, several openings play queen early and work well (Scandinavian Defense for instance).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="813" LastEditorUserId="813" LastEditDate="2013-02-19T11:09:09.057" LastActivityDate="2013-02-19T11:09:09.057" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2034" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2031" CreationDate="2013-02-18T18:27:45.777" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The opening is a period of time where the position is at its most dynamic.  There is a ton of open space to be filled by pawns and pieces, and long term static advantages will be had by the player who best controls the center, because it gives him the space to maneuver from wing to wing later in the game, while restricting his opponents ability to do the same.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pieces like to operate behind their pawn chains, and flank pawn moves don't contribute to maneuverability.  Typically flank pawns are used later in a game to disrupt the opponents pawn chains, to open files for major pieces, and to spear thrust at a king's pawn shield.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Moving the knight to an edge has a double whammy negative, as it fails to support central pawns, and cuts down on the number of squares controlled by the knight.  For instance, a knight on f3 projects on four squares of its opponent, and four retreat squares of his own... while a knight on h3 cuts both those numbers in half.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bringing a queen out too early provides your opponent with a target to develop his pawns and pieces.  If your opponent is able to both attack your queen and put pieces and pawns on useful squares at the same time, they have basically been given free extra moves while you are moving your queen to prevent it from being captured.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="606" LastEditorUserId="606" LastEditDate="2013-02-19T07:01:04.163" LastActivityDate="2013-02-19T07:01:04.163" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2035" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2017" CreationDate="2013-02-18T19:01:19.890" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;The most comparable game to chess that has been solved is checkers, where it has been &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.sciencemag.org/content/317/5844/1518.abstract&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;shown to be a draw&lt;/a&gt; given perfect play by the second player.  The first move gives a player a very slight edge initially, but does that convert to a winning advantage?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tablebases give us some insight into the debate.  The vast majority of positions which are materially balanced result in draws.  Positions that are somewhat dynamically balanced (say knight vs bishop) still result in draws a high percentage of the time, although the more powerful the remaining pieces are, the more likely first to move is the winner.  (take for instance, &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endgame_tablebase#Endgame_theory&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;KQRKQR endgames&lt;/a&gt;, the first to move wins 67% of the time).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another important factor seen in tablebases is that most wins have a relatively short distance to conversion (or moves to force a win).  There are extreme cases, for instance, the record had jumped from 292 moves in 1989 to 330, 545 in 2006, and then to 549 in 2014.  The striking quality to me is that the gap between move lengths in these records jumps so much all at once, which suggests that it gets harder to force a win the more moves away from the end you are, because most positions that far away are draws.  It would be a winning lotto ticket if starting from the opening position, it happened to be one of those extremely long won positions.  To me, this is strong circumstantial evidence that chess will be another game shown to be a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately, it is currently impossible to generate a full 32 piece tablebase for chess, as there are more possible chess positions than atoms in the universe.  Barring some breakthrough in quantum computing allowing all possible positions to be evaluated simultaneously, I doubt chess will ever be fully solved by man.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="606" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-29T18:16:32.683" LastActivityDate="2020-04-29T18:16:32.683" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2037" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2031" CreationDate="2013-02-19T04:12:49.637" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;What these guidelines really point to, is to make the point that you should &lt;strong&gt;develop evenly&lt;/strong&gt;, and &lt;strong&gt;move towards the most open space&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In some ways, a chess opening is like building a ship inside of a bottle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;li&gt;Build in layers starting with as large a base as possible so your ship can fill the bottle (&lt;em&gt;Move pawns to the center&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;Develop your knights and bishops early-on&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Start from the center and fill out evenly so that there is a strong base for your king to sit in and your pieces to develop outward from. Usually this means setting up a protected e4 or d4 pawn along with the relevant supporting knight and bishop, and then moving the opposite knight and bishop out to provide protected space to grow. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;li&gt;Make sure not to start building too close to the walls of the bottle because it can limit the development of your ship (&lt;em&gt;Don't play the edge pawns&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;Don't move your knight to an edge&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Moving too many pieces or pawns towards the side of the board can lead to a lopsided development where there is a large cluster of pieces and pawns on one half of the board. The negative result of this is that the opponent usually controls the other half of the board, and can pawn wall your cluster which becomes very hard to maneuver around or through.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;li&gt;Avoid building too much in one place at once or else it will prevent other parts of your ship from being complete (&lt;em&gt;Don't use 1 piece too often&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;Don't use your queen to soon&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Often when one piece is moved too many times it is a blunder to correct a misplaced piece or to react to an opponent's superior position. Doing this only makes the situation worse. When one piece takes up too many moves in the opening it allows the opponent to get far to ahead in development. If the reason for the single piece moving so many times is in the end negated the opponent will have gained significant positional advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="342" LastActivityDate="2013-02-19T04:12:49.637" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2038" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-02-19T16:12:32.737" Score="5" ViewCount="7535" Body="&lt;p&gt;I had posted the question &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/1876/should-black-avoid-the-two-knights-defense-because-of-the-fried-liver-attack&quot;&gt;Should Black avoid the Two Knights Defense because of the Fried Liver Attack?&lt;/a&gt; After seeing the &lt;em&gt;Traxler Counter Attack&lt;/em&gt; from Black, it made me wonder if White should just avoid the &lt;em&gt;Fried Liver Attack&lt;/em&gt; because of this.  I have seen some variations on how the game is continued if Black plays the Traxler Counter Attack, but I am not sure what White's best response would be.  In all variations, I have seen the continuation &lt;code&gt;5. Nxf7 Bxf2&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nf6 4. Ng5 Bc5 5. Nxf7 Bxf2+&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the game continues &lt;code&gt;6. Kxf2&lt;/code&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nf6 4. Ng5 Bc5 5. Nxf7 Bxf2+ 6.Kxf2 Ne4 7.Kg1 Qh4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the above game, I see Black with a growing attack on White, so I guess by best I mean, how can White avoid getting brutally attacked in the Traxler Counter Attack?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2017-12-09T17:28:36.643" Title="What is the best defense for White against the Traxler Counter Attack?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;two-knights&gt;&lt;fried-liver-attack&gt;&lt;traxler-counter-attack&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="7" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2039" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2031" CreationDate="2013-02-19T17:32:15.453" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your &quot;golden rules&quot; are &quot;truisms,&quot; good guidelines that TEND to be true in most situations most of the time. But there are exceptions to these rules in most situations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A game between two world class players (Alekhine and Rubinstein) began 1. d4 d5 2. c4 e6 3. Nf3 a6?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Alekhine replied c5! even though it is (almost) never a good idea for White to release the tension in the Queen's gambit so early in the game. But Alekhine had decided (correctLy) that a6 was 1) a &quot;wasted&quot; move and 2) weakened b6. Then he made several more &quot;unorthodox&quot; moves (moving his dark-squared bishop four times in the next nine moves to provoke weaknesses), and won the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Moves and move orders are established over time by experience in play. After awhile, a consensus forms that given move or series of moves is considered &quot;best&quot; for a variation, based on the won-loss records of players using it. That is until someone finds a new move or variation that defeats it. Which happens quite often.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I do not believe that there is such thing as the &quot;absolute&quot; truth in chess, only moves that tend work better or worse.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2013-02-19T17:32:15.453" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2040" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2044" CreationDate="2013-02-19T22:19:28.287" Score="5" ViewCount="1763" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know enough German to know that the term &amp;quot;zwischenzug &amp;quot; means &amp;quot;in-between move.&amp;quot; Another translation I've seen is an &amp;quot;interpolative&amp;quot; move. Why make such a move?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An example is when a rook wants to go to the seventh rank. First, it goes to the eighth rank, let's say with check, and when the opponent replies, the rook goes back to the seventh. What might be the advantage of using such a &amp;quot;roundabout&amp;quot; route to get to the seventh rank?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In GO (where I'm higher rated than in chess), it might be called a forcing move. You make a &amp;quot;throwaway&amp;quot; move that forces a particular response, and then you make your main move, and the two together are stronger than making the main move alone. How might this work in chess?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-10-28T21:23:05.483" LastActivityDate="2020-10-28T21:23:05.483" Title="Why and when should one make a zwischenzug (in-between move)?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;zwischenzug&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2041" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="429" CreationDate="2013-02-19T22:25:47.643" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the example given, the opening move was Nf3. A number of the main lines were given, eight more moves for Black, seven more moves for White. Then the percentages of games won by White (in tournaments) using the respective lines were tallied.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's a link to the table:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_opening_theory_table&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_opening_theory_table&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastEditorUserId="17" LastEditDate="2013-02-20T22:36:34.270" LastActivityDate="2013-02-20T22:36:34.270" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2042" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="375" CreationDate="2013-02-19T22:31:17.407" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;An opening is named after successful professional USE by a world class player, in world class events. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many &quot;openings&quot; are played by amateurs, either accidentally or on purpose, that don't get names. But if a line is played in high level tournaments by X, and X wins a large percentage of his games, people come to recognize it as X's opening, and name it after him or her.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2013-02-19T22:31:17.407" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2044" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2040" CreationDate="2013-02-20T09:42:05.920" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;That's really an enormously broad question. The answer is &quot;because it's a good move, sometimes.&quot; :-)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's say one player expects the game to go &quot;I take here, then he takes there, I take there, he takes there, I take back the rook... and I end up a pawn up.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What happens is &quot;I take here, he takes there, I take there, &lt;em&gt;he moves the rook with check&lt;/em&gt;, I have to move my king, he takes there, I can't take back the rook... and I end up a rook down.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's the sort of situation where a zwischenzug helps. When what at first looks like a forced sequence of moves can actually have an extra move added to the middle of it that makes the end result better for the side doing it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Turning this into some actual position with a diagram and such is left as an exercise for the reader.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastEditorUserId="1063" LastEditDate="2013-02-20T16:08:28.477" LastActivityDate="2013-02-20T16:08:28.477" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2045" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2040" CreationDate="2013-02-20T10:09:06.583" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;A zwischenzug is often like sand in the opponent's gear: You block a vital row or column, you start a discovered attack, you pin an important piece or you threat a mate. As this mostly happens when the opponent is in the middle of some tactics, it can bring her out of balance (e.g. giving a check which even loses that piece, but at the same time started a discovered attack on the queen).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="35" LastActivityDate="2013-02-20T10:09:06.583" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2046" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-02-20T15:21:58.147" Score="3" ViewCount="255" Body="&lt;p&gt;By solid attacks, I mean, attacks that have been tested over time.  They don't necessarily have to be used at the top-level. I will give an example of what I am looking for:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;code&gt;Fried Liver Attack&lt;/code&gt; can be used against the &lt;code&gt;Two Knights Defense&lt;/code&gt; and the &lt;code&gt;Traxler Counter Attack&lt;/code&gt; can be used against the &lt;code&gt;Fried Liver Attack&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastActivityDate="2013-02-20T16:12:35.740" Title="What are some solid attacks in chess?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2047" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2046" CreationDate="2013-02-20T15:50:06.467" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the Cochrane gambit is sound enough:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3. Nxe5 d6 4. Nxf7!?&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also the Evans Gambit:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.b4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Marshall counter-gambit in Ruy Lopez, sacrifices are pawn and gives black a good attack. However, it seems that some Grandmasters are using it as drawing tool, but for us black should have an attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.O-O Be7 6.Re1 b5 7.Bb3 O-O 8.c3 d5 9.exd5 Nxd5 10.Nxe5 Nxe5 11.Rxe5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="307" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2013-02-20T16:12:35.740" LastActivityDate="2013-02-20T16:12:35.740" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2048" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-02-21T04:49:02.920" Score="7" ViewCount="1025" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was watching a video by &lt;code&gt;NM Dan Heisman&lt;/code&gt; and in the video he mentions what is called the &lt;code&gt;Pointing Rule&lt;/code&gt;.  He also makes mention that like many rules in chess, it should be taken lightly and not followed all the time.  He states that the &lt;code&gt;Pointing Rule&lt;/code&gt; dictates where you should attack your opponent, so if your pawns are pointing towards the queen side, attack that side and if they are pointing towards the king side, attack that side, but what if they are pointing in two different directions? Besides the &lt;code&gt;Pointing Rule&lt;/code&gt;, what other factors should one consider when deciding which side to attack?  I have always thought you should attack where they castled.  To illustrate the pointing rule, I will make 3 diagrams with some random moves&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both White and Black should attack the King side since both their pawn formations point towards each others king side:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d3 d6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both White and Black should attack the Queen side since both their pawn formations point towards each others king side:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nc3 Nc6 3.f3 f6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The pawns for both sides point in both directions, so where to attack now?:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nc3 Nc6 3.d3 d6 4. f3 f6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastActivityDate="2013-02-21T09:07:29.163" Title="The Pointing Rule and its relation on which side to attack?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2049" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1977" CreationDate="2013-02-21T05:06:23.293" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I will give a shot at answering this question as well.  I found a 3 part biography on &lt;code&gt;Rashid Nezhmitdinov&lt;/code&gt; which you can find on youtube here (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_Io7jbHsYs&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;part 1&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Fod6_K8ofY&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;part 2&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uo8hTNeJ3rw&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;part 3&lt;/a&gt;).  According to the Biography, although &lt;code&gt;Rashid&lt;/code&gt; beat many of the top grandmasters in his day and won the Russian championship many times, he never was able to achieve the &lt;code&gt;GM&lt;/code&gt; title, but only the &lt;code&gt;IM&lt;/code&gt; title.  Some theorize that he was not given a fair chance (not able play much internationally) because of his Tartar heritage and his faith, but this is only theory and &lt;code&gt;Rashid&lt;/code&gt; would have never made any excuses.  It also seem like &lt;code&gt;Rashid&lt;/code&gt; was always at the tip of being on the top, but could never place first in many tournaments.  He also seemed to a be inconsistent at times.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastActivityDate="2013-02-21T05:06:23.293" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2050" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2048" CreationDate="2013-02-21T08:09:32.017" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The so called &lt;code&gt;Pointing Rule&lt;/code&gt; underlines a simple concept: you should attack where you have more space and where you can manouvre freely.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you &quot;build&quot; a &quot;pawn chain&quot;, you can notice some elements:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Bishops and Queen can be developed very quickly with moves that&#xA;&quot;follow&quot; the chain. On the other hand, &quot;crossing&quot; the chain isn't&#xA;always possible.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If you advance pawns on the &quot;open side&quot; of the chain, the chain itself doesn't get weak. That's not true on the opposite side, since many pawn moves will weaken the &quot;base&quot; of the chain.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That said, in your last example &lt;code&gt;1.e4 e5 2.Nc3 Nc6 3.d3 d6 4. f3 f6&lt;/code&gt; the formation cannot be considered a &quot;double chain&quot; for both Black and White. Simply, these are not chains. A closed formation like this will get in the way of Bishops and Queens (see point 1) and advancing a pawn on either side can weaken the pawns of the formation (see point 2).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="279" LastActivityDate="2013-02-21T08:09:32.017" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2051" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2048" CreationDate="2013-02-21T09:07:29.163" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The examples in your question are not great for this &quot;pointing rule&quot;.  In general, this rule of thumb only holds when there is a locked pawn structure.  In each of the examples, both colors can play for a pawn break by pushing the d pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's a better example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. e5 c5 4. c3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Already, the plans for both sides are clear: white &lt;em&gt;must&lt;/em&gt; play on the kingside with an eventual &lt;code&gt;f2-f4-f5&lt;/code&gt; push, and black must attack the c and d pawns with moves like Nc6 and Qb6.   In general, the extra space can be utilized to maneuver the pieces to support the necessary pawn break or to attack a focal point.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Look at another example from the Bayonet Attack in the King's Indian Defense:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 Bg7 4. e4 d6 5. Nf3 O-O 6. Be2 e5 7. O-O Nc6 8. d5 Ne7 9. b4 Ne8 10. a4 f5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once again, the center pawns show the correct plans for both sides - white defends on the kingside and attacks on the queenside while black goes all out for a kingside attack.  White has a huge lead in space - enough to be nearly &quot;positionally winning&quot;, however black has sufficient play in the form of the attack and the opening is dynamically balanced and has been seen in top level play over the last few years when black is playing for a win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12" LastActivityDate="2013-02-21T09:07:29.163" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2052" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2059" CreationDate="2013-02-21T17:06:11.273" Score="15" ViewCount="1314" Body="&lt;p&gt;Alekhine, a world champion, has his name on the defense Nf6 in response to White's e4. But after e.g. 2. e5 Nd5 3.c4 Nb6 4. d4, White seems to have a good game. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Did Alekhine win any notable games (or tournaments) using this defense? Did he publish any books or papers successfully defending this line? What did he see as its merits? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2013-11-28T13:29:40.880" LastActivityDate="2014-02-15T20:33:08.183" Title="Why is the Alekhine Defense named after Alekhine?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;alekhines-defense&gt;&lt;alekhine&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2053" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="327" CreationDate="2013-02-21T17:13:08.790" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Against a weaker player, figure out why he is weak. Maybe he is playing &quot;strongly&quot; because he has &quot;booked up.&quot; So take him out of book lines. Maybe he is strong in strategy and weak on tactics (or vice versa). So steer the game into areas where he is weaker.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my case, against stronger players, self-administered tests show that my &quot;1500&quot; strength is a composite of 1800 opening and endgame strength and 1400 middle game strength. Against, say, a 1700 player, I would look for variations such as the Exchange variation of the Ruy Lopez that exchanges queens early and gets into an early endgame, bypassing the middle game that I'm weak at.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If a decidedly weaker player (more than 200 points difference) wins (or draws) against a stronger player, one of two things may be happening: 1) The weaker player is having a &quot;good&quot; day and the stronger player a &quot;bad&quot; day or 2) The weaker player has recently gotten strong, but this is not yet reflected in his rating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T17:07:03.590" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T17:07:03.590" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2054" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2055" CreationDate="2013-02-21T17:27:53.017" Score="13" ViewCount="4730" Body="&lt;p&gt;If White opens &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; and Black replies &lt;code&gt;c5&lt;/code&gt;, that's the Sicilian defense. Typical next moves are &lt;code&gt;2. Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4&lt;/code&gt;, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there good variations for White where he DOESN'T play d4?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've heard of &lt;code&gt;3. b4&lt;/code&gt; (Wing Gambit), but I don't like gambits.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does it make sense for White to play &lt;code&gt;d3&lt;/code&gt; instead, either before or after &lt;code&gt;Bc4&lt;/code&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2013-12-03T16:31:58.050" LastActivityDate="2013-12-03T16:31:58.050" Title="Are there good variations for White against the Sicilian that do not involve an early d4?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2055" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2054" CreationDate="2013-02-21T18:03:16.453" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Two &lt;code&gt;Sicilian&lt;/code&gt; variations that don't have an early &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt; are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;Sicilian, Canal-Sokolsky (Rossolimo) Attack (B51)&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. Bb5+&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;Sicilian, Rossolimo Variation (B31)&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 g6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I couldn't find much info on &lt;code&gt;d3&lt;/code&gt; before or after &lt;code&gt;Bc4&lt;/code&gt;, but in some sample openings, &lt;code&gt;d3&lt;/code&gt; was played after &lt;code&gt;Bc4&lt;/code&gt; such as in the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 c5 2.Bc4?! e6 3.d3 d5!&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastActivityDate="2013-02-21T18:03:16.453" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2056" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2054" CreationDate="2013-02-21T18:03:29.670" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;3.Bb5&lt;/code&gt; is fairly common.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I personally like &lt;code&gt;3.Bc4&lt;/code&gt;; it just leads to a normal game with opening preparation thrown out. A plus or minus is that any type of position can result after the opening. &lt;code&gt;3.Bc4&lt;/code&gt; sometimes shows up at the top-level, Vallejo beat Shirov with it, in this case the game resulted in a French structure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Fen &quot; &quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;SuperGM&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Linares ESP&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2002.03.09&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;2002.02.22&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;13&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Francisco Vallejo-Pons&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Alexey Shirov&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;B50&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;2629&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;2715&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;107&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. Bc4 Nf6 4. d3 e6 5. Bb3 Be7 6. O-O O-O&#xA;7. c3 Nc6 8. Re1 b5 9. Nbd2 d5 10. e5 Nd7 11. d4 Ba6 12. Nf1&#xA;b4 13. Ba4 Rc8 14. Bxc6 Rxc6 15. cxb4 Bxf1 16. Rxf1 cxb4&#xA;17. Be3 Qa5 18. g3 Rfc8 19. Ne1 Qb5 20. h4 a5 21. b3 a4&#xA;22. Nd3 Rc3 23. Nf4 Nf8 24. Qg4 Qd7 25. h5 axb3 26. axb3 Rxb3&#xA;27. h6 g6 28. Nh3 Rbc3 29. Bg5 b3 30. Rfb1 Rb8 31. Kg2 Rc7&#xA;32. Rb2 Bxg5 33. Qxg5 Qe7 34. Qe3 Qb4 35. Qf4 Qe7 36. Qf3 Rcb7&#xA;37. Rab1 Nd7 38. Rxb3 Rxb3 39. Rxb3 Qf8 40. Rxb8 Nxb8 41. Ng5&#xA;Nd7 42. Qf4 Qe7 43. Qc1 Qd8 44. Nf3 Kf8 45. Ng5 Kg8 46. Nf3&#xA;Kf8 47. Kg1 Qb8 48. Qa3+ Ke8 49. Ng5 Nf8 50. Qa4+ Ke7 51. Kg2&#xA;Qb7 52. Qa3+ Ke8 53. Qf3 Qe7 54. Qf6 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1250156&quot;&gt;game&lt;/a&gt; at chessgames.com.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Vallejo did play &lt;code&gt;4.d3&lt;/code&gt;, so yeah it does make sense to play &lt;code&gt;d3&lt;/code&gt;; it mainly allows the development of the dark-squared bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="307" LastEditorUserId="307" LastEditDate="2013-02-21T18:10:05.017" LastActivityDate="2013-02-21T18:10:05.017" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2057" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2052" CreationDate="2013-02-21T22:11:54.370" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The moves &lt;code&gt;1.e4 Nf6&lt;/code&gt; were played before &lt;code&gt;Alekhine&lt;/code&gt; (analyzed by &lt;code&gt;Allgaier&lt;/code&gt; in 1819), but &lt;code&gt;Alekhine&lt;/code&gt; popularized it.  &lt;code&gt;Alexander Alekhine&lt;/code&gt; first played this defense at &lt;code&gt;Budapest&lt;/code&gt; in &lt;code&gt;September 1921&lt;/code&gt; against &lt;code&gt;Saemisch&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;E. Steiner&lt;/code&gt;.  By &lt;code&gt;May 1922&lt;/code&gt; it was being called the &lt;code&gt;Alekhine’s Defense&lt;/code&gt; by &lt;code&gt;Sir George Thomas&lt;/code&gt; in the &lt;code&gt;British Chess Magazine&lt;/code&gt;.  Also in &lt;code&gt;May 1922&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;Hans Fahrni&lt;/code&gt; wrote the first monograph on the opening, calling it &lt;code&gt;Die Aljechin-Verteidigung&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastActivityDate="2013-02-21T22:11:54.370" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2058" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2040" CreationDate="2013-02-22T06:57:25.890" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;What might be the advantage of using such a &quot;roundabout&quot; route to get to the seventh rank?&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Using a &quot;Zwischenzug&quot; can be very beneficial. It is also easy to accidentally blunder. However, this is the primary method of introducing chaos into the game. Usually the option to change the course of exchange (or the offering of) is chosen when a player realizes that they can gain an advantage by making a move which was unusual. Perhaps by issuing a check through taking a pawn by sacrificing a knight, and then gaining a knight from some discovered attack. The net result is that you won a pawn.  These happen very often, and are sometimes either overlooked, or accidentally made available.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should always be on the lookout for a Zwischenzug. They can wreak havoc on either your opponent, or yourself, and should be monitored closely.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;You make a &quot;throwaway&quot; move that forces a particular response.&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is quite a different question. Often these types of moves aren't made until the end game, when moving a pawn can dramatically weak a position - or when moving the king leaves a pawn unguarded.  These moves can also be made as waiting moves, where a trap is set, and the player does not want to unravel it so they will play a waiting move, usually along the lines of pushing an outside pawn; perhaps something like &lt;code&gt;a4&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;a5&lt;/code&gt;.  Timing these moves can be very important, but they are more eloquent than the more combative style of Zwischenzug.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="342" LastActivityDate="2013-02-22T06:57:25.890" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2059" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2052" CreationDate="2013-02-22T07:19:21.043" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;You're right in that white &lt;em&gt;seems&lt;/em&gt; to have a good game. But in reality, not much more than that. Black continues with 4. ...d6, and can go into many variations such as the optimistic, but shaky Four Pawns Attack with 5.f4, Exchange variation with 5.dxe6, where black can respond by taking with either pawn, and will usually follow up with a kingside fiancetto if he takes back with the c-pawn. Of course, there are other variations such as the Balogh, Two pawns attack, Two Knights variation, Scandinavian variation, Modern variation (perhaps the most challenging), etc. Look them up if you wish. Black's basic idea is to get white to over-extend his center, creating targets in the form of pawns and the weaknesses left in the pawns' wake, and then undermine those weaknesses with pieces. Again, white &lt;em&gt;seems&lt;/em&gt; to have a good game because of the classic space advantage in the centre. BUT, that's black's plan - The Alekhine Defence is a hypermodern idea, so black voluntarily gives up the centre in the opening, just to challenge it later on from the sides.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to chessgames.com, the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessopening?eco=B02&quot;&gt;Alekhine's Defence&lt;/a&gt; has a win rate of 33.4% for black, which is very, very respectable; especially when compared to other very highly respected openings such as the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessopening?eco=B10&quot;&gt;Caro Kann&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessopening?eco=C00&quot;&gt;French&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessopening?eco=B90&quot;&gt;Najdorf&lt;/a&gt; etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't know if Alekhine himself won tournaments using &lt;em&gt;just&lt;/em&gt; this defence, but here are a few games where he successfully employed it against strong opponents: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1012190&quot;&gt;Bogoljubov&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1012284&quot;&gt;Maroczy&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1096590&quot;&gt;Mieses&lt;/a&gt;, and a lesser known, but still strong &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1012447&quot;&gt;Sergeant&lt;/a&gt;. The last game is a famous positional crush featured in a book I have on the Alekhine Defence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Besides Alekhine, many world champions have employed it throughout history, such as Capablanca, Euwe, Tal, Bronstein, Fischer (remember the famous &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1128889&quot;&gt;Spassky vs.Fischer 1972&lt;/a&gt; game?), Smyslov, Petrosian, Spassky, etc. Even Carlsen has employed it now and then as a surprise weapon. Check out &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1485919&quot;&gt;Carlsen vs. Topalov&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To conclude, I don't think its possible for anyone to answer &lt;strong&gt;why&lt;/strong&gt; Alekhine introduced this defence (&lt;em&gt;if&lt;/em&gt; he did), and what merits &lt;strong&gt;he&lt;/strong&gt; saw. However, he must have certainly judged it to be a playable opening that matched his style (aggressive). But as I've outlined, it has become a formidable surprise weapon over time, and is even used nowadays at the very top level in &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1688935&quot;&gt;major tournaments&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="885" LastActivityDate="2013-02-22T07:19:21.043" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2060" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-02-22T08:03:01.300" Score="15" ViewCount="2199" Body="&lt;p&gt;After checking that it was &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/130/can-we-post-questions-that-seek-analysis-for-our-own-games&quot;&gt;okay to seek analysis on this site&lt;/a&gt;, I decided to post this recent game against a 1950 (I was white, 1650) with post-game annotations (forgive my excess rambling). I think it was quite an interesting game, as it featured a very uncommon opening, and an attempt (successful) at playing solid, positional chess. I think the unconventional ideas used in this game will be helpful to those here who play 1.d4 or the Nimzo as black, or in general for people who don't like to study openings. &lt;strong&gt;I'm looking for criticism of the game: strategy, opening, etc. and/or my analysis&lt;/strong&gt;. If this question is deemed not productive for the site, do let me know, so that I can delete it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT:&lt;/strong&gt; Please refrain from posting computer analysis. As I've said, I'm looking for improvements in the strategy/opening/personal analysis. Its fine to use engines to go over the game, but if you find improvements, please explain why its an improvement (i.e. strategically; don't post a 10 move computer line to explain it).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The Opening (Nimzo-Indian, Kmoch variation):&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;This was the first time I have played this opening ins a serious match.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1. d4 Nf6&#xA;2. c4 e6&#xA;3. Nc3 Bb4&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The dreaded Nimzo-Indian. Since I have had terrible results playing classically against it in blitz, I decided to try something very unorthodox.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;4. f3 d5&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To make sure the pesky Bishop harassed my Knight no further.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;5. Qb3 Be7&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Perhaps a more aggressive approach by Black, which I would've gladly welcomed. (5. .. c5 6. dxc5 Bxc5 7. Bg5)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;6. Nh3&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For two reasons: I told a teammate (jokingly) that I would play Nh3 in my game, and because it supports the idea of controlling e4 via f2 along with the f3 Pawn&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;6. . .O-O&#xA;7. Bg5 c6&#xA;8. Nf2 Na6&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Cheeky, but very logical. Most of Black's moves from here are geared to prepare c5, which was perhaps played later than it should have. Black already has a safe King and can afford to strike at the center with c5 in a move or two&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;9. e3&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I realize that Black has the luxury to strike the center at will, and want my center (especially d4) to be well supported, considering my uncastled King.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;9. . .Re8&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This move was ridiculed by my teammates upon later analysis as &quot;it did nothing&quot; according to them. I disagree, and maintain that it is a patient and principled move that can allow Black to strike at d4 with both c5 and e5 with, say, the Queen on c7.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The Middlegame&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;10. a3&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Prophylaxis. Two of Black's pieces can occupy b4, which may amount to something if the Queen also gets on a5. As the rest of my position seemed fairly safe, I thought it was a necessary move to reduce potential counterplay from Black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;10. . . Qa5&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, eyeing my g5 Bishop and potentially allowing a safe Bb4 (due to the pin on the Rook.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;11. Bh4&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I considered playing h4, but wanted to keep the tension in the position and sought to not allow easy trades, which would give Black's pieces breathing room.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;11. . . c5&#xA;12. dxc5&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Two reasons: I did not want Black to play cxd4 and leave me with hanging center Pawns on c4 and d4 (easy targets for Black's pieces), and I wanted to lure the Black Knight to c5, where it can be a potential target for my b4 push.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;12. . . Nxc5&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Consider 12. .. Bxc5 13. Bxf6 gxf6 14. cxd5 Bxe3 (14. .. exd5 15. Bxa6 bxa6 16. O-O {The awful Pawn structure and King safety negates the activity of Black's pieces}) 15. Ng4 Bd4 16. O-O-O Bxc3 17. Qxc3 Qxc3+ 18. bxc3 Kg7 19. Bb5 Rd8 20. d6 (White has much better pieces and a space advantage, which would be hard to neutralize by Black)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;13. Qc2&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The most natural square for the Queen. Eyeing h2, I would now be happy with playing Bg3 to an eventual Nh5 and opening up my h-file for the Rook. Additionally, b4 is threatened, which forces a passive retreat of one of the two well placed pieces on a5 and c5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;13. . .Qb6&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;?! Not the most accurate, as it allows White to gain massive Queen side space and the initiative. Better was perhaps the passive looking Ncd7! which would allow the zinger Bxb4 in case White is not careful and plays b4 right away.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;14. b4 Ncd7&#xA;15. c5 Qd8&#xA;16. Rd1&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A very principled move, I believe, considering that there were many good moves to choose from, such as Bg3, Bd3, Nd3, and perhaps even Bb5. This move puts pressure on the center and freezes Black's d Pawn for the forseeable future, allowing no central activity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;16. . . a5&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black doesn't have many options here and must strive for activity by activating pieces, such as the a8 Rook&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;17. Bb5&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Perfectly timed, as now there is no a6 to kick the Bishop. This move instantly paralyzes the Knight on d7, and hence suffocates the Bishop on d7.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;17. . . axb4&#xA;18. axb4 Nh5&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Necessary, as Black needs to make space in order to activate his pieces, and trading is the best option that allows this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;19. Bg3 Bg5&#xA;20. Qe2&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A rash decision on my part, as I was too tempted to follow this move with f4, forcing Black to open my h-file for me. Better was e4, which was my whole reason behind playing f3 in the first place. It would've favorably allowed White to open the center with his well placed Rook, Queen and light squared Bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;20. . . Qf6&#xA;21. Nb1&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Very pretty, and very logical. I preferred it over Na4 (both stop the Rook from coming to a3 and pressuring my e3 Pawn) because this allows the Knight to get to the center or the Kingside more quickly, if necessary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;21. . . Nxg3&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Necessary, as allowing Bd6 would crush Black's opportunities to activate his pieces&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;22. hxg3 Qe7&#xA;23. f4 Bf6&#xA;24. Qh5 h6&#xA;25. g4&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Better than Ng4 right away, as g4-g5 still allows Ng4, but with another piece in the attack. More importantly, it allows White to win the h-Pawn, as g6 is forced to avoid losing the Bishop due to the mate threat on h8.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;25. . . g6&#xA;26. Qxh6 Bg7&#xA;27. Qh7+ Kf8&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The ridiculed Re8 from earlier comes in handy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;28. g5 e5&#xA;29. Nc3 exf4&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The pony joins the battle with a vengeance!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;30. Nxd5 Qxg5&#xA;31. O-O f3&#xA;32. Qh2 Be5&#xA;33. Qh3 Qxg2+&#xA;34. Qxg2 fxg2&#xA;35. Kxg2 Kg7&#xA;36. Ng4&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or Nb6. 1-0, because my opponent had less than 5 seconds on his clock, to my 10 minutes. However, I think my position is sufficiently strong at this point to win anyway with accurate play. What do you think?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 Bb4 {The dreaded Nimzo-Indian. Since I have had terrible results playing classically against it in blitz, I decided to try something very unorthodox.} 4. f3 d5 {To make sure the pesky Bishop harassed my Knight no further.} 5. Qb3 Be7 (5... c5 {Perhaps a more aggressive approach by Black, which I would've gladly welcomed.} 6. dxc5 Bxc5 7. Bg5) 6. Nh3 {For two reasons: I told a teammate (jokingly) that I would play Nh3 in my game, and because it supports the idea of controlling e4 via f2 along with the f3 Pawn} O-O 7. Bg5 c6 8. Nf2 Na6 {Cheeky, but very logical. Most of Black's moves from here are geared to prepare c5, which was perhaps played later than it should have. Black already has a safe King and can afford to strike at the center with c5 in a move or two} 9. e3 {I realize that Black has the luxury to strike the center at will, and want my center (especially d4) to be well supported, considering my uncastled King.} Re8 {This move was ridiculed by my teammates upon later analysis as &quot;it did nothing&quot; according to them. I disagree, and maintain that it is a patient and principled move that can allow Black to strike at d4 with both c5 and e5 with, say, the Queen on c7.} 10. a3 {Prophylaxis. Two of Black's pieces can occupy b4, which may amount to something if the Queen also gets on a5. As the rest of my position seemed fairly safe, I thought it was a necessary move to reduce potential counterplay from Black.} Qa5 {Of course, eyeing my g5 Bishop and potentially allowing a safe Bb4 (due to the pin on the Rook.)} 11. Bh4 {I considered playing h4, but wanted to keep the tension in the position and sought to not allow easy trades, which would give Black's pieces breathing room.} c5 12. dxc5 {Two reasons: I did not want Black to play cxd4 and leave me with hanging center Pawns on c4 and d4 (easy targets for Black's pieces), and I wanted to lure the Black Knight to c5, where it can be a potential target for my b4 push.} Nxc5 (12... Bxc5 13. Bxf6 gxf6 14. cxd5 Bxe3 (14... exd5 15. Bxa6 bxa6 16. O-O {The awful Pawn structure and King safety negates the activity of Black's pieces}) 15. Ng4 Bd4 16. O-O-O Bxc3 17. Qxc3 Qxc3+ 18. bxc3 Kg7 19. Bb5 Rd8 20. d6 {White has much better pieces and a space advantage, which would be hard to neutralize by Black}) 13. Qc2 {The most natural square for the Queen. Eyeing h2, I would now be happy with playing Bg3 to an eventual Nh5 and opening up my h-file for the Rook. Additionally, b4 is threatened, which forces a passive retreat of one of the two well placed pieces on a5 and c5.} Qb6?! {Not the most accurate, as it allows White to gain massive Queen side space and the initiative. Better was perhaps the passive looking Ncd7! which would allow the zinger Bxb4 in case White is not careful and plays b4 right away.} (13...Ncd7!) 14. b4 Ncd7 15. c5 Qd8 16. Rd1 {A very principled move, I believe, considering that there were many good moves to choose from, such as Bg3, Bd3, Nd3, and perhaps even Bb5. This move puts pressure on the center and freezes Black's d Pawn for the forseeable future, allowing no central activity.} a5 {Black doesn't have many options here and must strive for activity by activating pieces, such as the a8 Rook} 17. Bb5 {Perfectly timed, as now there is no a6 to kick the Bishop. This move instantly paralyzes the Knight on d7, and hence suffocates the Bishop on d7.} axb4 18. axb4 Nh5 {Necessary, as Black needs to make space in order to activate his pieces, and trading is the best option that allows this.} 19. Bg3 Bg5 20. Qe2 {A rash decision on my part, as I was too tempted to follow this move with f4, forcing Black to open my h-file for me. Better was e4, which was my whole reason behind playing f3 in the first place. It would've favorably allowed White to open the center with his well placed Rook, Queen and light squared Bishop.} Qf6 21. Nb1 {Very pretty, and very logical. I preferred it over Na4 (both stop the Rook from coming to a3 and pressuring my e3 Pawn) because this allows the Knight to get to the center or the Kingside more quickly, if necessary.} Nxg3 {Necessary, as allowing Bd6 would crush Black's opportunities to activate his pieces} 22. hxg3 Qe7 23. f4 Bf6 24. Qh5 h6 25. g4 {Better than Ng4 right away, as g4-g5 still allows Ng4, but with another piece in the attack. More importantly, it allows White to win the h-Pawn, as g6 is forced to avoid losing the Bishop due to the mate threat on h8.} g6 26. Qxh6 Bg7 27. Qh7+ Kf8 {The ridiculed Re8 from earlier comes in handy.} 28. g5 e5 29. Nc3?! exf4 {The pony joins the battle with a vengeance!} 30. Nxd5 Qxg5 31. O-O f3 32. Qh2 Be5 33. Qh3 Qxg2+ 34. Qxg2 fxg2 35. Kxg2 Kg7 36. Ng4 {Or Nb6. 1-0, because my opponent had less than 5 seconds on his clock, to my 10 minutes. However, I think my position is sufficiently strong at this point to win anyway with accurate play.}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="885" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-03-16T15:50:45.707" LastActivityDate="2020-08-16T23:44:44.057" Title="Analysis of positional play by a very aggressive player" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;nimzo-indian&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="13" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2061" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2054" CreationDate="2013-02-22T08:58:11.490" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's quite common the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Chess_Opening_Theory/1._e4/1...c5/2._Nc3/2...Nc6/3._g3/3...g6&quot;&gt;Closed Sicilian&lt;/a&gt;, with, for example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 c5 2.Nc3 Nc6 3.g3 g6 4.Bg2 Bg7 5.d3 d6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Chess_Opening_Theory/1._e4/1...c5/2._f4&quot;&gt;Grand Prix Attack&lt;/a&gt; is of course another possible way to face any Black player after &lt;code&gt;1.e4 c5&lt;/code&gt;. Nowadays the main line is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 c5 2.Nc3 Nc6 3.f4 g6 4.Nf3 Bg7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After &lt;code&gt;1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 (any) 3.g3&lt;/code&gt; White can build a &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King%27s_Indian_Attack&quot;&gt;King's Indian Attack&lt;/a&gt;, which is less common and less sharp, but perfectly playable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These variations are not as popular as the &quot;Open&quot; ones, but you may encounter them from time to time even during high-rated torunaments.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="279" LastEditorUserId="12" LastEditDate="2013-02-25T02:25:32.887" LastActivityDate="2013-02-25T02:25:32.887" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2062" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="86" CreationDate="2013-02-22T15:58:22.977" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found this article very informative:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/200904/the.game.of.kings.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/200904/the.game.of.kings.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These sections were particularly relevant:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess, however, was not invented in Persia. All early Persian references to chess use the term &lt;em&gt;chatrang&lt;/em&gt;, from the Sanskrit &lt;em&gt;chaturanga&lt;/em&gt; (“in four parts”), which describes the four components of an early Indian army: infantry, cavalry, elephants and chariots. The use of a Sanskrit-derived word for chess in an early Persian romance suggests an Indian origin for the game and not local invention, although supporting evidence is murky.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;...&#xA;The only convincing early Indian mention of chess is in a romance attributed to the sixth century, thus slightly earlier than the first Persian and Central Asian evidence. The poet Subandhu used a chess image to describe the monsoon season:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;The time of the rains played its game with frogs for chessmen which, yellow and green in color … leapt up on the black field squares.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A story of the seventh-century Persian king Nushirvan (recorded by Firdawsi in the 11th-century &lt;em&gt;Shahnamah&lt;/em&gt;, or &lt;em&gt;Book of Kings&lt;/em&gt;) also supports an Indian origin of chess. An envoy came from India, the story says, “with elephants, parasols, and cavalry” and a chessboard, chessmen and a challenge: If Nushirvan’s courtiers could figure out the basic rules of the game, then unknown in Persia, the Indian king would gladly pay tribute to the Persian monarch. If they failed, however, Nushirvan would pay tribute to the Indian king. Nobles and priests labored without success for a week. Finally, after a day and a night of struggle, Nushirvan’s vizier deciphered and described the game:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;The sage has invented a battlefield, in the midst of which the king takes up his station. To the left and right of him the army is disposed, the foot-soldiers occupying the rank in front. At the king’s side stands his sagacious counselor, advising him on the strategy to be carried out during the battle. In the two directions the elephants are posted with their faces turned toward the conflict. Beyond them are stationed the war-horses, on which are mounted two resourceful riders, and fighting alongside them to the left and right are turrets ready for the fray&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="791" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2021-02-25T17:54:08.343" LastActivityDate="2021-02-25T17:54:08.343" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2065" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2024" CreationDate="2013-02-22T20:23:42.093" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Present &lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.iccf-webchess.com/Message.aspx?message=501&quot;&gt;2nd Chess 960 World cup&lt;/a&gt; to be played on Feb 15th,2013. The winner qualified as World Championship Candidates.&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.iccf-webchess.com/Message.aspx?message=439&quot;&gt;This link&lt;/a&gt; shows the schedule for the 3rd and 4th Chess 960 World cup.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.uschess.org/index.php?searchword=chess960&amp;amp;option=com_search&amp;amp;searchphrase=all&amp;amp;Itemid=5&quot;&gt;Chess960 news&lt;/a&gt; from the US CHess federation website. Talks of past and current events.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Past &lt;br/&gt;&#xA;Here is information about a past international &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=5630&quot;&gt;FiNet Chess 960 open&lt;/a&gt; which was won by Alexander Grischuk of Russia.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chesstigers.de/ccm10_index_news.php?id=1782&amp;amp;rubrik=6&amp;amp;lang=1&amp;amp;kat=2&amp;amp;PHPSESSID=c16f2a95dc95c0bb4a828ebaf2347918&quot;&gt;Chess960 World Rapid Chess Championship&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;Nakamura simply won the first three games to become new World Champion – in a very convincing manner. Link also has games information and pictures as well. &lt;a href=&quot;http://hikarunakamura.com/&quot;&gt;This&lt;/a&gt; is his website which has the blog and twitter account which can hopefully guide you to what events he participated in the past as well as plans to.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess960 World League 2012 by Chess.com &lt;br/&gt;&#xA;Team Armenia won this. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/news/team-armenia-wins-chess960-wl2012-1894&quot;&gt;Here&lt;/a&gt; is more information&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/groups/forumview/chess960-wl2013-divisions?lc=1&quot;&gt;Chess960 World League 2013 Information&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Additionally searching &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessbase.com/searchresult.asp&quot;&gt;on Chessbase.com&lt;/a&gt; would yield more news of past championships. &lt;a href=&quot;http://chess960frc.blogspot.com/&quot;&gt;chess960frc.blogspot.com&lt;/a&gt; is a specific blog on Chess960.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1065" LastEditorUserId="1065" LastEditDate="2013-02-25T15:26:43.230" LastActivityDate="2013-02-25T15:26:43.230" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2066" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="700" CreationDate="2013-02-23T08:57:07.350" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just saw it in one of Yusupov's books, he has it credited as &quot;Cozio 1766&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;His 1766 book &quot;Il Giuoco Degli Scacchi&quot; is actually digitized by Google books: &lt;a href=&quot;http://books.google.it/books?id=aCcCAAAAYAAJ&amp;amp;printsec=frontcover&amp;amp;source=gbs_ge_summary_r&amp;amp;cad=0#v=thumbnail&amp;amp;q&amp;amp;f=false&quot;&gt;http://books.google.it/books?id=aCcCAAAAYAAJ&amp;amp;printsec=frontcover&amp;amp;source=gbs_ge_summary_r&amp;amp;cad=0#v=thumbnail&amp;amp;q&amp;amp;f=false&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately, neither diagrams nor notation were invented yet. You're on your own to find out where he describes the position...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastEditorUserId="924" LastEditDate="2013-02-23T11:46:35.687" LastActivityDate="2013-02-23T11:46:35.687" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2068" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="700" CreationDate="2013-02-23T20:24:36.713" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I first saw a similar analysis in JR Capablanca's &quot;Chess Fundamentals.&quot; Can't remember the exact page, but note that it is in the &quot;public domain,&quot; which is to say that it is relatively easy to look up. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2013-02-23T20:24:36.713" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2069" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="957" CreationDate="2013-02-23T20:29:18.203" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;Queen&quot; in this instance, means &quot;second in command.&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most &quot;queens&quot; in real life are only wives of kings. They typically aren't &quot;second in commands.&quot; Exceptions might occur if the king was weak or incapacitated, or if the king died and his minor son became &quot;king,&quot; in which case his MOTHER might be the Queen REGENT. ruling for her minor son. In such a situation, you might have a second &quot;queen&quot; when the king grew up and got married.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A better term for &quot;queen&quot; in chess might be &quot;prime minister.&quot; Normally, you wouldn't have two Prime Ministers, but if there was an exceptionally valiant and accomplished soldier, you might, one (the soldier) for war, the other (original one) for peace.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2013-02-23T20:29:18.203" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2071" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2060" CreationDate="2013-02-24T04:12:18.040" Score="16" Body="&lt;p&gt;This was an interesting game, but the opening was played fairly poorly by both colors.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White erred with &lt;code&gt;5. Qb3?&lt;/code&gt;, the main line is definitely &lt;code&gt;5. a3&lt;/code&gt;.  The point of a3 is to force black to part with the bishop pair and prepare e4.  If black retreats the bishop, then &lt;code&gt;6. e4&lt;/code&gt; gives white a good game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After &lt;code&gt;5. Qb3?&lt;/code&gt;, black should reply &lt;code&gt;5... c5!&lt;/code&gt; with a large edge.  In the line that you gave in your analysis, black improves with &lt;code&gt;5... c5 6. dxc5 Nc6! 7. cxd5 Nxd5&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Moving on from the opening, the key idea for white is to play e4 at some moment.  The knight on c3 and the pawn on f3 both exist only to support this push.  After black allowed the queenside expansion with a3, b4, and c5 (white is clearly better after this expansion, black should even consider sacing the knight with &lt;code&gt;...Nxc5&lt;/code&gt; to prevent the dark square domination), white should try to play e4 at all costs.  &lt;code&gt;19. Bxe7!&lt;/code&gt; allows e4 to be played after a preparatory &lt;code&gt;20. O-O&lt;/code&gt;.  As you correctly point out, in the game continuation, &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; instead of &lt;code&gt;Qf2&lt;/code&gt; would again allow white a large edge, but black has better with &lt;code&gt;19... f5&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;19... Nxg3&lt;/code&gt;, both working to prevent e4.  (Consider for example &lt;code&gt;19... Nxg3 20. hxg3 h6 21. e4 b6!&lt;/code&gt; when black's queenside play gives him sufficient compensation for white's center)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At any rate, your analysis is very good, and you did a good job finding most of the key moments for both colors.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is too bad that the game ended when it did as white would have had a nice edge, but trying to convert the endgame would have been highly instructive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Result &amp;quot;*&amp;quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &amp;quot;71&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 Bb4 4. f3 d5 5. Qb3 (5. a3 Bxc3+ (5... Be7 6. e4) 6.&#xA;bxc3 O-O 7. cxd5 exd5 8. e3 c5 9. Bd3 b6 10. Ne2 Ba6 11. O-O Bxd3 12. Qxd3 $13)&#xA;5... Be7 (5... c5 $1 6. a3 (6. dxc5 Nc6 7. cxd5 Nxd5 8. e4 Nxc3 9. bxc3 Bxc5&#xA;10. Ba3 Qh4+ 11. g3 Qe7 12. Bxc5 Qxc5 13. Rd1 O-O) 6... Ba5 7. cxd5 cxd4 8.&#xA;Qa4+ Bd7 9. Qxd4 exd5 10. b4 Bb6 $17) 6. Nh3 O-O 7. Bg5 c6 (7... dxc4 $5 8.&#xA;Qxc4 Nc6 9. Rd1 Nd5 10. Bxe7 Ncxe7 11. Kf2 Nxc3 12. bxc3 e5 13. e4) (7... c5 $1&#xA;8. dxc5 (8. cxd5 cxd4) 8... d4) 8. Nf2 Na6 9. e3 Re8 10. a3 Qa5 11. Bh4 c5 12.&#xA;dxc5 Nxc5 13. Qc2 Qb6 14. b4 Ncd7 15. c5 Qd8 16. Rd1 a5 17. Bb5 axb4 18. axb4&#xA;Nh5 19. Bg3 (19. Bxe7 $1 Rxe7 20. O-O Nhf6 21. e4) 19... Bg5 (19... Nxg3 20.&#xA;hxg3 h6 21. e4 b6 22. O-O (22. cxb6) (22. exd5 exd5 23. O-O bxc5 24. Nxd5 Bf8)&#xA;22... bxc5 23. bxc5) 20. Qe2 Qf6 21. Nb1 Nxg3 22. hxg3 Qe7 23. f4 Bf6 24. Qh5&#xA;h6 25. g4 g6 26. Qxh6 Bg7 27. Qh7+ Kf8 28. g5 e5 29. Nc3 exf4 30. Nxd5 Qxg5 31.&#xA;O-O f3 32. Qh2 Be5 33. Qh3 Qxg2+ 34. Qxg2 fxg2 35. Kxg2 Kg7 36. Ng4 *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12" LastEditorUserId="9025" LastEditDate="2020-08-16T16:36:35.947" LastActivityDate="2020-08-16T16:36:35.947" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2072" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2054" CreationDate="2013-02-24T12:03:43.020" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;When you get right down to it, white &lt;em&gt;must&lt;/em&gt; move the d pawn sooner or later.  It can either go to d4 (characteristic of the Open Sicilian) or it can go to d3 (characteristic of the Closed Sicilian).  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With that said, on d3, the pawn blocks white's light squared bishop so white must make other arrangements in order to castle kingside.  There are two main ways that this can be done - either white can move the bishop to c4 or b5 before moving the d pawn, or white can fianchetto the bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So to bring this answer back to the specific question, white has a few concrete options that avoid d4:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Rossolimo/Moscow (&lt;code&gt;3. Bb5&lt;/code&gt; vs &lt;code&gt;2... Nc6&lt;/code&gt; / &lt;code&gt;2... d6&lt;/code&gt; respectively)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Grand Prix Attack (&lt;code&gt;1. e4 c5 2. Nc3 Nc6 3. f4 g6 4. Nf3 Bg7&lt;/code&gt; and either &lt;code&gt;5. Bc4&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;5. Bb5&lt;/code&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Closed Sicilian (&lt;code&gt;1. e4 c5 2. Nc3 Nc6 3. g3 g6 4. Bg2 Bg7 5. d3 d6&lt;/code&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Surprisingly, almost every other Sicilian variation for white either involves white playing an early d4, or is very similar to one of the above.  For example, the King's Indian Attack is really a variation of the Closed Sicilian (alternatively, the Closed Sicilian can be considered a variation of the KIA...).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, the Wing Gambit merely defers d4, as does the Alapin.  While white can always choose to omit d4 (&lt;code&gt;2. Qh5?!&lt;/code&gt; would be an extreme example), these are generally considered dubious sidelines played at white's own peril.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12" LastActivityDate="2013-02-24T12:03:43.020" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2073" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="593" CreationDate="2013-02-24T21:15:21.697" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I learned how to play chess by reading Chernev's books; some of his books were meant for beginner-casual players anyway. I think people like Nunn take things too seriously at times, he should chill out! Chernev's books have great instruction, and are very easy to read, while Nunn's books can be too difficult for the average player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1073" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2013-02-25T19:10:49.410" LastActivityDate="2013-02-25T19:10:49.410" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2074" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2078" CreationDate="2013-02-27T23:31:45.770" Score="5" ViewCount="4197" Body="&lt;p&gt;We know that 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 f6 is a disaster for Black (Damiano Opening).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But White has an extra move. Can he therefore play 1. e4 e5 2. f3 ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If Black replies 2... Nf6, White has 3. Ne2 (followed eventually by Ng3). That seems to stave off the immediate problem of the Damiano Opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So does the extra move give White enough leeway to play like this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastEditorUserId="18475" LastEditDate="2020-02-17T14:54:12.167" LastActivityDate="2020-02-17T14:54:12.167" Title="Can White play e4 followed by f3?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;1.e4&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2075" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2074" CreationDate="2013-02-28T00:34:35.183" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;That's ECO C20, the King's Head opening.  It does not appear in my masters' database.  It appears at the amateur level with Black winning about 80% of the time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would say no, it is not a preferred opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2013-02-28T00:34:35.183" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2076" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2074" CreationDate="2013-02-28T03:12:35.393" Score="16" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;2.f3&lt;/code&gt; looks like a terrible move. It wastes a tempo by not developing a piece; it takes &lt;code&gt;f3&lt;/code&gt; square away from the knight, and it weakens &lt;code&gt;a7-g1&lt;/code&gt; diagonal, while achieving absolutely nothing. I think that after any normal move (&lt;code&gt;2...d5&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;2...Nc6&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;2...Nf6&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;2...Bc5&lt;/code&gt;) black has the edge.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While I don't see any reason to give up the advantage so early, I don't think white is lost (just slightly worse), so white can play it if they want to.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also think that &lt;code&gt;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 f6&lt;/code&gt; leads to a &quot;disaster&quot; is an overstatement. &lt;code&gt;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 f6 3.Nxe5 fxe5??&lt;/code&gt; does lead to a disaster; however, black can play &lt;code&gt;3...Qe7&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="307" LastActivityDate="2013-02-28T03:12:35.393" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2078" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2074" CreationDate="2013-03-01T07:18:09.860" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The only thing 2. f3 can possibly achieve (for its many obvious downsides, as pointed above) is that it supports e4 right away. &lt;strong&gt;If&lt;/strong&gt; that's the reason why you would consider playing it, then play 2.Nc3 instead. Even 2.d3 is playable and can transpose into many Ruy Lopez systems or the English opening. Here's a somewhat related post, where an early f3 is playable, as it allows white to get a stronghold on the center: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/1820/early-f3-in-d4-openings&quot;&gt;Early f3 in d4 openings?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="885" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.193" LastActivityDate="2013-03-01T07:18:09.860" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2079" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2074" CreationDate="2013-03-01T11:50:50.530" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why would you want to even play f3? You're white, you don't need to defend at the beginning of the game and E4 doesn't need any help at this point as nothing is attacking it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only time I can see f3 being viable so early is if you allow black to take the pawn on e4 thereby offering a sacrifice of a pawn in exchange for development of the knight. However this is more common on d4 and c3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1081" LastActivityDate="2013-03-01T11:50:50.530" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2080" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2081" CreationDate="2013-03-01T13:29:44.443" Score="14" ViewCount="1002" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been playing a lot against an old build of Chess Free on Android the other day and noted that the AI almost always chooses the safest course of play, boringly eeking out positional advantages. If you play at its pace and react to it your games are dull. However I've got a feeling that if I play this type of game but avoid exchanges I can fashion opportunities via a series of sacrifices and exchanges that it seemingly hasn't considered. I'm guessing the computational cut-off (60 seconds in this case) prevents the AI from considering these sacrifices once the complexity of all pieces being developed arises.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there any other ways of abusing the fact that most chess AI's just brute force and typically go with the &quot;safest&quot; line? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1081" LastActivityDate="2013-03-06T20:43:13.450" Title="Any tricks to defeat artificial intelligences?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2081" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2080" CreationDate="2013-03-01T14:23:08.380" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Five ideas in my head to win against AI's chess:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;trying to play unusual openings&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;better knowing theory than AI for several openings&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;trying to play avant-gardist positions (sacrifices and planning move in advance)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;analyzing games of AI to determine the way it plays&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;trying to know how AI has been programmed&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You have tips &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.becomeawordgameexpert.com/computers.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; and interesting information &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=1298&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;there&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="813" LastEditorUserId="813" LastEditDate="2013-03-06T20:43:13.450" LastActivityDate="2013-03-06T20:43:13.450" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2082" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2086" CreationDate="2013-03-01T15:14:16.880" Score="7" ViewCount="590" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm at the point I'd like to throw my hat in the ring and see what happens. What is the most basic and affordable tournament I should be looking at that still counts for a rating? Would that be FIDE? USCF? Something else? Do I have to do one of those very expensive multiple day competitions or are there cheaper one day events that still come with official ratings?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="863" LastActivityDate="2017-02-26T16:19:24.667" Title="What type of tournament is needed to get a true chess rating?" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;fide&gt;&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;uscf&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2083" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2080" CreationDate="2013-03-01T16:33:16.203" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The computer is very good with tactics and bad with strategy. There is little change to outsmart a computer in tactics. So try&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;closed strategic positions&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;exchange queens early&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;seek the end game&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="363" LastActivityDate="2013-03-01T16:33:16.203" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2084" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-03-01T20:26:50.307" Score="6" ViewCount="1666" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was taking a look at the game between Viswanathan Anand and Vladimir Kramnik in the 2013 Zurich Chess Challenge which can be found here: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1711735&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1711735&lt;/a&gt;.  A few things sparked my interest, one being that I have been practicing the Ruy Lopez, so it was nice to see it played and to put it nicely, Kramnik got spanked, so I was trying to do some analysis on my own, but I am not sure that my analysis is correct and there were some moves that were not immediately clear to me.  Here is the complete game with my analysis questions below:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Viswanathan Anand&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Vladimir Kramnik&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 Nf6 4. d3 Bc5 5. Bxc6 dxc6 6. Nbd2 O-O 7. O-O Re8 &#xA; 8. Nc4 Nd7 9. Kh1 a5 10. a4 b6 11. Be3 Bb4 12. Nfd2 b5 13. axb5 cxb5 14. c3 bxc4 &#xA;15. cxb4 cxd3 16. bxa5 Ba6 17. Qb3 Nf6 18. h3 Nh5 19. Rfc1 Nf4 20. Rc6 Ne2 21. Qd5 Qb8    &#xA;22. Rxa6 Rxa6 23. Qxd3 Qxb2 24. Rb1 Rd6 25. Qxe2 Qa2 26. Qb5 c6 27. Qb2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Why was &lt;code&gt;5.Bxc6&lt;/code&gt; played?  Was the c6 Knight strong at this point&#xA;and would this be an even trade?  Basically, why did Anand&#xA;trade his light-squared Bishop?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I always hear that you should capture toward the center, so was&#xA;there a reason why Kramnik played &lt;code&gt;5..dxc6&lt;/code&gt; instead of &lt;code&gt;5...bxc6&lt;/code&gt;?&#xA;I know &lt;code&gt;5...dxc6&lt;/code&gt; opens up the file for the black Queen, but that&#xA;is all I see.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is the point of &lt;code&gt;6. Nbd2&lt;/code&gt; to develop a piece and to add another&#xA;defender to the e4 square?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;On move 9, Anand played &lt;code&gt;9. Kh1&lt;/code&gt;, but I did not see his King in&#xA;immediate danger. I only saw that his f2 pawn was pinned by the&#xA;bishop, so is it common practice to move your King away from pins&#xA;or similar situations even if they are not in immediate danger?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I don't see the point of &lt;code&gt;9...a5&lt;/code&gt;. I see that it prevents &lt;code&gt;10. b4&lt;/code&gt;. &#xA;Anand followed up with &lt;code&gt;10. a4&lt;/code&gt; and I see this prevents &lt;code&gt;10...b5&lt;/code&gt;,&#xA;but couldn't have Kramnik just played &lt;code&gt;9...b5&lt;/code&gt; initially?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Apparently Anand sees his dark squared bishop not as strong and&#xA;wants to trade it with Kramnik's dark-squared bishop with the move&#xA;&lt;code&gt;11. Be3&lt;/code&gt;, but Kramnik wants no part of this and rejects the trade&#xA;with &lt;code&gt;11...Bb4&lt;/code&gt;.  Can someone elaborate on why Anand wants to&#xA;trade bishops here and if it was good or bad for Kramnik to&#xA;reject the trade?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I don't get the move &lt;code&gt;12. Nfd2&lt;/code&gt; except that it adds a defender to&#xA;c4 and e4?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;22. Rxa6&lt;/code&gt; surprised me as a beginner. To me it looks like Anand is&#xA;just giving away his Rook for a Bishop?  The only thing I see is&#xA;that if Kramnik captures which I believe he did with &lt;code&gt;22...Rxa6&lt;/code&gt;, it&#xA;removes the guard of the d3 pawn allowing Anand to make a skewer&#xA;(is that what this is called?) with &lt;code&gt;23. Qxd3&lt;/code&gt;. Was my analysis&#xA;correct?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;26. Qb5&lt;/code&gt; threatens mate, but Kramnik stops this with &lt;code&gt;c6&lt;/code&gt;. Anand&#xA;follows up with &lt;code&gt;27. Qb2&lt;/code&gt; and Kramnik resigned, but it is not&#xA;immediately apparent to me why he resigned?  It still looks like it&#xA;could have been a draw if Kramnik decided to fight it out. What is&#xA;the continuation that I am not seeing?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Disclaimer:  I am a beginner and all answers on this are very much appreciated, so my analysis might not be correct, hence my reason for asking. In particular, my last question about why Kramnik resigned is one that may be apparent to some, but to beginner's it is not, so an answer such as &quot;Black knew he was losing&quot; is not sufficient.  I only mention this because I have asked a similar question before and that is the response I got.  All I am asking for on the last question is a possible continuation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-04-17T19:13:44.107" LastActivityDate="2017-04-17T19:13:44.107" Title="Analysis of Viswanathan Anand vs Vladimir Kramnik in the 2013 Zurich Chess Challenge?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;anand&gt;&lt;kramnik&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2085" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2084" CreationDate="2013-03-01T22:21:19.747" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm no pro but I can offer my (potentially incorrect) thoughts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I always hear that you should capture toward the center, so was there&#xA;  a reason why Kramnik played 5..dxc6 instead of 5...bxc6? I know&#xA;  5...dxc6 opens up the file for the black Queen, but that is all I see.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black gains development of both the queen AND the bishop. It's a free tempi which is important in the early game. I personally choose that much more often than taking with the Knight's pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is the point of 6. Nbd2 to develop a piece and to add another defender&#xA;  to the e4 square?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Doubt it for e4 nothings bugging that square for a while. I think he wanted to attack e5 or just develop the knight in a fashion where the black bishop couldn't exchange for it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Apparently Anand sees his dark squared bishop not as strong and wants&#xA;  to trade it withKramnik's dark-squared bishop with the move 11. Be3,&#xA;  but Kramnik wants no part of this and rejects the trade with 11...Bb4.&#xA;  Can someone elaborate on why Anand wants to trade bishops here and if&#xA;  it was good or bad for Kramnik to reject the trade?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can provide two reasons. If Kramnik takes then white gets to open the file for the rook and has an extra pawn to cover the center. If Kramnik allows Anand to take he has a triple pawn stack. He doesn't like either scenario so flees.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I don't get the move 12. Nfd2 except that it adds a defender to c4 and e4?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Blocks the bishop pressure on D1, allows white to pressure king side threatening the development of the King's Bishop pawn (which possibly explains the king move as well if he was intending to do that for a while) and the queen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Rxa6 surprised me as a beginner.... Was my analysis correct?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think so. I'm thinking its the game winning move. It's a fork btw. A skewer is like a pin but the piece of greater value is the first attacked in the line.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The resignation might be to do with his lack of options for dealing with the A pawn. He can't immediately take it due to the potential fork by the knight and white has options to both push and defend it. The only long term solution is to blockade it with one of his pieces and all his pieces are expensive. A blockade would then leave him with a queen and a rook against a queen a rook and either a bishop or a knight on the rest of the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1081" LastEditorUserId="1081" LastEditDate="2013-03-02T03:15:51.607" LastActivityDate="2013-03-02T03:15:51.607" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2086" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2082" CreationDate="2013-03-02T00:11:39.590" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;A &quot;real&quot; rating is gained by joining the USCF and playing rated tournaments.  You can get a rating from any USCF sanctioned tournament.  They don't have to be all-weekend tournamants; I've played in several G30 tournaments that had 3 rounds in one evening.  In addition, you and an opponent can play a rated match if a USCF tournament director approves it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also get a (non-USCF) rating by playing on one of any number of internet sites.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT - here are some clubs in Orlando.  I recommend you join one and mingle.  The first one here has USCF tournaments...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ORLANDO FL 32810 FL. CENTRAL FLORIDA CHESS CLUB (USCF ID A6007091). Affiliate Type: Club. Call for information. Call for information, ORLANDO FL 32810. Contact: HARVEY LERMAN. Contact Phone: 407-644-3542. Club Phone: 407-629-6946. Address: C/O HARVEY LERMAN, 921 N THISTLE LANE, MAITLAND, FL, 32751-3736. email: harveylerman@embarqmail.com. Web Site: www.centralflchess.org, Club Membership Not Required, Casual Play, USCF Rated Events, Blitz Events, Club Championships, Private Lessons Offered, Under Age 18 Welcome, Prison chess support. (Crosstables from past rated tourneys for this affiliate)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ORLANDO FL. ORLANDO CHESS &amp;amp; GAMES CENTER (USCF ID A6018039). Affiliate Type: Club. 10AM-10PM MON-SUN. 8853 COMMIDITY CIRCLE, ORLANDO FL 32819, ORLANDO. Contact: ALEX ZELNER. Contact Phone: 407-248-0818. email: alex@orlandochess.com. (Crosstables from past rated tourneys for this affiliate)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.uschess.org/component/option,com_wrapper/Itemid,198/&quot;&gt;from this page&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2013-03-02T03:44:28.853" LastActivityDate="2013-03-02T03:44:28.853" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2087" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2080" CreationDate="2013-03-02T14:18:23.150" Score="3" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Playing an unusual opening can reduce the depth of the searches made by the computer in the middle and end game in a timed match.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If you avoid exchanging off pieces unnecessarily then the computer has to do larger searches which will be to a shorter depth.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Think about sacrifices that might benefit you if the computer accepts them and doesn't search that branch far enough to see what your plan really is. Be careful with this though as some computers will continue to search all branches.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Against better computers, the computer will be using your move time to think about it's reply so the longer you take to decide on your move then the longer the computer has had to calculate the best reply.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Unless your end game is excellent, avoid end games whenever possible as Chess computers can do extremely large searches in the end game.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Avoid repetition of moves as this allows computers which use transition tables to save a lot of time as they can move instantly when they already have the position and best moves to play stored in a transition table.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Found here: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.becomeawordgameexpert.com/computers.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.becomeawordgameexpert.com/computers.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1084" LastActivityDate="2013-03-02T14:18:23.150" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2088" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2089" CreationDate="2013-03-02T19:46:10.363" Score="11" ViewCount="2198" Body="&lt;p&gt;Consider a weak chess player who has just learned how the pieces move and who will lose to a Scholar's Mate. (We can say that he's male and call him &quot;Mr. Newcomer&quot;.) Let's define Mr. Newcomer's &lt;em&gt;level&lt;/em&gt; to be 0. Moreover, let's say that player A is &lt;em&gt;a level above&lt;/em&gt; player B if A's expected score against B is 0.9 (for example, 9 wins and 1 losses in 10 games). Given these definitions, at which level would you find a player like Magnus Carlsen (who is currently the player with the rightest rating in the world)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have a feeling that you can give a quite exact answer to this question if you know Carlsen's rating (which is 2872 at the time of writng) and Mr. Newcomer's rating, and if understand the rating system better than I do...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The choice of 0.9 in the above definition of a &quot;level&quot; is pretty arbitrary; if you think a number like 0.8 or 0.7 makes more sense, just pick that number instead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1085" LastActivityDate="2013-03-02T21:52:16.673" Title="The number of levels in chess" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2089" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2088" CreationDate="2013-03-02T21:52:16.673" Score="17" Body="&lt;p&gt;The rating system already kind of allows you to calculate this since you can convert any rating difference into an expected score using the formula: expected = 1/(1 + 10^(diff/400)) so a rating difference of 382 points should give you the .9 expected score.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore Magnus Carlsen at 2872 should score 90%  (which could be 9 wins and one loss out of 10 games or 8 wins and 2 draws) against a player rated 2490.  and that 2490 player should score the same against a player rated 2108 and so on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So you could keep subtracting 382 from Carlsen's rating until you got to a rating of about 100 which is probably what the worst chess player could be.  if you subtract 7 times you get down to 198, so I guess you could say Carlsen is 7 of your levels above the weakes beginner.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now a rating difference of 200 translates to about a .75 expected score  and that happens to be the rating difference that the USCF uses for different classes.  For example: Master = 2200 - 2399 /&#xA;Expert = 2000 - 2199 /&#xA;Class A =  1800 -1999 /&#xA;Class B - 1600 - 1799 /&#xA;Class c - 1400 - 1599 etc..&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so you can kind of think of each class as a &quot;level&quot; like you describe where the middle of each class has about a .75 expected score against the middle of the next lower class. So you could say that using that criteria, Carlsen is about 14 &quot;levels&quot; or class above the weakest player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1036" LastActivityDate="2013-03-02T21:52:16.673" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2091" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2094" CreationDate="2013-03-06T18:57:56.820" Score="6" ViewCount="2276" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the most beautiful checkmate you've ever seen in high-level play? The beauty might be caused by one of the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;A brilliant setup (the couple moves preceding the mate were brilliant)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Totally unexpected/against the odds (for example, the other opponnent was up a lot of material)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Swiftness (of course no fool's mate or such)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;etc.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1009" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-12-15T00:06:56.310" LastActivityDate="2020-12-15T00:06:56.310" Title="Most beautiful checkmates?" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;famous-games&gt;&lt;famous-moves&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ClosedDate="2013-03-06T22:09:02.027" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2092" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-03-06T21:13:44.803" Score="8" ViewCount="153" Body="&lt;p&gt;Will the candidates tournament 2013 (average of about &lt;strong&gt;2785&lt;/strong&gt;) be the first &lt;code&gt;Category 22&lt;/code&gt; event? If not can some one share the list of previous category 22 tournaments?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Reference:&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ELO_rating_system#FIDE_tournament_categories&quot;&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ELO_rating_system#FIDE_tournament_categories&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="118" LastActivityDate="2013-03-06T22:03:51.093" Title="Category Events" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2093" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2091" CreationDate="2013-03-06T21:29:28.920" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't really see too many high level games that end in checkmate, especially beautiful checkmates, but this game is one of my personal favorites, although White resigned:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;Lev Polugaevsky vs Rashid Gibiatovich Nezhmetdinov&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;Sochi 28th RSFSR ch 1958  ·  Old Indian Defense: Ukrainian Variation (A54)  ·  0-1&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 d6 3. Nc3 e5 4. e4 exd4 5. Qxd4 Nc6 6. Qd2 g6 7. b3 Bg7 8. Bb2 O-O 9. Bd3 Ng4 10. Nge2 Qh4 11. Ng3 Nge5 12. O-O f5 13. f3 Bh6 14. Qd1 f4 15. Nge2 g5 16. Nd5 g4 17. g3 fxg3 18. hxg3 Qh3 19. f4 Be6 20. Bc2 Rf7 21. Kf2 Qh2 22. Ke3 Bxd5 23. cxd5 Nb4 24. Rh1 Rxf4 25. Rxh2 Rf3 26. Kd4 Bg7 27. a4 c5 28. dxc6 bxc6 29. Bd3 Nexd3 30. Kc4 d5 31. exd5 cxd5 32. Kb5 Rb8 33. Ka5 Nc6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastActivityDate="2013-03-06T21:29:28.920" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2094" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2091" CreationDate="2013-03-06T21:34:48.040" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Check the list of &lt;em&gt;Immortal&lt;/em&gt; games listed here :&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chesscollection?cid=1000589&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chesscollection?cid=1000589&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Especially enjoyed Paul Morphy vs Duke Karl : &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1233404&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1233404&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and Lev Polugaevsky vs Rashid Gibiatovich Nezhmetdinov (this is simply stunning): &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1111459&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1111459&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="118" LastActivityDate="2013-03-06T21:34:48.040" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2095" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2092" CreationDate="2013-03-06T22:03:51.093" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;Bilbao Masters in 2008 was a category 22 event&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastActivityDate="2013-03-06T22:03:51.093" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2096" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-03-07T01:04:34.770" Score="3" ViewCount="454" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was watching the following video on the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AaAfzXbWMJw&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Ruy Lopez (Spanish Game) - Variations with 3...a6&lt;/a&gt;. The video is almost 1.5 hours and it pretty much goes through all variations with 3...a6.&#xA;As I was going through the video, I got lost and frustrated because it seemed to much to take in and I was trying to plug in all the possibilities into Chess Position Trainer.  So this got me thinking, is it necessary to learn all these variations that go beyond the opening and by beyond the opening I mean once you get past &lt;code&gt;Bb5&lt;/code&gt; in this particular case?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, in the video, they went over the deferred Steinitz defense:&#xA;&lt;code&gt;1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 Bb5 a6 4 Ba4 Nf6 5 O-O d6&lt;/code&gt; which was enough for me, but then they continued with white's most popular replies on move 6 and continued with black and I didn't know where to stop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastEditorUserId="109" LastEditDate="2013-03-07T04:06:13.513" LastActivityDate="2015-07-23T13:56:07.170" Title="Studying beyond the opening?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;learning&gt;&lt;ruy-lopez&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2097" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2099" CreationDate="2013-03-07T01:42:20.860" Score="19" ViewCount="8024" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've heard the term Tabiya used online though I've never really run into it in any chess book I've read.  I have an idea of what the term means but I'm not sure I'm correct, so first I'll say what I think it means and someone can clarify or correct me if I'm wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I believe the term tabiya refers to a position that arises in an opening after a sequence of more or less standard moves from which there are multiple continuations.  That more or less I've gathered from seeing it defined online, but I believe there is a little more nuance in that the multiple possible continuations should represent distinctly different possible plans rather than just slightly different ways of trying to achieve the same plan.  So if anyone can tell me if that's correct, I'd appreciate that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So then if that's correct, the real question is, if this is an important concept, why don't I see it mentioned much in chess literature?  Is it just because it's an obscure term and an author would probably just say something like, &quot;From this point, White has a number of possible plans...?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1036" LastEditorUserId="3757" LastEditDate="2014-09-28T21:58:34.880" LastActivityDate="2014-12-01T19:22:19.830" Title="What is a tabiya and what is their importance?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;terminology&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2098" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2097" CreationDate="2013-03-07T04:25:10.103" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe your understanding is correct. I will paraphrase Dan Heisman in one of his videos on the ICC:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The word &lt;code&gt;Tabiya&lt;/code&gt; means standard opening moves. These are moves that are usually made very quickly in an opening before it starts to branch out into side variations.  A &lt;code&gt;Tabiya&lt;/code&gt; varies from opening to opening and how far it goes varies.  For example, the &lt;code&gt;Marshall Attack Tabiya&lt;/code&gt; goes 17 moves and the &lt;code&gt;Closed Ruy Lopez&lt;/code&gt; goes 8.5 moves (9 for White, 8 for Black) and at this point Black has many different choices for his 9th move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't think you hear it too much because it is general consensus that it is better to learn opening principles rather than specific openings.  Opening principles apply to any opening rather than a specific opening.  The primary reason is that no matter how much you study openings, you are going to run up against someone who plays rare, bad, or side variations that you didn't study and this will cause you to panic.  If you are taken out of your opening knowledge, you have to not panic and play the opening principles.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Speed chess is usually a good way to learn &lt;code&gt;Tabiya's&lt;/code&gt;.  After you play them, go over your moves and see what moves you would play differently in maybe a slow game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastActivityDate="2013-03-07T04:25:10.103" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2099" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2097" CreationDate="2013-03-07T06:29:50.780" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;A tabiya is a main starting position for a given opening.  It is several moves into the game, after the opening has been determined - usually development is more or less complete.  Many games will reach the exact position that is labeled a tabiya, but there will be multiple options for a continuation from the tabiya.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are striving to understand an opening, all of the various plans from a tabiya must be considered.  A tabiya is sometimes important because the concrete factors that will guide both players have already been established, so it is the first chance for the players to put their own spin on a game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Take the Botvinnik Variation in the Semi-Slav - the first tabiya is 14 moves deep.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. c4 c6 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. Nc3 e6 5. Bg5 dxc4 6. e4 b5 7. e5 h6 8. Bh4 g5&#xA;9. Nxg5 hxg5 10. Bxg5 Nbd7 11. g3 Bb7 12. Bg2 Qb6 13. exf6 O-O-O 14. O-O *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From this position, black can choose a number of plans (the most common starts with &lt;code&gt;14... c5 15. d5 b4&lt;/code&gt;).  If you plan to play this variation for either color, the position at the end of these 14 moves is where the analysis really starts.  To be sure, there are move order tricks and alternative moves for both colors on the way to the tabiya, but this is a very common position and the effort to reach this position for a professional player is almost negligible.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The term is not used all that frequently.  The most common case would probably be an opening book/published opening analysis that wanted to draw your attention to a few key positions that are instructive and require specific knowledge if they arise in a game situation.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12" LastActivityDate="2013-03-07T06:29:50.780" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2100" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2097" CreationDate="2013-03-07T08:35:11.177" Score="21" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;Tabiya&quot; is a word that came from Sanskrit and passed into Old Persian, and then to our languages. It means &quot;battle array&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The ancestors of chess, shatranj e chaturanga, had pieces with very slow movement (for example, our &quot;Queen&quot;, at that time called General or Advisor, could move only one square diagonally). For this reason, the opening phase of a game could be very boring, since each player had to develop pieces without really attacking the opponent. The &quot;real&quot; game started only when both players had pieces &quot;close enough&quot; to begin the battle. This &quot;close enough&quot; situation was called &lt;code&gt;tabiya&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;During the centuries, some variants of the game evolved in different ways. One lead to the &quot;chess&quot; we know nowadays. Another lead to some variants of Thai Chess, for example, where players use pieces with very slow movement like the original ones, but start playing directly from some well defined tabiyas and not from a standard &quot;starting position&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="279" LastActivityDate="2013-03-07T08:35:11.177" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2101" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2096" CreationDate="2013-03-07T18:02:37.437" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;An &quot;easy&quot; answer is to study the opening until it starts to &quot;branch.&quot; In your Ruy Lopez example, the moves up to 5. O-O are pretty standard. The &quot;branching&quot; begins with Black's fifth move. Some of the main lines for Black include 5... d6 (your Steinitz defenese), 5... Nxe4, an aggressive variation, and 5... Be7, which is more conservative, because the B blocks the e file and allows castling.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2013-03-07T18:02:37.437" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2102" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2096" CreationDate="2013-03-07T20:07:47.347" Score="7" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;is it necessary to learn all these variations that go beyond the&#xA;  opening?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would say no it is not necessary to focus on the opening that much until you are playing chess at a very high level. If you are a beginner the best advice would be to dedicate most of your study time to middlegame tactics and strategy, as well as some basic endgames. Here is a quote of Capablanca on the matter &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I have very often met players who know the openings by heart; that is&#xA;  to say, they have learned from some book or other and they think they&#xA;  know them very well. And indeed they do know them very well by heart,&#xA;  but nothing more. They do not understand the objectives behind the&#xA;  openings and therefore do not know what advantage has to be taken of&#xA;  them, and it often thus happens that they lose. And they lose because&#xA;  they have studied the openings badly without learning them or because&#xA;  they have not studied them in depth. It is clear that this can happen&#xA;  to anyone, but it is more likely to happen to someone who studies only&#xA;  the openings than to someone who dedicates himself to study of the two&#xA;  other phases.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The quote is from a lecture you can read &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/extra/capablanca10.html&quot;&gt;online&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ps. You will probably also benefit by studying the games of the masters... for example, by using a book as Irving Chernev's Logical Chess... Good luck!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="791" LastActivityDate="2013-03-07T20:07:47.347" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2103" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2096" CreationDate="2013-03-09T10:48:23.353" Score="4" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;is it necessary to learn all these variations that go beyond the opening and by beyond the opening I mean once you get past Bb5 in this particular case?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Only you decide what is necessary, you learn what you want to learn. But we can give some general advice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, don't spend too much time on openings. Knowing a lot about them makes you feel like a grandmaster during the start of the game, but hardly improves your results. As a guideline, spend less than 10% of your studying time on openings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I assume that the position after 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 is one you see regularly, and that you have decided you want to play the Ruy Lopez (3.Bb5) in that position. The first goal of your study should be -- &lt;em&gt;why?&lt;/em&gt; What's so great about that move? You should be able to put into words what White is trying to achieve, and also have some idea of how Black is trying to react to those ideas with his various replies.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then, you start playing it. The usual advice applies: play slow, serious games against opponents of your own strength or somewhat stronger. In the opening, keep the goals of the Ruy Lopez as you understand in mind, but definitely also the main principles of any opening: try to get all your pieces into play, to get your king to safety and to prevent him doing the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After the game, you look at it and see what happened. Let's say that black decided to strengthen e5 by playing the delayed Steinitz, 3...a6 4.Ba4 d6. You thought hard and played a game of chess. Now is the time to look up what theory says. Does the book/DVD/whatever recommend the same move you played? If not, can you figure out why theirs is better? Again, try to understand the whys behind the moves, tactical points, et cetera. Next time you play this line, you'll understand it a bit better!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you played something that the book didn't mention, but it still seems good to you, I recommend that you keep playing it. Maybe ask a stronger player about it some time to get his opinion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And so on, for the rest of your chess playing :-)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2013-03-09T10:48:23.353" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2104" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2105" CreationDate="2013-03-11T13:14:05.020" Score="13" ViewCount="1295" Body="&lt;p&gt;I heard from a friend of mine that Magnus Carlsen did not play the Candidate Matches in 2011. Why did he do that?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="482" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-03-01T15:25:27.633" LastActivityDate="2014-11-25T16:12:57.673" Title="Why did Magnus Carlsen drop out of World Championship in 2011?" Tags="&lt;history&gt;&lt;world-championship&gt;&lt;carlsen&gt;&lt;famous-players&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2105" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2104" CreationDate="2013-03-11T13:25:56.193" Score="17" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.chessbase.com/post/magnus-carlsen-drops-out-of-world-championship-cycle&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Magnus Carlsen drops out of World Championship cycle&lt;/a&gt; (contemporaneous chessbase.com article)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Largely he didn't like the format (knockout matches rather than round-robin tournament).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Carlsen wrote a letter to FIDE explaining why he skipped the Candidates Matches, quoted in part below:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;After careful consideration I’ve reached the conclusion that the&#xA;  ongoing 2008–2012 cycle does not represent a system, sufficiently&#xA;  modern and fair, to provide the motivation I need to go through a&#xA;  lengthy process of preparations and matches and to perform at my best.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Reigning champion privileges, the long (five year) span of the cycle,&#xA;  changes made during the cycle resulting in a new format (Candidates)&#xA;  that no World Champion has had to go through since Kasparov, puzzling&#xA;  ranking criteria as well as the shallow ceaseless match-after-match&#xA;  concept are all less than satisfactory in my opinion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In my opinion privileges should in general be abolished and a future&#xA;  World Championship model should be based on a fair fight between the&#xA;  best players in the World, on equal terms. This should apply also to&#xA;  the winner of the previous World Championship, and especially so when&#xA;  there are several players at approximately the same level in the world&#xA;  elite. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;One possibility for future cycles would be to stage an 8-10 player&#xA;  World Championship tournament similar to the 2005 and 2007 events.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastEditorUserId="12" LastEditDate="2014-11-25T16:12:57.673" LastActivityDate="2014-11-25T16:12:57.673" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2106" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-03-11T15:17:20.737" Score="2" ViewCount="4805" Body="&lt;p&gt;What are the middle game principles? I have already seen numerous principles regarding the opening and ending, but not the middle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastActivityDate="2013-03-12T21:34:30.137" Title="What are the middle game principles?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;middlegame&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2107" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2110" CreationDate="2013-03-11T15:26:12.180" Score="4" ViewCount="645" Body="&lt;p&gt;What exactly is a backward pawn?  Is it a pawn that can't be defended by its own pawns or if other pieces can defend it, is it still considered backwards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As an example, in the following is &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt; backwards`.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 d6 4. d4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, if a pawn is backwards if it can't be defended by its neighboring pawns, then doesn't this mean that every pawn starts off as backwards in the initial position of the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastActivityDate="2013-03-25T16:22:41.777" Title="Is a pawn still backward if other pieces can defend it?" Tags="&lt;pawns&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2108" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2140" CreationDate="2013-03-11T16:20:39.247" Score="14" ViewCount="5269" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. Nxe5 d6 4. Nxf7 ?!&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm pretty sure the Cochrane Gambit isn't correct. However, I find it difficult to defend against, as some &quot;natural&quot; moves don't seem to work. Can you give some advice how to deal with it? Further, I guess it might be a surprise weapon in a blitz game, so have some of you tried it out? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="35" LastEditorUserId="18475" LastEditDate="2019-04-04T11:01:06.420" LastActivityDate="2019-04-04T11:01:06.420" Title="How to deal with the Cochrane Gambit" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;gambits&gt;&lt;cochrane-gambit&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2109" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="442" CreationDate="2013-03-11T19:26:26.777" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I taught my younger sister at 4. Partly because she was extremely good at adult-type jigsaw puzzles, I was sure her pattern recognition capabilities were up to it, and her ability to be still and concentrate for a reasonable amount of time. I would look for that sort of sign of readiness.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="921" LastActivityDate="2013-03-11T19:26:26.777" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2110" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2107" CreationDate="2013-03-11T19:31:14.397" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to Wikipedia:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;&lt;em&gt;...it is a pawn that is behind a pawn of the same colour on an adjacent file and that cannot be advanced without loss of material, usually the backward pawn itself. In the diagram, the black pawn on the c6-square is backward.&lt;/em&gt;&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qntJR.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;&lt;em&gt;Pieces can become weak when they are devoted to protecting a backward pawn, since their obligation to defend the pawn keeps them from being deployed for other uses.&lt;/em&gt;&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So it is &lt;em&gt;still&lt;/em&gt; a backward pawn if it is protected by another piece. Perhaps it is protected, but now it has become a burden on a more valuable piece.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The backward pawn creates an obligation upon (and therefore decreases the value of) whatever piece is defending it. There is a penalty if the piece defending the backward pawn moves elsewhere (loss of the pawn).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1088" LastActivityDate="2013-03-11T19:31:14.397" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2111" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2106" CreationDate="2013-03-12T00:37:16.960" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;1 - Centralize and coordinate your pieces. This is when tactical opportunities will begin to materialize.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2 - When your position is cramped, exchange pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3 - When ahead in material, exchange pieces, not pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4 - When you have a bad or inactive piece, exchange it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5 - Don't launch an attack on the flank until the centre is secure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;6 - When the opponent's king is exposed, look for tactics and combinations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;7 - When the opponent's development is poor, look for tactics and combinations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;8 - Attack your opponent's weak and backwards pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;9 - Occupy your opponent's weak squares. Knights are particularly good at establishing outposts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;10 - Don't make unnecessary pawn moves in front of your king. This weakens your position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1088" LastActivityDate="2013-03-12T00:37:16.960" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2112" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2115" CreationDate="2013-03-12T12:13:05.327" Score="4" ViewCount="738" Body="&lt;p&gt;After white plays &lt;code&gt;1. d4&lt;/code&gt;, is it still possible for black to play the Najdorf Defense?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it possible, for Black to play in a way in order to reach a Najdorf setup? If so, how should Black continue?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1105" LastEditorUserId="17" LastEditDate="2013-05-22T16:55:34.407" LastActivityDate="2013-12-30T01:17:27.413" Title="Is it possible to play the Najdorf Defense if white played 1. d4?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;learning&gt;&lt;najdorf&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2113" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2108" CreationDate="2013-03-12T12:21:58.527" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I play queen to &lt;code&gt;e7&lt;/code&gt; and after he takes my rook, I take his pawn, check the king, and try to dominate the center with it. I dont know if it's the right way to play, but that what I would do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.Nxe5 d6 4.Nxf7 Qe7 5.Nxh8 Qxe4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1105" LastEditorUserId="1105" LastEditDate="2013-03-13T19:47:23.610" LastActivityDate="2013-03-13T19:47:23.610" CommentCount="11" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2114" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2112" CreationDate="2013-03-12T12:34:18.173" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;If the following five moves by both sides happen in a game, then you have the position that's called the Najdorf Defence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, white is by no means forced to play those moves. He can also play, say, 2.d4, 2.f4, 2.c3, 3.Bb5+, or 4.Qxd4, or 5.f3, or a lot of other moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So black can't always get a Najdorf after 1.e4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2013-03-12T12:34:18.173" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2115" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2112" CreationDate="2013-03-12T14:41:50.517" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;If White starts with &lt;code&gt;1.d4&lt;/code&gt; it is possible to reach a Najdorf position, for example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.d4 d6 2.e4 c5 3.Nf3 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 a6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, White has other moves on move 2, which still give them an advantage: &lt;code&gt;2. c4&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;2.Nf3&lt;/code&gt;, also White could play &lt;code&gt;3. c3&lt;/code&gt;. So Najdorf is not that easy to get. Moreover, some people play &lt;code&gt;1.d4&lt;/code&gt; to avoid Sicilian and especially Najdorf; they will certainly not follow the above line.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="307" LastEditorUserId="827" LastEditDate="2013-05-22T03:50:10.093" LastActivityDate="2013-05-22T03:50:10.093" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2116" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2106" CreationDate="2013-03-12T15:37:13.183" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;When looking for tactics - for either player - look for Checks, Captures, and Threats, in that order - for both players.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*&quot;If you are winning by a piece or more, THINK DEFENSE FIRST.  That does not mean play passively.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;The Exchange (winning a rook for a bishop or a knight) is worth about half of a piece.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*&quot;If you are interested in learning, think of a  draw offer as an offer to remain ignorant!&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Putting out your hand when you offer a draw is presumptuous; always put it out after the draw is agreed upon, not before.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;If you get way ahead, it is more important to use all your pieces and safeguard your King than it is to try and get further ahead.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Most games between lower rated players are won or could be won on tactics, so studying tactics when you are lower rated is much more important than anything else.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Attack pinned pieces with pieces worth less than them; never take a pinned piece unless it leads to some sort of tactic or you cannot maintain the pin.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Having the 'Bishop Pair' - two Bishops when your opponent does not - is worth about half a pawn.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Bishops are better in open positions - Knights are better in locked/closed positions - Bishops are also better when there is action on both sides of the board.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;When ahead pieces trade pieces, when behind pieces, trade pawns.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;If you have a pair of Rooks and your opponent only has one, it is usually correct to trade Rooks.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Knights are 'Path' pieces.  Have an idea of where you want one to go!&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Patzer sees a check - gives a check,&quot; but &quot;Always (consider) a check, it might be mate.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Doubled pawns are not always weak.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;When capturing with pawns, it is correct most of the time to capture toward the center.  If the result is doubled pawns, this is correct even a higher percentage of the time.&quot; It is also more likely correct when capturing on a Knight file (b or g).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;A premature attack is doomed to failure.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;You can't attack where you don't have an advantage.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;An attack on the flank is met by a counterattack in the center.&quot; Especially if the center is not fixed/stable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Rooks need open and semi-open files.  Don't let your opponent control open files with his Rooks.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Don't 'give up' control of an open file by trading Rooks and bringing your opponent's other Rook to the file unless you can either neutralize the file by moving a Rook/Queen to that file or have some tactic.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*&quot;It is not enough to recognize tactics.  You must recognize them quickly enough that you will see them - even without prior knowledge that they are there - during the short time you have to move in a normal game&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;If the four e and d pawns are all locked together, then the 'pointing rule' says 'put your hand across your d and e pawns so that it points toward your opponent (the other way hurts your hand!); whichever side of the board your hand is pointing is the side you should attack - and also the side you should play the pawn break on the c or f files'&quot; Note: Don't apply this guideline unless all four pawns are locked against each other!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;When the game gets complicated and there are a lot of captures, it is usually correct to make a capture (or at least an extremely strong threat) to hold the initiative. To make a quiet move usually leaves your opponent the opportunity to take the initiative.&quot; In any case, specific analysis and not general principles are required to make the decision!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;If you have some sort of structural or minor material deficit, it is better not to trade and to play aggressively, or else your opponent's long-term advantage will tell in the late middlegame and endgame.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;When both Kings are exposed and the heavy pieces are still on the board, the initiative (or attack) is often worth everything – so you usually should keep checking (or capturing) if you can.&quot; In these positions sacrifices of material are often quite common as you cannot let your opponent start attacking with tempo.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Talk to your pieces. See which ones have the best arguments for moving them next. Never ignore a piece completely!&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;When your opponent has weak pawns, trade a few pieces. Then the weakness of the pawns often becomes easier to exploit.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*&quot;If a piece is attacked defended, but some of its defenders are removable, then you can't count them as defenders - so that piece may be possibly won with removal of the guard!&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you have several checks, consider first:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Checks that bring additional pieces into the attack, or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Checks that bring a powerful piece (like the Queen) closer to the King to guard more squares.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Material doesn't mean as much if you castle opposite sides and queens are on the board.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Attack pinned pieces with more pieces, especially pieces worth less than the pinned piece.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In complicated positions with multiple capturing possibilities for both sides, it is usually correct to make the first capture, if possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The worst types of pawns are vulnerable pawns (backward, isolated, etc.) on semi-open files. Alternatively, doubled pawns can sometimes be strong, so don't count all non-perfect pawn structures as &quot;bad&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is almost always worse to lose a pawn than to take on a pawn weakness.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When creating luft to prevent back-rank mates against an opponent with one bishop, clear the square the opposite color of the bishop&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are two types of sacrifices:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Those in which the sacrificer does not capture material. These sacrifices you can take or not, depending upon which is better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Those in which the sacrificer captures material. These sacrifices you almost always must accept/capture if your opponent's previous capture puts you behind in material, because you will lose anyway. Obviously if you see a mate in three and otherwise you lose a pawn, you lose the pawn, but most times you just capture. For example, you almost always capture the classical bishop sacrifice Bxh7+.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When your opponent has a pawn, bishop, or knight on &quot;knight 3&quot; (b3/g3 for White and b6/g6 for Black) then it is often a possible plan to attack it with a pawn, usually R4-R5 (a5/a4 or h5/h4 for Black or a4/a5 or h4/5 for White), possibly B4-B5 (c5/c4 or f5/f4 or c4/c5 or f4/f5)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If one side is weak on a particular color complex, the other side has a bishop of that color, and the side with the weak squares does not have that color bishop, then that is a large advantage for the side with the bishop, and even larger (possibly a pawn or more) if queens are still on the board and there are lots of pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://home.comcast.net/~danheisman/Articles/Dan_sayings.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;SOURCE&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="791" LastActivityDate="2013-03-12T15:37:13.183" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2117" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2013-03-12T15:41:27.220" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Questions relating to well-known chess players like Garry Kasparov, Bobby Fischer...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="813" LastEditorUserId="813" LastEditDate="2013-03-12T15:50:37.910" LastActivityDate="2013-03-12T15:50:37.910" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2118" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2013-03-12T15:41:27.220" Score="0" Body="Questions relating to well-known chess players." OwnerUserId="813" LastEditorUserId="813" LastEditDate="2013-03-12T15:50:41.017" LastActivityDate="2013-03-12T15:50:41.017" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2119" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2013-03-12T16:00:34.473" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Questions relating to psychology relate to how players think about the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="813" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2013-03-12T23:58:03.273" LastActivityDate="2013-03-12T23:58:03.273" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2120" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2013-03-12T16:00:34.473" Score="0" Body="Questions related to cognitive, motivational and other psychological aspects of chess, both during and before/after games." OwnerUserId="813" LastEditorUserId="10867" LastEditDate="2017-01-14T18:58:44.743" LastActivityDate="2017-01-14T18:58:44.743" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2121" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2013-03-12T16:05:30.167" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2013-03-12T16:05:30.167" LastActivityDate="2013-03-12T16:05:30.167" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2122" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2013-03-12T16:05:30.167" Score="0" Body="Sets of webpages linked to each other in web domains." OwnerUserId="813" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2013-03-13T13:18:34.440" LastActivityDate="2013-03-13T13:18:34.440" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2123" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2013-03-12T16:07:40.697" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Associations where members play chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="813" LastEditorUserId="813" LastEditDate="2013-03-12T21:27:50.143" LastActivityDate="2013-03-12T21:27:50.143" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2124" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2013-03-12T16:07:40.697" Score="0" Body="Associations where members play chess." OwnerUserId="813" LastEditorUserId="813" LastEditDate="2013-03-12T21:25:52.673" LastActivityDate="2013-03-12T21:25:52.673" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2125" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2013-03-12T16:10:16.607" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Questions relating to the Soviet world champion Boris Spassky.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="813" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2013-03-12T21:28:16.603" LastActivityDate="2013-03-12T21:28:16.603" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2126" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2013-03-12T16:10:16.607" Score="0" Body="Boris Spassky (born 1937) was the tenth World Champion in chess. He won the title after defeating Tigran Petrosian in 1969, and lost the title to Bobby Fischer in the famous 1972 Reykjavik match." OwnerUserId="813" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2014-02-16T15:23:41.410" LastActivityDate="2014-02-16T15:23:41.410" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2127" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2013-03-12T16:13:27.793" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;An open source product is a published product that's usually free of charge, can be distributed free of charge, and having source code that's publicly available.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="813" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2013-03-13T00:00:33.040" LastActivityDate="2013-03-13T00:00:33.040" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2128" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2013-03-12T16:13:27.793" Score="0" Body="An open source product is a published product and made available to the public." OwnerUserId="813" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2013-03-12T21:26:15.217" LastActivityDate="2013-03-12T21:26:15.217" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2129" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2013-03-12T16:14:35.703" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In chess, a database is a set of chess games, distributed as a stand-alone product or as part of a bundle of chess software. For endgame databases, use the [tablebases] tag instead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="813" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-12-08T14:02:24.093" LastActivityDate="2016-12-08T14:02:24.093" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2130" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2013-03-12T16:14:35.703" Score="0" Body="A set of chess games, distributed as a stand-alone product or as part of a bundle of chess software. For endgame databases, use the [tablebases] tag instead." OwnerUserId="813" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-12-08T14:02:24.093" LastActivityDate="2016-12-08T14:02:24.093" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2131" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2106" CreationDate="2013-03-12T21:34:30.137" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the middle game, you are seeking an advantage that will win you the game. This could take the form of 1) an attack against the enemy king 2) the gain of a pawn (or more) of material or 3) a positional advantage that will win you the end game, such as a rook on the &quot;seventh&quot; rank (second for Black) a knight in a &quot;hole in d5, d6, e5 or e6 (d4,d4,e4, or e3 for Black), a &quot;good&quot; bshsop vs. a &quot;bad&quot; bishop, a &quot;passed&quot; pawn, or a weakness in the opponent's pawn structure such as a doubled or isolated pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2013-03-12T21:34:30.137" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2132" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="676" CreationDate="2013-03-12T21:42:47.123" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The importance of pawns is that 1) they can become queens by marching down to the opponent's eighth rank and 2) the endgame is the time for them to do so. So the value of the pawns increases the more pieces are traded off, and the closer to the endgame you get to. The fewer the remaining pieces, the greater the value of an individual pawn in &lt;em&gt;percentage&lt;/em&gt; terms.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the middle game, other factors such as king safety are more important. It does you no good to &quot;queen&quot; a pawn if your opponent is using the extra &quot;time&quot; (moves) to checkmate your king. But in the endgame, the remaining material is small enough so that you probably won't be checkmated UNLESS someone queens a pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The value having an extra pawn is that you can (theoretically) trade off pawn for pawn so that your opponent runs out of pawns before you do. The exception to the rule is if your opponent has a pawn one square away from queening, and you have four or five pawns that are all several squares away from queening. Then the advantage of having a &quot;closer&quot; pawn is greater than the advantage of having &quot;more&quot; pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastEditorUserId="17" LastEditDate="2016-07-14T17:03:12.637" LastActivityDate="2016-07-14T17:03:12.637" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2134" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1613" CreationDate="2013-03-13T00:26:30.527" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here are some ideas about whether or not a source can be trusted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-Not all titled players are good in teaching.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-&lt;a href=&quot;http://chess.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess.com&lt;/a&gt; is great because its members are excellent chess players and will not allow a poor article or video to be published.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-&lt;a href=&quot;http://chess.about.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chess.about.com&lt;/a&gt; is good because it hires professional people, but not as good as chess.com&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/user/thechesswebsite&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;thechesswebsite.com&lt;/a&gt; is great because kevin (the man behind the site) has many subscribers on youtube, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/user/kingscrusher&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;kingcrucher&lt;/a&gt; is another great youtube channel because it offers in depth analysis, but they focus too much on blitz.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and then you have &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesscentral.com/chess_dvd_roman_s/40.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Roman's lab&lt;/a&gt;, Roman is the greatest chess teacher of all time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What else do you have? When looking at books, you can check the Amazon rating and reviews.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1105" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-07-01T14:06:08.273" LastActivityDate="2020-07-01T14:06:08.273" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2135" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2013-03-13T08:35:39.137" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;First move as white: pawn move from e2 to e4. This tag may be used for topics which relate to openings beginning with &lt;code&gt;1.e4&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="813" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2013-03-13T13:21:26.790" LastActivityDate="2013-03-13T13:21:26.790" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2136" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2013-03-13T08:35:39.137" Score="0" Body="1. e4 is White's most common first move (except at the top grandmaster level). It tends to produce open games." OwnerUserId="813" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-06-01T11:23:54.313" LastActivityDate="2016-06-01T11:23:54.313" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2137" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2013-03-13T08:38:42.127" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Questions related to the Russian Grand Master and former World Champion Vladimir Kramnik.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="813" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2013-11-23T22:43:17.220" LastActivityDate="2013-11-23T22:43:17.220" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2138" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2013-03-13T08:38:42.127" Score="0" Body="Questions related to the Russian Grand Master and former World Champion Vladimir Kramnik." OwnerUserId="813" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2013-11-23T22:43:32.453" LastActivityDate="2013-11-23T22:43:32.453" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2139" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2108" CreationDate="2013-03-13T09:18:52.097" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are really no two ways about it. When white moves &lt;code&gt;Nxf7&lt;/code&gt; black &lt;em&gt;must&lt;/em&gt; respond by accepting the sac with &lt;code&gt;Kxf7&lt;/code&gt;. From there, it is basically going to be a rough road where black tries to get into a strong defense without giving up the material gained from exposing the king to attack. A good approach here can be to try to get the rook over to f8, or to fiancetto on the king side.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Things to avoid include allowing White successive checks, allowing White to control f7 for too long, allowing White to develop a strong attack while ignoring it, any sort of development queen side before the king is safe, trading the knight on f6, and waiting to move your king to safety (through the approach mentioned above).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="342" LastActivityDate="2013-03-13T09:18:52.097" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2140" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2108" CreationDate="2013-03-13T15:49:29.150" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;code&gt;Cochrane Gambit&lt;/code&gt; sacrifies his &lt;code&gt;Knight&lt;/code&gt; for a few things:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;He sacrifies the &lt;code&gt;Knight&lt;/code&gt; for 2 &lt;code&gt;pawns&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;After &lt;code&gt;Kxf7&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;Black&lt;/code&gt; loses castling rights and is dangerously in the&#xA;center.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;Blacks King-side&lt;/code&gt; is basically destroyed with only the &lt;code&gt;g and h pawns&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;and it is not easy to find the best square for the &lt;code&gt;Black King&lt;/code&gt;. &#xA;Usually &lt;code&gt;White&lt;/code&gt; will check with the &lt;code&gt;Bishop&lt;/code&gt; with &lt;code&gt;Bf4&lt;/code&gt; and if &lt;code&gt;Black&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;blocks with &lt;code&gt;Be3&lt;/code&gt;, then White should just exchange bishops and bring&#xA;the black king further into the center making it harder to castle&#xA;manually.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;White&lt;/code&gt; wants to build a strong pawn center by pushing his pawns&#xA;especially on the &lt;code&gt;king-side&lt;/code&gt;. For example, &lt;code&gt;White&lt;/code&gt; wants to develop his strong pawn center by pushing &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;f4&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt; and further fortify his strength in the center with &lt;code&gt;Nc3&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;Bd3&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;Bf4&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With the above said, I think &lt;code&gt;Black's&lt;/code&gt; goal should be to neutralize &lt;code&gt;White's&lt;/code&gt; strong pawn center. In the &lt;code&gt;Kramnik-Topalov&lt;/code&gt; game, I think &lt;code&gt;Kramnik&lt;/code&gt; made a good move with &lt;code&gt;5...c5&lt;/code&gt; to challenge the &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt; square. From here White has to chose between playing &lt;code&gt;6. f4&lt;/code&gt; followed by &lt;code&gt;7. e5&lt;/code&gt; trying to break &lt;code&gt;Blacks&lt;/code&gt; position, but in this case &lt;code&gt;White's&lt;/code&gt; &lt;code&gt;Bishop&lt;/code&gt; on &lt;code&gt;c1&lt;/code&gt; is not playing. &lt;code&gt;Topalov&lt;/code&gt; instead played &lt;code&gt;6. Bf4+&lt;/code&gt; to not lose any tempo and &lt;code&gt;6...Be6&lt;/code&gt; is basically forced and after the exchange of &lt;code&gt;Bishops&lt;/code&gt;, Black's King is more brought deeper into the center.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some popular replies for &lt;code&gt;Black&lt;/code&gt; after &lt;code&gt;5. Nxf7 Kxf7 6. d4&lt;/code&gt; could be: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;c5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;g6 &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;c6&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Qe8&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Be7&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lets look at the &lt;code&gt;c5&lt;/code&gt; first:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. Nxe5 d6 4. Nxf7 Kxf7 5. d4 c5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;White's&lt;/code&gt; most popular reply is &lt;code&gt;6. dxc5&lt;/code&gt;, followed by &lt;code&gt;6...Qa5+ 7. Nc3 Qxc5 8. Be3&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;White&lt;/code&gt; maintains his the initiative.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now onto &lt;code&gt;c6&lt;/code&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. Nxe5 d6 4. Nxf7 Kxf7 5. d4 Be7 6. Nc3 c6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Usually with &lt;code&gt;5...Be7&lt;/code&gt;, Black wants to try to castle manually and &lt;code&gt;White&lt;/code&gt; continues development with &lt;code&gt;6. Nc3&lt;/code&gt;. After &lt;code&gt;6...Re8&lt;/code&gt;, Black is in trouble after &lt;code&gt;Bf4+&lt;/code&gt;, so instead &lt;code&gt;6...c6&lt;/code&gt; with the plan of playing &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt; later. After &lt;code&gt;7...d5&lt;/code&gt;, it might continue &lt;code&gt;8. exd5 cxd5 9. Nxd5 Nxd5 10. Qh5+ Kf8 11. Bxd5 Qe8&lt;/code&gt;. I would say White is better here because his &lt;code&gt;Black's&lt;/code&gt; King is still weak and he has &lt;code&gt;3 pawns&lt;/code&gt; for the &lt;code&gt;Knight&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Regarding &lt;code&gt;g6&lt;/code&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. Nxe5 d6 4. Nxf7 Kxf7 5. d4 g6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;g6&lt;/code&gt; might be &lt;code&gt;Black's&lt;/code&gt; most popular reply. After &lt;code&gt;6. Nc3 Kg7 7. Be2 d5 8. e5 Ne4 9. Nxe4 dxe4 10. O-O Nc6 11. Be3 h5 12. f3 exf3 13. Rxf3 Be6 14. c4&lt;/code&gt;. Even with this, White still has an advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Last, &lt;code&gt;Qe8&lt;/code&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. Nxe5 d6 4. Nxf7 Kxf7 5. d4 Qe8&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here &lt;code&gt;Black&lt;/code&gt; threatens &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt;. It usually continues: &lt;code&gt;6. Nc3 g6 7. Bd3 Kg7 8. O-O Nc6 9. Bd3 Nc6 10. Be3 Nb4&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;code&gt;White&lt;/code&gt; may panic here because of the attack on the &lt;code&gt;White-Squared Bishop&lt;/code&gt;, but instead of panicking, &lt;code&gt;White&lt;/code&gt; should play &lt;code&gt;11. h3 Nxd3 12. Qxd3 Rg8&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;code&gt;Black&lt;/code&gt; wants to play &lt;code&gt;Kh8&lt;/code&gt;, so &lt;code&gt;White&lt;/code&gt; should go for the attack with &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;code&gt;Black&lt;/code&gt; is very disorganized and in a positional disadvantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In a nutshell, I believe breaking &lt;code&gt;White's&lt;/code&gt; center as &lt;code&gt;Kramnik&lt;/code&gt; did is the best possible way to either draw or defeat the &lt;code&gt;Cochrane Gambit&lt;/code&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastEditorUserId="109" LastEditDate="2013-03-15T17:26:33.740" LastActivityDate="2013-03-15T17:26:33.740" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2141" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-03-13T16:23:14.110" Score="6" ViewCount="3272" Body="&lt;p&gt;I heard from &lt;code&gt;IM Andrew Martin&lt;/code&gt; that if you are unsure what to play as &lt;code&gt;Black&lt;/code&gt;, you should play the following moves no matter what &lt;code&gt;White&lt;/code&gt; plays (not sure I agree with him saying no matter what &lt;code&gt;White&lt;/code&gt; plays though).  Those moves are &lt;code&gt;g6&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;Bg7&lt;/code&gt;, and &lt;code&gt;c5&lt;/code&gt; with the idea of opening up the &lt;code&gt;c&lt;/code&gt; file and bringing your Queen out to &lt;code&gt;a5&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;b6&lt;/code&gt;.  Has anyone had any success with this approach?  He specifically didn't mention the &lt;code&gt;Robatsch (Modern) defense&lt;/code&gt;, but that is initially what this appears to be.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 g6 2. d4 Bg7 3. Nc3 c5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2013-12-03T16:29:14.037" LastActivityDate="2018-06-28T14:53:43.223" Title="Thoughts on the Robatsch (Modern) Defense?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;learning&gt;&lt;modern-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2142" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-03-13T16:26:26.183" Score="2" ViewCount="1393" Body="&lt;p&gt;A recommendation from &lt;code&gt;IM Andrew Martin&lt;/code&gt; was to improve the position of your worst piece if you are not sure what move to make.  Are there any other ways one could improve their position besides the above recommendation?  I often find myself making useless moves, that mostly turn into blunders because I am not sure what to do in the position.  Sometimes this is a result of just thinking too hard and over-complicating things.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is a real-life sample that &lt;code&gt;IM Andrew Martin&lt;/code&gt; used to express his point. In the &lt;code&gt;2007 British Championship&lt;/code&gt; between between &lt;code&gt;Nicholas Pert&lt;/code&gt; (White) and &lt;code&gt;Stewart Haslinger&lt;/code&gt; (Black), which can be found &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1468781&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;, after &lt;code&gt;9. Re1&lt;/code&gt;, White showed what his plan was going to be and that was to play &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt;, which he did on move 10.  After &lt;code&gt;9...Be7 10. Re1&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;IM Andrew Martin&lt;/code&gt; says we reached a critical point in the game which &lt;code&gt;Haslinger&lt;/code&gt; got wrong and that was to improve the position of his worst posted piece, which is his &lt;code&gt;Knight&lt;/code&gt; on &lt;code&gt;b8&lt;/code&gt;. Why? Because it is blocking his Rook on &lt;code&gt;a8&lt;/code&gt; and without the participation of the &lt;code&gt;Rooks&lt;/code&gt;, black is not going to be in very good shape. White is going to dominate the center with &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; to &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt;. Instead of improving the position of the &lt;code&gt;b8 Knight&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;Haslinger&lt;/code&gt; played &lt;code&gt;10...O-O&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;code&gt;IM Andrew Martin&lt;/code&gt; instead suggests Black should have taken some pieces of &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; via:  &lt;code&gt;10...Nxe4 11. Nxe4 dxe4 12. Bxe4 Bxe4 13. Rxe4 Nd7&lt;/code&gt;.  His reasoning was that, Black has now improved the position of his &lt;code&gt;Knight&lt;/code&gt;, he is not as cramped as before, he can castle in peace, and White has no pawn breaks to upset the position.  Here is the complete game:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. c4 c6 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. e3 a6 5. Nbd2 Bf5 6. Qb3 Qc7 7. Bd3 Bg6 8. O-O e6 9. Re1 Be7 10. e4 O-O 11. e5 Nfd7 12. Bxg6 hxg6 13. Nf1 Re8 14. Bg5 Bf8 15. Rac1 Qb6 16. Qc2 dxc4 17. Ne3 c5 18. d5 exd5 19. Nxd5 Qc6 20. Nf4 a5 21. e6 fxe6 22. Qxg6 Na6 23. Bd8 e5 24. Qxe8 Nc7 25. Qh5 exf4 26. Ng5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastEditorUserId="109" LastEditDate="2013-03-13T17:20:01.440" LastActivityDate="2016-06-22T23:19:11.833" Title="Improving your position?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2143" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="285" CreationDate="2013-03-13T17:36:25.190" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am approximately 1850 USCF (ELO) rated and have played the Colle-Zukertort system pretty religiously when allowed by the opponent. I would tend to agree that that the Colle-Zukertort, Barry, and 150 attack provide a pretty broad set of potential response (but I would also have at least some idea of how to play against 1.d4 f5, and 1.d4 e5.  Although 1. ...e5 is known to be inferior it can lead to disaster if played incorrectly by white.  I believe at lower club levels below expert rating that a limited repertoire of openings that is well prepared can give your higher rated opponents fits as I have found (at least to low expert level.  I do agree in general though that if you really strive to improve at chess for the long term, it is better to expand your opening choices.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1118" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T17:20:28.397" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T17:20:28.397" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2144" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2142" CreationDate="2013-03-13T21:38:08.357" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Improving your worst piece is indeed generally a great thing to do if it's not a bad idea for tactical reasons. Some other standard general ways to improve your position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Develop all of your pieces.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Occupy an open file with a rook (or queen). Bonus: double or triple your pieces on this file.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If you already have occupied an open file with a rook, move it to your seventh rank if possible.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Put your rook opposite the enemy queen.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Connect your rooks (get the other pieces out of the way so they're defending each other).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Castle.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Make sure you can't get mated on the back rank.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Make sure you don't have any undefended pieces (even if they're not attacked).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Defend an important pawn or square more than once (known as overprotection).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In the endgame, centralize your king.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, tactical opportunities (for you or your opponent) trump these considerations, but all of these are general principles for improving your position in such a way that tactical opportunities are likely to turn out in your favor in the future. For example, putting your rook opposite the opponent's queen means that he has to worry about some situations in which the pieces in between move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2013-03-13T21:38:08.357" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2145" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2146" CreationDate="2013-03-13T21:58:19.540" Score="10" ViewCount="691" Body="&lt;p&gt;Black to move:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;4rbk1/pp3pp1/1nq4p/8/1PP5/P3N1P1/Q2BrP1P/3R1RK1 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've tried to solve this chess problem - black to move, find the best move. I couldn't work it out so I checked the solution, which was R8xe3. I don't understand why this is the best move - could someone explain please?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1120" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-04T21:44:30.943" LastActivityDate="2020-04-04T21:44:30.943" Title="Chess problem - don't understand the solution" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;problems&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2146" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2145" CreationDate="2013-03-13T22:03:50.620" Score="18" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;1...R8xe3&lt;/code&gt; wins a piece (the knight on e3), because either recapture leads to worse things for White, since the d2 bishop is pinned to the white queen, and the f-pawn recapture opens the possibility of mate on g2:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;4rbk1/pp3pp1/1nq4p/8/1PP5/P3N1P1/Q2BrP1P/3R1RK1 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1...R8xe3 2.Bxe3 (2.fxe3 Qg2#) Rxa2 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2013-03-13T22:03:50.620" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2147" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2141" CreationDate="2013-03-14T02:01:35.910" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a whole book about this system, &lt;em&gt;The Sniper: Play 1...g6, ...Bg7 and ...c5!&lt;/em&gt; by FM Charlie Storey, published by Everyman. It has gotten &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1857446437&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;mixed reviews on Amazon&lt;/a&gt; and on &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.google.com/search?q=sniper%20site%3achesspub.com&amp;amp;btnG=Search&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;the ChessPublishing forums&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastEditorUserId="291" LastEditDate="2013-03-14T12:23:36.693" LastActivityDate="2013-03-14T12:23:36.693" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2148" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2170" CreationDate="2013-03-14T06:51:00.967" Score="11" ViewCount="439" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am looking for &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1699932&quot;&gt;replays similar to &lt;code&gt;chessgames.com's&lt;/code&gt; format&lt;/a&gt; but which don't contain any spoilers (winner, list of moves, text or images that could give a hint as to how the game went on...) to enjoy as much as possible the games of the 2013 Candidates Tournament currently being held in London: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Does anyone know about a website offering such replays?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;PS: just to clarify, I'm not looking for live coverage, such replays posted once the game has been played.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="680" LastActivityDate="2013-03-29T07:01:54.423" Title="Spoiler-free chess replays for the 2013 Candidates tournament" Tags="&lt;online&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2149" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2148" CreationDate="2013-03-14T14:46:59.803" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you use Scid, then you can turn on the option &quot;Hide next move&quot;. That also hides the result of the game. The option is intended for training purposes (solitaire chess, also known as &quot;guess the next move&quot;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can download a PGN file of the games, and open it with Scid. Don't open the game list window (because it shows results), but first turn on the hide next move option and then choose &quot;Next game&quot; (ctrl-down).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's one way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2013-03-14T14:46:59.803" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2150" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1567" CreationDate="2013-03-14T18:51:12.807" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;If your opponent is low on time, try to keep the position complicated. Avoid making moves that have an obvious answer (e.g., captures and checks), and try to keep tension on the board, so that he has lots of options to consider every move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2013-03-14T18:51:12.807" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2151" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2013-03-15T09:38:57.980" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Questions relating to learning about chess or analyzing positions on the chessboard. Not to be confused with the concept of an &quot;endgame study&quot;, a kind of chess puzzle which doesn't have it's own tag yet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="813" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-06-08T08:40:03.560" LastActivityDate="2017-06-08T08:40:03.560" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2152" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2013-03-15T09:38:57.980" Score="0" Body="Questions relating to learning about chess or analyzing positions on the chessboard. Not to be confused with the concept of an &quot;endgame study&quot;, a kind of chess puzzle which doesn't have it's own tag yet." OwnerUserId="813" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-06-08T08:40:03.560" LastActivityDate="2017-06-08T08:40:03.560" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2153" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2013-03-15T09:44:08.627" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2013-03-15T09:44:08.627" LastActivityDate="2013-03-15T09:44:08.627" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2154" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2013-03-15T09:44:08.627" Score="0" Body="Chess opening characterized by White playing 1.d4, 2.e3, 3.f4 and 4.c3." OwnerUserId="813" LastEditorUserId="813" LastEditDate="2013-04-02T14:29:49.020" LastActivityDate="2013-04-02T14:29:49.020" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2155" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2013-03-15T09:47:54.623" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess relating to students in an education situation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="813" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2013-03-15T23:14:52.800" LastActivityDate="2013-03-15T23:14:52.800" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2156" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2013-03-15T09:47:54.623" Score="0" Body="Questions about scholastic chess, i.e. chess as played and/or taught at schools." OwnerUserId="10867" LastEditorUserId="10867" LastEditDate="2020-06-01T18:01:33.540" LastActivityDate="2020-06-01T18:01:33.540" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2157" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2013-03-15T09:51:22.170" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2013-03-15T09:51:22.170" LastActivityDate="2013-03-15T09:51:22.170" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2158" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2013-03-15T09:51:22.170" Score="0" Body="A reference to consigning information to memory. One can memorize specific strategies, opening moves, or even endgame techniques. " OwnerUserId="1382" LastEditorUserId="1382" LastEditDate="2013-06-10T21:19:12.060" LastActivityDate="2013-06-10T21:19:12.060" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2159" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2013-03-15T10:15:01.917" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The pawn endgame arrives at the end of the game when there are only pawns and kings on board. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="813" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2013-03-15T23:02:23.327" LastActivityDate="2013-03-15T23:02:23.327" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2160" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2013-03-15T10:15:01.917" Score="0" Body="The pawn endgame arrives at the end of the game when there are only pawns and kings on board. The play focuses on trying to promote a pawn or preventing an opponent from promoting a pawn." OwnerUserId="813" LastEditorUserId="12" LastEditDate="2013-04-02T14:29:12.987" LastActivityDate="2013-04-02T14:29:12.987" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2161" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2013-03-15T10:16:14.500" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Dutch Defence is a chess opening characterised by the moves 1.d4 f5. Its main objective is to control the e4-square, and to prepare for a kingside attack. Black aims for the pawn break e7-e5, and then to proceed with a pawn storm.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="813" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-09-09T06:32:46.143" LastActivityDate="2020-09-09T06:32:46.143" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2162" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2013-03-15T10:16:14.500" Score="0" Body="The Dutch Defence is a chess opening characterised by the moves 1.d4 f5." OwnerUserId="813" LastEditorUserId="813" LastEditDate="2013-04-02T14:29:17.783" LastActivityDate="2013-04-02T14:29:17.783" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2163" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2013-03-15T10:18:09.867" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;CQL is an acronym for &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_Query_Language&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess Query Language&lt;/a&gt;. It lets you find positions or moves satisfying certain criteria within a large database of chess games or studies.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="813" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-09-03T15:28:53.613" LastActivityDate="2017-09-03T15:28:53.613" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2164" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2013-03-15T10:18:09.867" Score="0" Body="For questions about the Chess Query Language, which lets you find positions or moves satisfying certain criteria within a large database of chess games or studies." OwnerUserId="813" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-09-03T15:28:53.613" LastActivityDate="2017-09-03T15:28:53.613" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2165" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2013-03-15T10:22:11.833" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Mikhail Moiseyevich Botvinnik was a Russian chess Grand Master. He was the World Chess Champion from 1948 to 1963 with a few interruptions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="813" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2013-11-23T22:43:44.173" LastActivityDate="2013-11-23T22:43:44.173" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2166" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2013-03-15T10:22:11.833" Score="0" Body="Mikhail Moiseyevich Botvinnik (1911-1995) was a Russian chess Grand Master. He was the World Chess Champion from 1948 to 1963 with a few interruptions." OwnerUserId="1485" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2014-02-22T19:47:10.373" LastActivityDate="2014-02-22T19:47:10.373" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2167" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="771" CreationDate="2013-03-15T15:34:43.640" Score="-2" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Qf6 3. d4 d6 4. dxe5 dxe5 5. Bg5 Qe6 6. Qd8# &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Greco Defence is easily broken in my opinion&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1128" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-07-26T16:59:41.063" LastActivityDate="2019-07-26T16:59:41.063" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2168" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2038" CreationDate="2013-03-15T16:23:34.097" Score="1" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;6. Kf1 is the best response.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It looks like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Nf6 4. Ng5 Bc5 5. Nxf7 Bxf2+ 6. Kf1 Qe7 7. Nxh8 Bb6 8. Bf7+ Kd8 9. Nc3 *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1130" LastActivityDate="2013-03-15T16:23:34.097" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2169" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="442" CreationDate="2013-03-16T00:32:23.290" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;If your daughter &quot;plays checkers very well and asks you if she can learn to play chess also,&quot; she's ready. Some people are ready at age 4, others aren't ready at age 40. It all depends on the person. It's best if you let THEM tell you (as your daughter has) when they're ready.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Jose Raoul Capablanca learned to play chess at age four, and became world champion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2013-03-16T00:32:23.290" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2170" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2148" CreationDate="2013-03-16T08:07:43.913" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is some more detail about &lt;code&gt;RemcoGerlich&lt;/code&gt;'s solution for those who want:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Download the &lt;code&gt;PGN&lt;/code&gt; file for desired round from &lt;a href=&quot;http://london2013.fide.com/en/component/turnuva/?task=fileview&amp;amp;kid=4&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://london2013.fide.com/en/component/turnuva/?task=fileview&amp;amp;kid=4&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/LL3ER.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;note: the &lt;code&gt;PGN&lt;/code&gt; file contains the all the matches for that round (i.e. 4)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Download and install &lt;strong&gt;Scid&lt;/strong&gt; (&lt;a href=&quot;http://scid.sourceforge.net/download.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://scid.sourceforge.net/download.html&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Open &lt;strong&gt;Scid&lt;/strong&gt; and hide the right hand side tab (which shows list of moves and winner) by dragging it close.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Hide the next moves (&lt;em&gt;Option-&gt;Game Information-&gt;Hide next move&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Open the &lt;code&gt;PGN&lt;/code&gt; file (&lt;em&gt;File-&gt;Open&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;note: &lt;strong&gt;Scid&lt;/strong&gt; will automatically load the first game&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Switch to whatever game you want (&lt;em&gt;Game-&gt;Load (previous/next) game&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Following that method here is the information I see about each game (displayed at the bottom):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Mo05F.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="680" LastEditorUserId="680" LastEditDate="2013-03-21T17:20:21.500" LastActivityDate="2013-03-21T17:20:21.500" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2171" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2182" CreationDate="2013-03-16T15:18:02.890" Score="9" ViewCount="8195" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've seen one video on YouTube about the Sicilian defense and wanted to try it on a game. In this game, my opponent played 2. Qh5, trying to capture c5,and if b6 then Qd5 and rook is taken whatever I play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White had a very powerful and aggressive opening, giving me no rest or tempo to develop my pieces. He however did a blunder on the 12th move and resigned the game after losing his queen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, what would you recommend to play after Qh5 ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Live Chess&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Chess.com&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2013.03.16&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;CNaveen1403&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;ychaouche&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;1340&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;1320&quot;]&#xA;[TimeControl &quot;30|0&quot;]&#xA;[Termination &quot;ychaouche won by resignation&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 c5 2.Qh5 d6 3.Bc4 g6 4.Qf3 Nf6 5.d3 Bg4 6.Qg3 a6 7.Bg5 Nbd7 8.Bd5 Nxd5 9.exd5 Bf5 10.Qf3 Bg7 11.c3 Ne5 12.Qf4 Nxd3+ 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1134" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-04T16:58:51.727" LastActivityDate="2020-03-04T16:58:51.727" Title="Sicilian defense : what's the best answer to 2.Qh5?" Tags="&lt;queens&gt;&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2172" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2171" CreationDate="2013-03-16T15:59:14.343" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;2.Qh5 is a bad move; the queen will get kicked around as in your game. 2...d6 and 2...e6 are both fine responses. One nice thing about 2...e6 is that it already protects f7 against 3.Bc4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would not say that White &quot;gave you no rest or tempo to develop my pieces&quot;. You generally had more pieces developed than he did, because he wasted time moving his queen around. The one move of yours I question is 6....a6. You had a perfect opportunity here to develop a piece (for example, 6...Bg7, developing the bishop and preparing to castle), and instead you played a little pawn move on the edge that accomplished nothing but &quot;threatening&quot; to play b5 and kick his bishop back to b3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2013-03-16T15:59:14.343" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2173" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1919" CreationDate="2013-03-16T22:12:55.593" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Notepad ++ with option Language-&gt;Pascal highlights headers, move numbers, actual moves and comments with different colors. Works exactly as I would expect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="618" LastActivityDate="2013-03-16T22:12:55.593" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2174" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2175" CreationDate="2013-03-17T03:13:17.410" Score="10" ViewCount="759" Body="&lt;p&gt;I play online chess at a popular site and while playing from black, I win 58% of my games. I think I have a natural tendency to be a 'counterpuncher'. I seem to derive a perverse enjoyment in playing as the underdog and find it ammusing on some level to be able to survive my opponent's best attack. I'm a 1720 rated player in the 84th percentile of 30k players using E.L.O rating system. I'd like to advance my knowledge from black but can't find much devoted material. I'm guessing my otb play would be 1500-1600.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1132" LastActivityDate="2017-03-29T21:44:12.640" Title="Looking for books specializing in chess play from black" Tags="&lt;online-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2175" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2174" CreationDate="2013-03-17T03:31:21.503" Score="13" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;Black is OK!&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;Black is Still OK!&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;Black is OK Forever!&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All books are by &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andr%C3%A1s_Adorj%C3%A1n&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;András Adorján&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.gmsquare.com/BlackisOKAdorjan.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;sample&lt;/a&gt;, Black is OK, or the Presumption of Innocence in Chess:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In criminal law, the suspect is entitled to the presumption of innocence until it is proved beyond reasonable doubt that he is guilty. It might help me a lot if I was well-versed in law, but perhaps it would also make my argumentation bloody boring. So what am I getting at is that we should try to take an unbiased approach, and think of the starting position of the chess game. BLACK does NOT have to equalise, as it is not BLACK who has to prove anything in the first place! I presume - in the spirit of the presumption of innocence - that the position is equal. It is White who has to prove that he can get an advantage. And, as he has the right to move first, he sees to it immediately. Naturally, starting the game should not be mistaken for taking the initiative!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1113" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2013-05-02T00:46:09.187" LastActivityDate="2013-05-02T00:46:09.187" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2176" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2171" CreationDate="2013-03-17T08:40:24.627" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;Nakamura has played it a few times, but it seems the treatment Volokitin gave him cured    him of the disease. The point of 2...Nf6 is 3.Qxc5 Nxe4 and black is a bit better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;6. YM&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Lausanne SUI&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2005.09.19&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;3.2&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Nakamura, H&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Volokitin, And&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;2660&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;2671&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;B20&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;2005.09.14&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 c5 2.Qh5 Nf6 3.Qh4 Nc6 4.Be2 e5 5.d3 Be7 6.Qg3 d5 7.Nd2 O-O 8.c3 b5 &#xA;9.Nh3 d4 10.c4 Ne8 11.cxb5 Bh4 12.Qf3 Nb4 13.Bd1 f5 14.a3 Nd6 15.axb4 fxe4&#xA;16.Qh5 Bxh3 17.g3 Qf6 18.Bb3+ Kh8 19.f3 exf3 20.Kf2 Bg5 21.Nxf3 g6 22.Bxg5&#xA;Qf5 23.Qxh3 Qxf3+ 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: weird that the viewer doesn't show headers. That's Nakamura-Volokitin, Lausanne 2005.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2013-03-17T08:40:24.627" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2177" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-03-17T14:08:57.367" Score="7" ViewCount="919" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've decided to purchase a chess clock for productivity at work, and I really like the dual display of the chess clock: one timer for work, another timer for fooling around. However, I'd like to know, do game clocks typically offer count-up mode rather than count down?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1135" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2013-05-02T00:40:04.633" LastActivityDate="2017-01-03T00:24:17.290" Title="Do chess clocks typically provide count up features?" Tags="&lt;chess-clocks&gt;&lt;equipment&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2178" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2177" CreationDate="2013-03-17T15:13:01.723" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've never heard of any digital ones that do, but the old analog clocks count up, of course.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Interesting idea.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2013-03-17T15:13:01.723" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2179" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2177" CreationDate="2013-03-17T15:28:43.853" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is not a typical use case, so you will definitely want to make sure that the clock you're purchasing does have a count-up mode (or is analog, in which case, you probably want to make sure it is quiet). The Chronos digital clock does have a couple of count-up modes (UP-1 and UP-2).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2013-03-17T15:28:43.853" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2180" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2177" CreationDate="2013-03-17T15:38:34.567" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is an online version of what I think you are looking for:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.online-stopwatch.com/chess-timer/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;chess timer&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="307" LastActivityDate="2013-03-17T15:38:34.567" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2182" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2171" CreationDate="2013-03-17T21:54:38.063" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would play 2... Nf6, chasing the queen. If he takes the pawn on c5, you take his pawn on e4, attacking the queen. Then play d5 to support your knight on e4. If White plays d3, you can move your knight back to f6, and have the better of both the piece and the pawn positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2013-03-17T21:54:38.063" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2184" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2185" CreationDate="2013-03-18T10:58:10.883" Score="9" ViewCount="853" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are there any longer &quot;problems&quot; like &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.apronus.com/chess/chess-board.html?d=_________________P__P____p________________p_P____P_Pp____K_k_____&amp;amp;w=8&amp;amp;h=8&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt;, which is white to move and mate in 6?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Namely, where one is actually forced to achieve the &quot;goal&quot;.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1140" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-04T21:15:02.990" LastActivityDate="2020-04-04T21:15:02.990" Title="Self-Solving Chess Problems" Tags="&lt;problems&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2185" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2184" CreationDate="2013-03-18T14:21:11.157" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joke_chess_problem&quot;&gt;The Wikipedia page on Joke chess problems&lt;/a&gt; has a section on self-solving chess problems, and it links to &lt;a href=&quot;http://timkr.home.xs4all.nl/chess2/diary_14.htm&quot;&gt;Tim Krabbé's Open Chess Diary&lt;/a&gt;, where a few more examples are in item 267. He calls them &quot;no-brainers&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2013-03-18T14:21:11.157" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2186" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2145" CreationDate="2013-03-18T15:21:35.960" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Ideally, what does Black wants to do? He wants to put the Queen on g2. But that square is protected by the Knight on e3. The knight must be removed. If the pawn is recaptured then it will be mate. If the bishop recapture, the Queen will get captured. So, black is up material.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1113" LastActivityDate="2013-03-18T15:21:35.960" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2187" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2148" CreationDate="2013-03-19T18:57:19.073" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Also, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1260681&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;chessgames.com&lt;/a&gt; has an option to hide results:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;TIP:&lt;/strong&gt; Some people don't like to know the result of the game in advance. This can be done by registering a free account then visiting your preferences page, then checking &quot;&lt;em&gt;Don't show game results&lt;/em&gt;&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="86" LastActivityDate="2013-03-19T18:57:19.073" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2188" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2230" CreationDate="2013-03-19T20:26:15.093" Score="19" ViewCount="15884" Body="&lt;p&gt;In more than 90% of chess games I play in, the first move is either &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt;.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I am black, I try to counter &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; with &lt;code&gt;Caro-Kann&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;Sicilian&lt;/code&gt;, and against &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt; I usually just play &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt; and see where it goes from there.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I'm however puzzled by one thing; what difference is there between &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt;?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Are they equally good?  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Do they have their own merits/drawbacks?  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From what I've read, &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; is usually considered by far the best move in non-pro chess, but I don't really see how there could be a big difference between &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1009" LastEditorUserId="18475" LastEditDate="2019-04-09T20:54:16.567" LastActivityDate="2019-04-09T20:54:16.567" Title="Openings - e4 vs d4" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;1.d4&gt;&lt;1.e4&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2189" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2188" CreationDate="2013-03-19T20:34:06.990" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;They are indeed equally good. 1.e4 tends to lead to more open positions (the board is not cluttered up with pawns and pieces can move around freely) than 1.d4, which it is why it is recommended for less experienced players, since you have to learn how to use your pieces first to be good at playing more closed positions, where you constantly have to decide whether it's a good idea to open the position up by playing freeing pawn moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The big fundamental difference between the two moves comes down to (theoretically) how White is going to complete his big pawn center by playing the other central pawn move that he didn't play on move 1. If he started with 1.e4, it's not so hard to play d4 later, because the queen is already supporting it, and in openings like the Open Sicilian and Scotch he plays d4 very early indeed. If he started with 1.d4, a later e4 is a little harder to accomplish in comparison because no pieces are already supporting it. In broad strokes, this is why 1.e4 openings tend to lead to more open positions. (Of course, there are plenty of exceptions.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2013-03-19T20:34:06.990" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2190" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2194" CreationDate="2013-03-19T23:12:32.370" Score="15" ViewCount="1278" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe that 4 knights opening is the most popular opening, especially among average players. I play it a lot, that's why I want to analyse it. I'm an average player, so I hope you can help me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some people like to play 4 knights game like this&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. Bb5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I don't like to exchange my bishop for a knight, early on, so I play something like&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.d3 d6 5.Be2 Be7 6.O-O O-O&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is just an example where both player are trying to control the center, develop their minor pieces and castle. So you can think of any position, since most of the 4 knights game positions will most probably look a lot like that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both sides castled, now, how to continue without exchanging too much material? I'm just an average player, what I would do is &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.d3 d6 5.Be2 Be7 6.O-O O-O 7.d4 exd4 8.Nxd4 Nxd4 9.Qxd4 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's what I would do but I don't like this position, black is going to chase my queen, which happened to me a lot of times, and I'll end up moving the queen, losing space tempo, space and advantage of being one move ahead. If black played &lt;code&gt;c5&lt;/code&gt; I'll have to bring back my queen, if &lt;code&gt;Qc4&lt;/code&gt; then &lt;code&gt;Be6&lt;/code&gt;. Materials are equal, black gaining tempo while developing his pieces. And both sides lost too much material to open the position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't see anyway to continue the game if white didn't play &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt;. And in many games you'll end up swapping queens too early in the game if the &lt;code&gt;d file&lt;/code&gt; was open.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So is it possible to play the 4 knights opening without trading too much material in order to open the position? (I'm asking about black and white.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1105" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2013-05-02T00:47:40.303" LastActivityDate="2020-06-02T05:26:44.993" Title="How to reach an open position in the 4 Knights Game without exchanging too much material?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;learning&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;four-knights&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2191" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="75" CreationDate="2013-03-20T00:04:59.573" Score="20" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can't believe that no one mentioned the Lolli attack, very similar to the fried liver attack, but the Lolli attack is better!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Title &quot;Lolli Attack&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nf6 4.Ng5 d5 5.exd5 Nxd5 6.d4 exd4 7.O-O &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From there, you actually have 4 main variations, watch &lt;a href=&quot;//www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmF64w13ZU8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this youtube video&lt;/a&gt;, it will tell you everything you need to know about the attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1105" LastEditorUserId="4186" LastEditDate="2020-03-10T06:48:53.770" LastActivityDate="2020-03-10T06:48:53.770" CommentCount="2" CommunityOwnedDate="2013-08-09T01:11:05.007" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2192" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2174" CreationDate="2013-03-20T00:10:29.620" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;i have a book called &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/0713470372&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;winning with the najdorf&lt;/a&gt;, it's pretty good, for white and black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1105" LastActivityDate="2013-03-20T00:10:29.620" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2193" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2188" CreationDate="2013-03-20T07:39:14.357" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is not much difference between the two as they are two of the strongest opening moves to make. If unopposed, often &lt;code&gt;1.e4&lt;/code&gt; is followed by &lt;code&gt;2.d4&lt;/code&gt; or vice versa (&lt;code&gt;1.d4&lt;/code&gt; &lt;code&gt;2.e4&lt;/code&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The real difference comes when the mirror move is made.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In these scenarios &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; is definitely more of an aggressive posture. When &lt;code&gt;1. e4 e5&lt;/code&gt; is encountered White has many aggressive options such as bringing the knight out to attack &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt;, bringing the queen out to &lt;code&gt;Qh5&lt;/code&gt; to attack the king side (not really recommended), pushing &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt; to attack &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt;, or setting up a bishop aimed at &lt;code&gt;f7&lt;/code&gt; with &lt;code&gt;Bc4&lt;/code&gt; (out of order though if made on move 2), or the hyper aggressive &lt;code&gt;f4&lt;/code&gt; (kings gambit - kind of risky if black plays Fischer's line).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt; is more of a structural approach. When &lt;code&gt;1. d4 d5&lt;/code&gt; is encountered White may consider many different avenues of moving forward, but there are not very many immediately aggressive approaches (perhaps &lt;code&gt;2. c4&lt;/code&gt;, the Queens Gambit). In this scenario, &lt;code&gt;2.e4&lt;/code&gt; should not really be considered as viable. Even with an attack on &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt;, it is still defended by Black's queen. So White's only choice here is to build. Begin moving the knights out, perhaps set up a London system, or maybe fiancetto king side and prepare for the mid game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; plays on the idea of immediate attack or traps in the opening, whereas &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt; tends to aim for attacks and traps in the mid game. Of course, these are just generalities and the game seems to always get away from generic approaches rather quickly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="342" LastEditorUserId="342" LastEditDate="2013-03-20T19:02:40.257" LastActivityDate="2013-03-20T19:02:40.257" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2194" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2190" CreationDate="2013-03-20T08:10:51.600" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;There isn't really anything wrong with what you show as an example in my opinion. White is in the superior position. Just because the queen is attacked once does not mean that you are going to lose a tempo. If Black moves &lt;code&gt;c5&lt;/code&gt; to attack your queen on &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt; then that is a blunder in my opinion, and can be countered with &lt;code&gt;qd3&lt;/code&gt;. In this position stockfish gives White a &lt;code&gt;+0.64&lt;/code&gt; advantage with 23 moves of depth. So I would say that you are on the right track. Continue to dominate that center, and then look towards exploiting Black's weak pawn on &lt;code&gt;d6&lt;/code&gt; by getting your &lt;code&gt;f&lt;/code&gt; rook involved and developing your other bishop. Game on!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="342" LastActivityDate="2013-03-20T08:10:51.600" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2196" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1983" CreationDate="2013-03-21T22:34:07.750" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;you can use &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/explorer/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;the game explorer on chess.com&lt;/a&gt;, there's a database, it compares your game to other games, searches for related openings, and you can get a link to page.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;using game explorer to analyse your games is always free, however to see other games, you have to be a &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/membership&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;premium member&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also on &lt;a href=&quot;http://chess.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;chess.com&lt;/a&gt;, you have &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/analysis-board-editor&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;the analysis board editor&lt;/a&gt;, which is free and you can embed it in webpages. Click on &quot;Game editor&quot; tab -&gt; &quot;Embed&quot; button.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1105" LastEditorUserId="1105" LastEditDate="2013-03-21T22:39:14.207" LastActivityDate="2013-03-21T22:39:14.207" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2197" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2188" CreationDate="2013-03-22T14:53:35.387" Score="-4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The obvious difference is about what possibilities of developing your figures will be got. &#xA;In the case of &lt;code&gt;1.e4&lt;/code&gt; your queen will be granted an opportunity to develop herself without any interference on the development of other figures (&lt;code&gt;Qg4&lt;/code&gt;,&lt;code&gt;Qh5&lt;/code&gt;). &#xA;In the case of &lt;code&gt;1.d4&lt;/code&gt; your queen will make an interference for bishops at &lt;code&gt;c1&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;f1&lt;/code&gt;. &#xA;So, the &lt;code&gt;1.e4&lt;/code&gt; is really better. But, you can receive an &lt;code&gt;1 .. c5&lt;/code&gt; that i don't like to play due to huge amount of theoretical background required.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="862" LastActivityDate="2013-03-22T14:53:35.387" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2198" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2190" CreationDate="2013-03-22T21:41:43.197" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;You don't have to exchange the bishop for the knight even if you use the 4.Bb5. This position is very similar to the Ruy Lopez and you could easily reach the same position from the Ruy Lopez. One variation of the Ruy Lopez has the bishop back off to a4 if the a-pawn advances to threaten it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You also have the option of Bc4 before d3, which keeps your bad bishop active and outside the pawn chain, if you don't want to move Bb5 at all. Also the d3 move seems too passive. d4 is more aggressive and would lead to an open position the way you want much more easily. It also doesn't hem in the white bishop even if you don't move the bishop first.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1161" LastEditorUserId="11202" LastEditDate="2017-05-03T05:46:29.777" LastActivityDate="2017-05-03T05:46:29.777" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2199" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2201" CreationDate="2013-03-24T11:17:51.733" Score="18" ViewCount="2759" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this video: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axWdicKaBpE&quot;&gt;Levon Aronian vs Magnus Carlsen Round 1 - 2013 Candidates Chess Tournament&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 Bb4+ 4.Bd2 Bxd2+ 5.Qxd2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And now, Kevin said: &quot;You can tell that the game is going for a draw.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question, how can you play a game knowing that you are going to draw? Do you have to defend? Exchange minor pieces? Mirror your opponent's move?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In theory, white always plays for a win, so how can black say: &quot;I'm going to play this game and I'm going to draw&quot;. Carlsen seemed that he decided to go for a draw from the get-go, so what's the game plan for black in order to get a draw? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1105" LastEditorUserId="1105" LastEditDate="2013-03-24T11:30:15.280" LastActivityDate="2015-09-09T13:36:27.963" Title="How to play for a draw" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;learning&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2200" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2199" CreationDate="2013-03-24T12:29:11.517" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;Keep in mind that I am no expert, but these players know opening theory so well that they know the exact types of moves to make and positions to get in to achieve a draw.  No one goes into the game (White or Black) with the mindset of that they want to draw today.  However, they do not want to lose, and maybe for White, there is a slight advantage having the first move, so Black will just settle for a draw rather than a loss.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems the most common way the Grandmaster's do it is to trade off material so material is very low and insufficient for a mate or they really close up the game.  So it is hard for anyone to make a move without destroying their position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I do know that after following every game in the candidates match so far, that in this particular game, &lt;code&gt;Magnus&lt;/code&gt; surely went into it wanting to win.  But for him as Black, a draw is like a win.  This is because he will face &lt;code&gt;Aronian&lt;/code&gt; with the White pieces next, and that should be an advantage to him.  As a matter of fact, &lt;code&gt;Magnus&lt;/code&gt; faces &lt;code&gt;Aronian&lt;/code&gt; today as &lt;code&gt;White&lt;/code&gt;.  So this will be a very important win for either one and I don't think either one wants to settle for a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastEditorUserId="511" LastEditDate="2013-03-24T18:19:29.177" LastActivityDate="2013-03-24T18:19:29.177" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2201" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2199" CreationDate="2013-03-24T15:37:30.157" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;I imagine Kevin's comment was somewhat hyperbolic. My local database has 1464 games with the position after 5.Qxd2, of which only 47% were drawn (although I imagine that percentage goes up as the players' strength increases). That is still enough to give the variation a reputation as drawish, but not enough to reliably predict that the game will end in a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are certainly variations that are more drawish than others, for concrete reasons. The best current example is the Berlin variation of the Spanish, where Black gets the queens off the board early and White has had trouble making anything of his positional advantages in the ensuing endgame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In general the way that a game becomes more likely to have a decisive result is due to imbalances between the virtues of the two sides. The obvious example is a gambit, where one player has better development and the other player has an active pawn. In a situation with few imbalances (for example, the Exchange French or Exchange Slav), it is more difficult to play for a win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2013-03-24T15:37:30.157" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2202" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2199" CreationDate="2013-03-25T16:07:07.237" Score="5" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;My question, how can you play a game knowing that you are going to draw? Do you have to defend? Exchange minor pieces? Mirror your&#xA;  opponent's move?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Generally playing for draw is difficult psychologically. It is tempting to avoid risk by exchanging pieces and simplifying the position; however, it easy to end up making concessions on every simplification and end up in a worse passive position. This is a very good recipe for a loss. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't think there is a good method of playing for a draw, but if all you need is a draw try to play normally. For example, if you are normally a sharp tactical player who plays the Sicilian go ahead and play that even if all you need is draw. Trying to play ultra safe chess that is not your strength in, say, Caro-Kann that you don't know will expose your weaker side and you are more likely to lose. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="307" LastEditorUserId="307" LastEditDate="2015-09-09T13:36:27.963" LastActivityDate="2015-09-09T13:36:27.963" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2203" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2107" CreationDate="2013-03-25T16:22:41.777" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't remember which of the chess books defined it this way, sorry, but I have seen a backward pawn defined as a pawn where the pawns on either side of it are ahead of it or missing. Although if both are missing it is an isolated pawn not a backward pawn. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Using this definition at the start of the game no pawns are backward. In the example none of the pawns are backward since they all have a neighbor pawn on one side or the other that is not ahead of them. Backward pawns are weak points precisely for the reasons mentioned above, requiring another piece to defend them. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the example if instead of 4.d4 white played 4.Bxc6+ and back responded by playing 4. .. bxc6 then the pawn on c7 would become a backward pawn, and a doubled pawn since there are two pawns on the same file. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the example as played if black responds 4. .. g6 then he would create 2 backward pawns on f7 and h7. Either of them could stop being backward by advancing though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1161" LastActivityDate="2013-03-25T16:22:41.777" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2204" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2205" CreationDate="2013-03-26T05:17:30.063" Score="35" ViewCount="25336" Body="&lt;p&gt;What I want to know is how engines are programmed to find moves. I'm sure they first calculate the most forcing lines such as captures and checks. But what about subtle, deep positional moves? They seem to find them very quickly as well (Generally speaking. Of course they miss such moves now and then). As in, how are they programmed to look for quiet moves/positional ideas? They can't just brute force every move, since that'd take too long, so there should be some clever way for them to arrive at the best moves really quickly. I'm interested in knowing this because I think it'd help players to think over the board in the real world as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="885" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-03-19T13:36:55.037" LastActivityDate="2019-09-17T16:40:24.757" Title="How do chess engines &quot;think&quot;?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;&lt;calculation&gt;&lt;chess-algorithms&gt;&lt;brute-force&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="11" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2205" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2204" CreationDate="2013-03-26T05:32:35.930" Score="28" Body="&lt;p&gt;In a general way chess engines use a decision tree. The root of the tree is the current position and has a child node for each position that can be made by making a legal move. Each of these nodes in turn have a child node for the positions that can be reached by making a legal move from them. The engine pushes the tree out to a depth defined by its capabilities and the time it is allowed to &quot;think&quot;. Positions that can be reached in more than one way are simply cross referenced so that they will not have to be considered more than once. Once the tree is created the computer uses a set of weighted rules to analyze the final positions in the tree and starts to remove those that are undesirable or that the opponent can prevent it from reaching. The tree is cut down this way until only one move remains and the computer makes that move. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/blog/zaifrun&quot;&gt;http://www.chess.com/blog/zaifrun&lt;/a&gt; has series or articles on creating a chess engine if you want a more in depth look at how they work. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1161" LastActivityDate="2013-03-26T05:32:35.930" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2206" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-03-26T14:52:15.667" Score="4" ViewCount="1329" Body="&lt;p&gt;What are some ways one can keep the initiative?  I find in many cases I have the upper hand if I am able to keep my opponent defending instead of creating his own attack.  Are there openings or certain moves in the beginning that help keep the initiative?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T16:31:15.057" Title="How to maintain the initiative?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2207" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-03-26T14:55:25.450" Score="11" ViewCount="641" Body="&lt;p&gt;At lower level, we often blunder many times and do not make the best moves, so there can be multiple ways to win.  But at the top level, for example, during the candidate matches going on now, the masters do not blunder often and they do not make very many mistakes, so I have noticed a theme which is not just in these games, but in others, and that is that the difference between winning and losing can come down to a single pawn for them and they will often fight to the death over one square.  I have noticed that for example if white attacks e4, black will immediately strive to defend it and they will battle over one square.  Is my assessment correct on this?  Are there other factors at the top level?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-03-12T21:12:12.133" LastActivityDate="2017-05-10T08:59:17.380" Title="The thin line between winning and losing at the top level?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;grandmaster&gt;&lt;super-grandmaster&gt;&lt;losing&gt;&lt;winning&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2208" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2204" CreationDate="2013-03-26T15:24:59.120" Score="25" Body="&lt;p&gt;You're asking a pretty complex question, but it's good to go back to basics.  There are a couple of concepts to consider:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Evaluation&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If a (real) player is shown a position and asked &quot;who is winning this game?&quot;, how do they go about deciding?  Most likely, they will check a few basic things, such as: material differences, the degree to which pieces have been developed or are positioned &quot;well&quot;, doubled / isolated / connected / passed pawns, (controlled) open files, how far up the board the pawns are.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, if you had to, you could come up with a systematic way to calculate a position score based on the above.  You could decide, for example, that a pawn is worth 1 point, and that a passed pawn is worth 0.3 points more.  Isolated or doubled pawns might be worth a bit less, etc.  If you add up everything, you get an estimate value for the immediate position at hand.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is known as &lt;a href=&quot;http://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Evaluation&quot;&gt;evaluation&lt;/a&gt;, and basically all chess programs have a way to evaluate positions (ignoring novelty AI chess engines which are typically very weak).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;But what about subtle, deep positional moves?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well, we've only barely scratched the surface of position evaluation.  The actual implementation of an evaluation function could be simplistic, to allow for more positions to be evaluated per second (albeit in a rough fashion), or more complex, leading to less positions evaluated, but with a higher degree of confidence.  It's not unusual for the evaluation function to take into account hundreds or even thousands of separate pieces of information.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Search&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've specifically left out something from the above, which most real players will immediately think about - is there any way to immediately win the game for either side?  Any mates or &quot;hanging&quot; pieces visible?  Although it's easy to trivialise this, it's anything but trivial.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What does it mean for a player to have &lt;em&gt;full&lt;/em&gt; confidence in a combination?  In the end, it boils down to having calculated all options.  Real players typically won't do this (except for trivial or very forced mates), most of the time we will only consider a handful of options, and rule out others which seem to be &quot;non-constructive&quot; or obviously leading to a loss.  We often make mistakes during this calculation, e.g. we may realise that a change in move orders makes threats evaporate, etc.  The point is that to be completely sure of a combination, you actually need to calculate all the way to its conclusion, assuming each player will only make the best possible move available to them (this is referred to as &quot;min/max&quot;).  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, given that chess has a much larger search space (this is what &quot;all possible moves in the future&quot; is referred to) than what is feasible for a computer to calculate, compromises need to be made.  Just like humans, computers can decide to disregard entire lines of thought based on certain criteria.  This is known as &lt;em&gt;heuristics&lt;/em&gt;.  It's worthwhile noting that while you can only be really sure of a combination if you brute force it, a complex evaluation function can often detect the presence of threats (e.g. we could count forks, skewer opportunities, etc, to guide a search in that direction).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the end, although computers are extremely fast, it's the heuristics which allow them to calculate so deep.  That said, you may be surprised how deep modern engines calculate fully, typically it's beyond 3 moves, even in quick games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Conclusion / combining it all&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, to summarise - evaluation functions have a lot of intelligence built into them (i.e. they take into consideration more things than your average human player), heuristics allow the computer to cull lines of thought it decides probably aren't going to end well, and computers are extremely, extremely fast.  Add them up, and they're pretty difficult to beat.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="412" LastActivityDate="2013-03-26T15:24:59.120" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2209" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2212" CreationDate="2013-03-26T16:20:54.163" Score="10" ViewCount="3131" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a low rating player and I would like to understand why &lt;code&gt;5 Nxe4&lt;/code&gt; is consider to be the best replay by white on the &lt;code&gt;C46 Four knights, Italian variation opening&lt;/code&gt; against &lt;code&gt;4 Nxe4&lt;/code&gt; by black. Instead of &lt;code&gt;5. Bxf7+&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. Bc4 Nxe4 5. Nxe4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Instead of this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. Bc4 Nxe4 5. Bxf7+ &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="872" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2013-12-03T16:25:50.833" LastActivityDate="2020-12-02T23:55:11.050" Title="Best reply to C46 Four knights, Italian variation" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;four-knights&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2210" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2209" CreationDate="2013-03-26T17:31:37.823" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would agree that the first scenario presented is the better move for two reasons:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It allows White to maintain control of its side of the center.  In the second scenario, White is giving Black a foothold in this valuable space (e4).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In the second scenario, White forces Black's king to move, and thereby prevents it from castling.  While that is an advantage for White, has to sacrifice a bishop (early) to get it.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It comes down to risk vs. reward.  White's reward of maintaining control of the center (the better of the two rewards, IMO) can be achieved with less risk (first scenario), than preventing Black from castling can be.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="511" LastActivityDate="2013-03-26T17:31:37.823" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2211" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2209" CreationDate="2013-03-26T17:32:33.123" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;4. Bc4&lt;/code&gt; is a mistake because it leads to a fork trick for Black:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. Bc4 Nxe4 5. Nxe4 d5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Given this fork trick, the best square for the light-squared bishop is &lt;code&gt;b5&lt;/code&gt;, so I would altogether avoid playing &lt;code&gt;4. Bc4&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After &lt;code&gt;5. Bxf7+&lt;/code&gt;, I still do not think white has the advantage, for example, after:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. Bc4 Nxe4 5. Bxf7+ Kxf7 6. Nxe4 d5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastEditorUserId="109" LastEditDate="2013-03-26T17:45:47.943" LastActivityDate="2013-03-26T17:45:47.943" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2212" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2209" CreationDate="2013-03-26T17:45:53.340" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;5.Bxf7+ has a reasonable idea behind it, in that it exposes Black's king and jettisons White's bishop before Black can use the fork trick on it that would follow with 5.Nxe4 d5. However, it has some concrete problems:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;After 5...Kxf7 6.Nxe4, Black plays 6...d5 and forms a massive center.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Black's king turns out to not be vulnerable on f7. It will quickly retreat to g8 where it is relatively safe.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;White's knights are going to get kicked around a lot with loss of tempo. If he plays 7.Neg5+ Kg8, both ...h6 and ...e4 will attack knights that don't have very good places to flee to.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In contrast, after 5.Nxe4 d5, Black regains his sacrificed piece, but has to break up his pawn center in the process. After 6.Bd3 dxe4 7.Bxe4, White no longer has his opening advantage but the position is relatively equal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The lesson from all of this is that 4.Bc4 is not a very good move. The standard alternatives are 4.Bb5 (Spanish Four Knights), 4.d4 (Scotch Four Knights), and 4.g3 (Glek Four Knights), which all keep White's opening advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S. I should point out that there is a third alternative for White's fifth move, 5.0-0, gambiting a pawn for a lead in development. This is likely actually better than either 5.Bxf7+ or 5.Nxe4, but if you want to play a gambit like that then there are much better ones to play than the Italian Four Knights.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastEditorUserId="291" LastEditDate="2013-03-26T18:03:28.433" LastActivityDate="2013-03-26T18:03:28.433" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2213" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="778" CreationDate="2013-03-26T20:27:12.547" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have seen an informal distinction between tactical and positional, or put another way between tactical and strategic play. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tactical play was described as being what you do when you can force the issue. The play can be calculated and the outcome determined. Many lines in game analysis are of this type usually ending with something like &quot;winning a pawn&quot; or any other concrete goal. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Strategic or positional play was described as being what you do when you don't have anything to do. There are no tactical variations that you can use at the moment and so your play must be of the type to create abstract strengths. You increase king safety, or strengthen your hold on the center, or something similar. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Good positional play puts you in a position to find strategic play. Both are important. If you make a positional move while ignoring the strategic considerations it is a worthless move. I once played and game that my opponent analyzed for me afterward, one of his comments for a particular move was &quot;Amazing this move is as good strategically as it is bad tactically&quot; and I had hung the piece simply giving it away. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The other direction is harder to find but ignoring positional play when making a tactical move is the kind where you gain material but make positional compromises that hurt you. One really good example of this is the famous game know as the &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immortal_Game&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Immortal game&lt;/a&gt;&quot;.  Here the winning player had sacrificed a bishop, both rooks, and his queen. Capturing all that material was tactical advantage but the positional considerations were such that the winner was still able to force a win in the end. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is even some blurring between the two. You might carry out a tactical combination in order to gain a positional advantage.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1161" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-07-26T16:19:18.243" LastActivityDate="2019-07-26T16:19:18.243" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2214" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2204" CreationDate="2013-03-26T22:34:12.963" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;I agree with the answers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I remember GM &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Dzindzichashvili&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Roman Dzindzichashvili&lt;/a&gt; talking about it, in one of &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesscentral.com/chess_dvd_roman_s/40.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Roman's labs&lt;/a&gt; videos, i don't remember what video it was (if anyone knows the details please edit my answer).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Roman said that the developer of &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fritz_%28chess%29&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Fritz engine&lt;/a&gt; is his friend. So Roman tested Fritz to see how good it was, and the developer told Roman that in order for fritz to make complex decisions (sacrificing materials in exchange for positional advantage for example) they had to change the value of the pieces, like telling the program that a bad bishop is worth 1 point, a bishop on an open diagonal is worth 7 points, knights are worth 5 points in close positions... &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't know the exact numbers for each piece but that's how it works, and now your engine won't have any problem sacrificing a bad bishop or whatever if you can tell him the value of each piece in each position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See also &lt;a href=&quot;http://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;The Chess Programming Wiki&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1105" LastEditorUserId="1105" LastEditDate="2013-03-28T11:10:30.853" LastActivityDate="2013-03-28T11:10:30.853" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2215" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2206" CreationDate="2013-03-26T23:17:17.580" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;From my own experience the best way to maintain initiative is remain active. Don't make timid moves, you will occasionally overreach doing this but you will learn what is overly bold and what is simply active play. Also I have found that the better a plan I have the more active my play, it is when I am floundering around not sure where to go from here that I have the worst time keeping initiative. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Be familiar with the general opening principals, (open lines, knights before bishops, rooks on open ranks, don't make more than 2 pawn moves in the opening, don't move that same piece twice in the opening, etc) none of these are hard fast rules that should never be broken but they will keep you in the right direction in the first part of the game. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally I would be familiar with the basic weapons of chess, (pins, forks, etc) and learn to look for them not only in the current position but in positions that you could reach if you make whatever move you are contemplating. They will tell you both what to watch out for and what tactical opportunities you have to advance your own game, and extend, or update, your plan as the game proceeds. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One final thought, have a reason, tactical or not but a specific reason, for every move. If you move without a specific reason your are floundering and no longer on the initiative.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1161" LastActivityDate="2013-03-26T23:17:17.580" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2216" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2206" CreationDate="2013-03-27T00:36:01.260" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Overall&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Keeping the initiative is very important because it allows you to control the game. For the most part, you have the initiative when your move directly forces an opponent's move or greatly narrows your opponent's choices down.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Trading initiative for material&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Often times initiative is sacrificed in order to gain material. In the case of a piece this is worthy. However, in the case of a pawn (and sometimes with pieces), then there are few guidelines to follow. When you have gained sufficient initiative to gain a pawn, make sure to double check if you will lose too much tempo taking it. Moreover, just the threat of taking the pawn can sometimes be stronger than actually taking the pawn, as it can weaken the opponent's position in other places while they scramble to get a hold on the pawn's defense. During this time, you can be formulating a strong unopposed attack elsewhere which would presumably be planned on gaining more than a pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Don't get me wrong, winning a pawn is the win. But sometimes there are stronger alternatives.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Retaining initiative&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you have the initiative, then it is highly likely you just forced your opponent to make a certain move. The first thing to consider is how to have the largest impact on their choices. This means making &quot;annoying&quot; moves to boot or relocate pieces which are vulnerable, checking, building material on a target, basically directly influencing their move. Sometimes it can be very difficult to determine how to keep the initiative in this type of situation when none of those are available. When that is the case, it is important to see what move you can make which will allow for the next move to directly force your opponent to respond. When you realize what move that is, your opponent probably will too and will then be forced to make a move in response to your future move allowing you to retain the initiative (always assume your opponent knows your plan - the moves should be unstoppable even if known in advance, just like a forced mate scenario).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="342" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T16:31:15.057" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T16:31:15.057" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2217" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-03-27T04:03:01.883" Score="19" ViewCount="5585" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are there any known or &quot;standard&quot; openings in bughouse or crazyhouse chess? Obviously, as soon as pieces start coming off the board things get less predictable, so this question is less about the existence of opening &lt;em&gt;lines&lt;/em&gt; as it is about &lt;em&gt;moves&lt;/em&gt; which are consistently seen to be good; e.g. White playing &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; to open development lines, or Black avoiding &lt;code&gt;g6&lt;/code&gt;, which creates exploitable weaknesses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="827" LastEditorUserId="8201" LastEditDate="2019-12-28T04:56:39.820" LastActivityDate="2020-07-02T10:17:12.833" Title="Crazyhouse/Bughouse openings" Tags="&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;bughouse&gt;&lt;crazyhouse&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2218" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2207" CreationDate="2013-03-27T09:54:07.810" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;Note&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;: &lt;em&gt;I'm an average player, who learnt chess about 2 years ago, maybe I'm not the right guy to answer such question but I will try.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wanted to ask a similar question, maybe I will today or tomorrow. As for your question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Top level players do make mistakes, maybe they underestimate the opponent, maybe under time pressure, maybe they just don't see the moves, or maybe they are focusing on the attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To prove my point I'll show you 2 games and I&quot;ll talk about the mistakes, you can click on the links to watch the videos&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzJV750f80k&amp;amp;list=UUHz5JQAUSkjxrosDIWCtEdw&amp;amp;index=1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Levon Aronian vs Boris Gelfand Round 2 Candidates Tournament 2013&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Levon Aronian&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Boris Gelfand&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;2013 Candidates Tournament&quot;]&#xA;1. Nf3 c5 2. c4 Nc6 3. Nc3 g6 4. e3 Nf6 5. d4 cxd4 6. exd4 d5 7. cxd5 Nxd5 8. Qb3 Nxc3 9. Bc4 Nd5 10. Bxd5 e6 11. Bxc6 bxc6 12. O-O Be7 13. Be3 Qd5 14. Rfc1 Qxb3 15. axb3 Bb7 16. Ne5 O-O 17. Ra4 Rfd8 18. Nc4 Bf6 19. Na5 Rd7 20. Rb4 Ba6 21. Nxc6 Rb7 22. h3 Kg7 23. Rxb7 Bxb7 24. Ne5 Bd8 25. b4 Rc8 26. Bh6 Kg8 27. Rxc8 Bxc8 28. Nc6 Bf6 29. b5 Bd7 30. g4 g5 31. h4 gxh4 32. g5 Bxc6 33. bxc6 Bd8 34. Kg2 Bc7 35. Kh3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want a full analysis on that game you can watch the video, I&quot;ll talk about 2 moves that changed the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;16. Ne5&lt;/code&gt; getting the knight involved, the more brilliant move is &lt;code&gt;18. Nc4&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;19. Na5&lt;/code&gt; I didn't see that coming! putting pressure on the pawn, basically that knight destroyed black in my opinion. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Did Boris see it coming? Maybe he did, maybe he just ignored the knight, we all do ignore our opponent's moves, in the end of the middle game, especially if the opponent is attacking, we have to counter-attack, and we don't defend anymore, keep in mind that in this particular tournament, you get 2 hours for the first 40 moves, no time pressure, the game ended in 35 moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The next move is &lt;code&gt;26. Bh6&lt;/code&gt; which finished Boris off. If the king takes, then eventually the knight will fork the black bishop. Didn't he see it? He should see that. The first thing I look at is the major minor pieces of my opponent. If black focused a bit he could've seen it, (Boris is a GM) so white has a knight, a rook and a bishop, it's obvious, has no where to go, if he didn't check the king, so Boris should have thought about what happens if the bishop attacks his king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6UxTLhDSds&amp;amp;list=UUHz5JQAUSkjxrosDIWCtEdw&amp;amp;index=3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Bobby Fischer vs James Sherwin 1957 US Chess Championship&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Bobby Fischer&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;James Sherwin&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;1957 US Chess Championship&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 a6 6. Bc4 e6 7. O-O b5 8. Bb3 b4 9. Nb1 Bd7 10. Be3 Nc6 11. f3 Be7 12. c3 bxc3 13. Nxc6 Bxc6 14. Nxc3 O-O 15. Rc1 Qb8 16. Nd5 exd5 17. Rxc6 dxe4 18. fxe4 Qb5 19. Rb6 Qe5 20. Bd4 Qg5 21. Qf3 Nd7 22. Rb7 Ne5 23. Qe2 Bf6 24. Kh1 a5 25. Bd5 Rac8 26. Bc3 a4 27. Ra7 Ng4 28. Rxa4 Bxc3 29. bxc3 Rxc3 30. Rxf7 Rc1 31. Qf1 h5 32. Qxc1 Qh4 33. Rxf8 Kh7 34. h3 Qg3 35. hxg4 h4 36. Be6 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's focus on &lt;code&gt;30. Rxf7 Rc1 31. Qf1&lt;/code&gt;. Black didn't see &lt;code&gt;Rxf7&lt;/code&gt; and of course he didn't see &lt;code&gt;Qf1&lt;/code&gt;. That's how you outsmart your opponent! I had to show a game played by Fischer. It answers your question perfectly. Let's say if&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;Rxf1+Rxf1+&#xA;Qxd5Rxf8+&#xA;Kxf8exd5&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And white has a passed pawn. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All I want to say is that GMs do make mistakes, they do underestimate the opponent, ignore a move, or maybe they just don't see the game so well. But sometimes they are just outsmarted!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1105" LastEditorUserId="11202" LastEditDate="2017-05-10T08:59:17.380" LastActivityDate="2017-05-10T08:59:17.380" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2219" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2207" CreationDate="2013-03-27T10:19:01.427" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Simply, at the top-level, a player has enough technique to exploit every little advantage. That's not always true at lower levels.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus, losing a pawn without compensation may be a little blunder in a match between two beginners, since the opponent could make a bigger blunder on the next moves, and lose the advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In a match between 2 pros, a blunder like that will lead to a defeat (or to a tormented draw), because a top-level player will make very few mistakes (if none) and probably won't give away his advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course even World Champions blunder spectacularly (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1440796&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Deep Fritz-Kramnik&lt;/a&gt; anyone?).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="279" LastActivityDate="2013-03-27T10:19:01.427" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2220" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2199" CreationDate="2013-03-27T14:26:13.010" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is no &quot;playing for the draw&quot; in chess.You always play for win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1172" LastActivityDate="2013-03-27T14:26:13.010" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2221" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2222" CreationDate="2013-03-28T16:35:08.023" Score="7" ViewCount="112" Body="&lt;p&gt;So I'm following the London Candidate Tournament and I'm a bit confused regarding the time and why some games are getting an extensions and some are not and you are eventually losing because of time. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So my question is what are the exact rules on that matter for this tournament?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1179" LastActivityDate="2013-03-28T16:41:09.377" Title="What are the time rules in Candidate Tournament?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;tournament&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2222" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2221" CreationDate="2013-03-28T16:41:09.377" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Per &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fide.com/FIDE/handbook/regscandidates2012.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;the official rules&lt;/a&gt;, section 3.5: 120 minutes for the first 40 moves, 60 minutes for the next 20 moves and then 15 minutes for the rest of the game plus an additional 30 seconds per move starting from move 61.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2013-03-28T16:41:09.377" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2223" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17105" CreationDate="2013-03-29T05:22:30.490" Score="5" ViewCount="725" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've recently become interested in infinite chess (this &lt;a href=&quot;http://jdh.hamkins.org/transfinite-game-values-in-infinite-chess-bonn-january-2017/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;presentation from Joel David Hamkins&lt;/a&gt; [updated presentation based on the link provided by JDH in comments; significantly more comprehensive than what was originally linked to] talks a bit about it and some of the interesting mathematical questions). You can find another discussion of the mathematical properties of infinite chess &lt;a href=&quot;https://mathoverflow.net/questions/27967/decidability-of-chess-on-an-infinite-board&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is, has this variant been much explored by chess players (as opposed to mathematicians, not that they aren't also chess players)? Are there resources that explain the strategy for infinite chess? Do the principles that guide standard chess play change drastically for the infinite variant, or are they merely extended?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="912" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:58:47.617" LastActivityDate="2017-08-18T17:41:25.330" Title="How does strategy change in the infinite variant of chess?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;chess-variants&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2224" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2148" CreationDate="2013-03-29T07:01:54.423" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I use &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.freechess.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;FICS&lt;/a&gt; (Free Internet Chess Server) combined with my favourite Chess GUI (graphic user interface) of all time, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.babaschess.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;BabasChess&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I logon to FICS via BabasChess and type in the console &quot;ex GMCarlsen -1&quot;, or &quot;ex GMKramnik - 1&quot; and flick through the moves of their last game using ALT - Left arrow, making sure the moves of the game are not displayed (right click board, turn off moves).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Candidates tourny is on too late for me to watch live, so this has been my routine every morning for the past week.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, if you want to watch the games live FICS relays them and you can chat and discuss the game in the chat window.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="97" LastActivityDate="2013-03-29T07:01:54.423" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2225" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2223" CreationDate="2013-03-29T11:49:20.590" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;All the normal rules of chess strategy must be completely void. Consider some of the most important ones:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Material advantage helps to win. Mainly because with more material it's easier to queen a pawn (not available in infinite chess) and because it makes it easier to checkmate the other king. But checkmate is much harder anyway (no board edge to help), and in infinite chess you may have a billion extra knights that are of no use to help defend your king because they're a trillion squares over to the left. In general material will still be useful, but I doubt a queen is going to be much better than a rook.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The center. In chess, pieces want to be placed where they influence the most squares, and that's usually the center. In infinite chess, there is no center and no square is inherintly better than any other.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Development. There is no starting position, and no concept of a square that's better than the original square, so no development.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Pawn structure is an artifact of having two rows of 8 pawns at the start, and a center. Without any of that, all the knowledge we have about pawn structure goes out the window. A pawn may advance a billion squares without ever meeting another pawn, or be blocked by a trillion of them.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And so on, and so on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think a study of the strategy of infinite chess would have to start with an analysis of which basic mates are possible (queen, rook and king vs king probably mates, two rooks don't, I guess? Definitely a lone queen and king doesn't, needs an edge).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you have a lot of pieces, you'd think you'd want to move part of them towards the enemy king, keeping some at home to defend the king. But for queens, rooks and bishops, distances are deceptive -- if the lines and diagonals are clear, they can get to wherever they can possibly get in two moves. Pawns, kings and knights are unimaginably useless in comparison.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wonder if anything is known about games of infinite chess with more than a few pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2013-03-29T11:49:20.590" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2226" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1136" CreationDate="2013-03-29T17:53:09.257" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As has been stated in the comments GMs don't compete against computers very often. They more often use the computer to help analyse their own games, especially to help find &quot;computer moves&quot; by which I mean obscure unnatural looking moves that they didn't/wouldn't find in the game but which are tactically sound. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The endgame in particular is the part of the game where gameplay methods are well established and it actually comparatively easy to see who has the advantage and how the game will end. In many GM games they resign before I would have even been able to tell we had reached the endgame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In studying endgames the advice I have seen included in the commentary from a GM that came with Chessmaster 8, and in some books, was to practice recognizing the weapons (ie pin, double check etc) in actual endgame positions, learn the basic rules to help speed calculations in the endgame. These are such things as can the king get into the square defined by the diagonal from the pawns position to the back rank, if he can - and no other pieces can interfere - he can stop the pawn promotion, if not he can't, opposition, etc. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1161" LastActivityDate="2013-03-29T17:53:09.257" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2227" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="808" CreationDate="2013-03-29T19:12:22.930" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Out of curiosity I put Stockfish 2.3.1 to work on this and it did find a solution for white to win; however it took 60 more moves.  However just glancing at the results it would assume it could be done in less moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/8/8/3n4/3k4/8/K7/R7 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Rd1+ Kc4 2.Kb2 Ne3 3.Rd8 Nd5 4.Kc2 Ne3+ 5.Kd2 Nd5 6.Kc2 Kd4 7.Rh8 Nc3 8.&#xA;Kd2 Ne4+ 9.Ke2 Nc3+ 10.Kd2 Nb1+ 11.Kd1 Na3 12.Kd2 Nb1+ 13.Ke2 Nc3+ 14.Kd2 &#xA;Nb1+ 15.Kd1 Na3 16.Kd2 Nb1+ 17.Kc2 Na3+ 18.Kd1 Nb5 19.Kd2 Kc4 20.Rh4+ Kd5 &#xA;21.Kd3 Nd6 22.Rh5+ Ke6 23.Ke3 Nf5+ 24.Kf4 Ne7 25.Ra5 Nd5+ 26.Ke4 Nf6+ 27.&#xA;Kd4 Ng4 28.Rc5 Nf6 29.Rc6+ Kf5 30.Rc5+ Kf4 31.Rc1 Kf5 32.Rc5+ Kf4 33.Rc2 &#xA;Kf5 34.Rc5+ Kf4 35.Rc1 Kf5 36.Rc5+ Kf4 37.Rc1 Nh5 38.Kd3 Nf6 39.Ra1 Kf5 &#xA;40.Rb1 Kg4 41.Ra1 Kf5 42.Re1 Nd5 43.Kd2 Nf4 44.Ra1 Ke4 45.Rb1 Nd5 46.Ra1 &#xA;Nc7 47.Re1+ Kd4 48.Ra1 Nd5 49.Rb1 Nc3 50.Ra1 Nb1+ 51.Rxb1 Ke4 52.Kc3 Ke5 &#xA;53.Re1+ Kf6 54.Kd3 Kf5 55.Kd4 Kf4 56.Rf1+ Kg5 57.Ke4 Kg6 58.Ke5 Kg7 59.Kf5&#xA;Kf7 60.Re1 Kg7 61.Re7+ Kf8 62.Kf6 Kg8 63.Re8+ Kh7 64.Ra8 Kh6 65.Rh8# *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1173" LastActivityDate="2013-03-29T19:12:22.930" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2230" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2188" CreationDate="2013-03-30T06:16:24.203" Score="23" Body="&lt;p&gt;This question is a good first stop for students of the opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Comparing the two: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1.e4&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/4P3/8/PPPP1PPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq e3 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Less influence over the centre&lt;/strong&gt;: 1.e4 doesn't stop the freeing pawn moves 1...c5 (Sicilian Defence), 1...d5 (except at top level, Scandinavian Defence), 1...e5 or 1...f5 (was Black going to weaken his king with this move anyway?). No control over the d4 or e4 squares.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Less coordination&lt;/strong&gt;: White's e4 pawn is left floating unsupported in the middle of the board.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;More active pieces&lt;/strong&gt;: White's queen and bishop freed for operations on the wings.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Better king safety&lt;/strong&gt;: 1.e4 facilitates rapid castling after 2.Nf3 ... 3.Bc4, for example.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1.d4&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/3P4/8/PPP1PPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq e3 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;More influence over the centre&lt;/strong&gt;: 1.d4 stops the freeing pawn moves 1...c5 and 1...e5, and controls the d4 square via the queen.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;More coordination&lt;/strong&gt;: White's d4 pawn is supported by the queen.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Less active pieces&lt;/strong&gt;: White's queen and kingside (castling) bishop development hindered compared to 1.e4, but an eventual fianchetto of the kings bishop to the g2 square, although slower, may be more active and point more effectively toward the centre in the long run.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Less king safety&lt;/strong&gt;: White's kingside pieces will take longer to develope hindering the preferred kingside castling. The King is opened to immediate bishop-checks along the e1-a5 diagonal (Nimzo-Indian Defence, for example)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, in very broad general terms, with 1.e4 White is wanting to throw his king into a castle then charge forth into the fray; whereas with 1.d4 White takes a more controlled approach, on his opponent's forces, on his own forces via piece coordination, and is confident enough to handle his king dallying in the centre.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you accept all of the above, we can then use this knowledge to make decisions about our opening repertoire and move decisions in the opening. For example, some questions might come to mind given all of the above, like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;As White with 1.d4, what is the line that allows the fastest castling so that I can blunt one of 1.d4 openings weaknesses while retaining its advantages?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;As Black facing 1.d4, what is a reply that takes advantage of White's slow castling, perhaps something that involves a quick attack that will catch his king in the centre?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;As Black facing 1.e4, what is a reply that results in all my pieces set up to attack White's kingside as that is where his king is likely to end up.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Etc. There are many questions that suggest themself after comparing the pros and cons of 1.e4 vs 1.d4. It is true that perhaps making any conclusions is premature based on just one move, but then your opponent might make follow-up moves that exacerbate one of the above stated disadvantages further...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And then there are other considerations unrelated to the disposition of the pieces on the board:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The sum total of the theory in existence on 1.e4 is likely more than there is for 1.d4 openings. The Sicilian Defence in particular is a vast body of theory, but also the centuries old Ruy Lopez, the French, etc. You may be inclined to avoid this theory.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Former World Champion, and one of the most dominant players in chess history, Bobby Fischer preferred 1.e4 and used it almost exclusively throughout his career, describing it as &quot;Best by test.&quot; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are differences. I encourage any chess player to really look closely at the two before deciding, and base their decision on their own critical analysis rather than just blindly accepting known maxims like &quot;beginners should play 1.e4 because it results in open positions and tactical games.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="97" LastActivityDate="2013-03-30T06:16:24.203" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2231" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2233" CreationDate="2013-03-30T10:24:54.077" Score="14" ViewCount="38812" Body="&lt;p&gt;This may sound incredibly naive, but all the time on T.V, movies, books, etc. People can be heard saying things like &quot;Queen to Rook 5&quot; or like &quot;Knight to King 3&quot; and things like this.&#xA;What is this? I found some &quot;notation&quot; stuff on Wikipedia but it was all about writing down the moves for like tournaments.&#xA;Basically, I just ask because a friend and I occasionally play together and we've more than once expressed an interest in learning this verbal chess description bit so we could play on Vent (he lives 8 hours from here). &#xA;Thanks in advance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1186" LastActivityDate="2013-03-31T15:07:13.417" Title="How to Verbally Describe Chess Moves?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;history&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2232" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2234" CreationDate="2013-03-30T13:47:11.367" Score="7" ViewCount="782" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've read about many of the basic variations of the KGD, e.g. &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King%27s_Gambit#King.27s_Gambit_Declined&quot;&gt;these&lt;/a&gt; but none of of them mention the following from Black. This suggests to me that this move may be a mistake from black that I could take advantage of, but I see nowhere good for white to go from here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What should white play next?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2.f4 d6 3. Nf3 f5 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1187" LastEditorUserId="291" LastEditDate="2013-03-30T14:28:42.797" LastActivityDate="2013-03-30T14:28:42.797" Title="How to counter 3. Nf3 f5 in the King's Gambit Declined" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;kings-gambit&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2233" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2231" CreationDate="2013-03-30T13:55:40.020" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your examples are using &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Descriptive_notation&quot;&gt;Descriptive notation&lt;/a&gt;. For example, &quot;Queen to Rook 5&quot; (Q-R5) means &quot;move the queen to the fifth row of the board (viewed from my perspective), and to the same column that had a rook in the starting position&quot;. You may notice that &quot;Rook 5&quot; could refer to two different squares, one on the leftmost column of the board and one on the rightmost. If you needed to distinguish between the two because the queen could move to either square, you'd say something like &quot;Queen to King's Rook 5&quot; (Q-KR5).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Descriptive notation was popular in English-speaking countries for most of the 20th century, and if you buy a chess book written before 1980 the moves will likely be in this format, but it is now basically obsolete.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Everyone has now pretty much moved over to &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algebraic_notation_%28chess%29&quot;&gt;Algebraic notation&lt;/a&gt;, which is much simpler. The rows of the chessboard are numbered from 1 to 8 moving away from White, and the columns are lettered from a to h from left to right from White's point of view. So White's move &quot;Queen to King's Rook 5&quot; in descriptive would be &quot;Queen h5&quot; (Qh5) in algebraic, and Black's move &quot;Queen to King's Rook 5&quot; would be &quot;Queen h4&quot; (Qh4).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Algebraic notation is much simpler than descriptive and is also the overwhelmingly more popular method of describing chess moves today, so I recommend that you use it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2013-03-30T13:55:40.020" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2234" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2232" CreationDate="2013-03-30T14:09:35.480" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;3...f5 is not a very good move, but it's not a terrible one; there's no immediate refutation. White's best response (verified with the chess program Houdini) is probably to deal with the pressure on his e-pawn by playing 4.exf5 Bxf5 (4.d3 would be passive; 4.Nc3 fxe4 5.Nxe4 d5 gives Black a nice center), then continue to develop, say with 5.Nc3 (covering e4 so that fxe5 is a real threat; if 5.fxe5 dxe5 6.Nxe5 now then 6...Qh4+ 7.g3 Qe4+ double-attacking the knight and rook). White's position is more pleasant but Black is certainly not lost.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2013-03-30T14:09:35.480" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2235" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2231" CreationDate="2013-03-31T15:07:13.417" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would say to just both learn Algebraic Notation. It is not so hard, and it will definitely benefit you in the long run.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Black&#xA;  -------------------&#xA;8 |                 |&#xA;7 |                 |&#xA;6 |                 |&#xA;5 |                 |&#xA;4 |                 |&#xA;3 |                 |&#xA;2 |                 |&#xA;1 |                 |&#xA;  -------------------&#xA;    A B C D E F G H&#xA;White&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are 8 rows ( 1 - 8 ) and 8 columns ( A - H ). When moving, you use a prefix of the piece name ( pawn - no prefix, knight - N, bishop - B, queen - Q, rook - R, king - K ), and a suffix of where the piece will end up. Some examples: e4, Bg2, Nf6, 0-0 which means to castle king side, 0-0-0 which means to caste queen side, Qxf7++ which means Queen takes on f7 checkmate, a8=Q pawn promotes to a Queen, Re1.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The point of using notation is to speed up the recording of the game, but can also be used during blindfold chess or over vent, skype, or some other voip technology. As such, saying &quot;my bishop takes your bishop&quot; or &quot;BxB&quot; is perfectly acceptable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One final note, when it is hard to figure out the exact notation, you can always say &quot;a1 to e1&quot; or &quot;a1e1&quot; ( see here for some explanation on ambiguities &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/q/1817/342&quot;&gt;How are PGN ambiguities handled?&lt;/a&gt; ).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Usually people refer to &lt;code&gt;1. e4&lt;/code&gt;. If you were to tell most chess players you like to open with &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; they will know what you meant. The same would go halfway through the game if you said &lt;code&gt;Nh6&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="342" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2013-03-31T15:07:13.417" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2236" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-03-31T23:47:14.637" Score="14" ViewCount="5788" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have looked over some of the main lines of the Catalan in MCO-15 and feel pretty lost as to what's going on in them. What are some of the key positions and goals for either side? Or is the opening just too tactical to have any real unifying themes?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The Catalan Opening (E01-E09)&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;rnbqkb1r/ppp2ppp/4pn2/3p4/2PP4/6P1/PP2PPBP/RNBQK1NR w KQkq - 0 4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="935" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2014-08-11T19:10:25.123" LastActivityDate="2018-11-11T14:29:02.987" Title="What are the common themes in the Catalan?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;1.d4&gt;&lt;catalan&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2237" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-04-01T03:18:12.720" Score="5" ViewCount="194" Body="&lt;p&gt;After the queen exchanges at move &lt;strong&gt;23.&lt;/strong&gt;, I realised my pinned knight was going to die. I had a couple of moves to try to prevent the inevitable, but I couldn't:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4  c5 2. Nf3  Nc6 3. Bc4  e6 4. O-O  d5 5. exd5  exd5 6. Re1+  Be6 7. Bb5  Nf6 8. d4  a6 9. Bxc6+  bxc6 10. Ng5  Qd7 11. Qe2  Ne4 12. Nxe4  dxe4 13. Qxe4  cxd4 14. c3  Be7 15. Rd1  O-O 16. Rxd4  Qc7 17. h4  Bd5 18. Bf4  Bd6 19. Bxd6  Qxd6 20. c4  Rfe8 21. Qf4  Re1+ 22. Kh2  Qxf4+ 23. Rxf4  Be6 24. b3  Rd8 25. Rf3  Rdd1 26. Na3  Rxa1 27. Nc2  Rh1+  0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Was I suppossed to see 4 moves ahead after a simple queen exchange? If so I think chess is ridiculous and only geniuses should play it. I am tired of losing because of things like this. I will stop playing chess, BYE.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1191" LastEditorUserId="97" LastEditDate="2013-04-01T04:55:05.667" LastActivityDate="2013-04-06T01:35:32.723" Title="Was my knight salvable after the queen exchanges?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2238" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2237" CreationDate="2013-04-01T04:02:26.453" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;Give credit where it's due; Black made some good moves.  What's important here is that you didn't lose because of a queen trade.  You lost because your opponent exploited your weak back rank.  Your back rank was weak because &lt;code&gt;h2&lt;/code&gt; was under attack by the black Queen, your King's Rook was off having an adventure on &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt;, and your Queen's Knight was never developed which shut your Queen's Rook out of the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In addition to the above, your opponent seized the open &lt;code&gt;e&lt;/code&gt; file with his Rook.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In any event, the &lt;code&gt;20. c4&lt;/code&gt; move is what caused the immediate issue.  I'd recommend &lt;code&gt;20. Na3&lt;/code&gt; instead.  After this, Black is having a good game but most of the immediate pressure is off your back rank.  I don't think you want to put your Knight on &lt;code&gt;d2&lt;/code&gt; since it may get tangled up with the Rooks; I can see &lt;code&gt;Rad1&lt;/code&gt; in your future, for example. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2013-04-01T04:02:26.453" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2239" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2237" CreationDate="2013-04-01T05:50:34.680" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's seems to me you have a low understanding of strategic concepts. You don't need to see far ahead into every variation to play good chess. Computers do this but humans can not, instead human players use strategy to compensate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On &lt;strong&gt;move 17&lt;/strong&gt; you could try Bf4, &lt;strong&gt;developing&lt;/strong&gt; a piece and gaining some &lt;strong&gt;initiative&lt;/strong&gt; via an attack on the Black queen. You could have then followed up with 18.Nd2 catching up to the developmental status of your opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I could go on about the strategic inadequacies of your game at length but I won't. Instead I will simply point out that when a player is strategically aware they will find their play seems to gain potency as if by magic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I will recommend a book to you, &lt;em&gt;How To Reassess Your Chess&lt;/em&gt; by Jeremy Silman, in which he talks about a list of strategic imbalances to look out for:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Material&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Development&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Piece quality&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Space&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Control of squares&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Pawn structures&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Initiative&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this game, in particular, you seem to have no understanding of the need to &lt;strong&gt;develope your pieces&lt;/strong&gt;, and this is what ultimately cost you the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess can be frustrating at times, the way to eliminate this frustration is through understanding. Keep at it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(And to answer your question: there doesn't seem to be any way to save the knight after move 23. If 24.Rd4 Black replies 24...Bf5. If you try to clear your pawns off the b-file with 24.b4 ... 25.b5 pawns exchanged then Rb4, again, Black replies Bf5.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="97" LastEditorUserId="97" LastEditDate="2013-04-01T06:41:52.467" LastActivityDate="2013-04-01T06:41:52.467" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2240" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-04-02T22:34:01.877" Score="8" ViewCount="900" Body="&lt;p&gt;I started out with a simple opening: &lt;code&gt;1. e4 d5 2. Nc3&lt;/code&gt; and then the computer played &lt;code&gt;2... d4&lt;/code&gt;, surprising me, as I had never encountered it before. Since then, I've been trying to analyse the possible ways to see if I can make this turn in my favor or if it simply means my knight is going to go on a less active square; so I wanted to know what was the best way to counter this move. Please note, I am a casual player trying to get into more intermediate/advanced chess and if you have any programs or online suggestions on teaching me openings I would love to hear them. Thanks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1195" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2013-12-02T09:53:10.767" LastActivityDate="2013-12-02T09:53:10.767" Title="Scandinavian: 2. Nc3 d4" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;engines&gt;&lt;scandinavian-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2241" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2242" CreationDate="2013-04-04T10:46:09.327" Score="10" ViewCount="2624" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the beginning I thought that players were keeping scoresheets for themselves, just in case of disagreement for claiming stuff like threefold repetition or  fifty-move rule or even just knowing the move number, but after watching a few tournaments I realised that it is something more official. It looks like it's mandatory to keep the scoresheet and in the end sign yours, along with the opponent's one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So my question is why they should do that and what will happen if they are not going to write down the moves?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1179" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-10-27T13:12:16.617" LastActivityDate="2020-10-27T13:12:16.617" Title="Why do they keep the scoresheet in classic chess?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;scoresheet&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2242" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2241" CreationDate="2013-04-04T14:03:35.903" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;A scoresheet allows for a number of different things.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1. The scoresheet allows reconstruction of the game.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is important for several reasons. Imagine that an earthquake occurs and upsets the board. (Or, more prosaically, the table was set up incorrectly and is upset by a light touch.) If there is no record, how would you reconstruct the position? Replaying a game simply because of an upset board is a tremendous waste of time, and it's far more mental strain than a player should be expected to handle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Additionally, with modern storage and retrieval abilities, each game is seen as something to learn from. Every single recorded game is one that can teach us new things.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kriegspiel_%28chess%29&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Kriegspiel&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt; is an instance where it is vital to record the game for reconstruction. Most of the fun is in the post-game discussion, and it's impossible to do this without recording it.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;2. The scoresheet allows for arbitration of disputes.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Without a record, how would you go about proving to an official that 50 moves have occurred without a capture/pawn move? Without a record, how would you prove that your opponent is a scurrilous lout who secretly replaced his Queen on the board while you were in the restroom?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;3. The scoresheet is an aid to players in reconstructing their play during the game.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Top chess players are able to remember large numbers of variations and lines. However, having the scoresheet available reduces one aspect of mental accounting: The player can always look at the scoresheet and mentally reproduce the game up to that point, rather than attempting to remember &quot;now was it exd5?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;4. Signing the scoresheet is a way to ensure that both players accept the outcome of the game.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A player's signature is proof that they are satisfied with what happened. It indicates &quot;yes, I played this match, and it happened this way. I agree that this record is accurate.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;FIDE devotes section 8 of the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=124&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Laws of Chess&lt;/a&gt; to the scoresheet. Note particularly that 8.7 states:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;At the conclusion of the game both players shall sign both scoresheets, indicating the result of the game. Even if incorrect, this result shall stand, unless the arbiter decides otherwise.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="652" LastEditorUserId="652" LastEditDate="2016-09-06T18:03:54.553" LastActivityDate="2016-09-06T18:03:54.553" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2243" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="229" CreationDate="2013-04-04T16:09:28.160" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Go see how Houdini crushed Rybka with Alekhine's Defense.  I think it's a solid proof for the weaknesses provoked by black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1203" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T15:29:00.827" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T15:29:00.827" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2244" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2245" CreationDate="2013-04-04T20:44:18.583" Score="11" ViewCount="2750" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am wondering whether or not playing against chess against a computer will help you get better as quickly as playing against humans. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The motivation for this questions come from video gaming. I used to play a certain video game called &lt;em&gt;Rome:Total War&lt;/em&gt; a lot, which is a game in which you control 100s of troops in a battle set in ancient times. It also is a tactical and strategical game like chess, but the 2 are not really very similar in any other respect. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In that game, I avoided playing against AI at all costs. That is because they play in a totally different way from humans, and you didn't really learn to play against humans from playing against the AI.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I myself have noticed that if I use some chess programs, the same kind of things happen. If I put it at a very low level, the computer still makes some good moves, however, if you capture something with your Queen, while the captured piece is protected by a pawn; the pawn won't take it, because the computer is trying to play terribly. This is totally not how humans would play, quite the opposite actually. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, my final question is: If you play x matches against the computer set at a comparable Elo rating, would you learn as much as playing X matches against a human with the same Elo rating?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1009" LastActivityDate="2021-01-16T13:23:37.050" Title="Can you really learn from playing against computers just like when playing against humans?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2245" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2244" CreationDate="2013-04-04T22:54:19.860" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;I read an article in chess life about a man who won an significant open tournament even though he was unrated when he entered. He had practiced only against the computer. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I myself have learned a lot of what I know from computer programs. It is very difficult to find good players here and the computer is always available. From what I have read you learn most when you play against a player who is just a little better than you are. The computer allows you to control the level of play of your opponent. This is most effective when you opponent can tell you afterward what you did wrong and what you did right, so you will want to have the computer analyze the game afterward. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would recommend also using books of games (or a database of games) where you can go over the analyzed games from players about your own strength. I have one of my grandfathers books which is a collection of games by Capablanca called &quot;The Immortal Games of Cabablanca&quot; the games early in his life helped me a great deal. I couldn't understand his later games enough to get much out of them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To conclude I you can learn from playing a computer. They will play at the set level of play and can analyze your games, however use other sources to help you advance as well. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1161" LastActivityDate="2013-04-04T22:54:19.860" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2246" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2247" CreationDate="2013-04-05T01:48:38.913" Score="7" ViewCount="2400" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can somebody tell me where can i find an updated list of the strongest chess engines. I want to find out a comparison (ordered list of engines)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Information on wiki &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_engine&quot;&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_engine&lt;/a&gt; is very outdated.&#xA;Typing strongest chess engine in google either gives links for 2011 year pages or to the sites of an engine with ads that it is the best. Sometimes I see tests done by random people on the laptop with a lot of fuss.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So it looks strange to me that I can not encounter official results.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="703" LastActivityDate="2015-09-29T19:28:12.673" Title="strongest chess engine" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2247" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2246" CreationDate="2013-04-05T12:12:32.317" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The information on the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_engine#Ratings&quot;&gt;Wikipedia page&lt;/a&gt; seems pretty up-to-date to me. I will retype a couple of the links from it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.computerchess.org.uk/ccrl/4040/&quot;&gt;CCRL 40/40&lt;/a&gt; list runs programs at the time control of 40 moves in 40 minutes.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.husvankempen.de/nunn//40120new/40_120_ratinglist/40_120_AllVersion/rangliste.html&quot;&gt;CEGT 40/120&lt;/a&gt; list runs programs at the time control of 40 moves in 120 minutes.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are four other links in the Rating List table from that Wikipedia link that may be worth exploring, though they seem to run at shorter time controls or with a smaller list of engines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pretty much every rating list that includes Houdini has it in the top spot.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2013-04-05T12:12:32.317" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2248" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-04-05T14:50:17.110" Score="4" ViewCount="709" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there a chess program that will play a specific opening against me?  The reason being is that I want to practice against the Ruy Lopez, for example and I want a computer to play up to Bb5.  Is there program that can do this, paid or free?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastEditorUserId="813" LastEditDate="2013-04-05T20:40:34.663" LastActivityDate="2019-03-09T09:54:36.050" Title="Chess program that will play an opening against me?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;software&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2249" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2246" CreationDate="2013-04-05T15:32:58.530" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are several online chess engine competitions running online. The winners of those, certainly the top five, are likely to statistically be among the stronger engines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One such competition is: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.tcec-chess.net/live.php&quot;&gt;http://www.tcec-chess.net/live.php&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can DDG for others.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1206" LastActivityDate="2013-04-05T15:32:58.530" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2250" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2248" CreationDate="2013-04-05T16:20:07.900" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fritz_%28chess%29&quot;&gt;Fritz&lt;/a&gt; published by ChessBase can do it for you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's see &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesscentral.com/Making_Chess_Opening_Book_a/Play_Chess_Opening_a/136.htm&quot;&gt;this tutorial&lt;/a&gt; to force Fritz to play specific opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="813" LastActivityDate="2013-04-05T16:20:07.900" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2251" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-04-05T18:02:40.497" Score="11" ViewCount="468" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was looking at the answer of &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1044445&quot;&gt;today's puzzle in chessgames&lt;/a&gt; and see that the reason I wasn't able to solve it because I missed a &lt;em&gt;key&lt;/em&gt; move in the solution:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black played &lt;code&gt;49...Rb4+&lt;/code&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;note:&lt;/strong&gt; this is &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; the puzzle position, this was taken from the middle of the puzzle solution.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;note2:&lt;/strong&gt; the board seems to be &lt;em&gt;correctly&lt;/em&gt; flipped.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;8/7p/1pBP2pk/pP6/K6P/6P1/1rp5/4R3 b - - 1 49 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't really see the advantage of doing that move, is it something related to winning tempos? If so, how?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1191" LastActivityDate="2017-06-11T09:31:44.903" Title="Why was 49...Rb4+ played in this puzzle?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;puzzles&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2252" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2251" CreationDate="2013-04-05T22:19:12.053" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Forcing the white king to step forward and allow him to promote with check keeps white from drawing by perpetual check. If 49. .. Rb1 then 50.d7..Rxe5 51.d8=Q..c1=Q 52.Qf8+..Kh5 53.Qf5+..Kh6 and the last two moves would be repeated making a draw. With the white king one step forward and the check with the pawn promotion white can never get the queen over to check the king since blacks rook and queen can keep the white king in check every move as the net is tightened.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1161" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-06-11T09:31:44.903" LastActivityDate="2017-06-11T09:31:44.903" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2253" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2237" CreationDate="2013-04-06T00:31:11.770" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your game went downhill beginning with 10. ng5, moving your kingside pieces a second time before finishing your development of the queenside. That's what led (more than 15 moves later) to your loss.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your last chance was on 17 h4. You should have moved your dark squared bishop to f4 to chase his queen before Black started chasing yours, then move your knight to d2 at the first opportunity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastEditorUserId="17" LastEditDate="2013-04-06T01:35:32.723" LastActivityDate="2013-04-06T01:35:32.723" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2254" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2174" CreationDate="2013-04-06T00:32:56.950" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's a rather old book, Barnes and Noble or amazon.com may have it. Fred Reinfeld's &quot;Attack and Counter Attack in Chess&quot; has a section entitled: From Black's point of view.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2013-04-06T00:32:56.950" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2255" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2199" CreationDate="2013-04-06T00:42:29.840" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's a bit early to say that the game will be a draw when only one pair of pieces has been exchanged (the dark squared bishops).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What IS true is that both sides &quot;dodged a bullet,&quot; the complications that arise in e.g. the Nimzo Indian when Black exchanges his dark-squared bishop for a knight, and the doubling of White's c pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, it may be said that &quot;if both players continue in the same &quot;peaceful&quot; vein, the game will likely end in a draw.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But one of the players (probably White) may be &quot;setting up&quot; the other player for a &quot;peaceful&quot; game and planning to stir the pot later on. In a crucial game against future world champion JR Capablanca, world champion Emmanuel Lasker did just this by exchanging queens early in the &quot;Exchange variation&quot; of the Ruy Lopez.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2013-04-06T00:42:29.840" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2256" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2207" CreationDate="2013-04-06T02:02:31.943" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Almost by definition, the advantage needed to win gets smaller and smaller, the higher level the players get.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Between two rank beginners, the loss of a pawn or even a piece means very little, because such players will lose pawns and pieces to each other almost at random. One of them wins after the the other has made several mistakes, and gotten several pieces behind.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Among top level players, it takes very little &quot;extra&quot; to win. For instance, a board has 64 squares. I was once told that if a top player got control of five more squares than his &quot;fair share&quot; (e.g. 37 vs. 27), that was practically a winning advantage unless the other player had compensation in the form of an extra pawn or a kingside attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A &quot;mistake&quot; consists of giving the other player what he needs to be sure of winning. At the very top levels, these would consist of omissions that no one at say, the intermediate level would care about, because only a top player could exploit them. Conversely, for very bad players, the loss of a SINGLE pawn or even a piece that an &quot;average&quot; player would bemoan, might not make a difference.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2013-04-06T02:02:31.943" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2257" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2207" CreationDate="2013-04-06T13:56:07.010" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The goal of chess players is, ultimately, to create a threat that cannot be stopped.  But chess is a famously balanced game.  There is no way to create an unstoppable threat unless one of the players errs.  In the simple case, one player moves, the other counters, etc. No one makes any headway.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At the higher levels,  players drop material so rarely that it doesn't come into play.  And by drop material, I mean they don't just leave pieces hanging for the taking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So how does a master win?  It comes down to &lt;strong&gt;efficiency&lt;/strong&gt;.  A player must choose moves that provide more benefit than those chosen by the opponent.  Eventually, the sum of the efficiency gains build to the point that a dual threat can be created.  This generally results in the uncompensated loss of material.  Now the game is unbalanced and the player that is down will likely lose.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But this is not easy to do.  That's why there are so many draws at the master level. So what's a master to do?  Sometimes they &lt;em&gt;sacrifice&lt;/em&gt; in order to create efficiencies that would not otherwise be possible.  Of course, they must jealously hoard the efficiencies gained and turn them into something tangible before their material disadvantage comes into play.  That is, a local advantage must be exploited before a global disadvantage asserts itself. Sometimes, they will simply work on building positions imcrementally such that their moves improve their positions more than their opponents' moves improve theirs.  Eventually the efficiencies can be converted to tangible gain.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One common way to talk about the accumulation of efficiencies is to use the common chess term &quot;tempo.&quot;  This word works well when talking about maintaining the advantage after sacrificing a piece.  It works less well when talking about positional gains but the underlying efficiency is still there.  It's just harder to see.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples:&#xA;1. A player puts a knight on a great square.  The opponent needs to spend three moves to boot it out.  Those three moves can be used by the first player to make more mischief.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;A player allows himself to have a backward pawn.  The position does not allow the pawn to be attacked.  No efficiencies are lost.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;A player has a backward pawn on a half-open file.  The opponent piles rooks on that file.  The first player has to spend time defending a pawn while the opponent is building an attacking force that will not go away once the pawn is lost.  Meanwhile, the pieces defending the pawn can't be used elsewhere.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;White allows Black to play a Posioned Pawn variant of the Sicilian reasoning that the loss of the &lt;code&gt;b&lt;/code&gt; pawn is worth the resulting efficiencies gained while simultenously threatening the Black Q and developing half a box of pieces. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2013-04-06T14:44:21.830" LastActivityDate="2013-04-06T14:44:21.830" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2258" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2261" CreationDate="2013-04-06T23:24:49.533" Score="7" ViewCount="220" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are alternative chess rules/styles considered favourably by the main chess community? To be more specific I mean games like 3D chess (as seen in Star Trek) or landscape chess, as explained here:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://intrepidis.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/landscape-chess.html&quot;&gt;http://intrepidis.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/landscape-chess.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there tournaments for chess variants?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1207" LastActivityDate="2013-04-07T02:49:41.317" Title="Alternative versions" Tags="&lt;chess-variants&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2259" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1400" CreationDate="2013-04-06T23:47:16.227" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just had the same question, and I thought I would post a belated answer for future persons. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am using SCID vs. PC, but I think the solution may be the same or similar. First download the Gaviota tablebases here (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.olympuschess.com/egtb/gaviota/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.olympuschess.com/egtb/gaviota/&lt;/a&gt;). Then go to SCID --&gt; Tools --&gt; Analysis Engines and select your engine (Critter is working best for me here. I have Houdini 1.5 and it is not working properly.) click Edit and then click the Configure button. You will see a GaviotaTbPath textbox; enter your directory, click save and everything should work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="800" LastActivityDate="2013-04-06T23:47:16.227" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2260" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2258" CreationDate="2013-04-06T23:51:57.680" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have not heard of any regular tournaments for any chess variant with the exception of Chess960.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2013-04-06T23:51:57.680" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2261" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2258" CreationDate="2013-04-07T02:49:41.317" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The only variants I can think of that experienced chess players seem to have any interest in are &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess960&quot;&gt;Chess960&lt;/a&gt; (aka Fischerandom) and &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bughouse_chess&quot;&gt;Bughouse&lt;/a&gt;. Even &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seirawan_chess&quot;&gt;Seirawan chess&lt;/a&gt;, which has the imprimatur of a grandmaster, has not really attracted any real interest.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other variants are not looked on unfavorably but they are basically ignored.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2013-04-07T02:49:41.317" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2262" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-04-07T14:46:19.797" Score="14" ViewCount="2023" Body="&lt;p&gt;I often play the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sicilian_Defence,_Smith%E2%80%93Morra_Gambit&quot;&gt;Smith-Morra gambit&lt;/a&gt;.  Recently I've been seeing black play an early Qa5, such as&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4  c5 2. d4 cxd4 3. c3 Qa5 4. *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4  c5 2. d4 cxd4 3. Nf3 Qa5+ 4. *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems to throw a spanner in the works as to how I'm used to playing this opening.  If met with 4. Bd2 then black can play 4... Qb6 hitting the unprotected b-pawn.  It seems like black can bring the queen out early without the possibility of white chasing it around the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: How to best respond to an early black Qa5 in the Smith-Morra gambit?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chesscoach1950.blogspot.ca/2007/02/chess-understanding-smith-morra-gambit_6347.html&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Chess Opening Secrets Revealed&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt; suggests playing a later Bf4 depriving the queen on the c7 square, then play a3 followed by b4.  But this seems like an awful lot of non-productive moves to chase the queen around, especially when you can't fianchetto the dark squared bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.craftychess.com/&quot;&gt;Crafty&lt;/a&gt; suggests 1.e4 c5 2.d4 cxd4 3.Nf3 Qa5+ 4.c3 Nc6 5.b4 Qc7 but this seems to just weaken the pawn structure, and make the white's thematic Bc4 more difficult to play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1211" LastEditorUserId="1211" LastEditDate="2013-04-07T15:28:02.680" LastActivityDate="2015-08-31T19:48:29.967" Title="How to best respond to an early black Qa5 in the Smith-Morra gambit?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;gambits&gt;&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;&lt;1.e4&gt;&lt;smith-morra-gambit&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2263" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1893" CreationDate="2013-04-07T15:23:10.470" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I play the Smith-Morra gambit, I attempt to entice black into playing this move via &lt;code&gt;3. Nf3&lt;/code&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 c5 2.d4 cxd4 3.Nf3 e5 4.c3 (4. Nxe5? Qa5+) *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After &lt;code&gt;3. Nf3&lt;/code&gt;, I haven't announced my intention to play the gambit since it could transpose into mainline Sicilian Defence (although, black's 4...Qa5+ might commit you to it; see my recent question &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/2262/how-to-best-respond-to-an-early-black-qa5-in-the-smith-morra-gambit&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black's move &lt;code&gt;3... e5&lt;/code&gt; indeed protects black's &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt; pawn, since if &lt;code&gt;4. Nxe5? Qa5+&lt;/code&gt;.  However, white now plays the gambit move &lt;code&gt;4. c3&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think &lt;code&gt;...e5&lt;/code&gt; gives white a better game than one of the usual variations.  The usual themes with backwards pawns on a half-open file apply: ganging up on black's &lt;code&gt;d6&lt;/code&gt; pawn and &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt; hole; if the &lt;code&gt;d6&lt;/code&gt; pawn is pinned, the &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt; pawn is also weak.  There's also opportunity to pile up black's &lt;code&gt;f7&lt;/code&gt; pawn, which is typically awkward to defend using a minor piece.  However, it's not really all that bad; it's somewhat similar to the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sicilian_Defence#Sveshnikov_Variation:_4...Nf6_5.Nc3_e5.&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Sveshnikov variation of the Sicilian defence&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Comments:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I personally like swapping off white's dark squared bishop for black's &lt;code&gt;f6&lt;/code&gt; knight, then placing one of white's knights at &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt;.  Sooner of later, black will need to swap off his light squared bishop to dislodge the knight, thereby giving opposite-coloured bishops, a particularly important imbalance.  If I can't find the right attack, I can still swap off into an opposite-coloured bishop endgame, which is likely an easy draw despite being a pawn down.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;I find black's &lt;code&gt;...Bg4&lt;/code&gt; to be a very annoying move&lt;/strong&gt;, since it pins the &lt;code&gt;f3&lt;/code&gt; knight against the queen, and threatens &lt;code&gt;...Nd4&lt;/code&gt;.  This seems to be the main advantage of &lt;code&gt;...e5&lt;/code&gt; over &lt;code&gt;...e6&lt;/code&gt;.  Keep an eye out for this move; in some cases, it can be a game-changer.  Sometimes it's helpful to take time to play &lt;code&gt;h3&lt;/code&gt; to prevent this move.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1211" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-04T17:14:20.540" LastActivityDate="2020-03-04T17:14:20.540" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2264" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="422" CreationDate="2013-04-07T18:17:11.253" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You need to work wholeheartedly on 1 or 2 openings for at least half a year until you know both of those openings inside out and then move on to another 2. This is really the most logical way to get good as 'fishing' through an opening book and learning roughly how to play many openings won't do you much justice at all. tactics and endgames in the meantime will also help you improve both your creativity and your spacial awareness alongside a solid opening structure. Good luck!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1212" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T16:25:54.013" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T16:25:54.013" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2265" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2262" CreationDate="2013-04-08T06:17:00.263" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't see why you can't just ignore the Queen on a5 for now and play Nf3, followed by Bc4 and 0-0. Then, there is no pin on the c3 pawn anymore and he must take on c3, after which you retake with Nxc3 and you're back into a normal Morra gambit position with his queen oddly placed on a5. If he doesn't take on c3, then you just take back on d4 with a large center. You are not forced to stay in Morra gambit territory forever if there's a better line you can play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="886" LastActivityDate="2013-04-08T06:17:00.263" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2266" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="693" CreationDate="2013-04-08T10:56:40.703" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Try the Chess.com app.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;It allows you to play against real people and against the computer. It has puzzles based on tactics to solve &amp;amp; videos by experts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/play/android&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Android Version&lt;/a&gt; (requires Android OS 1.5 or later)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/play/iphone&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;iPhone Version&lt;/a&gt; (requires iOS 3.0 or later)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1197" LastEditorDisplayName="user4378" LastEditDate="2016-01-20T17:45:47.713" LastActivityDate="2016-01-20T17:45:47.713" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2267" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2217" CreationDate="2013-04-08T12:26:10.580" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;I play &lt;code&gt;1... Nf6&lt;/code&gt; after &lt;code&gt;1. e4&lt;/code&gt;.  Then &lt;code&gt;2. e5 d5 3. exf6 exf6&lt;/code&gt;.  I have had great scores with this opening versus Chess master.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 Nf6 2. e5 d5 3. exf6 exf6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The idea is to have strong king side with 4 pawns for defence. The second advantage is the development. Bishop in c8 is ready for attacks. If white castle king side u can put pawn in h3 if g&lt;em&gt;h3, B&lt;/em&gt;h3 or @Nf3+.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1213" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2016-10-22T16:54:50.157" LastActivityDate="2016-10-22T16:54:50.157" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2269" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2251" CreationDate="2013-04-09T10:14:20.840" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;Moving the king once like that is a priming move in order for Black to be properly aligned at a crucial point in a few moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Without the priming move this happens which allows White to win&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;8/7p/1pBP2pk/pP6/K6P/6P1/1rp5/4R3 b - - 1 49&#xA;&#xA;1... Rb1 2. d7 Rxe1 3. d8=Q c1=Q 4. Qf8 Kh5 5. Bf3++&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So it is desirable to get a check in when promoting in order to win the game:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;8/7p/1pBP2pk/pP6/K6P/6P1/1rp5/4R3 b - - 1 49&#xA;&#xA;1... Rb4 2. Ka3 Rb1 3. d7 Rxe1 4. d8=Q c1=Q+ 5. Kb3 Re3+ 6. Qd3 Rxd3+ 7. Ka2 Ra3++&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I decided to show a simple mate ending. It is possible for white to prolong the inevitable . This would be done with &lt;code&gt;3. Be4&lt;/code&gt; . Although it is possible for white to slightly delay, Black still wins with Rb1.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="342" LastActivityDate="2013-04-09T10:14:20.840" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2271" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2188" CreationDate="2013-04-10T02:58:18.127" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;d4 is protected, e4 is not.  That's the main difference.  White's center is definitely stronger with d4 and c4 than in a typical open game, and play tends to be more strategic and a little slower.  But don't think d4 can't be just as exciting or dangerous.  White routinely gets good attacking positions with d4.  The Pillsbury Attack is a position to shoot for, often leading to a quick, direct attack against the black king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's the classic example: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1000091&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Pillsbury vs Marco, 1900&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nf3-e5 before black has played Nc6 or Nd7, followed by f4, is characteristic of the Pillsbury Attack.  The N on e5 is a monster, and if black ever takes it, white recaptures with the f pawn, kicking the black N off f6 and opening the f file for his rook.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a fun position to play, recommended for club players.  Be on the lookout for a chance to make the Greek Gift sacrifice too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1221" LastActivityDate="2013-04-10T02:58:18.127" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2272" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1960" CreationDate="2013-04-11T00:30:20.993" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yasser Seirwan's &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1857443497&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Winning Chess series&lt;/a&gt; recommend a &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King%27s_Indian_Attack&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Kings Indian Attack&lt;/a&gt; structure (Nf3, g3, Bg2, 0-0, d3, e4) because it is quite sound against almost anything your opponent can throw against you... and it has the analogous Kings Indian Defense as Black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Its been solid enough that even Kasparov and Fischer have been known to play it, and doesn't require memorization.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="606" LastEditorUserId="12" LastEditDate="2016-01-04T17:11:21.910" LastActivityDate="2016-01-04T17:11:21.910" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2273" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-04-11T12:47:53.820" Score="17" ViewCount="3969" Body="&lt;p&gt;In competitive correspondence chess, can humans win at all against computers? Do humans contribute at all to the game?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Provided that it is allowed by the rules, I fail to see how it is not just testing who has the best computer or the best computer program. In this scenario, the players would just be an interface, or not even that, since the computer can also send a move through the internet to the opponent. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1229" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2014-02-13T11:22:03.203" LastActivityDate="2017-04-15T14:34:00.100" Title="Computers in correspondence chess" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;correspondence-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2274" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2273" CreationDate="2013-04-11T14:13:36.173" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;In competitive correspondence chess everybody uses the strongest computer they can get, but there are still consistent differences in strength between different players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Computers are strong, but they're nowhere near perfect. They're extremely good in positions where calculation is the primary factor but not that good in endgames and positional play. Good correspondence players know which computer lines to trust and how to direct the computer to the critical lines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unassisted humans have no chance at all, of course.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2013-04-11T14:13:36.173" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2275" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-04-12T01:56:47.007" Score="6" ViewCount="415" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is it possible that there are missing or unstudied tactics, waiting there to be found?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe some of them have been played only by GMs and in so few times that they don't get to have a name on their own, maybe the rest of the world just see them as 'just another brilliant move'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What I am saying is, if we were all geniuses and GMs, do you seriously think the number of known tactics would remain the same? Maybe they are so complex that they cannot be learned by books, but by experience.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or, should I stop watching conspiracy movies?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="478" LastActivityDate="2013-09-20T13:51:48.327" Title="Have we found every existing tactic?" Tags="&lt;tactics&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2276" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2275" CreationDate="2013-04-12T02:21:30.750" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The type of complex tactic you are thinking of is called a &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combination_%28chess%29&quot;&gt;combination&lt;/a&gt;. A combination is a forcing series of moves to create some sort of advantage; some would also say that a combination must begin with a material sacrifice, but this is besides the main point. If you are interested in combinations, look at the games of Mikhail Tal, for one, who has been called &quot;the wizard of combinations&quot; for his daring, speculative sacrifices which often led to his opponent cracking under the pressure of searching out the one saving defensive resource; or Alekhine, &quot;the genius of combinations&quot;, whose combinations, if not as daring as Tal's, were perhaps more sound.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Wikipedia gives the following example of a combination:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;r1b2r2/p2p2kp/1pn1p3/8/1PP5/P2K1P2/2Q4P/R4B2 b - - 0 1&#xA;&#xA;1... Rxf3+ 2. Ke4 (2. Ke2 Nd4+) (2. Kd2 Rf2+ 3. Be2 Rxe2+! Kxe2 Nd4+) d5+!! 3. cxd5 (3. Kxf3 Nd4+)  exd5+ 4. Kxd5 (4. Kxf3 Nd4+) Be6+ 5. Kd6 (5. Kxe6 Nd4+) (5. Kxc6 Rc8+) (5. Ke4 Bf5+) Rd8+ 6. Kc7 (6. Kxe6 Nd4+) (6. Kxc6 Rc8+) Rf7+ 7. Kxc6 Rc8+&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In light of the impending disaster, White in fact resigned on move 3 (Move 22 in the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1507751&quot;&gt;actual game&lt;/a&gt; between G. Stepanov and Peter Romanovsky).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="827" LastEditorUserId="827" LastEditDate="2013-04-14T03:25:54.977" LastActivityDate="2013-04-14T03:25:54.977" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2279" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2240" CreationDate="2013-04-12T02:38:04.523" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;3.Nce2, followed by Ng3, Nf3, Bc4, O-O, etc. is reasonable. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A thematic game to reference is &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1186636&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1186636&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In general, however, 2.Nc3 isn't known as the best theoretical response.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1230" LastActivityDate="2013-04-12T02:38:04.523" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2280" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2236" CreationDate="2013-04-12T02:40:09.127" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Please get yourself a copy of Avrukh's 1.d4 book and also see the games of Anand-Topalov 2010 Wch match, which are really instructive for seeing the themes of the Catalan. If you want to follow a strong exponent of the Catalan, check out Kramnik's games. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1230" LastActivityDate="2013-04-12T02:40:09.127" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2281" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-04-12T13:17:25.343" Score="21" ViewCount="2457" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here's a game of mine from last night.  It was my first tournament game for many years.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(This game is David Kenney vs. Douglas Stones [me] 1-0.  Press &lt;kbd&gt;F&lt;/kbd&gt; to flip the board.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Bluenose Chess Club Tournament&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Halifax&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2013&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;1&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;David Kenney&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Douglas Stones&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 d5 4.Nc3 c6 5.e3 Bd6 6.Bd3 O-O 7.O-O Nbd7 8.e4 dxe4&#xA;9.Nxe4 Nxe4 10.Bxe4 Qc7 11.Re1 Nf6 12.Bc2 Re8 13.Bg5 Nd7 14.Qd3 Nf8 15.&#xA;Rad1 b6 16.a3 Bb7 17.b4 Rac8 18.c5 Be7 19.Re4 bxc5 20.dxc5 Rcd8 21.Qe2 &#xA;Rxd1+ 22.Qxd1 Rd8 23.Rd4 Rd5 24.Bxe7 Qxe7 25.Be4 Rxd4 26.Qxd4 Nd7 27.Ne5 &#xA;Nxe5 28.Qxe5 Qd7 29.Qd6 Qc8 30.b5 g6 31.Bxc6 Kg7 32.Qd7 Qf8 33.Qd4+ e5 34.&#xA;Qxe5+ f6 35.Qc7+ Kh6 36.Bxb7 Qe8 37.Qf4+ Kg7 38.Qb4 Qd7 39.Bf3 Qe7 40.g3 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I didn't (seem to) make any tactical blunders, yet seem to have slowly been ground down to a loss via positional play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: How can I avoid this happening in the future?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's unclear to me how I could do that; some things spring to mind:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Aim for more tactical openings.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Gain familiarity with the usual endgame pawn structures and piece combinations in the chosen opening.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Study grandmaster games which were decided by positional play.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(&lt;em&gt;Meta-comment&lt;/em&gt;:  This question is motivated by the specific game above, but answers should ideally be of general interest, i.e., in the &lt;em&gt;some of the themes will hopefully be useful and interesting&lt;/em&gt; category mentioned in &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.meta.stackexchange.com/q/130/&quot;&gt;this meta thread&lt;/a&gt;.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1211" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-03-16T15:50:45.707" LastActivityDate="2019-09-17T10:51:40.593" Title="I lost a game without making tactical mistakes; how can I avoid this happening in the future?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;&lt;queens-gambit&gt;" AnswerCount="12" CommentCount="9" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2282" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2281" CreationDate="2013-04-12T13:29:50.607" Score="17" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this case, the answer is &quot;gain familiarity with the standard strategical themes of the chosen opening&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black's #1 issue in the Queen's Gambit Declined is what to do with his light-squared bishop, which if ignored can easily get stuck behind the e6 pawn and often a c6 pawn. The two standard ways to free it are&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Play ...e5 to allow the bishop to move along the c8-h3 diagonal&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Play ...b6 and ...c5 and place the bishop on b7&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You kind of got halfway through plan #2, but once White got c5 in, your bishop had no future.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Concentrate on freeing your light-squared bishop the next time you play the Queen's Gambit Declined and you'll be much less likely to get ground down like this. This takes priority over moves like 11...Nf6 (which you just moved back two moves later anyway) and 12...Re8.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2013-04-12T13:29:50.607" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2283" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2281" CreationDate="2013-04-12T20:03:52.350" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It seems to me that the theme of this game is strategic play. I am speaking of tactical play as things that you can force, specific moves that have a definite best play and lead to a specific result. Strategic play being moves made of less concrete reasons because there are not tactical considerations to play at the moment. This includes things like space, king safety, active bishops, open or closed positions, controlling open lines, etc. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In general tactical possibilities arrise from good strategic play, in this game the major factors seemed to be control of the center and space. White has control of over half the board most of the time, and maintains control of the center. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1161" LastActivityDate="2013-04-12T20:03:52.350" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2284" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2334" CreationDate="2013-04-14T03:30:16.047" Score="20" ViewCount="7217" Body="&lt;p&gt;During some recent games I played, I have lost because my opponent advanced their pawns very far, attacking my pieces and forcing them to retreat. In some cases the pieces became trapped as well. Although these pawns may have been overextended, the few that I picked off because they were so far extended failed to compensate for my massive space disadvantage. The only times I won was when I could exploit holes made in my opponent's structure in this way, or ended up with passed pawns. Nevertheless, these were mostly the result of mistakes made later in the game, and I was under a lot of pressure throughout. How can I counter overextending pawn storms?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, I can end up in positions such as this one, in which my pieces have been forced backward by my opponent's pawn advances.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;r1bqkb1r/2p2p2/2n2n1p/1p2p3/p2pP1p1/P2P2B1/BPPNNPPP/R2Q1RK1 w kq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="827" LastEditorUserId="827" LastEditDate="2013-04-20T17:13:46.807" LastActivityDate="2013-05-01T02:44:43.157" Title="How to deal with an opposing pawn storm?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;pawns&gt;&lt;pawn-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="8" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2285" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-04-14T11:28:22.660" Score="9" ViewCount="275" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. exd5 exd5 4. Bd3 Bd6 5. Nc3 Ne7 6. Qh5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I played this as white, and my last move seem to bother my opponent a lot. So I'd like to know if 5. ... Ne7 is correct and if my early queen trip is justified. If this is the case, which attacking ideas does white have. I later put my bishop on g5 (which is pretty obvious), but after this I had the feeling that I could do more to keep the pressure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="35" LastActivityDate="2013-04-14T12:34:13.393" Title="French Defense Exchange variation - Qh5?" Tags="&lt;french-defense&gt;&lt;attack&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2286" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2285" CreationDate="2013-04-14T12:34:13.393" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;6.Qh5 is not so great because Black has 6...Nbc6, both attacking d4 and threatening ...Nb4 trading off White's important light-squared bishop (it can't move to e2 or something because of ...Nxc2+). White seems to be better off preemptively defending the d-pawn with a move like 6.Nf3 or 6.Nge2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2013-04-14T12:34:13.393" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2287" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2284" CreationDate="2013-04-14T13:23:13.163" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's hard to speak in generalities.  However, if the pawns are truly overextended then the attack is probably half-baked.  The guideline is that a premature attack on one side is countered by an attack on the opposite side.  When the smoke clears the moves spent on the pawns are wasted and the opponent's overall position weakened.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But it sounds like your opponents are kicking your pieces with tempo.  Thus it could be that you are over-extended and have placed your pieces such that he's getting free moves (and space) by kicking your misplaced pieces to inefficient squares.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If your pieces are getting trapped then you need to open a space for their escape.  Opening up &lt;code&gt;g2&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;h2&lt;/code&gt; is pretty common.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Post a game and we can give you better information.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2013-04-14T13:23:13.163" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2288" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2281" CreationDate="2013-04-14T17:51:35.233" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;I didn't like your 14... Nf8. Would have played g6 (as you later did).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;IMHO, White won the game by playing, 18. c5 which your N on d7 was posted to prevent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a strategic, not tactical issue.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For a more tactical opening, I would have refrained from 3....d5, playing b6 instead, and aimed for Queen's Indian with 4. ... B b7 or a Nimzo-Indian with 4....Bb4 after White's 4. Nc3. See the 1948 Botvinnik-Reshevsky Nimzo-Indian &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1032174&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;game,&lt;/a&gt; which Black won. (I found it highly instructive.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastEditorUserId="17" LastEditDate="2013-10-13T23:05:30.993" LastActivityDate="2013-10-13T23:05:30.993" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2289" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2273" CreationDate="2013-04-15T15:59:45.503" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;I must disagree completely with the above answer. In the correspondence tournaments that I have participated in using a computer was considered cheating and if you were the tournament winner you had to do an analysis of one of your winning games, chosen by the tournament directors, to prove that you knew what you were talking about. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Second the computers main advantage against human players is their speed. A computer calculates thousand upon thousands of instructions per second and is able to analyse thousand of possible moves on each of its turns. However the computer has no true intelligence, which a human player does. The computer program Hydra was built to completely dominate the chess world and it did in fact beat every other chess program in the the world and has never been beaten by a human over-the-board. However it was beaten by a correspondence player in two games and drew their third game. I have been unable to find if the player consulted a computer or not, but as was pointed out in the discussions of the games on www.chessgames.com the player, correspondence chess International Grandmaster Arno Nickel, wasn't simply following another program since Hydra could beat all other programs as the time. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To say that unaided humans have no chance at all as though it were an obvious given is simply wrong. Take away the time constraints, have a motivated skilled correspondence player and there is a strong chance that the player will still win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hydra ran on a specially designed system that spread the processing required out over a network and is the only chess engine that would have a chance against the correspondence world champions if they were not constrained by time controls. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1161" LastActivityDate="2013-04-15T15:59:45.503" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2290" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="206" CreationDate="2013-04-15T16:50:09.700" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;Nimzovitch.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;NimzoIndian Defense: &lt;code&gt;1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Bb4&lt;/code&gt; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Nimzovitch Defense: &lt;code&gt;1.e4 Nc6&lt;/code&gt; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Nimzovitch Attack: &lt;code&gt;1.Nf3 d5  2.b3&lt;/code&gt; (1.b3 is the Nimzo-Larsen Attack)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Nimzovitch Variations:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;4&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Sicilian Defense: &lt;code&gt;1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nf6&lt;/code&gt; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Queens Indian Defense: &lt;code&gt;1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 b6 4.g3 Ba6&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Falkbeer Counter-Gambit: &lt;code&gt;1.e4 e5 2.f4 d5 3.de5 c6&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Falkbeer Counter-Gambit: &lt;code&gt;1.e4 e5 2.f4 d5 3.de5 c6 4.e4 Bb5+ *&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Nimzovitch QP Defense: &lt;code&gt;1.d4 Nf6&lt;/code&gt; (most sources attribute it to Bogoljubow)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Latvian Counter-Gambit: &lt;code&gt;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 f5 3. Nxe5 Qf6 4. d4 d6 5. Nc4 fxe4 6. Ne3&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Philidors Defense: &lt;code&gt;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 Nf6&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;French Defense, Advance Var-Nimzovitch Var: &lt;code&gt;1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. e5 c5 4. Qg4&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;French Defense, Nimzovitch (or Winawer) Var: &lt;code&gt;1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 Bb4&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Four Kts Opening, Nimzovitch or Paulsen Var: &lt;code&gt;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. Bb5 Bb4 5. O-O O-O 6. Bxc6&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;English Opening, Nimzovitch Var: &lt;code&gt;1.c4 e5 2.Nf3&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Benoni Defense, Nimzovitch or Kts Tour Var: &lt;code&gt;1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 c5 3. d5 e6 4. Nc3 exd5 5. cxd5 d6 6. Nf3 g6 7. Nd2&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Caro-Kann Defense, Nimzovitch or Tartakower Var: &lt;code&gt;1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 de4 4.Ne4 Nf6 5.Nf6+ ef6&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Ruy Lopez, Steinitz Var - Nimzovitch Attack: &lt;code&gt;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 d6 4. d4 Bd7 5. Nc3 Nf6 6. Bxc6&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;English Opening - Four Kts Var - Nimzovitch Var: &lt;code&gt;1. c4 e5 2. Nc3 Nc6 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. e4&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;EO - Nimzo-English Opening: &lt;code&gt;1. c4 Nf6 2. Nc3 e6 3. Nf3 Bb4&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Notes&lt;/strong&gt;: Simon Winawer played the &quot;Winawer Variation&quot; of the French Defense &lt;strong&gt;once&lt;/strong&gt; in his entire career; why it's named after him instead of Nimzovitch who really popularized it is a mystery (to me at least). And no, Winawer &lt;strong&gt;does not&lt;/strong&gt; deserve the credit for playing it first (if he even did that) many openings are named after the masters who hammered out the theory of them and/or made them popular. Ergo the &quot;Advance Variation&quot; of the French Defense should also be named after Nimzovitch!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;SOURCES: &quot;The Oxford Companion To Chess&quot; by David Hooper &amp;amp; Kenneth Whyld, 1984; p 226&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessvideos.tv/chess-opening-database/search/Nimzovich-variation&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chessvideos.tv/chess-opening-database/search/Nimzovich-variation&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.365chess.com/eco/C62_Ruy_Lopez_old_Steinitz_defence_Nimzovich_attack&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.365chess.com/eco/C62_Ruy_Lopez_old_Steinitz_defence_Nimzovich_attack&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1239" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-12-20T09:48:50.560" LastActivityDate="2016-12-20T09:48:50.560" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2291" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2281" CreationDate="2013-04-16T04:37:19.983" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;after 18... Be7, you do have a nice target on d4 to point your rooks at.  Instead of resolving the tension, you might have tried that, maybe with a plan of Qc8-Ba6 to free the light squared bishop.  There is a lot of pressure on your kingside, and your pieces don't seem well placed to defend.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="606" LastActivityDate="2013-04-16T04:37:19.983" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2292" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2275" CreationDate="2013-04-16T04:49:10.240" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Feast your eyes on this position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;8/1r6/8/6n1/5k2/1b6/3K3N/7Q b - - 0 1&#xA;&#xA;1...  Rd7+ 2.  Kc3! Bd1 3. Qf1+! Bf3 4.  Qc1+! Kf5 5. Kb2! Rb7+ 6. Ka3 Ra7+ 7. Kb4 Rb7+ 8. Ka5 Ra7+ 9. Kb6 Rb7+ 10. Ka6 Re7 11. Qf1 Re6+ 12. Ka7 Re7+ 13. Kb8 Re8+ 14. Kc7 Re3 15. Kc8 Rc3+ 16. Kb8! Kf4 17. Qg1! Ne4 18. Nf1! Rb3+ 19. Ka7! Rd3 20. Qh2+! Kf5 21. Kb8 Nf6 22. Nd2! Bd5 23. Qf2+! Ke5 24. Qe2+ Kd4 25. Ka7 Nd7 26. Qg4+! Kc5 27. Qg1+! Kb4 28. Qb1+! Kc3 29. Qc1+ Kd4 30. Qb2+ Kc5 31. Qc2+! Kd4 32. Qa4+ Kc5 33. Qa5+ Kd4 34. Qb4+ Ke5 35. Ka6 Kf5 36. Qb1 Ne5 37. Kb5! Bc6+ 38. Kb4! Bd5 39. Qf1+ Kg6 40. Qe2 Kf6 41. Qh5 Ke6 42. Qg5 Nc6+ 43. Kb5 Ne5 44. Qh6+ Kf5 45. Nf1 Bc6+ 46. Kb4 Rd4+ 47. Kb3 Rd3+ 48. Ka2 Bd5+ 49. Kb1! Nc4 50. Qh5+! Kf6 51. Qh4+ Ke6 52. Ng3! Rb3+ 53. Kc1! Rc3+ 54. Kd1 Re3 55. Nf1! Ra3 56. Qf4 Kd7 57. Ke1 Kc6 58. Qh6+ Kc5 59. Kf2 Rb3 60. Qh8 Ra3 61. Qb8 Kc6 62. Qb1 Rc3 63. Kg1 Ra3 64. Qc2 Kb6 65. Qf5 Kc5 66. Qf8+ Kb5 67. Qe8+ Kc5 68. Qe2 Rf3 69. Qe7+ Kd4 70. Qg7+ Kc5 71. Qg5 Kc6 72. Qh4 Kb5 73. Qe7 Kb6 74. Qb4+ Kc6 75. Qe1 Ra3 76. Qf2 Rf3 77. Qd4 Kd6 78. Qh4 Kc5 79. Nh2 Ra3 80. Ng4 Ra1+ 81. Kf2! Ra2+ 82. Kg3! Ra3+ 83. Kf4 Rf3+ 84. Kg5 Be6 85. Nf6! Ne5 86. Nh5 Rf5+ 87. Kh6 Ng4+ 88. Kg6! Ne5+ 89. Kh7 Rf7+ 90. Kh6! Ng4+ 91. Kg5 Ne5 92. Qa4 Rf5+ 93. Kh6! Bc4 94. Qa5+ Kd4 95. Qb6+ Kd5 96. Qd8+ Ke4 97. Qd1 Ke3 98. Qc1+ Kd4 99. Ng3 Rf6+ 100. Kh5 Kd5 101. Kh4 Rg6 102. Kh3 Bd3 103. Qf4 Rg8 104. Qb4 Bc4 105. Qd2+ Ke6 106. Qh6+ Kd5 107. Qh7 Kc5 108. Kh2 Rg6 109. Qe7+ Kd5 110. Qd8+ Ke6 111. Qf8 Kd5 112. Kh3 Bb5 113. Qa3 Bc6 114. Kg2 Rf6 115. Kh2 Nf3+ 116. Kh3 Rh6+ 117. Kg2! Nd4 118. Qe7 Kc4+ 119. Kg1! Rg6 120. Qf7+ Re6 121. Qf4 Kd3 122. Qf1+ Kc3 123. Qc1+ Kb4 124. Kh2 Rf6 125. Kh3 Bd7+ 126. Kg2! Bc6+ 127. Kh2 Rf3 128. Qd1 Kc5 129. Nh5 Kd5 130. Qh1 Ke6 131. Qg1 Ke5 132. Qg7+ Ke4 133. Qc7 Kd5 134. Nf4+ Kc4 135. Qb8 Rc3 136. Qa7 Be4 137. Qb6 Bc6 138. Qa6+ Kc5 139. Nd3+ Kd6 140. Nb2 Rb3 141. Nd1 Nf3+ 142. Kg3 Nd4+ 143. Kf2 Rf3+ 144. Ke1 Kd5 145. Qb6 Kc4 146. Qa7 Bb5 147. Nf2 Nc2+ 148. Kf1 Bc6 149. Qa6+ Kc5 150. Qa2 Nd4 151. Kg1! Rf5 152. Kh2 Rh5+ 153. Kg3! Rg5+ 154. Kf4! Rf5+ 155. Kg4 Bf3+ 156. Kh4 Rh5+ 157. Kg3 Rg5+ 158. Kf4 Rf5+ 159. Ke3! Re5+ 160. Kd3 Be2+ 161. Kd2! Kb4 162. Qg8 Bb5 163. Qg4 Re2+ 164. Kc1! Kc4 165. Nd1! Rc2+ 166. Kb1 Rd2 167. Qc8+ Bc6 168. Qg8+! Kb4 169. Nb2 Be4+ 170. Ka2! Nb5 171. Qb3+! Ka5 172. Ka1! Bd5 173. Qa4+! Kb6 174. Qb4! Rd4 175. Qe1 Be4 176. Nd1 Rc4 177. Qe3+ Kc6 178. Kb2 Rc2+ 179. Kb3 Nd6 180. Qh6 Rc5 181. Nc3 Bd5+ 182. Kc2 Kd7 183. Qg7+ Kc6 184. Kd1 Bf7 185. Kd2 Bc4 186. Ke1 Ra5 187. Qf6 Rf5 188. Qg6 Kc7 189. Qg7+ Rf7 190. Qg3 Kc6 191. Qg2+ Kc7 192. Qh2 Kc6 193. Qh1+ Kc5 194. Qh8 Re7+ 195. Kd1! Re8 196. Qh2 Re3 197. Kc2 Rd3 198. Qe5+ Kc6 199. Qh5 Rg3 200. Qa5 Rh3 201. Kd2 Rh2+ 202. Ke3 Rh3+ 203. Kf4 Rd3 204. Na4 Rd4+ 205. Kf3 Rd3+ 206. Kg4 Rd4+ 207. Kh3 Ne4 208. Qa7 Be6+ 209. Kg2! Rb4 210. Qa6+! Kd5 211. Kf3 Kd4 212. Qe2 Kd5 213. Ke3 Bd7 214. Nb2 Bb5 215. Qh5+ Ke6 216. Nd1 Nf6 217. Qh3+ Kf7 218. Kd2 Rd4+ 219. Kc1 Rc4+ 220. Kb2 Rb4+ 221. Ka3 Ra4+ 222. Kb3 Rd4 223. Nc3 Bc4+ 224. Kc2! Be6 225. Qe3 Rh4 226. Qa7+ Kg6 227. Ne2 Rb4 228. Kc1 Rc4+ 229. Kb2 Rb4+ 230. Ka3 Rb3+ 231. Ka4! Rf3 232. Qd4 Bd7+ 233. Kb4 Be6 234. Qc5 Bd7 235. Qd6 Bg4 236. Nd4 Rd3 237. Kc4 Re3 238. Nc6 Bc8 239. Qh2 Re4+ 240. Kc5 Bb7 241. Qg1+ Kh7 242. Na7 Rg4 243. Qh2+ Kg6 244. Nb5 Rg2 245. Qh3 Rg5+ 246. Kb4 Bg2 247. Qh2 Bd5 248. Nd6 Ne4 249. Nc8 Nf6 250. Qd6 Rh5 251. Qc7 Kg5 252. Qe5+ Kg6 253. Qe3 Kh7 254. Qd3+ Kg7 255. Nd6 Rg5 256. Ka4 Rh5 257. Qg3+ Kh7 258. Kb4 Kh6 259. Ka3 Rg5 260. Qc3 Kg6 261. Qc2+ Kh6 262. Nf5+ Kh5 263. Qd3 Kg6 264. Ng3+ Kf7 265. Qe3 Rg8 266. Nf5 Ra8+ 267. Kb2! Ra2+ 268. Kb1 Ra6 269. Qe7+ Kg6 270. Nd6 Rb6+ 271. Kc2 Rb3 272. Qe5 Rf3 273. Kd2 Bc6 274. Nc4 Bd5 275. Ne3 Be4 276. Ng4 Bb7 277. Qe6 Kg5 278. Ne5 Rf2+ 279. Kc3 Rf4 280. Nf7+ Kg6 281. Nd6 Be4 282. Kd2 Rf2+ 283. Ke1 Rf4 284. Qc4 Kg5 285. Qe2 Bg6 286. Qe5+ Kg4 287. Ke2 Bf5 288. Qa1 Nh5 289. Ke3 Bc2 290. Qa8 Bg6 291. Qd5 Ng3 292. Nc4 Nf5+ 293. Ke2! Ng3+ 294. Kd2 Kh3 295. Qc6 Re4 296. Qa6 Re2+ 297. Kc3 Be4 298. Qd6 Kg2 299. Kb4 Bf3 300. Ka5 Nf5 301. Qc5 Be4 302. Kb6 Rc2 303. Qb4 Kf2 304. Ne5 Ke3 305. Nd7 Nd4 306. Qa3+ Ke2 307. Ne5 Nf5 308. Qa6+ Kf2 309. Qa4 Ng3 310. Qb4 Ke3 311. Nc4+ Kd3 312. Nd6 Ke3 313. Ka7 Bd3 314. Qb6+ Kf3 315. Qd4 Be4 316. Kb8 Re2 317. Nf7 Bf5 318. Ng5+ Kg2 319. Qd5+ Be4 320. Qb3 Bf5 321. Qf3+ Kh2 322. Qb7 Re8+ 323. Ka7! Re2 324. Qd5 Rf2 325. Nf3+ Kg2 326. Nd2+ Kh3 327. Qc6 Kg4 328. Qc3 Rf4 329. Nc4 Re4 330. Ne3+ Kg5 331. Qc5 Re6 332. Kb8 Re8+ 333. Kb7 Re6 334. Kc7 Re4 335. Kc6 Re8 336. Kb6 Re4 337. Ka5 Re6 338. Kb5 Re4 339. Nd5 Nh5 340. Ne7 Ng3 341. Qc1+ Kh4 342. Qh6+ Kg4 343. Nd5 Kf3 344. Qf6 Kg4 345. Qg7+ Kf3 346. Qc3+ Kf2 347. Qc5+ Kf3 348. Ka5 Bg4 349. Nf6 Rf4 350. Qc6+ Kf2 351. Nd5 Re4 352. Qf6+ Bf3 353. Nf4 Ne2 354. Nd3+ Ke3 355. Ne5 Rf4 356. Qb6+ Nd4 357. Kb4 Ke4 358. Nc4 Kf5 359. Qh6 Be2 360. Ne3+ Ke5 361. Qh8+ Ke4 362. Qe8+! Kf3 363. Nd5! Re4 364. Qf7+ Kg3 365. Qg6+ Kf3 366. Nf6 Rf4 367. Qh5+ Kg3 368. Qg5+ Kf3 369. Kc3 Nb5+ 370. Kb3! Rc4 371. Nd5 Nd4+ 372. Kb2 Rc2+ 373. Kb1 Ke4 374. Nf6+ Kd3 375. Nd7 Bf3 376. Ne5+ Ke2 377. Qh4 Rd2 378. Nc4! Rd1+ 379. Kb2! Rd3 380. Qg5 Rb3+ 381. Ka2! Rd3 382. Qe5+ Kf2 383. Nb2 Rd2 384. Qf4 Ke2 385. Kb1 Bg2 386. Nc4 Rd3 387. Qh2 Kf1 388. Qh7 Rc3 389. Kb2 Rc2+ 390. Ka3 Rc3+ 391. Kb4 Ne2 392. Ne5 Rh3 393. Qf5+ Ke1 394. Nd3+ Kd2 395. Nc5 Rg3 396. Qh7 Ke3 397. Qd3+ Kf2 398. Qc4 Rc3 399. Qh4+ Rg3 400. Ka5 Kg1 401. Qe7 Kf2 402. Qf6+ Ke1 403. Qh4 Kf1 404. Qd8 Ke1 405. Nd3+ Kd2 406. Nb4+ Kc1 407. Qe7 Kd2 408. Qd6+ Ke3 409. Nc2+ Kf2 410. Qe7 Rf3 411. Qh4+ Rg3 412. Ka6 Bh3 413. Qf6+ Rf3 414. Qa1 Rd3 415. Qe1+ Kf3 416. Qb4 Kg3 417. Qe7 Kf2 418. Ka5 Rc3 419. Qf8+ Rf3 420. Qb4 Rc3 421. Qb6+ Kg3 422. Ne3 Nf4 423. Nc4 Rf3 424. Qc7 Rf2 425. Qg7+ Kh2 426. Qe5 Kg3 427. Qg5+ Kh2 428. Kb6 Bg2 429. Ne3 Bh3 430. Qe5 Kg3 431. Nd5 Kg4 432. Qd4 Kg3 433. Qe3+ Rf3 434. Qe5 Kg4 435. Nf6+ Kg3 436. Ne4+ Kg2 437. Qc5 Ne2 438. Qc4 Nf4 439. Qc2+ Kh1 440. Qc5 Bg2 441. Nf2+ Kh2 442. Ng4+ Kh3 443. Qg5 Rb3+ 444. Ka5 Ra3+ 445. Kb4 Rf3 446. Ne5 Nd5+ 447. Kb5 Rf4 448. Kc5 Be4 449. Nc6 Rh4 450. Qd2 Kg4 451. Qe1 Bg2 452. Qe6+ Kg3 453. Nd4 Nf4 454. Qb3+ Kh2 455. Qe3 Rh5+ 456. Kd6! Rd5+ 457. Ke7! Nh3 458. Qd2 Kg3 459. Qc3+ Kh2 460. Qe3 Rg5 461. Qe2 Nf4 462. Qf2 Rg4 463. Nf5 Nd5+ 464. Ke6 Rg6+ 465. Kd7 Rg4 466. Qe1 Nf6+ 467. Kc7 Ne4 468. Qc1 Rg5 469. Qf4+! Kg1 470. Ne3 Rg7+ 471. Kb6 Rg6+ 472. Ka5 Rg5+ 473. Kb4 Rg6 474. Qe5 Bf3 475. Qa1+ Kh2 476. Qb2+ Kh1 477. Qc1+ Rg1 478. Qc8 Rg3 479. Qh8+ Kg1 480. Qa1+ Kf2 481. Qd4 Rg5 482. Nf5+ Kg2 483. Qb2+ Kh3 484. Ne3 Rh5 485. Nf1 Kg4 486. Qg7+ Kh3 487. Qg1 Rh4 488. Ka3 Rf4 489. Qh2+ Kg4 490. Ne3+ Kg5 491. Nd5 Rf7 492. Qe5+ Kh4 493. Ne7 Ng5 494. Ng8 Ne4 495. Nh6 Rf6 496. Nf5+ Kg4 497. Ne3+ Kh4 498. Kb4 Rb6+ 499. Ka5 Rf6 500. Qh2+ Kg5 501. Qh7 Ng3 502. Qg7+ Rg6 503. Qe5+ Kh6 504. Qf4+ Rg5+ 505. Kb6 Be2 506. Qf8+ Kh7 507. Nd5 Bc4 508. Nf6+ Kg6 509. Nd7 Nh5 510. Qd6+ Kh7 511. Qe7+ Kh6 512. Qe3 Be6 513. Ne5 Bd5 514. Qd4 Bg8 515. Qd2 Nf6 516. Nf3 Nd5+ 517. Kb7 Kg7 518. Qxg5+&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is black to move, and white to mate(!) in &lt;a href=&quot;http://timkr.home.xs4all.nl/chess2/diary_16.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;517 moves&lt;/a&gt;.  This is the longest known forced mate discovered so far, part of the 7 man tablebase projects.  That is to say that there exists a single combination here that makes the most complicated combinations seen on the board look trivial, that can't even be comprehended by the strongest humans, or the strongest computers without tablebases, and this with just 7 pieces left in play.  I suspect that there are many such amazing combinations.  Imagine what we could find with a 32 piece tablebase?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="606" LastEditorDisplayName="user669" LastEditDate="2013-04-27T20:00:41.647" LastActivityDate="2013-04-27T20:00:41.647" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2293" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2281" CreationDate="2013-04-16T09:05:19.220" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Grandmasters (and below) often lose because a tiny strategic advantage has been slowly worked up into an indefensible position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Like boxing. You can lose in an instant if a quick attack KOs you. Or you can be ground down over twelve rounds by someone who has:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;slightly better stamina to start with&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;avoids losing to your tactical flurries&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many players crack under pressure and we see a tactical end to a strategic game. But that crack was partially caused by playing on the backfoot for so long as the strategic advantage slowly blossomed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1241" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2013-04-17T13:48:12.387" LastActivityDate="2013-04-17T13:48:12.387" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2294" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2296" CreationDate="2013-04-17T17:30:32.800" Score="9" ViewCount="763" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am playing as Black in this game, and after 10. Qg4, I realize that White wanted my rook.  I knew I could trap the queen once it went for the rook (11. Qxg7), but I forgot how. I went on to win the game but I would still like a refresher.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &amp;quot;Live Chess&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Site &amp;quot;Chess.com&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Date &amp;quot;2013.04.17&amp;quot;]&#xA;[White &amp;quot;ilikefood7&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Black &amp;quot;MDMoore313&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Result &amp;quot;0-1&amp;quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &amp;quot;1300&amp;quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &amp;quot;1298&amp;quot;]&#xA;[TimeControl &amp;quot;10|0&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Termination &amp;quot;MDMoore313 won by checkmate&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Nc3 b6 4. Bb5 Bb7 5. d3 e5 6. Bxc6 Bxc6 7. Nxe5 Qc7 8. Bf4 Bd6 9. Nxc6 Qxc6 10. Qg4 Bxf4 11. Qxg7 O-O-O 12. Qxh8 Qg6 13. Nd5 Re8 14. Nxf4 Qh6 15. Nd5 f5 16. O-O Rf8 17. Qe5 d6 18. Qc3 f4 19. d4 f3 20. dxc5 bxc5 21. g3 Qh3 22. Ne3 Nf6 23. Kh1 Ng4 24. Nxg4 Qg2#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="915" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-12-02T15:14:39.987" LastActivityDate="2020-12-02T15:14:39.987" Title="How do I trap the queen once it pins my rook?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;middlegame&gt;&lt;queens&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2295" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2294" CreationDate="2013-04-17T23:24:39.037" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;To me it looks like after 11. Qxg7 Qg6 12. Qxh8 d6, black threatens Be5 picking up the queen.  Then if d4, White can play for 0-0-0 and Bh6, which might be the direction you were thinking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="606" LastActivityDate="2013-04-17T23:24:39.037" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2296" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2294" CreationDate="2013-04-18T01:10:44.240" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think you can trap the Queen, but you ought to be able to force the Queens off the board.  Once you do that your extra piece becomes very powerful.  After &lt;code&gt;11... Qf6&lt;/code&gt; white can only avoid a queen trade by &lt;code&gt;12. Qg4&lt;/code&gt; but is followed by &lt;code&gt;12... h5&lt;/code&gt; and preparing for an eventual Rg8.  Black's having a great game though his King is in a drafty place.  Razor sharp.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2013-04-19T11:29:53.127" LastActivityDate="2013-04-19T11:29:53.127" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2297" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2294" CreationDate="2013-04-19T05:25:55.590" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Overall&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An interesting match. &lt;code&gt;21. g3&lt;/code&gt; was certainly a gift from your opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Trapping the queen&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for trapping the queen, in this position, you cannot. Any efforts to actually trade the queen will end up either failing or losing material (such as losing both rooks to the queen after some material exchange).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Nc3 b6 4.Bb5 Bb7 5.d3 e5 6.Bxc6 Bxc6 7.Nxe5 Qc7 8.Bf4 Bd6 9.Nxc6 Qxc6 10.Qg4 Bxf4 11.Qxg7 Qg6 12.Qxh8 f6 13.Nd5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Taking the lead&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A better approach would be to instantly punish your opponent for being greedy with `11. .. Qf6&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Nc3 b6 4.Bb5 Bb7 5.d3 e5 6.Bxc6 Bxc6 7.Nxe5 Qc7 8.Bf4 Bd6 9.Nxc6 Qxc6 10.Qg4 Bxf4 11.Qxg7 Qf6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Had White taken on &lt;code&gt;f4&lt;/code&gt; instead of on &lt;code&gt;g7&lt;/code&gt; they would have enjoyed a &lt;code&gt;+1.77&lt;/code&gt; advantage. However, after Black playing &lt;code&gt;11.Qf6&lt;/code&gt; Black now enjoys a &lt;code&gt;1.33&lt;/code&gt; advantage (which turns into a &lt;code&gt;2.14&lt;/code&gt; advantage should White shy away from trading queens).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="342" LastActivityDate="2013-04-19T05:25:55.590" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2298" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1577" CreationDate="2013-04-19T14:54:19.603" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess.com has a few hundred examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/games/results?e=776&amp;amp;ml=MS5kNCBOZjYgMi5jNCBnNiAzLk5jMyBkNSA0Lk5mMyBCZzcgNS5lMyBPLU8gNi5iNA%3D%3D&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.chess.com/games/results?e=776&amp;amp;ml=MS5kNCBOZjYgMi5jNCBnNiAzLk5jMyBkNSA0Lk5mMyBCZzcgNS5lMyBPLU8gNi5iNA%3D%3D&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1252" LastActivityDate="2013-04-19T14:54:19.603" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2299" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2284" CreationDate="2013-04-21T14:10:10.963" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I like the above position from White's point of view. The key move here is f3. This will open the f file, and also create escape squares on f2 and e1 for the B on g3. There is a danger of Black's moving this h pawn to h4 and trapping the bishop, but not if you play f3 in good time. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White's &quot;disadvantages&quot; are TEMPORARY. Black has a PERMANENT disadvantage insofar as his advanced pawns rule out castling on either the king or the queen side, meaning the king has to stay in the center. All White has to do is to open a file near the king (the f file is close enough), double rooks on the file, and run along the highway to victory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2013-04-21T14:10:10.963" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2300" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-04-21T18:25:48.607" Score="13" ViewCount="515" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just played what I believe was a set of moves that gave me an &lt;em&gt;overwhelming&lt;/em&gt; advantage (I exchanged 2 minor pieces for rook + 2 pawns + prevented castling + doubled pawns + exposed enemy king):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(I am playing &lt;strong&gt;Black&lt;/strong&gt;, so &lt;em&gt;flipping&lt;/em&gt; the board is recommended)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. d3  e5 2. e3  Nc6 3. Bd2  d6 4. h3  Nf6 5. Nc3  b6 6. Qf3  Bb7 7. d4  Nxd4 8. Qxb7  Nxc2+ 9. Kd1  Nxa1 10. Qc6+  Nd7 11. Kc1  Be7 12. Kb1  Nb3 13. axb3  O-O&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the final position, one would think black is winning, but in fact engines say I am around &lt;code&gt;-0.50&lt;/code&gt;, and I did lose the game. The opponent soon controlled my dark squared bishop after &lt;strong&gt;Nf3&lt;/strong&gt;, and also I couldn't kick the queen away.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What do you think of this position? What color do you think will win more often using non-amateur strength?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="478" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-09-09T16:14:16.247" LastActivityDate="2019-09-09T16:35:45.580" Title="Analyzing this opening I played" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2301" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2300" CreationDate="2013-04-21T21:39:21.337" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;In terms of material, it's about even.  I didn't care for your &lt;code&gt;3... d6&lt;/code&gt; move. White is surrendering the center, why not take it with &lt;code&gt;3.. d5&lt;/code&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your challenge here is that White has more pieces so he can focus on more weak spots than you can, and he can double up on weak spots where you cannot.  White will find it easier to get his 2 pieces into the game than you will in getting your Rook activated. This means that in this position, they are worth more than &quot;1 point&quot; more than the Rook.  Further, White's doubled pawns are only weak if you can attack them.  Otherwise they just allow White to activate his rook. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While I don't think White has an overwhelming advantage; the game is by no means lost.  You just have to keep the pressure on to force a mistake.  The weaknesses you mention for White are real, but they only matter if you can exploit them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2013-04-21T21:39:21.337" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2302" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2300" CreationDate="2013-04-22T02:06:56.793" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the immediate future Black has major light-square weaknesses and is susceptible to blockade (Nd5, Ba6). It's going to be difficult for Black to break out. Ideally Black would like to get his pawns onto light squares and free his bad bishop but this will be difficult to achieve.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White has an undeveloped kingside, doubled pawns, but easy development and his king is not particularly weak being on a light square. White's ridiculously advanced queen position is surprisingly secure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I prefer White.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="97" LastActivityDate="2013-04-22T02:06:56.793" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2303" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2315" CreationDate="2013-04-22T06:37:38.993" Score="7" ViewCount="267" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the most famous example where player was losing heavily (down on material) in the beginning with lots of sacrifices but came back strongly to beat or &quot;pwn&quot; their opponent?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am not asking for weaker player beating strongly rated players. Rather someone who was creatively toying with opponent by sacrificing each and everything or playing like a looney only to reveal a method to madness. Sort of like Laurence Fishburne saying &quot;Your son creates like Fischer.&quot; in &lt;em&gt;Searching for Bobby Fischer&lt;/em&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="250" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-09-09T16:04:35.170" LastActivityDate="2019-09-09T16:08:15.187" Title="Sacrifices, initial loss and a volte-face?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;theory&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2304" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2300" CreationDate="2013-04-22T08:47:47.030" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;To break down the overall outcome of your exchange, you traded a knight and a bishop for a rook and two pawns. So you lost 6 material points while your opponent lost 7.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, a knight and bishop are generally stronger than a rook and a pawn in a closed position. Unfortunately here, the position does look rather closed. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What really stands out to me is White's ability to launch an attack, and Black's inability to launch an attack. As mentioned, &lt;code&gt;Nf3&lt;/code&gt; would be a strong controlling move. But even if White wanted to be aggressive they could play &lt;code&gt;Nd5&lt;/code&gt; and immediately equalize material by winning the c pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At first, it seemed like a neat move. On a deeper level of analysis the constricted structure that Black is left with really weighs you down.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="342" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-09-09T16:31:58.253" LastActivityDate="2019-09-09T16:31:58.253" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2306" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-04-24T01:16:17.650" Score="7" ViewCount="14672" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have a Macbook OS X 10.6 and want to play chess against a challenging program. I'm not very computationally inclined but it seems that I need to download Stockfish and some UCI-compatible GUI. I also want to spend $0 to make this happen. I downloaded Stockfish 231 for Mac and also downloaded pChess 1.9.2 which is reported to have an update that:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Added a wholly new module — pChess.command — copy it into the 'Engines' &#xA;    folder of Sigma Chess or Stockfish, and you can play pChess as a UCI engine!! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I could not find the Engines folder for the Stockfish download that I have. What's more, I'm not even sure what I should do once the pChess.command file is in Stockfish in whatever location is appropriate. When I open the Stockfish-231-mac folder that I have downloaded, the only files are copying.txt (a public licence), logo.bmp, polyglot.ini, readme.txt. The folders are Logos, Mac, and src.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the readme.txt file:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stockfish is a free UCI chess engine derived from Glaurung 2.1. It is&#xA;not a complete chess program and requires some UCI-compatible GUI&#xA;(e.g. XBoard with PolyGlot, eboard, Arena, Sigma Chess, Shredder, Chess&#xA;Partner or Fritz) in order to be used comfortably. Read the&#xA;documentation for your GUI of choice for information about how to use&#xA;Stockfish with it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I looked through the suggested GUI's and most seem only PC compatible or cost. Any help would be awesome. Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1260" LastActivityDate="2019-09-06T10:06:26.000" Title="Playing chess on a Mac with Stockfish and some GUI" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2307" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="351" CreationDate="2013-04-24T08:44:54.440" Score="21" Body="&lt;p&gt;Seven man end game table bases are already available online:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chessok.com/?p=28049&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://chessok.com/?p=28049&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the end of 2013 they should be available off line as well. The size is 140 000 gigabytes so there is an obvious problem with copying them. They did not compute 6 white pieces versus 1 king since they decided it was pointless.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Interesting fact- the longest forced checkmate is &lt;a href=&quot;http://tb7.chessok.com/articles/Top8DTM_eng&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;549 moves&lt;/a&gt;!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1193" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-29T18:13:03.743" LastActivityDate="2020-04-29T18:13:03.743" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2308" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="693" CreationDate="2013-04-24T16:33:06.290" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;The one that I could not recommend more for iOS is &lt;a href=&quot;https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/chessimo/id504839878?mt=8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chessimo&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This has great ability to train you for tactics, strategy and endgame. I teach a few people how to play chess well and this method seems to be very helpful. If you want to get to a decent level fast- focus on tactics, then strategy, then endgame and at the end opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This program makes it easy and fun!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1193" LastEditorDisplayName="user4378" LastEditDate="2016-01-21T09:28:04.593" LastActivityDate="2016-01-21T09:28:04.593" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2309" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="693" CreationDate="2013-04-24T18:25:23.323" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Try this app, &lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.thecvsi.tactictrainer&amp;amp;hl=es&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Tactics Trainer&lt;/a&gt;. It has helped me a lot and has a lot of puzzles, but I dunno if it has an iOS version.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I play at &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;chess.com&lt;/a&gt;, which has an app, too, for android and iOs. I play with real people and it has 3 free puzzles per day.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both apps have some graphics about your games or puzzles, and your ELO rating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessimo.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;chessimo&lt;/a&gt; is really good but I don't think it has a free version, or it is just a demo; to get the full version you have to pay, but it is really good, it was the first Tactics trainer app I used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1262" LastEditorUserId="1854" LastEditDate="2014-07-03T19:38:29.790" LastActivityDate="2014-07-03T19:38:29.790" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2310" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-04-24T22:34:58.067" Score="6" ViewCount="3177" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am going to analyse a lot of games with Houdini 3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The system on which I am going to analyse it is really powerful, but I am curious, what is the most important type of hardware for such analysis?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;CPU&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;RAM&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;GPU&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am willing to buy some additional computational power, but if needed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Up till now I have read &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cruxis.com/chess/manual/index.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; and was not able to find the answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If someone has any results or have done a strong analysis with Houdini, please give your insights.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="703" LastEditorUserId="813" LastEditDate="2013-09-13T21:46:43.780" LastActivityDate="2013-09-13T21:46:43.780" Title="What type of hardware is the most important for analysing with Houdini?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;engines&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2311" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2310" CreationDate="2013-04-25T08:23:49.037" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;CPU is by far the most important here. RAM is very cheap so I guess that you have between 8 and 16GB meaning that this will not be a bottle neck. You absolutely need a &lt;a href=&quot;http://chessbase-shop.com/en/products/houdini_3_pro_multiprocessor_version&quot;&gt;multiprocessor version of Houdini&lt;/a&gt; if you care about performance. Otherwise it will only use 1 of your 4 cores.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think this is highly unlikely for home PC, but multiple processor would speed up your analysis a lot. Chess programs are doing very well when it comes to parallel processing and utilising resources.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you have 1 processor, I would suggest buying a very good cooling system for it and overclocking it to higher clock. i7 2600k can easily run at 4.5 GHz.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1193" LastActivityDate="2013-04-25T08:23:49.037" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2312" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2204" CreationDate="2013-04-25T08:57:40.140" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is just impossible for computers to look deep enough (25 ply and more) and check every possible move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What makes is possible is the technique called &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha%E2%80%93beta_pruning&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Alpha-beta pruning&lt;/a&gt; which means that computers, similar to humans (but way better) follow only the promising continuations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They evaluate the positions constantly (based on some precoded rules, valuing material, king safety, activity, pawn structures etc) and look into variations that seem to be leading them towards the best position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is still close to magic how they manage to do it efficiently enough to evaluate millions of these positions in a second.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So to summarise- you are correct, they can not look at all the moves if they play strategic chess, but they can very quickly look at decent moves. The problem is still with the very long term plans and horizon to which they can see, but this is being worked on (Rybka analyses much slower, but plays much more positional chess, while Houdini is romantic at it's 'mechanical heart' calculating more moves and playing more aggressively). Even computers have their own styles!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1193" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-09-17T16:40:24.757" LastActivityDate="2019-09-17T16:40:24.757" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2313" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2314" CreationDate="2013-04-25T15:56:14.673" Score="5" ViewCount="1959" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there a Mac OSX implementation (or equivalent) of WinBoard / XBoard?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="947" LastEditorUserId="947" LastEditDate="2013-04-25T18:36:09.563" LastActivityDate="2020-07-01T19:06:11.060" Title="OSX implementation of WinBoard / XBoard?" Tags="&lt;software&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2314" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2313" CreationDate="2013-04-25T18:34:53.777" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jinchess.com/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jin&lt;/a&gt; seems like a good option.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Works well on OSX 10.8, and compatible with other platforms as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="947" LastActivityDate="2013-04-25T18:34:53.777" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2315" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2303" CreationDate="2013-04-26T07:09:04.293" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;This question might be a little too much in the discussion, no definitive answer category but I will answer anyway. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My answer would be the game known as the immortal game between Adolf Anderssen and Lionel Kieseritzky on 21 June 1851. Anderssen gave up both rooks and a bishop, then his queen, checkmating his opponent with his three remaining minor pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Wikipedia's entry on the game is &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immortal_Game&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a side note the list of games &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_chess_games&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; has many games that would fall into this category, I haven't looked at them all but there are many interesting games on this list. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1161" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-09-09T16:08:15.187" LastActivityDate="2019-09-09T16:08:15.187" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2316" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-04-27T05:52:19.240" Score="6" ViewCount="2228" Body="&lt;p&gt;How is a computer programmed to play chess? What are the ways by which they sort out the moves? My question is not about programming but the idea behind programming to play chess. That can really help me in chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1273" LastEditorUserId="780" LastEditDate="2013-04-30T05:45:47.837" LastActivityDate="2013-04-30T05:45:47.837" Title="How is a computer programmed to play chess?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;chess-variants&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="4" ClosedDate="2013-04-30T05:45:56.727" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2317" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2316" CreationDate="2013-04-27T06:44:25.507" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;A computers method of playing chess is really of very little use to a human player. Computers have no true intelligence. What they do have is the ability to carry out a very large number of instructions in a very short time. The computer uses a brute force method where they look at every possible move and then reduce the number of possibilities by comparing values given to various things like active or inactive pieces, actual piece values, and specific move variations that can be forced (as long as the entire move chain is within their event horizon). A human can never do this. Humans recognize positions and know that in this position this type of move are likely to matter. The human player thus check many fewer moves, by several orders of magnitude, but chooses better candidate moves to check out. See my answer to&#xA;&quot;How do chess engines think?&quot; &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/2204/how-do-chess-engines-think?rq=1e&quot;&gt;How do chess engines &amp;quot;think&amp;quot;?&lt;/a&gt; for additional information on the specifics behind the chess engines methods. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1161" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2013-04-27T06:44:25.507" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2318" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="693" CreationDate="2013-04-27T16:26:36.750" Score="17" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here are &lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/collection/cluster?clp=igM4ChkKEzU5ODkyOTc1ODg2OTk4MjEzMDQQCBgDEhkKEzU5ODkyOTc1ODg2OTk4MjEzMDQQCBgDGAA%3D:S:ANO1ljJGNNw&amp;amp;gsr=CjuKAzgKGQoTNTk4OTI5NzU4ODY5OTgyMTMwNBAIGAMSGQoTNTk4OTI5NzU4ODY5OTgyMTMwNBAIGAMYAA%3D%3D:S:ANO1ljKOLmE&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;my Chess apps for Android&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;iChess&lt;/strong&gt; — lots of chess tactics to solve, all offline. You can also load your own PGN or purchase recent tactics based on openings, or from recent games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Chess Book Study&lt;/strong&gt; — a very innovative app that shows a board and an eBook in the same screen. It makes it easy to study chess books. You can even dictate and the moves are made on the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Analyze This&lt;/strong&gt; — analyze a position with two engines, simultaneously!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1275" LastEditorUserId="19880" LastEditDate="2020-03-04T09:42:26.663" LastActivityDate="2020-03-04T09:42:26.663" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2319" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2316" CreationDate="2013-04-27T16:50:03.553" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you want all the dirty details of Chess programming, this is a good site:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1275" LastActivityDate="2013-04-27T16:50:03.553" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2320" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2275" CreationDate="2013-04-27T16:53:12.800" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, since Chess is not &quot;solved&quot;, the resulting tactics are not solved.&#xA;There are just too many permutations and combinations..pun!!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1275" LastActivityDate="2013-04-27T16:53:12.800" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2321" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-04-27T18:15:52.550" Score="6" ViewCount="1064" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm looking for a program that is capable of keeping track of player ratings while taking in the game data, and hopefully outputting rankings based upon those ratings in some form.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've found ELORater, which is exactly the type of thing I'm looking for, but I don't think ELORater is necessarily suitable enough. I think the ratings would possibly be skewed due to some &quot;new&quot; players actually being more skilled than the default value, and while I can change that for any given player I'd rather not make that judgement myself if a program can solve that problem. I also want something that takes into account inactivity, or something that actually supports participation, which I don't think ELORater does.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So while looking into this I came across Chessmetrics and Glicko-2, both of which seem to solve those problems. Chessmetrics sounds like exactly what I want in terms of how it handles the data, while Glicko-2 seems close enough as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The problem is I haven't found any kind of program or place to utilize those systems on my own, and I'm not knowledgeable enough in coding (or the formulas) to come up with a way to do so.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For Glicko-2 I've come across these:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://npmjs.org/package/glicko2&quot;&gt;https://npmjs.org/package/glicko2&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/proglottis/glicko2&quot;&gt;https://github.com/proglottis/glicko2&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I'm not sure how to implement them into use. I've found nothing that utilizes Chessmetrics that's actually usable. Again, I'd like something that hopefully functions like ELORater, even if it is a little more rough around the edges.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any help would be appreciated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1276" LastActivityDate="2016-05-05T16:13:51.287" Title="Are there any (free) programs that utilize Chessmetrics or Glicko-2?" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;rating&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2322" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2316" CreationDate="2013-04-28T05:32:45.630" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess programming is full of &quot;rules of thumb&quot; that can be applied to your own chess.  There are many aspects to chess programming... but the most prominent are tree search and a heuristic evaluation.  Here are some ideas that you might be able to apply to your games:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Minimax&quot;&gt;Minimax Search&lt;/a&gt;: The basis for adversarial search formalized... I'd hope the principle here was intuitive.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Evaluation&quot;&gt;Evaluation&lt;/a&gt;: A computer scores a position by combining metrics about material balance, king safety, activity, and pawn structure.  This goes into a strategic understanding of any given position.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Iterative+Deepening&quot;&gt;Iterative Deepening&lt;/a&gt;: The applicable idea here might be to consider your list of candidates first, prior to expending to a deeper level of analysis.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Killer+Move&quot;&gt;Killer Moves&lt;/a&gt;: An amazing move discovered in one line of your analysis might be applicable in other lines of analysis... consider it early in the process.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Null+Move+Pruning&quot;&gt;Null Move Pruning&lt;/a&gt;: You can better understand your opponents intentions by considering what moves they would make if you were to skip your own turn.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Quiescence+Search&quot;&gt;Quiescence Search&lt;/a&gt;: When you reach the end of some analysis, make sure everything is still ok if you were to resolve the tension in the position.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/MVV-LVA&quot;&gt;MVV-LVA&lt;/a&gt;: This one is obvious, but in considering capture patterns, usually a good idea to identify the most valuable victim, and take with the least valuable attacker.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Alpha-Beta&quot;&gt;Alpha Beta Search&lt;/a&gt;: You can stop considering a line when you find the first refutation to it, rather than continuing to search for a better refutation.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="606" LastActivityDate="2013-04-28T05:32:45.630" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2325" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2329" CreationDate="2013-04-28T21:43:35.447" Score="3" ViewCount="1621" Body="&lt;p&gt;In one game between world class players, (Alekhine and Rubinstein), the game began  1. d4 d5 2. c4 e6 3. Nf3 ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When Rubenstein played 3... a6?, Alekhine grabbed the opportunity to reply  4. c5! because a6 was a &quot;wasted&quot; move and 2) weakened b6. This was the case even though it is usually not good for White to release the tension on d5 so early. (Alekhine won.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this game between amateurs, the game appears to have been decided by Black's 14th move 14. ... Nf8, and the fact that White could play c5 on move 18 (after exchange of several &quot;forced&quot; moves). &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/2281/i-lost-a-game-without-making-tactical-mistakes-how-can-i-avoid-this-happening-i&quot;&gt;I lost a game without making tactical mistakes; how can I avoid this happening in the future?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, I was told that if Black can play c5 against d4 without adverse consequences, he equalizes. Which is why I advised Black to play 3... b6 in the game in the previous paragraph, to prepare for an eventual c5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it true that in a game where White opens d4, the result of the game is largely determined by who gets to play c5?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2016-10-11T05:37:32.230" Title="Is c5 a key move in an opening where white begins with d4?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2326" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2325" CreationDate="2013-04-29T03:48:47.790" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;After reading your question, I googled and &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/opening/eco/C00_Queen_Pawn_Game_Franco_Sicilian_Defense&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Franco Sicilian Defense&lt;/a&gt; came up. I wouldn't play the Sicilian directly against d4 (as in 1.d4 c5), so the Franco actually makes sense to me. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Looking at the games in their database it appears that out of 1600 games, black only wins 31% of the time, and 2...c5 is played, which is the probably the earliest &lt;em&gt;I myself would play&lt;/em&gt; c5 against d4, so I'd have to say &lt;em&gt;myth busted&lt;/em&gt; :=)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, we can debunk that by imaging what would happen in an amateur game if &lt;code&gt;1.d4 c5&lt;/code&gt; was the opening play, I don't think statistically black would come out on top or even draw. Quote from &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sicilian_Defence&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;Indeed, most statistical surveys suggest that 1.d4 is the most successful first move for White, but only because 1...c5 scores so highly against 1.e4.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="915" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-10-11T05:37:32.230" LastActivityDate="2016-10-11T05:37:32.230" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2327" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2328" CreationDate="2013-04-29T03:59:29.643" Score="3" ViewCount="502" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've grown fond of playing this opening with black against e4. I know it starts with the Sicilian but if it has a name or some background that would be nice to know.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 c5 2.g3 Nc6 3.Bg2 b6 4.b3 Bb7 5.d3 Qc7 6.Bb2 f6 7.Nf3 e5 8.O-O O-O-O&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="915" LastActivityDate="2013-04-29T11:55:39.670" Title="Is this a popular variation/continuation of the Sicilian Defence?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2328" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2327" CreationDate="2013-04-29T11:55:39.670" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, it is not popular. 2.g3 is already only the tenth-most common move. It is apparently technically called the Steinitz Variation in ECO though it's not common enough for that to be a well-known name. It seems to often transpose to the Closed Sicilian, which starts with 2.Nc3 and usually results in White also fianchettoing (putting on g2) his light-squared bishop, though the knight usually ends up on e2, not f3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In any case, ...b6 as a response is not seen at all in my database. ...b6 is not very common in Sicilians since Black usually tries to get in the more ambitious ...a6 and ...b5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2013-04-29T11:55:39.670" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2329" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2325" CreationDate="2013-04-29T13:03:42.667" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;First of all, 3...a6 after 1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 is not a terrible move for Black. It has been played by many top-level grandmasters, including Morozevich multiple times. 4.c5 is historically the eighth most common move in that position (4.cxd5 is the most common), so it's not like it refutes 3...a6. Opening theory has moved on since Alekhine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To the more general question: putting a pawn on c5 in 1.d4 d5 positions changes the position a lot, played either as White or as Black, so it's always worth considering.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For Black, ...c5 is one of the primary ways to try to break up White's strong center based on d4. It can be easier to engineer than the other possibility, ...e5, because his dark-squared bishop is already supporting it. He can also play supporting moves like ...Nbd7, ...Qc7 (both of which are also useful for preparing ...e5), and ...Rac8. Often Black's early play is based on creating the opportunity to play ...c5; if he can get it in without problems, he's usually doing well. Note also that ...c5 is an incredibly important move in the French, again trying to pry open d4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For White, c5 is fairly rare. It does gain space on the Queenside, but its main drawback is that it releases a lot of pressure on Black's d5 pawn. This means that his e6 pawn isn't as necessary to support it, which makes it a lot easier for him to play ...e5, since he doesn't have to worry so much about having lots of support for both the new e5 pawn and the suddenly-less-defended d5 pawn. Generally it is considered that the cons of c5 (removing pressure on d5 so that ...e5 is harder to stop) outweigh the pros (gaining space on the Queenside).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One exception is the Chebanenko Slav (1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.Nc3 a6), where 5.c5 is a quite common move. One extra thing it has going for it here is that it highlights the weakness of Black's b6 square, and it's going to be a bit difficult for Black to play ...b6 to engage with it. In the game you mention, Alekhine probably had a similar idea regarding the weakness of the b6 square after 3...a6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(18.c5 in the game you link to had nothing to do with any of this; that move is good because it entombs the bishop on b7.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2013-04-29T13:03:42.667" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2330" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2281" CreationDate="2013-04-29T16:30:40.527" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I like to see everything through lenses of tactics that can be exploited. You allowed your pawn to be permanently pinned to the bishop. This can be argued as a strategic mistake, but it ends with a quite tactical resolution, where the threat of b5 is exploited. I would say, to avoid similar results, you need to make sure (maybe by using tactics!) that you do not end up with bad pieces, forever pinned and blocked. Here your 17... Rac8 allowed the c5- which may be, not a tactical blunder, but lack of tactics! Did you have a look at 17... c5!?. I am not sure if this does not lose a pawn, but sometimes it may be worth giving a pawn, for a superior position. Try to play this against a friend (or a reasonably set up computer) after this move. See how you like it. If this is the problem, then it was not a tactical mistake- it was a lack of a tactical reply, lack of momentum in your play. You allowed your superior position to melt away...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1193" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-09-17T10:40:16.310" LastActivityDate="2019-09-17T10:40:16.310" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2331" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2339" CreationDate="2013-04-29T20:46:10.537" Score="3" ViewCount="453" Body="&lt;p&gt;Perhaps I've used the wrong term, but I'll describe what a &quot;flanker&quot; is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the Queen's Gambit, there is often the possibility for White to sacrifice a bishop on h7.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;1.Bxh7+ Kxh7 2.Ng5+ Kg8 3.Qh5 Kf8 (the rook is on e8) 4.Qh8+ Ke7 5.Qxg7&lt;/code&gt; (taking the g pawn.) White has two pawns for a piece, is down a third &quot;pawn&quot; and usually has the advantage. Why is that?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some observations:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;1 White has a passed h pawn that is a queening threat in the end game, and possibly even in the middle game.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;2 White dominates the g and h files, where Black pieces have no safe haven. It is this domination of two &quot;edge&quot; files that make for the &quot;flanker.&quot; Black is confined to six files.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;3 Derivative from b) White controls at least eight squares on Black's side of the board. If Black has nothing beyond the fourth rank on the a-f files, he is limited to 24 out of 64 squares.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This effect is so strong that it even extends to positions that I would classify as &quot;quasi flanker&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance, in this &quot;Immortal Zugzwang game, Black sacrificed a knight for two pawns so that his rooks on the f file act as a &quot;flanker&quot; against White's whole queen side: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immortal_Zugzwang_Game&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immortal_Zugzwang_Game&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nf3 b6 4. g3 Bb7 5. Bg2 Be7 6. Nc3 O-O 7. O-O d5 8. Ne5 c6 9. cxd5?! cxd5 10. Bf4 a6 11. Rc1 b5 12. Qb3 Nc6 13. Nxc6 Bxc6 14. h3? Qd7 15. Kh2 Nh5 16. Bd2 f5! 17. Qd1 b4! 18. Nb1 Bb5 19. Rg1 Bd6 20. e4 fxe4! 21. Qxh5 Rxf2 22. Qg5 Raf8 23. Kh1 R8f5 24. Qe3 Bd3 25. Rce1 h6!! 0–1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And in this 1919 game between Capablanca and Yates, White sacrifices a rook for the light squared bishop and a pawn between moves 22-24, and comes away with a &quot;quasi flanker&quot; on the queen side (and a winning advantage).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1055968&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1055968&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;    [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Ba4 Nf6 5. O-O Be7 6. Re1 b5 7. Bb3 d6 8. c3 Na5 9. Bc2 c5 10. d4 Qc7 11. Nbd2 Bg4 12. d5 g5 13. Nf1 h6 14. Ng3 Rd8 15. a4 b4 16. cxb4 cxb4 17. Bd3 Bc8 18. Be3 Ng4 19. Rc1 Qb8 20. Bd2 Qb6 21. Qe2 Nb3 22. Rc6 Qa5 23. Bxa6 Bd7 24. Bb5 Bxc6 25. Bxc6+ Kf8 26. Qc4 Nxd2 27. Nxd2 Qa7 28. Qe2 h5 29. Nf5 Bf6 30. Nc4 Qc5 31. b3 Nh6 32. Nxh6 Rxh6 33. Qe3 Rc8 34. Rc1 Bd8 35. Qxc5 dxc5 36. Nxe5 Ke7 37. Rxc5 f5 38. Rc4 Ba5 39. Bb5 Rxc4 40. Nxc4 Bc7 41. e5 Bb8 42. Ne3 Rh7 43. Nxf5+ Kf7 44. e6+ Kf6 45. e7 Rxe7 46. Nxe7 Kxe7 47. g3 Bc7 48. Kg2 Kd6 49. Be8 h4 50. Bf7 Ke5 51. Kh3 Bd8 52. Kg4 hxg3 53. fxg3 Kf6 54. Be6 Kg6 55. d6 Kf6 56. Bf5 Bb6 57. d7 Bd8 58. h4 gxh4 59. gxh4 Bc7 60. h5 Kg7 61. Be4 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What compensation did the winners get for their sacrifices?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2013-05-01T23:46:36.647" LastActivityDate="2013-05-02T08:53:18.550" Title="Is it true that a good &quot;flanker&quot; (flanking position) is worth more than a pawn? If so, why?" Tags="&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2333" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2303" CreationDate="2013-05-01T01:49:40.343" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I read the phrase &quot;sacrificing each and everything&quot; in your question, my mind went to the game &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1289099&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Serper-Nikolaidis&lt;/a&gt;, in which White does, well, that. By the time of &lt;code&gt;35.c6&lt;/code&gt;, each of White's original pieces has been offered up for sacrifice:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;St Petersburg Open&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;St Petersburg&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;1993.??.??&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Grigory Serper&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Ioannis Nikolaidis&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;E70&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;95&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.c4 g6 2.e4 Bg7 3.d4 d6 4.Nc3 Nf6 5.Nge2 Nbd7 6.Ng3 c6 7.Be2&#xA;a6 8.Be3 h5 9.f3 b5 10.c5 dxc5 11.dxc5 Qc7 12.O-O h4 13.Nh1&#xA;Nh5 14.Qd2 e5 15.Nf2 Nf8 16.a4 b4 17.Nd5 cxd5 18.exd5 f5 19.d6&#xA;Qc6 20.Bb5 axb5 21.axb5 Qxb5 22.Rxa8 Qc6 23.Rfa1 f4 24.R1a7&#xA;Nd7 25.Rxc8+ Qxc8 26.Qd5 fxe3 27.Qe6+ Kf8 28.Rxd7 exf2+ 29.Kf1&#xA;Qe8 30.Rf7+ Qxf7 31.Qc8+ Qe8 32.d7 Kf7 33.dxe8=Q+ Rxe8 34.Qb7+&#xA;Re7 35.c6 e4 36.c7 e3 37.Qd5+ Kf6 38.Qd6+ Kf7 39.Qd5+ Kf6&#xA;40.Qd6+ Kf7 41.Qxe7+ Kxe7 42.c8=Q Bh6 43.Qc5+ Ke8 44.Qb5+ Kd8&#xA;45.Qb6+ Kd7 46.Qxg6 e2+ 47.Kxf2 Be3+ 48.Ke1 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2013-05-01T01:49:40.343" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2334" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2284" CreationDate="2013-05-01T02:44:43.157" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's a mistake to view the pawns themselves as overextended targets that you might get to &quot;pick off&quot; as you say in your post. After all, Black's main objective with the pawn storm is probably to open up lines to attack your king, and so your snapping up such overextended pawns really only furthers Black's goal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As already pointed out in comments in this thread, the strong engine Stockfish recommends the move &lt;code&gt;1.f4&lt;/code&gt; in your diagram position. And when I opened your post and looked at the position, that was my almost immediate reaction as well. Why? Not because I'm even remotely as strong as Stockfish, of course; rather, I was just reflexively applying a classic positional maxim:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;An attack on the wing is best countered by play in the center.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That advice really goes double in this position, where the opponent's king is still in the center, and would need a few moves to get out of there. (Moreover, since Black has overextended on &lt;em&gt;both&lt;/em&gt; wings, her king ultimately doesn't have anywhere all that safe to go.) In particular, &lt;code&gt;1.f4&lt;/code&gt; carries a direct threat of capturing on e5, and if the knight on f6 gets forced to move, White is ready to capture on f7 with dire consequences for Black in the form of a vulnerable king open to attack in the middle of the board. Black's best response is probably nipping any ideas of &lt;code&gt;fxe5&lt;/code&gt; in the bud with the en passant capture &lt;code&gt;1...gxf3&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You might object that we've given Black what I claim she wanted out of her pawn storm, providing a half-open g-file to attack our king, but the point is that we can show Black's pawn storm to be premature by continuing to follow the above maxim. After e.g. &lt;code&gt;2.Nxf3 Bd6&lt;/code&gt;, we just continue to pry at the center with &lt;code&gt;3.c3!&lt;/code&gt; Note that Black is nowhere near getting an attack off the ground, but we've again given her something concrete that she needs to deal with immediately: &lt;code&gt;4.cxd4&lt;/code&gt; is a serious threat because of an &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt; pawn fork in the air.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bottom line: Black's pawn storm &lt;em&gt;is&lt;/em&gt; an overextension, but not because those pawns are now ripe for the taking. The real flaw in Black's play is that she's been pushing pawns for an attack that she's not yet ready for. That's why the proper response is to fight back in the center, demonstrating that she should have been spending her time developing some pieces first and taking care of her own king's safety. Here are just a few short variations, some featuring very poor Black moves just to illustrate the threats; but even in the lines where Black plays more sensibly, note that in the final positions, White is fully developed and ready to play in the center (and against Black's king), while Black is in no position to harass White at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;r1bqkb1r/2p2p2/2n2n1p/1p2p3/p2pP1p1/P2P2B1/BPPNNPPP/R2Q1RK1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.f4 gxf3 &#xA;( 1...Bb7?? 2.fxe5 Nh7 3.Bxf7+ )&#xA;( 1...exf4 2.Nxf4 )&#xA;( 1...Bd6 2.fxe5 Bxe5 3.Qe1 )&#xA;2.Nxf3 Bd6 3.c3! dxc3 &#xA;( 3...Bg4? 4.cxd4 Nxd4 5.Nexd4 exd4 6.e5 )&#xA;4.Nxc3 *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2013-05-01T02:44:43.157" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2335" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2236" CreationDate="2013-05-01T18:41:55.507" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Catalan usually results in black exchanging his d5 pawn on c4, which leads to some pretty clear strategic goals on both side.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;White plays for control of the e4 square to support the e-pawn, and pressuring the d5 pawn with pieces.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Black's freeing lever is c5, and thematic play centers around this push.  If black can succeed, he often tries to expand his queen-side pawns to form an a6-b5 pawn chain, and develops his c8 bishop to b7, opposing whites.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If white can prevent the c5 push, it becomes backwards or semibackwards on the c file, and white builds up pressure with his major pieces there.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="606" LastActivityDate="2013-05-01T18:41:55.507" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2336" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2281" CreationDate="2013-05-01T23:20:24.283" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;This answer is something of a kindred spirit to those already given by &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/2282/167&quot;&gt;dfan&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/2330/167&quot;&gt;jedrus07&lt;/a&gt;; both of their answers focus on your light-square bishop, with dfan addressing the big strategic picture that often revolves around that piece and jedrus07 focusing on the concrete pickle it ended up in by the end. I want to share a few thoughts on how its fate and yours might have been improved.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;The matter of c5.&lt;/em&gt; &lt;code&gt;18.c5&lt;/code&gt; definitely cramps Black's position, especially because it fixes that c6 pawn, and incidentally lets the white queen eye a6, keeping your light-square bishop off the a6-f1 diagonal. For that reason, you probably should have put the bishop on a6 to begin with with &lt;code&gt;16...Ba6&lt;/code&gt;, as a way to get some activity for that piece and restrict White's options on the queenside. Really it's a better home for the bishop than b7 would be even if the c6 pawn didn't get stuck in place.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After &lt;code&gt;18.c5&lt;/code&gt; you (correctly, I think) retreated instead of capturing, but then you ended up doing so the next move anyway. With &lt;code&gt;18...Be7 19.Re4 bxc5&lt;/code&gt; you allow White to rid himself of the backward d-pawn which could have become a target and as much of a liability as your own c-pawn; IMO your 19th move was a mistake that makes White's position easier to play. [Note: Stockfish disagrees with at least part of my reasoning here, as it actually suggests &lt;code&gt;20.bxc5&lt;/code&gt; instead of &lt;code&gt;20.dxc5&lt;/code&gt;. As a practical matter of making White's life easier, at least at the amateur level, for the moment I stand by my comment anyway.]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Trading a piece you shouldn't.&lt;/em&gt; By the time of &lt;code&gt;26.Qd4&lt;/code&gt; Black already has quite a difficult defense, as protecting c6 will be a permanent chore. Keeping the white knight out of e5 by &lt;code&gt;26...f6&lt;/code&gt; would be a good beginning to the defense. But &lt;code&gt;26...Nd7?&lt;/code&gt; makes White's task much easier, and the mistake here falls under the general area of &lt;em&gt;trading the wrong pieces&lt;/em&gt;. I'm not suggesting you necessarily meant to initiate the trade of knights, but only that the reason this non-blunder move is a serious mistake is that it presents White the opportunity to effect that exchange. The problem is that the trade of knights amplifies how much better White's remaining pieces are than yours, and puts your concrete task of saving c6 out of reach.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I mention this especially because whether (and what pieces) to exchange is a very common dilemma over the course of a game -- Should I aim for an endgame here or not? Do I need to keep a pair of rooks on the board, or trade everything off? etc. -- and such decisions are permanent and often more consequential than many players realize. Again, I doubt you intended to make this trade happen, but on the flip side, White was absolutely correct to force your hand with &lt;code&gt;27.Ne5!&lt;/code&gt;, and I think it was his consistently taking advantage of such not-purely-tactical opportunities that ultimately led to your defeat.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2013-05-01T23:26:13.147" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2337" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2340" CreationDate="2013-05-02T06:52:40.370" Score="6" ViewCount="309" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am looking for any collection of chess games of &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Bakr_bin_Yahya_al-Suli#Chess&quot;&gt;al-Suli&lt;/a&gt; or anyone medieval scholar's composition of games. Any resources would be appreciated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="250" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-04T21:43:27.030" LastActivityDate="2021-05-02T03:34:06.593" Title="Online resources for medieval Persian chess games or problems?" Tags="&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;history&gt;&lt;problems&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2338" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-05-02T08:41:50.273" Score="14" ViewCount="699" Body="&lt;p&gt;How does algebra relate to this chess notation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why do they call this chess notation &lt;strong&gt;algebraic&lt;/strong&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="687" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2013-05-18T15:21:40.517" LastActivityDate="2013-09-14T02:19:27.373" Title="Why is algebraic notation called algebraic?" Tags="&lt;history&gt;&lt;notation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2339" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2331" CreationDate="2013-05-02T08:53:18.550" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I will give you my view, though I'm only a FIDE 2200 player. Such rules do not apply in all games and you usually should not let them affect the game. That does not mean that all rules you hear are not valid, for example take the first example: a sacrifice of a piece for two pawns and attack on the king is usually good compensation. But it always depends on the position, it is up to the player to determine the strength of the attack. I would go with the known rules using them carefully. All rules have exceptions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Compensation in the Nimzowitch game is perhaps the hardest to explain, I would guess that he saw the end position before the sacrifice since he was great tactical player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the Capablanca game the compensation is more clear, a bishop, a protected passed a-pawn and white square dominance and it is true that black is so badly coordinated that he cannot effectively use his kingside flank.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To the original question, it is always some advantage that compensates for a pawn and yes, it could be control on some part or side of the board. It is always up to you to determine the extent of the advantage. Your observation no.3, though: there are openings where black is confined to little space but gains a flexible position so space advantage alone is usually not compensation in itself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="334" LastActivityDate="2013-05-02T08:53:18.550" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2340" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2337" CreationDate="2013-05-02T09:06:46.087" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Take a look at   &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/forum/view/game-showcase/the-oldest-chess-game-recorded&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt;  page.&#xA;I hope it helps..&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="687" LastActivityDate="2013-05-02T09:06:46.087" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2341" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2418" CreationDate="2013-05-03T04:46:13.037" Score="9" ViewCount="2287" Body="&lt;p&gt;A couple of places on the web mention a free utility called pgnsplit, that does the following:&#xA;&quot;A commandline tool to convert pgn-files including games with variation into pgn-files where each variation get its own game.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sadly, all links to it seem dead. Does anyone know if it is possible to download it anywhere, or to find similar functionality in any other common chess database software?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="618" LastEditorUserId="12" LastEditDate="2013-06-04T13:46:27.873" LastActivityDate="2019-09-02T10:54:30.797" Title="Is PGN split utility available anywhere?" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;pgn&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2342" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2341" CreationDate="2013-05-03T14:19:29.050" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The only one I've found that will probably do what you want is &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cs.kent.ac.uk/people/staff/djb/pgn-extract/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;PGN Extract&lt;/a&gt;. It's a command line tool, so hopefully you're comfortable with that. It has a Windows binary, but if you need it for Linux or Mac I hope you're comfortable with compiling from source.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Update&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It appears PGN Extract will only separate unique games in a single PGN into multiple PGNs, not branches. Sadly PGN Split was one of a kind, and there doesn't appear to be a replacement. One of few programs that managed to disappear &lt;em&gt;completely&lt;/em&gt; from the internet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="915" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-09-02T10:54:30.797" LastActivityDate="2019-09-02T10:54:30.797" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2343" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2345" CreationDate="2013-05-03T16:39:02.157" Score="13" ViewCount="7213" Body="&lt;p&gt;We do not know, given two perfect players White and Black, whether the game would necessarily end in a draw, or necessarily end in a win (for either Black or White).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, can we prove that if there is a winning strategy, then it is for White? In other words, can we prove that Black must either lose or draw?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1286" LastEditorUserId="1286" LastEditDate="2013-05-03T22:22:23.970" LastActivityDate="2019-09-05T08:59:36.110" Title="If there is a winning strategy, is it for White?" Tags="&lt;theory&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2344" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2343" CreationDate="2013-05-03T21:54:32.390" Score="-5" Body="&lt;p&gt;White would have the advantage of opening the game, but I would doubt there is ever a winning strategy as you suggested.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1284" LastActivityDate="2013-05-03T21:54:32.390" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2345" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2343" CreationDate="2013-05-03T22:31:21.213" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;If there is such a proof, no one has found it, and I doubt very much that such a proof exists (it is hard to imagine a mathematically provable &quot;guaranteed-draw&quot; strategy as White). One would certainly expect White to have an advantage if anybody did, but there are some downsides to going first as well (you have to disclose information before your opponent), so it is theoretically possible that the downsides outweigh the upsides. That said, the probability of that being the case seems to be infinitesimal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2013-05-03T22:31:21.213" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2346" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2306" CreationDate="2013-05-03T23:27:10.313" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can use &lt;code&gt;ScidvsMac&lt;/code&gt; which is a fork of &lt;code&gt;Scid&lt;/code&gt; (Shane's Chess Information Database) with Stockfish. I'm using stockfish as the engine within scidvsmac for analyzing my own games and it's fairly fine. It also has all the typical features of decent gui like variations, opening and ending databases and etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Setting it is also very easy. You just need to add stockfish as engine from &lt;code&gt;Analyze&lt;/code&gt; menu and provide the address to binaries.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Links:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://sourceforge.net/projects/scidvspc/files/mac/ScidvsMac-4.20.dmg/download&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Direct link to DMG package&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://scidvspc.sourceforge.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Homepage of the project&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/30595/scid&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Scid for Mac&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://scid.sourceforge.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Original Scid&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shane%27s_Chess_Information_Database&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Useful links!&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1287" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2019-09-06T10:06:26.000" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2347" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="7792" CreationDate="2013-05-04T17:44:24.490" Score="8" ViewCount="3919" Body="&lt;p&gt;I figured out that holding shift allows me to highlight a square I click on, but no luck finding the shortcut for arrows. Using SCID Vs. PC 4.9.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="618" LastActivityDate="2014-11-14T00:33:33.663" Title="Does SCID allow to draw arrows on the board?" Tags="&lt;scid&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2348" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2350" CreationDate="2013-05-04T18:49:45.367" Score="42" ViewCount="19468" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was playing a game with a friend online. A situation came up where he put me in check with his bishop, and I moved my rook to block it. His king was on the g file and my rook was on g2. The website said he was in check. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;6k1/8/2b5/8/8/8/6R1/7K b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Position after&lt;/em&gt; &lt;code&gt;Rg2+&lt;/code&gt; &lt;em&gt;, showing only the pieces important to the question.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I didn't think it could be a check, since legally, I could not attack his king or move my rook because it would put my king in check. Can a piece put a king in check even though moving that piece would be an illegal move? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is odd, because since he was forced to respond to the check, I was able to make a couple moves and leave him with only a couple of blocked pawns, while I was able to promote a pawn and mate in a couple moves. I won, but it feels like cheating. He had a better position and should have won. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1291" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2015-02-28T16:59:24.037" LastActivityDate="2019-05-11T14:32:20.103" Title="Can a piece pinned to my king put the opponent's king in check?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;check&gt;&lt;illegal-move&gt;&lt;pins&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2349" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2348" CreationDate="2013-05-04T18:56:21.987" Score="40" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Can a piece put a king in check even though moving that piece would be an illegal move?&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One way to see why this makes sense is to imagine &quot;checkless chess&quot;, a game that is just like chess, but you win by capturing the king, not by delivering checkmate, and no one is forced to move out of check. This game is exactly the same as chess except that it ends one move later and stalemate is generally a loss for the side that would have to &quot;move into check&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In checkless chess, he moved Bc6, then you moved Rg2, and if he makes some other random move, you can win with Rg2 x Kg8 before he wins with Bc6 x Kh1. So your check really is more &quot;important&quot; than his pin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2013-05-04T18:56:21.987" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2350" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2348" CreationDate="2013-05-04T19:07:19.017" Score="50" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes. Besides making sense, it's also explicitly stated in the rules of the game:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;3.9&#xA;The king is said to be 'in check' if it is attacked by one or more of the opponent's pieces, even if such pieces are constrained from moving to that square because they would then leave or place their own king in check. No piece can be moved that will either expose the king of the same colour to check or leave that king in check.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=124&amp;amp;view=article&quot;&gt;Laws of Chess on the FIDE site&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2013-05-04T19:07:19.017" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2351" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2348" CreationDate="2013-05-04T19:09:15.003" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;A piece can give check even when it is pinned. This is the main &quot;exception&quot; to the rule that a pinned piece cannot move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason is, your pinned piece giving check &quot;takes&quot; the opposing king first. (In this case, it's your rook at g2 on the g file.) That's BEFORE his bishop would take your king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So by the laws of the game, your friend had to move his king, you made your moves, and won. All perfectly legal (and tactical). Good work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastEditorUserId="17" LastEditDate="2013-05-04T19:15:59.693" LastActivityDate="2013-05-04T19:15:59.693" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2352" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2347" CreationDate="2013-05-04T19:11:51.317" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I use Scid 4.2.2, which is quite old, but maybe what works there also works in Scid vs PC.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can open the Comment Editor window, and besides editing the comment and adding things to squares, you can also click and drag over the board to create arrows.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Make sure to &lt;em&gt;store&lt;/em&gt; the comment before you enter the next move, or it will be lost!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2013-05-04T19:11:51.317" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2353" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1702" CreationDate="2013-05-04T19:22:50.540" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your profile reminds me of that of a master named David Janowski. His nemesis was a world champion (and a personal friend) name Jose Raul Capablanca. Capablanca published a book called &quot;Chess Fundamentals&quot; which details a number of games he won against Janowski (and others). I would study this book from &quot;Janowski's&quot; point of view. The book is one of the few in the public domain, and can therefore be viewed online. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Capablanca was not a particularly good opening player. But he was the best endgame player of his time. So his book will show you how he won endgames, and &quot;finessed&quot; unfamiliar openings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastEditorUserId="17" LastEditDate="2013-05-05T14:12:46.680" LastActivityDate="2013-05-05T14:12:46.680" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2354" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2355" CreationDate="2013-05-05T00:23:29.507" Score="21" ViewCount="15842" Body="&lt;p&gt;In chess, it is against the rules to move into check, or to not move out of check. But why? Obviously, if you went against this rule, you'd immediately lose. But it seems strange to make it illegal to lose in such a way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a reason for this rule? Is there a reason that chess ends with checkmate rather than capturing the king?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1298" LastEditorUserId="18475" LastEditDate="2019-11-27T19:07:37.567" LastActivityDate="2019-12-18T21:30:18.333" Title="Why is it illegal to move into check?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;history&gt;&lt;illegal-move&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2355" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2354" CreationDate="2013-05-05T00:56:32.253" Score="18" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is basically just a shortcut that cuts the game short by one move once the outcome is obvious. &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Check_%28chess%29#History&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;According to Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;em&gt;&quot;In early Sanskrit chess (c. 500–700) the king could be captured and this ended the game. The Persians (c. 700–800) introduced the idea of warning that the king was under attack (announcing check in modern terminology). This was done to avoid the early and accidental end of a game. Later the Persians added the additional rule that a king could not be moved into check or left in check. As a result, the king could not be captured.&quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The one difference from &quot;real chess&quot; that it does cause is actually rather significant. In a normal game of chess, stalemate is declared a draw, as Black has no legal move. For example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[title &quot;Black to move&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;4k3/4P3/4K3/8/8/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If moving into check were allowed and capturing the king ended the game, Black could move his king in this situation and White would capture it, winning the game. Opinions vary, even among grandmasters, whether stalemate is a good rule for chess or not, but in any case it is a consequence of the check rules, and a large fraction of draws are the result of it. Once again &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalemate#Proposed_rule_change&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia has a good summary&lt;/a&gt; of the consequences for endgame theory of abolishing the stalemate rule and making capturing the king the requirement to win the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-12-18T21:30:18.333" LastActivityDate="2019-12-18T21:30:18.333" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2357" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-05-05T19:28:19.100" Score="6" ViewCount="1807" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am torn between two options:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a) having a database with separate games (e.g. in pgn files, or any one of ChessBase, Chess Assistant or SCID database format), where each game would be a subvariation of an opening that I play. This has an advantage for adding verbal annotations, easier printing, etc. This seems also what most professional players, or opening book writers do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;b) A proper opening book in CTG, bin, or whatever other custom opening book format. Possibly one book for my white openings, and one for my Black reperoire. This is better for transpositions, but does not allow me to add verbal annotations - at least not in the formats that I looked at. Chess Position Trainer seems like a good tool for this approach, but still does not let me include variations from database games, so you really can't use it effectively to build a repertoire.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Neither option seems ideal. Any advice?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="618" LastActivityDate="2015-10-07T21:15:38.353" Title="What is the best way to maintain an opening repertoire in electronic form?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;software&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2358" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-05-06T21:18:18.033" Score="12" ViewCount="788" Body="&lt;p&gt;I plan on teaching a chess class (5 classes in a sequence, each building off the previous, 1 hour each) to high schoolers, with emphasis on applying chess principles to real life. Now, it'll be unproductive to have players of maybe &amp;lt;1200-1300 strength, since they won't quite understand positional and tactical ideas well, and will likely find the class advanced/unproductive. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Given the short time frame, I'd like to somehow assess their playing strength at the beginning of the first class in as short amount of time as possible, so as to make the rest of the sessions most productive for the rest. Any suggestions?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I thought of tactical puzzles, and someone suggested multiple choice format for guess the move, but both will require a good 10 minutes for the students to have a good chance at getting them right. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="885" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2020-05-09T08:54:27.700" LastActivityDate="2020-05-09T08:54:27.700" Title="How to gauge someone's chess strength quickly?" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2360" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2358" CreationDate="2013-05-06T22:37:37.423" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;Perhaps show them positions and ask them to assess them and analyze the various salient features (i.e., king safety, piece mobility, central control, weak squares/color complexes, etc.). Naturally, novice players likely won't be able to formulate a cogent response, but if you're looking to identify at least reasonably strong/experienced players, then I would imagine that kind of approach would be more efficient than presenting them with tactical puzzles.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tactical puzzles are also slightly scattershot; a strong player can occasionally overlook a tactic, but classic positional motifs are typically readily apparent (as long as the positions you select aren't either overly subtle or purely tactical in nature). I wouldn't expect them to formulate concrete positional plans on the spot and in a short amount of time, but I think the mere ability to identify positional imbalances is a sufficient indicator of some chess skill.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think you could present a few tactical puzzles as well, as long as they comprise common motifs and don't require overly long combinations. Puzzles that would take ten minutes strikes me as excessive. As an indicator of playing strength, the (in)ability to solve a few fairly simple puzzles in a short amount of time would be relatively conclusive. If the puzzles are short, you can also administer more of them, which is apt to yield more accurate data than the results from a smaller number of more complex puzzles that each require deep thought.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="297" LastActivityDate="2013-05-06T22:37:37.423" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2361" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2343" CreationDate="2013-05-07T06:19:07.160" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;In theory, chess can be &quot;solved&quot;, since it is a &quot;finite&quot; game with &quot;perfect information&quot;. More precisely, there exists a strategy such that one player has a guaranteed win, or both players have a guaranteed draw given perfect play. Here's a technical article on the basic (well, basic for those familiar with economics/mathematics) concepts of &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.econ.ucsd.edu/~jsobel/200Cs09/Kartik_Notes.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Game Theory&lt;/a&gt; for those interested in the specifics. &lt;strong&gt;Essentially, every game which has &quot;perfect information&quot;,&lt;/strong&gt; i.e. each player can see all the pieces, and is aware of all the legal moves of said pieces at all points during the game (a counterexample of a perfect information game would be a card game, where you aren't able to see your opponent's hand), ** a finite number of players and a finite number of legal moves**, i.e. the game doesn't go on indefinitely, &lt;strong&gt;then it has a guaranteed winning or drawing strategy for one of the players.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In practice, we have neither the technology nor the intelligence (ok, maybe if all the best chess minds of today collaborated on finding the strategy, we may have sufficient intelligence required. MAYBE.) and time to do it manually.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To answer your question: Yes, there exists a winning (or drawing strategy). No, we don't know whether it is for white or for black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, chess is doomed to get solved someday. But we won't have the technology (in my opinion the only means of doing so) for it for many, many decades (hopefully even centuries) to come.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="885" LastActivityDate="2013-05-07T06:19:07.160" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2362" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2358" CreationDate="2013-05-07T08:03:51.000" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The best way to assess a player's strength is to play a game against them&lt;/strong&gt;. I would guess that the stronger the player the more accurate that player is able to gauge their opponent's playing strength. Presumably the teacher (you) is a relatively strong player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It may also be useful to record a few games for each student at the beginning of the course for comparison or analysis at the end of the course, to see if they have improved for example (if it were me, I'd probably allocate time for a game every session in fact, probably at the end so the students can apply what they've learnt and ask questions).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it's impractical to play each student yourself before the first session, you might get them to play each other and have a look over the game afterwards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another approach is to simply ask each of your students how strong they think they are. Perhaps you could combine this with a simple questionaire - a few questions on chess fundamentals, such as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Do you know how to mate with king rook vs king?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Do you know what a bad bishop is?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Do you know what a knight outpost is?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Do you know the three opening principles?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Do you know what a fork is?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;etc.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Perhaps some general questions might help:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;How often do you play chess?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When did you start playing chess?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Do you have a FIDE rating or played in any formal tournaments?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Keep it simple and keep it fun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="97" LastActivityDate="2013-05-07T08:03:51.000" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2363" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2358" CreationDate="2013-05-07T10:27:00.043" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I had this questionable test done on me:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Watch a game being played quickly in front of you, your task is to remember all moves and replay the entire game from scratch. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This test is quite subjective, I know many players who are terrible at blitz play and are extremely strong players with long time controls. I also know the opposite type of players. I think this type of test only tests for blitz ability.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="72" LastActivityDate="2013-05-07T10:27:00.043" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2364" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2365" CreationDate="2013-05-07T14:36:38.207" Score="18" ViewCount="999" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have been looking at several of &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikhail_Tal&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Mikhail Tal's&lt;/a&gt; games recently, as they are exciting to analyze.  Often Tal makes sacrifices in surprising positions, and almost always the computer finds that the positions are quite close despite the massive material deficit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How can one accurately judge the compensation from a sacrifice?  Are there any techniques to try to figure out whether or not it was worth it, and what should I be looking for here?  How can I try to evaluate &amp;quot;king safety&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;weaknesses,&amp;quot; and determine whether or not they are worth the material loss?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Note:&lt;/strong&gt; I am not just asking about a combination that returns the material.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="101" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-09-26T01:06:51.933" LastActivityDate="2020-09-27T11:56:06.513" Title="How do you judge a sacrifice?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;sacrifice&gt;&lt;aggressive-play&gt;&lt;tal&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2365" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2364" CreationDate="2013-05-07T15:44:30.523" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;I will assume here that you are talking about sacrificing pieces and not just pawns, which require less compensation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For a sacrifice to work out you generally need to either 1) checkmate the opposing king, or 2) eventually gain the material back. There are other scenarios, but they're less common and I will ignore them here. Often goal 2 occurs because Black is required to give up material to avoid goal 1.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Either of those goals can be accomplished in the short term by a forced sequence that you can calculate, or in the longer term, where you don't calculate an exact sequence that will lead to your win but are confident that your good position will lead you there eventually.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately there are not reliable quantitative compensation metrics such as &quot;an exposed king is worth two pawns&quot;. Long-term sacrifices are generally made on intuition, which improves as one gains experience. There are some decent rules of thumb, though. Here are some good signs that your attack may succeed:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If you have two more pieces attacking his king than he has defending it.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If you are down a piece, but currently have more pieces actually participating in the game than he does (for example, both your rooks are active, but he still has one on a8 blocked in by a knight on b8).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If it is difficult for him to route his pieces back to defend his king.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If it is difficult for his king to run away (often the bottleneck is at f8).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If you have certain configurations of pieces (e.g., a knight on the sixth rank supported by a pawn, or doubled rooks on an open file) that are more valuable than you'd expect purely from their &quot;point value&quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If the king's pawn cover is broken, or if he is stuck in the middle of the board.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If, say, you can sacrifice a piece for a pawn and three of the above conditions apply, that is a good sign that the attack will succeed at one of its two general aims. But it all depends on the actual position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2013-05-07T15:44:30.523" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2367" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2306" CreationDate="2013-05-08T12:08:10.457" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I wrote a long post on how to do this for latest Macs:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://web.archive.org/web/20130219053123/http://fianchetto.org/2012/02/12/chess-analysis-on-mac-os-x-lion-10-7-using-stockfish-and-hiarcs-engine/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess analysis on Mac Os X Lion 10.7 using Stockfish and HiARCs engine&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1311" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2019-06-18T20:13:51.460" LastActivityDate="2019-06-18T20:13:51.460" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2368" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2375" CreationDate="2013-05-08T12:10:21.063" Score="5" ViewCount="816" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am currently in a turn based game where white opened with 1.g3. I clearly see that white probably (at least white &lt;em&gt;should&lt;/em&gt;) will fiancetto his king's bishop on the next move, aiming to control the white squares. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I google'd 1.g3 and saw it's called &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benko%27s_Opening&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Benko's Opening&lt;/a&gt;, and as I suspected will likely transpose into something else.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's tough for black to know exactly how white will attack, and the king's indian does fit that scenario (not overly aggressive, gives options, and also doesn't give white a full center advantage). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So my question is, giving a game that started with Benko's Opening and black plays King's Indian, does this put black at a foreseeable disadvantage where white would easily be able to capitalize?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can see the opening possibly taking this route&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.g3 Nf6 2.Bg2 g6 3.d4 Bg7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="915" LastActivityDate="2017-01-12T10:46:49.807" Title="Does playing the King's Indian against the Benko put black at a foreseeable disadvantage?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;kings-indian&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2369" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2313" CreationDate="2013-05-08T12:10:23.967" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Jin is the best, also on older macs there was another client &quot;Fixation&quot;. I would recommend using a &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardware_virtualization&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;virtualization&lt;/a&gt; application such as VMWare Fusion or VirtualBox with a Windows guest to run your preferred Windows chess software - as macs also suffer from not having a satisfactory ChessBase client to review games. Performance is not an issue as chess apps do not need be too powerful for these things. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1311" LastEditorUserId="947" LastEditDate="2013-05-09T00:33:37.290" LastActivityDate="2013-05-09T00:33:37.290" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2370" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2371" CreationDate="2013-05-08T12:58:04.193" Score="7" ViewCount="1814" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was black in this game, and white went ahead and played 3.d4 even though I clearly had it guarded, however once played, white now has the queen as an additional defender, and the queen was able to rest on d4 with no threat from black. In response I played &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nxd4 5.Qxd4 Qa5+ 6.Nc3 e5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I went on to lose this game, but I feel like this was the deciding factor. I really don't feel like 5...Qa5+ was the best reply, even if white was to reply with 6.Bd2 I could still reply with 6..e5 and propose a queen sac, which after black wouldn't be in as bad a position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nxd4 5.Qxd4 Qa5+ 6.Bd2 e5 7.Bxa5 exd4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, my question is: Is black's best response to 3.d4 after playing the Sicilian 3...cxd4? Also, if so, was there a blunder somewhere by black, or could a better move have been played elsewhere?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="915" LastActivityDate="2016-11-24T16:29:02.557" Title="How does one respond to 3.d4 after playing the Sicilian?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2371" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2370" CreationDate="2013-05-08T13:05:41.213" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;3...cxd4 is indeed basically forced. Perhaps the single biggest idea of the Sicilian is to exchange your c-pawn for White's d-pawn, leaving you with more pawns in the center. So go ahead and do it!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, 4...Nxd4 is a mistake, leaving White with much better development after the trade.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some common 4th moves for Black after 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 are 4...Nf6 (attacking the e4 pawn), 4...e6 (preparing to develop the dark-squared bishop and/or play ...d5), and 4...g6 (planning to develop the dark-squared bishop to g7).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2013-05-08T13:05:41.213" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2372" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2370" CreationDate="2013-05-08T18:36:36.823" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;As dfan said, 4. ... Nxd4 is definitely an error. I would suggest you abandon this approach entirely.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Move 4 is a key branching point for black in the Sicilian defense. However, almost any line you choose will require extensive book preparation in order to be successful. The Sicilian is perhaps the most deeply explored opening with the most published theory; any serious 1. e4 player will have studied it extensively, and so if your book preparation is not on par you may find yourself falling into more pitfalls down the line.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Personally I enjoy the Taimanov variation, 4. ... e6. But there are several good options.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, if you are just starting out I would suggest playing something else entirely on move 2. As a new player you do not want an opening that requires you to focus too much on book preparation when you should be learning basics of middlegame and endgame play. Kings pawn openings like the Ruy Lopez tend to be a better way to learn 'foundations' since intuitive moves are less likely to be terrible and book preparation is not so critical. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1312" LastActivityDate="2013-05-08T18:36:36.823" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2373" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2310" CreationDate="2013-05-08T18:54:17.000" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The next most critical point is to ensure that you have a 64-bit operating system and use the 64-bit version of the engine. Well designed engines like Rybka (and Houdini is a derivative of Rybka) will see a performance gain of as much as 70% from switching to 64-bit architecture.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1312" LastActivityDate="2013-05-08T18:54:17.000" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2374" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-05-09T05:07:29.100" Score="11" ViewCount="1480" Body="&lt;p&gt;I find myself frequently running into time trouble. Even though mentally it feels like I didn't use that much time, when I look at my clock it says otherwise. When this happens I start rushing to try and make up for 'lost time' with blunders soon to follow.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have an idea of where the time is going -- usually it's when I'm analyzing a critical position and I'm calculating the moves out. Many times I can't seem to find a clear plan to carry out because of time pressure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there any techniques or ideas to try out and practice to help with this problem? What do you guys do to tackle this issue?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit&lt;/strong&gt;: To answer Akavall's comment on when it happens. I certainly don't run into time-pressure in every game -- eg. if my opponent made a big blunder and I'm up in material. Usually it happens when the position is about even. I take too long coming up with a plan and the most accurate candidate move. Other times it happens when I'm in an inferior position trying to size up a defense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1313" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2014-02-11T16:24:41.273" LastActivityDate="2019-09-19T03:10:01.630" Title="How to deal with time-control pressure?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;training&gt;&lt;time-management&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2375" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2368" CreationDate="2013-05-09T12:03:53.103" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, there is nothing wrong with this approach for Black. A kingside fianchetto is a perfectly reasonable response to White's. You are likely to end up transposing to an actual King's Indian if White eventually plays c4, in which White's fianchetto is a fine setup but not a killer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2013-05-09T12:03:53.103" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2376" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2374" CreationDate="2013-05-09T15:33:40.513" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The two main things I do to avoid time trouble are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I write down the remaining time for each player after every move. This both keeps me very aware of the amount of time I have left, and lets me know how much time I have spent thinking so far on the current move, so I can take appropriate action if I've already been thinking for 5 minutes. I also try to have a few checkpoints; for example, if the first time control is at move 40, I try to have at least half my time left at move 20.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;This one is harder: in a non-critical position, I am willing to take less time than I'd like and just make a decent move in 2 minutes instead of spending 10 minutes looking for the best possible move. Of course you don't want to do this when the difference between the best move and second-best move is very large, which you don't know in advance, so you have to use your experience and intuition.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2013-05-09T15:33:40.513" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2377" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2374" CreationDate="2013-05-09T16:03:49.800" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;This may help you playing in time pressure- practice blitz and rapid chess (5 and 15 minutes). I played a few thousand blitz games online and I am not afraid of time troubles at all. If you play 15 minutes you will get time pressure all the time, so you will get used to handling it. This usually transfers in better time management in longer games. Also- don't recalculate the same variations over and over and over again (this is quite difficult). The last suggestion is from GM Kotov ('Think like a grandmaster').&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1193" LastActivityDate="2013-05-09T16:03:49.800" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2378" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2370" CreationDate="2013-05-10T00:38:53.940" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;In addition to the moves that dfan mentioned, 4. ...e5 is also a move that you can play, which can transpose into the mainline Sveshnikovs). It leads to very interesting positions after 5. Nb5 (If 5. NxN, black is &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/1772/taking-the-knight-on-c6-in-open-sicilians&quot;&gt;generally happy&lt;/a&gt;) 5...d6 6. N1c3 a6 7. Na3 b5 8.Nd5. Here, black can play Nf6 or Ne7, and white will usually follow up with c3 or Bg5. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Good old &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/ezsearch.pl?search=Kramnik%2C+B33&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Kramnik&lt;/a&gt; is an expert in this variation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's a &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1550197&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;famous win&lt;/a&gt; and a &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1070747&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;famous loss&lt;/a&gt; for black in this system.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="885" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2013-05-10T00:38:53.940" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2379" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2382" CreationDate="2013-05-10T07:40:09.723" Score="10" ViewCount="4038" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to try &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessvariants.org/3d.dir/startrek.html&quot;&gt;this game&lt;/a&gt; without making/buying a board and it is easier to learn to play when the computer can prevent invalid moves. Does any software, preferably freeware, exist which simulates this flavor of chess?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1316" LastEditorUserId="915" LastEditDate="2013-05-10T14:46:49.433" LastActivityDate="2014-07-20T00:58:52.363" Title="Is there software that simulates the Tri-D or 3-D chess as seen in Star Trek?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;software&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2380" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="690" CreationDate="2013-05-10T11:23:58.263" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;I agree that installing Windows via Bootcamp is a good course of action. You may also want to consider Hiarcs' Mac Chess Explorer:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.hiarcs.com/mac-chess-explorer.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.hiarcs.com/mac-chess-explorer.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It has many of the same functions as ChessBase, and is from a developer who has an excellent history of supporting his Mac products. The program works with .pgn files, so being able to use ChessBase via Bootcamp is convenient for converting files from .cbh for .pgn format.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Having paid a lot of money for the original Mac version of ChessBase, which was total vaporware, I will never buy another Chessbase product. Frederic Friedel stole my money once. He will not get a chance to do so again.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1317" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T19:20:32.627" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T19:20:32.627" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2381" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2384" CreationDate="2013-05-10T14:58:28.790" Score="12" ViewCount="2308" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just curious if there's a set of guidelines to determine when a player can call the opening pretty much done, and move into the middle game. I know some rules of the opening that would apply are&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All pieces developed&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;King castled&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Rooks connected&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And by those definitions, it's easy to see that white may begin a middle game strategy while black is still in the opening phase, or vice versa.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm pretty sure there is no hard and fast rule such as&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;By move 10 all players should be thinking middle game, regardless of position&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As all games are different (sometimes one side plays aggressive and there may be no time to castle).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I see a related question on &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/106/when-does-the-middlegame-end-and-the-endgame-begin&quot;&gt;the line between middle game and endgame&lt;/a&gt;, but not this one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="915" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2020-09-29T02:56:18.687" Title="At what point does the opening end, and middle game begin?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;middlegame&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2382" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2379" CreationDate="2013-05-10T17:34:18.417" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;From wikipedia:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;There is software for playing Tri-D Chess; Parmen is a Windows application written by Doug Keenan and available free on his website.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are some of the external links for (software) Raumschach and Tri-D chess:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.pathguy.com/chess/Chess3D.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.pathguy.com/chess/Chess3D.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cosmicchess.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.cosmicchess.com/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.parmen.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.parmen.com/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a version available for Android:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=awfsoft.app.TriDChess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=awfsoft.app.TriDChess&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1320" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2014-07-20T00:58:52.363" LastActivityDate="2014-07-20T00:58:52.363" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2383" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2381" CreationDate="2013-05-11T11:20:31.590" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Roughly speaking, when most knights and bishops are off the back row and kings are casted, the middlegame has begun.  There's no hard and fast rule, however.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2013-05-11T11:20:31.590" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2384" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2381" CreationDate="2013-05-11T15:34:52.343" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;The opening is for &quot;deploying.&quot; The middle game is for &quot;fighting.&quot; So the middle game begins when the fighting begins in earnest.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Think of two armies marching to a battlefield. The opening is when they &quot;leave camp.&quot; The middle game is when they arrive on the battlefield and get down to fighting.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If there is serious &quot;fighting&quot; a middle game can begin as early as the seventh or eighth move. On the other hand, the middle game can begin as late as the fifteenth move or so if both sides opt for a &quot;slow&quot; development.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastEditorUserId="17" LastEditDate="2013-05-11T17:42:27.970" LastActivityDate="2013-05-11T17:42:27.970" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2386" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="590" CreationDate="2013-05-11T16:42:51.907" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sacrifices have the following goals:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;exposing the king:&lt;/strong&gt; for example after your opponent castled, sacrificing the bishop to take the pawn diagonally to the king.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;cut the escape of the king:&lt;/strong&gt; this one is hard to explain, but basically after the sacrifice, if the opponent recaptures, the king can no longer occupy this square. Note that this can also happen even if there was an enemy piece originally, and you sacrificed by capturing it, but under the scenario that the new piece there have different mobility (e.g usually a knight) so after a check this new piece can't block it as opposed to the old piece.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;gaining (or making the opponent lose) tempos:&lt;/strong&gt; sometimes you find combinations that allows you to make important moves in time, or make the opponent lose time that he doesn't have. One example is if the two players are about to promote, but you sacrifice a piece so that the king blocks his own pawn or moves into a square that will be attacked by the promoted Queen (so when you promote you deliver a check).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;gain control of the center (or any other particular area):&lt;/strong&gt; this usually happens by sacrificing pawns from the flanks to be recaptured with enemy pawns from the center.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;weaken the pawn structure:&lt;/strong&gt; in very closed positions, these kind of sacrifices are almost always played. I can't give examples since I have never done one and usually don't understand them without computer analysis.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;removing of the defender (deflecting):&lt;/strong&gt; when a piece is the only one stopping the inevitably, it is usually worth taking it down no matter if you lose material.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;luring a piece to unwanted squares:&lt;/strong&gt; luring the king into forks, screws, etc. Another example is when a enemy bishop is preventing your pawns to advance, making him move out of that diagonal is deadly.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some quick examples from one of my games:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4  e5 2. Bc4  d6 3. Nf3  h6 4. O-O  Nf6 5. Nc3  Be7 6. d4  exd4 7. Qxd4  O-O 8. Be3  Nc6 9. Qd3  Bg4 10. Bxh6  gxh6 11. e5  Nxe5 12. Nxe5  dxe5 13. Qg6+  Kh8 14. Qxh6+  Kg8 15. Ne4  Be6 16. Rfe1  Bxc4 17. Nxf6+  Bxf6 18. Re3  Bg5 19. Rg3  f6 20. Qg6+  Kh8 21. Rh3+ 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;(#1)&lt;/strong&gt; - &lt;code&gt;10.Bxh6&lt;/code&gt; might not be the best move from that position, but it is not a bad one either, there is a very dangerous pin by the white bishop that together with the Queen can do amazing things. The main idea is to expose the enemy king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;(#3 and #6)&lt;/strong&gt; - &lt;code&gt;11.e5&lt;/code&gt; if the Knight moved, I would have achieved #6 over the bishop, however he didn't and decided to take the pawn, I didn't care which way he take the pawn, my #3 is achieved since all I wanted to free the Queen diagonal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;(#6)&lt;/strong&gt; - &lt;code&gt;15.Ne4&lt;/code&gt; I attempted to remove the defender of the bishop, with the plan of capturing the bishop with this line &lt;code&gt;15.Ne4 Nxe4 16.Qg6+&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;(#3)&lt;/strong&gt; - &lt;code&gt;16.Rfe1&lt;/code&gt; is also interesting, some people would say it is not a direct sacrifice though, but it is deliberately not protecting a piece. The main idea is to don't waste any time and activate the rook ASAP, while still having a chance to protect the other piece if he decides to go for NxN first.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="478" LastActivityDate="2013-05-11T16:42:51.907" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2387" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2381" CreationDate="2013-05-11T18:54:31.223" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't remember the exact wording or even the source but I have seen a definition of where the opening ends and where the middle game begins as the point where the players leave prepared opening lines and start to innovate. This would vary from player to player, new players may leave their understanding of prepared opening lines in one or two moves, while grand masters may understand the opening lines, pre-prepared understanding of positional specifics, into 15 moves or more. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1161" LastActivityDate="2013-05-11T18:54:31.223" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2388" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2338" CreationDate="2013-05-11T19:01:42.853" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think that Jonathan Garber is right. Much of algebra has to do with equation in an x y coordinate plane which is very similar to the way that algebraic notation denotes specific squares on the board. I have however not been able to find any specific source of the information. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1161" LastActivityDate="2013-05-11T19:01:42.853" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2389" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-05-11T23:30:06.583" Score="6" ViewCount="7074" Body="&lt;p&gt;SCID uses .bin files as opening book format, but the opening books it has available on its site are rather small in size. Is there a better place to get larger .bin opening books? Alternatively, does SCID allow taking a large database, and turning that into an opening book? Polyglot uses pgn's, which probably won't work for building truly large .bin books.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="618" LastActivityDate="2013-07-02T03:33:00.100" Title="Where can one get a large .bin opening book?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;scid&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2390" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2393" CreationDate="2013-05-13T07:34:50.633" Score="23" ViewCount="2485" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'll skip the long explanation, but it's not uncommon for me to reach the following position as White out of the opening:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 exd4 4.Bc4 Bb4+ 5.c3 dxc3 6.O-O cxb2 Bxb2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Black to move, most common replies seem to be &lt;code&gt;...Nf6&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;...f6&lt;/code&gt;, though &lt;code&gt;...Bf8&lt;/code&gt; is also occasionally played)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A number of sources claim that this position is perhaps equal but White has good chances, and in practice I do alright. The problem is that I have trouble coming up with any short-term plans because White has almost completed development but Black's 'neutral' position means that there is little to do tactically and I'm concerned that by making too many passive developing moves (rooks onto open files, etc.) I'm wasting the development advantage that I've spent material to gain. I can see that here White has pressure on f7 and g7, and there is the possibility of tactics after &lt;code&gt;Re1&lt;/code&gt;, but I struggle to come up with a concrete short-term plan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, in short, what are White's short-/medium-term plans?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="550" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2014-02-02T14:07:10.990" LastActivityDate="2014-02-02T14:07:10.990" Title="What are white's plans in this Scotch Gambit position?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;&lt;scotch-game&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2391" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1970" CreationDate="2013-05-13T12:29:16.277" Score="35" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Why do chess engines fail to spot good moves in some positions?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason are called forward pruning techniques (see &lt;a href=&quot;http://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Pruning&quot;&gt;http://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Pruning&lt;/a&gt;)&#xA;with ProbCut in first line.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The move 15...Bf2 is pruned on shallow deeps because it includes the sacrifice 16.Rxf1 without regaining something concrete with evidence immediately after.&#xA;The matenet is also hard to see, because it includes some further 'silent' move&#xA;as for example 17...Ke7, and yes also engines, not only humans have difficulties to see distant silent moves as they are often pruned.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this concrete case you even cannot say, that engines fail to spot good moves,&#xA;because also the continuation 15...Rh3h1 is a very good move and leads to an absolutely won position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Last but not least you have to remember, that an engine's strength is always measured in terms of elo-strengh and not in the ability to find the absolute shortest way to win.&#xA;It does not matter, if a engine wins in 8 moves or in 25 moves.&#xA;Seeking to much for the shortest win, would mean a waste time, because most time there does not exist such a secret good move at all. And waste of time would hurt the engines ELO-Rating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1326" LastEditorUserId="1326" LastEditDate="2013-05-13T12:34:35.577" LastActivityDate="2013-05-13T12:34:35.577" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2392" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2390" CreationDate="2013-05-13T13:43:55.517" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;you next moves as white will be 7. Ng5..  and you will activate your Queen - dependig of the Blacks move it may be 8.Qf3 or 8.Qd5&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Attack the King and use weakness for f7&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some exmaples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 exd4 4.Bc4 Bb4+ 5.c3 dxc3 6.O-O cxb2 7. Bxb2 Nge7 8. Ng5 O-O 9. Qh5 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 exd4 4.Bc4 Bb4+ 5.c3 dxc3 6.O-O cxb2 7. Bxb2 Bf8 8. Qd5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;7. ... Nf6&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 exd4 4.Bc4 Bb4+ 5.c3 dxc3 6.O-O cxb2 7. Bxb2 Nf6. 8. e5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 exd4 4.Bc4 Bb4+ 5.c3 dxc3 6.O-O cxb2 7. Bxb2 Nf6. 8. Ng5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;7. ... f6&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 exd4 4.Bc4 Bb4+ 5.c3 dxc3 6.O-O cxb2 7. Bxb2 f6. 8. Qd5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1124" LastEditorUserId="1124" LastEditDate="2013-05-23T11:56:14.040" LastActivityDate="2013-05-23T11:56:14.040" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2393" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2390" CreationDate="2013-05-17T18:27:20.737" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;Great question. This is a very open position (pawns are not obstructing pieces). As a result, each player has enormous choice on each move (in this case, more true for White). So, 'planning' is very hard, because predictability is very low.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That said, you can make progress after the initial development of your pieces in a few ways:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I find it useful in open play to think about the '2nd development' of a piece. For example, the 1st development of a knight might be to c3 or f3, and the 2nd is to d5/e5/g5. So Nc3-d5 could be thought of as simply continuing development. There are many other ways to verbalize this, of course, such as 'activating a piece' or 'inviting everybody to the party'. Point is, once you've brought a piece out, it's work isn't done: it needs to cross into enemy territory and do some damage.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;You can get very far in these positions by combining the above with various concepts:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Make threats;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Make multi-purpose moves&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The nature of your question suggests that you might benefit from improving your tactical ability. This will help you make threats and seize otherwise hidden winning opportunities. Also, this type of position, where one player has a sizable lead in development, often feature sacrificial tactics, which are difficult for most amateurs, without study and practice.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can improve your tactics in various ways. When I started, I enjoyed &quot;1000 Winning Chess Sacrifices and Combinations,&quot; among many others. And now we have chesstempo.com and chess.com, too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another thing you can do that will be extremely helpful is to find famous/classic games from 50-100 years ago, where a strong player defeated a lesser player in this type of opening. Such games are very instructive, especially if annotated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this helps!&#xA;- A semi-retired semi-pro&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1333" LastActivityDate="2013-05-17T18:27:20.737" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2395" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1970" CreationDate="2013-05-17T20:54:55.687" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;after reading all answers and other sources, I now understand that they don't 'miss' or chose to miss these moves, the humans programmed them in such way that they follow a specific pattern on (where/how/when + to) search and more importantly when to pause search and look into more promising lines in order to save resources.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But given enough time, a computer will fin every possible combination on a certain depth.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;TL;DR&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Q1: they never miss moves, they just haven't found them yet&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Q2: they take time because they are programmed to save resources and they will prioritize some lines over other ones (e.g the ones that don't have passive moves or don't recover material in the next few moves).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="478" LastActivityDate="2013-05-17T20:54:55.687" CommentCount="0" CommunityOwnedDate="2013-05-17T20:54:55.687" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2396" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2390" CreationDate="2013-05-19T14:26:18.787" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;White has the better position because of superior development. After Black's forced move, White's next move should be Nc3. It will head to d5 and join the kingside attack unless Black plays BxNc3. Then White gets the bishop pair to compensate for his fewer pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In any event, White has cleared his first rank so that his queen and two rooks can get into action faster than Black, whose queenside is still undeveloped.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2013-05-19T14:26:18.787" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2397" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1577" CreationDate="2013-05-20T02:59:41.807" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesspublishing.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;chesspublishing.com&lt;/a&gt; has seven well-annotated (by GMs Glenn Flear and Neil McDonald) games starting with 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 d5 4.e3 Bg7 5.Nf3 O-O 6.b4, ranging from 1999 to 2009. They're not free, though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The games are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Rabrenovic - Atalik 1999&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Aleksandrov - Oral 2000&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Bruzon Batista - Sutovsky 2004&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Suvrajit - Harika 2004&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Georgiev - Holzke 2007&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Akobian - Perelshteyn 2007&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Akobian - Ponomariov 2009&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All have lots of verbal annotations and variations, at about the level of detail you'd expect to see in a opening book that is organized by annotated games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastEditorUserId="291" LastEditDate="2013-05-20T12:07:01.447" LastActivityDate="2013-05-20T12:07:01.447" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2398" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2246" CreationDate="2013-05-22T03:59:41.803" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://stockfishchess.org/download/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Here&lt;/a&gt; you can get Stockfish, the #2 engine in the world (second only to Houdini 3), rated a cool 3100.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1341" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2015-09-29T19:28:12.673" LastActivityDate="2015-09-29T19:28:12.673" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2399" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2401" CreationDate="2013-05-22T17:31:49.057" Score="6" ViewCount="1099" Body="&lt;p&gt;A GM has an elo of at least 2500, and Magnus Carlsen has an elo of almost 2900, so I think you can safely say that &lt;em&gt;most&lt;/em&gt; games between grandmasters at a level of 2400-3000 elo. This is obviously very vague, so I think you can best describe it as: &lt;strong&gt;Most of the games among GM's are at a level similar to 2 chess computers, with an elo rating of 2500-3000, playing against eachother.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you take this description into consideration, how high would the level of games be at a blitz and at a bullet tournament for grandmasters? Would they be significantly lower (like for example 2000-2400), or would a good grandmaster like Magnus Carlsen still play at a level around 2700-2800?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1009" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-03-03T20:06:09.987" LastActivityDate="2014-03-03T20:06:09.987" Title="How high is the level of professional blitz tournaments?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;elo&gt;&lt;blitz&gt;&lt;carlsen&gt;&lt;super-grandmaster&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2401" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2399" CreationDate="2013-05-23T15:25:56.413" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is insufficient data to answer objectively. However, there are a few things that can be said with confidence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;a player's bullet rating should always be less than or equal to his standard rating, because more time allows for deeper middlegame calculations&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;you can't accurately predict a player's bullet rating by his standard rating and vice-versa&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;some chess clubs have &lt;a href=&quot;http://empiricalrabbit.blogspot.ro/2012/03/time-handicap-tournaments.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;formulas&lt;/a&gt; for matches with time handicap where the stronger player gets less time depending on the rating difference between his and the weaker player, but in most cases the stronger player is a strong bullet player too and wins anyway&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;grandmasters keep their knowledge of openings and endgames in bullet time controls&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;certain flawed strategies work better in bullet chess&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;there are many grandmasters out there who are &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_chess#Criticism&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;critics&lt;/a&gt; of fast chess&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;there are many grandmasters out there who have a style incompatible with short time controls&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To get the data to answer your question, you would probably need to examine a lot of games between players of similar strength where one plays standard and the other one plays bullet and see from the results if you can consistently find the rating gap, and there aren't many volunteers for that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="75" LastActivityDate="2013-05-23T15:25:56.413" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2402" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-05-24T17:16:19.060" Score="8" ViewCount="2839" Body="&lt;p&gt;So:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Bc4 Nf6 3. Qf3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;Qf3&lt;/code&gt; should be a mistake for white, but I just can't get a decent position whenever I play this with Black. If I go on to castle kingside the queen and bishops are already well placed to attack; if I try to develop on the queenside white just pushes the g and h pawns and my knight runs out of squares very quickly. &#xA;Excuse the noobness, I'm obviously a beginner.&#xA;So.. how to continue?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1348" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2013-05-25T12:28:42.750" LastActivityDate="2013-05-26T21:23:38.830" Title="Bishop's Opening, Berlin Defense, white goes Qf3; how to exploit with Black?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2403" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2402" CreationDate="2013-05-24T19:01:01.790" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;This opening is not dangerous.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You have no weaknesses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White's Queen is doing nothing useful while blocking the best square for White's King's Knight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once you develop your Queen's Knight to c6 White has to worry about Nc6-d4 with a big gain of time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your f6 is fine &amp;ndash; your knight masks it for now, and once you castle kingside it's well-defended and easily reinforced, while White will have trouble bringing up anything else to attack it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Castling queenside is probably not indicated, although the White pawn-storm you mentioned is both premature and far too slow.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's not like you're &lt;em&gt;winning&lt;/em&gt; here, but White is not going to wrest any advantage out of this position without being given a gift. Whatever problems you're running into are not due to this opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="258" LastActivityDate="2013-05-24T19:01:01.790" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2404" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2402" CreationDate="2013-05-25T20:12:15.917" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;By moving out his queen prematurely, White has practically given you the &quot;first move&quot; advantage. That's because your N on f6 shields the pawn he wants to attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My personal preference is to play Nc6, threatening Na5 to harass the B. With Nc6, you have two knights out, white has none. In the opening, the rule for development is &quot;knights before bishops,&quot; not to mention queens.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My second choice would be d6, threatening Bg4, chasing the queen. Another followup move would be Be6, forcing the exchange of light squared bishops. The doubled pawn that you get by recapturing is an advantage, because it brings a second pawn to support an eventual d5, and you open the f-file for your rook to chase the White queen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastEditorUserId="17" LastEditDate="2013-05-26T20:52:58.787" LastActivityDate="2013-05-26T20:52:58.787" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2405" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2402" CreationDate="2013-05-25T20:21:39.903" Score="3" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;So.. how to continue?&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I depends what you want to get to. Do you want to open the game up? Play &lt;code&gt;3...c6&lt;/code&gt; and follow it with &lt;code&gt;..d5&lt;/code&gt;. If you are into gambits you could try &lt;code&gt;3...b5 4.Bxb5 c6&lt;/code&gt; and then &lt;code&gt;..d5&lt;/code&gt;, it should be sound enough. More standard moves: &lt;code&gt;3...Nc6&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;3...Bc5&lt;/code&gt;, and &lt;code&gt;3...d6&lt;/code&gt; are all fine too, but generally would lead to more closed positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="307" LastActivityDate="2013-05-25T20:21:39.903" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2406" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2402" CreationDate="2013-05-26T21:23:38.830" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can chose &lt;strong&gt;3. ... c6&lt;/strong&gt; to prepare &lt;strong&gt;... d5:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Bc4 Nf6 3. Qf3 c6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;3. ... Nc6&lt;/strong&gt; - you can play Na5 later in the game:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Bc4 Nf6 3. Qf3 Nc6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;3. ... Bc5&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;... O-O&lt;/strong&gt; or  &lt;strong&gt;... O-O-O&lt;/strong&gt; depending on the situation on board:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Bc4 Nf6 3. Qf3  Bc5 4. Nc3  Nc6 5. Nge2 Na5 6. d3 Nxc4 7. dxc4 c6 &#xA;8. h3 d6 9. g4   Be6 10. b3  Qe7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;3. ... Be7&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;... O-O&lt;/strong&gt; and you are safe:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Bc4 Nf6 3. Qf3  Be7 4. d3 O-O&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Try &lt;strong&gt;3. ... d5&lt;/strong&gt; if you want some action:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Bc4 Nf6 3. Qf3  d5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All this move (except &lt;strong&gt;3. ... d5&lt;/strong&gt;) give you a good position with the opportunity to castle and to be active or wait for your opponents move to react.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it is still not enough for you - post some more moves in the line you have problems with and I will give you more advices.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1124" LastActivityDate="2013-05-26T21:23:38.830" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2407" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2408" CreationDate="2013-05-27T04:51:26.080" Score="9" ViewCount="10459" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am new to chess.  Please answer this for me:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is it possible to castle with checkmate?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1342" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2019-05-21T16:56:05.347" LastActivityDate="2020-08-04T23:49:43.903" Title="Is it possible to castle with checkmate?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;castling&gt;&lt;check&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2408" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2407" CreationDate="2013-05-27T05:19:00.377" Score="23" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can think of two questions you might be meaning to ask, given the wording of your question. Maybe neither of these is what you're after, but just in case:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1. Is it possible to castle out of check or even checkmate?&lt;/strong&gt; Here the answer is &lt;em&gt;no&lt;/em&gt;. If your king is in check, then castling is not a legal move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;2. Is it possible to castle while checkmating your opponent?&lt;/strong&gt; Here the answer is &lt;em&gt;yes&lt;/em&gt;, it is possible, though it does not happen often. For instance, the game &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1259009&quot;&gt;Ed.Lasker-Thomas (1912)&lt;/a&gt;, with its famous queen sacrifice and king hunt, could have finished with a castling mate:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. d4 e6 2. Nf3 f5 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. Bg5 Be7 5. Bxf6 Bxf6 6. e4&#xA;fxe4 7. Nxe4 b6 8. Ne5 O-O 9. Bd3 Bb7 10. Qh5 Qe7 11. Qxh7+&#xA;Kxh7 12. Nxf6+ Kh6 13. Neg4+ Kg5 14. h4+ Kf4 15. g3+ Kf3&#xA;16. Be2+ Kg2 17. Rh2+ Kg1 18. Kd2# (18.O-O-O#)1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2013-05-27T05:19:00.377" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2409" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4218" CreationDate="2013-05-28T09:05:03.657" Score="40" ViewCount="186079" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a beginner at chess; please answer this question for me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How many points is each chess piece worth?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1342" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-17T02:14:59.827" LastActivityDate="2020-08-17T15:05:32.660" Title="How many points is each chess piece worth?" Tags="&lt;evaluation&gt;&lt;pieces&gt;&lt;point-value&gt;" AnswerCount="15" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2410" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2409" CreationDate="2013-05-28T09:21:38.370" Score="19" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Pawn&lt;/strong&gt; - 1 point&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Bishop&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;Knight&lt;/strong&gt; - 3 Pawns&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Rook&lt;/strong&gt; - 5 Pawns&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Queen&lt;/strong&gt; - 9 Pawns&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The evaluation depends on the position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In some situation you will find it equal or good to give you Rook and Pawn (6 Pawns) for Bishop and Knight (6 Pawns). But it is also possible that two light pieces are more valuable than Rook and Pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The value of pieces given to you will be a good &lt;strong&gt;start point&lt;/strong&gt; to evaluate your position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1124" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-08-17T02:11:02.537" LastActivityDate="2020-08-17T02:11:02.537" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2411" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2409" CreationDate="2013-05-29T07:54:55.373" Score="38" Body="&lt;p&gt;The answer by MikroDel gives the commonly-used &amp;quot;Reinfeld values&amp;quot; of pawn=1, bishop=knight=3, rook=5, and queen=9 (kings are essentially worth an infinite number of points, because the game ends if it is lost). While this is a good guide, chess is rarely that simple. Many books will give the value of bishops as 3.5 instead of 3, simply because they are often much stronger than knights in endgames and open middle-games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are other things to take into account as well. For example, bishops are much stronger if you own both of yours, but you opponent has already lost/traded one or both of theirs. The nature of the position can also affect the worth of individual pieces, as a position that is completely blocked up might leave a bishop with no useful squares to go to while a knight may be able to jump straight over the obstruction.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another example of how the Reinfeld values can be misleading is that 3 minor pieces (bishops and knights) are often more powerful than a single queen, provided that they are used properly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For some further reading, you might also want to take a look at &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_piece_relative_value&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_piece_relative_value&lt;/a&gt; which has a much more detailed explanation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="550" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-08-17T02:11:26.430" LastActivityDate="2020-08-17T02:11:26.430" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2412" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2357" CreationDate="2013-05-29T13:38:31.913" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is no one answer to this question, because what is 'best' in this case is subjective. It also depends on how you play chess (online/IRL, OTB/Correspondence) and what you want to get out of the record (Professional games using line X, or just a list of what moves you want to play).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you just want a list of what lines you want to play, then you could even just use something like this in your text editor of choice:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5  a6 4.Ba4&#xA;  ........... Nf6 3.Nxe5&#xA;  .. c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, if you want a visual list or references to Master games using each line, then Other solutions would be more appropriate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="550" LastActivityDate="2013-05-29T13:38:31.913" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2414" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2409" CreationDate="2013-05-31T17:33:03.210" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Computer Chess programs provide an &lt;a href=&quot;http://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Point+Value&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;evaluation of pieces relative to the strength of a pawn&lt;/a&gt;, which compliment's Dave's answer nicely.  To summarize:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Piece: Range of Values&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Pawn:   100&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Knight: 300-400&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Bishop: 300-400&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Rook:   500-600&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Queen:  880-1200&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;King:   10000*&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*Kings are given a large actual value to simplify the search behavior, but essentially have infinite value, as the game ends if they are 'killed'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="606" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-08-17T02:11:51.833" LastActivityDate="2020-08-17T02:11:51.833" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2415" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2409" CreationDate="2013-05-31T21:30:32.180" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's a great analysis/article about this by GM Larry Kaufman available &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.danheisman.com/evaluation-of-material-imbalances.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To summarize:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Pawn = 1&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Knight = Bishop = 3.25&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Bishop Pair = 7(+0.25 for each bishop.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Rook = 5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Queen = 9.75&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's also a lot more detail in the article about what situations favor which groups of pieces. For example, when B+N is better than R+P, or when Q+P is better than R+R, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="894" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-08-17T02:12:22.190" LastActivityDate="2020-08-17T02:12:22.190" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2416" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1809" CreationDate="2013-05-31T23:03:31.247" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;After 4. dxe5 dxe5 5. Qxd8+ Kxd8, Black has several advantages he does not normally have:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;He has an e pawn against a c pawn, meaning the better center pawn structure.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;BOTH of his bishop's diagonals are free and clear.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;He can &quot;castle by hand&quot; after c6 by Kc7 (and from there to b8 if desired). On the other hand, he has the option of leaving his king in the center if that is more advantageous (if one or two pairs of pieces are quickly exchanged).The fact that the queens are off the board means that &lt;em&gt;most&lt;/em&gt; of the danger to the king is past.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;White hasn't developed any king side pieces, so it will be a while before he can castle, at least on the king side.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Given all the above facts, Black is not at a disadvantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastEditorUserId="17" LastEditDate="2013-10-13T22:59:37.557" LastActivityDate="2013-10-13T22:59:37.557" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2417" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2358" CreationDate="2013-06-02T02:47:00.950" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Get the class to play a blitz round robin. &#xA;This is then a measurement of strength as opposed to a subjective guess.&#xA;Plus it's fun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="350" LastActivityDate="2013-06-02T02:47:00.950" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2418" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2341" CreationDate="2013-06-03T02:43:36.833" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://web.archive.org/web/20120317043018/http://home.online.no/~malin/sjakk&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Here is the author's page&lt;/a&gt; courtesy of &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.archive.org&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;archive.org&lt;/a&gt;.  The zip file on that page includes the readme.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://web.archive.org/web/20120317043018/http://home.online.no/~malin/sjakk/download/PgnSplit.zip&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Direct download of the zip file&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1175" LastEditorUserId="12" LastEditDate="2013-06-03T14:32:42.433" LastActivityDate="2013-06-03T14:32:42.433" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2420" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2374" CreationDate="2013-06-04T08:31:50.417" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know this is a very difficult situation to handle. It took me quite a long time to overcome this problem.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The best thing is to think as fast as one can. Also try to increase your concentration and keep thinking even if it is your opponent's move, as this might reduce some of time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Study your games and make out which part (opening / middle game/ endgame) you find most difficult and find out if you like (can handle well) or prefer open positions or closed positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This will give you an idea about which part you need to spend more time in and where it is not required. Don't get scared about each and every move. Be confident and don't overthink.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I hope this will work well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1372" LastEditorUserId="15989" LastEditDate="2019-09-19T03:10:01.630" LastActivityDate="2019-09-19T03:10:01.630" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2422" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2423" CreationDate="2013-06-05T06:39:31.903" Score="14" ViewCount="9863" Body="&lt;p&gt;Imagine that there is a chess database of every possible move and position. This database contains all possible moves from opening to end game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I played using my intuition against a chess engine, it can predict which move will make me lose and win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So this means there is no need for a &quot;chess engine&quot; because all of the possible moves are already recorded.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If such a database exists it would have the following advantages:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In fast blitz games, chess engine will definitely lose against chess possibility move database.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;We can exactly know which opening will have more opportunity to win against the others.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or if such a database didn't already exist we could have a mathematical calculation of all possible moves from opening till end game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Would it be possible for such a database to exist?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1315" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-03-06T08:17:41.713" LastActivityDate="2020-04-11T14:16:59.127" Title="Database of every possible move in chess" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;middlegame&gt;&lt;database&gt;" AnswerCount="8" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2423" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2422" CreationDate="2013-06-05T07:01:58.970" Score="32" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe your question essentially boils down to the topic of whether it is possible to completely &quot;solve&quot; chess.  Wikipedia has an &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solving_chess&quot;&gt;excellent article&lt;/a&gt; on the topic which should give you a good overview.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To summarise, the number of possible game variations in chess is estimated to be 10^120.  This is a staggeringly huge number, for comparison, consider that the number of atoms in the observable universe is &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observable_universe&quot;&gt;estimated to be around 10^80&lt;/a&gt;.  In other words, if you were using the entire observable universe as your hard drive, you'd still need to store 10^40 combinations of chess games on &lt;em&gt;each atom&lt;/em&gt;, in order to simply store it all.  Needless to say, this is so far beyond our current and forseeable technologies that most people consider it to be completely impossible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess endgames are considerably less complex, and we've got to a point where it's possible to calculate all possible combinations for &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endgame_tablebase&quot;&gt;five-piece and six-piece endgames&lt;/a&gt;.  These are typically huge undertakings done by reasearchers with access to supercomputers, and the resulting endgame databases are huge (on the order of hundreds of terabytes).  Each time a new piece is added, the size and complexity of the calculations goes up exponentially, which means that in the forseeable future, we can expect these results to expand by only a few pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="412" LastEditorUserId="412" LastEditDate="2013-06-05T08:10:24.707" LastActivityDate="2013-06-05T08:10:24.707" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2424" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-06-05T08:41:22.510" Score="7" ViewCount="914" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm wondering about a chess variant I thought of: it's just like chess except that a player may, in lieu of (or as) a move, remove any of his own pieces (except the King) from the board. (This is illegal if his turn would end with him in check.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is this a known (I mean, known previous to this posting) variant?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What are pros and cons of playing this way?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="204" LastActivityDate="2013-06-05T09:53:32.067" Title="Allow piece removal" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;chess-variants&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2425" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2424" CreationDate="2013-06-05T09:53:32.067" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I didn't ever heard of a similar variant before.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's interesting: pieces that move along &quot;lines&quot; (Queens, Rooks and Bishops) can become very powerful, since a player can remove his own Pawns to increase the range of his pieces. Imagine a battery of two Rooks and the pair of Bishops looking towards a castled King: they could really be a powerhouse, since the attacking player can volountarly &quot;open lines&quot; himself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, all the other pieces are a little bit of crap: who cares about the &quot;jumping ability&quot; of the Knight when anyone can open a blocked position by sacrificing a Pawn? And the King will find himself in trouble, when defending: no more &quot;blocking behind the enemy Pawn&quot;, since the &quot;enemy Pawn&quot; can easily disappear the next move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think that this variant would lead to open and very aggressive games: both players can sacrifice material at will in order to open lines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="279" LastActivityDate="2013-06-05T09:53:32.067" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2426" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8151" CreationDate="2013-06-05T16:33:34.663" Score="16" ViewCount="2198" Body="&lt;p&gt;The U.S. Chess Federation piloted a 175-move draw rule in the fourth edition of its Official Rules.  This interesting rule ended a game automatically after 175 moves, whether or not either player had claimed a draw.  (The rule also included some verbiage regarding a particular kind of chess clock, but it is not clocks that I ask about today.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the fifth edition of its Official Rules, the U.S. Chess Federation abandoned the 175-move rule.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I liked the 175-move rule and was sorry to see it go, since it lightened certain burdens of subjective judgment and of overextended hospitality from the shoulders of a tournament organizer.  I suppose that someone else must have &lt;em&gt;disliked&lt;/em&gt; the rule or it would not have been abandoned, but at any rate, is there an interesting story behind the abandonment of the rule?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There was &lt;a href=&quot;http://archive.uschess.org/docs/pdf/43-56CommitteeRep02.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this (PDF)&lt;/a&gt; at the time, but it did not explain much.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;UPDATE AND APPENDIX&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;@AndrewNg has given an interesting, informative answer; but an answer to a slightly different question than the question I had meant to ask.  At the risk of so long an update that few may read it, let me clarify.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Insofar as I have correctly inferred its purpose, a hard limit on the number of moves in a game exists to protect the interests less of the players than of the players' host (the tournament organizer, hall owner, etc.), without stranding the host in the unfair, distasteful position of having to interject a subjective, third-party judgment into the game.  Examples of potentially relevant games include &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1268705&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Nicolic v. Arsovic, Belgrade, 1989.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, it is possible that I have misunderstood the rule's purpose.  The reason for my understanding however lies in the crucial difference between the 50- and 175-move rules:  the 50-move rule takes effect only when one of the players chooses to invoke it (which the aforementioned Nicolic and Arsovic declined to do); whereas the 175-move rule automatically takes effect, without consulting anyone's subjective opinion in the matter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In short, the 175-move rule prevents the unlikely but nevertheless mechanically &lt;em&gt;regular&lt;/em&gt; (and possibly indeed sportsmanlike) play of the game of chess from forcing a mechanical &lt;em&gt;irregularity&lt;/em&gt; when the host's patience runs out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another, related purpose of the rule -- a purpose explicitly mentioned in the fourth-edition rulebook -- was to relieve a tournament director of the burden of adjudging &quot;insufficient losing chances&quot; in certain technical circumstances.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I admit that, like @AndrewNg, I too doubt that it was ever the rule's purpose to guarantee that every, theoretically forced mate could be carried to its infinite conclusion.  Indeed, like the 50-move rule, a 175-move rule if enforced becomes a new, mechanical constraint on the theory of the game; such that -- per theory under the rule -- 176-move mates simply no longer exist.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe the new mechanical constraint on the theory is precisely what the fifth-edition rules committee did not like, but I cannot substantiate such a guess.  Thus the question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="315" LastEditorUserId="315" LastEditDate="2013-06-23T13:52:37.017" LastActivityDate="2020-08-16T22:37:56.090" Title="The history of the 175-move draw rule" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;draw&gt;&lt;uscf&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="7" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2428" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2430" CreationDate="2013-06-05T17:37:25.090" Score="7" ViewCount="223" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am very curious as I have seen many of them playing: How do visually disabled people learn chess? And what are all the types of equipment they use to learn the game?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1372" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2013-06-05T19:26:59.840" LastActivityDate="2013-06-05T21:49:57.507" Title="Visually disabled and chess" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2429" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2409" CreationDate="2013-06-05T18:49:26.750" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;Though one cannot trade one's king for other considerations -- and in this sense the king cannot be evaluated -- the king still has a practical strength as an attacking and defending piece in the many concrete positions in which no immediate mate is in view -- especially during the endgame.  This strength can indeed be evaluated.  World Champion Emanuel Lasker &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=King_%28chess%29&amp;amp;oldid=552396027&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;regarded the king&lt;/a&gt; to be one point stronger than a minor piece.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus, in this sense, if a knight or bishop has a strength of three, and if we accept Lasker's advice, then &lt;em&gt;the king's strength will be four.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="315" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-08-17T02:12:52.993" LastActivityDate="2020-08-17T02:12:52.993" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2430" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2428" CreationDate="2013-06-05T21:49:57.507" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are chess sets made for the visually impaired.  They are called 'tactile' chess sets.  The game is played by touch. The pieces lock into the board.  Removing a lock constitutes &quot;touch move&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's an example, though I am not sure it is a 'tournament quality' tactile set.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/rV7pp.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2013-06-05T21:49:57.507" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2431" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-06-06T16:44:06.647" Score="7" ViewCount="1984" Body="&lt;p&gt;Over the years I manually maintained an opening repertoire in a PGN file (with several &quot;games&quot; per ECO index on average), and now realized I can generate different opening &quot;books&quot; from it - for SCID, CA, or Fritz-based products. The repertoire had been created somewhat ad hoc - based on my games, books I read, engine analysis, database searches, etc. Now - what is the best way to automatically &quot;test&quot; that my book:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;does not miss any very popular responses for one side?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;does not  contain any blunders for the other side?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or is this type of computer checking best done on a pgn file in the first place?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="618" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-03-12T21:13:33.953" LastActivityDate="2014-03-12T21:13:33.953" Title="How to test the quality of an opening book?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;books&gt;&lt;quality&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2432" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2431" CreationDate="2013-06-07T03:11:54.753" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT: Answer to Revised Question Below&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Based on the way you described it, it makes sense to simply open up the PGN along with any engine and go through it line by line. I do not believe there's an automated way to iterate through all the moves and ensure their individual accuracy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm curious as to how you generated your book to begin with - did you do it with engine-assisted analysis? If so, that will affect the accuracy of your repertoire from its inception.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What I would do in your situation is manually compare the PGN file to moves that are popularly played. Useful resources are &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.shredderchess.com/online-chess/online-databases/opening-database.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Shredder's free opening database&lt;/a&gt; as well as &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.365chess.com/opening.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;365 chess opening explorer&lt;/a&gt;. Both are intuitively organized so that the most popular response is readily available.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Depending on the depth of your preparation, blunders can be present or not at all. I would double check this with an engine, such as the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cruxis.com/chess/houdini.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;free Houdini 1.5&lt;/a&gt; just to be sure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As an aside, it might be a good idea to organize your opening database into separate PGN files dependent on &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.365chess.com/eco.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;ECO code&lt;/a&gt;. This makes it easier to navigate when you want to search through particular openings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I hope this helps! If you have any follow-ups, feel free to reach out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1382" LastEditorUserId="1382" LastEditDate="2013-06-07T14:01:08.437" LastActivityDate="2013-06-07T14:01:08.437" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2433" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-06-07T07:37:20.350" Score="5" ViewCount="3289" Body="&lt;p&gt;Which one is the better drawing weapon? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which one is harder to beat? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which one is more solid?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which opening should black pick if he/she doesn't want to lose?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If black needs a draw in the last round to win the tournament, which opening should black pick? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1383" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2013-12-02T09:46:47.547" LastActivityDate="2013-12-02T09:46:47.547" Title="Berlin Defence or Petroff?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;ruy-lopez&gt;&lt;berlin&gt;&lt;petroff-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ClosedDate="2019-03-19T17:18:08.337" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2434" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2433" CreationDate="2013-06-07T08:11:03.017" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;There no certain answer to your question. It depends.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An opening with a &quot;drawish reputation&quot; usually turns against the player who chooses it without having a deep knowledge of the opening itself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That said, I think that both of these, if understood, can be a very hard match against a White player who desperately tries to win. But they're not easy to play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my opinion, as a &lt;code&gt;1. e4&lt;/code&gt; player (so, with the &quot;opponent's point of view&quot;), the Berlin is quite solid but harder to play: Black has to find suitable squares for his pieces, and must play carefully to avoid White attacks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As White, I am comfortable playing against the Petroff: for Black it's a little bit easier to play, but has many traps, and usually the Knight becomes an easy target for White pieces. Black will lose tempo while trying to defend it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In conclusion, don't choose an opening only for its &quot;drawish&quot; reputation: this may be true only at higher levels, where players know very well almost every opening. At lower levels, on the contrary, the player who relies on a specific &quot;drawish opening&quot; in order to draw a game will find himself in trouble more often than not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="279" LastEditorUserId="1175" LastEditDate="2013-06-11T14:14:08.280" LastActivityDate="2013-06-11T14:14:08.280" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2435" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2436" CreationDate="2013-06-07T09:21:03.347" Score="4" ViewCount="11875" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Ruy Lopez is one of the most difficult lines for me to play against.  I just can't hold my position when I play as black. If I move &lt;code&gt;3... Nd4&lt;/code&gt;, I always get a draw at best, and usually take a loss. How can I improve my chances of winning in this situation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT :&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;br&gt;&#xA;After I looked up the answers which were given to me, I found one solid win for black with the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruy_Lopez#Classical_Defence&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Cordel Defence&lt;/a&gt; that I found in Shredder Computer Chess if you insert this FEN to &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.shredderchess.com/online-chess/online-databases/opening-database.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;it&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 Bc5 4. c3 Bb6 5. d4 exd4 6. cxd4 Nce7 7. d5 Nf6 8. Nc3 O-O&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can someone show me, at which point does black take the initiative from white??&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks, &lt;br&gt;&#xA;Ahmad&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1315" LastEditorUserId="1315" LastEditDate="2013-07-04T11:20:25.880" LastActivityDate="2020-03-17T03:09:56.017" Title="How do I increase my chances to win as black in the Ruy Lopez?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;ruy-lopez&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2436" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2435" CreationDate="2013-06-07T11:23:37.833" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Ruy Lopez is probably one of the most analyzed openings in chess. You can find plenty of resources on the Internet. (&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruy_Lopez&quot;&gt;Wikipedia's article on the Ruy Lopez&lt;/a&gt; is a good point to start).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would recommend that you not go searching for &quot;winning lines&quot;. You first need to understand the principles that lie behind each move of this opening. Once you have that understanding it is easier to examine variations and choose the one that best suits your needs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, if you are an aggressive player and your chess level is average, you might wish to consider the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruy_Lopez#Open_Defence&quot;&gt;Open Defense&lt;/a&gt; and the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruy_Lopez#Marshall_Attack&quot;&gt;Marshall Attack&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="279" LastEditorUserId="652" LastEditDate="2013-06-07T14:07:57.650" LastActivityDate="2013-06-07T14:07:57.650" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2438" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2433" CreationDate="2013-06-07T14:13:10.917" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Before I address the questions, it's important to understand that the Berlin and Petroff are different openings in the sense that one cannot &lt;em&gt;force&lt;/em&gt; the Berlin to appear over the board in a King Pawn opening. The Berlin is a variation of the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessopening?eco=C60&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Ruy Lopez&lt;/a&gt;, whereas the Petroff deviates from any Spanish variations on move two with &lt;code&gt;2...Nf6&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Historically, the Petroff deals consistent results at the club, tournament, and world-class levels. However, it's known to be a relatively unambitious opening with a solid reputation (until recently, where more aggressive lines have been discovered for White, namely variations after the move &lt;code&gt;5. Nc3&lt;/code&gt;). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Berlin Defense is also known for its solidity, but it is dependent on White playing &lt;code&gt;3. Bb5&lt;/code&gt;. Kramnik used it as a drawing weapon against Kasparov at the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_World_Chess_Championship_2000&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;2000 Classical World Chess Championship&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I do not want to make a recommendation purely based on the nature of the two openings. Investigate the two openings yourself and play them in a few online games to get the feel of the resulting positions. If you find yourself comfortable more with one over the other, then you should pursue that opening. As an aside, I wouldn't &quot;play to draw&quot; unless there's significant money on the line or a national title - you'll learn more by playing good chess without an end result in mind. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1382" LastActivityDate="2013-06-07T14:13:10.917" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2439" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2435" CreationDate="2013-06-07T14:37:58.957" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;A &quot;chance to win&quot; with Black against the Ruy Lopez isn't necessary dependent on variation. Yes, there are aggressive lines, the most notable being the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesspublishing.com/content/1/oct04.htm&quot;&gt;Archangel Variation&lt;/a&gt;, but having a better understanding of the opening line that you play will result in improved results. I would research other lines by using the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.shredderchess.com/online-chess/online-databases/opening-database.html&quot;&gt;Shredder Opening Database&lt;/a&gt; and see what other people are playing. Then, I would go online and play a few games in each variation to get a feel of the resulting middlegame positions and see which one is the best fit for me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1382" LastActivityDate="2013-06-07T14:37:58.957" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2440" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-06-07T15:13:05.497" Score="8" ViewCount="362" Body="&lt;p&gt;What are the techniques one can use to keep all pieces   on a board ? It is like an n-queen problem &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it a combination of n-queen &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1387" LastEditorUserId="1387" LastEditDate="2013-08-25T00:27:56.587" LastActivityDate="2013-08-25T00:27:56.587" Title="What are the techniques one can use to for chess board?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2441" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2440" CreationDate="2013-06-07T15:29:34.390" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;To address the edit to the question&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;If you're receiving the pieces in a random order and you don't have any information about future pieces, the way to arrange the pieces would be to give pieces the least amount of scope. For example, if I were to receive a queen on the first turn, I would place it in one of the four corners. Some more rules would be to keep knights close to each other and pawns stacked one on top of the other. All of these strategies are a bit obvious, but it's difficult to have a consistent strategy to use as there are so many potential combinations of pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This seems to me as more of a programming question than a chess one, but it's interesting nontheless! After thinking for a bit, I would hypthesize that the best way to approach this problem would be to use the knights as a baseline. It's well known that the maximum number of knights one can fit on a board is 32 (simply placing them on all squares of the same color), therefore having this as your starting position is logical as this is the maximum occupancy you can have with an individual piece. This strategy extends itself to an N x N board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Afterwards, I would use pawns as their attacking prowess is limited to forward diagonals of one square in scope. They can occupy every other column (not rows as this would be limited to 2, 4, and 6 if following conventional rules), and this will add N/4 more occupied squares for an NxN board. This generalizes to a total number of occupied squares to N/2 + N/4, or simply 3N/4 total occupied squares.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is the result of around 5 minutes of consideration, so my algorithm may be flawed. I hope this helps answer your question!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1382" LastEditorUserId="1382" LastEditDate="2013-06-07T17:17:35.050" LastActivityDate="2013-06-07T17:17:35.050" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2442" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2440" CreationDate="2013-06-07T16:16:24.017" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would think that with a random selection of pieces the basic strategy would be to place them on the board to that they attacked as few squares a possible and didn't obstruct any rank or file that was not already obstructed whenever possible. ie knights in the corners, short distance moving pieces like the king and knight on the same rank or file, and bishops on the same rank or file as other pieces. In general when choosing a square for the new piece it would be similar to a king hunt. When trying to pin down the king you want to reduce the number of squares that he can safely occupy by as much as possible (without reducing it one). Here you want each piece placed to reduce the numbers of squares still not attacked by any piece by as little as possible. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1161" LastActivityDate="2013-06-07T16:16:24.017" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2443" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2444" CreationDate="2013-06-08T03:28:58.720" Score="9" ViewCount="257" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have seen a few players going to the opponent's side of the board and then observing the position from that view. They usually do it when it is the opponent's move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does it really help in understanding threats or traps better?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1372" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2013-06-13T03:45:39.473" LastActivityDate="2013-06-13T03:45:39.473" Title="Viewing the board from the other side" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2444" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2443" CreationDate="2013-06-08T05:51:25.647" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have practiced this technique since I was 10 years old. My very first chess coach emphasized the importance of analyzing the chess position from different angles - it doesn't necessarily help me understand threats or traps, but rather assists me in understanding the game from my opponent's perspective. My opponent will be considering the position and potential plans, and it's usually easier to realize a valid plan for the other side when viewing the board from that side. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Furthermore, this behavior does tap into the psychological aspect of chess. If your opponent is unaware of this tactic, he or she may be uncomfortable that you are standing behind them as they are unused to such actions. This can play to your advantage as you can break their train of thought. Of course, you shouldn't try to distract them - it's simply an unusual act that may warrant a second glance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1382" LastActivityDate="2013-06-08T05:51:25.647" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2445" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2433" CreationDate="2013-06-08T12:24:27.597" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If black needs a draw in the last round to win the tournament, which&#xA;  opening should black pick?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If a player only needs a draw in the last round, he or she should play normally (of course this is easier said than done) and only sometimes remember that to reach the goal they only need a draw, for example if they can force draw by perpetual. This means the player should play the opening they are most comfortable with. If the only opening black knows is Sicilian Najdorf, then they should play that. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Moreover, I don't think there is really a drawing weapon for under 2000 players; I believe draws a fairly rare at that level. Having said that, I think that the Berlin is more &quot;drawish&quot; in the since that it leads to exchange of queens (a least in the main-line). I don't think that the Petrov is really all that drawish, usually the position is pretty open with a lot of piece activity and opportunities for tactics. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason the Petrov has a drawing reputation is that many top-level GMs use it to draw. However, the main reason it works for them is that they know the Petrov really well, and often can show majic with tactical nuances, not because the position is really drawish or super solid. Even Kramnik had some quick losses with the Petrov (see Anand-Kramnik below), when the opponents had out-prepared him, those positions are tricky.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Marshall gambit in Ruy Lopez is another opening top-level GMs often use to draw; however, that opening is hardly drawish or solid for sub 2000 players. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is is Anand-Kramnik game mentioned above:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Mtel Masters&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Sofia BUL&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2005.05.19&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;2005.05.12&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;7&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Viswanathan Anand&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Vladimir Kramnik&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;C42&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;2785&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;2753&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;39&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. Nxe5 d6 4. Nf3 Nxe4 5. d4 d5 6. Bd3 Nc6&#xA;7. O-O Be7 8. c4 Nb4 9. Be2 O-O 10. Nc3 Bf5 11. a3 Nxc3&#xA;12. bxc3 Nc6 13. Re1 Re8 14. cxd5 Qxd5 15. Bf4 Rac8 16. Qc1&#xA;Na5 17. c4 Qe4 18. Bd1 Qd3 19. Re3 Qxc4 20. Re5 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="307" LastActivityDate="2013-06-08T12:24:27.597" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2446" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2435" CreationDate="2013-06-08T17:41:53.470" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Frankly, I don't like my chances of winning with Ruy Lopez as Black. When faced with &lt;code&gt;1. e4&lt;/code&gt;, I &quot;never&quot; reply with &lt;code&gt;1... e5&lt;/code&gt; (except as a &quot;surprise&quot; - then I play &lt;code&gt;2... Nf6&lt;/code&gt;, the Petrov Defense, but mainly to draw, rather than to win.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I prefer &lt;code&gt;1... c5&lt;/code&gt; (Sicilian Defense) or &lt;code&gt;1... e6&lt;/code&gt; (French Defense). These are &quot;double-edged&quot; openings that allow both Black and White to win OR lose.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I like your variation better than most. After your &lt;code&gt;8... O-O&lt;/code&gt;, White will play &lt;code&gt;9. O-O&lt;/code&gt;, and you can play &lt;code&gt;9... Ng6&lt;/code&gt;. That leads to a position somewhat like my French defenses (with White's center pawns on &quot;reversed&quot; colors). It's a tough, but by no means unplayable game that gives White fewer attacking chances than a conventional Ruy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've lost a few games with the Ruy Lopez playing White. But that was basically due to my ignorance of the opening more than anything else.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastEditorUserId="12" LastEditDate="2013-07-12T06:11:57.523" LastActivityDate="2013-07-12T06:11:57.523" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2447" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2443" CreationDate="2013-06-08T18:20:03.173" Score="-4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes. This tactic works. It doesn't allow you to see traps better but what it does tend to do is unsettle the most calm and collected opponent that should be largely uncomfortable when you invade their space. I find that if you accompany this tactic with the words &quot; ah ha&quot; and &quot; really and then giggle &quot; it works to a tee.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sincerely,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Godric&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1388" LastActivityDate="2013-06-08T18:20:03.173" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2448" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2435" CreationDate="2013-06-08T19:01:10.900" Score="-5" Body="&lt;p&gt;After &lt;code&gt;3. Bb5&lt;/code&gt;, black plays&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;a6&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;Nf6&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;a6&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;a6&lt;/code&gt; puts the question to the bishop. If he takes your knight, recapture with the &lt;code&gt;d&lt;/code&gt; pawn. Black has a very strong game at this point. Normally you capture toward the center, but in this case, you can play &lt;code&gt;c6&lt;/code&gt; to &lt;code&gt;c5&lt;/code&gt; and control the &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt; square. &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt; is very important to control in the Ruy Lopez.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What you see most often after &lt;code&gt;a6&lt;/code&gt; is the bishop retreating to &lt;code&gt;a4&lt;/code&gt;. White may play &lt;code&gt;c3&lt;/code&gt; later in the game to give his bishop a square (&lt;code&gt;c2&lt;/code&gt;) to back up into. You see the same thing happening on the other side of the board with &lt;code&gt;f3&lt;/code&gt; in the Queen's Indian, giving white's bishop on g5 the option to back up to &lt;code&gt;Bh4&lt;/code&gt; and then retreat to &lt;code&gt;Bf2&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(White playing &lt;code&gt;c3&lt;/code&gt; also prepares for the &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt; push, common for white in the Ruy Lopez. &lt;code&gt;c3&lt;/code&gt; protects the &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt; pawn.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Nf6&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You're probably going to see &lt;code&gt;Nf6&lt;/code&gt; eventually. After &lt;code&gt;Bb5&lt;/code&gt; you might see it right away. Or you'll see it after &lt;code&gt;3. Bb5 a6  4. Ba4 Nf6&lt;/code&gt;. What does &lt;code&gt;Nf6&lt;/code&gt; do for black? It attacks the unguarded &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; pawn with the knight. But white doesn't have to worry here. Instead, white castles &lt;code&gt;O-O&lt;/code&gt;. Why?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Take a moment to play this out on a board:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Ba4 Nf6  5. O-O Nxe4 6. Re1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black is screwed after &lt;code&gt;Re1&lt;/code&gt;. Notice that the rook is staring down the king. The pawn/knight are pinned. If black retreats the knight back to &lt;code&gt;Nf6&lt;/code&gt;, now white takes the knight. Black recaptures the bishop. Now the pawn on &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt; is unguarded. &lt;code&gt;Nxe5&lt;/code&gt; and you have a deadly discovered check on black's king when the knight moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Ba4 Nf6  5. O-O Nxe4 6. Re1 Nf6 7. Bxc6 dxc6 8. Nxe5 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;it's all over for black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's how Capablanca describes the Ruy Lopez in his book Chess Fundamentals (if I remember correctly).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="787" LastEditorUserId="1315" LastEditDate="2013-06-13T03:18:40.973" LastActivityDate="2013-06-13T03:18:40.973" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2449" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2440" CreationDate="2013-06-08T19:17:56.550" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Keep the pieces out of the center, on the sides.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="787" LastActivityDate="2013-06-08T19:17:56.550" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2450" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2374" CreationDate="2013-06-08T19:28:44.253" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Instead of trying to calculate positions, just count the pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;If he takes, then I take, then he takes, then I take, then...&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Try this instead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've got 2 pieces attacking and he has 3 defending. Doesn't work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've got 3 pieces attacking and he has 3 defending. Doesn't work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've got 3 pieces attacking and he has 1... 2.. pieces defending. That works! I win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="787" LastActivityDate="2013-06-08T19:28:44.253" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2451" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2343" CreationDate="2013-06-08T19:34:10.730" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;White has a slight advantage because it goes first. We're talking about 2% more wins at the grandmaster level. This slight advantage starts to level out as the game progresses. Taken to the extreme, in a perfectly played game, they're probably going to draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="787" LastActivityDate="2013-06-08T19:34:10.730" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2452" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-06-08T20:16:10.607" Score="8" ViewCount="800" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there any tool that can help us learn openings by heart? I tried to use Fritz but without success.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1389" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2013-06-13T03:23:33.007" LastActivityDate="2021-03-15T14:40:05.170" Title="Tools for helping to learn openings by heart" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2453" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2435" CreationDate="2013-06-10T02:42:10.993" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Thanks for all of you who have been give me the answer, and I realized that &lt;strong&gt;Classical Defence&lt;/strong&gt; as &lt;strong&gt;Ruy Lopez&lt;/strong&gt; variation fits me than the others variation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From the latest FEN that I have been edited (and based from @&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/2435/how-do-i-increase-my-chances-to-win-as-black-in-the-ruy-lopez/2446#2446&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Tom Au&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt; answer), normally White player will choose to castle his king, so it will give Black opportunity to neutralize centre with &lt;code&gt;9. O-O d6&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After I analyzed, &lt;code&gt;7. d5&lt;/code&gt; is just bad idea from White player that give advantages to Black. It means, Black knight in &lt;code&gt;7. ... Nf6&lt;/code&gt; is in the right place at the right time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1315" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2013-07-02T09:56:52.983" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2454" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2013-06-10T15:03:59.370" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2013-06-10T15:03:59.370" LastActivityDate="2013-06-10T15:03:59.370" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2455" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2013-06-10T15:03:59.370" Score="0" Body="The evaluation of a given position" OwnerUserId="1382" LastEditorUserId="1382" LastEditDate="2013-06-10T15:51:05.087" LastActivityDate="2013-06-10T15:51:05.087" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2456" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1765" CreationDate="2013-06-10T20:45:18.660" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chess.pl?tid=54195&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;World Championship Match between Botvinnik and Bronstein in 1951&lt;/a&gt; contains quite a number of Dutch Defense games. I didn't find many books about the match, but there was &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/3283004595&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;one by Botvinnik&lt;/a&gt; that may provide a good reference point.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1382" LastActivityDate="2013-06-10T20:45:18.660" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2457" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2013-06-10T21:04:19.117" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2013-06-10T21:04:19.117" LastActivityDate="2013-06-10T21:04:19.117" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2458" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2013-06-10T21:04:19.117" Score="0" Body="Often, a puzzle type of problem in which a tactical or positional solution is required, like &#xD;&#xA;White/Black to move and win”, in what is often a middlegame of endgame-esqe position.  But a puzzle can also be a chess riddle, chess math. or any other non-normal chess problem. Questions about solving puzzle, puzzle apps and websites, how to understand the idea behind a puzzle, etc. are also on-topic." OwnerUserId="1382" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-05T01:56:20.613" LastActivityDate="2020-04-05T01:56:20.613" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2459" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2013-06-10T21:05:38.043" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2013-06-10T21:05:38.043" LastActivityDate="2013-06-10T21:05:38.043" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2460" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2013-06-10T21:05:38.043" Score="0" Body="A concept in chess that involves targeting one of the opponent's pieces or a construct of them. For example, one can attack the opponent's king or pawn structure." OwnerUserId="1382" LastEditorUserId="1382" LastEditDate="2013-06-11T01:19:01.300" LastActivityDate="2013-06-11T01:19:01.300" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2461" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2013-06-10T21:06:40.937" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2013-06-10T21:06:40.937" LastActivityDate="2013-06-10T21:06:40.937" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2462" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2013-06-10T21:06:40.937" Score="0" Body="Acronym for &quot;Shane's Chess Information Database&quot;, an open-source application to view, edit, and manage collections of chess games." OwnerUserId="1382" LastEditorUserId="10867" LastEditDate="2016-12-31T22:28:16.370" LastActivityDate="2016-12-31T22:28:16.370" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2463" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2013-06-10T21:11:03.233" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2013-06-10T21:11:03.233" LastActivityDate="2013-06-10T21:11:03.233" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2464" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2013-06-10T21:11:03.233" Score="0" Body="The practice of putting something together before a chess game or tournament into a state where it is ready for action. Preparation is usually used in reference to openings, as one can &quot;prepare an opening repertoire&quot; specifically for an opponent." OwnerUserId="1382" LastEditorUserId="1382" LastEditDate="2013-06-10T21:19:02.857" LastActivityDate="2013-06-10T21:19:02.857" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2465" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2013-06-10T21:12:16.317" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2013-06-10T21:12:16.317" LastActivityDate="2013-06-10T21:12:16.317" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2466" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2013-06-10T21:12:16.317" Score="0" Body="Chess information that is present on the internet, e.g. livestreams, opening books or endgame databases" OwnerUserId="1382" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2019-08-14T19:13:27.870" LastActivityDate="2019-08-14T19:13:27.870" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2467" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2440" CreationDate="2013-06-11T12:44:27.727" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Since the problem definition was updated recently, I'm assuming that you're starting with an empty NxN board, and are given a random piece and asked to place it.  When done, you are given another random piece until no more can be placed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For a &lt;em&gt;human&lt;/em&gt; strategy, I guess a good rule of thumb would be to pick a (valid) position which minimises the number of still open squares denied by the new piece.  There are two main components to this, on a high level:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Placing some types of pieces near the edge of the board may be beneficial (I say &lt;em&gt;some&lt;/em&gt;, because when placing a rook, you will deny 2N-1 squares regardless of where you place it, but the logic holds nicely for knights).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Each square being double (or triple, etc) attacked represents a potential free square somewhere else on the board.  Keep this in mind to maximise truly open squares.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For a &lt;em&gt;programming&lt;/em&gt; strategy, we have to look at the problem again.  The way it is stated above it is not really a programming problem, since our success depends on finding the best possible strategy (which clearly we haven't done).  Traditional programming will not really help in this sense, because the rules of the problem deny the computer perfect knowledge of what pieces are coming.  This makes the traditional approaches of brute-forcing or &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backtracking&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;backtracking&lt;/a&gt; (typically used to solve &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight_queens_puzzle&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;8 / N-Queens&lt;/a&gt; problem(s)) impossible to employ.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One could, however, employed various AI techniques in search of an optimal strategy.  Essentially, this would boil down to finding a way to represent a strategy in some kind of data structure.  This is actually the difficult part, and could get extremely tricky.  You'd probably have to create some kind of domain-specific language which would allow for rules like &quot;pick the rightmost column which doesn't yet have a knight in it&quot;, or whatever.  Then you'd essentially pick some kind of optimisation algorithm (random search, genetic algorithms, particle swarms, etc) to find a particularly good set of rules, which seems to beat out all the rest you've found so far.  There's a good chance that it would be so horribly convoluted that we could never understand how and why it works so well, but it may well beat the ones we've come up with by hand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="412" LastEditorUserId="412" LastEditDate="2013-06-11T12:54:30.073" LastActivityDate="2013-06-11T12:54:30.073" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2468" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2443" CreationDate="2013-06-11T20:10:06.380" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It helps me. I've never done it in person but on a certain chess website where I play via mobile device, I can flip the board, and in most cases gain a defensive perspective, meaning I can see what my opponents strongest next move might be, and in some cases I'll see my weaknesses in my opponents camp.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The more I do this, the more I'm able to see from my side of the board without flipping, so it's a continual process of getting better. If I work hard at it, eventually I'm sure I'll be able to flip the board in my head, which would help my in person games, because standing over my opponents shoulder is probably bad etiquette, and is definitely awkward.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="915" LastActivityDate="2013-06-11T20:10:06.380" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2469" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2471" CreationDate="2013-06-12T09:32:21.957" Score="9" ViewCount="5611" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is it a rule in official matches, that if I touch a piece I must play with that one?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sorry for my noobness; my friend said that I should move with the touched piece. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1315" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2013-06-13T03:37:37.430" LastActivityDate="2018-11-21T12:15:22.630" Title="Touching chess pieces in official matches" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;etiquette&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2470" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="593" CreationDate="2013-06-12T11:46:25.140" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chill out about Chernev? Not at all. Dad beat me every game we played from 6 years old to the ninth grade.  I read Chernev, discovered the queenside openings - he never beat me again.  When I ended up on the Czech border with the Cav in the early 70's, the king's pawn was the universal opening. When I left 2 years later, Queen's pawn was all anybody played. Blame it on Chernev, Dad, and I was no slouch. But I've read games between grandmasters like Fischer - I had no idea what was going on. And I had no desire to spend thousands of hours learning to play at that level. Chess can be a pleasant diversion, a powerful device for education, or an impressive display of mental ability. I have bought copies of Chernev's book for friends and family, but I'm certain Nunn is correct. Learn arithmetic before you tackle algebra. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1398" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T19:38:12.950" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T19:38:12.950" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2471" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2469" CreationDate="2013-06-12T12:13:42.163" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's an often confusing issue. I have quoted key portions of the USCF rule book below, but the basic gist is that...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If you touch a piece, &lt;strong&gt;excepting adjustment and accidents&lt;/strong&gt;, you must move it.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If you touch an opponent's piece, you must capture that piece.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If you release a piece, you have determined your move. (It is completed after you hit the clock.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Incidentally, I once coached a scholastic, who inadvertently touched his opponent's queen (because he was too short to reach over the board easily) and his opponent claimed touch move and insisted that he capture the queen. He was only seven and not experienced enough to know to call the TD so he gave in to the older, very intimidating player and played the losing move. This was the state elementary championships, and he finished with 4 of 5 after losing this game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;New players are often unaware that accidentally touched pieces do not have to be moved. If there is doubt, call the TD. The TD should err on the side of accident and adjustment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;10A&lt;/strong&gt;.  Adjustment of pieces. A player who is on the move and first&#xA;  expresses the intention to adjust (e.g., by saying j'adoube or I&#xA;  adjust) may adjust one or more pieces on their squares. &lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;strong&gt;10B&lt;/strong&gt;. Touch-move rule. Except for 10A, a player on move who deliberately&#xA;  touches one or more pieces, in a manner that may reasonably be&#xA;  interpreted as the beginning of a move, must move or capture the first&#xA;  piece touched that can be moved or captured.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;strong&gt;10E&lt;/strong&gt;. Accidental touch of a piece. A director who believes a player touched a piece by accident&#xA;  should not require the player to move that piece. For example, a&#xA;  player's hand reaching across the board may inadvertently brush the&#xA;  top of a nearby king or queen, or a player may hit a piece with an&#xA;  elbow.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="800" LastEditorUserId="1315" LastEditDate="2013-06-13T02:05:23.983" LastActivityDate="2013-06-13T02:05:23.983" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2472" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2474" CreationDate="2013-06-13T02:11:21.663" Score="4" ViewCount="179" Body="&lt;p&gt;If I played chess online, there is an option to cancel the match. Does official chess game allow it or what rules define it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1315" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2013-06-13T19:39:23.593" LastActivityDate="2013-06-14T02:19:40.257" Title="Cancel match chess online" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2473" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2452" CreationDate="2013-06-13T03:32:26.837" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Two well-known programs that are meant specifically to aid in the memorization of opening variations are&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesspositiontrainer.com/index.php/en/&quot;&gt;Chess Position Trainer&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.bookup.com/&quot;&gt;Chess Openings Wizard&lt;/a&gt; (formerly &lt;em&gt;Bookup&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both programs are designed to recognize and handle &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transposition_%28chess%29&quot;&gt;transpositions&lt;/a&gt; seamlessly, and they allow a player to drill all the positions that are part of any repertoires that he or she inputs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2013-06-13T03:32:26.837" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2474" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2472" CreationDate="2013-06-13T09:57:15.870" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can't cancel the match once it is started. Your only option is to resign in such case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You're referencing something called &quot;abort&quot; where the match is ended with no result for either side. There is no option to &quot;abort&quot; in modern competitive chess, but it is worth mentioning that a few decades ago it was the norm to &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adjournment_%28games%29&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;adjourn&lt;/a&gt; games that took an unreasonably long amount of time (i.e. played long into the night). It would be resumed at a later time convenient to both players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="838" LastEditorUserId="1382" LastEditDate="2013-06-14T02:19:40.257" LastActivityDate="2013-06-14T02:19:40.257" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2475" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2476" CreationDate="2013-06-13T12:09:55.067" Score="6" ViewCount="259" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the given diagram, I have two best ways to continue for white, which is the better option out of these two and why?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;2Q5/p1P2pkp/1p2p3/5p2/3P4/5P1P/P2q2PK/8 w - - 0 1 &quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Qd8 Qf4+ (1. h4 Qf4+ 2. Kh3 Qc1 3. Qd8 Qh1+ 4. Kg3 Qe1+ 5. Kh2! f4 6. Qg5+ Kf8 7. c8=Q#)2. Kg1 Qe3+ 3. Kf1 Qc1+ 4. Kf2 Qd2+ 5. Kg3 f4+ 6. Kh4 Qe1+ ( 6. Kg4 Qxg2 7. Kh4 Qg3+ 8. Kh5 Qg6+ ½-½) 7. Kh5 Qe5+ 8. Qg5+ Qxg5 9. Kxg5 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also would be interesting to see what line Houdini selects and how much will be the points for each of these two moves...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;problem taken from &lt;a href=&quot;http://susanpolgar.blogspot.in/2013/06/sharp-eyes-tactic-review.html&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="105" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-04T21:42:41.280" LastActivityDate="2020-04-04T21:42:41.280" Title="What is the best continuation in this problem-h4 or Qd8?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;problems&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2476" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2475" CreationDate="2013-06-13T12:40:20.993" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;4...Qd2+ in your main line is an error; instead Black should play 4...f4, after which he delivers perpetual check. White can try to play on with 5.Qg5+ Kf8 6.Qxf4 Qxf4 7.c8Q+ but that's still a draw. So 1.Qd8 does not work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.h4 enables White to escape from perpetual check, and wins.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2013-06-13T12:40:20.993" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2477" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2475" CreationDate="2013-06-13T17:16:53.120" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Qd8 is the right idea but allows a pertpetual check after 1... Qf4+.  1. h4 removes all Black's hopes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2013-06-14T21:30:56.083" LastActivityDate="2013-06-14T21:30:56.083" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2478" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-06-13T21:25:35.367" Score="8" ViewCount="201" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am looking for examples of scenarios where the believed-best moves among experts were proven wrong by a computer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1404" LastActivityDate="2013-06-13T21:58:02.590" Title="More Optimal Computer-Found Moves" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2479" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2478" CreationDate="2013-06-13T21:58:02.590" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;This might not be quite what you're after, but computer-generated endgame tablebases have revealed new knowledge that includes overturning previously held beliefs about the evaluation of certain endgames. This means that the experts were wrong about what the best moves were at plenty of points in such endgames. As an example, it's noted in &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endgame_tablebase#Endgame_studies&quot;&gt;the endgame study section of Wikipedia's tablebase article&lt;/a&gt;,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;For instance, the endgame with a queen and bishop versus two rooks was thought to be a draw, but tablebases proved it to be a win for the queen and bishop, so almost all studies based on this endgame are unsound.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That article cites John Nunn's &lt;em&gt;Secrets of Pawnless Endings&lt;/em&gt; for that fact, and Nunn's whole &lt;em&gt;Secrets of ----- Endings&lt;/em&gt; series would probably be a good source for more examples of this sort of evaluation turnaround, as those books are the end result of Nunn's extended exploration of tablebases.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2013-06-13T21:58:02.590" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2480" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2475" CreationDate="2013-06-14T02:53:51.280" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;in my Houdini views, you're already win in your normal play, and long way to be draw. &lt;code&gt;h4&lt;/code&gt; is already the best move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black should move &lt;code&gt;5. ... Qc3&lt;/code&gt; rather than &lt;code&gt;f4&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;f4&lt;/code&gt; makes Black will lose inmate at maximum 2 possible combination moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BUT&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;rather lose, if I follow your inner moves &lt;code&gt;Kg4&lt;/code&gt; which give draw to White, in my Houdini views, I saw &lt;strong&gt;Black&lt;/strong&gt; absolutely &lt;strong&gt;won&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;as I can say, &lt;code&gt;Kg4&lt;/code&gt; move is just a curse for White because of force-move check.. ^^ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;2Q5/p1P2pkp/1p2p3/5p2/3P4/5P1P/P2q2PK/8 w - - 0 1 &quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Qd8 Qf4+ 2. Kg1 Qe3+ 3. Kf1 Qc1+ 4. Kf2 Qd2+ 5. Kg3 f4+ 6. Kg4 Qxg2 7. Kh4 Qg3+ 8. Kh5! Qg6+  9. Kh4! Qh6+ 10. Kg4! f5+ &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;(0-1)&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1315" LastEditorUserId="1315" LastEditDate="2013-06-14T03:44:34.177" LastActivityDate="2013-06-14T03:44:34.177" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2482" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-06-14T10:14:12.123" Score="8" ViewCount="338" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can you play the Sicilian Defense after white not playing 1.e4, or is it even called that in this case?&#xA;Also, after starting with the English Opening, can you only play reversed sicilian if black's first move was 1.e5?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1405" LastActivityDate="2013-06-14T12:38:56.550" Title="Sicilian Defence" Tags="&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2483" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2482" CreationDate="2013-06-14T12:38:56.550" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;You cannot force the Sicilian Defense after a White move other than 1.e4. The Sicilian Defense is defined by 1.e4 c5, not by 1...c5. Chess openings in general are named based on the moves played by both sides, not by just one side.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is possible sometimes to end up in the Sicilian defense by different routes, e.g. 1.Nf3 c5 2.e4, which arrives at the same Sicilian position as 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3. But White needs to cooperate for this to happen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similarly, as you guessed, a reversed Sicilian implies that White and Black have pawns on c4 and e5 respectively. If Black doesn't play ...e5, it's not a reversed Sicilian. But again, he may play ...e5 later than move 1, transposing into a reversed Sicilian line at that time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2013-06-14T12:38:56.550" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2484" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2485" CreationDate="2013-06-17T16:47:08.673" Score="7" ViewCount="256" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am using Chess for Android app by Aart Bik. Fairly easy to use and understand (and difficult to beat). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I get these numbers displayed below the noted moves and I think these are analysis symbols giving a summary of current position in terms of who is likelier to win. One example is in the question. Other examples are: [4/7]3, [3/7]95, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can someone interpret these numbers into English?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="538" LastActivityDate="2013-06-18T02:38:06.390" Title="What does [6/10]-611 stand for?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;engines&gt;&lt;notation&gt;&lt;terminology&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2485" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2484" CreationDate="2013-06-18T02:38:06.390" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.aartbik.com/MISC/amenu.html&quot;&gt;the online manual for the app&lt;/a&gt;,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;After each engine's move, the output &lt;code&gt;[d/s]eval&lt;/code&gt; indicates a search depth d, a selective search depth s, and an evaluation in centipawns eval from white's perspective. For instance, the output &lt;code&gt;[4/8]-103&lt;/code&gt; indicates that the engine searched 4 plies ahead, with some variations even 8 plies ahead, and thinks that black is ahead by about a pawn. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2013-06-18T02:38:06.390" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2486" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2407" CreationDate="2013-06-18T15:13:46.000" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you I asking whether it is legal to castle out of checkmate if it is the only option then no the same rules apply as with check although I can't really think of many instances where you would be able to castle to prevent checkmate...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1413" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2019-05-21T16:55:57.207" LastActivityDate="2019-05-21T16:55:57.207" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2487" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2407" CreationDate="2013-06-19T12:54:23.593" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;No-if check mate for your king.&#xA;Yes- if check mate for opponent's king&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1417" LastActivityDate="2013-06-19T12:54:23.593" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2488" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2440" CreationDate="2013-06-19T17:35:21.623" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The two main points are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Have the less amount of attacked squares at all times&lt;/strong&gt;, which can be reworded to &quot;&lt;em&gt;always try to attack the same squares several times&lt;/em&gt;&quot;, the logic behind is that, if you manage to stack the attacks, it will inevitably reduce the total number of attacked squares (which is what we want), making more room for other pieces to be placed.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Move groups of pieces near the corners and edges of the board&lt;/strong&gt;, this will again, reduce the number of attacked squares. We will sometimes need to &lt;em&gt;flip&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;mirror&lt;/em&gt; certain groups of pieces to know what corner will save us the maximum amount of squares (image example below).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for an example, I will post a quick study I did on knights, it is a bit silly since we already know we can place 32 knights in a 8x8 board just by putting them all on the same color, but I still did it to see how few knights should be arranged:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(notice how point &lt;strong&gt;#2&lt;/strong&gt; determines which arrangement is better when we have a tie)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ieQN6.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, two useful links I found are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight_queens#Related_problems&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight_queens#Related_problems&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://archive.vector.org.uk/art10003900&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://archive.vector.org.uk/art10003900&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="478" LastEditorUserId="478" LastEditDate="2013-06-19T17:40:35.380" LastActivityDate="2013-06-19T17:40:35.380" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2489" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2490" CreationDate="2013-06-19T22:16:11.917" Score="5" ViewCount="213266" Body="&lt;p&gt;What are the correct placements for the King and Queen set up on the board? I've heard things like, &quot;white on the right and queen on her own colour&quot; and &quot;kings must not be facing each other.&quot; I'm sure its just an exact mirror on both sides; am I correct in placing the white square on the right and Queen on her own colour?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1413" LastEditorUserId="18475" LastEditDate="2020-01-23T09:28:26.917" LastActivityDate="2020-01-24T10:11:29.360" Title="What is the correct placement for the King and Queen on the chessboard?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;learning&gt;&lt;pieces&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2490" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2489" CreationDate="2013-06-20T01:36:49.433" Score="20" Body="&lt;p&gt;Each player has a white square on their near right corner. The queen goes on the square of her own color; as a result, the kings and queens face each other.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2013-06-20T01:36:49.433" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2491" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1668" CreationDate="2013-06-20T09:40:28.933" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am an active member on online chess server &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessfriends.com&quot;&gt;http://www.chessfriends.com&lt;/a&gt;. I played there more than 5800 games. My stats as white are exactly same as black. I prefer playing 1 minute games,  but sometimes I play 3 minute or 5 minute games. My experience is, that playing bullet or blitz games improve my tactics skills a lot. I have 2300 Fide rating, and I am still able to play 6 hours National league games, without any problems.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1420" LastActivityDate="2013-06-20T09:40:28.933" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2492" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2494" CreationDate="2013-06-21T11:56:45.740" Score="19" ViewCount="6654" Body="&lt;p&gt;I understand why there would be a king and queen but I would love to know where the idea to call pieces what they are - such as the Rook, Knight, Bishop and Pawn - came from. Is there any background information on the reasons they were called this, and why they were assigned their specific move set?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1413" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-04-01T12:10:39.543" LastActivityDate="2021-04-01T12:10:39.543" Title="Is there an origin or story of where the pieces that make a chess game got their name from?" Tags="&lt;history&gt;&lt;terminology&gt;&lt;pieces&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2494" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2492" CreationDate="2013-06-22T03:54:43.233" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe that the chess pieces are supposed to constitute an army - I'll try to give a breakdown of how each individual name evolved.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xiangqi&quot;&gt;Xianqi&lt;/a&gt;, or Chinese Chess, originally developed in India before spreading across the world. Xianqi is the Chinese interpretation of the ancient game, and the pieces do really sound like those that would be in an army - General, Advisor, Cannon, Elephant, Horses, Soldiers, and Chariots.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When the game moved to Persia, as referenced by user Akavall in the comments, the Persian word for chariot is &quot;rokh&quot; and is naturally what the piece is called today.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The modern interpretation of chess holds its roots in Spain where one of the final transformations occurred. The General piece became the King and the Advisor became the Queen, as these positions were more familiar in the Western environment. The horses became knights and the elephant became a bishop (I suppose this was influenced by the Church's power during this era). The Soldiers became known as pawns (from Anglo-French poun, or Old French peon).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to read more about this, this link might do a better job explaining it than I did: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.articlesbase.com/art-and-entertainment-articles/how-did-chess-pieces-get-their-names-531892.html&quot;&gt;How Did Chess Pieces Get Their Names?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1382" LastActivityDate="2013-06-22T03:54:43.233" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2496" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2426" CreationDate="2013-06-23T01:30:37.203" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT:&lt;/strong&gt; As I reconsider the question, I believe that adjournments played a role in the abandonment of this rule, as detailed in my comment below. I understand that this still is not an exact answer to the question and I suppose only the USCF committee would have the answer to that :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, there is the problem of neither player invoking the fifty-move rule, as referenced in your appendix. However, I have never encountered such a scenario in my chess-playing career, although I'm sure it has happened. I suppose such an occasion is extremely rare and the organizer probably would step in.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I cannot supply the story given by the USCF on the subject as I couldn't find any specific information online. I can, however, supply my reasoning on why such a rule would be taken out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In modern chess, there no longer exists (practically) the need to claim a draw. As a result of delay clocks, the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifty-move_rule&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;fifty-move&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threefold_repetition&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;threefold repetitio&lt;/a&gt;n rules take precedence. Therefore, there are no real &quot;judgement&quot; calls to be made as the TD doesn't have to make any decisions regarding draw claims - he simply has to count the number of moves before the last capture/pawn move or see if the resulting position from the claim occurred at least three times.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, if a game were to progress past 175 moves, there must have been captures or pawn moves within the last fifty. This implies that there is a fair chance that one player can emerge victorious. Even if the game is a technical draw, it is ensured that the game will not progress fifty moves past the last capture or pawn move. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is for the aforementioned reasons that FIDE re-established the strict fifty-move rule in 1992 even after many winnable positions were proven to take more than fifty moves (without a capture or pawn move) as referenced by Akavall in the comments. Indeed, before this date FIDE had changed the rule to allow certain exceptions, but the number of these winning positions grew so large that it was easier to leave a strict limit in place. This likely influenced the abolishment of the 175 move rule as there were no more exceptions to be had of the fifty-move rule.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1382" LastEditorUserId="1382" LastEditDate="2013-06-23T15:16:49.823" LastActivityDate="2013-06-23T15:16:49.823" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2497" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2343" CreationDate="2013-06-23T19:21:35.680" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;It can theoretically be proven, but not with current technology. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you take a brute force approach, there is some difficulty due to the number of positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In analysis of the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shannon_number&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Shannon Number&lt;/a&gt;, it is suggested that the game tree complexity is at least 10^123 for games of max length 80 moves. Let's assume that it is 10^123 for the purposes of this discussion. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;10 ^ 81 = Estimated number of atoms in the universe&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;10 ^ 12 = Operations per second of a terahertz processor core (your&#xA;  processor probably runs at about 1/300th of this speed.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;10 ^ 7 = Rounded-off seconds per year&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;10 ^ 12 = 1 trillion years&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's also assume that our processors can evaluate a chess position in only 1 processor cycle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;So, let's make every atom in the universe operate as a terahertz processor core for 1 trillion years.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Can we evaluate each position for 80-max length games?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;No.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;10^81 x 10^12 x 10^7 x 10^12 = 10^112&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We fall short to the tune of being only 0.0000000001% complete with the calculation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With advanced pruning (throwing out bad lines and their descendants), better technology, and some crafty programming... maybe we'll see 40-max games solved in our lifetime! We can also prune out positions that we've seen before (we can arrive there via transposition), but keep in mind it will take at least a CPU cycle to determine that we've evaluated the position before!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, this should help you see why it's so far out of reach at the moment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;References&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shannon_number&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Shannon Number&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observable_universe#Matter_content&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Number of Atoms in the Universe&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1430" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-09-02T10:50:27.940" LastActivityDate="2019-09-02T10:50:27.940" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2498" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2499" CreationDate="2013-06-24T02:50:34.027" Score="3" ViewCount="139" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am just an ordinary chess player who does not know about Chess &lt;strong&gt;Tournament&lt;/strong&gt; even just a little thing,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;as I saw at my Houdini vs my Houdini at &lt;strong&gt;Tournament&lt;/strong&gt; level in 5 minutes &lt;br&gt;(and now I still testing in infinite time [based on &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;maximum search depth&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;].. and will move when depth reaches 99. [believe me, it's really deep]),&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in early (at 3 games) seem  to be played and transposed to &lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;Benoni variation&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;br&gt;&#xA;are there some information that in the real &lt;strong&gt;Tournament&lt;/strong&gt;, it is often to happened too?? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;if it is not,&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;what kind of variation which seem to be played in any &lt;strong&gt;Tournament&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;br&gt;&#xA;because I want to learn opening and it's transposed to another which was proved and tested in &lt;strong&gt;Tournament&lt;/strong&gt; first.. ^^&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks, &lt;br&gt;&#xA;Ahmad&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1315" LastEditorUserId="1315" LastEditDate="2013-06-28T09:24:55.513" LastActivityDate="2013-06-28T12:29:25.383" Title="Kind of popular variation in Tournament" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;transpositions&gt;&lt;houdini&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2499" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2498" CreationDate="2013-06-24T06:33:54.543" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT:&lt;/strong&gt; You seem to be concerned if the opening is &quot;tournament tested.&quot; I can affirm that almost all of the mainstream openings are well-tested, and you can figure out what these are yourself by doing the appropriate research online (i.e, which openings are most commonly played. See the links I supplied with &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/2432/1382&quot;&gt;this post&lt;/a&gt;.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It would be great if you could clarify your exact question, but I feel as if you're asking if the Benoni Defense is a respectable opening. The Benoni positions arise after: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;    1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 c5 3. d5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And here Black can play the Benko Gambit with &lt;code&gt;3...b5&lt;/code&gt;or go into more typical Benoni lines with &lt;code&gt;3...e6&lt;/code&gt;. Of course, there are many other moves that can transpose into Benoni positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for its reputation, the Benoni is certainly playable at all levels and has been played in World Championship matches. However, in recent times, the Benoni has been considered inferior to other Indian/Hypermodern defenses against the Queen Pawn openings such as the Grünfeld or Queen's Indian. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A few years ago at a coaching seminar in New York City, former World Champion Garry Kasparov remarked (perhaps jokingly) to my friend who played the Benoni that he should find a &quot;real opening.&quot; That being said, Tal and Fischer employed the Benoni in the middle of the 20th century, with the former &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/ezsearch.pl?search=tal%20benoni&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;winning several brilliant games in the 1950s and 1960s&lt;/a&gt; and the latter winning a key game in the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1044727&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;1972 World Championship Match against Spassky&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can read more about the Benoni Defense &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benoni_Defense&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1382" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2013-06-28T12:29:25.383" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2500" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2501" CreationDate="2013-06-25T06:43:09.763" Score="14" ViewCount="253849" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a beginner in chess. If I have only a king left, how many moves does my opponent have to mate me?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1435" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2013-07-01T22:42:24.790" LastActivityDate="2016-03-15T23:28:35.950" Title="With only a king left, how many moves remaining until a draw?" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;draw&gt;&lt;kings&gt;&lt;50-move-rule&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2501" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2500" CreationDate="2013-06-25T11:27:13.323" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your opponent has 50 moves, but every time a pawn is moved the count is reset.  So, he could have hundreds of moves if he has a few pawns on the board.  If he has no pawns, then 50.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The count is also reset if any piece or pawn is captured.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2013-07-05T11:33:11.620" LastActivityDate="2013-07-05T11:33:11.620" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2502" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2500" CreationDate="2013-06-25T21:07:35.027" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Do you mean &quot;what is the minimum necessary number of moves?&quot;, or &quot;what is the maximum allowable?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tony has already answered the second question - it could legally be thousands of moves depending on the position. As long as the same position is not reached more than twice and there is no 50 move stretch without a pawn move or capture, the game can go on until there are no pieces left. Theoretically, if you have lost all your pieces and he has lost none of his, he could jockey pieces around (making sure not to allow the same position three times) while every 50 moves moving a pawn or forcing you to capture a piece. The game could go on for over 3000 moves before it must end ([48 pawn moves + 14 captures] * 50 moves = 3100 moves). However, this scenario is extremely improbable, as a quicker mate would certainly be preferred.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As to the first question, if you only have a king, and your opponent has sufficient material to force mate, the minimum necessary number of moves in all positions would be 33 - in the case of &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bishop_and_knight_checkmate&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;King, Bishop, and Knight against King&lt;/a&gt;. In other cases, mate could be forced sooner. See &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pawnless_chess_endgame#Tables&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt; again for a table: a queen takes at most 10 moves to mate with best play, a rook takes at most 16, two bishops 19, and bishop and knight (as mentioned) 33. (These are the only entries in the table with the opposing king as the sole defender.) Any other pieces or pawns added would reduce the necessary number of moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="86" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2013-06-25T22:35:52.693" LastActivityDate="2013-06-25T22:35:52.693" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2503" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="973" CreationDate="2013-06-26T17:50:28.613" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Stockfish is a &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Chess_Interface&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;UCI&lt;/a&gt; engine so it doesn't understand &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xboard&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;xboard&lt;/a&gt; as they are different protocols. As user @WesFreeman mentioned in the comments, polyglot is an adapter that can get UCI working under Xboard/Winboard. Perhaps visiting the Winboard Startup Dialog or reading the help file may assist you in resolving this issue.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Winboard can also execute polyglot internally if you use -fUCI in the command line, i.e.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;xboard -fUCI -fcp stockfish -sUCI -scp stockfish&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To download the required programs, you can type:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;sudo aptitude install xboard polyglot stockfish&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1382" LastActivityDate="2013-06-26T17:50:28.613" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2504" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8" CreationDate="2013-06-26T18:04:58.147" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is no rule about a number of moves that applies only when one side has a king. So the real answer to your question is, there's no such thing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, there is a rule that states that if 50 or more moves (full moves, so 50 by white and 50 by black) have happened without a pawn move or capture, the player to move may claim a draw. It's not necessary that one of the sides has a lone king for that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2013-06-26T18:04:58.147" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2505" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1695" CreationDate="2013-06-26T18:19:08.437" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've never used it myself, but I believe that &lt;a href=&quot;http://poincare.matf.bg.ac.rs/~andrew/suicide/StanGold/wizard3_1.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Wizard&lt;/a&gt; is a strong and free Loser's Chess engine. An &lt;a href=&quot;http://poincare.matf.bg.ac.rs/~andrew/suicide/StanGold/top20.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;undated reference table&lt;/a&gt; on the same website shows that Wizard used to be one of the strongest Losers engines on FICS - however, I understand that the creator passed away many years ago so it may be outdated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1382" LastActivityDate="2013-06-26T18:19:08.437" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2506" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2507" CreationDate="2013-06-26T19:40:59.657" Score="39" ViewCount="56119" Body="&lt;p&gt;I hope this is an appropriate question for this site as I've been wanting a reputable answer. Of course the length of games can vary wildly, but what is the expected number of moves until either a checkmate or trivial draw position is reached? Preferably the answer will be backed by some evidence and is not just &quot;40 moves&quot; like every other internet source. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1431" LastEditorUserId="1431" LastEditDate="2017-08-04T23:53:02.707" LastActivityDate="2018-09-14T21:10:09.180" Title="What is the average length of a game of chess?" Tags="&lt;statistics&gt;&lt;database&gt;&lt;game-length&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2507" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2506" CreationDate="2013-06-26T20:32:36.807" Score="40" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT:&lt;/strong&gt; I opened Mega Database 2012 and found there were 515539 games ranging from the 1400s to 2011. As I couldn't find an efficient way to parse the data, I just used the median move value (I hope it's normally distributed. It's probably not though as the largest number of moves was 277... oh well). The median value was 37 moves, but I'm sure that it's a right-skewed distribution given the max value. If I had to hazard a guess to the average value, I'd put it slightly greater than 40 :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In addition, keep in mind that these are all &lt;em&gt;recorded&lt;/em&gt; games. This means that their origin can be from tournaments, matches, or even online competitions. Indeed, the 277 move game was played in a tournament on the Internet Chess Club.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Oddly enough, I found that the average length of a game (played by humans) is roughly 40 moves. Based on the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/chessstats.html&quot;&gt;statistics&lt;/a&gt; provided by the Chessgames database (685,801) games, the average number of moves is 40.04. Chessgames tends to only include player games of a high caliber, so this doesn't really take into account amateur tournaments. As these games are played by humans, few of them tend to end in checkmate but rather a draw by mutual agreement or a resignation in a lost position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This may not be the best source, but I've played in over 320 tournaments in my life and many of these games are imported into my personal database. The average number of moves per game is around 38.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I do not have access to my Mega Database 2012 (a database provided by Chessbase) at the moment, but I will post the average number of moves of approximately 5 million historical games when I open it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1382" LastEditorUserId="1382" LastEditDate="2013-06-27T01:54:13.690" LastActivityDate="2013-06-27T01:54:13.690" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2508" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2514" CreationDate="2013-06-27T05:48:56.147" Score="7" ViewCount="538" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am beginner in chess but in my mind one question overcome, Does white have an advantage with the first move?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1435" LastActivityDate="2014-09-18T16:30:34.933" Title="White have an advantage with the first move" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;attack&gt;&lt;defense&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ClosedDate="2016-01-10T05:07:54.163" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2509" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2513" CreationDate="2013-06-27T06:18:41.273" Score="8" ViewCount="5333" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the minimum number of moves, counting both sides, in which a checkmate can be made?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1435" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2013-06-27T10:46:23.793" LastActivityDate="2013-06-28T13:29:23.523" Title="Minimum moves to checkmate?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;statistics&gt;&lt;checkmate&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2512" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2492" CreationDate="2013-06-27T07:35:08.407" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Origins of chess is from &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaturanga&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chaturanga/Chaturang&lt;/a&gt;, which the persians pronounced &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shatranj&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Shatraj&lt;/a&gt; (Note  that &lt;code&gt;Shah&lt;/code&gt; means king in persian)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Rook which is basically chariot is called Rath (hindi) or Ratha (Sanskrit) or Rukh (persian)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mantri/Wazir which means key minister/counsellor, is todays queen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ghoda (hindi) and Ashva (sanskrit) means horse which is basically our modern Knight&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hathi which means elephant is our modern bishop&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And finally pawn was called Padati, nowadays called Paida (hindi) in short.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;http://chess.about.com/od/chesshistory/a/History-Of-Chess-Part-I-Before-Chess.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this article&lt;/a&gt;, it went to china much later...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="105" LastActivityDate="2013-06-27T07:35:08.407" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2513" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2509" CreationDate="2013-06-27T10:56:29.537" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;The precise answer to your question is &lt;strong&gt;four half-moves&lt;/strong&gt;. The only checkmate possible in two moves is by Black - &lt;code&gt;1.f3 e5 2.g4 Qh4#&lt;/code&gt; (This mate is known as &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fool%27s_mate&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Fool's Mate&lt;/a&gt;). Slight variations may occur (in White's move order or in the distance Black's e-pawn or White's f-pawn is advanced):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1.g4 e5 2.f3 Qh4#&#xA;1.f3 e6 2.g4 Qh4#&#xA;1.g4 e6 2.f3 Qh4#&#xA;1.g4 e5 2.f4 Qh4#&#xA;1.f4 e5 2.g4 Qh4#&#xA;1.g4 e6 2.f4 Qh4#&#xA;1.f4 e6 2.g4 Qh4#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If White is to mate, a minimum of five half-moves (three moves) is required, for example &lt;code&gt;1.e4 f6 2.d4 g5 3.Qh5#&lt;/code&gt; (with similar variations possible).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="86" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2013-06-28T13:29:23.523" LastActivityDate="2013-06-28T13:29:23.523" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2514" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2508" CreationDate="2013-06-27T11:10:37.010" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;It really depends on what level of chess you're looking at. At the amateur level (&amp;lt;2200), I would hypothesize that white's supposed &quot;first-move advantage&quot; is relatively insignificant. However, it's quite evident at the higher levels that white has an advantage when playing mainstream openings - please reference the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.shredderchess.com/online-chess/online-databases/opening-database.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Shredder Opening Database&lt;/a&gt; for the details of individual moves. For example, out of the 242,221 Grandmaster games where White has played &lt;code&gt;1. e4&lt;/code&gt;, he has scored 54.5%. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess players and theorists generally agree that White has a certain first-move advantage. The &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-move_advantage_in_chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;page on Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt; is certainly a fascinating read.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1382" LastActivityDate="2013-06-27T11:10:37.010" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2515" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-06-27T13:23:50.947" Score="17" ViewCount="33146" Body="&lt;p&gt;I like the King's Gambit a lot, and even the Latvian Gambit as black (with dubious results), so my style is very aggressive openings with potentially sharp lines and hack n' slash type of tactical sacrifice lines. However as black when facing the &lt;code&gt;1.d4&lt;/code&gt; opening from white I'm unsure what to do, and just try to play some kind of King's Indian Defence, which seems solid, but I almost never get my pieces lined up as nicely as &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/user/kingscrusher&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Kingscrusher&lt;/a&gt; does.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So what are some good offensive lines to play against &lt;code&gt;1. d4&lt;/code&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1444" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-07-06T07:35:28.520" LastActivityDate="2020-10-28T07:29:00.193" Title="Looking for an aggressive opening for black vs 1. d4" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;aggressive-play&gt;&lt;1.d4&gt;" AnswerCount="11" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2516" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2515" CreationDate="2013-06-27T13:35:08.030" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;You seem to enjoy tactical play, so there are a few options for you against &lt;code&gt;1. d4&lt;/code&gt;. As it appears you prefer gambits over other openings, consider looking at the relatively offbeat &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Gambit&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Budapest Gambit&lt;/a&gt; which is characterized by the opening moves &lt;code&gt;1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e5&lt;/code&gt; where after &lt;code&gt;3. dxe5&lt;/code&gt; black can reply with either &lt;code&gt;3...Ne4&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;3...Ng4&lt;/code&gt; with the latter being more popular. That being said, the Budapest is rooted in strategic themes, and the King's Indian Defense is certainly regarded as the one of the most aggressive replies to &lt;code&gt;1. d4&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For a more mainstream approach, I would recommend the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gr%C3%BCnfeld_Defence&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Grunfeld&lt;/a&gt; as a great hypermodern choice. It's highly regarded from the amateur to world class levels. The general idea is to allow white to build up a center and then target it as a weakness, and the positional themes that arise in the middlegame focus primarily on undermining the pawns on e4 and d4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For a more comprehensive response, please reference this &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/762/1382&quot;&gt;excellent answer&lt;/a&gt; to a generalization of your question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1382" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2013-06-27T17:03:24.457" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2517" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1482" CreationDate="2013-06-27T22:41:01.523" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is a simple backtracking algorithm, provided that you have a function that can check reverse legal moves at every board state (also known as position):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;function is_legal_state(state,move)&#xA;&#xA;   //Terminate if a starting state was found. This immediately implies there&#xA;   //was a legal game that generated this state, in fact the backtracking&#xA;   //can tell you precisely such a game       &#xA;   if (state in starting board state)&#xA;     return true&#xA;&#xA;   //Apply some move to get to a new state, state is a persistent object&#xA;   apply_reverse_move(state,move)&#xA;&#xA;   //Generate all legal &quot;reverse&quot; moves, that is, moves that could have&#xA;   //been performed to get to the current state from another position,&#xA;   //provided the previous position was valid. You do not have to check the&#xA;   //validness of the previous state, you just have to make sure the&#xA;   //transitioning move was valid&#xA;   legalmoves = enumerate_all_reverse_moves( state )&#xA;&#xA;   for local_move in legalmoves:&#xA;     return is_legal_state(state,local_move)&#xA;&#xA;   //Reverse the move that was previously applied so backtracking can&#xA;   //work properly &#xA;   reverse_reverse_move(state,move)&#xA;&#xA;   return false&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="72" LastActivityDate="2013-06-27T22:41:01.523" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2518" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2519" CreationDate="2013-06-28T02:02:50.990" Score="8" ViewCount="641" Body="&lt;p&gt;Does anyone know of any common tool that can go throughout your game database (I have a couple of hundreds of my game's PGNs), and extract tactics that one should be training? I believe something as suggesting board positions related to blunders, missed mates in 1, 2, 3, missed forks, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="37" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-03-12T21:12:45.510" LastActivityDate="2014-03-12T21:12:45.510" Title="Tool that suggests tactics exercises based on game analysis" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;engines&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;training&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2519" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2518" CreationDate="2013-06-28T05:12:08.840" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both ChessBase and Fritz do this. I am not sure if others do it too, but this is a great feature of many products from Chessbase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you can pick up Chessbase, well and good. Otherwise look into Fritz that might be one version behind the latest version. They sometimes go on sale on Amazon.com and elsewhere.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's what you do:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You ask Fritz (or similar engine) to analyze your games.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Select the option that asks if it should create exercises during full analysis.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Once it completes the analysis (it can analyze all 200 of your games if you give it enough time), you can then play through the tactics from your own games.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ProTip: Players will sometimes subset only those games that have exercises, move it to a new database, and play through these exercises. You are essentially training on situations that occur in your own games, a great way to improve.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope that helps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="764" LastActivityDate="2013-06-28T05:12:08.840" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2520" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2508" CreationDate="2013-06-28T07:44:21.093" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Generally white is considered to have a slight advantage, and black needs to &quot;equalize&quot;. However there are also voices (e.g. András Adorján with his &quot;Black is OK&quot; books) who challenge this view and attribute the results of black to a mix of inferior, too passive openings (&quot;defences&quot;) for black and the power of &quot;self-fulfilling prophecies&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Personally I think the truth lies in the middle: White &lt;em&gt;has&lt;/em&gt; a slight edge, but it would be smaller if players with black would be more confident and aggressive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="35" LastActivityDate="2013-06-28T07:44:21.093" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2521" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2522" CreationDate="2013-06-28T08:21:02.740" Score="3" ViewCount="233" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/8/b7/8/8/8/8/4K2R w - - 0 1 &quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this case White hasn't moved his King yet. Is castling allowed?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1417" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2013-06-28T11:10:18.000" LastActivityDate="2013-06-28T11:10:18.000" Title="Is castling allowed in this position?" Tags="&lt;castling&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2013-06-28T12:34:17.730" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2522" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2521" CreationDate="2013-06-28T09:04:47.220" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's not possible to castle, because the &lt;code&gt;f1&lt;/code&gt; square is attacked.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=124&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Laws of Chess&lt;/a&gt;; article 3.8 (King moves), b(2):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Castling is prevented temporarily:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;if the square on which the king stands, &lt;strong&gt;or the square which it must cross&lt;/strong&gt;, or the square which it is to occupy, is attacked by one or more of the opponent's pieces, or&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;if there is any piece between the king and the rook with which castling is to be effected. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2013-06-28T11:08:55.603" LastActivityDate="2013-06-28T11:08:55.603" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2523" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2515" CreationDate="2013-06-28T11:54:06.197" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;Additionally to Andrew's answer, I'd suggest to have a look at the Benko Gambit (a.k.a. Volga Gambit):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 c5 3.d5 b5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is a sound and deep opening. If the gambit is accepted, it leads to sharp play and dynamic positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="35" LastActivityDate="2013-06-28T11:54:06.197" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2524" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-06-28T18:09:50.663" Score="9" ViewCount="1275" Body="&lt;p&gt;For the ones that never heard of the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucena_position&quot;&gt;Lucena position&lt;/a&gt;, it a position where we have a &lt;code&gt;KRP+KR&lt;/code&gt; ending, and the side with the extra pawn has his king in front of the pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The problem is that when you try to move the king out of the pawn's way, the enemy rook will deliver annoying checks that will not stop unless you are familiar with the Lucena position and setup your rook in a certain way that will eventually be able to block the checks from the enemy rook.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;(example of not knowing how to Lucena)&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;1K1k4/1P6/8/8/8/8/r7/2R5 w - - 4 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Rd1+ Ke7 2. Kc7 Rc2+ 3. Kb8 Ke6 4. Ka7 Ra2+ 5. Kb6 Rb2+ 6. Kc6 Rc2+ 7. Kb5 Rb2+ 8. Kc6 Rc2+ 9. Kb6 Rb2+ 10. Ka7 Ra2+ 11. Kb8 *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How do I use the Lucena position in my favor?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="478" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2014-01-23T15:55:44.647" LastActivityDate="2014-01-23T15:55:44.647" Title="How to win using Lucena position?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;rook-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2525" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2524" CreationDate="2013-06-28T18:47:53.327" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Lucena is one of the most important endgame positions to know, and the nickname for it helps a bunch when trying to figure it out over the board. Remember this phrase - &quot;Building a Bridge.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The idea is to &lt;strong&gt;get your rook to the fourth rank&lt;/strong&gt;. Although the move looks rather odd, the idea is simple. Once you bring your king out, he needs to be protected. Your king can advance all the way to the fifth rank, and after the check the rook can block and your pawn can queen. Allow me to use your example to demonstrate the Lucena:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;1K1k4/1P6/8/8/8/8/r7/2R5 w - - 4 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Rd1+ Ke7 2. Rd4! Rb2 3. Kc7 (3. Ra4 Kd7 4. Ka7 Kc7 5. b8=Q+ Rxb8 6. Rc4+ {works as well, as referenced by @dfan in the comments}) Rc2+ 4. Kb6 Rb2+ 5. Kc6 Rc2+ (5... Rb1 6. Rd5! Rc1+ 7. Rc5 Rb1 8. Rb5) 6. Kb5! Rb2+ 7. Rb4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And the pawn queens easily. The very first check is important because it &lt;strong&gt;forces the opposing king an extra file away from the queening square.&lt;/strong&gt; As you can see, in the final position the black king is one tempo too slow to stop the pawn from reaching the eighth rank.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1382" LastEditorUserId="1382" LastEditDate="2013-06-28T20:51:05.833" LastActivityDate="2013-06-28T20:51:05.833" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2526" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2528" CreationDate="2013-06-29T03:16:47.997" Score="6" ViewCount="898" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/8/8/4N3/4N3/4K3/8/4k3 - - - 0 0 &quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have this chess problem that I have played with. Logically, there are positions that have the Black King in checkmate. But untill now, I haven’t been able to solve it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My Houdini returned ‘insufficient material’ when I forced a move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, if I use infinite mode, Houdini calculates and returns a value approximate ’+1.30’, until ‘+1.42’ at the moment I edited this. This means it is definitely a win for White. [Based on the Houdini guide, ‘+0.89’ means an 80% chance of a win, ‘+0.9’ for a 90% chance, and so on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can you solve it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1315" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-04T22:33:40.633" LastActivityDate="2020-04-04T22:33:40.633" Title="KNN-K Chess Endgame" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;knight-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2527" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2526" CreationDate="2013-06-29T05:18:41.300" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The position shown is a draw, as Houdini says, because a checkmate with two knights cannot generally be forced, and there is no immediate mate in the position shown.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="827" LastActivityDate="2013-06-29T05:18:41.300" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2528" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2526" CreationDate="2013-06-29T13:35:01.760" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;The position is indeed a draw - but your edit suggests a far more interesting question. Why would Houdini give such an evaluation when the position is a known book draw? &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/posts/comments/3947?noredirect=1&quot;&gt;@EdDean&lt;/a&gt; touched upon the answer, explaining the interpretation of the point evaluation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Houdini, along with other chess engines, will analyze the position many moves deep. The &lt;em&gt;depth&lt;/em&gt; is shown in the engine box and shows you how far ahead the computer is thinking. When Houdini calculates 15 moves ahead, it sees a position where White is up two knights against a lone king. Pure Houdini will not know that White cannot checkmate black without an accompanying Tablebase. However, if enough moves are played, you can &quot;trick&quot; Houdini into realizing that all of its best moves are leading to the exact same evaluation with no end in sight. This will cause Houdini to automatically adjust its evaluation to 0.00 - this is the result of some code that tells it if the position evaluation has not changed for X number of moves, the position must be a draw. Interestingly enough, if you keep playing on after this 0.00 evaluation is suggested and reach a position where the next move is checkmate, Houdini sometimes will still suggest this 0.00 evaluation. I've had this happen to me several times in the past and is likely a bug in the program.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In endgames with 6 pieces or less (including kings but without 5 vs 1), the Nalimov tablebase is a preferred method. This computerized database has a precalculated and exhaustive analysis of all possible scenarios with the aforementioned conditions. It returns the game-theoretical value in any given position - essentially &quot;solving&quot; the position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to read more about Tablebases, check out the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endgame_tablebase&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia page&lt;/a&gt; and an &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.k4it.de/?topic=egtb&amp;amp;lang=en&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;example&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1382" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.193" LastActivityDate="2013-06-30T13:45:45.370" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2529" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2530" CreationDate="2013-06-29T15:43:36.783" Score="10" ViewCount="2436" Body="&lt;p&gt;What exactly is a blocked pawn? Is it a pawn with any of the opponent pieces in front or does it have to be an opponent pawn? Will the pawn be considered blocked if it can capture?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Add any other criteria that defines a blocked pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1283" LastActivityDate="2013-06-30T05:32:05.407" Title="Exact definition of a blocked pawn" Tags="&lt;pawns&gt;&lt;closed-position&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2530" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2529" CreationDate="2013-06-29T16:01:37.707" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;A &quot;blocked pawn&quot; is a rather general term that describes a pawn that cannot advance. It can be blockaded by either an opponent's piece or pawn, and in certain rare cases it can be blocked by a fellow pawn (i.e. &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doubled_pawns&quot;&gt;doubled pawns&lt;/a&gt;). However, perhaps the most common example of a blocked pawn is one that is &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isolated_pawn&quot;&gt;isolated&lt;/a&gt;. Here is an example of a typical IQP position: (isolated queen pawn)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;r4rk1/pb2bppp/1p1qpn2/3n2B1/3P4/P1NB1N2/1P3PPP/R2QR1K1 w - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is a well known positional idea to blockade the opponent's passed pawn. The reason why the square in front of an isolated pawn is commonly used as an outpost is because the d-pawn does not have a fellow e or c pawn to kick the knight out of the d5 square. Therefore, Black's plan is to blockade the pawn, exchange off the minor pieces, and eventually win the pawn in the endgame. The following position illustrates this plan:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;3r2k1/p2q1pp1/1p5p/3rp3/3P4/P2R4/1P1Q1PPP/3R2K1 w - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Blockading your opponent's pawn is also a common idea in positions with a &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backward_pawn&quot;&gt;backward pawn&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;2rq1rk1/1p3pp1/p1npbb1p/3Np3/4P3/1BP1NP2/PP1Q2PP/3RR2K w - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Notice how the d6 pawn is blockaded by the knight on d5. Keep in mind that in positions with backwards pawns, the pawn itself is weak and the square in front of it is also begging to be occupied. A long-term plan could be perhaps to eventually win the d6 pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In such, positional maneuvers are usually rooted in scenarios where the pawn is blockaded by a piece. To answer your last question, a pawn wouldn't be considered blocked if it can capture because it will have a square to go to. A blocked pawn by definition cannot move anywhere.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to read more about blocked pawns and their importance in endgames, check out the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_square#Blocked_pawns&quot;&gt;Wikipedia article&lt;/a&gt; involving key squares and zugzwang.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1382" LastActivityDate="2013-06-29T16:01:37.707" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2533" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2389" CreationDate="2013-06-30T14:41:49.353" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;http://stockfishchess.org/download/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Stockfish&lt;/a&gt; opening book works with scid, follow the directions there to use it with the engine.  To use it in scid itself copy the &lt;code&gt;book.bin&lt;/code&gt; file to the same location you have all your other scid opening books. I hope you have &lt;a href=&quot;http://scidvspc.sourceforge.net&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;scidvspc &lt;/a&gt;and not the original...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1455" LastEditorUserId="780" LastEditDate="2013-07-02T03:33:00.100" LastActivityDate="2013-07-02T03:33:00.100" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2534" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2508" CreationDate="2013-06-30T19:22:50.650" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The advantage of the first move gets more significant as you go up the rating scale. At the GM level, white typically scores about 56% to black's 44%.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would expect as you go down the rating tree the advantage of the first move would disappear, as lower rated players typically need a larger advantage in order to convert it to a win, and also lower rated players are more prone to making mistakes that give away the advantage (or the game).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the time you reach &quot;normal&quot; club-level players, I'd be surprised if the advantage of the first move was more significant than the probability of a an error giving away the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="657" LastActivityDate="2013-06-30T19:22:50.650" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2535" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1632" CreationDate="2013-06-30T19:50:06.763" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Elo's system had two components. One was independent of history, the other was not. His system for creating a &quot;performance rating&quot; over the course of an event or a period of time had no historical component to it; it was simply a measure of performance over the specified time. (Memory fails me on this point, but I &lt;em&gt;think&lt;/em&gt; when he was calculating the ratings for FIDE this was the method he used.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However the Elo system as used by federations around the globe does have a historical component, in that ratings are calculated by calculating a delta, a change from the previous rating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The historically-based system has a natural tendency towards deflation. The system is a closed system, with no new points being created. So new players come in, take points from established players, and then exit (through death or retirement) before returning all those points back to the next batch of rising players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many ideas have been tried to compensate for this, some working better than others. Add to this the commercial pressure in the USCF of the early 70's to make ratings rise faster (the rather cynical view was that players would buy a book from the USCF and play in a tournament, their rating would go up, encouraging them to buy another book, etc.) and inflation was a real thing at some points in history.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since Elo's system was based on a normal (bell) curve, it's nonsense to try and gauge inflation by measuring either extreme; the extremes are more likely to be affected by the total number of players being rated than by changes in actual strength or any sort of inflation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="657" LastActivityDate="2013-06-30T19:50:06.763" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2536" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2500" CreationDate="2013-06-30T20:39:47.117" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Depends on where the game is played. USCF forces games to end at 175 moves, so if your opponent leaves you with a lone king on move 174, he has 1 move to checkmate you before it's a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also other federations and tournaments allow rules where after a certain period of time (not moves) the game goes to adjudication.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Rules of chess are not 100% universal; there are small variations from place to place.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="657" LastActivityDate="2013-06-30T20:39:47.117" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2537" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2563" CreationDate="2013-07-01T13:52:58.977" Score="7" ViewCount="395" Body="&lt;p&gt;Where can I find the video with the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1111214&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;game Judit Polgar Vs Nigel&lt;/a&gt; Short that by the year 2011 could be found on youtube? I'm interested in the video of the match and not in the game itself. According this this page (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesscreator.com/judit-polgar-vs-nigel-short-what-a-turnaround-6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.chesscreator.com/judit-polgar-vs-nigel-short-what-a-turnaround-6&lt;/a&gt;)'' This epic battle took place in New York City, 1994, at the Intel World Speed ​​Chess Tournament''&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could someone help me?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1165" LastEditorUserId="1165" LastEditDate="2013-07-23T17:31:08.303" LastActivityDate="2013-07-23T17:31:08.303" Title="Judit Polgar Vs Nigel Short. Youtube video" Tags="&lt;famous-players&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2538" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2515" CreationDate="2013-07-04T00:11:30.993" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;An aggressive opening against d4 is the Dutch defense, or f5. Black tries to get a king side attack against White to offset the latter's moves on the queenside, kind of the opposite of the usual sequence. In the 20th century, it was used by aggressive players like Rudolph Spielman.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2013-07-04T00:11:30.993" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2539" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2540" CreationDate="2013-07-05T04:21:20.103" Score="5" ViewCount="4644" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am still confused about the en passant rule. There are two possibilities regarding the capture itself that are not clear to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;1. d4 d6 2. d5 c5 3. dxc6 b5 (3. c4 e5 4. dxc6)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Scenario 1: In &lt;strong&gt;main line shown above,&lt;/strong&gt; is it possible to capture via en passant again after 3... b5 with the move 4. cxb7ep? In other words, is it possible to capture en passant twice with the same pawn?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Scenario 2: As shown in the &lt;strong&gt;given side variation&lt;/strong&gt;, is it actually possible to capture the black’s pawn on a later move? Note that although the black pawn is still in the diagram, you must imagine that it isn’t.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1315" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-11-10T04:25:40.437" LastActivityDate="2021-05-02T01:06:54.997" Title="Two questions about how the en passant capture works" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;en-passant&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2540" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2539" CreationDate="2013-07-05T05:27:29.167" Score="18" Body="&lt;p&gt;En passant can only be played when the enemy pawn moves &lt;em&gt;over&lt;/em&gt; your pawn's capture square during it's first move (moving 2 squares); so the answer to both condition 1 and 2 is no.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is not possible for a pawn to en passant twice in a row.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My understanding is in early chess pawns could only move one space at a time, so when the 2 move rules was added they also added en passant to counterbalance the fact that you might lose a chance at capturing your opponent's pawn since he could now move &lt;em&gt;over&lt;/em&gt; your capture square.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, in essence, because after capturing en passant it is no longer possible for an enemy pawn to pass over your capture square, it is no longer possible for your pawn to capture en passant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fide.com/fide/handbook?id=124&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;official FIDE rules&lt;/a&gt;, article 1 section 3.7d states:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A pawn attacking a square crossed by an opponent’s pawn which&#xA;  has advanced two squares in one move from its original square may&#xA;  capture this opponent’s pawn as though the latter had been moved only&#xA;  one square. This capture is only legal on the move following this&#xA;  advance and is called an ‘en passant’ capture. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="780" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2020-06-01T19:42:06.140" LastActivityDate="2020-06-01T19:42:06.140" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2542" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2546" CreationDate="2013-07-06T03:02:36.773" Score="2" ViewCount="346" Body="&lt;p&gt;as I learnt at &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_of_chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;School of Chess&lt;/a&gt;, &#xA;there are 7 different school with unique 'accentuation',&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Philidor&lt;/strong&gt;, believed that maintaining the mobility of pawns was the most important strategic factor of chess&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Modenese school&lt;/strong&gt;, emphasized rapid development of the pieces for an attack on the opposing king, aiming for checkmate or winning material in the process&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;English school&lt;/strong&gt;, allowed attacks after strategic advantages were obtained when the position was prepared – control was gained over the center and key points&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Romantic chess&lt;/strong&gt;, characterized by brash sacrifices and open, tactical games&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Steinitz&lt;/strong&gt;, strengthened defensive techniques and advocated strategic maneuvering to gain enough of an advantage before launching an attack&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Hypermodern school&lt;/strong&gt;,  emphasizes control of the center by attacking it with pieces especially from the periphery&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Soviet hegemony&lt;/strong&gt;, believed that a weakness that could not be attacked was not a real weakness&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I 'separated' them then I have two condition, Center Control and Flanking. &lt;br&gt;&#xA;When I played with my houdini, Top 3 as first move is always represent and replied (White view) with [&lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;f4&lt;/code&gt;] which means that houdini rules implement Center Control. &lt;br&gt;&#xA;And if I used Flanking method, I always seem to lost too quickly &lt;br&gt; [or maybe just because my stupidity.. ^^]. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there real Flanking advantages against Center Control (some official game and/or proved calculation) since 'it' born after Center Control?? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks, &lt;br&gt;&#xA;Ahmad&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1315" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-03-05T08:44:11.227" LastActivityDate="2014-03-05T08:44:11.227" Title="Existence Flanking against Center Control" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;center&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2543" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2542" CreationDate="2013-07-06T12:01:03.773" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Do Hypermodern techniques work?  Certainly.  Hypermodern openings include the Pirc, Nimzo-Indian, Grunfeld, the Catalan Opening, King's Indian Defense, Alekhine's Defense, and the Queen's Indian Defense.  There are probably a dozen others.  These are commonly played by GMs, especially the Grunfeld and KID.  Surely this is proof enough that the Hypermodern ideas are valid.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The definition of what is playable also depends on a player's skill level.  Non-masters can pretty much play what they want because their opponents will not be able to punish them for small mistakes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other observations:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;There is no silver bullet in chess except to make good moves.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Losing to Houdini is easy.  It's a GM-strength program.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2013-07-06T12:01:03.773" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2544" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2539" CreationDate="2013-07-07T00:06:50.647" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;A pawn capturing en passant (the d pawn in this case), basically interrupts the passage of the adjacent (c) pawn on his third rank (c6 for you), on the way from c7 to c5. This privilege can be exercised (retroactively) only on the &lt;strong&gt;immediately&lt;/strong&gt; following move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once the c pawn has arrived at c5 (without interruption), there is no &quot;second change&quot; for the d pawn to capture him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2013-07-07T00:06:50.647" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2546" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2542" CreationDate="2013-07-07T08:57:45.117" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a hard question to answer because you take a very broad, abstract, historical concept (the existence of &quot;schools&quot; in chess, with a particular list that I've definitely not seen before) and then you connect that with a very concrete, peculiar little thing (the moves Houdini suggests in the opening position if it doesn't have an opening book).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'll just write a bit about both and then I hope you'll understand the difficulty. This is all completely my unsourced opinion and impression of current chess, I'm not going to give sources.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Those schools are a broad overview of the history of the development of chess strategy. First people thought one thing, then that got refined, then someone wrote a book claiming the opposite... That's interesting to read, but there are lots of reasons why it's not that useful to someone currently learning chess, in my view:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Reality wasn't as black and white as those &quot;schools&quot; make it seem. In the end, all of them played chess, they were good, and often if a strong move was available, they would play it. Some players used some techniques more often than other players did. And when they wrote books, they would argue vehemently against other books, because that sells.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;That said, most of these discussions were pre-WWII, and the thinking nowadays is closer to what is &quot;Soviet hegemony&quot; in your list: if it works, it works. And since the coming of computers and their great defensive skills, we've found that there are way more things that work than we used to think. Flank openings, classical openings, extremely deep tactical lines, very quiet endgame openings, they all turned out to be playable. Both &quot;hypermodern&quot; and &quot;classical&quot; openings are extremely popular nowadays, and most players play both!&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A discussion of &quot;schools&quot; is at such a high level of abstraction that you to wonder if that could ever help you find the best move in some concrete chess position during a tournament, which is in the end the only thing that counts when you're trying to get better at chess.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then, Houdini. Chess programs aren't very good at the opening, compared to established opening theory. Some reasons why that is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;They don't need to be good at opening theory, because they use opening books. So they are tuned so that they perform best at the later stages of the game.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Opening theory is the compiled knowledge of &lt;em&gt;hundreds of years&lt;/em&gt; of human research. Computers are strong, but not remotely close to strong enough to recompute the equivalent of that research in a couple of minutes.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Even if they were, thousands of people have computers running continuously to work on openings, and your single Houdini is up against that too.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, forget about using Houdini in the opening position. Look at what is popular among strong players. And they use a broader selection of openings than ever.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2013-07-07T08:57:45.117" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2547" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-07-08T14:31:24.520" Score="9" ViewCount="286" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was wondering if there is any internet resource that would tell me who has the advantage in a game of chess if I input the moves? I want to follow my son online in his chess matches but it doesn't mean anything to me and it would be nice to be able to tell how he's doing....&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1471" LastActivityDate="2013-07-08T17:15:36.907" Title="How to work out advantage?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;engines&gt;&lt;online-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2549" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2547" CreationDate="2013-07-08T17:15:36.907" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;You're looking for a &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_engine&quot;&gt;chess engine&lt;/a&gt;. A engine can give you the evaluation of the position - a value that relays whether white or black has the advantage. A positive evaluation means white is better - with a greater number indicating a larger advantage - and vice versa.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for the online resource, there are many options available to you. I would recommend downloading a free graphical user interface client such as &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.gnu.org/software/xboard/&quot;&gt;XBoard&lt;/a&gt; to be used in conjunction with a strong engine, such as &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cruxis.com/chess/houdini.htm&quot;&gt;Houdini&lt;/a&gt; (the free version).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To input the position of your son's game, you can either copy and paste the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forsyth%E2%80%93Edwards_Notation&quot;&gt;FEN&lt;/a&gt; of the position or the current &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portable_Game_Notation&quot;&gt;PGN&lt;/a&gt; of the game. The former contains information regarding the position and the latter has the notation of all the moves up to the current position. From there, running the engine will return the evaluation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are many tutorials online on how to set up the chess software - &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess2u.com/t4630-portable-winboard-453-houdini-15a&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; is one example specific to XBoard and Houdini.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1382" LastActivityDate="2013-07-08T17:15:36.907" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2550" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-07-10T08:20:51.243" Score="13" ViewCount="48938" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure if there exists an average, but what could be considered an average rating range in these systems?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="885" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-10-12T11:53:40.490" LastActivityDate="2020-10-12T11:53:40.490" Title="What are the average Elo and USCF ratings?" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;elo&gt;&lt;uscf&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2551" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2550" CreationDate="2013-07-10T11:03:26.250" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;While the numbers drift and have to be adjusted from time to time, the average USCF rating is supposed to be 1500.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2013-07-10T11:03:26.250" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2552" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2550" CreationDate="2013-07-10T12:27:08.563" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;(I assume in the following discussion that by &quot;average&quot; you mean median, not mean.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It depends on whether you are just looking at active players (who have played a tournament recently) or all players, and on whether you are just looking at just adults or players of all ages.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The latest rating distribution chart for the USCF I could find was from 2004 &lt;a href=&quot;http://archive.uschess.org/ratings/ratedist.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;(here)&lt;/a&gt;. You can see from it that at that time the 50th percentile was about 1050 for all players, or 1280 when just adults are considered. (USCF ratings have inflated a bit in the last decade so they are probably a bit higher now.) This is for all members, not just active ones; the median rating for active players would be higher, probably by 150 points or so from looking at the graph &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.eddins.net/steve/chess/2008/06/06/131&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2013-07-10T12:27:08.563" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2553" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1578" CreationDate="2013-07-10T14:02:07.243" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a chess player and one of the many premier ones in my state. Clearly, I don't agree with the stated fact. There are a lot many chess players and that too people with gigantic chess conceptions who lead a normal (maybe slightly happier and proud than people not acquainted with the game) life. Any doubts check out on chess giants like Magnus Carlsen, Vishy Anand, Vladimir Kramnik, Peter Svidler, Levon Aronian and etc. The list can go on and on. These people are the elite among professionals and still they are humble, witty and very pleasant people to be with. Of course there is Fischer, Paul Morphy and the eccentrically behaving Ukranian genious Vassily Ivanchuk. But these people are an exception and not the rule. The misconception largely has to do with the popularity of the late Sir Robert James Fischer among the non chess playing people. Like any other generalization, this is also not true.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1479" LastEditorUserId="1466" LastEditDate="2013-10-10T15:52:55.530" LastActivityDate="2013-10-10T15:52:55.530" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2555" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2556" CreationDate="2013-07-11T02:43:28.873" Score="4" ViewCount="310" Body="&lt;p&gt;When playing C11 French/Steinitz, &lt;code&gt;6. dxc5 Bxc5&lt;/code&gt; is chosen. Even in &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.shredderchess.com/online-chess/online-databases/opening-database.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Shredder&lt;/a&gt;, it's most played in C11 French/Steinitz. What should White best reply after &lt;code&gt;6. dxc5 Bxc5&lt;/code&gt;??  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. e5 Nfd7 5. Nf3 c5 6. dxc5 Bxc5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Best Regard, &lt;br&gt;&#xA;Ahmad&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1315" LastEditorUserId="11202" LastEditDate="2017-05-16T05:18:24.847" LastActivityDate="2017-05-16T05:18:24.847" Title="Reply for C11 French/Steinitz after `5. Nf3 c5`" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;french-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2556" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2555" CreationDate="2013-07-11T03:15:46.513" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The plan for white is to &lt;strong&gt;secure the e5 square&lt;/strong&gt;. Black's freeing maneuver will be to play f6, and the resulting position will have a backwards pawn on e6. Therefore, white's plan will be to place his bishop on f4 and move his knight to e5, perhaps with support along the e-file from a rook or queen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A possible variation could continue as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. e5 Nfd7 5. Nf3 c5 6. dxc5 Bxc5 7. Bd3 Nc6 8. Bf4 f6 9. exf6 Nxf6 10. O-O O-O 11. Ne5 Bd7 12. Qe2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Keep in mind that this isn't the only way of playing the Steinitz. White more commonly plays &lt;code&gt;5. f4&lt;/code&gt;, bolstering his center pawn on e5 before continuing to develop with Nf3. Also, &lt;code&gt;6...Nc6&lt;/code&gt; is considered a more accurate move for black, leaving the option of capturing on c5 for a later move and saving a tempo to attack the e5 square.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1382" LastActivityDate="2013-07-11T03:15:46.513" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2557" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1578" CreationDate="2013-07-12T11:40:46.947" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Unlike my fellow answerers, I am not a high ranking player yet, but I am well read in psychology.&lt;/em&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Belief&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;I believe the logical mindset of top class players mixed with the element of uncontrollable uncertainty at that level combined are two main contibuting factors of stress in high level chess players which ultimately leads to mental degredation.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Argument&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;At it's highest level chess is a very volatile game, and any single mistake can cost you the game even with a fantastic strategy.  In the Game of the Century the knight sacrifice was only possible due to a slight error on the part of Byrne.  It is my belief that when you're at that level a certain degree of chance enters into it.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Playing in an entirely unique position in every game against a similarly skilled opponent surely introduces the possibility of chance intervening and giving your opponent the victory.  I imagine for someone that's dedicated their carreer to the game having to succumb to the unknown uncontrollable element of chance, it would have to be pretty stressful.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I imagine it on a similar vein to top class poker players who for all their control in the game can't escape the occasional big loss by what is essentially luck.  I believe that's why Fischer wanted the opponent to have at least 2 wins over him in the 1975 championship.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I used to know a guy that was very, very intelligent and a poker player, and he had great trouble dealing with hands he lost, despite the fact that losing occasionally is inevetable. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1480" LastActivityDate="2013-07-12T11:40:46.947" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2558" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2559" CreationDate="2013-07-12T19:22:09.250" Score="8" ViewCount="4781" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am look for an aggressive response to the closed sicilian (1. e4 c5 2. Nc3 ...) in which black has strong attacking and tactical chances against white. Most of the variations I have seen result in black playing semi-positional plans on the queenside and center while white pummels black's king on the kingside.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you in advance!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1491" LastActivityDate="2013-07-12T20:00:40.523" Title="An Aggressive Response (for black) against the closed sicilian?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2559" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2558" CreationDate="2013-07-12T20:00:40.523" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's difficult to recommend an tactical line against the Closed Sicilian as White is attempting to avoid this sort play by keeping the center relatively closed/semi-open. I wouldn't characterize the play as Black playing purely positionally on the queenside and White &quot;pummeling&quot; black on the kingside - there are a variety of plans for both sides in the resulting middlegames. Black's expansion on one side of the board can be just as effective if not more so than White's attack on the king. An aggressive approach isn't limited to tactical play. I can recommend an approach that may make this concept more evident.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Against &lt;code&gt;1. e4 c5 2. Nc3&lt;/code&gt;, I have played &lt;code&gt;2...a6&lt;/code&gt; in the past. Black's idea is quite simple - as he knows he's going to be playing on the queenside anyway, he decides to expand there before developing any of his kingside pieces. He usually follows up with moves like b5, Bb7, e6, and d5. This is certainly an aggressive reply to the Closed Sicilian, and can be defined as a positional one as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1382" LastActivityDate="2013-07-12T20:00:40.523" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2560" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2561" CreationDate="2013-07-12T22:45:29.940" Score="6" ViewCount="472" Body="&lt;p&gt;Which was the game where Marshall, I think that with Black, made a spectacular Queen sac in g3 (White pawns on f2, g2, and h2, King in g1).  The Black Queen could be taken with the f and h pawns and also with a third piece, and all variants led to different checkmate themes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I believe that the audience started throwing gold coins after Qg3 was made.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;UPDATE&lt;/strong&gt;: I changed Murphy's mentions in the original question to mention Marshall instead, as Marshall was the player who actually did the Queen sac. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="159" LastEditorUserId="159" LastEditDate="2013-07-16T16:40:28.423" LastActivityDate="2013-07-31T20:53:28.260" Title="Which was that Marshall's game with that spectacular Queen sac?" Tags="&lt;history&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2561" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2560" CreationDate="2013-07-12T23:21:57.370" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe it was Levitsky vs Marshall&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. d4 e6 2. e4 d5 3. Nc3 c5 4. Nf3 Nc6 5. exd5 exd5 6. Be2 Nf6 7. O-O Be7 8. Bg5 O-O 9. dxc5 Be6 10. Nd4 Bxc5 11. Nxe6 fxe6 12. Bg4 Qd6 13. Bh3 Rae8 14. Qd2 Bb4 15. Bxf6 Rxf6 16. Rad1 Qc5 17. Qe2 Bxc3 18. bxc3 Qxc3 19. Rxd5 Nd4 20. Qh5 Ref8 21. Re5 Rh6 22. Qg5 Rxh3 23. Rc5 Qg3   (23... Qg3 24.Qxg3 Ne2+ 25.Kh1 Nxg3+ 26.Kg1 Nxf1 27.gxh3 Nd2)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2013-07-13T13:36:20.897" LastActivityDate="2013-07-13T13:36:20.897" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2562" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1709" CreationDate="2013-07-13T13:28:19.573" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The London system is a system for White where the dark squared bishop is brought out early to f4 after d2-d4.  There are several ways in which it can appear:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. Bf4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. d4 Nf6 2. Nf3 g6 3. Bf4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. d4 Nf6 2. Nf3 e6 3. Bf4 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This means it is very hard to avoid meeting the London system after White starts with 1.d4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The question was for a solid and aggressive option for Black after answering d4 with Nf6.  One such system is to play it &lt;strong&gt;the King's Indian way&lt;/strong&gt;.  It is solid in the way that your King is safely tucked away early and it is aggressive as it keeps the options of both c7-c5 and e7-e5 to attack White's centre.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This way is recommended by Boris Avrukh in the new &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1907982124&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Beating 1.d4 Sidelines&lt;/a&gt;.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One of Avrukh's lines goes:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. d4 Nf6 2. Nf3 g6 3. Bf4 Bg7 4. e3 O-O 5. h3 d6 6. c3 c5 7. Nbd2 Nc6 8. Bc4 cxd4 9. exd4 e5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is one of the more aggressive variations and entails a pawn sacrifice.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not all variations are this exciting, but in general Black's plan is either to push through e7-e5, often with the help of Qe8, or to play c7-c5 followed by b7-b6 to find a good square for Bc8 on b7, always attacking d4 and White's centre.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some additional ideas:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If White plays an early c2-c4 then c7-c5 (and often Qb6) to attack the weaknesses on the dark squares on the Queen side is often good.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If White plays c3-d4-e3 and sticks his light squared bishop on d3, then the e7-e5 break grows in strength.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If White avoids an early h2-h3 then Nh5 followed by h6 and g5 to catch the bishop is often worth it, despite the weakening of the King side.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1493" LastEditorUserId="1493" LastEditDate="2013-07-13T13:35:05.180" LastActivityDate="2013-07-13T13:35:05.180" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2563" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2537" CreationDate="2013-07-13T19:54:46.103" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is probably part of &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.onlinechesslessons.net/shop/intel-grand-prix-series-1994-1995/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this collection&lt;/a&gt;, which has the footage available from the 1994-1995 season.  It costs money though...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1493" LastActivityDate="2013-07-13T19:54:46.103" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2565" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2567" CreationDate="2013-07-15T18:15:59.977" Score="2" ViewCount="909" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a beginner programmer with some experience in HTML, PHP, and Java. I would like to upload a chessboard onto my website, and I have used the following links to help me: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chess.geniusprophecy.com/chess-viewer.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://chess.geniusprophecy.com/chess-viewer.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chesstuff.blogspot.com/2008/11/chess-viewer-deluxe.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://chesstuff.blogspot.com/2008/11/chess-viewer-deluxe.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I am getting stuck in placing the code (in steps 2. and 3. of the second link) in my source code. For example, what lines should I change and manipulate in &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&amp;lt;APPLET archive=&quot;Viewer-Deluxe.jar&quot; code=&quot;ChessBoard.class&quot;&#xA;codebase=&quot;/bin&quot; width=&quot;631&quot; height=&quot;560&quot; mayscript=&quot;true&quot;&amp;gt;&#xA;&amp;lt;PARAM name=PgnGameFile value=&quot;/games/Samples.Pgn&quot;&amp;gt;&#xA;&amp;lt;PARAM name=LightSquares value=F3DCC2&amp;gt;&#xA;&amp;lt;PARAM name=DarkSquares value=DDA37B&amp;gt;&#xA;&amp;lt;PARAM name=Background value=CCCCCC&amp;gt;&#xA;&amp;lt;PARAM name=ImagesFolder value=images&amp;gt;&#xA;&amp;lt;PARAM name=PuzzleMode value=&quot;off&quot;&amp;gt;&#xA;Your browser is completely ignoring the &amp;amp;lt;APPLET&amp;amp;gt; tag!&#xA;&amp;lt;/APPLET&amp;gt;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in order for my code to work?&#xA;I've tried modifying the value=&quot;&quot; line many many times and I'm frustrated because nothing seems to be working. I've saved my files in the right directory, subdirectory, etc. but I keep getting the error&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;java.io.FileNotFoundException&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/PoY1j.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Screenshot of step at which I am stuck&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1478" LastEditorDisplayName="user1478" LastEditDate="2013-09-05T03:25:31.263" LastActivityDate="2013-09-05T03:25:31.263" Title="Uploading chessboard to website" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;software&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2566" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2565" CreationDate="2013-07-15T19:35:08.557" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not too familiar with the Java applets that you're looking at, but I recommend that you use JavaScript for this sort of job. This &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/bmarini/jchess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;GitHub repository&lt;/a&gt; can be used to display and play through your own games (it supports PGN and FEN).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are many other libraries out there - it's easy for you to change the design of the board and pieces to suit your site's style. You also might want to ask this question on StackOverflow as you might find some more technical advice there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1382" LastActivityDate="2013-07-15T19:35:08.557" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2567" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2565" CreationDate="2013-07-15T22:13:50.140" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your issue is likely because you're running Windows instead of *nix.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&amp;lt;PARAM name=PgnGameFile value=&quot;/games/Samples.Pgn&quot;&amp;gt;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;/games/Samples.Pgn&lt;/code&gt; is a unixy way to specify a path.  If you're on Windows, try the similar:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;c:\games\Samples.pgn&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Be sure you get the spelling and capitalization &lt;em&gt;exactly&lt;/em&gt; right.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit #1&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to the feedback below, there's now a malformed URL exception.  So the value needs to be a URL, not a file name.  That's a little different - the unix-like path is correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, try &lt;code&gt;games/Samples.pgn&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note there is no leading &lt;code&gt;/&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Make sure the capitalization is &lt;em&gt;exactly&lt;/em&gt; right.  This assumes that there's a folder under your web root called &lt;code&gt;games&lt;/code&gt; and that your web server has access to it.  The original URL, &lt;code&gt;/games/Samples.Pgn&lt;/code&gt;, would likely require a folder called &lt;code&gt;games&lt;/code&gt; to be hanging off the root of the hard drive and most web servers don't have access to that folder.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2013-07-15T23:39:13.590" LastActivityDate="2013-07-15T23:39:13.590" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2568" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2571" CreationDate="2013-07-16T09:02:16.720" Score="2" ViewCount="196" Body="&lt;p&gt;When played &lt;strong&gt;C00 French:KIA 2. d3 d5&lt;/strong&gt;, I choose to move my pawn &lt;code&gt;8. ... b4&lt;/code&gt; to reply &lt;code&gt;8. Bd2&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After that, '&lt;em&gt;the battle at early game is held&lt;/em&gt;' with &lt;code&gt;9. a3 bxa3 10. Nxa3 Bxa3 11. Rxa3&lt;/code&gt; and at the end of game, I forced to resign in game.. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I feel that &lt;code&gt;8. ... b4&lt;/code&gt; is my first bad move because it enabled 'battle' at developing phase when I actually not ready for that. What should the right move to reply &lt;code&gt;8. Bd2&lt;/code&gt; in this case??&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e6 2. d3 Nc6 3. d4 a6 4. Be2 d5 5. e5 Nge7 6. c3 Ng6 7. g3 b5 8. Bd2 b4&#xA;(8... b4 9. a3 bxa3 10. Nxa3 Bxa3 11. Rxa3 )&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Best Regard, &lt;br&gt;&#xA;Ahmad&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1315" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2013-07-16T11:30:14.607" LastActivityDate="2013-07-17T06:18:14.043" Title="playing C00 French:KIA `2. d3 d5`" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;french-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2569" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2570" CreationDate="2013-07-16T18:42:51.207" Score="9" ViewCount="4223" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't play Chess960, or Fischer Chess as it is also known. I've seen a lecture or two about it, but I was never interested.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Last week I was a bit bored so I decided to participate in a tournament on chess.com. By mistake I joined a Chess960 tournament, but didn't want to resign. It's an online game so I wanted to have some fun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm unrated in Chesss960 because I never play it. I played against players rated 1400+ and they beat me. I tried to apply the normal chess principles but it did ‘t work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is one Chess960 position that I’ve mulled over.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;rnnkbqrb/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNNKBQRB w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, I've come to the conclusion that the best opening move, if you're white, is “g3” or “g4,” so the bishop and the queen can move,  along with the rook later.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think the knights are not as important and there's no need to develop them so quickly because the bishops are too strong. You're never gonna be able to control the center of board, especially if the opponent decides to play with the queen after 1... g3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The knight on b1 is useless and the rook on a1 is in constant danger, and I don't know how to save it. I can't waste time developing the knights in order to bring the rook to a better place. By then the opponent will control the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Castling on the king side is a mistake. That's if you have time to castle. This game is very aggressive and maybe the best way is to keep attacking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All that is what I think about the game. Maybe I’m wrong since I don't like it and I’m not used to it. I don't know any openings. I try to analyze each position, and the next thing know, I'm checkmated. I try to develop into a familiar position, but the bishops and the queen are not letting me take a breath!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The openings I read about are easy on paper but when you play the game it's very different, or maybe my opponents are too aggressive. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can someone could tell me some of the best practices and openings are in Chess960 for a player who plays regular chess? I don't need to be a pro at it, I just want to play for fun!  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1105" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-05-30T15:44:47.180" LastActivityDate="2020-05-30T15:47:18.370" Title="What are the best scoring openings in Chess960?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;chess960&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2570" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2569" CreationDate="2013-07-17T01:46:04.623" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have found the trickiest part about playing 960 is the opening. So many possibilities! But, since the major pieces are random for every game it is unlikely you'll come across the same setup frequently enough to recognize some opening. So I say ditch trying to create one and stick with tried and true chess opening principles: Control the center, try not to move the same piece twice, limit king exposure. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After playing more games you'll come to find the endgame is familiar which shouldn't be too surprising - the board is still 8x8 after all. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1501" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-05-30T15:47:18.370" LastActivityDate="2020-05-30T15:47:18.370" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2571" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2568" CreationDate="2013-07-17T03:16:43.287" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Stockfish offers the variation below.  The Knight goes to the rim so it can be repositioned to &lt;code&gt;c4&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;    1. e4 e6 2. d3 Nc6 3. d4 a6 4. Be2 d5 5. e5 Nge7 6. c3 Ng6 7. g3 b5 8. Bd2 b4 &#xA;    (8... Na5 9.h4 c5 10.Nf3 cxd4 11.cxd4 Nc4)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;with an equal game.  Look how nicely the Black Knight is perched on c4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stockfish doesn't think &lt;code&gt;8... b4&lt;/code&gt; is a particularly bad move, by the way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;    1. e4 e6 2. d3 Nc6 3. d4 a6 4. Be2 d5 5. e5 Nge7 6. c3 Ng6 7. g3 b5 8. Bd2 b4 &#xA;    9.f4 bxc3 10.Nxc3 Rb8 11.Nf3 Nge7 12.Bd3 Rxb2 13.Na4 Rb8 14.O-O Bd7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;again, with a roughly equal game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2013-07-17T03:16:43.287" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2572" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2574" CreationDate="2013-07-17T03:49:39.983" Score="1" ViewCount="503" Body="&lt;p&gt;As my friend said a moment ago, the Closed Game type is bad practice for White because it brings White often to draw rather than win. &#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I want to get a better chance of winning, I should choose Open Game but be careful about counterattack.  However, there seem to be openings which are categorized in the middle [between Open game and Closed game].&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am annoyed a bit. But when I checked with Shredder, it seems rather true.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it true??&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1315" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2013-07-17T17:37:43.250" LastActivityDate="2015-07-08T19:59:38.843" Title="Closed Game effect for White" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2573" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2568" CreationDate="2013-07-17T06:18:14.043" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm answering without an engine to back me up, but I do have some knowledge of French positions and can answer on that account:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The move b5-b4 is not necessarily a bad move.  What Black always should worry about in the French is placing all his pawns on white squares and then exchanging his dark squared bishop.  It is a common theme in the Winawer variation of the French.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here it is Bxa3 which is the most strategically dubious move.  In the French, do not exchange this bishop unless you get something for it. Look at your remaining bishop, all closed in by the pawns.  Your bishop at f8 was stronger than the white knight at a3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Besides, the move bxa3 is not so strong either. It opens the a-file for Ra1 and the principle for pawn exchanges is to capture towards the center, not away for it. That put aside, Bxa3 is strategically much worse as you give up the fight on the dark squares and your bishop pair for a knight in the rim.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1493" LastActivityDate="2013-07-17T06:18:14.043" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2574" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2572" CreationDate="2013-07-17T11:54:21.760" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Closed games (1.d4) and open games (1.e4) perform equally well at high levels.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is usually recommended that less experienced players (say, under 2000 FIDE) play open games to learn, since tactics show up more often in them, and tactics is the most important aspect of the game to become fluent in.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2013-07-17T11:54:21.760" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2575" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2569" CreationDate="2013-07-18T01:25:53.447" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, it is hard to say, what I should play, because the moves are depending to 90% on the moves from the opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would play &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt; with &lt;code&gt;Nc3&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;Nd3&lt;/code&gt;. From there, the knights are looking over the complete centre, which is very convenient. Maybe also &lt;code&gt;f4&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;g3&lt;/code&gt; for activating the bishop and afterwards &lt;code&gt;Bf2&lt;/code&gt; to cover the pawn on &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt;. In the beginning, I would stay in the middle with the king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;B2&lt;/code&gt; may be a potential weak point.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1506" LastActivityDate="2013-07-18T01:25:53.447" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2576" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2313" CreationDate="2013-07-18T15:44:52.407" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can technically still use XBoard, but you will need to install X11 from MacPorts, since IIRC Apple no longer ships it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Julien Marcel has a collection of &lt;a href=&quot;http://julien.marcel.free.fr/macchess/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;well-compiled OS X chess engines&lt;/a&gt; (which do &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; require emulation).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for not having a ChessBase client, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.hiarcs.com/mac-chess-explorer.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;HIARCS Chess Explorer&lt;/a&gt; does fine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(FWIW, there &lt;em&gt;is&lt;/em&gt; a port of XBoard to Cocoa - currently named OSXBoard - but it seems to have stalled.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1508" LastEditorUserId="1508" LastEditDate="2020-07-01T19:06:11.060" LastActivityDate="2020-07-01T19:06:11.060" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2577" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-07-18T17:46:45.017" Score="6" ViewCount="270" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there a general guideline for how to parlay a lead in development and a slight positional advantage into a definitive win? I'm playing a game now online, and I'm stuck for a way to keep and exploit the upper hand. I get stuck like this a lot, and I figure it must be for lack of principles or tactical vision.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1509" LastActivityDate="2013-07-20T15:11:34.847" Title="At a strategic impasse" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2578" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2577" CreationDate="2013-07-18T18:01:16.973" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Converting advantages such as a lead in development or a better position are practices that operate on a higher level (conceptually, at least) than tactics. The most common forms of tactics are those than result in the gain of material or a mating net, much more tangible results than say a weak square or an initiative. Pure calculation and a sharp tactical sense are important aspects of chess, but for the majority of the game they will be largely separate from positional play. Therefore, I would say that this is more supportive of your statement that it is a lack of understanding of principles rather than a weak tactical vision.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's address the specific examples that you outlined in your question. First, what does a lead in development entail? There is one main principle that you can utilize - &lt;strong&gt;initiative&lt;/strong&gt;. The initiative is dictating the flow of the game. You can force your opponent to respond to your moves, allowing you to execute whatever plan you want while placing his own goals on hold. In such, it is common for positions where one side has the initiative for that player to launch an attack, given that the opponent is not adequately prepared.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you can elaborate on the &quot;slight positional advantage&quot; (Minor piece difference? Pawn structure [backwards, isolated, doubled, hanging, passed]? Open files? Weak squares? Space? etc.) that you mentioned in the question, I can recommend other plans that are associated with the appropriate imbalances.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1382" LastActivityDate="2013-07-18T18:01:16.973" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2579" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1578" CreationDate="2013-07-19T00:45:03.237" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;I do not agree with you describing Fischer as crazy, I'll do my best to explain it. Someone is called crazy, when he can no longer control his thoughts or actions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Simply because Fischer attacked the Americans politics doesn't mean he's crazy, maybe he has different political opinion than yours and you just have to accept it. Well if anyone who doesn't like the american politics and the Israelis is called crazy, then more than 60% of the population will be crazy, since Russia, China, pretty much all Africa, the Arabic world and many other countries don't agree with the Americans.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is Julian Assange or Edward Snowden or others crazy? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even Bin Laden wasn't crazy. A murderer? No doubt about it. A hater? of course. A man with no conscience? True. But he wasn't crazy because he calculated his every move, he had goals, he knew his enemies, and he knew what he was doing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Someone who calculates his moves is probably not crazy, might be evil because he uses his intelligence for the wrong purposes, but not crazy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not gonna discuss the right and the wrong, everyone judges it from his own perspective, i think there's no right and no wrong in politics, politics is always dirty, the dirtiest hands usually wins. Ask the CIA, or any intelligence agency around the world, all are ready to do the bad actions for what they think is the greater good.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So what is crazy? &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Forbes_Nash,_Jr.&quot;&gt;John Nash&lt;/a&gt; was definitely crazy, at some point in his life, a schizophrenic who won Nobel prize in economics. See John lost it, he couldn't control his thoughts, Fischer was just against the american politics there's nothing wrong with that. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let me ask you a question, is Kasparov crazy? He's against the Russian politics and been arrested for that reason, just like Fischer. so if you want to call Fischer crazy, you should do the same with Kasparov.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To answer the initial question, there's no doubt that someone who's intelligent might be crazy, he overthink stuff and might become a conspiracy theorist. What you define as crazy is normal for him, or other people who think the same way, what's normal for the spider is chaos for the fly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Mutanabbi&quot;&gt;Al Mutanabbi&lt;/a&gt; once said&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ذو العقل يشقى فى النعيم بعقله . . وأخو الجهالة فى الشقاوة ينعم&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;That with intellect suffers in bliss with his mind&#xA;And the ignorant in misery lives blissfully&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So what he's trying to say is simple, ignorance is a bliss.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1105" LastEditorUserId="1105" LastEditDate="2013-07-19T18:21:43.423" LastActivityDate="2013-07-19T18:21:43.423" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2580" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1970" CreationDate="2013-07-19T02:24:58.747" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think everyone is missing a much quicker mate.  When checking the position with Houdini 3, black actually has mate in 3 on move 13.  Instead of Bf1+, black should've played Bf2, and it contines with 14. d3  bf1+ 15. Bh6  Rxh6#.  So, in a unusual answer to your question, maybe certain engines didn't see your move right away, but, in the case of Houdini 3, it found a much quicker mate.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1510" LastActivityDate="2013-07-19T02:24:58.747" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2581" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2577" CreationDate="2013-07-19T20:04:08.970" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Several, distinct kinds of advantage will arise during chess play.  These include among others&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;a lead in development and/or the benefit of a tempo,&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;heavier influence over &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/q/251/315&quot;&gt;the center&lt;/a&gt; or over &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/q/1025/315&quot;&gt;a key square,&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;greater space and/or room to maneuver,&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the coordination of pieces,&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/q/940/315&quot;&gt;sounder&lt;/a&gt; pawn &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/q/1916/315&quot;&gt;structure,&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/q/588/315&quot;&gt;a better bishop,&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;protection and/or overprotection,&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;a safer king,&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/q/474/315&quot;&gt;the control of an open file,&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;an advanced knight,&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;an extra pawn,&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/q/2284/315&quot;&gt;a passed pawn,&lt;/a&gt; and&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;an extra piece or the exchange of a minor piece for a rook.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you know, a player values such advantages insofar as he can convert them into either (a) a mating attack or (b) a won endgame.  However, your question is:  &lt;em&gt;how does a player convert?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No one answer exists, of course, but there are indeed principles one can bring to bear.  Note the order in which I have listed the several advantages.  Roughly, the advantages toward the top of the list will tend to arise earlier in the game and/or to last the shortest.  Likewise roughly, the advantages toward the bottom of the list will tend to arise later in the game and/or to last the longest.  A player would like to convert any advantage directly to a mating attack or a won endgame if he could, but often he cannot convert directly.  What he can do is &lt;em&gt;to convert one advantage to another,&lt;/em&gt; generally (though not always) trading advantages down the list.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, a lead in development might afford you a chance to cramp your opponent's maneuvering, leaving the opponent to free his maneuvering at the expense of pawn structure or of a good bishop.  You might compromise your king's safety to control an open file, and you would probably trade any of these advantages to gain the advantage of an extra piece.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most of the list's advantages can be converted directly to a potential mating attack under the right condition.  Of course, when the condition arises, you can stop trading down the list and press the mate&amp;mdash;which either wins you the game immediately or, one hopes, at least converts to a won endgame.  However, the right condition will arise only in about half of your games.  In the other half, you trade advantage for advantage until the middlegame has run its course, then apply your endgame skill to convert the advantage to a win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But, how should you decide when to trade advantages?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The answer is that one trades advantages when the chance to do so arises and either (i) the advantage to be &lt;em&gt;gained&lt;/em&gt; is stronger and/or more permanent or (ii) the advantage to be &lt;em&gt;lost&lt;/em&gt; is doomed to vanish in any event.  For example, a lead in development and/or the benefit of a tempo is usually doomed to vanish, fast.  You cannot keep it, so you had better trade it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You have not mentioned any specifics of your games, so I cannot tell for sure, but my guess is that you may not be trading your lead in development for another advantage fast enough.  The general rule is this:  develop and bring to bear as many pieces (not pawns) as you can in as few moves as possible; then, &lt;em&gt;without wasting a single turn,&lt;/em&gt; immediately press the attack.  Your opponent must react, and his reaction is likely to present you the chance to seize another advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do not attack until all your available pieces are in the fight, then attack without delay.  When your opponent reacts, seize what you can.  Many exceptions exist, but this is the general idea.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See what you cannot do with such advice.  Good luck.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="315" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2013-07-20T15:11:34.847" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2582" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2555" CreationDate="2013-07-19T20:41:50.997" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It may not hit the point of the post, but I would like to show you, how I like to play against e6. I play &lt;code&gt;Qh5&lt;/code&gt; after &lt;code&gt;Nfd7&lt;/code&gt;, because it is very aggressive and most of the players don't know how to play against it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. e5 Nfd7 5. Qh5 c5 6. Nf3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;cxd4 Nxd4&lt;/code&gt; and now black has to be careful of &lt;code&gt;Nxe6&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You will play &lt;code&gt;Be3&lt;/code&gt;, sometimes &lt;code&gt;Nb5&lt;/code&gt;, often &lt;code&gt;0-0-0&lt;/code&gt; to protect &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt; with your rock.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also try to play &lt;code&gt;Ng5&lt;/code&gt; with the opportunity to &lt;code&gt;Qxf7&lt;/code&gt;. After &lt;code&gt;g6&lt;/code&gt; you play &lt;code&gt;Qf3&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Nxe5 variety&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. e5 Nfd7 5. Qh5 c5 6. Nf3 cxd4 7. Nxd4 g6 8. Qg5 Qxg5 9. Bxg5 Nxe5 10. Bf6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Qb6 variety&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. e5 Nfd7 5. Qh5 c5 6. Nf3 cxd4 7. Nxd4 Qb6 8. Ndb5 Nc6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1506" LastEditorUserId="1506" LastEditDate="2013-07-22T07:50:03.760" LastActivityDate="2013-07-22T07:50:03.760" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2583" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2569" CreationDate="2013-07-20T05:41:10.170" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, as others have already pointed out, there are 960 different starting positions in chess 960. Normally when you play a 960 tournament on chess.com it will be the same opening in the entire tournament. However, it is important to realize that after this tournament if you choose to play 960 again you might never have this opening position ever again. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That put aside I will put in my thoughts on the exact opening position you have played. Here it makes sense to play g2-g4 to open for the already fianchettoed Bh1. Here, at some point you will have to move the g pawn at some point, otherwise your bishop will never get into the game. Probably an early f2-f4 as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1493" LastActivityDate="2013-07-20T05:41:10.170" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2584" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2604" CreationDate="2013-07-20T14:39:16.873" Score="7" ViewCount="2046" Body="&lt;p&gt;I wanted to see if a computer can beat the same computer, on the same machine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first match is on chess.com, I played vs computer, I open two tabs, the first one is computer (white) vs me (black) and in the second tab, I play as white vs computer (black).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I played both games at the same time, the computer level is expert, rating 2000+. I waited for the computer in the first tab to make his move as white, I made the same move as white in the second tab, waited for black to make his move, made the same move in the first tab. It was a draw as you might expect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA; 1. a3 d5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 Nf6 4. e3 Bg4 5. Bb5 e6 6. Bxc6+ bxc6 7. h3 Bxf3 8. Qxf3 Be7 9. Nc3 c5 10. O-O Bd6 11. dxc5 Bxc5 12. e4 Nxe4 13. Nxe4 dxe4 14. Qxe4 O-O 15. Bf4 Qe7 16. Rad1 Rae8 17. Rfe1 Rb8 18. b4 Bd6 19. Qe3 Rfd8 20. Bxd6 cxd6 21. c4 Qc7 22. Rc1 Rbc8 23. Rf1 Kh8 24. Qd2 Qd7 25. c5 d5 26. Rfe1 d4 27. Qg5 Qa4 28. Ra1 d3 29. Qf4 Rxc5 30. Qxf7 Rc3 31. Qe7 Re8 32. Qd6 Qb3 33. Qd7 Rf8 34. Qd6 Kg8 35. Re4 Rc2 36. Rf4 Rxf4 37. Qxf4 Qc4 38. Qb8+ Qc8 39. Qd6 Rc1+ 40. Rxc1 Qxc1+ 41. Kh2 d2 42. Qxe6+ Kf8 43. Qf5+ Ke7 44. Qe5+ Kd8 45. Qd5+ Kc7 46. Qe5+ Kb6 47. Qe6+ Kc7 48. Qe5+ Kd8 49. Qd6+ Kc8 50. Qe6+ Kb7 51. Qd5+ Kc7 52. Qe5+ &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I wasn't satisfied with the first result, I have Shredder on my PC, so I redid the test, opened Shredder twice, played against full strength Shredder and mimic the moves, it was a draw too. I did the test at the highest level to eliminate blunders as much as possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. d4 {0s} Nf6 {+0.06/5 0s} 2. Nf3 {28s} d5 {+0.12/13 0s} &#xA;3. Bf4 {24s} Bf5 {+0.18/12 0s} 4. e3 {31s} e6 {+0.18/12 1s} &#xA;5. Bd3 {34s} Bxd3 {+0.10/12 0s} 6. Qxd3 {12s} Bd6 {+0.11/12 &#xA;0s} 7. Nbd2 {37s (O-O)} O-O {+0.04/9 1s} 8. O-O {24:11m} &#xA;Bxf4 {0.00/17 1s} 9. exf4 {22s} Qd6 {+0.08/12 0s} 10. f5 &#xA;{28s} exf5 {0.00/13 0s} 11. Qxf5 {13s} Nc6 {+0.04/13 0s} &#xA;12. Rfe1 {33s} Rfe8 {0.00/13 0s} 13. c3 {21s} Ne7 {+0.07/12 &#xA;0s} 14. Qe5 {44s (Qh3)} Qb6 {-0.04/10 1s} 15. Rab1 {1:15m &#xA;(b3)} Ng6 {-0.11/10 2s} 16. Qg3 {27s} Rac8 {-0.08/12 0s} &#xA;17. Ne5 {36s (Qh3)} Re6 {-0.07/9 1s} 18. Nxg6 {18s} hxg6 &#xA;{-0.06/14 0s} 19. Re5 {16s} Rce8 {-0.17/14 0s} 20. Rxe6 &#xA;{31s} Rxe6 {-0.21/15 0s} 21. Qd3 {16s} Qd6 {-0.11/14 0s} &#xA;22. Nf3 {1:04m} Qf4 {-0.06/14 0s} 23. Re1 {45s} Rxe1+ &#xA;{-0.14/14 0s} 24. Nxe1 {12s} Qc1 {-0.04/14 0s} 25. Qe2 &#xA;{32s} g5 {0.00/14 0s} 26. h3 {16s} Ne4 {+0.02/14 0s} 27. g4 &#xA;{28s} c5 {+0.05/15 0s} 28. dxc5 {1:00m} Nxc5 {+0.09/12 1s} &#xA;29. Qe8+ {17s} Kh7 {+0.01/16 0s} 30. Kg2 {44s} Qb1 &#xA;{+0.01/16 0s} 31. Nf3 {37s} f6 {+0.01/16 0s} 32. b4 {21s} &#xA;Nd3 {0.00/17 0s} 33. Qh5+ {1:01m} Kg8 {0.00/20 0s} 34. Qe8+ &#xA;{23s} Kh7 {0.00/19 0s} 35. Qh5+ {52s} Kg8 {0.00/20 0s} &#xA;36. Qe8+ {6s} Kh7 {0.00/99 0s} 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wasn't happy with that result either so I redid the test using shredder and it made the same exact moves!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This question is not about &quot;&lt;em&gt;how chess engines think&lt;/em&gt;&quot;, that topic is discussed many times on this site. I did my experiment because I wanted to see if the computer can beat itself on the same machine. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My HP laptop is core I5, 8GB ram ddr3 running Windows 7 64 bit. But I did the test on Chess.com servers as well and I still got the same results, I don't know what servers they use.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I used to have deep blue and it had an option where the engine can play against itself, and one side used to win, i can't find this option on shredder, but it seems that the computer won't be able to beat itself if you mimic its moves, in other words, when you explicitly tell deep blue to play vs deep blue,  the engine starts making blunders so you can see one side winning, but if you do what i did, mimic its own moves in another window, it will be a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not going to analyze the games but some stuff were interesting to me:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;In the first match on chess.com, any newbie would understand that you've got to do anything you can to promote the pawn on &lt;code&gt;d2&lt;/code&gt;, exchange queens, promote the pawn and finish off the game.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;In both games, black seemed more aggressive but unable to win.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know that in computer vs computer competitions, they use super computers, but is there any chance for the computer to beat itself on the same machine?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I did the test on Shredder 3 times and it did the same moves! so i think they do&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;if d4&#xA;do Nf6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which is why I'm disappointed, I expect the almighty shredder to use some AI, at least trying different openings, i didn't use any opening database, but one would expect shredder to come packed with some of the basic openings, neither was chess.com engine able to beat itself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So is it possible to expect different results from computer vs same computer on the same machine?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1105" LastEditorUserId="1105" LastEditDate="2013-07-23T12:08:16.373" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T15:23:08.833" Title="Is it possible to expect different results from computer vs same computer on the same machine?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;engines&gt;&lt;software&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2585" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="588" CreationDate="2013-07-20T14:57:03.620" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Several useful answers were given here last year, answers which illuminate the exceptions to the rule so well that&amp;mdash;when the answers are read together&amp;mdash;they seem almost to leave the rule itself in shadow.  Let me cast my flickering light therefore directly upon the rule.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The good and the bad bishop&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The technical adjectives &quot;good&quot; and &quot;bad&quot; have much to do with the worth of a bishop.  A good bishop very often wins a game of chess.  Indeed, unless one has a material lead of two pawns or better, has a passed pawn, or can push or trade pawns to make a bad bishop better, to win an endgame with the bad bishop can be hard.  On my own, limited experience, I should go further:  I would say that to win with the bad bishop, without a strong counter-advantage to compensate so great a disadvantage, were seldom possible absent a gross enemy blunder.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Good against bad bishops in the endgame&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Endgames that feature opposing bishops on squares of the same color are quite common in chess, as you undoubtedly know.  As soon as such an endgame seems probable, one might consider pushing as many of one's pawns as possible, on both flanks, as fast as possible, to squares of the color the bishops cannot reach.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In class-D and class-C play, to have pushed pawns in so simple, innocuous-seeming a manner often wins the game 20 or so moves later; insofar as opponents at this level, not grasping the principle, have no idea why you would spend valuable late-middlegame time to push seemingly random pawns.  One, quiet attraction of winning a game in this manner is that it leaves one's opponent with little notion as to why he has lost.  (Indeed, I suspect that it is in large measure because of the mysterious bad-bishop principle that class-D players tend to dislike endgames, why some will launch unsound attacks just to avoid endgames.  They repeatedly lose endgames for no visible reason and don't know why.  All endgame maneuvering, all endgame calculation seems mysteriously futile to them.  The unseen reason, of course, is that they have lost, or at best drawn, before the endgame ever began by letting opponents choose &lt;em&gt;during the middlegame&lt;/em&gt; the color of the squares on which endgame pawns must stand.  They think you and your bishop cleverly nimble, hardly realizing how easy it is to be nimble when one's bishop is good.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Other endgames involving bishops&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Endgames that feature opposing bishops on squares of different colors admittedly work on another principle, though such games are significantly less common in practical play.  In bishop-against-knight endgames, which are common enough, however, the square-color principle again emerges, though in a less pure form.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Why the good bishop is good&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The good bishop is good for three principal reasons:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;because it guards and attacks squares its pawns do not cover;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;because it is nimble; and&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;because its pawns can blockade, and thus fix, &lt;em&gt;opposing pawns on bad squares.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The bad bishop does possess the counter-advantage that it and its pawns can guard one another but, except maybe when the pawn is a rook pawn, such a counter-advantage seldom compensates.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Definitions and remarks&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Others have already answered your question about definitions well enough, so here I will add only that I have read the definition as given both with and without reference specifically to central pawns.  When speaking of the opening, I should call a bishop technically bad when central pawns stood on squares of its color, without much reference to flank pawns, as others have noted.  However, from the early middlegame, my view should gradually broaden toward the flanks, eventually taking all pawns into account of the bad bishop.  The two definitions are not unrelated, of course, for the technically bad bishop of the opening is more likely to become the dispositively bad bishop of the endgame than is a technically good bishop, unless its owner either has taken steps to improve it or has swapped it off.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Consider establishing a good bishop when you can.  It may win you some games otherwise drawn or lost.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="315" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T19:42:03.790" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T19:42:03.790" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2586" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="588" CreationDate="2013-07-20T15:16:34.417" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The term itself is rather simple. A &quot;Bad Bishop&quot; is one that is on the same color as most/all ( the higher the percentage, the worse the bishop) &lt;strong&gt;and is behind them&lt;/strong&gt;, that is to say, the pawns are preventing it from attacking the enemy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you can get your light-square bishop on the outside of your pawns, it's will no longer be bad, though it may have reduced mobility.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Defensive or not, a bad bishop is bad (the logical end of defensive warfare is surrender - Napoleon) and its bad because it does nothing to limit, or otherwise influence, the actions of the enemy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Never willingly accept a bad bishop unless you get something in return.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="657" LastActivityDate="2013-07-20T15:16:34.417" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2587" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2338" CreationDate="2013-07-20T15:34:23.350" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Algebra is more than simply a branch of mathematics. The central element of it is using symbols  as abstractions, the way the notation uses letters and numbers to represent the squares, as opposed to the systems where the square is more concretely described, as &quot;King Bishop 4&quot; for example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="657" LastActivityDate="2013-07-20T15:34:23.350" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2588" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2082" CreationDate="2013-07-20T18:15:32.033" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;1) any tournament sanctioned by the uscf is rated. For the first 23 (IIRC) games your rating will be provisional, meaning it's calculated using a different formula than normally. After that point the rating will be calculated as usual.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) uscf sanctioned tournaments can run for a week or more, or they can be over in a matter of hours. The most prevalent format seems to be 5games in a weekend, but I used to run a one-day seven-round event (and was asked once to make it 10 rounds in a day).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) aside from the separate events, most clubs run tournaments that have anywhere from 1-4 games in an evening, and continue weekly for several weeks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I guess the short answer to your question is &quot;it depends.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="657" LastActivityDate="2013-07-20T18:15:32.033" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2589" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2431" CreationDate="2013-07-20T18:25:15.963" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;A program called &quot;Bookup&quot; used to let you feed in a pgn file and then let the engines crunch for a couple of days and evaluate every position in the file. I think it's now Chess Openings Wizard, no idea if it can still do that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess Assistant can take a game you feed it and note the &quot;novelty&quot; (first move outside of the normal books) as well as check for blunders on both sides. It used to have some issues with analyzing any variations you might have, sticking only with the main line of the game you fed it. It will also supply some example games of typical lines. Also, if you just walk the game move by move it'll show you the most popular moves from that position, along with the wins/losses from that position in its db.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Those are just from personal experience, I'd expect pretty much any chess engine these days would do something similar.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You might also want to check in with the Chess Analysis Project.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="657" LastActivityDate="2013-07-20T18:25:15.963" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2590" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2592" CreationDate="2013-07-20T19:15:29.970" Score="12" ViewCount="3228" Body="&lt;p&gt;A friend told me its very hard to implement a &lt;strong&gt;bughouse&lt;/strong&gt; chess engine because it requires much more processor power than a regular chess engine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there any bughouse engines out there ? if not, what are the reasons ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1512" LastActivityDate="2020-03-20T19:05:05.013" Title="Are there any bughouse chess engines?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;bughouse&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2591" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2590" CreationDate="2013-07-20T19:28:21.710" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't know of any bughouse engines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Extra complexities:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In addition to playing the standard game...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Extra tactical vision.  The computer now has to envision good moves that either side could execute &lt;em&gt;if only&lt;/em&gt; a certain piece were in-hand.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Drops make the search tree enormous.  There's really no restriction on where pieces may be dropped (pawns? can pawns be dropped?)  That makes the search tree enormous. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Multi-board sacrifices. If the machine were to find a good move &quot;if only I had a [piece] in hand,&quot;, it then has to decide if it is wise to sacrifice on the other board (or even this board) to get that piece.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Tactical clock management.  The bughouse games I played were always on the clock (that is - 5 minute bughouse.)  Tactical clock management is another complexity.  I've seen games won when one side had a clear win on one board, and stopped playing on the other boards when they held the time advantage, to starve the opponents of extra pieces.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2013-07-20T19:28:21.710" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2592" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2590" CreationDate="2013-07-20T22:00:09.667" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are certainly several chess engines, but as a result of the additional complexities referenced by &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/2591/1382&quot;&gt;@TonyEnnis&lt;/a&gt;, these engines are weaker than reasonably strong players. It's extremely difficult to take into account the different scenarios that can arise from two positions as pieces switch from board to board every move. The resulting search tree increases at an exponential rate even greater than that of standard chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The engine that I'm most familiar with is &lt;a href=&quot;http://sjeng.org/indexold.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Sjeng&lt;/a&gt; which claims that it has an ELO of around 2000 on FICS, equivalent to a strong human player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1382" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.193" LastActivityDate="2013-07-20T22:00:09.667" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2593" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2595" CreationDate="2013-07-21T03:15:29.337" Score="3" ViewCount="1056" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe Anand used to play QGA, but it seems like he stopped - presumably after losing several games to Kramnik with it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="618" LastActivityDate="2013-07-24T00:06:39.103" Title="Is there still any top grandmaster who still regularly plays Queen's Gambit Accepted?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;queens-gambit-accepted&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2594" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="35077" CreationDate="2013-07-21T03:19:13.867" Score="6" ViewCount="674" Body="&lt;p&gt;Other major chess database programs allow this, but I am curious if SCID has this &quot;print as repertoire&quot; function. Opening report in SCID creates an ECO table from multiple games, but I'd like to instead use a single game with sub-variations as input.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="618" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-03-01T20:29:24.183" LastActivityDate="2021-05-16T08:21:25.847" Title="Does SCID have a function that allows to print a single game with variations as ECO table?" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;scid&gt;&lt;eco&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2595" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2593" CreationDate="2013-07-21T08:59:20.903" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Of players who have been inside top ten it is Ponomariov who uses this opening the most often. Ivanchuk plays it too, but then again he plays most anything. And Nakamura played it a few times last year.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can do searches for free online at 365chess.com.  Here is an example:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.365chess.com/search_result.php?search=1&amp;amp;p=1&amp;amp;m=4&amp;amp;n=109&amp;amp;order=belo&amp;amp;ms=d4.d5.c4.dxc4&amp;amp;rev=&amp;amp;start=50&quot;&gt;http://www.365chess.com/search_result.php?search=1&amp;amp;p=1&amp;amp;m=4&amp;amp;n=109&amp;amp;order=belo&amp;amp;ms=d4.d5.c4.dxc4&amp;amp;rev=&amp;amp;start=50&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1493" LastActivityDate="2013-07-21T08:59:20.903" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2596" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2605" CreationDate="2013-07-21T09:48:52.603" Score="39" ViewCount="20353" Body="&lt;p&gt;Many people suggest tactical exercises as the best form of study for this purpose but I find that it only attacks the problem from one dimension (not making the strongest in a position). Analyzing my own games I find that I'm much more likely to lose a game by making a dumb blunder rather than missing a winning combination, so solving more chess puzzles doesn't seem very effective at improving that. Any other forms of exercise that could help with this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1513" LastEditorUserId="11202" LastEditDate="2017-04-26T16:50:42.530" LastActivityDate="2020-04-11T19:19:32.393" Title="What is the most effective way of reducing blunders?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;psychology&gt;&lt;best-practice&gt;&lt;blunder&gt;" AnswerCount="14" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="11" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2597" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2596" CreationDate="2013-07-21T13:28:35.420" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;From my own experience, and i'm not a highly rated player or anything like that, the best way to eliminate blunders is not to play aggressive openings, defensive players commit less blunders, they may lose because they don't have the space advantage but they don't make blunders as much as aggressive players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Why do players make blunders usually?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;They start to attack without counting how many defenders are there.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;They exchange pieces trying to open up the game or to counter an&#xA;attack, without counting how many defenders they have.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;They start to attack without securing the king safety.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;They rush into the middle game, without having completed developing&#xA;their pieces.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;They rush into the end game, trying to finish the opponent too early.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;They play complex positions, they don't even understand.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From my experience, the majority of the blunders is simply because the players fail to count the defenders or because they rush to attack. Of course failing to understand your opponent opening will result in blunders but this is usually isn't the main cause with average players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So take your time, develop all the pieces, try to control the pace of the game, space advantage is so important but don't rush it, and keep your game simple, don't play positions you are not familiar with.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1105" LastActivityDate="2013-07-21T13:28:35.420" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2598" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2596" CreationDate="2013-07-21T16:17:59.253" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Personally I have noticed many of my worst blunders seem to come from trying to play on a square I don't control.  Basically I'll get so focused on trying to attack a particular target that I will hang a piece trying to get at it.  If I see myself starting to do that, I'll stare at the square I'm likely to blunder on and tell myself &quot;NO&quot; (not out loud unless I am trying to freak my opponent out...) or imagine a big red X over it.  Seems to help a little.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="935" LastActivityDate="2013-07-21T16:17:59.253" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2599" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2596" CreationDate="2013-07-21T22:33:48.363" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Tactics cover a broad area that doesn't only concern mistakes that your opponents make. The pattern recognition faculties that you improve through tactics also help you realize the blunders that you yourself make. I don't recommend trying to change your style of play at all - I tell my students that at an early level, one of the most important things is to not hang pieces and to take advantage of your opponents' hanging pieces. Thus, before you make your move, specifically ask yourself if you see any potential tactics for your opponent. Likewise, do the same after every single opponent's move. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1382" LastEditorUserId="8300" LastEditDate="2017-03-02T00:47:01.243" LastActivityDate="2017-03-02T00:47:01.243" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2600" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2601" CreationDate="2013-07-22T10:38:00.907" Score="17" ViewCount="1074" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the Dutch Defence, the following gambit isn't very popular anymore.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. d4 f5 2. Nc3 d5 3. e4 dxe4 (3... fxe4 4. Qh5+)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The same position can arise from the Blackmar-Diemer gambit if black plays the rare &lt;code&gt;3... f5&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. e4 dxe4 3. Nc3 f5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Scheerer, on pages 62-68 of his book &lt;em&gt;the Blackmar-Diemer gambit&lt;/em&gt;, analyses &lt;code&gt;4.Bf4&lt;/code&gt; and seems to like white's compensation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the true evaluation of the position?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it's good for white, why isn't the &lt;code&gt;3.e4&lt;/code&gt; gambit against the Dutch Defence more popular?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it's good for black, why isn't &lt;code&gt;3... f5&lt;/code&gt; played more often to counter the Blackmar-Diemer gambit?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1485" LastActivityDate="2020-08-04T22:29:36.227" Title="Position from the Dutch Defence / Blackmar-Diemer gambit" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;dutch-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2601" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2600" CreationDate="2013-07-22T13:58:23.933" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;You raise a very interesting point - you're absolutely correct in saying that &lt;code&gt;3...f5&lt;/code&gt; is not a common response to the Blackmar-Diemer gambit. However, the gambit can be reached in another way where Black doesn't have the option of playing this move:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. Nc3 Nf6 3. e4 dxe4 4. f3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the Dutch, Black can sidestep White by playing this move:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. d4 f5 2. Nc3 Nf6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your question as to why it isn't played more in the Dutch/more against the Blackmar-Diemer is a bit difficult to answer. Aside from the examples above where White or Black can sidestep this line, it can be reached in the main line of the Dutch against &lt;code&gt;2...d5&lt;/code&gt; and the mainline of the Blackmar-Diemer with &lt;code&gt;2. e4&lt;/code&gt;. It should be better for either White or Black, so why don't we see it more often?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my opinion, I think that White has sufficient compensation for the pawn due to the weak e5 square and the possibilities of playing f3, undermining Black's pawn structure. If we go with this assumption, then we're looking at the first scenario in the Dutch Defense. I believe that there are more common replies to &lt;code&gt;1...f5&lt;/code&gt; such as &lt;code&gt;2. g3&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;2. Nf3&lt;/code&gt; which tend to score better than the gambit line outlined in the question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the flip side, I noticed that Black actually scores better with this line in practice, so I'm rather quite torn. I believe you've hit upon something rather original, and I encourage you to do a bit of studying into the lines yourself and arrive at your own conclusion :) maybe you have found a new main line!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1382" LastActivityDate="2013-07-22T13:58:23.933" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2602" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2584" CreationDate="2013-07-22T18:37:53.173" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your question&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;So is it possible to expect different results from computer vs same computer on the same machine?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;may be a bit too complex involving too many variables. Instead consider the simpler question&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Do chess engines produce the same move given the same position and all settings being equal (ply depth, time controls)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Clearly, if the answer to this question is &lt;strong&gt;yes&lt;/strong&gt;, you should never expect a computer to deviate from its choices. From my understanding of how chess engines perform the search, the answer &lt;strong&gt;yes&lt;/strong&gt; to this question is largely dependent on two factors&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) If two moves score identical position evaluations (this happens with probability 0 if scores are real valued) then the way the chess engine resolves tied moves need to be factored in when answering this question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) Largely, the dependency of the chess engine on randomness determines this. Move-ordering when searching the search-tree for a &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.frayn.net/beowulf/theory.html#killer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;chess engine largely determines its playing strength&lt;/a&gt;. Inherently, choosing a move-order that performs well is not an exact science, and so different chess engines perform this differently. There is a general &lt;a href=&quot;http://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Move+Ordering&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;consensus&lt;/a&gt; on what empirically scores the highest, but this is where most chess engines differ. In particular, some chess engines may actually partially randomize the move order, in turn randomizing the actual move that the chess engine may play given everything else being equal. This is not generally a popular technique, but I have actually played a &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.aifactory.co.uk/newsletter/2005_02_treebeard_chess.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;chess engine&lt;/a&gt; that does make different moves given the same position and no time controls. This is most likely due to its reliance on a probabilistic approach and hence dependency on randomness. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="72" LastActivityDate="2013-07-22T18:37:53.173" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2603" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2596" CreationDate="2013-07-23T05:27:35.490" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a human you are &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-serving_bias&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;intrinsically self biased&lt;/a&gt;. This is hypothesized to be an evolutionary adaption and it is impossible to suppress it, or more accurately to think objectively about yourself. Until you are accurately able to gauge and control the degree to which your self-bias affects your own thinking, this will be the primary cause of blunders in your chess games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;How can you be so certain that self-bias is the primary cause of blunders?&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well, let's examine the definition of a blunder more closely:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Especially among amateur and novice players, blunders often occur because of a faulty thought process where they do not consider the opponent's forcing moves. In particular, checks, captures, and threats need to be considered at each move. Neglecting these possibilities leaves a player vulnerable to simple tactical errors.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The fragment&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;blunders often occur because of a faulty thought process where they do not consider the opponent's forcing moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;implies that blunders occur because a lack of diligence on the side of he who blunders. Excluding time-control troubles, there are only a few remaining possible reasons for not considering the best moves of your opponent and most of them deal with the self-bias:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Too focused on attacking to see that your opponent has the stronger attack and you are better served by defending&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Fail to evaluate a tactic to a quiescent position because you feel like you're better than your opponent so it must work out in your favour&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You are several points up in material, you don't have to work any more, your opponent should just keel over and give you your well-earned victory, why must they insist on fighting on?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;How can I overcome this?&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Short answer: you can't. By definition, it's part of you, unless you are born with some weird genetic mutation. Luckily, there are all sorts of ways to &amp;quot;trick&amp;quot; your brain into avoiding a thought process that is controlled by the self-bias. My favorite trick is simplest of all and it comes from an old adage:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Before you judge someone walk a mile in their shoes, that way you are a mile away and you have their shoes :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To make it clear, what I mean is simply look at the game from your opponen'ts perspective, and search for that &amp;quot;killer&amp;quot; move to win the game, but on his side. That way, you can spot it and direct the game away from it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="72" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2017-04-26T17:43:57.717" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2604" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2584" CreationDate="2013-07-23T07:59:29.800" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;First a clarification:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You write:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;in other words, when you explicitly tell deep blue to play vs deep blue, the engine starts making blunders so you can see one side winning, but if you do what i did, mimic its own moves in another window, it will be a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is not so.  Mimicking the moves and having it explicitly play itself will not make (much of) a difference.  The engines are not programmed so that if they know they play themselves they will play less accurately.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Determinism&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/users/72/ldog&quot;&gt;ldog&lt;/a&gt; wrote in his reply, there are several questions baked into one here.  One is if you recreate the entire scenario exactly, will a computer make the same moves?  If &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Determinism&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;determinism&lt;/a&gt; holds true the answer will be yes,  because even randomness is not really random (just something we cannot predict up front because of lacking understanding).  Well, I will leave the philosophical discussion aside, because there are many factors that will make recreating the exact same scenario impossible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Randomness&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most engines have opening books.  In your case, maybe Shredder only has one line.  Opening books are hard coded if-else code.  The reason for this is that computers are not strong enough to analyze past human knowledge of the opening yet, so it makes sense to just add this knowledge in a more direct way.  Most engines now do have a big book though.  Here is where randomness comes into play.  When it randomly chooses to play 1.e4 instead of 1.d4 it makes for a completely new game.  Most commercial engines (Houdini, Fritz) and many free engines (Stockfish) also have settings for how random the book is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another randomness aspect is thinking while the opponent is thinking.  Most newer engines do this.  This means that even if you set it to a specific level it will also think on your time.  On an engine like this, if you tried to mimic the moves, you might find that it suddenly plays differently because you are not able to play the moves in exactly the same number of milliseconds (and by that time the engine might just reach a deeper level).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;AI&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In addition to randomness, once the engine has left the book it might use AI.  Here is a simple test you can do on Houdini:  Play to any move until you see the evaluation change a bit one way or another.  Then go back ten half moves and it might play differently.  Although this is not AI it does take into account the analysis it has already done.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are other engines, even open source projects that deal with more pure AI.  These engines might not play the same move twice (especially if it lost) as it learns from previous experiences.  You might read &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/1003/a-purely-self-trained-chess-ai&quot;&gt;this question&lt;/a&gt; to understand why most commercial engines yet do not use AI, but it will probably happen soon.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Conclusion&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once you have randomness (and discard the impractical discussions leading from determinism) and/or AI in play you will see that if you pit two engines against each other on the same computer you will get different games and once in a while one side will beat the other.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the answer depends on the engine and if you think of a practical test (and not a theoretical test).  The computer it is played on should not matter, and mimicking actually makes it more likely that it will play differently.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1493" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2013-07-23T07:59:29.800" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2605" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2596" CreationDate="2013-07-23T12:15:51.167" Score="32" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you want to avoid &quot;dumb blunders&quot; - i.e. just dropping a piece you've left hanging on the other side of the board - a simple method is to take an inventory of the position before you do anything else on each move. Checking &lt;strong&gt;which of your pieces are attacked&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;which of your pieces are hanging&lt;/strong&gt; would be a good start. The brain will catalogue this information into 8x8-grid punch-card type patterns in your head that act as a warning system against stupid errors.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It can however be surprisingly difficult to take a regimented approach like this even if on the surface it seems quite a trivial task to complete at the start of each of your moves. The brain has a tendency to immediately want to investigate interesting lines and will wander sometimes never to return. Even harder if you're an older player who has never applied such discipline.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But if you stick at it over time it becomes second nature and you just see better and don't blunder as much.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="97" LastEditorUserId="97" LastEditDate="2013-07-23T19:39:57.383" LastActivityDate="2013-07-23T19:39:57.383" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2606" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2515" CreationDate="2013-07-23T17:10:34.060" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;I like to play Benoni, because black has many chances to win. Also it is very asymmetrical from the pawn structure, so the chance to play draw isn't really high.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 c5 3.d5 e6 4. Nc3 exd5 5. cxd5 d6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You just have to be careful, with the white d pawn. Never ever let it to &lt;code&gt;d6&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You will play &lt;code&gt;g6&lt;/code&gt; with &lt;code&gt;Bg7&lt;/code&gt;. If everything goes right, you will play &lt;code&gt;a6&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;b5&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1506" LastActivityDate="2013-07-23T17:10:34.060" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2607" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2608" CreationDate="2013-07-23T17:18:07.327" Score="9" ViewCount="795" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am looking for a nice variation against the Sicilian, which is a little bit aggressive but mainly not part of the main line like &lt;code&gt;Nf3&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;b4&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;c3&lt;/code&gt; after &lt;code&gt;e4 c5&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The thing is, I don't want to learn 20 variations, which I have to do if I play the main openings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which one do you like to play / recommend me?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1506" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2013-12-01T20:20:24.177" LastActivityDate="2013-12-01T21:37:03.617" Title="Looking for a good and non main line variation against the Sicilian" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;&lt;aggressive-play&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2608" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2607" CreationDate="2013-07-23T17:40:58.203" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's a bit difficult to recommend an aggressive line that doesn't fall into the variations that you listed. However, I believe there is an option that may suit your tastes. The Rossolimo with &lt;code&gt;2. Nc3&lt;/code&gt; is venomous choice that's played at the highest levels and contains many lines that are quite dangerous for black. Here's one of the opening traps:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nc3 Nc6 3. Bb5 Nd4 4. Bc4 e6 5. Nge2 Nf6 6. d3 a6 7. O-O d5 8. exd5 exd5 9. Nxd5 Nxd5 10. Nxd4 cxd4 11. Qh5 Be6 12. Re1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I recommend that you look more into the opening yourself and discover some more interesting lines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1382" LastActivityDate="2013-07-23T17:40:58.203" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2610" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2596" CreationDate="2013-07-24T03:35:10.810" Score="5" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;always ask yourself what is your opponent trying to achieve with his&#xA;last move.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;make your move in your head without submitting it, then find the best reply for your opponent (if he can do something serious, undo your move and try to stop it, if it is too late to stop it, then consider resigning).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This will greatly cut down the &lt;em&gt;direct blunders&lt;/em&gt;. However, as you play with stronger opponents, you will need to do #2 several times to see more than 1 move into the future, but it gets pretty hard depending on how well you calculate and what time settings you play with.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, as a bonus, study lots of tactics, and learn how they can be used against you. The most common ones I think are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;having overloaded pieces&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;leaving pieces hanging&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;not seeing that he just did something sneaky like a discovered attack or preparing a fork&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But one can never do enough calculations. It would be unfair to say white blundered &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/forum/view/more-puzzles/win-material-in-this-position&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;in this game&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="478" LastEditorUserId="11202" LastEditDate="2017-04-26T17:44:01.303" LastActivityDate="2017-04-26T17:44:01.303" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2612" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2174" CreationDate="2013-07-25T08:07:13.420" Score="17" Body="&lt;p&gt;It was my pleasure and recognition to see somebody asking to recommend some books how to play with BLACK. They were suggesting 3 books. All of them happened to be mine: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Black is OK!&lt;/em&gt; (1988), &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Black is still OK!&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Black is OK forever!&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It shows the good taste of the members... Gratefully I draw your attention to some more. &lt;em&gt;Winning with the Gruenfeld&lt;/em&gt; (Batsford, 1986) which could not be a BLACK is OK! book by name, for this &quot;Winning with ...&quot; was a Batsford series. But I assure it qualifies by the content. Finally there is a &lt;em&gt;Sicilian subvariations&lt;/em&gt; (1994) which appeared in 5 languages simultaneously. And last there is a 'Rare Openings' book (English, Deutsch, French) which deals with everything but 1.d4, 1.e4, 1.c4 and 1.Nf3. I'm glad to join you and look forward to receive your comments, thoughts, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm waiting for your messages too in: aa_ok@interware.hu ADORJÁN András&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1523" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2013-07-25T23:01:40.133" LastActivityDate="2013-07-25T23:01:40.133" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2613" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1460" CreationDate="2013-07-25T17:35:14.660" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have found this &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHl0kP2LpuU&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;video&lt;/a&gt;(This Guy has a quite lot videos). It is in German, it is about Chess and you can turn the Captions on, but I think they were generated from a computer. Since I as a German guy can say, its not really, what he is actually saying, but it might help you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1506" LastActivityDate="2013-07-25T17:35:14.660" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2614" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2607" CreationDate="2013-07-26T01:17:36.293" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;It looks like you are looking for a line that is aggressive, but does not require you to jump into tactical lines right away. If this is the case &lt;code&gt;1.e4 c5 2.b3&lt;/code&gt; is worth consideration.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It is hard to predict where the game will go, but usually the fact that white's dark-squared bishop is aiming at white king via &lt;code&gt;a1-h8&lt;/code&gt; diagonal gives pretty good attacking chances.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You will build up first and attack later. This requires more understanding than memorization.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If black is more accurate in the opening; it is fairly easy for them to become the aggressor.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Open Sicilian is objectively stronger, though this is not a big deal at non-professional level.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="307" LastActivityDate="2013-07-26T01:17:36.293" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2615" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2616" CreationDate="2013-07-26T20:52:46.793" Score="6" ViewCount="620" Body="&lt;p&gt;I like to play the variation below, although it may seem a little bit awkward.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 Nf6 2. e5 Nd5 3. c4 Nb6 4. c5 Nd5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From here you can play &lt;code&gt;Nc3&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;Bc4&lt;/code&gt;. White will have a lot of space and if the black player is going to play it wrong, he will have a disadvantage for the complete game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1506" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2013-10-17T10:22:36.653" LastActivityDate="2013-10-17T10:22:36.653" Title="How should I play against the Alekhine?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;alekhines-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2616" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2615" CreationDate="2013-07-26T21:04:32.293" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;1.e4 Nf6 2.e5 Nd5 3.c4 Nb6 4.c5 Nd5 is known as the Chase Variation and is playable, though not considered to be particularly great for White.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At the highest levels, the most popular variation for White is the Modern Variation, 1.e4 Nf6 2.e5 Nd5 3.d4 d6 4.Nf3. However, Black is left with a lot of freedom about how to continue, so White needs to be ready to handle a lot of continuations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At club level the most common continuation seems to be the Exchange Variation, 1.e4 Nf6 2.e5 Nd5 3.d4 d6 4.c4 Nb6 5.exd6 (note that moves 3 and 4 are often reversed). Play proceeds differently depending on how Black recaptures the pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The most aggressive (and most principled) choice for White is the Four Pawns Attack, 1.e4 Nf6 2.e5 Nd5 3.d4 d6 4.c4 Nb6 5.f4. White stakes out a ton of space but has to prove that he hasn't become overextended. Play often becomes very tactical.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2013-07-26T21:04:32.293" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2617" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2607" CreationDate="2013-07-29T00:32:06.883" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been playing the &lt;a href=&quot;http://chessopenings.com/eco/B21/4/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Smith-Morra&lt;/a&gt; for many years now. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1.e4 c5 2.d4 cxd4 3.c3&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I generally get a good game even at the USCF expert level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1532" LastActivityDate="2013-07-29T00:32:06.883" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2618" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2615" CreationDate="2013-07-29T06:39:59.747" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I usually play the &lt;a href=&quot;http://chessopenings.com/eco/B02/10/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Saemisch Attack&lt;/a&gt; ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1.e4 Nf6 2.e5 Nd5 3.Nc3&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1532" LastActivityDate="2013-07-29T06:39:59.747" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2619" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1329" CreationDate="2013-07-30T03:23:27.183" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is usually a draw, but some positions are winning, which can take up to 33 moves to convert. A complete mastery is shown at &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-OlC-evq28&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-OlC-evq28&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1537" LastEditorUserId="12" LastEditDate="2014-05-23T07:11:22.767" LastActivityDate="2014-05-23T07:11:22.767" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2620" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2625" CreationDate="2013-07-30T07:31:49.257" Score="4" ViewCount="367" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm building a chess engine and trying to figure out how good are the moves generated. Can you tell what is the best move for white in following position and why? Thanks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;r1b1kbnr/2p2ppp/p1p5/3pP1q1/8/2N1P3/PPP2PPP/R1BQK1NR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1283" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2013-09-07T00:29:11.950" LastActivityDate="2013-09-07T00:33:13.060" Title="Best White Move" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;puzzles&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2621" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2620" CreationDate="2013-07-30T08:05:43.963" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;IMO the best continuation is &lt;code&gt;Nf3&lt;/code&gt;. Black is mostly forced to take the pawn on &lt;code&gt;g2&lt;/code&gt;. After &lt;code&gt;Rg1&lt;/code&gt;, white can play &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; with fairly good advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1522" LastActivityDate="2013-07-30T08:05:43.963" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2622" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2620" CreationDate="2013-07-30T08:22:21.847" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You have to defend the pawn on g2, so you should move the queen d1- f3. The best response for the blacks will be queen g5-e5 or bishop c8-g4. If the white moves their pawns they will weaken their structure. They have to make the rocada as fast as possible. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="288" LastActivityDate="2013-07-30T08:22:21.847" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2623" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2632" CreationDate="2013-07-30T09:03:27.547" Score="10" ViewCount="613" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've noticed one thing players tend to do in chess is concentrate on building up pressure on one square.  I can understand early in the game if it's a central square like d4 or e5 and the king is central, but for example what about this game: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKB3WRbTATA&quot;&gt;Kasparov v Short 1993 Speed Challenge Game 1&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Kasparov is very intent on building up pressure on the pawn at d5 but why?  Is it because, if he eventually wins that exchange with the queen, he will have a pin on the king at g8?  Is there ever a justification for just building up pressure on one square even if it is an unimportant square when your pieces could perhaps be better used elsewhere?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1539" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2014-10-18T12:35:20.880" LastActivityDate="2014-10-18T19:26:13.733" Title="Why do players attack one apparently unimportant square?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2624" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2623" CreationDate="2013-07-30T10:02:37.700" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Obviously if your pieces could be better used elsewhere then you should do so!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason most games end up looking like that is because &lt;code&gt;white&lt;/code&gt; has he initiative and &lt;code&gt;black&lt;/code&gt; has to respond (which is not necessarily a disadvantage) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1522" LastActivityDate="2013-07-30T10:02:37.700" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2625" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2620" CreationDate="2013-07-30T13:41:54.960" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is kind of similar to the line (with colors reversed) 1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 Bb4 4. a3 Bxc3+ 5. bxc3 dxe4 6. Qg4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's basically an identical position with colors reversed except white's knight is already on c3 which is actually a really good square for the knight.  In fact I believe the main line of the line listed above is 6.. Nf6 7. Qg7 Rg8 8. Qh6 Rg6 9. (Queen somewhere) Nc6 with idea of playing e5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.a3 Bxc3+ 5.bxc3 dxe4 6.Qg4 Nf6 7.Qxg7 Rg8 8.Qh6 Rg6 9.Qd2 Nc6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Based on this I think the plan 1. Nf3 Qxg2 2. Rg1 Qh3 3. Rg3 Qd7 4. e4 looks strong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;r1b1kbnr/2p2ppp/p1p5/3pP1q1/8/2N1P3/PPP2PPP/R1BQK1NR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Nf3 Qxg2 2.Rg1 Qh3 3.Rg3 Qd7 4.e4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1540" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2013-09-07T00:33:13.060" LastActivityDate="2013-09-07T00:33:13.060" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2626" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2623" CreationDate="2013-07-30T13:58:29.180" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;So basically he wants to keep pressure on d5 because if black doesn't defend it, he will try to win it and then if he has an opportunity to switch fronts to attack it can be at a timing favorable to him (for example after having improved his pieces the most or set up his pawn structure exactly how he wants.  It's said that the square in front of an isolated pawn is a very valuable square to control.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1540" LastActivityDate="2013-07-30T13:58:29.180" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2629" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2607" CreationDate="2013-07-30T16:06:07.867" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would actually suggest the grand prix attack with 1. e4 c5 2. Nc3 Nc6 3. f4&#xA;I've never played the white side of it, but lots of strong players like it as an alternative weapon.  The &quot;idea&quot; is to try for an attack where you play Qd1-e1-h4, f5, Bh6 and Ng5 in some combination, ready to play Nd5 or Rxf6 to dislodge the main defender on f6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1540" LastActivityDate="2013-07-30T16:06:07.867" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2630" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2623" CreationDate="2013-07-30T16:28:10.243" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's very difficult to answer this type of question.  The reason is that what makes a GM a GM is that they are far better able to determine what is important about a position than other players.  Lower strength players look at a position and immediately begin to calculate variations.  Strong players look at a position and immediately try to determine what about the position is important.  You're calling that square unimportant.  When Kasparov looked at that position, he decided that was the most important thing about the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why did Kasparov think that element of the game was important?  No way for me to know.  The only real way to get insight into how a 2800 player thinks is to put it into a computer and see.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1532" LastActivityDate="2013-07-30T16:28:10.243" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2631" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2590" CreationDate="2013-07-30T18:17:35.657" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sjeng is your best bet but play with an engine is very weird. Typically a human + engine team will have their play revolve around getting up on time (sometimes even by only a few seconds). Then the human player will tell the engine to move fast, and then sit. Note that since the computer can play decent moves instantly, that effectively means it is impossible to sac material against the human player unless also up on time -- even if the sacrifice is very strong and leads to an imminently winning attack or quickly recovering the material. The human player will accept the sacrifice(s) and sit, then let the engine win on time or use the extra material on the board to win. For these reasons none of the strong bughouse players will accept games with engines anymore, really.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1312" LastActivityDate="2013-07-30T18:17:35.657" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2632" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2623" CreationDate="2013-07-30T18:33:32.190" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can't answer your question in general, but I can explain the main ideas of the game.  Here is the game (actually the game lasted a few more moves, but at the end position here it is lost for Short):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Nd2 c5 4. Ngf3 Nf6 5. exd5 exd5 6. Bb5+ Bd7 7. Bxd7+ Nbxd7 8. O-O Be7 9. Re1 O-O 10. Nf1 Re8 11. dxc5 Nxc5 12. Be3 a6 13. c3 Rc8 14. Qc2 Qc7 15. Rad1 b5 16. Bd4 Nce4 17. Ne3 Rcd8 18. a3 Bf8 19. Qb3 Qc6 20. Ne5 Qc7 21. Nd3 Bd6 22. g3 Qc8 23. Bxf6 Nxf6 24. Nb4 Bxb4 25. axb4 h6 26. Rd4 Re5 27.Red1 Qh3 28. Qc2 Rde8 29. Rh4 Qe6 30. Rhd4 Qh3 31. Rh4 Qe6 32. Qd3 Kf8 33. Rd4 Qh3 34. Qf1 Qe6 35. R1d3 Re4 36. Qd1 Rxd4 37. Rxd4 Rd8 38. Kg2 Rd7 39. Qd3 g6 40. h3 Kg7 41. Qd1 h5 42. Qf3 Ne4 43. Nxd5 Ng5 44. Nf4 Qb6 45. Qd3 Qc6+ 46. f3 Rxd4 47. Qxd4+ Kh7 48. Qd5 Qf6 49. h4 Ne6 50. Nxe6 fxe6 51. Qb7+ Kh6 52. Qxa6 Qe5 53. Qb6 Qe2+ 54. Qf2 Qd1 55. Qe3+ Kg7 56. Kf2 Qh1 57. Qxe6 Qh2+ 58. Ke3 Qxg3 59. Qe7+ Kg8 60. Qg5 Qe1+ 61. Kd4 Kf7 62. Kc5 Qf2+ 63. Kxb5 Qxf3 64. c4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Opening&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Take a look at the position after Black's 16th move.  The opening phase is over.  It is a typical isolated queen's pawn position.  Here Kasparov has a better pawn structure as his pawns are in two pawn islands as opposed to Short's three pawn islands.  Why does that matter?  A pawn island is pawns that can defend each other.  As you will see the only pawn on the board that can't be protected by another pawn (except after an exchange) is the d5 pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As compensation for this tiny disadvantage black normally gets more active pieces.  As you can see Short has good pieces here.  If Kasparov can manage to get Short on the defence then this compensation (active pieces) will disappear.  This might not be much, but at the top level any kind of advantage is better than none.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why can't Kasparov attack Short's king instead, or some other piece?  Well, any piece can always move (but remember that the d5 pawn cannot move) and since Short has more active pieces any direct attack will fail.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Moves 17-25&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What did Kasparov gain from attacking the pawn here?  Well, he forced Short to give up his bishop against a knight.  A bishop is considered slightly stronger than a knight, in particular in positions with pawns on both wings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Still the d5 pawn is the easiest target to attack, although now the a6 pawn has become weak as well.  It would be dangerous to attack this pawn though, as doubling rooks on the a file would leave the white king less well protected.  This is something Short would have loved as it could have given him a strong counter attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Moved 26-35&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;During this phase Short tactically defended the d5 pawn by putting his queen on h3.  Should Kasparov take the d5 pawn it would have let to a mating attack for black after rook to e1.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Moves 36-41&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Still the d5 pawn is the only real weakness in Short's position.  It still cannot move and should it drop the endgame is very difficult for Short.  The plan for White would then simply to be to exchange all the pieces and win the pawn endgame.  That would not necessarily be easy, but would give Kasparov an easy plan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Moves 42 and out&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, on move 42 Short blunders tactically and loses the d5 pawn.  Now the game changes character.  Kasparov tried his best to exchange pieces while Short tries his best to avoid trading pieces.  Short's best hope here is to trade pawns, hoping for a draw.  Notice how Short avoids trading queens.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I only found the score up to move 64.  Short played on, but finally he surrendered when he realised that Kasparov would get another queen by promoting the b pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Conclusion&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The pressure on the d5 square led to Short finally blundering the pawn.  Had he not the game might have ended in a draw.  Of course, there are other plans, but you have to pick one.  Kasparov looked for the point in Short's position where he could attack and found it on d5 as the pawn could hardly move without being lost and could not be protected by another pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Really strong players will find small ideas like that.  Kasparov did not necessarily expect to win the pawn, but at least to force Short on the defence.  If everything else is equal, having the more aggressive position is an advantage. Although it could be small, it is better than nothing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1493" LastEditorUserId="3999" LastEditDate="2014-10-18T19:26:13.733" LastActivityDate="2014-10-18T19:26:13.733" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2633" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2620" CreationDate="2013-07-30T18:56:42.943" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I will try to give you a simple mathematical answer.  It is clearly oversimplified, but might be a way to think that helps you program your engine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Assuming that your chess engine can calculate simple forced moves and the value of pawns it should find that White now must choose between defending the e5 pawn or the g2 pawn.  What if we could simply count the number of squares attacked (including squares occupied by other pawns or pieces, even your own)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Defending the e5 pawn:&lt;/strong&gt;  One variation is 1. Nf3 Qxg2 2.Rg1 Qh3.  Black attacks 54 squares, while White attacks 54 squares.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Defending the g2 pawn:&lt;/strong&gt;  1. Qf3 Qxe5.  Black attacks 57 squares, while White attacks 50 squares.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Defending the e5 pawn puts White on as many attacked squares as White, while when defending the g2 pawn White is 7 squares down.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, in the variation defending the e5 pawn playing 3. e4 is strong for White as it opens up for the bishop on c1.  Just count the number of squares.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;I repeat&lt;/strong&gt;, this is very simplified, but in general the more active you are (the more squares your pawns and pieces attack), the better off you are all other things being equal.  &lt;strong&gt;This is one way used by programmers to give a mathematical value to how active a position is.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(I might have counted a wrong, but not by much - it shows the general idea)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1493" LastActivityDate="2013-07-30T18:56:42.943" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2634" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-07-30T20:50:37.300" Score="14" ViewCount="1201" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit&lt;/strong&gt;: It seems my question was not clear enough. Let me rephrase: What is the largest N for which we can knowingly say &quot;chess, from the starting position, is not a forced mate in N moves&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess is not solved, i.e. it is not known what the outcome from starting position is given perfect play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, if the starting position is win for either player, it is a mate in N for some N. Also by example, if we know for certain that the starting position is not winnable in 5 moves (for either player), 5 is a lower bound for N.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Roughly how deep is it feasible to search exhaustively from the starting position in practice? How high a lower bound for N is known?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1543" LastEditorUserId="1543" LastEditDate="2013-07-31T07:39:39.947" LastActivityDate="2013-08-10T21:44:06.583" Title="What is the highest known lower bound for mate in N from starting position?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;chess-algorithms&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2635" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2634" CreationDate="2013-07-30T21:13:44.167" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's not true that the starting position is not winnable in 5 moves or less using the canonical definition of a full move in chess. It can be done in 2 moves via &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fool%27s_mate&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Fool's Mate&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To address your question, the strength of a chess engine is dependent on the software and hardware. In 1997, Deep Blue was a proof of hardware concept, a massively parallel supercomputer capable of evaluating 200 million moves per second with an average depth of 7-8 moves. However, in 2006, Deep Fritz running on a dual-core personal computer had equivalent results while only evaluating 8 million moves per second.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Today, the strongest supercomputer that has been applied to chess is &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Gene&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Blue Gene&lt;/a&gt;. Using 131,000 processors, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/ibm100/us/en/icons/bluegene/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Blue Gene can calculate 280 trillion operations per second&lt;/a&gt;. Although there is no data to confirm the depth to which Blue Gene can calculate, I would suppose it would be quite deep. Of course, this is dependent on how long the computer runs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, we cannot in this case use the term 'exhaustive' when 'solving' and opening. A chess engine has no need to go to the end of the line when it is certain that the end result is decisive. In such, the program would exit when it became clear that the evaluation was clearly in favor of one side. This is known in theoretical computer science as &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha%E2%80%93beta_pruning&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Alpha-Beta pruning&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I had to make a rough estimate, I would say that Blue Gene would be able to calculate around between 15 and 20 moves per second. Although its hardware and software is extremely impressive, we have to remember that the complexity of chess scales exponentially. According to recent &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shannon_number&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;estimates&lt;/a&gt;, the game-tree complexity of chess is at least 10^123 and the number of potential positions at 10^46.7.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1382" LastEditorUserId="1382" LastEditDate="2013-07-30T21:47:16.153" LastActivityDate="2013-07-30T21:47:16.153" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2636" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2634" CreationDate="2013-07-30T22:15:11.257" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Edit: Sorry, looks like I misread the question.  My guess is that any reasonable N is well outside the horizon of a computer.  If we set up a very powerful computer to caluclate the starting position that's probably the only confident X we could show, let's say it could 10 million nodes per second after 10 days we could calculate 10 * 86400 * 10^8 nodes = 8.64 * 10^13 nodes.  If we assume the average position in the first 20 moves has about 15 legal moves (lower because beginning has much less and probably even slightly lower because of alpha-beta pruning) which is only about 12 moves after 10 days (position only after move 6) so you see why this problem is ugly.  However I think practical play probably suggests a much, much, much higher value.  I'll take good money against any computer human combination you can come up with that I can not get checkmated in 20 moves (if that's my only goal).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's ignore that chess is most likely a draw.  We must consider the rules under which chess is played in practice.  In almost every tournament situation there's a 50 move rule in effect which states that the game is a draw if &quot;the last 50 consecutive moves have been made by each player without the movement of any pawn and without the capture of any piece.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So this means we can have 49.5 moves per capture or pawn move.  Each pawn can move up to 6 times and there are 15 pieces which can be captured for each side (although one piece must remain to deliver checkmate) so we can put an upper bound on the number of moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This works out to 49.5 * (8 * 2 * 6 (pawn moves) + 29) = 6187.5&#xA;So this means that IF chess is a forced win for white with adhering to the 50 move rule then it is in at most 6188 moves for white.  I could probably lower this a tiny bit without doing too much by saying that all K + piece mates v K mates that are forced (Rook at Queen only) are doable in substantially less than 50 moves (I think about 16 playing around with Nalimov for some &quot;tough&quot; cases.  So I think we can probably subtract 34 moves from that total confidently for 6134!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore:&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;If chess is a forced win for white with adhering to the 50 move rule then it is in at most 6134 moves.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1540" LastEditorUserId="1540" LastEditDate="2013-07-30T22:34:49.673" LastActivityDate="2013-07-30T22:34:49.673" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2637" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2634" CreationDate="2013-07-31T04:31:41.853" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Assuming there is a winning continuation from a given position and assuming perfect play, implies &lt;code&gt;N&lt;/code&gt; is fixed and not bounded (otherwise its not perfect play!).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this case one has to really work backwards - which is accomplished by &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endgame_tablebase&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Endgame Tablebase&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;The tablebases of all endgames with up to six pieces are available for free download, and may also be queried using web interfaces (see the external links below). Nalimov tablebase requires more than one terabyte of storage space&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1522" LastActivityDate="2013-07-31T04:31:41.853" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2638" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2623" CreationDate="2013-07-31T20:32:57.397" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well for one the d5 square is a central square. A very common theme in chess is to dominate the central squares. Pieces on central squares usually have maximum mobility and can exert their presence in all directions (of course this not always true, but it's a general theme). Another thing is that the black pawn on d5 is an isolated pawn -- a weakness, and when you find a weakness in your opponents position, you must exploit it. This is another common theme in chess. Of course GMs will find weaknesses to what weaker/average players will call 'unimportant', which is what makes them GMs in the first place. Attacking a weakness forces the opponent to defend it choosing between giving up (in this case) a pawn or having to allocate more valuable resources to defend it (in this case a knight, a rook, and a queen) -- and who knows, once the opponent moves pieces with the sole intent of defending a weakened piece/square, they leave space behind -- which can in turn be occupied to exert pressure and create more weaknesses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1549" LastActivityDate="2013-07-31T20:32:57.397" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2639" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2596" CreationDate="2013-07-31T20:44:29.163" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I see a lot of responses recommending looking at the game from the opponent's point of view, and I can see why, ever since I started adopting this technique in my games. It really works.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Until very recently, I always used to look at my game from my view, my plan, my killer tactic, my decisive blow -- which, theoretically, if implemented perfectly should be sufficient. But recently one of the approaches I use is to analyze every move my opponent makes with a &quot;Okay, so what's his plan?&quot; or &quot;Why did he do that?&quot; before I start working out my plan. If I see his idea easily and feel its not threatening enough, I proceed with my plan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I can't seem to find his idea easily, I conclude that either I need to look harder because there's a killer attack coming on or that it's a weak/aimless move. I do dismiss activating pieces, like I used to do earlier, as aimless moves, but instead look for ways to stifle this. The downside of this approach is that you have be good at time management, since first working out your opponent's plan, assessing the threat, and then formulating your own plan usually takes more time than if you were just thinking from your perspective.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1549" LastEditorUserId="11202" LastEditDate="2017-04-26T16:52:50.783" LastActivityDate="2017-04-26T16:52:50.783" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2641" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-07-31T21:02:03.357" Score="32" ViewCount="38040" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm a hobbyist chess player and usually play online. While I've seen thousands of great chess games and win a fair number of games online, the one thing that I have struggle with is studying openings. Simply put, there are just so many of them and each of them has so many variations. And to add to that, every out-of-book move my opponent makes throws me off and I don't know how to continue, so it turns out to be some hybrid/weird opening (or perhaps its a real opening with a name that I just don't know about)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I guess my question would be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;What's a good way to learn some of the common/easy openings? Is it&#xA;just memorize or understanding the principles for instance, what&#xA;that particular opening is looking to achieve?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;How do I identify which of the variations to look at for a&#xA;particular opening, there are often so many?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;What's a good strategy to deal with my opponent suddenly going out&#xA;of book or playing a novelty in an opening that I've memorized?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1549" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-09-19T23:20:36.790" LastActivityDate="2019-09-19T23:20:36.790" Title="What's a good way to learn opening theory?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;study&gt;" AnswerCount="8" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2642" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2646" CreationDate="2013-07-31T21:21:07.110" Score="4" ViewCount="1020" Body="&lt;p&gt;Usually I am a defensive player. Because of this, a few years ago, I created an opening set of moves, where I moved every other pawn forward 1 space, starting with pawn A2. To be more specific, I moved pawns 2A, 2C, 2E, and 2G to 3A, 3C, 3E, and 3G, respectively. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are ways to get through to row 1 using a queen or bishop, but except for one way (going diagonally to 1H with a queen), any piece will be immediately destroyed at almost any point in rows 1-4. That one way, using a queen to get to 1H, does do a lot of damage, because eventually it threatens the king, and is hard to be stopped.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am an amateur chess player, so I do not know a lot about all of the tactics. To experienced chess players, this may look like a stupid question. I apologize for that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this weakness enough to make the strategy not worth it, or is it still a good idea?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1550" LastActivityDate="2019-09-17T10:57:40.557" Title="Is this a good idea for starting the game?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;pawn-structure&gt;&lt;defense&gt;" AnswerCount="8" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2643" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2644" CreationDate="2013-07-31T21:33:08.863" Score="12" ViewCount="3338" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know that the rule states &quot;The game is drawn upon agreement between the two players. This immediately ends the game.&quot; but what I'm interested in knowing the exact way to offer a draw because I've never played at a club (always played online, where you simply click the 'Offer draw' button). So do you actually say &quot;Draw?&quot; or &quot;Do you extend your hand after you play your move?&quot; Just wanted to know the norm.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1549" LastActivityDate="2013-08-04T03:21:27.493" Title="What is the proper way to ask for a draw?" Tags="&lt;draw&gt;&lt;etiquette&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2644" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2643" CreationDate="2013-07-31T21:41:12.897" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;In tournament play, you make your move on the board, state your offer clearly (I say &quot;I offer a draw&quot; and make eye contact to make sure I am understood), then press your clock.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2013-07-31T21:41:12.897" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2645" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2641" CreationDate="2013-07-31T21:55:04.597" Score="10" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Write your opening down somewhere . Read it every day. Play it against real opponents / engine. Analyse your opening games, did you move the wrong piece? Try to figure out the plans of the opening. For example in &lt;code&gt;c5&lt;/code&gt; sicilian, one plan might be playing &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt; if white played &lt;code&gt;f3&lt;/code&gt;, because &lt;code&gt;f3&lt;/code&gt; is really weak after the trade-off on &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Just play nearly every variation and take a look at the end position. If you like it, write it down, remember it and play it. If not, discard the variation.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;You need to know the plans of the opening and not only the moves. If you know the plans, you can play without knowing the moves.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It might be hard to figure out the plans on yourself, but you might find some good games of chess in the internet, which are documented / commented from a good player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1506" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-09-17T11:03:29.703" LastActivityDate="2019-09-17T11:03:29.703" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2646" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2642" CreationDate="2013-07-31T22:02:32.167" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's definitely not a good idea. If it were one, there would be a real opening for it. One problem with moving all your white-squared pawns 1 space forward, is that you lose so many moves developing your pieces. However, this is the 'small' disadvantage. The big one is, that all of your white squares are very weak.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Look at this position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. a3 e5 2. c3 d5 3. e3 e4 4. g3 Nc6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black just needs to put his pieces on nice squares like for example &lt;code&gt;Ne5 or Nc4&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;Bg4 with Nf6&lt;/code&gt;. Also a disadvantage is that you lose much space. Your knights have nearly no squares, where they can move. &lt;code&gt;Bc1&lt;/code&gt; is completely useless.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you lose your white-squared bishop, the black pieces will destroy you, because you can't defend all the white squares.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1506" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-09-17T10:56:06.117" LastActivityDate="2019-09-17T10:56:06.117" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2647" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2642" CreationDate="2013-07-31T22:59:16.763" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;The issue with your opening strategy is that you neglect the development of your pieces. While you are pushing your pawns, your opponent will bring their pieces into the game. In general, the three most important guidelines of the opening are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Controlling the center.&lt;/strong&gt; The closer a piece is to the center, the more influential it becomes.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Developing your pieces.&lt;/strong&gt; Your pieces are not doing much in their original positions. Bringing them forward will allow you to attack and defend effectively.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Keeping your King safe.&lt;/strong&gt; If your king is trapped, you lose- Game Over! Therefore, before the opening is finished, it is imperative that your king is in a safe spot. This is usually accomplished by castling.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The problem with your opening move sequence is that it fulfills none of these goals- without any pieces developed, your control of the center is practically nonexistent. Furthermore, by pushing the pawns, you create weaknesses which can be exploited. In this case, you end up with no pawns on light squares, which means that every light square becomes a weakness where your opponent will aim their attack. Your opponent's light-square bishop in particular would have free rein in your position, unopposed by any pawn. In contrast, your dark-square bishop would become hemmed in, unable to move; your other pieces would be similarly hindered and unprotected as they were blocked by the pawns or left undefended by them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="827" LastEditorUserId="1546" LastEditDate="2013-08-01T12:07:17.857" LastActivityDate="2013-08-01T12:07:17.857" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2648" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2642" CreationDate="2013-08-01T00:35:10.897" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your opening might fit your style, but it is objectively weak as @Niklas explained, you might want to checkout &lt;code&gt;Reti opening : 1.Nf3&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;English opening : 1. c4&lt;/code&gt;. Those openings are objectively strong and are common weapons of positional players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I encourage you to play open games, and learn about tactics. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="307" LastActivityDate="2013-08-01T00:35:10.897" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2649" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2642" CreationDate="2013-08-01T07:38:31.087" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Following on the others answers, you may be interested in Wikipedia's &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pawn_structure&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;pawn structure&lt;/a&gt; article to look for structures which suit your playing style, and their associated &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_opening&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;openings&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1546" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-09-17T10:57:40.557" LastActivityDate="2019-09-17T10:57:40.557" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2650" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-08-01T15:44:11.487" Score="13" ViewCount="2761" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm asking this question to provide players who are starting to play in tournaments a guide on proper behavior during games. I'll give an answer myself - perhaps we could supply an answer collectively via a community wiki.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1382" LastActivityDate="2019-09-17T11:01:55.247" Title="What are the essentials of chess etiquette in a serious, over-the-board tournament game?" Tags="&lt;etiquette&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2651" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2650" CreationDate="2013-08-01T17:19:51.447" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;First of all, be quiet and don't talk. You can whisper, but it is still considered rude / impolite.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the round begins at 9AM, be there punctually. In some tournaments you might even lose the game if you're not there within the first 30 minutes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the game begins, you can say something like 'I wish us a good game', 'Good Game' and so on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If something happens on the board and you don't know what to do, you can ask the referee or try to fix it with your opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/2643/what-is-the-proper-way-to-ask-for-a-draw&quot;&gt;What is the proper way to ask for a draw?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If there is a big chess game of two big chess players and you want to watch it, don't stand right next to them. Let them have their space. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YoDTI_ZRMao&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;video&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you write your moves down on a piece of paper and you have to give it to the tournament administration, be aware that the result is the same on your slip + the opponent's slip. Both slips also have to be signed by both players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No smart / cell phones are not allowed during your game (you need to turn them off) and it it also not allowed to turn them on if you watch some games, but you're not playing. The reason is, you could be cheating and some crap like that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want, you can ask your opponent to analyze the game, after it is over. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you have any further question, just ask.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you are giving a Check, don't say it. &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/users/307/akavall&quot;&gt;Thanks Akavall&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's also considered poor behavior to eat at the board. &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/users/1382/andrew-ng&quot;&gt;Thanks Andrew Ng&lt;/a&gt; Of course, you can drink some water or something else, but be aware with the space. Normally the desks aren't that big.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1506" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-09-17T11:01:55.247" LastActivityDate="2019-09-17T11:01:55.247" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2652" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2663" CreationDate="2013-08-01T23:05:15.647" Score="5" ViewCount="992" Body="&lt;p&gt;I hope it's OK with a question on the fringes of existing opening theory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If white wants to combine pawn moves &lt;code&gt;f4&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;b4&lt;/code&gt; early in the opening, he has to be aware of  the possibility of black snatching a pawn. One example is Larsen-Raizman from the 1958 Olympiad &lt;code&gt;1.f4 Nf6 2.Nf3 g6 3.b4&lt;/code&gt;, where black could have gone &lt;code&gt;3...Nd5!?&lt;/code&gt; with complicated play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even earlier possible pawn losses are &lt;code&gt;1.f4 d5 2.b4 Qd6&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;1.f4 Nf6 2.b4 Nd5&lt;/code&gt;. I want to focus on this last variation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.f4 Nf6 2.b4 Nd5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Before I thought this was good for black, but now I'm not so sure anymore.&#xA;&lt;code&gt;3.e4 Nxf4 4.d4&lt;/code&gt; looks like great compensation, although ironically I would prefer the b4 pawn back on b2. Black is better advised to play &lt;code&gt;3...Nxb4&lt;/code&gt;, for instance &lt;code&gt;4.d4 d5&lt;/code&gt;. A possible improvement for white is &lt;code&gt;3.d4&lt;/code&gt; and after &lt;code&gt;3...Nxb4&lt;/code&gt; start chasing the knight around.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Questions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is &lt;code&gt;2...Nd5&lt;/code&gt; advisable for black?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How should white react?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1485" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2013-08-02T10:12:32.907" LastActivityDate="2019-09-17T16:33:01.970" Title="The earliest possible knight fork" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;birds-opening&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2653" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2657" CreationDate="2013-08-01T23:24:33.217" Score="15" ViewCount="7411" Body="&lt;p&gt;I study games from books, and would like to retain some of them in my memory, especially the opening part. I also want to remember my own games (I play about 5-10 tournament games - mostly against &gt;2000 ELO rated players, and some rapid ones here and there). Are there any particular techniques or tips?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="618" LastActivityDate="2020-11-09T02:47:59.163" Title="How does one memorize a chess game?" Tags="&lt;master-games&gt;" AnswerCount="8" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2654" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2652" CreationDate="2013-08-01T23:25:32.873" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think this depends on how you play chess as a human and how good the players are. Some people want to take every pawn they can and then they are defending their king, swapping pieces and then they win the game in the end game. Some want to give them away for some initiative (like white in our example). I think an engine will definitely play &lt;code&gt;Nd5&lt;/code&gt; and grab the pawn(s).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would play &lt;code&gt;Nd5&lt;/code&gt; and take &lt;code&gt;b4&lt;/code&gt; instead of &lt;code&gt;f4&lt;/code&gt;, because white gets aggressive play after &lt;code&gt;e4 Nxf4 d4&lt;/code&gt;, especially the half open &lt;code&gt;f&lt;/code&gt; file is very nice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If white plays &lt;code&gt;c3&lt;/code&gt; after &lt;code&gt;Nd5&lt;/code&gt;, I would take &lt;code&gt;f4&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1506" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-09-17T16:33:01.970" LastActivityDate="2019-09-17T16:33:01.970" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2655" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2653" CreationDate="2013-08-02T02:35:30.867" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Maybe just write the openings and some games down and read them very often. Just hang them up on some mirror, for example in the bathroom and then every time you brush your teeth, you see it and will remind it. You could probably also hang some post its on your cupboard / desk.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the openings part, just play your opening often and then you will automatically remember it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1506" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-09-17T16:35:12.700" LastActivityDate="2019-09-17T16:35:12.700" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2656" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2653" CreationDate="2013-08-02T03:38:42.690" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are a few techniques to remember openings - &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;In the beginning, stick to a single opening. Ex: play only &lt;code&gt;1.e4&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Choose an opening that has fewer variations or that has (more or less) standard set of moves. For ex: King's Indian Defense or Sicilain Dragon variation. You can mostly play standard moves without worrying about white's moves.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Study common traps in your opening&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Last (but not the least) - practice. Study more games and play often.  &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1522" LastActivityDate="2013-08-02T03:38:42.690" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2657" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2653" CreationDate="2013-08-02T06:57:55.693" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my experience, memorization of chess games simply came from improvement. I first realized that I could remember the games of past tournaments when I was around 1600 ELO, and as I improved my visualization became sharper and I could recall games played years ago. My advice to you is to have the games notated and not just read, but &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;play through&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; them regularly. This repeated process of playing the moves of a game will help you retain the information necessary for you to recall the game in the future.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1382" LastActivityDate="2013-08-02T06:57:55.693" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2659" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2652" CreationDate="2013-08-03T14:06:18.300" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;What white is doing doesn't make any sense, it's violating the simple rules of chess: dominating the center.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nd5 isn't too bad, but the fork is bad i believe&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.f4 Nf6 2.b4 Nd5 d3 Nxb4 Bd2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The knight is lost, if he's gonna retreat, white could start developing his peaces, and black is down in development. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1105" LastEditorUserId="1105" LastEditDate="2013-08-03T14:12:10.610" LastActivityDate="2013-08-03T14:12:10.610" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2660" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-08-03T16:52:28.980" Score="3" ViewCount="1862" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have learned about a move called castling, where you move the castle and the king to switch. Can anybody explain the rules? Thanks. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1559" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2013-08-04T16:48:57.340" LastActivityDate="2016-01-04T21:09:06.197" Title="Rules on castling, what is allowed" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;castling&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2016-01-05T08:48:54.647" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2662" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4054" CreationDate="2013-08-03T18:47:02.660" Score="5" ViewCount="4345" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's a survey on chess.com, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/survey/do-your-friends-play-chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Do your friends play chess?&lt;/a&gt;, and the results aren't very encouraging. Personally, very few of my friends play chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then I read this question: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/1009/whats-the-most-prestigious-chess-competition-broadcasted-on-tv&quot;&gt;What's the most prestigious chess competition, broadcasted on TV?&lt;/a&gt; Chess was once broadcast on TV; is it getting less popular?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How many people actually attend the tournaments and watch them? I watch bowling, snooker, even darts on sky sport. Eurosport broadcasts sports like &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biathlon&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Biathlon&lt;/a&gt;; could chess be less popular than that? Really?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is FIDE trying to make it more popular?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1105" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.193" LastActivityDate="2016-03-20T21:18:07.487" Title="How popular is chess?" Tags="&lt;statistics&gt;&lt;fide&gt;&lt;world-championship&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2663" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2652" CreationDate="2013-08-03T19:00:42.393" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;This question led me to spend two hours of my life looking at a line that I most likely never will get to play.  I went into it being quite confident that &lt;code&gt;Nd5&lt;/code&gt; was a bad move simply because White would get too much development for the cost of a simple pawn.  Analysing back and forth with Houdini has nevertheless convinced me that &lt;code&gt;Nd5&lt;/code&gt; is perfectly playable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The similarities to the Sokolsky Opening&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To get a feel for the &lt;code&gt;b4&lt;/code&gt; pawn it helps to understand a variation from &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokolsky_Opening&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;the Sokolsky Opening&lt;/a&gt;.  It goes like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. b4 e6  2. Bb2 Nf6  3.b5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here the pawn on &lt;code&gt;b5&lt;/code&gt; is slightly annoying.  It cannot be easily removed as &lt;code&gt;a6&lt;/code&gt; can be answered by &lt;code&gt;a4&lt;/code&gt; (it does not matter if the rooks are swapped off as White intends to castle short anyway) and &lt;code&gt;c6&lt;/code&gt; can be answered by &lt;code&gt;e3&lt;/code&gt; when Black must take away from the centre to remove the pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the game, however, Black can simply play &lt;code&gt;a6&lt;/code&gt; in the similar position as White can't answer with &lt;code&gt;a4&lt;/code&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.f4 Nf6  2. b4 e6  3.b5 a6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So after &lt;code&gt;2...e6&lt;/code&gt; White is only left with &lt;code&gt;3 a3&lt;/code&gt;, which, although reasonable, is another pawn move on the wing.  Black will be very solid after playing simple development like &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;Bd6&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;0-0&lt;/code&gt;.  This is slightly better than one of the main lines of the Sokolsky Opening, which is not that good to start with (but where White often ends up playing &lt;code&gt;f4&lt;/code&gt; later).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Houdini 3 on &lt;code&gt;2...Nd5&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The currently strongest engine on the planet is &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cruxis.com/chess/houdini.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Houdini 3&lt;/a&gt;.  When you let it analyse the position before &lt;code&gt;2...Nd5&lt;/code&gt; to a depth of 25 it likes &lt;code&gt;2...d6&lt;/code&gt; (claiming a small advantage for Black) the best (with &lt;code&gt;2...d5&lt;/code&gt; as a strong second).  &lt;code&gt;2...Nd5&lt;/code&gt; does not come up as a top five alternative.  Houdini is initially not impressed by grabbing the pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;White plays &lt;code&gt;3 e4&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nevertheless, &lt;code&gt;2...Nd5&lt;/code&gt; is still an interesting alternative and certainly gives more entertaining variations to look at.  First let us take a look at what happens if White plays &lt;code&gt;3 e4&lt;/code&gt; after &lt;code&gt;2...Nd5&lt;/code&gt; and then Black takes the pawn at &lt;code&gt;b4&lt;/code&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.f4 Nf6  2.b4 Nd5  3.e4 Nxb4  4.c3 N4c6  5.d4 d5  6.Nd2 dxe4  7.Nxe4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To explain this variation it is important to know that Black's hope and main idea against a setup with f4-e4-d4 is to play &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt; and develop &lt;code&gt;Bc8&lt;/code&gt; to &lt;code&gt;f5&lt;/code&gt;or &lt;code&gt;g4&lt;/code&gt;.  In the variation above it turns out Black can't play either.  &lt;code&gt;Bg4&lt;/code&gt; simply hangs the bishop and &lt;code&gt;Bf5&lt;/code&gt; runs into &lt;code&gt;Ng3&lt;/code&gt; chasing it back.  Here I (and Houdini) believe White has compensation for the pawn (although perhaps nothing more).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, let us look at the alternative.  Initially I was sure that &lt;code&gt;3...Nxf4&lt;/code&gt; must be horrible for Black, but it turns out it is good after &lt;code&gt;4. d4 e5!&lt;/code&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.f4 Nf6 2.b4 Nd5 3.e4 Nxf4 4.d4 e5 5.dxe5 Ne6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As seen above, if White makes the natural capture on e5, Black just retreats the knight.  Material is now even, but Black has two threats; The killing &lt;code&gt;Qh4+&lt;/code&gt; and just grabbing the &lt;code&gt;b4&lt;/code&gt; pawn.  So Black will end up a pawn up with a much better pawn structure and no imminent attack from White.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Instead White must play:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.f4 Nf6 2.b4 Nd5 3.e4 Nxf4 4.d4 e5 5.Nf3 Ne6 6.d5 Nd4 7.c3 (7.Ng5) Nxf3+ 8.Qxf3 a5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the above variation please note that &lt;code&gt;6 Nxe5&lt;/code&gt; runs into &lt;code&gt;6...Qxh4+&lt;/code&gt;.  The same idea works against &lt;code&gt;7 Nxd4&lt;/code&gt;.  And despite all the knight moves Black is left clearly better in this variation too.  If you want to play this variation with White you need to try the chaotic &lt;code&gt;7.Ng5!?&lt;/code&gt;, hoping to trap the knight at d4.  Have fun analysing that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;White plays &lt;code&gt;3 d4&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I believe &lt;code&gt;3 d4&lt;/code&gt; is a strong alternative for White.  If Black takes the pawn on &lt;code&gt;b4&lt;/code&gt; it transposes to a variation we have already looked at:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.f4 Nf6 2.b4 Nd5 3.d4 Nxb4 4.c3 N4c6 5.e4 d5 6.Nd2 dxe4 7.Nxe4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, as I mentioned in a comment to the question, perhaps Black can try the amazing &lt;code&gt;3...Nf6&lt;/code&gt; with the simple plan of &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;Bf5&lt;/code&gt;.  In this variation White will have more space, but also more weaknesses (and, no, Black is not behind in development):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.f4 Nf6 2.b4 Nd5 3.d4 Nf6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;White plays &lt;code&gt;3 Bb2&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Seeing that White will lose one pawn anyway, why not play a development move like  and see which pawn Black decides to take?  It seems that Black can just grab the &lt;code&gt;f4&lt;/code&gt; pawn and get away with it.  Let us see what happens if White tries to push Black off the board:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.f4 Nf6 2.b4 Nd5 3.Bb2 Nxf4 4.e3 Ng6 5.h4 h5 6.Be2 d5 7.Bxh5 Qd6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White won the &lt;code&gt;h5&lt;/code&gt; pawn, but now the threat of &lt;code&gt;Qg3+&lt;/code&gt; is just killing White.  Instead, if White tried some quiet development moves:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.f4 Nf6 2.b4 Nd5 3.Bb2 Nxf4 4.e3 Ng6 5.Nf3 e5 6.Nxe5 Nxe5 7.Bxe5 Nc6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black gets a small advantage by the precise &lt;code&gt;5...e5&lt;/code&gt; which trades the not so optimally placed &lt;code&gt;Ng6&lt;/code&gt; (Black is still a pawn up).  Note that the alternative &lt;code&gt;3 Nf3&lt;/code&gt; could easily transpose as it does not seem that White can improve much&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Conclusion&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The fork &lt;code&gt;2...Nd5&lt;/code&gt; works out well for Black, despite Houdini's initial reluctance towards it.  It seems White should play &lt;code&gt;3 d4&lt;/code&gt; to equalise.  I would certainly try &lt;code&gt;2...Nd5&lt;/code&gt; should &lt;code&gt;1 f4 Nf6  2 b4&lt;/code&gt; be played against me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1493" LastEditorUserId="1493" LastEditDate="2013-08-03T19:12:43.297" LastActivityDate="2013-08-03T19:12:43.297" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2664" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2642" CreationDate="2013-08-03T19:13:57.470" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a style known as a &quot;hedgehog&quot; defense, but it is not a good one, because it is &quot;random.&quot; Specifically, it allows Black to play moves like c5, d5, e5 and pieces right behind them, without interference. The resulting formation will be stronger in terms of board control than yours. Also, you have put all your pawns on Black squares, meaning that if your light squared bishop is ever lost or exchanged, you'll be very weak on light squares, as one of the other answers pointed out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are hedgehog defenses, mostly for Black, such as d6 and e6. As White, you can play d3 and e3, but why do so when you have the extra move. But these moves are part of a whole plan, and need to be followed up correctly. Your system doesn't do this or have much of a plan. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2013-08-03T19:13:57.470" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2665" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2652" CreationDate="2013-08-03T19:17:36.520" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;F4 is a reasonable opening move, to discourage Black's e5. He played Nf6 in a similar vein to discourage your e4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But the followup move, b4, was bad. Not only does it allow the knight fork, but it has no relation to f4. (The fork is really the symptom, and not the disease). Most logically, you might follow with another move on the kingside such as Nf3 or g3. If you want to play on the queen side, the logical moves are Nc3, or d3, both of which would protect a future pawn on e4 from the knight on f6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2013-08-03T19:17:36.520" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2666" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2660" CreationDate="2013-08-04T03:17:14.020" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;Castling is done by moving the King two squares towards the Rook, and then placing the Rook on the square that the King skipped over. In order to castle, all of the following must be true.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It's your turn.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The squares between your King and your Rook are all unoccupied.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You have not yet moved your King.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You have not yet moved the Rook that you are using to castle.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You are not currently in check.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You will not end up in check.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The square that your King passes through must not be under attack by an enemy piece (in other words, your King will not pass through check).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1562" LastEditorUserId="9148" LastEditDate="2016-01-04T21:09:06.197" LastActivityDate="2016-01-04T21:09:06.197" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2667" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2643" CreationDate="2013-08-04T03:21:27.493" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;To add to the answer posted by @dfan (who is correct on all counts), the draw offer is only good for that move. If you make a move, then offer a draw, and your opponent makes a move, then the draw offer is implicitly declined. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1562" LastActivityDate="2013-08-04T03:21:27.493" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2668" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-08-04T05:20:55.083" Score="8" ViewCount="5873" Body="&lt;p&gt;I use Arena. I want to input my game and create a pgn. But I have a problem, because if I make a move, the engine automatically makes a move as well. I want to make moves for white and for black. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't know how to switch the engine off.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1563" LastEditorUserId="4588" LastEditDate="2015-08-04T09:10:50.953" LastActivityDate="2015-08-04T09:10:50.953" Title="How to switch the engine off in Arena?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;arena&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2669" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2668" CreationDate="2013-08-04T07:43:26.130" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the &lt;code&gt;Engines&lt;/code&gt; dropdown menu at the top of the screen, you can turn off the engine. This will allow you to make moves for both sides.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1382" LastActivityDate="2013-08-04T07:43:26.130" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2670" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2662" CreationDate="2013-08-04T13:34:35.837" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The USCF and FIDE have scholastic programs designed to get kids - boys and girls - into chess.  This is one way they are trying to popularize it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2013-08-04T13:34:35.837" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2671" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2673" CreationDate="2013-08-05T16:54:03.417" Score="6" ViewCount="4757" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is takeback allowed in real chess?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All chess engines allow take backs, but that's not important, it's just a computer, we make mistakes and correct them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is about real chess, is it allowed? both online and in real tournaments? What about the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheating_in_chess#Touch-move_rule&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;one touch rule&lt;/a&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1105" LastEditorUserId="1105" LastEditDate="2013-08-05T18:55:01.273" LastActivityDate="2019-12-04T18:08:00.397" Title="Is takeback allowed in real chess?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;online-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2672" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2671" CreationDate="2013-08-05T16:57:21.947" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;In tournament chess, you cannot take back a move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once you intentionally touch one of your pieces (unless you clearly state that you are just adjusting its placement, by saying &quot;adjust&quot; or &quot;j'adoube&quot;), you must move it if possible. Once you release the piece on its destination square, you cannot change its destination. If you intentionally touch an opponent's piece, you must capture it if possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2013-08-05T16:57:21.947" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2673" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2671" CreationDate="2013-08-05T18:49:00.500" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;The answer for tournament chess is clear - one cannot request or approve a takeback. On certain chess servers, takebacks are allowed if agreed to by both players. The Internet Chess Club supports this feature, but others like Chess.com do not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1382" LastActivityDate="2013-08-05T18:49:00.500" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2674" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2641" CreationDate="2013-08-06T16:14:47.493" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I highly suggest finding one or two openings for each side,and then playing them against computers and people until they become second nature. I personally enjoy playing the Grand Prix, Fort Knox, Dunst openings; however, those are all just my personal preferences.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1575" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-09-19T22:26:22.513" LastActivityDate="2019-09-19T22:26:22.513" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2675" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2642" CreationDate="2013-08-06T17:04:48.010" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The most important rule in chess is that &lt;strong&gt;every single move should do something for you&lt;/strong&gt;, it should have one or more goals. What does a3 (&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anderssen%27s_Opening&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Anderssen's Opening&lt;/a&gt;) do for you? Do you control the center? No.  Do you gain space? Very little. Do you free your pieces? Also very little (and the wrong one, as the opening is the era of knights and bishops, not of the rooks). Do you support further advances? Maybe b4, but you could play b4 right now (this is called &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokolsky_Opening&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Sokolsky Opening or Orangutan&lt;/a&gt;, and is certainly playable, but maybe not the best choice for beginners). So a3 is already dubious. Wikipedia puts it that way:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;This opening move does little for development or control of the&#xA;  center. In some cases, White can transpose the game to an opening&#xA;  where 1.a3 might have been useful, but using a tempo on such a move&#xA;  already on move one seems premature. ...&#xA;  Anderssen's Opening is not a very constructive move for White, more a waiting&#xA;  move. However, some players may enjoy the psychological value of such&#xA;  a move, or believe it will help them against an opponent with a&#xA;  superior knowledge of opening theory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So if you really want to have that type of closed, passive position, use some hedgehog variation. If you just want to avoid too much &quot;theory&quot;, choose one of the not so common white opening moves (b3, b4, f4, g3, maybe c4), but at least look at the common ideas behind them. Don't throw away your advantage because you are to lazy to look at a few variations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="35" LastActivityDate="2013-08-06T17:04:48.010" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2676" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2634" CreationDate="2013-08-07T03:56:17.297" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is essentially the question of what is the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_complexity&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;game complexity&lt;/a&gt; of chess. Note that by finiteness, we know that chess &lt;em&gt;is&lt;/em&gt; determined, but we do not know if the starting position is a win for white, a win for black, or a draw.  The game complexity of chess is roughly the minimum number of positions we need to check in the game tree to determine the state of the initial position.  This is known as the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shannon_number&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Shannon number&lt;/a&gt;.  In the influential paper &lt;em&gt;Programming a Computer for Playing Chess&lt;/em&gt;, Shannon estimated that the Shannon number is at least 10^{120).  Note that the number of particles in the Universe is estimated to be 10^(80).  To answer the question, we actually want to know the &lt;em&gt;height&lt;/em&gt; of the game tree  when the initial position becomes determined.  We should also divide this height by 2, since a &lt;em&gt;move&lt;/em&gt; in chess is typically considered a white and black move.   The branching factor of the tree is estimated to be about 30.  Thus, we can take the largest N such that 30^(2N) &amp;lt; 10^(120).  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Answer.&lt;/strong&gt; By the back of the envelope, N=40 works.  Coincidentally, this happens to be the length of an average game between grandmasters (although they often resign and do not actually play the game to conclusion).   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit.&lt;/strong&gt; The moral of the story is that I was trying to estimate an upper bound for your lower bound.  The first part of Shannon's reasoning is not circular; he says that there are about 30 legal moves from each position, and this number is reasonably constant for the first portion of a game.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus, we can estimate the current &lt;em&gt;known&lt;/em&gt; value of N (which is really what you are asking, let's call this N') to be at most log_30 (C) where C is equal to the amount of computing power that has existed in the history of mankind.  Even with conservative estimates for C, we get something like  N' at most 20.  In practice, I don't think anyone has carried out this computation very far up the tree, since a priori we know that the computation becomes infeasible after a very short height and it is not necessary to &lt;em&gt;exhaustively&lt;/em&gt; search the tree to write good chess programs.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note however, that you are asking a slightly weaker question, since it is possible that the initial state of the game is a draw with optimal play.  So, one could get bounds for N by writing a program whose goal was to not lose for as long as possible.  We could then play this program against the best programs or human players in the world and see what the length of a shortest game is.  Again, this does not properly answer the question, since we cannot assume that our opponents are &lt;em&gt;playing optimally&lt;/em&gt;.  True optimal play requires full knowledge of the game tree, but we have seen that this is computationally infeasible.  Thus, the best we can currently do is approximate an optimally playing opponent with a Kasparov or a very good chess program. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1578" LastEditorUserId="1578" LastEditDate="2013-08-07T11:17:32.360" LastActivityDate="2013-08-07T11:17:32.360" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2677" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2678" CreationDate="2013-08-07T11:11:40.230" Score="6" ViewCount="237" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to figure out if there is any name for this particular position so that it might be easier for me to research it more - not so much the rook as much as having king behind the pawn. I play queenside castle a fair bit and find that if given the opportunity to get into this position it usually is beneficial.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;1k1r4/pPp5/8/8/8/8/8/7K b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here it is in one of my games from yesterday. (I'm sure there were better moves for probably both of us, this is just to better explain since the above kinda looks like endgame)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;1k1r3r/pPbn4/4p3/8/3Pp1B1/2q3pP/2P1Q1P1/R3K2R w KQ - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;1.d4 e6 2.e3 d5 3.Nc3 Bd6 4.Nf3 Bd7 5.h3 Qe7 6.a3 Nf6 7.b4 Nc6 8.Be2 O-O-O 9.Bb2 h5 10.b5 Nb8 11.a4 Ne4 12.Nxe4 dxe4 13.Ne5 g5 14.Nxd7 Nxd7 15.a5 f5 16.b6 Kb8 17.bxc7+ Bxc7 18.a6 f4 19.Bc3 fxe3 20.fxe3 g4 21.axb7 g3 22.Bxh5 Qg5 23.Bg4 Qxe3+ 24.Qe2 Qxc3+ 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="863" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2013-08-08T02:00:42.907" LastActivityDate="2013-08-08T02:00:42.907" Title="Is there a name for the a position where King is on the first/last row and an enemy pawn is directly in front?" Tags="&lt;terminology&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2678" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2677" CreationDate="2013-08-07T12:50:09.940" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is no explicit name for this position, but it is known that the pawn can act as a line of defense for the king. Its presence can obstruct the other side from creating a path towards the king as the pawn cannot be easily targeted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1382" LastActivityDate="2013-08-07T12:50:09.940" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2679" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2641" CreationDate="2013-08-07T13:35:36.993" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's better to know a few good openings well, rather than a bunch of various ones. You might get thrown by some novel (to you) opening by learning a few basics, but unless you're a master who has time to learn many of them, your best defense against seemingly novel openings is good fundamentals. It will be less often that someone will be able to throw you if you focus on a few fundamental lines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Learn the theory behind the most common openings for white that stem from e4-e5, such as Ruy Lopez or Italian game. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Learn one of the most solid responses to 1. e4, such as the Sicilian, or maybe the Caro-Kann.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Learn the most classic responses for white to the Sicilian &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Learn the most common theory behind the most common lines after 1. d4 d5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1580" LastEditorUserId="1580" LastEditDate="2013-08-08T03:44:13.843" LastActivityDate="2013-08-08T03:44:13.843" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2680" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2662" CreationDate="2013-08-07T13:45:37.620" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;according to wikipedia, the USCF has experienced strong membership growth in recent times:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Chess_Federation&quot;&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Chess_Federation&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, another angle would be to look at google search trends, and this suggests it is less popular, at least since 2005. For example, &quot;chess&quot;, &quot;learn chess&quot; and &quot;chess rules&quot;, &quot;chess tutor&quot;, &quot;chess books&quot;, &quot;chess openings&quot;, &quot;chess endgame&quot;, and &quot;play chess online&quot; show a downward trend. &quot;how to play chess&quot; shows a slight downward trend. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Overall popularity to other things could be compared by looking at the number of facebook likes that it has, although this estimate could be confounded by many different factors. You could at least get a rough comparison to other hobbies, though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1580" LastActivityDate="2013-08-07T13:45:37.620" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2681" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1679" CreationDate="2013-08-08T01:35:36.207" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;About a year ago, I chose Houdini. I had read that Houdini excelled at position evaluations while the other engines tried to excel with tactics but seemed inferior with positional concepts. Using Houdini and comparing it with Fritz, I agree that it is positionally stronger. I also observe that Houdini is very strong with tactics. Houdini can quickly find mat in 15 and other things that are beyond my comprehension. But position play and position evaluations are far more important since those concepts often have a longer range impact.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1582" LastActivityDate="2013-08-08T01:35:36.207" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2682" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2683" CreationDate="2013-08-08T10:53:58.080" Score="6" ViewCount="416" Body="&lt;p&gt;I keep reading about the importance of controlling the center in an opening, however (and forgive me my ignorance), I'm unsure if control means to occupy the center squares or to position pieces such that they are attacking the center squares. If anyone could elucidate the concept of controlling the center, I'd be very grateful!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1584" LastActivityDate="2013-08-09T11:08:37.077" Title="What Is Controlling The Center?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2683" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2682" CreationDate="2013-08-08T11:19:39.573" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;It means both.  The 'center' is most common defined as d4, d5, e4, and e5.  (The squares immediately around these are also sometimes included.)  Pieces in the center have greater mobility and flexibility than those on the edges.  The knight in the corner versus a knight in the center is the classic example.  A bishop in the center may attack b8 and h8.  The same bishop on g2 is still powerful, but can't immediately control the opponent's king-side.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Putting pawns in the center cramps the opponent and removes his options.  If you control the center squares, you can begin thinking about working pieces into strong-points on the opponent's side of the board.  Pawns on the the 5th rank can protect pieces on the 6th.  These pieces are seriously in the opponent's business. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's hard to keep the queen or a rook in the center (during the middle game) since the opponent's minor pieces will probably be able to drive them away. Also, controlling the center doesn't mean your just plop your pieces and pawns in the center, but that you can &lt;em&gt;keep&lt;/em&gt; them there.  Finally, controlling the center is only a means to an end.  Once your pieces are qualitatively better than your opponent's, you must strive for the win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2013-08-09T11:08:37.077" LastActivityDate="2013-08-09T11:08:37.077" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2684" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2682" CreationDate="2013-08-08T15:20:48.033" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Controlling the center means your pieces are placed on the board in such a way that the center 4 squares can be attacked and controlled (as shown in the picture below). When pieces are placed in the center they have more mobility and control over major areas of the board (especially with knight) than when they are placed elsewhere.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/0kYys.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;center-squares&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Controlling the center does not mean that your pieces have to be in the center. Fianchetto is a good example on strategic placement of bishop so that center can be covered from far end of the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user127" LastActivityDate="2013-08-08T15:20:48.033" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2685" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-08-09T08:52:28.370" Score="5" ViewCount="129" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm wondering if there is any chess software or portable chess computer that allows a position to be bookmarked while a variation is examined?&#xA;For example, it's possible to download pgn for games analyzed in Chernev's logical chess. However, there isn't a diagram for every position, and occasionally the author outlines alternate moves and their consequences. While it's possible to follow through this analysis on a board and &quot;unplay&quot; the moves back to the point where this divergence from the actual game takes place, this can be time-consuming. What I'm looking for is the opportunity to bookmark a point in the game, follow the variation through, and then click back to the bookmark to continue on with the game, rather than clicking a back arrow for every move that was made.&#xA;Thanks&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1589" LastActivityDate="2013-08-10T18:54:21.003" Title="Is there software or a device that allows bookmarking positions to allow variation analysis?" Tags="&lt;software&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2686" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2685" CreationDate="2013-08-09T10:59:16.413" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chessbase-shop.com/en/products/chessbase12_download&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chessbase&lt;/a&gt; is a commercial product that solves your problem.  Any position in Chessbase is in essence a bookmark.  You can just click on the move/position you want to go back to (all the moves are available visually beside the chess board).  I believe the same functionality is available for free with &lt;a href=&quot;http://scid.sourceforge.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Scid&lt;/a&gt;.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1493" LastEditorUserId="1493" LastEditDate="2013-08-10T08:08:04.330" LastActivityDate="2013-08-10T08:08:04.330" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2687" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2691" CreationDate="2013-08-10T00:17:12.687" Score="6" ViewCount="383" Body="&lt;p&gt;Take the following scenario, which may happen in tournaments that's why I'm asking my question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A famous old GM who's not playing well plays against some teenager who's very strong, The GM will be embarrassed to lose against some teenager, the GM has a lot of money, the teenager needs money for college. So the  GM pays the teenager so he could win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or maybe could they manipulate results by mutual agreement, like what happened to &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.theguardian.com/football/2010/jun/13/1982-world-cup-algeria&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Algeria in the world cup 1982&lt;/a&gt;. Could they agree to eliminate an opponent? What the rules has to say?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know it's against the rules, i just want to know how they investigate it and what are the rules about it, and yes i'm also asking about draws, since manipulating the results isn't only about winning and losing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And I'm also interested in knowing if the officials can deny a draw, if they see that the game is still playable or if they see something suspicious about it. And could you draw at any stage of the game: like &lt;code&gt;d3&lt;/code&gt; &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt; and they agree to draw here, is it possible?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1105" LastEditorUserId="1105" LastEditDate="2013-08-10T20:04:23.187" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T16:50:01.817" Title="Can chess players agree to manipulate the results?" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;tournament-directors&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2689" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="75" CreationDate="2013-08-10T02:08:34.880" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sometimes, one way to get overtly aggressive in a reasonably sound way is to throw out an early g4 pawn thrust in an otherwise vanilla, mainline position. For instance, in the Anti-Meran &lt;code&gt;6.Qc2&lt;/code&gt; variation of the Semi-Slav, the gambit move &lt;code&gt;7.g4!?&lt;/code&gt; was popularized by Shirov and Shabalov:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.Nc3 e6 5.e3 Nbd7 6.Qc2 Bd6 7.g4!?&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Speaking of Shirov, he pioneered a similar idea with &lt;code&gt;5.g4!?&lt;/code&gt; against the Pirc move-order of the Philidor Defense, and one could also try it a move earlier:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 d6 2.d4 Nf6 3.Nc3 Nbd7 4.Nf3 (4.g4!?) e5 5.g4!?&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2013-08-10T02:08:34.880" CommentCount="0" CommunityOwnedDate="2013-08-10T02:08:34.880" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2690" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2634" CreationDate="2013-08-10T09:00:55.317" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You may look &lt;a href=&quot;http://chesstempo.com/chess-forum/endgame_problems/competition_longest_move_to_mate-t770.0.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; for a discussion. Of course you should not use the 50 move rule, but according to this forum, the record is hold so far by this position (black to move):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;8/1r6/8/6n1/5k2/1b6/3K3N/7Q w - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;517 moves to a winning position and 525 to mate (best play by both sides). &#xA;See &lt;a href=&quot;http://timkr.home.xs4all.nl/chess2/diary_16.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;, entry 316. Thus this is a winning position with no win in less than 525 moves. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let me also reproduce Bourzutschky's comments: &quot;Even deeper 7-man endings may exist, but I doubt it. That such a great depth is still possible with so much firepower on the board suggests that even deeper endings may arise with 8 pieces, perhaps in krnnkbbn. This ending could be generated with 64 GB of RAM in a few months on a fast single CPU machine and about 5 terabytes of storage. Any takers?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1585" LastEditorDisplayName="user669" LastEditDate="2013-08-10T21:44:06.583" LastActivityDate="2013-08-10T21:44:06.583" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2691" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2687" CreationDate="2013-08-10T18:50:54.567" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;In a nutshell, current rules allow pretty much any sort of &quot;spontaneous&quot; agreement to a draw at the board, even if one side is staring at a forced mate in 6. If money changes hands or the results were agreed to before sitting down to play, it's a violation of the rules, but it's hard to enforce because folks who do that do it without witnesses to the act.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &quot;Sofia Rules&quot; are an attempt to combat that, we'll see how long they last and whether they get applied to more than a few top tournaments.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If an official has evidence, he can declare a game forfeit, but that is subject to appeals where the evidence must be presented. If an official becomes known for doing it capriciously, no one comes to play; if a player gets the reputation for &quot;selling points&quot; he is often invited to play in tournaments where the goal is to get one or more players some title norms. So you can see the field is tilted in favor of the players. Not saying that's good or bad, just saying it is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="657" LastActivityDate="2013-08-10T18:50:54.567" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2692" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2685" CreationDate="2013-08-10T18:54:21.003" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the days before electronics, I managed this with a pocket magnetic set. I'd follow along playing the game on the board, and when I wanted to explore a variation I set the &quot;return&quot; position on the magnetic set to save until I was done and wanted to go back.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These days &lt;em&gt;every&lt;/em&gt; chess database of any stripe will allow you to jump directly to a given move. So you follow along, create a new variation, follow it, and then with one click you jump back to the original position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="657" LastActivityDate="2013-08-10T18:54:21.003" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2693" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2596" CreationDate="2013-08-11T05:26:01.073" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Blumenfeld's Rule: Once you have decided on a move, stop thinking about your analysis and look at just that move as if you were reading it in a book, or having it played against you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &quot;full monte&quot; on this is that you write the move on your scoresheet, but some players started using this to excuse taking notes during a game (writing 4 and 5 moves down before playing one) so it's now illegal in USCF events. But just fixing it afresh in your mind will be almost the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="657" LastActivityDate="2013-08-11T05:26:01.073" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2695" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2819" CreationDate="2013-08-11T17:50:44.533" Score="21" ViewCount="50109" Body="&lt;p&gt;Various sources like those &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rook_%28chess%29#cite_note-1&quot;&gt;quoted in Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt; say that it's a mistake, or old-fashioned, to refer to rooks as &quot;castles&quot;.  Why is this, though?  Other languages generally refer to these pieces as &quot;towers&quot; and when the king exchanges places with them, we call it &quot;castling&quot; rather than &quot;rooking&quot;.  The pieces look like castles.  The term &quot;rook&quot;, on the other hand, seems to come from Persian/Arabic and have a very obscure etymology.  So why is this word preferred?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1539" LastActivityDate="2019-07-22T09:29:27.150" Title="Why are the corner pieces referred to as &quot;rooks&quot; in English?" Tags="&lt;terminology&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2696" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2697" CreationDate="2013-08-11T23:34:17.330" Score="6" ViewCount="826" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was looking at the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.grappa.univ-lille3.fr/icga/tournament.php?id=178&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;results of the 16th World Computer Chess Championship&lt;/a&gt;. You can see the hardware that the computer runs on. The reason why i'm asking this is that Mobile Chess engine is running on Nokia 6120c, right? It doesn't make sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Rybka runs on Cluster, 40 cores, if they ran Mobile chess engine on a Sumsung galaxy s4, it would probably have beaten Rybka. Am I reading the charts correctly? Because something definitely doesn't make sense, if I was a programmer going into a computer chess championship, Nokia 6120c would not be my weapon of choice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do they run all the engines on same hardware? Do they insure a fair game?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1105" LastEditorUserId="1105" LastEditDate="2013-08-12T15:30:08.580" LastActivityDate="2019-12-14T19:28:14.587" Title="World Computer Chess Championship: Why don't they run all computers on the same hardware?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2697" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2696" CreationDate="2013-08-12T00:40:27.440" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think an historical look at that competition helps make the fact that each engine played on its own distinct hardware setup seem more reasonable. Don't think of it as merely an engine (software) competition, because it wasn't. Instead, think of it as a competition to determine the strongest chess-playing machine (hardware and software combined). And really this isn't so strange, especially given that this series of events dates back to an era when engines themselves were significantly weaker, computing power was more limited, and much less was known than today about how best to apply either hardware or software resources to the problem of computer chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Part of the challenge was of course just crafting better engines, regardless of hardware, but doing so in ways that took appropriate advantage of whatever particular hardware one could get a hold of was a significant part of the problem as well. Also (and this isn't a trivial point), these competitions in earlier days were as much (if perhaps not more) a way for hardware folks to show off as it was for engine developers. Consider two-time world champion &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cray_Blitz&quot;&gt;Cray Blitz&lt;/a&gt; (1983, 1986). Its success wasn't just a feather in the cap of &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cis.uab.edu/hyatt/&quot;&gt;Bob Hyatt&lt;/a&gt; et al. for their ability to design a strong engine, but also a source of advertising for Cray Research's supercomputer and its ability to outstrip others at handling the calculating complexities of chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While I'm at it, for a more obvious example of how hardware was long just as prominent and distinguishing a part of the equation in computer chess, we can think back to Kasparov's 1996-7 matches against &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Blue_%28chess_computer%29&quot;&gt;Deep(er) Blue&lt;/a&gt;, which wouldn't have happened at all (think sponsorship and such) if IBM wasn't eager to test and show off its hardware.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All that said, there is currently a well-known competition that offers what you want to see, which is a hardware-neutral comparison that's specifically designed to determine the strongest engine: Martin Thoresen's &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.tcec-chess.net/&quot;&gt;TCEC&lt;/a&gt;, which e.g. &lt;a href=&quot;http://chessbomb.com/&quot;&gt;ChessBomb&lt;/a&gt; broadcasts when it gets played.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2013-08-12T00:40:27.440" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2698" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2699" CreationDate="2013-08-12T04:50:27.847" Score="5" ViewCount="872" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have recently been looking into the mathematics behind the Elo rating system and its application to areas other than chess. I can understand almost all of it but I'm having a problem finding out the meaning of one of the values, and how it is determined. The value I'm talking about is the &lt;code&gt;n&lt;/code&gt; value, which is supposed to be some number of rating points that a person &lt;code&gt;n&lt;/code&gt; rated points above their opponent is expected to win ten times as often (If my explanation is not clear enough, it is represented by the number 400 - the value used in chess - in the fomulae on the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elo_rating_system#Mathematical_details&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;wikipedia page&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This all makes perfect sense so far, but I was wondering how you determine that value when setting up a new system. For example, in chess the value of n is 400 - why was this number chosen and not something more 'round' like 100 or 500? About the only effect I can see that this number has is the increase in precision (though not accuracy) of the rating for higher values of n, and if this is the case, does the value really matter so long as it remains consistent?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="550" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2013-10-05T15:57:24.517" LastActivityDate="2013-10-05T15:57:24.517" Title="Deciding on an n-variable for an Elo rating system" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;elo&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2699" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2698" CreationDate="2013-08-12T04:52:33.623" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Since you referred to the wikipedia page, I assume you understand the probability calculation itself.  If not, or if anyone else is interested, I could work through it.  I assume that you are just interested in whether the value of 400 was chosen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From a mathematical perspective, it is totally arbitrary.   The value could be 1000, or it could be 1.  If the number were larger, the rating scale would end up stretched out.  If it were smaller, it would be compressed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The number 400 works because it means that a difference of 100 points is a pretty meaningful difference.  People can relate to that when they look at a rating.   People tend to think in 100 point intervals, so if I say that my rating is &quot;in the 800s&quot;, people have a reasonable grasp of my abilities, and can instantly make a meaningful comparison to someone who is &quot;in the 900s.&quot;  If we used 100 instead of 400 in the formula, then instead of 1300 vs 1200, we would be talking about 1225 vs. 1200.   It would mean exactly the same thing, but it's easier to relate to that 100 point difference.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="550" LastActivityDate="2013-08-12T04:52:33.623" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2700" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-08-12T15:29:18.213" Score="2" ViewCount="104" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess diagrams are simple, icon-based images and there's no reason they need to be raster images. I've seen many threads started on this topic throughout the web, always unanswered.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1309" LastActivityDate="2013-08-12T18:49:47.507" Title="Where can I find images for vector chess diagrams?" Tags="&lt;notation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2701" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2700" CreationDate="2013-08-12T15:29:18.213" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Someone has just posted a collection of tools for creating vector chess diagrams on reddit. You can find them &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/1k6bdx/images_for_vector_chess_diagrams/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;. If anyone knows of some more resources like this I'd love to hear about them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1309" LastEditorUserId="1309" LastEditDate="2013-08-12T18:49:47.507" LastActivityDate="2013-08-12T18:49:47.507" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2702" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2698" CreationDate="2013-08-12T18:57:58.560" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;It appears to be basically historical. From Arpad Elo's &lt;em&gt;The Rating of Chess Players, Past and Present&lt;/em&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The present range originally took 2000 as the upper level for the strong amateur or club player, and arranged the other categories above and below (1.26)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Category designations and proficiencies among federations have become generally more comparable with the adoption of the Elo system by FIDE and by many of its member federations, but the numbers assigned to any given level of chess proficiency remain entirely arbitrary. Both the class subdivision into 200 points and the choice of 2000 as the reference point were already steeped in tradition when this author arrived on the scene. [...] These features were retained for their general acceptance by the players. (1.27)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In particular, the Elo system was designed to produce ratings on approximately the same scale as the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_rating_system#Harkness_system&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Harkness system&lt;/a&gt;, which had already been in use by the USCF since the 1950s. The ~200 points per class difference in the Harkness system falls out of the simple equations used to describe that system.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2013-08-12T18:57:58.560" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2703" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-08-13T17:27:40.800" Score="12" ViewCount="160760" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can the king get out of check by capturing his attacker? For example, if the queen comes right in front of the king, can the king capture the queen, or must another piece capture the queen?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1603" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-07-15T17:58:13.120" LastActivityDate="2020-07-15T17:58:13.120" Title="Can the king capture his attacker?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;check&gt;&lt;kings&gt;&lt;captures&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2704" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2703" CreationDate="2013-08-13T17:28:57.167" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;The king can capture the enemy queen, as long that does not place it in check from another piece.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2013-08-13T17:28:57.167" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2706" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2703" CreationDate="2013-08-13T18:07:30.353" Score="24" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are three ways to get out of check. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Simply move the king away. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Block the check, or place a piece in between the king and the opponent's attacking piece.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Capture the piece that's checking the king. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All of these cases are dependent on the fact that immediately after you make your move, the king is not in check. Therefore, you may capture the queen so long as the king is no longer in check after you make your move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1382" LastEditorUserId="799" LastEditDate="2014-10-22T14:02:46.287" LastActivityDate="2014-10-22T14:02:46.287" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2707" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1750" CreationDate="2013-08-13T21:12:41.513" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Based on my experience, absolutely!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In a nutshell:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It improve your calculation and visual representation abilities&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It increase your capacity of concentration (you have to work quite hard to be able to play your first full blindfold game!)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It boosts your self-confidence when you play regular over-the-board games&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;and best of all, this fun and rewarding! Playing (and winning) a blindfold game against a family casual player will establish your Chess reputation in the family for the years to come! :-)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to more about blindfold play in general, you can take a look at some post I wrote on this very topic:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://improveyourchessornot.blogspot.ca/2013/04/the-black-art-of-calculation-blindfold.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://improveyourchessornot.blogspot.ca/2013/04/the-black-art-of-calculation-blindfold.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://improveyourchessornot.blogspot.ca/2013/04/the-black-art-of-calculation-blindfold_20.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://improveyourchessornot.blogspot.ca/2013/04/the-black-art-of-calculation-blindfold_20.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Cheers!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1606" LastEditorUserId="1606" LastEditDate="2013-08-23T20:26:09.690" LastActivityDate="2013-08-23T20:26:09.690" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2708" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2709" CreationDate="2013-08-13T21:42:12.693" Score="6" ViewCount="503" Body="&lt;p&gt;I play Philidor defense, Lolli attack, Fried Liver attack... Other people choose to play well known openings/defenses, so i decided to ask the following questions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Everyone learns the Najdorf defense because it scores well. (or because Kasparov and Fischer played it). The Philidor isn't as popular as other defenses on the other hand. I have a few questions about that:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;if you wanted to know how well an opening/defense scores, is there an online database that  keeps track of all the games ever played and gives you the overall rating of an opening by calculating the average score, or do you take for granted what other players told you?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;How to know if the Najdorf for example is a good opening, maybe Fischer and kasparov won, because they are good players, not because the opening is good. Same question about bad opening and defenses, I mean in the middle game if the player is bad, no opening will let him win, I mean how much can you memorize? How many variations? At some point you have have to rely on your intelligence.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Don't good openings become bad opening when they become well known? I mean lets use the Najdorf again as an example, because everyone wants to learn it, it is so well known, doesn't that make it a bad opening? The opponent will be well prepared for it.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;And lastly, is it better to play openings/defenses that score well (French defense. Indian etc..)  or is it better to play an opening that is not well known and that your opponent didn't learn?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1105" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-09-17T11:11:22.023" LastActivityDate="2019-09-17T11:14:29.367" Title="How to know how good an opening/defense scores?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;defense&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2709" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2708" CreationDate="2013-08-13T22:34:19.477" Score="6" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;if you decided to know how good an opening/defense scores, is there an online database that keeps track of all the games ever played, or do you take for granted what other players told you?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance if you buy Chessbase, it will deliver a big database with some games. There you can look up for the openings, which were played by the big players. I like to hear and take tips from my trainer, rather than believing in some game from two players with &gt; 2400 Elo. They play completely different, than most of the players. You don't really understand their plans and moves, unless someone comments the game and explains everything. They are not fighting for pieces / pawns, they just fight for one square, which is weak and then in the end-game they will win it eventually, because of this one little weak square.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;How to know if the Najdorf for example is a good opening, maybe Fischer and kasparov won, because they are good players, not because the opening is good. Same question about bad opening and defenses, I mean in the middle game if the player is bad, no opening will let him win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Fair enough question. If the opening isn't good, wouldn't someone else beat them there (some other good players or an engine)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The last point is also true. I had many games, where I dominated in the opening but lost it in the middle / end game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Don't good openings become bad opening when they become well known? I mean lets use the Najdorf again as an example, because everyone wants to learn it, it is so well known, doesn't that make it a bad opening? The opponent will be well prepared for it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's partly true. If your opponent is prepared, you have to be prepared too, but this doesn't mean that it is a bad opening. Especially in Najdorf there are so many variations, you have to know them, when you want to play it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;And lastly, is it better to play openings/defenses that score good (french defense. indian etc..) or is it better to play an opening that is not well known and that your opponent didn't learn?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This depends on how / what you want to play. I like to play some aggressive stuff. I used to play French defense, but it wasn't my opening. I was losing nearly every game, then I changed to Sicilian and now I win about 25%, draw about 50% and lose about 25%.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you play something that's unknown, your opponent could still beat you in the opening, because he knows how to play chess (maybe he is also better) and will just spend some time during the opening and analyzing it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1506" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-09-17T11:14:29.367" LastActivityDate="2019-09-17T11:14:29.367" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2710" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2708" CreationDate="2013-08-13T23:59:49.027" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Good openings don't become bad openings when they are known, usually.  Usually openings just lose their edge as more effective defenses are found. Every now and then, an opening variation will be &quot;busted&quot; and disappear from professional play. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is better to know a few variations, and the &lt;em&gt;reason&lt;/em&gt; the variation works - don't just memorize the moves.  Couple that with a good knowledge of middlegame principles and you're going to have some good games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2013-08-13T23:59:49.027" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2711" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12539" CreationDate="2013-08-14T00:07:20.557" Score="5" ViewCount="513" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was reading this question: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/2708/how-to-know-how-good-an-opening-defense-scores&quot;&gt;How to know how good an opening defense scores&lt;/a&gt;, and it got me wondering...Have there been very lopsided opening scores in the lower levels. For example, if we found out that the &lt;code&gt;Halloween Gambit: 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. Nxe5&lt;/code&gt; scores 90% in under 1800 level category it would be quite an anomaly. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One kind of an anomaly that I can think of at the top-level is the Traxler:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nf6 4. Ng5 Bc5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/explorer?node=144658&amp;amp;move=4.5&amp;amp;moves=e4.e5.Nf3.Nc6.Bc4.Nf6.Ng5&amp;amp;nodes=21720.21721.21722.21723.24145.24146.144658&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chessgames&lt;/a&gt; database black scored 60.1 % wins and 15.9 % draws in 308 games. Of course we don't know relative strength of the players, maybe stronger players had black pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tony Ennis pointed out that according to &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.365chess.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;365chess.com&lt;/a&gt; there is no advantage for black in the Traxler.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="307" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2015-10-04T21:08:36.607" Title="Are there any very lopsided scores in openings at lower levels?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;statistics&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2713" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2281" CreationDate="2013-08-14T14:31:20.597" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is the typical problem of falling into a cramped position. Think twice before giving up the center (8...dxe4), and plan what kind of breaks you have in order to open the position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my opinion, the game is practically lost with 16...Bb7. The only chance for black is to go for the c5 break. And the move maybe was 16...Ba6 (and then c5).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also notice that you cannot put your knight on d5 (for tactical reasons), so the game after c5 is practically over (the white pieces have more space and they can move towards the black king very easily) and the black bishop is a piece of wood ...).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And it is true that when you are playing in a position like that it is convenient to exchange pieces... but in this case, it is not recommended because you have a very bad bishop. So at the end (like in the game), you are practically playing without a whole piece.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1610" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-09-17T10:44:31.657" LastActivityDate="2019-09-17T10:44:31.657" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2715" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2281" CreationDate="2013-08-14T20:34:09.437" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can also lose a game due to positional mistakes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;For instance&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;you have some weak squares, where the opponent can place some&#xA;pieces, which will just dominate against your pieces (for example a knight on your 3rd/4th rank)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;some weak pawns, which are easy to attack but hard to defend (the more they are ahead, the easier it is to attack them)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your white-squared bishop needed 16 moves to develop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can't see why you placed your knight on &lt;code&gt;f8&lt;/code&gt;. It is just useless there. You are just giving space away, which the opponent can and will use (&lt;code&gt;c4&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;b4&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;c5&lt;/code&gt; and so on).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your pawn structure on the queen side is disastrous. Especially after &lt;code&gt;bxc5&lt;/code&gt;. I would have tried to push &lt;code&gt;c5&lt;/code&gt; with black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically you played without a &lt;strong&gt;real&lt;/strong&gt; plan. You tried to defend (maybe hoping for a draw) but it didn't work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;How can you avoid it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Take your time in the game and try to figure out a plan. Also try to figure out what your opponent wants to do. It's really hard to find a good plan in certain games, but you will get better and better. If you don't do anything during the game, you will get destroyed (as you can see in your last game).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1506" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-09-17T10:37:49.733" LastActivityDate="2019-09-17T10:37:49.733" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2716" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2717" CreationDate="2013-08-15T05:33:48.650" Score="2" ViewCount="169" Body="&lt;p&gt;I used to have this print up on my locker in highschool, and have had a blown-up, framed version in my living room for the past several years.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've recently started playing chess regularly again and was looking to buy a new board, and was wondering if anyone could recommend a place to purchase a similarly detailed set.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The ad is titled &quot;Pure Mate&quot; from 1997.  I'm not sure if I'm allowed to link amazon or an outside site in these posts, but this if so here is the ad in question:  &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/B00764VM14&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.amazon.com/Smirnoff-Vodka-Bottle-Chess-Pieces/dp/B00764VM14&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1614" LastActivityDate="2013-08-15T11:14:45.473" Title="Chess Pieces like classic 1997 &quot;Pure Mate&quot; ad" Tags="&lt;chessboards&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2717" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2716" CreationDate="2013-08-15T11:14:45.473" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Try these themed sets from House of Staunton.  I don't see the set you're looking for, but you can expect whatever they have to be very high quality.  I love the Isle of Lewis set.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.houseofstaunton.com/chess-pieces/themed-chess-pieces.html?src=feature&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.houseofstaunton.com/chess-pieces/themed-chess-pieces.html?src=feature&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2013-08-15T11:14:45.473" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2718" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2708" CreationDate="2013-08-16T19:57:17.330" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;an opening which worked for fisher etc. might not work for you if you dont understand all the subtle threats that were going on in the background and how to capitalize on them&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1618" LastActivityDate="2013-08-16T19:57:17.330" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2719" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2711" CreationDate="2013-08-18T16:14:47.503" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think anomalies can really exist.  The reason is that it takes two people, and The Other Guy will not play the variation where he gets smoked.  Fool's Mate and Legal's Mate are great examples.  A lot of beginners fall for them once, but I suspect that isn't what you're looking for.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, with any opening a player can make a bad move and lose.  But I also suspect this isn't what you're looking for.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my mind, what you're looking for are openings that reward the skilled tactician who studies hard and learns openings well.  With the Black pieces, the Sicilian Defense springs to mind - Black opts for an asymmetrical game where &quot;ok&quot; moves by either side can be punished.  The King's Indian is similarly aggressive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the White side, try sound openings that are not the Ruy Lopez.  I've seen some very booked-up beginners.  Play an English and see if how they handle it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Make the opening razor sharp, where the opponent has LOTS of bad choices :-D&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2013-08-18T16:14:47.503" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2720" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2711" CreationDate="2013-08-19T19:03:14.627" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think that you can statistically prove which openings are better or worse at the lower levels just because of the nature of players themselves. The lower you go, you are going to get the following situations:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Haven't studied very many openings&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Aren't familiar with many positions (open/closed/tactical etc)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;More likely to fall for or make known move mistakes in later analysis (moves 12+)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As players get more experienced (and thus higher rated), they are much more likely to be able to think their way out of mistakes in openings they are not familiar with, more likely to see forks, skewers, &quot;hidden&quot; threats, that a newer player won't be familiar with. All of these are going to skew any opening validity analysis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="394" LastActivityDate="2013-08-19T19:03:14.627" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2721" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2703" CreationDate="2013-08-19T22:46:55.977" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;there is only one move that cannot be performed in check (aside for making a move that keeps you in check, or creates another one ) and that is castling.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1618" LastActivityDate="2013-08-19T22:46:55.977" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2723" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2711" CreationDate="2013-08-19T22:58:14.410" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;one opening which ive used against many beginner's ( i have used this many times on ppl younger than me ) is queens gambit, which can give a very big advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;many times Fanchette works as well, because beginners may not properly understand it, and therefore underestimate it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1618" LastActivityDate="2013-08-19T22:58:14.410" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2724" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-08-21T16:30:14.583" Score="5" ViewCount="1102" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am an intermediate level chess enthusiast. I have noticed that one of the main hindrances that slows down my progress is that I have never been able to internalize the algebraic notation and lack a good “board sense”. I know that Algebraic Notation is a pretty simple and straightforward system and I have actually no problem reading the moves and playing them over the board. The problem is that, when I am playing black, I am not able to look at the board and without first reading the grids name the exact square right away.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is relatively easy to do this when you are playing white and I don't have much trouble doing that, but when it comes to the black side all of a sudden everything is reversed and I have to sit back and think what square is what and that sometimes becomes annoying to the point where it prevents me from concentrating on the moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In all chess books diagrams are shown from the point of view of white and because of that I never tried to follow games from the opposite side. When I look at the videos where grandmasters are quickly analyzing their games, I see that they have absolutely no problem following the games and talking about moves from the black’s point of view. So I guess that’s something I should also be able to do, in case I want to improve my chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Incidentally, I noticed that I don't have that problem with descriptive notation. I can play black's moves very quickly on the board when I am reading or analyzing moves written using that system of notation. The reason is that descriptive notation is “relative” but algebraic notation is “absolute” and only one name is assigned to the squares no matter which side is talking. Alas, descriptive notation is obsolete and I have to find a way to deal with the standard system.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Has anyone else experienced the same problem, and if yes, how have they been able to solve this? Any tips on visualizing the board and following the moves rapidly from the black side is also appreciated. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1631" LastActivityDate="2016-02-04T10:50:48.500" Title="Following the moves from the black’s point of view" Tags="&lt;notation&gt;&lt;board-vision&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2725" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2724" CreationDate="2013-08-21T17:23:50.870" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would recommend using &lt;a href=&quot;http://chesseye.alexander-fleischer.de/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;chess eye&lt;/a&gt;, here's a &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YwBTQAsuco&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;video about it&lt;/a&gt;, it will help you memorize the board, difficult but fun!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't think this is the answer you're looking for, but I'm answering anyway since there's no other answer and since my initial answer didn't help much, i feel that i must improve my answer even if it won't help you. Here's how i visualize, I don't follow from black perspective nor white. I see them as a list, such as &lt;a href=&quot;http://memorize.com/chess-board&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I memorized only the &lt;strong&gt;A&lt;/strong&gt; rank, especially &lt;strong&gt;a1&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;a8&lt;/strong&gt; and worked my way through the board using maths, not memorization, i think maths helps more, if you calculate it, it makes sense to you. For example if you tell me to memorize how to derive an equation, I'll never understand it and I will find it hard to remember, if you tell me the idea behind it and tell me why i am doing it, i will understand and do it fast.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not a fan of memorization and i know that modern chess is all about memorization, criticize me all you want.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I just remember that &lt;strong&gt;a1&lt;/strong&gt; is black, therefore a4 has to be white, a8 has to be white as well, count them on your fingers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;b1 is directly above a1 so it's the opposite color, b1 is white, b4 has to be black, b8 has to be black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A pattern is visible here&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;x1 color is different than x8&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;x4 = x8&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;x8 = y1&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not only that a1 and c1 are black, because there's always x black followed by y white, you can say that all the odd rank numbers starts with black ends with white, and vise versa for the even rank numbers&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a is an odd rank since it's the first letter and the first rank, a1 is black&#xA;b is even b1 is white. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So a1 is black, what about h1? well a8 is white, and h is the 8th ranks, its number 8, got to be white. Want to count from h to a? lets do it, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;h1 is white, and so is is g8, g1 is black and h8 is black of course, i want you to imagine it, not just to read it, forget about the letters, just imagine that you're counting from 1 to 8, each number has a color, and when you get to 8, you start again, 1 has the same color as 8.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;one last rank is the d rank, it's number 4, a1 is black, a4 is white, d is rank number 4, which is white! that's what i do, a list, white, black doesn't matter, might help you with blindfolded chess or if you're playing against an engine, no GUI.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1105" LastEditorUserId="1105" LastEditDate="2013-08-22T02:21:57.463" LastActivityDate="2013-08-22T02:21:57.463" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2727" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-08-22T11:06:21.133" Score="8" ViewCount="998" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to the current &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fide.com/component/handbook/?id=124&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE rules of chess&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The game is drawn upon a correct claim by the player having the move, when the same position, for at least the third time (not necessarily by a repetition of moves):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a.&#xA;is about to appear, if he first writes his move on his scoresheet and declares to the arbiter his intention to make this move, or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;b. has just appeared, and the player claiming the draw has the move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Watching the current &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessworldcup2013.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;World Cup&lt;/a&gt; an interesting episode appeared when &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wang_Hao_%28chess_player%29&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wang Hao&lt;/a&gt; claimed a draw against &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexey_Dreev&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Alexev Dreev&lt;/a&gt;.  Wang stopped the clock and contacted the arbiter, claiming the draw.  The arbiter saw that Wang had &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; written down his move before claiming the draw.  Therefore Dreev got 3 mintues extra time and the clocks were restarted.  With only seconds left on his clock Wang wrote down the move he planned to make and stopped the clock again.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Crazy as it might sound, if it now turned out that the position had not been reached for the third time the arbiter would have had to give the game to Dreev (as you apparently can only claim something incorrectly once).  Luckily for Wang the position did appear for the third time and the game was drawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessbase.com/Home/TabId/211/PostId/4010817/troms-21-world-cup-snapshots-150813.aspx&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;more details and pictures about the incident here&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to live commentator &lt;a href=&quot;http://susanpolgar.blogspot.no/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Susan Polgar&lt;/a&gt; the rules for claiming the draw have changed several times and are different from federation to federation.  I certainly understand Wang as in any other situation writing down the move before you make it is not legal according to the same rules.  My brother claimed a draw in England some years ago and then the arbiter told him that he should &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; have written down his move before he claimed the draw (his GM opponent then deviated and avoided the draw).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Finally my question(s):&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;When did the rules change?  What does the USCF/BCF rules say?  Why don't the federations follow FIDE on this?  Do you know of any other rules?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1493" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-17T01:04:03.660" LastActivityDate="2020-08-17T01:04:03.660" Title="What are the different rules for claiming a draw?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;history&gt;&lt;fide&gt;&lt;draw&gt;&lt;claim-draw&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2728" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2724" CreationDate="2013-08-22T12:07:08.723" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The meanings of the squares don't change depending on whether you are looking at the board from White's or Black's point of view. So try to think about the squares' function rather than just identifying them by coordinates.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I will give some examples.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When I think 'c4', I think &quot;White's second move in the Queen's Gambit Declined, and the square he moves his Bishop to in the Italian game to attack f7&quot;, not &quot;three squares over and four squares up&quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When I think 'g7', I think &quot;the square Black fianchettos his bishop on in the Sicilian Dragon and King's Indian&quot;, not &quot;seven squares over and seven squares up&quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When I think 'g8', I think &quot;the square Black's king is on after castling kingside&quot;, not &quot;seven squares over and eight squares up&quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These functions of the squares don't change when you switch your orientation, so they are easier to work with.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course it takes a lot of time to internalize the functions of the squares in this way, but you will understand the chessboard a lot better when you've done so. For one thing, you will know, for example, what having a queen on c2 and bishop on d3 is good for, without having to look at a board to follow the diagonal out to its destination.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2013-08-22T12:07:08.723" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2729" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2738" CreationDate="2013-08-22T13:10:35.487" Score="6" ViewCount="722" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just read that Alexander Alekhine simultaneously played 26 blindfold games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are blindfold players allowed to look at the list of moves? Can they re-create the position in their mind from the list of moves, or do they have to memorize the position on each table?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1512" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-12-31T00:29:53.110" LastActivityDate="2019-12-31T00:29:53.110" Title="Are blindfold players allowed to look at the list of moves?" Tags="&lt;blindfold-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2732" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2900" CreationDate="2013-08-22T23:51:41.427" Score="8" ViewCount="1997" Body="&lt;p&gt;There seems to be some controversy on whether there is really any practical difference between Bronstein timing and Simple Delay timing.  By &quot;Bronstein&quot; and &quot;Simple Delay&quot; I'm referring to the timing methods described in this &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_control#Compensation_.28delay_methods.29&quot;&gt;Wikipedia Article&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now I think the fact that the two timing methods are functionally equivalent is proven quite convincingly in this &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hpj7wLY6olA&quot;&gt;YouTube video&lt;/a&gt;. Note that the DGT clock shown using Bronstein timing starts by adding the delay to the initial time before counting down and that is an important factor in making the two timing systems equivalent.  Note that the Wikipedia definition I linked to earlier doesn't make any mention of whether the delay interval should be added to the time at start.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've also noticed that other clocks that implement Bronstein timing don't automatically add the interval time at the start. For example, the Garde clock shown in this &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0-HWFYRMe8&quot;&gt;YouTube video&lt;/a&gt;.  (Note, jump to 2:37 to see the clock started) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the case of a clock like that, I believe the two timing systems aren't functionally equivalent in that the Bronstein timer would always run out sooner by the amount of the delay.  And in the case of a secondary time control, that would accumulate so that it would be shorter by 2xDelay.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So here is my question, I can't find any definitions of Bronstein timing that specify whether the delay should be added to the start time as DGT has implemented it and I can't find the text of David Bronstein's original proposal of this timing method to see if it specified how the start time should be handled.  To me the DGT way seems more correct, but if it isn't really specified then I guess both clocks could be considered correct as it is ambiguous how it should be handled.  I also couldn't find a FIDE rule that specifies how Bronstein timing should work. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So does anyone know of a formal specification that addresses the starting time issue?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, If anyone has experience with other clocks that implement Bronstein timing other than the DGT and Garde clocks I mentioned, do most clocks add the delay from the start like the DGT or just start counting from the set time like the Garde?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1036" LastActivityDate="2017-10-07T13:29:43.423" Title="Bronstein timing vs. Simple Delay, Is there a formal definition of Bronstein Timing that specifies whether the increment should be added initially?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;chess-clocks&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2734" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2727" CreationDate="2013-08-23T07:56:52.737" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;FIDE's &quot;Laws of Chess&quot; is a good place to start, as these are generally accepted as the governing rules of the sport: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fide.com/FIDE/handbook/LawsOfChess.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.fide.com/FIDE/handbook/LawsOfChess.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Article five has the general rules for a draw and article nine has more detail on them. Article 9.2 is relevant to your question. It seems clear that the arbiter was correct in Wang's case, as he had not written down his move. Everything that transpired in this case, down to the three minutes of extra time, appear in accordance with FIDE's rules.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, things differ in blitz and speed chess - and this is where I think different federations might really come up with their own takes and interpretations of procedural rules, since these iterations of the game have often been developed in a less formal context.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's also quite possible that the arbiter in your brother's case simply didn't know the rules.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="735" LastActivityDate="2013-08-23T07:56:52.737" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2735" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1900" CreationDate="2013-08-23T11:57:04.633" Score="-2" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. e5 c5 4. c3 Nc6 5. Nf3 Qb6 6. a3 f6 7. Bd3 fxe5 8. Nxe5 Nxe5 9. Qh5+ Ng6 10. Bxg6 hxg6 11. Qxh8&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1638" LastEditorUserId="12" LastEditDate="2013-08-26T03:04:15.867" LastActivityDate="2013-08-26T03:04:15.867" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2736" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2729" CreationDate="2013-08-23T20:15:51.827" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;They memorize the position on each table; In this kind of event, they simply don't have the time to spend to much time on each position. Also trying to re-create the position like this is not practical when you play blindfold chess&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to know (almost) everything on blindfold play, check out this great book on &#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.blindfoldchess.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.blindfoldchess.net/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Cheers!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1606" LastActivityDate="2013-08-23T20:15:51.827" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2737" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2641" CreationDate="2013-08-23T20:51:23.323" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Studying Opening Chess theory is definitively not about memorizing long lines of theory where you'll get lost if you opponent diverges...&#xA;Also what to do next once you're out of your book?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The best way is....to practice!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In a nutshell:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Study Few GMs or important games for that opening and/or system you&#xA;would like to play: you'll get a general feeling of the opening/variation, you'll &#xA;identify tactical and strategical ideas...no opening manuals at this point!&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Then Practice, Practice and Practice! (numerous blitz, 15 minutes games,&#xA;even longer time control) the more the better!&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;then only take a look at some opening manuals on this very specific line / system: you'll soon realized you have memorized and understood more than you =thought possible!&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Rinse and repeat!&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If interested, I wrote detailed post on this very topic:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://improveyourchessornot.blogspot.ca/2013/05/how-to-study-opening.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://improveyourchessornot.blogspot.ca/2013/05/how-to-study-opening.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope it helps,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Cheers!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1606" LastActivityDate="2013-08-23T20:51:23.323" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2738" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2729" CreationDate="2013-08-24T15:03:50.803" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;What I'm going to say is too long for a comment so I guess I have to answer. This is funny because I'm the one who marked your question as favorite, just in case someone answers it, I wanted to know the answer, and here I am the one who's answering it!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Do you know what were the rules of these competitions ?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No but I'll keep searching, maybe I can provide a better answer later on. If you only want to read my answer to your question scroll down, it's the last part.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I guess, that Alexander Alekhine did not look at anything when playing. I will tell you why I think he didn't look, I will tell you how I think he was able to do it. Lets look at other things that our mind can do, and we'll talk about chess in the end.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Did you know that many Muslims are required to memorize each word of the Quran? They actually do competitions sometimes to see who can answer faster, many none Arabic Muslims do that even little kids, imagine how hard it would be for a small kid to memorize the entire Quran, in Arabic, a language that he doesn't even understand.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;How many songs can you memorize? at least 1000 but you don't know it yet. How many songs can singers memorize? How many music compositions can musicians play without looking at the notes?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=what-is-the-memory-capacity&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;What Is the Memory Capacity of the Human Brain?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can do this, untrained, normal person, what can a professional do?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To fully understand what the brain is capable of you should take a look at:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQot4v5yHKE&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Stan Lee's Superhumans with The Human Calculator Scott Flansburg&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fibZudrZUto&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;The Musical Genius - Derek Paravicini&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GklYRMbJwUA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;The Rubik's cube Brazilian solver&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lets talk about the second example in particular, that guy is autistic and blind, so the brain adapted to the situation and his memory becomes so good that he could play any music he ever heard any time, perfectly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Those are more exceptional people but still untrained.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lets talk about chess now, all the chess players, at least all the GMs are trained professionally from a very young age to play chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What would a trained chess kid be able to do? What would a 13 year old kid do nowadays? play xbox, listen to Justin Bieber, watch cartoon network...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What would a 13 years old chess player do? Well Fischer at the age of 13 did the most amazing checkmate ever against Donald Byrne, I think no supercomputer will be able to do what Fisher did, it was called &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M624T3PTggU&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;the game of the century&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I talked about how good the brain could become at certain things like memorization, but I still haven't answer your initial question!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should know that Alexander Alekhine isn't the current record holder.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessvibes.com/reports/timur-gareev-performs-33-board-blindfold-simul-in-saint-louis&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Timur Gareev performs 33-board blindfold simul in Saint Louis&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/article/view/history-of-blindfold-chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;History of Blindfold chess&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I quote from the second article:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;George Koltanowski set the world's blindfold record on 1937 by playing&#xA;  34 chess games simultaneously while blindfolded, winning 24 games and&#xA;  losing 10, over a period of 13 hours. The record was included in the&#xA;  Guinness Book of Records and is generally accepted as the world record&#xA;  to this day.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And most importantly&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Miguel Najdorf increased this record to 45 opponents in 1947, with the&#xA;  result of 39 wins, four draws and two losses.However, he had access to&#xA;  the scoresheets, and there were multiple opponents per&#xA;  board.Koltanowski claimed that he could have managed 100 games under&#xA;  those conditions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So you can see why i don't think Alekhine had access to the scoresheets, otherwise they wouldn't have accepted his record, which is exactly what happened with Najdorf. Besides the players who challenged Alekhine, would feel it's unfair to challenge a great GM, with access to scoresheets, he would beat them all so easily.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now how do I personally think he did it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;He challenged amateurs, 800 - 1400 Elo max&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;He played one or two openings against all of them so he doesn't have to remember many openings&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;He played aggressive opening that he knows so well so he can finish the games so fast and not having to worry about middle game calculations&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And finally from &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simultaneous_exhibition#Procedure&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt; I guess the answer you wanted to know&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Occasionally, grandmasters have given blindfold simultaneous displays.&#xA;  In such displays, the exhibitor does not look at any of the boards,&#xA;  but retains all the moves of the games in his/her head. The opponents&#xA;  utilize boards and pieces in the standard fashion, but their moves are&#xA;  communicated verbally to the exhibitor by an arbiter or intermediary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Note&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't think that GMs rely on their visual memory so much, but rather they do something like meditation, where they create their own games inside their heads and visualize it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1105" LastEditorUserId="1105" LastEditDate="2013-08-24T15:54:00.123" LastActivityDate="2013-08-24T15:54:00.123" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2739" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2741" CreationDate="2013-08-24T15:25:07.880" Score="3" ViewCount="996" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are there any free/paid chess engine .dll files that could be used in a C# project as a reference?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1627" LastActivityDate="2016-03-19T22:09:06.840" Title="Chess engines' .dll files usable in C# projects" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;programming&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2013-09-12T04:37:24.473" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2740" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2641" CreationDate="2013-08-24T15:30:39.830" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;In reading your question, I can't help but think you aren't asking your real question, which I read as, &quot;When I'm out of my book I get abused.  How do I stop this from happening?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm assuming that, like me, you're a USCF player rated under 1800.  I offer the following advice:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Learn two openings with White and two with Black.  Choose white openings begin with e4 or d4.  Avoid long lines where your opponent may be more booked-up.  At the amateur level, most openings and variations are playable.  Your openings with the Black pieces should be sound but off the beaten path a little.  Study games online, buy books, whatever.  Hour for hour, books are cheaper than movies. Go for it.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Find an instructor who's rated 400 or more points above you.  Ask this person to help you with your game, especially when you're out of your book.  They'll help you with applying guiding principles.  Chess principles are simple until it's time to apply them. Your instructor can help.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Don't memorize without understanding.  It is critical to understand why book moves are standard.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Don't be afraid to lose.  &quot;I'm out of my book, I better play it safe!&quot; is poison.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2013-08-24T15:30:39.830" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2741" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2739" CreationDate="2013-08-24T15:34:09.023" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;C#?  Probably not any upper tier engines.  Chess engines tend to be written for speed and are largely written in C, C++, or assembly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I googled and found &lt;a href=&quot;http://archive.msdn.microsoft.com/cshuochess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt;. And &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/36112/Chess-Program-in-C&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt;. And &lt;a href=&quot;http://chessforeva.blogspot.com/2012/01/c-chess-engines.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="9030" LastEditDate="2016-03-19T22:09:06.840" LastActivityDate="2016-03-19T22:09:06.840" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2742" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1375" CreationDate="2013-08-24T21:56:36.933" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1266220&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;a famous game&lt;/a&gt; between two famous players that ends with “30...0-0.”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Timman-Kasparov, Eurotel Trophy, 1998&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.Nc3 dxc4 5.e3 b5 6.a4 b4 7.Nb1 Ba6 8.Qc2 b3 9.Qd1 e6 10.Be2 c5 11.O-O Nc6 12.Ne5 Rc8 13.Na3 cxd4 14.Naxc4 Qd5 15.Bf3 Ne4 16.Nxc6 Rxc6 17.Nd2 f5 18.Re1 d3 19.Nxb3 e5 20.Bd2 Rb6 21.Bxe4 fxe4 22.Nc1 Rxb2 23.Bc3 d2 24.Rf1 Bxf1 25.Bxb2 Bc4 26.Ne2 Bb3 27.Nc3 Bxd1 28.Nxd5 Bb3 29.Nc3 Bb4 30.Nd1 O-O&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The world record of late castling is move 48, achieved in two games, according to the &lt;a href=&quot;http://timkr.home.xs4all.nl/records&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;fascinating page&lt;/a&gt; by Tim Krabbe.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Game 1: Kingside Castling&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Neshewat-Garrison, Detroit, 1994&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 c5 3. Nf3 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Qa5+ 5. Bd2 Qb6 6. Nb3 Ne4 7. e3 Qf6 8. Qf3 Qxf3 9. gxf3 Nxd2 10. N1xd2 Nc6 11. a3 d6 12. Be2 g6 13. Rb1 a5 14. O-O a4 15. Nc1 Bf5 16. e4 Be6 17. Rd1 Bh6 18. Kg2 Nd4 19. Bd3 Ra5 20. Nf1 Rg5+ 21. Ng3 Nxf3 22. b4 Bg7 23. Be2 Nh4+ 24. Kh1 Bh3 25. f4 Bg2+ 26. Kg1 Bxe4 27. Nd3 Bd4+ 28. Kf1 Rxg3 29. hxg3 Nf5 30. Rdc1 Nxg3+ 31. Ke1 Be3 32. Rd1 Nf5 33. Rb2 Bd4 34. Ra2 Ne3 35. Rc1 Ng2+ 36. Kf1 Be3 37. Rc3 Bd4 38. Rc1 Be3 39. Rb1 Nxf4 40. Rd1  Ne6 41. Nf2 Bf5 42. Bd3 Nd4 43. Bxf5 Nxf5 44. Ke2 Bh6 45. Ne4 Bg7 46. c5 dxc5 47. Nxc5 Nd4+ 48. Kf2 O-O 49. Nxa4 e5 50. Nc5 Nb5 51. Rd7 b6 52. Rb7 Nc3 53. Rc2 e4 54. Rxb6 e3+ 55. Ke1 Rd8 56. Rc1 h5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Game 2: Queenside Castling&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Somogyi-Black E., New York, 2002 &quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 g6 2. d4 Bg7 3. Nc3 b6 4. Nf3 Bb7 5. Bf4 Nf6 6. Bc4 Nc6 7. O-O Nxe4 8. Nxe4 d5 9. Bd3 dxe4 10. Bxe4 e6 11. c3 Qe7 12. Ne5 Bxe5 13. dxe5 Na5 14. Bd3 a6 15. Qg4 h5 16. Qg3 h4 17. Qe3 Qd7 18. f3 Nc6 19. Rad1 Ne7 20. Bg5 h3 21. g4 Nd5 22. Qf2 c5 23. a3 Qc7 24. c4 Ne7 25. Qg3 Nc6 26. Bf6 Rh7 27. Rf2 Nd4 28. Bf1 b5 29. b4 bxc4 30. Bxc4 Qc6 31. Rd3 a5 32. b5 Qd7 33. a4 Bd5 34. Rc3 Bxc4 35. Rxc4 Qd5 36. Rc1 Nb3 37. Re1 c4 38. f4 Nc5 39. Qa3 Qd4 40. Qf3 Qd5 41. Qxd5 exd5 42. Rd1 Ne4 43. Rc2 Nxf6 44. exf6 Rh4 45. g5 Rg4+ 46. Kh1 Rxf4 47. Re2+ Re4 48. Rde1 O-O-O 49. Rxe4 dxe4 50. Kg1 Kb7 51. Rc1 Rd2 52. Rxc4 e3 53. Rc1 Rg2+ 54. Kh1 Rg4 55. Re1 Rxa4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1485" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-09-23T14:51:29.313" LastActivityDate="2019-09-23T14:51:29.313" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2743" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-08-25T02:39:48.307" Score="4" ViewCount="3533" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am using &lt;code&gt;Arena&lt;/code&gt; with &lt;code&gt;Stockfish-222-64-ja-intel&lt;/code&gt;. It thinks about 50 moves deep and heats up my laptop processor. All I was interested in, was a depth of about 12-13 moves and for the best line to be shown on the top. I am not able to find the options to configure the gui is such a manner. Let me know if you have an answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Update: I know how to limit the level for computer strength. That's plain - it's &lt;code&gt;Levels&amp;gt;&amp;gt;Adjust&amp;gt;&amp;gt;Fixed Search Depth&amp;gt;&amp;gt;8 half moves&lt;/code&gt;. The problem still persists though. When I click the &lt;code&gt;Analyze&lt;/code&gt; button, the computer starts thinking really deep (and yes, the heating problem is a bit irritating and drains the battery).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="243" LastEditorUserId="243" LastEditDate="2013-08-25T02:59:59.160" LastActivityDate="2013-10-18T04:22:47.550" Title="How to limit the depth of analysis in Arena?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2744" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2013-08-25T11:56:28.730" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2013-08-25T11:56:28.730" LastActivityDate="2013-08-25T11:56:28.730" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2745" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2013-08-25T11:56:28.730" Score="0" Body="the opening characterized by the move 1.f4" OwnerUserId="1485" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2013-08-25T14:48:54.373" LastActivityDate="2013-08-25T14:48:54.373" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2746" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2668" CreationDate="2013-08-25T12:40:18.090" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just turn on the Edit button in the toolbar under the move list.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1642" LastActivityDate="2013-08-25T12:40:18.090" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2747" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2751" CreationDate="2013-08-25T19:31:55.857" Score="7" ViewCount="9049" Body="&lt;p&gt;I heard someone saying today that he would beat Garry Kasparov if Garry played without a queen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Were such handicap games ever played ?&#xA;Can a Grandmaster give queen odds and win against a 2000 ranked player?  Rook odds?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1512" LastEditorUserId="12" LastEditDate="2013-08-28T03:04:50.893" LastActivityDate="2018-11-22T03:53:05.107" Title="What is the required Elo to beat a Grandmaster with queen odds?" Tags="&lt;handicapping&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2748" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2747" CreationDate="2013-08-26T04:50:03.123" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have a hard time believing that there's a player on the planet who could beat me with Queen odds.  The strategy would be simple: trade off pieces pieces when possible.  I'm a USCF B player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chesscollection?cid=1009181&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Here are some 'Queen Odds' games&lt;/a&gt;.  Play by the weak side is sometimes very dicey. Paul Morphy loses his game.  None of the games the GMs won went past 15 moves.  After that the Queen asserts too much power to overcome.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2119790&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Here's a rant&lt;/a&gt;, lol.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2013-08-26T04:50:03.123" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2749" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-08-26T07:46:17.223" Score="4" ViewCount="1304" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have file Rybka.exe and when I use it for the first moves, it always goes Nf3 or Nc3 only (even at strength 1000 and depth 1). I assume that is because it doesn't have opening book assigned (?) to it. How does one connect opening books in .ctg (or other?) formats to the chess engine? I do not want to get some GUI, but rather understand how it is done.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1627" LastActivityDate="2014-08-22T03:40:02.453" Title="Connecting opening book to chess engine" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;engines&gt;&lt;books&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2750" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2550" CreationDate="2013-08-26T20:24:32.023" Score="18" Body="&lt;p&gt;I took the following data from the September 2013 Golden Database&lt;sup&gt;1&lt;/sup&gt; and &quot;active&quot; players are players with a USCF membership expiration date later than January 1, 2013&lt;sup&gt;2&lt;/sup&gt;.  All ratings are regular ratings.  Note that players have an established rating after completing 25 games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;USCF Active Players&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;Established Ratings&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;46,574 Players&#xA;1315.99 Mean Rating&#xA;1390 Median Rating&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;Provisional Ratings&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;33,692 Players&#xA;537.09 Mean Rating&#xA;410 Median Rating&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;All USCF Rated Players&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;Established Ratings&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;252,989 Players&#xA;1165.77 Mean Rating&#xA;1148 Median Rating&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;Provisional Ratings&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;303,153 Players&#xA;631.46 Mean Rating&#xA;576 Median Rating&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Distribution of active, established USCF ratings&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/BWjat.png&quot; alt=&quot;Active USCF ratings&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that unrated players were discarded and that no checks were done on the data (duplicate entries, placeholders, etc.).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Distribution of ratings by age&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/zflWp.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This image comes from the uschess forums.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1: The Golden Database is a database provided to USCF affiliates and TD's that includes the names, ratings, and expiration dates.  It can be downloaded from the USCF website&lt;br&gt;&#xA;2: I picked January 1, 2013 as an arbitrary cutoff date.  If there's a better and easy check for whether or not a player is active I'm happy to add additional data or update these stats.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12" LastEditorUserId="12" LastEditDate="2013-09-26T15:03:30.807" LastActivityDate="2013-09-26T15:03:30.807" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2751" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2747" CreationDate="2013-08-26T22:52:06.190" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's hard to say for sure, but even a grandmaster wouldn't have a very good chance without a queen unless the opposing player made big blunders. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;GM Larry Kaufman estimates that Kasparov would &quot;have chances&quot; with giving knight odds to a player rated 2115, and be slightly favored in giving pawn and move odds to a GM rated around 2500. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A knight is about 3 pawns, and a queen is 8.8-9 pawns. So if at levels at 2500 vs 2850, a pawn is roughly a 300 point advantage (according to Kaufman, a pawn would presumably be worth maybe 200 at the 2000-2200 level vs Kasparov), and a knight is around a 700 point advantage at 2115 vs 2850, then a queen, being worth almost 3 times as much as a knight, would be worth much more. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[T]he Elo equivalent of a given handicap degrades as you go down the scale. A knight seems to be worth around a thousand points when the &quot;weak&quot; player is around IM level, but it drops as you go down. For example, I'm about 2400 and I've played tons of knight odds games with students, and I would put the break-even point (for untimed but reasonably quick games) with me at around 1800, so maybe a 600 value at this level. An 1800 can probably give knight odds to a 1400, a 1400 to an 1100, an 1100 to a 900, etc. This is pretty obviously the way it must work, because the weaker the players are, the more likely the weaker one is to blunder a piece or more. When you get down to the level of the average 8 year old player, knight odds is just a slight edge, maybe 50 points or so.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_handicap&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_handicap&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1580" LastEditorUserId="1580" LastEditDate="2013-08-29T01:21:27.520" LastActivityDate="2013-08-29T01:21:27.520" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2752" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2753" CreationDate="2013-08-28T12:12:43.433" Score="6" ViewCount="369" Body="&lt;p&gt;In a hypothetical variant of chess, before the start of the game black is allowed to remove one white pawn and one black pawn. Which pawns should they remove? The pawns don't have to be on the same file.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My hope is that the answer should give some insight into opening dynamics and the relative value of pawns in normal chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1485" LastActivityDate="2013-12-01T23:00:18.300" Title="Take away which pawns?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;chess-variants&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2753" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2752" CreationDate="2013-08-28T12:52:35.170" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you are trying to remove the pawn to cause the &lt;em&gt;most&lt;/em&gt; damage to the starting position, I'd go with the &lt;code&gt;f&lt;/code&gt; pawn.  Since &lt;code&gt;f2/f7&lt;/code&gt; is already a tender spot, as it is only covered by the King in the early parts of the game, it's a bit more likely to cause overall positional damage.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You could make the argument that removing the &lt;code&gt;d&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;e&lt;/code&gt; pawn could be worse, as they are important for central control.  However, removing them does add a certain value, in that the pieces can develop more quickly from the starting position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are trying to cause the &lt;em&gt;least&lt;/em&gt; damage to your own position, definitely either the &lt;code&gt;a&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;h&lt;/code&gt; pawn.  They have the least influence on the board, and there is something to be said for having that open file for the rook.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As to which one to remove...if you followed the above advice and removed the &lt;code&gt;f&lt;/code&gt; pawn of your opponent, I'd remove my own &lt;code&gt;a&lt;/code&gt; pawn, so that they don't feel comfortable castling on either side of the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="63" LastActivityDate="2013-08-28T12:52:35.170" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2755" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="693" CreationDate="2013-08-29T13:56:37.293" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;For Android you can also try &lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.bento.chessterlite&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chesster&lt;/a&gt;. It lets you import an ebook with chess moves, and makes it interactive, showing the movements in a chessboard. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1657" LastEditorDisplayName="user4378" LastEditDate="2016-01-20T17:45:39.807" LastActivityDate="2016-01-20T17:45:39.807" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2756" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2757" CreationDate="2013-08-29T17:04:55.180" Score="17" ViewCount="12607" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not that it would be everyone's first choice, but it is possible to concoct positions where having an extra piece block your opponent's moves and thus gives you an advantage (think blocking an escape route for a checked king...)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1656" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-30T22:17:00.753" LastActivityDate="2020-08-30T22:17:00.753" Title="Do the official rules of chess forbid promoting a pawn to a piece of the opposite color?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;pawn-promotion&gt;&lt;loopholes&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2757" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2756" CreationDate="2013-08-29T17:12:31.120" Score="24" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;FIDE Laws of Chess, rule &lt;code&gt;3.7e&lt;/code&gt;: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;When a pawn reaches the rank furthest from its starting position it must be exchanged as part of the same move on the same square for a new queen, rook, bishop or knight of the same colour.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Promotion_%28chess%29#1862_British_Chess_Association_rule&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;The Wikipedia article on promotion&lt;/a&gt; contains some information about the history of the rule, which previously implicitly allowed promotion to a piece of the opposite color.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastEditorUserId="291" LastEditDate="2015-01-06T13:51:57.317" LastActivityDate="2015-01-06T13:51:57.317" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2758" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-08-29T17:12:45.667" Score="9" ViewCount="572" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are there games between top computers which uncovered never-seen-before ideas?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And if so, how can humans notice?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Addendum:&lt;/b&gt; I understand the position of James Christopher in his answer, but my question goes a little beyond that. It is possible for the computer to find a winning move without understanding the idea behind it, and thus to win the game. If afterwards a human notices that the move discloses a new theme or idea never before seen, that would qualify as a positive answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Addenddendum:&lt;/b&gt; We have a linguistic problem here. Let me clarify: The computer does not need to &lt;i&gt;have a new idea&lt;/i&gt; or even understand what it is doing. But it can find a move that wins the game, and later, when people analyze what happened, they realize &quot;oh! this move wins &lt;i&gt;because&lt;/i&gt; of such-and-such!&quot; The computer does not need to know that it forked the king and queen, it just evaluates the material gain and decides that the knight move is best. &lt;b&gt;We&lt;/b&gt; call it a fork and add a section in the basic tactics chapter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1656" LastEditorUserId="1656" LastEditDate="2013-09-03T02:56:59.067" LastActivityDate="2013-09-03T02:56:59.067" Title="Are there games between top computers which uncovered never-seen-before ideas?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2759" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2758" CreationDate="2013-08-29T20:07:43.267" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Computers are based on algorithms written by humans, which are based on knowledge and concepts known to humans. They do not work based on abstract chess ideas. Computers are not known for creativity, so I would say that the answer to your question is no.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They will certainly find moves in a position that GMs have not thought of before, but that is not the same as a new chess idea. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1580" LastActivityDate="2013-08-29T20:07:43.267" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2760" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-08-30T03:57:25.493" Score="10" ViewCount="274" Body="&lt;p&gt;One can set up some pieces and concoct a situation that has, say, a mate in 3 (yes, I know it is not straightforward, but if you sit for a few hours you can do it).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Such problem would probably not be accepted for a competition because the modern standards are already too high. There has to be a relatively original idea and/or theme, but I do not know what qualifies as mediocre these days, and what qualifies as novel.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1656" LastEditorUserId="1656" LastEditDate="2013-08-30T21:15:15.180" LastActivityDate="2013-12-26T21:03:32.353" Title="What makes a contemporary chess problem decent?" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;problems&gt;&lt;composing&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2761" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2762" CreationDate="2013-08-30T04:33:11.423" Score="2" ViewCount="591" Body="&lt;p&gt;What are some professional games where the losing side did not resign before receiving mate?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And how sure are people of the record? In old books they did not care much for complete historical accuracy, so a reference that makes the mate story believable would be better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1656" LastActivityDate="2013-09-04T12:52:31.607" Title="Professional games that ended with mate" Tags="&lt;history&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2762" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2761" CreationDate="2013-08-30T07:03:18.743" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Quite a few games here. There are many games with top players that ended in mate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chesscollection?cid=1001021&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chesscollection?cid=1001021&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1580" LastActivityDate="2013-08-30T07:03:18.743" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2763" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2758" CreationDate="2013-08-30T07:43:40.743" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;My answer is - Yes. A simple example is the use of endgame tablebase. Many positions, which were thought to be drawn, now have a winning line. IMO this is a new idea. One day computers might uncover that castling is bad - it is a new idea, doesn't matter if it was achieved by brute force.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ps: even though computers work on fixed algorithms, they can uncover new ideas. Same algorithm can return different results when run for longer duration and/or better hardware. In the end, chess is deterministic and finite. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1522" LastActivityDate="2013-08-30T07:43:40.743" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2764" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2236" CreationDate="2013-08-30T22:12:55.060" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have played the Catalan for something like 25 years, and to me the big secret explaining the opening's popularity is the following: You can expect a massive score against weaker players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The key strategic factors in a successful Catalan are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) You achieve control/dominance over all four central squares, something rarely seen in other openings. (By the way this explains why the Catalan set-up isn't so effective with a black bishop on &lt;code&gt;f5&lt;/code&gt;; white has too little control over &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt;.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) Long-term pressure against black's queenside, in part exerted by the bishop on the diagonal. In the end something is going to break.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These factors make it possible to turn up unprepared for a game Sunday morning during a weekend tournament and have a winning position before the first cup of coffee. In other words, great opening!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For books that focus on philosophy and not too much on concrete moves I can recommend the series &lt;em&gt;How Wojo won&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1485" LastActivityDate="2013-08-30T22:12:55.060" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2766" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2310" CreationDate="2013-08-31T23:26:02.133" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;You have not read enough of Houdini's online user manual. First look at the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cruxis.com/chess/manual/index.html?overview.htm&quot;&gt;2.1 Installing Houdini&lt;/a&gt; page.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Specifically, it says you'll get 30% faster performance with 64-bit over 32-bit. It says it's optimized to use up to 6 cores. And Intel i5 will run it faster than an equivalent speed AMD Opteron. Their &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cruxis.com/chess/houdini.htm&quot;&gt;home page&lt;/a&gt; says it will use up to 4 GB of RAM for hash memory. Obviously from that, you'll want to get the highest clocked Intel i7 you can find with a 4th generation CPU.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But if you get &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cruxis.com/chess/manual/index.html?houdini_pro_version.htm&quot;&gt;Houdini 3 Pro&lt;/a&gt; instead of Houdini 3 Standard, it supports up to 32 cores and 256 GB of hash memory and NUMA-architecture (whatever that is). Their example performance comparison shows on a 16-core dual AMD Opteron-6128 box that Pro has a 20% speed gain over Standard. With the Pro version, you'll want as many cores as you can get, because that's the number of threads you'll be able to run at once. Intel i7 will likely be better than AMD for the Pro version as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Definitely read everything in the online Houdini 3 User's Manual, especially section 3 about its configuration. That tells you how to optimize it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="189" LastActivityDate="2013-08-31T23:26:02.133" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2767" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2013-09-02T02:45:20.660" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2013-09-02T02:45:20.660" LastActivityDate="2013-09-02T02:45:20.660" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2768" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2013-09-02T02:45:20.660" Score="0" Body="Chess problems consist of a board position and a task. Most ask for a line of play that mates black in a set amount of moves, or a combination that results in a winning position. Many other types exist, including, but not limited to, construction tasks for various positions and proof games that have numerous goals, selfmates, helpmates, and retrograde analysis. Tournaments and championships exist for composing of original problems and for speed-solving." OwnerUserId="1656" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-01-22T00:19:51.947" LastActivityDate="2021-01-22T00:19:51.947" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2769" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2758" CreationDate="2013-09-02T20:20:21.757" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Interesting question,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my opinion computers dont play chess but do something that just looks like it. The way they do it is simply through number crunching algorithmes. It must be said that in their programming there are some heuristics that could be seen as rudimentary ideas about the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To answer your question I am sure computers produced moves that showed something new about the game but they didnt uncover any ideas. Computers can not think and ideas belong to the realm of humans. So to notice an idea needs someone to interpret the move or sequence of moves and form some sort of generalisation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Besides opening innovations and improved endgame analysis computer chess is rather killing a lot of ideas by showing that many positions are defensible after all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1664" LastActivityDate="2013-09-02T20:20:21.757" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2771" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-09-03T03:13:54.123" Score="32" ViewCount="73517" Body="&lt;p&gt;I currently play at around a 1600 level, and have stagnated in terms of rating improvements for quite some time. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have always played chess recreationally, occasionally doing tactics puzzles here and there, but I've never done any professional studying.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was wondering what the most effective way of improving my rating to 2000+ would be.  If there are links to scientific research on the topic, I would appreciate it.  Book recommendations would also be great.   I'm mostly looking for a discussion about what exercises maximize your return on rating-- opening, tactics, positional understanding, end games, analyzing grand-master games, analyzing your own games, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1130" LastEditorUserId="1130" LastEditDate="2013-09-03T03:35:08.767" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T16:17:05.903" Title="Most effective way to achieve a 2000+ rating in one year, starting as a 1600?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;rating&gt;" AnswerCount="12" CommentCount="10" FavoriteCount="13" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2772" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2771" CreationDate="2013-09-03T04:22:04.347" Score="20" Body="&lt;p&gt;Gaining 400 points in a single year is not a reasonable goal for an adult playing at 1600. To do this, you will need to be +25 against your peers, where a peer is someone with the rating you have at the time the game is played.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That being said, if you're going to try it, the first step is to get an instructor. Your instructor will be able to identify the weakest parts of your game and help you shore those up.  Since you want to end up at 2000, I'd recommend an instructor rated no less than 2200.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The maximum return will likely be on tactics.  You'll need to be decent at two openings as white and two as black.  Know the philosophy behind the openings - don't just memorize the moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2013-09-03T04:22:04.347" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2773" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2771" CreationDate="2013-09-03T19:39:28.610" Score="16" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think you best shot is to play 200 rated games of G/60 or longer this year and seriously analyzed each game (like imagine if you analyzed each game for 1 hour plus, tried to find similar high level games, tried to find as many different plans in the position, etc) in addition to doing regular tactical exercises on chess.com trainer or some other good site (making sure to have figured out the &quot;twists&quot; before you get to them).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For most people playing / analyzing (not all one, not all the other) is the only practical way to improve.  If you don't analyze you cannot really learn, but if you never play you get into a mode where you misjudge how hard positions are to really play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: I improved my rating from 1600 to 2000 between October 2003 and January 2005 while being a full-time college student at a top 10 (the year I joined #1) university.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Caveat:&#xA;I had never stagnated up until that point and didn't begin playing tournaments until I was already 18 years old.  Doing a quick count I played &quot;only&quot; ~150 rated games in that period of time.  I did start taking lessons from a strong IM (soon got his GM title) around when I broke 1850.  I also had a club at school with a few masters I could regularly look at my games with.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1540" LastActivityDate="2013-09-03T19:39:28.610" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2775" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1408" CreationDate="2013-09-04T02:46:53.100" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;first of all &lt;a href=&quot;https://gamedev.stackexchange.com/questions/18890/how-many-moves-to-think-ahead-for-chess-minimax-ai&quot;&gt;see here&lt;/a&gt;. here is a quote&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Asked how many moves ahead he can think, Kasparov replied that it&#xA;  depended on the positions of the pieces. &quot;Normally, I would calculate&#xA;  three to five moves,&quot; he said. &quot;You don't need more.... But I can go&#xA;  much deeper if it is required.&quot; For example, in a position involving&#xA;  forced moves, it's possible to look ahead as many as 12 or 14 moves,&#xA;  he noted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;for a supercomputer it obviously depends on how well-written it is, there is a concept called alpha-beta, which is used to limit thinking into unnecessary moves, like the computer usually wont consider the opponents (white) &lt;code&gt;c3&lt;/code&gt;,&lt;code&gt;b5&lt;/code&gt;,&lt;code&gt;d6&lt;/code&gt;,&lt;code&gt;f7&lt;/code&gt;, combo, on the first move. however after &lt;code&gt;c3&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;b5&lt;/code&gt; it should consider &lt;code&gt;d6&lt;/code&gt;, and have a reply ready. from a page called &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/blog/zaifrun/creating-a-chess-engine-from-scratch-part-1&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Creating a chess engine from scratch&lt;/a&gt; on chess.com:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A computer can easily evaluate a few million positions per second, a&#xA;  human probably 1-2 positions per second!! Usually speed is measured in&#xA;  MNodes/sekund which means million positions (Nodes in computer science&#xA;  jargon) per second. Fritz running on my old laptop does about 2.5&#xA;  MNodes while Deep Blue did about 200 MNodes per second. Raw power is&#xA;  not all - the evaluation function is also very important. Pretty much&#xA;  all engines use the same algorithm for searching through the search&#xA;  tree of possible moves to find the next move. This algorithm is known&#xA;  as alfa-beta search or it is some variant of this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;an important difference is that a computer has to consider things a human takes for granted, such as the concepts behind a known opening, even though a good program can remember which combos work (and rate them, then play based on  its ratings), its extremely difficult for it to recognize concepts, such as a fork independent of the result, this can be a advantage because a human may fork, and not see another better future move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;hope that helps!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1618" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:18:55.850" LastActivityDate="2013-09-17T19:07:45.847" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2776" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2761" CreationDate="2013-09-04T12:52:31.607" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Most of the games that end in checkmate are where the weak side allows checkmate for whatever reason (he thinks it's a nice win / checkmate, to ruin the publishability of the game, etc), but the strongest example I can think of where a player allowed mate on the board accidentally is Deep Fritz vs Kramnik:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1440796&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1440796&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1540" LastActivityDate="2013-09-04T12:52:31.607" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2777" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2809" CreationDate="2013-09-04T13:41:05.413" Score="6" ViewCount="991" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm writing a PGN file parser, and need to know in which situations you don't need to write the rank/file of a piece that makes the move. I can think of the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;only one piece can conduct the move according to the rules of movement (i.e. attempting to move a bishop horizontally - that's obvious).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;both pieces can move to the given square, but all but one are obstructed by other pieces&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;all but one of the pieces are pinned and moving them would expose the king to check&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anything else I'm missing? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd also like to add some seemingly ambiguous situations:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/GjWux.png&quot; alt=&quot;Position #1&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black to move. Is Nc5+ valid PGN, or would it be Nbc5+? Is Nc5 valid, or would it be Nec5?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/AdiFG.png&quot; alt=&quot;Position #2&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black to move. Is Rg7# / Rg7+ valid PGN, or do I need to specify the rank here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What if two pieces can move to the same square, but one of the moves would result in threefold repetition, and the game doesn't stop instantly?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What if two pieces can move to the same square, one of those moves forces a mate-in-one on the moving side, and the move is labeled &quot;!!&quot;? :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1667" LastEditorUserId="1667" LastEditDate="2013-09-08T12:51:10.357" LastActivityDate="2013-09-08T15:14:41.087" Title="Parsing PGN files - when can a move be shortened?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;notation&gt;&lt;pgn&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2778" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-09-04T18:12:33.077" Score="6" ViewCount="468" Body="&lt;p&gt;If computers just check in an openings-DB what to do in the first 10, 15 or even 20 moves, and if they just check the endgames-DB at the endgame; wouldn't it reach a point where they have a DB of perfect games that goes from opening to endgame?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1668" LastActivityDate="2013-09-05T12:23:45.873" Title="Will computer knowledge reach a perfect game, after expanding prepared openings/endgames?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2779" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2778" CreationDate="2013-09-04T18:49:32.210" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess is a finite game. Lots and lots of positions, but finite. Eventually, with enough computing power, &lt;b&gt;yes&lt;/b&gt;, computers will be able to play a perfect game. When will that happen? That is a different question. It could be less than 10 years if enough breakthroughs in algorithms and hardware are made. It could take 50 years. Who knows?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1656" LastActivityDate="2013-09-04T18:49:32.210" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2780" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2778" CreationDate="2013-09-04T21:06:57.920" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;To my mind, what you are asking is can a computer ever &quot;know&quot; the correct move and evaluation in every conceivable position. Without such complete knowledge, it wouldn't be possible to play perfectly because every evaluation is dependent on evaluations of the multitude of possible upcoming positions. This perfection is what endgame &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endgame_tablebase&quot;&gt;tablebases&lt;/a&gt; provide. Outside of contexts where distance to mate can be calculated, tablebases are the only context in which computers have a &quot;perfect&quot; understanding of a position. For reference, 5 piece tablebases (e.g. 2 kings and 3 other pieces) require 7 GB of storage. 6 piece tablebases require 1.2 TB, and 7 man tablebases are only recently completed and require 140 TBs. To solve chess completely, you would need a 32 man tablebase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The problem is comparable in fictional magnitude to the calculation of the &quot;Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything&quot; as depicted in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. In that case an entire planet, was devoted to identifying the question. It seems an equally pointless and gargantuan task to attempt to &quot;solve&quot; chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just to put your mind at ease... even though computers may play well above the level of the best humans today, there are still plenty of decisive games between top level computers today. Check out the ongoing TCEC tournament. Clearly, computers are still quite capable of mistakes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="800" LastActivityDate="2013-09-04T21:06:57.920" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2781" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2778" CreationDate="2013-09-05T03:53:21.630" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I will try a more serious answer because the discussion becomes pointless if we resort to empty arguments. Yes, the Universe may be finite, and yes, the &quot;Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything&quot; may need a full Earth and 7.5 million years to solve... so what?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's do some quick numbers. Each of the 64 squares can be empty or hold one of 12 different pieces (R, K, B, Q, K, and P in black and white), so the total number of positions that you could set is at most&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;13^64 = 196053476430761073330659760423566015424403280004115787589590963842248961.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That is about 2 x 10^71 different positions. Of course this is a huge overestimate, because most positions are fake (we should eliminate positions with three or more kings, nine or more white pawns, pawns in the eighth rank, quadruple checks, etc). Let's take the square root:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;13^32 = 442779263776840698304313192148785281,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or about 5 x 10^35. By taking the square root we are pretending that for each legal position there is a chess Universe worth of distinct fake positions. This is probably an underestimate, so the true answer must be somewhere in between these two numbers. Now we can confidently say that computers cannot study every legal position in a reasonable time. Even the &quot;tiny&quot; 13^32 is too large...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Wait! so am I arguing against myself? No! Computers cannot analyze every position one-by-one. BUT that is not the only way to solve chess. We humans are reasonably smart. In fact, smart enough to have invented chess. What I suggest is the possibility that people may find shortcuts; rules of thumb that eliminate many cases at a glance. We already have many trivial ones; for instance &quot;K+Q vs K always wins&quot;. More sophisticated rules could be found by yet-unknown arguments, perhaps supported by computer tables.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Solving chess by analyzing all positions is brute force, and impractical. Solving chess in a smart manner may still be possible, and I do not see any obstacle. In fact, I do expect computers armed with faster processors and better chess knowledge may become provably perfect within 50 years.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1656" LastActivityDate="2013-09-05T03:53:21.630" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2782" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2778" CreationDate="2013-09-05T12:23:45.873" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The game will not be solvable for a long time.  In fact, it will &lt;em&gt;never&lt;/em&gt; be solvable unless insanely radical hardware advancements are made.  The search tree is too deep and too wide.  Since we're talking about 'solving' chess, not 'winning the game', heuristics will not do; every move played - every one of them - must be evaluated to completion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Choose the fastest processor you know of, multiply its speed by 1000 and you are really no closer to solving this problem.  Multiply it by a million instead. Still, no closer from any practical sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Right now the new hotness in computer architecture is called a 'quantum computer'.  They are still very primitive.  The gist is that they can manipulate objects that are in multiple states. So theoretically, a pawn could be on a2 and a3 at the same time.  With decades and decades of development, this could yield unheard-of efficiencies.   Or, like bubble memory, it could fade away not long after making a splash.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2013-09-05T12:23:45.873" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2783" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2784" CreationDate="2013-09-05T15:51:18.780" Score="10" ViewCount="1342" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm looking for a chess program which offers to play pawn endgames to improve myself.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;For example, can I force Fritz 13 to play pawns endgames? If so, how can I achieve this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="813" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2013-10-06T19:07:55.630" LastActivityDate="2013-10-06T19:07:55.630" Title="How can I train myself in pawn endgames?" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;training&gt;&lt;pawn-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2784" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2783" CreationDate="2013-09-05T17:01:53.747" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Any chess-playing computer program that allows you to set up positions can be used. And yes, Fritz is especially suited for this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You have several options:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesscentral.com/Fritz_Chess_Opening_a/136.htm&quot;&gt;Set up the position yourself&lt;/a&gt; (using board/position set up). Choose any position that you want to get better at. Save that position and play against the computer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1a. I used to do this for simple pawn endings. I'd play both colors until I figured out some aspects of the pawn ending.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1b. I'd often set up one side with an advantage (say an extra pawn) and see if I could win easily. (Since the computer plays well, this is not easy to do in practice.)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;You can start collecting some endgame positions, from a book or from around the web, create a small endgame learning database for yourself, and practice.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chessimprover.com/using-fritz-13-for-endgame-training/&quot;&gt;In this video&lt;/a&gt; (be sure to watch) Nigel Davies recommends Silman's &lt;em&gt;Complete Endgame Course&lt;/em&gt; (I find most things by Silman to be very good.)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Finally, if you don't mind spending a little, &quot;Fritz Endgame Trainers&quot; (DVD or software add-ons) that ChessBase sells are quite good. (Just buy one at a time, and be sure to read the reviews to see if it is at the right level for your needs.)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope that helps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="764" LastActivityDate="2013-09-05T17:01:53.747" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2785" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1408" CreationDate="2013-09-06T02:43:37.570" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just thought to add the famous story (likely apocryphal):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;During a tournament in the 1920s a newspaper reporter asked Richard Reti how many moves ahead he could read. Reti replied &lt;em&gt;&quot;I only see one move ahead: The right one.&quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1656" LastActivityDate="2013-09-06T02:43:37.570" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2786" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2771" CreationDate="2013-09-06T13:56:42.627" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;OK, you can try with the best chess trainer, and the best chess trainer's name is Rybka, this is a software engine, of course, although other engine will be OK as well, their Elo in a normal computer is much more than 3000 points so any of them will be OK, but Rybka is the best one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The method is as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You have to use this as an arcade game, not only for solving questions, I'll try to explain it. When you are in a position, a chess engine can give you a quantitative information about all best possible movements, a very good method is trying to identify every of them, (or at least the best one) before passing to next step.&#xA; When a person plays a normal game makes a lot of mistakes and doesn't learn about them. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An example...  maybe you are in a position and the engine say to you the seven best moves&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;+4.5  .....&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;+1.2  .....&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;+1.1  .....&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;+0.9  .....&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;+0.8  ....&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-0.2  ..&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-1.7  .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's important that you have to find the +4.5 without more help of engine, it gives you the information that you have a move to win +4.5 but your work is to find it. Maybe you try and find +0.9, ok, you go back and try again, like a videogame, when you solve a level you can pass to the next one. (Well, after two hours working the position if the movement is impossible to find you're allowed to pass ;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A much more nice method is mixing this one with a real game in live and working the position in real time with Rybka's help&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope it will be helpful. Regards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1676" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T16:17:05.903" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T16:17:05.903" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2787" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2788" CreationDate="2013-09-06T15:31:42.797" Score="4" ViewCount="2389" Body="&lt;p&gt;I participated in a tournament on &lt;code&gt;chess.com&lt;/code&gt; and I have to play like 12 games, 3 days per move, although it's plenty of time, I can't concentrate, I noticed that when I play many games, I lose because I make mistakes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The thing is when you have 12 games to be played, you often find yourself, not playing at all or playing all the games simultaneously, to just get over with it, and do something else other than playing chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So in an ideal situation, what is the best number of games to be played per day or week for average users? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A side question, is it good to play such tournaments? I mean when you have many games to be played, you'll lose concentration (at least I do) so isn't it better to play live tournaments (15 or 30 min for each player) isn't that a better way to concentrate on the moves?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1105" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-05T19:31:23.267" LastActivityDate="2020-03-05T19:31:23.267" Title="How many games should one play online per day or week?" Tags="&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;websites&gt;&lt;online&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2788" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2787" CreationDate="2013-09-06T15:37:55.653" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Since playing chess is not a job for most of us, it may not make much sense to ask how many games &lt;strong&gt;should&lt;/strong&gt; you play. Some people relish the adrenaline rush of 1 minute chess, some can play for hours, some like to play three games at once... and then some others like to play once a week. The answer depends on who you are, but since it seems that online tourneys stress you out, it may be better for you to attend live ones.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know this is not much of an answer, but I think it is closest to the truth.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1656" LastActivityDate="2013-09-06T15:37:55.653" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2789" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2013-09-06T22:51:48.057" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2013-09-06T22:51:48.057" LastActivityDate="2013-09-06T22:51:48.057" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2790" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2013-09-06T22:51:48.057" Score="0" Body="A chess opening gambit characterized by the moves 1.e4 c5 2.d4 cxd4 3.c3" OwnerUserId="1485" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2013-09-07T00:17:54.783" LastActivityDate="2013-09-07T00:17:54.783" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2791" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2013-09-06T23:06:24.890" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2013-09-06T23:06:24.890" LastActivityDate="2013-09-06T23:06:24.890" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2792" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2013-09-06T23:06:24.890" Score="0" Body="A chess opening characterized by the moves 1.e4 e6, often followed by 2.d4 d5" OwnerUserId="1485" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2013-09-07T00:17:46.503" LastActivityDate="2013-09-07T00:17:46.503" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2793" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2805" CreationDate="2013-09-06T23:45:25.440" Score="8" ViewCount="1539" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's another question on this SE, which asks the question in reverse:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/239/what-are-the-reasons-why-i-should-not-try-to-take-a-knight-with-my-bishop-if-it&quot;&gt;What are the reasons why I should not try to take a Knight with my Bishop if it&amp;#39;ll result in doubled pawns?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The answers do not adequately address, &lt;em&gt;why&lt;/em&gt; you should try and double up your opponents pawns. To be more precise let me point to this Youtube video explaining &#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youtu.be/urITvqQleUE?t=1m30s&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;the Budapest opening&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;r1bqk2r/pppp1ppp/2n5/4P3/1bP2Bn1/2N2N2/PP2PPPP/R2QKB1R b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Youtuber recommends ...BxNc3 with the sole aim of creating doubled pawns. So why are doubled pawns so awkward? The only reasonable answer on the Wikipedia &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doubled_pawns#Types_of_doubled_pawns&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;page&lt;/a&gt; I could understand was that the Rooks can't provide support to the leading pawn in a doubled pawn structure. Can someone shed more light?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="243" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2021-02-06T22:25:45.480" Title="What's up with the doubled pawns?" Tags="&lt;pawns&gt;&lt;pawn-structure&gt;&lt;doubled-pawn&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2794" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2793" CreationDate="2013-09-07T00:42:03.973" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Isolated double pawns like in your example are considered to be both a static and a dynamic weakness. It is a static weakness since the pawns can no longer defend each other or be defended by other pawns. It is a dynamic weakness since the front pawn is blocking the advance of the pawn behind. It is strategically important for the opposing player to control the square directly in front of the pawns, &lt;code&gt;c5&lt;/code&gt; in your example, thereby cramping the movement of both pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, doubled pawns are often compensated by other dynamical factors, like open files for the rooks and long diagonals for the bishops. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the Budapest line you are asking about, the move &lt;code&gt;6.Nbd2&lt;/code&gt; is more popular (than &lt;code&gt;6.Nc3&lt;/code&gt;), leading to a good position for white by simple means.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1485" LastActivityDate="2013-09-07T00:42:03.973" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2795" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1975" CreationDate="2013-09-07T03:22:44.313" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;GM Maurice Ashley invented &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.pawnmower.com/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Pawn Mower&lt;/a&gt;. It is great fun for learning how pieces move AND how to visualize the future board position after a few moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1656" LastActivityDate="2013-09-07T03:22:44.313" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2796" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2829" CreationDate="2013-09-07T03:28:31.307" Score="13" ViewCount="636" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are a few resources in the web for problem composers. Problem is the usually assume you are already part of the community. As a result one has to wander around to find out what is a grasshopper, a model mate, etc. I already have access to much of this information, but it would be nice to know of a single source (or few in any case) where one can learn the lingo, history, and the kind of questions that modern composers are interested in.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1656" LastEditorUserId="3831" LastEditDate="2016-03-09T17:46:07.360" LastActivityDate="2016-03-09T17:46:07.360" Title="How to learn basics of composition?" Tags="&lt;problems&gt;&lt;composing&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2797" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2013-09-07T07:40:39.040" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2013-09-07T07:40:39.040" LastActivityDate="2013-09-07T07:40:39.040" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2798" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2013-09-07T07:40:39.040" Score="0" Body="A variation of the Two Knights Defense characterized by the moves 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Nf6 4.Ng5 Bc5" OwnerUserId="1485" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2013-09-07T14:20:31.967" LastActivityDate="2013-09-07T14:20:31.967" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2799" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2013-09-07T14:36:28.110" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Cochrane Gambit's main idea is to gain a big center and to expose the Black king, for the cost of a knight and a pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-09-09T06:13:45.557" LastActivityDate="2020-09-09T06:13:45.557" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2800" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2013-09-07T14:36:28.110" Score="0" Body="A variation in the Petroff Defense involving a white knight sacrifice. It is characterized by the moves 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.Nxe5 d6 4.Nxf7" OwnerUserId="1485" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2013-09-07T15:36:49.197" LastActivityDate="2013-09-07T15:36:49.197" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2801" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-09-07T16:55:19.793" Score="11" ViewCount="3531" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm playing white and I've been unable to get the black king out of the corner. Does black have a guaranteed stalemate or is there some way to force him out the corner?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;5K1k/6R1/7P/8/8/8/2b5/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1682" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2013-09-07T18:04:12.837" LastActivityDate="2013-09-08T09:01:31.997" Title="Can I win this Rook and Pawn vs Bishop endgame?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;draw&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2802" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2801" CreationDate="2013-09-07T18:15:31.190" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Draw. The white king can never occupy g6/7/8, and thus there is no way to attack both h7 &amp;amp; h8 at the same time, thus no way to chase the black king off the h file, nor any way to support the advance of the pawn to h7, which much be covered twice for it to advance as the black bishop can stay on that diagonal. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1580" LastEditorUserId="1580" LastEditDate="2013-09-08T09:01:31.997" LastActivityDate="2013-09-08T09:01:31.997" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2803" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2801" CreationDate="2013-09-07T18:15:45.507" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;This position is in fact drawn (which you can confirm e.g. by looking the position up in an &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.k4it.de/?topic=egtb&amp;amp;lang=en&quot;&gt;online endgame tablebase&lt;/a&gt;). The key for Black's defense is to maintain the bishop on the b1-h7 diagonal, which prevents White from doing things like (1) moving the king to g6 (for threatening an eighth rank mate) or (2) pushing the pawn to h7 to threaten checking the black king out of h8 and queening the pawn. Black is able to keep the bishop on this diagonal, or at least be able to come back to it after moving away, and this keeps White from making any progress.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is just one line illustrating how White could win if Black were to go wrong with the placement of the bishop. After &lt;code&gt;1...Ba4??&lt;/code&gt; White has a won position, but only by the move &lt;code&gt;2.Rg2!&lt;/code&gt; which keeps the bishop from returning to its defensively optimal diagonal. And that's the idea behind White's play in the rest of the line given: keep the bishop from coming back to that diagonal (e.g. with &lt;code&gt;4.Re2&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;5.Rd2&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;10.Re5&lt;/code&gt; denying the bishop's return) until it's too late and the pawn push has already been arranged.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;5K1k/6R1/7P/8/8/8/2b5/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Kf7 Ba4?? 2.Rg2! Bb3+ 3.Kf6 Bd5 4.Re2 Bc4 5.Rd2 Bb5 6.Rd4 Bc6 7.Kg5 Bb5 8.Rd8+ Kh7 9.Rd5 Bc6 10.Re5 Ba4 11.Re7+ Kh8 12.h7 Bc2 13.Kh6 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2013-09-07T18:28:32.913" LastActivityDate="2013-09-07T18:28:32.913" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2804" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2787" CreationDate="2013-09-08T00:17:49.903" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is like asking &quot;what is the ideal number of hours to read each week&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The answer is: it depends on the person. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only solution is to experiment with different numbers and see what works best for you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1580" LastActivityDate="2013-09-08T00:17:49.903" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2805" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2793" CreationDate="2013-09-08T00:22:05.313" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's always a matter of tradeoff. You can find plenty of IM &amp;amp; GM games where a player accepts doubled pawns because they feel it's worth it in that position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this position, the doubled pawn is lending support to the center, is not making the king weak, and provides an open file for the rook. The black d pawn is restricted, and trading on d5 would undo the doubled pawns for white and give a strong center presence. However, it could turn out to be an endgame weakness.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is some commentary by a GM.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/article/view/doubled-pawns&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chess.com/article/view/doubled-pawns&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/article/view/the-truth-about-doubled-pawns-part-two&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chess.com/article/view/the-truth-about-doubled-pawns-part-two&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/article/view/the-truth-about-doubled-pawns-part-3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chess.com/article/view/the-truth-about-doubled-pawns-part-3&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/article/view/the-truth-about-doubled-pawns-part-4&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chess.com/article/view/the-truth-about-doubled-pawns-part-4&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/article/view/the-truth-about-doubled-pawns-part-5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chess.com/article/view/the-truth-about-doubled-pawns-part-5&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And by IM (now GM) Larry Kaufman&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://home.comcast.net/%7Edanheisman/Articles/doubled_pawns.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://home.comcast.net/~danheisman/Articles/doubled_pawns.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1580" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2021-02-06T22:25:45.480" LastActivityDate="2021-02-06T22:25:45.480" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2806" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24699" CreationDate="2013-09-08T03:26:58.853" Score="12" ViewCount="1966" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;em&gt;&amp;quot;Fireside Book of Chess&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt; by I. Chernev and F. Reinfeld includes the following diagram&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &amp;quot;3nk3/3NN3/3PP3/3BB3/3PP3/3PP3/3PP3/2RQKR2 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Composed by J.N. Babson for Brentano's Chess Monthly in 1882. Mate on&#xA;the 1220th move, after compelling Black to make three successive and&#xA;complete Knight's tours.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Note that there is a mate in one. The problem asks for something more specific.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Facts:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Babson is a real composer, famous for long mate problems.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Brentano's Chess Monthly was a real publication from 1880 to 1882, and Babson did have problems published there.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A FIDE page that lists people with FIDE titles has a biographical sketch of Babson citing a 1220 move problem, and a 1990 move problem on a 10x10 board.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Issues:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I can't find any reference to this problem on the web, other than the above mentioned book.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Nobody ever mentions any problem with this many moves... anywhere!&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A knight tour is the motion of a knight through all the board squares. Three of these would mean only 192 moves.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So here are my questions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is the problem for real?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;How should one interpret the knight tour condition? Probably the knight will capture most of the central pieces, but do the other pieces have to move aside to let the knight through?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What is the solution?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Why is this not more widely known?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1656" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-05-01T23:44:12.223" LastActivityDate="2021-05-02T02:48:20.020" Title="THE longest problem ever (much longer than the mere 549 mover...)" Tags="&lt;history&gt;&lt;problems&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="8" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2807" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2013-09-08T09:25:07.653" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Four Knights is usually a positional opening where White obtains the two bishops. In the ensuing complications, Black aims to close the center, while White tries to open it up, to make use of his bishops.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A key turning point is the Rubinstein variation: 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4. Bb5 Nd4!?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This variation sacrifices a pawn for piece activity and easier development.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-09-11T11:19:49.360" LastActivityDate="2020-09-11T11:19:49.360" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2808" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2013-09-08T09:25:07.653" Score="0" Body="A chess opening characterized by the moves 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Nc3 Nf6 " OwnerUserId="1485" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2013-09-08T14:13:59.033" LastActivityDate="2013-09-08T14:13:59.033" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2809" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2777" CreationDate="2013-09-08T14:01:39.810" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;From the PGN specification (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www6.chessclub.com/help/PGN-spec&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www6.chessclub.com/help/PGN-spec&lt;/a&gt;):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Neither the appearance nor the absence of either a check or&#xA;  checkmating indicator is used for disambiguation purposes.  This means&#xA;  that if two (or more) pieces of the same type can move to the same&#xA;  square the differences in checking status of the moves does not&#xA;  allieviate the need for the standard rank and file disabiguation&#xA;  described above.  (Note that a difference in checking status for the&#xA;  above may occur only in the case of a discovered check.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This means you have to specify files respectively ranks in your two diagram examples.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My understanding is that you need to disambiguate in the last two situations you describe as well. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1485" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2013-09-08T15:14:41.087" LastActivityDate="2013-09-08T15:14:41.087" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2810" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4039" CreationDate="2013-09-08T14:42:55.947" Score="3" ViewCount="423" Body="&lt;p&gt;In valuing a rook, I observe that a rook on the open board commands 15 squares; his own and seven others in each direction. Divide by three and you get a value of 5. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In valuing a knight, I observe that a knight on the open board commands nine squares; his own and eight others in each direction. Divide by three and you get a value of 3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I were to value a bishop same way, I would observe that a bishop on the open board commands 13 squares; divide by three, and I would get 4 (plus).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But most valuations have the bishop at 3, rather than 4 despite his range.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Interestingly, some experts value a bishop &lt;strong&gt;pair&lt;/strong&gt; on the open board at 7-8, even though the sum of 3+3 is only 6. Some would say that the &lt;strong&gt;pair&lt;/strong&gt; is worth more than 7, even valuing single bishops at 3.5. A value of eight for a pair would be in line with my theoretical value of 4, above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Put another way, a bishop and extra pawn is almost always at a disadvantage against a rook, but two bishops and two extra pawns are not necessarily at a disadvantage against two rooks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could a bishop be worth only three because of its single-colored move, even if two bishops are worth eight?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Given the concern that computers beating humans has made the game less interesting, have any experts, human or computer proposed or play tested a variant whereby a bishop can change its color by making a single move in a lateral direction to a square of the opposite color? This, presumably, would increase the value of the bishop, perhaps to four.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More to the point, have the Grandmasters made any more conventional arguments in favor of an eight-valued bishop pair?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2013-10-30T20:44:20.987" Title="Is a bishop less than half the value of a bishop pair?" Tags="&lt;minor-pieces&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2812" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-09-08T16:44:54.250" Score="6" ViewCount="2457" Body="&lt;p&gt;I usually play &lt;code&gt;1...e6&lt;/code&gt; (French Defence) against &lt;code&gt;1.e4&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I love to play tactical games. Is the French opening good for me? My primary aim in a chess game is to develop an attack against the opponent's king as soon as possible ... Is the French Defence OK for that?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1684" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2013-09-08T17:22:08.953" LastActivityDate="2015-02-20T12:38:28.590" Title="Is the French Defence good against 1.e4 for tactical play?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;french-defense&gt;&lt;attack&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2813" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2810" CreationDate="2013-09-08T17:41:29.470" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Who are these &quot;some experts&quot;? I was not able to find any IMs or GMs that value the pair at 1-2 pawns. Keep in mind that these values are not absolute. It depends entirely on position and how your strategy incorporates the bishop pair. In a closed game, two bishops are not going to be better than 2 knights most of the time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This topic may be of interest to you:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/662/what-is-the-bishop-pair-worth&quot;&gt;What is the bishop pair worth?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The value of pieces is not so one-dimensional as you make it out to be. Not only does it depend on position, but there is more to the picture than just how many squares the piece can control. A knight can jump over pieces. A bishop cannot.  Thus the advantage shifts to the knight in a closed position. The knight can influence both colors; the bishop cannot. A simple example is in an endgame where the bishop cannot control the queening square, whereas a knight could. Point comparisons are meaningless here. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It would also be simplistic to say that controlling 1 square = x value. Every square is not the same, and it depends on position. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1580" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2013-09-08T17:41:29.470" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2814" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1567" CreationDate="2013-09-08T18:48:54.920" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;The most famous example of a psychological play is this game between Lasker and Capablanca:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Bxc6 dxc6 5. d4 exd4 6. Qxd4 Qxd4 7. Nxd4 Bd6 8. Nc3 Ne7 9. O-O O-O 10. f4 Re8 11. Nb3 f6 12. f5 b6 13. Bf4 Bb7 14. Bxd6 cxd6 15. Nd4 Rad8 16. Ne6 Rd7 17. Rad1 Nc8 18. Rf2 b5 19. Rfd2 Rde7 20. b4 Kf7 21. a3 Ba8 22. Kf2 Ra7 23. g4 h6 24. Rd3 a5 25. h4 axb4 26. axb4 Rae7 27. Kf3 Rg8 28. Kf4 g6 29. Rg3 g5 30. Kf3 Nb6 31. hxg5 hxg5 32. Rh3 Rd7 33. Kg3 Ke8 34. Rdh1 Bb7 35. e5 dxe5 36. Ne4 Nd5 37. N6c5 Bc8 38. Nxd7 Bxd7 39. Rh7 Rf8 40. Ra1 Kd8 41. Ra8 Bc8 42. Nc5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is the 1914 St. Petersburg Tournament, where the first Grand Master titles were allegedly awarded to the top five players by none other than Czar Nicholas II (they were  Lasker, Alekhine, Capablanca, Tarrasch, and Marshall). It was the most important tournament at the time and Lasker as reigning World champion had a moral obligation to win, particularly since he had not played in a tournament for five years. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately for him there was this young upstart by the name of Capablanca who had only won one major event (San Sebastian 1911), and who pulled ahead to first position. At the very end, Lasker was trailing by half a point, and a win was necessary. In the second to last round he met Capablanca, and the stage was set for an epic clash. Needing a win against an all-confident opponent, Lasker decided to play the exchange variation of the Ruy Lopez. This surprised everyone since this choice leads to the elimination of queens and drawish endgames. Needless to say, Capablanca lowered his guard and was unprepared when Lasker's real strength came to the surface. The champion outplayed the newcomer, edged ahead in the table, and won the tournament by 1/2 a point.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1656" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-08-12T16:13:05.013" LastActivityDate="2019-08-12T16:13:05.013" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2815" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-09-08T22:31:02.530" Score="4" ViewCount="723" Body="&lt;p&gt;My computer checkmated me with a pawn move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I could have taken that pawn en passant but I wasn't given a chance to do that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Was that a fault of my computer, or is there a rule stating that a pawn giving checkmate cannot be taken en passant?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1687" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-03-04T13:52:57.993" LastActivityDate="2016-10-02T16:39:38.600" Title="Pawn giving checkmate" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;pawns&gt;&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;kings&gt;&lt;en-passant&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2816" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2815" CreationDate="2013-09-08T22:44:43.133" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would love to see the position; please add it to your question somehow (we can always edit it to look nice). However, there is no such rule. Either your computer doesn't implement captures en passant (improbable these days) or the capture was not valid for some other reason.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1656" LastActivityDate="2013-09-08T22:44:43.133" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2817" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-09-09T04:29:00.367" Score="6" ViewCount="700" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;1.e4 c5 2.Nc3 Nc6 3.f4 g6 4.Nf3 Bg7 5.Bb5 Nd4 6.O-O Nxb5&lt;/code&gt; is most common.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 c5 2.Nc3 Nc6 3.f4 g6 4.Nf3 Bg7 5.Bb5 Nd4 6.O-O Nxb5 (6...a6)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Instead of &lt;code&gt;6...Nxb5&lt;/code&gt; if black plays &lt;code&gt;6...a6&lt;/code&gt;, it seems white has some difficulties. Can anyone give the best move after this position with continuation? If possible give some games after the move &lt;code&gt;6...a6&lt;/code&gt; which gives a easy play for white.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1684" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-02-05T21:27:36.253" LastActivityDate="2020-09-27T20:25:28.883" Title="What is black's best sixth move in the Sicilian Grand Prix?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2818" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2824" CreationDate="2013-09-10T03:42:33.430" Score="6" ViewCount="162" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know the standard facts about Sultan khan's life. He was servant to a wealthy Indian military guy who let him play in tournaments whenever he traveled to England. Sultan Khan was a really strong player who originally had learned to play with slightly different rules (about promotion and stalemate eg). He won the British Championship and defeated Marshall, Flohr, and Capablanca. When players were invited to his masters house, Sultan Khan was expected to serve them, even though he was their better at chess!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What I am looking for is the lesser known facts about him. Any picture, story, or other reference is welcome. Please quote your sources.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1656" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2013-09-10T12:02:56.097" LastActivityDate="2013-09-11T10:27:36.943" Title="About Sultan Khan" Tags="&lt;famous-players&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2819" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2695" CreationDate="2013-09-10T12:23:06.033" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Some say:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There will probably other theories about the origin of the name &quot;rook&quot; for this chess piece; however here is the one I believe is best.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;IN the origins of the game itself, the game was called Chaturanga and it was not exactly the same as modern chess. The piece we call a rook was considered to be a chariot rather than a castle, probably because of the speed with which it moves. The Sanskrit word for chariot was &quot;ratha&quot;. In Arabic it is still referred to as a chariot with the name &quot;rukhkh.&quot; When the game spread to Europe, the word &quot;rukhkh&quot; sounded like the Italian word &quot;rocco&quot;, which meant &quot;tower.&quot; Since the two words sounded alike, the Italian word was used but the meaning changed from chariot to tower.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The piece is still thought of as a tower in European translations. Various European countries use their language's word for &quot;tower&quot; rather than their words for &quot;chariot&quot;. In Middle English the concept of tower eventually turned into castle since most castles had towers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Contributors are welcome to add to this answer any other theories about the name; however they should honor the rule against deleting other answers unless they are obviously wrong. Contributors are also reminded of the rules regarding minor edits.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Other explanations (the ones i believe to be true):&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The rook was already known in &quot;Chaturanga&quot;, but there, this figure was a carriage and was called &quot;rukh&quot;. The war carriages have been a part of the old Indian army until the 5th century. At the time the game came to Arabia the name did not change but the portrayal was simplified. In Europe the English name &quot;rook&quot; remind us to the descent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But how has the figure changed from a war carriage to a rook?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the year 1527 Vida, bishop of Albay, published a poem about a chess game between &quot;Apollo&quot; and &quot;Mercury&quot;. The rooks were fortifications on the back of an elephant. The European chess players took over the description. Finally they left out the elephant for the normal use.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Notes, I told you what others have said, what you're going to read now is my theory&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am from an Arabic country, Lebanon, and we don't call the bishop &quot;Al Fil&quot;, like some website say, at least in my country we don't, maybe some other arabic country did, not us, and we still play Chaturanga (but i don't). We call it Chatarange, it's a French name, since France was the mandate for Lebanon long time ago.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyway lets talk about the pieces which is interesting&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;king = king&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;queen = queen&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;knight = horse&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;rook = castle, yes we call it castle, and it makes sense to castle for&#xA;us, we don't rook :)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Bishop = minister, and also makes sense, the Arabs who&#xA;played Chess were Muslims you know :) Why European call it Bishop? I&#xA;can think of 3 reasons:&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because the bishops were so powerful and involved in political life. Because Christian armies relied on them during the wars, they were the one who blessed a war (Remember the crusaders and the Pop?). And lastly, because they contributed so much to the game (&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruy_L%C3%B3pez_de_Segura&quot;&gt;Ruy Lopez, was created by a Spanish priest who later became a bishop&lt;/a&gt;!) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Oh so you think I forgot about Pawns? Wrong! Pawns = Some call them soldiers, and some call them stones or rocks! &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Now my theory:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is possible that by translating, a castle, became a rook, after all a castle, is built using rocks. Why didn't the European remove the term &quot;pawn&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By definition a Pawn is the condition of being held as a pledge against the payment of a loan. All the poor and the farmers were &quot;Pawns&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Remember that Chess was introduced to Europe in mid centuries and only the wealthy played it, so the term pawn has a very significant meaning, the weakest on the board in a Feudal society, that would fight for the king in the hope of being promoted! So they left the name as is for that piece.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Small Edit To My Initial Answer&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You might be wondering: Why the hell would Arabs call &quot;Pawns&quot; as &quot;Rocks&quot; in the first place?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's because, Arabs play a board game called &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tables_%28board_game%29&quot;&gt;Tables&lt;/a&gt;, the game as we play it today, was created in Turkey, (I don't give a damn about what Wikipedia has to say about the history of the game) and the Turks have invaded the Arabic world for a long time, so that's how we got it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The game is played by stones or rocks, rounded pieces, now they are made from plastic, but not back then. The Tables game is far more popular than Chess or whatever you call it in the Arabic world today.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The way you play the game is by pushing the pieces to the other end of the board, and you win (I'm not going to go over the rules, but that's the idea)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's also &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.checkershistory.com/&quot;&gt;Checkers&lt;/a&gt;, which originated in Iraq some believe, and is still more popular than Chess nowadays in the Arabic world.  And the pieces move very similar to Pawns and again were made from rocks. So why creating a &quot;Pawn&quot; shaped piece, when you can use rocks and start playing?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Sources&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://library.thinkquest.org/C001348/international/pieces/his_pieces_en.html&quot;&gt;The history of the chess pieces&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://sites.google.com/site/caroluschess/piece-history/rook&quot;&gt;Chess Piece history‎: Rook&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Why_is_a_rook_called_a_rook&quot;&gt;Why is a rook called a rook?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1105" LastEditorUserId="1105" LastEditDate="2014-06-02T17:03:00.860" LastActivityDate="2014-06-02T17:03:00.860" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2820" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2821" CreationDate="2013-09-10T18:41:03.103" Score="2" ViewCount="284" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm looking for some information on the ideas or themes behind different opening lines.&#xA;E.g. Queens Gambit / Slav defence .. white tries to accomplish X and black tries to do Y without books of theory covering every variation. I'm just looking for general ideas e.g. White's black bishop is very strong - Black will try to trade it off ... or fight will be around isolated pawn etc etc.&#xA;thanks&#xA;(I'm a 1700 player) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1696" LastActivityDate="2013-09-10T18:44:59.437" Title="Where can I find good information on the ideas/themes behind certain opening lines?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2821" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2820" CreationDate="2013-09-10T18:44:59.437" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I highly recommend the book &lt;em&gt;Fundamental Chess Openings&lt;/em&gt; by Paul van der Sterren. It is a comprehensive survey of the chess openings with an emphasis on themes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Understanding the Chess Openings&lt;/em&gt; by Sam Collins is a similar book and is also pretty good but FCO is more comprehensive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The original book along these lines was &lt;em&gt;The Ideas Behind the Chess Openings&lt;/em&gt; by Reuben Fine but it is very dated now (it was originally written in in 1943).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2013-09-10T18:44:59.437" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2822" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2812" CreationDate="2013-09-11T00:06:06.807" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;French defense is often thought of as solid positional defense. However, French defense can be used as tactical weapon and many GMs use it that way. See two games by Alexander Morozevich below. Therefore, you should be able to play attacking chess using the French. If the French is working out for you, play it! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Polgar-Morozevich:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Wijk aan Zee Corus&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Wijk aan Zee NED&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2000.01.18&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;2000.01.15&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;3&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Judit Polgar&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Alexander Morozevich&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;C11&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;2658&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;2748&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;72&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. Bg5 dxe4 5. Nxe4 Be7 6. Bxf6&#xA;gxf6 7. Nf3 a6 8. g3 b5 9. Bg2 Bb7 10. Qe2 Nd7 11. O-O O-O&#xA;12. Rad1 Bd5 13. Rfe1 Kh8 14. Nfd2 c6 15. c4 bxc4 16. Nxc4 a5&#xA;17. Nc3 Re8 18. Ne3 f5 19. Nc4 Qb8 20. Na4 Qb4 21. b3 Bf6&#xA;22. Qc2 Rg8 23. Qc1 Rg4 24. Ne5 Nxe5 25. dxe5 Be7 26. Rd3 Rag8&#xA;27. Red1 f4 28. Qc3 fxg3 29. hxg3 h5 30. Bxd5 cxd5 31. Rf3 Kg7&#xA;32. Qc7 h4 33. Kg2 hxg3 34. fxg3 Qe4 35. Qc3 Qe2+ 36. Kh3 Rg5&#xA;0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Adams-Morozevich:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Sparkassen Cat XXI&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Dortmund GER&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2001.07.21&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;2001.07.12&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;9&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Michael Adams&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Alexander Morozevich&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;C03&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;2744&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;2749&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;54&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Nd2 Be7 4. e5 c5 5. dxc5 Nc6 6. Ngf3 Bxc5&#xA;7. Nb3 Bb6 8. Bd3 f6 9. Qe2 fxe5 10. Nxe5 Nf6 11. O-O Nxe5&#xA;12. Qxe5 O-O 13. Bg5 Bc7 14. Qd4 h6 15. Bh4 e5 16. Qc5 Be6&#xA;17. Rad1 Rc8 18. Qe3 e4 19. Bxe4 Bxh2+ 20. Kh1 Qd6 21. Bxf6&#xA;Bf4 22. Qf3 Rxf6 23. Bxd5 Be5 24. Bxb7 Qe7 25. Qe4 Rf5&#xA;26. Rfe1 Rf4 27. Qe3 Rh4+ 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="307" LastActivityDate="2013-09-11T00:06:06.807" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2823" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2825" CreationDate="2013-09-11T10:14:27.547" Score="5" ViewCount="2602" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the academic journal article &lt;strong&gt;&quot;The Role of Deliberate Practice in Chess Expertise&quot;&lt;/strong&gt; from &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.psych.utoronto.ca/users/reingold/publications/PDFs/Charness.Tuffiash.Krampe.Krampe.Vasyukova.2005.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;APPLIED COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY Appl. Cognit. Psychol. 19: 151– 165 (2005)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At the top of &lt;strong&gt;page 162&lt;/strong&gt;, the authors state that&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;...each log unit of serious study alone yields about 200 rating&#xA;  points compared to 33 rating points for log tournament play. Hence,&#xA;  players ought to devote the majority of their time to that activity.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have gone over this academic paper several times, but I cannot decipher what &lt;strong&gt;&quot;each log unit&quot;&lt;/strong&gt; represents. What time span is a &quot;log unit&quot; in this context where studying chess alone gave the chess players in this academic paper 200 ratings points vs 33 ratings points from playing in tournaments? Is it 6 months, 10 months, a year? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1698" LastEditorUserId="1105" LastEditDate="2013-09-11T14:21:09.263" LastActivityDate="2016-09-28T00:56:31.603" Title="How long to get a 200 rating point increase from serious chess study alone according to this academic paper?" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;study&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2824" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2818" CreationDate="2013-09-11T10:27:36.943" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Lots of info, pictures, and fun facts here:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/extra/sultankhan.html&quot;&gt;http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/extra/sultankhan.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1698" LastActivityDate="2013-09-11T10:27:36.943" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2825" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2823" CreationDate="2013-09-11T12:31:32.420" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;The first paragraph of the RESULTS section on p. 155 says&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;We applied log-10 transformations to three variables (cumulative study alone, cumulative tournament play, and chess book library size) prior to correlation and regression analyses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The log-10 (logarithm base 10) of a number is what power you have to raise 10 to in order to produce that number; e.g. log 100 = 2, log 1000 = 3, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the sentence&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;each log unit of serious study alone yields about 200 rating points&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;means that, all other things being equal, if player A studies ten times as long as player B, his rating will be about 200 points higher. (Another student who studies a hundred times as long as player B will have a rating of about 200 points higher than player A.) So there is no constant time span per 200-point gain; the required time to gain a particular amount of rating improvement gets larger and larger as you improve. (Another way to put this is that chess study produces diminishing returns.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(In a sense, the Elo rating system is logarithmic as well, so you could claim that the relationship between study time and playing skill is actually linear. But since everybody measures playing skill by Elo rating, that's not so productive.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2013-09-11T12:31:32.420" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2826" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2827" CreationDate="2013-09-11T12:36:20.090" Score="6" ViewCount="948" Body="&lt;p&gt;Suppose one player has only 3 minutes of time left in his clock. The position is a draw with opposite colored bishops and neither player can break forward practically. The other player, who has got lots of time left, intentionally plays on to win on time. Since the player under time pressure will not be keeping score, how can he claim if he has completed 50 moves as per the 50 move rule? What is the best solution to this situation in a tournament organized according to FIDE rules?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1659" LastActivityDate="2014-12-19T14:08:38.100" Title="How can one claim 50 move rule draw under time pressure?" Tags="&lt;draw&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2827" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2826" CreationDate="2013-09-11T13:23:17.683" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to clause 8.5a of the FIDE Laws of Chess (the URL keeps changing so I won't link to it, but you can search), if a player has under five minutes left and the increment is less than 30 seconds per move (or nonexistent), an arbiter or assistant should keep score if possible. This is one reason that a 30-second increment is used these days; both players are required to keep score for the whole game so this situation never comes up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the game is played by USCF rules, then according to rule 14F4, if a player has under than five minutes left, he can ask the tournament director to keep track of the number of moves in order to verify a claim that the player makes. (The player is still responsible for making the claim.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2013-09-11T13:23:17.683" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2828" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-09-11T13:42:56.403" Score="5" ViewCount="2107" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have recently moved to a Mac. Immediately I've installed Scid (looks very nice on the Mac) but I couldn't find a way to use my Houdini as a chess engine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Supposedly, it should run with Wine, but I don't know how to do it. I understand that you have done so, so could you give me some guidance?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1700" LastEditorUserId="813" LastEditDate="2013-09-11T14:20:54.577" LastActivityDate="2013-10-20T03:52:19.940" Title="How to use Houdini with SCID on Mac OS?" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;houdini&gt;&lt;mac&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2829" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2796" CreationDate="2013-09-11T23:04:20.540" Score="11" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://frank.strmilov.cz/taverner.pdf&quot;&gt;CHESS PROBLEMS MADE EASY - How to solve, how to compose&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/2929666?uid=3738432&amp;amp;uid=2134&amp;amp;uid=2&amp;amp;uid=70&amp;amp;uid=4&amp;amp;sid=21102629982447&quot;&gt;How to compose chess problems and why&lt;/a&gt; (You have to register for free to read it)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1879479338&quot;&gt;Chess Wizardry: The New ABC of Chess Problems&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.uschess.org/content/view/8745/473/&quot;&gt;Compose Like Mozart&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.theproblemist.org/what-are-chess-problems&quot;&gt;What are chess problems&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Additional links&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.anders.thulin.name/SUBJECTS/CHESS_PROBLEMS/&quot;&gt;Chess Problems&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.schackportalen.nu/english/eschackteori.htm&quot;&gt;The Chess Portal: Chess theory/Chess Problems&lt;/a&gt; (that list has many recourses on Chess composition)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1105" LastActivityDate="2013-09-11T23:04:20.540" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2830" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2739" CreationDate="2013-09-12T00:41:36.470" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Take a look at the &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/bpfliegel/Portfish&quot;&gt;C# port of Stockfish by bpfliegel&lt;/a&gt;. To my knowledge it is complete (was able to compile and run it) and even though it has not been updated in 11 months at the time of this post it is certainly much stronger than the other engines listed. When I tested its perft function it on my machine it was only a factor of 1.5 slower than the original C++ implementation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1431" LastActivityDate="2013-09-12T00:41:36.470" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2831" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2833" CreationDate="2013-09-12T05:03:38.863" Score="10" ViewCount="13854" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm interested in programming a chess engine and using bitboards to represent the state of the game. I know there are a few open source chess engines that use bitboards, but its not so easy to look at the code and understand what is going on. I'm looking for good reference material on how to represent all the state in bitboards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Clearly explaining how to maintain the state of the game using bitboards, and especially how to generate a list of valid moves from any given bitboard, or supplying good references to such an explanation will earn you the green check mark.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1583" LastActivityDate="2018-11-14T07:13:03.737" Title="How to represent chess state with a bitboard" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;open-source&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2832" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2310" CreationDate="2013-09-12T11:31:15.697" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The answer of your question can be found by logic. When you play chess, the most important organ is your brain because you mostly need to think about positions. For computers, that's the same, which hardware refers to brain? CPU of course!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Moreover, nowadays, computers can have multiple brains (cores) and chess engines can be compatible with it. Thus, more your processor has cores, better is for analyzing positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You speak about Houdini but it's the same for other chess engines like Rybka, Fritz and so on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="813" LastActivityDate="2013-09-12T11:31:15.697" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2833" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2831" CreationDate="2013-09-12T12:17:18.057" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;The best resource for chess engine programming is the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessprogramming.org/Main_Page&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess Programming Wiki&lt;/a&gt;, which has a large &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessprogramming.org/Bitboards&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;section on bitboards&lt;/a&gt;. Everything you need to make a bitboard-based engine is there, although it's rather spread out and sometimes written by people for whom English is a second language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-11-14T07:13:03.737" LastActivityDate="2018-11-14T07:13:03.737" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2834" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2891" CreationDate="2013-09-12T18:13:58.133" Score="8" ViewCount="5261" Body="&lt;p&gt;One of the pieces of advice (usually from masters) that I see over and over is that I should be analyzing master games. But how do I do that? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most of the tactics are over my head (obviously the simpler ones I can see). I can see strategical ideas all over the place, but my ideas are probably wrong. Without someone walking me through what to look at it's hard to understand. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What should I be looking for? What should I look to learn?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="390" LastActivityDate="2013-09-28T01:15:56.783" Title="How do you analyze master games?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;master-games&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2835" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-09-13T03:08:28.453" Score="4" ViewCount="541" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Petrov or Russian opening is seldom seen these days:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nf6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why? Is it fully refuted? Or merely uncomfortable for Black?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1656" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2014-02-14T08:59:44.837" LastActivityDate="2014-02-14T08:59:44.837" Title="What's with the Petrov?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;petroff-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2836" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2871" CreationDate="2013-09-13T10:27:02.903" Score="6" ViewCount="702" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have a chess puzzle here:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;7k/8/8/4KPPP/8/8/8/8 - - - 0 0 &quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Can White force mate without promotion?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And if such exist, where can I find some more chess puzzles like this, which feature particular and restrictive directions?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1315" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-05T01:00:50.820" LastActivityDate="2020-04-05T01:00:50.820" Title="Make checkmate with pawns without promotion" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;problems&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2837" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2835" CreationDate="2013-09-13T10:47:57.210" Score="-3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I wouldn't call any of those moves &lt;em&gt;wrong&lt;/em&gt;, but I would say it is a bad idea for Black to move &lt;code&gt;2. ... Nf6&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are an optimistic player who thinks that White and Black are even at first glance, my Houdini counters by saying White is already &lt;strong&gt;one point ahead&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;In one classical game, it goes like this: &lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;C42 Russian Game: Classical&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. Nxe5 d6 4. Nf3 Nxe4 5. d4 Be7 6. Bd3 f5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1315" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2013-09-16T13:00:01.883" LastActivityDate="2013-09-16T13:00:01.883" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2838" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2835" CreationDate="2013-09-13T12:05:41.627" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is nothing wrong with the Petroff and it is still used regularly at the highest levels. If it is less popular than it used to be (and I'd have to check the data before claiming that), then that would likely be because it is usually played when Black is trying to make a draw, and these days the Berlin variation of the Ruy Lopez is the most popular way to try to achieve a draw against 1.e4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2013-09-13T12:05:41.627" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2839" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-09-13T12:14:56.007" Score="3" ViewCount="716" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/users/291/dfan&quot;&gt;dfan&lt;/a&gt;'s answer to &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/q/2835/1656&quot;&gt;this question&lt;/a&gt; suggested the following. Why would a specific opening become popular as the method of choice to play for a draw? Wouldn't it be better to select an &lt;strike&gt;obscure&lt;/strike&gt; out-of-fashion variation that leads to a draw? That way you always have the chance to catch your opponent unprepared and score an extra 1/2 point.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1656" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2013-09-20T14:00:33.173" Title="How can a drawish opening be fashionable?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;draw&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2840" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2839" CreationDate="2013-09-13T15:46:21.733" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Because an obscure variation is just that -- obscure. It is far less understood and analyzed, and so you cannot be confident in your ability to play lines that lead to the outcome you want. In a well known opening, you can play the lines that you know most likely lead to certain positions. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In response to your edit:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In order to be confident in playing the lines of an opening, you would have to be well-studied in it. If you are playing at high level chess, your opponent most likely will know that you play these lines, and will prepare for it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1580" LastEditorUserId="1580" LastEditDate="2013-09-14T06:09:16.297" LastActivityDate="2013-09-14T06:09:16.297" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2841" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2338" CreationDate="2013-09-14T02:19:27.373" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Algebraic notation is quite old. It is based on a system created by Philipp Stamma (c.1705–55) &lt;em&gt;before&lt;/em&gt; descriptive notation started to evolve. There is no indication that anyone with a mathematical background had anything to do with its development or spreading, so my best guess is that they called it &quot;algebraic&quot; simply because it uses coordinates. The funny thing is that there is nothing algebraic about coordinates. If anything, it should be called &quot;geometric notation&quot;, but somehow &quot;algebraic&quot; sounds better; as if it is more accurate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In brief, I strongly suspect that they &lt;strong&gt;just&lt;/strong&gt; called it &quot;algebraic&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1656" LastActivityDate="2013-09-14T02:19:27.373" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2842" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2834" CreationDate="2013-09-14T06:13:07.877" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is some commentary by IM Jeremy Silman, who is also well known for his work in chess instruction.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/article/view/the-point-of-studying-master-games-part-one&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.chess.com/article/view/the-point-of-studying-master-games-part-one&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/article/view/the-point-of-studying-master-games-part-two&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.chess.com/article/view/the-point-of-studying-master-games-part-two&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/article/view/the-point-of-studying-master-games-pt-3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.chess.com/article/view/the-point-of-studying-master-games-pt-3&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And opinions from various chess players:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/studying-master-games&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/studying-master-games&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1580" LastActivityDate="2013-09-14T06:13:07.877" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2843" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2839" CreationDate="2013-09-14T13:24:56.570" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;If I choose a well known drawish opening, it sends two messages to my opponent:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Offer me a draw and I'll accept it&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If you play for a win, you'll just smash against my rocks.  If you try too hard, you'll lose.  If you don't, you'll probably just get a draw anyway.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, some opponents won't care and will fight for the win while others will be more than ready to throw in the towel, especially if there's a rating difference in the opponent's favor.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This really only applies to master play.  Amateurs make enough mistakes that nothing is drawish, nothing is safe.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2013-09-14T13:24:56.570" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2844" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2839" CreationDate="2013-09-14T21:03:37.127" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's difficult to give a general answer why one opening is more popular than another. I can try to give some reasons in the specific case of Berlin vs Petrov that prompted your question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the Petrov the following line is popular for white.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.Nxe5 d6 4.Nf3 Nxe4 5.Nc3 Nxc3 6.dxc3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This might be theoretically fine for black, but from a practical point of view white is very much in control. White may have prepared a dangerous novelty to use at a later stage in the opening, and black has to react over the board. There is almost no upside for black as white can play for a win with little risk.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Berlin &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 Nf6 4.O-O Nxe4 5.d4 Nd6 6.Bxc6 dxc6 7.dxe5 Nf5 8.Qxd8+ Kxd8 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;on the other is much more flexible. Black has almost as many different possible set-ups as white has. Compared with the Petrov, here it is much more difficult for white to prepare specific lines. White frequently goes wrong even at the highest levels. I think Aronian once commented that he sometimes plays the Berlin when he wants to win with black. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1485" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2013-09-15T12:23:52.827" LastActivityDate="2013-09-15T12:23:52.827" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2845" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-09-14T21:13:05.187" Score="5" ViewCount="5220" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've had some bad experiences with Chess.com recently. What are some good alternative websites for correspondence chess? I'm particularly looking for:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;No time limit&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Email notifications when it is your turn&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Ideally, you should be able to make moves by replying to notification emails (with a simple expression like e2e4)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thoughts?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="947" LastActivityDate="2013-09-15T00:39:51.963" Title="Best websites for correspondence chess?" Tags="&lt;websites&gt;&lt;correspondence-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="2" ClosedDate="2013-09-16T05:33:13.183" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2846" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2845" CreationDate="2013-09-15T00:39:51.963" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Apart from chess.com, here are a few others:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.queenalice.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.queenalice.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.gameknot.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.gameknot.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.redhotpawn.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.redhotpawn.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessos.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.chessos.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess-mail.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.chess-mail.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are many out there...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="271" LastActivityDate="2013-09-15T00:39:51.963" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2848" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2849" CreationDate="2013-09-16T01:25:52.950" Score="9" ViewCount="1449" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is it better to teach young players to record their move first and then make it?  Or should they be taught to move first and write later?  Is one considered better etiquette over the other?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="511" LastActivityDate="2019-05-03T10:43:57.980" Title="Move first, record later; or vice-versa?" Tags="&lt;notation&gt;&lt;etiquette&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2849" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2848" CreationDate="2013-09-16T01:36:40.940" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;It hasn't always been so, but these days (at least according to &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fide.com/component/handbook/?id=124&amp;amp;view=article&quot;&gt;FIDE rules&lt;/a&gt;) it's illegal to write your move down before making it, outside of some situations in which a draw is being claimed or the game is being adjourned. Here are the exact details as to when a move should be recorded (with the most relevant part italicized):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;8.1.&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;  In the course of play each player is required to record his own moves and those of his opponent in the correct manner, move after move, as clearly and legibily as possible, in the algebraic notation (See Appendix C), on the scoresheet prescribed for the competition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;It is forbidden to write the moves in advance&lt;/em&gt;, unless the player is claiming a draw according to Article 9.2, or 9.3 or adjourning a game according to the Guidelines of Adjourned Games point 1.a.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A player may reply to his opponent’s move before recording it, if he so wishes. He must record his previous move before making another.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I believe the reason that it's against the rules now is because writing the move in advance could be construed as some sort of analysis aid. (I'm not arguing that that's a good reason for the rule; it's just what I understand to be a rationale for the rule.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2013-09-16T01:36:40.940" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2851" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2831" CreationDate="2013-09-16T22:31:43.253" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;What programming language do you want to use?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To implement a bitboard in C#, use &lt;a href=&quot;http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.uint64%28v=vs.100%29.aspx&quot;&gt;System.UInt64&lt;/a&gt;. This can hold 64 bits, 1 for each square of the chess board. This value type lends itself to many fast bitwise operations. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a &lt;a href=&quot;http://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Bitboards&quot;&gt;good bitboard tutorial&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are some examples from my own C# chess engine. As you can see from the code, it can take a while to wrap your head around using bitboards, but they are typically very fast, especially for position evaluation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example 1 - Bitboard definition:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;internal UInt64 WhiteKing;&#xA;internal UInt64 WhiteQueens;&#xA;internal UInt64 WhiteRooks;&#xA;internal UInt64 WhiteBishops;&#xA;internal UInt64 WhiteKnights;&#xA;internal UInt64 WhitePawns;&#xA;internal UInt64 WhitePieces;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example 2 - Bitboard initialisation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;// Initialise piece bitboards using square contents.&#xA;private void InitPieceBitboards()&#xA;{&#xA;    this.WhiteKing = 0; &#xA;    this.WhiteQueens = 0; &#xA;    this.WhiteRooks = 0; &#xA;    this.WhiteBishops = 0; &#xA;    this.WhiteKnights = 0; &#xA;    this.WhitePawns = 0;&#xA;&#xA;    for (Int16 i = 0; i &amp;lt; 64; i++)&#xA;    {&#xA;        if (this.Squares[i] == Constants.WHITE_KING)&#xA;        {&#xA;            this.WhiteKing = this.WhiteKing | Constants.BITSET[i];&#xA;        }&#xA;        if (this.Squares[i] == Constants.WHITE_QUEEN)&#xA;        {&#xA;            this.WhiteQueens = this.WhiteQueens | Constants.BITSET[i];&#xA;        } &#xA;        if (this.Squares[i] == Constants.WHITE_ROOK) &#xA;        {&#xA;            this.WhiteRooks = this.WhiteRooks | Constants.BITSET[i];&#xA;        }&#xA;        if (this.Squares[i] == Constants.WHITE_BISHOP) &#xA;        {&#xA;            this.WhiteBishops = this.WhiteBishops | Constants.BITSET[i];&#xA;        }&#xA;        if (this.Squares[i] == Constants.WHITE_KNIGHT) &#xA;        {&#xA;            this.WhiteKnights = this.WhiteKnights | Constants.BITSET[i];&#xA;        }&#xA;        if (this.Squares[i] == Constants.WHITE_PAWN) &#xA;        {&#xA;            this.WhitePawns = this.WhitePawns | Constants.BITSET[i];&#xA;        }&#xA;&#xA;        this.WhitePieces = this.WhiteKing | this.WhiteQueens | &#xA;                           this.WhiteRooks | this.WhiteBishops | &#xA;                           this.WhiteKnights | this.WhitePawns;&#xA;        this.BlackPieces = this.BlackKing | this.BlackQueens | &#xA;                           this.BlackRooks | this.BlackBishops | &#xA;                           this.BlackKnights | this.BlackPawns;&#xA;        this.SquaresOccupied = this.WhitePieces | this.BlackPieces;&#xA;    }&#xA;}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example 3 - Move generation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;// We can't capture one of our own pieces.&#xA;eligibleSquares = ~this.WhitePieces;&#xA;&#xA;// Generate moves for white knights.&#xA;remainingKnights = this.WhiteKnights;&#xA;&#xA;// Generate the moves for each knight...&#xA;while (remainingKnights != 0)&#xA;{&#xA;    squareFrom = BitOps.BitScanForward(remainingKnights);&#xA;    generatedMoves = Constants.ATTACKS_KNIGHT[squareFrom] &amp;amp; eligibleSquares;&#xA;    while (generatedMoves != 0)&#xA;    {&#xA;        squareTo = BitOps.BitScanForward(generatedMoves);&#xA;        moveList.Add(new Move(squareFrom, squareTo, Constants.WHITE_KNIGHT, &#xA;                              this.Squares[squareTo], Constants.EMPTY));&#xA;        generatedMoves ^= Constants.BITSET[squareTo];&#xA;    }&#xA;    // Finished with this knight - move on to the next one.&#xA;    remainingKnights ^= Constants.BITSET[squareFrom];&#xA;}    &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example 4 - Calculate material score:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;// Material score from scratch, in centipawns from White's perspective.&#xA;internal static Int32 ScoreMaterial(Board position)&#xA;{&#xA;    return BitOps.BitCountWegner(position.WhitePawns)   * Constants.VALUE_PAWN +&#xA;           BitOps.BitCountWegner(position.WhiteKnights) * Constants.VALUE_KNIGHT +&#xA;           BitOps.BitCountWegner(position.WhiteBishops) * Constants.VALUE_BISHOP +&#xA;           BitOps.BitCountWegner(position.WhiteRooks)   * Constants.VALUE_ROOK   +&#xA;           BitOps.BitCountWegner(position.WhiteQueens)  * Constants.VALUE_QUEEN  -&#xA;           BitOps.BitCountWegner(position.BlackPawns)   * Constants.VALUE_PAWN   -&#xA;           BitOps.BitCountWegner(position.BlackKnights) * Constants.VALUE_KNIGHT -&#xA;           BitOps.BitCountWegner(position.BlackBishops) * Constants.VALUE_BISHOP -&#xA;           BitOps.BitCountWegner(position.BlackRooks)   * Constants.VALUE_ROOK   -&#xA;           BitOps.BitCountWegner(position.BlackQueens)  * Constants.VALUE_QUEEN;&#xA;}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example 5 - Calculating piece mobility:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;// Calculate mobility score for white knights.&#xA;remainingPieces = position.WhiteKnights;&#xA;while (remainingPieces != 0)&#xA;{&#xA;    squareFrom = BitOps.BitScanForward(remainingPieces);&#xA;    mobilityKnight += BitOps.BitCountWegner(Constants.ATTACKS_KNIGHT[squareFrom]&#xA;                                            &amp;amp; unoccupiedSquares);&#xA;    remainingPieces ^= Constants.BITSET[squareFrom];&#xA; }&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1711" LastActivityDate="2013-09-16T22:31:43.253" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2852" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2848" CreationDate="2013-09-17T06:27:27.577" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The common advice for kids was to record the move first, then check it one last time and look for missed opponent moves, before playing it. This is a way to slow down to avoid rushed moves and reduce blunders.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1712" LastActivityDate="2013-09-17T06:27:27.577" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2853" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="593" CreationDate="2013-09-17T06:43:32.487" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;At the time Chernev wrote his book there was no powerful chess engines and computer analysis, unlike Nunn which likely uses a lot of these tools to support the accuracy of his analysis.&#xA;It's generally easy now to find mistakes in old books, but they still have valuable lessons and insights.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1712" LastActivityDate="2013-09-17T06:43:32.487" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2855" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2275" CreationDate="2013-09-18T23:18:47.557" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you mean by tactics things like forks, pins, overworked pieces etc. the answer to your question is yess. There is only so much you can do with these wooden pieces. Ofcourse when combining these tactics over more moves the sky is the limit. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1723" LastActivityDate="2013-09-18T23:18:47.557" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2856" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-09-20T13:06:37.797" Score="11" ViewCount="667" Body="&lt;p&gt;A study is unlike a regular chess problem. Instead of &quot;mate in 3&quot; (for instance), a study's instructions are something like &quot;White to draw&quot; (for instance). What this means is to find a line of play after which White reaches a position that is known to be a draw. But there is a problem with this notion because computers have shown us that many situations that were &quot;known to be a draw&quot; aren't really (same for theoretical wins).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Are there any &lt;strong&gt;famous&lt;/strong&gt; studies that have been cooked (solution is not valid) due to a computer showing that the final position did not satisfy the conditions of the study?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(By famous I mean either a classic that appears in many books or a study that won prizes in problem tournaments.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1656" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2013-09-20T18:25:59.257" LastActivityDate="2021-05-03T14:01:11.057" Title="Studies that have been cooked by computers" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;problems&gt;&lt;studies&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2857" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-09-20T13:16:06.927" Score="5" ViewCount="435" Body="&lt;p&gt;Many times the annotations to an old game include the information that it won a brilliancy prize (I have even seen &quot;4th place brilliancy prizes&quot;). I know there used to be money attached to these, so perhaps it was a means to make the tournament more attractive when the purses were not so big, and for patrons to play small-time sponsorship (put a small prize with your name instead of the full competition award).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Are brilliancy prizes still awarded? If not, why?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1656" LastActivityDate="2013-10-01T02:48:06.100" Title="Brilliancy prizes" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2858" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2275" CreationDate="2013-09-20T13:51:48.327" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It depends on the criteria you use to say two tactics are the same thing. If I play a combination tomorrow, in some position that's not played before, and the details of where the pieces are is just slightly different, is it a new tactic?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Endgame studies have been described as crystallized versions of tactics; only the tactic, nothing else. I don't think the last original endgame study has been composed already.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2013-09-20T13:51:48.327" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2859" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2839" CreationDate="2013-09-20T14:00:33.173" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Specific openings become popular as a way to play for a draw (among grandmasters!) because those openings tend to lead to very drawish position (few unbalances).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Playing less popular lines is a different subject, with pros and cons -- the opponent may not remember too much about it and that may be an advantage, on the other hand you won't have much experience with them either, and unpopular openings are usually unpopular for a reason -- they're often worse than the popular ones. In fact your opponent may well know the exact reason why it's unpopular.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But those are trade-offs associated with playing unpopular openings at all -- not of playing them when trying to achieve a draw. Your question boils down to &quot;why play popular openings at all?&quot; Well, if one line is seen as having the biggest chance of success at the moment, then that line is going to be popular. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;People don't choose a line based on popularity, but based on how good they think they can do with the positions they lead to.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2013-09-20T14:00:33.173" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2860" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2863" CreationDate="2013-09-20T22:09:29.477" Score="5" ViewCount="6015" Body="&lt;p&gt;A bishop and knight are considered to be about equal in value (three points each). There are even some (closed) positions, where a single knight is worth more than a &quot;bad&quot; bishop, although there are more positions where a bishop is worth a bit more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But unless they're linked and extremely well placed, (e.g. d4 and e6), two knights are seldom worth more than six points. Some masters put the bishop pair at seven points in an open position because the two bishops together can cover squares of both colors, while moving faster. Does this make two bishops worth more than two knights?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have read that a fairly open position, two knights may be worth no more than one rook (five points instead of six, or two and a half each). I've never heard this about two bishops. Does this strengthen the case that two knights are worth less than two bishops?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2020-08-02T09:13:30.690" Title="Are two knights generally worth less than two bishops?" Tags="&lt;minor-pieces&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2861" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2835" CreationDate="2013-09-20T22:17:06.573" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;What's &quot;wrong&quot; with the Petroff is that it is &quot;boring,&quot; and associated with playing to draw, because it is somewhat symmetrical.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most people, even Black, like to play to win, and when they do, their choice is &quot;sharper&quot; Sicilian, or French, or even certain variations of the Ruy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I remember people using it in my high school days (forty years ago) when they were ahead in the tournament, and just wanted to finish with a good score.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2013-09-20T22:17:06.573" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2862" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2860" CreationDate="2013-09-21T08:12:39.097" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;As with many things in chess, the answer is: It depends on the position. You touched on this by discussing open vs closed positions, but it can go much deeper than that. In high level play, the middle game may be closed, but the bishops may be preferred as part of an anticipated endgame strategy. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Knights are superior to bishops in more aspects than just closed vs. open positions. A knight is generally the better option when it comes to blocking an opponent's passed pawn, for instance. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The biggest differences come in endgame strategy, especially when there is only 1 bishop or knight. There may be two knights vs. two bishops at some point in the middle game, but that can easily change as part of a forced exchange, with the resulting position being that the remaining bishop is poorly suited for the emerging endgame position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the case of two knights vs a rook -- it depends on the position. Two well placed knights, or knights that are participating in a plan, are going to be better than an inactive, semi-active, poorly placed rook -- open position or not. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The knights also do not need to be linked in order to be effective. There are certainly situations where it is useful for them to be able to cover each other, but there are disadvantages to this as well -- namely that they will limit each others mobility. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With all other things being equal, the bishop pair is generally superior to a knight pair. However, all things are very rarely equal, and taking maximum advantage of the positional imbalances is a cornerstone of any good chess strategy. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;IM Jeremy Silman has some excellent books on learning how to do this. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are some articles you might find useful:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bishop vs. Knight in endgames&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/article/view/start-of-the-series-bishop-vs-knight&quot;&gt;http://www.chess.com/article/view/start-of-the-series-bishop-vs-knight&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bishop pairs&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/article/view/the-bishops-the-complete-guide&quot;&gt;http://www.chess.com/article/view/the-bishops-the-complete-guide&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/article/view/bishop-pair&quot;&gt;http://www.chess.com/article/view/bishop-pair&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1580" LastActivityDate="2013-09-21T08:12:39.097" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2863" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2860" CreationDate="2013-09-21T12:20:07.737" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/article/view/the-evaluation-of-material-imbalances-by-im-larry-kaufman&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;According to GM Larry Kaufman&lt;/a&gt;, who has worked on the chess engines Rybka and Komodo, and has done extensive database analysis of material imbalances,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The bishop pair has an average value of half a pawn (more when the opponent has no minor pieces to exchange for one of the bishops), enough to regard it as part of the material evaluation of the position, and enough to overwhelm most positional considerations. Moreover, this substantial bishop pair value holds up in all situations tested, regardless of what else is on the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;although he goes on to note some exceptions. The whole article is worth reading.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastEditorUserId="23100" LastEditDate="2020-08-02T09:13:30.690" LastActivityDate="2020-08-02T09:13:30.690" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2864" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2834" CreationDate="2013-09-21T13:14:58.123" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;if you want to look at master games, you should look at ones where black has a bad advantage. as my chess teacher have said, common ones where the masters play with the Guicco Piano, The Spanish, The Scandinavian, etc. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you study the games, don't look at where they move the piece. look at the thinking behind it. As I have previously stated, these games, black has the disadvantage. Study more closely at black and how he blunders so that it might improve your tactics. Examine everything!! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At the end, memorize not in,y the game, but the strategies and tactics all behind it. Therefore, when you come across a similar game you are playing against someone else, it is a good thing. Not only that, but also learn how when you are playing as black, you learn how to not blunder.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1728" LastActivityDate="2013-09-21T13:14:58.123" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2865" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-09-21T13:17:13.947" Score="22" ViewCount="31889" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have been told never to play the Sicilian. It is a very complicated opening that even grandmasters aren't ever able to analyze and play well enough. But why, I ask?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1728" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-02-05T21:24:49.647" LastActivityDate="2017-05-21T04:34:58.750" Title="Why is the Sicilian Defense considered hard to play?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="10" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2866" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2865" CreationDate="2013-09-21T15:01:29.323" Score="24" Body="&lt;p&gt;Good heavens.  Play it!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Sicilian is not a defense for the lazy or defensive player - the Black side will need to be booked up, tactically sharp, and more than anything will need to understand why it works, and how to make it work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Regarding that GMs can't play it, that's nonsense.  It's a deadly tool in their arsenal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This opening's hypermodern ideas eschew some well-established 'rules' including immediate control of the center.  It encourages an asymmetric game that reduces the chance for a draw.  In many variations, black sacrifices the exchange on c3 in order to gain time and break white's center.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the Sicilian, black frequently loses quickly or wins long.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's an example from 2013 of Anand with the black side taking apart 2716-rated Arkadij Naiditsch.  According to 365chess.com, this is an ECO B52, the &quot;Canal-Sokolsky attack&quot;. As you can see from this game, the Sicilian may not be the best choice for the timid.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. Bb5+ Bd7 4. Bxd7+ Qxd7 5. c4 Nf6 6. Nc3 g6 7. d4 cxd4 8. Nxd4 Bg7 9. O-O Nc6 10. Nde2 Qe6 11. Nd5 Qxe4 12. Nc7+ Kd7 13. Nxa8 Qxc4 14. Nc3 Rxa8 15. Bg5 e6 16. Re1 Nd5 17. Nxd5 Qxd5 18. Qxd5 exd5 19. Rad1 h6 20. Bc1 d4 21. Rd3 Rc8 22. Rb3 b6 23. Kf1 Ne5 24. Ra3 a5 25. b4 Rc2 26. bxa5 bxa5 27. Rxa5 Nd3 28. Ra7+ Kc6 29. Rxf7 Nxe1 30. Kxe1 Rxc1+ 31. Kd2 Rg1 32. Rxg7 Rxg2 33. Ke1 Rxh2 34. Rxg6 Rh1+ 35. Kd2 h5 36. Rh6 h4 37. a4 h3 38. a5 h2 39. a6 Kc7 40. Rh7+ Kb8 41. Ke2 d3+ 42. Kd2 Ka8 43. Rh5 Ka7 44. Rh6 d5 45. Rh8 Kxa6 46. Rh6+ Kb5 47. Rh8 Kc4 48. Rc8+ Kd4 49. Rh8 Ke4 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just for fun, here's Tigran Petrosian, the Patron Saint of Positional Players, dismantling Boris Spassky.  This is a B42 Sicilian, Kan variation.  (I like to mention such games because it's easy to get into the habit of thinking of some players as purely positional, or some as purely tactical players.  All GMs are competent in all aspects of the game.)  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's the 1st game of the 1969 world championship.  Again, we see a long game here.  Petrosian would lose the black side of a Sicilian Dragon to Spassky later in the same match, and it would be over in under 30 moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 e6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 a6 5.Bd3 Nc6 6.Nxc6 bxc6 7.O-O d5 8.Nd2 Nf6 9.Qe2 Be7 10.b3 O-O 11.Bb2 a5 12.f4 g6 13.Rad1 Nd7 14.c4 a4 15.f5 exf5 16.exf5 Bf6 17.Bxf6 Nxf6 18.Qf2 axb3 19.axb3 Ra2 20.fxg6 fxg6 21.h3 Qe7 22.Qd4 c5 23.Qf4 Bb7 24.Rde1 Qg7 25.Qe3 d4 26.Qe6+ Qf7 27.Qe2 Re8 28.Qf2 Rxe1 29.Qxe1 Qe8 30.Qxe8+ Nxe8 31.Be4 Rxd2 32.Bxb7 Nd6 33.Bd5+ Kg7 34.b4 cxb4 35.c5 Nf5 36.c6 Rc2 37.g4 Nd6 38.Rf4 d3 39.Rd4 d2 40.Bb3 Rxc6 41.Rxd2 Ne4 42.Rd7+ Kf6 43.Rxh7 Rc1+ 44.Kg2 Nc5 45.Bf7 b3 46.g5+ Kxg5 47.h4+ Kf6 48.h5 Rc2+ 49.Kf3 b2 50.Ba2 gxh5 51.Rxh5 Rc1 52.Rh6+ Ke5 53.Rb6 Na4 54.Re6+ Kd4 55.Re4+ Kc5 56.Rxa4 Ra1 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2015-12-29T17:50:04.743" LastActivityDate="2015-12-29T17:50:04.743" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2867" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2856" CreationDate="2013-09-21T21:41:25.333" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;If a study contains only a small number of pieces it is always possible to check for accuracy. (Right now the number is six, with seven in the works.) See for example: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.k4it.de/?topic=egtb&amp;amp;lang=en&quot;&gt;http://www.k4it.de/?topic=egtb&amp;amp;lang=en&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1671" LastActivityDate="2013-09-21T21:41:25.333" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2868" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2870" CreationDate="2013-09-22T00:39:48.300" Score="7" ViewCount="577" Body="&lt;p&gt;Playing Black in a game against J.R. Capablanca, Richard Teichmann accepted an isolated queen pawn as the price for getting a &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1267147&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;bishop pair&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On move 20, White played Nf5, attacking his black squared bishop on e7, which was protecting his pinned knight on f5. He accepted the exchange of the knight for his good bishop, then had to sacrifice the h pawn to free his king from the resulting pin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Berlin exh&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Berlin&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;1913.11.20&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;2&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Jose Raul Capablanca&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Richard Teichmann&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;D63&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;75&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 d5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.c4 e6 4.Bg5 Be7 5.Nc3 Nbd7 6.e3 O-O 7.Rc1&#xA;b6 8.cxd5 exd5 9.Bb5 Bb7 10.O-O a6 11.Ba4 Rc8 12.Qe2 c5&#xA;13.dxc5 Nxc5 14.Rfd1 Nxa4 15.Nxa4 b5 16.Rxc8 Qxc8 17.Nc3 Qc4&#xA;18.Nd4 Qxe2 19.Ncxe2 Rc8 20.Nf5 Kf8 21.Nxe7 Kxe7 22.Nd4 g6&#xA;23.f3 h6 24.Bxh6 Nd7 25.h4 Nc5 26.Bf4 Ne6 27.Nxe6 Kxe6 28.Rd2&#xA;Rh8 29.Rc2 Rc8 30.Rxc8 Bxc8 31.Kf2 d4 32.exd4 Kd5 33.Ke3 Be6&#xA;34.Kd3 Kc6 35.a3 Bc4+ 36.Ke3 Be6 37.Bh6 Kd5 38.Bg7 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Teichmann's alternative was to move the bishop back to f8, allowing White to take the knight (and double his pawns on the f file). In that case, he would have two bishops against two knights to compensate for his wrecked pawn structure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Teichmann was down a clear pawn after the way he played, counting on bishops of opposite color to give him a draw. Would he have been at less of a disadvantage playing the way I outlined in the previous paragraph, given that &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/2860/are-two-knights-generally-worth-less-than-two-bishops&quot;&gt;two knights are worth less than two bishops?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.193" LastActivityDate="2019-06-07T12:43:55.040" Title="Did Richard Teichmann fail to take his &quot;bishop pair&quot; idea to its logical conclusion?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;&lt;minor-pieces&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2869" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2865" CreationDate="2013-09-22T00:53:30.023" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Sicilian is a very &quot;sharp&quot; opening that involves major complications for BOTH sides. The result is that the better player will almost always win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you play it as a beginner, you will &quot;always&quot; lose, initially. That's why someone told you &quot;never&quot; to play it. There are somewhat easier ways to get draws with other openings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That is, until you get to become a &quot;good&quot; player. Then you can use this opening to outplay a lot of Whites who will be weaker than you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Playing the Sicilian (and taking your lumps) is one way to get better, faster.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2013-09-22T00:53:30.023" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2870" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2868" CreationDate="2013-09-22T02:30:44.757" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not going to claim in a black-and-white way that your idea of &lt;code&gt;20...Bf8&lt;/code&gt; is strictly inferior to Teichmann's &lt;code&gt;20...Kf8&lt;/code&gt; in objective terms, but I can think of two solid reasons not to play into the resulting &lt;code&gt;20...Bf8 21.Bxf6 gxf6&lt;/code&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Contrary to your general operating premise that two bishops are superior to two knights, in this position White's knights are fantastic, and in particular, Black's poor pawn structure is such that the knights have wonderful outposts to camp in, as well as weak pawns to target down the road. Really, I'd take either of these knights over either bishop in this situation, so much so that if I were playing Black from this point on, I think I'd feel compelled to trade one of the bishops for a knight at some point anyway, and so I'd rather have done so without having compromised my pawn structure in this way.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;White's position in this line is much &lt;em&gt;easier to play&lt;/em&gt;. White has no structural weaknesses, while Black has targets in her structure. The knights have natural squares screaming out for occupation, while the light-square bishop is especially hemmed in, not least because of the isolated d5 pawn.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.meta.stackexchange.com/q/249/167&quot;&gt;It's tough to give detailed analysis of variations without inline commenting&lt;/a&gt;, so I'll just illustrate what I mean with a single line. After, say, &lt;code&gt;22.g4&lt;/code&gt; to make luft for the king and grab space on the kingside, even a seemingly productive move like &lt;code&gt;22...Rc2?!&lt;/code&gt; for Black doesn't actually lead anywhere, basically because of the pluses indicated above. For instance, after &lt;code&gt;23.Ned4&lt;/code&gt; Black can't follow up with &lt;code&gt;23...Rxb2?&lt;/code&gt;, because after &lt;code&gt;24.Rc1!&lt;/code&gt; White will gain a big edge while Black looks after her inferior pieces: e.g. &lt;code&gt;24...a5&lt;/code&gt; (forced, as otherwise the b7 bishop will be embarrassed) &lt;code&gt;25.Rc7 Ba6 26.Ra7 Bc8 27.Rxa5&lt;/code&gt; and White has a huge plus. Even if it doesn't look that way at first glance, if one plays around with this position a bit, it's much easier to find good moves for White, and it's actually quite difficult to bring the black pieces (including the king) into play without running into trouble.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;2r3k1/1b2bppp/p4n2/1p1p1NB1/8/4P3/PP2NPPP/3R2K1 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1...Bf8 2.Bxf6 gxf6 3.g4 Rc2?! 4.Ned4 Rxb2? 5.Rc1! a5 6.Rc7 Ba6 7.Ra7 Bc8 8.Rxa5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Again, that's just one illustrative line, and certainly one in which I picked a mistaken idea for Black for effect. But the point is, if Black can't effectively make an active threat like the one indicated without facing such a harsh backlash, then it's not a position in which Black has much of anything to play for, and instead is one through which Black must suffer and just hope to hold on. To me, that's reason enough not to go in for this option over &lt;code&gt;20...Kf8&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-03-16T15:50:45.707" LastActivityDate="2013-09-22T02:30:44.757" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2871" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2836" CreationDate="2013-09-22T03:24:32.120" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;As Daniel indicated in a comment, the answer here is that, &lt;strong&gt;no&lt;/strong&gt;, White cannot force checkmate without promoting at least one pawn. Enough toying with the position makes this pretty clear, intuitively. The only way it could possibly be done would be to keep the black king in the corner it's in, and while doing so, to then checkmate by advancing the pawns. The intuitive reason this isn't feasible is because the white king is the only option for keeping the black king from running to the other side of the board, but while he's doing that, there's not enough support behind the pawns to advance them for checkmate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I want to point out that if one finds that intuitive explanation unconvincing or unsatisfying, there is a more rigorous way to demonstrate that White cannot force checkmate from your position without promoting, and that is to do a little bit of &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retrograde_analysis&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;retrograde analysis&lt;/a&gt;. (Incidentally, the retrograde analysis subfield of chess problems provides some of what you ask for at the end of your post, namely problems with a very particular sort of solution.) Basically, all I mean is that we should work backwards: with the given material on the board, there's only a small handful of positions that could possibly be our final checkmate position. Thus, if we can show for each of those positions that there couldn't be a forced win that ends that way, then we know it can't be done.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance, here's a non-promotion checkmate position with the given material:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;5k2/5PP1/4K2P/8/8/8/8/8 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I claim we couldn't possibly &lt;em&gt;force&lt;/em&gt; Black into this position: the final move would have to have been &lt;code&gt;100.g7#&lt;/code&gt; (where I just picked 100 arbitrarily), the move before that would have to have been &lt;code&gt;99...Kf8&lt;/code&gt; (moving from either e8 or from g8), and the move before that had to be &lt;code&gt;99.f7+&lt;/code&gt;. OK, so we know that White must have played this &lt;code&gt;99.f7+&lt;/code&gt; with the black king either on e8 or on g8. But if the black king was on e8, he could have instead played &lt;code&gt;99...Kd8&lt;/code&gt; in reply, and if the black king was on g8 then he could have instead played &lt;code&gt;99...Kh8&lt;/code&gt; in reply. The point is that, either way, White couldn't actually have forced Black into that final checkmate position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Alright, so that's one possibility down. There are others of course, but a similar retrograde analysis for each of those will confirm that none of them can actually be forced, and that's all you need for an airtight proof that White can't force checkmate from your initial position without promoting a pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2013-09-22T03:24:32.120" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2872" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-09-22T17:03:53.443" Score="12" ViewCount="1572" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would like this question to be Community Wiki because I hope to collect several answers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can you name famous games where part of the fame comes from the circumstances surrounding the game? I hope it is clear that this is not really a subjective question. Which games are selected will depend on people's preference, but for each answer it will be clear cut whether the game has a famous story or not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To get the ball rolling, let me mention the following (if this question is liked, I will edit it to list all answers with (if possible) a link to the game:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1139441&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Tal - Benko, Belgrad 1959&lt;/a&gt;: Benko wore sunglasses to &quot;avoid being hypnotized&quot; by Tal.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;J. Polgar - W. Browne?: Polgar used to bring a teddy bear to the chess table. In this game, Browne (I think) took a toy cannon, aimed it at the bear, and started the game... which he won.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/extra/steinitzvonbardeleben.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Steinitz - Bardeleben, Hastings 1895&lt;/a&gt;: Steinitz's last move reached a position in which he had a forced mate in 10. Bardeleben left the tournament hall without finishing the game. Legend has it that he did not want to allow Steinitz the pleasure of reaching the mate, but it seems that he left because of noise and did let Steinitz know.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1656" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-02-23T16:00:31.687" LastActivityDate="2020-02-23T16:00:31.687" Title="Games that are famous because of their underlying story" Tags="&lt;history&gt;&lt;famous-players&gt;&lt;famous-games&gt;&lt;famous-events&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="5" CommunityOwnedDate="2013-09-23T00:35:15.547" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2873" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2872" CreationDate="2013-09-22T23:41:05.067" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Game two of the Fischer-Spassky world championship in 1972 comes to mind. Fischer forfeited it because of the cameras in the main hall.  Due to Fischer's theatrics, Spassky agreed to play the 3rd game away from the audience, and lost.  Then the drama by the Soviets around &quot;devices&quot; allegedly placed in Fischer's chair designed to disrupt Spassky's thinking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The entire Karpov-Korchnoi world championship match of '78 was wrapped in oddness including a Russian &quot;psychic&quot; whose image graced the cover of (then) Chess Life and Review.  The Soviets sent the &quot;psychic&quot; strictly to unnerve Korchnoi who apparently believes in such things.  Florencio Campomanes, future president of FIDE, allowed the psychic to sit in the first row, even after it was agreed he would not.  Then there was the yogurt scandal, where the Soviet support staff sent the snack to Karpov without Karpov asking, raising protests from Korchnoi's team since the timing and type of yogurt could have been a coded message.  Ah, and also Campomanes allowed Karpov an unscheduled break in the tournament so he could rest.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2013-09-23T03:59:45.117" LastActivityDate="2013-09-23T03:59:45.117" CommentCount="5" CommunityOwnedDate="2013-09-23T00:35:15.547" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2874" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="758" CreationDate="2013-09-23T18:56:11.620" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Usually if i'm playing black and and my opponent plays the Queens Gambit I'll attempt to play the Benko Gambit, a very aggressive opening. If that does not work I transpose into the Pirc. It's hard to fall into traps and things like that in the opening, which gives you a good middle game and to play chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1733" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-07-28T11:46:17.107" LastActivityDate="2019-07-28T11:46:17.107" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2875" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="885" CreationDate="2013-09-23T19:22:02.383" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;For quantifiable evaluations, it may be useful to have a look at the logic used in chess engines. It was revealed some years ago that the evaluation of material imbalances in Rybka, which were at the time astronomically advanced compared to other engines (and probably humans too), were based on &lt;a href=&quot;https://web.archive.org/web/20160723064939/https://www.danheisman.com/evaluation-of-material-imbalances.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this article&lt;/a&gt; by Larry Kaufman. Most (maybe all) other strong engines including Houdini and Critter have followed suit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A few interesting bullet points based on my reading follow, though I left out a lot of detail and strongly recommend the article:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The &amp;quot;default&amp;quot; value of each piece, according to Kaufman, is: Pawn= 1 Rook = 5 Bishop = 3¼ kNight = 3¼ BB pair = +½ Queen = 9¾&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Most players, even at the grandmaster level, underestimate the value of the bishop pair&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The bishop pair retains its value regardless of other positional considerations (open/closed position, etc)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Therefore, exchange sacrifices are more attractive in situations where you get the bishop pair&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The queen is relatively stronger in middlegames with lots of pawns and rooks are relatively stronger in endgames with few pawns.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Unsurprisingly then, the queen is better than two rooks except when there are no other pieces on the board&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Similarly, imbalances involving the queen are undesirable for the player without the queen if that player also does not have any rooks&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;That means that three minor pieces are better than a queen if and only if the rooks are on the board. Therefore if your opponent sacrifices his queen for three of your minors, and you can trade the rooks off, you should make it a priority to do so.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If any of this is interesting I strongly encourage you to give the article multiple readings in close study. The validity of these principles is scientifically demonstrated, which is a rare thing indeed in chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1312" LastEditorUserId="1312" LastEditDate="2020-08-13T08:34:42.680" LastActivityDate="2020-08-13T08:34:42.680" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2876" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="758" CreationDate="2013-09-23T20:55:33.570" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The opening you should be considering is the &lt;strong&gt;Benoni Defence&lt;/strong&gt;. All decent lines by white lead to highly tactical middlegames where both sides are constantly making short-term threats. For this reason it has been a favorite for attacking and tactical players who wanted to play for middlegame wins as black, for example: Mikhail Tal, Bobby Fischer, Veselin Topalov, and Vugar Gashimov.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another good option to consider is the &lt;strong&gt;Benko Gambit&lt;/strong&gt;; although perfect play by white probably wins, below the grandmaster level the active piece play it gives black should allow you take advantage of your preference for active middlegames.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I play the Grunfeld, but based on your description I might caution you against it. Playing the Grunfeld correctly requires extensive book knowledge, which for me has added up to memorization. Also can be difficult to book up on the Grunfeld, because you usually want to play the same moves regardless of what white does, but choosing the correct &lt;em&gt;move order&lt;/em&gt; is critical. If your opponent is deeply booked as white against the Grunfeld, and most expert level 1. d4 players and up will be, is very easy as black to play moves out of order and wind up with a stable but uncomfortable middlegame position where you are just worse.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, if lots of book study doesn't sound scary, then the Grunfeld is an excellent choice: you will regularly get equal but dynamic middlegames as black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You didn't include your ELO so I'll throw this out: against 1. d4 there is an offbeat line that can be effective at the class level, which is the &lt;strong&gt;Budapest gambit&lt;/strong&gt; (1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e5?!). Strictly speaking it is almost definitely unsound, but it is a strict upgrade over the Englund (which is unplayable, frankly).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1312" LastEditorUserId="1312" LastEditDate="2013-09-24T00:07:38.730" LastActivityDate="2013-09-24T00:07:38.730" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2877" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2872" CreationDate="2013-09-23T21:15:04.857" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;Bobby Fischer's games in the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capablanca_Memorial#1965_tournament&quot;&gt;1965 Capablanca Memorial&lt;/a&gt; gained fame because he was denied a visa to travel to Cuba, and was the only player in the tournament who had to play all of his games from New York by telephone.  It was especially grueling because those games typically lasted 8 hours or more due to the communications lag.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="606" LastActivityDate="2013-09-23T21:15:04.857" CommentCount="0" CommunityOwnedDate="2013-09-23T21:15:04.857" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2879" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2872" CreationDate="2013-09-24T10:25:55.483" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XM9gHWAvX0&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Albert Einstein vs Robert Oppenheimer&lt;/a&gt; - Einstein won obviously :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;None of them is a professional chess player, but the game is so famous, simply because everyone wants to see Einstein playing chess!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1105" LastEditorUserId="1105" LastEditDate="2013-09-26T17:17:05.270" LastActivityDate="2013-09-26T17:17:05.270" CommentCount="2" CommunityOwnedDate="2013-09-24T10:25:55.483" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2880" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-09-24T22:19:57.507" Score="5" ViewCount="831" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've noticed (empirically) that American players tend to be weaker than Israeli players with comparable non-international ratings. Is there a tool for converting one country's Elo rating to that of another? Or of otherwise verifying this claim?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="145" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2013-09-24T23:15:03.530" LastActivityDate="2013-10-06T14:11:12.707" Title="Comparing ELO ratings between different countries" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;elo&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2881" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2880" CreationDate="2013-09-24T22:52:11.303" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;When you say 'comparable non-international ratings' do you mean USCF ratings?  Or perhaps Israeli ratings? There is no valid way to compare the ratings of players if they don't use the same rating system.  Even if they use the same system things can get odd when groups of players are isolated from one another.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While ELO isn't perfect (what is?), players' ELO ratings can be (and are) compared directly.  There is still the 'pool' problem especially at the lower levels but at least the system is the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit - my answer makes the assumption the entire ratings lists of both countries aren't available.  If they are available, a mathematical approximation can be made.  It will not be very accurate for the ends of the bell curve.  For example, I would not use this to compare the strongest GMs in each country.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2013-10-06T14:11:12.707" LastActivityDate="2013-10-06T14:11:12.707" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2882" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2890" CreationDate="2013-09-25T18:38:10.603" Score="9" ViewCount="3018" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why buy Houdini (or Rybka) if Stockfish is essentially as powerful and also is free?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there special features or a nicer GUI? Can't those features be implemented within the Stockfish engine?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1656" LastActivityDate="2015-05-08T01:15:57.763" Title="Why buy Houdini?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2883" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2882" CreationDate="2013-09-25T20:58:16.913" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I use Critter 1.6a with the Jose database (Macintosh version), I also use Komodo 5.1&#xA;and Stockfish for the same database. They all give somewhat varied evaluations and continuations unless there are forcing lines. I have been following the following tournament: &lt;a href=&quot;http://chessbomb.com/site/&quot;&gt;http://chessbomb.com/site/&lt;/a&gt;  nTCEC Season 2 Stage 2 , the field consists of 19 engines , and Rybka and Houdini are not in the lead! (Houdini and Rybka are equal 9th place.) An engine, Gull 2.2 which I had never heard of, and which is free, is in the lead,(for now).  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as GUIs are concerned,on a windows computer either Arena (free) or Aquarium will run engine competitions, both have their share of bugs and features. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1671" LastActivityDate="2013-09-25T20:58:16.913" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2884" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2856" CreationDate="2013-09-26T08:41:46.707" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't know how famous it is, but here is a study shown to be incorrect by computers:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [Title &amp;quot;J. van Reek, 1987. White to play and draw.&amp;quot;]&#xA; [FEN &amp;quot;8/5n2/5N2/3K4/8/3p4/Rn6/1k6 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. Ra3 d2 2. Rd3 Nxd3 3. Ne4 d1=N! 4. Ke6 Nd8+ (4... Nh6!) 5. Kd7 Nb7 6. Kc6 Na5+ 7. Kb5 Nb3 8. Nc3+ Nxc3+ 9. Kc4 Kc2 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The intended solution is given in the diagram. It has a very nice stalemate finish.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately black can play &lt;code&gt;4... Nh6!&lt;/code&gt;, and according to the tablebases there is a win for black in 39 moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So three knights can win against one. Having to play this ending would give me nightmares!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1485" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2021-05-03T14:01:11.057" LastActivityDate="2021-05-03T14:01:11.057" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2886" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2888" CreationDate="2013-09-26T16:30:50.477" Score="7" ViewCount="767" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have some interesting questions that have to do with the rating changes and calculations for the Anand-Carlsen world championship. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, some preliminary information:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Carlsen's live rating: &lt;strong&gt;2870&lt;/strong&gt;, Anand's live rating: &lt;strong&gt;2775&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If Carlsen wins a game, he gains &lt;strong&gt;3.7 points&lt;/strong&gt;; draw &lt;strong&gt;-1.3 points&lt;/strong&gt;, loss &lt;strong&gt;-6.3 points&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If Anand wins a game, he gains &lt;strong&gt;6.3 points&lt;/strong&gt;; draw &lt;strong&gt;1.3 points&lt;/strong&gt;, loss &lt;strong&gt;-3.7 points&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The match will be 12 games, with the winner being the first to 6 points. Therefore, &lt;strong&gt;the number of standard rated games in the match can vary&lt;/strong&gt; based on all the &lt;strong&gt;ordered&lt;/strong&gt; possibilities of wins, draws, and losses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My questions are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1. What are the possibilities for Carlsen to cross 2900 in live rating?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;2. What are the possibilities for Anand to cross 2800 in live rating?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;3. What are the upper and lower bounds for Carlsen's rating in the match, given the stipulations?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;4. What are the upper and lower bounds for Anand's rating in the match, given the stipulations?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1747" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-03-01T15:24:40.207" LastActivityDate="2014-03-01T15:24:40.207" Title="Rating calculations for Anand-Carlsen world championship" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;world-championship&gt;&lt;elo&gt;&lt;carlsen&gt;&lt;anand&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2887" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2886" CreationDate="2013-09-26T17:34:41.433" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, note that the final ratings depend entirely on the score of the match, not on the particular games. For example, if they each win a game, their ratings will change by the same amount as if they draw both games. This may seem like a coincidence but it's just a consequence of the way that FIDE ratings work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is the entire table of possible results. The columns are Anand's match score, Carlsen's match score, Anand's post-match rating, and Carlsen's post-match rating. The results are sorted by post-match rating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  A   C  A_rat  C_rat&#xA;0.0 7.0 2749.1 2895.9&#xA;0.5 6.5 2754.1 2890.9&#xA;1.0 7.0 2755.4 2889.6&#xA;1.5 6.5 2760.4 2884.6&#xA;2.0 7.0 2761.7 2883.3&#xA;2.5 6.5 2766.7 2878.3&#xA;3.0 7.0 2768.0 2877.0&#xA;3.5 6.5 2773.0 2872.0&#xA;4.0 7.0 2774.3 2870.7&#xA;4.5 6.5 2779.3 2865.7&#xA;5.0 7.0 2780.6 2864.4&#xA;5.5 6.5 2785.6 2859.4&#xA;6.0 6.0 2790.6 2854.4&#xA;6.5 5.5 2795.6 2849.4&#xA;6.5 4.5 2799.3 2845.7&#xA;7.0 5.0 2800.6 2844.4&#xA;6.5 3.5 2803.0 2842.0&#xA;7.0 4.0 2804.3 2840.7&#xA;6.5 2.5 2806.7 2838.3&#xA;7.0 3.0 2808.0 2837.0&#xA;6.5 1.5 2810.4 2834.6&#xA;7.0 2.0 2811.7 2833.3&#xA;6.5 0.5 2814.1 2830.9&#xA;7.0 1.0 2815.4 2829.6&#xA;7.0 0.0 2819.1 2825.9&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefor the answers to your questions are&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;None.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;He needs to win the match with 7 points, or with 6.5 points with Carlsen scoring at most 3.5.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;2895.9, 2825.9.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;2819.1, 2749.1.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2013-09-26T17:34:41.433" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2888" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2886" CreationDate="2013-09-26T17:36:36.523" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The answer for 1 is NEVER, because even if Carlsen has the theoretically best possible tournament with 7-0, his rating would go to 2895.9 only.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The answer for 2 is if:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Anand wins the match 7-0, making his rating 2819.1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;OR&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Anand wins the match 6.5-5.5 (order of game results does not matter) by:&#xA;&#xA;6 wins, 1 draw in a 7-game match: new rating = 2814.1&#xA;5 wins, 3 draws in a 8-game match: new rating = 2810.4&#xA;4 wins, 5 draws in a 9-game match: new rating = 2806.7&#xA;3 wins, 7 draws in a 10-game match. new rating = 2803.0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The answers for 3 and 4 are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Carlsen's maximum rating, 2895.9, is attained if he wins 7-0, and thus Anand's minimum rating, 2749.1. Anand's maximum rating, 2819.1, is attained if he wins 7-0, and thus Carlsen's minimum rating 2825.9.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1747" LastActivityDate="2013-09-26T17:36:36.523" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2889" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27956" CreationDate="2013-09-27T04:00:10.400" Score="7" ViewCount="1113" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the second game of the 1987 World Championship, Kasparov played an English opening. In the ninth move Karpov played a novelty that he had prepared for his 1981 match with Korchnoi (the usual play is 9. ... exf3). It is claimed that Kasparov's next two moves, 10. d3 and 11. Qb3 completely refute Karpov's surprise move, but in the end Kasparov lost this game (it is the famous one in which &lt;a href=&quot;http://articles.latimes.com/1987-10-15/news/mn-14340_1_world-chess-championship&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;he forgot to hit the clock after playing his 26th move&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then in the fourth game, Kasparov plays an English again and reaches the same position up to move 8! Clearly it was a provocation, but whether he could refute 9. ... e3 or not was not demonstrated, because Karpov avoided it and played the usual 9. ... exf3, only to get trounced (incidentally, this was the 100th championship game between the two).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What is the novelty about, and how do Kasparov moves refute it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For reference, here are the two games:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;World Championship Game 2&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Seville, Spain&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;1987.10.14&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;2&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Kasparov&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Karpov&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;A29&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. c4 e5 2. Nc3 Nf6 3. Nf3 Nc6 4. g3 Bb4 5. Bg2 O-O 6. O-O e4 7. Ng5 Bxc3 8. bxc3 Re8 9. f3 e3 10. d3 d5 11. Qb3 Na5 12. Qa3 c6 13. cxd5 cxd5 14. f4 Nc6 15. Rb1 Qc7 16. Bb2 Bg4 17. c4 dxc4 18. Bxf6 gxf6 19. Ne4 Kg7 20. dxc4 Rad8 21. Rb3 Nd4 22. Rxe3 Qxc4 23. Kh1 Nf5 24. Rd3 Bxe2 25. Rxd8 Rxd8 26. Re1 Re8 27. Qa5 b5 28. Nd2 Qd3 29. Nb3 Bf3 30. Bxf3 Qxf3 31. Kg1 Rxe1 32. Qxe1 Ne3 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;World Championship Game 4&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Seville, Spain&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;1987.10.19&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;4&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Kasparov&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Karpov&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;A29&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. c4 Nf6 2. Nc3 e5 3. Nf3 Nc6 4. g3 Bb4 5. Bg2 O-O 6. O-O e4 7. Ng5 Bxc3 8. bxc3 Re8 9. f3 exf3 10. Nxf3 Qe7 11. e3 Ne5 12. Nd4 Nd3 13. Qe2 Nxc1 14. Raxc1 d6 15. Rf4 c6 16. Rcf1 Qe5 17. Qd3 Bd7 18. Nf5 Bxf5 19. Rxf5 Qe6 20. Qd4 Re7 21. Qh4 Nd7 22. Bh3 Nf8 23. R5f3 Qe5 24. d4 Qe4 25. Qxe4 Rxe4 26. Rxf7 Rxe3 27. d5 Rae8 28. Rxb7 cxd5 29. cxd5 R3e7 30. Rfb1 h5 31. a4 g5 32. Bf5 Kg7 33. a5 Kf6 34. Bd3 Rxb7 35. Rxb7 Re3 36. Bb5 Rxc3 37. Rxa7 Ng6 38. Rd7 Ne5 39. Rxd6 Kf5 40. a6 Ra3 41. Rd8 Ra2 42. Rf8 Ke4 43. d6 Nf3 44. Rxf3 Kxf3 45. Bc6 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1656" LastEditorUserId="2789" LastEditDate="2014-08-10T18:40:48.270" LastActivityDate="2020-01-13T15:16:51.647" Title="Did Kasparov refute over the board Karpov's 1987 novelty?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;world-championship&gt;&lt;novelties&gt;&lt;english-opening&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2890" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2882" CreationDate="2013-09-27T17:29:07.463" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some interesting quotes from Maxime Vachiere-Lagrave in New in Chess (2011/5):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;About Rybka:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;... Obviously, each new version improved the engines a little bit, but to my mind the general structure of the programmes remained largely the same. This routine was busted in 2006 with the appearance of Rybka at the highest level. Its main added value compared to the other available engines was an improved assesment function, which made it much more pleasant and actually more efficient to work with. It was simply much more natural and better adapted to the human way of thinking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;About Stockfish:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;To be truthful, I had hardly heard of Stockfish when it appeared, and had hardly ever used it. It is evidently the fastest software around, but to my mind, its assessment function is sometimes back to slightly inhuman.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;About Houdini:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In comparison, the latest newborn, Houdini, is a bit depressing, simply because of this 'equation': the truth x 2 = 1. From the discussions I have had, I can only guess that most top players are now using it as their main engine. The really astonishing thing is how resourceful it is. And contrary to other engines it can, even in what looks like really difficult positions, give an equal assessment, which it backs up with the moves it plays afterwards, which is simply amazing. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1485" LastActivityDate="2013-09-27T17:29:07.463" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2891" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2834" CreationDate="2013-09-27T21:51:17.840" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;It really depends on where your skill level is at. If you play rated Federation chess or happen to be buzzing around your favorite online server, you'd probably fall into a rating class or have a rating that serves as a great predictor of your skill/strength level.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With that being said, &lt;strong&gt;here's&lt;/strong&gt; a category-based answer to your question (using the USCF classes and typical online server ratings). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;( I'm only going up to class C as I'm currently a B player who's done his time climbing the ladder =&gt; is therefore &lt;em&gt;somewhat&lt;/em&gt; qualified to make these recommendations :) )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;USCF E (1000-1199) or 1200-1400 ICC/FICS with Slow Time Controls:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Avoid just looking at Master games with no textual explanations.  There is ZERO value for somebody at your strength level. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Avoid game books that contain no annotations/text descriptions for each move.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Avoid player game collections (e.g. My Best Games - Vishy Anand) and focus on the &lt;strong&gt;few&lt;/strong&gt; Instructional + Annotated game collections out there.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Totally avoid any book containing games played AFTER the 1900s. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Avoid game books that don't print out a diagram every 2-3 moves.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Always go over the game with a board or a computer.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A lot of these books mean well but often drown you in a ton of variations. It is fine to skip over this part and just get to the move that was played! :)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If you are using a computer, keep the engine off. You don't need it at your current strength level.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Get used to covering up the next move and playing &quot;guess the move&quot;. You'll want to do this for every game you ever look at going forward.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Pay attention to the opening &lt;strong&gt;PRINCIPLES&lt;/strong&gt;, don't even dare try to memorize openings or worry about the nuances. It really doesn't matter at this stage ... the principles alone are sufficient.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Write things down on paper or use a database application. The minute something feels vague or does not make complete sense to you, write down your question. Don't immediately read the author's explanation. Come up with your best answer. Then .. and only &lt;strong&gt;THEN&lt;/strong&gt; read the text. You'll be able build a great foundation and start thinking for yourself. It will also boost your confidence when your own ideas are in sync with what was played.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Go back to this game a week later  and review it again. It should feel like a grocery store you've visited in another city a year or so ago. You'll feel comfortable but not enough to not notice something or find a new question worth asking.  Review your previously asked questions ... do the answers now seem obvious? If so, you're making progress!&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Finally : Always find a strong-er player or ask a credible forum about a position that stumps you. Even some well written instructional books may not completely explain why a certain move was played in a given position.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Recommended Books:&lt;/strong&gt; A First book of Morphy (Rosario), Chess Master vs. Chess Amateur (Euwe)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;USCF D (1200-1399) or around 1400-1600 ICC/FICS with Slow Time Controls:&lt;/strong&gt; &#xA;Same as above, except now:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You can and should use a computer engine to look at other tactical possibilities that the book did not go over.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You can start looking at pre-1950s games, but still avoid contemporary games/the modern era. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Practice finishing off the game vs. a computer from the position at which one of the Masters resigned. For fun, try to win it at blitz time controls! If this is becoming a struggle, seek help from a stronger player to show you the correct technique (which was bloomingly obvious for the Master who resigned :)) &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;There are some very famous games in chess history that every &quot;Russian schoolboy&quot; knows. Google them out and play through them. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Recommended Books:&lt;/strong&gt; Chernev's Logical Chess and his Most Instructional Games of Chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;USCF C (1400-1599) or around 1600-1800 ICC/FICS with Slow Time Controls:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Same as above, but you can finally start poking around at what the big boys of modern chess are doing.  You still want to read books that are intended to be instructional, not just a showcase of somebody's favorite games.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You should have a set of pet openings (repertoire). Seeking out games of Masters who play your opening makes sense.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Make sure you now work through the variations those books tend to spit out. They are quite insightful and show you how much calculation is often needed in critical positions.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Focus on players who often play very natural and beautifully elegant games without tons of complexity. (Capablanca, Fischer would be good examples)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Start focusing on the endgame aspect of their games. Especially how the winner strategically transitions into the endgame he WANTS, making the correct piece trades at the right time.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Recommended Books:&lt;/strong&gt; Weeramantry's Best Lessons of a Chess Coach. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1751" LastEditorUserId="1751" LastEditDate="2013-09-28T01:15:56.783" LastActivityDate="2013-09-28T01:15:56.783" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2892" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1569" CreationDate="2013-09-28T01:34:45.747" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd like to add that an &quot;incremental learning&quot; approach is key to not burning out on opening study.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's astonishing so many players choose to drink from a fire hydrant rather than sip ... and then forget/confuse their move orders. Then get angry at their pet line and rationalize that as a perfect time to switch openings. Again ... and again.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I suffered from this &quot;learn, forget, get mad and try something else &quot; loop until a few years back. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Step 1. Play tons of games the way you want to play it.  Blitz works as&#xA;well ... &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Step 2. If you've saved those games (I hope you did!), take those games one by one and ...  review the opening moves with books/software. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Step 3. If you deviated from book&#xA;at say move N, learn what &quot;move&quot; &lt;strong&gt;(just one move)&lt;/strong&gt; is considered&#xA;best play. If given a style/fashionable choice, pick one move that&#xA;the big boys consider to be sound.  Make sure you understand why this&#xA;move and not the one you played was better. If in doubt, seek help.&#xA;You need to convince yourself why this move fits ... this is key.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Step 4. Massage this &quot;one new move I learned&quot; experience into your&#xA;brain ... I's suggest writing it down and  reviewing it a few days&#xA;later to confirm that it has transitioned from short-term to&#xA;long-term memory. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Step 5. Don't worry about what happens &quot;next&quot; in&#xA;that opening line you looked up. You'll get to it when you deviate from it the &lt;strong&gt;next&lt;/strong&gt; time.    &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The goal of this exercise is to &quot;grow&quot; your repertoire by &lt;strong&gt;JUST ONE MOVE&lt;/strong&gt;.&#xA;Rinse and repeat steps 1-5 over several of your games, each day.&#xA;Over time, you will organically grow your repertoire and be able to play it accurately with much less fumbling than if you try to learn an entire tabiya in one sitting. What's more useful is that you'll be focusing on lines your current opposition (online opponents, club players, tournament regulars) thrives on ... in other words you are NOT wasting time studying lines that your frequent opposition HARDLY plays.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd like to add that this method requires patience and constant review. The good news is that for some opening systems that feel really comfortable for you, you may be playing &quot;in book&quot; for several moves just by good opening principles ... so your repertoire may grow faster than you think. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As I mentioned earlier, doing this with blitz helps as well as you get to grow a few more &quot;leaves&quot; to your opening tree per sitting than with 1-2 slow games per day.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1751" LastEditorUserId="1751" LastEditDate="2013-09-28T01:41:02.413" LastActivityDate="2013-09-28T01:41:02.413" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2893" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-09-28T02:29:40.787" Score="9" ViewCount="1123" Body="&lt;p&gt;A player may claim a draw after 50 moves-does this mean 25 moves by each player, which results 50, or 50 moves by each player, which results 100?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1753" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-10-27T02:31:47.250" LastActivityDate="2020-10-27T02:31:47.250" Title="I'm confused about the 50-move rule" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;50-move-rule&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2894" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2893" CreationDate="2013-09-28T03:06:47.603" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;From the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=124&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE rules&lt;/a&gt; (emphasis added):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;9.3&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The game is drawn, upon a correct claim by the player having the move, if:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a. he writes his move on his scoresheet and declares to the arbiter his intention to make this move, which shall result in the last &lt;strong&gt;50 moves having been made by each player&lt;/strong&gt; without the movement of any pawn and without any capture, or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;b. the last &lt;strong&gt;50 consecutive moves have been made by each player&lt;/strong&gt; without the movement of any pawn and without any capture.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So it's 100 total &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ply_%28game_theory%29&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;plies&lt;/a&gt;, or &amp;quot;half-moves.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2013-09-28T03:06:47.603" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2895" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2896" CreationDate="2013-09-28T05:04:12.600" Score="13" ViewCount="4608" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to read a PGN file and then advance to a certain move number, and feed that to an UCI engine.  Turns out engines work using long algebraic notation, and PGNs are in short algebraic.  What is an easy way to make the conversion?  i.e. from SAN to LAN.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I realize that generating long algebraic notation requires knowledge of the board state &amp;amp; chess rules, so I don't want to write it all again!  Surely something like this must already exist - either a command line program or a module (preferably in python).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1754" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-03-04T21:24:10.737" LastActivityDate="2020-03-04T21:24:10.737" Title="How to convert PGN moves to long algebraic notation (in python)?" Tags="&lt;programming&gt;&lt;pgn&gt;&lt;python&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2896" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2895" CreationDate="2013-09-28T12:27:06.320" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;Would this be what you are looking for? &lt;strong&gt;PGN-extract&lt;/strong&gt; (A command line utility)&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cs.kent.ac.uk/people/staff/djb/pgn-extract/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.cs.kent.ac.uk/people/staff/djb/pgn-extract/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can see a flag in the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cs.kent.ac.uk/people/staff/djb/pgn-extract/help.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;feature doc&lt;/a&gt; that might help:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;-W[cm|epd|halg|lalg|elalg|san|uci]&lt;/code&gt; - specify the output format to use&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;-Whalg&lt;/code&gt; is hyphenated long algebraic.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;-Wlalg&lt;/code&gt; is long algebraic&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;-Welalg[PNBRQK]&lt;/code&gt; is enhanced long algebraic. Use the characters PNBRQK for language&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1751" LastEditorUserId="11810" LastEditDate="2016-11-26T07:09:37.290" LastActivityDate="2016-11-26T07:09:37.290" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2898" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="366" CreationDate="2013-09-30T16:51:01.380" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;One simple answer: &lt;strong&gt;www.Chess.com.&lt;/strong&gt;  There really isn't anything in the field that comes remotely close to this website for beginners who want to dig deeper into chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sign up for one of the paid subscriptions and dive into the following features (all broken down into beginner/intermediate or advanced levels)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Chess Video lectures&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Chess Mentor (interactive try-and-learn lessons)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Chess Tactics &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Computer Workout (practicing boilerplate/clockwork won/drawn positions vs. a computer)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1751" LastActivityDate="2013-09-30T16:51:01.380" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2899" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2857" CreationDate="2013-09-30T21:48:59.760" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think that has sadly gone out of fashion over many decades. I've personally not been to any big city tournament that ever offered one but a bit of googling revealed the following venues in a few countries that feature a brilliancy cash prize in the year 2013.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;USA (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.nwchess.com/articles/events/2013/WAChamp.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.nwchess.com/articles/events/2013/WAChamp.htm&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;USA (&lt;a href=&quot;https://sco2013.eventbrite.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://sco2013.eventbrite.com/&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Australia (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.melbournechessclub.org/events/brilliancy-prizes&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.melbournechessclub.org/events/brilliancy-prizes&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it fair to say that this trend correlates with the more nuanced and scientific way of playing this game now than people did way back?  You now have Engine analysis (where laymen can now comment/critique (or even &lt;em&gt;troll&lt;/em&gt;) on the moves of elite players as they play them on live servers!), Instant database look-up and ridiculous levels of home preparation ... wouldn't this have sucked out the &lt;strong&gt;romance&lt;/strong&gt; of chess altogether?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There was a time when a swashbuckling combination was probably spectacular to see ... but now, some heckler is going to squint at his smartphone for &lt;strong&gt;just&lt;/strong&gt; a few seconds and say &quot;uhh, nope. Computer says that move leads to a dead-lost game!&quot; :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1751" LastEditorUserId="1751" LastEditDate="2013-10-01T02:48:06.100" LastActivityDate="2013-10-01T02:48:06.100" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2900" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2732" CreationDate="2013-09-30T21:54:58.527" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fide.com/component/handbook/?id=124&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Fide Laws of Chess&lt;/a&gt; state the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;6.2. b. The time saved by a player during one period is added to his time available for the next period, except in the ‘time delay’ mode.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the time delay mode both players receive an allotted ‘main thinking time’. Each player also receives a ‘fixed extra time’ with &lt;strong&gt;every move&lt;/strong&gt;. The countdown of the main time only commences after the fixed time has expired. Provided the player stops his clock before the expiration of the fixed time, the main thinking time does not change, irrespective of the proportion of the fixed time used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm under the impression that the literal interpretation is the correct one, and the delay should be added to the start time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Technically, The Youtube video does not show whether the first 5 seconds of the first move are the delay (making the time control essentially 79 minutes 55 seconds for 30 moves etc. with delay starting from the first move) or not (the delay in the first move is completely skipped).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In addition, the video does not show what happens when the 30 move mark is reached, but the clock seems to be counting moves, and I assume it will add the extra time automatically, and I don't see any reason it won't also add the delay at the end of the 30th move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While this was not your question, I think it's worth mentioning: The only other section related to this topic I could find in the Fide Handbook is in the section &amp;quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fide.com/component/handbook/?id=16&amp;amp;view=category&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Standards of Chess Equipment and tournament venue for FIDE Tournaments&lt;/a&gt;&amp;quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5.1. (b) The display at all times should show the time available to complete a player’s next move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so it appears to me that in terms of the Fide rules, the correct method of showing time is the Bronstein method, as opposed to the delay method.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1761" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2013-09-30T21:54:58.527" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2901" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2902" CreationDate="2013-10-03T02:15:00.743" Score="1" ViewCount="288" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've assumed about &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/1408/how-many-moves-ahead-does-anand-calculate-in-his-mind&quot;&gt;depth to take moves&lt;/a&gt;, it seem to be unqualified question because no precise rule to define them.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As I played with chess engine, it seem return some value with can be defined as &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/2526/endgame-knn-k-chess-puzzle-checkmate&quot;&gt;draw position&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/2836/make-checkmate-with-pawns-without-promotion&quot;&gt;win position&lt;/a&gt;, and lose position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Win or lose still can't be defined because it should take all optimization of evaluation, but how about draw??&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As chess deploy on board, it seem to believe that it still draw at first position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there some fixed depth value to generalized that we can say, &quot;&lt;strong&gt;It still at draw position&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;??&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1315" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-11-12T02:44:08.220" LastActivityDate="2019-11-12T02:44:08.220" Title="How many depth should require to get a draw decision?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2902" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2901" CreationDate="2013-10-03T02:41:56.713" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Combinational Game Theory &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combinatorial_game_theory&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;tells us&lt;/a&gt; that &lt;strong&gt;solved&lt;/strong&gt; games will always result in a draw if both players play optimally.  With non-solved games like chess, one can make a &quot;draw&quot; assumption safely in the start position : &lt;strong&gt;no side has played a sub-optimal move ... or any move for that matter.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are some famous players who have &lt;a href=&quot;http://exeterchessclub.org.uk/content/theory-steinitz&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;postulated this&lt;/a&gt; rigorously but when it comes to computer evaluations,  you have to take what the engine says with a grain of salt. They are great at analytical positions but are hit-and-miss in other places including the opening. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most engines will give White an evaluation of around +0.30 at the start (3/10ths of a pawn) but that is not significant to predict that White will be able to sustain a draw if he tries to &lt;strong&gt;only play for one&lt;/strong&gt; even at Master level play.  Nor has Engine vs. Engine competition ever seen a near perfect record of draws &lt;strong&gt;all the time&lt;/strong&gt;. There is too much uncertainty when dealing with complexity like the kind in chess or Go.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In short, the answer to your question really should be &quot;no&quot;. There is no such yardstick for draw-depth nor is there any value of attempting to statistically analyze a million games for inferences.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Practically, a draw occurs at the highest levels of play when there is mutually nothing worth playing for (without incurring undue risk).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1751" LastEditorUserId="1751" LastEditDate="2013-10-03T03:19:28.507" LastActivityDate="2013-10-03T03:19:28.507" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2903" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2905" CreationDate="2013-10-04T02:07:35.690" Score="10" ViewCount="1267" Body="&lt;p&gt;As we know, castling is a legal &quot;double move,&quot; where two pieces are moved at once. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But in my country, Indonesia, in my childhood, the opening below was an 'assumed legal' double move to counter &lt;code&gt;1.e4&lt;/code&gt; and similar openings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/p1pppp1p/1p1111p1/8/4P3/8/PPPP1PPP/RNBQKBNR - - - 0 0 &quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As I understand, this opening is an illegal double move. (Someone can help me with the FIDE rule.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would like to know, though, are such double moves played in any other place in the world??&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1315" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2013-10-04T03:06:42.967" LastActivityDate="2014-12-12T13:09:24.743" Title="What &quot;double moves&quot; are sometimes considered legal?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;illegal-move&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2904" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2903" CreationDate="2013-10-04T02:37:14.127" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;Castling is the only legal chess move in which two pieces are moved. You can verify this by searching for &quot;FIDE Laws of Chess&quot; and reading &quot;Article 3: The moves of the pieces&quot; (I do not provide the URL here because unfortunately it frequently changes).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2013-10-04T02:37:14.127" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2905" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2903" CreationDate="2013-10-04T03:27:18.353" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;From your description, I'm not sure whether in your childhood games the sort of double move you showed above could only happen at that one point in the game, or could continue to happen. So I don't have much to say, but there is at least an established chess variant (dating back to the early 20th century) in which your indicated sequence of moves could occur legally.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The game is &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessvariants.org/multimove.dir/marseill.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;(Balanced) Marseillais Chess&lt;/a&gt;, in which White begins with a single move, but then each side alternates making two successive moves from that point on. In (essentially) the notation used at that link, your position would arise after&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.e4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.b6; g6&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other than the fact that each side makes two moves, the rules are essentially the normal rules of chess. There are of course some necessary changes, e.g. if your first move is a check you don't get a second one. Follow the link for full details and some history.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2014-12-12T13:09:24.743" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2906" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1893" CreationDate="2013-10-04T04:36:47.997" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;To summarize and without going into detailed variations, white has an easy game after e5 and all pieces can have perfect positions. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Bc4 with pressure on f7, Nf3 attacking the e5 pawn, and if black is not careful Ng5.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Bg5 and Nd5, pinning Nf6 in some variations.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Qb3 adding more pressure on f7 and b7.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;After castling, doubling rooks on the d-file with pressure on the d-pawn or bringing the rooks to the c and d files with possible threats like Nb5.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Positionally and tactically white should be winning!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1712" LastActivityDate="2013-10-04T04:36:47.997" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2908" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2893" CreationDate="2013-10-05T09:40:29.497" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;An interesting detail of the 50 move rule: As only the player to move may claim a draw (either by declaring that the 50 move limit has been reached or by declaring his intention to make a move after which the limit will be reached), if the 100th half-move that is not a capture nor a pawn move is a checkmate, then the game is not drawn. See e.g. &lt;a href=&quot;http://chesscafe.com/text/geurt98.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Arbiter's notebook 98&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1761" LastActivityDate="2013-10-05T09:40:29.497" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2909" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-10-05T10:11:33.387" Score="19" ViewCount="52215" Body="&lt;p&gt;Historically, real kings were powerful (Alexander the Great, Napoleon Bonaparte etc.) and women were powerless. The game of chess began in Asia, some say, and the women were definitely powerless there. Maybe Cleopatra was powerful, but still doesn't explain why the people who created modern chess made the king so powerless and hopeless, hiding behind his army and his queen&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it because of Queen Mary, aka Bloody Mary Was she the one who influenced the people who created the modern chess? Is she the reason why kings are hopeless and queens are ruthless?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1105" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-31T18:36:35.293" LastActivityDate="2021-03-10T19:33:16.853" Title="Why is the king powerless and the queen powerful?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;history&gt;&lt;queens&gt;&lt;kings&gt;" AnswerCount="9" CommentCount="12" FavoriteCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2910" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2909" CreationDate="2013-10-05T13:23:40.887" Score="20" Body="&lt;p&gt;Practically speaking, if the king were any more powerful, checkmate or capture would be impossible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Queen originated as the Advisor.  The Advisor was powerful, but not as powerful as the modern Queen, however.  Why did the Advisor become the Queen?  Having more than one Queen per side would debase the game, and there are two each of the other pieces.  Thus, the Advisor is the only candidate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why is there a piece with huge Queen-like powers at all?  It looks like the Europeans wanted to speed the game up.  So they made a more powerful Queen, pawns started moving 2 squares on the first, and castling was created.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, I am not sure that the piece we call the Queen is called that in other languages.  The game and its ancestors have piece names like camel, elephant, advisor, minister, horse, etc.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2013-10-05T13:23:40.887" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2911" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2913" CreationDate="2013-10-05T14:59:12.703" Score="3" ViewCount="2759" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am an amateur player and from time to time I like to play chess. Is it good to start playing against a computer and try to find an Elo setting where the amount of wins and losses I score is roughly the same? If so, which chess engine is the best for that kind of thing (especially for linux)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1741" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2013-10-05T19:33:12.213" LastActivityDate="2014-09-12T05:45:32.977" Title="How to check Elo?" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;elo&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2912" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2911" CreationDate="2013-10-05T15:42:59.543" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;A beginner player has no ELO rating.  I think computers are terrible opponents unless you're willing to take a drubbing every game.  Download the free Stockfish and learn to use it.  You won't enjoy the experience.  I am a slightly above-average club player. I have no chance against someone who has no chance against someone who has a sliver of a chance of defeating this engine.  I use Stockfish as an analysis tool.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I recommend you join your local chess club.  If you're in the USA, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.uschess.org/index.php?option=com_wrapper&amp;amp;Itemid=198&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;go to this page&lt;/a&gt; and find a club. There you will find other opponents of your skill level, mentors, and comradery.  You can play in tournaments and earn a USCF rating, which is similar to ELO.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2013-10-05T15:42:59.543" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2913" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2911" CreationDate="2013-10-05T19:03:53.673" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;State of the art chess engines will win every game against an amateur, so they won't  tell much about your playing level. On the other hand, the engines of sensible strength (or a handicapped engine or similar) I've tried do not emulate human playing at amateur levels well. While there are stronger and weaker engines and most probably you will find an engine against which you win around 50 % of your games, I wouldn't say that tells much about your level, because your playing style may affect the results a lot. For example, I've found that it is often easy to beat most amateur-level engines just by exchanging most pieces (while making sure you don't fall into any tactical traps) and winning the endgame the engine won't understand anything about. If you practice too much against a single computer opponent, you might develop bad habits.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you're not willing to join a chess club, you can play chess games against real people on one of the various Internet chess sites that have a rating system. When you get a reliable rating there, you can try to see (e.g. searching in the forums or help files of the site you chose) if there is an approximative formula that gives you an estimate of what your Fide rating  would be (that's what you asked for).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please also note that the rating scales and systems used by different Internet sites, by your national chess club, and by Fide may differ much. Even if one site calls their rating &quot;elo&quot;, it means only that they use the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elo_rating_system&quot;&gt;Elo rating system&lt;/a&gt; for the ratings. However, even the rating pool there has no connection to the Fide rating pool, and the ratings do not mean the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1761" LastActivityDate="2013-10-05T19:03:53.673" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2914" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2880" CreationDate="2013-10-05T19:17:20.157" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;50 % answer, 50 % comment on Tony's answer: While it is true that the ratings of different rating systems are not directly comparable, there is always a very high correlation between players' ratings in two systems, and someone with access to the data should be able to get an approximative conversion formula. With hard work, you might be able to google some approximations (I didn't find anything more than forum discussions without any sources). For example, many national chess federations use some chosen formula to convert the Fide ratings of foreign players to initial national ratings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1761" LastActivityDate="2013-10-05T19:17:20.157" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2915" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2909" CreationDate="2013-10-05T19:40:55.453" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a Turkish, I can say it's not a queen in original, we call it as &lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Vizier&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Vizier&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We may say that the grand viziers used to manage all the things about country like taxes, wars, staff etc. There were so many viziers in the eastern history, who were more powerful and effective then shah (king) like Nizam al-Mulk. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, I can say that it's probably caused by Asian and Middle-Eastern culture. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, you must look &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_%28chess%29#History&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1781" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T20:08:47.600" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T20:08:47.600" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2916" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2817" CreationDate="2013-10-06T19:31:23.610" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Things don't look too difficult for White after the natural &lt;code&gt;7.Bc4&lt;/code&gt; (in your &lt;code&gt;6...a6&lt;/code&gt; line); not that I think White has some great position, but I at least don't see why you write &quot;it seems White has some difficulties.&quot; Since you didn't elaborate on what you think these difficulties are, I'm going to guess that they revolve around White's light-square bishop getting harassed by expanding black pawns. Assuming that is the concern, I don't think there's really any reason to worry.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance, if Black immediately lashes out with &lt;code&gt;7...b5&lt;/code&gt;, White can keep the bishop active on the a2-f7 diagonal without fear of getting trapped by &lt;code&gt;...c4&lt;/code&gt; since he can gain time against Black's rook: &lt;code&gt;8.Bd5 Rb8 9.d3&lt;/code&gt;, when &lt;code&gt;9...e6&lt;/code&gt; can be safely met with &lt;code&gt;10.Bb3&lt;/code&gt;. After say &lt;code&gt;10...Bb7&lt;/code&gt;, Black has a perfectly good position, but the same goes for White. (Note that White should welcome &lt;code&gt;10...Nxb3 11.axb3&lt;/code&gt; with good central control and play down the a-file. And in any case White shouldn't mind losing the bishop pair in this position, especially since he played into a line in which Black had the earlier option of &lt;code&gt;6...Nxb5&lt;/code&gt; anyway.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similarly, if Black prepares &lt;code&gt;...b5&lt;/code&gt; with &lt;code&gt;7...e6&lt;/code&gt;, I think White should simply play &lt;code&gt;8.d3&lt;/code&gt; with play similar to the above line, e.g. &lt;code&gt;8...b5 9.Bb3 Bb7&lt;/code&gt;, and again White should be content with something like &lt;code&gt;9...Nxb3 10.axb3 Bb7&lt;/code&gt; as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Perhaps I'm wrong about what difficulties you see for White after &lt;code&gt;6...a6&lt;/code&gt; (in which case please correct me with more detail in your post), but if that is where you think trouble lies, it seems to me that everything is fine for White (though fine for Black too).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 c5 2.Nc3 Nc6 3.f4 g6 4.Nf3 Bg7 5.Bb5 Nd4 6.O-O a6 &#xA;    ( 6...Nxb5 )&#xA;7.Bc4 b5 &#xA;    ( 7...e6 8.d3 b5 9.Bb3 Bb7 &#xA;        ( 9...Nxb3 10.axb3 Bb7 )&#xA;    )&#xA;8.Bd5 Rb8 9.d3 e6 10.Bb3 Bb7 &#xA;    ( 10...Nxb3 11.axb3 )&#xA;*&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2013-10-06T19:31:23.610" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2917" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2909" CreationDate="2013-10-06T21:50:47.337" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;The king is not powerless! So much so that when the king is check mated the game ends so, and a victor is declared. Is the king powerless??&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think you are mixing mobility and reach with being powerful; looks like because of the mobility and reach of the queen it is somehow powerful where as the king is powerless but, that's somehow incorrect. You can see the power of the king increases as the game enters the ending stage and less pieces exist on the board; even though king's reach is short the king becomes one of the most powerful pieces on the board in the endgame (This is one of the most beautiful and amazing things a like about chess; the dynamics of power and value is not static, it changes and evolves as the game progresses).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance, notice that the queen alone cannot deliver check mate in a Queen+King vs King; the queen needs help of another piece to be able to deliver check mate against a lone king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a reference for players relative value of pieces is given and the queen carries the biggest value but, the king is given infinite value or no value though, an explanation being that when the king is captured or check mated the game ends.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some times in a game of chess it can happen that a simple pawn can become even more powerful than the queen. Many studies show how the power of pieces changes depending on the specific position and circumstances on the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1784" LastActivityDate="2013-10-06T21:50:47.337" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2919" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="226" CreationDate="2013-10-07T20:58:23.440" Score="18" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a more subtle issue here. Why is &lt;code&gt;3.Bb5&lt;/code&gt; more popular / better / more interesting than the Italian game &lt;code&gt;3.Bc4&lt;/code&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the Ruy Lopez, white isn't really going to win the &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt; pawn, and the bishop is anyway going to be kicked back to the &lt;code&gt;b3-f7&lt;/code&gt; diagonal giving black the free moves &lt;code&gt;a6&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;b5&lt;/code&gt;, so why not play &lt;code&gt;Bc4&lt;/code&gt; in the first place?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The answer is that the bishop is tactically more vulnerable on &lt;code&gt;c4&lt;/code&gt;, often making an equalizing move sequence &lt;code&gt;Nxe4&lt;/code&gt; followed by &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt; feasible for black. In fact, due to this important difference, in the Ruy Lopez white always has time to build an ideal pawn centre with &lt;code&gt;c3&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt;, while in the Italian game this is more likely to lead to equality. So in the Italian game, white often has to be content with placing the d-pawn on &lt;code&gt;d3&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More mysteriously, Carlsen has recently started to play the move &lt;code&gt;d3&lt;/code&gt; in standard Ruy Lopez lines. You have to ask a 2700+ player to explain that one :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1485" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T15:30:04.360" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T15:30:04.360" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="2920" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-10-07T23:17:42.170" Score="7" ViewCount="2670" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am looking for well-annotated books as a follow up to my reading Chernev's &lt;em&gt;Logical chess: Move by Move&lt;/em&gt;. I have been playing chess on and off, but not quite seriously. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am also trying to build my chess library - I currently own Chernev's &lt;em&gt;Move by Move&lt;/em&gt;, Weeramantry's &lt;em&gt;Best Lessons of a Chess Coach&lt;/em&gt; and reading through Silman's &lt;em&gt;The Amateur's Mind&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Additionally, are there any books that cover the psychological aspects of the game?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would like to take my game to the next level, so I would appreciate your inputs. Thanks! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1790" LastEditorUserId="10867" LastEditDate="2016-07-26T21:55:38.333" LastActivityDate="2016-07-28T15:24:22.507" Title="Well-annotated books for average players" Tags="&lt;books&gt;&lt;psychology&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2922" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2920" CreationDate="2013-10-07T23:37:45.633" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd direct you to NM Dan Heisman's &lt;a href=&quot;http://home.comcast.net/~danheisman/Events_Books/General_Book_Guide.htm&quot;&gt;recommended reading list,&lt;/a&gt; specifically his &lt;strong&gt;Recommended Instructive Game Anthologies&lt;/strong&gt; section.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1751" LastActivityDate="2013-10-07T23:37:45.633" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2923" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1236" CreationDate="2013-10-08T01:17:48.347" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you can believe that Fischer would play as white:&#xA;1.f4 e5 2.f5 d5 3.g4 Qh4# White checkmated 0-1&#xA;Unlikely.  More likely it was someone with a chess engine having some fun, likely someone who is very inexperienced as provided by the example.  He would make very poor opening moves and let the chess engine take over beating many GM's. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1791" LastActivityDate="2013-10-08T01:17:48.347" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2924" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2760" CreationDate="2013-10-08T12:16:37.170" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;One might simply look at the judging metrics at the World Chess Composition Tournament (WCCT) to derive such an answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is from their &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.saunalahti.fi/~stniekat/pccc/wcct_annex.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Rules Annex&lt;/a&gt; and details how points are allocated to a composition entry. I've stressed key words that probably represent a figure of merit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Points : Description&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;4.0 : An outstanding problem: an accurate and intensive &lt;strong&gt;rendering&lt;/strong&gt; of the set theme, without &lt;strong&gt;blemishes&lt;/strong&gt; in any of the main lines, and showing&#xA;  &lt;strong&gt;originality&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;flair.&lt;/strong&gt; Perfect &lt;strong&gt;construction&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;economy.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;3.5 : As above, but some small constructional weaknesses, and perhaps not ideally economical.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;3.0 : Either: a very good problem showing the theme clearly but perhaps not intensively or very originally Or: a task rendering of the theme&#xA;  which does not reach the highest artistic standard. In either case,&#xA;  good construction and economy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;2.5 : As above, but constructional weakness and/or less than ideal economy because of the intensive or task setting.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;2.0 : A good problem, very likely worth an honourable mention or commendation in a reasonably strong tourney, but not a very intensive&#xA;  rendering of the theme, and perhaps not very original. Adequate to&#xA;  good construction and economy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1.5 : As above, but with some artistic weakness or constructional blemish.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1.0 : A very ordinary piece of work, typical of many average columns but hardly up to award standard. Adequate construction and economy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;0.5 : As above, but with serious constructional defects.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;0.0 : &lt;strong&gt;Unsound&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;unthematic&lt;/strong&gt; or fully &lt;strong&gt;anticipated&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1751" LastActivityDate="2013-10-08T12:16:37.170" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2925" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2920" CreationDate="2013-10-08T12:27:43.437" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The game collections I always recommend to people graduating from Chernev are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Sunil Weeramantry, &lt;em&gt;Best Lessons of a Chess Coach&lt;/em&gt; (you already got this one)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Steve Giddins, &lt;em&gt;50 Essential Chess Lessons&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;50 Ways to Win at Chess&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Neil McDonald, &lt;em&gt;Chess: The Art of Logical Thinking&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;The Art of Planning in Chess&lt;/em&gt;, and &lt;em&gt;Chess Success&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All are very well written and annotated, concentrating on the things you should be thinking about as a 1500-level player and not spending paragraphs on the things that would be over your head at this level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And some anti-recommendations, since I sometimes see these mentioned but I disagree with the choices:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Dan Heisman, &lt;em&gt;The World's Most Instructive Amateur Game Book&lt;/em&gt;. Some really good stuff here aimed at beginners, but far too much of it is just glosses on computer evaluations. His &lt;em&gt;Guide to Chess Improvement&lt;/em&gt; is gold, though.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;John Nunn, &lt;em&gt;Understanding Chess Move by Move&lt;/em&gt;. Seems like a successor to Chernev but far too advanced. Wait until you hit 2000.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2013-10-08T12:27:43.437" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2926" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-10-08T14:23:54.327" Score="3" ViewCount="186" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;7k/8/4n3/2b5/3p4/8/2N1N3/3Q3K w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This picture above depicts a very simplified situation when white pieces threaten and black pieces defend the black pawn. If the next move is to white, it is a series of captures that is coming.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How does one decide if that is good for black or not?&#xA;Is there an algorithm for that?&#xA;How long will this series of exchanges take? Until all black and white pieces are consumed, or is there a point when the exchanges should be stopped? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1793" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2013-10-08T21:49:15.590" LastActivityDate="2013-10-08T21:49:15.590" Title="Multi-threat situation" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2927" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2926" CreationDate="2013-10-08T14:33:51.703" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;You appear to be referring (&quot;series of hits&quot;) to an instructional concept in chess tactics called &lt;strong&gt;Counting&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;NM Dan Heisman's famous &lt;a href=&quot;http://home.comcast.net/~danheisman/Articles/Novice_Nook_Links.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Novice Nook articles&lt;/a&gt; includes a multi-part series dedicated to Counting which you can read (preferably in order) at: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Counting Primer: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesscafe.com/text/heisman15.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.chesscafe.com/text/heisman15.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The Most Important Tactic: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesscafe.com/text/heisman35.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.chesscafe.com/text/heisman35.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is it Safe: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesscafe.com/text/heisman65.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.chesscafe.com/text/heisman65.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Two types of Counting Problems: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesscafe.com/text/heisman75.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.chesscafe.com/text/heisman75.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The Safety Table: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesscafe.com/text/heisman92.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.chesscafe.com/text/heisman92.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Article #2 (Most Important Tactic) even contains positions similar to what you posted above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;When do you stop counting?&lt;/strong&gt; If you were to expand on counting and instead ask &quot;when do you stop calculating forcing lines?&quot; I'd refer you to another one of Dan's articles regarding &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesscafe.com/text/heisman55.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Quiescence Errors.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1751" LastEditorUserId="1751" LastEditDate="2013-10-08T14:52:48.423" LastActivityDate="2013-10-08T14:52:48.423" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2928" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2931" CreationDate="2013-10-09T05:11:25.207" Score="3" ViewCount="79" Body="&lt;p&gt;as I know that certain opening will leads to certain positions, but I do not know if certain opening will determine relative value of chess pieces. Are there some sources to explained it??&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;as example :&#xA;if I choose Ruy Lopez, my knights will more worth than my bishops, and etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1315" LastActivityDate="2013-10-09T16:51:58.770" Title="Is certain opening determine relative pieces value" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2929" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2930" CreationDate="2013-10-09T15:46:55.583" Score="8" ViewCount="1857" Body="&lt;p&gt;I play the French defence with both colours (white and black) and generally play any of the orthodox main line openings (there are many eg Advance, Exchange, Classical,Tarrasch etc giving rise to many variations as openings and defence variation eg early ...Qb6 Wade var.). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are some gambit openings from the White side and as white I often play the Milner-Barry Gambit and have started to reacquaint myself with the Alapin-Diemer (I sometimes face the MBG as black). So far though I have not encountered a gambit line for the black side in the French and so wonder if there are any such playable black French gambit opening lines?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If anyone knows one or more I'd be interested to hear.&#xA;I look forward to replies and comments, but meanwhile I will keep searching myself to find such a gambit for black in the French defence opening.....&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="426" LastActivityDate="2018-06-25T09:06:08.840" Title="Are there known opening gambit lines for black in the French defence?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;french-defense&gt;&lt;defense&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2930" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2929" CreationDate="2013-10-09T16:09:44.270" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's the Poisoned Pawn variation of the Winawer:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e6&#xA;2. d4 d5&#xA;3. Nc3 Bb4&#xA;4. e5 c5&#xA;5. a3 Bxc3+&#xA;6. bxc3 Ne7&#xA;7. Qg4 Qc7&#xA;8. Qxg7 Rg8&#xA;9. Qxh7 cxd4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In general, though, it's hard to find a good pawn for Black to give away in the French.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2013-10-09T16:09:44.270" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2931" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2928" CreationDate="2013-10-09T16:51:58.770" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;To some extent, yes. General rule: if certain opening/variant of opening will leads to open position, then bishops will be worth more than knights - and usually opposite in closed games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="933" LastActivityDate="2013-10-09T16:51:58.770" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2932" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2929" CreationDate="2013-10-09T17:45:00.193" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is also the gambit from the game Capablanca-Alekhine (St Petersburg, 1914), but it's not very good.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. Bg5 h6 (4...Be7;4...Bb4)5. Bxf6 Qxf6 6. exd5 Bb4 7. Bb5+&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The check is annoying. If black could castle without disturbance, this gambit would perhaps be playable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have thought about using the same idea one move later&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 a6 4. Nf3 Nf6 5. Bg5 h6!?&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but I'm not sure about it, and besides white has too many options before reaching this position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1485" LastActivityDate="2013-10-09T17:45:00.193" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2934" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2920" CreationDate="2013-10-10T10:43:05.093" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;A few years ago, I got a copy of &lt;code&gt;Max Euwe's&lt;/code&gt; &lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;Road to Chess Mastery&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;. I think it is also released in the name, &lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;Chess Master Vs Chess Amatuer&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;.I have also read Chernev and Silman books you mentioned. But none has been as striking as reading Euwe's book. Let me give a small description of Euwe's book.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First of all, it is a list of annotated games(around 25 games I think). All games are played by Max Euwe against different amatuer players. Don't be fooled by the 'amateur' tag. These players are really good at chess, they have good tactical vision, good at calculating variations. But they struggle to find the correct plan after playing out the opening moves, which they were mostly learning by rote.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Games cover many different openings. The purpose of the moves behind each opening is explained with great detail. I found that I can hold myself against club players by just following the ideas of openings in this book.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I remember there is a chapter on chess psychology. In fact, on the start of each game, there is a 1-2 page description on several aspects of the game like tactics,strategy,positional play etc. They are really inspiring for an improving player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Where this book excelled my expectations for me was in explaining the middle game principles. This is where the real game of chess is played. It explains how a master formuates a plan based on certain aspects of a position. Since we are following through the complete games rather than start from a given position, it becomes very interesting reading.**&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1659" LastActivityDate="2013-10-10T10:43:05.093" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2936" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2929" CreationDate="2013-10-11T00:40:49.943" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is one line:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. Bg5 Be7 5. e5 Nfd7 6. h4 c5 7. Bxe7 Qxe7 8. Nb5 O-O 9. Nc7 Nc6 10. Nxa8 cxd4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black has castled, and is pretty well developed, while the white king is still in the center, and white does not have one normally developed piece. You probably won't find many games with professionals playing the line, but here is one interesting draw with Nigel Short handling the black pieces:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Bunratty Masters&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Bunratty&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2011.02.26&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;2&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Hunt, Adam&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Short, Nigel D&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1/2-1/2&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;2436&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;2658&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;C14&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;2011.02.25&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;142&quot;]&#xA;[SourceDate &quot;2011.05.03&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Bg5 Be7 5.e5 Nfd7 6.h4 c5 7.Bxe7 Qxe7 8.Nb5 &#xA;O-O 9.Nc7 Nc6 10.Nxa8 cxd4 11.Nf3 Qb4+ 12.Qd2 Qxb2 13.Rd1 Nc5 14.Bd3 Bd7 &#xA;15.Nc7 Rc8 16.Nxd5 exd5 17.O-O a6 18.Qf4 h6 19.Rb1 Qc3 20.Rfd1 b5 21.Kh2 &#xA;Re8 22.g4 Ne4 23.Bxe4 dxe4 24.Qxe4 Qc5 25.Re1 Be6 26.Rbd1 Bd5 27.Qd3 Bxf3 &#xA;28.Qxf3 Nxe5 29.Qe4 Re6 30.Qa8+ Kh7 31.Qe4+ g6 32.Kg2 Qc3 33.Qf4 Qc6+ 34.&#xA;Qe4 Nd3 35.cxd3 Rxe4 36.dxe4 Qe6 37.Rxd4 Qxg4+ 38.Kf1 Qxh4 39.Re3 Kg7 40.&#xA;Rd7 Qh1+ 41.Ke2 Qc1 42.e5 Qc2+ 43.Kf1 Qc4+ 44.Ke1 Qe6 45.Rd6 Qxa2 46.e6 &#xA;Qb1+ 47.Ke2 Qc2+ 48.Kf1 Qc4+ 49.Kg2 fxe6 50.Rexe6 Qg4+ 51.Kf1 h5 52.Rxa6 &#xA;h4 53.Re7+ Kh6 54.Re3 h3 55.Raa3 Qg2+ 56.Ke2 h2 57.Rh3+ Kg7 58.Ra7+ Kg8 &#xA;59.Rah7 Qe4+ 60.Kd2 Qd4+ 61.Ke2 g5 62.R7h5 Qe4+ 63.Kd2 Qf4+ 64.Ke2 b4 65.&#xA;Rh8+ Kf7 66.Rf3 Kg7 67.Rfh3 Qe4+ 68.Kd2 Qd4+ 69.Kc2 Qxf2+ 70.Kb3 Qd4 71.&#xA;R3h7+ Kg6 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black might be better of by playing &lt;code&gt;9...cxd4&lt;/code&gt; instead of &lt;code&gt;9...Nc6&lt;/code&gt;, For example: Bronstein - Stahlberg:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Budapest Candidates&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Budapest, HUN&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;1950.04.24&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;1950.??.??&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;8&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;David Bronstein&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Gideon Stahlberg&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;C13&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;92&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. Bg5 Be7 5. e5 Nfd7 6. h4 c5&#xA;7. Bxe7 Qxe7 8. Nb5 O-O 9. Nc7 cxd4 10. Nxa8 f6 11. Qxd4 Nc6&#xA;12. Qd2 fxe5 13. O-O-O Nf6 14. f3 Qd6 15. Ne2 Bd7 16. Nc3 Rxa8&#xA;17. Ne4 Qe7 18. Nxf6+ Qxf6 19. Bb5 Nb8 20. Qb4 Bxb5 21. Qxb5&#xA;Qf7 22. c4 Nc6 23. cxd5 Nd4 24. Qd3 exd5 25. Rhf1 Qf4+ 26. Kb1&#xA;Rd8 27. g3 Qxg3 28. f4 Qxd3+ 29. Rxd3 Nc6 30. fxe5 Nxe5&#xA;31. Rd4 Nc6 32. Rdf4 Ne5 33. Rf5 Nc4 34. R1f2 d4 35. b3 d3&#xA;36. bxc4 d2 37. Rxd2 Rxd2 38. Rb5 b6 39. Re5 Rd4 40. c5 Rxh4&#xA;41. Re8+ Kf7 42. Ra8 Rb4+ 43. Ka1 bxc5 44. Rxa7+ Kf6 45. Ra5&#xA;g5 46. Rxc5 g4 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="307" LastEditorUserId="307" LastEditDate="2013-10-11T23:54:14.417" LastActivityDate="2013-10-11T23:54:14.417" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2937" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2938" CreationDate="2013-10-11T02:49:50.040" Score="5" ViewCount="479" Body="&lt;p&gt;As I understand it, gambits are used in aggressive play, such as in the &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/94/why-is-the-kings-gambit-not-played-often&quot;&gt;King's Gambit&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/1878/why-is-the-queens-gambit-referred-to-as-a-gambit&quot;&gt;Queen's Gambit&lt;/a&gt; ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What is the reason behind playing gambits on defence, such as&#xA;  &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/2929/are-there-known-opening-gambit-lines-for-black-in-the-french-defence&quot;&gt;in the French Defence&lt;/a&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1315" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2019-11-10T02:44:15.413" Title="What is the reason for using gambits on defence?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;gambits&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2938" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2937" CreationDate="2013-10-11T03:28:12.177" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;The fact that an opening has the word &quot;Defense&quot; in the name usually signifies nothing more than the fact that it is a move by Black that leads into that opening. For instance, if White plays &lt;code&gt;1.c4&lt;/code&gt; it is simply called the English &lt;em&gt;Opening&lt;/em&gt;. But if, after &lt;code&gt;1.e4&lt;/code&gt;, Black plays &lt;code&gt;1...c5&lt;/code&gt;, then we reach Sicilian &lt;em&gt;Defense&lt;/em&gt; positions; or if Black plays &lt;code&gt;1...e6&lt;/code&gt; instead it is a French &lt;em&gt;Defense&lt;/em&gt;. But the only reason the latter two are called &quot;defenses&quot; is because it is Black who chooses to enter each one, and the first-move advantage for White means that in the early stages of the game, Black is &quot;defending&quot; to some degree. This is the same reason why, for instance, when Black plays a certain setup it is called the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King%27s_Indian_Defence&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;King's Indian Defense&lt;/a&gt;, but when White does the same it is called the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King%27s_Indian_Attack&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;King's Indian Attack&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;em&gt;The word &quot;defense&quot; in the name of an opening generally means no more than that Black has the choice to enter into it.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But Black's motives when playing one &quot;defense&quot; instead of another vary as widely as chess players do, and many times Black is striving to take the initiative away from White immediately. The Sicilian Defense and the King's Indian Defense, for example, both have rather aggressive reputations. Given the above explanation regarding the word &quot;defense&quot; in the names of openings, your question as stated boils down to, &quot;what reasons does Black have for gambit play?&quot; And to that, I would just say that gambit play has the same &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/q/571/167&quot;&gt;pluses and minuses&lt;/a&gt; for either color.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2013-10-11T03:28:12.177" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2939" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2940" CreationDate="2013-10-11T04:01:36.970" Score="-6" ViewCount="201" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been asked my friend about enable take king to determine the winner..&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;who's the winner if the condition like this?? (some Fide rule should necessary)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;7k/6r1/7p/8/8/2B1q3/6N1/6K1 - - - 0 0 &quot;] &#xA;&#xA;1. Ng2xQe3 Rg7xKg1 2. Bc3xKh8 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1315" LastEditorUserId="1315" LastEditDate="2013-10-13T21:53:04.260" LastActivityDate="2013-10-13T21:53:04.260" Title="Determine winner based on taking king" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;chess-variants&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ClosedDate="2013-10-11T12:40:32.413" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2940" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2939" CreationDate="2013-10-11T04:04:32.610" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The knight move is illegal since one may not expose one's king to check.  That the rook is pinned is of no relevance.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2013-10-11T04:04:32.610" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2941" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2937" CreationDate="2013-10-11T04:58:12.303" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;A more general answer is that gambits can be used for other purposes than attack, for example to reduce pressure and reach a drawn ending even with less material.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In relation to openings, there are black openings like the Benko Gambit, in which black gets some initiative for the sacrificed pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1712" LastActivityDate="2013-10-11T04:58:12.303" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2942" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2929" CreationDate="2013-10-11T05:07:21.717" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a pawn sacrifice in the shown c5 line of the Tarrasch variation. Normally, it's temporary and black gets the c5 pawn back, but white can try to hang to it with moves like Nb3, Be3, ... although it's unlikely the best way to play the opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Nd2 c5 4. exd5 exd5 5. Bb5+ Nc6 6. Qe2+ Be7 7. dxc5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1712" LastEditorUserId="1712" LastEditDate="2013-10-11T05:13:01.980" LastActivityDate="2013-10-11T05:13:01.980" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2943" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2937" CreationDate="2013-10-11T19:25:31.640" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's about imbalances. Some positions are very balanced, not many differences between both positions -- same material, castling on the same side, similar pawn structures. That's one popular strategy as black: keep the number of imbalances low, and slowly equalize the position. Only when it's equal do you try to outplay your opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The other philosophy is to play for *un*balanced positions. Emphasize the differences. In the Open Sicilian, especially when White castles long, White gets quick easy development and an attack on the king, but Black has two pawns in the center and long term chances in the counter attack. In the King's Indian with a locked center, often White has an overwhelming attack on the queenside and Black a great attack on the kingside. It's less important who is currently slightly better, because the positions are like apples and oranges. What matters is who wins first.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Gambits are just another imbalance -- one side has an extra pawn, the other has some form of compensation. Maybe development, maybe something else.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2013-10-11T19:25:31.640" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2944" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="2947" CreationDate="2013-10-12T05:02:43.843" Score="1" ViewCount="4432" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I play with my friend, he will often knock his own king over when he is going to lose.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He ends the game and says, &quot;I lose&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this permissible?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1315" LastEditorUserId="12" LastEditDate="2013-10-12T19:26:24.473" LastActivityDate="2017-12-09T01:36:06.820" Title="Does deliberately knocking the king over end the game?" Tags="&lt;etiquette&gt;&lt;otb-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2945" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2944" CreationDate="2013-10-12T19:03:36.537" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, players often tip their king over to indicate that they are resigning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2013-10-12T19:03:36.537" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2946" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2944" CreationDate="2013-10-12T20:06:08.113" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is this permissible?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This mostly depends on the chess customs in your country. Personally, I have never ever seen somebody in past 13 years who did this in official tournament. But in unofficial games with friends this is totally acceptable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="933" LastActivityDate="2013-10-12T20:06:08.113" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2947" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2944" CreationDate="2013-10-12T21:07:35.210" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;here is a &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/knocking-your-king-down-when-resigning&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;link&lt;/a&gt; addressing this question exactly i quote:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;It depends on the way you do it, generally it's not rude, though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Once I was playing a tough game against the late GM Wojo, and got a&#xA;  balanced and complicated position, but also considerable time&#xA;  pressure. After the time pressure was over I realized that I have&#xA;  totally blown up my position, played 41.Kg1-g0 and pressed the clock.&#xA;  Wojo was surprised at first, but later he had a good laugh.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1618" LastActivityDate="2013-10-12T21:07:35.210" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="2948" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3948" CreationDate="2013-10-13T05:36:41.833" Score="4" ViewCount="471" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have heard that when White makes defensive moves, Black should take the center and be aggressive.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In such a case, is there a problem with Black making defensive moves too? Is that a bad idea?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1315" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2015-02-07T16:21:27.080" LastActivityDate="2016-07-12T22:53:14.133" Title="How should black react if white plays &quot;defensively&quot;?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;learning&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;defense&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3948" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2948" CreationDate="2013-10-13T12:14:01.063" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Being aggressive and taking the center are two different things.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Regarding being aggressive, if White is making defensive moves, it's OK for Black to do the same as long as each move has a strong purpose.  For example, Black might fix flaws in his position by repositioning poorly placed pieces or securing his King.  If he instead chooses to attack and there are &lt;em&gt;exploitable&lt;/em&gt; flaws, his attack can he blunted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, if Black's King is exposed yet he attacked, White would have the opportunity to gain a tempo by moving an endangered piece and checking the King.  This is like giving White two moves in a row on the area of the board where the attack is happening.  Or, worse, White could play a Zwischenzug.  Both these things things make calculation difficult.  Better to first move the King to a safer square.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Taking the center, which is less aggressive, is rarely a bad idea, as long as one can hold onto the real estate.  Taking the center is good preparation for attack and gives one the flexibility in choosing how the attack should be conducted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2013-10-13T12:14:01.063" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3949" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2948" CreationDate="2013-10-13T12:19:09.847" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, when your opponent makes defensive and passive moves, you should try to take initiative and attack, &lt;strong&gt;no matter what color you are playing&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because White make move first, in very first stage of game they have &lt;em&gt;initative&lt;/em&gt;, and Black must counteract against it, so they technically &lt;em&gt;defense&lt;/em&gt;, but after opening this advantage becomes a little significant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="933" LastActivityDate="2013-10-13T12:19:09.847" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3950" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3954" CreationDate="2013-10-13T16:47:44.820" Score="12" ViewCount="2867" Body="&lt;p&gt;As far as casual chess goes, I'm a fairly average player. Sometimes I win, sometimes I lose, but I'm generally able to avoid obvious blunders, think a move or a couple forward, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, since I've taken up chess, I've tried my skills in some local tournaments, and the scenario is always the same - I get put on a 10- or 15-minute clock, and either run out of time, panic, or blunder, and walk out with a straight row of zeroes. I even lose to my friends that I can easily beat when not on the clock.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So - should I look at blitz chess in a different light? Think differently? Or is it just &quot;practice, practice, practice&quot; and &quot;don't be a slow thinker&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1667" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-03-03T20:00:28.013" LastActivityDate="2017-05-16T17:40:25.407" Title="How to improve my blitz skills?" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;blitz&gt;&lt;online&gt;&lt;online-blitz&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3951" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3952" CreationDate="2013-10-13T22:23:35.437" Score="2" ViewCount="140" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've seen some moves from my chess engine (Houdini) when a rook was exchanged for a bishop. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even though I still lose the game, I see a degrading value for chess engine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it just because of bad calculation or something else??&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1315" LastEditorUserId="10867" LastEditDate="2016-07-26T21:50:54.820" LastActivityDate="2016-07-26T21:50:54.820" Title="When is a bishop preferred over a rook" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3952" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3951" CreationDate="2013-10-13T22:40:40.920" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;These situations are very rare, but they do happen from time to time. An example is the following 1919 game between J.R. Capablanca (the future world champion) and F.D. Yates.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1055968&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1055968&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;    [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Ba4 Nf6 5. O-O Be7 6. Re1 b5 7. Bb3 d6 8. c3 Na5 9. Bc2 c5 10. d4 Qc7 11. Nbd2 Bg4 12. d5 g5 13. Nf1 h6 14. Ng3 Rd8 15. a4 b4 16. cxb4 cxb4 17. Bd3 Bc8 18. Be3 Ng4 19. Rc1 Qb8 20. Bd2 Qb6 21. Qe2 Nb3 22. Rc6 Qa5 23. Bxa6 Bd7 24. Bb5 Bxc6 25. Bxc6+ Kf8 26. Qc4 Nxd2 27. Nxd2 Qa7 28. Qe2 h5 29. Nf5 Bf6 30. Nc4 Qc5 31. b3 Nh6 32. Nxh6 Rxh6 33. Qe3 Rc8 34. Rc1 Bd8 35. Qxc5 dxc5 36. Nxe5 Ke7 37. Rxc5 f5 38. Rc4 Ba5 39. Bb5 Rxc4 40. Nxc4 Bc7 41. e5 Bb8 42. Ne3 Rh7 43. Nxf5+ Kf7 44. e6+ Kf6 45. e7 Rxe7 46. Nxe7 Kxe7 47. g3 Bc7 48. Kg2 Kd6 49. Be8 h4 50. Bf7 Ke5 51. Kh3 Bd8 52. Kg4 hxg3 53. fxg3 Kf6 54. Be6 Kg6 55. d6 Kf6 56. Bf5 Bb6 57. d7 Bd8 58. h4 gxh4 59. gxh4 Bc7 60. h5 Kg7 61. Be4 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black had what is called a &quot;weak color complex&quot; on the White squares. When White exchanged his rook for Black's white squared bishop, his white squares became very weak (because all his pawns were on Black squares. White was able to get his other pieces (a rook and knight) on white squares behind these pawns, and pick them off, while Black's pieces were bottled up on Black squares.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2013-10-13T22:40:40.920" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3953" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2937" CreationDate="2013-10-13T22:51:53.903" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Gambits are used on defense as &quot;counter gambits.&quot; One example is the Albin counter gambit, against the queen's gambit:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;d4 d5  2. c4  e5.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2013-10-13T22:51:53.903" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3954" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3950" CreationDate="2013-10-14T00:07:12.687" Score="21" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some things that have helped me get better are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Counter-intuitively, continue to work hard on your slow game. The best speed game players in the world just happen to be the best slow game players.  When playing slow games, you are giving your brain more &quot;soak time&quot; to absorb patterns and really grind into positions, giving your analysis (&quot;I takes, he takes, ... &quot;) skills the necessary &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Practice_%28learning_method%29#Deliberate_practice&quot;&gt;deliberate practice.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Time Management is key.  If you are playing blitz &lt;strong&gt;without&lt;/strong&gt; a time delay/increment, then it is vital to play the clock first, board second. Playing the board makes sense until you hit your time allowance per move.  Then it is a matter of playing what you consider to be best and moving on. Play what makes him burn HIS clock, not yours. You're not painting a masterpiece, you're trying to win by any means necessary! Of course, with very strong opposition, you may need to do both ... but the clock trumps the position quite often, especially as you start getting into a time-crunch! Consider reading NM Heisman's famous &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesscafe.com/text/heisman61.pdf&quot;&gt;Two Triggers&lt;/a&gt; Novice Nook ... might offer you a fresh perspective if you're ever hesitating to make a move or feel nervous that you might be wrong if you rush into things.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Get Good (or at least decent) at tactics.  You should have &lt;strong&gt;enough&lt;/strong&gt; tactical patterns &lt;strong&gt;burned&lt;/strong&gt; into your skull to recall 1-3 ply / single-motif shots in less than 3-5 seconds. Focus on breadth (covering a ton of basic 2-4 ply tactics) and do not waste time trying to solve 12-13 ply puzzles (as most tactics servers and puzzle books tend to lure you into!)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Practice closing out &lt;strong&gt;won&lt;/strong&gt; games against a full-strength computer at insanely tough time-crunch controls (for e.g. start with basics such as KQ vs K in under a minute and work your way up to piece-up/two-pawns up type of won games)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;To deal with nerves or panicking, put yourself way out of your comfort zone (as necessary!) by playing a lot of online-blitz against decent opposition.  This also allows you to try out a lot of different opening lines (some of these will want to become your pet lines / repertoire) quickly.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1751" LastEditorUserId="1751" LastEditDate="2013-10-14T01:14:06.837" LastActivityDate="2013-10-14T01:14:06.837" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3955" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3956" CreationDate="2013-10-14T02:29:30.913" Score="8" ViewCount="1023" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are a lot of questions about the 50-move rule; details on how to claim the draw, why the number 50, etc...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But the most interesting question seems to be whether the rule has ever been applied in an actual game! (N.B. I am referring to serious sanctioned games only). To be more concrete:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is there any official game between FIDE masters or above which ended in a draw as a result of one of the players invoking the 50-move rule?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1656" LastActivityDate="2013-10-14T02:38:29.243" Title="Has the 50 move rule been used in serious games?" Tags="&lt;master-games&gt;&lt;50-move-rule&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3956" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3955" CreationDate="2013-10-14T02:38:29.243" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, many times. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1554423&quot;&gt;Ivanchuk- Kamsky 2009&lt;/a&gt; is one example, but there are hundreds if not thousands of others. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1716505&quot;&gt;Ushenina - Girya 2013&lt;/a&gt; made some news recently because Ushenina couldn't mate with knight and bishop in time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2013-10-14T02:38:29.243" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3957" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3959" CreationDate="2013-10-14T10:32:13.853" Score="3" ViewCount="526" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;e4 e5 &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;d3&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At this point, if d3 advances, say at 3. d4 it does not control d4, it is controlled by a sentry (an enemy pawn controlling d4) and is adjacent and behind a same colored pawn at e4. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is the d3 pawn backwards? I was told no, because it is supported by c2, but Wikpedia's definition of a backwards pawn doesn't care about a backward's pawn's support, only the support it has moving forward.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1808" LastEditorUserId="10867" LastEditDate="2016-07-26T21:52:20.053" LastActivityDate="2016-07-26T21:52:20.053" Title="Is this an example of a backwards pawn?" Tags="&lt;pawns&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3958" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-10-14T10:56:23.933" Score="1" ViewCount="194" Body="&lt;p&gt;I played a game of chess recently where we agreed to a rules modification: When one player was reduced to a lone King, a draw could be declared after 16 moves without capture/Pawn move. During this game, the player with material delivered checkmate on move 16. So what happens? Does the checkmate count first, or does the draw?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1809" LastEditorUserId="652" LastEditDate="2013-10-15T15:51:16.680" LastActivityDate="2018-01-04T20:32:08.350" Title="In encountering a draw by [x number of moves], when does the draw actually occur?" Tags="&lt;draw&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3959" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3957" CreationDate="2013-10-14T11:40:31.107" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The pawn on &lt;code&gt;d3&lt;/code&gt; is not backwards since (as you say) it is protected by another pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There must be something missing from Wikipedia's definition. Later on the article (&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backward_pawn&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backward_pawn&lt;/a&gt;) contradicts itself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Also, the opponent can place a piece, usually a knight, on the hole in front of the pawn without any risk of a pawn driving it away.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your example, if black puts a knight on &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt;, the pawn move &lt;code&gt;c3&lt;/code&gt;will drive it away.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1485" LastActivityDate="2013-10-14T11:40:31.107" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3960" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3961" CreationDate="2013-10-15T09:43:40.030" Score="3" ViewCount="3210" Body="&lt;p&gt;As we know, we usually doing castle to move king to (assumed) safe place.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But when we play short castle or long castle since my chess engine (Houdini) seems to prefer short castle when I play against a strong player and long castle when I play against a weak player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1315" LastEditorUserId="813" LastEditDate="2013-10-15T11:59:46.710" LastActivityDate="2013-10-15T11:59:46.710" Title="Strategy on castle (short or long)" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;houdini&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3961" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3960" CreationDate="2013-10-15T11:18:21.563" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The side selected for castling is generally related to the openings chosen by the player.  Long castling has the following attributes:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;lands a rook on a center file where short castling does not.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;takes more time since an additional piece must be moved (the queen).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;leaves the pawn on the a-file undefended.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, when the players castle on opposite wings, the game is less likely to be a draw - the opposing pawns can become purely offensive weapons. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since Houdini is rated probably close to 1800 points higher than I am and because we don't have any specifics, I can't tell you why it's making its castling choice.  But it does not move based upon the weakness of its opponent, per se - it is making moves based upon board position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You'll might see Houdini castling long if it has time to get the queen off the back row. Or perhaps if it can gain a tempo by castling long and hitting an opponent's piece in the center. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2013-10-15T11:18:21.563" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3962" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3964" CreationDate="2013-10-15T16:02:20.660" Score="14" ViewCount="8900" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just discovered the chess section of this website. This is my first question here. &#xA;I am a beginner chess player(rated about 1300 on the chess websites) and play mainly for recreation. For a long time, my opening repertoire was restricted to 1) e4 .. e5 . &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, while playing black I get tired with the fact that white is always calling the shots, and also bored of playing the same lines. I've tried the french but find it a bit predictable for the white player and with less variety. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would like to try the sicilian. I know that this is often preferred by grandmasters. However, the grandmasters typically gain the advantage only in the end game. However, the style of grandmaster play is quite different from the style of beginner/amateur play. Grandmasters would often go into the end game with no advantages of material. By contrast, in beginner/amateur play often the better player gains advantage in the middle game itself and by the time he reaches the end game he is already ahead in material by a rook or a bishop. Keeping in mind this difference is the sicilian a good opening for a beginner? Or is it more for the more advanced players and end game specialists?&#xA;Also, how to play it correctly? I've tried playing it a few times but am yet to understand the underlying principle. Which is the better second move -  2) .. e6 or 2) .. d6 ? Why is the rook pawn sometimes advanced prematurely ( 4) .. a6  or 3) .. a6) ? ... etc., etc. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1811" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-02-05T21:22:12.603" LastActivityDate="2015-09-14T23:40:32.713" Title="Is the Sicilian Defense a good opening for beginners?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3963" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3958" CreationDate="2013-10-15T16:57:32.630" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Typically for the 50 move rule it's 50 ply from both sides without a pawn move or capture so the claim can only be made AFTER 50 moves.  The position on the board always stands so checkmate is checkmate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1540" LastActivityDate="2013-10-15T16:57:32.630" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3964" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3962" CreationDate="2013-10-15T17:10:25.967" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Sicilian is playable at all levels. 1.e4 e5 openings are easier to understand, so you will often see 1...e5 recommended for beginning and intermediate players (and I second that recommendation), but there's nothing wrong with 1...c5, and you should feel free to try it out and see if you like it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To say how to play it correctly would take hundreds of pages. To answer your two specific questions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;After 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3, 2...e6 and 2...d6 are both perfectly good moves played at the highest levels.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The move ...a6 in the Sicilian has a few points, but the most important are that 1) it can keep a White knight away from b5, and 2) it can support ...b5 and start a queenside attack.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2013-10-15T17:10:25.967" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3965" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2929" CreationDate="2013-10-15T17:59:29.167" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a 2210 FIDE-rated player and I have played the French defence in tournaments as a primary defence to 1. e4 since I was a child. Although you may find gambit lines on the Black side in some variations (as many good answers here have shown), you will not be able to play such gambits unless White is cooperative and willing to play against them. The fact is just that there exist rather few reputable gambits for Black in the orthodox openings - the Marshall gambit in the Ruy Lupez being one of the exceptions. If you are a tactical player and like to sacrifice material, I recommend that instead of looking for questionable gambits, you aim for dynamic positions where tactical manuevers and sacrifices are likely to be an option in the middle game. The Flexible French by Moskalenko is a good reference.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1813" LastActivityDate="2013-10-15T17:59:29.167" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3966" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-10-15T18:58:35.633" Score="4" ViewCount="1928" Body="&lt;p&gt;Black was in a position to take a white bishop with the king.  The white bishop was protected by a white knight.  However, if the white knight was moved it would expose the white king to the black queen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus, is the king actually in check if the attacking piece (white knight) cannot be moved?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Or,&#xA;Can the king move into check if the attacking piece (white knight) cannot move?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1814" LastActivityDate="2013-10-15T19:06:39.053" Title="Is the king actually in check if the attacking piece cannot be moved?" Tags="&lt;check&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2013-10-18T03:50:49.073" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3967" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3966" CreationDate="2013-10-15T19:06:39.053" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Still considered in check. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fide.com/component/handbook/?id=124&amp;amp;view=article&quot;&gt;FIDE handbook&lt;/a&gt; from the WCF website.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;3.9&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  The king is said to be 'in check' if it is attacked by one or more of the opponent's pieces, &lt;strong&gt;even if such pieces are constrained from moving to that square because they would then leave or place their own king in check.&lt;/strong&gt; No piece can be moved that will either expose the king of the same colour to check or leave that king in check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1751" LastActivityDate="2013-10-15T19:06:39.053" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3968" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2889" CreationDate="2013-10-16T00:41:40.973" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recall these games from his Modern Chess series. Logically, if Kasparov was willing to return to the same position, Karpov believed that it was likely that Kasparov had found a line that resulted in a favorable position for White. Indeed, the moves 10. d3 and 11. Qb3 give White some advantage and Kasparov had a rather pleasant position throughout. Karpov probably didn't want to revisit this line as he knew he got lucky in the first game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1382" LastActivityDate="2013-10-16T00:41:40.973" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3969" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2806" CreationDate="2013-10-16T00:52:32.407" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Looking at the position and the phrasing of the question, I would have to say that the problem is flawed. The directions are far too restrictive - how can white compel black to make three knight tours? If this was defined as a &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helpmate&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;helpmate&lt;/a&gt; that's solvable in 1220 moves, then the problem would make more sense. However, even in this case, I cannot fathom how that would be possible as the number of moves that a three knight tours sum to is far less than 1220.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1382" LastActivityDate="2013-10-16T00:52:32.407" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3970" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3982" CreationDate="2013-10-16T03:50:27.733" Score="2" ViewCount="85" Body="&lt;p&gt;Does in official games, had happened when a player didn't concentrate his attack to center or by flanking??&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this case, my possible attack is used side of board when opponent had castling the king to certain side.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've this method in my childhood, but seldom to see it in chess engine except versus weak opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1315" LastActivityDate="2013-10-18T04:26:53.167" Title="Variation of Attack besides Center Control and Flanking" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3971" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3972" CreationDate="2013-10-16T10:21:26.323" Score="15" ViewCount="5341" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am developing an opening repertoire for white based on d4 and c4. I think this is going all right, but what I am looking for is a chess program that can exercise my repertoire knowledge.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Essentially, I want to be able to enter variations, and let the program test me on responses from black (to put it more clearly, I want the program to &quot;play&quot; black according to the variations that have been entered). When I make a mistake, it must notify me of that fact and show me what the &quot;correct&quot; move at the time was.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Importantly, this program should be accessible on Android or IOS, as I often have this need when commuting. Obviously it would be great if it was free, but I'm willing to pay for it as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do anyone know of a chess program that will allow me to do this? Just to be clear, I'm not looking for chess playing software (I already use Shredder and DroidFish and they are great), but a tool for exercising pre-recorded opening variations. I did have a look around, but except for a promising looking Windows-based commercial tool, I can't find any apps that explicitly do this (it may be possible that some existing chess apps include this functionality but does not advertise it very well).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1816" LastActivityDate="2019-05-06T01:20:46.233" Title="Software for opening repertoire practice" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;learning&gt;&lt;software&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3972" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3971" CreationDate="2013-10-16T14:17:25.097" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesspositiontrainer.com/index.php/en/&quot;&gt;Chess Position Trainer&lt;/a&gt; is really great! I use it very day and love it a lot.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Still, there is no IOS version yet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1817" LastActivityDate="2013-10-16T14:17:25.097" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3973" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2013-10-17T11:29:40.413" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2013-10-17T11:29:40.413" LastActivityDate="2013-10-17T11:29:40.413" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3974" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2013-10-17T11:29:40.413" Score="0" Body="a chess opening characterized by the moves 1.e4 Nf6." OwnerUserId="1485" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2013-10-17T12:50:39.083" LastActivityDate="2013-10-17T12:50:39.083" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3975" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="3976" CreationDate="2013-10-17T18:13:22.267" Score="2" ViewCount="569" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some programs/websites use &lt;code&gt;1. ... e5 2.f3&lt;/code&gt; (e.g &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.playwitharena.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Arena&lt;/a&gt; or &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.lutanho.net/pgn/pgnviewer.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;LT-PGN-Viewer&lt;/a&gt;) while others use &lt;code&gt;1...e5 2.f3&lt;/code&gt; (e.g &lt;a href=&quot;http://chess.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;chess.com&lt;/a&gt;). To achieve this, I loaded a FEN that is black-to-move, then made a move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which one is best to use? What does the specs say about this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just to make this clear, my question is &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; about using 3 dots after a white move comment, for this one I got to the conclusion that it is best to use &lt;code&gt;1.e4 { comment } 1...e5 2.Nf3&lt;/code&gt; over &lt;code&gt;1.e4 { comment } e5 2.Nf3&lt;/code&gt;, but it is somewhat optional.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="478" LastActivityDate="2013-10-17T18:18:56.007" Title="How to write the first move of a PGN that starts with blacks?" Tags="&lt;pgn&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3976" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3975" CreationDate="2013-10-17T18:18:56.007" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;1...e5&lt;/code&gt; is best. I quote from Section 8.2.2.2 of &lt;a href=&quot;http://www6.chessclub.com/help/PGN-spec&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;the PGN specification&lt;/a&gt;, with the relevant phrases in bold:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;There are two export format move number indication formats, one for use appearing immediately before a white move element and one for use&#xA;  appearing immediately before a black move element.  A white move&#xA;  number indication is formed from the integer giving the fullmove&#xA;  number with a single period character appended.  &lt;strong&gt;A black move number&#xA;  indication is formed from the integer giving the fullmove number with&#xA;  three period characters appended.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;All white move elements have a preceding move number indication.  A&#xA;  black move element has a preceding move number indication only in two&#xA;  cases: first, if there is intervening annotation or commentary between&#xA;  the black move and the previous white move; and second, &lt;strong&gt;if there is no&#xA;  previous white move in the special case where a game starts from a&#xA;  position where Black is the active player.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2013-10-17T18:18:56.007" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3977" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1864" CreationDate="2013-10-17T18:54:55.647" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;just found this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;8.2.3.4: Disambiguation&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Note that the above disambiguation is needed only to distinguish among&#xA;  moves of the same piece type to the same square; it is not used to&#xA;  distinguish among attacks of the same piece type to the same square. &#xA;  An example of this would be a position with two white knights, one on&#xA;  square c3 and one on square g1 and a vacant square e2 with White to&#xA;  move.  Both knights attack square e2, and &lt;strong&gt;if both could legally move&#xA;  there, then a file disambiguation is needed&lt;/strong&gt;; the (nonchecking) knight&#xA;  moves would be &quot;Nce2&quot; and &quot;Nge2&quot;.  &lt;strong&gt;However&lt;/strong&gt;, if the white king were at&#xA;  square e1 and a black bishop were at square b4 with a vacant square d2&#xA;  (thus &lt;strong&gt;an absolute pin&lt;/strong&gt; of the white knight at square c3), &lt;strong&gt;then only one&#xA;  white knight (the one at square g1) could move&lt;/strong&gt; to square e2: &quot;Ne2&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www6.chessclub.com/help/PGN-spec&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www6.chessclub.com/help/PGN-spec&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="478" LastActivityDate="2013-10-17T18:54:55.647" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3978" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-10-18T00:19:57.183" Score="5" ViewCount="637" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are human ratings also progressing, could humans catch up with computers? (maybe playing against strong computers makes us strong)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are team of humans able to defeat computers? Is any competition like this going on?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1670" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-03-05T08:40:20.400" LastActivityDate="2014-03-05T08:40:20.400" Title="Humans against computers" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;human-versus-machine&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3979" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3978" CreationDate="2013-10-18T03:05:31.390" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Humans will never again be able to defeat computers at chess.  We're finding the limits of humans while computers and algorithms are only getting better and better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2013-10-18T03:05:31.390" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3980" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3978" CreationDate="2013-10-18T03:10:00.680" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;The best computers are much better than the best humans, and if I had to make up numbers I'd guess that they're improving at least ten times as fast as humans are (it's a wild approximation but, more or less, humans are improving by around 2 Elo points a year and computers are improving by around 20 points a year). There's no way humans will catch up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2013-10-18T03:10:00.680" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3981" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2743" CreationDate="2013-10-18T04:22:47.550" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;What you want to do is limit the number of cores Stockfish has access to. I'm sure your computer/laptop has more than one core, but if improperly set, a UCI engine can eat up all of your processing power and leave your computer sluggish. There are two ways to fix this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Arena should have a &quot;Lower than normal process priority&quot; in Engine Management Options. You should check this off.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, I know Chessbase lets you allocate a certain amount of cores (or threads) for the engine, and I'm sure Arena does as well. However, I'm not entirely sure how to do it with the specified software.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1382" LastActivityDate="2013-10-18T04:22:47.550" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3982" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3970" CreationDate="2013-10-18T04:26:53.167" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Attacking isn't necessarily generalized to areas of the board. For example, I can attack your queen with my pawn, and this isn't a localized concept. Your question seems to imply that you're asking about attacks on the opposing king as you specify attacking the side of the board where your opponent has castled. There exist far more aggressive strategies than controlling the center or flanking out the opponent. Consider tactics, square and file control, general initiative, and development as alternatives.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1382" LastActivityDate="2013-10-18T04:26:53.167" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3983" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2828" CreationDate="2013-10-18T04:28:59.567" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Most UCI engines won't work on Windows, but the two major ones that work on Mac or &lt;a href=&quot;http://stockfishchess.org/download/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Stockfish&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.vlasak.biz/critter/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Critter&lt;/a&gt;. Both can be easily loaded into SCID.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1382" LastActivityDate="2013-10-18T04:28:59.567" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3984" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3978" CreationDate="2013-10-18T15:07:58.677" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Generally speaking, humans have already lost the battle against computers. &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endgame_tablebase&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Tablebases&lt;/a&gt; have &quot;guaranteed&quot; optimal play by computers in the endgame. &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_opening_book_%28computers%29&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Opening books&lt;/a&gt; have removed much of the computational burden in the opening. (It's MUCH easier to generate move or position lists for the first ten moves and index them than it is to compute them on the fly.) Computer hardware &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore%27s_law&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;continues to get better&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any situation that involves straight memorization is one that humans are going to lose to computers. With the opening and endgame &quot;thoroughly optimized&quot;, the middlegame is the only place that humans really have a chance. Computers are deterministic. Compare these two situations with White to move:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;rn4rk/pp4pp/2bN4/q7/8/8/Q5PP/2BR3K w - - 5 10&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;6rk/6pp/3N4/8/8/8/6PP/7K w - - 5 10&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ignore for a moment how contrived they are. In both cases, the correct move is the same, &lt;code&gt;Nf7#&lt;/code&gt;. However, even though a computer will pick up on the correct move, these positions are totally different from a computer's perspective. A human will look at this and recognize intuitively that the left half of the board is totally superfluous. A computer will have to compute that the positions are functionally equivalent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, as storage capacity increases, the number of these positions that aren't indexed slowly gets smaller. With the pasing of time, more and more of the middlegame approaches determinicity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Consider also that it is much easier for computers to &quot;learn&quot; than for humans. It is trival (for given values of &quot;trivial&quot;) to plug chess libraries in and give a computer access to all the accumulated knowledge therein. Humans cannot do that. We have to study for years to impress that upon ourselves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;TL;DR: &lt;strong&gt;As chess moves more toward exhaustive electronic storage and indexing of positions, humans will continue falling behind computers. Unless there is a breakthrough in our understanding of how memory and the brain work, there will be no reversing this trend.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="652" LastEditorUserId="652" LastEditDate="2013-10-18T20:06:43.660" LastActivityDate="2013-10-18T20:06:43.660" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3985" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-10-18T22:15:18.717" Score="6" ViewCount="945" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's clear to me that humans are at a loss when it comes down to playing against computers. (not only due to the answers to my last question (&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/3978/humans-against-computers&quot;&gt;Humans against computers&lt;/a&gt;). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But, would humans (maybe a team of us) have a better chance of winning if we have a longer time per move or a shorter time? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1670" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.193" LastActivityDate="2014-07-03T10:33:19.067" Title="Humans against computers: is it an advantage to humans to have more time or less" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3986" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3985" CreationDate="2013-10-19T10:32:37.727" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Longer time lets both sides to calculate the variants deeper.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In blitz games (&amp;lt; 5 min) computers are terribly strong and we have no chance. Computer's reaction is too fast and it can compute lots of variants in early few seconds. On the other hand humans are potential to make blunders.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In games with 15-60 minutes engines are strong too, but humans have chances to avoid overlooks, obvious mistakes and they can analyze the position better, but yet it's hard to resist against engines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In long games, engines can discover more variants, the problem is by processing deep variants the state space tree gets huge and finishing depth &lt;em&gt;N&lt;/em&gt; and getting into depth &lt;em&gt;N+1&lt;/em&gt; consumes too long time. In other words, if an engine makes its decision after 4 hours thinking on a position, it's rare for it to change its decision to another move by more 1 hour thinking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/AdvnZ.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand humans have more time to analyze positions strategically (the only thing that humans are still better than engines. At least it's comparable to engines)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So my answer is long games can give us a better chance to &lt;em&gt;play better&lt;/em&gt; against computers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1824" LastEditorUserId="1824" LastEditDate="2014-07-03T10:33:19.067" LastActivityDate="2014-07-03T10:33:19.067" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3987" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2590" CreationDate="2013-10-19T11:36:18.173" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sunsetter is best seems, but Sjeng (especially 11) is good for many purposes too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See &lt;a href=&quot;http://bughousechess.wz.cz/BughouseEngines/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://bughousechess.wz.cz/BughouseEngines/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1825" LastActivityDate="2013-10-19T11:36:18.173" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3988" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="75" CreationDate="2013-10-19T16:14:04.343" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Smith-Morra Gambit is aggressive for white.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 c5 2.d4 cxd4 3.c3 dxc3 4.Nxc3 (4.Bc4 cxb2 5.Bxb2)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White has sacrificed a pawn (or two) to free up his development. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="881" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2013-10-20T17:18:32.290" LastActivityDate="2013-10-20T17:18:32.290" CommentCount="0" CommunityOwnedDate="2013-10-19T16:14:04.343" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3989" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3985" CreationDate="2013-10-19T22:38:01.110" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;As human beings, we can't calculate as fast as a computer. In fact, there are many things which human beings can't do as fast as a computer, including numerical calculations. Hence, for a match to be considered 'fair', human beings should be given adequate time for thinking. This would assist them in faring better against the computer. Today, machines appear to have surpassed humans and the match where Deep Blue defeated Kasparov created history of a kind. For humans, apart from calculation, intuition, instinct, and experience also matter. &#xA;However, I don't think we should be dissapointed with the fact that machines can defeat grandmasters. The reason they are able to do so is because apart from calculation, they are also fed with opening book data and various other data and strategies which grandmasters have learnt only by experience. This knowledge which is fed into the engine is knowledge which human beings have acquired over hundreds of years so ultimately, the credit for their success also goes to the human beings who have accumulated this wealth of knowledge over the years.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mathematically speaking, for eg. if you consider the starting position, there are 20 possible moves. After 1) e4 .. e4, this increases the no. of possible moves to 28. &#xA;Mathematically speaking, the algorithms used by computers are of exponential complexity - meaning that if you consider a number,for eg., 28 as the average no. of possible moves per person - so if a computer needs to calculate to a depth of n, it would have to consider 28^n possibilities. Such exponential complexity algorithms are amongst the most difficult algorithms for a computer to handle. To get an idea of this, 28^5 = 17 million(eight digits), 28^10 = a 15 digit number. By contrast, 8^5 = 32,000, and 8^10 = 1 billion(10 digits). If there are lesser pieces on the board, the computer has fewer moves to calculate. However, fewer pawns would mean more openness which means more moves to calculate. So if you want to beat the computer, you need to keep as many pieces on the board as possible(avoid exchanges) - go for a slow game with no exchanges near the beginning, where the computer still has a lot of moves to calculate even after it goes out of the opening book.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1811" LastActivityDate="2013-10-19T22:38:01.110" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3990" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2828" CreationDate="2013-10-20T03:52:19.940" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Although I know you're on a Mac and I don't know what you've tried so far in detail, &lt;a href=&quot;http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.games.board.chess.scid.user/5401&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this scid-users mailing list thread&lt;/a&gt; might be of interest. It suggests to add the exe file in as the command, but without the wine before it. Again, that is for Ubuntu, but maybe it will help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1828" LastActivityDate="2013-10-20T03:52:19.940" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3991" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-10-20T07:43:32.277" Score="4" ViewCount="3041" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have been playing chess for about an year now. But, I am unable to get past &lt;code&gt;1300 USCF rating&lt;/code&gt;. There are three phases in a chess game: opening phase, middle-game phase and end-game phase. When I get past the opening phase nicely, I usually win. But, what happens most of the time is that I get trapped in some clever openings from the opposite player and then, I try to recover from it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically, I love playing tactical chess, and often get frustrated when I get caught in the tactical openings of the opposite player. So, I want to learn some good openings to improve upon my opening game for both white as well as black. A list could work or it would be best with the chess diagram illustration.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What I have learnt from experience is that: &lt;code&gt;white attacks and black defends&lt;/code&gt;. Is it true? If not, how can black attack?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1830" LastActivityDate="2020-01-10T19:22:29.787" Title="What are some good tactical opening moves?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;learning&gt;&lt;rating&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3992" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3991" CreationDate="2013-10-20T08:53:25.740" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your description is a bit general. It's true that White tends to have more active openings as he has the first move, but it's possible to employ counter-attacking openings. As you love playing tactical openings, I would suggest adopting the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sicilian_Defence&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Sicilian Defense&lt;/a&gt; as black - it is known to have a very distinctive active and tactical style.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Avoiding clever opening traps by your opponent is a matter of experience. When you fall for one, make sure to never fall for it again! By expanding your opening knowledge, you can enter the first stage of the game comfortably and exit it with a comfortable position. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1382" LastActivityDate="2013-10-20T08:53:25.740" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3994" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3991" CreationDate="2013-10-20T12:35:50.980" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;What you describe is known as, &quot;half the time when we play chess.&quot;  We simply get outplayed.  You are probably not getting caught by clever openings. You are probably making poor moves and your opponent is seizing the opportunity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are the ratings of your opponents who frustrate you?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White has a slight advantage at the beginning, but this advantage is really only realized at the higher levels of the game.  The reason is that amateurs waste a lot of moves so white's opening advantage goes away quickly.  Don't get too hung up on who is supposed to attack and who is supposed to defend.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Learning openings is good, but don't start memorizing a bunch of openings.  Your peers won't follow the script and you'll be as lost as they.  Instead, focus for now on opening principles.  For example, control of the center, castling, not moving the same piece twice, not bringing the queen out too early.  If you've never heard of these things, we can have a worthwhile discussion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's hard to give concrete advise with so few details.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One thing you can do is, after you lose, ask your opponent to review the game with you, so you can see what they were thinking.  Be prepared to do the same for your opponent when you win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also ask a 1700-ish player (400 points above you) to review your game.  They will probably be able to point out issues with your play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;edit - how to capitalize on the opening principles&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To show how the opening principles can work, there's no better example than to look at the most popular e4 opening - the Ruy Lopez.  This is a common variant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Ba4 b5 5. Bb3 Bc5 6. O-O&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White and black both claim the center with the their first moves.  White's second move &lt;em&gt;develops a piece&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;attacks an unprotected black pawn&lt;/em&gt;.  That's 2 good things. Black responds by developing a piece and defending the pawn.  That's good too.  White then develops a piece and attacks the Knight on c6, threatening to win the e5 pawn.  Black is unimpressed and kicks the Bishop.  In this variation, White opts to retain the Bishop and moves back.  Black kicks the Bishop again, gaining space but perhaps weakening his pawns a bit as the b-pawn will be unable to support the c-pawn.  White retires the Bishop to a pretty good square (this attacks the center, hits the weak f7, and probably Black's castled King, soon enough.)  Black then develops a Bishop.  White wastes no time in castling, which defends the chronically weak f2 square.  Every move has a purpose, almost every moves has a threat.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We see that White moved his Bishop a lot, and we're not supposed to do this, right?  The reason it is ok is that each time, there was a &lt;strong&gt;purpose&lt;/strong&gt; to the move.  Further, White knew the Bishop could safely end up on b3, and that square looks right at the place where Black is likely to castle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, don't freak out about the ratings.  They're always an approximation and very variable at that level.  You should be able to defeat a 1400-rated player about 40% of the time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2013-10-20T15:07:54.873" LastActivityDate="2013-10-20T15:07:54.873" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3995" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2013-10-20T13:50:45.870" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2013-10-20T13:50:45.870" LastActivityDate="2013-10-20T13:50:45.870" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3996" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2013-10-20T13:50:45.870" Score="0" Body="A strong commercial chess engine." OwnerUserId="1485" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2013-10-20T14:00:52.097" LastActivityDate="2013-10-20T14:00:52.097" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3997" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2013-10-20T13:57:23.867" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Bughouse is a chess variant played by two teams using multiple boards. The players on a team are assigned alternating colors. Captured pieces are not dead but are instead passed between team-mates.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For more information, see &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bughouse_chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this Wikipedia article&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-06-22T12:29:47.890" LastActivityDate="2017-06-22T12:29:47.890" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3998" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2013-10-20T13:57:23.867" Score="0" Body="Bughouse is a chess variant played by two teams using multiple boards. The players on a team are assigned alternating colors. Captured pieces are not dead but are instead passed between team-mates." OwnerUserId="1485" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-06-22T12:29:47.890" LastActivityDate="2017-06-22T12:29:47.890" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="3999" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="336" CreationDate="2013-10-21T19:38:01.580" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;To complement Daniel's answer: Black often aims for the solid Hanham setup with &lt;code&gt;Nf6&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;Nbd7&lt;/code&gt;and &lt;code&gt;Be7&lt;/code&gt; without surrendering the center. The problem is to find a suitable move order from the position&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;   [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 d6 3.d4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If black plays &lt;code&gt;3...Nf6&lt;/code&gt;, then white gets pressure and a solid plus after &lt;code&gt;4.dxe5 Nxe4 5.Qd5!&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;   [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 d6 3.d4 Nf6 4.dxe5 Nxe4 5.Qd5!&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black can try &lt;code&gt;3...Nd7&lt;/code&gt; first, but then the problem is to find a good move after &lt;code&gt;4.Bc4&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;   [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 d6 3.d4 Nd7 4.Bc4 (4...c6 5.O-O Be7 6.dxe5 dxe5 7.Ng5! Bxg5 8.Qh5) (4...Be7 5.dxe5! Nxe5 (5...dxe5 6.Qd5) 6.Nxe5 dxe5 7.Qh5) (4...Ngf6 5.Ng5) 4...&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;4... Ngf6&lt;/code&gt; loses because of &lt;code&gt;5.Ng5&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;4...Be7&lt;/code&gt; is bad due to the less obvious &lt;code&gt;5.dxe5! Nxe5 (5...dxe5 6.Qd5) 6.Nxe5 dxe5 7.Qh5&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;4...c6&lt;/code&gt; is probably best, but loses the bishop pair after &lt;code&gt;5.O-O Be7 6.dxe5 dxe5 7.Ng5! Bxg5 8.Qh5&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The best way to reach the Hanham is probably with the radically different move order &lt;code&gt;1.e4 d6 2.d4 Nf6 3.Nc3 e5 4.Nf3 Nbd7&lt;/code&gt;, although white then has the option of exchanging into a slightly better endgame with &lt;code&gt;4.dxe5 dxe5 5.Qxd8 Kxd8&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;     [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 d6 2.d4 Nf6 3.Nc3 e5 4.Nf3 (4.dxe5 dxe5 5.Qxd8 Kxd8) Nbd7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1485" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2013-10-21T19:43:24.790" LastActivityDate="2013-10-21T19:43:24.790" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4000" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="730" CreationDate="2013-10-22T10:09:58.170" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is a fun tactic, involving underpromotion, to finish off the game if you are two connected pawns up in a rook endgame. I saw this in an endgame manual a long time ago, but cannot find the source anymore. The tactic is totally unnecessary as white has other ways to win. Still, it's quite impressive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;r6k/8/6PP/5RK1/8/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Rf8+ Rxf8 2.g7+ Kh7 (2...Kg8 3.Kg6) 3.gxf8=N+!(3.gxf8=B!)(3.gxf8=Q??)(3.gxf8=R??)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After &lt;code&gt;1.Rf8+ Rxf8 2.g7+&lt;/code&gt; black doesn't play &lt;code&gt;2...Kg8&lt;/code&gt; because of &lt;code&gt;3.Kg6&lt;/code&gt; and mate next move (&lt;code&gt;4.h7#&lt;/code&gt;). Instead black plays &lt;code&gt;2...Kh7&lt;/code&gt; hoping for stalemate. Then &lt;code&gt;3.gxf8=N+!&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;3.gxf8=B!&lt;/code&gt; both win, while &lt;code&gt;3.gxf8=Q??&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;3.gxf8=R??&lt;/code&gt; lead to immediate draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1485" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2013-10-22T11:51:21.610" LastActivityDate="2013-10-22T11:51:21.610" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4001" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4002" CreationDate="2013-10-22T18:30:54.297" Score="12" ViewCount="3213" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have found the following disadvantages of the fianchetto bishop:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) The diagonal it controls is often blocked by the knight in its natural square.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) The diagonal it controls is often blocked by central pawns of the same team or of the opponents.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) Advancing the knight pawn (b2 -b3 or g2 - g3) somewhat weakens the pawn structure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4) If the other bishop is developed along its normal diagonal, for eg.to b5,then advancing the knight pawn - b2-b3 cuts off the escape route for the other bishop - after for eg. 4) B-b5 a6 5) B-a4 b5 and 6) B-b3 is not possible because of the pawn at b3 and the bishop is trapped. So it somewhat impedes the development of the other bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5) The fianchetto bishop cannot be defended by a pawn and is vulnerable to attack from the sides. Also the 'hole' in the pawn structure can make the rook vulnerable if the fianchetto bishop is moved from its b2 or g2 spot.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For these reasons, I've personally never preferred the fianchetto.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yet, despite these drawbacks, the fianchetto development is often used in certain openings such as the Sicilian dragon and variations of QGD. Some players even open the game with the fianchetto. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, overall, is fianchetto development a good idea and under which conditions is it justified? What are the points to keep in mind during fianchetto development?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1811" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-10-10T11:38:10.177" LastActivityDate="2019-10-10T11:38:10.177" Title="Fianchetto bishop vs. normal bishop?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;fianchetto&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="4002" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4001" CreationDate="2013-10-22T18:47:51.730" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;All the things you say are true! But fianchettoed bishops have some advantages as well. Here are a few:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;They control multiple central squares at once. A fianchettoed bishop attacks half of the center four squares (e.g., a bishop on g2 attacks e4 and d5). Bishops not on the long diagonals can't do this.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;They also can attack multiple squares around the opponent's king at once. A Dragon bishop on g7 facing a queenside-castled king on b1 casts its eye on c3, b2, and a1.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;They can attack and defend simultaneously. A bishop on g2 has a lot of influence over the center squares of e4 and d5, not to mention that it can also eye a black pawn at b7 or the rook behind it at a8. But it also protects a castled king, covering f3 and h3.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;It's not easy to attack them. A bishop at b5, say, is often forced back to b3 with ...a6 ...b5. And Black often even attacks it again from there, say by ...Na5. On the other hand, a fianchettoed bishop on g2 is nicely tucked out of play. Usually the only thing you have to worry about much is an opposing bishop coming to h3 supported by a queen.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Deciding where to put your bishops involves a lot of tradeoffs, which include the positive aspects mentioned here as well as the negative ones in your question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2013-10-22T18:47:51.730" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4003" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4001" CreationDate="2013-10-22T22:38:56.363" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Such bishops attack the center and the opponent's knight pawn and rook.  If the financhetto is on the wing opposite the opponent's castled king, it's a dagger.  Any queen move onto that diagonal is can be a double attack.  So a perfectly good plan would be to clear the diagonal, planning to pick up undefended material with the queen, after all the exchanges happen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Until the diagonal is clear, it supports pawns and knights occupying the center, or puts pressure on the opponent's pieces that are there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What's not to like!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2013-10-22T22:38:56.363" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4004" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-10-23T07:07:43.407" Score="1" ViewCount="430" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm interested in the total number of active chess clubs in the world.&#xA;I'd also be keen to see any historical trends in this number over the past couple of decades.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="350" LastEditorUserId="350" LastEditDate="2013-12-16T03:35:44.713" LastActivityDate="2020-01-22T16:19:35.853" Title="How many chess clubs are there in the world?" Tags="&lt;clubs&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4005" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4001" CreationDate="2013-10-23T07:14:49.713" Score="7" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1) The diagonal it controls is often blocked by the knight in its&#xA;  natural square.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's not too bad, the knight is a dynamic piece and sooner or later it will be moved.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;2) The diagonal it controls is often blocked by central pawns of the&#xA;  same team or of the opponents.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe the main strategy in the opening and middle game after fianchetto is try to not block the diagonal by self pawn and opening the center. A common method is let the opponent make his center by pawns and after that you attack to the center by f or c pawns, in this situation the fianchettoed bishop is useful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;3) Advancing the knight pawn (b2 -b3 or g2 - g3) somewhat weakens the&#xA;  pawn structure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes. &lt;em&gt;“Pawns cannot move backwards”&lt;/em&gt; you made your decision to fianchetto and you should pay something. After advancing b or g pawns, neighbor squares in third row are like holes. Try to keep the fianchetto bishop to stop opponent put his pieces in the holes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;4) If the other bishop is developed along its normal diagonal, for&#xA;  e.g. to b5, then advancing the knight pawn - b2-b3 cuts off the escape&#xA;  route for the other bishop ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes again. After fianchetto a bishop, another bishop can not used to pin the same side knight. Because after attacking to the bishop by pawns a or h, the bishop should give a tempo and comes back or exchanges by opponent knight which is not desired sometimes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;5) The fianchettoed bishop cannot be defended by a pawn and is&#xA;  vulnerable to attack from the sides...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The main defender is the king. Not to worry about that since you have options to defend your position. Anyway it's chess and everything depends on the exact calculation not broad pieces of advice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1824" LastEditorUserId="8063" LastEditDate="2015-08-19T16:22:49.390" LastActivityDate="2015-08-19T16:22:49.390" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4006" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1515" CreationDate="2013-10-23T14:46:53.923" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is not a house rule or a known variant-is one of the original rules to chess. A piece that must defend the king can offer no attack. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A situation arose a few days ago where I lost a game and while I accepted the loss. I was rather bitter about it. The fact is I was unable to move my king through a file due to a rook blocking it, however this rook was in an absolute pin. In fact my king would have been in no danger at all to walk over the file, but the rules said I can't due to check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I instantly railed against the rule. Why should I lose the game over a threat which any chess player can see is not a threat? The answer is once upon a time I wouldn't, but the rules have been changed. This rule is like the poster said: it adds a lot of complexity to the game and is in fact more correct. Think it over.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1837" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-01-15T15:09:17.923" LastActivityDate="2020-01-15T15:09:17.923" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="4007" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4004" CreationDate="2013-10-24T08:12:08.427" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would imagine that the number of chess clubs remain relatively constant. From my small sample size of exposure, I have not witnessed a single chess club die out but have seen a few born. Chess is certainly not decreasing in popularity, so I don't see a reason why there would be a decrease in the number of chess clubs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1382" LastActivityDate="2013-10-24T08:12:08.427" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4008" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4012" CreationDate="2013-10-24T10:42:42.957" Score="8" ViewCount="3369" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a keen player of d4 as white. One of the things that I often read is that the exchange variation of the Queens Gambit Declined is generally considered good for white:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. cxd5 exd5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But the exchange variation of the Slav (or exchanging after Nc3 in the Slav) is considered better for black:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. c4 c6 3.cxd5 (3. Nc3 Nf6 4. cxd5 cxd5) 3...cxd5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I checked &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/explorer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/explorer&lt;/a&gt; and it seems to support this view, with the following win/draw/lose statistics for white for the above variations:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;QGD All Variations: (41%, 37.7%,21.3%)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;QGD Exchange:  (49.8%,35.3%,14.9%)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Slav All Variations: (37.8%, 41.3%, 20.9%) &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Slav (early exchange): (22.5%,55.2%,22.3%)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Slav (exchange after Nc3): (30.2%,49.9%,19.9%)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So it seems clear that the exchange of central pawns favours white in the QGD, but favours black in the Slav.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is simply - why? The resulting positions are superfluously similar (in the Slav black is missing the c-pawn, while in the QGD the e-pawn), yet positionally these must be very different! Is there a simple explanation of why this is the case? Would a clever newbie (i.e. somebody who plays chess very well, but have never played these variations) be able to make this deduction over the board through pure reasoning, or is this the type of thing you can only deduce by studying the opening theory?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1816" LastEditorDisplayName="user1108" LastEditDate="2017-03-29T09:08:46.757" LastActivityDate="2017-03-29T09:08:46.757" Title="Queens Gambit Declined vs Slav: Exchange Variations" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;&lt;queens-gambit&gt;&lt;slav-defense&gt;&lt;queens-gambit-declined&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4009" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1207" CreationDate="2013-10-24T10:48:39.023" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;My opinion: bad habit. Never ask for a takeback (unless it was a mouse slip online).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it's a dreadful move then learn from it. If it's only a piece or a rook then it will force you to be resourceful to try and get the game back. You'd be surprised how often this is possible with the right mental attitude. This is a very useful skill.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;It happened, I haven't lost, he's going to be cocky, let's setup some traps to bring it back&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The sign of a good player is one who makes a blunder and doesn't event break sweat, your opponent might even start second guessing &quot;Is there a deep sacrifice here I've missed&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Exception: If you are playing someone clearly weaker than you, and they make a blunder (in a friendly). Make a note of the position and go back to it after the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="350" LastActivityDate="2013-10-24T10:48:39.023" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4011" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4008" CreationDate="2013-10-24T13:09:22.937" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Short answer: In symmetric positions it's difficult to get an advantage if there's nothing concrete. In the Exchange Slav white only has an extra half-move against black's very solid position. Compare with the Exchange French which is even more drawish.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the Exchange variation of Queen's Gambit Declined on the other hand, there is a structural imbalance that white can try to exploit. The white position is quite flexible, there are many different strategies to choose from that lead to complicated play. White can go for the minority attack (&lt;code&gt;b4-b5&lt;/code&gt;), play in the center (&lt;code&gt;f3&lt;/code&gt; followed by &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt;), and there are other options depending on the concrete line. In most lines white has a small, but real, advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1485" LastActivityDate="2013-10-24T13:09:22.937" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4012" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4008" CreationDate="2013-10-24T14:49:38.437" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;White happens to have a couple of nice concrete plans in the particular QGD Exchange variation you mention (1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.cxd5 exd5). One involves e3, f3, Nge2, and a break in the center with e4. The other is a minority attack on Black's a7-b7-c6-d5 pawn structure with b2-b4-b5. You will note that White's stats are much worse in the variation 1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.cxd5 exd5, even though the pawn structures are the same, because he no longer has the f3/e4 plan. So it is not nearly as simple as &quot;the exchange of pawns favors White in the QGD but favors Black in the Slav.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2013-10-24T14:49:38.437" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4013" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-10-25T00:28:15.183" Score="10" ViewCount="4501" Body="&lt;p&gt;It doesn't kick the bishop off that diagonal, and playing ...b5 later puts the bishop on another great diagonal and is supposedly bad for black (an explanation of this would be great too). So why is 3...a6 in the main line for black?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1839" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2013-12-14T23:10:45.190" LastActivityDate="2016-07-24T02:35:40.727" Title="What is the purpose of 3...a6 in the Ruy Lopez?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;ruy-lopez&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4014" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4013" CreationDate="2013-10-25T11:59:05.537" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here's a common variation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Ba4 b5 5. Bb3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The white Bishop is on a decent square.  It attacks a center square (d5), the weak f7 pawn, and the square to which the Black King will likely retire (g8).  However, that's all this Bishop can do.  Its influence is limited to 6 squares and it has little mobility.  Black has gained space on the Queen side.  Bb7 is a nice move.  Black can be thinking about playing c5 followed by Qb6, or Bb5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In short, the position is very flexible for Black.  Watch that &lt;code&gt;f7&lt;/code&gt; square, though!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2013-10-25T11:59:05.537" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4015" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4013" CreationDate="2013-10-25T13:46:42.023" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;Playing ...b5 later is not bad for black. Playing it immediately isn't so great, but Black almost always plays ...b5 at some point (unless White plays Bxc6 first!).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The main reason to play ...a6 early is that you can now play ...b5 any time you want to if you decide that you don't White to take the knight on c6. If you don't play ...a6, and then later decide that you want to kick the bishop away and start by playing ...a6, White can go ahead and play Bxc6. If you've already played ...a6, you can go straight to ...b5 and White doesn't get a chance to capture your knight in response.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2013-10-25T13:46:42.023" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4016" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4013" CreationDate="2013-10-25T20:04:45.677" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both diagonals &lt;code&gt;a4-e8&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;a2-g8&lt;/code&gt; are good for white's bishop. Ruy-lopez strategy is to pressure on black's position by &lt;code&gt;a4-e8&lt;/code&gt; diagonal. Ruy-lopez claims this diagonal is more dangerous and annoying for black. Indirect pressuring on black's king and then on the knight on &lt;code&gt;c6&lt;/code&gt; is the idea.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The pawn on &lt;code&gt;d7&lt;/code&gt; is going to advance and after that the knight on &lt;code&gt;c6&lt;/code&gt; which is protector of &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt; will be pinned by the bishop. It can reduce the speed of black's developing. After &lt;code&gt;a6&lt;/code&gt; white shall decide to exchange or backward the bishop. After backward, black has the ability to play &lt;code&gt;b5&lt;/code&gt; and escape from pinning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, playing ruy-lopez without &lt;code&gt;a6&lt;/code&gt; is possible but history shows, it's better to play the main variant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1824" LastEditorUserId="1824" LastEditDate="2013-10-28T07:06:51.943" LastActivityDate="2013-10-28T07:06:51.943" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4017" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4004" CreationDate="2013-10-26T06:56:55.267" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess organization membership rises and falls with the popularity of the game of chess. About 60% of the members in the US are youth, organized in school and college clubs. In the 1990s there was a trend of rising numbers of school clubs in the US, and the membership numbers peaked around 2002. Chess has declined a little since then, but is not 'dying off' at all.&#xA;THE Google trend graph for 'chess' is down slightly: &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/DT2hy.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/DT2hy.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;down&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The interest is still at a relatively high level, and factors like celebrity players could cause a resumed increase in youth interest.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1833" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2019-02-16T13:06:25.570" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="4018" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2013-10-26T09:34:08.917" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2013-10-26T09:34:08.917" LastActivityDate="2013-10-26T09:34:08.917" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4019" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2013-10-26T09:34:08.917" Score="0" Body="The Queen's Gambit Accepted is the chess opening that begins with the moves 1. d4 d5 2. c4 dxc4." OwnerUserId="1485" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2013-10-26T14:12:02.870" LastActivityDate="2013-10-26T14:12:02.870" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4020" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2013-10-26T09:37:34.250" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2013-10-26T09:37:34.250" LastActivityDate="2013-10-26T09:37:34.250" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4021" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2013-10-26T09:37:34.250" Score="0" Body="The English Opening is the chess opening characterized by white's opening move 1. c4." OwnerUserId="1485" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2013-10-26T14:12:16.433" LastActivityDate="2013-10-26T14:12:16.433" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4023" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1474" CreationDate="2013-10-27T10:39:35.173" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;With new analysis from user AlwaysLearningNewStuff, we can conclude this is a win for white,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first critical position appears after &lt;code&gt;1.Be2 Kb7&lt;/code&gt;.          &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;      [FEN &quot;2k5/5b2/p7/P1p2p1p/P4P1P/2K2B2/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;       1.Be2 Kb7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black defends everything at the moment, but the only moves that keep the position are &lt;code&gt;Kb7-a7-b7&lt;/code&gt;. A simple triangle maneuver puts black in zugzwang.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;     [FEN &quot;2k5/5b2/p7/P1p2p1p/P4P1P/2K2B2/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;       1.Be2 Kb7 2.Kd2 Ka7 3.Kc2 Kb7 4.Kc3 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now black is in &lt;em&gt;zugzwang&lt;/em&gt; and loses. The following lines illustrate this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;2k5/5b2/p7/P1p2p1p/P4P1P/2K2B2/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Be2 Kb7 2.Kd2 Ka7 3.Kc2!+- Kb7 4.Kc3 ( 4...Ka7 5.Bc4 Be8 ( 5...Bg6 6.Be6 Kb7 7.Kc4 Kc6 8.Bd5+ Kd6 9.Bb7+- Bf7+ 10.Kd3 )( 5...Bxc4 6.Kxc4 Kb7 7.Kxc5+- ) 6.Be6 Bg6 7.Kc4 Kb7 8.Kxc5+- )( 4...Bg6 5.Bf3+! Kc7 6.Kc4 Kd6 7.Bb7+- Bf7+ 8.Kd3 )( 4...Be8 5.Kc4 Kc6 6. Bf3+ Kd6 7.Bb7+- Bf7+ 8.Kd3 ) c4! 5.Kd4! ( 5.Bxc4? Bxc4 6.Kxc4 Kc6= ) 5...Kc7 ( 5...Kc6? 6.Bxc4 Bxc4 7.Kxc4+- )( 5...Kc8? 6.Bxc4+- Bxc4 7.Kxc4 Kc7 8.Kc5 ) 6.Bf3! Kc8 7.Bd1!!+- Kc7 ( 7...Kd7 8.Bc2! Be6 9.Ke5+-)( 7...Kb7? 8.Bc2! Be6 9.Ke5 Bd7 ( 8... Bg8 9.Bxf5+- ) 10.Kd5!+- ) 8.Bc2! Be6 9.Ke5 Kd7 ( 9...Bd7 10.Kd5!+- ) 10.Bd1! Bf7 11.Kxf5 Kd6 12.Kf6!+-&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The important idea is that after &lt;code&gt;4...c4!&lt;/code&gt; White uses &lt;code&gt;6.Bf3!&lt;/code&gt; to restrict Black king. After &lt;code&gt;6...Kc8&lt;/code&gt; White repositions Bishop on &lt;code&gt;c2&lt;/code&gt; with the move &lt;code&gt;7.Bd1!!&lt;/code&gt; so the decisive &lt;em&gt;zugzwang&lt;/em&gt; can be achieved. After &lt;code&gt;12.Kf6!&lt;/code&gt; the rest is a matter of technique.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The analysis is kept as brief as possible in order to preserve space, since the rest of the winning moves can be easily found with an engine. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1485" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2014-01-25T12:04:52.867" LastActivityDate="2014-01-25T12:04:52.867" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4024" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4025" CreationDate="2013-10-28T10:47:19.897" Score="5" ViewCount="1170" Body="&lt;p&gt;I use Stockfish 4 to analyze chess games in both Babaschess and Winboard.  From time to time, Stockfish outputs a line with info like time, score, principal variation, etc.  In Babaschess, the 'score' behaves as I would expect; it is always from white's perspective.  If white is doing well, the score is always positive; if black is doing well, the score is always negative.  However, in Winboard, the score is always from the perspective of the current player, meaning that it tends to veer from positive-negative-positive-negative, if one player stays in the lead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How can I get the score to behave in Winboard as it does in Babaschess, and always be from white's perspective; always negative if black is doing well?  Here's the line in my Winboard 'tags' that I use to load the Stockfish engine:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&quot;Stockfish&quot; -fcp &quot;stockfish_4_32bit.exe&quot; -fd &quot;C:\Program Files\BabasChess\Engines\stockfish-4-win\Windows&quot; -fUCI&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1539" LastActivityDate="2013-10-29T10:12:41.037" Title="How to make Stockfish always give the score from white's perspective in Winboard?" Tags="&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;babaschess&gt;&lt;winboard&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4025" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4024" CreationDate="2013-10-28T16:05:18.967" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Use &lt;code&gt;/firstScoreAbs true&lt;/code&gt; command option (&lt;em&gt;Tested in version 4.7.2&lt;/em&gt;):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If this option is set, the score reported by the engine is taken to be&#xA;  that in favor of white, even when the engine plays black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&quot;stockfish_4_32bit.exe&quot; -fd &quot;path\Stockfish&quot; -fUCI  /firstScoreAbs true&#xA;                                                    ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1824" LastEditorUserId="1824" LastEditDate="2013-10-29T10:12:41.037" LastActivityDate="2013-10-29T10:12:41.037" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4026" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1668" CreationDate="2013-10-29T07:23:34.913" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;They don't want to let weaker players beat them by using a computer, that's the real reason. If Chess engines didn't exist there would be a lot more correspondence games and longer time controls. If you are a titled player there will undoubtedly be thousands of patzers eager to make you look foolish and pretend they are strong players by handing you a loss online.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And even in games between two strong players, just the thought that &lt;em&gt;one might&lt;/em&gt; be cheating is reason enough for them to play blitz/bullet games instead, where they can rest assured that no one is cheating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1856" LastEditorUserId="1856" LastEditDate="2013-10-29T07:28:53.740" LastActivityDate="2013-10-29T07:28:53.740" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4027" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4013" CreationDate="2013-10-29T08:06:26.707" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;After ...a6,  white has to make a choice to either play Bxc6 or Ba4. If Bxc6 then black has enough resources to protect his e5 pawn and maintain a stable position (if 4.Bxc6 dxc6 5.Nxe5?! Qd4 and black will regain his pawn with good position. And if white doesn't play 5.Nxe5 then black has the bishop pair and simple development; black aims to prove that Bxc6 was premature).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus white tries Ba4 instead to try to maintain some edge, he still threatens Bxc6 but waits until he protects his own e4 pawn first before doing so. Seeing all this, that's the reason why black plays ...a6 immediately. Black can play ...b5 when necessary to help protect his e5 pawn when time comes. Yes the bishop goes to another good diagonal, but black doesn't lose any tempo with ...a6 and ...b5 so it's even ground. If black plays ...a6 later instead, white can -under good circumstances-  immediately play Bxc6 (trying to win the e5 pawn, which is what he was threatening to do anyway) but without losing a tempo by retreating to a4 first.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1856" LastEditorUserId="1856" LastEditDate="2013-10-29T08:26:10.867" LastActivityDate="2013-10-29T08:26:10.867" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4028" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4013" CreationDate="2013-10-29T08:45:37.803" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The idea of 3. .. a6 is to &lt;strong&gt;force&lt;/strong&gt; white player to make a &lt;strong&gt;decision about&lt;/strong&gt; own &lt;strong&gt;black Bishop&lt;/strong&gt; already in this part of the game. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Bc6 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Its two different variations with tons of theory in each of it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want the evaluation of 3. ... a6 move - it is neutral one, not aggressive.&#xA;In the same category is for example 3. ... d6&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 d6 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not aggresive not mean weak - it is a solid one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In contrast to 3. ... a6 or 3. ... d6&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;moves like 3... f5:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 f5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3... Nf6:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 Nf6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3... Nd4:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 Nd4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;forces the combination game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To show the example of passive move in this position is&#xA;3... Nge7:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 Nge7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;waiting for white action even creating some minimal troubles for own black bishop here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;To summarise it:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the purpose of 3. ... a6 in Ruy Lopez is to become more information about enemy black Bishop and as a result the whites plans for this game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1124" LastActivityDate="2013-10-29T08:45:37.803" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4029" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4008" CreationDate="2013-10-29T08:48:02.627" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Principle of Two Weaknesses is at work here, one weakness is easier to defend than two.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Asymmetry, especially in pawn structure, benefits the player ahead in development, because there is usually available play on more parts of the board. The situation becomes more of a race, and the faster developed player will have an easier way to obtain an advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Symmetry on the other hand, usually leads to play on one same section of the board. In the case of the Exchange Slav, play will most often revolve around Queenside (or otherwise someone has to break the symmetry by playing e4 or ...e5 leading to isolated queen pawn position, at the cost of weakening their own pawn structure).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Simply put, asymmetry often creates potential for two weaknesses, symmetry often creates only one, which is easier to defend against. As white you have the advantage of the first move, so it is wiser to aim for asymmetrical structure if you want any sort of advantage out of the opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1856" LastEditorUserId="1856" LastEditDate="2013-10-29T08:59:16.377" LastActivityDate="2013-10-29T08:59:16.377" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4030" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2013-10-29T09:06:34.410" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2013-10-29T09:06:34.410" LastActivityDate="2013-10-29T09:06:34.410" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4031" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2013-10-29T09:06:34.410" Score="0" Body="BabasChess is an Internet Chess Client for Windows. It has advanced and customizable features such as online playing, PGN viewer/editor, chess engines support for analyzing positions and chat features." OwnerUserId="1824" LastEditorUserId="1824" LastEditDate="2013-10-29T11:00:36.107" LastActivityDate="2013-10-29T11:00:36.107" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4032" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3962" CreationDate="2013-10-29T09:51:11.463" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;1...e5 is most &quot;principled&quot; response to 1.e4, and thus most often recommended for beginners.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At the beginner level, the opening you choose doesn't really make a difference. Quite frankly, the player who makes the ugliest blunders will be the one who loses the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you gain more experience, then the choice between 1...e5 or 1...c5 becomes more significant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1...e5 is a more &quot;technical&quot; opening. It can lead to a wide variety of scattered/random looking positions where development becomes paramount.  Or conversely it can lead to stale &quot;grinding&quot; positions where maneuvering becomes focus. This opening isn't really based on  themes, it's based more on logic and precision. I feel like a robot when I play this opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1...c5 is more &quot;thematic&quot;.  You'll come across familiar structures more often, and development is more systematic and natural to find (you won't have to find the PRECISE move to save your position as often, compared to the 1..e5 opening). This Sicilian is based more on knowing the ideas and themes of the opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nevertheless the Sicilian gets a &quot; highly theoretical&quot; reputation, but in my opinion only because so many players play this opening that they have analyzed it into great depths and created all this theory. The reality is any opening can become highly theoretical if analysed enough. The Sicilian is definitely more thematic/consistent. The 1...e5 is more logical/variety.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1856" LastActivityDate="2013-10-29T09:51:11.463" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4033" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4034" CreationDate="2013-10-29T11:19:55.930" Score="7" ViewCount="1656" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess theory suggests that pawns whose file is nearer to the central files are more powerful. This is somewhat obvious for the rook's pawn, which can attack only one square as opposed to the other pawns, which can each attack two squares. However, in practice, even the rook's pawn turns out to be somewhat useful as a pawn at a3 or h3 can deter the opponent bishop coming to b4 or g4. &#xA;In practice, are the pawns on central files really more powerful than the pawns on the side files? What is the reason? Does the situation change during the end game as opposed to the openings?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1811" LastActivityDate="2013-12-08T15:16:34.043" Title="Centre pawn vs. side pawn?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4034" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4033" CreationDate="2013-10-29T11:41:28.920" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;The more pieces on the board,  the more powerful the center pawns. This is typical for most opening and middlegame positions. The most convenient place for pieces to travel is usually through the center of the board, and the center pawns help to control that area.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The less pieces on the board, the more powerful the wing pawns. Less pieces on the board means less need to control pieces travelling through the center. A passed wing pawn is harder to stop than a passed center pawn. Your opponent needs to go further to the edge to defend against it. This can really stretch out and discoordinate his pieces if he has to defend against another weakness on the other side of the board. The outside passed pawn is like a decoy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Generally speaking, you can think of Center pawns becoming weaker and weaker as pieces are exchanged, and wing pawns stronger the closer you reach an endgame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1856" LastEditorUserId="1856" LastEditDate="2013-10-31T01:07:03.117" LastActivityDate="2013-10-31T01:07:03.117" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4035" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2013-10-29T11:50:20.800" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2013-10-29T11:50:20.800" LastActivityDate="2013-10-29T11:50:20.800" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4036" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2013-10-29T11:50:20.800" Score="0" Body="Winboard is graphical user interface for chess and other chess-like games. It displays a chessboard on the screen, accepts moves made with the mouse, and loads and saves games in Portable Game Notation (PGN). Winboard is a port of XBoard that runs natively on Windows. " OwnerUserId="1824" LastEditorUserId="12" LastEditDate="2013-10-29T18:00:32.753" LastActivityDate="2013-10-29T18:00:32.753" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4037" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4033" CreationDate="2013-10-29T11:59:24.393" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Central squares are the key.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Occupying central squares is important in the opening and middle-game levels in chess. Pawns which are nearer to central files can attack the 4 central squares and protect own pieces there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Side pawns are far from this battle, they should be unmoved until to choose the castling side, and after castling you shouldn't change the form of king's protector pawns as it's possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1824" LastActivityDate="2013-10-29T11:59:24.393" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4038" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4008" CreationDate="2013-10-29T18:58:45.070" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The exchange variation in the classical QGD can be viewed as theoretically favouring white because after the fourth move in your game, white has both his central pawns while black has only one. However, black now has a semi-open central file which he can use to control the centre through his rooks. Also, he has a queen side pawn majority and he can start pushing his pawns forward on the queen side and try and gain an advantage. So, if black is clever, he can hold his own. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By contrast, the exchange in slav yields a symmetrical position and also allows black to develop his Q Knight to its natural square,so black can be said to have achieved equality, which is definitely a good thing in a queen's pawn game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1811" LastActivityDate="2013-10-29T18:58:45.070" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4039" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2810" CreationDate="2013-10-29T21:29:12.563" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;A bishop pair is rarely worth more than a pawn. That would mean you're willing to sacrifice a pawn to obtain the bishop pair.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The value of pieces depends on what those pieces can accomplish, not just how many squares they control.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;knight/bishop = 3 pawns because at worst, a minor piece can usually sacrifice itself for 2 pawns. So it's worth at least 2 pawns, but minor pieces are more useful than 2 pawns, and can potentially win another pawn, so theoreticians estimate its value at 3 pawns. 4 pawns is pushing it, it's less likely a minor piece can force exchanging itself for a value of 4 pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The same can be said for the rook, a rook can usually exchange itself for a minor piece and pawn at any time, so it's worth at least 4 points. But the minor piece can't force the rook to make this exchange as easily as the rook can.  5 points is a fair estimation. Similar things can be said for the bishop pair and queen. It's the potential for these pieces to win more material than they can be exchanged for that increases its practical value.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1856" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2013-10-30T20:44:20.987" LastActivityDate="2013-10-30T20:44:20.987" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4040" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2013-10-31T00:12:03.467" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Slav Defense is the opening characterized by the moves 1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6. In this opening, Black attempts to hold onto the c4-pawn after accepting with b7-b5. White may prevent this with a2-a4, but this leads to a hole on b4, which is a key theme in the Slav. White aims to create a big center, while Black expands on the queenside and captures the b4-square.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-09-08T23:44:16.147" LastActivityDate="2020-09-08T23:44:16.147" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="4041" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2013-10-31T00:12:03.467" Score="0" Body="The Slav Defense is the opening characterized by the moves 1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6." OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2013-10-31T00:12:03.467" LastActivityDate="2013-10-31T00:12:03.467" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4042" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2013-10-31T00:15:10.043" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Philidor Defense is the opening characterized primarily by 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 d6, though other move orders are often used to reach Philidor Defense positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2013-10-31T00:15:10.043" LastActivityDate="2013-10-31T00:15:10.043" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4043" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2013-10-31T00:15:10.043" Score="0" Body="The Philidor Defense is the opening characterized primarily by 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 d6, though other move orders are often used to reach Philidor Defense positions." OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2013-10-31T00:15:10.043" LastActivityDate="2013-10-31T00:15:10.043" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4044" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2013-10-31T00:16:19.173" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Alexander Alekhine was the 4th world champion of chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2013-10-31T00:16:19.173" LastActivityDate="2013-10-31T00:16:19.173" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4045" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2013-10-31T00:16:19.173" Score="0" Body="Alexander Alekhine (1892-1946) was the 4th World Champion of chess. He first won his title by defeating Jose Raul Capablanca in a 1927 title match." OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2014-02-15T13:02:49.073" LastActivityDate="2014-02-15T13:02:49.073" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4046" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2347" CreationDate="2013-10-31T00:28:11.033" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can only draw arrows and other board diagrams in the comment editor. However, the code for these arrows will show in the pgn window, which is annoying.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This would be a welcome change to the program. I would also like to see a return to the old best game tree window where you could choose the number of games and the result.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1864" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2013-10-31T00:55:10.783" LastActivityDate="2013-10-31T00:55:10.783" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4048" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4013" CreationDate="2013-11-02T20:03:56.170" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The reason a6 is good is because it &quot;puts the question&quot; to the White Bishop. If White doesn't immediately play B(b5)x N(c6), it gives Black the later &lt;strong&gt;option of&lt;/strong&gt; kicking White off the a4 to e8 diagonal by playing b5 later on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, White gets another good diagonal on a2...g8. But one of the diagonals is better (or less bad) for Black than the other, meaning that Black's option of playing b5 is a valuable one. Also, unless White chooses to stay on this diagonal instead of a2...g8, the bishop goes off the f1...a6 diagonal when he retreats.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In his prime, world champion J.R. Capablanca was the hardest person in the world to defeat (he once went eight years without a single tournament loss), even though he was not always victorious (earned many draws). The reason is that he made as many moves as possible to take away his opponent's options. This is one example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One of the few people to beat Capablanca (in 1914, just before this time) was Emanuel Lasker, who took the knight immediately. Most people playing White don't want to do this immediately, because this limits their options. But a6 prevents White from doing this at a later, more favorable time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastEditorUserId="17" LastEditDate="2016-07-24T02:35:40.727" LastActivityDate="2016-07-24T02:35:40.727" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4049" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4001" CreationDate="2013-11-02T20:16:42.893" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;All of your alleged disadvantages are offset by compensating advantages:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) &quot;The diagonal it controls is often blocked by the knight in its natural square.&quot; Yes, but when the knight moves it can &quot;discover&quot; an attack by the bishop, while making its own (second) attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) &quot;The diagonal it controls is often blocked by central pawns of the same team or of the opponents.&quot; Yes, but the bishop can be a power weapon in attacking the opponent's pawns (in conjunction with your pawns and pieces), or defending your own.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) &quot;Advancing the knight pawn (b2 -b3 or g2 - g3) somewhat weakens the pawn structure.&quot; Yes, but the bishop actually strengthens the whole structure. This is particularly true if the opponent's bishop of the same color has been exchanged for say, a knight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4) &quot;If the other bishop is developed along its normal diagonal, for eg.to b5,then advancing the knight pawn - b2-b3 cuts off the escape route for the other bishop - after for eg. 4) B-b5 a6 5) B-a4 b5 and 6) B-b3 is not possible because of the pawn at b3 and the bishop is trapped. So it somewhat impedes the development of the other bishop.&quot; Developing the light squared bishop might require pawns on d4 and e3, blocking the dark squared bishop, which might then be best placed at b2 (or a3).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5) &quot;The fianchetto bishop cannot be defended by a pawn and is vulnerable to attack from the sides. Also the 'hole' in the pawn structure can make the rook vulnerable if the fianchetto bishop is moved from its b2 or g2 spot.&quot; A fianchettoed bishop is protected by a king. A bishop in the &quot;open&quot; can be trapped by opposing pawns in e.g. a &quot;Noah's Ark&quot; trap.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A fianchettoed bishop is not necessarily in a worse (or better) position than the same bishop in another position. It all depends on what type of game you're playing, against what type of opponent, and what you're trying to accomplish (win, or merely draw).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2013-11-02T20:16:42.893" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4051" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2662" CreationDate="2013-11-03T05:01:19.083" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess made the top 10 most searched for games on Google for over 117 months. I think they've been recording the top searches for about 117 months. It's the most popular board game in the world.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.google.com/trends/explore?q=chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.google.com/trends/explore?q=chess&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="787" LastEditorUserId="1937" LastEditDate="2013-11-20T05:22:59.887" LastActivityDate="2013-11-20T05:22:59.887" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4054" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2662" CreationDate="2013-11-03T20:03:39.720" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess isn't popular because all major tournaments make it lack emotion.  For some reason, all major tournaments are those of &lt;em&gt;classic&lt;/em&gt; chess, that is, with high quality games that last 5 hours or more.  The outcome of these high quality games at the highest play level is most typically a draw.  This is totally broken and does not have a chance to make it to the mainstream public.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now look at soccer, which has a bit of popularity in Europe and South America.  At the higher level there are few goals scored but games are more often than not full of emotion.  Just like chess, a small mistake (even a referee mistake) can determine the result of a game.  Just like chess, it is a game of mistakes, but there is a major difference: things happen fast, sometimes faster than the eye can tell. The center back does not let the forward to think as much time as he wishes so that he can make the shoot of the century. Instead, he tackles him.  The difference of level among a division and the division below is the time they have left to make a decision once they have the ball.  The higher the division, the shorter the time to think.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To answer your question, FIDE does not try to make chess more popular because it is promoting the classic games, which are of no interest and of a lot less quality than two machines playing against each other with a regular computer.  FIDE has been losing time trying to make chess an Olympic sport so that it can get funds by governments that are willing to increase their vanity each 4 years by getting Olympic medals.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If FIDE had any interest in making it more popular, the major tournaments where all money and fame are need to be of fast games, from 5 to 10 minutes by player, with lower quality but a lot more fun, and leave the perfect games for the machines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="159" LastActivityDate="2013-11-03T20:03:39.720" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4055" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4057" CreationDate="2013-11-04T09:00:55.107" Score="7" ViewCount="2356" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am creating a small chess engine for a CS class, nothing serious, i need to read the openings from a txt file or any format, i can go to websites like chessgames.com and download individual games, but i was hoping to download big files containing many openings and so much data, especially on the dragon variation, but any data will do. So is there a place where i can get my hands on that kind of data?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks for all the guys who answered, I upvoted all of them and accepted the one I think is the best, so grateful for all of you guys, i just want to add a site that i found today by mistake, &lt;a href=&quot;http://chess4real.com/robert-james-bobby-fischer-953-chess-games-to-download-1943-2008/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1105" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2013-11-08T21:41:02.903" LastActivityDate="2013-11-08T21:41:02.903" Title="Is it possible to download a big txt file containing many openings?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;programming&gt;&lt;open-source&gt;&lt;database&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4056" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4055" CreationDate="2013-11-04T10:24:21.867" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.downloadcollection.com/freeware/chess-opening-book-txt.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Freeware: Chess Opening Book Txt&lt;/a&gt; what you are looking for?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are a lot of opening also with evaluation. Sure you have to take care about the format which is used to store the information.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1124" LastActivityDate="2013-11-04T10:24:21.867" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4057" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4055" CreationDate="2013-11-04T17:52:14.950" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;What you're looking for is a PGN file that contains several games. You can parse the game data and enter in the opening moves. A great resource is &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.pgnmentor.com/files.html#openings&quot;&gt;PGN Mentor&lt;/a&gt; where you can browse openings and download the appropriate PGNs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1382" LastActivityDate="2013-11-04T17:52:14.950" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4058" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4055" CreationDate="2013-11-05T19:51:05.883" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Free chess opening books in Chessbase Book format (*.CTG) can be downloaded from &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.hiarcs.com/chess-opening-book-free.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.hiarcs.com/chess-opening-book-free.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can use it for a CS class project, but nothing commercial:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Please note these books are free for you to download and use for your&#xA;  personal use only. Under no circumstances are the books to be hosted&#xA;  on another website without the prior express written permission of&#xA;  Applied Computer Concepts Ltd.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also useful will be &lt;a href=&quot;http://rybkaforum.net/cgi-bin/rybkaforum/topic_show.pl?tid=2319&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;the CTG format unofficial specification&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="933" LastActivityDate="2013-11-05T19:51:05.883" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4059" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1515" CreationDate="2013-11-05T20:41:11.070" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;This post is in response to RemcoGerlich's request for a source for Annunuki's claim that the rule discussed here is an old rule.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From &lt;em&gt;A History of Chess&lt;/em&gt; by H. J. R. Murray, chapter 5, &quot;Chess in the Malay Lands&quot;, page 103:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;This leads to a still greater anomaly, a piece which is covering a check is deemed to have no power of giving check to the opposing King:  e.g. White, Kg5, Bg4; Black, Ke2, Rf3, Pd3; White can calmly play Kf4 and draw the game.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The surrounding text offers no additional insight.  In the above example, I do not see the draw, but this is part of a section that discusses chess as played by the Bataks, and likely involves other rules that differ from modern chess.  Nonetheless, the reference seems relevant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source:  Murray, H. J. R. A History of Chess (Northampton, MA: Benjamin Press, 1985)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As an aside, Murray's 900 page book from 1913, long out of print, was reprinted last year by Skyhorse Publishing for a reasonable price.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1877" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2013-11-09T02:36:42.263" LastActivityDate="2013-11-09T02:36:42.263" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4060" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-11-05T21:58:34.797" Score="13" ViewCount="1580" Body="&lt;p&gt;In an official blitz game, what happens if a player hits a chess clock without making a move? I believe that making an illegal move in a blitz game is an automatic loss. But does this count as an illegal move because my opponent didn't really make a move?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1878" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-01-05T21:17:27.807" LastActivityDate="2021-01-05T21:17:27.807" Title="Hitting the clock without moving" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;illegal-move&gt;&lt;chess-clocks&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="4061" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4060" CreationDate="2013-11-05T22:07:18.197" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You are correct in saying that in blitz, an illegal move loses the game. In this case, an illegal move is made because your opponent did not move. Hence, if you correctly stop the clock and make a claim to the tournament director, you win the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I feel that this would have to be intentional though. I'm not sure what would happen if your opponent accidentally brushed the clock or something. I suppose the decision would be left up to the arbiter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1382" LastActivityDate="2013-11-05T22:07:18.197" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4062" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4060" CreationDate="2013-11-05T23:47:26.970" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Per &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fide.com/component/handbook/?id=125&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;E.I.01B. Appendices - B.3/c&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;An illegal move is completed once the opponent’s clock has been started. The opponent is entitled to claim a win before he has made his own move. However, if the opponent cannot checkmate the player’s king by any possible series of legal moves, then the claimant is entitled to claim a draw before he has made his own move. Once the opponent has made his own move, an illegal move cannot be corrected unless mutually agreed without intervention of an arbiter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1824" LastEditorUserId="1824" LastEditDate="2013-11-05T23:52:28.777" LastActivityDate="2013-11-05T23:52:28.777" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4063" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2771" CreationDate="2013-11-06T01:54:31.543" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;400 Points in a year is pretty tough. I don’t think you should put yourself under unnecessary stress of achieving this goal within one year. Unlike others I don’t think it’s unrealistic to reach a 2000+ rating with a less stringent dead-line. &#xA;A good coach would of course be great. I don’t know how easy it is to find a suitable coach though. I would recommend studying Nimzovich’s Chess Praxis, and reading some of Silman’s books especially “How to reassess your chess”. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Signing up at chess.com and watching instructional videos combined with using their chessmentor and tactics trainer should also be helpful.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also aim to play a reasonable number of games and analyze them. Ideally with a stronger player from your club. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1879" LastEditorUserId="780" LastEditDate="2013-11-06T10:31:22.833" LastActivityDate="2013-11-06T10:31:22.833" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4064" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4060" CreationDate="2013-11-06T12:42:04.997" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can only make an illegal move by making a move. Pressing the clock without moving is not making a move. So the arbiter can't use that rule to make a decision.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is FIDE rule 6.13 (chapter 6 is about the clock): &quot;If an irregularity occurs and/or the pieces have to be restored to a previous position, the arbiter shall use his best judgement to determine the times to be shown on the clocks. He shall also, if necessary, adjust the clock’s move counter.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the arbiter can use his best judgement to reinstate the correct clock times. This is of course unfortunate (it's hard to stay concentrated for the players, especially the innocent player), but the arbiter can't just invent rules.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If this happens regularly (the player is doing this on purpose), there is always article 12.8: &quot;Persistent refusal by a player to comply with the Laws of Chess shall be penalised by loss of the game. The arbiter shall decide the score of the opponent.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2013-11-06T12:42:04.997" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4067" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-11-08T14:01:55.567" Score="8" ViewCount="500" Body="&lt;p&gt;Does any one know what was the question asked to Magnus Carlsen on 7th Nov during inaugural press conference of world championship 2013 which he refused to translate in english? And also, what was the answer he provided? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1889" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-03-01T15:22:59.137" LastActivityDate="2014-03-01T15:22:59.137" Title="What was the question asked to Magnus Carlsen which he refused to translate?" Tags="&lt;world-championship&gt;&lt;carlsen&gt;&lt;press-conference&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4068" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4067" CreationDate="2013-11-08T14:05:34.780" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;https://twitter.com/TarjeiJS&quot;&gt;Tarjei Svensen&lt;/a&gt;, the question was &quot;Kasparov compared you to Harry Potter this week, Stensbøl compared you to Petter Northug, which comparison do you prefer?&quot; to which he replied that he preferred to be compared to real people, therefore Northug. See &lt;a href=&quot;https://twitter.com/Jonathan_Rowson/status/398582082001059840&quot;&gt;this Twitter conversation&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2013-11-08T14:05:34.780" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4070" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4072" CreationDate="2013-11-09T13:03:47.373" Score="13" ViewCount="1002" Body="&lt;p&gt;The first game of the 2013 World Chess Championship, Carlsen vs. Anand, ended in a draw after just 16 moves. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this shortest game in the history of the World Chess Championship? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1287" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-07-26T18:55:32.687" LastActivityDate="2016-07-26T18:55:32.687" Title="Is the first game of World Chess Championship 2013 the shortest game in WCC history?" Tags="&lt;history&gt;&lt;world-championship&gt;&lt;carlsen&gt;&lt;anand&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4071" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4073" CreationDate="2013-11-09T13:38:56.990" Score="7" ViewCount="694" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the following position, each side has made exactly 4 moves (8 in total).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;rnbqkbnr/pp3ppp/2p1p3/8/4P3/8/PPPP1PPP/RNBQK1NR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I need to find what these moves were.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1894" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-04T22:15:30.740" LastActivityDate="2020-04-04T22:15:30.740" Title="Problem: reconstruct the game" Tags="&lt;problems&gt;&lt;retrograde-analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="4072" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4070" CreationDate="2013-11-09T13:58:20.963" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;There have been some shorter ones, for instance&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Kasparov-Kramnik (2000), game 7, draw in 11 moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1252046&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1252046&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Kasparov-Anand (1995), game 18, draw in 12 moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1241980&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1241980&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Karpov-Kasparov (1984), game 29, draw in 13 moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1293014&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1293014&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The shortest games in WCC history I believe are the two 10 move draws at the end of the 1963 Botvinnik-Petrosian match, but it's clear Botvinnik had more or less given up the match before those games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The shortest decisive game in a WCC match is reportedly Anand-Gelfand (2012), game 8, in which black resigned before his 17th move:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1666558&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1666558&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1485" LastEditorUserId="550" LastEditDate="2014-11-05T11:39:24.063" LastActivityDate="2014-11-05T11:39:24.063" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4073" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4071" CreationDate="2013-11-09T16:26:53.420" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;Dag Oskar Madsen's (quite generous) hint:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The last move was king takes e-eight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And here's the full solution:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Pawn to e-four, pawn to e-six, bishop to b-five, king to e-seven, bishop takes d-seven, pawn to c-six, bishop to e-eight, king takes e-eight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e6 2. Bb5 Ke7 3. Bxd7 c6 4. Be8 Kxe8  &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="1824" LastEditDate="2013-11-24T16:14:05.660" LastActivityDate="2013-11-24T16:14:05.660" CommentCount="0" CommunityOwnedDate="2013-11-09T16:26:53.420" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4074" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4075" CreationDate="2013-11-09T21:29:35.647" Score="12" ViewCount="2254" Body="&lt;p&gt;Today chess.com did an interview with Carlsen's coach.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Someone like Carlen or Anand, why do they still need coaches? Their Elo is higher than their coaches, they can use engines to analyze the games, and they can beat their coaches in practically every game, obviously they know more openings than anyone in their room.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I understand that someone hires a coach to get better, or in other sports you do that to stay in shape, but this is chess and there are computers if you need help, i guess all the coaches use them, so why hiring them? What is their major role? Do all GM's have coaches? (including the ones who died, Fischer, Capablanca etc).  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1105" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2016-03-12T09:15:19.603" LastActivityDate="2016-03-13T07:19:48.300" Title="Why do Chess GMs need coaches?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;training&gt;&lt;grandmaster&gt;&lt;study&gt;&lt;coach&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4075" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4074" CreationDate="2013-11-09T22:47:48.657" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't know which person you are referring to, or if the exact word &quot;coach&quot; was used, but GMs like Carlsen don't really have coaches in the sense you are probably thinking of; they have seconds, who have the following functions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Opening research. This might mean performing general research, or looking for particular weapons that are likely to be useful against the upcoming opponent, in this case Anand. Doing quality opening research takes a lot of time, and the player is better off paying strong GMs to do some of it for him them spending all the time on it himself. Also, they can spend time during the match doing further research based on the games already played, which the player doesn't have time to do.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Adjournment analysis. This is not really relevant anymore, but in the old days many games would be adjourned overnight, and the players' seconds would analyze the adjourned position all night and present him with their analysis the next day before the game resumed.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Training games. If a player has an opening idea, he can try it out against other players and see what sort of situations result from it before using it in a live game. This is often more relevant than playing games against a computer.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Moral support. Don't underestimate how much nicer it is to have a team of compatriots that can cheer you on when you do well or pick you up when you do badly. They probably also do other things together like exercise.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2013-11-09T22:47:48.657" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4076" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4074" CreationDate="2013-11-09T23:08:20.457" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;Coaches at that level are analysers rather than teachers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;prepare openings for a specific opponent,&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;investigate opponent's weakness,&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;help to analyse games during tournament after each round to find mistakes,&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;perform official things such as registering, following results,&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;mental encouragement&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;...&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;High chess rating and practical abilities don't mean that GMs don't need teachers and coaches, there are many people with average rating that they know openings, strategies and theories even better than GMs. They can improve skills of their students (Grand masters!).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1824" LastEditorUserId="1824" LastEditDate="2016-03-13T07:19:48.300" LastActivityDate="2016-03-13T07:19:48.300" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4077" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-11-10T14:19:09.433" Score="5" ViewCount="311" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there any way to use chess engines (by commands or GUI tools) to find the sequence of moves need to transform an initial position(&lt;em&gt;P&lt;sub&gt;1&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/em&gt;) to a target position(&lt;em&gt;P&lt;sub&gt;2&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/em&gt;) while the count of moves is exactly &lt;em&gt;N&lt;/em&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, after giving it a FEN as &lt;em&gt;P&lt;sub&gt;1&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/em&gt; and another FEN as &lt;em&gt;P&lt;sub&gt;2&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/em&gt;, it outputs a list of &lt;em&gt;N&lt;/em&gt; legal moves that transforms &lt;em&gt;P&lt;sub&gt;1&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/em&gt; to &lt;em&gt;P&lt;sub&gt;2&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Assume it's possible to do &lt;em&gt;N&lt;/em&gt; moves to transform the initial position to target position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1824" LastEditorUserId="1824" LastEditDate="2013-11-10T14:30:43.253" LastActivityDate="2013-11-14T09:54:51.207" Title="Using chess engines to find moves sequence to make a position" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4078" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-11-11T04:52:40.027" Score="2" ViewCount="1314" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found one before on the internet but it keeps the CPU at 100%, hangs a lot, and doesn't exit when the program (ChessMaster in this case) closes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1901" LastEditorUserId="10905" LastEditDate="2016-07-28T12:28:09.053" LastActivityDate="2016-07-28T12:28:09.053" Title="Good UCI to WinBoard adapter" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;uci&gt;&lt;winboard&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4079" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4078" CreationDate="2013-11-11T09:51:39.590" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;UCI2WB which you can find it in &lt;a href=&quot;http://hgm.nubati.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Winboard&lt;/a&gt; packages.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://wbec-ridderkerk.nl/html/details1/PolyGlot.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;PolyGlot&lt;/a&gt; is another option.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many modern chess GUIs doesn't need external converter such as ChessX, Fritz, ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1824" LastActivityDate="2013-11-11T09:51:39.590" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4080" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4081" CreationDate="2013-11-11T09:53:39.583" Score="7" ViewCount="608" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sometimes I hear that a critical variation in a certain opening was avoided and instead a solid variation was chosen. Can someone explain to me what a critical variation is? Maybe also explaing in the process what a solid variation is?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1887" LastActivityDate="2013-11-13T22:33:30.530" Title="What is a critical variation?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4081" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4080" CreationDate="2013-11-11T11:18:17.050" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;A critical variation is one that the evaluation of the current position depends on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Take the Morra gambit:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 c5 2.d4 cxd4 3.c3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is the Morra gambit a correct opening, or has white made a mistake? It does sacrifice a pawn, so the evaluation probably depends on whether white gets enough compensation after 3...dxc3. So that is the critical move. It's also the riskiest, because white does get some open lines and development, so he can probably at least set up some threats in the short term.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3...d3 is another move, declining the gambit. White doesn't get quite as quick development, but he's not a pawn down either. After this it's likely that the position is more or less equal, and it's just a game of chess. This is a move to play if you want to avoid risk, but it's not the place to look for a refutation of the Morra. So it's not critical.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A solid move is the oppositie of a risky move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2013-11-11T11:18:17.050" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4082" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4084" CreationDate="2013-11-11T19:03:12.753" Score="4" ViewCount="257" Body="&lt;p&gt;Specifically, Black is disadvantaged by always being one move behind.  While being subject to this disadvantage, what is an effective method or exercise to teach children/beginners the following principles while opening as Black:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Control the center.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Protect (castle) the king.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Connect the rooks.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Rooks to the center file(s).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance, if I were to introduce the Caro-Kann Defense as a means to this end, would there be any of the above points that might be missed?  Or if not missed, maybe points that might be better conveyed if learning them from a different defense?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="511" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-04T18:30:08.127" LastActivityDate="2020-03-04T18:30:08.127" Title="Effective method to teach defense (I.E. opening as Black) to children" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;defense&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="4083" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="510" CreationDate="2013-11-11T20:55:12.780" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've actually programmed precisely that in PHP to test a hypothesis two days ago.&#xA;If you're interested, I've uploaded the code to github for you: &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/dennisvink/php-random-chess-move-generator&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://github.com/dennisvink/php-random-chess-move-generator&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1903" LastActivityDate="2013-11-11T20:55:12.780" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4084" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4082" CreationDate="2013-11-12T02:27:09.083" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;It seems that your question deviates from the the point that Black is at a disadvantage. Instead, you seem to mention opening principles that are color agnostic. Controlling the center, protecting the king, and developing pieces are the three key idea in the opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wouldn't worry too much about teaching specifically attack and defense. These are actually higher-level concepts that are taught at a higher level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1382" LastActivityDate="2013-11-12T02:27:09.083" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4085" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4080" CreationDate="2013-11-12T07:12:33.943" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I doubt that there is any type of official definition for these terms. It seems to me that a &quot;critical variation&quot; simply leads to positions where your opponent has more active play, and where it is easy to make mistakes, whereas a &quot;solid variation&quot; is one where you have more active play, and your opponent has to play carefully to avoid making mistakes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1816" LastActivityDate="2013-11-12T07:12:33.943" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4086" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4095" CreationDate="2013-11-12T08:46:13.867" Score="3" ViewCount="481" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Wordfeud, it's kind of play-and-forget. When your opponent makes a move, you get a notification. Typically I would move once a day while commuting to and from work. A game would typically take a week to finish.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm used to playing chess on the eboard FICS client.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I haven't found a way to utilise the FICS network to play in this more casual way. It seems that if you disconnect, you defeat. Even if you didn't, you wouldn't get any notifications. I've played on a few websites, where you get an email, but it doesn't really exploit the bells-and-whistles of the smartphone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;So, could you recommend me a client that would do the above?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A smartphone friendly (responsive) website with email notifications is also interesting as a second option.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1906" LastActivityDate="2014-04-03T04:38:27.013" Title="Smartphone app with Wordfeud-like time constraints" Tags="&lt;software&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4087" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4086" CreationDate="2013-11-12T19:11:14.373" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You're looking for something called &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correspondence_chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Correspondence Chess&lt;/a&gt; where you can make moves at your leisure in a time frame you're comfortable with. Chess.com and Chess Time both provide smartphone apps with this capability. Chess.com has many more features and Chess Time only provides correspondence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/chess.com-play-learn-chess/id329218549?mt=8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;iOS&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.chess&amp;amp;hl=en&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Android&lt;/a&gt; for Chess.com &lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/chess-time-multiplayer-game/id455602152?mt=8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;iOS&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.haptic.chesstime&amp;amp;hl=en&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Android&lt;/a&gt; for Chess Time&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1382" LastActivityDate="2013-11-12T19:11:14.373" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4088" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4080" CreationDate="2013-11-12T19:48:58.597" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The definition is opinion based. A solid line makes me feel a line which is less complicated, the variants are known and more analyzed before. Opening books are certain about them and a transition from opening level to the middle game is played many times before in GMs games. A solid line probably needs less reminding efforts at the game and the main line is clear to discover. Also there're a few traps in solid lines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, a critical line is a line which is not analyzed comprehensively, it has many unknown variants and a simple mistake leads to lose the game (if the opponent also catch the chance). If someone doesn't follow the main line, it's hard to discover the best moves in the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1824" LastEditorUserId="1824" LastEditDate="2013-11-13T22:33:30.530" LastActivityDate="2013-11-13T22:33:30.530" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4089" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4077" CreationDate="2013-11-14T09:32:25.737" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes and No, but be warned, the possible paths to search through grows exponentially as your N increases.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The short answer is NO, unless you find someone who is doing research on chess and is using an engine for the special case like you are describing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BUT&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If someone were to do research on this special case he would setup his experiment probably like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First set an engine to calculate at a fixed depth 1 for the current position and make it return all variants it is evaluating. In effect this will return all possible legal moves from the current position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All you need to do now is write your own breadth-first search algorithm, set to depth N, that can go from one state to another by using the cofigured engine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1887" LastEditorUserId="1887" LastEditDate="2013-11-14T09:54:51.207" LastActivityDate="2013-11-14T09:54:51.207" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4090" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4092" CreationDate="2013-11-14T09:52:52.790" Score="8" ViewCount="978" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure as to what constitutes as a logical move. Sometimes I hear that chess is a discussion using statements, arguments, questions and answers. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can someone explain to me what a logical move would be given this context? A nice, practical example would also be of great help to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1887" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2013-11-22T04:29:10.483" LastActivityDate="2013-11-22T14:18:49.233" Title="What is a logical move?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;terminology&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4091" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-11-14T10:05:36.060" Score="5" ViewCount="1430" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was made the &quot;team captain&quot; of the chess club I am a member of for a match with a chess club in a different city.I want to know all the requirements for being a team captain.All I did was choose the team members based on the highest rating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1918" LastActivityDate="2013-11-14T10:49:44.337" Title="What does a team captain in chess do?" Tags="&lt;preparation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4092" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4090" CreationDate="2013-11-14T10:47:26.173" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;A move which is obviously not bad to play. It's a fuzzy word to describe and evaluate a move, so it's hard to explain (it's strongly opinion based). Maybe we can put a logical move in the middle of &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algebraic_notation_%28chess%29#Annotation_symbols&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this list&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;!!  an excellent move&#xA;!   a particularly good—and usually surprising—move&#xA;!?  an interesting move that may not be best&#xA;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt; Logical move is here and contains above &amp;lt;&amp;lt;&amp;lt;&#xA;?!  a dubious move – one which may turn out to be bad&#xA;?   a bad move&#xA;??  a blunder&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although, ideally speaking, the logical move is &lt;em&gt;the best move&lt;/em&gt;, but It may not the case in your question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Consider this position between Anand.V vs. Carlsen.M - the World Championship match. For an average rated player there're many &lt;em&gt;logical&lt;/em&gt; moves such as &lt;code&gt;1.R4c3&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;1.Rd1&lt;/code&gt; and even &lt;code&gt;1.Kg2&lt;/code&gt;. By playing those moves his coach will not criticize him and he will say OK you made a logical move. But..&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;r3b3/1kp5/1pn1P1p1/pN6/2R3Pr/1P6/5N2/2R3K1 w - - 1 35&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the world championship between two giants, the only logical move is &lt;code&gt;1.Ne4!&lt;/code&gt; which is played also. (Even my chess engine find it hard)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A hint from Karpov, &lt;em&gt;exact calculation in a game is much preferred rather than general guidelines&lt;/em&gt;. Guidelines do not find the best or logical move, they will be used to find logical candidate moves and then a exact move calculation will find the best move from the list. See the example again, a general guideline says try to protect your pieces but a comprehensive calculation says another thing. Ne4!. Which one is logical for GMs ?!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1824" LastEditorUserId="1824" LastEditDate="2013-11-22T14:18:49.233" LastActivityDate="2013-11-22T14:18:49.233" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4093" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4091" CreationDate="2013-11-14T10:49:44.337" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let's see what FIDE says, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fide.com/component/handbook/?id=20&amp;amp;view=category&quot;&gt;Team Captain’s Role in Team Tournaments&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;(a)&lt;/strong&gt; The role of a team captain is basically an administrative one&#xA;  during play. Depending on the regulations of the specific competition,&#xA;  the captain shall be required to deliver at a specific time a written&#xA;  list naming the players in his team participating in each round, to&#xA;  communicate to his players their pairing, to sign the protocol&#xA;  indicating the results in the match at the end of the play, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;(b)&lt;/strong&gt; Whenever the team captain speaks to one of his players, he should&#xA;  do so only through or in the presence of an arbiter, using a language&#xA;  the arbiter can understand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;(c)&lt;/strong&gt; A captain is entitled to advise the players of his team to make or&#xA;  accept an offer of a draw or to resign a game, unless the regulations&#xA;  of the event stipulate otherwise. He must confine himself only to&#xA;  brief information, based solely on the circumstances pertaining to the&#xA;  match. He may say to a player, “offer a draw”, “accept the draw”, or&#xA;  “resign the game”. For example, if asked by a player whether he should&#xA;  accept an offer of a draw, the captain should answer “yes”, “no”, or&#xA;  delegate the decision to the player himself. He shall give no&#xA;  information to a player concerning the position on the chess board&#xA;  and/or the clock times, nor consult any other person and/or computer&#xA;  as to the state of the game. The captain shall refrain from any&#xA;  intervention during play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;(d)&lt;/strong&gt; Players are subject to the same prohibitions. Even though in a&#xA;  team competition there is a certain team loyalty, which goes beyond a&#xA;  player’s individual game, a game of chess is basically a contest&#xA;  between two players. Therefore a player must have the final say over&#xA;  the conduct of his own game. Although the advice of the captain should&#xA;  weigh heavily with the player, the player is not absolutely compelled&#xA;  to accept that advice. Likewise, the captain cannot act on behalf of a&#xA;  player and his game without the knowledge and consent of the player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;(e)&lt;/strong&gt; A team captain should encourage his team always to follow both the&#xA;  letter and the spirit of Article 12 of the FIDE Laws of Chess&#xA;  concerning the conduct of the players. Team championships, in&#xA;  particular, should be conducted in the spirit of the highest&#xA;  sportsmanship.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A player which has highest rating and better knowledge about rules is the best candidate to be a captain.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1824" LastActivityDate="2013-11-14T10:49:44.337" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4094" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="269" CreationDate="2013-11-14T20:06:41.817" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Richard Reti's book 'Modern Ideas in Chess' can be read in full &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.openchessbooks.org&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is an amazing book!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Disclaimer: I am among the authors of the site ;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1921" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2013-11-14T23:34:24.373" LastActivityDate="2013-11-14T23:34:24.373" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4095" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4086" CreationDate="2013-11-15T02:47:53.440" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Also worth considering &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesspresso.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chesspresso&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.haptic.chesstime&amp;amp;hl=en&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chess Time&lt;/a&gt; which are quite popular among casual &quot;don't care about my rating&quot; players who might be intimidated by the &lt;strong&gt;higher&lt;/strong&gt; average playing strength on chess.com&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1751" LastActivityDate="2013-11-15T02:47:53.440" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4096" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-11-15T05:32:17.197" Score="6" ViewCount="6345" Body="&lt;p&gt;Basically what the title suggests. Many of the responses to the c3 sicilian (&lt;code&gt;1.e4 c5 2.c3&lt;/code&gt;) that I find online result in very drawish positions usually with queens off the board and very little dynamic play. I want lots of action and craziness while still being sound.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is currently my favored variation (but this is still quite drawish and doesn't feel very 'Sicilian-y'): &lt;code&gt;1.e4 c5 2.c3 d5 3.exd5 Qxd5 4.d4 Nf6 5.Nf3 Bg4 6.Be2 cxd4 7.cxd4 e6 8.Nc3 Qa5 9.O-O Nc6&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are variations that I've tried:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;1.e4 c5 2.c3 d5 3.exd5 Qxd5 4.d4 cxd4 5.cxd4 Nc6 6.Nf3 Nf6&lt;/code&gt; (this goes on to be kinda passive for black and mostly boring).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;1.e4 c5 2.c3 Nf6 3.e5 Nd5&lt;/code&gt;, which almost is awesome except it becomes really drawish after &lt;code&gt;4.Bc4 Nb6 5.Bb3 Nc6 6.Nf3 g6 7.d4 cxd4 8.Bf4 Bg7 9.O-O O-O 10.Re1 d5 11.exd6 exd6 12.Bg5 Bf6 13.Bxf6 Qxf6 14.Nxd4 d5 15.Na3 Nxd4 16.Qxd4 Qxd4 17.cxd4 Bd7 18.Nc2 Bc6&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Any ideas?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 c5 2.c3 d5 (2...Nf6 3.e5 Nd5 4.Bc4 Nb6 5.Bb3 Nc6 6.Nf3 g6 7.d4 cxd4 8.Bf4 Bg7 9.O-O O-O 10.Re1 d5 11.exd6 exd6 12.Bg5 Bf6 13.Bxf6 Qxf6 14.Nxd4 d5 15.Na3 Nxd4 16.Qxd4 Qxd4 17.cxd4 Bd7 18.Nc2 Bc6) 3.exd5 Qxd5 4.d4 Nf6 (4...cxd4 5.cxd4 Nc6 6.Nf3 Nf6) 5.Nf3 Bg4 6.Be2 cxd4 7.cxd4 e6 8.Nc3 Qa5 9.O-O Nc6 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1491" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2013-11-15T06:22:03.670" LastActivityDate="2016-12-28T14:52:35.680" Title="Dynamic (not-drawish) response for black against the c3 Sicilian" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4097" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-11-15T13:32:11.020" Score="4" ViewCount="662" Body="&lt;p&gt;I heard about a popular chess variant called Chess960, which uses randomized home ranks for the pieces. Which are the basic principles we can adapt there in Chess960?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="223" LastEditorUserId="10867" LastEditDate="2016-07-26T21:50:34.070" LastActivityDate="2016-07-26T21:50:34.070" Title="What are the basic principles to play chess960?" Tags="&lt;chess960&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4098" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4097" CreationDate="2013-11-15T15:00:07.573" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The first is to know it completely. Many people even don't know that it's possible to castle in Chess960 or they don't know how to castle. A good starting point is to get familiar to its rules, read &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess960&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this wiki&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The pieces in Chess960 set randomized so the known opening moves and variants aren't valid anymore. BUT, the opening principles and rules are still valid. Occupying center, controlling more open lines and diagonals, developing pieces rapidly, protecting the king, connecting the rooks... you should learn opening strategies and principles.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chess960 memorizing the opening moves like a machine doesn't useful anymore. By playing this kind of chess you're stepping in the unknown and wonder land of openings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A bad practice is trying to make opening positions as same as known positions and wasting moves for simulating normal chess variants.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;“Chess960 is healthy and good for your chess. If you get into it and not just move the pieces to achieve known positions it really improves your chess vision.” -- GM Levon Aronian.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1824" LastEditorUserId="1824" LastEditDate="2013-11-16T14:18:06.413" LastActivityDate="2013-11-16T14:18:06.413" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4099" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4101" CreationDate="2013-11-15T15:11:16.043" Score="3" ViewCount="2093" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm writing a small chess engine in LISP. I was trying to read some PGN file, at first it seemed like a piece of cake. But then I realized something.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most of the PGN files, don't tell which is white and which is black. I mean if white plays e4 an later d5, how does the engine knows if he has to take or not? I could name the black pieces &lt;code&gt;bN&lt;/code&gt; for example but by doing so i won't be able to import PGN easily.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Should i increment by 2? is that how PGN parsers do it?  Say the first three moves in a match are e4 e6 f4, should i create a recursive function to read x + 2? to skip whites move?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1105" LastActivityDate="2013-11-16T13:18:52.623" Title="How do engines read PGN?" Tags="&lt;pgn&gt;&lt;programming&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4100" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4099" CreationDate="2013-11-15T15:29:49.903" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess engines normally don't read PGN. When they &quot;start&quot; they read a position that is encoded in a FEN notation. FEN is a powerful way to describe a chess position. From this position a sequence of moves can be given in a string.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The most common way of communicating with a chess engine is via the UCI protocol:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://wbec-ridderkerk.nl/html/UCIProtocol.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://wbec-ridderkerk.nl/html/UCIProtocol.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More on FEN:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forsyth%E2%80%93Edwards_Notation&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forsyth%E2%80%93Edwards_Notation&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, if you are really interested in implementing an engine that can read PGN you should read the specs:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://web.archive.org/web/20100528142843/http://www.very-best.de/pgn-spec.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://web.archive.org/web/20100528142843/http://www.very-best.de/pgn-spec.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Especially the section about the moves is probably interesting for you:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://web.archive.org/web/20100528142843/http://www.very-best.de/pgn-spec.htm#8.2&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://web.archive.org/web/20100528142843/http://www.very-best.de/pgn-spec.htm#8.2&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1887" LastEditorUserId="1887" LastEditDate="2013-11-16T13:18:52.623" LastActivityDate="2013-11-16T13:18:52.623" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4101" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4099" CreationDate="2013-11-15T15:42:35.020" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a detailed standard of PGN available, for instance here: &lt;a href=&quot;https://web.archive.org/web/20100407090858/http://www.very-best.de/pgn-spec.htm&quot;&gt;PGN standard at the Wayback Machine&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You will never see &quot;e4 e6 f4&quot; in a PGN file, since it is mandatory to mention the move number before white's move: &quot;1.e4 e6 2.f4&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2013-11-15T15:42:35.020" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4102" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1025" CreationDate="2013-11-15T19:52:11.343" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm reading &lt;em&gt;Fundamental Chess Endings&lt;/em&gt; by Karsten Muller and Frank Lamprecht right now, and the authors seem to imply there is a distinction between key squares and critical squares.  On page 14, there is a list of symbols used in the text. A circle is used for a critical square and a star is used for a key square.  So, there is an implied difference in this book.  But I am puzzled as to what the difference is.  &quot;Key square&quot; is defined on page 21 but &quot;Critical square&quot; is not defined before the authors start casually using the term. To add to the confusion, the authors use the circle symbol in diagrams on page 24 but refer to the squares marked with a circle as key squares.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, the terms key squares and critical squares are used in more endings than just king and pawn vs. king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1925" LastActivityDate="2013-11-15T19:52:11.343" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4103" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4099" CreationDate="2013-11-15T20:40:15.037" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In a standard PGN you have an initial position, it's the chess starting position or it has a FEN to setup the position. After that you can follow the move sequence one after another.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it's the starting position then white has to move, otherwise it has a FEN and a standard FEN contains who must move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another way is looking at moves, if the first written move is like &lt;code&gt;N. Kg2&lt;/code&gt; then it's white's turn. If the first written move is line &lt;code&gt;N. ... Rh5&lt;/code&gt; then it's black's turn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, it's popular (I'm not sure) to write the first move by number &lt;code&gt;1&lt;/code&gt; such as &lt;code&gt;1. Kg2&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;1. ... Rh5&lt;/code&gt;. So, the numbers can help to follow the sequences.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1824" LastActivityDate="2013-11-15T20:40:15.037" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4104" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4096" CreationDate="2013-11-16T07:23:27.983" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The line with Nf6 is actually pretty interesting. I think you overlooked the main line which is 6...c4, not 6...g6. For the record, the delayed d4 is the less popular variation. It leads to unbalanced play:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. c3 Nf6 3. e5 Nd5 4. Bc4 Nb6 5. Bb3 Nc6 6. Nf3 c4 7. Bc2 Qc7 8. Qe2 g5 9. e6 dxe6 10. Nxg5 Qe5 11. d4 cxd3 12. Bxd3 Qxe2+ 13. Bxe2 h6 14. Ne4 e5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are of course other sidelines in this variation, with a major alternative being 9. h3 for white, but I encourage you to look into it some more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1382" LastActivityDate="2013-11-16T07:23:27.983" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4105" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4179" CreationDate="2013-11-18T10:07:52.997" Score="5" ViewCount="1507" Body="&lt;p&gt;I somewhat understand the concept of attacking the king and pieces, but &quot;attacking&quot; squares is a bit of a vague concept for me. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are weak and strong squares? When do you use them? How do you create them?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1887" LastActivityDate="2018-06-22T21:16:32.490" Title="Weak and strong squares" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4106" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4105" CreationDate="2013-11-18T13:03:11.403" Score="4" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Weak squares are squares which cannot be defended by a pawn. &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Chess_Strategy/Weak_and_strong_squares&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;[1]&lt;/a&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess-insights.com/strong-and-weak-squares.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;[2]&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;... that all of the squares behind the pawns are weak by default.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Counter-intuitively: &lt;em&gt;Strong squares are squares which are defended by a pawns.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These square are very powerful places for opponents Knights or Bishops. No pawn can attack to these pieces. In below position, square &lt;code&gt;d6&lt;/code&gt; is a weak square for black and also strong square for its opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1r1q2k1/1pbr2pp/2pNp3/p1P1Pp2/PP1P4/3R1QP1/6KP/1R6 w - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or square &lt;code&gt;f5&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;h4&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;e6&lt;/code&gt; are some weak squares for black and also &lt;code&gt;f3&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt; for white (however it's too late for black to put his Knight there)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1n3q2/p6p/1p1p1pk1/3PpN1p/4P3/1PQ3P1/P4P2/6K1 w - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They're useful to place a Knight or Bishop in near the heart of opponents position. Usually making a weak square in the opponents land needs long term strategy. You have to force the opponent to pass its pawns...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1824" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2013-11-19T16:21:31.390" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4107" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4108" CreationDate="2013-11-19T16:45:30.140" Score="5" ViewCount="396" Body="&lt;p&gt;So far &lt;code&gt;Carlsen&lt;/code&gt; has a 2 game lead over &lt;code&gt;Anand&lt;/code&gt; and there are only 4 games left.  At the strength of these players, can &lt;code&gt;Magnus&lt;/code&gt; basically force his opponent into draws by playing certain openings or styles?  Can he force &lt;code&gt;Anand&lt;/code&gt; into drawing the rest of the games to win the world championship?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-03-01T15:16:51.737" LastActivityDate="2014-03-01T15:16:51.737" Title="Can Magnus Carlsen force draw (pun-intended) himself to victory?" Tags="&lt;world-championship&gt;&lt;draw&gt;&lt;carlsen&gt;&lt;anand&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4108" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4107" CreationDate="2013-11-19T16:58:07.823" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;It depends what you mean by &quot;basically&quot;. He cannot actually force a draw in any given game (otherwise he would have started doing it already, as soon as he won one game). However he can play drawish lines; the variation he went into in game 8, for example, is almost never lost by White at top levels.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's going to be difficult for Carlsen to &quot;force&quot; a draw if Anand plays something sharp like the Dutch or Pirc. His optimal strategy is still pretty much to just continue to play good chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2013-11-19T16:58:07.823" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4109" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4090" CreationDate="2013-11-19T17:09:57.253" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I actually disagree with the accepted answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To say that a move is logical says nothing at all about whether it is good or bad.  If a move is logical, it only means that it makes a lot of sense from a chess perspective.  A logical move is the &quot;obvious&quot; move to make in the position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To elaborate - the move might be logical because it fulfills a strategic purpose or is the pawn break that makes the most sense.  Determining whether or not a move is logical involves no calculation.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As an incredibly contrived example:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;In this position, the logical move is &lt;code&gt;1. f4&lt;/code&gt; because it's the only pawn break for white that makes sense.  However, this move happens to lose the queen because the pawn is pinned.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;r4rk1/2n2ppp/3p4/q1pPp2b/1pP1P3/pP1N1PP1/P5BP/3QRRK1 w - - 0 0&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's a vastly oversimplified example, but hopefully it illustrates the general idea: the logical move requires no calculation and depends only on general principles.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12" LastActivityDate="2013-11-19T17:09:57.253" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4110" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4107" CreationDate="2013-11-19T17:55:37.080" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, Carlsen certainly is going to be pretty comfortable for the rest of the games as white. He can choose lines that have a high drawing percentage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would expect Anand to start choosing more tactical lines as white and black. So far we've seen quite a bit of king pawn games, more specifically the Ruy Lopez. I wouldn't be surprised to see Anand break out a Sicilian or two in the coming games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1382" LastActivityDate="2013-11-19T17:55:37.080" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4111" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4120" CreationDate="2013-11-20T04:25:42.367" Score="4" ViewCount="1695" Body="&lt;p&gt;Personally, I find my biggest weakness to be time control/management.  I usually end up moving very fast with a lot of time left on the board or move to slow with a little time left on the board.  I am a little impatient so this probably has some connection with the speed in which I move, but I was curious as to how someone can improve their time control/management?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2014-02-11T16:23:13.013" LastActivityDate="2020-02-10T15:02:52.323" Title="How to improve time control/management?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;time-management&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4112" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1408" CreationDate="2013-11-20T17:00:36.033" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Players such as Anand and Carlsen can play top-level blindfold chess.&amp;nbsp;  I assume this means that the number of moves ahead such players can &quot;see&quot; is essentially unlimited: at the board they can presumably visualize a continuation of the game to its conclusion.&amp;nbsp;  But a single very deep search down a single branch of an enormous game tree, though very important in certain situations, is not in itself enough to produce the best moves (and also may not be the best form of time management).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1922" LastActivityDate="2013-11-20T17:00:36.033" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4113" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4118" CreationDate="2013-11-21T06:48:58.353" Score="13" ViewCount="13700" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the longest chess game possible in terms of chess moves? I read somewhere that there is a theoretical maximum of 5949 moves. But I don't see any proof and I don't think it is correct. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can it be infinite? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess-poster.com/english/notes_and_facts/did_you_know.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Source&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1948" OwnerDisplayName="Justin" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-10-27T13:17:58.320" LastActivityDate="2020-10-29T07:25:03.360" Title="Longest chess game possible (maximum moves)" Tags="&lt;records&gt;&lt;mathematics&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4114" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4113" CreationDate="2013-11-21T06:52:38.687" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Ian Stewart discusses in an October 1995 Scientific American &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.sciamdigital.com/index.cfm?fa=Products.ViewIssuePreview&amp;amp;ARTICLEID_CHAR=92BAD476-31C4-43CE-BC0F-57966F4ED67&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;column&lt;/a&gt; how chess can be played with an infinite number of moves (and thus have a game that never ends).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyone who plays chess knows that some games just peter out : neither player seems able to win, nothing constructive can be done and there is no obvious way to end the game. If neither player agrees to a draw, the game might go on indefinitely. Foreseeing such situations, the bodies that frame the laws of chess have proposed many different rules to force games to end. The classic law states that the game shall be drawn if a player proves that 50 moves have been made on each side, checkmate has not been given, no men have been captured and no pawn has been moved.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But recent computer analyses have shown that the rule is not sufficient. There are some endgames in which one player can force a win after 50 moves, when no pieces have been captured and no pawns moved. So the laws of chess must specify certain exceptional situations. Any law that limits the number of moves permitted under particular conditions runs the same risk as the original, and so it would be nice to come up with a different approach altogether.  One proposal, made some time ago, was that the game should end if the same sequence of moves, in exactly the same positions, is repeated three times in a row. (Do not confuse this with the standard law that if the same position occurs three times, the player facing it can claim a draw. But note that this law does not oblige them to do so.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stewart then proceeds to create a sequence of two symbols that never repeats a pattern thrice.  He then shows that this sequence can be used by the two players to play a valid endless game even if the proposal becomes official.  (This sequence is called &lt;a href=&quot;http://oeis.org/A116178&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Stewart's choral sequence&lt;/a&gt;.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3489" OwnerDisplayName="Joel Reyes Noche" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2013-11-21T07:04:43.843" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4116" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4113" CreationDate="2013-11-21T07:00:01.837" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;From Wikipedia (see &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draw_%28chess%29&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draw_%28chess%29&lt;/a&gt;):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;The rules allow for several types of draws: stalemate, the threefold repetition of a position (with the same player to move), if there has been no capture or a pawn being moved in the last fifty moves, if checkmate is impossible, or if the players agree to a draw. In games played under time control, a draw may result under additional conditions. A stalemate is an automatic draw, as is a draw because of insufficient material to checkmate. A draw by threefold repetition or the fifty-move rule may be claimed by one of the players with the arbiter (normally using his score sheet), and claiming it is optional.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, if none of the players claims a draw, the game can go on forever. If at least one of the players intends to claim a draw when he has the possibility, then the threefold repetition rule and the fifty-move rule garantee that the game will end after a finite time. Maybe this can give the number of 5949 moves though? Considering the vast number of possible positions, the game could go on for much longer than 5949 moves before the threefold repetition rule applies. The fifty-move rule means that every 50 moves one of the players has to either move a pawn or make a capture. Pawn can make 2x8x6=96 moves. There are 32 pieces, so we can never exceed 50x(96+32)=6400 moves. So what is the minimal number of pieces that have to remain on the board to avoid a stalemate?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="UwF" LastActivityDate="2013-11-21T07:30:01.967" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4117" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4113" CreationDate="2013-11-21T07:03:35.500" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a cap on the length of a game of chess in terms of the number of moves. That's because of the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifty-move_rule&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Fifty-Move Rule&lt;/a&gt;. Any attempt to draw out a game indefinitely would trigger the fifty-move rule and result in a draw. The reason for this is simple. To carry on the game indefinitely, you have to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Move pawns an infinite number of times: impossible. The number of possible pawn moves is obviously finite as pawns cannot move backward.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;At some point, cease capturing your opponent's figures (otherwise you will capture their king, i.e. checkmate them, ending the game): this will trigger the 50-move rule.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, I suggest moving this to Chess.SE.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1850" OwnerDisplayName="Newb" LastActivityDate="2013-11-21T07:03:35.500" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4118" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4113" CreationDate="2013-11-21T07:13:40.253" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some cleaning up is required, I think:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The number on the website you link to differs from the results published in     Bonsdorff et al., &lt;em&gt;Schach und Zahl.&lt;/em&gt; Unterhaltsame Schachmathematik. pp. 11–13.&#xA;There they say that if the 50-move-rule is &lt;em&gt;mandatory&lt;/em&gt; the longest possible game (i.e. where both players cooperate to achieve the weird goal of a game of maximal duration) lasts 5899 moves.&#xA;Possibly, the web site used a simpler upper estimate for the &quot;gaps&quot; between pawn moves and captures that cannot be achieved in all occasions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, the 50-move-rule (and also the position-repeated-three-times-rule) is &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; mandatory, i.e. whether or not a player demands remis by that rule is up to him! The players may decide to ignore the rule and play on, thus allowing for an eventually periodic sequence of moves, i.e. an infinite game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4149" OwnerDisplayName="Hagen von Eitzen" LastEditorUserId="15615" LastEditDate="2019-01-22T12:06:13.553" LastActivityDate="2019-01-22T12:06:13.553" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="4119" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4113" CreationDate="2013-11-21T12:15:57.297" Score="6" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;49 as black and white move knights.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;32*50 = 1600; to lock the pawns up. In this case, White pushes each pawn 1 time until it is stopped by a black pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;6*50*8 = 2400; the white pawns are devoured one at a time, and as a black pawn is unblocked, it runs down the board, one square at a time.  They promote to Knights.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;7*50 = 350; each of the new knights are devoured.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;30*50 = 1500; the rest of the pieces are devoured.  Kings have to be left standing, so 30 here, not 31.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The sum of these moves is 5899.  I don't know if it is the maximum, but it seems plausible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2013-11-22T12:09:29.583" LastActivityDate="2013-11-22T12:09:29.583" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4120" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4111" CreationDate="2013-11-21T12:20:02.917" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd nominate all of NM Dan Heisman's famous &lt;a href=&quot;http://home.comcast.net/~danheisman/Articles/subject.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Novice Nook articles&lt;/a&gt; on Time Management (go to the link and search by subject). The *&lt;em&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesscafe.com/text/heisman61.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Two Move triggers&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt;* article is pretty insightful and most applicable to your posted question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In addition, the best way to learn how to manage time is to make &quot;time taken&quot; a part of your &lt;strong&gt;post-mortem review.&lt;/strong&gt;  In other words, don't just write down your moves, also write down how much clock you've burned per move and when reviewing the game later, figure out if the time taken was indeed sufficient or not as you're probably going to start noticing things about that position that you didn't before. If you play online, turn on move-timestamps to track the time used for you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you get a game reviewed/critiqued by a stronger player, it is always worth asking &quot;How much time would you take (for a slow game) in a position like this?&quot;. You'll find very interesting answers and notice &lt;em&gt;telling&lt;/em&gt; deltas between your sense of time management  and theirs! (they would really use their time in critical positions way more than you did but but spend very little on things that you probably worried a lot about).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One more problem that is kryptonite for my own time management is my current state of mind : lethargy, hungry, tired, over-caffeinated, distracted with other windows on my screen etc. ... I've signed up for G/120 games when I really only had it in me for a G/5 and vice-versa ... a lot of people tend to be confused about playing a time-control that's readily available (&lt;em&gt;Hey, I can start a game right away!&lt;/em&gt;) vs. playing a time-control that's right for them but they need more patience (wait longer online) or have to put in some work (travel to a local club) in order to play it!!!  A unbalanced diet of too much blitz (or too little of it) can often impair your brain's ability to gear-shift suddenly to games with different time controls.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1751" LastActivityDate="2013-11-21T12:20:02.917" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4121" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2313" CreationDate="2013-11-21T15:14:14.650" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is now a native quartz xboard.app through GTK2.&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.open-aurec.com/wbforum/viewtopic.php?f=19&amp;amp;t=52964&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.open-aurec.com/wbforum/viewtopic.php?f=19&amp;amp;t=52964&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1944" LastActivityDate="2013-11-21T15:14:14.650" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4122" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4113" CreationDate="2013-11-21T17:55:22.817" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The other answers have relied on the 50 move rule, and have pointed out the possibility of the game not ending if neither player invokes it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As it is highly unlikely somebody would want to play a game of chess for thousands of moves in a regular game, it follows that such a game would be contrived solely for the purpose of playing out the longest chess game possible.  Furthermore, as nobody would want to spend their entire life playing a game of chess just to hold the record for longest game of chess, this all would be a purely mental exercise.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, given these constraints and the fact that an unending game of chess is possible if neither player claims a draw from the 50 move rule, it is still unsatisfying to say that a game of chess can go on forever.  Since we cannot substitute chess players, eventually one or the other of the players will die of old age or some other cause and will be unable to continue thereby forfeiting the game or at least bringing it to an end.  We can therefore calculate an upper limit on the number of moves that can be played before this occurs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Assuming both players learn to play chess earlier than any person yet, say at 3 years old, and live to be older than the oldest person alive, say 120 years old, and that they play every waking moment, say 16 hours per day on average, and play speed chess averaging one move per second, and take only leap days off to rest, this yields an upper bound of 1 move/second * 86400 seconds/day * 365 days/year * 117 years or 3,689,712,000 moves as the longest chess game possible between two people when neither invokes the 50 move rule to claim a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1947" LastActivityDate="2013-11-21T17:55:22.817" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4123" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4124" CreationDate="2013-11-21T19:50:02.477" Score="16" ViewCount="14252" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was thinking about what the maximum number of queens can be on the board after only legal moves. The theoretical upper bound would be 18, the original 2 queens plus 16 promoted pawns. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, to have the pawns get past each other they would have to capture the opponent’s pieces. But they could not capture the opponents king or queen, so thats 2 less for each side (although a capture on one side would open for the other-so gets a bit tricker than that I realize). If so that would be 14, but with that many queens it would be easy to put the opponents king in check or checkmate I guess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it possible to get 14 queens on the board &#xA;in a legal game, and if not what is the maximum?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1949" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-05-22T00:08:22.277" LastActivityDate="2020-05-22T00:08:22.277" Title="Maximum number of queens possible" Tags="&lt;theory&gt;&lt;problems&gt;&lt;queens&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="4124" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4123" CreationDate="2013-11-21T19:55:13.230" Score="26" Body="&lt;p&gt;It should be easily possible to get 18 queens. If white captures four enemy pieces, that's enough to get doubled pawns on four files (a, c, e and g, for instance). And black captures four times to get his pawns on the b, d, f and h files. Then they can all advance and promote, and it should be easy to avoid mate by storing them all in some corner.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here, have the ugliest proof game ever :-)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Nc3 Nc6 2.Nb5 Ne5 3.Nd4 Nc4 4.Nf5 Na3 5.bxa3 Nf6 6.Nh6 gxh6 7.Bb2 Ng4 8.&#xA;Bf6 exf6 9.Nf3 Ne3 10.fxe3 Bb4 11.Nd4 Bc3 12.dxc3 Rg8 13.Nf5 Rg3 14.hxg3 &#xA;h5 15.Nd6+ cxd6 16.Rb1 f5 17.Rb6 axb6 18.a4 h4 19.a5 h3 20.a6 h2 21.Rg1 &#xA;h1=Q 22.a7 Rb8 23.a8=Q Qh6 24.Qa3 Qg7 25.Qb2 h5 26.a4 h4 27.a5 h3 28.a6 h2&#xA;29.a7 h1=Q 30.a8=Q Qhh8 31.Qaa1 f4 32.g4 f3 33.g3 f2+ 34.Kd2 f5 35.Bg2 &#xA;f1=Q 36.c4 Qf4 37.c5 d5 38.c6 d6 39.c7 Bd7 40.c8=Q Qfh6 41.Qcc3 f4 42.Qcb3&#xA;f3 43.c4 f2 44.c5 f1=Q 45.c6 Qf5 46.c7 Qfh7 47.c8=Q d4 48.Ke1 d3 49.Kf2 d2&#xA;50.Qf1 d1=Q 51.Qcc1 Qd5 52.g5 b5 53.g6 Qge7 54.g7 b4 55.g4 b5 56.Qd3 b3 &#xA;57.Qbc3 b2 58.Kg3 b1=Q 59.g8=Q+ Qef8 60.g5 b4 61.Qgg7 b3 62.Qgd4 b2 63.g6 &#xA;Qc2 64.g7 b1=Q 65.g8=Q Qdh5 66.Qda4 d5 67.e4 d4 68.Qda6 d3 69.Qga2 Qdf6 &#xA;70.e5 Kd8 71.e6 d2 72.Qc3a3 Kc7 73.e7 d1=Q 74.e8=Q Qd8 75.Qef7 Rb7 76.e4 &#xA;Rb8 77.e5 Rb7 78.e6 Rb8 79.e7 Rb7 80.e8=Q *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastEditorUserId="924" LastEditDate="2013-11-21T20:06:34.900" LastActivityDate="2013-11-21T20:06:34.900" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4125" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1412" CreationDate="2013-11-21T22:55:55.660" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Big flaw in the classic chess game. The logic thing would be for the stalled player to pass the move back as in other boardgames where you are not able to move. If no player can move, then its a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1950" LastActivityDate="2013-11-21T22:55:55.660" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4127" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-11-22T05:16:58.683" Score="5" ViewCount="389" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;TL;DR&lt;/strong&gt; Has a quick &lt;code&gt;...e5&lt;/code&gt; in response to the Keres Attack been well-analyzed somewhere?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Kasparov famously ditched the &lt;code&gt;5...e6&lt;/code&gt; Scheveningen move-order for a &lt;code&gt;5...a6&lt;/code&gt; Najdorf move-order during his 1984 match with Karpov, primarily so as to avoid problems against the Keres Attack, &lt;code&gt;1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 e6 6.g4&lt;/code&gt; (at least that's how I remember the story being told in various accounts). I don't often see the Scheveningen move-order in top tournaments, but I recalled having seen Hou Yifan do so recently, and having faced the Keres Attack. For instance, in the 2012 Unive tournament, there is the interesting game Nakamura-Hou, won by White:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;16th Unive Tournament&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Hoogeveen NL&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2012.10.23&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;2012.10.21&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;3&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Hikaru Nakamura&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Yifan Hou&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;B81&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;97&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 e6 6.g4 h6 7.Rg1&#xA;e5 8.Bb5+ Nbd7 9.Nf5 a6 10.Bxd7+ Qxd7 11.g5 Nxe4 12.Nxg7+ Bxg7&#xA;13.Nxe4 Qc6 14.Qd3 Ke7 15.gxh6 Bxh6 16.Bxh6 Rxh6 17.Qe3 Rh5&#xA;18.Rd1 Bf5 19.Ng3 Bxc2 20.Nxh5 Bxd1 21.Kxd1 Qd5+ 22.Ke2 Qxa2&#xA;23.Qg5+ Kd7 24.Qf5+ Ke7 25.Qc2 Qa5 26.Ng3 Qb5+ 27.Kf3 Qc6+&#xA;28.Qe4 Rh8 29.Nf5+ Kd7 30.h4 Qb5 31.Rd1 Qxb2 32.Nxd6 Kc7&#xA;33.Nc4 Qb5 34.Nxe5 f6 35.Rc1+ Kb8 36.Rb1 f5 37.Qxf5 Qd5+&#xA;38.Qe4 Rf8+ 39.Ke3 Qc5+ 40.Qd4 Qxd4+ 41.Kxd4 Rf4+ 42.Ke3 Rxh4&#xA;43.f4 Kc7 44.f5 Kd6 45.Ng6 Rh7 46.Rd1+ Kc7 47.Kf4 b5 48.f6 Rf7&#xA;49.Ke5 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Despite that loss, at Wijk aan Zee 2013, there was the game Harikrishna-Hou, in which Black was the victor:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Tata Steel&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Wijk aan Zee NED&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2013.01.23&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;2013.01.12&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;10&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Pentala Harikrishna&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Yifan Hou&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;B81&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;2698&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;2603&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;110&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 e6 6. g4 h6&#xA;7. h4 e5 8. Nf5 Nc6 9. Bg2 g6 10. Ne3 Be6 11. Ncd5 Bxd5&#xA;12. exd5 Ne7 13. Qe2 Bg7 14. Qb5+ Qd7 15. Qxd7+ Nxd7 16. Bd2&#xA;Rc8 17. Bb4 Nc5 18. O-O-O O-O 19. h5 Bf6 20. Kb1 Kg7 21. Nf1&#xA;Bg5 22. Ng3 b6 23. Bxc5 bxc5 24. Ne4 Rcd8 25. hxg6 fxg6&#xA;26. Rh3 Rf4 27. Ra3 Rxg4 28. Bf3 Rf4 29. Rxa7 Rxf3 30. Nxg5&#xA;hxg5 31. Rxe7+ Kf6 32. Re6+ Kf5 33. Rd2 g4 34. c3 Kg5 35. Re2&#xA;Rdf8 36. Rxd6 Rxf2 37. Rxe5+ R8f5 38. Re3 R5f3 39. Re5+ Rf5&#xA;40. Re3 R2f3 41. Ree6 Rf6 42. Re5+ R3f5 43. Rxf6 Rxe5 44. Rf1&#xA;Rxd5 45. Kc2 Rf5 46. Rg1 c4 47. Kd2 Rf2+ 48. Ke3 Rxb2 49. Ra1&#xA;g3 50. Kf3 g2 51. Kg3 Rxa2 52. Rb1 Kf5 53. Kh2 Ke4 54. Rd1 Kf3&#xA;55. Rd6 Ra5 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After both Nakamura's &lt;code&gt;7.Rg1&lt;/code&gt; and Harikrishna's &lt;code&gt;7.h4&lt;/code&gt;, Hou immediately makes a second move with the e-pawn, turning her Scheveningen small center into more of a Sveshnikov/Kalashnikov structure. I guess this makes sense, despite the slight loss of time, since Black is responding to White's early kingside action by switching gears and staking more of a claim in the center. And as someone who sometimes plays things like the Kalashnikov, I find this approach intriguing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So finally, my question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Has this ...e5 approach against the Keres Attack been the subject of any GM-level analysis? If so, where? And what are the basic conclusions?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2013-11-30T19:59:04.440" Title="...e5 in response to the Keres Attack?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;&lt;scheveningen&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4128" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="7743" CreationDate="2013-11-22T05:48:03.170" Score="14" ViewCount="2891" Body="&lt;p&gt;The selected answer to &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/q/4123/1656&quot;&gt;this question&lt;/a&gt; shows a game in which all 16 pawns promote to queens so that there is a total of 18 queens on the board. It takes 80 moves...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What is the shortest sequence of moves that achieves this goal?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And just to make things interesting, is the minimum number the same if we ask for 20 rooks, bishops, or knights to be present? This is not obvious, because one of the solutions could require extra moves (for instance, to remove a king from a check given by a new queen).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1656" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-05T01:00:44.803" LastActivityDate="2020-04-05T01:00:44.803" Title="Shortest possible game with 18 queens?" Tags="&lt;problems&gt;&lt;queens&gt;&lt;records&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4129" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4130" CreationDate="2013-11-22T06:06:01.283" Score="10" ViewCount="1904" Body="&lt;p&gt;For much of today's Anand-Carlsen game, white seemed to have a powerful mating attack. But from the analyses I've seen, there was never a point where it was clear that black would not be able to defend against best play. Was there any point in the game at which, with best play on white's part, all lines lead to a win?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;WCh 2013&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Chennai IND&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2013.11.21&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;9&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Anand, Viswanathan&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Carlsen, Magnus&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;E25&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;2775&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;2870&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;56&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;2013.11.09&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 Bb4 4. f3 d5 5. a3 Bxc3+ 6. bxc3 c5 7. cxd5 exd5 8.&#xA;e3 c4 9. Ne2 Nc6 10. g4 O-O 11. Bg2 Na5 12. O-O Nb3 13. Ra2 b5 14. Ng3 a5 15.&#xA;g5 Ne8 16. e4 Nxc1 17. Qxc1 Ra6 18. e5 Nc7 19. f4 b4 20. axb4 axb4 21. Rxa6&#xA;Nxa6 22. f5 b3 23. Qf4 Nc7 24. f6 g6 25. Qh4 Ne8 26. Qh6 b2 27. Rf4 b1=Q+ 28.&#xA;Nf1 Qe1 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1758" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2013-11-23T17:34:16.923" LastActivityDate="2014-04-05T19:09:15.683" Title="Did Anand have a forced win at any point in Game 9 of the 2013 Anand-Carlsen world champhionship match?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;world-championship&gt;&lt;anand&gt;&lt;carlsen&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4130" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4129" CreationDate="2013-11-22T09:12:40.523" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;The game was ambiguous until move 28, there is no clear way to win but as you mentioned white has the attacking form.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let see the game from move &lt;code&gt;18.e5&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;2bqnrk1/5ppp/r7/pp1p2P1/2pPP3/P1P2PN1/R5BP/2Q2RK1 w - - 1 18&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White is attacking on king's side as Kasparov mentioned he could play &lt;code&gt;18.Rb2&lt;/code&gt; to avoid black to make a passed pawn and keep pressure in both king and queen sides. But white decided to complicate the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another move which leads many people criticize Anand was move &lt;code&gt;20.axb4&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;2bq1rk1/2n2ppp/r7/p2pP1P1/1ppP1P2/P1P3N1/R5BP/2Q2RK1 w - - 0 20&#xA;&#xA;1.f5 b3 2.Raf2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some GMs and also engines prefer to push the pawn to &lt;code&gt;f5&lt;/code&gt; and continue attacking just in king's side. White's &lt;code&gt;20.axb4&lt;/code&gt; made a passed pawn for black on square &lt;code&gt;b3&lt;/code&gt; (two moves to promote) and black got counter play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Before move 28 white had attacking chances and a draw at least. But white made a blunder &lt;code&gt;28.Nf1??&lt;/code&gt;, if &lt;code&gt;28.Bf1&lt;/code&gt; was played, then the game can continue in this way:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;2bqnrk1/5p1p/5PpQ/3pP1P1/2pP1R2/2P3N1/6BP/1q4K1 w - - 1 28&#xA;&#xA;1. Bf1 Qd1 2. Rh4 Qh5 3. Nxh5 gxh5 4. Rxh5 Bf5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The game is almost a draw with some minor advantages for black. It's ambiguous.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But white played &lt;code&gt;28.Nf1??&lt;/code&gt; and black put his queen on &lt;code&gt;e1&lt;/code&gt; to capture the white's rook on &lt;code&gt;h4&lt;/code&gt; -- a big material advantage for black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1824" LastEditorUserId="1824" LastEditDate="2013-11-23T07:26:46.297" LastActivityDate="2013-11-23T07:26:46.297" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4132" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4133" CreationDate="2013-11-22T17:38:07.853" Score="10" ViewCount="9404" Body="&lt;p&gt;Suppose I have a completed game. I don't have Elo ratings of the players. My purpose is to evaluate a player's performance in the game based solely on his moves. Can this can be done automatically using a chess program?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The result can be his approximate Elo rating, or just some value indicating his strength or error rate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it helps, a database of the player's games can be given. Again, with no Elo ratings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My motivation is simple. I play chess over the internet and would like to automatically track my progress, based on the games themselves, not on the rating on the sites. I'm a (upper)-beginner level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A simple solution is to annotate the game using any computer engine and track number of ?!, ? and ?? marks. However, it's not very accurate, and I'd like to get more ideas :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1874" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-03-05T08:41:54.343" LastActivityDate="2018-09-28T13:17:53.793" Title="How to automatically evaluate a player's performance in a game?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;rating&gt;&lt;elo&gt;&lt;evaluation&gt;&lt;performance&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4133" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4132" CreationDate="2013-11-22T21:35:18.457" Score="18" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Site ratings at &lt;em&gt;slow time controls&lt;/em&gt; &lt;strong&gt;can&lt;/strong&gt; be quite reliable for servers where strong players congregate (ICC, FICS to name a few) as the ratings VERY closely reflect your true playing strength if you've played enough games. For very standardized rating systems such as USCF and FIDE/ELO, you will notice that the different rating classes tend to point to the &lt;strong&gt;types of mistakes&lt;/strong&gt; those players are still making. NM Dan Heisman's &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/0979148243&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Improving Chess Thinker&lt;/a&gt; does an excellent job discussing the types of errors players make across the rating classes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Have you tried the many self-test books out there?  Igor Khmelnitsky's &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessexam.com/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess Rating Exam&lt;/a&gt; and  Danny Kopec's &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/0970085214&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Test, Evaluate and Improve your chess&lt;/a&gt; are excellent books that allow you to track your progress by seeing how you perform against graded test positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your compare-my-moves-with-an-engine approach is another way to do this but once again, the ??/? moves are really only indicating tactical errors, not strategic or positional or even behavioral or time-management mistakes you might be making.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's why playing slow time-control OTB/online games against equal-to-stronger opposition and getting them reviewed + critiqued by stronger players is an efficient way to improve. Your mistakes in every category (tactics, knowledge, thought process, time management etc.) get highlighted and you can simply measure progress in &lt;strong&gt;terms of the mistakes you've stopped making.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Though one fun variant you can try with an engine at home: Why not extend your engine-evaluation method to visually observe a player's quality/performance via evaluation graphs?  In other words, take engine evaluation scores &lt;strong&gt;per move&lt;/strong&gt; and plot them (some free software like SCID does this for you) over the moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example: Two rank beginners would have a game that looks like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ix4jl.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Notice how jagged these are. Both sides make many terrible mistakes (slopes of the spikes!) and &lt;strong&gt;also&lt;/strong&gt; how often they fail to exploit the other person's terrible mistakes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The spikes are always fun to look at : &#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/0Si7y.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Two intermediate (USCF 1400-1600) players might have games that look like:&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/LbP6P.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It does look jagged, but notice how the y-axis (engine evaluation) is way smaller ... indicating that these players are more seasoned and play higher quality chess than the novices.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For a final comparison, a 1911 Grandmaster game would look like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/2sD2n.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No comments necessary here :)  These guys really don't make many mistakes, do they?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you could devise your own heuristic for mapping the slopes + scale of an evaluation graph to  &lt;strong&gt;player skill/performance&lt;/strong&gt;, perhaps this is one way to go? :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1751" LastEditorUserId="1751" LastEditDate="2013-11-22T21:52:58.623" LastActivityDate="2013-11-22T21:52:58.623" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4134" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4132" CreationDate="2013-11-22T22:17:59.467" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;What you're asking does not exist by my knowledge. However, this is my idea:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You'll need samples with the following features, (1) Chess position, (2) Move made in the position, (3) Rating of the player that made the move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's say you have 1 billion samples. You can train a computer algorithm on these samples that can predict for each move in a position the quality of the move with respect to a rating. All ratings for all moves can be averaged out to get the approximate rating of the player and in effect the quality of his game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a rough idea that can be further polished.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1887" LastActivityDate="2013-11-22T22:17:59.467" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4135" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1960" CreationDate="2013-11-23T03:15:58.350" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Try:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 Bb4 4. Qe2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1955" LastActivityDate="2013-11-23T03:15:58.350" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4136" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8488" CreationDate="2013-11-23T16:38:01.850" Score="17" ViewCount="14102" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found this tree and found it an excellent visualisation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-cNVCvQNxkkQ/UNZONkCry7I/AAAAAAAAAZs/p21dAAXLXGE/s1600/sicilian.png&quot; alt=&quot;Sicilian&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could anyone provide me with a graph that includes all common chess openings but to a lesser depth?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1906" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-03-10T09:42:48.240" LastActivityDate="2015-10-15T09:13:53.823" Title="Opening tree graph" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;memorization&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4137" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4136" CreationDate="2013-11-23T22:11:14.907" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;Perhaps you were looking for something like this: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessfornovices.com/chessopeningsconclusion.html&quot;&gt;http://www.chessfornovices.com/chessopeningsconclusion.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1751" LastActivityDate="2013-11-23T22:11:14.907" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4138" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-11-24T09:37:58.653" Score="12" ViewCount="21288" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am looking for a chess engine which provides a normal API which I can use with some high level programming language like C# or python. I went through the list of leaders (Houdini, Komodo, Stockfish and Rybka) and was not able to find any signs that these engines provides API (which surprised me and suggested that I am missing something).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To be less vague, here is what I need from this API:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;be able to load specific game into the engine&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;be able to evaluate position of the game&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;be able to make a move&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, does anyone knows an engine which provides a clear API to it's functions?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="703" LastActivityDate="2020-09-27T12:42:24.660" Title="Chess engine with API" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;programming&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4139" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4138" CreationDate="2013-11-24T14:52:33.887" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've googled on &quot;chess engine api&quot; but have not seen any real API's. As suggested in the comments of your question I would go with UCI. This is also the way GUI's communicate with chess engines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you're really a hardcore programmer you could always check out the open source engine &#xA;Stockfish. It could very well be that there is some sort of API built in it, or you could make a clone and build your own API for it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://stockfishchess.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://stockfishchess.org/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1887" LastActivityDate="2013-11-24T14:52:33.887" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4140" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1055" CreationDate="2013-11-24T15:18:17.367" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This might not be to everyone's taste, but the following annotated game (like the novel it's taken from) is hilarious in it's own way:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/blog/thompunton/chess-in-literature-murphy-vs-mr-endon-in-murphy-by-samuel-beckett&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Murphy vs. Mr. Endon&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1485" LastActivityDate="2013-11-24T15:18:17.367" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4141" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1960" CreationDate="2013-11-24T19:12:03.333" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;For White, I would recommend the Ruy Lopez. 1. E4 (opens lines for queen and bishop). 2. Nf3 (develops knight). 3. Bb5 (develops bishop). Black usually plays 3. ...a6, forcing 4. Ba4. Black might play Nf6, and White can play O-O, developing a rook through castling (which is what castling is for). If Black takes the e pawn, 5... Nxe4, White plays 6. Re1 and regains Black's king pawn. Then &quot;rinse and repeat on the queen side: Nc3, Bg5 (or elsewhere, Qe2, and Rd1). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you follow this sequence, taking &quot;time out&quot; only to defend or move attacked pieces, you will rise above the level of beginner.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2013-11-24T19:12:03.333" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4143" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="386" CreationDate="2013-11-25T19:10:37.737" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Something I put together myself: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.nlightening.com/test/chesseditor.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Diagram maker&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;You can have source upon request. It's written in Jquery and php. It supports drag-n-drop and generates png and FEN&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1967" LastActivityDate="2013-11-25T19:10:37.737" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4144" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1882" CreationDate="2013-11-26T01:44:50.453" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's better to castle on move 7 and sacrifice the knight next move. Black will have a hard time defending against this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The variation with &lt;code&gt;5.Ng5&lt;/code&gt; is called the Perreux Variation and is extensively analysed at the following site: &#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~goeller/urusov/perreux/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;The Perreux Variation of the Two Knights Defense&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A critical line begins with &lt;code&gt;6...Qe7+!&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;   [fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;   1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nf6 4.d4 exd4 5.Ng5 d5 6.exd5 Qe7+!&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White might have to respond &lt;code&gt;7.Kf1&lt;/code&gt;, see the analyses given in the link.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1485" LastActivityDate="2013-11-26T01:44:50.453" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4145" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-11-26T02:43:13.320" Score="2" ViewCount="807" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am looking for a resource where I can get a list of chess openings (the more comprehensive the better) together with games that were played using this opening. Up till now the only good thing I was able to find is &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesstoolpgn.com/Aeng.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;chesstool&lt;/a&gt;. It is really good in terms of the number of openings and also it has quite a lot of games for each opening. The only bad thing is that apparently it does not have games after 2010 year. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Alternatively is there a place where I can get all (ok, I know that all sounds ridiculous) but at least all fide rated chess games in PGN format?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="703" LastEditorUserId="703" LastEditDate="2013-11-26T16:39:43.400" LastActivityDate="2014-03-01T21:13:01.727" Title="Chess openings together with games played using this opening" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;database&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4146" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4129" CreationDate="2013-11-26T03:37:28.593" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;How about 28 Kf2? Answer either 28 ... Qc2+ or 28 ... Qd1 with 29. Ne2. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1968" LastActivityDate="2013-11-26T03:37:28.593" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4147" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4145" CreationDate="2013-11-26T12:03:59.360" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Try TWIC, each week they release at least the top-rated FIDE games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.theweekinchess.com/twic&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.theweekinchess.com/twic&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1887" LastActivityDate="2013-11-26T12:03:59.360" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4148" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4149" CreationDate="2013-11-26T16:31:08.677" Score="7" ViewCount="799" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just looking up Carlsen's Elo and it is still &lt;a href=&quot;http://ratings.fide.com/card.phtml?event=1503014&quot;&gt;2870&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know his next goal is to reach 2900. Did the 3 wins in the world chess championship simply not give him any rating points, or does FIDE take a long time to update ratings?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="390" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-03-01T15:16:14.983" LastActivityDate="2014-03-01T15:16:14.983" Title="Why has Carlsen's Elo not changed?" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;world-championship&gt;&lt;elo&gt;&lt;carlsen&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4149" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4148" CreationDate="2013-11-26T16:53:30.773" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;It does take awhile for &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fide.com/&quot;&gt;FIDE&lt;/a&gt; to update their ratings, which is monthly (&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.chessbase.com/post/fide-july-ratings-carlsen-at-a-record-2837&quot;&gt;see article&lt;/a&gt;) compared to the unofficial Live ratings site at &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.2700chess.com/&quot;&gt;Live Ratings&lt;/a&gt;. But it is interesting to note that Carlsen is due for a 2 point bump according to the Live rating site.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1967" LastActivityDate="2013-11-26T16:53:30.773" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4150" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4145" CreationDate="2013-11-26T17:01:09.690" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a very good site: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.365chess.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.365chess.com/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Free Javascript tool at &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesslive.de/js/apps/onlinedb/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.chesslive.de/js/apps/onlinedb/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can get Chessbase online App for your Android at&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=chessbase.android.chessdb&amp;amp;hl=en&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=chessbase.android.chessdb&amp;amp;hl=en&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;or iphone at &#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/chessbase-online/id417726752&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/chessbase-online/id417726752&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1967" LastEditorUserId="1967" LastEditDate="2013-11-26T18:00:48.900" LastActivityDate="2013-11-26T18:00:48.900" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4151" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4111" CreationDate="2013-11-26T17:20:06.243" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I agree with the above answer, but from my personal experience, I handle time management pretty well because I am very conscientious about the time I spend on anything I do. If you are a person who is regularly late, I think writing the time taken on your score sheet will make you more conscientious of the time.&#xA;Look at your time control for the game. Is it G90 or G30? That is 90 or 30 minutes for the entire game. Consider what is your average number of moves per game. 40 moves is reasonable to start. Do the math to see how many moves you need to make on average in 10 minutes. &#xA;The point of all this is to just be more conscientious of the time you spend. &#xA;For me, I factor in 1 long think of 20-30 minutes in a 40/2 G60 time control, and average the rest. &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_control&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;See different time controls.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1967" LastActivityDate="2013-11-26T17:20:06.243" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4152" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4145" CreationDate="2013-11-26T17:46:23.607" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think this (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.pgnmentor.com/files.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.pgnmentor.com/files.html&lt;/a&gt;) might help (PGNs of various openings) though not sure how current the games are. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1751" LastActivityDate="2013-11-26T17:46:23.607" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4153" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4127" CreationDate="2013-11-26T17:53:45.597" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sorry, not precisely a GM analysis of this line, but&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have found chessgames.com to be useful in this regard. Scroll down in the link, there may be some GM analysis in there. :)&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessopening?eco=b81&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessopening?eco=b81&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also &#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesspub.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1309987842/0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.chesspub.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1309987842/0&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1967" LastEditorUserId="1967" LastEditDate="2013-11-26T17:58:55.247" LastActivityDate="2013-11-26T17:58:55.247" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4154" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4158" CreationDate="2013-11-26T21:39:38.697" Score="27" ViewCount="7846" Body="&lt;p&gt;I play online chess at 3 days per move. I like to tell my opponents how I'm going to checkmate them if they will never win. That way, that I won't waste time continuing the game. I also like to be told if I will be mated for the same reason.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The majority of the users find that insulting. Is it really insulting to tell your opponents how you are going to checkmate them so they can resign fast? I don't play against titled players, so they don't see the checkmate coming unless you tell them. Meanwhile, titled players fight to the end online often, with many games ending in checkmate, unlike real games where you very often resign.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1105" LastEditorUserId="3757" LastEditDate="2021-04-02T08:48:52.083" LastActivityDate="2021-04-02T08:48:52.083" Title="Is it ethical to tell your opponent how you are going to checkmate them?" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;etiquette&gt;&lt;correspondence-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="16" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="4155" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4160" CreationDate="2013-11-26T21:51:19.767" Score="11" ViewCount="1331" Body="&lt;p&gt;They played the Berlin defense and Ruy Lopez. Well the question is more like: why Anand insisted to play Ruy Lopez again and again. wouldn't be better if he had tried najdorf and nimzo indian earlier? I felt like Anand is giving Carlen the world championship as a thanksgiving gift! Why would a GM in a world championship be so stubborn. What was he hoping for and what was his plan by insisting to play the same opening?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1105" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-03-01T15:15:45.497" LastActivityDate="2014-11-29T14:01:08.057" Title="Why Anand and Carlsen insisted on playing the same opening/defense" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;world-championship&gt;&lt;carlsen&gt;&lt;anand&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4156" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4155" CreationDate="2013-11-26T22:50:10.663" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Before every important match, opponents are very carefully preparing their repertoire of openings/defenses. This not only include deeply training of known lines, but also their own analysis how to invent new continuation, that could suprise the opponent. Because when that happens it often leads to easy win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So even before the first move of first game they both know how they will play and even to what exactly continuation each one will want to proceed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="933" LastActivityDate="2013-11-26T22:50:10.663" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4157" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4154" CreationDate="2013-11-26T23:08:03.653" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think that this is very polite nor common. If they are playing so poorly that they don't see the checkmate coming, telling this isn't very helpful for them. They still don't know how to counteract against moves that you are planning to do, so they only become more stressed and probably angry with you, too. Because it's looking like sneering at them - &lt;em&gt;&quot;Even that I'm telling you what exactly my plans are, you still lose!&quot;&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="933" LastActivityDate="2013-11-26T23:08:03.653" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4158" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4154" CreationDate="2013-11-26T23:16:50.540" Score="58" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is not a question of ethics, but more about being courteous.  Chess is a game where it is impossible to separate the joy of the game from the competitiveness/ego aspect so by declaring a forced win in N moves, you are effectively asking your opponent to resign immediately even though he hasn't seen the forced win yet &lt;strong&gt;owing to his lesser faculties/skill set.&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Try doing that kind of thing at work/real life .. you'll be out of a job in no time (or get punched in the face) :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your opponent may be weaker than you and he may not be able to calculate like you do, but give him the chance OR let him play the game out till the bitter end.  You can't just force somebody into resigning by brow-beating them, for God's sake :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Beyond the probability (however small) that you may be wrong / You may have missed an in-between move or desperado yourself, you are essentially coming off as a jerk. The rare exception is that you are coaching somebody (as part of a mutually agreed session, not one where you suddenly decided to act like a coach! ) where you can afford to &lt;strong&gt;point things&lt;/strong&gt; out to them and not come off as arrogant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1751" LastEditorUserId="1751" LastEditDate="2013-11-27T01:39:21.717" LastActivityDate="2013-11-27T01:39:21.717" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4159" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4154" CreationDate="2013-11-26T23:19:11.147" Score="31" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The majority of the users find that insulting. Is it really insulting&#xA;  to [...]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can answer the question based on this excerpt alone. The answer is yes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2013-11-26T23:19:11.147" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4160" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4155" CreationDate="2013-11-27T00:15:01.920" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;One of Anand's strengths relative to Carlsen is better opening knowledge, and Anand also had the better analysis team. (UPDATE: According to Carlsen in a &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.nrk.no/magasin/slik-jobbet-carlsen-bak-lukkede-dorer-1.12067080&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;recent interview&lt;/a&gt;, his team of seconds during the Chennai match consisted of Hammer, Fressinet and Eljanov.) To repeat openings was a natural match strategy for him, trying to turn the match into an opening discussion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By varying openings, especially with white, Carlsen cleverly avoided most of Anand's preparation. The only set-up that was repeated was &lt;code&gt;d3&lt;/code&gt; against the Berlin (played in two white games by Anand), but Anand couldn't find any weakness there. Anand has played &lt;code&gt;1.e4&lt;/code&gt; most of his career, and it's understandable that he tried to catch Carlsen there. The one game Anand played &lt;code&gt;1.d4&lt;/code&gt; he lost, although probably from a strong position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, Anand should have taken more chances, but even with hindsight it is difficult to devise a  match strategy for him leading to success.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1485" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2014-11-29T14:01:08.057" LastActivityDate="2014-11-29T14:01:08.057" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4161" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4148" CreationDate="2013-11-27T08:32:50.120" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;With ELO (and most other chess rating systems I know of), it is difficult to substantially increase your rating when you play someone with a much lower rating. Also, whenever you draw against someone with a lower rating, that decreases your rating. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the case of Carlsen's goal of 2900, where even the second highest rated player is 70 points below him, a draw is almost like a loss! And in a game where draws are very common at the top level, that makes Carles'n goal very ambitious. Still, if anyone can do it ... &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1816" LastEditorUserId="1816" LastEditDate="2013-11-27T08:39:42.103" LastActivityDate="2013-11-27T08:39:42.103" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4162" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4154" CreationDate="2013-11-27T10:14:13.147" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Being a &quot;not so good&quot; player I would appreciate that, because I would learn something and next game I will try to avoid the same error. If people is reacting bad, It's a matter of bad attitude. Dude, it's a game!!!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Alex&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1982" LastActivityDate="2013-11-27T10:14:13.147" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4163" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4154" CreationDate="2013-11-27T11:45:04.310" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would say this is not only insulting but unethical.  Chess is a game that is intended to be a test of thought and concentration.  It is unfair for a player to disrupt his opponents thought processes by drawing attention to any particular line of play as it may distract him from pursuing his intended strategy.  Now &lt;em&gt;you&lt;/em&gt; may think that the play is forced from the current position, but what if your opponent has seen something that &lt;em&gt;you&lt;/em&gt; have missed?  Worse still, what if your opponent fails to see that line of play because you had distracted him and resigns?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now if you and your opponent agree before the game to discuss play while the game is in progress, that is another thing altogether, but as a basic rule, while playing keep quiet and let your opponent concentrate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1984" LastEditorUserId="1984" LastEditDate="2013-11-27T12:05:52.310" LastActivityDate="2013-11-27T12:05:52.310" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4164" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2911" CreationDate="2013-11-27T11:52:18.373" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure that even configurable chess engines provide good ELO ratings. I play Shredder at 1800, winning probably about 1/2 (if I play seriously), but my actual rating is 1500-1600.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1816" LastActivityDate="2013-11-27T11:52:18.373" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4165" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4155" CreationDate="2013-11-27T15:09:08.087" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the simple answer is preparation. &lt;em&gt;Perhaps&lt;/em&gt; Anand invested significant time before the match in the open games and to suddenly switch to closed games might have been unsettling. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="118" LastActivityDate="2013-11-27T15:09:08.087" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4166" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2752" CreationDate="2013-11-27T18:18:19.020" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;did the following experiment using Fritz&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;setup the board at the start and removed one black pawn at a time (a7 --&gt; h7).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the computer evaluation was strongest (for white) when the f7 pawn was removed.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;similarly repeated the experiment for white. Again the evaluation was strongest for black when the f2 pawn was removed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What i found interesting was that there was significant first move advantage for white if the f7 pawn was removed for black and non F file pawn was removed for white.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Please note that these tests were done at very shallow depths.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I guess a strong chess player like yourself can make a better evaluation of these tests.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="118" LastActivityDate="2013-11-27T18:18:19.020" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4167" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4155" CreationDate="2013-11-27T21:31:55.427" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;He couldn't play Najdorf, as Carlsen would have played 3.Bb5+ (as he did in the last match game). He also couldn't know that Carlsen would go for the Nimzo-Indian against 1.d4, it could as well have been a dry Queen's Gambit Declined.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think Anand's team had things prepared in various lines of the Berlin Defence, but not against the exact variations that Carlsen had chosen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2013-11-27T21:31:55.427" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4168" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4154" CreationDate="2013-11-28T01:43:19.900" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I guess I don't know about anybody else but I have both had people tell me that they had mate in n moves and have done the same myself. Both are rare but I have never had anyone get mad at me for it or gotten mad and anyone for it myself. I have even been wrong and had someone prove it on the board and have proven others who claimed mate in n moves wrong. My experience playing has been mostly online and I have seen VERY few games go until actual mate. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Especially with a long timer such as days per move I have always been told that one should resign when they know they have lost, and their opponent knows they have won and the person knows their opponent know they have won and know how to finish the game. Not resigning in those conditions is rude, essentially wasting the time the opponent could have spent on another game. If those conditions are not met, or you think you could learn something from seeing how the opponent finishes the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All in all I would error on the side of politeness, only mentioning mate in n moves and how if you are sure that it will be acceptable to your opponent, and allowing the benefit of the doubt to them otherwise, assuming that there is still something that they can gain from the game by continuing uninterrupted unless they say something to indicate otherwise. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1161" LastEditorUserId="1161" LastEditDate="2013-12-05T17:40:17.893" LastActivityDate="2013-12-05T17:40:17.893" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4169" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4154" CreationDate="2013-11-28T06:48:58.557" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's not like they're going to resign just because someone tells them there's a forced mate. They will try to either:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A) Prove you wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B) Know there's a forced mate, but play on just to irritate you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1856" LastActivityDate="2013-11-28T06:48:58.557" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4170" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4172" CreationDate="2013-11-28T19:01:24.063" Score="6" ViewCount="3692" Body="&lt;p&gt;What are good chess clients for Mac, that allow playing on FICS. Nice-to-haves are an opening book, plug-and-play engines, and scoring of chess positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: For completeness, note that Jin does not allow you to save games. FICS can email them to you if you turn on a setting, but no way to recover guest games with Jin. I think this is a complete deal breaker.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1962" LastEditorUserId="1962" LastEditDate="2013-12-08T01:00:06.453" LastActivityDate="2016-04-17T10:42:14.240" Title="Mac Desktop Client for FICS" Tags="&lt;mac&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4171" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4170" CreationDate="2013-11-28T19:10:18.970" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't have a mac, and i'm not a FICS user, here's what i found by googliing&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://sourceforge.net/projects/kibitz.berlios/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://sourceforge.net/projects/kibitz.berlios/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chesshive.com/2011/08/raptor-chess-fics-desktop-client-for-mac/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://chesshive.com/2011/08/raptor-chess-fics-desktop-client-for-mac/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/18kbm9/what_software_do_you_use_with_fics_on_mac_osx/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/18kbm9/what_software_do_you_use_with_fics_on_mac_osx/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesscircle.net/forums/showthread.php?2420-Macintosh-ICC-FICS-client&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.chesscircle.net/forums/showthread.php?2420-Macintosh-ICC-FICS-client&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1105" LastActivityDate="2013-11-28T19:10:18.970" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4172" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4170" CreationDate="2013-11-29T12:33:22.873" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You have choices:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i. &lt;a href=&quot;http://kibitz.berlios.de/Kibitz%20Home.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Kibitz&lt;/a&gt;, implemented features are&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Playing and observing chess games on FICS&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Observing multiple games&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Chat with other users on FICS&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Support for chess variants including &quot;Bughouse&quot; and &quot;Crazyhouse&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ii. &lt;a href=&quot;http://chesshive.com/2011/08/raptor-chess-fics-desktop-client-for-mac/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Raptor&lt;/a&gt;, FICS desktop client for Mac&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;iii. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jinchess.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Jin&lt;/a&gt;, which is Java based and can be executed on a Mac also.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;iv. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.open-aurec.com/wbforum/viewtopic.php?f=19&amp;amp;t=50428&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;XBoard&lt;/a&gt;, a multi platform solution!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and such a pity that you can't try &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.babaschess.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;BabasChess&lt;/a&gt; (maybe you can use a emulator to execute it on your Mac)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1824" LastActivityDate="2013-11-29T12:33:22.873" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4173" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1041" CreationDate="2013-11-30T00:58:01.367" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Evans Gambit is NOT refuted despite what some stuffy theorists will say. In almost all lines black has to give back the pawn at one point or suffer a serious disadvantage.  Besides, even if the gambit was totally refuted it would be ridiculous for anyone (even a grandmaster) to learn all of the lines that lead to an advantage for black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The thing you have to remember when you play gambits is that humans are not computers.  Even if they are very familiar with the lines they are bound to make tiny mistakes, gambits might not work against computers but chess is a human game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1998" LastActivityDate="2013-11-30T00:58:01.367" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4174" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-11-30T10:15:21.620" Score="3" ViewCount="433" Body="&lt;p&gt;For research purposes, I would like to have a chess engine hooked up to a tablebase where I can be guaranteed that the chess engine is looking at ALL moves and calls the tablebase in real time in small positions. Chess engines may discard some moves on the way to calling the tablebase later, and I need to avoid that, for my purposes. At the very least I have to know that no moves, no matter how silly, have been discarded. Can anyone advise me as to what the best available setup is for this purpose? Or whether some code should be added to an open source engine? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2000" LastActivityDate="2014-12-28T06:12:28.950" Title="Chess Research Analysis Setup" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4175" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4154" CreationDate="2013-11-30T14:14:27.297" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is not allowed to talk to your opponent, unless you offer draw. You can discuss the game with your opponent after the game is completed. This is known as the game analysis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2013-11-30T14:19:30.043" LastActivityDate="2013-11-30T14:19:30.043" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4176" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4155" CreationDate="2013-11-30T17:11:21.150" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my view, in terms of opening preparation, the Anand team failed to obtain middle game positions that suited Anand's style. In general, I think that Anand should have aimed for long middlegames with most pieces intact. While Carlsen should have aimed for long endgames with most pieces exchanged off the board. From this point of view, Carlsen got his types of positions, while Anand failed to get his. This can partially be explained by the chosen opening systems. Additionally, I think that Anand should not have willingly exchanged queens in a single game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastActivityDate="2013-11-30T17:11:21.150" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4177" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4136" CreationDate="2013-11-30T17:18:43.237" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can build your own with e.g. a mind map tool (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.xmind.net/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.xmind.net/&lt;/a&gt;) together with a complete listing of chess openings (e.g. at &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/openings/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chess.com/openings/&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastActivityDate="2013-11-30T17:18:43.237" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4178" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4132" CreationDate="2013-11-30T17:30:36.690" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here are a few ideas on what parameters to measure. Number of blunders per game. How often you have an equal or better position after 10 moves, 15 moves, 20 moves. How often you succeed on using your opponent's blunders. How often you draw or win objectively drawn endgames. How often you succeed to find forced mating combinations. How often you successfully defend objectively lost endgames. How often you lose on time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2013-11-30T17:50:44.470" LastActivityDate="2013-11-30T17:50:44.470" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4179" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4105" CreationDate="2013-11-30T18:02:33.127" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;A square becomes weak when a pawn cannot protect it. For example, after white plays e2-e4 followed by c2-c4, the square on d4 becomes weak for white. Yet, the square on d4 becomes weak only when black has at least one piece that can use this weakness. In this example, the square on d4 is best used by a knight or bishop. To create a weakness, you should force your opponent to move a pawn forward. Make sure you have at least one piece that can take advantage of the created weak squares.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastActivityDate="2013-11-30T18:02:33.127" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4180" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-11-30T19:01:27.797" Score="2" ViewCount="1034" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a beginner in chess. I am finding it difficult to learn the openings. There seems to be tons of opening games in chess. Is there a way to learn them easily? Is there any website that has a collection of all the openings in chess?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2002" LastActivityDate="2016-06-22T14:12:05.750" Title="How to master the openings?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4181" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4128" CreationDate="2013-11-30T19:20:28.780" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;How about this strategy:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. a4 b5 2. Na3 b4 3. h4 bxa3 4. b4 a5 5. b5 Na6 6. bxa6 Rb8 7. a7 Rb5 8. axb5 c5 9. Rb1 c4 10. Rb3 cxb3 11. Nh3 g5 12. c4 g4 13. c5 gxh3 14. g4 h5 15. g5 Nh6  16. gxh6 Rg8 17. h7 Rg5 18. hxg5 f5 19. Rg1 h2 20. Rg4 fxg4 21. g6 h4 22. c6 Bb7 23. cxb7 g3 24. b6 b2 25. a8=Q a2 26. b8=Q a4 27. b7 a3 28. Qf4 b1=Q 29. b8=Q a1=Q 30. Qbb4 a2 31. Qfc4 e5 32. f4 e4 33. Bg2 h3 34. Bf3 exf3 35. f5 g2 36. d4 Qab2 37. Qdc2 a1=Q 38. Kd2 f2 39. d5 h1=Q 40. d6 f1=Q 41. f6 Be7 42. dxe7 d5 43. g7 Kd7 44. g8=Q d4 45. e4 d3 46. e5 g1=Q 47. f7 Qc6 48. h8=Q h2 49. f8=Q h1=Q 50. e6+ Kc7 51. e8=Q Qbg7 52. Qbb2 Q1g6 53. Qff6 Qhh7 54. Kc3 d2 55. Qgf8 dxc1=Q 56. e7 Q8d7 57. Qef7 Q6h6 58. e8=Q&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-01-30T11:01:35.490" LastActivityDate="2014-01-30T11:01:35.490" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4182" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4180" CreationDate="2013-11-30T19:33:55.883" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;One option is to learn one opening at the time. If you are a beginner in chess, you should also consider to learn endgames, because you need a solid endgame to bring home the victory points. That being said, openings are indeed a big world, with many interesting jewels to be found. My advice would be to learn one opening at a time. Learn and apply in practice in your games, that is the method. One place that tries to list and discuss all chess openings is this one (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/openings/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.chess.com/openings/&lt;/a&gt;). Another tip is to find an instructive chess book on openings and start there. The general idea of openings is to develop your pieces and follow the ideas in the positions that arise. Learn those ideas from games played by grandmasters, from books and apply them in your own games. The more you invest in an opening system (e.g. French, Spanish, Sicilian) the more ideas you will know, the better results you will get.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastActivityDate="2013-11-30T19:33:55.883" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4183" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4127" CreationDate="2013-11-30T19:59:04.440" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is another game between GM Tukhaev - GM Nisipeanu (2012). After 7...e5, black loses control over d5 and f5, as well as exposing the a2-g8 diagonal for white's light squared bishop. Yet in a practical game, 7...e5 is fully playable. If you want to use it in your own games, my advice is to go ahead and use it as often as you can. The more you do, the better you will know the middlegames and endgames that arise, the better results you will score.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 e6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 d6 6. g4 h6 7. h4 e5 8. Nf5 Nc6 9. Bc4 Be6 10. Bb3 Qd7 11. Qf3 h5 12. gxh5 Nxh5 13. Bg5 g6 14. Ng3 Nd4 15. Qd3 Nxb3 16. axb3 Be7 17. Nge2 f6 18. Be3 f5 19. f3 f4 20. Bf2 Nf6 21. Rg1 Kf7 22. O-O-O Rac8 23. Rg5 Rh6 24. Kb1 a6 25. Na4 Qc6 26. Nb6 Rd8 27. Nc3 Nd7 28.Nxd7 Qxd7 29. Rg2 Bxh4 30. Bb6 Rc8 31. Qxd6 Qxd6 32. Rxd6 Be7 33. Rd1 g5 34.Ne2 Rh3 35. Rf1 Rch8 36. Nc1 Rh1 37. Rgg1 Rxg1 38. Rxg1 Rh3 39. Nd3 Kf6 40. Rf1 Bd6 41. Kc1 Ke7 42. Kd2 g4 43. fxg4 Bxg4 44. Nf2 Rh2 45. Rg1 Bf3 46. Kd3 Kd7 47. Rg6 Bh5 48. Rf6 Be7 49. Rf5 Ke6 50. Bc7 Bf6 51. Bb6 Bf3 52. Kc3 Be7 53. Nd3 Bd6 54. Nf2 Rg2 55. b4 Rg8 56. Kb3 Rg6  0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastActivityDate="2013-11-30T19:59:04.440" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4184" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1103" CreationDate="2013-11-30T20:33:21.170" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Major edit (no intro, just straight to the point):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is there a good place to get a real understanding of the middle game,&#xA;  or is it just raw calculation? Maybe I am missing a positional&#xA;  understanding?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Raw calculation does not exist. Every calculation of a position will lead to a final position that needs to be evaluated. A position can be evaluated from many different points of view. The two major views are &quot;positional&quot; and &quot;dynamic&quot;. The positional view focuses on the static aspects of the position, like a snap shot of the position. The dynamic view focuses on the dynamic possibilities in the position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Dividing a game into the opening, middlegame and endgame does not always help to understand chess better. After all, any position can be evaluated using one or more evaluation strategies that exist today. Thus, understanding the middlegame means understanding positions where most of the pieces are still on the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Based on my own subjective view, positional understanding is harder to master than dynamic understanding. Perhaps because combinations are so tempting and beautiful. Still, some players find positional thinking easier than dynamic thinking. Those players have huge issues with messy positions where several pieces are hanging. Thus, to handle positions where most pieces are still on the board, a player needs to master both positional and dynamic reasoning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The short answer would actually be: good books, good trainers and many over the board games against slightly stronger opponents!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-11-03T20:13:43.773" LastActivityDate="2014-11-03T20:13:43.773" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4185" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="59" CreationDate="2013-11-30T20:40:49.460" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes it is. Check out this video!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3EqM17jvOc&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3EqM17jvOc&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The general rule is to get the opponent king in the same corner as your bishop. Use the knight and king to control the squares of opposite color to the color your bishop controls. Then, drive the opponent king to one of the two corners with the correct color!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastActivityDate="2013-11-30T20:40:49.460" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4186" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4180" CreationDate="2013-11-30T21:03:10.503" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think one of the best way of learning an opening is to buy a book about it and read this book. In general, opening books are written by great chess players. Therefore, you could save general ideas and some good hints of the opening by means of good comments of the writer on various positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="813" LastActivityDate="2013-11-30T21:03:10.503" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4187" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4180" CreationDate="2013-11-30T21:35:11.883" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;First you should make sure you master the fundamental concepts of opening play. Once you understand those concepts most openings can be universally understood just based on those concepts alone. It's unnecessary (and impractical) to try to classify every opening as having &quot;x - y - z&quot; specific ideas related to it, especially if you're a beginner.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I believe it's a counterproductive approach to try to &quot;learn openings&quot;. You're better off just learning Chess, and the openings will simply come naturally. Yes, there are repeating themes in certain openings, but if you want to truly master the openings those themes should always be readily explainable by general understanding.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Only then do you research the specific lines of an opening and commit them to memory. As for a roundup of all the available openings, you can always just look at Wikipedia. &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_opening&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_opening&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1856" LastEditorUserId="1856" LastEditDate="2013-11-30T21:42:22.653" LastActivityDate="2013-11-30T21:42:22.653" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4188" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4280" CreationDate="2013-12-01T00:33:22.643" Score="4" ViewCount="2044" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am looking for getting all games played in 2013 as quickly and painlessly as possible. A batch file to download many ziped pgn files would be non-ideal, but ok. I prefer the Week in Chess as a source due to their high DB consistency quality, but the ultimate goal is to compile a single high quality DB of all games played in the year 2013.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="618" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-03-06T15:38:48.290" LastActivityDate="2018-11-01T15:49:05.843" Title="What is the best way to get games for the multiple editions of The Week In Chess?" Tags="&lt;database&gt;&lt;download-games&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4189" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="106" CreationDate="2013-12-01T01:39:09.590" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The endgame begins when the kings can wander out from their hiding places without risking being checkmated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastEditorUserId="1751" LastEditDate="2013-12-27T01:21:37.560" LastActivityDate="2013-12-27T01:21:37.560" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4190" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1569" CreationDate="2013-12-01T01:50:37.777" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Books, grandmaster games and using the opening in your games whenever you get the chance. One option is to look at games played by grandmasters. Try to notice positions that suit your style and scribble down what openings were used. Start learning one of those systems (e.g. Sicilian, French, Spanish, Caro-Kann, King's Indian, etc.). Pick a variation (e.g. Najdorf). Find games with this variation and learn the key ideas. Start using them in your games. For instance, in the Sicilian defense, a typical idea for black is to sacrifice the exchange with Rc8xNc3. The more ideas you collect, the more at home you will be in the system of your choice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastActivityDate="2013-12-01T01:50:37.777" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4191" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="442" CreationDate="2013-12-01T11:58:00.647" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my opinion, it is possible to teach children chess from as early as two years old. It all depends on what results you expect to see and at what age. The goal of a chess game is to win by defeating your opponent's army. The concept of winning and defeating an opponent is not trivial and the understanding of this concept comes at different ages for different people. Explaining the rules of the game (how the pieces move) can be done at any age. Yet explaining the concept and driving force is a bit more complex.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In general, the earlier you begin learning chess, the better you become at chess. At the same time, you need passion to drive your learning forward. So becoming a good chess player is a combination of passion and practice. While teaching the rules will be simple, becoming passionate about chess is a much more complex process. Certainly, the odds of becoming interested in chess are greater if the child already has some understanding for logical thinking, cause and effect, basic mathematical knowledge and perhaps experience in other games (e.g. checkers). Having this in mind, perhaps the age of 6-8 is more ideal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My advice would be to keep a full sized chess board at home and play with family and friends at home on a regular basis. If you have chess as part of your daily life, an interest for learning it will be sparked sooner or later. Learning by example is powerful and usually works well in practice. If chess becomes associated with positive emotions and moments, then the chances of becoming interested in chess should be pretty high.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2013-12-21T12:55:38.693" LastActivityDate="2013-12-21T12:55:38.693" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4192" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="80" CreationDate="2013-12-01T12:02:45.343" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can castle when &lt;strong&gt;all&lt;/strong&gt; of these conditions hold true:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The King and the Rook did not make any moves so far.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The King is not in check.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The King will not pass a threatened square during castling.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The King will not land on a threatened square.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Condition 3 might need clarification. For example, you have the white pieces and you want to castle kingside. Then, you are using your Ke1 and Rh1 for castling. Let's say that conditions 1 and 2 are fulfilled. Next, the g1 square should not be threatened in order to fulfill condition 4. Finally, the King will pass the square f1 on its way to g1. Thus, the square f1 should not be threatened for condition 3 to hold true!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-03-05T14:56:28.310" LastActivityDate="2014-03-05T14:56:28.310" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4193" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1" CreationDate="2013-12-01T12:49:07.780" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;The point of ...a6 is to control the square b5 where white can otherwise place a knight or bishop at some point. Another point is to prepare b7-b5 followed by Bc8-b7 and perhaps b5-b4 to chase a white Nc3. The move ...a6 appears in at least two variations, 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6; 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 e6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 a6. If you have ever been interested in the gambit 1.e4 c5 2.b4, then you can consider 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 a6 3.b4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 a6 3.b4 cxb4 4.a3 bxa3 5.Bxa3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastActivityDate="2013-12-01T12:49:07.780" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4194" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="188" CreationDate="2013-12-01T14:21:25.993" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The goal of analyzing a game is to understand what happened in the game, step by step. Following Kasparov's advice, you should analyze all your games, regardless of the final result (loss, draw or win). The point is that it is tempting to only analyze your losses, because you think that these are the games that reveal your weak spots. While in reality, your wins could be covering up some even more serious flaws that will continue haunting your future games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nowadays, analysis involves the usage of a chess engine. The ideal analysis is as follows. First, you analyze with your opponent after the game. You go through the whole game and find the critical moments and share your thoughts about these positions. Taking a few notes during this process is a very good idea. Next, you get home and enter the game in your personal database over your games on the computer. Then, you step through the game with an engine (e.g. Rybka) running to find the key moments by looking at evaluation jumps. You compare these with the moments you discussed with your opponent, to check your own understanding. You can make notes and include them in the game file. Done!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2013-12-15T02:14:19.500" LastActivityDate="2013-12-15T02:14:19.500" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4195" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1050" CreationDate="2013-12-01T14:28:35.047" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The opening is actually the first 10-20 moves in the game. The purpose of the opening is to develop your knights and bishops and protect your king by castling either kingside or queenside. Another purpose of the opening is to grab the center of the board (the squares e4, d4, e5 and d5) and benefit of this control during the rest of the game. The opening is used to mobilize your forces and protect your king. The next stage will be to mount an attack on the opponent's position, either on one of the flanks, or right at the center. It is possible to attack the opponent directly during the opening with the aim to catch the opponent king before that king has the time to castle. Yet generally it is recommended to master all three phases of the game (opening, middlegame and endgame) before trying fancy attacks in the opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastActivityDate="2013-12-01T14:28:35.047" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4196" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="573" CreationDate="2013-12-01T14:37:11.093" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The purpose of castling is to protect your king. Yet, the opponent can wait with castling to see which side you will castle and then launch a pawn assault on that flank. This is possible, because the opponent can later castle on the opposite side. These types of positions are known as &quot;positions with opposite castling&quot; and they have a special place in terms of middlegame strategy. My advice would be for you to wait for your opponent to castle and then castle on the opposite side and launch a pawn assault on the opponent's king. Practice these types of positions and learn about them by examining grandmaster games and studying books on the topic. Another strategy is to castle queenside as quickly as possible and then control the center as well as possible with pawns and light pieces. If the opponent castles queenside too, then you just play as normal. If the opponent castles kingside, launch a pawn assault (g and h pawns) and try to open the g-file or h-file for your rooks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastActivityDate="2013-12-01T14:37:11.093" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4197" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2008" CreationDate="2013-12-01T14:48:50.357" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Studying should be combined with over the board competitions. Compete over the board on a regular basis, at least one tournament with normal time controls (90 min / 40 moves + 30 min / rest of the game with 30 seconds increment per move) every three months. Compete and evaluate your games after the tournament is completed. Begin by studying endgames (king vs king, king+knight vs king+knight, king+rook vs king+rook, king+queen vs king+queen). Practice combinations, e.g. typical mating combinations like Bxh7 followed by Ng5 and Qh5. Read books on positional play (e.g. My System by Nimzowitsch). When studying openings, try to learn one system at the time, and mimic a grandmaster that you admire. Accumulate ideas in that particular opening system and apply them in your games. Yet, studying has to go hand in hand with regular competitions over the board. Learn and apply, that is the rule of thumb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastActivityDate="2013-12-01T14:48:50.357" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4198" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1207" CreationDate="2013-12-01T14:56:49.213" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is a bad habit, if you want to improve your chess. The downside of allowing a second chance after a blunder is that you do not practice remaining focused during the entire game. Blunders occur when you lose concentration or when you fail to see what the opponent can reply. Learning to identify and avoid blunders is a key skill to reach success in chess (e.g. check out the Blumenfeld's Rule). Blunders cause decisive results on all levels. If your goal is to improve your chess skills, you should stop giving takebacks and practice being more focused. Accept blunders as a natural part of chess. Blunders will give you victories, but they will also cause some of your losses. One advice is to continue playing after a blunder the whole way until checkmate. That way, the blunder might remain better in memory and you will be more careful in the next game. Also, you get to practice your skills in defending a worse position. This is an extremely useful skill that is ignored by many and mastered by few.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastActivityDate="2013-12-01T14:56:49.213" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4199" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="496" CreationDate="2013-12-01T15:05:50.353" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Good sleep and food habits. Fitness training. Meditation and mindfulness.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastActivityDate="2013-12-01T15:05:50.353" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4201" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1412" CreationDate="2013-12-01T15:24:48.270" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Stalemate is a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalemate&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;draw by definition&lt;/a&gt;. Why is it a draw? Because this is the rule that was agreed upon in the 19th century. Before the 19th century, the stalemate rule was not standardized. By defining stalemate as a draw, winning has become more difficult. Stalemate is an important resource to hold a draw. For example, many rook endgames are drawn because the defending side sacrifices their rook to create a stalemate. The stalemate also offers escape from clearly lost positions where the opponent loses focus and allows the stalemate to happen. My view is that the stalemate adds flavor to chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-08-11T16:58:20.283" LastActivityDate="2019-08-11T16:58:20.283" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="4202" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="346" CreationDate="2013-12-01T15:28:08.257" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;You could define a game as perfect when the engine evaluation of the position stays within some boundary (e.g. between +0.3 and -0.3) the entire game. It should be possible to find at least one game that satisfies this condition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The question has been updated since last time: But is there a game that no computer has ever been able to improve as of this date? To answer this question, someone needs to automate the process of evaluating a game in this manner and then run this script on e.g. all GM games from some freely available database. I guess such games should be few in number and the shorter the game the higher the chance that it meets the requirement! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-11-06T10:22:43.910" LastActivityDate="2014-11-06T10:22:43.910" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4203" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1368" CreationDate="2013-12-01T15:35:11.637" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The idea Nc3-b1 has gradually become well known. In general, the idea is to get the knight to a better square, e.g. the c4 square. Another consequence is that the a1-h8 diagonal opens and can be controlled by the white queen at some point. The third is that the c2-pawn can move forward. In this position, white wants to attack, but has to mobilize the forces first. Nc3-b1 can at first seem to help the black queen to return to c7, where it will be safer. At the same time, the knight can continue with Nb1-a3-c4 and attack the d6 and b6 squares. Another option is to place the c2-pawn on c4 and do Qd2-b2 to control the a1-h8 diagonal. What makes Nc3-b1 special is that it allows white to regroup the forces and then follow up with an attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastActivityDate="2013-12-01T15:35:11.637" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4204" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="954" CreationDate="2013-12-01T15:47:07.967" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/component/handbook/?id=208&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;rules&lt;/a&gt; it is allowed to first remove the opponent's piece and then move your own piece to that square and then press the clock. Ideally, placing your own piece should be done directly after removing the opponent's piece. It is a bit strange to first remove the opponent piece and then sink down in deep thought. This is not considered as good manners. Yet the rules do not seem to prohibit this method of capturing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If this happens to you again, you can consider calling the arbiter and say that this type of capturing is disturbing. It is not allowed to do things that disturb your opponent during play (talk, each chips and spill some of them on the board, make funny faces, click a million times with your pen, etc.). The other option is to ignore this and focus on your own game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-07-19T19:10:02.400" LastActivityDate="2019-07-19T19:10:02.400" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="4205" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="327" CreationDate="2013-12-01T15:51:24.270" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;By training and competing on a regular basis. The fact that the opponent has e.g. 2100 in rating means that the opponent has reached this rating by training and competing. To increase your chance of beating them, you have to go the same road. Actually, having the white pieces does not give you an advantage. Against skilled opponents, you will end up with positions where you would rather flip the board. The advice would be to play the opening system you know best and do the moves you think are the best. Also, analyze the game together with the opponent afterwards, to gain insight and improve your skills. If you want to have an advice you can use directly, then go for complications and unbalanced positions. Try to keep all the pieces on the board and create dynamic positions with a high risk for both sides. Then, try to see if you can calculate better and win material in those positions. Be a brawler.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastActivityDate="2013-12-01T15:51:24.270" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4206" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="346" CreationDate="2013-12-01T15:54:12.620" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;IF we assume that chess is a theoretical draw, then any move that doesn't lose is &quot;perfect&quot; in the theoretical sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think there have been many perfect games. Take game 2 of Anand-Carlsen:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Anand-Carlsen World Championship&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Chennai IND&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2013.11.10&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;2013.11.07&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;2&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1/2-1/2&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Viswanathan Anand&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Magnus Carlsen&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;B18&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;2775&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;2870&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;50&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 dxe4 4.Nxe4 Bf5 5.Ng3 Bg6 6.h4 h6 7.Nf3&#xA;e6 8.Ne5 Bh7 9.Bd3 Bxd3 10.Qxd3 Nd7 11.f4 Bb4+ 12.c3 Be7&#xA;13.Bd2 Ngf6 14.O-O-O O-O 15.Ne4 Nxe4 16.Qxe4 Nxe5 17.fxe5 Qd5&#xA;18.Qxd5 cxd5 19.h5 b5 20.Rh3 a5 21.Rf1 Rac8 22.Rg3 Kh7 23.Rgf3&#xA;Kg8 24.Rg3 Kh7 25.Rgf3 Kg8 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I cannot believe that either player had a lost position at any moment, so no mistakes were made in the theoretical sense, so that was a perfect game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's similar to playing a drawn tablebase endgame position against an engine that uses the tablebase. It's usually incredibly easy to draw, because the engine doesn't care about making life hard for you. E.g., in a drawn R + pawn v R position, it will often just give away the pawn. That's not worse than other drawing moves, according to the tablebase. It's flawless chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2013-12-01T15:54:12.620" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4207" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1270" CreationDate="2013-12-01T15:58:10.120" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Maximum distance between knight and any piece. Distance between king and passed pawns. Distance between knight and passed pawns (has to be calculated because the knight can give a check to gain time). Recognize opposite colored bishop endgames that can still be won (by blocking the opponent bishop diagonal or preventing the bishop from taking a diagonal using your king). Taking the seventh rank with your rook. Stopping enemy passed pawns with your rook. Blocking enemy passed pawns with a knight. Learn all endgame wins by heart (K+Q vs K, K+R vs K, K+Q vs K+R, K+B+B vs K, K+B+N vs K). Learn to use the R+N team to attack the enemy king. Also, I would advice to read and work with the book My System written by Nimzowitsch. It has a collection of ideas and goals that can guide you during the entire game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2013-12-01T16:09:22.507" LastActivityDate="2013-12-01T16:09:22.507" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4208" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1372" CreationDate="2013-12-01T16:15:45.933" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Tactics, calculation, dynamic play. Topics often talked about but seldomly understood at their very depth. I cannot claim to cover the whole subject in this post. Yet hopefully I will scratch the surface of this vast subject. To become stronger in dynamic play, you need to understand the ingredients of dynamic play. There are at least two parts, calculation and vision. Calculation is the ability to enter different variations in your head and find the best moves for yourself and the opponent until you reach a position that you think you can evaluate. Vision is the ability to find ideas which in turn show you what moves or series of moves that are important to check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Dynamic play is improved by training the calculation and vision skills. It is recommended to follow a calculation technique (as described in some books, e.g. Kotov) when calculating variations. By learning and applying the technique on a regular basis, your calculation will improve accordingly. Training your vision is more complex. You may have heard of patterns and that our brains memorize patterns when playing through grandmaster games and then we are able to apply these patterns in our own games. This most probably holds true. You should also collect ideas by reading annotated games and paying attention to the ideas that were described in these games. The ideas will also become patterns that you can apply in your own games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Training correctly and truthfully is very hard. Training will give results. The best way to improve your dynamic play (I don't really like the term tactics because it somehow makes it sound more simple) is to train hard. To follow the training system that your books actually recommend. To get a personal trainer and/or mentor. To take every game seriously. To work hard at the board in each game. To analyze your games afterwards. To be self critical after every loss, draw and win. Dynamic play is a big part of every game. You have the static part and the dynamic part. So the dynamic play is at least half of every game. That being said, even 15 minutes a day will give great results, as long as you train properly. Happy hunting!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-01-24T16:21:33.253" LastActivityDate="2014-01-24T16:21:33.253" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4209" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1611" CreationDate="2013-12-01T16:22:46.440" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;If the blunder has been noticed by the opponent and the opponent captures e.g. the lost pawn, do the following. Make a fresh evaluation of the position on the board. What plan can you have in the new position. What is the opponent's plan and how can you counter this. What are your best options during the next moves. Then, make a plan and execute it on the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many opponents relax after getting a material advantage. They think that the game is in their pocket and they can slide their way to victory. You should put your both feet down and start working hard. Put up a fight. Start looking for what traps you can create. Perhaps &quot;blunder&quot; another pawn and then launch an attack on the king. The more and better you resist, the more frustrated the opponent will become. What is this? The opponent might think. Why doesn't the opponent just roll over and lose? Their fighting spirit has taken a break. You can use it to your advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-03-12T21:08:30.863" LastActivityDate="2014-03-12T21:08:30.863" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4211" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4188" CreationDate="2013-12-01T19:00:49.707" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Write a script that downloads the files, one at the time. The filename structure will allow you to use a loop to capture all the files you wish to get. Then, write a script that unzips the files and concatenates them in a single large PGN file. Then, write a script that finds and discards duplicated games. Other strategies seem to include a Firefox add-on (&lt;a href=&quot;https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/downthemall/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/downthemall/&lt;/a&gt;) and in general, the topic has been discussed in other places (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/13-million-master-games&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/13-million-master-games&lt;/a&gt;), (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/forum/view/chess-equipment/quotlost-issuesquot-of-twic&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.chess.com/forum/view/chess-equipment/quotlost-issuesquot-of-twic&lt;/a&gt;), (&lt;a href=&quot;http://chessdb.sourceforge.net/tutorial/twic-retriveal.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://chessdb.sourceforge.net/tutorial/twic-retriveal.php&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastActivityDate="2013-12-01T19:00:49.707" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4212" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="75" CreationDate="2013-12-01T19:12:29.833" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let me recommend two sharp opening variations for the black pieces: the Sicilian Najdorf and Semi-Slav Botvinnik variation. They lead to dynamic and complicated positions with chances for both sides. They are excellent for playing for a win with the black pieces. To master one or both of these variations, I recommend getting at least one modern book per variation and study these in great detail. Also, check all grandmaster games you can find and explore the ideas for both sides in these positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The starting position of the Sicilian Najdorf is reached after&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's try to understand this position. Black has a statically better position thanks to the semi-open c-file. This means that an exchange of queens in this position is beneficial for black. White will fight for the d5 square and try to plant a light piece there. Black will try to deliver the d6-d5 center blow, thematic for the Sicilian system. White castles queenside in the sharpest Najdorf variations. Black castles kingside, queenside or stays with the King in the center, depending on the situation. Black chooses between the setups e7-e6, e7-e5 and g7-g6. White chooses between f2-f3 and f2-f4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When white castles queenside, black attacks with the b- and a-pawns as well as the thematic exchange sac Rc8xNc3 bxc3, ruining the queenside pawn structure. If this exchange sac can be followed by picking up the e4-pawn, then it can be done at virtually any moment. Another thematic plan for black is placing a knight on e5 (after white's f-pawn is either on f5 or exchanged off) or c4 (attacking the b2-pawn and undermining the c3-knight).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The starting position of the Semi-Slav Botvinnik is reached after&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.Nc3 e6 5.Bg5 dxc4 6.e4 b5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At first glance, black just grabbed the c4-pawn and is trying to hold on to it for dear life. Yet things are more subtle than this. Black has entered an assymetric position where white has to find dynamic plans to compensate for the material loss. It also looks like white is winning with e4-e5. Yet again, things are not so simple at all. A bit deeper we reach the following position&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.Nc3 e6 5.Bg5 dxc4 6.e4 b5 7.e5 h6 8.Bh4 g5 9.Nxg5 hxg5 10.Bxg5 Nbd7 11.exf6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White will try to win using the extra kingside pawns. White can also launch an attack on the black King. Black will try to win by launching an attack on the white King, after developing with Bc8-b7, Qd8-b6 and O-O-O. White will most probably castle kingside, since staying in the center or castling queenside looks spooky. Black will open the a8-h1 diagonal and attack the isolated d4-pawn. I have used both these variations with joy and success. They are simply awesome!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-01-25T12:22:31.703" LastActivityDate="2014-01-25T12:22:31.703" CommentCount="0" CommunityOwnedDate="2013-12-01T19:12:29.833" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4213" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1263" CreationDate="2013-12-01T19:21:30.177" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a difference between playing for fun, training and competing. In general, progress is reached by combining training with competitive games. Playing for fun is gradually removed out of the equation. For example, if you use your blitz games to become better at an opening system, then you are already training. Competitive games are tournament games over the board with classical time controls. There should be at least 9 such games every 3 months. Training should be done with a goal in mind. There are different areas and they should be trained, one at a time. Applying the training in your games is very important. Otherwise the training was pointless. The balance depends on how much time you are investing in chess. If you are playing a lot of blitz games just for fun, it most probably does not contribute to an increased understanding. Training and competing is hard, and hard activities are the most rewarding in terms of progress.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastActivityDate="2013-12-01T19:21:30.177" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4214" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2515" CreationDate="2013-12-01T21:20:11.873" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;On top of the exciting Benko gambit, you can consider the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.365chess.com/eco/D08_Queen%27s_Gambit_Declined_Albin_counter-gambit&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Albin counter-gambit&lt;/a&gt;. Also, check out the Botvinnik variation. The Grunfeld variation is also an interesting option for sharp play. Here are the starting moves of the Albin counter-gambit:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;1.d4 d5 2.c4 e5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastEditorUserId="21732" LastEditDate="2020-10-28T07:29:00.193" LastActivityDate="2020-10-28T07:29:00.193" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="4215" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2607" CreationDate="2013-12-01T21:37:03.617" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Sicilian defense is an excellent weapon to fight for the initiative with the black pieces. Perhaps 1.d4 is better if you want to learn a smaller volume of variations. Having said this, I think that 2.b4 is an interesting option. With the same idea, you can try 2.a3 followed by 3.b4. If you want a slow game, you can try 2.d3 followed by c2-c3, Be2, Nbd2, 0-0, Qc2, a4, Rf1-e1 with some ideas like Nd2-f1-g3 that are similar to the Spanish system. Still, my recommendation for a sharp play while avoid the main lines is to try 2.b4 or 2.a3 followed by 3.b4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 c5 2.b4 (2.a3 then b4)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastActivityDate="2013-12-01T21:37:03.617" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4216" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1960" CreationDate="2013-12-01T22:52:52.290" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;For beginners, I generally recommend to begin from the end and start by learning endgames. Having said this, I can recommend a general plan of developing your pieces and securing your king that you can follow in every game, with both colors. For example, you can try a setup with 1.Nf3, 2.g3, 3.Bg2, 4.0-0, 5.d3, 6.e4, 7.Re1, 8.Nbd2, 9.c3, 10.Qc2, 11.a4 followed by Nd2-c4 or Nd2-f1-e3 and developing the dark squared bishop to d2 and the rook Ra1-d1. For instance, the game could start with&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.Nf3 d5 2.g3 g6 3.Bg2 Bg7 4.O-O Nf6 5.d3 O-O 6.Nbd2 c5 7.c3 Nc6 8.Qc2 Qc7 9.e4 Rd8 10.Re1 a6 11.a4 Rb8 12.Nf1 etc.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastActivityDate="2013-12-01T22:52:52.290" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4217" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2752" CreationDate="2013-12-01T23:00:18.300" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As black, I would remove the white f2 pawn and the black e7 pawn. This way, the dark squares around the white king are weakened, while black's dark squared bishop and queen are ready for action. Optionally, I would remove the white g2-pawn and the black h7-pawn. This would leave white with an isolated h-pawn already under attack by the black Rh8. Optionally, I would remove the white d2 or e2 pawn against either of black's h7 or a7 pawns. In this way, white would have traded a center pawn against a flank pawn, which should give black a stronger control in the center.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastActivityDate="2013-12-01T23:00:18.300" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4218" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2409" CreationDate="2013-12-01T23:10:42.447" Score="22" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Individual pieces:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Pawn&lt;/strong&gt; - 1 point&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Knight&lt;/strong&gt; - 3 points&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Bishop&lt;/strong&gt; - 3 points&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Rook&lt;/strong&gt; - 5 points&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Queen&lt;/strong&gt; - 9 points&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Piece combinations:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Rook and Knight&lt;/strong&gt; - 7.5 points&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Rook and Bishop&lt;/strong&gt; - 8 points&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Pair of Rooks&lt;/strong&gt; - 10 points&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Three minor pieces&lt;/strong&gt; - 10 points&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Rook and two minor pieces&lt;/strong&gt; - 11 points&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;N.B. The values may vary because of circumstances, but these are the basic values.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-08-17T02:10:42.430" LastActivityDate="2020-08-17T02:10:42.430" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="4219" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4259" CreationDate="2013-12-01T23:15:35.893" Score="2" ViewCount="919" Body="&lt;p&gt;This question concerns the opening. For example, in the Danish gambit:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. d4 exd4 3. c3 dxc3 4. Bc4 cxb2 5. Bxb2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;white reaches the desired position. But what happens if the opponent deviates from this move order? Would it still be the Danish gambit? Can I still follow the moves in the Danish gambit or do I have to use other moves? Does an opening variation involve any alternative moves?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1793" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2013-12-02T20:54:49.707" LastActivityDate="2017-06-29T15:56:42.993" Title="Do I have to follow the openings moves when the response is different?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;theory&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4220" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4219" CreationDate="2013-12-01T23:42:02.470" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;You never &quot;have&quot; to follow an opening sequence, especially just for the sake of following an opening name. There's nothing special about the &quot;Danish Gambit&quot;; it's just a group of moves someone decided to give a name. Any sequence of moves can be given a name if people really wanted.  If your opponent plays a different move order or unexpected move you should adjust your play accordingly. But of course there's always a chance you might transpose back into that &quot;Danish Gambit&quot; line depending on what moves are played.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1856" LastEditorUserId="1856" LastEditDate="2013-12-01T23:47:53.923" LastActivityDate="2013-12-01T23:47:53.923" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4222" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4219" CreationDate="2013-12-02T08:58:53.100" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Following an opening doesn't mean just follow the lines but follow the concepts and strategies behind that and after each move track tactical possibilities. Opening lines are guidelines to find the best analyzed move but you should always know the opponent on the other side can play something else deliberately or not. After that in many cases you can take the chance to get some advantages (also it's really hard when the opponent is better than you).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example in your selected line, after &lt;code&gt;1. e4 e5 2. d4 exd4 3. c3&lt;/code&gt; if black doesn't take your pawn &lt;code&gt;3. ... dxc3&lt;/code&gt; and plays &lt;code&gt;3. ... Nc6&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;r1bqkbnr/pppp1ppp/2n5/8/3PP3/8/PP3PPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should obey the principles and occupy the center by &lt;code&gt;4. cxd4&lt;/code&gt; and it's a good advantage. (However this gambit is not good because opponent can simply develop his pieces if he knows good responses)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1824" LastEditorUserId="1824" LastEditDate="2013-12-07T13:32:19.473" LastActivityDate="2013-12-07T13:32:19.473" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4223" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4224" CreationDate="2013-12-02T11:59:03.040" Score="5" ViewCount="537" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't mean rules like &quot;rooks behind passed pawns&quot; that work a lot but also have a huge number of exceptions. Rather, I mean endgame rules that either have no exceptions, or else a sufficiently small number of exceptions that it's easy to memorise those exceptions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, the rule that &quot;in K+N vs K+P the knight can draw so long as it reaches the square in front of the pawn and can’t be immediately captured by the enemy king&quot; has exactly one exception. The exception relates to the situation in which the pawn is on the seventh rank.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here White is winning despite Black's knight being immediately in front of the pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;n7/P7/2K5/8/8/8/8/7k w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there other useful rules with a similarly small number of exceptions?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1752" LastEditorUserId="1752" LastEditDate="2013-12-02T12:17:59.673" LastActivityDate="2016-01-04T20:47:40.080" Title="What chess endgame rules have few or no exceptions?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4224" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4223" CreationDate="2013-12-02T13:41:28.727" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here are a few off the top of my head - &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In K + B + P vs K endgames, the position is a draw if the pawn is a rook pawn and the queening square is on the opposite color of the bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;7k/8/7P/8/4B1K1/8/8/8 w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Kg5 Kg8 2. h7+ Kh8 3. Kh5 Kg7 4. Kg5 Kh8 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In K + P vs K + Q endgames, when the pawn is on the seventh rank and the king can cover the queening square the game is either a draw or a loss depending on what column the pawn is on. The game is a draw if the pawn is on the a, c, f, or h files and a loss on the b, d, e, g files. There are certain exceptions to this case - the opposing king can be close enough to the queening square or he can advance using discovered checks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These positions are draws as white can use stalemate tricks:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a file&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;1K6/P7/8/8/8/8/2q5/7k w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;c file&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;3K4/2P5/8/8/8/8/2q5/7k w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;f file&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;6K1/5P2/8/8/8/8/2q5/7k w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;h file&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;6K1/7P/8/8/8/8/2q5/7k w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1382" LastActivityDate="2013-12-02T13:41:28.727" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4225" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2013-12-02T18:17:56.570" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Scandinavian Defence is an unbalancing, aggressive opening where Black immediately attacks White's e4-pawn. There is not much theory in this opening, and so Black can cut down on opening theory by playing this opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black may recapture the pawn with his queen with 2...Qxd5, after 2.exd5, where his queen will have to move again.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black may also attack the pawn with his knight with 2... Nf6, where White can gain space and Black will play in the fashion of the Alekhine defense, or White can hold onto the pawn with 3.c4, where Black usually offers a gambit of his c- or e-pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For more information, refer to this website:&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scandinavian_Defense&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scandinavian_Defense&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-09-15T09:33:42.117" LastActivityDate="2020-09-15T09:33:42.117" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="4226" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2013-12-02T18:17:56.570" Score="0" Body="Scandinavian Defense is the chess opening characterized by the moves 1.e4 d5." OwnerUserId="1485" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2013-12-02T20:16:15.430" LastActivityDate="2013-12-02T20:16:15.430" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4227" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2013-12-02T18:20:54.927" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2013-12-02T18:20:54.927" LastActivityDate="2013-12-02T18:20:54.927" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4228" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2013-12-02T18:20:54.927" Score="0" Body="The Petroff Defense is the chess opening characterized by the moves 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nf6. Also known as the Russian Defense in many countries." OwnerUserId="1485" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-09-29T13:06:36.107" LastActivityDate="2017-09-29T13:06:36.107" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4229" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4154" CreationDate="2013-12-02T19:15:30.467" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;I guess I've never seen this behavior myself, but while I was reading the question I remembered that, many years ago, when I still read chess books (you know, the ones printed on paper), I read more than once something like &quot;and (put the name of a famous ancient player here) announced mate in 5&quot;.&#xA;Actually, if you google for &quot;announce mate chess&quot;, it seems it was usual to do this in the times of Capablanca, Marshall, etc.&#xA;I don't know if this was considered good/bad etiquette, but I doubt that people like the mentioned above didn't know how to behave over the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: I just toke a few more time &quot;googleing&quot;. From here it seems it was a good practice in the 19th century:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossary_of_chess&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossary_of_chess&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here a link by Edward Winters (a prominent figure on chess history) on the topic:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/extra/announcedmates.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/extra/announcedmates.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wonder if in the times this was an accepted practice, the player who had announced mate, in case to be proven wrong, forfeited the game. I've read assumptions about it, and I'm pretty sure it'd be this way (it somehow fits the spirit of those times),  but no &quot;official&quot; confirmation (maybe any old chess manual?).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2013" LastEditorUserId="2013" LastEditDate="2013-12-03T08:18:36.577" LastActivityDate="2013-12-03T08:18:36.577" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4230" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4219" CreationDate="2013-12-02T20:20:41.617" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The opening is the first 10-20 moves of a chess game. The move order is critical. In an opening system, you aim to reach a certain position after the opening phase is completed. This position can be reached using different move orders. You will have to adjust your individual moves in order to reach the desired position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastActivityDate="2013-12-02T20:20:41.617" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4231" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="494" CreationDate="2013-12-02T21:04:14.600" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Consider this example&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 e6 3.d4 d5 4.e5 Nc6 5.c3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here, we see a transition from the Sicilian system to the French system. Black decided to transpose by playing 3...d5 instead of 3...cxd4. White could accept the transposition in different ways. White got extra options compared to the normal French variation, where&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nf3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;would be unwise since the e4 pawn is hanging. Therefore, white could probably get the better of the transposition shown in the first diagram, by choosing something different than 4.e5 (e.g. 4.exd5 followed by Bb5+ and O-O). All in all, the more opening systems you are familiar with, the better you become at transposing between them as well as recognizing transpositions. While an opening system is often defined by its pawn structures, since pawns cannot move backwards and therefore the pawn structure has a defining impact on the rest of the game. Every system has its own inherent pawn exchanges, e.g. c5xd4 in the Sicilian system, c4xb5 in the Volga gambit. Also, there are typical pawn formations (e.g. the d6, e6, f7, g6, h7 of the Sicilian Dragon). So there is actually no magic to it, other than memory and pattern recognition!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2013-12-21T13:37:45.210" LastActivityDate="2013-12-21T13:37:45.210" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4232" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4270" CreationDate="2013-12-02T22:37:57.637" Score="3" ViewCount="1008" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recently asked this question: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/4155/why-anand-and-carlsen-insisted-on-playing-the-same-opening-defense&quot;&gt;Why Anand and Carlsen insisted on playing the same opening/defense&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;FM Rauan Sagit&lt;/strong&gt; answered: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In my view, in terms of opening preparation, the Anand team failed to&#xA;  obtain middle game positions that suited Anand's style. In general, I&#xA;  think that Anand should have aimed for long middlegames with most&#xA;  pieces intact. While Carlsen should have aimed for long endgames with&#xA;  most pieces exchanged off the board. From this point of view, Carlsen&#xA;  got his types of positions, while Anand failed to get his. This can&#xA;  partially be explained by the chosen opening systems. Additionally, I&#xA;  think that Anand should not have willingly exchanged queens in a&#xA;  single game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That got me thinking, when a strong endgame player faces a strong middlegame player, does the latter stand a chance?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The endgame player would force the opponent into exchanging pieces and there's nothing you can do about it simply because he doesn't care about his pieces, just like what happened in the championship match,  am I right? What are the odds of a middlegame player defeating an endgame player?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1105" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2020-06-12T19:44:44.847" Title="Endgame player vs middlegame player: Is the result inevitable?" Tags="&lt;theory&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;middlegame&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4233" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4232" CreationDate="2013-12-03T02:17:46.117" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Anand's problem was mainly psychological. Anand is a world class endgame player, but he made some careless mistakes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can't really be considered a strong middlegame player if you have no endgame concept. Recognizing favorable endgames while calculating variations in the middlegame is part of being a strong middlegame player. But perhaps some players don't know how to proceed once they transition to that endgame? If that's the case, I would favor the stronger endgame player to win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Obviously endgame skill is more valuable to have, it serves as the backbone for the opening and middlegame. Imagine a so-called &quot;Strong&quot; middlegame player who knows how to exchange into a favorable endgame, but has no confidence in his endgame skills?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1856" LastEditorUserId="10029" LastEditDate="2020-06-12T19:44:44.847" LastActivityDate="2020-06-12T19:44:44.847" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="4234" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4278" CreationDate="2013-12-03T07:54:46.790" Score="6" ViewCount="478" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a beginner in chess and don't understand the concept of openings at all. To me they appear to be just moving one of the eight pawns or one of the two knights. But wherever I see there is talk about opening games and they have many names like Sicilian Defence, King's Indian Gambit, etc. What is the need to differentiate them with so many names, for after all as I mentioned earlier, it is going to be one of the eight pawns or one of the two knights?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2002" LastActivityDate="2013-12-11T02:17:48.440" Title="What is the significance of openings?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4235" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4154" CreationDate="2013-12-03T10:24:41.043" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I resign when I know for sure I can't win. Most people I meet play this way. Any time my opponent continues to play, that's fine. I would never tell someone how I will checkmate them. That would be totally rude. Only a fool would do that. Give your opponent the courtesy of letting them figure it out for themselves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2016" LastActivityDate="2013-12-03T10:24:41.043" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4236" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2787" CreationDate="2013-12-03T10:35:02.393" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Don't get so many games that you lose concentration. Play a few games, but keep it enjoyable. I find I do well with 18 or 20 games, but 40 or more makes me a little crazy. Just do what you are comfortable with. It is different for every person, so we need to find our own level. And, of coarse, how much time you have to play is a big factor.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2016" LastActivityDate="2013-12-03T10:35:02.393" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4238" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4234" CreationDate="2013-12-03T11:04:45.160" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Please pardon me if my explanation is a bit whimsical, but I see chess openings in the same light as biological evolution. Over time and countless attempts at various move orders, chess players have learned that some moves lead to more solid positions than others. These move orders have, over time, become a sort of standard, often repeated by good players, and intensely studied for weaknesses and soft spots. Good move orders survive and are played by strong grand masters, bad move orders die out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because these move orders are often repeated, we give them names to distinguish them from each other. Hence, if a chess commentator would say something like &quot;Kramnik played a solid Grunfeld exchange variation&quot;, most listeners would have a good idea as to what he means.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is often said that beginners should not be hung up on specific opening variations, but should rather focus on opening principles (like control of the center, development of pieces, the risks of late castling, etc), and that is probably good advice. Over time, you will start to notice repeated patterns and themes in your own games, and that may be a good time to check out the opening theory to see whether you may improve your strategy based on this hard-won knowledge from your predecessors.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1816" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2013-12-11T02:17:48.440" LastActivityDate="2013-12-11T02:17:48.440" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4239" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4234" CreationDate="2013-12-03T12:56:44.693" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Openings are important to know so you don't lose a position from the very beginning. But, it is also very important to know openings well for your middle games. Every player depending on his opening repertoir has his own middle games. That is why it is preferred to narrow your openings and know them very well, then you will know very well your middle games. The more you familiar with your middle games - the better chance to win the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1943" LastActivityDate="2013-12-03T12:56:44.693" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4240" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4234" CreationDate="2013-12-03T13:32:39.407" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;While it's true that openings tend to be about moving knights and pawns, &lt;em&gt;which&lt;/em&gt; pawns and knights (etc) define the character of the game to be played.  Further, just because some pawn moves look similar, they are not, due to the asymmetric nature of the Kings and Queens.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some pawn moves on White's part establish that a cutting, tactical game is offered.  Others reveal that a closed grinding game is preferred.  Responses by Black can accept these challenges or transmute them into something else.  Just by choosing different pawn moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Further, there are &lt;em&gt;reasons&lt;/em&gt; some openings are played.  Some choices by Black offer the center of the board to White (an advantage) because Black's move choices are intended to make that center collapse.  If you play such openings without knowing the &lt;em&gt;philosophy&lt;/em&gt; behind the moves, you won't get it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2013-12-03T13:32:39.407" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4241" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4234" CreationDate="2013-12-03T14:54:16.917" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The main idea behind an opening is to build a good foundation to ensure that your middle game has sufficient support.  While opinions may vary, most openings have some basic goals in common that they do try to accomplish:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Control the center-  The four center squares are d4, d5, e4, and e5.  To be successful you usually will need to exert some influence over these squares.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Protect the King-  This often (but not necessarily) is accomplished by castling.  But the main point is to develop your major pieces without exposing the King to danger.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Rooks to the center-  This one largely depends on the opening played.  But once you have developed your knights and bishops, and protected the King; bringing your rooks in as reinforcement to your center can help in further development/defense.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is another good post on this subject that helps drive home the point that there are several commonalities between openings:  &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/2031/why-are-the-golden-rules-in-chess-openings-true?rq=1&quot;&gt;Why are the golden rules in chess openings true?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Typically, if an opening proves to have some longevity (I.E., it works), many people will use it and eventually give it a name.  Sometimes a particular opening will be favored by an individual with some notoriety, and it will come to be named after that person.  Wikipedia &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_chess_openings_named_after_people&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;lists over 200 openings named after individuals&lt;/a&gt;.  Naming a particular opening helps in identifying and defending against it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="511" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2013-12-03T15:08:15.157" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4242" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4243" CreationDate="2013-12-03T15:43:05.980" Score="4" ViewCount="426" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the following position, I am trying to play Rxd8, but it is not allowed.  What is the rule that disallows Rxd8?p&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;1r1r1bk1/5p2/p3p1pp/1p2P3/B1p2P2/K2R4/P1P4P/3R4 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2018" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-03-17T22:16:48.433" LastActivityDate="2020-03-17T22:16:48.433" Title="What rule is this?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="4243" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4242" CreationDate="2013-12-03T15:48:12.470" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your king on a3 is in check from the bishop on f8. When you are in check, you must move your king, capture the checking piece, or interpose a piece to block the check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2013-12-03T15:48:12.470" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4244" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2671" CreationDate="2013-12-03T16:01:46.690" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The short answer is &quot;no&quot;. The long answer is as follows. There are different kinds of mistakes that you can make during a game. The simple mistakes that cost you material or checkmate are known as &quot;blunders&quot;. When you blunder, generally you would be happy if there is a takeback option. Yet, blunders are a part of the game, and in real tournament games (rated games) you are not allowed to make any takebacks. It is instead your responsibility to double and triple check that you are not committing a blunder, before making a move on the board. This type of double checking is one of the skills you have to develop in order to become skilled in chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastActivityDate="2013-12-03T16:01:46.690" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4245" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2013-12-03T16:35:32.587" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2013-12-03T16:35:32.587" LastActivityDate="2013-12-03T16:35:32.587" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4246" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2013-12-03T16:35:32.587" Score="0" Body="The Modern Defense is the chess opening characterized by the moves 1.e4 g6 2.d4 Bg7." OwnerUserId="1485" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2013-12-03T16:58:50.290" LastActivityDate="2013-12-03T16:58:50.290" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4247" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2872" CreationDate="2013-12-03T18:01:09.983" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's this game by Frank Marshall, about which he claimed his last move excited the spectators in such a way, they showered him with golden coins. However, I've also read the coins were not intended for him, but tossed on the table by those who bet against him, for the winning gamblers to collect. But it was an amazing move though. More info here:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/extra/marshall1.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/extra/marshall1.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2020" LastActivityDate="2013-12-03T18:01:09.983" CommentCount="0" CommunityOwnedDate="2013-12-03T18:01:09.983" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4248" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2141" CreationDate="2013-12-03T20:09:14.990" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;That's pretty much a slightly worse version of the (Hyper) Accelerated Dragon. 1.e4 c5 2. Nf3 g6 3. d4 (but instead of playing cxd4 you play Bg7). The Modern Defense/Pirc is most likely just an inferior version of the Sicilian. Black would ideally like to play c5 and cxd4 in most cases anyway, but could be making it more difficult for himself to do so (white has extra options with dxc5 or d5 now when black pushes c5). But in practice Modern/Pirc is still playable because delaying c5 (or omitting it) could avoid some potentially early sharp lines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1856" LastEditorUserId="1856" LastEditDate="2013-12-03T22:07:55.100" LastActivityDate="2013-12-03T22:07:55.100" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4249" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4154" CreationDate="2013-12-04T03:03:24.403" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;An interesting difference of opinion perennially persists as to whether one has an obligation to resign an objectively lost game&amp;mdash;or, by extension, to agree to a draw in an objectively drawn game.  No consensus exists.  See game 3 for example of the recent Carlsen-Anand world-championship match.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is this, though.  One has little to lose by affording opponents the benefit of the doubt on either side.  If your opponent takes umbrage that you would fight a lost position, then consider resigning promptly and politely.  It's not worth making an enemy, and it will not change the outcome, anyway (barring a spectacular error by your opponent, whereas you don't really want to win that way, do you?).  On the other hand, when one has a winning position, one likewise has little to lose by playing on until one's opponent resigns or one achieves actual checkmate.  After all, the beauty of a won position is that &lt;em&gt;you will win it,&lt;/em&gt; whether now or several moves from now.  Your opponent is in no way being rude by playing on.  He's just playing chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can afford to be likewise gracious in victory and defeat.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I had to choose between the two positions though, I would say that it is never proper to demand that an opponent resign, whereas it is at worst slightly obstinate to refuse an opponent's demand for resignation.  If your opponent will not resign, then just beat him.  When the game is done, shake your opponent's hand and treat him well.  It won't take so long.  Opponents can have sound reasons for playing out a lost position, after all, reasons that have nothing to do with spite.  Magnanimity always becomes the chess player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="315" LastActivityDate="2013-12-04T03:03:24.403" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4250" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-12-04T10:28:51.783" Score="4" ViewCount="1426" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was studying the Danish Gambit recently. The Wikipedia page about Danish Gambit listed the first moves as: 1. e4 e5 2. d4 exd4 3. c3 dxc3 4. Nxc3... &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot; &quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. d4 exd4 3. c3 dxc3 4. Nxc3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am a beginner and I didn't what to do after. The page itself listed a few variations. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;4...d6 5.Bc4 Nc6 6.Nf3&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;4...Bc5 5.Bc4 Nc6 6.Nf3&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;4...Nc6 5.Bc4 and 6.Nf3&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;4...Bb4 5.Bc4&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I could not understand them (I mean, I couldn't make out the use of making those particular moves). Could anyone help me to decode the underlying tactics of making such moves?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2002" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2014-10-18T12:38:37.563" LastActivityDate="2017-10-25T23:17:37.687" Title="Danish Gambit - What next?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;gambits&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4251" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4250" CreationDate="2013-12-04T14:11:50.780" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, both sides are trying to develop their pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For White, Bc4 develops his bishop and points at the important f7 square. Nf3 develops his knight and controls d4 and e5. He could also eventually now play Ng5 aiming again at f7.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black also wants to develop his pieces. ...Nf6 is often one of the first developing moves Black makes, clearing out pieces from his kingside back rank so that he can castle, but right now 4...Nf6 would be silly because White would just play 5.e5 and Black's knight would have nowhere to go except back to g8. So other ideas of his include&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;4...d6, controlling e5 to make ...Nf6 possible, and also clearing space for his light-squared bishop to develop&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;4...Bc5, developing his bishop and taking one step towards castling kingside&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;4...Nc6, developing his knight and controlling the central squares d4 and e5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;4...Bb4, with some of the same ideas as ...Bc5, also creating a pin so that White's knight can't move and e4 is less defended.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No crazy tactics, just getting your pieces all out there so you can start fighting.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-10-25T22:23:45.140" LastActivityDate="2017-10-25T22:23:45.140" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4253" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4242" CreationDate="2013-12-06T09:26:55.810" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The only move you can do with your rook is Rd6 closing Bf8+&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1943" LastActivityDate="2013-12-06T09:26:55.810" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4254" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4232" CreationDate="2013-12-06T09:36:49.730" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think it would be wrong to say that Carlsen as a middle game player is weaker than Anand. Carlsen is a quite strong middle game player, and the reason why he was eager to play end games was that he was getting minor advantage for his pieces in the middle games. He is the strongest player in the world, and having almost 100 points difference before the match was the indicator of the difference between Carlsen and Anand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1943" LastActivityDate="2013-12-06T09:36:49.730" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4255" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4258" CreationDate="2013-12-06T10:01:19.373" Score="8" ViewCount="801" Body="&lt;p&gt;How can I discover my weaknesses in chess and order them from biggest to smallest? I'm guessing a strong GM could analyze a couple of my games and do this for me. But I'm not sure it's worth the economic investment. Is there another way for me to do this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1887" LastActivityDate="2013-12-07T19:12:50.210" Title="A chess player's weakness assessed" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4256" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4255" CreationDate="2013-12-06T10:49:32.573" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a matter of your personality. If you are a type of person who can objectively assess own weak and strong sides, then the same skills can be used for chess. In this case you need to analyze your games, which part of games are your weak sides, in which openings or end games you feel uncomfortable or good, whether you prefer tactical type of games or positional and how you manage to deal with them. Just do two columns for pros and cons then you might understand you weknesses and strengthes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However if you can't really assess yourself then help of a GM or IM can be handy! And, it will be handy anyway :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1943" LastActivityDate="2013-12-06T10:49:32.573" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4257" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2872" CreationDate="2013-12-06T11:30:41.717" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Games 2 and 6 of the Kasparov-Deep Blue rematch in 1997 would be good candidates because of the controversy surrounding those games and the match in general.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately, I don't have a good link handy and Wikipedia is rather bare.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="550" LastActivityDate="2013-12-06T11:30:41.717" CommentCount="0" CommunityOwnedDate="2013-12-06T11:30:41.717" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4258" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4255" CreationDate="2013-12-06T13:56:37.527" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Made two self-assessment book recommendations to a related question (&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/4132/how-to-automatically-evaluate-a-players-performance-in-a-game&quot;&gt;How to automatically evaluate a player&amp;#39;s performance in a game?&lt;/a&gt;). Igor Khmelnitsky's Chess Rating Exam is pretty thorough at evaluating every aspect of your game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BTW, really like that you are approaching this in a analyzing/organizing your &quot;biggest weaknesses&quot; manner rather than embarking on the fairly commonplace &lt;em&gt;it must be the openings, so I need to study openings&lt;/em&gt; knee-jerk/inefficient study plan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1751" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2013-12-06T13:56:37.527" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4259" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4219" CreationDate="2013-12-07T15:33:00.367" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Other answers have made good points about how to react when opponents make unexpected moves in the opening, but I wanted to specifically address one part of your question because it is a common issue, but has been internalized so much by experienced players that they forget that it isn't obvious.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Chess openings are defined by &lt;em&gt;both&lt;/em&gt; players' moves, not just your own.&lt;/strong&gt; The Danish Gambit, as you say, is defined by the moves 1.e4 e5 2.d4 exd4 3.c3, &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; just by the moves 1.e4, 2.d4, and 3.c3. If Black plays 1...e6, for example, there is no way to reach the Danish Gambit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To answer your specific questions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;But what happens if the opponent deviates from this move order? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then you have to find the best move to deal with the different position on the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Would it still be the Danish gambit?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Can I still follow the moves in the Danish gambit or do I have to use other moves?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's possible that any given chess move could be useful in another position (for example, 2.d4 is a fine move after 1.e4 e6 just as it is after 1.e4 e5), but you have to evaluate based on its merits in the actual position. Blindly following a sequence of your moves and ignoring what your opponent does is a recipe for disaster.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Does an opening variation involve any alternative moves?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sure. For example, the Danish Gambit is defined by 1.e4 e5 2.d4 exd4 3.c3. Black might decline to take the pawn and play something like 3...d5; it is still called the Danish Gambit, but the gambit has been declined. Or after Black does take the pawn with 3...dxc3, White could take it with 4.Nxc3 or offer a second pawn with 4.Bc4; these are both different branches of the Danish Gambit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2013-12-07T15:33:00.367" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4260" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4255" CreationDate="2013-12-07T18:01:49.243" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;As @Andrew pointed out you should look at your previous losses (and blown wins), and find the root cause. Try to be as honest as possible with yourself (this is easier said than done!). You might want to do this for all your losses, maybe make a spread sheet of all your losses, with an illustration of crucial position. You might start to see patterns that you were not aware off, for example, you might see that you lose all your games in even knight endgames, or it turns out that you lose all the games against the Scandinavian. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="307" LastActivityDate="2013-12-07T18:01:49.243" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4261" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4250" CreationDate="2013-12-07T18:52:10.897" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The general idea of a gambit is to sacrifice a pawn in order to grab the initiative. The goal of the Danish gambit is to attack the black king before it has time to castle. Try the more sharp&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.d4 exd4 3.c3 dxc3 4.Bc4 cxb2 5.Bxb2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Next, the idea is to attack the black king, mainly the f7 square using the light squared bishop, the queen and perhaps the knight from g1. Also, to control the center, castle and then include the rooks in the attack. Try this in your games and explore these positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastActivityDate="2013-12-07T18:52:10.897" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4262" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4255" CreationDate="2013-12-07T19:12:50.210" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;To discover your strong and weak skills requires you to also understand what types of skills that are relevant for your chess strength. I think the process of understanding the complete skill set is a gradual process over a long period of time. Having said this, you don't really need to know all your strong and weak skills in order to improve. Instead, you can focus on one skill at the time. For instance, calculation of variations, rook endgames, positional play, etc. Pick an area that you think will have a clear positive effect on your results and start working with only that skill. Of course, the ideal situation is when you have a skilled mentor that has a deep insight in your skills and guides your development. It is indeed rare to find such a mentor free of charge. If you think that improving in chess is important, consider finding a mentor.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastActivityDate="2013-12-07T19:12:50.210" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4263" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4234" CreationDate="2013-12-07T19:24:07.630" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The general idea of the opening (first 10-20 moves) is to control the center (e4, d4, e5 and d5), develop the light pieces (knights and bishops) and castle the king. This can be done in many different ways. A lot of research has been done on chess openings. Gradually, entire opening systems have been developed and explored in detail. Every opening system (Sicilian, Spanish, Volga gambit, etc.) has its key ideas and strategies. By becoming a specialist at an opening system, you can steer the opening towards this system and then be better prepared than the opponent for the positions that arise in the middlegame and endgame. Opening systems got their names for historical reasons. It is also easier to refer to an opening system instead of referring to the individual moves. For example, it is easier to say Najdorf instead of saying the moves&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastActivityDate="2013-12-07T19:24:07.630" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4264" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1878" CreationDate="2013-12-07T20:04:19.000" Score="8" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A Gambit is a chess opening where &lt;em&gt;a pawn is sacrificed in order to grab the initiative&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Queen's Gambit is called a Gambit because White sacrifices the &lt;code&gt;c-pawn&lt;/code&gt; in order to get a better control over the center.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.d4 d5 2.c4 dxc4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After Black has accepted the pawn with &lt;code&gt;dxc4&lt;/code&gt;, the consequence is pretty clear i.e., without a pawn on &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt; Black has less control over the center squares &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt;. White can use this fact and soon play &lt;code&gt;e2-e4&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;Nb1-c3&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;Bf1-c4&lt;/code&gt; to control these squares.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Practice has shown that &lt;em&gt;accepting the gambit is not the best option for Black&lt;/em&gt;. Therefore, many opening systems have been developed where the gambit could be declined, mainly using &lt;code&gt;2. ..e6&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;2. ..c6&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastEditorDisplayName="user10872" LastEditDate="2017-07-18T13:07:38.317" LastActivityDate="2017-07-18T13:07:38.317" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4265" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="73" CreationDate="2013-12-07T20:12:26.013" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;A gambit can be proven to be unsound by using a modern chess engine. Having said this, I would like to mention a comic gambit, known as the Fred defense:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 f5 2.exf5 Kf7 3.Qh5+ g6 4.fxg6+ Kg7 5.gxh7 Rxh7 6.Qg4+ Kh8&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White has picked up 2 pawns. In return, the black king has done an artificial castle and black's pieces are ready to develop and kick the white queen around the board. The next plan for black is to launch an attack on the white king and catch it before it has time to castle. Also, the plan is to firmly grab the center, which will restrict the development of white's pieces. To theoretically refute a gambit is one thing. To refute it while sitting at the board is a totally different game altogether. That is why gambits are so much fun!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastActivityDate="2013-12-07T20:12:26.013" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4266" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1755" CreationDate="2013-12-07T20:26:47.527" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;First of all, 4...f6 is not the strongest option for black. The move f7-f6 weakens the light squares around the black king (e6, f7 and g6). Also, it occupies the f6-square where the Ng8 is headed. Having said this, my advice is to grab on d4, castle kingside and attack the black king. White has a solid plus after f7-f6. For instance, how will black castle kingside when the g8-square is guarded by white's Bc4? For example&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 exd4 4.Bc4 f6 5.Nxd4 Ne5 6.Bxg8 Rxg8 7.O-O&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To find out more about black's options, have a look at this sharp line&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 exd4 4.Bc4 Nf6 5.e5 d5 6.Bb5 Ne4 7.Nxd4 Bc5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2013-12-07T20:34:18.177" LastActivityDate="2013-12-07T20:34:18.177" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4267" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1235" CreationDate="2013-12-07T21:31:59.143" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just adore the Najdorf. So I cannot help favoring it over the Scheveningen. Yes, these two variations differ. They differ because white uses a bit different attacking strategies. The great thing about the Najdorf is that there are excellent ways of counter-attacking. Black does choose between e7-e6 and e7-e5 in the different lines. For example, here is a line where black chooses e7-e6&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.Bc4 e6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think that by looking at the main lines of each variation will answer your question in the best way. For Najdorf, I can say that the Nb8 usually goes to d7. Yet the exact placement of pieces and plans depends fully on the plan that white chooses. For example, white has the classical attack with Bg5, f4 and Qf3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.Bg5 e6 7.f4 h6 8.Bh4 Be7 9.Qf3 Qc7 10.O-O-O Nbd7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In general, the sharp variations lead to concrete positions, where the best options differ from position to position. If white chooses to be aggressive in either of the two variations (Scheveningen or Najdorf), you will get sharp and dynamic positions where a single error will be fatal. If white chooses more calm paths, I think the two variations are very similar in their piece placements and typical ideas (e.g. the exchange sacrifice Rc8xNc3). My advice is to get a solid overview of all the lines in the two variations and go through at least ten grandmaster games for every line.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastActivityDate="2013-12-07T21:31:59.143" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4268" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2013-12-07T23:36:45.100" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2013-12-07T23:36:45.100" LastActivityDate="2013-12-07T23:36:45.100" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4269" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2013-12-07T23:36:45.100" Score="0" Body="The Berlin (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 Nf6) is a variation of the Ruy Lopez with a solid reputation." OwnerUserId="1485" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2013-12-14T23:10:30.377" LastActivityDate="2013-12-14T23:10:30.377" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4270" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4232" CreationDate="2013-12-08T00:05:14.580" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;My point was that Anand could prevail in dynamic middlegame positions, while Carlsen could prevail in endgames with a minimal advantage. Of course, Carlsen masters all three phases of the game on a top level. At the same time, sharp and complex middlegame positions release more adrenaline and require more focus. Regarding comparing a middlegame expert and an endgame expert, it is not so easy to exchange pieces. An exchange of pieces is a mutual decision and it takes two to tango. One way of keeping most of the pieces on the board is to select opening systems accordingly. For instance, you can choose the Volga gambit&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 c5 3.d5 b5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and most of the pieces will be on the board for a good while. In some systems, it is easier for the endgame expert to steer the game towards e.g. an early exchange of queens. While in other systems, it is much more difficult to steer towards multiple exchanges. That being said, all the professionals are experts in all three phases of the game. So the key is to steer towards positions where they risk the most and therefore create the situation they prefer to avoid.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastActivityDate="2013-12-08T00:05:14.580" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4271" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="226" CreationDate="2013-12-08T00:56:34.137" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;I use the Spanish system on a daily basis. During my early years, I have been told that the Spanish system is one of the most complicated systems and should be learned at a later stage of the chess development ladder. Yes, technically, the white light squared bishop has four squares to choose from after 1.e2-e4, namely e2, d3, c4 and b5. Bf1-e2 is not so popular because it is passive. Bf1-d3 hinders the d-pawn to advance. Bf1-c4 is popular but you have to be an expert to avoid certain variations that give black comfortable play. Hence, we arrive at Bf1-b5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, what is the major difference between Bf1-c4 and Bf1-b5? That is the real question. First off, black cannot challenge early on using d7-d5, since the bishop is not on c4. Second of all, the bishop on b5 will pin the Nc6 to black's king as soon as black's d-pawn steps forward. Next, black can chase away the bishop using a7-a6 and b7-b5. Yet, this will place the black b-pawn on b5 and allow white the resource a2-a4 and axb5 to open up the a-file and create a target on b5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The general plan for white in the Spanish system is to keep all the pieces on the board and slowly build up for an attack on the kingside or queenside or both. A typical idea is Nb1-d2-f1-g3 or -e3 to get the knight ready for attack. Another typical idea is c2-c3 to park the bishop on c2 with Bb5-a4-c2, which allows white to keep the light squared bishop from being exchanged off. In summary, the Spanish system is popular because it allows white to have a prolonged and complex battle for the initiative.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-01-28T17:20:57.027" LastActivityDate="2014-01-28T17:20:57.027" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4272" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4363" CreationDate="2013-12-08T03:16:52.963" Score="13" ViewCount="3638" Body="&lt;p&gt;Assuming the species still exists, has anyone researched this enough to provide insight into their approximate rating class/skill level (exclusively at blitz time controls)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How do they typically get into the &lt;em&gt;business&lt;/em&gt; or for that matter, demonstrate an above-average strength level (enough to &lt;em&gt;make&lt;/em&gt; and not &lt;em&gt;lose&lt;/em&gt; money!), given their difficult life situation. Is there a top dog / ringer type who trains the rest and personally deals with some of the stronger &quot;ordinary folk&quot; challengers?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've been lucky enough to play a few dollar-games in San Francisco but not enjoyed their company enough to gauge if they are all &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_rating_system&quot;&gt;A/B players or even  Experts&lt;/a&gt;.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Curious ... and I am positive that Hollywood paints a fairly distorted picture of the archetype, such as  the Disney-like &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Searching_for_Bobby_Fischer&quot;&gt;Searching for Bobby Fischer&lt;/a&gt; or even the more gritty + over-the-top &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fresh_%281994_film%29&quot;&gt;Fresh&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1751" LastActivityDate="2020-01-01T00:04:39.420" Title="Chess Hustlers in the Park/Street: Where do they place in terms of skill?" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4273" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-12-08T06:52:55.713" Score="2" ViewCount="197" Body="&lt;p&gt;The world team chess championship concluded recently and Russia won the Gold. But there were only ten countries that participated in the event. What are the criteria followed to select the countries participating in this event?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2002" LastEditorUserId="10867" LastEditDate="2016-07-26T21:51:41.460" LastActivityDate="2016-07-26T21:51:41.460" Title="What are the qualification criteria for the world team championship?" Tags="&lt;world-championship&gt;&lt;tournament&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4274" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4273" CreationDate="2013-12-08T10:50:08.010" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;From the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=102&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;FIDE Handbook&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1.4.1 Teams &#xA;   Qualification for the FIDE World Team Championship according to the following criteria:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;   a.The previous event's World Chess Team Champion &lt;br&gt;&#xA;   b.The three highest-placed teams in the FIDE Olympiad prior to the event.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;   c.The four Continental Champions. The qualifiers will be the winners of the ultimate, respective Continental Championship organised at least six months prior to the World Team Championship.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;   d.A team from the organizing federation.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;   e.A team to be nominated by FIDE President.&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If any team would have already qualified according to one of these criteria, this place will be given to the next highest ranked country, in the Olympiad preceding the World Team Championship.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1485" LastActivityDate="2013-12-08T10:50:08.010" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4275" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4013" CreationDate="2013-12-08T11:28:40.230" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The point of a7-a6 is to enter variations where white's light squared bishop will be kicked back to c2 and black will grab space in the center with c7-c5. See for instance this variation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.O-O b5 6.Bb3 Be7 7.d3 O-O 8.c3 d6 9.Nbd2 Na5 10.Bc2 c5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is a popular variation for black and black has plenty of ideas. A complicated battle lies ahead. The short term point of a7-a6 is to kick away the bishop from the a4-e8 diagonal. The long term point is to get these types of positions where both sides have plenty of ideas and chances to fight for the initiative.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastActivityDate="2013-12-08T11:28:40.230" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4276" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2542" CreationDate="2013-12-08T11:46:48.420" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The center (e4, d4, e5 and d5) has to be firmly controlled before a flank attack can be initiated. The reasons are many. A piece in the center can quickly enter the battle on either flank, while a piece on one of the flanks takes a long time to enter a battle on the opposite flank. Also, having pawns in the center will allow to kick back the opponent's pieces, e.g. e4-e5 to kick back a black knight from f6. Having said this, there are opening systems for black with the three row concept, where white is allowed to dominate the center, while black is ready to strike at a later point. I am thinking about the Hedgehog variation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 e6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nc6 5. Nb5 d6 6. c4 Nf6 7. N1c3 a6 8. Na3 Be7 9. Be2 O-O 10. O-O b6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White has more control in the center, while black has a clear idea to strike with b6-b5 or d6-d5, as well as a third idea with h7-h5-h4. White will strike on the queenside using the a-pawn and b-pawn and try to get a passed pawn on the queenside. I would not call this a flanking advantage. Rather, a strategy of giving the opponent more space and then striking the center at a later moment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastActivityDate="2013-12-08T11:46:48.420" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4277" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1791" CreationDate="2013-12-08T12:12:01.947" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Capture towards the center is often valid when the choice stands between the a-pawn and c-pawn (as well as f-pawn and h-pawn). For example, axb3 is often better than cxb3, hxg3 is often better than fxg3. In general, it is a good idea to look at the concrete position and make a practical decision. In the example you show, I prefer dxc3&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Nc3 Bb4 4. a3 Bxc3 5. dxc3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason is because after bxc3, white's pawn structure is damaged for the rest of the game. While after dxc3, the pawn structure is perfectly fine. Opening the d-file increases white's control over d4 and d5. Also, the Bc1 opens up and is ready for action. I think black's plan is to go for a quick Ng8-f6 and d7-d5 to grab the center. White has to be a bit careful, otherwise black will grab the initiative. The reason is because a2-a3 was a passive move. It would have been better to try Nc3-d5 or Bf1-c4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastActivityDate="2013-12-08T12:12:01.947" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4278" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4234" CreationDate="2013-12-08T12:48:37.950" Score="8" Body="&lt;h2&gt;&lt;strong&gt;INTRODUCTION AND RELEVANT INFORMATION:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I am a beginner in chess and don't understand the concept of openings&#xA;  at all. To me they appear to be just moving one of the eight pawns or&#xA;  one of the two knights.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is the root of the problem, and the reason why you have asked the question-it is the consequence of your ignorance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;POINT #1:&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You must understand that human being plays the game, and human beings have likes and dislikes. Some of us prefer sharp and fast struggle, and some of us like slow and safe maneuvering, and so on...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;POINT #2:&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You do not appreciate your turn to move, but in chess, this is very important to master. &#xA;You see, when it is your turn to move, you &lt;strong&gt;have a choice&lt;/strong&gt;, and this is really important.&#xA;This is the moment where you have a say, and you can change the course of the game to your like ( see the &lt;em&gt;POINT #1&lt;/em&gt; ).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is one of many things that differentiates master from novice-master enforces the pace of the game, while beginner complies/plays any move without careful thinking, which results in him/her lamenting later &quot; How did I get into such a horrible position??? How did I blundered a bishop?? &quot; and so on. In chess, this is called &lt;strong&gt;tempo&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You must comprehend that you too are the factor in the game, and that this is collision of characters.You must comprehend that not only you play &quot;against pieces&quot; you play against another human being.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your approach to the game is faulty, because you &quot; dissect &quot; the game, and probably in your opinion there are 3 parts of the game:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Opening&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Middlegame&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Endgame&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This type of division is old and &lt;strong&gt;inefficient&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In order to understand my answer, and other answers provided from different members, you must change the approach.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;You open the game in order to develop pieces the best way to carry out your middlegame plan, and your middlegame plan is based on the possible events that might take place in the endgame ( chess rules can help you in this, serving as a beacon to follow, but true mastery comes when you learn when to break them-that comes with experience ) .&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is the approach that is the most efficient, in my opinion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;&lt;strong&gt;ANSWER:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What is the significance of openings?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Openings help you to determine what type of opponent is playing against you-does he/she like fast, open battle, or slow and maneuvering one, does he/she aim for endgame or mating attack and so on...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Opening allows you to choose how to tackle those opponents, and &lt;strong&gt;enforce&lt;/strong&gt; them your &lt;em&gt;style of play&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A small example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let us say your opponent opened with 1.e4 and you do not want open battle.Let us assume that you like slow maneuvering battle, and feel comfortable playing endgames. In that case you would like to answer with a move that doesn't force early conflict but &lt;strong&gt;allows you to choose the moment when the big battle will take place&lt;/strong&gt;. You could play 1. ...c6 and be confident that the further development of events will be suitable to you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But what if you want the opposite? What if you want a fast, sharp, open battle?&#xA;Then you could reply with 1. ...Nf6 for example. Notice the change of the rhythm:&#xA;In the first example White had a choice after Black's 1st move, but now is forced to play with the e-pawn or to defend it.This small example fantastically illustrates &lt;em&gt;POINT#2&lt;/em&gt; from the introduction ( in fact, the whole opening does, and is called &lt;em&gt;Alekhine's defence&lt;/em&gt; ).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In open positions, you do not get static solidity and you have to adapt to the changes in the position &quot;on the fly&quot;.&#xA;In closed ones, your position is solid but you usually need a lot of effort to generate counterplay.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To resume:&#xA;Opening helps you to reach the positions that &lt;strong&gt;suit your stile ( style being your character/skill level... )&lt;/strong&gt; and their knowledge helps you &lt;strong&gt;to prepare the position to transpose into middlegame&lt;/strong&gt; that also corresponds to your style, as well.&#xA;Knowing the opening means that you will not be defeated in first 10 to 25 moves, and gives you certainty that you will have an enjoyable game with equal chances to win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What is the need to differentiate them with so many names, for after all as I mentioned earlier, it is going to be one of the eight pawns or one of the two knights?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The classification of the openings allows you to find the opening you wish to study, and the openings you wish to prepare against.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These are &lt;em&gt;generally&lt;/em&gt; classified as follows:&#xA;A ( unsorted ), B ( semi-open games ), C ( open-games ), D ( closed games ), E ( semi-closed games ).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is an overwhelming amount of moves/move orders and so on, to study and so many openings &lt;strong&gt;with the same general idea, but different implementation&lt;/strong&gt; so you might want to look at them all and choose the one that suits you the best.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another small example to illustrate this:&#xA;Let us say that you are slow, endgame oriented player.&#xA;You need an opening that gives you solidity in the beginning, and an advantage in the endgame.&#xA;Let us say that you want to prepare against 1.e4.&#xA;You could choose 1. ...c6 or 1. ...e6, but although they have the same concept ( repel White's initiative and smash him in the endgame ), there are differences:&#xA;The first choice offers harder time to generate counter play, but you have no weak pieces, yet the other one generates counter play easily at the expense of the weak piece ( the light squared bishop ).&#xA;Two openings with the same idea, but the implementation of it is drastically different,and only one of them will suit to you.&#xA;After you pick one of them, another question arises: Which particular variation in that opening suits your style?&#xA;Now comes the strength of &lt;em&gt;POINT #2&lt;/em&gt; into play!&#xA;Let us say you have picked 1. ...e6, and let us start &quot;studying&quot; it for a while:&#xA;1. e4 e6&#xA;2. d4 d5 &#xA;3. Nc3 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A &quot;sharp, fast paced, open battle&quot; player would choose 3. ...Bb4 here &lt;strong&gt;forcing the matters&lt;/strong&gt;, while the slow, solid one could try with 3. ...dxe4, for example, simplifying and slowing things down a bit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let us assume that you decided that the second option suits your style and you wish to study that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But how will you find material for this opening?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well, first you search the name of the opening-it is &lt;em&gt;French defense&lt;/em&gt;.&#xA;Then you search its general code-it is &lt;em&gt;C&lt;/em&gt;.&#xA;Then you search the variation you are interested in-it is &lt;em&gt;10&lt;/em&gt;.&#xA;So the opening code is &lt;em&gt;C10&lt;/em&gt;.&#xA;And now you can find online materials/books on the opening you want to play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sorry for the lengthy post, hopefully it will help you.&#xA;If you have further questions ask, and I shall answer them as soon as I can.&#xA;Best regards. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastEditorUserId="2042" LastEditDate="2013-12-08T13:46:00.030" LastActivityDate="2013-12-08T13:46:00.030" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4279" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4033" CreationDate="2013-12-08T15:16:34.043" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think that powerful should not be mixed with valuable. The value of a pawn is relative to the concrete position on the board. The a-pawn or h-pawn might play a minor role in the middlegame. While in the endgame, they are valuable assets, especially when they become passed pawns and start marching towards their promotion. More importantly than exactly what pawns you have is the pawn structure, i.e. how are the pawns placed relative to one another. The number of pawn islands and the number of weaknesses will determine their total worth. I don't see a pawn getting weaker or stronger just because you are in the opening, middlegame or endgame. A pawn is generally said to become more valuable, the closer it gets to its promotion square. Pawns that collaborate together can strengthen each other and be powerful in attacks, see for instance positions with opposite castling (e.g. white castled O-O and black O-O-O). Now, looking at practical games, grabbing the center is a great way of fighting for the initiative. Attacking players prefer to do this as soon as possible. I think that this gambit against the Sicilian is an excellent example (white sacrifices the b-pawn to divert black's c-pawn from controlling the d4-square)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 c5 2.b4 cxb4 3.a3 bxa3 4.Bxa3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;where white has 4 center pawns (c,d,e,f) against black's three (d,e,f). Also, white is ahead in development. All in all, white has the initiative.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastActivityDate="2013-12-08T15:16:34.043" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4280" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4188" CreationDate="2013-12-08T18:17:27.067" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is your requested zip:  &lt;a href=&quot;http://nlightening.com/test/2013_TWIC.zip&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;2013_TWIC.zip&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I created a command script for this. See attached. I assumed you are running&#xA;Windows, but the script is easily adapted to other OSes. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For downloading, it uses curl. You can get that at &lt;a href=&quot;http://curl.haxx.se/download.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://curl.haxx.se/download.html&lt;/a&gt;, and&#xA;for Windows, I recommend the msi installer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For unzipping, I used Java's Jar tool, which is free. But use whatever you&#xA;prefer. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When running the script, run dos shell as Administrator in Win8 or Win7. &#xA;At the end of the script it puts all PGNs into one large PGN file called 2013_TWIC.pgn&#xA;HTH.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Click: &lt;a href=&quot;http://nlightening.com/test/GetTwic2013Pgn.cmd&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Script to get 2013 TWIC PGN files&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1967" LastEditorUserId="1967" LastEditDate="2013-12-09T01:55:06.727" LastActivityDate="2013-12-09T01:55:06.727" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4281" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4314" CreationDate="2013-12-09T10:36:34.820" Score="4" ViewCount="680" Body="&lt;p&gt;To create a weak square it has been suggested to me to force my opponent to make a pawn move: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/4105/weak-and-strong-squares&quot;&gt;Weak and strong squares&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How do you do that? Is there a general situation to force a pawn move? Or are there several distinct situations to do that? Most of all HOW do you do it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1887" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-03-12T18:30:02.867" LastActivityDate="2020-03-12T18:30:02.867" Title="Forcing a pawn move" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;pawns&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4282" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4281" CreationDate="2013-12-09T13:04:12.907" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;A good example of this is this link &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/article/view/minority-attack&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Minority Attack&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Forcing the opponent to make a move has a popular German word in Chess: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chesscollection?cid=1001725&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Zugzwang, which means move-compulsion.&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;For a good examination of Zugzwang see &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/article/view/forcing-moves-part-1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Forcing Moves&lt;/a&gt; by IM Bryan Smith.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This area is too complex to have a general method for every situation, even if reduced to just pawn moves. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think there are some general areas. One should understand &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/forum/view/endgames/knowing-the-opposition-rules-can-help&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Opposition&lt;/a&gt; and ideas such as such as &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zugzwang#Mined_squares&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;mined squares&lt;/a&gt; in which one side can force the other to step into the mined square. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1967" LastActivityDate="2013-12-09T13:04:12.907" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4284" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4132" CreationDate="2013-12-09T17:44:00.660" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;For a very accurate rank of a player's quality, you can use the excellent tool provided by www.chess-db.com. It lets you upload your games and after some minutes it outputs the quality of both players in percentage compared with the best moves of a strong engine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is the page to upload a PGN file:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chess-db.com/public/game_upload.jsp&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://chess-db.com/public/game_upload.jsp&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And this is an example of the results:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chess-db.com/public/game.jsp?id=Pablo%20Bento.Shredder%20Android.107755008&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://chess-db.com/public/game.jsp?id=Pablo%20Bento.Shredder%20Android.107755008&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1657" LastActivityDate="2013-12-09T17:44:00.660" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4285" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4242" CreationDate="2013-12-09T19:29:56.700" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I wanted to add a comment to the first answer, which is as precise as it can be, but I have no enough reputation, so I'll dare to add an extra note here:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Someone could argue (not Marius, who already showed his agreement with dfan's answer) that after Rd8 white's the bishop in f8 can't move because it's pinned by the white rook, and the way to refute that argument is that then Ba3, taking the white king, just finishes the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2013" LastActivityDate="2013-12-09T19:29:56.700" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4286" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="366" CreationDate="2013-12-10T05:04:48.210" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Four free programs to recommend.&#xA;The one program which will take you from beginning through all higher stages is &quot;Lucas Chess&quot; from &lt;a href=&quot;http://lucaschess.pusku.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://lucaschess.pusku.com&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another one is &quot;Chessology&quot; with a totally different approach.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If You want the simplest board and AI against then download and use&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;SlowChessBlitz or Chenard latest version with Blundercheck alert.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;NB: They are far more helpful than Fritz 532 and Scid 4.0 which are meant for well-versed novice/hobby/club players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Good Day&#xA;Sunil&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2058" LastActivityDate="2013-12-10T05:04:48.210" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4287" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4281" CreationDate="2013-12-10T10:44:11.677" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;If a pawn move is &lt;em&gt;absolutely&lt;/em&gt; forced, that usually means there's a serious threat that needs to be defended (e.g, loss of significant material, checkmate threat). Commonly, you can provoke pawn moves by piling up pressure on weak pawns, attacking the king or pinning a knight with your bishop. Basically you provoke pawn moves by creating threats; the pawn moves to defend the threat.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for weak squares, it's only weak if you can use that square to generate new threats, or sometimes to create a defensive blockade. If not then its just a harmless hole in the position (harmless can still be useful though, sometimes your pieces just need a safe square to go to). So before trying to provoke a pawn move to weaken a square, you should also think about what you can then accomplish with that square. If you can't use it, it's not &quot;weak&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1856" LastEditorUserId="1856" LastEditDate="2013-12-10T11:58:46.880" LastActivityDate="2013-12-10T11:58:46.880" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4288" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4328" CreationDate="2013-12-10T12:18:38.733" Score="6" ViewCount="670" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there a way to sort a PGN chess game by date and export the sorted games as a new PGN file?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-04-10T19:23:11.907" LastActivityDate="2021-04-10T19:23:11.907" Title="How to sort a chess PGN game by date" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;pgn&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="4289" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="305" CreationDate="2013-12-10T12:48:53.710" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Look at the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess-game-strategies.com/pawn-structure_general_page-4_pawn-chains.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;French Defense&lt;/a&gt;.&#xA;So I think if it's part of Opening theory to get pawn chains and maintain them, they can't be all bad. :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The comment about the Hedgehog really caught my eye. To say it cramps pieces simply is a comment from someone who doesn't understand it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Traditional chess strategy would have frowned upon Black's setup,&#xA;  since his pieces have little room in which to manoeuvre. In the early&#xA;  1970s, &quot;'hedgehog' was a generic term for any setup that was cramped,&#xA;  defensive and difficult to attack&quot;, but today refers specifically to&#xA;  this formation. The Hedgehog first became extensively analysed in&#xA;  the 1970s, when players began to appreciate the rich variety of&#xA;  strategic ideas that arose from it. While Black's position is cramped,&#xA;  it is also relatively free of weaknesses. There is no obvious way for&#xA;  White to attack Black's pawn structure, but as outlined above, Black&#xA;  has several methods at his disposal for creating counterplay. Thus the&#xA;  Hedgehog has retained its popularity as a system of development in&#xA;  modern praxis.&#xA;  &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedgehog_%28chess%29&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Link&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1967" LastActivityDate="2013-12-10T12:48:53.710" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4290" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-12-10T15:56:57.360" Score="7" ViewCount="339" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am new to chess and am confused on what to do with the following opening&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5&#xA;2. Nf3 Nf6&#xA;3. Nc3 Bb4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have been playing &lt;code&gt;4. a3&lt;/code&gt;, but the Bishop then proceeds to take c3 so I end up with a doubled pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If someone could offer some guidance or tell me what this opening is called so I can do some research, it would be very much appreciated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Cheers&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2061" LastEditorUserId="12" LastEditDate="2013-12-10T16:32:47.207" LastActivityDate="2013-12-22T23:41:35.953" Title="Opening assistance for a beginner" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4291" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4290" CreationDate="2013-12-10T17:56:53.907" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I will be brief with the answer, ask for further clarifications/advices if you need them:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The opening is called &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;Petroff's defense&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;, but you have played a sideline in your game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;ECO code&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; of the opening is &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;C42&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It usually goes like one of these two:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;e4 e5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Nf3 Nf6&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And now first line is: 3. Nxe5&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Second one is : 3. d4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your move is a sideline, I have never played it before, but you can look it up, it is not necessarily bad.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hopefully this helps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Good luck.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Best regards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastActivityDate="2013-12-10T17:56:53.907" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4292" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4290" CreationDate="2013-12-10T18:07:37.083" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;4. a3&lt;/code&gt; should be a good move. It's like a reverse Ruy Lopez with an extra tempo.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can look it up in any opening database. Here's one (free): &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.shredderchess.com/online-chess/online-databases/opening-database.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.shredderchess.com/online-chess/online-databases/opening-database.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1856" LastActivityDate="2013-12-10T18:07:37.083" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4293" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4290" CreationDate="2013-12-10T19:37:19.707" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit:&lt;/strong&gt; Using the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/explorer?node=1928652&amp;amp;move=4&amp;amp;moves=e4.e5.Nf3.Nf6.Nc3.Bb4&amp;amp;nodes=21720.21721.21722.24467.24468.1928652&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;chessgames Opening Explorer&lt;/a&gt;, I confirmed the move is playable, here is the list of possible replays:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Move     #games&#xA;---------------&#xA;4.Nxe5   175&#xA;4.Bc4    151&#xA;4.d3     52&#xA;4.a3     14&#xA;4.Nd5    12 &amp;lt;- my option&#xA;4.Be2    2&#xA;4.d4     2&#xA;4.Bd3    1&#xA;4.g3     1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;4.Nd5&lt;/strong&gt; looks viable and easily prevents that double pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It also pushes the game into an aggressive one, which can be good or bad depending on your play-style.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Final position after &lt;strong&gt;4.Nd5&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;rnbqk2r/pppp1ppp/5n2/3Np3/1b2P3/5N2/PPPP1PPP/R1BQKB1R b KQkq - 5 4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He will most likely do NxN, I don't see many other choices here as both the Bishop and the e Pawn are attacked:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;4...Nxd5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;4...Bd6 (weak move)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;4...a5 (weak move)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="478" LastEditorUserId="478" LastEditDate="2013-12-10T19:54:26.843" LastActivityDate="2013-12-10T19:54:26.843" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4294" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-12-10T21:31:19.567" Score="3" ViewCount="267" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was playing online with someone I do not know that is considerably better than me. I am still somewhat new and I can't figure out why they would resign after castling. What am I missing?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 g6&#xA;2.Nf3 Bg7&#xA;3.d4 d6 &#xA;4.Nc3 a6 &#xA;5.Bf4 Nd7 &#xA;6.Bc4 e6 &#xA;7.O-O Ne7 &#xA;8.Bg5 h6 &#xA;9.Bxe7 Qxe7 &#xA;10.Qd3 b6&#xA;11.d5 e5 &#xA;12.g4 Nc5 &#xA;13.Qe3 Bxg4 &#xA;14.h3 Bxh3 &#xA;15.Rfe1 O-O 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2064" LastActivityDate="2013-12-15T00:59:31.223" Title="Why would black resign in this situation?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4295" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2300" CreationDate="2013-12-10T21:31:36.077" Score="6" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What color do you think will win more often using non-amateur strength?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White will win every single game from this position, &quot;hands down&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What do you think of this position?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Position is better for White, but with &quot;scientific&quot; defensive moves Black might have equal chances (but that requires detailed analysis to be proven for sure).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let me clarify my answers a bit by analyzing the game after &lt;em&gt;7. ...Nxd4&lt;/em&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You get 7 units for 6 units ( rook + 2 pawns for knight + bishop ) and mathematically speaking, you are better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White loses castling, but in the end manages to get his king to safety (the point of castling is to &lt;strong&gt;get king into safety&lt;/strong&gt;, not to just play it) when we add up pros and cons the result is zero. Although he lost castling right his king is safe.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You have doubled and isolated his pawns, so you have better pawn structure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your position is not weakened, and you have finished your development.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These are all good things for Black, but here is the &quot;killer&quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You have lost 7 tempos (you played b6 + Bb7 and those are 2 lost tempos since you have lost the bishop, 7. ...Nxd4,  8. ...Nxc2 9. ...Nxa1, 10. ...Nd7) to achieve all this, while he lost 4 (8.Qxb7, 9.Kd1, 10.Qc6+, 11.Kc1).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The result is that you lost your &quot;opening investment&quot; while his position has &lt;strong&gt;transformed&lt;/strong&gt; and this &lt;strong&gt;transformation&lt;/strong&gt; has only improved his overall position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your position at the start aimed to &lt;strong&gt;pressurize White from afar&lt;/strong&gt; and perform a &lt;strong&gt;breakout in the center or on the wing&lt;/strong&gt; (probably with c5) but now &lt;strong&gt;all&lt;/strong&gt; of your developed units &lt;strong&gt;are lost&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;em&gt;resulting&lt;/em&gt; in holes on the light squares which only queen and knight can cover.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In return you have got 2 pawns and a rook, but you need open lines for that rook, and you need to use the extra pawns to gain space, in order for compensation to be real.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White, on the other hand, has &quot;castled&quot; long, his doubled pawns are weak but they &lt;strong&gt;open lines for an attack&lt;/strong&gt; (they do not teach you this in &quot;school&quot;) and his opening idea-to physically pressure you by pushing his center and by pinning your pieces, &lt;strong&gt;has transformed&lt;/strong&gt; into physical pressure on the light squares with the promise of the slight, but probably lasting and growing initiative.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although Black has more pawns in the center he can't grab space with them so they are useless, they hinder his bishop making him bad, and White's e3 pawn controls d4 so there is no way we can say that Black has an advantage in space, rather it is a nearly equal distribution of strength for both.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You have developed more units in the beginning (&lt;strong&gt;by sacrificing space, hoping to attack from afar&lt;/strong&gt;) , but now you have 3 developed pieces (castled rook, bishop and a knight), but White has developed his queen, bishop and a knight so you are both equal in that view.&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;This means that you have deliberately lost your development advantage&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mathematically speaking, you have an &quot;extra pawn&quot;, so we need to see the compensation/positional/tactical factors, to properly assess this position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White's opening strategy was to physically occupy the center (&lt;strong&gt;gaining space advantage&lt;/strong&gt;) and to pressurize early (he played early with queen trying to do some sort of a pin), sacrificing his development.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black's opening strategy was to develop fast and counter when feels comfortable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The transformation of the position left you with rook + 2 pawns vs 2 minor pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In those positions the side with minor pieces &lt;strong&gt;strives to leave the queens on board, exchange rooks, and go for mating attack&lt;/strong&gt;, while the side with the rook strives to &lt;strong&gt;remove the queens and open the position, reaching an early endgame (you have 2 extra pawns)&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the above position, white has strong pressure, that can turn into mating attack (he already has h3 so he needs g4 and there we go!), &lt;strong&gt;while there is no way for you to further simplify and open lines&lt;/strong&gt;.You can not even grab some space with the extra pawns you have.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only way I see for you here (and &lt;em&gt;Houdini&lt;/em&gt; confirmed it) is to &lt;strong&gt;sacrifice a pawn to open position&lt;/strong&gt; and try to simplify things but this would mean that mathematically the material would be equal (pawn + rook vs 2 minor pieces).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Furthermore, it would bring you &lt;strong&gt;new&lt;/strong&gt; weaknesses, &lt;strong&gt;without you losing the existing ones&lt;/strong&gt;, and still &lt;strong&gt;I do not see what/how will you attack/create counterplay&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even though your &quot;math&quot; was correct, you have a flaw: you miss-evaluate &lt;strong&gt;the resulting position after the exchange&lt;/strong&gt;.You need to find the book on that, because this is a serious flaw that will cost you a lot in the future (I was there, believe me). At the moment I can't remember any book in English, but look it up. Just in case you fail to find books, I will try to give you a piece of advice for future games:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;When exchanging pieces, always evaluate &lt;strong&gt;the resulting position&lt;/strong&gt; that will arise after it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you only had known this earlier, you would have stayed away from 7. ...Nd4, because you would see all the cons and pros I have listed above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hopefully this will help you, if you have further questions, feel free to ask.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Good luck in your future games!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Best regards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-09-09T16:29:49.547" LastActivityDate="2019-09-09T16:29:49.547" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="4296" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4128" CreationDate="2013-12-10T22:03:55.667" Score="10" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit:&lt;/strong&gt; best known is &lt;strong&gt;96&lt;/strong&gt; half-moves by Friedrich Burchard &amp;amp; Friedrich Hariuc (1976). &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/7743/478&quot;&gt;(link to answer)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My best score &lt;strong&gt;104&lt;/strong&gt; half-moves:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.a4 b5 2.a5 b4 3.a6 Bb7 4.axb7 h5 5.bxa8=Q h4 6.g4 h3 7.Bg2 hxg2 8.Ra3 bxa3 9.b4 gxh1=Q 10.e4 a2 11.b5 a1=Q 12.b6 a5 13.b7 d5 14.c4 Nd7 15.c5 Nb6 16.cxb6 Rh5 17.gxh5 g5 18.h6 g4 19.h7 g3 20.h4 a4 21.h5 a3 22.h8=Q a2 23.h6 axb1=Q 24.h7 g2 25.Bb2 d4 26.Bc3 dxc3 27.d4 c2 28.b8=Q c1=Q 29.b7 e5 30.Ke2 c5 31.Nf3 c4 32.Qba7 Bc5 33.dxc5 c3 34.Nd4 exd4 35.f4 Kd7 36.e5 Ne7 37.f5 Ng6 38.fxg6 f5 39.g7 f4 40.g8=Q Qca3 41.c6+ Ke7 42.e6 Kd6 43.c7 c2 44.Qhg7 c1=Q 45.Qc2 d3+ 46.Kf3 d2+ 47.Ke4 d1=Q 48.c8=Q f3 49.e7 f2 50.e8=Q f1=Q 51.h8=Q Qc7 52.b8=Q g1=Q+&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Conclusion:&lt;/strong&gt; it is impossible to make it in 80 half moves as it is required to bring the king to safety and in order to make some pawns swap files, you need to sacrifice minor pieces (at least some of them must not remain in their original squares).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think it can be improved, but not that much.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, yes, the type of promotion affects makes the output differ because queens cover much space and you need to protect the king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="478" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2014-11-09T04:40:19.990" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4298" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1335" CreationDate="2013-12-11T00:04:10.163" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is an absolutely PHENOMENAL book on tactics, oriented towards beginners, available for free on the web. It's called &quot;Predator at the Chessboard&quot;, by Ward Farnsworth, and you can find it at &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesstactics.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.chesstactics.org/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The depth of coverage is good for even intermediates. But he really takes time to explain the tactics in English, which makes it very understandable to beginners.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1964" LastEditorUserId="1964" LastEditDate="2013-12-11T19:45:11.030" LastActivityDate="2013-12-11T19:45:11.030" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4299" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4288" CreationDate="2013-12-11T02:19:29.183" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can do it with ChessBase:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chessbase-shop.com/en/products/chessbase12_download&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://chessbase-shop.com/en/products/chessbase12_download&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1967" LastActivityDate="2013-12-11T02:19:29.183" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4300" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4138" CreationDate="2013-12-11T08:31:16.050" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here there's a port version of Stockfish in .Net:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/bpfliegel/Portfish&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://github.com/bpfliegel/Portfish&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To use this engine (once it's compiled), you'll nedd a GUI like Arena &lt;a href=&quot;http://wwww.playwitharena.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://wwww.playwitharena.com&lt;/a&gt; or ScidVSPC &lt;a href=&quot;http://scidvspc.sourceforge.net&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://scidvspc.sourceforge.net&lt;/a&gt;. These applications are used to provide a nice interface and allow you to load games/positions, analyze them (I'm pretty sure you can load a game on pgn and analyze it by an engine with criteria like &quot;n seconds per move&quot; or &quot;n plies per move&quot;), run matches between engines, etc&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In (almost) every chess engine you should find something like a uci.cs or an xboard.cs file which is commited to this communication task.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(A &quot;chess engine&quot; is a program that is capable of playing chess but has no graphical interface. The way it communicates to applications like Arena or ScidVSPC is by the UCI or xboard protocols. Most of the chess programs are written this way, so the developer can forget about the GUI stuff and focus on the &quot;brain&quot;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2013" LastActivityDate="2013-12-11T08:31:16.050" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4301" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-12-12T03:15:08.043" Score="11" ViewCount="3527" Body="&lt;p&gt;Would you play well known Opening theory, or avoid it? What other strategies would you employ to beat a GM in a simultaneous? I have my own strategies which I've used. See link in my profile. But what is best?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1967" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2016-03-25T10:48:11.923" LastActivityDate="2016-03-27T17:21:22.253" Title="How to play a Grandmaster in a simultaneous?" Tags="&lt;grandmaster&gt;&lt;simultaneous&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4302" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-12-12T06:43:10.203" Score="3" ViewCount="1666" Body="&lt;p&gt;Apologies for being a noob in this matter - a senior citizen friend of mine is looking for desktop publishing-like software to record chess games (diagrams along with personal reflection). The goal is personal publishing of chess games from their history. He is familiar with MS Word, but not much with other software.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From what I can see, existing software is aimed at &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/analysis-board-editor&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;creating Portable Game Notation files&lt;/a&gt;, which can be &lt;a href=&quot;http://kvchess.com/publish.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;played back online&lt;/a&gt;, or is a powerful chess game database like &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/1708/simple-programs-for-recording-chess-games-like-ectool-for-ubuntu-and-windo&quot;&gt;Scid&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there some software for recording chess games that's closer to MS Word? I'd imagine it basically like a text editor, with a chess board on the side that can be configured with a certain position, then an image of it would be inserted in the text editor. No playback capabilities are required.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2069" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.193" LastActivityDate="2020-09-19T06:00:03.447" Title="Easy to use, MS Word-like tool to record chess games" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;scid&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4303" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4301" CreationDate="2013-12-12T09:05:41.220" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;A GM that had many simultaneous games experience is the best man to answer your question. But as a chess fan, this is my idea. The best strategy is playing your best game. Play the opening which you know it thoroughly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Usually GMs avoid positional variants and they try to play tactical and open games in simultaneous matches. I heard from one GM, they force the weaker opponent make a blunder to lose one or two pawns then they simplify the game to reach to an endgame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, you can make the game closed and play positional strategies. Avoid simplifying the game and also don't forget a GM always can find a tactical combination just in a few seconds.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1824" LastActivityDate="2013-12-12T09:05:41.220" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4304" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4302" CreationDate="2013-12-12T12:50:43.690" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The closest thing I can think of to what you want, though it is still PGN file based, is ChessPad.  &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.wmlsoftware.com/chesspad.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.wmlsoftware.com/chesspad.html&lt;/a&gt;.  It's a very basic pgn file editor/viewer which maybe your friend could use standalone, or he could use it to create diagrams which he then pastes into MS Word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1036" LastActivityDate="2013-12-12T12:50:43.690" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4305" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1412" CreationDate="2013-12-12T21:58:18.657" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;There would definitely be some logic in considering Stalemate a win (after all, the opponent's King &lt;em&gt;has&lt;/em&gt; to move and and will be captured on next move, so that &lt;em&gt;should&lt;/em&gt; be a win).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, this would have a huge impact on the whole Chess game. The reason is that, if Stalemate wins, now &lt;strong&gt;all&lt;/strong&gt; King+pawn VS King endings are winning. Thus being one pawn ahead, exchanging all the pieces leads to a trivial win. I am not saying it would be bad, just that it would change the game more than you imagine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For more details on the Stalemate (and on the key position in K+P VS K endings), you can have a look at the following &lt;a href=&quot;http://chesstrainerapp.blogspot.com/2013/12/is-it-mate-or-stalemate-introduction.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;blog post&lt;/a&gt; I wrote.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2076" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-08-11T16:54:36.193" LastActivityDate="2019-08-11T16:54:36.193" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="4306" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1412" CreationDate="2013-12-13T07:30:25.977" Score="20" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think stalemate is a draw for the same reason that dropping the white ball when potting black is a loss in 8-ball pool - it gives the losing player a granule of hope until the very end, and it ensures that the winner must be clinical in securing his win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With regards to whether this flows logically from the other rules of the game - chess is, after all, a human made game, not a form of mathematics, so a rule does not have to be logically consistent with all other aspects of the game. If we all agree that a specific rule is good for the game, then we don't need to justify this rule against the logic of other rules (en passant and castling are similar).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1816" LastActivityDate="2013-12-13T07:30:25.977" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4307" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1335" CreationDate="2013-12-13T08:59:00.387" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've found Mark Weeks' &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mark-weeks.com/aboutcom/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chess for All Ages&lt;/a&gt; to be an excellent, free resource. There is a lot of advice for beginners and intermediate players alike on topics such as&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Building an opening repertoire&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Tactics and positional ideas for the middlegame&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Explanations of basic endgames&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are also a dozen or so annotated &quot;classic&quot; games, where every move is explained in depth. I found this to be especially useful because I often missed the point of quiet moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some of the material is quite dated and a few of the links are dead, but don't let that put you off - the overall quality of the articles is excellent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2078" LastEditorUserId="2078" LastEditDate="2013-12-13T10:44:07.493" LastActivityDate="2013-12-13T10:44:07.493" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4308" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-12-13T12:44:57.497" Score="-1" ViewCount="391" Body="&lt;p&gt;I play as white. I have a rook and queen and 5 pawns while the opponent has a knight and two pawns. I hope I can win this game. But is it legal to take the knight in next move? Then the opponent will have only two pawns with the King. Can I still play after that and win the game?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2079" LastActivityDate="2013-12-13T16:41:16.050" Title="Can I still win if I take knight while the opponent has two pawns with king remained?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2013-12-18T12:25:24.947" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4309" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4308" CreationDate="2013-12-13T13:48:04.530" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's perfectly legal to take his knight and his two pawns, then promote all your five pawns, and mate him with rook and six queens. Watch out for stalemate, he must be able to move his king without going into check at all times.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are no rules saying you can't take any more of your opponent's pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2013-12-13T13:48:04.530" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4310" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4308" CreationDate="2013-12-13T16:41:16.050" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;A quick answer is that it is legal as long as you are not in check and you will not be in check immediately after making the move and you are moving your pieces according to the rules. The only risk I can see with grabbing the knight is that you can cause a stalemate and the game will be drawn. A stalemate is where your opponent cannot make any legal moves and at the same time the opponent's king is not in check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastActivityDate="2013-12-13T16:41:16.050" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4311" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-12-13T19:55:16.087" Score="6" ViewCount="686" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is it okay to have a 2d magnetic chess set next to your score sheet? And as you play, you move along with the pieces. I like looking at a 2d board better because it's smaller and I'm used to playing on my computer. I look at the 2d board and then play on the 3d board. After I've made my move on the 3d board. THEN I move the pieces on the 2d board. Is there a rule against playing like this in tournament?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2080" LastEditorUserId="103" LastEditDate="2013-12-18T19:02:02.853" LastActivityDate="2014-12-20T20:38:42.200" Title="Is using a 2D magnetic board in tournament play legal?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;tournament&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4312" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4311" CreationDate="2013-12-14T08:09:36.273" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm pretty sure the rules of most serious tournaments prohibit the use of a second board for any reason, but I'm not sure if there are special provisions for people with disabilities and disadvantages.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a player, I would be quite apprehensive towards playing someone who is using a second board, simply because it means I have to keep an eye out to ensure he is not cheating. I would certainly have a word with the arbiter if that situation were to occur.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1816" LastEditorUserId="1816" LastEditDate="2013-12-14T08:15:26.757" LastActivityDate="2013-12-14T08:15:26.757" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4313" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4311" CreationDate="2013-12-14T18:19:58.817" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am assuming you're talking USCF rules.  Using a 2nd board is against USCF rules.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In fact, during one of the world championships, one of the players used the overheard board being displayed to the audience and eliciting a complaint by the other side.  FIDE rules are not exactly like USCF rules, by the way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2013-12-14T18:19:58.817" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4314" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4281" CreationDate="2013-12-15T00:56:23.503" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can think of 4 ways of forcing a pawn forward:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Threaten a pawn&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Provoke a pawn to move forward to protect from e.g. a check&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Provoke a pawn to move forward to chase away one of your pieces&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Create a Zugzwang (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zugzwang) that forces a pawn forward&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2013-12-15T14:35:49.860" LastActivityDate="2013-12-15T14:35:49.860" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4315" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4294" CreationDate="2013-12-15T00:59:31.223" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;White gave up two pawns, the g-pawn and the h-pawn, without any compensation. Black's position is objectively winning. So my guess is that black had some non chess reason to resign the game. If this was a blitz game, then perhaps your opponent got a phone call or had to join the dinner table. From a chess point of view, black would have continued this game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastActivityDate="2013-12-15T00:59:31.223" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4316" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4311" CreationDate="2013-12-15T01:05:56.633" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think that in most chess tournaments with classical time controls, having a 2D chess board next to you while playing is not allowed. That being said, I would recommend against this sort of practice all together. I can understand your reasoning and the possible motivation to have a 2D chess board. Yet, dealing with the 3D chess pieces is part of competitive chess. The earlier you get used to this, the better you will cope in your future games over the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastActivityDate="2013-12-15T01:05:56.633" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4317" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4290" CreationDate="2013-12-15T01:16:20.297" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;This opening is known as the Petrov three knights game. You can use this link to do a bit more research (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.365chess.com/eco/C42_Petrov_three_knights_game&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.365chess.com/eco/C42_Petrov_three_knights_game&lt;/a&gt;). I usually grab directly on e5 instead of protecting on e4. For example, here is a possible line:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.Nxe5 d6 4.Nf3 Nxe4 5.Nc3 Nxc3 6.dxc3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White will follow up with Bc1-f4, Qd1-d2 and O-O-O. Then launch a pawn storm on the kingside (with the g and h pawns) in case black castles O-O. If black castles O-O-O, then the game will be a bit less sharp. Definitely worth a try!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastActivityDate="2013-12-15T01:16:20.297" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4318" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4288" CreationDate="2013-12-15T01:26:49.667" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am sure there are many programs that include this functionality. I would be surprised if SCID (&lt;a href=&quot;http://scid.sourceforge.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://scid.sourceforge.net/&lt;/a&gt;) did not have it. There should be one or more online services that provide this function. In the end of the day, you can write your own script in e.g. Python that does this easily and nicely. The trick is that some games appear as duplicates in less well maintained PGN files. Another trick is that some games are missing certain annotation fields. Some fields could also be filled in with incorrect type of data or simply be empty. So if you go down the road of writing your own scripts, consider writing quality check scripts that make sure the PGN format is followed and that the information is complete.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastActivityDate="2013-12-15T01:26:49.667" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4319" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2281" CreationDate="2013-12-15T01:40:09.363" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Losing is one of three possible results in a chess game. My point is that you cannot avoid losing in the future. Having said this, I think that I understand your point concern. You worry about losing without having any counterplay. Just being slowly crushed and not being able to do the slightest thing about it. The feeling is not great and we all get these types of games from time to time. Many recommendations spring to mind. Improve your understanding of standard positional motives, for example creating a strong post for your pieces. Consider working with the book My System by Nimzowitsch. If you are serious about getting better at chess, then get some high quality books and start training. A general recommendation is to fight more for the center. Do not become passive, grab active spots for your pieces and fight for the initiative from move one. Keep all the pieces and go for muddy waters if you are looking for a dynamic brawl.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-09-17T10:46:24.200" LastActivityDate="2019-09-17T10:46:24.200" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="4321" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4325" CreationDate="2013-12-15T19:19:00.820" Score="2" ViewCount="2075" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elo_rating_system#Most_accurate_K-factor&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Apparently&lt;/a&gt;, when calculating a player's USCF rating difference after a win or loss, the K factor that is used is based on the player's rating. Now, I was always under the impression that two players with ratings &lt;code&gt;a&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;b&lt;/code&gt; would play each other and that a difference in score is awarded to both of them such that their ratings after the match would be &lt;code&gt;a+d&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;b-d&lt;/code&gt; (assuming player A won the match).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But let's say you have a player at 2075 (who would have a K factor of 32) and another player at 2125 (who would have a K factor of 24). Which K factor would be used? I could see a case for either of 32, 24, or even 28 being used in this case. What does USCF do here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="598" LastActivityDate="2015-12-29T23:13:30.490" Title="What K factor should be used if two players are in different K factor brackets?" Tags="&lt;elo&gt;&lt;uscf&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4322" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2860" CreationDate="2013-12-15T21:25:16.190" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you look at the clean case of having an endgame with two knights against two bishops, then for the majority of cases, two bishops are stronger. Yet, this depends on the pawn structure and the number of pawns still on the board. The strength of two bishops is to quickly switch flanks, the ability to control both flanks at once, as well as to create new weaknesses and open up the opponent's position like a tin can. Two bishops need targets to attack and space to move. If the pawn structure is closed and there are many pawns still on the board, then the two knights rise in strength. The knight can jump and therefore it does not care if the pawn structure is open or closed. It can still jump over any obstacles and cause havoc wherever needed. It should be remembered that the strength of the two bishops is that you can exchange one of them off at a good time point. Keeping the two bishops at all cost is not always wise. In summary, the pawn structure has a decisive impact on comparing two knights to two bishops. Also, the value of a piece always depends on the concrete position on the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastActivityDate="2013-12-15T21:25:16.190" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4323" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3978" CreationDate="2013-12-15T21:39:18.783" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think that the whole theme of human against machine is unfair. After all, the computers use excellent algorithms and are trained on games played by human grandmasters and hooked up to high quality opening databases and endgame tables. An engine has a lot of human knowledge at the tip of its fingers and can access everything in a matter of seconds. From this point of view, chess engines are a combined success of human chess know-how and progress in computer science.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Today, the question of whether a human can beat a chess engine seems equivalent to asking if a boxer can beat a Terminator machine. I seem to recall that Kasparov said that humans can beat a chess engine, if the humans are given unlimited thinking time. It could be true but it has not been tested as far as I know. Considering that home computer driven engines reach Elo 3100, I don't see a human versus machine tournament any time soon.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-03-05T08:39:40.507" LastActivityDate="2014-03-05T08:39:40.507" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4324" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1864" CreationDate="2013-12-15T21:46:24.587" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Formally, both Nfe3 and Ne3 are valid notations in this situation. As far as I know, the convention is to write Ne3, because the Nd1 cannot move due to the pin Qa1-e1. But it is not impossible that someone would still scribble down Nfe3 in the score sheet and that is what you would find in your PGN file. Chess software would write Ne3 if you would present them with this position. If I would have this position, I would write Ne3 in my score sheet, because this follows the notation convention.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastActivityDate="2013-12-15T21:46:24.587" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4325" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4321" CreationDate="2013-12-16T12:51:11.947" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;K-factor is used for each player individually. So, if one of them got 30 K-factor, his rating will change on the basis of that K-factor, while another player with 10 K-factor, for instance, will get rating on the basis of his own K-factor. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are Chess Rating Calculators on FIDE's official website. You can have a look: &lt;a href=&quot;http://ratings.fide.com/calculators.phtml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;FIDE Rating Change Calculators&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1943" LastActivityDate="2013-12-16T12:51:11.947" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4326" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-12-16T13:58:10.633" Score="2" ViewCount="286" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have never been into watching live chess, and I found it strange that anyone disagrees with me, but the format of London Chess Classic 2013 was just perfect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Like the rest of the civilized world, I grew up watching the Football World (known as soccer to Americans), and group stages followed by knockout phase is perfect in my opinion. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The length of each game is perfect 25 min. + 10 sec. I have always thought that thinking too long is cheating (because I can't), and why not just watch two Deep Blues tie after a few hours if you have that classical game fetish?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The scoring system is a no-brainer. Everything should be like football (though I might accept 2 points for being white/home-court and 3 for black/away).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, after this rant I would ask this to you smarter chess fans: Where I can find similar events?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="58" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-10-02T22:22:01.260" LastActivityDate="2019-10-02T22:22:01.260" Title="London Chess Classic 2013 Format" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;time-control&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="4327" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4301" CreationDate="2013-12-17T02:44:49.323" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've answered a very similar question &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/816/what-openings-should-be-played-in-a-simul/819#819&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My take is that GM try to avoid calculating, and try to rely on their superior positional understanding. So striving for a tactical position, seems like a good bet. Your game seems to support this hypothesis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is interesting story, that involved somebody I used to know over the internet and Kasparov:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[Kasparov] rather nervously asked me if I had a rating. I replied 2084 and he, not looking very happy, asked why I didn't write it down in front of the board next to my name. I replied that no one asked me too and that the Belzberg people knew my rating and only today OK my playing since I am a client. He then stated that if he had known I was rated that highly he would have played differently rather than getting into a very theoretical line. Being aware of the 2000 cutoff I again appologized for the misunderstanding and we quickly realized that the Belzberg staff had erred in not telling people to write down their ratings (these were different people than from the NYC event). I simply stated &quot;I'm sorry for the confusion, I won't play&quot; and started to get up and Garry, reiterating that he'd have played differently vs a rated expert, started resetting the pieces to the starting position and said we can restart. Being rather shocked by this and what was over a minute of commotion and confusion I knew the gentlemanly thing for me to do was to step away and let someone else under 2000 play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesscircle.net/forums/showthread.php?1480-Kasparov-refuses-to-continue-Simul-game-in-Chicago!&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;source&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The position was a very sharp double-edged Scandinavian. Something even Kasparov wouldn't want to play against a high-rated player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="307" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.193" LastActivityDate="2014-07-24T18:16:08.517" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4328" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4288" CreationDate="2013-12-17T16:56:57.183" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have not tried this myself, but there is a forum post on chess.com that has instructions on how to do this in SCID (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/forum/view/help-support/sorting-a-pgn&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chess.com/forum/view/help-support/sorting-a-pgn&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Make an empty scid database&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Import your games&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Do database maintenance - Sort by date&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Export your databse to PGN&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="103" LastActivityDate="2013-12-17T16:56:57.183" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4329" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-12-17T19:31:44.777" Score="3" ViewCount="486" Body="&lt;p&gt;In college I memorized a few chess games, and the only one that has stayed in my memory is  &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1233404&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Morphy vs. the Duke&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Paris&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Paris&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;1858&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Paul Morphy&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Duke Karl / Count Isouard&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;C41&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;33&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 Bg4 4.dxe5 Bxf3 5.Qxf3 dxe5 6.Bc4 Nf6 7.Qb3 Qe7&#xA;8.Nc3 c6 9.Bg5 b5 10.Nxb5 cxb5 11.Bxb5+ Nbd7 12.O-O-O Rd8&#xA;13.Rxd7 Rxd7 14.Rd1 Qe6 15.Bxd7+ Nxd7 16.Qb8+ Nxb8 17.Rd8# 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there games similar to this one - short and with dramatic finishes - that you would recommend reviewing / memorizing after a decade spent not reading chess games?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2098" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2013-12-20T05:17:34.720" LastActivityDate="2013-12-21T01:49:22.247" Title="Chess games similar to Morphy versus the Duke of Brunswick and Count Isouard" Tags="&lt;master-games&gt;&lt;memorization&gt;&lt;morphy&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4330" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-12-18T00:53:03.000" Score="8" ViewCount="2685" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have read that one exercise to improve one's analysis/thinking skills is to set up a position, then write out and evaluate all the variations that could take place. Or write out analysis of one's own games (see for example this &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/188/how-do-i-analyze-my-game-after-playing&quot;&gt;post&lt;/a&gt;). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How do you actually write this out? Or better - how do good players usually write out their analysis?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I once tried it, but my paper soon became a jumbled mess. Particularly as you start to get branching lines and so forth it becomes hard to write and keep track of it all. Especially if you start writing out a line, but want to go back to a previous line. Is there some &quot;special&quot; method to write out analysis?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2103" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.193" LastActivityDate="2017-02-08T16:19:07.790" Title="How to write out analysis of a game?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4331" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4330" CreationDate="2013-12-18T04:39:57.460" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this day and age, players rely on computer software to help build this sort of analysis. I don't think writing it on paper necessarily helps, but this is a matter of personal preference. Software organizes different branches, you can back it up nicely, and the dog can't get into the cloud to eat it. :)&#xA;But I see another question here - how to improve thinking skills? There is a book I recommend for this: Imagination in Chess by Paata Gaprindashvili (How to think Creatively and Avoid Foolish Mistakes). &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/0713488913&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Link&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1967" LastActivityDate="2013-12-18T04:39:57.460" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4332" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4329" CreationDate="2013-12-18T04:49:28.340" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Morphy is great! I also am fond of the 1956 game Donald Byrne vs Robert James Fischer (when Fischer was 13 years old!) known as &quot;The Game of the Century&quot;. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1008361&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Link&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But of course there are many games that are great. Chessbase has an app for the Android or iPhone with a database of many of the great games to look at - just $5. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1967" LastActivityDate="2013-12-18T04:49:28.340" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4333" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4330" CreationDate="2013-12-18T05:38:52.760" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Computer Database programs (like the popular + free &lt;a href=&quot;http://scid.sourceforge.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;SCID&lt;/a&gt;) do the job pretty well &lt;strong&gt;provided&lt;/strong&gt; you do not turn the engine on, nor have any other indicators (opening tree, endgame table bases etc.) &lt;strong&gt;enabled&lt;/strong&gt; to distract you from focusing on writing down all the lines. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I sometimes first do this in &lt;strong&gt;notepad&lt;/strong&gt; as entering moves into a database allows you to see the pieces move, so it is cheating because you're not training your brain to visualize.  Once I'm confident of a line and its evaluation, I transfer it over to the database program.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most DB software comes with nice bells and whistles for comments, variations, arrows/square highlighting as shown in the following example using SCID:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/RcRSv.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can save each position into a file and collect oodles of these in a database for future review. Nice, clean and as organized as you can make it! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What's nice is that once you are done, a strong player (preferred) can help critique this and you can add some more notes on where your analysis was inaccurate or just plain wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As an added tip, make sure you start off with tactical positions (examples would be regular puzzles with a lot of forcing lines to calculate out) and then move towards rich analytical positions where there is no clear winning advantage in sight. NM Heisman's suggestion of the &lt;a href=&quot;http://home.comcast.net/~danheisman/Articles/Exercises.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Stoyko exercises&lt;/a&gt; is definitely worth reading to get an idea of how to do this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Update:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For non-software based ways of organizing analysis,  you can try &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind_map&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;mind-mapping&lt;/a&gt; but if that's too messy, why not derive inspiration from the popular MCO/NCO tabular-style of representing opening theory, for example:&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/oIdXC.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1751" LastEditorUserId="1751" LastEditDate="2013-12-18T20:34:52.763" LastActivityDate="2013-12-18T20:34:52.763" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4334" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4330" CreationDate="2013-12-18T09:04:48.847" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to the previous suggestion, here is an example on how I do automatic analysis with Crafty (it is not the strongest but I find it useful to check blunders) under Windows :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;@echo off&#xA;for %%i in (w?.pgn) do (&#xA;echo annotate %%i w 4-99 0.4 15 1 | crafty &amp;gt;NUL&#xA;if %ERRORLEVEL% EQU 0 (&#xA;    if EXIST %%i.can (&#xA;        type %%i.can &amp;gt;&amp;gt;analyze.pgn&#xA;        del %%i %%i.can&#xA;    ) else (&#xA;        echo %%i.can missing...&#xA;    )&#xA;) else (&#xA;    echo An error has occurred... %ERRORLEVEL%&#xA;)&#xA; )&#xA; for %%i in (b?.pgn) do (&#xA;echo annotate %%i b 4-99 0.4 15 1 | crafty &amp;gt;NUL&#xA;if %ERRORLEVEL% EQU 0 (&#xA;    if EXIST %%i.can (&#xA;        type %%i.can &amp;gt;&amp;gt;analyze.pgn&#xA;        del %%i %%i.can&#xA;    ) else (&#xA;        echo %%i.can missing...&#xA;    )&#xA;) else (&#xA;    echo An error has occurred... %ERRORLEVEL%&#xA;)&#xA; )&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That script assumes you save your game as White in w?.pgn files (one file for each single game) and b?.pgn as Black, and Crafty analyses only your side. Crafty uses 15 seconds for each move and writes out the analysis only if its score evaluation differs at least 0.4 points from your move evaluation. Only one variation is written. The output is saved into analyze.pgn. This script might be easily adapted for UNIX/Linux and/or with different parameters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2106" LastActivityDate="2013-12-18T09:04:48.847" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4335" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4337" CreationDate="2013-12-18T12:17:25.730" Score="2" ViewCount="715" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know of lists that cover tactical themes and endgame themes. I can't find a list of plans or strategic themes in the middlegame. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could someone help me out with this list? A link would be nice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1887" LastEditorUserId="1887" LastEditDate="2013-12-18T12:35:42.370" LastActivityDate="2013-12-18T15:29:55.783" Title="List of plans or strategic themes" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4336" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4335" CreationDate="2013-12-18T14:14:18.743" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a huge question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can't help you with a list of themes, but look up the games of GM Tigran Petrosian (world champion from 1963-69.)  You'll see how a master chooses moves based upon positional considerations.  &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chesscollection?cid=1014968&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Here's a list of some of his games&lt;/a&gt;.  The general consensus is that he plays to remove good moves from his opponents, leaving them only bad moves.  But making a bad move against a GM leads to a loss.  &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1880673851&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;My System&lt;/a&gt; is a classic that describes this style of play. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2013-12-18T14:14:18.743" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4337" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4335" CreationDate="2013-12-18T15:29:55.783" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Perhaps you can use the &lt;em&gt;table of contents&lt;/em&gt; from classical works such as&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/0486202909&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Modern Chess Strategy&lt;/a&gt;, by Pachman, and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1880673959&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;The Middlegame&lt;/a&gt;, by Euwe and Kramer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1485" LastActivityDate="2013-12-18T15:29:55.783" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4338" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4330" CreationDate="2013-12-18T17:44:00.543" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your question is strongly related to how to analyse your chess games so I will start from there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are you looking for when you are studying one of your games (maybe a loss)?&#xA;That's the first thing that you should be asking to yourself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Someone could respond that he is looking for better moves or ideas that he missed during the game, but this it is only part of the answer. Do you really think that knowing that in this x position you should have played y instead of z is useful? Do you really think that after determining that you will have improved? Of course not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What you are looking for is &lt;strong&gt;why&lt;/strong&gt; you played z in the first place. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What was your thought process? What replies from you opponent did you fear that prompt you to choose your move (yes in the end we always choose the move that feels more pleasant to us).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should be looking for &lt;em&gt;patterns&lt;/em&gt; that make you do a bad move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I give you some examples of mistakes that I do that I noticed from my games:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-If I get an advantage and I have the chance to gain material (often a pawn), I tend to go for it and lose the control of my position as a whole (as if the gain of material was the logical consequence of my superior play).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-I tend to play forcing move in my games. If you think about it, forcing moves is everything that the chess players calculate when looking at a position, but if a forcing move gives you nothing you should play something that keeps the tension.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-I tend to play a move also when I think it is not right just because I am too lazy to calculate more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And a lot of other patterns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Actually it is not even necessary that when you spot these patterns you annotate them in your games. It is just enough to take note of these common trends somewhere and make a plan to avoid them in the future (you will start to sense these critical positions that make you go wrong better).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But if you want to annotate your games nevertheless, then at least look for these patterns (they differ from player to player) and write them down next to the critical moves. Write everything that you were thinking in those moments.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the end, you will notice that you always make the same kind of mistakes (everyone does) and there comes the difficult part: try to make a plan to eliminate them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most people stopped before even starting to analyse their games, others stop here because it takes too much effort. Masters did all these things without even realising it because they like chess so much that it was not a chore at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="918" LastEditorUserId="918" LastEditDate="2013-12-19T10:36:05.677" LastActivityDate="2013-12-19T10:36:05.677" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4339" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4341" CreationDate="2013-12-18T23:34:24.700" Score="3" ViewCount="500" Body="&lt;p&gt;I suffer from knight-phobia. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I e.g. play white and black has knights on c6 and/or f6 I tend to play a3 and/or h3 as prophylaxis against knight coming to b4 and g4. I don't like them there. I start sensing a fork choke on my neck and lose concentration. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Am I nuts or is this normal? I feel like I am losing a tempo. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do you have a therapy? Qd2? Keep on developing and react when time? Read an article by...?    &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="58" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-04T19:54:14.280" LastActivityDate="2020-03-04T19:54:14.280" Title="Knights on b4 and g4" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;knights&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="4340" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4339" CreationDate="2013-12-19T02:51:01.220" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I remember my first steps when starting out with the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was playing against a neighbor of mine who was much much stronger at that moment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He used all of his units better than me, including knights.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In order to cure the phobia you currently have you must do the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;You must learn your openings well&lt;/strong&gt;, so you do not allow knight on b4/g4 to be &lt;strong&gt;a problem&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Knight jump on b4/g4 is not a good move in general, and only in some openings it can &quot;pass&quot; but as a defensive move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As someone who has &quot;been there&quot;, I advise you to just learn your openings very well, and you will be fine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can start with &lt;em&gt;Starting Out-...&lt;/em&gt; books from &lt;em&gt;Everyman Chess&lt;/em&gt; since they are suitable for beginner/intermediate level, and usually in them you can find some very good general advice related for other parts of the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hopefully this will help you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Best regards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-04T16:55:20.890" LastActivityDate="2020-03-04T16:55:20.890" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="4341" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4339" CreationDate="2013-12-19T03:44:51.710" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesscafe.com/text/heisman48.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;This&lt;/a&gt; (Guide to P-R3) NM Dan Heisman Novice Nook is all that you EVER need to read to answer your question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1751" LastActivityDate="2013-12-19T03:44:51.710" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4342" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-12-19T04:06:49.043" Score="2" ViewCount="1714" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have been playing chess for many years now in with my friends and online. But I will be participating in first ever chess tournament of my life in few days. It is a FIDE rated Blitz tournament. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since I have never played any tournament at such a high level, I wanted few tips from you all. Basically Do's and Dont's would help me a lot. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I play online, all my moves are automatically recorded and also I dont have to check the time control as  automatically stops after my moves. But when I will be playing tournament, I will need to do that manually. How much difference would that make?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2111" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-03-03T20:00:59.953" LastActivityDate="2014-03-03T20:00:59.953" Title="Guidelines for preparation for a Blitz tournament" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;fide&gt;&lt;blitz&gt;&lt;online&gt;&lt;online-blitz&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4343" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4342" CreationDate="2013-12-19T05:08:27.327" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Know your openings!&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You didn't mention time control, but it doesn't matter, you just &lt;strong&gt;may not allow yourself to waste precious time&lt;/strong&gt; on opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Avoid sharp, theoretical lines &lt;strong&gt;if you can not memorize them fully&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I usually avoid such openings because if you face a novelty/variation you haven't seen so far, there goes precious time on thinking for a move that will &quot;keep me in the game&quot;, and usually you will end up caught in the endless loop of searching the only move that &quot;keeps you in the game&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Take solid lines that give equal chances, do not worry about possibility of a draw. Since this is blitz, people make mistakes/blunder more often, and do not forget that time trouble is a &lt;strong&gt;huge&lt;/strong&gt; factor here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your job is to play the opening as fast as you can, &lt;strong&gt;without any mistake&lt;/strong&gt;, so you can get a playable middle game with equal chances and concrete and simple play/counterplay.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the middle game, simplify a little, so you can &lt;strong&gt;protect yourself from sudden tactical blasts&lt;/strong&gt; and to &lt;strong&gt;reduce the calculation&lt;/strong&gt; (believe me, in blitz, &lt;strong&gt;time flies&lt;/strong&gt; and before you know it, you are in the time trouble ), but &lt;strong&gt;keep enough peaces on board&lt;/strong&gt; so you can &lt;strong&gt;complicate if you feel you can win&lt;/strong&gt; ( exchanging 2 minor pieces would suffice since it greatly simplifies, but still leaves you with good chances to complicate if you really need a win).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;BE VERY CAREFUL WHEN EXCHANGING PIECES!!!&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In blitz, people often offer exchanges to simplify, so &lt;strong&gt;always assess the resulting position&lt;/strong&gt; that will arise &lt;strong&gt;after&lt;/strong&gt; the exchange.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This method will give you the best results-offer them &lt;strong&gt;unfavorable exchange&lt;/strong&gt; ( e.g. offer your bad bishop for their good one ). You will be surprised how many people make wrong exchanges!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Practice tactical blows on the &lt;strong&gt;real games, NOT on the artificial studies/problems&lt;/strong&gt; and try to find those examples &lt;strong&gt;related to the openings you play&lt;/strong&gt;.This will additionally protect you from sudden blows.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And again, &lt;strong&gt;prepare openings thoroughly!&lt;/strong&gt; ( I just can't emphasize this enough ). You will want to use your time only for calculation, not on the opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;EDIT ( updated on December, 20th 2013 ):&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;About the clock:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Do not forget to press it when you play the move&lt;/strong&gt;-most beginners/those who are not used to clock, forget it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What will happen is this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After you make the move, without activating the opponents clock, he/she will just stare at the board like an idiot, doing nothing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You will start wondering what is going on-are you winning so he/she thinks how to save the game, or did you play something utterly stupid so your opponent calculates the refutation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Neither is happening! Your opponent saw you not pressing the clock, so &lt;strong&gt;patiently waits for your time to expire, in order to claim win due to you exceeding the time limit&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yeah I know...there are all kind of people out there :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for notation, as soon as you play your move, &lt;strong&gt;press your clock first&lt;/strong&gt;, and then write down the move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why? Because if you play blitz at more than 5 minutes each, you do not have to write down moves if you have less than 5 minutes ( &lt;strong&gt;double check this&lt;/strong&gt;, since it was a long time I have played blitz, and &lt;strong&gt;this information was told to me by a friend&lt;/strong&gt; ), and your time is always the highest priority in blitz, you can always write down the move after the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I recall correctly, in 5 minute blitz you do not have to write down moves ( again, double check this ).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hopefully this will help you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Good luck!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Best regards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastEditorUserId="2042" LastEditDate="2013-12-20T04:26:55.187" LastActivityDate="2013-12-20T04:26:55.187" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4344" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4342" CreationDate="2013-12-19T13:03:07.353" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The first step would be to go over the rules for blitz play in FIDE, this is online at:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fide.com/component/handbook/?id=125&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.fide.com/component/handbook/?id=125&amp;amp;view=article&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you have no experience with a physical chess clock, I would recommend practicing with one before the event.  You want the action of making a move and pressing the clock automatic, forgetting to stop your clock after your move is very costly in blitz.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You will also be responsible for noting when your opponent has run out of time in order to claim a win on time, the clock nor arbiter will alert you to this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="103" LastActivityDate="2013-12-19T13:03:07.353" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4345" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4342" CreationDate="2013-12-19T15:13:17.423" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;My recommendation would be to join your local USCF club and play blitz there.  Learn to use the clock, learn etiquette, learn your weaknesses, get tips from better players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure you have to record your moves in blitz.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Above all, have fun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2013-12-19T15:13:17.423" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4346" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4329" CreationDate="2013-12-20T05:08:52.433" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's hard to beat Morphy when it comes to a dominance over contemporaries that leads to short, memorable games that culminate in utterly violent punishment of the failure to develop one's pieces. And while it's also hard to top the opera box game from the OP for a seamless destruction of a poorly developed army, the following two dismantlings are quite nice and in the same spirit, though different enough to be useful additions I think.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the first game, Meek goes for a premature attack that, while it prevents Morphy from castling, primarily serves to waste time. (Note how &lt;code&gt;5...Nh6!&lt;/code&gt;, rather than say &lt;code&gt;5...Ne5?&lt;/code&gt;, makes it so that the h8 rook gets in the game after Meek's intended follow-up, while the remaining white pieces are still sitting at home.) Meek continues to neglect development (8 of the 21 total white moves are by the queen in this game), and after the clumsy &lt;code&gt;17.Nd2?&lt;/code&gt;, Morphy smoothly takes advantage of the fact that the white queen must guard e2 in order to bring out his last pieces with tempo.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Mobile&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Mobile&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;1855&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Alexander Beaufort Meek&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Paul Morphy&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;C44&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;42&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 exd4 4. Bc4 Bc5 5. Ng5?! Nh6! (5...Ne5? 6.Nxf7 Nxf7 7.Bxf7+ Kxf7 8.Qh5+ g6 9.Qxc5) 6. Nxf7&#xA;Nxf7 7. Bxf7+ Kxf7 8. Qh5+ g6 9. Qxc5 d6 10. Qb5 Re8 11. Qb3+&#xA;d5 12. f3 Na5 13. Qd3 dxe4 14. fxe4 Qh4+ 15. g3 Rxe4+ 16. Kf2&#xA;Qe7 17. Nd2? Re3! 18. Qb5 c6! 19. Qf1 (19.Qxa5 Re2+ 20.Kg1 Qe3+ 21.Kf1 Bh3#) Bh3! 20. Qd1 (20.Qxh3 Re2+ 21.Kf3 Qe3+ 22.Kg4 h5+) Rf8 21. Nf3 Ke8&#xA;0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The second game is Morphy's classic destruction of Paulsen via queen sacrifice. Just a handful of poor, slow moves leave White's pieces mostly out-of-play on the queenside, and his king is exposed to a brutal attack. A great lesson on the role a few wasted moves can play, and that one should be alert to bold shots like &lt;code&gt;17...Qxf3!!&lt;/code&gt; if the opponent's pieces are too far away and can't regroup to defend the king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;1st American Chess Congress&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;New York, NY USA&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;1857&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Louis Paulsen&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Paul Morphy&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;C48&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;56&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. Bb5 Bc5 5. O-O O-O 6. Nxe5&#xA;Re8 7. Nxc6 dxc6 8. Bc4 b5 9. Be2 Nxe4 10. Nxe4 Rxe4 11. Bf3&#xA;Re6 12. c3? (12.d3) Qd3! 13. b4 Bb6 14. a4?! (14.Re1) bxa4 15. Qxa4 Bd7 16. Ra2? (16.Qa6)&#xA;Rae8 17. Qa6 Qxf3!! 18. gxf3 Rg6+ 19. Kh1 Bh3 20. Rd1 {Not 20 Rg1 Rxg1+ 21&#xA;Kxg1 Re1+} Bg2+ 21. Kg1 Bxf3+ 22. Kf1 Bg2+ 23. Kg1 Bh3+ 24. Kh1 Bxf2&#xA;25. Qf1 Bxf1 26. Rxf1 Re2 27. Ra1 Rh6&#xA;28. d4 Be3 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2013-12-20T05:08:52.433" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4347" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4329" CreationDate="2013-12-21T00:03:14.950" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;These games are called &lt;em&gt;miniatures&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can find them in your database by simply filtering games with the required number of moves ( in order for a game to be considered a miniature, the total number of moves played in the game should be &lt;strong&gt;less&lt;/strong&gt; than 30 ).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are some books you can buy, like &lt;em&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1857441664&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this one&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1857441664&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this one&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt;, but I prefer the above method.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You could also search online databases if you do not have your own.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My advice to you is to search &lt;em&gt;classical&lt;/em&gt; games ( the games of the old masters dating from years 1400 up to 1700 ), since the level of the defense in those days was low, enabling a lot of beautiful miniatures.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;EDIT:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A New Year gift from me to you :&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/2560/which-was-that-marshalls-game-with-that-spectacular-queen-sac?rq=1&quot;&gt;Which was that Marshall&amp;#39;s game with that spectacular Queen sac?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Enjoy! :)))&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hopefully this will help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Best regards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.193" LastActivityDate="2013-12-21T01:49:22.247" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4348" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1593" CreationDate="2013-12-21T03:09:20.687" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've playing this gambit a lot and stumbled on a good response for Black players who hope to win quickly. In the &quot;main line&quot; (i.e. ..Ng6) play ..d6 instead of ..d5. More often than not White will play f4 which loses to ..de fe ..Nxe5! intending ..Qh4+. It's a nice little trap. &#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/kxVvT.png&quot; alt=&quot;Black plays ..d6!?&quot;&gt;. More analysis of the other lines &lt;a href=&quot;http://compulsiontomove.blogspot.com/2013/01/the-halloween-gambit-is-scarier-than.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot; title=&quot;my blog&quot;&gt;on my blog&lt;/a&gt; if you are interested. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2118" LastActivityDate="2013-12-21T03:09:20.687" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4349" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4082" CreationDate="2013-12-21T08:38:10.643" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sorry, probably not the answer you're looking for, but I have taught a lot of kids to play chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The opening advantage is insignificant in games of kids vs. kids.  In fact, I try not to make a point of it, or to leave it as an open question for them to answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All that being said, the best defense is a good offense.  I just teach them to play active moves, to develop their pieces, and be aware that &quot;loose pieces drop off&quot; (Nunn).  Let the pieces fly (whether literally or figuratively) and let God sort out the details.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2119" LastActivityDate="2013-12-21T08:38:10.643" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4350" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4342" CreationDate="2013-12-21T13:13:48.823" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;This seems to be a 2 in 1 question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;How do you (prepare) perform well in a (FIDE) rated blitz tournament?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Will there be a difference between online blitz and over the board blitz?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In general, blitz is compared to games with a longer time control. With this view in mind, blitz games are a lot about having a good control over the time left on your clock. Becoming good at making quick decisions and plans and making moves on the board with short thinking intervals is the key. A good strategy is to decide on your opening systems before the tournament begins. Decide exactly what openings you will use and what type of positions you want to get on the board (queens or exchanged queens, calm or dynamic, balanced or unbalanced, symmetric or non-symmetric, etc.). Also, practice in making quick (some call this intuitive) decisions in your blitz games. Keep making moves and learn to pressure on the clock.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Online blitz is clearly different from over the board (OTB) blitz. OTB, you have to deal with 3D pieces, actually use your (e.g. right) hand to make the moves and press the clock with the (same!) hand. You have to keep track of your time (and the opponent's time!) on a real chess clock. The board allows you (and the opponent!) to make illegal moves that can decide the game. You have to deal with your opponent sitting across the board (e.g. the opponent can eat onions before the game, nervously shake the leg and make other bothering noises and distractions). You have to find thinking poses that suit you well. Also, you have to manage food, drinks and toilet visits. Also, you have to learn to focus in a room with 100 people. All in all, some things can be prepared in advance, while other things will come with experience!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastActivityDate="2013-12-21T13:13:48.823" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4352" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1765" CreationDate="2013-12-22T04:10:26.460" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Check this link out on chessgames.com: for ECO A91 dutch defense:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessopening?eco=A91&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessopening?eco=A91&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1790" LastActivityDate="2013-12-22T04:10:26.460" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4353" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-12-22T08:12:19.123" Score="28" ViewCount="34126" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there an easy guide how to install &lt;a href=&quot;http://stockfishchess.org/&quot;&gt;stockfish&lt;/a&gt; on ubuntu?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From the main site I can not find any information and &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/mcostalba/Stockfish&quot;&gt;github repository&lt;/a&gt; does not provide many details.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would really appreciate if someone who already installed and started to run it would share the steps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="703" LastActivityDate="2019-01-25T03:07:04.263" Title="How to install stockfish on ubuntu?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4354" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4353" CreationDate="2013-12-22T14:05:22.850" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The package is referenced at &lt;a href=&quot;http://packages.debian.org/sid/i386/stockfish/download&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://packages.debian.org/sid/i386/stockfish/download&lt;/a&gt; which can be installed with aptitude or synaptic. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Try this &lt;a href=&quot;http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1531296&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Link&lt;/a&gt; for more info&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1967" LastActivityDate="2013-12-22T14:05:22.850" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4355" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="359" CreationDate="2013-12-22T14:31:28.227" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I guess I could have worded my question more clearly, but what I meant&#xA;  was I wanted to pull out specific positions that involve tactics from&#xA;  my database, in order to present them as interesting problems (it&#xA;  seems to me that ChessTempo must use something like this to find its&#xA;  tactics problems).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just brainstorming here, but as a programmer, I can see a way to do this. Get Stockfish and write an application that submits the position to it. Save the evals, and when the eval changes significantly (whatever that means lol), save that position as FEN along with the &quot;solution&quot;. I have most of the code to do the grunt work, I don't think it would be hard to write this. I just don't have the interest as a hobby to do this. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How do you get the positions to submit to Stockfish? For that, you iterate on a file containing many PGN formatted games, and generate the FEN for each virtual board position.&#xA;I have already written similar code in C# and Java.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1967" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T16:59:50.797" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T16:59:50.797" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="4357" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4290" CreationDate="2013-12-22T23:41:35.953" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Best line is 3. Nxe5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you insist on 3. Nf3 Nf6, best is 4. Bb5 (Four Knights: Spanish Variation).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2126" LastActivityDate="2013-12-22T23:41:35.953" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4358" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4353" CreationDate="2013-12-23T19:59:41.263" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;As probably you already know Stockfish is &quot;only&quot; a chess engine. It means it's &quot;only&quot; the part of the program that makes the thinking, and it has no interface at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I haven't used Ubuntu for a while, but AFAIK Stockfish is available on its repositories, so you should be able to install it just by:&#xA;$ sudo apt-get install stockfish&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If for whatever reason you need/want to install Stockfish from the sources, once you've downloaded the code from the github repo, you just need a C++ compiler (v.g. g++) and from the &quot;src&quot; folder enter the command:&#xA;$ make build ARCH=x86-64    (This is for 64-bit systems)&#xA;$ make build ARCH=x86-32    (This is for 32-bit systems)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In order to be able to play against Stockfis you need a chess GUI, for example Arena (only windows version, so you need wine in order to make it work) and ScidVsPC are vey popular:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://scidvspc.sourceforge.net/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://scidvspc.sourceforge.net/&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.playwitharena.com/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.playwitharena.com/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once you've installed a GUI and the Stockfish engine, you just have to add the Stockfish engine to the GUI in order to be able to play against it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2013" LastActivityDate="2013-12-23T19:59:41.263" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4359" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4360" CreationDate="2013-12-23T21:45:47.073" Score="2" ViewCount="1198" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am starting to look at chessboard representation with the 0x88 hex array board rep, but I'm getting confused! Please help me understand it properly!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The 0x88 chess board representations I have seen as examples around on net resources say it can be thought of as representing a 16x8 2D array (size 128 and so is used as 2 boards side by side to check off board moves etc). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, afaik, hex value 0x88 is equivalent to 136 in decimal (10001000 in binary) so why is the array size not size 136 (136 bytes)?&#xA;I must be overlooking something simple with this. I apologise for this and will no doubt feel very foolish when I find what mistaken thinking my brain is stuck with over this!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am grateful for any helpful replies,many thanks&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="426" LastActivityDate="2013-12-23T21:51:46.110" Title="Why is a 0x88 chessboard array of size 128 bytes when 0x88 is decimal 136?" Tags="&lt;chessboards&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4360" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4359" CreationDate="2013-12-23T21:51:46.110" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;0x88 is just the name of the system.  The actual length of the board array is 128.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The name comes from the fact that a bitwise AND can be performed the index of a square (range is 0 to 127) and 0x88.  If the result is non-zero, then the square is not on the board.  This happens because 0x88 is &lt;code&gt;10001000&lt;/code&gt; in binary and every square on the board will have the form &lt;code&gt;0xxx0xxx&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another benefit of the system is that all of the legal squares can be trivially constructed in octal notation.  For example, &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt; is &lt;code&gt;0x33&lt;/code&gt; assuming that 0x00 is the lower left of the board (both d and 4 are the 4th square from the edge, so 3 in a zero-indexed array).  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See &lt;a href=&quot;https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/0x88&quot;&gt;https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/0x88&lt;/a&gt; for more information about this system.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12" LastActivityDate="2013-12-23T21:51:46.110" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4361" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1608" CreationDate="2013-12-23T22:44:46.237" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The common trap I used to fall into (and I am actually still falling into it) is to consider mostly &lt;strong&gt;your&lt;/strong&gt; attacking possibilities, and not the opponent's one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It usually happens this way: &quot;How my god, my pieces are beautifully coordinated, I can probably put my Knight to f5, and then with the support of the Queen, g7 will be very weak. This is going to be a good game...&quot;&#xA;And on the next move, your opponent checkmates you because you completely missed his bishop b7-Queen c6 configuration that was threatening a mate in 1.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the meta-rule for me is:&#xA;- always think about the opponent's possibilities first. What is he threatening ? Do his pieces target some interesting squares ?&#xA;- Then think about what could be done to stop these threats. Possibly you have even bigger a threat so it is not actually necessary to deal with it. But at least you know it now&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then, when drilling down to the opponent's possibilities, it includes: is my King safe ? Are my pieces protected ? Is there a weak square he can reach ? Is there a forced series of moves that leaves him with the advantage ? Once you are sure that there is no problem left in your position, you can start thinking about your own attacking possibilities: is &lt;strong&gt;his&lt;/strong&gt; King safe ? Are some of &lt;strong&gt;his&lt;/strong&gt; pieces undefended etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can find more pieces of advice on my blog: &lt;a href=&quot;http://chesstrainerapp.blogspot.fr/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://chesstrainerapp.blogspot.fr/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2076" LastActivityDate="2013-12-23T22:44:46.237" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4362" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1608" CreationDate="2013-12-24T10:28:18.070" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;My thought process is roughly as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Decide which move best fits my &quot;plan&quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;After the move, is the moved piece vulnerable:&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is it hanging?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Can it be attacked by a more minor piece?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;After the move, does it leave any other piece vulnerable:&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Does it leave another piece hanging because it is now discovered?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Was my piece directly defending any other piece by guarding the square?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Can the opponent now check me?&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If so, can she use it to skewer another piece?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What is the move the opponent is more likely to do now?&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Does my move force the opponent?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Does my move encourage the opponent to move a piece?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Does my move create any obvious opportunities for the opponent?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1658" LastActivityDate="2013-12-24T10:28:18.070" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4363" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4272" CreationDate="2013-12-24T16:56:43.780" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;Movies like to present &quot;chess hustlers&quot; as playing chess for a living.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In reality, most of these people are playing chess for fun.  The &quot;hustlers&quot; are often just down on their luck financially and like to make some money while still having fun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's certainly no J.J. Peachum-type figure who trains chess players to go into parks and make money from innocent passersby.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for their strength, it's entirely dependent on the city or area you're looking.  They're just a collection of chess players, there's no strength range you have to be in.  In New York, master-strength players have been known to hang out on the street playing chess.  In New Orleans you could catch a world-class player like Jude Acers sitting around in his red beret taking all comers.  Where I am, in Cleveland, it seems like the strength level is in the 1000-1800 range, but hey I'm 2050 and I play around there fairly often, and I've known masters and even an IM to join in at various times.  The guys who are into gambling are usually among the stronger players in their setting, which is again entirely dependent on where you look.  At any rate, gambling isn't as common as the movies like to make it out to be.  Having played all over I've only encountered it a few times and usually not from secret masters but rather guys who had learned enough tricks over the years to be able to beat most clueless people and were pretty confident.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's not a business operation, it's an informal chess club where gambling is a part of the culture.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="47" LastEditorUserId="47" LastEditDate="2013-12-26T05:32:42.420" LastActivityDate="2013-12-26T05:32:42.420" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4364" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-12-26T11:57:35.607" Score="3" ViewCount="259" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm searching for the possibility of having my personal database of annotated games in the cloud, my games included. I already read &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/1983/ways-to-share-games-online&quot;&gt;this post&lt;/a&gt;: 1) &lt;a href=&quot;http://chessmicrobase.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://chessmicrobase.com/&lt;/a&gt; looks nice, although basic, I already added a game, but the problems are that I cannot I add variants and I'm not very sure for how much time this site will be reliable. 2) &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chessgames.com/&lt;/a&gt; is slow and ugly (java based) and I cannot add my own games, premium membership included. But the main problem is that is very slow.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'll be happy also with a simple cross-platform chess edit application, with the same features and the possibility to integrate chess engines, but my main interest is in the online.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1358" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.193" LastActivityDate="2014-01-02T02:17:39.290" Title="Online personalized database resource" Tags="&lt;database&gt;&lt;online&gt;&lt;annotation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4365" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4364" CreationDate="2013-12-26T13:06:59.800" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chessmicrobase.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chess Microbase&lt;/a&gt; is the only thing I found.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You can have 3 databases for free which is probably enough in most cases. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You can also share the link to the game. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Supports importing and exporting with PGN.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Has support for annotations.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I am using it for couple of years now (I think). It seems reliable and seem to get new features. Of course, take backups.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="749" LastEditorUserId="749" LastEditDate="2013-12-26T13:14:43.900" LastActivityDate="2013-12-26T13:14:43.900" CommentCount="2" CommunityOwnedDate="2013-12-26T13:06:59.800" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4366" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4367" CreationDate="2013-12-26T16:10:55.773" Score="3" ViewCount="157" Body="&lt;p&gt;Where I can find a fast smart &lt;em&gt;pgn file&lt;/em&gt; format help ? You can find &lt;a href=&quot;http://www6.chessclub.com/help/PGN-spec&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; the complete headache details of the format. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1358" LastEditorUserId="1358" LastEditDate="2013-12-26T18:58:38.373" LastActivityDate="2013-12-26T18:58:38.373" Title="Pgn crash course" Tags="&lt;pgn&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4367" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4366" CreationDate="2013-12-26T16:13:11.923" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;For a short good introduction (variations and &lt;code&gt;NAG&lt;/code&gt;s included): &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.enpassant.dk/chess/palview/manual/pgn.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.enpassant.dk/chess/palview/manual/pgn.htm&lt;/a&gt;, the &lt;em&gt;PGN Basics&lt;/em&gt; section.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1358" LastActivityDate="2013-12-26T16:13:11.923" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4368" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2796" CreationDate="2013-12-26T20:40:28.557" Score="8" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chesscomposers.blogspot.com/p/for-beginners.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://chesscomposers.blogspot.com/p/for-beginners.html&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;For definitions, see Christian Poisson's website &lt;a href=&quot;http://christian.poisson.free.fr/problemesis/numero55.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Problemesis&lt;/a&gt; (&quot;Definitions&quot; menu)  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;For an encyclopaedic website, visit &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.kotesovec.cz/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Vaclav Kotesovec&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;http://matplus.net/start.php?px=1388152716&amp;amp;app=forum&amp;amp;unfold=2&amp;amp;act=home&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;MatPlus forum&lt;/a&gt; is dedicated to problem chess and is frequented by chess problem enthusiasts. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Edited December 27th: Now I can insert more than 2 links in my answer)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2142" LastEditorUserId="9765" LastEditDate="2016-03-09T17:06:50.820" LastActivityDate="2016-03-09T17:06:50.820" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4369" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2760" CreationDate="2013-12-26T21:03:32.353" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Quote from our Autralian friends &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ozproblems.com/problem-world/chess-problem&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.ozproblems.com/problem-world/chess-problem&lt;/a&gt; :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Problems are aesthetic works designed to show an interesting theme – the composition’s main idea. How exactly are themes artistic? It varies, but important factors include subtlety, elegance, economy, paradox, and unity of play. The latter concept of unity is especially noteworthy; most good problems have multiple variations that are related to each other in some way, to create a harmonious impression.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The metrics provided at the World Chess Composition Tournament (WCCT) concern a &lt;i&gt;formal&lt;/i&gt; tourney where the problems must all present the same theme that is imposed to all participants. This is why the &lt;b&gt;Rules&lt;/b&gt; emphasize the &quot;accurate and intensive rendering of the set theme&quot;.&#xA;However, in &lt;i&gt; informal&lt;/i&gt; tourneys (generally composing tourneys organized by chess problem magazines), no theme is imposed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2142" LastActivityDate="2013-12-26T21:03:32.353" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4371" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-12-26T22:44:38.917" Score="0" ViewCount="207" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have ChessX 1.0 for Mac OSX. Is there a way for it to tell the name of the current opening position?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1969" LastActivityDate="2014-01-05T15:24:14.993" Title="How to setup ChessX to tell the name of the current opening?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;software&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4372" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="442" CreationDate="2013-12-27T03:51:58.053" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I learned to play around two and beat my mom in my first game. I never became particularly good at chess - maxing out around 1800 as a late teenager after a couple years of serious play. From my own experience I'd recommend against using success as a toddler as a predictor of future playing ability.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2143" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T16:20:47.510" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T16:20:47.510" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="4374" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-12-27T11:17:43.910" Score="2" ViewCount="287" Body="&lt;p&gt;Imagine a situation where a team of top Grandmasters would face another team of top Grandmasters over a single chess board and play a series of games. Would the games always end in a draw? Would having a team instead of an individual player eliminate errors or would (other) errors inevitably arise?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2150" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2013-12-30T01:12:24.113" LastActivityDate="2015-01-08T18:10:42.943" Title="What would happen if multiple GMs played on both sides of a chess match?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;software&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4375" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4600" CreationDate="2013-12-27T23:13:42.957" Score="5" ViewCount="2678" Body="&lt;p&gt;Which chess tournament and venue has brought in the most people in the world?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="117" LastEditorUserId="12" LastEditDate="2014-01-28T14:10:40.657" LastActivityDate="2020-11-04T17:32:21.780" Title="What was the biggest chess tournament held in the world?" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4376" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4375" CreationDate="2013-12-28T08:16:13.090" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;My first guess is the Olympiad -- in the last edition, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessolympiadistanbul.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Istanbul 2012&lt;/a&gt;, 150 countries participated in the Open, and 127 in the Women section. Most of those teams had 5 players (some had 4), so that's about 1300 players I'd guess. This year's Olympiad will be held in &lt;a href=&quot;http://tromso2014.no/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Tromsø, Norway&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2013-12-28T08:16:13.090" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4377" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="778" CreationDate="2013-12-28T09:15:34.427" Score="-5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Positional chess DOES have an advantage over tactical chess in the sense that &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Having a better position will bring about checkmate where the material advantage of tactical chess &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;May not necessarily bring about check mate&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2156" LastActivityDate="2013-12-28T09:15:34.427" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4378" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2409" CreationDate="2013-12-28T12:21:39.367" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess pieces and their points:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;queen - 9&#xA;rook - 5&#xA;bishop - 3.5&#xA;knight - 3&#xA;pawn - 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you need any more help, search on Google for Chess pieces and their points.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2157" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-08-17T02:12:58.477" LastActivityDate="2020-08-17T02:12:58.477" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="4380" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2013-12-28T17:54:43.197" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2013-12-28T17:54:43.197" LastActivityDate="2013-12-28T17:54:43.197" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4381" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2013-12-28T17:54:43.197" Score="0" Body="A novelty is a move which has never been played before in a recorded game, usually in the opening. Use this tag for questions about novelties in general, or question about a specific novelty by a strong player." OwnerUserId="1485" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-29T18:24:30.040" LastActivityDate="2020-08-29T18:24:30.040" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="4382" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4375" CreationDate="2013-12-28T18:33:23.087" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to the USCF, the record holder for largest attendance at a rated chess competition is the SuperNationals V with 5335 participants. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.uschess.org/content/view/12160/707/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Link&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The SuperNationals III also had over 5000 participants, so this must be the recurring tournament that brings in the most people.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1485" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2013-12-28T18:39:24.330" LastActivityDate="2013-12-28T18:39:24.330" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4383" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4384" CreationDate="2013-12-28T20:23:22.363" Score="7" ViewCount="1441" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would like to play the Modern Variation of the Caro-Kann. What is the best way to deal with Ng5? Best strategy and known tactics (e.g. the Ne6 sacrifice). Maybe you can recommend a book dedicated to this variation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 dxe4 4.Nxe4 Nd7 5.Ng5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2159" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2013-12-30T01:12:42.397" LastActivityDate="2013-12-30T21:27:20.223" Title="Caro-Kann variation 1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 dxe4 4.Nxe4 Nd7 5.Ng5" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;caro-kann&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4384" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4383" CreationDate="2013-12-29T00:07:19.250" Score="8" Body="&lt;h2&gt;EDIT ( December, 30 2013 ):&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Removed unnecessary book from the list&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Added explanation of basic ideas in response to the comment made by member &lt;em&gt;Jonathan Garber&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I would like to play the Modern Variation of the Caro-Kann. What is the best way to deal with Ng5? Best strategy and known tactics (e.g. the Ne6 sacrifice).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You did not specify which side you wish to play, but I have assumed it is Black side you are interested in, judging by the sentence &quot;What is the best way to deal with Ng5?&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only dangers that I see are the move &lt;code&gt;Bc4&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;Bd3&lt;/code&gt; coupled with &lt;code&gt;Ng5&lt;/code&gt;, since there is always the possibility of the sacrifice on &lt;code&gt;e6&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When playing &lt;code&gt;Bc4&lt;/code&gt;, White hopes for something like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 dxe4 4.Nxe4 Nd7 5.Ng5 Ngf6 6.Bc4 e6 7.Qe2 h6? 8.Nxf7!&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is the place where you play &lt;code&gt;7. ...Nb6&lt;/code&gt; and White can reply with &lt;code&gt;8.Bd3&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;8.Bb3&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After &lt;code&gt;8.Bb3&lt;/code&gt; you play &lt;code&gt;8. ...h6&lt;/code&gt; and then strike with &lt;code&gt;9. ...c5&lt;/code&gt;. The remaining variations are not that theoretical, and you need to remember some key moves to secure equal chances. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The trap in the above diagram was the only critical position requiring from you to play precise and theoretical move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;code&gt;Bd3&lt;/code&gt; continuation is different. Here White has more opportunities for &lt;em&gt;positional sacrifices&lt;/em&gt;, since he gets the &lt;em&gt;compensation&lt;/em&gt; in view of space advantage, pressure on the Black king stuck in the center and the lead in the development.&#xA;This is the place where you &lt;strong&gt;must know theory&lt;/strong&gt; and always take care in first 10 or 13 moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 dxe4 4.Nxe4 Nd7 5.Ng5 Ngf6 6.Bd3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you play &lt;code&gt;6. ...h6?!&lt;/code&gt; here White can respond with &lt;code&gt;7.Ne6!&lt;/code&gt; and will just calmly develop, sacrificing the knight since he gets very good &lt;em&gt;compensation&lt;/em&gt; in view of the initiative, development lead and Black's cramped, uncoordinated position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another dangerous variation with White's same idea is this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 dxe4 4.Nxe4 Nd7 5.Ng5 Ngf6 6.Bd3 e6 7. N1f3 h6?! 8.Nxe6!&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Instead of &lt;code&gt;7. ...h6?!&lt;/code&gt;, Black plays &lt;code&gt;7. ...Bd6&lt;/code&gt; and from here on, you really &lt;strong&gt;must know theory&lt;/strong&gt;, as I have mentioned before, since things get really messy. Note that it is harder to play this variation with Black, than with White, but the resulting position is &lt;strong&gt;unclear and sharp&lt;/strong&gt;, so you both have equal chances.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Maybe you can recommend a book dedicated to this variation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As someone who used to played this defense as Black in tournament games, I can recommend you some books that helped me to learn to play this opening variation with good success:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;Joe Gallagher-Starting Out The Caro-Kann&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;Anatoly Karpov and A.Beliavsky-The Caro-Kann in Black and White&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;Shandorff Lars-Grandmaster Repertoire 7-The Caro-Kann&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Start reading them in order I have presented above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first one will help you to grasp basic ideas and concepts of the variation you seek, but will also help you with other variations as well-which is important since &lt;strong&gt;generally&lt;/strong&gt; in &lt;em&gt;Caro-Kann&lt;/em&gt; &lt;strong&gt;it is White who can steer the game&lt;/strong&gt;, not Black. &lt;strong&gt;You will find the answers you seek in this book.&lt;/strong&gt; I have just given you the small summary of ideas in the above section.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once you learn the basics you can move on to the second book, written by a grandmaster who practically &lt;strong&gt;reinvented&lt;/strong&gt; the whole variation for Black. It is &lt;em&gt;Karpov&lt;/em&gt; who first used that variation in the &lt;em&gt;candidate matches&lt;/em&gt;. That is why he had to do everything &lt;strong&gt;almost&lt;/strong&gt; from scratch, and that is why I believe that this book will be the most useful to you. You will learn from one of the best players in chess history and who can better explain to you the ideas for Black than the one who invented them? This book will show you the annotated games where White or Black played well, and their opponent bad. It is important for you to know what is good for White and what is good for Black in the variation you wish to master.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After you learn the opening moves, and grasp the middle game that arises from it, you will start to improve rapidly, since the opening is very solid and hard to &quot;crack&quot; on the lower levels of skill. Naturally you will want to play for a win. In order to do so, you will need the sharpest and most precise continuations and that is what third book should help you with.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A SMALL ADVICE:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Get a good book on endgames, you &lt;strong&gt;will&lt;/strong&gt; need it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hopefully this will help you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Best regards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastEditorUserId="2042" LastEditDate="2013-12-30T21:27:20.223" LastActivityDate="2013-12-30T21:27:20.223" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4385" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4386" CreationDate="2013-12-29T03:37:08.323" Score="20" ViewCount="60680" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there an online analysis engine that allows you to enter a PGN and get a game analysis, showing where suboptimal moves were made?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know there are programs for download/purchase that do this, but I specifically want an online one. The ones I've found (&lt;a href=&quot;http://analyse.deep-chess.de/&quot;&gt;e.g.&lt;/a&gt;) can analyze positions, but not entire games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1758" LastActivityDate="2018-08-27T19:40:34.133" Title="Free online analysis engine?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;engines&gt;&lt;online&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4386" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4385" CreationDate="2013-12-29T08:26:06.197" Score="18" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://lichess.org&quot;&gt;lichess.org&lt;/a&gt; has played game analysis and allows you to edit a board before AI game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Its analysis shows wrong and right moves and percentage statistics of mistakes for both sides.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2163" LastEditorUserId="1358" LastEditDate="2014-01-02T02:50:29.200" LastActivityDate="2014-01-02T02:50:29.200" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4387" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2013-12-29T10:00:36.973" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2013-12-29T10:00:36.973" LastActivityDate="2013-12-29T10:00:36.973" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4388" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2013-12-29T10:00:36.973" Score="0" Body="For questions on, about, or relating to the art of composing chess problems and studies." OwnerUserId="1485" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-09-15T03:02:18.613" LastActivityDate="2020-09-15T03:02:18.613" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="4389" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4374" CreationDate="2013-12-29T12:56:19.960" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It mostly depends on time limit. If you give them opportunity to take a lot of time for thinking, it would be a draw. If you give both sides standard time control (2 hours for each side), the result would be unpredictable, because discussions between GMs may take a lot of time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2165" LastActivityDate="2013-12-29T12:56:19.960" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4390" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-12-29T17:42:53.260" Score="4" ViewCount="2499" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was hoping that this would be a simple exercise but I have spent the last two days looking into this and can not find an answer (easy or otherwise). What I want to do is have my iMac play my ubuntu laptop in chess over a lan. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know I can do this by manually entering the moves but my hope was to automate the process. And eventually play many games alternating parameter such and length of time per move etc.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Has any one done this or any ideas on how to achieve this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;James&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S If this has been answered before I apologise. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2166" LastActivityDate="2013-12-30T10:33:29.653" Title="Setting up a game between two computers" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4392" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2112" CreationDate="2013-12-30T01:17:27.413" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can try&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.d4 c5 2.e4 cxd4 3.Nf3 d6 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In general, it is not easy to transpose to an &quot;e4&quot; opening when white begins with d2-d4. It is easy for white to avoid the Sicilian system in the example shown above, e.g. with 2.d5 instead of 2.e4. Having said this, some players choose 1.d4 just for fun and would actually prefer to transpose to an &quot;e4&quot; opening if the chance is given. For instance, they would choose 2.e4 in this situation&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.d4 e6 2.e4 d5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus transposing into the French system. Perhaps because they are scared of the other systems they might face, e.g. 2.c4 f5. So against a player who is not comfortable with the d4-systems, it makes a lot of sense to transpose to your favorite e4-system. Happy hunting!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastActivityDate="2013-12-30T01:17:27.413" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4393" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4330" CreationDate="2013-12-30T01:35:13.880" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Analyzing your own games is important in order to improve your skills. The analysis can be documented on a piece of paper or on your computer using a chess software. Today, computer software (Chessbase) is a professional player's best friend when it comes to documenting and analyzing games. Having said this, it is possible to scribble down the analysis with a pen and paper. In general, the goal of the analysis of a single chess game is to identify its key (critical) positions and make a correct analysis of these positions. Thus, the first step is to identify the critical positions. The second step is to delve into each critical position and annotate the key variations and ideas. If possible, to try to remember ones own line of thought and compare this to e.g. a chess engine's variations and evaluations. By anchoring your analysis to critical positions, it will be possible to structure the annotations in a readable format.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Actually, a lot of (strong) players are not very good at annotating their own games and making careful notes during the analysis. Usually, I would annotate one of my games in case the analysis will be published online or in a chess magazine. Otherwise, it is not worth the effort. I will go through my game with a chess engine (Rybka) and check the positions I thought were critical during the game. Then, I will compare the chess engine variations and evaluations with my own that I had during the game. Then, I will make mental notes without writing any annotations in the game file. I guess that the &quot;best&quot; approach to documenting analysis is individual. The end goal is to understand exactly what happened in the game and what should be improved for the future.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastActivityDate="2013-12-30T01:35:13.880" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4394" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4374" CreationDate="2013-12-30T02:08:46.403" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think that the draw rate does not have to be higher than games between individual Grandmasters. In a team versus team game, a small mistake will be severely punished. Most probably, grabbing the initiative will become more or less decisive. The opening battle will be very interesting and shape the rest of the game in a decisive manner. The type of positions that will arise in the games will depend to the team composition (the playing style of the players in each team). A team with players that prefer sharp and complex middlegames will probably have good chances to win the match. Adding a time control to the mix will make sure that a draw will not be a simple task for either team.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The probability of making a mistake will become lower. At the same time, the probability of noticing a mistake made by the opponent team will become higher. The ability to keep an initiative will increase. The ability to win endgames with a small advantage will increase. At the same time, having a time control will have an important effect. Also the exact rules will have an important effect, concerning the use of helping materials (books and engines). If using books and engines will be forbidden, the risk of making mistakes or becoming surprised in the opening will increase. It would be very exciting to see such a game with the normal time controls (90 min / 40 moves, 30 min / the rest of the game with a 30 second increment / move). The teams would have to show an excellent ability to communicate efficiently and make solid decisions at short time intervals. Probably they would not be allowed to have a demo board and would have to discuss the position in their heads. This should also increase the risk of making mistakes. All in all, longer time controls =&gt; less mistakes and higher quality of play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastActivityDate="2013-12-30T02:08:46.403" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4395" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4390" CreationDate="2013-12-30T07:26:18.157" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are many free programs as well as commercial ones which can do this. Winboard (Xboard on Linux) is one free program where you can make two chess engines play each other. Shredder is comercial one where you can set to play chess engines against each other.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2171" LastActivityDate="2013-12-30T07:26:18.157" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4396" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4390" CreationDate="2013-12-30T10:27:46.630" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Get Arena!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Setup Arena on your iMac and Ubuntu computer. Register a computer account for each computer on a server of your choice. Of course, both computers need to login on the same server. Let one computer request a match and let the other computer accept the match.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Arena is pretty cool. It wouldn't surprise me if you could create a script to automate a bunch of stuff you would want to do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1887" LastEditorUserId="1887" LastEditDate="2013-12-30T10:33:29.653" LastActivityDate="2013-12-30T10:33:29.653" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4397" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4398" CreationDate="2013-12-30T18:20:03.633" Score="2" ViewCount="417" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recently solved a problem chess.com and it is below. What I don't understand is that why black moved its rook to h8 (1...Rh8). I think that black's position would have been better if it was something like 1...Rf7. Is 1...Rh8 really the best move for black? If yes, why? If not, what is the best possible move, though black is about to lose?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/p6r/5R2/5N1k/5K1p/7P/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Ra6 Rh8 2.Ng7# &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2002" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-04T21:42:00.213" LastActivityDate="2020-04-04T21:42:00.213" Title="What is happening in this problem?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;problems&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="4398" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4397" CreationDate="2013-12-30T19:07:31.107" Score="16" Body="&lt;p&gt;After 1.Ra6, Black is in Zugzwang - the purpose of Ra6 is to prevent Black's a-pawn from moving. Now Black must move his rook.  If he moves it off the h file, then White plays Rh6#.  However, after 1... Rh8, White mates anyway with Ng7.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black can hold (after a fashion) if his Rook can control g7 and h6.  After 1. Ra6, he will have to leave one of those squares undefended.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And to answer your question directly, Black has no good moves after Ra6. He's going to get mated on g7 or h6.  So Rh8 is as good as any.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2013-12-30T19:53:15.263" LastActivityDate="2013-12-30T19:53:15.263" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4400" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2013-12-31T17:33:37.460" Score="2" ViewCount="242" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there a Chess GUI for Windows that shows both the board from white's perspective and black's perspective side by side, without the need for flipping?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2095" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-03-01T20:35:59.743" LastActivityDate="2014-04-02T22:30:26.633" Title="Chess GUI for windows that shows two boards?" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;windows&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4401" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="106" CreationDate="2014-01-01T00:30:47.763" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Opening is the phase of the game where your strategic goal is to develop and you aim to build some sort of (direct or indirect) &lt;em&gt;territory control&lt;/em&gt;: either an advantage or simply an unbalance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Middlegame is when you start to &lt;em&gt;use that territory control&lt;/em&gt; to achieve the next strategic goal like a direct attack (tactics is incidental here, not a purpose per se) or a conversion to a position where other strategic goals can be pursued like liquidation into a favorable ending.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ending is either when you have built a positional/material advantage big enough and you simplify to remain in a position where you can force a win whatever defense the opponent uses, or more generally when you play to gain that advantage as main purpose.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course one can try gain to obtain a winning material advantage in the middlegame, but that is incidental and not the main goal one follows: material advantage is obtained, besides blunders, as consequence of/defence against some sort of direct attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the endgame direct attack instead are used as threats and the main goal is as said reaching a forcefully winning positional or material advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2180" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T15:56:40.387" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T15:56:40.387" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="4402" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4403" CreationDate="2014-01-01T04:24:33.623" Score="6" ViewCount="972" Body="&lt;p&gt;Playing White against a computer, I reached this position (White to move):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;8/5pp1/p4k2/5n1p/1PN5/P7/5PPP/6K1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White has a queenside pawn majority, but Black's king is closer to the action, and its knight has the idea of Nd4-c2. I played this position through to the end about a dozen times, and usually only managed to draw: Black was able to pick up my queenside pawns, and even in lines where I got one of Black's kingside pawns in compensation, the position was still drawn. A couple of times I did manage to push the queenside pawns and win, but I didn't keep track of exactly what I did and it's possible the engine made a defensive error (it was set at a fairly easy level). So what should White's plan be in this position? Does White have a win here, or is this a draw?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1758" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2016-05-31T09:06:35.877" LastActivityDate="2020-07-06T02:34:50.013" Title="Is this endgame winnable for White?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;knights&gt;&lt;knight-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4403" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4402" CreationDate="2014-01-01T07:22:38.037" Score="6" Body="&lt;h2&gt;EDITED ( January 7th, 2014 ):&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Based on the member &lt;em&gt;shivsky&lt;/em&gt;'s comments I have edited the entire solution.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Does White have a win here, or is this a draw?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes it is won for White. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;So what should White's plan be in this position?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At first, I wanted to provide an answer with &lt;code&gt;1.a4&lt;/code&gt; and simply force the win, but I do not have computer strong enough to analyze the variations I come up with, so my conclusions can not be 100% true.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I do not think that you can achieve much by creating the &lt;em&gt;passed pawn&lt;/em&gt; immediately, at least my engine shows some convincing defensive lines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And again you were right-even if you trade queen side pawns for his king side pawn, he might still draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My engine shows some lines where &lt;code&gt;1.a4&lt;/code&gt; continuation allows you to get &lt;code&gt;f7&lt;/code&gt; pawn for your queen side pawns-giving White an advantage, but I strongly believe you can &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; win since all the pawns are at one side and Black's Knight can do a good job at defending and blocking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Being strong endgame player, I must say that I do not like &lt;code&gt;1.a4&lt;/code&gt; anyway.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;ANSWER:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your only chance is to &lt;strong&gt;deaden&lt;/strong&gt; the position and to win by using your queen side pawns to &lt;strong&gt;distract his pieces from defending king side&lt;/strong&gt;, when your pieces could invade there and get enough material to enforce queening. You need to &lt;strong&gt;start the action at the right moment&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;1.Kf1&lt;/code&gt; can achieve that, when you could freely maneuver into the favorable setup which will create passed pawn and win. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;TO CLARIFY MY ANSWER:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have tested this line with the engine to see if there is a valid defense, and engine could find none. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have tried to find one myself and &lt;code&gt;1. ...Nh4&lt;/code&gt; was the best try I could find.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is the only way to prevent White from activating his king ( if Black allows that then its game over ) and the idea is to harass White's King side pawns so Black could play f6 + g5 + Nf5 hoping to achieve something like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;8/8/p3kp2/5npp/PPN4P/3K2P1/5P2/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. hxg5 fxg5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This would give him some counter-play ( he threatens to queen with &lt;code&gt;h4&lt;/code&gt; ) and would provide him a chance to exchange all king side pawns.Then he could try to catch the queen side pawn ( &lt;code&gt;a6&lt;/code&gt; pawn will 100% be exchanged for the &lt;code&gt;b5&lt;/code&gt;-White has to play it at some point ) or to sacrifice the Knight for a pawn ensuring the draw. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is how I would try to save the game as Black, but White can refute this plan:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;8/5pp1/p4k2/5n1p/1PN5/P7/5PPP/6K1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Kf1 Nh4 2.g3 Nf3 3.h4 Nh2+ 4.Ke2 Ng4 5.f3 Nh6 6.Ne3! &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This move restricts the Knight completely refuting the above plan.Without the ability to create counter-play Black is simply lost-White creates the queen side &lt;em&gt;passed pawn&lt;/em&gt; distracting one or both of Backs pieces and then wins by taking all of Blacks pawns on the king side.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;HOW TO EXACTLY WIN THIS:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First rule of endgames-&lt;strong&gt;king is extremely powerful piece-use it!&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Second rule-of all the available moves that can implement your plan always play those &lt;strong&gt;that make the least commitment&lt;/strong&gt;. This gives you the &lt;strong&gt;flexibility&lt;/strong&gt; to adapt when &lt;strong&gt;position changes in its character drastically&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;code&gt;1.a4&lt;/code&gt; continuation breaks both rules, as it neglects the king and forces the matters-which &lt;strong&gt;unnecessarily&lt;/strong&gt; sharpens the game and &lt;strong&gt;provides Black with counter-play based on his strong King&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In endgames you need to &lt;strong&gt;slow down the pace&lt;/strong&gt; and see the &lt;strong&gt;whole picture&lt;/strong&gt;. Raw calculation here is useless if you do not have a &lt;strong&gt;clear plan&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To create a plan, we always start with the analysis of the position. Yours is sufficiently good for a start so let us go from there:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;White has a queenside pawn majority, but Black's king is closer to the action, and its knight has the idea of Nd4-c2. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Third rule in endgames-in order to win, most of the time you will have to create &lt;strong&gt;at least two DISTANT&lt;/strong&gt; weaknesses in the opponents camp ( if they are close then opponent might defend successfully ). Here we already have one-extra pawn on the queen side.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Our pawn structure is healthy-we have no pawn weaknesses on queen or king side ( doubled/isolated pawns... ).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The weakest piece in our setup is our king and that is our only weakness.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Our Knight is A MONSTER! This piece alone actually won this endgame! He is ideally posted-he can aid in creation of a passed pawn, he can attack on the queen side, he &lt;strong&gt;restricts&lt;/strong&gt; the opposing Knight and King, he can harass the king side pawns if black king abandons them and he can defend our king side. WHAT A BEAUTIFUL PIECE! A HERO!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now let us see what Black has:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black's king IS active as you have correctly noticed, but he is &lt;strong&gt;badly placed&lt;/strong&gt;-he needs to be closer to the center to balance the lack of a pawn at queen side ( e6 would be nice )-and that is something you have missed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black's knight is OK, he is posted well, but is &lt;strong&gt;decentralized&lt;/strong&gt; which &lt;strong&gt;limits his actions&lt;/strong&gt;-he can only attack on the king side at the moment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black has no pawn weaknesses, but is a pawn down. He also has started to &lt;strong&gt;probe&lt;/strong&gt; the king side since h-pawn has advanced and can be supported with he knight and a king. He should try to create counter-play there, &lt;strong&gt;since he has no time to attack the queen side&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let us see the entire picture:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Black's pieces are misplaced&lt;/strong&gt; ( you missed this fact and this is important to notice ), they &lt;strong&gt;need&lt;/strong&gt; 1 or 2 moves to centralize them selves ( &lt;strong&gt;they must do this in order to hold queen side&lt;/strong&gt; ), and will spend &lt;strong&gt;even more moves&lt;/strong&gt; to organize a defense/create counter attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;This will give White enough time to activate his king.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now we see the first phase of our plan-improve the king's position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The second part should be about &lt;strong&gt;creating the second weakness&lt;/strong&gt;-this &lt;strong&gt;type&lt;/strong&gt; of endgame is well known and the usual plan is to create passed pawn on the queen side to distract king/knight/both and then to use our extra pieces to break through on the king side.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You saw what happens when Black tries to generate counter-play on the king side, now let us see what happens when he tries to centralize his pieces so he can attack on the queen side:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [fen &quot;8/5pp1/p4k2/5n1p/1PN5/P7/5PPP/6K1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1.Kf1 Nd4 2.Ke1 Ke6 3.Kd2 Kd5 4.Kd3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At this point Black is in &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zugzwang&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;zugzwang&lt;/a&gt;, and no matter what he plays, White will simply parry his threats and eventually play &lt;code&gt;a4&lt;/code&gt; fulfilling the plan described above. Let us just see one sample continuation so you &quot;get the feel&quot;: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [fen &quot;8/5pp1/p4k2/5n1p/1PN5/P7/5PPP/6K1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1.Kf1 Nd4 2.Ke1 Ke6 3.Kd2 Kd5 4.Kd3 Nc6 5.Ne3+ Ke5 6.Kc4 f5 7.a4 f4 8.Nd5 g5 9.Nc7 Nb8 10.b5 axb5+ 11.axb5 Kd6 12.b6 Kc6 13.Nd5 Nd7 14.Kd4 Nxb6 15.Nxb6 Kxb6 16.Ke5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And White wins. The queen side pawn majority did its job-it has distracted the knight, and eventually the king from defending the king side which was exploited with White's last move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One thing I must mention is the usage of &lt;em&gt;zugzwang&lt;/em&gt;. At certain point Black did manage to centralize his pieces, but so did White. At that moment everything boils down to small nuances and here it is White knight that saved the day-by restricting both king and knight he enabled the creation of &lt;em&gt;zugzwang&lt;/em&gt; after which the creation of the passed pawn was easy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Notice also, how the activity of the Black's pieces just wasn't good enough for a draw, since they were badly misplaced and notice how that gave White the time to improve his own king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think that this is enough for you to understand how to win this alone, so set up the position on your computer and try to win this time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Good luck!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Best regards and a Happy New Year!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastEditorUserId="2042" LastEditDate="2014-01-07T02:41:02.170" LastActivityDate="2014-01-07T02:41:02.170" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4404" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1391" CreationDate="2014-01-01T21:31:19.757" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can quite easily beat the iphone app when it is supposedly playing at 2600 Elo. I'm not that good! Very disappointing really.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2183" LastActivityDate="2014-01-01T21:31:19.757" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4408" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="371" CreationDate="2014-01-02T22:39:50.377" Score="3" Body="&lt;h2&gt;How should one play against unexpected opening variations?&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In short: &lt;em&gt;calmly&lt;/em&gt;. In general, but especially in an opening you've prepared, the best defense against an unexpected move is to figure out the answers to two natural questions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What is the purpose of this deviation? A threat? A trap? Perhaps your opponent wants to transpose into a line that's more comfortable for him, or less comfortable for you. Whatever the case, try to see what your opponent hopes to gain.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Why isn't this a common variation? Why didn't you come across it in your studies? Especially in the opening, if you encounter something unexpected, it's probably because it isn't as strong as the main lines. Try to see why: maybe it's an easily-refuted threat, or a loss of time, or it weakens your opponent's long-term position. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you've answered these questions, if you've identified a credible threat, you must of course meet it. But if you &lt;em&gt;can't&lt;/em&gt; determine an obvious threat posed by the unusual move, the best course is usually to relax and continue to make good, solid opening moves. Trust your fundamentals: they're guidelines that exist for a reason. Keep developing your pieces to good squares and watch for anything else unexpected. If you identified a weakness in your opponent's unusual move, take advantage of it where you can.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, given your opening of choice, a little-used variation of the Ruy Lopez:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;r1b1kbnr/ppppqppp/2n5/1B2p3/4P3/5N2/PPPP1PPP/RNBQK2R&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 Qe7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here, Black chooses a very unlikely third move. It doesn't pose any immediate threats (1), and it hinders his development by blocking in the King's Bishop (2). There's nothing White can do at the moment to take advantage of this strange choice directly, so he should continue with simple, easy development. &lt;code&gt;4.O-O&lt;/code&gt; leaves the BQ staring at nothing in particular. After the most common continuation, &lt;code&gt;4...Nd8 5.d4 c6 6.Ba4&lt;/code&gt;, White has done nothing special at all, but he's ahead in development while Black struggles to organize his troops.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;R1B1KBNR/PPPPQPP/2N5/1B2P3/4P3/5N2/PPPP1PPP/RNBQK2R&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 Qe7 4.O-O Nd8 5.d4 c6 6.Ba4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1201" LastActivityDate="2014-01-02T22:39:50.377" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4409" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4402" CreationDate="2014-01-03T06:57:15.210" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's technical, but white wins in this position.&#xA;White's plan should be to execute typical &quot;outside passed pawn&quot; tactics:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Activate King!&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Play with zugzwang&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The idea is that white threatens to attack on both flanks with pawn advances. Black can't stop two threats at the same time because the battlefield is too big.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Without the knights it would be easier, but with the knights it is a bit harder. With a bishop, rook or queen the plan becomes quite difficult to execute because these pieces can defend both flanks at the same time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are two sample solutions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;8/5pp1/p4k2/5n1p/1PN5/P7/5PPP/6K1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Kf1 Nd4 (1...Ke6 2. Ke2 Nh6 3. Ne3 Ng4 4. Nxg4 hxg4 5. Kd3 Kd5 6. h3 gxh3 7. gxh3&#xA;Kc6 8. Kc4 Kd6 9. f4 Kc6 10. a4 Kb6 11. Kd5 Kc7 12. Kc5 Kb7 13.Kd6 1-0)&#xA;2. Ke1 g5 3. Kd2 Nf5 4. a4 Ke6 5. Kd3 Nh4 6. Ne3 f5 7. Kc4 f4 8. Nd5&#xA;Nxg2 9. a5 f3 10. b5 Kd6 11. bxa6 Nf4 12. a7 Nxd5 13. a8=Q Nc7 14. Qxf3 g4 15.&#xA;Qf6+ Kd7 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A more detailed explanation on this type of position is given here:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mark-weeks.com/aboutcom/aa03g19a.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.mark-weeks.com/aboutcom/aa03g19a.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1887" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2014-01-04T19:59:23.737" LastActivityDate="2014-01-04T19:59:23.737" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4410" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4385" CreationDate="2014-01-03T13:59:42.417" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can import your game on &lt;a href=&quot;http://lichess.org/paste&quot;&gt;http://lichess.org/paste&lt;/a&gt;, then analyse it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2197" LastActivityDate="2014-01-03T13:59:42.417" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4411" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4402" CreationDate="2014-01-04T00:17:28.347" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;These moves were selected by Stockfish running on a decent 2-core CPU at 30 minutes per move.  While Stockfish is a fine engine, computers aren't great at the end game, so I expect that there could be some improvements.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[fen &quot;8/5pp1/p4k2/5n1p/1PN5/P7/5PPP/6K1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Kf1 Ke6 2.Ke2 Kd5 3.Kd3 Ne7 4.a4 Nc8 5.Ne3+ Kc6 6.Nf5 g6 7.Nd4+ Kc7 8.Nb3 h4 9.Nc5 Kb6 10.Nd7+ Kc6 11.Ne5+ Kd5 12.Nxf7 Nd6 13.Nxd6 Ke6 14.Ne4 *&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;...and it's lights-out for Black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What we see here for the first 7 half-moves are both players centralizing their Kings and preparing for a skirmish on the Queenside.  Black's 4th move looks to be a clunker though it is still about bringing the Knight to the Queenside.  What's happening here is that White is taking the slack out of the Queenside and limiting Black's response.  This makes additional calculation easier.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White punishes &lt;code&gt;4...Nc8&lt;/code&gt; by a series of Knight moves that harass the Black King, which must stay near the Queenside.  A fork develops and Black loses material without compensation on the Kingside.  Black can honorably resign after White's 11th move, IMO.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After &lt;code&gt;13.Nxd6&lt;/code&gt; there are no good moves and Stockfish goes wonky.  It hardly matters - Black is done.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The strategies in the position are:&#xA;   1. Black will try to equalize on the Queenside&#xA;   2. White will be willing to surrender two pawns for one pawn on the Queenside, as long as the Black King is misplaced (decoyed!) to the rim.  White's King can then run amok on the Kingside.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To answer the OP's question, yes this is winnable.  First, it looks to me like White can win with proper play.  Second, unless you're playing at a very high level, nearly every position is winnable - you just have to capitalize on the opponent's mistakes.  Chess is a game about outwitting your opponent, not making perfect moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Final edit - I don't see a variation where Black can force a draw.  White's extra pawn forces Black to make decisions that are fatal in the long term.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2014-01-05T18:39:54.103" LastActivityDate="2014-01-05T18:39:54.103" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4412" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4413" CreationDate="2014-01-04T13:12:08.057" Score="2" ViewCount="23498" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have a pawnless game with a rook, knight, and king against just a king. Can I checkmate from this position?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/8/8/8/1n6/8/2rk4/1K6 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2201" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-06-01T13:06:47.477" LastActivityDate="2020-06-01T13:06:47.477" Title="Is it possible to checkmate with rook and knight against just king?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;knights&gt;&lt;rooks&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="4413" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4412" CreationDate="2014-01-04T14:27:04.457" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, since K+R is an easy beginner checkmate.  In fact, the Knight will get in the way.  The only value of the Knight will be to get White into Zugzwang quicker (easier?), which helps Black push the king to an edge.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To answer the specific question, from above, assuming Black to move:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1... Kc3&#xA;2. Ka1 Rc1#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Assuming White to move:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1. Ka1 Kc3&#xA;2. Kb1 Kb3&#xA;3. Ka1 Rc1#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2014-01-04T14:40:16.187" LastActivityDate="2014-01-04T14:40:16.187" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4414" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4415" CreationDate="2014-01-04T23:54:34.973" Score="23" ViewCount="30971" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why is castling disallowed when the king is in check or when the square the rook will be placed on is under attack?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the rationale behind this ruling?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2205" LastEditorUserId="2205" LastEditDate="2014-01-05T18:04:11.393" LastActivityDate="2019-03-16T14:58:41.460" Title="Why is castling through and out of check prohibited?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;castling&gt;&lt;illegal-move&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4415" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4414" CreationDate="2014-01-05T02:38:35.257" Score="22" Body="&lt;p&gt;One rationale that I can think of for not allowing the king to move through check parallels that behind the possibility of capturing &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/En_passant&quot;&gt;en passant&lt;/a&gt; after a pawn makes a two-square advance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The typical pawn move is just a single square forward, and the possibility of advancing two squares on a pawn's first move was a &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/En_passant#Historical_context&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;relatively late addition to the game&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt; in historical terms. Since the &quot;nature&quot; of a pawn had long been to make a single square advance, when that new sort of pawn move came into being, the en passant capture was a natural counterpart: the pawn doesn't &quot;jump&quot; two squares ahead, but rather &quot;marches&quot; through the intermediate square, and an opposing pawn is thus allowed to capture en passant on the following move if it is in position to have captured the advancing pawn at the intermediate square.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;With that explanation in mind, let's consider your rule. Like pawns, a king's typical, natural movement is only a single square in distance. And like the pawn's two-square advance, castling is a &lt;em&gt;relatively new addition to the rules&lt;/em&gt; of chess that is intended to speed the game up. So just as the en passant capture reinforces the pawn's nature as a one-square mover, the rule prohibiting a king to castle through a checked square reinforces the king's nature as a one-square mover. He is thought of not as gliding over the checked square, but rather trudging through it. And just as an opponent's pawn has a chance to capture en passant, an opponent's piece guarding the intermediate castling square would be given the right to capture the king. Since that's not a legal part of chess, castling through check in the first place isn't either.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for why castling is disallowed just because of the king being in check, I'm not so sure, but I'll speculate. If, in the analogy between chess and war, we think of a check to the king as a wounding attack, less severe than the lethal checkmate but damaging nonetheless, then it's reasonable to insist that the hobbled king can't make a swift, immediate escape via castling. But maybe that's just how I think of it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2014-01-05T03:06:12.677" LastActivityDate="2014-01-05T03:06:12.677" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4416" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4420" CreationDate="2014-01-05T06:46:09.697" Score="7" ViewCount="4566" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there chess software that helps you train while you play against it? I know there is software to train openings and such, but I would like one to actually &lt;strong&gt;advise&lt;/strong&gt; you interactively as you play against the computer, maybe giving you hints and tips for example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The kind of interactivity that I'm looking for is not necessarily audio or text related and can be either PC or phone based, doesn't matter. To further explain my idea let me explain you my situation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know how to play chess, I know all the rules, the basic principles and I have some knowledge of the strategies and tactics that can be made in the game. The thing is that at a certain moment I honestly don't know what to play. There are so many options that I just get lost in the possibilities. It would be nice to have something to tell you that a move is just accomplishing nothing at a certain moment. Or maybe just to tell you that a certain move exposed a vulnerability that you just didn't see, and it actually recommends you a move. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think this is just more practice than anything, but sometimes I play with people that commit mistakes (develop queen early, don't care about control of the center) and I still lose, because I don't know how to capitalize on mistakes. It would be nice to also have something train you on these kind of things: to see and punish mistakes and gain tempos.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know it's too much to ask for, but who knows, maybe a software like this actually exists.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2206" LastEditorUserId="11202" LastEditDate="2017-05-18T06:33:18.043" LastActivityDate="2017-05-18T12:47:31.837" Title="Interactive chess coaching software" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;software&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4418" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4419" CreationDate="2014-01-05T09:13:00.837" Score="2" ViewCount="751" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;5B2/3p1n2/R2p4/1P1NRBQ1/1KPkrb2/1p6/2Pp1Pn1/4r3 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Nc7! Rxe5 (1... Nxg5) (1... d1=Q) 2.c3#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What would make you play Nc7? This results in checkmate in 2 if, as the computer does, Rxe5 is played. But why wouldn't the computer just play Nxg5, winning the queen and preventing checkmate? Or why not play to d1 and promote to a queen?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2207" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-03-04T03:28:33.823" LastActivityDate="2021-03-04T03:28:33.823" Title="A chess problem question: Why is this the solution?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;problems&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="4419" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4418" CreationDate="2014-01-05T10:12:06.277" Score="12" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What would make you play Nc7? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is the &lt;strong&gt;only&lt;/strong&gt; move with which White can give check mate &lt;strong&gt;in two&lt;/strong&gt; moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;This results in checkmate in 2 if, as the computer does, Rxe5 is played, but why wouldn't the computer just play Nxg5, winning the queen and preventing checkmate? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On &lt;code&gt;1. ...Nxg5&lt;/code&gt; White plays &lt;code&gt;2.Rd5&lt;/code&gt; which check mates.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Or d1 and promote to a queen? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On &lt;code&gt;1. ...d1Q&lt;/code&gt; White plays &lt;code&gt;2.Rd5&lt;/code&gt; which check mates.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;SUMMARY:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.&lt;code&gt;Nc7&lt;/code&gt; has been played to free the rook on &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt; to give check mate, by coming to &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is why computer played &lt;code&gt;1. ...Rxe5&lt;/code&gt;, since on every Black's move &lt;code&gt;2.Rd5&lt;/code&gt; check mates, except for these:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;1. ...Ne3&lt;/code&gt; but then White mates with &lt;code&gt;2.Rxe4&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;1. ...Nxe5&lt;/code&gt; where White mates with &lt;code&gt;2.Rxd6&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;1. ...Bxe5&lt;/code&gt; where White mates with &lt;code&gt;2.Qxd2&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;1. ...dxe5&lt;/code&gt; where White mates with &lt;code&gt;2.Bc5&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;1. ...Kxe5&lt;/code&gt; where White mates with &lt;code&gt;2.Bg7&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Best regards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastEditorUserId="2042" LastEditDate="2014-01-19T23:52:20.143" LastActivityDate="2014-01-19T23:52:20.143" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4420" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4416" CreationDate="2014-01-05T14:14:50.730" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is sort of the holy grail of chess training sofware ... something that substitutes for a human Master/GM level coach instructing and critiquing you whenever you needed it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Till date, I believe &lt;strong&gt;nothing&lt;/strong&gt; comes close to the quality of instruction/critique of a good human coach, though software that tries to offer some kind of interactive feedback-based training include:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ubi.com/US/Games/Info.aspx?pId=5893&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Ubisoft's ChessMaster.&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Very rudimentary feedback + post-mortem move analysis. The cheapest of the three ... the move-by-move feedback is usually mostly suited for tactical errors. Good for people just starting out using computers to train with.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessbase-shop.com/en/products/fritz13_eng&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chessbase's Fritz&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Probably the best bang for your buck of the three, given the quality of feedback and lots of bells and whistles. A fairly annoying/helpful &quot;coach&quot; who will flag any error you make (though doesn't clearly explain why it was a mistake). Features such as explaining (or more or less summarizing)  the benefits of each move in a given position, a &lt;em&gt;hotness&lt;/em&gt; indicator for how critical or &quot;on the edge of a cliff&quot; a position becomes. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Chess.com's &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/chessmentor/myhome&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess Mentor&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The most &quot;human&quot; like feedback but these are pre-programmed scenarios based on &lt;strong&gt;instructional positions&lt;/strong&gt; you have to play through, rather than your own games.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once again, these all fall short of explaining nuances in a way that you are &lt;strong&gt;guaranteed&lt;/strong&gt; to understand (a human coach can figure out precisely what doesn't make sense to you and focus on that mental roadblock!) , though if you are not really intermediate-strength level yet, software such as the kind listed above might be of some help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1751" LastEditorUserId="1751" LastEditDate="2014-01-05T19:47:41.850" LastActivityDate="2014-01-05T19:47:41.850" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4421" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4371" CreationDate="2014-01-05T15:24:14.993" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Easy, post a feature request on chessx.sourceforge.net, as ChessX only displays eco codes. But this can easily be changed, as the names are part of the eco file loaded at startup.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2209" LastActivityDate="2014-01-05T15:24:14.993" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4422" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-01-05T16:35:29.687" Score="10" ViewCount="2513" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why can't a piece (that isn't a pawn) capture en passant? When a pawn makes a two-square move, the en passant rule says that on the next move, any pawn that could have captured it on the single-advance square may do so.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So why doesn't the rule allow a non-pawn piece that could have captured it on the single-advance square to do the same? For instance, in the position&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;7k/8/8/8/2n5/8/P7/7K w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.a4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;why isn't the knight allowed to respond &lt;code&gt;1...Nxa3&lt;/code&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2210" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2014-03-04T00:34:57.513" LastActivityDate="2019-12-27T12:08:50.347" Title="Why can't a piece (that isn't a pawn) capture en passant?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;pawns&gt;&lt;en-passant&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4423" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4422" CreationDate="2014-01-05T16:53:01.853" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;No.  There is no analogue to en passant captures for pieces that are not pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2014-01-05T16:53:01.853" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4424" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-01-05T19:33:09.793" Score="5" ViewCount="884" Body="&lt;p&gt;Where can I download (or buy) a database of Chess960 games? Or at least find games from the major Chess960 tournaments?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;edit:&#xA;If some is interested &lt;a href=&quot;http://yadi.sk/d/F_uaAtqyMJVFd&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot; title=&quot;rar archive of chess960 games&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; are games I managed to find in internet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2213" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2014-04-12T13:35:43.697" LastActivityDate="2014-04-12T13:35:43.697" Title="Where can I download (or buy) a database of Chess960 games?" Tags="&lt;database&gt;&lt;chess960&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4427" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4428" CreationDate="2014-01-06T09:16:30.163" Score="7" ViewCount="11628" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've only played in one tournament before and resigned most of my games when they seemed hopelessly lost. When I do resign, I:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Make my move.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Record it.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Say &lt;em&gt;&quot;I resign&quot;&lt;/em&gt; and offer to shake my opponent's hand.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I just want to confirm that this is the correct procedure. (I know the handshake is not necessary) Also, would it be legal to skip the first step, i.e. offer resignation without first making a move?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2078" LastActivityDate="2014-01-15T15:57:22.780" Title="What is the correct resignation procedure?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;tournament&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4428" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4427" CreationDate="2014-01-06T12:20:50.763" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can resign at any point, as long as the game is still ongoing. You can resign during your opponent's move, for instance. In fact I'd say it's unusual to make a move before resigning -- most people resign because they don't see a good move anymore.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it's already ended some other way, you can't resign any more. Some people don't want to win on time in a clearly lost position, for instance, but then they should resign before a flag fall is noticed. And if you resigned but later find out that you actually checkmated your opponent earlier in the game (but didn't notice at the time), then you actually won because checkmate ends the game immediately. Yes that happens, mostly in youth tournaments. (Edit: that's FIDE rules. This sort of thing may well be different under USCF rules, I don't know).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is nothing about the exact procedure in the rules, probably because resigning ends the game and usually makes the opponent happy regardless, so there's never been a need to regulate it. A good way is to stop the clock, say you resign, and shake hands. Write down the result on your score sheet. The important thing is to make sure that the opponent understands your intention.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Official tournaments usually need a signature somewhere (on the score sheet, or on separate little result forms). Make sure the result is recorded correctly on it, that both players sign, and that the arbiter gets the signed form.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastEditorUserId="924" LastEditDate="2014-01-06T12:30:16.933" LastActivityDate="2014-01-06T12:30:16.933" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4429" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4414" CreationDate="2014-01-06T13:57:11.557" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;The way I always understood castling is that it allows the player to move his king to safety. But this privilege does not come for free - it comes at the cost of a tempo. If a player was allowed to castle out of check, or over a checked square, then it allows him to postpone this powerful move until the very latest, effectively removing the penalty from the privilege.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For me, this rule has nothing to do with how the king (or any other pieces) move. It has to do with achieving a balance between attacking play and defensive play. Just like how a goal keeper in football can handle the ball in his penalty area (but not if it was back-passed to him by one of his own players), so the rule of castling is there to ensure that you get a defensive edge, but not for free. You have to work it into your strategy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1816" LastEditorUserId="1816" LastEditDate="2014-01-07T07:44:07.780" LastActivityDate="2014-01-07T07:44:07.780" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4431" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-01-06T18:38:47.053" Score="5" ViewCount="1013" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, there are two premises in the question itself: 1) That e4 or d4 'controls the center'. 2) That 'Controlling the center'is something important. It appears to me that 'controlling the center' is the least of the benefits of a move  like e4 or d4. The fact is that it becomes mandatory to play e4 or d4 if you want to develop both bishops along their long diagonals(c1-h6 diagonal or a6-f1 diagonal). This seems to be the most important benefit of e4/d4 IMO and not 'controlling the center'. So while it may turn out that 1) e4 and 1) d4 give rise to good games for white I feel it may be more due to the rapid development which these moves allow rather than because these pawns 'control the center'. Indeed, sometimes, these pawns can be an obstacle for white's own pieces.(I am looking at things from white's perspective but the same argument can be similarly posed from the black player's perspective as well.). Do post your thoughts on this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1811" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-03-06T17:22:03.980" LastActivityDate="2014-03-06T17:22:03.980" Title="It is important to play e4 or d4 to 'control the center'. Myth or reality?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;pawn-structure&gt;&lt;center&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4432" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4431" CreationDate="2014-01-06T21:21:23.593" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Controlling the center is very important, for to move pieces from one side of the board to the other, the pieces need to go through the center. While this may seem to have little effect in the beginning of the game, the impact in the middlegame is immense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2221" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2014-01-06T22:01:08.467" LastActivityDate="2014-01-06T22:01:08.467" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4433" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4431" CreationDate="2014-01-06T22:40:40.210" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let me start from top to bottom:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;It is important to play e4 or d4 to 'control the center'. Myth or reality?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Myth. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Well, there are two premises in the question itself: 1) That e4 or d4 'controls the center'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you play &lt;code&gt;1.e4/d4&lt;/code&gt; you &lt;strong&gt;do not&lt;/strong&gt; control the center, you &lt;strong&gt;physically occupy it&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To control the center, you will need &lt;strong&gt;more than a single pawn move&lt;/strong&gt;-you need certain amount of developed pieces &lt;strong&gt;coordinated to control certain central squares&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;1.e4/d4&lt;/code&gt; simply &lt;strong&gt;fights for the center&lt;/strong&gt;, you can not control it with just one pawn move-wish if it was that easy :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most importantly-you &lt;strong&gt;can not&lt;/strong&gt; control anything unless &lt;strong&gt;your opponent allows you to&lt;/strong&gt;-you can only &lt;strong&gt;fight for it&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Well, there are two premises in the question itself: ... 2) That 'Controlling the center'is something important.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It &lt;strong&gt;is of utmost importance&lt;/strong&gt; in the opening, as it allows you to completely control the game development. Controlling the center allows you to orient your actions towards the wings &lt;strong&gt;without worrying that your opponent can counter-strike in the center&lt;/strong&gt;-thus usually refuting your plan or at least getting the equal play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, you can open or close the game &lt;strong&gt;when you seem fit&lt;/strong&gt; which usually can decide the game to your favor-not to mention &lt;strong&gt;the speed&lt;/strong&gt; which your pieces get when &lt;strong&gt;centralized&lt;/strong&gt;, since they can reach &lt;strong&gt;any part of the board in relatively equal amount of moves&lt;/strong&gt;, contrary to the pieces posted at the wing.If we have a knight on d4, he can reach both wings at relatively equal amount of moves, but if it is posted on h3 then he needs a lot of moves to reach queen side which sometimes proves fatal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, controlling the center &lt;strong&gt;hinders the activity and coordination&lt;/strong&gt; of the opponents pieces-which enables you to start preparing for an attack or at least to create some serious weaknesses in their position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In short-controlling the center is of &lt;strong&gt;paramount importance&lt;/strong&gt; from the start to the end of the game-just remember that controlling is &lt;strong&gt;not the same&lt;/strong&gt; as occupying the center.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To be honest, I haven't seen the opening that &lt;strong&gt;controls&lt;/strong&gt; the center-all the modern openings either:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Fight for it. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Divide the control-E.G. White controls d5 and e4 and Black controls d4 and e5, usually by blocking the center, or by exchanging central pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;One side &quot;surrenders the center&quot; giving the opponent space advantage, but in return gets huge pressure against that center from the sides or from the distance ( usually light pieces perform the pressure ).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;It appears to me that 'controlling the center' is the least of the benefits of a move like e4 or d4. The fact is that it becomes mandatory to play e4 or d4 if you want to develop both bishops along their long diagonals(c1-h6 diagonal or a6-f1 diagonal). This seems to be the most important benefit of e4/d4 IMO and not 'controlling the center'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You are almost there-the point of &lt;code&gt;e4/d4&lt;/code&gt; is to decide &lt;strong&gt;how will you fight for the center&lt;/strong&gt; which will directly decide &lt;strong&gt;what type of pace&lt;/strong&gt; will that fight take. Since &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; gives free development of the pieces-but &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; pawn has no initial support-the emphasis in this types of positions is on &lt;strong&gt;speed&lt;/strong&gt;. You must develop your pieces and rely on them to fight for the center. This usually leads to the scenarios described above under 1 and 3, second option being only seen in some variations of &lt;em&gt;French defense&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;Caro-Kann&lt;/em&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since White has the advantage of the first move, he is naturally faster, so another benefit of the &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; is the ability for him to play &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gambit&quot;&gt;gambits&lt;/a&gt;-hoping to be the first one to get the initiative in the center-which he can not achieve &lt;strong&gt;without&lt;/strong&gt; controlling the center.Just the fact that some of the gambits in that link are viable, solid openings can show you just how much the importance of the center control is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In short-&lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; is played to give you fast development of your pieces-which is always used in fight for the center ( see &lt;em&gt;Alekhine's defense&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;Ruy Lopez&lt;/em&gt; among many others ).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt; is a bit clumsy move &lt;strong&gt;for developing pieces&lt;/strong&gt; ( the queen does not have any good square to be developed ), but &lt;strong&gt;d4 pawn has support from the start&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This reduces Blacks options and immediate counter-attack is impossible. This gives White great solidity in the center but &lt;strong&gt;slows down&lt;/strong&gt; his game. Again, the goal is the same-&lt;strong&gt;control the center&lt;/strong&gt; but this time the strategy that implements this idea changes:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Instead of fighting the opponents pieces/pawns, that fight for the center, with your own, you will first &lt;strong&gt;occupy&lt;/strong&gt; the center with pawns-so you can get &lt;strong&gt;space advantage&lt;/strong&gt;.Once you do that you will have &lt;strong&gt;the time&lt;/strong&gt; to finish development. Black, on the other hand, has a limited choice here. He can &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; counter attack at &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt; &lt;strong&gt;at once&lt;/strong&gt; ( &lt;code&gt;11. ... Nc6&lt;/code&gt; is useless, opposing to &lt;code&gt;1. ...Nf6&lt;/code&gt; in the &lt;em&gt;Alekhine's defense&lt;/em&gt; ), so he &lt;strong&gt;usually&lt;/strong&gt; opts for &lt;strong&gt;pressuring White center&lt;/strong&gt; with his &lt;strong&gt;light pieces&lt;/strong&gt; from &lt;strong&gt;distance&lt;/strong&gt;, and then engineers a &lt;strong&gt;flank counter attack&lt;/strong&gt;. The positions are usually closed, since White blocks center most of the time, but sometimes &lt;strong&gt;division of control&lt;/strong&gt; occurs ( some variations of the &lt;em&gt;Nimzo-Indian defense&lt;/em&gt; are a good example ) which results in semi-open games. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To summarize:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both moves are played with &lt;strong&gt;one thing in mind&lt;/strong&gt;-to &lt;strong&gt;fight&lt;/strong&gt; for the center. The only difference is in the way they implement the fight-with &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; you get speedy development but &lt;strong&gt;unstable&lt;/strong&gt; center which results in a &quot;fast paced&quot; games, yet with &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt; you get &lt;strong&gt;stable center&lt;/strong&gt; which slows down the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In both cases Black and White fight for the center and &lt;strong&gt;the winner&lt;/strong&gt; of that fight &lt;strong&gt;controls&lt;/strong&gt; the center-which results in &lt;strong&gt;immediate advantage&lt;/strong&gt; for him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since chess is a balanced game, if both sides play properly then nobody wins the fight, only one of the 3 scenarios listed above can occur.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;So while it may turn out that 1) e4 and 1) d4 give rise to good games for white I feel it may be more due to the rapid development which these moves allow rather than because these pawns 'control the center'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Indeed. Just a small adjustment of your observation-quoting you:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So while it may turn out that 1) e4 and 1) d4 give rise to good games for white I feel it may be more due to the &lt;strong&gt;ability to beneficially deploy pieces to fight for the control of the center&lt;/strong&gt; which these moves allow rather than because these pawns 'control the center'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Indeed, sometimes, these pawns can be an obstacle for white's own pieces.(I am looking at things from white's perspective but the same argument can be similarly posed from the black player's perspective as well.).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Exactly. The whole point of those moves is to enable other pieces to fight for the center. Which move you choose from those 2 is a matter of preference.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One thing for the end:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also fight for the center with light pieces only, making pawn thrusts later-after the position gets clarified and one such example is the &lt;em&gt;Reti opening&lt;/em&gt; ( look at &lt;em&gt;Reti's&lt;/em&gt; games to see what I exactly mean ).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Check out this section on &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_strategy#Control_of_the_center&quot;&gt;Wikipedia( Control of the center )&lt;/a&gt; and I think that &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Chess_Strategy/The_center&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; article also sheds some valuable light.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you have further questions leave a comment-I will gladly help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Do post your thoughts on this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You &lt;strong&gt;really&lt;/strong&gt; should avoid discussions-here we strive for a single answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Best regards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastEditorUserId="2042" LastEditDate="2014-01-07T04:30:16.780" LastActivityDate="2014-01-07T04:30:16.780" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4434" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4438" CreationDate="2014-01-07T13:06:53.617" Score="32" ViewCount="11046" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a beginner skill level chess player who has been playing primarily against computers.. well on my Samsung, and Google apps for about a year regularly, but have played now and again my whole life (47). I cannot seem to beat the computer programs unless I am on the lowest setting of skill level. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On these lower levels the computer makes ridiculous mistakes and is no real challenge. When I raise the bar, I am able to hold my own through opening moves and am so, so during mid-game, but always get crushed in the endgame. Before I enter chess matches with live people, I would like to be a little more prepared, although my mind tells me I would improve if I played against live people. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've read several articles and played tactics improvement apps, endgame, studying chess masters on Youtube which I subscribe to MatoJelic etc.. but somehow have reached a plateau. This leads me to your forum. Maybe there is a highly regarded site, video or book that can save me some time in the learning process for improving my mechanics or maybe just re-wire my brain. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2211" LastActivityDate="2018-04-01T23:16:00.830" Title="Struggling to improve past beginner level" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="14" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="17" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4435" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4434" CreationDate="2014-01-07T13:21:20.570" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;The fact is, computers are so strong now very few can beat them except on the easiest settings. I stopped playing them long ago - tactically, they'll turn you into a pretzel.  Are you aware that free chess software running on a common computer can play at GM strength?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Get thee to your local USCF chess club, join, and play people.  You'll find friendly games, comradery, tournaments, and opponents of all skill levels.  You'll get to see a lot of equipment so you can select a chess set, board, and clock that suites you. You'll earn a rating which tells you how you rank nationally. Finally, if you really want to improve, there will likely be a player there strong enough to give you lessons.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You'll learn to enjoy getting crushed by 11 year olds :-D&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2014-01-07T13:21:20.570" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4436" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4434" CreationDate="2014-01-07T14:06:31.853" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's difficult to answer the question without knowing your strengths and weaknesses. Thus, my suggestion is: post your games somewhere[1] and let stronger players tell you where you go wrong. It is important to include your own thoughts and comments with the games you post to help others understand your choices better and encourage them to give more extensive and relevant comments. After you know your weaknesses, you know better what to study.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[1] e.g. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess.com&lt;/a&gt; forums; I'm not sure if SE is a good place for game analysis&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1761" LastActivityDate="2014-01-07T14:06:31.853" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4437" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1302" CreationDate="2014-01-07T14:12:05.910" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You're all missing a rather obvious point. An f5 setup by black is strongest when white plays d4, weakening his e4 square (which f5 of course attacks). In the Dutch, black already KNOWS white has played d4, so there is already strategic logic in the reply. However in Bird's, white is committing to f4 quite speculatively and black can if he wishes avoid d5, often making the f4 advance rather less useful (while still having the inherent risks). This is the main (positional) reason the Dutch is preferred to Bird's, and indeed is slightly stronger than it: it is reacting to an already-created weakness rather than attacking one that isn't even there yet...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2227" LastActivityDate="2014-01-07T14:12:05.910" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4438" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4434" CreationDate="2014-01-07T14:48:09.873" Score="24" Body="&lt;h2&gt;EDIT ( edited on January 8th, 2014 ):&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some of the other excellent answers pointed out a flaw in mine: I have failed to mention the importance of analyzing one's own games. This is corrected below, for the sake of completeness. I apologize to the OP and others who found my post useful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First off, let me say Happy New Year and Marry Christmas to you!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Second, you will have to invest quite some work to be really good, but I believe &lt;strong&gt;it is doable&lt;/strong&gt; based on the information about your current skill you have provided.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Based on the information you provided I think that you can help me with this and I hope that we can successfully solve your problem. In order to suggest you resources for your improvement I need to get to know you as a chess player. I need to know *what pace of play you like, what type of positions you prefer and so on**, but you did not provide me that information so I will cover both options. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So far I have concluded that you are experienced enough to learn successfully from books and tutorials so I will tend to recommend those resources to help you self improve.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Rule #1 that drastically improves players strength:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Know your openings!&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You really have to know your openings well, so you do not:&#xA;1. Fall for cheap traps&#xA;2. Get horrible position which you will hopelessly defend for 50 moves, only to resign later.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you like fast-paced games with lots of sharp, tactical play, I could recommend the &lt;em&gt;Sicilian defense&lt;/em&gt; against &lt;code&gt;1.e4&lt;/code&gt;, and the &lt;em&gt;King's Indian defense&lt;/em&gt; against everything else ( &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;King's Indian defense&lt;/em&gt; will reduce your time required to learn the openings, as it is very flexible&lt;/strong&gt; ).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are slow-paced, positionally oriented player I recommend the &lt;em&gt;French defense&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;Queen's gambit&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just search for the &lt;em&gt;Starting Out&lt;/em&gt; series on &lt;em&gt;Amazon&lt;/em&gt; and read those first.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Rule #2 that drastically improves players strength:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Know how to play the middle game that arises from your openings!&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To learn how to play the middle games from those openings &lt;strong&gt;here is a masterpiece&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Andrew Soltis: Pawn Structure Chess (1995)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;A must have - period!&lt;/strong&gt; This alone can improve your strength by 50%!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Rule #3 that drastically improves players strength:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;You must know how to play endgames!&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You need to know basic principles, at least, or else you will squander all the advantage you have built in your middle game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;End games are tough to master, and you will need lots of books. I can not recommend one made for beginners at this moment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can try with &lt;em&gt;Mastering Endgame Strategy ( Johan Hellsten )&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Rule #4 that drastically improves players strength:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;You must be able to exploit tactics in the game!&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We have all &quot;been there&quot;: You have a &quot;won&quot; game, yet you lose it because your opponent found a &quot;lucky move&quot;. Or you just got destroyed by a sacrifice you didn't expect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are lots of books on this topic, and I will recommend &lt;em&gt;Starting Out: Chess Tactics and Checkmates&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Rule #5 that drastically improves players strength:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;You need to know the basics of the &quot;positional play&quot;!&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes you will play openings that require from you to &quot;deaden&quot; the position, or your opponent will do it, and without this knowledge you will end up in a &quot;boring game&quot;, you will lose focus and your opponent will easily &quot;pick you off&quot;. Also, the problem with these openings is that &lt;strong&gt;raw calculation does NOT help you to find a plan&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can calculate until you die, but you will not find a plan; you will need the knowledge of the positional themes to get you by.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Try with &lt;em&gt;Mastering Chess Strategy ( Johan Hellsten ).&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Rule #6 that drastically improves players strength:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Analyze your own games!&lt;/strong&gt; I can not believe that I have forgotten about this one! This is the most important part.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is the pattern that I use:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Write down the game you have played;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Compare the opening you played with the moves in the book about that opening ( here &lt;em&gt;Starting Out&lt;/em&gt; series come in very handy );&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Evaluate the soundness of your middle game plan by consulting the &lt;em&gt;Soltis'&lt;/em&gt; book, discover all the tactics that were in the position ( the computer is great for that ) and consult computer/stronger player/books to see how you would correct &lt;strong&gt;both&lt;/strong&gt; your mistakes and opponents, and most importantly &lt;strong&gt;try to pinpoint the game deciding&lt;/strong&gt; moment in the game;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Evaluate the endgame that arose: is it won, drawn or lost? &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Evaluate the time you spend &lt;strong&gt;in correlation with the position's difficulty&lt;/strong&gt;: do you get overly excited when things get tough/you are winning so you waste too much thinking time? Or are you too impulsive so you make moves without thinking?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As others have pointed out, your main goal is to play and not to get too distracted with the books I have recommended. Those books are easy for reading, and will teach you the general ideas + give you &lt;strong&gt;the least amount&lt;/strong&gt; of concrete variations so you can get by in your game. My apologies for omitting this advice, I have forgotten about it, but without it everything else is really useless. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;SUMMARY:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Find books from &lt;em&gt;Starting Out&lt;/em&gt; series for openings you wish to play. Get the book on middle games that arise from those openings; the ones I have recommended is excellent. Learn chess basics: tactics, positional play, endgames. For that, I can recommend the book I have used, &lt;strong&gt;but here is a problem&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The book is not written on English and you will have to find the translated version.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The book was written by &lt;em&gt;Vladimir Vukovic&lt;/em&gt;, and is called &lt;em&gt;Uvod u sah&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;Introduction to chess&lt;/em&gt; when translated to English. If you get that &lt;strong&gt;consider your problems regarding endgame, tactics and positional play solved.&lt;/strong&gt; If you fail to find this book, try with the books I have listed above ( I have edited my post to provide you a book for each of the rules stated above ). I haven't read them, but I have a good feeling they can help-based on the critics I have read on &lt;em&gt;Amazon&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would start with opening books and middle games ( the &lt;em&gt;Soltis&lt;/em&gt;' book recommended above ), and then improve my tactics, then positional play and only then end games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This will be a long journey for you, but definitely an enjoyable one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you ever need any help, leave a comment and I will respond as soon as possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Best of luck, call if help required!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Best regards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastEditorUserId="10867" LastEditDate="2016-07-27T09:32:48.163" LastActivityDate="2016-07-27T09:32:48.163" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4439" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4427" CreationDate="2014-01-07T15:15:02.150" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I resign by&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Waiting until the opponent makes a move.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Stretching my hand forward and nodding a bit and shaking hands with the opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Stopping the clock and signing my score sheet.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This can be compared to offering a draw:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Making my move and then saying &quot;I offer draw&quot; directly after pressing the clock.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The draw can be refused by either saying &quot;No thanks&quot; or simply making the next move.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The draw can be accepted by stretching the hand forward, shaking hands, stopping the clock and signing the score sheet.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Look out! If the opponent &quot;resigns&quot; by entering a check with their own king or opening up their own king for a check, do Not grab the king! In blitz, this is considered an illegal move and will cost you the game. In classical chess, this is considered an illegal move and there will be a time penalty (or extra time for the opponent, I am not sure). If this happens (or any other illegal move happens) then stop the clock and call the arbiter. Happy hunting!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-01-15T15:57:22.780" LastActivityDate="2014-01-15T15:57:22.780" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4441" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4427" CreationDate="2014-01-07T17:24:38.240" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;When you want to resign, just resign. In informal play, some people just knock down their king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;I resign&quot; is a move. And recorded as such on the scoresheets of tournaments. That is to say that you don't need to make a move before resigning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's a bit gauche to resign during your opponent's move, but very few opponents will mind.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You offer your hand when resigning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2014-01-07T17:24:38.240" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4442" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4434" CreationDate="2014-01-07T18:21:00.293" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;A slightly different approach to others answers.. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess Master 8000 is a computer program you can get from eBay for 5 Euros. This comes with Avatars which have different strengths and different play styles. For example one player holds onto Queen at any cost and also tactically good in mid game but not so in end game while another is very good in end games and weak in openings and avoids risk taking.. The variations are so much (there are about 30 players across all skill levels)..  the randomness of errors is not repeatable and the avatars are good to play if there is no human opponent. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I played against it for a couple of years after getting frustrated with normal chess software and enjoyed.. but lost interest as angry birds started to kill all my free time..(I know .. it's a pity).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My children also play against it while practicing in their school chess clubs. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I will wholeheartedly recommend that no affiliation and the company itself is gone bust I think.  You will get only used copies in eBay!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2230" LastActivityDate="2014-01-07T18:21:00.293" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4443" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4434" CreationDate="2014-01-07T23:18:29.587" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;1) Please go ahead and play live people! They don't bite. If you keep waiting until you're &quot;good enough&quot; you will always be able to find a reason to keep putting it off.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) The single best resource for beginning chess players is Dan Heisman's &lt;em&gt;Novice Nook&lt;/em&gt; columns at chesscafe.com. The best of them have been compiled and reedited into the book &lt;em&gt;A Guide to Chess Improvement: The Best of Novice Nook&lt;/em&gt;. I recommend it highly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) As far as studying goes, my personal advice is to avoid feeling overwhelmed by everything there is to learn about openings, strategic play, endgames, etc., and for now just concentrate on tactics. At your level studying tactics will be overwhelmingly more useful than any other aspect of chess. John Bain's &lt;em&gt;Chess Tactics for Students&lt;/em&gt; is a good workbook, but my recommendation is to go to a free tactics site like chesstempo.com and start doing problems. The site will track your progress and feed you problems suited to your level of ability. This is the single most efficient way to improve at chess until you are a quite experienced player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2014-01-07T23:18:29.587" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4444" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4434" CreationDate="2014-01-08T03:43:16.953" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;A year ago I started taking chess seriously, which for me meant studying books, doing tactics training, and playing regularly against real people. I knew some tactics and understood the basic positional ideas after completing Josh Waitzkin's &quot;Chess Academy&quot; in ChessMaster 11. In March 2013 I scored 3/7 in my first tournament and received a rating of 1100. I haven't played in another rated competition since but would guess, based on my results against engines &amp;amp; people, that I'm around 150-200 ELO stronger now than I was then.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The things that &lt;em&gt;I&lt;/em&gt; feel have made the biggest difference to my play are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Doing regular tactics training. I normally use &lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.pereira.ichess&amp;amp;hl=en&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;iChess&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.cisana.ideatacticsnoads&amp;amp;hl=en&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;IdeaTactics&lt;/a&gt; on my phone.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Keeping records of my games, analysing &amp;amp; annotating them with a chess engine, and studying the annotated games with a focus on &lt;em&gt;my&lt;/em&gt; mistakes. I use the free &lt;a href=&quot;http://scidvspc.sourceforge.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Scid vs. PC&lt;/a&gt; with &lt;a href=&quot;http://stockfishchess.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Stockfish&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Revisiting positions from my games with &lt;a href=&quot;http://innokuo.altervista.org/chesshero.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chess Hero&lt;/a&gt; to see if I can do better the nth time around.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Learning the basics of &lt;em&gt;just one&lt;/em&gt; opening for white, and one defence against &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt;, and another against &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt; for black - and playing them consistently. Personally, I play the London System with white, and the French Defence and Stonewall Dutch with black.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Something that I feel is still missing from my training is regular endgame study &amp;amp; practice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So there it is. I'm still a weak player, but I definitely have seen real improvement by doing all of the above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2078" LastEditorUserId="2078" LastEditDate="2014-01-08T06:29:37.173" LastActivityDate="2014-01-08T06:29:37.173" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4445" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4434" CreationDate="2014-01-08T07:56:43.897" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Aside from all the other excellent answers, I will note that I have learned a good deal from analyzing how and why the computer beat me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2241" LastEditorUserId="2241" LastEditDate="2018-03-28T22:19:25.447" LastActivityDate="2018-03-28T22:19:25.447" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4446" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4330" CreationDate="2014-01-08T12:20:34.463" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I write down a scratch version on paper during the analysis. If I actually do my work well (some days it's hard to decide on any variations at all), then the paper will end up as a mess with lots of lines, arrows, strike throughs, question marks, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Usually once I reach a conclusion, only a few of those lines turn out to be relevant. Those I copy to a final version (in Scid, as others have noted). Doing all the analysis in Scid makes it too easy to turn on an engine, or record all of the moves I try during analysis, most of which will turn out to be irrelevant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2014-01-08T12:20:34.463" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4447" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4449" CreationDate="2014-01-08T19:08:35.247" Score="6" ViewCount="1007" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have had periods in my life when I became quite engaged in Chess. I am also a card player - particularly Bridge and Two Handed Pinochle (old game, not very popular these days). Oftentimes I get bored/frustrated with Chess because there is apparently no &quot;luck factor&quot; - no randomness. So I prefer a good game of two handed Pinochle to chess: It requires great skill, but also has a significant luck factor, whose impact is of course diminished the more you play against a particular opponent and the laws of probability become manifest, so that the more skillful player emerges.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I understand that's what Chess fans love about the game - it's a contest of pure skill - but I often feel that the luck of the random factor detracts from my interest - diminishes the excitement - it's all about learning everything that was done before and trying to master it and then improve in little ways that you can, although most of what you come up with will already be &quot;old hat&quot;, unless you're a chess genius.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, am I missing something? Is there a random factor in chess (I don't mean getting lucky that your opponent has a headache and can't play as well as he should) or am I just too lazy and superficial to appreciate the game (that may indeed be true...).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2241" LastActivityDate="2014-01-14T02:47:29.490" Title="Randomness in Chess?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;theory&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4448" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4447" CreationDate="2014-01-08T19:34:49.127" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;If it's randomness you're after, why not try &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess960&quot;&gt;Chess960&lt;/a&gt;, aka Fischer Random Chess? The starting position of the pieces is random, which can lead to very exciting games dominated by tactics. There's still no &quot;luck&quot;, but at least memorizing openings is less of a factor.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2078" LastActivityDate="2014-01-08T19:34:49.127" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4449" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4447" CreationDate="2014-01-08T21:59:14.663" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Randomness is important in things like card games, because if everyone knew what the cards were, they could always figure out the most optimal play and it wouldn't be much fun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess is incredibly hard to play well. There are many possibilities and it is often very hard to judge which one is the best. Learning everything that's gone before hardly helps, because games reach new unique positions quite quickly, and then you're on your own again.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So you get new positions, and you're often reduced to just picking one moves out of several possibilities by, basically, guessing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To me that's close enough to the effects of randomness in other games. I believe there is luck in chess too, like making a good decision for the wrong reasons.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2014-01-08T21:59:14.663" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4452" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-01-10T00:59:22.210" Score="4" ViewCount="1058" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been doing the tactics problems at jrobichess.com and shredderchess.com pretty regularly, and recently added chesstempo.com. I find I'm much better at attacking tactics than defensive tactics: that is, I can solve &quot;Find mate in X&quot;-type problems at a much higher level than &quot;Avoid mate&quot;-type problems, even when the calculations are basically the same. I know how to deploy various attacking ideas, but I haven't learned to see them coming and defend against them. What are some resources I could use to improve this side of my tactical play? Is there a site like the above that stresses defensive tactics, or where you can select specifically defensive problems?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1758" LastActivityDate="2015-03-25T12:45:46.530" Title="Online defensive tactics training problems?" Tags="&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;training&gt;&lt;defense&gt;&lt;online&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4454" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1844" CreationDate="2014-01-10T03:18:53.777" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;1 d4 in combination with 2c4 (usually) may require more memorization to actually be fully 'booked' than 1 e4 does, however, it tends to be much more 'forgiving' if you don't memorize loads of variations but instead 'understand' what's going on. I had good success with it. There is a reason it's the 'work horse' of the grandmasters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2248" LastActivityDate="2014-01-10T03:18:53.777" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4455" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-01-10T12:34:42.153" Score="7" ViewCount="9233" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there any free software to create chess videos? I see some nice videos on chess.com and on Youtube. The way arrows are drawn on the board, highlighting squares or pieces are really wonderful features. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2249" LastActivityDate="2020-10-17T23:53:38.770" Title="Software To Create Chess Videos" Tags="&lt;software&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4456" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4455" CreationDate="2014-01-10T12:54:13.267" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;Programs like &lt;a href=&quot;http://chessbase-shop.com/en/products/chessbase12_download&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;ChessBase&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.wmlsoftware.com/chesspad.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;ChessPad&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://scidvspc.sourceforge.net/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Scid vs. PC&lt;/a&gt;, and &lt;a href=&quot;http://www-lucaschess.rhcloud.com/index&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Lucas Chess&lt;/a&gt; all let you highlight squares &amp;amp; draw arrows on the board. You can then just record what you're doing using regular screen recording software like the excellent &lt;a href=&quot;http://ohsoft.net/product_ocam.php&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;oCam&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit:&lt;/strong&gt; I've created a video showing how to use Lucas Chess to create instructional chess videos. View it &lt;a href=&quot;http://youtu.be/pMKwdghic5A&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;. (YouTube)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2078" LastEditorUserId="2078" LastEditDate="2014-01-10T18:00:42.190" LastActivityDate="2014-01-10T18:00:42.190" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4458" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4452" CreationDate="2014-01-11T14:46:04.937" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I enjoyed Andy Soltis' The Art of Defense in Chess.  It was all about finding hidden resources.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Remarkably, this book is available electronically for no cost, and legally I assume.  Here are a few links.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://torrentz.eu/solt/Soltis%2C%20Andrew%20-%20The%20Art%20of%20Defense%20in%20Chess.pdf-3692550&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://torrentz.eu/solt/Soltis%2C%20Andrew%20-%20The%20Art%20of%20Defense%20in%20Chess.pdf-3692550&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://ebookee.org/The-Art-of-Defense-in-Chess-by-Andrew-Soltis-1975-_1168031.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://ebookee.org/The-Art-of-Defense-in-Chess-by-Andrew-Soltis-1975-_1168031.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Paper book:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/0679141081&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.amazon.com/The-Defense-Chess-Andrew-Soltis/dp/0679141081&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2015-03-25T12:45:46.530" LastActivityDate="2015-03-25T12:45:46.530" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4459" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4447" CreationDate="2014-01-11T18:44:55.480" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm an old chess champion. I won 3rd place in a city championship has no age limit, when I was 10 years old.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can definitely say that chess has luck possibility/factor/variable in it. All my experiences with chess showed me chess is not only a logic war. Yes it's a war like all others have psychological side. Therefore it brings your matter. Let me give you an example. The fundamental of the issue is that &quot;When you play chess and if you remember what I just wrote here, would it effect your feelings/logic chain of your strategy, &lt;em&gt;thus destiny of the game?&lt;/em&gt;&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's a deep topic to discuss here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;You sit at the board and suddenly your heart leaps. Your hand trembles to pick up the piece and move it. But what chess teaches you is that you must sit there calmly and think about whether it's really a good idea and whether there are other, better ideas.&quot; &lt;em&gt;-Stanley Kubrick&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Few things are as psychologically brutal as chess.&quot; &lt;em&gt;-Kasparov&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope it helps&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2259" LastActivityDate="2014-01-11T18:44:55.480" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4460" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-01-12T02:53:59.983" Score="3" ViewCount="273" Body="&lt;p&gt;How can I get a checkmate in three moves?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/2R5/1B1k4/2R5/3N4/1K6/3p4/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2263" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-04T21:32:44.110" LastActivityDate="2020-04-04T21:32:44.110" Title="Help needed with a chess dilemma" Tags="&lt;problems&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="4461" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4460" CreationDate="2014-01-12T05:46:33.317" Score="7" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[FEN &quot;8/2R5/1B1k4/2R5/3N4/1K6/3p4/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Kc4 d1=Q 2.Rd5#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So two moves, not three.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first thing to note is that the Black King cannot move.  The second thing to note is that (most) non-forcing moves by White will allow Black to Queen the pawn - with check.  This fails the challenge.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Experimentation will show that moving the Rook on c7  (for example R7c6+) allows the King to escape to d7 or e7. The other frcing move is Rd7+ but of course that isn't helpful.  Since the c7 Rook is protected by the Bishop, we can try moving the other Rook.  We have to find forcing moves, so the first one I see is R5c6+. But this lets the King escape to d5 or e5.  Another forcing move is Rd5+ but the Black King would eat it. But it's &lt;em&gt;so close&lt;/em&gt; to checkmate.  There's no forcing move with the Bishop.  The Knight has 2 forcing moves, but neither seems to help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So we move the White King to c4 to support the Rook we intend to put on d5.  This has the additional benefit of not costing us a tempo if Black queens the pawn.  That realization is fundamental here.  The White Knight blocks the Queen from capturing the Rook on d5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2014-01-12T15:24:54.890" LastActivityDate="2014-01-12T15:24:54.890" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4462" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="106" CreationDate="2014-01-12T09:50:56.673" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to the classic old book of Romanovski (which was one of the cornerstones of the Russian/Soviet school of chess) the endgame starts when the King assumes an active role.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="446" LastActivityDate="2014-01-12T09:50:56.673" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4463" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4464" CreationDate="2014-01-12T13:12:12.127" Score="4" ViewCount="1958" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let's say that I have got three years to prepare myself before my first tournament. Here's my status. I need to come up with a plan. Can you help me prepare one?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I am a chess enthusiast. I am &lt;strong&gt;unaware&lt;/strong&gt; of my rating (FIDE/USCF). I play at about 1700 on FreeChess.org.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I have three years at hand to play my first serious tournament. In other words, I can refrain from playing online/real tournament for three years.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I have 30 minutes every day.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I have access to a Linux computer.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I am interested in knowing your thoughts on how I can best utilize the &lt;strong&gt;450 hours&lt;/strong&gt; (half an hour each day for 300 days a year in 3 years) over the next three years to prepare myself well for chess. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;My biggest concern is wasting the (scarce) time I have got in playing mindless games on the Internet&lt;/strong&gt;. I have realized that the time can be used more productively while getting better at chess.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;My modest expectation is an increased understanding of the game and feel for its positions.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Questions such as approach to using engines on Linux computer, analyzing games, preparing theory and lines haunt me. I have heard that tournament play helps, but I have also read that since chess is rich in theory, preparing the theory also helps. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;What are the various approaches to coming up with an optimal plan for the 450 hours (over 3 years) that I have got?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2264" LastActivityDate="2016-01-08T20:13:32.107" Title="Step-by-step guide to prepare yourself" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;preparation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4464" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4463" CreationDate="2014-01-12T14:59:57.887" Score="7" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1.I am a chess enthusiast. I am unaware of my rating (FIDE/USCF). I play at about 1700 on FreeChess.org.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Enthusiasm and strong discipline are the only thing required-forget FIDE ELO.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;2.I have three years at hand to play my first serious tournament. In other words, I can refrain from playing online/real tournament for three years.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Online play can be &lt;strong&gt;very useful&lt;/strong&gt;-do not discard it. Use it to quickly test new things you learn. Blitz games can help you a lot in this if you find an opponent of &lt;strong&gt;equal strength&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;3.I have 30 minutes every day.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Half an hour a day is way too little, but if you seek to increase your strength to a noticeable level, I think that this can be done. You will need iron discipline and &lt;strong&gt;good resources&lt;/strong&gt;-they must be short, &lt;strong&gt;crystal clear&lt;/strong&gt; examples.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;4.I have access to a Linux computer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Good. Internet + decent chess engine can help a lot.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;5.I am interested in knowing your thoughts on how I can best utilize the 450 hours (half an hour each day for 300 days a year in 3 years) over the next three years to prepare myself well for chess. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Keep reading, I will explain everything in &lt;strong&gt;great detail&lt;/strong&gt;-so pay attention!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;6.My biggest concern is wasting the (scarce) time I have got in playing mindless games on the Internet. I have realized that the time can be used more productively while getting better at chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See the answer to second question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;7.My modest expectation is an increased understanding of the game and feel for its positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This can be done with proper resources, and I will try to recommend some bellow-see third answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;8.Questions such as approach to using engines on Linux computer, analyzing games, preparing theory and lines haunt me. I have heard that tournament play helps, but I have also read that since chess is rich in theory, preparing the theory also helps.What are the various approaches to coming up with an optimal plan for the 450 hours (over 3 years) that I have got?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First off, forget about theory learning-you just do not have enough time to learn openings to a such high level. So my goal is to recommend books that are small and describe openings that are solid and not so sharp. Semi-open openings can give you enough solidity to survive and enough counter-play to have a chance to win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Against &lt;code&gt;1.e4&lt;/code&gt; I would recommend &lt;em&gt;French Defense&lt;/em&gt;, and against everything else &lt;em&gt;King's Indian defense&lt;/em&gt;. The reason for this is that &lt;strong&gt;nobody can use transpositions to get you out of your opening.&lt;/strong&gt; This is important-it will reduce your time required for learning the openings for Black. As White, play the &lt;em&gt;King's Indian Attack&lt;/em&gt;, since this is the &lt;em&gt;King's Indian defense&lt;/em&gt; played with reversed colors. Again, you save your time by practically learning to play &lt;strong&gt;only two openings.&lt;/strong&gt; I recommend &lt;em&gt;Starting Out&lt;/em&gt; series, since they explain these openings and their &lt;strong&gt;basic&lt;/strong&gt; middle game very well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then, you will need to learn to play middle game well. You can use &lt;em&gt;Andrew Soltis-Pawn Structure Chess(1995)&lt;/em&gt; for that, &lt;strong&gt;but read only these chapters:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;The e5 chain&lt;/em&gt; so you can master the &lt;em&gt;French defense-Advance variation&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;The King's Indian complex&lt;/em&gt;-useful for you because you play both King's Indian attack and defense.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With &lt;em&gt;Starting Out&lt;/em&gt; series, and with these two chapters, you should be able to hold your own against any player/engine. Your only problem shall be theory, but with the chapters from &lt;em&gt;Soltis'&lt;/em&gt; book you could find good moves on your own since you should be able to understand the middle game quite well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;OK, I have covered your opening repertoire and middle game plans, now is the time for tactics/positional play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Again, for positional principles consult &lt;em&gt;Soltis'&lt;/em&gt; book, as for tactics you should utilize Internet to solve puzzles-ChessTempo.com can help. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for endgame, you will have to get a good book for the beginners, but I just can not recommend one now, if I find a good one I will edit the answer and inform you via comment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, let us create a timetable for you, so you can use your scarce time the best you can:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Get and read books for the openings-you can not progress further if you get smashed in 20 moves. Start with &lt;em&gt;French defense&lt;/em&gt; and then move on to &lt;em&gt;Kings Indian defense&lt;/em&gt;. Leave &lt;em&gt;Kings Indian Attack&lt;/em&gt; for the end. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Once you feel confident that you have learned one opening &lt;strong&gt;variation&lt;/strong&gt; ask someone to play with you 3 blitz games ( &lt;strong&gt;five minutes both&lt;/strong&gt; ) so you can memorize the opening variation-you will be surprised how effective this is. Five-minutes-each blitz game means that you can play 3 games per day. After 12 games of blitz, you should memorize the variation. To increase your learning efficiency play &lt;em&gt;King's Indian Attack&lt;/em&gt; with White &lt;strong&gt;all the time&lt;/strong&gt;, and shuffle between &lt;em&gt;French defense&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;Kings Indian defense&lt;/em&gt; ( of course, tell your friend to play &lt;code&gt;1.e4&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;1.d4/c4...&lt;/code&gt;, based on which defense as Black you wish to train ). This way you will learn the openings-&lt;strong&gt;forget about the outcome of the game&lt;/strong&gt;, for now we just want to focus on you not losing in first 20+ moves.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Read the '&lt;em&gt;Soltis'&lt;/em&gt; book now, since you can survive the opening. Those 2 chapters will help you to find a plan in the middle game &lt;strong&gt;with speed and easiness&lt;/strong&gt;. Once you read them and feel confident in your knowledge, ask a friend to do the same as before-play a five-minute-each blitz game, only this time &lt;strong&gt;result does matter&lt;/strong&gt; since you know how to play middle game. This is the good moment for you to also experiment with the games online since we want you to get as much experience in playing these openings and middle games as you can get.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;At some point you will feel like you have your opening and middle game &quot;together&quot; but you lack tactical strength to win or save the game. This will be the time to rest from openings and just solve puzzles. You can do that online or by getting newspapers or something. Again, once you are confident in your tactical improvement ask a friend to play again, or play online.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;For endgame try to find any beginners book on basic principles and basic endings. You will not need complex study of this, just some basic knowledge. Once you read the book and feel like you have learned something play again against a friend/online.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;From that moment on, you just keep playing and refer to the books when you need to remember some variation or a plan.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, the tournament play strategy:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tournament is consisted of players &lt;strong&gt;of various strength&lt;/strong&gt;. Once you go there, &lt;strong&gt;forget about winning every game!&lt;/strong&gt; Just forget it! You will need &lt;strong&gt;every ounce of mental strength&lt;/strong&gt; to deal with other things ( unexpected defeat/unfair referee 's decision/rude behavior of the spectators or your opponent ). Also, by not &lt;strong&gt;forcing the win&lt;/strong&gt; you will not &lt;strong&gt;squander drawn games&lt;/strong&gt; trying to prove a win that does not exist. Half a point is truly BIG if you keep not losing. If you can win do it of course, but tend to play safe-drawing a game is OK. Remember, you are there &lt;strong&gt;to have fun since this is your first tournament&lt;/strong&gt;, and if you win a game that is great, if you lose it is OK too, move on and do not grief-another game will bring new adventure/experience. If you reach around 50% of total points at the end of the tournament consider your result &lt;strong&gt;a great success&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To summarize:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This will be your first tournament-try to finish it with a positive result and good experiences to remember. To achieve that &lt;strong&gt;do not&lt;/strong&gt; force a win but &lt;strong&gt;just play the game&lt;/strong&gt; and enjoy it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Prepare your opening repertoire so you can hold your own against anybody-you can do that by practicing the way described above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Prepare your middle games, so you can &lt;strong&gt;save the time on your clock&lt;/strong&gt; by finding moves/plans quickly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Train tactics so you can &lt;strong&gt;save the time on your clock&lt;/strong&gt; and increase your chances to win or save the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Learn basic endings so you do not ruin a good game you played previously.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you have any questions leave a comment and I will reply.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Good luck on your first tournament!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Best regards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastActivityDate="2014-01-12T14:59:57.887" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4465" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4487" CreationDate="2014-01-13T01:10:42.863" Score="4" ViewCount="1360" Body="&lt;p&gt;Suppose the knight is on square X and he wants to get to square Y, and in order to do that he has to move N moves. how big could N be?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could that be solved using a mathematical equation? Say Nf3 should capture Bg8, could that be solved mathematically without having to take a look and analyze it step by step? is there an equation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1105" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2014-09-02T01:43:04.520" LastActivityDate="2018-03-21T15:30:43.333" Title="Longest path for knight" Tags="&lt;theory&gt;&lt;knights&gt;&lt;mathematics&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="7" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4466" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4465" CreationDate="2014-01-13T02:33:12.757" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;N can be infinite.  I can always make a zillion knight moves.  So I expect you really want to know the smallest number of moves a Knight needs to get from square A to square B.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some N's won't work.  A Knight on a1 can't get to b3 in any even number of moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One thing we know - if the start and end squares are the same color, it will take an even number of moves.  If they are different colors, it will take an odd number of moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It doesn't take long to figure out the longest path on the board (a8 to h1 for example) requires six moves. Note the start and end squares are the same color.  For alternating colors, the requirement is 5 moves, max.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't think there will be an equation where one enters the square locations and a single number comes out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2018-03-21T15:30:43.333" LastActivityDate="2018-03-21T15:30:43.333" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4467" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4468" CreationDate="2014-01-13T09:44:36.450" Score="18" ViewCount="2402" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am on the road that starts from the &quot;Beginner&quot; stage, trying to leave this &quot;town&quot;. I know and understand the rules, I also understand most of the &quot;classic&quot; tactics. I am able to reproduce some mating patterns (and to understand them I think).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But yet I have some difficulties to leave the &quot;Beginner&quot; town: I blunder often, mostly because I overlook some possible moves from the opponent (a little bit like if I was playing &quot;alone&quot;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is very difficult for me to force myself to consider all the possible moves of the opponents. Please note that I play mostly on computer (either against the computer, or in live/online chess against other human beings).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the question is: what is the better way to stop blundering all my games? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Should I forbid myself to &quot;undo&quot; my moves when I play against the computer? How should I read the board? Is there a standard way of forcing oneself to consider all the consequences of a move?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2115" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-03-12T21:11:04.237" LastActivityDate="2019-09-19T06:19:13.600" Title="What is the better way to stop blundering all my games?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;training&gt;&lt;psychology&gt;&lt;best-practice&gt;&lt;blunder&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4468" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4467" CreationDate="2014-01-13T11:12:07.027" Score="15" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I am on the road that starts from the &quot;Beginner&quot; stage, trying to leave this &quot;town&quot;. I know and understand the rules, I also understand most of the &quot;classic&quot; tactics. I am able to reproduce some mating patterns (and to understand them I think).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Based on your information I think I can safely assume that &lt;strong&gt;you would see those blunders if someone pointed them out.&lt;/strong&gt; This is an important fact that helps me to recommend you the solution.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;It is very difficult for me to force myself to consider all the possible moves of the opponents.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should not do that-it requires too much mental energy and wastes too much time. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;So the question is: what is the better way to stop blundering all my games? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Much better approach is &lt;strong&gt;to understand what your opponent's plan is&lt;/strong&gt; and to search &lt;strong&gt;the best moves&lt;/strong&gt; he can play to implement it. This requires the ability to &lt;strong&gt;understand the position that arose on the board&lt;/strong&gt;, and a &lt;strong&gt;fair amount of objectivity&lt;/strong&gt;. To achieve this start with the following actions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Learn the basic moves and &lt;strong&gt;middle game themes/plans&lt;/strong&gt; of your openings-I find &lt;em&gt;Starting Out&lt;/em&gt; series to do a wonderful job, I use them myself too.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;During play &lt;strong&gt;detach yourself from your emotions&lt;/strong&gt; and use your knowledge of openings, tactics and middle game plans to &lt;strong&gt;evaluate quality&lt;/strong&gt; of the opponents moves. Ask yourself questions like &quot;Where does my opponent lead the attack?&quot; , &quot;What are my weaknesses?&quot; , &quot;Is this move played consistently-does it support opponents plan or is it a deviation?&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Tactical mastery greatly reduces blundering. Try to solve puzzles and try to improve this part of the game by constantly playing.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Should I forbid myself to &quot;undo&quot; my moves when I play against the computer?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;NO!!!&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is the best approach you can use-if you make a blunder just memorize that it is a bad move. Undo move and &lt;strong&gt;try to play a better one based on your own knowledge&lt;/strong&gt;. If you fail to find satisfactory move, just consult books I have recommended or setup a position on your computer and order it to analyze. This will provide you much needed &lt;strong&gt;experience&lt;/strong&gt; in playing that position, and at some point you will &lt;strong&gt;simply start to &quot;feel&quot; the good moves.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;How should I read the board? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Watch the &lt;strong&gt;entire&lt;/strong&gt; board and look &lt;strong&gt;all the squares&lt;/strong&gt; opponent's piece attacks ( the piece he played last with ). This is important, &lt;strong&gt;I have this flaw in my own game too&lt;/strong&gt; and it creeps in because you &lt;strong&gt;do not&lt;/strong&gt; &quot;respect&quot; opponents attack enough-believing that you have &lt;strong&gt;faster and stronger&lt;/strong&gt; counter-attack or simply believing that your game is &lt;strong&gt;much better&lt;/strong&gt; and he should resign instead prolonging.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is there a standard way of forcing oneself to consider all the consequences of a move?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Use the combination of all the above advices-watch &lt;strong&gt;all the squares&lt;/strong&gt; his last playing piece attacks and try to &lt;strong&gt;understand what role&lt;/strong&gt; that move plays in his &lt;strong&gt;overall&lt;/strong&gt; plan. Knowing the basic moves of the opening will help you to survive 15+ moves, and knowing basic middle game plans will &lt;strong&gt;reduce your calculation time&lt;/strong&gt; since you will be able to assume &lt;strong&gt;with great accuracy&lt;/strong&gt; what is &lt;strong&gt;the point behind the last move&lt;/strong&gt; your opponent played. Also, by knowing your opening and its middle game basics, you will find &lt;strong&gt;your counter moves&lt;/strong&gt; much easier and much faster.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tactical skill is also important here, and just by continuing to solve puzzles you will be able to find hidden threats faster, both for yourself and for your opponent-which will &lt;strong&gt;strengthen&lt;/strong&gt; your evaluation accuracy. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hopefully this will help, leave a comment if you need further help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Best regards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastActivityDate="2014-01-13T11:12:07.027" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4469" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4465" CreationDate="2014-01-13T19:02:21.200" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the options are finites (not infinite) is possible calculate all the possible moves from f3 to g8 so the Knight can take the Bishop but its a longest number.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since the chess board is finite in dimensions (8x8) all the possible moves can be calculated, but off course it will be again a very longest number.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2271" LastActivityDate="2014-01-13T19:02:21.200" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4470" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4424" CreationDate="2014-01-13T19:06:48.247" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Go here:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://ajedrezperu.info/partidas/bases-de-datos&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;AjedrezPeru&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;you can found a one million database with the most important games in PGN format, so you can import all of them in your software. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2271" LastActivityDate="2014-01-13T19:06:48.247" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4471" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4467" CreationDate="2014-01-13T21:01:58.303" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;AlwaysLearningNewStuff's answer is very good but I'd like to approach the problem by giving a simple piece of advice I read from GM John Nunn's &amp;quot;Secrets of Practical Chess&amp;quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once, I played 100 games against Mike Cook at 10 minutes (for him) vs. 5 minutes (for me). At that time, Mike was about 2300 strength. About halfway through the series (which I eventually won 88-12) he explained his disappointment:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;I thought that I would see lots of advanced strategic concepts in these games, but actually all I've learnt is LDPO.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;LDPO?&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Loose Pieces Drop Off.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;During the remaining games, I saw what he meant. Most of the games were decided by relatively simple tactics involving undefended pieces, when the LP would duly DO.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If a 2300 rated player loses most of his games by leaving his pieces undefended and then losing them, that might be something to watch out for. If you notice you or your opponent has undefended pieces, you should look for tactics very carefully. Of course that doesn't remove all blunders and of course that is not easy to do (otherwise a 2300 surely would not fall for simple tactics) but generally it may still help you improve your game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1761" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2014-01-13T21:01:58.303" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4472" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-01-14T00:44:27.790" Score="3" ViewCount="1222" Body="&lt;p&gt;In &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/q/2886/167&quot;&gt;another post&lt;/a&gt; it was written that for games played during the 2013 World Championship match, Carlsen gained 3.7 points if he wins, Anand gained 6.3 points if he wins, and that in a draw Carlsen lost 1.3 points that Anand gained.&#xA;How were these numbers arrived at?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2272" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.193" LastActivityDate="2014-01-19T22:01:14.607" Title="How can I find the gained points per game?" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;statistics&gt;&lt;elo&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4473" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4447" CreationDate="2014-01-14T02:47:29.490" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Others have pointed out sources of luck in chess very well. However, if we know little or nothing about opponent we are playing against, there is an additional &quot;luck factor&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, you are about to play me (and you know nothing about me) with the black pieces. You are equally good at all the openings; however, I am extremely good at Sicilian and very bad at everything else. After I played &lt;code&gt;1. e4&lt;/code&gt;, I am lucky if you play the Sicilian, and unlucky if you play anything else. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think we all have our favorite pet lines that we hope our opponent plays, and there lines that we just never got around to study properly that we hope our opponent does not play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The above can also be applied to other stages of the game, for example one might be great at rook endings, and terrible at knight endings. Hence, they would be lucky if the opponent chooses to simply to a rook ending rather than a knight ending(assuming the opponent is equally good at both types of endings), even if both endings are objectively equal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In sum, we have strengths and weaknesses, and it is often sheer luck that our opponent let's us play to our strengths. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="307" LastActivityDate="2014-01-14T02:47:29.490" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4474" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4472" CreationDate="2014-01-14T09:27:16.443" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;By &quot;points&quot; you probably mean rating &quot;points&quot;. Rating is a measure of player's strength, not a prize for their performance. To me, talking about &quot;gaining rating points&quot; sounds a bit wrong. A player's rating increases if he wins and decreases if he loses. In the case of a draw, player's rating moves closer to his opponent's rating (or does not change if the rating difference is small).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's how the Elo system works:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The result of a game is 1 for a win, 0.5 for a draw, and 0 for a loss. The expected score of a player A against player B is a function of their rating difference. For FIDE ratings, see the tables in Section 8 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fide.com/component/handbook/?id=161&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;. After a tournament or a match, the rating is then updated using the formula&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(new rating) = (old rating) + K * (result - expected result),&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;where in the FIDE system K=30 for players with few games, K=10 for players whose rating has been above 2400, and K=15 for other players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If player A's expected score is E, then player B's expected score is 1-E. Thus,&#xA;when two players play against each other e.g. in a match and their K-factor is equal, one can easily see player A's rating increases by the same amount player B's rating decreases.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For more information, see e.g. the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elo_rating_system&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Wikipedia article&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1761" LastActivityDate="2014-01-14T09:27:16.443" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4475" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-01-14T11:23:15.587" Score="0" ViewCount="2596" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can some one tell me which is the best opening move when white plays e4, read somewhere, to counter e4 &lt;strong&gt;Sicilian Defence&lt;/strong&gt; is one of the best?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2274" LastActivityDate="2014-01-14T12:12:49.517" Title="Best black opening move for E4" Tags="&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;defense&gt;&lt;1.e4&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2014-01-14T22:05:22.767" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4476" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4475" CreationDate="2014-01-14T12:12:49.517" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your question is &lt;strong&gt;unanswerable&lt;/strong&gt;, please consider rephrasing it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason for me saying this is that every opening that has &lt;code&gt;=&lt;/code&gt; evaluation in &lt;code&gt;ECO&lt;/code&gt; is &lt;strong&gt;good response&lt;/strong&gt; to &lt;code&gt;1.e4&lt;/code&gt;. You could look for statistics on openings but it is &lt;strong&gt;useless&lt;/strong&gt;-in my opinion statistics are stupid since they reveal to you nothing about the game. It is just a result of mathematical division-you can only use them to see which defense to &lt;code&gt;1.e4&lt;/code&gt; &lt;strong&gt;is the easiest to play with&lt;/strong&gt; for &lt;strong&gt;most of the people&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Compare the &lt;em&gt;French defense&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;Sicilian defense&lt;/em&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Currently &lt;em&gt;Sicilian defense&lt;/em&gt; &quot;scores better&quot; than &lt;em&gt;French defense&lt;/em&gt; according to statistics, but that conclusion is &quot;valid&quot; if you sum up the efficiency of all the variations in both openings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you &lt;strong&gt;remove&lt;/strong&gt; the dubious &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;Rubinstein variation&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; of the &lt;em&gt;French defense&lt;/em&gt; from the calculation than &lt;strong&gt;it scores nearly as good&lt;/strong&gt; as the &lt;strong&gt;entire&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;em&gt;Sicilian defense&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My point is that you have &lt;strong&gt;many good&lt;/strong&gt; opening moves against &lt;code&gt;1.e4&lt;/code&gt;, you just have to pick one you like.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Browse through openings against &lt;code&gt;1.e4&lt;/code&gt;and pick one that &lt;strong&gt;suites your style&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This depends entirely up to you-if you like slow games &lt;strong&gt;with small amount of variations to learn&lt;/strong&gt; then pick some semi-open defense ( &lt;em&gt;Caro-Kan&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;French-defense&lt;/em&gt; and so on ) or if you have time to learn and wish open battle riddled with sharp tactical play then pick &lt;em&gt;Sicilian defense&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;Modern defense&lt;/em&gt; or whatever.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Remember: &lt;strong&gt;Each opening that is evaluated as valid&lt;/strong&gt;, meaning it gives &lt;strong&gt;equal chances to both of you for winning&lt;/strong&gt; is a good candidate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;You need to choose one that suits your style and just go with it.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you have further question leave a comment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Best regards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastActivityDate="2014-01-14T12:12:49.517" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4477" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4478" CreationDate="2014-01-14T15:40:41.507" Score="14" ViewCount="5196" Body="&lt;p&gt;I enjoy playing the English opening, pushing my pawn to c4, and trying to out flank my opponent.  But I have a hard time, outside of playing normal lines, understanding the advantage it gives, and why it leads to fantastic games.  Any insights?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2279" LastActivityDate="2018-05-26T19:59:10.527" Title="What is the strategic significance of the English Opening?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;english-opening&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4478" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4477" CreationDate="2014-01-14T20:10:38.707" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;Since I was playing the English myself, I can tell you why I have found it a good opening for me:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Transpositional potential of this opening is stunning! You can lead your opponent out of &lt;strong&gt;his/her&lt;/strong&gt; opening and &lt;strong&gt;draw them into the variations they do not know.&lt;/strong&gt; One small example: &lt;code&gt;1.c4 c6&lt;/code&gt; Since Black reveals to us that he plans to play &lt;em&gt;Slav/Semi-Slav/Queen's Gambit&lt;/em&gt; we can steer the game into &lt;em&gt;Caro-Kann&lt;/em&gt; with &lt;code&gt;2.e4!?&lt;/code&gt;. Now, this means nothing objectively--we just left one opening to enter into another--but the &lt;strong&gt;psychological effect&lt;/strong&gt; can be devastating! It can lead to such consequences like &lt;strong&gt;deflating&lt;/strong&gt; their &lt;strong&gt;will to play&lt;/strong&gt; the game since the game is &quot;boring&quot;, or you can actually transpose into an opening your opponent &lt;strong&gt;does not know&lt;/strong&gt; and quickly demolish him.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The center remains fluid for a long time.&lt;/strong&gt; This is truly &lt;strong&gt;gold&lt;/strong&gt; in the hands of the experienced player and answers this part of your question: &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;why it leads to fantastic games?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You see, since White restrains himself in the center, it is usually safe to play on the wings. Black usually responds by playing on the wings too, but inexperienced players &lt;strong&gt;forget about counter attack in the center&lt;/strong&gt;. This possibility requires &lt;strong&gt;good calculation&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;accurate&lt;/strong&gt; evaluation of the &lt;strong&gt;current&lt;/strong&gt; position in order for a player to be able to execute this properly. Action on one wing + counter-attack in the center = crazy game. Launch your counter-attack in the center &lt;strong&gt;at the proper moment&lt;/strong&gt; and you will &lt;strong&gt;win the game&lt;/strong&gt; most of the time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These are the beauties of this opening:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Its &lt;strong&gt;intolerance&lt;/strong&gt; for &quot;robotic play&quot; and opening memorization--it requires of a player &lt;strong&gt;true knowledge&lt;/strong&gt;. You must know &lt;strong&gt;how to play chess&lt;/strong&gt;--opening, middle game and end game--no opening book can save you if you do not know how to play chess.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Its main feature is to give so much space to a &quot;true&quot; player &lt;strong&gt;for creating winning chances&lt;/strong&gt;. If you are creative enough you can win in the opening, middle game and even an endgame. By &quot;true&quot; player I mean player who plays every game &lt;strong&gt;with 100%&lt;/strong&gt; of his strength. The player who plays with &lt;strong&gt;knowledge&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;does not rely on safe patterns/30+ memorized opening moves&lt;/strong&gt; and so on. The player who is willing to fight for victory &lt;strong&gt;to the very end.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Whether you play &quot;normal&quot; lines, or you play some side-line/transposition, the &lt;em&gt;English opening&lt;/em&gt; will never be dull and &lt;strong&gt;sterile&lt;/strong&gt; for a player who is prepared to invest all of his mental capacity to win the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hopefully this answer will help you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you have further questions leave a comment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Best regards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastEditorUserId="11202" LastEditDate="2017-04-17T22:18:42.570" LastActivityDate="2017-04-17T22:18:42.570" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4479" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4481" CreationDate="2014-01-15T01:41:27.743" Score="3" ViewCount="752" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've just installed the ChessDB software hosted at SourceForge. While discovering the software I see that the databases that come with the software are empty  and I would like to know how to import new databases of openings or endgames,...etc.&#xA;Any help greatly appreciated !!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2282" LastActivityDate="2014-01-16T16:59:21.517" Title="ChessDB databases import" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;open-source&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4480" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4467" CreationDate="2014-01-15T10:35:58.380" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just want to comment on one aspect that helped me a lot with eliminating blunders. I am lucky enough to be able to play with live opponents as well as online and with computer. Even when I play friendly games, we &lt;strong&gt;use the touch move rule and no undos&lt;/strong&gt;! What it did to me (after many games of course) is developing a serious play attitude (spotting blunders) subconsciously. It is because I know, I won't be able to fix it by simple undo.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also general good tip for beginner is in my opinion the following attitude:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Quick check for opponents threats- if you spot one- fix it!&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Quick check of your tactical resources- if you spot one- go for it!&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If none of the above happens, make a wise positional/strategic move.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is also a great program for 'light' training that helped me a lot with spotting these threats and resources is &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessimo.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chessimo&lt;/a&gt;. You can even get it on iPhone as I did! If you don't want this particular one- find something that has large number of simple tactics, so spotting them becomes second nature.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1193" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-09-18T17:57:07.767" LastActivityDate="2019-09-18T17:57:07.767" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="4481" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4479" CreationDate="2014-01-15T15:28:58.967" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;He (author) explains how to go about getting this &lt;a href=&quot;http://chessdb.sourceforge.net/Scid/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;. The sourceforge game databases are available &lt;a href=&quot;http://sourceforge.net/projects/chessdb/files/databases%20of%20games/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Update:&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA; To go about downloading the database from the second sourceforge link provided above, the author provides instructions &lt;a href=&quot;http://chessdb.sourceforge.net/tutorial/download_a_database.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; (can do it directly form ChessDB's &lt;em&gt;Tools&lt;/em&gt; menu).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1751" LastEditorUserId="1751" LastEditDate="2014-01-16T16:59:21.517" LastActivityDate="2014-01-16T16:59:21.517" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4482" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4483" CreationDate="2014-01-16T08:24:43.607" Score="27" ViewCount="92562" Body="&lt;p&gt;This may be a frivolous question, as I believe that most chess players are good sportsmen, but I was wondering: what is the technically correct procedure for promoting a pawn to a queen? Do you ask your opponent to put the queen on the promotion square, or do you take it from his pile of captured pieces yourself (provided of course that queens have been exchanged)? If you have to ask your opponent, what happens if he takes his time (as in the case where you may be in time trouble, for example?). If you have to take it yourself, are there rules around where you are allowed to keep captured pieces (the absurd situation being that your opponent hides the captured queen when the promotion becomes evident).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similarly, I vaguely remember that there was some professional game that got delayed because they couldn't find a second queen after one of the players promoted while still having his original queen on the board. This puzzled me a bit: in my school days, we would either use an upside-down rook or even a pawn rested on its side to mark it as a queen - is this for some reason unacceptable in tournament play?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1816" LastActivityDate="2017-07-25T05:01:56.787" Title="What is the correct pawn promotion procedure?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;pawn-promotion&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4483" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4482" CreationDate="2014-01-16T09:01:46.883" Score="24" Body="&lt;p&gt;The procedure is (FIDE rules): move the pawn to its promotion square, then replace it with the piece you want. You can take it from the captured pieces yourself, your opponent does nothing. If the piece isn't readily available, you can stop the clock and ask the arbiter to bring one. Your choice of piece is only finalized when it touches the promotion square. See &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=124&amp;amp;view=article&quot;&gt;the Laws of Chess&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An upside down rook is a rook. A pawn on its side is a pawn, and thus an illegal move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The FIDE rules will be changed a bit in the upcoming July 2014 Laws of Chess, see e.g. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesscafe.com/text/geurt184.pdf&quot;&gt;this ChessCafe &quot;Arbiter's Notebook&quot; column&lt;/a&gt; by Geurt Gijssen, who is involved in the rules changes. From July, it will also be legal to remove the pawn from the board without moving it to the promotion square (followed by putting the piece on the promotion square), and it will also be legal to place the piece first and then remove the pawn. Those used to be illegal moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And also from July, if you move the pawn to the promotion square and then press the clock, you've made an illegal move (that's already the case now), and as usual the pawn counts as touched and you will have to promote it in the legal way, &lt;em&gt;but you will be forced to promote to queen&lt;/em&gt;. Apparently people were using this illegal move and the delay it will bring as extra thinking time to decide which piece to promote to.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you can see there are some fiddly details that may be different with USCF rules, but I don't know those.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2014-01-16T09:01:46.883" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4484" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4482" CreationDate="2014-01-16T09:03:17.610" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fide.com/component/handbook/?id=124&amp;amp;view=article&quot;&gt;FIDE rules&lt;/a&gt; 6.12.b:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A player may stop the clocks only in order to seek the arbiter’s assistance, for example when promotion has taken place and the piece required is not available.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This should solve all issues regarding to having promotion pieces available. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes players take the queen from the opponent's pile of captured pieces many moves before a possible promotion just as a psychological trick to signal his opponent that he has won the game already and should be able to promote soon.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An upside down rook looks like a rook and quacks like a rook, thus it is a rook in official games. There is no reason not to use a queen, and for example the opponent wouldn't know whether you accidentally put the rook upside down or meant to promote a queen. Of course, if a queen cannot be found anywhere, the arbiter may decide to allow exceptions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And as to deliberately hiding your captured pieces from the opponent, there's always Rule 12.1:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The players shall take no action that will bring the game of chess into disrepute.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1761" LastActivityDate="2014-01-16T09:03:17.610" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4485" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4486" CreationDate="2014-01-16T14:32:24.647" Score="6" ViewCount="1228" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am not a very strong positional player and I thought I could work on my pawn theory a bit. Are there common exercises or internet resources I could look into for how to play better pawn structures as well as make better pawn breaks?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2291" LastActivityDate="2019-02-27T14:08:38.627" Title="Pawn theory / exercises" Tags="&lt;pawns&gt;&lt;pawn-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4486" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4485" CreationDate="2014-01-16T17:03:05.103" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Pawn Structure Chess&lt;/em&gt; by &lt;em&gt;Andrew Soltis&lt;/em&gt; is a good book for start.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It teaches you how to play as Black &lt;strong&gt;and&lt;/strong&gt; White in the following positions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;French defense-Advance variation&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Caro-Kann pawn structure-including Panov attack&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Slav defense &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Open Sicilian defense and English opening&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Closed Sicilian defense and English opening&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;King's Indian defense&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Dutch &quot;Stonewall&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To this day I was not able to find a better book written for this topic-it is clearly written and covers &lt;strong&gt;most&lt;/strong&gt; of the important pawn structures.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;I would highly appreciate if other members can point out some other good books for this topic.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Give it a chance-I am &lt;strong&gt;100%&lt;/strong&gt; certain that you will not regret it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Best regards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastActivityDate="2014-01-16T17:03:05.103" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4487" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4465" CreationDate="2014-01-16T19:44:21.327" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The furthest distance is from one corner to the opposite one.  You can get from a1 to h8 in six moves, for example a1,c2,d4,f3,e5,g6,h8.  There are few pairs of squares that take more than four moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="956" LastActivityDate="2014-01-16T19:44:21.327" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4488" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4485" CreationDate="2014-01-16T20:58:58.590" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Two other great books include&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/0486264866&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Pawn Power in Chess (the first of these classics) by Kmoch&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/0713480092&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Winning Pawn Structures by Baburin&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While these books are fantastic places to read about pawn play, they are &lt;strong&gt;hard&lt;/strong&gt; to read if you're just getting started with pawn structures / strategy (where you usually will get overloaded with a ton of information without the kind of context that experienced players have to make sense of all the wonderful things that are said!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So you might want to get your feet wet with NM Dan Heisman's famous Novice Nook articles which include some very easy-to-read instructional pieces on pawn breaks / weaknesses and more importantly, how weak players misuse their pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some key articles in this assortment include:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesscafe.com/text/heisman20.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;A Positional Primer&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesscafe.com/text/heisman17.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Break Moves : Opening Lines to increase mobility&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesscafe.com/text/heisman138.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Strategy based on Central Pawn Structure&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For added fun, grab a friend and practice Michael Goeller's &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.kenilworthchessclub.org/media/Pawn_Battle_Strategies.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Pawn Battle mini-game&lt;/a&gt;. It teaches you some fairly rudimentary ideas about pawn breaks, breakthrough sacrifices and zugzwang.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another worthy pay-for resource are &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;chess.com's&lt;/a&gt; chess mentor lessons and videos by some excellent GMs/FMs/IMs (especially IM Danny Rensch whose lectures on different pawn structures are very thorough and entertaining)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1751" LastEditorUserId="1751" LastEditDate="2014-01-16T22:32:12.280" LastActivityDate="2014-01-16T22:32:12.280" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4490" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8392" CreationDate="2014-01-17T06:14:39.983" Score="12" ViewCount="2063" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've read that for any position, there are on average approximately 35 possible moves. But what's the maximum number of possible moves for a position?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1315" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-05-31T00:10:41.573" LastActivityDate="2020-05-31T00:10:41.573" Title="Maximum possible movement in a turn" Tags="&lt;problems&gt;&lt;records&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="4492" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4496" CreationDate="2014-01-17T15:47:02.487" Score="9" ViewCount="1655" Body="&lt;p&gt;I started to play chess more serious those days, through playing some tournaments. During all the games on those tournaments I face serious problems coming out with plans during the middle game, is there a methodical way of thinking to come out with a plan, by looking to a given position? Or a good book that I can read to improve this skill?. My current Elo is +1600, I have played around 20 standard time control games.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="872" LastActivityDate="2014-03-31T12:57:57.987" Title="Is there a good method to come out with a plan during a game" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;&lt;middlegame&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4493" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4490" CreationDate="2014-01-17T16:07:12.653" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://timkr.home.xs4all.nl/records/records.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;This position&lt;/a&gt; from actual play has 79 moves available for Black&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/LaKwP.gif&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="956" LastActivityDate="2014-01-17T16:07:12.653" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4495" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4490" CreationDate="2014-01-17T23:39:05.840" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/vcK1d.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Chessboard Layout&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a legal layout with 195 possible moves. I'm sure it isn't the absolute maximum, since I just made this one by creating a pattern with the promoted Queens and then continually optimizing the layout from there. It should give you some idea about how you might achieve the maximum number of possible moves though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Thanks to &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/users/2299/bof&quot;&gt;bof&lt;/a&gt; for finding a way to add 2 additional moves.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2298" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2014-01-18T01:13:59.770" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4496" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4492" CreationDate="2014-01-18T02:43:35.117" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Its a great question! When teaching chess, I get on my students about always having a plan. However, many of my beginning students have the impression that making a plan means &quot;I'm going to use a combination of Queen and Knight to Checkmate my opponent's King on the 27th move.&quot; Of course, this is unrealistic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess is a constantly changing landscape and two or three moves can completely turn a winning position into a losing position. Therefore, plans have to be flexible. That's where it gets tricky. I tend to create flexible plans in which I play elastic moves. Planning really comes into play during the middle game. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once the opening is complete and you have your pieces on ideal squares, you get down to the middle game. At the start of the middle game, I go through a checklist included pawn structure, position of my opponent's King in relation to his or her defending pieces, material balance, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I'm down material, I create a plan that evens the material balance which repositioning my pieces on good squares. I try to keep it simple and flexible. I think a lot of players have narror plans and when something goes wrong, they find their pieces on squares that do them no good. I try to play elastic moves that prepare for more than one response from my opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My plans change as the game changes. However, I try to play positions that allow me to maintain my original plan while still dealing with the potential curve-balls some times thrown by my opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's a tough call because you want to have a plan that goes forward but often you have to rethink your plan and alter it to fit the current position. I would say that your plan has to take into consideration imbalances but that is often the cause of a change in plans. A master can see many more moves ahead than I can so it is easier for them to create a plan that they can stick to. Moreover, Andrew Martin has mentioned on numerous occasions the need for playing flexible moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2300" LastEditorUserId="872" LastEditDate="2014-01-18T04:19:31.803" LastActivityDate="2014-01-18T04:19:31.803" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4498" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-01-18T08:14:30.793" Score="10" ViewCount="1039" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA; 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 a6 6. Bg5 e6 7. f4 Nbd7 8. Qf3 h6 9. Bxf6    Nxf6 10. O-O-O Qb6 11.e5 Nd7 12. Bc4 dxe5 13. Nxe6 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2301" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-02-05T21:17:08.363" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T17:01:56.143" Title="Is the following Knight sac in the Sicilian Najdorf justified?" Tags="&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;&lt;sacrifice&gt;&lt;najdorf&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4500" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4505" CreationDate="2014-01-18T23:12:23.980" Score="13" ViewCount="935" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would like to know if this endgame is winnable for white. Black to play.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/EAOis.png&quot; alt=&quot;The picture of the position is following : &quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any help would be greatly appreciated :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2282" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-10-14T20:26:33.387" LastActivityDate="2020-03-04T17:26:10.977" Title="Is this endgame winnable for white? (Knight vs two connected passed queenside pawns)" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;knights&gt;&lt;pawn-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="9" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="4501" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4500" CreationDate="2014-01-19T00:44:04.953" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;That endgame is winning for white, all white has to do is get rid of the pawns a4,b3 and try to preserve at least one pawn on the kingside and make it a passed pawn, the knight plays an important role by cutting all black ideas of promoting any pawns&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Kd5 2. Kb4 Ke5 3. Kxa4 Kf5 4. Kxb3 Kxg5 5. Nd2 f5 6. f3 exf3 7. Nxf3+ Kh5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Kc4 g5 9. Kd5 g4 10. hxg4+ fxg4 11. Ng1 Kg6 12. e4 Kf7 13. e5 Ke7 14. Ne2 h5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Ng3 Kf7 16. Nxh5 Kg6 17. Ng3 Kg5 18. e6 *&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should aim for something like this&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2300" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-04T17:25:45.833" LastActivityDate="2020-03-04T17:25:45.833" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="4503" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4500" CreationDate="2014-01-19T11:19:05.567" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here's a partial answer explaining why Black should abandon his queenside pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black has no moves on the kingside, so white can take the a and b pawns by using zugzwang: If Black tries to keep his ab-pawns, here's what might happen:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1...Kb5 2.Na3+ Ka5 3.Kc4 Kb6 4.Kb4 and white takes the pawns&#xA;or 3...b2 4.Kc3 and 5.Kxb2&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If black starts with anything other than 1...Kb5, White has to watch out for the following idea:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1...Kc6 2.Kb4 Kd5 3.Kxa4 Kc4 and now White is suddenly in trouble. (This might be a win for White after all, but these complications are not necessary)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, after 1...Kc6 2.Kb4 Kd5, White can just play 3.Na3 again and the Black king is blocked on the queenside.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So whatever Black plays now, he's only idea later will be to go to the kingside and start taking White's pawns. And it makes sense to say that that idea should be employed as quickly as possible, starting with 1...Kd5 and 2...Ke5. I assume White has a win even if he loses the gh-pawns but I wouldn't trust it without further calculation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1761" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-04T17:26:10.977" LastActivityDate="2020-03-04T17:26:10.977" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="4504" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4498" CreationDate="2014-01-19T13:53:07.313" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;I ran this through Stockfish at 15 minutes per move. What I have found is that the sacrifice is sound and wins.  But for a 'won' game, it is about the hardest road I have ever seen.  The evaluation of the position is &lt;em&gt;less than a pawn advantage&lt;/em&gt; for White up through move 25 or so.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The sacrifice leads to opportunities for White, but both sides are walking the razor's edge.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[FEN &quot;r1b1kb1r/1p1n1pp1/pq2p2p/4p3/2BN1P2/2N2Q2/PPP3PP/2KR3R w kq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Nxe6 fxe6 2.Qh5+ Kd8 3.Qf7 Qe3+ 4.Kb1 Qxf4 5.Qxe6 Qf6 6.Qh3 Bc5 7.Rhf1 &#xA;Qc6 8.Bd5 Qg6 9.Bxb7 Ra7 10.Be4 Qe8 11.Nd5 Rf8 12.Qh4+ g5 13.Qxh6 Rxf1 14.&#xA;Rxf1 Bb7 15.Qxg5+ Kc8 16.h4 Qd8 17.Qg3 Bxd5 18.Bxd5 Kb8 19.h5 Rc7 20.Rd1 &#xA;Ka7 21.Be4 Qf6 22.Qg4 Nb6 23.Qf5 Qg7 24.a3 Be3 25.g4 Bf4 26.Rd6 Nc4 27.Rg6&#xA;Qd7 28.Qxd7 Rxd7 29.Bd3 Nd2+ 30.Ka2 e4 31.Be2 Kb8 32.g5 Nf3 33.Rg8+ Kc7 &#xA;34.g6 Kd6 35.Rh8 Nh4 36.Bxa6 Be5 37.Re8 e3 38.b4 Nf5 39.Rf8 Ra7 40.Bd3 Nd4&#xA;41.h6 Nxc2 42.Kb1 Nxa3+ 43.Kc1 Re7 44.h7 Nc4 45.Rd8+ Kc7 46.Rg8 Nb6 47.&#xA;h8=Q Bxh8 48.Rxh8 e2 49.Bxe2 Kd6 50.Kd2 Rg7 51.Bd3 Nd5 52.Rd8+ Ke5 53.b5 &#xA;Nb6 54.Rf8 Ke6 55.Ke3 Rb7 56.Kf4 Ra7 57.Kg5 Ke5 58.Kh6 Rd7 59.Rf5+ Kd4 60.&#xA;g7 Rd8 61.Rf8 Rd6+ 62.Bg6 Kc5 63.g8=Q Kxb5 64.Qb3+ Kc6 65.Qc3+ Kb7  66.Rf7+&#xA;Nd7 67.Qc5 Rd1 68.Re7 Rh1+ 69.Kg7 Rh7+ 70.Bxh7 Ka6 71.Bd3+ Kb7 72.Rxd7+ &#xA;Kb8 73.Qf8#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The general method of White's win isn't a &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikhail_Tal&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Tal&lt;/a&gt;-like knockout, but instead we find that Black cannot hold onto the Kingside pawns. They drop off allowing White connected outside passers.    Black has plenty of resources however.  In return, Black gets a passer on the e-file that will be a real threat.  Black also eats two of the three pawns on the Queenside. I think this passer is one too many, and it's going to kill him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After &lt;code&gt;2. Qh5+&lt;/code&gt;, Black's King is stuck in the middle of the board. This will be a&#xA;lodestone that will haunt Black for the rest of the game.  Yet another example of&#xA;what happens when the weak &lt;code&gt;f7&lt;/code&gt; square is exploited.  This is really the lesson of&#xA;this sacrifice - &quot;Weaken the &lt;code&gt;f7&lt;/code&gt; square and you might just get some traction.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;3. Qf7&lt;/code&gt; and the White Queen is in Black's business.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After move 5, we see White's side is orderly, his two minor pieces are developed,&#xA;his King is secure, and his Rooks are ready to leap into action.  Charitably&#xA;speaking, one of Blacks minor pieces is developed.  His Rooks are still in the&#xA;box, and one Bishop is entombed.  Black is trying to trade off the Queens.&#xA;If he does, he wins.  When one has a material advantage, it's generally best to&#xA;trade off pieces. Of course, White is having none of it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;6... Bc5&lt;/code&gt;  Black must develop. Now his Bishop matters and he can activate his Rook.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Up to move 9, White harasses the Black Queen developing a Rook with tempo, then&#xA;picks up the loose b pawn.  This allows Black Queen Rook to enter the game, but&#xA;now Black as 2 isolated pawns to defend.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;10... Qe8&lt;/code&gt; To this point, Black has managed to swap his King's and Queen's positions!&#xA;White's Rooks control two open files and has a big grip on the center.  The Rook on&#xA;&lt;code&gt;d1&lt;/code&gt; is a monster, holding the center, pointing at the exposed Black King while pinning&#xA;the Knight in the process.  Remember, if Black can't use the Knight, it does not really&#xA;exist, and thus White is, after a fashion, not down any material.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;11... Rf8&lt;/code&gt; challenges White's &lt;code&gt;f&lt;/code&gt; Rook.  The cost is terrible - the remaining pawns&#xA;on the kingside.  &lt;code&gt;12. Qh4+&lt;/code&gt; is frightening, exposing Black's folly.  At this point, it's&#xA;worth pointing out how the computer is very particular with tempo.  Instead of an&#xA;immediate Rook trade White throws a&#xA;check first - again hitting the misplaced King and cause Black to further weaken himself.&#xA;Amusingly (for White) the Black Knight is still immobile.  If he moves it to,&#xA;say &lt;code&gt;b6&lt;/code&gt;, Rf8 wins. &#xA;I would be interested to see peoples' alternatives to &lt;code&gt;11... Rf8.&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;15. Qxg5+&lt;/code&gt; White scoops up the other pawn, with tempo, adding insult to injury.&#xA;The immediate &lt;code&gt;16. h4&lt;/code&gt; is the signal Black's in for a long day.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;17... Bxd5&lt;/code&gt; Black has finally completed his development though White has the&#xA;open file and the majority of the center.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;20. Rd1&lt;/code&gt; Back to the center, now pressuring the Queen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;23. Qf5&lt;/code&gt; White now offers the Queen trade which is declined.  This is another point&#xA;in the game where a variation could be helpful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Through move 26, Black's defensive play is quite good.  He's a tempo from picking up the&#xA;pawn on &lt;code&gt;g4&lt;/code&gt;.  White's &lt;code&gt;27. Rg6&lt;/code&gt; supports &lt;code&gt;g4&lt;/code&gt; again with tempo.  This move does&#xA;three things: it threatened the Black Q, defends g4, and frees the White Q to run if&#xA;Black were to play &lt;code&gt;Ne3&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Through move 29, the Queens drop off, Black claims the &lt;code&gt;d&lt;/code&gt; file, and White blocks it&#xA;with his Bishop, simultaneously preventing a nasty Knight fork on d2.  Such economy!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;30... e4&lt;/code&gt; Black has threats, too.  Black's play is a great lesson on how not to give up.&#xA;White is one bad move from losing this game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;31... Nf3&lt;/code&gt; wins the g pawn?  Nope, White checks with tempo allowing the jammed pawn&#xA;to move out of danger.  Again, seeing alternatives to &lt;code&gt;31...Kb8&lt;/code&gt; would be interesting.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;35...Nh4&lt;/code&gt; looks goofy as it allows the a-pawn to drop off.  But it's lights-out if White&#xA;is allowed to play h6.  In that case, White wins the Black Bishop and threatens a&#xA;discovered check with &lt;code&gt;g7&lt;/code&gt;.  Economy!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You might think Black should just resign. And maybe he should.  Now let's look at the&#xA;defensive resources that are available to him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, Black's &lt;code&gt;e3&lt;/code&gt; hits White where he isn't.  That pawn is scary.  Only the Bishop&#xA;is saving White.  Black attacks it. If the Bishop is driven off the &lt;code&gt;a6&lt;/code&gt;-&lt;code&gt;f1&lt;/code&gt; diagonal,&#xA;Black wins or draws.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;41. h6&lt;/code&gt; computers are cool under fire.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;41... Nxc2&lt;/code&gt; if &lt;code&gt;Bxc2&lt;/code&gt;, White loses.  Now the threat is &lt;code&gt;Nxb4+&lt;/code&gt; where white's defending&#xA;Bishop drops off, and it's mayhem that favors Black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;42. Kb1&lt;/code&gt; the Bishop needs help.  White must now pay the Butcher's Bill.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;44. h7&lt;/code&gt; White pours on the pressure, but Black's Bishop and Rook combo is very effective.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;44... Nc4&lt;/code&gt; is hard to understand.  Perhaps it is one of those moves that moves a bad&#xA;evaluation out one move.  Some thought here is needed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;49... Kd6&lt;/code&gt; is a great example of an inhuman computer move, where the machine is making choices about fractions of pawns.  The alternative is &lt;code&gt;49... Rxe2 50. g7 Rg1 51. g8=Q Rxg8 52. Rxg8&lt;/code&gt; and Black has lost the exchange for a pawn.  I would like to know why Black played &lt;code&gt;48... e2&lt;/code&gt; at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, to answer the OP's question, is the sacrifice justified?  That's a value judgement.  If I played this as White, and won, it would easily be the hardest win in my 'career'. A win is good, but this game is a hard, risky win. If one is willing to walk the razor's edge and one is good at managing one's clock, a point's a point.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This could be one of those games where one side has to play MUCH better in order to hold. That is, maybe White has to play like a master to hold, but Black can play like an 'Expert' to draw.  That is, whoever missteps first, loses, and White has more land-mines to avoid.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If anyone has alternate variations they'd like me to run, let me know.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T17:01:56.143" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T17:01:56.143" CommentCount="0" CommunityOwnedDate="2014-01-19T23:57:31.853" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="4505" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4500" CreationDate="2014-01-19T17:03:54.053" Score="8" Body="&lt;h2&gt;EDITED IN RESPONSE TO COMMENT MADE BY MEMBER &lt;em&gt;DagOskarMadsen&lt;/em&gt;:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Endgame remains a draw, but there was a mistake in my analysis-I hereby thank member &lt;em&gt;DagOskarMadsen&lt;/em&gt; for pointing it out. I have updated my answer with the proper drawing move, and have left the bad variation as a sideline and marked it with &lt;code&gt;??&lt;/code&gt; so it can be noticed more easily. I have also more thoroughly analyzed other sidelines which can be seen in my updated comments-some of the variations are highly instructive. I again apologize to viewers of this post for my mistake.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;FINAL EDIT:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I just had a hunch that Black can make a draw based on his strong king-so I had to try finding a solution again. I will post my findings in the section with variations. Also, I will leave the old variations so previous comments will not become useless. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;EDIT:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edited analysis and the final conclusion in response to member's &lt;em&gt;DagOskarMadsen&lt;/em&gt; comment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In endgames raw calculation strength comes secondary-the most important skill is to see &quot;the big picture&quot; and your first task is to make &lt;strong&gt;a long term&lt;/strong&gt; plan of action. To do that you must analyze the position thoroughly. Only after you have made a plan, you can &lt;strong&gt;verify its correctness&lt;/strong&gt; with raw calculation of lines. So let us start analyzing the position above:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The most obvious characteristic is that White has a knight for a two pawns. &lt;strong&gt;However&lt;/strong&gt;, that knight is &lt;strong&gt;so badly positioned&lt;/strong&gt;. It blocks Blacks pawns, but it is a &lt;strong&gt;weak knight&lt;/strong&gt; rather than good one. Why? What is the difference between this knight and a good one? A good knight can block the pawns &lt;strong&gt;and support the execution of the overall plan&lt;/strong&gt;-this knight can not do that since Black's pawns will queen if he leaves them unchecked. Whites king is &lt;strong&gt;weaker&lt;/strong&gt; than Black one. Whites &lt;code&gt;g5&lt;/code&gt; pawn has achieved &lt;strong&gt;maximum efficiency&lt;/strong&gt;-tying down the entire Blacks king side, but &lt;code&gt;e3+f2&lt;/code&gt; pawns are weak and are &lt;strong&gt;restrained by one Black pawn&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for Black, he has achieved &lt;strong&gt;maximum efficiency&lt;/strong&gt; on the queen side, he can not advance further since he has no entry points. His &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; pawn has achieved &lt;strong&gt;maximum efficiency&lt;/strong&gt; as mentioned before ( this pawn also &lt;strong&gt;takes away &lt;code&gt;d3&lt;/code&gt; square from the White king&lt;/strong&gt; which is important for Black's defense-it &lt;strong&gt;reduces&lt;/strong&gt; Whites options for &lt;em&gt;zugzwang&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;disables&lt;/strong&gt; White king from penetrating to the king side, and &lt;strong&gt;disables&lt;/strong&gt; White from &lt;strong&gt;reorganizing&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;code&gt;e&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;f&lt;/code&gt; pawns for proper defense ). Black pawns on &lt;code&gt;a4&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;b3&lt;/code&gt; &lt;strong&gt;tie down to defense both king and knight&lt;/strong&gt; and have achieved &lt;strong&gt;maximum efficiency&lt;/strong&gt; at this moment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;&lt;em&gt;Black's plan:&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Black has advantage&lt;/strong&gt; on the queen side, but can &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; capitalize on it. In this situation it is usual to &lt;strong&gt;trade this advantage for the new one&lt;/strong&gt;-Black will trade queen side advantage ( &lt;code&gt;a&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;b&lt;/code&gt; pawns ) for the initiative on the king side. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;&lt;em&gt;White's plan:&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;White needs to improve his knight's position in order to win&lt;/strong&gt;. Knight should &lt;strong&gt;stop Black's counter-play&lt;/strong&gt; by &lt;strong&gt;cooperating with his pawns&lt;/strong&gt;, allowing king to take all of the Black's pawns. Ideally, White will block &lt;strong&gt;the entire&lt;/strong&gt; position and use &lt;em&gt;zugzwang&lt;/em&gt; to take Black's pawns one by one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;&lt;em&gt;The &quot;Big Picture&quot;:&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White will need to remove black &lt;code&gt;a&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;b&lt;/code&gt; pawns in order to be able to free the knight to execute the above plan. To do that White will &lt;strong&gt;lose 4 tempos&lt;/strong&gt;-he will need to play &lt;code&gt;Kb4+Kxa4+Kb3+Kxb2&lt;/code&gt; since Black will surely play &lt;code&gt;b2!&lt;/code&gt; as soon as he loses &lt;code&gt;a&lt;/code&gt; pawn. Why? Because if he does not, White will lose only one move to take the &lt;code&gt;b&lt;/code&gt; pawn by playing &lt;code&gt;Kxb3&lt;/code&gt; but after &lt;code&gt;b2!&lt;/code&gt; he will need two moves to do that-&lt;code&gt;Kb3&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;Kxb2&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;strong&gt;In this position every tempo counts since both sides race to reach the king side first&lt;/strong&gt;. We also know that &lt;strong&gt;it is Black's turn to move&lt;/strong&gt; so this &lt;strong&gt;adds another tempo&lt;/strong&gt;. With &lt;strong&gt;5 tempos ahead&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;a stronger king&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;pawn weaknesses&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;holes&lt;/strong&gt; on the light squares-&lt;strong&gt;especially one on &lt;code&gt;f5&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;-we can safely evaluate that &lt;strong&gt;Black will be able to fulfill his plan&lt;/strong&gt;- but whether White will have time to improve knight's position and to win the game requires &lt;strong&gt;precise calculation and a strong endgame technique&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;&lt;em&gt;The calculation:&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now is the time to try and verify our conclusions-here are the variations:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/5p1p/6p1/2k3P1/p3p3/1pK1P2P/5P2/1N6 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1...Kd5 2.Kb4 Ke5 3.Kxa4 b2! 4.Kb3 ( 4.Nd2 Kf5 5.Kb3 b1=Q+! 6.Nxb1 Kxg5 7.Nd2 Kh4! 8.Nxe4 f5! 9.Nd2 Kxh3 10.Kc4! Kg2 11.f3 (11.f4 h5! 12.Kd3 Kf2! 13.e4 fxe4+ 14.Nxe4+ ( 14.Kxe4 h4 15.Nf3 h3 16.f5! gxf5+ 17.Kf4!! Kg2 18.Ke3!= ) Kf3 15.Nf6! Kxf4 16.Nxh5+!= ) h5! 12.e4 fxe4 13.fxe4 h4= ) Kf5 5.Kxb2 Kxg5 6.Nd2 Kh4! 7.Nxe4 f5! 8.Nf6 ( 8.Nd2 Kxh3 9.f3 ( 9.Kc3 h5 10.f3 h4 11.e4 fxe4 12.fxe4= ) ( 9.Nc4 Kg2 10.Kc3 Kxf2 11.Kd4 h5 12.e4 fxe4 13.Kxe4= ) 9...g5!! ( 9...Kg3?? 10.Kc3 h5 11.e4 fxe4 12.fxe4 +-) 10.e4 fxe4 11.fxe4 Kg4= ) h5 9.Nd5 ( 9.f3 Kg3 10.e4 fxe4 11.fxe4 Kf4 12.Kc2 Ke5 13.Nd7+ Kxe4= ) Kxh3 10.Nf4+ Kg4 11.Nxg6 Kf3 12.Kc2 Kxf2 13.Kd3 Kf3=&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;14.Kf3&lt;/code&gt; is &lt;strong&gt;the only move&lt;/strong&gt; that draws.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The point is that in all variations Black is able to create sufficient counter-play &lt;strong&gt;with the h-pawn&lt;/strong&gt; which results in White being forced to give up knight for him ending in a drawn pawn end game or Black simply manages to exchange all pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All the positions were checked with tablebase from &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.k4it.de/index.php?topic=egtb&amp;amp;lang=en&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this site&lt;/a&gt;, so when I put =, it means that I have consulted the &lt;strong&gt;tablebases&lt;/strong&gt; as well. I also fully stand behind my evaluations, so if anybody has a question or a comment feel free to ask/comment-I will respond as soon as possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The above sample is good enough to give the reader an idea how to save the game. The rest is omitted in order to preserve space.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;/&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;*&lt;/em&gt;**&lt;em&gt;*&lt;/em&gt;**&lt;em&gt;*&lt;/em&gt;**&lt;/strong&gt; BEGINNING OF THE OLD POST &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;*&lt;/em&gt;**&lt;em&gt;*&lt;/em&gt;**&lt;em&gt;*&lt;/em&gt;****&lt;/strong&gt;/&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;This was the old calculation and is left for the sake of not making previous comments ( especially one made by the member &lt;strong&gt;DagOskarMadsen&lt;/strong&gt; ) useless. Also, I believe that the variations are highly instructive.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/5p1p/6p1/2k3P1/p3p3/1pK1P2P/5P2/1N6 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1...Kd5 2.Kb4 Ke5 3.Kxa4 b2! 4.Kb3 ( 4.Nd2 Kf5 5.Kb3 b1=Q+! 6.Nxb1 Kxg5 7.Nd2 f5? +- 8.f3 exf3 9.Nxf3+ Kh5 10.Kc4 g5 11.Nd4!+- transposes ) Kf5 5.Kxb2 Kxg5 6.Nd2 f5? +- 7.f3 exf3 8.Nxf3+ Kh5 9.Kc3 g5! 10.Nd4!+- Kg6 (10...g4 11.hxg4+ fxg4 ( 11...Kxg4 12.Kd3+- ) 12.e4+- )( 10...f4 11.exf4 gxf4 12.Nf3+- ) 11.Kc4 Kf6 ( 11...g4 12.hxg4 fxg4 13.e4 Kg5 ( 13...g3 14.Kd5 g2 ( 14...h5 15.Nf5! g2 16.Nh4+) 15.Nf3+- ) 14.e5 g3 15.Kd5 g2 ( 15...Kf4 16.Ne2+! Kg4 17.Nxg3+- ) 16.Ne2!+- ) 12.Kd5 h5 13.Kd6! g4 ( 13...h4 14.Nf3 g4 15.hxg4 fxg4 16.Nxh4 Kg5 17.Ng2! Kf5 18.Kd5 g3 19.e4+ Kg4 20.Kd4! Kf3 21.Ne3+- ) 14.h4!&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;with decisive &lt;em&gt;zugzwang&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is not enough space to show all winning moves &lt;strong&gt;entirely&lt;/strong&gt; so I have stopped my analysis &lt;strong&gt;as soon as position arising can be solved with tablebases&lt;/strong&gt;. Hopefully you will understand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;/&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;*&lt;/em&gt;**&lt;em&gt;*&lt;/em&gt;**&lt;em&gt;*&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; END OF OLD POST &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;*&lt;/em&gt;**&lt;em&gt;*&lt;/em&gt;**&lt;em&gt;*&lt;/em&gt;**&lt;em&gt;*&lt;/em&gt;**&lt;em&gt;*&lt;/em&gt;**&lt;em&gt;*&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;/&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;CONCLUSION:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is this endgame winnable for whites?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No, it is winnable for White. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Again, I apologize for giving you false information, but I believe that the end game is &lt;strong&gt;highly instructive&lt;/strong&gt; and just could not leave it without &lt;strong&gt;thorough&lt;/strong&gt; analysis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hopefully this answer will help you to learn something new-&lt;strong&gt;I know I certainly did!&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Best regards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastEditorUserId="2042" LastEditDate="2014-01-20T19:38:45.397" LastActivityDate="2014-01-20T19:38:45.397" CommentCount="18" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4506" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4492" CreationDate="2014-01-19T21:58:17.313" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;A chess game is usually said to be in three phases: opening, middlegame and endgame. However there are not any fixed borderlines between these phases so your phrase about &quot;plan in the middlegame&quot; is &lt;strong&gt;very&lt;/strong&gt; vague.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are many possible openings you may choose as white or black which will affect the positions which may arise in the middlegame. When you say you have problems finding a plan in the middlegame, this may mean you have not chosen the right positions to play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is easier to understand when you think planning as merely &lt;strong&gt;pattern recognition&lt;/strong&gt;. As Philidor once said, &quot;pawns are the soul of chess&quot; and pawn structures usually determine the characteristics of positions. As an example, isolated d-pawn is a very common structure which you can find in the opening lines of Caro-Kann Panov Attack, many variations of Queen's Gambit (Tarrasch is one of them). Some of those are completely different openings but in a middlegame position with a similar structure the patterns are similar thereby common plans are also similar. White usually plays for a kingside attack given the fact that the isolated d-pawn (d4-pawn in this example) makes e5-square available. Black, in turn, hopes for a blockade on d5-square and tries to eliminate White's attack by exchanging pieces with the hope that every piece exchanged makes the isolated pawn more and more exposed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The more patterns you can recognize, the easier you can come up with plans. To recognize patterns you have to learn from the masters. Start with classic games. However old they look they will make you understand both how the chess theory improved and how ideas were formed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is not a confirmed information but I have heard once that Vladimir Kramnik analyzed lots of classic games as part of his preparation against Garry Kasparov. You see, even grandmasters find some value in relatively old looking games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for the book, I can recommend &lt;strong&gt;Chess Fundamentals&lt;/strong&gt; by &lt;strong&gt;Jose Raul Capablanca&lt;/strong&gt;. This is a fantastic book where the third world champion explains his moves and positions with astonishing simplicity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1716" LastActivityDate="2014-01-19T21:58:17.313" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4507" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4472" CreationDate="2014-01-19T22:01:14.607" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Two links for convenience:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://ratings.fide.com/calculator_rtd.phtml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;FIDE Rating Change calculator&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://ratings.fide.com/calculator_rp.phtml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;FIDE Initial Rating calculator (Rating performance)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1716" LastActivityDate="2014-01-19T22:01:14.607" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4508" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-01-19T23:31:05.223" Score="5" ViewCount="12834" Body="&lt;p&gt;When playing the Sicilian Defence, what should black do when white's second move is: &lt;code&gt;2.d4&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Should black take the white pawn, or should he continue to develop, by say moving pawn to &lt;code&gt;e6&lt;/code&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2304" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-02-05T21:04:38.937" LastActivityDate="2014-05-21T13:43:23.410" Title="How should black meet 2.d4 in the Sicilian Defense?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4509" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4508" CreationDate="2014-01-19T23:37:11.163" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You mean in 1e4 c5 2d4 right ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well the point of the sicilian is to trade our c5 pawn for d4 and open the c file and get rid of white's center pawn&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyway, that line u talk about is called smith-morra gambit&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See this video for better preparation &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/video/player/best-play-against-the-smith-morra---part-1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2300" LastActivityDate="2014-01-19T23:37:11.163" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4510" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4508" CreationDate="2014-01-20T08:27:02.597" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, Morra gambit is not very dangerous for black. In young age I usually have taken the pawn and played scheme with Nc6, Ne7, pawns a6, b5, e6, f6. Later I have become a  huge fan of hedgehog systems, that's why I give pawn back after 3... d3. The problem with this hedgehog is that White have some extra tempos there and they can use them if they go to Bishop b2 fianchetto. It is dangerous to play this position by Black, if White player has good openening knowledge but Black didn't.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2173" LastActivityDate="2014-01-20T08:27:02.597" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4511" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4508" CreationDate="2014-01-20T08:59:18.793" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;In classical chess openings, the first thing white tries to do is build a pawn center with pawns on both e4 and d4. So the first goal of 1.e4 is to follow up with 2.d4, and the first goal of 1.d4 is to follow up with 2.e4. Of course, there is an opponent, so usually white has to shift plans quite quickly, but that's the classical theory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black can react in several different ways. If he attacks pawn e4 right now, then white can't really move 2.d4; that's what 1...d5 and 1...Nf6 do. 1...e6 and 1...c6 prepare 2...d5, so that black also gets a foothold in the center. Moves like 1...g6 let white go right ahead and hope that black will be able to sabotage white's center later and use the empty space left behind. 1...e5 puts black's own pawn in the center, makes 2.d4 exd4 possible and opens up lines for the bishop and queen: the classical best move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1...c5 does slightly less than 1...e5: if white does play d4, black can chop off the pawn, and it opens up a diagonal for the queen, but no minor pieces are freed. The point is that that e-pawn is a center pawn, and therefore more valuable than the c-pawn: if black can trade &lt;em&gt;c&lt;/em&gt; for d, he'll have one more pawn in the center. It's a very long term idea and he'll suffer first because he is behind in development, but the extra center pawn is helpful in defence and if he survives he'll probably have a better pawn structure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the whole idea of the opening is to play 2...cxd4 after 1.e4 c5 2.d4. 2...e6 would be followed by 3.d5, when black can't trade c for d anymore and white gets a slight space advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This also explains the three main ways to play white against the Sicilian: fight it head on by still going for d4 (either 2.d4 or 2.Nf3 3.d4) and try to destroy black using the development advantage, &lt;em&gt;prepare&lt;/em&gt; d4 with 2.c3 (&quot;the only move that takes the Sicilian seriously&quot;, van der Sterren), or all the other plans that use d3 instead of d4, trying to show that white can do without d4 and that therefore 1...c5 is silly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2014-01-20T08:59:18.793" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4512" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="59" CreationDate="2014-01-20T09:42:20.837" Score="-10" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is not always possible , I try out everything possible in maximum cases I found it written as possible but then I started playing obtaining that position with chess grandmaster , it doesn't let his game defeated by any cost , then I tried grandmaster with various softwares and finally game draw . &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2305" LastActivityDate="2014-01-20T09:42:20.837" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4514" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-01-20T15:37:29.700" Score="3" ViewCount="448" Body="&lt;p&gt;For instance, I consider the Queen's Gambit to be such an opening. Most beginners playing black would accept the gambit, and try to defend their pawn too, leading to inferior lines for black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any others?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2307" LastActivityDate="2014-01-20T20:31:06.570" Title="what are some good openings with a trap to play *against* beginners?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="11" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4515" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4514" CreationDate="2014-01-20T17:57:57.977" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is none. You should play the openings where you are stronger, and you should play normally as if you were facing a strong opponent, because if you let your opponent get some kind of messy position you are risking losing yourself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All I can say is to play good moves, sooner or later your opponent will blunder something.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2300" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2014-01-20T20:31:06.570" LastActivityDate="2014-01-20T20:31:06.570" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4517" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4524" CreationDate="2014-01-20T21:49:06.910" Score="7" ViewCount="3776" Body="&lt;p&gt;I saw, some weeks ago, a &lt;a href=&quot;http://shop.chess.co.uk/product-p/cb02984.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;video&lt;/a&gt; of the great GM Roman Dzindzichashvili, claiming that Sicilian Dragon is somewhat refuted, or at least it is a dubious system. I normally play the Grand Prix against the Sicilian, but if what I saw on the video is true, I may switch to the Yugoslav attack. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically my question is the dragon really a bad opening and is the Yugoslav attack the its &quot;refutation&quot; (strong word I know) ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="872" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-06T16:11:44.173" LastActivityDate="2020-03-06T16:11:44.173" Title="Does the Yugoslav Attack refute the Sicilian Dragon?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="4520" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4522" CreationDate="2014-01-21T11:46:43.563" Score="6" ViewCount="246" Body="&lt;p&gt;I need help on how to improve my thinking about endgames and how to produce a plan, what should I focus on and what should I not?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2312" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2014-01-21T12:12:35.907" LastActivityDate="2014-01-21T16:36:49.690" Title="How to make a plan in an endgame?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4522" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4520" CreationDate="2014-01-21T11:59:54.217" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Planning in the endgame (this is what I seek on endgames)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is a breakdown of the different imbalances and what you should aim for:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Material (owning pieces of greater value than the opponent's);&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Space (the annexation of territory on a chess board);&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Superior Minor Piece (the interplay between Bishops and Knights);&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Pawn Structure (a broad subject that encompasses doubled pawns,&#xA;isolated pawns, etc.);&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Control of a key file or square (files and diagonals act as pathways&#xA;for your pieces, while squares act as outposts);&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Lead in development (more force in a specific area of the board);&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Initiative (dictating the tempo of a game).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If we are to use these things properly we must be able to break down our thinking in a way that allows us to dissect any particular position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are the stages of my thinking technique that enables us to accomplish this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Figure out the positive and negative imbalances for both sides;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Figure out the side of the board you wish to play on. You can only&#xA;play where a favorable imbalance or the possibility of creating a&#xA;favorable imbalance exists;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Don't calculate! Instead, dream up various fantasy positions, i.e.,&#xA;the positions you would most like to achieve;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Once you find a fantasy position that makes you happy, you must&#xA;figure out if you can reach it. If you find that your choice was not&#xA;possible to achieve, you must create another dream position easier&#xA;to achieve;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Only now you will look at the moves you wish to calculate (called&#xA;candidate moves). The candidate moves are all the moves that lead to&#xA;our dream position.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2300" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2014-01-21T16:36:49.690" LastActivityDate="2014-01-21T16:36:49.690" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4523" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1521" CreationDate="2014-01-21T12:53:05.997" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think post-game analysis gives you the best chance of identifying if a player was cheating. This can be done using what is called as the T3/T4 analysis. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This basically measures the frequency at which a player picks one of the top 3 or top 4 moves that are suggested by an engine. This largely eliminates the need to identify the target engine in use (as they will generally agree on the top 4/5 moves even if the order of preference is different).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are software available that will run a set of games of the user against the top n moves of the engine.&#xA;Edit:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am aware of &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/blog/gwhuebner/chessanalyse-26-released&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;ChessAnalyse&lt;/a&gt; that can be used to do such an analysis. You can try the 30 day trial version.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="118" LastEditorUserId="118" LastEditDate="2014-01-22T15:53:48.753" LastActivityDate="2014-01-22T15:53:48.753" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4524" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4517" CreationDate="2014-01-21T15:39:51.507" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, it is not refuted, and it is not any more dubious than dozens of other mainstream openings. It's dangerous for both sides, of course. I would not worry about its theoretical status until your rating gets to 2600 or so.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note also that if you stop playing the Grand Prix, you're going to have to decide what to do against all the other Black Open Sicilian defense besides the Dragon.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2014-01-21T15:39:51.507" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4525" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2014-01-21T20:08:01.430" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2014-01-21T20:08:01.430" LastActivityDate="2014-01-21T20:08:01.430" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4526" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2014-01-21T20:08:01.430" Score="0" Body="The Fried Liver Attack is a very tactical variation of the Two Knights Defense beginning with the moves 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nf6 4.Ng5 d5 5.exd5 Nxd5 6.Nxf7 Kxf7." OwnerUserId="1485" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2014-01-22T05:24:34.430" LastActivityDate="2014-01-22T05:24:34.430" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4527" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-01-21T20:50:12.220" Score="4" ViewCount="242" Body="&lt;p&gt;It’s Black to move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[FEN &quot;r3k2r/pppbn2p/4p1p1/8/3PNq2/2PB2P1/PP3P1P/R2QR1K1 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Ep8xH.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Here's a picture of a groovy little portable chess set with the position above&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2315" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-03-12T18:33:21.723" LastActivityDate="2020-03-15T13:16:45.663" Title="Can the Black still win the game? How?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;learning&gt;&lt;middlegame&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="4528" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4527" CreationDate="2014-01-21T20:56:21.957" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Black is losing by one pawn but the e6 shall fall as well , so white will lead by 2 pawns. in that case white would be winning by in chess anything is possible, it's difficult for black to win but maybe you can confuse your opponent and get ahead in the game&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2300" LastActivityDate="2014-01-21T20:56:21.957" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4529" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4527" CreationDate="2014-01-22T02:10:49.673" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Black is pretty well busted.  His minor pieces are inferior to White's. His Queen has few squares and will end up on f7, f8, or h6. He has not yet castled.  Plus he's down a pawn and has an isolated e-pawn whose weakness is accentuated by the uncastled King.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White has a grasp on the center, good pawns, a castled King, and a Rook on the best file. I don't care for the fianchetto'd g-pawn with the light-squared Black Bishop and Queen on the board, but if Black can't exploit it then it does not matter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stockfish isn't very excited about Black's chances and believes the game to be decisively won by White:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[FEN &quot;r3k2r/pppbn2p/4p1p1/8/3PNq2/2PB2P1/PP3P1P/R2QR1K1 b q - 2 2&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;2... Qf7 3.Qb3 O-O-O 4.Ng5 Qf8 5.Nxe6 Bxe6 6.Rxe6 Nc6 7.Ba6 bxa6 8.Rxc6 Rd6 9.Qc4 Rxc6 10.Qxc6 Qe8 11.Qxa6+ Kb8 12.Rd1 Rf8 13.d5 Qe7 14.Qb5+ Kc8 15.Qc4 Qd6 16.Kg2 h6 17.Qe2 Kd8 18.Qe3 Qb6 19.Re1 Qxe3&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With a score of +4.2.  None of those moves look too hard to find, and I'd wager White can find good moves easier than Black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2014-01-22T04:14:21.567" LastActivityDate="2014-01-22T04:14:21.567" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4530" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="75" CreationDate="2014-01-22T11:18:53.820" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Ruy Lopez, Schliemann Defense&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Very sharp response to the Ruy Lopez. In blitz it is playable at all levels. At slower time-controls, should be solid even for master play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 f5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="145" LastActivityDate="2014-01-22T11:18:53.820" CommentCount="0" CommunityOwnedDate="2014-01-22T11:18:53.820" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4531" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4535" CreationDate="2014-01-22T15:12:03.620" Score="37" ViewCount="9163" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've spoken to many people who played chess as children; some of them were very good players, playing at the national level. Around age 11 or 12 they stopped playing chess competitively and lost interest in the game altogether. I've asked them why &amp;amp; have received answers like &lt;em&gt;&amp;quot;It wasn't fun anymore&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;&amp;quot;I was forced to play older children whom I couldn't beat&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt;. While it makes sense to me that a child is likely to lose interest in a game they can't win at, reaching the national level is something to be proud of. Even if you no longer play competitively, surely you'd still enjoy following chess and playing for fun? If we compare this to, say, soccer, I know many people who stopped playing competitively after primary school but still follow the sport. Why is chess different? Why do so many young people divorce themselves from chess completely when they feel they've reached their potential and can't advance any further?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2078" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-01-18T17:15:28.497" LastActivityDate="2021-05-13T07:54:10.443" Title="Why do so many children stop playing chess?" Tags="&lt;psychology&gt;&lt;children&gt;" AnswerCount="13" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="4532" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4527" CreationDate="2014-01-22T17:02:11.910" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;How much time is remaining for each color? If black has substantially more time than white and white is about to run out of time then black is likely to win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Assuming this is a person vs person game and time is not part of the equation the answer has got to be yes, black can still win. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Two things are certain. One is that as of yet, there is no forced mate. So the game could go either way depending on what mistakes are made. The second is that if black quits, black cannot win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How does black win? By not quiting and playing the rest of the game better than white while white makes mistakes. If black is better at the end game than white is and white makes mistakes black can still win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If this is computer vs computer I think the answer is no. Black won't win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If this is person vs computer and the computer is strong and playing white I think the answer is no.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course there are other possibilities too. The best way to find out is by finishing the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1583" LastActivityDate="2014-01-22T17:02:11.910" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4535" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4531" CreationDate="2014-01-22T22:43:06.923" Score="20" Body="&lt;p&gt;In order to prevent my answer &lt;strong&gt;to be misunderstood/wrongly interpreted&lt;/strong&gt;, let me state few thing now, at the beginning:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I &lt;strong&gt;LOVE&lt;/strong&gt; to play chess.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I am inactive, and doubt I will &lt;strong&gt;ever play&lt;/strong&gt; on tournaments again, but I &lt;strong&gt;still follow the game.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, let us proceed towards answering the OP's question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;...I know many people who stopped playing competitively after primary school but still follow the sport. Why is chess different: why do so many young people divorce themselves from chess completely when they feel they've reached their potential and can't advance any further?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In order for someone to continue sports/mountain climbing/collecting stamps/whatever they need to have a reason for doing it - &lt;strong&gt;and it must be a very good and strong one!&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So let us start examining this from the athlete's point of view for a start, and then we shall compare our conclusions with those for a chess player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;ATHLETE'S POINT OF VIEW:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A child athlete could like sports because he can :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Play with &lt;strong&gt;people&lt;/strong&gt; of similar interest &lt;strong&gt;and of the approximately same age&lt;/strong&gt; and he can be &lt;strong&gt;a part of something&lt;/strong&gt;;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;He can &lt;strong&gt;improve his health or maintain its good shape&lt;/strong&gt;, he can get popular which can give him many social benefits;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;He needs &lt;strong&gt;little work to do in order to improve&lt;/strong&gt; compared to a chess player, and if he continues to pursue sports there is a chance for him to have &lt;strong&gt;great future (fame, money and so on).&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;CHESS PLAYER'S POINT OF VIEW:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Young chess player is surrounded with his peers at the beginning but as soon as he progresses he meets &lt;strong&gt;usually older people&lt;/strong&gt; to play against. Imagine a child on a decent tournament (this scenario is really plausible since 12 year old can reach FIDE master/near FIDE master strength) surrounded with older people - it makes him feel awkward, like he does not belong there. He can not socialize with them since they have no common conversational topics due to age difference - &lt;strong&gt;which will lead to loneliness&lt;/strong&gt;, unlike the athlete who is usually &lt;strong&gt;surrounded with their peers and feels great for being a part of the team, for belonging to a group.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Chess improves mental abilities (some mathematical disciplines and  memory), but spending too much time on the board &lt;strong&gt;neglects a child's physical development.&lt;/strong&gt; In that age &lt;strong&gt;physical development is far more important&lt;/strong&gt; on the long run than to be a spelling champion. Furthermore, a successful athlete gets the social benefits, like popularity in school and many others, while being a chess player is not being fully approved today-nobody likes to lose from a girl and guys are labeled as boring geeks. Sorry to say it, but in the long run being the athlete really has its benefits even if you do it for fun but playing chess in your free time does not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Regarding the improving method athlete again has it easier. Let us take basketball for an example: If a tall child and a short one start training and invest &lt;strong&gt;equal amount of work&lt;/strong&gt; the taller one will still be a better player because of his &lt;strong&gt;innate height advantage.&lt;/strong&gt; We see this in sports all the time-&lt;strong&gt;physical attributes play huge roll.&lt;/strong&gt; In chess these two will be &lt;strong&gt;of equal strength&lt;/strong&gt; if they invest &lt;strong&gt;equal amount of work.&lt;/strong&gt; Why is this so important? In order to be the best in sports you need &lt;strong&gt;both physical attributes and skill&lt;/strong&gt; yet in chess &lt;strong&gt;pure skill is the only thing that counts.&lt;/strong&gt; Let us take Shaquille O'Neil as an example - his free throws are horrible, but he is still a top player because his &lt;strong&gt;physical attributes combined with other skills compensate.&lt;/strong&gt; In chess, lack of skill &lt;strong&gt;can not be compensated&lt;/strong&gt; - you must work hard to remove your shortcomings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So what is the result for our 12 year old chess player? Work your butt off to be good chess player for what - to be socially labeled by a bad stereotype? So you can get kyphosis/scoliosis for sitting on the board for too long? We all know that only few chess players ended up millionaires compared to countless athletes out there. So what is the future for a child if decides to &lt;strong&gt;really&lt;/strong&gt; pursue chess? He will most probably reach grandmaster strength with hard work only to realize that there are many others like him and that he will have to work &lt;strong&gt;even harder&lt;/strong&gt; just to have a &lt;strong&gt;chance to become top level GM.&lt;/strong&gt; Strong memory and good mathematical abilities do not count much - we have computers/smart phones and other stuff to do that for us, yet physical fitness is still &lt;strong&gt;of paramount importance&lt;/strong&gt; for us.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, you can find sports report on any news station/newspaper/Internet page, yet chess resources are very skimpy - again this requires hard work or maybe &lt;strong&gt;devotion&lt;/strong&gt; is the true word and not many 12 year old children possess it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To conclude: After playing chess for sometime child will reach the peak at strengthening its memorization skills and after that it decides to pursue other interests &lt;strong&gt;and to explore new things. Devoting oneself to one thing at this early age&lt;/strong&gt; is something that is not seen very often - children at that age learn about the world around them and it is &lt;strong&gt;normal for them to want to try everything.&lt;/strong&gt; To devote oneself to chess - &lt;strong&gt;and you really need to devote yourself based on the reasons posted above&lt;/strong&gt; - requires strong characters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I will end this quoting &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikhail_Botvinnik&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Mikhail Botvinnik&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Chess is for strong people, of strong character.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How many children do you know that possess these admirable traits?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hopefully this answer will shed some light on the matter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Again, I do not mean anything insulting, I just state my opinion which is backed up with arguments.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Feel free to comment, I will gladly reply.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Best regards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2021-01-18T16:54:42.710" LastActivityDate="2021-01-18T16:54:42.710" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="4538" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4498" CreationDate="2014-01-23T16:24:59.683" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let's try to understand the position after Nxe6 (see below). The material balance after fxe6 will be as follows: pawns are equal, so black will be one light piece up. Next, let's look at King safety. The white king is perfectly safe on c1. The black king becomes exposed on the h5-e8 diagonal as well as on the d-file that is already controlled by the white Rd1. Now, let's consider piece activity and roles. All of white's pieces are active and have an important role, except for Rh1. While black has a sad story, where the Ra8, Bc8, Bf8 and Rh8 are more or less inactive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 a6 6. Bg5 e6 7. f4 Nbd7 8. Qf3 h6 9. Bxf6 Nxf6 10. O-O-O Qb6 11. e5 Nd7 12. Bc4 dxe5 13. Nxe6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, Bc8 and Bf8 cover the squares in front of black's king, while the respective rooks will become strong once they are activated. This means that black's material advantage should not be underestimated. Yet, at this very moment, white will get a strong attack on the black king, precisely because black's pieces are not ready to meet the attack! Here is a possible continuation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 a6 6. Bg5 e6 7. f4 Nbd7 8. Qf3 h6 9. Bxf6 Nxf6 10. O-O-O Qb6 11. e5 Nd7 12. Bc4 dxe5 13. Nxe6 fxe6 14.Qh5+ Kd8 15.Qf7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In terms of plans, I think black will try to hide the king on a7, while white should check a lot and grab as much material as possible in the process. In summary, I think that the sacrifice on e6 has the typical motifs of a white knight sacrifice in the Sicilian Najdorf variation. The main criterium is that the black king should become exposed and attacked in an active manner. I think this criterium is clearly met in this case!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastActivityDate="2014-01-23T16:24:59.683" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4539" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-01-23T16:47:51.907" Score="10" ViewCount="2497" Body="&lt;p&gt;What are good openings/defenses to study for both black and white for beginners. I've messed around with the sicilian defense and it is not bad, there's just so many variations and different types of defenses/openings its overwhelming. I understand the only way to learn is to play one for a little while. Are there any sites with virtual chess boards that show step by step examples of some of the popular styles. It's not easy to learn when all you get e4, e5 nf3 etc. Are there any viable openings for white other than d4/e4, these seem overused and very cliche &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2331" LastEditorUserId="2331" LastEditDate="2018-06-07T17:48:46.203" LastActivityDate="2019-10-05T07:37:26.693" Title="Beginner Openings/Defenses to learn" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;defense&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="4540" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1948" CreationDate="2014-01-23T16:56:55.907" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let's try to understand the position after ...Qa3 (see below). First of all, the name itself (Poisoned Pawn) already indicates that black should be careful in this variation. Let's look at the material balance: black is one pawn up. Next, looking at the King safety, the black king is slightly less safe because the white pieces are more actively placed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 a6 6. Bg5 e6 7. f4 Qb6 8. Qd2 Qxb2 9. Rb1 Qa3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What should black look out for / aim for? Well, the Qa3 is not perfectly placed. The queen is better placed on c7. The queen might also become trapped. Black should focus on king safety and queen safety. Probably try to castle kingside, Bf8-e7, O-O. As well as Qa3-a5-c7. White should aim for launching an attack on the black king. The e4-e5 advance is one option, f4-f5 is another option, Bxf6 gxf6 is a third option.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White aims to keep all the pieces (avoid exchanges) and keep the black king unsafe. Black aims for king and queen safety and for exchanges of pieces that do not lead to static (pawn structure) weaknesses. I think that black should stay active and launch a counter-attack when needed. It is not unusual for Sicilian Najdorf positions to become very sharp and for the black king to stay in the center. The player with the black pieces should be ready for such positions and handle them as well as possible!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastActivityDate="2014-01-23T16:56:55.907" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4541" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4539" CreationDate="2014-01-23T16:58:38.930" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I was just starting out in chess, I was barely able to beat people low rated, Thats very very low. But slowly, and with much practice, after about 1000 games of chess with little opening/defense knowledge, I was able to reach the mid 1200's quite easily. To make the new transition over to the 1300's, I had to try even harder to remember openings and tactics. The self training took me months, and plenty of hours out of my spare time, but I learned enough opening knowledge and pawn tricks to improve way over 1300.I wondered what the best types of openings and defences would have helped me the most along the way. Well, after careful analysis, I have concluded that 5 different openings were the best for me to use during my &quot;beginner&quot; days. Be aware that ALL of the openings below have been used and tested by many GM's, and are in use in today's most serious of tournaments. Below are the openings, and the reasons why beginners should use them =]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;     1. e4 &#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.e4 &#xA;*&#xA;Kings Pawn Opening is the most widely used opening in chess, because of the feature to open up both the light square bishop and the queen at the same time. Also, the pawn grabs for the center, causing tension for black. After moving e4, just develop your minor pieces and you should do fine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;     1. d4 Nf6 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When playing as black, if white should make their first move d4 (queen's pawn) then you should try to use this move fairly often. In most games, the knight moving to Nf6 is inevitable most times, so doing it first will save you time in the long run. Don't try this when white plays e4, because that would transition to the Alekhine defense, a much more advanced defense ;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please be aware, this is only a recommended read for those under 1200 in rating, and basically only just starting out in chess. Of course, those above 1200 can read this and learn something new, but those of you above 1200 should seek Intermediate opening guides that are recommended for those between 1250-1400.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2300" LastEditorUserId="2300" LastEditDate="2014-01-23T19:27:07.857" LastActivityDate="2014-01-23T19:27:07.857" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4542" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4539" CreationDate="2014-01-23T20:46:14.127" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my opinion this is a pretty hard question to answer, because there is no single correct answer to it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The choice of opening repertoire for a player should be determined by his play style, e.g. do you prefer to be aggressive always on the offense or are you more of a tactical player, looking for strategic weaknesses in your opponent's position, do you prefer closed over open positions, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So my answer to your question would be to follow the basic principles of opening play:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;control the center;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;develop your minor pieces to their best squares;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;get your king to safety;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;do not move a single piece too often in the opening, unless there's a pretty good reason to do so;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;do not bring your queen out too early.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From there on pick an opening that fits your play style and study the ideas behind it, not just memorize the moves, understand what each of them accomplishes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Are there any viable openings for white other than d4/e4, these seem&#xA;  overused and very cliche&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These opening moves are most certainly not cliche. Although you might see these moves as the first move in almost every game there are lots of variations that follow. Therefore my recommendation for you would be to play an opening from the family of &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_Game&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;The Italian Game&lt;/a&gt; as White and maybe &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Defence&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;The French Defense&lt;/a&gt; as Black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From my experience as an amateur I came to the conclusion that one shouldn't focus too much on openings. After you pick an opening that fits your style, focus on the endgame and various tactics and strategic ideas. This seems to be more efficient in the long run.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Good luck!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2329" LastEditorUserId="2329" LastEditDate="2014-08-11T13:11:55.377" LastActivityDate="2014-08-11T13:11:55.377" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4543" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4544" CreationDate="2014-01-24T04:26:33.980" Score="8" ViewCount="281" Body="&lt;p&gt;Playing white against my computer I ended up in the following position (with white to move).  To me it looked about even, but no matter what I tried I kept losing the position, and indeed stockfish rates the position around -1.  What exactly is bad about white's position here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;5k2/pppb1pp1/5p2/3Pn3/4B3/2P2N2/P1P3PP/6K1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2005" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2014-01-25T03:48:19.740" LastActivityDate="2014-01-25T03:48:19.740" Title="Why is white in trouble in the following endgame?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4544" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4543" CreationDate="2014-01-24T05:10:51.970" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;What's bad for White in this position is that his structure is already slightly worse (isolated a-pawn), and that Black can worsen it further. White's advanced d-pawn is actually a liability that Black can readily attack by bringing her king forward. The pawn will prove difficult to defend, and at the very least Black can basically force White to accept being saddled with two isolated c-pawns as well by playing &lt;code&gt;...c6&lt;/code&gt; at some point (when the alternative would be to lose a pawn straightaway on d5).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this enough to mean that White is necessarily lost? Probably not (though I certainly wouldn't fancy trying to hold it against a strong engine). But the point is that Black doesn't have similar structural weaknesses, and so she doesn't have the same natural targets to deal with (her doubled pawns aren't nearly the liability that White's are), while White will be forced to keep an eye guarding his queenside. To my mind, this is enough to explain Stockfish preferring Black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately we &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.meta.stackexchange.com/q/249/167&quot;&gt;don't have inline annotations active&lt;/a&gt; for the site's PGN viewer, so I will let the verbal explanation already given suffice, and provide just a handful of variations illustrating the points given.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;5k2/pppb1pp1/5p2/3Pn3/4B3/2P2N2/P1P3PP/6K1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Kf2 &#xA;    ( 1.Nd2 Ke7 2.c4 f5 3.Bd3 &#xA;        ( 3.Bf3 Kd6 4.Kf2 Ba4 5.c3 c6 6.dxc6 Bxc6 )&#xA;    3...c6 4.dxc6 Nxc6 )&#xA;1...Ke7 2.Ke3 Kd6 3.Kd4 c5+ $1 4.dxc6 &#xA;    ( 4.Ke3 $2 Ng4+ 5.Kd2 f5 6.Bd3 Kxd5 )&#xA;4...Nxc6+ *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-03-16T15:50:45.707" LastActivityDate="2014-01-24T05:26:31.967" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4545" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-01-24T09:32:51.473" Score="2" ViewCount="176" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is it possible to save the &quot;Level&quot; in &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.playwitharena.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Arena Chess&lt;/a&gt; PGN files? Whenever I save a game as a .PGN file, and the level is set as &quot;Time Per Move&quot;, Arena opens the game and sets the level to &quot;Blitz&quot; automatically. This only happens when I set the game level to &quot;Time per Move&quot;. Any other levels like Tournament, the game when opened will stay Tournament.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1948" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-03-01T20:17:26.477" LastActivityDate="2014-03-01T20:17:26.477" Title="How do you save the &quot;Level&quot; in Arena Chess?" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;pgn&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2019-06-23T16:45:47.003" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4546" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4549" CreationDate="2014-01-24T11:50:24.457" Score="8" ViewCount="4160" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen%27s_Gambit_Accepted#3.e3&quot;&gt;Wikipedia article on Queen's Gambit Accepted&lt;/a&gt; simply notes that &quot;... White has good compensation after 4.Ne2&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;  [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. c4 dxc4 3.e3 Be6 4. Ne2 (4.Qc2)&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What about Qc2 to add further pressure to the c4 black pawn?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2307" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2014-01-24T12:15:19.230" LastActivityDate="2014-01-24T16:12:08.263" Title="Queen's Gambit Accepted : how should White continue after 3.e3 Be6?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;queens-gambit-accepted&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4548" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1103" CreationDate="2014-01-24T15:34:23.023" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Training with different opening and middle game position will slowly teach you to understand. It like learning to play a guitar, etc. It takes time to learn. By using different positions you will learn how to find weak spots and so on. But of course there are books that will give you a better understanding.&#xA;Here are some: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;John Nunn: Understand the middle game&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;John Nunn: Learn chess tactics&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Artur Yusupov: there are 9 books here. GET THEM!!!&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, find a friend that is just a bit better than you, and if you don't have a friend that play's chess, sign yourself up in a chess club, and find a player that is a bit better than you. Use this person to play around in different opening positions, and learn from them. It is important to write down your game so you can analyze the positions and where you go wrong. By doing this you will improve.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In a chess club you will possibly find players that you can beat with no problem, but also probably find players that you can't beat. Let's say that you move yourself up to 1450 in rating, now you should find a player around 1550 - 1600. Learn from this person, and slowly you start to get draws and eventually start to win, and at the end beat the player. Use a bit of time in that rating group, and when you feel ready, find a new player at 1650-1700, learn from this player and so on. If you do this seriously you can move yourself up to a rating around 1900-2100 within 1-2 years. Good luck!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2339" LastEditorUserId="12" LastEditDate="2014-01-28T16:05:47.353" LastActivityDate="2014-01-28T16:05:47.353" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4549" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4546" CreationDate="2014-01-24T16:12:08.263" Score="8" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Queen's Gambit Accepted : how should White continue after 3.e3 Be6?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. c4 dxc4 3.e3 Be6 4. Na3!?&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;seems good to me-Black would not be able to hold the &lt;code&gt;c4&lt;/code&gt; pawn. I would take &lt;code&gt;c4&lt;/code&gt; pawn with the knight and head for &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt;. The other knight can bolster him from &lt;code&gt;f3&lt;/code&gt; and there will always be threats to &lt;code&gt;f7&lt;/code&gt; or to Blacks light squared bishop with &lt;code&gt;Ng5&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The Wikipedia article on Queen's Gambit Accepted simply notes that &quot;... White has good compensation after 4.Ne2&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. c4 dxc4 3.e3 Be6 4. Ne2 b5? 5.a4! c6 ( 5...a6 6.axb5 ) ( 5...bxa4 6.Nf4 Bd5 7.Nc3 c6 8.e4! ) 6.axb5! cxb5 7.Nec3!! Bd7 ( 7...Qd7 8.Qf3 Nc6! 9.Nxb5! ( 9.d5?-+ Nb4 10.dxe6 Nc2+ 11.Ke2 Qd3#) Bf5 10.Nd2 Bd3 11.Nxc4+- ) 8.Qf3 Bc6 9.d5 Bd7 10.b3! Qc8 ( 10...b4 11.Bxc4!! bxc3? 12.d6!+- Bc6 13.Qxf7+ Kd7 14.Qe6+! Ke8 15. d7+! Qxd7 16.Qf7+ Kd8 17.Qxf8++-) 11.bxc4 b4 ( 11...bxc4 12.Na3 ) 12.Na4 Bxa4 13.Rxa4 a5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I bet that strong engine can find even better compensation for White than one I provided above, but I also think that my lines are sufficient as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What about Qc2 to add further pressure to the c4 black pawn?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It should work, but you will &lt;strong&gt;needlessly&lt;/strong&gt; complicate matters too much.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hopefully this answer is what you were looking for.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you have further questions leave a comment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Best regards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastActivityDate="2014-01-24T16:12:08.263" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4550" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1876" CreationDate="2014-01-24T17:16:51.287" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recently showed an interesting variation for black to a few friends at a tournament. There were the good old times when me and my chess club buddies spent hours on end analyzing these sorts of positions. Well, it goes like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Nf6 4. Ng5 d5 5. exd5 Nd4 6.c3 b5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, it looks totally crazy! And it is, too! As far as I remember, the evaluation is that black is equal or slightly better. The variations are ultra sharp. In several paths, the white (!) king will be in trouble! That is opposed to the accepted variation (Nxd5) where the black king has to take a walk. The variation above can continue like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Nf6 4. Ng5 d5 5. exd5 Nd4 6.c3 b5 7.Bf1 Nxd5 8.cxd4 Qxg5 9.Bxb5+ Kd8&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should definitely check this out with the latest games and with an engine! It should be equal or unclear! An unprepared white player will quickly collapse at your feet! Happy hunting!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastActivityDate="2014-01-24T17:16:51.287" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4551" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1876" CreationDate="2014-01-24T17:39:02.340" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a very interesting counter to the fried liver attack that i came across. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aaoeq9nXIEQ&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aaoeq9nXIEQ&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;    1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Nf6 4. Ng5 Bc5 5. Nxf7 Bxf2 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are lots of variations covered by &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/user/MatoJelic?feature=watch&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;matoJelic&lt;/a&gt;, please have a look.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="118" LastEditorUserId="118" LastEditDate="2014-01-24T17:45:10.053" LastActivityDate="2014-01-24T17:45:10.053" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4553" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4557" CreationDate="2014-01-25T12:37:44.193" Score="5" ViewCount="2025" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I play online blitz, playing black, I usually answer &lt;code&gt;1. e4 e5 2. Qh5&lt;/code&gt; with &lt;code&gt;2... Nf6!? 3.Qxe5 Be7&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Qh5 Nf6 3.Qxe5 Be7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White often collapses quickly due to lack of development and exposed queen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How good is this gambit objectively? Is there an established main line?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1485" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-02-07T15:04:06.560" LastActivityDate="2014-02-07T15:04:06.560" Title="How good is 1. e4 e5 2. Qh5 Nf6?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;theory&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4554" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="75" CreationDate="2014-01-25T13:55:06.537" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Sicilian Defense, Dragon Variation, Yugoslav Attack&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another pretty sharp opening for both sides is The Sicilian Dragon, with the &lt;a href=&quot;//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sicilian_Defence,_Dragon_Variation#Yugoslav_Attack&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yugoslav Attack&lt;/a&gt; being one of the sharpest variations. It differs from most of the openings listed here because it's not a gambit, but still a very sharp and dangerous opening with lots of threats for both White and Black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;9. Bc4&lt;/code&gt;  being the more aggressive move and &lt;code&gt;9. O-O-O&lt;/code&gt;  goes for more tactical play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Title &quot;Sicilian Defense / Dragon Variation / Yugoslav Attack&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 g6 6. Be3 Bg7 7. f3 O-O 8. Qd2 Nc6 9. Bc4 (9. O-O-O)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2329" LastEditorUserId="4186" LastEditDate="2020-03-10T06:54:53.700" LastActivityDate="2020-03-10T06:54:53.700" CommentCount="0" CommunityOwnedDate="2014-01-25T13:55:06.537" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="4555" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4662" CreationDate="2014-01-25T14:33:59.973" Score="5" ViewCount="2990" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the following opening:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. c4 dxc4 3. e3 b5 4. a4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a well-known trap if Black tries to defend the c file pawn with:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. c4 dxc4 3. e3 b5 4. a4 c6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However I got the following played against me:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. c4 dxc4 3. e3 b5 4. a4 Bd7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How should White respond?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2307" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-01-27T17:24:47.043" LastActivityDate="2014-09-30T21:39:44.010" Title="Queen's Gambit Accepted with black trying to defend the c file pawn with 4. ... Bd7" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;queens-gambit-accepted&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4556" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4555" CreationDate="2014-01-25T14:49:41.373" Score="4" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 d5 2.c4 dxc4 3.e3 b5? 4. a4! Bd7? 5.axb5! Bxb5 6.Bxc4! Bxc4 7.Qxa4+ &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and White gets back the bishop with the advantage ( no matter what Black plays &lt;code&gt;Qxc4&lt;/code&gt; is White's next move ).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hopefully this answer helped.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Best regards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastActivityDate="2014-01-25T14:49:41.373" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4557" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4553" CreationDate="2014-01-25T15:03:17.613" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is it playable in Blitz?  &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hikaru_Nakamura&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;GM Nakamura&lt;/a&gt; played &lt;code&gt;2. Qh5&lt;/code&gt; against &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krishnan_Sasikiran&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;GM Sasikiran&lt;/a&gt; in 2005 who responded with &lt;code&gt;2... Nc6&lt;/code&gt;. Nakamura lost due to an error in the middle game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's the Nakamura game.  It follows the mainline &lt;code&gt;2... Nc6&lt;/code&gt; but shows, to my surprise, White has a good game, contrary to everything I ever heard about moving the Queen too early.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Qh5 Nc6 3.Bc4 g6 4.Qf3 Nf6 5.Ne2 Bg7 6.Nbc3 d6 7.d3 Bg4 8.Qg3 Qd7 9.f3 Be6 10.Bg5 Nh5 11.Qh4 h6 12.Be3 Na5 13.Bb3 Nxb3 14.axb3 a6 15.d4 Qe7 16.Qf2 exd4 17.Bxd4 Nf6 18.O-O-O O-O-O 19.Nf4 Rhg8 20.Rhe1 Kb8 21.Kb1 g5 22.Nfe2 Rge8 23.g4 Qf8 24.Ng3 Nd7 25.Be3 Qh8 26.Nge2 Be5 27.h4 Qg7 28.Rh1 Nf6 29.Bd4 Nd7 30.Qe3 Qf6 31.hxg5 hxg5 32.Bxe5 Qxe5 33.Rh5 Rg8 34.Nd5 Rde8 35.Qc1 Qg7 36.Ne3 Nf6 37.Rh2 Rh8 38.Rg2 Nd7 39.Nd4 Rh3 40.c4 Qf6 41.Rf2 Reh8 42.b4 Qe5 43.c5 dxc5 44.bxc5 Nxc5 45.Qc3 f6 46.Rc2 Na4 47.Qb4 Bd7 48.Nb3 Rh1 49.Rxh1 Rxh1+ 50.Ka2 Nb6 51.Qf8+ Qe8 52.Qxe8+ Bxe8 53.Nc5 Nd7 54.Nxd7+ Bxd7 55.Kb3 Re1 56.Rc3 Be6+ 57.Kc2 Re2+ 58.Kc1 a5 59.Nc2 Rf2 60.Nd4 Bd7 61.Rc5 b6 62.Rd5 Kc8 63.e5 fxe5 64.Rxe5 c5 65.Nb3 Rf1+ 66.Kd2 a4 67.Nxc5 bxc5 68.Rxc5+ Kb7 69.Rxg5 Rxf3 70.Rd5 Be6 71.Rd3 Rf1 72.Rg3 Rf2+ 73.Kc3 Kb6 74.Kb4 Rf4+ 75.Ka3 Kb5 76.Re3 Bd5 77.Rd3 Bc4 78.Re3 Rd4 79.g5 Rd1 80.b3 axb3 81.Re8 Ra1+ 82.Kb2 Ra2+ 83.Kc3 Rc2+ 84.Kd4 b2 85.Rb8+ Ka4 86.g6 Bb5 87.g7 b1=Q 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The opening has a few names.  Most are not complementary.  One less caustic name is the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wayward_Queen_Attack&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Wayward Queen Attack&lt;/a&gt;.  It is classified technically as the &lt;code&gt;C20: KP, Patzer opening&lt;/code&gt;.  This opening is considered 'irregular' and does not have a more specific classification. The sub-variation we're interested in, even moreso.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are no masters game in my database that include &lt;code&gt;2... Nf6&lt;/code&gt;.  There are many amateur games, but sometimes these are games by USCF C-players which does not help us here.  Out of those games, however, Black is heavily favored.  This does not mean the variation is fatal for White, per se.  It could mean that White has to play better or be better prepared than Black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This means that, for blitz, this continuation is &lt;em&gt;splendid&lt;/em&gt; for either side.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's Stockfish's continuation after 15 minutes. Stockfish rates the position above as White being up 1/3 of a pawn. I am sure this is very much within the &quot;error noise&quot;.  I would not really trust it beyond 2 or 3 moves but it shows the gist.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;rnbqk2r/ppppbppp/5n2/4Q3/4P3/8/PPPP1PPP/RNB1KBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Qf4 Nc6 2.e5 Nd5 3.Qe4 Nb6 4.Bb5 O-O 5.Nf3 d5 6.Qe2 Nb4 7.d4 Bg4 8.a3 a6 9.Ba4 Nxa4  10.axb4 Qd7 11.c3 f6 12.O-O fxe5 13.dxe5 Bxf3 14.gxf3 Nb6 15.f4 Qf5 16.Na3 *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Okay, what you see here is a pretty sharp continuation.  Again, superb for a prepared blitz player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's a game at 1 minute per side.  If the result of this game differs from the result of a game with longer controls, perhaps we can deduce that one side has a subjectively easier game and thus an advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;rnbqk2r/ppppbppp/5n2/4Q3/4P3/8/PPPP1PPP/RNB1KBNR w KQkq - 0 3&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;3.Qf4 O-O 4.Nc3 Bd6 5.Qh4 Nc6 6.d4 Nxd4 7.Bd3 Re8 8.Be3 Be5 9.O-O-O Nc6 10.Nce2 d6 11.f4 Ng4 12.Qxd8 Nxd8 13.Bd2 Bf6 14.Rf1 Be7 15.Nf3 Ne6 16.Nc3 Nc5 17.Bc4 c6 18.h3 Nh6 19.g4 b5 20.Nxb5 cxb5 21.Bxb5 Bb7 22.Bxe8 Rxe8 23.g5 Nxe4 24.gxh6 Ng3 25.Rhg1 Ne2+ 26.Kd1 Nxg1 27.Nxg1 Bf6 28.b3 Bg2 29.Rf2 Bc6 30.Rf1 gxh6 31.Ne2 Kh8 32.Ng3 Bg2 33.Re1 Rxe1+ 34.Bxe1 Bxh3 35.c4 Kg7 36.Nh5+ Kg6 37.Nxf6 Kxf6 38.Ke2 Bd7 39.Bb4 Ke6 40.Kf3 h5 41.Kg3 d5 42.cxd5+ Kxd5 43.Bc3 Bg4 44.Be5 a6 45.Kh4 Be2 46.Kg5 Ke4 47.a3 Bg4 48.b4 Bd1 49.Bd6 Kd4 50.Be7 Bg4 51.Bc5+ *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A typical alien-looking game, where each move is coldly logical. It's looking drawish with Black having less than a pawn advantage according to Stockfish.  But the game is no 'trade the pieces' draw; I'd wager there are many ways to lose this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Next will be a game at 10 minutes per move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit - my machine crashed twice yesterday while grinding through the game at 10 minutes per move.  It was about halfway through the last time I looked.  It found 2 moves that could be improved by .3 pts or more.  I'm not going to rerun it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2014-01-26T13:29:27.410" LastActivityDate="2014-01-26T13:29:27.410" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4558" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2014-01-26T16:26:51.003" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2014-01-26T16:26:51.003" LastActivityDate="2014-01-26T16:26:51.003" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4559" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2014-01-26T16:26:51.003" Score="0" Body="Paul Morphy (1837-1884) was a legendary American chess player. After beating Adolf Anderssen in a 1858 match he was regarded as the strongest player in the world." OwnerUserId="1485" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2014-01-26T19:59:20.843" LastActivityDate="2014-01-26T19:59:20.843" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4560" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4553" CreationDate="2014-01-26T18:24:32.917" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;White has to play cautiously, with defensive moves like d3, Nf3, Be2, etc. He will likely end up in a cramped, somewhat symmetrical position, behind in development, but with a pawn plus.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An opening like this might have appealed to a master like Wilhelm Steinmetz who liked cramped positions with a pawn plus &quot;A pawn is worth a little trouble.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He won most such games because his opponents tended to overreach.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2014-01-26T18:24:32.917" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4561" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-01-27T03:07:49.523" Score="6" ViewCount="2178" Body="&lt;p&gt;My question concerns the total material available on the chess board (black+white pieces). At the very beginning of a game, there are 2 Kings, 2 Queens, 4 Rooks, 4 Bishops, 4 Knights and 16 pawns. These can be represented by an array (2, 2, 4, 4, 4, 16). As the game progresses, the total amount of material will change, thus the array will change. My question is as follows. Looking at all theoretically possible games played from the initial position, how many unique arrays are possible to reach? The fact that a pawn can be promoted to any light or heavy piece makes the problem even more tricky!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Initial Board&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;16 Pawns&#xA; 4 Rooks&#xA; 4 Bishops&#xA; 4 Knights&#xA; 2 Queens&#xA; 2 Kings&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After a pawn capture&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;15 Pawns&#xA; 4 Rooks&#xA; 4 Bishops&#xA; 4 Knights&#xA; 2 Queens&#xA; 2 Kings &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Only kings left&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; 0 Pawns&#xA; 0 Rooks&#xA; 0 Bishops&#xA; 0 Knights&#xA; 0 Queens&#xA; 2 Kings&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But it get more complex when you include pawn promotion (to any piece excluding pawn and king). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So what is the total number of combinations?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've listed 3 combinations above. Here a 6 more&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; P  R  N  B  Q  K&#xA;32  4  4  4  2  2  Initial Position and remains the same until a capture&#xA;32  3  4  4  2  2  First capture frequency combinations.  &#xA;32  4  3  4  2  2&#xA;32  4  4  3  2  2&#xA;32  4  4  4  1  2&#xA;31  4  4  4  2  2  Pawn &#xA;etc&#xA;etc&#xA;0  0  0  0  0  2  Only Kings&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It get tricky at pawn promotion cos each of the 16 pawns can turn in one of 4 pieces (R B N Q).  Which is why I curious to know the total number of (unique piece frequencies)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2347" LastEditorUserId="8201" LastEditDate="2019-12-26T17:25:54.137" LastActivityDate="2019-12-26T17:25:54.137" Title="How many possible combinations for the number of pieces on the board?" Tags="&lt;mathematics&gt;&lt;pieces&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4562" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4561" CreationDate="2014-01-27T11:03:23.910" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's :&lt;br&gt;&#xA;numberOfPawnsPieces(=17) * numberOfRooksPieces(=5) * numberOfBishopsPieces(=5) * numberOfKnightsPieces(=5) * numberOfQueensPieces(=3) * numberOfKingsPieces(=1)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;= 6375 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I added one to each number of same piece in case there is no one of its kind(for queens for example, there may be two queens, one queen, or none), except for Kings where there always must be 2 kings on the board, so the number of combinations for kings number is only 1.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;**&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT : In cas there is promotions of pawns&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;**&lt;br&gt;&#xA;My idea to tackle this is to separate all possible cases, i.e. when there is promotion of 1 pawn, promotion of 2 pawns,...,promotion of 8 pawns. ( 8 pawns is the maximum number of possible promotions )&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Generally speaking, when &lt;code&gt;x&lt;/code&gt; pawns are promoted, we will proceed same as above, but the number of pawns will be in each case (16-x), plus an other group of &lt;code&gt;4 * x&lt;/code&gt; possibly created pieces. Finally we will sum all over the cases :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;                17*5*5*5*3*1 + SUM[x=1--&amp;gt;16,(16-x+1)*5*5*5*3*(4*x)] = **1 230 375**&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is approximate, I may have forgotten some cases, or added some positions that are just impossible to happen in a chess game,...etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2282" LastEditorUserId="2282" LastEditDate="2014-01-28T14:46:26.237" LastActivityDate="2014-01-28T14:46:26.237" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4563" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="588" CreationDate="2014-01-27T12:35:07.740" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Every piece has a strength that depends on the position on the board. More specifically, it depends on the pawn structure and piece placement. As you correctly point out, a bishop trapped behind its own pawns (e.g. white has Bc1, pawns on b4, c3 and d2; black has pawns on b5, c4 and d3) is a bad bishop. In general, a bishop that has almost no available squares and/or no targets to attack is a bad bishop. For example, the rule of placing your pawns on squares that are of the opposite color to the squares that the bishop controls is related to both of these factors. If you have a dark squared bishop and you place your pawns on light squares, two things occur.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Your bishop is not blocked by your own pawns.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Your opponent will place pieces and pawns on the same color as your bishop controls.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another example of a bad bishop is a bishop that has to support its own pawn chain, e.g. white has Bb3 and pawns on c2 and a4. As soon as the bishop moves, both pawns become unprotected. A bishop needs&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Mobility&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Responsibility to protect no pawns or only the pawn base (e.g. c2 in a c2-b3-a4 chain).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Targets to attack (e.g. white has Be3 and pawn on a6; black has pawns on a7 and b6; Bxb6 is a constant threat, as well as Be3-f4-b8xa7).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The less these conditions hold true, the worse bishop you get!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastActivityDate="2014-01-27T12:35:07.740" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4564" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4567" CreationDate="2014-01-27T16:07:55.327" Score="0" ViewCount="186" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm just starting at chess and I would like to understand better the game itself , and if possible some tips on how to get better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2312" LastActivityDate="2014-01-30T19:39:57.827" Title="How can I improve and get to know the game?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2014-01-30T20:45:22.167" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4565" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-01-27T16:09:55.903" Score="10" ViewCount="4062" Body="&lt;p&gt;A computer chess game does not permit moving the white King to d2 presumably because it's attacked by the black Knight which I suspect is correct, but the Knight can't actually attack that square because that would put it's King in check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, is the game correct?  Is Kd2 illegal?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/8/4k3/8/4n3/8/8/3KQ3 w - - 0 5&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2318" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-02-07T11:56:34.717" LastActivityDate="2016-03-01T20:54:46.053" Title="Can the King be attacked by a pinned piece?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;kings&gt;&lt;check&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ClosedDate="2017-12-29T04:46:39.887" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4566" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4565" CreationDate="2014-01-27T16:14:38.613" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Nope. It is illegal to move your King to a threatened square. Also, please see this related question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/1515/bizarre-pin-rule-pinned-pieces-do-not-attack&quot;&gt;Bizarre pin rule: pinned pieces do not attack&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Cheers!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2014-01-27T16:14:38.613" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4567" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4564" CreationDate="2014-01-27T16:16:10.670" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess is a game of strategy and tactics. Each player commands an army of 16 chessmen --- pawns and other pieces (the king, queen, bishops, knights, and rooks).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A well-played chess game has three stages. In the opening, the players bring out their forces in preparation for combat. The middlegame begins as the players maneuver for position and carry out attacks and counterattacks. The final stage is the endgame when, with fewer pawns and pieces left on the board, it is safer for the kings to come out and join the final battle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As play proceeds, each player will capture some of the opponent's men; often, the capturing pieces are immediately recaptured. As long as the piece a player gives up is generally equal to the piece he gets in return, we say the players are exchanging. If you unintentionally place a piece where it can be captured without getting a piece of equal value in return, we say that you put that piece en prise. (This is a French term that literally means &quot;in take.&quot;) Sometimes a player may place a piece en prise in order to trick an opponent. If the opponent captures the offered man, it may leave him open to attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You're Ready to Go!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's time for you to take a look at these ten tips to help you learn some simple ways to win more games:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1 Look at your opponent's move.&#xA;2 Make the best possible move.&#xA;3 Have a plan.&#xA;4 Know what the pieces are worth.&#xA;5 Develop quickly and well.&#xA;6 Control the center.&#xA;7 Keep your king safe.&#xA;8 Know when to trade pieces.&#xA;9 Think about the endgame.&#xA;10 Always be alert.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Don't rush. Take your time and be sure to study the examples carefully&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2300" LastActivityDate="2014-01-27T16:16:10.670" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4568" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4565" CreationDate="2014-01-27T16:25:27.490" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;Kd2 is indeed illegal. You can think of it this way: normally Black can't move his knight because White would &quot;capture his king&quot;, but if White were able to play Kd2 then Black would capture White's king before White got a chance to capture his.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2014-01-27T16:25:27.490" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4569" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4565" CreationDate="2014-01-27T16:25:53.507" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fide.com/component/handbook/?id=124&amp;amp;view=article&quot;&gt;FIDE Laws of Chess&lt;/a&gt; say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;3.8 There are two different ways of moving the king: by moving to any adjoining square not attacked by one or more of the opponent’s pieces&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  ...  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;3.9 The king is said to be 'in check' if it is attacked by one or more of the opponent's pieces, even if such pieces are constrained from&#xA;  moving to that square because they would then leave or place their own&#xA;  king in check. No piece can be moved that will either expose the king&#xA;  of the same colour to check or leave that king in check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2318" LastActivityDate="2014-01-27T16:25:53.507" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4570" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4571" CreationDate="2014-01-27T17:16:52.223" Score="7" ViewCount="4796" Body="&lt;p&gt;Recently, I got some students (beginners) in chess, and I would like to teach them how to play but I don't know where to start! They already know how to move pieces and some concepts on how to play, but still they are rookies. Where can I start from ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2300" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-02-07T15:01:31.313" LastActivityDate="2017-06-18T08:31:31.483" Title="How do you teach chess to a beginner / rookie?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;learning&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;teaching&gt;&lt;beginner&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4571" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4570" CreationDate="2014-01-27T17:22:26.290" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The chess teacher Elizabeth Spiegel has a beginner curriculum that she points to in &lt;a href=&quot;http://lizzyknowsall.blogspot.com/2013/08/50-lesson-beginner-curriculum.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this blog post&lt;/a&gt;. It assumes no prior knowledge of chess on the part of the students.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2014-01-27T17:22:26.290" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4572" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4531" CreationDate="2014-01-27T17:45:05.687" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The US Chess Federation's experience (IIRC) was that there is a big fall-off at high school graduation. They used to offer a 5-year discounted membership you could buy at age 18, that I think they hoped would be a good graduation gift. My rather cynical view is that the college chess club tended to have few, if any, women, making it an unattractive use of time. I wonder if there is a different pattern in the relatively few places that almost as many women play chess as men (e.g., Republic of Georgia, by rumor).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="921" LastActivityDate="2014-01-27T17:45:05.687" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4573" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4574" CreationDate="2014-01-27T18:26:57.413" Score="6" ViewCount="6021" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am currently playing the Italian opening with the white pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have been training with a higher rating player, who suggests to switch to the Spanish opening(Ruy Lopez).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would like to ask, is the Spanish &lt;strong&gt;so much better&lt;/strong&gt; than the Italian that it makes it worth changing? Furthermore, in the Spanish opening, does black have sharp variations that could be used against white?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="872" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-08-16T09:16:52.360" LastActivityDate="2020-08-16T09:17:38.183" Title="Is the Spanish opening better than the Italian opening (for white)?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;ruy-lopez&gt;&lt;italian-game&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="4574" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4573" CreationDate="2014-01-27T21:01:15.327" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let us start with the &lt;em&gt;Italian game&lt;/em&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although it was long long ago since I was playing this opening, there are good reasons why it is not played anymore. The main reason it is not popular anymore is the failure of the &lt;em&gt;Moeller attack&lt;/em&gt;*:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4. c3 Nf6 5.d4 exd4 6.cxd4 Bb4 7.Nc3 Nxe4 8.O-O Bxc3 9.d5 Bf6 10.Re1 Ne7 11.Rxe4 d6 12.Bg5 Bxg5 13.Nxg5 h6 ( 13...O-O 14.Nxh7!= ) 14.Qe2 hxg5 15.Re1 Be6 16.dxe6 f6 17.Re3 c6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the old days people played &lt;em&gt;Moeller attack&lt;/em&gt; and in the beginning things were good for White-sacrifice a pawn and get strong initiative-but Black found a way to defend the attack-see the lines above-and the main line was destroyed. White tried with quiet &lt;code&gt;d3&lt;/code&gt; and to prepapre &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt; like in the &lt;em&gt;Spanish game ( Ruy Lopez )&lt;/em&gt; but had no success.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;People tried with &lt;em&gt;Scotch gambit&lt;/em&gt;-mainly &lt;em&gt;Max Lange Attack&lt;/em&gt;-but Black did not need much time to find antidote-that line failed White too so it was abandoned.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Same happened with &lt;em&gt;Traxler attack&lt;/em&gt; and it was abandoned too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Evans gambit&lt;/em&gt; had the same faith-I think &lt;em&gt;Lasker&lt;/em&gt; was the one who proved that Black can at certain point return the pawn and obtain better chances due to better pawn structure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nowadays, people seek various ways to improve these old lines but nothing tangible was found-either Black can &lt;strong&gt;sidestep&lt;/strong&gt; the improvements or they give equal play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now the good stuff-&lt;em&gt;Ruy Lopez&lt;/em&gt;! After the moves:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;we reach the &lt;em&gt;tabia&lt;/em&gt;. We notice that there is &lt;strong&gt;no symmetry&lt;/strong&gt; like in the &lt;em&gt;Italian game&lt;/em&gt;. Also, an important thing with &lt;em&gt;Ruy Lopez&lt;/em&gt; is that &lt;strong&gt;White exerts MAXIMUM possible pressure on the center&lt;/strong&gt;-that is the reason why it is better than &lt;em&gt;Italian game&lt;/em&gt;, where center control &lt;strong&gt;is divided equally.&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because Black is under pressure he &lt;strong&gt;needs to make concessions&lt;/strong&gt;, usually via &lt;code&gt;a6&lt;/code&gt; and then &lt;code&gt;b5&lt;/code&gt; to chase away the bishop-which leaves him with weak &lt;code&gt;c&lt;/code&gt; pawn. &lt;strong&gt;Because of advantage in the center and healthier pawn structure White has a long initiative and Black needs to play carefully to free himself.&lt;/strong&gt; This usually manifests in White having a king side attack, or slight but long lasting positional pressure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Furthermore, in &lt;em&gt;Spanish game&lt;/em&gt;, White &lt;strong&gt;can create center formation he likes&lt;/strong&gt; thanks to his &lt;strong&gt;flexible&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;code&gt;d4+e4&lt;/code&gt; pawn phalanx, something he &lt;strong&gt;can not do&lt;/strong&gt; in the &lt;em&gt;Italian game&lt;/em&gt;. This means that White can play with &lt;strong&gt;fixed center ( pawn &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; vs &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt; ) , semi open center ( pawn &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; vs &lt;code&gt;d6&lt;/code&gt; ) or closed one ( &lt;code&gt;e4+d5&lt;/code&gt; pawns vs &lt;code&gt;d6+e5&lt;/code&gt; )&lt;/strong&gt; and that gives him opportunity to try various &lt;strong&gt;transpositional tricks&lt;/strong&gt; to outsmart Black-something that &lt;em&gt;Italian game&lt;/em&gt; can not give you since the center is &lt;strong&gt;fixed and symmetric.&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To summarize:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Ruy Lopez&lt;/em&gt; gives you a slight advantage in center, slight initiative, great flexibility in steering the game, healthier pawn structure and great transpositional resources to outsmart your opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you wish to improve as a player you should play this opening for a while, so you can learn how to play with different center formations and it is good for practicing how to &quot;cash in&quot; the king side attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Futhermore, in the Spanish does black have sharper continuations that he can throw against white?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes he does-the variation you seek is &lt;em&gt;Marshall attack.&lt;/em&gt; It is very dangerous and &lt;strong&gt;being based on positional grounds i doubt a refutation of this gambit can be found&lt;/strong&gt;-I think the current theoretical standing is &lt;em&gt;unclear&lt;/em&gt;. Be warned, you &lt;strong&gt;must know theory very well to play against this line.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you have further questions leave a comment and I will respond. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sorry for incoherent answer, I wrote thoughts as they came to me. I could write a small book on this topic-there is so much to say about this-so if you need further information feel free to ask.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;EDITED ON OPs REQUEST:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I am trying to understand if it is a lot better or only slightly better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is &lt;strong&gt;way better&lt;/strong&gt; than &lt;em&gt;Italian game.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black defends &lt;strong&gt;statically&lt;/strong&gt; in &lt;em&gt;Ruy Lopez&lt;/em&gt;, there are &lt;strong&gt;no counter-attacks&lt;/strong&gt; ( except &lt;em&gt;Marshall attack&lt;/em&gt; of course ) so he needs to suffer a little in order to get counter-play. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since you have &lt;strong&gt;ideal center&lt;/strong&gt;-&lt;code&gt;d4+e4&lt;/code&gt; pawn formation-you have slight space advantage. You also decide what type of game shall be played-open or closed-depending on your decision to close or open the center.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You get king-side attack and Black &lt;strong&gt;needs to defend himself&lt;/strong&gt;-his counter-play on the queen-side is not sufficient. Be warned-&lt;em&gt;Ruy Lopez&lt;/em&gt; is &lt;strong&gt;highly complicated&lt;/strong&gt; to play for both sides but that is the reason people play it with both colors-because &lt;strong&gt;both sides must play accurate.&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason I would not recommend it for Black is because Black lacks active counter-play so he needs to defend for a long time, before he generates chances and that is just too much for me. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Generally speaking, White has easier play in the &lt;em&gt;Ruy Lopez&lt;/em&gt;, he &quot;calls all the shots&quot; most of the time and Black needs to &lt;strong&gt;repel White's threats first&lt;/strong&gt;, and only then try to generate counter-play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is one of the main reasons why Black often answers to &lt;code&gt;1.e4&lt;/code&gt; with &lt;em&gt;Sicilian&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;French defense&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This was my opinion, supported by my current knowledge and experience in the &lt;em&gt;Ruy Lopez&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;Italian game&lt;/em&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I must say that I have stopped playing &lt;code&gt;1.e4&lt;/code&gt; long ago and that many things might have changed today but to test my claims it would be best to obtain good repertoire books on &lt;em&gt;Ruy Lopez&lt;/em&gt; ( although I &lt;strong&gt;strongly&lt;/strong&gt; believe that conclusions from those book will &lt;strong&gt;mainly support&lt;/strong&gt; my conclusions ).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hopefully this answer sheds some light.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Best regards. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastEditorUserId="872" LastEditDate="2014-01-28T01:12:34.980" LastActivityDate="2014-01-28T01:12:34.980" CommentCount="11" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4576" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4577" CreationDate="2014-01-28T00:19:14.223" Score="7" ViewCount="984" Body="&lt;p&gt;The rules of antichess specified in &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antichess#Rules_.28main_variant.29&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot; title=&quot;Wikipedia&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt; state that the rules of regular chess should be followed except&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; Capturing is compulsory.&#xA; When more than one capture is available, the player may choose.&#xA; The king has no royal power and accordingly:&#xA;     it may be captured like any other piece;&#xA;     there is no check or checkmate;&#xA;     there is no castling;&#xA;     a pawn may promote also to king.&#xA; Stalemate is a win for the stalemated player.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It doesn't specifically call out who would choose what piece a pawn gets promoted to. It makes sense to me that since the game is antichess, when you promote a pawn it is a bad thing and your opponent would get to choose what piece it should be. Is this the correct way of playing or do you get to promote your own pawns?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2346" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-17T02:29:54.930" LastActivityDate="2020-08-17T02:29:54.930" Title="Antichess pawn promotion" Tags="&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;pawn-promotion&gt;&lt;losing-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4577" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4576" CreationDate="2014-01-28T00:55:07.930" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your summary of the rules left out an important one, namely, how else can you win a game besides being stalemated. The answer is that the player who runs out of men wins. (I suppose you could consider having no men to move a kind of stalemate.) And &quot;antichess&quot; is a new name for the chess variant traditionally known as Losing Chess or Giveaway Chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The answer to your question is that, when a pawn reaches the 8th rank, the owner of the pawn decides what to promote it to. I have looked at several books on chess variants, and haven't found a clear statement on that point. Apparently, it never occurred to the writers that anyone would think that the opponent gets to choose the promotion rank. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The rules for Losing Chess at &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessvariants.org/diffobjective.dir/giveaway.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;The Chess Variant Pages&lt;/a&gt; (surely a more authoritative source than Wikipedia) do not say anything about the opponent choosing the promotion rank of a promoted pawn. Some of the endgame studies in &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.pion.ch/Losing/LCLIT3AR.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;John Beasley's article&lt;/a&gt; involve pawn promotion, and it's clear that the owner of the pawn is doing the choosing. Here's one from Hans Klüver (&lt;em&gt;Chess Amateur&lt;/em&gt; 1923):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/P6/8/k7/P7/8/8/8 - - - 0 0 &quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Losing Chess. White to play and &quot;win&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The solution:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1.a8N! Kxa4 2.Nb6 any 3.Na4 Kxa4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course if Black controlled the promotion he would choose a queen or rook.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2299" LastEditorUserId="2299" LastEditDate="2014-01-28T02:21:38.060" LastActivityDate="2014-01-28T02:21:38.060" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4578" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4579" CreationDate="2014-01-28T01:45:48.873" Score="3" ViewCount="2863" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/297/what-are-openings-which-were-once-thought-good-but-are-now-shown-to-be-inferior/300#300&quot;&gt;this answer&lt;/a&gt;, Evans gambit is not popular anymore. I looked at it and I don't see anything wrong with it. I can't go over all the variations here, but you could look for an article or a Youtube video, I chose &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-IMsSOtXDg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this one&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can only see black losing, so what's wrong with Evans Gambit declined? Am I missing a variation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1105" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2020-09-20T03:33:37.787" Title="Is the Evans Gambit declined good for black?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;evans-gambit&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4579" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4578" CreationDate="2014-01-28T03:29:18.837" Score="7" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Evans gambit is not popular anymore. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The problem with the &lt;em&gt;Evans gambit&lt;/em&gt; comes when Black &lt;strong&gt;accepts&lt;/strong&gt; the gambit since he can return the gambit pawn &lt;strong&gt;in proper moment&lt;/strong&gt; to defuse White's attack. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is the crucial line:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.b4 Bxb4 5.c3 Ba5 6.d4 d6 7.Qb3 Qd7 8.dxe5 Bb6!=&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Until this day nobody was able to find edge for White-that is why nobody plays it anymore.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I looked at it and I don't see anything wrong with it. I can't go over all the variations here, but you could look for an article or a Youtube video&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Forget the &lt;code&gt;YouTube&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; and find opinions of the strongest Grandmasters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Quality of those videos is usually low, as they intend to get subscribers by showing them attractive variations instead objectively the best lines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Not a single theoretical main line&lt;/strong&gt; was examined properly-only sidelines that give Black poor play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I can only see black losing, so what's wrong with Evans Gambit declined? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Declining the gambit is &lt;strong&gt;not the best option&lt;/strong&gt; for Black. White has no problems &lt;strong&gt;since he gets the initiative&lt;/strong&gt; because his opening idea was fulfilled. He will use his free tempo to further hinder coordination of the Black pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Still, Black has good play in all lines, but &lt;strong&gt;must defend first for a long time, and attack later.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Am I missing a variation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If all your sources provide as &quot;quality&quot; coverage as the video you linked to-then yes, you &lt;strong&gt;do miss a lot.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I will quote the &lt;strong&gt;Chess Informant ECO 2006&lt;/strong&gt; for the lines in Evans gambit declined:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;LEGEND OF SYMBOLS:&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;+/=&lt;/code&gt;    Minimal advantage for White&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;=/+&lt;/code&gt;    Minimal advantage for Black&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;+/-&lt;/code&gt;    White is better&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;-/+&lt;/code&gt;    Black is better&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;=/∞&lt;/code&gt;    Compensation for material&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;∞&lt;/code&gt;      Unclear&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;+-&lt;/code&gt;     White wins&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;-+&lt;/code&gt;     Black wins&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;-&amp;gt;&lt;/code&gt;     Attack&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;↑&lt;/code&gt;      Initiative&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.b4 Bb6 (4...d5 5.exd5 Nb4 6.O-O Nf6 7.Nxe5 Nbxd5 8.d4 Bd6 9.Bg5 c6 10.Nd2 O-O 11.Qf3 h6 12.Bh4 Be6 13.Rab1+/=) 5.a4 ( 5.Bb2 d6 6.a4 a6 7.b5 axb5 8.axb5 Rxa1 9.Bxa1 Nd4 10.Nxd4 exd4 11.c3 Nf6 12.O-O O-O 13.d3 d5= ) ( 5.b5 Na5 6.Nxe5 Nh6 ( 6...Bd4 7.Nxf7 Qf6 8.Qe2 Nxc4 9.Nxh8 Ne5 10.Nc3 Ne7 11.Bb2+/= ) 7.d4 d6 8.Bxh6 dxe5! 9.Bxg7 Rg8 10.Bxf7+ Kxf7 11.Bxe5 Qg5 12.Nd2 ( 12.Nc3? Nc4-/+ ) 12...Be6 13.Qf3 Ke7 14.O-O-O! Raf8 15.Qa3+ Kd8 16.f4 Qe7!? 17.Qxe7+ Kxe7 18.g3 Bxa2∞ ) 5...a6 ( 5...a5 6.b5 Nd4 7.Nxd4 ( 7.Nxe5 Qg5 8.O-O ( 8.Bxf7+ Kf8 9.Ng4=/∞ ) 8...Qxe5 9.c3 Ne6 10.Re1 Nf6 ( 10...Bxf2 11.Kxf2 Qc5+ 12.d4 Qxc4 13.Re3 Nf8 14.d5 Qc5 15.Ba3 Qb6 16.d6=/∞↑)  11.d4 Nxd4 12.cxd4 Qxd4 (12...Bxd4 13.Ra2=/∞ ) 13.Qe2!? (13.Qxd4!? Bxd4 14.Ra2=/∞ ) 13...Qxa1 14.e5=/∞↑ ) 7...Bxd4 8.c3 Bb6 9.d4 Qe7 (9...exd4 10.O-O! Ne7 11.Bg5 h6 12.Bxe7 Qxe7 13.cxd4 Qb4 14.Na3 O-O 15.Qd3 d5! 16.exd5 Bd7 17.Nc2 Qd6 18.Ne3+/= ) 10.O-O ( 10.Qg4 Nf6 11.Qxg7 Rg8 12.Qh6 Rg6∞ ) 10...d6 11.f4 ( 11.Be3!? ) 11...Be6 12.Na3 exd4 13.cxd4 O-O-O 14.Be2 Nf6 15.Bf3 d5 16.e5 Ne4 17.Nc2 h5!= ) 6.Nc3 Nf6 7.Nd5 ( 7.d4 Bxd4!? ( 7...exd4 8.Nd5 Nxd5 9.exd5 Qe7 10.Kf1! Ne5 11.d6 cxd6 12.Bd5=/∞ ) 8.Nxd4 Nxd4 9.f4 ( 9.O-O d6 10.f4 Be6! 11.Bxe6 fxe6 12.Be3 Nc6 13.b5 axb5 14.axb5 Rxa1 15.Qxa1 Ng4!? 16.bxc6 Nxe3 17.Qa2 Nxf1 18.Qxe6 Qe7 19.Qc8+ Qd8 20.cxb7 O-O 21.Nd5! Kf7 22.Qf5+ Kg8 23.Qc8= ) 9...d6 10.O-O O-O 11.fxe5 dxe5 12.Nd5 Be6 13.Nxf6+ gxf6 14.Bd3 Qe7 ( 14...Nb3? 15.cxb3 Qd4+ 16.Kh1 Qxa1 17.Qf3!+--&amp;gt;) 15.Bh6 Rfd8∞) 7...Nxd5 ( 7...Nxe4 8.O-O d6 9.d3 Nf6 10.Bg5+/= ) 8.exd5 Nd4 ( 8...e4?+/- ) 9.a5 Ba7 10.d6 ( 10.O-O?!=/+ ) 10...cxd6 11.O-O O-O 12.Nxd4 Bxd4 13.c3 Ba7 14.Qf3=/∞&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;How could black win against Evans Gambit declined?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How could he not win?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In all the variations above Black has sufficient counter-play and equal chances to win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He will first try to parry White's initiative, and then he will have won endgame due to his healthier pawn structure and White being overextended-this is a standard plan for Black in most openings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Summary:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Evans gambit&lt;/em&gt; is not popular anymore because White does not get the attack he hoped for, and after Black properly returns the pawn he has better &lt;strong&gt;or at least equal&lt;/strong&gt; chances in the endgame. Why would anyone play with White just to fight an uphill battle to draw?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for the declined variation, White will get lasting initiative but Black still holds. In all lines &lt;strong&gt;quoted above&lt;/strong&gt; Black has sufficient counter-play and both players need to play accurate in order not to lose.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For a detailed coverage of the &lt;em&gt;Evans gambit&lt;/em&gt; find repertoire books like &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/0938650750&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;The Great Evans Gambit Debate&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt; series or &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1857441192&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Play the Evans gambit-Tim Harding&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hopefully this answer sheds some light. If you have further questions leave a comment and I will try to respond as soon as possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Best regards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastEditorUserId="2042" LastEditDate="2014-01-31T22:41:12.223" LastActivityDate="2014-01-31T22:41:12.223" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4580" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-01-28T06:06:41.647" Score="10" ViewCount="4753" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am not a pro chess player or anything, but I want to get some kind of chess title. What is the lowest ranking I can get to earn a chess title?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2356" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-02-07T11:55:51.713" LastActivityDate="2014-02-07T11:55:51.713" Title="What is the lowest chess title you can get?" Tags="&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;titles&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4581" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4580" CreationDate="2014-01-28T07:15:10.940" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_titles&quot;&gt;this Wikipedia entry&lt;/a&gt;, the lowest FIDE title is Candidate Master (CM), which requires an ELO rating of at least 2200. Obviously national chess federations offer their own titles, often with lower requirements.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2078" LastActivityDate="2014-01-28T07:15:10.940" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4582" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4585" CreationDate="2014-01-28T11:28:33.803" Score="3" ViewCount="1285" Body="&lt;p&gt;I had the following game which transposed to an Old Indian defense position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;1. d4 d6 2. c4 Nf6 3. Nc3&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But then Black did not follow with the main line: &lt;code&gt;3 ... e5&lt;/code&gt; (see &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Indian_Defense&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;wikipedia article&lt;/a&gt;) but rather with: &lt;code&gt;3... Nc6&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. d4 d6 2. c4 Nf6 3. Nc3 Nc6 (3... e5)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I couldn't find this variation discussed anywhere which leads me to think it is likely an inferior line for Black. If so, how should White continue to gain advantage? &lt;code&gt;4. e4&lt;/code&gt; perhaps ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2307" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2014-01-28T13:02:46.903" LastActivityDate="2014-01-31T16:24:04.477" Title="Old Indian defense variation: 1. d4 d6 2. c4 Nf6 3. Nc3 Nc6 : how should White respond?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;old-indian&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4583" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4582" CreationDate="2014-01-28T11:49:27.227" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The best reply for white and most usual in that position is Nf3, just finishing development and trying to castle kingside.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A normal continuation could be :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;  1. d4 d6 2. c4 Nf6 3. Nc3 Nc6 4. Nf3 e5 5. e3 Bg4 6. Be2 Be7 7. O-O O-O *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black should play e5 sooner or later or he will not gain control of the center and space for his pieces&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2300" LastActivityDate="2014-01-28T11:49:27.227" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4584" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4580" CreationDate="2014-01-28T12:10:42.093" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;A solution: Move to a country with a low rated national team and join the team in the Olympiad.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;CM and WCM titles are awarded for 50% performance in at least 7 games in the Chess Olympiad, regardless of the ranking of opponents (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=165&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Fide Handbook&lt;/a&gt;). Because the pairings are made using the Swiss system and your team mates are (hopefully) performing poorly, you get constantly paired with relatively weak opponents and you do not have to perform even close to 2200 Elo level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, in the &lt;a href=&quot;http://chess-results.com/tnr77681.aspx?lan=1&amp;amp;art=6&amp;amp;flag=30&amp;amp;wi=821&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Olympiad 2012&lt;/a&gt; quite a few players got &gt;=50 % points with a performance &amp;lt;2000. (Note that the list behind the link is cut at 63.6 %, so it is not the whole truth. Unfortunately, the &lt;a href=&quot;http://chess-results.com/tnr77681.aspx?lan=1&amp;amp;art=59&amp;amp;flag=30&amp;amp;wi=821&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;list of CM titles awarded&lt;/a&gt; does not contain information of performance...)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1761" LastActivityDate="2014-01-28T12:10:42.093" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4585" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4582" CreationDate="2014-01-28T13:47:32.320" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Old Indian defense variation: 1. d4 d6 2. c4 Nf6 3. Nc3 Nc6 : how should White respond?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White should continue to &lt;strong&gt;fight for the center&lt;/strong&gt;, as always and Black should continue developing so he can pressure Whites pawn center &lt;strong&gt;from afar.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I couldn't find this variation discussed anywhere which leads me to think it is likely an inferior line for Black. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am not surprised-Black is tempting White to &lt;strong&gt;overextend&lt;/strong&gt; by chasing the knight but this is not &lt;em&gt;Alekhine's defense&lt;/em&gt; and I think White can get slight advantage from this position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If so, how should White continue to gain advantage? 4. e4 perhaps ? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No, not &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt;. White should use this moment to seize the initiative and &lt;strong&gt;hinder Black's development.&lt;/strong&gt; You see, Black's only compensation for giving White the center power is his &lt;strong&gt;superior development.&lt;/strong&gt; He will use it to pressure  White's center or undermine it with flank attack. I suggest immediate &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt; as an answer. See the detailed variations below.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 d6 2. c4 Nf6 3. Nc3 Nc6?! 4.d5! Nb8 ( 4...Nb4? 5.Qa4++- ) ( 4...Na5? 5.Qa4+! c6 6.b4! Nxc4 7.dxc6! b5 ( 7...bxc6? 8.Qxc6++- ) ( 7...Nb6 8.cxb7+!+- Nxa4 9.bxa8=Q Nxc3 10.Qc6+!+- ) 8.Qxb5!?+- ) ( 4...Ne5? 5.f4! Ned7 ( 5...Ng6? 6.e4 e5 7.f5! Ne7 8.Bg5!? ) 6.e4 ) 5.e4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and White is tempo up &lt;strong&gt;in all the above variations&lt;/strong&gt; comparing to the usual &lt;em&gt;King's Indian defense&lt;/em&gt; opening moves. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since every tempo counts in the &lt;em&gt;King's Indian defense&lt;/em&gt; this is a big plus-White will be &lt;strong&gt;faster in reaching his typical queen side attack&lt;/strong&gt; while Black will be one tempo behind in generating King side attack. At the very least, this should force Black into long, &lt;strong&gt;passive&lt;/strong&gt; defense since he will not be able to generate typical counter-play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for the moves with &lt;code&gt;!?&lt;/code&gt; in the sidelines mentioned in the above diagram, you should consult the engine to find even stronger continuation-I just gave you my thought-it might not be the best move but I like the fact it maintains initiative/pressure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hopefully this answer helped you. If you have further questions leave a comment and I will reply.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Best regards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastEditorUserId="2042" LastEditDate="2014-01-28T14:31:26.383" LastActivityDate="2014-01-28T14:31:26.383" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4586" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4593" CreationDate="2014-01-28T15:01:39.757" Score="3" ViewCount="817" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am interested in entering some rapid tournaments in England, and have heard that the rules for the rapid games are somewhat different than standard play rules. For example, I was told you can legally take your opponent's king if he fails to spot a check (and win the game in the process). Also, the touch-move rule does not apply - apparently you are allowed to touch a piece, take it back and play another piece - only when you press the clock does your decision become permanent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have picked up these hints from casual conversations at my local club - it is entirely possible that these are not really the &quot;official&quot; rapid play rules (ECF or otherwise) but that of a specific tournament, that these are actually blitz rules and not rapid play rules, or it may even be my club members taking my inexperience for a ride. Is my understanding of these rules correct? If I were to enter a rapid play tournament, what other differences from the normal tournament rules could I expect?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1816" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2014-01-31T12:42:37.587" LastActivityDate="2014-12-09T16:27:54.823" Title="In an ECF tournament, how are rapid play rules different from standard play?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;rapid&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4588" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4591" CreationDate="2014-01-28T15:58:31.920" Score="12" ViewCount="28405" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been playing chess for some time and I've studied lots of theory, but I don't know what to play against &lt;code&gt;1. d4&lt;/code&gt;. I'm searching for something with good chances for black but without much theory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note: If someone has some videos or theory on Chigorin that would work really fine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2300" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2014-01-31T16:15:17.120" LastActivityDate="2020-08-19T04:36:37.403" Title="What can I play against 1.d4?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;1.d4&gt;" AnswerCount="11" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4589" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1709" CreationDate="2014-01-28T16:30:25.990" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The London is mostly an attempt to play the Slav in reverse. It is very solid and flexible. Black should be careful not to overreach.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Kaufman recommends a King's Indian with a c7-c5 break like Avrukh.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have had luck with the e7-e5 break from the KID.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A difficult problem for the original question is if your opponent does not play the London, you have to play Gruenfeld, KID, or Benoni. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.d4 Nf6 2.Nf3 g6 3.c4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For those that do not play with a King's fianchetto, this may not be the best choice. (i.e Nimzo family). It might be best for you to be patient and just go with the Slav in reverse, build up tension on the d4 pawn and queenside pressure with c7-c5, Nb7-c6, Qd8-b6, Ra8-c8, Bc8-d7 while developing and castling on kingside with e7-e6, Bf8-e7, O-O.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One could also close the center with c5-c4 and pawn storm the queenside. If you do, you need to be prepared for his kingside attack, and might want to bring the Be7 back to f8. Look to a well timed e6-e5 break even if it sacrifices a pawn to open the center at the opportune moment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.d4 Nf6 2.Nf3 e6 3.Bf4 d5 4.e3 c5 5.c3 Nc6 6.Be2 Be7 7.h3 O-O 8.O-O Qb6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2359" LastActivityDate="2014-01-28T16:30:25.990" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4590" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4588" CreationDate="2014-01-28T17:06:55.310" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you want a variation that is rarely seen but still offers decent positions (depending on the strength of your opponent of course) you can try&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 Nc6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yet, if you want good attacking chances, then you can try the Dutch system&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.d4 f5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.d4 e6 2.c4 f5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Dutch system does contain some theory. At the same time, it can help you land some nice knock-out blows to anyone who does not have a clue what is going on. For example&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.d4 f5 2.Bg5 h6 3.Bh4 c6 4.c4 Qa5+ 5.Nc3 g5 6.Bg3 f4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Notice how c7-c6 looks passive, yet Qa5+ has the point of vacating the d8-square for the black King, thus enabling g7-g5 without any Qd1-h5 checkmate tricks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastActivityDate="2014-01-28T17:06:55.310" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4591" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4588" CreationDate="2014-01-28T17:20:48.297" Score="19" Body="&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately for you, there is no such opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You see, the problem with &lt;code&gt;1.d4&lt;/code&gt; is that &lt;code&gt;d&lt;/code&gt; pawn is &lt;strong&gt;protected from the very start&lt;/strong&gt;, unlike his &quot;colleague&quot; &lt;code&gt;e&lt;/code&gt; pawn. While it is possible to cut down on theory learning against &lt;code&gt;1.e4&lt;/code&gt; by simply attacking the &lt;code&gt;e&lt;/code&gt; pawn ( &lt;em&gt;Alekhine's defense&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;Scandinavian defense&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;Petroff defense&lt;/em&gt; in a way ) thus &lt;strong&gt;forcing White's response&lt;/strong&gt;, you can not use the same method against &lt;code&gt;1.d4&lt;/code&gt; since the pawn is protected as I mentioned earlier. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So your only chance is to find an opening that has the least amount of theory to learn, but be warned--all good defenses against &lt;code&gt;1.d4&lt;/code&gt; have lots of theory worked out to move 30 and sometimes beyond. Just because the number of branches is small does not mean that the sub-variations are short.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yet another problem with &lt;code&gt;1.d4&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;an important one&lt;/strong&gt;--I use this all the time to quickly demolish opponents with weak opening knowledge--&lt;strong&gt;most of the good defenses to &lt;code&gt;1.d4&lt;/code&gt; can be dodged by careful move order transposition!&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your problem is far more complex because of this. Currently &lt;code&gt;Nimzo-Indian&lt;/code&gt; scores very well against &lt;code&gt;1.d4&lt;/code&gt; but can be dodged if White plays &lt;code&gt;3.Nf3&lt;/code&gt; instead of &lt;code&gt;3.Nc3&lt;/code&gt;. Then you are forced to adopt &lt;code&gt;Queen's gambit declined&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;Queen's Indian defense&lt;/code&gt; and both of those openings give slight advantage to White, which severely reduces your chances to win. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;King's Indian defense&lt;/code&gt; still holds but is prone to become &quot;refuted&quot; from time to time, only to be revived again with some great novelty. Still this defense, along with &lt;code&gt;Queen's gambit declined&lt;/code&gt; does offer you one benefit other defenses do not:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;White can not use transpositional tricks to kick you out of your opening!&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can play both openings against &lt;strong&gt;anything&lt;/strong&gt; White throws at you, whether it is &lt;code&gt;1.c4&lt;/code&gt;/&lt;code&gt;1.Nf3&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;1.d4 Nf6 2.Nf3/g3&lt;/code&gt; or whatever. Still, if White is a weaker player he can exploit the &lt;code&gt;King's Indian defense&lt;/code&gt; to exchange early and try to draw--he has good chances to fulfill this goal as things currently stand. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;Queen's gambit declined&lt;/code&gt; is also immune to transpositions and has that benefit that its exchange variation is everything &lt;strong&gt;but a draw!&lt;/strong&gt; It leads to some exciting positions and &lt;strong&gt;both opponents&lt;/strong&gt; must know what they are doing. It is &lt;strong&gt;highly theoretical&lt;/strong&gt; but the number of lines is fairly low. They are &lt;strong&gt;not razor-sharp&lt;/strong&gt; but you need to know them or else you will be &lt;strong&gt;&quot;smothered to death&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;. Black usually &lt;strong&gt;parries White's threats first, and &quot;shoots&quot; later.&lt;/strong&gt; Most of the time you get the king side attack &lt;strong&gt;but it usually draws.&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;code&gt;Queen's gambit declined&lt;/code&gt; lines without the exchange variation are also theoretical, but the number of lines is relatively small there as well. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If we compare &lt;code&gt;King's Indian defense&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;Queen's gambit declined&lt;/code&gt; then &lt;em&gt;KID&lt;/em&gt; gives you better winning chances compared to &lt;em&gt;QGD&lt;/em&gt;, but &lt;strong&gt;you will benefit more as a player&lt;/strong&gt; from playing &lt;em&gt;QGD&lt;/em&gt; since its pawn structure can arise in many other openings ( &lt;em&gt;Nimzo-Indian&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;Caro-Kann&lt;/em&gt; to name just a few ). Also, &lt;em&gt;QGD&lt;/em&gt; lines have &lt;strong&gt;withstood the test of time&lt;/strong&gt; while &lt;em&gt;KID&lt;/em&gt; is always in some kind of crisis from time to time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To make the choice between these two, you should see what type of pawn structures you play against &lt;code&gt;1.e4&lt;/code&gt; and base your choice on that:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you play &lt;em&gt;Caro-Kann/French defense/Alekhine's defense...&lt;/em&gt; then go with the &lt;em&gt;QGD&lt;/em&gt;, but if you play the &lt;em&gt;Sicilian/Ruy Lopez/1...e5 in general&lt;/em&gt; then go for &lt;em&gt;KID&lt;/em&gt; since the pawn structure is similar. That way you will shorten the amount of time you need to learn the opening and its middle-game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;A SMALL NOTE REGARDING YOUR EDIT:&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 d5 2.Nf3 Nc6!? 3.g3!&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and &quot;bye bye&quot; Chigorin! You will enter a &lt;em&gt;Catalan&lt;/em&gt; &lt;strong&gt;if you are lucky&lt;/strong&gt; or will get smashed by the pressure White's light squared bishop will exert on your center.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you still need something on &lt;em&gt;Chigorin defense&lt;/em&gt; seek games of &lt;em&gt;A.Morozevich&lt;/em&gt;. I think he also wrote a book on the &lt;em&gt;Chigorin defense&lt;/em&gt; as well-Google and you shall find it! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Still, &lt;strong&gt;be prepared to learn another opening as well&lt;/strong&gt; just in case wHite &quot;kicks you out&quot; of Chigorin with the move order I posted above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;END OF NOTE&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is my &lt;em&gt;Achilles heel&lt;/em&gt; as well, and this is what I did to solve it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you have questions leave a comment and I will reply.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hopefully this answer will help you to solve your complex problem.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastEditorUserId="11202" LastEditDate="2017-05-10T06:37:30.733" LastActivityDate="2017-05-10T06:37:30.733" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4592" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4588" CreationDate="2014-01-28T17:37:33.893" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Of course, the answer is &quot;that depends&quot; :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are less than expert strength, then you will unlikely play much theory, anyway. If you are expert strength and asking this question, congratulations, you have a lot of talent. I highly recommend against memorizing much opening theory until you are expert strength.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What you are likely looking for is an opening that is easy to understand the main ideas.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would not recommend the Indian defenses. Only the old Indian is relatively easy to understand, but it runs out of gas as you get stronger. Only if you play the Philidor against 1.e4 is the old Indian a good choice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Rat &lt;code&gt;1.d4 d6 2.c4 e5&lt;/code&gt; &lt;strong&gt;would&lt;/strong&gt; be a good choice, &lt;strong&gt;but&lt;/strong&gt; you have to be ready to play the Philidor, Pirc or Modern if your opponent plays 2.e4 (The Pirc and Modern are extremely hard to understand) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One good choice would be to play the Queen's Gambit Accepted (QGA). &lt;code&gt;1.d4 d5 2.c4 dxc4&lt;/code&gt; White will get a central pawn majority, black will get development while white works to regain the pawn, and counterplay with a c7-c5 strike. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another good choice would be the Queens Gambit Declined (QGD). &lt;code&gt;1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Bg5 e6&lt;/code&gt; Black will have a bad light square bishop, but after c7-c6 his position is very solid and hard to crack. Black will work to free his game with an eventual c6-c5 or e6-e5 break. White may free black's light squared bishop with the exchange varation (cxd5 exd5) in order to have more options.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I recommend the Slav with ...Bf5. The Slav threatens to turn the Queen's gambit into a real gambit, by supporting the d5xc4 capture with b7-b5. Black will use the time white spends in regaining the pawn by developing his pieces. A good starting book is &quot;The Slav move by move&quot; by Lakdawala&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.Nc3 dxc4 5.a4 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White has to play 5.a4 to prevent b7-b5 holding on to the pawn. If white plays 3.Nc3 you should eventually consider transposing to the QGA with 3...dxc4, as this is a line in which white has a lot of problems.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[FEN &quot;rnbqkb1r/pp2pppp/2p2n2/8/P1pP4/2N2N2/1P2PPPP/R1BQKB1R b KQkq a3 0 5&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;5...Bf5 6.e3 e6 7.Bxc4 Bb4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black can either castle or play Nbd7 here. One needs to look out for white sacrificing his e-pawn for a kingside attack, but e3-e4 is usually diffused by Bg6 and declining the sacrifice. White has a central pawn majority and the space that goes with it, but black's light square bishop is in the game, and c6-c5 or e6-e5 pawn breaks can strike back at that center.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Playing the Slav will get you interesting games with chances for black, while providing you with lots of good learning experiences.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2359" LastActivityDate="2014-01-28T17:37:33.893" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4593" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4586" CreationDate="2014-01-28T18:12:32.733" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;You should read the rules from &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fide.com/component/handbook/?id=125&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this page&lt;/a&gt;, sections &lt;code&gt;A&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;B&lt;/code&gt;. Also, I would strongly advise you to ask a referee about this &lt;strong&gt;just to be safe&lt;/strong&gt; from making a mistake or from embarrassing yourself. You can come earlier before the game starts ( 1 hour will be enough for the referee to explain you everything you need to know and for you to have time to relax and psychologically prepare for the game ) and just ask him/her to explain you what you want to know ( it would be wise to write down your questions ).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I was told you can legally take your opponent's king if he fails to spot a check (and win the game in the process). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I haven't had such a case, but if the opponent plays illegal move you &lt;strong&gt;can stop the clock and claim a win&lt;/strong&gt;-see the rules in the section A in the link I posted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Also, the touch-move rule does not apply - apparently you are allowed to touch a piece, take it back and play another piece - only when you press the clock does your decision become permanent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No, that is not the way I remember. If you touch the piece you &lt;strong&gt;must play with it&lt;/strong&gt; but your opponent can hold it in the air / drag it over the board / continuously put it on the board-pick it up-put it on another square, &lt;strong&gt;until he presses the clock.&lt;/strong&gt; This is very rude behavior but &lt;strong&gt;is allowed.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If I were to enter a rapid play tournament, what other differences from the normal tournament rules could I expect?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Read the rules from the link I posted above, and talk to the referee before the tournament just so you can be sure and safe.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is all I know, I haven't played blitz for 11 years-that is why I have advised you to talk a little with the referee.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you have further questions leave a comment and I will try to help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Good luck on your tournament!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;THIS EDIT CORRECTS MISTAKES POINTED OUT IN COMMENTS BELOW:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I will just quote member &lt;em&gt;Remco Gerlich&lt;/em&gt; :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;About illegal move&lt;/em&gt; ( &lt;strong&gt;emphasis is mine&lt;/strong&gt; ):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;In rapidplay&lt;/strong&gt;, an illegal move does &lt;strong&gt;not lose&lt;/strong&gt; the game. The &lt;strong&gt;same penalties as in slow play apply&lt;/strong&gt; (have to take it back and move with the touched piece, opponent gets 2 minutes extra on the clock, 3rd time in the same game is game loss). The difference with slow chess is that in rapid you must claim before you make your own move, in slow chess the position will always be reinstated no matter how long ago it happened. &lt;strong&gt;Illegal move is only a loss in blitz chess (section B).&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;About making a move according to the rules&lt;/em&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Also, no you can't keep moving your piece until you press the clock, you can keep moving it until you let go of it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Best regards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastEditorUserId="2042" LastEditDate="2014-01-28T19:00:16.857" LastActivityDate="2014-01-28T19:00:16.857" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4594" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4580" CreationDate="2014-01-28T20:14:03.223" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The United States Chess Federation has a title system that goes down into class play. I have the category 1 title, which I gained by getting 5 tournament performances which would be impressive for an 1800 player (norms) and achieving a rating above 1800.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The category titles correspond to the classes 1-A, 2-B, 3-C, 4-D&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Above category 1 are Candidate Master for 2000 rating and norms, National Master for a rating above 2200, and Life Master for norms and rating 2200 , Senior Life Master for norms and rating 2400.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2359" LastActivityDate="2014-01-28T20:14:03.223" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4595" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2145" CreationDate="2014-01-29T13:40:22.590" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the previous example, it is more about removing the defender (the Knight on e3 defends g2).&#xA;so:&#xA;- the recapture with the pawn does not work as it allows Qg2#&#xA;- additionally, the Bishop is pinned on d2 because of the a2-Queen&#xA;So a combination of pins and removing the defender  would say&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Deflections on the other hand happen when a piece is driven away from an important square, for instance, here, the d8 Rook isdeflected from the defense of the Queen d5:&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/WRJej.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Re8+ ! Rxd8 2. Qxd5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;more on deflections on my blog post: &lt;a href=&quot;http://chesstrainerapp.blogspot.fr/2014/01/deflection.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://chesstrainerapp.blogspot.fr/2014/01/deflection.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2076" LastActivityDate="2014-01-29T13:40:22.590" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4596" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-01-29T18:33:09.383" Score="4" ViewCount="109443" Body="&lt;p&gt;My white King is separated from the Black King by one square (between) which is protected by my white rook.  I moved my white King next to the black King putting him in check (from the square protected by my rook).  My opponent says that this is an illegal move because two Kings cannot face each other.  I contend that my white King can threaten the black King from a protected square (by my rook). Who's right?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2367" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-02-07T11:57:27.050" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T16:03:55.383" Title="Can two Kings stand next to each other?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;kings&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4597" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4596" CreationDate="2014-01-29T19:13:43.670" Score="20" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your friend is right. Think of it in terms of capturing the king: check means that your king could be captured on your opponent's next move. If you could move your king next to your opponent's king, your king could be captured on your opponent's next move; the fact that &lt;strong&gt;after that&lt;/strong&gt; you could capture your opponent's king doesn't change that: your king has been captured, and you've lost the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2297" LastActivityDate="2014-01-29T19:13:43.670" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4598" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4601" CreationDate="2014-01-29T21:32:33.133" Score="8" ViewCount="5970" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e6 2. e5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This line of attack seems to break so many opening theory principles (don't move same piece twice, don't overextend, develop minor pieces ASAP) that I am surprised it's not immediately punishable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2307" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-02-07T11:53:25.563" LastActivityDate="2020-08-30T07:32:09.907" Title="How should Black defend against the Steinitz attack?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;french-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4599" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4598" CreationDate="2014-01-29T21:45:48.283" Score="3" Body="&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;... f6 is a valid way of challenging the e-pawn right from the start.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thinking strategically, it is known that having a 2 v 1 advantage of centre pawns means you have good prospects, so Black trying to exchange an f-pawn &#xA;for an e-pawn is a good way of proceeding in this position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2300" LastEditorUserId="11202" LastEditDate="2017-05-03T10:26:08.327" LastActivityDate="2017-05-03T10:26:08.327" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4600" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4375" CreationDate="2014-01-29T22:36:09.647" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think that it was the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessblog.com/2011/11/cebu-city-efforts-on-for-attempt-at.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Cebu Chess Festival-World’s Largest Chess Tournament&lt;/a&gt; held in Ahmedabad, an Indian state, in December 2010. It had 20000 players and was led by Anand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2282" LastEditorUserId="117" LastEditDate="2014-01-29T23:04:24.857" LastActivityDate="2014-01-29T23:04:24.857" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4601" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4598" CreationDate="2014-01-29T23:17:24.617" Score="9" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;How should Black defend against the Steinitz attack? This line of attack seems to break so many opening theory principles (don't move same piece twice, don't overextend, develop minor pieces ASAP) that I am surprised it's not immediately punishable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why should you defend, at the first place?? &lt;strong&gt;All of your observations are correct&lt;/strong&gt;, so we can conclude that &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt; is a bad move. Black is better here, but the only reason you do not see a question mark behind this move are following facts:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Pawn at &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt; is White's only weakness;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Black has no open lines or diagonals that can be used to attack the &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt; pawn;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;White can defend &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt; pawn with &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt; which means that black will have to attack it with &lt;code&gt;d6/f6&lt;/code&gt; at some point-this will give White the chance to &lt;strong&gt;get himself rid of his ONLY weakness by exchanging it.&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;No matter how Black reacts, White will still have &lt;strong&gt;small spatial edge&lt;/strong&gt;-&lt;code&gt;e5+d4&lt;/code&gt; pawn chain vs &lt;code&gt;e6+d5&lt;/code&gt; pawn chain, or &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt; pawn vs &lt;code&gt;e6+c6&lt;/code&gt; pawns. &lt;strong&gt;For better understanding of these middle-games&lt;/strong&gt; consult book &lt;em&gt;Andrew Soltis-Pawn Structure Chess&lt;/em&gt;;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Still, Black can gain his fair amount of space in the center and &lt;strong&gt;equalize gradually&lt;/strong&gt; like in any other viable semi-open game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since White played twice with a pawn and has overextended himself, the best would be for us to continue developing &lt;strong&gt;using initiative against &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt; pawn to get &lt;code&gt;tempo&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Below are the variations that demonstrate what I have stated so far:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e6 2.e5 Nc6!? ( 2...d6!? ) 3.d4 d6 4.exd6 ( 4.Nf3 dxe5! 5.dxe5 ( 5.Nxe5? Qxd4 6.Nxc6 Qxd1+ ) Qxd1+=) ( 4.f4? dxe5! 5.dxe5 Qxd1+ ) ( 4.Bb5?! Bd7 5.exd6 ( 5.Nf3 dxe5 6.Nxe5? Nxe5! 7.Bxd7+ Nxd7-+ ) Bxd6= ) Bxd6 5.Nf3 ( 5.Qg4?! Nf6! 6.Qxg7 Rg8 7.Qh6 Nxd4 8.Bd3 e5 9.Bg5!? ( 9.Bxh7? Rh8!-+ 10.Bg5 Rxh7 11.Qxh7 Nxh7 12.Bxd8 Nxc2+ 13.Kd1 Nxa1! 14.Bh4 Bf5-+ ) 9...Ng4! 10.Bxd8 ( 10.Qxh7?? Qxg5-+ ) Nxh6 11.Bh4 ( 11.Bxh7?? Rh8-+ ) Bf5-+ ) Nge7 6.Bd3 e5 7.dxe5 Nxe5=&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was trying to find this line and the only thing I found was a main line from above, given by &lt;em&gt;Lev Psakhis&lt;/em&gt;. His line starts with &lt;code&gt;2...d6&lt;/code&gt; and transposes to the main line given above. The move &lt;code&gt;5.Qg4&lt;/code&gt; shows my own analysis, since it was not mentioned anywhere but I believe it can be tricky. Notice the traps that I have shown in the above sidelines-they can be very useful to you during play. Also, notice how in time Black frees himself from Whites small spatial advantage and equalizes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you do not like these you can always transpose into normal &lt;em&gt;French defense&lt;/em&gt; with &lt;code&gt;2...d5&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;2...c5&lt;/code&gt; is also viable here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you have further questions leave a comment and I will reply as soon as I can. Hopefully this answer helped you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Best regards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastEditorUserId="2042" LastEditDate="2014-01-29T23:23:02.020" LastActivityDate="2014-01-29T23:23:02.020" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4602" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4561" CreationDate="2014-01-30T02:44:18.433" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know that the upper limit can not be greater than &lt;strong&gt;2304000&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;Which is the answer to the following&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;16 (Pawns) * 20 (Rooks) * 20 (Knights) * 20 (Bishops) * 18 (Queens)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But not all of those are possible, so doing a quick programming&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; c:= 0&#xA; p:= 0 .. 16&#xA; r:= 0 .. 20&#xA; b:= 0 .. 20&#xA; n:= 0 .. 20&#xA; q:= 0 .. 18&#xA; if Sum( p, r, b, n, q, 2) &amp;lt;= 32 then c+=1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Calculates &lt;strong&gt;c&lt;/strong&gt; to be &lt;strong&gt;305090&lt;/strong&gt; combinations. (2&lt;sup&gt;18&lt;/sup&gt; &amp;lt; c &amp;lt; 2&lt;sup&gt;19&lt;/sup&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I just focus on end games (no pawns) I calculate &lt;strong&gt;c&lt;/strong&gt; to be &lt;strong&gt;3060&lt;/strong&gt;  2&lt;sup&gt;11&lt;/sup&gt; &amp;lt; c &amp;lt; 2&lt;sup&gt;12&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is my algorithm producing the correct results?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2347" LastActivityDate="2014-01-30T02:44:18.433" CommentCount="15" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4603" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4616" CreationDate="2014-01-30T11:56:12.817" Score="8" ViewCount="3266" Body="&lt;p&gt;In a Queen + King versus Queen + King endgame (including zero or more pawns) these is a strong draw tendency due to the fact that a Queen can deliver multiple checks in a row to the opponents open King. My question concerns the Queen+pawn versus Queen endgame. Assuming that the pawn is on its initial square (second rank for white, seventh rank for black), are all these endgames objectively drawn? Second of all, what is the best strategy for the player with the material advantage to aim for a win?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2017-04-26T08:23:47.253" LastActivityDate="2017-04-26T08:23:47.253" Title="Is the Queen plus pawn versus Queen endgame always a draw?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;draw&gt;&lt;queens&gt;&lt;queen-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4604" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4603" CreationDate="2014-01-30T12:26:10.643" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;This ending is a draw unless the pawn is a bishop pawn or a central pawn  and the pawn is in the seventh rank and is supported by its king. If the defending king can get in front of the pawn, the game is a draw; otherwise it is best for the defender to keep his king far away from the pawn. The defender should keep checking until he runs out of check, and then pin the pawn (a good strategy to draw). Based on computer analysis, there is a different thinking :normally the defending king needs to be in front of the pawn. A rook pawn or knight pawn is a theoretical draw if the defending king is in front or near the pawn or if the king is in the corner opposite the pawn's promotion square. A knight pawn has more practical winning chances than a rook pawn. A bishop pawn or central pawn is a win if the defending king is not in front of the pawn. A bishop pawn has better winning chances than a central pawn. The position of the defending king is especially important .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edmar Mednis gave this breakdown when the defending king is not able to help:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A bishop pawn is the best pawn to have. It is relatively easy to advance and is a win once it reaches the seventh rank.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A central pawn wins if it reaches the seventh rank, but it is difficult to get it there.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;if the pawn reaches the sixth rank, the position is usually a draw.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A knight pawn is relatively easy to get to the seventh rank, but the position may be a    theoretical draw.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Positions with rook pawns are theoretical draws, but in practice it may be difficult to draw &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;John Nunn gives this summary for the defense:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;with a central pawn, the defense has two possibilities: get the king in front of the pawn or get the king to corner nearest to the pawn's promotion square&#xA;with a bishop pawn, the defender's only chance is to get the king in front of the pawn&#xA;with a knight pawn, the defender must get the king in front of the pawn or in the corner furthest from the promotion square&#xA;a rook pawn is generally a draw and the defensive guidelines are the same as for a knight pawn.&#xA;Naturally, the less advanced the pawn is, the better the defensive chances &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2300" LastActivityDate="2014-01-30T12:26:10.643" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4605" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4603" CreationDate="2014-01-30T12:26:48.057" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to Wikipedia:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;According to Reuben Fine and Pal Benko, this &lt;strong&gt;ending is a draw unless&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;  the &lt;strong&gt;pawn is a bishop pawn&lt;/strong&gt; or a &lt;strong&gt;central pawn&lt;/strong&gt; (i.e. king pawn or queen&#xA;  pawn) and the pawn is &lt;strong&gt;in the seventh rank&lt;/strong&gt; and is supported by &lt;strong&gt;its&#xA;  king&lt;/strong&gt;. If the defending king can get in front of the pawn, the game is&#xA;  a draw; otherwise it is best for the defender to keep his king far&#xA;  away from the pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If this endgame needs all those conditions to be winning, and you are saying that &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;pawn is on its initial square&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would claim (based on the Reuben Fine and Pal Benko conditions) that this endgame is a draw unless you have a forced way to trade queens and to guarantee that your king gets to control the critical squares. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qiGRa.png&quot; alt=&quot;Example&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From my example above you can see that these endgames are not always a draw, but apart from that type of situation, it will be a draw more often than not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="872" LastEditorUserId="11202" LastEditDate="2017-04-26T03:29:18.623" LastActivityDate="2017-04-26T03:29:18.623" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4606" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4607" CreationDate="2014-01-30T12:53:16.417" Score="1" ViewCount="330" Body="&lt;p&gt;It seems that most of the chessboards being offered for sale in the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.houseofstaunton.com/chess-boards/wooden-chess-boards-1.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;House of Staunton&lt;/a&gt; or &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.regencychess.co.uk/chess-boards-c-2.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Regency Chess&lt;/a&gt; - except for cheap vinyl tournament chess boards - do not have alphanumeric coordinates marked on the four sides.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Has this style fallen out of favor or are the markings considered to interfere with a minimalist look or even distract during play? I have possibly over 500 games under my belt but still being able to rely on markings is handy especially when taking notes or studying.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2307" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-02-07T11:54:38.863" LastActivityDate="2014-05-14T10:45:18.440" Title="Are alphanumeric style chessboards becoming less popular?" Tags="&lt;chessboards&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4607" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4606" CreationDate="2014-01-30T12:55:53.777" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;They are still selling boards with coordinates and still using them in official competitions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With experience you will see that you will no longer need numbers and letters to help you throughout the game (just think battleship).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2300" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2014-01-31T03:56:09.480" LastActivityDate="2014-01-31T03:56:09.480" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4608" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4564" CreationDate="2014-01-30T15:28:54.410" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;For a beginner, certain areas are much more important than others:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Learn the opening principles. You &lt;em&gt;might&lt;/em&gt; look at some standard openings, but don't go too deep, just know the concepts&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Study the simple endgame mates (with a queen, with a rook, with two bishops)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Learn how to promote a single pawn, learn how to defend against a single pawn (rule of the square...)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Know the typical beginner opening traps. Don't &lt;em&gt;use&lt;/em&gt; them, just don't fall for them&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Tactics, tactics, tactics: Forks, pins, discovered checks, mating patterns...&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Learn &lt;em&gt;basic&lt;/em&gt; positional principles (fight for the center, open lines, doubled pawns, isolated pawns, don't castle into the attack, opposite-colored bishops are drawish, knights are better than bishops in closed positions and vice versa...)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="35" LastActivityDate="2014-01-30T15:28:54.410" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4609" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4610" CreationDate="2014-01-30T15:29:52.237" Score="6" ViewCount="113" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/1KP5/8/8/5p2/8/8/6k1 b - - 0 3&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I recently come with this position on one of my games and I would like to know the result of this endgame...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2312" LastEditorUserId="2300" LastEditDate="2014-01-30T16:26:08.837" LastActivityDate="2014-01-31T10:22:00.307" Title="What´s the result of this endgame? Black just played f3." Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;pawns&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4610" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4609" CreationDate="2014-01-30T15:35:48.103" Score="6" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/1KP5/8/8/5p2/8/8/6k1 b - - 0 3&quot;]&#xA;[Plycount &quot;19&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;3...f3 ( On a race to promotion ) 4.c8=Q { ...that white just won. Or did he?!? } 4...f2 5.Qg4+ Kh1 6.Qf3+ Kg1 7.Qg3+ Kh1 8.Qh3+ ( 8.Qxf2 { If black takes the pawn...Disaster strikes = STALEMATE !! } ) 8...Kg1 9.Qg4+ Kh1 10.Qf3+ Kg1 11.Qg3+ Kh1 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*&#xA;If black takes the pawn...Disaster strikes = STALEMATE !!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If white allows black&#xA;to promote the pawn, in order to avoid drawing by repetition, the resulting&#xA;one is also a draw as no progress can be made by either side ! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2300" LastActivityDate="2014-01-30T15:35:48.103" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4611" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4614" CreationDate="2014-01-30T16:15:37.163" Score="5" ViewCount="3720" Body="&lt;p&gt;I had White deviate from the French main line in a blitz game by playing:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e6 2. Nc3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since this line is not discussed in the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Defence&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Wikipedia article on French defence&lt;/a&gt; I am thinking that Black may have better options than to simply pursue normal French development with:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[StartPly &quot;3&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e6 2. Nc3 d5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(which is what I played, it being a blitz game and all)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was thinking maybe it's worthwhile to respond with:&#xA;&lt;code&gt;2...Bb4&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;with the aim of a Bishop-Knight exchange and forcing White to suffer double pawns on the c-file.&#xA;Or try the non-committing: &lt;code&gt;2...Nf6&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;2...Nc6&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The chess engine XBoard / Fairy-Max 4.8Q with 50 minutes available time for Black (for 40 moves) suggested &lt;code&gt;2...Be7&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any thoughts?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2307" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-02-07T10:57:59.310" LastActivityDate="2020-12-03T16:50:38.210" Title="1. e4 e6 2. Nc3 - how should Black respond?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;french-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4612" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4611" CreationDate="2014-01-30T16:39:12.163" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, let's start by looking at the position&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 e6 2.Nc3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why does white play 2.Nc3? Because white gets two options after the standard (!) 2...d5, namely 3.d4 or 3.Nf3 as shown below&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 e6 2.Nc3 d5 3.d4 (3.Nf3)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In case black wants to aim for a French system position, I would say that 2...d5 is the best option. In case black wants to go for other types of positions, then it is possible to go for a Sicilian system with 2...c5 as well as more independent routes like 2...Bb4, 2...e5. It is also possible to go for some sort of hybrid after 2...Be7 3.Nf3 g5 4.h3 h5, as shown below. What is the objectively best move? Well, I would say that 2...c5 and 2...d5 are equally strong. While 2...Bb4 seems like an interesting option that needs a bit more research. Or just try it for fun and see where it goes!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 e6 2.Nc3 d5 (2...c5) (2...Bb4) (2...e5 3.Nf3 Nc6 4.Bb5 Nd4) (2...Be7 3.Nf3 g5 4.h3 h5)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastActivityDate="2014-01-30T16:39:12.163" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4613" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4564" CreationDate="2014-01-30T17:27:34.260" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Practice makes a man perfect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Play more games and eventually you will see yourself improving from the mistakes you make.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess.com seems to be the best source to play online which I 've seen in recent times.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2375" LastActivityDate="2014-01-30T17:27:34.260" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4614" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4611" CreationDate="2014-01-30T18:18:21.263" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is very hard to answer this question &lt;strong&gt;without White's next move after you played &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/strong&gt; I bet he tried something like &lt;code&gt;3.Nf3&lt;/code&gt; or even &lt;code&gt;3.d3&lt;/code&gt; would not surprise me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You see, the move &lt;code&gt;2.Nc3&lt;/code&gt; is not bad-it follows all the opening rules, and is used &lt;strong&gt;only to transpose from one opening into another&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;strong&gt;to dodge certain variations that are unpleasant for White.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my opinion, I &lt;strong&gt;assume&lt;/strong&gt; that White &lt;strong&gt;did not want to play main lines&lt;/strong&gt; of the &lt;em&gt;French defense&lt;/em&gt; so he tried to trick you to transpose into another opening or another line, the one you do not know. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is especially useful in blitz games. Your move-&lt;code&gt;2.d5&lt;/code&gt;-is the best move. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Never fool around with transpositions when you play blitz, always spend &lt;strong&gt;the least amount of time possible&lt;/strong&gt; on openings. &lt;strong&gt;Quality blitz games&lt;/strong&gt; are won in the middle game or by the expiration of thinking time, not in the opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The main point of &lt;code&gt;2.Nc3&lt;/code&gt; is that &lt;strong&gt;it can not be refuted&lt;/strong&gt;, and &lt;strong&gt;it can not give White a bad position.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White tries to force you to waste &lt;strong&gt;important thinking time&lt;/strong&gt; on the opening trying to refute this move. You could play &lt;code&gt;2.c5&lt;/code&gt; here but why? After &lt;code&gt;c5&lt;/code&gt; you get &lt;em&gt;Sicilian defense&lt;/em&gt; which is &lt;strong&gt;not your repertoire against &lt;code&gt;1.e4&lt;/code&gt; is it?&lt;/strong&gt; Therefore, White would achieve his goal-he would transpose into opening &lt;strong&gt;you do not know&lt;/strong&gt;-because if you intended to play the &lt;em&gt;Sicilian defense&lt;/em&gt; at the first place you would respond with &lt;code&gt;1.c5&lt;/code&gt; not with &lt;code&gt;1.e6&lt;/code&gt; right?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If &lt;code&gt;2.Nf6&lt;/code&gt; he can dodge the &lt;em&gt;French defense&lt;/em&gt; by playing &lt;code&gt;3.e5!&lt;/code&gt; which might give him a slight opening advantage. If &lt;code&gt;2.Nc6&lt;/code&gt; with the idea to play &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt; and transpose into favorable version of the &lt;em&gt;Italian game&lt;/em&gt; then &lt;code&gt;3.d4&lt;/code&gt; transposes into some sort of &lt;em&gt;Nimzovich defense&lt;/em&gt; and you are out of your opening in both cases.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On &lt;code&gt;2.Bb4&lt;/code&gt; White can now go for &lt;code&gt;3.Nge2!?&lt;/code&gt; with events developing something like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e6 2.Nc3 Bb4 3.Nge2 d5 4.a3 Ba5 5.d4 dxe4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This position is known in the &lt;em&gt;Winawer French defense&lt;/em&gt;-it is coded as &lt;code&gt;C15&lt;/code&gt; in the &lt;code&gt;ECO&lt;/code&gt; and the above is the sideline. This variation is not played with bishop on &lt;code&gt;a5&lt;/code&gt;, and being unable to find any theoretical resource that mentions this position in &lt;em&gt;Winawer line&lt;/em&gt; I must conclude that the move &lt;code&gt;Ba5&lt;/code&gt; in the regular line is bad-which is precisely the goal of White's &lt;strong&gt;altered&lt;/strong&gt; move order. In the normal &lt;em&gt;Winawer&lt;/em&gt; things would go like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.Nge2 dxe4 5.a3 Bxc3+ ( 5...Be7!? )&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We can list other moves or possibilities for Black after White plays &lt;code&gt;2.Nc3&lt;/code&gt;, but let us keep this post short and answer your question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;e4 e6 2. Nc3 - how should Black respond?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Again, I consider your &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt; to be the strongest move-both for theoretical &lt;strong&gt;and psychological/practical&lt;/strong&gt; reasons explained below:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Do not experiment with transpositions&lt;/strong&gt; or you may end up in a position that will very likely be &lt;strong&gt;unfavorable for you.&lt;/strong&gt; You can break this rule only if you are &lt;strong&gt;100% sure&lt;/strong&gt; that transposition can benefit you. If not then decline it &lt;strong&gt;by staying in your opening.&lt;/strong&gt; Most of the time this is the best choice to make and &lt;strong&gt;the most unpleasant one for the side trying to trick you.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you have further questions leave a comment and I will reply.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Best regards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2014-01-31T03:53:10.500" LastActivityDate="2014-01-31T03:53:10.500" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4616" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4603" CreationDate="2014-01-30T20:19:15.143" Score="8" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;My question concerns the Queen+pawn versus Queen endgame. Assuming that the pawn is on its initial square (second rank for white, seventh rank for black), &lt;strong&gt;are&lt;/strong&gt; all these endgames objectively drawn? Second of all, &lt;strong&gt;what is the best strategy for the player with the material advantage&lt;/strong&gt; to aim for a win?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Emphasis above are mine, and since you have 2 questions I shall answer both separately.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;are all these endgames objectively drawn?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No they are absolutely not!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Second of all, what is the best strategy for the player with the material advantage to aim for a win?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Without seeing &lt;strong&gt;the exact position&lt;/strong&gt; I can not answer that-your question is too broad-these endgames require thorough study as &lt;strong&gt;everything counts&lt;/strong&gt; there ( the position of the kings, who moves first and so on ). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can recommend you &lt;em&gt;Yuri Averbakh-Comprehensive Chess Endings ( Volume 3 )&lt;/em&gt; to learn how to win &lt;code&gt;Q+P+K&lt;/code&gt; vs &lt;code&gt;K+Q&lt;/code&gt; endgames. There you have described patterns for winning with the bishop/knight/rook/central pawn, queen and king vs king and queen. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have just suggested the above book because it is written for all levels of play-from novice &lt;strong&gt;up to grandmaster&lt;/strong&gt;-so with that knowledge you can not squander your edge, but if you find something else even better for you! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The key is just to learn how to &lt;strong&gt;recognize winning position and to learn how to win it.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All you have to do now, is to use &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.k4it.de/index.php?topic=egtb&amp;amp;lang=en&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this &lt;code&gt;tablebase&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/a&gt; to see &lt;strong&gt;how can you reach the winning position.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you have trouble finding &lt;strong&gt;exact&lt;/strong&gt; winning moves you can always go through &lt;code&gt;tablebase&lt;/code&gt; moves-just click on the notation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;SUMMARY:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Learn how to win &lt;code&gt;Q+P+K&lt;/code&gt; vs &lt;code&gt;K+Q&lt;/code&gt; endgames-&gt;input the position you are interested in into tablebase-&gt;if winnable, play through moves to see how to reach winning position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know that this might be too broad of an answer to you, but you ask for help &lt;strong&gt;in Queen endgames&lt;/strong&gt; and these are the toughest to master. Just one &lt;strong&gt;imprecise move&lt;/strong&gt; ( not to mention wrong one ) gives your opponent a draw and squanders your edge! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hopefully this answer helped you a little.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you have further question leave a comment and I will reply.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Best regards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastActivityDate="2014-01-30T20:19:15.143" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4617" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4598" CreationDate="2014-01-31T02:20:34.110" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Since White will presumably try to defend that advanced e-pawn with d4, an immediate ...c5 seems to make sense for Black here, to prevent that possibility. (But then, I'm a complete novice, so take this with a grain of salt.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1758" LastActivityDate="2014-01-31T02:20:34.110" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4618" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4640" CreationDate="2014-01-31T08:32:50.023" Score="1" ViewCount="4094" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know that is hard to establish an exact equivalent, but I was wondering what is the factor P in this equation: &lt;code&gt;FICS_BLITZ_ELO * P = FIDE_ELO&lt;/code&gt; following personal experience. I mean, if you use to play FICS blitz games and have FIDE ELO, what is your P? I suppose that with a full hand of replies we can get an idea of P value.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user2378" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-03-03T20:04:27.980" LastActivityDate="2014-03-03T20:04:27.980" Title="FICS rating vs FIDE Elo" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;elo&gt;&lt;blitz&gt;&lt;online&gt;&lt;online-blitz&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4619" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4609" CreationDate="2014-01-31T09:16:20.510" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The general rule in K+P vs K+Q is that, if the pawn is at the 7th(2nd) row on the third file (&lt;code&gt;c&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;f&lt;/code&gt; file), and the opponent's king is not near, the game is a Draw because of the stalemate positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2379" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2014-01-31T10:22:00.307" LastActivityDate="2014-01-31T10:22:00.307" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4622" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4611" CreationDate="2014-01-31T15:21:54.947" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As Black, I'd play 2 ... c5. White has failed to occupy d4 with his second move, so I would try to head off his occupation of that square.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, White may be headed for a more restrained version of the French defense, that is, no e5, and d3 instead of d4, but that gives Black some chance to capture the initiative.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2014-01-31T15:21:54.947" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4623" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4618" CreationDate="2014-01-31T15:55:08.923" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this case, I will have to quote from the FICS FAQ (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.freechess.org/Help/HelpFiles/fics_faq.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.freechess.org/Help/HelpFiles/fics_faq.html&lt;/a&gt;):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;39.My rating is over/under inflated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Don't worry!  Ratings are all relative anyway, not absolute. Compare your&#xA;      FICS rating only to other FICS players, not to ratings from other groups.&#xA;      Comparing your rating on FICS to a person's rating on another server or&#xA;      in a chess federation is not a valid comparison. FICS has a different&#xA;      rating system and a different player community than other organizations.&#xA;      Therefore your rating here is unlikely to match your rating somewhere&#xA;      else.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;40.I have a rating on FICS. What would my rating from in-person tournaments be?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Ratings on FICS are not comparable to those gained from&#xA;      real life tournaments because they measure play against a different group&#xA;      of people under different playing conditions. Some users have higher&#xA;      ratings in real life, some have lower ratings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your question, you say FICS Elo rating, but the Elo rating system (&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elo_rating_system&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elo_rating_system&lt;/a&gt;) is a system of its own and FICS might not even be using it for its ratings. FIDE does, for sure! Also, comparing two rating systems is dubious since the opponents you meet, the time controls you use and the initial rating you get and the rating system you use will differ! But comparing the FIDE blitz rating with the FICS rating might be more valid. In this case, my guess would be that the FICS rating will be higher than the FIDE blitz rating. And I base this on absolutely nothing!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastActivityDate="2014-01-31T15:55:08.923" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4624" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4582" CreationDate="2014-01-31T16:24:04.477" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think that the following options are available for white&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. d4 d6 2. c4 Nf6 3. Nc3 Nc6 4.Bg5 e5 5.d5 Ne7 6.Bxf6 gxf6 7.e3 Bg7 8.Nge2 f5 9.Ng3 f4 10.Nh5 O-O 11.Nxg7 Kxg7 12.exf4 exf4 13.Qd4+ Kg8 14.O-O-O (4.Nf3 Bg4 5.d5 Ne5 6.Nxe5 dxe5 7.Qb3) (4.d5 Nb8 5.e4 Nbd7 6.Be3 g6 7.Be2 Bg7 8.Qd2)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The longest variation is just an example of how quickly white can create an attack. In general, the fact that the white pawn is still on e2 allows white to do e2-e3 and take control over the d4 square (which is impossible after e2-e4). The option 4.d5 is the most direct way to challenge 3...Nc6. The drawback is that you get less control over the d4 and e5-squares. I like the idea of 4.Bg5 because it threatens Bxf6 and ruins black's pawn structure on the kingside. It forces black to make a difficult decision without making a committing move (d4-d5, since pawns cannot move backwards). All being said, it is a question of taste, as long as white knows what sort of position one should aim for.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastActivityDate="2014-01-31T16:24:04.477" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4625" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2014-01-31T20:06:57.900" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2014-01-31T20:06:57.900" LastActivityDate="2014-01-31T20:06:57.900" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4626" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2014-01-31T20:06:57.900" Score="0" Body="The Queen's Indian Defense is the chess opening characterized by the moves 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nf3 b6." OwnerUserId="1485" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2014-01-31T23:14:05.577" LastActivityDate="2014-01-31T23:14:05.577" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4627" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-01-31T23:29:11.633" Score="4" ViewCount="325" Body="&lt;p&gt;Recently I've played a game (with blacks) which ended with this position (White to move) :  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;3rk3/p1R2ppp/2p5/8/P1K5/8/1P3PPP/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's clear that White player can't protect his pawns in the second row, but the problem here is with the a file, should black protect his pawns in the a file, which will quite restrict his possibilities ?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Otherwise, Is it possible to just abandon this pawn, and go for white pawns in the 2nd raw ?&#xA;But the problem here is surely with the white pawn in a4 which is pretty advanced compared to black pawns.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How should black play in order to save his game ( a draw at least ?!) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2282" LastEditorUserId="2042" LastEditDate="2014-02-01T02:39:52.663" LastActivityDate="2016-08-08T04:09:23.667" Title="How should black play to save this endgame?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;rook-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4628" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4627" CreationDate="2014-01-31T23:33:50.660" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This endgame is &lt;strong&gt;lost&lt;/strong&gt; for black, but the best plan here is for black to enter 2nd rank and try to gain some pawns and throw some checks. White's plan on the other side is just to take a7 pawn and advance his a4 pawn till promotion&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Good luck trying to SAVE that one&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2300" LastActivityDate="2014-01-31T23:33:50.660" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4629" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4627" CreationDate="2014-02-01T01:29:06.237" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;What about &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; .....   d8-d2&#xA; c7-c8!  d2-e2!&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now it's possible to draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2347" LastActivityDate="2014-02-01T01:29:06.237" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4630" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2014-02-01T10:50:10.510" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2014-02-01T10:50:10.510" LastActivityDate="2014-02-01T10:50:10.510" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4631" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2014-02-01T10:50:10.510" Score="0" Body="The Pirc Defense is a chess opening that begins with 1. e4 d6 and black follows up with 2... Nf6 and a kingside fianchetto. A standard move order is 1. e4 d6 2. d4 Nf6 3. Nc3 g6.  " OwnerUserId="1485" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2014-02-01T13:48:37.167" LastActivityDate="2014-02-01T13:48:37.167" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4632" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1014" CreationDate="2014-02-01T12:13:44.557" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Pirc and the Modern Defense are very closely related.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the Pirc, black fianchettoes his king's bishop and plays ...Nf6; ...d6 is necessary to prepare ...Nf6, because otherwise white can chase the knight away with e4-e5. There are several setups white can choose, but black's defines the Pirc defence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;rnbqk2r/ppp1ppbp/3p1np1/8/3PP3/2N2N2/PPP2PPP/R1BQKB1R w KQkq - 2 5&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;His move order, 1...d6 and then 2...Nf6, makes sure that white's e4 pawn is attacked and that it can't advance; so white can't play a pawn to c4. That's important.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Modern is like a Pirc without ...Nf6:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;rnbqk1nr/ppp1ppbp/3p2p1/8/3PP3/2N2N2/PPP2PPP/R1BQKB1R b KQkq - 1 4&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now obviously, if black plays ...Nf6 here or within a few moves, then it's a Pirc again. But black has other moves as well: start something on the queenside with ...a6 or ...c6, develop the other knight to c6 or d7, or play ...e6 or ...e5 (and ...Ne7 later). But frequently black does end up playing ...Nf6 eventually and then it becomes a Pirc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this move order, white can also go for 3.c4:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;rnbqk1nr/ppp1ppbp/3p2p1/8/2PPP3/8/PP3PPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 4&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now again, if black doesn't play ...Nf6, then it's still a Modern Defence (one that also often arises after 1.d4 or 1.c4). But if black does play it, then it's not a Pirc, as in the Pirc white can't play c4. It's a &lt;em&gt;King's Indian Defence&lt;/em&gt; instead! That normally starts 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.e4, but that's the same thing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So -- &lt;em&gt;fianchetto without Nf6 is the Modern&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;fianchetto with Nf6 but without a white pawn on c4 is the Pirc&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;fianchetto with Nf6 and c4 is the King's Indian&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are also non-Pirc lines that start 1.e4 d6:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;rnbqkb1r/pp2pppp/2pp1n2/8/3PP3/2N5/PPP2PPP/R1BQKBNR w KQkq - 0 4&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the &lt;em&gt;Czech Defense&lt;/em&gt; (1.e4 d6 2.d4 Nf6 3.Nc3 c6), black doesn't play his bishop to g7.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;rnbqkb1r/ppp2ppp/3p1n2/4p3/3PP3/2N5/PPP2PPP/R1BQKBNR w KQkq - 0 4&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And this (1.e4 d6 2.d4 Nf6 3.Nc3 e5) is a way to get to the &lt;em&gt;Philidor Defense&lt;/em&gt;, which normally starts 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 Nf6 4.Nc3, to avoid several options by white, at the cost of allowing 4.dxe5 dxe5 5.Qxd8+, but that's thought to be OK for black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2014-02-01T12:13:44.557" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4633" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4634" CreationDate="2014-02-01T14:20:29.970" Score="3" ViewCount="367" Body="&lt;p&gt;I had the following in a game&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;  [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e6 2. Nf3 d5 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;expecting White to follow with Nc3 leading to the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Defence#Early_deviations_for_White&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Two Knight's Variation of the French&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Instead, the game continuing with:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;  [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e6 2. Nf3 d5 3.exd5 exd5 4.d4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;transposing, I guess to some form of the exchange variation although the typical  &quot;exchange variation&quot; happens in the French's main line: 1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5. Anyhow, is there a name for this opening and how should Black continue? (e.g. with 4....Bb4+ maybe?). Alternatively, might there be any merit in the adventurous 3...Qxd5 which loses a tempo for Black if followed by 4.Nc3?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2307" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-02-07T10:56:34.897" LastActivityDate="2014-02-07T10:56:34.897" Title="French :: exchange variation - but not quite" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;french-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4634" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4633" CreationDate="2014-02-01T15:59:41.070" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The game has transposed to a standard exchange variation, a variation pretty well explained on &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Defence#Exchange_Variation%3a_3.exd5_exd5&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia.&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;You could try a setup with &lt;code&gt;4... Bd6&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;5... Ne7&lt;/code&gt;, with the idea that if white puts his best  bishop on &lt;code&gt;Bd3&lt;/code&gt;, you can play &lt;code&gt;Bf5&lt;/code&gt; to change it off. Black is very comfortable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The move &lt;code&gt;4... Bb4+&lt;/code&gt; is not to be recommended, since it only helps white, giving them the free move &lt;code&gt;5.c3&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;3...Qxd5&lt;/code&gt; should be avoided since in the Scandinavian positions that arise, it is important to develop the &lt;code&gt;c8&lt;/code&gt; bishop before playing &lt;code&gt;e6&lt;/code&gt;.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1485" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2014-02-01T16:58:44.630" LastActivityDate="2014-02-01T16:58:44.630" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4635" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1838" CreationDate="2014-02-01T23:38:49.267" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The main advantage of the Queen's Indian defense is that it gives a good development to the light squared bishop, otherwise Black's problem piece, along the long diagonal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because it involves a &quot;slow&quot; development, it gives White a chance to overreach.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the above reasons, it was a favorite opening of (then) World Champion, J.R. Capablanca (nearly a century ago).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2014-02-01T23:38:49.267" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4636" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4578" CreationDate="2014-02-01T23:44:11.960" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;When played in the 19th and early 20th centuries, the Evans gambit was a terrifying opening that put Black on the defensive for a long time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's until modern theory discovered that Black can get a fully equal game by returning the pawn at the right time (this is generally true of most king pawn gambits, which is why they aren't played much nowadays).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Today's Black players don't mind Evans gambits because it is an easier way to get an &quot;equal&quot; game that most other openings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2014-02-01T23:44:11.960" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4637" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4618" CreationDate="2014-02-02T00:01:28.243" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Ratings from different pools of players and with different rating methods cannot be compared with any reasonable accuracy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2014-02-02T00:01:28.243" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4638" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4643" CreationDate="2014-02-02T15:26:07.010" Score="15" ViewCount="5045" Body="&lt;p&gt;If it were possible to analyse every possible outcome of a position, would there ever be a single move that could be considered &quot;best&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know that this is how computers evaluate positions, but they can only calculate the decision tree down to a set number of moves. If it were possible to analyse every possible outcome in a reasonable amount of time (possibly with &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_computer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;quantum computing&lt;/a&gt;), could the ultimate chess move be made?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What I guess I'm saying is that is a chess move &lt;em&gt;objective&lt;/em&gt; in that only one move is really the best one, or should it be &lt;em&gt;subjective&lt;/em&gt; in that it makes certain assumptions about the opponent? For example a move may be made that 90% of players are not &quot;good enough&quot; to counter, and therefore that move was a good move (what I mean by subjective). However, there may be another move that is more strategic which increases the chances of victory against 100% of players, but this would not be known to anyone unless it was possible to make an exhaustive analysis of every single outcome (objective).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1658" LastEditorUserId="1658" LastEditDate="2018-11-02T08:15:18.487" LastActivityDate="2020-05-22T14:07:17.913" Title="Is there a single best move in every position?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;engines&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;calculation&gt;" AnswerCount="12" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="4639" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4641" CreationDate="2014-02-02T15:41:11.277" Score="6" ViewCount="580" Body="&lt;p&gt;A common line in the orthodox line of the QGD goes something like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. c4 e6 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. Nc3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's the part that puzzles me. According to the database in &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.365chess.com/opening.php?m=8&amp;amp;n=16&amp;amp;ms=d4.d5.c4.e6.Nf3.Nf6.Nc3&amp;amp;ns=7.8.23.41.303.15.16&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;365chess&lt;/a&gt; Black's most common response in 4...Be7 presumably to support the knight in case of 5.Bg5 (which remarkably according to the same database is White's most common move even though after 4...Be7 no tempo is won). Anyhow, why doesn't Black simply play 4...g6 instead so he can conveniently fianchetto the King's bishop in response to 5.Bg5 ? This move does appear in the aforementioned database but way, way low. Why doesn't Black try to occupy the long diagonal with his King's bishop? Is there any strategic reason for Black in QGD for the King's bishop to remain on the a3-f8 diagonal instead?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2307" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-02-07T10:57:28.543" LastActivityDate="2018-07-23T21:18:50.163" Title="QGD :: should Black fiancheto his King's Bishop?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;queens-gambit&gt;&lt;fianchetto&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4640" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4618" CreationDate="2014-02-02T15:56:21.233" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The SurveyBot in FICS perform statistical analysis on the relation between users' FICS &lt;em&gt;Standard&lt;/em&gt; ratings to their reported FIDE ratings. It gives the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A list of the estimated FIDE ratings has been &#xA;  displayed above. The 234 submitted FIDE ratings fit the best exponential &#xA;  curve given by formula FIDE=a*e^(b*FICS), a&gt;0, where a=996.91895981, &#xA;  b=0.00035345 and coefficient of determination r^2=0.390.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, no estimate of accuracy is given, and I'd say 234 users does not sound very much for it to be very reliable. And of course, this does not say much about the correlation between FICS Blitz ratings and FIDE standard ratings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1761" LastActivityDate="2014-02-02T15:56:21.233" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4641" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4639" CreationDate="2014-02-02T16:38:19.680" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The main reason why Black tends not to fianchetto in this position is because she has already played &lt;code&gt;...e6&lt;/code&gt;, which in conjunction with playing &lt;code&gt;...g6&lt;/code&gt; to develop the bishop, unnecessarily weakens the dark squares on the black kingside without gaining anything; instead &lt;code&gt;...e6&lt;/code&gt; has wasted a tempo that could otherwise be saved, and potentially hindered development of the other bishop. In other words, if Black is about to spend a move playing &lt;code&gt;...g6&lt;/code&gt; to develop the kingside, it is better to wait on spending a move on the e-pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now it's true that, having played &lt;code&gt;1...d5&lt;/code&gt; to start, the move &lt;code&gt;...e6&lt;/code&gt; serves a purpose of reinforcing the pawn on d5. But this comes at the costs described above. That's why, if Black wants to fianchetto, she instead usually avoids an immediate &lt;code&gt;1...d5&lt;/code&gt; and opts for things like the Gruenfeld or the King's Indian, moving straight ahead with that scheme of development, and pushing one way or another in the center after other things are clearer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Consider a mainline King's Indian:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;    [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.e4 d6 5.Nf3 O-O 6.Be2 e5&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that Black has here gotten in &lt;code&gt;...e5&lt;/code&gt; in one fell swoop. And in a Gruenfeld, &lt;code&gt;1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 d5&lt;/code&gt;, Black has played &lt;code&gt;...d5&lt;/code&gt; but intends to get away without a reinforcing &lt;code&gt;...e6&lt;/code&gt; move, instead playing for piece play against White's center.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="2307" LastEditDate="2014-02-02T17:47:23.930" LastActivityDate="2014-02-02T17:47:23.930" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4642" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-02-02T16:43:05.400" Score="12" ViewCount="4465" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Gufeld's book, after &lt;code&gt;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 a6 6. Bg5!&lt;/code&gt;,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 a6 6. Bg5!&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;he writes: &quot;In this way White solves three problems: he prevents  &lt;code&gt;...e5&lt;/code&gt;, &quot; but he shows nothing to support the statement.  Why is &lt;code&gt;...e5&lt;/code&gt;  so bad for black?&#xA;Gerard&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2392" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-05-26T13:28:47.787" LastActivityDate="2016-06-09T05:43:06.943" Title="Why does 6.Bg5 prevent 6...e5 in the Sicilian Najdorf?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;&lt;najdorf&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4643" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4638" CreationDate="2014-02-02T16:59:34.007" Score="20" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, there are positions in which a lot of moves have the same effect or are the same but you can play them in a different order.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2300" LastEditorUserId="2379" LastEditDate="2014-02-05T11:07:05.830" LastActivityDate="2014-02-05T11:07:05.830" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4644" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4642" CreationDate="2014-02-02T17:01:33.767" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;After Bg5 in the najdorf variation playing e5 would leave black with huge problems in the d5 square, white is ready to take on f6 with his bishop and ocuppy the d5 outpost with a knight or even take advantage of f7 weak spot by playing Bc4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2300" LastActivityDate="2014-02-02T17:01:33.767" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4645" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4642" CreationDate="2014-02-02T18:41:43.863" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let's look at the position after&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 a6 6. Bg5 e5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The downside of e7-e5 is that black loses control over the d5 square (e7-e6 is no longer possible). The upside is that black gets a strong control over the e5 and d4-squares. There are lines where black plays e7-e5 and follows up with h7-h6 to stop the white bishop from going to g5. The reason is because the Bg5 pins the Nf6 to the Qd8 and therefore weakens blacks control over the d5-square (the Nf6 is a vital piece for black in order to control the d5-square).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From the position above, whites plan is to build up a strong control over the d5-square, most probably play Nc3-d5, perhaps followed by c2-c4 and build up the rooks on the c-file. For example&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 a6 6. Bg5 e5 7.Nb3 Be6 8.Nd5 Nbd7 9.f3 h6 10.Bh4 g5 11.Bf2 Nxd5 12.exd5 Bf5 13.c4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Where white should get a nice control over the light squares after exchanging off blacks light squared bishop with Bf1-d3. Also, white has the thematic pawn break h2-h4xg5 to open the h-file. As well as the Nb3-d2-e4 maneuver.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastActivityDate="2014-02-02T18:41:43.863" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4646" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4642" CreationDate="2014-02-02T18:56:22.737" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;The lines presented below are from the &lt;code&gt;Chess Informant ECO 1984&lt;/code&gt;, but I doubt the assessments have changed since:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Sicilian defense&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Najdorf variation&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.Bg5 e5?! 7.Bxf6 Qxf6 ( 7...gxf6 8.Nf5! Bxf5 9.exf5+/- ) 8.Nd5 Qd8 9.Nf5 Bxf5 ( 9...Be6 10.Bc4 Nd7 11.O-O Rc8 12.Bb3 Nc5 13.Qf3 Nxb3 14.Qxb3 Rc5 15.Rad1 Rb5 16.Qg3!+/- ) 10.exf5 Be7 11.c4+/- &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although my edition of the &lt;code&gt;ECO&lt;/code&gt; is old, I doubt anything has changed here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the main line Black has no counter-play-his only plan of attack-&lt;code&gt;b5&lt;/code&gt; is useless as White will take with the bishop thus eliminating every Black's counter-play. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White has strong grip on the light squares, and presence of the bishops of the &lt;strong&gt;opposite color&lt;/strong&gt; increases his advantage-remember this rule: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Presence of the opposite colored bishops favors the side &lt;strong&gt;with the initiative&lt;/strong&gt;. Although they may end up as a draw in the endgame, in the middle-game &lt;strong&gt;side that has an attack usually wins&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the first sideline, Black tried to generate some counter-play with &lt;code&gt;f5&lt;/code&gt; but White's &lt;code&gt;Qh5&lt;/code&gt; keeps advantage. If Black continues with passive play then White keeps advantage due to the initiative and presence of the opposite colored bishops.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black's last sideline features &lt;code&gt;Be6&lt;/code&gt; trying to ignore Whites plan, but we see that White develops strong pressure again.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am not an &lt;code&gt;1.e4&lt;/code&gt; player, so I was unable to find more concrete lines but these illustrate well enough why &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt; is dubious move for Black. If you need better coverage then try to find some repertoire books-at this point I can not recommend any.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Best regards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;EDIT IN RESPONSE TO THE COMMENTS:&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In comments, it was suggested that &lt;code&gt;7...gxf6&lt;/code&gt; is playable, by applying the ideas from the Sveshnikov sicilian.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am not an &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; player but let me try to explain why the above is not true.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, let us see what the actual plans behind the Sveshnikov are. In order to preserve space and provide minimal yet sufficient info, I will quote &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sicilian_Defence#Sveshnikov_Variation:_4...Nf6_5.Nc3_e5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt; article:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;8...b5! was Sveshnikov's innovation, controlling c4 and threatening&#xA;  ...b4 forking White's knights. Previously, Black played 8...Be6 (the&#xA;  Bird Variation), which allowed the a3-knight to return to life with&#xA;  9.Nc4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These are the compensations Black gets, which are important to mention here, that eventually help him equalize:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;White's powerful knight on d5 and Black's shattered kingside pawn&#xA;  structure are compensated by Black's bishop pair and White's offside&#xA;  knight on a3. Also, Black has the plan of playing 10...f5, followed by&#xA;  ...fxe4 and ...f5 with the second f-pawn, which would give them good&#xA;  control of the centre. An alternative plan is to play 10...Bg7&#xA;  followed by ...Ne7 to immediately trade off White's powerful knight;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;OK, this is enough for us to see why the line in the OP is bad for Black. Before we continue let us do a quick summary for the Sveshnikov:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;White has horrible knight on a3 that Black harrasses with ...b5. This move prevents Nc4 and Bc4, indirectly fighting for the light squares and giving Black time to finish development/organize counterplay, since White is forced to reposition Na3 to a better square (not to mention Black threatens to win a piece by forking the knights with ...b4).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Black has bishop pair, which is good asset for the endgame&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Black can &lt;strong&gt;destroy&lt;/strong&gt; White center and establish himself there, with moves ...f5 + fxe4 + f5 &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Black to move&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;rn1qkb1r/1p3p1p/p2p1p2/4pP2/8/2N5/PPP2PPP/R2QKB1R b KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the above position the only thing identical to the Sveshnikov is the &lt;strong&gt;Black pawn structure&lt;/strong&gt; with everything else different, and that matters as we shall see!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;White has no Na3 which means that thematic ...b5 simply wastes a tempo and has no real strength as in Sveshnikov.&lt;/li&gt; &#xA;&lt;li&gt;Without Na3 and ...b5, White really has no coordination problems (no fork threats, all of white pieces are idealy placed) as in Sveshnikov, which makes his development and slight space advantage more dangerous.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Black has no way to establish central dominance&lt;/strong&gt; as in Sveshnikov, because ...f5 + fxe4 + f5 plan is stopped by White pawn on f5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Black has no bishop pair, as in Sveshnikov&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Black can not play d5, because he is late with ...Nc6 + Ne7, which leaves Bf8 passive since d6 + e5 chain is hindering him&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Black will have problems finding safe place for the king&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Black queenside play with ...b5 + Rc8 is weak, it lacks the effect it has in other lines of the Sicilian&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;White has no weaknesses, apart from f5 pawn, which can be sacrificed in some lines but also easily defended as well&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White can find an effective plan here, simple computer analysis will do. I have no access to an engine here, but I believe that g3 + Bg2 plan is very strong here. White can attack everywhere. Any minor piece duel is advantageous for White ( Nc3 vs Bf8, Bf1 vs Bf8 if heavy pieces stay on the board which is very likely, Bf1 vs Nb8, even Nc3 vs Nb8). White also has advantage in heavy pieces only middlegames. White has better pawn structure and faster development.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Meanwhile, Black's only good piece could be Nb8, because it can swiftly go to d4. Still, White can consider exchange sacrifice and still end up better! Black really has &lt;strong&gt;nothing&lt;/strong&gt; to attack, nor we can envision any plan that achieves any meaningful, long-term counterplay.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To conclude, after &lt;code&gt;...gxf6&lt;/code&gt; Black gets &lt;strong&gt;worse&lt;/strong&gt; version of the Sveshnikov, painful &quot;fight-for-a-draw&quot; position without any counterplay. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastEditorUserId="2042" LastEditDate="2016-06-01T12:00:47.983" LastActivityDate="2016-06-01T12:00:47.983" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4647" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4638" CreationDate="2014-02-02T19:05:53.213" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;My guess would be that every position has a single objectively best move or two moves that are equally strong. Three equally strong moves is already less likely, unless of course the best move is for instance a discovered check with a bishop and it does not matter which square it chooses to open up the check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The best move in the position is the move that follows the correct sequence of moves in order to reach the next correct goal. For example, you want to attack the opponents castled King. First, you should launch a pawn storm to open up one or two files against the enemy King. Next, you should place one or more heavy pieces on this open file. Third, you should smash the pawns and pieces protecting the enemy King and deliver a checkmate. The best move at every point of this path is the move that reaches the target goal as efficiently as possible. I would say that the answer is &quot;Yes&quot; because my guess would be that in the majority of cases, a single move is slightly better than the second best move!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, it is possible to adjust your moves to your opponent. Perhaps even better, to adjust your moves to your own style of play. For example, if you prefer to play long middlegames, then you will try to keep the queens on the board. Thus, you might decline a queen exchange, even if that was the objectively strongest response. When the difference between the two best moves is tiny, the choice can be guided by your style of play. Evaluating this difference correctly is perhaps one of the hardest decisions at every move. Additionally, finding the best move and making it on the board is already more difficult than it sounds!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastActivityDate="2014-02-02T19:05:53.213" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4648" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4627" CreationDate="2014-02-02T22:32:22.720" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;White to move in that position? It looks pretty lost for black. White should probably choose 1.Rxa7 to grab the pawn and retain the control over the vital seventh rank. I guess that blacks best option is to play 1...Rd2 to try to grab some pawns and get counterplay. White should probably keep the b-pawn and play 2.b4 and black should probably grab a pawn with 2...Rxf2. Then, white should try to promote the a-pawn as soon as possible. Black will then most probably have problems stopping this. When black sacrifices the rook for whites a-pawn, blacks f-pawn will be too far behind to be a problem for white. So my line goes&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.Rxa7 Rd2 2.b4 Rxf2 3.a5 Rxg2 4.a6 Ra2 5.Kc5 Rc2+ 6.Kb6 Rb2 7.Rb7 Rxb4+ 8.Kxc6 Ra4 9.a7 g5 10.Rb8+ Ke7 11.a8=Q Rxa8 12.Rxa8&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and my guess is that white is winning since blacks f- and g-pawns are too far behind, while whites King is very active and can catch the pawns with Kc6-d5-e4-etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastActivityDate="2014-02-02T22:32:22.720" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4649" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4670" CreationDate="2014-02-03T04:57:29.697" Score="5" ViewCount="3708" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know that some moves from some opening can transpose to another.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But if I move my knight first, does it have benefit to me? In my Houdini, it shows lower value than I move a pawn first.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Best Regards,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Ahmad&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1315" LastEditorUserId="11202" LastEditDate="2017-04-16T14:04:45.040" LastActivityDate="2017-04-16T14:57:59.157" Title="What is the benefit of making the first move with a Knight?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;knights&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4650" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4649" CreationDate="2014-02-03T07:09:23.473" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's not worth it to analyze 1st moves with an engine. It's better to see possible variations in ChessBase's ECO view because you need to play opening which suits your mind style or antisuits your opponent's. An engine can't help you with that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2173" LastEditorUserId="11202" LastEditDate="2017-04-16T14:37:36.383" LastActivityDate="2017-04-16T14:37:36.383" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4651" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4649" CreationDate="2014-02-03T13:56:39.557" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Generally moving a knight first gives your opponent more ways to respond, so you have a lower chance to steer the game in the direction you want. On the other hand it gives you a little bit more flexibility, as you postpone the decision which pawn to move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="35" LastActivityDate="2014-02-03T13:56:39.557" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4652" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-02-03T14:17:05.730" Score="2" ViewCount="1007" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've downloaded the database from &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.icofy-blog.de/icofy-base/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;ICOfY&lt;/a&gt; in PGN format.&#xA;Are there any free Linux-based programs that would allow one to browse through it? I mean exploring the game moves tree while displaying position on the board and links to next move alongside statistics?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2307" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-02-05T13:08:19.013" LastActivityDate="2014-02-05T13:08:19.013" Title="How do you browse games in a PGN file on Linux?" Tags="&lt;pgn&gt;&lt;database&gt;&lt;linux&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4653" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4669" CreationDate="2014-02-03T14:55:47.033" Score="4" ViewCount="780" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am working on a project where I take a chess board position (FEN string converted to binary) &amp;amp; it's evaluation score and feed it to a neural network. My aim is to make the neural network differentiate between good and bad positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;How I encode the position :&lt;/strong&gt; There are 12 unique pieces in chess i.e pawn, rook, knight, bishop, queen and king for &lt;em&gt;white&lt;/em&gt; as well as &lt;em&gt;black&lt;/em&gt;. I encode each piece using 4 bits with 0000 denoting an empty square. So the 64 squares are encoded into 256 bits and I use 6 more bits to denote game state like whose turn it is to move, king-castle status, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Problem :&lt;/strong&gt; Since the input space for chess positions is neither smooth nor uni-modal (one small change in the board position can result in a huge change in the evaluation score), the neural network doesn't learn well. Now, the next logical thing to somehow extract useful features (like material difference, center control, etc) and feed it to the network.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I do not want to hand pick the features as I want the network to learn everything by itself. Therefore I am thinking of extracting features automatically using &lt;em&gt;autoencoders&lt;/em&gt;. Is there any better way to accomplish this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Summary :&lt;/strong&gt; What is the best way to automatically extract features from a chess board position so that it can be fed into a neural network?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;UPDATE :&lt;/strong&gt; To generate training data, I have modified Stockfish to dump it's evaluation process into a log file. So every new move(position) it considers is written to a file as an FEN string along with it's eval score&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2400" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-02-05T13:06:32.893" LastActivityDate="2014-02-06T07:36:17.620" Title="How can I automatically extract features from a position?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;training&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4654" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4652" CreationDate="2014-02-03T15:06:15.550" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://scidvspc.sourceforge.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Scid vs. PC&lt;/a&gt; can do all of the above. It will take a while to load since ICOfY Base is rather large (upward of 4 mil games, I believe). Your best bet is probably to convert the PGN file to Scid format using the &lt;code&gt;pgnscid&lt;/code&gt; command-line utility included with Scid vs. PC. That's what I've done in the past, but if I'm not mistaken, ICOfY Base is now available for download in Scid format.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2078" LastActivityDate="2014-02-03T15:06:15.550" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4655" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4649" CreationDate="2014-02-03T16:49:04.827" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In general, where there are significant enough amount of games played in a particular position, there is little value in looking at a computer evaluation unless you're considering some deeper novelties. And that's especially true when looking at openings, which engines have been known to show errant evaluations for and for which engines generally use user-defined opening trees (strongly encourage using these for opening practice) anyway when playing in tournaments. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A better way would be to look at actual game results. So, e.g. looking at the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/explorer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;chessgames opening explorer win - draw - loss percentages&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;e4  = 37.6% - 32.9% - 29.5%&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;d4  = 37.5% - 36.8% - 25.8%&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Nf3 = 36% - 39.9% - 24.1%&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;c4 = 37.5% - 37.8% - 24.7%&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, the numbers themselves might be confusing. More importantly are expected results&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;e4 = .376(1)+.329(.5) = .5405 points out of 1&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;d4 = .375(1)+.368(.5) = .559 points out of 1&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Nf3 = .36(1)+.399(.5) = .5595 points out of 1&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;c4 = .375(1)+.378(.5) = .564 points out of 1&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So is 1. Nf3 better than 1. d4 or e4? Probably not. And it's unlikely 1. c4 is some wondrous first move that produces better results than any other. More to the point, I would be willing to wager that any difference in results here is insignificant enough to warrant a change in opening move if you're more comfortable with another one. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also note, that the above doesn't take into account who plays the games, and many other factors. For example, one opening move may have a higher percentage of beginning player than another. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And an interesting &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.chessbase.com/author/matthew-wilson&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;2-part article on chessbase&lt;/a&gt; recently went in-depth into the e4/d4 debate and is probably an interesting read if you actually think one opening move is going to have a strong edge here. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user2398" LastEditorDisplayName="user2398" LastEditDate="2014-02-03T16:54:32.193" LastActivityDate="2014-02-03T16:54:32.193" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4656" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4649" CreationDate="2014-02-03T17:10:08.510" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Using knight in first move is a good option, for instance 1Nf3 you can ilude your opponent to think you are gonna play reti or queens pawn or kings indian attack and also you avoid some crazy gambits . It's a good way of start for a queens pawn player because it reduces lots of theory&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2300" LastActivityDate="2014-02-03T17:10:08.510" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4657" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4652" CreationDate="2014-02-03T17:13:54.083" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are a lot of free pgn vieweres but the best one is using chessbase&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2300" LastActivityDate="2014-02-03T17:13:54.083" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4658" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4638" CreationDate="2014-02-03T19:18:23.230" Score="17" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are plenty of situations where there is more than one move which leads to a forced mate.  So in those situations any of those moves is objectively best, and there's no one best move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2005" LastActivityDate="2014-02-03T19:18:23.230" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4660" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4638" CreationDate="2014-02-03T21:36:13.913" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a really interesting question. Because if it was possible to have an objective best move for every position, chess would cease to be played. For this reason, I will say that there are definitely some positions were there are objective best moves, but also others where there are not. Now onto my &quot;proof&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Lets assume that an infinity tree were possible by a chess engine.&#xA;On the very first move by white, the tree would have to be fully calculated.&#xA;Hence, after the first move, the chess engine wouldn't do anything except&#xA;refer to the next step in the tree at that point. &#xA;In fact, once this tree is created ONCE, it no longer ever needs to be created.&#xA;All chess programs would just be pre-loaded with this tree.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, once this tree IS created, all chess masters would simply study the tree. They are no longer analysing chess, but memorizing a computers computation of chess. People would stop playing chess, as it would become predictable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By analysing the &quot;first move&quot; I am very confident to say there is no objective best move for every position. Even the best Chess masters all like to start with different first moves based on their opponent. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2403" LastActivityDate="2014-02-03T21:36:13.913" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4661" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4638" CreationDate="2014-02-04T15:06:57.453" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, you cannot say that there can be &lt;em&gt;a single best move in &lt;strong&gt;every&lt;/strong&gt; position&lt;/em&gt;. In most positions there are a number of equally good moves with different effects.&#xA;Chess is a finite game, alright, but the branches are so many that even computers (still) need a substantial amount of time to calculate a full branch starting from a single move. This is why there is the &lt;em&gt;strategic evaluation&lt;/em&gt; of a position. This allows you to play moves without the need to calculate the full branches for each one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2379" LastActivityDate="2014-02-04T15:06:57.453" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4662" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4555" CreationDate="2014-02-04T19:30:15.560" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;After giving the issue some thought I think White has better prospects with:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. c4 dxc4 3. e3 b5 4. a4 Bd7 5. axb5 Bxb5 6. Nc3 *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At the very least a tempo is won. If Black is not very careful as to where he retreats his Bishop he may very well lose material in addition to the c4 pawn which is doomed by all accounts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2307" LastActivityDate="2014-02-04T19:30:15.560" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4663" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4664" CreationDate="2014-02-04T23:43:27.070" Score="3" ViewCount="219" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;8/8/5b2/5k2/8/3R4/4K3/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this endgame can white win ? If so what is the plan here for white or how sould black try to defend this position&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2300" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-02-07T15:20:05.193" LastActivityDate="2014-02-07T15:20:05.193" Title="Is this Rook versus Bishop endgame winning for white (white to move)?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;bishops&gt;&lt;rooks&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4664" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4663" CreationDate="2014-02-05T00:20:14.287" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;This ending is drawn, and the main thing that Black needs to avoid, and which White should aim for, is having her king driven toward the a1 or h8 corner (the problem being that those squares are the color that the remaining bishop travels on). White cannot force Black into either of those corners from this position, and so it is drawn. To see that the others are &quot;good&quot; corners, note that in the following position Black need only keep shuffling the bishop along the b8-h2 diagonal, and White has no way to progress toward mate, as a rook check on the eighth rank can always be blocked safely (which isn't true in the &quot;bad&quot; corners).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;k7/4R3/K7/8/5b2/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2014-02-05T00:20:14.287" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4665" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4667" CreationDate="2014-02-05T02:39:50.977" Score="6" ViewCount="966" Body="&lt;p&gt;From my experience in chess, I have observed that my draw ratio in symmetric positions (e.g. the Italian opening) is higher than in non-symmetric positions (e.g. the Spanish opening or different gambits). In general, do symmetric positions have a higher draw ratio?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1315" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-02-05T13:02:34.097" LastActivityDate="2017-04-18T19:15:51.610" Title="Do symmetric positions have a higher draw ratio?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;draw&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4666" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4638" CreationDate="2014-02-05T03:50:17.733" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Like Rauan said, if it were possible to analyze every possible move then there will most certainly be at least one move that leads to checkmate (or draw) in the shortest amount of moves, but there won't be ONLY one best move for each possible position. Fortunately, I haven't found a way to analyze every position perfectly, which still makes the game enjoyable to play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2346" LastActivityDate="2014-02-05T03:50:17.733" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4667" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4665" CreationDate="2014-02-05T05:07:43.793" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Very good question, +1 from me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is it true that asymmetric leads to win or lose and symmetric leads to draw?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is not true that symmetric positions lead to a draw, and asymmetric ones to winning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;EXPLANATION:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many people consider the &lt;em&gt;Exchange variation of the Slav defense&lt;/em&gt; as drawn, but you will find that top grandmasters disagree.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In a symmetric position &lt;strong&gt;White has a small initiative or pressure&lt;/strong&gt;, because he moves &lt;strong&gt;first.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason this gives drawn games is because even if White manages to make some advantage, it is usually small and it pins Black to defense &quot;but that is all&quot;. &lt;strong&gt;Without a second weakness&lt;/strong&gt; White can not win, and with proper defense &lt;strong&gt;he usually can not create it&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, try to play symmetric position as Black against a stronger opponent and you will see just how hard it is to draw. The advantage of having &lt;strong&gt;permanent&lt;/strong&gt; ( although small ) initiative or pressure counts a lot, and I am telling you this from my experience.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although I do not play against humans that often, I regularly play against &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.shredderchess.com/play-chess-online.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Shredder&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt; in my spare time. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I always set the difficulty to &lt;code&gt;hard&lt;/code&gt; and I always get &quot;ground down&quot; in the &lt;em&gt;Exchanged Slav&lt;/em&gt; or in other semi-symmetrical positions-like &lt;code&gt;1.e4 e5&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I usually have an easier time drawing in asymmetrical positions, since the &lt;strong&gt;imbalance of strengths/weaknesses gives strong counter-play for both sides.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the &lt;em&gt;Queen's Gambit Declined-Exchange variation&lt;/em&gt; I usually draw way easier, although I do not know much of its theory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The difference between symmetrical and asymmetrical positions is this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In symmetric ones you have a &lt;strong&gt;small&lt;/strong&gt; but &lt;strong&gt;permanent&lt;/strong&gt; advantage as White. That means that you can win, draw or lose, while Black usually can only draw or lose. Here White needs to make an effort to &lt;strong&gt;outplay his opponent&lt;/strong&gt; or else it will end as a draw. Hence in these positions a truly better player wins ( Black's position is harder to play, though).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In asymmetric positions &lt;strong&gt;both&lt;/strong&gt; sides have &lt;strong&gt;strong counter-play&lt;/strong&gt; so in these positions chances tend to be &lt;strong&gt;more equal.&lt;/strong&gt; These positions are better for Black because &lt;strong&gt;you will have counter-play from the start&lt;/strong&gt; while in the symmetric positions you will have to &lt;strong&gt;work very hard just to generate it&lt;/strong&gt;-how many times did we all have &quot;a won game&quot; only to lose it because our opponent was &quot;lucky to have that one saving tactical shot&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because asymmetric positions give &lt;strong&gt;greater chances for both sides to win&lt;/strong&gt; you see them being more popular then symmetric ones. Also, they require &lt;strong&gt;less&lt;/strong&gt; studying.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What I have noticed in the games of Karpov, Petrosian, Capablanca and many others is that they use simple positions that are &lt;strong&gt;objectively equal&lt;/strong&gt; to outplay their opponents. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Symmetric positions can serve great for this-your opponent thinks that it is a draw, but believe me when I say this, that extra tempo in the hands of the stronger and &lt;strong&gt;more creative&lt;/strong&gt; player does count and can solve the game! I use this method too, and this method was used on me, so I speak from my experience.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other players like Alekhin, Kasparov, Tal and so on, did not care for giving their opponents strong counter-play because they relied on their &lt;strong&gt;fantastic calculation strength.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Objectively speaking, &lt;strong&gt;if both play well&lt;/strong&gt;, the game must end in a draw. It is a matter of choice how someone will fight for the win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I prefer symmetric positions as White, since I am good at endgame and positional play, so to have a small but lasting advantage is enough for me. I will use my creativity to complicate the game and generate winning chances. These positions require a lot of creative work and &lt;strong&gt;high technique&lt;/strong&gt; for both sides to be able to play them well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As Black, I &lt;strong&gt;always&lt;/strong&gt; play asymmetric lines because of the reasons given above ( believe me, it is not so easy to draw against &lt;em&gt;Shredder&lt;/em&gt; relying on &quot;sheer&quot; strength &lt;strong&gt;even if the position is drawn!&lt;/strong&gt; ). These positions require a &lt;strong&gt;strong calculating skill&lt;/strong&gt; from a player and crafty use of &lt;strong&gt;tempo&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hopefully this answer sheds some light and gives you some insight about strength / weaknesses of both types of positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;EDIT IN RESPONSE TO THE COMMENT FROM MEMBER &lt;em&gt;SalvadorDali&lt;/em&gt;:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Also sentence like asymmetric positions require less time to study sounds really strange.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The beauty of the asymmetric position is the strength of the counter-play you get and how little energy and time it requires to find a plan. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let us compare two similar openings from Black's point of view-QGD and Slav-but let us focus on Exchange variations. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;r1bqrnk1/pp2bppp/2p2n2/3p2B1/3P4/2NBPN2/PPQ2PPP/R4RK1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In QGD it is easier to find a plan as Black-knight jump on &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;a6&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;a5&lt;/code&gt; pawn push vs minority attack or &lt;code&gt;c4&lt;/code&gt; outpost, &quot;Petrosian knight&quot;, king-side piece attack and so on-you can think of a plan &quot;right off the bat&quot;. Same goes for White-&lt;code&gt;Nge2&lt;/code&gt; plan, minority attack and so on. All this happens due to asymmetry. The counter-play is strong for both-if Black succeeds White loses, and same happens if White succeeds in carrying his plan out. Furthermore, you have &lt;strong&gt;limited amount of ideas&lt;/strong&gt; to study. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;2r3k1/1prbbppp/pqn1pn2/3p4/3P4/P1NBPN2/1PRBQPPP/2R3K1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now think about the Exchange Slav from Black's and White's point of view-can you offer a plan the same way? No you can not. This means that White will have to invest &lt;strong&gt;a lot of work&lt;/strong&gt; to think of a plan that will give him &lt;strong&gt;more than a draw&lt;/strong&gt; and that is not so easy to do in a nearly equal position. All you have here is an advantage of the first move which is enough for a &lt;strong&gt;small but lasting initiative&lt;/strong&gt; but not for a win. However, in equal positions it is the &lt;strong&gt;strength and creativity&lt;/strong&gt; of the both players that counts the most. One of the tries for White is to double rooks on the c-file and then enter &lt;strong&gt;voluntarily into IQP&lt;/strong&gt; position. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;2r3k1/1prbbp1p/pqn1p1p1/8/3PQ3/P2B1N2/1PRB1PPP/2R3K1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This will make an endgame weakness but due to his slight initiative, and now space advantage, he will retain some chances to win. Again, he will need to be creative to be able to win so he nigh decide to &quot;equalize the position&quot; by opening the center thus transforming the position into open one, where he will have slight mobility advantage.&#xA;Still, that is just an initiative-Black can still defend- so White will have to transpose into a better endgame but that requires a lot more knowledge-especially since the position is equal-so the art of properly exchanging pieces will be crucial here. Let us say that White somehow manages to enter knight vs white bishop endgame-since the center is open and pawns are not fixed it will be hard for him to win. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;6k1/1p1b1p1p/p5p1/8/8/5N2/PP3PPP/6K1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He will again have to invest so much work in order to create winning chances, and will have to show inhuman technique so he can convert that advantage. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for Black, he must &lt;strong&gt;adapt to White's action&lt;/strong&gt;, and if White is creative player, that means you need a lot of knowledge as well to parry his threats. And what about generating counter-play that gives you &lt;strong&gt;equal winning chances&lt;/strong&gt; in the above diagram? Good luck with that! In symmetric positions it is &lt;strong&gt;only White&lt;/strong&gt; who can win. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What if I am 2550 ELO player with Black who plays against 2300 ELO White? If White knows his stuff he can draw easily-that is why GMs play the &lt;code&gt;e6&lt;/code&gt; move order instead of &lt;code&gt;c6&lt;/code&gt;-QGD Exchange offers much easier play for a win. Think about the example for White I have described above, and tell me how would you generate &lt;strong&gt;winning chances&lt;/strong&gt;? You will need an enormous amount of effort just to think of a plan, and high technique to carry it out. Not to mention the endgame technique required to outplay your opponent and convert the advantage. Same question for Black-how would you generate &lt;strong&gt;winning chances&lt;/strong&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In symmetric positions-&lt;strong&gt;not only openings but middle and early endgames&lt;/strong&gt;-you need a lot more work to generate tangible attack/counter-attack because everything is equal. You do not have a clear plan &quot;right off the bat&quot; and when you find one it is not as dangerous as it would be in the asymmetric position. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;That still does not mean that I should settle with a draw.&lt;/strong&gt; But to win in such positions you need to have &lt;strong&gt;every aspect of your game&lt;/strong&gt; at a high level because you never know where will you get the chance to outplay the opponent-in the middle game or endgame or maybe opening-and even when you get that chance you still get an advantage you &lt;strong&gt;must &quot;grind down&quot;&lt;/strong&gt; and that also requires high level of technique.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In asymmetric positions you have it so much easier-you do not need &lt;strong&gt;every aspect of your game&lt;/strong&gt; to be at the high level ( &lt;strong&gt;this is especially true for the endgame!&lt;/strong&gt; ) to be able to outplay your opponent. You only need high tactical skill and good knowledge of the typical plans ( minority attack, knight jump to &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; and so on... ) and you are good to go. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This brings me to the second part of your comment:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Can you please clarify your experience a little bit deeper, I can understand such phrase from a GM, but sorry for my skepticism - but playing against computer program does tell nothing about your knowledge.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although not so clear, I assume you think of this sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Many people consider the Exchange variation of the Slav defense as drawn, but you will find that top grandmasters disagree.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Again, look at the example diagram for Exchange Semi-Slav and you shall see that &lt;strong&gt;only White can win&lt;/strong&gt;. White has advantage of first move here and that &lt;strong&gt;really counts&lt;/strong&gt; as he can unbalance the position first. He can change the position into &lt;em&gt;Isolated Queen's Pawn&lt;/em&gt; or he can completely open the center. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black can &lt;strong&gt;only sit and wait.&lt;/strong&gt; Although he is not weaker, he &lt;strong&gt;is passive&lt;/strong&gt; and although computers have no problem drawing this position it is &lt;strong&gt;extremely hard for a human&lt;/strong&gt; to just &quot;soak up&quot; punch after punch &lt;strong&gt;just to draw&lt;/strong&gt;-come on Rocky Balboa at least won at the end! :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That is why GMs tried to introduce an early &lt;code&gt;Qb6&lt;/code&gt; with Black in order to unbalance the position &lt;strong&gt;and get some counter-play&lt;/strong&gt; or at least to get &lt;strong&gt;real winning chances&lt;/strong&gt; after their positional suffering ends-the idea is to snatch a pawn on &lt;code&gt;b2&lt;/code&gt; and &quot;suffer&quot; until the endgame comes. Some abandoned the &lt;code&gt;c6&lt;/code&gt; move order completely and enter Semi-Slav this way:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6!? 3.Nc3 c6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The point of this move order is to enter the QGD exchange variation instead of Slav exchange if White exchanges on &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I do not recall exactly the line in the Slav-I belong to those who abandoned the &lt;code&gt;c6&lt;/code&gt; move order and play &lt;code&gt;e6&lt;/code&gt; but here is the idea with &lt;code&gt;Qb6&lt;/code&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;rnb1kb1r/pp3ppp/1q2pn2/3p4/3P1B2/2N1PN2/PP3PPP/R2QKB1R w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you have additional questions leave a comment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Best regards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastEditorUserId="11202" LastEditDate="2017-04-18T19:15:51.610" LastActivityDate="2017-04-18T19:15:51.610" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4668" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4665" CreationDate="2014-02-05T16:10:44.937" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Symmetric positions tend to lead to more piece exchanges which in turn increases the chances of entering a completely equal endgame. I would guess that sharp positions have a lower draw ratio than calm positions. Of course, a calm position can turn into a sharp position and vice versa. I think that symmetrical positions have a smaller tendency to become sharp than asymmetrical positions. A good example is the Sicilian defense (1.e4 c5) where black breaks the symmetry from the very first move. In this case, white can try to steer the game to more symmetrical grounds with e.g. 2.c4. Incidentally, such a strategy does lead to more calm positions, especially if black continues with 2...e5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is characteristic for a sharp position? Open and semi-open files! Symmetry in the pawn structure contradicts semi-open files. Usually, it also leads to a single open file. A good example is the French exchange variation (1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.exd5 exd5) which is usually met with a yawn. The more open and semi-open files you can create, the sharper position you can achieve. For instance, the Sicilian defense quickly creates two semi-open files (c-file for black and d-file for white) after 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do symmetric positions have a higher draw ratio? To put numbers on it, one could go to e.g. Chess 365 and look at the white win / draw / black win ratio for different opening systems. I would guess that such positions tend to be more calm and therefore have a wider draw path, so to speak. What I mean is that sharp positions will easier tilt in a white or black favor and have a narrow draw path. I would expect that the probability of a decisive result is proportional to the sharpness of the position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastActivityDate="2014-02-05T16:10:44.937" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4669" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4653" CreationDate="2014-02-05T16:27:50.763" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;To evaluate a chess position, you need to add code that understands different (e.g. dynamic and static) aspects of chess positions. Small changes (e.g. a blunder) will cause a big change in the Engine score and thus change the evaluation completely. I think that you need to make a survey about static and dynamic aspects of chess positions and write code that will extract this information from every FEN string.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples of what to extract:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Material balance&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Number of open files&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Number of semi-open files&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Total number of heavy pieces&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Total number of light pieces&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Total number of pawns&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Number of own pieces and pawns within three steps from the Kings&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Number of enemy pieces and pawns within three steps from the Kings&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Opening system that has been played in the game&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastActivityDate="2014-02-05T16:27:50.763" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4670" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4649" CreationDate="2014-02-05T22:01:37.753" Score="3" Body="&lt;h2&gt;INTERLUDE:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have answered many of your questions, and from that I conclude that you build some sort of a program or statistics.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The goal of the opening is to introduce as &lt;strong&gt;many&lt;/strong&gt; pieces as possible, and to do it &lt;strong&gt;as fast&lt;/strong&gt; as possible. In this process, your pieces must occupy &lt;strong&gt;the most aggressive&lt;/strong&gt; squares available.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From the statistical point of view &lt;code&gt;1.e4&lt;/code&gt; attacks 2 central squares and opens &lt;strong&gt;the best diagonals&lt;/strong&gt; for the queen and bishop. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt;can not develop queen aggressively, but opens the black bishop. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;These moves do not develop a piece&lt;/strong&gt;, they &lt;strong&gt;only claim space&lt;/strong&gt; ( in order to put a piece on those squares your opponent must exchange the pawn )  &lt;strong&gt;preparing&lt;/strong&gt; the piece development.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now let us look at the knight move:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;1.Nc3&lt;/code&gt;-&gt;&lt;strong&gt;you develop a piece&lt;/strong&gt;, you attack ( &lt;strong&gt;but do not claim!&lt;/strong&gt; ) 1 central square and 1 on the wing, you fortify your own squares ( &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;a4&lt;/code&gt; ), but you do not open paths for other pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;1.Nf3&lt;/code&gt;-&gt;same as above, only different squares are attacked.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why does knight move attack a square while pawn claims it? Because pawns have the lowest value, in order to put pieces at squares controlled by them you need to first exchange that pawn. Knight does not claim the square because you can &lt;strong&gt;challenge&lt;/strong&gt; the knight more easily by putting the bishop/pawn/knight on that square. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is better-to develop pieces or to seize space first?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First 2 moves usually seize space, and are followed by piece development. Therefore, most games start with a pawn move, and then pieces are developed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Statistically speaking, &lt;strong&gt;it is better to open with a pawn&lt;/strong&gt; ( it claims important central squares and opens lines for the pieces to come out ) but chess is more than just statistics. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So to answer your question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What is the benefit of making the first move with a Knight? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So what is the point of the knight move? To understand that observe these two examples-we shall consider only White's moves to preserve space:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;1.e4 ... 2.Nf3 ... 3.Bc4&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;1.Nf3 ... 2.e4 ... 3.Bc4&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In both cases we reach the same position. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;The point of the knight move is to &lt;strong&gt;get favorable transposition&lt;/strong&gt; from one opening into another. It is used frequently to &lt;strong&gt;sidestep sharp variations&lt;/strong&gt;, confuse opponent or &quot;kick him out&quot; of his opening.&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Objectively speaking, there is no difference between &lt;code&gt;1.e4/d4/Nf3/Nc3&lt;/code&gt; because &lt;strong&gt;you will need to play them all at one point&lt;/strong&gt;, it is all about move order. However, as someone pointed out, knight moves give opponents &lt;strong&gt;greater&lt;/strong&gt; freedom of choice because they do not &lt;strong&gt;claim space&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This means that &quot;knight-first&quot; player &lt;strong&gt;must learn more&lt;/strong&gt; than &quot;pawn-first&quot; one but in return has a good chance to steer the game into variations he &lt;strong&gt;knows will be good for him&lt;/strong&gt; which can not be said &lt;strong&gt;with 100% certainty&lt;/strong&gt; for his opponent. Also, forcing opponent to play certain opening/line makes &lt;strong&gt;strong psychological impact&lt;/strong&gt; on him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This might seem insignificant to you, but in professional chess this &quot;trick&quot; is used often by &lt;strong&gt;stronger&lt;/strong&gt; opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To preserve space, I recommend you the book &lt;em&gt;Andrew Soltis-Transpo tricks in chess&lt;/em&gt;*.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It will clarify what I have said in this post.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you have further questions leave a comment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Best regards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastActivityDate="2014-02-05T22:01:37.753" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4671" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4722" CreationDate="2014-02-05T22:54:28.480" Score="4" ViewCount="3559" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Keres Attack (Sicilian Scheveningen) has the following starting position&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Keres Attack&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Sicilian Scheveningen&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 e6 6. g4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are the key ideas for white in this variation? Where should white place the light and heavy pieces? Should the King always castle queenside? What setup should white aim for?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2014-02-09T11:26:52.303" LastActivityDate="2014-02-15T04:53:58.873" Title="What are the key ideas for white in the Keres Attack (Sicilian Scheveningen)?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;&lt;scheveningen&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4673" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4653" CreationDate="2014-02-06T07:36:17.620" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I do not want to hand pick the features as I want the network to learn everything by itself. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is an AI-Koan concerning this situation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In the days when Sussman was a novice, Minsky once came to him as he&#xA;  sat hacking at the PDP-6. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;What are you doing?&quot;, asked Minsky. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;I am training a randomly wired neural net to play Tic-Tac-Toe&quot; Sussman&#xA;  replied. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;Why is the net wired randomly?&quot;, asked Minsky. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;I do not  want it to have any preconceptions of how to play&quot;, Sussman said.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Minsky then shut his eyes. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;Why do you close your eyes?&quot;, Sussman asked his teacher. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;So that the room will be empty.&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;At that moment, Sussman was enlightened.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Think about it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="35" LastActivityDate="2014-02-06T07:36:17.620" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4674" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2040" CreationDate="2014-02-06T11:47:21.420" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;A zwischenzug occurs when a player, instead of playing the expected move, first plays another move, posing an immediate threat that the opponent must asnwer, and only then plays the expected move.&#xA;Usually the expected move is an exchange or a piece retreat, but the in-between move allows doing the exchange or the retreat on more favourable terms.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So this is all about it: doing the expected move right then would put you in a bad situation, whereas the in-between move improves your position.&#xA;This famous example contains an in-between move :&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ArzBr.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1.Nxd5&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;White wants to capture this pawn with the Knight&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1... Qxd2&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;Black then captures the Queen on d2 with the following idea: &quot;When White recaptures on d2, I take back on d5 and I am one piece up.&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;2. Nxe7+&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;The black Knight was unprotected, thus White capture on e7 with check, forcing the black King to move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;2... Kh8&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;3. Rxd2&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;And now this is White who is a piece up !&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More about the zwischenzug in my latest blog post: &lt;a href=&quot;http://chesstrainerapp.blogspot.fr/2014/02/zwischenzug-say-it-again.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://chesstrainerapp.blogspot.fr/2014/02/zwischenzug-say-it-again.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2076" LastActivityDate="2014-02-06T11:47:21.420" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4675" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4676" CreationDate="2014-02-06T14:22:06.137" Score="6" ViewCount="585" Body="&lt;p&gt;The following is the French defence, advance variation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. e5 *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is how Black should play his King's Bishop. Any time that Bishop moves the White Queen can go to g4 and force Black to disrupt his King-side castling pawns, e.g. as in the following typical continuation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. e5 Bb4+ 4. Bd2 Nc6 5. Qg4 g6 *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Should Black King's Bishop be fianchetoed instead? I think not cause targeting the spearhead of the White's pawn chain doesn't not look very promising, esp. from a fiancheto position where advancing a pawn to f6 lacks g-file pawn support. So, how should Black employ his King's Bishop?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2307" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-02-07T10:55:55.787" LastActivityDate="2014-02-07T10:55:55.787" Title="How should black develop the dark squared bishop in the advance variation of the French Defense?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;french-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4676" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4675" CreationDate="2014-02-06T15:44:55.813" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The starting position is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. e5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White has committed with e4-e5 since the e4-d5 tension is lost. In return, white controls the vital squares d6 and f6 for a future attack as well as stopping black from developing normally. The e5 pawn has its pawn base on d4. The critical line for black in this variation is to build up a pressure against the d4-square. The f7-f6 break will also come into consideration. The variation can go like this&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. e5 c5 4.c3 Nc6 5.Nf3 Qb6 6.a3 a5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black decides to wait with the Bf8 and focus on building a pressure on d4. After a future f7-f6, the Bf8 can choose between Bf8-e7 and Bf8-d6. In general, the Bf8 already has an important role, because it controls the f8-a3 diagonal and is ready to recapture with Bf8xc5. So there is no need for it to move at all until the situation in the center is more clear.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastActivityDate="2014-02-06T15:44:55.813" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4677" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4675" CreationDate="2014-02-06T18:26:00.140" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;First off, your second variation is bad-on &lt;code&gt;Bb4+&lt;/code&gt; White responds with &lt;code&gt;c3&lt;/code&gt; and gets a free tempo.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for your question, bishop is always placed on &lt;code&gt;e7&lt;/code&gt;. In some lines when Black plays &lt;code&gt;Nh6&lt;/code&gt; and White captures &lt;code&gt;Bxh6&lt;/code&gt; Black can put it on &lt;code&gt;g7&lt;/code&gt;. Still, bishop always goes to &lt;code&gt;e7&lt;/code&gt; in the Advance variation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To help you properly play the advance I recommend you the book &lt;em&gt;Nikita Vitiugov-A Complete French ( 2010 )&lt;/em&gt;. And here are the proper moves for the Advance variation from Black's point of view :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.e5 c5 4.c3 Qb6 5.Nf3 Nc6 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and here White has many choices. Since I do not have enough space to cover all of them I suggest you the above book. It covers the Advance variation very well in my opinion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Best regards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastActivityDate="2014-02-06T18:26:00.140" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4678" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2865" CreationDate="2014-02-06T23:10:15.053" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Sicilian has many sharp lines and many many variants, more than any other defence to the King's Pawn opening 1.e4. This is, in a nutshell, why it is difficult to master.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yet the idea that beginners, or players below master level, shouldn't play it is dubious at best. From a purely competitive point of view, if your opponent is about your same strength (s)he will have your very same difficulties playing it from the White side; if your opponent is much stronger than you it is very likely that you're doomed no matter what opening you choose.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In fact, choosing an opening repertoire cannot be based only on the number of lines or ideas to memorize, but also the &quot;feeling&quot; that one about certain positions and certain plans. Even if a beginner is not as sharp and experienced as a master, certainly may find more &quot;natural&quot; and easy to play certain lines and not others. Thus, I believe that is a good idea even for a beginner to try to &quot;experiment&quot; with a good variety of openings (studying grandmaster games and playing them himself) in order to find those for which he has a special feeling.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="446" LastEditorUserId="446" LastEditDate="2014-02-11T13:11:30.487" LastActivityDate="2014-02-11T13:11:30.487" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4679" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4683" CreationDate="2014-02-07T10:05:36.180" Score="15" ViewCount="22997" Body="&lt;p&gt;Two Rooks are stronger than one Queen. Let's assume that the material is equal, except that one player has a pair of Rooks while the other player has a Queen. In what situations is the Queen stronger than the pair of Rooks?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-02-07T15:53:30.270" LastActivityDate="2018-01-22T13:57:18.570" Title="When is a Queen stronger than two Rooks?" Tags="&lt;queens&gt;&lt;rooks&gt;&lt;middlegame&gt;&lt;material-balance&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4680" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4679" CreationDate="2014-02-07T10:35:48.667" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The side with the Queen will be stronger when the player with the two Rooks has a lot of weak pawns and/or squares. Yet, the balance in a Queen versus two Rooks situation depends a lot on the position. Thus, a rule of thumb is to prefer the Queen when it has a lot of weak squares and pawns to attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2300" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-02-07T12:49:56.633" LastActivityDate="2014-02-07T12:49:56.633" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4681" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4686" CreationDate="2014-02-07T12:53:49.747" Score="5" ViewCount="1513" Body="&lt;p&gt;Computers are thought to calculate every possible move. However, for eg. there are about 20 possible first moves and 20 possible responses to that and so by this logic the no. of positions after for eg.'n' moves is 20 ^(2n). This can become a huge number very fast. So I suspect that the computer may actually be using a huge precomputed opening database which may include all possible moves and responses to a huge depth - maybe around 30 moves or so. Their programming may also include a mechanism to look up transpositions so that it can transition from an unfamiliar opening to a familiar one. If it is indeed using a huge precomputed opening database, can this not be considered as cheating? Its like a bringing a chess book to a tournament.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1811" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-02-07T14:40:14.810" LastActivityDate="2017-05-25T08:17:12.793" Title="What makes chess engines so good at chess?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;engines&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4682" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4681" CreationDate="2014-02-07T14:37:20.310" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Why are computers so successful in chess?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, they have opening database which means that you can not outplay them &lt;strong&gt;unless you invent a stunning opening novelty.&lt;/strong&gt; High quality programs have databases that are &lt;strong&gt;immune to transpositions.&lt;/strong&gt; So yes, it is like putting the opening encyclopaedia in front of you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Second, they use &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endgame_tablebase&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;endgame tablebases&lt;/a&gt; which means that their endgame technique &lt;strong&gt;is godlike&lt;/strong&gt;, but this only works if they enter up to 6-men position. If they can not find the endgame on the board in their tablebase &lt;strong&gt;you have a chance to win by outplaying it.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Third, they calculate better. Why? Well look at the following simple example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;8/8/8/8/8/1P6/8/k1K5 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is &lt;strong&gt;a rough demonstration&lt;/strong&gt; of how computer looks for the move:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He examines all the possible continuations, by &quot;setting up&quot; N boards-the N corresponds the number of available moves. Let us examine all lines for White here:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First candidate move:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;8/8/8/8/8/1P6/8/k2K4 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Second candidate move:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;8/8/8/8/8/1P6/2K5/k7 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Third candidate:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;8/8/8/8/8/1P6/3K4/k7 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Fourth candidate:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;8/8/8/8/8/8/1P6/k1K5 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then, after &quot;setting up&quot; these positions in the memory he uses &lt;strong&gt;evaluation function&lt;/strong&gt; to find the best move-in this case &lt;code&gt;g7+&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After Black plays, the same process is repeated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This method is very powerful because it allows them to find &lt;strong&gt;very effective&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zwischenzug&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;&lt;code&gt;zwishenzug&lt;/code&gt;s&lt;/a&gt; and they &lt;strong&gt;always&lt;/strong&gt; find the winning tactics.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Quality of play depends on the quality of the evaluation function. Depth of variations also plays an important role here ( the number of moves computer can &quot;foresee&quot; ) but setting it high ensures again a godlike play. Although there is a &lt;strong&gt;theoretical&lt;/strong&gt; chance to outperform it in calculation, in real life there is no chance to do it-not even grandmasters could have done it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;strong&gt;only weak spot&lt;/strong&gt; it has is for positional play since this part of chess is intuitive and can not be mechanized, so you would think you might have a chance there, but thanks to the progress of the opening theory you can always introduce dynamic play so there is no longer a chance to &lt;strong&gt;completely&lt;/strong&gt; close the position and outmaneuver him like grandmasters did in the past.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If it is indeed using a huge precomputed opening database, can this not be considered as cheating? Its like a bringing a chess book to a tournament.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They do not cheat, they just have better &quot;memory&quot; and stronger processing power.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You have your brain to store opening moves, they have a hard drive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You have your brain to &lt;strong&gt;visualize&lt;/strong&gt; the board and analyze the moves, they have RAM and CPU to do that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The problem with human brain is &lt;strong&gt;its failure to multitask.&lt;/strong&gt; You just can not use your brain efficiently to remember opening moves, endgame or middle-game principles, &lt;strong&gt;visualize the board&lt;/strong&gt; and calculate &lt;strong&gt;all&lt;/strong&gt; the possibilities ( this is the hardest part! ) and so on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The way I see it, they are &lt;strong&gt;better designed/organized&lt;/strong&gt; for using processing and memorizing resources.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Best regards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastActivityDate="2014-02-07T14:37:20.310" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4683" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4679" CreationDate="2014-02-07T14:58:50.853" Score="6" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Let's assume that &lt;strong&gt;the material is equal&lt;/strong&gt;, except that one player has a pair of Rooks while the other player has a Queen. In what situations is the Queen stronger than the pair of Rooks?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since everything else is symmetrical, she can be stronger only if two rooks &lt;strong&gt;are not well coordinated and there is a presence of pawns on both wings.&lt;/strong&gt; This gives you a chance to quickly snatch a few pawns and set them in motion, which should tie at least one rook. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you fail to utilize this, then rooks will get coordinated-one will defend while the other will attack-and will slowly &lt;strong&gt;but surely&lt;/strong&gt; regroup to attack the king, after which they can exchange themselves for a queen and a pawn resulting in a won endgame. Something like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;8/Q4pk1/p3r1pp/1p6/1P6/P5PP/3r1PK1/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Qb7 Ree2 2.Qb6 Rxf2+-+&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is just an example, of course, but that is how I would play it. &lt;strong&gt;It all depends of the position&lt;/strong&gt; but I doubt you can stop rooks from regrouping like in the above diagram.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hopefully we shall see other interesting answers as well, looking forward to it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;EDITED IN RESPONSE TO OPs COMMENT:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The material is equal, but the position doesn't have to be symmetrical.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It doesn't matter, the endgame should be won for the side with the rooks anyway. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only &quot;saving grace&quot; for the side with the queen is asymmetric distribution of the pawns, plus they should be far ahead so when side with rooks enter pawn ending, side with the queen can still create a passed pawn. I guess it all depends from the &lt;strong&gt;efficiency&lt;/strong&gt; of rooks regrouping. I am pretty sure they will be able to tie the queen down eventually, after which the transposition into a won endgame will occur.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To answer this question it would be important to find the exact evaluation of the following position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;r2r4/1p3pk1/p3p1pp/8/2P5/1P2Q1PP/P4PK1/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is the most realistic case I can come up with. If we can prove that Black can win with the regrouping of his rooks as above, then it is safe to assume Black wins in equal positions with 2 rooks vs queen. I will analyze this myself, or even post this as a question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;UPDATE:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No mater how I alter the pawn structure, White holds the game by &lt;strong&gt;sacrificing  king-side pawns to open my king&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then he uses &lt;strong&gt;queens mobility&lt;/strong&gt; to attack my queen-side pawns and to harass my king. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My rooks can not regroup into winning lineup because of the threat of double attack ( check on the king + attack on the rook/pawn ) or simply because side with the queen has perpetual check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only way for queen to win is to strip opponents king naked and use double attacks to win material. Even with such a pathetic setup for rooks as above they can still hold the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To conclude:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To win with the queen, you &lt;strong&gt;will need&lt;/strong&gt; weaknesses in opponents pawn structure and you will have to &lt;strong&gt;blow up opposing kings cover.&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hopefully  you will be able to exploit pawn weaknesses and bad rook coordination with a double attack to win material. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Using queens mobility and giving &quot;smart&quot; checks&lt;/strong&gt; is the key here. Keeping as many lines closed can help you-avoid pawn exchanges to restrict rooks mobility and to have greater chances of snatching a pawn with double attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Best regards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastEditorUserId="2042" LastEditDate="2014-02-07T17:46:22.347" LastActivityDate="2014-02-07T17:46:22.347" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4684" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4690" CreationDate="2014-02-07T18:42:42.477" Score="4" ViewCount="952" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen%27s_Gambit_Accepted&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;wikipedia&lt;/a&gt; in the main line of the Queen's Gambit Accepted White's 3rd move is: 3.Nf3:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. c4 dxc4 3. Nf3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Doesn't that pretty much turn the opening into a real gambit? Black can now hold on to the c-file pawn since the usual trap (with Qf3) is no longer possible and b4 can be safely played by Black to prop up the c-file pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2307" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-02-10T16:10:51.263" LastActivityDate="2014-02-10T16:10:51.263" Title="Queen's Gambit Accepted with 3. Nf3" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;queens-gambit-accepted&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4686" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4681" CreationDate="2014-02-07T21:16:41.207" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;Engines do use opening and endgame databases to help their play but that is only a small part of their strength. The strength of the engines come from what they do while they don't have a database move. The strength of engines come basically from two factors: &lt;strong&gt;evaluator&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;search&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The evaluator assigns a value to a position so that the search will know which positions to favor. Most engines nowadays evaluate on the order of 1 million positions in a second, so the evaluator needs to be fast. The evaluator may take into account for example material, pawn structure, king safety, mobility, just to name a few features. In state of the art engines, the parameters of evaluator function (i.e. how much a feature affects the total evaluation of the position) are tuned using thousands and thousands of CPU hours of testing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you mention, the number of possible variations grows very rapidly. The average number of moves in a position is around 35, so the number of positions already after 6 half-moves is more than one billion, which is clearly infeasible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A simple improvement is using the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha%E2%80%93beta_pruning&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;alpha-beta search&lt;/a&gt;, which is based on the observation that, for example, if you have calculated that move 34.A wins a pawn, and you know that after move 34.B Black can reply 34...C after which White does not win a pawn, you don't have to check other responses to 34.B because clearly you already know that 34.A is better than 34.B. If you have a good heuristic such that best moves are always searched first, this reduces the number of positions required to search depth d to sqrt(35^d) instead of 35^d which is a huge improvement. Transition tables reduce the search tree even more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But this is not even close to what top chess engines really can achieve! Using some smart and smarter tricks to decide which nodes (=positions encountered during the search) are important and which are not, they search some parts of the search tree deeper and cut some parts early, which allows them to reach depth d for important variations often in even less than 2^d nodes. A quite technical list of possible ideas for selectivity is given in the &lt;a href=&quot;http://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Selectivity&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess programming wiki&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1761" LastEditorUserId="12446" LastEditDate="2017-05-25T08:17:12.793" LastActivityDate="2017-05-25T08:17:12.793" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4687" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4688" CreationDate="2014-02-07T21:40:21.140" Score="9" ViewCount="18173" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are there any common tactics or combinations used to beat complete beginners quickly (or gain large material advantages)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By &quot;beginner&quot; I mean someone who is good enough not to get caught out by Scholar's mate, and knows basic opening principles, mate with king and rook etc., but not any actual openings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2427" LastActivityDate="2019-12-17T04:08:52.210" Title="Ways to quickly beat beginners" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;beginner&gt;" AnswerCount="8" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4688" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4687" CreationDate="2014-02-07T22:24:47.063" Score="17" Body="&lt;p&gt;As T.S. Eliot said, &quot;There is no method but to be very intelligent.&quot; If the opponent is smart enough to avoid the known short mates and understands basic opening strategy, you'll just have to outplay them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That said, in my experience, new players often miss forks, discovered attacks, and moves that theoretically place a piece under attack, but where the capture would result in a check or expose an attack on a more valuable piece. New players are often so focused on protecting the king and/or queen that they blunder away pawns and minor pieces by leaving them vulnerable to such moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My advice: play better than the beginner and you will rapidly overwhelm them and find blunders to exploit. :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1854" LastActivityDate="2014-02-07T22:24:47.063" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4689" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4687" CreationDate="2014-02-08T03:26:42.480" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Any opening that has &lt;strong&gt;typical middle game positions&lt;/strong&gt; will do:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Queen's gambit declined-&lt;strong&gt;Exchange variation&lt;/strong&gt;, openings that have &lt;em&gt;Isolated Queen's Pawn&lt;/em&gt; ( QGA, Nimzo Indian defense... ) and so on...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He may know &quot;knights before bishops&quot; rule, he can learn 30 moves of theory &lt;strong&gt;pretty fast&lt;/strong&gt;, but to play &lt;strong&gt;these middle games&lt;/strong&gt; well, you need &lt;strong&gt;overall experience&lt;/strong&gt; and you need to know &lt;strong&gt;typical plans for both sides.&lt;/strong&gt; Your superior tactical skill, and greater experience in positional play will inevitably triumph.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You could also play symmetric position and outplay him by &lt;strong&gt;transposing into better endgame.&lt;/strong&gt; They do not know how to recognize bad piece from a good one, so if they have an equal number of pawns and pieces they usually exchange. Use this fact to transpose into &quot;good vs bad bishop&quot; endgame for example.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastEditorUserId="1105" LastEditDate="2014-07-26T14:09:39.287" LastActivityDate="2014-07-26T14:09:39.287" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4690" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4684" CreationDate="2014-02-08T09:41:58.980" Score="5" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Doesn't that pretty much turn the opening into a real gambit?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Black can now hold on to the c-file pawn since the usual trap (with Qf3) is no longer possible and b4 can be safely played by Black to prop up the c-file pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No he can not. White will regain the pawn and get huge advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are the most relevant lines, &lt;strong&gt;the rest can be easily found with an engine:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 d5 2.c4 dxc4 3.Nf3 b5? 4.a4 c6 5.axb5 cxb5 6.b3 cxb3 ( 6...Be6 7.bxc4 Bxc4 ( 7...bxc4 8.e4 Qc7 9.Qa4+ Qd7 10.Bxc4 ) 8.Na3 Qc7 9.Nxc4 bxc4 ( 9...Qxc4 10.e3 Qc6 11.Ne5! Qb6 12.Qb3+/- ) 10.Qa4+ Nd7 11.e3 c3 12.Bb5 e6 13.Ne5 Ngf6 14.Bc6 Rd8 15.Qxa7+/- ) 7.Qxb3 Qb6 8.e3 b4 ( 8...Bd7 9.Ne5 e6 10.Nxd7 Nxd7 11.Qxb5+/- ) 9.Qd5! Bb7 ( 9...Qb7? 10.Bb5+!+- ) ( 9...Nc6 10.Ne5+-) 10.Bb5+ Bc6 ( 10...Nc6? 11.Ne5+- ) 11.Ne5+-&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Best regards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastActivityDate="2014-02-08T09:41:58.980" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4691" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4611" CreationDate="2014-02-08T11:36:39.453" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Harald Keilhack's book &quot;Knight on the Left: 1.Nc3&quot; he discusses the position after 1.e4 e6 2.Nc3 and identifies 2...d5 as the most likely Black response.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A transposition to a Sicilian with 2...c5 is possible. But it seems an odd move order for a 1...e6 player. Why not play 1...c5 instead?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2...Nf6 could lead to a sideline of the Alekhine's Defence after 3.e5&#xA;Other options are 2...b6 (Owen's Defence) or 2...Nc6 (when 3.d4 Bb4 is a possibility).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2...Bb4 is a little-studied position and White has a large number of playable moves. These include 3.Nge2, 3.Nf3, 3.g3, 3.d3, 3.a3, 3.Nb5!? and 3.Qg4!?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is a sample game: &lt;a href=&quot;http://chess-db.com/public/game.jsp?id=1137004095.24626040.72356864&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Gmeinwieser-Bromberger, Bavaria 1999&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1035" LastEditorUserId="1035" LastEditDate="2014-02-08T11:50:46.257" LastActivityDate="2014-02-08T11:50:46.257" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4692" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4684" CreationDate="2014-02-08T18:26:38.360" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Another reasonable continuation for white after 3. ... b5 is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 d5 2.c4 dxc4 3.Nf3 b5 4.a4 c6 5.e3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This transposes into a position more commonly reached via the Slav move order.  1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.Nf3 dxc4 4.e3 b5 5.a4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here you can find a lot more example games to look through.  But still Black does not hold onto the pawn and instead gives it back.  The most standard continuation here is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.Nf3 dxc4 4.e3 b5 5.a4 e6 6.axb5 cxb5 7.b3 Bb4+ 8.Bd2 Bxd2 9.Nbxd2 a5 10.bxc4 b4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White has recovered the pawn.  Stockfish rates this position as a clear advantage for white (+1.23), though Shredder's grandmaster database has it dead even with white only doing well after 11.Ne5 and with black doing better after Stockfish's suggested 11.Bd3.  So it seems that white has the advantage here but that black has good practical chances.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2005" LastActivityDate="2014-02-08T18:26:38.360" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4693" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4687" CreationDate="2014-02-08T23:18:11.883" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;Simon Webb's book &lt;em&gt;Chess for Tigers&lt;/em&gt; may have many flaws, but one thing it does very well is its description of how to deal with substantially weaker players: &quot;[...] regard his whole play as one big weakness.&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are much stronger than the opposition, then they &lt;em&gt;will&lt;/em&gt; make moves that you recognise as mistakes but they don't. I'm not talking about tactical mistakes, but simple things like putting pieces on squares where they don't do anything or weakening pawn moves or whatnot. Just keep the position fluid and the errors will come.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2253" LastActivityDate="2014-02-08T23:18:11.883" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4694" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4696" CreationDate="2014-02-09T03:12:16.637" Score="5" ViewCount="243" Body="&lt;p&gt;I observed that after &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.c4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 g6 6.g3 Bg7 7.Bg2 O-O 8.O-O Nxd4 9.Qxd4 d6 10.Qd3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In many games, Black played the strange move &lt;code&gt;10...a6!?&lt;/code&gt; It has been played by top players like &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1070483&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Kasparov&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1406073&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Anand&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1513055&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Carlsen&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the point of &lt;code&gt;10...a6?&lt;/code&gt; Is it a waiting move for White to reveal his hand? It seems like a preparation for a future &lt;code&gt;b5&lt;/code&gt;, but why at this particular moment when Black could simply develop the bishop on &lt;code&gt;f5 (10...Bf5)&lt;/code&gt;? Also, in some variations, the pawn could be useful on &lt;code&gt;a5&lt;/code&gt; so that Black's knight can rest comfortably on &lt;code&gt;c5&lt;/code&gt;, so &lt;code&gt;10...a6&lt;/code&gt; could be a waste of a move. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2429" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-02-11T13:35:56.927" LastActivityDate="2014-02-11T13:35:56.927" Title="Why does Black play 10...a6 in the A39 variation of the English opening?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;english-opening&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4695" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4738" CreationDate="2014-02-09T17:40:21.883" Score="16" ViewCount="5621" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sometimes during blitz games over the board, or when in zeitnot, it gets very difficult to annotate them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've seen several software / hardware to help in writing the notation, even &lt;a href=&quot;http://monroi.com/products/personal-chess-manager.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;one that's FIDE approved&lt;/a&gt;; these require that you repeat the moves on the device. Hardly faster than pen and paper, just as prone to errors, plus you risk typing the wrong move and wasting even more time.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.it/soft/dgt.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;DGT makes a board&lt;/a&gt; that will do this automatically, but it will only work with its pieces, and starts at 400€, double that for &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.dgt.nl/site/index.php/products/electronic-boards/serial-tournament&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;tournament boards&lt;/a&gt;.  Some independent projects are available such as &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/forum/view/chess-equipment/usb-chess-board-101&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;usb chessboard 101&lt;/a&gt;, or &lt;a href=&quot;http://hackaday.com/2013/05/09/voice-controlled-chess-robot/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;voice controlled chess robots&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://hackaday.com/2012/04/18/chess-board-step-sequencer/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess board step sequencer&lt;/a&gt;.  Additionally some &lt;a href=&quot;http://hackadaycom.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/final_project.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;open projects are available&lt;/a&gt; that even move pieces (or &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.chessbase.com/post/you-built-what-a-giant-robotic-chess-set&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;gigantic pieces&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have a playoff tonight, and the tournament rules dictate shorter and shorter games until there is a winner.  Hence I thought about shooting a movie of the board should we lose track.  But then my programming background kicked in and I thought &quot;there must be some software that can process a movie and write the PGN&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I searched everywhere, and found nothing. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Does any such thing exist (webcam/video to pgn converter)? A prototype maybe? &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Has anyone attempted such a feat and shared their research?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Are there obvious limitations that make this project unlikely to succeed?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Would you buy it if it existed?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2074" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-09-02T11:44:31.230" LastActivityDate="2020-10-16T01:52:09.610" Title="Tools for automated notation: webcam movie to PGN" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;notation&gt;&lt;pgn&gt;" AnswerCount="11" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4696" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4694" CreationDate="2014-02-09T19:39:13.480" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;This position is discussed in many books, the consensus being that &lt;code&gt;10... a6&lt;/code&gt; is the best and most flexible move. As you say, black waits for white to reveal their hand, and &lt;code&gt;a6&lt;/code&gt; is generally useful. Play could continue &lt;code&gt;10... a6 11. Be3 Bf5&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;10... a6 11. Bd2 Rb8&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The move &lt;code&gt;10... Bf5&lt;/code&gt; is a serious alternative since it provokes &lt;code&gt;11. e4&lt;/code&gt;, blocking the diagonal for white's bishop. In this variation white would ideally like to hold back &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; to keep the diagonal open. Still, white can keep an advantage in various ways. Marin in &lt;em&gt;Grandmaster Repertoire 5&lt;/em&gt; says that white should try to emulate &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1126709&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Smyslov-Timman, Moscow 1981&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White often chooses a set-up with &lt;code&gt;Bd2&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;b3&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;Rac1&lt;/code&gt;, leaving black's &lt;code&gt;Bg7&lt;/code&gt; bishop with nothing to attack. In such a position black needs the &lt;code&gt;b5&lt;/code&gt; break to create active play. Therefore playing &lt;code&gt;a5&lt;/code&gt; is usually not a good idea.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1485" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2014-02-10T09:20:53.520" LastActivityDate="2014-02-10T09:20:53.520" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4697" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4694" CreationDate="2014-02-09T20:22:43.500" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The starting position is the following (including the two options 10...a6 and 10...Bf5)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. c4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 g6 6. g3 Bg7 7. Bg2 O-O 8. O-O Nxd4 9. Qxd4 d6 10. Qd3 a6 (10...Bf5).&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why did white choose Qd1-d3? First of all, this prepares to increase the control over the d-file with Rf1-d1 or Ra1-d1. Second of all, this protects the c4-pawn against Bc8-e6. Next, white is planning Rf1-d1 and c4-c5 to attack the d6-pawn. If black places the Queen on c7, then white has Bc1-g5xf6 followed by Nc3-d5xf6, ruining the enemy pawn structure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black's Bc8 has to guard the b7-pawn. Another piece has to take over this role, if the Bc8 wants to move to a better square. Black could try Qd8-b6 to protect the b7-pawn and put pressure on the enemy b2-pawn. Yet, 10...Qb6 is met by 11.Nb5 followed by 12.Be3. Black also has the thematic Nf6-d7-c5 or -e5. The problem is that white might have time with Nc3-d5 and Bc1-g5, which would cause trouble for the e7-d6 pawn chain. Black can also try Qd8-a5-h5, planning a kingside attack with Bc8-h3. Yet, 10...Qa5 is also met with 11.Nb5. Thus, 10...a6 prepares 11...Qa5 or 11...Qb6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-02-10T08:48:34.033" LastActivityDate="2014-02-10T08:48:34.033" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4698" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4695" CreationDate="2014-02-09T20:27:47.133" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;That would be a rather complex task. Maybe a reasonable first step is to look into recognizing FEN position from a single image - for which more resources exists, for example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chessgrabber.nicolaas.net/acknowledgements&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Create a FEN from a chess diagram picture&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://stackoverflow.com/questions/11288460/recommended-pattern-recognition-technique-for-chess-board&quot;&gt;Recommended pattern recognition technique for chess board&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2194" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-05-23T12:37:05.403" LastActivityDate="2014-02-17T19:15:48.387" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4699" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4695" CreationDate="2014-02-10T00:11:36.577" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;In order,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) Not to my knowledge&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) Not to my knowledge&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) There are several things that make this sort of project non-trivial, even difficult. Not the least of which is following the piece, differentiating it from a hand gesture, for example. Also determining when the move stopped would be an interesting question for computer vision to solve. These kinds of problems have been solved in other situations, but not with 100% accuracy, and  certainly not at prices that are even close to being competitive with the DGT board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then there's the question of where the camera could be positioned. Directly overhead would offer the best view of the board, making it easier to determine the square with precision. But wherever the camera gets placed, there's a distinct probability its view will be obstructed by one of the players, either leaning over the board, reaching for the clock, or simply gesticulating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4) Not unless it was really cheap. And I don't expect it would be. My reasoning is simple. As time controls shorten, the quality of the game lessens, to the point where it's no longer interesting to me&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="657" LastActivityDate="2014-02-10T00:11:36.577" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4700" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1418" CreationDate="2014-02-10T00:33:51.523" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The biggest obstacle to a project like this is players in any given time period are rated relative to the other players of that time period. This leads to two distortions of the mathematics that are non-trivial to compensate for:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) Outliers. Given a particular player who is very far above his contemporaries, it's difficult to assign an accurate rating. Paul Morphy was winning constantly, and so it's hard to know just how far above his contemporaries to position him, to name one example. If a player were to lose 2 games in thirty, for example, it's not possible to know with any degree of certainty that if the number were increased to 60 he would lose 4. We can guess, but that's all we can do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) Size of the player pool. If we assume player skill to follow a normal distribution, then the distance between extremes will be wider given a larger pool. This doesn't indicate that a player at the extreme of a smaller pool is any less skilled than a player at the extreme of a larger pool, though the number assigned will be higher for the larger pool.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I doubt the question will ever permit itself to be solved mathematically, leaving us all plenty of room to argue for decades to come.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="657" LastActivityDate="2014-02-10T00:33:51.523" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4701" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4434" CreationDate="2014-02-10T01:10:41.503" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;My advice to my students has always been to not spend very much time at all studying the opening, at least not until you get above average in playing strength (USCF rating somewhere in the 1800+). Pick a simple opening, and if you get caught in a trap, then spend the time to learn how to avoid it next time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You lose far fewer games because of missteps in the opening than you might think. Nearly all the time you get behind coming out of the opening, your opponents will give you the chance to catch up by making serious mistakes themselves. If they don't make those kind of mistakes, the odds are you wouldn't have beaten them anyway.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My usual approach is to spend just enough time on studying known opening variations to &quot;patch over&quot; flaws their opponents have already shown them. The majority of the time I spend with my students is going over tactics -- what to look for, how to calculate, that sort of thing. One of my students challenged that approach once, so we sat down with all the rated tournament games I had played so far that year, and examined my wins. Of the 17 wins in that group of games, played against players of USCF 1400-2000 mainly, I was worse coming out of the opening in 14. But my opponent's mistakes and my own ability to spot and take advantage of those mistakes accounted for the win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Generally speaking, a player around USCF 1500 will make mistakes amounting to the value of a knight every 30 moves or so; by the time they reach USCF1800 that drops down to a pawn or two. But they make mistakes. The only time you need to spend a serious amount of time in opening study is when you get to the point where your usual opponents don't make those kind of mistakes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What good is it to play the first 10-15 moves of a game perfectly, if you start making mistakes then and end up losing the game to someone who knows how to spot them? Spend your time learning how to actually play chess, instead of how to recite moves in an opening, and you'll get farther. Leave the concentration on opening to the time when you're already making very few mistakes in the other phases of the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mistakes made in the opening, unless they are suprememly catastrophic, can be fixed in the middle game as your opponent's mistakes allow you to, and mistakes from the opening or middle game can also be fixed in the endgame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If your opponent doesn't make mistakes, he'd win anyway, so it's not something to worry about.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's a good set of elementary books entitled the Manual Of Chess Combinations (vols 1-3) from Russia House. In Convekta's Peshka series of instruction software there are several good tactical trainers. The best of them is CT-Art, but that's above the ability of most beginning players. When you solve a tactical problem, look at it again and try to decide what the key idea is that makes it work, then watch for that idea on the board next time you play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="657" LastActivityDate="2014-02-10T01:10:41.503" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4702" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4703" CreationDate="2014-02-10T03:33:14.013" Score="4" ViewCount="3496" Body="&lt;p&gt;Consider this objectively drawn position that occurred in the Fischer vs Spassky 1972 match, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1044368&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;game 12&lt;/a&gt;. Suppose this position occurred in a blitz game where Black barely has few seconds remaining on his clock. Black decides to give up the f5-pawn and instead sit comfortably with his pawns on f6 and h6 as follows-&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;   [fen &amp;quot;8/5p2/6kp/p4p2/2B5/1P2PK1P/8/4b3 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;   1. Kf4 f6. 2. Bd3 Bb4. 3. Bxf5+ Kg7. &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This position is an impenetrable fortress. Because of the presence of bishops of opposite color, there is no way White can check the Black king or even try to win a pawn by attacking it. If White marches up the e-pawn, Black can simply capture. There is no way White can win. Black simply has to keep moving his bishop safely on the a5-e1 diagonal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, since this is a blitz game and Black just has a few seconds left, White simply attempts to run Black out of time just by making legal moves without making any kind of progress. In such a scenario, would Black be allowed to pause the clock and claim a draw?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2429" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2019-02-10T22:42:14.300" Title="Do the rules of blitz chess allow a draw to be claimed if the position is dead drawn?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;draw&gt;&lt;blitz&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4703" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4702" CreationDate="2014-02-10T09:36:30.703" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;No. There is a rule like that for standard time controls (rule 10.2 under FIDE rules), however under blitz rules 10.2 doesn't apply. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=125&amp;amp;view=article&quot;&gt;Appendix B, rule B.3.b&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;b. Article 10.2 and Appendix A.4.c do not apply.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In blitz, the clock is just as much a part of the game as the board is. If you have a position like that with seconds left and your opponent has more, you are lost.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2014-02-10T09:36:30.703" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4704" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4702" CreationDate="2014-02-10T14:36:08.170" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This position is a draw but it is not known that both sides can play it right. Player's skill is the major factor in chess, not position potential. If an arbiter(any arbiter) had the right to declare such positions a draw, without both players agreeing, it would be irrational. Only positions that a player's skill is irrelevant(e.g. K+B vs K) can be declared as a draw by the arbiter. A position like the one you show here, can only be a draw if a 3-fold repetition occurs, the players agree to a draw, or the arbiter concludes that no player is trying to win the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: As @RemcoGerlich pointed out, only article 10.2 indirectly prevents playing solely on the time of the opponent and this article does not apply in blitz. So, I removed the part of the answer that said otherwise incorrectly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2379" LastEditorUserId="2379" LastEditDate="2014-02-10T15:14:32.607" LastActivityDate="2014-02-10T15:14:32.607" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4705" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4702" CreationDate="2014-02-10T15:52:59.793" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is important to know the difference between &quot;dead drawn&quot; which can be a subjective evaluation and &quot;definitely drawn&quot;, for example King versus King and no other material present on the board. Other examples are K+B vs K and K+N vs K. After that, things get a bit tricky. As long as the opponent has a theoretical chance of checkmating you, you still lose when your time runs out. For example, white has a Knight and black has a pawn on the h-file. Black loses on time, since it is possible to construct a checkmate with the pieces present on the board. Thus, it is better for black to get rid of the h-pawn in case of time trouble, in order to salvage a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus, the answer is &quot;No&quot;, you cannot claim a draw in blitz as long as your opponent has a theoretical chance of checkmating you with the pieces available on the board. In addition, if you fail to claim a draw in longer time controls, you will lose when your time runs out, for the exact same reason as stated above. So make sure to claim a draw while you still have time left on your clock in those situations!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastActivityDate="2014-02-10T15:52:59.793" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4706" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-02-10T16:57:11.530" Score="4" ViewCount="413" Body="&lt;p&gt;Reading about &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shannon_number&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;the Shannon number&lt;/a&gt;, I see that there are about 10&lt;sup&gt;43&lt;/sup&gt; positions in chess, but how many of them are even? That is, materially (as an approximation). A position with one king vs 8 pawns and a king is not really interesting.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2371" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2014-10-26T17:46:40.983" LastActivityDate="2014-10-26T17:46:40.983" Title="How many materially equal positions are there?" Tags="&lt;theory&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;middlegame&gt;&lt;material-balance&gt;&lt;game-complexity&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4707" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1418" CreationDate="2014-02-10T20:38:39.837" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;This Wikipedia article gives good overview on this question:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_top_chess_players_throughout_history&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_top_chess_players_throughout_history&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I personally like the method of comparing with engine play (One can lookup the work of Matej Guid and Ivan Bratko on this). This one also has flaws, however not the one currently described in Wikipedia - the authors have also measured and proved that it doesn't matter which engine is used or what is the evaluation depth, the relative comparisons holds cross different engine or evaluation depths. The drawbacks of this method would come from the style of play, as a more computer correct play would be favored versus more exploitive (from game theory point of view) play, which this method cannot determine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is another page that gives a short summary of the method, as well as has an interesting calculation that was done, basically showing that the &quot;strength&quot; this method produces correlates with the ELO strength of the modern players:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chess-db.com/public/research/qualityofplay.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://chess-db.com/public/research/qualityofplay.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2194" LastActivityDate="2014-02-10T20:38:39.837" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4708" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4716" CreationDate="2014-02-11T00:34:03.870" Score="8" ViewCount="1037" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are there any chess books accessible for kids in the 9-11 age range that don't waste the first half of the book teaching how the pieces move, castling rules and en passant capture? I am expecting some basic principles of opening theory, strategies for the middle game (pawn structure, open files, long diagonals, doubled rooks, rook on 7th rank etc.), tactics (skewer, fork, discovered attack) and end game tips.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2307" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-13T19:15:27.183" LastActivityDate="2020-04-13T19:55:26.747" Title="Chess book for kids (9-11 y.o.)" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;books&gt;&lt;middlegame&gt;&lt;beginner&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="4709" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2865" CreationDate="2014-02-11T15:49:48.217" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Whomever told you that should not be advising anyone about anything! The Sicilian is interesting and sharp. Play it, study it, love it and hate it.&#xA;And do not listen to those people ever again!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2379" LastActivityDate="2014-02-11T15:49:48.217" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4710" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2014-02-11T18:18:42.810" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2014-02-11T18:18:42.810" LastActivityDate="2014-02-11T18:18:42.810" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4711" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2014-02-11T18:18:42.810" Score="0" Body="A Queen, Rook or Bishop can be used to pin a pawn or piece to another piece behind it. For example, white has Bg5 and black has Nf6 and Qd8. Here, the white Bishop pins the black Knight to the black Queen. " OwnerUserId="2001" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-02-11T22:25:45.937" LastActivityDate="2014-02-11T22:25:45.937" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4712" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1731" CreationDate="2014-02-12T01:50:46.210" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Reti-Tartakower, Vienna 1910, must be a good candidate, although Tartakower resigned one move before checkmate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Vienna&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;1910&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Richard Reti&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Savielly Tartakower&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 dxe4 4. Nxe4 Nf6 5. Qd3 e5 6. dxe5 Qa5 7. Bd2 Qxe5 8. O-O-O Nxe4 9. Qd8+ Kxd8 10. Bg5++ (10. Bg5++ Ke8 (10... Kc7 11.Bd8#) 11.Rd8#) 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1485" LastActivityDate="2014-02-12T01:50:46.210" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4713" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4671" CreationDate="2014-02-12T19:53:06.507" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have not played this opening ever, and I am not qualified to answer it, I have not found many creditable sources for my answer, but I did manage to find a few. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not a fan of copy pasting, so here's what I found&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://nezhmet.wordpress.com/2007/11/06/how-fearsome-is-the-keres-attack/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;How Fearsome is the Keres Attack?&lt;/a&gt; By IM Mark Ginsburg&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d39ZPryEwEE&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Sicilian Keres Attack: How to crush the Sicilian defence with the&#xA;Keres attack&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/article/view/megatheory-9-sicilian-scheveningen&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Kasparov vs Karpov, playing this opening and FM FM Eric Schille analyzing it&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.newinchess.com/Shop/Images/Pdfs/8687.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;The Sicilian Scheveningen: Move by Move (Ebook)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/article/view/sicilian-scheveningen-by-gm-magesh-and-gm-arun&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Sicilian Scheveningen by GM Magesh and GM Arun&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ez-net.com/~mephisto/Understanding%20The%20Sicilian%20Defense.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Ez-net.com&lt;/a&gt;, I quote:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The Scheveningen Variation is a classically motivated defense. Black creates a backward pawn center with his duo at d6 and e6, leaving no weakness on the important central squares d5 and e5. Black intends to simply develop his pieces and then proceed with queenside counterplay. The Scheveningen has been a favorite of Kasparov's, although he often arrives at the position through transposition, playing 5…a6 and 6…e6.&#xA;  Other top players use the defense frequently and it is well respected, but it doesn't have the devoted following of the Najdorf or Dragon Variations, perhaps because it is too straightforward and logical. White has several ways to combat the Scheveningen Variation, almost all of them leading to dynamic positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The Scheveningen Variation, named for a town in Holland, combines …e6 with …d6, instead of the …Nc6…d6 combination of the Classical. The pawn at e6 can serve as a target for White’s tactical operations. Sacrifices of a knight or bishop on that square are almost routine. The most exciting lines start with 6.Bc4 and are known as the Sozin Variation. Opposite wing castling can lead to very double-edged games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The Scheveningen features the &quot;small center&quot; for Black, with the pawns at d6 and e6 keeping the enemy pieces at bay. For the most part, Black pawns will remain behind the front lines, mostly on the third rank. White will not have very many weaknesses to work against, and precision is required by both sides. For this reason the top player in the world are frequently seen on both sides of the opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The much-feared Keres Attack is the greatest disincentive by white to Black's move order. The Keres Attack is the sharpest response to the Scheveningen, favored by attacking players. However it is by no means clear that White has a guaranteed advantage, but the results overwhelmingly favor White. So even Kasparov, who loved to defend the Scheveningen, often arrived via a Najdorf route to avoid the Keres Attack. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Scheveningen Variation, Keres Attack (with ...h7-h6)(Favors White)&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 e6 6.g4&lt;/strong&gt; White immediately starts his Kingside attack in motion. The threat to play g4-g5 and kick the f6-Knight into oblivion is one that theorists have long debated. Sould Black allow White to carry out his threat, or play ....h7-h6, creating a weakness? This queston produces two distinct variations. Keres Attack (without ....h7-h6) and Keres Attack (with ....h7-h6) the one we will now look at. Scheveningen players by and large prefer to slow down White's expansion by playing&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;6...h6 7.g5 hxg5 8.Bxg5&lt;/strong&gt; At this point is extreamely difficult to evaluate this position. Black's h8-Rook has been &quot;developed&quot; with having moved, a certain plus for Black. The trade of a Black h-pawn for a White g-pawn means that neither player is going to castle on the Kingside. Probably both Kings will move Queenside. White's menacing g5-Bishop must be carefully observed as the tactics of f2-f4 and e4-e5 will hang over Black's position. A usual continuation would be;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;8...Nc6 9.f4 Be7 10.Qd2 a6 11.0-0-0 Qc7 12.h4 Bd7&lt;/strong&gt; This leads to another one of those bottomless Sicilian positions that defy conventional understanding. Theorists have a slight preference for White in this position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Scheveningen Variation, Keres Attack (without ...h7-h6) (Favors White)&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Black can allow White to carry out his threat, as follows&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 e6 6.g4 Nc6 7.g5 Nd7 8.Be3 a6 9.h4 Qc7 10.f4 b5&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;White has extended his Kingside in order to launch an attack, while Black is busily preparing .&lt;strong&gt;..Bc8-b7&lt;/strong&gt; and .&lt;strong&gt;..Nd7-c5&lt;/strong&gt; with a counterattack against the &lt;strong&gt;e4-pawn&lt;/strong&gt;. This position is uncommonly sharp. White has a slight advantage. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Scheveningen Variation, Fischer Attack (Equal Position)&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The Fischer Attack is a straight-forward concept that begins&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 e6 6.Bc4 White tries to clamp down on the d5-square, with an eye toward attacking the e6-pawn with f2-f4-f5. Black has a variety of defenses based upon ...Nb8-c6=a5 or ...Nb8-s7-c5 in conjunction with ...a7-a6 and ...b7-b5-b4 going for the e4-pawn. A solid choice is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;6...Be7 7.Bb3 0-0 8.Be3&lt;/strong&gt; White prepares to castle Queenside.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;8...Na6 Black decides to bring his Knight to the c5-square to eliminate the b3-Bishop. One of the tactics that Black has to be aware of is; [8...Nbd7 9.Bxe6!? fxe6 10.Nxe6 Qa5 11.Nxf8 Bxf8 White sacrifices two pieces for a Rook.]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;9.Qe2 Nc5 10.f3&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;This is a common position from the Fischer Attack. White will aim for &lt;strong&gt;g2-g4-g5&lt;/strong&gt; and a big Kingside pawn storm. Black will play ...a7-a6 and ...b7-b5 for an attack on the Queenside. This position is dynamically ballanced. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Scheveningen Variation, Maroczy Variation (Equal Position)&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In the Maroczy Variation, White takes a more restrained approach to the center. He, she, it aims to complete his kingside development, delaying an attack for awhile.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 e6 6.Be2 Be7 7.0-0 Nc6 8.Kh1 White tucks his King away to the h1-square. He is committed to playing f2-f4, and wants to avoid tactics based on the g1-a7 diagonal&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;8...0-0 9.f4 a6 Black guards the b5-square and prepares the c7-square for his Queen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;10.Be3 Qc7&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In their 1995 PCA Championship Match, Viswanathan Anand and Garry Kasparov played this position a number of times. The position is dynamically balanced.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Scheveningen Variation, Tal Variation (Equal Position)&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 e6&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The Tal variation has a completely different plan by White. Mikhail Tal (1936-1992), World Champion, 1960 to 61, was a master of the attack, and introduced the scheme of a quick Queenside castling;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;6.f4 White wants to create immediate central threats with e4-e5. Black has to keep a wary, cautious, careful, eye to guarding against this possibility of danger to this possibility.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;6...Nc6 7.Be3 Be7 8.Qf3&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;This position shows Tal's idea. What he wants to do is quickly castle Queenside and reintroduce the threat of e4-e5 after White's Rook is sitting on the d1-square. In many lines, when the players castle on opposite wing, Whit's Queen is ready to support the charge of the g-pawn. The position is dynamically balanced.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;There are other plans. White can continue with simple development or go for broke on the kingside with the dangerous Keres Attack, which begins 2…d6; 3d4 cxd4; 4.Nxd4 Nf6; 5.Nc3 g6; 6.g4. Often Black plays this Sicilian defensively, trying to create impregnable barriers. A Hedgehog Position is often the result.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1105" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-02-13T20:57:55.600" LastActivityDate="2014-02-13T20:57:55.600" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4714" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2014-02-12T20:14:07.670" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2014-02-12T20:14:07.670" LastActivityDate="2014-02-12T20:14:07.670" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4715" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2014-02-12T20:14:07.670" Score="0" Body="Questions about time management during a chess game." OwnerUserId="1485" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2014-02-12T20:22:33.720" LastActivityDate="2014-02-12T20:22:33.720" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4716" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4708" CreationDate="2014-02-12T22:48:37.480" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1895525055&quot;&gt;Winning Chess Strategy for Kids by Coakley&lt;/a&gt; is EXACTLY what you want. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Barely a few pages explaining basics. Then tons of practical content that even adults will find useful.   Wastes no time in getting intermediate lessons in strategy/tactics presented in an astonishingly kid-friendly way. :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1751" LastActivityDate="2014-02-12T22:48:37.480" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4717" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2014-02-13T11:24:43.873" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2014-02-13T11:24:43.873" LastActivityDate="2014-02-13T11:24:43.873" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4718" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2014-02-13T11:24:43.873" Score="0" Body="Correspondence chess was traditionally played using postal mail, nowadays it's more common to use dedicated servers. Time limits are usually measured in days." OwnerUserId="1485" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2014-02-13T12:02:43.807" LastActivityDate="2014-02-13T12:02:43.807" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4719" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-02-13T15:15:08.113" Score="10" ViewCount="3986" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there a chess engine that automatically generates quality chess problems. For example I will input 3 - it produces a mate in 3 problem. But the problem shouldn't be so obvious that one can solve in microseconds.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2449" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-02-13T20:38:08.300" LastActivityDate="2016-10-08T20:56:46.673" Title="Is there a computer program that generates quality chess problems?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;problems&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4720" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4719" CreationDate="2014-02-13T17:51:07.240" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't know if such an engine exists, but there probably might not be one yet and here's why-&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's hard to explain to engines what is &quot;obvious&quot;. What might be obvious to you might not even be obvious to me. However, there is some recent research in the area of &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.chessbase.com/post/a-computer-program-to-identify-beauty-in-problems-and-studies&quot;&gt;beauty&lt;/a&gt; in chess problems. Even if one takes such factors as &quot;depth appeal&quot;, &quot;visual appeal&quot;, etc. as outlined in this research, there still remains the fundamental problem of generating chess positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Considering the fact that there are at least &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shannon_number&quot;&gt;10^43&lt;/a&gt; chess positions, it is not yet computationally feasible to generate positions and apply &quot;beauty&quot; analysis to them to see which ones are &quot;quality&quot; problems. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, we do have &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endgame_tablebase&quot;&gt;endgame tablebases&lt;/a&gt;. It could be possible that one could use the already generated 6 piece tablebases and apply the algorithms of the research on them and generate quality problems. However, I do not know if anyone has done that yet. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2429" LastActivityDate="2014-02-13T17:51:07.240" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4721" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4424" CreationDate="2014-02-13T19:26:05.150" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Interesting question, and the answer is little bit funny.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Guess where I found these games, would you?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On chessgames.com! But it's not called Chess960, nor Fischer's chess, nor random chess, it's called: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessopening?eco=000&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chess variants (000)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you go to to &lt;a href=&quot;http://database.chessbase.com/js/apps/onlinedb/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;ChessBase Database&lt;/a&gt; and you enter in the search form &lt;code&gt;chess960&lt;/code&gt; you will find many games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I emailed &lt;a href=&quot;http://365Chess.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;365Chess.com&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://chesstempo.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chesstempo.com&lt;/a&gt; and they said they don't have Chess960 games, I emailed &lt;a href=&quot;http://chessgames.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chessgames.com&lt;/a&gt; and they replied.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;There are a couple of them.  There’s no easy way to pull them up, but&#xA;  &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chesscollection?cid=1008874&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here is a collection with 3.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;There might be one or two more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I guess I did a better job than Chessgames team at finding chess960 games in their own database :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I emailed &lt;a href=&quot;http://Chess.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chess.com&lt;/a&gt;, they said&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Thanks for your email. Unfortunately we don't have a database of&#xA;  Chess960 games available for download. Premium members of Chess.com&#xA;  have access to all the Chess960 games played on Chess.com.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1105" LastEditorUserId="1105" LastEditDate="2014-02-14T23:09:54.193" LastActivityDate="2014-02-14T23:09:54.193" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4722" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4671" CreationDate="2014-02-13T22:57:34.893" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;OK, this one was tough to crack!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I almost gave up, but I believe I have found enough resources to help you grasp the concept of play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What are the key ideas for white in this variation? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think that you will find the answer you seek in &lt;a href=&quot;http://chesscoach1950.blogspot.com/2006/06/chess-understanding-sicilian.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; article. The second part is found &lt;a href=&quot;http://chesscoach1950.blogspot.com/2007/02/chess-understanding-sicilian.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; and contains relevant moves only-no additional explanations are added.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Still, it tells you enough to grasp the basics.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Should the King always castle queenside?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, otherwise what is the point of &lt;code&gt;g4&lt;/code&gt;-it will only weaken the king right ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Where should white place the light and heavy pieces?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to the first part of the above article, bishop goes to &lt;code&gt;g5&lt;/code&gt;, the other one's placement &lt;strong&gt;depends from the concrete lines&lt;/strong&gt;, the way I see it. Rooks go to &lt;code&gt;d1&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;g1/h3&lt;/code&gt;-the latter depending on the circumstances.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What setup should white aim for?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The second part of the above article has a good theoretical coverage in my opinion, but ultimately the decision is yours since I am not an &lt;code&gt;1.e4&lt;/code&gt; player and my theory knowledge is &lt;strong&gt;too rusty.&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As member &lt;em&gt;Fischer&lt;/em&gt; suggested, you can use &lt;a href=&quot;https://nezhmet.wordpress.com/category/chess-openings/sicilian-defense/scheveningen/keres-attack/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; link to see some master games with commentary and try to learn something from them. &lt;a href=&quot;http://nezhmet.wordpress.com/2007/12/14/the-fabulous-00s-more-defending-vs-the-keres-attack/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Here&lt;/a&gt; is the link with some instructive games, &lt;strong&gt;in my opinion&lt;/strong&gt;, that might help you-note the reference to &lt;a href=&quot;http://nezhmet.wordpress.com/2008/03/20/the-fabulous-00s-the-magic-and-delight-of-foxxxwoods-connecticut/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this game&lt;/a&gt; in the comments. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;NOTE: Not all the games are about &lt;em&gt;Keres attack&lt;/em&gt; but please observe that this is a blog, not a theoretical book.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another reason for including these links: &lt;strong&gt;Being FIDE master yourself&lt;/strong&gt;, and &lt;strong&gt;those guys being IMs&lt;/strong&gt;, you should have easier time understanding their moves and you should improve faster from those games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesspublishing.com/content/4/jul07.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;This article&lt;/a&gt; mentions several &lt;strong&gt;key games&lt;/strong&gt; for illustrating themes and ideas in &lt;em&gt;Keres attack&lt;/em&gt;. To see them you need to register, but with some cleverness we can bypass this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We know that the games mentioned were played in year 2007 or before, and know the names of the players and the &lt;em&gt;ECO code&lt;/em&gt; of the opening. With these information it was not hard for me to find referenced games:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1568694&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Sokolov-Nisipeanu&lt;/a&gt; ( notice that &lt;a href=&quot;http://budapestchesnews.blogspot.com/2013/02/trends-in-sicilian-scheveningen-keres.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this blog&lt;/a&gt; mentions &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt; as serious novelty for Black as well-see the commentary &lt;strong&gt;bellow&lt;/strong&gt; the diagram! )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Searching through the same database I found only one game between &lt;em&gt;Macieja&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;Kasimdzhanov&lt;/em&gt; where they played &lt;em&gt;Keres attack&lt;/em&gt; so &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1311010&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; is the link.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1463108&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; is the last game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These illustrate key ideas for black and ways the White copes with them-positioning of the rooks and minor pieces. For the original commentary of those  you shall have to get by yourself. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A good thing would be to compare the moves with the current theory, and to use strong engine to analyze the &lt;strong&gt;critical&lt;/strong&gt; middle-game positions in order to reveal the mistakes players made. &lt;strong&gt;This should give you better insight about minor piece/rook positioning.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;EDIT:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are no &quot;typical plans&quot; or &quot;typical piece setup&quot; in the &lt;em&gt;Keres attack&lt;/em&gt;-only raw calculation and &lt;strong&gt;creativity.&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You must be able to &lt;strong&gt;adapt to the every change in the position&lt;/strong&gt;-which is logical-since these are open/semi-open games and that is the quality they require from a player. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Only closed/semi-closed systems can give you &quot;typical plans/piece setup&quot; which is logical when you think about it, since the closed nature of the position allows you to maneuver. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In open games things change rapidly, so to ask &quot;typical plans&quot; is pointless, especially in such a dynamic and sharp line like this. I would focus my attention on tactical sharpness.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The way I see it, you can use &lt;code&gt;g4&lt;/code&gt; to force Black into making a concession on the king side and to grab more space. Then you should use &lt;strong&gt;your better piece coordination and space advantage&lt;/strong&gt; to increase your initiative. Playing through the games I see this idea for White over and over. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is the way I would approach this problem. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;END OF EDIT&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately this is all I can offer at the moment, hopefully it will be enough.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Good luck and best regards!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastEditorUserId="2042" LastEditDate="2014-02-15T04:53:58.873" LastActivityDate="2014-02-15T04:53:58.873" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4723" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2865" CreationDate="2014-02-14T03:40:39.463" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are some high level trainers who suggest avoiding lines like the Rauzer (a line in the Sicilian) or the Gruenfeld for new beginners, suggesting that the ideas behind these openings are just beyond the comprehension of new players, BUT...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess learning is known to centre very much around patterns, and these patterns need to become instilled in your subconscious mind.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One very rapid way to learn the basics of an opening is to download a database of high level games from the opening line in question (this is easy to do using 365Chess or other online resources, (TWIC gives good updates, but you will have to sort to opening later), then open the file in a (free) database product like Chessbase Reader (lite) or Jose (Chess for All on your smartphone). Now you simply flip the board to the side you want to play and starting clicking your way (rapidly) through the games (I like to do this for a hero, such as Svidler playing the Gruenfeld).  The point here is not to think too deeply, but just to see the opening evolve again and again rapidly on your screen.  You will see that you DO start to see the main ideas of the line.  (I do pause if there was a neat tactic that I couldn't absorb rapidly, and play that a few times through, so as to build that idea into my mind as well; sometimes these are thematic for the opening, and sometimes they are just increasing one's mental fluidity.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once this last thing starts to happen in your mind, then it makes sense to study the opening much more slowly and carefully, learning concrete move orders and what-not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A beginner who follows this route WILL quickly accelerate their understanding of ANY opening system.  I think even Silman said that (essentially by hand), this is how he came to understand chess more deeply than the average bear.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2453" LastActivityDate="2014-02-14T03:40:39.463" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4724" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4740" CreationDate="2014-02-14T05:14:24.040" Score="8" ViewCount="360" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;       [FEN &quot;8/5p1k/1P4p1/2P4p/2b4P/5Q2/5PP1/4qBK1 b - - 0 44&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This position occurred on move 44 in the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1713491&amp;amp;kpage=24&quot;&gt;Carlsen vs Gelfand&lt;/a&gt; game in the World Championship Candidates, 2013. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here, Gelfand played the losing move 44...Qxf1+. However, I analyzed the position after 44...Bxf1! and I do not see a win for White. Black sets up a blockade to stop the queenside passed pawns from advancing. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;       [FEN &quot;8/1Q3p1k/1P4p1/2P4p/2b4P/8/5PP1/4qBK1 w - - 0 44&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;        1. Qf3 Bxf1 &#xA;        2. Qxf7+ Kh8 &#xA;        3. Qf6+ Kh7 &#xA;        4. Kh2 Qe8 &#xA;        5. Qf4 Qd7&#xA;        6. Qf3 Bb5 &#xA;        7. b7 Qc7+  &#xA;        8. g3 Kg7 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And how does White win? Black blockades the passed pawns. If White tries to use his kingside pawn majority, his own king gets exposed and could lead to a perpetual check. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2429" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-03-01T15:18:34.140" LastActivityDate="2014-03-01T15:18:34.140" Title="Carlsen vs Gelfand World Championship Candidates (2013). Could Gelfand have held it with 44...Bxf1!" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;middlegame&gt;&lt;carlsen&gt;&lt;gelfand&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4726" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1809" CreationDate="2014-02-14T11:59:14.747" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Giving up castling rights with &lt;strong&gt;Queens still on the board&lt;/strong&gt; can be far more dangerous. Once the &lt;strong&gt;Queens are exchanged&lt;/strong&gt; and the enemy does not have a considerable activity to &lt;strong&gt;attack your King&lt;/strong&gt;, then the &lt;strong&gt;pawn structure&lt;/strong&gt; will have a key role in whether your King will be safe.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastActivityDate="2014-02-14T11:59:14.747" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4727" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2014-02-14T12:11:09.943" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2014-02-14T12:11:09.943" LastActivityDate="2014-02-14T12:11:09.943" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4728" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2014-02-14T12:11:09.943" Score="0" Body="Zwischenzug or in-between move is a move that does not react to e.g. the opponent's threat, but rather creates a new e.g. threat as a response. For example, white has a Nc3 and black plays b5-b4. Instead of moving away the Nc3, white can reply g4-g5 and hit a black knight on f6. Another in-between move would be to deliver a check with Bf1-b5+ to a black Ke8. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zwischenzug)" OwnerUserId="2001" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-02-14T12:18:02.077" LastActivityDate="2014-02-14T12:18:02.077" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4729" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2948" CreationDate="2014-02-14T13:46:37.843" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is only one difference between black and white: The first move(no, the color does not count :p).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This means that white &lt;em&gt;starts with&lt;/em&gt; the initiative. They can make threats first and black should respond. At the moment white lets the initiative go(that is, allows black to make threats to which they must respond) the colors have &quot;switched&quot;(no, this does not mean the pieces actually change color. It means their state have changed).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The initiative in chess is very important. You feel it everytime you wish that &quot;if only it was my turn to move&quot; :).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2379" LastActivityDate="2014-02-14T13:46:37.843" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4730" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2014-02-14T14:09:49.420" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2014-02-14T14:09:49.420" LastActivityDate="2014-02-14T14:09:49.420" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4731" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2014-02-14T14:09:49.420" Score="0" Body="The Old Indian Defense is a chess opening starting with the moves 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 d6. In difference to the Kings Indian Defense, black doesn't fianchetto the dark squared bishop early in the game." OwnerUserId="1485" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2014-02-14T16:49:21.563" LastActivityDate="2014-02-14T16:49:21.563" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4733" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4735" CreationDate="2014-02-14T22:30:57.217" Score="1" ViewCount="2694" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't get the point of Morphy's Defence in the Ruy Lopez opening:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;  [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If White's purpose was to exchange Bishop for Knight and take the e5 pawn after it loses its defender (plus create some pawn weaknesses for Black), then the 3...a6 move comes too late to prevent it. Likewise I don't get White's retreat in all the variations that follow except for the exchange variation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2307" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-02-16T01:04:10.470" LastActivityDate="2020-01-29T16:32:21.333" Title="Morphy Defence in Ruy Lopez" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;ruy-lopez&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4734" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4733" CreationDate="2014-02-14T23:33:00.987" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;4.Bxc6 dxc6 5.Nxe5 doesn't win a pawn, as Black has 5...Qd4, attacking the knight and pawn simultaneously and winning the pawn back.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4.Bxc6 is a totally reasonable move, and it's called the Exchange Variation of the Ruy Lopez. White has given up a bishop for a knight, but after he eventually plays d4 and the pawns on d4 and e5 are exchanged, White's 4-pawns-against-3 on the kingside will be more effective at generating a passed pawn than Black's 4-pawns-against-3 on the queenside, because Black's four queenside pawns are occupying only three files.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The main point of 3...a6 is that after 4.Ba4, if at any point in the future Black decides that he wants to prevent Bxc6, he can immediately make it impossible by playing ...b5. If Black continued developing without playing ...a6, then he wouldn't be able to prevent Bxc6, because he'd have to start by playing ...a6, and White could immediately respond with Bxc6 before Black was able to play ...b5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3...a6 isn't the only good move, though. In particular 3...Nf6 (the Berlin Defense) is currently very popular at the highest levels. It turns out that in the main line of that variation Black wants the bishop to stay on b5 for the time being so he can hit it with the knight after ...Nxe4 and ...Nd6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2014-02-14T23:33:00.987" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4735" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4733" CreationDate="2014-02-15T04:31:52.427" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The basic idea of the opening was to snatch &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt; pawn, but by playing &lt;code&gt;Qd4&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;Qg5&lt;/code&gt; Black returns the pawn with good play. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This forced White to seek other ways of reaching advantage, so he tried with &lt;code&gt;Bxc6&lt;/code&gt; counting on a won pawn endgame. However, things are not so easy since Black has ample of compensation in his bishop pair-remember that bishops are good in open positions-and doubled pawns control a lot of important squares. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since that try failed, White needed to try something else, and the only option left is bishop retreat. If they play &lt;code&gt;Bc4&lt;/code&gt; Black can transpose into &lt;em&gt;Italian game&lt;/em&gt; with the extra temp since &lt;code&gt;a6&lt;/code&gt; has been played. &lt;strong&gt;Since &lt;code&gt;a6&lt;/code&gt; is an important move in those lines for Black&lt;/strong&gt;, he would gain a small plus from the bishop retreat. That leaves &lt;code&gt;Ba4&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With this retreat White keeps pressure on &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt; pawn and hopes to force Black into making some concession. Black will do his best to develop and defend without weakening himself but in the end he fails to do so. He must play &lt;code&gt;b5&lt;/code&gt; at some point to release the pressure from the White light-squared bishop. After &lt;code&gt;b5&lt;/code&gt; Black will have  compromised pawn structure on the queen side ( &lt;strong&gt;backward &lt;code&gt;c&lt;/code&gt; pawn&lt;/strong&gt; and exposed &lt;code&gt;b5&lt;/code&gt; pawn ) and that is the concession White hoped for. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It isn't much-Black is still OK-but it will guarantee White a long initiative-&lt;strong&gt;which is better overall result than what other lines offer.&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason for this being Black's &lt;code&gt;c&lt;/code&gt;-pawn is blocked by a knight so he can't participate in the battle for the center. &lt;strong&gt;This enables White to seize initiative in the center&lt;/strong&gt; by forming &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt;+&lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; pawn center supported with the &lt;code&gt;c3&lt;/code&gt; pawn. &lt;strong&gt;Black will lose time&lt;/strong&gt; to reorganize his queen side in order to counterstrike which gives White time to meet comfortably Black's plan. This usually involves &lt;code&gt;Nbd2-Nf1-Ne3/Ng3&lt;/code&gt; maneuver, preparing king side attack, but can be &lt;code&gt;a4&lt;/code&gt; thrust, or simply &lt;strong&gt;a favorable change of the pawn center's type&lt;/strong&gt;-he can block the position with &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt; or open it with an exchange like &lt;code&gt;dxe5&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;dxc5&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The last option is the most dangerous for Black so he needs to play very passively for a while before he counter-strikes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruy_Lopez#Morphy_Defence%3a_alternatives_to_Closed_Defence&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this &lt;code&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/code&gt; link&lt;/a&gt; you can see the list of variations. Notice that in the main line there is one thing in common for all the Black's responses-they regroup their queen side to meet White's initiative.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To conclude:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By retreating the bishop to &lt;code&gt;a4&lt;/code&gt; White gains small concession from Black in view of compromised pawn structure which results in White's better control of the center, which results in small but lasting initiative.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hopefully this answer sheds some light for you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you have further questions leave a comment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Best regards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastActivityDate="2014-02-15T04:31:52.427" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4736" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2014-02-15T12:15:44.750" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2014-02-15T12:15:44.750" LastActivityDate="2014-02-15T12:15:44.750" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4737" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2014-02-15T12:15:44.750" Score="0" Body="Questions of interest to or relating to new players." OwnerUserId="1485" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2014-02-15T13:02:30.697" LastActivityDate="2014-02-15T13:02:30.697" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4738" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4695" CreationDate="2014-02-15T15:19:22.390" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is clearly interesting and relevant to automatically record chess games (live boards are more or less tackling the same problem). As far as I know, there is no software for this purpose that exists today. To solve this problem, I think that the &quot;simple&quot; case should be as follows.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The chess board should be filmed from top-down to get a two-dimensional view. (Motivation: filming in a three-dimensional view would cause problems because of a skewed view and pieces that will block the view for other pieces behind them. Also, different 3D-views are possible which would counteract a clean procedure.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The film should be manually edited to capture &quot;clean board&quot; moments and remove moments when the two players' hands or heads are blocking the view.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The image processing algorithm on the software side should detect changes on the board and record them as moves. It should also auto-rotate and transform the image to detect the board orientation and thereby the coordinates.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The software should use the starting position to &quot;memorize&quot; every piece type and then use these for the image recognition during the game. Probably, some clever tricks can be written to solve the problem of piece recognition in a smart way.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A quick Google search with the search string&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;chess game image processing&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;returned this &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.google.se/url?sa=t&amp;amp;rct=j&amp;amp;q=&amp;amp;esrc=s&amp;amp;source=web&amp;amp;cd=1&amp;amp;ved=0CCsQFjAA&amp;amp;url=http://www.researchgate.net/publication/234491319_Using_Image_Processing_Techniques_to_Automate_Chess_Game_Recording/file/79e4150fe3be5bef54.pdf&amp;amp;ei=04P_Up2kFYLf4wS_5oD4BQ&amp;amp;usg=AFQjCNHTgvncb4RBq830y9dgXJiN7uCYtg&amp;amp;sig2=fXQXMBUIwm27M_qMJS4h-Q&amp;amp;bvm=bv.61535280,d.bGE&amp;amp;cad=rja&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;interesting article&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All in all, it should be realistic to implement this type of software. Yet it might be cheaper for a human to do the same work (transfer moves from a video clip to a computer).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastActivityDate="2014-02-15T15:19:22.390" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4739" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4706" CreationDate="2014-02-15T18:12:26.380" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;What follows is basically a partial answer that is heavy on explanation, plus a pointer for using it to obtain a fuller answer if so desired.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Suppose we start with a blank 64-square chessboard and ask how many different positions we can make by placing down just 2 white knights. A quick answer is that it is &lt;code&gt;64*63 = 4032&lt;/code&gt; positions, because we can place the first knight on any of 64 squares, and for each of those choices there are 63 remaining choices for the other knight. &lt;em&gt;But this overcounts a bit.&lt;/em&gt; Specifically, that number double-counts every possibility, the reason being that our white knights are indistinguishable in terms of a chess position. What I mean is this: the counting scheme above treats (A) placing Knight1 at a1 and then Knight2 at a2, and (B) placing Knight1 at a2 and then Knight2 at a1, as two different chess positions. But they aren't: each has a white knight at a1 and at a2; they are the same chess position, as white knights don't come with individual labels. So the real answer should be &lt;code&gt;(64*63)/2 = 2016&lt;/code&gt; positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If we were instead placing 8 white pawns on an empty 64-square board, the number of possibilities is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;(64*63*62*61*60*59*58*57) / 8! = 4,426,165,368&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is just like the previous example, where the numerator naively counts the ways to place the 8 pawns, and the &lt;code&gt;8!&lt;/code&gt; of the denominator accounts for the fact that our white pawns are indistinguishable from one another in a position (and there are &lt;code&gt;8!&lt;/code&gt; ways to order the 8 pawns). Note too that the numerator can be written more succinctly as &lt;code&gt;64! / 56!&lt;/code&gt;, so a snappier way to give the number is as&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;64! / (56! * 8!)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;OK, so what about &lt;a href=&quot;http://archive.computerhistory.org/projects/chess/related_materials/text/2-0%20and%202-1.Programming_a_computer_for_playing_chess.shannon/2-0%20and%202-1.Programming_a_computer_for_playing_chess.shannon.062303002.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Shannon's paper&lt;/a&gt; itself? The estimate of the number of chess positions given there is that it is &quot;of the general order of&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;64! / (32! * (8!)^2 * (2!)^6) = 4.63E+42&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From the examples above, we know what this is counting. The &lt;code&gt;64! / 32!&lt;/code&gt; naively counts the number of ways to drop 32 pieces onto the 64 squares of the chessboard. Then we divide by &lt;code&gt;8!&lt;/code&gt; twice to ignore the order of the white pawns and the black pawns. Finally, we divide by &lt;code&gt;2! = 2&lt;/code&gt; a total of 6 times, to account for the white/black knights, bishops and rooks. So this &lt;code&gt;4.63E+42&lt;/code&gt; is a rough estimate of the number of &lt;em&gt;32-piece positions&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;all of which have even material&lt;/strong&gt; of course. (Note that we are totally ignoring legality, e.g. we can have pawns on the first rank, both kings in check, and so on; for an interesting thread on the proportion of positions that are actually legal, see &lt;a href=&quot;https://mathoverflow.net/q/138133/4137&quot;&gt;this MathOverflow post&lt;/a&gt;. We are also ignoring promotions by saying that the original 32-piece set is all we get.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A similar &quot;Shannon estimate&quot; for the number of 31-piece positions is given by&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  1.40E+41 = 64! / (33! * (8!)^2 * (2^6))      remove white Q&#xA;  2.81E+41 = 64! / (33! * (8!)^2 * (2^5))      remove a white R&#xA;  2.81E+41 = 64! / (33! * (8!)^2 * (2^5))      remove a white B&#xA;  2.81E+41 = 64! / (33! * (8!)^2 * (2^5))      remove a white N&#xA;+ 1.12E+42 = 64! / (33! * 8! * 7! * (2^6))     remove a white P&#xA;----------&#xA;  2.11E+42&#xA;* 2           to count those positions removing a single black piece&#xA;----------&#xA;  4.21E+42&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note the huge drop in the number of positions: there are &lt;code&gt;4.21E+41&lt;/code&gt; more 32-piece positions than there are 31-piece positions. The numbers will continue to drop dramatically, and in fact the proportion of 32-piece positions among all possible positions will be fairly sizable (hence so too will the number of even-material positions).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It wouldn't be too difficult for someone to write a program that produces these Shannon estimates for all numbers of pieces (one would just need to make sure to account for all combinations of a given number of pieces), and we could keep track of all those combinations that have equal material as we go. At the end we would have the Shannon estimate for all possible positions (though the 32-piece number already gives a rough sense of the total, as Shannon notes, because of the quick drop in positions as we drop pieces), as well as a count/proportion of how many of those (pseudo-legal) positions have equal material.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:58:47.617" LastActivityDate="2014-02-15T18:12:26.380" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4740" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4724" CreationDate="2014-02-15T19:02:18.027" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;One winning line involves an exchange of queens and bringing the king to e5. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;      [FEN &quot;8/5p1k/1P4p1/2P4p/7P/5Q2/5PP1/4qbK1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Qxf7+ Kh8 2. Qf6+ Kh7 3. Qf4 Bb5+ (3... Bc4+ 4. Kh2 Bd5 5. c6 Bxc6 6. Qc7+&#xA;Kh6 7. Qxc6 Qxf2 8. Qc1+ Kh7 9. Qc7+ Kh6 10. Qd8 Qf4+ 11. Kg1 Qc1+ 12. Kf2 Qf4+&#xA;13. Ke2 Qe4+ 14. Kd1 Qb1+ 15. Kd2 Qb2+ 16. Kd3 Qb3+ 17. Ke4 Qc2+ 18. Ke5 Qc5+&#xA;19. Ke6 Qc6+ 20. Ke7 Qe4+ 21. Kd6 Qf4+ 22. Kd7 Qd4+ 23. Kc7 Qf4+ 24. Kc8 Qg4+&#xA;25. Kb8 Qf4+ 26. Qc7 Qf8+ 27. Kb7 Qf1 28. Ka7 Qa1+ 29. Kb8 Qh8+ 30. Kb7 Qf8 31.&#xA;Kc6 Qf6+ 32. Kd5 Qf5+ 33. Qe5 Qd7+ (33... Qd3+ 34. Kc5 Qa3+ 35. Kc6 Qa4+ 36.&#xA;Kb7 Qd7+ 37. Kb8 Qd8+ 38. Ka7 Qxh4 39. Qh8+ Kg5 40. Qd8+ Kg4 41. Qxh4+) 34. Kc5&#xA;Qc8+ 35. Kd4 Qa8 36. Ke3 Qa3+ 37. Kf2 Qa8 38. Qg5+ Kg7 39. Qe7+ Kh8 40. b7 Qb8&#xA;41. Kf3 Kg8 42. Qe6+ Kg7 43. Qc8) 4. Kh2 Qe7 5. Kg3 Kg7 (5... Bc6 6. Qc7 Qxc7+&#xA;7. bxc7 Bb7 8. Kf4 Kg7 9. Ke5 $1 $18) (5... Kg8 6. c6 Bxc6 7. Qc4+ Kg7 8. Qxc6&#xA;Qe5+ 9. Kh3 Qf5+ 10. Kh2 Qxf2 11. Qc3+ Kh7 12. Qb4 Qe3 13. b7 Qe5+ 14. Kg1 Qe3+&#xA;15. Kf1 Qd3+ 16. Kf2 Qc2+ 17. Kf3 Qc6+ 18. Kg3 Qc7+ 19. Kh3 Qd7+ 20. Kh2 Qc7+&#xA;21. g3 Qc2+ 22. Kg1 Qc1+ 23. Kf2 Qc2+ 24. Ke3 Qc1+ 25. Kd4 Qg1+ 26. Kd5 Qg2+&#xA;27. Kd6 Qxg3+ 28. Ke6 Qe3+ 29. Kf7 Qf3+ 30. Ke7 Qe2+ 31. Kd8 Qd3+ 32. Ke8 Qe3+&#xA;33. Qe7+ $18) 6. Qd4+ (6. Qc7 $2 Qxc7+ 7. bxc7 Ba6 8. Kf4 Kf6 $1 9. f3 Bc8 10.&#xA;g4 Bb7 $11) 6... Kh7 (6... Kf7 7. Qd5+ Kg7 8. c6 $18) 7. Qd6 Qg7 (7... Qb7 8.&#xA;Qc7+ Qxc7+ 9. bxc7 Ba6 10. Kf4 Kg7 11. Ke5 $1 $18) 8. Qc7 Qxc7+ 9. bxc7 Ba6 10.&#xA;Kf4 Kg7 11. Ke5 (11. Kg5 $2 Bc8 12. f3 Be6 13. g4 hxg4 14. fxg4 Bc8 15. h5 Bd7&#xA;$1 16. c6 (16. hxg6 Bc8 17. Kf4 Kxg6 18. g5 Kh5 19. Ke5 Kxg5 20. Kd6 Kf6 21.&#xA;Kc6 Ke5 22. Kb6 Kd5 23. Ka7 Kxc5 24. Kb8 Bf5 25. c8=Q+ Bxc8 26. Kxc8 $11) 16...&#xA;Bc8 $11) 11... Bc8 12. Kd6 Kf6 13. Kc6 Ke7 14. Kb6 Kd7 15. f3 Ke7 16. Ka7 Kd7&#xA;17. Kb8 Ba6 18. g3 Ke7 19. c8=Q Bxc8 20. Kxc8 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Engine output after 3. Qf4! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;+-  (3.61): 3...Bb5+ 4.Kh2 Qe7 5.Kg3 Bc6 6.Qc7 Qxc7+ 7.bxc7 Bb7 8.Kf4 Kg8 9.Ke5 Kf7 10.Kd6 Bc8 11.Kc6 Ke6 12.Kb6 Kd7 13.f3 Ke7 14.Ka7 Kd7 15.Kb8 Ba6 16.g3 Kc6 17.c8Q+ Bxc8 18.Kxc8 Kxc5 19.Kd8 Kd5 20.Ke8 Ke6 21.f4 Kf6 22.Kf8 Kf5 23.Kg7 Kg4 24.Kxg6 Kxg3 25.Kxh5 Kf3 26.Kg6 Kg3 27.h5&lt;/code&gt;  &lt;code&gt;Stockfish Depth 26.&lt;/code&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2429" LastEditorUserId="2429" LastEditDate="2014-02-24T04:38:56.870" LastActivityDate="2014-02-24T04:38:56.870" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4743" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-02-16T21:00:24.333" Score="13" ViewCount="9626" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to know whether chess is a game of skill or game of chance, and how much is the degree of skill or chance in terms of percentage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit (21 Feb 2014):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please make sure that your answer includes credible references. To be sure that chess is a game of skill (or chance?).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2467" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-02-21T16:11:57.487" LastActivityDate="2020-06-02T07:01:03.767" Title="Is chess a game of skill or chance? To what extent?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;psychology&gt;" AnswerCount="13" CommentCount="8" FavoriteCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4744" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4743" CreationDate="2014-02-16T21:55:48.193" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;By the commonly accepted definition of &quot;game of skill&quot;, chess is 100% a game of skill. It has no random element at all and both players have full information about the game state at all times. Players do say things like &quot;I was lucky that my opponent blundered&quot;, but that's not what is generally meant when people talk about &quot;games of chance&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2014-02-16T21:55:48.193" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4745" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4743" CreationDate="2014-02-16T21:56:18.860" Score="18" Body="&lt;p&gt;If we remove the component of flawed, human players from the equation and consider just the game of chess itself as it is spelled out by the rules, then chess is purely a game of skill with no room for chance. That is, it is in principle possible for there to be a perfect chess player that plays optimally against every possible move sequence by an opponent, and that perfect player would never falter due to chance or luck. Such perfect players already exist at the level of chess positions with only a handful of pieces: &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endgame_tablebase&quot;&gt;endgame tablebases&lt;/a&gt; consist of all the information necessary for perfect play in those positions, and if you play from such a position against an opponent with access to those tablebases, chance can play no role in stopping them from getting their deserved result.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, the problem of computing a tablebase for the starting position of chess, with its 32 pieces, is far, far from tractable. So while optimal play does exist for all positions in chess, nobody knows for sure what optimal play is for the vast, vast majority of positions. Looked at in that light, when two humans (or even strong chess engines) play a game against one another, something that can reasonably be viewed as chance (for one side at least) can definitely play a role, but for what I have in mind at least, the root cause of any outcome is still skill (or its temporary absence).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's an example of what I mean. In the recent Zurich Chess Challenge, Nakamura was playing a fine &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1745310&quot;&gt;game against Carlsen&lt;/a&gt;, to the point where he had an overwhelming, winning advantage. At that point, it could safely be said that Carlsen &quot;deserved&quot; to lose.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;4r1k1/1p3pPp/6q1/2pPpNP1/p1n1P3/P6Q/7R/K7 w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Nakamura, Hikaru&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Carlsen, Magnus&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Zurich Chess Challenge&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d6? (1.Qf1!)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But Nakamura made a crucial mistake that let Carlsen off the hook, later followed by further poor play that even allowed Carlsen to win. If someone were to say, &quot;Carlsen was &lt;em&gt;lucky&lt;/em&gt; to win that day,&quot; I'd say there's truth to that. (Carlsen certainly deserves credit for defending in such a way that Nakamura could still go wrong, but even so, he was fortunate that Nakamura erred as he did.) But the luck from Carlsen's side originated from nothing more than a momentary lack of skill on Nakamura's part. Finding the right move was entirely within Nakamura's power, but he wasn't quite skillful enough to find it in that moment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As in most human endeavors, there is some element of chance in the competitive results of chess games. But that luck for one side generally comes in the form of what kind of lack of skill one's opponent shows (and when).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2014-02-16T23:27:30.073" LastActivityDate="2014-02-16T23:27:30.073" CommentCount="16" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4746" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4743" CreationDate="2014-02-17T01:46:40.817" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;White always starts with a slight advantage by having the first move. So if your colour is decided by flipping a coin or whatever, then that's an element of chance! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But it has been accepted that the game itself is 100% skill.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2471" LastEditorUserId="229" LastEditDate="2015-05-15T15:58:48.103" LastActivityDate="2015-05-15T15:58:48.103" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4747" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4743" CreationDate="2014-02-17T03:39:27.883" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess is definitely a game of skill and not by chance. One of the greatest chess players ever was the American Robert James &quot;Bobby&quot; Fischer. He acquired the skill by training everyday. He brought a chess board with him wherever he went, even while taking a bath.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It will take you more or less 10 years of real training to become a Grand Master or, at most, a world champion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am just barely 2200 FIDE rated but I can say skill is 95% and the rest is where the luck goes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2474" LastEditorUserId="204" LastEditDate="2014-02-17T21:04:08.663" LastActivityDate="2014-02-17T21:04:08.663" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4748" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4743" CreationDate="2014-02-17T05:36:28.240" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In theory, chess is 100% game of skill. But since chess is unsolved in practice, is it purely a game of skill?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As of today, if a human/computer analyse to some depth &lt;code&gt;D&lt;/code&gt; and result in &lt;code&gt;N&lt;/code&gt; board positions with same evaluation &lt;code&gt;E&lt;/code&gt;, then the final choice could be purely random. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore until chess is solved, with limited computing power, there is a small component of chance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit:&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;Consider 2 computers playing against each other. Lets say, in theory, we know that &lt;code&gt;1.e4&lt;/code&gt; wins, &lt;code&gt;1.d4&lt;/code&gt; loses. But the computers have limited power and evaluate both &lt;code&gt;1.e4&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;1.d4&lt;/code&gt; as same. The computer &lt;em&gt;randomly&lt;/em&gt; breaks the tie - winning or losing by chance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit 2:&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;&lt;em&gt;How much of it is chance?&lt;/em&gt;&#xA;IMO the chance component depends on the evaluation depth. For 2 computers that can analyse only upto a depth of 1 - the chance component is high.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit 3:&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;&lt;em&gt;Definition of chance:&lt;/em&gt;&#xA;An external source of randomness which is not known to either playing agents. 2 computers playing each other can produce different result.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1522" LastEditorUserId="1522" LastEditDate="2014-02-25T04:21:43.667" LastActivityDate="2014-02-25T04:21:43.667" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4749" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-02-17T12:10:57.137" Score="17" ViewCount="15501" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am not new to chess, I have been playing for around 6 years. But I don't know much about chess openings technically. What are some of the very good books to to learn important opening moves?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you in advance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2466" LastEditorUserId="9263" LastEditDate="2016-03-17T16:35:17.307" LastActivityDate="2016-07-24T21:32:54.843" Title="What are some good books for chess openings?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;learning&gt;&lt;books&gt;" AnswerCount="11" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4750" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4749" CreationDate="2014-02-17T15:27:28.140" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;It depends on what you are after and what your level is, but John Watson's &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.gambitbooks.com/books/Mastering_the_Chess_Openings_volume_1.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Mastering the Chess Openings&lt;/a&gt; series has a good reputation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1485" LastActivityDate="2014-02-17T15:27:28.140" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4751" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4695" CreationDate="2014-02-17T19:05:11.923" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;I won't be answering the question, because I don't know if there's a software out there. I'm just saying how I think that's how to do it, I don't know for sure, so...&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Okay first you need to make sure that the video is recorded from a chess software, not a live tournament, just to make your job easier.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You need to convert the movie to images&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;ffmpeg -i foo.avi -vsync 0 -vf select=&quot;eq(pict_type\,PICT_TYPE_I)&quot; -s WxH -f image2 foo-%03d.jpeg&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://stackoverflow.com/questions/12100072/how-to-extract-slides-from-a-video-using-python&quot;&gt;Source&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That was easy, now the hard part, you need to start doing image processioning, for that, the most powerful is OpenCV.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For that, there are several techniques, I'll give you the links so you can read them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://codebazaar.blogspot.com/2011/08/chess-board-recognition-project-part-1.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chessboard picture recognition project&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://stackoverflow.com/questions/11288460/recommended-pattern-recognition-technique-for-chess-board&quot;&gt;Recommended pattern recognition technique for chess board&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://dsp.stackexchange.com/questions/2805/how-does-opencv-find-chessboard-corners&quot;&gt;How does OpenCV find chessboard corners?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&amp;amp;rct=j&amp;amp;q=&amp;amp;esrc=s&amp;amp;source=web&amp;amp;cd=1&amp;amp;cad=rja&amp;amp;ved=0CCgQFjAA&amp;amp;url=http://www.researchgate.net/publication/234491319_Using_Image_Processing_Techniques_to_Automate_Chess_Game_Recording/file/79e4150fe3be5bef54.pdf&amp;amp;ei=s1YCU8KLL-jI0AWQ2YDQCw&amp;amp;usg=AFQjCNHTgvncb4RBq830y9dgXJiN7uCYtg&amp;amp;sig2=2duB1naDe__3OaMIrV40pA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Using Image Processing Techniques to Automate Chess Game&#xA;Recording&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&amp;amp;rct=j&amp;amp;q=&amp;amp;esrc=s&amp;amp;source=web&amp;amp;cd=15&amp;amp;cad=rja&amp;amp;ved=0CIEBEBYwDg&amp;amp;url=http://www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/10/3/2027/pdf&amp;amp;ei=s1YCU8KLL-jI0AWQ2YDQCw&amp;amp;usg=AFQjCNFYCCakOaa5v52uV7pedsdhAGJpKQ&amp;amp;sig2=syKHZoJRHHQqHPeh4Na4-Q&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Automatic Chessboard Detection for Intrinsic and Extrinsic Camera&#xA;Parameter Calibration&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://opencv-python-tutroals.readthedocs.org/en/latest/py_tutorials/py_calib3d/py_calibration/py_calibration.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Camera Calibration and 3D Reconstruction&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is complicated but simpler than you think, because you only need to know what is the starting position, loop through all the images and see the difference. Take a look at OpenCV docs you'll find tons of materials on that subject.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Oh by the way, what you're asking for is done already, but not using software as far as I know, there's an old project that was coded using Pascal, cameras placed over the board, robots do image processing and make a move. Nowadays many robots play chess.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;You could buy an Arduino uno,  and its light censor, it will detect the white pieces and the black pieces, some coding and it will play chess. :)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1105" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-05-23T12:37:05.403" LastActivityDate="2014-02-17T19:17:05.813" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4752" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4749" CreationDate="2014-02-17T20:11:42.600" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;You'll hear many masters tell any chess enthusiast of the &quot;beginner&quot; to intermediate level to pick of the books &quot;Winning chess strategies for kids&quot; by Jeff Coakley (which doesn't read like a kids book and is fantastically written) and &quot;Chess strategies for club members&quot; by Herman Grooten.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, chess.com has a great opening explorer. There's always YouTube as well! Hope that helps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2489" LastActivityDate="2014-02-17T20:11:42.600" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4753" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4531" CreationDate="2014-02-18T01:53:33.593" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Online games are killing it. Plain and simple.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Every child needs motivation. If the child can see in chess that he/she can join and win many tournaments  in about every few weeks or a month, gain more ratings and progressively improving -- then it's a good investment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But if he feels like &quot;this is not my sport... I lost a lot&quot; then he/she might just turn to something else like online stuffs especially online games where everything is so colorful and exciting.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This sport is for patient people who can appreciate the beauty of the game beyond the depths of the 64 squares.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2474" LastActivityDate="2014-02-18T01:53:33.593" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4754" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="468" CreationDate="2014-02-18T02:32:49.963" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The best way to do it is using &lt;a href=&quot;http://swiss-manager.at/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Swiss Manager&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;em&gt;Swiss perfect&lt;/em&gt; has a bug in which after it reaches a certain number of participants, it just fails on certain aspects.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think Swiss Manager is not that user-friendly, but I was able to learn it by myself though. There you can even create a local rating exclusively for your own company. Swiss Manager takes care of that --  it counts how much ratings a player has earned/lost after the tournament.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now if you are not that tech savvy you can do it manually. If it is just 30 or less participants it's pretty handy. Just make an initial list (the strongest player as the #1 seed).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pairings for the first round goes like this and you have the option to reverse colors. Say there are just 8 participants (for simplicity purposes). The first half of the list, which are players #1 to #4 will play against #5 to #8 respectively:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Round 1:&#xA;1 vs 5&#xA;6 vs 2&#xA;3 vs 7&#xA;8 vs 4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Notice the alternating pattern in which #1 is white, #2 is black and #3 is white.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the next round, probably the top 4 players won and the others lost. top seed and 2nd seed will face in the later part so You will just do the pattern again, this time among those on the same point groups: #1-#4 all have one point and hence will play each other while #5-#8 will also do the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Round 2 pairings looks like this and again, the ones on the upper part vs the lower parts ON THE SAME POINT GROUP. Hence #1 &amp;amp; #2 vs #3 &amp;amp; #4 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and #5 &amp;amp; #6 vs #7 &amp;amp; #8:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Round 2:&#xA;4 vs 1 &#xA;2 vs 3&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5 vs 8&#xA;7 vs 6&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just note about the colors. As much as possible, players should change colors after every round. But there are exceptions in which some players can go two rounds with the same color &lt;strong&gt;BUT HE/SHE CANNOT GO FOR THREE ROUNDS WITH THE SAME COLOR&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another thing to mention is sometimes, you need to pair a player to another player which is not of his point group simply because there are no other player whom he can play in the same group. Example is when one match ended in a draw in the first round. So these two players with half points might play against 1-pointers or even 0-pointers in the 2nd round. Just depends on the scenario of availability of players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically that's what the pairing program's algorithm does. On the later rounds you can continue the pattern on which players on the same point group play each other as long as they haven't played each other.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, two types of tournament styles are: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Round Robin&lt;/strong&gt; (Sub types of this type is double and triple round robins, etc)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Swiss&lt;/strong&gt; (could be 5 rounds, 6 rounds, 7 or 9, etc. Simply depending on the tournament size. You can calculate it in the form of 2&lt;sup&gt;x&lt;/sup&gt;  in which x is the number of rounds needed to produce. 2&lt;sup&gt;x&lt;/sup&gt; should be equal or greater than the number of participants.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Say there are 100 participants, in order for 2&lt;sup&gt;x&lt;/sup&gt; to be greater or equal to 100, x must be 7. So 7 rounds could do it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But then again, the tournament manager has the right to increase the number of rounds. It will be stated in the so called &quot;&lt;strong&gt;Ground Rules&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; or &quot;&lt;strong&gt;Mechanics of the Tournament&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is really pretty easy. For not so serious tournaments this should work, but for serious ones, Tie-breaks, on the later rounds, will also add complexities as to who should play who in the next rounds.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;P.S.&lt;/strong&gt;: Sorry this is just a quick reflection in my past experience. I know my answer is not well organized/formatted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2474" LastEditorUserId="1115" LastEditDate="2016-12-13T20:22:23.017" LastActivityDate="2016-12-13T20:22:23.017" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4756" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4708" CreationDate="2014-02-18T04:20:24.800" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.trafford.com/Bookstore/BookDetail.aspx?BookId=SKU-000145301&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;A First Book of Morphy&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; illustrates 30 basic principles described by grandmaster Fine in his &quot;Chess the Easy Way&quot; with games played by Morphy, the first chess genius and American champion. It's well suited for players rated under 1000.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/1412039061&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.amazon.com/First-Book-Morphy-Frisco-Rosario/dp/1412039061&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2494" LastEditorUserId="224" LastEditDate="2020-04-13T19:55:26.747" LastActivityDate="2020-04-13T19:55:26.747" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="4757" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4743" CreationDate="2014-02-18T08:07:46.240" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a game of chess progresses from one of &lt;em&gt;incomprehensibly&lt;/em&gt; vast complexity (with a great many useful moves open to many pieces) to manageable complexity (with fewer useful moves), play transitions from (hopefully) skillful (conscious or subconscious/intuitive) applications of&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;heuristics, probabilities, and targeted but incomplete analysis (often small differential analysis from remembered/studied games), to&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;exhaustive&lt;/em&gt; analysis of the &lt;em&gt;relevant&lt;/em&gt; paths the game may still take (again, often differential analysis from reference games).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The players themselves - and human observers - may not be able to reliably identify this transition, as they'll be prone to feel like they're in stage 2 a little early - while there are still one or more potential plays that could upset their plans.  And a careless move may transition a player back to stage 1.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's definitely skill involved in &lt;em&gt;both&lt;/em&gt; stages: in as much as skill is &quot;the ability to do something well; expertise&quot; (OED) - and many reasonable criteria for &quot;doing [chess] well&quot; are possible, such as say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;one's ability to find &quot;better&quot; or avoid subtly &quot;worse&quot; moves, whether in stage &quot;1&quot; or &quot;2&quot; above, and where&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&quot;better&quot; and &quot;worse&quot; are evaluated by the impact those moves have on the outcomes of games they and/or other players have after those moves, all compared to others in the chess-playing community.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(I phrase it in terms of individual moves and not &quot;wins&quot;/&quot;loses averted&quot; because in any activity someone may have skill but not consistency; they may not be a great competitor e.g. if they're feeble of concentration, flustered by pressure, unable or even uninterested in manifesting their ability consistently in competitive settings; they might &lt;em&gt;just&lt;/em&gt; like analysing complex end games for example, but be very good at it...).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In stage 1, there's &lt;em&gt;also&lt;/em&gt; an element of luck: there's at least the potential for:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;some reasonable-seeming move to turn out poorly (which would be unusual and therefore reasonably deemed &quot;unlucky&quot; if the heuristics and partial reasoning were overwhelmingly sound and skillfully applied - i.e. of a high standard compared to the chess community overall), or &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;a great opportunity that wasn't deliberately set up to become available, or&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;a relatively careless move to have consequences that weren't foreseen, which might work out very well or very poorly.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But, if one player has a lot more skill than the other player, the frequency and severity of &lt;em&gt;significantly&lt;/em&gt; &quot;unlucky&quot; moves they might make, or &quot;lucky&quot; moves their opponent might make that they hadn't foreseen and protected against, decreases, until it becomes astronomically unlikely for enough consecutive &quot;(un)lucky events&quot; to have more bearing on the outcome of the game than the skill differential does.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, the closer the skill level the more likely that &quot;luck&quot; will be the deciding factor.  Here, &quot;luck&quot; might be occasioned by conscious awareness that a choice between moves is being made arbitrarily, or it could be an intuition/hunch to choose between moves that in this case isn't actually usefully informed by any experience or subconscious analysis.  There's even a degree of luck in whether a player making an arbitrary choice between what might in some absolute sense be equally good moves happens to choose a move leading to a situation their opponent is more or less skillful at handling (e.g. because their experience and study is more relevant to one position than another).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You could compare this tide-of-skill versus spontaneous-fluke factor to say tennis: a lucky outcome could see me win a point against Roger Federer - perhaps by playing a very low percentage but skillful shot that happens to work out that one time, or even by having a shot hit the net-cord and drop over, come off my racquet frame at an unlikely but advantageous angle, or bounce strangely for Roger.  But, the chance I'd win an entire game is maybe 0.1% (?), a set would be like winning lotto twice in a row, and a match - well, the universe might end first. (Sane caveats re Roger being mentally/physically fine etc..)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The more a game requires a great many moves to shape and turn the outcome, and the lower the chance for a fluke beyond either players' control, the more predictable the outcomes are, and the more the skill differential ensures the outcome, even if that skill is probabilistic and not deterministic.  Skill is a huge factor in chess, but skill is not a constant for a player - they may be more skillful at handling play from certain positions than others (perhaps they just read a book on a relevant tactic), and occasionally a player of lower average skill might prevail based on some particularly relevant but limited skill (and be deemed lucky that play led to a situation where they could apply it).  In close matches, and perhaps in beginner's matches where more of the movements are made arbitrarily without even a guiding strategy or heuristic used, luck starts to play a significant role.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think it's interesting to compare this to baseball, I read a book about it years ago that explained how some Wall Street quant types crunched the maths and found that the worst team in the top league had something like half the chance of being the champions that the best team had... i.e. surprisingly little impact on odds came from achievable differences in skill (given the top team had vastly more budget to hire players considered &quot;stars&quot;).  For example, while the percentage of swings that made contact varied with batter, the out/1st-base/2nd-base/3rd-base/home outcomes were in similar proportions: you might observe that it took skill to hit the ball more often, but doing so was so difficult and the angle of contact so uncontrollable that what happened when you did basically came down to luck.  Overall, luck could easily swing a game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Separately, and this may be controversial and I'm not claiming it's true - just reasoning about the implications if it happens to be true:  I saw a study report that when chess grandmasters played good club players, starting at random board positions that would not occur during actual games: the grandmasters lost their main advantage as they didn't have a huge wealth of applicable reference games with which to compare; reduced to actual logical reasoning without any particular advantage - they only had a smidge more than 50/50 chance of a win.  Does that mean chess is less about skill than my above assertions imply?  Is a vast memory of games itself a skill?  I'd say so - it clearly allows you to &quot;do well&quot; in non-random games, and that's all the OED requires.  Further, consider say a language translator - we'd consider the size of their vocabulary to be an aspect of their skill level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2497" LastEditorUserId="2497" LastEditDate="2014-02-19T02:04:57.630" LastActivityDate="2014-02-19T02:04:57.630" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4758" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4743" CreationDate="2014-02-18T09:49:14.267" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess is about using your resources in a clever way. As a human body, you have limited resources and planning is needed. A game at classical time controls can take up to 6 hours and being focused for 6 hours is simply impossible. It is hard to eliminate the factor of &quot;human error&quot;, &quot;blunder&quot;, &quot;being too hasty&quot; and the very important &quot;time trouble&quot; frequently seen on all levels. Yet, it is possible to minimize these problems and thereby improve your results.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think that chess is all about skill and what some refer to as &quot;chance&quot; or &quot;luck&quot; is the human factor mixed with the simple fact that some positions are a hard nut to crack! For example, you can calculate all the lines correctly, yet have trouble to evaluate the final positions. Alternatively, you may think your calculations are correct yet miss a devastating in-between move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On average, skill will decide your results. Yet you need skills in several areas, not just e.g. calculation. Thus, some players miss out on one or more areas and start attributing those to &quot;chance&quot; or other factors. For example, if you blunder in your own time trouble, obviously you lack one or more skills. You cannot attribute this to your opponent being lucky. All in all, your skills will maximize your chances of winning, as an individual. The game itself has a certain degree of uncertainty due to several factors. You can choose to call it &quot;chance&quot;. You can also choose to call it the &quot;dynamics and uncertainty of a chess game&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-02-18T09:54:23.947" LastActivityDate="2014-02-18T09:54:23.947" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4759" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4749" CreationDate="2014-02-18T11:57:09.093" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you're not familiar with openings your best bet would be to start with a decent general book on openings rather than going for something too specific. Being familiar with chess you will probably have settled on what kind of player you are, and therefore what types of openings suit your style. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your first task should be to find the kinds of openings that suit you by studying something broad. Once you've found the types of openings you like you can then focus on learning more specific openings with more specific books. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sorry I don't know any books off the top of my head. I prefer to learn openings by playing and supplementing this with general internet searches.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2399" LastActivityDate="2014-02-18T11:57:09.093" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4760" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4719" CreationDate="2014-02-18T12:07:25.723" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure if any exist but the problem shouldn't be too difficult using a decent engine. As long as time wasn't too big an issue they could be generated by having the engine play itself at different depth ply searches. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, if one of the engines only saw two moves ahead a position will eventually arise where the other engine (which can see further) can manoeuvre his opponent into a forced mate in three. This position could then be saved as a problem. The difficulty of the problem would be based on the strength of the two &quot;players&quot;. Tweaking of player strength could be used to generate problems of varying difficulty.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't think time would even have to be too big a concern. Computers can generally make decent moves very quickly. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2399" LastActivityDate="2014-02-18T12:07:25.723" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4761" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4743" CreationDate="2014-02-18T13:56:14.417" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm pretty sure that by formal definition, chess is a game of 100% skill and 0% luck. Why? There is no &quot;outside element of randomness&quot; that could influence the outcome of a match but cannot be directly controlled by at least one of the players. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In other games, the order of cards and the outcome of the roll of a die cannot be influenced by players... at least not if they play by the rules and do not use some mechanism of cheating :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The inherent &quot;human factor&quot; is not considered &quot;chance&quot;. I.e. if player B makes a mistake that lets player A win, we don't say player A was lucky, we say he played a better game because B made a mistake and A didn't. Of course players &lt;em&gt;can&lt;/em&gt; introduce an element of chance/randomness by making random moves. If a position is too complex for a player to understand, he could mentally or actually flip a coin to decide which move to make. Or he could pick the best move for completely wrong reasons. This sort of &quot;chance&quot; is part of every game, so if you want, consider it 1-5% chance. More for beginners, less for skilled people because skilled people will not need this type of &quot;guessing&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another thing to consider: A good player will not lose a single game against a weak player. I don't think the same will be true for poker or other games involving chance so this also shows that it's a game of high skill and little chance... &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2499" LastActivityDate="2014-02-18T13:56:14.417" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4762" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4749" CreationDate="2014-02-18T14:24:56.607" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are two excellent modern surveys of openings: Sam Collins' &lt;em&gt;Understanding the Chess Openings&lt;/em&gt; and Paul van der Sterren's &lt;em&gt;Fundamental Chess Openings&lt;/em&gt;. They both cover every major opening, demonstrating the main ideas and variations. I would start with Collins, since it is shorter and easier to read through in its entirety, but both are highly recommended.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2014-02-18T14:24:56.607" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4763" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4768" CreationDate="2014-02-18T22:37:24.990" Score="20" ViewCount="13696" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What to do after losing a game?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think that this question is on everyones' minds after a loss. I am guessing that everyone has their own way of coping with a loss. The best way to cope with a loss can turn out to vary from person to person. Yet, I think that it should be possible to find some sort of &quot;best practice&quot; procedure to draw wisdom from a loss and cope with it in a productive manner. Most chess players I know, including myself, feel terrible after a loss. One of the first negative thoughts that arises is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What is the point? I trained and competed so much and I still lost!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Today, I know that there are (at least) three ways of losing a game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Become completely outplayed with virtually no counterplay.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Blunder (e.g. during time trouble).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Enter a position with chances for both sides, do your best and still lose.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is clear that whatever level of skill you have, you can still lose. So what to do afterwards? Is there a &lt;strong&gt;best practice&lt;/strong&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-02-19T09:39:01.677" LastActivityDate="2019-01-07T21:46:50.547" Title="What to do after losing a game?" Tags="&lt;psychology&gt;&lt;losing&gt;&lt;best-practice&gt;" AnswerCount="9" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4764" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2014-02-18T22:38:42.277" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2014-02-18T22:38:42.277" LastActivityDate="2014-02-18T22:38:42.277" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4765" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2014-02-18T22:38:42.277" Score="0" Body="Losing is one out of three possible results in a chess game (win, draw and loss are the 3 possible results)." OwnerUserId="2001" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-02-19T04:03:45.790" LastActivityDate="2014-02-19T04:03:45.790" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4766" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2014-02-18T22:50:36.577" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2014-02-18T22:50:36.577" LastActivityDate="2014-02-18T22:50:36.577" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4767" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2014-02-18T22:50:36.577" Score="0" Body="Best practice (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Best_practice) is the best way of doing something or the recommended way of doing something in a high-quality manner." OwnerUserId="2001" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-02-19T04:03:51.197" LastActivityDate="2014-02-19T04:03:51.197" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4768" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4763" CreationDate="2014-02-19T03:09:32.127" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;The best practice would be to thoroughly analyze the &lt;em&gt;game&lt;/em&gt; and also your &lt;em&gt;thought process&lt;/em&gt; before, during and after the game. Besides, if after sincere hard efforts you still lose, it's important to have an attitude like this - &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;“I haven't failed, I've found 10,000 ways that don't work” - Thomas&#xA;  Edison&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In chess, that would mean - &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I haven't failed, I have discovered that this&#xA;  strategy/opening/tactic/etc. doesn't work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my personal experience, you often learn more from the games you lose than from the games you win. So use that to your advantage. Analyze the game thoroughly (of course with the help of an engine) and see where you went wrong. Also, identify faulty patterns of thinking during the game. For example - &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;this position was objectively equal, but during the game I thought I&#xA;  was worse and so I got &lt;em&gt;demotivated&lt;/em&gt; and played badly&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2KKfOGaR_w&quot;&gt;Gary Kasparov&lt;/a&gt; suggested the following after winning (but I suppose it applies all the more after losing) - &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;Even the game we won always contained mistakes; inaccuracies. It's&#xA;  inevitable. I can hardly find one brilliant game with no mistakes.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;If we won, it is most likely because our opponent made the &lt;em&gt;last&lt;/em&gt;&#xA;  mistake. But, he made the last mistake and he is definitely analyzing&#xA;  the game; he'll find what we did wrong in the previous stage of the&#xA;  game. So what is important is to find it first.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I found some other interesting quotes on &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessquotes.com/topic-losing&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; page. Some of the more interesting quotes are - &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Losing can persuade you to change what doesn't need to be changed, and&#xA;  winning can convince you everything is fine even if you are on the&#xA;  brink of disaster.  -  Garry Kasparov&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Don't be afraid of losing, be afraid of playing a game and not&#xA;  learning something. - Dan Heisman&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I prefer to lose a really good game than to win a bad one.  -  David&#xA;  Levy&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Setbacks and losses are both inevitable and essential if you're going&#xA;  to improve and become a good, even great, competitor. The art is in&#xA;  avoiding catastrophic losses in the key battles.  -  Garry Kasparov&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;You may learn much more from a game you lose than from a game you win.&#xA;  You will have to lose hundreds of games before becoming a good player.&#xA;  -  Jose Capablanca&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Most players ... do not like losing, and consider defeat as something&#xA;  shameful. This is a wrong attitude. Those who wish to perfect&#xA;  themselves must regard their losses as lessons and learn from them&#xA;  what sorts of things to avoid in the future.  -  Jose Capablanca&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2429" LastEditorUserId="2429" LastEditDate="2014-02-19T03:19:55.883" LastActivityDate="2014-02-19T03:19:55.883" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4769" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4749" CreationDate="2014-02-19T08:37:27.017" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I like &quot;Chess Opening for Dummies&quot;. It features the main openings with two commented games for each one: one game in which white wins and one in which black wins. This allows to avoid bias toward the choice of adding an opening in the repertoire.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2115" LastEditorUserId="2115" LastEditDate="2014-02-19T12:10:49.147" LastActivityDate="2014-02-19T12:10:49.147" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4770" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-02-19T09:43:11.117" Score="4" ViewCount="1880" Body="&lt;p&gt;So I wonder if there are specific positional/tactical tests for every rating range, so that in the end the general rating of a player can be decided prior to competition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2507" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-02-20T10:50:43.017" LastActivityDate="2014-02-21T11:25:36.127" Title="Can you estimate a player's Elo rating using tests?" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;training&gt;&lt;elo&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4771" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4743" CreationDate="2014-02-19T19:10:58.933" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would submit that there is an element of luck in chess. For eg., imagine a game between two players of roughly equal ability. Suppose the position becomes a very open tactical position with possibilities for both sides. In such a situation a lot of tactics are possible. As human beings, we may not be able to calculate all the variations in such a position. So in such a situation, we would normally choose a particular tactic based on gut feeling. It may well turn out that the tactic chosen is the best one which may result in a winning advantage. However, given the open nature of the position, it may also turn out that the tactic chosen is not a great one and that the opponent finds a good refutation for that particular tactic. So there appears to be an element of luck in deciding which tactic to choose in a position which offers many possibilities.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1811" LastActivityDate="2014-02-19T19:10:58.933" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4772" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-02-19T19:20:52.883" Score="2" ViewCount="3468" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can anyone provide a simple formula to convert the elo rating provided by the chess program Shredder to actual FIDE rating. I am only looking for an approximate formula, maybe something like: FIDE_rating = a * shredder_rating + b, where 'a' and 'b' are numbers. The purpose of this is to get a good estimate of your FIDE rating without actually participating in a FIDE rated tournament and to give people a feel for their chances of success before enrolling in a FIDE rated tournament.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1811" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-02-20T11:08:58.337" LastActivityDate="2014-04-21T20:46:38.720" Title="Conversion of Shredder elo rating to FIDE elo rating?" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;elo&gt;&lt;software&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4773" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4763" CreationDate="2014-02-20T02:27:41.320" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;Don't forget to be a good sport. Smile, shake hands with the winner, and congratulate them on a good game. Then later, when you've calmed down, when you're in a more focused frame of mind, analyze your game. (Keep a notebook of the moves).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) Look for obvious blunders - hanging pieces, bad trades&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) Look for tactical mistakes - forks, pins, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) Look for strategic mistakes - pieces becoming cramped, weak pawn structure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4) Decide if one section of the game gave you more trouble than others. (Opening, middle, &#xA;endgame)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5) Create your practice plan. Review topics that gave you trouble. Do some practice puzzles. Play against yourself. Play against a computer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More tips:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Practice focusing on only the board, shut everything else out. Getting angry, sad, or even happy during a game can make you lose focus. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Don't pay attention to your opponent. Just play against the board. Don't rely on him to make mistakes, or move in a certain way. Assume that every move he makes will be the best one he can, and you do the same. If you know what his best move is, and he makes a different one, that's a clue that you have an opportunity to gain an advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Ultimately, a lot of openings in chess will result in black losing, if both players play perfectly. It might not be your fault, just that black starts off one tempo behind. Play both sides, often.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2512" LastActivityDate="2014-02-20T02:27:41.320" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4774" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4779" CreationDate="2014-02-20T11:32:40.417" Score="5" ViewCount="752" Body="&lt;p&gt;Based on &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/4763/what-to-do-after-losing-a-game/4773?noredirect=1#comment5511_4773&quot;&gt;this comment&lt;/a&gt; I'd like to know which openings, if any, are considered unplayable (i.e. lost) for black? My own understanding is that in some opening lines it's harder for black to equalise, but are there any that are completely lost, assuming that white plays perfectly?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2078" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2014-02-26T02:09:25.817" Title="Do any openings result in a lost game for black?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;theory&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="13" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4776" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-02-20T13:21:41.180" Score="4" ViewCount="905" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a bit of a new blood when it comes to Chess. Oh I know how to play but before I started getting more serious it was more like flailing about and hoping for the best. Recently I came to the conclusion that a game like Chess can be quite beneficial towards my cognitive development and I simply love the elegance and depth of the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I was hoping to get some advice from the more advance players. (Which from my experience level would be about everyone, lol.)  As in, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What would you wish someone told you when you first started getting into playing? &#xA;How do you resist stagnation? Is there some etiquette that players are expected to know but don't necessarily teach? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2514" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-02-20T20:01:47.293" LastActivityDate="2017-02-17T13:38:13.547" Title="What advice would you give a novice in Chess?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;etiquette&gt;&lt;beginner&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4777" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4774" CreationDate="2014-02-20T13:40:26.583" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are no common openings that are considered lost for Black with best play. Katerina's comment was an exaggeration (at least according to the opinions of modern chess players). The most common opening that I can think of that is considered basically losing is Damiano's Defense (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 f6), and pretty much no one plays that except as a joke.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2014-02-20T13:40:26.583" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4778" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4776" CreationDate="2014-02-20T13:44:45.573" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;What I did in the beginning was I went to my library which had weekly sessions of chess, and we would play other people that went there and after a while I was invited to competitions. After doing that for a while instead of going to competitions I went to chess.com and played people on there. You can go and find chess books and review what pieces are which piece. Such that the pawn moves one square at a time, and only forward. And on their first move they can choose to move 1 or 2 spaces forward. Etc. Hope I helped!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2515" LastActivityDate="2014-02-20T13:44:45.573" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4779" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4774" CreationDate="2014-02-20T13:57:43.253" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your question is somewhat hard to answer, because it depends on what you consider &quot;an opening&quot; to be.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Obviously, there are openings where black loses -- consider the typical Scholar's Mate, 1.e4 e5 2.Bc4 Nc6 3.Qh5 Nf6 4.Qxf7#.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But, you will probably think, nobody with any knowledge of the game will play like that! And that's reasonable. But it is an opening, isn't it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And if you mean &quot;are there any &lt;em&gt;commonly played, theoretical&lt;/em&gt; openings where Black loses?&quot; then there are very few indeed -- after all, why would black play such an opening? Once some line is refuted, almost everybody stops playing it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Katerina said:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Ultimately, a lot of openings in chess will result in black losing, if both players play perfectly. It might not be your fault, just that black starts off one tempo behind.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't agree with that at all. Chess is considered by most people to be a draw at best play, and commonly played openings aren't losing. They may be slightly worse, but that's not the same as losing, not even with perfect play -- it just means that black will have to defend most of the game without much chance of winning himself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2014-02-20T13:57:43.253" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4780" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1673" CreationDate="2014-02-20T15:43:13.133" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would like to add that Zugzwang is critical in endgame theory, for instance here this is a very important case of Zugzwang:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ebj8W.png&quot; alt=&quot;White to play loses the pawn, Black to play loses the game&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another example here:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/bgWCP.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;The side to play loses&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I explain the basics of zugzwang in my blog post here: &lt;a href=&quot;http://chesstrainerapp.blogspot.fr/2014/02/zugzwang.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://chesstrainerapp.blogspot.fr/2014/02/zugzwang.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2076" LastActivityDate="2014-02-20T15:43:13.133" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4782" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4776" CreationDate="2014-02-20T18:38:03.897" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;1) Study the games of masters. I would recommend earlier masters like &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessplayer?pid=16002&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Morphy&lt;/a&gt;, Lasker, Capablanca, etc. Studying their &quot;simple&quot; games will better your understanding to study more &quot;complicated&quot; games of Fischer, Karpov, Kasparov, Anand or Carlsen. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) Study the endgame. I recommend Understanding Chess Endgames by John Nunn. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) Practice and improve your tactical skills. There are many online tactics websites that can help you in that regard, like &lt;a href=&quot;http://chesstempo.com/chess-tactics.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;chesstempo&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4) Enjoy playing chess! Without enjoyment, it's difficult to learn. But don't waste time playing useless 2 or 3 minute blitz games. These won't help you to improve much. Play games with longer time controls, especially in tournaments if possible. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5) Get a good chess engine to analyze your games. I would recommend &lt;a href=&quot;http://stockfishchess.org/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Stockfish&lt;/a&gt;, which is a free engine. However, if you're willing to spend more money, I recommend a powerful engine like &lt;a href=&quot;http://chessbase-shop.com/en/products/houdini_4_pro_multiprocessor_version&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Houdini&lt;/a&gt; with &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.chessbase.com/post/chebase-12-has-arrived-&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chessbase 12&lt;/a&gt;. Note that you can also use Stockfish with ChessBase 12. I often use it myself. It's a very strong engine and Houdini is just very sligtly better (for beginners, that shouldn't make much of a difference). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;6) Never leave any of your games unanalyzed. That's a serious waste of the time you have spent playing those games and also a loss of the things you could potentially have learned. Never put off analyzing a game for more than a week. My experience is that you remember the lessons learned from your games the earlier you analyze your games. Of course, you need to make good notes on your games.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;7) Watch this inspiring video! :) &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t094GritHYM&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Bobby Fischer - Anything to Win&lt;/a&gt;. Caution: I'm asking you to be inspired only by the way Bobby Fischer trained to play chess and win; not to be inspired by his paranoia or his other questionable activities! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;8) Study the openings and opening principles. Although this isn't that important for beginners compared to the other things I mentioned, it is nevertheless very important to play good openings to have good positions to play. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2429" LastEditorUserId="2429" LastEditDate="2014-02-20T18:45:58.617" LastActivityDate="2014-02-20T18:45:58.617" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4783" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4774" CreationDate="2014-02-20T18:43:37.757" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;One bad opening that usually causes Black to lose is 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 f6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White can play 3. NxP!, and if Black captures the N, he succumbs to 4. Qh5 ch Pg6 5. Qxe5 ch forking king and rook.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More often, Black ends up losing his e pawn, and while he can get it back, his development will be crippled while he is doing so.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2014-02-20T18:43:37.757" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4784" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4772" CreationDate="2014-02-20T19:31:15.053" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think it is possible to convert the Shredder rating to a FIDE Elo rating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In general, the rating system has the purpose to create a relative ranking of all players based on their results against one another. Your rating from playing games with classical time controls makes it possible to say something about your level of play. Already at this point it is difficult to compare ratings from different time controls (e.g. blitz versus classical).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My point is that you can use your online blitz rating to estimate what FIDE blitz rating you could get over the board (OTB). Yet, it is harder to use your online blitz rating to estimate your OTB rating with classical time controls.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One way to get an estimate of your OTB rating is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Register on a serious online blitz site&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Play rated blitz games with the minimum time control of (5 min or 3 min + 2 sec per move)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Ask your opponents what their OTB rating is&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Make notes on your results and the opponents' OTB ratings&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Calculate your performance rating.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastActivityDate="2014-02-20T19:31:15.053" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4785" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4774" CreationDate="2014-02-20T19:48:18.610" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you define an opening as &quot;any moves that you can play during the first 10 moves&quot; then there are plenty of openings where both white and black can get a lost position after 10 moves. Assuming that white plays perfectly, then black will be in trouble in many &quot;openings&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess has been around for a while and the opening theory has taken big steps forward. Today, the openings are divided into systems and variations, some of them as deep as the first 20 moves. With white playing perfectly, black should play accurately or will otherwise fail to equalize. Yet, playing fairly accurately, I cannot think of many established opening variations that lead to objectively lost positions for black after e.g. 10 moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In a practical game between two human players, as long as there is room for play and counterplay, all three results are possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastActivityDate="2014-02-20T19:48:18.610" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4786" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4776" CreationDate="2014-02-20T19:56:13.160" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here are a few words on chess&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Chess is decision making under pressure.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Learn to counter-attack (including prophylaxis).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Keep &quot;asking questions&quot; - keep making new threats and problems.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Study endgames. All the major types of endgames. Many players are weak in this area.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Many go for a knock-out in the opening and middlegame. Be ready for this.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Control the center and understand why this is important.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Learn how pieces collaborate and find &quot;strong teams&quot; among them.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastActivityDate="2014-02-20T19:56:13.160" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4787" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4789" CreationDate="2014-02-20T21:12:34.770" Score="6" ViewCount="3758" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is a good opening system for black that leads to closed play against 1.e4?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;E.G. - against 1.d4 I like to play the Slav &amp;amp; am looking into the Czech Benoni.  I am looking for something similar against e4.  I currently use the Caro-Kann, and briefly used the French, but am wanting to look at some other options.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In particular, an off-beat line that doesn't have a ton of theory would be nice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks in advance for your replies!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2402" LastEditorUserId="2402" LastEditDate="2014-02-24T14:29:26.477" LastActivityDate="2019-12-14T16:44:18.047" Title="Can you recommend a closed opening for black against 1.e4?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;&lt;1.e4&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4788" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4774" CreationDate="2014-02-20T21:21:41.310" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The fool's mate, if white recognizes it, will put black at a severe disadvantage, of the checkmate kind.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[White &quot;Mater&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Fool&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;...&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 f6 2. Nc3 g5 3. Qh5#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any variation of this where the black King's diagonal is wide open will suffice. The same can also happen to white, but you asked about Openings for black, if you consider this an opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="915" LastActivityDate="2014-02-20T21:21:41.310" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4789" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4787" CreationDate="2014-02-21T01:18:25.630" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;In principle, a &quot;good&quot; system that leads to a closed game is not possible to achieve unless the opponent co-operates in achieving a closed position. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You probably already know how White can achieve an open game with the French or Caro Kann or Alekhine or simple symmetrical king pawn openings. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  [FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;  1. e4 e5 (1...e6 2. d4 d5 3. exd5 exd5 4. c4) (1...c6 2. d4 d5 3. exd5 cxd5 4. c4)             &#xA;  (1... Nf6 2. e5 Nd5 3. c4 Nb6 4. d4 d6 5. exd6 )&#xA;  2. Nf3 (2... Nf6 3. Nxe5 d6 4. Nf3 Nxe4 5. d4) Nc6 3. d4&#xA;  (2. f4!?)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I think your best bet would be those openings which do not move a pawn in the center very early on. The only &quot;good&quot; openings among those (regularly played by Grandmasters) would be the Pirc or Modern Defense. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Modern Defense does tend to be an off-beat line (good for you since that's what you're looking for). It can often transpose into the Pirc. The general principles of the Modern and the Pirc are the same - develop the Bishop on the flank and counter in the center at a later stage. If White co-operates in closing the position, which usually happens if Black plays &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt; followed by White's &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt;, then Black can counter with the f5 break. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;      [FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;      1. e4 g6&#xA;      2. d4 Bg7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is the basic position of the Modern Defense. As you can see, this position can be reached even after &lt;code&gt;1. d4&lt;/code&gt;, so it's very flexible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are many different ways for White to continue in this position. Black's usual idea is to play &lt;code&gt;d6&lt;/code&gt; followed by a later &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt;, although there are games where Black has tried to break white's center with &lt;code&gt;c6&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt; or even &lt;code&gt;c5&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here, I give some sample lines which may lead to closed positions, including all three ideas of &lt;code&gt;c5&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt;. Note that even in these lines, White has the option to open the position, but it doesn't necessarily give White an advantage in doing so. In fact in many lines, White prefers to close the position to cramp Black for space. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;   [FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;   1. e4 g6 2. d4 Bg7 3. Nc3 (3. Nf3 d6 4. Bc4 Nf6 5. Qe2 O-O 6. O-O c6 7. Bb3 Bg4&#xA;   8. Nbd2 e5) (3. c4 d6 (3... c5 4. d5 d6 5. Nc3 Nf6 6. Nf3 O-O 7. Be2 Bg4 8. O-O&#xA;   Nbd7 9. h3 Bxf3 10. Bxf3 a6) 4. Nc3 Nc6 5. Be3 e5 6. d5 Nce7) 3... d6 (3... c6&#xA;   4. Nf3 d5 5. e5 Bg4 6. Bf4 Qb6) 4. Nf3 (4. f4 Nf6 5. Nf3 O-O 6. Bd3 Na6 7. O-O&#xA;   c5 8. d5) (4. Be3 Nf6 5. Qd2 c6 6. f3 b5 7. g4 h5 8. g5 Nfd7 9. f4 Nb6 10. Nf3&#xA;    O-O) 4... c6 5. Be2 Nf6 6. O-O O-O 7. a4 Nbd7 8. h3 Qc7 9. Be3 b6 10. Qd2 Bb7&#xA;   11. Bh6 a6 12. Bxg7 Kxg7 13. Qe3 e5 *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2429" LastActivityDate="2014-02-21T01:18:25.630" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4790" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4776" CreationDate="2014-02-21T10:06:54.007" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Okay, here are some points:&#xA;1) Don't follow dogma religiously and without understanding. You may hear a lot of dogma such as 'develop knights before bishops', 'dont move the same piece twice in the opening', etc. IMO such 'rules' are better learnt the hard way after playing some games and there are always exceptions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) Play lot of games! This is the only way to improve. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) Avoid playing the computer. Though some computer programs can adjust their level according to the human player they would typically make mistakes which no human being would make. So playing a computer would typically not prepare a person for playing against a human.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4) Your opponent is your best teacher! During your game you may find your opponent uses some nice tactics or strategies. Though you may have lost that particular game you could use those same tactics and strategies in your future games!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5) Analyze games which you lost. Former world champion Capablanca famously said that you learn more from the games you lose than from the ones you win. This is quite true. You need to know why you lost. Was it a blunder, a mistake in the opening, or was it simply a case of being outplayed?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;6) Play with people who are higher rated than you. If you play with the same crowd you will not learn anything new. Typically playing with somebody who is about 200 points above would be ideal. However, it may be difficult to find such a person to play with you as he would also aspire to play with people higher rated than him!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;7) Look up some theory occasionally. I know I mentioned earlier that lessons are best learnt the hard way. But if the game improvement is stagnating, it may be the right time to look up some theory. If you are serious about chess then you should get a chess book which atleast covers all the important openings. You don't need to read it all at once, nor is that recommended but you need to have a book which you can refer to from time to time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;8) Don't play too much blitz. This could hurt the regular games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1811" LastEditorUserId="1811" LastEditDate="2014-02-21T10:16:55.487" LastActivityDate="2014-02-21T10:16:55.487" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4791" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4770" CreationDate="2014-02-21T11:25:36.127" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Obviously the &lt;em&gt;best&lt;/em&gt; test is playing in an actual competition, and most trainers will advise their players to play in as many as possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other than that, there are books that try to do this. I don't know how accurate they can be, but it's likely that they need to be taken with a grain of salt: there is probably too much variance in the concentration level and time taken to solve the problems between different readers that they can't all get good answers. Also, chess skill isn't only related to skill in solving chess positions: confidence, controlling nerves, concentrating deeply for hours, judging when to play for a win and when to be content with a draw, most of those are competition skills that will only be reliably judged by actually playing in a competition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are many many books of exercises, and some of those try to do Elo estimation based on how many of them you got correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Books that &lt;em&gt;I think&lt;/em&gt; that do that (there must be more):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The classic &quot;The Best Move&quot;, by Vlastimil Hort and Vlastimil Jansa was probably the first of this type.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Barden's &quot;How Good is Your Chess&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Keene's &quot;Discover Your Chess Strength&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Alburt's &quot;Test &amp;amp; Improve Your Chess&quot; (I think)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Bosch's &quot;The Chess Combat Simulator&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;King's &quot;How Good Is Your Chess?&quot; (yep, same title as Barden)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Evans' &quot;How Good Is Your Chess?&quot; (seriously, I'm finding these on Amazon and they have different covers)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's also this site: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessmaniac.com/ELORating/ELO_Chess_Rating.shtml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;The Automated Chess Rating Utility website&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sites like &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesstempo.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chesstempo&lt;/a&gt; have only tactics puzzles, but they also ask users to enter their FIDE rating and use this to calculate a correlation between Chesstempo and FIDE ratings; inaccurate, but better than nothing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But again: a rating is an estimate of how well you did in competitions. Estimating ratings some other way seems a bit besides the point -- why not just play in competitions?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2014-02-21T11:25:36.127" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4792" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4743" CreationDate="2014-02-21T18:14:23.253" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As chess isn't completly solved, nobody can guarantee that &lt;code&gt;1.a4&lt;/code&gt; doesn't force a win. However people don't play perfectly (there is room for error), so people will try to use familiar paths to increase his chances of winning. With trial and error they know what is more likely to work and than not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A cat (by luck) can beat us in chess by slamming his paws (very unlikely, but it remains possible). But why is a GrandMaster more likely to win than a cat?:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Grand Masters are very &lt;strong&gt;skilled&lt;/strong&gt; in picking the moves that have more&#xA;  &lt;strong&gt;chances&lt;/strong&gt; of winning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The question &quot;is chess a game of skill or chance?&quot; can be reworded to &quot;will a cat win more than about 50% of the time in chess or not?&quot;. And then the answer is obviously clear, chess is a game of &lt;strong&gt;skill&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But, is there some luck involved? Yes, a cat can beat us by chance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To how much extent is chance involved? Here is the hard question, as long as players don't calculate 100% of the possible replays and future moves, they are trying to guess which move will perform best, they can rarely calculate &lt;em&gt;everything&lt;/em&gt; (only possible in the late game or forced moves by check on the early/mid game). My guess would be that they can't calculate everything 98% of the time, maybe 95% without time limits like correspondence chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="478" LastActivityDate="2014-02-21T18:14:23.253" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4793" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4802" CreationDate="2014-02-22T01:27:34.720" Score="6" ViewCount="1106" Body="&lt;p&gt;On Windows, I used Shredder to not only analyze my games, but play the game against me or against itself from any given position. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I used many engines but only found that option in Shredder, maybe I didn't notice that option in other engines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now I dumped Windows, and moved to Linux, Xubuntu. While I still could run Shredder on wine, I'd like to know if there's an engine, that runs natively on Linux and that has that option.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have Pychess and Scid with crafty. I still don't see it, on Windows I tried many engines and didn't see it, is Shredder the only engine that has this option, or am I missing something? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would like to know if there's a free alternative to Shredder that has that option. If not, then I'll download Shredder.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1105" LastEditorUserId="1105" LastEditDate="2014-02-22T17:32:08.737" LastActivityDate="2017-02-23T19:54:38.020" Title="Linux: is there any engine that could play your game like Shredder?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;engines&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4794" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4695" CreationDate="2014-02-22T05:45:22.117" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I use the &lt;a href=&quot;http://monroi.com/products/personal-chess-manager.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Monroi Chess Notation Device&lt;/a&gt; for all my chess games and it is basically an electronic board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2527" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-03-01T19:42:32.400" LastActivityDate="2014-03-01T19:42:32.400" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4795" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4793" CreationDate="2014-02-22T10:53:42.070" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Shredder 12 runs natively on Linux.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.shredderchess.com/chess-software/linux.html&quot;&gt;http://www.shredderchess.com/chess-software/linux.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2529" LastActivityDate="2014-02-22T10:53:42.070" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4796" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4787" CreationDate="2014-02-22T11:47:59.267" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Another positional option is to play the Hanham variation of the Philidor Defense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;   [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 d6 3.d4 Nf6 4. Nc3 Nbd7 5. Bc4 Be7 6. O-O O-O&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because of move order issues mentioned in my answer to &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/336/how-should-i-play-against-the-philidor-defense&quot;&gt;this question&lt;/a&gt;, it might be better to reach this position with a move order like&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;   [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 d6 2. d4 Nf6 3. Nc3 Nbd7 4. Nf3 e5 5. Bc4 Be7 6. O-O O-O&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This position, if you can reach it, can be played without much preparation. A common plan for black is to expand on the queenside with &lt;code&gt;c6&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;a6&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;b5&lt;/code&gt;. Some experience is needed to pick up the nuances of this variation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1485" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.193" LastActivityDate="2014-02-22T11:47:59.267" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4797" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4743" CreationDate="2014-02-22T13:41:32.003" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think Chess becomes purely a game of skill only at the Grand Master level where the element of randomness is nil, where strategy, tactics and deep calculations define the game. Chess at Grand Master level is purely Math. But down the hierarchy, skill and chance both become a part of the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In fact, if a player has studied his opponent's weaknesses, he might want to take a few chances rather than opting for the time tested standard moves. At amateur levels, players often deviate from the standard course of the game, even just for the fun of it, and willingly take chances.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'Chance' does have the connotation of lack of skill or lack of deep thinking abilities, but skill and deep thinking are not always the components of Chess, especially at amateur level and Chess is widely played at amateur and semi-professional level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, considering the popularity of the game and the enjoyment it offers, I would like to conclude by saying that both skill and chance make it what it is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2530" LastActivityDate="2014-02-22T13:41:32.003" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4799" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4763" CreationDate="2014-02-22T19:03:18.853" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Embrace &lt;strong&gt;improving&lt;/strong&gt; at chess. Make it your primary goal. Get set in your mind that winning is secondary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Take action on the new goal. &lt;strong&gt;Analyze all your games&lt;/strong&gt;. Analyze with your opponent whenever possible. Try to play longer games you can record, and leave blitz for online play (where the computer records your games)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Take some time before you resign to get your mind straight, so you can be a good sport.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If rating is important to you, recognize that rating is a trailing indicator. Rating will rise as you get better. Rating goes up with wins and down with losses, but it will not reliably increase without becoming a stronger player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2359" LastActivityDate="2014-02-22T19:03:18.853" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4800" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5342" CreationDate="2014-02-22T20:21:02.773" Score="16" ViewCount="2273" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the pawns-only variant of chess, each side starts with 8 pawns and a king on the usual squares, no pieces,&#xA;with other rules being the same as in regular chess, including promotion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While general consensus is that chess is a theoretical draw, with best play by both sides, this is not proved because of&#xA;its complexity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The pawns-only variant looks more amenable to computer analysis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the pawns-only variant, is it possible for Black to imitate White or otherwise create a blockade?&#xA;Is the pawns-only variant a theoretical draw? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2258" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-17T03:20:48.857" LastActivityDate="2020-08-17T03:20:48.857" Title="Is the pawns only variant a draw?" Tags="&lt;theory&gt;&lt;pawns&gt;&lt;draw&gt;&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;pawn-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="7" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="4802" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4793" CreationDate="2014-02-22T23:26:14.520" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Features such as setting up a position and playing Engine vs. Engine are part of the interface, not the engine. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.gnu.org/software/xboard/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;XBoard&lt;/a&gt;, for instance, is both &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_software&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;free as in speech&lt;/a&gt; and as in beer, supports both of these options and can be configured to use nearly any chess engine you wish; many other interfaces exist and have the same features.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="827" LastActivityDate="2014-02-22T23:26:14.520" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4803" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4806" CreationDate="2014-02-23T04:14:12.067" Score="4" ViewCount="2468" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is purely for my fun (and also practice!), but is there any place online where I can play simultaneous chess against many opponents? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This would be against human players, of course, not against computers. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2429" LastActivityDate="2020-12-30T12:31:58.720" Title="Is there any website where I can play simultaneous chess against many opponents?" Tags="&lt;simultaneous&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4804" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4805" CreationDate="2014-02-23T04:55:07.030" Score="5" ViewCount="355" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/g027I.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hello, this is my first question on this site. Is the above position a draw or an advantage for white? I checked a few engines at different depths, some say it is advantage for white , some say it is draw. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The general strategy I guess for white would be to play Kf4 and try to win the g pawn. Black's king is temporarily unable to come to the 7th rank due to the white pawn and bishop combine. But can white win the g-pawn without letting go of his own pawn ? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2537" LastEditorUserId="3270" LastEditDate="2016-07-26T21:57:57.913" LastActivityDate="2016-07-26T21:57:57.913" Title="Is the following endgame position a draw or white has advantage?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;bishop-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4805" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4804" CreationDate="2014-02-23T06:03:44.600" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;This endgame is a clear draw. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black simply has to maintain his king on f8 and keep the bishop alive and White cannot make progress. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only way White can win this position is if he can either capture Black's bishop and promote the f-pawn or simply promote his f-pawn. Capturing the g-pawn is not enough to win. If Black plays correctly, the Black bishop will never be captured, and as long as he maintains the king on f8, there is no way for White to drive out the king from f8 (no way to give check) and promote the f-pawn. So it is a draw. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have attached here below the result from the endgame tablebases which have already evaluated this position. As you can see, all moves from White lead to a draw at best play. You can yourself enter this position and play with the tablebase on &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.k4it.de/?topic=egtb&amp;amp;lang=en&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; website. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ZkpYA.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2429" LastEditorUserId="2429" LastEditDate="2014-02-23T06:14:29.153" LastActivityDate="2014-02-23T06:14:29.153" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4806" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4803" CreationDate="2014-02-23T14:06:12.907" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;You could do that on FICS, here's how:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Simuls&#xA;&#xA;  &quot;Simuls&quot; = simultaneous chess matches; playing more than one opponent at a&#xA;time.  It is possible to play more than one opponent simultaneously on the&#xA;chess server.  Below are sections for Starting a Simul and for Joining a&#xA;Simul.&#xA;&#xA;  Users using an interface that only supports a single board (that is if&#xA;two games are being observed a move from the second game will cause the&#xA;position of the first game to disappear  (such as Winboard and Xboard)) should&#xA;issue &quot;iset singleboard 1&quot; before starting a simul.  This will ensure that&#xA;when simul participants move, only the board the simul holder is at will&#xA;update.&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;STARTING A SIMUL&#xA;&#xA;  In order to play more than one chess match simultaneously you need to do the&#xA;following:&#xA;&#xA;1. Start the simul with the &quot;simstart&quot; command.  Announce your simul&#xA;   conditions on shout and cshout enough to get the word out, but not so much&#xA;   as to annoy users.&#xA;&#xA;2. Other users must then challenge you with &quot;simmatch&quot;.&#xA;&#xA;3. Accept or reject the challenges as they come in.  The first game will be&#xA;   colored as is if was an ordinary match.  The next game will be the&#xA;   opposite color, the next the opposite to that and so on.&#xA;&#xA;4. When you are satisfied that you have started the number of games that you&#xA;   can handle, turn off your open flag with &quot;set open 0&quot;.  You can see your&#xA;   games with &quot;simgames&quot;.&#xA;&#xA;5. You can then start making moves on the board.  The &quot;simnext&quot; command moves&#xA;   you to the next board; &quot;simprev&quot; moves you to the previous board.  You&#xA;   will focus on one game at a time, going in a particular order.  If you&#xA;   wish to skip to a board of particular interest &quot;goboard &amp;lt;player&amp;gt;&quot; or&#xA;   &quot;goboard &amp;lt;game number&amp;gt;&quot; will take you to that board.&#xA;&#xA;6. If you are bothered by how long a player is taking to make the next move,&#xA;   or they are being disruptive you can abort that game with &quot;simabort&quot;.  You&#xA;   can also force an adjournment with &quot;simadjourn&quot;.  Only games adjourned&#xA;   during the simul can be resumed.  After the simul any outstanding simul&#xA;   games may be resumed as normal matches.  Should there be a need to&#xA;   terminate the simul &quot;simallabort&quot; and &quot;simalladjourn&quot; will abort or adjourn&#xA;   all games respectively.  Both commands will also terminate the simul.&#xA;&#xA;7. When you are finished type &quot;simend&quot;.  This will return you to normal&#xA;   playing mode and inform you of your statistics for the simul.&#xA;&#xA;Various commands you can use while running a simul include:  goboard,&#xA;simabort, simadjourn, simallabort, simalladjourn, simnext, simprev and simend.&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;JOINING A SIMUL&#xA;&#xA;  In order to play against a user who is open for playing simultaneous&#xA;matches, here is what you do:&#xA;&#xA;1. Using the &quot;simmatch&quot; command, challenge the person you will be playing.&#xA;&#xA;2. You will be informed when the simul player is coming to your board.  You&#xA;   should be prepared to move either before or shortly after that player&#xA;   arrives at your board.  If you do not move within a reasonable time&#xA;   period, your game could be aborted.&#xA;&#xA;3. It is impolite to offer a draw unless that player is at your board.  It&#xA;   could very easily confuse the simul player if offers come in from&#xA;   different users at once.&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;OBSERVING A SIMUL&#xA;&#xA;  You can observe all games in a simul once they have started by typing&#xA;&quot;simobserve simul_player&quot;.  All of the simul_player's simul games will be&#xA;added to your observation list.  As the simul_player moves from board to&#xA;board, so will you.  When the last game has ended, you will see the final&#xA;results from the simul games.  You can also use the &quot;follow&quot; command for this&#xA;purpose.  Using the &quot;observe&quot; command, however, is not reliable for this&#xA;purpose.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.freechess.org/Help/HelpFiles/simuls.html&quot;&gt;Reference&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't know if it affects your rating, never tried it. Be careful what you wish for :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's also &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.redhotpawn.com/&quot;&gt;RedHotPawn&lt;/a&gt;, it says that  it offers that, maybe a member can verify that, I signed up there a year ago never used that site. But it's the second most popular online chess website after Chess.com I believe.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.playchess.com/&quot;&gt;PlayChess server&lt;/a&gt; offers that as well but it's not free, but it's well known server, best of the best.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On Chess.com, you could play live chess and duplicate tabs, and you'll end up playing more than games at once, not the same window though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's also gameknot.com, I have never heard of it, but they claim it is possible to play such games on their site.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1105" LastActivityDate="2014-02-23T14:06:12.907" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4807" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4853" CreationDate="2014-02-24T08:13:21.610" Score="4" ViewCount="381" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Historical Chess Ratings &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.edochess.ca/players/p23.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;page&lt;/a&gt; claims that Paul Morphy played 12 games with Henry Bird, with a final score of &lt;code&gt;10.5 - 1.5&lt;/code&gt; (Kasparov's book My Great Predecessors Part I also mentions this (page 55), claiming Morphy won 10, lost 1 and drew 1). However, I was able to find only &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chess.pl?pid=16002&amp;amp;pid2=10411&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;5&lt;/a&gt; of these games online. Do we have a record anywhere of the moves of the other 7 games?   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2429" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2014-02-25T01:20:09.137" LastActivityDate="2014-02-28T13:15:10.163" Title="Paul Morphy vs Henry Bird missing games." Tags="&lt;history&gt;&lt;morphy&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4808" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4803" CreationDate="2014-02-24T09:12:20.443" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess.com allows nearly unlimited simultaneous chess games at the correspondence speed of 1-14 days per move. I believe they allow you to play live timed games against multiple opponents, but that is in a paid tier of membership that I don't subscribe to.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2545" LastActivityDate="2014-02-24T09:12:20.443" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4809" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4812" CreationDate="2014-02-24T09:37:41.420" Score="7" ViewCount="523" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't know much &quot;Sicilian&quot; theory, and decided to develop instead to defend e4. My opponent captured, and I got the pawn back with the obvious Qa4 check. Although he tried to start a queen hunt, she was never in real danger, but quite annoying for black. After finally pushing to d4 I had a fine play and managed to win. I couldn't find anything about this line, so I guess there must be serious drawbacks, and so I'd like to see a refutation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 c5 2.c3 d5 3.Nf3 dxe4 4.Qa4+ Bd7 5. Qxe4 Bc6 6. Qf4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="35" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-02-25T19:29:59.670" LastActivityDate="2014-11-28T14:56:50.127" Title="Sicilian with 1.e4 c5 2.c3 d5 3.Nf3?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4811" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-02-24T18:25:20.040" Score="2" ViewCount="131" Body="&lt;p&gt;When playing an opponent and winning, are the points taken from the opponent's Elo at the beginning of the game or end of the game? For example, I may play someone who begins at 1900 and is at 1600 when the game ends as they have played other players at the same time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2549" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2014-02-24T21:54:43.940" LastActivityDate="2014-04-26T13:59:20.143" Title="Elo points after game completion" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;elo&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4812" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4809" CreationDate="2014-02-25T00:02:56.343" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Black has a small advantage in your position, but it's certainly not unplayable for white.  Stockfish rates the position you've given around -0.2, which is pretty close to even.  If black plays well it seems difficult for white to get a good d4 break, though if black tries too hard to chase the queen perhaps white will be able to get back the advantage.  The main problem seems to be that the pawn on c3 is counterproductive: white can't play d4 with advantage and the pawn on c3 interferes with white's queenside development.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stockfish suggests the following line, where black retains a small advantage (around -0.3)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 c5 2.c3 d5 3.Nf3 dxe4 4.Qa4+ Bd7 5. Qxe4 Bc6 6. Qf4 e6 7.Na3 Bd6 8.Qg4 Ne7 9.Nc4 O-O 10.Nxd6 Qxd6 11.Be2 e5 12.d3 Nd7 13.O-O Rfe8&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black is somewhat better off playing Nc6 on the 4th or 5th moves instead of occupying that square with the bishop.  White is still fine, but should avoid 4. ... Nc6 5. Qxe5 and instead play 5. Ne5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 c5 2.c3 d5 3.Nf3 dxe4 4.Qa4+ Nc6 5.Ne5 (5.Qxe4 Nf6 6.Qc2 a6 7.d3 e5 8.Nbd2 Be7 9.Nc4 Qc7 10.Be2 O-O 11.O-O Nd5 ) Bd7 6.Nxd7 Qxd7 7.Qxe4 Nf6 8.Qf3 e6 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2005" LastActivityDate="2014-02-25T00:02:56.343" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4813" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4811" CreationDate="2014-02-25T12:53:19.010" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;My guess is that the ratings used for the calculation are the ratings you and your opponent had at the beginning of your game. The change of rating is applied on your ratings after your game is done. For example&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Scenario: when the game starts, your rating is 2000 and the&#xA;  opponent's is 1900. When the game finishes, your rating is 2150 (due&#xA;  to other finished games) while your opponent's is 2100. Then, under my&#xA;  assumption above, the following happens (if you won the game)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Your New Rating = 2150 + 2000_wins_against_1900&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Opponent New Rating = 2100 - 1900_loses_against_2000&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastActivityDate="2014-02-25T12:53:19.010" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4814" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4857" CreationDate="2014-02-25T13:32:56.083" Score="2" ViewCount="558" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recently met the French defence as white which turned into the advanced version.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In short, I got crushed in a humiliating way, kicked while lying and spat on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So now I am reforming and reconstructing my life. Why do I push my E and D pawns in openings? I do this sometimes before moving minor pieces. Am I a pawn-push addict? Am I better off with the pawns on the 4th and 5th ranks than on 3rd and 4th? This can happen in the Sicilian, Caro-Kann, Scandinavian, Nimzowitsch and the French. I need group therapy/feedback.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="58" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-02-28T10:53:53.320" LastActivityDate="2014-03-01T14:14:54.997" Title="Push e and d pawns in semi open openings" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;pawns&gt;&lt;pawn-structure&gt;&lt;center&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4815" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4814" CreationDate="2014-02-25T14:53:59.213" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my experience really early in the opening, without specific diagrams to address, it is ok to push the E and D pawns to the 4th and 5th rank as long as you have the Nc3 out. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2376" LastActivityDate="2014-02-25T14:53:59.213" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4818" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2014-02-25T19:28:22.770" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2014-02-25T19:28:22.770" LastActivityDate="2014-02-25T19:28:22.770" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4819" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2014-02-25T19:28:22.770" Score="0" Body="The center of the chess board consists of the four central squares (e4, d4, e5 and d5)." OwnerUserId="2001" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-02-25T23:15:51.877" LastActivityDate="2014-02-25T23:15:51.877" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4820" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4824" CreationDate="2014-02-25T20:52:49.217" Score="5" ViewCount="426" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm just learning how to play the Sicilian and none of the books I have at hand shows this move. So I'm considering that this move is a mistake and there is some strong counterplay on white's part, but I just can't find it. Could anyone please point it out to me or otherwise explain the implications of 6...Nd4?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 Nc6 6. Bg5 Nxd4 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2554" LastEditorUserId="11202" LastEditDate="2017-05-03T10:26:25.127" LastActivityDate="2017-05-03T10:26:25.127" Title="Rauzer Attack, Sicilian defense - why not play 6...Nxd4?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4821" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4828" CreationDate="2014-02-25T22:00:01.793" Score="4" ViewCount="825" Body="&lt;p&gt;My understanding (and I may be wrong there) is that prophylaxis is a wider concept than overprotection, and so there are some prophylactic moves that don't have anything to do with overprotection (like advancing one of the castling pawns to defend against 8-th line mates).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also think I get the point of overprotection in term of enhanced piece mobility. However when it comes to prophylactic moves &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; involving overprotection (like the pawn advanced discussed above) is it really just a fancy name for not having the time to find a way to take the initiative?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2307" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-02-26T20:19:12.080" LastActivityDate="2014-02-26T20:19:12.080" Title="Overprotection and prophylaxis" Tags="&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;&lt;defense&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4822" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4821" CreationDate="2014-02-26T00:59:43.390" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;No. A prophylactic move dissuades your opponent from carrying out his natural plans. For example, if it would be a good idea for him to induce a pawn trade in front of his queen, you might put a rook opposite the queen, so that he can't clear out those pawns without repercussions. That might easily be the best move on the board. It doesn't mean that you haven't bothered to find a move that takes the initiative.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2014-02-26T00:59:43.390" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4823" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4820" CreationDate="2014-02-26T01:05:53.297" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;It doesn't lose by force or anything, but it brings you even further behind in development; right now White has three pieces developed to your two, and after 6...Nxd4 7.Qxd4 White has three pieces developed to your one. Also, giving up your knight on c6 weakens your control of e5, making it easier for White to push his pawn to e5 with an attack at some point. You're better off doing something constructive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2014-02-26T01:05:53.297" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4824" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4820" CreationDate="2014-02-26T01:50:52.200" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;6...Nxd4 is not a good move because of the following reasons. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One of the reasons is &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tempo_%28chess%29&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;tempo&lt;/a&gt;. As a general principle, in the openings, you do not want to make your opponent develop his pieces faster than you can. Here, Nxd4 merely speeds up White's development, since White doesn't have to &quot;waste&quot; a move developing his queen. His queen is already well placed on d4. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;   [FEN &quot;r1bqkb1r/pp2pppp/3p1n2/6B1/3QP3/2N5/PPP2PPP/R3KB1R b KQkq - 0 7&quot;] &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now consider the fact that Black plays 6...e6 instead of 6...Nxd4. Normally, in the Rauzer attack, White has to develop his queen on d2 to support the knight on d4 and castle queenside. Now, consider that after 7. Qd2, Black takes on d4. This position occurs - &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;r1bqkb1r/pp3ppp/3ppn2/6B1/3QP3/2N5/PPP2PPP/R3KB1R b KQkq - 0 8&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you can see, by just waiting one extra move, Black reached the same position, but having made an extra useful move of his own - pawn to e6. So here, Black didn't loose a tempo as in the previous line. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, despite not losing a tempo, even 7...Nxd4 might not be optimal. The reason is that the end result (of exchanging the knights) can be achieved under more favorable circumstances. This is often called &quot;&lt;strong&gt;maintaining the tension&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; in chess. You want to maintain the tension (possibility of capturing the knight) as far as possible in order to release it at the right moment. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I will show you a popular line in which Black achieves the end result of exchanging the knights in more favorable circumstances than 7...Nxd4. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;   [FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;   1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 Nc6 6. Bg5 e6 7. Qd2 a6 &#xA;   8. O-O-O Bd7 9. f4 b5 10. Bxf6 gxf6 11. Kb1 Qb6 12. Nxc6 Bxc6 *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you see the chess openings explorer &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/explorer?node=32229&amp;amp;move=11.5&amp;amp;moves=e4.c5.Nf3.d6.d4.cxd4.Nxd4.Nf6.Nc3.Nc6.Bg5.e6.Qd2.a6.O-O-O.Bd7.f4.b5.Bxf6.gxf6.Kb1&amp;amp;nodes=21720.32033.32034.32069.32070.32071.32072.32073.32074.32041.32042.1483127.1624683.1624684.1624685.1624686.1624687.1624872.1624912.32677.32229&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;statistics&lt;/a&gt;, in this position, White wins this position &lt;code&gt;36.8%&lt;/code&gt; of the time, and Black wins &lt;code&gt;35.3%&lt;/code&gt; as of date. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you compare these results with the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/explorer?node=2391284&amp;amp;move=8&amp;amp;moves=e4.c5.Nf3.d6.d4.cxd4.Nxd4.Nf6.Nc3.Nc6.Bg5.e6.Qd2.Nxd4&amp;amp;nodes=21720.32033.32034.32069.32070.32071.32072.32073.32074.32041.32042.1483127.1624683.2391284&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;results&lt;/a&gt; after 7...Nxd4, the results are quite drastically different. White still wins &lt;code&gt;36.8%&lt;/code&gt;, but Black barely wins &lt;code&gt;5.3%&lt;/code&gt; of the time as of date (I have to admit not as many games have been played in this variation to get a reasonable statistic, but the fact that not many players have chosen this line as early as move 7 ought to give you a pause and make you think it's not an optimal move). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2429" LastActivityDate="2014-02-26T01:50:52.200" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4825" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4774" CreationDate="2014-02-26T02:09:25.817" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Looking at Fritz upon White's first move, the first move gives White a slight advantage...but not an advantage that leaves Black in a position where Black would lose unless White makes a mistake - if both play perfectly, it will be a draw. If an opening is so bad that it leaves Black at a loss unless White blunders, it wouldn't be an opening that anyone would play, especially these days with such fine tunes computerized analysis of opening and opening theory. I play: Alekhine against e4, Benko Gambit against d4, and as white...right now, Dunst or Larsen or Kings Indian Attack....don't know my lines for all the potential e4 possibilities yet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2559" LastActivityDate="2014-02-26T02:09:25.817" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4826" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4821" CreationDate="2014-02-26T02:12:37.893" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Prophylactic simply means that you foil your opponents plans...you knock down everything they try to build or create...ideally, in doing this, you're also waiting for them to make a mistake for you to capitalize on - in doing so, you win when that mistake is made and you take advantage of it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Karpov was big at this....often, some theorize, frustrating his opponents till out of boredom or frustration, they error, and he pounced on them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2559" LastActivityDate="2014-02-26T02:12:37.893" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4827" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-02-26T03:16:37.600" Score="3" ViewCount="781" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is a good reply to 1.d4 that will give me an open game?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2559" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-02-26T20:13:13.570" LastActivityDate="2017-07-08T21:08:00.747" Title="What is the best Black reply to 1. d4 in regards to getting an open game?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;1.d4&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4828" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4821" CreationDate="2014-02-26T03:27:33.567" Score="5" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;However when it comes to prophylactic moves not involving overprotection (like the pawn advanced discussed above) is it really just a fancy name for not having the time to find a way to take the initiative?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not quite! Sometimes, in order to fight for the initiative or even maintain the initiative, you have to make prophylactic moves to minimize your opponents counterplay or initiative. Have you considered that the move &lt;code&gt;5...a6&lt;/code&gt; in the Sicilian Najdorf is actually a prophylactic move? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;rnbqkb1r/pp2pppp/3p1n2/8/3NP3/2N5/PPP2PPP/R1BQKB1R b KQkq - 0 5&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1...a6!? &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The move a6 &lt;strong&gt;prevents&lt;/strong&gt; (prophylaxis) White from giving a check on &lt;code&gt;b5&lt;/code&gt; in the main line of the Najdorf after 6...e5. It also prevents White from playing the dangerous Keres attack with &lt;code&gt;6. g4&lt;/code&gt;, which is normally playable after Black plays &lt;code&gt;5...e6&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now let us consider what happens if Black doesn't play a6 and tries to &quot;take the initiative&quot; with &lt;code&gt;5...e5&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;   [FEN &quot;rnbqkb1r/pp2pppp/3p1n2/8/3NP3/2N5/PPP2PPP/R1BQKB1R b KQkq - 0 5&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;   1...e5?! 2. Bb5+! Bd7 (2...Nbd7 3. Nf5!) 3. Bxd7+ Qxd7 4. Nb3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this final position, White is already slightly better. He has exchanged Black's good light-squared bishop. Black is now left with a &lt;strong&gt;bad bishop&lt;/strong&gt; on &lt;code&gt;f8&lt;/code&gt; and a &lt;strong&gt;hole&lt;/strong&gt; on &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt;, with only the knight on f6 to cover it and no light squared bishop. Overall, Black's idea to press on with &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt; in an attempt to take the initiative backfired because of a lack of prophylaxis. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Compare that position with this position which occurs in a popular line of the Sicilian Najdorf. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;   [FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;   1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 a6 6. Be2 e5 7. Nb3 Be6 8. Be3&#xA;   Nbd7 9. O-O Be7 10. f3 O-O &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here, Black securely guards the &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt; square with Bishop and Knight and his bishop on &lt;code&gt;e6&lt;/code&gt; is much stronger than its counterpart on &lt;code&gt;e2&lt;/code&gt;. If white attempts to occupy the hole on &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt;, Black simply exchanges knights, eliminates the hole on &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt; and keeps the position in the balance. Note that the presence of the bishop on &lt;code&gt;e6&lt;/code&gt; prevents White from recapturing with the queen and maintaining the hole on &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    [FEN &quot;r2q1rk1/1p1nbppp/p2pbn2/4p3/4P3/1NN1BP2/PPP1B1PP/R2Q1RK1 w - - 0 11&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;    1. Nd5 Nxd5 2. exd5 Bf5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason why the Najdorf Sicilian is one of the most popular openings is because it allows Black to fight for the initiative instead of simply trying to neutralize White's initiative. That's all made possible by this naive looking prophylactic move &lt;code&gt;5...a6!&lt;/code&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2429" LastEditorUserId="2429" LastEditDate="2014-02-26T03:45:47.563" LastActivityDate="2014-02-26T03:45:47.563" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4829" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4827" CreationDate="2014-02-26T03:50:03.227" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1...d5&lt;/strong&gt;. Tarrasch defense and, in general, &lt;strong&gt;c5&lt;/strong&gt; ideas practically always give an open game. As long as you can get in the move &lt;strong&gt;c5&lt;/strong&gt; with Black, you have excellent practical chances of achieving an open game. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some sample variations - &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  [FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;  1. d4 d5 2. c4 (2. Nc3 Nf6 3. Bg5 (3. Bf4 e6 4. Nf3 c5) 3... c5) &#xA; (2. Nf3 e6 3. g3 (3. e3 c5) 3... c5 4. Bg2 Nc6 5. O-O Nf6 6. c4 dxc4 &#xA;  7. Qa4 Bd7 8. Qxc4 b5 9. Qd3 Rc8) 2... e6 3. Nc3 c5 4. cxd5 &#xA; (4. Nf3 Nf6 5. e3 Nc6 6. a3 a6 7. dxc5 Bxc5 8. b4 Bd6) 4... exd5 &#xA;  5. Nf3 Nc6 6. g3 Nf6 7. Bg2 Be7 8. O-O O-O 9. Bg5 cxd4 10. Nxd4 h6 11. Be3 Re8 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2429" LastEditorUserId="2429" LastEditDate="2014-02-26T04:03:27.307" LastActivityDate="2014-02-26T04:03:27.307" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4830" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-02-26T04:21:12.037" Score="11" ViewCount="1047" Body="&lt;p&gt;Consider this legal chess position which can never be reached from the normal starting position. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    [FEN &quot;6kb/6p1/6K1/8/8/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Black bishop is placed on h8, but with the Black pawn on g7, there is no way the bishop could have actually reached h8. How many such positions exist in chess which are legal but unreachable? Is there any research on reachable/non-reachable positions? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I found that endgame tablebases don't necessarily take this into consideration, but if the number of non-reachable positions is significantly large, it might possibly help minimize the size of endgame tablebases. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's a screenshot from the online &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.k4it.de/index.php?lang=en&amp;amp;topic=egtb&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Nalimov&lt;/a&gt; tablebases. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/muGNs.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, in this unreachable position, I can add another piece like a knight on almost every square. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/tjjEj.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can add an additional piece, like a rook. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/BT736.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This can go on and on and I can keep adding more pieces, but all those positions would be unreachable. We thus end up storing unnecessary positions in the tablebase and increasing its size. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, it's a good thing for tablebases to have these positions if we want to use them for chess variants like Chess960, but they are not necessary for the standard version of chess. It would be quite interesting to know how many such unreachable positions exist. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Addition of more relevant tags suggested)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2429" LastEditorUserId="8201" LastEditDate="2019-12-27T16:45:20.777" LastActivityDate="2019-12-27T20:21:03.033" Title="How many legal but unreachable positions exist?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;tablebases&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="10" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4831" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1709" CreationDate="2014-02-26T14:59:16.863" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;One of the benefits of the lines shown by Travis J are the transpositions for helping folks like me who do not play 1. d4 d5.  I play the Nimzo-Indian and after 1. d4 Nf6  2. Bf4 e6 I can play the d5 push and be in the systems he mentions.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An even more aggressive option is available with this move order and that's 3. Nf3 c5 to deviate early. Of course, that's great for me but if one is starting 1 d4 d5 that isn't really there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This leaves a lot of ways to enter the system described by Travis J.  I can now simply transpose into the systems he shows.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The move order 1.d4 Nf6 2.Bf4 e6 3.Nf3 c5 isn't better than the other lines he showed and will certainly transpose in many cases but it really cuts down on the options for white.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I haven't played the KID for years and don't particularly like it. So this is a great way to get into an assertive, if not aggressive, response to the London System.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only real advantage to it is that it really marks the character of the game and it is likely to take white out of the lines to which he's accustomed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2561" LastEditorUserId="2561" LastEditDate="2014-02-26T15:04:56.713" LastActivityDate="2014-02-26T15:04:56.713" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4832" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-02-26T18:15:08.107" Score="6" ViewCount="749" Body="&lt;p&gt;Black to move but unsure of the pieces that would give black a better advantage. Any help would be greatly appreciated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;r5k1/pp1qpr1p/3p2p1/2pP4/1n2P3/1P2N1Pb/2PQ1P1P/3RR1K1 b - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2563" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-02-26T20:09:42.057" LastActivityDate="2014-02-26T21:27:37.930" Title="I would like to know if this game is winnable for black?" Tags="&lt;middlegame&gt;&lt;evaluation&gt;&lt;beginner&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4833" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4832" CreationDate="2014-02-26T18:58:39.423" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Black has an overwhelming advantage and should win easily. Being up by a whole piece is a huge advantage that basically can't be overcome by purely positional considerations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The most straightforward way for Black to win is to try to trade pieces and end up in an endgame where he has one piece to White's zero; a win at that point would be trivial.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He could also try for a kingside attack, since White's light squares are very weak.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2014-02-26T18:58:39.423" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4834" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4832" CreationDate="2014-02-26T21:27:37.930" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The above position is 100% won for Black-White will need a miracle to scrape a draw, not to mention win!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How do you win this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The best rule &lt;strong&gt;in a won position&lt;/strong&gt; is to destroy the opponents counter-play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here White has no counter-play whatsoever, but could try something with &lt;code&gt;f4+Nc4&lt;/code&gt; so he can push &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt; and try to &quot;get lucky&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would start with &lt;code&gt;1..Rf3&lt;/code&gt; since the rook can not be dislodged from this post. White will have to exchange it but this is good for Black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Remember, when you are a piece up always exchange pieces &lt;strong&gt;but avoid exchanging the pawns&lt;/strong&gt; as this helps the weaker side to achieve draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyway, after &lt;code&gt;1..Rf3&lt;/code&gt; White must try &lt;code&gt;Nc4&lt;/code&gt; and push &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt; to get some play, but as soon as knight lands on &lt;code&gt;c4&lt;/code&gt; Black plays &lt;code&gt;...b5&lt;/code&gt; and again White has no counter-play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After that, Black needs to improve the position of the weakest piece in his setup-here it is knight on &lt;code&gt;b4&lt;/code&gt;. I would post it on &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After reaching this setup you will win by a tactical sacrifice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is a sample line that could illustrate how things would go:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;r5k1/pp1qpr1p/3p2p1/2pP4/1n2P3/1P2N1Pb/2PQ1P1P/3RR1K1 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1...Rf3 2.Nc4 b5 3.Ne3 Raf8 4.Re2 Na6 5.Ra1 Nb8 6.Qa5 a6 7.Qb6 Qc8 8.c4 b4 9.Qa5 Nd7 10.Qxa6 Qxa6 11.Rxa6 Ne5 12.Ra7 R8f7 13.Ra1  Ng4 14.Nxg4 Bxg4 15.Rb2 ( 15.Rb1 Rxg3+ 16.hxg3 Bxe2-+ ) 15...Bh3! 16.Rd1 Kg7! 17.Rdd2 Kf6 18.Rd1 Ke5 19.Rdd2 Rf8! 20.Rdd1 Ra8! 21.Re1 Ra3 22.Reb1 Kxe4 23.Re2+ Kd3 24.Reb2 ( 24.Rxe7 Ra2! ) Kc3 25.Kh1 Ra1! 26.Kg1 ( 26.Rxa1 Kxb2 ) 26...Rxb1 27.Rxb1 Kc2 28.Re1 Rxb3 29.f4 Rb1 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This example contains some highly instructive moments. Pay attention how Black limits White's counter-play and how he constantly improves his inactive pieces-his knight, rook and king. Once he activated all of his pieces, tactical blows came naturally and Black was able to win effortlessly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In a won position your main goal is to suppress all active moves your opponent has. Once you do that, your decisive advantage will &quot;kick in&quot; eventually. You see, once your opponent has no counter-play all you have to do is improve the position of your inactive pieces and the rest comes naturally.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This was just a sample line-I have no space to analyze all possible continuations but by following my advises you can learn on your own how to win this position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you have further questions leave a comment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Best regards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastActivityDate="2014-02-26T21:27:37.930" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4835" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4830" CreationDate="2014-02-26T22:08:46.340" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;The fraction of all six-man positions that are unreachable from the starting position is very, very small. Removing them would have a tiny effect on the size of a six-man database.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is an example of how rare these positions are. First of all, we can't get into one of these unreachable positions without a bishop and a pawn, so we already have a small subset of the number of total six-man positions. But okay, say that one side is lucky enough to have one pawn, one bishop, and a king. The bishop will have to be in one of its own corners (not the far corners!) and the pawn will have to be diagonally adjacent to it. So only 2 out of the 64 bishop positions could lead to a trapped bishop, and out of those, the pawn has to be in the one spot of its possible 48 positions that would trap the bishop. So &lt;em&gt;even if you have one pawn and one bishop&lt;/em&gt;, which is pretty unlikely, the chances of randomly getting an unreachable position are only (2/64) * (1/48) = 1 in 1536.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's do one bishop, two pawns, and a king just for fun. If the bishop is in its own corner (2/64 chance), the chance of getting one of the two pawns in the diagonally adjacent square is 2/48 (2 of the 48 squares in ranks 2 through 7 have pawns in them). If the bishop is one of the other spots on the first rank (4/64 chance - c1 and f1 are definitely OK!), both pawns have to be in exactly the right spot (1/48 * 1/47) chance. When I do the math I get a chance of around 1.33% for getting an unreachable position even if you start with this very unlikely great combination of material for generating unreachable positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My conclusion, as first predicted in my comment above and now backed up by some math, is that these unreachable positions are an extremely small subset of the set of all six-man positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastEditorUserId="291" LastEditDate="2014-02-26T23:17:29.373" LastActivityDate="2014-02-26T23:17:29.373" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4836" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5045" CreationDate="2014-02-27T00:57:11.577" Score="13" ViewCount="2387" Body="&lt;p&gt;I came up with this rather amusing and bizarre stalemate where Black stalemates itself by self-smothering. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  [FEN &quot;8/8/8/8/8/3p4/pp6/krb1K3 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;  1...d2+?? 2. Kd1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The peculiar feature of this stalemate is that Black is unable to move not because moving a piece would put its king into check, but moving a piece would require it to capture its own piece, which is disallowed. This is an example of a &lt;strong&gt;single self-smothered stalemate&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The question is, is it possible to have a &lt;strong&gt;double self-smothered mate&lt;/strong&gt;, such that both sides do not have any moves at all because the moves would require capturing of the side's own pieces? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One possibility suggested by the user supercat is the following - &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;      [FEN &quot;KN1b4/RPpPp3/P1P5/4P3/8/3p1p1p/3PpPpr/4B1nk w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;      1. e6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And both sides are stalemated. However, this position cannot occur in practice, because you cannot have a Black bishop trapped on d8 with the c7 or e7 pawns still on their original squares. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2429" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-05T01:00:36.193" LastActivityDate="2021-05-02T14:43:33.240" Title="Is it possible to have a double self-smothered stalemate?" Tags="&lt;problems&gt;&lt;stalemate&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="4837" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4830" CreationDate="2014-02-27T01:27:57.127" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;also consider the number of pawns stacked in a file vs the number of captured enemy pieces. For example, if two pawns are on the c-file, one enemy piece must have been captured; and if 6 pawns are on the a- or h-file, 15 enemy pieces (i.e. all but the king) must have been captured: the nearest knight's pawn must have made one capture, the bishop's pawn must have made two captures and so on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2553" LastEditorUserId="550" LastEditDate="2015-08-20T10:39:27.627" LastActivityDate="2015-08-20T10:39:27.627" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4838" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4841" CreationDate="2014-02-27T10:44:21.183" Score="3" ViewCount="864" Body="&lt;p&gt;I ran into this position during a game against a computer, but I'm not sure if its winnable (I'm, White). Also, any comments on my play/computer's play would be highly appreciated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure how to use this site's chess diagrams, so I'll just post the PGN file here:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e6 2. d3 d5 3. exd5 exd5 4. c3 Bd6 5. g3 Ne7 6. Bg2 O-O 7. Nf3 Re8 8. O-O Nbc6 9. Be3 Nf5 10. Re1 Nxe3 11. Rxe3 Rxe3 12. fxe3 Qe7 13. Qe2 Bg4 14. Nbd2 Re8 15. e4 f5 16. Re1 fxe4 17. dxe4 Ne5 18. Qe3 Bxf3 19. Nxf3 Nxf3+ 20. Qxf3 c6 21. a3 Qe6 22. b4 Kh8 23. Qd3 Bc7 24. Kh1 Kg8 25. Qd4 Bb6 26. Qd3 Bc7 27. a4 b6 28. Qd4 Qe5 29. Kg1 Qe6 30. Qd2 Qe5 31. Re3 Re6 32. Qf2 Re8 33. Kh1 Qe6 34. Qf3 Kh8 35. h3 Kg8 36. Kh2 c5 37. Qg4 Qe5 38. Qd7 Rd8 39. Qf5 Qxf5 40. exf5 cxb4 41. cxb4 Kf7 42. Rd3 d4 43. Be4 Be5 44. Kg2 Kf6 45. g4 Rc8 46. Kf3 Rc4 47. Bd5 Rc1 48. Bg8 h5 49. Bb3 Rf1+ 50. Kg2 Rf4 51. Bd1 a6 52. b5 axb5 53. axb5 Re4 54. Ra3 Re1 55. Rd3 Re4 56. Ra3 Re1 57. Rd3 hxg4 58. hxg4 Re4 59. Kf3 Rf4+ 60. Kg2 Ke7 61. Kh3 Rf2 62. Kh4 Kf6 63. Rf3 Rxf3 64. Bxf3 d3 *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2572" LastEditorUserId="10867" LastEditDate="2016-07-27T01:15:27.073" LastActivityDate="2016-07-27T01:15:27.073" Title="Is this endgame winnable (for White)?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;evaluation&gt;&lt;bishop-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4839" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4838" CreationDate="2014-02-27T11:09:41.200" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Obviously, white can't win. Let white do any move except g5+ (Kh5, for example)&#xA;65... g5 66. fxg6 Kg7 Now black bishop will move on squares c5 and g1 and white can't do any progress because pawns are blocked.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Moreover, I like black's position more,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2173" LastActivityDate="2014-02-27T11:09:41.200" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4840" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4848" CreationDate="2014-02-27T11:21:48.860" Score="17" ViewCount="4914" Body="&lt;p&gt;One of the most famous moves ever is Shirov's 47...Bh3!! in Topalov - Shirov, 1998.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/8/4kpp1/3p1b2/p6P/2B5/6P1/6K1 b - - 0 47&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Linares&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;1998&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Veselin Topalov&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Alexey Shirov&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've always taken that for granted and never really thought about it. Can anybody give an explanation of why it is the best move?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2014-02-27T23:32:57.617" LastActivityDate="2014-03-01T14:29:54.587" Title="What was the point of Shirov's 47...Bh3?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;bishop-endgame&gt;&lt;famous-moves&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4841" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4838" CreationDate="2014-02-27T13:32:40.127" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I'm not sure how to use this site's chess diagrams&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First off, to learn how to make chess diagrams here &lt;strong&gt;read carefully&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/279/tool-used-to-create-chess-analysis-interactive-diagrams-in-many-chess-stack-exch&quot;&gt;answers to this post&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for your question, I will give you brief comments about the game first, and then analyze the endgame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Also, any comments on my play/computer's play would be highly appreciated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since SO hasn't added written commentaries to follow a move, I will refer to the move, and then comments will follow.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you have further questions leave a comment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Best regards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let us start:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your opening play was not precise, but you still had a playable position until &lt;code&gt;15.e4&lt;/code&gt;. After that move Black had a small advantage and an initiative. I do not play &lt;code&gt;1.e4&lt;/code&gt;, nor do I play the &lt;em&gt;French defense&lt;/em&gt;. Even if I did, I would advise you to prepare your openings well by consulting an opening book. That should remedy the mistakes you made in your game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although Black was better, you still could count on a draw. &lt;code&gt;21.a3&lt;/code&gt; seems desperate-it looks like you had no idea what to do, and it is a pointless move. You have no advantage at the queenside so there is no reason to start action there. This would also be slow plan and would weaken you more than helping you. At this moment it was crucial to somehow break the pin. One idea would be &lt;code&gt;Rd1&lt;/code&gt; after &lt;code&gt;b4&lt;/code&gt;-something like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[White &quot;namehere&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Computer player&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;4r1k1/pp2q1pp/2pb4/3p4/4P3/2P2QP1/PP4BP/4R1K1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.b4 a6 2.Rd1! dxe4 3.Qxe4! Qxe4 4.Bxe4 Rxe4 5.Rxd6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;with some chances to draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At move &lt;code&gt;23.&lt;/code&gt; you had a chance to execute my combination and get back into the game. At the end of the combination the opponent's king would be threatened by mate, so you could get a slight advantage there.&#xA;After missing this chance, you had to struggle for a draw-I would try to reorganize my pieces like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Suggestion for piece placement&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;4r1k1/pp2q1pp/2pb4/3p4/4P3/2P2BP1/PP2R1KP/4Q3 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so I can achieve &lt;code&gt;exd5&lt;/code&gt; and equalize.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The rest of the game the computer played pathetically and squandered the advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is this endgame winnable(for White)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for the endgame, it is a draw-Black plays &lt;code&gt;Bf4&lt;/code&gt; and enforces blockade on the dark squares after which White has nothing. It will look something like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Endgame analysis&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;8/6p1/1p3k2/1P2bP2/6PK/3p1B2/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Be4 d2 2.g5+ Ke7 3.Bc2 Bf4 4.Kh5 Kf8 5.Kg6 Be5 6.f6 gxf6 7.gxf6 Bd4 8.f7 Bc3=&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-03-16T15:50:45.707" LastActivityDate="2014-03-02T04:40:09.243" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4843" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4840" CreationDate="2014-02-27T16:30:59.693" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;What a great endgame to analyze!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Where should I start with???&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What was the point of Shirov's 47…Bh3?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We know that 3 healthy pawns win against a bishop in endgame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.k4it.de/index.php?lang=en&amp;amp;topic=egtb&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Tablebases&lt;/a&gt; show the following endgame as won for Black , &lt;strong&gt;if it is his turn to move&lt;/strong&gt;, by playing &lt;code&gt;Kf5&lt;/code&gt; ( &lt;strong&gt;the only winning move!&lt;/strong&gt;)  :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;8/8/4kp2/3p4/p7/2B5/8/6K1 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black will simply stretch White's pieces and win-it is a standard motif and I believe that any strong FIDE master ( or higher of course ) can win this endgame with &lt;strong&gt;ease&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Looking at the position after &lt;code&gt;...Bh3!!&lt;/code&gt; we can see that either side's king side pawns play no significant role in the game, so we have the above endgame, &lt;strong&gt;with &quot;spectators&quot; on the king side&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since we know that the endgame is won for Black &lt;strong&gt;with inactive king side pawns&lt;/strong&gt; it is not hard for us to find &lt;code&gt;...Bh3!!&lt;/code&gt;, as Black will implement the same winning plan like in the above endgame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Still, I doubt Shirov knew the above endgame &quot;by heart&quot;, so he had to calculate a lot to confirm that the &quot;pawns vs bishop&quot; endgame is won, thus &quot;a tip of the hat&quot; from me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I personally would never even think of playing such a move, to be honest.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Can anybody give an explanation of why it is the best move?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since both sides king side pawns are spectators, it is really the above mentioned &quot;pawns vs bishop&quot; endgame. With 3 passed pawns Black &lt;strong&gt;easily overloads White's pieces&lt;/strong&gt;, and forces a fast win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I personally thought to play &lt;code&gt;...Be4&lt;/code&gt;, but since I have 2 passed pawns, and my King is somewhat blocked, I had to work harder to force a win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I played the below game against engine. Each time I finish playing one variation, I would set another and play it. Also I have added my own analysis of the moves computer refused to play. That way all the relevant moves would be covered. The key was for Black king going to the queen side, overloading White king and bishop by creating protected &lt;code&gt;a2&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;d3&lt;/code&gt; pawns, after which Black reroutes king to the king side and grabs the pawns with decisive advantage. It is clear why this is longer and harder way of playing, then more straightforward way Shirov picked. Here are the lines:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;8/8/4kpp1/3p1b2/p6P/2B5/6P1/6K1 b - - 0 0&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Be4 2.Kf2 (2. g4 Bf3 3.g5 fxg5 4.hxg5 Kf5 5.Kf2 Bh5 6.Bf6 Ke4 7.Ke1 Kd3 8.Be7 d4 9.Bc5 Kc4 10.Be7 Kc3 11.Ba3 d3 12.Bc1 Kc2-+) (2.g3 f5 3.Kf2 Kd6 4.Bd4 Kc6 5.Ke3 Kb5 6.Kd2 Kc4 7.Bb2 Kb3 8.Kc1 a3 9.Ba1 Kc4 10.Kd2 d4 11.Ke2 Bg2 12.Kd2 Kd5 13.Ke2 Ke4 14.Kd2 Bf1 15.Kc2 Bc4 16.Kd2 Kf3 17.Bxd4 Kxg3 18.Ke3 f4+ 19.Kd2 a2 20.Be5 a1=Q 21.Bxa1 Kxh4-+) 2...f5 3.g3 Kd6 4.Bb4+ Kc6 5.Ke1 Kb5 6.Bf8 Kc4 7.Kd1 d4 8.Kc1 d3 9.Kd1 Kb3 10.Bg7 a3 11.Bd4 a2 12.Kd2 Kc4 13.Ba1 Bc6 14.Bb2 Bb5 15.Bc3 Kd5 16.Ke3 Bc4 17.Ba1 Ke6 18.Kd2 Kf7 19.Kc1 Kg8 20.Bd4 Kh7 21.Kd2 (21.Kb2 Kh6 22.Be3+ Kh5 23.Ka1 Kg4 24.Bf4 Kf3 25.Kb2 Ke2-+) 21...Kh6 22. Ba1 Kh5 23.Ke3 Kg4 24.Be5 Bb5 25.Kd2 Kf3 26.Bc3 (26.Kd1 Ke3-+) (26.Kc1 Ke2-+) 26...Kxg3-+&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It took me a lot of moves to win this endgame, and the pitfalls where you can squander your advantage are numerous-White indeed can offer some resistance. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since king side pawns are irrelevant, we can roughly conclude that Shirov's way wins in 26 moves, according to tablebase, &lt;strong&gt;without&lt;/strong&gt; giving White &lt;strong&gt;any chance&lt;/strong&gt; to offer any resistance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hopefully this answer helped. If you have further questions leave a comment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Best regards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastActivityDate="2014-02-27T16:30:59.693" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4844" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-02-27T20:34:27.823" Score="6" ViewCount="897" Body="&lt;p&gt;The books/articles tell me that the center is &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt;, and &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;1. e4&lt;/code&gt; controls &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt;, but &lt;code&gt;1. e3&lt;/code&gt; controls &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both control one square in the center, no?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yet &lt;code&gt;1. e4&lt;/code&gt; is apparently a vast improvement over &lt;code&gt;1. e3&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How would occupying &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; make a difference? Surely a pawn doesn't control the square it's on but rather the squares on which it can capture?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I really wish these books/articles aimed at amateurs would be more precisely formulated. There's just way too much frustrating handwaving. Surely I'm not the only amateur who's had this confusion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2582" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2014-02-27T22:42:29.523" LastActivityDate="2019-10-22T02:59:16.670" Title="I don't understand the central-control difference between 1. e4 and 1. e3" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;pawns&gt;&lt;pawn-structure&gt;&lt;center&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4845" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4844" CreationDate="2014-02-27T20:46:38.347" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here are a few reasons 1.e4 is better than 1.e3. I'm sure other respondents will come up with others.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;All things being equal, it's nicer to have more space than less space. It gives you more room to maneuver your pieces behind your pawns.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Black would love to play both ...d5 and ...e5, controlling the whole center on your side of the board. If you played e4 you would be fighting his ...d5 idea. If you play e3 you don't.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;e4 doesn't block either of your bishops from going to good squares, but e3 gets in the way of your dark-squared bishop.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.e3 is not a horrible move like a move that gives away a piece is. At worst it probably gives away your first-move advantage and creates an equal position. In fact, Black often moves a central pawn only one square on his first move, so how awful can it be for you to do it first? But 1.e4 accomplishes much more and is a much more ambitious way to play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2014-02-27T20:46:38.347" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4846" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4844" CreationDate="2014-02-27T21:43:10.267" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;A white pawn on e4 controls e4, d5 and f5. It also has a role for the diagonals b1-h7 and h1-a8. A pawn does control the square it is standing on, since otherwise the opponent can place e.g. a pawn there. For example, if white has the pawn on e3, then black can advance e7-e5-e4 and take control over e4, d3 and f3. Thus, the white e4-pawn has several purposes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Control e4, d5 and f5.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Cover the diagonals b1-h7 and h1-a8.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Provide the support squares d5 and f5 for the light and heavy pieces.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, it is clearly stronger than an e3-pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastActivityDate="2014-02-27T21:43:10.267" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4847" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4814" CreationDate="2014-02-27T22:44:28.360" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are two conflicting ideas at play here. White's idea is to push his e and d pawns, grab more space and get an open play and try to cramp black's position. Black's idea is the so-called 'hypermodern' approach which is to allow white to set up a pawn center and then try to demolish it. Both sides have a plan, and whoever carries out their plan better will win!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the french defence, black is able to generate sufficient counterplay by bringing enormous amount of pressure on white's d4 pawn. This pressure will appear to be formidable especially in the hands of a french specialist. However, white does have a few tricks of his own! The advance variation is playable but you need to be well versed in theory in order to carry out the maneuvers precisely as often one wrong step can spell doom for white.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1811" LastActivityDate="2014-02-27T22:44:28.360" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4848" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4840" CreationDate="2014-02-27T23:09:13.210" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;I interpret the question as follows&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;How can a player arrive at ...Bh3?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is tightly connected to the point behind ...Bh3. With a material advantage, black is clearly looking for a win. Yet, it is well known that opposite colored bishops give the defending side a strong chance to draw. Thus, precise play is required.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black's plan is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Get the king to e4 by Ke6-f5-e4&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Do d5-d4 to limit the enemy bishop&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Push a4-a3-a2&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Queen one of the pawns&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White's plan is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Get the king to d4 by Kg1-f2-e3-d4&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Prevent the enemy king from reaching e4&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Prevent the enemy from pushing d5-d4&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Prevent the enemy king from supporting the black a-pawn&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Next, black has to answer the question&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What is the most direct way to make the plan work?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The key point is that black's bishop doesn't really help much in promoting the pawns. It is the king that plays the key role. Thus, sacrificing the bishop to win a tempo makes total sense! In addition, after gxh3, white can no longer create a passed pawn on the kingside! Thus, the bishop sacrifice wins a tempo and ruins white's counter-play. For example&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/8/4kpp1/3p1b2/p6P/2B5/6P1/6K1 b - - 0 47&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1...Bh3! 2.gxh3 Kf5 3.Kf2 Ke4 4.Bxf6 d4 5.Be7 Kd3 6.Bc5 Kc4! 7.Bd6 Kc3 8.Ke2 Kc2 9.Bb4 d3+ 10.Ke3 a3 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-03-01T14:29:54.587" LastActivityDate="2014-03-01T14:29:54.587" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4849" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4814" CreationDate="2014-02-28T02:18:04.420" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;So now I am reforming and reconstructing my life.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First of all, calm down. Hey, it's just a game! You sound as if your whole life depends upon whether you win or lose! You might want to read this &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/4763/what-to-do-after-losing-a-game/4768#4768&quot;&gt;post&lt;/a&gt; about how to deal with losses. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Why do I push my E and D pawns in openings?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would caution you against criticizing your opening (or any other aspect of your game) based on the outcome of just one humiliating defeat. Many top players have got crushed and humiliated. Look at Deep Blue vs Gary Kasparov, 1997, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1070917&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Game 6&lt;/a&gt;; perhaps the most humiliating defeat of Gary Kasparov's career; yet he still remained number 1 in the world for the rest of his career. Also consider Botvinnik's humiliating defeat against Tal in &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1032537&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;game 6&lt;/a&gt; of their match in 1960, where Tal played an unsound sacrifice and still beat Botvinnik. Botvinnik lost that match, but came back stronger in the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chess.pl?tid=54393&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;rematch&lt;/a&gt; and crushed Tal (+10 -5 = 6). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Am I a pawn-push addict? Am I better off with the pawns on the 4th and&#xA;  5th ranks than on 3rd and 4th?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Only you can answer the first part. For the second part, you may or may not be better off with pawns on the 4th and 5th vs pawns on the 3rd and 4th. It depends upon the position and also your playing style. Pawns on the 4th and 5th rank often occur in these type of configurations- &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;     [FEN &quot;4k3/pp3ppp/3p4/2pP4/4P3/8/PP3PPP/4K3 w - - 0 6&quot;] &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Benoni Type Structure (White plans e4-e5 break at some point)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;     [FEN &quot;4k3/ppp2ppp/4p3/3pP3/3P4/8/PPP2PPP/4K3 w - - 0 3&quot;] &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;French Type Structure (White plans kingside attack and maybe even f4-f5 break)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;     [FEN &quot;6k1/ppp2p1p/3p2p1/3Pp3/2P1P3/8/PP3PPP/4K3 w - - 0 7&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;King's Indian Type Structure (White plans c4-c5 and queen side attack)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The advantage of such pawn structure is obvious- White has more space whereas Black has less space to move pieces. The disadvantage is that it's often easier for Black to attack White's pawn chain than for White to do the same (except in case of the Benoni). The simple reason is that it is easier for Black to make moves like &lt;code&gt;c5&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;f5&lt;/code&gt; to attack the central d4 or e4 pawns which support the pawns on the 5th rank, than for White to try to play &lt;code&gt;f4-f5&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;c4-c5&lt;/code&gt; to undermine the &lt;code&gt;e6&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;d6&lt;/code&gt; pawns that hold Black's position. Moreover, White has to make additional moves like &lt;code&gt;c3&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;f3&lt;/code&gt; to support the pawn chain, whereas Black's pawns often support the chain from their natural squares like &lt;code&gt;c7&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;f7&lt;/code&gt;.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To determine whether these positions are &quot;good&quot; (suitable to your style of play) for you, you must examine some sample games in these structures to see if they fit your style. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sample games with these structures - &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chess.pl?node=214998&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Benoni&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chess.pl?node=927093&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;French&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chess.pl?node=1270235&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;King's Indian&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If not, you will definitely be better off placing pawns on the 3rd and 4th ranks most of the time. In those cases, you have to note that you will not be able to maintain the pawn center for long. You either have to push your pawns to the 5th rank or exchange pawns when Black attacks. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some sample structures - &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;       [FEN &quot;4k3/pp3ppp/4p3/2p5/3P4/2P5/PP3PPP/4K3 w - - 0 5&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Alapin Sicilian Type Structure (White usually gets isolated pawn on d4 but great piece activity) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;       [FEN &quot;4k3/pp3ppp/4p3/3p4/2PP4/8/PP3PPP/4K3 w - - 0 5&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Panov Attack Type Structure (Might lead to isolated pawn. White plays on the kingside or queenside depending upon how Black continues)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;       [FEN &quot;3qk3/ppp2ppp/8/3p4/2PP4/8/PP3PPP/4K3 w - - 0 4&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Exchange French Type Structure (Might lead to isolated pawn. Black is in no real danger)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;       [FEN &quot;4k3/pp3ppp/2p1p3/3p4/2PP4/4P3/PP3PPP/4K3 w - - 0 4&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Queen's Pawn Opening Type Structure (Flexible. White may play on the kingside or the queenside depending upon how the game proceeds. White may try e3-e4 or cxd5 exd5 and b4-b5 if Black allows)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;       [FEN &quot;4k3/ppp2ppp/3p4/4p3/3PP3/2P5/PP3PPP/4K3 w - - 0 3&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ruy Lopez Type Structure (White plans d4-d5 at the opportune moment and kingside attack)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can look up these openings in a similar way. The advantage is that your pawn center is not that easily attacked and your &quot;mobile&quot; pawns can prevent Black pieces from activity in the center. The disadvantage is that your opponent's center is often strong too. Besides, in such positions, White can often acquire an isolated pawn, which may become a disadvantage in the endgame. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The important think to note is, you can't simply win by maintaining pawns on the 3rd and 4th ranks&lt;/strong&gt;. Your pawns either have to advance or exchange with enemy pawns to create advantages of space, mobility, outposts, backward pawns for opponent, etc. It's knowing when to push to the 5th rank that's important. That comes with experience and studying games with different pawn structures.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2429" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.193" LastActivityDate="2014-02-28T02:18:04.420" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4851" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4844" CreationDate="2014-02-28T02:34:50.190" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Maybe it will help you if you think that as White, the squares &lt;strong&gt;d4&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;e4&lt;/strong&gt; are &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;your&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; part of the center and the squares &lt;strong&gt;d5&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;e5&lt;/strong&gt; are Black's part of the center. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sure, by playing e3, you control d4; and with e4 you control d5. Both moves control only one central square, but e4 controls your &lt;strong&gt;opponent's&lt;/strong&gt; central square, so it is more valuable than e3. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Besides, the other advantages of e4 vs e3 are obvious. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You would want to play d4 and some point and your &lt;strong&gt;bishop on c1&lt;/strong&gt; doesn't get blocked by the pawn on e3. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You are in a position to &lt;strong&gt;challenge&lt;/strong&gt; your opponent's central pawns if they come to e5 or d5 (something which you cannot do with e3).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It's more important to control squares where your opponent's pieces could potentially be developed. e4 and d4 &lt;strong&gt;prevent natural squares for Black's bishops&lt;/strong&gt; on f5 or c5. The moves e3 or d3 do not achieve that.  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Your pawns in the center are closer to &lt;strong&gt;attacking the Black knights&lt;/strong&gt;, which are often optimally placed on f6 or c6, with moves like e5 or d5. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2429" LastActivityDate="2014-02-28T02:34:50.190" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4852" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4844" CreationDate="2014-02-28T08:38:15.060" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;There isn't that much difference in strength between having a pawn on e4 or one on e3 (usually accompanied by one on d4); there are pros and cons to both (and a pawn on e3 can still go to e4, but not the other way around). The difference is between putting them there &lt;strong&gt;on move 1&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's take a look at the effects of 1.e4 and 1.e3, concentrating on the actual position. For 1.e4:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;1.e4 influences d5 and f5, squares on which black might want to place a pawn. 1.e4 d5 2.exd5 gives white chances for an advantage, and 1.e4 f5?? is basically impossible.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If you want to play an opening with a pawn on e4, &lt;em&gt;now&lt;/em&gt; is the time to play it there. It's a pawn move to an undefended square, black can easily prevent it otherwise. Observe that the most common replies to 1.d4 are 1...Nf6, 1...d5 and 1...f5, all of which prevent 2.e4.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The bishop on f1 is opened up, and it might go to the nice square c4 (in case of 1.e4 e5 2.Bc4).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For 1.e3:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;1.e3 influences d4 and f4, but so what? If white wants to put a pawn there he could already do so, and black can't even legally put anything on those squares next move. So that's not relevant right now.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;There is no way in the next ten moves or so that black will be available to prevent a move like e2-e3; it can be postponed until the perfect moment.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;White blocks the bishop on c1&lt;/em&gt;. Without knowing anything whatsoever about black's setup, white basically already rules out putting the bishop on e3, f4 or g5. If you're going to fianchetto it, why not just start 1.b3. You've just made a concession before black has even played a single move!&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The bishop on f1 is opened up, but it can't do much. 1.e3 e5 2.Bc4 just runs into 2...d5 (not enough control over that square).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's fine to play an opening that involves e3 (as long as you put one or two other pawns near the center instead, otherwise you won't control anything on his half, white is supposed to be attacking), but doing so &lt;em&gt;on move 1&lt;/em&gt; has no advantages. That's a big difference with a pawn on e4, which can be played there on move 1 &quot;for free&quot; and usually only with difficulty after that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2014-02-28T08:38:15.060" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4853" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4807" CreationDate="2014-02-28T13:15:10.163" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The five games mentioned might be the only games between Morphy and Bird that are preserved. Collections that claim to include all known Morphy games, only contain those five between the two, see for instance &lt;a href=&quot;http://timkr.home.xs4all.nl/ChessTutor/morphy.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;The full Morphy&lt;/a&gt;. Also, written accounts seem to suggest that the games they played were not part of an official match, they just played some games while Morphy was waiting for a reply from Staunton &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.edochess.ca/batgirl/morphybio7.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;(Link)&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1485" LastActivityDate="2014-02-28T13:15:10.163" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4854" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4844" CreationDate="2014-02-28T14:00:40.957" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;At the beginning of the game, out of the 64 squares of the board 32 are occupied. So, space is a valuable commodity at the beginning of the game. 1) e4 allows white access to the e2 and e3 squares. while at the same time denying black access to those squares. e3 on the other hand allows white access only to e2 but blocks the critical e3 square. so e4 accomplishes more than e3. Each square of the board is like an intersection between 4 highways(horizontal, vertical and diagonal) and it is important that these valuable intersection points are not blocked especially if there is some traffic which can flow through them. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1811" LastActivityDate="2014-02-28T14:00:40.957" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4855" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4844" CreationDate="2014-02-28T17:25:36.570" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I don't understand the central-control difference between 1. e4 and 1. e3&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let us go one thing at a time OK?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The books/articles tell me that the center is d4, d5, e4, and e5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That is correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;e4 controls d5, but 1. e3 controls d4.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Again, you are right.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Both control one square in the center, no?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes they do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Yet 1. e4 is apparently a vast improvement over 1. e3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes it is-I will explain in detail bellow why is so.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;How would occupying e4 make a difference? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Again, I will explain in great detail the difference below.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Surely a pawn doesn't control the square it's on but rather the squares on which it can capture?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Correct again, but there is a difference others pointed out in their answers-see below for more detailed explanation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;&lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; Versus &lt;code&gt;e3&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Analysis of &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; :&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When playing &lt;code&gt;1.e4&lt;/code&gt; you achieve &lt;strong&gt;maximum efficiency&lt;/strong&gt; that pawn can exert in a move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You open best diagonals for both the queen and the &lt;code&gt;f1&lt;/code&gt; bishop, and do not obstruct the &lt;code&gt;c1-h6&lt;/code&gt; diagonal for the &lt;code&gt;c1&lt;/code&gt; bishop. Furthermore, you claim control of the &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;f5&lt;/code&gt; squares. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why is this important? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well, by taking away squares &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;f5&lt;/code&gt; you have &lt;strong&gt;taken away the best squares&lt;/strong&gt; for some of the Black's pieces. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black would like to place a pawn at &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt; to achieve &lt;strong&gt;maximum efficiency&lt;/strong&gt; with that pawn, but can not play &lt;code&gt;1...d5&lt;/code&gt; without losing a tempo after &lt;code&gt;2.exd5 Qxd5 3.Nc3&lt;/code&gt; or entering complications after &lt;code&gt;2.exd5 Nf6&lt;/code&gt;, which gives White position &lt;strong&gt;easier to play&lt;/strong&gt; ( according to the current theory of the &lt;em&gt;Scandinavian defense&lt;/em&gt; and my experience ). Furthermore, Black hold &lt;strong&gt;for now&lt;/strong&gt; but there is always &lt;strong&gt;a real chance&lt;/strong&gt; of a novelty being discovered that will crush the entire opening/line. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black's &lt;code&gt;c8&lt;/code&gt; bishop is always best posted on &lt;code&gt;f5&lt;/code&gt; but that square is also taken away from him with &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt;, so it is not so easy to &lt;strong&gt;actively&lt;/strong&gt; develop the &lt;code&gt;c8&lt;/code&gt; bishop, especially if White plays &lt;code&gt;h3&lt;/code&gt; too. This means that Black &lt;strong&gt;must settle with &lt;code&gt;Be6/Bd7&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;, which is solid &lt;strong&gt;but passive&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;strong&gt;lose time to develop it to &lt;code&gt;b7&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; which is again a small concession.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus, in order to put &lt;strong&gt;his own pieces&lt;/strong&gt; to the best squares, after &lt;code&gt;1.e4&lt;/code&gt;, Black has to &lt;strong&gt;make small concessions&lt;/strong&gt; Which give White a small pressure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As others have pointed out, your pawn &lt;strong&gt;physically occupies &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; thus &lt;strong&gt;indirectly restricting&lt;/strong&gt; the opposing forces. It blocks the &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; square for the Black's &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt; pawn/&lt;code&gt;f6&lt;/code&gt; knight or even &lt;code&gt;b7&lt;/code&gt; bishop. In order to &lt;strong&gt;put a piece on this square&lt;/strong&gt; Black must &lt;strong&gt;physically destroy&lt;/strong&gt; this pawn which requires regrouping of his forces &lt;strong&gt;which is again a concession in view of investing time to maneuver pieces to execute this plan&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Analysis of &lt;code&gt;e3&lt;/code&gt; :&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After &lt;code&gt;e3&lt;/code&gt; you open the best diagonals for queen and &lt;code&gt;f1&lt;/code&gt; bishop, but you close in your &lt;code&gt;c1&lt;/code&gt; bishop. This means that you will &lt;strong&gt;lose time&lt;/strong&gt; to post the bishop to its &lt;strong&gt;best and most aggressive square&lt;/strong&gt; which means that now &lt;strong&gt;it is you who will make concessions or lose precious time&lt;/strong&gt;. You control &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;f4&lt;/code&gt;, but &lt;strong&gt;being first to move&lt;/strong&gt; you could have &lt;strong&gt;claimed those squares anyway&lt;/strong&gt; so we can see at &lt;code&gt;e3&lt;/code&gt; as &lt;strong&gt;being slow&lt;/strong&gt; and as some form of &lt;em&gt;overprotection or prophylaxis&lt;/em&gt;. Still, it is not necessary to overprotect anything this early, especially not as White! You also allow Black to play &lt;code&gt;1.e5!&lt;/code&gt; &lt;strong&gt;so now he gets the same benefits you could have got with &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You also have &lt;strong&gt;no control of the opponents central squares&lt;/strong&gt; which will force you to play &quot;on your side of the board&quot; while your opponent will be &lt;em&gt;free to do whatever he wants&lt;/em&gt;* since he will control &lt;strong&gt;more space than you do with &lt;code&gt;1...e5!&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;. This is dangerous, and you usually end up in a passive/cramped position so again &lt;strong&gt;it will be you who will make concessions&lt;/strong&gt; in order to get in &lt;em&gt;the freeing break&lt;/em&gt; in order to reach a position with counterplay. And again, Black can use his &lt;strong&gt;space advantage&lt;/strong&gt; to reorganize his pieces and enter a &lt;strong&gt;favorable endgame after you conduct your freeing break&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is very dangerous plan that White performs in many semi-open games after playing &lt;code&gt;1.e4&lt;/code&gt; and I know from my experience just how dangerous and unpleasant it is to meet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, you do not &lt;strong&gt;physically control &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; like above, so your opponent can put &lt;code&gt;e&lt;/code&gt; pawn or a knight there, and the &lt;strong&gt;scope for his pieces increases&lt;/strong&gt;-diagonal &lt;code&gt;a8-h1&lt;/code&gt; is now wide open. This makes them more efficient, hence more dangerous. If you ever wish to put a piece or a pawn on &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; you will need to &lt;strong&gt;fight for that square&lt;/strong&gt;, and there is a strong possibility that you will lose that fight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;SUMMARY:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;1.e4&lt;/code&gt; fights for the control of &lt;strong&gt;Black's part of the board&lt;/strong&gt; thus giving &lt;strong&gt;you chances for an advantage&lt;/strong&gt; by hindering his best piece placement. This puts &lt;strong&gt;pressure on Black to equalize&lt;/strong&gt;, while after &lt;code&gt;1.e3&lt;/code&gt; you will get the solid &lt;strong&gt;but passive&lt;/strong&gt; position and the pressure to equalize &lt;strong&gt;would be &quot;on you&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;, since Black will seize the opportunity to grab control &lt;strong&gt;of your part of the board&lt;/strong&gt; either with &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That is all for now, if you have further questions leave a comment and I will edit my post or reply with a follow up comment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Best regards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastActivityDate="2014-02-28T17:25:36.570" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4856" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4889" CreationDate="2014-03-01T04:47:05.633" Score="5" ViewCount="281" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am contemplating starting a website/blog, and trying to choose between Blogger, WordPress, and Drupal (but open to others). My needs are mostly blog-like - to post static pages and regular updates, and I'd like to choose a platform that has good support for embedding FEN/PGN strings/files out the box and generating diagrams and replayable games. I'd also like to link to a static pgn file with many combinations and have a gadget that would display a diagram with a &quot;Daily Tactic&quot;. So far I looked into Blogger, and it does not have much support out of the box, and actually makes it difficult/impossible for me to embed Javascript that I have pre-generated with something like PalView. What are my other options?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="618" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-03-01T19:35:31.427" LastActivityDate="2014-07-17T05:54:13.997" Title="What web-based Content Management System (e.g. Blogger) has the best support for chess content?" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;pgn&gt;&lt;chess-blog&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4857" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4814" CreationDate="2014-03-01T14:14:54.997" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Perhaps you would find it useful if I tried to explain the pros and cons of playing the advance variation in the French defense for white. Let's look at its starting position&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.e5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Why does white choose 3.e5?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;To control the squares e5, d6 and f6&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Prevent black from developing with Ng8-f6&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Lock down the f7-pawn to attack it later&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Make the h7-square weaker to attack it later (Nf6 usually protects h7)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Make the black Bc8 worse by locking it behind the f7-e6-d5 pawn chain&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What are the downsides of 3.e5?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;White releases the e4-d5 tension&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The white d4-pawn becomes a target for attack&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The white e5-pawn becomes subject for the thematic f7-f6 break&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;White makes an extra pawn move and sort of loses the extra tempo&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What should black do?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Attack the d4-pawn&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Do the f7-f6 break&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Activate the Bc8 at some point, e.g. via Bc8-d7-e8-h5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If white is sloppy, go for a quick attack on the enemy king&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What should white do?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Have a strong control over the dark squares d4, e5, f4 and e3&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Make sure the king is safe&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Keep the strong control over the center&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Attack the enemy king&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.e5 c5 4.c3 Nc6 5.Nf3 Qb6 6.a3 a5 7.Bd3 Bd7 8.O-O cxd4 9.cxd4 Nxd4 10.Nxd4 Qxd4 11.Nc3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastActivityDate="2014-03-01T14:14:54.997" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4858" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2014-03-01T15:12:18.110" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2014-03-01T15:12:18.110" LastActivityDate="2014-03-01T15:12:18.110" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4859" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2014-03-01T15:12:18.110" Score="0" Body="Talent refers to a chess player's natural gift for chess." OwnerUserId="2001" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-03-01T15:23:21.330" LastActivityDate="2014-03-01T15:23:21.330" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4860" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2014-03-01T15:14:49.883" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2014-03-01T15:14:49.883" LastActivityDate="2014-03-01T15:14:49.883" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4861" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2014-03-01T15:14:49.883" Score="0" Body="Super Grandmaster is an unofficial title that is used to distinguish top players (Elo 2700+). For instance, this site (http://www.2700chess.com/) is dedicated to track the rating progress of all 2700+ players." OwnerUserId="2001" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-03-01T15:23:30.940" LastActivityDate="2014-03-01T15:23:30.940" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4862" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2014-03-01T15:23:48.783" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2014-03-01T15:23:48.783" LastActivityDate="2014-03-01T15:23:48.783" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4863" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2014-03-01T15:23:48.783" Score="0" Body="At the top level, it is normal to hold press conferences, especially after a game." OwnerUserId="2001" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-03-01T16:00:47.977" LastActivityDate="2014-03-01T16:00:47.977" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4864" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2014-03-01T15:28:13.643" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2014-03-01T15:28:13.643" LastActivityDate="2014-03-01T15:28:13.643" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4865" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2014-03-01T15:28:13.643" Score="0" Body="Certain games are famous and well known among chess players, e.g. the Immortal game." OwnerUserId="2001" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-03-01T16:01:01.960" LastActivityDate="2014-03-01T16:01:01.960" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4866" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2014-03-01T15:29:13.947" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2014-03-01T15:29:13.947" LastActivityDate="2014-03-01T15:29:13.947" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4867" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2014-03-01T15:29:13.947" Score="0" Body="Certain chess-related events (e.g. tournaments) that are famous for one or another reason." OwnerUserId="2001" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-10-04T09:12:48.373" LastActivityDate="2020-10-04T09:12:48.373" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="4868" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2014-03-01T15:33:08.163" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2014-03-01T15:33:08.163" LastActivityDate="2014-03-01T15:33:08.163" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4869" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2014-03-01T15:33:08.163" Score="0" Body="Calculation is the ability of a chess player to calculate variations in a given position." OwnerUserId="2001" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-03-01T16:00:25.613" LastActivityDate="2014-03-01T16:00:25.613" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4870" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4856" CreationDate="2014-03-01T19:32:56.653" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am writing for a &lt;a href=&quot;http://chess-team-viking-swe.blogspot.se/2012/03/secer-fm-sagit-r-sagit.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chess Blog&lt;/a&gt; (Blogger) from time to time, using &lt;a href=&quot;http://kvchess.com/publish.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;KV Chess (former Chess Flash)&lt;/a&gt; to generate replayable chess games. Thus, the viewer is embedded as flash code. I did not manage to use PalView, it seemed a bit too complicated and had bugs. Perhaps it is better today? Cheers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastActivityDate="2014-03-01T19:32:56.653" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4871" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2014-03-01T19:35:54.960" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2014-03-01T19:35:54.960" LastActivityDate="2014-03-01T19:35:54.960" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4872" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2014-03-01T19:35:54.960" Score="0" Body="Questions relating to blogs about chess" OwnerUserId="2001" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-09-13T09:43:13.867" LastActivityDate="2020-09-13T09:43:13.867" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="4873" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4800" CreationDate="2014-03-01T20:03:11.027" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, my guess would be that the pawn-only chess variant is a draw with exact play from both sides. Yet, it is of course possible to win for either side, as long as you know what plans to choose between. Since the kings are the only pieces left on the board (apart from the pawns), they will play a key role. The goal will be to create weaknesses in the enemy pawn structure and invade them with the king. Also, to have a good understanding for which pawn endings that are drawn and which ones that are won (e.g. the distanced passed pawn). So while it is objectively drawn, it is still hard to play over the board against a skilled opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastActivityDate="2014-03-01T20:03:11.027" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4874" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4174" CreationDate="2014-03-01T20:09:59.447" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I would like to have a chess engine hooked up to a tablebase where I can be guaranteed that the chess engine is looking at ALL moves and calls the tablebase in real time in small positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I thought that chess engines are already hooked up to tablebases? Also, to make sure what moves the engine looks like, there should be a &quot;verbose&quot; mode for engines?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Chess engines may discard some moves on the way to calling the tablebase later, and I need to avoid that, for my purposes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess engines probably discard moves according to their search algorithm, in order to limit their searching time. But exactly which moves that are discarded probably varies between engines. Yet, engines should have an &quot;exhaustive&quot; mode that takes longer time and checks more moves?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;At the very least I have to know that no moves, no matter how silly, have been discarded.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You could write a script that keeps track of &quot;all possible moves&quot; and then compare it against the moves that the engine has considered. Thus, you get the list of all discarded moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Can anyone advise me as to what the best available setup is for this purpose? Or whether some code should be added to an open source engine?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would advice some sort of wrapper around a Linux command line engine. Write the engine verbose output to a file. Have a script that keeps generating the &quot;all possible moves&quot; list at every point in the game. Then, compare against this list. Also, handle the tablebases as needed, perhaps the engine gives some nice options for this. I haven't done anything like this before, so these are my best guesses on how to set this up and make it work!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastActivityDate="2014-03-01T20:09:59.447" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4875" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2014-03-01T20:29:36.077" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2014-03-01T20:29:36.077" LastActivityDate="2014-03-01T20:29:36.077" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4876" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2014-03-01T20:29:36.077" Score="0" Body="Every chess opening is associated with an ECO (Encyclopedia of Chess Openings) code." OwnerUserId="2001" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2014-03-01T20:33:38.833" LastActivityDate="2014-03-01T20:33:38.833" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4877" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4400" CreationDate="2014-03-01T20:38:29.177" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I doubt that there is such a chess program. You could probably accomplish this by opening the same game on two separate boards and flip one of them. The downside would be that you would have to browse in the two boards separately. So to move a move forward, you would have to click twice, once on each board. The upside would be that you can analyze different positions from the same game in parallel. Perhaps there is a setting to flip the board automatically according to who's turn it is?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastActivityDate="2014-03-01T20:38:29.177" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4878" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2014-03-01T20:39:44.227" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2014-03-01T20:39:44.227" LastActivityDate="2014-03-01T20:39:44.227" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4879" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2014-03-01T20:39:44.227" Score="0" Body="Questions about chess software for the Microsoft Windows operating system." OwnerUserId="2001" LastEditorUserId="10867" LastEditDate="2020-07-04T15:24:32.617" LastActivityDate="2020-07-04T15:24:32.617" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="4882" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2901" CreationDate="2014-03-01T21:09:53.963" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Loss, draw and win are the final results of a game. The evaluations of a position can be &quot;better for white&quot;, &quot;equal&quot; and &quot;better for black&quot;. Positions with a perpetual check, stalemate and not enough material to win are easy to judge as being a draw. Other positions are more difficult to evaluate all the way to the final result. Tablebases do cover a large range of endgames. But beyond this coverate, the evaluations will be as stated above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastActivityDate="2014-03-01T21:09:53.963" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4883" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4145" CreationDate="2014-03-01T21:13:01.727" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can try the Chessbase Online tool:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://database.chessbase.com/js/apps/onlinedb/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://database.chessbase.com/js/apps/onlinedb/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastActivityDate="2014-03-01T21:13:01.727" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4884" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4895" CreationDate="2014-03-01T21:29:24.203" Score="4" ViewCount="2567" Body="&lt;p&gt;Edit (3 March 2014):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Proposal: strength is the &lt;strong&gt;real&lt;/strong&gt; and rating is the &lt;strong&gt;model&lt;/strong&gt; that estimates it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Question: How well does Elo rating estimate a player's strength?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bonus question: What happens if you take the player's rating curve into account?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-03-05T14:58:16.507" LastActivityDate="2019-01-06T02:02:02.917" Title="How well does Elo rating estimate a player's strength?" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;elo&gt;&lt;statistics&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4885" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4884" CreationDate="2014-03-01T21:40:59.730" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's not clear to me whether you are asking a philosophical or a quantitative question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My answer to the philosophical question is that the Elo rating is predictive; that is, it is designed to make accurate predictions about the outcomes of chess games. To that extent, it measures strength by estimating the likelihood that a player will win against another player. It does this by using the player's past results, and it does the best it can given that information.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The answer to the quantitative question is that the &quot;expected value&quot; of a game between two players is correlated with the difference in their Elo ratings. For example if player A's Elo rating is 200 higher than that of player B, then player A would be expected to go about 76-24 over the course of a 100-game match.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Note&lt;/em&gt;: The question has changed since I answered it, so my answer makes less sense now. The title of the question used to be &lt;strong&gt;Does the chess rating represent a player's strength?&lt;/strong&gt;, and the question was &quot;I notice that somehow, we chess players associate the chess rating with strength. But is it a measure of strength? To what extent?&quot; Please take this answer as a response to that question, not the one it has been changed to.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastEditorUserId="291" LastEditDate="2014-03-03T13:19:54.993" LastActivityDate="2014-03-03T13:19:54.993" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4886" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4890" CreationDate="2014-03-02T00:43:50.927" Score="18" ViewCount="43868" Body="&lt;p&gt;How do you checkmate with a Rook and King versus King? Is there a good and fast method? Can you explain it in a good way? Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2014-03-02T00:45:16.810" LastActivityDate="2019-09-23T10:07:35.030" Title="How do you checkmate with a rook?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;rooks&gt;&lt;kings&gt;&lt;elementary-mates&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4888" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4886" CreationDate="2014-03-02T02:21:29.113" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would suggest --  Play this out with an opponent. That's the best way to get the feel of it. Otherwise just google and you will see lots of explanation -- with some nice graphics.&#xA;www.chess.com  and chesstempo.com even have some practice board where you can learn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One link that covers good theory and explains slowly is &#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesscorner.com/tutorial/basic/r_k_mate/r_k_mate.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chesscorner.com/tutorial/basic/r_k_mate/r_k_mate.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2594" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-09-23T10:07:35.030" LastActivityDate="2019-09-23T10:07:35.030" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="4889" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4856" CreationDate="2014-03-02T02:24:45.433" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Have you looked at pgn4web?&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://pgn4web.casaschi.net/home.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://pgn4web.casaschi.net/home.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It supports adding PGN for replay and I believe Tactics too.&#xA;Also supports major platforms like WordPress, blogger.&#xA;I have published a simple replayable game with it on blogger and it works like a charm.&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://mychessapps.blogspot.in/2013/12/my-3-min-blitz-game-on-fics.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://mychessapps.blogspot.in/2013/12/my-3-min-blitz-game-on-fics.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that pgn4web for Wordpress requires a hosted version of Wordpress on which you can install the plugin; it will not be compatible with a blog hosted at Wordpress.com&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1275" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2014-03-07T03:58:15.620" LastActivityDate="2014-03-07T03:58:15.620" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4890" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4886" CreationDate="2014-03-02T03:23:41.867" Score="29" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know you're a FIDE Master :), so I suppose you're more interested in this question from a teaching perspective. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The simplest way to understand a checkmate with King and Rook vs King is the idea of the rectangle of the opposing king. Consider this position- &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/QqNKe.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here, the Black King is restricted by the White Rook in this giant rectangular area of the chessboard. For simplicity, I am not considering the area restricted by the White King, which would be like this - &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/fDHE0.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A simple way (I'll deal with optimizations later) to checkmate is to ensure that this rectangle gets smaller and smaller, so that the Black King is pushed to a corner of the board (more visual representation below with diagrams). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    [FEN &quot;8/8/8/8/4k3/8/8/K6R w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;     1. Re1+ Kd4 2. Kb1 Kd3 3. Kc1 Kd4 4. Re2 Kd3 5. Kd1 Kd4 6. Kd2 Kc4 7. Re3 Kd4&#xA;     8. Ke2 Kc4 9. Rd3 Kc5 10. Ke3 Kc4 11. Ke4 Kc5 12. Rd4 Kc6 13. Rd5 Kb6 14. Kd4&#xA;     Kc6 15. Kc4 Kb6 16. Rc5 Kb7 17. Kb5 Ka7 18. Rc6 Kb7 19. Kc5 Ka7 20. Rb6 Ka8 21.&#xA;     Kc6 Ka7 22. Kc7 Ka8 23. Ra6# &#xA;&#xA;&#xA;1. Re1+ Kd4 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/eJBEF.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;2. Kb1 Kd3 3. Kc1 Kd4 4. Re2 Kd3 5. Kd1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/nUDyZ.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;5...Kd4 6. Kd2 Kc4 7. Re3 Kd4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/rFUMA.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;8. Ke2 Kc4 9. Rd3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Q2168.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;9...Kc5 10. Ke3 Kc4 11. Ke4 Kc5 12. Rd4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/WxzMn.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;12...Kc6 13. Rd5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/7dHHk.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;13...Kb6 14. Kd4 Kc6 15. Kc4 Kb6 16. Rc5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/s2J5c.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;16...Kb7 17. Kb5 Ka7 18. Rc6 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Otlc3.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;18...Kb7 19. Kc5 Ka7 20. Rb6 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/QESAW.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Ka8 21.Kc6 Ka7 22. Kc7 Ka8 23. Ra6# 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/SdifW.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, with this method, the one mistake that White must avoid is stalemate - &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;23&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Rb7?? stalemate! &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/mJ8m4.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Optimizations and Tricks.&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More experienced players can get to smaller rectangles quicker by looking further ahead. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One trick is to trap the king in a &lt;strong&gt;smaller rectangle&lt;/strong&gt; if it comes too close to the rook. For this, White also has to use the king more actively.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;   [FEN &quot;8/8/8/8/4k3/8/8/K6R w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;   1. Re1+ Kd4 2. Kb2 Kd3 3. Kb3! Kd2 4. Re4! Kd3 5. Rc4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/erIYU.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another trick is to give a &lt;strong&gt;rook check&lt;/strong&gt; when the kings are in opposition. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;   [FEN &quot;8/8/8/2k5/8/2K5/8/4R3 w - - 0 6&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;   1. Re5+!? (1. Rd1!) Kd6 2.Kd4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/yQ2Mt.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This trick is not necessarily optimal. In the above example, White can actually mate faster with the move 1. Rd1! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;   [FEN &quot;8/8/8/2k5/8/2K5/8/4R3 w - - 0 6&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;   1. Rd1! Kb5 2. Rd5+! Kc6 3. Kc4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/24kny.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The above optimization is also made possible by the &lt;strong&gt;rook-waiting-move&lt;/strong&gt; trick. If, in the above position, instead of going to c6, the Black king tries to escape via a4, then the following checkmate is possible. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;8/8/8/1k6/8/2K5/8/3R4 w - - 0 7&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. Rd5+ Ka4 2. Rc5! Ka3 3. Ra5#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One more idea is to use &lt;strong&gt;king-opposition&lt;/strong&gt; (in combination with the rook) to push the enemy king behind. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;8/8/8/2k5/8/8/2K5/4R3 w - - 0 4&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. Kc3! (1...Kd5 2. Re3!) Kc6 2. Kc4! Kd6 3. Re4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Combining these different ideas, here are two of the most optimal mates possible from the starting position - &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;   [FEN &quot;8/8/8/8/4k3/8/8/K6R w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;   1. Re1+ (1. Kb2 Kf4 2. Kc3 Ke5 3. Re1+ Kf6 4. Kd4 Kf5 5. Re4 Kf6 6. Re5 Kg6 7.&#xA;   Ke4 Kf6 8. Kf4 Kg6 9. Re6+ Kg7 10. Kg5 Kf7 11. Re5 Kg7 12. Rf5 Kh7 13. Kf6! Kg8&#xA;   14. Rh5 Kf8 15. Rh8#) 1... Kd4 2. Kb2 Kd3 3. Kb3! Kd4 4. Kb4 $3 Kd3 5. Kc5! Kd2&#xA;   6. Re4 Kd3 7. Re5 Kc3 8. Rd5 Kb3 9. Rd3+ Kc2 10. Kc4 Kb2 11. Rd2+ Kc1 12. Kc3&#xA;   Kb1 13. Kb3 Kc1 14. Rd3 Kb1 15. Rd1# *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2429" LastEditorUserId="2429" LastEditDate="2014-03-02T04:16:50.263" LastActivityDate="2014-03-02T04:16:50.263" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4891" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4884" CreationDate="2014-03-02T05:37:30.943" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;Normally&quot; (pun intended) the Elo rating does indicate a player's &lt;strong&gt;average&lt;/strong&gt; strength (you tagged this post with Elo, so I am considering Elo rating). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Elo rating assumes that a player's performance conforms to what is called the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normal_distribution&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Normal Distribution&lt;/a&gt;. Thus, if your rating is &lt;strong&gt;2700&lt;/strong&gt;, then that's your &lt;strong&gt;mean&lt;/strong&gt; or average level of performance. However, &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;that does not give an indication of how far varied your performance can be in relation to your mean rating&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance, if your &lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_deviation&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;standard deviation&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; is low, then it means that your performance is very consistent around 2700 (for example, you beat most guys below 2600, hardly ever beat 2800+, and usually draw with players between that range). If your standard deviation is high, then it means that sometimes, you beat even Magnus Carlsen (2881 as of today), but at times you find yourself losing to a low rated Grandmaster or even an International Master. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2429" LastActivityDate="2014-03-02T05:37:30.943" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4892" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="510" CreationDate="2014-03-02T08:53:28.137" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Besides the two ways already mentioned:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Pick a random position from a database.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Play a random amount of random moves.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We should also mention the most simple:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Generate a totally random position. Validate it. If not legal repeat.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should be able to find lots of tools for analyzing if a position is legal. (E.g. exactly one king on each side etc.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1025" LastActivityDate="2014-03-02T08:53:28.137" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4893" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-03-02T12:56:03.590" Score="12" ViewCount="9118" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;This isn't real, just imagine this happening.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;Computer A&lt;/code&gt; is supercomputer. It can calculate 30 ply deep within 20 seconds.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;Computer B&lt;/code&gt; is supercomputer. It can calculate 15 ply deep within 20 seconds.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They play against each other chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does these 15 depths really matter? I guess that within these 15 depths there may be trillions way to escape a checkmate or capture of important piece. Sure, &lt;code&gt;Computer A&lt;/code&gt; knows more. But &lt;code&gt;Computer B&lt;/code&gt; is able to predict future quite far too, in my opinion, far enough to defend himself really well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2603" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-03-03T21:07:31.133" LastActivityDate="2018-02-25T11:23:46.663" Title="Does depth (number of ply) still matter once it is high enough?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;calculation&gt;&lt;ply&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4894" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-03-02T18:02:45.867" Score="5" ViewCount="1663" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have recently (two months ago) become very interested in chess, after playing it for about 10 years at a club, spending time on it only one evening per week.&#xA;Previously, I did not think about my opening at all, and just played 1. e4 as White and 1. e4 e5 and 1. d4 d5 as Black. Currently, I play the English as White, using the wonderful books of Mihail Marin, and the Modern as Black, using a number of different books (Davies, Hillarp Persson and Lakdawala).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am very much satisfied with the English, as it ensures a solid position, most opponents have to improvise their set-up at my level (~1500), and the books of Marin help me in having a comprehensive repertoire. After a game, I can look up who deviated first from theory, and remember it for later games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, it does not seem that there is such a book as Marin's for the Modern opening, and though my results with the Modern are good till now (two draws against 1650 average, and one win against 1200), I wonder if there are other solid openings which I could use as Black. Preferably, an opening for which there is a good book which explains the ideas and themes of the opening. Do you have any suggestions?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2606" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-03-03T09:17:01.277" LastActivityDate="2019-11-16T23:07:56.587" Title="Positional opening for Black" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4895" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4884" CreationDate="2014-03-02T18:20:23.130" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Elo rating is a statistical prediction of your results against players with known rating when they play each other in the long term. Some examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Two players with the same rating will score the same amount of victories when playing together.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Two players with a 200 Elo difference, means the stronger player will win 3 out of 4 games (and lose the other).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Two players with a 400 Elo difference, means the stronger player will win 15 out of 16 times (and the weakest winning the other one).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;And so on, a difference beyond 700 is not accurately measurable (basically the system predicts 100% score of the stronger player).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, in practice, many other factors come into play (ie. the stronger player being bored or overconfident, playing a system in which the weakest players has in-depth knowledge, being in shape, etc.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For more details, see&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.thechessworld.com/learn-chess/18-general-information/136-deeper-look-at-elo-chess-rating-system-&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.thechessworld.com/learn-chess/18-general-information/136-deeper-look-at-elo-chess-rating-system-&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elo_rating&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elo_rating&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2607" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2014-03-02T18:52:47.593" LastActivityDate="2014-03-02T18:52:47.593" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4896" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-03-02T22:39:21.043" Score="15" ViewCount="6097" Body="&lt;p&gt;Kasparov's &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1011478&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;immortal game&lt;/a&gt; vs Topalov is often regarded as one of the best games in chess history. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, after analyzing it, I find that objectively speaking, Kasparov played some bad moves and got into a slightly worse position. Here, in this position below, Kasparov sacrificed his rook on d4 and Topalov made a mistake by capturing it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    [White &quot;Garry Kasparov&quot;]&#xA;    [Black &quot;Veselin Topalov&quot;]&#xA;    [FEN &quot;b2r3r/k4p1p/p2q1np1/NppP4/3p1Q2/P4PPB/1PP4P/1K1RR3 w - - 0 24&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;    1. Rxd4 cxd4 2. Re7+ Kb6 3. Qxd4+ Kxa5 4. b4+ Ka4 5. Qc3 Qxd5 6. Ra7 Bb7 &#xA;    7. Rxb7 Qc4 8. Qxf6 Kxa3 9. Qxa6+ Kxb4 10. c3+ Kxc3 11. Qa1+ Kd2 12. Qb2+ Kd1 &#xA;    13. Bf1 Rd2 14. Rd7 Rxd7 15. Bxc4 bxc4 16. Qxh8 Rd3 17. Qa8 c3 18. Qa4+ Ke1 &#xA;    19. f4 f5 20. Kc1 Rd2 21. Qa7 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, if Topalov had played 24...Kb6! then Kasparov's initiative would have come to nothing. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    [White &quot;Garry Kasparov&quot;]&#xA;    [Black &quot;Veselin Topalov&quot;]&#xA;    [FEN &quot;b2r3r/k4p1p/p2q1np1/NppP4/3p1Q2/P4PPB/1PP4P/1K1RR3 w - - 0 24&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;    1. Rxd4 Kb6! 2. b4 Qxf4 3. Rxf4 Nxd5 4. Rxf7 cxb4 5. axb4 Nxb4 6. Nb3 Bd5 7. Rf6+ &#xA;    Nc6 8. f4 Rhf8 9. Rxf8 Rxf8 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and Black is slightly better. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If we compare this position to the position after move 16, White does seem slightly better. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;   [White &quot;Garry Kasparov&quot;]&#xA;   [Black &quot;Veselin Topalov&quot;]&#xA;   [FEN &quot;r3k2r/1b1nqp1p/p1pp1npQ/1p2p3/3PP3/P1N2P2/1PP1N1PP/1K1R1B1R w kq - 0 13&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The question therefore is, where did Kasparov misplay the position? How did he lose his small positional advantage. Where is the improvement for White? Or is White's positional advantage an illusion? Is the position objectively equal or even better for Black? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2429" LastEditorUserId="2429" LastEditDate="2014-07-26T20:41:31.517" LastActivityDate="2020-08-05T02:20:06.300" Title="Kasparov's Immortal Game. Flawed? 24...Kb6! Suggest an improvement for White" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;famous-players&gt;&lt;kasparov&gt;&lt;famous-games&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4897" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4893" CreationDate="2014-03-02T23:01:09.037" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, those 15 depths very much matter. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Consider this position that occurred in Kasparov's &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1011478&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Immortal Game&lt;/a&gt; vs Topalov. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  [White &quot;Kasparov&quot;]&#xA;  [Black &quot;Topalov&quot;]&#xA;  [FEN &quot;b2r3r/k4p1p/p2q1np1/NppP4/3R1Q2/P4PPB/1PP4P/1K2R3 b - - 0 24&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I tested this position with several engines. Some engines, at depth 15, failed to detect that &lt;strong&gt;24...cxd4&lt;/strong&gt; is a &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/4896/kasparovs-immortal-game-flawed-24-kb6-suggest-an-improvement-for-white&quot;&gt;losing move&lt;/a&gt; and thought it was winning. Those same engines, at a greater depth, played the correct move &lt;strong&gt;24...Kb6!&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, even an engine as powerful as Stockfish 4 initially at depth 21 thinks the losing move &lt;strong&gt;24...cxd4&lt;/strong&gt; is correct. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Stockfish DD 64 SSE4.2: 24...cxd4 25. Re7+ Kb6 26. Qxd4+ Kxa5 27. Qc3+ Kb6 &#xA;28. Qd4+ Qc5 29. Qxf6+ Bc6 30.Qxc6+ Qxc6 31. dxc6 Rd1+ 32. Ka2 f5 33. c7 Rc8 &#xA;34. Rxh7 Rxc7 35. Rh6 Rc6 36. g4 f4 37. g5 Rd2 38. c3 Rxc3 39. Rxg6+ Kc5 &#xA;40. Bg4 Rcc2 41. Rxa6 Rxb2+ 42. Ka1 Rbc2 43. Kb1 &#xA;(-1.45/21)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The same engine, when kept on for a little more depth, shows &lt;strong&gt;24...Kb6&lt;/strong&gt; to the correct move. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Stockfish DD 64 SSE4.2: 24...Kb6 25. b4 Qxf4 26. Rxf4 Nxd5 27. Rxf7 cxb4 &#xA;28. axb4 Rhe8 29. Rxe8 Rxe8 30. Nb3 Re1+ 31. Kb2 Re2 32. Rxh7 Nxb4 &#xA;33. Kc3 Nd5+ 34. Kd3 Rxh2 35. Rh4 Ne7 36. Nd4 Nc6 37. Nxc6 Bxc6 38. f4 Kc5 &#xA;39. Be6 Rxh4 40. gxh4 Bd5 41. f5 gxf5 42. Bxf5 a5&#xA;(-0.78/26)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Fritz 11 SE, at depth 15, also failed. But it found the correct move at depth 16! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Fritz 11 SE: 24... cxd4 25. Qxd4+ Qb6 26. Re7+ Nd7 27. Qe5 f6 28. Qc3 Qg1+ &#xA;29. Ka2 Bxd5+ 30. Nb3 f5 31. Qc7+ Ka8 32. Rxd7 Rxd7 33. Qxd7 Bxf3 34. Qd6 Qa7  &#xA;(-1.44/15) &#xA;&#xA;Fritz 11 SE: 24... Kb6 25. b4 Qxf4 26. Rxf4 Nxd5 27. Rxf7 cxb4 28. axb4 Nxb4 &#xA;29. Nb3 Bd5 30. Rf6+ Nc6 31. Nd4 Rdf8 32. Rd6 Kc5 33. Rxc6+ Bxc6 34. Ne6+ Kd6 &#xA;35. Nxf8 &#xA;(-0.59/16)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also consider this incredible problem like position that I found &lt;a href=&quot;http://support.stockfishchess.org/discussions/problems/3306-stockfish-not-able-to-find-winning-line-till-depth-40&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stockfish was not able to find the winning line 1. Be2+! until depth 31 and up until then it thought it was a bad move. I demonstrate the win here. The point is that Black is in zugswang because of mate threats and has to either give up the queen or move the a pawn which would allow White to create a passed pawn and win. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;   [FEN &quot;8/2p1q3/p3P3/2P4p/1PBP2kP/2N3P1/7K/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;   1. Be2+ $1 Kf5 2. Nd5 $1 Qxe6 3. Bd3+ Kg4 4. Be4 $3 Qh6 (4... Qxe4 5. Nf6+) &#xA;   5. Nf4 Qg7 6. Nd3 $1 Qxd4 7. c6 $1 a5 (7... Qxe4 8. Nf2+ Kf3 9. Nxe4 Kxe4 &#xA;   10. Kg2 Kd4 11. g4 hxg4 12. h5 Ke5 13. h6 Kf6 14. Kg3 Kg6 15. Kxg4 Kxh6 &#xA;   16. Kf5 Kg7 17. Ke6 Kf8 18. Kd7 Kf7 19. Kxc7) 8. b5 $1 a4 9. b6 cxb6 &#xA;   10. c7 Qxe4 (10... Qc3 11. Nf2#) 11. Nf2+ Kf3 12. Nxe4 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's the engine log from Stockfish 4. As you can see, it detects that 1. Be2+ is winning, only on depth 31! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Stockfish DD 64 SSE4.2: 1. Be2+ Kf5 2.Bc4 c6 3. Ne2 Qf6 4. Kg2 Kg4 5. Nf4 Qxd4 &#xA;6. Bd3 Qe3 7. Be2+ Kf5 8. Bf3 Qd2+ 9. Kh3 Qxb4 10. e7 Qe1 11. Ne2 Qf1+ 12. Kh2 Qf2+&#xA;13. Kh3 Qe3 (-1.05/22) &#xA;&#xA;Stockfish DD 64 SSE4.2: 1. Be2+ Kf5 2. Bc4 Qf6 3. Ne2 c6 4. Bxa6 Qxe6 5. Bd3+ Kf6 &#xA;6. Nf4 Qe1 7. d5 Qxb4 8. dxc6 Qxc5 9. Be4 Ke7 10. c7 Kd7 11. Nd5 Kd6 12. Kh3 Qc4 &#xA;13. Bg2 Qg4+ 14. Kh2 Qc8 15. Be4 (-1.15/26) &#xA;&#xA;Stockfish DD 64 SSE4.2: 1. Be2+ Kf5 2. Bc4 Qf6 3. Ne2 c6 4. d5 cxd5 5. Bxd5 Qb2 &#xA;6. Bc4 Kf6 (-1.01/28) &#xA;&#xA;Stockfish DD 64 SSE4.2:  1. Be2+ Kf5 2. Nd5 Qxe6 3. Bd3+ Kg4 4. Be4 Qh6 5. Nf4 Qf6 &#xA;6. Nd3 Qxd4 7. c6 Qxe4 8. Nf2+ Kf3 9. Nxe4 Kxe4 10. Kg2 Ke5 11. Kf3 Kf5 12. g4+ Kf6&#xA;13. gxh5 Kg7 14. Kf4 Kf6 15. h6 Kg6 16. h5+ Kh7 17. Kg5 Kg8 18. h7+ Kxh7 19. Kf5 Kg7&#xA;20. Ke6 Kh6 21. Kd7 Kxh5 22. Kxc7 Kg5 23. Kd7 (6.06/31) &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2429" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2014-03-02T23:23:15.023" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4898" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4894" CreationDate="2014-03-03T00:35:06.940" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Positional opening for Black&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I were you I would stick with the English opening as White.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for Black, let us start with reply to &lt;code&gt;1.d4&lt;/code&gt;. I would strongly encourage you to learn Queen's gambit declined, as &lt;strong&gt;it is immune to transpositional tricks&lt;/strong&gt;. The resulting positions require both theoretical knowledge and knowledge of typical plans. Your other option is Nimzo-Indian defense, but White can rule it out with a clever move order. Still, you can steer the game back into Queen's Gambit declined, with resulting lines being &lt;strong&gt;beneficial for Black&lt;/strong&gt;, or you can learn Queen's-Indian defense. Also, when playing White, after &lt;code&gt;1.c4 e6 2.e4&lt;/code&gt; is toothless, but &lt;code&gt;2.d4 d5&lt;/code&gt; transposes into Queen's gambit declined/Nimzo-Indian/Queen's Indian, so this would save you a lot of learning time by reducing the amount of material you need to cover.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for reply to &lt;code&gt;1.e4&lt;/code&gt; there is French defense, Caro-Kann, or Petroff defense ( but be prepared to learn a lot about King's gambit ). Again, when playing White, after &lt;code&gt;1.c4 c6 2.e4!&lt;/code&gt; you sidestep many popular openings like Grunfeld, Slav/Semi-Slav and so on, and you transpose into Caro-Kann so I would suggest getting a book on it. The beauty of this move order is that you can transpose into Panov-Botvinnik attack, which is positional and requires knowledge from Black, else he may end up in a lost game, while you may play more or less on general principles. Either way, Black must invest more work here, as this line is critical for both sides. French defense may work too, as it is very solid, but you will still need to handle &lt;code&gt;1.c4 c6&lt;/code&gt; and if you do not want to transpose into Caro-Kann be prepared to play against Slav or Semi-Slav.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I wonder if there are other solid openings which I could use as Black. Preferably, an opening for which there is a good book which explains the ideas and themes of the opening. Do you have any suggestions?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For French defense I find the book &lt;em&gt;Nikita Vitiugov-The Complete French A Complete Black Repertoire&lt;/em&gt; quite useful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For general ideas in Caro-Kann you can use &lt;em&gt;Joe Gallagher-Starting Out The Caro-Kann&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;Petter Wells-Grandmaster Secrets The Caro-Kann&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;Karpov &amp;amp; Podgaets-Caro-Kann defense Panov Attack&lt;/em&gt; for Panov-Botvinnik Attack. For opening moves you have the &lt;em&gt;Lars Schandorff-Grandmaster Repertoire 7 The Caro-Kann&lt;/em&gt;. These are more than enough to get you going.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For Nimzo-Indian and Queen's Indian defense you will have to find books yourself, since I do not play those defenses, and since there are so many books on those I do not wish to recommend bad ones.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for Queen's Gambit Declined, you can start with &lt;em&gt;Mathew Sadler-Queen's Gambit Declined&lt;/em&gt; since it covers typical plans for both sides very well. As for opening moves there are many books, seek on Amazon and you will find them. Unfortunately you will need most of them, in order to have your repertoire complete, and still it might not be enough. Take care especially for &lt;em&gt;Alatortsev variation&lt;/em&gt; as it is very useful for Black &lt;strong&gt;if played right&lt;/strong&gt;. Unfortunately I haven't found a good coverage on this line, and I must warn you that some novelties have been introduced from a year or two ago. I was lucky to find them, but God knows how many novelties I have missed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That is it from me for now, if you have further questions leave a comment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Best regards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastActivityDate="2014-03-03T00:35:06.940" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4899" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2506" CreationDate="2014-03-03T11:47:32.797" Score="38" Body="&lt;p&gt;I did this graph based on 731,000 games played on the free internet chess server by players with rating above 2000 during the last 13 years with &lt;strong&gt;non-blitz time controls&lt;/strong&gt;.&#xA;The &lt;strong&gt;average length is 79 half moves&lt;/strong&gt;, the &lt;strong&gt;median is 70&lt;/strong&gt; and the &lt;strong&gt;mode is 51.&lt;/strong&gt; There are also a lot of very short games due to people resigning early.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/vcJAF.png&quot; alt=&quot;Distribution of chess game length&quot; /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Update:&lt;/strong&gt; As it turns out, the above curve can be very well approximated by a log-normal distribution. That is the logarithm of the games lengths are normally distributed. We can then consider the expected game length remaining given how many moves have already been played, which may be interesting for chess engines. It looks like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/rnzQt.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to use it for figuring out how to use your time(*), the function can be very well approximated by the following expression. (Again remember, that the result is in half moves.).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;59.3 + (72830 - 2330 k)/(2644 + k (10 + k))&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(*)Though you would probably want to take other factors into consideration as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1025" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2018-06-08T11:21:26.980" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="4900" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4886" CreationDate="2014-03-03T13:35:56.947" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would teach the slow but safe and easy way first: The rook divides the board in two halves. Then the attacking king tries to get in opposition to the enemy king (sometimes the rook has to swap sides or needs to make a waiting move for this to happen). Then the rook gives a check, hence pushing the king one field closer to the edge of the board. The mate follows exactly the same pattern.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="35" LastActivityDate="2014-03-03T13:35:56.947" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4901" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1709" CreationDate="2014-03-03T14:33:07.463" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;The weakness is b2 with the absence of the bishop. This is James Rizzitano's recommendation against the London system in his book &quot;How to Beat 1 d4&quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. Bf4 c5 4. e3 Nc6 5. c3 Qb6 6. Qb3 c4 7. Qc2 Bf5 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The bishop is immune due to the b2 weakness (the rook on a1 will drop).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2611" LastEditorUserId="315" LastEditDate="2016-06-18T00:33:00.067" LastActivityDate="2016-06-18T00:33:00.067" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4902" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4896" CreationDate="2014-03-03T15:29:35.387" Score="8" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The question therefore is, where did Kasparov misplay the position? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No, he did not. All the lines give Black equal chances, no matter what move White chose to play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;How did he lose his small positional advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He did not lose advantage because there was none in the first place. White position just looks &quot;prettier&quot;. He &lt;strong&gt;can not&lt;/strong&gt; stop the freeing &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt; break, which means that Black will &lt;strong&gt;eventually equalize&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Where is the improvement for White?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At this point I see no improvement, but maybe some super computer or creative GM can find one. Time will tell.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Or is White's positional advantage an illusion?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White has healthier pawn structure, but you do not consider Black's dynamic resources such as &lt;strong&gt;development advantage and active piece placement&lt;/strong&gt;. They counterbalance White's healthier pawn structure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After Black gets &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt; break it all depends if White can punish Black for pushing too many pawns forward. To do that, he need an endgame with better pieces but that will never happen with proper play because Black has better posted and more active pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White does not have an advantage, but his position is &quot;prettier&quot; due to the healthier pawn structure. Again I point out that black has better piece placement, and can liquidate the &lt;code&gt;d6&lt;/code&gt; backward pawn after which things are unclear.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is the position objectively equal or even better for Black? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I will quote Mr.Kasparov himself from &lt;em&gt;Chess Informant 74&lt;/em&gt; :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;2kr3r/1b2qp1p/pn1p1npQ/1pp5/4P3/PNN2P2/1PP3PP/1K1R1B1R w - - 2 16&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Na5 ( 1.a4?! b4 2.a5 bxc3 3.axb6 Nd7=/+ ) 1...d5 2.Nxb7 ( 2.g3 b4∞ ) 2...Kxb7 3.exd5 Nbxd5 4.Nxd5 Nxd5 5.Bd3 f5 6.Rhe1 Qc7 7.Bf1 c4∞ &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://tal.has.it/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Here&lt;/a&gt; is the &lt;code&gt;zip&lt;/code&gt; file that holds &lt;strong&gt;almost every published&lt;/strong&gt; analysis of this game, including Kasparov's comments after the game. It was also instructive to go through the comments of top GMs as well as other &quot;lesser players&quot; who used engines for the analysis. Just click on the spinning red box:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/JWaID.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;SUMMARY:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although White has better pawn structure, he is behind in development and his queen is misplaced. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black does have a backward pawn on &lt;code&gt;d6&lt;/code&gt; and has compromised his pawn structure on both wings but that is not so bad for him since his pawns &lt;strong&gt;restrict the opposing light pieces&lt;/strong&gt;. He has more space on the queenside and a chance to obtain initiative on that part of the board, while his holes on dark squares on the kingside can not be effectively exploited. He has wonderful piece coordination and activity and will achieve the freeing &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt; break, eliminating the weakest piece in his setup, thus achieving full equality. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I evaluate this position as sharp/unclear with equal chances for both sides.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for Topalov losing this one, you must be aware that Kasparov tried &lt;code&gt;a3&lt;/code&gt; as a novelty, which probably threw Topalov out of balance a little, so he misplayed it in the end. He was probably in time pressure, or simply lost focus due to calculating all the possibilities in a new position which is always a difficult task. Up until &lt;code&gt;cxd4?&lt;/code&gt; he played well, even Kasparov had to award exclamation points for some of his moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hopefully this helps. If you have further questions leave a comment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Best regards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastEditorUserId="2042" LastEditDate="2014-07-29T22:36:39.570" LastActivityDate="2014-07-29T22:36:39.570" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4903" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4921" CreationDate="2014-03-03T17:57:37.947" Score="14" ViewCount="3951" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are a few different possible ways of capturing an opponent's piece. You could:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Pick up both your piece and their piece simultaneously with both hands, then set your piece down where their piece was.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Pick up both your piece and their piece using the &lt;em&gt;same&lt;/em&gt; hand, and then set yours down.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Remove their piece from the board first, and then use the same hand to move your piece.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Pick up your piece, use it to shove theirs out of the way, set down your piece, and then remove their piece.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And perhaps there are a few other ways as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which of these ways are the best etiquette? (The &quot;shove theirs out of the way&quot; method seems particularly inappropriate.) Are any of these ways illegal under tournament rules? (Don't the USCF rules say that a move must be made with one hand?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2470" LastEditorUserId="18475" LastEditDate="2020-01-05T22:30:38.533" LastActivityDate="2020-12-06T12:45:24.430" Title="What is the etiquette (or tournament rule) for the act of capturing a piece?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;etiquette&gt;&lt;best-practice&gt;&lt;captures&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4904" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4903" CreationDate="2014-03-03T18:18:52.937" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have seen the following.  I use technique #1 though as long as one doesn't smash the pieces they are virtually the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Pick up both your piece and their piece using the same hand, and&#xA;then set yours down. (pick up my piece first, placing it on its new&#xA;square, and scooping up the opponent's piece in one motion.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Pick&#xA;up your piece, use it to shove theirs out of the way, set down your&#xA;piece, and then move their piece.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Use one hand, and don't take your hand from the board until the entire move is complete.  If you touch one of your pieces, you have to move it.  If you touch one of you opponent's pieces, you have to take it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2014-03-03T18:18:52.937" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4905" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2014-03-03T19:56:04.840" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2014-03-03T19:56:04.840" LastActivityDate="2014-03-03T19:56:04.840" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4906" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2014-03-03T19:56:04.840" Score="0" Body="For questions about chess programs running on the macOS operating system." OwnerUserId="2001" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-12-16T18:34:45.240" LastActivityDate="2018-12-16T18:34:45.240" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="4907" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2014-03-03T19:56:55.437" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2014-03-03T19:56:55.437" LastActivityDate="2014-03-03T19:56:55.437" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4908" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2014-03-03T19:56:55.437" Score="0" Body="Chessbase is a popular chess software for saving games, searching game databases and analysing games using a chess engine." OwnerUserId="2001" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-03-03T22:53:11.623" LastActivityDate="2014-03-03T22:53:11.623" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4909" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2014-03-03T19:59:56.400" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2014-03-03T19:59:56.400" LastActivityDate="2014-03-03T19:59:56.400" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4910" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2014-03-03T19:59:56.400" Score="0" Body="Online blitz is when you play blitz (chess) online." OwnerUserId="2001" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-03-03T22:53:20.403" LastActivityDate="2014-03-03T22:53:20.403" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4911" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2014-03-03T20:08:14.677" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2014-03-03T20:08:14.677" LastActivityDate="2014-03-03T20:08:14.677" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4912" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2014-03-03T20:08:14.677" Score="0" Body="Human versus machine is for the topic of a human player against an engine (computer)." OwnerUserId="2001" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-03-03T22:53:28.733" LastActivityDate="2014-03-03T22:53:28.733" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4914" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4903" CreationDate="2014-03-03T20:47:29.350" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Updated answer on 5 March 2016:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Take the opponent's piece into your hand.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Place your capturing piece on this square with same hand.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Press clock with same hand.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Place captured piece next to board.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Write down your move on your score sheet.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2016-03-05T11:24:49.300" LastActivityDate="2016-03-05T11:24:49.300" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4915" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2014-03-03T21:10:02.847" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2014-03-03T21:10:02.847" LastActivityDate="2014-03-03T21:10:02.847" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4916" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2014-03-03T21:10:02.847" Score="0" Body="Ply is half a move, e.g. 1.e4 is 1 ply. 1.e4 e5 is 2 ply. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ply_(game_theory))" OwnerUserId="2001" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-03-03T22:07:53.383" LastActivityDate="2014-03-03T22:07:53.383" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4917" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4903" CreationDate="2014-03-03T21:18:57.533" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;Remarkably, I wrote a blog on this topic last night. It is available here - &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/blog/SamCopeland/how-to-move-a-chess-piece&quot;&gt;http://www.chess.com/blog/SamCopeland/how-to-move-a-chess-piece&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To quote myself...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Both Magnus and Hikaru  execute their captures by first picking up their opponent's piece, then they slide that piece to the back of their hand to be held by the ring and pinky fingers within their palm. While holding the captured piece, they move their own piece to the capturing square using their thumb, index, and middle finger. Some other players make each move independent. They first remove the captured piece from the board, only then do they move their piece to the capturing square. This can be a noble styling, but it costs precious time in blitz and lightning games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Regarding legality... Yes, a move must be made with one hand. This is to prevent a player moving a piece and pressing the clock before completing the move. Otherwise, all of the methods you describe are legal, but you are right that using the capturing piece to knock their piece over is rude, and likely to knock pieces over.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="800" LastActivityDate="2014-03-03T21:18:57.533" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4918" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4893" CreationDate="2014-03-03T22:38:43.410" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The relationship between performance gains and search depth has actually been an active area of research for quite a long time in the computer chess programming communities.  There was a theory that increases in search depth resulted in &lt;a href=&quot;https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Depth&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;diminishing returns&lt;/a&gt; in strength... this seemed to be verified in experimental results.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From my perspective, there is an intuitive foundation for this.  Imagine your hypothetical match up between two supercomputers, starting from endgame tablebase positions.  Most forced wins in tablebases happen at a horizon less than (for instance) 50 ply.  The majority of the remaining positions are drawn, only a small fraction resolve to wins at a higher depth.  A computer searching at 100 ply would have limited advantage over a 50 ply computer, because (as you mention) the weaker program is able to navigate through nearly all the losing lines, all occurring at more limited depth.  A 50 ply program would actually have a much bigger advantage over a 25-ply program... as would a 4 ply program have an even bigger advantage over a 2 ply program.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I first came across this concept about 15 years ago, in the series of papers on &lt;a href=&quot;http://people.csail.mit.edu/heinz/dt/node46.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Dark Thought&lt;/a&gt;, experimenting in deep searches.  These are a great read if you are interested in computer chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although I couldn't find an online reference, there is a paper from last year on this topic...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Diogo R. Ferreira (2013). The Impact of the Search Depth on Chess Playing Strength. ICGA Journal, Vol. 36, No. 2&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="606" LastActivityDate="2014-03-03T22:38:43.410" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4920" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4422" CreationDate="2014-03-04T08:41:52.430" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;En passant is, for a lack of a better word, an ugly rule. It does not flow logically from the &quot;fundamental&quot; rules of chess - it is an exception that serves a specific purpose: to prevent players from forcing walled positions with their pawns, effectively killing any activity in the game (at least, that is my understanding). By allowing a player to capture en passant, he has at least the option of opening a file in a case where the opponent may be interested in keeping it closed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I do not see how this justification would translate to non-pawns. Allowing en passant capture by non-pawns would not add anything to the dynamics of the game. It would be an unnecessary proliferation of an already ugly rule.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1816" LastActivityDate="2014-03-04T08:41:52.430" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4921" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4903" CreationDate="2014-03-04T09:37:34.443" Score="25" Body="&lt;p&gt;Seeing how Super Grandmasters capture pieces can be instructive:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Garry Kasparov&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Capturing an adjacent piece:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/yoxWo.gif&quot; alt=&quot;Garry Kasparov captures a piece&quot; /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Capturing a distant piece:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/PKMaG.gif&quot; alt=&quot;Garry Kasparov captures another piece&quot; /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSqcXPY1Pqo&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;YouTube&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Carlsen (white) vs Caruana&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Yaf3n.gif&quot; alt=&quot;Carlsen and Caruana exchange pieces &quot; /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1ZNY7x8K7g&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;YouTube&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Aronian (white) vs Morozevich&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/lsq7a.gif&quot; alt=&quot;Aronian and Morozevich exchange pieces&quot; /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v93vJuxLZGo&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;YouTube&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Hikaru Nakamura (white) vs Vladimir Kramnik&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ocgoq.gif&quot; alt=&quot;Nakamura and Kramnik take pieces&quot; /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yHrg8Lib0WU&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;YouTube&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Summary:&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With the exception of Kramnik, captures proceed as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Lift the opponent's piece and palm it.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;With the same hand, move your piece.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Stop the clock using the hand holding the captured piece.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Table the piece.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's worth noting that it's OK to table the piece in your opponent's time; you do not have to table it before you stop the clock.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Kramnik (playing black in the final image) lifts his own piece before transposing it with Nakamura's pawn in one quick snap. Kasparov also does this with the pawn capture in the first gif. This isn't wrong, it's just a different – and perhaps more aggressive – style. It does not matter if you lift your piece or your opponent's piece first, but all high-level players touch both pieces and the clock with the same hand. (Note that Magnus as white tables the piece on his right even though the clock is on his left.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's probably safer not to use two hands for captures or castling, as tournament rules vary on the use of two hands, and it's been a source of controversy in the past. e.g. &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.chessbase.com/post/playche-in-holland-and-both-hands-in-blitz&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Giri vs Epishin, Supercube Blitz Utrect, 2009&lt;/a&gt; (scroll down to &amp;quot;The Incident&amp;quot;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2130" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2014-03-04T13:40:53.970" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4922" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4422" CreationDate="2014-03-04T11:13:48.957" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe the en passant rule is designed to cope with the fact that pawns do not move backwards, hence if the en passant rule did not exists you could have a lot of blocked positions, making play slower and probably more drawish.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Differently from pawns, pieces can move backwards, so the black Knight in your example still has the possibility to move backward and stop/capture the white a pawn. Therefore no need of allowing the en passant rule for pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Said that, there is in a special case a sort of en passant like rule for pieces: castling is not allowed if an opponent's piece controls one of the squares that the King would go through while castling. You can see that as a sort of threat of hitting the King &quot;en passant&quot; during the castling move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At a large extent chess rules are what they are because they resisted the test of time and made an interesting game. Same goes for pawn moves. The 2-step move from the pawn initial position did not exist either from the beginning, it was introduced later to make play faster and more dynamic; the en passant rule was likely introduced shortly afterwards to avoid large pawns blockades.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2620" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-09-21T17:13:20.937" LastActivityDate="2019-09-21T17:13:20.937" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="4923" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4884" CreationDate="2014-03-04T13:20:09.010" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Elo rating system doesn't estimate a player's strength as well as other systems. I've read a while ago about a contest between rating systems, I'll describe it by quoting &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.kaggle.com/c/chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;the article&lt;/a&gt;: &lt;code&gt;competitors train their rating systems using a training dataset of over 65,000 recent results for 8,631 top players. Participants then use their method to predict the outcome of a further 7,809 games.&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.kaggle.com/c/chess/forums/t/166/few-charts&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;conclusion&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;The Elo benchmark was outperformed within 24 hours&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On a sidenote, I can't see the charts anymore, if anyone finds them, you're welcome to contribute them. From what I remember there were no less than 60 rating systems which outperformed Elo.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="75" LastActivityDate="2014-03-04T13:20:09.010" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4924" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4935" CreationDate="2014-03-04T13:33:15.770" Score="8" ViewCount="4152" Body="&lt;p&gt;How do you checkmate with a King and Queen versus King?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a method that is faster than other methods in terms of moves?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a foolproof method if you are in time trouble?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-06-06T12:25:53.270" LastActivityDate="2017-06-06T12:33:28.817" Title="How do you checkmate with a queen?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;queens&gt;&lt;kings&gt;&lt;elementary-mates&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4925" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4936" CreationDate="2014-03-04T16:12:18.527" Score="14" ViewCount="20079" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sometimes (e.g. at some schools) chess is considered to be a sport. Is chess a sport? I view sport as a physical activity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance, if a doctor asks you &quot;Are you doing any sports?&quot; would your answer &quot;Yes, I play chess twice a week!&quot;? It sounds a bit strange in my ears.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is chess a sport?`&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If yes, then why and to what extent?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2623" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-03-05T07:56:45.057" LastActivityDate="2020-01-01T00:00:28.947" Title="Is chess a sport? If yes, then why?" Tags="&lt;history&gt;&lt;terminology&gt;" AnswerCount="10" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4926" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-03-04T20:08:40.497" Score="3" ViewCount="420" Body="&lt;p&gt;As human beings, we know that there are different aspects of intelligence. Often, innovation and creativity are considered to be higher levels of intelligence, whereas the ability to calculate is considered to be a lower level of intelligence. Mere calculational ability alone does not imply intelligence. For example, even a top scientist may not be able to compute the square of an 8 digit number, but a computer would be able to do it in a fraction of a second. However, a computer cannot do many of the things which humans are capable of, like invent a new device, or discover new science. It is a credit to the human intelligence that he is able to invent a device - the computer - to do things he would not be able to do ordinarily, just as other devices such as cars, aircraft, etc. have been invented. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Computers don't use real intelligence for playing chess, they just calculate millions of moves until they find an advantageous combination. Does this prove that chess is just about calculational ability and does not really involve any real intelligence?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1811" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-07-26T19:14:19.340" LastActivityDate="2016-07-26T19:14:19.340" Title="Has the success of computers reduced the stature of chess as an 'intellectual' sport/game?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;history&gt;&lt;human-versus-machine&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4927" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4945" CreationDate="2014-03-04T20:18:39.297" Score="8" ViewCount="7505" Body="&lt;p&gt;For eg., if a grandmaster is given 10:1 time odds, will he be able to beat a computer? For eg, if the GM is given 120 minutes for the entire game and the computer is given 12 minutes? If not 10:1 times odds, then please mention what time odds would be required for a GM to beat a computer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1811" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-03-06T13:36:19.567" LastActivityDate="2016-12-01T13:05:33.660" Title="Can Grandmasters beat computers when given time-odds?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;grandmaster&gt;&lt;human-versus-machine&gt;&lt;handicapping&gt;&lt;time-control&gt;" AnswerCount="8" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4928" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4927" CreationDate="2014-03-04T20:21:02.790" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, at some ratio. But that ratio changes every day, in favor of the computer. Grandmasters are getting very slightly better over the years, while computers double in speed every few years. Maybe a GM could win with 100:1 time odds today, but they would need 1000:1 soon, and 10000:1 soon thereafter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2625" LastActivityDate="2014-03-04T20:21:02.790" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4929" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2018" CreationDate="2014-03-04T20:23:36.000" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Computers allow unusual endgames to be solved much more quickly than a human can, if the human can do it at all. In &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kasparov_versus_the_World#Moves_51.E2.80.9362&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Kasparov vs the World&lt;/a&gt;, the game ended with a 25-move forced checkmate discovered by computer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2625" LastActivityDate="2014-03-04T20:23:36.000" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4930" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4924" CreationDate="2014-03-04T21:01:44.603" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Lol, this question is not as silly as it sounds as once I was in time trouble and ended up stalemating my opponent by accident! Most players resign when their opponent is up a queen so such blunders can happen if you occasionally come across a player who is stubborn enough to play till the end. Anyway, after that incident I went back to studying the Queen and King vs. King endgame to avoid such embarrassments in the future! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, this is how you do it:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) Remember that stalemates are more easy with Q &amp;amp; K so it is important to check for a possible stalemate before every move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) Use your queen to slowly try to corner the opponent king until he is confined to one of the edge row or columns of the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/8/8/k2K4/8/1Q6/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) Bring the king in to the position shown in the diagram below:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/2K5/8/k7/8/1Q6/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Remember that the king has to be in this position to deliver the checkmate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4) Slowly nudge the opponent king towards the corner.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/k1K5/8/1Q6/8/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5) When the opponent king is in this position, deliver the checkmate!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/k1K5/8/Q7/8/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For eg.:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/8/8/3k4/8/7K/8/5Q2 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Qf4 Ke6 2. Kg4 Kd5 3. Kf5 Kc5 4. Qd2 Kc4 5. Ke5 Kb3 6. Qc1 Kb4 7. Qc2    Kb5 8. Qc3 Kb6 9. Qc4 Kb7 10. Qc5 Kb8 11. Qc6 Ka7 12. Qb5 Ka8 13. Kd6 Ka7 14. Kc7 Ka8 15. Qa5# *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't know about the 'faster than other methods' bit, but it works!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1811" LastEditorUserId="1811" LastEditDate="2014-03-04T21:32:13.587" LastActivityDate="2014-03-04T21:32:13.587" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4931" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4943" CreationDate="2014-03-04T21:03:08.517" Score="24" ViewCount="33925" Body="&lt;p&gt;How do you checkmate with the pair of Bishops and King versus King?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there any stalemates to look out for?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are the key ideas / positions / tricks to make it work?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastActivityDate="2014-03-06T06:08:43.347" Title="How do you checkmate with the pair of bishops?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;bishops&gt;&lt;elementary-mates&gt;&lt;bishop-pair&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4932" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2014-03-04T21:04:25.537" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2014-03-04T21:04:25.537" LastActivityDate="2014-03-04T21:04:25.537" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4933" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2014-03-04T21:04:25.537" Score="0" Body="The bishop pair is when you have one light squared and one dark squared bishop (just like at the beginning of the game)." OwnerUserId="2001" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-03-04T23:19:31.747" LastActivityDate="2014-03-04T23:19:31.747" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4934" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4926" CreationDate="2014-03-04T21:09:41.777" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;My view is the following&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;When a computer program can do something that a human can, it is the success of the people who built it, not a flaw in human abilities.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To automate a manual or semi-automatic process happens all the time. Fortunately, chess isn't an industrial process or part of a product line. It is a battle of minds that millions of people enjoy. The engines help to excavate and dig deeper in positions. Yet, chess is still chess, especially for those who don't use engines (I image this goes for the majority of the human population).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The general reaction is still the same&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Wow, you play chess? You must be really smart!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as I can see, chess still holds a strong status of being a clever activity, and will do so for many years to come.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastActivityDate="2014-03-04T21:09:41.777" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4935" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4924" CreationDate="2014-03-05T01:22:39.713" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Grave Danger in King and Queen vs lone King&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's important for the winning side to avoid this common pitfall in this basic endgame. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/hzQzd.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The winning side should avoid placing their queen on the &lt;strong&gt;c2&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;c7&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;f2&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;strong&gt;f7&lt;/strong&gt; squares if the opponent's King is in the nearby corner, because this leads to stalemate. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Below, I include some other types of &lt;strong&gt;stalemates&lt;/strong&gt; that are not as well known. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Agwzp.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/hNLvc.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Basic Idea&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The plan is to drive the king to one of the edge ranks or files.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/sde3B.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After this is achieved, the &lt;strong&gt;checkmating positions&lt;/strong&gt; are usually like this - &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/PTCGv.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Rectangle Method&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This method is the fastest and similar to the &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/4886/how-do-you-checkmate-with-a-rook/4890#4890&quot;&gt;rectangle method&lt;/a&gt; involving checkmate with a rook. The trick is to confine the opponent's king in the smallest possible rectangle with the queen's first move (if not already confined or can be confined at a later move) and then bring the side's own king closer to the opponent's king. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the position to the left below, White plays 1. Qc6 as the first move, making the rectangle smaller. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/TERN2.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once this has been achieved, White simply brings the King closer to the Black King to drive it into one of the edge ranks or files. The rook check trick discussed in the rectangle method for the rook applies here with the queen check. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  [FEN &quot;8/8/8/4k3/8/8/8/K6Q w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;  1. Qc6 Kf5 2. Kb2 Ke5 3. Kc3 Kf5 4. Kd4 Kf4 5. Qf6+ Kg4 6. Ke3 Kh5 &#xA;  7. Qg7 Kh4 8. Kf4 Kh3 9. Qg3#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Knight's Square Method&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;This method is mainly for beginners. Normally, experienced players will do better to use the rectangle method even in time trouble. However, it may at times help to use a  combination of this and the rectangle method.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you're a in time trouble, this a very fast (in terms of how &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;quickly&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; you can make the moves on the board without thinking much) and foolproof (&lt;strong&gt;stalemates are always to be watched out for&lt;/strong&gt;) way to checkmate the opponent's king. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With this method, you can literally finish playing the move before the opponent's hand even reaches the clock (assuming you're not playing online). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Consider this position where the Black King is on &lt;strong&gt;e5&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ZU12x.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Knight&amp;#39;s Square Method&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The King can be checked by a White knight from each of the 8 squares &lt;strong&gt;d3&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;c4&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;c6&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;d7&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;f7&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;g6&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;g4&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;f3&lt;/strong&gt;. In the Knight's Square Method, the idea is to move the queen to one of these squares (preferably one away from your king to avoid collisions in time trouble!) and then simply &quot;copy&quot; the opposite king's move. &#xA;Thus, in the position below, White first moves the queen to a &quot;knight-square&quot; &lt;strong&gt;1. Qc6!&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/EpvW1.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After that, the White Queen can &quot;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;copy&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; the Black King's moves and remain in the &lt;strong&gt;knight's square&lt;/strong&gt;, except, &lt;strong&gt;I REPEAT!!&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;except when the king moves to the corner&lt;/strong&gt; (&lt;strong&gt;a1&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;a8&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;h1&lt;/strong&gt;, or &lt;strong&gt;h8&lt;/strong&gt;). For example, king moves right one square, queen moves right one square; king moves diagonally up one square, queen moves diagonally up one square. Once the Black King is driven to one of edge ranks or files, White brings the King to deliver the checkmate. This is demonstrated below. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  [FEN &quot;8/8/8/8/3k4/8/8/K6Q w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;  1. Qc6 Ke5 (1... Kd3 2. Qc5 Kd2 3. Qc4 Ke3 4. Qd5 Kf4 5. Qe6 Kf3 6. Qe5 Kg4 &#xA;  7. Qf6 Kg3 8. Qf5 Kg2 9. Qf4 Kg1 10. Qf3 Kh2 11. Qg4 Kh1 12. Kb2 Kh2 13. Kc2 Kh1&#xA;  14. Kd2 Kh2 15. Ke2 Kh1 16. Kf2 Kh2 17. Qg2#) 2. Qd7 Kf6 (2... Kf4 3. Qe6 Kf3&#xA;  4. Qe5 Kf2 5. Qe4 Kf1 6. Qe3 Kg2 7. Qf4 Kg1 8. Qf3 Kh2 9. Qg4 Kh1 10. Kb2 Kh2&#xA;  11. Kc2 Kh1 12. Kd2 Kh2 13. Ke2 Kh1 14. Kf2 Kh2 15. Qg2#) 3. Qe8 Kg5 (3... Kg7&#xA;  4. Qe6 Kf8 5. Qd7 Kg8 6. Kb2 Kf8 7. Kc3 Kg8 8. Kd4 Kf8 9. Ke5 Kg8 10. Kf6 Kf8&#xA;  11. Qf7#) 4. Qf7 Kg4 5. Qf6 Kg3 6. Qf5 Kg2 7. Qf4 Kg1 8. Qf3 Kh2 9. Qg4 Kh1 10.&#xA;  Kb2 Kh2 11. Kc2 Kh1 12. Kd2 Kh2 13. Ke2 Kh1 14. Kf2 Kh2 15. Qg2# &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes, one's own King can get in the way of the Queen in this method, as shown below. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;     [FEN &quot;8/8/8/2k5/4K3/5Q2/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;     1. Qb3 Kd6 2. Qc4 Ke7 3. Qd5 Kf6 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In such cases, the King can simply be moved away and the same method continues. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;     [FEN &quot;8/8/5k2/3Q4/4K3/8/8/8 w - - 0 4&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;     1. Kf4 Kg6 2. Qe5 Kh6 3. Qf5 Kg7 4. Qe6 Kh7 5. Qf6 Kg8 6. Qe7 Kh8&#xA;     7. Kg5 Kg8 8. Kg6 Kh8 9. Qg7# *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As mentioned before, the one &lt;strong&gt;pitfall&lt;/strong&gt; to be avoided in this method is the stalemate that can occur when mistakenly occupying the knight's square when the king is in the corner. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;     [FEN &quot;8/8/8/4Q3/8/8/6k1/K7 w - - 0 9&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;     1. Qf4 Kh1 2. Qg3 $4 (2. Qg4 $1)  &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2429" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2014-03-05T02:37:28.530" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4936" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4925" CreationDate="2014-03-05T08:40:13.733" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;The question of whether chess is a sport depends entirely on the context of the question. In certain situations, it may be useful to classify chess as a sport. For example, as you mention, in some schools chess is considered a sport because it matches the requirements of a sport in that context - an activity that pupils can engage in outside of academic learning that essentially keeps them out of trouble. Yet in other contexts, as when sport means to exercise some muscle group or improve fitness or some physical ability, chess would not typically be considered a sport. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On a deeper, philosophical level, the question is meaningless. &quot;Sport&quot; has no objective, unambiguous definition, it is a cultural concept that changes in meaning depending on time, culture, fashion and many other factors.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1816" LastActivityDate="2014-03-05T08:40:13.733" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4937" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4926" CreationDate="2014-03-05T08:49:49.677" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Firstly, I think it is fallacious to consider chess a measure of intelligence (even though that is the general view). Chess ability, like almost any other skill-based activity, is a function of hard work and dedication far above raw talent. Wikipedia has an entry on this topic (&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess#Chess_and_intelligence&quot;&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess#Chess_and_intelligence&lt;/a&gt;) - researchers have found that there actually exists a somewhat inverse relationship between chess ability and intelligence amongst novice players - the reasoning being that smarter chess players do not work as hard on their skill as their less-gifted contemporaries - and in the long run, hard work pays off.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Secondly, you have to consider that computers and humans play chess very differently. Where a computer engages in millions of raw calculations, humans rely more on experience and pattern recognition to evaluate positions. The fact that computers can beat humans are essentially meaningless, as we are not comparing a like-for-like ability.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To say that chess computers have diminished the human skill of chess is, in my opinion, equivalent to saying that auto-mobiles have somehow diminished the skill and ability of marathon runners.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1816" LastActivityDate="2014-03-05T08:49:49.677" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4938" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4940" CreationDate="2014-03-05T12:58:36.093" Score="8" ViewCount="379" Body="&lt;p&gt;I played as black in the following game, and with the help of StockFish I've discovered a few mistakes, one of which was a very serious tactical blunder. However, I'm having trouble figuring out where I went wrong &lt;em&gt;strategically&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2014.03.04&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Stockfish DD (50.0%)&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Ralph&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[StartPly &quot;16&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 e6 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.c4 d5 4.Nc3 Bb4 5.a3 Bxc3+ 6.bxc3 O-O 7.e3 Nbd7 8.Bd3 &#xA;c5 9.Bb2 dxc4 10.Bxc4 Nb6 11.Be2 Nbd7 12.c4 a6 13.a4 Ne4 14.O-O b6 15.Qc2 &#xA;Ndf6 16.Ne5 Bb7 17.Rfd1 Qc7 18.Bd3 Nd6 19.a5 cxd4 20.axb6 Qc5 21.Bxd4 Qc8 &#xA;22.c5 Nd7 23.Bxh7+ Kh8 24.cxd6 Qxc2 25.Bxc2 Nxe5 26.Bxe5 f6 27.Bg3 Kg8 28.&#xA;Bb3 a5 29.d7 Ra6 30.Bc7 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are some of the specific mistakes that I've spotted, which you might like to add to or elaborate on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;From what I can tell, &lt;code&gt;12...a6&lt;/code&gt; was a mistake because of &lt;code&gt;13.a4&lt;/code&gt;, leaving me with a weak b pawn and a cramped Q-side.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;StockFish pointed out that &lt;code&gt;15...Ndf6&lt;/code&gt; was a mistake. I'm guessing this is because it allows white to place a knight on e5?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;StockFish showed me that &lt;code&gt;19...cxd4&lt;/code&gt; was a massive blunder resulting in the loss of two pawns and two passed pawns for white.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My original plan, rudimentary as it was, was to aim Queen and bishop at white's K-side down the a8-h1 diagonal, then double my rooks on the semi-open D-file, and finally launch an attack on the king using my knights. As it turned out, I failed to coordinate my pieces properly and was unable to even begin implementing this plan due to white's threats. I just wonder:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Was this the correct plan to begin with, and if so, how could I have implemented it better?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If not, what would a good plan have looked like?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Based on my play in this game, do you feel I need to &quot;go back to school&quot; to learn anything, and if so, what specifically?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your advice is very much appreciated!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2078" LastEditorUserId="2078" LastEditDate="2014-03-05T13:10:19.593" LastActivityDate="2014-03-30T06:08:59.270" Title="What plan should black have followed in this game?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4939" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5274" CreationDate="2014-03-05T17:19:00.490" Score="10" ViewCount="1673" Body="&lt;p&gt;One time I saw GM Gawain Jones playing a blitz game where he castled by placing one hand on his King and Rook. With a quick twist, the pieces were in the castled position. It happened so quickly, I didn't quite see how he did it, but I was mighty impressed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Normally, a player will move his King, then use the same hand to move the Rook afterwards, but has anybody else seen (or done themselves) a one-motion castling?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1801" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-03-18T07:14:27.857" LastActivityDate="2016-05-27T13:58:02.310" Title="How do you castle in one smooth motion?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;castling&gt;&lt;etiquette&gt;&lt;rooks&gt;&lt;kings&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4940" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4938" CreationDate="2014-03-05T19:30:09.077" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Plans are not usually so long range and specific. Your opponent will be trying to do things that you cannot ignore. Plans are often a collection of piece improvement ideas that work together to control important squares and put pressure on your opponents position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Part of your plan could be developing your light square bishop on b7. This looks to help control the central light squares, and might long term put pressure on white's kingside. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to put your bishop on b7, then b7-b6 is a priority. a7-a6 does not go with this idea, as you point out. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White's bishop on c4 does not have a lot to do and does not need to be driven off with 10...Nb6. This also gets in the way of developing your bishop to b7.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On move 10, white's bishop on b2 is not very good. You should look to controlling the d5-square to prevent white d4-d5. You should support your pawn on c5. It brings pressure on white's center, and if white takes d4xc5 his pawn structure will be weakened. Qc7, Rfd8, Rac8 look like good places for the heavy pieces to help control the central squares, and the possibility of white ending up with weak pawns on the c or d files. Qc7 and Nd7 help control e5, and might provide a chance for an e6-e5 break.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A knight posted on e4 goes well with a bishop on b7.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This plan on move 10 would need to be continually adjusted based on what white does.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2359" LastActivityDate="2014-03-05T19:30:09.077" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4941" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4931" CreationDate="2014-03-05T19:53:08.137" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The basic idea is to constrain the enemy king with the bishops working together on a pair of diagonals, just as with a rook you work with ranks and files to push the enemy king to the side of the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With two bishops you need to drive the king to one of the corners.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We'll first start with the ending moves to know where you want to go.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[Event &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;????.??.??&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Checkmate with two bishops&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;example&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[SetUp &quot;1&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;3k4/8/1K6/1B6/1B6/8/8/8 w - - 0 0&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;11&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Bd6 Kc8 2. Be7 Kb8 3. Bd7 Ka8 4. Bh3 Kb8 5. Bd6+ Ka8 6. Bg2# 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is a longer example using the bishops to block along diagonals to force the opponent to the side, then the corner.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[Event &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;????.??.??&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Another two bishops checkmate&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;example&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[SetUp &quot;1&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;8/8/8/4k3/8/8/8/2B1KB2 w - - 0 0&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;39&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Bd3 Kd5 2. Bb2 Kd6 3. Kd2 Kc5 4. Kc3&#xA;Kd5 5. Kb4 Kd6 6. Bc4 Kc6 7. Bd4 Kd6 8. Kb5 Ke7 9. Kc6 Kf8 10. Bf6 Ke8 11. Kd6&#xA;Kf8 12. Be6 Ke8 13. Ke5 Kf8 14. Kf5 Ke8 15. Kg6 Kf8 16. Bd7 Kg8 17. Bc3 Kf8 18.&#xA;Bb4+ Kg8 19. Be6+ Kh8 20. Bc3# 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that 10. Kd7  would be stalemate. You want to keep your king two squares from the side till near the end.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The last few moves, it is good to check the king into the corner mate, so that you don't stalemate by accident.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2359" LastEditorUserId="2359" LastEditDate="2014-03-05T22:51:56.087" LastActivityDate="2014-03-05T22:51:56.087" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4942" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-03-05T19:59:06.727" Score="5" ViewCount="1052" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm trying out kings indian against d4 openings but there is one problem... I get mated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can't defend after castling under the h7 g6 f7 pawn structure. Somehow it works as an opening with an opening for infiltrating enemy attackers. I.e. the a1-h8 diagonal seems like it is built by traitors on my team. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now my question to you is, what am I overlooking? How do I defend the g7 square? How do I stop enemies from getting too close to this strange triangle of mine (f6 and h6)? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To be precise: it is this pawn triangle that I can not defend when I have castled under it. Does not matter if it is with white or black pieces, queen side or king side.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: since I know now what it is called, I am talking about the &quot;&lt;em&gt;house&lt;/em&gt;&quot;. I am not talking about some specific game or in the opening. It is later in the game, the bishop has probably been sent off for patting nearby pawns. The king is left in the house-of-holes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="58" LastEditorUserId="58" LastEditDate="2014-03-06T13:55:53.917" LastActivityDate="2014-03-07T16:48:31.513" Title="Pawn structure in king's indian or grünfeld" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;fianchetto&gt;&lt;kings-indian&gt;&lt;grunfeld-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4943" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4931" CreationDate="2014-03-06T05:56:53.307" Score="25" Body="&lt;p&gt;I always like to explain this in a visual way. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Basic Idea&lt;/strong&gt;: Keep the bishops &lt;em&gt;together&lt;/em&gt;. They form a large &lt;em&gt;net&lt;/em&gt; (restricted area) from which the opponent king cannot escape. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/w5HUl.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Step 1: Push Opponent's King To Edge Rank or File&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Keeping the bishops together and using the king for support, make the restricted area smaller to push the opponent's king back to an &lt;strong&gt;edge&lt;/strong&gt; rank or file. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;     [FEN &quot;8/8/8/3k4/8/8/8/K2BB3 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;    1. Bd2 Ke4 2. Be2 Kd5 3. Kb2 Ke4 4. Kc3 Kd5 5. Bd3 Ke5 6. Be3 Kd5 &#xA;    7. Bd4 Kd6 8.Be4 Ke6 9. Kc4 Kd6 10. Bd5 Ke7 11. Be5 Kd7 12. Kc5 Ke7 &#xA;    13. Kc6 Kf8 14. Bf6 Ke8 15. Be6 Kf8  &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1. Bd2 Ke4 2. Be2&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/TQe3h.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;2...Kd5 3. Kb2 Ke4 4. Kc3 Kd5 5. Bd3 Ke5 6. Be3&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/dTkNE.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;6...Kd5 7. Bd4 Kd6 8.Be4&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/3ZUr6.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;8...Ke6 9. Kc4 Kd6 10. Bd5 Ke7 11. Be5&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/hJdWJ.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;11...Kd7 12. Kc5 Ke7 13. Kc6 Kf8 14. Bf6 Ke8 15. Be6 Kf8&lt;/strong&gt; (note: I intentionally chose the &lt;strong&gt;13...Kf8&lt;/strong&gt; line because that is more instructive. For the &lt;strong&gt;13...Kd8&lt;/strong&gt; line, please see the sample mates provided at the end).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ltctC.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Step 1 Accomplished!&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Step 2: Push the Opponent's King to a Corner&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the above position, we shall choose the &lt;strong&gt;h8&lt;/strong&gt; corner. The key is to keep the opponent's king on the back rank while slowly taking away squares from the other side. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The idea now is to move the king over to the right hand side via &lt;strong&gt;Kc6-d5-e5-f5-g6&lt;/strong&gt; to cover &lt;strong&gt;f7&lt;/strong&gt; and then move the bishop to &lt;strong&gt;d7&lt;/strong&gt; to cover &lt;strong&gt;e8&lt;/strong&gt;, thereby pushing the opponent's king to the corner. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/kNWD5.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;   [FEN &quot;5k2/8/2K1BB2/8/8/8/8/8 w - - 0 16&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;   1. Kd5 Ke8 2. Ke5 Kf8 3. Kf5 Ke8 4. Kg6 Kf8 5. Bd7 Kg8&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, we can take control over &lt;strong&gt;f8&lt;/strong&gt;, thereby pushing the opponent's king to the corner. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Ah04o.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;   [FEN &quot;6k1/3B4/5BK1/8/8/8/8/8 w - - 0 21&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;   1. Be7 Kh8&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Step 2 Accomplished!&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Step 3: Checkmate the Cornered King&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here, it is important to be careful to avoid a common &lt;strong&gt;stalemate&lt;/strong&gt; that occurs in this position. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/3qPVp.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We observe that White has to make a &lt;strong&gt;waiting move&lt;/strong&gt; in order to challenge the &lt;strong&gt;g8&lt;/strong&gt; square &lt;strong&gt;with check&lt;/strong&gt;, so that then after &lt;strong&gt;Kh8&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;Bf6+&lt;/strong&gt; would be mate. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/v4xwl.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And now the mate is easy. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    [FEN &quot;7k/3BB3/6K1/8/8/8/8/8 w - - 0 22&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;    1. Be8 Kg8 2. Bf7+ Kh8 3. Bf6#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Below, I have included other types of checkmates that can occur if Black play's differently. I've also included the fastest mate from the original position which starts with &lt;strong&gt;1.Bc3!&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    [FEN &quot;8/8/8/3k4/8/8/8/K2BB3 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;    1. Bd2 (1. Bc3 Ke4 2. Kb2 Kd3 3. Bf3 Ke3 4. Bd5 Kd3 5. Be5 Kd2 (5... Ke3) 6.&#xA;    Bd4 Kd3 7. Bc5 Ke2 8. Kc2 Kf1 9. Kd3 Ke1 10. Bg2 Kd1 11. Bf2 Kc1 12. Kc3 Kd1&#xA;    13. Bf3+ Kc1 14. Be3+ Kb1 15. Kb3 Ka1 16. Bd1 Kb1 17. Bc2+ Ka1 18. Bd4#) 1...&#xA;    Ke4 2. Be2 Kd5 3. Kb2 Ke4 4. Kc3 Kd5 5. Bd3 Ke5 6. Be3 Kd5 7. Bd4 (7. Bf4 Kc5&#xA;    8. Be4 Kb5 9. Be3 Ka6 10. Kc4 Ka5 11. Bc6 (11. Bb7 Ka4 12. Bb6 Ka3 13. Kc3 Ka4&#xA;    14. Bc6+ Ka3 15. Bc5+ Ka2 16. Kc2 Ka1 17. Ba4 Ka2 18. Bb3+ Ka1 19. Bd4#) 11...&#xA;    Ka6 12. Bc5 Ka5 13. Kd5 Ka6 14. Kd6 Ka5 15. Kc7 Ka6 16. Bb4 Ka7 17. Bb5 Ka8 18.&#xA;    Ba5 Ka7 19. Bb6+ Ka8 20. Bc6#) 7... Kd6 8. Be4 Ke6 9. Kc4 Kd6 10. Bd5 Ke7 11.&#xA;    Be5 Kd7 12. Kc5 Ke7 13. Kc6 Kf8 (13... Kd8 14. Bd6 Ke8 15. Be6 Kd8 16. Bf7 Kc8&#xA;    17. Be7 Kb8 18. Kb6 Kc8 19. Be6+ Kb8 20. Bd6+ Ka8 21. Bd5#) (13... Ke8 14. Bd6&#xA;    Kd8 15. Bf7 Kc8 16. Be7 Kb8 17. Kb6 Kc8 18. Be6+ Kb8 19. Bd6+ Ka8 20. Bd5#) 14.&#xA;    Bf6 Ke8 15. Be6 Kf8 16. Kd5 Ke8 17. Ke5 Kf8 18. Kf5 Ke8 19. Kg6 Kf8 20. Bd7 Kg8&#xA;    21. Be7 Kh8 22. Be8 Kg8 23. Bf7+ Kh8 24. Bf6# *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2429" LastEditorUserId="2429" LastEditDate="2014-03-06T06:08:43.347" LastActivityDate="2014-03-06T06:08:43.347" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4945" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4927" CreationDate="2014-03-06T13:48:27.150" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes. A grandmaster or a team of grandmasters can hold a draw or win against an engine when given time odds.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think that there is a minimum time control at which an engine can perform equally good or better than a grandmaster (without time odds). I guess this number is somewhere around 2 or 3 minutes for the whole game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's say for simplicity that it is 5 minutes. So the engine needs 5 minutes for the whole game to perform at a decent level. Now, how many minutes does a grandmaster need to match an engine that has 5 minutes?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It depends. In the opening, the human player needs to be well prepared. Otherwise, it doesn't matter too much if the player has 5 or 50 minutes for the opening part. In the middlegame, my guess is that the player should avoid sharp positions and go for calm waters to reach an equal or slightly better endgame. Try to keep a healthy pawn structure and find long term advantages.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The endgame is where the player has a good chance of holding a draw or winning the game. In general, the more time for middlegame and endgame, the better. I would say that around 20 minutes for the opening, 40 minutes for the middlegame and 40 minutes for the endgame should give the human player a fair chance. That gives a 20:1 ratio (engine has 5 minutes).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a rough guess and it needs to be tested in practice. Such a test would be interesting! If the player has a chance to practice against the engine, then the player will of course be even better prepared for a match. I guess such a preparation is pretty normal for human versus machine matches.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My guess would be that the engine's strength grows faster per additional minute than the human strength per additional 20 minutes. When the engine has 15 or 20 minutes for the whole game, it might already be difficult for the human player to match its strength, despite having extra time. Yet, a team of grandmasters should cope pretty well (given time odds).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastActivityDate="2014-03-06T13:48:27.150" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4946" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4942" CreationDate="2014-03-06T14:51:24.623" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Attacking/Defending the empty house&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is going to be a long answer that will require several edits to complete, but I wanted there to be an answer started.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not moving a pawn in front of the king leads it to be vulnerable to back rank mates. Moving a pawn in front of the king (making luft) creates holes that can be exploited (particularly by knights). Each disturbance has its own peculiarities. CJS Purdy wrote an article that started to outline the weaknesses of the various pawn structures, but he barely scratched the surface of the problem.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this &lt;strong&gt;first example&lt;/strong&gt; Judit Polgar defends a piece with tactics. Her opponent takes the piece, giving up her fianchettoed bishop, and is promptly punished for the crass materialism. It is important when winning material with the use of the bishop, to check that you are not leaving yourself open. Particularly if your opponent retains his corresponding bishop.  I wrote a blog post that expands on this example &lt;a href=&quot;http://newshutzchess.blogspot.com/2012/04/vulnerability-and-kingside-fianchetto.html&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[Event &quot;Thessaloniki&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Thessaloniki&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;1988.??.??&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Judit Polgar&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Pavlina Angelova&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;B31&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;33&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 g6 4.O-O Bg7 5.c3 e5 6.d4 exd4 7.cxd4&#xA;Nxd4 8.Nxd4 cxd4 9.e5 Ne7 10.Bg5 O-O 11.Qxd4 Nc6 12.Qh4 Qb6&#xA;13.Nc3 Bxe5 14.Rae1 Bxc3 15.bxc3 Qxb5 16.Qh6 Qf5 17.Qxf8+ 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White will mate with Bh6+ and Re8#. This is a variety of back rank mate. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this &lt;strong&gt;second example&lt;/strong&gt;, a current line from the Catalan Opening, White gives up his fianchettoed bishop for a pawn, but leaving black with the corresponding bishop and better development. All white has is the pawn, but this position is considered a slight edge for white.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[Event &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;????.??.??&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Open Catalan&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Theory Line&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;*&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;27&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. c4 e6 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. g3 Be7 5. Bg2 O-O 6. O-O dxc4 7. Ne5 Nc6 8.&#xA;Bxc6 bxc6 9. Nxc6 Qe8 10. Nxe7+ Qxe7 11. Qa4 e5 12. dxe5 Qxe5 13. Qxc4 Be6 14.&#xA;Qd3 *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White will block the long diagonal with f2-f3 and e2-e4 as needed. He will defend the g2 square with heavy pieces, and eventually gain pressure on blacks c7-pawn. White may need to return the b2-pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;h-file attack&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is the way many approach prying open the fianchettoed king. The variation against the Pirc defense is named the 150-attack after the British rating system for about 1700 ELO. It fails miserably against the Gruenfeld, because the center is too open for a wing attack, and has trouble against the KID, because white's c2-c4 move is mostly wasted, and makes the white king less safe on the queenside, but if black plays passively, it can work. This plan is most famous in the Yugoslav dragon, but black has found many resources that have caused white to shift to more flexible plans in the Yugoslav.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The key elements are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;a bishop and queen battery on e3 and d2 respectfully, The bishop will go to h6 and trade off the bishop on g7&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;pawns on e4 and f3, that protect the battery and support g2-g4&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;queenside castling to allow both rooks to come to the h-file&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the advance of the h-pawn to trade on g6 and open the h-file&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;one or more rook sacrifices on the h-file to open things up.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is a manufactured game that shows the basic plan. Black plays many time wasting moves that modern players of the Dragon would not play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[Event &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;????.??.??&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Sicilian Dragon,Yugoslav Attack&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Too slow, too late&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;47&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 g6 6. Be3 Nc6 7. f3 Bg7 8. Qd2&#xA;O-O 9. O-O-O Bd7 10. h4 Qa5 11. g4 Rfc8 12. Nb3 Qc7 13. h5 Ne5 14. Be2 b5 15.&#xA;hxg6 fxg6 16. Bh6 b4 17. Nd5 Nxd5 18. Bxg7 Kxg7?? 19. Qh6+ Kf6 20. g5+ Kf7 21.&#xA;Qxh7+ Kf8 22. Qh8+ Kf7 23. Rh7+ Ke6 24. Nd4# 1-0&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To handle this attack, it is of critical importance for black to get an attack rolling quickly on the queenside or the center, and not to panic. 18...Kxg7?? is a huge blunder, while 18...Ne3 saves, as 19.Qxe3?? Qxc2#&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other ideas to keep in mind:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;open up the center. This is one way that KID players try to disrupt the Saemisch&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;sometimes h7-h5 can be played to block the opening of the h-file. This is risky if white has a bishop on the a2-g8 diagonal&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;trade or divert white's bishop from the c1-h6 diagonal.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Next edit will talk about the f-file attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2359" LastEditorUserId="2359" LastEditDate="2014-03-07T16:48:31.513" LastActivityDate="2014-03-07T16:48:31.513" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4947" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-03-06T15:24:47.653" Score="8" ViewCount="509" Body="&lt;p&gt;The average number of moves in a game of chess is about 40. This would be an average of about 80 positions in each game, but many positions are shared between games. More sharing occurs at the beginning and end of the game. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;New positions arise as games are played. As we add new games to the database of chess games, how many new positions will be added by each game?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In probability terms, if the number of new positions added by a game is a random variable, what is the expected value?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The practical result of this answer might be how large a key would a position table need in a database.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2359" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-10-17T19:22:52.963" LastActivityDate="2019-10-17T19:22:52.963" Title="What is the approximate number of unique positions added by each practical game of chess?" Tags="&lt;statistics&gt;&lt;database&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="4948" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2014-03-06T15:39:15.153" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2014-03-06T15:39:15.153" LastActivityDate="2014-03-06T15:39:15.153" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4949" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2014-03-06T15:39:15.153" Score="0" Body="Questions that concern downloading chess games." OwnerUserId="2001" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-03-06T16:42:32.757" LastActivityDate="2014-03-06T16:42:32.757" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4950" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-03-06T16:33:57.913" Score="4" ViewCount="235" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess players often say that in a given tournament they were &quot;in good shape&quot;, or the opposite. One tournament goes well, another goes horribly wrong. One can also sometimes feel that your head is working well, and tactics are calculated more easily than usual. There are days when it feels the opposite. Is there a test that can tell me &quot;how well is my head working today&quot;? The goal is not to measure relative skill of several players, but rather to measure the day-to-day condition of a single player, whose overall chess experience and strength is roughly stable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="618" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-03-10T08:08:16.430" LastActivityDate="2014-03-10T08:08:16.430" Title="Is there a standardized chess test that can measure one's chess playing condition?" Tags="&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;statistics&gt;&lt;calculation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4951" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4939" CreationDate="2014-03-06T17:20:38.167" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think this is plain illegal, according to FIDE rules, all moves must be made with one hand (in castling by picking the king first).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As side note, it is also illegal to move with one hand and press the clock button with a different hand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fide.com/fide/handbook?id=124&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.fide.com/fide/handbook?id=124&amp;amp;view=article&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's true that § 4.1 &quot;Each move must be made with one hand only.&quot; but that doesn't imply that the single hand can't touch both King and Rook simultaneously. Indeed, that possibility is anticipated by § 4.4a &quot;If a player having the move: deliberately touches his king and rook he must castle on that side if it is legal to do so.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2607" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2014-03-07T00:08:55.460" LastActivityDate="2014-03-07T00:08:55.460" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4952" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4950" CreationDate="2014-03-06T18:21:31.900" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;From what I've learnt, the only way to find out how good you are today is by finding out how good you are today. IOW, there is no substitute for playing some games of chess to find out how good you are.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Matthew:out&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2637" LastActivityDate="2014-03-06T18:21:31.900" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4953" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4950" CreationDate="2014-03-06T20:40:58.900" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I do not know of any such standardized chess test. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But here are some general questions you should ask yourself. The &quot;correct&quot; answers are provided in parenthesis. If you answer all correctly, you should be in good shape. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Physical Preparation&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Have I had enough sleep? (Yes)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Have I had enough food to give me sufficient energy for the game? (Yes)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Have I over-eaten? (No)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Do I feel stressed out? (No)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Is my body in good shape without any kind of aches? (Yes)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Are my eyes relaxed? (Yes) &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Do I feel sick? (No)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Do I feel fresh? (Yes)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Do I feel tired? (No)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Mental Preparation&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Is anything bothering me? (e.g. angry exchange with co-worker) (No)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Is there something else on my mind that can be a distraction (e.g. date with girlfriend)? (No)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Do I have a headache? (No)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Am I under the influence of alcohol or any such other drug? (No)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Chess Preparation&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Have I made good opening preparation for the game? (Yes)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Am I afraid of my opponent? (No)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Have I practiced chess tactics recently? (Yes)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Am I confident that I can play well? (Yes)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you answered all &quot;correctly&quot;, you're in really good shape. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S. (I'll add more to the list as and when I remember)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2429" LastEditorUserId="2429" LastEditDate="2014-03-07T14:45:54.447" LastActivityDate="2014-03-07T14:45:54.447" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4954" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1652" CreationDate="2014-03-07T02:38:37.677" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Another useful is to always, before committing a move, check briefly what would be the best opponent's reply.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2607" LastActivityDate="2014-03-07T02:38:37.677" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4955" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1372" CreationDate="2014-03-07T02:56:25.607" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Bondarevsky, in the good old classic &quot;Combinations in the middle game&quot; recommends building a catalog of combinations classifying them for topic, resultant attack, motives, etc. He also recommends studying games of heavy tactical content.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2607" LastActivityDate="2014-03-07T02:56:25.607" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4957" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4947" CreationDate="2014-03-07T13:44:22.277" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The total number of possible positions in chess is estimated to be 10^43, so the key would need to be extremely large.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As to how many new positions you could expect from an incremental game load, that would depend highly on the current state of the database. For example: the first game would necessarily be all new positions, the second would share at least one position with the first (the starting position) and could otherwise either completely duplicate the first game or deviate entirely. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What seems certain is that as your n rises for positions, the expected value of new positions from an incrementally loaded game would decrease heavily. If you had somehow loaded every game of chess ever played (recorded or otherwise), the expectation of a new position occurring in the next loaded game would be very small indeed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2640" LastActivityDate="2014-03-07T13:44:22.277" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4958" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1372" CreationDate="2014-03-07T19:57:35.400" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Try &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Here&lt;/a&gt; and just do the daily tactics. you are only allowed 3 a day for a free account but if you upgrade your account you have unlimited. You could also invest in a tactics book.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2643" LastActivityDate="2014-03-07T19:57:35.400" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4959" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4947" CreationDate="2014-03-08T09:21:24.443" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Typical large databases like chessbase, chess-db.com, etc. contain up to 10 million chess games in total, which is roughly about 500 millions positions. Thus, if you want to encode/enumerate them in some way it would require at least 32 bit key.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, something like the Zobrist hash (see &lt;a href=&quot;http://research.cs.wisc.edu/techreports/1970/TR88.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; or &lt;a href=&quot;http://web.archive.org/web/20070810003508/http://www.seanet.com/~brucemo/topics/zobrist.htm%29&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt;) &#xA;is a one way hash function considered to perform well in encoding chess position in 64 bits without collisions. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2194" LastActivityDate="2014-03-08T09:21:24.443" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4961" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4962" CreationDate="2014-03-09T02:33:00.733" Score="12" ViewCount="32477" Body="&lt;p&gt;In other words, after white's move, black king is not in check.  It is now black's move, but any move that black could make results in check.  Is this a checkmate?  Is there a chess term for this situation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2652" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-03-10T08:07:32.990" LastActivityDate="2021-01-05T22:09:54.203" Title="Is it technically a checkmate if the king is not in check, but all moves will result in check?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;terminology&gt;&lt;kings&gt;&lt;stalemate&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4962" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4961" CreationDate="2014-03-09T03:01:58.333" Score="21" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Putting your king in check is not a legal move as you've realized.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Of course, if Black has any OTHER legal moves he can and should play one of them!&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If a side &lt;strong&gt;TO MOVE&lt;/strong&gt; does not have ANY legal moves, that would be a &lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalemate&quot;&gt;stalemate&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt;, not a &lt;strong&gt;checkmate&lt;/strong&gt; (which is delivered only by the side making the check)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1751" LastActivityDate="2014-03-09T03:01:58.333" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4963" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4967" CreationDate="2014-03-09T17:39:21.953" Score="23" ViewCount="3395" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this position, the black move 1. ... Qc3 results in &lt;strong&gt;two consecutive forced moves&lt;/strong&gt;, Kxc3 and Ke7:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;2rkr3/2p5/2q5/8/8/8/3KP3/3R4 b - - 0 1&#xA;&#xA;1... Qc3 2. Kxc3 Ke7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the longest sequence of mutually forced moves that can be constructed on a standard chessboard?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user2659" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-06T19:29:57.993" LastActivityDate="2021-02-06T08:14:31.737" Title="Longest sequence of mutually forced moves" Tags="&lt;problems&gt;&lt;records&gt;&lt;forced-move&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4964" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1720" CreationDate="2014-03-09T18:04:32.280" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think this picture describes the situation quite well. It was created from 400k games, and considers only plain piece material.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/fNxTD.png&quot; alt=&quot;Win Probability/Pawn Advantage&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessprogramming.org/Pawn_Advantage,_Win_Percentage,_and_Elo&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot; title=&quot;Pawn Advantage, Win Percentage, and ELO&quot;&gt;Pawn Advantage, Win Percentage, and ELO&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1025" LastEditorUserId="1025" LastEditDate="2019-08-23T14:49:44.490" LastActivityDate="2019-08-23T14:49:44.490" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="4965" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4963" CreationDate="2014-03-09T18:16:59.170" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;You mean like this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Vilhelm Röpke, Skakbladet 1942, Mate In 6&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;K1k5/P1Pp4/1p1P4/8/p7/P2P4/8/8 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White mates in 6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I guess that's 9 consecutive forced moves. It would be eleven except for black's choice of promotion piece on his fifth move. I don't know if it's a record, and I don't know who composed this classic chess problem.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;P.S.&lt;/strong&gt; Thanks to &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/users/10380/rosie-f&quot;&gt;Rosie F.&lt;/a&gt; for sourcing the problem. Quoting Rosie F.'s comment:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This problem is by Vilhelm Röpke. &lt;a href=&quot;http://pdb.dieschwalbe.de/search.jsp?expression=probid=%27P1180283%27&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;PDB&lt;/a&gt; cites it as &lt;em&gt;Skakbladet&lt;/em&gt;, 1942.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2299" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-01-28T23:35:51.930" LastActivityDate="2021-01-28T23:35:51.930" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="4967" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4963" CreationDate="2014-03-09T19:14:33.640" Score="16" Body="&lt;p&gt;Inspired by Ed Dean's now deleted answer, here is another &quot;infinite loop.”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/6p1/1p3pPk/1P3Pp1/1Pp3p1/KpP3P1/1P6/8 - - - 0 0 &quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2299" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-06T21:20:25.803" LastActivityDate="2020-04-06T21:20:25.803" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="4968" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-03-09T20:53:44.060" Score="2" ViewCount="677" Body="&lt;p&gt;It appears that black has more choices with regard to openings rather than white. While white would typically start with either e4 or d4, or sometimes c4, black has numerous choices for each of these openings. So a black player has a greater chance to out-prepare his opponent. I would like to know about openings white can play which don't involve a central pawn push, but which are nevertheless solid. This can take the black player out of his preparation. I do play the KIA (King's Indian Attack) sometimes. I don't really like the Reti so much though. Any other suggestions?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1811" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-03-10T08:05:31.247" LastActivityDate="2015-07-16T19:49:13.527" Title="openings for white which don't involve a central pawn push" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;pawns&gt;&lt;pawn-structure&gt;&lt;center&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4969" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4968" CreationDate="2014-03-10T01:52:52.367" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Since, you're already familiar with the King's Indian Attack and are looking for a solid line, I recommend playing the &lt;strong&gt;Nimzowitsch Larsen Attack&lt;/strong&gt;, by first playing &lt;strong&gt;1. Nf3&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Normally, the Larsen Attack starts directly with &lt;strong&gt;1. b3&lt;/strong&gt;, but after &lt;strong&gt;1...e5&lt;/strong&gt;, I wouldn't describe the resulting positions as &quot;&lt;strong&gt;solid&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; for White, but rather more &quot;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;dynamic&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  [FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;  1. b3 e5 2. Bb2 Nc6 3. e3 Nf6 4. Nf3 (4. Bb5 Bd6 5. Na3 $5 Na5 $5) &#xA; (4. c4 d5 5. cxd5 Nxd5) (4. d4 exd4 5. exd4 d5) 4... e4 5. Nd4 Nxd4 6. Bxd4 Be7 *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1. Nf3&lt;/strong&gt; avoids the &lt;strong&gt;1...e5&lt;/strong&gt; line, while at the same time maintaining the flexibility of &lt;strong&gt;transposing&lt;/strong&gt; either into the King's Indian Attack or the Nimzowitsch Larsen Attack. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can get positions similar to the Colle System (very solid and easy opening for White to play, without needing much preparation). Here, I give some sample lines where you can play the Nimzowitsch Larsen attack (often transposing to Colle), or, if you don't prefer certain types of positions, transposing back to King's Indian Attack (although rare). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;     [FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;     1. Nf3 Nf6 (1... g6 2. e4 c5 3. d3 Nc6 4. g3 Bg7 5. Bg2 e6 6. O-O) (1... c5 2.&#xA;     b3 d5 3. e3 Nc6 4. Bb2 Bg4 (4... a6 5. d4 Nf6 6. Bd3) 5. Be2 (5. h3 Bxf3 6.&#xA;     Qxf3 a6 7. d4 e6 8. Nd2 Nf6 9. Bd3 cxd4 (9... Nb4 10. dxc5 Bxc5 11. O-O) 10.&#xA;     exd4 Nb4 11. O-O Nxd3 12. Qxd3) 5... Nf6 6. O-O e6 7. c4 (7. d4 cxd4 8. exd4&#xA;     Bd6 9. Nbd2 O-O 10. c4) (7. Ne5 Bxe2 8. Qxe2 Nxe5 9. Bxe5 Be7 10. c4 O-O 11. d3&#xA;     ) 7... Be7 (7... d4 8. Nxd4) 8. cxd5 Qxd5 9. Nc3 Qd7 10. Na4 b6 (10... O-O 11.&#xA;     Bxf6) 11. d4 cxd4 12. Nxd4 Bxe2 13. Qxe2) (1... d6 2. d4 Bg4 3. Nbd2 Nd7 4. h3&#xA;     Bh5 5. b3 Ngf6 6. Bb2) (1... d5 2. b3 Nf6 (2... Bg4 3. Bb2 (3. Ne5 $5 Bh5 4. d4&#xA;     Nd7 5. Nd3 e6 6. Nf4 Bg4 7. h3 Bf5 8. e3 Ngf6 9. Bd3 Bxd3 10. Nxd3 Bd6) 3...&#xA;     Bxf3 4. exf3 e6 5. g3 Nf6 6. f4 Be7 7. Bg2) 3. Bb2 Bg4 4. e3) 2. b3 d5 (2... d6&#xA;     3. d4 g6 4. Bb2 Bg7 5. e3 O-O 6. c4) (2... g6 3. Bb2 Bg7 4. e3 (4. g3 $5) 4...&#xA;     d5 5. d4 O-O 6. Nbd2 Bf5 7. Bd3) 3. Bb2 e6 (3... Bg4 4. e3 e6 5. h3 Bh5 6. c4&#xA;     c6 7. Be2 Nbd7 8. O-O Bd6 9. d4) 4. e3 c5 5. d4 Nc6 6. Bd3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a funny yet practical suggestion. If you really want to take the Black players out of their preparation, then why not try &lt;strong&gt;Anderssen's opening&lt;/strong&gt;? (lol) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;     [FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;     1.a3!? &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Indeed the great Anderssen himself, in his &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chess.pl?tid=79263&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;match with Morphy&lt;/a&gt; (the greatest player of that era), tried this opening and scored one win, one loss and one draw, which is not a bad result at all against a player of Morphy's caliber. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Objectively speaking, the opening doesn't offer White any advantage, but it doesn't make White's position worse either. White essentially plays as Black, as though Black had played an extra move &lt;strong&gt;1...a6&lt;/strong&gt;. As you know, the move &lt;strong&gt;1...a6&lt;/strong&gt; is quite useful in openings like the Ruy Lopez, Najdorf Sicilian, Benoni, Benko Gambit, Slav, etc. White's aim therefore is to play as Black and try to get into these type of positions to make sense of the move &lt;strong&gt;1.a3&lt;/strong&gt;. Practically, this move is worth a try if you want to disrupt Black's preparation or like playing certain positions as Black where &lt;strong&gt;1...a6&lt;/strong&gt; is useful. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I give some sample lines where White tries to get into the desired positions mentioned above. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;      [FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;      1. a3 d5 (1... c5 2. c3 (2. b4 $5 cxb4 3. e4) 2... d5 3. d4 e6 (3... Nc6 4.&#xA;      dxc5 $1) 4. Nf3) (1... Nf6 2. Nf3 d5 3. e3 g6 4. c4) (1... e5 2. c4 Nf6 3. d3&#xA;      Nc6 4. Nf3 d5 5. cxd5 Nxd5 6. e4) 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. e3 c5 4. c4 d4 5. b4 *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2429" LastEditorUserId="2429" LastEditDate="2014-03-12T04:55:55.433" LastActivityDate="2014-03-12T04:55:55.433" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4970" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2014-03-10T15:06:27.193" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2014-03-10T15:06:27.193" LastActivityDate="2014-03-10T15:06:27.193" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4971" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2014-03-10T15:06:27.193" Score="0" Body="The length of a chess game measured in full moves (1 full move = 1 move for white and 1 move for black)." OwnerUserId="2001" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-03-10T16:38:02.610" LastActivityDate="2014-03-10T16:38:02.610" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4972" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-03-10T15:23:46.557" Score="5" ViewCount="1231" Body="&lt;p&gt;In most openings, pawns typically end up at some of the centre squares. There is really no other way to open up the long diagonals(c1-h6,a6-f1) for the bishops. However, how desirable is this? Hypothetically speaking, assuming there were some special rules in chess which allowed bishops to be developed along these long diagonals without having to push away the e and d pawns, would these pawns still end up getting pushed onto the centre squares? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1811" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-03-11T09:22:24.623" LastActivityDate="2014-03-11T09:22:24.623" Title="Pawns in the center: strength or weakness?" Tags="&lt;pawns&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;&lt;pawn-structure&gt;&lt;center&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4973" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4972" CreationDate="2014-03-10T15:24:55.697" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes. The main reason to move your d- and e-pawns forward is to control the center with them. The fact that they allow the bishops to be developed is secondary. (Often bishops are fianchettoed anyway.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2014-03-10T15:24:55.697" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4974" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4972" CreationDate="2014-03-10T16:30:07.883" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Pawns that stand on or guard a central square (e4, d4, d5 or e5) are said to control the center. For example, the white d-pawn has the its maximum center control on d4. Yet, after d2-d4, it loses the potential control over c4 and e4 (the move d2-d3 is no longer possible). So yes, the d- and e-pawn will move forward. Yet, this can create weak squares in the center.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastActivityDate="2014-03-10T16:30:07.883" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4975" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-03-10T16:36:34.720" Score="2" ViewCount="119" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is considered that a Queen and King beats a Rook and King. Yet, the technique can be tricky. How is it done the best way?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastActivityDate="2014-03-10T20:53:11.830" Title="How do you win with a queen against a rook?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;queens&gt;&lt;rooks&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="0" ClosedDate="2014-03-10T23:38:24.297" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4976" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4984" CreationDate="2014-03-10T16:43:54.523" Score="5" ViewCount="286" Body="&lt;p&gt;Bishop and King versus Rook and King is a draw. Yet it is easy to go wrong and lose. How do you hold a draw?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-03-10T18:19:46.277" LastActivityDate="2014-03-11T04:04:25.227" Title="How do you hold a draw with a bishop against a rook?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;draw&gt;&lt;rooks&gt;&lt;bishops&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4977" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4981" CreationDate="2014-03-10T16:50:19.910" Score="22" ViewCount="1094" Body="&lt;p&gt;Knight and King versus Rook and King is a theoretical draw. Yet, you might lose if you don't know the method. How do you hold a draw?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastActivityDate="2016-06-10T01:54:29.260" Title="How do you hold a draw with a knight against a rook?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;draw&gt;&lt;knights&gt;&lt;rooks&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4978" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4927" CreationDate="2014-03-10T20:49:22.437" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your question is stated in such a way, that the answer &lt;strong&gt;Yes&lt;/strong&gt; is almost certain. And I will explain why.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First of all, from mathematical (game theory) point of view, chess is an &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extensive-form_game&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;extensive-form&lt;/a&gt; game, which means that it has a Nash equilibrium. Taken these hard words away, this means that from a &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zermelo%27s_theorem_%28game_theory%29&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;theoretical point of view&lt;/a&gt;, with a perfect game if a game is not a draw, than one of the players have a sure win (think about it as a forced sequence of X moves from starting position to win). So here is where certainty in my first sentence comes from. If computers will be all-powerful, no matter how small the gap will be, they will be able to draw the match (thus grandmasters would not be able to win with any gap).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This was theoretical, but with a current situation, one can always find time-odds to be able to win. For example even I would be able to win the best machine with the following timing: me 240 minutes - machine 10 seconds (try it by yourself). Note, that Sparr correctly stated that ratio will be increased every day, till may it will come to my theoretical conclusion stated in paragraph 1.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note, that Rauans' answer does not take into account one important thing - computer is not sitting and doing nothing while you are thinking! The engine evaluates all possible positions during that time as well. So you can not really sit and wait for a lot of time, thinking that you will overwhelm the machine with your strange move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another important addition is to see the progress of machines and the progress of humans. Take &lt;a href=&quot;http://ratings.fide.com/id.phtml?event=1503014&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Carlsen Magnus&lt;/a&gt; (the strongest human) and check his progress: from Jan 2011 to Mar 2014 he reached from &lt;strong&gt;2814&lt;/strong&gt; to &lt;strong&gt;2881&lt;/strong&gt;. So &lt;strong&gt;67 points in more than 2 years&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Take &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cruxis.com/chess/houdini.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Houdini&lt;/a&gt; from its &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Houdini_%28chess%29&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;1.5a&lt;/a&gt; release in Jan 11 to current 4 release it gained from &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.computerchess.org.uk/ccrl/4040/rating_list_all.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;3200&lt;/strong&gt; to &lt;strong&gt;3313&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt; points. So during the same time &lt;strong&gt;113 points&lt;/strong&gt; (and you know that the higher you stand, the harder to get additional points). Also it was not running on supercomputer (but rather on an average machine :  Athlon 64 X2 4600+ (2.4 GHz)). Also note that chess logic is easy to parallel and check current speed of some of the most powerful distributed hashing network running on specific dedicated hardware: &lt;a href=&quot;https://blockchain.info/charts/hash-rate&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;30 Peta hashes per second&lt;/a&gt; (30 million Gh/s)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also advice not to listen to Fischer's comments, because Elo define a probability of winning and based on the history, it shows pretty nicely who is stronger then who on a high level. So this is not really such a stupid number. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Computers are better than us not only in middle game, they have all opening repertuar (some openings goes far than &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.365chess.com/eco/C89_Ruy_Lopez_Marshall_main_line_Spassky_variation&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;17 moves in depths&lt;/a&gt;) and can include also vast amount of precalculated theoretical novelties, which non of the humans can remember, also they have all &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endgame_tablebase&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;up to 7 pieces endgames&lt;/a&gt; (and even for a good GM it is not as easy to win queen+king vs rook+king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No computer can be better than capablanca|fisher|kasparov? A game in &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Blue_versus_Garry_Kasparov&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;1996 showed otherwise&lt;/a&gt;, and this is ancient age in terms of computers (note that currently even PC on mobile phone &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiarcs&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;HTC in the example is better/on the same level as Carlsen&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="703" LastActivityDate="2014-03-10T20:49:22.437" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4979" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="883" CreationDate="2014-03-10T20:53:11.830" Score="22" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are several key positions from which it is easy to memorize the win. The basic idea is to drive the opposing king to the edge of the board, and then to the corner, where you can force the rook to separate from the king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[Event &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;????.??.??&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;King and Queen&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;King and Rook&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;*&quot;]&#xA;[SetUp &quot;1&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;8/6rk/5K2/3Q4/8/8/8/8 w - - 0 0&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;11&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Qh1+ (1. Qh5+? Kg8 {this is the diagram we want, but the wrong side has the&#xA;move.}) 1... Kg8 2. Qh5 {This is the key position to have with black to move.&#xA;The rook must leave the king} Rg1 (2... Kf8? 3.Qh6) 3. Qd5+ Kh7 4. Qe4+ Kg8 5. Qa8+ Kh7 6. Qa7+ {&#xA;forks the king and rook} *&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first move in the diagram is Qh1+. Qh5+? is a mistake, though the position is the one we want the wrong side is to move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After 2.Qh5 we have the position we want. The rook must leave the protection of the king, and a series of checks will allow a fork of king and rook by the queen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the rook is already separated, then there is usually a sequence of checks that produce the win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[Event &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;????.??.??&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;King and Queen&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;King and Rook&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;*&quot;]&#xA;[SetUp &quot;1&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;8/8/8/4K3/r6k/8/3Q4/8 w - - 0 3&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;9&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;3. Kf5 Kg3 4. Qd3+ Kh4 5. Qc2 Ra5+ 6. Kf4 Kh3 7. Qc3+ *&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2359" LastActivityDate="2014-03-10T20:53:11.830" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4980" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4976" CreationDate="2014-03-10T21:00:39.080" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;First answer, I am hoping that there will be better answers with nice diagrams&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your goal should (could) be to get your king to a corner that is not the colour of your bishop. Your friend stalemate welcomes you there. White can chase you out of the corner, but not without letting you escape to center and eventually into the corner opposite the original corner. Of course if you enter the ending in awkward manner, for example with your king on the edge of the board, some other tactics/strategy may save your life.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess-insights.com/bishop-vs-rook.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;This site&lt;/a&gt; explains the defence in the corner quite well. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess-insights.com/rook-vs-bishop.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Elsewhere on the same site&lt;/a&gt; there is also a tactic for the party with the rook to win if you are near the wrong corner. If you are on the edge of the board, but not near a corner, I think there are cases where you have to play very carefully/accurately.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1167" LastActivityDate="2014-03-10T21:00:39.080" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4981" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4977" CreationDate="2014-03-10T21:18:56.590" Score="22" Body="&lt;p&gt;The weaker side needs to keep Knight &lt;strong&gt;close to his King&lt;/strong&gt; in order to achieve draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are some special cases where the stronger side wins even in those situations, like when Knight is cornered or pinned in such a way that puts weaker side in &lt;em&gt;zugzwang&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the Knight is far away from the King then the result of the game depends whether or not the defending side is able to connect his pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are some demonstrations:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Typical example:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Rook vs Knight, typical drawing plan&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;3nk3/2R5/8/4K3/8/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;] &#xA;&#xA;1.Kd6 Nf7+! ( 1...Kf8?? 2.Rc8 Ke8 3.Ra8+- ) 2.Ke6 Nd8+ 3.Kf6 Kf8 4.Rd7 Ke8 ( 4...Nc6?? 5.Rd6+- ) 5.Re7+ Kf8 6.Re1 Nb7 7.Ke6 Ke8 8.Rb1 Nd8+ 9.Kd6 Nf7+ 10.Ke6 Nd8+ 1/2-1/2 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is useful to mention that in these position the defender &lt;strong&gt;should not allow vertical opposition&lt;/strong&gt;( &lt;code&gt;e6-e8&lt;/code&gt; in the above example ), but &lt;strong&gt;should strive for the diagonal one&lt;/strong&gt;( &lt;code&gt;e8-f6&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;e8/d6&lt;/code&gt; ).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even in the following position, Black is able to maintain a draw:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Drawing plan in a difficult position&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;5nk1/4R3/8/6K1/8/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Kf6 Nh7+! 2.Kg6 Nf8+ 3.Kh6 Kh8 4.Rf7 Kg8 5.Rg7+ Kh8 6.Rg1 Nd7! ( 6...Nh7?? 7.Kg6! Kg8 8.Rg2 Nf8+ 9.Kf6+ Kh8 10.Kf7 Nh7 11.Rg8#) ( 6...Ne6 7.Kg6! Nf8 ( 7...Kg8 8.Kf6+! ) 8.Kf7 Nh7 9.Rg8# ) 7.Kg6 Kg8 8.Rd1 Nf8+ 9.Kf6 Nh7+ 10.Kg6 Nf8+ 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Winning motifs for the stronger side:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We already saw one above-the decisive pinning of the knight that leads to &lt;em&gt;zugzwang&lt;/em&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Decisive zugzwang&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;R2nk3/8/3K4/8/8/8/8/8 w - - 0 1 &quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Rc8 Kf7 2.Rxd8+-&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These motifs happen &lt;strong&gt;due to bad positioning&lt;/strong&gt; of the King:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Defenders pieces are badly positioned : Cornered King&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;6nk/5R2/8/7K/8/8/8/8 w - - 0 1 &quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Kg6+- ( 1.Kg5+- ) &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or badly posted Knight:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Defenders pieces are badly positioned : Knight is away from his King&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;5k2/3R4/2n2K2/8/8/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Rd6 Ne7 2.Rd8# 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another important motif is &lt;strong&gt;cornering the Knight&lt;/strong&gt; :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Cornered Knight&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;6k1/5n2/6K1/8/8/3R4/8/8 w - - 0 1 &quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Rd5! Nh8+ 2.Kf6 Nf7 3.Rd7 Nh6 ( 3...Nh8 4.Ra7+- ) 4.Kg6+-&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes defenders units are not badly placed but just separated. In that case stronger side can win if it can push Knight away from the king since then it will be able to trap it. Here is an example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Knight is too far from his King&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;8/8/8/2k1K3/8/3R4/4n3/8 w - - 0 1 &quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Re3! Ng1 2.Kf5! ( 2.Kf4? Kd4! 3.Re1 Nh3+ 4.Kg3 Ng5 5.Kf4 Nh3+= ) 2...Kd4 3.Kf4 Kc4 4.Kg3 Kd4 5.Re1+-&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;SUMMARY:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The defender must keep his pieces together and avoid being cornered. Maintaining &lt;strong&gt;diagonal&lt;/strong&gt; opposition with kings is desired.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The stronger side has several winning motifs:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Corner the opposing King and then execute double attack with the rook which threatens mate and attacks the Knight.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Corner the Knight and create &lt;em&gt;zugzwang&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Push away the Knight as far away as possible from his King and then trap him.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;In some special cases, exploit bad piece coordination to create decisive &lt;em&gt;zugzwang&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;NOTE:&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples and instructions are taken from the book:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Y.Averbakh - Comprehensive Chess Endings Volume 2&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Best regards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2016-06-10T01:54:29.260" LastActivityDate="2016-06-10T01:54:29.260" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4982" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4972" CreationDate="2014-03-10T21:59:52.510" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The hypermoderns thought that pawn centers were weaknesses subject to attack. Thus came about defenses designed to &quot;entice&quot; center building while developing a way to undermine them. See defenses like the Alekhine or the King's Indian where this is exactly what is done. This is still an undecided question, although current theory believes that occupying the center with pawns is a strength, not a weakness.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2672" LastActivityDate="2014-03-10T21:59:52.510" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4984" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4976" CreationDate="2014-03-11T00:15:43.223" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;INTRODUCTORY NOTE:&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples and instructions are taken from the book:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Y.Averbakh - Comprehensive Chess Endings Volume 2.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;RELEVANT POSITIONS FOR PLAYING THIS ENDGAME SUCCESSFULLY:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I will quote the introduction from the above book:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;It is impossible to win against correct defense, even if the defender's king is driven back to the edge of the board. When retreating under the pressure of the opposing pieces, all he must do is to reach the corner of the opposite color to the bishop. We will call this the safe corner&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Weaker side holds balance&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;7k/R7/7K/8/8/1b6/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Ra8+ Bg8=&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White can't improve his position, since moving his king or moving rook along the 8th row will lead to &lt;em&gt;stalemate&lt;/em&gt;. Black maintains balance &lt;strong&gt;by keeping his bishop on &lt;code&gt;a2-g8&lt;/code&gt; diagonal.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Again, quoting the same resource:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;If the defender's king is in a corner of the same color as his bishop, a win is normally possible. We will correspondingly call this the dangerous corner.&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The following position demonstrates winning method when weaker side has king in &quot;the dangerous corner&quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Horwitz &amp;amp; Kling, 1851&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;6k1/5R2/6K1/8/3b4/8/8/8 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1...Bg1! ( 1...Bc5 2.Rc7 Bf8 3.Rc8+-) 2.Rf1 Bh2! 3.Rf2 Bg3 4.Rg2! Be5 ( 4...Bh4 5.Kh5++- ) ( 4...Bd6 5.Rd2 Be7 6.Rc2!+- ) 5.Re2 Bd6 6.Re8+ Bf8 7.Rd8+-&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black must hide his bishop as in the main line, and we saw how to flush it out and win. The sub-variation shows what happens when he refuses to do so.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is another important position, &lt;strong&gt;where the result depends on who's turn to move is:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Horwitz &amp;amp; Kling, 1851&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;5k2/6R1/5K2/8/8/5b2/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With the kings in opposition mating threats are in the air and if White moves first he is able to win. For the moment bishop is hiding behind the opposing king, but with the above rook maneuver White can flush it out:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Horwitz &amp;amp; Kling, 1851&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;5k2/6R1/5K2/8/8/5b2/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Rg3 Be4 ( 1...Bh5 2.Rh3 Bf7 3.Rh8+ Bg8 4.Kg6+- ) ( 1...Bc6 2.Rc3 Bd7 3.Rb3! Kg8 4.Rb8+ Kh7 5.Rb7+- ) 2.Re3 Bg2 3.Re2! Bf3 4.Rf2+-&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But if it is Blacks turn to move he saves the game by running with his king:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Horwitz &amp;amp; Kling, 1851&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;5k2/6R1/5K2/8/8/5b2/8/8 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1...Ke8! 2.Ke6 Kd8 3.Kd6 Kc8=&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since the &lt;code&gt;c6&lt;/code&gt; square is inaccessible to the White king he is unable to make any mate threats.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These are &lt;strong&gt;the basic positions&lt;/strong&gt; required to know in order to play this endgame well. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the above book were provided &lt;em&gt;studies&lt;/em&gt; which were complex, but can be solved with the knowledge of the above covered positions. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To keep this post clear, concise and useful I will omit them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Best regards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastEditorUserId="2042" LastEditDate="2014-03-11T04:04:25.227" LastActivityDate="2014-03-11T04:04:25.227" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4985" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2014-03-11T09:29:55.780" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;A forced move occurs when there is only one move available. Typically this is when there is only one legal move, but can also refer to positions where only one move will prevent major material loss or checkmate. It is sometimes referred to as box, or a box move, from the ECO symbol for a forced move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9025" LastEditorUserId="9025" LastEditDate="2019-05-07T22:05:51.413" LastActivityDate="2019-05-07T22:05:51.413" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="4986" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2014-03-11T09:29:55.780" Score="0" Body="Questions with this tag can be about why a move is forced, or puzzles/compositions involving forced moves." OwnerUserId="2001" LastEditorUserId="9025" LastEditDate="2019-05-07T22:19:59.323" LastActivityDate="2019-05-07T22:19:59.323" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="4987" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-03-11T13:14:22.433" Score="18" ViewCount="10398" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am teaching my children (5 and 7) to play chess, and we are pretty much at the which piece can move where phase. However while they do enjoy the game, they don't really have an attention span that can play a full game. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What I would like is some way to make changes to the game that will cut game time down so that my kids can enjoy the game, as quality time with Dad and hopefully learn something. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2462" LastActivityDate="2020-11-15T15:01:22.950" Title="Shorter game for play with kids" Tags="&lt;chess-variants&gt;" AnswerCount="9" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4988" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4987" CreationDate="2014-03-11T13:51:02.453" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;One fun game is &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knight%27s_tour&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Knight's tour&lt;/a&gt;. You will need 64 pieces for that (you can play it without the pieces, but it's more fun with the pieces), including the knight. The objective is to capture all the pieces with the knight. The knight can start on any square, but one of the central squares is preferred. It would be a fun game for your kids, while at the same time improving their ability to calculate ahead. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A shorter version of knight's tour would be to play it on one half of the board, with 32 pieces. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, I learned chess when I was 4 or below. Never underestimate kids! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2429" LastActivityDate="2014-03-11T13:51:02.453" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4989" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4987" CreationDate="2014-03-11T14:03:07.537" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I was studying chess my teacher started from explaining opposition concept. After that pawns were added, and rooks, bishops, queen and knights. Just start from small number of pieces and invent new ones when interest to the games will start dawning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2173" LastActivityDate="2014-03-11T14:03:07.537" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4990" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="883" CreationDate="2014-03-11T15:32:40.807" Score="21" Body="&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;&lt;em&gt;INTRODUCTORY NOTE:&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples and instructions are taken from the book:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Y.Averbakh - Comprehensive Chess Endings Volume 3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In many cases I felt no need to &quot;reinvent the wheel&quot; so I quoted the above authors. Those parts will be marked with apostrophes &lt;code&gt;&quot;&quot;&lt;/code&gt;, like this: &quot;This is a quoted text&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Without further delay let us tackle this endgame:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;In endings of this group the stronger side normally wins thanks to its big material advantage. At the same time, in a number of positions the rook's fighting quality enables it to put up a successful defense. &lt;strong&gt;Drawing dangers arise each time that the weaker side's  king, on being pushed to the edge of the board, becomes restricted in its mobility&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;-emphasis are mine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So let us first start with the position in which rook can successfully defend.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Weaker side holds balance: Ponziani, 1782&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;5k2/6r1/4Q3/8/8/8/8/7K b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1...Rh7+ 2.Kg2 Rg7+ 3.Kf3 Rf7+ 4.Kg4 Rg7+ 5.Kf5 Rf7+ 6.Kg6 Rg7+ 7.Kh6 Rh7+! 8.Kxh7 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is another relevant position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Weaker side holds balance: Berger, 1889&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;6k1/6r1/5Q2/8/8/8/8/7K b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1...Rh7+ 2.Kg2 Rg7+ 3.Kh3 Rh7+ 4.Kg4 Rg7+ 5.Kh5 Rh7+ 6. Kg5 ( 6.Kg6 Rh6+! 7.Kxh6= ) 6...Rg7+ 7.Kh6 Rh7+ 8.Kg6 Rh6+! 9.Kxh6 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another important note from the authors:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;If, for example, the queen is moved to &lt;code&gt;f1&lt;/code&gt;,&lt;code&gt;f2&lt;/code&gt;,&lt;code&gt;f3&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;f4&lt;/code&gt;, the game ends in a perpetual check, since the king can not cross the &lt;code&gt;f-file&lt;/code&gt;. But &lt;strong&gt;with his queen at &lt;code&gt;f5&lt;/code&gt; White wins: when his king occupies the &lt;code&gt;h6&lt;/code&gt; the rook does not have a saving check on &lt;code&gt;h7&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let us move on to another important position, and again I will quote the authors:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;If the queen is stalemating the king in the corner of the board, the rook may become a &lt;em&gt;desperado&lt;/em&gt;.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The following example shows a badly posted rook trying to save the game in this manner. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Failed 'desperado' attempt&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;r6k/5Q2/2K5/8/8/8/8/8 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1...Ra6+ 2.Kc5 Ra5+ ( 2...Rc6+ 3.Kd4 Rd6+ 4.Ke5+- ) 3.Kd4 Ra4+ 4.Kc3 Ra3+ 5.Kb2+-&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stronger side should maneuver with its king so that one of the checking squares is covered with the queen-this way queen can take the rook which frees opposing king from stalemate. King should approach the rook &lt;strong&gt;along a diagonal adjacent to the queen's.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now let us see how weaker side defends when rook is properly posted:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Drawn for any position of the White king!&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;7k/5Q2/2K5/8/8/8/8/r7 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1...Rc1+ 2.Kd5 ( 2.Kd6 Rd1+ 3.Ke6 Re1+ 4.Kd7 Rd1+ 5.Ke8 Rd8+! ( 5...Re1+?? 6.Kf8+- ) 6.Ke7 Rd7+ 7.Kxd7=) 2...Rd1+! ( 2...Rc5+?? 3.Kd4+- ) 3.Kc5 Rc1+ 4.Kb4 Rb1+ 5.Ka3 Ra1+ 6.Kb2 Rb1+ 7.Kc2 Rc1+=&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Perpetual check! Do not forget that in this position &lt;strong&gt;rook must never leave the first rank!&lt;/strong&gt; See the sub variation for the second Black's move ( &lt;code&gt;2...Rc5+?? 3.Kd4+-&lt;/code&gt; ).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now let us move the rook on the &lt;code&gt;g-file&lt;/code&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Do not forget that here rook must not leave the &lt;code&gt;g-file&lt;/code&gt;!!&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Drawn for any position of the White king!&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;6rk/5Q2/8/8/8/2K/8/8 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1...Rg3+ 2.Kd4 Rg4+ 3.Ke5 Rg5+ 4.Ke6 ( 4.Kf6 Rf5+!= ) ( 4.Kd6 Rg6+= ) 4...Rg6+! 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let us sum up: &lt;em&gt;In these types of positions the defender draws if his rook operates along the &lt;code&gt;g-file&lt;/code&gt; or the &lt;code&gt;1st rank&lt;/code&gt;. Of course, this also applies for all 8 mirror positions.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For further details of playing these positions refer to the above book. In normal situations the queen always wins against a rook, although not without overcoming certain technical difficulties. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;The winning plan consists of pushing the opponent's king into the corner or onto the edge of the board and creating mating threats. In defending, the weaker side is forced to separate his forces, which leads to the loss of the rook by coming under double attack by the queen. The basic method of achieving the goal is zugzwang.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Stronger side wins: Philidor position&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;1k6/1r6/2K5/Q7/8/8/8/8 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1...Rh7 ( 1...Rb1 2.Qd8+ Ka7 3.Qd4+ Ka8 4.Qh8+ Rb8 ( 4...Ka7 5.Qh7+ Ka8 6.Qxb1+- ) 5.Qa1# )  ) 2.Qe5+ Ka8 3.Qa1+! Kb8 4.Qb1+ Ka8 5.Qxh7+- &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If stronger side is to move, &lt;strong&gt;it gives back the move to the weaker side with the following maneuver:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Stronger side wins: Philidor position&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;1k6/1r6/2K5/Q7/8/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Qe5+ Ka8 2.Qa1+! Kb8 ( 2...Ra7 3.Qh8# ) 3.Qa5+-&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;This maneuver is characteristic for this endgame.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The authors continue with practical examples of driving the weaker side's king to the edge/corner of the board &lt;strong&gt;but give no written instructions&lt;/strong&gt; on how to achieve this. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is not satisfactory for my standards thus I have tried to find a better resource for this. I believe &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess-insights.com/chess-endings.html&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; is decent coverage for the plan of pushing weaker side's king to the edge/corner of the board. Just look articles for second and third rank defense. If I find anything better I will edit my post, but for now this is the best I can find.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Best regards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastActivityDate="2014-03-11T15:32:40.807" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4991" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4987" CreationDate="2014-03-11T17:52:08.770" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Perhaps instead of playing full games with them you setup positions where some/most of the pieces are off of the board? You could get board positions from tactic training books or chess puzzle books. If you did this, you could give them one specific objective - &quot;How fast can you capture my bishop?&quot; Or &quot;Try to beat me in two moves.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This would create shorter interactions with chess that had discernible and able-to-be-quickly-achieved goals (to help with the attention span). Also, they would still be playing &quot;real&quot; chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this helps. Good luck!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2054" LastActivityDate="2014-03-11T17:52:08.770" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4992" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4993" CreationDate="2014-03-11T18:27:37.357" Score="6" ViewCount="1096" Body="&lt;p&gt;I wish to play a specific move order of the QGD as Black, but the problem is that White can throw Marshall gambit at me. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I do not want to play the sharp lines, I need a solid and &lt;strong&gt;fully equal&lt;/strong&gt; position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have tried to introduce novelties two times ( I even asked for help here both times ), but both of them failed since I was able to refute them in my home analysis after careful work ( that is why I have deleted the mentioned questions ). Therefore I have given up on trying to improve the opening and am asking for help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is the move order I have in mind:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 c6 4.e4!?&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is known as Marshall gambit. As I have said earlier, I do not wish to accept it, I need solid quiet positional lines. Something like &lt;code&gt;4...dxe4 5.Nxe4 Nd7&lt;/code&gt; could work for me, as it is similar to Caro-Kann. The way things stand now, this line is good for White and both of my attempts to improve it have failed, as stated above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To summarize my questions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is there a way for Black to decline the gambit and reach &lt;strong&gt;full equality ?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If there is a positive answer to the first question, can you recommend some high quality resources for studying such lines ( books/online resources etc ) ?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;NOTE:&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would not mind if in the above mentioned position Black can transpose into another opening, &lt;strong&gt;as long as it is solid one.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you for your help. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Best regards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastActivityDate="2014-03-13T15:59:47.763" Title="Queen's Gambit Declined: Marshall Gambit, how to decline it and keep full equality?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;queens-gambit&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4993" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4992" CreationDate="2014-03-11T21:29:39.283" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't know really know the theory here, but I can give some pointers. Maybe they are of some use for you or other readers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The setup with c6/d5/e6 in the first three moves against white's d4 and c4 is called the &lt;em&gt;Triangle&lt;/em&gt;; usually black wants to aim for the &lt;em&gt;Noteboom&lt;/em&gt; variation (1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.Nc3 e6 4.Nf3 dxc4 and roll with the queenside pawns).  4.e4 is white's most ambitious and sharp way to attack the Triangle. After 4.e4, you won't see any transpositions to other well-known openings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you're not looking for sharp lines, this is a bit of an odd move order to play, because besides the sharp Noteboom there's also this sharp Marshall Gambit to deal with. The Slav and QGD both offer better chances of a solid positional game than the Triangle, I think.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Scherbakov's book &lt;em&gt;The Triangle System&lt;/em&gt; won awards and got great reviews; if you're going to play this seriously, that book should be your #1 source.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black's main option besides accepting the gambit is &lt;em&gt;4...Bb4&lt;/em&gt;; the position looks a bit like a French Winawer (1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Bb4) with the c-pawns on different squares. According to Scherbakov, &quot;White does have a few ways to obtain a small edge, but Black's position remains playable.&quot; He also explains that play is rather different from normal Slav positions, and then spends 8 pages discussing it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I general I suspect that as black, guaranteed quiet play &lt;em&gt;and&lt;/em&gt; complete equality is a bit too much to expect in any opening. If you want to dodge white's sharpest options, you're going to have to make some concessions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2014-03-11T21:29:39.283" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4994" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-03-11T23:54:35.090" Score="7" ViewCount="1685" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am working on my opening repertoire, and I need ways to dodge the Exchange variation of the Queen's Gambit Declined with &lt;code&gt;Nge2&lt;/code&gt;. Many masters use the &lt;em&gt;Alatortsev variation&lt;/em&gt; to do this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After the following moves:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Be7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We get the &lt;em&gt;tabya&lt;/em&gt; of the above mentioned line. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are many books about QGD that cover this line, but none does that in full detail. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Furthermore, browsing through Internet I found that there were some important theoretical novelties at the top level which were not mentioned in modern books about QGD. Unfortunately I can not provide the links now since it was more than 3 months since I last saw them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So my question is following :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a book or an online resource that covers this line in great depth with high-quality analysis?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Best regards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastActivityDate="2019-10-18T20:57:22.950" Title="Queen's Gambit Declined: Alatortsev variation, is there a high quality resource covering this line?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;queens-gambit&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4995" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4992" CreationDate="2014-03-12T03:45:18.573" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is there a way for Black to decline the gambit and reach full equality&#xA;  ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Normally, it's hard to prove a negative, but after analyzing Black's options (and having some fun analyzing the lines with &lt;strong&gt;4...Nf6&lt;/strong&gt;), I have to say that there is no &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;solid&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; way to achieve equality for Black by declining the gambit. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black's only chance at achieving equality is with &lt;strong&gt;4...Bb4!?&lt;/strong&gt; , but the kind of open positions that result from &lt;strong&gt;4...Bb4&lt;/strong&gt; are not the ones you would describe as &quot;&lt;strong&gt;solid&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; for Black&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So my answer is no, Black cannot achieve equality by declining the gambit, unless Black's attempts at dynamic equality with &lt;strong&gt;4...Bb4&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    [FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;    1. d4 d5 2. c4 c6 3. Nc3 e6 4. e4 Nf6 (4... a6 5. Nf3 b5 6. exd5 exd5 7. cxd5&#xA;    cxd5 8. Bd3 Be7 9. O-O Nf6 10. Bf4 Nc6 11. Rc1 Bb7 12. Nxb5 axb5 13. Bxb5 Rc8&#xA;    14. Ne5 Qb6 15. Qb3 O-O 16. Bxc6 Qxb3 17. axb3) (4... Bb4 5. cxd5 cxd5 6. exd5&#xA;    exd5 7. Nf3 Nf6 8. Bd3 O-O 9. O-O) (4... Nd7 5. cxd5 cxd5 6. exd5 exd5 7. Nxd5)&#xA;   (4... f5 5. exd5 exd5 6. cxd5 cxd5 7. Bb5+ Nc6 8. Qh5+ g6 9. Qe2+ Be7 10. Nf3&#xA;    Nf6 11. Bh6 Ne4 12. O-O Be6 13. Ne5 Qb6 14. Rac1 Rc8 15. Rfd1 a6 16. Bxc6+ bxc6&#xA;    17. f3 Nxc3 18. Rxc3 c5 19. Rb3 Qd6 20. Bf4 cxd4 21. Nxg6 d3 22. Rbxd3 Qc5+ 23.&#xA;    Be3 Qb5 24. Nxh8) (4... g6 5. Nf3 Bg7 6. Bf4 Ne7 7. h4 Nd7 8. h5) 5. e5 Ne4 6.&#xA;    Bd3 (6. Nxe4 dxe4 7. Ne2 c5 8. d5 Nd7 9. dxe6 Nxe5 10. exf7+ Nxf7 11. Be3) 6...&#xA;    Nxc3 7. bxc3 dxc4 8. Bxc4 c5 9. Nf3 cxd4 10. cxd4 Nc6 11. O-O Be7 12. Qd3 O-O&#xA;    13. Qe4 Nb4 14. Rb1 Bd7 (14... a5 15. Qg4 Kh8 16. a3 Qc7 17. Bb5 Nd5 18. Bd3&#xA;    Qc3 19. Rd1 g6 20. Bh6 Rd8 21. Bg5 Qxa3 22. Ra1 Qb4 23. Rdb1 Qc3 24. Bxe7 Nxe7&#xA;    25. Qh4 Rd7 26. Ng5 h5 27. Nxf7+ Kg8 28. Rd1 Kxf7 29. Rac1 Qb4 30. Qf6+ Kg8 31.&#xA;    Qxe6+ Kg7 32. Qf6+ Kh7 33. e6 Rd5 34. Qf7+ Kh8 35. Rc7 Bxe6 36. Qf6+ Kg8 37.&#xA;    Qxe6+ Kf8 38. Bxg6 Rf5 39. Bxf5) 15. Rxb4 $5 Bxb4 16. Ng5 g6 17. Qh4 (17. d5 $5&#xA;    ) 17... h5 18. g4 Qe7 19. Be3 Rac8 20. Bb3 a5 21. gxh5 a4 22. Bd1 Kg7 23. hxg6&#xA;    Rh8 24. Qe4 fxg6 25. Qxb7 Rb8 26. Qe4 Ba3 27. Bc2 Qe8 28. Qg4 Rb2 29. Bd3 Rxa2&#xA;    30. Bc4 Rb2 31. Bxe6 Bxe6 32. Nxe6+ Kg8 33. Nf4 Rb7 34. Ra1 Bf8 35. Nd5 Kf7 36.&#xA;    Qe4 Qe6 37. Nf4 Qg4+ 38. Kf1 Rb6 39. h3 Qf5 40. Qxf5+ gxf5 41. Rxa4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2429" LastActivityDate="2014-03-12T03:45:18.573" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4996" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4987" CreationDate="2014-03-12T17:04:57.967" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;A few ideas:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.kenilworthchessclub.org/media/Pawn_Battle_Strategies.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Michael Goeller's Pawn Battle&lt;/a&gt;  which introduces a checkers-like game (that still follows the rules of chess) that wonderfully folds in key pawn concepts like break moves, sacrificing to clear a line and even zugzwang. This exercise also helps kids learn to appreciate calculating outcomes beyond just &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/1030/how-to-get-out-of-hope-chess-into-real-chess&quot;&gt;Hope Chess&lt;/a&gt;&quot;-ing it out.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Some of the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.professorchess.com/downloads/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;handouts&lt;/a&gt; at ProfessorChess.com contain exercises and drills that are fun and instructive.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Basic won endgames&lt;/strong&gt; :  These can be fun, simple positions which very direct goals and often gets done within minutes as they start to figure out how to solve them.  Start up with KQ vs K setups and move up the ladder of complexity to KR vs K and even KP vs K.  These fundamental skills stay with them as they progress with their chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;An added funsy way of doing the above is to use 2 x 8-sided dice to randomly assign squares for pieces in the starting position (e.g. K goes here, other K goes there, the Queen goes here. Play to win!). You could go all out and even create a roulette wheel of different drills to perform!&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1751" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2014-03-12T17:04:57.967" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4997" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="4998" CreationDate="2014-03-12T17:58:14.547" Score="6" ViewCount="737" Body="&lt;p&gt;Recently I have posted a question about declining the Marshall Gambit in the QGD, and asked if Black can transpose into another solid opening, as one way of defense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After analyzing the first position in the below diagram, I have realized that it can crop in a up specific Caro-Kann move order. What raises my hopes even higher is that White does not play &lt;code&gt;5.c4&lt;/code&gt; but &lt;code&gt;5.Bc4&lt;/code&gt; there, which means that &lt;code&gt;5.c4&lt;/code&gt; is weak and has its drawbacks. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Compare the following diagram:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;QGD, Marshall gambit&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;r1bqkbnr/pp1n1ppp/2p1p3/8/2PPN3/8/PP3PPP/R1BQKBNR w KQkq - 0 6&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and this one:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Smyslov variation ( B17 ) after 5.c4&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;r1bqkbnr/pp1npppp/2p5/8/2PPN3/8/PP3PPP/R1BQKBNR b KQkq - 0 5&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although in the second diagram Black has better moves than &lt;code&gt;5...c6&lt;/code&gt;, I believe that favorable transposition can still be achieved.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To determine if this is true, I need to know &lt;strong&gt;how Black refutes&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;code&gt;5.c4&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Under refutation I consider Black achieving at least a fully equal position.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hence these questions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Can Black equalize or achieve advantage in the position from the second diagram?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If answer to the first question is positive, can you demonstrate it with concrete lines?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Best regards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastEditorUserId="11202" LastEditDate="2017-05-19T06:31:47.203" LastActivityDate="2017-05-19T06:31:47.203" Title="Caro-Kann, Smyslov variation : Can Black punish early 5.c4 in this position?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;caro-kann&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="4998" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4997" CreationDate="2014-03-12T18:42:34.717" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;5.c4&lt;/code&gt; is bad in the Smyslov variation because black can equalize instantly with &lt;code&gt;5...e5! 6. dxe5 Qa5+&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;7...Qxe5&lt;/code&gt;.  Black is not better though, it merely gives black an easy game with the queens off.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the complete line:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Title &quot;Smyslov Variation&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 dxe4 4. Nxe4 Nd7 5. c4 e5 6. dxe5 Qa5+ 7. Bd2 Qxe5 8.&#xA;Qe2 Nc5 9. Nxc5 Qxe2+ 10. Nxe2 Bxc5 *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the line you give with &lt;code&gt;5...e6&lt;/code&gt;, white retains a comfortable advantage.  White can play the standard plan of &lt;code&gt;Nf3&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;Bd3&lt;/code&gt; and either try to keep the knights on the board with &lt;code&gt;Nc3&lt;/code&gt; after black plays &lt;code&gt;Ngf6&lt;/code&gt; or swap a pair of knights with a good position based on black's bad light square bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some example lines that give white an edge:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Title &quot;Marshall Gambit&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 dxe4 4. Nxe4 Nd7 5. c4 e6 6. Nf3 Ngf6 7. Bd3 (7. Nxf6+&#xA;Nxf6 8. Bd3) (7. Nc3 c5 8. Be2 cxd4 9. Nxd4 Bb4) 7... Nxe4 8. Bxe4 Nf6 9. Bd3&#xA;Bb4+ 10. Bd2 *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12" LastActivityDate="2014-03-12T18:42:34.717" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5000" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5008" CreationDate="2014-03-12T21:06:31.293" Score="4" ViewCount="352" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let's say you are playing a game. Then suddenly, you make a bad move and e.g. blunder material. How should you react afterwards? What mind-set should you have? Can you even benefit from the blunder?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastActivityDate="2015-07-15T02:46:23.113" Title="What should you do after blundering during a game?" Tags="&lt;psychology&gt;&lt;best-practice&gt;&lt;blunder&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5001" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2014-03-12T21:07:20.903" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2014-03-12T21:07:20.903" LastActivityDate="2014-03-12T21:07:20.903" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5002" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2014-03-12T21:07:20.903" Score="0" Body="A blunder is a move that is a mistake that leads to losing material (e.g. a pawn or a piece) more or less without any compensation." OwnerUserId="2001" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-03-12T21:48:50.597" LastActivityDate="2014-03-12T21:48:50.597" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5003" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2014-03-12T21:17:02.410" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2014-03-12T21:17:02.410" LastActivityDate="2014-03-12T21:17:02.410" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5004" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2014-03-12T21:17:02.410" Score="0" Body="A candidate move is a move that you consider to be interesting in a position. Usually, the term is used for the process of calculating variations. Every variation begins with a candidate move." OwnerUserId="2001" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-03-12T21:48:41.987" LastActivityDate="2014-03-12T21:48:41.987" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5005" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2014-03-12T21:17:46.243" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2014-03-12T21:17:46.243" LastActivityDate="2014-03-12T21:17:46.243" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5006" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2014-03-12T21:17:46.243" Score="0" Body="Board vision is the ability to see the whole board and register what is going on." OwnerUserId="2001" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-03-12T21:48:33.110" LastActivityDate="2014-03-12T21:48:33.110" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5008" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5000" CreationDate="2014-03-13T00:26:13.733" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;After a blunder, it helps to &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;look objectively at the position&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; once again and forget the history. You might have been better or worse; but that doesn't matter now after the blunder. What matters is how you go from here. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There could be many possibilities of salvaging a draw or even snatching a win by making the position very complicated and causing your opponent to blunder (I sometimes jokingly call this a &quot;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;counter-blunder&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;). The least you want to ensure is to not make it psychologically easy for your opponent to win after your blunder. Make it difficult for the opponent. Play good moves. Do not be gloomy lest you blunder again. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, there are times when you can even benefit from a blunder. A blunder may often give a player a kind of &quot;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;license to thrill&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;! Now that you've blundered and your game is lost, you've got nothing more to lose! So why not embark on a nice sacrificial attack on the opponent's king (for example) and see if the opponent cracks under pressure? (A friend of mine actually tried this after blundering a piece and he won the game. Too bad I don't have the game). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2429" LastActivityDate="2014-03-13T00:26:13.733" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5009" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-03-13T10:51:11.400" Score="3" ViewCount="2702" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know about b4 in the bayonet and the Kramnik-Kasparov games of course.  I also know that Mr. Radjabov has been unhealthy (hope he gets better soon) lately.  Thanks in advance, your site is awesome, your work on the albin counter is a gift from heaven.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2685" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-03-13T11:30:32.113" LastActivityDate="2014-07-30T13:51:54.157" Title="Has the King's Indian Defense been refuted at the Grandmaster level?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;grandmaster&gt;&lt;kings-indian&gt;&lt;refuted&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5010" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5000" CreationDate="2014-03-13T13:00:56.473" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Excellent points by Wes. I'd just like to add that, like with after any move, it's a good idea to look at the board as if you just came to the position in a puzzle. We often get so caught up in our plan that we miss better strategies that pop-up, or we don't see an opponents win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If we try to take a fresh look at the board after every move we're likely to spot these things. This is more important after a blunder. Rather than focusing on the loss/mistake we should be looking for the best move on the current board. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's also worth mentioning that a blunder, even a big one, doesn't always lead to a loss unless at really high level play. I'm currently rated around Elo 1,400 and I can't count the number of games where either me or my opponent have made a blunder but then gone on to win the game (usually through a similar blunder from the opposing player).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2399" LastActivityDate="2014-03-13T13:00:56.473" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5011" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1854" CreationDate="2014-03-13T13:11:48.290" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;I had the same problem which (to some extent) I've managed to overcome. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I didn't ever get enough chances to practice OTB games so I could never get used to it. My solution was to play online games with a real board in front of me. I made myself play out the moves on the board and used my computer only to get my opponents move and to enter mine. As long as time constraints aren't too much of an issue it's not much hassle. After a while playing with actual boards was just as easy as without.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2399" LastActivityDate="2014-03-13T13:11:48.290" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5012" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5009" CreationDate="2014-03-13T14:04:37.603" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Short answer - no. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Plenty of strong grandmasters like Radjabov and Caruana still play it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chess.pl?page=125&amp;amp;eco=E60&amp;amp;eresult=&quot;&gt;Latest games&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2429" LastActivityDate="2014-03-13T14:04:37.603" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5013" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5014" CreationDate="2014-03-13T16:10:20.193" Score="5" ViewCount="733" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am looking for a resource that describes plans for both sides in the following pawn structure:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Queenside vs Kingside pawn majority&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;8/pp3ppp/4p3/8/2P5/8/PP3PPP/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This pawn structure can arise from the Caro-Kann, or Rubinstein French, as far as I know.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I could use books or online resources that cover plans for &lt;strong&gt;both sides&lt;/strong&gt; in a very comprehensive manner. I am especially interested for game plans of the side with the kingside pawn majority.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After searching through Internet I was not able to find anything, so I really hope I will have more luck here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;EDIT #2:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On member &lt;em&gt;Rauan Sagit&lt;/em&gt;'s request, I am providing a game I played against &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.shredderchess.com/play-chess-online.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;code&gt;Shredder&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/a&gt; with difficulty level set on &lt;code&gt;hard&lt;/code&gt;. I must add that I took back moves twice in the bishop ending and those moves shall be listed as sidelines. Both times I had to resign. Third time I took 3 minutes to look at the board and calculate the lines, which enabled me to properly draw:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[White &quot;Shredder Online, hard level&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;AlwaysLearningNewStuff&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1/2-1/2&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 dxe4 4.Nxe4 Nd7 5.Bd3 Ngf6 6.Nxf6+ Nxf6 7.Nf3 c5 8.O-O Be7 9.Be3 Qc7 10.dxc5 Bxc5 11.Qd2 Bxe3 12.Qxe3 O-O 13.Ne5 b6 14.c4 Bb7 15.Rad1 Rfd8 16.Bb1 Rac8 17.Rfe1 h6 18.a3 a5 19.b4 axb4 20.axb4 Ba6 21.b5 Bb7 22.f3 Rd6 23.Rxd6 Qxd6 24.Qd3 Rd8 25.Qxd6 Rxd6 26.Kf2 Nd7 27.Nxd7 Rxd7 28.Ke3 Kf8 29.Rc1 Ke7 30.c5 bxc5 31.Rxc5 Kd6 32.Rc1 Rc7 ( 32...e5?! ) 33. Rxc7 Kxc7 34.Bd3 Kb6 35.Kd4 f6 36.Kc4 Bd5+! ( 36...e5?! ) 37.Kd4 Bb3! 38.Kc3 Bd5 39.Kd4 Bb3 40.Kc3 Bd5 41.Kd4 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I must admit that in the past I have relinquished the &lt;code&gt;d-file&lt;/code&gt; way too easily trying to reach the endgame as fast as possible. After reading through the member &lt;em&gt;Rauan Sagit&lt;/em&gt;'s answer, I have decided to reread &lt;em&gt;M.Shereshevsky-Endgame Strategy&lt;/em&gt; again, and after reading through another book he wrote ( &lt;em&gt;Mastering the endgame-Volume 1&lt;/em&gt; ), I was able to understand the importance of contesting the &lt;code&gt;d-file&lt;/code&gt;. It was not too hard to find &lt;code&gt;22...Rd6!&lt;/code&gt; which enabled me to contest the &lt;code&gt;d-file&lt;/code&gt; and enabled me a smooth transition to the equal endgame. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I will test this approach in more games, and will read the recommended book &lt;em&gt;Romanovsky-Middlegame method&lt;/em&gt; first, before I decide to officially accept the answer. Thanks &lt;em&gt;Rauan&lt;/em&gt;!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is another game that illustrates the problems I face in a much better way:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[White &quot;Shredder Online, hard level&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;AlwaysLearningNewStuff&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nd2 dxe4 4.Nxe4 Nd7 5.Bd3 Ngf6 6.Qe2 c5 7.Nxf6+ Nf6 8.dxc5 Bxc5 9.Bg5 Be7 10.Nf3 h6 11.Bf4 O-O 12.O-O Qb6 13.c3 Rd8 14.Nd4 Bd7 15.a4 a5 16.Be5 Be8 17.h3 Rac8 18.Rfd1 Rd5 19.Nb5 Bc6 20.h4 Qd8 21.Na7 Ra8 22.Nxc6 bxc6 23.c4 Rd7 24.Qf3 c5 25.Bxf6 Bxf6 26.Bh7++- Kxh7 27.Rxd7 Qxd7 28.Qe4+! g6 29.Qxa8 Bxb2 30.Rb1 Qd2 31.Qb7 Bg7 32.Qxf7 Qc2 33.Rb7 Qd1+ 34.Kh2 Qd6 35.f4 Qd4 36.Re7 h5 37.Rxe6 Qd3 38.Rc6 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here I had no idea what to do after &lt;code&gt;18.Rfd1&lt;/code&gt;. This game illustrates exactly the problem I face:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White has more space, better minor pieces and slight pressure. I really do not know how to defend here. To make matters even worse, on the highest level &lt;em&gt;Rubinstein French&lt;/em&gt; is said not to give Black full equality and this was not even the sharpest line.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;I have fixed the typo in the game for White's &lt;code&gt;24.&lt;/code&gt; move.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;END OF EDIT&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Best regards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastEditorUserId="11202" LastEditDate="2017-04-17T22:18:23.247" LastActivityDate="2017-04-17T22:18:23.247" Title="Queenside vs Kingside pawn majority: Looking for comprehensive resources" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;pawn-structure&gt;&lt;middlegame&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5014" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5013" CreationDate="2014-03-13T17:59:49.117" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The main idea can be summarized as follows&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The deciding factor is the control over the open d-file&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus, you should play this position with one, two or three heavy pieces each still on the board and make sure you will control the d-file. As usual, invade the seventh rank, bring your king to the center (as long as the king is safe when doing so) and cramp the opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT (2014-03-14):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to win this position, you should exchange down to a rook endgame where you control the d-file. If you want to prevent a loss, you should avoid a position where your opponent exchanges down to a rook endgame where the opponent controls the d-file. The middlegame (more pieces on the board) adds more complexity. Learn the clean cut case and that will guide you in more complex situations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-03-14T10:26:31.067" LastActivityDate="2014-03-14T10:26:31.067" CommentCount="11" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5015" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5016" CreationDate="2014-03-13T20:51:32.490" Score="4" ViewCount="391" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is the game &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;FIDE Candidates 2014&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Khanty-Mansiysk RUS&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2014.03.13&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;1.3&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Anand, Viswanathan&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Aronian, Levon&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;2770&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;2830&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;C88&quot;]&#xA;[Opening &quot;Ruy Lopez&quot;]&#xA;[Variation &quot;closed, 7...O-O&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;2014.03.13&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Ba4 Nf6 5. O-O Be7 6. Re1 b5 7. Bb3 O-O 8. h3 Bb7 9. d3 d5 10. exd5 Nxd5 11. Nbd2 Qd7 12. Nxe5 Nxe5 13. Rxe5 Nf6 14. Re1 Rae8 15. Nf3 Bd6 16. Be3 Re7 17. d4 Rfe8 18. c3 h6 19. Ne5 Bxe5 20. dxe5 Rxe5 21. Qxd7 Nxd7 22. Red1 Nf6 23. c4 c6 24. Rac1 R5e7 25. a4 bxc4 26. Bxc4 Nd5 27. Bc5 Re4 28. f3 R4e5 29. Kf2 Bc8 30. Bf1 R5e6 31. Rd3 Nf4 32. Rb3 Rd8 33. Be3 Nd5 34. Bd2 Nf6 35. Ba5 Rde8 36. Rb6 Re5 37. Bc3 Nd5 38. Bxe5 Nxb6 39. Bd4 Nxa4 40. Rxc6 Rd8 41. Rc4 Bd7 42. b3 Bb5 43. Rb4 Nb2 44. Bxb5 axb5 45. Ke3 Re8+ 46. Kd2 Rd8 47. Kc3 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I am wondering. The Spanish Marshall should give black plenty of compensation for the sacrificed pawn. Yet, black did not seem to get much play after white grabbed the pawn. Did black make a mistake in the opening or later in the middlegame (endgame)? Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-03-14T07:33:14.337" LastActivityDate="2014-06-02T20:35:52.330" Title="Did Aronian make a mistake in the opening against Anand in round 1 of the FIDE Candidates 2014?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;anand&gt;&lt;aronian&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5016" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5015" CreationDate="2014-03-14T00:04:44.240" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Aronian played two &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;sub-optimal&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; moves in the middlegame - &lt;strong&gt;16...Re7&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;18...h6&lt;/strong&gt;. At each of these moves, the better move as per analysis by Houdini (depth 25 and above) was &lt;strong&gt;Nd5!&lt;/strong&gt; (Houdini even prefers 17...Nd5, but 17...Rfe8 is not bad)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So his &quot;mistake&quot; was missing the opportunity to play &lt;strong&gt;Nd5&lt;/strong&gt;, and instead playing &lt;strong&gt;16...Re7&lt;/strong&gt; (which seems to be the major culprit) and &lt;strong&gt;18...h6&lt;/strong&gt;. If, instead, he had used the &lt;strong&gt;Nd5&lt;/strong&gt; idea, he could have equalized on move &lt;strong&gt;16&lt;/strong&gt;, and might have had better chances for equality if he had used it on move &lt;strong&gt;18&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;   [FEN &quot;4rrk1/1bpq1ppp/p2b1n2/1p6/8/1B1P1N1P/PPP2PP1/R1BQR1K1 w - - 0 16&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;   1. Be3 Re7? (1... Nd5! 2. Bd2 c5=) 2. d4 Rfe8 (2... Nd5!? 3. Bd2 Nf4 4. Bxf4 Bxf4 &#xA;   5.  a4+=) 3. c3 h6?! (3... Nd5! 4. Bd2 Rxe1+ 5. Nxe1 Nb6 6. Nc2+=) 4. Ne5! Bxe5 &#xA;   5. dxe5 Rxe5 6. Qxd7 Nxd7 7. Red1+=&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Explanation for 16...Nd5!&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The idea behind &lt;strong&gt;16. Be3&lt;/strong&gt; was to play &lt;strong&gt;17. d4&lt;/strong&gt;, which would strengthen White's position and prepare the &lt;strong&gt;Ne5&lt;/strong&gt; idea. Note that White couldn't play &lt;strong&gt;16. d4&lt;/strong&gt; because of &lt;strong&gt;16...Bxf3!&lt;/strong&gt; The &lt;strong&gt;Ne5&lt;/strong&gt; idea gives White a pleasant edge in the endgame because of the two bishops. Therefore Black should have prevented it by preventing White's &lt;strong&gt;d4&lt;/strong&gt; move. Thus, the move &lt;strong&gt;c5&lt;/strong&gt; comes to mind, which discourages &lt;strong&gt;d4&lt;/strong&gt; because of &lt;strong&gt;c4&lt;/strong&gt;, trapping the bishop on &lt;strong&gt;b3&lt;/strong&gt;. However, &lt;strong&gt;c5&lt;/strong&gt; can wait for &lt;strong&gt;Nd5&lt;/strong&gt;, an intermediate move, which forces White to retreat the bishop and also improves the position of the knight. After, &lt;strong&gt;Nd5&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;c5&lt;/strong&gt;, Black is completely equal. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2429" LastEditorUserId="2429" LastEditDate="2014-03-14T00:38:05.837" LastActivityDate="2014-03-14T00:38:05.837" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5017" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4977" CreationDate="2014-03-14T02:31:59.267" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;In analyzing and studying this endgame, I believe I have found a very simple way to explain the defensive technique (for this example, we will consider the defender to be Black). Once I learned this technique, I played some blitz Rook vs Knight endgames vs top chess programs and drew all of them. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Knight's Box&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I found it useful to visualize the technique in term's of a box. Consider the knight on d1 (below). The knight can be visualized in a vertical box either to its left or right as shown. Note that the box is always vertical to the base of the knight. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/zaGCJ.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my analysis and study, I found that if Black can place its own king in the knight's box, and keep the opponent's king out of the box, then Black can hold the draw. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/1TaXs.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that the knight's box only works on a &lt;strong&gt;non-corner&lt;/strong&gt; box. Thus, the green boxes below work, whereas the red ones don't. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/wv82o.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another exception is when the knight is pinned by the rook and the opponent king also attacks it at the same time, or when the opponent king attacks the knight and also checks the king with the rook. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9O2NY.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is a sample blitz game I played against an engine that demonstrates this technique. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    [FEN &quot;2R5/8/8/8/8/1K6/1n6/1k6 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;    [White &quot;Engine&quot;]&#xA;    [Black &quot;Wes&quot;] &#xA;&#xA;    1. Rb8 Nd1 2. Re8  Kc1  3. Re2 Kb1  4. Kc4  Kc1  5. Kd3 Nb2+  6. Kc3  Nd1+  &#xA;    7. Kc4  Nb2+  8. Kd4  Nd1  9. Rh2  Nb2  10. Kc3  Nd1+  11. Kb4  Nb2  &#xA;    12. Re2  Nd1  13. Ra2  Kb1  14. Kb3  Kc1  15. Rc2+  Kb1 16. Rd2  Kc1  &#xA;    17. Rh2  Kb1  18. Kc4 Kc1  19. Kd3  Nb2+ 20. Kd4  Nd1  21. Ke4  Nb2  &#xA;    22. Ke3  Nd1+  23. Kf4 Nb2  24. Ke4  Nd1  25. Rg2  Nb2  26. Kd4  Nd1  &#xA;    27. Kd3  Nb2+  28. Ke4  Nd1  29. Kd4  Nb2  30. Ke3  Nd1+  31. Kf4  Nb2  &#xA;    32. Kf3  Nd1  33. Rh2  Nb2  34. Kf4  Nd1 35. Ke5  Nb2  36. Re2 Nd1  &#xA;    37. Kd4  Nb2  38. Kd5  Nd1 39. Kc5  Nb2  40. Rh2  Nd1  41. Ra2  Nb2  &#xA;    42. Kb4  Nd1 43. Re2  Nb2  44. Kb3  Nd1 45. Ra2  Ne3  46. Kc3 Nd1+  &#xA;    47. Kd4  Nb2  48. Ke3  Nd1+  49. Kd3  Nb2+ 50. Rxb2  Kxb2 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Not ALWAYS close to the King!&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although it generally helps to keep the king and knight together, it should be noted that there are some tricky positions where it is &lt;strong&gt;not desirable&lt;/strong&gt; to keep the knight and the king together. This usually happens when the knight is on the &lt;strong&gt;b2&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;b7&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;g2&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;strong&gt;g7&lt;/strong&gt; squares as shown below. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;   [FEN &quot;2R5/8/8/8/8/1K6/1n6/1k6 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is an important position in Rook vs Knight endgames. Here, after White plays &lt;strong&gt;1. Kc3&lt;/strong&gt;, the move &lt;strong&gt;1...Nd1&lt;/strong&gt;, which keeps the knight somewhat close to the king, loses. Instead, &lt;strong&gt;1...Na4+&lt;/strong&gt; draws. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;   [FEN &quot;2R5/8/8/8/8/1K6/1n6/1k6 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;   1. Kc3 (1. Rc7 Nd1 2. Re7 Kc1) 1... Na4+ (1... Nd1+ $4 2. Kb3 Nb2 3. Kc3 Nd1+&#xA;   4. Kd2 Nb2 5. Ra8 Nc4+ 6. Kc3 Nd6 7. Ra4 Nb5+ 8. Kb3 Kc1 9. Rc4+ Kd2 10. Kb4&#xA;   Na7) 2. Kb4 (2. Kb3 Nb2 3. Rd8 Kc1!) Nb2 3. Kb3 Nd1 4. Rc7 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here, we reach another critical position, where keeping the knight close to the king loses - &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;   [FEN &quot;2R5/8/8/8/8/1K6/8/1k1n4 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;   1. Rc7 Nf2 $3 (1...Nb2 $4 2. Rd7 Kc1 3. Rc7+ Kb1 4. Kc3 Na4+ 5. Kc4 Nb2+ &#xA;   6. Kd4 Nd1 7. Kd3 Nb2+ 8. Kd2 Ka2 9. Kc3 Nd1+ 10. Kc2 Ne3+ 11. Kd2 Ng4 &#xA;   12. Kc3 Ne3 13. Rd7 Kb1 14. Rd3 Nf5 15. Rd1+ Ka2 16. Re1 Nd6 17. Re5 Kb1 &#xA;   18. Kb3 Kc1 19. Rc5+ Kb1 20. Rd5 Kc1 21. Rxd6) 2. Re7 Nd1 3. Rd7 (3. Re1 Kc1) &#xA;   3... Kc1 (3... Nf2 4. Rd2 Ne4 5. Rd1#) 4. Rd8 Nb2 (4... Nf2) 5. Rc8+ Kb1 &#xA;   6. Kc3 Na4+ 7. Kb4 Nb2 8. Kb3 Nd1 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2429" LastEditorUserId="2429" LastEditDate="2014-03-14T03:11:46.370" LastActivityDate="2014-03-14T03:11:46.370" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5018" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5019" CreationDate="2014-03-14T23:49:48.187" Score="5" ViewCount="271" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm writing a simple chess program from scratch on a hobbyist basis. I think there is something fundamental I'm overlooking or don't understand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I read the following &lt;a href=&quot;http://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Alpha-Beta&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Alpha-Beta&lt;/a&gt;, as well as other articles, e.g. the Wikipedia one. I've also implemented alpha-beta blindly before just by following pseudo-code. I believe I understand how alpha-beta can guarantee no unsafe pruning takes place on a complete search tree, i.e. if you have the whole search tree, and there are no unexplored nodes beyond the horizon.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What I don't understand is how alpha-beta can guarantee no unsafe pruning takes place on an &lt;em&gt;incomplete search tree&lt;/em&gt; which does contain such unexplored nodes beyond the horizon, which chess always results in, unless evaluating endgames with a small enough tree.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Consider the following explanation from: &lt;a href=&quot;http://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Alpha-Beta&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Alpha-Beta&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Say it is White's turn to move, and we are searching to a depth of 2&#xA;  (that is, we are consider all of White's moves, and all of Black's&#xA;  responses to each of those moves.) First we pick one of White's&#xA;  possible moves - let's call this Possible Move #1. We consider this&#xA;  move and every possible response to this move by black. After this&#xA;  analysis, we determine that the result of making Possible Move #1 is&#xA;  an even position. Then, we move on and consider another of White's&#xA;  possible moves (Possible Move #2.) When we consider the first possible&#xA;  counter-move by black, we discover that playing this results in black&#xA;  winning a Rook! In this situation, we can safely ignore all of Black's&#xA;  other possible responses to Possible Move #2 because we already know&#xA;  that Possible Move #1 is better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This seems to be false to me, exploring further nodes on the branch of &quot;Possible Move&quot; #2, e.g. a couple more ply, could result in black being guaranteed checkmate?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hence pruning away this as a possible move is not safe.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What am I missing?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know this ties in with the horizon effect and quiescence search, however I don't understand how alpha-beta alone, when used in this way on an incomplete search tree can be considered &quot;safe&quot;. But I'm sure there is something I'm overlooking and it would be great with some pointers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2692" LastActivityDate="2014-03-15T00:49:14.933" Title="Alpha-beta safe on incomplete tree?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;chess-algorithms&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5019" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5018" CreationDate="2014-03-15T00:49:14.933" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;As far as I can tell, you are crystal clear conceptually, and you aren't actually missing anything. I think the source of any apparent conflict between your understanding and the quoted passage is that you may be reading the passage to be claiming more than it really is. Here it is again, with some added emphasis:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Say it is White's turn to move, and &lt;strong&gt;we are searching to a depth of 2&lt;/strong&gt; (that is, we are consider all of White's moves, and all of Black's responses to each of those moves.) First we pick one of White's possible moves - let's call this Possible Move #1. We consider this move and every possible response to this move by black. After this analysis, we determine that the result of making Possible Move #1 is an even position. Then, we move on and consider another of White's possible moves (Possible Move #2.) When we consider the first possible counter-move by black, we discover that playing this results in black winning a Rook! In this situation, &lt;strong&gt;we can safely ignore all of Black's other possible responses to Possible Move #2 because we already know that Possible Move #1 is better&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think that the only point being made here is that in this particular situation, &quot;we already know that Possible Move #1 is better&quot; &lt;em&gt;as far as our limited depth search is concerned&lt;/em&gt;. That is, we have fixed this depth of 2 ply for our search in advance, that is as far as our knowledge is going to go, and the information discovered in the scenario does conclusively show that &lt;em&gt;within the scope of the next 2 plies&lt;/em&gt; Possible Move #1 is better than Possible Move #2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your worry that something crucial might be being missed beyond that limit is absolutely correct, of course, and is why ideally such an algorithm would search all the way to the end of the entire chess game tree. That would be the only way to know that we have no &quot;unsafe pruning,&quot; or in other words that we are playing optimally. But going that far isn't feasible (except for e.g. certain endgame positions, as you note, or say positions that are close to a forced conclusion of a game), so in whatever reasonable, finite amount of time an engine will have to search, it will only make it to some particular depth N that is insufficient for complete certainty. The point being made in the above passage isn't that we know Possible Move #1 is &lt;em&gt;truly&lt;/em&gt; better than Possible Move #2 (i.e. with respect to the entire game tree), but only that we know it is definitely better with respect to the fixed depth N we actually get to search. But that's OK, as that's all we could possibly be sure of, which is exactly your point.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2014-03-15T00:49:14.933" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5020" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5027" CreationDate="2014-03-15T02:39:15.610" Score="5" ViewCount="351" Body="&lt;p&gt;What should the plan be for both sides in the Double Isolated Queen Pawn formation, such as the one arising from:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;    [fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.Nc3 e6 4.e4 Bb4 5.exd5 exd5 6.cxd5 cxd5&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;E.G. - should each side focus on attacking the other's isolated pawn? Defending their own pawn? Ignoring the isolated pawns &amp;amp; playing in the open files? Does it depend on the position?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks in Advance!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2402" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2014-12-18T02:30:50.350" LastActivityDate="2014-12-18T15:36:38.047" Title="Strategy in &quot;double-isolated&quot; Queen-pawn positions?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;pawn-structure&gt;&lt;center&gt;&lt;isolated-pawn&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5021" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1854" CreationDate="2014-03-15T02:42:15.060" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Same here, I had trouble playing with actual wooden chess before, especially with real chess clocks. The solution is to engage yourself in chess by playing in actual chess games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Join to local chess clubs or play with your friends with actual chess boards. Soon playing with an actual chessboard and online games will have no difference.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It took me 3 months to cope with this problem. Now I can play naturally without blundering on an actual chess board just like how I play with online chess games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2472" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2014-03-15T14:38:14.223" LastActivityDate="2014-03-15T14:38:14.223" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5022" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5095" CreationDate="2014-03-15T02:52:48.897" Score="41" ViewCount="45597" Body="&lt;p&gt;Any blindfold players here? Just wondering if blindfold chess is a skill that can be learned by amateurs like me or a natural skill by chess GM's, IM's, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2472" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-03-15T10:26:59.833" LastActivityDate="2019-02-04T19:19:11.467" Title="Can playing blindfold chess be learned or is it a natural skill?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;grandmaster&gt;&lt;blindfold-chess&gt;&lt;beginner&gt;&lt;talent&gt;" AnswerCount="13" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="11" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5023" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5024" CreationDate="2014-03-15T03:03:12.050" Score="13" ViewCount="6645" Body="&lt;p&gt;What should Black's plan be in Isolated Queen Pawn Openings like this one arising from the Caro-Kann Panov attack?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;&#xA;    [fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;    1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.exd5 cxd5 4.c4 e6 5.Nc3 Nf6 6.cxd5 Nxd5&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2402" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-03-15T10:26:12.017" LastActivityDate="2018-09-24T20:48:02.203" Title="Strategy in Isolated Queen Pawn Positions" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;pawn-structure&gt;&lt;caro-kann&gt;&lt;isolated-pawn&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5024" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5023" CreationDate="2014-03-15T05:57:29.013" Score="21" Body="&lt;p&gt;First of all, the isolated pawn is &lt;strong&gt;a dynamic strength&lt;/strong&gt;, and &lt;strong&gt;a static weakness&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But what does this mean? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This means that he represents a pawn weakness, but compensates this weakness in some other way. In short, Black should &lt;strong&gt;strive towards endgame&lt;/strong&gt;, while White &lt;strong&gt;must obtain some sort of pressure/attack&lt;/strong&gt; in order to compensate for his weak &lt;code&gt;d-pawn&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why is this so, and can Black/White achieve his plan? This will be the topic of the text below.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Characteristics of the Isolated pawn:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;If left alone and unhindered, it will expand and cramp the enemy, yet if blockaded it becomes a target and a bottleneck.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The shortcomings of the isolated pawn are inability to defend it with another pawn and the fact that the square in front of him ( and sometimes the squares around him too ) is weak and can be used as a strong-point for the opponents pieces. This is most evident in the endgame. Aside from that, the benefits of the isolated pawn are seen in the middlegame in view of space advantage,open lines and aggressive strong-points in the center, especially the &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt; square.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What should Black's plan be in Isolated Queen Pawn Openings like this one arising from the Caro-Kann Panov attack?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These plans are typical and well explored. Opening moves just make some plans possible and some not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Plans for both sides in the position with Isolated pawn:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is a short summary of the plans for both sides:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Plans for the side with the isolated pawn :&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Attack on the kingside;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Favorable opening of the center;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Advancing the isolated pawn in order to cramp the opponent;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Development of initiative on the queenside;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Plans for the side fighting against the isolated pawn :&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Simplification of the game with goal to transpose into favorable endgame;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Transposing into the position with hanging pawns;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In order to help you better grasp these plans here are the illustrative games:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Plan for side with the isolated pawn: Attack on the kingside :&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1032693&quot;&gt;Botvinik-Tolush, Moscow 1965&lt;/a&gt; is a good example for this. The key idea is to push &lt;code&gt;f4!&lt;/code&gt;, which gives White the attack. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1126749&quot;&gt;Smyslov-Ribli, London 1983 seventh game&lt;/a&gt; is another good example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Plan for side with the isolated pawn: Favorable opening of the center :&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1488147&quot;&gt;Spassky-Avtonomov, Leningrad 1949&lt;/a&gt; is a good example. Pay attention to White's &lt;code&gt;d5!&lt;/code&gt; push, opening lines and activating his pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Plan for side with the isolated pawn: Advancing the isolated pawn in order to cramp the opponent :&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1265741&quot;&gt;Novoteljnov-Bondarevski, Moscow 1951&lt;/a&gt; is one  good example. Pay attention to &lt;code&gt;12...d4!&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Plan for side with the isolated pawn: Development of initiative on the queenside :&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This happens rarely, but I was able to find illustrative game. Notice how Black exploits queenside weaknesses with &lt;code&gt;16...Qb5&lt;/code&gt; to increase his initiative in the game &lt;code&gt;Bitman-Zlotnik, Moscow 1979&lt;/code&gt;. I can not find online resource for this game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now after seeing plans for the side with isolated pawn we must examine plans for the side fighting the isolated pawn:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Plan for side fighting the isolated pawn: Simplification of the game with goal to transpose into favorable endgame :&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1068095&quot;&gt;Karpov-Spassky, Montreal 1979&lt;/a&gt; is a very good example. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Plan for side fighting the isolated pawn: Transposing into the position with hanging pawns :&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1132645&quot;&gt;Zukertort-Steinitz, Vienna 1886&lt;/a&gt; is a classical example. Notice how Steinitz exchanged pieces, thus reducing White's attacking potential. &lt;strong&gt;As soon as White is not able to attack&lt;/strong&gt; he starts to stand worse due to the weakness of the isolated pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1353264&quot;&gt;Furman-Kholmov, Kiev 1954&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1067784&quot;&gt;Taimanov-Karpov, Moscow 1973&lt;/a&gt; are very good examples of a positional approach. However, you might be forced to destroy hanging pawns dynamically like in &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1106531&quot;&gt;Petrosian-Smyslov, Moscow 1961&lt;/a&gt;.  Pay attention to &lt;code&gt;18...Rxc3!&lt;/code&gt; strike.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;But how does all this apply for your line in Panov attack?&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;Typical plans in the position with isolated pawn are not opening dependent. Opening moves can only enable some plans and make others impossible to execute, but no matter what opening you play the typical plans remain the same.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is very important to know. In order to choose proper plan you must know the current opening theory. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I believe that little has changed and that you will have to implement the plan of transforming White isolated pawn into hanging pawns, and then attack them. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should also &lt;strong&gt;cement a piece on &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;avoid transformation of the current pawn structure&lt;/strong&gt;, unless it favors you ( hanging pawns as I have said, are the only good pawn structure for you, others favor White ). As said, 4 minor pieces on the board are good for White, 3 is unclear and everything else favors Black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just exchange smart and you will be on a good way to at least draw. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The paramount importance is the opening play. If you get good position from opening, then &lt;strong&gt;it will be easier for you to play the position&lt;/strong&gt; as your plans are clear and straightforward. White on the other hand has to generate an attack which is not that easy, and usually will have to be satisfied with a small space advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;ILLUSTRATIVE GAMES FROM OP's OPENING:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We shall analyze games #2 and #6 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chess.pl?tid=55432&quot;&gt;from Kamsky-Karpov, Elista 1996&lt;/a&gt; which will hopefully help you grasp the above mentioned concepts:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First quickly play through the games 2 and 6. You will notice that everything was the same until move 12 where Black first played &lt;code&gt;Bd7&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;Rc8&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;sticking to passive defense,&lt;/strong&gt; while in the game 6 he played more active &lt;code&gt;Qb6&lt;/code&gt; which allowed him to exchange few pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Notice how in the second game Black was cramped due to the presence of 4 minor pieces on the board and because he had no counterplay. Also pay attention to &lt;code&gt;45.f4!&lt;/code&gt; that launched a kingside attack. &lt;strong&gt;This is the topic we covered above under &lt;em&gt;kingside attack&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/strong&gt; The attack was possible due to the &lt;code&gt;18.d5!&lt;/code&gt; &lt;strong&gt;which opens center favorably&lt;/strong&gt;, again &lt;strong&gt;we mentioned that too under &lt;em&gt;favorable opening of the center&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now look how Black stood much better when he played actively, and when he &lt;strong&gt;exchanged a minor piece.&lt;/strong&gt; Notice how &lt;strong&gt;he had more space to maneuver&lt;/strong&gt;, and notice how he &lt;strong&gt;immediately took &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt; square, and other ones around the &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt; pawn, under his control.&lt;/strong&gt; This is important! &quot;Cementing&quot; a piece on &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt; hinders opponent's attacking potential. Pay really good attention to this. After &lt;code&gt;23.Bxf5&lt;/code&gt; we can see that &lt;strong&gt;White has lost his space advantage&lt;/strong&gt;, and now Black got fully equal game since only 2 minor pieces were left. Black equalized by &lt;strong&gt;keeping the squares around isolated pawn &quot;in check&quot;.&lt;/strong&gt; Also, &lt;strong&gt;he had enough space&lt;/strong&gt; to properly regroup his pieces for defense and counter attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another highly instructive game is &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1111037&quot;&gt;J.Polgar-V.Smyslov, Aruba 1992&lt;/a&gt;. Just look how Black exchanged the queens with &lt;code&gt;9...Qb6!&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;10...Ba5!&lt;/code&gt;and then look how White's isolated pawn became &lt;strong&gt;instantly&lt;/strong&gt; weak when he was not able to attack anymore. Black had pressure in that game in the end but since there were 4 minor pieces White had enough defenders for his weak pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;A CONCRETE PLAN SUGGESTION FOR THE OP's POSITION:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I used to play Caro-Kann, so in the position you mention my plan would be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;To finish my development.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Exchange at least one minor piece.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Solve the problem of developing my light-squared bishop, usually by playing &lt;code&gt;b6+Bb7&lt;/code&gt; or by playing &lt;code&gt;Rd8+Bd7+Be8&lt;/code&gt;. These are typical maneuvers for Black.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At that point opening ends and starts the middlegame. There you can try to implement one of the 2 above mentioned plans. It all depends from White's moves. Still, you will probably exchange knights on &lt;code&gt;c3&lt;/code&gt; and maybe dark-squared bishops, which will result in the pawn structure with the hanging pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;About the move order in your post:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White takes on &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt; too early, so all kind of options are possible for you. Still, you have 3 good moves as Black after he plays: &lt;code&gt;Nc6&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;Bb4&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;Be7&lt;/code&gt;. Personally, I prefer solidity above all, so I would choose &lt;code&gt;Be7&lt;/code&gt; but the best move in my opinion is &lt;code&gt;Bb4&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Again I must stress that it is of paramount importance to leave the opening with equal position. The same goes for White too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;SUMMARY:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For detailed explanation of plans in the Isolated pawn position consult the following books:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;I.Sokolov-Winning chess middlegames&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;Baburin-Winning Pawn Structures&lt;/em&gt; and especially &lt;em&gt;B.A.Zlotnik-Typical middlegame positions&lt;/em&gt;. The last book is pure gold and is out of print, but still try to find it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for Caro-Kann, Panov attack you should get Karpov's book &lt;em&gt;A.Karpov &amp;amp; M.Podgaets-Caro-Kann defense Panov Attack, Batsford 2006&lt;/em&gt;. It is entirely devoted to Panov attack, and I think it is outstanding.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sorry for scarce information, but there is just too much to be said for this topic that it wouldn't fit here. So if you have follow up questions just leave a comment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Best regards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastEditorUserId="2042" LastEditDate="2014-04-20T14:35:34.277" LastActivityDate="2014-04-20T14:35:34.277" CommentCount="2" CommunityOwnedDate="2014-03-18T06:41:16.293" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5025" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5022" CreationDate="2014-03-15T10:34:27.990" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;I learned to play blindfolded chess by practicing it from 2001 to 2005. In my opinion, it is a skill that can be learned, practice will give results.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What I do is to try to visualize the chess board and the pieces on the board at every moment of the game. I have to update it one or more times per second, since it keeps vanishing. It does require considerable effort and you get tired after a single game, even at relatively short time controls.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It might be easier to start off by having an empty chess board in front of you, when training. When practicing, you can ask a friend to play with the board and you sitting with your back to the board, getting and sending your moves verbally. Close your eyes, if you find it helps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you find it difficult, then everything is correct :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There seems to be a nice book out there on the subject:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.blindfoldchess.net/&quot;&gt;http://www.blindfoldchess.net/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Perhaps there are more books / articles out there!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-03-15T10:47:09.713" LastActivityDate="2014-03-15T10:47:09.713" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5026" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5023" CreationDate="2014-03-15T10:56:28.097" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Positions with the isolated d-pawn (d4 for white or d5 for black) are indeed an important case to study.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the side with the isolated d-pawn&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You and your opponent should have 3 or 4 light pieces each.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Use the outposts created by this pawn (c5 and e5 for white) and attack.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Remember the dynamic force of this pawn (d4-d5 for white).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the side defending against an isolated d-pawn&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Exchange off light pieces.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Control and later invade the weak squares around the pawn (c4, d5 and e4 for white)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Exchange down to an endgame and try to win there.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2018-09-24T20:48:02.203" LastActivityDate="2018-09-24T20:48:02.203" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="5027" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5020" CreationDate="2014-03-15T11:37:30.030" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It will depend on the placement of perhaps mainly the light pieces and the queens. Attacking the enemy d-pawn is definitely an option. Over-protecting your own d-pawn is also an option. Placing a knight on the (for white) e5-forepost is an option.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In general, it is a good idea to have a knight that is ready to grab the enemy d-pawn when given a chance. The reason is because the enemy will try to build pressure on your d-pawn by placing the queen (as black) on b6 or f6. Then, as white, you are ready for e.g. Nc3xd5 hitting the queen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can consider placing a bishop (as white) on the h1-a8 diagonal to pressure the enemy d-pawn. Note that when you play Nf3-e5, you lose a defender of your d4-pawn and black can build up on d4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With the heavy pieces, you should probably invade on the c-file (since the enemy has castled kingside and the c-file is further away from the enemy king than the e-file). You can try to use the c5-forepost to weaken the enemy queenside and invade with a rook on c7 or c6 (also push b2-b4-b5). Then, later, you can place a knight on c6 (given that black has done b7-b6 and made c6 weak).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastActivityDate="2014-03-15T11:37:30.030" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5028" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5031" CreationDate="2014-03-15T11:37:36.750" Score="27" ViewCount="10650" Body="&lt;p&gt;The FIDE chess rules describe that &quot;The game is draw when a position is reached from which a checkmate cannot occur by any possible series of legal moves&quot; (FIDE rule 9.6).  This rules is sometimes referred to as &quot;Insufficient mating material rule&quot;, and the material that results in draw based on this rule is described in &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draw_%28chess%29#Draws_in_all_games&quot;&gt;Draws in all games&lt;/a&gt;.  So this covers the case where even a helpmate (or checkmate by unskilled play) is not possible with the present material.  So:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is sufficient mating material, whereby a skilled player can force another skilled player into checkmate?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some combinations are well known, like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;K + Q vs. K&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;K + R vs. K&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;K + B(w) + B(b) vs. K&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But is for example K + N + B vs. K sufficient mating material ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2041" LastEditorUserId="8201" LastEditDate="2018-04-06T11:59:26.277" LastActivityDate="2020-08-05T02:29:26.890" Title="What is sufficient mating material?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;draw&gt;&lt;material-balance&gt;&lt;dead-position&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5029" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5028" CreationDate="2014-03-15T11:58:48.610" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;K+N+B, K+B+B, K+R, K+Q, and K+N+N are.  The latter is a helpmate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;K+N and K+B are insufficient.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2014-03-15T11:58:48.610" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5030" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5028" CreationDate="2014-03-15T12:31:57.537" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;The quote&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The game is draw when a position is reached from which a checkmate cannot occur by any possible series of legal moves&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is a good summary in itself. It is not just how much material e.g. white has, black's material is also important. For example, let's say white has a K+N and black has K and h-pawn. Black's time runs out. Black loses on time, because&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;You can theoretically reach a position with the available material where black is checkmated&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When one of the players only has a king left, then the situation is different. The following material is judged as enough for a checkmate when the side with the lone King runs out of time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;K+pawn vs K&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;K+knight+knight vs K&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;K+bishop+knight vs K&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;K+the bishop pair vs K&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;K+rook vs K&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;K+queen vs K&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Edited to be more precise)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-12-10T17:42:45.200" LastActivityDate="2014-12-10T17:42:45.200" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5031" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5028" CreationDate="2014-03-15T13:14:51.820" Score="24" Body="&lt;p&gt;Most basic first - this rule is the reason that &lt;em&gt;King vs King&lt;/em&gt; is an immediate draw. Neither side has a piece to check with, let alone checkmate with. A position that is a draw because neither side can win is called a &quot;dead position&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Playing against a bare king, a bishop or a knight is insufficient to checkmate with, and therefore K+B v K and K+N v K is always a dead position. Most online playing sites end there, and consider everything else winnable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;K+Q v K, K+R v K, K+B+B v K, K+B+N v K are all endings in which white can even &lt;em&gt;force&lt;/em&gt; mate (see &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Checkmate#Basic_checkmates&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;an overview of basic checkmates on Wikipedia)&lt;/a&gt;. Because you ask for it explicitly, here is an example of a mate with N and B:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;k7/8/NKB5/8/8/8/8/8 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are some special cases. K+N+N v K is tricky -- white can't &lt;em&gt;force&lt;/em&gt; mate, but mate is still possible:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;6k1/8/6K1/4N3/4N3/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White plays &lt;strong&gt;1.Nf6+&lt;/strong&gt;, and black avoids mate by going to f8. But if he goes into the corner with &lt;strong&gt;1...Kh8??&lt;/strong&gt;, then &lt;strong&gt;2.Nf7#&lt;/strong&gt; mates.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So K+N+N v K is basically always given an immediate draw by the player with the knights in a slow game, because he knows he won't win. It will be awarded a draw by the arbiter if black claims one based on rule G.6 [the old &quot;10.2&quot;, before july 1 2014], if the other requirements of that rule are met, and it's trivial to make 50 moves without losing. But if black runs out of time, black loses. And in a blitz game where nobody is writing down moves to count them, that may happen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;K+B v K+B is also tricky:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;5B2/8/8/8/8/7K/8/6bk w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With the bishops on the same color, mate isn't possible. It's an immediate draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/5B2/8/8/8/7K/8/6bk w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But with opposite colored bishops it is: &lt;strong&gt;1.Bd5#&lt;/strong&gt; mates.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In most other endgames it is possible to think of a way that one or both sides can be mated. In particular, if there are pawns, it is usually possible that one of them promotes and checkmates later. but there are exceptions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;4k3/8/8/p1p1p1p1/P1P1P1P1/8/8/4K3 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To a human it's immediately obvious that the kings will never be able to cross to the other side, so this is a dead position. Engines have no clue, though. Mine thinks white is minutely worse.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And in &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/4963/longest-sequence-of-mutually-forced-moves&quot;&gt;the recent question about sequences of forced moves&lt;/a&gt;, limulus proposed this position with an &quot;infinite loop&quot; of forced moves:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/6p1/1p3pPk/1P3Pp1/1Pp3p1/KpP3P1/1P6/8 - - - 0 0 &quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Neither king can break out of its jail -- so this is just another example of a dead position. Immediate draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.193" LastActivityDate="2016-03-08T14:29:00.263" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5032" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-03-15T22:40:39.940" Score="5" ViewCount="1682" Body="&lt;p&gt;Title says it all. Feel free to add comment, theory, or explanation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just to clarify, this is only regarding turn 1 of White, and no proceeding turns after it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2697" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-03-15T23:53:42.580" LastActivityDate="2014-05-09T18:41:02.757" Title="What are the first moves chosen (White), by brute force chess engines?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;engines&gt;&lt;statistics&gt;&lt;evaluation&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5033" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5034" CreationDate="2014-03-16T00:01:05.423" Score="5" ViewCount="256" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the game between Kramnik and Karjakin shown below, the opening was a bit strange and the resulting position was odd. I am wondering, was 8...f5 correct? Was it a novelty of sorts or when did the game leave the established opening theory in this line? Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;FIDE Candidates Tournament 2014&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2014.03.14&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;2&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Kramnik, Vladimir&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Karjakin, Sergey&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. c4 dxc4 3. e4 Nf6 4. e5 Nd5 5. Bxc4 Nb6 6. Bd3 Nc6 7. Be3 Nb4 8. Be4 f5 9. a3 fxe4 10. axb4 e6 11. Nc3 Bxb4 12. Qh5+ g6 13. Qg4 Bxc3+ 14. bxc3 Qd5 15. Ne2 Bd7 16. O-O Qc4 17. Ng3 Bc6 18. Ra5 O-O-O 19. Rc5 Qb3 20. c4 Kb8 21. Qxe6 Rde8 22. Qh3 Nxc4 23. Rxc6 bxc6 24. Nxe4 Nb6 25. Nc5 Qd5 26. Rc1 Ka8 27. Na6 Kb7 28. Nb4 Qf7 29. Qg4 Nd5 30. Nxc6 Re6 31. Na5+ Ka8 32. Qe4 Rb6 33. g4 h5 34. Rc5 Rd8 35. Nc6 Rxc6 36. Rxc6 hxg4 37. Rf6 Qh7 38. Bg5 Qg8 39. Rxg6 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastActivityDate="2014-03-16T00:45:17.397" Title="Kramnik - Karjakin in the FIDE Candidates 2014, was 8...f5 correct?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;kramnik&gt;&lt;karjakin&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5034" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5033" CreationDate="2014-03-16T00:45:17.397" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;8...f5&lt;/strong&gt; is no novelty. It is a well known line and has been played successfully before by strong players like &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1014523&quot;&gt;Adams&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1043691&quot;&gt;Salov&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1703072&quot;&gt;Karjakin&lt;/a&gt; himself. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;8...f5&lt;/strong&gt; is absolutely the correct move in the position, because it practically forces White to either surrender his strong central pawn on &lt;strong&gt;e5&lt;/strong&gt; or give up his strong light squared bishop for Black's knight on &lt;strong&gt;b4&lt;/strong&gt;. I demonstrate a line below showing what happens if White tries to avoid both these possibilities with &lt;strong&gt;9. Bf3&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;   [FEN &quot;r1bqkb1r/ppp1p1pp/1n6/4Pp2/1n1PB3/4B3/PP3PPP/RN1QK1NR w KQkq f6 0 9&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;   1. Bf3 f4! 2. Bxf4 Qxd4 (2... Bf5!?) 3. Qxd4 Nc2+ 4. Kf1 Nxd4=&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus, in the above position, White is practically forced to concede one of the two advantages. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Normally, White players preferred to play &lt;strong&gt;9.exf6&lt;/strong&gt; for &quot;obvious&quot; reasons like the light squared bishop is stronger than the knight on b4 and is White's most valuable piece in launching a kingside attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus, in this position the move &lt;strong&gt;9. a3!?&lt;/strong&gt; must have come as a complete shock to Karjakin. It has never been played before at Grandmaster level and was only played once before in Janczarski,M (2335)-Bartel,M (2273) Warsaw 2013 (source &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/news/three-winners-in-spectacular-second-round-fide-candidates-6761&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;   [FEN &quot;r1bqkb1r/ppp1p1pp/1n6/4Pp2/1n1PB3/4B3/PP3PPP/RN1QK1NR w KQkq f6 0 9&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;   9. a3!?&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Whether &lt;strong&gt;9.a3!?&lt;/strong&gt; is good or bad is a different question. It seems to me that after &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;   [FEN &quot;r1bqkb1r/ppp1p1pp/1n6/4Pp2/1n1PB3/4B3/PP3PPP/RN1QK1NR w KQkq f6 0 9&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;   9. a3 N4d5 10. Bf3 Nxe3 11. fxe3 g6 12. Ne2 Bh6!&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black is perfectly fine. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Conclusion: &lt;strong&gt;8...f5&lt;/strong&gt; is correct! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2429" LastActivityDate="2014-03-16T00:45:17.397" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5035" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5022" CreationDate="2014-03-16T01:47:52.970" Score="29" Body="&lt;p&gt;In essence, you are asking- &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Can memory (or other brain functions) be improved or is it a natural trait?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The answer is yes to both. While it is true that one's memory can be &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory#Improving_memory&quot;&gt;improved&lt;/a&gt;, it is also commonly observed that some people are more &quot;gifted&quot; when it comes to memory (and other brain functions) than others. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To play blindfold chess, you need three things - &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A decent &lt;strong&gt;memory&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A good ability to &lt;strong&gt;visualize&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A decent level of chess &lt;strong&gt;playing strength&lt;/strong&gt; (if you want to play decent chess i.e. or one could simply have a fantastic memory and make legal yet nonsensical moves). &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Memory&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I never &quot;practiced&quot; blindfold chess to learn it. I simply observed that as soon as my chess level got to FIDE 2000 level (for example), I could easily replay moves in my head and think &quot;blindly&quot;. I don't have a great memory. I suppose my memory is average or slightly above average, but chess has surely helped to improve it to some extent. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Visualization&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The way I do it is by visualizing a 2D board in my head&lt;/strong&gt; (like a computer screen). The board doesn't have to be crystal clear (it's often hazy), but as long as you can &quot;see&quot; the pieces in their places, it's fine. I suppose that a chess player's ability to visualize increases the more chess he/she plays. This is normal brain development. The more you exercise a muscle, the better it gets. So I would suggest you practice visualization to get better at it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Playing Strength&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The real point of blind chess is to &lt;strong&gt;play chess blindly and yet play it well&lt;/strong&gt;. So playing strength is indispensable or else there is no point in playing blind chess. If you play blind chess badly, you only prove you have a good memory and visualization power and nothing more. So, as an amateur, I would say &lt;strong&gt;your top priority is to improve your playing strength. &lt;em&gt;Work on that and your memory and visualization will automatically improve&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All the best!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2429" LastActivityDate="2014-03-16T01:47:52.970" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5036" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5009" CreationDate="2014-03-16T14:47:07.033" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, Black has trouble equalizing, but it is still a dynamic opening with lots of decisive games. Black wins less often than white, but it is a good choice if you want to win more than draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nakamura beat Anand with it in London 2011, below is my annotations on that game. This viewer does not show my comments, which you can see in my blog version &lt;a href=&quot;http://newshutzchess.blogspot.com/2011/12/nakamura-places-2nd-in-london-classic.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[Event &quot;London Chess Classic&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;London ENG&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2011.12.06&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;4&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;V Anand&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Hi Nakamura&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;E97&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;2811&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;2758&quot;]&#xA;[Annotator &quot;Fritz 12 (120s)&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;98&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;2011.12.03&quot;]&#xA;[Source &quot;ChessBase&quot;]&#xA;[SourceDate &quot;2004.11.03&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 Bg7 4. e4 d6 5. Nf3 O-O 6. Be2 e5 7.&#xA;O-O Nc6 8. d5 Ne7 9. b4 Ne8 10. c5 f5 11. Nd2 Nf6 12. a4 (12. cxd6 cxd6 13. Ba3&#xA;Bh6 14. exf5 gxf5 15. Nc4 Ng6 16. b5 Ne8 17. b6 a6 18. Bh5 Rf6 19. Bc1 Bxc1 20.&#xA;Rxc1 Nf4 21. Bxe8 Qxe8 22. Ne2 Ng6 23. f4 Bd7 24. fxe5 dxe5 25. Ng3 Qf8 26. Nh5&#xA;Rf7 {Postny,E (2591)-Nataf,I (2592) Evora 2006 0-1 (40)}) 12... g5 (12... Kh8&#xA;13. f3 Bh6 (13... g5 14. Nc4 g4 15. fxg4 dxc5 16. bxc5 fxe4 17. d6 cxd6 18. g5&#xA;Ne8 19. cxd6 Ng6 20. Nxe4 Be6 21. Ba3 Rf4 22. Rxf4 exf4 23. Rb1 b6 24. Bb2 Rc8&#xA;25. Bxg7+ Nxg7 26. Qd4 Rc5 27. Nxc5 {1-0 (27) Petran,P (2386)-Werner,D (2362)&#xA;Budapest 2004}) 14. Nc4 Bxc1 15. Qxc1 f4 16. a5 g5 17. b5 Ng6 18. b6 dxc5 19.&#xA;Nb5 Ne8 20. Nxa7 Bd7 21. Qb2 cxb6 22. axb6 Qf6 23. Nb5 Rb8 24. Nc7 h5 25. h3&#xA;Nd6 26. Rfc1 Nxc4 27. Rxc4 {Schussler,H (2420)-Ivarsson,J (2355) Stockholm&#xA;1980 1-0 (37)}) (12... f4 13. Nc4 Kh8 14. Ba3 Ne8 15. a5 Ng8 16. f3 Rf7 17. Qb3&#xA;Ngf6 18. b5 Nh5 19. Rfc1 dxc5 20. Bxc5 Nd6 21. b6 Nxc4 22. Bxc4 cxb6 23. axb6&#xA;a6 24. d6 Rf8 25. Nd5 Bd7 26. Nc7 Rb8 27. Ne6 {Lekic,D (2390)-Filipovic,M &#xA;(2121) Budva 2009 1-0 (34)}) (12... fxe4 13. Ndxe4 Nf5 14. Bg5 h6 15. Bxf6 Bxf6&#xA;16. Bg4 Bg7 17. b5 Rf7 18. c6 bxc6 19. bxc6 h5 20. Bh3 Ba6 21. Re1 Rb8 22. Rb1&#xA;Rxb1 23. Qxb1 Bh6 24. Nb5 Kg7 25. Ng3 Nxg3 26. hxg3 Bd2 27. Re4 {Gleizerov,E &#xA;(2405)-Temirbaev,S (2375) Uzhgorod 1988 1/2-1/2}) 13. Nc4 $146 ({fritz opening&#xA;book variations} 13. a5 f4 14. g4 (14. f3 Ng6 15. a6 b6 16. Bb5 g4 17. Bc6 Rb8&#xA;18. Nb5 g3 19. h3 Bxh3 20. gxh3 Qc8 21. Re1 Qxh3) 14... Ng6 15. f3 h5 16. h3&#xA;Rf7 17. Rf2 (17. Ba3 Bf8 18. Nc4 Rh7 19. Kg2 Be7 20. b5 Qf8) 17... Bf8 18. Ba3&#xA;Rh7 19. Nf1 Be7 20. Rc1) 13... h6 $6 {wastes a tempo as ...f4, f3 is going to&#xA;happen anyway.  IMHO,13...f4 was called for. OTOH,  Nakamura is a much better&#xA;player than I. The engines give 13...h6 as black's best move, but white has a&#xA;clear advantage} (13... f4 {gets back into a main line} 14. f3 Ng6 15. Ba3 Rf7&#xA;16. b5) (13... h6 14. f3 fxe4 15. fxe4 Ng6 16. Ba3 Nf4&#xA;17. Bf3 b6 18. cxd6 cxd6 19. Rc1 g4 20. Be2 h5 21. b5 Ne8 22. g3 Nh3+ 23. Kg2&#xA;Rxf1 24. Qxf1 Bh6 {0.58/25}) 14. f3 f4 15. Ba3 Ng6 16. b5 dxc5 17. Bxc5 Rf7 18.&#xA;a5 h5 19. b6 g4 20. Nb5 cxb6 21. axb6 g3 {Though the pawn chain pointed at&#xA;White's king looks threatening,  Nakamura is a long way from finishing his&#xA;kingside attack. Anand has a tremendous advantage, but needs to play actively&#xA;to bring the point home.} 22. Kh1 $2 {Not a losing move, but much too timid.&#xA;Anand was trying to secure his position by making sure that ...gxh2 did not&#xA;come with check. Preventing ...gxh3 with 22.h3 would allow the thematic ...&#xA;Bxh3 sacrifice that is usually bad for white.} (22. Qc2 {Does not look all&#xA;that active, but keeps all of White's threats in the air, and positions the&#xA;queen for invasion of Black's position along the c-file, frees the Rf1,&#xA;provides defensive support to g2, support for the Bc5, and support for a&#xA;knight posted on f5 (via d6, which is not a square the knight wants to rest on,&#xA;as it blocks the d-pawn, the Bc5, and the other knight.} a6 (22... gxh2+ 23.&#xA;Kh1 {is safe enough, as both black knights are far from g3. White might be&#xA;able to take on h2, but that requires a lot of calculation, that might be&#xA;better spent on other lines.}) 23. Ncd6 Rd7 24. Nf5) 22... Bf8 23. d6 {I think&#xA;this is premature. White can maintain control of d6, so the pawn is not going&#xA;to be blockaded, soon.} ({Fritz likes} 23. Rxa7 Rb8 24. Ncd6) 23... a6 24. Nc7&#xA;Rb8 25. Na5 Kh8 26. Bc4 Rg7 27. Ne6 Bxe6 28. Bxe6 gxh2 29. Nc4 $2 {Where is&#xA;this knight going? If Anand felt the need to shore up the d6 pawn, then I&#xA;think 29.Ra2 would have been better.} ({Fritz 12:} 29. Bh3 Nh7 30. Qd5 Nf6 31.&#xA;Qd3 Nh7 32. Nc4 Ng5 33. Bf5 Nf7 34. Qd5 Qf6 35. Qe6 Qg5 36. Ra2 {2.39/25})&#xA;29... Qe8 30. Bd5 $2 (30. Bh3 {would stifle any black attack on the kingside,&#xA;and keep control of c8}) 30... h4 31. Rf2 h3 32. gxh3 Rc8 33. Ra5 Nh4 34. Kxh2&#xA;Nd7 35. Bb4 Rg3 36. Qf1 Qh5 37. Ra3 a5 38. Be1 Rxc4 $1 {This exchange&#xA;sacrifice allows Nakamura to activate his dark square bishop and bring it into&#xA;the attack.} 39. Bxc4 Bxd6 40. Rxa5 Bc5 41. Be2 $2 (41. Rxc5 {returning the&#xA;exchange this way allows Anand to keep the Rf2} Nxc5 42. Be2 Ne6 43. Kh1 Ng2&#xA;44. Qxg2 Rxg2 45. Rxg2 {and things are pretty grim for white, but if he can&#xA;exchange off the rest of the pawns, he might be able to hold.}) 41... Bxb6 42.&#xA;Rb5 $2 Bd4 (42... Bxf2 $1 {I was screaming at my computer as I watched this&#xA;game live. It also would have worked on the previous move, but I did not see&#xA;it then.} 43. Bxf2 Nxf3+ 44. Bxf3 Qxf3) 43. Bd1 $2 (43. Rxb7 {would have&#xA;lessened the damage.}) 43... Bxf2 {finally, this move would have worked on move 41 and 42} 44. Bxf2 Nxf3+ 45. Bxf3 Qxf3 46.&#xA;Rb1 Rg6 47. Rxb7 Nf6 48. Rb8+ Kh7 49. Rb7+ Kh6 {White must give up material,&#xA;or the e4-pawn will fall and white cannot stop the black pawns.} (49... Kh6 50.&#xA;Rb6 (50. Rb8 Nxe4 51. Rb2 Rg3 52. Re2 Qd3 53. Bxg3 Nxg3 54. Qf2 Qxe2 55. Qxe2&#xA;Nxe2 56. Kg2 Nd4) 50... Ng4+ 51. hxg4 Rxb6) 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2359" LastEditorUserId="2359" LastEditDate="2014-07-30T13:51:54.157" LastActivityDate="2014-07-30T13:51:54.157" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5037" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5022" CreationDate="2014-03-16T15:06:11.567" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just want to share what I am doing now to improve my blindfold chess visualization skill. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I downloaded a dozen of minigames of 10 to 15 moves in PGN format from chessgames.com , then I load it from my chess PGN application from my mobile phone. Then I read the PGN and play it on my mind without browsing it from my PGN reader. As I finished the game from my mind. I verify the position by playing the actual game from my PGN reader. I am using Chess PGN Master available from Iphone and Android.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I feel happy every time I finished a game that matches exactly from the game I visualized.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think this stepping stone would put me someday from playing blindfold chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2472" LastActivityDate="2014-03-16T15:06:11.567" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5038" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5032" CreationDate="2014-03-16T15:13:30.487" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Houdini 1.5 on my old machine (1.8 G 2 cpu) slows down a lot around 20 ply (10 moves).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At 20 ply, it seems to slightly favor a four knights queen pawn game, starting with d4 or Nf3 over the Four Knights (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Nc3 Nf6)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;it switches at 22 ply to the Ruy Lopez Berlin (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 Nf6 4.O-O Be7).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;at ply 23, it switches back to d-pawn four knights, but starting with 1.Nf3&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2359" LastActivityDate="2014-03-16T15:13:30.487" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5039" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="442" CreationDate="2014-03-16T15:14:11.143" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In some countries, chess is a part of school subjects. According to research, students who started to play chess got a higher IQ. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chesskids.com is a wonderful chess site dedicated to kids.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2472" LastActivityDate="2014-03-16T15:14:11.143" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5040" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-03-16T15:40:21.947" Score="3" ViewCount="360" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/5028/what-is-sufficient-mating-material&quot;&gt;What is sufficient mating material?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I found this question and must pose my own as a response.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I you have a chess computer on easy (or the Kasparov Team Mate - anyone who has played one will know the &quot;why did it do that?&quot; -&gt; &quot;Oh, if we don't trade knights, then bishops, then our other bishops and a rook, I'll lose!&quot; it loves to swap and the above has actually happened) you will probably end up with most of the pieces off the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes you can see a checkmate, but you can never get to it because of the square the king is currently on. BUT you may only checkmate if black skips a turn. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The algebra of this behavior coupled with intuition suggests that if you think of a move as a 2 element tuple (white's move followed by black) that these are from groups with an LCM of their orders of 2. Which is why no number of moves will give a checkmate, thus meeting the 50 move draw at most.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is this, what is the algebra behind this? I'm pretty sure it deals with cosets of orbits of board layouts. My Algebra isn't strong enough to analyse this but there is SOMETHING at play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Secondly, imagine you could &quot;bump&quot; the board, so your knight shifted without anyone noticing one square horizontally. Now it is on a different colour, this should adjust the parity (illegally, albeit) and now you should be able to mate. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now this raises the question of &quot;if this happens a lot, play to protect the other knight, as it starts on a different colour (thus is the opposite parity), then you should be able to win)&quot; This would make which knight you have left the deciding tool between stalemate (accidentally making it so they cannot move their king (with nothing else left) but not checking him) and checkmate. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess is a hobby of mine, I am quite new to the established realm of it, I sort of learned myself from electronic boards (which I still do, I have some strong ones! (Kasparov Turbo s24k, the one after this famously played Kasparov, a GK2000, a GK2200, a Kasparov Cougar (ELO estimated by enthusiasts to be 2100, manufacturer claimed 2250 IIRC) -I say this to try and show I'm not a noob).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I hope somebody can parse what I'm trying to say, I do apologise for the poor quality of this question. I'll try and play an example tonight and edit it in if no one can understand this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2703" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T15:29:29.853" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T15:29:29.853" Title="&quot;Parity&quot; of &quot;insuficient mating material&quot;" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="5041" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5032" CreationDate="2014-03-16T15:46:25.470" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;A chess engine works by trying to &quot;rate&quot; positions, and evaluate how strong they are. It could find a checkmate in 4 moves (that one where white checkmates by getting queen to f7 (IIRC)) but it'd be stupid to consider this &quot;AHA! My evaluation is that I have won!&quot; As such it is very subjective as it depends hugely on what it thinks the opponents best move is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is for this reason it is not (read: I really really doubt, with my mathsy-background) known if chess is a fair game, that is will &quot;perfect&quot; playing by both sides lead to a draw, or white or black to win, because that &quot;perfect&quot; part is so subjective.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With 0s and Xs, it is a fair game because it is easy to show that &quot;perfect&quot; playing leads to a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2703" LastEditorUserId="2703" LastEditDate="2014-03-26T23:32:30.897" LastActivityDate="2014-03-26T23:32:30.897" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5042" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5040" CreationDate="2014-03-16T17:03:58.720" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is a little unclear exactly what you are after, but the following portion of the question points to an area where something directly mathematical is going on:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Sometimes you can see a checkmate, but you can never get to it because of the square the king is currently on. BUT you may only checkmate if black skips a turn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This describes a situation known as &lt;em&gt;mutual zugzwang&lt;/em&gt; (or, &lt;em&gt;reciprocal zugzwang&lt;/em&gt;), which is where we have a position in which it is detrimental for either side to have a move. A prototypical example comes from K+P vs. K.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;3k4/8/3KP3/8/8/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e7+ Ke8 2.Ke6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White has no better than to allow this stalemate, whereas if Black had the move, White wins by &lt;code&gt;1...Ke8 2.e7 Kf7 3.Kd7&lt;/code&gt; and queens.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Much more complicated examples exist, of course. In the following position, for instance, Black to move will lose, while White to move has no better than a draw:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;8/q7/5q2/8/8/8/6QQ/k6K w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The above example was discovered by computer, actually. It is mentioned in Lewis Stillers' &quot;Multilinear algebra and chess endgames&quot; (&lt;a href=&quot;http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.56.1983&amp;amp;rep=rep1&amp;amp;type=pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;PDF link&lt;/a&gt;), and &lt;strong&gt;that article gives a fair amount of background on the group-theoretic considerations involved&lt;/strong&gt;. For further reading on the matter, you might try to get your hands on &quot;Chess art in the computer age,&quot; &lt;em&gt;American Chess Journal&lt;/em&gt;, 1(2):48--52, September 1993. I haven't seen the text myself, but this piece is referenced in Stillers' article, and it is by &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.math.harvard.edu/~elkies/chess.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Noam Elkies&lt;/a&gt;, who is a world-class mathematician and a chess master (not to mention the 1996 World Chess Solving Champion). I know for sure that the article at least touches on the topic at hand, because it includes a composed study that is based on the mutual zugzwang above:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;5Q2/5P1b/8/7K/8/1q4k1/1p4B1/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Elkies&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Study&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White to play and win (solution indicated in Stillers' article).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2014-03-16T17:03:58.720" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5043" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4071" CreationDate="2014-03-16T20:21:45.883" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Interesting puzzle, particularly the requirement that the number of moves be exactly four per side.  But for that, a three-move-per-side solution would be easy:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c6 2. Bc4 e6 3. Bxe6 dxe6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The difficulty is that all three of black's moves are pawn moves, and wasting a turn moving anything else would force Black to waste &lt;em&gt;another&lt;/em&gt; turn moving it back.  It becomes apparent therefore that two of black's moves must be with something other than pawns, which in turn implies that White must capture d7 at its original location.  That capture cannot occur prior to White's third move, and cannot occur after c6.  Thus, Black will have only one move available after c6, and must move something off its original position before C6.  That piece must return to its original spot on its last move, and that spot must contain the bishop.  The only Black piece whose original spot White's bishop could reach are his king and his light-square bishop; of those, only the former can move before turn 3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2698" LastActivityDate="2014-03-16T20:21:45.883" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5044" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5032" CreationDate="2014-03-16T22:46:16.527" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Figured I'd post the famous Deep Blue vs Kasparov games. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Game #  White       Black       Result  Opening     Comment&#xA;1       Deep Blue   Kasparov    1–0     e4 c5&#xA;2       Kasparov    Deep Blue   1–0     Nf3 d5&#xA;3       Deep Blue   Kasparov    ½–½     e4 c5       Draw by mutual agreement&#xA;4       Kasparov    Deep Blue   ½–½     Nf3 d5      Draw by mutual agreement&#xA;5       Deep Blue   Kasparov    0–1     e4 e5       Kasparov offered a draw after the 23rd move.&#xA;6       Kasparov    Deep Blue   1–0     Nf3 d5&#xA;Result: Kasparov–Deep Blue: 4–2&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;Game #  White       Black       Result  Opening     Comment&#xA;1       Kasparov    Deep Blue   1–0     Nf3 d5&#xA;2       Deep Blue   Kasparov    1–0     e4 e5&#xA;3       Kasparov    Deep Blue   ½–½     d3 e5       Draw by mutual agreement&#xA;4       Deep Blue   Kasparov    ½–½     e4 c6       Draw by mutual agreement&#xA;5       Kasparov    Deep Blue   ½–½     Nf3 d5      Draw by mutual agreement&#xA;6       Deep Blue   Kasparov    1–0     e4 c6&#xA;Result: Deep Blue–Kasparov: 3½–2½&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Deep Blue&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e4 c5 = 1-0-1&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e4 c6 = 1-0-1&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e4 e5 = 1-1-0&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Kasparov&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nf3 d5 = 3-2-0&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;d3 e5 = 0-1-0&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2697" LastActivityDate="2014-03-16T22:46:16.527" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5045" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4836" CreationDate="2014-03-17T02:23:32.637" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think I found a double-self-smothered-stalemate that could occur via sequence of legal moves from the normal starting position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;5bnk/4ppbp/4P2p/5P1P/p1p5/P2p4/PBPP4/KNB5 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;  1. c3 f6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Each player has seven pawns and two dark-square bishops, so one pawn from each player must have been promoted.  Once White's b pawn has captured to a3 and Black's g pawn has captured to h6, White's g pawn and Black's b pawn can promote without any other pawn having to leave its file.  I haven't worked out the exact &quot;game&quot;, but I see no reason to believe it wouldn't be relatively trivial, particularly if one isn't worried about achieving the position with a minimal number of moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2698" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-06-25T16:17:01.007" LastActivityDate="2019-06-25T16:17:01.007" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="5046" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-03-17T08:29:26.663" Score="5" ViewCount="268" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there a particular strategy or principle you can use to drag out the first stage of a game, namely, to preserve all your pieces as long as possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One way I can imagine this being useful, if early on you exchange your bishop for an opponent's knight, having a crowded board would thus become in your best interest, as knights are generally more valuable on crowded boards. (Or so I am told)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So once again, the goal is to lose as few pieces as possible for the longest stretch of time. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some questions were posed to me for clarification:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Why do you want to avoid exchanges?&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To see if it is possible to avoid exchanges without hurting your positioning, or by only hurting it in an insignificantly marginal manner.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;What is your goal?&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To prolong the game. Perhaps if it were a game of speed-chess, and you wished to run down the clock to play for a draw; this could be a good strategy. Perhaps if you knew your opponent to be impatient, this could be effective against him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Do you aim for a mating attack?&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Do you need a middlegame position that gives lots of maneuvering and has a high chance of dodging the endgame ( maybe you do not like to play endgame )?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Great Question; This would be ancillary. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2697" LastEditorUserId="2697" LastEditDate="2014-03-18T03:04:19.127" LastActivityDate="2019-10-24T01:53:11.777" Title="What are good strategies or principles to prolonging the first stage of a game?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;knights&gt;&lt;bishops&gt;&lt;stalemate&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5047" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5046" CreationDate="2014-03-17T13:15:15.523" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;From my experience (I am Fide Master) the main rules for the openings are:&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;1. Protect the King - Castle Kingside or Queenside.&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;2. Fight for the central squares (e4, d4, e5, d5).&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;3. Develop your pieces. &lt;br/&gt;&#xA;4. Don't move your piece twice in the opening.&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;5. Play standard opening moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2710" LastActivityDate="2014-03-17T13:15:15.523" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5048" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-03-17T14:28:15.533" Score="1" ViewCount="2232" Body="&lt;p&gt;The objective of the opening is quite clear - develop your pieces quickly, castle and bring your king to safety, etc. Once this phase is over, and you are into the middle game, the question arises - now what?!&#xA;What are some good plans to pursue in the middle game? Generally, I go for an all out attack on the enemy king. If played well, it could result in some advantage - either the opponent gets checkmated or he is forced to give up material in order to avoid a checkmate. However, in some cases the opponent king is heavily fortified - for eg. there is a doubled f or c pawn on the side where his king has castled, or there is a fianchetto bishop on the same side as the castled king which gets in the way of a mating attack. In such situations, is it advisable to still go for a mating attack? Or are there some other plans which can be pursued? How to gain an advantage? What are some common plans/strategies?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1811" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2014-03-19T09:53:14.443" LastActivityDate="2014-03-19T09:53:14.443" Title="What are some good middle game plans or strategies?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;middlegame&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ClosedDate="2014-03-18T06:31:11.803" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5049" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4836" CreationDate="2014-03-17T15:19:51.687" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;In response to an your original question about whether anything interesting has been written about stalemates, it may be worth mentioning that puzzle creator Sam Lloyd is often credited with two interesting stalemate &quot;games&quot; (though see game 3679 at &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/winter08.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/winter08.html&lt;/a&gt; for information about that attribution); in the first, White stalemates Black on the tenth move, after having captured six black pieces:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e3 a5 2.Qh5 Ra6 3.Qxa5 h5 4.Qxc7 Rah6 5.h4 f6 6.Qxd7+ Kf7 7.Qxb7 Qd3 8.Qxb8 Qh7 9.Qxc8 Kg6 10.Qe6 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the second, White is stalemated after Black's twelfth move, while all 32 chessmen are on the board:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 d6 2.Qd2 e5 3.a4 e4 4.Qf4 f5 5.h3 Be7 6.Qh2 Be6 7.Ra3 c5 8.Rg3 Qa5+ 9.Nd2 Bh4 10.f3 Bb3 11.d5 e3 12.c4 f4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In both of Sam Lloyd's positions, one side is stalemated while the other has many moves available.  For both sides to be stalemated would probably take significantly more moves, and for both sides to be smother-stalemated would take more yet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2698" LastEditorUserId="2698" LastEditDate="2017-10-31T17:37:57.650" LastActivityDate="2017-10-31T17:37:57.650" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5050" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4638" CreationDate="2014-03-17T15:51:43.290" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess moves may be divided into five categories:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Those which will guarantee victory no matter what the opponent does, as long as the player continues making category-1 moves (the opponent will have nothing but category-3 moves unless the first player makes a category-4 or category-5 move).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Those which are made in a situation where no moves of the first category were possible, and would result in a draw if both players play exclusively moves from category 2 (both players will have category-2 moves unless someone makes a move in category 5, whereupon that player's opponent will have a category-1 move available).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Those which are made in a situation where no moves of either of the first two categories is possible.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Those which are made when a category-1 move existed, and will result in a draw if both players play exclusively from category 2 (a category-4 move will give the opponent a category-2 move, and categories 1 and 3 will no longer be possible unless someone makes a move in category 6).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Those which are made when a category-1 or category-2 moves exist, but result in a loss by giving the opponent a category-1 move.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any player who is on move will always have one or more moves available in exactly one of the first three categories available; all much moves are essentially equally good (note that if a player has a category-1 move, no move by his opponent will be better or worse than any other).  All moves in category 4 are equally bad, as are all moves in category 5.  When moves exist in categories 4 and 5, those in category 5 are worse.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is often convenient to rank category-1 moves by the number of additional moves that will be required to secure checkmate (the fewer the better), and category-3 moves by the number of additional moves the opponent will require to secure checkmate (the more the better).  From a qualitative standpoint, it doesn't matter whether a mate requires 2 moves or 174, provided it doesn't run afoul of any rules which would prematurely call a draw (50-move rule, 175-move rule, etc.), but lines which rank better by those measures tend to be more interesting than those which would rank worse.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Playing against an opponent who is known to be imperfect introduces another factor, which is while a perfect opponent would never make a category-4 or category-5 move, a category-2 or category-3 move which induces the opponent to make a category-4 or category-5 move is likely to achieve a better result than one which doesn't, and may be a better move from the perspective of the game of &quot;chess against Alex Smith&quot;, but that &quot;game&quot; is nowhere near as well defined as chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2698" LastActivityDate="2014-03-17T15:51:43.290" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5051" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5046" CreationDate="2014-03-17T23:56:15.080" Score="4" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is there a particular strategy or principle you can use to drag out&#xA;  the first stage of a game?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;One way I can imagine this being useful, if early on you exchange your&#xA;  bishop for an opponent's knight, having a crowded board would thus&#xA;  become in your best interest, as knights are generally more valuable&#xA;  on crowded boards. (Or so I am told)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This entire question is unclear, but I will give it a try to answer. Let us start one by one:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is there a particular strategy or principle you can use to drag out&#xA;  the first stage of a game?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now why would you want to do that?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;One way I can imagine this being useful, if early on you exchange your&#xA;  bishop for an opponent's knight, having a crowded board would thus&#xA;  become in your best interest, as knights are generally more valuable&#xA;  on crowded boards. (Or so I am told)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Aha! So you wish to keep the board crowded in order to exploit the &quot;advantage&quot; knight has over a bishop!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well, it is time to answer:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can not keep the board crowded unless both you and your opponent &quot;agree&quot; to do so.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He can always try to exchange pieces and reduce the tension if he chooses, and the best thing you can do is to try and stop him &lt;strong&gt;by making the exchanges unfavorable for him.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately, the opening theory has advanced a lot, and there are ways for both sides to obtain a good game, so the above plan will be very hard, if not impossible, to execute. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another thing: simply exchanging the bishop for a knight, and trying to keep the pieces on board will &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; give you an advantage. &lt;strong&gt;It will all boil down to the placement of your pieces.&lt;/strong&gt; By the way, exchanging the bishop for a knight early leaves your opponent with the bishop pair, which may give &lt;strong&gt;him&lt;/strong&gt; the advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would strongly suggest you to find a resource ( book/online tutorial ) for playing the opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;EDIT IN RESPONSE TO THE OP's EDIT:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Why do you want to avoid exchanges?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;To see if it is possible to avoid exchanges without hurting your&#xA;  positioning, or by only hurting it in an insignificantly marginal&#xA;  manner.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is not possible, I am afraid. You will have to exchange at some point and here is why:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When amateur wants to exchange pieces, he uses his own to &quot;chase&quot; the opposing one until the exchange has been made.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Master, on the other hand, puts the piece he wants to exchange on the strong squares, thus forcing the exchange. That way the piece becomes annoying and strong and opponent is forced to exchange it or else he will stand worse.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In a strong game, versus strong opponent you will not be able to dodge the exchange.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What is your goal?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;To prolong the game. Perhaps if it were a game of speed-chess, and you&#xA;  wished to run down the clock to play for a draw; this could be a good&#xA;  strategy. Perhaps if you knew your opponent to be impatient, this&#xA;  could be effective against him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is very much possible, but you will need to play &lt;em&gt;typical middlegame positions&lt;/em&gt; in order to achieve this. Furthermore, you will need to be the one who dictates the game. This is very important requirement. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can play &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/5023/strategy-in-isolated-queen-pawn-positions&quot;&gt;positions with an isolated pawn&lt;/a&gt;. My answer provides comprehensive coverage of the plans for both sides. Still, let me remind you-side with the isolated pawn exchanges pieces only when it can get a definite, visible-with-the-naked-eye benefit. As long as the board is packed with pieces the advantage is on its side. Side without isolated pawn strives to exchange minor pieces and enter endgame. Again, in the endgame you can prolong the game as much as you want as you will have the advantage. Usually you will be the only one who can play for a win and your opponent usually will have no counterplay but will be forced to passively defend.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another typical position that has a lot of maneuvering and is slow is &lt;em&gt;Carlsbad pawn structure&lt;/em&gt; and it arises from Queen's Gambit Declined after White exchanges on &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt; with the move &lt;code&gt;cxd5&lt;/code&gt;. White again has lots of plans here, but you would be interested in &lt;em&gt;minority attack&lt;/em&gt;. Minority attack creates a weak pawn for Black on &lt;code&gt;c6&lt;/code&gt; and allows White to perform long maneuvers in order to take it ( just don't underestimate Black's mating attack on the kingside! ). This would be ideal choice for you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You could try &lt;em&gt;French defense&lt;/em&gt; with both colors. With White you can try &lt;em&gt;Advance variation&lt;/em&gt;, and with Black &lt;em&gt;Winaver&lt;/em&gt; sounds good. Again, both positions require long maneuvers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;END OF EDIT:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Best regards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2014-03-18T07:29:32.447" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5052" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5048" CreationDate="2014-03-18T03:12:09.173" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Although your question is quite broad, the general ideas in the middlegame are the following-&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1) Improve the &lt;strong&gt;position of your pieces&lt;/strong&gt;- knights on outposts,&#xA;  bishops on open diagonals, rooks on open files, etc. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;2) If a piece is badly placed and cannot be improved, see if you can&#xA;  &lt;strong&gt;exchange&lt;/strong&gt; it for one of your opponent's better placed pieces. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;3) Create &lt;strong&gt;weaknesses&lt;/strong&gt; in your opponent's pawn structure, by&#xA;  provoking certain pawn moves. Note that every pawn move is&#xA;  irreversible, thus you must watch out for opportunities where you can&#xA;  provoke pawn moves from your opponent that would weaken their&#xA;  position. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;4) If you yourself have weaknesses, see if you can eliminate them; if&#xA;  not, guard them well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;5) Keep your pieces &lt;strong&gt;co-ordinated&lt;/strong&gt; and see if you can disturb the&#xA;  co-ordination of your opponent's pieces. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;6) Keep your &lt;strong&gt;king safe&lt;/strong&gt; and see if the opponent's king position can&#xA;  be compromised. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;7) Look for &lt;strong&gt;transpositions into favorable endgame positions&lt;/strong&gt; (e.g.&#xA;  two bishops vs two knights or two bishops vs bishop and knight in open&#xA;  positions).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With respect to your particular approach, attack's on the opponent's king are not always justified. It may work at the beginner level, but a stronger opponent will be able to refute an &lt;strong&gt;unfounded&lt;/strong&gt; attack. In order to attack, first of all, there must be something to attack- &lt;strong&gt;weaknesses&lt;/strong&gt;. If your opponent has no weaknesses, then your attack will come to nothing and you risk ruining the co-ordination of your pieces. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The better approach therefore is to work for the &lt;strong&gt;accumulation of advantages&lt;/strong&gt;. A single advantage (like a knight on a good outpost) is often not enough to win. You must try to accumulate as many advantages as you can before you can deal the lethal attacking blow. Of course, if the opponent makes a mistake or blunders, then the lethal blow can come quickly. If not, slow yet constant improvement of your position is the best way to go. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2429" LastActivityDate="2014-03-18T03:12:09.173" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5053" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5048" CreationDate="2014-03-18T03:37:19.107" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In addition to Wes answer, try also to play and examine the games of chess grand masters. By watching their games you can get a bunch of ideas on how they perform an attack. &#xA;Check out these sites: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.365chess.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;365chess.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chessgames.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another good place to learn &quot;chess planning&quot; is by watching annotated chess games in Youtube where every move is explained, including the plans behind the moves. Check out these Youtube Chess channels:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/user/jrobichess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Jrobichess&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/user/OnlineChessLessons&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;OnlineChessLessons&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/user/GMIgorSmirnov&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;GM Igor Smirnov&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/user/thechesswebsite&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;The Chess Website&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My two cents ;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2472" LastEditorUserId="2472" LastEditDate="2014-03-18T06:50:21.017" LastActivityDate="2014-03-18T06:50:21.017" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5054" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5046" CreationDate="2014-03-18T07:22:14.103" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Closed positions (no open files and 0-2 semi-open files) give a better chance to keep the majority or even all pieces on the board. Check out the Spanish system, Sicilian Hedgehog and Stone Wall for example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Have a strong control over the center and place your pieces well. You can try to be exclusively prophylactic. Check out Petrosians games. Yet to master such positions, you need to develop your understanding of pieces and pawn structures.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastActivityDate="2014-03-18T07:22:14.103" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5055" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5058" CreationDate="2014-03-18T09:22:24.533" Score="3" ViewCount="305" Body="&lt;p&gt;I once saw a GM on YouTube using an electronic chessboard, a board that could be plugged into a computer. I liked the idea. What is it used for? When should one consider buying it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1105" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2021-01-31T09:43:15.123" LastActivityDate="2021-01-31T09:43:15.123" Title="What are electronic chessboards used for?" Tags="&lt;chessboards&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="5056" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-03-18T10:51:43.083" Score="10" ViewCount="3906" Body="&lt;p&gt;Every chess engine I've ever heard of (including all I found listed on Wikipedia) uses brute-force search with an evaluation function (minmax algorithm) to decide on its move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is not how most humans approach the game, employing general pattern recognition instead, so in principle, it would be possible for computers to do the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there any chess engine that does not rely on the brute-force approach to find its moves?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2713" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-03-19T11:41:18.443" LastActivityDate="2016-07-23T07:29:53.720" Title="Is there a chess engine that does NOT use brute-force search?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;chess-algorithms&gt;&lt;candidate-move&gt;&lt;brute-force&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5057" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5028" CreationDate="2014-03-18T13:28:29.563" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;RemcoGerlich's answer is quite exhaustive, but I would like to add that &lt;em&gt;unsymmetric theoretically drawn positions&lt;/em&gt; can arise. These are situations where one player may still checkmate, but the other cannot, e. g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;kq6/8/KB6/8/8/8/8/8 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You will not find a mating position for white but it is quite clear that black still may. Of course, this does not qualify for article 9.6 of the FIDE rules but is still important when one player's flag has fallen. If black's flag would fall in that situation, the result would be a draw, but if white's flag fell, he would have lost the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2715" LastEditorUserId="2715" LastEditDate="2020-03-31T22:21:43.427" LastActivityDate="2020-03-31T22:21:43.427" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="5058" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5055" CreationDate="2014-03-18T14:07:42.750" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I assume you are referring to &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.dgt.nl/site/index.php/products/electronic-boards&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;DGT-style electronic boards&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think the main purpose of those boards is to broadcast chessgames - e. g. on a beamer in the playing venue or on the internet. It is also useful (if it doesn't fail) for blitz games or, more generally, in any game situation where none of the players write down their moves any more if you need to comprehend the course of the game as an arbiter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't see lots of uses outside a tournament context. The GM you referred to may have used it to record what he did on the board. Some people feel better analyzing on a &amp;quot;real&amp;quot; board rather than using the chessbase broadcast or some screen-capture method.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only reason I could see to buy one as a person that does not intend to do the things mentioned above would be if you were too lazy to write down what you play in practise games or if you want to practise blitz games (although even here I could think of much cheaper alternatives if I look at &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.dgtshop.nl/9/e-boards/dgt-e-boards-with-e-board-sets&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;the prices they sell at&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2715" LastEditorUserId="2715" LastEditDate="2021-01-31T08:51:40.300" LastActivityDate="2021-01-31T08:51:40.300" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="5059" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4638" CreationDate="2014-03-18T14:23:33.247" Score="18" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If it were possible to analyse every possible outcome of a position, would there ever be a single move that could be considered &quot;best&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No. Just to give an example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;k7/6Q1/1K7/8/8/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are five moves that are equally &quot;good&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I know that this is how computers evaluate positions, but they can only calculate the decision tree down to a set number of moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not to a &quot;set&quot; number, but yes, computation time grows exponentially (even with minimax algorithms) so there is a practical limit on the search depth.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If it were possible to analyse into infinity in a reasonable amount of time (possibly with quantum computing), could the ultimate chess move be made?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Quantum computers cannot &quot;analyse into infinity in a reasonable amount of time&quot;, but you don't need to. (By the way, quantum computers do not change anything in regard to the solubility of the problem - they may be able to perform the search faster (even reducing the complexity class of the problem).)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you had a large enough amount of storage and computation time or computation speed, you could always solve chess (so you would always know the moves that will win the game in the lowest number of moves). But that's far away since even 7-men endgame tables are estimated to take up around 100 terabytes of harddrive space (compressed).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2715" LastActivityDate="2014-03-18T14:23:33.247" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5060" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5056" CreationDate="2014-03-18T15:03:28.530" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;There were attempts back in the 1980s to write chess engines with knowledge bases that would pick candidate moves like humans, but they were unsuccessful. The problem is that human pattern matching is difficult to put into words, so creating the rules for the knowledge base was extremely difficult.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Training a neural network to pick candidate moves seems like a promising line of research. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cs.utoronto.ca/~ilya/pubs/2008/go_paper.pdf&quot;&gt;Here&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.pradu.us/old/Nov27_2008/Buzz/research/parallel/movemap_heuristic.pdf&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; might be two pertinent papers. (FWIW, It is not my field of Comp Sci)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2359" LastActivityDate="2014-03-18T15:03:28.530" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5061" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-03-18T18:46:59.397" Score="3" ViewCount="335" Body="&lt;p&gt;If time is not a problem, can someone who is playing blindfolded chess play with (at least) the same strength than normal chess?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have heard some people that mastered blindfolded can even play multiple games at the same time, so this makes me think they can actually get to play at their normal strength. Are there any studies on this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="478" LastActivityDate="2014-03-19T11:25:53.653" Title="Do people who handle blindfolded chess play at reasonably the same strength given enough time to think?" Tags="&lt;elo&gt;&lt;blindfold-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5062" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5102" CreationDate="2014-03-18T18:53:08.967" Score="7" ViewCount="4440" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there a practical way of computing the shortest path from a square to another, for a knight? (for a human chess player, not for a computer)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Usually, when I want to send my knight from a square to another, I try to find a path with a rather empirical way. &quot;OK, to get there, I should go here or here... But this square is attacked, so I can only go here...&quot; and so on. Is there a more straightforward approach?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks in advance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2115" LastActivityDate="2020-01-24T19:43:02.230" Title="Shortest path for a knight" Tags="&lt;knights&gt;&lt;beginner&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5063" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4695" CreationDate="2014-03-18T21:18:04.940" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit:&lt;/strong&gt; promoting to anything different than queen will make everything explode. It will also be very hard to support this (my program for Part 2 supports underpromotion, but storing the info of Part 1 purely by reading pixels is a nightmare).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit2:&lt;/strong&gt; I just noticed you mean real board chess to PGN, so this is all useless and I will most likely delete my answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Part 1: storing the squares using pixel readers&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is totally possible, the steps needed would be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;change the set up of the board so it highlights the last move (prefereably &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; just the border)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;write a program that reads pixels on given (x,y)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;make it read about 5+ pixels on each square (so it is impossible for the cursor/piece to cover all the pixels to be read)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;convert the HEX to RBG, then give a &lt;strong&gt;range&lt;/strong&gt; of accepted values of what we deem to be considered close to the &quot;last move&quot; color&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;save the moves on an array with a format &lt;code&gt;[&quot;h1-h8&quot;, &quot;e4-e5&quot;, ...]&lt;/code&gt;  just the initial and ending squares (order &lt;strong&gt;unimportant&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Note:&lt;/strong&gt; from here we can't really know from which square was the initial/ending position, but there are only 2 posibilities and only 1 of them is legal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have written simple pixel-based macros/bots for RPGs games in C#, I can guarantee this is not &lt;em&gt;that&lt;/em&gt; difficult, given that:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the cam is static (so the x,y values don't get messed up)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;you previously know the background color or you can set it up before playing&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically, it is best if the game is played online and you are recording directly from the screen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Sorry, no program avaiable for part #1&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Part 2: exporting that list into PGN&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To turn this list into a real PGN, you can use a &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/ajax333221/Isepic-Chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;program I wrote in JavaScript&lt;/a&gt; that records moves, and one of the functions &lt;code&gt;moveCaller()&lt;/code&gt; you pass two squares positions and it searches the &lt;code&gt;final_pos&lt;/code&gt; in the legal moves of &lt;code&gt;initial_pos&lt;/code&gt; and if there is a match then it calls &lt;code&gt;makeMove()&lt;/code&gt;. So we can call it twice &lt;code&gt;e5 to e4&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;e4 to e5&lt;/code&gt; and I guarantee it will ignore the illegal one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;download the project (direct link &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/ajax333221/Isepic-Chess/archive/master.zip&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;.zip&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;uncompress the &lt;code&gt;.zip&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;change the JavaScript of the &lt;code&gt;index.html&lt;/code&gt; file with this:&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;$(function(){&#xA;    var i, len, arr, temp, m_board;&#xA;&#xA;    m_board=IsepicChess.initBoard({name : &quot;main&quot;});&#xA;&#xA;    arr=[&quot;e4-e2&quot;, &quot;e7-e5&quot;, &quot;f3-g1&quot;]; //is ok for the initial and final squares to be swapped&#xA;&#xA;    for(i=0, len=arr.length; i&amp;lt;len; i++){&#xA;        temp=arr[i].split(&quot;-&quot;);&#xA;&#xA;        //one of the two following lines will silently fail&#xA;        m_board.moveCaller(temp[0], temp[1]);&#xA;        m_board.moveCaller(temp[1], temp[0]);&#xA;    }&#xA;&#xA;    m_board.refreshBoard();&#xA;});&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;.4. copy the move list and add some PGN headers above it like &lt;code&gt;[WhiteElo &quot;2400&quot;]&lt;/code&gt; etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="478" LastEditorUserId="478" LastEditDate="2019-10-17T04:26:18.280" LastActivityDate="2019-10-17T04:26:18.280" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="5064" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5066" CreationDate="2014-03-19T01:45:04.317" Score="6" ViewCount="5832" Body="&lt;p&gt;In one of my previous questions I asked about &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/q/2246/703&quot;&gt;comparison of the strongest chess engines&lt;/a&gt; and got a really good answer. While there are little or no doubts that chess engines are stronger than humans, I am curious: Is there any strong javascript implementation of a chess engine that performs well (what is the ELO of the engine)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Knowing that a lot of high level chess engines are opensource, has anyone made an effort to port something like &lt;a href=&quot;http://stockfishchess.org/download/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;stockfish&lt;/a&gt; or &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.vlasak.biz/critter/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;critter&lt;/a&gt; to JS?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="703" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2015-11-13T11:09:40.367" Title="Javascript based Chess engine" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;programming&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5065" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5062" CreationDate="2014-03-19T01:47:03.847" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://books.google.de/books?id=QxX2CX5OVMsC&amp;amp;pg=PA337&amp;amp;lpg=PA337&amp;amp;dq=knight%20metric&amp;amp;source=bl&amp;amp;ots=3J5nDWweOY&amp;amp;sig=_-pQwRWZrh0fI9SHzmkxlCb-Xcc&amp;amp;hl=de&amp;amp;sa=X&amp;amp;ei=-FkoU6WaLen8ywOjgoHoDg&amp;amp;ved=0CDIQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&amp;amp;q=knight%20metric&amp;amp;f=false&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;It's well documented.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's actually a fairly boring metric. The only special cases are the squares next to the knight and the squares on the same diagonal that are two squares away. In all other cases, quite regular.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you mean with other pieces on the board, you get a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shortest_path_problem&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;shortest path problem&lt;/a&gt; which is related to the Travelling Salesman Problem but is soluble in polynomial time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2715" LastActivityDate="2014-03-19T01:47:03.847" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5066" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5064" CreationDate="2014-03-19T02:25:39.937" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;After a detailed look on the web, the only project I was able to find is &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/glinscott/Garbochess-JS&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Garbochess&lt;/a&gt;. It is BSD licensed, but it looks like it is not longer under development (latest commit was a year ago). I also was not able to find anything about the strength of the engine (ELO).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="703" LastActivityDate="2014-03-19T02:25:39.937" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5067" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5064" CreationDate="2014-03-19T10:00:02.283" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Edit: This answer has been written by someone who is unexperienced in JavaScript programming (me). Please note the comments shed a slightly different light on the topic.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One of the reasons there are not many JS chess engines out there is that JavaScript is quite unsuited for heavily parallelisable tasks, especially complex minimax analysis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Major drawbacks JS has (in my opinion) are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;JavaScript is a high level language, making writing fast code&#xA;difficult. (Of course I have to add that coding in ASM or C isn't&#xA;going to be faster if you don't know what you are doing. But chess&#xA;programmers know.) Additionally, performance optimisation details depend on the browser you are using.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.sitepoint.com/multi-threading-javascript/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;No real multithreading support.&lt;/a&gt; (That's a damn hard limit on&#xA;computation speed.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Memory_Management&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;No real memory management.&lt;/a&gt; (JS does it for you, but I imagine you as&#xA;a programmer can allocate much more efficiently.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Apparently, limits on stack size, CPU usage etc. are imposed on&#xA;JavScript Code (although Icannot give hard evidence right now).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I cannot imagine JS being very efficient with hash tables.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I imagine it being difficult to load opening books or endgame&#xA;tablebases during runtime (slow) or preloading it on startup (still&#xA;slow and your bandwidth won't like it).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well, technically, these are reasons why it would be hard to code a &lt;em&gt;good&lt;/em&gt; chess engine - but who wants an engine with 1800 Elo? (Well, still enough for one or two standard deviations of players' practical purposes.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And in the end: it's client side. If you need something client side, don't do it in a browser. If it can be done on the server, use it! E. g., using PHP, pipes and the UCI protocol, you'll get much further and you can let the server compute it for all clients (and I know it has been done before, but can't tell exactly where I've seen it).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2715" LastEditorUserId="2715" LastEditDate="2014-03-19T10:31:01.163" LastActivityDate="2014-03-19T10:31:01.163" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5068" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5061" CreationDate="2014-03-19T11:25:53.653" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my experience and opinion&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Having more time is not really an advantage when playing blindfold&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You have a clearly higher risk of blundering when playing blindfold&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let me try to expand on this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Playing blindfold in a single game for more than an hour for the entire game is a huge effort of concentration. Playing blindfold for two or more hours on a single game might be too much to handle, unless you have some special method or extreme stamina. So having more time isn't great from the stamina point of view.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;There is a clear risk of losing track of something (e.g. a pawn) on the board or forgetting to register one of the moves and later pay for this mistake. The risk for blundering is clearly higher when you don't see the board and the pieces.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My conclusion is that you will definitely play below your full strength. How much below, depends on how well trained you are in playing blindfold chess. If you play on two or more boards simultaneously, I predict that your strength drops even more. My guess is that you can come up to 80% of your full strength when playing blindfold (after a lot of training and practice). Even then, your risk of blundering will be higher!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastActivityDate="2014-03-19T11:25:53.653" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5069" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5071" CreationDate="2014-03-19T11:59:48.387" Score="10" ViewCount="2196" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a &quot;movement&quot; towards teaching chess in school and perhaps introduce chess as its own subject. What are the advantages of teaching chess at schools? In what ways is chess similar to other school subjects (e.g. math)? What &quot;life skills&quot; will the students learn by learning chess?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastEditorUserId="10905" LastEditDate="2016-11-21T20:09:28.703" LastActivityDate="2017-09-28T13:04:47.623" Title="Why is it a good idea to teach chess in schools?" Tags="&lt;teaching&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5070" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5072" CreationDate="2014-03-19T15:40:03.823" Score="3" ViewCount="5380" Body="&lt;p&gt;I tried using &lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=jwtc.android.chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this app&lt;/a&gt; but when I try to play online it keeps saying &lt;code&gt;game over, draw&lt;/code&gt; something like that, the message will be on the screen forever unless I restart my phone. and it doesn't let me play online.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a better app to play FICS on Android?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.imgur.com/hwUfFRX.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://i.imgur.com/hwUfFRX.png&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.imgur.com/u9bYDmP.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://i.imgur.com/u9bYDmP.png&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1105" LastEditorUserId="1105" LastEditDate="2014-03-19T19:33:07.987" LastActivityDate="2017-10-18T08:52:29.773" Title="Is there a FICS android app?" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;online&gt;&lt;websites&gt;&lt;android&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5071" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5069" CreationDate="2014-03-19T21:56:46.350" Score="6" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What are the advantages of teaching chess at schools?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That depends. If you like chess, the advantage of having chess classes for free from good teachers (assuming they are good) is that you play your favourite game / learn something you like / have people to play with / all of this is free. It is really good for average chess players (who will be able to find steady income by teaching others).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But knowing this you have to understand that there are people who do not like chess. How will you feel if right now you will be forced  to learn how to play the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangle_%28instrument%29&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;triangle&lt;/a&gt; (kind of funny musical instrument that I by myself find kind of lame). What would you think if your child instead of math/biology/whatever subject you find important would be wasting his time learning triangle/chess which in my opinion will not help his career (assuming he will not become pro triangle / chess player)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also forcing a child to do something is not a good way for him to like this something. I enjoy playing chess, but if when I was child I would be forced to go study chess - most probably I would hate this game. There are a lot of places for a person to play chess in his free time enjoying it, so why spoil the fun with compulsory things?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What &quot;life skills&quot; will the students learn by learning chess&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What life skills will you gain by swimming / playing the triangle? You will not drown fast in case of flood. You will become a good swimmer. You will learn how to play the triangle and will be able to properly hear/understand music. People can argue that music will make you a better person, swimming will make you more fit, organized, but I am not aware of the proper studies conducted. What skills will you gain by training to solve IQ tests every day? Will you perform well in physics, economy, history, programming? Highly doubtful, and average person who spends 1/10 of your time learning one of these things will perform better. IQ tests will make you a better IQ test solver.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The same way with chess - by learning chess you will learn how to play chess, maybe will learn abstract thinking, thinking ahead and analyzing your options. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I by myself was speaking with some of the top 200 grandmasters and based on their discussion, chess is hard to make money on. You spend thousands of hours on learning preparation, dedication to mastery. And if you are not in top 20 it is really hard to get normal money out of it. Yes, you can publish books, create videos, participate in paid tournaments (which requires a lot of time and effort), but after this amount of time spent in economy you can secure a steady good income. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="703" LastEditorUserId="11202" LastEditDate="2017-06-30T10:51:11.353" LastActivityDate="2017-06-30T10:51:11.353" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5072" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5070" CreationDate="2014-03-19T23:22:08.940" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.alonsoruibal.chessdroid.lite&quot;&gt;Mobialia Chess Free&lt;/a&gt; includes an FICS interface; it supports premove and interfacing directly with the console.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="827" LastActivityDate="2014-03-19T23:22:08.940" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5073" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2787" CreationDate="2014-03-20T04:20:33.440" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a regular chess.com player I stick with 10 to 15 daily games of 3days per move. I do not play greater than 15 games as I cannot concentrate on it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I suggest stick only with games that you can accommodate, games which you can ANALYZE better without a rush.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I you got bored with your opponents in &quot;Daily move chess&quot; try to log and play in blitz or 15mins per move games until you get satisfied.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2472" LastActivityDate="2014-03-20T04:20:33.440" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5074" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5083" CreationDate="2014-03-20T09:36:16.880" Score="1" ViewCount="1742" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is probably well known that &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.arcticsec.no/index.php?button=blog&amp;amp;url_id=142main_image=35&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Magnus Carlsen is sponsored by Arctic Securities&lt;/a&gt;. An example of a tournament sponsorship is the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/chess/9791206/Rilton-Cup-in-safe-hands.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Annual Rilton Cup sponsored by the Rilton Foundation&lt;/a&gt;. What are the benefits of sponsoring and becoming a partner of a chess player, team or tournament? Additionally, can you think of any more examples of sponsorships in the present and past?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastActivityDate="2017-06-30T10:50:29.710" Title="What are the benefits of becoming a chess (player, team or tournament) sponsor?" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;grandmaster&gt;&lt;super-grandmaster&gt;&lt;team&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5075" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="442" CreationDate="2014-03-20T11:35:30.997" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd suggest letting kids play against a computer on random/drunk setting first so that the child wins a lot at first while learning the rules. Otherwise, if they lose a lot at first, they may become quickly dispirited and chess might have negative connotations for them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2722" LastActivityDate="2014-03-20T11:35:30.997" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5076" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5069" CreationDate="2014-03-20T12:39:23.700" Score="5" Body="&lt;h1&gt;The Benefits of Chess in Education&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Take a look at &lt;a href=&quot;https://web.archive.org/web/20121021163245/http://www.kcfe.eu/sites/default/files/research_KCFE.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;The Benefits of Chess in Education&lt;/a&gt; &lt;em&gt;(&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.kcfe.eu/sites/default/files/research_KCFE.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;original link&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/em&gt; from the Kasparov Foundation, which gives a detailed overview about the benefits of teaching children to play chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The document describes among other things the following points:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Academic benefits&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Focusing&lt;/strong&gt;: Children learn to concentrate, because they have to if they want to play good&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Visualizing&lt;/strong&gt;: Children have to image a sequence of actions before it happens&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Planning&lt;/strong&gt;: Children need to plan longer goals and take steps towards them if they want to win&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Weighing Options&lt;/strong&gt;: Children need to weigh options. They are taught not doing the first thing that pops into their mind.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Furhtermore: &lt;strong&gt;thinking ahead&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;analyzing concretely&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;thinking abstractly&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;juggling multiple considerations simultaneously&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Social benefits&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;... often serves as a bridge to &lt;strong&gt;bring together&lt;/strong&gt; children of any kind&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;... helps &lt;strong&gt;building friendships&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;... teaches &lt;strong&gt;sportsmanship&lt;/strong&gt; (how to win graciously, how to lose - like in other sports clubs)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2282" LastEditorUserId="10905" LastEditDate="2016-07-29T09:30:47.473" LastActivityDate="2016-07-29T09:30:47.473" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5077" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5080" CreationDate="2014-03-20T12:54:02.470" Score="8" ViewCount="5660" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;First a bit of background:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I really like playing the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sicilian_Defence&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Sicilian Defense&lt;/a&gt; as Black and it is my preferred choice of action against &lt;code&gt;1. e4&lt;/code&gt;. I prefer the &lt;code&gt;Open Sicilian&lt;/code&gt; with &lt;code&gt;Dragon&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;Najdorf&lt;/code&gt; being my favourite variations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Now to the question itself:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At my skill level my opponents often play the following variation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. Bc4!?&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here I find &lt;code&gt;3. Bc4&lt;/code&gt; to be a sub-optimal move and I usually continue with my plan and go for the Dragon variation, since I don't think &lt;code&gt;a6&lt;/code&gt; achieves much, at this point.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand he is clearly aiming at &lt;code&gt;f7&lt;/code&gt; and moves like &lt;code&gt;Nf6&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;g6&lt;/code&gt; do nothing to counter his threat.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is your evaluation on this opening position? Can you give me some pointers at what is the best way to exploit White's last move?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2329" LastEditorUserId="2329" LastEditDate="2014-12-04T09:11:37.410" LastActivityDate="2014-12-04T09:11:37.410" Title="B50: Sicilian Defense 3. Bc4" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5078" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5082" CreationDate="2014-03-20T14:34:52.993" Score="23" ViewCount="5759" Body="&lt;p&gt;These days I have been watching the candidates tournament, and I couldn't avoid noticing that players are reeling/scared of computer home preparation &quot;a little bit too much&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) In the game Anand vs Kramnik (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1751278&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;round 4&lt;/a&gt;), Kramnik at the move 22 just played the &quot;incredible&quot; move Nd4 (home computer preparation), giving the Knight for &quot;free&quot; without any apparent compensation, four moves later we end up understanding  that Nd4 just forces a draw:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;FIDE Candidates 2014&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Khanty-Mansiysk RUS&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2014.03.17&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;4.2&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Anand, Viswanathan&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Kramnik, Vladimir&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1/2-1/2&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteTitle &quot;GM&quot;]&#xA;[BlackTitle &quot;GM&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;2770&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;2787&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;D37&quot;]&#xA;[Opening &quot;QGD&quot;]&#xA;[Variation &quot;4.Nf3&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteFideId &quot;5000017&quot;]&#xA;[BlackFideId &quot;4101588&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;2014.03.13&quot;]&#xA;[StartPly &quot;43&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nf3 d5 4. Nc3 dxc4 5. e4 Bb4 6. Bg5 c5 7. Bxc4 cxd4 8. Nxd4 Bxc3+ 9. bxc3 Qa5 10. Bb5+ Nbd7 11. Bxf6 Qxc3+ 12. Kf1 gxf6 13. h4 a6 14. Rh3 Qb4 15. Be2 Ne5 16. h5 Qd6 17. Qd2 Nc6 18. Rd3 Qh2 19. f4 Rg8 20. Bf3 Bd7 21. Ne2 Qh1+ 22. Ng1 Nd4 23. Rxd4 Bb5+ 24. Kf2 Qh4+ 25. Ke3 e5 26. fxe5 Qg5+ 27. Kf2 Qg3+ 28. Ke3 Qg5+ 29. Kf2 Qg3+ 30. Ke3 Qg5+ 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) Topalov vs Kramnik (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1751385&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;round 6&lt;/a&gt;). Kramnik at the end of the game, in the press conference, was &quot;whining&quot; that he lost the game because Topalov had prepared all in home with a computer, almost like suggesting that he lost to a computer:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;FIDE Candidates 2014&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Khanty-Mansiysk RUS&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2014.03.19&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;6.1&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Topalov, Veselin&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Kramnik, Vladimir&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteTitle &quot;GM&quot;]&#xA;[BlackTitle &quot;GM&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;2785&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;2787&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;D37&quot;]&#xA;[Opening &quot;QGD&quot;]&#xA;[Variation &quot;classical variation (5.Bf4)&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteFideId &quot;2900084&quot;]&#xA;[BlackFideId &quot;4101588&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;2014.03.13&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nf3 d5 4. Nc3 Be7 5. Bf4 O-O 6. e3 Nbd7 7. c5 Nh5 8. Be5&#xA;c6 9. Bd3 g6 10. h4 f5 11. Bh2 b6 12. b4 f4 13. O-O a5 14. b5 bxc5 15. bxc6 Nb8&#xA;16. Bb5 Ba6 17. a4 Qc8 18. dxc5 Nxc6 19. Nxd5 exd5 20. Qxd5+ Kh8 21. Qxc6 Qxc6&#xA;22. Bxc6 Rac8 23. Bb5 Bxb5 24. axb5 Bxc5 25. Rxa5 fxe3 26. fxe3 Bxe3+ 27. Kh1&#xA;Rc2 28. Rb1 Rfc8 29. Raa1 Bb6 30. Be5+ Kg8 31. Ra6 Be3 32. b6 Rc1+ 33. Rxc1&#xA;Rxc1+ 34. Kh2 Rb1 35. g4 Bf4+ 36. Kg2 Bxe5 37. Nxe5 Nf4+ 38. Kf3 Ne6 39. b7 Rb3+&#xA;40. Kf2 Rb2+ 41. Ke3 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, looks like nowadays high-level chess players have to take in consideration when analyzing variations during the game, that some of that variations may be had been analyzed beforehand by his opponent with the help of the computer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For a fan o chess as I, this computer home preparation takes all the fun of the game, because when for example Tal sacrificed a piece, was awesome because he had to think about it over the board, or at least it was human home preparation. Nowadays, if a player sacrifices a piece on the opening, people will most likely thing that this sacrifice was home computer preparation, so it is not awesome anymore. Looks like the game is becoming more about memorizing sequences of moves. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is true the engines have level up the game, but can we also conclude that engines at a certain level are destroying the human cognitive process or figuring out moves by them selfs over the board (mainly at opening phase)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How can someone play the game in a way that he can avoid computer home preparation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="872" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2018-10-13T14:40:34.813" LastActivityDate="2018-10-13T14:40:34.813" Title="Are computers destroying chess?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;engines&gt;&lt;preparation&gt;&lt;human-versus-machine&gt;" AnswerCount="8" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="5079" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4467" CreationDate="2014-03-20T15:44:03.110" Score="8" Body="&lt;h2&gt;Why Blunders Happen&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Personally, I think the biggest factor in blunders is a lack of objectivity. As humans, we have a very real, natural bias in our own favor that prevents us from evaluating ourselves, or our work, objectively. Ego, overconfidence, however you might call it--these are the things that blunders are made of, because at heart, a blunder is just some move that fails to account for a threat. In my experience, this always boils down to one of two things:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;My opponent had a threat that I didn't see.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;My opponent's threat was more significant than I realized. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The specifics as to &lt;em&gt;why&lt;/em&gt; I didn't see their threat, or didn't consider it well enough, may vary slightly, but the root is always the same: for whatever reason, &lt;strong&gt;I didn't consider the board objectively enough&lt;/strong&gt;. I was too wrapped up in my own plans to even consider that there might be ways to interrupt them, or I figured that my position was so strong that I could play carelessly, or I was fatigued and couldn't focus, or I was under time pressure and didn't have time to consider the position as carefully as I should have.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some of these underlying factors are out of my control: time pressure and fatigue, especially, affect even the greatest players&lt;sup&gt;*&lt;/sup&gt;. But the others, I can train myself to handle, because they're all essentially the same thing: for some reason, I thought that I could get away with not evaluating the board thoroughly &lt;strong&gt;from my opponent's point of view&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;The Single Best Blunder-Reduction Habit I Know&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since you play mostly electronically, I recommend you make use of one of the most powerful features of that medium: the ability to view the board from your opponent's seat. Almost all chess software (both online and offline) provides the ability to &lt;strong&gt;&quot;flip&quot; the board&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Every time you're considering your move, get into the habit of flipping the board and viewing the position and your candidate move from the other side. Try to come up with the best move for your opponent. This is where understanding your opponent's ideas comes into play, but if you don't know what he's doing, just try to find the best move as if you had his pieces. If you're stuck for where to start, look especially for threats created by his previous move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Really try hard to find a strong move: there's this temptation to slack off when looking at the board from the other side, because you feel like you're betraying your own position or something: But if you can find a winning move for your opponent, &lt;strong&gt;that's awesome&lt;/strong&gt;. You found it &lt;em&gt;before you allowed it to happen&lt;/em&gt;, and now you can choose some other line! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nine times out of ten&lt;sup&gt;**&lt;/sup&gt;, this strategy will reveal any serious flaws in the move you're about to make. As you play more and your visualization improves, eventually you'll be able do this without physically flipping the board, and once you get used to the thought process, I &lt;em&gt;strongly&lt;/em&gt; recommend that you try to wean yourself from the visual crutch of viewing the board from the opposite side, since you can't do that OTB. But as a beginner, the visual aid can be a huge benefit, and it helps to break the &quot;I don't want to play against myself!&quot; mentality.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;sup&gt;*Not being a great player myself, I can't speak to what other pressures they may face.&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;sup&gt;**Citation Needed&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1201" LastEditorUserId="1201" LastEditDate="2014-03-20T16:55:09.637" LastActivityDate="2014-03-20T16:55:09.637" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5080" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5077" CreationDate="2014-03-20T16:33:04.477" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;This variation is uncommon, but it's certainly not unheard of. I don't know of a particular name for it, and rather than get bogged down in the endlessly-analyzed lines, let's just take a quick, objective look at what this move accomplishes, and what it gives up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Advantages&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;3.Bc4&lt;/code&gt; aims, as you said, at the &lt;code&gt;f7&lt;/code&gt; pawn. If allowed to remain on the diagonal, this Bishop could provide pressure against the Black kingside in the midgame.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It develops the Bishop quickly, allowing White to castle kingside immediately if he so chooses.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It may avoid trading away the Bishop for Black's QN or QB like we see in the Canal-Sokolsky Attack (&lt;code&gt;3.Bb5+&lt;/code&gt;) or other variations where White's KB lands on &lt;code&gt;b5&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It grants White some additional influence over the light central squares weakened by Black's first two moves (&lt;code&gt;c5&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;e6&lt;/code&gt;).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Drawbacks&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;By developing to &lt;code&gt;c4&lt;/code&gt; so early, this move appears to invite Black to play &lt;code&gt;...e6&lt;/code&gt;, immediately limiting the Bishop's scope and possibly requiring a future relocation.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;On &lt;code&gt;c4&lt;/code&gt;, the Bishop is vulnerable to space-gaining queenside maneuvers via &lt;code&gt;...a6&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;...b5&lt;/code&gt;, or &lt;code&gt;...Nc6-a5&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;This move does not provide any immediate threats, so Black is free to continue to choose a system as he pleases.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Ideas&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Looking at these two lists, a picture begins to form of the themes for both sides. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;White&lt;/strong&gt; will likely try to hold onto this Bishop, to assist in his kingside operations. He will likely play &lt;code&gt;4.d3&lt;/code&gt; to keep the position closed, and to cement his hold on the light central squares. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Meanwhile, &lt;strong&gt;Black&lt;/strong&gt; may use the Bishop's placement as a convenient way to make his thematic land grabs on the queenside. Black is not compelled to respond in any particular way, though my database suggests that a Dragon-like setup with &lt;code&gt;...Nf6, ...Nc6, ...g6, ...Bg7&lt;/code&gt; is slightly more popular in this line than the &lt;code&gt;...e6&lt;/code&gt; variants.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;r1bq1rk1/pp2ppbp/2np1np1/2p5/4P3/1BPP1N2/PP3PPP/RNBQ1RK1 w - -&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. Bc4 Nf6 4. d3 Nc6 5. c3 g6 6. O-O Bg7 7. Bb3 O-O&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Conclusion&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This third move choice from White, while unusual, does not seem to be downright inferior. It suggests a tense, positional midgame, with each side operating on his better flank. Good luck!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1201" LastEditorUserId="1201" LastEditDate="2014-12-03T23:32:53.273" LastActivityDate="2014-12-03T23:32:53.273" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5081" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5078" CreationDate="2014-03-20T19:07:11.547" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;Bobby Fischer:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Radio Interview, June 27 1999&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I love chess, and I didn't invent Fischerandom chess to destroy chess.&#xA;  I invented Fischerandom chess to keep chess going. Because I consider&#xA;  the old chess is dying, it really is dead. A lot of people come up&#xA;  with other rules of chess-type games, with 10x8 boards, new pieces,&#xA;  and all kinds of things. I'm really not interested in that. I want to&#xA;  keep the old chess flavor. I want to keep the old chess game. But just&#xA;  making a change so the starting positions are mixed, so it's not&#xA;  degenerated down to memorization and prearrangement like it is today.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Radio Interview, October 16 1999&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;You know I'm finished with the old chess because it's all just a lot&#xA;  of book and memorization you know.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Radio Interview, May 15 2005&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In chess so much depends on opening theory, so the champions before&#xA;  the last century did not know as much as I do and other players do&#xA;  about opening theory. So if you just brought them back from the dead&#xA;  they wouldn’t do well. They’d get bad openings. You cannot compare the&#xA;  playing strength, you can only talk about natural ability.&#xA;  Memorization is enormously powerful. Some kid of fourteen today, or&#xA;  even younger, could get an opening advantage against Capablanca, and&#xA;  especially against the players of the previous century, like Morphy&#xA;  and Steinitz. Maybe they would still be able to outplay the young kid&#xA;  of today. Or maybe not, because nowadays when you get the opening&#xA;  advantage not only do you get the opening advantage, you know how to&#xA;  play, they have so many examples of what to do from this position. It&#xA;  is really deadly, and that is why I don’t like chess any more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Radio Interview, October 16 2006&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Capablanca wanted to change the rules already, back in the twenties,&#xA;  because he said chess was getting played out. He was right. Now chess&#xA;  is completely dead. It is all just memorization and prearrangement.&#xA;  It’s a terrible game now. Very uncreative.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hf31xOhchY&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Authors@Google:&lt;/a&gt; Garry Kasparov: Minute 40 and 49&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;How can someone play the game in a way that he can avoid computer home preparation?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Kasparov talked about it a bit, if you want my opinion, play blitz or Fischer's chess. Or play an opening that isn't too mainstream, that's what Peter tried to do, &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1IpJSlCuyg&amp;amp;list=UUHz5JQAUSkjxrosDIWCtEdw&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Shakhriyar Mamedyarov vs Peter Svidler&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1105" LastEditorUserId="1105" LastEditDate="2014-03-20T21:38:44.953" LastActivityDate="2014-03-20T21:38:44.953" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5082" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5078" CreationDate="2014-03-21T01:39:09.663" Score="25" Body="&lt;p&gt;My short answer: &lt;strong&gt;no, computers are not destroying chess.&lt;/strong&gt; And now here comes a really long version ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your first question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;It is true the engines have level up the game, but can we also conclude that engines at a certain level are destroying the human cognitive process of figuring out moves by themselves over the board (mainly at opening phase)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As indicated above, in a word, I'd say &lt;em&gt;no&lt;/em&gt;. In more words, I don't think there's anything particular to &lt;em&gt;engines&lt;/em&gt; about the phenomenon you describe, and the &quot;problem&quot; of preparation, to whatever degree it exists, is really just about the single, well-analyzed starting position of chess. &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess960&quot;&gt;Chess960&lt;/a&gt; (as alluded to in Fischer's earlier answer) tries to address that latter concern, as did things like &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capablanca_chess&quot;&gt;Capablanca Chess&lt;/a&gt; well before that. When Capablanca thought that chess theory was all played out already in the 1920s, it certainly wasn't because of the chess engines of his day (and he also happened to be quite premature in his assessment).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, engines raise the quality of players' home preparation these days and can do a lot of heavy lifting, but still the engines are just &lt;em&gt;tools&lt;/em&gt; which strong players use to aid their creative opening endeavors. Consider this: &lt;em&gt;even if you were to have as fantastic a chess memory as, say, Kramnik, so that you could efficiently memorize a ton of engine-aided preparation, if you don't also have Kramnik's all-around understanding of the game and &lt;strong&gt;what to aim for&lt;/strong&gt; out of the opening, the preparation he has memorized will far outshine yours, &lt;strong&gt;not necessarily in the quality of the individual moves, but certainly as regards the body of lines he has chosen to learn&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/em&gt; (And of course, there will still basically always come a point in the game where the preparation is left, and Kramnik will certainly start crushing you then.) Some players are stronger than others, and that sort of strength still applies to engine-aided preparation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Again, there is nothing special about engines here. The same was true of preparation in eras where it was aided only by books and periodicals; then too games were sometimes won simply from superior opening preparation. Here is a game from 1935 in which Botvinnik does just that, and which GM Kavalek references in a &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.chessbase.com/post/huffington-the-adventures-of-mikhail-botvinnik-1&quot;&gt;recent article&lt;/a&gt; on the sixth world champion:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Mikhail Botvinnik&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Rudolf Spielmann&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Moscow 1935&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.c4 c6 2.e4 d5 3.exd5 cxd5 4.d4 Nf6 5.Nc3 Nc6 6.Bg5 Qb6?! 7.cxd5! Qxb2? 8.Rc1! Nb4 9.Na4 Qxa2 10.Bc4 Bg4 11.Nf3 Bxf3 12.gxf3 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As Kavalek notes, Spielmann had played the &lt;em&gt;white&lt;/em&gt; side of this line up through move 6 the previous year, though in that game he played the weaker response &lt;code&gt;7.c5?!&lt;/code&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[The aggressive move &lt;code&gt;6...Qb6?!&lt;/code&gt;] was recommended by the Czech master Karel Opocensky in his chess column in Narodni politika and it was used for the first time by Josef Rejfir against Spielmann in Maribor 1934. 'Surprising and good,' wrote Rejfir in Ceskoslovensky Sach 8-9/1934 about Opocensky's invention. The Wiener Schachzeitung called it the Prague variation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So Spielmann was certainly familiar with this line when he chose to go into with the black pieces. But Botvinnik was also familiar with the earlier game, and he managed to analyze a bit deeper than had been done before, which netted him a win out of the opening. That sort of thing happened before engines, and sometimes happens with them today. Still, in the preparation itself, as well as playing the games once out of preparation of course, the skill and creativity that chess has always demanded is squarely on display.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Given what I've written above, my response to your other question is probably pretty predictable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;How can someone play the game in a way that he can avoid computer home preparation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just try and end up in a line that your opponent hasn't analyzed. But again, I would stress that there is nothing particular to &lt;em&gt;computer&lt;/em&gt; home preparation here; it's the same problem it has always been. If I'm Rudolf Spielmann, and I recently got burned by Botvinnik's home preparation (without engines of course), then if I want to avoid the same fate next time we play I need to try and steer the game to lines where Botvinnik won't have had the chance to out-analyze me ahead of time. Maybe I'll be successful, maybe I won't, but the challenge was the same in the era of books as it still is in the era of engines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2014-03-21T01:39:09.663" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5083" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5074" CreationDate="2014-03-21T11:59:39.470" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;How about this benefit?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;It is probably well known that Magnus Carlsen is sponsored by Arctic&#xA;  Securities.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Being well known is the benefit. One minute ago I had not even heard about arctic securities. And now I know, as well as may be thousand of other people watching/reading about the game. Why Vodaphone or whatever is sponsoring football? Do they care, do they have any connection to football? - No.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The idea behind sponsorship is always the same - let people know about you or see your sign.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Answer to Rauan's comment:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I do not want to disappoint you, but there is nothing unique about sponsorship in chess. In business all that matters is money / revenue / stock prices / public awareness. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why did IBM gave half a million in 1996 to Kasparov for a match with a machine? They did not care about chess, they cared about advertising and stock market price. That's why they cared so much about the rematch in 1997 giving $1.1M for it and offering $0.7M to a winner. Not a lot of chess players who know about the matches, know how this &lt;a href=&quot;http://askeplaat.wordpress.com/534-2/deep-blue-vs-garry-kasparov/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;ended up for IBM&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;IBM estimated it received $500 million of free publicity from the&#xA;  match, and IBM stock prices went up over $10 to reach a new high for&#xA;  the company.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think this is one of the best money investments.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="703" LastEditorUserId="11202" LastEditDate="2017-06-30T10:50:29.710" LastActivityDate="2017-06-30T10:50:29.710" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5084" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5078" CreationDate="2014-03-22T01:59:44.587" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Computers (engines) have changed chess on the professional level. There is no doubt about that. In some ways, it was inevitable that chess engines would become unbeatable machines. Personally, I sometimes wish they didn't exist. But change is here and one has to adapt!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When it comes to professional play, everyone has an engine at home, ready to help during opening and middlegame preparation. So in this way, everyone has equal possibilities to prepare for their next game or tournament. The better prepared player will on average get better positions out of the opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yet in my view, there are two major areas where the engine cannot help the human player&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;An engine can say e.g. +0.5, but cannot explain why or where this advantage is located.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;An engine can show you nice moves or ideas, but cannot explain how to find them yourself.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus, while the engine helps to navigate positions, it is a terrible teacher. Using your engine correctly is also a skill. Thus, the player with the better skills at the preparation stage, will on average perform better in tournament play. Which is fair, in my opinion. I should also add that chess is a lot about human passion and emotion. Engines don't really care. So don't lose sleep, chess is still chess and the majority of the games are still decided over the board in practical combat!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastActivityDate="2014-03-22T01:59:44.587" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5085" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5923" CreationDate="2014-03-22T03:48:47.183" Score="15" ViewCount="4047" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XA1nAE1czuo&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;chess scene&lt;/a&gt; between Sherlock Holmes and Professor James Moriarty in the movie &lt;em&gt;Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows&lt;/em&gt; is one of my favorite movie scenes of all time. What intrigued me even more was discovering the fact that the moves for this chess scene are loosely derived from a position that occurred in an interesting &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1106678&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;tactical game&lt;/a&gt; between Bent Larsen and Tigran Petrosian (Second Piatigorsky Cup, 1966). The position is as below - &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    [FEN &quot;r2q1rk1/pp2ppb1/3pn1Q1/3R4/2P3B1/4BR2/PP4PP/6K1 w - - 0 0&quot;]&#xA;    [White &quot;Bent Larsen&quot;]&#xA;    [Black &quot;Petrosian&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here, Petrosian, playing Black did not capture the White queen, but instead played &lt;strong&gt;Nf4&lt;/strong&gt;, which also lost the game. If he had played &lt;strong&gt;fxg6&lt;/strong&gt;, then we have the sequence of moves that resembles the movie scene. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    [FEN &quot;r2q1rk1/pp2ppb1/3pn1pQ/3R4/2P3B1/4BR2/PP4PP/6K1 w - - 0 25&quot;]&#xA;    [White &quot;Bent Larsen&quot;]&#xA;    [Black &quot;Petrosian&quot;]        &#xA;&#xA;    1. Qxg6 fxg6 2. Bxe6+ Kh7 3. Rh3+ Bh6 4. Bxh6 Rf5 5. Rxf5 gxf5 6. Bf7 Qb6+ &#xA;    7. Kh1 Qxb2 8. Bf8# 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Starting with &lt;strong&gt;Bxe6&lt;/strong&gt;, in descriptive notation spoken out, that is - &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;Bishop takes knight check&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;King to rook two&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;Rook to king's rook three check&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;Bishop to rook three&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;Bishop takes bishop&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;Rook bishop four&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;Rook takes rook&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;Pawn takes rook&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;Bishop to bishop seven&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&quot;Queen knight three check&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&quot;King to rook one&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;Queen takes knight pawn&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;Bishop to bishop eight, discovered check...and (incidentally) mate&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only problem is, the moves &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;Queen knight three check&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;King to rook one&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;do not occur in the movie version, which brings me to my question- &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Construct a chess position where the moves in the movie version make sense.&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This means that there should not be any &quot;obvious&quot; move better than the ones Moriarty (whom we can consider to be a good chess player) played in that position. Thus, a position like the one below is ruled out, because Moriarty doesn't have to played &quot;Rook bishop four&quot; as he played in the movie, but can simply play &quot;Rook bishop eight checkmate&quot;- &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  [FEN &quot;r4rk1/pp2p1b1/1q1pn1p1/3R4/2P3B1/5R2/PP1B2PP/7K w - - 0 25&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;  1. Bxe6+ Kh7 2. Rh3+ Bh6 3. Bxh6 Rf1# (3...Rf5?? 4. Rxf5! +-)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Moreover, considering the fact that Moriarty sounded very confident with his move &quot;King to Rook Two&quot;, the position must not &quot;appear&quot; to be objectively bad for Black. At the very least Black should &quot;look&quot; equal or even materially better. &lt;strong&gt;EDIT: April 21 2014 2:35 PM GMT&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;em&gt;The same applies to &quot;Rook Bishop Four&quot; Moriarty saw the obvious line after RxR, PxR and BxP check, but probably missed Bishop to Bishop seven&lt;/em&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Note:&lt;/strong&gt; Although Sherlock Holmes played Black in the actual game, for the purpose of this question, we can assume he was White. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2429" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-04T21:20:03.587" LastActivityDate="2020-04-04T21:20:03.587" Title="Sherlock Holmes vs Professor James Moriarty, A Game of Shadow-Chess Game Position Reconstruction" Tags="&lt;puzzles&gt;&lt;film&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="5086" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5089" CreationDate="2014-03-22T13:12:04.010" Score="3" ViewCount="1251" Body="&lt;p&gt;What would be the most standard way to keep an offline database of my online and over the board games?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Would just keeping PGN files (with arbitrary filenames) in a directory work? Would  database browser programs like &lt;a href=&quot;http://scidvspc.sourceforge.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Scid vs. Pc&lt;/a&gt; then be able to browse such a collection of files? or do I need other tools to generate a database out of a collection of PGN files? Is there a file-naming convention for the PGN files I have to be aware of?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The database browsing tool I use is &lt;a href=&quot;http://scidvspc.sourceforge.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Scid vs. Pc&lt;/a&gt; which I run in Ubuntu under wine but I am open to other suggestions as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2307" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-03-22T17:40:03.957" LastActivityDate="2014-03-22T17:40:03.957" Title="how to keep an offline database of my own games" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;pgn&gt;&lt;database&gt;&lt;linux&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5087" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5088" CreationDate="2014-03-22T13:30:54.173" Score="4" ViewCount="877" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can't seem to figure out how to interpret the score statistics when browsing a chess database with &lt;a href=&quot;http://scidvspc.sourceforge.net/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Scid vs. PC&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To give an example, the following is a position from the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.icofy-blog.de/icofy-base/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;ICOfY&lt;/a&gt; chess database tree browsed with Scid vs. PC:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/MqJVC.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the above position White is to play and the move &lt;strong&gt;Nc3&lt;/strong&gt; is shown as yielding a score of 27%. I.e. Black is winning by a wide margin. However, when I click on the &lt;strong&gt;Nc3&lt;/strong&gt; move I am faced with the following screen:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/yE3d9.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;... which paints a widely different picture for Black's prospects. Namely, showing a score of 46% for Black's most common reply (i.e. Black is only slightly better if I interpret the statistics correctly). Am I right in thinking that these statistics are not consistent with one another or am I failing to grasp something? Bonus point if you can explain why the &lt;em&gt;Event&lt;/em&gt; description (lower left corner) is a series of question marks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2307" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2014-03-22T14:12:58.953" LastActivityDate="2014-03-22T14:12:58.953" Title="Making sense of Scid vs. PC tree score statistics" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;database&gt;&lt;scid&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5088" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5087" CreationDate="2014-03-22T13:48:55.610" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;The statistics show what happened in games that reached the current &lt;em&gt;position&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So in your first diagram, there are 28 games that reached that position. White scored 30.3% on average in those games. In 11 of them, Nc3 was played here, and White scored 27.2% in those 11 games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The position after Nc3 was reached 72 times. That obviously includes the 11 games from above, but also 61 other games that reached this position in a different order of moves. And in these 72 together, white scored 52.7%.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's not inconsistent, you can go through the list of games yourself and verify the numbers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What it is, is an example why looking at move statistics can be very misleading. The fact that white scored only 30.3% from the first position doesn't mean that black is winning &lt;strong&gt;at all&lt;/strong&gt;. You don't even know that a single one of those results had anything to do with the opening! There could be all kinds of reasons for the results, maybe black was the much better player in all of them, or there were some white blunders, or who knows what.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lies, damn lies, and statistics.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2014-03-22T13:48:55.610" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5089" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5086" CreationDate="2014-03-22T15:08:13.790" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;PGN files is definitely the best way to go. PGN is an open and human readable format. Merging two PGN files is very easy; simply copy the content of one PGN file to the end of another. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How you want to organize your PGN files is up to you. You may want to store your PGN files all in one directory, or you may want to store them in separate directories (based on tournament, opening, result, side, etc.) under the same root directory.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ScidvsPc has the capability to browse through directories and select games you want to view. You can also manually browse the directories and double clicking the pgn will open the game directly in ScidvsPc (if you have set it up to work that way). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is no file naming convention for PGN files. You don't need any special tools to create a single database from PGN files. Since you're on Ububtu, you can use the capabilities of the Linux sed tool to &lt;a href=&quot;https://stackoverflow.com/questions/8409551/recursively-merge-all-files-under-a-root-directory&quot;&gt;merge files recursively&lt;/a&gt; under a root directory. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2429" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-05-23T12:37:05.403" LastActivityDate="2014-03-22T15:08:13.790" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5090" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-03-22T15:47:11.310" Score="4" ViewCount="418" Body="&lt;p&gt;This game occurred between Aronian and Anand today at the World Championship Candidates 2014 event. In the final position, instead of &lt;strong&gt;19. Nd2&lt;/strong&gt;, Aronian could have continued with &lt;strong&gt;19.f4&lt;/strong&gt;. He was a pawn up, so I don't see the necessity to repeat moves. Is White better after 19.f4!?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    [FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;    [Event &quot;World Championship Candidates 2014&quot;]&#xA;    [White &quot;Aronian&quot;]&#xA;    [Black &quot;Anand&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;    1. c4 c6 2. Nf3 d5 3. Qb3 d4 4. e3 c5 5. Qb5+ Nc6 6. Qxc5 e5 7. Qb5 a6 &#xA;    8. Qb3 Bc5 9. d3 Nf6 10. e4 O-O 11. Be2 Bb4+ 12. Nbd2 a5 13. O-O Nd7 &#xA;    14. Qd1 Bd6 15. Ne1 Nc5 16. Nb3 Na6 17. Nd2 Nc5 18. Nb3 Na6 19. Nd2 (19. f4!?)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2429" LastEditorUserId="2429" LastEditDate="2014-03-23T16:36:29.290" LastActivityDate="2014-03-23T16:36:29.290" Title="Aronian vs Anand World Championship Candidates 2014 Round 8. Is White better after 19.f4." Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;anand&gt;&lt;aronian&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5091" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2014-03-22T16:38:12.167" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2014-03-22T16:38:12.167" LastActivityDate="2014-03-22T16:38:12.167" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5092" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2014-03-22T16:38:12.167" Score="0" Body="Levon Aronian (born 1982) is a chess Grandmaster from Armenia. Since November 2010 he has been ranked among the best players in the world." OwnerUserId="1485" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2017-03-04T11:10:55.077" LastActivityDate="2017-03-04T11:10:55.077" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5093" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5000" CreationDate="2014-03-22T21:39:09.313" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The advice given is pertinent but I prefer to spend time in futile regret, berating myself for the oversight, and wallowing in self-pity. I suppose it's not constructive but explains why I'm not world champ.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2733" LastActivityDate="2014-03-22T21:39:09.313" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5094" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4531" CreationDate="2014-03-22T21:53:39.437" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The previous responses chime with me but I'd like to add one more: OTB chess gobbles up time. If you play chess competitively as a high school and college student, you run the serious risk of ending up a chess bum as an adult. Not say it necessarily does happen but that it's a real risk. My son got up to a rating of USCF 1900+ but hasn't played competitively now for, oh, ten years I'd guess. In the interim he has earned his bachelor's and master's degrees in math and is working on his doctoral dissertation at the moment. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2733" LastActivityDate="2014-03-22T21:53:39.437" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5095" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5022" CreationDate="2014-03-23T05:21:17.223" Score="16" Body="&lt;p&gt;As I have said before, this requires physical fitness and strong memory. In order to play blindfolded chess properly you need to master the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Having always &lt;strong&gt;clear vision&lt;/strong&gt; of the board.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Properly move and capture pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Properly update the overall position on the board after the move is played. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now it is time to implement solutions for the above tasks:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;1. Having always &lt;strong&gt;clear vision&lt;/strong&gt; of the board.&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You must know which squares are light and which are dark. First you must know &lt;strong&gt;if the coordinate has odd parity or not.&lt;/strong&gt; This is important for both letter and number coordinate. You first check the letter's parity, and then you determine the color of the square like below:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.1 If letter has odd parity and number does not, than it is a light square ( &lt;code&gt;a2&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;c8&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;g6&lt;/code&gt;... Do you see the pattern now? ).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.2 If letter and number both have odd parity, than it is a dark square ( &lt;code&gt;a1&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;c3&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;g5&lt;/code&gt;... Do you see the pattern now? ).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.1 If letter doesn't have odd parity and number does, than it is a light square ( &lt;code&gt;b3&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;f5&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;h7&lt;/code&gt;... Do you see the pattern now? ).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.2 If letter and number don't have odd parity, than it is a dark square ( &lt;code&gt;c1&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;h8&lt;/code&gt;... Do you see the pattern now? ).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/URfhP.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;2. Properly move and capture pieces.&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here you have &lt;code&gt;*starting square*&lt;/code&gt;-&gt;it is the square a piece stands on, and the &lt;code&gt;*target square*&lt;/code&gt;, the one you wish to move your piece to. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When moving/capturing you change the value of at least one coordinate, be that letter or a number. For example, when you move a rook from &lt;code&gt;h1&lt;/code&gt; to &lt;code&gt;g1&lt;/code&gt; notice that the letter coordinate got decremented by 1. The same goes for number coordinates, when moving a pawn from &lt;code&gt;e2&lt;/code&gt; to &lt;code&gt;e3&lt;/code&gt; notice how number coordinate incremented by 1. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To illustrate this in the most efficient way, I will introduce a special notation that I will explain right now:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We shall adopt the format &lt;code&gt;L[±/+/-]N[±/+/-]&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;L&lt;/code&gt; is the starting letter coordinate and &lt;code&gt;N&lt;/code&gt; is the starting number coordinate. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;[]&lt;/code&gt; store &lt;strong&gt;simple adding/subtracting&lt;/strong&gt; function describing how to calculate the valid coordinate for putting a piece, or be blank in which case the coordinate remains the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This function uses symbols &lt;code&gt;±&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;+&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;-&lt;/code&gt; for calculation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The symbol &lt;code&gt;/&lt;/code&gt; lists options ( &lt;strong&gt;you can always do only one mathematical calculation in the bracket.&lt;/strong&gt; ) . &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, rook can move forward or backward so instead of writing  &lt;code&gt;L[+1]N[]&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;L[-1]L[]&lt;/code&gt; it will be shorter to write &lt;code&gt;L[+1/-1]&lt;/code&gt;. Then you choose which function to perform, adding &lt;strong&gt;or&lt;/strong&gt; subtracting. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Furthermore, each option for &lt;code&gt;L&lt;/code&gt; will have corresponding option for &lt;code&gt;N&lt;/code&gt;, meaning that in this example &lt;code&gt;L[-1/+1]N[-1/+1]&lt;/code&gt; you either do &lt;code&gt;L[-1]N[-1]&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;L[+1][+1]&lt;/code&gt;. This will all be clearer in practical examples shown below.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are the patterns:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Pawn:&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When moving a pawn, &lt;strong&gt;always&lt;/strong&gt; increment by one &lt;strong&gt;the number coordinate&lt;/strong&gt;. If testing for capture, replace the starting letter coordinate with its successor or predecessor, else do nothing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Example:&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/IzueA.gif&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you apply this for the diagram above, a pawn on &lt;code&gt;f3&lt;/code&gt; can move to &lt;code&gt;f4&lt;/code&gt; and capture on &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;g4&lt;/code&gt; and a pawn on &lt;code&gt;b6&lt;/code&gt; can move to &lt;code&gt;b7&lt;/code&gt; and capture on &lt;code&gt;a7&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;c7&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Knight:&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;L[ ±2 / ±1 ]N[ ±1 / ±2 ]&lt;/strong&gt; for both capture and move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Example:&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9f2Er.gif&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the diagram above knight stands on &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; square. Let us use our pattern to determine on which squares it can stand:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;e&lt;/code&gt;[ ±2 / ±1 ]&lt;code&gt;4&lt;/code&gt;[ ±1 / ±2 ]&lt;/strong&gt; can have the following results:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;First option is &lt;code&gt;e&lt;/code&gt;[ ±2 ]&lt;code&gt;4&lt;/code&gt;[ ±1 ] :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This means that we can move the knight on &lt;code&gt;e&lt;/code&gt;[+2]&lt;code&gt;4&lt;/code&gt;[+1] = &lt;code&gt;g5&lt;/code&gt;, or &lt;code&gt;e&lt;/code&gt;[+2]&lt;code&gt;4&lt;/code&gt;[-1] = &lt;code&gt;g3&lt;/code&gt;, or &lt;code&gt;e&lt;/code&gt;[-2]&lt;code&gt;4&lt;/code&gt;[+1] = &lt;code&gt;c5&lt;/code&gt; and finally &lt;code&gt;e&lt;/code&gt;[-2]&lt;code&gt;4&lt;/code&gt;[-1] = &lt;code&gt;c3&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Second option is &lt;code&gt;e&lt;/code&gt;[ ±1 ]&lt;code&gt;4&lt;/code&gt;[ ±2 ] :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This means that we can move the knight on &lt;code&gt;e&lt;/code&gt;[ +1 ]&lt;code&gt;4&lt;/code&gt;[ +2 ] = &lt;code&gt;f6&lt;/code&gt;, or &lt;code&gt;e&lt;/code&gt;[ +1 ]&lt;code&gt;4&lt;/code&gt;[ -2 ] = &lt;code&gt;f2&lt;/code&gt;, or &lt;code&gt;e&lt;/code&gt;[ -1 ]&lt;code&gt;4&lt;/code&gt;[ +2 ] = &lt;code&gt;d6&lt;/code&gt; and finally &lt;code&gt;e&lt;/code&gt;[ -1 ]&lt;code&gt;4&lt;/code&gt;[ -2 ] = &lt;code&gt;d2&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Bishop:&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the bishop is tough, but &lt;strong&gt;I was able to invent a solution that is simple and effective.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You see, we can treat diagonal as an &lt;em&gt;linear function&lt;/em&gt; and a bishop as a coordinate on it. After carefully looking on the picture below we can see that diagonal &lt;strong&gt;is a part of a square.&lt;/strong&gt; This is the equation for a &lt;em&gt;linear function&lt;/em&gt; with 2 known coordinates:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/KiNZ7.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Where &lt;code&gt;( x2 , y2 )&lt;/code&gt; is the destination point, and &lt;code&gt;( x1 , y1 )&lt;/code&gt; is the starting point.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;( y2 - y1 ) / ( x2 - x1 )&lt;/code&gt; &lt;strong&gt;can only be ±1&lt;/strong&gt;, since we have a square, which gives us the &lt;code&gt;y2 = y1 ±( x2 - x1 )&lt;/code&gt; equation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since we know both the starting square and target square all we have to do is check if the above equation is true and if is then bishop can move/capture on the target square! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We just need slight adjustment since we use letters for &lt;code&gt;x-axis&lt;/code&gt; instead of numbers:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Target letter coordinate = Starting letter coordinate ± ( Target number coordinate - Starting number coordinate )&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And there it is!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The tricky part is to determine when to choose &lt;code&gt;-&lt;/code&gt; and when &lt;code&gt;+&lt;/code&gt;. Still there is an easy way:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/QORbD.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If your diagonal has direction like blue one in the picture above, you use &lt;code&gt;+&lt;/code&gt; else you use &lt;code&gt;-&lt;/code&gt; in the equation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Example:&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the diagram above bishop stands on &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; square. Let us use our equation to determine if it can move to &lt;code&gt;c6&lt;/code&gt; ( &lt;strong&gt;here we choose &lt;code&gt;-&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; since the direction of the diagonal is the same as the red one's in the mentioned diagram ): &lt;code&gt;c = e - ( 6 - 4 ) = e - 2 = c&lt;/code&gt; which is correct result ( second letter before &lt;code&gt;e&lt;/code&gt; is &lt;code&gt;c&lt;/code&gt; ). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now let us test &lt;code&gt;f6&lt;/code&gt; ( &lt;strong&gt;here we choose &lt;code&gt;+&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; since the direction of the diagonal would be the same as the blue one's in the mentioned diagram ): &lt;code&gt;f = e + ( 6 - 4 ) = e + 2 = g&lt;/code&gt; which is invalid and that is a correct result. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now let us test &lt;code&gt;b1&lt;/code&gt; ( &lt;strong&gt;here we choose &lt;code&gt;+&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; since the direction of the diagonal is the same as the blue one's in the mentioned diagram ): &lt;code&gt;b = e + ( 1 - 4 ) = e - 3 = b&lt;/code&gt; which is valid and that is correct result.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/dwGFH.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Rook:&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The target square must have equal letter or number coordinate, in order for a rook to go there. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Example:&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/OzbUN.gif&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example in the diagram above, rook is on &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; and he can move on any square that has at least one coordinate equal to his start coordinate. Therefore we can see that rook can stand on &lt;code&gt;e8&lt;/code&gt; because that square has the same letter as the starting square, or &lt;code&gt;h4&lt;/code&gt; since the number coordinates are the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Queen:&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You just have to perform testing the same way you would for bishop or rook:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Either the target square has same letter or number, or must satisfy the equation I gave you for the bishop ( &lt;code&gt;Target letter coordinate = Starting letter coordinate ± ( Target number coordinate - Starting number coordinate )&lt;/code&gt; ).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Sdd55.gif&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;King:&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Two conditions must be fulfilled in order for target square to be valid:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;Target square number coordinate&lt;/code&gt; - &lt;code&gt;starting square number coordinate&lt;/code&gt; must be 1 or -1.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Target letter coordinate must be either successor or predecessor of the starting letter, or equal to it.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Example:&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/joUD0.gif&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the diagram above, king is on &lt;code&gt;f3&lt;/code&gt;. Let us determine if he can stand on &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;e&lt;/code&gt; is the predecessor of &lt;code&gt;f&lt;/code&gt;, which is good so far.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;5(&lt;em&gt;target number coordinate&lt;/em&gt;) - 3(&lt;em&gt;starting number coordinate&lt;/em&gt;) = 2, thus this square is invalid.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now let us test &lt;code&gt;f2&lt;/code&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;f&lt;/code&gt; is equal to &lt;code&gt;f&lt;/code&gt;, so far so good.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;2 - 3 = -1, which is valid result, so yes, king can move there.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;3. Properly update the overall position on the board after the move is played.&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is the place where your memory and physical fitness come into play. It will be hard for you to memorize which pieces were exchanged and where each one stand. Especially when you need to calculate lines this can be a cause of many mistakes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I hope that this answer helps you, sorry for posting late, I have a lot of work to do. These tips are really just a basic math and you really should have no trouble using them successfully. Still if you need help leave a comment. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Good luck and best regards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastEditorUserId="13544" LastEditDate="2019-02-04T19:19:11.467" LastActivityDate="2019-02-04T19:19:11.467" CommentCount="12" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="5096" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5090" CreationDate="2014-03-23T07:29:52.933" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am not even close to a decent level in chess, therefore you have to be really skeptical to what I am going to write here. But here is my ~2000 rated opinion:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Black is not winning after 19.f4, is he?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is kind of funny to state that black is winning here. This is just 19-th move (so people just went out of the opening), which means that the game just began and most of the previous moves were not actually a real game. Yes, white is a pawn up, but pawn up in the opening does not really counts for too much (mobility of pieces, clear vision of what to do next, preparation of the line, your mood and confidence and many more things should be counted here).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Why did he choose to draw instead?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No one can tell you except of him. But here are my thoughts: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He already lost to Anand and Anand is a current tournament leader so why gamble and stress yourself in this situation? Having a draw, you secure yourself 5 points which puts you on the same position as a leader. With few possible advantages: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;there is no more Anand anymore&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;you are not stressed and got your points from the game&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;you have more time to rest, prepare yourself for future games&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, as you saw from game analysis the position is equal, but unbalanced. Playing the game, you will be really stressed and most probably after additional 1 - 1.5 hours of thoughts you will end up in a draw. Or may be win. Or lose. So why do you need this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Look at the game Anand vs Svidler in round 7. Both have spend a lot of nerves playing really hard an unbalanced position just ending up in a draw. Approximately 2 hours of hard thought for 2 points. And here Aronian can get them basically for free.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="703" LastActivityDate="2014-03-23T07:29:52.933" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5098" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-03-23T12:00:16.410" Score="8" ViewCount="570" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am looking for positions from where every move is forced up to a certain depth. If the original position (or one in between) occurs again, the sequence is finished there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2715" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-04T22:31:44.533" LastActivityDate="2021-01-28T23:35:42.047" Title="What is the longest non-cyclic forced sequence of moves?" Tags="&lt;problems&gt;&lt;forced-move&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="0" ClosedDate="2019-01-18T14:07:08.040" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5099" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5100" CreationDate="2014-03-23T12:41:10.210" Score="2" ViewCount="2816" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm buying &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Super-deal-High-Quality-portable-magnetic-chess-games-folding-board-gold-and-silver-international-travel-magnetic/1700877924.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this set&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It looks expensive, yet it's cheap. So how to determine the value of a set? How much does a first class set usually cost? Does it include a timer or any accessories? Are there famous manufacturers like D&amp;amp;G in clothing? And what are the most expensive sets ever?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1105" LastEditorUserId="1105" LastEditDate="2014-04-01T23:08:01.633" LastActivityDate="2020-02-03T15:53:43.737" Title="How to determine the value of a chess set?" Tags="&lt;chessboards&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5100" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5099" CreationDate="2014-03-23T13:44:44.660" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The value of a set can be pretty arbitrary. Things that affect the &lt;em&gt;cost&lt;/em&gt; of a set include:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the materials from which it's made&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the amount of skilled hand-work&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the quality of the components&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;its rarity&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;size&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;accessories&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The travel set you posted is unremarkable with respect to the attributes above:&#xA; - it's plastic&#xA; - none&#xA; - historically low&#xA; - not at all&#xA; - small&#xA; - magnetic board and carrying case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, the same set coming from, say Germany, would get similar remarks except for the &quot;quality&quot; rating. I'd expect that a set from Germany would be made of better components; thicker plastic, better glue, and more careful assembly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, &lt;em&gt;value&lt;/em&gt; is a tricky beast.  The hypothetical German set I mentioned might cost $30. The Chinese set could have the same or better value.  You won't know until it is in your hand. For $17, you'll probably have a set you can use for a year or two.  Who knows, though, it could be amazing and last forever. Or it could arrive broken. Who knows.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't know much about travel sets.  A webs search should tell you what's out there. Then you can compare features.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think the most luxurious sets are coming out of the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.houseofstaunton.com/chess-pieces/luxury-wooden-chess-pieces.html?src=feature&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;House of Staunton&lt;/a&gt;.  You'll see some amazing sets there. Be prepared for sticker shock.  My personal insane favorite would be the set made from &lt;em&gt;mammoth ivory&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bigger is not always better, rarer materials are not always more practical, fancy is not always better than simple. HoS has more affordable sets, though many would not consider them so. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.houseofstaunton.com/chess-pieces/wooden-chess-pieces/the-reykjavik-ii-series-chess-set-3-75-king.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;The Reykjavik set&lt;/a&gt; has always been a favorite of mine. Boxwood and ebony are to me the perfect woods and a 3.75&quot; King is the perfect size. The design is clean. It's $350.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What makes these sets a good value is that the wood used is rare, suited for the task, and of high quality.  The workmanship is where it needs to be. Skilled people are carving the knights (in some cases), the size is correct, the weights are correct, the styles are correct (don't take your Star Trek themed set to a tournament...), and they simply feel good to touch.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2014-03-23T13:44:44.660" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5101" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5119" CreationDate="2014-03-23T18:31:47.380" Score="2" ViewCount="188" Body="&lt;p&gt;I play chess online and use an engine to review the game afterwards. This works well when I get out of the opening, but under my current configuration (Raptor GUI running StockFish) I don't get great insight into the beginning of my games. Instead of using the automatic annotation I end up stepping through the first couple moves using &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.eudesign.com/chessops/ch-clear.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;a free online openings guide&lt;/a&gt;. There are two drawbacks to my current system:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Manually reentering my moves through a the web interface is a little painful&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I could use a larger opening book and more detailed comments&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a tool (free or commercial) that will provide this? Bonus points if it runs under OS X.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've looked at the offerings from &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/27/is-there-any-free-software-to-automatically-analyze-and-annotate-games&quot;&gt;another question on annotation&lt;/a&gt;, one that's not focused on the opening. It looks to me like &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.triplehappy.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Tarrasch&lt;/a&gt; will tell me what the book moves are, but not tell me much about them, and &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.playwitharena.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Arena&lt;/a&gt; does something with opening books, but I can't tell what. These are PC applications so I'm basing my comments only on the websites.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2736" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2014-04-10T14:55:37.487" Title="Automatically annotating the beginning of my games" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;programming&gt;&lt;annotation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5102" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5062" CreationDate="2014-03-23T20:45:30.883" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;To me the easy human way it is to start from the square that you want to go to (backtracking approach), lets call it 'A' and exclude from the path calculation the direct linked paths from 'A' that you can't go to because they are attack or there is a piece on it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, you want to go to the &lt;strong&gt;square c4&lt;/strong&gt;, so the directed linked paths will be from by &lt;code&gt;a5&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;a3&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;b2&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;d2&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;e3&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;d6&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;b6&lt;/code&gt;, but if only the square &lt;code&gt;a5&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;b6&lt;/code&gt; are available you can reduce your calculation to only to 2 paths now. Furthermore, if you use this &quot;technique&quot; you can check if the target square is reachable at all (if have at least 1 directed linked path not being occupied or attacked).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After doing that, you go to the position where you knight stands and you check which are the squares that you can go to. Using this two phase approach you reduce you tree of calculation immensely.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should also know beforehand how many moves you need to go from one square to another with your knight, in order to avoid the calculation of larger paths than the ones really need it. I din't check online to find any heuristic for this but I can give you some inside tips about it:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The Knight on a black square can only go to a white square and vise-versa, in the next move;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Every square on the diagonal of the actual square of the Knight can be reach in only two moves. Square &lt;code&gt;(x,y)&lt;/code&gt; to the squares&#xA;&lt;code&gt;(x-1,y+1)&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;(x+1,y+1)&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;(x+1,y-1)&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;(x-1,y-1)&lt;/code&gt; takes &lt;strong&gt;2&#xA;moves&lt;/strong&gt;;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The squares up, above, right and left of the actual square takes &lt;strong&gt;3 moves&lt;/strong&gt;;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Every square on the diagonal of the actual square with a one square between them (e.g actual  square = c4, target square a6),&#xA;takes &lt;strong&gt;4 moves&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Every square on the diagonal of the actual square with a 2 squares between them (e.g actual  square = c4, target square f7), takes only&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;2 moves&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, if you are in a given color square you will take a &lt;strong&gt;odd number of moves&lt;/strong&gt; to reach the &lt;strong&gt;opposite color&lt;/strong&gt; square. If the target square have the same color as the square that you are in now it will take a &lt;strong&gt;even number of moves&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="872" LastEditorUserId="872" LastEditDate="2014-03-23T23:09:18.200" LastActivityDate="2014-03-23T23:09:18.200" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5103" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4" CreationDate="2014-03-23T21:24:13.993" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I play against kids at my high school, and they're terrible. I can handicap a queen and both rooks, but usually I still win. When you're playing against low-skill players, handicaps don't matter much.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2737" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-06T15:51:05.330" LastActivityDate="2020-03-06T15:51:05.330" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="5104" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5022" CreationDate="2014-03-23T22:18:53.987" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;If Marc Lang from germany could play 46 games blindfolded (at once) then there is a chance that you could play one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.blindfoldchess.net/blog/2011/12/after_64_years_new_world_blindfold_record_set_by_marc_lang_playing_46_games/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.blindfoldchess.net/blog/2011/12/after_64_years_new_world_blindfold_record_set_by_marc_lang_playing_46_games/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2739" LastActivityDate="2014-03-23T22:18:53.987" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5105" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-03-24T02:38:55.533" Score="5" ViewCount="2917" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't know how many people play four way chess, but do you have to checkmate an opponent's king or actually kill it to take over his army? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2740" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2014-03-24T02:57:26.917" LastActivityDate="2014-03-25T13:04:15.703" Title="Four way chess Checkmate" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;chess-variants&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5106" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5108" CreationDate="2014-03-24T02:40:52.727" Score="8" ViewCount="1756" Body="&lt;p&gt;The title says it all. I am looking to learn and adopt a play style which does not necessarily win, but is typified as being incredibly difficult to actually win against,  hence why I wish to know who had the most draws.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2697" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-25T01:50:01.160" LastActivityDate="2020-08-25T01:50:01.160" Title="Which 20th century grandmster had the highest draw percentage in their career?" Tags="&lt;history&gt;&lt;draw&gt;&lt;statistics&gt;&lt;defense&gt;&lt;grandmaster&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="5107" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5109" CreationDate="2014-03-24T03:22:43.597" Score="3" ViewCount="1697" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are all kinds of lists of the strongest chess engines at standard time controls. &lt;a href=&quot;http://computerchess.org.uk/ccrl/404/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Here's&lt;/a&gt; one I picked more or less at random. But does anyone track which engines are strongest at faster time controls, say, game in 5 minutes?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2736" LastActivityDate="2014-03-25T00:47:49.693" Title="What is the strongest chess engine for blitz time controls?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;blitz&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5108" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5106" CreationDate="2014-03-24T04:05:09.930" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;World Champion &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tigran_Petrosian&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Tigran Petrosian&lt;/a&gt; was known to be almost impossible to beat.  He's your man.  Study his games and legacy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Per Wikipedia, he lost 1 out of 129 Olympiad games.  Olympiads are top-notch tournaments and the score is over 20 years of play.  He's not a flash in the pan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In his 8 Euroteams competitions (held every three years from 1957 to 1983) he lost -0- out of 52 games.  His team won the competition every time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then I started poking around in chessgames.com and I started looking at win/loss/draw ratios.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I made a list of all world champions since Botvinnik, including the weird ones where FIDE lost control.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The three players with the best win:loss ratio (in order): Kasparov (6.62), Fischer (4.87), and Petrosian (4.38). Kasparov dominates. (Only Karpov and Botvinnik are in the same class as these three.)  I expected Kasparov and Fischer to be in this list. I was surprised that Petrosian was there, to be honest. But we see that he was very much able to score the win. He's about like Fischer in this regard.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The three players with the best win:draw ratio, in order: Fischer (1.7), Botvinnik (1.22), and Kasparov (1.02). Fischer dominates. No other players are in their class.  I attribute this to an uncompromising aggressive desire to win.  No half measures. Petrosian was not afflicted with this mentality.  If it did not fit, he did not force it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The three players with the best draw:loss ratio, in order: Petrosian (6.74), Kasparov (6.52), and Kramnik (6.25).  Spassky and Karpov trail. No one else is close.  This means that even if you had an advantage over one of these players, you'd have to work like mad to score the full point.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The three players with the best win+draw:loss ratio, in order: Kasparov (13.14), Petrosian (11.13), and Kramnik (9.73).  Each is dominant over the next. Karpov and Spassky follow Kramnik closely.  This reflects upon the difficulty of scoring the full point.   An opponent would twice as likely to nick a full point off &lt;strong&gt;Carlsen&lt;/strong&gt; than Petrosian.  Ouch. (I think this is a statistical fluke due to Carslen's age...but it makes a good story.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, while I did not list it, Petrosian has one of the lower win:draw ratios.  He was more than willing to accept a draw if he could not see how to secure the win.  Other players with a similar win:draw ratio do not possess Petrosian's compensating win:loss ratio, however.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This rather defines his style, I think.  You can see here a player who will defeat you if you aren't careful. He is patient and takes few chances. If you get ahead of him, he'll likely wear you down, into a draw.  And if you err, he'll crush you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;edit - fun facts for the world champions...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the 4 ratios I looked at (w:l, w:d, d:l, and w+d:l)...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Kasparov is the only player who made the top-3 in all 4 ratios.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Petrosian is the only player who made the top-3 of 3 ratios.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Fischer and Kramnik both have two top-3 honors, but also each have a bottom-3 honor.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Botvinnik is the only player with a single top-3 honor.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Topolov and Carlsen each have three bottom-3 honors.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Carlsen excepted, the three champions from the weird FIDE years (Ponomariov, Kasimdzhanov, and Topalov) have the lowest W+D:L ratios.  There is a marked just in score difference between them and the next lowest scored player (Smyslov).  Find the clue.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2014-04-05T03:30:44.687" LastActivityDate="2014-04-05T03:30:44.687" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5109" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5107" CreationDate="2014-03-25T00:47:49.693" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;As @FranS points out, the &lt;a href=&quot;http://computerchess.org.uk/ccrl/404/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;CCRL 40/4 list I linked to&lt;/a&gt; fits the bill pretty well. I was digging around on a lot of sites and must have thought that this one was showing results for 40 moves in 4 hours. I'm leaving the question up rather than deleting it in case someone comes along with the same question later.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, by following some links on &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/2246/strongest-chess-engine&quot;&gt;the question that @Salvador Dali linked to&lt;/a&gt; I learned that there was an event called &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Computer_Speed_Chess_Championship&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;The World Computer Speed Chess Championship&lt;/a&gt; that seems to have died after 2011.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2736" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2014-03-25T00:47:49.693" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5111" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5105" CreationDate="2014-03-25T13:04:15.703" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to this &lt;a href=&quot;http://fourwaychess.webs.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;site&lt;/a&gt; you can play Four way chess with the same rules that you play in a classical game (include the notion of checkmate) with the difference that all queens will start on white squares. All pieces have the same movements than on the regular chess, the first player to start is the white pieces play continues clockwise around the board each player moving one piece per turn. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also according to &lt;a href=&quot;http://fourwaychess.webs.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt;, you can play two variants of Four way chess:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Regicide rules;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Classical Rules.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Quoting the site:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Regicide rules:&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Regicide means to kill the king, in Regicide Rules you must actually&#xA;  capture both enemy kings to win, rather than just checkmate them. When&#xA;  a players king is captured the rest of his pieces remain exactly where&#xA;  they are on the board and cannot move, except to capture another&#xA;  piece, or you may pass on any move after your king is captured. Your&#xA;  team must kill both the enemy kings to win. In Regicide Rules the king&#xA;  is a fighting piece too, so you dont have to get out of check and&#xA;  checkmate does not apply, and you dont have to announce check. You can&#xA;  even move into check. You can also castle out of check, through check,&#xA;  or into check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and with the classical rules:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;When one player is checkmated on his turn all his pieces are removed&#xA;  from the board and his two opponents armies combine into one army for&#xA;  movement purposes, being allowed one move from either color per move&#xA;  that the defeated players partner gets. This is how we used to play&#xA;  but now we usually play Regicide Rules.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="872" LastActivityDate="2014-03-25T13:04:15.703" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5112" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5113" CreationDate="2014-03-25T22:05:06.273" Score="23" ViewCount="3621" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am reminded of a famous &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1068157&quot;&gt;game&lt;/a&gt; between Karpov and Tony Miles where Miles played &lt;strong&gt;1...a6&lt;/strong&gt; against Karpov's &lt;strong&gt;1. e4&lt;/strong&gt; and still won the game. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;     [FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/4P3/8/PPPP1PPP/RNBQKBNR b KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;     [White &quot;Anatoly Karpov&quot;]&#xA;     [Black &quot;Tony Miles&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;     1...a6?!&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which other players in chess history have used dubious openings successfully? Which were the openings? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;NOTE:&lt;/strong&gt; For the purpose of this question, the player (or the opponent) must either have been a &lt;strong&gt;world champion&lt;/strong&gt; (like Karpov in this game) at some point or at least a &lt;strong&gt;strong contender for the world title&lt;/strong&gt; during his time. Also, the openings must have been considered to be dubious during &lt;em&gt;their&lt;/em&gt; time. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2429" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-03-26T18:50:12.667" LastActivityDate="2020-08-17T09:09:36.763" Title="Which notable players in chess history successfully used dubious openings?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;history&gt;&lt;famous-players&gt;&lt;famous-games&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="9" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5113" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5112" CreationDate="2014-03-25T22:12:19.007" Score="19" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you really mean &quot;dubious&quot;, then no one really fits this description since Steinitz, who liked to, for example, go for walks with his King when playing the King's Gambit as White. But people didn't really know better back then.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you're willing to relax &quot;dubious&quot; to &quot;offbeat&quot;, the first player that comes to mind is Bent Larsen, one of the strongest players in the world in the 1960s and 1970s. He regularly played 1.f4 and 1.b3 (often known now as Larsen's Opening), and also helped revive the Bishop's Opening and the Philidor Defense. None of these were regarded particularly seriously by top-level players at the time that he adopted them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Before that, players like Réti and Nimzowitsch developed hypermodern theory, in which players tried to control the center from afar instead of occupying it with their pawns. Some players regarded this strategy as dubious but it shortly became clear that it was perfectly legitimate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2014-03-25T22:12:19.007" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5114" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5112" CreationDate="2014-03-25T22:44:48.883" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;Among World Champions, Alekhine was a top bluffmaster. Capablanca once remarked that &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nuyMzb5_tlU&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Alekhine's game is 20% bluff&lt;/a&gt;&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's one example of his bluffs. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    [FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;    [White &quot;Alekhine&quot;]&#xA;    [Black &quot;Erich Cohn&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;    1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 exd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. e5?&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This was played in &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1011822&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Alekhine vs Erich Cohn&lt;/a&gt; and Alekhine won that game. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On one occasion, Magnus Carlsen himself played the shocking &lt;strong&gt;1.a4&lt;/strong&gt; against a player as strong as Radjabov and still won the game. Although it was a &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1671724&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;blitz game&lt;/a&gt;, it was the World Blitz Championship 2012, so clearly not an ordinary event! Clearly, he managed to psychologically upset Radjabov.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    [FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;    [White &quot;Magnus Carlsen&quot;]&#xA;    [Black &quot;Teimour Radjabov&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;    1. a4 e5 2. e4 Nf6 3. Nc3 Nc6 4. Nf3 Bb4 5. Bb5 O-O 6. O-O d6 7. d3 Bg4 &#xA;    8. Ne2 a6 9. Bxc6 bxc6 10. Ng3 Nh5 11. h3 Nxg3 12. fxg3 Bd7 13. g4 Bc5 &#xA;    14. Kh1 Qe7 15. Qe1 f6 16. Nh4 g6 17. Bh6 Rf7 18. Rb1 Bb6 19. b3 d5 &#xA;    20. Nf3 Re8 21. Qg3 Bc5 22. Rbe1 dxe4 23. dxe4 Bd6 24. Re2 c5 &#xA;    25. Nd2 Be6 26. Qd3 g5 27. Qxa6 Kh8 28. Nc4 Bxc4 29. Qxc4 Rg8 &#xA;    30. h4 gxh4 31. g5 Rg6 32. Ref2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2429" LastEditorUserId="2429" LastEditDate="2014-03-27T00:44:54.510" LastActivityDate="2014-03-27T00:44:54.510" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5115" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5120" CreationDate="2014-03-26T01:05:37.640" Score="4" ViewCount="803" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've self-taught myself Chess, and played against computers (as in the board shaped ones) and I quite quickly found an opening that isn't strong, but it is not bad. I'm fairly new at this &quot;Algebraic chess notation&quot; so if I slip up and use something like the more verbose NB1-C3 please just go with it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;f2-f4 is bad. Immediately white is defending (because black WILL do Nf6, this is a great move for black as it protects h5 and g4, h5 is a good square for a certain queen.... (another long term thing I have found to be good for black is a7-a6, as this protects b5))&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;g2-g4 is another bad one, Black moves d7 and the light square bishop gets it. This does achieve my goal, if my goal is also to lose my queen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My opening (all these are white's moves) goes as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;d2-d4&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Bf4&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;e2-e3&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;c2-c3&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Depending on what black does I may do any/all of:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Bd3&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;OR Bb5 - this is either a check or a knight lock (putting pressure on black to castle high-side, giving me a good chance to attack by getting my queen to H7, a checkmate) &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;ND2 (this is a good defensive move and brings that knight into play on the high side, if I've played NF3 these two cover each other Ng5 covers that A7 square I want to get my queen into, thus would be a checkmate)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This - feels - like a good technique because it forces black to keep a lot of pieces on the high side (keeping that checkmate valid) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only problem is it doesn't really keep black's queen busy, which is why I move my dark-square bishop out of the way early, it doesn't stop me from castling if I can see something bad coming later. It's also not very useful, I find my dark-square-bishop just.. gets in the way really. Putting it there gives me the chance to sacrifice it to get rid of something annoying, it might also keep the queen off d6. Which is the only way she can attack my high-side with the pressure this puts on black's high-side (which keeps the H7 checkmate valid).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;HOWEVER I am constantly foiled by Black's &quot;useless&quot; Bishop. The light square one that starts at C8, especially if it gets on the B1 to H7 diagonal, especially on the higher end of it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I need help finding a variation of this that can get rid of that irritating Bishop! This method &quot;feels&quot; good because it has that backup-night (if my high-side one is taken, the other knight is a move behind) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now some of you might thing this is too vague, but there is a surprisingly small number of &quot;good moves&quot; I think the description here should be adequate to give you an idea of what I am talking about.  If not I can expand it (give me a question to answer) but I've tried loads of plays and then gone back a few moves to try a different line! I don't know how to salvage this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's not much I can do with my light-bishop in this game other than try and get black to castle with it. Unfortunately it's pretty much stuck on the (rather empty) low-side. I cannot bring it back onto that diagonal (B1-H7) as bait for that Black-light-square-Bishop because I cannot protect it to trade with, I'd be giving up a piece and stalling the game by a move. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not quite sure what I hope for as an answer either, I found this a week ago (or so) and thought &quot;it can't hurt to ask&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2703" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T15:26:54.620" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T15:26:54.620" Title="I need to get rid of Black's light-square Bishop" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;theory&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="5116" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5115" CreationDate="2014-03-26T03:34:20.333" Score="12" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;John&lt;/strong&gt; : I need a new car.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Joe&lt;/strong&gt; : Ok, let's buy one!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Mark&lt;/strong&gt; : Wait. Why do you need a new car?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;John&lt;/strong&gt; : Because the battery in my car is really bad and my car doesn't&#xA;  start quickly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Mark&lt;/strong&gt; : Have you tried installing a new battery? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;John&lt;/strong&gt; : Gosh! Why didn't I think of that? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems to me you are saying something similar to &quot;I need a new car&quot; when you say &quot;I need to get rid of Black's light-square Bishop&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That bishop is NOT necessarily your problem and if you think it is, then you still have a lot to learn. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First of all, if you play &lt;strong&gt;d4&lt;/strong&gt; and the system you described (&lt;strong&gt;Bf4&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;e3&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;c3&lt;/strong&gt;), you cannot always prevent the bishop from coming to the b1-h7 diagonal. If you forcefully try to always achieve this, you will definitely compromise your own position.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems to me that the reason you find this bishop &quot;irritating&quot; is because you are &lt;strong&gt;limiting&lt;/strong&gt; your plans to checkmating Black on h7. The bishop on the b1-h7 diagonal does foil these ideas. But maybe that should teach you that the &quot;checkmate on h7&quot; plan will not always work. So you should ask yourself, &quot;&lt;strong&gt;What else can I do instead of checkmating on h7?&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; instead of asking how you can get rid of black's light squared bishop. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2429" LastActivityDate="2014-03-26T03:34:20.333" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5117" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5316" CreationDate="2014-03-26T18:46:41.903" Score="6" ViewCount="4084" Body="&lt;p&gt;Most of the writing I've found on the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caro%E2%80%93Kann_Defence&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Caro-Kann&lt;/a&gt; online simply makes vague assertions about how &quot;Black's endgame is better&quot; or how White should try [some dubious move or other] to get a good attack in club play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is that all there is to this opening? I've been trying it out, and I find myself unsure of &lt;strong&gt;how to proceed in the midgame&lt;/strong&gt;, on either side of the table. As Black, should I really just try to trade down to an endgame immediately? As White, have I no alternative but to try something speculative to keep Black from getting to his desired ending position?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I see the Advance Variation (&lt;code&gt;2.d4 d5 3.e5&lt;/code&gt;) most often, so let's restrict the conversation to positions arising from that line.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pp2pppp/2p5/3pP3/3P4/8/PPP2PPP/RNBQKBNR b KQkq - 0 3&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1201" LastEditorUserId="1201" LastEditDate="2014-03-27T02:15:10.047" LastActivityDate="2014-07-23T11:41:29.457" Title="Midgame Ideas in the Caro-Kann" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;learning&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;middlegame&gt;&lt;caro-kann&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5118" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5117" CreationDate="2014-03-26T18:57:44.370" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am not an expert on this line for either color. But as far as I know, black can also try to play a sort of &quot;delayed French&quot; as follows&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.e5 c5!?&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It isn't really French defense yet, because the black e-pawn is still on its initial square. Yet, on the other hand, this could offer black additional options since the light squared bishop can go to f5 or g4. In my view, the French structures offer black more dynamic options. White has committed by playing e4-e5 and the d4-square can now be attacked. Black also has the thematic f7-f6 break. There is a question here on Chess SE that deals with the French advance variation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Probably good for white and black to know about this option...!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastActivityDate="2014-03-26T18:57:44.370" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5119" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5101" CreationDate="2014-03-26T19:18:32.293" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As far as I know, all the tools available today offer an opening book (tree) that has to be traversed manually by clicking yourself forwards and backwards in the book. To evaluate the position at every point of the opening, you can have an engine running and combine this with the statistics that are included in the opening book for white win / draw / black win. Relatively recently, &lt;a href=&quot;http://database.chessbase.com/js/apps/onlinedb/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chessbase Online&lt;/a&gt; entered the stage. Let's not forget about Chess dot com and Chess 365 who also offer online books. So instead of having a software installed on your computer, you can use these online services to check and evaluate your openings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Additionally, you could consider posting opening related questions here on Chess SE and get some valuable insights...!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastActivityDate="2014-03-26T19:18:32.293" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5120" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5115" CreationDate="2014-03-26T19:31:01.420" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can try&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.d4 d5 2.Bf4 Bf5 3.e3 e6 4.Nf3 Nf6 5.Be2 Be7 6.O-O O-O 7.Nh4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you insist on trading a knight for black's light squared bishop, then this is how you typically achieve this, since the Bf5 cannot go home once the e-pawn is standing on e6. Playing white, you have an extra tempo, which means that you will most probably succeed with such plans.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, black can choose a g7-g6 pawn structure. But then, h7 is less interesting as a target and you should either build up pressure on d5 (c2-c4, Nb1-c3, Qd1-b3) or perhaps try a Qd2-Bf4 battery to exchange off black's g7-bishop via Bf4-h6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I guess the good thing about your setup is that you have a strong control over d4 and e5. But don't hurry with c2-c3, because you might want to do c2-c4 in a single move to attack the d5-square.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit 2014-03-26:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black can insert h7-h6 to open a pocket for the bishop on h7. Same as white can do h2-h3 to open a pocket on h2. That will cost a move, yet it might be well invested. There is no &quot;forced&quot; way to exchange off black's light squared bishop. There are some variations, e.g. the Slav, where in some lines white manages to make this exchange happen. A well prepared player will always find ways, with both colors :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-03-26T22:22:02.903" LastActivityDate="2014-03-26T22:22:02.903" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5121" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5124" CreationDate="2014-03-26T20:57:56.180" Score="2" ViewCount="148" Body="&lt;p&gt;If someone could put a picture of the layout in that'd be great, I've looked (clicked edit) on posts with them and I cannot work out the format, also this is a setup, I didn't write down how I got there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a game I was playing against my &quot;Train board&quot; on a train so not my finest work but I ended up in this situation and in the end &quot;resigned&quot; (turned it off), and what I've tried from here&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;r4rk1/pp3ppp/2n1p3/q2p1b2/1b1PnB2/1QN2NPP/PP2PPB1/2R2RK1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. g4 (1. Nxe4 dxe4 2. Ne5 Nxd4 {I've noted this was a good move for black, that I missed} 3. Qc4 (3. Qe3 Qd5 4. Qc3 Bxc3) Qd5 4. Qxb4 {play suspected trap for interest} (4. Qxd5 exd5 5. Rc7) Nxe2+) Bg6 2. Qa4 Nxc3 3. bxc3 {Stopped playing, loose queen} 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now I think (I wrote) that I opened very well and I seemed fairly happy with the moves before these, the move before this starts though I went from waiting room to train and I'm easily distracted by the scenery. So please no &quot;idiot, who does that!&quot; stuff.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I really think black has the stronger position by far, but the midgame can very easily turn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2703" LastEditorUserId="933" LastEditDate="2014-03-26T21:28:03.253" LastActivityDate="2014-03-27T12:31:49.677" Title="Can white recover? (midgame)" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;middlegame&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5122" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5056" CreationDate="2014-03-26T21:30:25.830" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Basically all of them!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess engines really only use brute-force when:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;told to&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;are analysing positions (problem solving)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Looking for a checkmate (problem solving, not when playing against, like &quot;find the mate in N&quot; style problems)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Otherwise they have a &quot;selective search&quot;, this will consider all the possible moves for a given board layout, but only explore a handful of them. An engine may switch to brute-force though if it rates two moves very similarly (more than one strong move) or if it cannot find a move it likes (no strong moves).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They also tend to brute-force as a last line of defense, if you've seen a checkmate chances are it can see it coming and it will want to try really hard to draw, and cannot find a way out (the &quot;Horizon effect&quot; is a problem with engines, suppose it is going to loose it's queen, and it's been capped to only go 4 plays deep; if it can trade pawns and postpone that loss of the queen for 4 moves it will think it has saved the queen, in the process it'll loose at least 1 pawn (as the next move brings the horizon from before closer) and the weight it places on saving the queen may mean it sacrifices some defense, for nothing if the death goes over the horizon).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It will also brute-force when the selective search isn't very useful. This is why engines take longer when they have like 3 pieces left. They have to brute-force because the selection algorithm cannot rate a move. The selection algorithm is great during the midgame because it can be like &quot;Oohh, doing this with the pawn blocks his [whatever] and backs up my [whatever] and [whatever] which I have a lesser number defending than attacking&quot; - for instance. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you have a king in the middle of the board there are 8 moves, the selective search will be like &quot;None of these do anything useful, I can't tell&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can think of the selective search as having two parts, it is tactical in the sense of it'll try and spot tactical moves, it will ignore the weight of the pieces involved usually because a queen not a part of any strategy is not worth more than a pawn vital to it. It is also strategic in that it'll explore moves that bolster a defense, and open up later to potential attacks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The engine then does the same from your point of view, and back and forth and back and forth. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Something called a transposition table is a big list of things it has thought about, that way if it ends up considering something it has already done, it knows and doesn't have to re-evaluate it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;UNLESS (selective :)) it gets there a different way, or wants to explore further. Suppose for example it discovers that your ... rook is essential to an impending attack, the engine may re-evaluate a line when it discovers this. The previous weight it put on that rook (eg 5 points, how important it is to you) might be an under-estimate. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The selective search can also backtrack, like say its considering a bishop moving right into enemy territory, to the move selector it is not important that it can be taken easily. Say it discovers that strategically that is a superb move! It may then backtrack to try and find a way to protect that square to get that bishop there. Suppose it involves a pawn to do so.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The brute-force method would consider the line involving that pawn move, and (by brute force) the bishop move too, and the same stuff that rates the board position (the selective search itself) will say &quot;this is good&quot; so the board rates that variation highly, both find it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's very hard to rate a position using the brute-force method, this is why the selective search works so well. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The brute-force from the starting position might find that famous mate-in-4 that involves a queen f7 covered by a bishop, and if it were to rate that highly (I'VE FOUND A CHECKMATE! JOB DONE! PLAY!) it'd be wrong because black will obviously counter. The selective search rates a position (for further evaluation) because it is &lt;em&gt;appears&lt;/em&gt; to be good. This means when it is considering your response it can decide what would be good for you....&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the stuff that the selective search uses to rate things is used by the brute-force one anyway because &quot;found a checkmate involving this move&quot; is not enough to say that move is good. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hence &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/5032/what-are-the-first-moves-chosen-white-by-brute-force-chess-engines/5041#5041&quot;&gt;What are the first moves chosen (White), by brute force chess engines?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2703" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.193" LastActivityDate="2014-03-26T21:30:25.830" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5123" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1974" CreationDate="2014-03-26T22:42:47.517" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;How should I play the Old Benoni Defense as both White and Black?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Aggressively.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let me justify that a little. The Benoni is a &lt;em&gt;very&lt;/em&gt; combative opening from both sides of the board. Many lines are extremely sharp, especially in the Old Benoni where White has all kinds of weapons at his disposal, like the ultra-sharp Taimanov (&lt;code&gt;1.d4 c5 2.d5 Nf6 3.c4 e6 4.Nc3 exd5 5.cxd5 d6 6.e4 g6 7.f4 Bg7 8.Bb5+&lt;/code&gt;):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Opening &quot;Benoni, Taimanov Variation&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;rnbqk2r/pp3pbp/3p1np1/1BpP4/4PP2/2N5/PP4PP/R1BQK1NR b KQkq - 2 8&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_Benoni&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;modern lines&lt;/a&gt;, Black usually waits a move or two before playing &lt;code&gt;...c5&lt;/code&gt;, to avoid some of the more popular &quot;anti-Benoni&quot; systems. Specifically, Black often wants White to commit a Knight to &lt;code&gt;f3&lt;/code&gt;, so that there's no immediate fear of &lt;code&gt;f2-f4&lt;/code&gt;. However, the Old Benoni is certainly still playable as long as you're ready for a highly tactical struggle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;General Thoughts&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the main lines, Black usually plays &lt;code&gt;...e6&lt;/code&gt; and then exchanges his e-pawn for White's d-pawn. This gives Black a queenside majority and White a central/kingside one. Black will then blockade the advanced d-pawn by playing &lt;code&gt;...d6&lt;/code&gt;, and then usually fianchetto the King Bishop to take advantage of the strong diagonal controlled by his pawns on &lt;code&gt;c5&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;d6&lt;/code&gt;. Meanwhile, White will use his advantage in space to make threats in the center and on the kingside.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This opening presents a variety of opportunities for tactical combinations. Because the center is semi-closed by the pawns on &lt;code&gt;c4&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;c5&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt;, and &lt;code&gt;d6&lt;/code&gt;, it can be difficult to effectively switch pieces from one side of the board to the other, especially for Black, who has less space in which to operate. This tends to result in a game where counterattack is easier and more productive than defense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;As White&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White's most important positional advantage in the Benoni is his central pawn majority. In particular, the threat of White's eventual &lt;code&gt;e4-e5&lt;/code&gt; is often a major point of contention for the early part of the game. White normally will castle kingside and play &lt;code&gt;Re1&lt;/code&gt; to support this advance, and may also play &lt;code&gt;f2-f4&lt;/code&gt; as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As the game progresses, White may also find a variety of very strong central outposts for his Knights, depending on which pawn advances Black ends up making. &lt;code&gt;c4&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; are often good candidates, and sometimes even &lt;code&gt;b5&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White enjoys extra space in the center and on the kingside, so his general plan is usually to pressure the center until he can either break through there, or spill over onto Black's castle. Besides the &lt;code&gt;e4-e5&lt;/code&gt; pawn push, White may also put pressure on Black's backward pawn on &lt;code&gt;d6&lt;/code&gt; with moves like &lt;code&gt;Nc4&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;Nb5&lt;/code&gt;, and sometimes &lt;code&gt;Bf4&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since Black will frequently be trying to make headway on the queenside, White has an interest in preventing him from gaining much space over there. To this end, White often plays &lt;code&gt;a2-a4&lt;/code&gt; and may try to land a piece on &lt;code&gt;b6&lt;/code&gt; to prevent Black's &lt;code&gt;b7-b5&lt;/code&gt;. If White can manage to maneuver a &lt;em&gt;Rook&lt;/em&gt; to &lt;code&gt;b6&lt;/code&gt;, Black will be very hard-pressed to hold onto his backwards d-pawn. Tactics involving sacrifices on &lt;code&gt;d6&lt;/code&gt; are also relatively common, where White can make his central pawns into passers by force, and from there drive the game home.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[White &quot;Jonathan Penrose&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Mikhail Tal&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;1rb1r1k1/2qn1pbp/3p2p1/1pnP4/2p1PP2/2N1B1NP/1PB2QP1/R4RK1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e5!&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;As Black&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black has two key weapons in this opening: his queenside pawn majority and the half-open e-file. Because White's pawn center is fairly advanced, these two factors can combine to allow Black to undermine the White center with well-timed queenside pawn thrusts (&lt;code&gt;...c5-c4&lt;/code&gt; is often a very potent threat), or else simply break through on the queenside while White is occupied elsewhere.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As his opponent will often be looking to play &lt;code&gt;e4-e5&lt;/code&gt;, Black should usually put some effort into preventing this move, either by pressuring the &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt; pawn or (more usually) by contesting &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt; itself, taking advantage of the half-open file against White's pawn on &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; (in lines where White plays &lt;code&gt;f2-f4&lt;/code&gt;, this pawn is even &lt;em&gt;backwards&lt;/em&gt;, making it even more of a target). Black normally castles kingside and plays &lt;code&gt;...Re8&lt;/code&gt; relatively early to assist in this endeavor.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White's d-pawn is a bit of a thorn in Black's position, making it sometimes unclear where Black should place his queenside minor pieces. Black's Queen-Knight often develops to &lt;code&gt;d7&lt;/code&gt; and eventually to &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt;, to blockade White's &lt;code&gt;e4-e5&lt;/code&gt; advance, but sometimes instead Black can play &lt;code&gt;...Nb8-a6-c7&lt;/code&gt; to put some pressure on &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt; and support a &lt;code&gt;b7-b5&lt;/code&gt; advance, or this Knight may land on a &lt;code&gt;b4&lt;/code&gt; outpost after White has played &lt;code&gt;a2-a4&lt;/code&gt;. Black's Queen Bishop usually gets played either to &lt;code&gt;g4&lt;/code&gt; (and then is often traded for a White Knight on &lt;code&gt;f3&lt;/code&gt; to make &lt;code&gt;e4-e5&lt;/code&gt; more difficult), or to &lt;code&gt;d7&lt;/code&gt; to support the queenside attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, kingside action is not at all out of the question for Black; the half-open e-file gives him some good options on that side of the board as well. In particular, Black's powerful Bishop on the long diagonal constantly threatens to slide into a very strong outpost on &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt;, and Black's Knights often land on the kingside anyway in the course of natural development.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[White &quot;Kalju Vark&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Mikhail Tal&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;r1b1r1k1/pp1nq1bp/3p2p1/2pP1p2/1nB1PP2/P1N1BNP1/1P2QK1P/R6R b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1...fxe4! 2.Ng5 Nd3+! 3.Kg2 Nf6 4.Ba2 Bg4 5.Qd2 h6 6.h3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1201" LastEditorUserId="1201" LastEditDate="2014-03-26T22:51:55.910" LastActivityDate="2014-03-26T22:51:55.910" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5124" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5121" CreationDate="2014-03-27T12:31:49.677" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Can white recover?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;White is just fine.&lt;/strong&gt; Sure, Black stands slightly better due to his &lt;strong&gt;better coordinated&lt;/strong&gt; minor pieces, but the position is roughly equal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If someone could put a picture of the layout in that'd be great, I've&#xA;  looked (clicked edit) on posts with them and I cannot work out the&#xA;  format, also this is a setup, I didn't write down how I got there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/279/tool-used-to-create-chess-analysis-interactive-diagrams-in-many-chess-stack-exch/280#280&quot;&gt;This thread&lt;/a&gt; covers the topic pretty good in my opinion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I really think black has the stronger position by far, but the midgame can very easily turn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I believe that opening went something like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.cxd5 cxd5 5.Bf4 Bf5 6.Nf3 Nc6 7.g3 e6 8.Qb3 Bb4 9.Bg2 O-O 10.O-O Qa5 11.Rac1 Ne4 12.Rfd1!?&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here, White's last move fortifies  the &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt; pawn, leaving &lt;code&gt;e2&lt;/code&gt; pawn free which might be useful in some lines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sure, Black has aggressively posted minor pieces, but White &lt;strong&gt;finished development&lt;/strong&gt; and is now ready to &lt;strong&gt;push them back.&lt;/strong&gt; This means that Black will have to make exchanges which will reduce his pressure, or will have to fall back giving the initiative to White.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, I believe that the resulting position after &lt;code&gt;Rfd1!?&lt;/code&gt; is unclear, with chances for both sides. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since we look at this from White's perspective, it would be good if Black exchanged on &lt;code&gt;c3&lt;/code&gt; and if White could then get Black's lightsquared bishop for &lt;code&gt;f3&lt;/code&gt; knight. With a fortified &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt; pawn he could launch &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; in appropriate moment in order to open his position for his bishops. In such position &lt;code&gt;Nc6&lt;/code&gt; would be badly posted since &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt; pawn is fortified with &lt;code&gt;c3&lt;/code&gt; pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just for an example, I provide a sample line:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.cxd5 cxd5 5.Bf4 Bf5 6.Nf3 Nc6 7.g3 e6 8.Qb3 Bb4 9.Bg2 O-O 10.O-O Qa5 11.Rac1 Ne4 12.Rfd1!? Rac8!? 13.Nh4 Nxc3 14.bxc3 Ba3 15.Ra1 Bg6 16.Nxg6 hxg6 17.e4+/=&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Best regards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-03-16T15:50:45.707" LastActivityDate="2014-03-27T12:31:49.677" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5125" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5128" CreationDate="2014-03-27T13:43:44.660" Score="3" ViewCount="1176" Body="&lt;p&gt;In a given situation, can we assume that a chess engine is tactically perfect - meaning that it can find all possible tactics which are there in that position. Is it possible for the best of modern chess engines to miss a tactic in a given position? Has this ever been observed in any recent game?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: @Henry Keiter: For the purpose of this question, I would define tactic as a combination or sequence of moves which wins material(if playing the winning side), or a combination or sequence of moves which defends a difficult position successfully (meaning preventing a loss of material which seems imminent). I know that the general definition is broader but for the purpose of this question the meaning can be taken as defined above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT 2: The reason I am asking this question is I am actually curious if a chess engine really does find all the possible tactics in a given position, or if it just manages to find many more tactics than a human being would find.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1811" LastEditorUserId="1811" LastEditDate="2014-03-27T21:36:08.817" LastActivityDate="2015-01-11T18:33:15.720" Title="Are modern chess programs tactically perfect?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;statistics&gt;&lt;calculation&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5126" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5125" CreationDate="2014-03-27T17:00:21.013" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;No.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the game 0s and Xs the best move is obvious and unique (if you rotate the board you'll find that the positions all have rotational symmetry, so for example if the first move is a corner (centre FTW BTW!) you may say &quot;there are 4 moves&quot;, but really there is only one as is you rotate the board... )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This lets you define the idea of a perfect move, of which chess has no obvious candidate. Which is why it is not known if chess is a fair game (that is no advantage is given to the player who moves first), despite being perfect (no non-deterministic elements, and full knowledge of positions).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/5032/what-are-the-first-moves-chosen-white-by-brute-force-chess-engines/5041#5041&quot;&gt;What are the first moves chosen (White), by brute force chess engines?&lt;/a&gt; my answer here mentions this WRT openings&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/5056/is-there-a-chess-engine-that-does-not-use-brute-force-search/5122#5122&quot;&gt;Is there a chess engine that does NOT use brute-force search?&lt;/a&gt; bit more about how they work and think - pertaining to tactics.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2703" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2014-03-27T17:00:21.013" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5127" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5125" CreationDate="2014-03-27T18:55:41.187" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is it possible for the &lt;strong&gt;best&lt;/strong&gt; of modern chess engines to miss a tactic in a given position?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This question boils down to&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is it possible for the best of modern chess engines to have a bug in their calculation or evaluation module? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Technically, yes. Sometimes, there are bugs which are extremely hard to detect unless they first occur and are caught. But it seems rather &lt;strong&gt;unlikely&lt;/strong&gt; that such bugs will exist in the &lt;strong&gt;best&lt;/strong&gt; engines which I am sure go through extremely thorough testing; that's one of the reasons why they are the best! :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2429" LastActivityDate="2014-03-27T18:55:41.187" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5128" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5125" CreationDate="2014-03-27T19:14:25.673" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The quality and depth of an engine's calculation depends on the&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Performance of the machine the engine is running on&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Quality of its algorithms in terms of calculation and performance&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Time span allowed for calculating the position&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is generally considered that tactics (i.e. combinations that lead to winning material or delivering checkmate) are the engines' speciality. There is a double difficulty of calculating variations. First, to find the best sequence of moves for both sides. Second, to evaluate the final positions after the combination is completed. Todays state of the art engines are excellent at both. I would say that&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Todays best engines will not miss a single tactic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most probably, there are &quot;tactical benchmark data sets&quot; of positions that engines constantly are tested against. I don't recall any cases where engines missed tactics. But by going through the game databases, especially from engine versus engine tournaments, there should be examples of one engine calculating better than its opponent engine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastActivityDate="2014-03-27T19:14:25.673" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5129" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5112" CreationDate="2014-03-27T19:37:28.833" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1105081&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1105081&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Petrosian used an A00 uncommon opening against Pachman.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2697" LastActivityDate="2014-03-27T19:37:28.833" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5130" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5125" CreationDate="2014-03-27T23:52:43.310" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In objective terms, the game of chess is nothing but tactics. So the question of tactically perfect play is just the question of optimal play. &lt;em&gt;Given sufficient time for any given position&lt;/em&gt;, then yes, any competently-built engine would indeed be tactically perfect, because it could search the entire game tree from the position and play optimally.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But here's the thing: in general, the problem of determining optimal play is computationally unfeasible, so we don't even have a way to determine in general whether a tactic has been missed or not. &lt;strong&gt;For all we know, &lt;code&gt;1.a3&lt;/code&gt; from the start position is the only winning move in a mate-in-80 tactics puzzle.&lt;/strong&gt; If that is the case, then any time an engine chooses to play another move it is missing a tactic. We have no way to prove that isn't the case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2014-03-27T23:52:43.310" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5131" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-03-28T00:14:42.597" Score="6" ViewCount="568" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am looking at the &lt;em&gt;Anand vs Andreikin&lt;/em&gt; round 12 Candidates tournament and I see that it ended in a draw and that based on engine evaluation Anand is much better (+ 2.8 is kind of huge). I also see that it is really a hard position and to be able to get advantage it requires you to sacrifice a rook basically for nothing (you will not get anything back in next moves). Anand proceeded with repetition thus drawing the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know that the question is highly speculative and no one knows the answer except of Anand. But has he not seen that he is better, may be he was low on time, or something else? (I definitely has not seen it, and even from my first 3 minutes of analysis it looks like he is worse, but this is why I am not a GM :-) ). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A more appropriate question will be about normal analysis of the position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is the mentioned game:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[White &quot;Anand&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Andreikin&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Candidates tournament 2014 ( round 12 )&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 dxe4 4.Nxe4 Bf5 5.Ng3 Bg6 6.h4 h6 7.Nf3 e6 8.Ne5 Bh7 9.Bd3 Bxd3 10.Qxd3 Nd7 11.f4 Bb4+ 12.c3 Be7 13.Bd2 Ngf6 14.O-O-O O-O 15.Qf3 Qc7 16.c4 a5 17.Kb1 Rad8 18.Bc1 a4 19.Rhe1 a3 20.b3 Bb4 21.Re3 c5 22.d5 exd5 23.cxd5 Nb6 24.Red3 Qc8 25.d6 Rfe8 26.Nh5 Re6 27.Nxf6 Rxf6 28.d7 Qc7 29.Qg4 c4 30.Rg3 g6 31.h5 cxb3 32.Rxb3 Na4 33.hxg6 fxg6 34.Rxb4 Nc3+ 35.Kc2 b5 36.Kb3 Na4 37.Qf3 Nc5+ 38.Kc2 Na4+ 39.Kb3 Nc5+ 40.Kc2 Na4+ 41.Kb3 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="703" LastEditorUserId="2042" LastEditDate="2014-03-28T07:25:09.627" LastActivityDate="2014-03-28T07:25:09.627" Title="Has Anand missed that he is better? Anand vs Andreikin round 12 Candidates tournament" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;anand&gt;&lt;sacrifice&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5132" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5131" CreationDate="2014-03-28T03:32:41.730" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;To Quote GM Jonathan Tisdall, &quot;Jonathan Tisdall ‏@GMjtis I think in the pre-computer age people would not be criticizing Anand's 'incredible' decision for a few days at least.&quot;&#xA;And Jonathan Rowson, &quot;@Jonathan_Rowson It's funny, if you follow the main online computer line on 41.Rc4 it reaches R&amp;amp;B vR: Lots of risk and still just a draw!&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I watched the complete game and the video footage online, and frankly I was disappointed. But it WAS a very complicated game. Its easier for us fans, to sit at home in front of our engines which spits these emotionless-crazy lines with &gt; +3 advantage, but its a different matter on the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After move 40, Anand actually peeked at the Karjakin game, even though it was his turn to move. Probably he saw that Karjakin can only draw the game and soon after that agreed to repeat his position too. (Remember he is 40+ and the game was already 4hrs+!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He did acknowledge that he had seen these lines, but his head was spinning and it was not worth the risk!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What Anand did was practical considering the tournament situation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1275" LastActivityDate="2014-03-28T03:32:41.730" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5133" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5131" CreationDate="2014-03-28T03:39:19.290" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;I watched the press conference. It starts at the 4 hr 13 minute mark in this &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMkKB2c4my8&amp;amp;list=PLuSxF13JFumcREcww69-6ChtNjLepmQ79&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;video&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some quotes from Anand-&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;I should play Kd2.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;I suspect White is better&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;but my head was spinning&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;I decided not to tempt fate.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;I was already very tired. The game had taken a lot of energy. I didn't see anything terribly clear. White still has to defend for another 4-5 moves...&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To summarize: Anand was quite tired and although he suspected his position to be better, he didn't see anything concrete for White. In the press conference he mentioned that he saw that Black's pieces would be well co-ordinated while White's would not be so harmoniously placed for the next few moves. Therefore, he decided not to take a risk and go for the draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So Anand didn't miss that he is better, but other factors influenced his decision to take the draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2429" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2014-03-28T03:39:19.290" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5134" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5022" CreationDate="2014-03-28T09:02:31.637" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have a USCF of around 1500 and I can play blind, so if that's what you're looking for it shouldn't be overly difficult.  I did have to push myself a little though.  I want to try multiple boards, we'll see.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2765" LastEditorUserId="2765" LastEditDate="2017-09-07T07:11:37.363" LastActivityDate="2017-09-07T07:11:37.363" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5135" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5137" CreationDate="2014-03-28T09:12:53.013" Score="7" ViewCount="1194" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qtoAt.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;3-ply position graph&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://s13.postimg.org/miyhhh113/chess_finite_graph.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://s13.postimg.org/miyhhh113/chess_finite_graph.png&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to imagine the finite graph of all positions in chess. Due to the sheer number of possible positions, it is impossible with current technology to build an exhaustive database. Such a database would require more than 100 zetabytes of storage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But even if we can't store the positions exhaustively, would it be possible to count winning lines for each side? That is, can the number of arrows going to &lt;em&gt;Draw&lt;/em&gt;, to &lt;em&gt;Black Won&lt;/em&gt;, and to &lt;em&gt;White Won&lt;/em&gt; be determined mathematically? And if so, would White have more winning arrows than Black?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2766" LastEditorUserId="2766" LastEditDate="2014-04-04T11:33:20.910" LastActivityDate="2017-10-03T08:51:41.317" Title="Can the total number of possible wins/draws/losses be calculated?" Tags="&lt;statistics&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5136" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5069" CreationDate="2014-03-28T09:30:49.750" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The following study holds that chess in schools helps students with low-level gains in intelligence, but no high level gains.  In other words, if I'm correct in my memory of the study it can teach &quot;life lessons&quot; like sports, but with no gains in intelligence versus sports.  So, knowledge of the game would only lead to knowledge in the overlap of fields.  Of course, depending upon your view as to the size of &quot;chess-related&quot; mathematics and computer science this would affect your judgement as to the effectiveness of teaching the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The paper is below, judge for yourself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This flies in the face of what I first thought, but is an interesting take.  As one who publishes in the field of &quot;chess-related&quot; mathematics and played scholastically for 12 years (yes 1st grade through 12th), I say the paper underestimates the vastness of the overlap between mathematics, computer science, and chess (not to mention sociology, philosophy, and other fields).   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://people.brunel.ac.uk/~hsstffg/preprints/chess_and_education.PDF&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://people.brunel.ac.uk/~hsstffg/preprints/chess_and_education.PDF&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2765" LastActivityDate="2014-03-28T09:30:49.750" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5137" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5135" CreationDate="2014-03-28T11:54:44.017" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Theoretically, we don't know, because we can't calculate it yet. Chess is not solved as an universal and general problem and we don't know that if two &lt;em&gt;gods&lt;/em&gt; play chess in an infinite manner, which color wins or maybe it's just a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Statistically, you can gather data from chess databases in websites, tournaments and computer tools to have an estimation. For example see &lt;a href=&quot;http://chesstempo.com/game-database.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; online databases.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1824" LastEditorUserId="1824" LastEditDate="2017-10-03T08:51:41.317" LastActivityDate="2017-10-03T08:51:41.317" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5138" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5117" CreationDate="2014-03-28T22:42:46.827" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the Caro-Kann white has a ton of choices. It depends on your style to choose what is best for you. Usually white tries to expand and get as much space as possible. That gives him attacking chances in the middlegame, but a worse pawn structure at the ending.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the advance variation white may choose classical attacking ideas with c3 or 4. Nc3 with a tactical madness. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2774" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2014-03-28T23:35:17.633" LastActivityDate="2014-03-28T23:35:17.633" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5139" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-03-29T03:52:35.560" Score="1" ViewCount="200" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've just been playing for fun online a little bit, and was wondering how hard the computer I've been playing against is.  NOTE: This was made for a javascript competition, and doesn't include castling or en passant capture.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://js1k.com/2010-first/demo/699&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://js1k.com/2010-first/demo/699&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2776" LastActivityDate="2014-03-30T14:21:27.463" Title="Rate the difficulty of this computer?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;rating&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5140" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5139" CreationDate="2014-03-29T08:27:02.313" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It does have the capability to spot basic mating threats as far as I saw. No opening theory book is supported, thus its opening play is terrible. It has a bad evaluation function, as it was not able to spot simple threats and does not recognize what is weak or strong move. Defending capabilities are low. I won fast so I can not comment on its endgame or attacking skill. In short, it plays as someone who just learned the game rules ( except &lt;em&gt;en passant&lt;/em&gt; and castling, of course ).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hopefully this helps. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Best regards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastActivityDate="2014-03-29T08:27:02.313" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5141" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5139" CreationDate="2014-03-29T09:29:45.523" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I didn't play a full game with it (mainly because of having to scroll to see the full board), but I'm not so impressed. Also, there is a bug in it which prevents long castle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1811" LastActivityDate="2014-03-29T09:29:45.523" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5142" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5143" CreationDate="2014-03-29T16:44:29.357" Score="14" ViewCount="19299" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, we have all heard phrases like 'control the centre'. I would like to know the concrete reason why the centre of the board - in particular the 4 squares - e4, e5, d4, d5, are considered important in chess. What makes them different from any other square? What is the reason that these squares supposedly enjoy such a privileged status compared to other squares? Are they important only in the opening and not so important in the middle and end game? Why? Or is it all just a myth?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1811" LastActivityDate="2014-04-07T03:11:54.747" Title="Why is the centre of the board considered important in chess?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5143" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5142" CreationDate="2014-03-29T18:29:14.653" Score="16" Body="&lt;p&gt;While (&lt;strong&gt;e4&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;d4&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;e5&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;d5&lt;/strong&gt;) are generally regarded as the central squares, the same principle can sometimes be extended to the adjacent squares like (&lt;strong&gt;c4&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;c5&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;d3&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;d6&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;e3&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;e6&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;f4&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;f5&lt;/strong&gt;). So we have a kind of central polygon - &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Ic5WY.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Controlling the center is not an end in itself but a &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;means&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; to an end. The end results could be any combination of the following- &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1. Greater influence over the board.&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Normally, if you control the center, then your pieces have more control over the whole board in general. Thus, a knight centralized on &lt;strong&gt;e5&lt;/strong&gt; generally controls more &lt;strong&gt;important&lt;/strong&gt; squares than a knight passively placed, say, on &lt;strong&gt;a4&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Recommended Game:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1067175&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Karpov vs Kasparov World Championship Match (1985), Game 16&lt;/a&gt; - Kasparov anchors a Black knight on &lt;strong&gt;d3&lt;/strong&gt; which was famously described as the &quot;octupus&quot;, controlling several key squares in White's position and greatly influencing the entire board. White's knights on the other hand are pushed to passive squares like &lt;strong&gt;a4&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;b1&lt;/strong&gt;, exerting almost no control over the board. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  [FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;  [White &quot;Karpov&quot;]&#xA;  [Black &quot;Kasparov&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;  1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 e6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nc6 5. Nb5 d6 6. c4 Nf6 7. N1c3 a6 &#xA;  8. Na3 d5 9. cxd5 exd5 10. exd5 Nb4 11. Be2 Bc5 12. O-O O-O 13. Bf3 Bf5 &#xA;  14. Bg5 Re8 15. Qd2 b5 16. Rad1 Nd3 17. Nab1 h6 18. Bh4 b4 19. Na4 Bd6 &#xA;  20. Bg3 Rc8 21. b3 g5 22. Bxd6 Qxd6 23. g3 Nd7 24. Bg2 Qf6 25. a3 a5 &#xA;  26. axb4 axb4 27. Qa2 Bg6 28. d6 g4 29. Qd2 Kg7 30. f3 Qxd6 31. fxg4 Qd4 &#xA;  32. Kh1 Nf6 33. Rf4 Ne4 34. Qxd3 Nf2 35. Rxf2 Bxd3 36. Rfd2 Qe3 37. Rxd3 Rc1 &#xA;  38. Nb2 Qf2 39. Nd2 Rxd1 40. Nxd1 Re1 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;2. Greater mobility of pieces.&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Often, if the central pawns are not advanced two squares, they can hinder the bishops from development. They provide less space for the pieces to move. If these pawns are advanced to the central squares, then the mobility of the pieces is greatly enhanced. Thus, &lt;strong&gt;e2-e4&lt;/strong&gt; frees the bishop on &lt;strong&gt;f1&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;d2-d4&lt;/strong&gt; does the same for the bishop on &lt;strong&gt;c1&lt;/strong&gt;. Besides, these moves also make room for the queen on &lt;strong&gt;d1&lt;/strong&gt; and later for the rooks to come into the game on the &lt;strong&gt;d&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;strong&gt;e&lt;/strong&gt; files if they have been opened. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Recommended Game:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1266654&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Paul Morphy vs James McConnell, 1849&lt;/a&gt; - Morphy follows basic opening principles; develops pieces towards the center, advances pawns to &lt;strong&gt;e4&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;d4&lt;/strong&gt;, his bishops come to life and the Black queen is at the mercy of his centralized pieces. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  [FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;  [White &quot;Morphy&quot;]&#xA;  [Black &quot;McConnell&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;  1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Qf6 3. Nc3 c6 4. d4 exd4 5. e5 Qg6 6. Bd3 Qxg2 7. Rg1 Qh3 &#xA;  8. Rg3 Qh5 9. Rg5 Qh3 10. Bf1 Qe6 11. Nxd4 Qe7 12. Ne4 h6 13. Nf5 Qe6 14. Nfd6 Bxd6  &#xA;  15. Nxd6 Kd8 16. Bc4 Qe7 17. Nxf7 Kc7 18. Qd6 Qxd6 19. exd6 Kb6 20. Be3 c5 &#xA;  21. Bxc5 Ka5 22. Rg3 b5 23. Ra3 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;3. Restricted mobility of enemy pieces.&lt;/strong&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Suppose white manages to place both pawns on &lt;strong&gt;d4&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;e4&lt;/strong&gt;. This makes it difficult for the Black bishops to find good squares like &lt;strong&gt;c5&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;strong&gt;f5&lt;/strong&gt;. They thus have to remain passive or try a fianchetto, which might not always be convenient. Also, the pawns on &lt;strong&gt;d4&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;e4&lt;/strong&gt; restrict and also have the ability to attack the Black knights which might normally be developed on &lt;strong&gt;c6&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;strong&gt;f6&lt;/strong&gt;. This constant potential to threaten the Black knights can make it difficult for Black to develop pieces comfortably. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Recommended Game: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1067228&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Karpov vs Kasparov World Championship 1986, Game 5.&lt;/a&gt; - Karpov demonstrates how pawns in the center can restrict a fianchettoed Bishop. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  [FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;  [White &quot;Karpov&quot;]&#xA;  [Black &quot;Kasparov&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;  1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 d5 4. Bf4 Bg7 5. e3 c5 6. dxc5 Qa5 7. Rc1 Ne4 8. cxd5 Nxc3  &#xA;  9. Qd2 Qxa2 10. bxc3 Qxd2 11. Kxd2 Nd7 12. Bb5 O-O 13. Bxd7 Bxd7 14. e4 f5 15. e5 e6 &#xA;  16. c4 Rfc8 17. c6 bxc6 18. d6 c5 19. h4 h6 20. Nh3 a5 21. f3 a4 22. Rhe1 a3 &#xA;  23. Nf2 a2 24. Nd3 Ra3 25. Ra1 g5 26. hxg5 hxg5 27. Bxg5 Kf7 28. Bf4 Rb8 29. Rec1 Bc6 &#xA;  30. Rc3 Ra5 31. Rc2 Rba8 32. Nc1 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;4. Pawns move closer to the enemy king.&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Generally, in an attack on the enemy king, it is important to have a few pawns near the enemy king to make it difficult for the opposing pieces to defend the position. If the Black king (for example) castles to the kingside, then it usually helps White to have a pawn on &lt;strong&gt;e5&lt;/strong&gt;, because then Black cannot place a knight on &lt;strong&gt;f6&lt;/strong&gt;, which is the most natural defensive position for the knight on the kingside. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Recommended Game:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1044267&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Fischer vs Myagmarsuren, 1967&lt;/a&gt; - Bobby Fischer fixes a pawn on e5 to drive the Black knight from f6 and then proceeds to win with a kingside attack in instructive fashion. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  [FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;  [White &quot;Fischer&quot;]&#xA;  [Black &quot;Myagmarsuren&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;  1. e4 e6 2. d3 d5 3. Nd2 Nf6 4. g3 c5 5. Bg2 Nc6 6. Ngf3 Be7 7. O-O O-O &#xA;  8. e5 Nd7 9. Re1 b5 10. Nf1 b4 11. h4 a5 12. Bf4 a4 13. a3 bxa3 14. bxa3 Na5 &#xA;  15. Ne3 Ba6 16. Bh3 d4 17. Nf1 Nb6 18. Ng5 Nd5 19. Bd2 Bxg5 20. Bxg5 Qd7 &#xA;  21. Qh5 Rfc8 22. Nd2 Nc3 23. Bf6 Qe8 24. Ne4 g6 25. Qg5 Nxe4 26. Rxe4 c4 &#xA;  27. h5 cxd3 28. Rh4 Ra7 29. Bg2 dxc2 30. Qh6 Qf8 31. Qxh7 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;5. A favorable exchange of pawns in the center leaving the enemy camp with weaknesses.&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Normally, when pawns are placed in the center, the opponent has to challenge them at some point in the future. This can often lead to favorable pawn exchanges and may lead to isolated pawns or backward pawns in the enemy camp, which can be vulnerable in some positions. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Recommended Game:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1119705&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Rubinstein vs Salwe, 1908&lt;/a&gt; - Here, Rubinstein creates a backward pawn on c6 and then masterfully exploits it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;   [FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;   [White &quot;Rubinstein, Akiba&quot;]&#xA;   [Black &quot;Salwe, Georg&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;   1. d4 d5 2. Nf3 c5 3. c4 e6 4. cxd5 exd5 5. Nc3 Nf6 6. g3 Nc6 7. Bg2 cxd4 &#xA;   8. Nxd4 Qb6 9. Nxc6 bxc6 10. O-O Be7 11. Na4 Qb5 12. Be3 O-O 13. Rc1 Bg4 &#xA;   14. f3 Be6 15. Bc5 Rfe8 16. Rf2 Nd7 17. Bxe7 Rxe7 18. Qd4 Ree8 19. Bf1 Rec8 &#xA;   20. e3 Qb7 21. Nc5 Nxc5 22. Rxc5 Rc7 23. Rfc2 Qb6 24. b4 a6 25. Ra5 Rb8 &#xA;   26. a3 Ra7 27. Rxc6 Qxc6 28. Qxa7 Ra8 29. Qc5 Qb7 30. Kf2 h5 31. Be2 g6 &#xA;   32. Qd6 Qc8 33. Rc5 Qb7 34. h4 a5 35. Rc7 Qb8 36. b5 a4 37. b6 Ra5 38. b7 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As I mentioned, these are the end results that a side tries to achieve by controlling the center. If the end result is already achieved, or if it can be obtained in a better way, then there is no need to control the center. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2429" LastEditorUserId="2429" LastEditDate="2014-03-30T14:16:57.107" LastActivityDate="2014-03-30T14:16:57.107" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5144" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5142" CreationDate="2014-03-29T21:41:49.693" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;In addition to things already said, notice that pieces have more moves if they're in the center of the board.  E.g., a knight on one of the squares in the 4x4 space in the center has 8 moves; as the knight moves towards the edge, he has fewer moves that he can make.  It is the same with the other pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Books with precise speech will say that what's important is to &lt;em&gt;control&lt;/em&gt; the center, not necessarily be &lt;em&gt;in&lt;/em&gt; the center -- an important difference.  Just having pawns in the center, for instance, would not get you any advantage.  They need to be controlling one or more squares that pieces can use.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2784" LastActivityDate="2014-03-29T21:41:49.693" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5145" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5112" CreationDate="2014-03-30T00:04:32.843" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Thomas Wilson Barnes used &lt;code&gt;1. e4 f6?!&lt;/code&gt; to beat Paul Morphy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;   [FEN &quot;&quot;]  &#xA;   [Event &quot;London m1&quot;]&#xA;   [Site &quot;London&quot;]&#xA;   [Date &quot;1858&quot;]&#xA;   [Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;   [White &quot;Paul Morphy&quot;]&#xA;   [Black &quot;Thomas Wilson Barnes&quot;]&#xA;   [ECO &quot;A00&quot;]&#xA;   [PlyCount &quot;100&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;  1.e4 f6 2.d4 e6 3.Bd3 Ne7 4.Be3 d5 5.Nc3 dxe4 6.Nxe4 Nd5 7.Nh3 Be7 8.Qh5+ g6 9.Qh6 Bf8 10.Qh4 Bg7 11.O-O O-O 12.c4 Nxe3 13.fxe3 f5 14.Neg5 h6 15.Nf3 e5 16.Qxd8 Rxd8 17.Bc2 exd4 18.exd4 Bxd4+ 19.Nxd4 Rxd4 20.Rfe1 Kf7 21.c5 Be6 22.Rad1 Nc6 23.Rxd4 Nxd4 24.Ba4 g5 25.Rd1 Rd8 26.a3 f4 27.Nf2 Ne2+ 28.Kf1 Rxd1+ 29.Bxd1 Nd4 30.Ke1 Kf6 31.Kd2 Nb3+ 32.Bxb3 Bxb3 33.Ng4+ Kg6 34.g3 h5 35.Nf2 Kf5 36.Kc3 Bd5 37.Kd4 c6 38.b4 Bg2 39.gxf4 Kxf4 40.a4 Bf1 41.Ne4 h4 42.Nd2 Be2 43.Ne4 g4 44.Nf2 Kf3 45.Ne4 Bf1 46.Ke5 Bd3 47.Ng5+ Kg2 48.Kd6 Kxh2 49.Kc7 Kg3 50.Kxb7 h3 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1485" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2014-03-30T00:17:11.883" LastActivityDate="2014-03-30T00:17:11.883" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5146" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5152" CreationDate="2014-03-30T03:45:54.977" Score="4" ViewCount="575" Body="&lt;p&gt;Suppose I play &lt;strong&gt;1. e4&lt;/strong&gt; and my opponent plays &lt;strong&gt;1..e5&lt;/strong&gt;. Do FIDE tournament rules require me to write &lt;strong&gt;1...e5&lt;/strong&gt; on my scoresheet before I play the next move &lt;strong&gt;2. Nf3?&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2429" LastActivityDate="2014-03-30T07:01:51.253" Title="FIDE tournament rules: Does a player HAVE to record the opponent's move before making a move?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;fide&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5147" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5151" CreationDate="2014-03-30T03:56:03.340" Score="7" ViewCount="3262" Body="&lt;p&gt;Do FIDE rules allow a player to make notes on the scoresheet like &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Here, I wanted to play c4, but thought it would be better to play d4&#xA;  first.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;He played Nc6. I think he should have played Nbd7.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2429" LastActivityDate="2016-07-13T07:29:37.397" Title="FIDE tournament rules: Is a player allowed to scribble notes on the scoresheet while the game is in progress?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;fide&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5148" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5169" CreationDate="2014-03-30T04:14:35.773" Score="6" ViewCount="302" Body="&lt;p&gt;I like to play the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sicilian_Defence,_Smith%E2%80%93Morra_Gambit&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Smith-Morra gambit&lt;/a&gt;.  Recently, a friend showed me a game where he (as white) successfully played a h-pawn push in the Smith-Morra gambit, which both damaged black's kingside while opening up the file for the rook.  He then followed up with a massive attack along the h-file, and easily won.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This could have been a once-off against an unskilled opponent, so I'd like to see how viable this is in other situations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Question&lt;/em&gt;: What are some instructive games with a white h-pawn push in the Smith-Morra gambit?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2785" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2014-03-30T10:34:32.590" LastActivityDate="2016-09-30T01:07:05.160" Title="Instructive games with a white h-pawn push in the Smith-Morra gambit?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;&lt;gambits&gt;&lt;smith-morra-gambit&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5149" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5157" CreationDate="2014-03-30T05:30:31.180" Score="8" ViewCount="861" Body="&lt;p&gt;First of all, congratulations to Viswanathan Anand for winning the Candidates 2014 tournament and qualifying for a rematch with Magnus Carlsen later this year! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I saw this interesting gesture made by Anand towards Karjakin after their game in the Candidates 2014 tournament (video &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ab2trGXekwc&amp;amp;list=PLuSxF13JFumcREcww69-6ChtNjLepmQ79&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; at 5:42:54). Anand just needed a draw to win the tournament and qualify for the World Championship, but Karjakin dragged the game for a whole 90 moves, making Anand patiently work and wait for the result. After Karjakin finally accepted the draw, Anand made a joking gesture as though he was going to attack Karjakin. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/OXZUJ.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems to me that chess players can be often thought of as &quot;&lt;strong&gt;too serious&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;, but World Champions like Anand have helped change the outlook on that. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which other World Champions in chess history had a jolly personality like Anand? Or is Anand unique in that regard?   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2429" LastActivityDate="2014-07-10T17:46:49.513" Title="Which World Champions other than Viswanathan Anand had a jolly personality?" Tags="&lt;world-championship&gt;&lt;anand&gt;&lt;karjakin&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5150" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4938" CreationDate="2014-03-30T06:08:59.270" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The quick, short, and practical answer about the plan in that position would be in this specific order:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) Continue fighting for control of the center (which seems you did somehow unconsciously probably due to some memorization of the opening moves) by excerpting pressure on it with your with pieces (moves like b6, Bb7, Rc8) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This point 1 aligns with one of the important goals of the opening and of chess strategy in general: aim to control the center because controlling the center you can take control of other parts of the board, and more easily move your pieces to where the ensuing battle will happen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) Aim to end up with the better part of a pawn center or avoid and inferior pawn center; exchange in the center only if it is you that benefits.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This point 2 aligns with one of the major factors that influence planning in the middle game. The pawn center (or lack of it) determines the character of the position and consequent actions for both sides.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) After the center has settled off, you can set your sight on a longer term course of action, taking into account these elements of the position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;likelihood of semi open c file for your rooks  &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;likelihood of having a pawn on d5 that controls d4 plus your bishop&#xA;on b7&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;likelihood of using e4 as an outpost for your knight and attack pawn &#xA;on c3&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Obviously white is not just sitting there doing nothing; white will try to aim its queen, bishops and night to your king but should do so preferably after the center has been settled; you should be prepared for that and should try to exchange off those pieces attacking your king; for example, I think exchanging queens off the board would benefit black's intentions and you reduce the potential risk that your king could face in the near future.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So that addressees your points 1, 2 in your question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Regarding your point &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;do I need to &quot;go back to school&quot; to learn anything&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;, obviously there's a lot you need to learn but let me point out high level things  that you want to consider addressing &lt;strong&gt;about the middle game&lt;/strong&gt; and likely in the order I list them:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) Tactical elements - usually these are &quot;the hows&quot; of a game;&#xA;things like threats, forcing moves, forks, skewers, double attacks, pins, discovered attack, discovered check, deflections, decoy, attraction, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) Typical mate patterns and combinations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) Strategy elements - typically these are &quot;the whats&quot; in a game;&#xA;things like good and bad pawn structures, the bishop pair, bad vs good bishop, good bishop vs bad knight and viceversa, isolated pawns, weeks pawns, doubled-pawns, initiative, space, open columns/diagonals, etc. In this area I liked this book a lot &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1890085138&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;&quot;How to Reassess Your Chess&quot; Fourth edition by Jeremy Silman.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One final thing to suggest would be having a &lt;em&gt;&quot;chess thought process&quot;&lt;/em&gt; for a more disciplined playing; it's not an easy thing to do initially but once you have one it helps a lot deciding what to move and avoid blunders; here is a relatively simple one you may want to start with:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(1) Threats (for both sides)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.1) mate threat, stop it if there's one&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.2) checks, captures, and other threats, stop it if dangerous or harmful&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.3) foresee upcoming threats&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(2) Tactics (for both sides)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.1) if there's tactical elements present try to exploit them&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(3) Assessment and planning (for both sides)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3.1) identify the imbalances/differences in the position, strengths and weaknesses, the goods and bads, and targets if any&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3.2) elaborate a course of action (a plan) based on those differences&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3.3) carry out your plan, typically points (1 - threats) and (2 - tactics) have been taken care of at this point&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1784" LastActivityDate="2014-03-30T06:08:59.270" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5151" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5147" CreationDate="2014-03-30T06:55:53.790" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;No&lt;/strong&gt;. Notes could help you during the game, and therefore they aren't allowed. The &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=124&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Laws of Chess&lt;/a&gt; say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;12.3.a During play the players are forbidden to make use of any notes, sources of information or advice, or analyse on another chessboard&#xA;[...]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;12.4 The scoresheet shall be used only for recording the moves, the times of the clocks, the offers of a draw, and matters relating to a claim and other relevant data.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2014-03-30T13:10:00.640" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5152" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5146" CreationDate="2014-03-30T07:01:51.253" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, you don't have to. In rule 8.1 of the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=124&amp;amp;view=article&quot;&gt;Laws of Chess&lt;/a&gt;, it says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A player may reply to his opponent’s move before recording it, if he so wishes. He must record his previous move before making another.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So your previous move must have been recorded by the time you make the next. You must have recorded at least &lt;em&gt;1.e4&lt;/em&gt; before you can play &lt;em&gt;2.Nf3&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2014-03-30T07:01:51.253" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5153" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5154" CreationDate="2014-03-30T13:13:08.377" Score="7" ViewCount="643" Body="&lt;p&gt;After 55...Rb2, we got the following position in Karjakin - Anand (Candidates 2014, round 13). Well, how about Nxg5, does it work?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[White &quot;Karjakin&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Anand&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;8/8/6k1/4p1p1/4P1Pp/5P1N/1r1BK3/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Nxg5 Rxd2+ 2.Kxd2 Kxg5 3.Ke3 h3 4.Kf2 Kf4 5.Kg1 Kg5 6.Kh1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Seems better (winning?) for white. Am I missing something?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastActivityDate="2014-03-30T14:43:07.983" Title="Could Karjakin have grabbed on g5 at move 56 against Anand in the Candidates 2014?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;anand&gt;&lt;karjakin&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5154" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5153" CreationDate="2014-03-30T13:33:26.507" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;3...h3 is wrong. The key is 3...Kf6!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/8/5k2/4p3/4P1Pp/4KP2/8/8 w - - 2 4&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;White's king has to stay in the h-pawn's square, so it can't try to walk around the pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Once white's king gets to h3, black should always be able to answer ...Kg5. If he does, then white's king can only retreat, unless he tries f4 there:&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/8/8/4p1k1/4P1Pp/5P1K/8/8 w - - 8 7&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.f4 exf4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If anyone is better off here, it's black, but it's still a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Or white can play 4.f4 immediately.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/8/5k2/4p3/4P1Pp/4KP2/8/8 w - - 2 4&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;4.f4 h3! 5.fxe5+ {What else?} Kxe5 6.Kf3 h2 7.Kg2 h1=Q+ 8.Kxh1 Kxe4 =&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the pawn endgame is a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastEditorUserId="1123" LastEditDate="2014-03-30T14:43:07.983" LastActivityDate="2014-03-30T14:43:07.983" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5155" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5153" CreationDate="2014-03-30T13:34:01.277" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The pawn endgame is a draw. Black doesn't play &lt;code&gt;h3&lt;/code&gt; until white plays &lt;code&gt;f4&lt;/code&gt;, for instance&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[White &quot;Karjakin&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Anand&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;8/8/8/4p1k1/4P1Pp/5P2/3K4/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;3.Ke3 Kh6 4. f4 h3! 5. Kf3 exf4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If white doesn't play &lt;code&gt;f4&lt;/code&gt;, then black only needs to be ready to answer &lt;code&gt;Kh3&lt;/code&gt; with &lt;code&gt;Kg5&lt;/code&gt;, but that is never going to be a problem. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1485" LastActivityDate="2014-03-30T13:34:01.277" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5156" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5139" CreationDate="2014-03-30T14:21:27.463" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a programmer, trying to write a chess engine by Javascript which runs on client's browser is very interesting. It has only 1018 bytes!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The engine doesn't obey the rules thoroughly (however we can ignore at this time). On the other hand it plays immediately and doesn't consume time to find better moves. It just trying to avoid obvious and basic blunders and probably it can find mating moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I suspect it uses any popular approach such as min-max search trees to evaluate moves. It's a very simple program and most of newbies can defeat it easily.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, if you're not a programmer and following for a chess engine, don't count it as a real chess program.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1824" LastActivityDate="2014-03-30T14:21:27.463" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5157" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5149" CreationDate="2014-03-30T15:05:42.840" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Ah. I somehow missed that during live relay. Thanks for sharing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mikhail Tal comes to mind based on his &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13674.Life_Games_of_Mikhail_Tal&quot;&gt;Life and Games&lt;/a&gt;. He mentioned about 'forgetting' to stop his clock during tournament games for the sake of his time troubled opponents. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't know how many of us mere mortals could consider doing that. He must have been a jolly good fellow.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="749" LastActivityDate="2014-03-30T15:05:42.840" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5158" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5179" CreationDate="2014-03-30T15:46:34.287" Score="7" ViewCount="1006" Body="&lt;p&gt;A games of chess with perfect play from both sides may be a draw. And while we don't have any perfect chess players it does seem that a match between two equally strong grandmasters is more likely to be drawn that a game between two equally strong amateurs (though I have no statistics on this).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I believe the closest thing we have to perfect play is world-class correspondence play. Are top quality correspondence games yet &lt;em&gt;more&lt;/em&gt; likely to be drawn that OTB grandmaster games?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT in response to @Rauan's question: I'm not sure whether world-class correspondence play allows for use of computer, but I would be interested in statistics either way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: in response to @Spork's point engine vs. engine games, I looked around online. The &lt;a href=&quot;http://computerchess.org.uk/ccrl/4040/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;CCRL list&lt;/a&gt; shows the strongest AIs drawing 45%-60% of the time at relatively brisk 40-moves-in-40-minutes time controls. I found &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/draw-percentage2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;a post on chess.org&lt;/a&gt; that says that human grandmasters &quot;have a draw rate approaching 60% or more in their games with other GMs,&quot; but these would be at longer time controls than the 40/40. So I don't think there's a clear signal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://kirill-kryukov.com/chess/kcec/draw_rate.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;A site called KCEC&lt;/a&gt; has a regression analysis showing that stronger engines to tend to draw more than weaker engines even when correcting for the difference in rating between opponents.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2736" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-10-04T16:57:22.963" LastActivityDate="2020-08-19T23:31:14.493" Title="Are world-class correspondence games more likely to be drawn than world class OTB games?" Tags="&lt;statistics&gt;&lt;draw&gt;&lt;correspondence-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="5159" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5070" CreationDate="2014-03-30T15:50:28.607" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I like Mobialia chess mentioned by @Istvan Chung. It has decent support for most common uses of FICS.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The following are additional options. I have all of them since each of them provide unique advantage over the other based on what you are trying to do:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=jwtc.android.chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chess&lt;/a&gt; by Jeroen Carolus is a hidden gem. There are lots of features meant for FICS including custom commands.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=pl.mg6.yafi&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Yafi&lt;/a&gt; is also worth a try.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="749" LastActivityDate="2014-03-30T15:50:28.607" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5160" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2014-03-30T20:37:42.323" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2014-03-30T20:37:42.323" LastActivityDate="2014-03-30T20:37:42.323" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5161" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2014-03-30T20:37:42.323" Score="0" Body="Sergej Karjakin (born 1990) is a very strong chess grandmaster representing Russia. He became a grandmaster at the age of 12 years and 7 months, the youngest in history." OwnerUserId="1485" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2014-03-30T22:12:25.747" LastActivityDate="2014-03-30T22:12:25.747" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5162" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2014-03-30T21:46:22.697" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;From &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook?id=124&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Laws of Chess&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The game is drawn when the player to move has no legal move and his king is not in check. The game is said to end in &lt;em&gt;stalemate&lt;/em&gt;. This immediately ends the game, provided that the move producing the stalemate position was legal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1485" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-06-22T12:28:22.300" LastActivityDate="2017-06-22T12:28:22.300" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5163" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2014-03-30T21:46:22.697" Score="0" Body="A chess game is said to end in stalemate when the player to move has no legal move and his king is not in check." OwnerUserId="1485" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2014-03-30T22:12:12.127" LastActivityDate="2014-03-30T22:12:12.127" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5164" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="670" CreationDate="2014-03-31T02:23:42.120" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Even though white is a piece up, one major factor that sticks out on the position is the vulnerability or potential exposure of the white king, standing right on the open c file and right on the line of the black rook on c8. Unlike the black king which at the moment is not facing any immediate danger or threats so it's safer than white's king, plus the three black pawns on the center make it difficult for the white pieces to penetrate at the moment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, taking that &lt;code&gt;KING SAFETY&lt;/code&gt; factor into account makes it &quot;really easy&quot; to follow that the best plan for white from that position is to first bring his king to safety as soon as possible and, only then make the extra piece count.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you don't need more elaboration on that, skip this paragraph. Queen side does not look very safe either, where the b file is also open and when black's rooks could &quot;easily&quot; come into play if black plays whichever is more convenient of Ke7 or Kf7 or Kg7. So it follows that placing the white king on the center files behind his e pawn is a better bet than the queen side.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now that we know what is going on in the position, it becomes obvious white's first move should be: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.Kd1 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Followed by 2.Ke1 (if opponent permits). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See how after 1.Kd1 the white knight could no longer be subjected to a pin along the c file; and it would be free to jump if convenient or necessary (squares a4, b5 become immediately protected by the knight and would stop any attempt of the black bishop into white's camp).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Secondly, after white plays Ke1 the king is on a black square which makes it very very hard for the black pieces to reach or attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After [white] king safety no longer being a major/sensitive factor in the position, white will start looking for moves to make his extra piece count which, at the moment it's that white bishop sitting on his original square f1 and blocked by his own pawn on e2 which, at the moment plays a more important role of protecting white's king, so it may take a little while to bring that extra piece into play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After white has finished the king safety part of his plan, I see 3 possible ways for white to press black king by penetrating into black's camp, depending on circumstances and what black permits:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Penetrating with the white queen via Qf4-Qd6 or via Qb2-Qa3-Qd6 hitting c6, e6 or penetrating with the rook Rg1-Rh1-Rh6 (if black does not play Rh8 to stop Rh1) hitting e6 and f6. That incursion turns the king safety factor against black king and would create difficult to stop threats against black position. If the black e6 pawn falls the black position crumbles if white hits the f5 pawn with Rg1-Rf1 and/or Rg3-Rf3. If black manages to hold e6 and f5 then when it is tied down defending/holding, white could start thinking getting his bishop into play via Bf1-Bh3 and target a possible return of the extra material by pointing both his rooks to f5 and then sacrificing Bxf5 with devastating effects for black's king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If not forced to move them away, white will keep his knight on c3, his pawn on e2, and his rook on the third rank, as long as possible until black's position starts going down hill.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1784" LastActivityDate="2014-03-31T02:23:42.120" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5165" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4492" CreationDate="2014-03-31T03:20:22.187" Score="5" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;is there a methodical way of thinking to come out with a plan, by&#xA;  looking to a given position? Or a good book that I can read to improve&#xA;  this skill?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes there is a methodical way of thinking to come up with a plan; basically the plan has to come out of what Jeremy Silman calls the imbalances of the position. The method would be by doing a &lt;code&gt;positional assessment&lt;/code&gt; of the imbalances present in the position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I liked Silman's book a lot &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1890085138&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&quot;How to Reassess Your Chess&quot; Fourth edition by Jeremy Silman.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You could also look at this middle-game &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/B00I3O7NCS&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;classic by Alexander Kotov &quot;Play Like a Grandmaster&quot;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You will read the books to learn about the planning skill, you will play chess games to improve that skill.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1784" LastActivityDate="2014-03-31T03:20:22.187" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5166" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5168" CreationDate="2014-03-31T07:30:17.587" Score="6" ViewCount="1427" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have been trying to solve the below chess puzzle for more than 2 days. Can someone help me to solve it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;White to play and mate in two moves&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;n1N1Kn/2p/P1k/2p1Q/P/2P/7B/6Nq w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have tried to do it, but my tries take more than two moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;n1N1Kn/2p/P1k/2p1Q/P/2P/7B/6Nq w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. c4 Qf3 2.  Nxf3 Nb6 3. Ne7#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="799" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-04T21:59:02.387" LastActivityDate="2020-04-04T21:59:02.387" Title="Need help to solve a puzzle" Tags="&lt;problems&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="5167" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4492" CreationDate="2014-03-31T07:48:56.047" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think a counter-point to all of the advice so far needs to be raised.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Willy Hendriks argues in &lt;em&gt;Move First, Think Later&lt;/em&gt; (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.amazon.co.uk/Move-First-Think-Later-Improving/dp/9056913980&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.amazon.co.uk/Move-First-Think-Later-Improving/dp/9056913980&lt;/a&gt;) that planning in chess is over-rated. He reckons you are better off simply looking for good moves instead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What does this amount to? If I understand him correctly, this does not mean that you should play aimlessly, but that instead of following abstract &quot;plans&quot; or &quot;strategies&quot; (like looking for &quot;imbalances&quot;, or &quot;attack in the center when your opponent attack on the flank&quot;, or &quot;anticipate the critical moment of the game&quot;), you should focus on finding good moves and putting your pieces on good squares and preventing your opponent from doing the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The problem with plans are that they are either so abstract to be useless, or so inflexible as to get you into trouble if you should try to follow them to the letter. Let's take an example from one of the other comments on this page: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Panzer writes: &quot;If I'm down material, I create a plan that evens the material balance which repositioning my pieces on good squares. I try to keep it simple and flexible... I try to play elastic moves that prepare for more than one response from my opponent.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This sounds awesome when you read it, but in reality it does not say much. It really could be summarized as: find the best move for the position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1816" LastEditorUserId="1816" LastEditDate="2014-03-31T12:57:57.987" LastActivityDate="2014-03-31T12:57:57.987" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5168" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5166" CreationDate="2014-03-31T08:11:07.730" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;Maybe 1. Qe2 and zugzwang:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1... Nb6 2. Ne7#&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1... Kd5 2. Ne7#&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1... Qd5 2. Qb5#&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1... c4  2. Qc4#&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1...Qxh2 2. Qe4#&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2173" LastActivityDate="2014-03-31T08:11:07.730" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5169" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5148" CreationDate="2014-03-31T22:07:59.097" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;I checked my main games database and my book on the Smith-Morra, &quot;The Modern Morra Gambit&quot; by FM Hannes Langrock. I could find no examples of high-level players successfully employing this strategy to launch a kingside attack. The Smith-Morra focuses very strongly on quick central control and development, so it makes good sense to me that white's play will almost always be focused on the centre rather than along the h-file.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The one system within the Smith-Morra where I found a couple of examples of white successfully playing h4-h5 was in the Nge7-system. In this system, black plays Nge7 and Ng6, with the aim of using the knight to add extra control over the e5-square. In these cases, h4-h5 was usually played not with the aim of a kingside attack, but with a view to chase away the strongly placed black knight and regain control over e5. I did find one interesting example in the aforementioned book of white using this to instigate an attack, though it revolved more around using the e5-pawn as a central wedge rather than an attack on the h-file. It was given as D.Cantell Martinez - O.Martinez Rodriguez, Asturias 2001, though I don't know how much value to attribute to it as couldn't find it in my main database nor on chessgames.com, and I couldn't find the players for sure on the Fide ratings website (I found two possible O.Martinez Rodriguez, rated  about 1800 and 1900). In any case, it was given in the book as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;  [White &quot;Martinez&quot;]&#xA;  [Black &quot;Rodriguez&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;  1.e4 c5 2.d4 cxd4 3.c3 dxc3 4.Nxc3 e6 5.Nf3 Nc6 6.Bc4 Bc5 7.O-O a6 8.Bf4 b5 9.Bb3 Nge7 10.e5 Ng6 11.Bg3 O-O 12.h4 Qc7 13.Re1 Rd8 14.h5 Nf8 15.Ne4 Be7 16. Nf6+ Kh8 17. Ng5 g6 18.Nxf7+ Kg7 19.Qf3 Bb7 20.h6+ 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Overall, it seems to be a very uncommon theme in this opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2800" LastActivityDate="2014-03-31T22:07:59.097" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5170" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5171" CreationDate="2014-03-31T22:09:54.913" Score="4" ViewCount="268" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWj-toK88mA&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;In my recent online blitz video&lt;/a&gt;, I got the following endgame with the black pieces. With white to move, the game went as follows&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[White &quot;hacked&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;TestViking&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;8/3k2p1/1p1P1pP1/p1p5/P1P1PK2/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e5 Ke6 2.exf6 Kxf6 3.d7 Ke7 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;...white offered draw and I agreed. Was the position a draw or did one of the sides have a win or winning chances?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastActivityDate="2014-03-31T22:54:09.283" Title="Is this endgame a draw (hacked - TestViking)?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;pawns&gt;&lt;draw&gt;&lt;kings&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5171" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5170" CreationDate="2014-03-31T22:46:36.397" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, it was drawn all along. 1...Ke6! was the only move for black to draw since he cannot allow white to force ...gxf6, nor allow the white king up to support the d-pawn. After 4.Ke5 Kxd7 5.Kd5 there's no way for either side to make progress as the kings will just be shuffled between d5/e5 and d7/e7. There is one practical chance/trap that might be worth trying before agreeing to a draw; black can play 5...Kc7 and see if white goes for 6.Ke6, in which case black wins with 6...b5!, forcing the creation of a passed pawn and queening first. As long as white spots this and plays 6.Ke5 instead there's nothing more to do, though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: I realized black cannot play Ke7 at the end as it loses to Kc6. However, Kc7 still draws as before due to white being unable to play Ke6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2800" LastEditorUserId="2800" LastEditDate="2014-03-31T22:54:09.283" LastActivityDate="2014-03-31T22:54:09.283" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5172" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4129" CreationDate="2014-04-01T02:50:52.547" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, Anand had a mate if not for the blunder. Here is the line. I don't know why everyone missed it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;28.Bf1 Qd4 29.Rh4 Qh5 30.Rxh4 gxH5 31.Nxh5 Here any move by black would be met with 32.Ng7!&#xA;Now, if 32....Nxg7 33.Qxg7 mate. Any move by black now would be met with 33.Nxe7  or simply moving the night away to any other square followed by Qg7 mate. Have I missed anything?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2801" LastEditorUserId="2801" LastEditDate="2014-04-01T03:09:27.913" LastActivityDate="2014-04-01T03:09:27.913" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5173" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5175" CreationDate="2014-04-01T08:22:17.303" Score="8" ViewCount="1321" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recently picked up on the Grunfeld and I am quite pleased with this opening. To improve my skill at playing this opening; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What are the most important strategic/thematic concepts that I should learn?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What other, less important, concepts should I learn after i'm skilled at the most important?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What kind of endgames can I expect? ( which pieces )&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Grunfeld mainline starts with:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 d5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1887" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-04-01T12:45:48.030" LastActivityDate="2018-05-18T14:39:30.890" Title="What are the main strategic concepts in the Grunfeld?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;grunfeld-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5174" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5147" CreationDate="2014-04-01T10:05:12.370" Score="-4" Body="&lt;p&gt;First off, I don't actually know whether it is allowed or not, but I have a number of reasons to believe that it &lt;em&gt;may be&lt;/em&gt; allowed, or at least be somewhat allowed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Although the rule technically states that &quot;During play the players are forbidden to make use of any notes...&quot;, it is not entirely clear from that section of rules by what is meant by &quot;a note&quot;. The obvious interpretation is that it points to &quot;crib notes&quot;. Does it include annotations you make as you play? This is not clear to me.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I have personally played in an ECF rated chess tournament where there was a prize awarded to the player with the best annotated score sheet. It is strange to me that the tournament organizers would endorse a practice that is forbidden by FIDE.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I fail to understand the logic of such a rule. Making personal annotations of your thoughts and ideas during a match does not, as far as I can see, assist you in any way during the actual match, as it still amounts to your personal ability to play the game. To me it seems analogous to making personal notes while writing a maths exam - why would this practice be forbidden?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think there is enough doubt about the interpretation of this rule to require of us to get some clarification. I will most certainly ask an arbiter at my next tournament.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Update&lt;/strong&gt;: The Wesley So incident in the 2015 US champs probably settled this once and for all - it is not allowed. But in my defence - even Kasparov thinks this is a stupid rule [ &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess-news.ru/en/node/18625&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.chess-news.ru/en/node/18625&lt;/a&gt; ].&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1816" LastEditorUserId="1816" LastEditDate="2016-07-13T07:29:37.397" LastActivityDate="2016-07-13T07:29:37.397" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5175" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5173" CreationDate="2014-04-01T12:38:25.620" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Very often Black will end up with a poor pawn structure in return for piece activity for example after the pawn moves d5 e6 dxe6 and fxe6 (not necessarily right after another). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for other concepts, you need to accept that you need to study a &lt;em&gt;lot&lt;/em&gt; of concrete lines. White has many options against your defence of choice such as: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The crazy sharp anti-Grünfeld 3.f3.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The positional 5.Bd2 line.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The crazy tactical lines with an early h4.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The system with Nf3 + an early Qb3.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;etc. etc.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tactics abound in this opening and trying to work it all out over the board against a prepared opponent is suicide. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for endgames, you can get absolutely any kind of material distribution due to the tactical nature of the opening. In general Black will get a queen side pawn majority, but whether it'll be relevant is an entirely different matter. First of all there's the matter of surviving the middlegame, and then there's the question of how many concessions Black had to make in order to neutralise the white centre in order to get there. For a great example of this going completely wrong for Black, see &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1721341&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this game&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2253" LastActivityDate="2014-04-01T12:38:25.620" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5176" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-04-01T20:52:55.290" Score="4" ViewCount="1283" Body="&lt;p&gt;So in a correspondence chess game, the opening is the standard 1.e4 e5.  I meant to play 2.Nf3 as always, but I completely misclicked and didn't realize until too late that I played f3 instead.  It's such a massive blunder in the opening that I almost feel like resigning here.  Is there a way for me to save my position?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.f3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2807" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-04-01T23:13:13.623" LastActivityDate="2014-04-02T20:48:11.010" Title="I played 2.f3 by accident! How do I save my position?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;blunder&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5177" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5176" CreationDate="2014-04-01T22:41:20.797" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The most important thing to do with any blunder is to stay calm. Evaluate the position objectively: pretend you've just been handed a chess board and told to finish the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this position, you've got a well-defended e-pawn and a weakened kingside, especially &lt;code&gt;e3&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;f2&lt;/code&gt;, and &lt;code&gt;g3&lt;/code&gt;. Your King Knight's usual best spot is unavailable. However, the position is certainly not lost: there are many perfectly good opening lines that feature an early &lt;code&gt;f3&lt;/code&gt; from White. Taking some inspiration from them, you I might be inclined to go for a setup with &lt;code&gt;Ne2&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;d4 (exd4 Nxd4)&lt;/code&gt;, and &lt;code&gt;Nc3&lt;/code&gt; to establish a strong center and dominance over the light squares. An example line might be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1.e4 e5 &#xA;2.f3 Nf6 &#xA;3.Ne2 Nc6 &#xA;4.d4 exd4 &#xA;5.Nxd4 d6 &#xA;6.Nc3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Resulting in a position that looks more like a line from a Knights' game than one with &lt;code&gt;2.f3&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;r1bqkb1r/ppp2ppp/2np1n2/8/3NP3/2N2P2/PPP3PP/R1BQKB1R w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can't overstate enough, though, that the most important thing is to just evaluate the position objectively and try to set your ego aside when it comes to past moves, especially mistakes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1201" LastEditorUserId="1201" LastEditDate="2014-04-02T20:48:11.010" LastActivityDate="2014-04-02T20:48:11.010" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5178" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5176" CreationDate="2014-04-01T23:29:14.797" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;You are correct that 2.f3 is a terrible idea. The f2, e3 and g3 squares become weak. But it isn't bad enough to resign the game. After all, the game has just begun and the material is still equal. There are a few ideas here for white, for example after&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.f3 Bc5 3.f4!? exf4 4.Nf3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You seem to get some sort of delayed King's gambit that perhaps isn't that horrible. While after&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.f3 Nf6 3.d4!? exd4 4.Qxd4 Nc6 5.Qe3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can fight for the dark squares and perhaps castle queenside.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastActivityDate="2014-04-01T23:29:14.797" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5179" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5158" CreationDate="2014-04-02T00:09:21.527" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Are top quality correspondence games yet more likely to be drawn that&#xA;  OTB grandmaster games?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes,  for the same reason that classical games between grandmasters are more likely to be drawn than blitz games. When you have more time to think, you can double check every move and avoid mistakes. In chess, if your opponent doesn't make a mistake, you cannot win. This hasn't been proved, but it is a general observation in chess. You will not find a game where a side has won and there is nothing the opposing side could do to prevent that victory. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2429" LastActivityDate="2014-04-02T00:09:21.527" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5180" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5181" CreationDate="2014-04-02T00:10:15.157" Score="5" ViewCount="160" Body="&lt;p&gt;Most chess players will recognize this position from the so called immortal draw:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nc3 Bc5 3. Na4 Bxf2 4. Kxf2 Qh4 5. Ke3 Qf4 6. Kd3 d5 7. Kc3 Qxe4 8. Kb3 Na6 9. a3 Qxa4 10. Kxa4 Nc5 11. Kb4 a5 12. Kxc5 Ne7 13. Bb5 Kd8 14. Bc6 b6 15. Kb5 Nxc6 16. Kxc6 Bb7 17. Kb5 Ba6   &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am trying to understand if after Bxf7+ it is a force draw (with best play), I checked this &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.365chess.com/opening.php?m=7&amp;amp;n=18887&amp;amp;ms=e4.e5.Nc3.Bc5.Na4.Bxf2%20&amp;amp;ns=3.5.55.448.12019.18887&quot;&gt;opening site&lt;/a&gt; and after Bxf2 there is almost 88% of draw in this position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="872" LastActivityDate="2014-04-02T00:49:59.517" Title="Is this line of vienna attack a draw?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;draw&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5181" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5180" CreationDate="2014-04-02T00:49:59.517" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;With best play, the position is unclear. If White plays &lt;strong&gt;7. Kc3&lt;/strong&gt;, then after &lt;strong&gt;7...d4+!&lt;/strong&gt;, Black gets a slight advantage. However, White can play &lt;strong&gt;7. Qe1!&lt;/strong&gt; and then the position is unclear. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    [FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;    1. e4 e5 2. Nc3 Bc5 3. Na4 Bxf2+ 4. Kxf2 Qh4+ 5. Ke3 Qf4+ 6. Kd3 d5 &#xA;    7. Kc3 (7. Qe1 $1 Nf6 8. c3 Bd7 9. Kc2 (9. Nc5 Bb5+ 10. Kc2 Qxf1) &#xA;    9... Bxa4+ 10. b3 Qxe4+ 11. Qxe4 Nxe4 12. bxa4 Nf2 13. Ba3 Nxh1 14. Nh3 f6 &#xA;    15. Bd3 Ng3 16. hxg3 Nc6)&#xA;    7... d4+ $1 8. Kb3 Qf6 9. Nf3 (9. a3 Qc6 10. Ka2 Qxa4) 9... Bd7 10. a3 Na6 &#xA;    11. Ka2 Bxa4 12. Bc4 Bd7 13. Rf1 Qe7 14. d3 f6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2429" LastActivityDate="2014-04-02T00:49:59.517" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5182" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="690" CreationDate="2014-04-02T03:02:43.733" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;CBH to PGN 1.0.4&quot; is an android app that works flawlessly as far as i can see. once again, the android kids are leaving us PC fogies in the dust. ;o)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2809" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T19:21:17.467" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T19:21:17.467" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="5184" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5176" CreationDate="2014-04-02T03:42:45.277" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;With &lt;code&gt;3. f4&lt;/code&gt;, you are playing the Latvian Gambit with colors reversed!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. f3 Nf6 3. f4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2811" LastEditorUserId="12" LastEditDate="2014-04-02T06:44:48.060" LastActivityDate="2014-04-02T06:44:48.060" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5185" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2190" CreationDate="2014-04-02T08:40:28.557" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;On move 4, &lt;code&gt;d3&lt;/code&gt; seems a little passive and a loss of a move if you are going to move the d-pawn to d4 anyway.  Instead of imitating after 4. d3, black is better off playing d5 taking control of the centre and having more active play. If you want a more open position, play 4. d4, which transposes to variations of the Scotch. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2814" LastEditorUserId="11202" LastEditDate="2017-05-03T05:46:23.687" LastActivityDate="2017-05-03T05:46:23.687" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5186" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5187" CreationDate="2014-04-02T16:03:20.873" Score="12" ViewCount="3754" Body="&lt;p&gt;I played a FIDE tournament recently and was surprised to see that some players had earphones on and were listening to music (or that's what it seemed like they were doing) while playing their games. One of my own opponents did this. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this allowed as per FIDE rules? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2429" LastActivityDate="2019-11-07T11:33:09.573" Title="Do FIDE rules allow listening to music while playing a tournament game?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;fide&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5187" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5186" CreationDate="2014-04-02T16:44:27.173" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;The closest thing which I could find in the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fide.com/component/handbook/?id=124&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Laws of Chess&lt;/a&gt; is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;12.3 a. During play the players are forbidden to make use of any notes, sources of information or advice, or analyse on another chessboard&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;12.3 b. Without the permission of the arbiter a player is forbidden to have a mobile phone or other electronic means of communication in the playing venue, unless they are completely switched off. If any such device produces a sound, the player shall lose the game. The opponent shall win. However, if the opponent cannot win the game by any series of legal moves, his score shall be a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I'm not sure if music from earphones would be considered as &amp;quot;source of information&amp;quot; or an &amp;quot;electronic means of communication&amp;quot;. The competition rules may specify that any kind of electronic equipment is disallowed, and the arbiters have the right to arbitrate things like these as long as their decisions are not unfair or contradictory to the laws of chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But the arbiter cannot know whether it is music or someone reciting a chess book, so I understand if some people strongly object to arbiters allowing players to have earphones. At least I've never been to a tournament where using earphones was allowed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that if other players can hear the sound from the headphones, it violates this rule:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;12.6 It is forbidden to distract or annoy the opponent in any manner whatsoever. This includes unreasonable claims, unreasonable offers of a draw or the introduction of a source of noise into the playing area.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1761" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2014-04-02T16:44:27.173" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5188" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-04-02T17:54:55.367" Score="19" ViewCount="972" Body="&lt;p&gt;Consider the following &lt;strong&gt;chess variant:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Black can, &lt;em&gt;once per game&lt;/em&gt;, make two moves in a row (the second move may not capture the King)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;To compensate for this advantage, Black gets a material handicap&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Otherwise, the standard rules of chess apply&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The question is, &lt;strong&gt;approximately what material handicap would be needed for the game to become roughly balanced?&lt;/strong&gt; It is clear that making two consecutive moves, even only once per game, is a tremendous advantage. My guess is that at least a Queen handicap is necessary, since it is trivially easy to capture White's Queen with two consecutive moves once the pieces are out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Has this chess variant been studied before?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user2659" LastActivityDate="2015-07-20T14:27:45.953" Title="What material handicap would be required to compensate for a single double-move?" Tags="&lt;chess-variants&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="17" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5189" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4400" CreationDate="2014-04-02T22:30:26.633" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The closest I've gotten to something like this is having separate accounts on whatever chess server you're using.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you're using, say, FICS, you have two instances of your favorite client running, the first client is your main one and the second one you just join to the game through another account as a &quot;watcher&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This requires a bit of manual labor, though. A more automated way is done through exploiting the macro functionality of most modern clients. You could, say, run the second client in the background at all times, and have the first client send an invite to the second to join the game, and the second client set to automatically accept invites coming from the first account.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At the very least, I think Winboard and BabasChess are capable of this. Others almost certainly are.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2821" LastActivityDate="2014-04-02T22:30:26.633" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5191" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5220" CreationDate="2014-04-03T07:44:28.630" Score="14" ViewCount="24724" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there any difference in tactics between chess and Chinese chess? If so, which one is the most fun? What are the important things to learn from it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2826" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2014-04-04T22:41:54.963" LastActivityDate="2018-05-04T15:50:09.227" Title="Tactical difference between chess and Chinese chess" Tags="&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;xiangqi&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5193" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="690" CreationDate="2014-04-03T12:59:51.313" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As it is related closely to this question (but please read my comment qualifying this also):- &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would like to add my post on setting up : &#xA;CHESS ANALYSIS ON MAC OS X LION 10.7 USING STOCKFISH AND HIARCS ENGINE&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://fianchetto.org/2012/02/12/chess-analysis-on-mac-os-x-lion-10-7-using-stockfish-and-hiarcs-engine/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://fianchetto.org/2012/02/12/chess-analysis-on-mac-os-x-lion-10-7-using-stockfish-and-hiarcs-engine/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Summary below: &#xA;INSTRUCTIONS&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically to get a strong chess computer on Mac you have to do 2 things:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) get the engine that basically analyses the possible moves and gives you the evaluation of current position with “best play”  - This engine is usually free, this can be HiARCs  or Stockfish and there are probably others.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) you need a GUI – a interface basically so you can easily drag moves and then you link this to your engine. For HiARCs and Stockfish you need what is called a UCI type of GUI.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now if you have 30 euro spare then you might want to try Shredder which has a demo version for free and you can get this from their website. This is engine and GUI in one and simple and reasonably professional.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However – if you are a bit intrepid and stingy as I am then you could follow these instructions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) Get the engine first, download Stockfish – you want a binary version, as of writing this is here:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.2.2 binary download for mac.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now once downloaded, open up the .zip and inside go into the Mac folder. Now click Finder &gt; Edit &gt; copy and we will paste this file in a short while, into our GUIs engine folder. So we must get that now…&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) Now next you need your GUI app. For the GUI I recommend a free one –  JOSE&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just check the link for full discussion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1311" LastActivityDate="2014-04-03T12:59:51.313" CommentCount="1" CommunityOwnedDate="2014-04-03T12:59:51.313" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5194" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-04-03T19:31:48.550" Score="6" ViewCount="16887" Body="&lt;p&gt;Does anyone know if there are any sites by which I could play chess professionally and earn money similar to gambling sites or online poker sites ?? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2832" LastActivityDate="2019-12-18T14:42:04.387" Title="Online Sites For Earning Money Through Chess" Tags="&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;websites&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5195" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5197" CreationDate="2014-04-03T19:39:34.607" Score="9" ViewCount="2334" Body="&lt;p&gt;My questions concern section 12.6 of the FIDE rules handbook (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fide.com/component/handbook/?id=124&amp;amp;view=article&quot;&gt;http://www.fide.com/component/handbook/?id=124&amp;amp;view=article&lt;/a&gt;) which states that it is forbidden to distract or annoy the opponent in any way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Imagine that Player A and Player B play each other and Player B complains to the arbiter that some action of Player A is a distraction. My question is about when the complaint is reasonable. My view is that in some situations, Player A's action is legitimate and for others, the arbiter may ask Player A to oblige. For the situations below, is Player A's action legitimate or not?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.1 Player A leaves the table (not the hall) - it is Player A's turn to move.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;2.2 Player A stands behind Player B's chair on Player A's turn.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;2.3 Player A stands behind Player B on Player B's turn.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;2.4 Player A plays without sitting down - it is player A's turn.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;2.5 Player A is seated and fidgets continously.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;2.6 Player A stares continually/makes faces at Player B.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;2.7 Player A does not write down the moves.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;2.8 Player A's mobile phone is switched off but its alarm rings. Will Player A be forfeited?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2258" LastActivityDate="2014-04-03T21:02:14.657" Title="What is considered a distraction to an opponent?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;etiquette&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5196" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5195" CreationDate="2014-04-03T20:40:15.250" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'll answer; for items I can only offer observations about what seems to be acceptable in practice; for some I can only offer an opinion; and for some items I can give some backing in rules.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.1. This happens all the time, also when it's Player B's turn to move. I've never heard anyone complain about this, and I wouldn't expect an arbiter to take any action.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.2., 2.3. (Just an opinion.) As an arbiter, I'd consider this a reasonable complaint and I'd ask Player A to refrain from standing behind Player B. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.4. As a followup to 2.1., I've seen this happen regularly. Also here, I haven't heard anyone complain and wouldn't expect an arbiter to take action.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.5., 2.6. (Just an opinion.) I'm afraid these would come down to a judgement call of the arbiter after observing the situation. I would guess from &quot;though luck&quot; for the fidgeting to at least a warning for making faces (but then, would player A keep making faces when an arbiter is looking on?).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.7. This would be a violation of Rule 8.1., requiring in each player to keep score, and should be dealt with accordingly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.8. This is explicitly dealt with under Rule 12.3. Player A forfeits the game. Funny enough, it deals with &quot;mobile phones&quot; or &quot;electronic means of communication&quot;. Now what if the alarm on Player A's watch goes of? I would expect this to be dealt with in exactly the same way. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2790" LastActivityDate="2014-04-03T20:40:15.250" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5197" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5195" CreationDate="2014-04-03T21:02:14.657" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;Quite a few of these are already covered elsewhere in the rules. In the rest it would be up to the arbiter to use his judgement. I will quote the rules where relevant and state what I would have done as an arbiter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.1 Player A leaves the table (not the hall) - it is Player A's turn to move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Explicitly covered by article 12.2: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;12.2&#xA;   Players are not allowed to leave the ‘playing venue’ without permission from the arbiter. The playing venue is defined as the playing area, rest rooms, refreshment area, area set aside for smoking and other places as designated by the arbiter. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The player having the move is not allowed to leave the playing area without permission of the arbiter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So player A is free to leave the table, but not the playing area.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.2 Player A stands behind Player B's chair on Player A's turn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This type of behaviour is not explicitly covered outside of article 12.6, but unless player A was doing something unreasonably distracting like leaning over player B, I don't see a big problem with this, however if player B does make a complaint about being distracted by it I may ask Player A not to do so. It's at the arbiter's discretion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.3 Player A stands behind Player B on Player B's turn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.4 Player A plays without sitting down - it is player A's turn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.5 Player A is seated and fidgets continously.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These are all pretty similar and would be handled as for 2.2, it would be at the arbiter's discretion to decide what if any action to take about it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.6 Player A stares continually/makes faces at Player B.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This time the behaviour is clearly distracting and the arbiter should take action if the behaviour can be proven or was seen by the arbiter. If player B makes this complaint and I/other witnesses did not see player A doing anything wrong, I could not take any action directly, but would make sure to observe player A from then on to see if any such behavior takes place.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.7 Player A does not write down the moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Explicitly covered by article 8.1:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;8.1 In the course of play each player is required to record his own moves and those of his opponent in the correct manner, move after move, as clearly and legibily as possible, in the algebraic notation (See Appendix C), on the scoresheet prescribed for the competition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;It is forbidden to write the moves in advance, unless the player is claiming a draw according to Article 9.2, or 9.3 or adjourning a game according to the Guidelines of Adjourned Games point 1.a.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A player may reply to his opponent’s move before recording it, if he so wishes. He must record his previous move before making another.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Both players must record the offer of a draw on the scoresheet. (See Appendix C.13)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If a player is unable to keep score, an assistant, who must be acceptable to the arbiter, may be provided by the player to write the moves. His clock shall be adjusted by the arbiter in an equitable way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So both players are required to write down the moves anyway.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.8 Player A's mobile phone is switched off but its alarm rings. Will Player A be forfeited?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Explicitly covered in article 12.3:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;12.3 ...&#xA;  Without the permission of the arbiter a player is forbidden to have a mobile phone or other electronic means of communication in the playing venue, unless they are completely switched off. If any such device produces a sound, the player shall lose the game. The opponent shall win. However, if the opponent cannot win the game by any series of legal moves, his score shall be a draw. ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So yes, player A would be forfeited. The rules state only that the device needs to make any kind of sound for the player to be forfeited.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2800" LastActivityDate="2014-04-03T21:02:14.657" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5198" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5106" CreationDate="2014-04-03T22:33:09.330" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;My guess would be Ulf Andersson.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2833" LastActivityDate="2014-04-03T22:33:09.330" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5199" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15042" CreationDate="2014-04-03T22:45:29.350" Score="8" ViewCount="608" Body="&lt;p&gt;A question of personal interest.  Is &quot;visualization&quot; of various types of boards and graphs helped along by competitive, tournament play? Of course, I'm assuming play beyond simply knowing how the pieces move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2765" LastEditorUserId="2765" LastEditDate="2016-11-22T00:31:43.163" LastActivityDate="2019-12-10T10:42:33.993" Title="Does playing tournament chess help one in the field of chess-related math?" Tags="&lt;mathematics&gt;&lt;visualization&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="7" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5201" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5194" CreationDate="2014-04-04T06:07:35.440" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;I highly doubt that there exist one. If it would exist, it would be full of sandbaggers or engine players. There is no way to verify who exactly plays the game. You, or your Stockfish/Houdini/Rybka/.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So even if you are GM, you most probably will lose money.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="703" LastActivityDate="2014-04-04T06:07:35.440" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5202" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5194" CreationDate="2014-04-04T10:29:23.927" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Edit 2014-04-04:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Searched for:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;chess online money&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Did not find a single serious site. Too many cheaters, too strong engines!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit 2014-04-04:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Earlier, I mentioned finding this site:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessmoney.com/cm/main&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://www.chessmoney.com/cm/main&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but after logging in and trying it out...it was empty / filled with bots.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-04-04T11:48:06.833" LastActivityDate="2014-04-04T11:48:06.833" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5203" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="73" CreationDate="2014-04-04T12:57:52.173" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is an article that describes a way to compare (and refute) chess openings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2415203&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2415203&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2839" LastActivityDate="2014-04-04T12:57:52.173" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5204" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5194" CreationDate="2014-04-04T16:27:40.247" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;As others have mentioned, there is no genuine site to make real money because it's so easy to cheat online by using chess engines. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The closest thing to &quot;money&quot; would be &quot;ducats&quot; as allowed on the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.playchess.com/&quot;&gt;Playchess&lt;/a&gt; server. Playchess has strong algorithms that can detect if you are cheating (i.e. using a program), so it is a pretty legitimate way of making &quot;money&quot;. &lt;a href=&quot;http://shop.chessbase.com/en/products/200_dukaten&quot;&gt;Ducats&lt;/a&gt; can be used to&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;play against grandmasters or to pay for private training. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;buy ChessBase products.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, if you're really good and win a lot of ducats, you can earn yourself some nice material from the Chessbase Shop, which includes chess DVDs, magazines, programs, etc. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2429" LastEditorUserId="2429" LastEditDate="2014-04-04T21:02:55.757" LastActivityDate="2014-04-04T21:02:55.757" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5205" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5191" CreationDate="2014-04-04T21:10:58.923" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chinese chess appears to be more difficult, or at least more subtle, because the powers of the pieces are generally less than in western chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Only the Chinese chariots are the equivalent of the western rooks. The Chinese horses are almost equal to the western knights, except that they can be &quot;hobbled&quot; in certain instances. The &quot;jumping&quot; properties of Chinese elephants and cannons make them less useful than western bishops, and there is no equivalent of the western queen with the combined powers of rooks and bishops.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese pawns are slightly more powerful than western pawns, after they cross the river, but there is no promotion mechanism on eighth rank (and no queens to promote them to).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To compensate, the Chinese king is confined to a nine square &quot;palace,&quot; but western kings try to achieve the same &quot;fortress&quot; protection by castling, at least early to mid game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2014-04-04T21:10:58.923" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5206" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5142" CreationDate="2014-04-04T22:53:01.903" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is certainly not a myth! As pointed out control of the centre squares either by direct occupation with pieces or pawns or indirectly via major and minor pieces gives more control over the chess board. Pawns and pieces in the centre of the board affect the most squares compared to being on the outer flank squares and those on the board edge squares exert the least control of the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you don't control these centre squares and let your opponent control them, they will have an easier game than if they have to fight for their control (so don't concede the centre without some other form of good compensation or you will regret it against any good player whose pieces and pawns in the centre will in effect be stronger!).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some games are classed as open/semi-open or closed. Central openings often give rise to open or semi open games where centre files may become fully open or semi-open (ie with only one pawn on the file or no pawns). In open games pieces can be used more to control the centre. In closed games the pawns are supported and make it harder for the pieces to find good squares.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some openings are designed to take central control. In the aggressive Sicilian defence black tries to exchange his c pawn for a centre pawn of white and try and control the centre that way. The Scandinavian opening immediately challenges the centre.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This central control concept does hold true more in the opening and midgame than the end game. In the endgame with only Kings and pawns left, other factors are more important (eg pawn structure, numbers and king position).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Still like many principals in chess there is more to chess than controlling the centre, but if you can control the centre you will have an advantage! This though does not mean you should neglect the flank/outer squares. If you let your opponent attack at will on the flanks with pieces and/or pawns you will be at a disadvantage too. So you need to be alert (&quot;on the ball&quot;) in chess over the whole board and if you do concede the centre then beware! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="426" LastActivityDate="2014-04-04T22:53:01.903" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5207" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="690" CreationDate="2014-04-05T07:02:54.870" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;On my MBP, I had initially bought ExaChess, but later switched to Hiarcs, which has a much better (though not perfect) UI. It gets the job done.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've never used ChesBbase. Hiarcs does not directly open .cbh files, but I believe you can find a third-party app to translate your .cbh files to PGN.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2848" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T19:21:37.373" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T19:21:37.373" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="5208" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5213" CreationDate="2014-04-05T11:34:34.617" Score="12" ViewCount="1438" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have been pretty interested in chess for about 8 months now. I know the rules and basic moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm looking right now for a place where I can start learning chess strategies, tactics etc. When doing a web search, I only get an unordered list of articles, books or videos out of order, which don't really help me to get an organized start.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What learning resources would you recommend?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2615" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-11-21T19:42:01.207" LastActivityDate="2018-01-24T17:51:30.817" Title="Where can I start to learn?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;books&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5209" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5210" CreationDate="2014-04-05T13:34:55.460" Score="2" ViewCount="221" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been playing chess on-line for about 7 years now. I've downloaded my past games since 2011, its about 1k chess games. The download is in PGN format. Now I want to do an analyses on the data.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a way to analyze all these games on-line or off-line, payed of free? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm interested in: The repeated mistakes to learn from, Personalized tips/hints, Statistics, learning curve (move rating, statistics).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks for the info.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2854" LastActivityDate="2014-04-05T14:43:07.403" Title="1k gamesanalysis (PGN)" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;pgn&gt;&lt;database&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5210" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5209" CreationDate="2014-04-05T14:43:07.403" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am sure there's a starving master (redundant, I know) who would analyze your games for money. The Chess Life magazine used to have (still has?) classified where these services were offered.  This is surely the most personalized way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many free chess engines will analyze your games.  They play at the 3200+ (USCF) now so they should be somewhat better than what you can do in most cases. I use Stockfish and SCID but I have to say I find SCID to be clunky.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You may find a two-pronged approach better.  Get master analysis. While that's in progress, chew through the games using an engine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2014-04-05T14:43:07.403" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5211" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5208" CreationDate="2014-04-05T16:15:52.427" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;At the beginning, you should play more. Reading stuff cannot teach you as much as actually playing more games. After playing a game you have to go through it to find out what mistakes have been made. You need to purchase at least one chess book which covers all the major openings. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1811" LastActivityDate="2014-04-05T16:15:52.427" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5212" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4129" CreationDate="2014-04-05T19:09:15.683" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I ran this position through an analysis engine, which assesses it as a win for black after &#xA;28. Bf1 Qd1 29. Rh4 Qh5 30. Rxh5? gxh5 31. Nxh5 Qa5 32. Ng7 Qxc3 33. Nxe8 Qxd4+ 34. Kg2 35. Qg6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But it gives Black only a slight edge after 30. Nxh5 (instead of Rxh5) gxh5 31. Rxh5 Bf5 32. Bh3 Bg6 33. e6 Nxf6 34. gxf6 Qxf6. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2857" LastActivityDate="2014-04-05T19:09:15.683" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5213" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5208" CreationDate="2014-04-05T19:29:03.047" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe it helps to focus more on enjoying the game rather than learning. If you enjoy the game, you learn a lot in the process. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, my advice would be to enjoy your chess. Find players that are roughly your skill level and play many games. Once you've played a few dozen games, you will gain some experience and then you will be ready to start learning chess in a formal way - reading books, articles, listening to video lectures, etc. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As of today, I am about as strong as a Candidate Master. I will tell you how I learned the game. At first, as a kid, me and my dad would just play for fun. My dad would often let me win and I would enjoy it. Then, when I was about 9 or 10, my dad took me to a few tournaments (no age group) and I was surprised that I could beat a few players who were older than me. Up until this point, I had no formal training (my dad was just an amateur player), but then one of the arbiters of the tournament offered to help me learn and then I would go to his place quite often and play a few games with him. After each game, he would show me the mistakes I made and what I needed to learn from that game. He told me about general opening principles, but his main focus was the endgame. He told me that it's very important to know the endgame. After that, I also learned a few openings, mostly by going over the games of stronger players and observing the types of moves they made. I didn't simply copy their openings, but I tried to play like them and incorporate their ideas into my game, as I understood them. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then, I continued playing in tournaments and gradually my playing strength improved because my tactics improved, my endgame knowledge improved, my knowledge of chess strategy improved and so on. I also began to analyze my own games with the help of a computer. Before I had a computer, I would analyze them by myself (believe me, this helps you become a better player even if your analysis is actually wrong!). Overall, I enjoyed the game and in the process I learned quite a bit and now I'm aspiring to be a FIDE Master in the near future. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are a few books I recommend that you get hold of (this is after you have first played a lot of games and gained some experience)-&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1906454116&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Understanding Chess Endgames&lt;/a&gt; by John Nunn&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1580420516&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Winning Chess Openings&lt;/a&gt; by Bill Robertie&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/0486273024&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;The Most Instructive Games of Chess Ever Played&lt;/a&gt; by Irving Chernev&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Good luck to you! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2429" LastEditorUserId="2429" LastEditDate="2014-04-05T20:04:13.850" LastActivityDate="2014-04-05T20:04:13.850" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5214" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5215" CreationDate="2014-04-06T02:55:31.827" Score="5" ViewCount="532" Body="&lt;p&gt;The moves 1. e4 c5 2. Nc3 Nc6 3. f4 characterize the Grand Prix Attack in the Sicilian defense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;     [FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;     1. e4 c5 2. Nc3 Nc6 3. f4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How did the Grand Prix Attack get its name? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2429" LastEditorUserId="1201" LastEditDate="2014-04-06T09:03:40.037" LastActivityDate="2014-04-06T09:08:13.967" Title="How did the Grand Prix Attack get its name?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;history&gt;&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5215" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5214" CreationDate="2014-04-06T08:23:59.153" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;From &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/blog/JCQuinones/closed-sicilian-grand-prix-attack-b23&quot;&gt;this page,&lt;/a&gt; I quote&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The Grand Prix Attack got its name from the many strong British&#xA;  players who used it on the Grand Prix Circuit in the 1980's&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As Remco Gerlich said, It was used by British players on the British Grand Prix circuit. Weekend tournaments that also have a combined standings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1105" LastEditorUserId="1105" LastEditDate="2014-04-06T09:08:13.967" LastActivityDate="2014-04-06T09:08:13.967" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5217" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5221" CreationDate="2014-04-06T10:26:54.830" Score="4" ViewCount="2455" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was curious about &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/5191/tactical-difference-between-chess-and-chinese-chess&quot;&gt;this question&lt;/a&gt;, I watched two videos and learned a bit about Chinese Chess. Where can one play it online? What site has the biggest online Chinese chess community, where  you can play against computers or challenge other players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It must be free and and must support westernized pieces because I can't read Chinese characters. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the site has tutorials on the Chinese chess, it would be nice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1105" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2016-07-17T13:10:35.840" Title="Chinese Chess online (Xiangqi)" Tags="&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;xiangqi&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5218" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2014-04-06T10:30:37.113" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2014-04-06T10:30:37.113" LastActivityDate="2014-04-06T10:30:37.113" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5219" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2014-04-06T10:30:37.113" Score="0" Body="Xiangqi, also called Chinese chess, is a strategy board game for two players. It is one of the most popular board games in China." OwnerUserId="1105" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2014-04-06T19:13:10.227" LastActivityDate="2014-04-06T19:13:10.227" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5220" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5191" CreationDate="2014-04-06T13:31:01.960" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;Douglas Crockford has written an &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.crockford.com/chess/xiangqi.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;accurate overview&lt;/a&gt; of Chinese Chess (or Xiangqi) from the perspective of a chess player. I quote the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;h2&gt;The Board&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Xiangqi can be played on a 9 by 10 uncheckered board. The board is&#xA;  separated into two territories by a &lt;strong&gt;river&lt;/strong&gt; running horizontally&#xA;  through the center of the board. Bishops are unable to cross the&#xA;  river. Pawns gain the ability to move horizontally when they cross the&#xA;  river. Each of the territories has a 3 by 3 area called the Palace.&#xA;  The kings and queens are never permitted to leave the Palace.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ioh8m.png&quot; alt=&quot;the board with English pieces&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qPyw9.gif&quot; alt=&quot;the board with actual Chinese pieces&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;h2&gt;Pieces&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The king (or &lt;strong&gt;general&lt;/strong&gt;) can move one square horizontally or&#xA;  vertically. The king is restricted to the nine squares of the palace.&#xA;  The King cannot leave the Palace, even to avoid checkmate. Kings act&#xA;  as rooks for the purpose of checking: If the two kings are in the same&#xA;  file, there must be at least one blocking piece between them. There is&#xA;  no castling.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The queen (or &lt;strong&gt;guard&lt;/strong&gt;) moves one square diagonally (as in Shatranj).&#xA;  A queen cannot leave the Palace, even to prevent checkmate. Queens are&#xA;  restricted to five of the nine squares in the Palace. Each side has&#xA;  two queens.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The bishop (or &lt;strong&gt;elephant&lt;/strong&gt; or minister) moves exactly two squares&#xA;  diagonally (as in Shatranj), but cannot jump. Bishops cannot cross the&#xA;  river. There are only seven squares that a bishop can occupy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The knight (or &lt;strong&gt;horse&lt;/strong&gt;) moves like the Chess knight, except that it&#xA;  cannot jump. It moves one square vertically or horizontally, and then&#xA;  one square diagonally.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The rook (or &lt;strong&gt;chariot&lt;/strong&gt; or car) moves like the Chess rook. It can go&#xA;  any number of spaces vertically or horizontally.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The pawn (or &lt;strong&gt;soldier&lt;/strong&gt;) moves one space forward only. Unlike the&#xA;  pawn in Chess, this pawn does not capture diagonally. It does not have&#xA;  the option to go two on its first move. There is no en passant&#xA;  capture. There is no promotion of pawns into queens. However, once the&#xA;  pawn crosses the river, it acquires the power to move sideways. The&#xA;  pawn can never move backwards. Each side has five pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The &lt;strong&gt;cannon&lt;/strong&gt; is unique to Xiangqi. It is the only piece which moves&#xA;  differently than it captures. The cannon moves likes a rook. It&#xA;  captures by moving like a rook with a jump over one piece. There must&#xA;  be exactly one piece of either color between the cannon and the piece&#xA;  it captures. The intervening piece is called the gun mount or screen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;h2&gt;Checkmate and Stalemate&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Check and Checkmate are the same as in Chess. &lt;em&gt;Stalemate is a win&lt;/em&gt;,&#xA;  not a draw. You cannot avoid defeat by forcing a stalemate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Perpetual check and other repetitions are not allowed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As someone who has played both games, I would say that Xiangqi is more fluid because you are able to move &lt;em&gt;every&lt;/em&gt; single piece on the get-go, meaning that there are more variations in the opening move. You can be aggressive by placing your cannon behind the centre pawn or you can be defensive by placing an elephant there. The good thing about not having a row of pawns in front is that you can deploy your chariot in two moves to control the river where early battles will be fought mainly with lower value pieces such as horses and soldiers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The middlegame strategy usually involves positioning a number of your attacking pieces to exploit your opponent's weakness, perhaps at the flank. Opportunities can be created when you are attacking your opponent, forcing your opponent to move his defensive pieces like the guard and the elephant to the centre, cutting off his more powerful pieces from coming to the rescue. Other strategies involves deploying double cannons at the centre column or placing them at the last row, effectively forcing the opponent's king out into the open.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If both sides are equally matched, then the endgame would be played where fewer pieces are left on the board. The position of the king becomes very important at this stage if there are no chariots on either side. The king who dominates the centreline would limit the other king's movement to just three squares, or a third of the palace if the opponent's king is exposed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In conclusion, I would say that there are more similarities than differences between Chess and Chinese Chess. Those who are good at Chess would naturally be good in Chinese Chess and vice versa. Strategies used in Chess can certainly be adapted to Chinese Chess as long as you have a flexible mind and can be creative with your attacks and defenses. For those who have not play Chinese Chess, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.clubxiangqi.com/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;do try it&lt;/a&gt;. It is fun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2862" LastActivityDate="2014-04-06T13:31:01.960" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5221" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5217" CreationDate="2014-04-06T15:19:19.457" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can try &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.playok.com/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;PlayOK&lt;/a&gt;, it's free and has quite a lot of players for Xiangqi, and supports westernized pieces (though I'd recommend just learning the chinese characters, it doesn't take long). It also has some players for Shogi (japanese chess), which I personally find to be a much more interesting chess variant, though if you want to play more of that there are better sites (for example &lt;a href=&quot;http://81dojo.com/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;81dojo&lt;/a&gt;). For rules/tutorials, I guess the best place to start is simply the Xiangqi &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xiangqi&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia entry&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2800" LastActivityDate="2014-04-06T15:19:19.457" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5222" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5208" CreationDate="2014-04-06T17:11:14.383" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recommend you learn a system and go with it. Play the same opening with white and black, with time you will learn how to avoid common pitfalls, effectively defend yourself, where its safe to put your pieces, where to attack, test your system against a strong engine, and improve your strategy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2863" LastActivityDate="2014-04-06T17:11:14.383" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5223" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="583" CreationDate="2014-04-06T20:28:27.133" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;A mate in 2½ move, derived from &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wayward_Queen_Attack&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wayward Queen Attack&lt;/a&gt;, occurs if black moves Ke7 as a panic attempt to &quot;protect&quot; the e5 pawn with the king, which may occur if young players move too quickly:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 &#xA;2. Qh5 Ke7 &#xA;3. Qe5#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2041" LastEditorUserId="2041" LastEditDate="2015-12-29T07:30:16.810" LastActivityDate="2015-12-29T07:30:16.810" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5224" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1709" CreationDate="2014-04-06T21:57:45.037" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You should counter the London System with 1.d4 g6 2. Nf3 Bg7 3. Bf4 c5 4. dxc5 Bxb2.&#xA;Or 1. d4 g6 2. Nf3 Bh6 (Reverse Guatemala Defense). Since white usually loses without his dark squared bishop, you should trade it as soon as possible. Another solution is 1. d4 h6 2. Nf3 g5. This prevents white from moving to f4. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2865" LastActivityDate="2014-04-06T21:57:45.037" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5225" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5226" CreationDate="2014-04-06T22:03:37.827" Score="5" ViewCount="1044" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sometimes against Sicilian Najdorf (or french) defense I play like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 a6 6. Be3 e5 7. Nf5 Bxf5 8. exf5 d5 9. Bg5 d4 10. Ne4 Be7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My plan in this opening is somehow playing like Yugoslav attack, specially by opening an open line in queen side and pushing pawns into the king side of black and going for O-O-O, but I usually fail against players with rating in my range in normal game but usually I win against player with similar rating to me in blitz game by use of this handmade opening. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question:&lt;/strong&gt; Is there a name for this opening? Is it a very weak opening? and more important than this, if I don't want to play passive against e5 in different variation of Sicilian (e.g, when my knight is at d4) what should I do?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S: Maybe Be3 seems to be silly, but my intention is motivating to pushing e5 (by black), to use open line of f7 by my white bishop later in the game. Many players are thinking about possible fork pawn, or they see weakness in my move and they do e5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="269" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2014-04-06T23:15:31.077" LastActivityDate="2018-08-18T02:13:55.123" Title="Is there a name for this attack against Sicilian defense?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;&lt;najdorf&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5226" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5225" CreationDate="2014-04-06T22:05:31.533" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;6. Be3&lt;/strong&gt; against the Najdorf Sicilian is called the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chesscollection?cid=1002419&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;English Attack&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 a6 6. Be3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;6. Be3&lt;/strong&gt; is no weak move! It is a strong move and has been played by World Champions like &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1361875&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Kasparov&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1277090&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Kramnik&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1296208&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Anand&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your game, after &lt;strong&gt;6...e5&lt;/strong&gt; you played &lt;strong&gt;7. Nf5&lt;/strong&gt;. But &lt;strong&gt;7. Nf5&lt;/strong&gt; is known to be a weak move, becaue Black has the strong reply &lt;strong&gt;7...d5&lt;/strong&gt;. One sample variation is as follows - &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;   [FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;   1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 a6 6. Be3 e5 7. Nf5 d5 &#xA;   8. Bg5 d4 9. Bxf6 gxf6 10. Nb1 Qb6 11. Nd2 Qxb2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You mentioned that you would like to put more pressure on Black's kingside, but in the English attack you cannot do that immediately. Note that the Najdorf Sicilian is a very robust opening and it's not easy to immediately put pressure on Black's kingside (as I briefly also mentioned &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/4821/overprotection-and-prophylaxis/4828#4828&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;). In the English Attack, the pressure is slowly built up with a sequence of moves like &lt;strong&gt;f3&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;g4&lt;/strong&gt; as this line demonstrates. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;   [FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;   1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 a6 6. Be3 e5 7. Nb3 Be6 &#xA;   8. f3 Be7 9. Qd2 O-O 10. O-O-O Nbd7 11. g4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should go through some of the games provided on the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chesscollection?cid=1002419&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;link&lt;/a&gt; I gave you to see how this attack works. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2429" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2014-04-06T22:26:39.307" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5228" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5232" CreationDate="2014-04-07T16:48:57.000" Score="14" ViewCount="1665" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am looking for opening books, preferably a series that explain different openings, where the opening is explained with a complete view:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;strategic plans for main variants,&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;main tactical ideas,&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;usual pawn structures and how to play them (e.g. minority attacks,...),&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;usual endgames derived from the opening ( 2 pieces vs. Rook, ....) and how to play them,&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;if there are, main opening tricks.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I see these points as the things one should learn to master an opening. I don't mind the actual opening that the books explain; but I would prefer a series of books with different openings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2872" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2014-04-07T22:15:17.200" LastActivityDate="2020-02-01T08:07:45.957" Title="Opening book series with &quot;complete&quot; explanations" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;learning&gt;&lt;books&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5229" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5230" CreationDate="2014-04-07T20:26:18.583" Score="9" ViewCount="980" Body="&lt;p&gt;Throughout the game, I thought I had a positional and piece advantage, but I STILL LOST! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What did I do wrong? (using Ruy Lopez btw)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 &#xA;2. Nf3 Nc6 &#xA;3. Bb5 Nf6 &#xA;4. Nc3 a6 &#xA;5. Bxc6 dxc6 &#xA;6. O-O Nxe4 &#xA;7. Nxe4 Bg4 &#xA;8. h3 Bh5 &#xA;9. g4 Bg6 &#xA;10. Nc3 Qd6 &#xA;11. Re1 O-O-O&#xA;12. Ne5 f6 &#xA;13. Ng6 hxg6 &#xA;14. d4 Rxh3 &#xA;15. Kf1 Rh1 &#xA;16. Kg2 Qh2 &#xA;17. Kf3 Qh3 &#xA;18. Ke2 Re8 &#xA;19. Kd2 Re8xe1 &#xA;20. Qxe1 Rxe1 &#xA;21. Kxe1 Qg4 &#xA;22. Be3 Bb4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At this point, I surrendered because I'm at a positional disadvantage, my knight is pinned and my rook is still undeveloped. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know one weakness of using Ruy Lopez is that your left side develops slowly, but damn! Where did I make a mistake? Was I just unlucky?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT 1:&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;OMG I just realized he baited my king-side pawns to open up for an attack! &gt;:(&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I should've read this article earlier: &lt;a href=&quot;http://chess.about.com/od/tipsforbeginners/a/Keeping-Your-Castled-King-Safe.htm&quot;&gt;Keeping Your Castled King Safe&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2873" LastEditorUserId="2873" LastEditDate="2014-04-07T20:48:46.820" LastActivityDate="2014-04-10T19:23:43.353" Title="How did I still lose with 1 piece advantage?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="13" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5230" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5229" CreationDate="2014-04-07T20:38:35.520" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;Two things leap out at me:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Moderate error: After 8...Bh5, you're a piece up but you're not done developing and your knight on e4 is unprotected. Reasonable moves (I'm sure there are others) include 9.d3, supporting your knight and allowing your bishop to develop; 9.Re1, centralizing your rook and supporting your knight; and 9.Ng3, kicking Black's bishop and moving your knight to a safe square. Instead you played 9.g4, weakening your king's position and forcing the Black bishop to a place where it attacks your knight.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Huge error: You're still doing OK as of 13...hxg6, but your h3-pawn is under attack. (Note that this wouldn't have been an issue if you hadn't played 9.g4.) The simplest defense is 14.Qf3 but 14.Kg2 is possible too. Instead you let Black's rook capture on h3 and now your king is under severe attack.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You could have defended against the ensuing attack better, but I'm not going to bother with that because the way to win games like these is to not even let it get to that point.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2014-04-07T20:38:35.520" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5231" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5229" CreationDate="2014-04-08T10:08:33.247" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think that after&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 Nf6 4. Nc3 a6 5. Bxc6 dxc6 6. O-O Nxe4 7. Nxe4 Bg4 8. h3 Bh5 9.Ng3 Bg6 10.Nxe5 Qd6 11.Nxg6 hxg6 12.Re1+ Be7 13.Qg4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;it is lights out for black. In general, avoid moving pawns in front of your king after it has castled kingside or queenside. Try to catch your opponents king while it is still in the center.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastActivityDate="2014-04-08T10:08:33.247" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5232" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5228" CreationDate="2014-04-08T12:13:41.823" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I am looking for opening books, preferably a series that explain&#xA;  different openings, where the opening is explained with a complete&#xA;  view:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;strategic plans for main variants,&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;main tactical ideas,&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;usual pawn structures and how to play them (e.g. minority    attacks,...),&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;usual endgames derived from the opening ( 2 pieces vs. Rook, ....) and how to play them,&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;if there are, main opening tricks.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of all the books I have read, the &lt;em&gt;Starting Out&lt;/em&gt; series are the closest thing you can find that matches your conditions. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They give &lt;strong&gt;general information&lt;/strong&gt; about main lines, informing the reader if they are theoretical or if you can get by with playing by general principles. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They also warn if knowledge of the certain pawn structure/typical endgame is required, giving &lt;strong&gt;general tips on how to play those&lt;/strong&gt;, which is good enough to help the reader start to understand the topic, and to provide him with enough details so he can do his own research.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The format of the book is also beginner-friendly as they explain ideas in prose with illustrative games, rather than smothering the reader with reams of analysis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The series cover lots of openings, and generally have a good critics and readers review.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hopefully this answer will help you. If you have further questions leave a comment and I will reply.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Best regards and good luck!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastActivityDate="2014-04-08T12:13:41.823" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5233" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4434" CreationDate="2014-04-08T14:12:23.623" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess.com isn't bad, but all the live games require you play much quicker you might expect, even in a social game. So start with the correspondence games, so you have time to think! And check out the free learning materials &amp;amp; tactical problems, they are pretty good. After some time doing this you might want to venture into trying &quot;half hour&quot; or 15:10 in &quot;live chess&quot;, the longest time controls for live games. Don't take them too seriously. If you find you lose on time after making &quot;only&quot; twenty moves you are actually playing at the pace Kasparov plays... real chess games take hours to play...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2882" LastActivityDate="2014-04-08T14:12:23.623" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5234" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4434" CreationDate="2014-04-08T18:03:33.533" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd recommend you join FICS free Internet Chess Server) and play some internet games against people. After every game (wins and losses and draws) analyse the game. Do not play another game until you are confident you can improve on the last one!&#xA;If you simply play game after game without analysing the games you will not learn fully and you will not progress quickly (and most likely will keep repeating the same mistakes that keep you at a low rating).&#xA;If you want, try www.chessworld.net correspondence chess. With long time controls you have all the time you need to consider your moves. If you do though, again always analyse your games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I dislike the advice not to study your opening thoroughly! It is so important to know your opening well as this dictates the type of the mid and end game you are hoping for! So you must think well of the opening but realise it is also a part of your whole game plan. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course tactics are important but it is vital you understand the type of tactics you will face in your games and this is shaped by your opening!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lastly keep studying in books and on the internet to improve your chess knowledge.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Learn from your mistakes but do not keep repeating the same mistakes again and again (the definition of madness/insanity!). It can be tough to improve but if you are determined you will improve! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I hope this advice helps. Goodluck :-)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="426" LastActivityDate="2014-04-08T18:03:33.533" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5235" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5237" CreationDate="2014-04-08T18:25:27.983" Score="7" ViewCount="2878" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's my move as White. I have no idea what to do. I feel like I'm going to get squashed to death.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What would be my best move or strategy in situations like these?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;r2q1rk1/4b3/p1n1p1b1/1p1pPpPp/2pP1B1P/P1N2N2/1PP1Q3/2KR2R1 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2873" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-12-15T00:06:14.647" LastActivityDate="2020-12-15T00:06:14.647" Title="How to break through their &quot;Great Wall of China&quot;" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;middlegame&gt;&lt;pawn-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="5236" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5078" CreationDate="2014-04-08T18:51:58.547" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;In some ways, computers have been taking the &quot;fun&quot; out of chess, in the sense of creating an arms race of opening preparation in fashionable opening lines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, if you look at any current games in top-level play, you will still constantly see fresh new positions, and even opening play that would once have been considered completely bizarre just twenty or thirty years ago (see Richard Rapport's games, for example). What this means is that computers, while &quot;killing&quot; well-known openings, also enable a creative player to explore lesser-known openings that contain strange, and often actually quite deep and subtle middle game ideas.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, computers have not killed chess, but have transformed it. But chess was changing long before computers came along. Every step in the history of chess has involved deepening the global pool of knowledge and experience. The differences now are that computers make the turnaround of testing and verifying ideas much faster, and also that the Internet means that the transmission of information is almost instantaneous, so that the days of hoarding specific kinds of knowledge are over. But this just means that one must be even more creative than ever in depth of understanding and in the psychological aspect of the game. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1309482&quot;&gt;Kramnik famously lost a game against Leko in 2004&lt;/a&gt; because he analyzed a position with a computer and the computer said the position was winning, but actually, it was winning for Black, but Kramnik had not let the computer analyze the position long enough to see that. That game was truly a victory for the creative human spirit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="882" LastActivityDate="2014-04-08T18:51:58.547" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5237" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5235" CreationDate="2014-04-08T19:07:15.420" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;In order to make progress, one or both of you need to break through that wall. Each of you seem to have the best chances on the side near the opponent's King--you have a passer on the kingside; your opponent has a lot of pressure on your queenside. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, look at his threats. &lt;code&gt;...b5-b4&lt;/code&gt; seems to force the issue on the queenside by kicking your Knight and threatening your a-pawn. It's likely that the b file would be at least half-opened if Black plays &lt;code&gt;...b4&lt;/code&gt;. That's not great for you. However, it &lt;em&gt;would&lt;/em&gt; free &lt;code&gt;a4&lt;/code&gt; for your Knight, so you could maybe reposition it to &lt;code&gt;c5&lt;/code&gt; at some point--that's not a bad thing, &lt;em&gt;if&lt;/em&gt; you can survive the coming attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;r2q1rk1/4b3/p1n1p1b1/3pPpPp/1ppP1B1P/P1N2N2/1PP1Q3/2KR2R1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Position after &lt;code&gt;...b5-b4&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now let's think offensively. Where can &lt;em&gt;you&lt;/em&gt; break through his wall? If you can't push pawns of your own, Knights are usually the best at this sort of thing, since they can jump to the back lines. The nature of the pawn wall means their only jumping-off spots are the spaces just in front of enemy pawns. A great spot immediately suggests itself, then: &lt;code&gt;f4&lt;/code&gt;! From &lt;code&gt;f4&lt;/code&gt;, a White Knight would threaten three Black pawns, as well as Black's light-squared Bishop. If you could maneuver a Knight to &lt;code&gt;f4&lt;/code&gt;, then, you may be able to break through on the kingside and really put Black's king in some trouble. It's too bad you don't have a light-square Bishop to pressure &lt;code&gt;h5&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;6k1/8/p3p1b1/1p1pPpPp/2pP1N1P/P7/1PP5/2K5 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The previous point began with &quot;if you can't push pawns of your own&quot;. But you do have a pawn or two with moves, so let's look at those. Pushing the b-pawn isn't very appetizing, as it would likely result in a half-open c-file for Black to use to attack you. But what about &lt;code&gt;a3-a4&lt;/code&gt;? It doesn't lose any material, and it somewhat mitigates the threats posed by &lt;code&gt;...b5-b4&lt;/code&gt;, since Black would no longer have anything to capture. He could still take &lt;code&gt;...bxa4&lt;/code&gt;, but once you recapture with &lt;code&gt;Nxa4&lt;/code&gt;, he only has a half-open b file, and meanwhile your Knight is placed to advance to &lt;code&gt;c5&lt;/code&gt;. Your dark-square Bishop and your Queen also have potential to slide around Black's wall via &lt;code&gt;d2&lt;/code&gt;. All in all, not ideal, but not too bad either.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;r2q1rk1/4b3/p1n1p1b1/3pPpPp/N1pP1B1P/5N2/1PP1Q3/2KR2R1 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Position after &lt;code&gt;1.a4 bxa4 2.Nxa4&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;None of the above lines are perfectly satisfactory: they're either too slow, or potentially inadequate in terms of dealing with Black's queenside threats. Thus we have a third possibility: the King is in danger and no one can come to his aid--therefore, &lt;em&gt;we flee to the kingside&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because the position is so closed, and Black has no &lt;em&gt;immediate&lt;/em&gt; threats against your King, you could simply play &lt;code&gt;Kd2&lt;/code&gt; right away, and march your King out of harm's way, simultaneously clearing spaces for your other pieces to maneuver to the queenside if need be. I'm not going to cover this option in any further detail since &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/5241/1201&quot;&gt;Wes already gave a good account of it in his answer&lt;/a&gt;, so you should go read about it there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Conclusion&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Three basic plans come to mind for me. Hopefully they at least give you some insight into how I would tackle this situation, so you will be able to evaluate them on their own merits and drawbacks, and then either choose among them or come up with something altogether better!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;As a medium-term goal, reorganize the kingside to place a Knight on &lt;code&gt;f4&lt;/code&gt; to pressure all of Black's kingside forces and tie his pieces to the defense of his wall.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Soon or immediately, &lt;code&gt;a3-a4&lt;/code&gt; could be played to limit Black's queenside attacking potential and potentially close the position completely, or free your own pieces to end-around Black's wall.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Go for a walk with your King behind your own lines, via &lt;code&gt;d2&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;e3&lt;/code&gt;, to make room for your other pieces to maneuver and get your monarch out of the danger zone.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1201" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.193" LastActivityDate="2014-04-09T04:19:35.323" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5238" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5249" CreationDate="2014-04-08T20:49:29.617" Score="2" ViewCount="1264" Body="&lt;p&gt;I understand that this can be very situational which is why I don't provide a position as I am seeking some more generally applicable answer or things to consider.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Assuming that the opponent has a bishop pair would you feel that a combination that leaves me with doubled pawns and the opponent with only one bishop (but no other difference in material). is worth it? I guess another way to ask the same question is whether doubled pawns are a half point disadvantage. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2307" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-02-04T20:40:49.583" LastActivityDate="2020-02-04T20:40:49.583" Title="Should I accept doubled pawns to remove the opponent's bishop pair advantage?" Tags="&lt;pawn-structure&gt;&lt;bishops&gt;&lt;bishop-pair&gt;&lt;doubled-pawn&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="5239" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5313" CreationDate="2014-04-08T20:59:04.083" Score="13" ViewCount="11294" Body="&lt;p&gt;If given the choice should I opt for an endgame with a single Bishop or a single Knight? I understand Bishops increase in value in the endgame but is the disadvantage of covering only half the squares really compensated by increased mobility?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please consider the below possibilities (with Kings naturally always present and a couple of pawns in each case):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Bishop -vs- Knight&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Bishop and Knight -vs- two Knights &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Rook and Bishop -vs- Rook and Knight&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Queen and Bishop -vs- Queen and Knight&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My feeling is that in all cases except 1, the Bishop option is better (since the other piece covers the whole board). I known that Capablanca was of a different opinion but I've read that this has not been validated empirically, at least in a statistically significant way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2307" LastEditorUserId="1201" LastEditDate="2014-04-08T21:35:13.853" LastActivityDate="2014-04-26T12:38:50.290" Title="endgame with single Bishop or single Knight?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;knights&gt;&lt;bishops&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5241" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5235" CreationDate="2014-04-09T00:11:19.967" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;White cannot break this Great Wall of China in this position. In fact, &lt;strong&gt;White is slightly worse&lt;/strong&gt; and here's why - &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1. Pawn chain&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black's pawn structure is better than White's. The pawn on &lt;strong&gt;e6&lt;/strong&gt; is the base of Black's pawn chain and it is almost impossible for White to have any attack on that. True, White could possibly bring a knight to &lt;strong&gt;f4&lt;/strong&gt;, but that's not happening any time soon, and even if that happens, Black can easily defend &lt;strong&gt;e6&lt;/strong&gt; with one of his pieces. On the other hand, White's &quot;virtual&quot; pawn chain base is &lt;strong&gt;b2&lt;/strong&gt; and it is far easier for Black to attack that. Black can open the b-file by playing &lt;strong&gt;b4&lt;/strong&gt; and aim his rooks at &lt;strong&gt;b2&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;2. Weaknesses&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black's only real weakness is the pawn on &lt;strong&gt;h5&lt;/strong&gt;, but that is firmly protected by the bishop on &lt;strong&gt;g6&lt;/strong&gt;. If White brings a knight to &lt;strong&gt;g3&lt;/strong&gt; (which will take time) to double attack the pawn, Black can play &lt;strong&gt;Qe8&lt;/strong&gt; and protect it. White's &lt;strong&gt;b2&lt;/strong&gt; pawn is quite weak. If the &lt;strong&gt;b-file&lt;/strong&gt; is opened, it will be a constant target for Black. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;3. Quality of pieces&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black's worst piece is the bishop on &lt;strong&gt;g6&lt;/strong&gt;. It is doing nothing at the moment and is completely blocked by its own pawns. The same can be said about White's bishop on &lt;strong&gt;f4&lt;/strong&gt;. These two pieces are equally bad. So the comparison is between the knight on &lt;strong&gt;c6&lt;/strong&gt; and the bishop on &lt;strong&gt;e7&lt;/strong&gt;, with the knights on &lt;strong&gt;c3&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;f3&lt;/strong&gt;. The knight on &lt;strong&gt;f3&lt;/strong&gt; is not doing much. It just supports &lt;strong&gt;d4&lt;/strong&gt; and plays a defensive role. Meanwhile, the knight on &lt;strong&gt;c6&lt;/strong&gt; is constantly attacking d4. So the knight on &lt;strong&gt;c6&lt;/strong&gt; is better than the knight on &lt;strong&gt;f3&lt;/strong&gt;. The knight on &lt;strong&gt;c3&lt;/strong&gt; does absolutely nothing. It's activity is completely neutralized by Black's pawns and it can be threatened any moment by &lt;strong&gt;b4&lt;/strong&gt;. On the other hand, the bishop on &lt;strong&gt;e7&lt;/strong&gt; is supporting the advance of &lt;strong&gt;b4&lt;/strong&gt;, and is not as much hemmed in by pawns. So the bishop on &lt;strong&gt;e7&lt;/strong&gt; is slightly better than the knight on &lt;strong&gt;c3&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Still, it's not easy for Black to break through in this position if White plays correctly. The correct plan for White should be to march his king away from the queenside, which is soon going to come under fire from the Black rooks. White can safely do this because the center is closed and there's no way for Black to go after White's king. Thus, I recommend the following line which gives White equality- &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;      [FEN &quot;r2q1rk1/4b3/p1n1p1b1/1p1pPpPp/2pP1B1P/P1N2N2/1PP1Q3/2KR2R1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;      1. Kd2! b4 (1... Rb8 2. Ra1 b4 (2... a5 3. a4 b4 4. Nb5) 3. axb4 Rxb4 4. Rxa6&#xA;      Qc8 5. Ra2 Qb7 6. Rb1 Qb6 7. Ke3 $1) 2. axb4 Bxb4 3. Ke3 $1 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Such king walks are quite common in closed positions. Consider this &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1269891&quot;&gt;game&lt;/a&gt; where the great Gary Kasparov himself playing against a strong program like Fritz took his king for a walk on the queenside instead of castling kingside, which could have been dangerous. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;      [FEN &quot;rnb2rk1/1p3ppp/1Pp2n1q/2Pp4/1B1Pp2b/PNN1P2P/1R1Q1PP1/4KB1R w K - 0 23&quot;]&#xA;      [White &quot;Kasparov&quot;]&#xA;      [Black &quot;Fritz&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;      1. Kd1! Be6 2. Kc1 Rd8 3. Rc2 Nbd7 4. Kb2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Such king walks are also at times seen in closed positions that arise from the Nimzo-Indian defense. Here's a &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1057846&quot;&gt;game&lt;/a&gt; between two strong grandmasters Timman and Hort, where Hort played this maneuver. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    [FEN &quot;rn1qk2r/pp3p2/3p1n1p/2pPpbp1/2P4P/2P1PPB1/P5P1/R2QKBNR b KQkq - 0 11&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;    1...Kd7!? 2. Bf2 Kc7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, a word of &lt;strong&gt;caution&lt;/strong&gt;! Do &lt;strong&gt;NOT&lt;/strong&gt; attempt king walks unless you're quite sure that your king cannot be attacked and will be safe at its destination. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2429" LastEditorUserId="2429" LastEditDate="2014-04-09T03:43:11.937" LastActivityDate="2014-04-09T03:43:11.937" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5242" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5238" CreationDate="2014-04-09T00:13:25.660" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I take it that you feel that you are at a disadvantage because you have a bishop and a knight against a bishop pair in a reasonably open position. (If the position were closed, having the knight might be an ADvantage.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most likely, your knight would be pinned by one of the opposing bishops, and this pin would result in a doubled pawn. I can think of two main cases.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) If the exchange of the opposing bishop for the knight and a doubling of your pawns results in bishops of opposite colors, that would probably be a good result for you, because this situation is the one most likely to result in a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) The exchange of the opposing bishop of opposite color for the knight (leaving bishops of the same color). That's probably not nearly as good. Then the freedom of your bishop is the key factor. You still have good drawing chances if your pawns on on the OPPOSITE color of the two bishops, giving your bishop, maximum freedom, while presumably &quot;locking&quot; your opponent's pawns on the same color as the two bishops. If your pawns are on the same color as the bishops, blocking your bishop while providing fodder for his, you have losing chances.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastEditorUserId="17" LastEditDate="2014-04-10T17:00:39.090" LastActivityDate="2014-04-10T17:00:39.090" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5243" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5229" CreationDate="2014-04-09T00:32:26.007" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Three (bad) things happened:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You weakened your kingside by playing &lt;code&gt;g4&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Black castled O-O-O, to take advantage of number 1, while protecting his king behind the phalanx of (doubled) pawns.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The worst thing that happened was that &lt;code&gt;13. Nxg6 hxg6&lt;/code&gt; opened up the h file for Black in front of a rook that had not moved. You should have moved the N back to &lt;code&gt;f3&lt;/code&gt; to keep a defender in place, and to keep the h file closed. On move 14, your best chance was the defensive &lt;code&gt;Qf3&lt;/code&gt;, rather than the developing &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt;. You had a won game up to move 13, and a questionable game after &lt;code&gt;14...Rxh3&lt;/code&gt; (Black could have played differently than he did and gotten a perpetual check to compensate for his piece down.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastEditorUserId="17" LastEditDate="2014-04-10T19:23:43.353" LastActivityDate="2014-04-10T19:23:43.353" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5244" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-04-09T02:50:14.237" Score="3" ViewCount="457" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are there any free, either email or possibly peer to peer turn based, chess pc apps that look decent?&#xA;I'm looking to play with a friend directly, not have to go through registration, and not in real time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2887" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-04-09T18:20:47.580" LastActivityDate="2014-06-30T20:51:03.490" Title="No registration chess" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;online-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5245" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5244" CreationDate="2014-04-09T07:11:52.870" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not an app, but very nice if you don't need many bells and whistles is &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.apronus.com/chess/wbeditor.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.apronus.com/chess/wbeditor.php&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I recently used it to play a correspondence game with a friend via messenger. You play on the right board and use the &quot;link to share&quot; button to create a link like: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.apronus.com/chess/wbeditor.php?m=e4_d5_exd5_Qxd5_Nf3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.apronus.com/chess/wbeditor.php?m=e4_d5_exd5_Qxd5_Nf3&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;As you can see, that link contains the move history, so it's easy to play by sending back and forth the link created after your move. You can even export PGN and FEN files whenever you feel like it to import somewhere else.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2829" LastActivityDate="2014-04-09T07:11:52.870" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5246" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5239" CreationDate="2014-04-09T16:49:50.323" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1. Bishop -vs- Knight&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The pawn structure decides. If the bishop side has pawns on opposite colors to the bishop =&gt; the opponent has pawns on the same color as bishop =&gt; bishop can attack the enemy pawn base =&gt; bishop is better. Still, the bishop side should not have too many weak pawns, so that the king can do the protection job properly. The knight is worse at catching passed pawns, so check for a possibility to get a passed a-pawn or h-pawn when facing a knight. The bishop is faster at changing focus from e.g. kingside to queenside. All these things must come into consideration.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;2. Bishop and Knight -vs- two Knights&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The same considerations as for point 1 will be handy. For the bishop side, the knight will offer a chance to force enemy pawns to move forward (to stand on the same square color as the bishop). For the knight side, having two knights makes it easier to attack the same pawn twice or weak pawns on both flanks. Also, the chance of landing a nice fork increases. If the pawn structure is favorable, bishop and knight will be stronger.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;3. Rook and Bishop -vs- Rook and Knight&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a rule, the R+B is a stronger team. But again, the pawn structure decides if the enemy has pawns that are possible to attack with the R+B team. Rook activity and king safety comes to mind. The R+N team can make dangerous attacks on the enemy king and pick up pawns in the process. So look at the pawn structure and king safety.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;4. Queen and Bishop -vs- Queen and Knight&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Q+N is usually more dangerous because they can make efficient attacks on the enemy king. Here, the bishop's inability to control opposite colored squares is an important downside. The Q+N can force the enemy pawns forward to the same color as the enemy bishop and then use those weak squares to attack the enemy king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit 2014-04-10:&#xA;Just recorded a game with Q+B versus Q+N and won with the Q+B team. A lot depends on how well the enemy king is protected by pawns. If you are interested, check it out!&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gx4W5Jj-z0g&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gx4W5Jj-z0g&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-04-09T23:53:33.520" LastActivityDate="2014-04-09T23:53:33.520" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5247" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5244" CreationDate="2014-04-09T18:37:06.427" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;How about&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.lichess.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://en.lichess.org/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I just found it. There is a &quot;Play with a friend&quot; option and you can send a URL to a friend and play without having to register.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastActivityDate="2014-04-09T18:37:06.427" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5248" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5101" CreationDate="2014-04-10T14:55:37.487" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The best move in opening positions is often very subjective. Player comfort with and knowledge of the position is much more important than an objective evaluation or database statistics. Databases can inform you of what has been played before and how it has worked out for other players, but not what you would do with such a position. Except for tactical mistakes, a computer evaluation is mostly worthless, because it provides no understanding beyond the evaluation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Good opening books are the best resource.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Consider the difference between the statistically equal first moves for white. The choice between e2-e4, d2-d4, c2-c4, and Ng1-f3 is subjective. If the player has good knowledge and comfort with the postions, b2-b3, f2-f4, g2-g3, and even b2-b4 are reasonable choices. These latter are what I call &quot;objectively not the best, but not bad moves&quot;. Opening positions are full of such moves. After  1.e4 d6 2.d4 Nf6, 3.Bd3 is a good example of such a move. 3.Nc3 is objectively the best, but since very few books on Pirc or Philidor cover this move, you can gain an advantage of knowledge by using it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the time club players reach move 10, they or their opponent are likely to have played one of these &quot;not bad moves&quot; and drifted into unknown or rarely played lines. Understanding the ideas behind the placement of pieces, general plans, and common tactics of the opening you are playing are more important than what has been played before.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Good opening books provide knowledge of positions and reasons behind evaluations.  What is a good opening book depends on the skill level of the player. I generally find that the Starting Out series or the Move by Move series are the best for club players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2359" LastActivityDate="2014-04-10T14:55:37.487" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5249" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5238" CreationDate="2014-04-10T16:51:34.400" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;In general, the two bishop advantage is worth half a pawn, while double pawns are only a minor disadvantage. Sometimes doubled pawns can be an advantage if they do not block your pieces and control important squares. OTOH, creating doubled isolated pawns on a half open file is likely to be worth the loss of a two bishop advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Long term imbalances that occur early in a game are easier to deal with than those that occur late in a game. Let us take for instance the Nimzo-Indian line&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.a3 Bxc3 5.bxc3 c5 6.e3 O-O 7.Bd3 d5 8.cxd5 exd5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black has just allowed white to undouble the pawns that he gave up his dark square bishop to double. The key to understanding this is that the doubled pawns are not such a big deal. Black is looking to keep white's dark square bishop permanently bad (because of the pawns on e3 and d4), while getting good squares for his knights. Black's light square bishop will be not so bad (still bad because of the d5-pawn) and will also look for opportunities to trade his light square bishop for white's.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2359" LastEditorUserId="2359" LastEditDate="2014-04-10T22:26:44.903" LastActivityDate="2014-04-10T22:26:44.903" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5250" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5238" CreationDate="2014-04-10T17:30:04.567" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The bishop pair is usually stronger than B+N or N+N. While doubled pawns are usually weaker than two adjacent pawns. My advice is to look at the pawn structure and king placement to guide your decision whether to allow your opponent to exchange a bishop for your knight and leave you with a doubled pawn. Let's start with the Spanish system&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Bxc6 dxc6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;practice has shown that black can handle this type of pawn structure by following the correct strategies. Next, in the Trompowsky attack&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.d4 Nf6 2.Bg5 h6 3.Bxf6 exf6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the light squares (d5, e4, f5, f7 and h5) become sensitive for black and white is better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Next, the following silly example&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.d4 Nh6 2.Bxh6 gxh6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;shows that black simply cannot accept this sort of pawn structure to get the so called &quot;bishop pair advantage&quot;. I would recommend to study and think about the bishop pair versus B+N or N+N situations. As well as delve a bit deeper into pawn structures and weak squares. Here are a few possible guidelines&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Do not allow a doubled pawn that makes your king weaker&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Do not allow a doubled pawn in the endgame unless you are sure you can hold it&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The bishop pair gives an advantage only if you know how to use it (practice!)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;An enemy knight placed in front of your doubled pawn can be a real pain&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastActivityDate="2014-04-10T17:30:04.567" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5251" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5252" CreationDate="2014-04-10T18:40:54.820" Score="7" ViewCount="3556" Body="&lt;p&gt;What would be the Elo rating of a computer which plays all optimal moves?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;By playing all optimal moves, I mean that it always wins if possible, or else draws if that is the best result possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2895" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2014-04-11T01:58:48.293" LastActivityDate="2018-12-20T22:34:19.943" Title="What would be the Elo rating of a computer which plays all optimal moves?" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;elo&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5252" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5251" CreationDate="2014-04-10T19:40:37.273" Score="19" Body="&lt;p&gt;ELO is not an absolute measurement; it is only meaningful relevant to the ELOs of other players. This is because it is only &lt;em&gt;calculated&lt;/em&gt; based on performance against other rated players. The &quot;Maximum ELO&quot;, which seems to be what you're looking for, is therefore equal to the ELO of a player at such a time when his ELO is so high that he cannot gain any ELO points for defeating the second-highest-rated player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The answer to your question, then, relies on at least the following two questions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;What is the highest-rated opponent that this theoretical machine could always defeat?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;How much higher than that rating does an ELO need to be, in order not to gain any points from a victory?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The problem is this: if you play this machine against itself, the outcome is undefined. If we assume (since &lt;em&gt;we don't know&lt;/em&gt;) that Chess is a fair game (Black and White have equal winning/drawing chances), then this machine can't raise its ELO indefinitely by repeatedly playing and defeating another version of itself, because it'll lose half the time and not get anywhere. So without hacking the system (see below), there &lt;em&gt;is&lt;/em&gt; an upper bound somewhere.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What that upper bound &lt;em&gt;is&lt;/em&gt;, however, is very fluid and somewhat ill-defined, because players' ratings are always in motion, and because rating systems are not equivalent. So to give you a value, let me make a couple of simplifying assumptions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;Perfect play&quot; is always a victory. (If draws are possible with perfect play from one side, it doesn't change the endpoint, but it does make it take longer to reach the top).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;We use the FIDE ELO system, including the k-factor tiers (the k-factor will be 10 in the range we care about).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;FIDE only uses integer ELO values.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The highest-rated opponent for this machine is Magnus Carlsen, currently rated at 2881.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Magnus is willing and able to play against this machine as many times as needed for the machine to reach its peak ELO. Between games against the machine, Magnus will play other humans to regain his 2881 ELO rating.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Given these assumptions, &lt;strong&gt;the machine will max out at about 3351 ELO&lt;sup&gt;1&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;, where if it wins, its ELO will increase by less than half a point (&lt;code&gt;+0.49 to 3351.49&lt;/code&gt;), which will be discarded (rounded down to &lt;code&gt;3351&lt;/code&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If a competitor achieves an ELO above 2881, than the upper bound increases. This fact allows us to pull the following (very silly) stunt, if we so choose:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;We have a machine that always wins.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Presumably, we could build another one.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;We pit the machine against Magnus until it achieves FIDE ELO 3351.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;We disable perfect play on the machine (&lt;strong&gt;Machine 1&lt;/strong&gt;). We set Machine 1 to always lose.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;We build another machine, &lt;strong&gt;Machine 2&lt;/strong&gt;, and play it against Machine 1 until it cannot gain more ELO points.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Repeat steps 4-5 with new machines ad nauseam to create a machine with an arbitrarily-high FIDE ELO.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;sup&gt;1&lt;/sup&gt; I haven't done all the calculations myself by hand. I just plugged the appropriate numbers into &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.kosteniuk.com/EloCalc/elo.php&quot;&gt;this calculator&lt;/a&gt;. It's entirely possible that the formula used there differs from the current FIDE rules, but the basic premise is the same even if the numbers are inexact.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1201" LastEditorUserId="1201" LastEditDate="2014-04-11T03:18:28.567" LastActivityDate="2014-04-11T03:18:28.567" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5253" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13217" CreationDate="2014-04-11T05:47:25.157" Score="23" ViewCount="19237" Body="&lt;p&gt;The only 7 piece site I heard about is &lt;a href=&quot;http://tb7.chessok.com/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://tb7.chessok.com/&lt;/a&gt; , and upon registration I am able to setup various positions with 2-6 pieces . However as soon as I setup a position with 7 piece, I get an error about service not being avaiable. Has anyone had better luck or know of any other site with 7 pieces tablebases?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Update: in the end I discovered that FinalGen solved a vast majority of positions I was interested in, included those with more than 7 pieces. &lt;a href=&quot;http://finalgenchess.ovh/home_ing.php&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://finalgenchess.ovh/home_ing.php&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="618" LastEditorUserId="16979" LastEditDate="2018-08-22T21:33:06.187" LastActivityDate="2018-09-15T11:25:20.700" Title="Is there a freely available online 7 piece Endgame tablebase?" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;tablebases&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="5254" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5251" CreationDate="2014-04-11T14:01:43.860" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is extremely hard to say, because the initial position is probably a draw. Besides playing perfectly, the computer also has to &lt;em&gt;set problems&lt;/em&gt; for the opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the position is a draw, then there may be fifteen different moves that don't lose. The computer will have no reason to prefer one over another, so perhaps it'll just decide to drop a pawn or so knowing it can hold all the endgames. Why not?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is already very obvious when trying to use tablebases to learn how to draw worse endgames. In, say, Rook + Bishop vs Rook, the computer (playing the stronger side) will sometimes just give away the rook or bishop!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Perfect chess&quot; is hard to define.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I suspect that current engines, that aim for a good position, would very often get superior positions against perfect engines. They would just never manage to actually win them, of course. Against human grandmasters with some experience playing the perfect table-based engines, I suspect that perfect engines would have a lower TPR than current engines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastEditorUserId="924" LastEditDate="2014-04-11T14:42:57.653" LastActivityDate="2014-04-11T14:42:57.653" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5256" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="270" CreationDate="2014-04-11T15:02:57.237" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the mainline King's Indian Defense, where the center locks and white and black attack on opposite wings, black's dark square bishop is very bad, and the light square bishop is nearly essential for a successful attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This generalization seems to be useless at best. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2359" LastActivityDate="2014-04-11T15:02:57.237" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5257" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-04-12T11:49:47.937" Score="8" ViewCount="3201" Body="&lt;p&gt;I occasionally see annotations/commentary where a move / line is said to make (for example) white win &quot;by force&quot;. I am unsure if it has the general sense of &quot;this move initiates a forcing sequence where white will come out on top&quot; or something more specific, say, &quot;with this move, white exerts indefensible pressure ('force') on a particular square / sector (say more attackers than defenders on f7 with further defense impossible) that will give them victory.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What exactly does it mean?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1468" LastActivityDate="2019-01-02T10:34:18.450" Title="What does it mean to win &quot;by force&quot;?" Tags="&lt;terminology&gt;&lt;annotation&gt;&lt;winning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5258" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5257" CreationDate="2014-04-12T13:33:43.380" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's a bit of hyperbole to be sure.  I can't think of many cases where such a phrase would be used.  Normally, &quot;...and wins&quot; is good enough.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But it means there's no conceivable way that White will lose the game and it takes no special skill to finish the game. The opposite phrase is Black's position is &quot;dead lost.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have also seen in print &quot;black should resign&quot; when the position was embarrassingly untenable but Black played on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2014-04-12T13:33:43.380" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5260" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5257" CreationDate="2014-04-12T16:14:53.670" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;Wins by force&quot; means that the move leads to a series of moves that makes it impossible for the losing side to defend the position. Here, the definition of &quot;winning&quot; can vary between annotators. Checkmate is the extreme case of winning. Having an advantage of two pawns without any compensation for the opponent is somewhere at the low end of a winning position. The whole term &quot;by force&quot; refers to the fact that the opponent is unable to avoid getting a worse / losing position. At what point does a position become winning? That can depend on the position and the players involved. Usually, higher rated players have higher expectations on them to win better positions. If a game is annotated as &quot;this move wins by force&quot; then it means that the annotators expects the player at the board to win the position that arises after the sequence of moves is completed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastActivityDate="2014-04-12T16:14:53.670" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5262" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5263" CreationDate="2014-04-12T18:03:26.913" Score="3" ViewCount="682" Body="&lt;p&gt;How could I defend/attack in this situation? I feel that I'm in big trouble.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;&quot;] &#xA;1.d4 Nf6 &#xA;2.e4 Nxe4 &#xA;3.Bc4 Nxf2 &#xA;4.Kxf2 d5 &#xA;5.Bxd5 Qxd5 &#xA;6.Ke1 e5 &#xA;7.dxe5 Qxe5+ &#xA;8.Qe2 Bb4+ &#xA;9.c3 Nc6 &#xA;10.Nf3 Qe7 &#xA;11.cxb4 O-O &#xA;12.Bg5 Qxb4+ &#xA;13.Nbd2 Bg4 &#xA;14.a3 Qc5 &#xA;15.Be7 Nd4 &#xA;16.Nxd4 Qxd4 &#xA;17.Nf3 Qd7 &#xA;18.Bc5 Rae8 &#xA;19.Rd1 Qa4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At the end I won, but thanks to my opponent, because he made a lot of mistakes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S.: if anybody could give me any recommendation, to how I could defend when, the other player, moves very aggressively in the opening, it'd be welcome.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2615" LastEditorUserId="11202" LastEditDate="2017-06-30T11:03:36.983" LastActivityDate="2017-06-30T11:03:36.983" Title="How could I defend/attack in this situation?" Tags="&lt;theory&gt;&lt;defense&gt;&lt;attack&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5263" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5262" CreationDate="2014-04-12T20:40:30.810" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;The way I see it, neither of you was aggressive in the opening -- you both tried to get rid of your pieces as quickly as possible! Being aggressive is getting many pieces in active positions quickly, not giving them away.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When we give advice, we have to take into account the level of the players. Both of you need to work on the most basic skill first: &lt;strong&gt;Piece safety&lt;/strong&gt;. The first skill to learn is to recognize when undefended pieces can simply be captured, to always do that if your opponent gives you the chance, and to never give him the chance to just take a whole piece without repercussions. The moment one of you starts doing that, he'll blow the other off the board completely.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's show a number of positions where this was the case:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;rnbqkb1r/pppppppp/5n2/8/3PP3/8/PPP2PPP/RNBQKBNR b KQkq - 0 2&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After 2.e4?, black can take a pawn for free, and he does.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;rnbqkb1r/pppppppp/8/8/2BP4/8/PPP2nPP/RNBQK1NR w KQkq - 0 4&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black gives away a full knight with 3...Nxf2. Why??&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;rnbqkb1r/ppp1pppp/8/3B4/3P4/8/PPP2KPP/RNBQ2NR b kq - 0 5&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White returns the favour immediately! Why give away a bishop with 5.Bxd5 when you could have just retreated it, say to d3?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;r1b1k2r/ppp2ppp/2n5/4q3/1b6/2P5/PP2Q1PP/RNB1K1NR w kq - 1 10&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After 9...Nc6, black has done nothing to prevent white taking the bishop on b4! Had he played 9...Qxe2+ 10.Nxe2 Bc5 instead he wouldn't have lost a piece.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;r1b1k2r/ppp2ppp/2n5/4q3/1b6/2P2N2/PP2Q1PP/RNB1K2R b kq - 2 10&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But white doesn't take it!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;r1b1k2r/ppp1qppp/2n5/8/1b6/2P2N2/PP2Q1PP/RNB1K2R w kq - 3 11&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black still ignores the threat to his bishop! He could still have played 10...Qxe2+ and then move the bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;r4rk1/ppp1Bppp/2n5/2q5/6b1/P4N2/1P1NQ1PP/R3K2R b - - 2 15&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White just played 15.Be7??, giving away his bishop. It's attacked twice (by the knight on c6 and the queen on c5), and only defended by the queen, so black could just have played 15...Qxe7 or 15...Nxe7 !&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;r4rk1/ppp1Bppp/8/2q5/3n2b1/P4N2/1P1NQ1PP/R3K2R w - - 3 16&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Instead, black insists on giving away a knight himself with 15...Nd4. If white simply answers 16.Bxc5 Nxe2 17.Kxe2, white has won a full knight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;r4rk1/pppqBppp/8/8/6b1/P4N2/1P2Q1PP/R3K2R w - - 2 18&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now white is in some trouble, because he never bothered to get his king out of the center and a rook is threatening to come to the e-file, capturing the queen. There are two options: move the king away (it can't castle anymore, it moved to f2 in the opening) and defend the bishop with 18.Kf2 Rfe8 19.Rhe1. White will try to move his queen out of the pin next, say with 20.Qd1, so he's better. The other option is to take the offered rook with 18.Bxf8 Re8 19.Bb4 Rxe2+ 20.Kxe2, and white has two rooks and a bishop for the queen, which is good.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But the point is: if you see nothing of that, then you play Bxf8, because the rook is worth more than the bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;4rrk1/ppp2ppp/8/2B5/q5b1/P4N2/1P2Q1PP/3RK2R w - - 6 20&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But white didn't and we get to the end of the game, white is in trouble. But black for some reason moved the rook from &lt;em&gt;a8&lt;/em&gt; to e8, so that the one on f8 can still be captured.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After 19.Bxf8 Rxe2+ 20.Kxe2 Kxf8 white has two rooks for a queen and two pawns, his king is in the middle and his rooks aren't active. White is lost. But that means nothing as long as both players keep giving away pieces at the same rate as they've done so far, anything can still happen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: as AlwaysLearningNewStuff points out, in the final position white can block the attack on the queen with 19.Be3!, he's still a knight up for two pawns, and he can probably untangle his position with Kf2, Rhe1 et cetera. That's much better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastEditorUserId="924" LastEditDate="2014-04-12T21:13:51.170" LastActivityDate="2014-04-12T21:13:51.170" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5264" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5257" CreationDate="2014-04-12T20:46:04.453" Score="5" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I occasionally see annotations/commentary where a move / line is said&#xA;  to make (for example) white win &quot;by force&quot;. I am unsure if it has the&#xA;  general sense of &lt;strong&gt;&quot;this move initiates a forcing sequence where white&#xA;  will come out on top&quot;&lt;/strong&gt; or something more specific, say, &lt;em&gt;&quot;with this&#xA;  move, white exerts indefensible pressure ('force') on a particular&#xA;  square / sector (say more attackers than defenders on f7 with further&#xA;  defense impossible) that will give them victory.&quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What exactly does it mean?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The bold part is correct answer. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Forced move is exactly that: A move you are forced to play. A &lt;strong&gt;forcing&lt;/strong&gt; move is exactly that: a move that forces the opponent to respond in a specific way, &lt;strong&gt;limiting his freedom of choice.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Take &lt;em&gt;Alekhine's defense&lt;/em&gt; as example. White is &lt;strong&gt;forcing&lt;/strong&gt; the exchange of knights, while Black is &lt;strong&gt;forced&lt;/strong&gt; to exchange the knight:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Demonstrating difference between forced and forcing move&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 Nf6 2.e5 Nd5 3.c4 Nb6 4.c5 Nd5 5.Nc3 Nxc3 6.dxc3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The italic part in my quote of your question is never called &quot;force&quot;. The term &lt;em&gt;pressure&lt;/em&gt; is commonly used to describe it, like in this example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;White to move&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;r4r1k/pp2qppp/6b1/8/2B5/1QP5/PP3RPP/5R1K w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So in this example we can say something like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;White exerts decisive &lt;strong&gt;pressure&lt;/strong&gt; on the &lt;code&gt;f7&lt;/code&gt; square which would lead to a &lt;strong&gt;forced&lt;/strong&gt; win for him if he plays &lt;code&gt;1.Bxf7&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After &lt;code&gt;1.Bxf7&lt;/code&gt; Black is &lt;strong&gt;forced&lt;/strong&gt; to exchange off all his pieces (not exchanging proves even worse for Black) after which the endgame is won for White. That is why we say White has a forced win: he can &lt;em&gt;force&lt;/em&gt; Black to enter into a lost endgame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hopefully this clarifies things.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2019-01-02T10:34:18.450" LastActivityDate="2019-01-02T10:34:18.450" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="5265" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5267" CreationDate="2014-04-12T22:30:20.677" Score="15" ViewCount="2971" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd like to play the king's gambit without getting into piece sacrifices, but Fischer's Defence is unsettling me.  This appears to be described as the &quot;main line&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.f4 exf4 3.Nf3 d6 4.d4 g5 5.h4 g4 6.Ng1 *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Attempting to be impartial, I look at the board as white after &lt;code&gt;6. Ng1&lt;/code&gt; and think:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I'm white and I expect to be slightly better in the opening (which I would be if I choose a more mainstream opening).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I've given up a pawn (which black could probably hold onto with &lt;code&gt;...h5&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;Bh6&lt;/code&gt;), so I expect compensation.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I played &lt;code&gt;2. f4&lt;/code&gt; for the purpose of having the initiative.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I have a damaged kingside, and maybe black will completely demolish it with &lt;code&gt;...f3&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I have a nice pawn center.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My conclusion: while white does not seem losing, there has to be a better choice of openings for white.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Questions&lt;/em&gt;:  Is this position as bad as I think it is?  (Are there some subtitles I'm missing?)  Are there reasonable non-mainstream deviations from this line?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2785" LastActivityDate="2020-08-12T03:00:44.077" Title="King's Gambit, Fischer's Defence 6. Ng1. Wait, what?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;kings-gambit&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5266" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5265" CreationDate="2014-04-13T13:55:03.613" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recommend you check the book &quot;Winning with the King's Gambit&quot;, from Joe Gallagher (the book is a bit old, from early 90s, but is still a nice collection of games) he examines this line in the first 8 games of the book. Black replies include 6. ... f3, 6. ... Nf6, 6. ... Bh6, 6. ... Qf6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The general idea is, White has a strong centre, Black has space in king side, sometimes they get a strong f3 pawn passed &amp;amp; protected. But they also have several weaknesses (Black squares in king side (exchanging dark bishops is good for White)).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White sometimes castle kingside, but more often queenside, or not castle at all. &#xA;The breakthrough e4-e5 is key in White's attack plan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are a extract games from the book (without annotations):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First Game:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Bad Woerishofen op 7th&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Bad Woerishofen&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;1991.11.??&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Gallagher, Joseph G&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Bode, Wilfried&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;C34&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;2520&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;37&quot;]&#xA;[SourceDate &quot;2003.09.15&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. f4 exf4 3. Nf3 d6 4. d4 g5 5. h4 g4 6. Ng1 f3 7. Bg5 Be7 8. Qd2 f6&#xA;9. Bh6 Nxh6 10. Qxh6 Be6 11. gxf3 gxf3 12. Nxf3 c6 13. Nc3 Qa5 14. Ng5 fxg5 15.&#xA;Qxe6 Nd7 16. Bc4 Rf8 17. O-O-O gxh4 18. e5 d5 19. Bxd5 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Second Game:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Orange&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;1987.??.??&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Hebden, Mark&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Borm, F.&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;C34&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;2515&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;2420&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;63&quot;]&#xA;[SourceDate &quot;2003.09.15&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. f4 exf4 3. Nf3 d6 4. d4 g5 5. h4 g4 6. Ng1 Nf6 7. Bxf4 Nxe4 8. Bd3&#xA;Qe7 9. Ne2 Bg7 10. O-O O-O 11. Bxe4 Qxe4 12. Nbc3 Qc6 13. Qd2 d5 14. Ng3 Qf6&#xA;15. Be5 Qxh4 16. Bxg7 Kxg7 17. Nxd5 f5 18. Qf4 Nc6 19. Nxc7 Rb8 20. Rae1 Kg8&#xA;21. d5 Ne7 22. Nh5 Qxh5 23. Rxe7 b5 24. Rfe1 Rb6 25. d6 Qh4 26. g3 Qf6 27. Ne8&#xA;Qxb2 28. Qg5+ Kh8 29. Rxh7+ Kxh7 30. Re7+ Kh8 31. Qh5+ Kg8 32. Qh7# 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Third Game:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;BCF-ch&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Blackpool&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;1988.08.??&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Gallagher, Joseph G&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Jackson, Sheila&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;C34&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;2445&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;2245&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;81&quot;]&#xA;[SourceDate &quot;2003.09.15&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. f4 exf4 3. Nf3 d6 4. d4 g5 5. h4 g4 6. Ng1 Bh6 7. Nc3 c6 8. Nge2&#xA;Qf6 9. g3 f3 10. Nf4 Qe7 11. Bd3 Bg7 12. Be3 h5 13. Qd2 Nd7 14. O-O-O Nf8 15.&#xA;Rhe1 Bd7 16. e5 dxe5 17. dxe5 Ne6 18. Ne4 Bxe5 19. Nxe6 Bxe6 20. Bc5 Qc7 21.&#xA;Nd6+ Bxd6 22. Rxe6+ Be7 23. Bd6 Qxd6 24. Rxd6 Bxd6 25. Ba6 O-O-O 26. Qc3 Ne7&#xA;27. Rxd6 bxa6 28. Rf6 Rhf8 29. Qc5 Rd7 30. Qxh5 Rfd8 31. Qxg4 Kb7 32. Qxf3 Nd5&#xA;33. Rxf7 Nb6 34. b3 a5 35. h5 a4 36. Kb2 axb3 37. axb3 a5 38. h6 a4 39. h7 axb3&#xA;40. cxb3 Ka7 41. Rxd7+ 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2607" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T16:35:51.497" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T16:35:51.497" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="5267" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5265" CreationDate="2014-04-13T20:56:52.963" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your objective assessment of White's position after &lt;strong&gt;6. Ng1&lt;/strong&gt; is quite on the mark. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;A. Objectively speaking...&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's hard to see how this position could be good for White. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;On the plus side -&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;White has a good center.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Black's pawn on f4 is weak. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Black's kingside is a bit loose. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;On the minus side -&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;White is a pawn down at the moment. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;White's own kingside is weak. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is a good center worth a pawn? Sometimes it is, sometimes it is not. In this position, it can be shown that at best White is only equal. There is no line that gives White an advantage. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;B. Subjectively speaking...&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White played the King's Gambit because White wanted a sharp tactical game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;On the plus side -&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The White player has successfully achieved a complex tactical position which suits his/her style of play. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Complex tactical positions may not suit the Black player's style of play. Perhaps he/she played &lt;strong&gt;1...e5&lt;/strong&gt; with the intention of getting a quieter position. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If the White player is better at tactical positions than the Black player, White has greater chances of winning the game. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The White player may be better prepared in the opening than Black player for this particular line. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One example - Nigel Short, a master of tactical positions, outplayed his strong Grandmaster opponent Vladimir Akopian in this position, playing &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1079886&quot;&gt;White&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;On the minus side -&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Complex tactical positions may suit the Black player's style of play and Black might enjoy these complications. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Black might be as good as White in tactical positions or even better. Thus, White has good chances of losing the game.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Black might be very good at defense and at best White will only manage a draw. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The Black player might be prepared just as well in the opening as the White player or even better in this particular line. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One example- the great champion of the King's Gambit and a master of tactics, Boris Spassky himself, played this position both with &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1077670&quot;&gt;White&lt;/a&gt; and with &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/games/view?id=389099&quot;&gt;Black&lt;/a&gt;, winning the game with Black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems to me that &lt;strong&gt;White's reasons for going into this line are more subjective than objective&lt;/strong&gt;. The computer evaluations all favor Black slightly, but that's expected because Black is materially a pawn ahead and computers often are biased towards material. Objectively speaking, here are some lines which show that White doesn't get anything special out of this opening. In my opinion, in the line after &lt;strong&gt;6...f5!?&lt;/strong&gt;, White is even slightly worse. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    [FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;    [Event &quot;6...f5!? and Black might be slightly better&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;    1. e4 e5 2. f4 exf4 3. Nf3 d6 4. d4 g5 5. h4 g4 6. Ng1 f5 (6... Bh6 7. Nc3 c6 (&#xA;    7... Nf6 8. Nge2 Nh5 9. g3 O-O 10. Bxf4 Nxf4 11. Nxf4=) 8. Nge2 Qf6 9. g3 f3&#xA;    10. Nf4 Qe7) 7. Nc3 fxe4 8. Bxf4 (8. Nxe4 Qe7 9. Qe2 Nc6 10. c3 Bf5 11. Nf2 Bh6=+&#xA;    ) 8... d5 9. Qd2 c6 10. Nge2 Nf6 11. O-O-O Be6 12. Kb1 (12. Ng3 Bd6) 12...&#xA;    Nbd7 13. Ng3 Bb4 14. a3 Ba5 15. Be2 Bc7 16. Rdf1 Bxf4 17. Rxf4 Qe7 18. Rhf1&#xA;    O-O-O=+ &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One sample Grandmaster game in this line - &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1079454&quot;&gt;Hector vs Peter Leko 0-1 1995&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;4. Bc4!?&lt;/strong&gt; is a perfectly playable alternative to &lt;strong&gt;4. d4&lt;/strong&gt;. The point is that Black has to &lt;strong&gt;&quot;waste&quot;&lt;/strong&gt; a move playing &lt;strong&gt;4...h6&lt;/strong&gt; first and cannot play &lt;strong&gt;4...g5&lt;/strong&gt; directly. If &lt;strong&gt;4...g5&lt;/strong&gt;, then White get's a better position after &lt;strong&gt;5. h4!&lt;/strong&gt; as follows - &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    [FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;    [Event &quot;Black cannot play 4...g5 after 4. Bc4!?&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;    1. e4 e5 2. f4 exf4 3. Nf3 d6 4. Bc4 g5? 5. h4! g4 6. Ng5 Nh6 7. d4 Bg7 8. Bxf4+=&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I should mention that after &lt;strong&gt;4...h6&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;5...g5&lt;/strong&gt;, Black is very solid in the mainline resulting position and it's not easy for White to break through. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    [FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;    [Event &quot;4. Bc4 h6!? 5.d4 g5 and Black is doing well&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;    1. e4 e5 2. f4 exf4 3. Nf3 d6 4. Bc4 h6 5. d4 g5 6. O-O Bg7 7. c3 Nc6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Are there reasonable non-mainstream deviations from this line?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Considering the above discussion, I think a reasonable non-mainstream deviation would be to play &lt;strong&gt;4. Bc4&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;5.h4!?&lt;/strong&gt;, preventing &lt;strong&gt;g5&lt;/strong&gt;. Objectively speaking, White is still slightly worse because of the material deficit, but subjectively speaking, the position is quite complicated with plenty to play for. One idea for White's would be to hold on to the strong pawn center, castle queen side and attempt to put pressure on Black's &lt;strong&gt;f4&lt;/strong&gt; pawn with moves like &lt;strong&gt;Ne2&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;      [FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;      [Event &quot;5. h4!? is worth a try&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;      1. e4 e5 2. f4 exf4 3. Nf3 d6 4. Bc4 h6 5. h4 Nf6 6. Nc3 Nbd7 (6... Bg4 7. d4&#xA;      Nh5 8. Ne5! dxe5 9. Qxg4 Nf6 10. Qf5 Nc6 11. dxe5 Nd4 12. Qxf4 Nxc2+ 13. Ke2&#xA;      Nxa1 14. exf6 Qxf6 15. Nd5 Qxf4 16. Bxf4 O-O-O 17. Rxa1+/-) (6... c6 7. d4 b5&#xA;      8. Bd3 Nh5 9. Ne2) 7. d4 Nh5 8. Qd3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2429" LastEditorUserId="2429" LastEditDate="2014-04-13T22:18:52.287" LastActivityDate="2014-04-13T22:18:52.287" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5268" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5262" CreationDate="2014-04-13T22:47:26.800" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In addition to RemcoGerlich's excellent answer, here is some computer analysis using the program &lt;a href=&quot;http://stockfishchess.org/download/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Stockfish DD 64 SSE4.2&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Notation used - &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;!&lt;/strong&gt; - Good move&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;!?&lt;/strong&gt; - Interesting move&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;?!&lt;/strong&gt; - Dubious move&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;?&lt;/strong&gt; - Bad move&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;??&lt;/strong&gt; - Very bad move&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;      [FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;      1. d4 Nf6 2. e4 $2 (2. c4 $5) 2... Nxe4 3. Bc4 $6 (3. Bd3 $5) 3... Nxf2 (3...d5!) $4 4.&#xA;      Kxf2 d5! 5. Bxd5 $4 (5. Bb3 $1) 5... Qxd5 6. Ke1 $2 (6. Nf3 $1) 6... e5 $2 (6...&#xA;      Qxg2 $1 7. Qf3 Qxc2) 7. dxe5 $2 (7. Nf3 $1) 7... Qxe5+ (7... Qxg2 $1 8. Qf3&#xA;      Qxc2) 8. Qe2 $1 Bb4+ (8... Qxe2+ $5) 9. c3 Nc6 $4 (9... Qxe2+ 10. Nxe2 Bc5) 10.&#xA;      Nf3 $4 (10. cxb4 $1) 10... Qe7 $4 (10... Qxe2+ $1 11. Kxe2 Bd6) 11. cxb4 O-O? (11...Nxb4!)&#xA;      12. Bg5 $2 (12. Qxe7 $1 Nxe7 13. Nc3) 12... Qxb4+ 13. Nbd2 (13. Kf2 $1) 13...&#xA;      Bg4 $1 14. a3 $2 Qc5 $2 (14... Qxb2 $1) 15. Be7 $4 (15. Be3 $1 Qh5 16. Kf2)&#xA;      15... Nd4 $4 (15... Nxe7 $1) 16. Nxd4 $2 (16. Bxc5 $1 Nxe2 17. Bxf8) 16... Qxd4&#xA;      17. Nf3 $1 Qd7 18. Bc5 $4 (18. Rd1 $1) 18... Rae8 $1 19. Rd1 $4 (19. Be3!) Qa4?? &#xA;      (19...Rxe2+ $1 20. Kxe2 Qb5+ 21. Kf2 Qxc5+) &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2429" LastEditorUserId="2429" LastEditDate="2014-04-14T01:04:28.593" LastActivityDate="2014-04-14T01:04:28.593" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5269" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5273" CreationDate="2014-04-14T06:41:48.463" Score="-3" ViewCount="727" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some of the chess rules are lesser known to beginners than others.&#xA;Can anyone suggest such rules, like En Passant, Three-fold repetition, Fifty-move rule, Stalemate, Castling Problems?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1342" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-03-20T21:17:34.827" LastActivityDate="2016-03-20T21:17:34.827" Title="What are the common rules of chess rules that are lesser known" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ClosedDate="2014-04-14T19:22:56.877" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5270" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-04-14T10:55:44.297" Score="3" ViewCount="697" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are there chess engines that carry out brute force search, looking at all possible moves to each depth?  An engine like this could be used to generate for solutions to tactical puzzles where the key move gets pruned by engines with selective search.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2715" LastEditorUserId="8309" LastEditDate="2016-02-21T16:38:59.327" LastActivityDate="2016-02-21T16:38:59.327" Title="Are there brute force engines which examine all possible moves to each depth?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;engines&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="7" FavoriteCount="1" ClosedDate="2014-05-01T04:44:59.477" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5271" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5272" CreationDate="2014-04-14T15:17:07.960" Score="4" ViewCount="641" Body="&lt;p&gt;The below puzzle &lt;strong&gt;White to mate in two moves&lt;/strong&gt;. I tried all combinations. I can't figure it out how to solve this? I am starting to think this as a bug in my mobile application which is showing wrong information that it can be solved in just two moves. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;2K3Bn/B/3pp1N/1p1P3R/4k/R5q/N1P3Pp/7Q w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="799" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-04T23:12:19.460" LastActivityDate="2020-04-04T23:12:19.460" Title="Another chess problem" Tags="&lt;problems&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="5272" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5271" CreationDate="2014-04-14T15:26:31.363" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;To be fair, I tried solving this manually. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Qb1 works. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basic idea - We see that the Black king cannot move. All that is needed is to give it a check. But where to give it a check from? The Black queen guards many key squares like h4, e3, c3, e1. Thus, White should try to find other squares. Qb1 threatens mate with Qb4+. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is what I calculated - &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1...exd5 2. Bxd5#&#xA;1...e5 2. Qb4#&#xA;1...b4 2. Qxb4#&#xA;1...h1=Q 2. Qb4#&#xA;1...Qxa3 2. c3!#&#xA;1...Qe1 2. Qxe1#&#xA;1...Qe3 2. Rxe3#&#xA;1...Qb3 2. cxb3#&#xA;1...Nxg6 2. Qb4#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also confirmed with a computer that Qb1 is correct. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2429" LastEditorUserId="10380" LastEditDate="2016-05-26T12:56:47.227" LastActivityDate="2016-05-26T12:56:47.227" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5273" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5269" CreationDate="2014-04-14T15:43:41.713" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm going to go out on a limb and suspect that when you say &quot;rules are not much popular&quot;, you mean &quot;rules that are lesser known&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can think of two rules which beginners are known to struggle with: castling and en passant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The concept behind castling is relatively simple, but beginners commonly struggle with the conditions that all must be &quot;true&quot; in order to castle successfully, which include never having moved your king and your king not walking through check to arrive to his final position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From my experience, en passant is much more difficult for newbies to grasp. It is a special type of pawn capture where your pawn takes your opponent's pawn &quot;in passing&quot;.  Details about this rule can be found here: &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/En_passant&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/En_passant&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2905" LastEditorUserId="2905" LastEditDate="2014-04-14T16:06:25.813" LastActivityDate="2014-04-14T16:06:25.813" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5274" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4939" CreationDate="2014-04-14T21:40:00.007" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;I do this often in blitz, although it is considered somewhat inappropriate in a tournament setting.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The quick way to castle with one hand is to make a motion where you &quot;capture&quot; the rook. In a typical capture, you pick up your piece and knock the opposing piece into your hand. You then take the piece off the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What I mean by &quot;capturing&quot; your rook is that you perform the same motion, but instead of using your palm to carry the piece off the board, you use it to guide the rook to its appropriate square. At the same time, your king is knocking the rook over to where it belongs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It takes a bit of practice to knock the rook over, but when done properly you can castle in a fluid motion without having to make multiple motions with your hand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1382" LastActivityDate="2014-04-14T21:40:00.007" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5277" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5279" CreationDate="2014-04-15T14:30:10.753" Score="9" ViewCount="1045" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm thinking to have fun this summer, trying to craft my own wooden chess set. Has anyone tried doing so? How should I proceed? What materials to buy? what guides to follow?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1105" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-06-04T07:43:04.047" LastActivityDate="2018-06-04T07:43:04.047" Title="How to craft a chess set?" Tags="&lt;chessboards&gt;&lt;chess-set&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5278" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5436" CreationDate="2014-04-15T20:43:33.640" Score="8" ViewCount="1916" Body="&lt;p&gt;Which opening move  out of &lt;strong&gt;1. e4&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;1. d4&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;1. c4&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;1.Nf3&lt;/strong&gt; has given the best scoring percentage for White in World Championship matches? What are the percentages?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2429" LastActivityDate="2014-05-09T16:51:53.617" Title="1. e4, 1. d4, 1. c4, or 1. Nf3? Which opening move has given the greatest scoring percentage for White in World Championship Matches?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;statistics&gt;&lt;world-championship&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5279" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5277" CreationDate="2014-04-16T00:13:15.327" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have not tried to do exactly chess set but I have some experience (really basic) with doing things from wood. I will tell what I learned from my experience, and may be someone more experienced can refine it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Crafting from wood is not really that hard (on amateur level). You need:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;material (basically wood and in the beginning almost any wood is acceptable, but not the wood you can buy for setting the fire. Also do not listen to people who will suggest you to buy most expensive/cool wood, because if you are doing it for the first time, you will most probably fail a few times before you can do something. When you see that you are ok, you can buy better materiel)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lathe&quot;&gt;Lathe&lt;/a&gt; (it quickly rotates your piece, allowing you to create axis of rotation elements)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chisel&quot;&gt;chisel&lt;/a&gt; (to make small holes inside)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_%28tool%29&quot;&gt;file&lt;/a&gt; (to refine your piece and to add some details)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;hammer (everyone needs hammer. You might need it to protect your pieces from other people)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;varnish (when you finish your thing, you have to cover it look better or not to get a thorn)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not all of the things are needed. Also do not be intimidated when you see that this things are so big and your pieces should be really small: there are small equivalents of all the tools.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tools like lathe are expensive, but a lot of schools and may be some repair shops can have it. So it is a good idea to go and ask them for permission to use it (you also should be careful to read how to use it, because it can damage you).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, you have the tools. First of all try to create bigger things. From my experience, the smaller the thing you want to do - the more careful/skilled you have to be. So try to create big pawn/rook in the beginning. Like 20-40 centimeters high. Not 2-4 cm. When you feel that you are good with big things, you can go smaller.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Having a lathe it will be pretty easy, because as you noticed - all the pieces (except of the knight) are symmetrical along the Z-axis. To carve the wood, you use lathe with chisel (it is hard for me to explain how it work: all you do is to move chisel to the spinning wood and it cuts away part of it). This way you can do everything except of a knight. For knight you have to use only chisel and it is really complicated (for people like me). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mark the wood with pen/pencil/marker to know where you have to cut it and always compare the piece you do with the same one you already done (unless you want all your bishops to be a different diameter/size).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Than you refine your pieces with file, paint them and later varnish. Do not be disappointed if you will fail at the first time and do not try to use complicated designs in the beginning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is some old school techniques, for a new generation - take a look at &lt;a href=&quot;http://3dprintingindustry.com/2014/01/11/3d-printing-wood-robo-3d-printer/&quot;&gt;3d printer&lt;/a&gt; which can carve from wood.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="703" LastActivityDate="2014-04-16T00:13:15.327" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5280" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5286" CreationDate="2014-04-16T08:31:05.290" Score="17" ViewCount="9697" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is memorization necessary in modern chess? Whenever I play chess, I always run out of time because I move slowly in the opening; unlike others who move fast in the opening because they have memorized it, and slowly in the middle game to execute their plans.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Should I should memorize opening theory to save time in the middle game?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2915" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-09-13T18:53:01.017" LastActivityDate="2016-10-01T23:42:55.443" Title="Understanding vs. Memorization" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;time-management&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5281" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5283" CreationDate="2014-04-16T09:55:43.183" Score="13" ViewCount="11043" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is it really possible to checkmate with two knights and king against a king?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a mating position with this but no extra tempo to do it in real game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are the explanations, why knights cannot create an extra tempo around 64 squares on the board?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2915" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2014-04-16T11:35:31.660" LastActivityDate="2019-12-04T19:46:31.263" Title="Checkmate with two knights?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;checkmate&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5282" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5281" CreationDate="2014-04-16T10:15:51.197" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Wikipedia has a &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_knights_endgame&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;long article on this topic&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Unlike some other theoretically drawn endgames, such as a rook and&#xA;  bishop versus rook, the defender has an easy task in all endings with&#xA;  two knights versus a lone king. The player simply has to avoid moving&#xA;  into a position in which he or she can be checkmated on the next move,&#xA;  and always has another move available in such situations&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not only it is showing a lot of explanatory examples, but also speaks about really strange paradox &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_knights_endgame#Troitzky_line&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Troitzky line&lt;/a&gt; which explains how the material advantage for the weaker size can cost him a game. Having one pawn against 2 knights can give white a chance to win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also you can read another helpful &lt;a href=&quot;http://ctart.chessok.com/course/complete-chess-course-demo/utilizing-a-decisive-material-advantage/7-mating-with-two-knights&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;resource here.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="703" LastEditorUserId="452" LastEditDate="2014-04-16T13:45:27.520" LastActivityDate="2014-04-16T13:45:27.520" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5283" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5281" CreationDate="2014-04-16T12:28:54.470" Score="22" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is it really possible to checkmate with two knights and king against a&#xA;  king?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Theoretically&lt;/strong&gt;, the checkmate is possible, but you can not do it in practice &lt;strong&gt;unless the weaker side allows you to&lt;/strong&gt;. This is related to a drawback in the way knight moves. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;There is a mating position with this but no extra tempo to do it in&#xA;  real game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What are the explanations, why knights cannot create an extra tempo&#xA;  around 64 squares on the board?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are two reasons:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They can not do it because they can &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; move to another square &lt;strong&gt;while keeping the previous one in control&lt;/strong&gt; ( like bishop and many other pieces can ) and because &lt;strong&gt;they need too much time to position themselves properly.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;DEMONSTRATING KNIGHT'S INABILITY TO &quot;LOSE TEMPO&quot; :&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Take the following position as an example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;This position is won with a bishop&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;8/8/8/8/4B3/8/P7/K1k5 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This position is won for White because he can play with bishop &lt;strong&gt;and retain control&lt;/strong&gt; over &lt;code&gt;c2&lt;/code&gt; square ( &lt;code&gt;1.Bh7&lt;/code&gt;for example ), which will create &lt;em&gt;zugzwang&lt;/em&gt;. As you say in your question, White will &quot;lose tempo&quot; and force Black to move his king away.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now analyze this position with a knight instead of a bishop:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;If it is White to move this is a draw&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;8/8/8/8/3N4/8/P7/K1k5 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why is this endgame only a draw? Because White &lt;strong&gt;can not&lt;/strong&gt; move &lt;strong&gt;and keep control over &lt;code&gt;c2&lt;/code&gt; square.&lt;/strong&gt; This means that he &lt;strong&gt;can not&lt;/strong&gt; create &lt;em&gt;zugzwang&lt;/em&gt;, or as you say he can not &quot;lose tempo&quot; to force Black king away. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Without the ability to create &lt;em&gt;zugzwang&lt;/em&gt; you are just not able to corner the opposing king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;DEMONSTRATING KNIGHT'S INABILITY TO POSITION ITSELF PROPERLY :&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for the positioning problem, we shall take a look at the below diagrams:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Agile and swift bishop&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;8/8/8/8/8/1K1N4/3B4/1k6 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Nb4 Ka1 2.Nc2+ Kb1 3.Na3+ Ka1 4.Bc3#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here, bishop needed &lt;strong&gt;1 move&lt;/strong&gt; to reach the mating square. Notice that the endgame &lt;strong&gt;would be drawn&lt;/strong&gt;, just as the one with two knights, if bishop was not able to reach &lt;code&gt;c3&lt;/code&gt; &lt;strong&gt;in one move.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the following diagram you will see that knight needs &lt;strong&gt;more moves to reach the mating square&lt;/strong&gt;, which enables the weaker side to draw: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Clumsy knight&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;8/8/8/8/8/1K1N4/4N3/1k6 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Nb4  Ka1 2.Nc2+ Kb1 3.Na3+ Ka1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and here &lt;code&gt;Ne2&lt;/code&gt; &lt;strong&gt;needs 2 moves&lt;/strong&gt; to reach &lt;code&gt;c2&lt;/code&gt; and deliver checkmate. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Remember this: Knights experience &lt;strong&gt;great difficulties&lt;/strong&gt; when they need to reposition themselves between &lt;strong&gt;short distant squares&lt;/strong&gt; in a &lt;strong&gt;short notice.&lt;/strong&gt; This is &lt;strong&gt;often&lt;/strong&gt; impossible task for them. The following example demonstrates clearly what I mean:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Slow knight&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;8/8/8/8/8/1K5p/6N1/1k6 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this position we can see how hard it is for the knight to position himself &lt;strong&gt;fast&lt;/strong&gt; to a square &lt;strong&gt;nearby&lt;/strong&gt; like &lt;code&gt;f3&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;g4&lt;/code&gt;. Again he needs &lt;strong&gt;2 moves&lt;/strong&gt; to do this and thus he fails to save the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;SUMMARY:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Knight's way of moving gives him ability to &quot;do the impossible&quot;. He can &quot;jump over&quot; obstacles, his attacks can not be stopped, his line of fire can not be covered or intercepted, but all these beautiful features come with a price. He is &lt;strong&gt;slow and clumsy&lt;/strong&gt; when he needs to reposition himself to a square in its proximity, and if player can not &quot;buy&quot; him enough time to do that then knight fails to accomplish this task.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hopefully this post answers your question. If you have further questions leave a comment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Best regards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastActivityDate="2014-04-16T12:28:54.470" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5284" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5280" CreationDate="2014-04-16T13:22:37.317" Score="5" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is memorization necessary in modern chess? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Depends &lt;strong&gt;highly&lt;/strong&gt; from the opening you play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Should I do memorizing to saved time in middle game&lt;/strong&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes you should, &lt;em&gt;but not in the way you assume it.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you play an opening that has &lt;strong&gt;volumes and volumes of lines&lt;/strong&gt; to go through then you must memorize the lines. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the opening is playable &lt;strong&gt;only by playing &quot;only moves&quot; or forcing lines&lt;/strong&gt; then yes, you need to memorize it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well, if the opening is too broad than it means that it is &lt;strong&gt;popular on the high level&lt;/strong&gt; which means that it is very well explored. You can rely on the &lt;strong&gt;best players in the world&lt;/strong&gt; and trust that they did find the best moves and that &lt;strong&gt;they are sound.&lt;/strong&gt; This will save you time, and honestly you and I both know that us &quot;normal players&quot; can hardly come up with something better. So if it is popular and broad you would do well to memorize it. Grab a partner and play blitz games until it &quot;enters your fingers&quot; as I would like to say.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A good example is the main line of the Ruy Lopez.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the opening is playable only by playing &quot;only moves&quot; or if the lines are forcing then there is no choice. You &lt;strong&gt;must&lt;/strong&gt; memorize it or else you will lose the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some examples include Botvinnik line or Marshall gambit in the Semi-slav defense, some lines of the Sicilian Najdorf and so on. Again, you will need a partner and a lot of blitz games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Still, there are openings that are relatively quiet ( Caro-Kann/French defense... ) and you do not need to memorize them. These openings rely on solidity and positional play. Knowing general opening principles and &lt;strong&gt;thoroughly learning typical plans for these openings&lt;/strong&gt; allows you to find a good move &lt;strong&gt;on your own&lt;/strong&gt; without relying on memorization.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;If you have trouble memorizing sharp openings than the quiet ones might be what you are looking for.&lt;/strong&gt; They also allow you to move fast in the opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;SUMMARY:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should &lt;strong&gt;know how to play your opening&lt;/strong&gt; regardless it being sharp or positional. You must understand which skills it requires from you to successfully play it, and know all the relevant lines &lt;strong&gt;for you&lt;/strong&gt; in order not to lose. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you play sharp openings &lt;strong&gt;or they have lots of deviations&lt;/strong&gt; then you will do better to memorize them since, generally speaking, those openings do not rely on understanding of typical plans but rather on your tactical sharpness. Playing a lot will help you in your memorization.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you play quiet openings do not memorize lines, but &lt;strong&gt;learn typical plans&lt;/strong&gt;. Quiet openings are simple and &quot;logical&quot; and &lt;strong&gt;you can find most moves by yourself&lt;/strong&gt; if you understand opening's idea and you know the general plans that crop up in the middlegame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you have further questions leave a comment. Hopefully this answer helps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Best regards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastActivityDate="2014-04-16T13:22:37.317" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5285" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5281" CreationDate="2014-04-16T13:24:46.250" Score="8" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is it really possible to checkmate with two knights and king against a&#xA;  king?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is possible, but it is not &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;forced&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; unless the position or a mistake from the opponent allows it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;There is a mating position with this but no extra tempo to do it in&#xA;  real game. What are the explanations, &lt;strong&gt;why knights cannot create&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;strong&gt;an&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;  &lt;strong&gt;extra tempo&lt;/strong&gt; around 64 squares on the board?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Very Simple Reason -&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A knight always moves to a square of the &lt;strong&gt;opposite&lt;/strong&gt; color. If the knight is on a white square it moves to a black square and if it is on a black square it moves to a white square. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus, knight on white square moves to - &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1. Black square&#xA;2. White square&#xA;3. Black square&#xA;4. White square&#xA;...forever&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In order to create an extra tempo, you would need the capability for a knight to move to a square of the same color twice in a row, but that is not possible. Thus, you cannot create an extra tempo with a knight. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2429" LastActivityDate="2014-04-16T13:24:46.250" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5286" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5280" CreationDate="2014-04-16T22:47:34.603" Score="20" Body="&lt;p&gt;Who better to answer this question than the legendary former World Champion and master of opening preparation Garry Kasparov himself? I &lt;a href=&quot;http://books.google.com/books?id=dRlW4jQ1fQEC&amp;amp;pg=PT81&amp;amp;lpg=PT81&amp;amp;dq=how%20life%20imitates%20chess%20botvinnik%20vallejo&amp;amp;source=bl&amp;amp;ots=EqfY2_NJUh&amp;amp;sig=5QgNXrYm0weV-VVWVTHxD3LgB8E&amp;amp;hl=en&amp;amp;sa=X&amp;amp;ei=9gVPU_fSCM6tyASphoKYAg&amp;amp;ved=0CCYQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&amp;amp;q=how%20life%20imitates%20chess%20botvinnik%20vallejo&amp;amp;f=false&quot;&gt;quote&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In June 2005 in New York I gave a special training session to a group&#xA;  of the leading young players in the United States. I had asked them&#xA;  each to bring two of their games for us to review, one win and one&#xA;  loss. A talented twelve-year-old raced through the opening moves of&#xA;  his loss, eager to get to the point where he thought he'd gone wrong.&#xA;  I stopped him and asked &lt;strong&gt;why he had played a certain pawn push&lt;/strong&gt; in the&#xA;  sharp opening variation. His answer didn't surprise me: &lt;strong&gt;&quot;That's what&#xA;  Vallejo played!&quot;&lt;/strong&gt; Of course I also knew that the Spanish Grandmaster&#xA;  had employed this move in a recent game, but I also knew that if this&#xA;  youngster didn't understand the motive behind the move, &lt;strong&gt;he was already&#xA;  headed for trouble&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;This boy's response took me back to my own sessions with Botvinnik&#xA;  thirty years earlier. On more than one occasion he chided me for&#xA;  committing this same &lt;strong&gt;sin of blind emulation&lt;/strong&gt;. The great teacher&#xA;  insisted that his students recognize the rationale behind every move.&#xA;  As a result, all of us learned to &lt;strong&gt;become great skeptics, even of the&#xA;  moves of the best players&lt;/strong&gt;. We would discover a powerful idea behind&#xA;  each Grandmaster move, but we also found improvements. We studied, we&#xA;  questioned, we grappled with the idea behind a series of moves, and&#xA;  eventually we could build our understanding and create more and better&#xA;  strategies. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;For players who depend on memorization, the opening ends when their&#xA;  memory runs out of moves and they have to start thinking for&#xA;  themselves. A rote opening might carry you to move five, or even move&#xA;  thirty, but &lt;strong&gt;this practice always inhibits your development as a&#xA;  player&lt;/strong&gt;. It is one thing for a world-class player to rely on&#xA;  memorization; he already knows all of the whys behind the moves. For&#xA;  your own development it's far more important to think for yourself&#xA;  from the very start. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;--- Garry Kasparov, How Life Imitates Chess (emphasis mine)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Following Garry Kasparov's advice, I myself do not recommend memorization of opening moves. If you really want to improve your game, you must &lt;strong&gt;understand&lt;/strong&gt; (rather than memorize) why a certain move is played and only then play it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Should I do memorizing to saved time in middle game?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No! Instead, you should &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;study&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; the openings more and understand why certain moves are played. When you understand these moves, the result is that you often automatically remember them because you have found the rationale behind them. The focus should be on understanding and not on memorization. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Great players have fallen prey to blind memorization, including legends like Viswanathan Anand himself. Consider the game where he &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1018015&quot;&gt;lost in just 6 moves&lt;/a&gt; (!!!) because he blindly memorized a line played earlier by a &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1089022&quot;&gt;grandmaster&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;     [FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;     [Event &quot;Blind memorization makes Anand lose in 6 moves&quot;]&#xA;     [White &quot;Zapata&quot;]&#xA;     [Black &quot;Anand&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;     1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. Nxe5 d6 4. Nf3 Nxe4 5. Nc3 Bf5?? 6. Qe2! 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or consider his loss in the first game in his World Championship match with Topalov where he &quot;forgot&quot; his preparation and &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.theweekinchess.com/chessnews/events/world-chess-championship-2010/anand-topalov-world-championship-game-1&quot;&gt;blundered and lost the game&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;     [FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;     [Event &quot;Anand forgets his preparation and blunders&quot;]&#xA;     [White &quot;Topalov&quot;]&#xA;     [Black &quot;Anand&quot;]&#xA;     [Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;     1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 d5 4. cxd5 Nxd5 5. e4 Nxc3 6. bxc3 Bg7 7. Bc4 c5 8.&#xA;     Ne2 Nc6 9. Be3 O-O 10. O-O Na5 11. Bd3 b6 12. Qd2 e5 13. Bh6 cxd4 14. Bxg7 Kxg7&#xA;     15. cxd4 exd4 16. Rac1 Qd6 17. f4 f6 18. f5 Qe5 19. Nf4 g5 20. Nh5+ Kg8 21. h4&#xA;     h6 22. hxg5 hxg5 23. Rf3 Kf7?? ({not thinking objectively and trying to repeat moves from memory}) 24. Nxf6 Kxf6 25. Rh3 Rg8 26. Rh6+ Kf7 27. Rh7+&#xA;     Ke8 28. Rcc7 Kd8 29. Bb5 Qxe4 30. Rxc8+ 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now to redeem Anand a bit, I must mention his smashing win against Bologan, where Bologan blindly copied a line that had been played by other grandmasters before and &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.chessbase.com/post/dortmund-round-7-the-real-vishy-anand-is-in-the-house-&quot;&gt;got smashed by Anand's stunning novelty&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;    [Event &quot;Bologan merely copies known opening moves and Anand punishes him&quot;]&#xA;    [White &quot;Anand&quot;]&#xA;    [Black &quot;Bologan&quot;]&#xA;    [Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;    1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 dxe4 4. Nxe4 Nd7 5. Ng5 Ngf6 6. Bd3 e6 7. N1f3 Bd6 8.&#xA;    Qe2 h6 9. Ne4 Nxe4 10. Qxe4 Qc7 11. O-O b6 12. Qg4 g5 13. Qh3 Rg8 14. Re1!! Bf8&#xA;    15. Qf5 Bg7 16. h4 Kf8 17. Qh3 Rh8 18. hxg5 hxg5 19. Qg4 c5 20. Bxg5 cxd4 21.&#xA;    Rad1 Bb7 22. Rxe6 fxe6 23. Be7+ Kxe7 24. Qxg7+ Kd6 25. Nxd4 Qc5 26. Bf5 Qe5 27.&#xA;    Nf3+ Qd5 28. Qg3+ Ke7 29. Rxd5 Bxd5 30. Qg5+ Kd6 31. Qf4+ Ke7 32. Be4 Rh5 33.&#xA;    Nh4 Rg8 34. Ng6+ Kd8 35. Qf7 Re8 36. Bd3 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even after this game, I checked a database and found that many strong players unaware of this novelty also lost their games in this variation in the same manner. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Moral of the story&lt;/strong&gt; - do not merely copy the moves of grandmasters or just memorize them. Analyze them and understand them and see if they can be improved. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2429" LastEditorUserId="2429" LastEditDate="2014-04-17T03:53:06.923" LastActivityDate="2014-04-17T03:53:06.923" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5287" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5288" CreationDate="2014-04-15T06:26:16.090" Score="3" ViewCount="615" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have always wanted to learn how to play chess, but I don't know how to start. I downloaded chess apps on my smartphone and PC but I didn't learn anything. I also contacted some local chess clubs to subscribe but they couldn't help me further.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is: What should I do to become a good chess player and learn the rules of the game very fast?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="306" OwnerDisplayName="badaBoom" LastEditorUserId="2329" LastEditDate="2014-04-17T11:07:10.710" LastActivityDate="2014-04-17T12:01:37.637" Title="How to start learning chess?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;rules&gt;&lt;beginner&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ClosedDate="2014-05-01T04:46:38.810" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5288" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5287" CreationDate="2014-04-17T05:32:33.900" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This will be a subjective answer (and a self-plug), but I believe that you'll find my website &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesscademy.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chesscademy&lt;/a&gt; very helpful in learning the ropes. You can watch videos, tackle exercises, and complete quizzes. The educational material is structured such that even someone who has never even heard of chess before can easily get started.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1382" LastActivityDate="2014-04-17T05:32:33.900" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5289" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5287" CreationDate="2014-04-17T12:01:37.637" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The step from learning the rules to becoming a good player is pretty huge. Try taking one step at the time and feel your way forward. Chess is an amazing world filled with beauty and pain. If a passion awakens within you, then you will be hungry for more and there are tons of resources available both online and offline to guide your way to improved skills. Get a decent beginner's book, that is one possible starting point. Visit the local library and play over the board with people, or just watch for starters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess is more than winning and losing. It is about human interaction, building new bonds, finding something in common. Chess really connects people. I guess what I am trying to say is that the over the board experience, meeting friends and sharing the passion for chess is a huge part of it. Don't just be at the computer and don't restrict yourself to online chess. I think that online chess is just an unfortunate trade-off that has to be done in order to save time in our everyday busy life. At least in the beginning, chess can and should be an over the board experience. With a real chess board in front of you and a nice book in hand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastActivityDate="2014-04-17T12:01:37.637" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5290" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5228" CreationDate="2014-04-17T12:27:27.887" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I agree that the &quot;Starting out Series&quot; is excellent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also like the &quot;Move by Move&quot; series.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &quot;Move by Move&quot; series in general cover a larger space of variations than &quot;Starting Out&quot; and are therefore thicker. There also seems to be more descriptive text, but do not have the nice graphic attention grabbers to important points that the &quot;Starting Out&quot; series has.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At a simpler level, a general survey book like Fine's &quot;The Ideas Behind the Chess Openings&quot; or Seirawan's &quot;Winning Chess Openings&quot; is a good thing to have.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You are correct to avoid opening books that are just a list of lines. Even those with good annotations like the &quot;Grandmaster Repertoire&quot; series, do not provide enough connection to the middle and endgame. If you find lots of lines terminating with &quot;and white stands better&quot; or &quot;is equal&quot; without more explaination, move on to another book.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;IMO, opening encyclopedias are &lt;strong&gt;bad&lt;/strong&gt; (MCO, ect). For master level players trying to explore new ground, they have been supplanted by databases (and long before that by Chess Informant). For the rest of us there is not enough explanation, not enough answers to why or why not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even the best opening book will have gaps. I have not found an opening book that explains why 3.Nf3 and not 3.Nc3 in the Slav. (The answer is that black can transpose to a problematic line for white of the QGA with 3...dxc4)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2359" LastActivityDate="2014-04-17T12:27:27.887" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5291" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5293" CreationDate="2014-04-17T13:57:07.000" Score="5" ViewCount="976" Body="&lt;p&gt;I didn't get a thought of a better title :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am trying to solve a problem which is &lt;code&gt;white to move and mate in 2 moves&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To be frank, I am not asking all problems here. On my own I solved more than 50 and stuck up in nearly 15 (&lt;em&gt;don't worry I will not ask all here itself, I am still trying to solve them&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/qQ5p/3pN2K/3pp1R/4k/7N/1b1PP/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="799" LastEditorUserId="8201" LastEditDate="2021-01-22T03:41:25.457" LastActivityDate="2021-03-28T18:03:49.110" Title="A cool problem by Godfrey Heathcote" Tags="&lt;problems&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="5293" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5291" CreationDate="2014-04-17T14:10:39.963" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;1.Nd4! threatening 2.Rg4#&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1...Kxd4 2.Qb4#&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1...Bxd4 2.Qb1#&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1...Qxd4 2.Qxh7#&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2...exd4 2.Qxd5#&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2014-04-17T14:10:39.963" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5295" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5296" CreationDate="2014-04-17T16:22:33.913" Score="11" ViewCount="5414" Body="&lt;p&gt;A simple brainteaser - A queen cannot do something all other pieces can do. What is that? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;April 18 2014 9:15 PM GMT. EDIT:&lt;/strong&gt; In this context, by &quot;doing&quot; I mean making a move that leads to the desired result. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2429" LastEditorUserId="2429" LastEditDate="2014-04-18T21:15:16.137" LastActivityDate="2020-11-25T14:16:35.453" Title="Brainteaser: What is the one thing a queen cannot do that all other pieces can do?" Tags="&lt;puzzles&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="19" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5296" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5295" CreationDate="2014-04-17T16:35:25.310" Score="19" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'll have a go at saying the queen is the only piece that cannot reveal a discovered check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2800" LastActivityDate="2014-04-17T16:35:25.310" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5297" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5301" CreationDate="2014-04-17T18:35:28.197" Score="11" ViewCount="1109" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can one claim a draw by threefold repetition in a blitz game when no score of the game is being kept? If so, how? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once, in a blitz game, my opponent was simply trying to run me out of time. At a certain point in the game, I pointed out to him that he brought the same position on the board thrice and so I offered a draw, but he just ignored. There was nothing I could do to PROVE the threefold repetition occured and so had to carry on with the game and eventually lost on time. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2429" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-10-27T13:09:16.987" LastActivityDate="2020-10-27T13:09:16.987" Title="Can a threefold repetition be claimed in a blitz game? If so, how?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;fide&gt;&lt;draw&gt;&lt;threefold-repetition&gt;&lt;claim-draw&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5299" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1309" CreationDate="2014-04-17T20:07:30.113" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's funny... I find this sort of position much more interesting than tactical positions. I actually have to discipline myself to limit my thinking time. Some questions I could ask:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Should White play against the c6-pawn or consider a plan with e4, or both?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If/when Black counterattacks against b2, should I move it to b3, b4, or neither? (on b3 it may invite ...Ba3, and on b4 it may invite ...a5)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Where to place the rooks? b1 + c1, c1 + e1, or what? And when?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Same for Black: a8 + c8, b8 + c8 (this would be the fairly routine way), c8 + d8 (could backfire if he doesn't get in ...c5), or c8 and e8 (with ideas of counterplay down the e-file)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Can Black get counterplay with f5-f4? Even if White plays g3, this may still be playable. Or how about f5 and Nf6-e4? Will a well-timed ...Bg4 ever be an issue? (causing the f3-knight to move away from d4 may be helpful)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is Black just hanging on for a draw or is there any offensive plan for him? As White, is this position risk-free or do I need to be careful of overextending? (Could Black's 2 bishops be a latent danger?)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Can Black respond to Na4 with Qa5? Does it matter? (on a5 the queen eyes a4 and c5, but could lose time to a3 and b4)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Should I play h3 to deter Bg4? Does that strengthen the f5-f4 plan?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What are the virtues of trading queens? Should I consider that a valuable objective? (likewise for Black)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What are Black's goals here? (How) can I prevent them?&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;one goal might be to achieve the semi-comfortable arrangement a5, Qb8, and Rfc8. Should I prevent this by acting fast, but committing to a particular approach?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What are likely transformations that could happen, and how appealing are they? (various minor piece exchanges, pawn structure changes, transition to endgame...)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Bearing the above in mind, what are some 'typical' or 'representative' variations for me to start with? Perhaps:&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Na4 Qa5 2. a3;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Na4 Qb7 2. Rfc1;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;e4;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Rfd1 (to deter ...c5);&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;h3;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Rab1 (to encourage ...a5 without moving my own b-pawn); &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;etc.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would keep iterating over these until I found something clearly best or, failing that, I make progress with the above questions. I might also rely on general policies that I have adopted over the years (for example, make multi-purpose moves; avoid unnecessary weakening moves; and so on)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I guess what I'm saying is that I think there's a lot going on here, and your difficulties knowing what to do come from the same place as your feeling that the position is boring or dry -- you just need a little more exposure to the world of strategy!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this helps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2942" LastEditorUserId="2942" LastEditDate="2014-04-17T20:18:19.357" LastActivityDate="2014-04-17T20:18:19.357" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5300" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5295" CreationDate="2014-04-17T20:27:59.817" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;The queen &lt;strong&gt;cannot&lt;/strong&gt; not be where the queen starts when the game begins. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All other pieces &lt;strong&gt;can&lt;/strong&gt; not be where the queen starts when the game begins. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2525" LastActivityDate="2014-04-17T20:27:59.817" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5301" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5297" CreationDate="2014-04-17T20:41:13.407" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's hard, and I've never seen it done correctly, in the sense that it's the way I was taught it should go:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;During slow games, once the players are not writing down their moves anymore because they are close to a game control, the arbiter should write down the moves as well to help with reconstructing the game after a flag falls (say to check if the 40th move is reached), or for claims like this. He &lt;em&gt;can&lt;/em&gt; do so as well with blitz games, or appoint a temporary assistant to do so for him. It's just not usually done.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So you can stop the clocks and ask the arbiter to start recording moves, or appoint an assistant. In theory I think he should do that, and then when a threefold repetition occurs after that and you claim, the arbiter can check your claim using his notes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But in practice, I think most arbiters will be too busy and too unfamiliar with these sort of rules to do that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And of course, if you get the claim wrong, the opponent gets 3 minutes extra on the clock. Pretty hefty in blitz.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2014-04-17T20:41:13.407" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5302" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-04-17T22:49:18.840" Score="8" ViewCount="944" Body="&lt;p&gt;For the following position to occur in legal play, with Black on move, what would White's second-to-last move need to have been?  Note that Black is checked by two pieces on the h1-h8 file and two more on the c1-h6 diagonal, and both the d2 bishop nor the h2 must have been at their present locations when check was given.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;b/7P/6Pk/5P/4P/2PP/3B2KR/2Q1N2R w K - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is my first effort at a retrograde analysis problem: I think the position shown is reachable via legal moves, but that there's only one possible way the last three half-moves could have transpired.  Did I formulate the puzzle &amp;quot;correctly&amp;quot;?  Could/should it be improved?  Would it be better with fewer pieces?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;8/8/4Pk/3P/8/8/5QK/B w K - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the latter formulation, I like the way the White queen is placed so that it could have moved from b2 or d4, unblocking the bishop, but for the fact that it would have been giving check if it had been in either of those places.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's yet another formulation, perhaps a bit more subtle, but I think the solution is still unique.  Note that in this revision, White's last move is not certain, but the second-to-last move is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;8/8/4Pk/8/8/8/8/B6K w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2698" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-09-15T03:36:50.360" LastActivityDate="2020-09-15T03:36:50.360" Title="Problem: Find White's second-to-last move" Tags="&lt;problems&gt;&lt;retrograde-analysis&gt;&lt;composing&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="12" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="5303" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5302" CreationDate="2014-04-17T23:45:44.033" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;White's second to last move must be &lt;strong&gt;f5+&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, this is what the position looked like before White's second to last move - &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;   [FEN &quot;b7/6pP/7k/7P/4PP2/2PP4/3B2KR/2Q1N2R w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;   1. f5+ g5 2. hxg6+ &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;How to arrive at the solution -&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this position, it is Black to play and the Black king is checked by a &lt;strong&gt;double-battery&lt;/strong&gt; of the two rooks and the bishop and queen. What was White's last move? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;        [FEN &quot;b7/7P/6Pk/5P2/4P3/2PP4/3B2KR/2Q1N2R w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since it is a double check, it must be some form of &lt;strong&gt;discovered check&lt;/strong&gt;. However, since we have a double-battery, it cannot be possible that the discovered check was caused by a move of one of the pieces involved in the battery, because the other piece in the same battery would have already been checking the Black king if such were the case. Thus, it has to be some other &quot;piece&quot;. But no such piece can uncover two attacks. Thus, it must be a very specific case of a pawn capture, an en passant, where two lines are opened at the same time. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;     [FEN &quot;b7/6pP/7k/5P1P/4P3/2PP4/3B2KR/2Q1N2R b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;     1... g5 2. hxg6+&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the above, position, we see that the Black king is checked by a battery of queen and bishop. The only way that could have occurred in this position is if White played &lt;strong&gt;f4-f5&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus, White's second to last move is &lt;strong&gt;f4-f5&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2429" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-09-21T17:38:55.493" LastActivityDate="2019-09-21T17:38:55.493" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="5304" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5295" CreationDate="2014-04-18T00:02:53.013" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;A queen can not start the game on a square of the other color. All other pieces can, and in fact, do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2948" LastActivityDate="2014-04-18T00:02:53.013" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5307" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5295" CreationDate="2014-04-18T11:18:19.177" Score="10" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A Queen cannot be captured when static by an attacking King.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A Queen cannot capture a piece more valuable than itself. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A Queen cannot move to create a discovered check.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A Queen cannot sacrifice itself for a higher valued piece.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A Queen cannot initiate a double check.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2953" LastActivityDate="2014-04-18T11:18:19.177" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5308" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-04-18T18:32:02.200" Score="5" ViewCount="1924" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been trying out the Stonewall Attack opening and have had quite a lot of success with it. My main problem arises when my opposition doesn't castle on the king side and instead moves their king towards the queen side. It tends to be lower ranked players who do this, but I always find the games a lot tougher than when they castle their king, as I have good control of that side of the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is, what would your advice be on proceeding if this occurs? The game turns really messy, and I feel like I have less control. I am quite a new player so please bear that in mind :D.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2956" LastEditorUserId="11202" LastEditDate="2017-06-30T10:48:36.447" LastActivityDate="2017-06-30T10:48:36.447" Title="How to deal with Stonewall Attack 'counter'?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;stonewall-attack&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5309" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1302" CreationDate="2014-04-18T19:00:12.603" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I personally play 1. f4 quite a lot, and as with EVERY opening, White gains and loses something with his first move.  The pros are that White can clamp down even tighter on the e5-square from the get-go and possibly save tempos with not having to navigate Nf3.  The downsides are that this move is committal (not a terrible thing, just that White has immediately committed himself to a stake on the kingside) and he has less piece development available to him with move 1 than other moves, such as 1. e4 or 1. d4.  In addition, he has slightly weakened his king's position, so these are factors to note.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A GM I used to study under called Bird's Opening a &quot;defensive&quot; opening.  It is not necessarily a bad opening, just that it does not claim as much opening advantage as a more central pawn push would do.  However, for what it lacks, it is a fully playable opening with PLENTY of room for exploration.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One big advantage to this opening is being in your own territory, as Taylor claims.  A Bird player has an advantage of playing on his own turf, and a Black player who coasts along with &quot;auto-pilot&quot; moves can find themselves in hot water.  White has TONS of room for exploring ideas, and with a lack of Game Explorer, the Black player is left to his own devices.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All in all, 1. f4 in the hands of a knowledgeable White player leads to a fun game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With that being said, I also play the Dutch, and yes, the theory handles easier on the Black side than it does on the White side.  A Birdie should not handle these positions identically to their Black counterparts, as the tempo does make a difference.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2959" LastActivityDate="2014-04-18T19:00:12.603" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5310" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1237" CreationDate="2014-04-18T21:07:00.897" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Professional players don't generally quantify this, but it is definitely pretty important. The most common, insider-y word for this kind of thing (in English) is 'sharp', which tends to mean that accuracy is exceptionally important. Sharpness usually lapses after a few moves. Games that remain sharp for longer are considered remarkable. Other adjectives can be applicable, depending on the situation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for an objective measure, an excellent starting point would be, IMO, to see how the top choices of an engine look -- for example, if the top 8 choices are all equivalent in evaluation, odds are the position is quiescent. On the other hand, if 2 choices are much better than the rest, &lt;em&gt;and&lt;/em&gt; if humans would find those 2 choices non-obvious, the position is sharp. If you try to just isolate factors like material, king safety, etc., you are going down a path that logically ends with an intricate evaluation function, which is what engines do. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, I think (not 100% sure) that this is actually done by engines themselves -- they want to steer towards volatile positions, and the above is a handy method of identifying them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another word used is 'pressure', which has a different nuance of meaning than 'sharp'. Or 'tense' as you mentioned. 'Complicated' can apply to quiet/deep positions, though -- that's more about the number of reasonable options, or the breadth of the analysis tree. For example, Karpov had some very complicated Nimzo-Indians with 8 pawns per side and long, drawn-out maneuvering. And Carlsen has shown that positions we tended to think of as simple and safe can be quite complicated and dangerous. So I think 'complicated' may be different from 'tension-filled' and easier to quantify.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In general, there are lots of qualitative words that strong players use, and this is related to the fact that 'objective measures' of positional characteristics tend to be pretty hard to define, especially in a way that has practical value for human players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;tl;dr -- None that is commonly used, but a good start would be looking at the engine-based evals of move choices, and categorizing the patterns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2942" LastActivityDate="2014-04-18T21:07:00.897" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5311" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5253" CreationDate="2014-04-19T15:26:55.247" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The 7 piece EGTB is not yet freely available online, as far as I know. Building the tablebase is costly in time and resources and the storage space is not cost-free either.&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;Concerning &lt;a href=&quot;http://tb7.chessok.com/&quot;&gt;http://tb7.chessok.com/&lt;/a&gt; do not be too disappointed, because they mention this explicitly (at least today, maybe not on April 11th when you tried):&#xA;&lt;br&gt; &quot;&lt;em&gt;Currently the tablebases are only accessible by legal owners of Chess Asssitant 14, ChessOk Aquarium 2014 or Houdini 4 Aquarium. Later, more users will be able to use the service.&lt;/em&gt;&quot;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;And on &lt;a href=&quot;http://tb7.chessok.com/signup&quot;&gt;their signup page&lt;/a&gt;: &#xA;&lt;br&gt;&quot; &lt;em&gt;After registration you will be able to:&#xA;&lt;br&gt;probe 6-man ending tablebases; &#xA;&lt;br&gt;(...)&#xA;&lt;br&gt;probe 7-man tablebases (license key required – see the next page).&lt;/em&gt;&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2142" LastActivityDate="2014-04-19T15:26:55.247" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5312" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-04-19T15:33:39.443" Score="14" ViewCount="779" Body="&lt;p&gt;My question is about the history of the pawn promotion rule (promotion to a queen). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What is the earliest existing text (authentic written document in any language) which mentions the pawn promotion rule?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2962" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-09-15T01:30:21.083" LastActivityDate="2019-09-15T01:30:21.083" Title="Earliest text which mentions the pawn promotion rule" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;history&gt;&lt;pawn-promotion&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="5313" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5239" CreationDate="2014-04-20T00:49:38.993" Score="11" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If given the choice should I opt for an endgame with a single Bishop or a single Knight?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In order to properly answer this question I must point out differences between bishop and knight:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Bishop is &lt;strong&gt;a faster piece&lt;/strong&gt; and has a &lt;strong&gt;longer range of fire&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;but can cover only half of the board.&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Knight on the other hand, is &lt;strong&gt;a slow and clumsy piece&lt;/strong&gt; but covers squares &lt;strong&gt;of both colors.&lt;/strong&gt; When I say clumsy, I am referring about knight's difficulty to position himself &lt;strong&gt;fast&lt;/strong&gt; to the &lt;strong&gt;nearby square.&lt;/strong&gt; Another problem with the knight is that he &lt;strong&gt;can not&lt;/strong&gt; make a move &lt;strong&gt;and keep previous square under control&lt;/strong&gt; which disables him from making &lt;em&gt;zugzwang&lt;/em&gt;. For examples of what I have stated here please read my answer to &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/5281/checkmate-with-two-knights/5283#5283&quot;&gt;this question&lt;/a&gt;. I believe those diagrams demonstrated well my statements.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I will quote highly instructive excerpt from the book &lt;em&gt;Steve Mayer-Bishop versus Knight the Verdict&lt;/em&gt; ( but this regards &lt;strong&gt;superiority of bishop pair&lt;/strong&gt; over 2 knights/ knight+bishop ) :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;In contrast to the far-reaching bishop, which can become effective from distance, the knight, in order to become effective, &lt;strong&gt;has to operate in close proximity to the opposing forces.&lt;/strong&gt; In order to become &lt;strong&gt;lastingly effective&lt;/strong&gt;, it must find &lt;strong&gt;protected squares near the enemy's camp&lt;/strong&gt;, mostly squares protected by pawns, in asmuch as other pieces are &lt;strong&gt;in the long run not suitable&lt;/strong&gt; for the protection of the knight. It follows therefore that &lt;strong&gt;in completely open positions&lt;/strong&gt; without pawns, &lt;strong&gt;the bishop is superior to the knight&lt;/strong&gt;, a fact that is confirmed by the results of the endgame theory. Conversely, &lt;strong&gt;the knight is superior to the bishop in closed positions&lt;/strong&gt;, on the one hand &lt;strong&gt;because the pawns are in the bishop's way&lt;/strong&gt;, and on the other hand because &lt;strong&gt;the pawns form points of support for the knight&lt;/strong&gt;, as remarked above.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now is the time to address the actual questions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Please consider the below possibilities (with Kings naturally always present and a couple &#xA;  of pawns in each case):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Bishop -vs- Knight&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Bishop and Knight -vs- two Knights&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Rook and Bishop -vs- Rook and Knight&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Queen and Bishop -vs- Queen and Knight&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;1. Bishop -vs- Knight&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As stated above, &lt;strong&gt;pawn structure and king's position has a paramount importance.&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If there are pawns on both sides of the board and position is relatively open then bishop is usually the better choice. This is especially true if &lt;strong&gt;both sides can make a passed pawn&lt;/strong&gt; since bishop can use his speed and long range to stop/slow down opposing passed pawn &lt;strong&gt;while helping his own to advance.&lt;/strong&gt; Furthermore, if the position is open bishop/king can easily harass the knight forcing him to &lt;strong&gt;abandon the control of the key squares&lt;/strong&gt; due to his short range. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since this will be a long post let us take a break and enjoy in following demonstration of bishop's superiority in open positions with pawns on both sides:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Stoltz&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Kashdan&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Hague Olympiad,1928&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;6k1/p2b1ppp/8/8/3N4/1P5P/5PP1/6K1 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1...Kf8 2.Kf1 Ke7 3.Ke2 Kd6 4.Kd3 Kd5 5.h4 Bc8! 6.Nf3 Ba6+ 7.Kc3 h6 8.Nd4 g6 9.Nc2 Ke4 10.Ne3 f5! 11.Kd2 f4 12.Ng4 h5! 13.Nf6+ Kf5 14.Nd7 Bc8 15.Nf8 g5 16.g3 gxh4 17.gxh4 Kg4 18.Ng6 Bf5 19.Ne7 Be6 20.b4 Kxh4 21.Kd3 Kg4 22.Ke4 h4 23.Nc6 Bf5+! 24.Kd5 f3!-+ 25.b5 h3 26.Nxa7 h2 27.b6 h1=Q 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Notice how Black used his bishop to create &lt;em&gt;zugzwang&lt;/em&gt; with &lt;code&gt;5...Bc8!&lt;/code&gt;. That is something knight can not do-&gt;bishop moved to &lt;code&gt;c8&lt;/code&gt; &lt;strong&gt;and kept &lt;code&gt;f5&lt;/code&gt; square under control.&lt;/strong&gt; This resulted in White king being forced to allow opposing king to penetrate. &lt;strong&gt;This is usual motif in this type of ending. Side with the bishop uses &lt;em&gt;zugzwang&lt;/em&gt; to penetrate with the king.&lt;/strong&gt; Next, notice how Black played &lt;code&gt;7...h6&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;8...g6&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;10.f5!&lt;/code&gt; to &lt;strong&gt;undermine knight's position.&lt;/strong&gt; This game well illustrates what quotes from &lt;em&gt;Steve Mayer's&lt;/em&gt; book about knight needing &lt;strong&gt;stable pawn support&lt;/strong&gt; in order to be &lt;strong&gt;permanently effective.&lt;/strong&gt; Finally, notice how knight was &lt;strong&gt;too slow to position himself properly&lt;/strong&gt; for stopping the passed pawn after &lt;code&gt;13.Nf6+&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is an example of bishop overpowering knight when both sides have passed pawns and position is open:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Liverpool-Glasgow, correspondence&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;8/2n5/5k1p/P1p4P/4K1B1/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Be2 Ke6 2.Bc4+! Kd6 3.Kf5 Nd5 4.Kg6 Ne3 5.Be2 c4 6.Kxh6 c3 7.Bd3 Ng4+ ( 7...c2 8.Bxc2 Nxc2 9.Kg6 Nd4 10.Kf6! Ne6 11.a6!+- ) 8.Kg5 Ne5 9.Bc2 Nc4 10.a6 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An important weapon when fighting with bishop against the knight is &quot;domination&quot; and is demonstrated below:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Bishop dominates the knight&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;K1k5/8/8/8/2B5/8/8/2n5 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is another example where bishop overpowers the knight when pawns are on both wings using &quot;domination&quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[White &quot;Goldberg&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Tolush&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Moscow, 1949&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;8/pk3p1B/1p1p1P2/2pP2p1/2n5/P1P3P1/7P/4K3 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.h4! gxh4 2.gxh4 Ne5 3.Bf5! Nf3+ 4.Kf2 Nxh4 5.Be4!+- Kc7 6.Kg3 Ng6 7.Bxg6 fxg6 8.f7 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In open games with pawns on both sides bishop is almost always to be preferred than a knight. &lt;strong&gt;This is the case with 90% of endgames.&lt;/strong&gt; I know others will disagree, but I state this based on my experience and experience from analyzing grandmaster games: &lt;strong&gt;Always prefer bishop than a knight in the endgame.&lt;/strong&gt; Why? Knight is better than a bishop &lt;strong&gt;only&lt;/strong&gt; if the side with the bishop has &lt;strong&gt;severe defects in its position and no counterplay whatsoever.&lt;/strong&gt; I have never seen practical position from a grandmaster game where knight dominated the bishop &lt;strong&gt;after both sides played reasonably well.&lt;/strong&gt; As stated in the quote above from &lt;em&gt;Steve Mayer's&lt;/em&gt; book, knight needs &lt;strong&gt;secure strongpoint&lt;/strong&gt; and must be &lt;strong&gt;in close proximity&lt;/strong&gt; of the opponent in order to be efficient. Also, the oposing bishop &lt;strong&gt;must be restricted&lt;/strong&gt; which requires &lt;strong&gt;a lot of pawns&lt;/strong&gt; on the board &lt;strong&gt;which is not characteristic for the endgame&lt;/strong&gt;. To prove my point I am choosing an example where side with the &quot;bad bishop&quot; and isolated pawn manages to hold a draw:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[White &quot;Flohr&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Capablanca&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Moscow, 1935&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;8/1p2kppp/p3b3/3p4/3N4/4P3/PP3PPP/2K5 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Kd2 Kd6 2.Kc3 b6 3.f4 Bd7 4.Nf3 f6 5.Kd4 a5 6.Nd2 Bc8 7.Nb1 Be6 8.Nc3 Kc6 9.a3 h6 10.g3 h5 11.b4 axb4 12.axb4 Kd6 13.b5 g6 14.Na4 Kc7 15.Nc3 Kd6 16.f5 gxf5 17.Ne2 Bd7 18.Nf4 Be8 19.Nxd5 Bxb5 20.Nxb6 Bc6 21.Nc4+ Ke6 22.Nb2 Bb5 23.Nd1 Be2 24.Nf2 Bf1 25.Nd3 Bxd3 26.Kxd3 Ke5 27.Ke2 Ke4 28.h3 Kd5 29.Kf3 Ke5 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This endgame has been heavily analyzed and the last time I checked the verdict was it is a draw. Here White had an advantage and still was unable to win. He had &lt;strong&gt;better king&lt;/strong&gt;, better minor piece and &lt;strong&gt;better pawn structure.&lt;/strong&gt; Still, knight was unable to outmaneuver the bishop because he is slower and &quot;clumsier&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;2. Bishop and Knight -vs- two Knights&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;You need to know rules of the knight endings in order to make the right decision.&lt;/strong&gt; In a nutshell the side with space advantage usually wins. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The principle in endings with two minor pieces is &lt;strong&gt;to exchange opponents most active piece, thus transposing into the favorable endgame.&lt;/strong&gt; Stronger side avoids pawn exchanges, weaker side strives towards pawn exchanges.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;3. Rook and Bishop -vs- Rook and Knight&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Heavily favored for the side with the bishop.&lt;/strong&gt; If you can keep &lt;strong&gt;both rooks or both bishops&lt;/strong&gt; it becomes &lt;strong&gt;nearly decisive&lt;/strong&gt; advantage. For practical example look at &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1008413&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Fischer-Tal,Curacao 1962&lt;/a&gt;. There are more examples from &lt;em&gt;Fischer's&lt;/em&gt; games like &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1044351&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Fischer-Petrosian,Candidates match 1971&lt;/a&gt; or &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1044362&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Fischer-Taimanov,Candidates Match 1971&lt;/a&gt;. Although there were 2 rooks and a bishop it is still good example of how you should play this ending.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;4. Queen and Bishop -vs- Queen and Knight&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Generally speaking, the advantage goes to the side that can attack opposing king. In practice, side with the knight &lt;strong&gt;usually has the advantage.&lt;/strong&gt; Knight's ability to attack squares of both color &lt;strong&gt;is more important here&lt;/strong&gt; than bishop's speed since queen is so powerful that it can &lt;strong&gt;both defend and attack&lt;/strong&gt; thus giving knight &lt;strong&gt;enough time to position itself offensively.&lt;/strong&gt; Still, I must repeat that all depends on a position and ability to attack opponents king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you have questions leave a comment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Best regards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2014-04-20T00:49:38.993" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5314" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-04-20T11:32:53.213" Score="4" ViewCount="795" Body="&lt;p&gt;I learned chess when I was about 5 years old and my brother and I went through a huge chess phase where we had many of the major openings fully committed to memory and competed in a few tournaments throughout the Bay Area. We took a break for a few years and then sort of revamped our game, going to a few more tournaments and starting to read some of the more famous chess books and what not. I left for boarding school, so we've both nearly stopped playing. I'm starting to get back into it and want to know if you have any recommendations of any interesting chess books I should read, online sites I should check out (other than chess.com and instant chess), or really anything to improve my game. &#xA;Thank you for your thoughts and suggestions!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2935" LastActivityDate="2014-04-22T15:47:59.353" Title="How do I get to the next level of chess skill?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5315" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5314" CreationDate="2014-04-20T12:12:02.187" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I was in the same situation, Jeremy Silman's &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.silmanjamespress.com/shop/pc/viewPrd.asp?idproduct=3464&amp;amp;idcategory=68&quot;&gt;How to reassess your chess&lt;/a&gt; helped me a lot. It made me reconsider the basics of the game. I now have a much better undertanding of what goes on during a game, and I got from 1700 to 2000 Elo in the process. Just don't take his method too literally (he recommends making up &quot;dream positions&quot;, which is just not my thing).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2966" LastActivityDate="2014-04-20T12:12:02.187" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5316" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5117" CreationDate="2014-04-20T17:43:44.203" Score="4" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Most of the writing I've found on the Caro-Kann online simply makes&#xA;  vague assertions about how &quot;Black's endgame is better&quot; or how White&#xA;  should try [some dubious move or other] to get a good attack in club&#xA;  play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That is not entirely true. This is the case when White overextends himself &lt;strong&gt;without any compensation&lt;/strong&gt; which occurs only if he &lt;strong&gt;misplayed the position.&lt;/strong&gt; In normal case both sides have good chances in an endgame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is that all there is to this opening? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Definitely not! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I've been trying it out, and I&#xA;  find myself unsure of how to proceed in the midgame, on either side of&#xA;  the table. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Caro-Kann has lots of &lt;strong&gt;typical middlegame positions&lt;/strong&gt; that require creative thinking and good positional play &lt;strong&gt;from both sides&lt;/strong&gt; in order to &lt;strong&gt;reach decent endgame.&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not knowing them &quot;makes your life unbearable&quot; and you will most of the time find your opponent crushing you seemingly effortlessly. Therefore you must learn typical middlegame plans for both sides. Only then, you can start thinking about endgame. And for the record, the endgame holds chances for both sides. Yes, White often overextends with pawns &lt;strong&gt;but gets active pieces, especially king, in return&lt;/strong&gt; which compensates and sometimes matters more than a healthy pawn structure. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you need help with these post a new question and notify me via comment. I will try to help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;As Black, should I really just try to trade down to an&#xA;  endgame immediately? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No! Just trading down will not help. &lt;strong&gt;Who can guarantee that your opponent will accept the trade?&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Against such policy I deploy a neat trick:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As soon as I notice that my opponent starts to offer exchanges too often I lure him into a won endgame for me. &lt;strong&gt;In a nutshell&lt;/strong&gt;, the point is to accept the exchanges &lt;strong&gt;that are favorable for you &lt;em&gt;as much as you can&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; so &lt;strong&gt;he thinks&lt;/strong&gt; that this will turn into an easy draw. Once he offers bad piece for your good one you &lt;strong&gt;just decline the exchange&lt;/strong&gt; and now you are left with a better piece against worse one which results in an easy win. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a standard approach strong players use. Chess would be a poor game if equality could be reached by simply exchanging. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As Black, your main goals are to exchange &lt;strong&gt;2 minor pieces&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;neutralize opponent's space advantage&lt;/strong&gt; by performing &lt;code&gt;c5&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt; break. Those are the exchanges you seek in order to cripple White's attacking potential. &lt;strong&gt;Prefer to exchange bishops for bishops and try to leave the knights on.&lt;/strong&gt; After that you need to evaluate when is suitable for you to enter endgame and when you can stay in the middlegame and start attacking opponent's weaknesses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;As White, have I no alternative but to try&#xA;  something speculative to keep Black from getting to his desired ending&#xA;  position?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As White, you &lt;strong&gt;can steer the game to a better endgame for you&lt;/strong&gt; as most strong players do. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is highly unlikely that your attack will end with a mate &lt;strong&gt;against skillful defense&lt;/strong&gt; but if you &lt;strong&gt;maintain pressure&lt;/strong&gt; you can transpose into endgame where your pieces &lt;strong&gt;are more active&lt;/strong&gt; which should give you a small but lasting advantage. Also, in most lines White has &lt;strong&gt;3 vs 2 queenside pawn majority&lt;/strong&gt; which ensures &lt;strong&gt;better pawn endgame&lt;/strong&gt; for him. Active pieces coupled with this pawn majority usually win the game as Black needs high technique and precise play in order to hold this type of endgame. The benefit of this approach is that White &lt;strong&gt;can not lose&lt;/strong&gt; the game, but Black usually draws with correct play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I see the Advance Variation (2.d4 d5 3.e5) most often, so let's&#xA;  restrict the conversation to positions arising from that line.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This variation sums up my previous statements very well. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First off, middlegames can be &lt;strong&gt;ultra sharp&lt;/strong&gt; if White chooses &lt;em&gt;Nunn-Shirov attack&lt;/em&gt; and &quot;the last man standing&quot; will have a won endgame most of the time. In this line tactical awareness and combinational skill are important. &lt;strong&gt;This is the line your resources referred to.&lt;/strong&gt; If Black defends successfully the endgame is usually won for him. However, White can create such a strong pressure and choose to &lt;strong&gt;enter a better endgame.&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Endgames where activity count the most involve rook and knight endgames. Especially in knight endgames space advantage is important.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Second, it can also become positional encounter if White chooses &lt;em&gt;Short line&lt;/em&gt; and simply try to maneuver &quot;around &lt;code&gt;Bf5&lt;/code&gt;&quot; in which case a complex struggle awaits both of you. Creativity and positional skill is important in that line. &lt;strong&gt;Both sides need to be carefull when entering endgame.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since this topic is to broad to be covered here, I will provide &lt;strong&gt;brief explanations&lt;/strong&gt; and recommend resources for studying at the very end of my post.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;NUN-SHIROV ATTACK&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White has 2 plans here:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Playing &lt;code&gt;Nf4&lt;/code&gt; at some point, planning a sacrifice on &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt;. The usual setup is &lt;code&gt;O-O-O&lt;/code&gt; + &lt;code&gt;Qe2&lt;/code&gt; + &lt;code&gt;Bg2&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;White plays &lt;code&gt;Nd4&lt;/code&gt; preparing &lt;code&gt;f4&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;f5&lt;/code&gt;. This one is considered more dangerous than the above plan.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both lines lead to very sharp struggle and one mistake on any side can lose the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;SHORT LINE&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One of the most dangerous tries for White. He simply plays naturally, organizing his pieces &lt;strong&gt;to exploit &lt;code&gt;c5&lt;/code&gt; break.&lt;/strong&gt; If Black plays too slow he will be suffocated, yet if he opens the game White will have an advantage since he is better positioned and better developed. Still, Black players were able to find a way to reach full equality by preparing &lt;code&gt;f6&lt;/code&gt; instead of &lt;code&gt;c5&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;CONCLUSION:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Caro-Kann defense is a passive opening for Black that requires &lt;strong&gt;patient play in order to equalize.&lt;/strong&gt; Black reaches full equality &lt;strong&gt;over time.&lt;/strong&gt; White needs to do something with his greater space and aggressive pieces if wishes to win. He can opt for ultra sharp lines or play positionally, aiming for favorable endgame or simply smothering Black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a vast topic to cover here but these books helped me when I needed to learn to play the Black side:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Joe Gallagher-Starting Out the Caro-Kann&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Peter Wells-Grandmaster Secrets the Caro-Kann&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Cyrus Lakdawala-The Caro-Kann move by move&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Lars Schandorff-Grandmaster Repertoire 7 Caro-Kann&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Start with Gallagher's book and then try one written by Lakdawala. Once you get some experience playing this opening with both colors you can read the rest.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hopefully this helps. Leave a comment if you have a question or need further help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Best regards and good luck.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastEditorUserId="2042" LastEditDate="2014-07-23T11:41:29.457" LastActivityDate="2014-07-23T11:41:29.457" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5317" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5085" CreationDate="2014-04-20T19:13:03.767" Score="6" Body="&lt;h2&gt;A SMALL NOTE ABOUT DESCRIPTIVE NOTATION:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both players calculate coordinate &lt;strong&gt;from their side of the board towards the opponents.&lt;/strong&gt; In algebraic notation both sides calculate coordinate from White's side toward the Black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, in algebraic notation Queen's gambit starts as &lt;code&gt;1.d4 d5&lt;/code&gt;, but in descriptive as &lt;code&gt;1.P-Q4 P-Q4&lt;/code&gt; ( not as &lt;code&gt;1.P-Q4 P-Q5&lt;/code&gt; ).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;CONSTRUCTION OF DESIRED POSITION:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since &lt;em&gt;Sherlock Holmes&lt;/em&gt; &lt;strong&gt;was Black&lt;/strong&gt; we need to adjust the &lt;em&gt;Larsen-Petrosian&lt;/em&gt; position to address that fact. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once we do that the notation from the movie fits right in, &lt;strong&gt;except for the missing check with the queen.&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is logical, since &lt;em&gt;Moriarty&lt;/em&gt; &lt;strong&gt;was White, thus having an extra tempo.&lt;/strong&gt; Therefore we must assume he already played with the queen in one of his earlier moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since his last move was &lt;em&gt;Queen takes knight pawn&lt;/em&gt; we must assume queen was on the &lt;code&gt;b-file&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;a6&lt;/code&gt; or on &lt;code&gt;b7-h1&lt;/code&gt; diagonal. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The last two options are not possible since White would be able to repel mating attack. Therefore we need to assume that queen was on the &lt;code&gt;b-file&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In order to avoid the position you warned about in your post, we must assume the queen was not on &lt;code&gt;b3&lt;/code&gt;. Therefore the only logical square would be &lt;code&gt;b5&lt;/code&gt;. Still, queen can repel mating attack by giving checkmate to &lt;code&gt;e8&lt;/code&gt;. This excludes &lt;code&gt;b5&lt;/code&gt; square. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On all other squares on the &lt;code&gt;b-file&lt;/code&gt; queen can be easily captured. Therefore we must add a little change in the position in order to make this plausible. The simplest would be to add White &lt;code&gt;c4&lt;/code&gt; pawn so we can cover Black king from check and place queen on &lt;code&gt;b3&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The position should also satisfy another condition of yours:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Construct a chess position where the moves in the movie version make&#xA;  sense.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;This means that there should not be any &quot;obvious&quot; move better than the&#xA;  ones Moriarty (whom we can consider to be a good chess player) played&#xA;  in that position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With &lt;strong&gt;least amount of changes&lt;/strong&gt; here is the answer to your question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[White &quot;Professor Moriarty&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Sherlock Holmes&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;The Game of Shadows&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;6k1/pp4pp/4br2/2p3b1/2Pr4/1Q1PN1P1/PP2P1B1/R4RK1 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1...Bxe3+ 2.Kh2 Rh6+ 3.Bh3 Bxh3 4.Rf4 Rxf4 5.gxf4 Bf2 6.Qxb7 Bf1# 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;EDITED on July 23rd 2014:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT: April 21 2014 2:35 PM GMT&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;em&gt;The same applies to &quot;Rook Bishop Four&quot; Moriarty saw the obvious line after RxR, PxR and BxP check, but probably missed Bishop to Bishop seven.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Analysis diagram&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;6k1/pp4pp/7r/2p5/2P2b2/1Q1P3b/PP2P2K/R7 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this position you wish to refute &lt;code&gt;...Bxf4+&lt;/code&gt;. This means that White should defend from check. You can defend from check in chess in 3 ways -&gt; interpose a piece, move king or capture the attacking piece.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let us start with the easiest choice-capturing the attacker:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you put White bishop on &lt;code&gt;c1&lt;/code&gt; then the entire solution is ruined, as Black would not have starting sequence with &lt;code&gt;1...Bxe3+&lt;/code&gt;, so this move is solution is out of question. If you put rook on 4th rank then you ruin the solution again, as on &lt;code&gt;...Rxf4&lt;/code&gt; White would have &lt;code&gt;Rxf4&lt;/code&gt; instead of &lt;code&gt;gxf4&lt;/code&gt;, so this solution too is out of the question. Putting rook anywhere on the &lt;code&gt;f-file&lt;/code&gt; is out of the question due to obvious reasons... So we must conclude that bishop can not be captured.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This leaves us with other two defenses to check -&gt; interpose a piece or move the king. Again, let me analyze the easier choice -&gt; interposing a piece:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since in the original position squares &lt;code&gt;g1&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;g3&lt;/code&gt; were occupied by White pieces, we can intercept the check only with bishop on &lt;code&gt;e1&lt;/code&gt; or knight on &lt;code&gt;h1&lt;/code&gt;. With knight on &lt;code&gt;h1&lt;/code&gt; the entire mating sequence is impossible so this solution is out of the question. The same goes with bishop on &lt;code&gt;e1&lt;/code&gt; so again, we must discard this suggestion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The last option is moving the king, which will ultimately lead us to the following position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;6k1/pp4pp/7r/2p5/2P2P2/1Q1P3b/PP2Pb1K/R7 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If White could play &lt;code&gt;Qc1&lt;/code&gt; he could threat &lt;code&gt;Qxh6&lt;/code&gt; which would not be possible with pawn on &lt;code&gt;f4&lt;/code&gt;. Furthermore, if we remove the pawn at &lt;code&gt;c4&lt;/code&gt; White would gain additional defensive resources which would be enough for him to save the game in my opinion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, my adjusted solution is this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[White &quot;Professor Moriarty&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Sherlock Holmes&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;The Game of Shadows&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;6k1/pp4pp/4br2/2p3b1/3r4/P2PN1P1/P3P1B1/RQ3RK1 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1...Bxe3+ 2.Kh2 Rh6+ 3.Bh3 Bxh3 4.Rf4 Rxf4 5.gxf4 Bf2! ( 5...Bxf4+? 6.Kg1 Be3+ 7.Kh2 Bf2 8.Qc1! Rh5 ( 8...Rh4 9.Qg5!+-) 9.Qc4+! Kh8 ( 9...Kf8? 10.Qf4++- ) 10.Qf7!+- ) 6.Qxb7 Bf1# 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;END OF EDIT:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastEditorUserId="2042" LastEditDate="2014-07-23T12:54:13.877" LastActivityDate="2014-07-23T12:54:13.877" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5318" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5308" CreationDate="2014-04-21T00:25:01.753" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;No opening approach is equally well suited to all responses.  The Stonewall does often allow for an active king bishop, an active knight on e5, an open f-file, and the promise of a g-pawn advance against a castled King.  On the other hand, it means a diminished role for the queen bishop and (if things don't work out according to plan) the queen knight, and it gives White a backward e-pawn and some central holes.  White's center can easily become weak without a lot of piece protection there.  You'll want to be mindful of these tradeoffs when using this &quot;telegraphed&quot; opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I first learned about the Stonewall from a book by prolific author Fred Reinfeld called How to Think Ahead in Chess.  He devoted almost half of this small book to this opening, basically endorsing it wholeheartedly for the beginning player and failing to discuss its drawbacks.  He even encouraged the reader to stick as closely as possible to a specific  move order and a predetermined set of opening- and middle-game objectives.  An extraordinarily bad set of advice, on later reflection.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: You asked for advice about adapting to a Black king move to the queenside.  You might want to try to make the most of your f-file strength, going after the f-pawn and penetrating the Black position on f7.  If black creates good counterplay with a c-advance and good hits against your center, you may be able to avoid serious problems by exchanging pieces and setting up a chance to liquidate your e-pawn before it becomes an endgame liability.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2967" LastEditorUserId="2967" LastEditDate="2014-04-21T00:32:09.420" LastActivityDate="2014-04-21T00:32:09.420" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5320" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-04-21T23:30:19.460" Score="6" ViewCount="331" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just got back from a chess tournament after around 5 years without playing tournament chess.  I did mediocre in this tournament, and I attribute it to struggling to maintain concentration after 3+ hours into a game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd play a relatively decent game throughout (imperfections on both sides here or there), but lose e.g. to some simple tactic late in the game.  Something that I would ordinarily see easily, e.g. a knight fork, but was not simply looking for it late in the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There seems to be no point in learning openings, endgames, etc. when you end up down a bishop and end up resigning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Question&lt;/em&gt;: What training exercises (drills) can we do to prevent making elementary mistakes long into tournament games?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2785" LastActivityDate="2014-12-31T16:25:24.180" Title="Training to avoid elementary mistakes long into tournament games?" Tags="&lt;training&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5321" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5337" CreationDate="2014-04-22T00:29:19.987" Score="4" ViewCount="263" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is my first post on CSE, so I appreciate any guidance on how to frame my questions from now on. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is my question: I want to know what the best move is in this sitiation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 c5 2.d4 e6 3.d5 ?&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was playing Black, and I won this game, but by moving my pawn to d5. a very dangerous situation will be created that can be irritating until the end of the game. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I understand that we should not allow such scenarios, but my specific questions are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;How to defend in such scenarios theoretically?, and on the other hand,&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What lines could White play to win this game (if such a thing is even possible)?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2519" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-11-13T01:52:40.847" LastActivityDate="2019-11-13T01:52:40.847" Title="What is the best move in this situation?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;theory&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="5322" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5217" CreationDate="2014-04-22T03:42:39.483" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can also try &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.vietson.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;www.vietson.com&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also try &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.vietson.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;www.vietson.com&lt;/a&gt;. Variations of Chinese Chess are also available such as Dragon Chess, Shuffle Chess and Blind Chess&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2975" LastEditorUserId="1988" LastEditDate="2014-07-11T19:32:02.803" LastActivityDate="2014-07-11T19:32:02.803" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5323" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5335" CreationDate="2014-04-22T05:37:56.093" Score="4" ViewCount="184" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the game &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1714111&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;GM Martin Kraemer vs GM Etienne Bacrot, 2013&lt;/a&gt;, we reach the following endgame with black to move:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;8/3b1pkp/6p1/8/p7/7P/1P2BPPK/8 b - - 0 40&#xA;[White &quot;Martin Kraemer&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Etienne Bacrot&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2013&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;2520&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;2705&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It looks almost balanced to me, which makes me think it should be a draw.  Nevertheless, black went on to win.  Crafty evaluates the position as -0.34 (35 ply).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Question&lt;/em&gt;:  Is this same-color bishop endgame actually won for black?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2785" LastActivityDate="2014-04-22T16:40:22.280" Title="Kraemer vs Bacrot, 2013. Is this same-color bishop endgame won for black?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;bishop-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5324" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5270" CreationDate="2014-04-22T05:48:24.837" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The answer is yes and no. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.gamedev.net/page/resources/_/technical/artificial-intelligence/chess-programming-part-iv-basic-search-r1171&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.gamedev.net/page/resources/_/technical/artificial-intelligence/chess-programming-part-iv-basic-search-r1171&lt;/a&gt; &#xA;Has a pretty good explanation on how chess engine works. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chess, for example, a typical branching factor in the middle game would be about 35 moves. That is, after every move, there will be around 35 possible valid moves. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Using a &quot;smart brute force algorithm&quot;  (aka Min-Max search), the time complexity of the algorithm is O( B^n ). That is, you need around that B^n operations n-ply search.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An 8-ply search of a chess position would need to explore about 1.5 million possible paths! That is a LOT of work. Adding a ninth ply would make the tree balloon to about 50 million nodes, and a tenth, to an impossible 1.8 billion! A typical game has 30-40 moves, so you will need to search for 30^35 - 40^35 positions. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Assuming your CPU is running at 3GHz, and it takes only one clock cycle to analyze one position, it will take more than 1x10^42 years to complete the search.  So short answer is no.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, endgames with small number of pieces have been thoroughly analyzed, and can be determined if mate is possible.  By August 2012, tablebases had solved chess for every position with up to seven pieces (According to wiki &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endgame_tablebase&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endgame_tablebase&lt;/a&gt;) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1999" LastActivityDate="2014-04-22T05:48:24.837" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5325" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5312" CreationDate="2014-04-22T09:26:03.697" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I did not want to post this as an answer, due to the lack of actual proof (link to a site, can not be considered as a normal proof). But looking that it was not answered for few days, I decided to show what I have and if someone will be able to find anything better - he will improve/write new.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, a couple of websites mentioning the same year: &lt;strong&gt;1475&lt;/strong&gt;. This is when pawn was able to be promoted to a queen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.learnchesswithsam.com/chess.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this one tells&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What happened in 1475? Until then, there was no Queen... The King had&#xA;  a counselor who could move diagonally one square at a time. One other&#xA;  major difference concerned promotion.  A pawn, reaching the 8th rank,&#xA;  could only become a counselor.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Around 1475, the counselor underwent a sex-change and emerged as the&#xA;  powerful Queen with whom we are all familiar. Promotion rules changed&#xA;  to the modern European version. Another factor played an important&#xA;  role in stabilizing chess at this point in time: the printing press!&#xA;  Books were written and more freely distributed and within 100 years,&#xA;  modern chess (chess, as we know it)  was an established fact with only&#xA;  minor changes (castling, promotion to more-than-one Queen, en passant)&#xA;  occurring through the 19th century.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And simmilar &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/447416/pawn-promotion&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this one&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;that became popular after 1475. Until then the counselor was limited&#xA;  to moving one square diagonally at a time. And, because a pawn that&#xA;  reached the eighth rank could become only a counselor, pawn promotion&#xA;  was a relatively minor factor in the course of a game. But under the&#xA;  new rules the counselor underwent a sex change and gained vastly&#xA;  increased mobility to become the most powerful&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also interesting &quot;fact&quot; about the promotion to a queen can be &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess-poster.com/english/notes_and_facts/did_you_know.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;found here&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In the 15th century, promotion to allow more than one Queen was&#xA;  considered improper because it symbolized adultery. In Spain and Italy&#xA;  in the 17th century, the Pawn could only be promoted to the rank of&#xA;  Queen. In France and Germany, promotion was limited to any piece which&#xA;  had been lost. In some countries a player could promote a Pawn to an&#xA;  enemy piece so as to force stalemate. The current law in Pawn&#xA;  promotion was established at the first International Tournament in&#xA;  1851.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="703" LastActivityDate="2014-04-22T09:26:03.697" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5326" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-04-22T10:16:31.883" Score="13" ViewCount="7070" Body="&lt;p&gt;Magnus Carlsen just reached a rating of 2889.2 today. Considering the way that Elo works, inflation and deflation and relative strength of Carlsen, I was wondering whether it is &lt;em&gt;theoretically&lt;/em&gt; possible for him to reach Elo 3000? If so, is it &lt;em&gt;practically&lt;/em&gt; possible?&lt;sup&gt;1&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;sup&gt;1. I know my second question is a bit opinion based, but I actually want to know your opinions!&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1287" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-04-22T14:29:50.877" LastActivityDate="2015-08-19T21:29:16.013" Title="Is it theoretically possible for Carlsen to reach Elo 3000?" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;elo&gt;&lt;carlsen&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5327" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5329" CreationDate="2014-04-22T12:43:33.063" Score="4" ViewCount="5429" Body="&lt;p&gt;My new neighbors have a 2 years 10 months old kid. When he come to visit me, he often see me playing chess online. So he kept asking me, how to play this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I got a plastic chess set and he opened it and grabbed the knight and screamed &quot;duck, duck!&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was kinda surprised that a two years old can recognize ducks, he's from Syria, he left Syria because of the war there so there's no ducks there. I told him, it's not a duck, it's a horse. He knew what a horse is. he seems very interested in chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I decided to try the same &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%A1szl%C3%B3_Polg%C3%A1r&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;educational experiment that László Polgár&lt;/a&gt; did.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I'm having some difficulties. The kid is not in school yet, he doesn't know how to read and write, he can't speak English and the names of the pieces are too hard for him. I've been trying to teach him chess for less than a week. I met him last week, started teaching chess the very next day :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So far he know what's a knight and he call it a horse. He know what's a pawn and I told him it's called grandpa. He knows what a king is and he call it a king, I decided that the word king is too hard for him and I told him that it's called dad. He didn't yet memorized the rook, he call it uncle. I am going to tell him that the queen is mom and the bishop is bob  or cat.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I noticed that he uses the shape. He first memorized the horse, because it has a very unique shape. Then he memorized the pawn, because it's the smallest piece on the board, then the king because it has a cross. It's hard for him to see the difference between a queen and a bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I was thinking of buying another chess set, one with superman and&#xA;batman instead of real pieces. Is it a good idea or should I stick with the real pieces?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is it good practice to change the names of the pieces in order to help memorize them?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If we keep at this pace, I think I can make him memorize every piece in a week or two, and next month I want to teach him the starting position, and two months after that, I  want to start teaching him how the pieces move. Am I going too fast on him? Can his brain understand all this that quickly.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is he considered smart for his age, or is it normal for kids of his age to start understanding what I'm teaching him?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1105" LastEditorUserId="1105" LastEditDate="2014-04-22T17:07:38.283" LastActivityDate="2017-06-30T10:49:08.967" Title="Teaching 3 years old kid chess" Tags="&lt;teaching&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5328" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5326" CreationDate="2014-04-22T13:29:43.307" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;The average Elo rating of the e.g. top 10 players in the world is rising every year. I think that the relative distance between the number one rated player and the other 9 players in the top 10 becomes relevant in this context. This distance can be estimated by subtracting the average of the ratings of the 9 players (ranked 2-10 in the world) from the rating of the top player (today, Carlsen) and dividing this by the rating of the top player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Increasing this distance is difficult for the top rated player, because every new game played by the top player has a certain amount of risk and uncertainty. I think that Carlsen will have a hard time reaching an Elo rating of 3000 exclusively by increasing the distance to the players ranked 2-10. Yet, if the relative distance stays the same of the following years and the average rating of the top 10 continues to increase, then it is definitely possible for Carlsen to reach Elo 3000. The second ranked player at that moment would probably have around Elo 2950.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastActivityDate="2014-04-22T13:29:43.307" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5329" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5327" CreationDate="2014-04-22T14:28:55.633" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I learned to play chess when I was 3. My biggest challenge was learning the starting positions of the pieces, and I also remember mixing up the bishop and Queen because of the shape of the point. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At that age, I wouldn't think language acquisition would be a big challenge, as I've known kids of that age (2-5) to pick languages up faster than teenagers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You're on the right track with the idea of buying a distinct set of pieces, but I have no idea if Batman would help or distract at that age being that the pieces may resemble toys. It would certainly make the pieces more memorable, but so would animals at that age. I would try to find a set with animals or at least something that resembles actual chess pieces shape but uses the profiles of something meaningful to him like animals. I don't see any problems in training his visual and spatial memory and teaching him the names after he understands how they move differently. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Everyone is different, but I remember that it wasn't until after I understood the differences between the pieces' movements that I actually managed to memorize the starting positions. Perhaps that is something he can learn by watching. As you set it up on your side, you can have him mirror you down the files. This physical action of placing them in space will likely help him learn. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think you will be very successful. Kids are neuroplastic sponges. I hope it's rewarding and teach him to enjoy losing. Keep up the noble pursuit! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: I've since found &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/forum/category/scholastic-chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this resource&lt;/a&gt; for teaching kids chess. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="257" LastEditorUserId="11202" LastEditDate="2017-06-30T10:49:08.967" LastActivityDate="2017-06-30T10:49:08.967" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5330" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5326" CreationDate="2014-04-22T15:24:24.590" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's not so hard: he only needs to beat 2800 players 50% of the time (&#xA;drawing the other 50% which will give him 75% of total points).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Given his record, this does not seem practically likely. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2982" LastActivityDate="2014-04-22T15:24:24.590" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5331" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1981" CreationDate="2014-04-22T15:34:05.783" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;To take the beginner up a notch &quot;My System&quot; by Aron Nimzowitsch ... it goes over basics of theory like open files which even a beginner can get a feeling for. This book will move the person to an advance beginner or to intermediate (with practice). The skills in the book are essential. Here is a link to download the classic: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.taflfelag.is/assets/files/Nimzowitsch,.Aron.My.System.%2821st.century.ed%29.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.taflfelag.is/assets/files/Nimzowitsch,.Aron.My.System.(21st.century.ed).pdf&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;The sort of companion to &quot;My System&quot; is &quot;Chess Praxis&quot; which gives games to see the applications of the concepts in &quot;My System&quot;. That would probably be a next book.&#xA;If you want something for the total beginner then something like &quot;A Primer of Chess&quot; by Capablanca&#xA;Be sure to learn all the basic endgame mating combinations (queen, rook, bishop-bishop, bishop-knight) as well. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2976" LastEditorUserId="2976" LastEditDate="2014-04-24T20:46:56.400" LastActivityDate="2014-04-24T20:46:56.400" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5332" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2771" CreationDate="2014-04-22T15:42:57.143" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;1600 to 2000?&#xA;Although hard, it is possible IMHO. Especially if you're still young.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am just below 2000; I always performed better after solving a bunch of tactical problems. &#xA;I think TACTICS is the most important component to get you to your goal! For example, you may solve daily puzzles at chess.com &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you are getting stronger, other things like strategy, opening prep and endgame become more important. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Consistent work is important, do not have very long breaks. Better 30 min every day than 3.5 hours once a week. Although it may take more than 30 min/day to progress this quickly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Definitely, review your own games and try to find common mistakes. Having someone stronger review your games will help, too. Having a coach of course helps but it better be a good one (if you can afford it).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2982" LastEditorUserId="2982" LastEditDate="2014-04-22T15:48:03.187" LastActivityDate="2014-04-22T15:48:03.187" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5333" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5314" CreationDate="2014-04-22T15:47:59.353" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you want to get better then start playing a lot. Play play play. Enter in tournaments when you can. Sure, study books ... but for some people that can be tedious and a passion killer. Compete, be competitive, play strong people. Like they said above ... since every game is written down ... analyze analyze analyze your games and improve. This will guide your study and motivate your study. Then you can come on here with part of your game and people can say ... &quot;this is the problem&quot;. Hope that helps. I used to play a lot and you can see me at &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.uschess.org/component/option,com_wrapper/Itemid,181/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.uschess.org/component/option,com_wrapper/Itemid,181/&lt;/a&gt; and entering Gang, Damon so I know something of what I'm saying.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2976" LastActivityDate="2014-04-22T15:47:59.353" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5334" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3991" CreationDate="2014-04-22T15:54:56.097" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you're looking for sharp tactical play in the opening, I like King's Gambit for that. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you're looking to avoid nasty tactical surprise by opponents, select a few systems that are not so deep, so require less time to learn. This is a temporary fix, though. Eventually, you'd want to play main lines, like Sicilian and Ruy Lopez. But I think, in the short run there are too many lines to learn in both of these. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, I like Alekhine for Black after 1.e4 and Benko gambit after 1.d4. Does not work all the time but you can learn main W's surprises in a fairly short time. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, 1.e4 c5 2. c3 is a system I use for White in Sicilian (the most popular answer to your 1.e4, presumably). Yes it's a crutch but I just don't have time to learn the lines after 2. Nf3 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also play 1.c4 or 1.g3 and play positional game as White. Again, to avoid nasty tactical surprises.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2982" LastActivityDate="2014-04-22T15:54:56.097" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5335" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5323" CreationDate="2014-04-22T16:40:22.280" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is this same-color bishop endgame actually won for black?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black has faster king, but he has &lt;strong&gt;permanent weakness&lt;/strong&gt; in view of the &lt;code&gt;a4&lt;/code&gt; pawn. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;His bishop is bad and kingside pawns are on the same color he is. Although kingside pawn formation can be changed to suit the bishop, he will still be unable to attack the opponent because &lt;strong&gt;White can also change his kingside pawn structure to favor his bishop.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Furthermore, White king is &lt;strong&gt;fast enough&lt;/strong&gt; to cut off opposing king with joined cooperation of his bishop and pawns. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since Black king is faster, Black will be able to exchange weak &lt;code&gt;a4&lt;/code&gt; pawn if this one becomes a problem, thus the position will result in a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Kraemer-Bacrot,2013&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;8/3b1pkp/6p1/8/p7/7P/1P2BPPK/8 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1...Kf6 ( 1...g5! 2.Kg1 Kf6 3.Bc4! Be6 4.Bb5! Bb3 5.Kf1 Ke5 6.Ke2 Kd4 7.Kd2 Bd5 8.g3 Bb3 9.h4 f6! 10.Bd3! h6 11.f4! gxf4 12.gxf4 Bd5!? 13.Bc2 Bb3 14.Bd3= ) 2.Bc4! Be6 3.Bb5! Bb3 4.Kg1 Ke5 5.Kf1 Kd4 ( 5...g5!? 6.Ke1 Bd5 7.g3 Bb3 8.Kd2 Ke4 9.Bc6+ ( 9.Bd3+ Kf3 10.Ke1 h6 ( 10...h5 11.Be2+ Kg2 12.Bxh5 Kxh3 ) 11.Be2+ Kg2 12.Bf1+ Kh2 13.h4 gxh4 14.gxh4 f6! 15.Kd2! Kg1 16.Ke1 Kh2= ) Kd4 10.h4= ) 6.Ke1 Kc5 7.Be8! Bd5 8.g3 Kb4 9.h4! Kb3 10.Kd2 f6 ( 10...Kxb2 11.Bxa4 ) 11.Kc1 Bf3 12.Bf7+ Kb4 13.Kd2 Bg4 14.f4 Bf3 15.Bg8 h6 16.Bf7 Be4 17.Kc1 Bd3 18. Kd2 Bf5 19.g4 Bxg4 20.Bxg6 Be6 21.Bd3 Bf7 22.Kc2 Bc4 23.Be4 Bb3+ 24.Kd2 Bg8 25.Bd3 Bd5 26.Kc2 Bb3+ 27.Kd2 Be6 28.Kc2 Bf7=&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No matter what Black tries to complicate the game, thus creating winning chances, we see that White can simply decline the offer and keep things simple which results in a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hopefully this answers your question. If you have further questions leave a comment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Best regards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastActivityDate="2014-04-22T16:40:22.280" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5336" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5598" CreationDate="2014-04-23T01:31:49.010" Score="4" ViewCount="469" Body="&lt;p&gt;Once when I was reading a book from Kasparov he quoted that most of the modern ideas in the semi-Slav came from Larsen games. Does anyone know good novelties that Larsen brings in this opening?   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2984" LastActivityDate="2014-06-15T18:18:43.640" Title="Larsen Ideas in the semi-slav" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;slav-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5337" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5321" CreationDate="2014-04-23T01:38:56.673" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;but by moving pawn to d5 a very dangerous situation will be created that can be irritating until the end of the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It can be dangerous to &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;both&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; sides. Positions of these type are generally characterized as the &lt;strong&gt;Benoni Defense&lt;/strong&gt;. They are unbalanced and offer more chances for complicated play. So you may or may not want to avoid such positions depending upon how comfortable you are playing such positions. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;How to defend in such scenarios theoretically?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A good idea for Black is to immediately take on &lt;strong&gt;d5&lt;/strong&gt;, followed by moving the pawn to &lt;strong&gt;d6&lt;/strong&gt;, blockading the pawn on &lt;strong&gt;d5&lt;/strong&gt;. A sample line of development for Black may go like this - &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;  1. e4 c5 2. d4 e6 3. d5 exd5 4. exd5 d6 5. Nf3 Nf6 6. Nc3 Be7 7. Be2 O-O &#xA;  8. O-O Na6 9. Re1 Nc7 10. a4 b6 11. Bc4 a6 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The strongest player to consistently play this opening successfully was &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bent_Larsen&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Bent Larsen&lt;/a&gt;. I recommend you take a look at the following games of Larsen to see how Black not only defends this position but also manages to seize the initiative. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1104312&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Alberic O'Kelly de Galway vs Bent Larsen 0-1 1967&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1308722&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Svetozar Gligoric vs Bent Larsen 1/2-1/2 1969&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1158920&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Wolfgang Unzicker vs Bent Larsen 0-1 1970&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1115962&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Miguel A Quinteros vs Bent Larsen 0-1 1974&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Incidentally, even Garry Kasparov once tried this idea in his early days. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1024524&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Yuri Balashov vs Garry Kasparov 1/2-1/2 1979&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What track could white take to win this game almost surely (if such a thing is even possible)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is not known yet whether White can forcibly win in this line. Strong players &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1692312&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;continue to use this line&lt;/a&gt;, although it is not popular at the highest level; but that might simply be because of reasons like taste rather than the objective quality of the position. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2429" LastEditorUserId="2429" LastEditDate="2014-04-23T01:44:19.490" LastActivityDate="2014-04-23T01:44:19.490" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5338" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5339" CreationDate="2014-04-23T08:03:20.263" Score="6" ViewCount="899" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think that I am a enough good chess player to teach chess. So, I want to create a website and post chess videos in it. So I want a software that helps me teach chess like for example see this video:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDfjsMXlcek&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDfjsMXlcek&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;This video was given by thechesswebsite.com. Note the software that he uses, I asked him about it but he is not replying so I want your help.&#xA;Thanks in advance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2986" LastActivityDate="2015-09-19T16:17:06.820" Title="I want to give chess tutorials, which software should I use?" Tags="&lt;software&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5339" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5338" CreationDate="2014-04-23T09:52:46.117" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just based on ease of use and aesthetic appeal I'd recommend the free &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.chessbase.com/pages/download&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;ChessBase Reader&lt;/a&gt; which allows you to easily draw arrows on the board and highlight squares. To record your videos you can use free screen capture software such as &lt;a href=&quot;http://ohsoft.net/product_ocam.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;oCam&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2078" LastActivityDate="2014-04-23T09:52:46.117" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5340" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5327" CreationDate="2014-04-23T10:07:19.957" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It seems that language is the biggest challenge that you are facing. Why not try another approach...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why not forgo language altogether? Teach directly in the language of chess! We,  especially children, learn by observation and imitation. Maybe you could ask the kid to just sit and watch some games and then ask him to tell you the rules instead of you telling him the rules! After all, when kids learn their mother tongue, nobody tells them the rules of grammar...kids figure them out on their own.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am not sure whether this approach will work, but if it is to work, I think it will take a little time to show results because with this approach, I am guessing that the learning curve will be exponential. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And for some reason I think that if language is removed from the equation, the learner will develop greater insight into the great game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Happy teaching:)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2987" LastActivityDate="2014-04-23T10:07:19.957" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5341" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5320" CreationDate="2014-04-23T10:32:27.993" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Fatigue leads to errors of judgment. Fatigue in long games manifests as 'seeing things that aren't there' and 'not seeing things that are there.&quot; As stated before, current health status, conditions of the room, even how much sleep was gotten the night before, are factors. Actually, errors in judgment is an integral part of the game, or as one grandmaster said, &quot;whomever makes the last mistake loses.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2988" LastActivityDate="2014-04-23T10:32:27.993" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5342" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4800" CreationDate="2014-04-23T15:32:50.483" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;I setup the position using this FEN String&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;4k3/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/4K3 w - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Using a grid engine cluster with 24 nodes, each node having 16 cores at 3.2 Ghz with 60gb of ram&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The engine used was Houdini 4 pro (allowing multiple cores)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After analyzing for several days ( 4 days 12 hours 2 minutes and 15 seconds to be precise)&#xA;the engine scored the position 0.00 flat with the suggested move line&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1.d4 d5 2.Kd2 Kd7 3.Kd3 Kd6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course this is not nearly a bruteforce method, but i believe it is safe to say this is a draw. Of course @Rauan Sagit is correct. Correct play comes with intimate knowledge of pawn endings and will be even harder to achieve correct play against a skilled opponent&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2250" LastActivityDate="2014-04-23T15:32:50.483" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5343" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-04-23T16:45:59.877" Score="6" ViewCount="304" Body="&lt;p&gt;In a reachable game, what is the maximum sum of queens, rooks, bishops, knights, and kings on the board?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For queens only, see &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/4123/maximum-number-of-queens-possible&quot;&gt;Maximum number of queens possible&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2990" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-05-31T00:09:15.110" LastActivityDate="2021-05-01T19:22:48.567" Title="Maximum number of non-pawn pieces on the board" Tags="&lt;problems&gt;&lt;records&gt;&lt;pieces&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5344" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5733" CreationDate="2014-04-23T21:27:44.260" Score="14" ViewCount="2331" Body="&lt;p&gt;In article in wiki about &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess960&quot;&gt;chess960&lt;/a&gt;, it is stated that:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;It has been argued that two games should be played from each starting&#xA;  position, with players alternating as White and Black, since some&#xA;  initial positions may offer White a bigger advantage than in standard&#xA;  chess. For example, in some Chess960 starting positions White can&#xA;  attack an unprotected black pawn after the first move, whereas in&#xA;  standard chess it takes two turns for White to attack and there are no&#xA;  unprotected pawns&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But what are these positions? Is there a comprehensive study of some of them?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="703" LastActivityDate="2021-02-05T19:06:06.857" Title="Starting positions in Chess960 where black is definitely worse" Tags="&lt;theory&gt;&lt;chess960&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5345" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4719" CreationDate="2014-04-24T03:24:28.873" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Chess.com has a feature called the tactics trainer.  It gives users a chess position and as for best move.  Which i believe is what you are trying to create/ asking about. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They have a small FAQ about how they came up with these questions here: &#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://support.chess.com/customer/portal/articles/1444815&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://support.chess.com/customer/portal/articles/1444815&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically, they look for blunders in real games, and have an engine to analyze the positions to make sure there is only one winning line (that's the way they set up tactics trainer, only 1 possible good move, for easier implementation of the trainer. In most problems, it is possible to have multiple equally good best moves)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They however, they also have humans to go through the problems before they post it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1999" LastActivityDate="2014-04-24T03:24:28.873" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5346" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5352" CreationDate="2014-04-24T04:24:19.690" Score="5" ViewCount="451" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am reading &lt;code&gt;Kasparov Teaches Chess&lt;/code&gt;, and I had a problem about this situation below:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;R2K1B1R/PPP5/5P1P/3PP3/3N1pB1/3p1np1/pppb1qbQ/r2k1r2 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black plays Ra8? next, why? I think it's better not to leave the queen unprotected.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Sorry I may not have made myself clear. Kasparov gives this variation to demonstrate a certain response is a bad move. I know Ra8 is bad. But if there aren't good choices, you can't say this variation is actually bad, isn't it?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is the original board situation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;rn1qk2r/pb2bppp/1p2p3/1Bp5/3PP3/P1P2N2/2Q2PPP/R1B1K2R b KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Nc6 2.Ne5 Rc8 3.Qa4 Qc7 4.Qxa7 Ra8? 5.Bxc6+{White Wins}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And by giving such a variation Kasparov made a conclusion that Nc6 is a bad move. What if Black don't play Ra8? He can still possibly make equal trades, and thus Nc6 isn't really bad?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The point is, why is Nc6 a bad move?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2991" LastEditorUserId="11202" LastEditDate="2017-05-17T05:55:34.393" LastActivityDate="2017-05-17T05:55:34.393" Title="Why did Black play Ra8 in this situation?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5348" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2188" CreationDate="2014-04-24T06:57:39.490" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The queen's gambit declined, nimzo indian, bogo indian, and queen's indian defense lines are just as strong for white as for example the sicilian and ruy lopez mainlines - but - &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the variations are numerous and complex and requires greater study than the old standby ruy lopez&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;statistically there is a higher probability of a decisive game in the &lt;code&gt;1. d4&lt;/code&gt; openings than in the &lt;code&gt;1. e4&lt;/code&gt; openings&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The queen's pawn games normally start with the rote: &lt;code&gt;1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;code&gt;1. d4 d5&lt;/code&gt; limits the possibilities.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2992" LastEditorUserId="813" LastEditDate="2014-04-25T10:50:20.990" LastActivityDate="2014-04-25T10:50:20.990" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5350" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-04-24T12:54:21.540" Score="4" ViewCount="217" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[StartPly &quot;25&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 e6 5.Nc3 a6 6.Nxc6 bxc6 7.Be2 d5 8.O-O Qc7 9.f4 Bc5+ 10.Kh1 d4 11.Na4 Ba7 12.b3 Ne7 13.Bd3 O-O 14.Qh5 f5 15.Ba3 Rf6 16.Bxe7 Qxe7 17.Nb2 Rh6 18.Qe2 Bc5 19.Rf3 Bd6 20.Nc4 Bc5 21.Ne5 Qc7 22.Bc4 Kf8 23.exf5 exf5 24.Re1 Bd7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2306" LastEditorUserId="1201" LastEditDate="2014-04-24T13:56:41.443" LastActivityDate="2014-04-30T04:16:05.337" Title="White seems better. How could I have capitalized?" Tags="&lt;positional-play&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5351" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5343" CreationDate="2014-04-24T14:45:28.563" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;A start...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.g4 h5 2.g5 Nh6 3.gxh6 g5 4.h7 g4 5.b4 Rg8 6.h8=B g3 7.b5 a5 8.f4 e5 9.f5 Na6 10.bxa6 Rb8 11.a7 b5 12.a8=B b4 13.f6 Be7 14.fxe7 f5 15.c4 Kf7    16.e8=N f4 17.c5 d5 18.e4 d4 19.Na3 b3 20.c6 Bd7 21.cxd7 Qc8 22.d8=B c5    23.Nb5 c4 24.Ba3 b2 25.Bc5 c3 26.Ba3 b1=B 27.Bb4 c2 28.Ba3 c1=B 29.Bb4 f3    30.Bd3 f2+ 31.Ke2 f1=B+ 32.Ke1 g2 33.Nh3 g1=B 34.Ba3 Qd7 35.Bb4 Qd5  36.Ba3 Kg6 37.exd5+ Kh6 38.d6 Rb7 39.d7 Rb8 40.Bb6 Rb7 41.d8=B e4 42.Qa4 e3  43.Qc4 Bg2  44.Qb3 Bc6 45.Kf1 Bf2 46.Bc4 Bg3 47.Kg1 e2 48.Bd3 e1=B&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2990" LastEditorUserId="11629" LastEditDate="2017-07-01T09:41:17.633" LastActivityDate="2017-07-01T09:41:17.633" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5352" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5346" CreationDate="2014-04-24T14:51:59.350" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Why Black play Ra8 in this situation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He wanted to trap the White queen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I think it's better not to leave the queen unprotected.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You are correct, Black made a blunder, and now loses the game: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;2r1k2r/Qbq1bppp/1pn1p3/1Bp1N3/3PP3/P1P5/5PPP/R1B1K2R b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1...Ra8 2.Bxc6++- Qxc6 ( 2...Bxc6 3.Qxc7+-) 3.Nxc6! Rxa7 ( 3...Bxc6 4.Qxb6+- ) 4.Nxa7+-&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your question is not entirely clear but I hope this post answers it. If you need help or you have further questions leave a comment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;EDITED IN RESPONSE TO THE OP EDIT:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The point is why is Nc6 a bad move?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;Nc6&lt;/code&gt; is a bad move because it allows &lt;strong&gt;a decisive pin&lt;/strong&gt; along the &lt;code&gt;a4-e8&lt;/code&gt; diagonal. The fact is that &lt;code&gt;Bb7&lt;/code&gt; is badly posted to defend the knight on &lt;code&gt;c6&lt;/code&gt;. If he were at &lt;code&gt;d7&lt;/code&gt; then &lt;code&gt;Nc6&lt;/code&gt; would not be pined and Black would be fine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After &lt;code&gt;Nc6&lt;/code&gt; White is able to exploit the bad positioning of the &lt;code&gt;Bb7&lt;/code&gt; to net himself a pawn on &lt;code&gt;a7&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;and still keep the pressure on &lt;code&gt;Nc6&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/strong&gt; After White captures on &lt;code&gt;a7&lt;/code&gt; we have &lt;strong&gt;the second pin on &lt;code&gt;Qc7&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; which paralyses Black. Now he must castle, but then White can win a piece:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;2r1k2r/Qbq1bppp/1pn1p3/1Bp1N3/3PP3/P1P5/5PPP/R1B1K2R b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1...O-O 2.Bxc6 Bxc6 3.Nxc6! Qxc6 4.Qxe7 $18 Qxe4+ ( 4...cxd4 5.O-O ) 5.Be3 Qxg2 ( 5...cxd4 6.cxd4 Qxg2 ( 6...Qd3 7.Rd1 $18 ) 7.Kd2 $18 ) 6.O-O-O $18&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have checked the lines with the engine. If you have any doubts you can run these positions through the engine yourself. The point is that center is fixed, and White can defend himself by exchanging rooks on the &lt;code&gt;c-file&lt;/code&gt;. Furthermore, bishop defends well too, and queen can come fast to defense. Black may be able to make a pressure &lt;strong&gt;but it will not be a permanent one.&lt;/strong&gt; White will untangle eventually and convert his extra piece.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you still have doubts you can post the position as a new question and we can see if other members can spot something that I did not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;END OF EDIT&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hopefully this helped.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Best regards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastEditorUserId="2042" LastEditDate="2014-04-26T00:26:06.823" LastActivityDate="2014-04-26T00:26:06.823" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5353" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5350" CreationDate="2014-04-24T15:52:31.753" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just my opinion:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;25.Bxa6 Be6 (preventing 26.Qc4, threatening mate and winning the Bishop on c5)&#xA;26. Bc4 Re8 (26...Rxa2 27.Bxe6 Rxe6 28.Ng6+)&#xA;27. Qd3 Bd6&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;etc...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2995" LastActivityDate="2014-04-24T15:52:31.753" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5354" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5327" CreationDate="2014-04-24T18:11:43.343" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;(1) I don't think I would buy another set. The standard Staunton set has by far the most easily distinguishable pieces. I don't think the failure to distinguish the pieces is due to their similarity, but a function of brain development. If you felt the need to make them easier to recognize, you may just want to color the crown of the two queens with bright nail polish (green, in case the kid is color-blind.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(2) I also doubt language is the problem. Chess is about symbolic understanding, spatial understanding, etc. So I doubt memorization is the long-term issue. I would continue in English, speaking clearly and repeating your self a lot.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(3) In terms of teaching, don't bother with memorization exercises. Just start playing.  You announce your move like this, &quot;I am going to move my bishop here.  Bishops can move diagonal like this or like this (demonstrates). Now my bishop is can capture your rook on my next move (points to rook and demonstrates capture)&quot;.  When it is the kid's turn, ask him which move he thinks is a good idea.  Then suggest a better move and why.  You are basically playing both sides.  The kid will absorb it like a sponge.  Don't get frustrated if the kid wants to be silly, eat a piece, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(4) Is he considered smart for his age? Well, smart is a vague term. &quot;Smart at chess&quot;?--too early to tell. Is he smart for being able to name the pieces?  No.  A kid at 2-1/2 should be able to attach names to symbols with practice. They will know their colors. etc. To compare, my nephew just turned three a few days ago, and was memorizing the names of pieces that my kid showed him on the fly back in March. I think it is typical. If the kid is exhibiting positional understanding and tactics at an early age, then yes, &quot;smart at chess&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Source:&lt;/em&gt; Teaching my kid to play. I taught my kid to the pieces and moves at 3-1/2, we stopped playing for almost two years, and he recently started playing again, having remembered the pieces and their moves, and is now a strong player for his age, with a growing understanding of positional play and tactics.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S. kudos for doing this&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2957" LastActivityDate="2014-04-24T18:11:43.343" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5355" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5350" CreationDate="2014-04-24T20:27:35.167" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can win a pawn with &lt;strong&gt;25. Nxd7 Qxd7 26. Be6&lt;/strong&gt; forking the queen and the pawn. The queen can't defend the pawn. However, after &lt;strong&gt;26... Qe7 27. Bxf5 Qxe2 28. Rxe2&lt;/strong&gt; it is not clear if White has enough advantage to win. The pawn structure definitely favors White.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2997" LastActivityDate="2014-04-24T20:27:35.167" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5356" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-04-24T20:37:39.157" Score="9" ViewCount="7118" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've started playing chess a little more using an app on my phone, and frequently run into the situation where I'm dominating the computer opponent (on an easy difficulty level) to the point where he can't make a legal move (e.g. I've got 5 queens or something like that).  Of course, this is a stalemate and it's a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From Googling around, it seems like it's common for most beginners to feel like they're being &quot;cheated&quot; in this situation (as I do), while most experienced players &quot;agree&quot; with the rule.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've yet to see an explanation that makes me feel like I'm not being cheated.  The explanations all seem to say &quot;it's a draw because the rule say it's a draw&quot;, or only slightly better, &quot;the rules say that to win, you must put your opponent into check (such that he can't get out), and since you didn't do this, you didn't win, so it's a draw.&quot;  I don't mean any offense, but this just seems like circular reasoning to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Draws make intuitive sense to me when there are few pieces left and neither player has enough of an advantage to checkmate the other (a simple example would be when there are just 2 kings left), but I'm having a hard time seeing how &quot;anywhere I move would put me in check&quot; and &quot;I'm in check and anywhere I move would leave me still in check&quot; aren't really equivalent concepts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Take the theoretical case above (say black has 5 queens and a king, and white just has a king, and they're positioned in such a way that white can't move without putting himself in check).  How can a beginner be convinced that black hasn't dominated so thoroughly that he should win?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2998" LastActivityDate="2018-08-26T13:18:28.383" Title="What's a good explanation for stalemate being a draw for a beginning chess player?" Tags="&lt;draw&gt;&lt;stalemate&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5358" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5350" CreationDate="2014-04-25T00:56:12.193" Score="6" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;White seems better. How could I have capitalized?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my opinion, White has a decisive advantage here. He has a better pawn structure and a safer king, and all of his pieces are splendidly centralized.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black on the other hand has pieces scattered all over the place, his bishops are restricted (but well posted for defense), and his queen is a bit clumsy on &lt;code&gt;c7&lt;/code&gt; but can be repositioned to a better square in a few moves. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At first, I wanted to play &lt;code&gt;1. Rh3&lt;/code&gt; to remove the only defender of the kingside &lt;code&gt;Rh6&lt;/code&gt;. That turned into an endgame where my minimal advantage fizzled out. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But then I found a new way to attack by opening the center with &lt;code&gt;1. c3!&lt;/code&gt;. This catches Black unprepared for combat as his &lt;code&gt;Ra8&lt;/code&gt;,&lt;code&gt;Qc7&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;Bd7&lt;/code&gt; are poorly placed. Since the White pieces are faster, it should not take them too much time to*decisively reposition themselves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After checking this extensively with the engine, I have confirmed my conclusions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since the number of lines is vast, they will not fit here if I try to just copy/paste them. Therefore I will supply illustrative lines from the engine's first analysis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you need more efficient demonstrations, I suggest running each line separately through the engine, or posting a new question with the sub-variation you have a problem with.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Without further delay, here are the lines:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;r4k2/2qb2pp/p1p4r/2b1Np2/2Bp1P2/1P3R2/P1P1Q1PP/4R2K w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.c3! dxc3 ( 1...Be8 2.cxd4 $18 ) 2.Rd3 Be8 ( 2... Be6 3.Bxe6 Rxe6 4.Rh3 h6 5.Qc4 Qe7 6.Rxc3 Bb4 7.Ng6+ Rxg6 8.Rxe7 Bxe7 9.h3 a5 10.Re3 Rf6 11.Re6 c5 12.Rxf6+ gxf6 &amp;amp;18 ) 3.Qc2 Ba7 ( 3... Rd8 4.Rxd8 Qxd8 5.Qxf5+ Qf6 6.Ng6+ Rxg6 7.Qxc5+ Qd6 8.Qf5+ Qf6 9.Qc8 Qe7 10.Rxe7 Kxe7 11.Qc7+ Bd7 12.Qe5+ Kd8 $18 ) ( 3... Rh5 4.Rh3 Qc8 5.Rxh5 Bxh5 6.Qxc3 Qd8 7.b4 Bd4 8.Qd3 Bxe5 9.Qxf5+ Qf6 10.Qxh5 g6 11.fxe5 gxh5 12.exf6 Rd8 $18 ) (3... Bb4 4.Rh3 Bg6 5.Rxh6 gxh6 6.a3 a5 7.axb4 axb4 8.Qf2 Qd6 9.Qb6 Re8 10.Qb7 c5 11.Qa7 h5 12.h3 c2 $18 ) (3... Ra7 4.Rh3 g6 5.Rxh6 Bb4 6.Rh3 Ba5 7.Qe2 Qe7 8.Qf2 c5 9.Nxg6+ Bxg6 10.Rxe7 Rxe7 11.Kg1 Rc7 12.Rd3 Re7 $18 ) ( 3... Ba3 4.Rh3 Qe7 5.Rxh6 gxh6 6.Qxc3 Qg7 7.b4 Bc1 8.Qd4 Ra7 9.Qd6+ Re7 10.Rxc1 h5 11.Re1 a5 12.Bf7 Bxf7 $18 ) (3...Rf6 4.Qxc3 a5 5.Qc2 Bb4 6.Red1 Ra7 7.Qf2 h6 8.Qe3 Be7 9.Re1 Qb7 10.Nd7+ Qxd7 11.Rxd7 Rxd7 12.Qe5 Bf7 $18 ) (3... Qc8 4.Nf3 Qb7 5.Ng5 Bd7 6.Rh3 Re8 7.Nxh7+ Rxh7 8.Rxe8+ Kxe8 9.Rxh7 Bd4 10.Rh8+ Ke7 11.Qe2+ Kd6 12.Rd8 c2 $18 ) 4.Rh3 Qd6 5.Rxh6 gxh6 6.h3 Kg7 7.Qxc3 Bd4 8.Qg3+ Bg6 9.Nf3 Bf6 10.a4 c5 11.Re6 Qd1+ 12.Kh2 h5 13.Nh4 Rf8 14.Rxa6 Qc1 $18&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hopefully this helped. If you have any questions or remarks leave a comment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Best regards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastEditorUserId="827" LastEditDate="2014-04-26T17:34:51.847" LastActivityDate="2014-04-26T17:34:51.847" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5360" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4385" CreationDate="2014-04-25T09:45:07.393" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://analyse.deep-chess.de/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://analyse.deep-chess.de/&lt;/a&gt; allows you to analyze your game online with different chess engines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="888" LastActivityDate="2014-04-25T09:45:07.393" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5361" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-04-25T11:25:38.430" Score="0" ViewCount="7326" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am interested in knowing the names and moves for all named gambits in chess. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If anyone has such a list or knows where I can find one please do pass it on to me. Please be sure to include names of gambits that black plays as well as white and all counter gambits.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3004" LastEditorUserId="10905" LastEditDate="2016-07-28T15:10:53.097" LastActivityDate="2016-07-28T15:10:53.097" Title="Names of all Gambits" Tags="&lt;gambits&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ClosedDate="2014-05-04T13:53:46.663" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5363" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5376" CreationDate="2014-04-26T00:33:38.687" Score="8" ViewCount="1498" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the longest move sequence that ends with checkmate and every move is a check by both players?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3007" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-04T22:30:52.893" LastActivityDate="2021-05-02T17:35:32.023" Title="Longest forced sequence that ends with checkmate and every move is a check" Tags="&lt;problems&gt;&lt;check&gt;&lt;records&gt;&lt;forced-move&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="5364" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="487" CreationDate="2014-04-26T02:17:00.597" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;When coaching young kids, I have found that they love doing the simple checkmates (King and Queen v. King, etc.).  They like beating the coach.  There are some good books out there as well that are written at the kids level, but I even use some so called &quot;adult&quot; books that start at the beginning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3009" LastActivityDate="2014-04-26T02:17:00.597" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5365" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-04-26T06:53:28.990" Score="-1" ViewCount="210" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am an enthusiastic player of chess...and a full time working professional...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have following questions regarding chess to develop my game:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;How to prepare fundamental opening lines to play as white or black...which openings to start with?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;How to master the well established book openings for various games along with their approaches/ideologies/commentaries...&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Please tell me which best books to refer or which chess software to be purchased...for doing so? I won't mind purchasing the same or getting premium memberships, if any??&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I am good at playing middle games with tactics and exploiting opportunities...but always lose time in opening phase and generally lost the game due to time overruns...i tried playing 10 min live games on chess.com&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;What is all about chess engines...repertoires...pgn etc.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;How to play further on an independent computer and to record my moves for further analysis after having played with book openings..?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Please tell me about ratings??? how a player becomes IM, GM so on so forth...&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there anybody who can truly help to get answers to these questions or suggest me some readings or website references to get solved the same...thanks in advance to all of you who can please help me out...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3010" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-06T16:40:25.967" LastActivityDate="2020-03-06T16:42:35.753" Title="Preparation of chess openings and all about chess?" Tags="&lt;beginner&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ClosedDate="2014-04-28T13:11:57.237" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="5366" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5350" CreationDate="2014-04-26T08:27:16.477" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here's the continuation per Stockfish at 5 minutes per move. The thing that strikes me first is how many moves it takes for White to secure the mate. @Always is spot-on with his &quot;why white is better&quot; comments.  But still... 43 moves to win a &quot;won&quot; position!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stockfish liked @Alway's &lt;code&gt;c3&lt;/code&gt; well enough but still preferred &lt;code&gt;Qd3&lt;/code&gt; by about half a pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have a few short variations in the moves to show how very very close Black is to losing instantly.  This is because his King is exposed.  White's gotta be feeling very confident, having his King snuggled away...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;6. cxd4&lt;/code&gt; removes black's only credible threat, except for the back-rank mate. Now Black's wretched pawn structure and inferior piece placement gives White a fun game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After &lt;code&gt;9... Qe6&lt;/code&gt; Black superficially has it together. He's got two pieces on c4, Q+R are lined up pinning the Knight on &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt; (exploiting White's weak bank rank), the &lt;code&gt;f5&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;h6&lt;/code&gt; pawns are defended. The issue is that Black's Queen is overloaded and the Bishop on d5 is misplaced. The simple &lt;code&gt;10. Bd3&lt;/code&gt; shows this.  Now the &lt;code&gt;f5&lt;/code&gt; pawn is about to fall with tempo. Black has no means to defend it. His exposed King runs instead.  With &lt;code&gt;11.Bxf5&lt;/code&gt; the game really is over. White has to adopt a grade-school-complexity plan of just trading off pieces as he'll be able to make passed pawns on both wings of the board. To survive, Black needs to play like a GM.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With &lt;code&gt;12. Qd3&lt;/code&gt; White lines up on the &lt;code&gt;h7&lt;/code&gt; pawn.  Black snags the &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt; pawn, hoping to decoy the Queen so Black can eat the Bishop on &lt;code&gt;f5&lt;/code&gt;. White is having little of it and saves his Bishop with tempo, offering Black the opportunity to exchange a lot of pieces, which is deadly for Black.  Black has little choice however.  &lt;code&gt;14. Nxd7&lt;/code&gt; &lt;em&gt;with tempo&lt;/em&gt; adds insult to injury.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After &lt;code&gt;17... Qg4&lt;/code&gt; Black is fairly doomed, but he's tricky.  He still has the &lt;code&gt;Qg2#&lt;/code&gt; threat as well as exploiting White's bank rank with &lt;code&gt;Qd1+&lt;/code&gt;. White &lt;em&gt;really&lt;/em&gt; wants that Queen off the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;20. Re2&lt;/code&gt; is a common super-efficient computer move.  The Rook simultaneously defends &lt;code&gt;g2&lt;/code&gt;, blocks the diagonal leading to &lt;code&gt;d1&lt;/code&gt;, and threatens mate on &lt;code&gt;e7&lt;/code&gt;.  Black's response is to expose his King. :-P&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;22.h3&lt;/code&gt; removes forever the threat of the backrank checkmate and does so &lt;em&gt;with tempo&lt;/em&gt;. The Queen must leave and finds only 2 squares where it can save the Bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After White's 27th move, Black is nearly in Zugzwang. There's aren't any good moves left, no credible threats to be made.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;33... Kc7&lt;/code&gt; is because of the White's threat to pin the Black Queen with &lt;code&gt;Rd3&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That'll do ;-)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;r4k2/2qb2pp/p1p4r/2b1Np2/2Bp1P2/1P3R2/P1P1Q1PP/4R2K w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;    1.Qd3 (1.c3 dxc3 2.Rd3 Be6 3.Bxe6 Rxe6 4.Rh3 Rh6 5.Qc4 Bd6 6.Rxh6 gxh6+2.78) Re8 2.Rh3 Qd6 3.Rxh6 gxh6 (3... Qxh6?? 4.Nxd7#oops) 4.c3 Bb6 (4...dxc3? 5.Qxd6+ Bxd6 6.Nxd7+ Kg7 7.Rxe8 h5 8.Bd3 Bxf4 9.Re7+ Kg6 10.Re6+ Kg7 11.Bxf5 Bg5 12.Rxc6 Bf4 13.Rxc3+11.5) 5.Rd1 Re7 6.cxd4 a5 7.Qc3 Be6 8.Qf3 Bd5 9.Qh3 Qe6 10.Bd3 Ke8 11.Bxf5 Qf6 12.Qd3 Bxd4 13.Bd7+ (13.Qxd4? Qxf5) Rxd7 14.Nxd7 Qg7 15.Rd2 (15. Qxd4?? Qxg2#DOH) Bc3 16.Rc2 Kxd7 17.Qxc3 Qg4 18.Qd4 (18.Qg3?? Qd1+DOH) Ke6 19.Qe3+ Kd6 20.Re2 Be6 21.Qe5+ Kd7 22.h3 Qg6 23.Qxa5 Qf6 24.Qa7+ Kc8 25.Qa8+ Kd7 26.Qb7+ Kd6 27.Qb8+ Kd7 28.a4 Qd4 29.Kh2 Qd5 30.Qb7+ Kd6 31.Qxh7 h5 32.Re3 Qc5 33.Qe4 Kc7 34.Qxe6 Kb7 35.Qd7+ Kb6 36.Qd8+ Ka6 37.Re8 Qa7 38.b4 Qf7 39.Qa8+ Kb6 40.Rb8+ Kc7 41.Qa7+ Kd6 42.Qxf7 h4 43.Rd8# *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2014-04-26T15:53:54.790" LastActivityDate="2014-04-26T15:53:54.790" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5368" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5365" CreationDate="2014-04-26T17:49:55.100" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I am an enthusiastic player of chess...and a full time working professional...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This makes your job more difficult. There are lots of material out there, but you will need to manage your time to coordinate your work and chess studying.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;How to prepare fundamental opening lines to play as white or black...which openings to start with?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It depends on your preferences, but no matter which opening you choose, you can get a good insight of it from &lt;em&gt;Starting Out&lt;/em&gt; series. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you wish to play King's gambit just find &lt;em&gt;Starting Out King's Gambit&lt;/em&gt; book and so on. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These books describe general moves, tell you if certain line requires &lt;strong&gt;thorough study&lt;/strong&gt; or if you can just get by with general opening principles. They also mention typical endings and middlegame structures characteristic for the opening. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All in all I find them to be a great starting reference for a beginner.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;How to master the well established book openings for various games along with their approaches/ideologies/commentaries...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once you learn the basics, you will need stronger opening books and you will need middlegame/endgame books. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For this you will need to ask a separate question here and people will be able to recommend you something. At this moment it is too broad and opening-dependable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Please tell me which best books to refer or which chess software to be purchased...for doing so? I won't mind purchasing the same or&#xA;  getting premium memberships, if any??&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For learning software, you could use &lt;em&gt;ChessBase&lt;/em&gt;. They also offer &lt;strong&gt;videos that explain openings/endgames/middlegames...&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Fritz&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;Houdini&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;Rybka&lt;/em&gt; are some of the strong chess engines. You could also get &lt;em&gt;Stockfish&lt;/em&gt; as &lt;strong&gt;it is free&lt;/strong&gt; and is strong as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I am good at playing middle games with tactics and exploiting&#xA;  opportunities...but always lose time in opening phase and generally&#xA;  lost the game due to time overruns...i tried playing 10 min live games&#xA;  on chess.com&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Knowing your openings will solve this problem.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What is all about chess engines...repertoires...pgn etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I do not understand this one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;How to play further on an independent computer and to record my moves for further analysis after having played with book openings..?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any engine does this automatically as far as I know. The game only needs to be saved and you can replay it. I think that it is auto-saved by default. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You also have an option for engine to analyze your game which is good to see where did you go wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;During play there is an option to &quot;turn on the Coach&quot; where engine can warn you if you made a bad move or can suggest a move if you are in doubt.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Still, it is best to pick an engine and ask this as a separate question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Please tell me about ratings??? how a player becomes IM, GM so on so forth...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as I know, you need 2400 rating and to fulfill IM norm. For GM you need rating greater than 2500 and also 3 title norms. More about this can be found in &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIDE_titles&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this Wikipedia article&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is there anybody who can truly help to get answers to these questions&#xA;  or suggest me some readings or website references to get solved the&#xA;  same...thanks in advance to all of you who can please help me out...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think I just did :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Welcome to Chess SE, I hope this answer helped you a little.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the future try to ask questions that can have short answers so you can avoid negative points. You can start by reading through the help section in your upper right corner. I would start with &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/tour&quot;&gt;the tour&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Best regards and good luck in your study!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-06T16:42:35.753" LastActivityDate="2020-03-06T16:42:35.753" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="5370" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4994" CreationDate="2014-04-26T18:44:17.843" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Be7 avoids the QGD Exchange Variation and usually moves towards either an exchange with Bf4 or a regular QGD. If it's a regular QGD, there obviously won't be any books dedicated specifically to this variation as it will transpose to another well-known line.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only pressing line then is the one with cxd5 and Bf4. I can't recall any books that focus specifically on this line in depth, but there have been many games played at the international level that use this variation. I would recommend exploring game databases like MegaBase and finding annotated games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1382" LastActivityDate="2014-04-26T18:44:17.843" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5371" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5356" CreationDate="2014-04-28T11:33:55.413" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;If a stalemate would count as mate, it would make winning much easier for the stronger side. As it is now, stalemate can be used as a defensive resource for the weaker side, which keeps endgames suspenseful, and requires deeper knowledge and calculation from both sides.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Take the theoretical case above (say black has 5 queens and a king,&#xA;  and white just has a king, and they're positioned in such a way that&#xA;  white can't move without putting himself in check). How can a beginner&#xA;  be convinced that black hasn't dominated so thoroughly that he should&#xA;  win?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are a lot of positions where the side with less material wins. It is the very nature of chess that material isn't everything, but only one factor of many. Imagine a chess-like game where everything is over just because you lost a pawn (as the material imbalance would inevitably lead to a loss). Would you like to play such a game?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stalemate and other kinds of draws make it harder for stronger side and keep the game interesting. And of course, don't forget that you can use these rules to your own advantage if you're about to lose.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="35" LastActivityDate="2014-04-28T11:33:55.413" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5372" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5356" CreationDate="2014-04-28T13:47:37.407" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you were dominating so much, you should have checkmated him. It's not the fault of the game that your mistakes may mean you don't win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The appeal of chess comes partly from the fact that it is &lt;em&gt;hard&lt;/em&gt;. One of the reasons for that is that there is quite a large drawing margin -- you may have a great position at some point, but there may still be many ways to defend tenaciously in endgames, and a good opponent can make it very hard for you to win even if he does make a big mistake early on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Those ways include eternal check, the fact that you can't checkmate with a single bishop or knight against a lone king, fortresses, and also many ways to defend based on stalemate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance, king + pawn vs king (where the pawn isn't immediately lost) would be a trivial win for the pawn without stalemate, but with stalemate it's sometimes a forced win and sometimes it's possible to hold a draw. Because you need to see which it is before you trade down to that endgame, that makes the game deeper and harder.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't think chess would have become as popular as it is without rules like stalemate. It would be a shallower game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You just didn't play well enough.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2014-04-28T13:47:37.407" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5374" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-04-28T21:16:47.847" Score="3" ViewCount="539" Body="&lt;p&gt;OK, I've never really played much chess, but shogi is more appealing to me. Now my question is, how does capturing work? Like what piece can capture what? I've tried online and some pieces can capture what others can't. So is there some rule on it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3023" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2014-04-28T22:15:42.287" LastActivityDate="2014-04-28T22:42:44.833" Title="What are the capture rules in shogi?" Tags="&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;shogi&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5375" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5374" CreationDate="2014-04-28T22:16:09.537" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure what you're referring to. In shogi, any piece can capture any opposing piece, there are no restrictions like what you're speaking of. Be aware that all pieces capture the same way they move, though. There's no such thing as moving in one way and capturing in another (like the chess pawn, moving forward and capturing diagonally). See the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shogi&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Wikipedia shogi page&lt;/a&gt; for a full set of rules. If you have a more specific example of what you're wondering about, please post it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2800" LastEditorUserId="2800" LastEditDate="2014-04-28T22:42:44.833" LastActivityDate="2014-04-28T22:42:44.833" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5376" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5363" CreationDate="2014-04-29T04:34:51.307" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not aware of any resources documenting the specific situation you're asking about. The closest available is probably &lt;a href=&quot;http://timkr.home.xs4all.nl/chess/check.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this page&lt;/a&gt; from &lt;a href=&quot;http://timkr.home.xs4all.nl/records/records.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Tim Krabbé's chess records&lt;/a&gt; which documents the longest known series of mutual checks, but not ending in checkmate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One of the puzzles from the page could end in checkmate via 14.. Qb7# instead of 14...Bxb7+, so this would be an example of a checkmate after 27 consecutive checks. This series of checks could be considered &quot;forced&quot; by the objective of the puzzle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;G. Leathem, Fairy Chess Review, 1938, 28 Consecutive Checks&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;K2kn2r/NP1P1PPP/1PPPnNq1/1Rr1Bb1Q/4R3/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. c7+ N8xc7+ 2. bxc7+ Nxc7+ 3. dxc7+ Ke7+ 4. g8=N+ Rxg8+ 5. hxg8=N+ Qxg8+ 6. f8=Q+ Qxf8+ 7. Qe8+ Qxe8+ 8. d8=Q+ Qxd8+ 9. c8=N+ Rxc8+ 10. bxc8=N+ Qxc8+ 11. Bb8+ Bxe4+ 12. Nd5+ Bxd5+ 13. Nc6+ Bxc6+ 14. Rb7+ Bxb7 (14...Qxb7#)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2800" LastEditorUserId="14079" LastEditDate="2020-03-13T12:13:23.790" LastActivityDate="2020-03-13T12:13:23.790" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="5377" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5361" CreationDate="2014-04-29T16:45:24.217" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think your best bet will be the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encyclopaedia_of_Chess_Openings&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;ECO (or Encyclopedia of Chess Openings)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The following is a complete list of all gambits in the ECO.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Polish Gambit&lt;/strong&gt; 1. e4 b5&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Wing Gambit&lt;/strong&gt; 1. e4 c5 2. b4&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Ware Gambit&lt;/strong&gt; 1. a4 e5 2. a5 d5 3. e3 f5 4. a6&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Birmingham Gambit&lt;/strong&gt; 1. b4 c5 &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Schuhler Gambit&lt;/strong&gt; 1. b4 c6 2. Bb2 a5 3. b5 cxb5 4. e4&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Wolferts Gambit&lt;/strong&gt; 1. b4 e5 2. Bb2 c5&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Englund Gambit&lt;/strong&gt; 1. d4 e5&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Budapest Gambit&lt;/strong&gt; 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e5&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Benko Gambit&lt;/strong&gt; 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 c5 3. d5 b5&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Staunton Gambit&lt;/strong&gt; 1. d4 f5 2. e4&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Smith-Morra Gambit&lt;/strong&gt; 1. e4 c5 2. d4 cxd4 3. c3&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Danish Gambit&lt;/strong&gt; 1. e4 e5 2. d4 exd4 3. c3&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Vienna Gambit&lt;/strong&gt; 1. e4 e5 2. Nc3 Nf6 3. f4&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;King's Gambit&lt;/strong&gt; 1. e4 e5 2. f4&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Quaade Gambit&lt;/strong&gt; 1. e4 e5 2. f4 exf4 3. Nf3 g5 4. Nc3&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Kieseritsky Gambit&lt;/strong&gt; 1. e4 e5 2. Nc3 Nf6 3. Bc4 Nxe4 4. Nf3&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Rice Gambit&lt;/strong&gt; 1. e4 e5 2. f4 exf4 3. Nf3 g5 4. h4 g4 5. Ne5 Nf6 6. Bc4 d5 7. exd5 Bd6 8. 0-0&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Elephant Gambit&lt;/strong&gt; 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 d5&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Latvian Gambit&lt;/strong&gt; 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 f5&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Irish Gambit&lt;/strong&gt; 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Nxe5?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Halloween Gambit&lt;/strong&gt; 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. Nxe5?!&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Blackburne Shilling Gambit&lt;/strong&gt; 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Nd4&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Italian Gambit&lt;/strong&gt; 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Bc5 4. d4&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Rousseau Gambit&lt;/strong&gt; 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 f5&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Evans Gambit&lt;/strong&gt; 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Bc5 4. b4&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Blackmar–Diemer Gambit&lt;/strong&gt; 1. d4 d5 2. e4 dxe4 3. Nc3&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Queen's Gambit&lt;/strong&gt; 1. d4 d5 2. c4&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Grünfeld Gambit&lt;/strong&gt; 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 d5 4. Bf4 Bg7 5. e3 0-0&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1909" LastEditorUserId="10905" LastEditDate="2016-07-28T13:03:40.097" LastActivityDate="2016-07-28T13:03:40.097" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5379" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-04-30T00:14:38.893" Score="3" ViewCount="335" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am looking for an advanced set of puzzles and the ability to track progress, similar to chessok (which looks good, but is not free, and the selection of puzzles is limited compared to their offline courses). My skill level is &gt;2000 ELO. Are there any alternatives to Chessok?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3029" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2014-04-30T01:23:33.210" LastActivityDate="2014-04-30T02:42:23.247" Title="What are the options for solving puzzles online and tracking progress?" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;training&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5380" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5379" CreationDate="2014-04-30T01:15:39.483" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chesstempo.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;ChessTempo&lt;/a&gt; allows for unlimited solving of tactics problems with a free membership. It has a large database of problems drawn from games, and it tracks your solving statistics along with your individual tactics rating. Also, you can track your progress on two sorts of problems: untimed, or where the elapsed time for solving factors into your performance rating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2014-04-30T01:15:39.483" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5381" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5379" CreationDate="2014-04-30T02:42:23.247" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chess.emrald.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess Tactics Server&lt;/a&gt; is quite competitive. It measures your performance based not only on the correctness of your solution, but also how long it took you to solve the problem. It maintains a leaderboard, so you can see where you stand in the whole world (among the active players) as well as in your own country.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/aWsk1.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/fKqrD.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2429" LastActivityDate="2014-04-30T02:42:23.247" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5382" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5356" CreationDate="2014-04-30T03:28:26.670" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Weird Chess Rule Number 1 - you &lt;em&gt;HAVE&lt;/em&gt; to make a move&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a fundamental rule of chess and in quite contrast to real war/battle like situations. In a real battle, you may not want to make a move if you're sure that the move will cause you harm. You may choose to keep your soldiers in the exact same position and wait for the enemy to move and then react accordingly. Unfortunately, in chess, you cannot do that. You cannot say &quot;pass&quot; and give up your turn. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Consider this position - &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;     [FEN &quot;8/8/8/8/8/K7/B7/k7 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;     [Event &quot;Black to move cannot avoid putting the king in check&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here, it is Black to move. The Black king can technically go to &lt;strong&gt;g8&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;g7&lt;/strong&gt;, or &lt;strong&gt;h7&lt;/strong&gt;. But if it moves to either of these squares, it will walk into a check and thus be threatened with capture. &lt;strong&gt;So what should the outcome of this game be?&lt;/strong&gt; We aren't allowing Black the option of not making a move and at the same time forcing Black to make a move that would move the king into check, when in fact the king is quite safe in the corner and White has no way of winning. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus, to be &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;fair&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; to Black, this position has to be declared a draw. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately, this is not true for every position where Black (or White for that matter) has no moves that do not lead to putting the king in check. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, in this position - &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    [FEN &quot;8/8/8/8/8/K7/2Q5/k7 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;    [Event &quot;Black to move cannot avoid putting the king in check&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black has no moves, but that doesn't mean the fair thing to do is declare this position a draw. However, that's unfortunately the current rule in chess. It's no wonder that the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalemate#History_of_the_stalemate_rule&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;stalemate rule has varied greatly throughout history&lt;/a&gt;. At the most, one could argue that &lt;strong&gt;it's not fair to ask Black to move the king into a position where it could be attacked&lt;/strong&gt;, but since we insist on &lt;em&gt;weird chess rule number 1&lt;/em&gt;, then the fair thing to do is to declare this position a draw. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are also stalemates that can occur because the side is &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/4836/is-it-possible-to-have-a-double-self-smothered-stalemate&quot;&gt;forced to capture its own pieces&lt;/a&gt; in order to make a move. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Changing the Stalemate Rules will Greatly Change Chess Endgame Theory&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is another reason why the flawed stalemate rule is allowed to exist. We have studied chess endgames with this rule in much detail. Changing the stalemate rule will significantly alter how we understand the game of chess and much of our acquired knowledge of chess will be useless and even misleading. For example, consider the simple case of king and pawn endgames. If stalemate is not a draw, endgames like these will have to be declared to be winning for the side with the extra pawn. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;     [FEN &quot;7k/8/8/8/8/8/6KP/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;     [Event &quot;White wins if stalemate is not a draw&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;     1. h4 Kh7 2. Kg3 Kh6 3. Kg4 Kh7 4. h5 Kh6 5. Kh4 Kh7 6. Kg5 Kg7 7. h6+ Kh7 8.&#xA;     Kh5 Kh8 9. Kg6 Kg8 10. h7+ Kh8 11. Kh6 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;Fundamental&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; endgame positions like these will have to be re-evaluated and in turn &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;those endgame studies which rely on these fundamental positions will have to be re-evaluated&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;. In turn, our understanding of the middlegame will also have to be altered to fit this new endgame knowledge. Thus, it's very impractical at this point in history to change the stalemate rule. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Conclusion&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We have decided not to change &lt;em&gt;weird chess rule number 1&lt;/em&gt;. Stalemate is a by-product of that rule. It's not fair to force a side to move its king into check, thus, in this context, it makes sense to declare stalemate to be a draw. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2429" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.193" LastActivityDate="2014-04-30T03:28:26.670" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5383" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5350" CreationDate="2014-04-30T04:16:05.337" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;First of all, here's some complementary analysis of the whole game using Stockfish DD 64 SSE4.2&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    [Event &quot;Complementary analysis of whole game&quot;]&#xA;    [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;    1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 e6 5. Nc3 a6 6. Nxc6 bxc6 7. Be2 (7. Bd3&#xA;    $1 d5 8. O-O Nf6 9. Re1) 7... d5 8. O-O Qc7 9. f4 $6 (9. Re1!) 9... Bc5+ 10. Kh1&#xA;    d4 $2 (10... Ne7 $1) 11. Na4 $1 Ba7 12. b3 (12. c3! dxc3 13. bxc3 Bb7 14. c4 Nf6&#xA;    15. Bf3 c5 16. e5 Nd7 17. Bxb7 Qxb7 18. Be3) 12... Ne7 13. Bd3 (13! c3 dxc3 14.&#xA;    Ba3 c5 15. Qd3 Bb7 16. Rac1 O-O 17. Rxc3) 13... O-O 14. Qh5 (14! Ba3 c5 15. c3)&#xA;    14... f5 15. Ba3 Rf6 16. Bxe7 (16. Qe8+ $1 Rf8 17. Qxe7) 16... Qxe7 17. Nb2 (&#xA;    17. exf5! exf5 18. Rae1 Be6 (18... Qd6 19. Re8+ Rf8 20. Rfe1 Bd7 21. R8e7) 19.&#xA;    Bxf5) 17... Rh6 18. Qe2 (18. Qg5 $1) 18... Bc5 19. Rf3 (19. Nc4 $1) 19... Bd6&#xA;    20. Nc4 Bc5 21. Ne5 Qc7 22. Bc4 (22. exf5 $1 exf5 23. Ng4 $3 Re6 24. Bc4 fxg4&#xA;    25. Bxe6+ Bxe6 26. Qxe6+ Kh8 27. Qxg4) 22... Kf8 23. exf5 exf5 24. Re1 Bd7 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Basic Idea - Win material. Exchange bishop.&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Win the pawn on &lt;strong&gt;a6&lt;/strong&gt; and exchange off the light squared bishops. Then the knight on &lt;strong&gt;e5&lt;/strong&gt; will be stronger and Black's pawns on the light squares will be weaker. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus, a simple line seems to be - &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;   [Event &quot;Basic Idea&quot;]&#xA;   [FEN &quot;r4k2/2qb2pp/p1p4r/2b1Np2/2Bp1P2/1P3R2/P1P1Q1PP/4R2K w - - 0 25&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;   1. Bxa6 Be6 2. Bc4 Re8 3. Bxe6 Rhxe6 4. Qd3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This gives white a small advantage. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Basic Idea with Optimizations -&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the previous idea, Black's rooks are too strong. With some calculation, it can be shown that White can exchange the rook on &lt;strong&gt;h6&lt;/strong&gt; and also &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;damage Black's kingside pawn structure and then proceed with the basic idea&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;. Black cannot really avoid this, as the variations show - &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    [Event &quot;Basic Idea With Optimizations&quot;]&#xA;    [FEN &quot;r4k2/2qb2pp/p1p4r/2b1Np2/2Bp1P2/1P3R2/P1P1Q1PP/4R2K w - - 0 25&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;    1. Qd3 $1 Re8 (1... Rf6 2. Rh3 h6 3. g4 $1 fxg4 (3... Re8 4. g5 Rd6 5. gxh6 gxh6          &#xA;    6. Qg3 Be6 7. Rxh6) 4. Nxd7+ Qxd7 5. Qh7 gxh3 6. Qg8#) (1...&#xA;    Bc8 2. Rh3 Qd6 3. Nf7) 2. Rh3 Bc8 (2... Rxh3 3. Qxh3 h6 (3... Be6 4. Bxe6 Rxe6 &#xA;    5.  Qxf5+) 4. Ng6#) 3. Rxh6 gxh6 4. Bxa6 Be6 5. Bc4 Bxc4 6. Qxc4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2429" LastActivityDate="2014-04-30T04:16:05.337" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5384" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-05-01T02:21:06.083" Score="10" ViewCount="2155" Body="&lt;p&gt;What defensive patterns and structures are used in Bughouse and Crazyhouse? I've heard that castling is rarely useful, but what should be done instead? My defensive play usually boils down to huddling in the &quot;turtle formation&quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;2rqkr2/pppbbppp/2nppn2/8/8/8/8/8 w KQ - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;sup&gt;&lt;em&gt;Turtling exaggerated for dramatic effect&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is entirely ineffective and quickly results in mate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How can I defend in bughouse?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="827" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-05-01T10:01:52.207" LastActivityDate="2018-07-18T08:56:28.723" Title="Bughouse defense patterns" Tags="&lt;defense&gt;&lt;bughouse&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5385" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-05-01T18:37:33.753" Score="5" ViewCount="1547" Body="&lt;p&gt;We've all heard about the concepts of 'good' bishop and 'bad' bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;r1bqk1nr/ppp2ppp/2np4/2b1p3/2B1P3/5N2/PPPP1PPP/RNBQ1RK1 w kq - 0 5&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the position above, the white knight at f3 does not have access to either of the centre squares d4 or e5. Can this knight be considered a 'bad' knight? Is it best to have developed it to f3 or would e2 be a better square for this knight?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1811" LastActivityDate="2014-05-06T09:18:21.593" Title="Is there a concept of 'good' knight and 'bad' knight?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5386" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5385" CreationDate="2014-05-01T18:57:58.943" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'll answer this in three parts: the literal question, the concept of badly-placed pieces, and the particular example you give.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Bishops are the only piece for which the nomenclature &quot;good&quot; and &quot;bad&quot; is idiomatic. That is because the set of squares a bishop can theoretically travel to is inherent to it; a dark-squared bishop can never ever go to a light square, so if the position is such that you'd like to have a bishop on light squares, you're out of luck and your bishop is &quot;bad&quot;. On the other hand, if you have a badly-placed knight (or queen, or rook), there's almost never something preventing you from theoretically eventually repositioning it on a good square. So people generally don't use the term &quot;bad knights&quot;.&#xA;(People sometimes speak of endgames with a &quot;good knight versus a bad bishop&quot;, but this is more a figure of speech meant to call attention to the fact that the bishop is bad and the knight cannot be.)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Pieces can of course be badly placed, but except in the case of a bishop of the wrong color, they are just referred to as badly-placed pieces. In fact an excellent strategical rule of thumb is to always consider improving the position of your worst-placed piece.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;However, in the position you present, the knight is doing just fine on f3. It supports an eventual d4 (probably with the support of a pawn on c3), which if played at the right time could be very powerful, opening up the center. It puts pressure on Black's pawn on e5, dissuading him from playing the analogous move ...d5. And in some circumstances it could jump to g5, putting pressure on f7 or h7 (especially after Black has castled).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2014-05-01T18:57:58.943" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5387" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5385" CreationDate="2014-05-01T19:00:11.557" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &quot;goodness&quot; or badness&quot; of a knight is measured by how many squares it can reach, whether or not the opposition controls it. If you somehow put Black's queen on d4, the knight on f3 can capture it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The knight on f3 is &quot;good.&quot; It can move its theoretical maximum of eight squares. A knight on one of the corner squares, h1, is &quot;bad.&quot; It can move only two squares. A knight on e2 would have only six theoretical moves, not as good as being on f3, unless there were some other, strategic reason (e.g., supporting a knight under attack on c3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2014-05-01T19:00:11.557" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5391" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-05-02T15:11:29.190" Score="3" ViewCount="1280" Body="&lt;p&gt;In one of the recent versions of Fritz, every time I analyze a position in infinite analysis mode, and hit a checkmate position, Fritz pop-ups a dialog box and a voice with German accent loudly says &quot;Checkmate&quot;, or some variation of it. Does anyone know how to turn that off? While not a big deal, but after analysing a few combinations a day, this gets annoying more than one would imagine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="618" LastActivityDate="2015-10-23T11:01:14.420" Title="Is there a setting in recent versions of Fritz to turn off checkmate announcement?" Tags="&lt;software&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5392" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-05-03T00:05:50.557" Score="18" ViewCount="3774" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've reached this position, or something similar, a zillion times as both black and white (main line exchange queen's gambit):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 e6 2.c4 Nf6 3.Nc3 d5 4.cxd5 exd5 5.Bg5 c6 6.e3 Be7 7.Bd3 O-O 8.Nf3 Nbd7 9. O-O&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As white, I typically employ the plans: (a) a minority attack with the a- and b-pawns, (b) put the bishop behind the queen on the b1-h7 diagonal and create weaknesses in black's kingside [more effective if black has played h6], or (c) aim the push the e4-pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As black, I feel planless.  Hence...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Question&lt;/em&gt;: What are black's possible plans in the exchange variation of the Queen's Gambit?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The things that spring to mind are the ...c5 push (leading to a black IQP game), or ...b6 followed by ...Bb7 and ...c5 (although it always seems difficult to locate the queen after these moves).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2785" LastActivityDate="2014-06-17T15:52:18.457" Title="What are black's possible plans in the exchange variation of the Queen's Gambit?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;queens-gambit&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5393" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5392" CreationDate="2014-05-03T02:54:25.237" Score="17" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Question: What are black's possible plans in the exchange variation of&#xA;  the Queen's Gambit?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think the positions could be classified into two main types depending upon where White develops the &lt;strong&gt;g1&lt;/strong&gt; knight - &lt;strong&gt;f3&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;strong&gt;e2&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;A) Black's ideas when White develops Knight on f3&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1) Knight mavouvere - d7-f8-e6-g7 followed by Bf5!&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A very interesting idea was introduced in the game &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1004692&quot;&gt;Reshevsky vs Stahlberg, 1937&lt;/a&gt;. Instead of &quot;automatically&quot; castling, Black first mavouvers the knight to &lt;strong&gt;e6&lt;/strong&gt;, thereby saving a tempo and prepares to play &lt;strong&gt;g6&lt;/strong&gt; followed by &lt;strong&gt;Ng7&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;Bf5&lt;/strong&gt;! In his &lt;a href=&quot;http://shop.chessbase.com/en/products/how_to_play_the_queens_gambit&quot;&gt;DVD on the Queens Gambit&lt;/a&gt;, Garry Kasparov considers this to be Black's main idea of solving the problem of the bishop on &lt;strong&gt;c8&lt;/strong&gt; and also exchanging White's strong bishop on &lt;strong&gt;d3&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  [Event &quot;Knight manouvere d7-f8-e6-g7 followed by Bf5!&quot;]&#xA;  [Date &quot;1937&quot;]&#xA;  [White &quot;Reshevsky&quot;]&#xA;  [Black &quot;Stahlberg&quot;]&#xA;  [Result &quot;1/2-1/2&quot;]&#xA;  [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;    1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nf3 d5 4. Nc3 Be7 5. Bg5 Nbd7 6. cxd5 exd5 7. e3 c6 8.&#xA;    Qc2 Nf8 9. Bd3 Ne6 10. Bh4 g6 11. O-O-O O-O 12. Kb1 Ng7 13. h3 Bf5 14. Bxf6&#xA;    Bxf6 15. g4 Bxd3 16. Qxd3 Ne6 17. h4 c5 18. dxc5 Bxc3 19. Qxc3 Rc8 20. e4 Rxc5&#xA;    21. Qa3 Qd6 22. exd5 Rd8 23. Qxa7 Rxd5 24. Rxd5 Qxd5 25. Qe3 h5 26. Re1 hxg4&#xA;    27. Ne5 Ng7 28. Qe4 Qxe4+ 29. Rxe4 f5 30. Rc4 Kh7 31. Kc2 Re8 32. Nd3 Ne6 33.&#xA;    a4 Kh6 34. Rb4 Re7 35. Rb6 f4 36. Rb4 g5 37. hxg5+ Kxg5 38. Rb5+ Kh4 39. Re5&#xA;    Nd4+ 40. Kc3 Rxe5 41. Nxe5 Ne6 42. Nd3 f3 43. b4 g3 44. fxg3+ Kxg3 45. a5 Nf4&#xA;    46. Nc5 Kg2 47. Ne4 Nd5+ 48. Kb3 Nc7 49. Kc4 Ne6 50. b5 Ng5 51. Nd2 f2 52. a6&#xA;    Ne4 53. axb7 Nxd2+ 54. Kc3 f1=Q 55. b8=Q Qc1+ 56. Kd3 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;2) Traditional plan of equalizing with Ne4.&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a very solid idea for Black to equalize. It leads to an exchange of pieces and stops White's ideas of pushing &lt;strong&gt;e4&lt;/strong&gt;, thereby neutralizing White's positional advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A sample line is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  [Event &quot;Traditional plan of equalizing with Ne4&quot;]&#xA;  [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;  1. d4 d5 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. cxd5 exd5 5. Bg5 Be7 6. e3 c6 7. Qc2 O-O 8. Bd3&#xA;  Nbd7 9. Nf3 Re8 10. O-O Nf8 11. h3 Ne4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that this is a general idea and could be played in many different move orders. Here are some sample Grandmaster games where Black successfully used this idea to equalize and then even went on to win the game. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1721854&quot;&gt;Pavel Eljanov vs Yuriy Kryvoruchko, 2013 0-1&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1458251&quot;&gt;Athanasios Mastrovasilis vs Mikhail Gurevich, 2007 0-1&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;3) Prevent minority attack with a timely b5 and invite White to overextend.&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If Black doesn't employ the earlier ideas, then Black has to passively defend the position a bit longer. However, this often has the added psychological ploy of inviting White to overextend in his/her efforts to win from their &quot;better&quot; position. I found this Grandmaster game where Black manages to prevent the minority attack and White ends up overextending and actually losing the game. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1489096&quot;&gt;Pavel Maletin vs Vladimir Malakhov, 2008 0-1&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    [Event &quot; Prevent minority attack with a timely b5 and invite White to overextend&quot;]&#xA;    [Date &quot;2008&quot;]&#xA;    [White &quot;Maletin&quot;]&#xA;    [Black &quot;Malakhov&quot;]&#xA;    [Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;    [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;    1. d4 d5 2. c4 c6 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. Nc3 e6 5. Bg5 Nbd7 6. cxd5 exd5 7. e3 Be7 8.&#xA;    Bd3 O-O 9. Qc2 Re8 10. h3 Nf8 11. Bf4 Be6 12. O-O Bd6 13. Bxd6 Qxd6 14. Rab1 a5&#xA;    15. a3 N6d7 16. Rfc1 Rec8 17. Ne2 b6 18. b4 axb4 19. axb4 b5 20. Nf4 h6 21. Qd1&#xA;    Nb6 22. Ne5 Nc4 23. Qh5 Rc7 24. Bc2 Ra2 25. Ned3 Rca7 26. Bb3 R2a3 27. Rd1 Bc8&#xA;    28. Nc5 g5 29. Nfd3 Bf5 30. Qf3 Bg6 31. Rbc1 Be4 32. Qe2 Bxd3 33. Rxd3 Ne6 34.&#xA;    Bxc4 bxc4 35. Rxa3 Rxa3 36. Qb2 Ra7 37. b5 cxb5 38. Qxb5 Kg7 39. Rb1 Rc7 40.&#xA;    Qb2 Qc6 41. Rc1 Nxc5 42. dxc5+ f6 43. Ra1 Qxc5 44. Qb8 Rf7 45. Ra8 Qf8 46.&#xA;    Qxf8+ Rxf8 47. Ra5 Rd8 48. g4 Kf7 49. Kf1 Ke6 50. Ke2 h5 51. gxh5 Rh8 52. e4&#xA;    dxe4 53. Rc5 Rxh5 54. Rxc4 Ke5 55. Rc5+ Kd6 56. Rc3 Rh8 57. Ra3 Ke5 58. f3 f5&#xA;    59. fxe4 fxe4 60. Kf2 Kf4 61. Kg2 Rb8 62. Ra2 Rb3 63. Ra8 Rb2+ 64. Kf1 Kf3 65.&#xA;    Rf8+ Kg3 66. Rf5 Kh4 67. Re5 Rb3 68. Rxe4+ Kxh3 69. Re1 Kh2 70. Re2+ Kh1 71.&#xA;    Re4 Rf3+ 72. Ke2 Rf5 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;B) Black's ideas when White develops Knight on e2.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is actually a more critical line than the &lt;strong&gt;Nf3&lt;/strong&gt; variation. In his aforementioned DVD, Kasparov claims that the results with &lt;strong&gt;Ne2&lt;/strong&gt; are in favor of White and looking at the games at the highest level, I have to agree with him. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Searching through a database, I found that the highest rated player to play this setup with Black was Ivanchuk against Carlsen in 2009. In that game Ivanchuk had to resort to &lt;strong&gt;passive defense&lt;/strong&gt; and Carlsen missed a move which could have given him a decisive advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1546403&quot;&gt;Carlsen vs Ivanchuk 2009 1/2-1/2&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yusopov beat Portisch in this line way back in 1986 by &lt;strong&gt;first defending passively and then embarking on a kingside attack&lt;/strong&gt;, although this cannot be suggested as a &quot;general idea&quot;, so use this with caution.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1114134&quot;&gt;Portisch vs Yusopov, 1986 0-1&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  [White &quot;Portisch&quot;]&#xA;  [Black &quot;Yusopov&quot;]&#xA;  [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;  [Event &quot;Passive queenside defense followed by kingside attack&quot;]&#xA;  [Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;  [Date &quot;1986&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;   1. c4 e6 2. Nc3 d5 3. d4 Nf6 4. cxd5 exd5 5. Bg5 Be7 6. e3 Nbd7 7. Bd3 O-O &#xA;   8. Nge2 Re8 9. O-O c6 10. Qc2 Nf8 11. Rab1 Be6 12. b4 a6 13. Na4 N6d7 14. Bxe7 Qxe7 &#xA;   15. Nc5 Nxc5 16. bxc5 Rad8 17. Rb2 g6 18. Rfb1 Bc8 19. Nc1 Rd7 20. Nb3 Ne6 &#xA;   21. Na5 Nd8 22. Qd1 h5 23. Qf3 Kg7 24. h3 h4 25. Qf4 Rc7 26. Kf1 Rh8 27. Rb3 g5 &#xA;   28. Qh2 f6 29. R1b2 Nf7 30. Ke1 Re8 31. Kd1 f5 32. Re2 Qd8 33. Rb6 f4 34. exf4 Rxe2 &#xA;   35. Kxe2 Qf6 36. Rb4 gxf4 37. Kd2 Re7 38. Qh1 f3 39. Kc3 Ng5 40. gxf3 Qf4 &#xA;   41. Rb1 Nxf3 42. Nb3 Kf8 43. Rd1 Ng5 44. Nd2 Rf7 45. f3 Nxh3 46. Re1 Ng5 47. Re2 Re7 &#xA;   48. Rxe7 Kxe7 49. Qe1 Be6 50. Qb1 h3 51. Qxb7 Bd7 52. Qa8 h2 53. Qh8 Nh3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1) New Idea - knight maneuver d7-f8-e6 followed by bishop to b7.&lt;/strong&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chess-db.com/public/game.jsp?id=5053196.5072786.166331136&quot;&gt;Nubairshah Shaikh vs Arvindh Chithambaram 2013 0-1&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I came across a recent interesting game by India's rising star &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.chessbase.com/post/the-next-anand-aravindh-a-special-indian-talent&quot;&gt;Arvindh Chithambaran&lt;/a&gt;. The idea, as I understand it, is to maneuver the knight to &lt;strong&gt;e6&lt;/strong&gt;, develop the bishop on &lt;strong&gt;b7&lt;/strong&gt; and then invite White to trade the dark squared bishops. Black can also play &lt;strong&gt;f5&lt;/strong&gt; considering the fact that the knight on &lt;strong&gt;e2&lt;/strong&gt; cannot really get to the outpost created on &lt;strong&gt;e5&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;   [Event &quot;knight maneuver d7-f8-e6 followed by bishop to b7&quot;]&#xA;   [Date &quot;2013&quot;]&#xA;   [White &quot;Shaikh&quot;]&#xA;   [Black &quot;Chithambaram&quot;]&#xA;   [Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;   [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;    1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 d5 4. cxd5 exd5 5. Bg5 Be7 6. e3 c6 7. Bd3 Nbd7 8.&#xA;    Qc2 Nf8 9. Nge2 Ne6 10. Bh4 g6 11. O-O O-O 12. f3 b6 13. Rad1 Bb7 14. Kh1 Rc8&#xA;    15. a3 Nh5 16. Bf2 f5 17. b4 Bd6 18. f4 b5 19. Ng1 a5 20. Rb1 Nf6 21. Bh4 Ra8&#xA;    22. Nf3 Qe7 23. Bxf6 Qxf6 24. Ne5 Qe7 25. Qb2 Ra7 26. Rfc1 Rfa8 27. h3 Ng7 28.&#xA;    Rc2 axb4 29. axb4 Ra6 30. Qc1 Ne8 31. Ne2 Ra3 32. Qd2 R8a6 33. Kh2 Nf6 34. Nc1&#xA;    R3a4 35. Rcb2 Nd7 36. Nxd7 Qxd7 37. Bc2 Ra3 38. Nd3 Qe7 39. Bb3 Kg7 40. Nc5&#xA;    Bxc5 41. dxc5 Ra8 42. Qd4+ Qf6 43. Rd2 Re8 44. Kg1 Re4 45. Qxf6+ Kxf6 46. Bc2&#xA;    Rexe3 47. Kf2 Bc8 48. Bd1 Re4 49. Bf3 Rxf4 50. Re2 Be6 51. Rbe1 Re4 52. Bxe4&#xA;    dxe4 53. Rb2 Bd5 54. Rbb1 Ra4 55. h4 f4 56. g3 Ra2+ 57. Re2 fxg3+ 58. Ke3 Ra3+&#xA;    59. Kd2 Ke5 60. Re3 Ra2+ 61. Kc3 Kf4 62. Ree1 e3 63. Ra1 Rxa1 64. Rxa1 g2 65.&#xA;    Re1 Kf3 66. Kd4 Kf2 67. Ra1 e2 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;2) Preventing the Ne2 line altogether by playing an intermediate move 3...Be7!?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    [Event &quot;Black plays 3...Be7!? and White is unable to get both Bg5 and Ne2&quot;]&#xA;    [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;    1. d4 d5 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 Be7!?&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;3...Be7&lt;/strong&gt; puts White in a dilemma because White cannot get in both &lt;strong&gt;Bg5&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;Ne2&lt;/strong&gt;. White has to try &lt;strong&gt;Bf4&lt;/strong&gt;, but then Black's kingside is not pressured as much as after &lt;strong&gt;Bg5&lt;/strong&gt;. In some lines, Black can once again follow the same plan of knight maneuver to &lt;strong&gt;e6&lt;/strong&gt; followed by &lt;strong&gt;g6&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;Bf5&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;     [Event &quot;Sample lines after 3...Be7&quot;]&#xA;     [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;     1. d4 d5 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 Be7 4. cxd5 (4. Bf4 Nf6 5. Nf3 O-O 6. e3 Nbd7 7. c5 c6&#xA;     8. Bd3 b6 9. b4 a5 10. a3 Ba6 11. O-O Qc8 12. h3 Qb7) (4. Nf3 Nf6 5. Bg5 c6 6.&#xA;     e3 Nbd7) 4... exd5 5. Bf4 Nf6 6. Nf3 O-O 7. e3 c6 8. Bd3 Nbd7 9. Qc2 Re8 10. h3&#xA;     Nf8 11. O-O Ne6 12. Bh2 g6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;P.S. This is definitely the longest I have spent answering a single question on chess.stackexchange.com!&lt;/em&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2429" LastEditorUserId="2429" LastEditDate="2014-05-03T15:43:23.960" LastActivityDate="2014-05-03T15:43:23.960" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5394" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-05-04T18:44:11.630" Score="12" ViewCount="5385" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Grand Prix Attack begins 1. e4 c5 2. Nc3 Nc6 3. f4. It is an anti-Sicilian for white that is popular among club players because playing it requires memorizing significantly less theory than the open Sicilian. However, I wonder if playing it is a good choice. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.365chess.com/eco/B23_Sicilian_Grand_Prix_attack&quot;&gt;365chess database&lt;/a&gt;, after playing 3. f4, white wins 36% of the time, while black wins 40% of the time. That is, by playing 3. f4, the white player seems to give black a slight advantage. Compare this to the open Sicilian or the 2. c3 Sicilian, where white maintains a slight advantage in winning percentage. It is tempting to conclude that white should not play the Grand Prix attack, and instead choose another anti-Sicilian. The large sample size (11,000 games) seems to indicate that playing 3. f4 really does put white at a disadvantage, and that the winning percentages aren't just a statistical anomaly. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's not hard to come up with an explanation. Moving the f4 pawn seems to give white a slight structural disadvantage. If white can't strike the killing blow and black can close up the game, the weakened kingside allows black counterplay. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Certainly, one can easily think of objections to this analysis. For example, the games in the database are not a random sample, and there is probably a large bias towards 2000+ level play. And it's true that at a club level, especially below 1600, tactical blunders in the middlegame are going to make the opening moves irrelevant. But the sample size is huge, and the effect is significant (a 4% advantage in winning percentage for &lt;em&gt;black&lt;/em&gt;, instead of the usual 3% advantage for white in the open Sicilian). Why not play it safe and choose a different anti-Sicilian? I don't think club players should hamstring themselves unnecessarily. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In light of the above, are there any good reasons for club players to play the Grand Prix Attack instead of a different anti-Sicilian? For example (and I don't have the computational skill to do this, otherwise I would), do the winning percentages look different for sub-2000 players?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3051" LastEditorUserId="3051" LastEditDate="2014-05-04T19:24:07.177" LastActivityDate="2020-09-20T14:58:27.977" Title="Is the Grand Prix Attack a poor response to the Sicilian?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;&lt;database&gt;" AnswerCount="8" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5395" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5394" CreationDate="2014-05-04T19:50:19.400" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't have any statistics to back this up, but many openings where black has a large plus against white it isn't necessarily because the opening is actually so bad that it gives black a significant advantage, but because the opening is more popular at a lower level (which is normally because it actually is worse than other openings) so the players who play it are on average lower rated than their opponents and would most likely score less than 50% anyway. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Normally the openings with low percentages for white are slightly worse than other openings for white, but not necessarily so bad as to give black the advantage, but then the fact that they're worse than others kicks in and the higher level players play them less often, leading to that opening to score a lot of losses for white, even in a game which is even or with a slight edge for white after the opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3053" LastEditorUserId="3053" LastEditDate="2014-11-27T16:08:36.703" LastActivityDate="2014-11-27T16:08:36.703" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5396" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5392" CreationDate="2014-05-05T03:24:34.927" Score="9" Body="&lt;h2&gt;INTRODUCTION AND RELEVANT INFORMATION:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Exchange variation of the Queen’s Gambit Declined can be reached via many move orders so there is no point in posting theoretical lines here since they will not fit ( they are too broad ). The best way to answer this question is to &lt;strong&gt;actually explain how to play positions that arise.&lt;/strong&gt; To start explaining this line, the below pawn structure must be considered :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Typical pawn structure&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;8/pp3ppp/2p5/3p4/3P4/4P3/PP3PPP/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Central formation is fixed, so pawn breaks must be considered in order to evaluate which player stands better, if any. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black has only one pawn break -&gt; &lt;code&gt;...c5&lt;/code&gt; but that will leave him with isolated &lt;code&gt;d-pawn&lt;/code&gt;.   Owner of such pawn stands weaker in pure pawn ending but in middlegame has good compensation in view of active piece play and pressure.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Black can not obtain satisfying position with the isolated &lt;code&gt;d-pawn&lt;/code&gt; because of the following:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;White is usually ahead in development;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;White has strong pressure on &lt;code&gt;c-file&lt;/code&gt; with &lt;code&gt;Rc1&lt;/code&gt; + &lt;code&gt;Qc2&lt;/code&gt;;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;White easily exchanges pieces which reduces Black’s attacking chances;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for White, he has central pawn break &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; that might leave him with isolated &lt;code&gt;d-pawn&lt;/code&gt;, but unlike Black, &lt;strong&gt;in some lines&lt;/strong&gt; he can actually obtain fully satisfactory position. Still, most of the time playing with isolated pawn is not very rewarding for White. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Since both sides have no satisfactory breaks in the center, we need to consider play on wings.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White &lt;strong&gt;absolutely dominates&lt;/strong&gt; in this aspect. Practice has seen White successfully operating on queenside ( &lt;em&gt;minority attack&lt;/em&gt; ) and on kingside ( &lt;code&gt;f4&lt;/code&gt; push ). Black usually can’t use his queenside pawn majority effectively, since he will create a backward pawn on &lt;code&gt;c6&lt;/code&gt; which usually costs him the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since he can’t strike in the center and queenside, Black must seek chances on kingside. Since pawn storm with &lt;code&gt;...f5&lt;/code&gt; fails, Black tried with piece attack against opposing king which gave decent results. White started to play slowly and after preventing the kingside attack went on to continue with his plans. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That is why Black adopted the following plan : &lt;strong&gt;Black keeps his pieces centralized, and positioned to counter/prevent opponent’s action.&lt;/strong&gt; He will try to generate kingside play by attacking there &lt;strong&gt;with pieces first.&lt;/strong&gt; After White makes a pawn move &lt;strong&gt;with pawns in front of his king,&lt;/strong&gt; Black launches pawn storm.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The last nuance, &lt;strong&gt;that is very important&lt;/strong&gt;, is the position of the White’s king knight. If posted on &lt;code&gt;f3&lt;/code&gt;, lines are harmless for Black, but if on &lt;code&gt;e2&lt;/code&gt; then Black will defend for a long time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now is the time to move on the next section that explains concrete plans for both sides.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;TYPICAL PLANS:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;1. Central breakthrough;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;2. Kingside initiative with &lt;code&gt;f4&lt;/code&gt;;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;3. Queenside initiative-minority attack;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;4. Opposite-side castling;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;5. Short Endgame;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;6. Alatortsev variation;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1.Central breakthrough;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With &lt;code&gt;Nf3&lt;/code&gt; this is not dangerous for Black. As soon as White plays &lt;code&gt;Rae1&lt;/code&gt; with the idea of &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt;, Black responds with &lt;code&gt;...Ne4!&lt;/code&gt; and gets equal position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Black equalizes with White knight on f3&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. cxd5 exd5 5. Bg5 c6 6. Qc2 Be7 7. e3 O-O 8. Bd3 Nbd7 9. Nf3 Re8 10. O-O Nf8 11. Rae1 Ne4!&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, with &lt;code&gt;Ne2&lt;/code&gt; things are &lt;strong&gt;critical for Black.&lt;/strong&gt; Black’s main idea is to play &lt;code&gt;...c5!&lt;/code&gt; in order to &lt;strong&gt;further weaken dark squares in White camp,&lt;/strong&gt; especially &lt;code&gt;a7-g1&lt;/code&gt; diagonal. Knight on &lt;code&gt;f6&lt;/code&gt; is rerouted to &lt;code&gt;b6&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason why this sub-variation is not a mainline is because Black successfully uses various move orders to dodge it. So far nobody found a solid equalizer, and White enjoys permanent, but slight, advantage. Since there is no solid equalizer, the only thing I can recommend is to study &lt;strong&gt;most up-to-date literature&lt;/strong&gt; on this subject. I recommend you &lt;em&gt;Lars Schandorff-Playing the Queens Gambit (2012)&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;2.Kingside initiative with &lt;code&gt;f4&lt;/code&gt;;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This plan is played with &lt;code&gt;Nf3&lt;/code&gt; setup. The point is to restrict Black’s white bishop and maintain space advantage. Game &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1107377&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Petrosian-Beliavsky, USSR championship 1983&lt;/a&gt; is the first time this plan was tried ( if I am not mistaken ). Usually Black plays &lt;code&gt;...f6&lt;/code&gt; and posts bishop to &lt;code&gt;f7&lt;/code&gt;, achieving solid position with equal chances. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;3.Queenside initiative-minority attack;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;This plan is good only with &lt;code&gt;Nf3&lt;/code&gt;. With &lt;code&gt;Ne2&lt;/code&gt; it fails.&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White plans to play &lt;code&gt;b4-b5-bxc6&lt;/code&gt; to create backward pawn on &lt;code&gt;c6&lt;/code&gt; and isolated &lt;code&gt;a-pawn&lt;/code&gt;. Then he will use the &lt;code&gt;c-file&lt;/code&gt; to put pressure on &lt;code&gt;c6&lt;/code&gt; and will eventually capture the &lt;code&gt;c6&lt;/code&gt; pawn. The ideal pawn structure for White is shown in following diagram:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Minority attack pawn structure&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;8/p4ppp/2p5/3p4/3P4/4P3/P4PPP/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since Black is too late with &lt;code&gt;...f5&lt;/code&gt; counterplay he concentrates on &lt;strong&gt;exchanging bishops ( positions with &quot;knights-only&quot; are good for Black;&lt;/strong&gt; Black posts a knight on &lt;code&gt;d6&lt;/code&gt; where it controls &lt;code&gt;b5+c4+e4+f5&lt;/code&gt; squares; good illustrative game is &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1106817&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Bobotsov-Petrosian,Lugano 1968&lt;/a&gt; ). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In order to exchange white bishop Black tried maneuver &lt;code&gt;Nf8-e6-g7-Bf5&lt;/code&gt; and to exchange black bishop he usually plays &lt;code&gt;...Ne4&lt;/code&gt; at some point. Practice showed that plan with &lt;code&gt;Nf8-e6-g7-Bf5&lt;/code&gt; is too slow ( but might be valid &lt;strong&gt;if White’s action is slow&lt;/strong&gt; ), so Black turned his attention to other possibilities.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In practice, plan with &lt;code&gt;..a5&lt;/code&gt; proved best. Since White will play &lt;code&gt;a3&lt;/code&gt; in order to achieve &lt;code&gt;b4&lt;/code&gt; Black can slow down minority attack by simply ignoring it for a moment &lt;strong&gt;because &lt;code&gt;a3&lt;/code&gt; pawn will hang&lt;/strong&gt;, or can exchange on &lt;code&gt;b4&lt;/code&gt; ( which will reduce the number of weak pawns he must defend -&gt; this idea can be implemented with &lt;code&gt;...a6&lt;/code&gt; as well, since both moves usually lead to the same position after Black exchanges with &lt;code&gt;...axb4&lt;/code&gt; ) and then play &lt;code&gt;...b5!&lt;/code&gt; to stop minority attack. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The backward &lt;code&gt;...c6&lt;/code&gt; pawn will be shielded by a knight on &lt;code&gt;...c4&lt;/code&gt; and Black will put pressure on &lt;code&gt;b4&lt;/code&gt; pawn with queen and rook. He will also posses &lt;code&gt;a-file&lt;/code&gt;, which will give him sufficient counterplay. &lt;strong&gt;Black must prevent &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; push and must not allow &lt;code&gt;Ne5&lt;/code&gt; in order for this plan to work.&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;An important note: If White exchanged black bishop for &lt;code&gt;...Nf6&lt;/code&gt; ( and you have played &lt;code&gt;...a6&lt;/code&gt; ) then after White plays &lt;code&gt;b5&lt;/code&gt; you may want to play &lt;code&gt;...a5!&lt;/code&gt; to prevent &lt;code&gt;Nc3&lt;/code&gt; to reach strong &lt;code&gt;c5&lt;/code&gt; square. Black bishop &lt;strong&gt;must&lt;/strong&gt; go to &lt;code&gt;d6&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another plan Black has is to respond on &lt;code&gt;b5&lt;/code&gt; with &lt;code&gt;....cxb5+...a5!&lt;/code&gt; followed by &lt;code&gt;...Nb6&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;...b6&lt;/code&gt; ( &lt;code&gt;b6&lt;/code&gt; square &lt;strong&gt;must be blocked&lt;/strong&gt; ) which will create passed pawn on the &lt;code&gt;a-file&lt;/code&gt;. This is not common to see, but sometimes is the only way to play so I am mentioning it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The last plan is probably the best, and can be combined with others: Black will respond on &lt;code&gt;b5&lt;/code&gt; with &lt;code&gt;c5!&lt;/code&gt;. Although he will have isolated pawn, he will be able to harass White’s &lt;code&gt;b5&lt;/code&gt; pawn, and after &lt;code&gt;...cxd4&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;dxc5&lt;/code&gt; the &lt;code&gt;c3&lt;/code&gt; knight will be under pressure, and White queen can be subjected to annoying pin as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Plan with ...a5, a3 pawn hangs&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;r1bqrnk1/1p2bppp/2p2n2/p2p2B1/3P4/P1NBPN2/1PQ2PPP/1R3RK1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.b4 Bd6! 2.b5 Bxa3 3.bxc6 bxc6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It will be harder for White to attack &lt;code&gt;a-pawn&lt;/code&gt; since his pieces are no t well posted for that task. Black can easily defend the &lt;code&gt;a-pawn&lt;/code&gt; since his pieces are flexibly posted. Being temporarily a pawn up, Black can return one pawn in order to &lt;strong&gt;favorably simplify the position.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Plan with ...a5, blocking b5&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;r3r1k1/1p1nqp1p/2pn2p1/p2p4/3P4/P1NQPN2/1P3PPP/1R3RK1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.b4 axb4 2.axb4 b5 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black will post a knight on &lt;code&gt;c4&lt;/code&gt;, rook goes to &lt;code&gt;a3&lt;/code&gt;. God example is &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1302324&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this game&lt;/a&gt;. This plan can be achieved also with &lt;code&gt;1....a6 2.b4 b5&lt;/code&gt;, with the same rules applying. You will have to choose a proper moment to open &lt;code&gt;a-file&lt;/code&gt;...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Stopping Nc5 after Bxf6&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;4r3/pp2bppp/2p2n2/3p2B1/1P1P4/2N1P3/P4PPP/1R6 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Bxf6 Bxf6 2.a4 a6! 3.b5 a5! 4.bxc6 bxc6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This idea is very important once White exchanges black bishop for your knight. &lt;strong&gt;In positions with &lt;code&gt;...a6&lt;/code&gt;,&lt;/strong&gt; you must not allow &lt;code&gt;Nc5&lt;/code&gt;!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Passed a-pawn&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;r7/1p1n1ppp/p1p5/3p4/PP1P4/4P3/5PPP/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.b5 cxb5! 2.axb5 a5!&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now you have passed pawn, &lt;strong&gt;but remember to play &lt;code&gt;...b6&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;...Nb6&lt;/code&gt;!&lt;/strong&gt; The point is to control the &lt;code&gt;b6&lt;/code&gt; square or else you will stand worse.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;The ...c5! push&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;r1r5/1p2bppp/2p5/3p4/1P1P4/2N1PN2/2Q2PPP/1R6 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.b5 c5! 2.dxc5 ( 2.Qb3 cxd4 3.Nxd4 Ra3-+ ) 2...Rxc5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although you get isolated &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt; pawn, White's pieces are awkwardly placed so you get good compensation in view of your piece activity. Furthermore, the pawn on &lt;code&gt;b5&lt;/code&gt; is weak, and your pieces are well placed to defend your isolated pawn and attack White &lt;code&gt;b5&lt;/code&gt; pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;4.Opposite-side castling;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Works for White in both setups, but is not considered that dangerous with &lt;code&gt;Nf3&lt;/code&gt; since Black can simplify the position with timely &lt;code&gt;....Ne4!&lt;/code&gt; jump. &lt;strong&gt;With &lt;code&gt;Ne2&lt;/code&gt; setup you must immediately launch pawn storm.&lt;/strong&gt; In both cases you must know theory well, which I will not cover here since it is too broad.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;5.Short endgame;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If Black is happy with a draw, he can play slightly worse, but equal, endgame:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Short endgame&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.cxd5 exd5 5.Bg5 c6 6.e3 Bf5!? 7.Qf3 Bg6 8.Bxf6 Qxf6 9.Qxf6 gxf6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;5.Alatortsev variation;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This line was invented so Black can dodge Exchange variation with &lt;code&gt;Ne2&lt;/code&gt; and is very effective in it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The fact that in the last 3 or 4 candidates tournament Black played “Queen gambit type of openings” with &lt;code&gt;...Be7&lt;/code&gt; move order “speaks” a lot ( hopefully now you grasp the difficulty of Black’s position in lines with &lt;code&gt;Ne2&lt;/code&gt; ). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The beauty of this line also lies in the fact that White can’t enter favorably into some lines with &lt;code&gt;Nf3&lt;/code&gt; either, which will be demonstrated in the diagram below:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;QGD White tries to reach Nf3 mainline &quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Be7! 4.cxd5 exd5 5.Nf3 Nf6 6.Bg5 c6 7.Qc2 ( 7. e3 Bf5! 8.Bd3 Bxd3 9.Qxd3 Nbd7 10.O-O O-O 11.Rab1 a5! 12.a3 Ne4! 13.Bxe7 Qxe7 14.b4 b5! $15 ) g6! 8.e4!? ( 8.e3!? Bf5 ) dxe4! 9.Bxf6 ( 9.Nxe4 Nxe4 10.Qxe4 Be6!? ) Bxf6 10.Qxe4+ ( 10.Nxe4 O-O!?= ) Kf8 ( 10...Qe7!?= ) 11.Bc4 Kg7 12.O-O Re8 13.Qf4 Be6 14.Bxe6 Rxe6 15.Rfe1! Qd6! 16.Qxd6 Rxd6 17.Re8 Rd8 18.Rxd8 Bxd8 19.Re1 Nd7=&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore White plays &lt;code&gt;Bf4&lt;/code&gt; instead of &lt;code&gt;Bg5&lt;/code&gt; and that became the main line.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black’s most solid approach seems to be &lt;code&gt;...Bd6&lt;/code&gt; in response to &lt;code&gt;Bf4&lt;/code&gt;. However, in practice &lt;code&gt;...Bf5&lt;/code&gt; is the main line. White then responds with &lt;code&gt;g4&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;Ne2+g3&lt;/code&gt; chasing the bishop away and launching kingside pawn storm afterwards. Lines are complex and sharp, so I will not cover them as they are too broad but Schandorff’s book, recommended earlier, covers this line well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;SUMMARY:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As Black, you try to generate kingside attack with pieces that will force a weakness in pawn structure around White king. Once that happens you launch a pan storm or simply finish the attack with a mate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If White is faster on the queenside, you fight minority attack usually with &lt;code&gt;...a5&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;...a6&lt;/code&gt;, and try to get counterplay on the &lt;code&gt;a-file&lt;/code&gt;. Post a knight on &lt;code&gt;c4&lt;/code&gt; and if you have a black bishop he goes to &lt;code&gt;d6&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For detailed coverage of this line, the best book is &lt;em&gt;M.Sadler-Queen’s Gambit Declined (2000)&lt;/em&gt; and for current theory you should get Schandorff’s book.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you have further questions leave a comment. Good luck!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastEditorUserId="2042" LastEditDate="2014-06-17T15:52:18.457" LastActivityDate="2014-06-17T15:52:18.457" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5397" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6270" CreationDate="2014-05-05T06:09:22.297" Score="12" ViewCount="3351" Body="&lt;p&gt;They play a type of 3D chess on Star Trek ( the 60's series) not on a 8x8x8 3D board but on some smaller variation. Yet the game as they have it is supposed to be complicated. Are there real rules and a 3D board set-up for this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3055" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-05-12T19:22:01.190" LastActivityDate="2021-05-12T19:22:01.190" Title="About the 3D chess they play on Star Trek" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;chess-variants&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5398" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5397" CreationDate="2014-05-05T12:47:35.183" Score="16" Body="&lt;p&gt;Andrew Bartmess was the first Star Trek fan to reverse-engineer the game of tridimensional chess from the TV series (which never explained the rules). He sells his version of the rules for $9.95: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.yestercade.net/tactical.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Tri-D Chess Rules.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the most popular version of Tri-D chess (which Andrew calls the “The Federation Standard 5.0” rules), the game is played on seven boards, three of which are the “main” boards and four of which are “repositionable attack boards”:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/jgKok.png&quot; alt=&quot;Sheldon plays Star Trek tri-dimensional chess&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Players can reposition one of the four attack boards by repinning them to the static boards at different points, provided that one of their pieces occupies that board (and no other piece occupies it). This is instead of moving a piece in that turn. The boards are, in effect, treated as mobile “attack craft”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The notation system uses a z-index from 1-7 to indicate which board the piece is moving to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/m5fd7.gif&quot; alt=&quot;Tri-D chess board notation&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately there’s no free version of Bartmess’ rules available online.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Jens Meder maintains an alternate but free online version of &lt;a href=&quot;http://meder.spacechess.org/3dschach/chess3d.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Tournament rules for Three-Dimensional Chess&lt;/a&gt; which are inspired by Star Trek and tied more closely to standard FIDE chess rules than Bartmess' version, albeit with the same wonderful board stand and complex notation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Kn1dG.gif&quot; alt=&quot;Three-dimensional chess stand&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/CY1bz.gif&quot; alt=&quot;Three-dimensional chess notation&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2130" LastEditorUserId="2130" LastEditDate="2014-05-05T15:05:28.810" LastActivityDate="2014-05-05T15:05:28.810" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5399" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5384" CreationDate="2014-05-05T13:34:27.183" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;FWIW, I am not a good bughouse player, but that may be more due to my poor blitz play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is better to be aggressive and attack in Bughouse, If you are attacking on both boards, you will likely win, and yet, both white and black have to be concerned with defense, as dropped pieces can start an attack out of thin air. The best defense is a good offense even more so in Bughouse.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Dropped pieces, sacrifices to draw the king out, and dropped pawn chains are the usual modes of attack. The six squares a knights move from your king, the back rank, and the f7 (f2 for white) are the key squares to occupy and guard.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Squares are more important than lines in Bughouse. Lines are easily blocked by dropped pieces and squares are easily used by blocked pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Development is important in Bughouse like regular chess, both for attack and defense. Your pieces on the board are your first line of defense against dropped pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You want to move as few pawns off their starting squares as possible, and try to play with pieces. Pawns on the attack are usually dropped.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Piece values are quite different than regular chess. Pawns are more important and long distance pieces less. Also, the values are even more dependent on the board position than in regular chess. I would give as an approximation P-1, B-2, R-2, N-2.5, Q-5&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A piece in the hand is worth two on the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2359" LastActivityDate="2014-05-05T13:34:27.183" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5400" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5384" CreationDate="2014-05-05T14:15:01.033" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In general, in a bughouse game, one of the players in the team attacks while the other team member defends. Thus, when the defender gets attacked, the attacker sacrifices a lot of material. This material goes to the other team member (attacker), who can the use the material to fuel their attack. Thus, the defender loses (or saves) the match. Defensive strategies are therefore very important indeed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The key square is usually the f2-square for white (f7 for black). Let's focus on black defending, since that is usually the case. Thus, the f7-square is critical. White will sac a bishop on f7, drop a knight on g5 and something diagonal on f7, leading to a quick win. The basic idea is to defend with e7-e6, blocking the a2-g8 diagonal. Yet, white can drop a pawn on f5 or sac a knight on f7 and drop a second knight on g5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The main problem is that white can drop a pawn on h6 and open up the g7 and f6 squares for attack. If black plays h7-h6, then white drops a pawn on g6, attacking on f7. If you have to castle, then usually kingside is preferred, since queenside is vulnerable to a heavy piece dropped on a8 followed by a knight getting to a7. Also, a white pawn getting to a7 with a black king on c8 is a killer. Kingside castling makes the pawn drop on h6 perhaps even more deadly. Also, h7 starts becoming an issue.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, here are a few tips how to survive as black against white attacking:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Drop an extra pawn on h6, so you get an f7, g7, h7, h6 pawn structure.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Play e7-e6&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Drop a bishop on g8 to support f7&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Always have a pawn, bishop or knight on f7 (never the king)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Drop a pawn on f6 (after getting a pawn on h6) getting more control over g5 and e5 (where white tries to place a knight)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Be ready to sac a queen on a white knight on g5 to buy time&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Never move the c-pawn or f-pawn. In general, avoid any pawn moves, unless you are sure about what you are doing. After the c-pawn moves, c7 and d6 become weak, which is simply lethal.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Exchange your bishops for the opponent's knights by pinning them to the enemy queen or king (check with your team mate if knights are good). In general, keep those enemy knights pinned. E.g. drop a bishop on h5 to protect on f7 and pin the Nf3 to Qd1.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastActivityDate="2014-05-05T14:15:01.033" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5401" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6470" CreationDate="2014-05-06T04:58:20.130" Score="3" ViewCount="129" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there a chess variant for a 6x6 board that has  interesting possible game-play just like regular chess obviously has? Maybe one that has real competitions and is not as long an intense chessgame (that is not speed- chess)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3055" LastEditorUserId="3055" LastEditDate="2014-09-21T22:07:50.240" LastActivityDate="2014-09-29T17:23:12.517" Title="About possible chess variations" Tags="&lt;chess-variants&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5403" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5419" CreationDate="2014-05-06T06:45:35.707" Score="29" ViewCount="9901" Body="&lt;p&gt;In many sports, you often find legal tactics that are considered unsporting by fans, spectators and/or opponents. For example, in football (soccer), it is often considered unsporting to simply pass the ball around your back defenders instead of trying to attack. Are there any similar situations in chess?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some examples that I can think of: perhaps it is considered unsporting, or perhaps indicative of lack of skill, to promote 5 pawns and crush your opponent instead of looking for a more elegant mate in a winning position. Also, in my school days, we used to think of scholar's mate as a bit ... unsatisfying. There even used to be a meme going around that scholar's mate is not allowed (probably started by the coach to get the kids to play &amp;quot;proper&amp;quot; chess).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;To be clear, I'm not so much looking for unsporting &lt;em&gt;behaviour&lt;/em&gt; as unsporting &lt;em&gt;moves&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/strong&gt; I can imagine it being very unsporting to, for example, let your clock run out when you still have 40 minutes left rather than resigning in a lost position, forcing your opponent to hang around just in case you actually make a move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there any other examples you can think of? Or is chess a case of - if it's legal, then it's good?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Update:&lt;/strong&gt; Just as I was starting to think that unsporting moves are few and far between, Kamsky and Gareev played to a controversial draw by three-fold repetition in round 1 of the US champs. According to the GM's doing the analysis, Kamsky was pretty much forced into the draw, but Gareev had the opportunity to play an alternative move to continue with the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So let's say you have the following situation: player A plays against a much stronger opponent B. By luck or miracle, player A finds himself ahead in the game, and see the opportunity to force a draw (or maybe he is so far ahead that he knows player B would accept a draw if offered). Is it unsporting for him to draw the game then?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1816" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-17T02:23:30.370" LastActivityDate="2020-09-17T01:16:36.157" Title="Are there moves in chess that are considered unsporting?" Tags="&lt;sportsmanship&gt;" AnswerCount="14" CommentCount="9" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5404" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5403" CreationDate="2014-05-06T08:30:22.627" Score="16" Body="&lt;p&gt;Possible unsporting situations I'm thinking about:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When playing bullet games online (1 to 3 minutes per side), you move a single piece many times like &lt;code&gt;1. Nf3 ... 2. Ng1 ... 3. Nf3 ... 4. Ng1&lt;/code&gt; etc. (to gain some time against your opponent)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When you wait to lose by time instead of resigning (to avoid your opponent to play another game and to force him to keep thinking for nothing)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When you wait the last minute you have on clock to force mate and win (to apply a psychological pressure to your opponent)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When playing bullet games online, you promote all your pawns to queens to force mate with a big advantage (to apply a psychological pressure to your opponent)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When playing games online, you try to distract your opponent by being chatty for example (to force him to make a bad move)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When you ask for draw many times during a game whereas you are most probably going to lose (to distract your opponent and thus try to force him to make a bad move)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All these situations are legal in chess but can be considered as unsporting approaches.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="813" LastEditorUserId="813" LastEditDate="2014-07-16T14:22:46.330" LastActivityDate="2014-07-16T14:22:46.330" CommentCount="12" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5405" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5403" CreationDate="2014-05-06T08:57:01.697" Score="4" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Torturing&quot; your opponent by promoting all your pawns to rooks/bishops/knights and mate your opponent with that.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Keep offering him a draw when you're in a losing position to annoy your opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Scramble the chess piece when he/she goes to the toilet.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3059" LastEditorUserId="3059" LastEditDate="2014-05-06T12:46:15.653" LastActivityDate="2014-05-06T12:46:15.653" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5406" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5295" CreationDate="2014-05-06T08:59:02.403" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Be the piece that moves away and makes a discovered check!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3059" LastActivityDate="2014-05-06T08:59:02.403" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5407" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1960" CreationDate="2014-05-06T09:01:09.910" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I prefer the Italian Game, as it is what I played when I was a beginner. I used to won many games with that, especially when other beginners play the 2 knights game and doesn't know what they're doing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3059" LastActivityDate="2014-05-06T09:01:09.910" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5408" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5225" CreationDate="2014-05-06T09:06:51.653" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Actually I don't prefer Nf5 as it gives black a strong center, instead, Nf3 or Nb3 should be better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3059" LastActivityDate="2014-05-06T09:06:51.653" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5409" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5385" CreationDate="2014-05-06T09:18:21.593" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, generally a knight on the &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1st or 2nd rank is defensive&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3rd rank or 4th rank is theoretically &quot;normal&quot;, and can be used defensively &amp;amp; aggresively.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5th rank is considered superior to a bishop&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;6th rank is the most devastating and might force your opponent to sacrifice an exchange to get rid of it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;7th rank is not as good as those on the 6th&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;8th rank basically needs to get out of the rank :D&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3059" LastActivityDate="2014-05-06T09:18:21.593" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5410" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5032" CreationDate="2014-05-06T09:31:47.683" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesscafe.com/text/heisman131.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;A very interesting article regarding this&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It gives an overview of what Houdini suggests for the first few moves for White (and also Black).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3059" LastEditorUserId="3059" LastEditDate="2014-05-06T10:41:53.977" LastActivityDate="2014-05-06T10:41:53.977" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5411" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4961" CreationDate="2014-05-06T09:33:55.937" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's called a stalemate, which is a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3059" LastActivityDate="2014-05-06T09:33:55.937" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5412" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4763" CreationDate="2014-05-06T09:37:38.700" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Analyze and find out why you'd lost the game. It might probably be the cause of a simple blunder or just a small mistake. In each case, find out exactly what went wrong, whether it's time pressure or other factors. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3059" LastActivityDate="2014-05-06T09:37:38.700" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5413" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5414" CreationDate="2014-05-06T09:57:58.633" Score="2" ViewCount="327" Body="&lt;p&gt;In some games, I was up on material, but then lost due to either time pressure or blunders. How should I avoid these type of pitfalls?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3059" LastActivityDate="2014-05-14T23:19:08.627" Title="When you're up in material" Tags="&lt;losing&gt;&lt;winning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2014-05-17T16:01:43.120" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5414" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5413" CreationDate="2014-05-06T12:22:45.437" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I see two things you can consider:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;trying to learn how to control your stress.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;playing many faster games to get used to play and think more quickly (if you often play games with 15 minutes per side, try to play games with 10 minutes per side).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore you most probably won't often be in this situation anymore.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="813" LastActivityDate="2014-05-06T12:22:45.437" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5416" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5403" CreationDate="2014-05-07T02:44:26.533" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;For example, in football (soccer), it is often considered unsporting to&#xA;  simply pass the ball around your back defenders instead&#xA;  of trying to attack. Are there any similar situations in chess?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think similar situation to passing the ball around in your half is very passive play with white, I think KIA (King's Indian Attack) is one example. It is, of course, debatable whether this is bad sportsmanship, but there are plenty of people who will call this style &quot;lame&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1.Nf3 Nf6 2.g3 d5 3.d3 c6 4.Bg2 Bf5 5.O-O&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="307" LastActivityDate="2014-05-07T02:44:26.533" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5417" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-05-07T02:45:41.763" Score="2" ViewCount="467" Body="&lt;p&gt;How should I play with White and Black in the Sicilian Dragon? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 g6 6. Be3 Bg7 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3059" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-06T15:50:00.527" LastActivityDate="2020-03-06T15:50:00.527" Title="How should I play wiith White and Black in the Sicilian Dragon?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="11" ClosedDate="2014-05-10T17:27:35.807" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="5418" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5403" CreationDate="2014-05-07T07:12:27.120" Score="-4" Body="&lt;p&gt;As far as I know playing for time when the game is obviously lost (i.e. trying to make it longer with generally useless moves) is considered not only unsporting but directly forbidden in some competitions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3071" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-09-17T01:16:36.157" LastActivityDate="2020-09-17T01:16:36.157" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="5419" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5403" CreationDate="2014-05-07T09:32:02.880" Score="21" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is &quot;unsporting&quot;? To my mind (backed up by the two or three definitions I quickly browsed), it's mostly about &lt;em&gt;behaviour&lt;/em&gt;. To act sportingly is to be fair and respectful, to play for the (mutual) enjoyment of the sport, and&amp;mdash;here's the tricky part&amp;mdash;to not abuse the rules for an unfair advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unsporting behaviour in general, and the last kind in particular, often leads to new rules being introduced. (&quot;No underarm bowling in one-day cricket&quot; is the first example that comes to mind.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can't think of anything &lt;strong&gt;on the board&lt;/strong&gt; (as opposed to players' behaviour, or abusing the &lt;em&gt;clock&lt;/em&gt;) that would strike me as unsporting. And the lack of new rules to counter anything &lt;strong&gt;on the board&lt;/strong&gt; would seem to support that view.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So essentially, no: in standard chess, &quot;if it's legal, then it's good&quot;. People might complain about how some style of play (whatever's new and trendy and effective) is changing the spirit of the game or whatever, but so far everything still seems to be fair play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3072" LastActivityDate="2014-05-07T09:32:02.880" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5420" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5403" CreationDate="2014-05-07T11:36:22.770" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;All moves are fair, there's nothing unsporting that has been discovered so far.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are only two situations that really fit well:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Taking a long time to move, when only 1 move is possible.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Not resigning once the game is lost. (E.g. forcing your opponent to go through the mechanics of a forced mate e.g. King+Queen vs King, is pretty disrespectful).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Perhaps one might consider playing for a draw from the outset to be unsporting, e.g. if you're ahead in a tournament, but being predictable is a weakness, so if you think somebody is playing for a draw, you need to find a way of possibly using this to your advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3076" LastEditorUserId="3076" LastEditDate="2014-05-07T13:03:26.153" LastActivityDate="2014-05-07T13:03:26.153" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5424" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="891" CreationDate="2014-05-08T01:52:55.953" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, an example is from &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.thechessworld.com/learn-chess/18-general-information/294-top-10-biggest-grandmaster-blunders-at-chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; article. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first example is a game that was won by checkmate. (a very careless mistake)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3059" LastActivityDate="2014-05-08T01:52:55.953" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5425" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2014-05-08T07:41:46.780" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2014-05-08T07:41:46.780" LastActivityDate="2014-05-08T07:41:46.780" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5426" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2014-05-08T07:41:46.780" Score="0" Body="Questions on whether behaviour or actions should be considered &quot;in the spirit of the game&quot;. " OwnerUserId="1816" LastEditorUserId="1816" LastEditDate="2014-05-08T11:04:08.763" LastActivityDate="2014-05-08T11:04:08.763" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5427" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5403" CreationDate="2014-05-08T11:33:27.523" Score="-2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Intentionally playing a suboptimal move is always unsuporting, e.g. In a positionally equal game if you have a choice to take opponent's rook or a bishop+pawn and if you do not take the rook rather take bishop+pawn then its unsuporting because you are trying to prove that you know chess better(i.e. trying to prove that (bishop+pawn)&gt;rook)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Intentionally giving up the opening advantage is considered as unsporting e.g. declining King's Gambit etcs - this is the carlsen's style.   &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Playing wrong opening at the outset e.g. &lt;code&gt;h3,e3,d3&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;h4,a4&lt;/code&gt; etcs are unsporting.   &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Giving up a tempo.   &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Not taking up the gambit when the opponent propose a tactical challenge by sacrificing material.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Playing a positionally weak move is unsporting e.g. blocking your own bishop with your pawn.   &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Underestimating opponents strategy e.g. allowing the opponent to open up his file for the rook.   &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically playing wrong intentionally is considered as unsuporting e.g. In the previous world Championship Anand allowed Carlsen to promote his pawn to create a new Queen  because there was a long tactic behind it. The tactics was that in a few moves Carlsen had to sacrifice his new Queen to avoid the forced mate. But what Anand did was a &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1737896&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;blunder&lt;/a&gt;. He played 28.Nf1 which opened Carlsen's Queen way to kill the rook. I recall once there was a game of Kramnic vs computer and Kramnik could not see mate in 1. Such type of blunders from the super GM's are very much unsporting.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In short you can say playing a blunder or try to do something different from usual(mainly playing wrong strategy) is considered as unsporting. Sometimes trying to do something unusual is sporting. It is only when there is some deep analysis behind that e.g. in &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1704763&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this game&lt;/a&gt; Anand played 12.Ng5 a deeply analysed move which to a casual(say under 2500) player at the first glance would appear unusual but it is very much a suporting move. How Aronian played after 12.Ng5 can be called unsporting ;-)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2017" LastActivityDate="2014-05-08T11:33:27.523" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5428" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5320" CreationDate="2014-05-08T11:54:40.503" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think you should do more tactical training using tactic trainers to sharpen your tactical eye. Also, before making your move, check all threats, captures and tactics you or your opponent can do. This will reduce this type of mistakes. Hope this helps!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3059" LastActivityDate="2014-05-08T11:54:40.503" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5429" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5431" CreationDate="2014-05-08T12:33:15.570" Score="7" ViewCount="1058" Body="&lt;p&gt;Most of the common chess traps are ill advised (at least in standard games), as you sacrifice better moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Traps that I have tried out with some success are the fishing pole, and the blackbourne shilling gambit. But common for these common trap plays, is that if spotted, I am left in a bad position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In fishing pole, black often play black bishop and forces me to pin my knight.&#xA;In blackbourne gambit, the opponent often simply take the knight rather than the poisoned pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there any common chess traps, without a positional loss, that are worth studying?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="907" LastActivityDate="2014-05-11T17:05:32.237" Title="Chess traps without positional loss" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;&lt;beginner&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5430" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5158" CreationDate="2014-05-08T14:33:00.423" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The general heuristic is that good play from two sides results in a higher likelyhood of a draw. This, as Wes notes in his answer, is based on the fact that the moves of the losing side could've been retraced to a certain point in time when there was another, superior move to make. As this holds for both sides, in general no side should ever lose.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One other point is that the stronger a player is, the stronger he can calculate for his opponent. A chess player always has to assume his opponent will choose the strongest line he has calculated for his opponent. The strongest possible chess thinker will therefore never make the mistakes described in paragraph 1 for him nor for the moves he expects of his opponent. The deeper / better the moves are calculated, the more likely a draw is. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That is, of course, until chess is fully solved, and we can answer if it's a draw (likely), a win for white (who knows), or a win for black (zugzwang on move 1!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2768" LastActivityDate="2014-05-08T14:33:00.423" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5431" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5429" CreationDate="2014-05-08T15:16:44.707" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;The following traps do not lead to any positional loss for the side setting the trap. It's obviously not an exhaustive list-&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;A common trap in the Sicilian&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;  1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. c3 Nf6 4. Be2 Nxe4?? 5. Qa4+ Bd7 6. Qxe4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Queen's Gambit Elephant Trap&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;  1. d4. d5 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. Bg5 Nbd7 5. cxd5 exd5 6. Nxd5?? Nxd5 7. Bxd8 Bb4+ 8. Qd2 Kxd8 9. e4 Bxd2+&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Trap in the Alapin Sicilian&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;  1. e4 c5 2. c3 d5 3. exd5 Qxd5 4. d4 e6 5. Nf3 Nc6 6. Bd3 cxd4 7. cxd4 Nxd4?? 8. Nxd4 Qxd4?? 9. Bb5+ Bd7 10. Qxd4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Cambridge Springs Trap&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;  1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Bg5 Nbd7 5.e3 c6 6.Nf3 Qa5 7. Bd3?! dxc4 8. Bxc4 Ne4 9. Qc2?? Nxg5 10. Nxg5 Qxg5 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Trap in Sveshnikov Sicilian&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;  1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 e5 6. Ndb5 d6 7. Nd5 Nxd5 8. exd5 Ne7 9. c4 a6? 10. Qa4 axb5 11. Qxa8 (10...Qd7 11. Nxd6+)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Trap in the Philidor defense&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;    1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 Nd7 4. Bc4 Be7? (4... Ngf6? 5. dxe5 Nxe5 6. Nxe5 dxe5 7.&#xA;    Bxf7+ Kxf7 8. Qxd8 Bb4+ 9. Qd2 Bxd2+ 10. Nxd2) 5. dxe5! dxe5?? (5... Nxe5 6. Nxe5&#xA;    dxe5 7. Qh5 g6 8. Qxe5) 6. Qd5 Nh6 (6...Nf6?? 7.Qxf7#) 7. Bxh6 O-O 8. Be3 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Ruy Lopez Noah's Ark Trap&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;   [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;    1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Ba4 b5 (4... d6 5. d4 b5 6. Bb3 Nxd4 7. Nxd4&#xA;    exd4 8. Qxd4?? c5) 5. Bb3 d6 6. d4 Nxd4 7. Nxd4 exd4 8. Qxd4?? c5 9. Qd5 Be6 10.          &#xA;    Qc6+ Bd7 11. Qd5 c4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Siberian Trap in the Smith-Morra Gambit&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;    1. e4 c5 2. d4 cxd4 3. c3 dxc3 4. Nxc3 Nc6 5. Nf3 e6 6. Bc4 Qc7 7. O-O Nf6 8.&#xA;    Qe2 Ng4 9. h3?? Nd4! 10. Nxd4 (10. hxg4 Nxe2+) (10. Qd1 Nxf3+ 11. Qxf3 Qh2#) 10...&#xA;    Qh2# 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Trap in the Rauzer Sicilian&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;    1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 Nc6 6. Bg5 e6 7. Qd2 a6 8. f4&#xA;    h6 9. Bh4? Nxe4! 10. Nxe4 (10. Bxd8 Nxd2 11. Nxc6 bxc6 12. Bc7 Nxf1) 10... Qxh4+&#xA;    11. g3 Qd8&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2429" LastEditorUserId="2429" LastEditDate="2014-05-11T17:05:32.237" LastActivityDate="2014-05-11T17:05:32.237" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5432" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5451" CreationDate="2014-05-09T01:46:01.387" Score="8" ViewCount="1993" Body="&lt;p&gt;I sadly do not have the time for a paid engagement regarding chess, yet I would like to use a good (learning) programme in my spare time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I used an old programme from my grandfather, but it doesn't work on the new OS anymore. Any suggestions?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3090" LastActivityDate="2016-03-12T03:28:27.760" Title="Which free chess (learning) programme would you recommend?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;software&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5433" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5429" CreationDate="2014-05-09T09:03:47.777" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Seeing excellent answer by Wes, I would like to add Albin Counter Gambit trap. Albin Counter Gambit is played on the highest level of chess. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. d4 d5&#xA;2. c4 e5 3. dxe5 d4 4. e3? Bb4+ 5. Bd2 dxe3 6. Bxb4?? exf2+ 7. Ke2 fxg1=N+! &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Information about a trap can be &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albin_Countergambit,_Lasker_Trap&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;found here&lt;/a&gt;. The trap is interesting also because it allows one of the fastest possible underpromotion (to a knight).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="703" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2014-05-11T14:24:12.653" LastActivityDate="2014-05-11T14:24:12.653" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5434" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="487" CreationDate="2014-05-09T10:06:44.737" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;My little brother learned chess with a video game called &quot;Learn To Play Chess With Fritz and Chesster&quot; (OT &quot;Fritz und Fertig&quot;). It teaches kids the basic moves of the pieces with mini-games, moving on to games with only some pieces, and finally with all of them. The sequels go more in-depth into basic, and then more advanced strategies. &#xA;He went from not knowing anything about chess to beating everybody in the family at 10 years old after playing that series, so I would suggest at least giving the game a look to see how they teach and guide the players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3092" LastActivityDate="2014-05-09T10:06:44.737" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5435" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5417" CreationDate="2014-05-09T10:21:05.310" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;My personal opinion:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;If you are really annoyed of your opponents opening preparation of &lt;em&gt;early dragon&lt;/em&gt; then just avoid it in the beginning. There is a friend of mine who crammed the dragon at length. I was extremely annoyed. To avoid the dragon I started to play Morra's Gambit. Morra's Gambit is quite effective. It can take your opponent out of the opening. You can try Morra Gambit if you are an attacking player otherwise do not go for it. You need to play quite sharp in Morra's Gambit. If you lose your tempo then the Gambit will go in vain and the opponent will get a clear advantage of 1 pawn.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Short answer:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to deal with the position after &lt;code&gt;6...Bg7&lt;/code&gt; then you will have to learn the theory. The main options are  &lt;code&gt;7.Bc4,Be2,f4,f3&lt;/code&gt;.  Other option are &lt;code&gt;7.Bb5+&lt;/code&gt;, even moves like &lt;code&gt;7.a3,a4&lt;/code&gt;  or  &lt;code&gt;7.h3,h4&lt;/code&gt; are playable. &lt;code&gt;7.h4&lt;/code&gt; is quite attacking and &lt;code&gt;8.h5&lt;/code&gt; can be sacrificed for a open file. &lt;code&gt;7.g3&lt;/code&gt; is also playable but it seems like a dull move because &lt;code&gt;Bg2&lt;/code&gt; won't be very effective because black's Night can soon jump at &lt;code&gt;g4&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In &lt;code&gt;7.Be2 or Bc4&lt;/code&gt; line sometimes after some moves there is an option of retreating the bishop on &lt;code&gt;f1&lt;/code&gt;.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is so much theory that a full fledged book can be written.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In some lines you may go for opposite castling but you will loose your small opening advantage. It will be still playable because the game will become highly tactical and attacking for both the sides. If you are good in tactics you can try this.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you do not like very much Black's dark bishop on &lt;code&gt;g7&lt;/code&gt; then you can double your bishop with Queen(&lt;code&gt;7.Qd2&lt;/code&gt;) and force Black to trade the bishops. Again doing this will give up your opening advantage.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are not playing at GM level then small opening advantage doesn't matter. Infact the whole opening doesn't matter.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;strong&gt;real answer&lt;/strong&gt; to your question is read a book of dragon variation and use latest stockfish engine to analyse different lines :-)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2017" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-06T15:46:32.317" LastActivityDate="2020-03-06T15:46:32.317" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="5436" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5278" CreationDate="2014-05-09T15:36:17.213" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1. b3 has the greatest scoring percentage&lt;/strong&gt; (100%), although it's statistically insignificant because it only appears in one game out of 1,506.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The successful openings played more regularly are: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Nf3 (61.7%, 102 games)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;c4 (59.3%, 129 games)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;e4 (57%, 631 games)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;d4 (55.4%, 632 games)&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That data's compiled after downloading all 1,506 World Championship games from 1886 to 2013 from the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/wcc.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chessgames.com WCC archive&lt;/a&gt;. Here's what Scid's Tree Window shows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/dKeZd.png&quot; alt=&quot;Scid&amp;#39;s Tree Window for all 1,506 World Championship Chess games&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2130" LastEditorUserId="2130" LastEditDate="2014-05-09T16:51:53.617" LastActivityDate="2014-05-09T16:51:53.617" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5437" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4961" CreationDate="2014-05-09T17:51:28.970" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, if there are no more moves available to black then it is a stalemate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If black has other pieces which have moves available to them they must move those pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3093" LastActivityDate="2014-05-09T17:51:28.970" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5438" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5032" CreationDate="2014-05-09T18:41:02.757" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;None&lt;/strong&gt; - yet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brute-force_search&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Brute Force&lt;/a&gt; is a pretty well defined problem solving technique that consists of checking each and every candidate for whether it is a solution. Since we are starting at move 1, a &lt;strong&gt;candidate&lt;/strong&gt; has to be defined as &lt;strong&gt;a complete game of chess&lt;/strong&gt; and the only possible &lt;strong&gt;objective criterion&lt;/strong&gt; for its evaluation is whether it &lt;strong&gt;forces a win for white&lt;/strong&gt; or not. No engine has analyzed a forced win for white from move 1 so far, so &lt;strong&gt;no actual brute-force engine has reached a conclusion yet&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As soon as you introduce a &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heuristic&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;heuristic&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt; (or multiple ones like positional advantage, material advantage, space advantage...) for evaluating &lt;strong&gt;partial solutions&lt;/strong&gt; (game positions that are not a checkmate yet) and their distance to a complete solution, &lt;strong&gt;like all chess engines do&lt;/strong&gt;, it stops being a brute-force engine. Those evaluation techniques are the reason why chess engines are able to choose moves &lt;strong&gt;at all&lt;/strong&gt; until the whole space of possible chess games is solved and/or a force win for white is found (which I think is highly unlikely).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus, my answer is that there are no brute-force engines in use today - if there were one it would still be thinking. Yes, brute-force might be used to describe the basic technique that modern heuristics developed from, but the evaluation criteria are actually a lot more important for an engine's capabilities. To put it bluntly, calling todays chess engines 'brute-force' is akin to calling a house a 'hole-thing', just because you need to dig a hole for the foundation. The rest is much more important and interesting.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I hope you, dear reader, will not take this as nit-picking on words, but as an addendum to the &lt;strong&gt;actual answers&lt;/strong&gt; already given by other people. They answer the spirit of the question, this one... just the semantics - there was nothing else left to answer. :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2829" LastActivityDate="2014-05-09T18:41:02.757" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5440" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2014-05-10T17:41:52.607" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2014-05-10T17:41:52.607" LastActivityDate="2014-05-10T17:41:52.607" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5441" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2014-05-10T17:41:52.607" Score="0" Body="Shogi is the Japanese version of chess. Its main distinguishing feature is that captured pieces can later be brought back into play by the capturing player." OwnerUserId="1485" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2014-05-11T19:52:52.473" LastActivityDate="2014-05-11T19:52:52.473" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5442" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5403" CreationDate="2014-05-11T02:09:16.030" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;I do think that the &lt;strong&gt;intention&lt;/strong&gt; (and thus behavior) behind a move is what could make a move unsporting. Even in the example of football (soccer), the &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;intention&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; behind passing the ball to the defender makes the pass sporting or unsporting. Merely passing the ball is not unsporting. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, the example you mentioned is very &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;conspicuous&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;, meaning that we can conclude without a reasonable doubt that the passing of the ball to the defender is &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;intended for wasting time&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; (for example) and thus unsporting. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For a chess move to be judged to be unsporting, we need to be reasonably sure about the &lt;strong&gt;intent&lt;/strong&gt; behind the move. Thus, blunders are not unsporting moves. They're just blunders. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Having established that, This is one example of an unsporting move(s) (conditions explained below). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;    1. d3 c5 2. Kd2? d5 3. Ke3? Nf6 4. Kf3?&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If a strong player (ELO 2200+) in his/her right mind makes such an opening in a classical or rapid game, then we can  reasonably conclude that he/she is &lt;strong&gt;deliberately trying to insult his/her opponent&lt;/strong&gt;, essentially saying with these moves - &lt;strong&gt;&quot;You're so bad that I can beat you even after making such rubbish opening moves&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;. Or we could conclude (although less likely) that the player is not interested in playing the game and thus acting unprofessionally and thus unsportingly. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here, it's not simply the case that we know that these opening moves are objectively bad, but we also know that the player who is making these moves also knows that they are objectively bad. So this is unlike the king moves of &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/5113/2429&quot;&gt;Steinitz&lt;/a&gt;, who made them thinking they are objectively good. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2429" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2014-05-11T02:14:49.443" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5443" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5403" CreationDate="2014-05-11T04:04:22.100" Score="16" Body="&lt;p&gt;Two situations I have seen in FIDE-rated tournaments:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Both players making nonsense moves (mostly king moves) throughout the game.  At around move 20, the arbiter stepped in and gave it a 0:0 score.  [I guess they were going to agree to a draw at some point.]  In this case, the arbiter didn't agree to the idea &amp;quot;if it's legal, then it's good&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Two juniors continued playing after reaching a K+R vs. K+R endgame, neither agreeing to a draw, nor claiming a draw by 50 move repetition [when it became possible].  They played on for hours in this situation delaying the next round of the tournament.  (NB. In their defense, both had been instructed by their coaches not to offer nor accept draws under any circumstances.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Actually, a similar situation happened to me online once: my opponent kept playing a K+R vs. K+R endgame, and I was so disinterested my rook got skewered and they won the game.  I felt that was rather unsporting, but I have to recognize that it actually worked.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2785" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2014-05-11T04:09:24.420" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5444" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2014-05-11T11:41:11.830" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2014-05-11T11:41:11.830" LastActivityDate="2014-05-11T11:41:11.830" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5445" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2014-05-11T11:41:11.830" Score="0" Body="Elementary checkmates are the basic techniques for how to force checkmate in certain endgames with overwhelming material advantage and very few pieces left on the board. These endgames usually include KQ vs K, KR vs K, KBB vs K, and KBN vs K." OwnerUserId="1485" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2014-05-11T19:53:03.147" LastActivityDate="2014-05-11T19:53:03.147" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5446" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5432" CreationDate="2014-05-11T12:07:49.583" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Firstly you can try to use a compatibility setting which is a sure feature in the newer version of the windows.&#xA;Secondly- I would recommend using &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.chess.com&lt;/a&gt; if you have access to internet in your spare time.&#xA;Also you can try using Chessmaster, a popular software.&#xA;For trial version you can go to the following link: &lt;a href=&quot;http://chessmaster-10th-edition.en.softonic.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://chessmaster-10th-edition.en.softonic.com/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3099" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2014-05-11T19:55:30.247" LastActivityDate="2014-05-11T19:55:30.247" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5448" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="485" CreationDate="2014-05-12T12:22:46.290" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The rook or the queen. Typically&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Knights &amp;amp; Bishops should be developed early&#xA;Queen should be out after the minor pieces are out&#xA;The rooks are out last and usually come out via castling. Sometimes, it stays there and attacks from there (e.g. in the Sicilian Yugoslav attack, white players usually castle queenside and push the h-pawn, with the rook staying on h1)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3059" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T16:10:17.303" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T16:10:17.303" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="5451" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5432" CreationDate="2014-05-12T19:39:33.200" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Take a look at Lucas Chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www-lucaschess.rhcloud.com&quot;&gt;http://www-lucaschess.rhcloud.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From its web:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Play:&lt;/strong&gt; The program has 21 engines prepared to play from the start, and with very different levels, from 1300 to 3000 elo.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Train:&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;You have an extensive list of trainings with which to try to improve your chess:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Training positions&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Play like a grandmaster&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Training mates &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Compete:&lt;/strong&gt; In Lucas Chess there are several competitions, and in two of them you can publish the results. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2013" LastEditorUserId="2013" LastEditDate="2014-05-12T19:59:15.690" LastActivityDate="2014-05-12T19:59:15.690" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5452" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5455" CreationDate="2014-05-12T23:33:28.467" Score="3" ViewCount="438" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have played this game as Black &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.shredderchess.com/play-chess-online.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;against computer&lt;/a&gt;( difficulty was set to &lt;code&gt;HARD&lt;/code&gt; ). I was trying to test &lt;em&gt;Alatortsev line&lt;/em&gt; I found in &lt;em&gt;ECO D, 1987&lt;/em&gt; that claimed Black was equal:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Taken from ECO D ( published 1987 )&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Be7 4.cxd5 exd5 5.Bf4 c6 6.Qc2 Bf6 7.e3 Ne7 8.Bd3 g6= &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;saying &quot;with the idea of &lt;code&gt;Bf5&lt;/code&gt;&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After &lt;code&gt;g4&lt;/code&gt; my position became &lt;strong&gt;barely tenable.&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there something I could have done better in order to reach full equality? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How does modern theory evaluate &lt;code&gt;8...g6&lt;/code&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is the game:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[White &quot;Shredder&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;AlwaysLearningNewStuff&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Be7 4.cxd5 exd5 5.Bf4 c6 6.Qc2 Bf6 7.e3 Ne7 8.Bd3 g6= 9.Nf3 Bf5 10.Bxf5 Nxf5 11.g4! $40 Ne7 12.Qb3 Qb6 13.Qa3! Na6 14.g5 Bg7 15.O-O-O Qb4! $7 16.Qxb4 Nxb4 17.a3 Na6 18.e4! $16 $40 O-O-O 19.Be5! Bxe5 20.Nxe5 Rhf8 21.exd5 Nxd5 22.Ne4! Nac7 23.Rhe1 Ne6 24.h4 Kc7 25.Nc5?! Nxc5 26.dxc5 f6!= 27.Nd3 Rde8 28.Kc2 Kd8 29.Rxe8+ Rxe8 30.Nf4 fxg5 31.Nxd5 cxd5 32.Rxd5+ Kc7 33.hxg5 Re2+ 34.Kc3 Rxf2 35.b4 Rf3+ 36.Rd3 Rf5 37.Rh3 Rxg5!= 38.Rxh7+ Kc6 39.Rh8 a5 40.Kb3 axb4 41.axb4 b6 42.cxb6 Kxb6 43.Rb8+ Kc6  44.Kc3 Rb5 45.Rc8+ Kb6 46.Kc4 Rf5 47.Rb8+ Kc6 48.b5+ Kc7 49.Ra8 g5 50.Ra7+ Kb6 51.Ra6+ Kb7 52.Rg6 Re5 53.Kb4 Rf5 54.Ka5 Re5 55.Rg7+ Kb8 56.Ka6 Re6+ 57.b6 Re8 58.Rb7+ Ka8 59.Rg7 Kb8 60.Rb7+ Ka8 61.Rg7 Kb8 62.Rb7+ 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastEditorUserId="2042" LastEditDate="2014-06-25T20:05:23.640" LastActivityDate="2014-06-25T20:44:00.867" Title="Can Black reach full equality in this game?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;theory&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="13" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5455" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5452" CreationDate="2014-05-13T23:50:39.817" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Deep Rybka's 4 opening book (with pre-calculated scores on positions in it) gives the position resulting by&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Be7 4.cxd5 exd5 5.Bf4 c6 6.Qc2 Bf6 7.e3 Ne7 8.Bd3 g6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a +0.52 score, so definitely some advantage for White. It contains the following continuations:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 Be7 4. cxd5 exd5 5. Bf4 c6 6. Qc2 Bf6 7. e3 Ne7 8. Bd3 g6 9. Nf3 Bf5 10. h4 (10. O-O Bxd3 11. Qxd3 O-O 12. h4 (12. b4 Nd7))&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and several sub variations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2997" LastActivityDate="2014-05-13T23:50:39.817" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5456" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="485" CreationDate="2014-05-14T05:20:29.033" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd say the queen for the very reason she isn't moved much early on - because she is more susceptible to attack!  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, isn't knights before bishops a rule for the opening that holds true under most circumstances?  I say this because that would nearly eliminate the knight from contention, or would in tournaments anyway.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2765" LastEditorUserId="2765" LastEditDate="2014-05-15T00:50:23.780" LastActivityDate="2014-05-15T00:50:23.780" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5457" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4606" CreationDate="2014-05-14T10:45:18.440" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;This may be true that they are not as popular as before but Regency Chess does still stock quite a lot of the Alphanumeric boards like this one &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.regencychess.co.uk/16-inch-no4-inlaid-wooden-alphanumeric-chess-board-p-28.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.regencychess.co.uk/16-inch-no4-inlaid-wooden-alphanumeric-chess-board-p-28.html&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I haven't bought one as yet but am considering it for sure. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3116" LastActivityDate="2014-05-14T10:45:18.440" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5458" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1981" CreationDate="2014-05-14T11:43:03.630" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not sure the best books to read but i did notice the other day that Regency Chess are giving away free books on their twitter account &lt;a href=&quot;https://twitter.com/regencychess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://twitter.com/regencychess&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Might be worth a try. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3116" LastActivityDate="2014-05-14T11:43:03.630" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5459" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1981" CreationDate="2014-05-14T19:53:31.833" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;A little indirect of an answer here &lt;em&gt;but&lt;/em&gt; because you mention that you are looking for books strictly for &lt;em&gt;beginners&lt;/em&gt; I thought this point might be of use to you:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No real theory is needed in the beginning stages of chess.  The most rapid chess improvement to be gained for the beginning chess player will come in the form of chess tactics.  Studying chess tactics alone will result in huge rating gains. Once you reach an ELO of about 1800 then it becomes necessary to start studying positional theory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It really is a Maslow's hierarchy type of dynamic.  If you match two computers against each other, one with high tactical knowledge and low positional knowledge and the other with high positional knowledge and low tactical knowledge - simulate it 100 times -- the computer with tactical knowledge will still win all the games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this makes sense :D &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3093" LastActivityDate="2014-05-14T19:53:31.833" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5460" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5413" CreationDate="2014-05-14T21:26:13.653" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;When you are up material, the simplest way to win is to trade material. Don't try to over complicate the game if unnecessary. Trade off the pieces and you will win the endgame -- easily.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3118" LastActivityDate="2014-05-14T21:26:13.653" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5461" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1709" CreationDate="2014-05-14T22:11:53.927" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wh5MspHH8A&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wh5MspHH8A&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I play this against the London and have had much success with it.  In fact, one of my opponents simply stopped playing the London against me because he never won.  As in previous posts, I often find white plays a gruenfeld against me instead of the London, but this has not presented me with any problems as black at all.  Check the video about 6 minutes in.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3119" LastActivityDate="2014-05-14T22:11:53.927" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5462" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5413" CreationDate="2014-05-14T23:19:08.627" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a psychological issue. You have to change your thinking about what it means to be up material. Instead of thinking &quot;I am winning,&quot; simply think, &quot;I am up material, but what did I give up for that?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Often to be up material you give up some kind of positional weakness, sometimes significant and that is probably why you are losing these games. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you still see the very real danger you are in after being up in material you will play as hard as you should and not expect and easy win, and then you will find the wins. It's all a matter of not relaxing until the game ends. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="390" LastActivityDate="2014-05-14T23:19:08.627" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5463" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5452" CreationDate="2014-05-15T02:39:06.430" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'll play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, first I checked on the &lt;code&gt;11.g4&lt;/code&gt;.  Stockfish didn't care for it, instead preferring&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;rn1qk2r/pp3p1p/2p2bp1/3p1n2/3P1B2/2N1PN2/PPQ2PPP/R3K2R w KQkq - 0 11&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.O-O-O O-O 2.Kb1 Nd7 3.g3 Nb6 4.h4 Ng7 5.Bh6 Re8 6.h5 Nc4 7.g4 Qd7 8.g5 Be7 9.Bxg7 Kxg7 10.Rdg1 Kg8 11.hxg6 fxg6 12.Ne5 Nxe5 13.dxe5[+.84]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So White has a bit of an advantage in that line.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After &lt;code&gt;11.g4?!&lt;/code&gt;, however, black retorts with (flip the board colors)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;rn1qk2r/pp3p1p/2p2bp1/3p1n2/3P1BP1/2N1PN2/PPQ2P1P/R3K2R b KQkq - 0 11&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Nh4 2.Nxh4 Bxh4 3.Qb3 b6 4.O-O O-O 5.Rac1 Nd7 6.Ne2 Rc8 7.Rc3 Nf6 8.f3 h5 9.h3 Qe7 10.Qa4 Qd7 11.Qa6 c5 12.Be5 hxg4 13.hxg4 Rfe8 14.b3 Bg5[+.32]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;g4&lt;/code&gt; is a weak move because it begs Black to exploit the loose knight on &lt;code&gt;f3&lt;/code&gt;. If the Knight does not capture, White is punished for not castling by &lt;code&gt;Ng2+&lt;/code&gt; followed by &lt;code&gt;Nxf4&lt;/code&gt; which nukes White's Bishop, isolates the d pawn, and removes White's opportunity to castle. And there's a fully open center file with Queens on the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But while Stockfish doesn't like &lt;code&gt;11.g4&lt;/code&gt;, it likes Black's response to it even less.  After &lt;code&gt;11...Ne7&lt;/code&gt; we see&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;rn1qk2r/pp2np1p/2p2bp1/3p4/3P1BP1/2N1PN2/PPQ2P1P/R3K2R w KQkq - 1 12&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.g5 Bg7 2.h4 Qd7 3.h5 gxh5 4.Ne5 Bxe5 5.Bxe5 Rg8 6.Bf4 Ng6 7.Rxh5 Nxf4 8.exf4 Na6 9.O-O-O O-O-O 10.Rxh7 Rdf8 11.a3 Nc7 12.Rg1 Ne6 13.Ne2 Kb8[+1.45]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black's sensible looking move cedes a real advantage.  The problem is that Black is giving White too many tempos on the Kingside.  At move 15, Black has not one piece past the second rank. His position is very passive and he has not castled.  Bleh.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To somewhat answer the OP's original question, I think Black has decent chances after &lt;code&gt;11. g4 Nh4&lt;/code&gt;.  However, I don't know if this counts as 'full equality' - that's up to the OP to decide.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I let the machine run all night at 10 minutes per move.  Here's the game with the &lt;code&gt;11. g4 Nh4&lt;/code&gt; variation. White is unable to convert his (its?) slight advantage. The game finishes with a draw by repetition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot; 1/2-1/2&quot;]&#xA;1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Be7 4.cxd5 exd5 5.Bf4 c6 6.Qc2 Bf6 7.e3 Ne7 8.Bd3 g6 9.Nf3 Bf5 10.Bxf5 Nxf5 11.g4 Nh4 12.Nxh4 Bxh4 13.Qb3 Qb6 14.Qxb6 axb6 15.Ke2 Nd7 16.a4 Be7 17.g5 f6 18.gxf6 Nxf6 19.f3 Kd7 20.Be5 Rhf8 21.Rhg1 Bd6 22.Bxd6 Kxd6 23.b4 Nh5 24.b5 Ng7 25.Rgb1 Nf5 26.bxc6 bxc6 27.Rxb6 Rfe8 28.Nb5+ Kd7 29.Rb7+ Kd8 30.Na7 Nxd4+ 31.Kd3 Re7 32.Rxe7 Kxe7 33.Kxd4 Rxa7 34.Kc5 Ra6 35.a5 Ke6 36.h3 g5 37.Ra2 Kd7 38.Ra3 h6 39.e4 dxe4 40.fxe4 Ke6 41.Kd4 h5 42.Ra2 Kd6 43.Ke3 c5 44.Ra1 Ke5 45.Rg1 Kf6 46.Rf1+ Kg6 47.Ra1 Kf6 48.Rf1+ Kg6 49.Ra1 Kf6 50.Rf1+ Kg6 51.Ra1 Kf6 52.Rf1+ Kg6 *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2014-05-17T14:31:48.347" LastActivityDate="2014-05-17T14:31:48.347" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5464" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-05-15T09:17:31.577" Score="6" ViewCount="1678" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I first started chess, my mentor asked me to learn one opening that I like and stick to it, study it and master it. But things will not always go the way you think, your opponent might not always start &lt;code&gt;1. e4&lt;/code&gt;. However, starting &lt;code&gt;1. e4, 1. d4 , 1. Nf3...&lt;/code&gt; might leads to the same position after a sequence of moves (considering the in between moves to reach that position does not consist of a blunder). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the most common opening position(s) / structure(s) to be in regardless of the starting move? This is because by studying those, I think I can try to shape the board into those positions which I'm comfortable in.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2553" LastEditorUserId="813" LastEditDate="2014-05-15T10:42:51.773" LastActivityDate="2014-05-18T14:50:58.910" Title="Similar opening positions and structures" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;study&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5465" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5464" CreationDate="2014-05-15T10:56:09.177" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The idea of mastering several openings is a good one because we can't mastering all openings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In general, as white, you always begin with the same move (for example &lt;code&gt;1. e4&lt;/code&gt;) to reduce the choice of openings for black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But when you play as black you need to learn two openings at least: one against &lt;code&gt;1. e4&lt;/code&gt; (for example &lt;code&gt;1... d5&lt;/code&gt;) and one against &lt;code&gt;1. d4&lt;/code&gt; (for example &lt;code&gt;1... d5&lt;/code&gt; too). That way you reduce the possible variations for white.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's an example of reducing possible variations if your opponent plays as white:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 d5 2.c4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.c4 d5 2.d4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="813" LastActivityDate="2014-05-15T10:56:09.177" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5466" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5464" CreationDate="2014-05-15T12:43:22.297" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are two paths you can choose and they both depend on the current pawn structure you play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You see, I understand exactly what you face here, as I have the same problem. When you work or have other reasons not to devote yourself to studying chess, you need to learn the least amount of openings possible in order to focus on more important stuff such as tactics/endgames/middlegame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore you need openings &lt;strong&gt;that are immune to transpositional tricks&lt;/strong&gt;, but on the same side &lt;strong&gt;you can reach their middlegame positions as Black anytime.&lt;/strong&gt; At best, you will need two openings -&gt; against &lt;code&gt;1.e4&lt;/code&gt; and against everything else.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As I have said, there are two choices:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;FIRST CHOICE :&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;CARO-SLAV PAWN STRUCTURE&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can use &lt;em&gt;Caro-Kann defense&lt;/em&gt; against &lt;code&gt;1.e4&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;em&gt;Queen's Gambit&lt;/em&gt; against &lt;code&gt;1.d4&lt;/code&gt;. These two openings have &lt;strong&gt;a lot of similar middlegames&lt;/strong&gt; and studying pawn structures for both sides will greatly help you. Compare the below diagrams to see what I mean:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Queen's Gambit&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;8/pp3ppp/2p1p3/3p4/2PP4/4P3/PP3PPP/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And this one:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Caro-Kann&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;8/pp3ppp/2p1p3/3p4/3PP3/8/PPP2PPP/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now consider exchange variations that can crop up from those structures:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Queen's Gambit declined&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;8/pp3ppp/2p5/3p4/3P4/4P3/PP3PPP/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And notice that this is the same position &lt;strong&gt;only with the colors reversed:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Caro-Kann&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;8/pp3ppp/4p3/3p4/3P4/8/PPP2PPP/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This means that if you take time to learn &lt;em&gt;Carlsbad pawn structure&lt;/em&gt; you could cut down the amount of work drastically.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Furthermore, both &lt;em&gt;Caro-Kann&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;Queen's Gambit declined&lt;/em&gt; are &lt;strong&gt;immune to transpositional tricks&lt;/strong&gt; so White is unable to &quot;kick you out&quot; of your opening choice:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Caro-Kann&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 c6 2.c4 d5!&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a line from &lt;em&gt;Caro-Kann&lt;/em&gt; and is considered unclear. On other moves Black simply transposes into well explored lines as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Queen's Gambit&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.c4 c6 2.e4 d5!&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And you are back into &lt;em&gt;Caro-Kann&lt;/em&gt;. On other moves Black simply transposes into well known lines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On &lt;code&gt;1.e4&lt;/code&gt; you could also use &lt;em&gt;French defense&lt;/em&gt;, but it will require more work on middlegame structures, as they differ from the ones in &lt;em&gt;Queen's Gambit&lt;/em&gt;. Still, the &lt;strong&gt;total number of lines you need to learn&lt;/strong&gt; is lesser than the ones in &lt;em&gt;Caro-Kann&lt;/em&gt; :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;French defense&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e6 2.c4 d5!&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a good line for Black, covered in any repertoire book for &lt;em&gt;French defense&lt;/em&gt;. Also, if White tries to trick you to not play &lt;em&gt;Queen's Gambit&lt;/em&gt; he will fail and you can transpose into &lt;em&gt;French defense&lt;/em&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Queen's Gambit&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.c4 e6! 2.e4 ( 2.d4 d5! ) 2...d5!&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And in both cases you are &quot;in your opening&quot;, thus refuting White's try for tricking you out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;SECOND CHOICE:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The second choice is &lt;em&gt;Sicilian defense-Dragon variation&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;Modern defense&lt;/em&gt; for &lt;code&gt;1.e4&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;em&gt;King's Indian defense&lt;/em&gt; on &lt;code&gt;1.d4&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;A lot of work is required here&lt;/strong&gt;, but these openings give &lt;strong&gt;better winning chances for Black&lt;/strong&gt; than &lt;em&gt;Queen's Gambit&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;French / Caro-Kann defense&lt;/em&gt;. They are also &lt;strong&gt;immune to transpositional tricks.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The pawn structure is nearly identical for all of these openings:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;KID, Sicilian Dragon and Modern&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;8/pp2pp1p/3p2p1/2p5/8/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It all depends on what you want:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;QGD + Caro-Kann/French give you positional play, yet KIA and Sicilian/modern tend to be much sharper.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I chose QGD and French, and never regretted it, because I always &quot;stayed in the opening&quot; and the ideas are clear and simple. Still, I must add that these are harder to play then KIA and Sicilian/Modern, and achieving victory with Black is nearly impossible against quality opposition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the end, I recommend you &lt;em&gt;Andrew Soltis-Pawn Structure Chess&lt;/em&gt; to help you grasp the middlegame concepts. With proper repertoire books you should be OK.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hopefully this helps you a bit, if you have further questions leave a comment and I will try to help you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Best regards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastEditorUserId="2042" LastEditDate="2014-05-18T14:50:58.910" LastActivityDate="2014-05-18T14:50:58.910" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5467" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1709" CreationDate="2014-05-15T13:05:41.140" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would recommend looking at games of Eric Prie as white. He plays the London a lot. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesspub.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1122821205&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.chesspub.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1122821205&lt;/a&gt; is a long thread and agood introduction to its issues.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is an article by Prie, where he outlines the issue with Bf4: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesspublishing.com/content/8/feb06.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.chesspublishing.com/content/8/feb06.htm&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, Nf3 also has the issue of the Qb6, Bf5 lines where white gets a bit tormented. So I do not know how to avoid both :) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The best book I have read is by Cyrus Lakdawala. I find it tricky against the Benoni as I don't like Benoni , despite its reputation at high level. (I am 1800 only)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1311" LastActivityDate="2014-05-15T13:05:41.140" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5468" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8273" CreationDate="2014-05-15T21:50:20.070" Score="1" ViewCount="104" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there anyway to read pgn's on the surface 2 (windows 8), besides using any online tool for that matter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="872" LastActivityDate="2015-01-03T20:11:16.217" Title="App to read pgn surface" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;pgn&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5469" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1844" CreationDate="2014-05-18T12:35:15.803" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I also started with e4, because all of the quick mates started with it and checkmated on f7.  I started playing d4 when the chess program (Houdini 3) showed me with move 22 analysis that d4 was slightly stronger.  I found from several games that d4 actually put black into trouble by move 12 against Deep Rybka 4 chess engine.  e4 games tended to be over by move 40.  d4 games tended to be over by move 32.  I found that d4 used more of the chess principles of King Safety, Center Control, Time, Space, Pawn Structure, FDR, Piece Activity, and Material because d4 blocked Black's Bishop from c5 and attack on White's f2 (King Safety).  d4 allowed for quicker attacks by white because white did not need to castle early (Time).  I am convinced that d4 is the better opening for white.  Did I have problems adjusting?  Yes.  My whole opening repertoire as White was based on e4.  Therefore, I needed to learn a whole new set of opening responses by Black.  I needed to learn about middle game &quot;Critical Positions&quot;, and I learned from d4 that in general, you should move into a protected square (Queen protects) instead of moving into a square and trying to protect it later as in e4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3127" LastActivityDate="2014-05-18T12:35:15.803" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5470" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5494" CreationDate="2014-05-18T18:51:48.850" Score="10" ViewCount="13535" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am looking for resources/ideas (i.e. ECO doesn't seem to have a lot on this opening) to play against the Grob attack.&#xA;(Both for facing it and to prepare to play it as White).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So far what I have seen is very tactical, but I am looking for strategical ideas or the main branches to study.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example what's Black best plan/ideas in the sequence below:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.g4 d5 2. Bg2 Bxg4 3. c4 dxc4 4. Bb7 Nd7 5. Ba8 Qa8&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2607" LastEditorUserId="11202" LastEditDate="2017-05-01T07:52:19.860" LastActivityDate="2020-08-03T22:34:11.993" Title="How to play against the Grob attack 1.g4" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="11" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5471" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5472" CreationDate="2014-05-18T19:59:31.003" Score="0" ViewCount="1220" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a new chess player and after some days me and my friends decided to set a chess tournament.&#xA;.&#xA;As i am new to chess, I want some unbeatable (read: solid and sensible) openings so I can beat my friends in chess games.&#xA;.&#xA;.&#xA;Please give me some best openings.&#xA;.&#xA;.&#xA;Thanks in advance..&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3133" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2014-05-18T20:45:30.180" LastActivityDate="2014-05-18T22:46:19.367" Title="Unbeatable openings" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ClosedDate="2014-05-19T21:13:36.157" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5472" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5471" CreationDate="2014-05-18T21:31:55.280" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;While I agree with Henry's comment above that your opening choice won't be the deciding factor, choosing a good opening will probably help you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Regarding openings:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Don't just memorize moves.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If you don't understand it, don't play it.  This doesn't mean you have an encyclopedic knowledge, but avoid rote moves.  The reason is that your opponent can choose a move for which you're not prepared.  If you're only memorizing you'll be lost.  But if you know why you're doing what you're doing, you have a better chance to respond effectively.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You need one opening as White, and one or two as Black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For White, a common opening is the 'King Pawn's Game&quot;. This opening makes it easy for you 1. develop your pieces, and 2. castle your king to make it safe.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's how it goes:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Nc3 Nf6 5.O-O&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the 5th move, White is developing nicely and has castled. Black is doing ok too, but for now, get your pieces developed. Perhaps your opponent won't make such prudent choices.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For Black, you'll need 2 openings, one against e4 and one against d4.  I'll let someone else go into more detail, but consider the Caro-Kann against e4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2014-05-18T21:31:55.280" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5473" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5471" CreationDate="2014-05-18T22:46:19.367" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, it is important to work on your openings and get a decent opening repertoire. The best move for a beginner would be 1.e4 as Whites. Then you should consider all responds from Black to your first move. Main variations will be:&#xA;1. - e5&#xA;1. - e6&#xA;1. - c5&#xA;1. - c6&#xA;1. - d6&#xA;1. - d5&#xA;1. - Nf6&#xA;1. - Nc6&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All these moves lead to totally different middle games therefore you need know some main variations for all these openings. It would be good if you also find out respective games played by world-class GMs so you can better understand the following middlegames. Chessbase has got all the games you want. The same counts for Black repertoire. You need to consider what will you respond to:&#xA;1. e4&#xA;1. d4&#xA;1. c4&#xA;1. Nf3&#xA;1. g3&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It needs to be said that many start moves can lead to the same openings with different move orders. For example, you can play King's Indian as Black against 1. d4, 1. c4, 1. g3 and 1. Nf3. It will also depend on you opponent's moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1943" LastActivityDate="2014-05-18T22:46:19.367" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5474" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="485" CreationDate="2014-05-19T06:53:58.340" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;We can remove a few unlikely contenders:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The central pawns are developed quickly in most games to control the center and aid development.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The c-pawns are also frequently moved in the opening.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Knights are frequently the first real pieces to be developed since their development clears space for the king to castle and controls the center.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Bishops are also developed early in most games, primarily for the same reasons as the knight.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Kings castle early in most games.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Since &lt;code&gt;O-O&lt;/code&gt; is more common than &lt;code&gt;O-O-O&lt;/code&gt;, we can also safely rule out the king's rooks.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That leaves us with the queens, the queen's rooks, and the a-, b-, f-, g-, and h-pawns. Among the pawns, I think the b- and g-pawns are most likely to move first, since the fianchetto is a relatively common maneuver. Among the two remaining pieces, the queen is generally developed earlier in the game than the queen's rook, so we can rule her out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, we're down to the queen's rook and three pawns. Even though I initially thought the f-pawn was going to be the most frequent last piece developed, a quick look at my games says otherwise. The vast popularity of the Bird's opening, as well as frequent kingside attacks, ensures that the f-pawn is rarely the last piece developed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm also going to rule out the a-pawn, since it is moved frequently in openings such as the Sicilian (e.g. the Najdorf) and the Ruy Lopez (e.g. main line).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With only the h-pawn and the queen's rook remaining, it is hard to make a comparison without statistics. While, in most games, the last piece to be developed will be a pawn, the large number of pawns relative to the number of likely pieces makes it possible that the queen's rook is the single, most statistically likely piece to be developed last.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3135" LastActivityDate="2014-05-19T06:53:58.340" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5475" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5477" CreationDate="2014-05-19T11:54:40.173" Score="9" ViewCount="702" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know the the fics (free internet chess server: www.freechess.org/) does use a program called timeseal to measure the time that a user needed to take a move. This timeseal is some time measurement on the client. Measuring on the client is much better and fairer than measuring the time on the server since you don't lose time just by having a bad connection. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But since fics has a lot of interfaces to play on - what prevents rogue interfaces to say that they always only used 0.1 seconds for any move? Does anyone know how this is handled?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just a sidenote: i don't want to build a rogue interface, but i'm trying to build something similar that is measuing client side time but should not be easy to cheat on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1516" LastActivityDate="2014-05-19T15:59:20.127" Title="How does timeseal work?" Tags="&lt;chess-algorithms&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ClosedDate="2014-05-28T00:06:56.097" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5476" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5470" CreationDate="2014-05-19T14:37:37.977" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Honestly, if a player is playing the Grob they are hoping for&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;g4 d5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Instead, just play&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;g4 e5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and now they are in a funny position for no good reason. Why play into tons of tactics that surely they've studied, but you probably haven't?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3118" LastActivityDate="2014-05-19T14:37:37.977" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5477" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5475" CreationDate="2014-05-19T15:59:20.127" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm a chess player and programmer. There was actually a paper on this 10 years ago about the timestamp and other security on ICC. You should read it with the understanding that things may be different now:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://eprint.iacr.org/2004/203.pdf&quot;&gt;How to Cheat at Chess:&#xA;A Security Analysis of the Internet Chess Club&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But in general, you are correct. It is possible to manipulate the times reported in timeseal (timestamp). I've actually done it, even with ICC's official interface, just to see if it can be done. Speed hacks exist for many games and I used an existing speed hack program to slow down my clock instead of speeding it up (which you normally would do to run faster in a game). The result was a game I played vs KBNK (a bot which lets you practice B+N mate), in which I mated the computer after about 30 moves in less than 3 seconds played time. Averaging 0.1 seconds per move or so on a non-trivial mate is definitely unnatural.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I reported the effect to the administrators of the site, but I was told they were able to detect it. In fact, they had a log of my fraudulent time stamps detected (somewhere... I assume they can see blatant false reports, as well as compare it to TCP/IP timestamps and see if the numbers are reasonable). I was told that they were able to detect such cheating and to please not use it but thanks for my concern.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, yes it is possible to manipulate anything client side, but it is also possible that they can detect fraudulent time stamps server side. Better chess servers typically already have a team of people that investigate reports of cheating, either by computer or clock manipulation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3118" LastActivityDate="2014-05-19T15:59:20.127" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5479" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6365" CreationDate="2014-05-20T14:29:15.020" Score="16" ViewCount="1385" Body="&lt;p&gt;Capablanca's &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1095025&quot;&gt;over the board refutation&lt;/a&gt; of Frank Marshall's deep home preparation, in what was later called the &lt;em&gt;Marshall Attack&lt;/em&gt;, is widely regarded as one of the great defensive masterpieces of all time. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The question is, is it known how much time Capablanca had on the clock to do so and how much time he actually used for the game? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's the actual game - &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;   [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;   [White &quot;Capablanca&quot;]&#xA;   [Black &quot;Marshall&quot;]&#xA;   [Date &quot;1918&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;   1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Ba4 Nf6 5. O-O Be7 6. Re1 b5 7. Bb3 O-O  &#xA;   8. c3 d5 9. exd5 Nxd5 10. Nxe5 Nxe5 11. Rxe5 Nf6 12. Re1 Bd6 13. h3 Ng4 &#xA;   14. Qf3 Qh4 15. d4 Nxf2 16. Re2 Bg4 17. hxg4 Bh2 18. Kf1 Bg3 19. Rxf2 Qh1 &#xA;   20. Ke2 Bxf2 21. Bd2 Bh4 22. Qh3 Rae8 23. Kd3 Qf1 24. Kc2 Bf2 25. Qf3 Qg1 &#xA;   26. Bd5 c5 27. dxc5 Bc5 28. b4 Bd6 29. a4 a5 30. axb5 axb4 31. Ra6 bxc3 &#xA;   32. Nc3 Bb4 33. b6 Bxc3 34. Bxc3 h6 35. b7 Re3 36. Bxf7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2429" LastActivityDate="2014-09-21T16:27:37.743" Title="How much time did Capablanca have / use on the clock to refute Frank Marshall's Marshall Attack over the board?" Tags="&lt;capablanca&gt;&lt;time-control&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5480" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5481" CreationDate="2014-05-20T18:49:06.003" Score="1" ViewCount="1709" Body="&lt;p&gt;Does anyone know how to set a blue DGT North American chess clock to the time control of:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2 hours for the first 40 moves, with 30 minutes added thereafter, with 10 second delay throughout the course of the game?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I found the following information here (&lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/B00312D2OU&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.amazon.com/DGT-North-American-Chess-Clock/dp/B00312D2OU&lt;/a&gt;) and hope that it is false: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Most disappointing to me is that, though it claims to have all major North American time &#xA;  controls, it is missing an important one. The time control 40 moves in 2 hours + 1 hour&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  thereafter WITH a 5 second DELAY. This is fairly common (at least in Texas) to have a&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  delay on the control, but this clock does not do the move counter (i.e. automatically add &#xA;  time after the fortieth move) with a delay. It will do it with an INCREMENT, but not a&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  delay.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1747" LastEditorUserId="12" LastEditDate="2014-05-20T19:08:55.153" LastActivityDate="2019-05-23T02:08:24.243" Title="Setting DGT North American clock for two time controls" Tags="&lt;time-control&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5481" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5480" CreationDate="2014-05-20T19:08:16.140" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can &lt;em&gt;almost&lt;/em&gt; do what you're describing with this clock.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In actuality, it is better to NOT add time after move 40, but instead add the extra hour after one side's clock runs to 0:00.  This is because it is fairly common for the wrong side to start (i.e. time would be added after black's 39th move) or for the clock to be pressed an extra time which would result in time being added after white's 39th move.  This is problematic because now the clock says that you have, for example, 61 minutes left when in reality you would only have a minute to make your move.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So with that intro, it is very easy to setup the clock with two time controls and a 10 second delay.  As described above, the extra hour is added after the time first goes to 0:00.  A small flag icon is displayed and the clock continues counting down from 59:59.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In order to set the clock this way, you would use preset 23.  (Turn the clock off then back on and press the + button or - button until 23 is displayed)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After selecting preset 23, set the main time for the first time control to 2:00:00 on the first screen.  Then the clock will display &lt;code&gt;1 | 0.00&lt;/code&gt; with the word &quot;delay&quot; in small print underneath the time.  This is the delay for the first time control.  Set this to &lt;code&gt;0.10&lt;/code&gt; for a 10 second delay.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now simply repeat these steps for the second (and possibly third) time control and you're ready to play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One last caveat, before you start the game (by pressing the play/pause button), make sure that white's side of the clock is raised by pressing black's side.  Most clocks can be started by simply pressing black's clock at the start of the game, but this clock needs to be unpaused in order to begin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12" LastActivityDate="2014-05-20T19:08:16.140" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5482" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5470" CreationDate="2014-05-20T21:03:36.770" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;After 3. c4, perhaps the simplest for Black is to play 3. ... Be6 to protect both the QP and the bishop. His development is a bit constricted, but so is White's.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2014-05-20T21:03:36.770" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5483" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-05-20T21:50:29.430" Score="-6" ViewCount="311" Body="&lt;p&gt;How difficult would it be to come into a match trying to get a stalemate? Is it also possible to repeat this? Could one raise their elo with the ability to just stalemate every game? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3146" LastActivityDate="2019-12-26T02:18:24.053" Title="Playing for a stalemate?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="9" ClosedDate="2019-12-26T08:53:19.690" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5484" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5483" CreationDate="2014-05-21T02:53:53.020" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;First of all what is a stalemate? This is a specific kind of draw (you can have a lot of them: perpetual check, insufficient material, mutual agreement, threefold repetition, 50 moves rule and a stalemate). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But in comparison to other draws, stalemate is most of the time a blunder made by your opponent. This is because it enables a player with inferior position to draw the game.  The blunder of such high quality that it costed him a draw in completely winning position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So to answer your questions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;How difficult would it be to come into a match trying to get a&#xA;  stalemate?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Extremely difficult an quite silly. Because to get into stalemate you would need to reach in the beginning much worse position and only after that to hope that your opponent will do a big mistake. Yes, it is possible (&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalemate#Anand_versus_Kramnik&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;some of GM's had it&lt;/a&gt;), but it is better to play for a draw in another way (where you do not put yourself in bad position in the first place)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is it also possible to repeat this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sure, if your opponent do not want to learn and want to do the same queen stalemate every time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Could one raise their elo with the ability to just stalemate every&#xA;  game?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even theoretically it is impossible (even if you will assume that you can stalemate every game, which is ridiculous) because you will play with people above your rating and below your rating so for the draw with people below your rating you will get minus score.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="703" LastActivityDate="2014-05-21T02:53:53.020" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5485" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-05-21T03:59:16.953" Score="6" ViewCount="214" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am an intermediate chess player (1500-1600 skill level USCF) and will enter the Open section of a State tournament. I would like to prepare for this tournament in three months, what would be the best way to become a stronger chess player to at least survive against 2000 USCF rated players or higher? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3149" LastEditorUserId="3135" LastEditDate="2014-05-21T18:24:19.843" LastActivityDate="2014-05-21T18:24:19.843" Title="What is the best way to prepare and optimize my skills for an Open section of a State tournament?" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;training&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5487" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5098" CreationDate="2014-05-21T11:22:45.743" Score="5" Body="&lt;h2&gt;9 moves&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/q/4963/86&quot;&gt;the linked thread&lt;/a&gt; (not quite a duplicate), a valid &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/4965/86&quot;&gt;answer&lt;/a&gt; is posed to this question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You mean like this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Vilhelm Röpke, Skakbladet 1942, Mate In 6&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;K1k5/P1Pp4/1p1P4/8/p7/P2P4/8/8 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White mates in 6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I guess that's 9 consecutive forced moves. It would be eleven except for black's choice of promotion piece on his fifth move. I don't know if it's a record, and I don't know who composed this classic chess problem.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="86" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-01-28T23:35:42.047" LastActivityDate="2021-01-28T23:35:42.047" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="5488" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4508" CreationDate="2014-05-21T13:43:23.410" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is the Smith-Morra Gambit. Your opponent plans to play c3 to invite dxc for rapid development. The Smith-Morra is extremely dangerous for black. Even if you do not fall for one of the numerous mistakes that results in a quick win for white, white usually has great development and a lot of pressure for a long time. As someone who plays the smith-morra myself, I would strongly discourage you from accepting the gambit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are several ways of declining the Smith-Morra gambit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;d5 (which can lead to a Caro-Kann type position if they play e5, but with the ability to develop the knight to c6)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 c5 2.d4 cxd4 3.c3 d5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;d3 (leading to a Maroczy Bind type position)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 c5 2.d4 cxd4 3.c3 d3 4. c4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nf6&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 c5 2.d4 cxd4 3.c3 Nf6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would recommend declining the Smith-Morra with d5 as the easiest/best way to handle the Smith-Morra.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 c5 2.d4 cxd4 3.c3 d5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3118" LastActivityDate="2014-05-21T13:43:23.410" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5489" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5485" CreationDate="2014-05-21T14:20:56.197" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think this question is a bit too broad to answer, but I'll give it a shot anyway. I think the best thing you can do in 3 months is to play as much as you can. You can play online and pick a semi-serious time control such as G/15. For &lt;strong&gt;all&lt;/strong&gt; the games you lose (or really all of your games), you should analyze it thoroughly until you understand what it is that you could have done better. You can use a chess engine to help you as well as any other resource (Analyze the games with a high rated friend afterwards). If you played a poor move in an opening, you need to make sure you revise your repertoire. If you made a tactical blunder you need to ask yourself why you made that mistake and how you can avoid it next time, if you lost in an endgame maybe research that endgame to see how you can play better next time. I would suggest, at least, 5 games a day if you can manage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's not much you can do in 3 months, but the best thing you can do is play as much as you can and learn as much as you can from your losses. It is easy to lose and simply play another game and forget it happened. It is better to figure out why you lost and try to figure out how to avoid it next time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you could average 5 games a day, that's 450 games in 3 months. If you've learned anything from each of these games, that's got to be worth something.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3118" LastEditorUserId="3118" LastEditDate="2014-05-21T14:29:52.813" LastActivityDate="2014-05-21T14:29:52.813" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5491" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5470" CreationDate="2014-05-23T15:35:51.300" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;I play the grob a lot, and i don't ever mind if people go into those main lines. That is actually what anyone playing the grob wants.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The easiest play for black is going with 1.e5 and a quick Ne7, Ng6, Nh4! This can't be prevented, the knight is hard to remove from h4 due to the weakness from 1.g4 and it hits the white bishop on g2 which white doesn't want to trade but it's either that or the ridiculous Bf1. That simple plan makes white look silly and gives an easy nice position for black from the opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3161" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2018-12-25T20:51:22.293" LastActivityDate="2018-12-25T20:51:22.293" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="5492" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5235" CreationDate="2014-05-23T16:45:26.323" Score="-6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Nxd5. allows you to flood in.You should get an easy win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3162" LastActivityDate="2014-05-23T16:45:26.323" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5494" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5470" CreationDate="2014-05-24T06:22:27.743" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the Grob attack is unsound and the best way to play as Black is to simply call out White's bluff and occupy the center. After &lt;strong&gt;1. g4 d5 2. Bg2 e5&lt;/strong&gt;, the main line as per a Rybka 4 book seems to be &lt;strong&gt;3. c4&lt;/strong&gt;. I saw that in the main line, Black's position is in fact better. &lt;strong&gt;3. h3&lt;/strong&gt; seems to be another main line, but I don't see what White has achieved then. Black has good control of the center and can in also play &lt;strong&gt;h5&lt;/strong&gt; when White's pawn structure on the kingside is pretty weak. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also analyzed an interesting alternative in &lt;strong&gt;3. d3!?&lt;/strong&gt; but found that there too Black gets an excellent position. Here's how you play as Black - &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  [Event &quot;Grob Attack. Black occupies the center&quot;]&#xA;  [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;  1. g4 d5 2. Bg2 e5 3. c4 (3. h3 Nc6 4. d3 h5 5. g5 Nge7 6. Nc3 Be6) (3. d3 Bxg4 4. c4 c6 5. Qb3 Nf6 6. Qxb7 Nbd7 7. Qxc6&#xA;  Rc8 8. Qa4 dxc4 9. dxc4 Bc5 10. Nc3 (10. Nf3 e4) 10... O-O 11. Nf3 Nb6 12. Qb3&#xA;  Nxc4 13. O-O (13. Qxc4 $4 Bxf2+ 14. Kxf2 Rxc4) 13... Qe7) 3... dxc4 4. Qa4+ c6&#xA;  5. Qxc4 Be6 6. Qc3 Nd7 7. Nf3 Ngf6 8. Nxe5 Nxe5 9. Qxe5 Nxg4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the final position after &lt;strong&gt;9...Nxg4&lt;/strong&gt;, we can say that Black is better and here's why-&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Black already has two pieces developed versus White's lone developed bishop on &lt;strong&gt;g2&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The bishop on &lt;strong&gt;g2&lt;/strong&gt; is blunted by the pawn on &lt;strong&gt;c6&lt;/strong&gt;, so it is not so strong.  &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;White's queen is awkwardly placed and will have to move, losing tempo.  &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;White has more &lt;strong&gt;pawn islands&lt;/strong&gt; than Black, so White's pawn structure is worse. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;White's kingside is a bit vulnerable because of the absence of the &lt;strong&gt;g-pawn&lt;/strong&gt;, thus it will not be a safe haven for the White king when it castles kingside.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2429" LastEditorUserId="2429" LastEditDate="2014-06-14T02:38:18.843" LastActivityDate="2014-06-14T02:38:18.843" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5496" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="824" CreationDate="2014-05-25T03:01:47.173" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Kasparov is a great player but has one singular flaw. He wants to be in the lime light even after his retirement. If that means throwing a few of the contemporaries under the bus, he will happily do that. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;FIDE has a system to select a challenger for the World Championship. The eventual challenger comes through after a well fought series of matches against other best players. Now, enters Kasparov who in his mind has already thrown FIDE and its system under the bus. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Emperor Kasparov declares he doesn't like the current choices. Now, all chess fans are supposed to do is to drop dead from the real world and enter the great Kaspi's mind. Kapsi will decide who should play against whom! What a deal!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All geniuses are a bit mad men themselves and you can't fault Kaspi for that!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3167" LastActivityDate="2014-05-25T03:01:47.173" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5499" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-05-26T19:46:56.460" Score="-7" ViewCount="162" Body="&lt;p&gt;Ok, So I learned how to play chess yrs ago, but suck at it-and wanna knw if there are any nice strategies to beat your opponents? If so can you guys tell me about it and explained the whole concept to pretty please?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3176" LastActivityDate="2014-05-26T21:14:45.113" Title="Learning different strategies?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ClosedDate="2014-05-28T00:03:29.963" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5500" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5499" CreationDate="2014-05-26T21:05:12.563" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are three phases of the chess game - &lt;strong&gt;opening&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;middlegame&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;endgame&lt;/strong&gt;. You should learn about these. Also, as a human being there is also the &lt;strong&gt;psychological&lt;/strong&gt; aspect of the game. Then there are also &lt;strong&gt;free chess programs&lt;/strong&gt; that you can use to analyze your games. So you may want to look into various threads on this site that are related to these topics. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Look for tags like &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/opening&quot;&gt;opening&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/middlegame&quot;&gt;middlegame&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/endgame&quot;&gt;endgame&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/software&quot;&gt;software&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/training&quot;&gt;training&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/tactics&quot;&gt;tactics&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/strategy&quot;&gt;strategy&lt;/a&gt;, etc. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are plenty of threads on these topics, so I'll be a bit biased and recommend some of my own answers :D -  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Psychological&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/5208/where-i-can-start-to-learn/5213#5213&quot;&gt;How to start learning chess?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/4776/what-advice-would-you-give-a-novice-in-chess/4782#4782&quot;&gt;What advice wold you give to a novice in chess?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/4763/what-to-do-after-losing-a-game/4768#4768&quot;&gt;What to do after losing a game?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Opening&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/5142/why-is-the-centre-of-the-board-considered-important-in-chess/5143#5143&quot;&gt;Why is the center of the board considered important in chess?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/5280/understanding-vs-memorization/5286#5286&quot;&gt;Should I understand openings or just memorize them?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/5429/chess-traps-without-positional-loss/5431#5431&quot;&gt;What opening traps can I set that do not weaken my position?&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Middlegame&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/5048/what-are-some-good-middle-game-plans-or-strategies/5052#5052&quot;&gt;What are some good middlegame plans and strategies?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/4821/overprotection-and-prophylaxis/4828#4828&quot;&gt;What is prophylaxis and why is it important?&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Endgame&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/941/improving-the-endgame-principles&quot;&gt;How do I improve my endgame?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/4924/how-do-you-checkmate-with-a-queen/4935#4935&quot;&gt;How do I checkmate with a queen&lt;/a&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/4886/how-do-you-checkmate-with-a-rook/4890#4890&quot;&gt;, with a rook&lt;/a&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/4931/how-do-you-checkmate-with-the-pair-of-bishops/4943#4943&quot;&gt;, and with bishops?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Software&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/5379/what-are-the-options-for-solving-puzzles-online-and-tracking-progress/5381#5381&quot;&gt;Websites for practicing chess tactics&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/27/is-there-any-free-software-to-automatically-analyze-and-annotate-games&quot;&gt;Free Chess Software&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2429" LastEditorUserId="2429" LastEditDate="2014-05-26T21:14:45.113" LastActivityDate="2014-05-26T21:14:45.113" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5502" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8" CreationDate="2014-05-27T07:09:18.007" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know you mainly asked about the 50 move rule, and that has already been answered, but I thought I'd answer the &lt;strong&gt;exact&lt;/strong&gt; question as stated which was &lt;strong&gt;&quot;With the King as the last piece, how can you get a draw?&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Both players can agree to a draw&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Opponent Stalemates you (you have no legal moves, but are not in check)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You stalemate your opponent (yes you can do this with just a king, but he has to help you by blocking himself with a pawn for example)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Your opponent does not have mating material (no pawns and one, Knight or Bishop, or less)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;50-move rule. After 50 moves have passed without a capture or a pawn advancing, you can claim a draw.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The same position is repeated 3 times and you claim a draw. For the position to be the same it must be the same players turn and the same set of possible legal moves (including castling rights and en passant opportunities). The position need not repeat 3 times back to back, but at any time.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Your opponent runs out of time on the clock in a timed game and you claim it. The game is drawn because you do not have mating material.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Examples&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(2) Opponent Stalemates you (you have no legal moves, but are not in check)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;8/3kp3/8/8/8/8/4K3/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Kd3 Kd6 2. Kd4 e5+ 3. Ke4 Ke6 4. Ke3 Kd5 5. Kd3 e4+ 6. Ke3 Ke5 7. Ke2 Kf4&#xA;8. Kf2 e3+ 9. Ke2 Ke4 10. Ke1 Kd3 11. Kd1 e2+ 12. Ke1 Ke3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(3) You stalemate your opponent (yes you can do this with just a king, but he has to help you by blocking himself with a pawn for example)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/8/8/8/7R/3K4/p7/r1k5 w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Rh1+ Kb2 2. Rxa1 Kxa1 3. Kc2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(4) Your opponent does not have mating material (no pawns and one, Knight or Bishop, or less)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/6q1/3k4/2n5/7Q/4K3/8/8 w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Qd4+ Qxd4+ 2. Kxd4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(5) 50-move rule. After 50 moves have passed without a capture or a pawn advancing, you can claim a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;ICC 3 0&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Internet Chess Club&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Smallville&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;depressnyak&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;r7/3q2k1/3bb2p/r1p1p1pP/PpPpPpP1/1P1P1P2/R1Q3KN/R7 w - - 6 33&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Kf2 Qe7 2. Kg2 Bd7&#xA;3. Kf2 Qe8 4. Kg2 Qb8 5. Nf1 Bc7 6. Nd2 Qe8 7. Qd1 Qc8 8. Kg1 R8a7&#xA;9. Kg2 Qa8 10. Kg1 Bd6 11. Kg2 Bc6 12. Kg1 Be8 13. Kg2 Bf7 14. Kf2 Be6&#xA;15. Kg2 Qe8 16. Kf2 Bf7 17. Qh1 Qe6 18. Kg2 Be8 19. Qd1 Bd7 20. Kf2 Qe8&#xA;21. Kg2 Qc8 22. Kf2 Be6 23. Kg2 Qe8 24. Kf2 Qd7 25. Kg2 Qe8 26. Kf2 Bf7&#xA;27. Qh1 R7a6 28. Kg2 Be7 29. Kf2 Qd8 30. Kg2 Qe8 31. Kf2 Be6 32. Kg2 Bd6&#xA;33. Kf2 Bd7 34. Qd1 Bc6 35. Kg2 Qa8 36. Kf2 Be8 37. Kg2 Bf7 38. Kf2 Qe8&#xA;39. Qh1 Be7 40. Kg2 Be6 41. Kf2 Bf6 42. Kg2 Qc8 43. Qd1 Qc6 44. Kf2 Qe8&#xA;45. Kg2 Qd7 46. Kf2 Bf7 47. Kg2 Qc6 48. Kf2 Bd8 49. Kg2 Bc7 50. Kf2 Qe8 51. Qh1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(6 The same position is repeated 3 times and you claim a draw. For the position to be the same it must be the same players turn and the same set of possible legal moves (including castling rights and en passant opportunities). The position need not repeat 3 times back to back, but at any time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[White &quot;Fischer&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Petrosian&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;1971&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;8/pp3p1k/2p2q1p/3r1P2/5R2/7P/P1P1QP2/7K b KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Qe5 Qh5 2. Qf6 Qe2 3. Re5 Qd3 4. Rd5 Qe2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3118" LastEditorUserId="3118" LastEditDate="2014-05-27T07:56:46.413" LastActivityDate="2014-05-27T07:56:46.413" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5504" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5505" CreationDate="2014-05-27T18:10:25.867" Score="10" ViewCount="7100" Body="&lt;p&gt;Where should I look for a list of tournaments in which new players can participate? I know that many players want to play real matches, but don't know how and where.&#xA;Also provide list for online tournaments.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3182" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2014-05-31T07:12:16.387" LastActivityDate="2014-10-29T20:41:27.347" Title="Where can I find a list of tournaments to participate in?" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;fide&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5505" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5504" CreationDate="2014-05-27T18:11:30.933" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;For US tournaments, I recommend checking the U.S. Chess Federation (USCF) website:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.uschess.org/tlas/upcoming.php&quot;&gt;http://www.uschess.org/tlas/upcoming.php&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For non-US tournaments, I would check the FIDE website:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fide.com/calendar/tournaments.html&quot;&gt;http://www.fide.com/calendar/tournaments.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fide.com/calendar.html&quot;&gt;http://www.fide.com/calendar.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3183" LastEditorUserId="3183" LastEditDate="2014-05-27T20:51:59.570" LastActivityDate="2014-05-27T20:51:59.570" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5506" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1844" CreationDate="2014-05-29T06:55:02.433" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a beginner, I always play with 1. e4, and have been trying to understand most of its variation, 1...e5, 1...c5, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am also trying to switch to 1. d4 now. But the variation is very rich compared to 1. e4. So I study it one by one. After 1...Nf6 2. c4 for example, I have been trying to understand Benoni Defence and Benko's Gambit. Or after 1...d5 2. c4, it might become a Queen's Gambit declined with 2...c6 or 2...e6. Try to understand it, get as deep as I can. Once I feel that is enough, move to other variation. And so on. Don't try to memorize everything at once.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3187" LastActivityDate="2014-05-29T06:55:02.433" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5507" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5511" CreationDate="2014-05-29T07:20:13.340" Score="-5" ViewCount="233" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have one question in my mind that while playing chess game with real person...&#xA;.&#xA;I also want to become winner.not only me but all starters.&#xA;.&#xA;1. What do you feel.&#xA;2. How do you think.&#xA;3. How can you beat your  opponent.&#xA;4.how do you make strategy.&#xA;.&#xA;Thanks in advance.....&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3133" LastActivityDate="2014-05-29T14:24:25.977" Title="For best chess players.... Help me" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;chessboards&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="9" ClosedDate="2014-05-29T18:17:05.580" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5508" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5507" CreationDate="2014-05-29T08:45:47.703" Score="0" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Feelings are not really relevant, are they?  Happy to be playing I guess.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;What is my opponent planning?  Is there a real threat?  What are my options?  Do I have any opportunities?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Do not be intimidated by a strong opponent, you can still give them a good game. Likewise, never underestimate a weak opponent, even if they're chasing material at the expense of position with unguarded pieces everywhere, you could still lose.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Just play carefully.  Some aggressive moves your opponent makes turn out to be no threat whatsoever, so think before you react.  Similarly, sometimes defensive moves can turn the game on its head.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3076" LastActivityDate="2014-05-29T08:45:47.703" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5509" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2188" CreationDate="2014-05-29T10:05:18.607" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;it may be interesting for you to see a direct comparison of the 1. d4 mainline (queen's indian defense) with the sicilian defense mainline. here is a link (if the link does not work please google &quot;comparing chess openings part 3&quot;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2441568&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2441568&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2992" LastActivityDate="2014-05-29T10:05:18.607" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5511" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5507" CreationDate="2014-05-29T14:24:25.977" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The truth is on the board.  Focus your efforts on discovering the truth about the position and what the position needs.  Understand each position as best you can, then play the move that makes your position better.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Don't just look for the answer inside yourself, but solicit outside knowledge.  Ask others, including your opponent after a game; chess players love to brag about how much they understand about the position, even when they lose.  There are also some good books that are very helpful in learning how to break down a position.              &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3183" LastActivityDate="2014-05-29T14:24:25.977" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5513" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5504" CreationDate="2014-05-30T06:57:54.447" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;For european events - &lt;a href=&quot;http://chess-calendar.eu/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://chess-calendar.eu/&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;Includes non-FIDE tournaments.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3007" LastActivityDate="2014-05-30T06:57:54.447" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5514" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1207" CreationDate="2014-05-30T12:25:20.623" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Generally,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Always asking for takeback (it's not a good practice)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;will increase the blunders in your future/current games.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;decrease your confidence.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;will be a barrier to improving your calculation ability.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Allowing takebacks (it's a good practice)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;will help you to find more challenges in your game .&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;will force you to find more better variations/solutions.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If your friend is an absolute beginner allowing take back may help them to learn chess tactics quickly. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If your friend is an improving player allowing take back will not help any more .&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3131" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-09-23T10:11:48.400" LastActivityDate="2019-09-23T10:11:48.400" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="5515" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-05-30T21:48:19.997" Score="2" ViewCount="86" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am looking for mobile phone website where I can download and replay games of Tal, Smyslov, Alekhine, Lasker etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could anyone with help me with info?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3204" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2014-05-31T07:09:03.883" LastActivityDate="2014-06-01T15:53:54.703" Title="Phone application for classical games" Tags="&lt;websites&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5516" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5504" CreationDate="2014-05-31T00:54:10.480" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;For online, redhotpawn.com has tournaments (although you need to pay a yearly subscription (around 50 USD) to be able to participate on them, otherwise you can just play informal games). These are mostly email games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also chess.com has tournaments, you also need to be a subscriber there (here you can play both realtime &amp;amp; by email).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesscube.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;chesscube&lt;/a&gt; site also conducting various online tournaments with different time limits.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2607" LastEditorUserId="3131" LastEditDate="2014-06-09T19:32:47.927" LastActivityDate="2014-06-09T19:32:47.927" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5517" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5432" CreationDate="2014-05-31T15:25:23.777" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my opinion the very best way to learn chess is to play random opponents and learn via your mistakes. I've been playing chess on several iOS apps for a few months, but I've found that playing real people is the best because you can plan your moves and strike when they do not see the plan. Playing a computer is usually too easy, or too hard depending on the settings you choose.&#xA;The computer will not make natural mistakes, but rather purposeful mistakes based on the difficulty level. &#xA;As you play against other people, you will get better if you pay attention. You just have to play dozens of games to build an elementary style. With time and practice you'll be able to predict what your opponent is planning and make your moves and plan fit with that in mind. &#xA;I simply use the following app, and play when I have time:&#xA;The ads are annoying but I'm not in a race to play so I don't mind....&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/chess-with-friends-free/id295436227?mt=8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/chess-with-friends-free/id295436227?mt=8&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3205" LastActivityDate="2014-05-31T15:25:23.777" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5518" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5217" CreationDate="2014-06-01T01:13:19.170" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;PlayOK and Vietson, both are nothing for Beginners. Vietson is today the Strongest App to play Offline. while Online  PlayOK became very popular among skilled Chinese and Vietnamese , so it is too late for western players to join. As level of play is extremely high.&#xA;Graphics of PlayOK is excellent, except that the grid of lines showing rather rectangles instead of exact squares on the Board.&#xA;Another disadvantage is that it is too fast even for a skilled players at the end when suddenly everythings stops , and is gone , and a new game starting and you do not even understand if the other side won because you ran out of time, or did the opponent give Checkmate. Too late to see and understand even for skilled players.&#xA;Also Sounds sometimes work and sometimes not. Site Administrator usually does not respond to Questions or comments.&#xA;There is also www.chessvariants.org. But they use very old Computer Programs and their graphics are miserable.&#xA;If you have Java&#xA;Try Coffee Chinese Chess 0.6&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3206" LastActivityDate="2014-06-01T01:13:19.170" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5519" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4174" CreationDate="2014-06-01T03:21:12.987" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You might find some luck looking to chess problem solvers. In chess compositions, a problem is 'cooked' if it has more than one solution (usually) or any solution that is unintended. If possible, problems are listed as C+ if they are proven by a computer to have only the intended solution(s). Obviously, these solvers do not throw away any moves to make such a proof.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://sourceforge.net/projects/popeye-chess/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Popeye Solver&lt;/a&gt; is one such solver. You can find more information about it on &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_for_handling_chess_problems#Popeye&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt; and the web.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You weren't very clear on what you were trying to accomplish though (this would have been important), so I'm not sure if it will work for you or not. Typically, with a program such as popeye it has a position, a stipulation, and a set of conditions. For example, a FEN position, &quot;mate in 5&quot;, and &quot;orthodox chess&quot; (or perhaps varying rules).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3118" LastActivityDate="2014-06-01T03:21:12.987" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5520" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2014-06-01T11:03:54.790" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2014-06-01T11:03:54.790" LastActivityDate="2014-06-01T11:03:54.790" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5521" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2014-06-01T11:03:54.790" Score="0" Body="The Scheveningen Variation of the Sicilian Defense is characterized by black establishing a small center with pawns on `d6` and `e6`. A typical move order is `1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 e6`." OwnerUserId="1485" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2014-06-01T16:25:05.543" LastActivityDate="2014-06-01T16:25:05.543" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5522" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5515" CreationDate="2014-06-01T14:22:15.743" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can go to &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/index.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;free chessgames database&lt;/a&gt; and search and replay any game that you like.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3209" LastActivityDate="2014-06-01T14:22:15.743" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5523" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5515" CreationDate="2014-06-01T15:53:54.703" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can download a PGN viewer for your phone platform, then search chessgames.com for your favorite players and their games for playback.  Having a PGN viewer installed is helpful also for sites like chessbase or chessvibes that sometimes link straight to the games file and not an online viewer. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3194" LastActivityDate="2014-06-01T15:53:54.703" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5524" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5432" CreationDate="2014-06-02T12:59:57.897" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I still love shredder chess, it's powerful and I'm sure I read somewhere that Carlsen recommended it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3215" LastActivityDate="2014-06-02T12:59:57.897" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5525" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5526" CreationDate="2014-06-02T13:19:41.667" Score="8" ViewCount="1589" Body="&lt;p&gt;After the moves &lt;code&gt;1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6&lt;/code&gt; if White plays &lt;code&gt;3.Nf3&lt;/code&gt;, Black often plays the Queen's Indian Defense with &lt;code&gt;3...b6&lt;/code&gt;. But if White plays &lt;code&gt;3.Nc3&lt;/code&gt;, then Black rarely plays &lt;code&gt;3...b6&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;  1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 (3.Nf3 b6) b6!?&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does anyone know why that is? (assuming GM level play) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3215" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2014-06-02T13:38:16.780" LastActivityDate="2014-06-04T23:43:31.790" Title="Queen's Indian Defense question that has me stumped" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;queens-indian&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5526" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5525" CreationDate="2014-06-02T13:53:27.307" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;The simple reason is because &lt;strong&gt;3...b6&lt;/strong&gt; doesn't prevent &lt;strong&gt;4.e4!&lt;/strong&gt; when White immediately grabs the center. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;   [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;   1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 b6 4.e4!&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The bishop on b7 isn't very effective in the kind of pawn structure that arises after &lt;strong&gt;e4&lt;/strong&gt;. Often, White may play &lt;strong&gt;f3&lt;/strong&gt;, strengthening the &lt;strong&gt;e4&lt;/strong&gt; point and completely blunting the bishop on &lt;strong&gt;b7&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Consider this structure - &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;   [FEN &quot;4k3/pbpp1ppp/1p2pn2/8/2PPP3/2N2P2/PP4PP/4KB2 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;   [Event &quot;Bishop on b7 is blunted by White's pawns on e4 and f3&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black may want to break White's center with a move like &lt;strong&gt;d5&lt;/strong&gt;, but that allows White to play &lt;strong&gt;e5&lt;/strong&gt;, driving away the knight on &lt;strong&gt;f6&lt;/strong&gt; with tempo and also establishing a strong pawn on &lt;strong&gt;e5&lt;/strong&gt;, which may enhance White's attacking prospects on the kingside, as I discussed in point number 4 of &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/5142/why-is-the-centre-of-the-board-considered-important-in-chess/5143#5143&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; post.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  [FEN &quot;4k3/pbpp1ppp/1p2pn2/8/2PPP3/2N2P2/PP4PP/4KB2 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;  [Event &quot;The threat of e5 is always looming after d5&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;  1... d5 2. cxd5 exd5 3. e5 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black may also want to play &lt;strong&gt;c5&lt;/strong&gt;, but in those positions, after a move like &lt;strong&gt;d5&lt;/strong&gt;, the position transposes into Benoni type positions where the bishop is completely misplaced on &lt;strong&gt;b7&lt;/strong&gt;, thus Black loses at least a tempo. Besieds, &lt;strong&gt;b6&lt;/strong&gt; might also be a waste of time in some Benoni positions. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;   [FEN &quot;4k3/pb3ppp/1p1pp3/2pP4/2P1P3/2N2P2/PP4PP/4K3 b - - 0 2&quot;]&#xA;   [Event &quot;Unfavorable transposition to a Benoni type position&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Recommended Games -&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The following games in this line are quite instructive - &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1099227&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Harry Nelson Pillsbury vs Heinrich Wolf, 1902 1-0&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;   [White &quot;Harry Pillsbury&quot;]&#xA;   [Black &quot;Heinrich Wolf&quot;]&#xA;   [Date &quot;1902&quot;]&#xA;   [Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;   [FEN &quot;&quot;]    &#xA;&#xA;&#xA;   1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 b6 4. e4 Bb7 5. Bd3 d5 6. cxd5 exd5 7. e5 Ne4 8. Nf3 Be7 &#xA;   9.  O-O O-O 10. Qc2 Nc3 11. Bh7 Kh8 12. bxc3 g6 13. Bg6 fxg6 14. Qg6 Qe8 15. Qh6 Kg8 &#xA;   16. Ng5 Bg5 17. Qg5 Kf7 18. f4 Ke6 19. f5 Kd7 20. Qg7 Kc8 21. e6 Rg8 22. Qh7 Rh8 &#xA;   23. Qg6 Ba6 24. Qe8 Re8 25. Re1 Nc6 26. Bg5 Nd8 27. Bd8 Kd8 28. f6 Rh8 29. Re5 c6 &#xA;   30. Rae1 Rc8 31. Rg5 Bd3 32. Ree5 Rh6 33. Rg8 Kc7 34. Rc8 Kc8 35. e7 Bg6 36. e8=Q 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Efim Geller vs Mark Usachyi, 1957 1-0&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;   [Event &quot;UKR-ch&quot;]&#xA;   [Date &quot;1957&quot;]&#xA;   [White &quot;Geller, Efim P&quot;]&#xA;   [Black &quot;Usachyi, Mark&quot;]&#xA;   [Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;   [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;   1. c4 Nf6 2. Nc3 e6 3. d4 b6 4. e4 Bb4 5. Bd3 Bb7 6. f3 O-O 7. Nge2 d5 8. cxd5&#xA;   exd5 9. e5 Ne8 10. O-O c5 11. a3 Ba5 12. b4 cxb4 13. Na2 Nc6 14. Rb1 bxa3 15.&#xA;   Bxa3 Ne7 16. Ng3 g6 17. Nc1 Bc6 18. Qe2 Ng7 19. f4 Re8 20. f5 Nexf5 21. Bxf5&#xA;   gxf5 22. Nb3 Qg5 23. Rf3 Rac8 24. Rbf1 Ba4 25. Nxf5 Rc3 26. Nxg7 Qxg7 27. Nxa5&#xA;   Rc2 28. Qxc2 Bxc2 29. Nc6 Qh6 30. Rg3+ Bg6 31. Ne7+ Kh8 32. e6 Rxe7 33. Bxe7&#xA;   fxe6 34. Rc3 Be8 35. Rc8 Qe3+ 36. Kh1 Qe2 37. Rxe8+ Kg7 38. Ref8 h5 39. Bd6 h4&#xA;   40. Be5+ Kg6 41. h3 a5 42. Rg8+ Kh5 43. Rf7 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Phillip Viner vs Elias Castrillon, 1964 1-0&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;   [Event &quot;Tel Aviv ol (Men) fin-D&quot;]&#xA;   [Site &quot;Tel Aviv&quot;]&#xA;   [Date &quot;1964&quot;]&#xA;   [Round &quot;5&quot;]&#xA;   [White &quot;Viner, Phillip&quot;]&#xA;   [Black &quot;Iniguez Castrillon, Elias&quot;]&#xA;   [Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;   [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;   1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 b6 4. e4 c5 5. d5 d6 6. Bd3 Nbd7 7. f4 exd5 8. cxd5&#xA;   Be7 9. Nf3 O-O 10. O-O a6 11. a4 Bb7 12. Bc4 Qc7 13. Re1 h6 14. e5 Nh7 15. b3&#xA;   Rfe8 16. Bb2 Ndf8 17. Qd2 Ng6 18. Rad1 Bf8 19. Ne4 Qd8 20. Nxd6 Bxd6 21. exd6&#xA;   Qxd6 22. f5 Nf4 23. Be5 Rxe5 24. Rxe5 g5 25. fxg6 Nxg6 26. Qxh6 Nf6 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2429" LastEditorUserId="2789" LastEditDate="2014-06-04T23:43:31.790" LastActivityDate="2014-06-04T23:43:31.790" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5528" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5525" CreationDate="2014-06-02T17:57:37.100" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;That's because black would normally use the king side bishop to pin the knight at c3&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;   [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;   1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 Bb4!&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;update&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With the bishop at Bb4 if white tries to play the pawn to e4, then black could take it without a second thought. So basically with Bb4 who will control the center is yet to be determined.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3218" LastEditorUserId="3218" LastEditDate="2014-06-03T20:18:54.597" LastActivityDate="2014-06-03T20:18:54.597" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5529" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5015" CreationDate="2014-06-02T20:35:52.330" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to Anish Giri in &lt;em&gt;New in Chess&lt;/em&gt; 2014/3, &lt;code&gt;13...Nf6&lt;/code&gt; was a dubious move. Black should have played &lt;code&gt;13... Nf4! 14. Nf3 Nxg2! 15. Kxg2 a5!!&lt;/code&gt; with a dangerous attack. The threats are &lt;code&gt;16... a4&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;16... Ra6&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anish Giri also criticizes &lt;code&gt;12. Nxe5&lt;/code&gt; from Anand. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;FIDE Candidates 2014&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Khanty-Mansiysk RUS&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2014.03.13&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;1.3&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Anand, Viswanathan&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Aronian, Levon&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;2770&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;2830&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;C88&quot;]&#xA;[Opening &quot;Ruy Lopez&quot;]&#xA;[Variation &quot;closed, 7...O-O&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;2014.03.13&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Ba4 Nf6 5. O-O Be7 6. Re1 b5 7. Bb3 O-O 8. h3 Bb7 9. d3 d5 10. exd5 Nxd5 11. Nbd2 Qd7 12. Nxe5?! Nxe5 13. Rxe5 Nf6?! (13... Nf4! 14. Nf3 Nxg2! 15. Kxg2 a5!!)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1485" LastActivityDate="2014-06-02T20:35:52.330" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5530" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5470" CreationDate="2014-06-02T23:09:39.933" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a rule, if I see a player starting to play pawn moves on the side of the board such as in the Grob, I immediately begin rapid piece development and central control, to keep my options open to castle. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I doubt this is high level theory, but my thinking is that an attack at the side can usually be successfully countered with an attack in the center to exploit your opponent's king weaknesses... So long as you're not playing against a master:)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3215" LastActivityDate="2014-06-02T23:09:39.933" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5531" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5532" CreationDate="2014-06-03T00:57:48.427" Score="3" ViewCount="278" Body="&lt;p&gt;Spanish Game: Johannes Zukertort vs Adolf Anderssen 1865 - Berlin&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Zukertort&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Anderssen&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Berlin 1865&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 Nge7 4. c3 d6 5. d4 Bd7 6. O-O Ng6 7. Ng5 h6 8. Nxf7 Kf7 9. Bc4 Ke7 10. Qh5 Qe8 11. Qg5 hxg5 12. Bg5#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To give my question some pre-text, my friend Mato has done a quick YouTube analysis on this Anderssen-Zukertort game here which dates back to 1860s Germany I believe: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCV45-Kaxy0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCV45-Kaxy0&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thought I'd ask this here: There's a truly astonishing queen sacrifice in a math practice game that my daughter has come home from scouts with (she's attending an Atlanta charter school), and it's got me thinking about whether Adolf Anderssen was the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Anderssen&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;&quot;world leading&quot; unparalleled tactician&lt;/a&gt; that some 1980's chess theory books celebrate him as. I'll disclose that I hadn't seen this classic Zukertort game before, so you'll have to forgive me if there is an analysis line of thought on this somewhere that I haven't turned up on google yet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The kids' math game itself is called &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.yamiechess.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Yamie Chess&lt;/a&gt; (its aimed at middle school kids and been done by the looks of things by a US Woman's chess master called Jennifer Shahade) and it basically frames the above old grandmaster chess line of Zukertort v Anderssen with the spanish opening--quite astonishingly--through a Disneyesque cartoon style story, that presents a series of math lessons and puzzles that kids have to solve all the while interactively re-enacting this Anderssen game on the board almost like passing nintendo levels to move on to the next chapter. But all done with chess. It's long too... 250+ pages to get through the whole Anderssen game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question relates to 8.Nxf7 in the late middle game. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, 8.Nxf7... isn't that a weak move? If not, why not? I was thinking 8...Kxf7 9.Bc4+ Ke7?.. as Ke8 could give Black some advantage. I just think it seems weird that Anderssen didn't see this coming. What is going on?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I appreciated that the Yamie Chess comic doesn't labor this line, actually the comic somehow manages to combine 8.Nxf7--if you can believe it--with a section on transitive properties in school algebra. Dumbed down common core math, it ain't.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3215" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2014-06-03T05:06:01.160" LastActivityDate="2014-06-03T10:40:42.553" Title="The Anderssen v Zukertort game in the Yamie Chess kids' math boardgame" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;middlegame&gt;&lt;knights&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5532" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5531" CreationDate="2014-06-03T04:20:18.537" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Objectively, I think you are right that &lt;code&gt;8.Nxf7&lt;/code&gt; is a somewhat weak move. But it is also an &lt;em&gt;unsettling&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;complicating&lt;/em&gt; move that poses a concrete defensive problem, enough of one in fact that a (truly!) great tactician like Anderssen made a serious misstep. You are also right that the main culprit in Anderssen's defeat was &lt;code&gt;9...Ke7?&lt;/code&gt;, and that &lt;code&gt;9...Ke8&lt;/code&gt; is far preferable objectively. So why might Anderssen have played it (besides the possibility that he may have just blundered, as all the greats have done)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One plausible reason is that that alternative &lt;code&gt;9...Ke8&lt;/code&gt; itself perhaps looked hopeless. It invites the same move as in the game, &lt;code&gt;10.Qh5&lt;/code&gt;, with the difference that in this line the knight is pinned. Only two moves could save it: &lt;code&gt;10...Ne7&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;10...Qf6&lt;/code&gt;. Each can be best met by &lt;code&gt;11.f4&lt;/code&gt;, and it turns out that in the &lt;code&gt;10...Ne7&lt;/code&gt; line the g6 knight is lost anyway (see board below). The move &lt;code&gt;10...Qf6&lt;/code&gt; (which again is an ostensibly uncomfortable move to consider, lining up the black queen against the white rook on a soon-to-be open file) does save the day and leave Black with the advantage, but only with very precise play: &lt;code&gt;11.f4 exd4! 12.f5 Ne5 13.fxg6 Bg4!&lt;/code&gt;. I'm going to trust Stockfish here in saying that each of those &lt;code&gt;!&lt;/code&gt; moves is the only one to leave Black to the better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's very plausible that back at move 9 Anderssen didn't see that defensive possibility materializing. He may have thought he was already lost and that not walking into the pin was his best &lt;em&gt;practical&lt;/em&gt; chance. After &lt;code&gt;9...Ke7?&lt;/code&gt;, if Anderssen can just get a chance to catch his breath and run away with &lt;code&gt;...Qe8&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;...Kd8&lt;/code&gt;, he will be better. The only move to stop that plan is the game's &lt;code&gt;10.Qh5!&lt;/code&gt;, and at that point White really is just winning, as there is no way to save the knight. So Anderssen probably just threw up his hands and continued with &lt;code&gt;10...Qe8&lt;/code&gt;. Then, either Zukertort plays the mate that he did, or Anderssen escapes; it was already out of Anderssen's hands at that point.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Zukertort&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Anderssen&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 Nge7 4.c3 d6 5.d4 Bd7 6.O-O Ng6 7.Ng5 h6 8.Nxf7 &#xA;Kxf7 9.Bc4+ Ke7? &#xA;    ( 9...Ke8 10.Qh5 Qf6! &#xA;        ( 10...Ne7 11.f4 exf4 12.Rxf4 )&#xA;    11.f4 exd4! &#xA;        ( 11...exf4? 12.Rxf4 )&#xA;    12.f5 Nce5 13.fxg6 Bg4! 14.Qxg4 Nxg4 15.Rxf6 Nxf6 )&#xA;10.Qh5 Qe8 &#xA;    ( 10...Be8 11.Bg5+ hxg5 12.Qxg5+ Kd7 13.Qf5+ Ke7 14.Qe6# )&#xA;    ( 10...Nf4 11.Qf7# )&#xA;11.Qg5+ hxg5 12.Bg5#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="2042" LastEditDate="2014-06-03T10:40:42.553" LastActivityDate="2014-06-03T10:40:42.553" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5533" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5531" CreationDate="2014-06-03T04:31:54.150" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;My question relates to 8.Nxf7 in the late middle game.So, 8.Nxf7... isn't that a weak move? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No it isn't. In fact, it is &lt;strong&gt;the strongest move&lt;/strong&gt; in that position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If not, why not?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because it &lt;strong&gt;initiates the decisive attack on the opponent's king.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With &lt;code&gt;d6-e5&lt;/code&gt; pawn structure Black chose in the opening, he is weak on light squares. The only pieces that can defend the light squares in such pawn formation are &lt;code&gt;Nf6&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;Bc8&lt;/code&gt; along with the &lt;code&gt;f7&lt;/code&gt; pawn. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since Black chose Steinitz defense of the Ruy Lopes, his knight is posted on &lt;code&gt;g6&lt;/code&gt; instead of &lt;code&gt;f6&lt;/code&gt; which is one light square defender less. Furthermore, Steinitz defense gives Black &lt;strong&gt;cramped game&lt;/strong&gt;, so he usually finishes &lt;strong&gt;quickly&lt;/strong&gt; his development and tries to free his position with exchanges. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here, Black was too slow with &lt;code&gt;h6&lt;/code&gt; move. He weakened his light squares with that move ( &lt;code&gt;g6&lt;/code&gt; square, and because of that the entire &lt;code&gt;h5-e8&lt;/code&gt; diagonal as well ) thinking that there is still time to finish development.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White's pieces were able to get a strong grip on the light squares, and since he was better in the center, he was able to open the game advantageously. Furthermore, White had pieces well organized for kingside attack, which is also inherent characteristic for open games. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The only thing needed was the right move/moment to open the game&lt;/strong&gt;, and that was the point of &lt;code&gt;Nxf7!&lt;/code&gt; -&gt; White forces Black king to stay in the center/kingside where he has advantage and &lt;strong&gt;removes the last defender of the light squares ( &lt;code&gt;f7&lt;/code&gt; pawn ).&lt;/strong&gt; If White passes this chance then Black can continue with his plan. Now, after &lt;code&gt;Nxf7&lt;/code&gt; Black &lt;strong&gt;can't organize defense in time&lt;/strong&gt; since he is cramped, and his pieces are misplaced &lt;strong&gt;for defense of the light squares.&lt;/strong&gt; White &quot;crashes in&quot; with his fast pieces ( bishops and queen ) and is supported with his mobile, well placed pawn center. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In order to get time to organize defense, Black will have to return the piece, but will be still a pawn down and cramped, which is enough for White to win. The following lines in the below diagram confirm this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;NOTE: I am out of shape, and have uninstalled all chess software from my computer, so if a mistake in my analysis crops up please tell me so I can correct my post.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Zukertort-Anderssen, 1895&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;r2qkb1r/pppb1Np1/2np2np/1B2p3/3PP3/2P5/PP3PPP/RNBQ1RK1 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1...Kxf7 ( 1...Qf6 2.Nxh8+- ) 2.Bc4+ Ke7 ( 2...Be6 3.d5+- ) ( 2...Ke8 3.Qh5 Nce7 ( 3...Qf6 4.f4+- exd4 ( 4...exf4 5.Rxf4 Qg5 6.Rxf8+ Rxf8 7.Bxg5+- ) 5.f5!?+- ) 4.f4+- exf4 5.Rxf4+- ) ( 2...Kf6 3.Qf3+ Nf4 ( 3...Ke7 4.Qf7# ) 4.Bxf4 exf4 5.Qxf4+ Kg6 ( 5...Ke7 6.Qf7# ) 6.Qf7+ Kh7 ( 6...Kg5 7.f4+ Kh4 ( 7...Kg4 8.Be2+ Kh4 9.Qh5# ) 8.g3+ Kh3 9.Qh5+ Qh4 10.Qxh4# ) 7.e5! Bf5 ( 7...Qc8 8.Bd3+ Bf5 9.Bxf5++- ) Qxf5++- ) 3.Qh5 Be8 ( 3...Qe8 4.Qg5+ hxg5 5.Bg5# ) 4.Bg5+!+- hxg5 5.Qxg5+ Kd7 6.Qf5+ Ke7 7.Qe6#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastActivityDate="2014-06-03T04:31:54.150" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5534" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="749" CreationDate="2014-06-03T14:11:22.543" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;One thing i would consider is starting with endgames.  Give them a king and queen against your king and a few pawns for starters, and then move to other piece combinations.  This will help ingrain the piece movements and they will always be starting with an advantage and will feel accomplished when they figure it out.  Also, this will help in teaching openings and middlegames because they will have the end in sight...i.e. they will know what material they need and how to win. This is actually a very common teaching method in the Russian school of chess. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3226" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T18:03:14.573" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T18:03:14.573" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="5535" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-06-04T09:46:33.033" Score="6" ViewCount="4325" Body="&lt;p&gt;Currently I am using Tarrasch for GUI and Rybka 2.3.2a as the engine. With that, I am able to kibitzing every position in the game and check for any blunder. So basically this is what I always did:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Record all of the moves with Tarrasch and then save it in PGN format.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Kibitzing with Rybka from the 1st move, check the evaluation.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Continue to the next move, kibitzing again, etc.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there any faster way than checking every position one by one like this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3187" LastActivityDate="2021-03-03T16:06:24.297" Title="What are good ways to check blunders after the match?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;engines&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;blunder&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5536" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-06-04T12:48:10.997" Score="2" ViewCount="377" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to establish what are the most common time controls for live chess (non-OTB and non-correspondence chess) on every chess websites.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And so I need to know what are the standard time controls (the ones that are suggested, if there are any) on ICC, FICS, ChessCube, Yahoo Chess, Chess.net, GameKnot, etc...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I checked on Chess.com, the suggested time controls there are: 1|0, 2|1, 3|0, 5|0, 5|2, 10|0, 15|10, and 30|0 (the first number represents the minutes, the second number represents the increment per move in seconds)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While on PlayChess and on Red Hot Pawn there is no predefined time controls.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So if you've got an account on any chess website please tell me what are the standard time controls there. Thanks in advance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3237" LastActivityDate="2014-12-02T13:02:35.220" Title="What are the standard time controls for live chess (non-OTB and non-correspondence) on every chess websites?" Tags="&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;websites&gt;&lt;chess-clocks&gt;&lt;online-blitz&gt;&lt;time-control&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5537" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-06-04T12:55:45.370" Score="0" ViewCount="1169" Body="&lt;p&gt;Since all chess player’s ratings are between 800 and 2900, why don’t we make a new rating defined like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;New rating = (Old rating – 800) / 2.2&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So that all chess player’s ratings would be between 0 and 999&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or if we would like to be able to easily convert between old and new ratings we could define the new rating like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;New rating = (Old rating – 1000) / 2&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Though here extremely weak players would have a negative rating.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My point is that we would have almost the same precision, but we would only need to use 3 digits instead of 4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I believe the current rating system is bad because a big range of numbers (3000 to 9999) isn’t used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What do you think? Is there something obvious that I missed or am I really right?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3237" LastActivityDate="2020-02-24T01:47:27.337" Title="Is it possible to improve the Elo rating system like this?" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;elo&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5538" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5537" CreationDate="2014-06-04T13:49:42.857" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I suppose it is possible to change the rating scale. But, not all players are necessarily between 800-2900. I've seen plenty of players that have a rating below 800. In the last tournament I played, I saw a kid ranked 111 (who one round happened to beat a 500-600).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't think it is desirable to have players ranked negative, so let's just say we take the current rating and divide by 2.9 instead. It's also not guaranteed that players will always be ranked less than 2900, in fact, it is likely we will see a player achieve that rating soon. Magnus Carlsen's peak rating was 2882 and not too far in the past no player had achieved 2800. But, for us regular players we would see ratings in the range 0-999.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other nations have different rating systems on a different scale. The English rating system would rank a 2000 USCF player around 175 ECF. Personally, I like a little more resolution in my rating than that, but the scale is mostly arbitrary. In the end, you either have a bit more precision or less digits. Either way is not too difficult.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3118" LastEditorUserId="3118" LastEditDate="2014-06-04T13:54:58.947" LastActivityDate="2014-06-04T13:54:58.947" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5539" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5537" CreationDate="2014-06-04T13:51:51.587" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sure, you could compress the current range like that. The issue, though, is that ELO is &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; an objective scale with absolute endpoints. It's only a measure of play strength relative to past opponents.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The fact that no current player has an ELO above 2900 does not mean that such ratings are impossible. Until 1990, &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_FIDE_chess_world_number_ones&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;no one had a rating above 2800&lt;/a&gt;. In fact, there's no mathematical upper bound on ELO rating at all: see &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/q/5251/1201&quot;&gt;this question&lt;/a&gt;, for example. The &quot;big range of [unused] numbers&quot; is infinite.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So yes, you &lt;em&gt;could&lt;/em&gt; compress the ratings--but what do you do when someone achieves ELO 3001 in the uncompressed system? Recompress it with a different scaling factor, and change what everyone's ratings mean? And keep doing this every time someone &quot;breaks&quot; your current system? If the goal is to make ELO simpler to keep track of, this seems rather counterproductive. I suppose you could report &lt;code&gt;log ELO&lt;/code&gt; to make it more tenable (also sillier), but the fact remains that there's no mathematical bound, so there's no guarantee that all ELOs will stay within the range you're looking for.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Perhaps the most pertinent question of all is, &lt;em&gt;why&lt;/em&gt;? What do you gain from compressing Elo down to three (ish) digits? It diminishes (slightly) your ability to distinguish between players of similar ratings, but what is the upside? Or, why not compress it down to between one and one hundred, or zero and one? It's all the same values; &quot;three digits&quot; is quite arbitrary, and I can't think of any way that it &quot;improves&quot; on the current system.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1201" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2014-06-04T23:40:09.473" CommentCount="12" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5540" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5536" CreationDate="2014-06-04T14:05:19.453" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;What defines, &quot;standard time controls&quot;? Do you want the most commonly played time controls? Do you want the time controls which are suggested per each server? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To me, a more interesting analysis is to plot the percentage of games played vs time control and find the time controls with the largest spikes (popularity). But, I'm not sure how to get that information.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On ICC, the most popular time controls would likely be 3 0, 5 0, and 1 0. They have different auto-pairing pools for some standard time controls as well, each has a separate rating. This includes, 1-minute, 5-minute, 15-minute, and 45-minute. Although, 45 minute online is not very common.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3118" LastActivityDate="2014-06-04T14:05:19.453" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5541" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5536" CreationDate="2014-06-04T14:11:10.517" Score="2" Body="&lt;h1&gt;GameKnot&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;GameKnot's live chess uses time control ranges for matchmaking, so there's no single default. I've bolded the time controls that fall within the default matchmaking window below.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Available Time Controls&lt;/strong&gt; (Minutes | Increment in Seconds):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;3|0&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;5|0&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;10|0&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;3|3&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;3|5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;3|10&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;5|10&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;5|15&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;5|20&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;10|20&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;10|30&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;10|60&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't know of any non-experimental way to get stats on how often each of these time controls is used. You could do a rough approximation by searching for a bunch of matches in each time control and averaging your wait time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1201" LastEditorUserId="1201" LastEditDate="2014-06-04T14:17:14.587" LastActivityDate="2014-06-04T14:17:14.587" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5542" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5535" CreationDate="2014-06-04T14:21:53.237" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know this is not a programming stack exchange, but... If you have any interest in programming, this would be a perfect task for a simple program and a great learning experience. It could be done in most any programming language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can take your PGN separate the moves, input them into a chess engine and give it a certain amount of time to analyze each move. Parse the evaluation for each move and store it. Then loop through the moves, calculate the difference in evaluation from the previous move and classify it as a &quot;blunder&quot; if the evaluation changes more than a defined threshold (1 pt, 2 pts, 3 pts up to you) or perhaps a defined percentage (You may have to consider when the eval is like +10 that it can vary more wildly and maybe omit those scenarios).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you did this, you could give it a entire list of games, come back in a while and see a list of possible blunders. Otherwise, I think you are left doing it by hand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3118" LastActivityDate="2014-06-04T14:21:53.237" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5543" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5544" CreationDate="2014-06-04T16:03:25.553" Score="9" ViewCount="4838" Body="&lt;p&gt;Between 1916 and 1924, future World Champion J.R. Capablanca, as of 1921, experienced a period of eight years without a single tournament defeat. He was then regarded as one of the world's best defensive players, although he also drew more than other grandmasters of similar stature. Has any grandmaster or world champion since then had an equal or longer record of being undefeated?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-11-16T03:18:31.357" LastActivityDate="2020-11-16T03:18:31.357" Title="Has any other grandmaster gone as long undefeated like Capablanca?" Tags="&lt;history&gt;&lt;statistics&gt;&lt;grandmaster&gt;&lt;capablanca&gt;&lt;famous-events&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="5544" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5543" CreationDate="2014-06-04T16:17:50.963" Score="18" Body="&lt;p&gt;From this &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/longest-unbeaten-streak&quot;&gt;Chess.com Discussion&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In terms of games played, it would be Tal with 95 games (46 wins, 49 draws) from October 23, 1973 to October 16, 1974. He also has the second longest streak of 84 games (47 wins, 39 draws) from July 1972 to April 1973.&#xA;  In terms of time, Capablanca was undefeated for 63 games (40 wins, 23 draws from February 10, 1916 to March 21, 1924.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3118" LastActivityDate="2014-06-04T16:17:50.963" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5545" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5546" CreationDate="2014-06-04T17:03:47.113" Score="3" ViewCount="291" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was playing a game as Black against computer and came up a tactical move that defends me from pressure. I have expected a normal retreat of the queen yet computer kept sacrificing the knight like it was lost anyway, therefore this question :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Did I miss a win for Black or the position is just fine for White?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is the position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;White to move&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;4r1k1/3q1ppp/pp6/2QN1n2/1P6/8/P4PPP/3R2K1 w - - 0 1&quot;] &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;White kept playing &lt;code&gt;Nf6+&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;Qxb6&lt;/code&gt; but I believe that any retreat of the queen is fine, what did I miss?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastEditorUserId="3118" LastEditDate="2014-06-04T18:53:37.190" LastActivityDate="2014-06-05T04:16:47.887" Title="Does Black have a win in this position?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5546" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5545" CreationDate="2014-06-04T17:55:46.713" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;My suspicion is that the computer is calculating at a depth of 3-ply. At 3-ply depth, it sees that the following variations are winning - &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;1. Nf6+ gxf6 2. Rxd7&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;1. Qxb6 Qxd5 2. Rxd5&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;winning material. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it was at 4-ply or more, it would have seen &lt;code&gt;2...Re1#&lt;/code&gt; in both lines and rejected those lines. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To answer your question, no, Black doesn't have a win in this position. White can play &lt;code&gt;1. Qc1&lt;/code&gt; and white is fine. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2429" LastActivityDate="2014-06-04T17:55:46.713" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5547" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5535" CreationDate="2014-06-04T19:20:13.400" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;Lichess.org has a &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.lichess.org/paste&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;free browser-based game analysis tool&lt;/a&gt; that allows you to copy and paste your PGN file for online analysis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's powered by Stockfish, and the analysis automatically: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Annotates the game with inaccuracies, mistakes, and blunders.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Graphs the game with an interactive move-by-move advantage chart (see below).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Suggests improved lines.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Names the opening.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/nPz2H.png&quot; alt=&quot;Game analysis on lichess.org&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/GGz0O.png&quot; alt=&quot;Lichess game analysis&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It doesn't beat going through your games with your opponent and a good instructor, but it's a very useful free tool, and you don't need to install any software to run it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The developer of lichess.org also has a blog post about &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.lichess.org/blog/U4mtoEQAAEEAgZRL/strongest-chess-player-ever&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Stockfish and the analysis tool&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2130" LastEditorUserId="2130" LastEditDate="2014-06-04T20:12:32.707" LastActivityDate="2014-06-04T20:12:32.707" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5548" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5537" CreationDate="2014-06-04T23:09:18.970" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Re-scaling the rating system doesn't improve it: it just changes the numbers. So what if the world's best players are rated 950 instead of 2900? It's like quoting somebody's mark in a test as 18/20 instead of 90%. The rating system would behave in exactly the same way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2789" LastActivityDate="2014-06-04T23:09:18.970" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5549" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5545" CreationDate="2014-06-05T04:16:47.887" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Black has no win.  White scoops up the &lt;code&gt;b6&lt;/code&gt; pawn and enjoys the advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;White to move&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;4r1k1/3q1ppp/pp6/2QN1n2/1P6/8/P4PPP/3R2K1 w - - 0 1&quot;] &#xA;&#xA;&#xA;     1.Qc1 Qa4 2.a3 Ne7 3.Nxb6 Qb5 4.Nc4 Nf5 5.g3 h6 6.Nd6 Nxd6 7.Rxd6 a5 8.bxa5 Qxa5 9.Qc6 Qa8 10.a4 Kf8 11.Kg2 Qxc6+ 12.Rxc6 Ra8 13.Rc4 Ke7 14.Kf3 Kd6 15.Rd4+ Kc6 16.h4 g6 17.Rf4 Ra7 18.Ke3 Kd5 19.Kd3 Ke5 20.Rb4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So says Stockfish 5.  Everything past move 5 or so is probably suspect but you get the idea.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2014-06-05T04:16:47.887" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5550" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5551" CreationDate="2014-06-05T07:45:57.333" Score="9" ViewCount="2069" Body="&lt;p&gt;Watching tournament and competitive club play, players playing black sometimes switch the clock to their dominant side before the game starts without asking. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Presumably, having the clock on your dominant side compensates slightly for losing the first-move advantage because it makes it easier to operate the clock for you, it makes it harder for your opponent if they have the same dominant side as you, and it may serve as a small psychological crutch — particularly during blitz games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But FIDE’s &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=124&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Laws of Chess&lt;/a&gt; state that:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;6.4&#xA;  Before the start of the game the arbiter decides where the chess clock is placed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Additionally, I’ve seen Black switching the board around before either player has sat down so that they get the view of the room they prefer. IM Jeremy Silman even gives this tip in his “Psychology” section of &lt;em&gt;The Complete Book of Chess Strategy&lt;/em&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If you’re playing outdoors, don’t forget to face your opponent towards the sun (it worked five hundred years ago and it will still work today)!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which must be a reference to this quip:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Sit your opponent with the sun in his eyes.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  — Ruy Lopez, 1561&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Two questions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;As black, will I get in trouble for moving the clock before the game without asking?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;As black, is it an acceptable practise to ask to trade seats?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Answers can refer to casual play, club play, and tournament play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2130" LastActivityDate="2020-12-11T01:08:58.360" Title="Can Black always choose seating position and clock position?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;etiquette&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5551" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5550" CreationDate="2014-06-05T09:37:49.297" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is an interesting question, but you already gave the answer. It is the arbiters decision where the players sit and the clocks are placed (so that the arbiter can see them best). When no official arbiter is present, the team captain of the home team acts as arbiter. These rules are for tournaments and club matches. Casual is of course different.&#xA;If a player does not follow the arbiters decision he can get penalized (eg. time reduction, which happened few months ago at our club match, because of the exact same clock positioning question)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3244" LastActivityDate="2014-06-05T09:37:49.297" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5552" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5536" CreationDate="2014-06-05T09:42:48.103" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;On the playchess server you can list all the games being currently played. The most matches played are always the 3|0 ones, followed by 5|0, 1|0, 4|0, 3|2, 5|2 (dunno the exact order).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3244" LastActivityDate="2014-06-05T09:42:48.103" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5553" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5550" CreationDate="2014-06-05T12:27:54.337" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If your opponent is blind or has another physical disability, it is generally good etiquette to allow them to set-up the board, seating and clock to their preference.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="350" LastActivityDate="2014-06-05T12:27:54.337" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5554" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="823" CreationDate="2014-06-05T13:56:18.243" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;With Tarrasch GUI you can practice blindfold, you can setup any position and play from there.&#xA;I'd suggest starting with K &amp;amp; Q Vs K, try to mate blindfold, then K &amp;amp; R Vs K.&#xA;Sadly its only available for windows, I haven't found a good linux equivalent yet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3246" LastActivityDate="2014-06-05T13:56:18.243" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5555" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-06-05T14:46:13.310" Score="3" ViewCount="295" Body="&lt;p&gt;Does anybody know a nice chess puzzle, where question states: &quot;Exactly one piece is drawn incorrectly on this diagram, another piece must be drawn on it's position. Find incorrectly drawn piece.&quot;? One needs to make retrograde analysis of the given position and find, which from all pieces is drawn incorrectly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I really would like to find such a puzzle. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S. I would rather like to &lt;em&gt;find&lt;/em&gt; Old puzzle like this than to see you &lt;em&gt;creating&lt;/em&gt; a new one, because:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I understand that it is easy to create a simple puzzle like &lt;a href=&quot;http://braingames.ru/chess/kw11pb22pb31pb33kb32rw21rw12.gif&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt;. But this would be too simple.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;When you try to create it, it is easy to miss some combination. Meanwhile old puzzles are checked &quot;by time&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But if you really would like to try to create a nice puzzle like this - you are welcome.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1894" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-05T00:59:55.110" LastActivityDate="2020-04-05T00:59:55.110" Title="Is there retrograde analysis puzzle like &quot;Point on the incorrectly drawn chess piece&quot;?" Tags="&lt;problems&gt;&lt;retrograde-analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5556" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5558" CreationDate="2014-06-05T20:57:06.440" Score="5" ViewCount="4687" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's a bug on chess.com, when playing online chess, and I'm about to lose on time, I wasn't receiving &quot;you're about to lose on time&quot; emails. I lost 2 games on time because of that. I contacted support and they gave me 1 month &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/membership?c=icon&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;diamond package&lt;/a&gt; to make it up for me. And they are troubleshooting the issue.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can chess.com diamond package improve my game? How is it best used? I want to make good use of it while I have it. Because as of right now, I'm not interested in buying it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I want personal experience if possible, how you use it? did it improve your game? Would it improve my game in one month? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1105" LastEditorUserId="1105" LastEditDate="2014-06-06T12:40:02.793" LastActivityDate="2016-10-26T05:28:18.187" Title="Can chess.com diamond package improve my game?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;online-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5557" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5564" CreationDate="2014-06-06T08:30:46.477" Score="11" ViewCount="885" Body="&lt;p&gt;Please help me to find solution of this next problem by the legendary composer Andrej Kornilow. It appeared in Shakhmatnaya Kompozitsiya 41 issue in 2001 and it was dedicated to A. Lobusow on his 50th birthday.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The colours of the pieces on the diagram is unknown. The diagram can be obtained in a legal game. One needs to find colou of each piece: Black or White.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;8/8/2NBQPN1/2QQKQQ1/2PPPPN1/2QPKPP1/2NPPPP1/8 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is easy to find colors of the most pieces:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt; 1. The kings should not be checkmated by pawns (otherwise what was the previous move?), so the upper ones are White.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA; 2. The knight on g4 makes a check to either king, so it made the last move.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA; 3. All other pieces should not give a check to any king, so we must find the colors of them.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA; 4. There are 12 pawns and 6 queens, so 4 queens were created, and all other pieces are original.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA; 5. There are 2 White knights on the top, so knight on g4 is Black.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA; &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/iQjOk.gif&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But then one needs to consider different possibilities of the pawn placements, taking into account possible movements. It is hard for me to find a solid approach to it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1894" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-09-15T00:48:49.683" LastActivityDate="2020-09-15T00:48:49.683" Title="Another problem-Find color of the pieces" Tags="&lt;problems&gt;&lt;retrograde-analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="11" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="5558" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5556" CreationDate="2014-06-06T11:48:14.597" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Yes, Chess Mentor training and chess.com videos can improve your game with daily training.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've been a chess.com diamond member since November 2013 and have been pleased with the gradual knowledge and rating increase I've seen since subscribing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The main perks of the Diamond package are their &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/chessmentor/courses&quot;&gt;Chess Mentor&lt;/a&gt; and the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/video/library&quot;&gt;chess.com video library&lt;/a&gt;. You get unlimited access to both. Here's how I'm using them:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;The Video Library&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Choose a video series such as GM Melik Khachiyan’s three-part “Becoming an Expert” (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/video/player/becoming-an-expert---part-1-attack-with-pawns&quot;&gt;part 1&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/video/player/becoming-an-expert---part-2-attack-with-pieces&quot;&gt;part 2&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/video/player/becoming-an-expert---part-3-kasparovs-rxc3&quot;&gt;part 3&lt;/a&gt;), watch them all, and make quick notes about the key points you took away from each video. Really – take short notes; you'll retain more that way. Skimming through your notebook becomes really helpful too. There is little point in gaining knowledge if you can't retain it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Every time you find an instructor you enjoy listening to, use the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/video/library&quot;&gt;video index&lt;/a&gt; to find other courses they've authored and watch more from them — or just write down the name of their course in your notebook under a “to watch” list. Not sure who to start with? &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/video/library?keyword=&amp;amp;author=GMMelik&amp;amp;players=&amp;amp;opening=&amp;amp;skill_level=&amp;amp;category=&quot;&gt;GM Melik Khachiyan&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/video/library?keyword=&amp;amp;author=gmfinegold&amp;amp;players=&amp;amp;opening=&amp;amp;skill_level=&amp;amp;category=&quot;&gt;GM Ben Finegold&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/video/library?keyword=&amp;amp;author=DanielRensch&amp;amp;players=&amp;amp;opening=&amp;amp;skill_level=&amp;amp;category=&quot;&gt;IM Daniel Rensch&lt;/a&gt;, and &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/video/library?keyword=&amp;amp;author=Trendle&amp;amp;players=&amp;amp;opening=&amp;amp;skill_level=&amp;amp;category=&quot;&gt;IM Thomas Rendle&lt;/a&gt; are all fun and informative. They make me feel good about chess. Melik, Ben, and Thomas are all professional full-time chess coaches, and Daniel's a strong player and one of the founders of chess.com.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do this every day and you'll soon build up a thick notebook of tips and take-aways. You won't see a sudden dramatic improvement by doing this alone; instead, the idea is to absorb as many opinions, patterns, and maxims as you can. That way, in your future games, you'll have a team of amazing chess coaches in your head talking to you, whispering the knowledge and mantras you wrote in your book.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, GM Melik says in his Positional Tips series that, when you think you've finished calculating a line, always ask yourself, “what am I missing?” and make one final check. Hearing that voice has helped me avoid blunders. And, when an opponent plays aggressive chess right out of the opening with traps and fake threats, I often hear Melik’s advice to “stay strong, stay focussed” and repeat it to myself — a defensive mantra of sorts!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Chess Mentor&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess Mentor is a fabulous tool — it forces you to play through the lines by moving the pieces as well as visualising the sequence, explains why you went wrong, cheers you along, and flows onto the next challenge automatically.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Use it every day for an hour if you can alongside tactics training and video watching. You can pick out an &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/chessmentor/lessons&quot;&gt;individual lesson&lt;/a&gt; that takes your fancy, or follow a more thorough &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/chessmentor/courses&quot;&gt;Chess Mentor course&lt;/a&gt; by an author you like. You can also repeat lessons to drill them. For example, I did the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/chessmentor/lessons?keyword=opposition&amp;amp;min_rating=&amp;amp;max_rating=&amp;amp;min_score=&amp;amp;max_score=&amp;amp;cat_id=&quot;&gt;opposition drills&lt;/a&gt; several times, and have found I'm winning more endgames now. I knew the principle of opposition, but it was only by practising it — by actively moving the pieces on a board rather than reading a book describing the sequence — that it sunk in.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Don't forget to bookmark your &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/chessmentor/myhome&quot;&gt;chess mentor rating page&lt;/a&gt; to keep an eye on your progress report and encourage yourself to keep going.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Not a replacement for playing slow games&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, while I've really enjoyed Chess Mentor and the videos on chess.com and ICC, if you want to get good faster, the things that have helped me so far are to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Play lots of slow time control games, where you have time to think and find the best move every move. (Blitz is okay too, but most instructors will tell beginners and improvers to spend about a tenth of their time playing blitz as they do playing chess at longer time controls of 45 minutes or more.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Review those games with your opponent, a computer, and a teacher.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Identify and correct flaws in your thought process that caused you to lose your game. (e.g. “I forgot to identify my opponent's checks, captures, and threats before making my move. In the future I will always think, ‘checks, captures, and threats’ before I play my move – every move.”)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Become really disciplined in your thinking process.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Play chess in two modes only: you play your best move every move, or you resign. (A tip from Dan Heisman.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2130" LastEditorUserId="2130" LastEditDate="2014-06-06T17:21:50.580" LastActivityDate="2014-06-06T17:21:50.580" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5559" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-06-06T13:41:52.587" Score="6" ViewCount="769" Body="&lt;p&gt;A friend of mine showed me a great white-to-mate-in-three puzzle back in the late '50s or early '60s. Unfortunately he doesn't recall it. I can remember a few things: It was composed by someone from West Virginia. White had two knights at opposite corners of a 3x3 block. White's first move was not a check. Can anyone help me find it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3248" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-04T21:44:44.343" LastActivityDate="2020-04-04T21:44:44.343" Title="Trying to locate an old problem" Tags="&lt;problems&gt;&lt;identify-this&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="9" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="5560" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5563" CreationDate="2014-06-06T15:19:02.243" Score="7" ViewCount="505" Body="&lt;p&gt;Recently I found some rather interesting graph displaying how popularity of different openings changed over time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/cMDL5.png&quot; alt=&quot;Popularity of Openings&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;sup&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.randalolson.com/2014/05/26/a-data-driven-exploration-of-the-evolution-of-chess-popularity-of-openings/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Image courtesy of&lt;/a&gt;; see also fullsize there&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as I understand, new researches over classic openings may unveil some hidden treasures or vulnerabilities, but I can't figure out why changes were so drastic. For a comparison, in Physics, different approaches in Theory of Relativity also take place, but sooner or later more and more scientists group around three or so major approaches.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Furthermore, with today's progress in computational methods, strengths and weaknesses of each opening can be &lt;strong&gt;formally&lt;/strong&gt; (not statistically) proven. Instead, what we are seeing here, &quot;Other&quot; openings take kind of 40% and growing on recent years.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, my question is: &lt;strong&gt;Why in Chess there is no obvious trend?&lt;/strong&gt; In other words, what factors (other than formal) define how each opening changes its popularity over time?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I realize that popularity may be based not only on pure science, but on players' (aesthetic) preferences as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="968" LastActivityDate="2017-06-30T09:21:41.607" Title="What factors define changing popularity of different Openings over time?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5561" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5560" CreationDate="2014-06-06T18:28:06.113" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Nice link, ups for that. &#xA;Interestingly, I think not much changed during the last 50 years, except for the relatively large increase of the King's Gambit around the 90s and a slight decrease of the Sicilian in the last couple of years.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I believe that the grandmaster matches and especially the World Cup games have a huge impact on the openings. E.g., in the 1920s and 1930s, when the Soviet chess school came up, positional play became more important and you can see it in an increase of the move 1.d4 (in comparison to the more &quot;aggressive&quot; move 1.e4, picture in the link). New strategies were developed and influenced the whole chess community.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And still today, when one thinks of the current world champion, Magnus Carlsen. His influence is of that kind, that the main lines are played not as much as before. I believe that this idea of going into openings will be adopted by weaker players. But this trend can hardly be seen in this kind of charts, since all these games still belong to the mentioned 3-ply openings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3244" LastEditorUserId="11202" LastEditDate="2017-06-30T09:21:41.607" LastActivityDate="2017-06-30T09:21:41.607" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5563" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5560" CreationDate="2014-06-07T15:57:20.213" Score="7" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Why in Chess there is no obvious trend? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because in chess there is no theory. The best you can get is the sorted list of moves &lt;strong&gt;that are currently considered strongest&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Furthermore, chess allows you to choose and to express your way of thinking/approaching the game. In chess &lt;strong&gt;you have a chance to create your own position&lt;/strong&gt; while nature is already predetermined and we can only try to understand it and adapt to it. Rarely we get the chance to change/reimplement something.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since we have a choice in chess, of course there will be different trends -&gt; some will like quiet positional play, some will go for sharp bloodshed and some will be somewhere in between.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In other words, what factors (other than formal) define how each opening changes its popularity over time?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Factors are listed in &quot;the first thing that came to my mind&quot; manner, not by their importance :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1. Number of lines player must learn;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Small number will be good for amateurs, since they can actually &quot;have a life&quot; and be able to learn all the intricacies of the opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For chess professionals the opening should have lots of branches and lines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;2. Can I obtain counterplay and how sound this opening is ?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Professionals dodge the &lt;strong&gt;forced&lt;/strong&gt; opening lines because they might be refuted with computer analysis or with a strong analysis. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Amateurs love these since they can leave a computer to work 2 days and do all the &quot;dirty work&quot; for them ( and will do it better! ).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Opening must give the player equal chance to win the game, and player &lt;strong&gt;must have active counterplay.&lt;/strong&gt; Days of waiting for opponent to make a mistake or &quot;run out of steam&quot; are gone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;3. How much explored it is?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;New lines offer a lot of chances for winning, while explored ones usually end with a draw. &lt;strong&gt;This partly explains why some old openings got resurrected.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;SUMMARY:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Opening trends are dictated by leading grandmasters and factors I described above. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With the emerging of strong chess software amateurs got the opportunity to compete with equal chances &lt;strong&gt;if he uses opening that is suitable for computer analysis&lt;/strong&gt; and if he has decent playing strength.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since popular openings are very well explored thanks to chess engines and enormous amount of games played, there was a danger of all grandmaster games ending in a draw. .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This was also foretold by Capablanca in the 1930s. In those days Black had a variety of good choices against &lt;code&gt;1.e4&lt;/code&gt; so White turned to &lt;code&gt;1.d4&lt;/code&gt; since &lt;strong&gt;all black had&lt;/strong&gt; was Queen's gambit. This was an important thing since White had variety of lines to choose which can't be said for Black. Technically speaking, &lt;strong&gt;only White could win&lt;/strong&gt;. Games became dull and technical for Black so after Second World War Black tried to find openings that gave him &lt;strong&gt;equal chances to win.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After Indian defenses were invented, Black entirely switched to &lt;code&gt;...Nf6&lt;/code&gt; leaving &lt;code&gt;1...d5&lt;/code&gt; as a relic of the past. Since the King's gambit was refuted and Italian game gave White nothing but a draw, people started playing Ruy Lopez.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then came 1980s and computer revolution. After realizing that computer can calculate &lt;strong&gt;every forcing line&lt;/strong&gt; with &lt;strong&gt;100%&lt;/strong&gt; precision people started to turn their attention to &lt;code&gt;1.e4&lt;/code&gt; again, and to other &lt;strong&gt;forcing openings&lt;/strong&gt; for Black hoping that the masters of the old missed something. In those days almost &lt;strong&gt;every opening was thoroughly played&lt;/strong&gt; and many of them got revived. Especially is important Queen's gambit since many players like Kasparov and Karpov liked to have a solid opening that gave them a chance to outplay their opponent after defending successfully. The beauty of the Queen's gambit is that it embodies all the good sides of the 3 factors listed above: &lt;strong&gt;it remained sound/reliable for centuries&lt;/strong&gt;, it is reasonably explored and can give Black equal chances. Indian defenses are prone to being &quot;refuted&quot; temporarily until someone &lt;strong&gt;with hard work&lt;/strong&gt; resurrects them. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for &lt;code&gt;1.e4&lt;/code&gt;, Ruy Lopez gave White permanent advantage ( although minimal one ) so Black tried to choose opening that gives equal chances but preserves solidity and soundness they had from &lt;code&gt;1...e5&lt;/code&gt;. There came Petroff's defense to the rescue. After a lot of analysis it has been proven it fulfills 2 factors listed above -&gt; it was prone to refutation by a novelty at that time. Meanwhile, people also found that Marshall attack in Ruy Lopez can offer Black equal chances too so again people started playing &lt;code&gt;1...e5&lt;/code&gt; more frequently. However, positional players disliked the sharped lines &lt;strong&gt;that could be refuted by a novelty&lt;/strong&gt; and searched for solid openings. Then came Karpov and resurrected Caro-Kann. This opening suddenly got a burst in popularity since Karpov proved it satisfies all 3 factors listed above. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With the progress of chess software openings are analyzed &lt;strong&gt;very fast with little room for error.&lt;/strong&gt; This results in professionals facing the &quot;Capablanca prophecy&quot; again, so they will again try to resurrect less known openings or invent new ones. One such example can be Scandinavian defense or Sokolsky attack, even Polish opening or Grob attack...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is too broad to be explained here but I gave my best to explain it. If you need anything more leave a comment and I will reply.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Best regards. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastActivityDate="2014-06-07T15:57:20.213" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5564" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5557" CreationDate="2014-06-08T01:13:33.737" Score="16" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm going to start from scratch even though the OP posted a partial answer in the question, so I will be covering some familiar ground.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I began to break the problem down by assigning black to the upper king, then making every piece which attacked him black. Since the g4 knight attacks a king, no other piece can be giving check to either king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[title &quot;White to move&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;8/8/2nbqPn1/2QqkqQ1/2PpPpn1/2QPKPP1/2NPPPP1/8 w - - 0 0&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Immediately I see a problem. The d4 and f4 pawns both give check no matter which color they are, so I inverted the colors:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[title &quot;Black to move&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;8/8/2NBQPN1/2qQKQq1/2ppppN1/2qpkpp1/2npppp1/8 w - - 0 0&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This time I painted all chessmen white who would otherwise be checking the white king. Now there are two questions: is the g4 knight white or black, and which other pieces are white?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's analyze the promotion situation. There are 12 pawns and 6 queens. The game began with 16 pawns and 2 queens, so this establishes that a) 4 pawns became queens, b) no other pawns were captured or promoted, and c) the original queens are still present.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's look at captures. There are 25 pieces, and the game began with 32, so there were 7 captures total. What were the captures? Well, there are no rooks. Also Black has no bishops and White only has one. So in total, 2 black rooks and 2 black bishops were captured, and 2 white rooks and one white bishop was captured. This establishes that there was a maximum of 4 &quot;lane-changes&quot; for white pawns and 3 &quot;lane-changes&quot; for black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, in tallying up the promotions, you have hopefully been able to deduce the color of the g4 knight. Since there are two other white knights targeting the white king, and no pawns were promoted to knights, the g4 knight must be black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The other three pieces whose colors we can ascertain are the c2 knight and the d2 and f2 pawns, which must be black:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[title &quot;White to move&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;8/8/2NBQPN1/3QKQ2/6n1/4k3/2np1p2/8 w - - 0 0&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now back to the pawn capture analysis. Let's see the pawn skeleton:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[title &quot;Pawn skeleton&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;8/8/5P2/8/2pppp2/3p1pp1/3pppp1/8 w - - 0 0&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We know the color of only three, though we also know that at least 6 are black (since at least 2 white pawns promoted to queen), and that they got into their current position using 3 captures or fewer. First, look at the &lt;em&gt;a&lt;/em&gt; column. Either that black pawn promoted, or it captured twice, leaving one capture left for the other pawns. Since one capture isn't enough to explain the state of the other pawns, Black's &lt;em&gt;a&lt;/em&gt; pawn must have promoted. In that case, either White's &lt;em&gt;a&lt;/em&gt; pawn must have changed lanes at least once to let Black's pawn by, or Black's &lt;em&gt;a&lt;/em&gt; pawn changed lanes. Now, look at &lt;em&gt;b&lt;/em&gt;. Either that pawn promoted, or it captured once. If it captured once, then either a black &lt;em&gt;c&lt;/em&gt;-pawn promoted or again captured once (since there is at most one &lt;em&gt;c&lt;/em&gt;-pawn left). And again, in order for Black's &lt;em&gt;b&lt;/em&gt; pawn to promote, either it or White's &lt;em&gt;b&lt;/em&gt; pawn must have captured so they could get past each other. So at least two captures are necessary for columns &lt;em&gt;a&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;b&lt;/em&gt;. We have five captures left.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's try to eliminate the possibility that Black has 7 pawns and White has 5. Black promoted the &lt;em&gt;a&lt;/em&gt;-pawn, so we're working with &lt;em&gt;b&lt;/em&gt; through &lt;em&gt;h&lt;/em&gt;. Again, since this analysis mandates that &lt;em&gt;b&lt;/em&gt; didn't promote, it captured. After this, there are two &lt;em&gt;c&lt;/em&gt; pawns, and in the diagram, there's only one &lt;em&gt;c&lt;/em&gt; pawn, so one of those pawns must have captured, too. Remember Black only gets three captures, so he has one left. There are no &lt;em&gt;h&lt;/em&gt; pawns in the diagram, so the &lt;em&gt;h&lt;/em&gt; pawn must have captured. Out of the diagram, then, if Black has 7 pawns, then he has the &lt;em&gt;c&lt;/em&gt; pawn, two &lt;em&gt;d&lt;/em&gt; pawns, one &lt;em&gt;e&lt;/em&gt; pawn, one &lt;em&gt;f&lt;/em&gt; pawn, and two &lt;em&gt;g&lt;/em&gt; pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[title &quot;Pawn skeleton&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;8/3pppp1/2pp2p1/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/8 w - - 0 0&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, White. If White has 5 pawns, then he promoted 3. Since Black cannot have captured with his &lt;em&gt;a&lt;/em&gt; pawn, White must have. Now White has two &lt;em&gt;b&lt;/em&gt; pawns. In the diagram, there are no &lt;em&gt;b&lt;/em&gt; pawns, and Black has the only &lt;em&gt;c&lt;/em&gt; pawn, and the 3 &lt;em&gt;d&lt;/em&gt; pawns are accounted for, and the two &lt;em&gt;e&lt;/em&gt; pawns are accounted for. So either both white &lt;em&gt;b&lt;/em&gt; pawns promoted, or else they would have to capture at least 4 times each to find a spot that would make sense of the puzzle position. Even one such &lt;em&gt;b&lt;/em&gt; pawn journey would use up more than the rest of White's 4 captures, so this is impossible. White's &lt;em&gt;a&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;b&lt;/em&gt; pawns must have promoted, using up one capture.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[title &quot;Pawn skeleton&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;8/3pppp1/2pp2p1/8/8/8/2PPPPPP/8 w - - 0 0&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am already beginning to seriously doubt this situation. In order not to use captures, either White's &lt;em&gt;h&lt;/em&gt; pawn promoted, or the &lt;em&gt;c&lt;/em&gt; pawn promoted (after Black's &lt;em&gt;c&lt;/em&gt; pawn captured and before the &lt;em&gt;b&lt;/em&gt; pawn captured). Either way, White still needs to end up with one &lt;em&gt;d&lt;/em&gt; pawn, one &lt;em&gt;e&lt;/em&gt; pawn, and three &lt;em&gt;f&lt;/em&gt; pawns. Let's try promoting the &lt;em&gt;c&lt;/em&gt; pawn. It would use up the rest of the captures (3) to get the &lt;em&gt;g&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;h&lt;/em&gt; pawns to &lt;em&gt;f&lt;/em&gt;. Now the pattern can be fulfilled, but there are no captures left for White's &lt;em&gt;f&lt;/em&gt; pawn to get around Black's &lt;em&gt;f&lt;/em&gt; pawn, which must be on f2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[title &quot;Pawn skeleton formation&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;8/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/8 w - - 0 0&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. axb3 a5 2. d3 c5 3. b4 c4 4. b5 c3 5. b6 cxd2 6. c4 d5 7. c5 d4 8. c6 a4 9. c7 a3 10. c8=Q a2 11. b4 a1=Q 12. b5 bxc6 13. b7 c5 14. b8=Q c4 15. b6 e5 16. Qa8 f5 17. b7 e4 18. b8=Q f4 19. g3 f3 20. gxf4 g5 21. h3 h5 22. h4 g4 23. hxg5 g3 24. gxf6 hxg4 25. Qd8 g2 26. Qdc8 g3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But promoting the &lt;em&gt;h&lt;/em&gt; pawn means we must cross with the &lt;em&gt;c&lt;/em&gt; pawn all the way to the &lt;em&gt;f&lt;/em&gt; file, using the remaining 3 captures, and leaving none for the &lt;em&gt;f&lt;/em&gt; pawn to get around Black's &lt;em&gt;f&lt;/em&gt; pawn, or for the &lt;em&gt;g&lt;/em&gt; pawn to move over to &lt;em&gt;f&lt;/em&gt;. And promoting any other pawns means moving &lt;em&gt;both&lt;/em&gt; the &lt;em&gt;c&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;h&lt;/em&gt; pawns, as well as getting around black pawns with the promoting pawn, as well as moving the &lt;em&gt;g&lt;/em&gt; pawn over, as well as letting black's &lt;em&gt;f&lt;/em&gt; pawn through. In short, White can't make it with 5 pawns in a setup with Black's only viable 7-pawn structure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, since Black can't have 8 pawns, and Black can't have 7 pawns, and Black can't have fewer than 6 pawns (since White has at most 6), each side must have 6 pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now that I've established the number of pawns of each color, I can better analyze the distribution in the final skeleton:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[title &quot;Pawn skeleton&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;8/8/5p2/8/2pppp2/3p1pp1/3pppp1/8 w - - 0 0&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are no &lt;em&gt;a&lt;/em&gt; pawns, no &lt;em&gt;b&lt;/em&gt; pawns, one &lt;em&gt;c&lt;/em&gt; pawn, three &lt;em&gt;d&lt;/em&gt; pawns, two &lt;em&gt;e&lt;/em&gt; pawns, four &lt;em&gt;f&lt;/em&gt; pawns, two &lt;em&gt;g&lt;/em&gt; pawns, and no &lt;em&gt;h&lt;/em&gt; pawns. Let's simplify this by counting the minimum lane-changes necessary if pawns are all the same color. We can eliminate the &lt;em&gt;a&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;b&lt;/em&gt; pawns, assuming they promote (because otherwise another pawn promotes, and the &lt;em&gt;a&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;b&lt;/em&gt; pawn uses unnecessary captures to move to that other pawn's file). The &lt;em&gt;h&lt;/em&gt; pawns must move to &lt;em&gt;f&lt;/em&gt;, making four captures, and a &lt;em&gt;c&lt;/em&gt; pawn moves to &lt;em&gt;d&lt;/em&gt;, for a total of five. Now from experience we also know that the &lt;em&gt;a&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;b&lt;/em&gt; promotions don't come without a price. At least two additional captures are necessary to get them past each other, making 7. You may argue that another pawn could promote, but that would only increase the number of captures, since then the &lt;em&gt;a&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;b&lt;/em&gt; pawn that didn't promote would need to make additional captures to get into the 5x5 square.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So far so good. We're getting in by the skin of our teeth. We have this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[title &quot;Pawn skeleton&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;8/2pppppp/8/8/8/8/2PPPPPP/8 w - - 0 0&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We've used two captures to get the &lt;em&gt;a&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;b&lt;/em&gt; pawns past each other to promote. They could possibly have been both black or both white, so I will leave that ambiguous. Basically we have 5 remaining captures, up to 4 for White and up to 3 for Black. Firstly we know the &lt;em&gt;h&lt;/em&gt; pawns have moved to &lt;em&gt;f&lt;/em&gt; (or &lt;em&gt;h&lt;/em&gt; to &lt;em&gt;g&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;g&lt;/em&gt; to &lt;em&gt;f&lt;/em&gt;, but that comes to the same thing), and that a &lt;em&gt;c&lt;/em&gt; pawn moves to &lt;em&gt;d&lt;/em&gt;. We know the d2 pawn is black, the f2 pawn is black, and the f6 pawn is white. Sounds like the black &lt;em&gt;c&lt;/em&gt; pawn moves to d2, so the c4 pawn would be white. So Black's &lt;em&gt;c&lt;/em&gt; pawn comes to c3, White's &lt;em&gt;d&lt;/em&gt; moves to d3, Black's &lt;em&gt;c&lt;/em&gt; captures d2, White's &lt;em&gt;c&lt;/em&gt; moves to c4, Black's &lt;em&gt;d&lt;/em&gt; moves to d4. That footwork involves only one capture (black).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[title &quot;Pawn skeleton&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;QQ6/2pppppp/8/8/8/8/2PPPPPP/qqB5 w - - 0 0&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Qc8 c5 2. d3 c4 3. Bd2 c3 4. Qcb8 cxd2 5. c4 d5 6. Qc8 d4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The e2 pawn is presumably white, since otherwise, White's &lt;em&gt;e&lt;/em&gt; pawn makes a capture to get out of the way, and we don't have room in our budget for such extravagance. So the e4 pawn should be black. For &lt;em&gt;f&lt;/em&gt;, we know that Black has wormed into f2, and White got to f6. This can be attained by Black moving &lt;em&gt;f&lt;/em&gt; to f4, White moving &lt;em&gt;f&lt;/em&gt; to f3, Black moving &lt;em&gt;g&lt;/em&gt; to g3, Black capturing gxf2 (two), White moving &lt;em&gt;h&lt;/em&gt; to h4 then capturing twice (over to g5 then to f6), and Black moving &lt;em&gt;h&lt;/em&gt; to h4 then making the final capture to g3 (three). It is also possible for White to move &lt;em&gt;g&lt;/em&gt; to g3 and then Black capture h3xg2. But maybe this ambiguity can be ironed out later. In any case, the puzzle position has been attained.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[title &quot;Pawn skeleton formation&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;8/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/8 w - - 0 0&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. a4 c5 2. b4 c4 3. bxc5 b5 4. d3 b4 5. axb5 a5 6. b6 a4 7. b7 a3 8. b8=Q a2 9. c6 a1=Q 10. c7 b3 11. c8=Q b2 12. Qa8 b1=Q 13. Qab8 c3 14. Qa8 cxd2 15. c4 d5 16. Qab8 e5 17. Qa8 e4 18. Qab8 d4 19. Qa8 f5 20. Qab8 g5 21. f3 f4 22. Qa8 g4 23. Qab8 g3 24. Qa8 gxf2 25. h4 h5 26. hxg5 h4 27. gxf6 h3 28. g3 hxg2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Playing around with these pawns inspired me to the final breakthrough. The remaining white bishop is the dark-squared one, which means that Black captured the light-squared bishop, and since the capture didn't occur on the bishop's home square, then the bishop must have gotten out somehow. The &lt;em&gt;e&lt;/em&gt; pawn can't move, so the &lt;em&gt;g&lt;/em&gt; pawn must have.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We now know all the colors.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[title &quot;White to move&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;8/8/2NBQPN1/2qQKQq1/2Ppppn1/2qPkPP1/2npPpp1/8 w - - 0 0&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="86" LastEditorUserId="11629" LastEditDate="2017-03-28T12:15:00.597" LastActivityDate="2017-03-28T12:15:00.597" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5565" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5566" CreationDate="2014-06-09T00:00:18.770" Score="2" ViewCount="162" Body="&lt;p&gt;Recently I have played a game against a computer and came to the following position :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Black to move&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;3r4/p3Q1pk/1pp3p1/8/3qP3/P7/1P3RPP/6K1 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have played &lt;code&gt;...Rd7&lt;/code&gt; and soon the game ended as a draw by threefold repetition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Was I able to win?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastEditorUserId="2042" LastEditDate="2014-06-12T16:02:03.113" LastActivityDate="2014-06-12T16:06:16.193" Title="It seems to me that draw is all Black can get, but maybe I am wrong?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5566" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5565" CreationDate="2014-06-09T05:26:32.967" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I didn't see a thing, and nether did Stockfish.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Black to move&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;3r4/p3Q1pk/1pp3p1/8/3qP3/P7/1P3RPP/6K1 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Rd6 2.Qh4+ (2.Qxa7?? Rf6 ) Kg8 3.Qh3 Qe5 4.Qc8+ Kh7 5.Qh3+ Qh5 6.Qxh5+ gxh5 7.b4 Kg6 8.Rf8 Rd4 9.Rc8 Rc4 10.Ra8 Rxe4 11.Rxa7 Rc4 12.Kf2 Rc2+ 13.Kf3 b5 14.a4 bxa4 15.Rxa4 h4 16.Ra6 Kf5 17.Ra5+ Kf6=&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just because there's no forced win doesn't mean the game is without tension and opportunity. I have lost games similar to this game after move 12.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2014-06-09T05:26:32.967" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5567" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-06-09T09:48:47.343" Score="2" ViewCount="492" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm new to chess and I've found that while certain tactics come relatively easily to me(double fork), certain others are quite harder.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've been missing out on a lot of opportunities to take advantage of discovered checks. Is there something I should be looking out for? Has anyone else faced a similar difficulty?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user253" LastEditorUserId="1201" LastEditDate="2014-06-10T23:54:40.743" LastActivityDate="2014-06-10T23:54:40.743" Title="Help with discovered checks" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;check&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5568" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5567" CreationDate="2014-06-09T12:45:32.040" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Discovered Checks (Attack) is a form of double attack.  In these sorts of attacks, typically a stationary piece gives check while the one that moves is free to threatens another piece.  Creating a threat that cannot be parried is pretty much the goal of chess. Discovered attacks do exactly this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They are something you want to get good at spotting.  Your opponent will have to spend time to prevent them from happening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are some &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess-game-strategies.com/chess-puzzles_discovered-attack_with-check_1.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;tactics exercises&lt;/a&gt;.  Play through them, then search for others.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2014-06-09T12:45:32.040" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5569" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5567" CreationDate="2014-06-09T16:07:38.633" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Discovered attacks are almost like reverse pins. With a pin your piece prevents or inhibits and opponent's piece from moving by threatening to capture a piece behind it. With a discovered attack, your opponent piece is threatened by moving your piece exposing it to attack from a piece behind it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's what you should look out for:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Any time you can move a piece with a discovered check, you should carefully consider all of those moves. In this case, the piece that moves is likely to be able to move freely without threat of capture. This makes it possible to threaten or capture a valuable piece with perhaps no defense or move in for mate.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Any time you can move a piece and discover an attack on your opponents Queen. If your opponent leaves his queen where it may be attacked by discovery, you may be able to use it to your great advantage to win a piece or trap the queen.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Any time a piece is undefended and subject to a discovered attack. Undefended pieces are always weaker than defended pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3118" LastActivityDate="2014-06-09T16:07:38.633" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5570" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5567" CreationDate="2014-06-09T16:11:11.800" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;A &lt;strong&gt;Discovered Check&lt;/strong&gt; is a &quot;discovered&quot; attack against a King--when a pawn or piece moves aside, to reveal a check by another piece. It's a powerful weapon, because check is given by a piece that does not have to move--and therefore, the piece that &lt;em&gt;does&lt;/em&gt; move is free to make other threats, or even captures.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To a certain extent, you will naturally begin to see opportunities for discovered checks as you play more, because they, like all discovered attacks, are all about lines of influence. Tactics practice--all tactics, not just discovered check tactics--will help you begin to visualize these without searching for them specifically. A google search for &quot;chess tactics&quot; produces a &lt;a href=&quot;http://chesstempo.com/chess-tactics.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;decent&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;http://chess.emrald.net/chess.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;selection&lt;/a&gt; of online &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/tactics/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;tactics&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesstactics.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;trainers&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To look for discovered checks in particular, look for &lt;em&gt;pieces that would be checking the opponent's King, if not for one of your own pieces blocking the way&lt;/em&gt;. For example, in the diagram below:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;r2q1rk1/pp1n1ppp/3p4/2b1p3/3nPPQ1/2NB4/PPP3PP/R1B2RK1 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Black to move.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black's Bishop on &lt;code&gt;c5&lt;/code&gt; &lt;em&gt;would&lt;/em&gt; be checking White's King, if not for the Black Knight on &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt;. If Black's Knight moves, it will reveal a discovered check. In fact, Black has an opportunity to win material here:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;r2q1rk1/pp1n1ppp/3p4/2b1p3/3nPPQ1/2NB4/PPP3PP/R1B2RK1 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1...Nxc2+! 2.Kh1 Nxa1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even though the pawn on &lt;code&gt;c2&lt;/code&gt; is defended by White's Bishop, the Black Knight may take it with impunity, because White &lt;em&gt;must&lt;/em&gt; respond to the discovered check. Then Black is free to win a further exchange, Knight for Rook, after White's King runs away.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pawns can reveal a discovered check as well, and they're sometimes much more dangerous than pieces, since they can effectively threaten anything, and even advancing at all can make them powerful weapons.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the situation below, material is equal and there's a lot of tension on the board, but White has a devastating discovery that wins instantly...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;1k4rr/pp1n1pq1/2b2p2/2p1P3/5Q1p/2N2N2/PP3PPP/3R1RK1 w - - 0 0&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.exf6+!&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White's pawn will take the Black Queen next turn, with no real repercussions, and he should go on to win with ease (if Black doesn't simply resign on the spot!).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One common pattern is often called a &quot;windmill&quot;: where one piece takes advantage of a trapped King by repeatedly alternating between giving check and discovering another check. The position is from a &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Game_of_the_Century_%28chess%29&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;somewhat famous game&lt;/a&gt; by a 13-year-old player you might have heard of:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[White &quot;Donald Byrne&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Bobby Fischer&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;r3r1k1/pp3pbp/1Bp3p1/8/2bP4/Q1n2N2/P4PPP/3R1K1R w - - 0 0&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Kg1 Ne2+ 2.Kf1 Nxd4+ 3.Kg1 Ne2+ 4.Kf1 Nc3+ 5.Kg1 axb6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the end of the windmill, Black has already gained a Bishop and a pawn, and he will soon pick up the Rook on &lt;code&gt;d1&lt;/code&gt; as well, and go on to win handily.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A common thread in discovered check tactics is long, open lines directed at the enemy King. Because discovered checks are generally delivered from a medium or long distance, an open board and few pawns around the King make them easier to engineer. Look for pieces that &lt;em&gt;could&lt;/em&gt; deliver check, if only some other piece or pawn was removed. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you find a discovered check, look at all the places that the discovering piece could move: can you take free material? Make other threats that your opponent can't answer? Use a windmill to pick up many different objectives? Discovered checks are one of the most versatile threats in the game--when you get used to seeing them, your tactical levels will improve dramatically.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1201" LastEditorUserId="1201" LastEditDate="2014-06-10T13:45:23.147" LastActivityDate="2014-06-10T13:45:23.147" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5571" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-06-09T20:33:18.683" Score="4" ViewCount="159" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would like to edit wiki notes on chess, using a text editor that could interact with a program like xboard or similar (that is being able to enter moves and variations in the wiki by playing them from the board, for instance, and the other way round : click on moves in the text to see the position on the board).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason for this question is that scid, that I like a lot despite being a bit old-fashioned and buggy nowadays, has a very poor editor (no linking abilities, a pain to use). And xboard editor is even worse.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, using latex could be an option, but it lacks the simplicity of a wiki, and I fail to see how to make a text editor interact with a xboard-like program.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It amazes me than no such a thing exists. The closest program I have seen is r/chess pgn viewer, but it does not seem under active development (not really an issue, but it is not clear to me how to use it for a private wiki). Any ideas ? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Help will be much appreciated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2428" LastEditorUserId="10867" LastEditDate="2016-12-31T17:09:35.950" LastActivityDate="2016-12-31T17:09:35.950" Title="Editing a chess wiki" Tags="&lt;software&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5572" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5576" CreationDate="2014-06-11T00:09:02.587" Score="6" ViewCount="1074" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am preparing the Semi-Slav defense with &lt;em&gt;David Vigorito-Play the Semi-Slav ( Quality Chess, 2008 )&lt;/em&gt;. The exchange line is covered well, but recently GMs try to steer clear from dull &lt;code&gt;...Bf5&lt;/code&gt; lines and try &lt;code&gt;...e6 + ...Qb6&lt;/code&gt; formation, leaving bishop on &lt;code&gt;c8&lt;/code&gt; and &quot;suffering&quot; for the extra pawn they get with &lt;code&gt;...Qxb2&lt;/code&gt;. This gives excellent chances to dodge the boring, drawish lines and to sharpen the game. Also, in the book there was an opening novelty &lt;em&gt;Kramnik&lt;/em&gt; launched in a line I am very interested in. Since then theory must have advanced a lot in &lt;em&gt;Exchange Slav&lt;/em&gt;, so I am asking if there is any modern high quality resource ( for players 2400+ ) that covers this line?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2014-06-12T21:08:07.013" LastActivityDate="2014-10-03T16:33:45.050" Title="High quality resource for Exchanged Slav defense?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;books&gt;&lt;slav-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5575" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5565" CreationDate="2014-06-12T15:59:25.653" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this position, I would be pleased to draw as Black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the Queen side, Black does have the advantage of three pawns to two. But Black's pawns aren't particularly far forward, and White can contain them easily.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the king side, White has two healthy pawns against two doubled pawns. The preponderance is more like 2 to 1 (White), than 2 to 2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the center, White is a clear passed pawn ahead, giving him an advantage in terms of pawn structure. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black does have a countervailing advantage in terms of his grip on the Q file. But if he tries to &quot;chase&quot; White's pawns, he can do so only at the cost of relinquishing this advantage. I've seen more games lost than won when someone gives up a real advantage in order to pursue an illusory advantage, thereby allowing his opponent's advantages to prevail.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A &quot;draw by repetition&quot; often occurs because the &quot;repeated&quot; positions are optimal for both sides. You deviate from your optimum position at your own risk. Grandmaster Richard Reti once lost an important tournament game to Alexander Alekhine (the future world champion) by declining a draw by repetition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastEditorUserId="17" LastEditDate="2014-06-12T16:06:16.193" LastActivityDate="2014-06-12T16:06:16.193" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5576" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5572" CreationDate="2014-06-12T19:25:51.423" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let me preface this by saying that I have not kept up with new publications in about a year, but there was nothing that I knew of before that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My educated guess is that the only real &quot;modern high quality resource ( for players 2400+ ) that covers this line&quot; is going to be GM games. Here are my reasons for that:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) Vladimir Kramnik-the most influential figure in chess opening theory over the last 15 years-played a significant novelty in this line. This means that other players, from the top level down to lower GMs (which is about the lowest you can go and still have the games be considered part of Theory without further examination) have probably taken to copying him and extending the line. Even if you did find a comprehensive book published 8 months ago by some mid-level GM, there could well be some game between two 2600s from 2 months ago which changes the outcome of a variation. A prepared opponent will surely know about that and the book will not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) You are at a level where, since you already have a solid foundation in the line, you are probably better off looking at the games that a book would present to you and drawing your own conclusions. People like Vigorito who are about your strength and publish books are basically doing the exact same thing you could be doing-applying computer analysis to positions, recognizing the ideas, and memorizing/writing down the result. People that play for a living and create theory will be more concerned with protecting novelties and using them to win games (thereby giving them to you for free) than adding them to a book to see a tiny bump in circulation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am not saying that there are no groundbreaking books by top players. Avrukh's repertoire series for White was incredibly well-researched and included dozens of novelties. Victor Bologan has written 3 influential books on various lines. These books are rare, though, and a large majority of theoretically-relevant openings do not have resources of similar quality. You can construct better opening knowledge by doing your own research.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3270" LastActivityDate="2014-06-12T19:25:51.423" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5577" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5394" CreationDate="2014-06-12T20:41:33.537" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Every (almost) opening scheme is suitable for some players or situations but not for others.  If you like the positions you get from the Grand Prix, play it.  Keep in mind defenses for Black have been worked out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3271" LastActivityDate="2014-06-12T20:41:33.537" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5578" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5403" CreationDate="2014-06-12T23:53:20.887" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is unsporting to make moves with the intention of losing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3272" LastActivityDate="2014-06-12T23:53:20.887" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5579" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-06-13T06:23:10.940" Score="4" ViewCount="2496" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to understand how Stockfish thinks, how it calculates the best move.&#xA;I'm reading open source code, but it's not clear. I want to know, should I know some theory about algorithms to understand that code? Or is it possible without knowing anything? If there are important algorithms, please tell me what I should learn before reading source code.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3274" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-03-29T23:17:20.957" LastActivityDate="2019-03-29T23:17:20.957" Title="Stockfish's algorithm" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;open-source&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ClosedDate="2019-04-01T08:35:36.520" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="5580" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5579" CreationDate="2014-06-13T07:24:47.257" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you are reading the code to become a better player, you won't have much luck. The tricks used are only useful when you have the memory and computational power of a machine. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If instead you are reading it to learn about chess programming, the following wiki is a great resource &lt;a href=&quot;https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com&quot;&gt;https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1025" LastActivityDate="2014-06-13T07:24:47.257" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5581" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="270" CreationDate="2014-06-13T10:27:31.017" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Which bishop will be stronger very much depends on which opening is played and the position of pawns in the center and around your king. For instance, if you play the French Defense, the light-squared bishop is generally your weakest piece, and it's often a good idea to exchange it off with something like b6, Ba6, BxBd3, etc. This is because there are black pawns on e6 and d5. On the other hand, if you're playing the Ruy Lopez, then you will have the pawns on e5 and d6. Now your light squares are open, that bishop is a fantastic piece and I'd want to avoid exchanging it. I hope that helps!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3276" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T17:30:15.230" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T17:30:15.230" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="5582" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5586" CreationDate="2014-06-13T18:28:58.897" Score="7" ViewCount="458" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I am introducing beginners to the game, I immediately teach them KQvK, KRvK and KPvK. I follow that up with KBBvK at around the 800 level. Are any resources on when one should learn/teach the following techniques: Lucena win, Philidor draw, KBNvK, KQvKR, KRBvKR, KNNvKP? Each of these teaches valuable lessons with applications beyond just the endgame but the last two may not be worth studying seriously until the IM+ level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3270" LastActivityDate="2019-05-09T07:02:51.023" Title="What levels should theoretical endings be learned at?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5583" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5584" CreationDate="2014-06-13T19:13:51.080" Score="7" ViewCount="1180" Body="&lt;p&gt;Raymond Smullyan wrote some great books with Retrograde Analysis chess puzzles. I know of two, are there others?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3055" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-04T21:45:04.283" LastActivityDate="2020-04-04T21:45:04.283" Title="About retrograde analysis" Tags="&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;problems&gt;&lt;retrograde-analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5584" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5583" CreationDate="2014-06-13T20:09:54.267" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Of course there are others!&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For chess, there are many chess problems including retrograde analysis problems and many, many, many other types of problems that you would likely find interesting:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Retrograde Analysis&lt;/strong&gt; - Problems that show a diagram and ask a question in which you must deduce the answer from the position.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Proof Games&lt;/strong&gt; - Figure out how to get to the diagram from the starting position in a limited number of moves.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Help mates&lt;/strong&gt; - Figure out how to checkmate black in a certain number of moves (you get to play both sides).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Reflex mates&lt;/strong&gt; - figure out how to mate yourself given that each side must reply with mate in one if given the opportunity.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Series mates&lt;/strong&gt; - Black makes a series of consecutive moves and then white mates in 1 move.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Studies&lt;/strong&gt; - Usually orthodox chess endgame problems that demonstrate an interesting or important or impressive way to win.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are journals or magazines that publish chess compositions and give out awards to the best problems. The best problems have an artistic quality which demonstrate a certain concept, have interesting interactions among pieces, or achieve some specific goal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Every problem usually has a &lt;strong&gt;stipulation&lt;/strong&gt; (what it is you are trying to accomplish) and &lt;strong&gt;conditions&lt;/strong&gt;. A stipulation is what it is that you are must accomplish and the conditions are the set of rules that must be followed, which can be different than orthodox chess. Some problems use one more &lt;strong&gt;fairy pieces&lt;/strong&gt; which are one of many non-standard pieces that move in a variety of different ways.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically, there are many chess problems (compositions) and composers (people who create them). A friend of mine introduced me to the world of chess problems and I've composed only a few myself. Here are just a few of the places you might find some more problems &lt;strong&gt;including retros&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.theproblemist.org/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;The Problemist&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.strategems.net/sections/section.html?page=retros-and-proof-games&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Strategems (Proof Game and Retros Link)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;FIDE Albums (FIDE actually gives out titles similar to GM/IM/FM for chess composers)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;edit:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since you already know what a retro is, here is an example of a famous helpmate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/8/q7/8/1R4K1/k2N4/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Henry Forsberg&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;1935&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Helpmate in two (black moves first and after two moves from each side, black is mated):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;diagram&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;replace queen on a6 with a black rook&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;with a bishop&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;with a knight&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;with a pawn&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3118" LastEditorUserId="3118" LastEditDate="2014-06-13T20:18:45.513" LastActivityDate="2014-06-13T20:18:45.513" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5585" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5582" CreationDate="2014-06-14T01:02:45.070" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This type of question has no real answer, because it is just an opinion... but here goes...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I agree with teaching KQK and KRK immediately. I also usually show KRRK to a new player also. I do this because it is an easy way for them to begin visualizing how the pieces move and control squares, ranks or files. It also shows them how to checkmate the opposing king and the objective of the game without the complexity of 32 pieces on the board. I often show them these mates right after they learn the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Except for the Lucena win and Philidor draw, all the others are almost academic unless your a very good player. I don't believe I've ever had to play KQkr or KQkn or KBBk or KBNk in a real game before. At what level do you consistently get to an endgame before someone is lost? I think better players learn them for fun at one point, and they may illustrate some good concepts. e.g. KBNk may show that the N+B work best positioned on the same color squares, but really does that help me in a game? Usually, I'm only concerned about controlling important squares.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyway, maybe a 1400 or 1600 player should learn the Lucena and Philidor draw, but the others aren't that important unless it is just giving them a task to hone their thinking skills.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3118" LastActivityDate="2014-06-14T01:02:45.070" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5586" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5582" CreationDate="2014-06-14T05:18:44.490" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;The more I look at &lt;em&gt;Silman's Complete Endgame Course&lt;/em&gt;, the more I agree with how he has organised it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Overkill mates where the stronger side is up by at least two rooks worth of material. KQQk, KQRk and KRRk. Especially KRRk is good because it emphasises the importance of having a plan. With queen(s) on the board, mindlessly checking might let the student accidentally fall into a mate, but checking over and over again in KRRk is unlikely to produce progress. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;KQk and KRk. The two basic mates. Further hammering in the importance of having a plan. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;KQkb and KQkn.  Easy enough to win, but especially the latter one takes surprisingly many moves against a stubborn defender. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;KPk, opposition and the square of a passed pawn. Nothing much needs to be said. This is obviously required knowledge.  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These four represent what I'd call the bare minimum needed. And the third is really more of a case of &quot;head fake learning&quot;. When one is better at chess, one can obviously figure out how to win KQk{b|n} over the board, so from the viewpoint of teaching theory this is at best marginally useful. The student is actually learning about what the pieces can and cannot do which is always going to be useful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Beyond this, I think the most practically useful are KQkp, Lucena, Philidor (the KRPkr draw, &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; the KRBkr win) and a small selection of minor piece theoretical draws (wrong-coloured bishop + rook pawn, KNPk with pawn on h7, etc.).  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You want to minimise memorisation while maximising useful knowledge gained for practical play. Not just in the endgame but also the ability to formulate and execute plans (try KRRkr for this) and gaining familiarity with the capabilities of the pieces. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2253" LastActivityDate="2014-06-14T05:18:44.490" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5587" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5588" CreationDate="2014-06-14T15:00:09.977" Score="3" ViewCount="2024" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm a ~1750 Elo player and I've been thinking of switching my opening repertoire for White.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So my question is: between 1.d4 and 1.Nf3, what is the White first move that generally leads to the most solid, positional, slow, closed, strategic and quiet positions?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am only including 1. d4 and 1. Nf3 in the question, and not 1. e4 and 1. c4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think 1. e4 is clearly on average sharper and more tactical than 1. d4 or 1. Nf3 because of the Sicilian (although maybe there is the Rossolimo and the Moscow variations which look pretty slow and solid, I'm not sure...). Also, I hate having a Pawn on e4 not protected by any other of my Pawn during the entire game, I have to constantly watch out for it..&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And 1. c4 can also get very sharp and tactical because of 1... e5, the Sicilian Reversed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course I know that any of those first moves can lead to any type of positions. But I want to know ON AVERAGE which leads to the least tactical ones.&#xA;Just like there are a few quiet and positional lines in the Sicilian, but on average the Sicilian is considered to be a highly tactical opening, certainly not a quiet opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And I don't want to get into solid, strategic and quiet positions because I suck at tactics (it's not the case, I played the Sicilian for 3 years, and did more than 5000 tactical puzzles). It's just because I love slow manoeuvring, I want to be able to be perfectly relaxed while playing, and not get into insane positions and stress out knowing that one single inaccuracy can be fatal.&#xA;Maybe you still think that playing wild games full of tactics everywhere will make me improve faster, but I don't care because I don't want to become a Grandmaster, I just want to enjoy the game, and I'll enjoy it more if I can get the positions which I personally like (solid, quiet and strategic positions). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3237" LastActivityDate="2016-09-24T03:03:45.353" Title="Between 1.d4 and 1.Nf3, what is the White first move that generally leads to the most solid, positional, slow, closed, strategic and quiet positions?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;statistics&gt;&lt;queens-gambit&gt;&lt;1.d4&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5588" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5587" CreationDate="2014-06-14T17:00:22.173" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I'm a ~1750 Elo player and I've been thinking of switching my opening repertoire for White. ... And I don't want to get into solid, strategic and quiet positions because I suck at tactics (it's not the case, I played the Sicilian for 3 years, and did more than 5000 tactical puzzles). ... Maybe you still think that playing wild games full of tactics everywhere will make me improve faster ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First of all, &lt;strong&gt;it is exactly the quiet positions that help improve a player&lt;/strong&gt;, not the tactical ones. Everybody learn tactics, anyone can find mate in five when playing &lt;strong&gt;their own game&lt;/strong&gt; so the only thing you should do is just keep solving puzzles and that's it. Your tactical skill will always be high, but never at the level of a GM. Why? Because some sacrifices &lt;strong&gt;are positional&lt;/strong&gt; and are made with the intent of getting &lt;strong&gt;long-term compensation&lt;/strong&gt; instead of mating in five or returning the sacrifices material. In order to master these, you need a strong understanding of middlegame positions that may arise from the openings you play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Furthermore, with &quot;quiet&quot; play, you actually &lt;strong&gt;play&lt;/strong&gt; chess instead of doing mindless checking for tactics, which will greatly help you improve. In quiet positions, you must still calculate and check for tactics, but you also must frequently decide which pieces are good to exchange and which are not ( this is very helpful when &lt;strong&gt;transitioning&lt;/strong&gt; into endgame -&gt; you would be surprised how often &quot;tactical players&quot; of high skill make banal mistakes in this area! ), you must take into account endgames that may arise and above all, you &lt;strong&gt;always&lt;/strong&gt; have to evaluate pawn structure that may arise after every move played. To master &quot;quiet&quot; games you will need a lot of work on endgames, pawn structures and middlegame plans, but you will get so much in return -&gt; you will be able to &lt;strong&gt;effortlessly&lt;/strong&gt; grind down lesser players, outplay &quot;tactical players&quot; of equal rating, and offer very strong resistance against stronger players. So I understand exactly where you appeal for closed games comes from and will try to help you as best as I can. &lt;strong&gt;And for the record, playing &quot;quiet&quot; games will make you become GM faster than playing tactical games.&lt;/strong&gt; GMs/IMs do not make mistakes in &lt;strong&gt;pure tactical positions&lt;/strong&gt;, those are just &lt;strong&gt;well explored&lt;/strong&gt; and every master knows them by heart. Tell me when was the last time you saw &lt;em&gt;Sicilian Najdorf&lt;/em&gt; in World Championship match?? You will always see &lt;code&gt;1.d4&lt;/code&gt; because of reasons that are too broad to be posted here...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;So my question is: between 1.d4 and 1.Nf3, what is the White first move that generally leads to the most solid, positional, slow, closed, strategic and quiet positions?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These two overlap, technically you can find all the &lt;code&gt;1.Nf3&lt;/code&gt; openings &lt;strong&gt;transpose into certain opening lines that start with &lt;code&gt;1.d4&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only sharp opening that is dangerous for your style of play is King's Indian Defense, since it requires a lot of learning, is sharp and some lines are extremely theoretical. Other nonsense, like &lt;em&gt;BenOni&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;Chigorin defense&lt;/em&gt; are just rubbish and should not phase you ( &lt;em&gt;BenOni&lt;/em&gt; is nearly refuted with &lt;em&gt;Taimanov attack&lt;/em&gt; and you can bypass the &lt;em&gt;Chigorin defense&lt;/em&gt; by simply playing &lt;code&gt;Nf3&lt;/code&gt; &lt;strong&gt;before&lt;/strong&gt; you hit with &lt;code&gt;c4&lt;/code&gt; ) since most of the time White has an advantage or can simply dodge them altogether.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The problem with &lt;code&gt;1.Nf3&lt;/code&gt; approach is that you can not battle &lt;em&gt;Queen's Gambit Declined&lt;/em&gt; with favorable version of the &lt;em&gt;Exchange variation&lt;/em&gt; and there are other openings where early &lt;code&gt;Nf3&lt;/code&gt; reduces your chances for obtaining an advantage. Still, this move offers you &lt;strong&gt;big practical chances to outplay your opponent&lt;/strong&gt; with transpositional tricks. I haven't played &lt;strong&gt;active&lt;/strong&gt; chess for quite some time ( 10+ years to be precise ) but let me show you on a small example what I am talking about:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Black wants to play with full center, but is tricked into passive position&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Nf3 Nc6 2.d4! &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and Black has blocked his &lt;code&gt;c-pawn&lt;/code&gt; thus condemning himself to passive play &lt;strong&gt;if he enters&lt;/strong&gt; pawn structures with &lt;code&gt;d5+e6&lt;/code&gt;, so he should aim for &lt;code&gt;e5+d6&lt;/code&gt; pawn structure with &lt;code&gt;2...d6&lt;/code&gt; but White may play &lt;code&gt;3.Bf4&lt;/code&gt;, keeping &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt; square in his control. The tactical shot &lt;code&gt;3...Nxd4&lt;/code&gt; fails due to &lt;code&gt;4.Qxd4! e5 5.Nxe5 dxe5 6.Qxe5+ +-&lt;/code&gt;. He could try to go for &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt; with &lt;code&gt;2..Bg4&lt;/code&gt; but then simple &lt;code&gt;e3&lt;/code&gt; will force him to exchange the bishop for a knight in order to enforce &lt;code&gt;...e5&lt;/code&gt;. Although you allowed &lt;code&gt;...e5&lt;/code&gt; you got bishop pair in return. This is known as &lt;strong&gt;trading one advantage for another&lt;/strong&gt; and is important concept in positional play. With &lt;code&gt;1.Nf3&lt;/code&gt; most of your games will be of this type, but &lt;strong&gt;you will have to cover a lot of theory&lt;/strong&gt; so you can take the maximum transpositional tricks can offer you. Furthermore, you you have a chance to dodge the sharp lines:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;White dodges King's Indian Defense&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Nf3 Nf6 2.g3 g6 3.Bg2 Bg7 4.O-O O-O 5.d3!? d6 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And now you could play &lt;code&gt;c4&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; or even &lt;code&gt;c3&lt;/code&gt; going for &lt;code&gt;b4&lt;/code&gt; and action on the queenside. The position is &lt;strong&gt;stable for both sides&lt;/strong&gt; so the player with &lt;strong&gt;broader knowledge and higher creativity&lt;/strong&gt; will prevail. The point of &lt;code&gt;1.Nf3&lt;/code&gt; is that you must have a vast opening knowledge and strong grasp of &lt;em&gt;typical middlegame positions&lt;/em&gt; like Isolated or Hanging pawns, various exchange lines ( like in &lt;em&gt;QGD, Slav, French defense&lt;/em&gt; and so on...) and even main lines, so you can successfully decide in which direction to steer the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for &lt;code&gt;1.d4&lt;/code&gt;, things are different. This move reduces the amount of work you must invest in learning the pawn structures/middlegame plans and variations, but &lt;strong&gt;offers Black great chances to sharpen the game.&lt;/strong&gt; Various gambits, &lt;em&gt;King's Indian defense&lt;/em&gt; and so on are now a real option. You would have to accept that sometimes you will have to play mind-blowing, wild tactical games, you initially wished to dodge. Your biggest problem will be &lt;em&gt;Nimzo-Indian defense&lt;/em&gt; since it scores very well against &lt;code&gt;1.d4&lt;/code&gt;, but you can dodge it by playing &lt;code&gt;Nf3&lt;/code&gt; instead of &lt;code&gt;Nc3&lt;/code&gt;. Although the subtle move order can take away best response for Black, you too must pay the price. Black may play &lt;em&gt;Queen's Indian defense&lt;/em&gt;, which gives White a small advantage &lt;strong&gt;but is considered drawish&lt;/strong&gt;, or &lt;strong&gt;he can trick you&lt;/strong&gt; and choose to play &lt;em&gt;Queen's Gambit&lt;/em&gt; since the most dangerous reply -&gt; the Exchange variation after &lt;code&gt;cxd5&lt;/code&gt;, is harmless for him since you have &lt;code&gt;Nf3&lt;/code&gt; instead of &lt;code&gt;Ne2&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my opinion, &lt;code&gt;1.Nf3&lt;/code&gt; will offer you solid and strategic positions you seek, but you will have to work harder and be ready to make more draws than wins since most of the time the best options for White can be bypassed by Black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Comparing &lt;code&gt;1.d4&lt;/code&gt; vs &lt;code&gt;1.Nf3&lt;/code&gt; further would be too broad, so I will ask you to leave a comment if you need further help. In the end, here are some books I would recommend:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;For &lt;code&gt;1.d4&lt;/code&gt;:&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;B.Avrukh-Grandmaster repertoire 1;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;B.Avrukh-Grandmaster repertoire 2;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;B.Avrukh-Grandmaster repertoire 8;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;B.Avrukh-Grandmaster repertoire 9;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;B.Avrukh-Grandmaster repertoire 10;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;B.Avruhk-Grandmaster repertoire 11;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;L.Shandorff-Playing the Queens Gambit ( second edition! );&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;For &lt;code&gt;1.Nf3&lt;/code&gt;:&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A.Khalifman-Opening for White according to Kramnik ( all of the books in the series! );&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Good luck and best regards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastActivityDate="2014-06-14T17:00:22.173" CommentCount="20" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5590" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4927" CreationDate="2014-06-14T20:33:30.450" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Nope&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Time odds are irrelevant on the computational side.  Computation of chess positions is easily parallelized, meaning additional computational resources can be brought to bear independently of time constraints.  The linear component of the processing will be trivially small compared to the time controls.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3286" LastActivityDate="2014-06-14T20:33:30.450" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5592" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-06-15T06:57:34.267" Score="7" ViewCount="2689" Body="&lt;p&gt;There have been several questions regarding the possible number of chess games. for example; &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/2422/database-of-every-possible-move-in-chess&quot;&gt;Database of every possible move in chess&lt;/a&gt;. However,can there be an estimate on the number of &amp;quot;allowable&amp;quot; chess positions?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For another example, White pawns cannot occupy the first row and Black pawns cannot occupy the eighth row. If a given chess piece is occupying a square, then another chess piece cannot occupy that. Using simple elimination rules coded, can we have an estimate on the number of unique positions that chess pieces can have since they would be reducing in number? An upper bound on positions before applying any elimination rules would be the sum of (64 C 32 + 64 C 32 ... + 64 C 2). This is less than 10^20. With elimination rules, they should be significantly lower.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any ideas on how elimination rules are written for chess pieces?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3207" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-12-14T14:07:03.180" LastActivityDate="2020-12-14T14:07:03.180" Title="What is the number of legal positions in a chess game?" Tags="&lt;mathematics&gt;&lt;game-complexity&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="5593" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5592" CreationDate="2014-06-15T08:44:27.560" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Upper bounds on the number of allowable positions are discussed on the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shannon_number&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Shannon number&lt;/a&gt;  Wikipedia page.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is an accepted upper bound of 5×10^52 by Vicor Allis, and a less verified upper bound of 2^155 (approx 10^46.7) by John Tromp.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By comparison, the number of atoms on earth is about 10^50.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1485" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2020-07-21T12:34:10.297" LastActivityDate="2020-07-21T12:34:10.297" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="5594" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5596" CreationDate="2014-06-15T11:32:58.110" Score="0" ViewCount="251" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can Black reach solid and defensible position in the below diagram? I understand that Black will have to apply &amp;quot;equalize over time&amp;quot; method, so to help posters keep the analysis brief, I am interested in position that offers realistic chances to reach equality over time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Black to move&amp;quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &amp;quot;0&amp;quot;]&#xA;[fen &amp;quot;r3kb1r/ppp1pppp/n4n2/1N1P5/8/4B3/PPP1NPPP/2KR3R b kq - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-29T18:20:47.253" LastActivityDate="2020-08-30T03:36:59.493" Title="Can Black defend in this difficult position?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;scandinavian-defense&gt;&lt;novelties&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="5596" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5594" CreationDate="2014-06-15T13:16:58.290" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd like to point out that I tend to post Stockfish's entire tree of moves, but anything past the first 4 or 5 full moves is likely fiction.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;To answer the OP's question, the answer is &quot;with perfect play, Black looks lost. However, Black is not so lost he can't offer resistance.&quot;  Giving up on the game makes no sense to me since imperfect play got Black into this situation to begin with. With staunch resistance, perhaps White will err as Black did previously.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT -&#xA;1... Nxd5 2. Rxd5 c6 3.Re5 and black is lost` variation shows White's advantage dropping to .5&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The ever-practical Stockfish sees the following after several minutes. It decides that the &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt; pawn is the problem and removes it. In the main line, White ends up with a 1 point advantage. The good news is that Black is well positioned to defend.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the &lt;code&gt;1...Nxd5&lt;/code&gt; variation, Stockfish says White is slightly better than the main-line.  I'm going to have to look at this one a bit more. It's... odd.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the variation at move 3, Stockfish rates the final position as -.5, but I don't see how Black's extra piece is going to save him from the pawn onslaught.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Black to move (Stockfish)&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;r3kb1r/ppp1pppp/n4n2/1N1P5/8/4B3/PPP1NPPP/2KR3R b kq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... e6 (1...Nxd5 2.Rxd5 c6 3.Rd2 (3.Re5 cxb5 4.Rxb5 b6 5.Rd5 Nb4 6.Rd2 e6 7.Nc3 Rd8 8.Rhd1 Rxd2) cxb5 4.Rhd1 b4 5.Bxa7 e6 6.Bb6 h5 7.Rd7 h4) 2.dxe6 fxe6 3.Rhe1 ( 3.Nxa7 c6 4.Nd4 Bc5 5.Ndxc6 Bxe3+ 6.fxe3 bxc6 7.Nxc6 Rf8 8.Rhf1 Ng4 9.Rxf8+ Kxf8 10.b4 Nxe3 11.Rd3 Nd5 12.Rf3+ Ke8 13.a3 Kd7 14.Ne5+ Kd6 15.Nc4+ Ke7 16.Kb2 Nf6 17.Rg3 g6 18.Rd3 Nc7 19.Ne5 Ncd5 20.c4 Nf4 21.Nc6+ Kf7 )Kf7 4.Ng1 c6 5.Nd4 e5 6.Nb3 b6 7.Nf3 Re8 8.Kb1 Nb4 9.Nbd2 e4 10.Nd4 Rd8 11.a3 c5 12.Nb5 Nc6 13.h3 Be7 14.Nc3 h6 15.Ndxe4&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2014-06-15T14:36:12.930" LastActivityDate="2014-06-15T14:36:12.930" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5597" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5594" CreationDate="2014-06-15T13:26:45.033" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can't Black just win a Pawn?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1... Nxd5 2. Rxd5 c6 3. Rd2 cxb5&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then White can try to regain his Pawn back with 4. Nc3 or 4. Nd4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Probably Black can't defend the Pawn with 4...Nc7 because White can attack it with 5. Bf4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But Black can try just 4...b4, and then have you got enough compensation for the Pawn White? Probably yes, more than enough compensation. But I think Black can hold this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3237" LastActivityDate="2014-06-15T13:26:45.033" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5598" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5336" CreationDate="2014-06-15T13:37:08.647" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Kasparov in &lt;em&gt;My Great Predecessors, Part 4&lt;/em&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Generally speaking, Larsen's contribution to the development of opening theory is not very great, since usually he aimed to lure his opponents into little-studied variations and mainly relied on his skill in the middlegame. Nevertheless, he played a key role in the development of what is currently one of the most popular lines in the Semi-Slav Defence, the so-called improved Meran Variation: &lt;code&gt;1. d4 d5 2. c4 c6 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. Nc4 e6 5 e3 Nbd7 6. Bd3 Bb7!?&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One of Larsen's ideas was to allow a check on &lt;code&gt;b5&lt;/code&gt; and give up castling rights. In return he got a strong knight on &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt;. He first used this idea in the Candidate match Ivkov-Larsen 1965, see game below. Read more about it &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/article/view/larsenrsquos-improved-meran-the-great-dane-deigns-to-allow-check&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sample games:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;  [Event &quot;Larsen-Ivkov Candidates Quarterfinal Match&quot;]&#xA;  [Site &quot;Bled YUG&quot;]&#xA;  [Date &quot;1965.07.05&quot;]&#xA;  [EventDate &quot;1965.06.27&quot;]&#xA;  [Round &quot;6&quot;]&#xA;  [Result &quot;1/2-1/2&quot;]&#xA;  [White &quot;Borislav Ivkov&quot;]&#xA;  [Black &quot;Bent Larsen&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;  1.c4 Nf6 2.Nc3 e6 3.Nf3 d5 4.d4 c6 5.e3 Nbd7 6.Bd3 dxc4 7.Bxc4&#xA;  b5 8.Bd3 Bb7 9.e4 b4 10.Na4 c5 11.e5 Nd5 12.Nxc5 Bxc5 13.dxc5&#xA;  Nxc5 14.Bb5+ Kf8 15.Qd4 Qb6 16.Be2 h6 17.O-O g6 18.Bd2 Kg7&#xA;  19.Rac1 Rac8 20.Qh4 g5 21.Qg4 Ne4 22.Rxc8 Rxc8 23.Qxe4 Nf4&#xA;  24.Qe3 Qxe3 25.fxe3 Nxe2+ 26.Kf2 g4 27.Ng1 Nxg1 28.Rc1 Rxc1&#xA;  29.Bxc1 Bxg2 30.Kxg1 Bd5 31.Bd2 Bxa2 32.Bxb4 Kg6 33.Kf2 Kf5&#xA;  34.Bc3 h5 35.Kg3 Kg5 36.h4+ Kf5 37.Bd4 a5 38.Bc3 a4 39.Bd4 Ke4&#xA;  40.Kf2 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;  [Event &quot;1/4&quot;]&#xA;  [Site &quot;Cm  Las Palmas (06)&quot;]&#xA;  [Date &quot;1971.??.??&quot;]&#xA;  [Round &quot;6&quot;]&#xA;  [Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;  [White &quot;Wolfgang Uhlmann&quot;]&#xA;  [Black &quot;Bent Larsen&quot;]&#xA;  [ECO &quot;D47&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;  1.c4 Nf6 2.Nc3 e6 3.Nf3 d5 4.d4 c6 5.e3 Nbd7 6.Bd3 dxc4 7.Bxc4&#xA;  b5 8.Bd3 Bb7 9.e4 b4 10.Na4 c5 11.e5 Nd5 12.Nxc5 Nxc5 13.dxc5&#xA;  Bxc5 14.Bb5+ Ke7 15.O-O Qb6 16.Bd3 h6 17.Qe2 Rhd8 18.Bd2 Kf8&#xA;  19.Rac1 Rac8 20.Rc2 a5 21.Rfc1 Kg8 22.h3 Ne7 23.Ne1 Bd4&#xA;  24.Rxc8 Rxc8 25.Rxc8+ Nxc8 26.b3 Ne7 27.Nf3 Bc5 28.Be1 Nf5&#xA;  29.Kf1 Qc6 30.Bb5 Qc7 31.Bd3 Nd4 32.Nxd4 Bxd4 33.f4 Qc1 34.Qd2&#xA;  Qa1 35.Qc2 Bc3 36.Qb1 Ba6 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1485" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2014-06-15T18:18:43.640" LastActivityDate="2014-06-15T18:18:43.640" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5599" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5605" CreationDate="2014-06-15T14:06:41.130" Score="8" ViewCount="4456" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was just wondering, if as Black I normally play the Caro-Kann and the Slav (but I slightly prefer the Caro-Kann), is it a good idea to answer 1. d4 with 1... c6!?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I looked in an opening database, but it looks like 1... c6 is extremely rare and is only played 0.3% of the time.&#xA;What's wrong with it? Doesn't it just transpose into either a Slav or a Caro-Kann?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does it have a psychological effect on weak opponents? Maybe they will be a little surprised, and thus they will take slightly more time to make their second move, and so it would be an effective subterfuge especially in blitz.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3237" LastActivityDate="2015-09-20T07:56:52.687" Title="If I like both the Caro-Kann and the Slav, is it a good idea to answer 1. d4 with 1... c6?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;blitz&gt;&lt;1.d4&gt;&lt;caro-kann&gt;&lt;slav-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5600" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5599" CreationDate="2014-06-15T15:20:04.760" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;You are absolutely right to think that it is a good idea to answer &lt;strong&gt;1.d4&lt;/strong&gt; with &lt;strong&gt;1...c6&lt;/strong&gt;, especially if you like the Caro-Kann more than the Slav. Do not let the low percentage for the move bother you. I also checked in chessbase's Big Database and found that it is played about 4.5% of the time. However, that is not because the move is weak, but because the overwhelming majority of the players prefer to play &lt;strong&gt;1...Nf6&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;strong&gt;1...d5&lt;/strong&gt;, because not everyone wants to play the Caro Kann. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1...c6&lt;/strong&gt; may have a psychological effect on weak opponents and if they hesitate to immediately play &lt;strong&gt;2. e4&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;strong&gt;2. c4&lt;/strong&gt;, then you know that you caught them off guard for a moment. Gary Kasparov himself played &lt;strong&gt;1...c6&lt;/strong&gt; in a blitz game. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1173479&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Hristos Banikas vs Garry Kasparov 0-1, 2001&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2429" LastActivityDate="2014-06-15T15:20:04.760" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5601" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-06-15T16:06:39.833" Score="1" ViewCount="246" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's been talk about this app's release but I don't seem to be able to track it down and download it.  I'd love to have Xboard native app for my Mac.  Can anyone help?  Any help appreciated greatly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3284" LastActivityDate="2015-01-09T05:12:18.660" Title="does anyone use OSX Xboard app in Mavericks?" Tags="&lt;software&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5603" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5601" CreationDate="2014-06-16T12:08:51.993" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;XBoard is not available for Mac natively.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;There is no version of XBoard or WinBoard that runs with the native (non-X11) Mac graphical interface, and none that runs on MacOS 9 or earlier.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;sup&gt;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.gnu.org/software/xboard/FAQ.html#tag-B.4&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.gnu.org/software/xboard/FAQ.html#tag-B.4&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can run XBoard using Wine or similar software, though this is not native.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1456" LastActivityDate="2014-06-16T12:08:51.993" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5604" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5599" CreationDate="2014-06-16T18:37:47.507" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;C6 is a good move to &quot;throw people off.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes, you will get e4 in return and go into your Caro-Kann.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most of the time, the reply will be c4. But even the Slav has some advantages. Specifically, there may later be a chance to play d5xc4, queens gambit &lt;em&gt;accepted,&lt;/em&gt; with some chance of holding the pawn. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2014-06-16T18:37:47.507" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5605" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5599" CreationDate="2014-06-16T19:32:55.800" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think it's a good idea. Firstly, no 1.d4 player will go for 2.e4, unless they are also 1.e4 players and really, really good at playing against the Caro-Kann. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More importantly, you may like to play the Slav against d4+c4, and the Caro against d4+e4, but so far white has only played 1.d4. You lose options in case white doesn't follow up with a quick c4 or e4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mostly that's lines like the London (say 2.Nf3 and 3.Bf4) or the Colle (with Nf3, e3, Bd3, possibly b3 and Bb2, etc). Against both of those, black's best chance to get an active game are with a quick ...c5, but if you do that you've already given up a tempo.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So there is a downside, and zero upside.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2014-06-16T19:32:55.800" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5606" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5608" CreationDate="2014-06-17T14:53:19.880" Score="3" ViewCount="2871" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here are Chessbase's statistics after 1. d4 d5 2. c4 e6 :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Nc3 - N=116,000 - W=58.2% - Av=2152 - Perf=2176&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Nf3 - N=54,000 - W=60.3% - Av=2239 - Perf=2264&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;N = The number of games played&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;W = White's score in %&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Av = The average rating of players playing White&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Perf = The average performance rating of players playing White&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So clearly 3. Nc3 is two times more popular than 3. Nf3. But 3. Nf3 has a better score (though if we calculate Perf minus Av we find +24 for 3. Nc3 and +25 for 3. Nf3, which is pretty close).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are four things you should know:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Firstly, I am an extremely positional player, I don't like sharp and crazy games full of tactics. I would prefer the move which in average leads to the most solid, positional, slow, closed, strategic and quiet positions. I don't know which move that would be.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Secondly, as White, I always develop my King's Knight to f3, not to e2. This is a plus for 3. Nf3, since if I'm going to develop it there anyway I might as well do it right away on the third move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thirdly, I like playing (as White) the Exchange Variation (of the Queen's Gambit Declined) very much. Not with Ne2, f3, e4. I play it with Nf3 and a minority attack on the Queenside. This is a plus for 3. Nc3, since it's impossible to get a good position in the Exchange Variation if you begin with 3. Nf3 which loses a tempo.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And lastly, against the Slav, after 1. d4 d5 2. c4 c6, I prefer to play 3. Nf3 over 3. Nc3, because I heard that 3. Nf3 was much more solid and quiet, and that 3. Nc3 can lead to very sharp positions. For example: 3... e5!? looks sharp and crazy, it's possible after 3. Nc3 but not after 3. Nf3. This is maybe a plus for 3. Nf3, since if I already play 3. Nf3 against 2... c6 maybe this means I should also play it against 2... e6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3237" LastActivityDate="2017-06-30T09:21:39.227" Title="In the Queen's Gambit Declined, after 1. d4 d5 2. c4 e6, what is the difference between playing 3. Nc3 and 3. Nf3?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;&lt;queens-gambit&gt;&lt;1.d4&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5607" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5606" CreationDate="2014-06-17T15:32:03.480" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm going to address your issues in the order that I think are most relevant to your opening choice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Thirdly, I like playing (as White) the Exchange Variation (of the Queen's Gambit Declined) very much. Not with Ne2, f3, e4. I play it with Nf3 and a minority attack on the Queenside. This is a plus for 3. Nc3, since it's impossible to get a good position in the Exchange Variation if you begin with 3. Nf3 which loses a tempo.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This points 3. Nc3. If you like playing a specific variation, you should choose the move order which allows you to go into it. I'm not entirely sure that 3. Nf3 loses a full tempo, but if you prefer the Exchange after Nc3 to after Nf3 you should go with it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Firstly, I am an extremely positional player, I don't like sharp and crazy games full of tactics. I would prefer the move which in average leads to the most solid, positional, slow, closed, strategic and quiet positions. I don't know which move that would be.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After specific openings which you like, your style is the second most important consideration. Fortunately, here both choices lead into your style.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Secondly, as White, I always develop my King's Knight to f3, not to e2. This is a plus for 3. Nf3, since if I'm going to develop it there anyway I might as well do it right away on the third move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This doesn't really matter. Counterpoint: do you ever put the queen's knight anywhere other than c3? You know where it wants to go as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;And lastly, against the Slav, after 1. d4 d5 2. c4 c6, I prefer to play 3. Nf3 over 3. Nc3, because I heard that 3. Nf3 was much more solid and quiet, and that 3. Nc3 can lead to very sharp positions. For example: 3... e5!? looks sharp and crazy, it's possible after 3. Nc3 but not after 3. Nf3. This is maybe a plus for 3. Nf3, since if I already play 3. Nf3 against 2... c6 maybe this means I should also play it against 2... e6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is irrelevant except for some minor possible cross-knowledge after transpositions (3... e6 in the 2... c6 line and 3... c6 in the 2... e6 line). The Slav and QGD structures are very different and homogenizing which knight you move first is not something that should take a priority.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think all this points to 3. Nc3 so that you can go into the Exchange with the variations that you prefer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3270" LastEditorUserId="3270" LastEditDate="2016-07-12T21:18:23.343" LastActivityDate="2016-07-12T21:18:23.343" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5608" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5606" CreationDate="2014-06-17T16:31:13.330" Score="4" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In the Queen's Gambit Declined, after 1. d4 d5 2. c4 e6, what is the difference between playing 3. Nc3 and 3. Nf3?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With the &lt;code&gt;3.Nf3&lt;/code&gt; move order your opponent can obtain a favorable position, almost entirely destroying your advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is a small example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Black dodges the Exchange variation&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.Nc3 Be7 5.cxd5 ( 5.Bg5 O-O 6.cxd5 Nxd5! ) 5...exd5 6.Bg5 c6 7.Qc2 ( 7.e3 Bf5! ) 7...g6! 8.e4!? ( 8.e3 Bf5! ) 8...dxe4 ( 8...Nxe4? 10.Bxe7! ) 9.Bxf6 Bxf6 10.Qxe4 Kf8!? 11.Bc4 Kg7 12.O-O Re8 13.Qf4 Be6 14.Bxe6 Rxe6 15.Rfe1 Qd6! 16.Qxd6 Rxd6 17.Re8 Rd8 18.Rxd8 Bxd8 19.Re1 Nd7=&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With the &lt;code&gt;3.Nc3&lt;/code&gt; move order, you are on the correct path towards the Exchange variation, &lt;strong&gt;but Black has a choice to sharpen the game.&lt;/strong&gt; He could play &lt;code&gt;3...c6&lt;/code&gt; offering you the &lt;em&gt;Marshall attack&lt;/em&gt;, and even if you decline the offer and try to steer into the Exchange line, he could play &lt;code&gt;...dxc4&lt;/code&gt; ( immediately or in the next move ) sharpening the game. Do not forget that Black may decide to play &lt;code&gt;...Bb4&lt;/code&gt; entering the &lt;em&gt;Nimzo-Indian defense&lt;/em&gt; which leads to open, dynamic play in most cases.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Be aware that you can not dodge sharp battles with the &lt;code&gt;Nc3&lt;/code&gt; move order, but it is the only correct path to a solid Exchange variation for White.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Firstly, I am an extremely positional player, I don't like sharp and crazy games full of tactics. I would prefer the move which in average leads to the most solid, positional, slow, closed, strategic and quiet positions. I don't know which move that would be.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can't achieve what you ask for 100%, since &lt;strong&gt;Black has a say too.&lt;/strong&gt; The best you can achieve is &quot;healthy compromise&quot; -&gt; you can get a positional battle &lt;strong&gt;without crazy tactical sparks&lt;/strong&gt;, but the game will &lt;strong&gt;still be dynamic and sharp&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Secondly, as White, I always develop my King's Knight to f3, not to e2. This is a plus for 3. Nf3, since if I'm going to develop it there anyway I might as well do it right away on the third move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With the &lt;code&gt;3.Nc3&lt;/code&gt; move order you can just play &lt;code&gt;Nf3&lt;/code&gt; anytime you want. The point is that you have a choice, that is all...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Thirdly, I like playing (as White) the Exchange Variation (of the Queen's Gambit Declined) very much. Not with Ne2, f3, e4. I play it with Nf3 and a minority attack on the Queenside. This is a plus for 3. Nc3, since it's impossible to get a good position in the Exchange Variation if you begin with 3. Nf3 which loses a tempo.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Again, the only correct path towards the &lt;strong&gt;solid&lt;/strong&gt; Exchange variation is with &lt;code&gt;3.Nc3&lt;/code&gt; move order. You can choose between &lt;code&gt;Ne2&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;Nf3&lt;/code&gt;, it is a matter of taste, but know that &lt;code&gt;Ne2&lt;/code&gt; is a &lt;strong&gt;critical line for Black&lt;/strong&gt; in the Exchange variation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;And lastly, against the Slav, after 1. d4 d5 2. c4 c6, I prefer to play 3. Nf3 over 3. Nc3, because I heard that 3. Nf3 was much more solid and quiet, and that 3. Nc3 can lead to very sharp positions. For example: 3... e5!? looks sharp and crazy, it's possible after 3. Nc3 but not after 3. Nf3. This is maybe a plus for 3. Nf3, since if I already play 3. Nf3 against 2... c6 maybe this means I should also play it against 2... e6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Against the Slav move order, you have time before playing &lt;code&gt;3.Nc3&lt;/code&gt; as he can't respond with a fast &lt;code&gt;...Bf5&lt;/code&gt; &lt;strong&gt;so I would make an exception there and play &lt;code&gt;3.Nf3&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; to rule out any sharp play. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Still, &lt;strong&gt;I would go for other quiet lines against the Slav&lt;/strong&gt;, instead of trying to enter the Exchange variation of the QGD. You should consult opening manual to see if there is a &lt;strong&gt;safe transposition&lt;/strong&gt;, otherwise you might get tricked into an inferior position. This should not be a problem as far as I remember, since there are lots of quiet lines in the Slav for White that suit your style.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;SUMMARY:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Against QGD play &lt;code&gt;Nc3&lt;/code&gt; and enter your favorite line, but against the Slav stop early sharp lines with &lt;code&gt;Nf3&lt;/code&gt;, and do not attempt to transpose into the Exchange variation of the QGD. Instead, head for the lines with &lt;code&gt;Qc2&lt;/code&gt; or similar, these will suit your style.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you have further questions leave a comment. Good luck and best regards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastEditorUserId="11202" LastEditDate="2017-06-30T09:21:39.227" LastActivityDate="2017-06-30T09:21:39.227" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5609" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5610" CreationDate="2014-06-17T18:11:20.333" Score="1" ViewCount="226" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there some easy way to check whether the black king is on e8 or the white king is on e1, when using fen?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here the black and white king are on d1/8 &lt;code&gt;r2k3r/3q4/8/8/8/8/8/R1QK2RR&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here both are on the right field &lt;code&gt;r3k2r/3q4/8/8/8/8/8/R1Q1K1RR&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The problem is that there is really no regularity, to check by indexing whether the King is on e1/e8.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The fen above, could also be &lt;code&gt;rb2k2r/3q4/8/8/8/8/8/R1Q1K1RR&lt;/code&gt; and would still be valid.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Checking for the rocks are pretty easy, since they have to be at the beginning or the end of the fen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1506" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2014-06-21T04:46:48.520" Title="Fen - Check if King is on e1/e8" Tags="&lt;castling&gt;&lt;fen&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5610" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5609" CreationDate="2014-06-17T18:49:36.673" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Thanks to Henry for the tip. Here is my solution.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;var kingOnRightField = function (groundRow, king) {&#xA;    var index = 0;&#xA;&#xA;    for (var i = 0; i &amp;lt; groundRow.length; i++) {&#xA;        var number = parseInt(groundRow[i]);&#xA;        index += isNaN(number) ? 1 : number;&#xA;&#xA;        if (index == 5 &amp;amp;&amp;amp; groundRow[i] == king) return true;&#xA;    }&#xA;&#xA;    return false;&#xA;};&#xA;&#xA;var fen = &quot;r3k2r/3q4/8/8/8/8/8/R1Q1K1RR&quot;;&#xA;&#xA;var blackGroundRow = fen.split(&quot;/&quot;)[0];&#xA;var whiteGroundRow = fen.split(&quot;/&quot;)[7];&#xA;&#xA;var blackKingOnRightField = kingOnRightField(blackGroundRow, 'k');&#xA;var whiteKingOnRightField = kingOnRightField(whiteGroundRow, 'K');&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1506" LastEditorUserId="1506" LastEditDate="2014-06-18T06:23:51.133" LastActivityDate="2014-06-18T06:23:51.133" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5611" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-06-17T19:16:55.193" Score="11" ViewCount="968" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess (often being classified as a sport) stands almost alone among sports in that its results are of a strictly ternary nature that is not quantified any further: The only possible outcomes are a win, a draw or a loss.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While the same is of course true for most team or combat sports, virtually all of them go a lot further by basing the result on some sort of &lt;strong&gt;point score&lt;/strong&gt;, which says a lot more about the match than merely who won: A &lt;code&gt;6-0&lt;/code&gt; win in association football is not the same as a &lt;code&gt;2-1&lt;/code&gt; (the first being a &quot;crush&quot; and the second being a rather narrow win), and a &lt;code&gt;3-3&lt;/code&gt; draw is not the same as a &lt;code&gt;0-0&lt;/code&gt; one (the first one indicating a wild game, the second a tenacious one). Further in-game metrics such as &quot;ball control&quot; and &quot;shots on goal&quot; are often employed to paint a high-level picture for spectators.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Given that literally hundreds, if not thousands, of variants to chess &lt;em&gt;rules&lt;/em&gt; exist, I should be surprised if no one has ever proposed an improvement to how chess is &lt;em&gt;scored&lt;/em&gt;, but alas, I have not found any material on that subject. I'm looking for a new angle to see top-level matches from, where, when analyzing games, one often cannot help but feel that some are won by a larger margin than others, and similar insights.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Do any alternatives to ternary (win, draw, loss) chess scoring exist?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user3297" LastActivityDate="2020-02-09T14:52:27.910" Title="What chess *scoring* alternatives exist?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;history&gt;&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;winning&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5612" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5611" CreationDate="2014-06-17T20:04:24.163" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the only alternative would be in match play or comparing a player's score across multiple games against another player or players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, in a 12 game match between two players:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(+3 =8 -1) would be worse than (+5 =6 -1)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;even though the first player won both matches.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Scoring by material count or number of moves played would not be beneficial. If the number of moves mattered, with shorter games being considered crushing defeats, players would just refuse to resign and drag the game out. On the other hand, I can lose in two moves without losing any pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only thing that seems to make sense is to compare score across multiple games against an opponent or field of opponents. You may have a better comparison considering a GM's total score in a tournament with many rounds. In a 9 round tournament, a 9.0 score would be crushing the competition. Winning the tournament with 6.5 would be less of an accomplishment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3118" LastActivityDate="2014-06-17T20:04:24.163" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5613" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-06-17T21:44:15.340" Score="1" ViewCount="36" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have a quite simple question: I was watching the Big Bang theory and I was wondering if 3d chess was possible? And how us it similar and different to regular chess &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3299" LastActivityDate="2014-06-17T21:44:15.340" Title="Playing 3d chess" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2014-06-18T01:45:11.200" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5614" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5685" CreationDate="2014-06-18T04:34:24.203" Score="9" ViewCount="4722" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's a little bit confusing for me to make good decisions when I have opportunity to castle on both sides.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can somebody explain &lt;strong&gt;what are the factors should be considered&lt;/strong&gt; if we have opportunity to castle on both sides?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3131" LastEditorUserId="11202" LastEditDate="2017-06-30T09:10:32.780" LastActivityDate="2017-06-30T09:10:32.780" Title="Which side should I castle if I have opportunity to castle on both sides?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;&lt;castling&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5615" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5617" CreationDate="2014-06-18T09:34:42.410" Score="6" ViewCount="6944" Body="&lt;p&gt;I thought that the boards can register the moves electronically. What is the point of writing them down?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3305" LastActivityDate="2014-12-09T09:27:51.427" Title="Why do Super GMs still have to write down their moves at tournaments?" Tags="&lt;notation&gt;&lt;super-grandmaster&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5616" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5614" CreationDate="2014-06-18T10:00:19.817" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Castling serves 2 main purposes -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Move the king to a safer place by taking it away from the center&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;bring the rook to a more active position.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Apart from this, one should also take note of -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;how compromised are your pawn structures&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;developed the opponent's pieces are (queen side/ king side) and also &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;if the opponent has already castled then what side did they castle.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a much more thorough list of suggestions can be read at - &lt;a href=&quot;http://chess.about.com/od/improveyourchess/qt/When-And-Where-To-Castle.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://chess.about.com/od/improveyourchess/qt/When-And-Where-To-Castle.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="118" LastActivityDate="2014-06-18T10:00:19.817" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5617" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5615" CreationDate="2014-06-18T10:57:48.890" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can think of several reasons:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The players will want to know how many moves have been played in the game (as you often get extra time after moves 40 and 60), how many moves have been played before the last pawn move or capture etc. Currently the players may not consult any other material than the score sheets during a game, but even if the rule was changed, the score sheet is probably the easiest way to access this information. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The electronic boards can be unreliable sometimes. Also, although this probably never happens in Super GM level, problems may occur with illegal moves etc. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;There is no pressure to change the rules, or the trouble of changing the rules weighs more than the potential gain. Some players like the old-fashioned way of writing the moves down. Comparing with reason 2, somebody should decide when the electronic boards are good enough to be trusted, and drawing the line is not an easy job.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1761" LastActivityDate="2014-06-18T10:57:48.890" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5618" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5614" CreationDate="2014-06-18T17:24:21.617" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Briefly, the main purpose of castling is to &lt;strong&gt;avoid&lt;/strong&gt; attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So you should castle on the side where your opponent has fewest chances of attack (all other things being equal). In a few cases, that may even mean leaving the king in the center.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some players adopt a strategy of letting their opponents start an attack on one side, &quot;waste&quot; moves there, and then castling on the &lt;strong&gt;other&lt;/strong&gt; side.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2014-06-18T17:24:21.617" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5620" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5625" CreationDate="2014-06-18T19:58:48.967" Score="3" ViewCount="261" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am working hard on improving certain line, and no matter how much I try I get no headway. I am forced to delve into risky lines, so I am asking for help to determine if Black can equalize in the following position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;White to move&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;rn2kbnr/ppp1pppp/8/8/1q1P4/2N5/P1P1NPPP/R1BQK2R w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-29T18:20:23.720" LastActivityDate="2020-08-30T03:40:39.877" Title="Can Black equalize?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;scandinavian-defense&gt;&lt;novelties&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5621" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5878" CreationDate="2014-06-18T22:09:33.297" Score="5" ViewCount="627" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[StartPly &quot;8&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 d5 2.c4 dxc4 3.e3 b5 4.a4 Ba6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White to move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How to capitalize on this variation of Queen's Gambit Accepted for white? I've never seen this counter before.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Couldn't get pawn back and couldn't develop properly due to cramped queen-side.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2873" LastEditorUserId="1201" LastEditDate="2014-06-18T22:17:39.410" LastActivityDate="2014-09-28T19:36:02.107" Title="Queen's Gambit Accepted, but Couldn't Capitalize" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;queens-gambit&gt;&lt;queens-gambit-accepted&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5622" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5620" CreationDate="2014-06-18T22:49:43.047" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here's the main-line so far.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;White to move&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;rn2kbnr/ppp1pppp/8/8/1q1P4/2N5/P1P1NPPP/R1BQK2R w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Qd3 Qd6 2.Rb1 b6 3.Bf4 Qd7 4.Qf3 c6 5.d5 Nf6 6.Bxb8 Rxb8 7.dxc6 Qg4 8.c7 Rc8 9.Qb7 e5 10.Nb5 Bb4+ 11.c3 Bc5 12.Nxa7 O-O 13.Nxc8 Qxc8 14.Qxc8 Rxc8 15.Rd1 Rxc7 16.Rd8+ Bf8 17.Kd2 Ra7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A wild game with the position being rated 1.36.   While I think this is harder for Black to defend than for White to win, there are chances, I think.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's a line for ALNS's &lt;code&gt;Rb1&lt;/code&gt; idea.  White ends up being +.68, down from 1.36.  It's still a wild game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;White to move&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;rn2kbnr/ppp1pppp/8/8/1q1P4/2N5/P1P1NPPP/R1BQK2R w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Rb1 Qc4 2.Rxb7 Qc6 3.Rb5 Qxg2 4.Rg1 Qc6 5.Bf4 Nf6 6.Rc5 Qb6 7.Bxc7 Qb7 8.Be5 Nc6 9.Rb5 Qc8 10.Bxf6 gxf6 11.Nd5 Qd8 12.c4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2014-06-19T01:58:29.403" LastActivityDate="2014-06-19T01:58:29.403" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5623" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5614" CreationDate="2014-06-18T23:02:26.533" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;A simple rule of thumb is that it's generally better to castle to the side of the board that has fewer enemy pieces as it will generally be safer long-term. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3307" LastActivityDate="2014-06-18T23:02:26.533" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5624" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5199" CreationDate="2014-06-18T23:05:24.363" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;To paraphrase G. H. Hardy, while chess problems can be beautiful, they are trivial. The best and most difficult mathematics is &quot;significant&quot; mathematics, i.e. mathematics that helps you solve other problems and impacts other fields of math. So being good at chess probably won't help you much with math. Also, at least according to Hardy, chess is a primarily psychological game, as opposed to math which is purely logical (paraphrased from his &lt;em&gt;Mathematician's Apology&lt;/em&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3307" LastActivityDate="2014-06-18T23:05:24.363" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5625" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5620" CreationDate="2014-06-19T00:28:07.060" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;First of all, let's see how this position is arrived at. This itself will help us evaluate the position and tell us whether Black can equalize, without even performing any detailed analysis. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;Queen moves around, wasting time&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;      1. e4 d5 2. exd5 Qxd5 3. Nc3 Qe5+ 4. Be2 Bg4 5. d4 Bxe2 6. Ngxe2 Qa5 7. b4 Qxb4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If we see Black's play, Black played a very peculiar &lt;strong&gt;3...Qe5+&lt;/strong&gt;, forcing White to develop a piece (&lt;strong&gt;Be2&lt;/strong&gt;). Then Black attacked that piece with &lt;strong&gt;4...Bg4&lt;/strong&gt;. White continued development with &lt;strong&gt;5. d4&lt;/strong&gt;, chasing away the queen, gaining a tempo. Black was now forced to exchange the Bishop with &lt;strong&gt;5...Bxe2&lt;/strong&gt;, but White used that to his advantage by bringing his &lt;strong&gt;g1&lt;/strong&gt; knight into the game with &lt;strong&gt;Ngxe2&lt;/strong&gt;. Now, &lt;strong&gt;f3&lt;/strong&gt; would be the best square for this knight, so Black gained something from this exchange. However, Black is tremendously lagging in development. Two of White's pieces are already developed, White has a strong pawn center, the Black queen has to move. After &lt;strong&gt;6... Qa5&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;strong&gt;7. b4!&lt;/strong&gt; White opens another line for his rook to come into the game at the cost of a pawn. Analysis will show that Black cannot hold on to the material advantage, but even without analysis we can simply assess this position as good for White because the Black queen's position is quite bad, the &lt;strong&gt;b7&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;c7&lt;/strong&gt; squares are weak and White's piece activity is tremendous. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, here's some complementary analysis with Houdini 1.5 and Stockfish 4.2 which proves the above point. After &lt;strong&gt;7...Qxb4&lt;/strong&gt;, I initially thought of &lt;strong&gt;8. Rb1&lt;/strong&gt;, but it seems that after &lt;strong&gt;8...Qc4!&lt;/strong&gt; the Black queen finds a safe refuge. Hence the computer move &lt;strong&gt;8. Qd3!&lt;/strong&gt;, developing the queen and preventing &lt;strong&gt;Qc4&lt;/strong&gt; is quite strong. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;   [Event &quot;White's lead in development is too much for Black&quot;]&#xA;   [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;   1. e4 d5 2.exd5 Qxd5 3. Nc3 Qe5+ 4. Be2 Bg4 5. d4 Bxe2 6. Ngxe2 Qa5 7. b4 Qxb4 &#xA;   8.  Qd3 Qd6 9. Rb1 b6 10. Bf4 Qd7 11. Qf3 c6 (11...  Qc6 12. Nb5!) &#xA;   (11... Nc6 12. d5 Na5 13. Nb5 Rc8 14. Nxa7 Rd8 15. Nb5 Rc8 16. O-O Nf6 &#xA;    17. Rfd1 Nc4 18. Nec3 Nd6 19. Re1! Nc4 20. Rb4 Nd6 21. Bxd6 cxd6 22. Ra4 h5 &#xA;    23. Ra7 Qd8 24. Qg3 h4 25. Nxd6+ Qxd6 26. Qxd6) 12. d5 Nf6 &#xA;   (12... cxd5 13. Nxd5 Na6 14. Nxb6) 13. Bxb8 Rxb8 14. dxc6 Qg4 15. c7 Rc8 &#xA;   16. Qb7 e5 17. h3 Qe6 18. Nb5 Bc5 19. Nxa7 O-O 20. Nxc8 Qxc8 21. Qc6 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2429" LastEditorUserId="2429" LastEditDate="2014-06-19T01:20:22.123" LastActivityDate="2014-06-19T01:20:22.123" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5626" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5629" CreationDate="2014-06-19T00:32:17.497" Score="3" ViewCount="496" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was playing this game just a few minutes before posting this, and tried to save the game by entering the following endgame:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Black to move&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;8/6k1/1p2Kn1p/7P/1P6/5B2/8/8 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I intended to sacrifice the knight for the &lt;code&gt;b-pawn&lt;/code&gt; and then get theoretical draw by entering the following endgame :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Theoretical draw&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;8/6k1/4K3/7P/8/5B2/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the game, I played &lt;code&gt;1...Ne8&lt;/code&gt; with the intention of posting it on &lt;code&gt;d6&lt;/code&gt;. Then I could defend it with my king ( on the dark squares of course ). White can break this blockade with &lt;em&gt;zugzwang&lt;/em&gt; ( he can make proper bishop moves to achieve this ), but I believe that Black has sufficient squares at his disposal to defend.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a way for White to breach my defense that I have missed? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastActivityDate="2014-06-19T06:44:37.353" Title="Can Black draw this endgame?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;draw&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5627" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5628" CreationDate="2014-06-19T01:01:11.410" Score="4" ViewCount="846" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;White to move&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 d5 2.c4 dxc4 3.e3 e5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've tried just taking the pawn at c4, but he takes my pawn at d4 and after exchanging some pieces I end with a broken pawn structure while we still have equal pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've came across this move many times and is dumb-struck at finding a solution.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2873" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2014-06-23T09:11:36.523" LastActivityDate="2019-10-02T20:16:48.490" Title="Best Continuation for this Counter to Queen's Gambit Accepted" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;queens-gambit&gt;&lt;queens-gambit-accepted&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5628" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5627" CreationDate="2014-06-19T02:03:41.003" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;At that point Black is simply equal and there is nothing you can do to change it ( you would do better to play &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; instead &lt;code&gt;e3&lt;/code&gt; but &lt;code&gt;...e5&lt;/code&gt; still solves all of Black's problems ). If you wish to play &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; instead of &lt;code&gt;e3&lt;/code&gt; then you need the book &lt;em&gt;Lars Schandorff-Playing the Queen's Gambit ( 2012!)&lt;/em&gt; and be sure to get the  &lt;strong&gt;second edition&lt;/strong&gt; ( first was in 2009 ). He covers this line quite well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your best bet is to try and steer the game into main lines with isolated queen pawn. There you will find subtle move orders that may offer you a small advantage. I can not remember the details, so I can not show you the lines, but the position you aim for is something like this :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Typical position for QGA&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;r1bq1rk1/pp2bppp/2n1pn2/8/2BP4/2N2N2/PP2QPPP/R1BR2K1 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You will need good coverage of this opening as theory changes rapidly. I can recommend the following books:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To learn how to play with the isolated queen's pawn you can get &lt;em&gt;Andrew Soltis-Pawn Structure Chess ( 1995 )&lt;/em&gt; ( perhaps my answer to &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/5023/strategy-in-isolated-queen-pawn-positions/5024#5024&quot;&gt;this question&lt;/a&gt; can help you too; if you need further help feel free to ask by leaving a comment ) and for Queen's Gambit accepted I will recommend the one written by &lt;em&gt;Semkov &amp;amp; Sakaev&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;J.Rizzitano-How to beat d4&lt;/em&gt;. You can also get &lt;em&gt;Starting out-Queen's Gambit Accepted ( 2006 )&lt;/em&gt; if you need to grasp the basics.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;SUMMARY:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Play &lt;code&gt;Bxc4&lt;/code&gt;, then &lt;code&gt;Nf3&lt;/code&gt; and try to get into favorable line of the QGA. If you fail to do so, do not panic! You are both fine, better player wins here! Learn how to play these positions and you will have equal chances to win the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Good luck and best regards!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-10-02T20:16:48.490" LastActivityDate="2019-10-02T20:16:48.490" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="5629" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5626" CreationDate="2014-06-19T06:44:37.353" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;To me, it looks like your plan is to move your king forward to d6. After he takes your pawn, you play Kd6 keeping opposition and blocking the pawn advancement with the Knight on c7. Looks dead drawn after that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Fen &quot;8/6k1/1p2Kn1p/7P/1P6/5B2/8/8 b KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Ne8 2. Kd7 Kf7 3. Kc6 Ke6 4. Kxb6 Kd6 5. Ka5 Nc7&#xA;&#xA;[Fen &quot;8/2n5/3k3p/K6P/1P6/5B2/8/8 w - - 3 6&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3118" LastActivityDate="2014-06-19T06:44:37.353" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5630" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5637" CreationDate="2014-06-19T08:26:01.610" Score="10" ViewCount="653" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is a chess &amp;quot;rebus&amp;quot; problem. In this position, white and black circles correspond to White and Black pieces respectively. Each letter corresponds to exactly one piece type (king, queen, rook, knight, bishop or pawn). The task is to find letter-piece correspondence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ttPlz.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know that the answer is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt; A = rook; B = king; C = bishop; D = queen; E = knight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can you a list of moves which leads to such a position?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1894" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-09-14T21:36:18.623" LastActivityDate="2020-09-14T21:46:35.433" Title="A problem rebus-reproduce the game" Tags="&lt;problems&gt;&lt;retrograde-analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="5632" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5642" CreationDate="2014-06-19T18:47:16.153" Score="4" ViewCount="2419" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm a 1750 Elo player. I have a very positional, quiet and strategic style of play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As White I play 1. d4, but I plan to also learn 1. Nf3 soon. As Black against 1. e4 I play the Caro-Kann.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would like an opening for Black against 1. d4 which meets these two conditions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It needs to be as much similar to the Caro-Kann as possible (since I already play the Caro-Kann against 1. e4).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;On average it must tend to lead to positions which are as much solid, positional, slow, closed, strategic and quiet as possible (I want nothing sharp and tactical).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3237" LastActivityDate="2019-10-23T07:56:49.227" Title="As Black, against 1. d4, what opening would you recommend me which is solid, positional, slow, strategic, quiet, closed, and similar to the Caro-Kann?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;&lt;1.d4&gt;&lt;caro-kann&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5635" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-06-19T22:21:52.947" Score="3" ViewCount="405" Body="&lt;p&gt;Mathematicians have categorized chess as a trans-computational problem.  A transcomputational problem is one in which a computer would need to exceed the size of the earth in order to have the processing power to complete the theoretical problem through brute force.  Also, to solve the game of chess means that everything would have to be decided on the first move and any subsequent deviation from the 'correct line' would result in a guaranteed loss.  It is categorically different than having an engine who can win every game. Other games have been 'solved' like checkers, where the national championship has seen the exact line of play for numerous years in a row.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also worth noting, the expression 'transcomputational' comes from Bremermann's limit - &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bremermann%27s_limit&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bremermann%27s_limit&lt;/a&gt; - read up if you are unfamiliar.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is whether or not this is an accurate diagnosis?  Does the math take into account the growing sophistication of chess engines, or even computers for that matter?  Will we ever have a chess engine that can 'solve' the game of chess without exceeding the size of the earth.  I guess to simplify my question; what is the context of this mathematical limit?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3093" LastActivityDate="2014-06-20T00:03:04.833" Title="Solving the Game of Chess: Trans-Computational in Nature or No?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;engines&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5636" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5635" CreationDate="2014-06-20T00:03:04.833" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Also, to solve the game of chess means that everything would have to&#xA;  be decided on the first move and any subsequent deviation from the&#xA;  'correct line' would result in a guaranteed loss.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then this will never happen, even theoretically. Chess does not have that much instability. In many positions multiple moves are equally good. This is both obvious and has been proven (see tablebases).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Assuming now that you are just talking about &quot;playing theoretically optimally&quot; (if it is possible to win it wins, otherwise if it is possible to draw it draws), then it is certainly possible that a computer merely the size of the earth could play perfect chess, but it is exceedingly unlikely that a computer the size of the earth could &lt;em&gt;prove&lt;/em&gt; that it was playing perfect chess. No one has been able to prove things about the state of a chess position except by, effectively, brute force (except for special cases where the situation is simple enough that you can reason logically about it, such as bishop and wrong rook pawn).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(The context of the mathematical limit is the number of possible chess positions, which has been estimated to be on the order of 10^43.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2014-06-20T00:03:04.833" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5637" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5630" CreationDate="2014-06-20T04:41:19.087" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;Highly non-optimal, but here's one line that reproduces the position. The basic idea is to not capture the existing pieces, but capture pawns. A single pawn capture can free 3 pawns to promote. Here's a sample game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;   [FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;   1.h4 a6 2.h5 g5 3.hxg6 Nf6 4.g7 h5 5.g8=R h4 6.g4 h3 7.g5 h2 8.Nf3 Nd5 9.&#xA;   g6 Nb6 10.g7 Rh4 11.Rg1 h1=R 12.Rh8 Nd5 13.g8=R Rh5 14.R1g5 R1h4 15.Rh6 &#xA;   Nb6 16.Rg8g6 f5 17.e4 fxe4 18.Nd4 e3 19.Bh3 e5 20.Ke2 e4 21.Qh1 Nd5 22.Kf1&#xA;   e2+ 23.Kg2 e1=R 24.f4 e3 25.f5 Bb4 26.f6 e2 27.f7+ Ke7 28.f8=R Rf1 29.Nb3 &#xA;   e1=R 30.Rf4 Re6 31.Rf3 Rf6 32.Rgg3 Re1 33.R6g4 Ree6 34.Nd4 Kf7 35.Ne2 Bf8 &#xA;   36.a4 Bg7 37.a5 b5 38.axb6 Nc6 39.b7 a5 40.b8=R a4 41.Raa3 Ra6 42.Rae3 a3 &#xA;   43.b4 a2 44.b5 a1=R 45.Ra8 R6a5 46.b6 Nce7 47.b7 Nc6 48.b8=R Nb6 49.Kf2 d5&#xA;   50.Bb2 d4 51.c4 dxc3 52.d4 c2 53.d5 Qe7 54.d6 c1=R 55.d7 Nb4 56.d8=R c5 &#xA;   57.Rg2 c4 58.R4g3 c3 59.Na3 c2 60.Nb5 Rd1 61.Ned4 c1=R 62.Nc2 Nd3+ 63.Ke2 &#xA;   Ne1 64.Nc7 Ra6 65.Ne8 Na4 66.Rhg6 Bb7 67.R6g4 Rff5 68.Rb4 Rh7 69.Ree4 &#xA;   Rh4h6 70.Qg1 Rhf6 71.Qd4 Ra3 72.Qc4 Rad3 73.Qa2 Rdd6 74.Qa1 Qc7 75.Rff2 &#xA;   Qc3 76.Ree3 Qa3 77.Rbc8 Qa2 78.Rab8 Qb1 79.Reb3 Rd1d5 80.Ra3 Rb5 81.Qa2 &#xA;   Rdc6 82.Rdd3 Rg6 83.Qa1 Bc3 84.Qa2 Rgf6 85.Qa1 Rfd5 86.Qa2 Red6 87.Qa1 &#xA;   Rff5 88.Re4 Rdf6 89.Rb4 Rcc5 90.Rbb3 Rdd6 91.Qa2 Be4 92.Qa1 Rf4 93.Qa2 Bg6&#xA;   94.Qa1 Rf4f5 95.Qa2 Rcc6 96.Qa1 Nc5 97.Qa2 Nb7 98.Rd8 Rbb6 99.Qa1 Rc7 100.&#xA;   Rde3 Rde6 101.Rd2 Rec6 102.Rbd8 Re7 103.R8d3 Rd7 104.Ref3 Rdd6 105.Nb4 Bd4&#xA;   106.Qa2 Rc1c5 107.Qa1 Rcd5 108.Nc2 Bc3 109.Qa2 Ke7 110.Qa1 Ke6 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2429" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-09-14T21:44:32.817" LastActivityDate="2020-09-14T21:44:32.817" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="5638" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5645" CreationDate="2014-06-20T06:04:47.130" Score="1" ViewCount="535" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm a chess player with ELO 1600. Now I'm trying to learn transpositions in chess. QGA is my favorite opening as white. But most of the time black chooses Queen's Gambit Declined. So now I'm trying to get to get QGA by transposition. Chess is all about positions. But I just want to know:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Are there any transpositions available in between QGA and other openings?&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3131" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2017-06-30T09:08:59.563" LastActivityDate="2017-06-30T09:08:59.563" Title="Is there any transposition available in between QGA and other openings?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;queens-gambit-accepted&gt;&lt;closed-position&gt;&lt;transpositions&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5639" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5640" CreationDate="2014-06-20T13:13:19.527" Score="7" ViewCount="1444" Body="&lt;p&gt;I often play the Sicilian, and out of that, sometimes I end up in situations like the one below, when my dark square bishop is fianchettoed and my opponent is getting ready to get rid of my bishop (after Bh6 the bishop exchange is forced), leaving me with dark square weaknesses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 g6 6. Be3 Bg7 7. f3 O-O 8. Qd2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How do you defend in such situations? Is there a general idea or solution to this problem? Or should I just ignore my weakened dark squares and try for a good bishop vs. bad bishop game?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm more interested in general tactics than specific lines, in other words, ideas that can be applied to other games, not only this one. This situation can occur for both sides in lots of openings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2480" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2014-06-20T14:38:39.993" LastActivityDate="2014-06-28T19:56:13.327" Title="(How) should I avoid bishop exchange in Sicilian (Dragon) style setups?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5640" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5639" CreationDate="2014-06-20T15:10:39.203" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Generally, in such type of structures, Black can avoid an exchange by moving away the rook from &lt;strong&gt;f8&lt;/strong&gt;, so that when White's bishop comes to &lt;strong&gt;h6&lt;/strong&gt;, the Black bishop on &lt;strong&gt;g7&lt;/strong&gt; is not pinned to the rook and can move to &lt;strong&gt;h8&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;5rk1/4ppbp/6p1/8/8/4B3/3Q4/4K3 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1...Re8 (1...e6?! 2. Bh6 Bh8? 3. Bxf8)2.Bh6 Bh8&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, in this specific position, White doesn't have time to play &lt;strong&gt;Bh6&lt;/strong&gt;, because Black's counterplay is too strong after &lt;strong&gt;8...Nc6!&lt;/strong&gt; The only way White can manage the exchange if by playing &lt;strong&gt;9. Nxc6&lt;/strong&gt; and then &lt;strong&gt;10. Bh6&lt;/strong&gt;, but then White doesn't gain much in that line. Black has strong central control and a semi-open &lt;strong&gt;b-file&lt;/strong&gt; for the counter attack. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would suggest that you study the theoretical lines of the dragon variation after &lt;strong&gt;8...Nc6&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  [FEN &quot;rnbq1rk1/pp2ppbp/3p1np1/8/3NP3/2N1BP2/PPPQ2PP/R3KB1R b KQ - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;  1...Nc6 2.Bh6 &#xA;  ( 2.Nxc6 bxc6 3.Bh6 Rb8 )&#xA;  ( 2.O-O-O d5! )&#xA;  2...Bxh6 3.Qxh6 &#xA;  ( 3.Nxc6 Bxd2+ )&#xA;  3...Nxd4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2429" LastEditorUserId="2429" LastEditDate="2014-06-20T15:17:00.917" LastActivityDate="2014-06-20T15:17:00.917" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5641" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5639" CreationDate="2014-06-20T15:13:18.173" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been caught out facing the Dragon by Black players who bring the rook to e8, where attempts to exchange the bishops then fails to 10. ... Nxe4:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 g6 6. Be3 Bg7 7. f3 O-O 8. Qd2 Nc6 9. O-O-O Re8 10. Bh6 Nxe4! 11. fxe4 Bxd4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And Black is up a pawn with the option of retreating the bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2130" LastEditorUserId="2130" LastEditDate="2014-06-20T15:20:23.747" LastActivityDate="2014-06-20T15:20:23.747" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5642" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5632" CreationDate="2014-06-20T15:50:53.607" Score="9" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;It needs to be as much similar to the Caro-Kann as possible (since I already play the Caro-Kann against 1. e4).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Impossible. The problem with this approach is that you have already stopped &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; with &lt;code&gt;...d5&lt;/code&gt; so White simply can not transpose even if he wished to do so. Your best bet is the Slav defense, as it is very similar to Caro-Kann ( same pawn structure for Black, with the &lt;code&gt;Bf5&lt;/code&gt; bishop ), but even then there are ways for White to deviate into sharp and very different lines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;On average it must tend to lead to positions which are as much solid, positional, slow, closed, strategic and quiet as possible (I want nothing sharp and tactical).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The best candidate fitting into this description is &lt;em&gt;Queen's Gambit Declined.&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Only Black can sharpen the game by transposing into &lt;em&gt;Semi-Slav with Botvinnik system&lt;/em&gt; or with some sharp lines in the Slav with &lt;code&gt;...b5&lt;/code&gt;, but if you wish you can always steer the game into solid, positional lines. Then White will have no way to sharpen the game ( neither do you ), and you both will have to battle with dull, positional maneuvers and plans. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Be warned, it is very hard to play these positions as Black and tactical skill here is practically irrelevant! Most of the time you will have a hard time defending, and you will have to learn how to properly engineer a freeing break. That is not an easy task, just so you know ( I am speaking this from experience )! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In order to play this opening well with either color you also must know how to play &lt;em&gt;typical positions&lt;/em&gt; very very well ( not to mention you need strong endgame knowledge! ), but this might suit your style ( based on your description in second criteria ). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;SUMMARY:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess would be too simple if you could play one opening against every opponent's reply. This especially applies for Black! I once too wanted to play the Caro-Kann against everything, but after very thorough study I was forced to realize that it isn't possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for positional opening against &lt;code&gt;1.d4&lt;/code&gt;, your best bet are the dull lines of the Queen's gambit declined. In every other opening White &lt;em&gt;always&lt;/em&gt; have a chance to sharpen the game ( always! ), but if you choose this path be ready for a long defense which will usually give you no more than a draw. Still, you will get the solidity and quietness you seek...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you need further help or clarifications leave a comment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Best regards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastEditorUserId="2042" LastEditDate="2014-06-20T20:14:12.030" LastActivityDate="2014-06-20T20:14:12.030" CommentCount="16" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5643" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5639" CreationDate="2014-06-20T16:50:07.893" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In addition to what Wes said, playing Bh6 isn't even White's main attacking idea in the Dragon and by itself is harmless. I would be happy if my opponent went for Bh6 first. The more dangerous threat is h4-h5, which &lt;strong&gt;sometimes&lt;/strong&gt; is accompanied by Bh6. You should be attacking as quickly as possible on the queenside with b5 and a5, touching the kingside only to stop h4-h5 by playing h7-h5 yourself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3270" LastActivityDate="2014-06-20T16:50:07.893" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5644" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-06-20T16:50:11.793" Score="14" ViewCount="1805" Body="&lt;p&gt;I frequently face situations in the late middle game (perhaps only a one minor piece and a rook or two on each side, no queens) where I can force a position (via exchanges) where both players are materially equal but I have an isolated passed pawn on the 4th or 5th rank. I have heard that isolated pawns are bad (because they cannot be supported by other pawns) but also that passed pawns are good. Are isolated passed pawns generally good or bad? Is it good to create them?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I realize the answer probably depends on the position, so guidelines for determining when such pawns are good or bad would make for a great answer. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3051" LastActivityDate="2019-02-07T23:32:32.743" Title="Are isolated passed pawns good or bad?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;pawns&gt;&lt;pawn-structure&gt;&lt;passed-pawn&gt;&lt;isolated-pawn&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5645" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5638" CreationDate="2014-06-20T17:07:29.990" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;One transposition white can try is from the French Exchange variation (if you know your opponent plays the French).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. exd5 exd5 4. c4 dxc4 (4... Nf6) 5. Bxc4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It transposes to the variation &lt;code&gt;1. d4 d5 2. c4 dxc4 3. e3 e5 4. Bxc4 exd4 5. exd4&lt;/code&gt; from &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/5627/best-continuation-for-this-counter-to-queens-gambit-accepted&quot;&gt;this question&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the French move order, clever black players won't take the pawn on &lt;code&gt;c4&lt;/code&gt; already on move 4, but will wait until white plays &lt;code&gt;Be2&lt;/code&gt;. If white then later regains a pawn with &lt;code&gt;Bxc4&lt;/code&gt;, the bishop will have lost a tempo.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1485" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2014-06-20T17:07:29.990" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5646" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5644" CreationDate="2014-06-20T17:55:53.200" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;One attribute is generally an advantage and the other is a disadvantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Isolated pawns are weaker than connected pawns because they cannot be supported by other pawns.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Passed pawns are an advantage because of the threat to promote.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you combine the two, whether it is an advantage or disadvantage is dependent entirely on the position. You can have a passed pawn on the 7th rank, which is not defendable and is just a target. Or, the passed pawn can be supported by your other pieces and threatens promotion making it an advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Note&lt;/strong&gt;: Connected passers are generally better than isolated passers. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3118" LastEditorUserId="3118" LastEditDate="2014-06-20T18:02:48.237" LastActivityDate="2014-06-20T18:02:48.237" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5647" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5644" CreationDate="2014-06-20T18:45:07.447" Score="7" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I frequently face situations in the late middle game (perhaps only a one minor piece and a rook or two on each side, no queens) where I can force a position (via exchanges) where both players are materially equal but I have an isolated passed pawn on the 4th or 5th rank. I have heard that isolated pawns are bad (because they cannot be supported by other pawns) but also that passed pawns are good. Are isolated passed pawns generally good or bad? Is it good to create them?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you could provide just a little bit more info, I could try to help you with greater confidence. For now, I must make following assumptions before answering your question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The endgame is one with rook + &lt;em&gt;at least one&lt;/em&gt; minor piece;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You have an isolated passed pawn, but your opponent &lt;em&gt;does not&lt;/em&gt;, meaning he has &lt;em&gt;pawn majority on one side&lt;/em&gt; so is able to create a passed pawn;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Your passed pawn has advanced far ahead ( 4th or 5th rank will be far enough for any color );&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In such cases it is important to tell us about following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You must list &lt;em&gt;exact type of minor pieces for both sides&lt;/em&gt; ( bishop vs knight, bishop pair vs knight and bishop... ) since we already know there is a rook on each side;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The &lt;em&gt;exact pawn structure&lt;/em&gt; since the position of the isolated pawn is crucial, as well as the opponent's ability to create a passer of its own;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Only after having this info, will you be able to decide whether the isolated pawn will be strength or weakness.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I realize the answer probably depends on the position, so guidelines for determining when such pawns are good or bad would make for a great answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since your current question does not fulfill all the criteria listed above, I will try to &quot;cover as much ground&quot; as possible, while trying to keep this answer brief.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;OK, now let us begin:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The basic outline is to use the passer to deflect the opponent's pieces so you can make a decisive break on the other side of the board. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The best way for this would be if isolated pawn is far away on the wing, and the worst would be if it is in the center. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Furthermore, you must secure your passer from being blockaded ( this is mandatory! ). Do not be afraid to exchange pieces if the ending is good for you. This is very powerful weapon in such endgames. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Next, &lt;code&gt;R + minor piece(s)&lt;/code&gt; type of endgame is all about minor pieces. Pawns are irrelevant at the moment. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here, you would like to have &lt;code&gt;R + B vs R + N&lt;/code&gt; scenario, since &lt;code&gt;R + B&lt;/code&gt; usually overpowers &lt;code&gt;R + N.&lt;/code&gt; The passer will be only an asset, because it will deflect the opposing pieces and you will be able to use long range of the &lt;code&gt;R + B&lt;/code&gt; to wreak havoc on the other side of the board. Do not forget to not allow opponent to block the isolated pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;N + R vs B + R&lt;/code&gt; will be harder for you, since the bishop is so fast that he can control the passer and aid in creation of its own passed pawn. Here, you should aim for a draw by exchanging the isolated pawn for the opponent's extra pawn ( and still it might get tough for you to hold the endgame! ). The best case scenario would be for both sides to have pawns at only one side of the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;R + B vs R + B&lt;/code&gt; depends on the color of the bishops. With opposite colored bishops remember that the side with the initiative wins. Otherwise everything depends on piece activity and placement of your isolated pawn. I would not push him too far since it will become a weakness most of the time. Prepare for a long defense..&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;2B + R vs 2B + R&lt;/code&gt; is all about piece activity and square control, pawns are irrelevant. The side with the initiative wins. This is entirely position-specific, and if I were you I would probably keep all the pieces on the board while exchanging pawns only if it is forced or can help me get initiative/create a weakness.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;2N + R vs 2N + R&lt;/code&gt; is all about initiative and pawn structure. Every piece position counts, and side with the initiative will usually win. This is so fragile, that you can probably assess the outcome immediately!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;2B + R vs N + B + R&lt;/code&gt; should be heavily in your favor. Keep the pieces on, and use bishops to restrict the knight. Passed pawn is not a problem, since your long ranged pieces will protect it while also attacking the opponent's pawns. Passer will further restrict the opposing units, which will allow bishops to create weaknesses ( never underestimate their speed and ability to swiftly reposition themselves! ). Again, it is very important not to allow your passer to be blockaded. If that happens you always seek counterplay that is based upon breaking on the other side of the board by creating weaknesses there. Please remember this plan, it is crucial.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;N + B + R vs 2B + R&lt;/code&gt;, might not be so bad since neither of opposing pieces is good at blockading. Still, their long range and speed will compensate for that and they will be able to support the creation of their own passer. Again, I would head for a draw here, by exchanging pawns so that they remain only at the one side of the board. Exchanging knight for a bishop is excellent here, but remember one important rule: If by any chance you end up in an ending with &lt;em&gt;opposite colored bishop&lt;/em&gt; and a rook on each side, remember that side with the initiative wins.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;2N + R vs 2B + R&lt;/code&gt; is not good, but if your knights are close to the passer and you can create swift action for promoting the pawn you can win. Otherwise, your opponent will use the bishops to both attack and defend, which will be hard to meet. Again, I would head for a draw by exchanging pawns so they are all at one side of the board and would exchange at least one knight for a bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;2N + R vs 2N + R&lt;/code&gt; is all about piece activity and pawn structure. You should concentrate on the positioning of the knights, and try to use rook to enforce a pawn weakness. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have &quot;ran out of steam&quot; at the end but you get the picture...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Keep the bishops, and exchange knights for his bishops. Post your pieces actively and use the passer to restrict the opposing pieces. Create swift action on the other side of the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Are isolated passed pawns good or bad?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It really depends a lot from the position so if you could edit your post I would be able to provide better help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hopefully this was helpful. If you need further help leave a comment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Good luck and best regards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastEditorUserId="2042" LastEditDate="2014-06-20T20:18:30.760" LastActivityDate="2014-06-20T20:18:30.760" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5649" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5682" CreationDate="2014-06-21T16:17:45.053" Score="3" ViewCount="442" Body="&lt;p&gt;In main lines of queen's gambit accepted, sometimes White has the option of playing dxc5, and entering a certain type of endgames that Black might find unpleasant. Is there any disadvantage to delaying the push of the c pawn, and playing all the other useful moves first - Nf6, e6, a6, b5, Bb7, Nbd7, Be7, 0-0, and only then - c7-c5 ? Are there any top grandmasters who follow this approach?&#xA;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. c4 dxc4 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. e3 e6 5. Bxc4 a6 6. O-O b5 7. Bb3 Bb7 8. Nc3&#xA;Nbd7 9. Qe2 Be7 10. Rd1 O-O 11. a3 c5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="618" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2014-06-21T21:00:03.717" LastActivityDate="2014-06-27T17:30:48.467" Title="What are the disadvantages of delaying c7-c5 in QGA?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;queens-gambit-accepted&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5650" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-06-21T20:46:11.897" Score="-3" ViewCount="344" Body="&lt;p&gt;Which link should I follow to get a license in order to have an Elo rating in the USA?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3316" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2014-06-21T21:56:43.527" LastActivityDate="2014-08-21T05:48:00.410" Title="How to get a license to have an Elo rating in USA" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;elo&gt;&lt;fide&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ClosedDate="2017-05-12T10:17:13.347" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5651" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5199" CreationDate="2014-06-21T23:55:04.843" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Consider this, what if playing tournament chess led to blindfold play?  Then, along these lines, better blind play led one to visualize, even multi-task chess/math problems while doing routine tasks, like while driving for example. One would, at the least have more time to come up with new ideas! Did I mention I can do this?! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2765" LastEditorUserId="2765" LastEditDate="2014-06-23T15:49:21.700" LastActivityDate="2014-06-23T15:49:21.700" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5653" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5650" CreationDate="2014-06-22T05:00:20.660" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;FIDE (the international chess organization) gives Elo ratings, and individual countries recognize them.  There should be no need to have a USA-specific &quot;license&quot;.  If FIDE says you have a given Elo rating, that's your Elo rating, worldwide.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Complicating this a bit is the fact that Elo ratings are actually a ratings methodology created by Professor Arpad Elo, which in theory could be used independently of FIDE, but the historical association is so strong as to be able to consider &quot;Elo rating&quot; and &quot;FIDE rating&quot; as functionally synonymous.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Disclaimer:  I've been out of tournament chess for quite a few years.  Something could have changed in the interim.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3318" LastActivityDate="2014-06-22T05:00:20.660" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5654" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-06-22T07:51:47.130" Score="4" ViewCount="323" Body="&lt;p&gt;I noticed that the nps (nodes per seconds) of different chess engines is very low at the start of the analysis and only after several seconds reaches is peak value. Does anybody have an explanation of this strange phenomenon?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3320" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2014-06-22T08:52:31.823" LastActivityDate="2014-07-24T19:50:52.917" Title="Why is engine's speed slow at the start?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5655" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-06-22T20:00:29.607" Score="9" ViewCount="430" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm looking for a chess position, hopefully not too contrived, in which it's Black's turn, he has several moves, but each one is refuted by a mate by White. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know I could take any mate-in-two problem, make White's first move and I'd be left with what I just described, but there's one more criterion: I'd like White's second (mating) move to be different for each of Black's possible moves. Or as many distinct mating moves as possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Believe it or not, this is for teaching calculus.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3325" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-14T01:12:15.703" LastActivityDate="2021-01-25T06:41:19.780" Title="Position with the most (or many) distinct refutations?" Tags="&lt;problems&gt;&lt;records&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5656" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5658" CreationDate="2014-06-22T21:51:24.727" Score="7" ViewCount="3256" Body="&lt;p&gt;I flicked through some papers that described how one can obtain an ELO estimate based on a game. (Basically we were comparing players' moves to the best moves suggested by a strong chess engine.&#xA;My question is, is there any online/offline resource when I can do this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3326" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2014-06-30T02:51:32.947" LastActivityDate="2020-07-07T14:57:55.143" Title="Is there a software to measure a player's strength based on a game?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;elo&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5657" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5667" CreationDate="2014-06-22T23:39:33.723" Score="11" ViewCount="4883" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a 1750 Elo player with a very positional, quiet and strategic style of play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would like to know which variation I should play when, as White, I face the King's Indian Defence: 1...Nf6 2...g6&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The variation must meet these two conditions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;On average it must tend to lead to positions which are as much solid, positional, slow, closed, quiet and strategic as possible (I want nothing sharp and tactical).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I should be able to play it both by beginning with 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 and by beginning with 1. Nf3 Nf6 2. c4&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Don't hesitate to suggest me more than one variation, so that if I don't like the first variation maybe I shall like the second one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3237" LastActivityDate="2017-06-30T09:21:27.333" Title="For White, which variation of the King's Indian Defence tends to lead to the most solid, positional, slow, strategic, quiet and closed positions?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;&lt;kings-indian&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5658" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5656" CreationDate="2014-06-23T01:29:06.843" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's a matter of how much data there is. When you first get a rating in a tournament, it is a provisional rating until you reach X number of games. In the US I think you need 20 games. The provisional rating fluctuates more because of a single loss or win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I recently obtained a copy of Houdini Pro 4. In the help contents is this: &amp;quot;Unix inventor and computer chess pioneer, Ken Thompson, has developed an algorithm which allows one to create an Elo rating list out of an arbitrary set of games&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is also a step-wise process to generate an Elo list. So, perhaps it can not be done based &amp;quot;on a game&amp;quot;, but maybe not too many more are needed using Ken's algorithm? Not sure, I never tried using that tool.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1967" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-07-07T14:57:55.143" LastActivityDate="2020-07-07T14:57:55.143" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="5659" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2749" CreationDate="2014-06-23T01:42:09.523" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It sounds like you're using the standard Chessbase interface when you mentioned a .ctg file.&#xA;The Chessbase interface is used for many engines, so this title may work: How To Make Fritz Chess Software Play a Specific Chess Opening&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Try this:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesscentral.com/Chess_Opening_Book_a/137.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.chesscentral.com/Chess_Opening_Book_a/137.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1967" LastActivityDate="2014-06-23T01:42:09.523" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5660" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5672" CreationDate="2014-06-23T07:13:26.090" Score="11" ViewCount="5407" Body="&lt;p&gt;Kung Fu Chess, a chess variant in which there are no turns (everyone can move at once with a time delay for each piece), began in 2002 by Shizmoo games, and the website suddenly went offline in 2008 despite a large following and many proficient players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is the reason for their sudden demise known and are there present day alternatives to kung fu chess?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3327" LastActivityDate="2018-03-26T05:51:03.933" Title="Why did Kung Fu Chess shut down?" Tags="&lt;chess-variants&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5661" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5644" CreationDate="2014-06-23T10:03:18.227" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm happy when I have a passed pawn, and my opponent has none. Yet, connected passed pawns are much better than isolated passed pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are the raw advantages of a passed pawn:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A passed pawn can no more be exchanged against a pawn, so if it gets exchanged, it will be against something bigger.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If a passed pawn is defended by a non-passed pawn, and the opponent decides to exchange a minor piece against your passed pawn, the defending pawn becomes a passed pawn in turn, keeping your passed pawn advantage, in addition to gaining material. It makes it a little more difficult for the opponent to actually do this.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Still, there are caveats with regards to an isolated passed pawn:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Since your passed pawn can't be defended by another pawn, you'll have to mobilize something bigger to defend it. (leaving less material to act on the issues of the rest of the board) &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If you can have a rook defending your passed pawn from behind, you have one less rook on the rest of the board, but you can easily threaten to gain material by appropriately pushing your pawn.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If your opponent decides to block your pawn with a piece, to prevent you from pushing, well, that's one less opposite piece playing on the rest of the board.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If your opponent decides to exchange your pawn, you end up with a rook on an open file.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the endgame, connected passed pawns beat the opposite king:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If they are side-by-side, they setup a wall of 4 controlled squares, so can't be threatened by the opposite king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[fen &quot;8/4k3/8/3PP3/8/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If they are connected,  one row apart, the king has to capture the rear pawn first, effectively leaving the front pawn's promotion square.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All these are limited to what the specifics of every position allow.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user3243" LastEditorDisplayName="user3243" LastEditDate="2019-02-04T14:31:34.997" LastActivityDate="2019-02-04T14:31:34.997" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="5662" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5663" CreationDate="2014-06-23T10:38:44.810" Score="5" ViewCount="7637" Body="&lt;p&gt;This manoeuvre is a form of pawn capturing technique. When a player’s pawn jumps two spaces on a first move, that piece can then be taken from the side as the opposing pawn moves into the moving pawn’s “lane” behind it, capturing it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is, are there any other conditions where this move cannot be carried out such as to prevent check or checkmate or to carry out a check or checkmate?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, is this move allowed in tournaments and the like?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1413" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2014-06-24T00:28:07.657" LastActivityDate="2020-03-06T20:27:53.897" Title="When is it possible to carry out the &quot;En Passant&quot; manoeuvre?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;en-passant&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5663" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5662" CreationDate="2014-06-23T11:42:58.617" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can't take a pawn en passant if that pawn just made a discovered check to your King:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;8/8/7k/8/2p5/8/3P4/2B1K3 w - - 0 1&#xA;&#xA;1. d4+&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After 1. d4+ Black is in check (their king is attacked by the White bishop on c1) so he has to move his King. 1...cxd3 is not allowed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, it can't be carried out if your pawn is pinned to your king:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;6k1/8/8/8/2p5/8/B2P4/4K3 w - - 0 1&#xA;&#xA;1. d4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Black pawn on c4 is pinned by the White Bishop on a2. If that Pawn moves, the White Bishop would be able to take the Black King. So after 1. d4 the move 1...cxd3 is not allowed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can't think of any other condition where this move can not be carried out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And yes, en passant is allowed in tournaments of course. But when you take a pawn en passant, do not say &quot;en passant&quot; aloud (some low rated players do that, they also say &quot;check&quot; aloud when they put the other player's king in check) since it can break your opponent's concentration (and the concentration of the other players near you in the playing hall).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Wikipedia has a good article on the &lt;a href=&quot;//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/En_passant&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;en passant rule&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3237" LastEditorUserId="4186" LastEditDate="2020-03-06T20:27:53.897" LastActivityDate="2020-03-06T20:27:53.897" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="5664" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5657" CreationDate="2014-06-23T12:09:06.287" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;King's Indian has many variations but I will try to be short. There are some variations which you should prefer and some to avoid. I can't provide you full information. It's better to look some books.  By Eduard Gufeld, for instance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's start from fianchetto.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;White to move&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3. Nf3 Bg7 4. Nc3 O-O 5. g3 d6 6. Bg2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are many variations there. If black play &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;c5&lt;/code&gt; it seems to suit your style. After &lt;code&gt;Nc6&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;a6&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;Rb8&lt;/code&gt; position can be sharp or cannot. for example&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;White to move&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3. Nf3 Bg7 4. Nc3 O-O 5. g3 d6 6. Bg2 Nc6 7. O-O a6 8. d5 Na5 9. Nd2 c5 10. Qc2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There if black plays Rb8, b5 and after that e6 they can sacrifice the rook (by taking your bishop b2) and the position will be rather sharp. If black plays e5, Ng4 and f5, the position will suit your style better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;White to move&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3. Nf3 Bg7 4. Nc3 O-O 5. e4 d6 6. Be2 e5 7. O-O&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the classical line black can put knight on c6 and this position will be better for white if you know how to play. You can look how Vladimir Kramnik does it. If black takes on d4 and plays Nd7-c5 many pieces will be on the board. But this continuation is not popular nowadays. So, you need some theory in main lines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is another positional variant for you, but it works well only against inexperienced people who don't know how exactly to play with black. If black plays right, you will not even think about advantage, but otherwise your chances to lose will be very low. The pair of bishops is amazing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;White to move&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3. Nf3 Bg7 4. Nc3 O-O 5. e4 d6 6. h3 e5 7. dxe5 dxe5 8. Qxd8 Rxd8 9. Bg5 Re8? 10. O-O-O c6? 11. Nxe5 Nxe4 12. Nxe4 Bxe5 13. Nf6+ Bxf6 14. Bxf6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would recommend you start from the last option. I get the position above very often&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2173" LastEditorUserId="11202" LastEditDate="2017-06-30T09:21:27.333" LastActivityDate="2017-06-30T09:21:27.333" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5665" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5657" CreationDate="2014-06-23T12:16:24.463" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Petrosian system ( 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.e4 d6 5.Nf3 0-0 6.Be2 e5 7.d5) is relatively high in strategy and low in tactics (for a King's Indian).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2014-06-23T12:16:24.463" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5666" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5662" CreationDate="2014-06-23T13:15:51.450" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;An en passant capture is just a capture. There are no special rules other than its definition, as described in the question. Put another way, you capture the pawn as if it had only moved forward one space.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, the capture isn't exempt from the rest of the rules. For example, you can't make a move that leaves your king in check, so you can't make an en passant capture that leaves your king in check. But there's nothing special about en passant captures here; all the usual rules apply.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And, yes, the rule applies in tournaments. Don't think of en passant captures as something special; despite the seeming quirkiness, they're no more special than castling, which also has its own quirky rules.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2297" LastActivityDate="2014-06-23T13:15:51.450" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5667" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5657" CreationDate="2014-06-23T17:23:05.280" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;em&gt;Joe Gallagher-Starting Out The King's Indian Defense&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;David Vigorito-Attacking Chess-The King's Indian Volume 2&lt;/em&gt; the most solid line for White in King's Indian is the Fianchetto variation. I tend to agree with it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Before explaining why, let me just show you the &lt;em&gt;tabya&lt;/em&gt; so I can better explain my point of view :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;KID, the Fianchetto variation&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nf3 Bg7 4.g3 O-O 5.Bg2 d6 6.O-O Nc6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After briefly looking through the lines ( there is a vast amount of work to review ) I came to the same conclusion as the above writers based on the following :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Center remains fluid, so Black can not pursue standard &lt;code&gt;...f5&lt;/code&gt; idea as in other lines;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Because of the first point, and the fact that fianchetto castling is very hard to crack, White king is ultra safe ;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;White has more space;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is not easy for Black to find counterplay, but he can reach equality if he knows how to play this line. Tactical shots are limited to the rook sacrifices along the &lt;code&gt;b-file&lt;/code&gt; so &lt;code&gt;Nf6 + Bg7&lt;/code&gt; battery can profit from discovered attack, but otherwise things are positional and &lt;strong&gt;dynamic.&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are several sub-variations here, but I would recommend you to play &lt;em&gt;Panno line&lt;/em&gt;, since &lt;em&gt;Yugoslav attack&lt;/em&gt; is quite sharp and theoretical.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;KID, the Fianchetto variation-Panno line&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nf3 Bg7 4.g3 O-O 5.Bg2 d6 6.O-O Nc6 7.Nc3 a6 8.h3 Rb8 9.e4 b5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White has 2 options here, &lt;code&gt;cxb5&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt; but I advise you &lt;code&gt;cxb5&lt;/code&gt; as it is safer one. Play will become dynamic, but you have dodged a lot of theory and sharp tactical mayhem from &lt;em&gt;Classical line&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;Saemish attack&lt;/em&gt;... For detailed coverage of this line get Vigorito's book. It is printed in 2011 and is very well written, in my opinion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do not forget that KID is a sharp opening and that you can not &quot;sterilize it&quot;, you can only reduce the level of sharpness and that is it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastActivityDate="2014-06-23T17:23:05.280" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5668" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5615" CreationDate="2014-06-23T19:01:17.837" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure I understand the question properly. Are you suggesting electronic boards to print out the list of moves once the game is finished, so the players can sign it and save the time and effort to fill the scoresheets themselves during the game?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are proposing just to remove the scoresheet because there's an electronic register of the game, then I think the most important reason is that the scoresheets (because obviously there is one per player) are the only official documents, signed by both players, that attests that that game was played between those players and with the result that is noted on them (besides date, place, etc.). Eliminating this document would be like removing the signing of the wedding license because there's already a video of the ceremony.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2013" LastEditorUserId="2013" LastEditDate="2014-06-24T08:22:59.683" LastActivityDate="2014-06-24T08:22:59.683" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5669" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5662" CreationDate="2014-06-23T19:48:59.103" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The en passant is subject to all the usual rules of chess. So you cannot use it if it would be illegal to move your pawn (for example if your king is in check and the move would not get you out of check, or if the moving pawn is pinned to the king, etc.). It is part of the official rules of chess, and is absolutely allowed in tournaments.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is one important additional rule about en passant: &lt;strong&gt;it can only be used on the move following the move of the captured pawn&lt;/strong&gt;. (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fide.com/component/handbook/?id=124&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Rule 3.7d&lt;/a&gt;) You cannot wait a few moves and then use the en passant capture.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3332" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-09-21T18:13:31.850" LastActivityDate="2019-09-21T18:13:31.850" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="5671" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1239" CreationDate="2014-06-24T05:33:46.823" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;No it is not possible to checkmate a lone king with king and Knight ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even a lone king king cannot be checkmated using King and a bishop...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is because knight controls only one coloured square a a time (either black or white),   this is the case with bishop....&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the opponent king can run using the other color which is not controlled. even if you control that escaping square with your king that will be stalemate (Draw)...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even two knights and a king cannot mate a lone king (True fact)...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The minor piece combination that will mate a lone king is King + 2 bishops or King + knight + bishop....&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since two bishops control both colored squares and in case of Knight and bishop, knight should control the opposite colored square as that of the bishop ....&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3336" LastActivityDate="2014-06-24T05:33:46.823" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5672" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5660" CreationDate="2014-06-24T08:35:06.357" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;No reason for Shizmoo's site closure in 2008 has been published online that I could find. There is a forum for former Kung Fu Chess enthusiasts here, but it's not particularly busy at the moment: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zenchess.com/forum/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.zenchess.com/forum/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A few turnless/live chess variations inspired by Kung Fu Chess have sprung up, though, notably:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Ninja Chess for iPad&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.nordlysa.com/ninjachess/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.nordlysa.com/ninjachess/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Two players, iOS.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/0CTF8.png&quot; alt=&quot;Ninja Chess&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Real Time Chess&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://play.svenardo.com/chess/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://play.svenardo.com/chess/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One-player vs computer, &lt;a href=&quot;http://play.svenardo.com/chess/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;in-browser&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/realtime-chess-new-chess-experience/id687203498?mt=8&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;iPad&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.dropbox.com/s/d7dwbq4aukgtsht/Realtime%20Chess.zip&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Mac&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://mega.co.nz/#!1wdUiCQZ!LmVCHEoKTV25JnV2d3YAamssMXBgUWh2T-Hk5OvhYBw&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Windows&lt;/a&gt;, where the first player to capture the king wins. Moved pieces cannot be moved again until their timer completes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9tfnt.png&quot; alt=&quot;Real Time chess game&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;JebChess&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://jebchess.com/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://jebchess.com/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A four-player live version.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/2OU72.png&quot; alt=&quot;Jebchess&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2130" LastEditorUserId="2130" LastEditDate="2014-06-24T08:40:09.910" LastActivityDate="2014-06-24T08:40:09.910" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5673" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5654" CreationDate="2014-06-24T10:59:29.527" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Right after starting the analysis of a position the engine has to prepare the hash table in the memory or check it if there is one allready. You can verify this by giving your engine a low ammount of RAM (e.g. 32 MB). You will notice that the nps accelleration will go up. However, this heavyly will decrease the strength of the engine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3338" LastEditorUserId="3339" LastEditDate="2014-06-24T19:50:35.990" LastActivityDate="2014-06-24T19:50:35.990" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5674" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="754" CreationDate="2014-06-24T20:44:48.997" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know this is a 2 year old post now, which I've visited a few times before now but now I couldn't resist posting my comment. The Scotch has been my favorite White opening for the last 3-4 years. I really like it and it helps me that top players(including Kasparov play it..not that I am anywhere near that standard!!).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It can give an opening advantage, but of course, this is not guaranteed! In order to get an opening advantage with it you will need to be an expert in it's many variations e.g. (Ghulam Khassim, Classical, Mieses, Steinitz, Malanuik,a nd several others and also the Scotch gambit as noted in earlier posts!). As a chess beginner the opening is very easy to learn and get to after 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 exd4 etc. However (with the exception of the Ghulam Khassim...e.g. Nxd4 Qxd4 which is relatively very simplistic ) all possible variations are sharp and the Scotch opening generally is not too difficult for black to play reasonable moves against and get equality at the least. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are many ideas for White to grasp when playing the Scotch in the many variations it has. Not least is the open game nature that 3.d4 invites very early. White needs to be able then to play sharp positions well to get an advantage in the Scotch and this may not suit a beginner so much as the Italian game or a 1.d4 system opening (such as the Colle). Also black can avoid the Scotch and play other openings after 1.e4 (e.g. Sicilian, French, Alekhine's, Philidor's, Caro-Kann, Pirc, Scandinavian etc etc..the joys of playing 1.e4!).  The earlier post about typical Scotch pawn formations is very important to remember when getting toward the end game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally I may add some black players are hoping after 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 for the more common openings of a Ruy Lopez(Spanish) or Giuoco Piano (Italian game) and they may not know much about the Scotch!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyway, I hope you settled with the Scotch opening and that you enjoy your Scotch games as much as I enjoy playing the Scotch opening and which I am still learning to improve after using it for around 3/4 years now! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="426" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T17:59:00.043" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T17:59:00.043" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="5675" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5677" CreationDate="2014-06-25T14:16:49.600" Score="6" ViewCount="3903" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have recently taken a liking to the French Defence as black because I enjoy the counter-attacking options that black has to undermine white's center in the Tarrasch, Advance, and &lt;code&gt;3. Nc3&lt;/code&gt; variations.  However, when met with the exchange variation I'm not sure what the best plan of attack because I find the position rather dull due to the relieved central tension.  My preferred line at the moment is &lt;code&gt;1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. exd5 exd5 4. Nf3 Nf6 5. Bd3 c5&lt;/code&gt; to immediately get some queen-side counter-play but I would like to know if there are any other lines that give black aggressive attacking options.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. exd5 exd5 4. Nf3 Nf6 5. Bd3 c5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3322" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2014-06-25T15:42:01.377" LastActivityDate="2018-08-20T03:06:26.030" Title="Aggressive Attacking Lines for Black in the French Defence Exchange Variation" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;french-defense&gt;&lt;aggressive-play&gt;&lt;attack&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5677" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5675" CreationDate="2014-06-25T19:53:42.600" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately, there is nothing you can do. You will have to adapt to White's play and that is it. Only White can sharpen the game, by entering the line with isolated pawn ( by playing &lt;code&gt;c4&lt;/code&gt; at some point ). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The line you chose gives White minimal advantage, according to &lt;em&gt;ECO C ( 2006 )&lt;/em&gt;, so I would stay away from it. The position is symmetrical, White is slightly ahead in development, &lt;strong&gt;e-file is open&lt;/strong&gt;, and White has no weaknesses whatsoever. Meanwhile, you are behind in development, &lt;strong&gt;you will not castle soon&lt;/strong&gt;, and now you create isolated pawn without reasonable compensation ( isolated pawn gives you free development, but you are not cramped here so you do not need this! ) which will put you in a long defense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I hate being &quot;passive&quot; in this line as much as you do, since I play the French and QGD, but reality will not change -&gt; White has a pleasant situation where he can win or draw, if he doesn't blunder, while for Black the only reasonable result is a draw, providing he plays accurately. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You must use your creativity in this line, to outplay the opponent. Set him difficult choices to solve, something along these lines:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Offer him exchanges that are bad for him ( offer your bad piece for his good one );&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Offer him to enter into endgame, but try to trick him so the endgame is better for you;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Try to generate mating attack with pieces ( &lt;code&gt;f4&lt;/code&gt; square is very useful for this );&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The point is that heavy pieces will be exchanged on the &lt;code&gt;e-file&lt;/code&gt; so the only option is endgame. You could exchange only one pair of rooks and try for mate with &lt;code&gt;Qf4 + Ng4&lt;/code&gt; setup, but that requires a lot of maneuvering. Still, it is a thought... The point is to keep trying to invent a plan, don't just fall into stereotypical &quot;exchange all and draw&quot; mindset.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, instead of the line you listed, I would rather go with something like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;French defense, Exchange line&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.exd5 exd5 4.Nf3 Bd6!&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This will prevent &lt;code&gt;Bf4&lt;/code&gt; so White will have slightly passive position. This is a thematic idea for both sides ( remember that in symmetric positions &lt;strong&gt;everything counts&lt;/strong&gt; ). If he responds with &lt;code&gt;c4&lt;/code&gt; you have your sharp position ( according to &lt;em&gt;ECO&lt;/em&gt; ), but if he goes for the same idea of stopping &lt;code&gt;...Bf5&lt;/code&gt; then you play &lt;code&gt;...Nge7!&lt;/code&gt; so you can still get &lt;code&gt;...Bf5&lt;/code&gt;. This way you get free development and active position. This is the best you can do in this line. Now is the time to give you the full lines:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;French defense, Exchange line&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.exd5 exd5 4.Nf3 ( 4.c4 $13 ) 4...Bd6! 5.c4 ( 5.Bd3 Ne7! 6.O-O O-O 7.Bg5 f6! 8.Bh4 Bf5 9.Bg3 Bxg3 10.hxg3 Nbc6 11.Nc3 Qd7 12.Ne2 Bxd3= ) 5...Nf6 6.Nc3 c6 7.c5 Be7 8.Bd3 b6 9.cxb6 axb6 10.O-O Ba6 11.Bxa6 Rxa6 12.Qd3 O-O $13&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can still outplay the opponent in this position... If you need help or you have further questions leave a comment. Best regards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastActivityDate="2014-06-25T19:53:42.600" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5678" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5452" CreationDate="2014-06-25T20:44:00.867" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I prefer 6... Nf6 to Bf6. That would have put your N on its best square, and refrained from moving your B twice so early in the opening. Also, the N on f6 protects the h pawn, which your B does not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2014-06-25T20:44:00.867" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5679" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5675" CreationDate="2014-06-25T20:46:12.343" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Former World Champion Jose R Capablanca felt that 3... Qxd5 was superior to 3... exd5. It once led to a sharp, complicated game which he lost (as White).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If White plays 4. Nc3, then 4... Bb5. If White tries to chase the B with 5. a3, then 5... Qa5 pins the a pawn. Note that with the Q off the diagonal, White cannot pin a N on f6 with Bg5 (nor can he play it without e.g. a preparatory Nf3).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastEditorUserId="17" LastEditDate="2014-06-25T22:03:45.557" LastActivityDate="2014-06-25T22:03:45.557" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5680" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4434" CreationDate="2014-06-26T16:11:56.177" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The biggest mistake you are making is playing against computers,&#xA;This is simply not the way, playing against such boring, silicon machines will offer you no fruit for chess improvement, you MUST play against humans, this is because there is much more to learn from a humans play, there is a huge psychological aspect involved in chess, and by playing against the computer you will not improve period.&#xA;There are many chess websites to pick and choose, there is &lt;strong&gt;chess.com&lt;/strong&gt;, which is completely free and &lt;strong&gt;chesscube.com&lt;/strong&gt;, which is also free. If you want some serious internet games, you can pay to play on &lt;strong&gt;chessclub.com&lt;/strong&gt; Also known as the internet chess club and &lt;strong&gt;playchess.com&lt;/strong&gt;, which is run by  by the renown German chess company &#xA;&lt;strong&gt;Chessbase&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That is the first stage in a beginners road to improvement, play against lots of humans! If you can find a partner to play with in real life than that's even better!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do not bother with such things like openings, the general chess training consensus on studying the opening is that it is a big mistake, you should pick an opening of course, but don't play various different ones, just stick with one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Also some fantastic chess websites for improving your chess:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;thechesswebsite.com&lt;/strong&gt; is absolutely fabulous with videos covering very aspect of chess&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;chesstempo.com&lt;/strong&gt; is a must as it is a chess tactics website and will help you to hone your tactical abilities&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;chessgames.com&lt;/strong&gt; is also great for viewing Grandmaster games and so forth&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;chess.com&lt;/strong&gt; Already mentioned, is not only a great place to play chess but contains a plethora of chess knowledge, with thousands of articles written by strong players, hundreds of videos, a tactics trainer and a very strong chess forum which you should also be asking questions on! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, tactics! I cannot stress enough the importance of tactics, learn all the basic checkmate patterns and the tactical basics of chess! (The Skewer, Fork, Discovered Attack, Double Check and so forth) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would also like to improve upon AlwaysLearningNewStuff's answer by recommending many other great chess prose.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Firstly, &lt;strong&gt;Artur Yusupov's award winning chess course&lt;/strong&gt; is a must have, you should start with the first part (the Fundamentals) &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.qualitychess.co.uk/docs/14/artur_yusupovs_awardwinning_training_course/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.qualitychess.co.uk/docs/14/artur_yusupovs_awardwinning_training_course/&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The everymanchess starting out series is also good, but do not buy them exclusively, they concentrate on openings which should not be your main concern at the level you are at  (I have never read any of them and am 1883 FIDE Over-the-Board). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Silman's Complete Endgame Course&lt;/strong&gt; should also be mandatory for every chess player!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If not mentioned already: &lt;strong&gt;Learn Chess&lt;/strong&gt; by John Nunn should be compulsory for every adult trying to improve, the numerous five stars it has got on Amazon should be enough to convince you :),  &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1901983307&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.amazon.com/Learn-Chess-John-Nunn/dp/1901983307&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Chess for Dummies&lt;/strong&gt; Is also excellent&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The Amateur's Mind&lt;/strong&gt; by Jeremy Silman helped me to improve lots and made me shed my beginner skins :) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These books can wait for later ;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Understanding Chess Move by Move (John Nunn)&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Dvoretsky's Endgame Manual (Mark Dvoretsky)&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;How to Reassess your Chess (Jeremy Silman)&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1000 Checkmate Combinations (Viktor Henkin)&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Chess Strategy for Club Players (Herman Grooten)&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Dvoretsky's Analytical Manual (Mark Dvoretsky)&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Art of Attack in Chess (Vladimir Vukovic)&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Pump Up Your Rating (Axel Smith)&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Understanding Chess Middlegames (John Nunn)&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Learn Chess Tactics (John Nunn)&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;My System (Aron Nimzowitsch)&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;AlwaysLearningNewStuff has already mentioned Soltis's excellent books :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are many other excellent books which I could include here but it would be too long of a post, if you are interested just ask for more :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, I should end this post with a quote from John Watson's excellent book, &lt;strong&gt;Secrets of Modern Chess Strategy&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;em&gt;&quot;it may be said of any chess rule that the concrete experience of an individual player gives him a more accurate and subtle understanding of its application than any conceivable verbal statement could&quot;&lt;/em&gt; Basically, nothing beats playing an actual game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS: Make Sure its against a Human!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PSS: And against a stronger player!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PPS: Nothing beats playing in real life! Go to your local chess club maybe!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3357" LastActivityDate="2014-06-26T16:11:56.177" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5681" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-06-26T19:30:19.713" Score="14" ViewCount="4030" Body="&lt;p&gt;I played chess when I was a child, but never got into it seriously (I didn't know it was possible at that age). Nowadays I'm playing regularly as a hobby and I'm interested in how this can affect my performance in other aspects of my life (specially in my job as a mathematician and a computer scientist).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now I know it is highly beneficial to play chess as a child but I wonder if there is any research showing any benefit from learning chess as an adult (it's obvious that professional players and even amateur players are intelligent and have developed amazing mental skills... but they usually start playing at an early age).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, what different approaches could an adult take to learn chess? (if there is any research about it).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3359" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T16:51:40.723" Title="What are the benefits of learning to play chess as an adult (30s) if any?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5682" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5649" CreationDate="2014-06-26T19:58:06.657" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was looking thoroughly for the omission of &lt;code&gt;...c5&lt;/code&gt; in many repertoire books ( &lt;em&gt;Semko &amp;amp; Sakaev-Queen's Gambit Declined 3rd ed., Iakov Neishtadt-The Queen's Gambit Accepted, James Rizzitano-How to beat d4,Raetsky &amp;amp; Chetverik-Starting Out The Queen's Gambit Accepted&lt;/em&gt; ) and found &lt;strong&gt;absolutely nothing&lt;/strong&gt; about the pros and cons of delaying this move! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is rather disappointing as the idea is quite reasonable, &lt;strong&gt;and can come to any player rated from 1800 up to 2400&lt;/strong&gt; so it should be explained in repertoire books. However, after trudging through the &lt;em&gt;ECO D 1987&lt;/em&gt; I was able to find something:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Black delays c5 break&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 d5 2.c4 dxc4 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.e3 e6 5.Bxc4 a6 ( 5...Be7 6.O-O O-O 7.Nc3 c5 ( 7...b6 8.Qe2 Bb7 9.e4 $16 ) 8.e4 cxd4 9.Nxd4 Qc7 10.Qe2+/= ) 6.O-O ( 6.Nc3 b5 7.Bd3 Bb7 8.O-O ( 8.Qc2 Nbd7 9.a4 b4 10.Ne4 c5 11.Nxf6+ Nxf6 12.dxc5 Qc7= ) 8...Nbd7 9.e4 b4 10.e5 bxc3 11.exf6+/= ) 6...b5 7.Bd3 Bb7 8.a4! b4 9.Qe2 Nbd7 10.e4 Be7 11.Nbd2 c5 12.e5 Nd5 13.Nc4 $16 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In either case White can favorably open the game ( he will have more space and is better developed, also notice that his center is solid and your &lt;code&gt;...c5&lt;/code&gt; will only free your game but will not give you sufficient counterplay ) and get good attacking chances.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the main line in the above diagram, you seem to have solid position but do not be fooled. Yes, White has &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt; square no more, but you are weak on the &lt;code&gt;c-file&lt;/code&gt; since your &lt;code&gt;b-pawn&lt;/code&gt; is on &lt;code&gt;b4&lt;/code&gt; where it does nothing useful. White was able to outplay Black by posting knight to &lt;code&gt;c4&lt;/code&gt;, which is wonderful square for him. He can also attack on the kingside. Black on the other hand, has no viable counterplay and will probably have to weaken himself further with &lt;code&gt;...h6&lt;/code&gt; at some point. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for &lt;code&gt;6.Nc3&lt;/code&gt; sub-line from the above, you can achieve typical position with isolated pawn after &lt;code&gt;...c5&lt;/code&gt; at some point, but again White is just so superior in development and has typical space advantage. You lag in development, thus you will need time to organize counter-attack while White can already start creating problems to further delay you, like regrouping pieces for kingside atack. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for &lt;code&gt;5...Be7&lt;/code&gt; line, White also has superior development and wonderful centralization of his minor pieces. He has more space and his queen is well posted, &lt;strong&gt;unlike yours&lt;/strong&gt; as she is prone to harassment with &lt;code&gt;Nb5&lt;/code&gt; ideas. You will need to play &lt;code&gt;...a6&lt;/code&gt; at some point, further losing time which is dangerous if we take White's lead in development and space advantage into account. Black may get playable position but it will be a series of accurate moves and even then White will have at least small advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems that this is the point of &lt;code&gt;5...c5&lt;/code&gt;, to ensure Black gets enough space in the center and hinder White from harmoniously developing his pieces, by forcing him to count on entering endgame or simplifications.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is all I was able to find, if anyone has the latest &lt;em&gt;ECO D&lt;/em&gt; I would highly appreciate the update on lines I listed above...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hopefully this answer helped, as there is nothing else at this moment I can do. Best regards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastEditorUserId="2042" LastEditDate="2014-06-26T22:21:49.150" LastActivityDate="2014-06-26T22:21:49.150" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5683" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2014-06-26T20:14:45.470" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2014-06-26T20:14:45.470" LastActivityDate="2014-06-26T20:14:45.470" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5684" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2014-06-26T20:14:45.470" Score="0" Body="For questions about various time controls. See also the tag time-management." OwnerUserId="1485" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2014-06-26T20:20:30.903" LastActivityDate="2014-06-26T20:20:30.903" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5685" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5614" CreationDate="2014-06-27T00:48:53.850" Score="9" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;can somebody explain what are the factors should be considered if we have opportunity to castle on both sides?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1. The most important factor is king safety;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Long castle is less safe than short one, because king is closer to the center, thus can be attacked faster. You will lose a tempo to properly secure the king with &lt;code&gt;Kb1/Kb8&lt;/code&gt; ( thus protecting the loose &lt;code&gt;a-pawn&lt;/code&gt; as well ). In many openings &lt;code&gt;c-file&lt;/code&gt; is open/semi open which heightens the danger for the king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Short castling moves the king far away and there are no loose pawns to protect. Furthermore, opponent must &lt;strong&gt;invest considerable amount of time&lt;/strong&gt; to organize the attack by moving his forces to the kingside. This means that he must abandon some squares/pawn protection which enables you to organize strong counterplay.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;2. King's activity in an endgame;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Long castle is preferred as your king will be close to the center. This fact can constitute a big advantage in endgame as king now becomes very powerful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;3. How fast do you need to develop pieces/launch an attack?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You need 2 moves to castle short ( you must move &lt;code&gt;f1&lt;/code&gt; bishop and &lt;code&gt;g1&lt;/code&gt; knight and you are done ), while you need 3 for long castle ( you need to move the queen, &lt;code&gt;c1&lt;/code&gt; bishop and &lt;code&gt;b1&lt;/code&gt; knight ). In opening speed is very important, therefore super GMs prefer short castle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, when castling long, rook lands immediately to &lt;code&gt;d1&lt;/code&gt; which is &lt;strong&gt;the best square for him&lt;/strong&gt;, while with short castle &lt;strong&gt;you need to spend extra tempo&lt;/strong&gt; to centralize rook with &lt;code&gt;Re1&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When choosing where to castle, you should also ask yourself where do you lead the attack. If you play in the center &lt;strong&gt;and you plan a fast attack&lt;/strong&gt;, prefer long castle. If you do not know what will you do at the moment than short castle is more flexible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;PRACTICAL GUIDELINES FOR APPLYING THE ABOVE:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First you need to form a general plan based on the factors listed above &lt;strong&gt;and personal preferences:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Will you attack or play positionally?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Are you willing to play the endgame or you are going for mate?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;On which side of the board are you stronger, regarding your piece placement?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;How well are you placed to attack on kingside/queenside?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is your pawn structure healthy, on the side where you want to castle?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What is the state of center of the board -&gt; is it closed/open/semi-open?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;If you have opportunity to castle both sides than first look at your pawn structure.&lt;/strong&gt; Is it healthy ( pawns are at starting positions ) or you have doubled pawns/pawn islands/&quot;holes&quot;? You should prefer the side that has healthy pawn structure. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once you answer this question ask yourself the following: &lt;strong&gt;How well are my pieces placed to defend my king from opposing forces?&lt;/strong&gt; If you have enough defenders, then go for that side.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;This was the easy case, you have healthy pawn structure and solid defense &lt;strong&gt;on one side&lt;/strong&gt; of the board, but what if you are good on both sides? What if your pawn structure and piece placement is good on both wings?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Then you must take endgame into consideration!&lt;/strong&gt; If you can force a lot of exchanges go for the long castle ( even better if opponent went short castle! ). If the game will last long, and will be sharp or simply there are no signs for lots of exchanges, &lt;strong&gt;then you need to take attacking potential into consideration.&lt;/strong&gt; Maybe you could go for &quot;opposite side castling&quot; because you will get promising pawn storm, or you could go for quiet game by castling to the same side as the opponent since you plan to attack in the center? &lt;strong&gt;This is really position-dependent part.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;PRACTICAL EXAMPLES THAT ILLUSTRATE THE ABOVE:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let us take a look at the following position and apply the above principles:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Where to castle?&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;r1bqr1k1/pp1nbppp/2p2n2/3p2B1/3P4/2NBPN2/PPQ2PPP/R3K2R w KQ - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First factor, king safety: we see that White is safer on kingside, and if he castles there he has good prospects for minority attack on the queenside, and for &quot;f4 push&quot; on the kingside ( please see my answer to &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/5392/what-are-blacks-possible-plans-in-the-exchange-variation-of-the-queens-gambit/5396#5396&quot;&gt;this question&lt;/a&gt; for detailed coverage of these plans if you need further explanations ). The later option is beneficial for positional players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Second factor, the activity of the king in the endgame, is bad for White since his king is further from the center then it would be after long castle. But if he wishes to play for minority attack he need both rooks on quenside, and in those positions the endgame will not appear for a long time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Third factor, speed, is in favor of short castling, since White can generate minority attack or &quot;f4 push&quot; faster than the kingside pawn storm ( again see my answer to the question I linked above, if you need concrete explanations/examples ).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since a positional player will always keep his options open and his king safe, castling short would be a good option, and is played most of the time at top level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;OK, this all sounds great but what about long castle? What about players who like sharp play?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White has healthy pawn structure at queenside, queen + bishop battery is directed on kingside, and &lt;code&gt;Bg5&lt;/code&gt; + &lt;code&gt;Nf3&lt;/code&gt; are aggressively positioned. White also has space advantage and better development, &lt;strong&gt;but Black can open &lt;code&gt;c-file&lt;/code&gt; with &lt;code&gt;...c5&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; at some point. Therefore, based on the first factor, this should scare White a little. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But notice that I stated that we must take opponents attacking chances as well. Black will lose a lot of time to prepare an attack, and even then White can just play &lt;code&gt;Kb1&lt;/code&gt; and simply use rook on &lt;code&gt;d1&lt;/code&gt; to pressure the &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt; pawn after the &lt;code&gt;dxc5&lt;/code&gt; exchange. The point is that long castle &lt;strong&gt;speeds up White's development thus strengthening his development advantage and central pressure&lt;/strong&gt; according to the third factor. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is the reason some GMs took the risk to castle queenside, &lt;strong&gt;claiming that Black is misplaced for queenside counter-attack so they counted that they will be faster on the kingside&lt;/strong&gt; ( again, third factor is more important here then king safety ) which proved to be true. Therefore Black had to enter an endgame to keep equal chances ( again, see my answer I linked before ), but the second factor I mentioned helped White to still keep small pressure ( king is closer to the center and rook controls &lt;code&gt;d-file&lt;/code&gt;, these are all important things in an endgame ). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I could give you another example in Caro-Kann, but I have &quot;ran out of steam&quot; :(&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The point is to do the same as I did in the above practical example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Evaluate kings safety ( your pawn structure, piece placement, opponents attacking chances on that side of the board... );&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;See how castling long/short &lt;strong&gt;fits into your overall plan&lt;/strong&gt; ( is there a high probability for an endgame to arise or do you need sharp position and so on... );&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;How fast do you really need to mobilize your forces ( do you need fast action &lt;strong&gt;in the center&lt;/strong&gt; or can this wait; can you afford slightly exposed king to get sharp position with &quot;opposite side castling&quot; and so on.. );&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you need further help leave a comment. Best regards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.193" LastActivityDate="2014-06-28T12:36:42.803" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5686" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5656" CreationDate="2014-06-27T10:53:13.337" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Software based on a game, probably not to be honest, the best way to get your strength 'measured' is by playing on some internet chess server where you can obtain an online rating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although this website can give you elo rating estimate based on a series of exercises which you do.&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessmaniac.com/ELORating/ELO_Chess_Rating.shtml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.chessmaniac.com/ELORating/ELO_Chess_Rating.shtml&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3357" LastActivityDate="2014-06-27T10:53:13.337" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5689" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-06-27T20:49:20.730" Score="4" ViewCount="3111" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a 1750 Elo player with a very positional, quiet and strategic style of play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am looking for one or more books about the French Defence which fits these 3 conditions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;It must offer a complete Black repertoire. It must cover the French Defence from the point of view of Black only. (I don't care about playing the French Defence as White since I don't play 1. e4) (And if the diagram boards in the book show Black at the bottom, ie. with the board flipped, that would be great.)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The Black repertoire proposed in the book must (on average) tend to lead to positions which are as much solid, positional, slow, closed, quiet and strategic as possible. I want as few sharp and tactical lines as possible.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If possible, I would like that the repertoire tries to avoid playing the Pawn break ...f7-f6 (except when it's totally necessary).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don’t really like 3.Nc3 dxe4 and 3.Nd2 dxe4. I’ve looked in my ChessBase Mega Database and on Chess Tempo games database and here is what I found out:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3...X: A | B | C | D&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;X: The Black move&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: The average Elo that Black is expected to lose, ie [Average Elo] minus [Performance Elo] - Statistics from Chess Tempo&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B: The average Elo that Black is expected to lose, ie [Average Elo] minus [Performance Elo] - Statistics from ChessBase (selecting only games where both players were rated between 1700 and 2200)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;C: The percentage of games that ended in a draw - Statistics from Chess Tempo&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;D: The percentage of games that ended in a draw - Statistics from ChessBase (selecting only games where both players were rated between 1700 and 2200)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3.Nc3:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3...Bb4:  43 | 33 | 34.3 | 27&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3...Nf6:   37 | 19 | 38.4 | 27&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3...dxe4: 57 | 40 | 47.7 | 34&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3.Nd2:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3...Nf6:   53 | 35 | 34.1 | 28&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3...c5:    43 | 28 | 49.7 | 32&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3...Be7:  40 | 33 | 39.8 | 33&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3...dxe4: 59 | 27 | 47.2 | 30&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3...Nc6:  58 | 27 | 33.0 | 33&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3...a6:    43 | 34 | 43.1 | 35&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Conclusion: 3... dxe4 scores extremely poorly both against 3. Nc3 and against 3. Nd2. And against 3. Nd2 it isn't even efficient at making draws.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't know much about the French so I don't know exactly which of these moves are sharp/tactical and which of them are solid/positional/quiet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I would guess that against 3. Nc3 I should probably choose 3...Nf6 (I heard that 3...Bb4 was extremely sharp and tactical)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And against 3. Nd2 I should probably choose 3...c5 and answer 4. exd5 with 4...Qxd5 (I heard that 3...Nf6 was extremely sharp and tactical) (and 3...Be7 looks too subtle for a non-GM)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So any more suggestions would be appreciated, thanks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3237" LastEditorUserId="3237" LastEditDate="2014-07-01T04:18:21.620" LastActivityDate="2015-06-11T07:41:34.830" Title="What are books about the French Defence which feature a Black repertoire that tends to lead to solid/positional/closed/slow/quiet/strategic positions?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;&lt;books&gt;&lt;french-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5690" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5689" CreationDate="2014-06-28T00:03:59.880" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;French can get very sharp. Your biggest problem is the fact that &lt;strong&gt;it is White&lt;/strong&gt; who steers the game. If he chooses, he can make things so sharp that both of your heads will explode. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your best bet to dodge this is to play &lt;em&gt;Rubinstein variation&lt;/em&gt;, which is positional in nature and has a reputation of being solid:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;French defense, Rubinstein variation - ECO code is C10&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 ( 3.Nd2 dxe4 4.Nxe4 ) 3...dxe4 4.Nxe4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was trying to play this line, relying on general principles, against computer/stronger opponents and things went very bad. &lt;strong&gt;You must know opening moves and typical middlegame positions that arise very well&lt;/strong&gt; in order to have equal chances. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That being said, each time I played opening well, &lt;strong&gt;I drew with ease&lt;/strong&gt;. I have never faced any problems, even against a computer -&gt; positions are simplified and tend to fizzle out to a draw. You might have to defend accurately in some lines, but it is worth it. White has limited options and has just a few lines that give you difficulties. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once you learn how to defend there, there will be nothing White can do and you will have usually an easy game, &lt;strong&gt;at the cost that you will never win.&lt;/strong&gt; I am sorry to say that, but endgames give winning chances only to White. Middlegame positions are harder to play as Black too, as I have mentioned, and are designed to draw, not to win the game. All in all, this line is a powerful, risk free drawing weapon.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only book that tried to cover this line in depth was &lt;em&gt;Nikita Vitiugov-The French defense A Complete Repertoire for Black ( 2010 )&lt;/em&gt;, but the author didn't manage to cover all the options. I just feel that something is missing... The line itself is also at crisis at the top level, which is consistent with my painful experiences. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Your biggest problem will be to find detailed, quality coverage of this line. If you still manage to solve this problem somehow, I ask you to leave me a comment with the name of the book/resource/CD you found, as this is big problem for me that I'm struggling with for over a year.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am sorry for posting this as an answer, but the content is too big to fit into a comment...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastActivityDate="2014-06-28T00:03:59.880" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5691" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2014-06-28T00:14:16.813" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2014-06-28T00:14:16.813" LastActivityDate="2014-06-28T00:14:16.813" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5692" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2014-06-28T00:14:16.813" Score="0" Body="For questions about algorithms used in computer chess software." OwnerUserId="1485" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2014-06-28T01:35:42.403" LastActivityDate="2014-06-28T01:35:42.403" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5694" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5639" CreationDate="2014-06-28T13:12:12.060" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The side that wants to change the fianchettoed bishop is making 2-3 moves only to do so and why are they doing this depends on the position, but you could think that they don't know what to do with they pieces, e.g. the black bishop, and they waste time to remove one of you active pieces. In other words you have 2-3 moves to activate your position (e.g. place you other pieces on better positions) and present your opponent with the same problem (a.k.a. what should I do?!).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You say that you have &lt;em&gt;weakened dark squares&lt;/em&gt;. But your opponent does not have a dark squared bishop, so you have the things going :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another note: when you play 2... d6 go for Najdorf or if you want to play Dragon, a.k.a. fianchettoed bishop and so on, 2... Nc6 and delay the push of the d6 pawn. (This is called Accelerated Dragon - gives very solid position, when white play as if they play agains normal Dragon, they fell usually into a opening trap; there is one with 2... g6 which is even more Accelerated if that is an advantage :D) When you do this you could push d5 in one move (which in the variation that you show is a life saver, or life bringer because h2-h4-h5 is simple and strong attack which wins.. [and doesn't work so well when you could play d5 in 1 move])&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="391" LastEditorUserId="391" LastEditDate="2014-06-28T13:20:40.153" LastActivityDate="2014-06-28T13:20:40.153" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5695" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5689" CreationDate="2014-06-28T15:31:32.687" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are several excellent books covering the French Defense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately, you cannot avoid complications, despite how much you want to, there are going to be complications, just because you play this line, doesn't mean the game can't somehow explode into a tactical mess. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also how can you be a French player if you don't want to play the critical f7-f6 pawn break? That &quot;break&quot; defines so much of the French!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Probably the definitive French Defense repertoire book is &lt;strong&gt;Play the French&lt;/strong&gt; by John Watson (4th Edition) (3rd also fine), which I &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;highly&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; recommend&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1857446801&quot;&gt;http://www.amazon.com/Play-French-4th-Everyman-Chess/dp/1857446801/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;amp;qid=1403968578&amp;amp;sr=8-1&amp;amp;keywords=play+the+french&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also good is &lt;strong&gt;Chess Explained: The French&lt;/strong&gt; by Viacheslav Eingorn and Valentin Bogdanov, this covers the Rubinstein variations of the French and more&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/B00H8ZDATS&quot;&gt;http://www.amazon.com/Chess-Explained-French-Viacheslav-Eingorn-ebook/dp/B00H8ZDATS/ref=sr_1_15?ie=UTF8&amp;amp;qid=1403968623&amp;amp;sr=8-15&amp;amp;keywords=french+defense&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is also the &lt;strong&gt;Grandmaster Repertoire Series&lt;/strong&gt; on it, with two volumes by Emmanuel Berg &#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.qualitychess.co.uk/products/1/207/grandmaster_repertoire_14_-_the_french_defence_volume_one_by_emanuel_berg/&quot;&gt;http://www.qualitychess.co.uk/products/1/207/grandmaster_repertoire_14_-_the_french_defence_volume_one_by_emanuel_berg/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And lastly, &lt;strong&gt;The Flexible French&lt;/strong&gt; by Viktor Moskalenko (French Defense expert) should not be ignored &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/9056912453&quot;&gt;http://www.amazon.com/The-Flexible-French-Strategic-Explanations/dp/9056912453/ref=sr_1_8?ie=UTF8&amp;amp;qid=1403968623&amp;amp;sr=8-8&amp;amp;keywords=french+defense&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this helps&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3357" LastActivityDate="2014-06-28T15:31:32.687" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5696" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1743" CreationDate="2014-06-28T19:38:09.133" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;ChessMoon (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessmoon.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.chessmoon.com&lt;/a&gt;) is the new chess server that you can enjoy playing chess with members all over the world, also serves as a social networking platform.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3368" LastActivityDate="2014-06-28T19:38:09.133" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5697" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5639" CreationDate="2014-06-28T19:56:13.327" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would refrain from castling so early (seventh move), and start moving out my queen side pieces with Nc6 or Bd7. That way, when White embarks on his bishop exchanging maneuvers, you're not caught with the king on the kingside. In fact, if you manage to castle queen side, White's king side maneuvers might end up being a waste of time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nc6 has the particular merit of attacking the N on d4, and distracting White's dark squared bishop and/or queen from h6, or forcing White to move his knight with a loss of time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2014-06-28T19:56:13.327" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5698" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5655" CreationDate="2014-06-29T11:53:50.770" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT:&lt;/strong&gt; Here is another mate-in-two problem with five legal black moves leading to five different checkmates. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;   [Event &quot;Apprenti Sorcier, 1992&quot;]  &#xA;   [White &quot;ACHBAR Selim&quot;]&#xA;   [Black &quot;mate in two&quot;]&#xA;   [Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;   [SetUp &quot;1&quot;]&#xA;   [FEN &quot;8/8/1R6/2p5/8/2Bk1NRN/3P4/K6B w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;   1.Rb1! (1...Ke2 2.Nfg1#)(1...Ke4 2.Nh4#)(1...Kc2 2.Ne1#)(1...Kc4 2.Ne5#)(1...c4 2.Nd4#)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All five different mating moves are done with the same piece, which is very nice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just to get this started; here is a mate-in-two problem with three possible black moves and three different checkmates.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  [Event &quot;Grand Rapids Herald 1932 (643)&quot;]&#xA;  [White &quot;WURZBURG Otto B.&quot;]&#xA;  [Black &quot;mate in two&quot;]&#xA;  [Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;  [SetUp &quot;1&quot;]&#xA;  [FEN &quot;8/Q7/2kp4/8/8/1K6/3R4/5B2 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;  1.Re2! (1...Kb5 2.Rc2#) (1...d5 2.Re6#)(1...Kd5 2.Bg2#) &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1485" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2014-06-29T18:28:15.707" LastActivityDate="2014-06-29T18:28:15.707" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5699" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1743" CreationDate="2014-06-29T13:21:07.117" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.chess.com&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;Great place to play Chess, very active Chess forum, you can pay to get rid of advertisements, get unlimited access to videos and use the Tactics Trainer and Chess Mentor features of the site, for free you can still play unlimited games but can only do about 10 tactics a day and no access to Chess Mentor and videos.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chesstempo.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://chesstempo.com/&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;Best website for practicing tactics, membership is free&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.thechesswebsite.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.thechesswebsite.com/&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;Covers every aspect of Chess with videos and puzzles, almost free but paying can give you access to more features on the site.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chessgames.com/&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;Website containing active chess community and lots of Grandmaster games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other mentions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess-db.com/public/index.jsp&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://chess-db.com/public/index.jsp&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.redhotpawn.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.redhotpawn.com/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.chessbase.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.chessbase.com/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess24.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://chess24.com/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.365chess.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.365chess.com/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess-Playing Websites&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesscube.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chesscube.com/&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessclub.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.chessclub.com/&lt;/a&gt; (Internet Chess Club)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://play.chessbase.com/en/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://play.chessbase.com/en/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this Helps&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3357" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-08-18T13:16:47.043" LastActivityDate="2019-08-18T13:16:47.043" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="5700" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5655" CreationDate="2014-06-29T19:22:21.213" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;How about this mate in two:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/akhI9.png&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.Nd4!!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1...Bxd4 2.Qb1#&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1...Qxd4 2.Qxh7#&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1...Kxd4 2.Qb4#&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1...exd4 2.Qxd5#&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Everything else is answered by: 2.Rg4#&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3237" LastActivityDate="2014-06-29T19:22:21.213" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5701" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5655" CreationDate="2014-06-30T12:25:49.243" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I make a separate answer for my own constructions. I'm not a problem composer and don't claim any artistic value.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the following position black has 18 legal moves, and white has a unique mating move after each black move. The 18 mating moves are all different.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;   [Title &quot;Black to move&quot;]&#xA;   [SetUp &quot;1&quot;]&#xA;   [FEN &quot;kr5R/rb6/8/8/8/4p3/2K3B1/R6Q w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1485" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2014-06-30T12:33:56.620" LastActivityDate="2014-06-30T12:33:56.620" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5702" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-06-30T13:10:26.107" Score="7" ViewCount="1441" Body="&lt;p&gt;The IBM DeepBlue which is a chess computer that won against the one of the world's top chess players Kasparov was an IBM research project.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can I buy this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks in advance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3378" LastActivityDate="2014-07-01T17:11:59.057" Title="Can I buy IBM DeepBlue?" Tags="&lt;human-versus-machine&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="7" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5703" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5702" CreationDate="2014-06-30T13:27:19.693" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I guess you have to ask IBM, but it's probably not for sale. Right now the custom made computer is on display at the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.computerhistory.org/chess/full_record.php?iid=art-43305f13ef377&quot;&gt;Computer History Museum&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1485" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2014-06-30T15:43:52.803" LastActivityDate="2014-06-30T15:43:52.803" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5704" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5702" CreationDate="2014-06-30T14:06:41.730" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Most (all?) modern chess computers are software programs which can be run from anyone's computer. Back in the bad old days of 1999, though, IBM couldn't get what they wanted from some random laptop. They made Deep Blue using custom hardware which made mass production economically impossible. So no, you cannot buy it because they were never made for sale.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3270" LastActivityDate="2014-06-30T14:06:41.730" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5705" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5722" CreationDate="2014-06-30T18:50:35.787" Score="8" ViewCount="1996" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am new to the French (so forgive me if the question seems elementary).&#xA;I've just come across the pawn break &lt;code&gt;...f6&lt;/code&gt; for black in the French advance variation, and I find the pawn break quite dubious for me for several reasons:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;When we are attacking the opponent's pawn chain, we are told that to attack the pawn chain, the best way is to attack its base. But in this case, black seems to be voluntarily giving up his pawn chain, as the base of the f7-e6-d5 pawn chain is at f7. Isn't black self-destructing his pawn chain in advancing the f-pawn, as white can now attack the e6 pawn?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;After the inevitable exchange of the pawns (exf6 Rxf6), to me, black is left with a backward pawn (e6) and it is easily exploited by white. My question is: how is the backward pawn favouring black's position, and why is gxf6 not played, as black can get rid of the backward pawn by playing e5 on the next move.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If it's argued that f6 develops the black light-squared-bishop by the manoeuvre Bc8-d7-e8-h5, why can't black just play b6 and fianchetto the bishop or even play Ba6?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks in advance. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3381" LastEditorUserId="11202" LastEditDate="2017-06-30T09:21:35.270" LastActivityDate="2017-06-30T09:21:35.270" Title="Why is the f6 pawn break in Advanced French so important for black?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;french-defense&gt;&lt;closed-position&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5706" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5705" CreationDate="2014-06-30T19:15:36.463" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Playing ...f6 is less common in the Advance than certain other French lines (such as the 3... Nf6 Tarrasch). As with most thematic moves to open the position, the f6 break has to be timed correctly or white will indeed have a great target on e6. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Your pawn chain isn't particularly weak in the normal French f7-e6-d5 configuration (it's really strong, actually). Black is indeed self-destructing his pawn chain in advancing the f-pawn, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. You are making a weakness on e6 by playing f6 but that's part of what you're giving up to get the activity that the break usually brings. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The backward pawn isn't favoring black's position. It's a liability, but the open f-file, access to the d6 square and less cramped position generally provide compensation. It is only 'easy to be exploited by white' if black has played the f6 break at a bad time. Black doesn't play gxf6 because it would block the f-file and severely weaken black's king position. Getting to play e5 and suddenly having weak pawns on d5 and e5 isn't an attractive possibility.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I played the French for a long time and I never tried the Bc8-d7-e8-h5 maneuver which you describe, but it sounds horribly slow. Most players in the Advance put it on d7 sometime between move 5 and 9 and accept that it's going to be bad for a while.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3270" LastActivityDate="2014-06-30T19:15:36.463" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5708" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="468" CreationDate="2014-06-30T20:54:40.693" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can create online tournaments on  &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessmoon.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.chessmoon.com/&lt;/a&gt; &#xA;it supports both Round Robin and Swiss with different time controls and options.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3368" LastActivityDate="2014-06-30T20:54:40.693" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5709" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5702" CreationDate="2014-06-30T23:42:03.413" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Deep Blue is a computing machine designed by the IBM research group, and is very customized.  There is only one, and there is no intention to recreate it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The machine itself is so tied with IBM's legacy and triumphs, even today, that it would be unthinkable for them, at this time, to part with it for any reason.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Further, it is not in a playable state, and requires significant effort to set up and run. It is unlikely that they would find a reason or need to bring it back up to a playable state, because as long as it remains unpowered it can't be beat. Similar to retiring after a major win, there is nothing to gain and everything to lose by coming out of retirement.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The 15 year anniversary was celebrated by IBM with the creation of a tumbler:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://ibmdeepblue15.tumblr.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://ibmdeepblue15.tumblr.com/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So even now they still use it as part of their marketing and outreach efforts. Read the articles and watch the videos there and you may get a glimpse of the effort require not only to create the machine, but to run it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you believe you have the resources or wherewithal to convince them to part with it or make it playable, you had best discuss the topic with them directly - this site is not a Deep Blue support board:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.research.ibm.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.research.ibm.com/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3386" LastActivityDate="2014-06-30T23:42:03.413" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5710" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5720" CreationDate="2014-06-30T23:58:30.630" Score="13" ViewCount="1861" Body="&lt;p&gt;After White's 22. Bc1, it seems like responding with Rd2 would keep the game alive for Black. I assume Friedel's a more insightful player than I am. What am I missing? That is, from an experienced player's viewpoint, why do we assume that staying alive with Rd2 is not worth the effort, and how would White be sure to win regardless?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Nakamura&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Friedel&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;US Championship 2009&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Nf6 4. Ng5 d5 5. exd5 Na5 6. Bb5 c6 7. dxc6 bxc6 8. Bd3 Be7 9. Nc3 O-O 10. O-O Rb8 11. h3 c5 12. b3 Rb4 13. Re1 Bb7 14. Ba3 Rf4 15. g3 Rd4 16. Nf3 Rd3 17. cxd3 Qd3 18. Ne5 Qf5 19. g4 Qf4 20. d4 Rd8 21. Qe2 Rd4 22. Bc1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3387" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2014-07-01T00:02:21.783" LastActivityDate="2020-03-05T19:29:58.540" Title="In Nakamura v. Friedel in 2009, (22. Bc1) why did Friedel resign?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;two-knights&gt;&lt;italian-game&gt;&lt;famous-games&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5711" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5710" CreationDate="2014-07-01T00:30:49.100" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;22...Rd2 saves the queen, but black is still down a massive amount of material. After white takes the rook on d2, he has two rooks for just a bishop. With such a huge material deficit, there is no possible hope of defending with normal play. The only chance for black would be to have an immediate attack on the king or other very strong compensation, which is not the case in the game. White's king is slightly open, but black has no way to take advantage of it and white can easily cover any threats to his king. Since black has no meaningful way to generate any play to make up for the material, he resigned.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2800" LastActivityDate="2014-07-01T00:30:49.100" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5713" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-07-01T10:32:32.900" Score="3" ViewCount="663" Body="&lt;p&gt;I decided to play a few games on FICS, and I really loved jin's interface. Is there any way to tweak it so that I can connect to chess.com's server? (Or using any other interface, for that matter. In particular, are you absolutely forced to play in-browser at chess.com?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3391" LastActivityDate="2014-11-03T09:43:31.843" Title="Using jin to play on chess.com" Tags="&lt;online-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5714" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5715" CreationDate="2014-07-01T11:56:34.213" Score="8" ViewCount="884" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is it considered cheating to simply get an engine score for the current position in an ongoing game without looking at any of the generated lines? I'm guessing the answer is yes, but just curious (and yes, I'll admit to doing this before in casual games!).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2078" LastActivityDate="2014-07-18T15:49:51.323" Title="In correspondence games, is it considered cheating to get an engine evaluation of the current position?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;correspondence-chess&gt;&lt;cheating&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5715" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5714" CreationDate="2014-07-01T12:27:42.373" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;From Wikipedia's article on Correspondence Chess: &quot;&lt;em&gt;However, the influence of computer assistance remains controversial in both official and casual play, and consensus on the issue of whether to allow computer aid is still lacking&lt;/em&gt;&quot; It depends on the organization. Although I think looking at just the evaluation is fine, there is no definite rule on engine use, as in correspondence it can be extremely hard to detect who's using an engine when the players are given so much time to analyze their games. In casual games between your friends it should be perfectly fine, but on a website or through an organization, you should ask them. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3357" LastActivityDate="2014-07-01T12:27:42.373" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5716" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5714" CreationDate="2014-07-01T13:45:14.840" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;For example, knowing whether to look for win or a draw can give a significant boost to your playing strength. You won't lose because you played for a win in an endgame when there was none, you won't miss any combinations you might have etc. Therefore I think it should be explicitly mentioned in the rules if they getting only the score from an engine is okay but using engines to find moves is not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And of course: If the rules of the place where you are playing allow you to use engines, it is allowed. If they prohibit using engines, it is not allowed. If they don't say, you should ask someone who knows about that particular organization/website.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1761" LastActivityDate="2014-07-01T13:45:14.840" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5717" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="468" CreationDate="2014-07-01T13:49:18.853" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you want to do it clean and simple - you could try Chess Tournament. It's an app you can buy very cheap at google play or apple store. It works on any device. And it's easy to use for a quite simple tournament. Supports both Swiss and round-robin. And I also hear rumours about a new version coming soon. You can find it here:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;IOS: &lt;a href=&quot;https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/chess-tournament/id805482640?l=nb&amp;amp;ls=1&amp;amp;mt=8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/chess-tournament/id805482640?l=nb&amp;amp;ls=1&amp;amp;mt=8&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;ANDROID: &lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=no.dcapps.chesstournament&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=no.dcapps.chesstournament&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3394" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T16:15:48.553" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T16:15:48.553" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="5718" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5656" CreationDate="2014-07-01T15:34:22.393" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You are lucky, because I have just published an Android App that does exactly what you need. It is called &quot;Analyze your games&quot; and you can get it here for free:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.bento.analyzeyourgames&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.bento.analyzeyourgames&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1657" LastActivityDate="2014-07-01T15:34:22.393" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5719" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5702" CreationDate="2014-07-01T17:11:59.057" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;If I am not mistaken, it was sold off to two different museums.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Blue_%28chess_computer%29&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Blue_(chess_computer)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3396" LastActivityDate="2014-07-01T17:11:59.057" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5720" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5710" CreationDate="2014-07-01T17:26:52.570" Score="8" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;After White's 22. Bc1, it seems like responding with Rd2 would keep the game alive for Black. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is an entirely wrong assumption. Black has no counterplay whatsoever, while White holds the initiative. Being down material, Black has no resources/time to repel the coming attack, nor to organize a defense/counterplay. Because his queen is trapped he will be forced to lose even more material, which will only make things easier for White.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I assume Friedel's a more insightful player than I am. What am I missing? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Easiest way to win this position as White&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;6k1/pb2bppp/5n2/n1p1N3/3r1qP1/1PN4P/P3QP2/R1B1R1K1 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1...Rd2 $8 2.Bxd2 Qb4 $8 3.Nd5! $18 Qa3 ( 3...Qd4 4.Nxe7+ $18 ) 4.Nxe7+ $18&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With two rooks up, White has an easy task of continuing the mating attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;That is, from an experienced player's viewpoint, why do we assume that staying alive with Rd2 is not worth the effort, and how would White be sure to win regardless?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He probably saw the line from the above diagram and decided to resign. Even though you are an inexperienced player, I doubt you would lose that position against the strongest engine on Earth, since Black has no counterplay and will be forced to exchange pieces to prolong the game after which extra rooks will decide. I will give you just one sample line that shows how I would continue as White:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Easiest way to win this position as White&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;6k1/pb2bppp/5n2/n1p1N3/3r1qP1/1PN4P/P3QP2/R1B1R1K1 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1...Rd2 $8 2.Bxd2 Qb4 $8 3.Nd5! $18 Qa3 ( 3...Qd4 4.Nxe7+ $18 ) 4.Nxe7+ Kf8 $8 ( 4...Kh8 5.Nxf7# ) 5.Nd7+ Ke8 ( 5...Nxd7 6.Ng6+ Kg8 ( 6...fxg6 7.Qe8# ) ( 6...hxg6 7.Qe8# ) 7.Qe8+ Nf8 8.Qxf8# ) 6.Nxf6+ gxf6 ( 6...Kd8 7.Bxa5+ Qxa5 8.Qd3+ Kc7 9.Qg3+ Kb6 ( 9...Kd8 10.Qd6# ) 10.Qd6+ Kb5 ( 10...Bc6 11.Qxc6# ) 11.a4+ Kb4 ( 11...Qxa4 12.bxa4+ Kb4 ( 12...Ka5 13.Qxc5+ Ka6 14.Qb5# ) 13.Qd2+ Kc4 ( 13...Kb3 14.Re3+ Kc4 15.Qc3# ) 14.Rec1+ Kb3 15.Qc3# ) 12.Qd2+ Kxb3 13.Qd3+ Qc3 ( 13...Kb2 14.Reb1# ) ( 13...Kb4 14.Reb1# ) 14.Reb1# ) ( 6...Kf8 7.Ng6+ fxg6 ( 7...hxg6 8.Qe8# ) 8.Qe8# ) 7.Nd5+ Kd7 ( 7...Kd8 8.Qe8# ) ( 7...Kf8 8.Bh6+ Kg8 9.Qe8# ) 8.Qe8+ Kd6 9.Bf4+ Kxd5 10.Qe4#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you can see, although the number of lines is vast, the attack is straightforward. The only &quot;problem&quot; I had with analyzing this for White was to find &lt;strong&gt;the best check with the queen&lt;/strong&gt; so I can keep the lines forcing. I had to spend half an hour calculating all the lines but am sure a player of &lt;em&gt;Nakamura's&lt;/em&gt; strength would find these in a matter of seconds...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The above lines very instructively illustrate the hopelessness of Black's position, so there is no need for me to add anything else. If you need further help or clarification leave a comment. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Best regards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastEditorUserId="10233" LastEditDate="2017-05-10T00:40:17.053" LastActivityDate="2017-05-10T00:40:17.053" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5721" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5710" CreationDate="2014-07-01T18:00:12.880" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;That is, from an experienced player's viewpoint, why do we assume that staying alive with Rd2 is not worth the effort, and how would White be sure to win regardless?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't want to speak for you but it seems you're getting more at a philosophical question about whether or not to resign than asking about the position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For an under 1200 section, this position may well be playable. As you get better, though, there are two factors which make you resign more frequently.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first is that the amount of energy you expend when playing chess goes up as your ability increases. It is very draining to play a slow game as a strong player, particularly when you have a bad position and it may be affecting your mood. In a tournament like the US Championship, the expected points you gain from the time to rest and prepare for your next game following a quick resignation dwarfs the expectation from dragging out a dead lost game. This ties into the second reason:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anybody decent, and especially not (in 2009) world top-20 GM Hikaru Nakamura, is going to let you get away with anything more than a loss in this position. Black staked everything on an attack which white easily rejected and won a ton of material besides. Playing this game out is just going to make people dislike you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3270" LastEditorUserId="3270" LastEditDate="2014-07-01T18:34:36.330" LastActivityDate="2014-07-01T18:34:36.330" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5722" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5705" CreationDate="2014-07-01T22:28:24.873" Score="7" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I am new to french (so forgive me if the question seems elementary) I've just came across the pawn break f6 for black in the french advance variation, and I find the pawn break quite dubious for me for several reasons&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You must understand one whole new concept of chess modern strategy : &lt;strong&gt;Weakness is not a weakness if it can not be exploited.&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And another thing: &lt;strong&gt;Opening theory chooses only the strongest moves as mainlines.&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These moves are the strongest moves known today, so if Black is willing to play with a backward pawn, then be sure he has very good compensation for that!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So you have a backward &lt;code&gt;e-pawn&lt;/code&gt;, so what? &lt;strong&gt;What are the other features of the position?&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Can you get active piece play for this weakness?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;How easy is for White to attack it? Does he have to give up &quot;something&quot; ( development/control of a key square/etc ) in order to attack it?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Can you sacrifice that pawn in the near future for &lt;strong&gt;strong&lt;/strong&gt; pressure/initiative?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is it really a weakness or is it simply &lt;strong&gt;ugly&lt;/strong&gt;?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once you change your point of view like this, you will see the other potentials that you have totally neglected or simply underestimated. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;When we are attacking the opponent's pawn chain, we are told that to attack the pawn chain, the best way is to attack its base. But in this case, black seems to be voluntarily giving up his pawn chain, as the base of the f7-e6-d4 pawn chain is at f7. Isn't black self-destructing his pawn chain in advancing the f-pawn, as white can now attack e6 pawn?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can White really attack the &lt;code&gt;e6&lt;/code&gt; is the question here that is important. The modern practice proves that White can not do this &lt;strong&gt;advantageously.&lt;/strong&gt; I have provided an explanation why, and have posted some examples below.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;After the inevitable exchange of the pawns (exf6 Rxf6), to me, black is left behind with a backward pawn (e6) and its is easy to be exploited by white. My question is: how is the backward pawn favouring black's position, and why is gxf6 not played as black can get rid of the backward pawn by playing e5 on the next move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black has clear math behind this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;White has lost a tempo with &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt; by playing twice with a pawn;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;White is passive&lt;/strong&gt; and for now only &lt;strong&gt;maintains&lt;/strong&gt; space advantage;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Because of #1 and #2, White needs time to finish development so he can &quot;cash in&quot; his space advantage;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;White pieces are slightly &lt;strong&gt;misplaced&lt;/strong&gt; -&gt; &lt;code&gt;Nb1&lt;/code&gt; belongs at &lt;code&gt;c3&lt;/code&gt; but the pawn is there, &lt;code&gt;Bc1&lt;/code&gt; should go to &lt;code&gt;g5&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;e3&lt;/code&gt; but is hindered by &lt;code&gt;...Qb6&lt;/code&gt;;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now the important part:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If Black removes &lt;code&gt;d4 + e5&lt;/code&gt; chain then his superior development will be felt and he will get &lt;strong&gt;mobile central phalanx&lt;/strong&gt; -&gt; mobile center phalanx + superior development/piece placement = high chances to win. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;This is very stressful moment for White, and he needs accurate play just to survive.&lt;/strong&gt; He needs to finish his development but his strong pawn chain is gone. That is why &lt;strong&gt;he has no time to attack &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt;, it is just too dangerous.&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So you see, Black will follow &lt;code&gt;...f6&lt;/code&gt; with &lt;code&gt;...c5&lt;/code&gt; in order to get his central pawns rolling, and since he will get his pieces ideally placed, the initiative he obtains might be decisive. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Furthermore, &lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;f-file&lt;/code&gt; + &lt;code&gt;Qb6 + Nf6 + Bc5&lt;/code&gt; make tremendous pressure at &lt;code&gt;f2&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;. There is thematic &lt;code&gt;...Nxf2/Bxf2&lt;/code&gt; sacrifice with subsequent &lt;code&gt;...e4&lt;/code&gt; that regains the piece but retains the initiative. You have never mentioned that you are aware of this plan! Without knowing these plans it is easy to look at Black strategy as bad. Now you understand why &lt;code&gt;...gxf6&lt;/code&gt; is usually a mistake.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If it's argued that f6 develops the black's light-squared-bishop by the manoeuvre Bc8-d7-e8-h5, why can't black jus play b6 and fianchetto the bishop or even play Ba6?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On &lt;code&gt;b6&lt;/code&gt; usually sits Black queen, so the plan you mentioned fails. She is so well placed there, while &lt;code&gt;...Ba6&lt;/code&gt; would achieve little. With the pawn center rolling ( after Black plays &lt;code&gt;...c5-cxd4&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;...f6-fxe5&lt;/code&gt; ) bishop will come into play just in time, and on a good &lt;code&gt;g4&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;f5&lt;/code&gt; square with strong effect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;PRACTICAL EXAMPLES OF ABOVE STATEMENTS:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I will quote some theoretical lines form the Advance French just to show you above plans in action. The sample lines are quoted from &lt;em&gt;J.Watson-Play the French 4th edition ( 2012 )&lt;/em&gt; :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Black demolishes White pawn chain and obtains dynamic piece play&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.e5 c5 4.dxc5 Nc6 5.Nf3 Bxc5 6.Bd3 f6 7.Qe2! fxe5 8.Nxe5 Nxe5 9.Qxe5 Nf6 10.O-O O-O ( 10...Bd6 11.Qg5 O-O 12.Nc3 e5 13.f3 Be6 ) 11.c4 Ng4! ( 11...Qb6!? ) 12.Qh5 Rxf2 13.Rxf2 Bxf2+ 14.Kh1 Nf6 15.Qe2 Bb6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;and White has some, but not fully sufficient, compensation for the pawn.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also notice that after &lt;code&gt;11...Qb6!?&lt;/code&gt; sideline if White plays &lt;code&gt;12.Qe2&lt;/code&gt; Black plays &lt;code&gt;12...e5!&lt;/code&gt; threatening both &lt;code&gt;...e4&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;...Ng4&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is another example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Black demolishes White pawn center and obtains equal position&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.e5 c5 4.c3 Nc6 5.Nf3 Qb6 6.Be2 f6 7.O-O fxe5 8. Nxe5 Nf6 9.dxc5 Bxc5 10.Nd3 ( 10.b4? Bxf2+! ) 10...Bd6 11.Be3 Qc7 12.f4 O-O 13.Nd2 e5 ( 13...Bd7! ) 14.fxe5 Nxe5 15.Nxe5 Bxe5 16.Nf3 Bd6 17.Kh1 Bg4 18.Bg5 Kh8 19.Bxf6 Rxf6 20.Nd4 Bxe2 21.Qxe2 Bxh2 22.Rxf6 gxf6 23.Qe6=&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The whole point of &lt;code&gt;...f6&lt;/code&gt; is to demolish White pawn chain &lt;strong&gt;so you can start rolling your own central pawns&lt;/strong&gt; and exploit your development advantage/better piece placement. After &lt;code&gt;...f6&lt;/code&gt; make sure you can follow up with &lt;code&gt;...c5&lt;/code&gt; and just open the game. You should be just fine after that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is the plan that was not familiar to you, but this plan is the one that &quot;holds&quot; this line &quot;together&quot;. If you need further help leave a comment. Best regards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastActivityDate="2014-07-01T22:28:24.873" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5723" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-07-02T02:47:28.883" Score="7" ViewCount="208" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know everyone will say that this is a stupid question, but I'm going to ask it anyway...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a space between the move number and the move algebraic notation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In other words, which of these is the correct notation? :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.e4 e5 or 1. e4 e5 ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;26.Nxe4 or 26. Nxe4 ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;8...Bb4+ or 8... Bb4+ ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've seen both with and without the space. On Wikipedia there are spaces. But I checked in three of my books and there isn't any space in any of them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3237" LastActivityDate="2014-07-02T09:32:06.853" Title="Is there a space between the move number and the move algebraic notation?" Tags="&lt;notation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5724" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5723" CreationDate="2014-07-02T03:13:50.280" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;As you already noted, both are used. Either style is acceptable, and engines, pgn viewers etc. will usually not have any problems with either of them. The most common is probably without the spaces though, especially with long series of moves it can be argued it improves the readability a bit by not having unnecessary extra spaces. In books the notation will probably always be without spaces if for no other reason than to conserve page space over the length of the book.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2800" LastActivityDate="2014-07-02T03:13:50.280" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5725" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-07-02T06:01:15.960" Score="4" ViewCount="220" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am looking into a &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mark-weeks.com/cfaa/chess960/c960strt.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;website&lt;/a&gt; with starting positions for chess960.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;000 BBQNNRKR&#xA;001 BQNBNRKR&#xA;002 BQNNRBKR&#xA;003 BQNNRKRB&#xA;004 QBBNNRKR&#xA;005 QNBBNRKR&#xA;...&#xA;959 RKRNNQBB&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So there is a table that converts any number from 0 to 959 to a starting position. For example &lt;code&gt;chess960(518) = 'RNBQKBNR'&lt;/code&gt; normal starting chess position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is this formula? How can I do this without storing all the table?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="703" LastActivityDate="2014-07-07T10:54:43.590" Title="Is there a formula that converts a number from 0 to 959 to a corresponding chess960 position?" Tags="&lt;chess960&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5726" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-07-02T07:01:37.347" Score="10" ViewCount="26782" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am trying to find all possible time control rules that are used in various tournaments (not only regular chess, but also speed chess).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example on one of the website I am using the following time controls are available:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;10sec + 1 sec&#xA;1 min&#xA;1 min + 1 sec&#xA;...&#xA;10 min&#xA;...&#xA;30 min&#xA;60 min&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there any list of chess control rules for rated tournaments (normal or blitz)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="703" LastEditorUserId="703" LastEditDate="2014-07-02T08:50:56.577" LastActivityDate="2014-07-02T15:57:22.493" Title="What different time control rules are there in chess tournaments?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;time-control&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5727" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5723" CreationDate="2014-07-02T09:32:06.853" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;From &lt;a href=&quot;http://www6.chessclub.com/help/PGN-spec&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Portable Game Notation Specification and Implementation Guide&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;h2&gt;7: Tokens&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;An integer token is a sequence of one or more decimal digit&#xA;  characters.  It is a special case of the more general &quot;symbol&quot; token&#xA;  class described below. Integer tokens are used to help represent move&#xA;  number indications (see below). &lt;strong&gt;An integer token is terminated just&#xA;  prior to the first non-symbol character following the integer digit&#xA;  sequence.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A period character (&quot;.&quot;) is a token by itself.  It is used for move&#xA;  number indications (see below).  &lt;strong&gt;It is self terminating.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;h2&gt;8.2.2: Movetext move number indications&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A move number indication is composed of one or more adjacent digits&#xA;  (&lt;strong&gt;an integer token&lt;/strong&gt;) followed by zero or more &lt;strong&gt;periods&lt;/strong&gt;.  The integer&#xA;  portion of the indication gives the move number of the immediately&#xA;  following white move (if present) and also the immediately following&#xA;  black move (if present)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So you see that, by spec, any spaces after move number doesn't matter at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="933" LastActivityDate="2014-07-02T09:32:06.853" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5728" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3971" CreationDate="2014-07-02T12:54:29.850" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Give a try to &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessrepertoire.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chess Repertoire&lt;/a&gt; app, it works with Android and iOS and allows you to test your openings. Level 1 of each opening is completely free.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3403" LastActivityDate="2014-07-02T12:54:29.850" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5729" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5726" CreationDate="2014-07-02T15:57:22.493" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;The FIDE-approved classical time control is: (taken from the handbook)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;07 Time Control&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;There is a single time control for all major FIDE events: 90 minutes for the first 40 moves followed by 30 minutes for the rest of the game with an addition of 30 seconds per move starting from move one.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This time control is used in many major chess events such as the Olympiad, FIDE Grand Prix and World Cup.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another popular international time control for classical is &lt;strong&gt;90 minutes with a 30 second increment.&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The classical time control used in the World chess Championship is: (from Wikipedia) &#xA;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;120 minutes, with 60 minutes added after move 40, 15 minutes added after move 60, and 30 additional seconds per move starting from move 61&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Blitz&lt;/strong&gt; time controls is simpler, with just two that dominate tournaments.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;3 minutes with a 2 second increment&lt;/strong&gt; is very popular in top level tournaments, being used in the recent World Blitz chess Championships and most, if not all the top level blitz events, this is because FIDE wants to avoid wins on time, to preserve the quality of top-level chess and also because there are significant prize funds at stake.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;5 minutes&lt;/strong&gt; is the most popular however, as it is easier to schedule as the games can only go as long as 10 minutes, whilst with an increment in can take a while.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For &lt;strong&gt;Rapid&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;15+10&lt;/strong&gt; (15 minutes with a 10 second increment) was the time control used in the recently concluded FIDE World Rapid and Blitz chess Championships.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;25+10&lt;/strong&gt; Is very popular in top level rapid chess and all around as well, it was used in the World Cup in 2013 for the rapid tiebreak stage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;25&lt;/strong&gt; This is the most popular for the same reasons as &lt;strong&gt;5&lt;/strong&gt; is for blitz.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is for the rest of the world.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the United States, its a whole different story,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://archive.uschess.org/ratings/info/time.html&quot;&gt;http://archive.uschess.org/ratings/info/time.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3357" LastActivityDate="2014-07-02T15:57:22.493" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5730" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-07-02T19:28:32.637" Score="2" ViewCount="1185" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am looking for a tactic training software for Windows/Linux/Symbian. I think that I know all tactics by now, and I want to train myself in using them. I do not want tactical software that separate their lessons, such as Chessimo. I want them to have an Elo system of sorts that gives harder puzzles for an higher Elo, and easier puzzles for lower Elo.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only examples that I can think of are Tactic Trainer for Android and the chess.com Tactics. I am quite sure that there is a similar thing for Windows. Also please not online, I'm looking for software. Price is not a issue, at least 'til $50.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you people in advance. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3405" LastEditorUserId="11202" LastEditDate="2017-06-30T09:21:32.377" LastActivityDate="2017-06-30T09:21:32.377" Title="Chess tactics training" Tags="&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;training&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5732" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-07-02T23:16:25.227" Score="10" ViewCount="6201" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here are two extremely common pins, given from white's perspective for clarity:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A black bishop at g4 pinning a white knight at f3 to the white queen at d1.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A black bishop at b4 pinning a white knight at c3 to the white king at e1.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White has a few countermeasures:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Breaking the pin with Be2 or Bd2.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Breaking the pin by castling or moving the queen.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Playing a3 or h3. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first option, while maybe not always the best move available, seems to almost never be a bad move. How should black respond? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The second option is generally good when it does not result in the bishop capturing the knight and doubling pawns. If white has broken the pin in this manner, how should black respond? Generally I capture and double pawns if possible. Otherwise I just leave the bishop there. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The third option is the trickiest. When should white &quot;put the question to the bishop&quot; like this? And black usually has a few replies available: retreat the bishop to a5 or h5, retreat to c5 or f5, and take the knight. How should black decide between them?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I realize that it's hard to give general guidelines here, since every chess position has unique considerations. Still, any rules of thumb would be appreciated. I would rather be right 80% of the time than fly blind and &quot;flip a coin&quot; on these decisions every game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3051" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2014-08-14T22:33:24.133" LastActivityDate="2021-05-03T21:39:14.677" Title="How to handle the standard Bb4 (or Bg4 / Bg5 / Bb5) pin?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;pins&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5733" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5344" CreationDate="2014-07-03T01:33:36.397" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;I asked myself the same question a year ago.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I found this interesting page: &lt;a href=&quot;http://computerchess.org.uk/ccrl/404FRC/opening_report_by_white_score.html#table_start&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://computerchess.org.uk/ccrl/404FRC/opening_report_by_white_score.html#table_start&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With statistics for every 960 positions based on 144,300 games played by 123 engines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Apparently the position that gives the biggest advantage to White is RKNQBBNR with a White score of 63.9%.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that on the previous page the standard position has a White score of 56.0%. I once read that the true White score in standard chess is 55.5% for GM games. Since these two numbers are pretty close it would seem that the statistics of the previous page are meaningful and pretty accurate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, someone once told me that if we just inverted Knights and Rooks then White would have a big advantage: NRBQKBRN.&#xA;But the previous page actually says that White only scores 47.4% in that position, so maybe he was wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyway, I seriously doubt there exists a position where White has an advantage of +0.50 or more. And every single one of the 960 positions are very probably just draws with best play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3237" LastActivityDate="2014-07-03T01:33:36.397" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5734" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5893" CreationDate="2014-07-03T06:05:05.103" Score="5" ViewCount="1165" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is more of a puzzle. As far as I can ascertain, Gnu-Chess on easy mode always plays the same movesm What is the least amount of moves required to beat Gnu Chess on easy mode? Just to clarify, you are playing as Black, Gnu Chess is playing as White.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/mTKmT.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2697" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-09-09T22:07:12.323" LastActivityDate="2020-09-09T22:08:48.283" Title="As Black, what is the fastest way to beat Gnu Chess on easy mode?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;puzzles&gt;&lt;solving&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="7" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="5735" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-07-03T12:36:26.827" Score="2" ViewCount="201" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm looking for a decent PGN game viewer for my blog, where I post annotated games, instead of just writing down the notation I want to have a visual PGN viewer. Can anyone recommend any nice PGN viewers for blogs? Thank you. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3357" LastActivityDate="2014-07-03T12:36:26.827" Title="PGN Viewer for blog" Tags="&lt;pgn&gt;&lt;chess-blog&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ClosedDate="2014-10-04T03:56:11.117" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5736" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6252" CreationDate="2014-07-03T15:22:46.843" Score="8" ViewCount="655" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm wondering if the following scenario has ever been played out:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Once side of a chess game is played by multiple humans at once,&#xA;  collaboratively determining what the next move will be.  This could,&#xA;  perhaps, be enforced by some sort of game logic where the move with&#xA;  the highest percentage is the chosen-move.  Let's pretend that there&#xA;  could be as many as 1000 humans contributing to the decision making. &#xA;  The other side is played by a single chess computer, and a&#xA;  reasonably-good one at that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Has anyone ever attempted something like this?  If so, what was the outcome?  Does adding more human players to make decisions for one side of the game increase the likelihood of that side defeating a computer opponent?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3407" LastActivityDate="2019-05-13T04:19:43.557" Title="Has there ever been a game where multiple humans play against a single chess computer?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;study&gt;&lt;human-versus-machine&gt;&lt;simultaneous&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5737" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5807" CreationDate="2014-07-03T18:38:36.550" Score="9" ViewCount="639" Body="&lt;p&gt;In &lt;em&gt;Dvoretsky's Endgame Manual, 2nd Edition&lt;/em&gt; from 2006 the following important practical rook endgame with a distant passed pawn is analysed. The whole analysis (of the same position with white to move and black to move) is on pages 194-200.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [Title &quot;White to move&quot;] &#xA; [SetUp &quot;1&quot;]&#xA; [FEN &quot;8/R4p2/P4kp1/7p/7P/4K1P1/r4P2/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1.Kd4! Rxf2 2. Rc7 Ra2 3. a7 Kf5 4. Kc4!! {Johannes Steckner} Kg4 5. Kb3! Ra6 6. Rc4+ Kxg3 7. Ra4 Rxa7 8. Rxa7 Kxh4 9. Kc3 Kg3 10. Kd2 h4 11. Ke2 Kg2 12. Rxf7 h3 13. Rf2+! Kg3 14. Rf6 +-  &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The author claims, with very long analyses to back it up, that white wins after &lt;code&gt;Kd4!&lt;/code&gt;, but he warns:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Nothing could be further from my mind than to label the analyses presented [...] as the &quot;last word of theory&quot; - long, complicated variations rarely turn out error-free.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Have there been any new developments since 2006?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know 11-men tablebases are a long way off, but are we still confident this endgame is a win for white?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1485" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2014-08-17T15:41:28.703" LastActivityDate="2014-08-17T15:41:28.703" Title="Is this rook endgame won for white?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;rook-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="9" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5738" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5743" CreationDate="2014-07-03T20:01:49.027" Score="3" ViewCount="651" Body="&lt;p&gt;I play chess using my board with friends from time to time. I don't have a clock.&#xA;Since I don't play chess that much with friends, I'd rather not to buy a clock, I mostly play online.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lucky me I found some &lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.Hefestus.ChessClock.Free&amp;amp;hl=en&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;android app&lt;/a&gt; that does the trick, I install it, put the phone between me and my opponent, I do the move and press a button, he does another button from his part.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All is great, until some dude decided to call me :) the clock reset, I had to set it again. The same dude decides to knock on my door and there was no way to pause the clock!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My requirements are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Android chess clock app that you can pause, and that pauses itself when someone calls you.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1105" LastActivityDate="2019-03-17T09:56:54.907" Title="Chess clock android app" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;android&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5739" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-07-03T23:26:30.537" Score="4" ViewCount="1871" Body="&lt;p&gt;After making my engines evaluate the starting position for more than 10 hours each, here is what I got:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Fritz 12:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Depth = 25/65&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Time = 10 hours and 30 minutes&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;1.f3 : -0.90 &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;1.g4 : -0.77&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;1.Nh3 : -0.56&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;1.Na3 : -0.52&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;1.h4 : -0.47&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;1.b4 : -0.47&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;1.a4 : -0.42&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All 13 other moves are -0.25 or more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Houdini 3 Pro x64&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Depth = 29/76&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Time = 11 hours and 45 minutes&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;1.g4 : -0.51&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;1.f3 : -0.50&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;1.Nh3 : -0.38&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;1.Na3 : -0.37&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;1.h4 : -0.25&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;1.b4 : -0.20&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;1.a4 : -0.17&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All 13 other moves are -0.12 or more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One thing seems very probable: the worst possible first move is either 1.f3 or 1.g4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So between these two moves: which is the number #1 worst possible move?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3237" LastActivityDate="2019-04-23T12:16:38.020" Title="What is the worst possible first move for White: 1.f3 or 1.g4?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;blunder&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5740" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5730" CreationDate="2014-07-04T01:07:56.897" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I thought this is the best for Windows: &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1886846677&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.amazon.com/CT-ART-Chess-Tactics-Training-Software/dp/1886846677&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1967" LastActivityDate="2014-07-04T01:07:56.897" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5741" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5681" CreationDate="2014-07-04T01:13:34.887" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;The benefit I like the most (I'm almost 60) is that it prevents, or slows down the onset of,  Alzheimer's disease.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/24/opinion/checkmating-alzheimer-s.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/24/opinion/checkmating-alzheimer-s.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://gambit.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/12/07/can-playing-chess-prevent-alzheimers/?_php=true&amp;amp;_type=blogs&amp;amp;_r=0&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://gambit.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/12/07/can-playing-chess-prevent-alzheimers/?_php=true&amp;amp;_type=blogs&amp;amp;_r=0&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1967" LastActivityDate="2014-07-04T01:13:34.887" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5742" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1832" CreationDate="2014-07-04T04:37:03.740" Score="-2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What do i really get out of that - a high paid job? NO - a green card to US? - NO - free sponsorship? PROBABLY NO - huge money? - NO (because once you become GM you have to compete with others similar to you)&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a craze of becoming GRANDMASTER because:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You can get a highly paid job.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You can get a green card to the USA.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You get free and good sponsorship.&#xA;4.You can also earn a lot of money through coaching, prize winnings, appearance fees, etc. (really).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3408" LastEditorUserId="10867" LastEditDate="2016-12-08T11:57:43.807" LastActivityDate="2016-12-08T11:57:43.807" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5743" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5738" CreationDate="2014-07-04T07:57:48.543" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.chess.clock&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;chess.com Chess Clock app&lt;/a&gt; has a big pause button right smack dab in the middle of the screen &lt;em&gt;and&lt;/em&gt; pauses itself when someone calls. (Just tested it to verify)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2078" LastActivityDate="2014-07-04T07:57:48.543" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5744" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5755" CreationDate="2014-07-04T16:24:14.150" Score="6" ViewCount="4479" Body="&lt;p&gt;I always play both blitz and standard time control chess games. But in blitz I make a lot of mistakes and I'm not able to find a lot of good and tactical moves whereas in standard time chess format I can play better.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think &lt;strong&gt;blitz&lt;/strong&gt; is only for &lt;strong&gt;Applying our chess skills&lt;/strong&gt; and only &lt;strong&gt;standard time control&lt;/strong&gt; chess will help more to &lt;strong&gt;improve our chess skills&lt;/strong&gt;.(I'm not against blitz :D)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Will blitz help more than standard time control to improve my chess skills?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If yes how? If No when and for what purpose should i play blitz ?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks in Advance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3131" LastEditorUserId="2429" LastEditDate="2014-07-05T14:43:05.120" LastActivityDate="2020-02-10T15:00:13.383" Title="Which format should i choose to improve my chess skills (Blitz chess or Standard time control chess)?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;blitz&gt;&lt;time-control&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5745" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5504" CreationDate="2014-07-04T17:18:54.040" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;For US tournaments (both rated and unrated ) the most updated site:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://wheretoplaychess.info&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://wheretoplaychess.info&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3411" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2014-10-29T20:41:27.347" LastActivityDate="2014-10-29T20:41:27.347" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5747" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5744" CreationDate="2014-07-05T02:17:56.867" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Blitz will never help you to progress in chess nearly as much as standard.&#xA;This is the general consensus of the chess training world.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is because in blitz, like you explained, you make a lot of mistakes and cannot perform to the level which you do in standard. Of course this is because there is so little time to think.&#xA;With such little time, it becomes harder to formulate plans, and absorb patterns. Chess, is really all about the absorption of thousands of patterns overtime, be it tactical, positional or endgame believe it or not. In blitz, with such a small amount of time to think, you do not benefit from your games nearly as much as standard. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although, this is unless you can compartmentalize your skills. If you can not let your blitz mind set affect your slow game mind set, then blitz can help you to practice your skills but not to improve to the extent of standard.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a good article I found online about this subject: &#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.onlinechesslessons.net/2011/05/28/confession%E2%80%99s-of-a-blitzaholic-%E2%80%93-will%E2%80%99s-opinion-on-chess/#.U7dfb_mSx8E&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.onlinechesslessons.net/2011/05/28/confession%E2%80%99s-of-a-blitzaholic-%E2%80%93-will%E2%80%99s-opinion-on-chess/#.U7dfb_mSx8E&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3357" LastActivityDate="2014-07-05T02:17:56.867" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5748" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5744" CreationDate="2014-07-05T02:22:21.477" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Will blitz help more than standard time control to improve my chess skills?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If No when and for what purpose should i play blitz?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) To learn openings. After every blitz game you play (especially if it is online and automatically recorded) look up the opening and see if you made a mistake, and what you should have done instead. Ideally you will have some way to store and remember this information as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) To have fun because it will keep you motivated to improve at chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2014-07-05T02:22:21.477" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5749" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-07-05T03:25:22.947" Score="4" ViewCount="1528" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the Caro-Kann Panov-Botvinnik Attack, after 1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. exd5 cxd5 4. c4 Nf6 5. Nc3, which move tends to lead (on average) to the most solid, positional, slow, closed, quiet and strategic positions (the less sharp positions, the positions which contain the less tactics) : 5...e6 or 5...Nc6 or 5...g6 ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are all the differences between these three moves? What are the advantages and disadvantages of each of them?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3237" LastActivityDate="2015-04-03T11:01:51.737" Title="In the Caro-Kann Panov-Botvinnik Attack which move tends to lead to the most solid, positional, slow, closed, and quiet positions: 5... e6, Nc6 or g6?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;&lt;caro-kann&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5751" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-07-05T12:20:10.827" Score="6" ViewCount="3073" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to get a strong engine to practice while I'm not home. Look at: &lt;a href=&quot;http://stockfishchess.org/download&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://stockfishchess.org/download&lt;/a&gt;, we see a list of apps to download for the Stockfish engine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why are there three apps to downloads for the same engine? Which one should I choose? What are their advantages and disadvantages? Which one is the strongest? Which one is the easiest to use? What functionality do they offer?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS: I have an iPhone 5 and Android tablet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3416" LastEditorUserId="1761" LastEditDate="2014-10-14T10:41:52.713" LastActivityDate="2018-06-24T23:13:01.777" Title="Why does Stockfish website offer many apps to download?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;engines&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;android&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5752" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5753" CreationDate="2014-07-05T12:47:13.980" Score="5" ViewCount="554" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess has lot of interesting rules such as castling, en passant, 50 move rule, stalemate, etc.  I am interested in knowing the history behind the introduction of chess rules.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can anybody explain &lt;strong&gt;which rule was recently introduced/modified in chess officially?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3131" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-06-14T03:25:24.517" LastActivityDate="2020-06-14T03:25:24.517" Title="Which rule was recently introduced/modified in chess officially?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;history&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="5753" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5752" CreationDate="2014-07-05T14:04:55.453" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;Do you mean what rules have been changed the most recently? FIDE, the international federation of chess, just changed some rules four days ago (2014 July 1). Changes include:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;You are now officially allowed to promote a pawn by removing it from the board while it is still on the 7th rank and then placing a new piece on the 8th rank, rather than moving the pawn to the 8th rank and then removing it. You may also place the new piece before removing the pawn. (The move has not changed, just the list of allowable ways of executing it.)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If 75 consecutive moves have been played without a pawn move or a capture, or the same position has occurred for 5 consecutive alternate moves in a row, the arbiter is allowed to step in and declare the game drawn (without a player claiming a draw).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Players may not bring cell phones into the tournament hall at all.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2014-07-05T14:04:55.453" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5754" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5752" CreationDate="2014-07-05T14:06:09.927" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The rules of chess have varied over time and various authors have written them down over the centuries.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Philidor is most often credited for formalising the rules for tournament use, however the problem still remained that there were no common set of rules accepted by everyone. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the 1920s FIDE was formed, and there was an attempt to standardised the rules. This was successful to to a degree, however different interests still maintain their own rules: for example the English Chess Federation base their rules on the FIDE rules but with some modifications, and some tournaments or matches may add their own rules e.g. The Sofia Rule.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is therefore no universal set of rules, but the FIDE rules are use in FIDE organised tournaments, which are most of the top level ones. Minor changes are made to these every so often. Mostly these are to clarify existing rules but occasionally you get new rules such as the ones forbidding 'note taking' and those prohibiting the use of electronic devices which have been added relatively recently.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3417" LastActivityDate="2014-07-05T14:06:09.927" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5755" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5744" CreationDate="2014-07-05T14:56:11.267" Score="4" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Will blitz help more than standard time control to improve my chess&#xA;  skills?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No. &lt;strong&gt;Standard time control chess always helps more to improve your game than blitz chess&lt;/strong&gt; because in standard chess you spend more time analyzing the game. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess is a game of intelligence but even more so of &lt;strong&gt;knowledge&lt;/strong&gt;. The more (structures, endgames, openings, etc.) you know, the better you are. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;To make a rather primitive classification, the average grandmaster&#xA;  knows about 1,500 - 2,000 typical positions, including the opening,&#xA;  possible middlegame plans, and some outlines of endgame. Super GMs,&#xA;  like Kramnik or Anand, have a wider and deeper knowledge. As for&#xA;  &lt;strong&gt;Kasparov&lt;/strong&gt;, his knowledge is truly head-spinning, I guess, his number of&#xA;  positions might exceed &lt;strong&gt;10,000&lt;/strong&gt;. Garry's memory is phenomenal! I think&#xA;  it even impedes him during the game. - Valeri Tsaturian&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Knowledge is hardly acquired in 3-5 minutes (blitz) and even if it is, it is quickly forgotten. To gain chess knowledge, you need to spend more &lt;strong&gt;time&lt;/strong&gt; studying the game. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The more &lt;strong&gt;time&lt;/strong&gt; you spend studying a position, the more you &lt;strong&gt;understand&lt;/strong&gt; it, the better you &lt;strong&gt;remember&lt;/strong&gt; it, and the more &lt;strong&gt;insights&lt;/strong&gt; you gain into it. It also helps you correct your faulty decisions in the post-game analysis, because, if you're wrong, it can show you to what extent you're wrong in your &lt;strong&gt;judgment&lt;/strong&gt; of certain positions. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, I played a game recently in standard time control and in one position, my opponent was really surprised that I didn't capture his bishop with my knight. During the game, I thought that the trade of bishop for knight wouldn't help me in that position, but in the post-game analysis, my opponent proved me wrong and demonstrated how it was good for me. I went home and analyzed with a computer and found that my opponent was right. If this had been just a blitz game, I could have just excused myself saying &quot;well, I didn't have enough time to consider the consequences of that&quot; and thereby prevented myself from recognizing this flaw in my own knowledge. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If No when and for what purpose should i play blitz?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can play blitz to&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) Enjoy yourself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) Check your opening preparation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) Develop a rough understanding of certain types of positions &lt;strong&gt;with the intention of analyzing them in depth later&lt;/strong&gt;. This third point is crucial, because it is the best way to use a blitz game. You may not learn much during and immediately after the game, but if you analyze your blitz games, you will still learn a lot. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2429" LastEditorUserId="2429" LastEditDate="2014-07-05T15:02:26.840" LastActivityDate="2014-07-05T15:02:26.840" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5756" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4886" CreationDate="2014-07-05T15:23:38.340" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;Rule of thumb for checkmate with Rook against lone king:&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Use the Rook to restrict the opponent's King.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Support the Rook with the King.   &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Confine the King to a box and make the box smaller  if possible.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If it is not possible to make the box smaller, move the King (a&#xA;waiting move to force back the opponent's King.).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Last but not least which leads to victory is&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Force your opponent king to corner (&lt;code&gt;Rank - 1st or 8th or File - a or h&lt;/code&gt; ).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3131" LastActivityDate="2014-07-05T15:23:38.340" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5757" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5751" CreationDate="2014-07-05T21:47:57.973" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;On the Android tablet, you download the version for Android, and for the iPhone you can download the iPhone version. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stockfish engine's &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/tree/master/src&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;source code&lt;/a&gt; is written in C++, and therefore &lt;strong&gt;it has to be compiled for the platform&lt;/strong&gt; (Windows, Android, iPhone, etc.) on which it will run. Thus, you have different &quot;versions&quot; (not in the strict sense) of the same engine.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For Android, I recommend you download the app called &lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.petero.droidfish&amp;amp;hl=en&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;DroidFish&lt;/a&gt;. I use it myself. It is very convenient. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2429" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2014-10-13T22:52:12.963" LastActivityDate="2014-10-13T22:52:12.963" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5758" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5775" CreationDate="2014-07-05T22:17:29.260" Score="4" ViewCount="2513" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;What's the difference between a tempo and a tempi?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;At the start, how many tempo/tempi is White up? Half, one, or two?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;At the start of the game (before White has even made his first move), how many tempi is one Pawn worth?** (For players rated near ~2200 Elo.)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3237" LastEditorUserId="2789" LastEditDate="2014-12-29T00:20:49.593" LastActivityDate="2014-12-29T00:20:49.593" Title="What's the difference between a tempo and a tempi? At the start, how many tempo/tempi is White up? On average, how many tempo/tempi is one Pawn worth?" Tags="&lt;pawns&gt;&lt;statistics&gt;&lt;evaluation&gt;&lt;point-value&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5760" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5758" CreationDate="2014-07-06T00:22:40.280" Score="4" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What's the difference between a tempo and a tempi?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Tempi&lt;/em&gt; is the plural of &lt;em&gt;tempo&lt;/em&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;At the start, how many tempo/tempi is White up? Half, one, or two?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At the start, White is not up any tempo. There is no such thing as a &lt;em&gt;half tempo&lt;/em&gt;, because &lt;em&gt;tempo&lt;/em&gt; refers to a single move from one side.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;On average, how many tempo/tempi is one Pawn worth? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is hard to say. In open positions, often even 1 or 2 tempi might be enough compensation for a pawn and 3 to 4 tempi may make one's position better. In closed positions, tempi don't matter that much, so in those situations 3 to 4 or more tempi might compensate for the loss of a pawn. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'll give an example- &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Consider this opening - &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;     [Event &quot;2 Tempi gained by White&quot;]&#xA;     [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;     1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 dxe4 4. Nxe4 Bf5 5. Bd3 Qxd4 6. Nf3 Qd8&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you compare the position after Black's 4th move and Black's 6th move, Black hasn't changed its position; white has developed two extra pieces (2 tempi) and it's White's turn to move. However, White lost a pawn in the process. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I analyzed this position with Houdini 1.5 at depth 20 and here's the assessment - &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After Black's 4th move - &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;= (0.28): 5.Ng3 Bg6 6.Be2 e6 7.Nf3 Nd7 8.0-0 Bd6 9.c4 Ngf6...&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After Black's 6th move - &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;= (0.06): 7.Qe2 Nf6 8.0-0 Bxe4 9.Bxe4 Qc7 10.Rd1 Nbd7...&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, as per Houdini's evaluation White's two tempi was not sufficient compensation for the lost pawn (because the score reduced from 0.28 to 0.06. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, suppose I give White an extra tempi, so that the following position is reached with White to play - &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;rn1qkbnr/pp2pppp/2p5/5b2/4N3/3B1N2/PPP2PPP/R1BQ1RK1 w kq - 0 7&quot;]&#xA; [Event &quot;3 Tempi for White&quot;]  &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here, Houdini's evaluation at depth 20 is &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; +/= (0.54): 7.Qe2 Bxe4 8.Bxe4 Nd7 9.Bf4 e6 10.Rfd1 Ngf6 11.Ne5 Qb6...&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, Houdini thinks White is better with the 3 gained tempi after the loss of the pawn. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, this is just computer evaluation. From a human perspective, we can say that 3 of White's pieces are already developed and White is castled. Black has only one developed piece. None of it's kingside pieces have moved, so Black's king will be in the center for a while. White's rooks will quickly occupy the open files, so White will develop enough pressure. Thus, White is slightly better. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In open positions, my judgment (subjective, of course) is that a pawn is worth somewhere between 2-3 tempi, whereas in closed positions, it may be worth between 3-4 tempi (if the side with the tempi uses the tempi to open up the position or gain a similar advantage). Thus on an &quot;average&quot;, a pawn is worth 3 tempi. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2429" LastActivityDate="2014-07-06T00:22:40.280" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5761" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5751" CreationDate="2014-07-06T00:41:50.737" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You see those distributions because they're built for each platform. If you have iOS, use the iOS binary. If you have Android, use the Android binary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, you ask for which one is strongest, advantages etc. On theory, Droidfish on Android is the weakest among three apps (SmallFish, Stockfish and Droidfish). It's weakest because it's a 32 bits app while the other two are 64 bits.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;SmallFish and Stockfish are the two choices that you can make on the iOS (Android has only one). While the Stockfish app is older, SmallFish has better functionality includes evaluation graph, annotations and Online Store. The Stockfish app is solid but it offers nothing more than regular game playing. SmallFish goes for more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3420" LastActivityDate="2014-07-06T00:41:50.737" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5762" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5768" CreationDate="2014-07-06T01:45:17.177" Score="3" ViewCount="696" Body="&lt;p&gt;Having just discovered this move (I'm new to all the terms and strategies, being just a beginner hobbyist), I was wondering how the move works.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Don't get me wrong, I understand what it is (in terms of the movement), but I don't understand what it accomplishes (i.e. how it counters white's move).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I hope this made sense, and thanks in advance for the responses!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1708" LastActivityDate="2014-07-06T18:36:37.717" Title="How Does The Sicilian Defense Work?" Tags="&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5763" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5767" CreationDate="2014-07-06T08:12:13.777" Score="1" ViewCount="252" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this game black made some mistakes which leads to the final position.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;While analyzing this game the engine is not willing to capture the bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2014.07.05&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;-&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;ahesham&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;myking64&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;1455&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;1398&quot;]&#xA;[Time &quot;23:33:01&quot;]&#xA;[TimeControl &quot;900&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;r1q2r2/1pp2pk1/p1n1bNp1/2b1P1Pp/4PQ1P/8/PPP1BP2/2KR3R w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Bxh5 gxh5 2.Nxh5+ Kg6 3.Ng3 Be7 4.h5+ Kg7 5.Nf5+ Bxf5 6.exf5     &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Without capturing the bishop on the 1st move how can I proceed as black ?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;What are possible plans for black after the 6th move to get an advantage?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3131" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-04T21:48:28.400" LastActivityDate="2020-04-04T21:48:28.400" Title="How to save black's position in this Game?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;learning&gt;&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;middlegame&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="5764" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2281" CreationDate="2014-07-06T10:00:46.273" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my point of view it is tough to beat strategic players with only tactics. We should know strategy also.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are some positions from your game showing how your opponent beat you by some nice strategic plans.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Control over the center: at move 10&lt;/strong&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Control over the center: at move 10&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;r1b2rk1/ppqn1ppp/2pbp3/8/2PPB3/5N2/PP3PPP/R1BQ1RK1 w KQ - 0 1&quot;]  &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Pawn power at move 17&lt;/strong&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Pawn power : at move 17&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;2r1rnk1/pbq2ppp/1ppbp3/6B1/1PPP4/P2Q1N2/2B2PPP/3RR1K1 w KQ - 0 1&quot;]  &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;White's eye on open file&lt;/strong&gt;   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;White's eye on open file : at move 20&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;2r1rnk1/pbq1bppp/2p1p3/2P3B1/1P2R3/P2Q1N2/2B2PPP/3R2K1 w KQ - 0 1&quot;]  &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;White captured open file&lt;/strong&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;White captured open file : at move 29&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;2q3k1/pb3ppp/2pQp3/2P5/1P2B3/P7/5PPP/6K1 w KQ - 0 1&quot;]  &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;White's dream position which ended your game&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;White's dream position : at move 30&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;2q3k1/pb3ppp/2pQp3/1PP5/4B3/P7/5PPP/6K1 w KQ - 0 1&quot;]  &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Summary&lt;/strong&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We should always follow some basic strategic plans such as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Control the center.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Occupy open files.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Restrict mobility of your opponent pieces. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Push your pawns whenever you can't find any other good moves and threats.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I hope this will help you...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3131" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-09-17T10:51:40.593" LastActivityDate="2019-09-17T10:51:40.593" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="5765" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5601" CreationDate="2014-07-06T15:00:45.310" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Winboard is what can run in wine. Though macwine is limited to 32bit executables.   Xboard on the other hand always could be compiled in OSX just fine!  I created an .app package ready for use and I'm told works fine in 10.10-10.6&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is a GTK2 app running through Quartz, so no X11 server app is needed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.open-aurec.com:8080/wbforum/viewtopic.php?f=19&amp;amp;t=53274&amp;amp;p=200662#p200662&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.open-aurec.com:8080/wbforum/viewtopic.php?f=19&amp;amp;t=53274&amp;amp;p=200662#p200662&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3424" LastEditorUserId="3424" LastEditDate="2015-01-09T05:12:18.660" LastActivityDate="2015-01-09T05:12:18.660" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5766" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5763" CreationDate="2014-07-06T16:08:37.720" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Maybe trying to break the pawn structure with something like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[White &quot;ahesham&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;myking64&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;r1q2r2/1pp2pk1/p1n1bNp1/2b1P1Pp/4PQ1P/8/PPP1BP2/2KR3R w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Bxh5 Bxf2 2. Qxf2 Nxe5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3425" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-09-23T10:00:54.993" LastActivityDate="2019-09-23T10:00:54.993" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="5767" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5763" CreationDate="2014-07-06T16:59:27.567" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What could be possible plans for black after 6th move to get&#xA;  advantage?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;None. &lt;strong&gt;1...gxh5&lt;/strong&gt; is a huge mistake, after which Black is definitely losing. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;   [Date &quot;2014.07.05&quot;]&#xA;   [White &quot;ahesham&quot;]&#xA;   [Black &quot;myking64&quot;] &#xA;   [WhiteElo &quot;1455&quot;]&#xA;   [BlackElo &quot;1398&quot;]&#xA;   [FEN &quot;r1q2r2/1pp2pk1/p1n1bNp1/2b1P1Pp/4PQ1P/8/PPP1BP2/2KR3R w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;   1. Bxh5 gxh5 2. Nxh5+ Kg6 3. Ng3 Be7 4. h5+ Kg7 5. Nf5+ Bxf5 6. exf5 Rd8 (6...&#xA;   Rg8 7. f6+ Kh8 8. fxe7 Qe6 9. g6 Rg7 10. Qf6 Qxe7 11. h6 Qxf6 12. hxg7+ Kxg7&#xA;   13. exf6+ Kxg6 14. Rh3) 7. f6+ Kg8 8. g6 Qe6 9. Qh6 Bxf6 10. exf6 Qxf6 11.&#xA;   Rxd8+ Rxd8 12. Rg1 Nd4 13. Qh7+ Kf8 14. g7+ Ke7 15. Qe4+ Ne6 16. Qb4+ Kd7 17.&#xA;   g8=Q Rxg8 18. Rxg8 Qxf2 19. Qd2+ Qxd2+ 20. Kxd2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Without capturing bishop at 1st move how can i proceed as black ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1...Bd4&lt;/strong&gt; is an excellent move, immediately threatening the pawn on &lt;strong&gt;e5&lt;/strong&gt;. The positions that arise after &lt;strong&gt;1...Bd4&lt;/strong&gt; are extremely complex. I have attempted to analyze a few with the help of the Houdini 1.5 and Stockfish 4.2 engines. Black is able to hold the position after &lt;strong&gt;1...Bd4&lt;/strong&gt; and make a draw. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [Date &quot;2014.07.05&quot;]&#xA; [White &quot;ahesham&quot;]&#xA; [Black &quot;myking64&quot;]&#xA; [WhiteElo &quot;1455&quot;]&#xA; [BlackElo &quot;1398&quot;]&#xA; [FEN &quot;r1q2r2/1pp2pk1/p1n1bNp1/2b1P1Pp/4PQ1P/8/PPP1BP2/2KR3R w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;&#xA; 1. Bxh5 Bd4! 2. Be2 (2. Rxd4 Nxd4 3. Bd1 Rh8 4. c3 Nc6 5. h5 Qd8 6. h6+ Kf8 7.&#xA; Bc2 Qe7 8. h7 Rd8 9. Qh4 Qc5 10. Qh6+ Ke7 11. Qg7 Qxe5 12. Ng8+ (12. Kb1 Rxh7&#xA; 13. Qxh7 Qxg5 14. Nd5+ Bxd5 15. exd5 Rxd5) 12... Ke8 13. Nf6+ Ke7 14. Ng8+ Ke8&#xA; 15. Nf6+ Ke7) 2... Bxe5 3. Qe3 Qb8!! 4. f4 Qa7 5. Qg3 Bd4 6. Kb1 Qb6 7. c3 Bf2 8.&#xA; Qg2 Rfd8 9. h5 Qe3 10. Bf3 Ne7 11. hxg6 Nxg6 12. Rh7+ Kf8 13. f5 Rxd1+ 14. Bxd1&#xA; Bc4 15. Qh1 Rd8 16. fxg6 Bg1 17. g7+ Ke7 18. g8=N+ Kd6 19. b4 Bd3+ 20. Bc2&#xA; Bxc2+ 21. Kxc2 Qe2+ 22. Kb3 Qd1+ 23. Kb2 Qd2+ 24. Kb1 Qd1+ 25. Kb2 Qd2+&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2429" LastEditorUserId="2429" LastEditDate="2014-07-07T05:51:22.033" LastActivityDate="2014-07-07T05:51:22.033" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5768" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5762" CreationDate="2014-07-06T18:36:37.717" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;1.e4 e5 is played to stop white from playing yet another pawn to the center with 2.d4. Sicilian Defense (1...c5) also accomplishes this with the c pawn. This way if you end up trading on d4 you can still have both of your central pawns unlike your opponent and have an advantage in the center.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Symmetric positions like 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nf6 usually don't give much of a winning chance to black and tend to be drawish. Sicilian on the other hand creates imbalance in the first move and shows black is here for the win! Imbalance creating openings (Sicilian, Nimzo Indian) become popular for black, otherwise it's hard to get the advantage. White tends to get the initiative early on but the pawn structure suggests black is better if he can survive the early middlegame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I realize this is a basic explanation and misses lots of exceptions but.. it is just move 1, don't expect too much from me!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3415" LastActivityDate="2014-07-06T18:36:37.717" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5769" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-07-07T09:16:53.007" Score="0" ViewCount="396" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the most compressed way to &quot;write&quot; a chessboard as an integer considering en passant and castling as always possible no matter what.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3405" LastActivityDate="2014-09-10T16:41:47.477" Title="Numerical FEN writing" Tags="&lt;notation&gt;&lt;fen&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5770" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5725" CreationDate="2014-07-07T10:54:43.590" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;From &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess960_numbering_scheme#Direct_derivation&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;White's Chess960 starting array can be derived from its number N (0&#xA;  ... 959) as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;a) Divide N by 4, yielding quotient N2 and remainder B1. Place a&#xA;  Bishop upon the bright square corresponding to B1 (0=b, 1=d, 2=f,&#xA;  3=h).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;b) Divide N2 by 4 again, yielding quotient N3 and remainder B2. Place&#xA;  a second Bishop upon the dark square corresponding to B2 (0=a, 1=c,&#xA;  2=e, 3=g).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;c) Divide N3 by 6, yielding quotient N4 and remainder Q. Place the&#xA;  Queen according to Q, where 0 is the first free square starting from&#xA;  a, 1 is the second, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;d) N4 will be a single digit, 0 ... 9. Place the Knights according to&#xA;  its value by consulting the following table:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;0     N   N   -   -   -&#xA;1     N   -   N   -   -&#xA;2     N   -   -   N   -&#xA;3     N   -   -   -   N&#xA;4     -   N   N   -   -&#xA;5     -   N   -   N   -&#xA;6     -   N   -   -   N&#xA;7     -   -   N   N   -&#xA;8     -   -   N   -   N&#xA;9     -   -   -   N   N&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;e) There are three blank squares remaining; place a Rook in each of&#xA;  the outer two and the King in the middle one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="888" LastActivityDate="2014-07-07T10:54:43.590" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5771" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5773" CreationDate="2014-07-07T13:07:48.493" Score="4" ViewCount="1448" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have read &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/2650/what-are-the-essentials-of-chess-etiquette-in-a-serious-over-the-board-tourname&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt;, but it still hasn’t filled my brain yet. When I play chess, sometimes I'm often laughing and putting some pressure on my opponent. Is it forbidden in legal game? Is there a rule about it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1315" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-31T12:06:28.873" LastActivityDate="2020-08-31T12:06:28.873" Title="Is it forbidden to laugh when playing in a chess tournament?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;etiquette&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="5773" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5771" CreationDate="2014-07-07T13:34:35.073" Score="16" Body="&lt;p&gt;The FIDE &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fide.com/component/handbook/?id=171&amp;amp;view=article&quot;&gt;Laws of Chess&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;11.5&lt;/strong&gt; It is forbidden to &lt;em&gt;distract&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;annoy&lt;/em&gt; the opponent in any manner whatsoever. This includes unreasonable claims, unreasonable offers of a draw or the introduction of a &lt;em&gt;source of noise&lt;/em&gt; into the playing area. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Distracting or annoying the opponent in any manner (other than making good moves!) is forbidden, and making noise is forbidden. So laughing in order to give pressure to your opponent is forbidden. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1761" LastActivityDate="2014-07-07T13:34:35.073" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5774" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5780" CreationDate="2014-07-07T13:53:15.757" Score="9" ViewCount="1697" Body="&lt;p&gt;After I received &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/5771/etiquette-laugh-when-playing-chess/5773#5773&quot;&gt;this answer on my previous question&lt;/a&gt;, I found the list of penalties which a player can receive, according to FIDE guidelines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fide.com/component/handbook/?id=171&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;As FIDE states&lt;/a&gt; in Article 12.9:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Options available to the arbiter concerning penalties:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;warning&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;increasing the remaining time of the opponent&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;reducing the remaining time of the offending player&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;increasing the points scored in the game by the opponent to the maximum available for that game&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;reducing the points scored in the game by the offending person&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;declaring the game to be lost by the offending player (the arbiter shall also decide the opponent’s score)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;a fine announced in advance&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;expulsion from the competition.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm curious: Is there potentially a way to benefit yourself by being penalized?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As an example, the second penalty listed is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;2. increasing the remaining time of the opponent&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even if it won't directly add to my time, I can still ponder my moves during the opponent's turn. This would allow me more time to think than I could have otherwise had.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Additionally, are there other ways to benefit yourself by purposely receiving a penalty?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1315" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-31T12:08:06.530" LastActivityDate="2020-08-31T12:08:06.530" Title="If you exploit Article 12.9 in FIDE's Laws of Chess, is it possible to benefit yourself by purposely receiving a penalty?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;fide&gt;&lt;time-control&gt;&lt;loopholes&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="8" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="5775" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5758" CreationDate="2014-07-07T14:30:10.387" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1.What's the difference between a tempo and a tempi?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As others said, &lt;em&gt;tempi&lt;/em&gt; is a plural of &lt;em&gt;tempo&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;2.At the start, how many tempo/tempi is White up? Half, one, or two?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In order to explain this, we must &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tempo_%28chess%29&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;define&lt;/a&gt; what &lt;em&gt;tempo&lt;/em&gt; is. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately, this definition is incomplete, or we can say imprecise, in my opinion. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Tempo&lt;/em&gt; is the &lt;strong&gt;speed with which you carry out a plan&lt;/strong&gt;, in my opinion. There is an optimal number of moves required to carry out your plan and there is the number of moves you &lt;strong&gt;actually played&lt;/strong&gt; to carry out your plan. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you carried out your plan in less moves than optimal, then you gained &lt;em&gt;tempo&lt;/em&gt; somewhere. If you carried out your plan with greater number of moves than optimal then you lost &lt;em&gt;tempo&lt;/em&gt; somewhere. If optimal number of moves is equal to those you played to carry out your plan than you played normal game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just a small clarification: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;White obtains extra tempo&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 d5 2.exd5!? Qxd5 3.Nc3!&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the opening, plan is to introduce &lt;strong&gt;all&lt;/strong&gt; units into battle &lt;strong&gt;as soon as possible.&lt;/strong&gt; The fastest way to do this is to introduce 1 unit per move. Therefore this is the unit of measure for &lt;em&gt;tempo&lt;/em&gt; in the above example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With his second move 2.exd5` &lt;strong&gt;White lost 1 tempo&lt;/strong&gt; because he played twice with the same piece in the opening, delaying his plan by one move. This means that Black will carry out his plan first if he keeps introducing 1 piece per move ( if he keeps &lt;em&gt;tempo&lt;/em&gt; ). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason this line is played at the top is the fact that White can gain tempo by attacking the queen, thus forcing her retreat. This means that Black will be &lt;strong&gt;forced&lt;/strong&gt; to delay his plan by one move too, which would restore &quot;status quo&quot; from the beginning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To answer your question: White is tempo up in the initial position because he moves first, thus he can carry out his plan faster. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He will be faster than Black &lt;strong&gt;exactly by one move&lt;/strong&gt; and this can be well illustrated in symmetrical positions. This is the main reason why GMs never play symmetrical openings as Black -&gt; they can only draw and that will be tough to achieve. Also, some openings where White exchanges early, but there is no symmetry present, have confirmed this fact. This is the reason why Black can not &quot;copy&quot; White but must make asymmetric position. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;3.On average, how many tempo/tempi is one Pawn worth? (For players rated near ~2200 Elo.) (I would need a very accurate estimation for this one, so please try to find an estimation as precise as possible.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is entirely position dependent. In the old days ( ~1970's ) it was argued ( roughly though! ) that &lt;strong&gt;1 tempo = 3rd of a pawn&lt;/strong&gt; so I will leave the math to you...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastActivityDate="2014-07-07T14:30:10.387" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5776" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5749" CreationDate="2014-07-07T15:25:47.423" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let me quote very strong GM ( taken from &lt;em&gt;Lars Schandorff-Grandmaster Repertoire 7 The Caro-Kann&lt;/em&gt; ) :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The famous Panov variation has always attracted aggressive players with White, and it is easy to understand why. With an active pawn move, White immediately creates tension in the centre and shows that he values the initiative more highly than mere positional matters, such as pawn structure. The Panov often leads to double-edged positions where White has isolated queen's pawn in exchange for fluid piece-play and general activity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please note the &lt;em&gt;The Panov often leads to double-edged positions...&lt;/em&gt; part. I told you this before, and sadly here is the same case : White chooses here whether the struggle will be sharp tactical encounter or quiet strategical &quot;debate&quot;.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That being said, let us examine all 3 moves and let us start from &lt;code&gt;5...g6&lt;/code&gt; :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is not entirely correct, but may be playable. Black struggles to draw by regaining the sacrificed &lt;code&gt;d-pawn&lt;/code&gt;. So far White has pleasant advantage in the main lines, but maybe somebody will invent some novelty that will make Black's play fully equal ( I still have my doubts but who knows... ).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for &lt;code&gt;5...Nc6&lt;/code&gt; :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This move gives White lots of options to sharpen the game. He can go into Endgame variation where he has small initiative and better piece placement, or he can go into sharp lines with &lt;code&gt;6.Bg5&lt;/code&gt;. Here lines are very sharp. &lt;strong&gt;You can transpose to more solid lines with &lt;code&gt;6...e6&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; which may be what you want but be warned that &lt;em&gt;Schandorff&lt;/em&gt; still believes White is slightly better there. Playing &lt;strong&gt;similar&lt;/strong&gt; positions as Black, I must agree with him -&gt; these are very tough to play as Black, at least they were for me. He prefers &lt;code&gt;6...dxc4&lt;/code&gt; instead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for &lt;code&gt;5...e6&lt;/code&gt;, it might be exactly what you look for, but you really need latest theory here. &lt;em&gt;Schandorff&lt;/em&gt; says that in the moment of him writing the book ( 2010 ) the Nimzo-Indian plan Karpov invented that starts with &lt;code&gt;5...e6&lt;/code&gt; lost its appeal. Still, if I were you, I would look thoroughly for these positions as they were solid before. I doubt White can improve the game, so all you will probably need are good opening moves and you will be ready to go! 90% of the time you should be battling against Isolated Queen's pawn which is easier to play as Black... Just &quot;do your homework&quot; first!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wish I was able to offer you some sample lines with &lt;code&gt;5...e6&lt;/code&gt; but I have no up-to-date books on that :(&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Good luck!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastActivityDate="2014-07-07T15:25:47.423" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5777" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5774" CreationDate="2014-07-07T15:34:54.463" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Penalty 2 is applied by adding time to your opponent's clock.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2014-07-07T15:34:54.463" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5778" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1743" CreationDate="2014-07-07T17:06:37.177" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm surprised nobody has yet mentioned &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chesspublishing.com/content/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chesspublishing.com&lt;/a&gt;. It has opening analysis by GM/IM rated players updated monthly, with playable javascript boards. The online search capability leaves something to be desired, but all the analysis can be downloaded to PGN and dropped into chess base. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3431" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-08-18T13:20:32.503" LastActivityDate="2019-08-18T13:20:32.503" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="5779" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3991" CreationDate="2014-07-07T22:13:14.057" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am 100% sure that kings gambit is the most tactical opening for white.&#xA;Even all E4 opening is tactical opening for white.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3432" LastActivityDate="2014-07-07T22:13:14.057" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5780" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5774" CreationDate="2014-07-08T09:45:17.793" Score="19" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is important to realize that chess is a &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-sum_game&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;zero-sum game&lt;/a&gt;*. In other words, everything that gives advantage to one player gives an equal disadvantage to the other player. So if adding 2 minutes to your opponent's clock benefits you, then it would be harmful to your opponent. It is not possible for any decision of the arbiter to give an advantage to your opponent and a slight advantage to you too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(* Although of course there are things that make both players enjoy the game more etc., but here I'm concerned only about the result of the game.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Suppose two minutes are added to your opponent's clock. Now (s)he has two choices (or something between them):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Pretend his extra two minutes didn't exist and play as if his clock showed 2 minutes less.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Make good use of his extra time.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If your opponent chooses option 1, the only effect of the extra time is that he does not run out of time accidentally. This never gives any advantage to you. If your opponent thinks that option 2 is better for him than option 1, then he also believes that him choosing option 2 is worse for you. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is possible that your opponent does not understand how well you use his time and therefore chooses option 2 but it ends up being beneficial to you. However, I think this is very unlikely.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think a more important loophole is this: When calling the arbiter to settle any dispute over the board, you are allowed to stop the clock even if it is your turn. Sometimes it can take a minute or two before the arbiter arrives, so it can be used as a way to gain extra thinking time. For example, in a difficult position in time trouble, you can claim a draw (even if you know there's no draw) and gain extra time while waiting for the arbiter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because the usual penalty for unreasonable claims is adding time to your opponent's clock, you may gain more advantage by the extra thinking time than you lose by the penalty. Needless to say, this is extremely unsportsmanlike, and will result in everyone hating you and possibly even point losses if the arbiter sees through it. Please don't ever do this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1761" LastEditorUserId="11202" LastEditDate="2017-06-29T11:08:20.563" LastActivityDate="2017-06-29T11:08:20.563" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5781" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5782" CreationDate="2014-07-08T16:36:24.910" Score="3" ViewCount="579" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would like to convert a chess notation into a game. How to do that?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have a game in algebraic notation, let say, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 h6 3.d4 e6 4.c3 Nf6 5.Bd3 a6 6.Bc2 Be7 7.Qd3 b5 8.b3 Qc7&#xA;9.Nbd2 Bb7 10.0-0  c4 11.bxc4 bxc4 12.Qe2 0-0 13.Nxc4 d5 14.Nce5 dxe4 &#xA;15.Nh4 Qxc3 16.Be3 Nc6 17.Nxc6 Bxc6 18.Rac1 Bb5 19.Qd1 Bxf1 20.Qxf1 Qa5 &#xA;21.Bb3 Rfc8 22.Rd1 Qh5 23.g3 Ng4 24.Ng2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there any software that reads this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3434" LastActivityDate="2014-07-08T17:59:21.837" Title="Is there any software (open source and/or free) that reads chess notation?" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;notation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5782" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5781" CreationDate="2014-07-08T17:59:21.837" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, there are several.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your question is very vague, though. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.playwitharena.com/&quot;&gt;Arena&lt;/a&gt; is an OK choice if you're on Windows; otherwise &lt;a href=&quot;http://lichess.org&quot;&gt;Lichess&lt;/a&gt; is an online option. All of these are free, but there are many more, both free and costly ones (but I don't have enough reputation for more links, and I don't know exactly what you're after).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The computer-readable format of algebraic notation is called Portable Game Notation (PGN), which might help you with searching for alternatives.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2590" LastActivityDate="2014-07-08T17:59:21.837" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5783" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5739" CreationDate="2014-07-08T22:34:44.557" Score="9" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What is the worst possible first move for White: 1.f3 or 1.g4?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;f3&lt;/code&gt; doesn't contribute to the piece development ( it actually hinders it by taking away &lt;strong&gt;the best&lt;/strong&gt; square for the &lt;code&gt;Ng1&lt;/code&gt; ), it doesn't fight for the center ( it only &lt;strong&gt;strengthens&lt;/strong&gt; the &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; square that White can claim &lt;strong&gt;anyway&lt;/strong&gt; with &lt;code&gt;1.Nc3&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;1.e4&lt;/code&gt; ) and above all it exposes the king. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;g4&lt;/code&gt; vacates &lt;code&gt;g2&lt;/code&gt; for the &lt;code&gt;Bf1&lt;/code&gt; ( fianchettoed bishop is usually good ), it helps in the fight for the center indirectly ( you can weaken Black's control of &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; if Black plays &lt;code&gt;...Nf6&lt;/code&gt; at some point, by simply playing &lt;code&gt;g5&lt;/code&gt; ) and pawn at &lt;code&gt;g4&lt;/code&gt; can be useful in kingside attack if Black castles short. It does weaken &lt;code&gt;f4&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;h4&lt;/code&gt;, so it is somewhat dubious, but it is playable ( although I doubt White can reach full equality...).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, when we compare the above facts, we can see that &lt;code&gt;1.f3&lt;/code&gt; is clearly the worst first move, &lt;strong&gt;based on the opening theory&lt;/strong&gt; ( since only one move is played it is to early to make &lt;strong&gt;final&lt;/strong&gt; conclusions, since White may transpose into decent position with his next moves ).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastActivityDate="2014-07-08T22:34:44.557" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5784" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-07-09T08:39:37.667" Score="4" ViewCount="1927" Body="&lt;p&gt;What are some songs about chess? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Historical songs; pop songs; singalong songs, hymns, anthems; whatever you can find.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2697" LastEditorUserId="3444" LastEditDate="2014-07-09T18:47:54.640" LastActivityDate="2014-07-17T01:36:25.910" Title="What are some chess songs?" Tags="&lt;history&gt;" AnswerCount="10" CommentCount="20" FavoriteCount="1" ClosedDate="2014-08-30T17:53:48.333" CommunityOwnedDate="2014-07-12T14:36:33.873" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5785" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5784" CreationDate="2014-07-09T08:39:37.667" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Andrei Rodionov &amp;amp; Boris Tikhomirov - Chess Computer (Synth-Pop) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0xflCP9aOo&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0xflCP9aOo&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2697" LastActivityDate="2014-07-09T08:39:37.667" CommentCount="0" CommunityOwnedDate="2014-07-12T14:36:33.873" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5786" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5784" CreationDate="2014-07-09T08:56:42.080" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;One Night in Bangkok- Murray Head&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9cNtrrCP0E&amp;amp;feature=kp&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9cNtrrCP0E&amp;amp;feature=kp&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A cover of Adele's &quot;Skyfall&quot; with a chess-themed music video &#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oiXJQ0SG888&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oiXJQ0SG888&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3357" LastActivityDate="2014-07-09T08:56:42.080" CommentCount="1" CommunityOwnedDate="2014-07-12T14:36:33.873" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5787" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5784" CreationDate="2014-07-09T09:33:48.517" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are two parts of &quot;Chess Crown's Honour&quot; by Vladimir Vysotskii (in russian language).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1st one: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbJX8A1DZGk&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbJX8A1DZGk&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2173" LastActivityDate="2014-07-09T09:33:48.517" CommentCount="0" CommunityOwnedDate="2014-07-12T14:36:33.873" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5788" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5784" CreationDate="2014-07-09T12:12:02.713" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes ~ I've Seen All Good People: Your Move (1971) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1I4Q6Px_78&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1I4Q6Px_78&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2697" LastActivityDate="2014-07-09T12:12:02.713" CommentCount="0" CommunityOwnedDate="2014-07-12T14:36:33.873" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5789" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5784" CreationDate="2014-07-09T14:19:49.993" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youtu.be/1gvYik_1-pg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Vennaskond - Malemaja staar&lt;/a&gt; (translates to &quot;Chess House star&quot;, I think) is an Estonian song from 1993 about GM Jaan Ehlvest. Too bad my Estonian is not very good, so I can't translate the lyrics. :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1761" LastActivityDate="2014-07-09T14:19:49.993" CommentCount="0" CommunityOwnedDate="2014-07-12T14:36:33.873" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5790" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5769" CreationDate="2014-07-09T16:22:47.850" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;If all the pieces are on the board, there are 64!/32!/8!^2/2^6*(32/63)*(31/61) or about 1.2*10^42 positions.  This would require 140 bits.  The 64!/32! puts the pieces on squares, the divisions account for permuting like pieces, and the last two fractions put the bishop pairs on opposite color squares.  I would guess a dozen or so more bits would be required to cover positions with some of the pieces gone, but calculating the exact number is not so easy.  Decoding a position from 140 bits can be done, but would be a pain.  Clearly 8 bytes will not suffice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="956" LastActivityDate="2014-07-09T16:22:47.850" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5791" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5784" CreationDate="2014-07-09T17:14:39.063" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;checkmate, by Apathy immediately comes to mind&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3442" LastActivityDate="2014-07-09T17:14:39.063" CommentCount="2" CommunityOwnedDate="2014-07-12T14:36:33.873" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5792" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5784" CreationDate="2014-07-09T17:25:27.943" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Dirty Work by Steely Dan contains what seems to be a chess reference.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghcsrblhn7A&amp;amp;feature=kp&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghcsrblhn7A&amp;amp;feature=kp&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3443" LastEditorUserId="3443" LastEditDate="2014-07-10T00:16:30.770" LastActivityDate="2014-07-10T00:16:30.770" CommentCount="0" CommunityOwnedDate="2014-07-12T14:36:33.873" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5793" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5535" CreationDate="2014-07-09T21:14:22.703" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you have an Android device, you can try a new app called &quot;Analyze your games&quot; that reads every move and compares it with the best moves calculated by Stockfish. It also finds blunders and missed tactics.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1657" LastActivityDate="2014-07-09T21:14:22.703" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5794" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-07-09T23:13:55.553" Score="8" ViewCount="3523" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Ragozin variation of the Queen's Gambit starts with &lt;code&gt;1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Nf3 Bb4&lt;/code&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[StartPly &quot;8&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Nf3 Bb4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems that the &lt;code&gt;Bb4&lt;/code&gt; move is only sound in that position, and not if white played &lt;code&gt;4.Bg5&lt;/code&gt; instead of &lt;code&gt;4.Nf3&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[StartPly &quot;8&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Bg5 (4.Nf3 Bb4) Bb4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This line is, in my experience, not even mentioned in common opening books, as if it were &quot;obviously&quot; wrong... I'm not sure why. If this  is bad for black, which would be white's best answer?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="957" LastEditorUserId="957" LastEditDate="2014-07-14T11:56:41.630" LastActivityDate="2014-07-14T20:51:33.543" Title="Why is the Ragozin 4... Bb4 not even considered against 4. Bg5?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;queens-gambit&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5795" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5794" CreationDate="2014-07-10T01:00:10.267" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not an expert but my guess is black doesn't want white to develop his g1 knight to e2 in a variation he commits his bishop to b4. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example after 1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Nf3 Bb4 5.Bg5 h6 6.Bxf6 Qxf6 7.e3, wouldn't you be more comfortable with your f3 knight on e2? You can get that in the other variation!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Bg5 Bb4!? 5.e3 keeps the g1 knight flexible. Now if&#xA;5...h6 6.Bxf6 Qxf6 7.Nge2 and white slightly improved his position. That is if you agree the knight is better on e2. There are more than hundred master games played in my database with 4.Bg5 Bb4 so I don't believe it's dubious, just slightly inferior. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3415" LastActivityDate="2014-07-10T01:00:10.267" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5796" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5784" CreationDate="2014-07-10T02:53:25.507" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;The Ballad of Bobby Fischer&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This song is played at the end of the Bobby Fischer Against The World &#xA;Documentary&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youtu.be/84TI3wnZqUg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://youtu.be/84TI3wnZqUg&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3194" LastActivityDate="2014-07-10T02:53:25.507" CommentCount="0" CommunityOwnedDate="2014-07-12T14:36:33.873" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5797" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5149" CreationDate="2014-07-10T13:24:21.703" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Magnus Carlsen looks jolly to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EY27lgnPKWI&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EY27lgnPKWI&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3007" LastActivityDate="2014-07-10T13:24:21.703" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5798" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5800" CreationDate="2014-07-10T16:06:50.347" Score="13" ViewCount="2202" Body="&lt;p&gt;I saw blitz games on the Internet (&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.chessbase.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://en.chessbase.com&lt;/a&gt;) between very high Elo rated players (above 2700) that played bizarre openings like: &lt;code&gt;1. a4 x 2. h4 xx 3. Ra3(or Rh3) xxx 4. Rae3 xxxx&lt;/code&gt;. The player who played like this still won. How to interpret these openings? Are these openings useful sometimes?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is one game: Player one 3084 - Player two 2983 0-1 3 minute game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;chessbase.com&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.a4 h5 2.Ra3 a5 3.h4 Ra6 4.Rhh3 Rhh6 5.Rhe3 Rhf6 6.Rad3 Rf4 7.Nc3 Rxh4 8.Nb5 Re6 9.Rg3 Rh1 10.Nf3 Re4 11.Ng5 Rxa4 12.e4 Ra1 13.e5 d6 14.e6 Bxe6 15.Nxe6 fxe6 16.Nd4 Qd7 17.Rb3 Qa4 18.Nxe6 Qc4 19.Nxg7+ Bxg7 20.d3 Qh4 21.Ke2 Bh6 22.Rxg8+ Kf7 23.g3 Qf6 24.Bxh6 Rxd1 25.Rf8+ Kg6 26.Rxf6+ exf6 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3435" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-29T15:31:42.923" LastActivityDate="2020-03-29T15:31:42.923" Title="Why do some players play bizarre openings?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;online-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5799" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5798" CreationDate="2014-07-10T16:29:45.657" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Good players can win even with the most bizarre openings but I never saw a master play 1.a4 2.Ra3 even in bullet games. It's just a bad idea to develop the rook so early where it can be kicked around. (Just like developing a queen early)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wouldn't be too surprised by 1.a4 or 1.h4 to avoid opening prep in blitz but developing the rook in this manner is a bad idea. Maybe you could share the game so we can give more concrete advice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3415" LastActivityDate="2014-07-10T16:29:45.657" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5800" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5798" CreationDate="2014-07-10T16:53:21.267" Score="17" Body="&lt;p&gt;The reason that top players generally avoid nonstandard openings is that they usually allow a sufficiently skilled opponent to equalize (with black) or gain an advantage (with white). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To do this against an opening which you haven't seen before, though, takes time. In a blitz game, the opponent will not be able to figure out the best way to exploit an inaccuracy. A player like Nakamura (who probably played every single legal first move on ICC at some point) has enough middlegame and endgame skill that a slight opening disadvantage really doesn't mean anything.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, it's online blitz. They aren't playing for prizes, they aren't jeopardizing tournament invitations. They can basically do whatever they want and if they lose, nobody really cares. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit now that you added the game:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both players are clearly just messing around. Just because you CAN play chess well doesn't mean that you always want to. Don't try to draw conclusions based on this game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3270" LastEditorUserId="3270" LastEditDate="2014-07-10T17:18:05.907" LastActivityDate="2014-07-10T17:18:05.907" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5801" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5149" CreationDate="2014-07-10T17:46:49.513" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;OK, the only World Champion I can name for being jolly besides already mentioned Mikhail Tal is probably Vladimir Kramnik, who is always a pleasure to listen to in interviews, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCURWc4tlYQ&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCURWc4tlYQ&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If your counting the FIDE world champions then Ruslan Ponomariov springs to mind, &#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSirU4aJbKU&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSirU4aJbKU&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;NOT world champions, but some top Grandmaster's who are very jolly&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Levon Aronian is known for being an exceptionally nice fellow, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SoAfCInRTqY&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SoAfCInRTqY&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Boris Gelfand is also very jolly, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glHKPCYfxus&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glHKPCYfxus&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Vassily Ivanchuk also known for being jolly, if a little eccentric, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prsnlyfv4kQ&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prsnlyfv4kQ&lt;/a&gt;, here he is dancing &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_R1lUsiFdg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_R1lUsiFdg&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3357" LastActivityDate="2014-07-10T17:46:49.513" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5802" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5535" CreationDate="2014-07-11T01:43:58.063" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;[EDIT]:&lt;/strong&gt; Blunder checking is available now. &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/forum/view/chess-equipment/smallfish---free-chess-ios-app&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.chess.com/forum/view/chess-equipment/smallfish---free-chess-ios-app&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you have iOS, please take a look at SmallFish. SmallFish has a 64 bits Stockfish engine, which means it's stronger than Droidfish (it's 32 bits). The app has a graph for evaluation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/DcQAD.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2018-01-24T14:36:38.237" LastActivityDate="2018-01-24T14:36:38.237" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5804" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5794" CreationDate="2014-07-11T17:30:23.573" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Playing Bb4 before White puts his knight on f3 in the QGD isn't &lt;em&gt;bad&lt;/em&gt;, but it can be uncomfortable for Black. Let's look at some lines: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[StartPly &quot;10&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.a3 Bxc3+ 5.bxc3 d5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is the Nimzo-Indian Sämich with an early d5 which is known to be comfortable for White. He has long term chances associated with exchanging on d5, pushing f3 and e4 and going for a king side attack as in the classic game Botvinnik&amp;ndash;Capablanca, 1938 (from the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AVRO_1938_chess_tournament&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;AVRO tournament&lt;/a&gt;):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;AVRO&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Rotterdam, NED&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;1938.11.22&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;1938.11.06&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;11&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Mikhail Botvinnik&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Jose Raul Capablanca&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;E40&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.e3 d5 5.a3 Bxc3+ 6.bxc3 c5 7.cxd5&#xA;exd5 8.Bd3 O-O 9.Ne2 b6 10.O-O Ba6 11.Bxa6 Nxa6 12.Bb2 Qd7&#xA;13.a4 Rfe8 14.Qd3 c4 15.Qc2 Nb8 16.Rae1 Nc6 17.Ng3 Na5 18.f3&#xA;Nb3 19.e4 Qxa4 20.e5 Nd7 21.Qf2 g6 22.f4 f5 23.exf6 Nxf6 24.f5&#xA;Rxe1 25.Rxe1 Re8 26.Re6 Rxe6 27.fxe6 Kg7 28.Qf4 Qe8 29.Qe5 Qe7&#xA;30.Ba3 Qxa3 31.Nh5+ gxh5 32.Qg5+ Kf8 33.Qxf6+ Kg8 34.e7 Qc1+&#xA;35.Kf2 Qc2+ 36.Kg3 Qd3+ 37.Kh4 Qe4+ 38.Kxh5 Qe2+ 39.Kh4 Qe4+&#xA;40.g4 Qe1+ 41.Kh5 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So playing Bb4 before White puts a knight on f3 gives White an extra option which Black probably doesn't want to do. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS: You're unlikely to find the move order &lt;code&gt;1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Nf3&lt;/code&gt; in a high level game since &lt;code&gt;4.cxd5&lt;/code&gt; followed by Bg5+e3+Bd3+Nge2 and eventually castles and f3+e4 with chances for a king side attack is great for White who scores 60% or so in that system (IIRC).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2253" LastActivityDate="2014-07-11T17:30:23.573" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5805" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-07-11T17:55:38.340" Score="5" ViewCount="579" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have three questions related to this article written by GM Larry Kaufman: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/article/view/the-evaluation-of-material-imbalances-by-im-larry-kaufman&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.chess.com/article/view/the-evaluation-of-material-imbalances-by-im-larry-kaufman&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question n°1:&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;Kaufman rounded all his results to the nearest quarter... But what are the exact results Kaufman obtained?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question n°2:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The average value of either knight or unpaired bishop came out about 3.14 pawns. This value is a bit depressed by the inclusion of endings with no other pieces, as in such endings the bishop is worth only about 2½ pawns and the knight even less, partly because the minor piece side cannot win if its last pawn is exchanged. As long as there are other pieces on the board (so minimum mating material is not a major issue), the minor piece is worth about 3¼ pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He calculated the average values of the minor pieces and got 3.14 pawns. Then he calculated the average values of the minor pieces but by excluding some endings and got 3.25 pawns. And then he disregarded the true average values of the minor pieces, and instead he prefered to take the average values of the minor pieces with excluding some endings... Why? Being unable to win because of insufficent material is a part of the game, so I think it should be taken into account into the average values of the minor pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question n°3:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There  is some differences between the best values for humans and the best values for computers...&#xA;[...]&#xA;For human players:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Knight = 3.5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Bishop (unpaired) = 3.5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Rook = 5.25&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Two Bishops = 7.5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Queen = 10&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is he talking about? Firstly the values he had previously calculated were calculated using games made by humans only, not computers. Secondly his new values &amp;quot;for human players&amp;quot; are too inflated (if we compare them to other approximations of the pieces made by other people). So I see no reason to say that the previous values were actually for computers (a statement which seems to be simply false), and to therefore inflate all of them by +0.25.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3237" LastEditorUserId="12" LastEditDate="2021-02-21T06:49:10.323" LastActivityDate="2021-02-21T06:49:10.323" Title="Three questions on GM Larry Kaufman's article about the average relative value of the chess pieces" Tags="&lt;statistics&gt;&lt;point-value&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="5806" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5808" CreationDate="2014-07-11T18:25:04.540" Score="3" ViewCount="94" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can Black draw this position or does White win after all:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Black to move&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;8/P4R2/8/6kp/3K4/6P1/r7/8 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I need variations that clearly illustrate your answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastActivityDate="2014-07-12T02:38:51.553" Title="What is the result of this endgame?" Tags="&lt;rook-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5807" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5737" CreationDate="2014-07-11T19:02:02.573" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This entire endgame has been analyzed thoroughly on &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesspub.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1320323463/21&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;ChessPub&lt;/a&gt;. It seems that member &lt;em&gt;Wes&lt;/em&gt; was right -&gt; &lt;code&gt;...g5&lt;/code&gt; is the main move. This was confirmed with a lengthy analysis at &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesscafe.com/text/mueller132.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;ChessCafe&lt;/a&gt; -&gt; see the first position on the page ( there are some other games analyzed after the analysis of this position finishes ). I am sorry for posting links but the analysis is huge! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Good luck and hopefully this answered your question!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Best regards!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastEditorUserId="2042" LastEditDate="2014-07-12T14:40:31.570" LastActivityDate="2014-07-12T14:40:31.570" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5808" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5806" CreationDate="2014-07-11T23:51:43.210" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;White has a very simple strategy to win this position - &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Prevent the g-pawn from being captured for free by the Black king&lt;/strong&gt; (the Black rook cannot capture it because it is tied to the defense of the &lt;strong&gt;a-pawn&lt;/strong&gt; promoting on &lt;strong&gt;a8&lt;/strong&gt;. White wins if White can win the &lt;strong&gt;h-pawn&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Move the White king over to support the promotion of the &lt;strong&gt;a-pawn&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;At the right moment, occupy the &lt;strong&gt;b-file&lt;/strong&gt; with the White rook and support the &lt;strong&gt;g-pawn&lt;/strong&gt; from &lt;strong&gt;b3&lt;/strong&gt;. Then White's king can have a safe square on the &lt;strong&gt;b-file&lt;/strong&gt; to promote the &lt;strong&gt;a-pawn&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;8/5R2/P7/6kp/3K4/6P1/r7/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. a7 Kg4 (1... Kg6 2. Rc7 Ra5 3. Kc4 Kf6 4. Kb4 Ra1 5. Kc5 Ke6 6. Rh7 Rc1+ 7.&#xA; Kb6 Rb1+ 8. Ka6 Ra1+ 9. Kb7 Rb1+ 10. Kc8 Rc1+ 11. Kb8 Rb1+ 12. Rb7 Ra1 13. a8=Q&#xA; ) 2. Rg7+ Kh3 3. Kc3 Kg2 4. Kb4 Kh3 5. Kb5 Ra3 (5... Rxa7 6. Rxa7 Kxg3 7. Rg7+&#xA; Kf3 (7... Kh3 8. Kc4 h4 9. Kd3 Kh2 10. Ke2 h3 11. Kf2 Kh1 12. Rg1+ Kh2 13. Rg3&#xA; Kh1 14. Rxh3#) 8. Rh7 Kg4 9. Kc4 h4 10. Kd3 Kg3 11. Ke2 h3 12. Kf1 h2 13. Rh6&#xA; Kg4 14. Rxh2)6. Kb6 Rb3+ 7. Ka6 Ra3+ 8. Kb7&#xA; Rb3+ 9. Ka8 Rb5 (9... Rb2 10. Rg5 Rb1 11. Rxh5+ Kxg3 12. Rh8 Kf4 13. Rb8 Ra1&#xA; 14. Kb7 Rb1+ 15. Kc7 Rc1+ 16. Kd7 Rd1+ 17. Ke7 Re1+ 18. Kf7 Ra1 19. a8=Q) 10.&#xA; Rb7 Ra5 11. Rb3! Kg4 12. Kb8 Ra2 13. a8=Q&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2429" LastEditorUserId="2429" LastEditDate="2014-07-12T02:38:51.553" LastActivityDate="2014-07-12T02:38:51.553" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5809" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-07-12T08:57:40.977" Score="4" ViewCount="2241" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am the webmaster of the online chessboard editor at &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.apronus.com/chess/wbeditor.php&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.apronus.com/chess/wbeditor.php&lt;/a&gt;. I spend about one week each year on maintaining this utility but I never get to work seriously on it. I wonder if perhaps this has some potential that should be exploited.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The specific questions that I want to ask here:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Is it useful for playing correspondence games by email?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Is it useful for posting static diagrams (just one position image) in blogs and forums?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Is it useful for posting dynamic diagrams (showing games or parts of games)?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Is it useful for playing against computer from a set up position?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Is it useful for posting chess puzzles?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3456" LastActivityDate="2021-02-17T19:39:42.770" Title="The Chessboard Editor at Apronus.com --- Is it any good?" Tags="&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;pgn&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="0" ClosedDate="2021-02-17T19:59:25.347" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5810" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5809" CreationDate="2014-07-12T12:30:49.800" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is it useful for playing correspondence games by email?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have never tried it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is it useful for posting static diagrams (just one position image) in blogs and forums?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do you mean something like &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/279/tool-used-to-create-chess-analysis-interactive-diagrams-in-many-chess-stack-exch/280#280&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt;? I use it to generate FEN when posting answers here, all the time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is it useful for posting dynamic diagrams (showing games or parts of games)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Again, I generate the FEN on Apronus, but I post moves here myself. I have never tried to create &quot;a game&quot; and then simply copy/paste it here. If you can show me how, I could try it out and report my results.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is it useful for playing against computer from a set up position?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I did generate FEN on Apronus and successfully loaded it into Fritz.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is it useful for posting chess puzzles?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Again, it does a good job in generating the FEN, so I can post here any diagram I want. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The Chessboard Editor at Apronus.com — Is it any good?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Serves me very well so far. I just don't know how to generate &quot;games&quot; and &quot;dynamic diagrams&quot; as you have suggested. That would be an awesome feature to posses, it would save me so much time!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you need any help or you have followup questions, leave a comment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Best regards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-03-16T15:50:45.707" LastActivityDate="2014-07-12T12:35:50.490" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5811" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5837" CreationDate="2014-07-12T18:00:39.567" Score="4" ViewCount="2488" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, I am new here and I am not quite sure whether this question is appropriate here. In case it is inappropriate, please tell me the correct site for it.Well, my question is :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I want a chess software in which I can play against chess engines or players and also &lt;b&gt;I want the software to evaluate each move and give me marks accordingly and instantaneously.&lt;/b&gt; (Note : I have already tried Ubisoft's Chessmaster but I want a software that will evaluate how much percent I am correct not just whether my move is the best move or not.)Can anyone please name any such software. I am ready to buy it in case it is not free-ware. Lots of thanks in advance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3458" LastActivityDate="2017-05-18T06:32:59.610" Title="Chess software to evaluate move and give marks" Tags="&lt;software&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5812" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-07-12T20:07:17.043" Score="1" ViewCount="78" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am in a tournament and I ended up with a king vs king + 2 knights. I know that the mate can not be forced in this situation, also if I will cooperate I can lose.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So can I claim a draw in this situation or should I just wait for my opponent to make 50 moves and only than claim a draw based on 50 move rule?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="703" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2014-07-12T20:32:30.470" LastActivityDate="2014-07-12T20:32:30.470" Title="Can I claim a draw if I am left with a king vs 2 knights?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;draw&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2014-07-12T21:13:17.430" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5814" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="663" CreationDate="2014-07-13T01:20:21.453" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Any minimally courteous opponent will accept your offer of a draw in this situation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1922" LastActivityDate="2014-07-13T01:20:21.453" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5815" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-07-13T05:35:49.480" Score="4" ViewCount="78" Body="&lt;p&gt;Two players could start from any checkmate position ; the one player taking black , the other white, they could play chess backwards with the goal of trying to get all of ones pieces to their original positions first. Could there be a way to make this feasible? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3055" LastActivityDate="2014-09-20T18:19:39.850" Title="chess variants similar to retrograde gameplay" Tags="&lt;chess-variants&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5816" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5825" CreationDate="2014-07-13T12:15:10.317" Score="6" ViewCount="2364" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a 1750 Elo player with a very positional, quiet and strategic style of play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would like to know which variation I should play when, as White, I face the Queen's Gambit Declined.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The variation must meet these two conditions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;On average it must tend to lead to positions which are as much solid, positional, slow, closed, quiet and strategic as possible (I want nothing sharp and tactical).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I should be able to play it both by beginning with 1. d4 d5 2. c4 e6 3. Nf3 Nf6 and by beginning with 1. Nf3 d5 2. d4 Nf6 3. c4 e6&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;rnbqkb1r/ppp2ppp/4pn2/3p4/2PP4/5N2/PP2PPPP/RNBQKB1R w - - 1 0&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am hesitating between these three variations :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The 5.Bf4 variation: 4. Nc3 Be7 5. Bf4&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The 5.Bg5 variation: 4. Nc3 Be7 5. Bg5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The Catalan: 4. g3&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3237" LastEditorUserId="3237" LastEditDate="2014-08-04T16:10:35.493" LastActivityDate="2017-06-11T12:39:35.017" Title="For White, which variation of the Queen's Gambit Declined tends to lead to the most solid, positional, slow, closed, quiet and strategic positions?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;&lt;queens-gambit&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5817" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1377" CreationDate="2014-07-14T09:35:15.817" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;If anyone is still looking for something like this, I've build a fairly simple one here:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/richardadalton/EloRate&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://github.com/richardadalton/EloRate&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At the moment you'll have to host it yourself, but I may offer a hosted service in the future.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-Rd&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3467" LastActivityDate="2014-07-14T09:35:15.817" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5818" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5794" CreationDate="2014-07-14T10:42:27.420" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;After Bb4 white can play Qa4 forcing Nc6: here you can see a difference emerging.&#xA;With the B in g5 you can play 5.Qa4 Nc6 6.e3 and on 6... h6 retreat in h4 keeping pressure.&#xA;While in the Ragozin this seems less effective since after 5.Qa4 Nc6 6.e3 locks the B inside, while after 6.Bg5 h6 7.Bh4 dxc4 becomes interesting, hence 7.Bxf6 is seen played, where black seems fine.&#xA;Nothing final of course, still a possible explanation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2180" LastActivityDate="2014-07-14T10:42:27.420" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5819" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5811" CreationDate="2014-07-14T12:22:26.753" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm pretty sure ChessBase does everything you want (and a lot more). It can analyse games in real time and much deeper if you leave it running. It also has the option to give better alternative moves. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I use an older version so I'm not sure of the latest prices and capabilities but I'd definitely look it up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2399" LastActivityDate="2014-07-14T12:22:26.753" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5820" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-07-14T13:04:08.723" Score="5" ViewCount="1449" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have ChessBase 12 64Bit. To create an Opening Tree I do the following steps:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I click on &quot;Mega Database 2014&quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I filter all the 5.8 millions games like I want (for example, taking only the games where a specific player was White).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Right click &gt; Edit &gt; Select all.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Right click &gt; Edit &gt; Clip or unclip.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;File &gt; New &gt; Database &gt; Save as type: Books (*.CTG)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;And then I drag the &quot;Clip Database&quot; to my newly created Opening Tree.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The newly created Opening Tree works fine.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But there is just one problem: all the games always stop near move 26 (sometimes at move 23, sometimes at move 29).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why is that? And how can I fix this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both of the current answers are completely incorrect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I had the confirmation from two other independant people that their opening trees in their ChessBase do &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; stop after a certain number of moves!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They both told me that in order to make an opening tree that doesn't stop after a certain number of moves, we simply had to select &quot;Absolute Length&quot; and then input a big number (100 will work) for the &quot;Length&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/BeUwM.png&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See page n°103 of this manual: &lt;a href=&quot;http://download.chessbase.com/download/pdf/ManualFritz13.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://download.chessbase.com/download/pdf/ManualFritz13.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But that's what I have always done, and it doesn't work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have tried to input various numbers for the &quot;Length&quot;: 5, 10, 15, 20, 30, 40, 50, 100, 200, 400. And surprisingly, no matter what number I put, the opening tree always stop near move 26!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also tried to pick &quot;ECO-Relative Length&quot; instead of &quot;Absolute Length&quot;, and weirdly there was absolutely no difference: the opening tree still stops near move 26.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This means that there really is a big problem, a bug. ChessBase is simply ignoring whether I choose &quot;Absolute Length&quot; or &quot;ECO-Relative Length&quot; and what number I put for the &quot;Length&quot;...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3237" LastEditorUserId="3237" LastEditDate="2014-07-28T15:57:58.437" LastActivityDate="2020-02-07T18:02:00.303" Title="In ChessBase 12, when viewing an Opening Tree, why do all the games always stop near move 26?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;database&gt;&lt;chessbase&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5822" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5833" CreationDate="2014-07-14T19:26:08.070" Score="7" ViewCount="508" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have managed to create a temporary &quot;fortress&quot; after losing the exchange. Analyzing the position after the game ended, I was able to find a plan for White to breakthrough. After further analysis I was able to find the defense for Black. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My &quot;gut feeling&quot; tells me that White should win anyway but I need help in finding the solution. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Below is the position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;White to move&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;r7/1kp2p2/1p1p3p/p2Pp1nP/P1R1PpP1/1PP2P2/4K3/R7 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;EDITED on July, 21th 2014 :&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since nobody ( not even engines! ) considered option of penetrating on the kingside with the King via light squares, I am submitting lines that can guide others when constructing their answers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;White to move&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;r7/1kp2p2/1p1p3p/p2Pp1nP/P1R1PpP1/1PP2P2/4K3/R7 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.b4 c5!? 2.dxc6+ Kc7 3.bxa5 bxa5 4.Rb1! Ra7 $8 5.Kf2! Ne6 6.Kg2! Ng5 ( 6...Nc5 7.Rxc5! dxc5 8.g5!+- Kxc6 ( 8...hxg5? 9.Rb7+ Rxb7 10.cxb7+- ) ( 8...Ra8 9.Rb7+ Kxc6 10.Rxf7 hxg5 11.h6 Kd6 12.h7 Ke6 13.Ra7! Rd8 14.Kh3 Kf6 15.Kg4 Kg6 16.Rxa5+- ) ( 8...f6 9.g6!?+- )  9.Rb8!+-  ) 7.Rb5! f6 ( 7...Ne6 8.g5!+- ) 8.Rb1! $22 Ne6 9.g5!! Nxg5 ( 9...fxg5 10.Rb7+! $8 Rxb7 11.cxb7 Kxb7 12.Kh3+- ) ( 9...hxg5 10.Rb7+ Rxb7 11.cxb7+ Kxb7 12.h6+- ) 10.Rb5! Ne6 11.Kh3 $22 Nc5 ( 11...Ng5+ 12.Kg4+- ) ( 11...Ng7 12.Kg4+- ) 12.Rcxc5!+- dxc5 13.Rb7+ Rxb7 14.cxb7 Kxb7 15.Kg4+-&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Based on the above lines, I have tried to &quot;sit in place&quot;, and came to the critical position where Black seems to hold:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;White to move&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;r7/1kp2p2/1p1p3p/p2Pp1nP/P1R1PpP1/1PP2P2/4K3/R7 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.b4 f6 2.bxa5 Rxa5 $8 ( 2...bxa5? 3.Rb1+ Kc8 4.Rbb6! Kd7 5.Rb7+- ) 3.Rcb4 Nf7 4.c4 Nd8 5.Rb5! Rxb5 ( 5...Ra8 6.a5! ) 6.cxb5! $8 Nf7 7.Ra3! Ng5 8.Kd2 Kb8 ( 8...Nf7!? ) 9.Kc2 Kb7 10.Rc3! Nh7 11.Kb3 Nf8 12.Kb4 Nd7 13.a5 bxa5+ ( 13...Nc5!? 14.a6+! $8 Kb8 15.Kc4! Nd7 16.Kd3 Nc5+ $8 ( 16...Nf8 17.a7+!+- ) 17.Ke2 Ka7 $8 ( 17...Na4? 18.a7+!+- ) 18.Kf2 Kb8 $8 19.Kg2 Ka7 20.Kh3 Kb8 21.g5!+- fxg5 $8 22.Kg4 Ka7 23.Kf5 Kb8 24.Rc2!! Ka7 25.Rc1! Kb8 26.Rg1! Nb3 27.Rxg5!! Nd4+ 28.Kg4! Nxb5 29.Rg6 Ka7 ( 29...Nd4 30.Rxh6 b5 31.Rh7! b4 32.a7+! Kxa7 ( 32...Kb7 33.Rxc7+!+- ) 33.Rxc7+ Kb6 34.Rc1+- ) 30.Rxh6 Kxa6 31.Rh7 Kb7 ( 31...Nd4 32.Rxc7+- ) 32.h6 Nd4 33.Rg7+- ) 14.Kxa5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems that Black can indeed create an impregnable fortress. Sacrifice with &lt;code&gt;b6&lt;/code&gt; does not work, and knight will always be able to reach &lt;code&gt;g5&lt;/code&gt; in time to stop White king from penetrating via &lt;code&gt;g5&lt;/code&gt; sacrifice. If White sacrifices on &lt;code&gt;g5&lt;/code&gt; too early, Black will always have &lt;code&gt;Nf6&lt;/code&gt; and will move around his king, maintaining blockade. Lines where White sacrifices rook on &lt;code&gt;g5&lt;/code&gt; end bad since Black sacrifices the knight and has won pawn endgame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I will investigate few more ideas ( like &lt;code&gt;c5&lt;/code&gt; sacrifice ), before I officially accepting an answer...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;END OF EDIT&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastEditorUserId="2042" LastEditDate="2014-07-21T10:47:07.913" LastActivityDate="2014-07-23T13:12:05.990" Title="Can White engineer a winning breakthrough?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="11" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5823" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5822" CreationDate="2014-07-14T20:30:17.213" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You appear to have almost succeeded. If you c pawn were on c5 instead of c7, I'd say that you had succeeded.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would play b4 as White. (And NOT b5 afterward.) That forces open one, if not two files among the two leftmost files. White should aim for an &quot;outside&quot; passed pawn on the a file, which should be enough for him to win. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your knight is on the kingside, and being &quot;slow moving,&quot; probably won't get to the queen side fast enough to stop White's penetration there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2014-07-14T20:30:17.213" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5824" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5820" CreationDate="2014-07-14T20:33:00.017" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;Move 26&quot; (or thereabouts) is the &quot;midpoint&quot; of most chess games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your opening tree application appears to working fine in getting you to the  peak or &quot;combustion point&quot; of most games. (That seems to be its purpose.) From there, it's mostly downhill.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2014-07-14T20:33:00.017" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5825" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5816" CreationDate="2014-07-14T20:37:20.573" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The fact that you would consider opening Nf3 suggests that you are open to openings like the Reti. The Catalan g3 leads to (somewhat) this kind of opening, albeit with a pawn on d4. More to the point, with the light squared bishop on the long diagonal, it appears to be an opening of the slow, steady, quiet variety that you favor, keeping White's strategic advantage for as long as possible, at least until you make a mistake, or Black outplays you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The other variations, with the black-squared Bishop, do have the advantage of developing a new piece, but they are also more &quot;tactical&quot; and lead to earlier conflict. If I understand your question correctly, that's precisely what you want to &lt;strong&gt;avoid.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2014-07-14T20:37:20.573" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5827" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5794" CreationDate="2014-07-14T20:46:30.007" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;If White plays his B to g5, the best place for Black's black squared bishop is e7, according to Capablanca (Chess Fundamentals), breaking the pin on the Knight. This move may reveal White's B as being overextended, and allow Black to simplify with e.g. Ne4 or Nd5, bringing about an early equality.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Bb4 variation is &quot;bad&quot; against Nc3 because logically, Black should take the knight and double White's pawns on the c file. But doubled c pawns are good for White, because he can capture Black's d pawn with his c4 pawn, then have an extra &quot;center&quot; pawn at c3 (formerly on b2) supporting his d pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If Black wants to play Bb4, he should refrain from advancing his d pawn to d5 so that White cannot exchange his c4 pawn for it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: Fred Reinfield, &quot;Attack and Counterattack in Chess.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastEditorUserId="17" LastEditDate="2014-07-14T20:51:33.543" LastActivityDate="2014-07-14T20:51:33.543" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5828" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5805" CreationDate="2014-07-14T21:01:17.217" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;To answer one of your questions, the value of a bishop or knight with additional pieces is 3.25 pawns, and without additional pieces is 2.50. The (weighted) average value of the minor piece is 3.14. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That implies that you'll have additional pieces about 85 percent of the time. Then the math is something like (3.25*.85)+ (2.50*.15)= 2.76+ 0.38=3.14.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2014-07-14T21:01:17.217" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5829" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5834" CreationDate="2014-07-14T23:15:01.590" Score="17" ViewCount="6576" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am pretty new to chess, and I play lot of chess puzzles: trying to find the best move for a given situation (which will not necessarily end-up with a checkmate).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this a good way to learn chess or should I play more normal games?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3468" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2014-07-14T23:46:22.923" LastActivityDate="2017-02-26T16:06:58.703" Title="As a Beginner, is playing a lot of tactics chess (puzzles) a good way to improve?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;training&gt;&lt;beginner&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5831" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5829" CreationDate="2014-07-14T23:39:27.440" Score="9" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is [solving chess puzzles] a good way to learn chess or should I play more normal games?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This gets the classic answer for an either/or choice that needn't be exclusive: &lt;strong&gt;yes&lt;/strong&gt;. In other words, do both, as these are two of the surest ways to improve, and &lt;em&gt;each&lt;/em&gt; is all but necessary in order to do so. Of course, one's time is limited, and so your question may rightly be: which to focus on more. That should probably be decided by an analysis of your own games, especially losses. For instance, if you can trace most losses to tactical oversights that you wouldn't have recognized were possibilities before they happened, then more tactical training is definitely in order. On the other hand, if you find yourself committing mistakes where you should have known better, but lost focus, say, then more time playing games might be needed. But I want to reiterate the case for finding some time for both.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's an empirical fact that tactical mistakes (and taking advantage of tactical opportunities that are presented) tend to play a very decisive role in chess, and that fact is amplified at the lower levels (and on up to pretty high levels even); after all, it's hard to come back after hanging your queen. Beginner players in particular will tend to make very egregious, serious-material-losing mistakes quite often, and so simply cutting down on such oversights (and learning to spot when your opponent makes them) can pay enormous dividends in one's skill/results rather quickly. Solving tactical chess puzzles (e.g. at &lt;a href=&quot;http://chesstempo.com/&quot;&gt;ChessTempo&lt;/a&gt;) is the best way to hone one's skill in this area, and can lead to very rapid improvement.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That said, &lt;em&gt;merely&lt;/em&gt; doing that can only get one so far. Playing actual games from start to finish provides invaluable experience for ... playing actual games from start to finish. You could spend countless hours in a gym shooting thousands of shots from every spot on a basketball court, to the point where you are an excellent shot. That would undoubtedly make you a more skillful basketball player. But it wouldn't prepare you to struggle against stubborn defenders, or to withstand the rigors of running up and down the court for a long period of time, or to sense where you should position yourself on the court in the flow of a game. Similarly, solving tactics puzzles doesn't prepare you for the give-and-take struggle for initiative and advantage in a chess game, or offer practice in turning a hard-earned advantage into an actual victory (or setting up stiff resistance when things haven't gone your way), or maintaining your focus throughout the entire course of a game. To progress in terms of competitive results pretty much demands playing more actual games as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2014-07-14T23:39:27.440" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5832" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5822" CreationDate="2014-07-15T00:30:29.460" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;After 10 minutes, Stockfish says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[FEN &quot;r7/1kp2p2/1p1p3p/p2Pp1nP/P1R1PpP1/1PP2P2/4K3/R7 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Rb1 c5 2.dxc6+ Kc7 3.b4 Ra7 4.Rb3 Ne6 5.Rb2 Ng5 6.Rb1 Ne6 7.b5 Ng5 8.Kf2 Ra8 9.Rd1 Ne6 10.Rd2 Nc5 11.Ke2 Ne6 12.Rd1 Rg8 13.Rc1 Ng5 14.Rh1 Ra8&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;...with the machine clearly not finding a plan. But what happens if we play a 'do nothing' move for Black's first move?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[FEN &quot;r7/1kp2p2/1p1p3p/p2Pp1nP/P1R1PpP1/1PP2P2/4K3/R7 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Rb1 f6 2.b4 Ra6 3.bxa5 Rxa5 4.Rb3 Ra8 5.Rcb4 Nf7 6.Ra3 Ra5 7.Rb5 Ka6 8.Ra1 Nd8 9.Kd3 Nf7 10.Rxa5+ Kxa5 11.Rb1 Ng5 12.Ke2 Ka6 13.Rb4 Ka7 14.Kf2 Nh7 15.Rb5 Ka6 16.Ke2 Ng5  (663.81)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White removes the Black Rook but then it gets pretty slow. Black's superb Knight and that weak &lt;code&gt;f&lt;/code&gt; pawn are keeping Black in the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So what about the obvious 1.b4?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[FEN &quot;r7/1kp2p2/1p1p3p/p2Pp1nP/P1R1PpP1/1PP2P2/4K3/R7 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.b4 f6 2.bxa5 Rxa5 3.Rb4 Rc5 4.Ra3 Ra5 5.Rb5 Ka6 6.Ra1 Nf7 7.c4 Nd8 8.Ra3 Nf7 9.Kd3 Ng5 10.Kd2 Nh3 11.Ra1 Ng5 12.Ke2 Nf7 13.Kf2 Nd8 14.Ke1 Nf7 15.Ra2 Ng5 16.Kf2 Nf7 17.Ra3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No dice.  Black looks solid.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From what I can see, Black holds.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ALNS asked about this variation: &lt;code&gt;1.Rc6 Ne6! 2.g5 Nd8!?&lt;/code&gt; so I fired Stockfish back up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I couldn't get past that hanging g-pawn, so the first variation is &lt;code&gt;1.Rc6 Ne6 2.g5&lt;/code&gt;. Stockfish used 4800 seconds on this (80 minutes).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;1.Rc6 Ne6 2.g5&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;r7/1kp2p2/1p1p3p/p2Pp1nP/P1R1PpP1/1PP2P2/4K3/R7 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Rc6 Ne6 2.g5 Nxg5 3.b4 Ne6 4.Rc4 Ng5 5.bxa5 Rxa5 6.Rb4 Nh7 7.Rbb1 Nf6 8.Kd3 Nxh5 9.Rh1 Nf6 10.Rxh6 Nd7 11.Rh8 Nc5+ 12.Kc4 Na6 13.Rf8 b5+ 14.Kb3 Nc5+ 15.Kb4 Rxa4+ 16.Rxa4 bxa4 17.Rh8 Kb6 18.Rh6 Kb7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So it's kinda sharp, but again it is hard to see how any progress will be made.  The position is rated .59 White's favor - the least favorable score for White for any variation we've discussed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, on to the main variation &lt;code&gt;1.Rc6 Ne6 2.g5 Nd8&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;1.Rc6 Ne6 2.g5 Nd8&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;r7/1kp2p2/1p1p3p/p2Pp1nP/P1R1PpP1/1PP2P2/4K3/R7 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Rc6 Ne6 2.g5 Nd8 3.Rc4 hxg5 4.h6 c5 5.h7 Nc6 6.dxc6+ Kxc6 7.Rh1 Rh8 8.Kf2 Kd7 9.Rh6 Ke7 10.Kg2 f6 11.Kf2 Ke6 12.Rh1 Ke7 13.Rh2 Ke6 14.Kg2 Kf7 15.Kf1 Ke7 16.Rh6 Kf7 17.Kf2 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's after almost 2 hours.  White is rated +3 and seems to be able to engineer a break on the Queenside. This is enough for a win. The Knight seems misplaced on &lt;code&gt;d8&lt;/code&gt;.  I'd grab the pawn on &lt;code&gt;g5&lt;/code&gt; instead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT&lt;/strong&gt; - ALNS has 2 more variations to look at&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;5... Ne6&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;r7/1kp2p2/1p1p3p/p2Pp1nP/P1R1PpP1/1PP2P2/4K3/R7 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Rc6 Ne6 2. g5 Nd8 3. Rc4 hxg5 4. h6 c5 5. h7 Ne6 6.dxe6 fxe6 7.Rh1 Rh8 8.Kd3 Kc7 9.b4 Kd7 10.bxa5 bxa5 11.Ke2 Kc6 12.Kd2 Kd7 13.Kd3 Ke8 14.Ke2 Kf7 15.Rd1 Rxh7 16.Rxd6 Rh2+ 17.Kf1 g4 18.fxg4 Ke7 19.Rc6 Kf6 20.R4xc5 Kg5 21.Rxe5+ Kxg4 22.Rcxe6 Kf3 23.Kg1 Rg2+ 24.Kh1 Rc2 25.Rxa5 Rxc3 26.Rf5 Rc1+ 27.Kh2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With, after several hours of processing, a healthy score of +7.5 in White's favor. Black is dead lost. I like to add complete variations to these threads, but all these moves are suspect after moves 4 or 5. In this variation, Black captures the pawn on &lt;code&gt;h7&lt;/code&gt; but in doing so allows White to run amok.  I don't care much for the Knight sacrifice; holding when down a full Rook is tough.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;edit - 8.Kd3 is a killer move. Black can get the Rook with &lt;code&gt;8... d5&lt;/code&gt; but after &lt;code&gt;9.Re4 dxe4 10. Kxe4&lt;/code&gt; Black's king-side pawns all drop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[Title &quot;5. dxc6&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;r7/1kp2p2/1p1p3p/p2Pp1nP/P1R1PpP1/1PP2P2/4K3/R7 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Rc6 Ne6 2.g5 Nd8 3.Rc4 hxg5 4.h6 c5 5.dxc6 Nxc6 6.Rd1 Kc7 7.b4 Kd7 8.bxa5 Rxa5 9.h7 Ra8 10.Rb1 Kc7 11.Rh1 Rh8 12.Rh5 Kd7 13.Kd3 f6 14.Rh6 Kc7 15.Ke2 Kd7 16.Rh5 Kc7 17.Rh2 Kd7 18.Kd3 Kc7 19.Rh1 Kd7  (10405.71)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This comes up as +2.2 for White.  I don't like this because it allows the misplaced Knight on &lt;code&gt;d8&lt;/code&gt; to reposition with tempo. The simpler &lt;code&gt;5. h7&lt;/code&gt; puts the pressure on Black and wins the Knight and then the game per the previous diagram.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;This is in regards to the &quot;White King Infiltrates&quot; variation mentioned in the OP's post.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[title &quot;Infiltration&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;r7/1kp2p2/1p1p3p/p2Pp1nP/P1R1PpP1/1PP2P2/4K3/R7 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.b4 c5 2.dxc6+ Kc7 3. bxa5?!+= (3.Rc1 Ne6 4.b5 Rg8 5.Rb1 Re8 6.Ra1 Ra8 7.Rd1 Rd8 8.Kf1 Ra8 9.Rd2 Nc5 10.Kf2 Ne6 11.Ke2 Rd8 12.Kf1 Ra8 13.Kf2 Nc5 14.Ke2 Ne6 15.Rb2 Rh8 16.Kf1 Rh7 17.Kf2 Nc5 18.Rd2 Rh8+/-) 3... bxa5 4. Rb1 Ra7 5.Kf2 Ne6 6. Kg2 Ng5 7.Rb5 f6 8. Rb1 Ne6?! ( 8...Nh7 9.Kf1 Ng5 10.Ke2 Ne6 11.Rb5 Ng5 12.Rb2 Ne6 13.Rd2 Ra8 14.Rd5 Ng5 15.Kf2 Nh3+ 16.Ke1 Ng1 17.Rd3 Nh3 18.Rd1 Ng5 19.Rb1 Ra7 20.Ke2+/-) 9. g5 Nxg5?! (9...fxg5 10.Kh3 Nc5 11.Kg4+/-) 10.Rb5 Ne6 11. Kh3 Nc5?? (11...Ng5+ 12.Kg4 Nh7 13.Kf5 Ng5 14.Kxf6 Nxf3 15.Rb2 Ng5 16.Kg7 f3 17.Kxh6 Ne6 18.Rb1 Nf4 19.Kg5+/-)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The variations show a significant deviation from what Stockfish thought was best. All variations except for the last indicate a move that loses perhaps a pawn. Black's 11th move is fatal, however.  The associated variation shows White with a moderate advantage.  Black can make White work for it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;FINAL EDIT&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's Stockfish playing itself at 15 minutes per move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[title &quot;Granite is tasty&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;r7/1kp2p2/1p1p3p/p2Pp1nP/P1R1PpP1/1PP2P2/4K3/R7 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Rc6 Ne6 2.Kf1 f6 3.b4 Nd8 4.Rc4 Kc8 5.Kf2 Kd7 6.Rc1 Nf7 7.Ke2 Ra7 8.Rc2 &#xA;Ra8 9.Ra2 Ra7 10.Ra1 Ra8 11.Kf1 Nd8 12.Ra2 Nf7 13.Kf2 Ra7 14.Ra1 Ra8 15.&#xA;Ke2 Nd8 16.Kd3 Nf7 17.Ra2 Ng5 18.Ke2 Nf7 19.Ra3 Nd8 20.Kf2 Nb7 21.Ra2 Nd8 &#xA;22.Rc2 Nf7 23.Rc1 Ng5 24.Rc6 Nf7 25.Ke2 Nd8 26.Rc4 Nf7 27.Rc2 Kc8 28.Ke1 *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;...with White clearly not finding a break-through. Black holds, thanks to that magnificent Knight... and White's Rook being bottled up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2014-07-23T01:30:27.903" LastActivityDate="2014-07-23T01:30:27.903" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5833" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5822" CreationDate="2014-07-15T03:54:17.250" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;To aim for a draw for Black, I would play against the fact that the white rook has trapped itself out of play on c4 once the move &lt;code&gt;c3&lt;/code&gt; was played. If Black can get in &lt;code&gt;...c5&lt;/code&gt; then even after an en passant capture, White will never be able to force a pawn break that yields freedom for the rook. Some illustrative variations follow where &lt;code&gt;...c5&lt;/code&gt; isn't stopped. Among such lines, the main line of the next PGN viewer offers the most &quot;freedom&quot; for the rook, &lt;em&gt;but even after &lt;code&gt;6...Kxb7&lt;/code&gt; below the rook has no safe squares&lt;/em&gt;, and never will so long as Black sits tight:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;????.??.??&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;*&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;r7/1kp2p2/1p1p3p/p2Pp1nP/P1R1PpP1/1PP2P2/4K3/R7 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.b4 &#xA;            ( 1.Rb1 c5 2.dxc6+ Kc7 3.b4 Ra7 )&#xA;1...c5 2.dxc6+ &#xA;            ( 2.Rb1 Kc7 )&#xA;2...Kc7 3.bxa5 &#xA;            ( 3.b5 f6 )&#xA;3...bxa5 4.Rb1 Ra7 5.Rb7+ Rxb7 6.cxb7+ Kxb7 *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So White really needs to prevent &lt;code&gt;...c5&lt;/code&gt;, and so must try &lt;code&gt;1.Rc6&lt;/code&gt; in order to hope for progress. Even here, Black can go for the same plan via &lt;code&gt;1...Ne6&lt;/code&gt;, aiming for &lt;code&gt;...Nd8&lt;/code&gt; to force &lt;code&gt;Rc4&lt;/code&gt; and get &lt;code&gt;...c5&lt;/code&gt; in after all. The side variations below illustrate this idea. The main line below shows the only idea I see to force freedom for the rook; &lt;em&gt;it works, but at the cost of sacrificing the g-pawn to gain enough time&lt;/em&gt;. I think Black should be able to hold the final position, but at least White has won the b4 square to get that rook back in the game. I think this is White's best chance to play for a win, as all his pieces are back to life, and there is at least the possibility of play on both wings now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;????.??.??&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;*&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;r7/1kp2p2/1p1p3p/p2Pp1nP/P1R1PpP1/1PP2P2/4K3/R7 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Rc6 Ne6 2.g5 $5 &#xA;    ( 2.Rb1 Nd8 3.Rc4 f6 4.b4 Kc8 5.bxa5 bxa5 6.Rb6 Kd7 )&#xA;    ( 2.Rg1 f6 3.Rb1 Nd8 4.Rc4 c5 5.dxc6+ Kc7 6.Kd3 Ra7 7.b4 Ra8 )&#xA;    ( 2.b4 Nd8 3.Rc4 f6 )&#xA;2...Nxg5 3.b4 Ne6 4.bxa5 Rxa5 &#xA;    ( 4...bxa5 $4 5.Rb1+ Kc8 6.dxe6 )&#xA;5.Rc4 Ng7 *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2014-07-15T23:50:07.367" LastActivityDate="2014-07-15T23:50:07.367" CommentCount="11" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5834" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5829" CreationDate="2014-07-15T05:19:32.873" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;Solving alot of tactic puzzles is a fantastic way to improve for a beginner.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One of the reasons for my improvement was the constant solving of tactics on chess.com's tactics trainer feature, which basically made me shed my beginner skins, since tactics almost always play a decisive role in the games of beginners.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, you must also play many normal games, preferably in real life instead of online, and against stronger players, as this will provide you with invaluable experience for the improvement of your game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You must also familiarize yourself with the strategic features of chess, (backward pawns, space advantages) and the endgame in order to improve. Tactics can only get you so far.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3357" LastActivityDate="2014-07-15T05:19:32.873" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5837" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5811" CreationDate="2014-07-15T11:08:58.683" Score="4" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I want a software that will evaluate how much percent I am correct not just whether my move is the best move or not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess engines do not usually evaluate moves as percentages (and I'm not even sure how that would work tbh), but by evaluating the position in terms of a normative standard (like the material value of 1 pawn, with +1 meaning white is up by 1 pawn, and -1 meaning that black is up by one pawn) assuming &lt;em&gt;optimal&lt;/em&gt; play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Simply put: every position has an evaluation based on positional and material considerations (which is  engine dependent, hence why different engines would often assign different evaluations to the same position). Every move you make causes a transition between two distinct positions, and the quality of your move is the difference of this evaluation from the &lt;em&gt;before&lt;/em&gt; to &lt;em&gt;after&lt;/em&gt; position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the engine got the evaluation right, the optimal move has value 0. &lt;strong&gt;The value is 0 because the engine believes that this is the optimal move, and assigned the evaluation based on &lt;em&gt;that&lt;/em&gt; move&lt;/strong&gt;. From white's perspective, a sub-optimal move would have a value of &amp;lt; 0. A value of -0.3, for example, would typically mean that the position after the move was made is now 1/3 pawn worse than before.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Almost every chess engine I've come across can show you the difference in evaluation between two positions, or it is at least easy to calculate (if the evaluation went from 1.2 to 0.7 after white's move, then the move quality was -0.5, or half the value of a pawn, which is typically considered a reasonably big blunder). &lt;strong&gt;Shredder&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;DroidFish&lt;/strong&gt; (which is free and available on Android) are examples of chess apps that provide this feature, but there are many others on pretty much every conceivable platform.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1816" LastEditorUserId="1816" LastEditDate="2014-07-15T11:28:26.227" LastActivityDate="2014-07-15T11:28:26.227" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5838" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5784" CreationDate="2014-07-15T11:27:29.380" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you like rap:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;dj muggs vs. gza the genius &quot;Grandmasters&quot; (it's a full-length album)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3473" LastActivityDate="2014-07-15T11:27:29.380" CommentCount="2" CommunityOwnedDate="2014-07-15T11:27:29.380" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5839" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-07-15T15:53:21.853" Score="0" ViewCount="839" Body="&lt;p&gt;My apologies if this has been asked already - I couldn't found it though. I have been trying to download Fritz, the chess game analyzer, and I have been tirelessly searching on the internet for ways to do so, but to no avail. Does anybody know where I could do so? Thanks in advance! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3477" LastEditorUserId="4182" LastEditDate="2014-12-26T18:01:57.090" LastActivityDate="2014-12-26T18:01:57.090" Title="Downloading Fritz" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;fritz&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5840" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5839" CreationDate="2014-07-15T15:57:12.027" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's available on &lt;a href=&quot;http://store.steampowered.com/app/276750/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Steam&lt;/a&gt; (Fritz Chess 14*), or the &lt;a href=&quot;http://shop.chessbase.com/en/products/deep_fritz_14_english&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;ChessBase shop&lt;/a&gt; (Deep Fritz 14).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*The Steam version is &lt;em&gt;significantly&lt;/em&gt; cheaper. The developer makes some &lt;a href=&quot;http://steamcommunity.com/app/276750/discussions/0/522729358349936600/#c522729359455994991&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;claims&lt;/a&gt; in a discussion thread that it's equivalent to true Deep Fritz (with the multicore 64-bit support enabled). I'm not sure if that's actually the case, though; the price reduction is suspicious, and historically Fritz Chess has been released as a watered-down version of Deep Fritz, so I'd be careful with that. Make sure you know what you need and what you're actually buying.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1201" LastEditorUserId="1201" LastEditDate="2014-07-15T16:04:04.657" LastActivityDate="2014-07-15T16:04:04.657" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5843" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5844" CreationDate="2014-07-16T07:57:11.450" Score="3" ViewCount="279" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/5592/positions-in-chess-games&quot;&gt;What is the number of legal positions in a chess game?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a question asked earlier on the site. Now I am wondering, what can be the number of positions for a certain number of pieces. Like 8 pieces for example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a top bar formula like in that case? Thank you!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3405" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2014-10-19T10:20:10.097" Title="Number of positions with specifically a number of pieces" Tags="&lt;pieces&gt;&lt;game-complexity&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5844" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5843" CreationDate="2014-07-16T10:44:47.970" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;This answer is extended from my comment to Ross Milikan's answer to your question &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/5769/numerical-fen-writing&quot;&gt;Numerical FEN writing&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a &lt;a href=&quot;http://kirill-kryukov.com/chess/nulp/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;website&lt;/a&gt; devoted to counting the number of legal positions up to equivalence with given number of pieces. Currently they have results for positions with 2 to 8 pieces. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;2:                     462&#xA;3:                 368,079&#xA;4:             125,246,598&#xA;5:          25,912,594,054&#xA;6:       3,787,154,440,416&#xA;7:     423,836,835,667,331&#xA;8:  38,176,306,877,748,245&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With their definition, a position is legal if:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It has exactly one white and one black king&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;There are no pawns on the 1st and 8th lines&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Side to move is not giving a check&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that with these definitions, some positions could be legal even if they cannot be achieved in a real game. Edit: As @Pimgd pointed out in the comments, an example is a position with white pawns on a2, b2 and a3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Two positions are considered equivalent if they are essentially the same, in this case, one position can be obtained from another by combining the following operations:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Any position: Swapping the colours of the pieces, the side to move, and mirroring the position around the horizontal line such that the square a1 becomes a8 etc.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Positions with no castling rights: mirroring the position around the vertical line such that the square a1 becomes h1 etc.  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Pawnless positions with no castling rights: mirroring the position around the horizontal line such that a1 becomes a8 etc.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Pawnless positions with no castling rights: Mirroring the board diagonally&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Depending on the existence of pawns and castling rights, each &quot;unique&quot; position thus corresponds to 2 to 16 different positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1761" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2014-07-16T13:16:46.190" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5845" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="943" CreationDate="2014-07-16T10:58:41.407" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Again I know this is an old post but again I cannot resist posting now!&#xA;I play the French defence as White and Black. However I mainly play 5 min blitz chess and my main White French line is the Advance MilnerBarry Gambit (I'm presently exploring the ADG and Classical French with 3.Nc3). So I need to ask why choose to play the French Exchange as White?&#xA;I play the French as Black and without a doubt the most boring dull games are usually the French Exchange variation. It has a reputation of being drawish and dull and often played by a lower rated player hoping for a draw and not trying for a win. I guess it has a small psychological impact when Black players see it and think this way and are a little peeved with White for choosing this dull way to play the normally rich French defence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is hard for me then to say exactly what White aims for as I don't play it as White but I can say what White tries against me playing against it as black. The essentials are quick development and quick castling and pinning the black knight at Nf6 and throwing the bishops and Queen into a kingside attack. The annoying knight pin can give white chances to attack further in the centre at any stage. Bishop and Queen often put lots of pressure on h7 and beware bishop sacs on h7. White will use the knights to attack on the kingside and even try rook lifts to attack the black king down the h, g and f files. White can try and throw everything into this kingside attack(pawns and all)!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is generally thought Black should look for asymmetric play but black also needs to develop quickly and castle quickly (and sometimes queenside castle) and not waste any move tempo. Another important point to note is that in the Exchange blacks light squared bishop is no longer a bad bishop with no pawn on e6. Instead it instantly becomes a good bishop and can take part in the game from the start. So White concedes this from the outset, whereas, in most other variations the bad french bishop takes ages to get in the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure which present day GM's favour this opening as white but apparently it was a favourite of old master J H Blackburne. From the black side a notable game was Tatai vs Korchnoi 1978 0-1.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My final recommendation is do not play it as White! Instead choose the Classical, Winawer,Tarrasch, Advance or even the KingsIndian attack! If you do persist in playing it bon chance! :-)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="426" LastEditorUserId="426" LastEditDate="2014-07-16T11:12:04.263" LastActivityDate="2014-07-16T11:12:04.263" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5846" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5871" CreationDate="2014-07-16T16:11:11.233" Score="3" ViewCount="347" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;How powerful is it for the Empowered Army to open by using knight-moves for their Empowered Rooks and/or Bishops?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;Chess 2: The Sequel&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;, the knights, bishops, and rooks of the Empowered Army are considered &lt;em&gt;empowered&lt;/em&gt; and can move as any adjacent empowered piece in addition to their own movement.  To a beginner such as myself, it seems particularly strong to open by taking advantage of this by developing the empowered pieces immediately.  All of the pieces can be developed through knight-moves in this way after a total of 6 moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1. Ra1 b3&#xA;2. Rh1 g3&#xA;3. Bc1 d3&#xA;4. Bf1 e3&#xA;5. Nb1 c3&#xA;6. Ng1 f3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/7kWJr.png&quot; alt=&quot;Example&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How strong is the use of empowered movement as opening moves?  Should one focus on performing all 6 of these moves, or is it more sensible to do a subset of them?  Is their an ideal order to these moves?  Does the asymmetry of the King and Elegant Queen affect these things?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3481" LastActivityDate="2014-07-20T23:00:19.530" Title="Empowered Army Knight-move Opening" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;chess-variants&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="7" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5847" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5846" CreationDate="2014-07-16T16:37:51.237" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;My intuition might be totally off because this is very different from real chess, but I don't see why you wouldn't still want to try to control the center with pawns as white. You can develop all your pieces quickly this way but black can make a couple pawn moves (say, e5 and d5 while you are bringing your rooks out) then develop his own minor pieces to defend them. I wouldn't go with this opening strategy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3270" LastActivityDate="2014-07-16T16:37:51.237" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5849" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5194" CreationDate="2014-07-16T21:23:11.303" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a USCF master and FIDE Master.  The most legitimate place to play online chess for money is &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.velocitychess.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;www.velocitychess.com&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;VelocityChess is a new professionally run chess website.  One of its features allows you to wager &quot;vChips&quot;, which you can redeem for cash or cash-equivalent gift cards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The anti-cheating security against engine-use and sand-bagging there is WORLD CLASS.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Furthermore, you are fully refunded your vChips if your opponent is caught cheating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3484" LastActivityDate="2014-07-16T21:23:11.303" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5850" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5846" CreationDate="2014-07-16T21:42:08.883" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Against Reaper in particular you might have problems with something like 1. ...Rhc3, blocking the knight from moving to c3 and making it arbitrarily hard to link up the Rook and Bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3486" LastActivityDate="2014-07-16T21:42:08.883" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5851" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5784" CreationDate="2014-07-17T01:36:25.910" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;It's no sacrifice&quot; - Elton John&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="350" LastActivityDate="2014-07-17T01:36:25.910" CommentCount="1" CommunityOwnedDate="2014-07-17T01:36:25.910" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5853" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5857" CreationDate="2014-07-17T08:21:46.797" Score="9" ViewCount="7676" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just want to ask if there is any kind of hypermodern opening for white.&#xA;For black, i usually play benko gambit and alekhine defense, so preferably, I am opting for a tactical opening&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3381" LastActivityDate="2015-05-18T15:52:07.053" Title="Are there any hypermodern openings for white" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5854" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4096" CreationDate="2014-07-17T09:00:07.690" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;What about 1.e4 c5 2.c3 g6 3.d4 cxd4 4.cxd4 Bg7 5.Nf3 d5! personaly I'll try to play the Hyper Accelered Dragon (witch is the only way to make the Dragon viable for black I think) transposition would be 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 g6 3.c3 Bg7 4.d4 cxd4 5.cxd4 d5! The same position arise, why wouldn't it be good with the Alapin move order ? I think it's good for black, you may try it also, good luck. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3491" LastActivityDate="2014-07-17T09:00:07.690" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5856" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5853" CreationDate="2014-07-17T11:50:10.297" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Considering hypermodern opening as White is very often just a copy of Black hypermodern strategy with a tempo up, which is mainly based on putting your bishop(s) in fianchetto.&#xA;For instance, you have for White, &quot;Larsen opening&quot; 1.b3 or &quot;Réti opening&quot; 1.Cf3 and next 2.g3 or 1.g3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also you have sicilian-type opening, which gives you for White : 1.c4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3480" LastActivityDate="2014-07-17T11:50:10.297" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5857" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5853" CreationDate="2014-07-17T11:52:15.993" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;A hypermodern opening in chess is one whose strategy controls the centre from the outside. For instance fianchettoed bishops [b3 or g3 followed by Bb2 or Bg2] can do this. Central pawn moves are delayed till later on. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Specifically a hypermodern opening for white could be 1. b3 and then 2. Bb2 called Larsen's Opening or the Nimzowitsch attack. The idea is to use the Bb2 bishop along its diagonal, especially if black castles kingside. For instance the opening could go:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;  1. b3 e5 2. Bb2 Nc6 3. e3 d5 4. Bb5 Bd6 5. f4 Qh4+ 6. g3 Qe7 *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is quite a well known opening position in Larsen's attack. White's move 5. f4 is important - white is attacking black's centre. A common continuation is for white to eventually castle o-o-o queenside and black to castle kingside with equal chances of mutual attack. Larsen was a GM who used this opening with great success with one exception! His loss to Spassky: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1128831&quot;&gt;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1128831&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another hypermodern opening is to play 1. Nc3 and 2. Nf3 as white and provoke black into chasing your knights with black's pawns. This is rather humorously called the Napoleon attack after Napoleon's horses!! Though I am pretty sure that he never played it! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another hypermodern opening is the King's Indian Attack - a King's Indian formation as white:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;   [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;   1. Nf3  Nf6  2. g3 d5 3. Bg2 c5 4. d3 Nc6 5. O-O e5 6. Nbd2 Be7 7. e4 O-O 8. Qe2 *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Fischer used this with success. There are many hypermodern white openings that let black put pawns in the centre to make a target for white to attack. This is a small taste of them here. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3495" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2014-07-17T12:37:39.330" LastActivityDate="2014-07-17T12:37:39.330" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5858" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-07-17T20:08:28.203" Score="1" ViewCount="8254" Body="&lt;p&gt;I played a very interesting game today, and I entered it in ChessBase reader, along with some comments. I would love to save this game in a database (.cbh) or as a .pgn, but I don't know how. Can you please help me?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3405" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-06-07T11:17:03.133" LastActivityDate="2017-08-26T05:19:27.200" Title="How to save games in ChessBase reader?" Tags="&lt;pgn&gt;&lt;database&gt;&lt;chessbase&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5859" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5714" CreationDate="2014-07-17T21:57:42.317" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes it is !&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And not only doing engine evaluation, but I would include:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Looking at games (videos, .pgn),&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Reading (books, magazines) game analysis, strategy,&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Check for a mate in x moves with the engine,&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Study opening traps,&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;that matches the opening (or ending) that you are playing in your correspondence game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can still read/train/study chess, but at the first moment you realize that you can benefit directly in the game you are playing, you must stop and look somewhere else.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Advice: just wait till the game is over. Then you can do all analysis you want, you will feel a lot better, and learn much more. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2262" LastEditorUserId="2262" LastEditDate="2014-07-18T15:49:51.323" LastActivityDate="2014-07-18T15:49:51.323" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5860" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-07-17T23:00:08.080" Score="1" ViewCount="1979" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am looking for statistics on the FIDE Elo of chess players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would like to know what is the percentage of players who have a rating which is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Below 1000 Elo&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Below 800 Elo&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Below 600 Elo&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Below 400 Elo&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Below 200 Elo&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Higher than 2000 Elo&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Higher than 2200 Elo&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Higher than 2500 Elo&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm making it clear that I am only interested in statistics for the FIDE Elo, not the USCF Elo. And I am only looking for statistics for OTB games (not correspondence) of long time control (not rapid, nor blitz).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3237" LastActivityDate="2014-09-25T18:20:31.357" Title="For long OTB games, what is the percentage of players who have a rating which is below X FIDE Elo?" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;statistics&gt;&lt;elo&gt;&lt;otb-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5861" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5860" CreationDate="2014-07-17T23:28:46.417" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to this site &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.metrowestchess.org/Compete/FIDE/FAQ_FIDE_Ratings.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.metrowestchess.org/Compete/FIDE/FAQ_FIDE_Ratings.htm&lt;/a&gt;, the absolute FIDE floor is 1000 so the answer to your first five bullet points would be 0. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I found the absolute number for each of your last 2 bullet points here &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elo_rating_system#FIDE_ratings&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elo_rating_system#FIDE_ratings&lt;/a&gt; but have been unable to locate a figure on the total number of rated players in the world so I can't tell you percentages. According to that link, there are about 11000 players above 2200 and 800 above 2500.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm ~2050 FIDE and about 55000th in the world if that helps at all for the 2000 Elo question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3270" LastActivityDate="2014-07-17T23:28:46.417" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5862" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5863" CreationDate="2014-07-18T01:32:02.950" Score="11" ViewCount="4070" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is the &quot;National Master&quot; title awarded for your entire life? Or do you lose the title if your rating goes below 2200?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've heard that to get the title of National Master for your entire life you have to have a rating of at least 2200 for 300 games (that seems to be a lot!). Is this true? And is it 300 consecutive games (if your rating goes below 2200 before the 300th game you'll have to restart from the beginning) or simply 300 games not necessarily consecutively (it doesn't matter if your rating goes below 2200 a few times) ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Oh and what about the FIDE titles &quot;Candidate Master&quot; and &quot;FIDE Master&quot;? Are they awarded for life?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3237" LastActivityDate="2014-07-18T01:53:12.917" Title="In the USA, if you achieve a USCF rating of 2200 and gain the National Master title, what happens if your rating then goes below 2200?" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;elo&gt;&lt;grandmaster&gt;&lt;uscf&gt;&lt;titles&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5863" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5862" CreationDate="2014-07-18T01:53:12.917" Score="18" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are actually three different distinctions in the USCF system that have to do with a 2200 rating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First is the National Master title. It is awarded to anyone who has ever had an established (not provisional) rating of over 2200. Once a player is a National Master, they have the title for life no matter what happens to their rating. The NM title has no effect on rating floor other than the 2000 floor which a player receives for having crossed 2200.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The second and third are both called Life Master, confusingly enough. To distinguish between them, they are usually referred to as Life Master and Original Life Master.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Life Master is part of the norms system which was introduced in 2008. To gain the title, one has to have 5 performances in USCF tournaments that qualify for &quot;M&quot; norms and have achieved an established rating over 2200. To see a player's norm history, click on the link next to &quot;Highest USCF Norms-Based Title Earned (in events since 1991)&quot; on their member page then click on Norms History. This title also has no extra effect on rating floor.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Original Life Master has been around for a long time. It is achieved by starting 300 games (not necessarily consecutively, as far as I know) with a rating above 2200. Once a player has started the 300th game, they are given a lifetime floor of 2200. To my knowledge, this is the only way to get the 2200 floor-2300 gives you a 2100 floor but 2400 does not raise it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Candidate Master is a FIDE title awarded when you make 2200. FIDE Master is at 2300. They are both awarded for life.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: For reasonable evidence that the 300 games do not need to be consecutive, see the rating history of USCF member ID 12462971.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3270" LastActivityDate="2014-07-18T01:53:12.917" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5864" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5853" CreationDate="2014-07-18T17:02:01.133" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Arguably, the &quot;original&quot; hyper Modern opening was the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R%C3%A9ti_Opening&quot;&gt;Reti opening&lt;/a&gt;. named after Richard Reti who introduced, or at least popularized it. It was &lt;em&gt;White's&lt;/em&gt; opening, and began Nf3. If Black responded d5, White might or might not respond c4. Instead, he might play 2. g3, then Bg2 for an early fianchetto and castling.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.&amp;nbsp;Nf3 has the effect of deterring e5, unless Black first supports it with e.g. d6. But when Black plays Nf6 in the Alekhine, it is after White has played e4, which means that White has the option to chase the knight with e5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastEditorUserId="2789" LastEditDate="2014-07-19T21:28:20.740" LastActivityDate="2014-07-19T21:28:20.740" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5865" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-07-18T17:24:46.310" Score="2" ViewCount="340" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have a doubt with a puzzle that I solved recently. The proposed solution for that puzzle is as below.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;r4rk1/pp4np/2n1bppB/qNQ1p3/8/6P1/PP2PPBP/R4RK1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Bxg7 Kxg7 2.Bxc6 bxc6 3.Nd4 Qxc5 4.Nxe6+ Kg8 5.Nxc5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But instead of choosing 1... Kxg7, if black has chosen 1... Rfe8, I think it would have given black a better position as below.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;r4rk1/pp4np/2n1bppB/qNQ1p3/8/6P1/PP2PPBP/R4RK1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Bxg7 Rfe8 2.Bxc6 bxc6 3.Nd4 Qxc5 4.Nxe6 Rxe6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In a comment below the puzzle, someone has mentioned that if black doesn't take the bishop, it loses a minor piece. What is that referring to? Is there any specific reason for black not choosing 1... Rfe8?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2002" LastActivityDate="2014-07-19T01:36:11.433" Title="Why did black choose 1... Kxg7 instead of 1... Rfe8 in this puzzle?" Tags="&lt;puzzles&gt;&lt;advantage&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5866" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5865" CreationDate="2014-07-18T17:46:55.480" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It looks to me like in your 1... Rfe8 line, White can improve by playing 3. Qxc6 instead of 3. Nd4. It could then go 3... Kxg7 4. Nc7 Rac8 5. Nxe6+ and White stays up a piece. While that line is certainly better for black than also trading off queens as in the main line of the puzzle, the intent of the puzzle was to demonstrate the queen fork idea as in the main line. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I could offer my idea of where your confusion is, it is that you are making white play the same moves in every variation regardless of black's response, which he definitely doesn't have to do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3270" LastEditorUserId="3270" LastEditDate="2014-07-18T17:53:32.343" LastActivityDate="2014-07-18T17:53:32.343" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5867" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5865" CreationDate="2014-07-18T22:00:16.670" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've done this puzzle today too! It's Chess.com's puzzle of the day =)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have analysed it with Houdini 3 Pro. Here is what it says after 1.Bxg7 :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;1...Kxg7 : +5.07&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;1...Rf7 : +5.43&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;1...Rfe8 : +5.52&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After 1... Rfe8 your move 2. Bxc6?? is a blunder and lose a lot of White's advantage (White is still probably winning but not by much). Houdini evaluates it as only +1.96&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The killer move is 2. b4!! which Houdini evaluates as +5.52&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It will continue: 2... Nxb4 3. Bxf6 Rac8 4. Qxe5 Bc4 5. Be7&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(It's pretty much forced, all other Black replies are much weaker. 3... a6 is answered by 4. Qc7 ; while 2... Qd8 is answered by 3. Rfd1)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then here are three lines:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;5... Bf7 6. Bxb4 Qxb4 7. Rab1 Qxb1 8. Qxe8+ Rxe8 9. Rxb1 Rxe2 &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;5... Qd8 6. Bxd8 Rxe5 7. Nd6 Rxd8 8. Nxc4&#xA;Rxe2&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;5... Qxb5 6. Qxb5 Bxb5 7. Bxb4 Bxe2&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to the omniscient Houdini the move 1...Rfe8 is technically slightly inferior to 1... Kxg7. But I think you are right: if it was a practical game, Black should play 1... Rfe8 because it gives White a harder time at finding the correct optimal continuation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Trading Queens with 1... Kxg7 simplifies the position and makes it very easy to win for White. But after 1... Rfe8 the position is still complex and White may make a mistake. I believe Black's best hope is to play 5... Bf7 6. Bxb4 Qxb4 7. Rab1 Qd2?! which keeps the Queens on the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3237" LastEditorUserId="3237" LastEditDate="2014-07-18T23:37:10.033" LastActivityDate="2014-07-18T23:37:10.033" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5868" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5865" CreationDate="2014-07-19T01:36:11.433" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think there is a much simpler answer to the question. The &lt;strong&gt;point&lt;/strong&gt; of the puzzle is to demonstrate the tactic of the discovered attack on the queen and the fork on &lt;strong&gt;e6&lt;/strong&gt;. If Black plays &lt;strong&gt;1...Kxg7&lt;/strong&gt;, then the puzzle demonstrates this point. But if Black plays &lt;strong&gt;1...Rfe8&lt;/strong&gt; (which is also bad because of 2. b4!) what is the point of the puzzle? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2429" LastActivityDate="2014-07-19T01:36:11.433" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5869" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5713" CreationDate="2014-07-19T09:24:00.667" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think there currently is a way judging from the discussion in the following link:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/forum/view/community/chesscom-desktop-client?page=1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.chess.com/forum/view/community/chesscom-desktop-client?page=1&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3509" LastActivityDate="2014-07-19T09:24:00.667" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5870" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5882" CreationDate="2014-07-20T15:11:10.087" Score="5" ViewCount="4221" Body="&lt;p&gt;We all known that Bobby Fischer has published the famous &quot;A Bust to The King's Gambit&quot;, where the gambit is said to be losing for white. Why is it so? Is there any line that can secure black an advantage in the opening, assuming best play from white from todays point of view?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3381" LastEditorUserId="3381" LastEditDate="2014-07-24T09:44:49.260" LastActivityDate="2020-02-25T21:56:08.453" Title="Why is King's Gambit said to be refuted?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;kings-gambit&gt;&lt;refuted&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5871" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5846" CreationDate="2014-07-20T23:00:19.530" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe the optimum opening would be what Cleveland is suggesting.  A combination of rook &amp;amp; knight with king &amp;amp; queen pawn @ d4 &amp;amp; e4, controlling the center.  In the opening suggested in the example above, although it controls the center of the board, it restricts any immediate pathway for the king.  In a game where one of the win conditions is crossing the middle of the board with your king, this may not be the best opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3512" LastActivityDate="2014-07-20T23:00:19.530" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5873" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5858" CreationDate="2014-07-21T07:55:58.963" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's not possible, in fact in &quot;Chessbase reader&quot;, there is the word &lt;strong&gt;reader&lt;/strong&gt; which means you can only pgn (or .cbh ...)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to do such thing, my advice is for you to get a copy of the most used software like Chessbase or Fritz.&#xA;Probably there is some free stuff which are doing the same but I don't know it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3480" LastActivityDate="2014-07-21T07:55:58.963" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5874" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5875" CreationDate="2014-07-21T13:57:39.440" Score="2" ViewCount="753" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am playing with whites. Currently my queen is at c7 and it's my turn. If I move my queen to d8 and declare check on the king, is this also a check-mate?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;sorry for the seemingly noobish question, but I am not sure and all resources that I looked up did not provide me with a definitive answer. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;White to move&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;r1b1kb1r/ppQp1ppp/2n2n2/8/1q6/4P3/P1PP1PPP/RNB1KBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3516" LastEditorUserId="2042" LastEditDate="2014-07-23T08:28:01.750" LastActivityDate="2014-07-23T08:28:01.750" Title="Am I allowed to do a checkmate and win the game in this situation?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;checkmate&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5875" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5874" CreationDate="2014-07-21T14:00:44.503" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, it is not checkmate, because your opponent can capture your queen with either the knight on c6 or the king on e8. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Checkmate occurs when you give a check to your opponent and your opponent cannot either move the king out of check or capture the piece that is giving the check or block the check my interposing another piece between the checking piece and the king. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, in this case - &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;r1b1kb1r/ppQp1ppp/2n2n2/8/1q6/4P3/P1PP1PPP/RNB1KBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Qd8+ Kxd8 (1...Nxd8)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is no checkmate. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Consider this hypothetical position. In this case, it would be a checkmate - &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;r1b1kb1r/1pQp1ppp/pB3n2n2/8/1q6/4P3/P1PP1PPP/RN2KBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Qd8#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here, the enemy king cannot move out of check. The piece that is giving the check (i.e. the queen) cannot be captured by the black king, because it is supported by the bishop on b6. There is also no way to interpose a piece between the queen and the king because they are right next to each other. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2429" LastEditorUserId="2429" LastEditDate="2014-07-21T14:50:59.943" LastActivityDate="2014-07-21T14:50:59.943" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5877" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-07-21T14:45:04.757" Score="7" ViewCount="2923" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Berlin defense of the Ruy Lopez was played by the likes of Steinitz and Lasker. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 Nf6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, it soon disappeared out of the play of World Champions and they rarely played it, before Kramnik revived it. What were the reasons for this? Was it merely a matter of the taste of the positions resulting from the Berlin or was the Berlin considered to be bad for Black after the period of Lasker? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2429" LastEditorUserId="2429" LastEditDate="2014-07-21T15:07:59.760" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T15:23:46.917" Title="Why did the Berlin Defense of the Ruy Lopez disappear from the play of World Champions before Kramnik revived it?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;ruy-lopez&gt;&lt;berlin&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5878" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5621" CreationDate="2014-07-21T15:57:54.753" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can play &lt;code&gt;5. axb5&lt;/code&gt; and transpose to the answers to &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/4555/queens-gambit-accepted-with-black-trying-to-defend-the-c-file-pawn-with-4&quot;&gt;this question&lt;/a&gt; (Queen's Gambit Accepted with black trying to defend the &lt;code&gt;c&lt;/code&gt; file pawn with &lt;code&gt;4... Bd7&lt;/code&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1485" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2014-07-21T15:57:54.753" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5879" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5877" CreationDate="2014-07-21T20:28:12.070" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The reason, as far as I know, it is because it is drawish. GMs look for opens that are either heavily imbalanced or uncertain, like the sicilian or the scotch, or quiet oppenings that allow positional manuevering, like the Caro-Kann. Drawish lines are used by GMs solely when they are required.&#xA;Another reason is that the Berlin wasn't almost played at all in GM level. Kasparov didn't have such a deep knowlege of the opening, unlike Kramnik. Openings decide games in World Championships.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3405" LastActivityDate="2014-07-21T20:28:12.070" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5880" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5877" CreationDate="2014-07-21T21:43:16.430" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The goal in a World Championship match is to press with white and draw with black. Kramnik was the first to realize what an incredibly solid opening it could be.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As to why it was dropped earlier,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From the Wikipedia article on the Berlin (&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruy_Lopez#Berlin_Defence&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruy_Lopez#Berlin_Defence&lt;/a&gt;): &quot;The Berlin Defence was played in the late 19th century and early 20th century by Emanuel Lasker and others, who typically answered 4.0-0 with 4...d6 in the style of the Steinitz Variation. This approach ultimately fell out of favour, as had the old form of the Steinitz, due to its passivity, and the entire variation became rare&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The old way of playing the Berlin was 4...d6. When Kramnik brought it back, he played 4...Nxe4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3270" LastActivityDate="2014-07-21T21:43:16.430" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5881" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5356" CreationDate="2014-07-22T14:19:25.783" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Taking into account the &lt;strong&gt;fact&lt;/strong&gt; that stronger side &lt;strong&gt;always&lt;/strong&gt; chooses if the game ends in a stalemate or not, and that the stalemate is the result of &lt;strong&gt;recklessness&lt;/strong&gt;, it is fair to declare the game drawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You are not cheated, because to win you must put opposing king into checkmate ( which you did not do -&gt; checkmate is &lt;strong&gt;indefensible check&lt;/strong&gt; ), you are just &lt;strong&gt;punished&lt;/strong&gt; for being &lt;strong&gt;reckless.&lt;/strong&gt; To me that is fair result since you were the only one who had control, not the opponent, and you blew it. Pay more attention next time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastActivityDate="2014-07-22T14:19:25.783" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5882" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5870" CreationDate="2014-07-22T19:54:28.633" Score="12" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;We all known that Bobby Fischer has published the famous &quot;A Bust to The King's Gambit&quot;, where the gambit is said to be losing for white. Why is it so? Is there any line that can secure black an advantage in the opening, assuming best play from white?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; refuted but the &lt;em&gt;Modern variation&lt;/em&gt; is very &quot;pleasant&quot; for Black at the moment, even though being &quot;equal&quot;. The fact is that White &lt;strong&gt;barely&lt;/strong&gt; holds equality here, and if he makes the slightest mistake then chances are high for him to lose the game. I am referring to the line &lt;code&gt;1.e4 e5 2.f4 exf4 3.Nf3 d5! 4.exd5&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other old popular lines are very sharp and unexplored but &lt;strong&gt;mainly easier to play&lt;/strong&gt; with Black. I refer to the lines where Black plays &lt;code&gt;...g5&lt;/code&gt; with Black's dark squared bishop being posted on &lt;code&gt;d6&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;g7&lt;/code&gt;. These are simply ultra sharp, inhuman lines where even computers explode!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That is the reason why you will not see King's Gambit being played at the top/master level:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Too much memorization of lines which can be refuted by one computer-like novelty;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Even if White manages to get out of the opening with &quot;equal&quot; position, Black usually has easier time playing the middlegame;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have checked the evaluations of all the lines in the &lt;em&gt;Chess Informant ECO ( 2006 )&lt;/em&gt; and my claims are supported -&gt; White will &lt;strong&gt;always&lt;/strong&gt; have a move that offers equal / sharp game, but the positions are wild and very hard to play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is not something that top GMs want, they do not enter into highly tactical lines. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason for this is that in order to play this type of chess, you need to be physically very fit, you need to solve puzzles on a daily basis, &lt;strong&gt;you lose a lot of energy over the board&lt;/strong&gt; when playing like this ( this is very dangerous for tournament play because &lt;strong&gt;you will play subsequent games worse&lt;/strong&gt; ), the amount of stress you suffer is very high, and most of the time the &lt;strong&gt;entire line&lt;/strong&gt; can be refuted by a single novelty found by a computer. Furthermore, the openings like this reduce to &quot;I calculate better than you&quot; type of game, so GM can not defeat markedly weaker player if he prepared his opening and calculates as good as that GM ( I have seen players who &quot;fit this bill&quot; so it is not impossible ).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you intend to play King's Gambit as White, or you play &lt;code&gt;1...e5&lt;/code&gt; &lt;strong&gt;by all means&lt;/strong&gt; get &lt;em&gt;John Shaw-King's Gambit ( 2013 )&lt;/em&gt; as it is most up-to-date publication and the coverage is simply exceptional.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wish I could give you some illustrative lines but the material is so vast that it would not fit in 10 posts or even more! Just get the book and all will be clear!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Best regards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastEditorUserId="2042" LastEditDate="2014-07-23T21:37:09.200" LastActivityDate="2014-07-23T21:37:09.200" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5883" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5188" CreationDate="2014-07-22T20:18:35.220" Score="-3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In most opening gambits, a pawn is worth two tempi(Two moves). So I guess that a pawn would be fine. To be more precise, the f pawn. I think that is the most logical way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But yet there remains a problem. I can mate you like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  [Title &quot;White to move&quot;]&#xA;  [fen &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;  1.e4 e5 2.Bc4 Bc5 I use the move now 3.Qf3 h6 4.Qxf7#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I used h6 as a waiting move to show that a double move is made.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In a similar way, a player can trap or take a big piece, such as a queen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the rules so far:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;White(Or black) lacks his f pawn.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The person with the right to double move cannot mate. If a mate is inevitable, he cannot use the double move.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The person with the right to double move cannot take a piece. If taking a piece is inevitable, he cannot use the double move.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;About check now. I do personally think that if you are checked, the double move doesn't count, so:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The person with the right to double move cannot check. If a check is inevitable, he cannot use the double move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [Title &quot;White to move&quot;] &#xA; [fen &quot;rnbq1rk1/pppp1p1p/5BpQ/4p3/4P3/8/PPPP1PPP/RN2KBNR w KQ - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But there are also positions like this. So this idea comes up:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Right after the double move, the non-double move player can exchange one of his pieces for a piece of equal value. You can exchange a bishop for a knight. You cannot exchange say, two rooks for a queen and pawn.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I think that this is the best way to answer your question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope it helps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3405" LastEditorUserId="3405" LastEditDate="2014-07-23T07:34:58.390" LastActivityDate="2014-07-23T07:34:58.390" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5884" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-07-23T01:17:33.730" Score="1" ViewCount="463" Body="&lt;p&gt;I noticed that when I put my Houdini 3 Pro x64 in the &quot;Infinite Analysis&quot; mode, he tends to use a lot of time to evaluate the bad moves... Sometimes he even uses like 30 seconds on the first 10 best moves on his list, but then he uses like 5 minutes on the other (bad) moves... He meditates for a lot of time on the last few moves in his list, even though they are just stupid moves that give up the Queen for nothing...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I made him analyze the following position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Pp02q.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And he needed 2 hours to find the forced mates...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ukt6z.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And also, while he was analyzing the position, his list of moves was all messed up: the moves were not ordered according to their evaluations (the best moves should be first, while the worst moves should be last... but it was not the case). Although after he finally found the forced mates he then ordered the moves correctly. Oh and he found that ...Nc6 was a mate in 19 &lt;strong&gt;before&lt;/strong&gt; finding that ...exf6 was a mate in 6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So is my Houdini broken or something?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And I heard that to find forced mates there was a quicker way: there exist a special mode which puts the engine into a &quot;mate search mode&quot;. But how can I put my Houdini in that mode?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3237" LastActivityDate="2014-07-23T01:41:33.353" Title="Is my engine working properly?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;engines&gt;&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;evaluation&gt;&lt;houdini&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5885" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5884" CreationDate="2014-07-23T01:41:33.353" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;What you're doing here is not correct and definitely not what a chess engine is designed for. You're running multi-pv analysis with many many lines. Multi-PV with many lines as in in your example is exponentially slower than a single-PV analysis. In an N multi-PV analysis, the engine would need to examine the first PV then ignore it for the next best PV. And this continues until all PVs are examined. This is very slow when you do it in iterative deepening where the search tries deeper by each iteration.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, the position is tricky for an engine because it has too many captures. When you're in a very tactical full-blown position, the engine would need to expand its qsearch so to get to the bottom of the search tree.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In summary, what you're doing here doesn't make any sense. You'll need to scale down your lines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your lines are not sorted is the fault of the user interface and not the engine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please read &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cruxis.com/chess/manual/index.html?game_play.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.cruxis.com/chess/manual/index.html?game_play.htm&lt;/a&gt; for the Tactical Mode. You'll need to send that UCI command to Houdini.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2014-07-23T01:41:33.353" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5888" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-07-23T15:05:14.120" Score="8" ViewCount="1691" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am looking for some puzzles where there is a forced mate in as many moves as possible (ideally 20 or more). Yet the puzzles need to be as easy as possible!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You will probably need to find some puzzles where the defending side has a lot of spite checks to delay the mate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit :&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I just made a very easy mate in approximately 23. White to move:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/LYLEZ.png&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's really really easy since Black can do nothing. But it doesn't totally satisfies me since the position is of course not legal...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3237" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-04T21:48:55.660" LastActivityDate="2021-05-02T05:13:54.770" Title="Could you show me some very easy mate in 20?" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;problems&gt;&lt;elementary-mates&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5889" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5732" CreationDate="2014-07-23T15:22:37.637" Score="8" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I realize that it's hard to give general guidelines here, since every chess position has unique considerations. Still, any rules of thumb would be appreciated. I would rather be right 80% of the time than fly blind and &quot;flip a coin&quot; on these decisions every game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If he ignores your pin by castling / moving queen / interposing the bishop, you have 2 options : exchange or keep the bishop. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would prefer to keep the bishop, but then you need to put pressure on pieces / squares &lt;strong&gt;that are connected&lt;/strong&gt; with the pinned knight. Pressuring the center ( &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; / &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt; ) is always good. &lt;strong&gt;This way your bishop remains useful even after White breaks the pin.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you decide to exchange, remember that in endgame, bishop is superior to knight ( my answer to &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/5239/endgame-with-single-bishop-or-single-knight/5313#5313&quot;&gt;this question&lt;/a&gt; is instructive regarding &lt;em&gt;bishop vs knight&lt;/em&gt; debate ). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Still, many openings ( like Nimzo-Indian ) are viable even after the exchange of bishop for a knight. Equality is reached by creating &lt;strong&gt;swift&lt;/strong&gt; action by opening the game for the knights. Why? Because knights are &lt;strong&gt;better positioned&lt;/strong&gt; in the early game then bishops since they are &lt;strong&gt;centralized&lt;/strong&gt; in one move. while bishops need lots of maneuvering to get ideal squares. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Furthermore, by exchanging the bishop for a knight, you remove your piece that made 1 move for his piece that made 1 move, but in order to recapture &lt;strong&gt;he needs to play with the same piece twice&lt;/strong&gt; while you get the chance to introduce new piece. This gives you development advantage, so it is logical to open the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In short, if you exchange be ready to start swift action. If this is not possible, you &lt;strong&gt;must&lt;/strong&gt; get some compensation ( like better pawn structure, development advantage... ) or else White will favorably position the bishops and open the game with devastating effect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for &quot;putting the question&quot; to the bishop, again you can exchange or keep the bishop. If you exchange, then proceed as I have described above. Otherwise you can maintain the pin or reposition the bishop, but the principle is the same as above: if you can pressurize points / pieces connected with his pinned units, maintain the pin ( &lt;strong&gt;but always asses the consequences of &lt;code&gt;g4&lt;/code&gt; push!&lt;/strong&gt; ) otherwise just reposition the bishop to a better square. He did lose a tempo and has weakened himself with &lt;code&gt;h3&lt;/code&gt; so you have time to play twice in the opening with the bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I understand that all this might be abstract, so here are some illustrative diagrams that should help you even further:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Bishop exchange that speeds up implementation of a plan&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.cxd5 exd5 5.Bg5 Be7 6.Qc2 O-O 7.e3 c6 8.Bd3 Nbd7 9.Nf3 Re8 10.O-O Nf8 11.h3 Ng6 12.Bxf6 Bxf6 13.b4! a6 14.a4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This example illustrates what to do when opponent breaks the pin -&gt; just stay calm and &lt;strong&gt;play in such a way that bishop move becomes useful.&lt;/strong&gt; Again, as I have said before, the pin usually puts pressure on the center ( here on &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt; pawn ), and simply pressuring that point will justify the bishop's position even after the pin is broken. Notice how White got extra move with the exchange to start fast minority attack: without &lt;code&gt;Bxf6&lt;/code&gt; Black's dark square bishop would prevent this move so White would have t play &lt;code&gt;a3&lt;/code&gt; first in order to get &lt;code&gt;b4&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Putting the question to the bishop&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 ( 4.Bxc6 dxc6 5.O-O f6 ( 5...Bg4?! 6.h3! Bh5? 7.g4! Bg6 8.Nxe5 Bxe4 9.Re1 ) 6.d4! exd4 7.Qxd4 ) 4...Nf6 5.O-O Be7 6.Re1 b5 7.Bb3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Again a good example that shows that you don't have to exchange the bishop just because the pin becomes ineffective. This example requires explanation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First of all, notice that it is possible to exchange the bishop, and notice how White makes swift action in view of rapid development and opening of the game. Furthermore, notice that White got compensation in view of better pawn structure ( he can create a passed pawn on the kingside, Black can't ) so this will diminish the power of bishops in the endgame. This is the application of the same principle as above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The sideline with &lt;code&gt;...Bg4&lt;/code&gt; illustrates well my warning that you must always evaluate consequences of &lt;code&gt;g4&lt;/code&gt; push in such positions. Black had no time to maintain the pin and should have exchanged the bishop. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, in the main line White was able to maintain the &quot;pin&quot; because &lt;code&gt;...b5&lt;/code&gt; push was favorable for him ( &lt;code&gt;b5&lt;/code&gt; pawn is a weakness and White bishop will retreat to a good diagonal ). If you study theory of this line you will see that &lt;code&gt;...b5&lt;/code&gt; move is forced because &lt;strong&gt;the pressure on &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt; pawn is strong.&lt;/strong&gt; Again, this confirms my principle of just putting squares / pieces that are connected with the pinned knight under pressure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is an example that puts everything pretty much together:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Black applies almost all the above principles to reach a draw&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 d5 2.exd5 Qxd5 3.d4 e5 4.Be3 Nc6 5.Nf3 Bg4 6.Be2 O-O-O! 7.Nc3 Bb4 8.O-O Bxc3! 9.bxc3 Nf6!? 10.c4 Qe4 11.Bd3 Bxf3! 12.gxf3 Qh4 13.d5 Nd4!? 14.c3 Ne6! 15.dxe6 e4! 16.fxe4 Rxd3 17.Qxd3 Qg4+ 18.Kh1 Qf3+ 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This example is one of the main lines in the Scandinavian defense, and is taken from the book &lt;em&gt;C.Bauer-Play the Scandinavian ( 2010 ).&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First crucial moment is &lt;code&gt;6.Be2&lt;/code&gt;. This is the moment that troubles you, right? Well, look what strongest GMs do here: they put pressure on the squares / pieces that are connected with the pinned knight ( &lt;code&gt;...O-O-O!&lt;/code&gt; ). This example clearly illustrates the connection between the pinned knight and the center, and why it is more important to pressure the center then to rely on a pin that will be short-lived anyway.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now comes the second momment that illustrates second type of position that troubles you: bishop pins the knight against the king ( &lt;code&gt;7...Bb4&lt;/code&gt; ). What happened here? White castled, and here we must analyze the position thoroughly so we can understand why &lt;code&gt;8...Bxc3!&lt;/code&gt; was played.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black could try to move the queen and preserve the bishop, but in this opening &lt;strong&gt;everything revolves around development advantage.&lt;/strong&gt; White has already finished development, has strong influence on the center and will probably force Black to relinquish the bishop pair ( these guys are deadly in open positions like the one in the game ). Black on the other hand needs one more move to finish development, and he needs to maintain the pressure on White center. Moving the queen would loosen the pressure and give White time to start regrouping for an attack. That is why Black decides to exchange the bishop -&gt; he gets &lt;strong&gt;extra move&lt;/strong&gt; so knight on &lt;code&gt;g8&lt;/code&gt; can enter into play, he &lt;strong&gt;weakens&lt;/strong&gt; White's control over center and claims &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; square for himself and gets healthier pawn structure that diminishes power of the bishops in the endgame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I just wanted to say that you need not fear when opponent ignores your pin by castling / moving the queen or if he breaks it by interposing the bishop -&gt; just keep playing and put pressure on the squares / pieces connected with the pinned knight, or simply exchange and start a swift action.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The last illustrative moment starts with &lt;code&gt;11....Bxf3!&lt;/code&gt; and here we again see the concept of exchanging the bishop to get time for a swift action and to ruin opponent's pawn structure. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another concept is illustrated, and I have mentioned it earlier, and that is &lt;strong&gt;the opening of the game in order to exploit the knight's speed over bishops.&lt;/strong&gt; Notice how strong and &lt;strong&gt;well posted&lt;/strong&gt; are Black knights, while bishops were not posted on their &lt;strong&gt;best&lt;/strong&gt; squares. Notice how Black got slight initiative after &lt;code&gt;13...Nd4!?&lt;/code&gt;, although it was only good for a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think that these examples cover all 3 cases that troubled you, in both positions you mentioned so if you have further questions leave a comment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this helped, best regards! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2014-07-23T23:01:14.467" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5892" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5888" CreationDate="2014-07-23T20:51:08.337" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are many:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;     [Title &quot;Mate in 20&quot;]&#xA; [FEN &quot;3K1B2/1p6/pp6/rk2N3/b1p5/1pP5/1P2P3/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should search puzzles from the 1900. It was a golden era for chess puzzles. I found a mate in 63 some days ago. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chessmaster also has a nice collection of interesting(and long) puzzles. There are many sites where you can sort puzzles according to difficulty and turns to mate, but I can't remember any atm.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3405" LastActivityDate="2014-07-23T20:51:08.337" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5893" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5734" CreationDate="2014-07-24T00:45:25.060" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is the fastest way that I've found.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &amp;quot;?&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Site &amp;quot;?&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Date &amp;quot;2014.07.12&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Round &amp;quot;?&amp;quot;]&#xA;[White &amp;quot;?&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Black &amp;quot;?&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Nc3 d5 2. Nf3 d4 3. Ne4 b6 4. d3 f5 5. Ne4g5 h6 6. Nh3 g5 7. Bd2 g4 8. Nhg1 gxf3 9. Nxf3 Nc6 10. Bf4 h5 11. h3 Bh6 12. Ng5 e5 13. Bxe5 Nxe5 14. Nf3 Nxf3+ 15. gxf3 Nf6 16. Rg1 Rg8 17. Rxg8+ Nxg8 18. Bg2 Bb7 19. a4 a5 20. Kf1 Nf6 21. Qe1 Nd5 22. Rd1 Nf4 23. e4 Qe7 24. e5 O-O-O 25. Ra1 Rg8 26. Bh1 Qg5 27. Rb1 Qg1#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2697" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-09-09T22:08:48.283" LastActivityDate="2020-09-09T22:08:48.283" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="5894" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5877" CreationDate="2014-07-24T02:04:53.253" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The reason apart from being a drawish opening, is that it can be unpleasant to play as black without correct play with the double pawn and disconnected rooks, in case one goes for the Queen exchange variation, like the one being played most often these days. A good thing going for black is the obvious bishop pair. Kramnik revived it successfully and used it in London against Kasparov as part of a strategy which worked. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3535" LastActivityDate="2014-07-24T02:04:53.253" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5895" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5900" CreationDate="2014-07-24T02:21:46.953" Score="7" ViewCount="1297" Body="&lt;p&gt;In &lt;em&gt;Wojo's Weapons: Winning With White (Volume 1)&lt;/em&gt; by Jonathan Hilton and Dean Ippolito, it is written:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Wojo's move order to reach any opening position almost always started with 1. Nf3 and then either c2-c4 or d2-d4. When asked why he didn't play 1. d4 as his first move instead, he was occasionally known to say, &quot;I'm too lazy!&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't really understand why he says that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I am not wrong, if you want to play c4, d4, Nf3, g3, (not against everything, but against most defenses), then the difference between starting with 1. Nf3 and starting with 1. d4, is that starting with 1. Nf3 avoids all of these openings:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The Budapest Gambit&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The Albin Countergambit&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The Benko Gambit&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The main lines of the Grunfeld (I think)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The Benoni&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The Nimzovich Variation (Exaggerated Fianchetto) of the QID&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At the price of allowing Black to play the English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Technically starting with 1. d4 also allows White to play these three variations:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The Samisch against the KID&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The 4-Pawns Attack against the KID &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The Exchange Variation against the QGD&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But since White is going to also play Nf3 anyway (on move 3), he is not going to play any of those variations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So if we intend to play c4, Nf3, d4, g3, I would believe that choosing to start with 1. Nf3 is the most intelligent choice since it avoids so much openings at the (small) price of allowing Black to play the English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But this isn't laziness. It's just cleverness, it's the wise choice to make. So I still don't understand Wojo's quote.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So what did I miss? Does starting with 1. d4 avoids other openings that 1. Nf3 allows? Are there other advantages of starting with 1. d4 ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3237" LastActivityDate="2021-02-12T22:24:19.897" Title="In the books Wojo's Weapons, why was Wojo occasionally known to say &quot;I'm too lazy!&quot; when asked why he didn't play 1. d4 instead of 1. Nf3?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;&lt;books&gt;&lt;1.d4&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5896" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="891" CreationDate="2014-07-24T02:30:17.700" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The most recent game which involved a Super GM getting checkmated was Ruslan Ponomariov against Caruana in the Dortmund championships in a very elegant finish by Caruana.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3535" LastActivityDate="2014-07-24T02:30:17.700" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5897" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5898" CreationDate="2014-07-24T08:40:01.250" Score="4" ViewCount="399" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am looking for a database of &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/q/2145/703&quot;&gt;chess problems&lt;/a&gt; in electronic format with solutions. Ideal variant will be a database with something like: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;FEN starting position *&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;description (Mate in 3 moves, Win material, Black to draw)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;solution *&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;strength of the problem&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Only * are really needed, other things just nice to have. It does not matter whether the resource is free or paid. Of course I can get some books and extract such positions by myself, but I hope that someone already have done something like this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="703" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-04T21:25:10.700" LastActivityDate="2020-04-04T21:25:10.700" Title="Resource with chess problems in electronic format with solutions" Tags="&lt;problems&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5898" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5897" CreationDate="2014-07-24T09:47:25.793" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you are looking for tactical puzzles, there is always CT-Art from Convecta. You can also try Tactic Trainer for Android. It has a nifty difficulty rating system.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also there is an online resource I forgot to add : &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.yacpdb.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.yacpdb.org/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3405" LastEditorUserId="3405" LastEditDate="2014-07-26T12:12:36.820" LastActivityDate="2014-07-26T12:12:36.820" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5900" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5895" CreationDate="2014-07-24T10:03:05.320" Score="4" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If I am not wrong, if you want to play c4, d4, Nf3, g3, (not against everything, but against most defenses), then the difference between starting with 1. Nf3 and starting with 1. d4, is that starting with 1. Nf3 avoids all of these openings:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That is exactly the reason why I always open with &lt;code&gt;1.Nf3&lt;/code&gt; :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should have seen the look on some faces after they realize they can't play their gambit openings and must agree to play &quot;dull&quot; game. I really don't care, since I will always be rock-solid and safe, and since I am White I can usually open the center if I want &quot;trouble&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;At the price of allowing Black to play the English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yeah... But it's not so bad, since English is so rich in ideas that it rarely ends in a draw if at least one side fights really hard for a win. This can be useful against lower rated opponents because they can't spring some dull opening line and draw by &quot;suffering&quot; all game. Theory is less important, than knowledge of plans which is also great, since lower rated opponent can't draw because he just bashed out 20+ moves of forced line.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for equally rated opponents, this is great opening as it allows you to overpower the opponent with your intelligence and creativity, which should suit your style, based on your earlier posts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Technically starting with 1. d4 also allows White to play these three variations:&#xA;  But since White is going to also play Nf3 anyway (on move 3), he is not going to play any of those variations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which is the reason you will not see &lt;code&gt;1.Nf3&lt;/code&gt; at the top so often -&gt; the flaw of this move is that it avoids the best lines for White in many openings. Black can reach full equality rather easy ( like in QGD Exchange line... ), but still, positions are enough unbalanced for you to win. With &lt;code&gt;1.Nf3&lt;/code&gt; you sacrifice objectively the most dangerous lines for Black, for safety and flexibility. It all depends of person's style. I like solidity, and have no problem with playing equal positions. Just because the position is equal desn't mean it is a dead draw. If you are creative, you can sharpen it and play for a win...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;So if we intend to play c4, Nf3, d4, g3, I would believe that choosing to start with 1. Nf3 is the most intelligent choice since it avoids so much openings at the (small) price of allowing Black to play the English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Indeed. Just remember that this move order offers you no advantage. You will always play equal positions, but you will be rock-solid and flexible. Consider the option of playing King's Indian Attack, instead of playing &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt; for example... This is a good option for White too, you do not need to limit yourself with &lt;code&gt;d4+c4&lt;/code&gt; pawn formation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;So what did I miss? Does starting with 1. d4 avoids other openings that 1. Nf3 allows? Are there other advantages of starting with 1. d4 ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;1.Nf3&lt;/code&gt; cuts down on the amount of theory you need to learn, but you will never play the most critical lines for Black. With &lt;code&gt;1.d4&lt;/code&gt; this is not the case, but you will have to learn much more, since you can't bypass some heavily theoretical openings... It's up to you to make the choice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastActivityDate="2014-07-24T10:03:05.320" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5901" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="274" CreationDate="2014-07-24T13:36:55.587" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Colle Zukertort is a very simple opening, and can serve as a complete white opening repertoire. It was recommended by FIDE Trainer Jason Ciano, as well as many former top US players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It teaches the white player how to activate the pieces in an ordered function, and, in some lines, achieve equality with a slight pawn center. It teaches good endgame skills and piece positioning. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sharp positions like the Sicilian Dragon teach theoretical memorization, and it does not improve positional understanding. Nowadays, with computer analysis, sharp positions have theoretical improvements every few months, causing the player to constantly have to memorize new opening variations, leading to a dependency on memorization, not understanding.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3540" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T17:22:02.597" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T17:22:02.597" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="5902" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5927" CreationDate="2014-07-24T17:50:53.313" Score="6" ViewCount="131" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What are Black's long term plans in below pawn structure?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;How can Black free his game?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The position arose from the Rubinstein variation of the French defense: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;White to move&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;r2rb1k1/1p2bppp/1q2pn2/p3B3/P2N4/2PB4/1P2QPPP/R2R2K1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastActivityDate="2014-07-26T20:12:48.067" Title="How can Black free his game?" Tags="&lt;pawn-structure&gt;&lt;middlegame&gt;&lt;french-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5904" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5905" CreationDate="2014-07-24T23:15:29.593" Score="26" ViewCount="74501" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yesterday I was playing with a friend, I was almost out of time, he checked me, didn't say anything, I didn't see the check as i was in a hurry to make my move. And I was mated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Computers don't let you play any move when you're in check. Therefore in reality, are you allowed to make a move when you're in check? or you cannot make any move? I mean should you undo any move that you do by mistake or not? And should your opponent warn you about being checked or not?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1105" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2015-10-31T12:02:09.957" LastActivityDate="2019-05-05T22:02:09.933" Title="When you check someone, do you have to say &quot;check&quot;?" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;etiquette&gt;&lt;check&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5905" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5904" CreationDate="2014-07-24T23:34:22.937" Score="29" Body="&lt;p&gt;In a tournament game, you are not supposed to speak at all other than to offer a draw or adjust a piece. This includes saying check. This tends to seep into casual games among more experienced players (I haven't said check in years). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For players that do not compete in tournaments at all, I don't think that there is any obligation to point it out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When your opponent makes an illegal move, though, as it sounds like you did after missing the check, it has to be pointed out. You can't just follow it up with a mate immediately. In blitz, making an illegal move means a loss. In a longer game, a minor time adjustment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3270" LastEditorUserId="3270" LastEditDate="2014-07-25T01:12:54.287" LastActivityDate="2014-07-25T01:12:54.287" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5906" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5915" CreationDate="2014-07-25T01:01:51.377" Score="6" ViewCount="741" Body="&lt;p&gt;I first thought that starting with 1. Nf3 would avoid the QID. But after thinking about it, this is only true if White plays 1. Nf3 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The move 3. Nc3 seems really cool since this would probably get out of book most people who play the Nimzo/QID complex (at least at the club level).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Though 3. g3 is also very interesting. But after 1. Nf3 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. g3 Black has 3... b6&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And then we have a position that is very close to a QID, but there is one difference: White didn't play d4 yet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does this make a real important difference? Or is this position also considered as a QID? Will White need to play d4 later anyway, and thus transposing to a normal QID?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After 1. Nf3 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. g3 b6 4. Bg2 Bb7 5. O-O what would you recommend me to play?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After 5...Be7 there are three possible moves:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;6.Nc3&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;6.d4&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;6.b3&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are all the differences between these three moves?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And finally, what do you think about Wojo's 6. Nc3 O-O 7. Re1 ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3237" LastActivityDate="2014-07-25T10:52:16.400" Title="Is 1. Nf3 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. g3 b6 a QID even though White hasn't played d4 yet? What would you recommend me against it?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;books&gt;&lt;queens-indian&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5907" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5906" CreationDate="2014-07-25T02:22:22.923" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I will take a shot at it with my limited knowledge. I think it seems to me like a Reti transformed into a standard English opening line with 3. g3 b6 4.Bg2 Bg7 5.0-0. Your assumption is right when you say it's not a QID since white didn't play d4. Will white play d4 later anyway? It's possible, although for instance after 5.0-0 Be7, if I were white, I might not play that as black control's the e4 square. And it's a central theme in QID positions, I believe. as for 6.b3 black can equalize easily and play 6... 0-0 7.Bb2 c5 or d5 and have some control in the centre. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Wojo's 6. Nc3 0-0 7. Re1,black can reply with d5 and equalize quite easily.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think another option of white on move 6 can be 6.d3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3535" LastActivityDate="2014-07-25T02:22:22.923" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5908" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4138" CreationDate="2014-07-25T04:50:03.173" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;As others have said, UCI is the API you want.  The full specifications of the protocol is here (the zip file extracts to a text file): &lt;a href=&quot;http://download.shredderchess.com/div/uci.zip&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://download.shredderchess.com/div/uci.zip&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's actually very straight forward and simple, a UCI engine must respond to and reply in plain text through stdin, stdout and stderr.  In fact, you should be able to launch the executable binary of any UCI engine on your platform and issue the UCI commands manually.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;UCI facilitates instructions from a GUI or other engine to tell the specific engine to do whatever it is that you want it to do, including analyse a specific PGN file (the loading of it is through the GUI or similar front-end, the raw moves are then fed to the engine in extended algebraic form, such as e4 becoming e2e4).  The second and third points of your requirements are standard with UCI, but it is up to each engine developer to support them (given how lean those requirements are, that should be most of them).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's an example of UCI in action on the command line:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;bash-3.2$ ./stockfish-5-64 &#xA;Stockfish 5 64 by Tord Romstad, Marco Costalba and Joona Kiiski&#xA;uci&#xA;id name Stockfish 5 64&#xA;id author Tord Romstad, Marco Costalba and Joona Kiiski&#xA;&#xA;option name Write Debug Log type check default false&#xA;option name Write Search Log type check default false&#xA;option name Search Log Filename type string default SearchLog.txt&#xA;option name Book File type string default book.bin&#xA;option name Best Book Move type check default false&#xA;option name Contempt Factor type spin default 0 min -50 max 50&#xA;option name Mobility (Midgame) type spin default 100 min 0 max 200&#xA;option name Mobility (Endgame) type spin default 100 min 0 max 200&#xA;option name Pawn Structure (Midgame) type spin default 100 min 0 max 200&#xA;option name Pawn Structure (Endgame) type spin default 100 min 0 max 200&#xA;option name Passed Pawns (Midgame) type spin default 100 min 0 max 200&#xA;option name Passed Pawns (Endgame) type spin default 100 min 0 max 200&#xA;option name Space type spin default 100 min 0 max 200&#xA;option name Aggressiveness type spin default 100 min 0 max 200&#xA;option name Cowardice type spin default 100 min 0 max 200&#xA;option name Min Split Depth type spin default 0 min 0 max 12&#xA;option name Threads type spin default 1 min 1 max 128&#xA;option name Hash type spin default 32 min 1 max 16384&#xA;option name Clear Hash type button&#xA;option name Ponder type check default true&#xA;option name OwnBook type check default false&#xA;option name MultiPV type spin default 1 min 1 max 500&#xA;option name Skill Level type spin default 20 min 0 max 20&#xA;option name Emergency Move Horizon type spin default 40 min 0 max 50&#xA;option name Emergency Base Time type spin default 60 min 0 max 30000&#xA;option name Emergency Move Time type spin default 30 min 0 max 5000&#xA;option name Minimum Thinking Time type spin default 20 min 0 max 5000&#xA;option name Slow Mover type spin default 80 min 10 max 1000&#xA;option name UCI_Chess960 type check default false&#xA;uciok&#xA;isready&#xA;readyok&#xA;quit&#xA;bash-3.2$ &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The commands I issued were uci, isready and quit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To utilise the UCI commands you essentially have two main choices; you can use an existing interface (e.g. ChessX, Arena and a host of others) or you can write your own code to issue instructions to an engine or group of engines.  I believe there may already be Python wrappers for accessing UCI engines, but I'd need to double-check.  There's definitely python-chess (import chess) and pychess (import pychess), I just can't recall the extent of their functions.  I can't recall where pychess is lurking (probably github or google code), but python-chess can be installed with pip.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1737" LastActivityDate="2014-07-25T04:50:03.173" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5910" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5713" CreationDate="2014-07-25T05:44:20.280" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The chess.com business model depends on locking people into using their site to play through in order to convince those users to purchase subscriptions to the site (just as is the case with Chessbase's Playchess site, the ICC, FIDE Online Arena and several others).  Opening up access to their API (they do have one for their smartphone apps) in the way you suggest could be readily used to break through those commercial barriers.  Which is a round about way of saying, no, there's not much chance of using any other program with their site.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1737" LastActivityDate="2014-07-25T05:44:20.280" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5911" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1743" CreationDate="2014-07-25T07:46:24.883" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recently reactivated my FICS account, but I'm not fond of bullet, blitz and lightning so it might not get much of a workout.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A truly excellent website for playing is the (totally free, as in speech and beer) &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.lichess.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Lichess.org&lt;/a&gt; which will also let you embed it in your own site and does allow anonymous players (cheaters have a tendency to get smacked).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are a few forums I visit, but they're generally region or software specific.  Some of the others I peruse have already been listed above, though &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesscademy.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chesscademy&lt;/a&gt; is worth a look (free training from US IMs and FMs).  Also, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.theweekinchess.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;The Week In Chess&lt;/a&gt; for news, live broadcast of games and an impressive archive of PGN.  Historical PGN archives are also available from &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.pgnmentor.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;PGN Mentor&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1737" LastActivityDate="2014-07-25T07:46:24.883" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5912" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1392" CreationDate="2014-07-25T07:56:16.130" Score="5" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.lichess.org/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Lichess.org&lt;/a&gt; is building a decent following of users with a very appealing interface, albeit a web one.  It has drawn a number of IMs, FMs, NMs and one or two GMs.  Oh yeah, it's free too.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;TWIC, of course, as mentioned above, especially for it's live PGN files.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1737" LastActivityDate="2014-07-25T07:56:16.130" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5913" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="274" CreationDate="2014-07-25T09:04:44.973" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I only play Colle system kind of openings (Classical Colle, Colle-Zukertort, Stonewall etc.,) I somehow am very comfortable with the structures it creates on the board. They are not aggressive at all, compared to the other stuff, which is why I have adopted it. On the contrary, the primary advice given to an improving chess player is NOT to stick to a particular class of opening, as though it &quot;belongs&quot; to you and you have some emotional attachment towards this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3158" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T17:22:14.363" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T17:22:14.363" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="5914" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1392" CreationDate="2014-07-25T09:20:51.733" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;FICS (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.freechess.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.freechess.org/&lt;/a&gt;) - The best free chess server. Here the highlight is, everytime there is a major (or even minor) event games going on, there is a feature for observers to &quot;kibitz&quot; when the game is in progress. Its really an awesome feature. Also there is a guess the next move bot, which records guesses by observers and makes it all the more interesting. There are at least 10 other features that NONE of the modern chess sites (like chess.com, lichess.org etc.,) have.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3158" LastActivityDate="2014-07-25T09:20:51.733" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5915" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5906" CreationDate="2014-07-25T10:52:16.400" Score="5" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Does this make a real important difference? Or is this position also considered as a QID?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is definitely not QID, as White hasn't played &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt; yet. This is a &lt;strong&gt;major&lt;/strong&gt; difference, that is good for White. Black needs to prevent &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; in the QID and he succeeds in it, but here White has an extra &quot;warrior&quot; for fight for the &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt;, the &lt;code&gt;d-pawn&lt;/code&gt;. If White could get &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; then Black position could become difficult.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Will White need to play d4 later anyway, and thus transposing to a normal QID?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No, You have a choice: you can &quot;forgive&quot; him for being too hasty ( play &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt; and enter standard QID ) or you can try and punish him ( by fighting for &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; ).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;After 1. Nf3 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. g3 b6 4. Bg2 Bb7 5. O-O what would you recommend me to play?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would follow the line &lt;em&gt;Kramnik&lt;/em&gt; gave in book &lt;em&gt;Khalifman-Opening for White According to Kramnik 1.Nf3 ( 2nd book, 2001 )&lt;/em&gt; and go for &lt;code&gt;Nc3&lt;/code&gt; so I could fight for &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What are all the differences between these three moves?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt; you go for the QID ( not bad ), with &lt;code&gt;b3&lt;/code&gt; you go for Reti-like-position and with &lt;code&gt;Nc3&lt;/code&gt; you try to &lt;strong&gt;refute&lt;/strong&gt; Black's play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;And finally, what do you think about Wojo's 6. Nc3 O-O 7. Re1 ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is the plan I would choose in the game ( &lt;em&gt;Kramnik&lt;/em&gt; suggested it as well! ). It tries to refute Black's opening play by claiming &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; -&gt; it is the strongest plan in my opinion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastActivityDate="2014-07-25T10:52:16.400" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5916" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2321" CreationDate="2014-07-25T15:04:35.410" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sorry for the lag in answering this question; I just stumbled upon this post. If you want a better response time, then you should contact me through the e-mail given in the help file.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Frankly, as the author or EloRater, I take issue with you declaring that EloRater is rough around the edges, especially since according to your post, you are unable to implement your own. Those who have had the courage to contact me directly, have found me amenable and friendly in resolving their issues. Derogatory remarks posted publically demeaning one's work is not an act of kindness, nor do I take it as such. Consequently, I have chosen to respond brusquely and completely.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now to answer the question, and to clarify the issue for the uninitiated reader:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Elorater's player input screen allows you to properly place advanced players, this is described in the help file under adding players with the following description:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Set Initial Rating&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;After entering the name, you must select the option of initial rating.&#xA;  -Default Adult assigns 1300 as the initial rating (as per USCF rules) -Default Child assigns a rating based on the child's age (as per USCF rules) The formula for computing the rating is 300 + age * 50. You may&#xA;  only select the ages listed, which are 4 to 20. Note that 20 or more&#xA;  yields the default adult rating. -Level allows you to specifically set&#xA;  the perceived skill level of the player this is comparable to&#xA;  tournament directors giving a provisional rating to a known chess&#xA;  player of some skill. Keep in mind that you should be familiar with&#xA;  the relative strengths of players in the common chess community. Most&#xA;  apparently advance players, who are not already rated fall between&#xA;  advanced beginner and intermediate players. If you are not sure, use&#xA;  the default adult setting, which is comparable to advanced beginner.&#xA;  -USCF allows you to enter known USCF ratings directly into the system. Use this option if you are entering a USCF rated player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Furthermore, the USCF rating system, which is available in the program, will move the player more during the first 20 games or so, in an attempt to locate the person accurately. This period is called provisional ratings, and is a feature of the USCF rating system to prevent skewing of the ratings. All the equations for implementing the system, and the logic behind them, including provisional ratings, is described in great detail at the site of Professor Mark E Glickman of Boston University.  The help file provides this link as well as additional notes regarding the program. For your information, the provisional rating mechanism is fully supported by the program.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In short, the program, EloRater, does exactly what it claims: it implements rating system for your club using the USCF rules for rating. This rating system is good enough for the USCF. It should be good enough for your club.  It works great for my club and the majority of the clubs who have opted to utilize my software, judging by the responses of gratitude that I continually get from the users of EloRater over the last 8 years.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Good luck with your club, and good luck finding software that fully meets your expectations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Jim Garner &#xA;(author of EloRater)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3551" LastActivityDate="2014-07-25T15:04:35.410" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5917" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4687" CreationDate="2014-07-25T15:12:35.420" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;To beat such a beginner, I would use &quot;tricky&quot; openings such as the Sicilian defense (c5 vs. e4) or Dutch Defense (f5 vs. d4) as Black. And Reti Opening nf3 or English Opening (c4), as White.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your beginner is probably familiar with center pawn openings (and related piece development) but likely to lose his/her way in openings where your center pawns are held back and your pieces thrust forward.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2014-07-25T15:12:35.420" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5918" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2550" CreationDate="2014-07-25T18:23:17.790" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;An updated rating distribution graph:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/5y7MX.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The data is from the Golden Database.  It uses data from just current members with established (non provisional) ratings.  Note that only &quot;regular&quot; ratings are shown, not Quick ratings or blitz ratings.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The overall shape of the graph, of course, is almost identical to the first one, with data from 2013.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3552" LastActivityDate="2014-07-25T18:23:17.790" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5919" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4687" CreationDate="2014-07-26T07:16:32.967" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Usually when I play beginners who are beyond falling for scholars and fools mate and can do the basic checkmates; I just play like I always do, making logical moves and just playing them as if they were any other opponent. I never underestimate them. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Usually, after a few moves or so, they will make a tactical or positional blunder. Basically, I just wait for them to commit Hara-Kiri (suicide), nothing more than that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Launching a kingside/queenside attack is also quite effective as beginners will usually panic in the face of the oncoming pawns and will blunder in such positions, being unaware of the various defensive and counterattacking methods.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Beginners are also usually unaware of endgames any more complex than the basic checkmates so you could just keep simplifying into an endgame where you have an advantage which they are unaware of such as a protected passed pawn, superior Knight vs bad Bishop, Rook on the seventh/second etc. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3357" LastActivityDate="2014-07-26T07:16:32.967" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5922" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4687" CreationDate="2014-07-26T12:47:28.630" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Try controlling centre portion of board with maximum pieces rapidly. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3553" LastActivityDate="2014-07-26T12:47:28.630" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5923" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5085" CreationDate="2014-07-26T14:45:28.600" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is my current solution. For convenience and resemblance to the Larsen-Petrosian game, I have assumed Sherlock Holmes is White. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    [FEN &quot;1q3rk1/2p1p1b1/r1Ppn1p1/3R4/6B1/4BR2/PPn3PK/8 w - - 0 3&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;    3. Bxe6+ Kh7 (3... Rf7 4. Bxf7+ Kf8 5. Bxg6+ Bf6 6. Bh6+ Kg8 7. Rg3 Nd4 (7...&#xA;    e6 8. Rh5 Be5 9. Rxe5 dxe5 10. Be4+ Kh8 (10... Kf7 11. Rg7+ Kf8 (11... Kf6 12.&#xA;    g4 Qh8 13. g5#) 12. Bh7 Rxc6 13. Rg8+ Kf7 14. Rxb8) 11. Bg7+ Kg8 12. Bh6+) 8.&#xA;    Rh5 Ne2 9. Rg4 Be5+ 10. Rxe5 dxe5 11. Be4+ Kf7 12. Rg7+ Ke6 13. Rg6+ Kf7 14.&#xA;    Rg7+) 4. Rh3+ Bh6 5. Bxh6 Rf5 6. Rxf5 gxf5 7. Bf7! (7. Bxf5+? Kg8 8. Be6+ Kh7 9.&#xA;    Bf5+ (9. Bf7? Qc8 10. Rh4 Ra4! 11. g4 Qxg4 12. Rxg4 Rxg4)) 7... Qxb2 8.&#xA;    Bf8# (8. Bc1+ Kg7 9. Bxb2+ Kxf7)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Explanation: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After Sherlock plays &lt;strong&gt;1. Bxe6&lt;/strong&gt;, Moriarty is confident that the game is a draw by perpetual, so he plays &lt;strong&gt;1...Kh7&lt;/strong&gt; immediately. Moriarty is unwilling to enter the complications of &lt;strong&gt;1...Rf7&lt;/strong&gt;, which also leads to a draw but gives a very complex position. After &lt;strong&gt;1...Kh7,&lt;/strong&gt; the forced sequence of moves arrives till &lt;strong&gt;6...gxf5&lt;/strong&gt; when Moriarty expects Sherlock to take the pawn on &lt;strong&gt;f5&lt;/strong&gt; and give a perpetual. Instead, Sherlock plays &lt;strong&gt;7. Bf7&lt;/strong&gt; and now Moriarty realizes it's over. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The variations show why &lt;strong&gt;7. Bf7&lt;/strong&gt; leads to mate but &lt;strong&gt;7. Bxf5&lt;/strong&gt;+ leads only to a draw for Sherlock. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2429" LastActivityDate="2014-07-26T14:45:28.600" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5925" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1743" CreationDate="2014-07-26T17:01:08.043" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chesspuzzler.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://chesspuzzler.com&lt;/a&gt; is an interesting alternative to chesstempo. It's new but there's a spaced repetition option for free.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3556" LastActivityDate="2014-07-26T17:01:08.043" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5926" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1743" CreationDate="2014-07-26T18:08:41.163" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.chess.com&lt;/a&gt; is pretty good. It brought me back to the game after 14 years! I loved the tactics trainer and mentor. I am sure with paid membership, one could achieve a lot more. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;FICS is good too, I hear. If you are looking for Youtube subscriptions, I would recommend Powerplaychess &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMBATpFb--uLNAODOVWvCTA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMBATpFb--uLNAODOVWvCTA&lt;/a&gt;. Daniel King's analyses of games are pretty insightful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3535" LastActivityDate="2014-07-26T18:08:41.163" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5927" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5902" CreationDate="2014-07-26T20:12:48.067" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Hm, my idea is this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;pawn structure should remain as is except pawn should be probably on&#xA;g6 preventing king side attacks and giving space to move bishop&#xA;Be7-f6-g7&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;move knight to better position Nf6-d7-c5 and focusing attack on weak&#xA;pawn a4 with help of white squared bishop&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;move black squared bishop to a1-h8 diagonal which will make pressure&#xA;on pawn c3 if white b pawn is moving to protect a pawn&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It doesn't look as good endgame for black since he has minority on queen side which can quickly turn into passing pawn therefore I believe black should keep pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3558" LastActivityDate="2014-07-26T20:12:48.067" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5929" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-07-27T19:28:41.847" Score="7" ViewCount="351" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am trying to revive an old line in the Scandinavian defense. Among the many lines I am analyzing, there is one position that looks promising. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I will leave out the lines / opening moves, to keep the post short, so here is the position I am interested in:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Black to move&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;rn2kb1r/ppp1pppp/8/q7/3PN3/8/PPP2PPP/R1BQ1RK1 b kq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am currently analyzing &lt;code&gt;1...e6&lt;/code&gt;, but my question is following: Can Black survive the opening &lt;strong&gt;with equal chances&lt;/strong&gt; ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please back up your answers with &lt;strong&gt;concrete analysis.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Refrain from a &quot;Let me Fritz / StockFish / Ryubka/ Houdini / ... this for you&quot; approach. I have an engine and can do this myself. I need an answer that is clear and illustrates its point with concrete moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am well aware that the question is hard and requires a lot of work, so I will understand if there will be no answers in the near future. Still, I will always be interested in this position (even after 10 years have passed or more), so if you have a solution, please feel free to post it if you like.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-29T18:21:13.947" LastActivityDate="2020-08-29T18:21:13.947" Title="Can Black successfully finish this opening?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;scandinavian-defense&gt;&lt;novelties&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5930" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1519" CreationDate="2014-07-28T06:20:49.297" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can play correspondence chess variants on the Apronus.com interactive chessboard by generating links to click which encode the board position and all the mvoes made.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.apronus.com/chess/pgnviewer/?m=Nf3*_gxf3_gxf3_exf3_exf3_Nxf3*_Ke2_Qe4M&amp;amp;h=5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;a short game on an 8x5 board&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/MqmhG.gif&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/MqmhG.gif&quot; alt=&quot;animated diagram&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;&lt;sub&gt;(source: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.apronus.com/chess/moviediagram.php?a=rnbqkbnrHppppppppH8HPPPPPPPPHRNBQKBNR_rnbqkbnrHppppppppH5N2HPPPPPPPPHRNBQKB1R_rnbqkbnrHpppppp1pH5p2HPPPPPPPPHRNBQKB1R_rnbqkbnrHpppppp1pH5P2HPPPPPP1PHRNBQKB1R_rnbqkbnrHpppp1p1pH5p2HPPPPPP1PHRNBQKB1R_rnbqkbnrHpppp1p1pH5P2HPPPP1P1PHRNBQKB1R_rnbqkb1rHpppp1p1pH5n2HPPPP1P1PHRNBQKB1R_rnbqkb1rHpppp1p1pH5n2HPPPPKP1PHRNBQ1B1R_rnb1kb1rHppppqp1pH5n2HPPPPKP1PHRNBQ1B1R&amp;amp;d=MRNBQ_B_RPPPPKP_P_____n__ppppqp_prnb_kb_r0&amp;amp;w=8&amp;amp;h=5/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;apronus.com&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3456" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2020-12-19T14:37:52.010" LastActivityDate="2020-12-19T14:37:52.010" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="5931" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1519" CreationDate="2014-07-28T07:02:50.690" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;As I have seen it, FICS seems to be the best place for variants. But number of people playing all variants vary. The following are supported on FICS-&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Chess&#xA;BugHouse&#xA;CrazyHouse&#xA;Suicide&#xA;Atomic&#xA;FischerRandom&#xA;Losers&#xA;Wild 0 through Wild 8(a)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3158" LastActivityDate="2014-07-28T07:02:50.690" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5932" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5897" CreationDate="2014-07-28T15:26:11.680" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I really like &lt;a href=&quot;http://chesstempo.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;ChessTempo&lt;/a&gt; for tactics training. Not sure if there is an option to download problems though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3563" LastActivityDate="2014-07-28T15:26:11.680" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5933" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-07-29T02:51:33.777" Score="5" ViewCount="3172" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am currently working on a chess engine in Java. I am using the minimax algorithm with alpha-beta pruning to select the best move. However, it is inefficient to use the algorithm for selecting opening moves. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So here is my question for people who have experience with making their own engines: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How do you make your own opening book? Do you create your own database to store different openings and their successive variations? Or is their a general database that one can connect to and extract moves? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would gladly appreciate any help from anyone who has experience or knowledge on this. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3567" LastEditorUserId="3819" LastEditDate="2016-11-23T10:54:35.223" LastActivityDate="2016-11-23T10:54:35.223" Title="How to create your own opening book for your own chess engine?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;engines&gt;&lt;database&gt;&lt;programming&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5934" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-07-29T13:45:43.993" Score="6" ViewCount="3415" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recently heard of an opening called the &quot;Colorado Gambit&quot;. My chess opening is pretty weak and my friend suggested I might try it. What is Colorado Gambit and what is the reasoning behind the moves?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3569" LastEditorUserId="2789" LastEditDate="2014-08-17T17:17:19.533" LastActivityDate="2019-11-14T02:30:57.317" Title="What is the Colorado Gambit?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;gambits&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5935" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5936" CreationDate="2014-07-29T14:04:58.477" Score="1" ViewCount="267" Body="&lt;p&gt;If the king is in check, and the piece that is holding it in check is directly adjacent from the king, can the king take it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3570" LastActivityDate="2014-07-31T13:45:27.560" Title="If the king is in check, and the piece that is holding it in check is directly adjacent from the king can the king take it?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5936" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5935" CreationDate="2014-07-29T14:10:05.527" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;So long as capturing the checking piece would not &lt;em&gt;also&lt;/em&gt; cause the King to be in check, yes!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the position below, the White Queen is giving check. After &lt;code&gt;...Kxf7&lt;/code&gt;, the Black King is &lt;em&gt;no longer&lt;/em&gt; in check, so it is indeed a legal move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;rnbqkb1r/pppp1Qpp/5n2/4p3/4P3/8/PPPP1PPP/RNB1KBNR b KQkq - 0 0&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1...Kxf7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, it is illegal to make any move that places your own King in check. If you did, the opponent would be able to capture your King immediately. Since you can never actually &lt;em&gt;capture&lt;/em&gt; a King in a game of Chess, making a move that would allow it is illegal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, if White's Queen is &quot;protected&quot; by another piece (such as a Bishop, below), the Black's King &lt;em&gt;cannot&lt;/em&gt; capture it, as doing so would leave his King still in check. In fact, in the position below (the &quot;scholar's mate&quot;), Black is &lt;strong&gt;checkmated&lt;/strong&gt; because he has no moves that would not result in his still being in check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;r1bqkb1r/pppp1Qpp/2n2n2/4p3/2B1P3/8/PPPP1PPP/RNB1K1NR b KQkq - 0 0&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1...Kxf7 2.Bxf7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Remember that in the position above, &lt;code&gt;1...Kxf7 2.Bxf7&lt;/code&gt; are given as &lt;em&gt;examples&lt;/em&gt;: neither move is actually legal, as Black is &lt;em&gt;already checkmated in the starting position!&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1201" LastEditorUserId="1201" LastEditDate="2014-07-31T13:45:27.560" LastActivityDate="2014-07-31T13:45:27.560" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5937" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5938" CreationDate="2014-07-29T14:26:58.487" Score="3" ViewCount="151" Body="&lt;p&gt;I play Scotch or Closed Sicilian (or 2. c3) as white and Scandinavian as black. Against d4 I sigh. I am still struggling to find a proper way to play the closed positional games. Any suggestions?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3570" LastActivityDate="2014-07-30T07:55:49.163" Title="Struggling with my moves" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5938" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5937" CreationDate="2014-07-29T15:58:18.027" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It seems to me that the &lt;em&gt;Slav defense&lt;/em&gt; is what you are after. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It has similar pawn structure to the &lt;em&gt;Caro-Kann&lt;/em&gt; / &lt;em&gt;Scandinavian defense&lt;/em&gt;, and no weak pieces ( Black gets &lt;code&gt;...Bf5&lt;/code&gt; early ). Notice that it is theoretical, and that &lt;strong&gt;it can be dodged&lt;/strong&gt; with clever move order, like &lt;code&gt;1.c4 c6 2.e4! d5!? 3.ed cd 4.d4!&lt;/code&gt; when you have &lt;em&gt;Caro-Kann ( Panov-Botvinnik attack ).&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You could also try &lt;em&gt;King's Indian defense&lt;/em&gt;, as pawn structure is similar to White's in &lt;em&gt;Closed Sicilian&lt;/em&gt; (there White goes for &lt;code&gt;f4&lt;/code&gt;, light squared bishop is fianchettoed, &lt;code&gt;d3+e4&lt;/code&gt; center formation, here you aim for &lt;code&gt;...f5&lt;/code&gt; and bishop is also fianchettoed, &lt;code&gt;d6+e5&lt;/code&gt; center formation ). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It really depends on your style, please tell us more about your criteria for defenses against &lt;code&gt;1.d4&lt;/code&gt; so we can offer better answer ( closed/open game? highly tactical/positional? space advantage/counter-attacking? ).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sorry for posting this as an answer, but the content is too big to fit inside a comment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I will transform this into answer, if it solves your problem, or if you update your post with more details as I have said above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastActivityDate="2014-07-29T15:58:18.027" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5940" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4517" CreationDate="2014-07-29T17:50:23.807" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The idea of Mr. Roman, I have see the video, is that the opening is somewhat blunt. But still he also gives clarifications that some lines are winning. The positions achieved will certainty not be the ones you achieve in most of your games. As another answerer mentioned, stick to the Grand Prix, or to another Anti-Sicilian, such as the Alapin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3405" LastActivityDate="2014-07-29T17:50:23.807" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5941" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-07-29T21:24:00.147" Score="5" ViewCount="1528" Body="&lt;p&gt;Humans use:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Pawn = 1&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Knight = 3&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Bishop = 3&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Rook = 5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Queen = 9.5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Bishop pair = +0.5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I would like to know what relative point values do engines use (preferably strong engines, like Stockfish, Houdini, Rybka, Komodo, ...).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the point value that the engine assign to the pieces depends on the position of the pieces on the board (for example a White Knight on a1 is only worth 2.6 but on e5 it's worth 3.4), than I would like to know the &lt;strong&gt;average&lt;/strong&gt; point values of the pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3237" LastActivityDate="2019-12-16T05:42:52.153" Title="What relative point values of pieces do engines use?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;evaluation&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;point-value&gt;&lt;houdini&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5942" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5944" CreationDate="2014-07-29T21:32:34.317" Score="6" ViewCount="476" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a beginner and my chess opening is pretty weak. Can you suggest me an opening that is easy to learn and is suitable for a beginner like me?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3570" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2014-08-09T10:13:02.843" LastActivityDate="2014-08-09T18:10:16.243" Title="Good chess opening for a beginner" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;beginner&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5943" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5942" CreationDate="2014-07-29T22:08:07.003" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd recommend the KIA(King's Indian Attack). It is very easy to learn and it is very good for beginner play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3405" LastActivityDate="2014-07-29T22:08:07.003" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5944" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5942" CreationDate="2014-07-29T22:23:00.103" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;As it stands now, your post will be marked as duplicate, so I will answer fast before it is closed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Can you suggest me an opening that is easy to learn and is suitable for a beginner like me?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is very hard to do, because your opponent will &lt;strong&gt;always&lt;/strong&gt; have chance to play the move that transposes into different opening. Studying seriously openings &lt;strong&gt;will limit your development&lt;/strong&gt; because you don't know which style suits you. &lt;strong&gt;That should be your main goal -&gt; to &quot;discover&quot; your style, to find out what suits you and what not.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To achieve this, you need to learn &lt;strong&gt;basic&lt;/strong&gt; endgames first, tactics second and then typical middlegame positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At your level of skill, you just need to &lt;strong&gt;survive&lt;/strong&gt; the opening relying on &lt;strong&gt;general opening principles.&lt;/strong&gt; Your goal will be to leave the opening &lt;strong&gt;with equal position.&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just play &lt;strong&gt;any&lt;/strong&gt; opening that you find &lt;strong&gt;interesting&lt;/strong&gt;, and experiment. &lt;strong&gt;Try them all out, don't be afraid!&lt;/strong&gt; Once you find out which opening suits you, ask a question about it here and we shall further help you. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This was the best thing I ever did when I was a beginner! I found a partner that was way stronger than me, but was willing to teach me by playing with me. I tried all sorts of openings against him until I found those that I had &quot;natural gift&quot; for. Maybe you have talent for closed openings or open games, but you will find that out only by trying out different openings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So remember: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Learn basic opening principles!&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Play everything&lt;/strong&gt;, there is enough online documentation on any opening for a beginner level ( ask here for help if you get stuck )!&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Work &lt;strong&gt;very hard&lt;/strong&gt; on tactics!&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For now, this is enough. Once you feel confident in your skills ( once you estimate that you have improved enough for intermediate level ) come back here and ask us for further advice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Good luck, young grasshopper! :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastEditorUserId="2042" LastEditDate="2014-07-29T22:59:07.093" LastActivityDate="2014-07-29T22:59:07.093" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5945" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-07-29T23:33:21.517" Score="5" ViewCount="6269" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am trying to get score about current position directly with UCI (I am using latest stockfish). After reading the &lt;a href=&quot;http://wbec-ridderkerk.nl/html/UCIProtocol.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;protocol&lt;/a&gt; I see that these commands ask engine to analyse the position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;uci&#xA;ucinewgame&#xA;position fen r1k4r/p2nb1p1/2b4p/1p1n1p2/2PP4/3Q1NB1/1P3PPP/R5K1 b - c3 0 19&#xA;go infinite&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I see some information from engine, like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;info depth 30 seldepth 55 score cp -482 nodes 380021712 nps 2059916 time 184484&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then I stop it with &lt;code&gt;stop&lt;/code&gt; and get &lt;code&gt;bestmove b5c4 ponder d3c4&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So it tells me the best move, but what is the score of this position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Based on my understanding &lt;code&gt;cp - 482&lt;/code&gt; means that black is better almost by 5. But how can I get this information explicitly?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="703" LastActivityDate="2014-07-31T09:09:44.877" Title="How to get position evaluation with UCI?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;uci&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5946" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1494" CreationDate="2014-07-30T01:13:28.600" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the Appendix of my article on &quot;Pairwise comparison of chess opening variations&quot; I made an estimate of white's first move advantage using controlled engine experiments. A sample size of 900 games was used. The mean estimated value of the first move advantage is 5.89% (with a 95% confidence interval of 4.4% to 7.4%). This means that white enjoys a 5.89% probability of winning because it is always one move ahead of black. Of course this advantage is easily squandered as for example in 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Ba4 Nf6 5. Bxc6 instead of 4. Bxc6. Here is a link to the paper that contains the estimation of the first move advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2472783&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2472783&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your comments greatly appreciated. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3572" LastActivityDate="2014-07-30T01:13:28.600" CommentCount="1" CommunityOwnedDate="2014-07-30T01:13:28.600" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5947" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2508" CreationDate="2014-07-30T01:32:21.893" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;White enjoys a first move advantage i chess that can be translated to about a 6% probability of winning the game. This advantage is a universal constant independent of the level of play. The first move advantage is of course easily squandered and in lower levels of play. The details of this estimate may be found in the appendix of the article on pairwise comparison of chess opening variations. here is the link&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2472783&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2472783&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;your comments greatly appreciated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3572" LastActivityDate="2014-07-30T01:32:21.893" CommentCount="1" CommunityOwnedDate="2014-07-30T01:32:21.893" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5948" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5941" CreationDate="2014-07-30T07:26:04.943" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have the strong commercial chess engine Shredder Classic 4. When I open up its engine options I get the default strengths of the pieces. Without reading the documentation of this engine it seems that Shredder  starts off with the traditional piece values of queen = 9.5 pts, rook = 5 pts and so on. Then there are optional sliders where I could make any type of piece worth more or less. Interestingly the default value for a &quot;bishop pair&quot; can also be increased or decreased by the player. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This seems to be about the best that I can do with Shredder to try to give an &quot;average&quot; strength of piece valuations.     &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3495" LastActivityDate="2014-07-30T07:26:04.943" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5949" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-07-30T07:38:01.110" Score="8" ViewCount="352" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the book by the late master Irving Chernev &quot;The Chess Companion&quot; he gives a list of chess quotes. My favourite one was:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;The student can learn more in ten hours of properly tutored instruction than in 10 years of trial and error&quot; : Dr Emanuel Lasker. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I might not have this quote absolutely right. If not this is very close; it might be the student 'would'...rather than the student 'can'. Anyway, I have never managed to trace this quote. Was it in Lasker's books, chess lectures such as the London lectures, or in his chess annotations? Or did he just say it? If so was it at a chess tournament or somewhere notable? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd like to know. Not out of skepticism. I have faith in Chernev. Rather, because it's my favourite quote! I also wonder if it was in German - Dr Lasker was German. If it is a translation then please keep in mind that I only understand English. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3495" LastActivityDate="2019-06-29T21:04:59.500" Title="Where did this Emanuel Lasker quote come from?" Tags="&lt;history&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5950" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5937" CreationDate="2014-07-30T07:55:49.163" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recommend an excellent youtube channel. It has chess videos by the master Bill Richards; it's called &quot;Bobby Fischer&quot;: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/user/BobbyJFischer1943/featured&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/user/BobbyJFischer1943/featured&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In it Bill explains many closed openings. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I play a lot of closed games. My general advice would be that in closed positions you want to build up your positionally gradually. You should always ask yourself &quot;which piece is developed the least?&quot; and then ask &quot;where can I make it most effective?&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Against 1. d4 or 1. c4 A good, solid system is to go for a ..Nf6 and ...e6 and ..d5 set up. I would add a diagram but I'm not sure how to add 1. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3495" LastActivityDate="2014-07-30T07:55:49.163" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5951" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5945" CreationDate="2014-07-30T08:03:37.870" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;lines info depth with score have something begining with  pv, whereis the move. cp is centipawn, so evaluation is -4.82&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;info depth 16 seldepth 3 score cp -529 nodes 3409 nps 10299 time 331 multipv 1 pv b5c4 d3c4 d5b4 a1e1 h8e8 g3d6 d7b6 c4b4 e7d6 b4d6 e8e1 f3e1 c8b7 d6e 7 b6d7 e1d3 a8c8 e7g7 c8c7 g7h6 c6b5 d3e1 c7c8 h6e6 c8c1 e6d5 b7b6 d5d6&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;uci protocol&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://download.shredderchess.com/div/uci.zip&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://download.shredderchess.com/div/uci.zip&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2371" LastEditorUserId="2371" LastEditDate="2014-07-30T12:14:57.853" LastActivityDate="2014-07-30T12:14:57.853" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5952" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-07-30T12:28:38.440" Score="3" ViewCount="113" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Ath74.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Picture of the number i refer to&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As new to this as you could get i think.&#xA;Could you explain the four digit numbers that appear next to what i guess you call annotations. I would either think it should go for the highest or the lowest number, but no.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Haven't been able to google the answer, lack of imagination i guess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks for your help!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3573" LastEditorUserId="3573" LastEditDate="2014-07-30T13:19:52.027" LastActivityDate="2014-07-30T17:56:30.010" Title="Question about four digits appearing next to move" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5953" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5952" CreationDate="2014-07-30T17:56:30.010" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think you are using &quot;Lucas chess&quot; here with Rybka. Even though Lucas chess is a real neat software, I eventually preferred the (-1 / 0 / +1) kind of representation of the evaluation. Each number next to the move is an evaluation or weight associated with the move. As you can clearly see it is considering many different moves (usually called MultiPV in UCI terms) and giving its evaluations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3158" LastActivityDate="2014-07-30T17:56:30.010" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5954" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-07-30T20:03:02.740" Score="2" ViewCount="1232" Body="&lt;p&gt;Different engines have different scales for their numerical evaluations (for example, Houdini's evaluations are usually much lower than Stockfish's evaluations). This is because different engines use different units in their evaluation functions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Fritz 12 instructions manual says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Chess engines evaluate positions with the help of a numeric value. The evaluation is expressed in pawn units, always from the point of view of White. If the program is displaying a value of +1.30, this means that it considers the white position to be better by the equivalent of 1.3 pawns. If White is actually a pawn up, then the additional 0.3 is the result of positional considerations (mobility, deployment of pieces, king safety, pawn structure, etc.).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This means that Fritz 12 evaluations are calibrated so that +1.00 is equivalent to being 1 Pawn up. (I'm not sure if this is still true for Deep Fritz 14 though...)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ChessBase says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Houdini 4 uses calibrated evaluations in which engine scores correlate directly with the win expectancy in the position. A +1.00 pawn advantage gives a 80% chance of winning the game against an equal opponent at blitz time control. At +2.00 the engine will win 95% of the time, and at +3.00 about 99% of the time. If the advantage is +0.50, expect to win nearly 50% of the time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This means that Houdini 4 evaluations are calibrated so that +1.00 is equivalent to having 80% chance of winning the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I already got the answer to my question for Fritz 12 and Houdini 4. I would like to know the same thing for other engines (for as much engines as possible), preferably strong engines like Stockfish, Komodo, Gull, Critter, Rybka, Hiarcs, Junior, Shredder, etc...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3237" LastActivityDate="2014-07-31T03:27:44.770" Title="What are the scales of the numerical evaluations of the strongest engines based on?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;evaluation&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;point-value&gt;&lt;houdini&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5955" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5954" CreationDate="2014-07-31T03:27:44.770" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is nobody in the world can answer you confidently. It requires deep source-code level understanding of the engines. However, some of the engines you mentioned are close-source, which means it's simply not possible to get an answer for all engines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I can answer about Stockfish, which I have studied. Stockfish doesn't attempt to optimize evaluation score just to make it consistent to what a human thinks. Stockfish has a framework for parameter tuning (SPSA) but the overall purpose is to increase strength. The score reported from Stockfish is no way consistent and tuned to what a grandmaster expects. Stockfish tends to report a score larger than Houdini in absolute term. This means, Stockfish is less conservative and therefore a stronger engine than Houdini.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Think like this, in a position where you have two chocies, one a simple draw that exchanges all pieces and the other is a queen vs three minor pieces. Both scenarios are considered theoretically drawn. Houdini would have reported zero or close to zero for both scenarios. While this is theoretically correct, the scheme doesn't encourage the engine to try harder for the queen vs thee minor pieces scenario where the engine has better chances to outplay a weaker opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, Stockfish, by being less pessimism, will have no trouble finding the queen vs minor pieces scenario. This is one of the reasons Stockfish has been proven a stronger engine than Houdini in all rating list. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In short, the score reported from Stockfish and lots of other engines is meaningless. They just guide the engine to make the best decision but it doesn't mean much other than that. Houdini's evaluation has been tuned, most likely for marketing purpose - you sell an engine better if it meets the users' expectation. But meeting a chess user expectation doesn't mean it'll make the engine play better, as Stockfish has proven, it makes the strength worse.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, there is no such thing as scaling in chess engine scoring. Some engines do, like Houdini, but this is just a trick to make you buy it. Chess engines don't need a scaling scheme to play strong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2014-07-31T03:27:44.770" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5956" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2596" CreationDate="2014-07-31T04:45:23.490" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chuzhakin's System is written in 70 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.neoneuro.com/downloads/chuzhakinssystem.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;PDF pages&lt;/a&gt;. &#xA;video:&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iE6rce7el-U&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chuzhakin's System intro&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It has 18 Rules to find so called &quot;Hazardous Elements&quot; - HE.&#xA;Before making the move which we selected we need to check for blunders. All be blunders means that we do not see any HE or we do not see a method how to use HE (about 20 typical methods descirbed in the System).&#xA;Thinking algorithm to avoid blunders is in the scheme.&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/pRtdD.png&quot; alt=&quot;thinking algorithm&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3575" LastActivityDate="2014-07-31T04:45:23.490" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5957" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5945" CreationDate="2014-07-31T09:09:44.877" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Before the engine gives a bestmove, the uci protocol specifies it must print a last info line. In that info line the score parameter is the one you want. It's either:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;cp: score in centipawns&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;mate: moves until mate&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think that a minus score means that there's a disadvantage to the side which has to move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3557" LastActivityDate="2014-07-31T09:09:44.877" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5958" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2409" CreationDate="2014-07-31T09:26:11.977" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Queen 10&#xA;Rook 5&#xA;Bishop 3.5&#xA;Knight 3 (debatable)&#xA;Pawn 1&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3578" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-17T15:05:32.660" LastActivityDate="2020-08-17T15:05:32.660" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="5959" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5961" CreationDate="2014-07-31T09:52:21.463" Score="1" ViewCount="2931" Body="&lt;p&gt;My question is about Omega Gambit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Omega gambit&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 Nf6 2. e4 Nxe4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it too dangerous for white? what are the ideas for white? And what is the winning percentage for white? Is it still played among titled players?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1105" LastEditorUserId="3831" LastEditDate="2016-03-12T15:15:51.063" LastActivityDate="2016-03-12T15:15:51.063" Title="Omega Gambit For white" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;gambits&gt;&lt;1.d4&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5960" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4749" CreationDate="2014-07-31T13:49:05.813" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1890085014&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;The Complete Book of Chess Strategy&lt;/a&gt; by Silman. Just saw this yesterday for the first time and its the first Chess Book I felt I had to spend the money on. Simple, easy to digest and full of tactics and strategy. I'm already finding myself playing better in just one day as a direct result. I find a lot of the above books to either be to loaded with notation and grand master games to be useful to a beginner, or in the case of Collins' &lt;em&gt;Understanding Chess Openings&lt;/em&gt;, to be a bit over the top in his language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Compare if you will:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The development of White's bishop to c4 prepares castling, eyes the f7-pawn and hinders an early ...d5. We would need a pretty compelling reason not to play such an obviously logical move and unfortunately such abstention is justified by the fact that Black, by most accounts, has a pretty easy route to equality in all variations. Attention has thus moved away from the Italian Game, with its more durable neighbour the Spanish Game (Ruy Lopez) proving a more promising route to an enduring edge for White.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;-Collins&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's just much easier ways to say the same ideas. All he does is make it more confusing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Compare that with some text from Silman:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;While the Caro-Kann (1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5) and the French Defense (1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5) both strive to gain a central foothold with a defended d5-pawn, the Caro leads to calmer positions than its French brother. On the positive side, the move ...c6(instead of ...e6) keeps the c8-h3 diagonal open for Black's light-squared Bishop. The negative side of this opening revolves around the fact that ...c7-c5 is still an important source of counterplay and, as compared to the French, Black has already moved this pawn and lost a tempo as a result. This slight loss of time in playing ...c7-c6 followed by a later ...c6-c5 means that Black will try to slow the play down.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;-Silman&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Silman's book is just great in my opinion for beginners because of how clear and easy to use it is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="863" LastEditorUserId="863" LastEditDate="2014-07-31T17:33:35.877" LastActivityDate="2014-07-31T17:33:35.877" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5961" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5959" CreationDate="2014-07-31T15:26:50.627" Score="6" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is it too dangerous for white?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;what are the ideas for white?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Try to use your open lines and get good piece play, I suppose. Black is already better, though (up a central pawn with no weaknesses), so you shouldn't expect to succeed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;And what is the winning percentage for white?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my database it is 19%.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is it still played among titled players?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No, and it never was (I can find only 2 games where it was played by someone with a rating over 2200).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2014-07-31T15:26:50.627" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5963" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5805" CreationDate="2014-07-31T18:44:01.357" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;When Kaufman was doing the research, he was studying specific imbalances.  Basically he searched his database for high level games that featured a specific material imbalance and then determined which side won.  That's a slight oversimplification of his method, but the gist is that the research didn't actually give point values for each of the pieces, merely the average number of pawns required to re-balance the material.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To address your second question, I agree that the fact that minor pieces can't win on their own needs to be considered, but it's very easy during the game to keep track of this possibility.  It's far more convenient to know that a piece is better than 3 pawns in the opening and the middle game but worth less than 3 pawns in the endgame.  Having two values for the two separate situations is more conducive to quick evaluations than trying to say that the pawns are &quot;gaining&quot; value once an endgame is reached.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For your last question, human players don't evaluate positional nuances in terms of point values.  Humans will think things like &quot;white is better because he has the d5 square&quot; or &quot;black is better due to the bishop pair&quot;, but rarely will a human think &quot;the d5 square is worth 0.30&quot; or &quot;the bishop pair in this position is worth 0.44&quot;.  Computers, on the other hand, rely solely on this pure number crunching.  Basically the computer values are calculated in light of the fact that enough positional advantages eventually outweigh some material considerations, but humans generally separate the material calculations and the positional valuations.  In the human case, it's reasonable to think in half pawns and in extreme cases in quarter pawns, but at the end of a long variation, whole numbers become more expedient.  Computers could not care less as to the exact values, so the &quot;real&quot; values can be used when developing engines while humans still tend to rely on rounded values.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12" LastActivityDate="2014-07-31T18:44:01.357" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5964" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4749" CreationDate="2014-08-01T10:27:59.360" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both Sam Collins and Paul van der Sterren's books I also highly recommend. Besides books youtube is also a great source for learning about openings. Both thechesswebsite and Dereque Kelly's channels are excellent for such.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For learning about specific openings I can recommend the Starting Out series by Everyman Chess which covers the selected opening in a very clear and instructive manner, also covering its variations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For a more advanced look at an opening the Grandmaster Repertoire series by Quality Chess is top notch. Likewise any opening book published by Quality Chess is of good quality. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.qualitychess.co.uk&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.qualitychess.co.uk&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course Everyman Chess also produces more advanced openings books such as the Play the... (or Play...) and Move by Move series. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.everymanchess.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.everymanchess.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Chess Opening Essentials series by New In Chess is great, the series of four books covers various openings from the various defenses to 1.e4 to 1.d4 and so forth. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.newinchess.com/Chess_Opening_Essentials__Vol__1___4-p-1930.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.newinchess.com/Chess_Opening_Essentials__Vol__1___4-p-1930.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Winning Chess Openings by Yasser Seirawan is fantastic &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1857443497&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.amazon.com/Winning-Chess-Openings-Everyman/dp/1857443497/ref=sr_1_8?s=books&amp;amp;ie=UTF8&amp;amp;qid=1406887013&amp;amp;sr=1-8&amp;amp;keywords=Chess+openings&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I assume at your level it is much more beneficial to know about the basic ideas of an opening rather than memorizing lines which stem from it. A simple google search can inform you greatly about an opening. If there is any opening book you should buy let it be one which covers many openings and presents the various ideas behind them. The already mentioned books are all excellent and I would like to add to their recommendation. I can only offer by this post some more fantastic books and advanced ones for if you progress to that level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3357" LastActivityDate="2014-08-01T10:27:59.360" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5965" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-08-01T22:31:47.507" Score="3" ViewCount="304" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the relationship changes as rankings increase. For example, players with ratings lower than 1000 might be able to play all other players in that range and still enjoy themselves, but if a sub-1000 player matched up with a 1400+ player, the two might not enjoy themselves in the same way. At which levels do players begin to learn strategy and stop making mistakes?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3589" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-10-05T01:15:00.617" LastActivityDate="2019-10-05T06:23:00.033" Title="How large can a rating difference become before either player realizes it's not worth engaging in a game?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;rating&gt;&lt;training&gt;&lt;elo&gt;&lt;etiquette&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="5968" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-08-02T10:00:49.283" Score="4" ViewCount="599" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there a list of standard endgame chess positions which a player can benefit from learning? By this I mean that any player should know how to play &lt;strong&gt;KQ vs K&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;KR vs B&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;KP vs K&lt;/strong&gt; (win if it winnable and draw when it is not). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then it goes &lt;strong&gt;KBB vs K&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;KRP vs KR&lt;/strong&gt; and then on higher level &lt;strong&gt;KQ vs KR&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;KR vs KN&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;KBN vs K&lt;/strong&gt;. These are just some of the end-game positions which might be helpful to learn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do you have other positions which could be helpful (and may be approximate level when it makes sense to learn them)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="703" LastActivityDate="2014-08-02T23:00:01.940" Title="Standard endgame chess positions which are helpful to learn" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5969" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16485" CreationDate="2014-08-02T14:03:49.357" Score="41" ViewCount="61249" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are a lot of websites to train your tactics, but I can't find any for opening repertoire. I am looking for something similar to 'Chess Position Trainer' but online, where I can import a pgn file with my repertoire, indicate that I want to train it as Black and track my progress. Does such a software exist?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;UPDATE/NOTE: being able to train against my own reperoire, and rather than the best tree/stats move is vital for me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="618" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2016-10-05T06:59:20.687" LastActivityDate="2018-06-15T08:37:45.573" Title="Is there a good online opening training software?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;software&gt;" AnswerCount="9" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="18" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5970" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5985" CreationDate="2014-08-02T14:06:57.550" Score="5" ViewCount="384" Body="&lt;p&gt;Recently I was trying to improve Scandinavian defense in a way that I can reach &quot;Viking&quot; setup ( &lt;code&gt;...0-0-0 + ...Nc6 + ...Bg4&lt;/code&gt; vs &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt; ). I am trying out various move orders, and have stumbled upon one that I believe would suit me the best:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Scandinavian defense, B01&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 d5 2.exd5 Qxd5 3.Nc3 Qa5 4.d4 Nf6 5.Nf3 Bg4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If White plays &lt;code&gt;6.Bc4&lt;/code&gt; then I can reach my desired setup, which seems to give Black good play according to GM &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesspublishing.com/content/6/jan06.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Eric Prié&lt;/a&gt;. Unfortunately, I can't afford subscription for the &lt;em&gt;Chess Publishing&lt;/em&gt; and the article is dated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My main interest is about positions with &lt;code&gt;6.h3!&lt;/code&gt; since they can become very hard for Black, forcing him to play &quot;only&quot; moves. In order for answers to this question not to be to broad I am asking for comprehensive resources on the line with &lt;code&gt;6.h3&lt;/code&gt; only. If space allows, I would appreciate if the answerer could list resources for other moves as well ( like &lt;code&gt;6.Bc4&lt;/code&gt; ).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To repeat, is there a thorough coverage of the following line:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Scandinavian defense, B01&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 d5 2.exd5 Qxd5 3.Nc3 Qa5 4.d4 Nf6 5.Nf3 Bg4 6.h3! &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastEditorUserId="2042" LastEditDate="2014-08-06T09:29:08.990" LastActivityDate="2014-08-06T12:45:00.687" Title="Is there a comprehensive coverage for Lasker variation of the Scandinavian defense?" Tags="&lt;theory&gt;&lt;books&gt;&lt;scandinavian-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5971" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-08-02T19:54:13.393" Score="3" ViewCount="3960" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let us say that I input a wrong move in Stockfish. What answer will Stockfish send me back? Or is there a function to check if a move is bad?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;People, I found a solution by myself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3405" LastEditorUserId="3444" LastEditDate="2018-12-03T11:23:05.473" LastActivityDate="2018-12-03T11:40:43.457" Title="How do I check if a move is legal using Stockfish?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;programming&gt;&lt;uci&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="5972" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5969" CreationDate="2014-08-02T21:44:26.610" Score="23" Body="&lt;h2&gt;&lt;strong&gt;2018 update:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;lichess.org&lt;/a&gt; offers a lot of the features you're looking for. On lichess, go to &lt;code&gt;tools&lt;/code&gt; then choose &lt;code&gt;Analysis board&lt;/code&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The editor allows you to import FEN, PGN or edit the board yourself. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You have access to two proper opening databases, one extracted from the games played on lichess and one from the masters games (top players). It's not only an opening explorer showing the lines, but it also shows you samples of games where a given line is employed.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You can set up your position and play through the opening branches, while simultaneously verifying the engine assessment on the position. From a given position you can also choose to practice against the computer, for instance for a variation you've come up on your own.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Last but not least, once your analysis is done, you can save it all as a &lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/blog/V0KrLSkAAMo3hsi4/study-chess-the-lichess-way&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;study&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; (which can also be made private). As such, all the variations and side-lines you've explored/tried and plan to keep will be saved together with the engine analysis of them. These will be your personal repertoires, which you can continuously modify whenever you find improvements.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The features are available to everyone. Once you've created a couple of repertoires and started practicing them on lichess, in your profile there is an &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/blog/VmZbaigAABACtXQC/chess-insights&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;analytics&lt;/a&gt; page where all sorts of statistics will be calculated based on your performance. For example, your rate of win with a certain line, or your frequency of certain moves and so on. That will help you to assess how you are performing with your different openings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Older suggestions:&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;In terms of simple online opening explorers, there's always the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.shredderchess.com/online-chess/online-databases/opening-database.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Shredder Opening Database&lt;/a&gt;, can be useful for quickly checking something.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then there's the database available on &lt;a href=&quot;http://chesstempo.com/chess-openings.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;chesstempo&lt;/a&gt; which is actually really detailed (statistics on each opening etc) and gives exemplary games of any opening played by real players. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I believe for what you want to do, lichess is the go-to choice here. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3594" LastEditorUserId="3594" LastEditDate="2018-01-26T20:54:59.160" LastActivityDate="2018-01-26T20:54:59.160" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5973" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-08-02T22:50:24.327" Score="14" ViewCount="1682" Body="&lt;p&gt;The following is an extract from &lt;em&gt;The Evaluation of Material Imbalances&lt;/em&gt; by GM Larry Kaufman. I put in bold characters everything that was important for this question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/article/view/the-evaluation-of-material-imbalances-by-im-larry-kaufman&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.chess.com/article/view/the-evaluation-of-material-imbalances-by-im-larry-kaufman&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;THE EXCHANGE&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now let's move on to discussing the Exchange (rook for knight or unpaired bishop). &lt;strong&gt;My research puts its average value squarely at 1¾ pawns (a tiny bit more when its a knight).&lt;/strong&gt; Most authors value the Exchange at either 2 (the standard value) or at 1½ (Siegbert Tarrasch, GM Edmar Mednis, GM Larry Evans), so my value is right in the middle. World Champion Tigran Petrosian actually claimed the Exchange was only worth one pawn, and former challenger David Bronstein said the same when the minor piece was a bishop, but in such cases the bishop pair is often involved. When the side down the Exchange has the bishop pair, my data shows he needs only 1.15 pawns to make things even; perhaps this case is what Petrosian and Bronstein had in mind.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I note for the record that the authors who put the Exchange at 1½ pawns are right on the money if they are averaging in the cases where the side down the Exchange has the bishop pair, but it think it is much better to regard the bishop pair as a separate component of the material balance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;TWO FACTORS&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The value of the Exchange is influenced by two factors. &lt;strong&gt;First of all, the presence of more major pieces on the board favors the minor piece. In general, with no major pieces traded, the Exchange value drops to 1½ pawns, and if the minor side has the bishop pair just one pawn makes things even. But with queens and a pair of rooks gone, the Exchange is worth slightly more than its nominal value of two pawns, or about 1½ when opposed by the bishop pair.&lt;/strong&gt; Also important is the number of pawns on the board, especially when the minor piece is the knight. With most of the pawns on the board the Exchange is worth less; each pawn trade helps the rook. Rooks need open files!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;So if you have a rook for a knight and two pawns, even though you are nominally a quarter pawn behind in material, you should try very hard to exchange major pieces, in contravention to the usual rule that the side ahead in material seeks exchanges.&lt;/strong&gt; I had a game with USCF Executive Director Mike Cavallo in the World Open in which he sacrificed the Exchange for some compensation. I was not at all sure of victory until he allowed me to exchange the extra rooks, after which I won in just a few moves. Had he known this principle, he could have put up a good fight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;TWO MINOR PIECES vs. ROOK AND PAWN(S)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;All of the above applies with even more force to the case of two minor pieces vs. rook and pawns; the side with the rook wants very much to trade major pieces, even if he is a bit behind in material. Why this should be so is subject to debate; my explanation is that having more than one major piece is somewhat redundant - in many games there may only be time to employ one major piece on an open rank or file. Having at least one major piece (preferably a rook) to bring to an open line may be critical, but having two may be wasteful.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All in all, this section is a very important one; imbalances involving the Exchange are fairly common, and the effect of major piece trades on the evaluation is quite significant. &lt;strong&gt;While nearly everyone above novice level knows the value of the bishp pair, I suspect that even many masters are unaware of the above &amp;quot;principle of the redundancy of major pieces.&amp;quot;&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;strong&gt;As for rook and knight vs. two bishops and pawn, with nothing else but pawns on the board, the rook's side has a mild advantage, but add a rook to each side and the game is dead even. In general, with other pieces on the board, this imbalance should be considered even, with only a trivial edge for the rook's side.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So if I understood correctly, Kaufman found that when you had only one major piece that is a Rook it is worth slightly more than usual. But when you have three major pieces your two Rooks are worth slightly less than usual. And when you have two major pieces, your Rook(s) is as powerful as usual. He called this &amp;quot;the principle of the redundancy of major pieces&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I am doubting about the true cause of this effect. What if it was the number of Pawns that determined the power of the Rook(s) instead?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you had few Pawns, there would be a high probability that you would also have few major pieces... and therefore if your lone Rook seem more powerful than usual it could be because you have few Pawns (which would cause your Rook to have a lot of open files).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you had a lot of Pawns, there would be a high probability that you would also have three major pieces... and therefore if your two Rooks seem less powerful than usual it could be because you have a lot of Pawns (which would cause your Rooks not to have many open files).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe he is correct and it truly is the number of major pieces that cause this effect, but I believe there is not enough evidence to support this, and it could simply be the number of Pawns that cause this effect instead...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What I also don't get is why he says that having a Queen (which is also considered as a major piece) would reduce the power of your Rook(s). She may be half rook, but she's also half Bishop, so she doesn't necessarily need open files to function well (each time she's on an open file she gets kicked by an opponent's Rook anyway). So if his &amp;quot;principle of the redundancy of major pieces&amp;quot; is indeed correct, could it be defined instead as: If you have two Rooks both your Rooks are slightly less powerful than usual ; if you have only one Rook your Rook is slightly more powerful than usual. (And the Queen would have no part in this principle.) ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My third and final point is: Are there other GMs who are fully aware about the existence of this principle? Is that principle actually taught by chess coach? Is that principle really important or is it only the mysterious and dubious invention of one single man?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3237" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2020-05-29T14:53:52.870" Title="Does GM Larry Kaufman's &quot;principle of the redundancy of major pieces&quot; truly exists? Or could this effect be caused by the number of Pawns instead?" Tags="&lt;statistics&gt;&lt;evaluation&gt;&lt;queens&gt;&lt;rooks&gt;&lt;point-value&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5974" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5968" CreationDate="2014-08-02T23:00:01.940" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;For sure &lt;strong&gt;KP&lt;/strong&gt; mixes like &lt;strong&gt;KP&lt;/strong&gt; vs &lt;strong&gt;KP&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;KPP&lt;/strong&gt; vs &lt;strong&gt;KP&lt;/strong&gt; etc: learn to count moves to promotion, study opposition and &lt;em&gt;zugzwang&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Later &lt;strong&gt;KRP+&lt;/strong&gt; mixes: like &lt;strong&gt;KRP&lt;/strong&gt; vs &lt;strong&gt;KR&lt;/strong&gt; till &lt;strong&gt;KR4P&lt;/strong&gt; vs &lt;strong&gt;KR3P&lt;/strong&gt; are all quite common, far more relevant than say &lt;strong&gt;KBN&lt;/strong&gt; vs &lt;strong&gt;K&lt;/strong&gt;, not easy though, especially 4 vs 3 pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A bit less common KNP+ and &lt;strong&gt;KNB&lt;/strong&gt;+. still relevant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally endgames where one side has a piece and the other only pawns: this are quite common at lower levels.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2180" LastActivityDate="2014-08-02T23:00:01.940" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5975" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-08-03T19:13:19.867" Score="9" ViewCount="2118" Body="&lt;p&gt;On this page it says he is not rated: &lt;a href=&quot;http://ratings.fide.com/card.phtml?event=34123811&quot;&gt;http://ratings.fide.com/card.phtml?event=34123811&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I could only find one game featuring Ilyumzhinov, in which he played a 2300 Elo player and lost: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1600034&quot;&gt;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1600034&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's not very impressive for someone who owns FIDE and who boasts of having played a few games with aliens...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3237" LastActivityDate="2017-06-01T09:42:37.447" Title="Is FIDE president Kirsan Ilyumzhinov a good chess player? What's his Elo rating?" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;elo&gt;&lt;fide&gt;&lt;famous-players&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5979" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5971" CreationDate="2014-08-04T07:39:50.943" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It doesn't seem Stockfish says anything. If it's illegal, it doesn't seem to accept it, and a suggestion is generated on a board without that move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Illegal move&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Position &lt;strong&gt;startpos moves e2e7&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;br/&gt;&#xA;Go &lt;br/&gt;&#xA;Info depth 1 seldepth 1 score cp 72 nodes 28 nps 0 time 0 multipv 1 pv g1f3 &lt;br/&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;bestmove g1f3&lt;/strong&gt; ponder (none)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;OK move&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Position &lt;strong&gt;startpos moves e2e4&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;br/&gt;&#xA;Go&#xA;Info depth 1 seldepth 1 score cp 16 nodes 43 nps 43000 time 1 multipv 1 pv b8c6&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;bestmove b8c6&lt;/strong&gt; ponder (none)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2371" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2018-12-03T11:40:43.457" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="5980" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5965" CreationDate="2014-08-04T09:08:54.210" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;One thing is, I think there may be real surprises even if the rating range is quite vast. You'll never know the real strength of an opponent most of the times (because of lack of rated games etc.,) On another perspective, lets say one of the player is 1400 Elo and the opponent is 2000 Elo, it will still result in a good &quot;feeling&quot; for both the players if they take it sportively. The 1400 Elo player will clearly appreciate the consistency in the 2000 Elo player's moves and will really learn a LOT. The other way round, it is a good opportunity for the 2000 Elo player to test out his skill or experimenting things which he would not dare against a player of his own caliber (Like for example sacrificing the Queen for a Knight and Bishop and trying to win in the given situation).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I feel there is no rating difference that can make the chess game not worth engaging, if you look at the bright sides.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3158" LastActivityDate="2014-08-04T09:08:54.210" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5981" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5975" CreationDate="2014-08-04T09:42:35.020" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;He has a rating of 2300&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;As a competitor, he had a FIDE rating of 2300, just shy of earning the&#xA;  title chess master.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PL344FF489D4620047&amp;amp;feature=player_detailpage&amp;amp;v=AqrsmLxkt3Y#t=584&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Al Jazeera report&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1105" LastEditorUserId="1105" LastEditDate="2014-08-04T15:35:36.253" LastActivityDate="2014-08-04T15:35:36.253" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5982" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-08-04T12:35:20.427" Score="5" ViewCount="282" Body="&lt;p&gt;The below position arose from the Queen's Gambit ( Exchange variation ). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Black to move&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;2b1rnk1/1pr1qppp/p1p5/2Pp4/P2P4/1R1BPN1P/2Q2PP1/1R4K1 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have successfully repelled White's queenside minority attack, but don't know how to capitalize on the kingside. This should be an easy win for Black ( in my opinion ) but I am not top GM so I could use all the help I could get... &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All I managed to do was to draw by perpetual:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;My best try ended in perpetual check&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;2b1rnk1/1pr1qppp/p1p5/2Pp4/P2P4/1R1BPN1P/2Q2PP1/1R4K1 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... g6 2.Rb6 Ne6 3.R1b2 Ng5 4.Qe2 Kg7 5.Nxg5 Qxg5 6.Kh2 Rce7 7.R6b3 h5 8.Qf3 h4 9.Rb1 f5 10.a5 Qf6 11.Kh1 g5 12.Rf1 Qh6 13.Qd1 g4 14.Bc2 Kh8 15.Rg1 Qe6 16.Qd2 Rg8 17.hxg4 Rxg4 18.Bd1 Rg8 19.Bf3 Qh6 20.Re1 Reg7 21.Rb6 Rg6 22.Qc1 Qg7 23.Rg1 f4 24.exf4 Rf8 25.Qd2 Rgf6 26.Qd1 Rxf4 27.Bxd5 Rxd4 28.Qh5+ Qh7 29.Qe5+ Qg7 30.Qh5+ Qh7 31.Qe5+ Qg7 32.Qh5+ 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can Black construct a winning mating attack on the kingside?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;EDIT August, 5th 2014:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was able to defeat &lt;em&gt;StockFish 5&lt;/em&gt; ( with few take-backs ) in blitz, but the machine can't cope with &lt;strong&gt;plans&lt;/strong&gt; so I'm posting the game here in case someone can point out better plan for White. I will analyze this game myself after I play several blitz games. I will post those too, in hope that they will be helpful for those trying to answer to this post. Here is the game:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Stockfish 5&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;AlwaysLearningNewStuff&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;2b1rnk1/1pr1qppp/p1p5/2Pp4/P2P4/1R1BPN1P/2Q2PP1/1R4K1 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Qf6 2.Rb6 Ree7 3.Ne1 h5 4.Qe2 g6 5.Kh2 h4 6.Nf3 Ne6 7.Qa2 Kg7 8.Qc2 Kg8 9.R1b3 Qh8 10.Kg1 Qh5 11.Ne5 Nf8 12.Be2 Qh8 13.Bg4 f5 14.Be2 Qf6 15.Bf3 Qg7 16.Bd1 Nd7 17.Nxd7 Rcxd7 18.Bf3 Rd8 19.Qd1 Rde8 20.Qd3 Rf8 21.Rb2 Rf6 22.Be2 g5 23.Kh1 g4 24.hxg4 fxg4 25.Bf1 Qh6 26.R6b3 g3 27.f4 h3 28.gxh3 Bxh3 29.Kg1 Rh7 30.Rxb7 Rxb7 31.Rxb7 Bxf1 32.Rb8+ Kf7 33.Rb7+ Ke6 34.Qh7 Qxh7 35.Rxh7 Bd3 36.Rc7 Kf5 37.Rg7 Rg6 38.Rxg6 Kxg6 39.Kg2 a5 40.Kxg3 Kf5 41.Kf3 Bc2 42.Kg3 Bxa4 43.Kf2 Ke4 44.Ke2 Bb5+ 45.Kd2 Bd3 46.f5 Kxf5 47.Kxd3 a4 48.Kc3 Ke4 49.Kb4 Kxe3 50.Kxa4 Kxd4 51.Kb4 Kd3 52.Ka5 Kc4 53.Kb6 d4 54.Kxc6 d3 55.Kd6 d2 56.c6 d1=Q+ 57.Ke7 Qe2+ 58.Kd6 Qd3+ 59.Ke7 Qe4+ 60.Kf6 Qxc6+ 61.Ke5 Qf3 62.Ke6 Kc5 63.Ke5 Qe2+ 64.Kf5 Kd5 65.Kf4 Qf2+ 66.Kg5 Ke5 67.Kg6 Qf5+ 68.Kg7 Qf6+ 69.Kh7 Qg5 70.Kh8 Kf6 71.Kh7 Qg7# 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;EDIT #2:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have tried again to beat computer with the same plan ( starting with &lt;code&gt;1...Qf6&lt;/code&gt; ) and failed. It seems all Black can get is kingside pressure...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastEditorUserId="2042" LastEditDate="2014-08-05T16:42:57.710" LastActivityDate="2014-08-05T16:42:57.710" Title="Can Black finish off White?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;queens-gambit&gt;&lt;attack&gt;&lt;kingside&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="18" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5983" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5984" CreationDate="2014-08-04T15:41:35.593" Score="1" ViewCount="251" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know how to cause a checkmate in three moves. Are there any better ones? I've been told that  there is a two move one but, I have never found someone who can do it. Is it just a legend that has happened once or twice?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3597" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-11-13T02:41:26.267" LastActivityDate="2020-07-04T01:06:49.317" Title="Is there any better play than the 3-move mate?" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;history&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="5984" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5983" CreationDate="2014-08-04T15:45:36.633" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a two-move mate: the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fool&amp;#39;s_mate&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Fool's Mate&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt;. However, it requires White to be, as the name implies, extremely foolish!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.g4 e5 2.f3 Qh4#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you can see, this mate relies on White advancing pawns without any regard for his King's safety. There's no way to &lt;em&gt;force&lt;/em&gt; a two move checkmate (if there were, Chess would be an awfully boring game!).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As to whether it's ever occurred in real (master) play, I can't find any record of it, though the Wikipedia article mentions Teed vs. Delmar, 1896, where a very similar mate is delivered a few moves later.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1201" LastActivityDate="2014-08-04T15:45:36.633" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5985" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5970" CreationDate="2014-08-04T16:30:58.317" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think there is a coverage for this line, but if you don't mind, I have been playing this line for years, so here's my thought.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this position, black generally takes on f3. The reason is that the move Bg4 per se is aiming to trade off the knight at f3, if not, black will have no reason to play this move among others.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;What if black doesn't exchange&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a) Bh4 in this position is okay, but white can expand on the king side with h3 and g4. Black cannot really exploit the weakness white created in kingside, as Black piece placement commands black play on queenside.Furthermore, the knight on f3 usually will become a strong piece occupying the outpost e5 in the game later on, while black's light squared bishop is a bad bishop due to blacks pawn structure. This all gives white huge initiative in kingside. For instance&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 d5 2.exd5 Qxd5 3.Nc3 Qa5 4.d4 Nf6 5.Nf3 Bg4 6.h3 Bh5 7.g4 Bg6 8.Ne5 e6 9.Bg2 c6 10.h4 Be4 11.Bxe4 Nxe4 12.Qf3 Nd6 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;b) Bf4 or any retreating move is dubious, if black plays this, black may as well just play 5. Bf4 at first instead of wasting a tempo, as black has given white a tempo and white can follow up with g4 Ne5 etc. For instance&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 d5 2.exd5 Qxd5 3.Nc3 Qa5 4.d4 Nf6 5.Nf3 Bg4 6.h3 Bf5 7.g4 Be4 8.Bd2 Bxf3 9.Qxf3 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;What to do after exchange&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a) What usually goes is like this&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 d5 2.exd5 Qxd5 3.Nc3 Qa5 4.d4 Nf6 5.Nf3 Bg4 6.h3 Bxf3 7.Qxf3 c6 8.Bd2 Nbd7 9.Bc4 e6 10.O-O Be7 11.Rfe1 O-O &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black ends up with a solid position&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;b) Black can also try undermine white's d-pawn if white is careless, due to the lack of f3 knight&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 d5 2.exd5 Qxd5 3.Nc3 Qa5 4.d4 Nf6 5.Nf3 Bg4 6.h3 Bxf3 7.Qxf3 c6 8.Bd2 Nbd7 9.O-O-O O-O-O 10.Bc4 e6 11.Ne4 Qa4 12.Bb3 Qxd4 13.Nxf6 Qxf6 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;c) In some line, black can also play a Bronstein-Larsen-like game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 d5 2.exd5 Qxd5 3.Nc3 Qa5 4.d4 Nf6 5.Nf3 Bg4 6.h3 Bxf3 7.Qxf3 c6 8.Bd2 Nbd7 9.Bc4 e6 10.Ne4 Qb6 11.Nxf6+ gxf6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Conclusion&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you opt to play Bg4, then you should Bxf3, Bh5 is also playable. Ultimately, the position is something like Caro-Kann for black. Usually, black is behind in development in most lines due to the capture on f3, but the solid position of black compensates it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3381" LastEditorUserId="3381" LastEditDate="2014-08-04T16:46:05.963" LastActivityDate="2014-08-04T16:46:05.963" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5986" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5965" CreationDate="2014-08-04T18:30:36.870" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have heard a rule of thumb is to have a coach at least 400 rating higher than the student. This suggests that at a difference of 400 the higher rated player will have a much deeper insight into her opponents game than the lower rated player has in his own game. That doesn't mean upsets aren't possible, the 2014 Olympiad commentator on Chess.com today said he dropped below 2500 due to losing to a 1940 in his most recent game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3445" LastActivityDate="2014-08-04T18:30:36.870" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5987" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5990" CreationDate="2014-08-04T21:13:01.083" Score="2" ViewCount="191" Body="&lt;p&gt;In order to resurrect an old line in the Scandinavian defense I am forced to accept doubled pawns at the side where I have pawn majority. To make things even worse, I reach queenless middlegame, and the endgame is not so far away! Still, my engine gives equality or small disadvantage in sample lines. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't have hardware strong enough for this type of analysis, so I ask for deep analysis of the following position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;White to move&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;rn2kb1r/ppp2ppp/8/5p2/3PN3/8/PPP2PPP/R1B2RK1 w kq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I really believe that Black might be able to hold this position with equal chances, but I need strong engine analyzing on strong hardware. If required, break the analysis into sub-variations and post them one by one. You could start with &lt;code&gt;1.Ng5&lt;/code&gt; as I consider it the strongest move. &lt;strong&gt;Move &lt;code&gt;1.Nc5&lt;/code&gt; can be discarded as I intend to play &lt;code&gt;1...Bxc5&lt;/code&gt; doubling the pawns, thus removing only advantage White has in this position.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can wait, there is no need to hurry as I prefer quality over speed ( this should be the part of my opening repertoire ).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you for your time and efforts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;EDIT:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is the way to reach this position, added on request by member &lt;em&gt;bof&lt;/em&gt; :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Scandinavian defense&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 d5 2.exd5 Qxd5 3.Nc3 Qe5+ 4.Be2 Bg4 5.d4! Bxe2 6.Ngxe2 Qf5 7.O-O Nf6 $8 8.Ng3 Qa5 9.Nge4 Nxe4 10.Nxe4 e6!? 11.Qf3 Qf5 12.Qxf5 exf5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Please focus on the diagramed position in your comments / answers, I do not seek help with the opening moves. They are added here just because member&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;em&gt;bof&lt;/em&gt; &lt;strong&gt;asked for them. Thank you.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastEditorUserId="2042" LastEditDate="2014-08-05T10:24:49.787" LastActivityDate="2014-08-05T10:24:49.787" Title="Deep and accurate analysis required" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5988" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-08-04T21:21:06.303" Score="5" ViewCount="1701" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In blitz, the knight is stronger than the bishop. - Vlastmil Hort&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am using this point value system for classical time controls (at least one hour per player):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Pawn = 1&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Knight = 3.25&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Bishop = 3.25&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Rook = 5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Queen = 9.5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Bishop pair = +0.5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But as we all know, the Knight gets a little bit stronger in Rapid (from 15 minutes to 60 minutes per player), and it perhaps gets even more powerful in Blitz (from 3 minutes to 15 minutes per player). I would like to quantify/evaluate the average strength of the Knight in Rapid and in Blitz.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore my two questions are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;How many centipawns does the Knight gain in Rapid?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;How many centipawns does the Knight gain in Blitz?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even though it may not be easy, please try to make estimations as precise as possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;@Wes : Well I have at least three sources that confirm that Knights get stronger in Rapid and Blitz.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first is GM Vlastmil Hort which I previously quoted. He had a peak rating of 2620 Elo and even reached the 1977–78 Candidates Tournament.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The second is &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/news/krushs-last-minute-run-edges-kosintseva-in-death-match-4693&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this news report from Chess.com&lt;/a&gt; about a &quot;death match&quot; which happened only a week ago.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;Before the match, I thought it was easier to play in blitz with the knight, not the bishop,&quot; GM Kosintseva said, reflecting the popular notion that knights can be very tricky with minimal time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The third source is &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/knights-gt-bishops-in-blitz-games&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this Chess.com thread&lt;/a&gt;, where a National Master said:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;It does matter and knights are better in blitz !  Take it from someone who has played more than 50,000 blitz games ! Most titled players I talk about this with agree that knights are better in blitz than bishops.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3237" LastEditorUserId="3237" LastEditDate="2014-08-13T12:20:28.163" LastActivityDate="2014-12-14T15:05:53.023" Title="The Knight is stronger in Rapid/Blitz than it is in classical time controls. How many centipawns does the Knight gain in Rapid and in Blitz?" Tags="&lt;knights&gt;&lt;evaluation&gt;&lt;blitz&gt;&lt;point-value&gt;&lt;rapid&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5989" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4687" CreationDate="2014-08-04T21:49:10.380" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I agree with lots of the advice given here but feel compelled to recommend you try some gambit openings against a beginner to try for quick wins. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Gambit openings are generally quite confusing for beginners who usually cannot resist taking freely offered material (often pawns) and then find themselves under pressure after rapid piece development with mate threats (often focused on weak squares such as f2/f7/h7). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are many gambit openings available (and they can be more effective in blitz chess when there is limited thinking time). My favourites are: Smith-Morra gambit/Benko gambit/Budapest gambit/Tennison Gambit/Evans Gambit/Scotch Gambit/Danish Gambit/Cochrane gambit/Hennig-Schara gambit and even more dubious ones (eg Blackburne Shilling/Latvian/Elephant gambits etc etc) and even more subtle ones (Milner-Barry gambit in French defence). There are too many to list! Find one you like in your favourite opening and try it..it is usually a fun way to play. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Beware though your opponent may only fall for the gambit one time..once bitten twice shy! Enjoy your gambit play but go easy on beginners..they need some encouragement and not getting hammered in next to no time! It can be more challenging playing gambits against better rated players!:-)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="426" LastActivityDate="2014-08-04T21:49:10.380" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5990" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5987" CreationDate="2014-08-05T00:30:53.057" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I did some analysis on it with Stockfish 5 (64 bits, SSE4.2, default parameters). I don't know how reliable these lines after the evaluation really are, better analyse a certain position again instead of trusting &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First move: (Depth in plies: 32 full / 50 selective; 11 GNodes)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1. +/=  (0.40): 1.Ng5 f6 2.Re1+ Kd7 3.Nf3 Bd6 4.c4 Re8 5.Rd1 c6 6.g3 Na6 &#xA;2. +/=  (0.32): 1.Nd2 f6 2.Nc4 Kf7 3.c3 Bd6 4.g3 Re8 5.Kg2 Nd7 6.b3 Nb6 7.Nxd6+ cxd6 8.c4 d5 9.c5 Nd7 10.Be3 Nf8 11.a4 Ne6 12.Rfe1 a5 13.Rad1 g5 14.f4 Kg6 15.Kf3 h6 &#xA;3. =  (0.25): 1.Nc3 Nc6 2.Ne2 Bd6 3.c3 0-0-0 4.Re1 Rhe8 5.g3 Ne7 6.Bd2 Nd5 7.Rad1 b6 8.Nc1 f4 9.Nd3 fxg3 10.hxg3 Kb7 11.Kg2 h6 12.c4 Nf6 13.Rxe8 Rxe8 14.c5 bxc5 15.dxc5 Be7 &#xA;4. =  (0.19): 1.Ng3 g6 2.Re1+ Kd7 3.c3 Na6 4.Ne2 c6 5.Bf4 Bd6 6.g3 Rhe8 7.Kg2 Nc7 8.Bxd6 Kxd6 9.Nf4 Re4 10.f3 Rxe1 11.Rxe1 Re8 12.Rxe8 Nxe8 13.Kf2 Nc7 14.Nd3 f6 15.Nf4 b6 16.c4 Ke7 17.Ke3 g5 18.Nh5 &#xA;5. =  (0.01): 1.Nc5 Bxc5 2.dxc5 Na6 3.c6 bxc6 4.Re1+ Kd7 5.Bg5 f6 6.Rad1+ Kc8 7.Be3 Rd8 8.Rxd8+ Kxd8 9.Rd1+ Ke8 10.c3 c5 11.Kf1 Rb8 12.b3 Rb6 13.h4 Rd6 14.Rb1 c6 15.Ke2 Kf7 16.f3 Rd7 17.Re1 Rd8 18.Rd1 Rxd1 &#xA;6. -+  (-2.32): 1.f3 fxe4 2.fxe4 Nc6 3.c3 f6 4.Bf4 Bd6 5.g3 Kd7 6.Kg2 Rae8 7.Rae1 h5 8.a4 a5 9.h3 b6 10.b3 Rhf8 11.Bd2 Kc8 12.Bf4 Kb7 13.Bxd6 cxd6 14.Kf3 Rc8 15.Ke2 Ne7 16.Kd3 Rfe8 &#xA;7. -+  (-2.44): 1.Bd2 fxe4 2.Rae1 Kd7 3.Rxe4 Na6 4.d5 Bd6 5.b4 Rhe8 6.Rd4 Re2 7.Rd1 Rae8 8.a3 Be5 9.Rd3 Bf4 &#xA;8. -+  (-2.48): 1.Re1 fxe4 2.f3 f6 3.Rxe4+ Kd7 4.Bf4 Bd6 5.Bxd6 cxd6 6.Rae1 Nc6 7.c3 Rhe8 8.Kf2 Rxe4 9.fxe4 Re8 10.Re2 Ne7 11.Re1 a6 12.Kf3 Nc6 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ng5: (Depth: 30 full / 46 selective; 3700 MNodes)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1. +/=  (0.38): 1...Bd6 2.Re1+ Kf8 3.c3 Nd7 4.c4 b6 5.b3 f6 6.Ne6+ Kf7 7.Bf4 Bxf4 8.Nxf4 Rhe8 9.g3 c6 10.d5 g5 11.Ne6 cxd5 12.cxd5 Rac8 13.Kg2 Nc5 14.Nxc5 Rxc5 15.d6 Rc2 16.Rad1 Rxe1 17.Rxe1 Rd2 18.Re7+ &#xA;2. +/=  (0.40): 1...f6 2.Re1+ Kd7 3.Nf3 Bd6 4.c4 Re8 5.Rd1 Nc6 6.Bd2 a5 7.g3 b6 8.Kg2 Ke7 9.Rac1 g5 10.c5 bxc5 11.dxc5 Be5 12.Nxe5 Nxe5 13.Bc3 a4 14.Re1 Kf7 15.Rcd1 g4 16.Bxe5 Rxe5 17.Rxe5 fxe5 &#xA;3. +/=  (0.55): 1...Bb4 2.a3 Be7 3.Re1 Nc6 4.c3 Rd8 5.b4 Rd7 6.Nf3 f6 7.Rb1 Kf7 8.Bb2 Nd8 9.Re3 Ne6 10.Rbe1 Nf4 11.c4 c6 12.g3 Ng6 13.Bc3 f4 14.R3e2 Re8 15.Kg2 &#xA;4. +/=  (0.56): 1...Nc6 2.Re1+ Be7 3.c3 Rd8 4.Bf4 0-0 5.Nf3 Rd7 6.g3 f6 7.Kg2 Kf7 8.h4 Rfd8 9.Nd2 Bd6 10.Bxd6 cxd6 11.Nc4 Ne7 12.a3 Rc8 13.Ne3 Rdd8 14.c4 g6 15.b3 b6 16.d5 Re8 17.a4 a5 &#xA;5. +/=  (0.56): 1...Be7 2.Re1 Nc6 3.c3 Rd8 4.Bf4 0-0 5.Nf3 Rd7 6.g3 f6 7.Kg2 Kf7 8.h4 Rfd8 9.Nd2 Bd6 10.Bxd6 cxd6 11.Nc4 Ne7 12.a3 Rc8 13.Ne3 Rdd8 14.c4 g6 15.b3 b6 16.d5 Re8 17.a4 a5 &#xA;6. +/=  (0.59): 1...Na6 2.Re1+ Be7 3.c4 Kf8 4.Nf3 f6 5.d5 Kf7 6.Nd4 g6 7.Be3 Bd6 8.g3 Nc5 9.Rad1 Rhe8 10.Kg2 h5 11.a3 a5 12.Nb5 Rac8 13.b4 axb4 14.axb4 Ne4 15.c5 Be5 &#xA;7. +/-  (0.75): 1...h6 2.Nf3 Bd6 3.Re1+ Kf8 4.c4 Nd7 5.Bd2 g6 6.Bc3 Be7 7.Rad1 Bf6 8.Ne5 Rd8 9.f4 Kg7 10.b3 h5 11.Kf2 a6 12.h3 b6 13.Kf3 a5 14.g3 h4 15.g4 fxg4+ 16.Kxg4 &#xA;8. +/-  (0.79): 1...Nd7 2.Re1+ Be7 3.Bf4 Kf8 4.Re2 h6 5.Nf3 Bd6 6.Bxd6+ cxd6 7.Rae1 g6 8.Re7 Rd8 9.Nd2 b5 10.Nb3 Kg7 11.Na5 Nf6 12.Rxa7 Rde8 13.Kf1 Rxe1+ 14.Kxe1 Re8+ 15.Kd2 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nd2: (Depth: 30 full / 46 selective; 8100 MNodes)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1. +/=  (0.31): 1...f6 2.Nc4 Kf7 3.g3 Bd6 4.Kg2 Nc6 5.c3 a6 6.a4 Rhe8 7.b3 h5 8.Bd2 b5 9.Nxd6+ cxd6 10.Bf4 d5 11.axb5 axb5 12.Bd6 g5 13.Rfd1 Kg6 14.Bc5 Na5 15.Rdb1 Nc6 16.Re1 Rxe1 17.Rxa8 &#xA;2. +/=  (0.34): 1...Nc6 2.Re1+ Kd7 3.Nf3 Bd6 4.c4 Rhe8 5.Rd1 a5 6.Bd2 g6 7.g3 Bb4 8.Be3 Bf8 9.Kg2 Bg7 10.a4 b6 11.d5 Nb4 12.Bd4 Bxd4 13.Nxd4 Re4 14.Rab1 Rae8 15.b3 h5 16.h3 &#xA;3. +/=  (0.34): 1...Bd6 2.Re1+ Kd7 3.Nf3 Nc6 4.c4 Rhe8 5.Rd1 a5 6.Bd2 g6 7.g3 Bb4 8.Be3 Bf8 9.Kg2 Bg7 10.a4 b6 11.d5 Nb4 12.Bd4 Bxd4 13.Nxd4 Re4 14.Rab1 Rae8 15.b3 h5 16.h3 &#xA;4. +/=  (0.41): 1...Na6 2.c3 Bd6 3.Re1+ Kd7 4.Nc4 Rhe8 5.Be3 c6 6.g3 Nc7 7.Nxd6 Kxd6 8.c4 f6 9.Kg2 h6 10.b3 b5 11.h4 bxc4 12.bxc4 Rab8 13.Bf4+ Kd7 14.Rxe8 Rxe8 15.Rb1 g5 16.hxg5 hxg5 17.Be3 &#xA;5. +/=  (0.41): 1...b6 2.Re1+ Kd7 3.Nf3 Bd6 4.c4 Na6 5.a3 Rhe8 6.Be3 f6 7.g3 c6 8.h4 Nc7 &#xA;6. +/=  (0.42): 1...Be7 2.c3 Nc6 3.g3 0-0-0 4.a4 Rhe8 5.Nc4 Bf6 6.Kg2 Ne7 7.Bd2 Nd5 8.Rfe1 Kd7 9.Kf3 h6 10.h4 a6 11.Bf4 Nxf4 12.Kxf4 g6 13.Rxe8 Rxe8 14.Ne3 Kc6 15.a5 &#xA;7. +/=  (0.43): 1...Bb4 2.c3 Bd6 3.g3 Nc6 4.Kg2 f6 5.Nc4 Kf7 6.a4 a6 7.Re1 Rhe8 8.Be3 Rad8 9.b3 Ne7 10.Rad1 Nd5 11.Nxd6+ cxd6 12.Bd2 Ne7 13.c4 Nc6 14.Bc3 Rxe1 15.Rxe1 Re8 16.Rxe8 Kxe8 &#xA;8. +/=  (0.48): 1...Rg8 2.Re1+ Kd7 3.a3 g6 4.Nf3 Bg7 5.Be3 Nc6 6.g3 h6 7.Rab1 Rae8 8.h4 g5 9.hxg5 hxg5 10.Bxg5 Nxd4 11.Red1 Kc8 12.Nxd4 Bxd4 13.Rxd4 Rxg5 14.Rbd1 b6 15.b4 f6 16.Kf1 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For validating purposes, i ran another test with Houdini 4 Pro x64 for the first move (Depth: 26 full / 61 selective; 5000 MNodes):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1. =  (0.22): 1.Nd2 Nc6 2.c3 Bd6 3.g3 Kd7 4.Kg2 Bae8 5.Bd1 f4 6.Nc4 fxg3 7.hxg3 h5 8.Bh1 Ne7 9.Bd2 Ng6 10.Bh3 h4 11.Bah1 hxg3 12.Bxh8 Bxh8 13.Bxh8 Nxh8 14.fxg3 Ng6 15.Kf3 Ne7 16.Nxd6 Kxd6 17.Bf4+ Kc6 18.c4 Nf5 19.Ke4 &#xA;2. =  (0.21): 1.Ng3 g6 2.Be1+ Kd7 3.Nf1 Nc6 4.c3 Be8 5.Bxe8 Kxe8 6.g3 Kd7 7.Kg2 Ne7 8.Bg5 Nd5 9.Be1 Bg7 10.Kf3 h6 11.Bd2 a5 12.h3 Nf6 13.Bf4 Ne4 14.Ne3 Be8 15.Kg2 &#xA;3. =  (0.18): 1.Ng5 f6 2.Be1+ Kd7 3.Ne6 Na6 4.Bf4 Be8 5.d5 g5 6.Bd2 Nc5 7.Bad1 Nxe6 8.dxe6+ Bxe6 9.Bxg5+ Bd6 10.Bxe6 Kxe6 11.Bc1 f4 12.g3 fxg3 13.hxg3 h5 14.Kg2 Kf5 15.Be3 Be8 16.Kf3 b6 17.c3 a6 18.a3 Kg6 19.a4 Kf5 20.a5 b5 &#xA;4. =  (0.12): 1.Nc3 Nc6 2.Be1+ Kd7 3.a3 Bd6 4.Ne2 Bae8 5.Be3 Bhg8 6.h4 f6 7.b4 f4 8.Nxf4 Nxd4 9.Bxd4 Bxf4 10.c4 b6 11.g3 Bd6 12.Bed1 Ke6 13.c5 Be5 14.Bxe5 fxe5 15.Kg2 Bd8 16.Bac1 Bgf8 17.Bxd8 Bxd8 18.cxb6 cxb6 19.Bc7 &#xA;5. =  (0.00): 1.Nc5 Bxc5 2.dxc5 f6 3.Bf4 Na6 4.Bad1 Bd8 5.b4 g5 6.Bxd8+ Kxd8 7.Bd2 Ke7 8.Bc3 c6 9.Be1+ Kf7 10.Bd1 Be8 11.Bd7+ Be7 12.Bd6 Be6 13.Bd7+ Be7 14.Bd6 &#xA;6. -+  (-2.37): 1.f3 fxe4 2.fxe4 Nc6 3.c3 f6 4.g3 Bd6 5.Kg2 Kd7 6.Bd2 Rae8 7.Rae1 h6 8.Rf5 a6 9.Re2 Re7 10.Rf1 Rhe8 11.Rfe1 b6 &#xA;7. -+  (-2.40): 1.Re1 fxe4 2.Rxe4+ Kd7 3.Be3 Nc6 4.Rd1 Bd6 5.c4 f5 6.Rh4 Be7 7.Rf4 Rhf8 8.Rf3 h6 9.g3 Rae8 10.Kg2 g5 11.h3 Rf6 12.Bd2 Bf8 13.Bc3 f4 14.a3 Re2 15.d5 Ne5 &#xA;8. -+  (-2.45): 1.Bd2 fxe4 2.Rae1 f5 3.f3 Nc6 4.c3 e3 5.Bxe3 Kf7 6.Rf2 Bd6 7.Rfe2 Rae8 8.g3 h5 9.Kg2 h4 10.f4 Re4 11.Kf3 Ne7 12.Bd2 Rxe2 13.Rxe2 b5 14.b3 a6 15.c4 Nc6 16.Bc3 hxg3 17.hxg3 Bb4 18.cxb5 axb5 19.Bb2 Rd8 20.Rc2 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are some differences, but they agree with the fact, that Nc5 is the worst reply.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is a game played by Stockfish vs itself in a 40 minutes per 40 moves time control in this position on a Core i7-3770: (the {0.42/27 41} in the PGN denote evaluation, depth and time for the move)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;rn2kb1r/ppp2ppp/8/5p2/3PN3/8/PPP2PPP/R1B2RK1 w kq - 0 1&#xA;&#xA;1. Ng5 {0.42/27 41} f6 {0.33/29 28} 2. Re1+ {0.39/29 64} Kd7 {0.32/31 28} 3.&#xA;Nf3 {0.39/31 28} Bd6 {0.33/30 29} 4. c4 {0.35/30 39} Re8 {0.34/31 29} 5. Rd1 {&#xA;0.34/31 29} a5 {0.43/30 142} 6. g3 {0.36/32 188} Nc6 {0.36/32 29} 7. Bd2 {0.29/&#xA;31 313} b6 {0.29/31 29 (g6)} 8. Kg2 {0.18/30 133 (c5)} Ke7 {0.25/30 41} 9. b3 {&#xA;0.26/32 23} Kf7 {0.29/33 99} 10. d5 {0.18/33 78} Nb4 {0.17/35 41} 11. Bc3 {0.&#xA;17/35 24} Re2 {0.17/34 30} 12. Nd4 {0.09/34 39} Rxa2 {0.10/36 45} 13. Nxf5 {0.&#xA;10/36 24} Bf8 {0.10/35 31} 14. Rxa2 {0.06/33 94} Nxa2 {0.17/35 58} 15. Bb2 {0.&#xA;15/35 40} Nb4 {0.15/35 32} 16. Nd4 {0.15/33 36} Bc5 {0.12/34 33} 17. Kf3 {0.12/&#xA;34 57} Bxd4 {0.19/35 97} 18. Bxd4 {0.19/37 24} Ke7 {0.13/34 41 (a4)} 19. Ke2 {&#xA;0.27/32 59 (Te1+)} Kd6 {0.25/36 34} 20. Kd2 {0.29/36 25} Re8 {0.25/38 108} 21.&#xA;Be3 {0.31/40 25} Na6 {0.31/39 34} 22. Re1 {0.27/35 26} Kd7 {0.25/35 35} 23. Ra1&#xA;{0.24/34 40} Kc8 {0.17/36 50} 24. Rd1 {0.13/36 97} Kb7 {0.14/38 37} 25. Kc3 {&#xA;0.20/37 47} c6 {0.20/37 38} 26. h4 {0.22/36 116} g6 {0.15/36 78 (Sb4)} 27. d6 {&#xA;0.15/34 45} Nb8 {0.19/38 92} 28. d7 {0.19/38 24} Rd8 {0.19/38 39} 29. Rd6 {0.&#xA;19/37 25} Nxd7 {0.28/36 78} 30. Kc2 {0.26/37 84} Kc7 {0.20/37 41} 31. Re6 {0.&#xA;18/33 34 (Lf4)} Rh8 {0.22/37 96} 32. Kb2 {0.22/37 26} h5 {0.21/35 57} 33. Bf4+&#xA;{0.21/36 27} Kb7 {0.20/39 43} 34. Re7 {0.21/40 107} Kc8 {0.21/40 46} 35. Rg7 {&#xA;0.21/39 25} Ne5 {0.15/38 50} 36. Bxe5 {0.05/35 50} fxe5 {0.10/39 95} 37. Rxg6 {&#xA;0.10/39 29} Kc7 {0.10/38 57} 38. Rf6 {0.05/38 77} e4 {0.03/39 68} 39. Rf5 {0.&#xA;00/38 87} Kd6 {0.00/41 87} 40. Kc3 {0.00/41 33} Ke6 {0.00/42 146} 41. Rg5 {0.&#xA;00/42 48} 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user3598" LastEditorDisplayName="user3598" LastEditDate="2014-08-05T01:35:46.723" LastActivityDate="2014-08-05T01:35:46.723" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5991" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5858" CreationDate="2014-08-05T02:14:26.783" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is not possible to do this in chessbase reader. You can use Arena Chess (free) to do this then transfer this .pgn into Chessbase Reader. Reader allows me to use Chessbase products for training but to evaluate my own games I use Arena.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3599" LastActivityDate="2014-08-05T02:14:26.783" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5992" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5982" CreationDate="2014-08-05T11:38:30.913" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's a very interesting position. From your description I see that you are on the right path of planning. Let's see: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Clearly your queen-side is safe enough (unless you lose a couple of tempos), and although your bishop is in a completely defensive position on the 8th rank, it has still kept its prospect for a possible attack on white's king-side. Furthermore your rooks are in the best positions, each fulfilling a role(not wasted necessarily) and safe from any harassment (Ne5 e.g. has no immediate threat for you). Finally your queen is active enough on e7.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now that we have summarized in a rather crude manner our position, let's see how's white doing: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No real weakness in his position, his rooks seem to be looking at a wall as b7 is perfectly safe for now, his knight is in a dynamic enough position on f3 (many maneuvers possible) and he has a slight control on h7 but it doesn't really matter since his queen+bishop are being refuted by single knight on f8. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now that we have a clear picture of what the situation on both sides is, let's see what we can use as leverage:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your idea with g6 preparing Ne6 to Ng5 was not a bad plan at all, possibly even forced if you ask an engine, but I don't really like it: simple fact that if we're saying that white's heavy pieces are far from any defense and very inactive (queen on c2 not doing much as long as e.g. you keep control on e4 and h7 with your knight), so if we (as black) have any chance of playing actively, it has to have a really quick tempo or else white builds up an opening on e-file with Re1, Nd2 and e4 happens (he will even have rook on the 3rd rank which can be brought into a king-side attack if e4 happens). As your game shows, your idea was good, but white has enough time for a defensive build up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My suggestion: start off immediately with g5, with the plan to follow up with h5, very crudely, gaining possible tempo on knight harassment on f3 and forcing an exchange on g4 to open up the h-file, again if in any scenario white's knight is either retreated or exchanged, it's good for us as white's pieces are too far off and we're ok with a king-side pawn expansion (whole idea: gain space on his weak side, force line opening), further ideas to notice:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Our bishop is always ready to contribute to the attack whenever needed.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;once h5 is played the knight on f8 is freed up as well&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;kg7 is a likely move for us as white has no dark square control, so rook can swing eventually to h8&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;we have enough control on e-file, so white cannot really hope for a counter-attack&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;with g4 played so early, any Ne5 followed by f4 maneuver is avoided&#xA;Finally before getting into possible lines, note that our only idea is to take the initiative with any tempo we can find and hope that white under pressure will fall, I say &quot;hope&quot; because if you feed this position to an engine it's possible that it will see boring draws all around or even like white's position better, so since we're not playing against an engine, such approach does work very well. Lets analyse a couple of possible follow-ups:&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First line:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;1st variation after g5&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;2b1rnk1/1pr1qppp/p1p5/2Pp4/P2P4/1R1BPN1P/2Q2PP1/1R4K1 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... g5 2.a5 h5 3.Ne5 Nd7 4.Nxd7 Qxd7 5.Qe2 g4 6.h4 f5 7.g3 f4 8.gxf4 Qd8&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With a very nice continuation for black, of course it's no checkmate anytime soon nor an easy win, but it's a position with solid attacking hopes for black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;2nd variation after g5&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;2b1rnk1/1pr1qppp/p1p5/2Pp4/P2P4/1R1BPN1P/2Q2PP1/1R4K1 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... g5 2.a5 h5 3.Qe2 g4 4.Ne5 Qg5 5.f4 Qe7 6.Bc2 f6 7.Ng6 Qg7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Again a position with a number of weaknesses in white's position and initiative in black's hands.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;3rd variation after g5&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;2b1rnk1/1pr1qppp/p1p5/2Pp4/P2P4/1R1BPN1P/2Q2PP1/1R4K1 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... g5 2.Nh2 h5 3.Qe2 g4 4.hxg4 hxg4 5.Nxg4 Qh4 6.Ne5 f6 7.Ng6 Nxg6 8.Bxg6 Rg7 9.Bxe8 Rxg2+ 10.Kxg2 Bh3+ 11.Kh1 Bf1+ 12.Kg1 Bxe2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Again shows you how easy it is for white to go completely wrong in his defense. I think these 3 positions make it clear enough for your to see my idea basically, from this point it's more fruitful if we just keep discussing possible variations of any line you want, and don't hesitate asking any question regarding the positions or ideas discussed so far.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3594" LastEditorUserId="3594" LastEditDate="2014-08-05T11:47:56.430" LastActivityDate="2014-08-05T11:47:56.430" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5993" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="106" CreationDate="2014-08-05T17:15:56.867" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Quoting from rate your endgame by Edmar Mednis&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&quot;...perhaps this is clearer when approached negatively&quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What does this mean? Well we know in endgames and middlegames, there are totally different plans. The most well known example is undoubtedly the Isolated Queen Pawn(IQP) case. IQP can offer dynamic chances in middlegame, but it's always a weakness in endgames. So by working retrogressively, we can know what phase we are in.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;In middlegame&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Better development, open file and misplaced pieces etc are crucial&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;In endgame&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pawn structure, availability of passed pawns, availability of weak pawns are crucial&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;For example&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;3r1r2/1bp5/1p3k1p/pP4p1/4Pp1P/2P2P2/1P4RB/4R1K1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this position, we clearly know that black has advantage, due to white's bad bishop and black's control over d-file. White, despite having a protected passed pawn and created a black backward pawn has no advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hence, we know that this position is a middlegame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Note&lt;/strong&gt; that there is not much mentioning of how much material must be removed before endgame starts. This is due to the fact that endgames can occur despite large amount of material on board. E.g. Queen pawn vs Queen pawn, Queen Rook Pawn vs Queen rook pawn and so on&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3381" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T15:57:25.220" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T15:57:25.220" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="5994" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="5996" CreationDate="2014-08-06T07:16:22.607" Score="15" ViewCount="3383" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am just asking if anyone here suffers a problem of always losing to the same opponent. This problem occurs to me so often against one particular player. Well, the story goes like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I first played chess, I met a chess player, let him be A. At first, my chess skills are lower than his and I always lose to him (this is normal). But then as my chess skill progresses, even if I can beat other players (let them be B), I still can't beat A.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;So here's an absurd situation of A beating me, me beating B, B beating A.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have to emphasize, this situation occurs every time. And by B, I mean every other club player, but not A. A is not a particularly good player, but somehow I just cannot manage to beat him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The question I am asking is whether this is occurring to you all and how can I overcome it&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this a psychological problem, as his opening repertoire is normal for me?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3381" LastEditorUserId="11202" LastEditDate="2017-06-23T06:56:53.437" LastActivityDate="2017-06-26T18:14:13.210" Title="Always losing to the same opponent?" Tags="&lt;psychology&gt;&lt;losing&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5995" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5994" CreationDate="2014-08-06T08:42:34.987" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have had a similar issue. My gym professor, as strange as it may sound, is a good chess player, and we used to play a lot of games. I usually lost or drew, until at one moment I used a tactic to win just one game. From then my score on him has improved, and I have won a couple more times. The only thing to do is break a win once, and you will beat him always.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope it helps!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3405" LastEditorUserId="3405" LastEditDate="2014-08-06T09:03:55.767" LastActivityDate="2014-08-06T09:03:55.767" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5996" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5994" CreationDate="2014-08-06T08:57:25.777" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;We were all there, it is normal. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is a psychological problem, but without 3+ sample games there is nothing I can do to help you. If you could edit your post with 3+ games &lt;strong&gt;that illustrate typical scenario&lt;/strong&gt;, I could engage in solving your problem with greater effect. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Without the games the best I can advise you is : &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Know your opening -&gt; ask here if you need help;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;know how to play your middlegame pawn structure ( isolated pawn / d4 vs c6 + e6 / sicilian formations... ) -&gt; ask here if you need help;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Make smart exchanges in the endgame -&gt; ask here for help by posting the endgame position; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To cut it short, work on your technique and this problem will solve itself. As for psychological aspect of this problem, &lt;strong&gt;keep your nerves calm&lt;/strong&gt; when you reach good / winning position, as that is the point when &quot;mind tricks&quot; will start to mess you up. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is especially true when you reach winning position, the &quot;victory rush&quot; will loosen your sense of danger and you might miss opponent's saving tactics. &lt;strong&gt;Even if the game is still won for you&lt;/strong&gt;, the psychological blow it will make will be devastating and will shake you so much that you might lose the game in the next move ( happened to me countless times ). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is not the case when you play other opponents because your mind is calm, and you are able to control &quot;victory rush&quot; by carefully and &lt;strong&gt;objectively&lt;/strong&gt; assessing the position. This is the place that you must work on hardest -&gt; keep your emotions under control during the game and assess position &lt;strong&gt;objectively.&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As soon as you feel fear that you will &quot;f*ck it up&quot; because he's lucky or destiny chose him to punish you for your chess sins, &lt;strong&gt;STOP PLAYING.&lt;/strong&gt; Take 1 minute to breathe and calm down. &lt;strong&gt;This is the crucial moment in the game, so use that 1 minute to calm down -&gt; no thinking, calculating, assessing lines, NO!&lt;/strong&gt; Just breathe and calm down, that is all you need ( you can always spare a minute even in blitz games ). Tell yourself &quot;I've got this!&quot; and just &lt;strong&gt;aim not to lose the game.&lt;/strong&gt; Your main goal is not to lose, so even if you draw the game in an overwhelmingly won position for you, it is still a success as you broke the losing streak. In your mind he will no longer appear as &quot;SuperChessMan&quot;, but after not losing that game he will become simply yet another player. The moral boost you will feel in that moment will disperse all the previous psychological barriers and you should be able to engage him successfully in the next game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another thing that helped me was analysis of my own games against such opponents. You should always do this when you lose the game, always! Just turn on the engine and see its suggestions, that is enough for a start. You can always post your game here for help, we don't bite people's heads off! :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For now, this is all the advice  I can offer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Good luck!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastActivityDate="2014-08-06T08:57:25.777" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5997" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5994" CreationDate="2014-08-06T09:08:22.573" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Interesting! Yes I think to some extent we've all had similar experiences but probably under very different circumstances (school chess, club chess, tourneys, between friends etc).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess is a very dynamic game, in the sense that beating someone doesn't always mean you're necessarily better or understand the game better, it may very well be so. Of course this is because of the inherent nature of the game where making mistakes is so common and part of each game. Point being you may be 100 times better than someone but if you're the one making the last crucial mistake of the game you will lose. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As mentioned in some of the other replies, approaching the problem from a complete psychological angle is possible, but I have another suggestion for you, which is technical and stays chess-related.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you say you've played so many times vs this person A, since the time you started learning the game, then you must surely be able to tell &quot;how most of the time you end up losing to him&quot;. This is important because if say, you always out play him in the opening but end up failing at converting your advantage in the middle game due to silly cheapo tactics from your opponent, then you can tell yourself &quot;ok in the middle-game I should double check the tactics vs this guy...&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or alternatively, if most of the time you end up messing your openings, then you can forget known opening lines and just play solid-development style against him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally if you know it's the endgames that cost you the games, then either try to finish him off before an endgame, or if you do reach one, again go for simple plans that work well (assuming you've reached the endgame with some advantage), i.e. cutting the king, simplifying the position with key exchanges, covering space with pawns,... the usual stuff.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally if you're saying that each time you lose to him in a completely different way that you've ever lost before, then again, same idea can be applied, you should always assume your opponent is the best player and will find your mistakes, this means you should never assume &quot;ok I'll play this hoping he won't see the check or the fork...&quot;. In chess you don't hope, you plan things out and follow your strategy. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Long story short, I think you can overcome this rather strange nemesis of yours, by simply paying attention to &quot;the ways&quot; you lose to him/her. Get yourself some stats on the losses, and start working things out. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3594" LastActivityDate="2014-08-06T09:08:22.573" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5998" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5994" CreationDate="2014-08-06T11:53:40.743" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;An article by IM Silman, interestingly explains this at the elite level (&gt;2700 club) Check this out-&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/article/view/the-difficult-opponent&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.chess.com/article/view/the-difficult-opponent&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3158" LastActivityDate="2014-08-06T11:53:40.743" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="5999" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5970" CreationDate="2014-08-06T12:45:00.687" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was able to find the name of the line I'm interested in. It is called &lt;em&gt;Lasker variation&lt;/em&gt;. It was taken up by GM &lt;em&gt;Ian Rogers&lt;/em&gt; in the 1980s but ultimately a way for White to obtain an advantage was found. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After looking through the lines in my Fritz opening book, checking them with &lt;em&gt;Chess Informant ECO B ( 1984 )&lt;/em&gt; and online, I have found that they haven't changed that much. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since I dislike playing such positions I will rather play &lt;code&gt;6...Bxf3&lt;/code&gt; and posted answer covered them enough for me ( I have checked that line too ). That is why I have officially accepted the answer, and will add mine here just so &lt;strong&gt;current theory&lt;/strong&gt; of this line with &lt;code&gt;6...Bh5&lt;/code&gt; can be given in case someone is interested:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Scandinavian defense, Lasker variation&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 d5 2.exd5 Qxd5 3.Nc3 Qa5 4.d4 Nf6 5.Nf3 Bg4 6.h3 Bh5 7.g4! Bg6 8.Ne5 e6 ( 8...c6!? 9.h4 Ne4 10.Bd2 Qb6 11.Nxg6 Nxc3 12.Bxc3 hxg6 13.Qd2 e6 14.O-O-O ) ( 8...Nbd7 9.Nc4 Qa6 10.Bf4 Qe6+ $8 11.Ne3!? Qb6 12.Nb5! Rc8 13.g5!) 9.Bg2 c6 10.h4 Be4 11.Bxe4 Nxe4 12.Qf3 Nd6 13.Bf4 +/=&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The sub-variation with &lt;code&gt;8...Nbd7&lt;/code&gt; is analyzed in &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesscafe.com/text/kaiss06.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this &lt;em&gt;ChessCafe&lt;/em&gt; article&lt;/a&gt;, which also gives brief history of the entire line and quickly examines main lines I have presented here. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastActivityDate="2014-08-06T12:45:00.687" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6000" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5929" CreationDate="2014-08-06T13:02:15.470" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I actually used to play the Scandinavian a lot in blitz a couple of years ago, then got bored with my line and never used it again. The starting position in your diagram is actually one of the typical positions one reaches in this opening, although with slight variations, (like same position with e6, c6 already played etc.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since you said you've been working on e6 on your own, I figured I should spend time figuring out other lines. I have a lot of experience in Catalan like openings, so the main line I am going to suggest is slightly inspired by that. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Main line that I suggest is ...g6. For a couple of reasons:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;This position can be transposed into a semi-Catalan because black has kept all the pawns on the 7th rank still, which allows for a very robust-slow type of development with a passive activation of pieces. Hence the fianchetto.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Although e6 may look very natural, and does cover a number of things, it doesn't create any prospect for the bishop as it will have to stay on e7 and not contribute much. Whereas a fianchetto'ed bishop on g7, for one thing avoids any exchange any time soon, and very importantly covers a crucial diagonal in the position, because as long as there's pressure on d4, c4 cannot be played easily by white, and queen may be temporarily restrained to defending d4 (e.g. in quick Qf3 lines d4 becomes very vulnerable) and we keep an eye on b2. Finally a possible expansion with c5 or e5 becomes plausible with Bg7. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Another strong element in our position which we should definitely leverage, is the queen, being already very active and not necessarily too exposed. Its main use in this position should be defensive (and of course space control) until black has securely finished development. So in the lines I will suggest, the queen will often end up defending here and there, but why not? After all the point is to make this position work in a sensible way. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's see some lines:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;..g6 2.Re1&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;rn2kb1r/ppp1pppp/8/q7/3PN3/8/PPP2PPP/R1BQ1RK1 b kq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... g6 2.Re1 Bg7 3.Bf4 O-O 4.c3 Nd7 5.b4 Qd5 6.Bxc7 Rfc8 7.Bf4 Nf6 8.f3 a5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With a very playable active position for black, if anyone's winning here, it's black. B6-g1 diagonal is very weak, the b4-c3-d4 structure is very shaky and will cost white either some pawns or loss of activity if he goes for a complete defensive plan. Black has no worries and all the pieces are active, perfect so far!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Second g6 continuation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;..g6 ...Bg5 instead of Bf4&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;rn2kb1r/ppp1pppp/8/q7/3PN3/8/PPP2PPP/R1BQ1RK1 b kq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... g6 2.Re1 Bg7 3.Bg5 h6 4.Bh4 g5 5.Bg3 Nd7 6.Qe2 O-O-O&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Again black ends up with a solid structure and possible attacks all around: a king-side attack on white is the most natural plan from here. But a simple plan like exchanging knights and going for a better end-game works as well since our pawn advances haven't exhausted their possibilities yet (all on 7th rank) and the queen can immediately start putting pressure on white's queen-side and gain tempo for whatever other plan we may have.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Third line with g6: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;..g6 2.Qf3 very crudely by white&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;rn2kb1r/ppp1pppp/8/q7/3PN3/8/PPP2PPP/R1BQ1RK1 b kq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... g6 2.Qf3 Nc6 3.Ng5 Qf5 4.Qxf5 gxf5 5.c3 e6 6.Re1 h6 7.Nf3 O-O-O&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A perfectly fine endgame for black, covering both g5 and e5 squares, an open line already available to us (g-file), no real worry in the position. Again an example leveraging the queen activity for defensive purposes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4th line: (the only real dodgy line, but manageable)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;..g6 2.Qf3...Nc5 instead of Ng5&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;rn2kb1r/ppp1pppp/8/q7/3PN3/8/PPP2PPP/R1BQ1RK1 b kq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... g6 2.Qf3 Nc6 3.Nc5 Nxd4 4.Qxb7 Rd8 5.Na6 Bg7 6.Nxc7+ Kf8 7.Be3 Bf6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sure we lost a pawn in the process, but instead once Kg7 happens, our plan is pretty clear: Use the open files b-c for the rooks, make white lose tempo with mis-placed knight (almost trapped) on c7, gain tempo on his exposed queen, and finally we have 2 fine minor pieces on f6 and d4! Very playable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5th line:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;..g6 2.c4&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;rn2kb1r/ppp1pppp/8/q7/3PN3/8/PPP2PPP/R1BQ1RK1 b kq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... g6 2.c4 Bg7 3.Bg5 O-O 4.Re1 Re8 5.b3 Nd7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Perfect position, 0 weaknesses, completed development, everything ready to plan any further attacks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;6th and last line with g6, the toughest for black:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;..g6 2.Nc5 again crudely by white&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;rn2kb1r/ppp1pppp/8/q7/3PN3/8/PPP2PPP/R1BQ1RK1 b kq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... g6 2.Nc5 Qb6 3.Re1 Na6 4.Nxa6 Qxa6 5.Bf4 O-O-O 6.Qf3 Rd7 7.c3 Bg7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I spent a lot of time to find a refutation to Nc5 and Qb6 was the only one that really worked(I went through very scary lines to finally find this one, hope it was worth it). Again the final position, goes without saying, is perfect for black considering the starting point for us was &quot;being behind in development&quot;. No weaknesses, and once we have h5 and Qb5 played, everything is ready to focus our coordination on white's king-side. (useful moves for us here: e6, Bf6, Rg8...h5 g5..).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These were all the lines for g6 continuations, and honestly I like them all and find them very playable (practical terms), yeah it's true that they don't lead to very exciting middle games but hey we started off with a Scandinavian after all!!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Second alternative I had in mind was Nd7:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;..Nd7 2.Qf3 &quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;rn2kb1r/ppp1pppp/8/q7/3PN3/8/PPP2PPP/R1BQ1RK1 b kq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Nd7 2.Qf3 f6 3.Bd2 Qa6 4.a4 e5 5.dxe5 Nxe5 6.Qf5 Be7 7.Bc3 Ng6 8.Rfe1 O-O&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No pawns lost, development completed and easily refuted white's crude Qf3 with an active plan involving f6 instead of the passive h6. May seem shaky at first but we are no tempo behind in our defense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;..Nd7 2.Re1 &quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;rn2kb1r/ppp1pppp/8/q7/3PN3/8/PPP2PPP/R1BQ1RK1 b kq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Nd7 2.Re1 Nf6 3.Bd2 Qf5 4.Nc5 O-O-O 5.Re5 Qg4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Very solid position, with a quick queen side castle and we've kept all our g6 and e6 ideas active and open.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;..Nd7 2.b3 passive-slow option for white &quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;rn2kb1r/ppp1pppp/8/q7/3PN3/8/PPP2PPP/R1BQ1RK1 b kq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Nd7 2.b3 e6 3.Bb2 Be7 4.c4 O-O-O 5.Bc3 Qf5 6.Ng3 Qg6 7.Qf3 Kb8&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An example of white taking it slowly and us finishing development rather straightforwardly. With loads of options still on the table.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally two e6 lines to finish off my reply:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;..e6 2.Qf3 &quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;rn2kb1r/ppp1pppp/8/q7/3PN3/8/PPP2PPP/R1BQ1RK1 b kq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... e6 2.Qf3 Qf5 3.Bf4 Nc6 4.Ng3 Qa5 5.c3 O-O-O 6.Be3 f6 7.Qg4 Qd5 8.Nh5 f5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another good example showing how useful the queen is in this position when it comes to immediate defensive needs (i.e. replying to crude ideas by white)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Last line e6 again, probably the most basic continuation of them all:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;..e6 2.Re1&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;rn2kb1r/ppp1pppp/8/q7/3PN3/8/PPP2PPP/R1BQ1RK1 b kq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... e6 2.Re1 Be7 3.c3 O-O 4.Bf4 Nd7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Absolutely fine for black.&#xA;I hope you find these ideas helpful, I personally like all the outcomes resulting from g6, with a lot of options left in the position. Basically I tried to consistently show that although the starting position (you've given) looks rather worrisome for black, the active queen on a5 can still save the day whenever white gets over ambitious and plays for crude attacks, and if he doesn't then black gets to finish development and keep a perfect composure in his position. From this point on, we should just discuss the specific lines that you may find interesting, in the lines I've discussed so far. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Last note: I have no idea whether all these lines will hold against an engine or in long long correspondence chess, but then again we don't care about those formats here, the idea was to make one of the variants of Scandinavian work, an opening one doesn't play against an engine anyway! Don't hesitate asking any question that you may have.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT:&lt;/strong&gt; As pointed out by Wes, the 4th line suggested for ..g6 contained some inaccuracies, hereby I suggest some improvements:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;7..Be5&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;rn2kb1r/ppp1pppp/8/q7/3PN3/8/PPP2PPP/R1BQ1RK1 b kq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... g6 2.Qf3 Nc6 3.Nc5 Nxd4 4.Qxb7 Rd8 5.Na6 Bg7 6.Nxc7+ Kf8 7.Be3 Be5 8.Bxd4 Bxd4 9.c3 Bf6 10.a4 Kg7 11.b4 Qf5 12.Rac1 Rd7 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Very active position for black, pressure on c3, rooks doubling soon, white knight in an awkward pin, queen limited to knight's defense...very playable&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;7..Be5 8.Rfd1 To Be Avoided by black&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;rn2kb1r/ppp1pppp/8/q7/3PN3/8/PPP2PPP/R1BQ1RK1 b kq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... g6 2.Qf3 Nc6 3.Nc5 Nxd4 4.Qxb7 Rd8 5.Na6 Bg7 6.Nxc7+ Kf8 7.Be3 Be5 8.Rfd1 Bxc7 9.Bxd4 Bxh2+ Kf1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is one line to be avoided by black (Bxc7 not possible) as Kf1 can be replied after taking on h2, otherwise if Kxh2, Rxd4 Rxd4..Qe5+ wins back rook and equal position. So after Rfd1 black is kinda stuck with his pieces, maybe some h-pawn move to free up room for the other rook (so g8 square remains available for the king if needed). But all this can be avoided by playing Qb6 after Na6, a complete transposition, as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;5..Qb6 Queen-king combo: Saving the day&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;rn2kb1r/ppp1pppp/8/q7/3PN3/8/PPP2PPP/R1BQ1RK1 b kq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... g6 2.Qf3 Nc6 3.Nc5 Nxd4 4.Qxb7 Rd8 5.Na6 Qb6 6.Nxc7+ Kd7 7.Qe4 Bg7 8.c3 f5 9.Qe1 Kxc7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And black is back in game, after having found the nice resource with Qb6 and Kd7 making use of the mis-placed knight. (note here Qxe7+ not possible as Rd7 wins a piece). If white exchanges queens on b6 then it's equilibrated again as c2 pawn falls: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Queen exchange line&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;rn2kb1r/ppp1pppp/8/q7/3PN3/8/PPP2PPP/R1BQ1RK1 b kq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... g6 2.Qf3 Nc6 3.Nc5 Nxd4 4.Qxb7 Rd8 5.Na6 Qb6 6.Nxc7+ Kd7 7.Qxb6 axb6 8.Nd5 Nxc2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One last variation (there are many others of course):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;8.Nd5 line for white&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;rn2kb1r/ppp1pppp/8/q7/3PN3/8/PPP2PPP/R1BQ1RK1 b kq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... g6 2.Qf3 Nc6 3.Nc5 Nxd4 4.Qxb7 Rd8 5.Na6 Qb6 6.Nxc7+ Kd7 7.Qe4 Bg7 8.Nd5 Qe6 9.Qxe6+ fxe6 10.Nc3 Nxc2 11.Rb1 e5 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With the knight coming back to land on d4, very promising endgame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3594" LastEditorUserId="3594" LastEditDate="2014-08-06T21:08:05.703" LastActivityDate="2014-08-06T21:08:05.703" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6003" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-08-07T01:44:57.470" Score="1" ViewCount="352" Body="&lt;p&gt;For a beginner:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Where are bishops mostly exchanged or placed?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Where are knights mostly exchanged or placed?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3615" LastEditorUserId="3594" LastEditDate="2014-08-07T14:41:14.983" LastActivityDate="2014-08-07T14:41:14.983" Title="What squares are the most active for bishops?" Tags="&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;&lt;knights&gt;&lt;bishops&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6004" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5736" CreationDate="2014-08-07T03:20:49.100" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, usually in Freestyle tournaments (which normally consist of mixed human and computer teams).  There is some detail on them &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~regan/chess/fidelity/FreestyleStudy.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;, dealing particularly with the PAL/CSS tournaments.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This &lt;a href=&quot;http://freestyle-chess.webs.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Freestyle site&lt;/a&gt; is worth a look too, though the focus is specifically Centaur (i.e. human &amp;amp; computer) entries.  There's a little more on this topic in the Wikipedia article for &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Advanced Chess&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Be careful of sites that say Freestyle is just like Correspondence chess, there is a key difference.  In Freestyle you can use any aspect of computer assistance, including engine analysis.  In correspondence (using the ICCF rules) you cannot analyse games or positions, but using opening books or looking up databases is acceptable (it is considered the same as reading books or exploring openings).  The point being that you need to be the one making the assessment and the decision.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1737" LastEditorUserId="1737" LastEditDate="2014-08-07T03:36:27.007" LastActivityDate="2014-08-07T03:36:27.007" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6005" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5933" CreationDate="2014-08-07T04:02:34.980" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;It may depend a little on what your code can access, but either way you should read Ed Schröder's pages on this topic.  Schröder was the author of the Rebel Chess software until his retirement about a decade ago.  In the '90s Rebel was the strongest consumer/commercial chess software and the first such to beat a GM (Anand).  Since retiring he turned Rebel into ProDeo and released it for free on &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.top-5000.nl/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;his website&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Start with &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.top-5000.nl/authors/rebel/chess830.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this introduction&lt;/a&gt;, though you should already know all that, then have a look at &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.top-5000.nl/authors/rebel/chess840.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this more in depth explanation&lt;/a&gt;.  Then check &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.top-5000.nl/tools.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this page&lt;/a&gt; for details on adding Rebel/ProDeo books to any engine (will require compiling C code for each platform you want your engine to be able to work).  You should be able to add to the books from PGN records before compiling them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: Not quite sure why this was voted down, but probably the mention of C when the OP states Java.  I should mention that &lt;em&gt;most&lt;/em&gt; chess processing software is in C or C++ because it provides better processing capabilities; it compiles to assembly language or machine code, unlike Java, which requires the JVM to run and that makes Java less efficient.  Yes, it is possible to compile Java into machine code, but hardly anyone ever does it because then it is no longer platform independent (such as it is).  So the OP will be running into the C hurdle no matter what.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Beyond that, these sites on the &lt;a href=&quot;https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;chess programming wiki&lt;/a&gt; on &lt;a href=&quot;https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Opening+Book&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;opening books&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Test-Positions#OpeningSuites&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;opening suites&lt;/a&gt; may be of use.  You'll find a bunch of Ed Scröder's stuff there because he is one of the pioneers who made the shift from hardware electronic chess systems (e.g. Mephisto) to personal computing software.  With the added bonus that now he's giving his software and, more importantly, his knowledge away to whoever wants it.  If that's really not enough to immerse one's self in the subject then nothing is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1737" LastEditorUserId="1737" LastEditDate="2014-08-07T20:00:43.830" LastActivityDate="2014-08-07T20:00:43.830" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6006" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6007" CreationDate="2014-08-07T09:22:15.770" Score="13" ViewCount="8638" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm familiar with chess notation, but this has left me scratching my head. Looking at &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/732/3617&quot;&gt;this answer&lt;/a&gt;, I see two games ending with moves marked as &quot;+-&quot; or &quot;-+&quot; (plus-minus or minus-plus). What does this annotation mean? Is it standard? And why are the two games using it with the symbols in different order?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_algebraic_notation&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt; does not mention this symbol, and I find searching for it quite difficult. Looking at the two boards allows me to rule out plenty of things - it's not check, checkmate or stalemate - but doesn't decisively reveal what it is. Is this perhaps some indicator of positional advantage (which I can see on both boards)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3617" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-12-11T13:27:22.727" LastActivityDate="2020-08-27T03:58:29.637" Title="What does &quot;+-&quot; mean in algebraic notation?" Tags="&lt;annotation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6007" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6006" CreationDate="2014-08-07T09:52:22.803" Score="27" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What does “+-” mean in algebraic notation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This symbol means &quot;White has decisive advantage&quot;, which means that White's advantage is big enough to secure him victory. As for symbol &lt;em&gt;-+&lt;/em&gt; it means &quot;Black has decisive advantage&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What does this notation mean?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This notation is introduced to bypass the language barrier so any reader ( Japanese, English, Arabian, Marsian, it doesn't matter! ) can understand the comment behind the move. In the old days before this notation, commentaries were given in words, which required the reader to know commentator's native tongue or to find the translation of those commentaries. This way, when commentator writes &lt;em&gt;+-&lt;/em&gt; behind the move, everybody ( Japanese, English, Arabian, Marsian, it doesn't matter! ) know what it means. It is shorter and cleaner this way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is it standard?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, it is. The symbols were invented by &lt;em&gt;Chess Informant&lt;/em&gt; and accepted as a standard. You can find out more about chess notation &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_annotation_symbols&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;And why are the two games using it with the symbols in different order?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because the positions in those games are different -&gt; in one White has the decisive advantage while in the other it is Black who should win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hopefully this answer helped you. If you need further clarifications leave a comment. Best regards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastEditorUserId="2042" LastEditDate="2018-12-05T23:39:33.383" LastActivityDate="2018-12-05T23:39:33.383" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="6008" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6003" CreationDate="2014-08-07T12:36:48.267" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The f3/f6/c3/c6 tend to be where most knights are exchanged. That is because in beginner play, if the opponent tries to push the pin with h3/h6/a3/a6, the person who has pinned the knight with the bishop typically exchanges, and this tends to be a beginner fault..&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3405" LastActivityDate="2014-08-07T12:36:48.267" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6009" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1679" CreationDate="2014-08-07T18:46:50.687" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;To the best of my chess knowledge I would purchase the best ever software on this earth it is Houdini. It is simply incredible. No software has ever beaten Houdini.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3620" LastActivityDate="2014-08-07T18:46:50.687" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6010" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-08-08T00:44:43.677" Score="1" ViewCount="527" Body="&lt;p&gt;The “Mate Search” function of my two chess engines, Houdini 3 Pro x64 and Fritz 12, does not work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I click on “Levels” and then on “Mate Search”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/23eek.png&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then a small “Mate Search” window pops up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qV5nk.png&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I click on “Parameters” it does nothing. When I click on “OK” the “Mate Search” window just disappears and nothing happens.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3237" LastActivityDate="2014-11-13T16:58:41.017" Title="How do I use the “Mate Search” function of either Houdini 3 Pro x64 or Fritz 12? It doesn’t seem to work…" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;programming&gt;&lt;houdini&gt;&lt;software&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6011" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1679" CreationDate="2014-08-08T04:01:29.360" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The other answers are a bit old... The best answer is Stockfish 5. Stockfish 5 is rated number one on the rating list&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.computerchess.org.uk/ccrl/4040/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.computerchess.org.uk/ccrl/4040/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and it's free!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2014-08-08T04:01:29.360" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6012" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1679" CreationDate="2014-08-08T16:26:38.597" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would prefer you to buy shredder as per my experience.I honour the suggestions made by others like rybka, stockfish 5, deepfritz etc... but I personally feel that shredder is good as it has helped me improve my game a lot.I started with a mere FIDE rating of 1326 and now have ended up in 2398.In achieving all this shtedder has helped me a lot.You may visit rhe following site to know more about shredder &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.shredderchess.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.shredderchess.com&lt;/a&gt;. They have also got a free online version of it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3613" LastActivityDate="2014-08-08T16:26:38.597" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6013" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1679" CreationDate="2014-08-08T20:02:38.457" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Houdini if you want to spend, Stockfish for a free engine.&#xA;Houdini is simply the most human-like.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2180" LastActivityDate="2014-08-08T20:02:38.457" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6014" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5988" CreationDate="2014-08-08T21:05:54.987" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Knight is not stronger in blitz, such a statement is nonsense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is you that are weaker at calculating at blitz, and the Knight is simply more difficult to handle with less time to calculate due to the kind of moves you can make with it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So it's matter of how your brain handles Knights nothing intrinsic in the Knight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2180" LastActivityDate="2014-08-08T21:05:54.987" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6015" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-08-08T21:39:13.483" Score="4" ViewCount="195" Body="&lt;p&gt;Discounting cheap tricks to mate in only a few moves. Are there any serious openings that keep the king in the center with no intention of castling?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3625" LastActivityDate="2014-08-09T23:47:37.623" Title="Openings that keep the king in the center on purpose?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6016" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6015" CreationDate="2014-08-08T21:50:59.073" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are many respectable opening lines where the king stays in the center. A popular opening at the highest level is the Berlin Defense:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 Nf6 4. O-O Nxe4 5. d4 Nd6 6. Bxc6 dxc6 7. dxe5 Nf5 8. Qxd8+ Kxd8&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1485" LastActivityDate="2014-08-08T21:50:59.073" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6017" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5969" CreationDate="2014-08-09T03:13:57.383" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am not aware of any Online Chess training website which allows you to load your own Chess opening repertoire in pgn format.&#xA;Therefore, I added this option in my iChess Android app.&#xA;You can load your Opening PGN file with short repertoire lines, and make moves for &quot;your&quot; side and the App will award points accordingly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More details on this blog: &lt;a href=&quot;http://mychessapps.blogspot.in/2013/02/how-to-practice-chess-openings-with.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://mychessapps.blogspot.in/2013/02/how-to-practice-chess-openings-with.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Regards,&#xA;Asim&#xA;Developer of iChess App&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1275" LastActivityDate="2014-08-09T03:13:57.383" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6019" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6020" CreationDate="2014-08-09T13:38:17.580" Score="3" ViewCount="318" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have just came up with a new chess variant. &#xA;The variant works like this. &#xA;So, the player starts with a match with a computer (not-so-powerful one)&#xA;If the player wins the match, he gets to use the computer as his advisor.&#xA;And then, the player, with the new advisor goes up the ladder and challenge a more powerful computer. And so on and so forth.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What do you guys think about this variant? Will this give the human player an advantage? Do you think that the World Chess Champion can win the Best Chess Program (Stockfish) using this system? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have got this idea from a chess match of GM Daniel Naroditsky+Rybka vs Stockfish match. IMHO, the computer has already won the human-computer chess rivalry. But if human players can subdue weaker chess computer and then use them against stronger computer, it would be another way of saying that human can still beat computer. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3381" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-01-23T13:45:44.870" LastActivityDate="2020-01-23T17:08:19.677" Title="New chess variant (opinion required)" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;chess-variants&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6020" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6019" CreationDate="2014-08-09T15:01:47.017" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Principally I like your idea. I &lt;em&gt;really&lt;/em&gt; like it. I could even imagine to implement something like that just for fun sake. However, there are some problems:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;At a certain stage, an average player with a strength of about 1400 will just end up copying his engines moves in an extremely tactical position, which he doesn't understand.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If there is an ELO difference between the engines of only about 50 points (what's pretty common, especially in the higher levels), one could easily win by luck (since a higher ELO doesn't necessarily mean a 100% win chance) or even by just playing as white. This issue however can be fixed by giving opponents with about 200 ELO more, so one's not going to win by his engine itself.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Humans usually rather play with other humans, since they're more predictable. An average machine sees almost every trap in one or two plies, while humans may overlook it. &quot;Playing for tricks&quot; is essential, especially in quicker time controls.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;One might struggle to proceed further at a certain level. It's unterstandable, that it becomes boring to play (and lose) to the same engine over and over again.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sorry for my bad english, I'd appreciate any suggestion. (:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user3598" LastEditorDisplayName="user3598" LastEditDate="2014-08-09T23:16:57.063" LastActivityDate="2014-08-09T23:16:57.063" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6022" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5942" CreationDate="2014-08-09T18:10:16.243" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;With white start with 1.e4 and study open games, something like the Italian or Scotch game, later the Ruy Lopez.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course black will try also Sicilian, French or Caro-Kan. You have to know something about all of this: so for Sicilian study at least 1.e4 c5  2.c3, for French and Caro-Kan the advance 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.e5 and 1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.e5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another option is to play 1.Nf3 and forget about any study of the openings. You will spend time in the first moves, but few people at lower levels have any idea about why on earth you did not push a pawn as first move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2180" LastActivityDate="2014-08-09T18:10:16.243" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6023" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6024" CreationDate="2014-08-09T18:15:19.240" Score="14" ViewCount="63711" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm on Windows 8. I have the Fritz/ChessBase GUI since I bought both Fritz 12 and Houdini 3 Pro.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would like to know how exactly can I download and install the free latest version (and most powerful version) of Stockfish.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've found this website to download Stockfish: &lt;a href=&quot;http://stockfishchess.org/&quot;&gt;http://stockfishchess.org/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But after I click on the big green button that says &quot;Download Stockfish 5 for Windows&quot; I don't know what to do. Should I select &quot;Save File&quot; or &quot;Open with&quot;? And after that what do I do?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please try to explain it step by steps because I'm not that good with computers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;@AlwaysLearningNewStuff: Thanks for your answer, but I did not succeed. I downloaded the file. I moved it to C:\Program Files (x86)\ChessBase. I clicked on &quot;Create UCI engine&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/gVdkg.png&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then I clicked on the &quot;...&quot; button (which looks to be the &quot;Browse...&quot; button). I went in C:\Program Files (x86)\ChessBase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/5awpM.png&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But then clicking on one of the three files does not work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe the problem comes from the fact that the icon for Stockfish is different than the the other icons:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ADhIU.png&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3237" LastEditorUserId="3237" LastEditDate="2014-08-09T19:56:02.080" LastActivityDate="2015-03-31T16:57:45.987" Title="How to download Stockfish and install it on the Fritz/ChessBase GUI?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6024" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6023" CreationDate="2014-08-09T18:56:56.720" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;First download StockFish. You click on the button shown in the below image and choose &quot;Save as&quot;. It will be saved as &lt;code&gt;.rar&lt;/code&gt; file, which you can open with WinRar, 7Zip or similar utility... &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/IHpyi.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then you unzip it ( put it where you want ). After that run Fritz, and choose &lt;em&gt;Engine -&gt; Create UCI engine&lt;/em&gt; like in the picture below:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/AX8ij.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The following dialog box will pop up, after which you need to press &lt;em&gt;Browse&lt;/em&gt; button:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/iR8Cr.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then you will see a dialog box that will help you find StockFish. Once you find it, select it and click &lt;em&gt;Open&lt;/em&gt; ( &lt;em&gt;in the picture below I didn't click on the StockFish when creating screen capture; sorry, I just forgot to do it&lt;/em&gt; ) :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/PS5Py.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After Fritz finishes loading engine your dialog box should look something like the image below. Then just click on the &lt;em&gt;OK&lt;/em&gt; button:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/J72it.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That should do it. I think that the procedure is the same for ChessBase. To use StockFish instead of Fritz, press &lt;em&gt;F3&lt;/em&gt;, select StockFish from the list of engines in the dialog box that pops, and click &lt;em&gt;OK&lt;/em&gt; button. Wait a few seconds and you will be good to go.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's all, if you need further help leave a comment. Best regards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastActivityDate="2014-08-09T18:56:56.720" CommentCount="12" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6025" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6015" CreationDate="2014-08-09T23:42:27.167" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are some that have been played at the highest level. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Philidor Defense&lt;/strong&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;   [Event &quot;Grand Slam Final 5th&quot;]&#xA;   [Date &quot;2012.09.25&quot;]&#xA;   [White &quot;Vallejo Pons, Francisco&quot;]&#xA;   [Black &quot;Carlsen, Magnus&quot;]&#xA;   [Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;   [WhiteElo &quot;2697&quot;]&#xA;   [BlackElo &quot;2843&quot;]&#xA;   [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;   1. e4 d6 2. d4 Nf6 3. Nc3 e5 4. dxe5 dxe5 5. Qxd8+ Kxd8 6. Nf3 Bd6 7. Bg5 Be6&#xA;   8. O-O-O Nbd7 9. Nb5 Ke7 10. Nxd6 cxd6 11. Bb5 Rhd8 12. Nd2 h6 13. Bh4 g5 14.&#xA;   Bg3 a6 15. Bxd7 Rxd7 16. f3 Rc8 17. Kb1 Nh5 18. Nf1 f5 19. exf5 Bxf5 20. Ne3&#xA;   Bg6 21. Rd2 Ke6 22. b3 b5 23. Kb2 d5 24. Re1 Nxg3 25. hxg3 h5 26. c3 d4 27.&#xA;   cxd4 Rxd4 28. Rxd4 exd4 29. Nc2+ Kd5 30. Nb4+ Kd6 31. Rc1 Rxc1 32. Kxc1 h4 33.&#xA;   gxh4 gxh4 34. Nxa6 Bd3 35. Nb4 Bf1 36. Kd2 Bxg2 37. Ke2 Bh3 38. a4 Bf5 39. axb5&#xA;   d3+ 40. Ke3 h3 41. Nxd3 Bxd3 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Old Indian Defense&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    [Event &quot;Gibraltar Masters 11th&quot;]&#xA;    [Date &quot;2013.01.23&quot;]&#xA;    [White &quot;Jameson, David&quot;]&#xA;    [Black &quot;Ivanchuk, Vassily&quot;]&#xA;    [Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;    [WhiteElo &quot;2143&quot;]&#xA;    [BlackElo &quot;2758&quot;]&#xA;    [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;    1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 d6 3. Nc3 e5 4. dxe5 dxe5 5. Qxd8+ Kxd8 6. Bg5 c6 7. Nf3 Nbd7&#xA;    8. Ne4 Kc7 9. Nxf6 gxf6 10. Bh4 Bb4+ 11. Nd2 f5 12. O-O-O a5 13. Nf3 a4 14. a3&#xA;    Bd6 15. Ng5 Rf8 16. e4 Nc5 17. f3 Ra6 18. Nxh7 Rh8 19. Nf6 Rb6 20. Bf2 Be7 21.&#xA;    Kc2 Rb3 22. Bxc5 Bxc5 23. exf5 Bxf5+ 24. Bd3 Be6 25. Ne4 Bd4 26. Rb1 f5 27. Nd2&#xA;    Rb6 28. b4 c5 29. h4 Rd6 30. Rh2 Rhd8 31. Rd1 cxb4 32. axb4 a3 33. Nb3 a2 34.&#xA;    Rhh1 a1=Q 35. Nxa1 Bxa1 36. h5 Bd4 37. h6 Ra6 38. Kb3 Rda8 39. Bb1 Ra3+ 40. Kc2&#xA;    Bxc4 41. h7 Bb3+ 42. Kd2 Bxd1 43. h8=Q Rxh8 44. Rxh8 Ba4 45. Bxf5 Ra2+ 46. Ke1&#xA;    Bf2+ 47. Kf1 Bb5+ 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Sicilian Defense Taimanov Variation with 4 knights&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;   [Event &quot;Rubinstein Memorial 35th&quot;]&#xA;   [Date &quot;1998.08.18&quot;]&#xA;   [White &quot;Shirov, Alexei&quot;]&#xA;   [Black &quot;Krasenkow, Michal&quot;]&#xA;   [Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;   [WhiteElo &quot;2720&quot;]&#xA;   [BlackElo &quot;2655&quot;]&#xA;   [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;    1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Nc3 e6 4. d4 cxd4 5. Nxd4 Nf6 6. Nxc6 bxc6 7. e5 Nd5 8.&#xA;    Ne4 Qc7 9. f4 Qb6 10. c4 Bb4+ 11. Ke2 f5 12. Nf2 Ba6 13. Kf3 Ne7 14. Be3 Bc5&#xA;    15. Bxc5 Qxc5 16. Qd6 Qb6 17. b3 c5 18. Be2 Rc8 19. Rhd1 Rc7 20. Ke3 Bb7 21.&#xA;    Bf3 Bxf3 22. gxf3 Qb7 23. Rg1 Rg8 24. h4 Nc6 25. Nd3 Nb4 26. Nxb4 cxb4 27. h5&#xA;    Qb6+ 28. Qd4 Kf7 29. Rg2 Qc6 30. Rd1 a5 31. Qd6 Qxd6 32. Rxd6 Ra8 33. Rd1 Rg8&#xA;    34. Kd4 Rc6 35. c5 Rc7 36. Rdg1 Rc6 37. Kc4 Rc7 38. Kb5 Ra7 39. Ka4 Raa8 40.&#xA;    Rd2 Ra7 41. Rd6 Rc8 42. Rc1 Ke7 43. Rb6 Kd8 44. Rc2 h6 45. Rb5 Kc7 46. Rg2 Rg8&#xA;    47. Rb6 Raa8 48. Kb5 Ra7 49. c6 g5 50. hxg6 dxc6+ 51. Rxc6+ Kd7 52. g7 a4 53.&#xA;    Rd2+ Ke7 54. Kb6 Rd7 55. Rxd7+ Kxd7 56. Rc7+ 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2429" LastEditorUserId="2429" LastEditDate="2014-08-09T23:47:37.623" LastActivityDate="2014-08-09T23:47:37.623" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6026" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6027" CreationDate="2014-08-10T00:27:30.733" Score="-7" ViewCount="160" Body="&lt;p&gt;What's black's best possible move and why?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Black to move&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;r3k3/pp2b3/1qn1Np2/2p1p2Q/4P2p/1NP4P/PP3Pr1/2KR4 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3630" LastEditorUserId="2042" LastEditDate="2014-08-10T01:12:43.597" LastActivityDate="2014-08-10T01:20:08.810" Title="Quick Analysis of best possible move in this board" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6027" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6026" CreationDate="2014-08-10T01:20:08.810" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What's black's best possible move and why?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately, Black will lose this game. His king is indeed in check, but he can postpone mate only with &lt;code&gt;1...Rg6&lt;/code&gt;. The problem with Black's position is that king has no viable retreat: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;He can't go to &lt;code&gt;d-file&lt;/code&gt; as he would be in check from rook on &lt;code&gt;d1&lt;/code&gt;;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;He can't go to &lt;code&gt;f8&lt;/code&gt; because he would be in check from knight on &lt;code&gt;e6&lt;/code&gt;;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;He can't go to &lt;code&gt;e7&lt;/code&gt; as Black bishop stands there;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;He can't go to &lt;code&gt;f7&lt;/code&gt; because White queen controls that square so he would be again in check;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After &lt;code&gt;1...Rg6&lt;/code&gt; White plays &lt;code&gt;Qxg6&lt;/code&gt; and gives checkmate:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;White mates after Rg6&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;r3k3/pp2b3/1qn1Np2/2p1p2Q/4P2p/1NP4P/PP3Pr1/2KR4 b - - 0 1&quot;] &#xA;&#xA;1...Rg6 2.Qg6# 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastActivityDate="2014-08-10T01:20:08.810" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6028" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-08-10T01:27:29.003" Score="6" ViewCount="4022" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been trying out the &lt;a href=&quot;http://arena.myfide.net/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Online Arena&lt;/a&gt;; while I've found a lot of marketing, I find very little useful documentation (possibly because the software is new).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;FIDE Online Arena has four different Elos: bullet, blitz, rapid, and unmonitored.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Q: What specifically determines bullet, blitz, rapid, and unmonitored time controls?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2785" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-02-10T21:43:56.403" LastActivityDate="2021-02-10T21:43:56.403" Title="FIDE Online Arena: what specifically determines bullet, blitz, rapid, and unmonitored time controls?" Tags="&lt;fide&gt;&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;time-control&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6029" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6033" CreationDate="2014-08-10T11:10:35.550" Score="6" ViewCount="571" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can not understand what the following numbers mean:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Gligorić had the following record against the world champions he&#xA;  played against: Max Euwe +2 -0 =5, Mikhail Botvinnik +2 −2 =6, Vasily&#xA;  Smyslov +6 −8 =28, Tigran Petrosian +8 −11 =19, Mikhail Tal +2 −10&#xA;  =22, Boris Spassky +0 −6 =16, Bobby Fischer +4 −7 =8, Anatoly Karpov +0 −4 =6 and Garry Kasparov +0 −3 =0.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I took them from &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svetozar_Gligori%C4%87#Lifetime_scores_against_world_champions&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;. I do understand that it tracks statistics against a particular opponent in all games, but what is this strange mathematics mean: &lt;strong&gt;+8 −11 =19&lt;/strong&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="703" LastActivityDate="2014-08-10T13:59:22.303" Title="How to interpret lifetime score" Tags="&lt;history&gt;&lt;world-championship&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6030" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6029" CreationDate="2014-08-10T11:55:14.943" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;+8 -11 =19&lt;/strong&gt; means: &lt;strong&gt;Won 8, lost 11 and drew 19&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user3598" LastActivityDate="2014-08-10T11:55:14.943" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6031" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6028" CreationDate="2014-08-10T12:04:44.787" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to FIDE:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Blitz: &amp;lt;= 10 minutes&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Rapid: &gt; 10 minutes and &amp;lt;= 60 minutes&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fide.com/component/handbook/?id=171&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.fide.com/component/handbook/?id=171&amp;amp;view=article&lt;/a&gt; (See appendices)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to Wikipedia and &lt;strong&gt;many&lt;/strong&gt; online chess platforms:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bullet: &amp;lt; 3 minutes&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Blitz: &gt;= 3 minutes and &amp;lt; 10 minutes&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Rapid: &gt; 10 minutes and &amp;lt;= 60 minutes&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_chess&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_chess&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user3598" LastActivityDate="2014-08-10T12:04:44.787" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6032" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-08-10T13:51:17.273" Score="5" ViewCount="295" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a stupid question that has more to do with English than with chess, so if other people also think it's stupid I can delete it after I get the answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since English is not my mother's tongue I am not totally sure I understand correctly this part of &lt;a href=&quot;http://home.comcast.net/~danheisman/Articles/evaluation_of_material_imbalance.htm#2012-Update&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;GM Larry Kaufman's article on &quot;The Evaluation of Material Imbalances&quot;&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are many things I don't understand everywhere, but this thing is particularly important to me so I really want to be sure that I understand it correctly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;TO SUMMARIZE&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;To summarize the findings of my research, the basic table of values would be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Pawn= 1      &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Knight =  3.25  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Bishop = 3.25&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Rook =  5  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Queen =  9.75&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Bishop pair= +0.5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;This table agrees with the statistics (within about 1/8 pawn accuracy) in nearly every case tested.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A further refinement would be to raise the knight's value by 1/16 and lower the rook's value by 1/8 for each pawn above five of the side being valued, with the opposite adjustment for each pawn short of five.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I understood the part &quot;raise the knight's value by 1/16 and lower the rook's value by 1/8 for each pawn above five of the side being valued&quot; then these are the average values of our Knights and Rooks according to our number of Pawns:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If you have 5 Pawns your Knights are worth 3.25 and your Rooks are worth 5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If you have 6 Pawns your Knights are worth 3.3125 and your Rooks are worth 4.875&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If you have 7 Pawns your Knights are worth 3.375 and your Rooks are worth 4.75&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If you have 8 Pawns your Knights are worth 3.4375 and your Rooks are worth 4.625&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this correct?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But what I'm really not sure of understanding is the part where he says &quot;with the opposite adjustment for each pawn short of five.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Firstly, does &quot;short of five&quot; mean this?:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;1 pawn short of five = 4 pawns&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;2 pawns short of five = 3 pawns&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;3 pawns short of five = 2 pawns&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;4 pawns short five = 1 pawn&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;5 pawns short of five = 0 pawn&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And therefore, does &quot;with the opposite adjustment for each pawn short of five&quot; mean:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;this: &lt;em&gt;Lower the knight's value by 1/16 and raise the rook's value by 1/8 for each pawn short of five of the side being valued.&lt;/em&gt; ?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;or this: &lt;em&gt;Lower the knight's value by 1/8 and raise the rook's value by 1/16 for each pawn short of five of the side being valued.&lt;/em&gt; ?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS: No need to tell me that implementing this in practical play is perfectly useless.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3237" LastActivityDate="2016-10-08T21:36:15.797" Title="Could you explain me this part of GM Larry Kaufman's article on &quot;The Evaluation of Material Imbalances&quot;?" Tags="&lt;statistics&gt;&lt;knights&gt;&lt;evaluation&gt;&lt;rooks&gt;&lt;point-value&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6033" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6029" CreationDate="2014-08-10T13:59:22.303" Score="5" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;but what is this strange mathematics mean: +8 −11 =19?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is not mathematical notation. The three symbols are not there so you can add or subtract numbers. They mean the following: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;+&lt;/code&gt; is the number of victories; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;-&lt;/code&gt; is the number of defeats; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;=&lt;/code&gt; is the number of draws player achieved against an opponent; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So in the following example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Gligorić had the following record against the world champions he played against: Max Euwe +2 -0 =5&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Gligoric had 2 victories, no defeats and five draws against Max Euwe. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Against Fisher he had +4 -7 =8, meaning he won 4 games against him, lost 7 and drew 8.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastActivityDate="2014-08-10T13:59:22.303" CommentCount="0" CommunityOwnedDate="2014-08-10T13:59:22.303" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6034" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-08-10T15:00:42.123" Score="3" ViewCount="9096" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am looking for an UCI compatible engine with an ELO of less than 1800. Not a version of Houdini or Stockfish with an ELO of 1800. I want a engine with a real ELO rating of 1800 or less. If you can help me with links, that would be great.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3405" LastActivityDate="2015-09-28T14:49:24.493" Title="Chess engine with an ELO of less than 1800" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;rating&gt;&lt;elo&gt;&lt;uci&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="8" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6035" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-08-10T17:08:33.460" Score="8" ViewCount="2301" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have been playing a lot of chess recently after not having played much in the last few years. My rating (sorry, I don't know which rating systems) on most chess websites and so on tends to sit comfortably in the 1400-1500 range, but I can't seem to break that. On various tactics trainers, I seem to able to reach a tactics rating of around 2000 or sometimes higher. Again, I don't know how useful these numbers really are, but if I take them at face value then it would seem that tactics are not my problem. I also think my grasp of strategy is not too bad, I am quite aware of outposts, open files, weak pawn structures and so on and they tend to drive my moves in my games, more so than tactics I would say.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have a couple of questions to ask regarding improvement here. Firstly, I play a lot against computers, since I can just play a game on my phone without worrying about internet connection. Is this a bad idea if I am trying to improve? The computer I play against seems to be totally brain dead below a rating of about 1300, then suddenly above that rating seems to make almost no blunders. It makes plenty of strategic errors, (advancing way too many pawns early on and stuff like that) but it just seems to be able to plug every hole so quickly, even though it creates a lot for itself. My question is: is it a mistake to practice against computers, given their somewhat erratic way of playing?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think my game is okay in most areas, and I feel like it could be one or two crucial weaknesses that are holding me back. My opening and end game skills I think are adequate for the level I am playing at, but my middle game seems to be remarkably uninteresting. I can notice where the most important squares are and tend to avoid any big blunders, but against computers the games tend to seize up in the middle...they are just really dry in terms of attacking opportunities because the computer has got it all covered, and I can't create strong threats as quickly as it can defuse them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think this may be the big gap in my game. I can solve tactical puzzles quite easily, but I cannot consistently create those sorts of positions that appear in the puzzles in my own games. So my second question is: is this a common pitfall in players around my level and, if so, how do players usually break through this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks for any input, and sorry for the life story. :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3633" LastEditorUserId="3633" LastEditDate="2014-08-10T17:15:41.467" LastActivityDate="2014-08-11T06:45:41.803" Title="Struggling to improve past intermediate level" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6036" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6035" CreationDate="2014-08-10T17:16:18.727" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't play against computers because it's too depressing.  Practicing is another matter entirely.  If you make a move and the computer thinks it's a blunder, use the computer to find out &lt;em&gt;why&lt;/em&gt; it's a blunder.  So don't play a whole game and say, &quot;Oh noes I lost&quot; but instead use it to find out why you chose the wrong moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Regarding the ratings you mentioned... ratings from different sites cannot be compared.  So a 2000 on one site is not the same as a 2000 on another.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to improve, join your local chess club.  The director will pair you against opponents of your skill level.  You'll make friends and get to cut some heads :-D&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you're in the USA, you'll also get a USCF rating which carries some weight in the chess circles.  It's mathematically sound and there are enough players to remove the noise.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2014-08-10T17:16:18.727" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6037" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6032" CreationDate="2014-08-10T18:42:55.887" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your interpretation of &quot;for each pawn above/short of five&quot; is correct. Unfortunately, &quot;the opposite adjustment&quot; is vague and could mean either of the two things you suggest.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would guess that it means the first one, so that the value of a knight decreases by 1/16 every time a pawn is captured and the value of a rook increases by 1/8. If that is true, a simpler way of expressing the values would be that a knight is worth 2 15/16 plus pawns/16 and rook is worth 5 5/8 minus pawns/8.  (Which, as you say, isn't very useful in practice.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2789" LastActivityDate="2014-08-10T18:42:55.887" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6038" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6042" CreationDate="2014-08-10T20:38:44.317" Score="3" ViewCount="189" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let us say that I commit a blunder in a chess game. One that is deserving for a ??, a mate in one let us say. My opponent misses it. With what mark should the move be written in a pgn? Left markless, or with a ?!. Or perhaps with something else?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3405" LastActivityDate="2014-08-10T22:50:34.773" Title="On blunders in PGNs" Tags="&lt;pgn&gt;&lt;notation&gt;&lt;terminology&gt;&lt;blunder&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6039" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-08-10T20:48:10.170" Score="2" ViewCount="1439" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Arena, you can select an &quot;Arena main book&quot; which will be the chess opening book that will be displayed in the &lt;code&gt;Book/TB&lt;/code&gt; tab.  However, is there any way to merge multiple opening books into that tab?  It would be useful to combine a couple of good normal books with, perhaps, a special gambit book.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1539" LastActivityDate="2017-11-23T10:11:22.200" Title="Multiple opening books in Arena?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;engines&gt;&lt;arena&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6040" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6038" CreationDate="2014-08-10T21:10:31.963" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;A blunder is a blunder regardless of the opponent's response. Allowing mate in one in a playable position always deserves a ?? if you are adding annotations to a game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3270" LastActivityDate="2014-08-10T21:10:31.963" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6041" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6035" CreationDate="2014-08-10T21:16:10.783" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Learning to plan is important, an idea as simple as to try to create two weaknesses in your opponents field is a starter, but for sure there are plenty of excellent readings around.&#xA;If you are good at tactics but find hard to create tactical positions try this books:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Art of Attack - Vukovic&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Art of the Middle Game - Paul Keres, Alexander Kotov.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To that add that an important way to score a point is to learn how to turn a good middlegame, into a won endgame, and for that you need to master endgames.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2180" LastActivityDate="2014-08-10T21:16:10.783" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6042" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6038" CreationDate="2014-08-10T22:50:34.773" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the specific case you give, both the move that allowed the mate in one and the move that failed to take it are clear ??'s: they're both absoutely terrible moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2789" LastActivityDate="2014-08-10T22:50:34.773" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6043" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-08-11T00:03:39.580" Score="6" ViewCount="889" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the Delayed Open Catalan, after 1. Nf3 d5 2. d4 Nf6 3. c4 e6 4. g3 Be7 5. Bg2 O-O 6. O-O dxc4 7. Ne5 c5 8. dxc5 Bxc5, we reach this position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;White to move&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;rnbq1rk1/pp3ppp/4pn3/2b1N3/2p5/6P1/PP2PPBP/RNBQ1RK1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I made 4 of the 5 strongest engines analyze the position for more than 30 minutes each. Here are the results:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/uEQN0.png&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/xQxCc.png&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/SW8ch.png&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/cZn4p.png&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems all the engines think that 9. Qxd8 (followed by 9... Rxd8 10. Nc3) is the strongest move. And they all also seem to think that 9. Nc3 is the second best move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But on the book Wojo's Weapons Volume 1, the authors apparently recommend 9. Nc3, although they don't talk a lot about that move (Wojo actually never faced 7... c5, all his opponents answered 7... Nc6 instead).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So which move do you recommend me to play? What are all the advantages and disadvantages of 9. Nc3 and 9. Qxd8 ? Should I put my faith on the engines or on the authors of Wojo's Weapons?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3237" LastEditorUserId="2042" LastEditDate="2014-08-12T12:13:55.867" LastActivityDate="2014-08-12T12:13:55.867" Title="In the Delayed Open Catalan, after 1. Nf3 d5 2. d4 Nf6 3. c4 e6 4. g3 Be7 5. Bg2 O-O 6. O-O dxc4 7. Ne5 c5 8. dxc5 Bxc5, which move should I play?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;1.d4&gt;&lt;catalan&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6045" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6035" CreationDate="2014-08-11T04:39:46.747" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am an intermediate too. I have felt that playing against the computer for the WHOLE (entire) game does not help much! Even if I adjust the Elo rating of the engine to somewhat match my level, the resulting games are never the same as you get with a human opponent. I've tried various engines, free and commercial, tweaked them to be weaker etc., finally the result is the same- It plays a really weak move (like giving up an exchange for no compensation) and then plays invincibly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think playing against the computer will help in the following scenarios-&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a) A position is known to be winning, but you need to develop the skill to convert the win. Then setting up the position against the engine with its full strength and beating it is very helpful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;b) Practicing known openings and endings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;c) You want to develop a routine or algorithm or steps to choose your candidate moves, then setting up a long time control against the engine is good time management practice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So if you play 100 games, 95 with higher rated humans and 5 with equal rated engine is probably a good ratio.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Disclaimer: My Elo is ~1800 on ICC :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3158" LastActivityDate="2014-08-11T04:39:46.747" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6046" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6087" CreationDate="2014-08-11T06:04:28.790" Score="6" ViewCount="3961" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm looking to improve my game's opening. &#xA;Just wondering if any of you could recommend an app or website dedicated for this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3636" LastEditorUserId="16057" LastEditDate="2018-03-30T08:34:24.643" LastActivityDate="2019-05-22T16:37:37.260" Title="Recommended mobile app or website to memorize openings?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6047" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6035" CreationDate="2014-08-11T06:45:41.803" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Unfortunately playing against computers is a mistake amateur players often make.&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is not much to learn from computers as they are just that, computers. You will lose the psychological aspect which dominates a significant part of human chess. Computer's &quot;plans&quot; are based on brute calculation and not a  &quot;feeling&quot; for the position, as human players do. You cannot calculate to the level of a computer, nobody can, but you can obtain a &quot;feel&quot; for the position, and this can only be learnt by playing with strong human players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;That is the key, to play against strong human players&lt;/strong&gt;, be it on the internet or in real life, preferably in real life. I myself never played against computers, and instead concentrated on playing on internet chess websites. But the greatest aspect of my improvement was my experienced gained from playing strong human players, in real over-the-board games. This helped me to absorb their ideas, their plans and to become an overall better player. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Keep solving tactical puzzles, your doing good, don't stop! Tactics is a crucial part of chess and can help in transforming advantages from one form to another and to decide the game in your favor. &lt;strong&gt;Tactical Awareness&lt;/strong&gt; can also stop you from making blunders and seeing your opponents threats before he executes them...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; &quot;My opening and end game skills I think are adequate for the level I am playing at&quot;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The endgame is a crucially important part of chess which amateurs always disregard&lt;/strong&gt;. I cannot stress enough the importance of it. The legend himself Capablanca stressed the importance of the endgame. Improvement in the endgame will guarantee improvement of your entire game. Do not just neglect study of it because your endgame skills are &lt;code&gt;&quot;adequate for the level&quot;&lt;/code&gt; you are playing at (1400-1500). Move forward. You neglect study of the endgame, and you wonder why you are not improving, well...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For openings its not as serious at your level. You just have to know the basic principles (control the center, develop pieces, castle quickly). Restrict your opening choice as well to make study of it easier. For example, don't play all &lt;code&gt;1.e4&lt;/code&gt; &lt;code&gt;1.d4&lt;/code&gt; &lt;code&gt;1.Nf3&lt;/code&gt;. Don't respond to &lt;code&gt;1.e4&lt;/code&gt; with all &lt;code&gt;1...c5&lt;/code&gt; &lt;code&gt;1...e6&lt;/code&gt; &lt;code&gt;1...c6&lt;/code&gt;. Play just one opening! This will make it easier to absorb the ideas of that opening and will leave you more time to improve other aspects of your game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1890085103&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jeremy Silman's Complete Endgame Course&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; is the perfect book for the improvement of the endgame at your level. I recommend reading up and practicing until the 2000 level. Do not be intimidated by the rating, it's just a number. Some of the material is challenging but I'm sure with repeated practice you will absorb it easily. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;OK I know I'm a Jeremy Silman fanatic but &lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1890085138&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;How to Reassess Your Chess&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; is truly a great book which helped me to improve. Not trying to sell anything here, but it really is fantastic material.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To answer your question about creating positions that arise from puzzles&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&quot;is this a common pitfall in players around my level&quot;        &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well this just shows that you are at that level. Common pitfalls of players at your level is missing tactical combinations, implementing the wrong plan (bad judgement of the position) and ignorance of the endgame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Relating to your previous question&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&quot;how do players usually break through this?&quot;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Break through the common pitfalls of players at your level?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Perfect question to finalize my post, as I mentioned before.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.Play against strong(er) players (preferably in real life)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.Study the endgame&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3.Continue practicing tactics!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4.Read &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1890085138&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;How to Reassess Your Chess&lt;/a&gt; Or take a look at &lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://home.comcast.net/~danheisman/Events_Books/General_Book_Guide.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;OK just going to recommend a bunch of websites to help you&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chesstempo.com/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess Tempo&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.thechesswebsite.com/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;The Chess Website&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessclub.com/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Internet Chess Club&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/user/ChessNetwork&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess Network&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chessgames&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3357" LastActivityDate="2014-08-11T06:45:41.803" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6048" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6050" CreationDate="2014-08-11T08:14:55.227" Score="16" ViewCount="4673" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know the basics of opposition, but I am struggling to evaluate positions for drawishness in &lt;strong&gt;King + Pawn VS King&lt;/strong&gt; endgame. A lot of times it is useful to know whether you should make an exchange. For example, in this position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Black to move&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;k7/8/8/8/1PR4r/2K5/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black can simply exchange the rook and then move to b8 knowing that he has a draw. But in order to do so, he should know that position after exchange is drawish. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The problem is, that looking at positions like this&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;White to move&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;8/4k3/8/8/8/2P5/2K5/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;this&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Black to move&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;k7/8/8/8/1PR4r/2K5/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or this&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;White to move&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;4k3/8/8/8/8/2P5/8/6K1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can not quickly determine whether it is drawish or not. I end up thinking for 5 minutes and in the end I can be wrong (so to me it looks like I am simply guessing).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So is there an easy way to determine win/draw in King + Pawn vs King endgame (I am not asking how to secure a draw/win. I hope that I will be able to find it, knowing the evaluation in advance).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="703" LastEditorUserId="14079" LastEditDate="2018-11-22T09:11:41.763" LastActivityDate="2019-10-22T04:30:10.007" Title="Is there an easy way to detect a draw in a King + Pawn vs King endgame?" Tags="&lt;theory&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;evaluation&gt;&lt;pawn-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="6049" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6034" CreationDate="2014-08-11T08:29:14.757" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Actually, on the CCRL 40/4 there're around 170 engines under 1800, not just a dozen. You can also check this list based on bullet games: &lt;a href=&quot;http://e4e6.com/ratings.php?id=1001&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://e4e6.com/ratings.php?id=1001&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;Most of the engines work properly, especially at long time controls.&#xA;Almost all of them are still available on the Internet, just Google them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Alex&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3638" LastActivityDate="2014-08-11T08:29:14.757" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6050" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6048" CreationDate="2014-08-11T09:38:53.103" Score="21" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a very easy way to detect whether King and Pawn endgames are drawn or not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This method I use is a very easy to understand one from Karsten Mueller and Frank Lamprecht's excellent book &lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/1904600883&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Secrets of Pawn Endings&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It concerns &lt;strong&gt;key squares and opposition&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The rule states that if pawn has not reached or crossed the central line (5th rank for White and 4th rank for Black) then there are 3 key squares 2 squares in front of it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example this starting position, the key squares are b5, c5 and d5. If white's king can occupy any of these key squares then the game will be a win for white no matter what.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  [Event &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;????.??.??&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;White to Move&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1/2-1/2&quot;]&#xA;[SetUp &quot;1&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;4k3/8/8/8/8/2P5/8/6K1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;27&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Kf2 {The Key squares in this position are b5, c5 and d5. If white's king&#xA;can occupy any of these key squares then the game will be a win for white no&#xA;matter what.} Kd7 2. Ke3 Kc6 3. Kd3 (3. Kd4 Kd6 $11 {Opposition}) 3... Kd5 {&#xA;Unfortunately black has occupied the key squares mentioned, there is no way&#xA;for white's king to enter the key squares, therefore, the game is a draw.&#xA;Analysis will be continued to prove this} 4. c4+ Kc5 5. Kc3 Kc6 6. Kd4 Kd6 7.&#xA;c5+ Kc6 8. Kc4 Kc7 9. Kd5 Kd7 10. c6+ Kc7 11. Kc5 Kc8 12. Kb6 Kb8 13. c7+ Kc8&#xA;14. Kc6 $11 (14. Kb5 Kxc7) 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It turns out white could not occupy the key squares in time, therefore the game is a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The second rule is that if a pawn is on the 5th rank (or 4th for black) or beyond, there are 3 key squares in front of it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this position the key squares for white's king are f6, g6 and h6&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White is able to occupy one of these squares with his king and the win is secured. The variation shown shows if white had chosen a different route, black would then be able to secure the opposition and the key squares and the game would be a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;????.??.??&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;White to Move&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[SetUp &quot;1&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;4k3/8/8/6P1/6K1/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;9&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Kh5 (1. Kf5 Kf7 2. g6+ Kg7 3. Kg5 Kg8 4. Kf6 Kf8 5. g7+ Kg8 $11) 1... Kf7 2.&#xA;Kh6 Kf8 3. g6 Kg8 4. g7 Kf7 5. Kh7 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;One last key squares example, with a position you gave.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a win because White can occupy the key squares of the pawn b5, c5 and d5 (3 squares since the pawn is on the 3rd rank) without any problems&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However the variations I gave are to show if white had chosen the wrong route to get to the squares, &lt;code&gt;1.Kd3&lt;/code&gt; would be a heartbreaking failure as black can secure distant opposition with &lt;code&gt;1...Kd7&lt;/code&gt; and can therefore control the key squares. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The second variation &lt;code&gt;2.Kc4&lt;/code&gt; would also be met by brutal opposition &lt;code&gt;2...Kc6&lt;/code&gt; and control of the key squares for Black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The text moves show white occupying the key squares, sidestepping any tricks black has (and there are plenty as shown) and securing the win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;????.??.??&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;White to Move&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[SetUp &quot;1&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;8/4k3/8/8/8/2P5/2K5/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;5&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Kb3 (1. Kd3 Kd7 2. Kc4 Kc6) 1... Kd7 2. Kb4 (2. Kc4 Kc6) 2... Kd6 3. Kb5 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One final position, I hope you know this one! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;OK, Black has the opposition, isn't he safely drawing the game then? Well, there are exceptions to every rule, and this happens to be one. Opposition in King and Pawn endgames always works, except when the pawn is on the 5th rank and your king is also in front of it. This is an important pattern to know!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This position is a good one to emphasize the fact that King and Pawn endgames are very concrete and are based on calculation, judgement can be used with opposition and key squares but in the end stone cold analysis is the ultimate weapon; although it is best equipped with the knowledge of opposition and key squares! &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;:)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;White to Move&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[SetUp &quot;1&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;6k1/8/6K1/6P1/8/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;7&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Kf6 Kf8 2. g6 Kg8 3. g7 Kh7 4. Kf7 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3357" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-07-20T23:31:15.300" LastActivityDate="2019-07-20T23:31:15.300" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="6052" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6043" CreationDate="2014-08-11T14:00:25.243" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is a well deserved doubt that you have in this position. As a Catalan player, I like both continuations (i.e. Qxd8 or Nc3) for well defined reasons. First one important note on Catalan openings or similar positions: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;White's play evolves around the positional play of minor pieces.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Meaning in any position resulting from a Catalan, you should reason by continuously evaluating your minor pieces development progress versus that of your opponent (less focus on pawn structure as the center is already simplified.). Added to which there's white extremely solid and flexible pawn structure, which means any early end-game transitions should be favored for white. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now regarding your engine suggestions vs Wojo's version: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The engine of course looks for maximum edge in any position, in this particular one, the immediate endgame transition right after a queen exchange is favored for white, because of the slight edge in development, and there are no tempos to be gained by black, hence the slight + score you see in all evaluations after Qxd8. To showcase one of them: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Qxd8 example line&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;rnbq1rk1/pp3ppp/4pn2/2b1N3/2p5/6P1/PP2PPBP/RNBQ1RK1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Qxd8 Rxd8 2.Nc3 Be7 3.Bf4 Nd5 4.Rad1 g5 5.Bc1 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It goes without saying that white has the more comfortable position, with all pieces actively in play, better control on d-file, c4, g5 under pressure, and no pawn structure worries for white, whereas black needs to find the right tempos to activate the 3 remaining pieces and all the time cover the weaknesses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Qxd8 2nd example&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;rnbq1rk1/pp3ppp/4pn2/2b1N3/2p5/6P1/PP2PPBP/RNBQ1RK1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Qxd8 Rxd8 2.Nc3 Nbd7 3.Rd1 Be7 4.Nxc4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One example showing black can't just easily activate the pieces after the queen-exchange, after Nxc4, Bg5 coming, constant pressure on b7, better control on d-file...all shows how better (or just more comfortable white is). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Conclusion for Qxd8: If you're comfortable playing this type of middle-game endgame positions, you should definitely try playing the Qxd8 line, a good experience in these lines will greatly improve your minor pieces positional play (finding right squares, covering the right ones, keeping pressure, coordination, etc.). Note that these are not necessarily easy to play positions if you don't have experience in such positions. Often one gets confused where to place the pieces (knight on c4, or e5, or e3 etc... or maneuvers like Nb5 to Nd4 sometimes very handy, point being white can also easily mess up.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now regarding Wojo's suggestion: there's a simple reason behind: white intends to keep the queens on, and play for the slight activity edge, without forcing an endgame right off. After Nc3 there are many different lines that can be played, I will show two of them. In the calm ones, white's plan relies on black cramped white bishop, caged rook on a8, and the rather exposed queen of black after Qc7 or  Qb6 etc. Here you have to be good at keeping your slight edge and slow by slow poking at black's weaknesses, and most importantly finding the right time to exchange and simplify the position to leverage the advantage in an endgame. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Before I show the lines, note that after Nc3 black cannot just exchange the queens, because the resulting position after Rxd1 is just a much better version of what white had after Qxd8, since the d-file is completely in white's hands. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Nc3 example line&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;rnbq1rk1/pp3ppp/4pn2/2b1N3/2p5/6P1/PP2PPBP/RNBQ1RK1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Nc3 Qc7 2.Nxc4 Nc6 3.Bg5 Be7 4.Nb5 Qb8 5.Qc2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With Rfd1, Rac1 and Nd4 coming up, black is under great positional pressure and will have a very hard time to finish development for a while.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now one fancy line, where probably white has a great attack with very positive chances (doesn't necessarily mean black is hopeless).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Nc3 fancy continuation&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;rnbq1rk1/pp3ppp/4pn2/2b1N3/2p5/6P1/PP2PPBP/RNBQ1RK1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Nc3 Qc7 2.Nxc4 Bxf2+ 3.Rxf2 Qxc4 4.Rxf6 gxf6 5.Bh6 Nd7 6.Bxf8 Kxf8 7.Qd2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Where again white has the initiative with better chances, just look at the activity of each piece...(and the rook coming on f or d-file). This is a fancy and rather complicated line which you can avoid of course if you don't like.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So you see after both Qxd8 and Nc3, it's just a relatively equal game where white has the comfortable play, with easy to find squares for all his pieces, whereas black not necessarily lost, has to keep struggling to finish development without ending up with less pawns eventually. I personally like Nc3 because I usually play these lines with the queens on, and for you, you just have to see which type of lines you prefer to play (or better to say : more comfortable in), this should be your main reasoning when in doubts like &quot;what opening variations to play&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;By no means&lt;/strong&gt; an eval of +0.50 or +0.20 by the engine means winning for white, no one is able to keep such slight edge from the opening, not even the engines, you see these evaluations because they suggest who has the easier play, the initiative and the quicker development, but chess is way too dynamic to allow for such slight edges to suffice in winning a position. I certainly recommend the Catalan opening, and you should try all these lines for yourself at least a couple of times, so that all the ideas discussed above become clear to you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let me know if you have any further questions, and if you want to discuss a specific line.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT:&lt;/strong&gt; I would certainly recommend studying some of the games of Kramnik, Ivanchuk and Carlsen, all playing the white side of this opening. They will be very resourceful to you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3594" LastEditorUserId="3594" LastEditDate="2014-08-11T16:57:28.287" LastActivityDate="2014-08-11T16:57:28.287" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6053" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4539" CreationDate="2014-08-11T14:59:42.237" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Knowing which openings to study can be a pretty daunting task. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My advice would be to not take on too much at once. There are a huge number of openings and if you try to take on too many you'll end up being overwhelmed, and won't learn anything. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When first learning opening you're best to go with the odds. Learn opening that are likely to come up more often first. I don't have exact figures to back anything I'm saying up but when I started to learn openings I decided to learn one basic opening as white, and two as black (one in response to e4 and one to d4). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As white I tried to stick to the Scotch Game. Again. I can't back it up but sticking to a fairly standard opening seemed to happen more often than with a lot of other games. There's no point focusing on depth, because you'll rarely see the line you want. Instead, learn the first three moves and as many variations and responses you can think of. Then work on going to 4 moves deep. You'll find your repertoire being used a lot more than if you learn one variation to a depth of 8.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It doesn't really matter what openings you use but like I said, go with the odds. There's plenty of software or web sites that tell you the most common reply to e4. Then the most common reply to that etc. etc. until you're pretty proficient at the most common outcomes. Then you can worry about less common variations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2399" LastActivityDate="2014-08-11T14:59:42.237" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6054" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6043" CreationDate="2014-08-11T19:04:07.377" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;First of all, &lt;code&gt;7... Nc6&lt;/code&gt; is a good move and is the reason why &lt;code&gt;7. Ne5&lt;/code&gt; isn't played so often anymore.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If black plays &lt;code&gt;7... c5&lt;/code&gt;, the books recommend &lt;code&gt;8. dxc5 Bxc5 9. Nc3 Qc7 10. Nxc4 Bxf2 11. Rxf2 Qxc4 12. Rxf6! gxf6 13. Bh6&lt;/code&gt; (which I have also tried myself).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Nf3 d5 2. d4 Nf6 3. c4 e6 4. g3 Be7 5. Bg2 O-O 6. O-O dxc4 7. Ne5 c5 (7... Nc6) 8. dxc5 Bxc5 9. Nc3 Qc7 10. Nxc4 Bxf2 11. Rxf2 Qxc4 12. Rxf6! gxf6 13. Bh6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is difficult for black. If black plays &lt;code&gt;13... Re8&lt;/code&gt;, then white answers &lt;code&gt;14. Ne4&lt;/code&gt; and two forks are threatened. The best defence is &lt;code&gt;13... Nd7&lt;/code&gt; after which white can keep the pressure with &lt;code&gt;14. Ne4&lt;/code&gt;. Then &lt;code&gt;14... Rd8 15. Nxf6+ Kh8 16. e3! e5 17. Qh5 Nxf6 18. Qg5&lt;/code&gt; loses for black. The best defence is &lt;code&gt;14... Qb4!&lt;/code&gt; after which &lt;em&gt;The Catalan&lt;/em&gt; by Raetsky and Chetverik recommends &lt;code&gt;15. Rc1 f5 16. Bxf8 Nxf8 17. Nf6 Kg7 18. Qd8 Qb6+ 19. Qxb6 axb6 20. Nxe8+ Kg6 21. Nd6 Bd7 22. a3&lt;/code&gt;.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Nf3 d5 2. d4 Nf6 3. c4 e6 4. g3 Be7 5. Bg2 O-O 6. O-O dxc4 7. Ne5 c5 8. dxc5 Bxc5 9. Nc3 Qc7 10. Nxc4 Bxf2 11. Rxf2 Qxc4 12. Rxf6! gxf6 13. Bh6 Nd7 14. Ne4 Qb4 (14... Rd8 15. Nxf6+ Kh8 16. e3! e5 17. Qh5 Nxf6 18. Qg5) 15. Rc1 f5 16. Bxf8 Nxf8 17. Nf6 Kg7 18. Qd8 Qb6+ 19. Qxb6 axb6 20. Nxe8+ Kg6 21. Nd6 Bd7 22. a3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1485" LastActivityDate="2014-08-11T19:04:07.377" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6055" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6058" CreationDate="2014-08-11T23:13:09.573" Score="5" ViewCount="666" Body="&lt;p&gt;Kirsan Ilyumzhinov has just been re-elected as the next FIDE president again. He's so far beaten two World Chess Champions in the elections - Karpov and Kasparov, both by some absolutely big margins. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is his claim to (chess) fame?&quot; What do people like about him to give him so much power? He's the real king in chess, the most powerful chess personnel in the world and dominating the chess scene. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="17" LastEditDate="2014-08-15T00:05:51.143" LastActivityDate="2014-08-15T00:05:51.143" Title="Why Kirsan Ilyumzhinov is so popular in the chess world?" Tags="&lt;world-championship&gt;&lt;fide&gt;&lt;kasparov&gt;&lt;karpov&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="7" FavoriteCount="0" ClosedDate="2014-08-14T09:42:14.197" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6056" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4884" CreationDate="2014-08-12T01:16:35.680" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The weakness of the Elo rating system is that it depends on scoring, that is the assignment of win=1, loss=0, and draw=1/2. Scoring causes some information about chess game outcomes to be lost. It would be more accurate to measure chess playing strength in two dimensions. Please see: &lt;a href=&quot;http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2477868&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2477868&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3572" LastActivityDate="2014-08-12T01:16:35.680" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6058" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6055" CreationDate="2014-08-12T01:43:26.137" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;I thought that Nigel Short summed it up pretty well here: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/news/breaking-ilyumzhinov-beats-kasparov-110-61-at-fide-presidential-elections-4528&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chess.com/news/breaking-ilyumzhinov-beats-kasparov-110-61-at-fide-presidential-elections-4528&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;There's nothing wrong with chess players. If you ask in the playing hall, I'll bet 9 out of 10 will vote for Kasparov. The problem is: delegates. If the delegate has received an incentive to vote in a particular way, it doesn't matter whatever reason or logic is presented to him.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically, many delegates voting for Ilyumzhinov received some strong form of compensation to do so. He consistently wins because he has money (much of which he gained while ruling Kalmykia) and has zero moral compunctions about how he uses it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3270" LastActivityDate="2014-08-12T01:43:26.137" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6059" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-08-12T02:32:46.257" Score="7" ViewCount="6049" Body="&lt;p&gt;I’ve heard that each engine has its own style of play. Some are more positional and strategic, while others are more sharp and tactical.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And so my question is: could you roughly sort the following engines from the most sharp and tactical to the most positional and strategic?:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Critter 1.6a&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Deep Fritz 14&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Gull 3&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Hiarcs 14&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Houdini 4&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Komodo 7a&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Rybka 4&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Stockfish 5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And does the style of an engine depend on the time it takes to get to a high depth? I was thinking that maybe, for engines of roughly the same strength, engines that quickly get to a very high depth are more sharp and tactical, while engines that do not quickly get to a high depth have a richer and more complex evaluation function and therefore they are maybe more positional and strategic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3237" LastActivityDate="2021-05-08T14:50:13.507" Title="Since each engine has its own style of play… which engines are more positional/strategic and which engines are more sharp/tactical?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;houdini&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6061" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-08-12T15:39:48.373" Score="23" ViewCount="1198" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is algebraic notation used just to communicate chess moves in written and spoken form, or should players strive to use it during their thinking process as well?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Dan Heisman's excellent &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mongoosepress.com/thinker.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;The Improving Chess Thinker&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt;, which examines the thought process of chess players as originally studied by &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adriaan_de_Groot#Study_of_chess_players&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Adriaan de Groot&lt;/a&gt;, Dan asks chess players to verbalise their thought process using algebraic notation. He includes several transcripts from beginners through to masters, including that of Max Euwe translated from descriptive notation, which looks like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[A short extract from Max Euwe's analysis of the “de Groot A” position]:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/STrCI.png&quot; alt=&quot;de Groot position A from The Improving Chess Thinker by Dan Heisman&quot;&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  “1. Nxd5 Nxd5 2. Bxd5 Bxg5 – no, nothing then, 3. Rxc6 is a cute move but at the end of it all everything remains hanging. Something else:&#xA;  2. Bxe7 – he just takes back. 1...exd5 is very favourable (for me); he won't do that; it needn't be investigated...”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do Grandmasters assess candidate moves by thinking &lt;em&gt;“I take there, they take back with the knight”&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;“Nxd5 Nxd5”&lt;/em&gt;? Is the notation that appears in the transcripts a direct reflection of the actual thought process, or merely a vocalisation of what they're thinking in order to communicate their ideas to the researcher or coach?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or, put another way, is it beneficial for chess players to think in algebraic notation (because it's quicker to think in “the language of chess”, perhaps?), or is it purely an aid for communication?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2130" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2014-08-12T15:57:17.390" LastActivityDate="2019-12-08T20:17:18.800" Title="Do Grandmasters think using algebraic notation?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;psychology&gt;&lt;grandmaster&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6062" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6061" CreationDate="2014-08-12T19:51:25.783" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;I wrote to Dan Heisman to get his take on the question. Here's his reply:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;“Everyone is a little different. The book is algebraic so others can&#xA;  read and understand it. In practice some just think in pictures; no&#xA;  verbalization is accompanying. Others might think more &quot;If I go&#xA;  there...&quot; Sometimes algebraic is helpful to clarify in your own mind&#xA;  what you really mean.”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2130" LastActivityDate="2014-08-12T19:51:25.783" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6063" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6065" CreationDate="2014-08-12T20:29:58.813" Score="-7" ViewCount="1604" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is the background story before I get into my actual question. There is a chess tournament in a city near mine, starting at 28th of August. The thing is, my parents won't allow me to go there. Not because they don't want to. We end our vacations in 29, so we spend one day less. I say, can I go alone there(I am with some friends and my FM trainer), they say no because they don't know them really well. When I say that dad or the entire family can come, they say no because of the vacations. I live in a country with not so many tournaments, and this is both cheap, and near, for it. Now that you understand my predicament, I want to know if all the trouble of convincing my parents is worth it; the tournament is open and I have a 1500 chess.com rating, so I was wondering if the chess tournament would be a good fit for my score?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On a side note can you guys think of any ways on how to convince them to let me go? Let me know how you convinced your parents to let you go somewhere, and what is the best score to go to a tournament if 1500 is not okay. Thank you very much!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3405" LastEditorUserId="3648" LastEditDate="2014-08-14T08:13:16.710" LastActivityDate="2014-08-14T08:13:16.710" Title="Would I do okay in a Chess tournament with 1500 chess.com rating?" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="0" ClosedDate="2014-08-12T23:39:07.813" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6064" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6034" CreationDate="2014-08-12T20:53:45.520" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Take a look at &lt;a href=&quot;https://sites.google.com/site/numptychess/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;numpty&lt;/a&gt;. It claims to have a ELO of about 1500-1800. I've played it on FICS before and it usually has a blitz rating of 1900-2100. Note that FICS ratings are usually horribly skewed by all the cheating that happens on there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="72" LastActivityDate="2014-08-12T20:53:45.520" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6065" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6063" CreationDate="2014-08-12T22:08:09.130" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let them know how much this tournament means to you and how much you will save by going to this tournament rather than one back home. Convincing parents isn't exactly the easiest and I am well aware of this but if you are able to make them consider the facts about this tournament you should be fine. Ex:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Letting them know that the tournament ends that day at a specific time, this will allow them to assess their schedule and see whether or not your tournament interferes with their plans.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Discuss with them that the cost is fairly cheap and as such it would be almost a crime  not to attend!&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Relate the tournament with the vacation, perhaps this annual tournament has lots of history and is a huge attraction during this time of the year.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These are just examples of what you can say to convince your parents. As for your chess rating I haven't done any real tournaments myself and I am not sure how your rating on chess.com will do against actual players in a live setting. Overall it doesn't sound bad at all, and you should use this experience to become a better player. I wish you good luck with these tasks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3648" LastEditorUserId="3648" LastEditDate="2014-08-13T21:17:48.017" LastActivityDate="2014-08-13T21:17:48.017" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6066" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6055" CreationDate="2014-08-13T05:24:27.353" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;To me personally, Kirsan is the lesser devil of the two. Kasparov, as great a player as he was(greatest in my opinion), is a very volatile person and he's fighting Putin which occupies a majority of his time. He doesn't have the administrative qualities to lead a world chess organization and personality doesn't necessarily get you the FIDE president-ship. That said, 19 years of Kirsan has been a lot to take and maybe the time was right for a change. Maybe someone apart from Garry. Kirsan did do some good things to Chess, advocating introducing chess at schools and as I understand he was extremely successful in the republic state he governed. Dude is highly eccentric, though, with the 'alleged' abduction by Aliens.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3535" LastActivityDate="2014-08-13T05:24:27.353" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6067" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6068" CreationDate="2014-08-13T07:46:11.450" Score="6" ViewCount="1070" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let's say the position looks like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Black to move&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1.d4 Nf6 2. c4 c5 dxc5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I usually do this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Black to move&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 Nf6 2. c4 c5 3. dxc5 e6 4. b4 a5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have played this position only once, and won, but still this might repeat in a open tournament I might go soon, so I need help to figure this out, because in the videos I have seen for the Benoni, I can't really find this variation anywhere.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3405" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-03-15T14:45:38.963" LastActivityDate="2020-05-01T11:35:21.893" Title="In the modern benoni, what should I do if this happens?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;minor-variations&gt;&lt;modern-benoni&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="6068" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6067" CreationDate="2014-08-13T10:55:34.860" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In the modern benoni, what should I do if this happens&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your continuation is the strongest in my opinion. I would advise you not to change anything.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;because in the videos I have seen for the Benoni, I can't really find this variation anywhere.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, because it is weak. The best White can do after your move, &lt;strong&gt;in my opinion&lt;/strong&gt; is this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;BenOni&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 c5 3.dxc5 e6 4.b4 a5! 5.b5 Bxc5 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here, I would aim for &lt;code&gt;Bb2 + e3 + Nf3 + Be2&lt;/code&gt; setup as White. Not ideal, but surely playable and the nearest towards equality I can get after that horrible &lt;code&gt;b4&lt;/code&gt;...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If White tries to be &quot;smart&quot; about keeping the extra pawn, here is how I would play as Black:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;BenOni&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 c5 3.dxc5 e6 4.b4 a5! $40 5.Bd2 ( 5.Qb3 axb4! 6.Qxb4 Na6! ) ( 5.Qa4 Na6! 6.a3? ( 6.Bd2? axb4 7.Bxb4 Nxb4! 8.Qxa8 Nc2+ 9.Kd2 Nxa1 $17 ) 6...axb4! $17 7.axb4?? Nc7! $19 ) 5...axb4! 6.Bxb4 Na6! $32 $40 7.Ba3 Nxc5 8.Bb2!? ( 8.Nf3? Rxa3! 9.Nxa3 Qa5+ 10.Qd2 Qxa3 $17)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your only problem after &lt;code&gt;b5&lt;/code&gt; will be that you must play &lt;code&gt;...d5&lt;/code&gt; which turns the game into positional battle. There will be no wild tactical positions anymore ( but still you will stand better ) so you will have to adapt &lt;strong&gt;psychologically&lt;/strong&gt; to this fact ( tactical players hate &quot;dry&quot; positions and positional ones hate &quot;wild&quot; positions ). Try not to fall for this psychological trick. That is my last advice and a warning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Good luck on the tournament!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastEditorUserId="2042" LastEditDate="2014-08-13T16:07:35.273" LastActivityDate="2014-08-13T16:07:35.273" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6069" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="823" CreationDate="2014-08-13T11:28:18.693" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can play blindfold chess against a strong computer online at &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.apronus.com/chess/computer.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.apronus.com/chess/computer.htm&lt;/a&gt; - you need to tick the checkbox called &quot;blindfold chess&quot; and the board will become empty. The moves played will be displayed as text but the empty board is still used as the interface for making moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the engine is too strong you can give it less time to think to make it weaker.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can untick the box at any time to see the position. You can take moves back. Additionally, by clicking on a button &quot;Chess Editor in New Window&quot; you can transfer your game to a chess editor which allows you to export it as FEN or PGN or to make a permanent link as a bookmark or to share with other people. You can also make an animated diagram with the whole game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Moreover, you can practice your blindfold chess starting from any set up position. For example, you may start with just the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.apronus.com/chess/puzzle/?p=08X8X8X4k3X8X8X8X1NB1K3_w_-_-_0_1&amp;amp;h=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;bishop and knight against a lonely king&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3456" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-07-24T16:27:32.943" LastActivityDate="2019-07-24T16:27:32.943" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="6070" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6078" CreationDate="2014-08-13T13:21:41.197" Score="7" ViewCount="1686" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm building a chess app which will have a Elo rating system.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Would it be more appropriate to update player's rating based on their rating at the beginning of the game, or their rating at the end of the game?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, Player A (1600) plays against Player B (1700), and it took a week to complete the game (correspondence chess). During this week Player A won some other games and their rating become 1650. Player B lost some games, and their rating become 1680. Now, the game between Player A and Player B ends.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Should I update the ratings as if:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;1600 played against 1700, or&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;1650 payed against 1680, or&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;something else&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What would be more appropriate, and why?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3632" LastEditorUserId="3632" LastEditDate="2014-08-13T13:28:43.220" LastActivityDate="2014-08-14T04:38:16.940" Title="How to update Elo rating?" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;elo&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6071" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6070" CreationDate="2014-08-13T13:34:41.923" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The most correct way would be to use the starting rating. Why? Because that was the rating they agreed to start the match upon, and knowing what they would win or lose made them decide to start it, after the evaluated the risk vs reward. So I think the starting rating of both players is the best solution.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3405" LastEditorUserId="3405" LastEditDate="2014-08-13T13:50:37.297" LastActivityDate="2014-08-13T13:50:37.297" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6072" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6070" CreationDate="2014-08-13T15:12:33.877" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you were modeling after the USCF system, you would be looking at scenario 2. 1650 played against 1680. I experienced this myself in the USCF rating system wherein I played a 10 week league tournament with the rating at 1953. And I played a Wednesday night game in my area around Week 6 and lost the game and my rating became 1929. After the 10th week, my USCF rating showed my increase from 1929=&gt;1995 and not 1953=&gt;x and x=&gt;y. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3535" LastActivityDate="2014-08-13T15:12:33.877" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6073" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6070" CreationDate="2014-08-13T15:36:51.687" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would use option 2 for a variety of reasons. Maybe the most important one is the potential for abuse of option 1.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Two players start out at the same level in the USCF or FIDE system. They play a long match with one player scoring the vast majority of the points. Eventually the ratings will stabilize at about the loser being (start-400) and the winner being (start+400).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Under option 1, a 2000 player could start 100 games against a similarly-rated friend, win them all, and suddenly be the highest rated person on the site at 3000+. This will, among other things, make your site look bad. The player that lost will fall below 1000, but those points are easily gained back, particularly if he starts 100 games against 1200 players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Option 2 is much more stable. It is used by all major correspondence sites that I know of (chess.com, redhotpawn etc.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: More scenarios. An 1800 player accepts the challenge of an 800. A month later, the former 800 is at 1700 and trouncing the 1800. When the 1800 resigns, he loses the maximum rather than what he would have lost against his opponent's true strength.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A 2000-strength player, through some black magic, acquires a rating of 1200. They start a bunch of games against 1400s and win close to all of them. The 1400s will be universally disenchanted at having to lose 20+ points to such a scoundrel.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3270" LastEditorUserId="3270" LastEditDate="2014-08-13T16:11:24.040" LastActivityDate="2014-08-13T16:11:24.040" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6074" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6070" CreationDate="2014-08-13T15:50:42.617" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Neither is &quot;correct&quot;. You need to consider the effects of any strategy, and determine what's right &lt;em&gt;for your app&lt;/em&gt;. Personally I think you should always plan for your app to be popular--and once it's popular, people &lt;em&gt;will&lt;/em&gt; attempt to game whatever system you've put in place. So you need to consider the abuse cases in each scenario, as well as how the system serves both new and established users, and decide what factors of the system are most important to you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course within each system, you've got a wide range of options for the actual implementation, which can help to enhance or mitigate the factors laid out below, but I'm going to skip all that since it's not what you asked about.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think the question as it stands is a little too opinion-based to be answered definitively, so all I'm going to do here is lay out some of the major points of each system. Like I said, it's up to you to decide what's important to you and your user base.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Calculating Using Starting Ratings&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this system, the main abuse case you need to look at is someone starting a hundred games at once against a dummy account (or several), to win them all and inflate their rating. This is fairly detectable and easy to engineer against (in fact the Elo system already contains some restrictions on such manipulation), but you do need to watch out for it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The downside to this system is that new players will have very unstable ratings for a time, and take a while to reach their true rating. Most systems already deal with this by vastly increasing the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elo_rating_system#Most_accurate_K-factor&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;K-factor&lt;/a&gt; for new players, so that their ratings change very quickly for their first 20-50 games or so.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, say you have an established player with a high rating (say 1900), up against a new player with a lower, provisional rating (say 1200). If the new player's true strength is actually 2000+, the established player may lose many more points for a loss (1900 vs 1200) than he would have if the score was calculated using the most recent scores. Of course, if the new player is only playing against high-rated players, &lt;em&gt;someone&lt;/em&gt; is going to have to foot the bill no matter what system you're using.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Easy to spot potential abuse&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Slow rating convergence&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Calculating Using Current Ratings&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the most-recent-ratings system, the main abuse case is likely to be people dragging out games or prematurely resigning them in order to take advantage of dips or spikes in their or their opponent's ratings. For instance, if I've been on a losing streak, so that I'm below my true average rating, this system actually gives me an &lt;em&gt;incentive&lt;/em&gt; to immediately resign every other game where I'm not &lt;em&gt;winning&lt;/em&gt;, because I'll lose fewer points now, by resigning them all at once while my rating is already low, than I would if I waited until my rating recovered. Alternately, if my opponent's rating drops while the game progresses, I have a strong incentive to make the game last &lt;em&gt;as long as possible&lt;/em&gt; in real time, no matter whether I'm winning or losing--because either way, when my opponent's rating recovers, I'll come off better. This sort of gaming of the system is much harder to detect conclusively.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, as others have pointed out, the individual results are more accurate, and people's ratings therefore converge faster. You'll also lessen the effect of the game played by a provisional 1200 against an established 1900, though personally I think this is not at all a big deal--established players, in my experience, don't care so much about temporary rating losses as newer players do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Hard to spot potential abuse&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Faster rating convergence&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1201" LastEditorUserId="1201" LastEditDate="2014-08-14T04:38:16.940" LastActivityDate="2014-08-14T04:38:16.940" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6078" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6070" CreationDate="2014-08-13T20:50:41.870" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Remember what a rating is: it's an estimate of the relative strengths of the players. The more information you include in your rating calculation, the more accurate it will be and the faster it will converge. At the end of an OTB game, the only new information you have is the result of that game. However, on a correspondence site, you also have the information from both players' results while the game was in progress. Why would you not want to use that information?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To update the players' ratings based on their ratings at the start of the game is to say that you think their ratings at the start of the game are a better estimate of their relative strength than their ratings at the end of the game. In other words, it's saying that you believe the ratings are becoming &lt;em&gt;less&lt;/em&gt; accurate with time. If that's what you believe, you shouldn't update them at all!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2789" LastActivityDate="2014-08-13T20:50:41.870" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6079" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6055" CreationDate="2014-08-13T21:08:29.630" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Without getting into the pros and cons of either candidate or, more to the point, the cons of the incumbant, there might still be some value in reading &lt;a href=&quot;http://kevinbonham.blogspot.no/2014/08/soccer-with-pawns-world-chess.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this account of the FIDE presidential election&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The author, Kevin Bonham, is the delegate of the Australian Chess Federation and he's quite open about the attempts to sway his vote through bribery.  He took the gifts, but it changed nothing because the decision was made prior to his departing for Tromsø (the ACF backed the Kasparov campaign much earlier in the year; I believe the ACF vote was held shortly after Kasparov visited Australia in April).  Anyway, Kevin is a psephologist so he spends his working life studying the conduct and outcome of elections, which adds a slightly different dimension to accounts of this type of election.  He is quite right in his comparison of the FIDE elections to those of the UN, except at the UN the bribing is generally of whole countries or the leadership of those countries, rather than of the ambassadors those countries send to the UN.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1737" LastActivityDate="2014-08-13T21:08:29.630" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6080" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5571" CreationDate="2014-08-13T22:34:49.073" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Have you tried one of the more recent forks of Scid?  Specifically &lt;a href=&quot;http://scidvspc.sourceforge.net&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;ScidvsPC&lt;/a&gt;, which is actively maintained.  At the very least it reduces many of the bugs and there are some improvements.  The export to HTML function now includes a javascript option to produce a board viewer for websites, that might do some of what you want.  It will also display annotated games (though it usually won't display any introductory annotations before the first move).  There's also &lt;a href=&quot;http://chessx.sourceforge.net&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;ChessX&lt;/a&gt; which looks relatively decent, but I'm not sure how much it will meet your needs.  They're both free, though, so worth a shot.  CheesX runs on Windows, OS X and Linux.  ScidvsPC includes a Mac version, but I can't remember if Linux support is native or needs Wine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both of those programs support exporting the PGN to HTML, which is good enough for web pages, but conversion to alternative mark up (or down) languages doesn't seem to have enough demand to have encouraged any development in that field yet.  You might need to code it yourself or conspire with one of the projects under active development to do so.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1737" LastActivityDate="2014-08-13T22:34:49.073" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6081" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-08-14T14:42:55.213" Score="9" ViewCount="1336" Body="&lt;p&gt;If one were to analyse a large number of chess games, which specific piece (not &lt;em&gt;type&lt;/em&gt; of piece) would be found to be taken the least number of times? And yes, in light of SomePatzer's comment, besides the kings of course.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3660" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2014-08-14T23:40:47.360" LastActivityDate="2017-02-08T04:49:41.797" Title="Which piece is least likely to be taken?" Tags="&lt;statistics&gt;&lt;captures&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6082" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6083" CreationDate="2014-08-14T16:32:59.073" Score="-2" ViewCount="388" Body="&lt;p&gt;If we suppose to have 2 powerful computer, that are able to calculate all moves in some seconds, who will win, the black or the white? Or the game will always be draw? (let say we have a unlimited number of moves in this case)&#xA;Does the winner in this case depend from the strategy?&#xA;We now chess game is very complex having 8x8 board with 32 peices. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3661" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2014-08-27T18:35:01.323" LastActivityDate="2014-09-22T07:10:58.317" Title="Who is the winner between two powerful computer opponents?" Tags="&lt;theory&gt;&lt;software&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6083" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6082" CreationDate="2014-08-14T16:49:00.643" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The answer to &quot;who wins between two perfect computers&quot; depends on whether White or Black wins (or draws) with perfect play from both sides.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/q/2778/1201&quot;&gt;No one knows the answer to this question.&lt;/a&gt; If we did, Chess would be considered to be &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solved_game&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;solved&lt;/a&gt;. That is, we would be able to define &quot;perfect play&quot;. However, Chess is not generally considered likely to be solved anytime soon: the number of possible positions is simply far too great to even represent on any current machinery. If you could somehow store the correct move for any given position in a &lt;em&gt;single bit&lt;/em&gt; (which you can't), you'd still need (approximately)...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1,250,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;...&lt;strong&gt;PETABYTES&lt;/strong&gt; of storage space just to hold the tablebase. Obviously, this is so far beyond our current technical capabilities that it is, for the moment, impossible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solving_chess#Predictions_on_when.2Fif_chess_will_be_solved&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;See here for more&lt;/a&gt; (with further links to a small fraction of the huge amount of research that exists on the topic).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1201" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.193" LastActivityDate="2014-08-14T16:49:00.643" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6085" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6046" CreationDate="2014-08-14T18:19:06.433" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my experience, merely memorizing openings isn't going to help you unless you're playing strictly against lower rated players. What will help you with stronger rated players is to analyze and understand your opening and all the possible moves your opponent can make. If you play 1. e4, your opponent has at least three moves he'll consider (e5, Nc6, Nf6), and that's if he isn't playing something complicated like the Sicilian (c5). Supposedly ChessTempo is working on a mobile app, something to look for and keep in mind for the future. The desktop tactics is highly recommended, I don't expect anything less from the mobile app. However in the meantime, most apps searched under &quot;chess openings&quot; have about four stars. You should look and see which you like best to hold you over until ChessTempo's app comes out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3662" LastActivityDate="2014-08-14T18:19:06.433" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6086" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6046" CreationDate="2014-08-14T20:06:40.923" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I suggest you focus on learning a few common openings rather than attempt to study a large number up front. In most cases, you can transpose to one of the openings you have studied with a little thought and your play will improve in this way. You should pick one or two openings for each major opening style, e.g. queen pawn and king pawn. The list I started with was Queens Gambit and the most common responses to it, Queens Gambit Accepted, Queens Gambit Declined as well as the Slav defense (exchange variation). These openings are classic openings with a lot of depth in theory but are solid foundations. I also learned the Reti because it was a hypermodern opening and the play style is more interesting and it can transpose easily into the other openings I knew well at the time. From the point of view of black, I studied the common queen gambit responses as well as the Grunfeld defense. The king's indian defense is also very interesting to explore. For king pawn openings, I studied the Giuoco Piano and the Ruy Lopez.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I found youtube to be a very good reference, particularly the videos by the St. Louis chess club. As an example, most of the openings I mentioned for white are covered by GM Varuzhan Akobian in &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xh4sO1ICS_Q&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xh4sO1ICS_Q&lt;/a&gt;. I found his explanations of not just memorizing the move order but explaining the why of each move to be most helpful. The opening explorer at &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.365chess.com/opening.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.365chess.com/opening.php&lt;/a&gt; was useful for browsing openings, but once again the why matters much more than the how. There is an adroid app called Chess Openings that reproduces some of the information from the opening explorer but in a tabular format. I also own a copy of FCO but I would suggest you watch the youtube videos I mentioned and focus your studies on a handful of openings. When you are beat by someone using an opening you don't understand, use the opening explorer to figure out what opening they played, and then give it some study. You'll expand your skill set in no time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3663" LastEditorUserId="3663" LastEditDate="2014-08-14T20:26:15.957" LastActivityDate="2014-08-14T20:26:15.957" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6087" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6046" CreationDate="2014-08-14T21:39:05.400" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.kalab.pgnviewer&amp;amp;hl=en&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess PGN Master&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.pgnmentor.com/files.html#openings&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;pgnmentor.com&lt;/a&gt; are how I study openings. Download one of the large PGN files on the opening you want to learn, open it up with the viewer and autoplay through games during your downtime. I tend to stick to the games of only the players I recognize so that I am not learning from 1300s (there are a ton of high-level games in each file). This is great for learning the common themes of an opening. You don't have to understand every move but sometimes I will pause it and try to work out a particular tactic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To memorize specific lines, I make openings files in Chessbase built from the games of today's top players (I consider anything that a 2600+ FIDE has played and my computer doesn't immediately hate to be playable for me). I then play through them, forcing myself to remember the options available for each side in the position before I make the next move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As others have mentioned, focusing on openings is not going to help you improve very much below maybe 2000 FIDE. However, the first method I described can be used to improve at any level-you can retrieve all of the games of a great player (I started with Capablanca) and watch their moves zip past. This in my opinion is the best way to learn pawn structures. Jeremy Silman has recommended this method (though not this specific configuration) many times in his chess.com articles.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3270" LastEditorUserId="16057" LastEditDate="2018-03-30T08:34:33.220" LastActivityDate="2018-03-30T08:34:33.220" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6088" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6081" CreationDate="2014-08-14T21:59:11.047" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The obvious answer is the king. It will be taken 0 times. The most frequent one would be a pawn: there are 16 pawns and you can hardly find a game, where a pawn is not taken. I would bet that the least frequently taken (apart from king) would be a queen. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I do not have statistics to back up my assertion, but you have only 2 queens and 4 rooks, bishops, knights. Also pro players prefer not to exchange queens early, so they will go only after some of the other pieces would be exchanged.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="703" LastActivityDate="2014-08-14T21:59:11.047" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6089" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6081" CreationDate="2014-08-14T23:58:37.543" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Probably the rooks. That's why the greatest number of endings are the rook endings. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The knights and bishops fight it out early on and get &quot;killed.&quot; Later, the queens are targets because they're so powerful, and they get traded. The rooks are left on the board. Sometimes one or both sets are traded, but often, they remain until one player resigns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Between the rooks, the queen rook is less exposed, and therefore less likely to be captured.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2014-08-14T23:58:37.543" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6090" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-08-15T06:09:29.680" Score="1" ViewCount="179" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Black to move&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;r1b1kb2/pp1p2pp/2n1qn2/3P4/3p4/2N4P/PPP2PP1/R1BQR1K1 b q - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is Black's best move in this position? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Would black's best move be &lt;code&gt;Qxe1&lt;/code&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3630" LastEditorUserId="2042" LastEditDate="2014-08-15T11:28:28.443" LastActivityDate="2019-12-25T18:20:50.967" Title="What is Black's best move in this position?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6091" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6094" CreationDate="2014-08-15T07:06:44.090" Score="10" ViewCount="1579" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am just asking if there is any book that cover specifically on the Maroczy Bind structure, which can arise from Sicilian Accelerated Dragon&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 g6 5.c4 Bg7 6.Nc3 Nc6 7.Be3 Nf6 8.f3 O-O 9.Be2 Bd7 10.O-O Rc8 11.Qd2 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, any suggestions on the way of playing this position onwards is most welcomed. Because for me, I am lost after reaching this position and I just play for developing. Are there any plans or guidelines for white for playing for a win?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The comment doesn't have to be based on the position above. Any suggestion regarding the Maroczy Bind structure is welcomed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3381" LastActivityDate="2017-06-23T06:58:55.677" Title="Opening books, theory on Maroczy Bind" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6092" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6090" CreationDate="2014-08-15T09:42:47.743" Score="4" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;r1b1kb2/pp1p2pp/2n1qn2/3P4/3p4/2N4P/PPP2PP1/R1BQR1K1 b KQkq - 1 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Qxe1+ 2.Qxe1+ Ne7 (2... Kd8 3.dxc6 dxc3) 3.d6 dxc3 4.dxe7 Bxe7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, Black's &quot;best&quot; move is Qxe1+. His queen is pinned against his king, so it will be lost on the next move whatever happens. Black may as well get as much material back for the queen as possible, which means taking the rook.  But then Black is down queen for two minor pieces, with his king stuck in the centre and bad development: he should just resign.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The real question is not &quot;What should I do if I get into this position?&quot; but &quot;How should I avoid getting into this position in the first place?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2789" LastEditorUserId="2789" LastEditDate="2014-08-15T12:22:48.017" LastActivityDate="2014-08-15T12:22:48.017" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6093" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-08-15T09:57:12.400" Score="6" ViewCount="15824" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am looking for a GUI for stockfish that can analyse the whole chess game and give me the following output: For every move in the game, it should give me a list of N (let it be 3) best moves with a score corresponding to each of these moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is a &lt;a href=&quot;https://arena.chessdom.com/games/show/stream/8152#/game/stream/8152&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;good example&lt;/a&gt;. As you see, after each move I can see a corresponding best replies and their score. I need this to analyse a few hundred games automatically.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;P.S.&lt;/strong&gt; just to be clear. I do not need a software to do this with few hundred games. If it can analyse one game in the way I want, I can make it analyse all games. I just wanted to show a high level picture what I am planning to do. Sorry, that it was misleading.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="703" LastEditorUserId="703" LastEditDate="2014-08-15T19:55:45.077" LastActivityDate="2020-05-09T17:52:05.507" Title="GUI for stockfish that can analyse the full game" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;engines&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6094" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6091" CreationDate="2014-08-15T16:17:01.237" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Maroczy System is covered from white's point of view in &lt;em&gt;Opening for White according to Kramnik, Vol 3&lt;/em&gt; (2001) by Khalifman. This book contains around 70 pages about the Maroczy. In the new edition (2011), the Maroczy System is moved to Volume 4 for some reason.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is also a small chapter about the Maroczy in &lt;em&gt;Wojo's Weapons, Volume 3&lt;/em&gt; by Hilton and Ippolito. Here the focus is more on ideas for white than on concrete lines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1485" LastActivityDate="2014-08-15T16:17:01.237" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6095" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6081" CreationDate="2014-08-15T19:50:21.553" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;If by taken, you mean captured, then the least likely to be taken might be the queen, although it's impossible to statistically prove it as there are as many possible chess games as atoms in the universe. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By taken, if you consider an exchange, I would bet on the rooks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3535" LastEditorUserId="3535" LastEditDate="2014-08-16T03:14:46.263" LastActivityDate="2014-08-16T03:14:46.263" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6096" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6093" CreationDate="2014-08-16T07:00:16.140" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, this is possible. But in a slightly crude way. It is possible with Arena Chess GUI 3.5. What you need to do is the following-&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) Open the pgn file in Arena GUI&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) Confiure any engine with Multi-PV enabled to your choice of top &quot;N&quot; moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) Now open Engines &gt; Automatic Analysis&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4) In Source tab select &quot;List of EPD/PGN Files&quot; and Click the icon for adding all PGN files for which you need the automatic analysis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5) Check &quot;WhiteMoves&quot; and &quot;BlackMoves&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;6) If the PGN file contains multiple PGNs then select the range of game numbers you want it to process&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;7) Select range of move numbers if needed&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;8) Now go to the Output tab and select &quot;Write in protocol file&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;9) Now start the analysis and after its done, you can check the protocol file. The last section for each move contains the best &quot;n&quot; moves calculated by the engine. Parsing this protocol file should be really easy if you want to automate it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note: The pgn itself can be altered to add the scores, but it does not add multiple moves at one shot.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example output in the protocol file:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;   ---------------------------------------------------------------------------&#xA;16/25   00:01      3,444,292    2,274,961   -0.04   0-0 Ne5 Nc6 Nd2 Rd8 Qb3 Bd7 0-0 Qc7 Re1 h6 Ndf3 Ne4 Nxd7 Rxd7 Ne5 Bxe5 fxe5 Qb6&#xA;16/25   00:01      3,444,292    2,274,961   -0.08   Nc6 Ne5 Bd7 Nd2 0-0 Qb3 Qc7 0-0 Rfc8 Re1 h6 Ndf3 a6 Bd3 Na5 Qc2 Nc4 Bxc4 dxc4&#xA;16/25   00:01      3,444,292    2,274,961   -0.08   Bd7 Qb3 Qc7 Ne5 Nc6 Nd2 a6 0-0 0-0 Re1 Rfc8 Bd3 h6 Ndf3 Na5 Qc2 Nc4 Bxc4 dxc4&#xA;8/16/2014 12:24:59 PM, Time for this analysis: 00:00:02, Rated time: 00:04&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course it also has flexibility to tailor what gets dumped into the file as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3158" LastEditorUserId="3158" LastEditDate="2014-08-16T07:05:45.723" LastActivityDate="2014-08-16T07:05:45.723" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6097" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6098" CreationDate="2014-08-16T17:39:34.877" Score="7" ViewCount="280" Body="&lt;p&gt;Although I think I've played a lot of games, my ability is still very low. I've never read any books on chess. Perhaps this explains my poor games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As I'm starting to research some chess online, I'm left wondering why people focus on particular openings. Surely these are all well researched by people, and you'd end up just playing through the motions of what a computer would do in certain situations. Why don't people open with more randomness, in a sort of pieces scattered to the wind style? Surely opponents won't be expecting it and games will be played anew for both players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Should you think the above is rubbish, please point towards a book/site that I should read.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3671" LastEditorUserId="11202" LastEditDate="2017-06-23T06:55:32.133" LastActivityDate="2017-06-23T18:49:18.723" Title="Novice question about openings" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;books&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6098" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6097" CreationDate="2014-08-16T18:29:33.703" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Openings have been classified roughly as being very &quot;tactical and sharp&quot; versus &quot;positional and dull&quot;. For example: e4-e5 (king's pawn), e4-c5 (sicilian defense) fall under the former category, whereas d4-d5 (queen's pawn), e4-c6 (caro-kann defense) under the latter. But not all games strictly follow the above thumb rule, each opening can transpose to either tactical or positional depending on the lines chosen in the middle game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That said, players chose their liking of openings and study various lines originating from the opening. Once the number of moves reaches 2 or above, the possibilities grow exponentially and hence most of the times will not result in the exact same game that the people had studied earlier, even at the grandmaster level, let alone amateurs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You could open randomly, but in doing so you will be violating the basic opening principles and hence will most likely lose the game against an experienced player. You can check out the following link for some opening guidelines-&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.danheisman.com/opening-principles.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.danheisman.com/opening-principles.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3158" LastEditorUserId="13610" LastEditDate="2017-06-23T18:49:18.723" LastActivityDate="2017-06-23T18:49:18.723" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6099" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14803" CreationDate="2014-08-16T18:48:25.640" Score="9" ViewCount="2185" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is the situation. I have a friend with whom I very much like to discuss chess (our games, other games etc.). We are not living in the same country, so we discuss chess on-line. During our on-line discussions, we often, of course, need a chessboard. Usually, we use our wooden chessboards (which we see through our computer cameras), but this is inconvenient, as it causes synchronization difficulties. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is: Is there a site or a chess program with a chessboard which both my distant friend and me could see and alter, in such a way that every change in position is simultaneously shown to him and to me. In other words, something like a &quot;live analysis board&quot;. If we were at the same place, we would have a chessboard on which we would analyze a game. He could alter the position, and I would see it, and vice versa. Now, I need the same thing, just on-line. Does anybody use something similar and/or has a suggestion? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I hope my description above is enough to understand what I mean. Obviously, my English is far from perfect, but I hope it will do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, I would like to stress that I am NOT asking for a suggestion for a site for PLAYING chess, but for ANALYZING games and discussing different positions. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any suggestion would be appreciated. Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2792" LastActivityDate="2016-07-01T16:19:56.160" Title="On-line live analysis board?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;online-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6100" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6097" CreationDate="2014-08-16T19:16:08.130" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;Why don't people open with more randomness, in a sort of pieces scattered to the wind style? Surely opponents won't be expecting it and games will be played anew for both players.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many people do this. It's a perfectly valid strategy at lower levels of play (which is a category that includes people who laymen would think of as &lt;em&gt;very&lt;/em&gt; good players).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, there's a reason that some opening moves are played over and over at high levels: they are good. When you deviate from them, the different move you made is probably not as good. When your opponents are strong enough to recognize and exploit these subpar moves, your positions will be worse than if you had stuck to theory. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is why world-class players memorize reams of opening theory-to do anything else would be to make a concession to the opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3270" LastActivityDate="2014-08-16T19:16:08.130" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6101" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6099" CreationDate="2014-08-16T20:11:14.660" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can use software for remotely accessing your friend's computer. He could run a program displaying a chessboard on the screen and you could use your own mouse to move the mouse pointer on his screen. You will both be seeing his screen and both able to affect the board with the mouse.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3456" LastActivityDate="2014-08-16T20:11:14.660" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6102" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6099" CreationDate="2014-08-16T20:22:38.647" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can do this on chess.com: see this &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSu_oPbXa-Y&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;tutorial&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also analyze together on ICC, but ICC costs money.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most sites that let you play games will have some feature like this, if only because they would like to encourage coaches to give lessons online using their service.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: according to Keshav's answer, apparently the chess.com analysis functionality is only available with a paid account.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastEditorUserId="291" LastEditDate="2014-08-17T12:51:23.573" LastActivityDate="2014-08-17T12:51:23.573" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6104" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-08-16T23:33:51.087" Score="-6" ViewCount="429" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have three questions about the chess engine Komodo.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Firstly, where can I buy and order it? I would like to have it in a CD (not just download it). I went into the website of a chess store near where I live (Paris), but it apparently does not sell Komodo (but it sells Fritz, Houdini, Hiarcs, Junior, Rybka and Shredder).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Secondly, do I get a &quot;bonus&quot; with Komodo? When I bought Fritz and Houdini I got a bonus of one year premium membership into a chess server called &quot;Playchess&quot;. Do I also get something like that with Komodo?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thirdly, does anyone know when will the next version of Komodo be released approximately? Because if the version 8 gets released soon, then there's no point in buying the version 7 today.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I found the release dates of all the previous versions of Komodo:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Version 4: December 2011&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Version 5: June 2013&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Version 6: October 2013&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Version TCEC: December 2013&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Version 7: May 2014&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So it seems the version 8 will be released very approximately in November..&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3237" LastActivityDate="2014-08-17T12:21:18.093" Title="Where can I buy the chess engine Komodo? Do I get somekind of bonus premium membership with it? And when will its next version be released?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;software&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ClosedDate="2014-08-27T01:07:37.533" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6105" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5973" CreationDate="2014-08-16T23:42:22.553" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Kaufman's full article, the rook's value is dependent on the number of pawns on the board (as does the knights value). The value of the rook increases as the number of pawns decreases (the value of the knight decreases as the number of pawns decrease).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So he takes into account the variation of the rooks value as pawns decrease, and thus his &quot;redundancy of major pieces&quot; is observed in his statistical analysis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, the actual values in a particular position depends on that particular position. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2359" LastActivityDate="2014-08-16T23:42:22.553" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6107" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5934" CreationDate="2014-08-16T23:54:04.820" Score="7" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 Nc6 2. Nf3 f5?!&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is the Colorado Gambit. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are looking for a good solid opening, try looking up some of the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/opening/eco/C46_Four_Knights_Game&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;The Four Knights Game&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/opening/eco/C50_Italian_Game&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Italian Game&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/chessopedia/view/ruy-lopez&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;The Ruy Lopez&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Defence&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;The French Defence&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/chessopedia/view/sicilian-defence&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;The Sicilian Defence&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/chessopedia/view/queens-gambit&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Queens Gambit&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is more than enough for the beginning. All the best! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3621" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-11-13T02:48:12.810" LastActivityDate="2019-11-13T02:48:12.810" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="6108" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6082" CreationDate="2014-08-17T10:41:43.230" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The two current strongest chess engines are Rybka 3 and Stockfish 5. An 8-game match was played between those two engines a month ago. Rybka 3 lost +0 =5 -3. Ofcourse, it all also heavily depends on how strong the chess engine is by itself, but I would hypothesise that if we were to take two absolutely equal engines in strengths, then the majority of games played would be draws, although wins could also be possible (specifically for the side playing white), since white has an extra tempo, which can be masterfully utilised by the engine. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can find the match on YouTube, here's a link to the first &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5EuoSfQWy4&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;game.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3621" LastActivityDate="2014-08-17T10:41:43.230" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6109" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1384" CreationDate="2014-08-17T10:46:19.950" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would suggest going to chess.com and creating a free account there. You can play against computer with different difficulty levels, as well as against other players. At the same time there is loads of learning materials readily available for you (Book Openings, Tactical Trainer, Online Chess Mentor), which should prove very useful. You can also buy a premium account for 7$ per month, which will unlock even more learning opportunities like videos and etc, but a free account should be enough for the beginning. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/7R232.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3621" LastActivityDate="2014-08-17T10:46:19.950" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6110" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6113" CreationDate="2014-08-17T12:04:17.843" Score="9" ViewCount="3335" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am writing a chess engine in C++ &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/RomainGoussault/Deepov&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://github.com/RomainGoussault/Deepov&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know there are several interface protocols out there (UCI, Winboard protocol, etc) and I don't know which to implement. I would like one that:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;enables my engine to play online tournaments&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;has several GUI for Linux, Windows and iOS&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;has some sort of documentation&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3468" LastEditorUserId="3468" LastEditDate="2015-07-24T07:45:52.103" LastActivityDate="2018-01-31T05:39:19.380" Title="Which interface protocol should I implement for my chess engine?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;programming&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6111" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6099" CreationDate="2014-08-17T12:14:00.967" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess.com has an analysis board meant for doing analysis with other people. But its available only for premium members. Also I am unsure if it has voice support in built when doing the analysis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the free alternative, its worth to look at FICS- It has a very cool feature for analysis called &quot;examine&quot;, that combined with &quot;mexamine&quot; will give you exactly what you are looking for. Along with this, you could just setup a skype or gtalk (replace your fav free voip program here) for chatting with voice when you are examining the game. You could use Babaschess the free and best FICS client available.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3158" LastActivityDate="2014-08-17T12:14:00.967" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6112" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6104" CreationDate="2014-08-17T12:21:18.093" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can purchase Komodo 7 on ICC and get one month subscription to ICC free here:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://store.chessclub.com/komodo-7&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://store.chessclub.com/komodo-7&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3158" LastActivityDate="2014-08-17T12:21:18.093" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6113" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6110" CreationDate="2014-08-17T13:22:03.000" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;There're only two protocols - UCI and Winboard. Winboard is an old protocol and not really being used nowadays. Crafty is the only major engine still supporting the Winboard protocol, but it's only because the engine is also very old. UCI is a newer protocol developed by Shredder, and is used everywhere - Windows, Macs, Linux, Android, iOS etc. UCI is really the only protocol you should consider.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;UCI is supported everywhere&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Every chess GUI other than xboard supports UCI, such as, Chessbase, Scid, Arena etc. Even xboard can connect to a UCI engine by something known as Polyglot.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;UCI documentation is at &lt;a href=&quot;http://wbec-ridderkerk.nl/html/UCIProtocol.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://wbec-ridderkerk.nl/html/UCIProtocol.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Winboard has more or less obsoleted because the protocol is more complicated than the cleaner UCI. Winboard is a stated protocol, it means the engine state depends on the previous iterations, whereas UCI is easier to deal with as you only have to supply with your current FEN or a move-list.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2018-01-31T05:39:19.380" LastActivityDate="2018-01-31T05:39:19.380" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6114" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6135" CreationDate="2014-08-17T14:41:56.450" Score="7" ViewCount="700" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am working on multiple lines from Scandinavian defense, with the goal to resurrect them. &#xA;One line I'm working on is &lt;code&gt;3...Qd8&lt;/code&gt;, and I have managed to achieve quite playable positions ( the results are the best so far, regarding other lines like &lt;code&gt;3...Qe5+&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;3...Qa5/Qd6&lt;/code&gt; ). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although I can get rock solid position from the opening, I just can't find the long term plan for Black. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The line I am referring is :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Scandinavian defense, with Qd8&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 d5 2.exd5 Qxd5 3.Nc3 Qd8 4.Nf3 c6 5.d4 Bf5!? 6.Bd3!? Bxd3 7.Qxd3 e6 8.O-O Nf6 9.Bf4 Nbd7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is a diagram that illustrates the kind of positions I usually face:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Black to move&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;r2q1rk1/pp1nbppp/2p1pn2/8/2PP1B2/2NQ1N2/PP3PPP/R4RK1 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I just don't know how to battle White's space advantage. I don't have a plan for engineering a freeing break.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there anyone who plays similar pawn structure, and is willing to give me some pointers on how to play this position as Black?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastEditorUserId="2042" LastEditDate="2014-08-19T18:58:09.060" LastActivityDate="2014-08-21T01:35:45.847" Title="Can't find long term plan for Black" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;&lt;pawn-structure&gt;&lt;middlegame&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6115" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6116" CreationDate="2014-08-17T19:11:04.673" Score="8" ViewCount="1023" Body="&lt;p&gt;Effective July 2014, the FIDE has revised its &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fide.com/component/handbook/?id=171&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Laws of Chess.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt;  Some questions occur regarding the revision, including one re draws and &lt;em&gt;en passant.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Black to move&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;1rb1kbnr/ppppqppp/6n1/4P3/8/1PN5/P1PP2PP/1RBQKBNR b kq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... d5 2. Ra1 Ra8 3. Rb1 Rb8 4. Ra1 Ra8 5. Rb1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After Black pushes his queen pawn two squares, White could capture &lt;em&gt;en passant,&lt;/em&gt; except that the capturer is pinned against its king.  So instead (just to illustrate the point), our players start shuffling their rooks back and forth.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After 5. Rb1, can Black write 5... Rb8 on his scoresheet, stop the clocks, and claim draw by repetition?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another way to ask the question: is the &lt;em&gt;en passant&lt;/em&gt; position Black's move 1 introduces effectively an &lt;em&gt;en passant&lt;/em&gt; position after all, according to the FIDE's revised &lt;em&gt;Laws of Chess?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;DISCUSSION AND REFERENCES&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Laws of Chess,&lt;/em&gt; sect. 9.2:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The game is drawn, upon a correct claim by a player having the move, when the same position for at least the third time (not necessarily by a repetition of moves): (a) is about to appear, if he first writes his move, which cannot be changed, on his scoresheet and declares to the arbiter his intention to make this move, or (b) has just appeared, and the player claiming the draw has the move.  Positions are considered the same if and only if the same player has the move, pieces of the same kind and colour occupy the same squares and the possible moves of all the pieces of both players are the same. Thus positions are not the same if ... at the start of the sequence a pawn could have been captured en passant....&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To &lt;em&gt;me,&lt;/em&gt; this says that Black can indeed claim the draw mentioned above.  However, decades of experience suggest that different players can understand the same rulebook language differently, especially in obscure cases like the present one.  Is it possible to read this rule differently?  One would like to be sure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Related, earlier questions and answers on StackExchange, predating the FIDE's July 2014 revision, include &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/q/777/315&quot;&gt;this.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Further reading: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesscafe.com/archives/archives.htm#An%20Arbiter%27s%20Notebook&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Geurt Gijssen.  Arbiter's Notebook.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="315" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2019-12-10T03:46:44.703" Title="Draws, en passant, and the FIDE's 2014 rulebook revision" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;draw&gt;&lt;fide&gt;&lt;en-passant&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6116" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6115" CreationDate="2014-08-17T21:47:11.710" Score="14" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Positions are considered the same if and only if the same player has the move, pieces of the same kind and colour occupy the same squares and the possible moves of all the pieces of both players are the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After 5...Ra8, the same player has the move, pieces of the same kind and colour occupy the same squares and the possible moves of all the pieces of both players are the same. Therefore, Black can claim a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Thus positions are not the same if ... at the start of the sequence a pawn could have been captured en passant....&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At the start of the sequence the pawn could not be captured en passant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2014-08-17T21:47:11.710" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6117" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6046" CreationDate="2014-08-18T03:27:39.057" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As others have advised, it is not a good idea to simply &quot;memorize&quot; chess openings and variations, without understanding the nuances of those lines and why each move is made.&#xA;Assuming, you have already done that, memorizing Chess openings is required, since that is how you remember it AT THE BOARD! Even the top GMs memorize their lines!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I introduced &quot;iChess&quot; to Vishy Anand and thought he might like it to practice Chess puzzles and tactics. To my surprise, the next email from him was asking me how he could practice his Chess repertoire (Openings) using the App. He just wanted to load his Opening PGN in the App, and practice his lines, so that he does not forget them when he is at the board. He wanted to make moves for HIS color, while the App should play out the moves for the other color (all moves are the ones stored in the PGN file).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Long story short, iChess (Android) allows you to practice Chess openings, exactly as mentioned above, with YOUR own PGN file.&#xA;I have also written a blog post about it:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://mychessapps.blogspot.in/2013/02/how-to-practice-chess-openings-with.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://mychessapps.blogspot.in/2013/02/how-to-practice-chess-openings-with.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this helps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Cheers,&#xA;Asim&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://mychessapps.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://mychessapps.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1275" LastActivityDate="2014-08-18T03:27:39.057" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6118" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6110" CreationDate="2014-08-18T05:58:59.333" Score="-3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Most GUI support engines either in UCI or Winboard, UCI becoming more of a standard and popular these days. But, typically if you want your engine to be easily pluggable to any GUI (in Windows or Linux), then you should have an &quot;exe&quot; or executable which can be pointed to by these GUI programs. If you are building the engine using Java, then I am unsure how you would be able to convert this to an executable to be used by the GUI. The same thing applies to be able to play online tournaments. Even if you are planning to provide a web-service kind of interface for your engine, I don't think it can participate in engine competitions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3158" LastActivityDate="2014-08-18T05:58:59.333" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6119" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6134" CreationDate="2014-08-18T08:21:34.190" Score="9" ViewCount="498" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am trying to understand where the pieces should be located for the second Troitzky line (checkmate 2 knights vs a pawn in 50 moves limit) and fail to get it. So from wikipedia:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Black's pawn is blocked by a white knight on or behind one of the&#xA;  dots, White can force a win within fifty moves. If the pawn can be&#xA;  blocked on or behind one of the Xs, White can force a win within fifty&#xA;  moves more than 99 percent of the time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Ct2Fv.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The problem is that I still can not understand where the pawn and a blocking knight could be located.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just to resolve ambiguity: I do not need to know how should white force a mate, I just need to understand which positions are possible to win with 50 moves rule. For example, are these positions a theoretical win?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/8/2p1N2k/8/2N5/5K2/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/8/8/1N2pk2/1N6/8/8/4K3 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/N7/6k1/7p/8/8/8/1K5N w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="703" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-03-12T17:18:02.193" LastActivityDate="2020-03-12T17:18:02.193" Title="Second Troitzky line, where knight and pawn could be located?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;knight-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6120" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6119" CreationDate="2014-08-18T14:18:41.590" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;My understanding is that for, say, the d5 dot, that would be a white knight on d4 and a black pawn on d5. The pawn could also be farther back, of course, and the knight can be on d5 or d6 if it is still blocking the pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The same holds for the Xs but it doesn't quite guarantee a victory considering the 50-move rule.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edited with responses to your diagrams:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/8/2p1N2k/8/2N5/5K2/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White wins, no matter whose move it is. The pawn can be stopped at either c5 or c6, both of which are behind the second Troitzky line.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/8/8/1N2pk2/1N6/8/8/4K3 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Draw, no matter whose move it is. The pawn will move to e4, which is past the second Troitzky line.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/N7/6k1/7p/8/8/8/1K5N w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Draw, no matter whose move it is. The pawn will move to h4, which is past the second Troitzky line.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3270" LastEditorUserId="3270" LastEditDate="2014-08-20T19:48:11.710" LastActivityDate="2014-08-20T19:48:11.710" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6124" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5739" CreationDate="2014-08-18T19:22:33.407" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have probably the largest high quality database in private hands on the planet, including human and engine games.  Tens of millions of games.  A proper assessment of a move's merit has to include both a deep evaluation of the strongest engine available (right now that's Stockfish) combined with comprehensive empirical data.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Empirically, f3 is definitely the worst.  Nh3 and g4 challenge it but cannot match it in terms of chess malpractice.  As for the defenders of the Grob (g4), sorry, it's a bad move, no question, and this opinion is double-reinforced by how often it has been seen, which is about 4-5x more often than f3.  Its principal advantage is that it doesn't lose material right away by force.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3688" LastActivityDate="2014-08-18T19:22:33.407" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6125" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6128" CreationDate="2014-08-19T10:46:04.627" Score="9" ViewCount="2261" Body="&lt;p&gt;Last night I played two OTB games with a friend of mine and in both games I reached decent, even winning positions. At some moment though I overlooked my king safety and blundered horribly, which lead to losing both games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Going back further it occurred to me that I do this almost on a regular basis! I reviewed few games in which I had a great position and then I made a bad move which lead to either the position being equal or even being worse. In these games the problem was not the king safety in particular, but some other positional or tactical error.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've identified the problem as being too focused on attacking, trying to checkmate my opponent, then I relax a bit too much, thinking I'm winning, and make a bad move. Obviously, I need to work on &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/2596/what-is-the-most-effective-way-of-reducing-blunders&quot;&gt;avoiding blunders&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/1107/how-can-one-improve-their-over-the-board-analysis-skills&quot;&gt;improving my OTB analytical skills&lt;/a&gt;, but in this question I would like to focus on improving purely defensive skills, especially when under pressure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One very important aspect of defense, as defined as Nimzowitsch, is the term of &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prophylaxis_(chess)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;prophylaxis&lt;/a&gt;. The thing is that I'm not certain &lt;em&gt;when&lt;/em&gt; I should make a prophylactic move that doesn't throw my advantage away as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One way for improvement in finding prophylactic moves would be studying the games of world class players, famous for their defensive skills and strong positional understanding. The name of &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tigran_Petrosian&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Tigran Petrosian&lt;/a&gt; immediately comes to mind, but where would I be able to find some of his annotated games so I can really understand and appreciate the strength of his moves?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;What other players would you recommend to study in order to improve in this particular area?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe the most crucial question would be the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;How to deal with the psychological pressure of having a great position and having it collapse over the next few moves?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;What other ways for improvement would you recommend?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2329" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2017-03-23T00:31:27.950" Title="Ways to improve defensive skills" Tags="&lt;defense&gt;&lt;otb-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6126" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6114" CreationDate="2014-08-19T11:01:07.197" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I inputted your position into Stockfish for analysis, and this is the continuation that the machine suggested:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;StockFish analysis&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;r2q1rk1/pp1nbppp/2p1pn2/8/2PP1B2/2NQ1N2/PP3PPP/R4RK1 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1...Rc8 2.Rfe1 Nh5 3.Be3 Qb6 4.Qe2 Qa5 5.a3 Rfe8 6.Qd3 Red8 7.b4 Qc7 8.Qc2 h6 9.g3 b5 10.c5 a5 11.Ne4 Ra8 12.Bd2 a4 13.Nc3 Re8 14.Be3 Red8 15.Rad1 Rac8 16.Ne4.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We end up with the following position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Resulting position&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;2rr2k1/2qnbpp1/2p1p2p/1pP4n/pP1PN3/P3BNP1/2Q2P1P/3RR1K1 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Additionally, even though White has an +0.52 advantage, nothing much can be done with that advantage since Black managed to create a very solid defense (without any attacking perspectives). If I would be playing this, I would propose a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also tried from this position to move Nd7-f6, but then that gets countered with Ne5. N:e4, Queen recaptures, but that once again doesn't lead anywhere after Nh5-f6. Drawish position, no attacking chance for Black if White play it carefully. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3621" LastEditorUserId="2042" LastEditDate="2014-08-19T11:34:09.380" LastActivityDate="2014-08-19T11:34:09.380" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6127" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6125" CreationDate="2014-08-19T11:20:12.560" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;&quot;...where would I be able to find some of his annotated games so I can really understand and appreciate the strength of his moves?&quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although you can find annotated games of Petrosian all over YouTube and some chess-related websites, I would recommend purchasing these &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.newinchess.com/Shop/ProductDetails.aspx?ProductID=2997&amp;amp;utm_campaign=cvadvertisement_2997_Eduard_Shekhtman_The_Games_of_Tigran_Petrosian_Vol_1_and_2_1942-1983&amp;amp;utm_source=chessvibes.com&amp;amp;utm_medium=chessvibes&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;books&lt;/a&gt; if you are interested in his style.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;What other players would you recommend to study in order to improve in this particular area?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Karpov, Korchnoi, Ulf Andersson, Kramnik, Carlsen, Fischer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;How to deal with the psychological pressure of having a great position and having it collapse over the next few moves?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From personal experience, during the game just train yourself to not get too excited during the attack and before making the next attacking move spend time analysing how much of your defence get's hindered and how critical can that be in the long run. If the position is already collapsing, then either continue attacking if you are fully sure you will be able to checkmate faster than your opponent, or come back to defend and hope for a blunder or draw. After the game, analyse the game, just as you did.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;What other ways for improvement would you recommend?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would recommend playing as much games against higher rated opponents as possible. Thats the way I personally improve. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3621" LastActivityDate="2014-08-19T11:20:12.560" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6128" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6125" CreationDate="2014-08-19T17:09:21.087" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Vas's answer is pretty good, so I will just suggest things that are orthogonal to his. I don't really like to talk about chess in abstract ways without having concrete positions to discuss, but here we go:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From what I see in your description, you tend to blunder away your advantages, now a blunder can occur at many different levels, if it's about material loss, then the sad truth is simply that you have to calculate your plans/moves more accurately and not assume &quot;things will work out&quot; too often. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Instead if you find yourself blundering your positional advantage, like losing control of open files, losing activity of your pieces, getting your pieces pushed back by opponent's pawn advances, or finally finding your king being ambushed without getting the chance to do something about it anymore. In all these cases, there are multiple defensive ways one can rely on, or simply try. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Holding: most passive form of a defense, just trying to hold your position after you've blundered away your attack e.g. Now in order to improve in this area, you should definitely look into Carlsen or Anand's games (personal opinion), Carlsen because he is extremely resourceful and Anand because he has a lot of experience in playing solid, of course you should look for the games where these two have been under pressure, and see what ideas they found to hold their positions. Finally the difficulty in passively holding a position, is that it often turns out to require a lot of calculations from your side, as all the tactics planned by your opponent have to be refuted. So for this type of defenses, you should just play a lot of blitz/rapid games online, (5 min up to 15 min games) and analyse your games afterwards. Why blitz? because in quick modes we find ourselves a lot of the time under pressure, so you have to come up with a plan to defend almost in each game.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Renew your plans: as soon as you realize you may be losing the initiative, you need to start looking for alternative offensive plans that may help in keeping some of your edge, often such plans can be found and when you do you avoid having to play very defensive positions. For this kind of plays, you need to know about transpositions, i.e. noticing similarities to the other games you've played or rather still have in mind, and remember &quot;ah! I once had this queen-side structure, and pushing my pawns (just an example) did help me win some time&quot;. Furthermore think of huge shifts in your position like queen moves from kingside to queenside and vice versa, or abrupt rook activities, like some Benko positions, king side pawn pushes that he/she may not have expected, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Tactics: Always keep in mind that despite the computers and chess engines of today, we are still playing vs humans all the time. Point being, you should always keep trying new tactics, the opponent may fall for one of them eventually. So start looking for tricky plans that may lead to forks or checks by discovery, or pins etc. Often they force your opponent to have to deal with it in a forced manner and your pieces get to breath again. In order to improve your tactics, you don't need to watch only top players, as in their games the tactics are way too sophisticated and are often not directly useful to us. So you should rather keep solving puzzles (online preferably), more and more and more... on a daily basis, this will in time give a very rich tactics tool-box.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Prophylaxis moves: Since you were confused about this, I explain in a few words: In general you should consider playing them in two cases: First when both sides are absolutely stuck and don't know how to make progress in their positions, this is a good time to find key prophylactic moves that make your position even more robust and less vulnerable to future attacks. Second case, is when the prophylaxis move you have in mind goes hand in hand with your attacking plans, where you want to avoid losing tempo by checks or having to retreat unprotected pieces. That's when it's perfectly fine to take the time and play them. But of course chess is too specific to allow for such generalizations, so never forget calculating to some extent the necessity of a prophylactic move and its implications. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Last but not least, if you lack in general defensive plans in middle games and end games, then watching top players is a really good advice, but I wouldn't focus on one single player, rather make the list of players you watch as diverse as possible, because we are watching them to absorb new ideas, from situations where they had to defend their positions, and try to incorporate those ideas in your own games. The more diverse the players you study the more chances you have in discovering new ideas. Most difficult task in watching top games is being able to calculate the real plans or variations those players had in mind, because what we see by replaying their games only shows roughly 1% of what they had really calculated, so you need to take your time, your coffee and keep studying these games for as long as you need until you find their reasons. Looking at annotated games isn't always a good idea as it won't allow you to think and find out things on your own, after all that's the pleasure we take in playing chess.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for the psychological question, you may find useful elements in my reply to this &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/5994/always-losing-to-the-same-opponent/5997#5997&quot;&gt;post&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3594" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.193" LastActivityDate="2014-09-07T16:29:07.793" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6129" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6130" CreationDate="2014-08-19T21:13:35.657" Score="20" ViewCount="1906" Body="&lt;p&gt;At the recent US Open I started the tournament well and was paired against a GM in the roped-off area. I had worked out the pairing well in advance and was able to do some fairly heavy openings preparation before the game. The official pairings, though, went up a relatively short time before the round.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My opponent did not show up until about 20 minutes after the round had started. I heard one of the tournament directors remark to another that my opponent was probably preparing for the game. After the game (he had 350 rating points on me and ripped me to shreds even in one of the lines I had prepared) he volunteered the information that this was indeed what he had been doing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While I do not think that this was unethical, I am left wondering: is this legal under USCF rules? Obviously it does not affect the outcome of the game at this point, several weeks after the fact. The reason that it seems like a potential gray area to me is that a player doing this is looking at a chess database after his clock has started.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would ask about FIDE rules but it seems like the zero-tolerance forfeit rule would render it a moot discussion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3270" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2016-09-17T09:56:26.120" LastActivityDate="2016-09-17T09:56:26.120" Title="Is it allowed to prepare for a game after the round has started?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;tournament&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="7" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6130" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6129" CreationDate="2014-08-20T02:32:39.707" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would think not since there is no realistic way for the organizers to find out if you are preparing if you are in your hotel room for example, and even if they do you will probably not forfeit your game as long as you are not in the playing hall.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe this was why the zero tolerance rule was put into effect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In a logical sense though, whilst your opponent could hope to get an advantage out of the opening against you, you are getting a definite time advantage, so you could see it that way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3357" LastActivityDate="2014-08-20T02:32:39.707" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6131" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6129" CreationDate="2014-08-20T03:31:27.663" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have observed in FIDE rated tournaments (low profile ones), there are local rules setup with respect to the time at which the players need to be present at the board. And that typically happens to be around 20 minutes after the round has started. What can be prepared in such short times, well of course for a GM its more than sufficient time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But coming back to your question, its not just the GM who &quot;prepared&quot; to defeat you, you have mentioned yourself about the advance pairing calculation and heavy preparation that you had done. Its just that his preparation was better. Does it matter &quot;when&quot; this preparation happened?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Probably the best thing to combat such situations is to choose random openings from your repertoire if possible and throw in the surprise element!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3158" LastActivityDate="2014-08-20T03:31:27.663" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6132" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="583" CreationDate="2014-08-20T05:32:37.360" Score="6" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 c5 3. d5 b5 4. cxb5 a6 5. Nc3 axb5 6. e4 b4 7. Nb5 Nxe4 8. Qe2 Nf6 9. Nd6#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3456" LastEditorUserId="2789" LastEditDate="2014-08-20T08:17:43.100" LastActivityDate="2014-08-20T08:17:43.100" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6134" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6119" CreationDate="2014-08-20T10:58:33.670" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;This has been already solved by Helmut Conrady, his elegant 15-page solution is available &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesscafe.com/text/mueller36.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is filled with diagrams and examples as you wanted.&#xA;Let me know if you have any questions regarding the diagrams or explanations given.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT:&lt;/strong&gt; In reply to the edited version of the question and the three positions added:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the position to be winnable under 50 moves, there are two simple conditions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Either the black pawn is blocked by the knight on the 5th ranked&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Or the pawn is blocked on either b6/b7 squares or on g6/g7 squares.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This means:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;First position&lt;/strong&gt; Winning for white in 50 moves because the pawn on c6 isn't advanced enough and is already blockaded, so no hope for black.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Second position&lt;/strong&gt; Draw because white cannot win it under the 50 moves limit, as no matter what he tries in the current position, the pawn will get the chance to go past the 5th rank. White isn't in time to block the pawn, two examples:&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;pawn will advance to 4th&amp;quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &amp;quot;0&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;8/8/8/1N2pk2/1N6/8/8/4K3 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Nd6+ Kf4 2.Nd5+ Kf3 3.Nf5 e4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Second:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;pawn will advance to 4th&amp;quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &amp;quot;0&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;8/8/8/1N2pk2/1N6/8/8/4K3 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Nd6+ Ke6 2.Ne4 Kf5 3.Ng3+ Kf4 4.Kf2 e4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Third position&lt;/strong&gt;: Draw: easy enough to see that white can't stop the immediate advance of the pawn past the 5th, so white cannot win under 50 moves.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In order to conclude, although if one of the conditions is fulfilled white will have a theoretical win under 50 moves, but that is only possible if no tempo is lost usually, so techniques like triangulation are continuously applied, as shown in the examples of the link.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3594" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2014-08-21T05:02:21.840" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6135" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6114" CreationDate="2014-08-20T14:02:06.503" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;For logical reasons the &lt;code&gt;3...Qd8&lt;/code&gt; Scandinavian is not popular among top grandmasters whatsoever , Stockfish 5 gives it &lt;em&gt;0.45&lt;/em&gt; after running for around a  5 minutes compared to &lt;em&gt;0.00&lt;/em&gt; in the French Defense after &lt;code&gt;3.Nc3 Nf6&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For this variation I would recommend looking at the games of Montenegrin Grandmaster &lt;a href=&quot;http://chess-db.com/public/pinfo.jsp?id=922412&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Nikola Djukic&lt;/a&gt;, who is the only grandmaster who employs the &lt;code&gt;3...Qd8&lt;/code&gt; variation regurlarly. He also has a plus score with it against an opposition elo average of 2496 which is nice. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;code&gt;3...Qd6&lt;/code&gt; Scandinavian is a lot more popular. The very strong Grandmaster &lt;a href=&quot;http://chess-db.com/public/pinfo.jsp?id=1008013&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Sergei Tiviakov&lt;/a&gt; has implemented it regurlarly with a massive plus score against an elo average of 2659.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;code&gt;3...Qa5&lt;/code&gt; Scandinavian is the most popular of the 3, the Serbian Grandmaster &lt;a href=&quot;http://chess-db.com/public/pinfo.jsp?id=920479&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Miodrag R Savic&lt;/a&gt; can be considered a specialist on this since he plays it approximately 71% of the time against &lt;code&gt;1.e4&lt;/code&gt; with a very positive score against an elo average of 2508.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've decided to just ignore the &lt;code&gt;3...Qe5+&lt;/code&gt; variation, which is also called the &quot;Patzer Variation&quot; White scores 71.1% after &lt;code&gt;4.Be2&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course this post would not be complete if I didn't answer your question on how to find a plan in the given positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;FIRST DIAGRAM&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately the line you are referring to in the first game has only 2 games in Mega Database 2014. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Title &quot;Scandinavian defense, with Qd8&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 d5 2.exd5 Qxd5 3.Nc3 Qd8 4.Nf3 c6 5.d4 Bf5!? 6.Bd3!? (6.Bc4) Bxd3 7.Qxd3 e6 8.O-O Nf6 9.Bf4 Nbd7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;OK, in the final position black is solid but there is pretty much no way for him/her to win (naturally, with exceptions in human play). White is castled, has 3 pieces and a pawn putting pressure on the center with an added space advantage. White is clearly better, the game has certainly not equalized in blacks favor. Maybe you have avoided theory and complications but unfortunately that is all you have gained. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another problem with such a position is that black is really lacking in play here. This makes it much harder to formulate a plan of some sort, maybe this is why you are struggling to find a long term plan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;SECOND DIAGRAM&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [Event &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;????.??.??&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Black to Move&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;*&quot;]&#xA;[SetUp &quot;1&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;r2q1rk1/pp1nbppp/2p1pn2/8/2PP1B2/2NQ1N2/PP3PPP/R4RK1 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;5&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Nh5 (1... Qb6 2.c5 Qd8  (2. a3 c5)) 2. Bd2 (2. Bg3 $6 Nxg3 3. hxg3&#xA;$11) 2... Nhf6 3. Rfe1 Qc7 4.Rad1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the second diagram your main plan should probably be the elimination of the f5 Bishop, which is severely cramping your position. So therefore &lt;code&gt;Nh5&lt;/code&gt; comes to mind, if the Bishop retreats to &lt;code&gt;g3&lt;/code&gt;, simply chop it off and the position is equal, however white can retreat the Bishop and it is not so clear how to proceed for black. I have given some small variations to go by but overall the position seems to be completely devoid of play for black. Black is lacking in any sort of counter-play to put it bluntly. &#xA;OK maybe after &lt;code&gt;3...Qc7&lt;/code&gt; you can centralize the rooks with rook &lt;code&gt;a8&lt;/code&gt; to &lt;code&gt;d8&lt;/code&gt; and rook &lt;code&gt;f8&lt;/code&gt; to &lt;code&gt;e8&lt;/code&gt; and slowly maneuver your pieces, waiting for white, maybe move your &lt;code&gt;d7&lt;/code&gt; Knight to &lt;code&gt;f8&lt;/code&gt; to clear open the d-file and prepare a possible &lt;code&gt;...Ng6&lt;/code&gt;. Black basically just has to sit and wait. The engine recommends ideas involving &lt;code&gt;...a6&lt;/code&gt; but I find this quite dubious and unnatural, not suited for human play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White on the other hand has the clear idea of &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt;, centralizing the rooks, &lt;code&gt;h3&lt;/code&gt; to maintain the powerful dark squared Bishop. The position is rich for white. Better to say the least, because he/she has a clear plan to follow by.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know that the computer evaluation is a powerful thing, but we are not computers. I highly suggest picking another variation to go by, one which involves &quot;play&quot;. For a position with &lt;strong&gt;counter-play&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;imbalances&lt;/strong&gt; is much more important than a dry one such as this one despite the silicon machine saying &lt;em&gt;0.36&lt;/em&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I personally think that the &lt;code&gt;3...Qd8&lt;/code&gt; Scandinavian variation is a very dubious one which should be avoided at all costs by the improving chess player and should only be played for the element of surprise.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;All statistics courtesy of Chessbase Mega Database 2014&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3357" LastEditorUserId="3357" LastEditDate="2014-08-21T01:35:45.847" LastActivityDate="2014-08-21T01:35:45.847" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6136" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6129" CreationDate="2014-08-20T14:08:58.847" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The basis of the USCF rules are the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fide.com/component/handbook/?id=124&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;FIDE rules of chess&lt;/a&gt;, and they clearly state the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;6.6 a. Any player who arrives at the chessboard after the start of the session shall lose the game. Thus the default time is 0 minutes. The&#xA;  rules of a competition may specify otherwise.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the US Open bends the FIDE rule in this case to allow for a player to arrive at the board after the clock has started, it is their rules that should also cover the possibility of preparation within this time. If no such rule is in place, the rule can naturally also not be broken, and it would be allowed for a player to use a computer or any other means as long as it is outside the playing venue, since:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;13.7 b. Unless authorised by the arbiter, it is forbidden for anybody to use a mobile phone or any kind of communication device in the&#xA;  playing venue and any contiguous area designated by the arbiter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I were to be cheeky, I would postulate that a player visiting a website for live transmission would be in breach of rule 13.7 b., as it would be 'using' a communication device that is located in the playing venue (i.e. the live transmission board + transmitter/server).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2768" LastEditorUserId="2768" LastEditDate="2014-08-21T14:41:07.743" LastActivityDate="2014-08-21T14:41:07.743" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6137" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1384" CreationDate="2014-08-20T14:41:48.903" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can play against computer for free online at &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.apronus.com/chess/computer.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.apronus.com/chess/computer.htm&lt;/a&gt; - you can modify the strength of the computer by giving it less milliseconds to think per move. You can also set up different positions there and play them against compputer, like for example &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.apronus.com/chess/computer.htm?fen=0rnb1kbnrXppppppppX8X8X8X8XPPPPPPPPXRNBQKBNR_w_KQkq_-_0_1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;you can have the computer play as black without a queen&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3456" LastActivityDate="2014-08-20T14:41:48.903" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6138" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6269" CreationDate="2014-08-20T19:46:59.060" Score="3" ViewCount="548" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have added Stockfish to the Deep Fritz GUI, and I even marked all engines except for Stockfish as inactive. However, when I run the &quot;Full Analysis&quot; it's still using Fritz.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a way to use a different engine?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3524" LastEditorUserId="4182" LastEditDate="2015-01-05T22:04:35.317" LastActivityDate="2015-01-05T22:04:35.317" Title="Can you run &quot;Full Analysis&quot; in Fritz with a different engine?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;engines&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;chessbase&gt;&lt;fritz&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6140" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6141" CreationDate="2014-08-20T20:34:33.237" Score="3" ViewCount="4350" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would like to practice against a particular opening - outside of bribing smart guinea pigs who know how to play chess, is there any way I can get opponents who always use a certain opening? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3698" LastActivityDate="2014-08-21T05:38:56.653" Title="Is there a chess engine that allows you to specify which opening it uses?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;engines&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6141" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6140" CreationDate="2014-08-20T22:27:08.220" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;A great way of practicing your opening with a chess engine can be found on &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chess.com&lt;/a&gt;. You can create a free account, then go to the Learn Tab -&gt; Book Openings -&gt; Find the opening you want to practice -&gt; Play Opening vs. Computer. You also have the chance to change the computer's difficulty level and what side you play. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ELDDw.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/d8FUN.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3621" LastActivityDate="2014-08-20T22:27:08.220" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6142" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6145" CreationDate="2014-08-20T23:10:29.860" Score="3" ViewCount="242" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have watched some matches played in the chess Olympiad in Tromsø. The majority of the games I watched, one player played the English opening, and usually he won, I haven't seen any French opening game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That makes me wonder if there's any site that has statistics about what is the most played opening, what opening has the highest winning rate and so and so forth. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1105" LastEditorUserId="4588" LastEditDate="2016-09-05T19:07:55.913" LastActivityDate="2016-09-05T19:07:55.913" Title="Chess Olympiad statistics" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;statistics&gt;&lt;chess-olympiad&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6143" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6140" CreationDate="2014-08-21T05:01:29.630" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can set up any position and play it against computer at &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.apronus.com/chess/wbeditor.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.apronus.com/chess/wbeditor.php&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, you can &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.apronus.com/chess/computer.htm?fen=1rnbqkb1rXpp2ppppX3p1n2X8X3NP3X2N5XPPP2PPPXR1BQKB1R_b_KQkq_-_2_5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;play the Najdorf Sicilian as Black against computer&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can adjust the strength of the computer by setting it time per move in milliseconds.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3456" LastActivityDate="2014-08-21T05:01:29.630" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6144" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6140" CreationDate="2014-08-21T05:32:19.727" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you want human opponents to play specific openings, Chess.com theme tournaments are your best chances. Example of a themed tournament: &quot;Sicilian-Dragon&quot;, where the initial position is setup in accordance with the opening. But these are not &quot;live&quot; chess but &quot;online&quot; chess where you'll be playing time controls like &quot;1 move every 3 days&quot; and such.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are OK to play against engines, then its really easy to setup the position (initial opening moves) in any GUI like Arena or SCID vs PC and then continue from there against the engine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To add: There are some strong players on FICS who are willing to play any specific opening you want, you will have to befriend them and play against them. :-)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3158" LastEditorUserId="3158" LastEditDate="2014-08-21T05:38:56.653" LastActivityDate="2014-08-21T05:38:56.653" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6145" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6142" CreationDate="2014-08-21T05:56:35.130" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't know of any site that specifically does this for particular tournaments. But its very easy to do this yourself! Here's how you do it:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a) Download Scid vs Pc software (&lt;a href=&quot;http://scidvspc.sourceforge.net/&quot;&gt;http://scidvspc.sourceforge.net/&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;b) Download pgn for the Olympiad in Tromso 2014 from TWIC (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.theweekinchess.com/assets/files/pgn/olym14.pgn&quot;&gt;http://www.theweekinchess.com/assets/files/pgn/olym14.pgn&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;c) Open a new DB in SCID vs PC software and import this PGN.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;d) Go to Tools &gt; Opening Report&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Windows &gt; Tree Window &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;to get the opening tree and the percentages&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's the output from Olympiad 2014 taken from Scid vs PC:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;4.2 Moves from the report position&#xA;&#xA; Move        Frequency     Score  AvElo Perf AvYear Draw ECO&#xA; 1: e4       1649: 43.6%   52.5%  2275  2313  2014  23% B00a &#xA; 2: d4       1404: 37.1%   52.7%  2327  2343  2014  29% A40a &#xA; 3: Nf3       363:  9.6%   60.0%  2346  2405  2014  24% A04  &#xA; 4: c4        248:  6.5%   52.0%  2319  2324  2014  27% A10  &#xA; 5: [end]      45:  1.1%   35.5%  2197  2058  2014   0% A00a &#xA; 6: b3         17:  0.4%   55.8%  2329  2202  2014  18% A01  &#xA; 7: f4         15:  0.3%   33.3%  2152  2127  2014  13% A02  &#xA; 8: g3         12:  0.3%   66.6%  2411  2399  2014  33% A00t &#xA; 9: Nc3         8:  0.2%   62.5%              2014  25% A00l &#xA;10: b4          7:  0.1%   78.5%              2014  14% A00p &#xA;11: e3          3:  0.0%   33.3%              2014  67% A00k &#xA;12: d3          2:  0.0%    0.0%              2014   0% A00j &#xA;13: f3          1:  0.0%  100.0%              2014   0% A00b &#xA;14: Na3         1:  0.0%   50.0%              2014 100% A00h &#xA;15: h3          1:  0.0%  100.0%              2014   0% A00d &#xA;__________________________________________________________________&#xA;TOTAL:       3776:100.0%   53.1%  2304  2326  2014  26%&#xA;&#xA;4.3 Positional Themes&#xA;&#xA;Frequency of themes in the first 20 moves of each game:&#xA;   Same-side castling:             73%    White Isolated Queen Pawn:       8%&#xA;   Opposite castling:               8%    Black Isolated Queen Pawn:       8%&#xA;   Kingside pawn storm:            15%    White Pawn on 5/6/7th rank:     52%&#xA;   Queens exchanged:               40%    Black Pawn on 2/3/4th rank:     34%&#xA;   Only one side has Bishop pair:   6%    Open c/d/e file:                50%&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3158" LastActivityDate="2014-08-21T05:56:35.130" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6146" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-08-21T10:58:48.473" Score="8" ViewCount="649" Body="&lt;p&gt;With the missing g and e pawns still on the board and a roughly symmetric position, I made a mistake that led to 17 moves of what I think of as quite difficult defense. My opponent walked into the following fork and then resigned.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [Title &quot;Game's Final Position&quot;] &#xA; [SetUp &quot;1&quot;]&#xA; [FEN &quot;8/5pp1/7p/1n1R3k/4PP1P/8/8/r3BK2 w - - 6 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know that I definitely would not have resigned in that position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is the above position won for white?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Conceivably, black could play Kg6 and try to put together something like a fortress, or even play &lt;code&gt;g5&lt;/code&gt; immediately after &lt;code&gt;Rxb5&lt;/code&gt;. However, I believe the correct continuation would be&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;1 ... Kg4 2. Rxb5 Kxf4 3. Rf5+ Kxe4 4. Rxf7 g5 5. h5&lt;/code&gt;, resulting in the position&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [Title &quot;End of My Main Line&quot;] &#xA; [SetUp &quot;1&quot;]&#xA; [FEN &quot;8/5R2/7p/6pP/4k3/8/8/r3BK2 w - - 6 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;with black to move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From tablebases (e.g. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.k4it.de/index.php?lang=en&amp;amp;topic=egtb&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this site&lt;/a&gt;), I know that if I instead played &lt;code&gt;5. hxg5&lt;/code&gt; and black responded with &lt;code&gt;hxg5&lt;/code&gt; then the position would be a draw. In fact, even if all three remaining pawns disappeared and it became my move, the position would still be a draw. Thus, white's strategy at the end of my main line presumably involves threatening/trying to win the pawn on h6, possibly after exchanging rooks.&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(I don't know whether or not the &quot;rook endgame&quot; tag is appropriate, since there's also a bishop on the board.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user2668" LastEditorUserId="11202" LastEditDate="2017-04-17T21:27:46.007" LastActivityDate="2020-04-26T18:31:29.100" Title="Is this endgame won for white?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;rook-and-minor-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6147" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6151" CreationDate="2014-08-21T12:22:13.540" Score="19" ViewCount="9697" Body="&lt;p&gt;The theory is that there are more that 10^40 positions, and a computer that works with an atomic scale has to be impossibly large(As in galaxy-scale large), and well beyond our current level of knowledge.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But now, quantum computers will soon be available. This computer can have 2^n, instead of n bytes of space, because of quantum states. With this new large place for tablebases, will chess  be solved? Of course, this will take more breakthroughs in the future, but will we see 8 piece databases in the following years?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many questions on the possibility of solving chess revolve on the fact that we don't have enough computer space to fill them. Will quantum computers change the status quo? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3405" LastActivityDate="2019-03-18T19:30:27.310" Title="Will quantum computers solve chess?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;tablebases&gt;&lt;computer-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="16" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6149" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-08-21T15:44:07.503" Score="2" ViewCount="559" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.chessbase.com/post/rajlich-busting-the-king-s-gambit-this-time-for-sure&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://en.chessbase.com/post/rajlich-busting-the-king-s-gambit-this-time-for-sure&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The link is to a chessbase article speaking about a group of researchers who claim that that king's gambit is busted. While this was an April Fools prank, is this technically possible? With modern software(Stockfish 5, open-source at that), new software, and the fact that it has worked before, has there been any similar research? Have openings such as the Fried Liver Attack been disproved by a chess engine evaluation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A small clarification. Not disproved by a GM who has some small support by an engine, but by a full on Rybka(Or other chess engine) analysis, like in the article. I am also interested in projects that are still running, or even have just started.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3405" LastEditorUserId="3405" LastEditDate="2014-08-21T17:11:56.597" LastActivityDate="2014-10-21T18:43:33.873" Title="Busted openings" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;engines&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="7" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6150" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6147" CreationDate="2014-08-21T20:01:36.323" Score="-3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Fair warning: This answer contains speculative numbers, and may be off by orders of magnitude.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's just possible, but unlikely.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The issue isn't necessarily with whether or not quantum computers will be able to &amp;quot;parallelize&amp;quot; to that extent. The problem is one of simple physics, one that even quantum computers can't realistically get around. Put simply, there's a limited number of calculations that can ever be performed. This was &lt;a href=&quot;https://security.stackexchange.com/a/6149/13239&quot;&gt;answered by Thomas Pornin&lt;/a&gt; at Security.SE, and I quote some of his answer here:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's look at a more mundane perspective. It seems fair to assume that, with existing technology, each elementary operation must somehow imply the switching of at least one logic gate. The switching power of a single &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CMOS&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;CMOS&lt;/a&gt; gate is about &lt;em&gt;C*V&lt;sup&gt;2&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;/em&gt; where &lt;em&gt;C&lt;/em&gt; is the gate load capacitance, and &lt;em&gt;V&lt;/em&gt; is the voltage at which the gate operates. As of 2011, a very high-end gate will be able to run with a voltage of 0.5 V and a load capacitance of a few femtofarads (&amp;quot;femto&amp;quot; meaning &amp;quot;10&lt;sup&gt;-15&lt;/sup&gt;&amp;quot;). This leads to a minimal energy consumption per operation of no less than, say, 10&lt;sup&gt;-15&lt;/sup&gt; J. The current total world energy consumption is around 500 EJ (5*10&lt;sup&gt;20&lt;/sup&gt; J) per year (or so says &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_consumption&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this article&lt;/a&gt;). Assuming that the total energy production of the Earth is diverted to a single computation for ten years, we get a limit of 5*10&lt;sup&gt;36&lt;/sup&gt;, which is close to 2&lt;sup&gt;122&lt;/sup&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then you have to take into account technological advances. Given the current trend on ecological concerns and the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_oil&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;peak oil&lt;/a&gt;, the total energy production should not increase much in the years to come (say no more than a factor of 2 until year 2040 -- already an ecologist's nightmare). On the other hand, there is technological progress in the design of integrated circuits. &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore%27s_Law&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Moore's law&lt;/a&gt; states that you can fit twice as many transistors on a given chip surface every two years. A &lt;em&gt;very&lt;/em&gt; optimistic view is that this doubling of the number of transistor can be done at constant energy consumption, which would translate to halving the energy cost of an elementary operation every two years. This would lead to a grand total of &lt;strong&gt;2&lt;sup&gt;138&lt;/sup&gt; in year 2040&lt;/strong&gt; -- and this is for a single ten-year-long computation which mobilizes &lt;em&gt;all&lt;/em&gt; the resources of the entire planet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That is the absolute maximum number of elementary operations that can &lt;em&gt;possibly&lt;/em&gt; be done. Now let's &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/2781/652&quot;&gt;look at how many chess positions there are...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's do some quick numbers. Each of the 64 squares can be empty or hold one of 12 different pieces (R, K, B, Q, K, and P in black and white), so the total number of positions that you could set is at most&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;13&lt;sup&gt;64&lt;/sup&gt; = 196053476430761073330659760423566015424403280004115787589590963842248961.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That is about 2 x 10&lt;sup&gt;71&lt;/sup&gt; different positions. Of course this is a huge overestimate, because most positions are fake (we should eliminate positions with three or more kings, nine or more white pawns, pawns in the eighth rank, quadruple checks, etc). Let's take the square root:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;13&lt;sup&gt;32&lt;/sup&gt; = 442779263776840698304313192148785281,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or about 5 x 10&lt;sup&gt;35&lt;/sup&gt;. By taking the square root we are pretending that for each legal position there is a chess Universe worth of distinct fake positions. This is probably an underestimate, so the true answer must be somewhere in between these two numbers. Now we can confidently say that computers cannot study every legal position in a reasonable time. Even the &amp;quot;tiny&amp;quot; 13&lt;sup&gt;32&lt;/sup&gt; is too large...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That smallest number ends up being somewhere around 2&lt;sup&gt;120&lt;/sup&gt; or so.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's assume that we represent our boards with a 64-byte string. (Practically it would be handled a little differently, but let's go with it for now.) If I'm remembering my math correctly, a quantum computer would be able to represent this with an 8-byte string, or 64 bits. This leaves us with a total of 2&lt;sup&gt;126&lt;/sup&gt; to 2&lt;sup&gt;130&lt;/sup&gt; elementary operations &lt;em&gt;just to store each legal and possible position&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Look at that for a moment. We're not doing anything useful with the information, we're &lt;em&gt;just&lt;/em&gt; storing it. And to do so we are mobilizing the resources of the entire &lt;em&gt;planet&lt;/em&gt;. Never mind where the storage is physically located. Ignore the whole issue of cooling. Set aside the issue of data transmission. We are diverting enough power to &lt;a href=&quot;http://what-if.xkcd.com/13/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;illuminate the Moon&lt;/a&gt; just to store the positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;At the most optimistic of expectations, a quantum computer &lt;i&gt;might&lt;/i&gt; be able to solve chess, at the cost of the entire planet's resources. Realistically, that will not happen.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="652" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2014-08-21T20:18:46.060" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6151" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6147" CreationDate="2014-08-21T23:30:13.573" Score="25" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not an expert on quantum computation but my understanding is that quantum computers are &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; expected to be useful for chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Quantum algorithms are very good at finding needles in haystacks: the three big quantum algorithms are &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shor%27s_algorithm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Shor's factorization algorithm&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grover%27s_algorithm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Grover's database lookup algorithm&lt;/a&gt; and the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutsch%E2%80%93Jozsa_algorithm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Deutsch&amp;ndash;Jozsa algorithm&lt;/a&gt;, which essentially determines whether a long list of numbers is either all zeroes, all ones or half of each.&#xA;All of these problems can be seen as examples of &quot;I've hidden something: you must find it quickly.&quot; In factorization, I've &quot;hidden&quot; the prime factors and you must find them; in database lookup, I've hidden an entry with a given key in a large unsorted table and you must find it; in the problem solved by Deutsch&amp;ndash;Jozsa, I might have placed a large number of zeroes in a table of ones but, with a classical algorithm, when you've looked at half the table and seen only ones, you might have just been unlucky and looked at the &quot;wrong&quot; half.  Note also that all of these problems could be solved quickly by an unrealistically parallel classical computer: you could try all the factors in parallel, look at all the database entries in parallel and look at all the values in the zero-one table in parallel.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Solving chess isn't even slightly like any of these problems. It's a fundamentally sequential activity. Whether or not my move is any good depends on what you do in response. Whether or not your response is any good depends on what I do in response to that. And so on.  You might imagine you can do the first ply of the search by taking a superposition of the possible moves.  But then what do you do at the second ply? You can't just take the superposition of all the positions we could be in after two ply because that has forgotten the tree structure. For example, consider this very artificial position, with white to move:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;1k6/ppp5/5Q2/7q/8/8/PPP5/1K6 w - - 0 2&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If we forget the tree structure, Black is very happy. He says, &quot;In two ply, the best position I can be in is that I deliver checkmate!&quot;  This is true but, of course, White will never allow that, since White's best move is one that prevents Black from checkmating (or doing anything else).  Chess isn't about figuring out the best move you can possibly make in N ply: it's about figuring out the best move that your opponent will allow you to play in N ply. Quantum computers don't seem to be good at this back-and-forth, give-and-take reasoning. We don't even know how to solve chess with an unrealistically parallel classical computer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2789" LastEditorUserId="16910" LastEditDate="2018-07-09T09:14:01.730" LastActivityDate="2018-07-09T09:14:01.730" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="6152" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2749" CreationDate="2014-08-22T03:40:02.453" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't have Rybka 4 but I do have the free version (Rybka 2.3.2). Rybka 2.3.2 doesn't support engine book. To verify this, open the engine in command, then type &quot;uci&quot;. Look at how I did it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Look the UCI options, we have one for multi-pv and others. But there is nothing for an opening book. If the engine doesn't support an opening book, you have to rely on a GUI to do it, for example, Fritz.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, if you do the same thing to Stockfish, you'll see a Book options where you can specify path to your book be used by the engine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/a3C0L.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2014-08-22T03:40:02.453" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6153" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1496" CreationDate="2014-08-22T14:12:46.423" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;believe me you should download chess master (grand master edition) &#xA;it has all the features you want + there are many levels to play with&#xA;including many low levels that I'm sure that any small kid can beat them &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3705" LastActivityDate="2014-08-22T14:12:46.423" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6154" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1496" CreationDate="2014-08-22T15:35:48.037" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can try the online option at &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.apronus.com/chess/playcomputer/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.apronus.com/chess/playcomputer/&lt;/a&gt;. You can experiment with the strength of the computer by reducing its time to think per move (in milliseconds).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3456" LastEditorUserId="3456" LastEditDate="2018-05-25T06:33:21.313" LastActivityDate="2018-05-25T06:33:21.313" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="6155" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-08-22T15:37:59.663" Score="2" ViewCount="2463" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am looking for a way to analyse the moves I play. I'm NOT looking for a suggestion of a GUI that does this, or using Chessbase to do this. I want to know how to do this by communicating directly with the UCI engine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, when I tell the engine:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;position startpos moves e2e4 e7e5 d2d4  g7g6&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;go depth 30&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;it returns the best move in this position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;info nodes 11295495 score cp -40&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;bestmove f7f5 ponder g8f6&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But what I want is the evaluation of my latest move g7g6. How do i get that?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3707" LastEditorUserId="3707" LastEditDate="2014-08-22T15:44:01.170" LastActivityDate="2014-08-25T08:00:56.270" Title="How to evaluate my move with UCI engine?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;engines&gt;&lt;evaluation&gt;&lt;uci&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6156" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6155" CreationDate="2014-08-22T16:03:53.073" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;From a read-through of the UCI protocol (&lt;a href=&quot;http://wbec-ridderkerk.nl/html/UCIProtocol.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://wbec-ridderkerk.nl/html/UCIProtocol.html&lt;/a&gt;) I didn't find a single command to do exactly what you want. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What it looks like you could do is start with the position before g7g6, get the cp score (-40 is, I think, a .4 advantage for black), play g7g6 and get the cp score in the subsequent position. You could then take the difference of the two and you have an evaluation of the move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please let me know if this works/is what you are looking for. I haven't gotten into UCI implementation before but you've sparked my interest.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3270" LastActivityDate="2014-08-22T16:03:53.073" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6157" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6155" CreationDate="2014-08-22T16:29:17.287" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think you've confused somewhat in the UCI. Your reported results is invalid. Either the engine has a bug or you've done something wrong. The command you give is correct but the bestmove it reports is invalid because it's white to move in the final position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I did the same thing on Stockfish, I have the following. Please note that the first move in all PVs are white's move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;info depth 16 seldepth 24 score cp 103 upperbound nodes 2601011 nps 207169 time 12555 multipv 1 pv d4e5 f7f6 e5f6 g8f6 b1c3 f8b4 f1d3 d7d5 e4e5 d8e7 d1e2&#xA;&#xA;info depth 16 currmove d4e5 currmovenumber 1&#xA;&#xA;info depth 16 seldepth 26 score cp 131 lowerbound nodes 3046457 nps 207807 time 14660 multipv 1 pv d4e5 f7f6 e5f6 g8f6 g1f3 f6e4 f1c4 b8c6 e1g1 f8e7 b1c3 e4d6&#xA;&#xA;info depth 16 currmove d4e5 currmovenumber 1&#xA;&#xA;info depth 16 seldepth 26 score cp 131 nodes 3094910 nps 208061 time 14875 multipv 1 pv d4e5 f7f6 e5f6 g8f6 g1f3 f6e4 f1c4 b8c6 e1g1 f8e7 b1c3 e4d6&#xA;info nodes 3094910 time 14875&#xA;&#xA;bestmove d4e5 ponder f7f6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your question is a bit unclear because you ask for the evaluation for the move g7-g6. But this evaluation term is extremely unclear. From your comments, you're actually referring to the how well the move g7-g6 is relative to other moves that you can make in the same position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If my interpretation is correct, your closest is multi-pv. Multi-pv lists the moves from best to worst. If g7-g6 is the second best move, you'll see the score and you can compare it with the score for the best move. I said it's closest because if your move is not one of the best moves, you'll find it hard to see in a multi-pv output.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;UCI protocol is designed for computer vs computer playing, not really designed for human analysis like you described in your scenario. If you really want to know about your move. You have to play the move, get the score of it. Take the move back and find the best move in the position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2014-08-22T17:13:52.593" LastActivityDate="2014-08-22T17:13:52.593" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6158" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-08-22T19:41:03.900" Score="5" ViewCount="267" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have trouble with managing my time in my games. I cannot determine if I need a deep analysis  or I am in a position where any good move would do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, what are good indicators to determine if a position needs a more deep analysis or to just play any good move?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3709" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2014-08-22T19:55:19.700" LastActivityDate="2014-09-22T17:39:16.720" Title="Key indicators for deeper analysis" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;time-management&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6159" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6158" CreationDate="2014-08-22T19:49:27.983" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If I see a position which can have multiple continuations, I will analyse each one and think everything through. Till then, beginning and end game should be pretty much the ones to take the least amount of time, because they can be learned. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically focussing on your question fully, if the positions seems complicated - analyse deeper and don't think about time. But once you chose that tactic, work your way through it and don't hesitate. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I might've misunderstood what exactly your question was, but I hope I didn't...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3621" LastEditorUserId="3621" LastEditDate="2014-08-22T21:22:09.437" LastActivityDate="2014-08-22T21:22:09.437" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6160" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6158" CreationDate="2014-08-22T21:35:15.407" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Usually a long series of forced moves indicates the need to look deeply into a position. Often times I see the exchange through to the end, but I do not look the next 2 or 3 moves to make sure I haven't trapped my queen or something. These are typically tactical positions. Fortunately tactics training helps you see these combinations quickly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When the moves aren't forced then taking the time to calculate out every random pawn move and the next few moves after that would take too much time. When I am in this kind of position I do best when I do a fork and discovered attack check to ensure I don't get caught in a simple 3 move tactic and then base my next move on strategy. Only after deciding on a strategy do you need to calculate out the method of achieving your goals.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3445" LastActivityDate="2014-08-22T21:35:15.407" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6161" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-08-23T06:10:46.797" Score="2" ViewCount="76" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have a series of about 50 games in a certain position in fritz opening database 2013. I want to check the most played move, but rather than checking which move was most played by checking them individually, I want to know how to do it like in chess.com's openings database.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3405" LastActivityDate="2014-08-23T06:10:46.797" Title="Checking most played move in a position in Fritz" Tags="&lt;chessbase&gt;&lt;fritz&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ClosedDate="2019-06-23T09:08:15.947" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6162" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6164" CreationDate="2014-08-23T14:36:24.950" Score="10" ViewCount="12844" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the average income for an IM? What about for a super GM? Is there an online site/resource that has these average incomes?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also only the ones that come from chess or chess-related activities(Sponsorships, Commentary, Tournament Organisation, etc)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3405" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2014-08-23T17:38:09.130" LastActivityDate="2018-08-26T22:10:24.127" Title="Average income for titled chess players" Tags="&lt;grandmaster&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6163" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6158" CreationDate="2014-08-23T16:49:37.643" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The tactical bells.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When should you calculate more than usual? That is a question that even a GM cannot properly answer, but tactical bells are the number one pick.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The idea is simple. If you check for tactics, you will find some at times. If you check most tactical puzzles, they have a pin, weak backrank, overworked pieces, etc. Look for that in a game. If you see a weak backrank, calculate. If you see a piece that has two jobs, start calulating. A pin? Try pawnstorming!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In attacks, always calculate several moves ahead. That is the only way to survive the piece sacrifice you might have made. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The positional whispers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Put a knight in the center. The bishop pair. The pawn structure. Look for those. If you think that you can put a knight in the center, can they push it back? Will you force him to give a bishop up for a knight?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The endgame drums.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Endgame is the part of a game where you should calculate the most. Less pieces, more calculation. If you are in a king and pawn endgame, check for everything.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On everything else. Advancing a piece, pushing a pawn, etc, don't need a lot of calculation. The more chess you play, the more you will feel moves like that come right to you. Those moves need less than 10 secs of calculation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the end, playing reveals more. The more you play, the more you do. Hope it helps. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3405" LastActivityDate="2014-08-23T16:49:37.643" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6164" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6162" CreationDate="2014-08-23T17:19:17.780" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;This &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/article/view/making-money-in-chess&quot;&gt;article&lt;/a&gt; may answer your question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want it short:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On average, according to Natalia Pogonina (WGM), the top-3 players in the world earn 1 million / year, top 10 - over 200 000$, top 50 - over 100 000$.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want more information, try looking around this &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/how-much-money-can-gms-earn&quot;&gt;thread&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3621" LastActivityDate="2014-08-23T17:19:17.780" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6165" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6162" CreationDate="2014-08-24T03:13:38.913" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chessbase has covered this topic extensively,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.chessbase.com/post/chess-cash-kings-2013-guess-who-leads&quot;&gt;Chess Cash Kings 2013&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.chessbase.com/post/live-rating-list-of-chess-players-earnings&quot;&gt;Live rating list of chess players earnings?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3357" LastActivityDate="2014-08-24T03:13:38.913" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6166" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6182" CreationDate="2014-08-24T05:11:45.940" Score="6" ViewCount="1434" Body="&lt;p&gt;Consider a mobile chess app which allows to play correspondence chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some apps, like &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesspresso.net/faq.jsp#cheats&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this one&lt;/a&gt;, state that they'll punish someone (e.g., disable their account) if they discover that the person is cheating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it really possible to reliably know if someone is cheating (e.g., uses a chess engine to decide on the next move)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there any heuristics that can exist in the app that will calculate the probability that a player is cheating?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3632" LastEditorUserId="3757" LastEditDate="2021-01-13T08:36:26.113" LastActivityDate="2021-02-25T12:11:24.273" Title="Is it possible to know if someone is cheating in correspondence chess?" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;correspondence-chess&gt;&lt;cheating&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="6168" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6166" CreationDate="2014-08-24T08:53:11.457" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;When someone is playing the computers suggestion 10 moves in a row then I would be convinced that he is cheating. Humans can also detect it since there are true &quot;&lt;em&gt;computer moves&lt;/em&gt;&quot; that are nearly impossible to find for humans and that look very artificial. But you also have to consider the case in which the app developers just wrote this as a deterrent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user3598" LastActivityDate="2014-08-24T08:53:11.457" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6169" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1981" CreationDate="2014-08-24T14:20:05.640" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Agree with others regarding Nimzowitsch - I would not recommend that to beginners for many reasons. I would add  to retrodanny's recommendations, I would also add &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Best lessons of a chess coach by Sunil Weeramantry and Ed Eusebi - joy to read&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would start with Logical Chess Move by Move and then move to Best Lessons (above) and then to others.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1790" LastActivityDate="2014-08-24T14:20:05.640" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6170" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1981" CreationDate="2014-08-24T14:30:43.263" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1901983307&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Learn Chess&lt;/a&gt; by John Nunn is a fantastic book for beginners, do not be fooled by the title&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1906552010&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Build up Your Chess 1: The Fundamentals (Yususpov's Chess School)&lt;/a&gt; by Artur Yusupov will definitely make you shed your beginner skins!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1904600417&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;50 Essential Chess Lessons&lt;/a&gt; by Steve Giddins, a very easy book to read, fantastic &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3357" LastActivityDate="2014-08-24T14:30:43.263" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6171" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-08-24T20:05:24.177" Score="8" ViewCount="2271" Body="&lt;p&gt;This question is inspired by &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQDQNBEsJ80&quot;&gt;yesterday's matches between Hikaru Nakamura + Rybka vs Stockfish&lt;/a&gt;. Nakamura was allowed to use an older version of Rybka to help him, and Stockfish was allowed to play with its full strength but not use an opening book or an endgame tablebase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question 1:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;em&gt;How might players such as Nakamura use Rybka to improve their play against a computer opponent?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can come up with a few naive guesses: check their own moves for blunders; check the computer's suggestions to see if there are some convoluted move sequences which lead to a huge advantage; and letting the computer play the endgame for them. This does not need to be the full story though. Maybe there are useful features that chess engines have that I am not aware of. I'm also wondering to what degree a human player would rely on his own intuition: would he always play his own moves assuming the computer never suggested a blunder or an amazing winning move which is difficult to see?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My second very similar question is inspired by a few comments by Nakamura in a &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1z09nu/im_gm_hikaru_nakamura_1_us_chess_player_and_top/&quot;&gt;reddit thread&lt;/a&gt;, namely&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Fischer would almost certainly lose to [people such as myself, Carlsen, and Kasparov], but this is due to the fact that the game has so fundamentally changed. If Fischer had a few years to use computers, I think he would probably be on the same level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I think mainly what can be learned from computers is a deeper understanding that almost all positions are ok with accurate play. In the past, many people assumed certain positions were automatically bad, but computers have shown that the rules and thought processes aren't always accurate!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question 2:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;em&gt;How have computers changed the way top players play today (when unassisted by computers)?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is meant by the first quote? The second quote indicates that one might not want to give up too early, but does not suggest any change in playstyle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3716" LastActivityDate="2016-09-29T17:24:38.967" Title="How do top players use computers to improve their play?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6172" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6171" CreationDate="2014-08-24T23:28:47.830" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;How might players such as Nakamura use Rybka to improve their play against a computer opponent?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;... check their own moves for blunders; check the computer's suggestions&#xA;  to see if there are some convoluted move sequences which lead to a&#xA;  huge advantage ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I believe you said it yourself here. A computer would be used in order to check if the move that the GM thinks would be a good move is indeed the best move to exploit the existing position. I doubt that it would play the end game fully, I am positive that the GM thinks through every move of the game instead of trusting blindly the computer, but most likely definitely the opening would be played by the machine, at least till about move 5-7, until the position changes known book course.Additionally, the computer would most likely have some kind of a database of the previous games played between other players, so if the position played was already played by someone else a while back, it could be used to not make the same mistake or, vice-versa, to build a long term plan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;How have computers changed the way top players play today (when unassisted by computers)?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;OK, I do understand that this might get a bit long, but bear with me. Ill bold the important points. Computers have made the modern top players much more tactically aware and ready than the chess players before them. This is what the quote about Fischer is talking about: Fischer did not have the opportunity to analyse his games and study lines to such a far extent as is done by the modern top players using computer technology. About the second quote: with the knowledge that there is a possible accurate move in virtually any position, top players would dedicate more time to thinking and finding that one single accurate move, than just assuming that the position was lost and thats it. This makes the game much more interesting and thrilling, because you know that the accurate move exists, its just the matter of finding it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;About how computers help top players prepare: so basically, theres 4 reasons why computers are used today for chess:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Playing against software program&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Keeping track of games (Databases)&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Using software to analyse your games&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Using software to do chess problems&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Out of those 4 points, the one that interest us are the bolded two. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Keeping track of games (Databases)&lt;/strong&gt; is used usually to analyse the openings, and then comparing them to how they were played by other top-players in order to evaluate one's own position and/or learn something from others. You could've never thought that that move would bring any use, but if Kasparov's been whipping it out right and left for the past 5 years with great success, you might as well try giving it a go. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Using software to analyse your games&lt;/strong&gt; is the primary use of computer engine by top-players. After every official game they play, the will analyse their games and see where they did wrong and where they could do better. The programs are usually proficient in tactics and opening theory, so for someone like Magnus Carlsen, whose opening is not as strong compared to other GM's like Kasparov and etc, a computer engine would be the best an fastest way to improve. And of course, if they find that what they did in game is not the strongest move in the position, next time they would be aware of it and follow the move that was suggested by the engine. Usually this would happen once again in the opening, because middle games repeat quite rarely if played against different opponents. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3621" LastActivityDate="2014-08-24T23:28:47.830" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6173" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6175" CreationDate="2014-08-25T03:33:31.817" Score="-1" ViewCount="104" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to memorize the squares A-H 1-8, but its difficult when the labels are very tiny.  How can I increase the font-size of the Rank and File labels in babaschess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3713" LastActivityDate="2014-08-25T07:53:45.370" Title="Increase font of rank and file labels in babaschess" Tags="&lt;babaschess&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6174" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6146" CreationDate="2014-08-25T04:41:41.893" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Stockfish gives your &quot;end of my mainline position&quot; as winning for white(+2.62). I am attaching the whole line below. It does seem that while the rook protects the bishop, the white king can quickly head over to the black pawn chain.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Score: 2.62&#xA;Best: 1. ... Kg4   Ponder: 2. Rxb5&#xA;Time: 31.4s   Depth: 16&#xA;Server: srv01   CPU #1: 24%&#xA;Engine: Stockfish 1.8 64bit&#xA;&#xA;1. ... Kg4 2. Rxb5 Kxf4 3. Rf5+ Kxe4 4. Rxf7 g5 5. h5 Ra6 6. Kg2 Rc6 7. Kg3 Kd5 8. Kg4 Rc4+ 9. Kf3 Rc1 10. Re7 Rb1 11. Bf2 Rb3+ 12. Be3 Rc3 13. Kg4 Ra3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3719" LastActivityDate="2014-08-25T04:41:41.893" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6175" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6173" CreationDate="2014-08-25T05:06:15.297" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here you go:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Babaschess &gt; File &gt; Preferences &gt; Board &gt; Board Window &gt; Board window display options &gt; Show Coordinates &gt; Font Size&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Oh by the way, LiChess.org has a really neat feature to practise board square memorization in its training check it out!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3158" LastEditorUserId="3158" LastEditDate="2014-08-25T07:53:45.370" LastActivityDate="2014-08-25T07:53:45.370" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6176" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6166" CreationDate="2014-08-25T07:51:26.340" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;As far as I have researched on the aspect of using engine assistance (in live games, let alone correspondence games), I had reached an understanding that it is almost close to impossible to detect it. Except for some moves as mentioned by SomePatzer in his answer, which experts can determine is engine like (with high probability in comparison with the player's level). With the option of Multi-PV in UCI engines, which gives &quot;n&quot; best moves in a given situation, a not so monotonous cheater, would choose the move among these n moves in random. So clearly it cannot be detected.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3158" LastActivityDate="2014-08-25T07:51:26.340" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6177" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6155" CreationDate="2014-08-25T08:00:56.270" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Enable multipv on the engine. When you are at &quot;e2e4 e7e5 d2d4&quot; it will list all possible best moves that the engine considers in order of their evaluation. If you find &quot;g7g6&quot; in this list, then what you have considered is one of the best moves also considered by the engine and you'll obviously have the score associated with &quot;g7g6&quot;. So, you will find this information before you make the move &quot;g7g6&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3158" LastActivityDate="2014-08-25T08:00:56.270" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6178" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-08-25T16:00:01.543" Score="3" ViewCount="939" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am developing a chess program. And have made use of an alpha beta algorithm and a static evaluation function. I have successfully implemented both but I want to improve the evaluation function by automatically tuning the weights assigned to its features. At this point am totally confused about the policy suitable for updating the weights of the function. One policy I have in mind is to check whether a move is good or bad before updating weights but I don't really know how to implement it. Thus I need ideas and pseudo code please.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3722" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2014-09-26T13:15:13.317" LastActivityDate="2014-10-26T13:44:37.907" Title="understanding evaluation function" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;evaluation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6179" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-08-25T19:37:39.143" Score="6" ViewCount="1347" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm a software developer and occasional chess player at elo rating 1500.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess engines of different level play different type of games with some mistakes according to that given level.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I'm really eager to know that what are common factors differentiate &#xA;the playing ability of chess engines from one level to another&#xA;level?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Can somebody explain what are the common mistakes make by chess&#xA;engines at ELO range 1500 - 1800 ?  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you in advance for your help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3131" LastActivityDate="2019-09-18T18:26:12.920" Title="What are the common mistakes make by chess engines at ELO range 1500 - 1800?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;engines&gt;&lt;elo&gt;&lt;programming&gt;&lt;blunder&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6180" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6179" CreationDate="2014-08-26T04:48:04.197" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm also a chess engine developer, let me answer you from my own experience:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There're lot of reasons differentiate the playing ability. Actually, a lot. This is an area where one could write a PhD thesis, but let's take a quick look at the two major factors.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Ability to do a cutoff quicker&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Ability to evaluate a position better&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unlike a human player, a computer chess algorithm doesn't need a sophisticated position evaluation. Lots of weak engines tend to use some very complicated evaluations, such as cubic interpolation of material values but none have been proven to work. Simple is the key. Stockfish, the strongest engine in the world, has an evaluation about Elo 1800. It might sound amazing that an Elo 3000+ engine has a simple evaluation that is only about Elo 1800 level. But remember, a computer needs to use this evaluation function for hundreds of thousands of positions. The simpler, the faster the engine can search, the higher depth it can reach and therefore the more tactics it can see.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Weak engines tend to use only alpha-beta. It's insufficient because the search space is too large. One would need to consider null-move, late move reductions and other advanced algorithms.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, to your second point. The common mistake made by chess engines at ELO range 1500 - 1800 is that their programmer doesn't understand chess programming. MicroMax, a super light chess engine (Google it if you don't believe) can play Elo 2000. Anything weaker than it is an indication that the engine has bugs and not performing as expected, as it should.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In general, an engine with a correct material evaluation function can perform Elo 2000.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-09-18T18:25:28.900" LastActivityDate="2019-09-18T18:25:28.900" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="6181" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6179" CreationDate="2014-08-26T21:24:01.567" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It doesn't take much depth to a search to surpass an 1800 level... so even really dumb evaluators tend to surpass that level quickly.  Engines that do have these problems seem to get stuck in quiet positions (or closed positions) which require a plan that terminates beyond the search horizon rather than a short tactical improvement.  Often, a program can make random moves that cause a deterioration of their position, so a patient human can wait for weaknesses to be self inflicted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="606" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-09-18T18:26:12.920" LastActivityDate="2019-09-18T18:26:12.920" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="6182" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6166" CreationDate="2014-08-26T21:49:42.533" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The answer is, &quot;Yes.&quot; See this article:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.uschess.org/content/view/12677/763&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.uschess.org/content/view/12677/763&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does your phone application have this capability? Probably no... yes! So don't do it!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3445" LastActivityDate="2014-08-26T21:49:42.533" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6183" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6178" CreationDate="2014-08-26T23:55:30.677" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I might approach this via &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_algorithm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;genetic algorithm&lt;/a&gt;.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Each param in the gene represents one weight you use for tuning.  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Have a fairly large test suite of positions + moves made by grandmasters (randomly over many middle game positions).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Create a random initial population of genes to be used in competition.  You can include any feature weights you already believe to be good as well.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;For each gene, for each position, do a shallow search based on how much training time you want to take.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;For every position where your program produces the same move as a grandmaster, add one to a total associated with a gene.  This total is what the GA should try to maximize.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Random pairing for mating rights competition based on above score, and breed the results using standard GA techniques.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Run until convergence.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Whatever final weight you get becomes your feature weight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="606" LastActivityDate="2014-08-26T23:55:30.677" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6184" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6187" CreationDate="2014-08-27T00:24:24.457" Score="-1" ViewCount="11869" Body="&lt;p&gt;This topic has been discussed before but I want to reopen this thread because of Stockfish vs Nakamura. I watched the series live on chess.com a few days ago&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Game 2, I was hoping to see if Stockfish would blunder on time. But Nakamura wanted to attack. Any titled player could reach the position that Nakamura reached, so it’s not to hard do it. Here’s the list of &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/forum/view/chess-buzz/where-are-the-nakamura-vs-stockfish-games&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;the games&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With less than a minute left, could Nakamura, in theory, beat Stockfish or any chess engine? Or can it make a stupid move to avoid threefold repetition or something like that? I ask this because I heard that an engine would make any move, no matter how stupid it is, just to avoid losing on time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nakamura played 3 games against Stockfish last week. In the first 2 games, Nakamura could use Rybka for assistance. Meanwhile, in the third game, he played on his own, but as white, and Stockfish didn't hav its H pawn. Effectively, Nakamura was a pawn up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nakamura won the first game and lost the other two. The second game was close and he could’ve at least drawn it if he didn't blunder. That’s what the commentator said. I think it was IM Danny Rensch who was the commentator.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I hope that you watched the games. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is this: Can a GM defeat Stockfish by letting the engine blunder on time, draw by threefold repetition, or draw by the fifty-move rule?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If Nakamura was patient, I think that Stockfish would have been close enough for a draw by the fifty-move rule.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1105" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-05-23T02:08:48.707" LastActivityDate="2020-02-07T20:01:43.960" Title="Is it possible for any titled player to beat a chess engine?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="6185" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6184" CreationDate="2014-08-27T03:51:10.653" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think Nakamura can beat Stockfish with time in any case. Stockfish can still play very strong chess even searching for just a second. As long as Stockfish detects it's low on time, it'll play faster and faster.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2014-08-27T03:51:10.653" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6186" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6178" CreationDate="2014-08-27T03:59:30.443" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Chess, you use SPSA and CLOP. Those are the algorithms used by Stockfish in Fishtest to tune its parameter. The algorithm worked so well that it made Stockfish be the strongest engine in the world.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please note that the algorithms are very complicated mathematically. One could write a PHD thesis on this topic. In SPSA, you start from a best guess from the value. Then play games, use those games to derive a better gradient for the next series of parameters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The maths is very hard, but it all boils down to some statistics - you play games, and use those games to derive a distribution to update the parameters you want to tune.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please read:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://talkchess.com/forum/viewtopic.php?start=0&amp;amp;t=50823&amp;amp;topic_view=flat&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://talkchess.com/forum/viewtopic.php?start=0&amp;amp;t=50823&amp;amp;topic_view=flat&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/fishcooking/SPSA/fishcooking/WNrxeXAJ6VI/ZkCnRv4I_qEJ&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/fishcooking/SPSA/fishcooking/WNrxeXAJ6VI/ZkCnRv4I_qEJ&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2014-08-27T03:59:30.443" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6187" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6184" CreationDate="2014-08-27T08:01:15.517" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is no way a strong (2300+) engine will lose on time against a human. It simply does not happen. The human will most likely be the first to lose on the time. A good example of this is Computer4Impossible on chess.com in the bullet portions of the site, where the only way to defeat it is on the board as it never loses on time. Also, I do not think any decent engine would be in danger of losing on time anyways as the general speed and quality of its moves is far greater than a human's.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Is it possible for any titled player to beat chess engine?&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Assumings it's the strongest engine in the world, on completely equal terms, no. Maybe a draw with careful play but a win against is impossible. We have already seen how the top players fared against the strongest engines with the Adams-Hydra and Kramnik-Deep Fritz matches, and those were in 2005 and 2006!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With the assistance of another engine, it is probably still not possible, even if the other engine is identical to the one you are playing against. Think about it. Even if Carlsen had his engine, it would not make any difference. He he can not hope to outwit even his own assistant engine (assuming it is also strong, like Rybka.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only possible ways a titled player could hope to defeat an assumed strongest chess engine (like Stockfish) would be if they had a stronger engine or if they had some sufficient compensation (at least two pawns).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It would be nice if you could specify your question further, as there are many factors involving such a topic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3357" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-05-23T02:13:03.343" LastActivityDate="2019-05-23T02:13:03.343" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="6188" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6367" CreationDate="2014-08-27T12:37:19.570" Score="13" ViewCount="804" Body="&lt;p&gt;A question of rulebook pedantry:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Effective July 2014, the FIDE has revised its &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fide.com/component/handbook/?id=171&amp;amp;view=article&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Laws of Chess.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt;  As you know, the &lt;em&gt;Laws&lt;/em&gt; have long allowed a player to claim a draw by repetition.  The July 2014 &lt;em&gt;Laws,&lt;/em&gt; sect. 9.2, however append this curious sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;When a king or a rook is forced to move, it will lose its castling&#xA;  rights, if any, only after it is moved.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sect. 9.2 does not explicitly link this sentence to the draw by repetition.  The sentence floats alone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because there seems to be no other reason for the sentence to be in sect. 9.2, one tends to read it to imply that, at game's start, four &lt;em&gt;castling rights&lt;/em&gt; exist&amp;mdash;White's kingside, White's queenside, Black's kingside and Black's queenside&amp;mdash;and that these castling rights are as much features of the position as, say, a white pawn on b3 is a feature of the position.  White's kingside castling right vanishes when Rh1 or Ke1 is first moved, or when Rh1 is captured (though, actually, sect. 9.2 does not mention the rook's capture), and cannot vanish at any other time or in any other way.  Specifically, White's kingside castling right vanishes neither (a) when White is temporarily prevented from castling kingside nor (b) when no legal continuation exists in which White could castle kingside.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In other words, a castling right exists even if it can never be used; and this affects when a draw can be claimed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could one read sect. 9.2 in any other way?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, this (nonsensical but technically illustrative) game is not yet a draw:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;White to open, illustrating sect. 9.2&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 d5 2. exd5 Qxd5 3. Nc3 Qa5 4. g3 Nf6 5. Bg2 b6 6. Bxa8 Bd7 7. Qh5 Qxh5 8. Rb1 Nc6 9. b3 e6 10. Na4 Bd6 11. c3 O-O 12. Nh3 Qe5+ 13. Kf1 Qf5 14. Ke1 Qe5+ 15. Kf1 Qf5 16. Ke1 Qe5+&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After 12... Qe5+, three castling rights have already vanished, but White's kingside right remains, &lt;em&gt;even though no continuation exists in which White might eventually castle.&lt;/em&gt;  On the other hand, after 14... Qe5+ or 16... Qe5+, all four castling rights have vanished.  Therefore, triple repetition has not yet occurred.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is my understanding correct?  Or is an alternate, reasonable interpretation possible?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Further reading:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesscafe.com/archives/archives.htm#An%20Arbiter%27s%20Notebook&quot;&gt;Geurt Gijssen.  Arbiter's Notebook.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://main.uschess.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&amp;amp;t=6113&quot;&gt;Bill Smythe.  USCF discussion.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="315" LastEditorUserId="8201" LastEditDate="2018-03-05T17:16:40.047" LastActivityDate="2018-03-05T17:16:40.047" Title="Draws, castling rights, and the FIDE's 2014 rulebook revision" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;draw&gt;&lt;fide&gt;&lt;castling&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6189" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6082" CreationDate="2014-08-27T23:10:49.750" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;Powerful computer&quot; is a relative term. Different chess engines use different algorithms and strategies to weigh what would be considered the best moves in a given position, but no computer or chess program is able to calculate all the possible moves in a chess game in advance, except for when there's only a few pieces left on the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you mean who would win when two perfect chess programs with unlimited computing power go head to head: noone knows the answer, since chess still hasn't been &quot;solved&quot;. I'd assume the most likely outcome would be a draw though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/gBHA5.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;This is an image, not a signature, newbs.&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3735" LastEditorUserId="3735" LastEditDate="2014-09-22T07:10:58.317" LastActivityDate="2014-09-22T07:10:58.317" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6190" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5713" CreationDate="2014-08-27T23:27:59.313" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is there any way to tweak it so that I can connect to chess.com's server?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course. Just use Fiddler to monitor the HTTP traffic to chess.com from your desktop/mobile phone/tablet to see how it can be done. It is technically possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/gBHA5.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;gg&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3735" LastEditorUserId="3735" LastEditDate="2014-11-03T09:43:31.843" LastActivityDate="2014-11-03T09:43:31.843" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6191" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-08-28T00:01:07.130" Score="5" ViewCount="3544" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just started playing with Chess Position Trainer and I really enjoy the experience of playing through the &quot;Closed Sicilian” repetoir that comes pre-loaded.  The manual mentions that you can build your own or purchase some through ebooks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Where can I get additional openings that are Chess Position Trainer compatible and are targeted for beginners 1300?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The manual states:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;After importing a professional ebook you can use the function Re-ordering of Candidate Moves&#xA;  (p. 77). This will take care of positions where the author offers alternative moves for a position. &#xA;  It only works if the author used move assessments for each alternative though (which is usually &#xA;  the case). Then the program will automatically bring them in order!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3713" LastEditorDisplayName="user4378" LastEditDate="2016-01-20T17:30:44.537" LastActivityDate="2016-10-18T02:51:35.287" Title="Additional openings that are Chess Position Trainer compatible" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;database&gt;&lt;beginner&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6192" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6191" CreationDate="2014-08-28T00:15:52.663" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Found 1 repertoire for Juniors so far:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://exeterchessclub.org.uk/content/chess-position-trainer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://exeterchessclub.org.uk/content/chess-position-trainer&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, I've had some luck downloading PGN files from &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ficsgames.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.ficsgames.org/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I seem to have found some additional older files here:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesspositiontrainer.com/index.php/en/support?view=faq&amp;amp;catid=4&amp;amp;tmpl=component&amp;amp;faqid=22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.chesspositiontrainer.com/index.php/en/support?view=faq&amp;amp;catid=4&amp;amp;tmpl=component&amp;amp;faqid=22&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3713" LastEditorUserId="3884" LastEditDate="2014-10-23T18:20:20.673" LastActivityDate="2014-10-23T18:20:20.673" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6193" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-08-28T12:17:57.827" Score="3" ViewCount="1044" Body="&lt;p&gt;What are the typical middlegame planes for black/white in the Petroff defense, more specifically in the variations:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Petroff three knights: 1. e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.Nc3.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Classical Variation: 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. Nxe5 d6 4.Nf3 Nxe4 5. d4 d5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.1. Classical Variation with 5. Nc3.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Steinitz Variation: 1. e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.d4.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3405" LastEditorUserId="3890" LastEditDate="2014-09-20T21:21:11.910" LastActivityDate="2017-05-04T06:07:07.690" Title="Plans in the Petroff Defense" Tags="&lt;middlegame&gt;&lt;petroff-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6194" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6337" CreationDate="2014-08-28T12:51:23.707" Score="7" ViewCount="1668" Body="&lt;p&gt;How does the new quintuple-repetition rule work, please?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To be clear: my question does not concern how likely the rule and its cases are to arise in practical play, but rather just what the rule is, in cases in which it might theoretically apply.  Technically precise answers which (i) illuminate possible misunderstandings and (ii) consider edge cases merit extra appreciation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, if you happen to know:  Have authors, masters and/or tournament directors concurred (to the extent to which they care) in the meaning of the new quintuple-repetition rule?  Or does the rule as written admit technical ambiguity?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;References:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fide.com/component/handbook/?id=171&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE.  &lt;em&gt;Laws of Chess,&lt;/em&gt; July 2014.&lt;/a&gt;  Refer especially to sect. 9.6.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesscafe.com/archives/archives.htm#An%20Arbiter%27s%20Notebook&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Geurt Gijssen.  Arbiter's Notebook.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;UPDATE: EXAMPLE&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In light of @dfan's comment, an example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;White to move, illustrating sect. 9.6&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;2b2rk1/5ppp/8/8/8/8/5PPP/2B2RK1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Bb2 Bb7 2. Bc1 Bc8 3. Ba3 Ba6 4. Bc1 Bc8 5. Bd2 Bd7 6. Bc1 Bc8 7. Be3 Be6 8. Bc1 Bc8&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Drawn?  Why or why not?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="315" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-01T15:06:34.307" LastActivityDate="2020-07-17T14:42:25.130" Title="Quintuple repetition and the FIDE's 2014 rulebook revision" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;fide&gt;&lt;draw&gt;&lt;fivefold-repetition&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="9" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6196" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5811" CreationDate="2014-08-28T15:34:13.970" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you want to know the quality of every move and a estimated ELO strength for each player you can use the Android app called &quot;Analyze your games&quot;. It uses Stockfish internally to compare your moves with the best ones.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1657" LastActivityDate="2014-08-28T15:34:13.970" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6197" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6342" CreationDate="2014-08-28T16:22:19.333" Score="5" ViewCount="465" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a case where the opponent can inflict a double pawn on us&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;4k3/ppp2ppp/3p4/4p3/4P3/2PP4/P1P2PPP/4K3 w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why is this kind of double pawn particularly devastating for white? I see white is okay, white can try d4 pawn break, or Rb1.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or am I wrong? Can somebody explain why this position is not favourable for white?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This pawn structure can also arise from Nimzo Indian&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.a3 Bxc3+ 5.bxc3 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3381" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2014-08-30T08:39:52.803" LastActivityDate="2014-09-22T00:27:10.940" Title="Why are doubled pawns in this case particularly devastating?" Tags="&lt;nimzo-indian&gt;&lt;doubled-pawn&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6198" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6197" CreationDate="2014-08-28T22:59:01.490" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I first need to note that there is a fairly large difference between the structure in your first diagram and the one reached in the Nimzo-Indian line: in the first diagram, white has not yet played d4. This gives him the option of playing c4 and c3, which is actually quite a strong structure as the d4 square, which would normally be weak with pawns on c4, d3 and e4, is defended by the c3-pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That being said, I don't agree with the assessment that this is an uncommonly bad case of doubled pawns for white. While doubled pawns are, in general, unfavorable for the side that has them, their existence is usually not enough to significantly change the evaluation of a position. In fact, the second line gives us an approximation of how much opening theory thinks that white's structure has been crippled: about the difference between a bishop and a knight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wrote the above and then realized that I may have misinterpreted your question. You may be wondering why white's structure in the first diagram is worse than black's.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The doubled-pawn structure is a slight disadvantage and has both plusses and minuses which may be exploited in a given piece configuration by either side. One plus would be the possibility which I mentioned in the first paragraph. Your idea of putting a rook on b1 is another option, although that may be mitigated by black playing b6. White pushing d4 is also an idea, although it may not be so favorable here because a capture on e5 would leave the c-pawns isolated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black's structure is better, though, because each of his pawns on the queenside has the potential to be defended by another pawn rather than a piece. White, by contrast, will always have two pawns not defended by pawns: the a-pawn and at least one c-pawn. The attention that white's pieces will have to use defending the pawns on average will outweigh the other considerations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3270" LastEditorUserId="3270" LastEditDate="2014-08-29T01:53:00.813" LastActivityDate="2014-08-29T01:53:00.813" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6199" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1303" CreationDate="2014-08-29T01:00:06.680" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The weakness in the Elo rating system is that it relies on &quot;scoring&quot;, that is, replacing trinomial chess game outcomes with binomial &quot;scores&quot; (win=1, lose=0, draw=1/2). Scoring causes some game outcome information to be lost. I made an empirical measure of the information loss and found it to be significant. I have proposed &lt;a href=&quot;https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2488369&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;a two-dimensional measure of performance&lt;/a&gt; that is more accurate because it contains more information.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3572" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-08-11T12:10:33.270" LastActivityDate="2019-08-11T12:10:33.270" CommentCount="1" CommunityOwnedDate="2014-08-29T01:00:06.680" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="6200" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1765" CreationDate="2014-08-29T07:06:38.487" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.gingergm.com/shop/killer-dutch-the-book-ebook&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;The Killer Dutch&lt;/a&gt; by GM Simon Williams includes 24 annotated games, as well as a lot of great advice and new ideas for Dutch players. It focuses mainly on the Classical Dutch, so it sounds ideal for you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/6BQMO.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;The Killer Dutch by Simon Williams&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's also an accompanying DVD that's very decent, available &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.gingergm.com/shop/killer-dutch&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;from Simon's own site here&lt;/a&gt; or as a &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.ichess.net/shop/dutch-defense-gm-simon-williams/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;digital download from OCL&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2130" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-08-14T13:27:44.290" LastActivityDate="2019-08-14T13:27:44.290" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="6201" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6203" CreationDate="2014-08-29T08:34:00.950" Score="2" ViewCount="113" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have many of my old games in PGN format and a still quite many in paper format that I want to make digitally available. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I prefer make the digital versions in an open format that is widely used. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are the most commonly used open digital formats for chess games?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3739" LastActivityDate="2014-08-29T19:23:22.837" Title="What are the most commonly used open digital formats for chess games?" Tags="&lt;pgn&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6202" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5941" CreationDate="2014-08-29T13:56:06.423" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;These are the values used by &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.craftychess.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Crafty&lt;/a&gt; - one of the best open source chess engines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;#  define PAWN_VALUE                             100&#xA;#  define KNIGHT_VALUE                           325&#xA;#  define BISHOP_VALUE                           325&#xA;#  define ROOK_VALUE                             500&#xA;#  define QUEEN_VALUE                           1050&#xA;#  define KING_VALUE                           40000&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you can follow the C code, then you can dig deeper by looking at the the source files that are available.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="118" LastActivityDate="2014-08-29T13:56:06.423" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6203" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6201" CreationDate="2014-08-29T19:23:22.837" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The most used is PGN. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can arrange them in a database once you have enoguh PGNs to make it worth it. If you have money, ChessBase is great. If you want a free option there is SCID vs. PC (SCID for Linux)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some links:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portable_Game_Notation&quot;&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portable_Game_Notation&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://shop.chessbase.com/en/products/chessbase12_download&quot;&gt;http://shop.chessbase.com/en/products/chessbase12_download&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://scidvspc.sourceforge.net/&quot;&gt;http://scidvspc.sourceforge.net/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://scid.sourceforge.net/&quot;&gt;http://scid.sourceforge.net/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note : &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;SCID vs PC is better than the Windows version of SCID. My opinion of course.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3405" LastActivityDate="2014-08-29T19:23:22.837" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6204" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6205" CreationDate="2014-08-29T20:47:47.763" Score="9" ViewCount="869" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have seen many live competitions from top GMs, and I can usually see one thinking 15 minutes straight, then doing a tactical move. After some thinking from the other player, he does the main move, the one the engines say it is the best, and probably was considered by the first GM. I keep seeing GMs thinking, spending more time, even if the opponent plays what they wanted. Double checking might be it, but still, isn't it valuable time spent on checking an already checked position?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3405" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2014-08-30T17:47:22.450" LastActivityDate="2014-09-03T19:31:47.430" Title="Why do players think after they have made a plan?" Tags="&lt;grandmaster&gt;&lt;time-management&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6205" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6204" CreationDate="2014-08-29T21:14:42.957" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;I had the same thought myself. For a couple tournaments, I started playing lines which I had calculated out with about 10 seconds of thought on each move. My results were terrible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason, I think, is that the extra move being played on the board gives you quite a bit of added calculation power. I now take more time on the moves following a long think and I frequently encounter errors in my previous analysis, which I either have to find fixes for or find a new move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3270" LastActivityDate="2014-08-29T21:14:42.957" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6206" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1960" CreationDate="2014-08-30T17:46:51.673" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Regarding the development of rooks...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Rooks usually come into their own later in the game, don't worry if they don't seem to have a starring role early on.  In the opening:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Focus on getting the minors (Bishop and Knights) developed first&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Castle as early as possible&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Move the Queen off the back rank &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now the back rank is cleared and your rooks should be connected (i.e. they can &quot;see&quot; each other).  At this point you can think about how to position your rooks most effectively:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is there an open file (a vertical line cleared of pawns)?  Move a rook to that file!&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is there a half-open file (none of your pawns are obstructing the file) ?  Move rook to that file and it will exert pressure along the line.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is there a file that is likely to be open soon (say the pawn in front is likely to be exchanged)?  This is a good spot.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A rook that is &quot;x-raying&quot; (i.e. attacking though other pieces are blocking the line of attack) the enemy King or Queen often lead to advantageous tactics&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If one rook is good, two lined up can be even stronger!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3744" LastActivityDate="2014-08-30T17:46:51.673" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6207" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6210" CreationDate="2014-08-30T21:53:08.953" Score="3" ViewCount="335" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have recently found the &lt;a href=&quot;http://chessok.com/?page_id=361&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;following place&lt;/a&gt;, where I can find the outcome for any 6-piece endgame with Nalimov endtables.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was surprised to see this, because I have recently &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mtu-media.com/finalgen/home_ing.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;read&lt;/a&gt; that &lt;strong&gt;set of tables requires 1153 GB of hard disk space&lt;/strong&gt;. This is significant amount of space and also it is not so easy to search through it. But nonetheless this website can give you the result together with a mating series in &amp;lt; 1 second.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My first guess is that they are not using all endtables. There is little point of searching the mate of lonely king VS 4 pieces. But at the very best it takes away 1/4 of all the size.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My vague question is: how can it be done? My normal question is: what is the smallest size of reasonable 6-pieces Nalimov endgametables (by reasonable I mean where the result is not obvious)? Also it would be nice if someone can tell where can I get this smallest size endtables.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="703" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-09-29T14:02:47.653" LastActivityDate="2017-09-29T14:02:47.653" Title="What is the smallest possible size of Nalimov endtables?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;tablebases&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6208" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-08-31T01:18:45.757" Score="3" ViewCount="1243" Body="&lt;p&gt;Earlier in my game I had moved my king 1 space to right of its original position. Later in the game, after my opponent castled he placed his rook correctly which resulted in the rook being directly across from my king on the other end of the board with no pieces in between. He then stated I was in check. Is this a legal check since he actually moved his king first in the castling action, or should he only be able to call a check after my next move? In other words, can he check me from a castling move since his king did not originally have me in check?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3746" LastEditorUserId="3673" LastEditDate="2014-08-31T07:59:23.857" LastActivityDate="2015-08-16T21:16:13.547" Title="Can a rook put an opponent's king in check as a result of castling?" Tags="&lt;castling&gt;&lt;check&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6209" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6208" CreationDate="2014-08-31T02:53:26.487" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, of course he can; you're indeed in check. Imagine if checks didn't exist--then on the next move, if your king hasn't moved, he could just take your king with his rook.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3673" LastActivityDate="2014-08-31T02:53:26.487" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6210" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6207" CreationDate="2014-08-31T07:56:16.377" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can get a smaller 6-piece tablebase here, fully compressed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/syzygy1/tb&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://github.com/syzygy1/tb&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While I have personally not tried that, I know because of a friend that they are really good. If you were hoping for smaller stuff, this is as small as you can get. After all, there are lost of positions with 6 pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3405" LastActivityDate="2014-08-31T07:56:16.377" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6211" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6204" CreationDate="2014-08-31T09:38:18.400" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess has &lt;em&gt;far&lt;/em&gt; too many possibilities to calculate. It also has time constraints, so at some point you always have to stop thinking and make a decision based on imperfect information. Barring forced moves and forced wins, you always have imperfect information and so you have to rely on judgment all the time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When Carlsen was considering Bxf7, he had to think about several possible replies, and of course he also had to spend time on the other moves he could have played and the possible replies to those. After fifteen minutes he decided that Bxf7 looked best so far, spending more time wasn't productive and he went for it. That doesn't mean the position after Kxf7 is &quot;already checked&quot; in any sense of the word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now that he can concentrate only on the position after Bxf7 Kxf7, and not on all the other positions that might have occurred, it makes sense to spend more time to look deeper.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2014-08-31T19:31:42.640" LastActivityDate="2014-08-31T19:31:42.640" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6212" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24840" CreationDate="2014-08-31T10:54:43.557" Score="10" ViewCount="510" Body="&lt;p&gt;Where can I find the following article, which concerns the &lt;a href=&quot;http://mathworld.wolfram.com/QueensProblem.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;n-queens problem&lt;/a&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;E. Pauls, Das Maximalproblem der Damen auf dem Schachbrete, II, Deutsche Schachzeitung. Organ f¨ur das Gesammte Schachleben 29 (9)(1874) 257–267.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3750" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2014-09-02T01:42:33.870" LastActivityDate="2019-07-03T05:23:33.707" Title="Where can I find Pauls' 1874 article on the n-queens problem?" Tags="&lt;history&gt;&lt;chessboards&gt;&lt;mathematics&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6213" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-08-31T11:02:37.533" Score="7" ViewCount="1903" Body="&lt;p&gt;As the title says, is there a site that provides (legal) online access to free chess books?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3405" LastEditorUserId="1761" LastEditDate="2014-09-01T13:06:28.840" LastActivityDate="2015-10-03T10:52:53.997" Title="Is there a site that provides (legal) online access to free chess books?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;books&gt;&lt;online&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6214" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6213" CreationDate="2014-08-31T12:30:26.317" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.openchessbooks.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Open Chess Books&lt;/a&gt; is a site that aims to “republish classic chess books, with all diagrams transformed in animated boards, and release them for free.”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They only have two books at the moment (&lt;em&gt;Modern Ideas in Chess&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;Chess Fundamentals&lt;/em&gt;), but it's a great resource so far.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesstactics.org&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Predator at the Chessboard&lt;/a&gt; by Ward Farnsworth is a great primer on chess tactics that's available to read for free online or purchase in print form.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2130" LastEditorUserId="2130" LastEditDate="2014-09-02T10:59:07.600" LastActivityDate="2014-09-02T10:59:07.600" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6215" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6212" CreationDate="2014-08-31T15:53:13.320" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;The only old documents I find available online from the &lt;em&gt;Deutsche Schachzeitung&lt;/em&gt; periodical are from Volumes 20, 21, 44, 45, 56, 57, which are &lt;a href=&quot;https://archive.org/search.php?query=deutsche%20schachzeitung&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;available at the Internet Archive&lt;/a&gt;. So if you really are after Pauls' exact article for historical reasons, you might have to track down a hard copy of Volume 29 at a library.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, if you are primarily interested in the mathematical content of Pauls' article, then a decent (though also partial) exposition is available from &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0012365X07010394&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&quot;A survey of known results and research areas for n-queens&quot;&lt;/a&gt; by Jordan Bell and Brett Stevens, in &lt;em&gt;Discrete Mathematics&lt;/em&gt; Volume 309, pp.1-31 (2009). For instance, they spell out Pauls' method of proof for the existence of solutions to the n-queens problem (which appears in the first part of the article for which you want the second part):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Theorem (Pauls 1874).&lt;/strong&gt; For all n&gt;3, n non-attacking queens can be placed on the n x n standard chessboard.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Bell--Stevens paper does point out that Pauls' part II gives a proof that the 92 solutions to the 8-queens problem given in 1850 by Nauck are exhaustive. But unfortunately, &#xA;Pauls' method of proof isn't given. (That said, Pauls' work here is mentioned alongside Gauss' earlier claim that a brute force computation could be used to prove that 92 is the total number, so perhaps that gives a hint at how Pauls proceeds.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edited to add:&lt;/strong&gt; Bell and Stevens do point to two other old secondary sources which they say offer &quot;excellent summaries&quot; of prior work done on the 8-queens problem. These are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;E. Lucas, &lt;em&gt;Récréations mathématiques&lt;/em&gt;. 2ième éd., nouveau tirage. Librairie Scientifique et Technique Albert Blanchard, Paris, 1973.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;T.B. Sprague, On the eight queens problem, &lt;em&gt;Proc. Edinburgh Math. Soc.&lt;/em&gt;, 17 (1899), pp. 43–68.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first is &lt;a href=&quot;http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k3943s/f84.image&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;available online via Gallica&lt;/a&gt; (see the section on &quot;Le problème des huit reines&quot;), but it appears not to discuss the work of Pauls; rather, it focuses on the work of Günther (S. Günther, Zur mathematischen Theorie des Schachbretts, &lt;em&gt;Arch. Math. Phys.&lt;/em&gt;, 56 (3) (1874), pp. 281–292), which work also receives an English-language exposition in &lt;a href=&quot;http://books.google.com/books?id=nKxSCc5_cCcC&amp;amp;lpg=PA457&amp;amp;ots=3FsFz-lPDF&amp;amp;dq=glaisher%20on%20the%20problem%20of%20the%20eight%20queens&amp;amp;pg=PA457#v=onepage&amp;amp;q&amp;amp;f=false&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;an 1874 &lt;em&gt;Philosophical Magazine&lt;/em&gt; article by Glaisher&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Sprague piece is also available online, &lt;a href=&quot;http://books.google.com/books?id=jJvxAAAAMAAJ&amp;amp;lpg=PA44&amp;amp;ots=ixwKA-Khby&amp;amp;dq=%22zur%20mathematischen%20theorie%20des%20schachbretts%22&amp;amp;pg=PA43#v=onepage&amp;amp;q&amp;amp;f=false&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;via Google Books&lt;/a&gt;, but sadly it doesn't address Pauls either; instead, it again offers a look more at the Günther/Glaisher work, but this does at least mean explicitly addressing the matter of the 92 8-queens solutions on the standard chessboard, among other things.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2014-08-31T18:52:25.767" LastActivityDate="2014-08-31T18:52:25.767" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6217" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6208" CreationDate="2014-09-01T00:50:48.577" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, it is check. It doesn't matter which piece was moved.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Fen &quot;8/8/8/8/8/8/8/R3K1k1 w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also have &lt;em&gt;discovered check&lt;/em&gt; where your opponent moves a piece, exposing a piece behind it which attacks your king. This is another example of a check in which the checking piece wasn't moved.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Fen &quot;4r3/8/4k3/8/8/4K3/8/8 w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Fen &quot;8/4pr2/5k2/3b1P2/8/4B3/4KR2/8 w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3118" LastEditorUserId="7500" LastEditDate="2015-08-16T21:16:13.547" LastActivityDate="2015-08-16T21:16:13.547" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6218" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6380" CreationDate="2014-09-01T13:31:15.220" Score="3" ViewCount="71" Body="&lt;p&gt;Do these playoffs count as official matches? So do you lose win ELO in playing rapid tiebreakers? Also in blitz playoffs, such as the one in Norway Chess 2014, do they count towards official rating?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3405" LastActivityDate="2014-09-21T19:00:34.560" Title="On rapid /Armageddon tiebreakers" Tags="&lt;elo&gt;&lt;blitz&gt;&lt;rapid&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6219" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6220" CreationDate="2014-09-01T15:47:04.013" Score="7" ViewCount="1138" Body="&lt;p&gt;You often hear players refer to others as half as good as me, while they have the same Elo. Is there a formula to measure this? It must take in account that being half as good as Carlsen, for example, is somewhere near a 2600 GM level, while half as good as a club player, is at 1000 level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What I think that being n times weaker than a player is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If an n times weaker player plays the player he is n times weaker, it means that if they played an infinite match, the weaker player should get n points, while the stronger player n*x.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any other ideas? Are there any papers written on this? If my idea were to be true, is there a formula to calculate the Elo difference?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3405" LastEditorUserId="3405" LastEditDate="2014-09-01T18:17:01.943" LastActivityDate="2014-09-02T16:37:40.407" Title="What is the Elo of a player who is half as good as another player?" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;elo&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="10" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6220" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6219" CreationDate="2014-09-01T18:08:55.753" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;This answer addresses one concrete portion of the OP; namely, for an arbitrary &lt;code&gt;N &amp;gt; 0&lt;/code&gt;, what rating difference between Player A and Player B corresponds to Player A's expected score against Player B being &lt;code&gt;N&lt;/code&gt; times the expected score for Player B? I'll speak in terms of the USCF's Elo rating system, since I'm most familiar with it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If Player A's expected score is &lt;code&gt;N&lt;/code&gt; times that of Player B when they face each other, then Player A's expected score is &lt;code&gt;N / (N + 1)&lt;/code&gt; while Player B's expected score is &lt;code&gt;1 / (N + 1)&lt;/code&gt; (since the two expected scores must sum to &lt;code&gt;1&lt;/code&gt;). Let &lt;code&gt;A&lt;/code&gt; be Player A's rating and let &lt;code&gt;B&lt;/code&gt; be Player B's rating. According to the USCF rating system, these ratings &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elo_rating_system#Mathematical_details&quot;&gt;are intended to indicate&lt;/a&gt; that Player A's expected score is then&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1 / (1 + 10^((B - A) / 400))&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus if we solve the equation&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1 / (1 + 10^((B - A) / 400)) = N / (N + 1)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;for &lt;code&gt;A - B&lt;/code&gt;, we will have an answer as to what rating difference corresponds to Player A's expected score being &lt;code&gt;N&lt;/code&gt; times greater than Player B's when they match up. What we get is that&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;A - B = -400 * ln(1 / N) / ln(10)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So we have the following approximate rating differences corresponding to certain values of &lt;code&gt;N&lt;/code&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;N     A - B&#xA;-     -----&#xA;1     0&#xA;1.5   70&#xA;2     120&#xA;3     191&#xA;4     241&#xA;5     280&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2014-09-01T18:08:55.753" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6221" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2014-09-02T01:44:18.503" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Questions concerning the mathematics of the game of chess, or chess-related mathematical pursuits.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2014-09-02T01:44:18.503" LastActivityDate="2014-09-02T01:44:18.503" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6222" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2014-09-02T01:44:18.503" Score="0" Body="Questions concerning the mathematics of the game of chess, or chess-related mathematical pursuits." OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2014-09-02T01:44:18.503" LastActivityDate="2014-09-02T01:44:18.503" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6223" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6219" CreationDate="2014-09-02T09:02:37.053" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Jacob Aagaard gives &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.qualitychess.co.uk/blog/?p=1445#comment-10550&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;in a comment in his blog&lt;/a&gt; a rule of thumb that doubling one's strength corresponds to increasing elo by 135. He gives no citation, but it might sound plausible if you consider the amount of work needed to achieve certain level etc. This (coincidentally?) seems to be close to the value given in ETD's answer for the rating difference when the better player scores 2/3 and the worse player scores 1/3 in a match.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you believe Aagaard's formula, then with elo difference of x, the better player is log_2(x/135) times better, and if the a player is n times better than another, their elo difference is 135*2^n.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1761" LastEditorUserId="1761" LastEditDate="2014-09-02T16:37:40.407" LastActivityDate="2014-09-02T16:37:40.407" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6224" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4465" CreationDate="2014-09-02T12:46:48.890" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;If the knight cannot touch the same square twice then the answer is 63. See &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knight%27s_tour&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Knight's tour&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A coworker of mine wrote the software to determine the route a long time ago.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3445" LastEditorUserId="1105" LastEditDate="2014-09-02T13:15:52.490" LastActivityDate="2014-09-02T13:15:52.490" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6225" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1846" CreationDate="2014-09-02T19:06:37.607" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am teaching my 5 year old to play.  I also coach soccer.  I would never consider &quot;trouncing&quot; him in soccer.  Instead, I create lots of little games that capture his attention, and teach specific ball skills (ie red light/green light to learn to speed up and stop with the ball).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've found the same approach works with Chess.  He wins everytime.  First, I taught him the moves...I put pieces easily captured to train him to look for opportunity.  Then, I taught him to finish, by giving in easily, but forcing him to use the rook and queen to finish me off.  And so on.  Now we are working on openings.  After a month or so, he is mindful of moves that I can retake his piece...so instinctively, he is learning to think ahead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think if you break the game down to its components, constantly ratchet up the difficulty for him, but keep the fun in the game, he will play lots, and that is what will lead to a lifetime love of the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thoughts?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3766" LastActivityDate="2014-09-02T19:06:37.607" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6227" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5971" CreationDate="2014-09-03T08:30:22.617" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have found through self experimenting what was the best choice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I send the pgn of the entire game each time. Then I send the pgn minus the last move. If they are the same, that means that the last move wasn't correct at all. If they aren't, the move is correct. This works because I use the same depth for both tries, and therefore the answer must be the same. Hope it helps!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3405" LastActivityDate="2014-09-03T08:30:22.617" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6228" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6229" CreationDate="2014-09-03T10:50:47.370" Score="14" ViewCount="1963" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm a highschool student and want to play chess seriously. A friend of mine taught me the basic rules of the game. What book should I refer to to begin learning chess? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I tried Capablanca's &lt;em&gt;Chess Fundamentals&lt;/em&gt; but got stuck in the first chapter due to notations, I did not quite understand what 1K-K7 and things like those meant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd love if you could give me an ordered list of books I can read :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3768" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2014-09-04T18:05:39.793" LastActivityDate="2014-09-05T08:31:19.403" Title="What book should I refer to to begin learning chess?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;books&gt;&lt;beginner&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="13" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6229" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6228" CreationDate="2014-09-03T11:34:06.027" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1901983307&quot;&gt;Learn Chess&lt;/a&gt; by John Nunn. A highly respected chess author. Do not be put off by the title!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1890085103&quot;&gt;Silman's Complete Endgame Course&lt;/a&gt; by Jeremy Silman. A modern classic, improvement in the endgame will improve your whole game, I should recommend studying up to the Part Five then saving the rest for later.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/9056914383&quot;&gt;Tactics Time!&lt;/a&gt; by Tim Brennan and Anthea Carson. Tactics is an essential part of chess improvement.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1890085138&quot;&gt;How to Reassess Your Chess&lt;/a&gt; by Jeremy Silman. A challenging book but a good study of it will leave a permanent mark on you. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I believe that intense study of these four books will yield very good results for you. I recommend studying them in the order &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Learn Chess&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Tactics Time!&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Silman's Endgame Course&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;How to Reassess Your Chess &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The most important thing to do is to keep playing, once you have studied these books and feel that your level of play is better, check out &lt;a href=&quot;http://home.comcast.net/~danheisman/Events_Books/General_Book_Guide.htm&quot;&gt;Dan Heisman's Book Recommendations&lt;/a&gt; for further reference&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: Post &lt;em&gt;RemcoGerlich&lt;/em&gt;'s comment I have decided to change &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1906552010&quot;&gt;Build up Your Chess 1: The Fundamentals&lt;/a&gt; to &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1890085138&quot;&gt;How to Reassess your Chess&lt;/a&gt; as I realized that the Yusupov book is actually quite challenging and less approachable than Silman's. Although it should still be recommended for when your level of play is higher. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3357" LastEditorUserId="3357" LastEditDate="2014-09-03T13:07:19.977" LastActivityDate="2014-09-03T13:07:19.977" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6230" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6228" CreationDate="2014-09-03T12:39:35.300" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The best way to improve in chess is to play serious, slow games, and to read books that have &lt;em&gt;a lot of exercises&lt;/em&gt; at the right level. Books without exercises tend to give the feeling that you learned to lot, but turn out not to change much in the choice you actually make behind the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess-steps.com/&quot;&gt;Chess Steps&lt;/a&gt; is a training method that was developed by Dutch masters and coaches Brunia and Van Wijgerden, that starts at absolute beginner level (and for very young children, almost a bit before that) and that continues to strong club player level at least. It has a very strong focus on tactics, and a secondary focus on endgames. It is the official training method of the Dutch chess federation and I &lt;em&gt;think&lt;/em&gt; of several others, but that I don't know for sure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Steps 1 to 5 are intended to be taught by a teacher, after which the pupils do the exercises. However, in my experience, for older players it is doable to just do the workbooks. You could of course get the teacher's manuals as well, if necessary. Step 6 is designed for self-learning (because there are few teachers that are strong enough to teach it).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Workbooks are cheap, and if a step gives you difficulty, there are &quot;Extra&quot; and &quot;Plus&quot; workbooks. I think this is clearly the best line of &quot;books&quot; for serious beginners.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After step 4 or 5 or so, Yusupov's series is also great, but it is much too hard for a beginner.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2014-09-03T12:39:35.300" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6231" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6228" CreationDate="2014-09-03T16:38:27.550" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The best books are all by John Emms, and Chess Traps and Zaps ain't bad either for beginner. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You must find first THE most elemental rudiments, neatly and most importantly, DIGESTIBLY presented to you in a balance of challenging and rewardingly fun. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anything by John Nunn and... &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;if you want some lessons, I'm on Ir© ¢hess 666DUI the handle :%) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3771" LastActivityDate="2014-09-03T16:38:27.550" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6232" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6204" CreationDate="2014-09-03T17:24:48.950" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;A lot of times, Grandmasters will not make concrete plans. The plan might be &lt;strong&gt;general&lt;/strong&gt; - &quot;I have to attack the enemy king&quot;, without having any specific &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;move order&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; in mind. Also, many times grandmasters make moves based purely on &lt;strong&gt;intuition&lt;/strong&gt; than on concrete analysis. It might seem to the observers that the grandmaster has been &quot;planning&quot;, but it may just be that all this while he/she was simply making sure their intuition was sound, or was even occasionally distracted by some irrelevant thought. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mikhail Tal notes one such famous incident in his own life (emphasis mine)- &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I will never forget my game with GM Vasiukov on a USSR Championship.&#xA;  We reached a very complicated position where &lt;strong&gt;I was intending to&#xA;  sacrifice a knight&lt;/strong&gt;. The sacrifice was not obvious; there was a large&#xA;  number of possible variations; but when I began to study hard and work&#xA;  through them, I found to my horror that nothing would come of it.&#xA;  Ideas piled up one after another. I would transport a subtle reply by&#xA;  my opponent, which worked in one case, to another situation where it&#xA;  would naturally prove to be quite useless. As a result my head became&#xA;  filled with a completely chaotic pile of all sorts of moves, and the&#xA;  infamous &quot;tree of variations&quot;, from which the chess trainers recommend&#xA;  that you cut off the small branches, in this case spread with&#xA;  unbelievable rapidity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;And then suddenly, for some reason, I remembered the classic couplet by Korney Ivanović Chukovsky: &quot;Oh, what a difficult job it was. To&#xA;  drag out of the marsh the hippopotamus&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;. I do not know from what&#xA;  associations the hippopotamus got into the chess board, but although&#xA;  the spectators were convinced that I was continuing to study the&#xA;  position, I, despite my humanitarian education, was trying at this&#xA;  time to work out: &lt;strong&gt;just how WOULD you drag a hippopotamus out of the&#xA;  marsh?&lt;/strong&gt; I remember how jacks figured in my thoughts, as well as&#xA;  levers, helicopters, and even a rope ladder.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;After a lengthy consideration I admitted defeat as an engineer, and&#xA;  thought spitefully to myself: &quot;Well, just let it drown!&quot; And suddenly&#xA;  the hippopotamus disappeared. Went right off the chessboard just as he&#xA;  had come on ... of his own accord! And straightaway the position did&#xA;  not appear to be so complicated. &lt;strong&gt;Now I somehow realized that it was&#xA;  not possible to calculate all the variations, and that the knight&#xA;  sacrifice was, by its very nature, purely intuitive. And since it&#xA;  promised an interesting game, I could not refrain from making it.&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;  And the following day, it was with pleasure that I read in the paper&#xA;  how Mikhail Tal, after carefully thinking over the position for 40&#xA;  minutes, made an accurately calculated piece sacrifice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;— Mikhail Tal, The Life and Games of Mikhail Tal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1139685&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;game&lt;/a&gt; for your viewing pleasure. The knight sacrifice is on move 19. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;   [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;   [White &quot;Mikhail Tal&quot;]&#xA;   [Black &quot;Vasiukov&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;   1. e4 c6 2. Nc3 d5 3. d4 dxe4 4. Ne4 Nd7 5. Nf3 Ngf6 6. Ng3 e6 7. Bd3 c5   &#xA;   8. O-O cxd4 9. Nd4 Bc5 10. Nf3 O-O 11. Qe2 b6 12. Bf4 Bb7 13. Rad1 Nd5 &#xA;   14. Bg5 Qc7 15. Nh5 Kh8 16. Be4 f6 17. Bh4 Bd6 18. c4 Ba6 19. Ng7 Kg7 &#xA;   20. Nd4 Nc5 21. Qg4 Kh8 22. Ne6 Ne6 23. Qe6 Rae8 24. Qd5 Bh2 25. Kh1 Qf4   &#xA;   26. Qh5 Qe4 27. Rfe1 Qg6 28. Qg6 hxg6 29. Bf6 Kg8 30. Re8 Re8 31. Kh2 Bc4 &#xA;   32. Rd7 Re6 33. Bc3 Ba2 34. Ra7 Bc4 35. Kg3 Bd5 36. f3 Kf8 37. Bd4 b5 &#xA;   38. Kf4 Bc4 39. Kg5 Ke8 40. Ra8 Kf7 41. Ra7 Ke8 42. b4 Bd5 43. Ra3 Kf7&#xA;   44. g4 Re2 45. Bc5 Re5 46. Kh6 Re6 47. Rd3 Bc6 48. Rd8 Re8 49. Rd4 Re6&#xA;   50. f4 Ke8 51. Kg7 Be4 52. Bb6 Bf3 53. Rd8 Ke7 54. Rd3 Be2 55. Bd8 Ke8&#xA;   56. Rd2 Re3 57. Bg5 Bd3 58. f5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2429" LastEditorUserId="3405" LastEditDate="2014-09-03T19:31:47.430" LastActivityDate="2014-09-03T19:31:47.430" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6234" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6235" CreationDate="2014-09-04T02:04:26.107" Score="17" ViewCount="2152" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was playing the following game and at this point I thought black had the advantage but upon thinking about it for a little while was not sure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At this point in the game who has the advantage and by &quot;how much&quot;? …and I don't mean just counting piece points which I know how to do—I mean taking the positioning into account as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Additionally, how could I figure this out myself without bothering the folks on Stack Exchange?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;2k5/1pp2p2/p5p1/3b4/2NBq2P/1PK1N1r1/P7/3R4 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3658" LastEditorUserId="1456" LastEditDate="2014-09-04T18:07:12.480" LastActivityDate="2018-11-09T21:01:38.633" Title="Who has the advantage at this point in the game?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;learning&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6235" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6234" CreationDate="2014-09-04T03:15:27.390" Score="17" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this position, the material imbalance pretty much tells the whole story, as a queen and two pawns against two knights is, barring significant positional compensation, an overwhelming material advantage. And in this case, the non-material positional considerations only serve to emphasize Black's advantage: the white king is exposed, and his pieces are not well coordinated (one knight pinned, and the remaining forces at risk of becoming overloaded trying to protect one another). The upshot is that White is powerless to prevent Black from further increasing her (already winning) material advantage, liquidating to a situation in which White has nothing left to play for or with. Resignation wouldn't be unreasonable for White.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To illustrate, if Black has the move (the OP doesn't say whose move it is), then &lt;code&gt;1...Bxc4&lt;/code&gt; already yields &lt;code&gt;2.bxc4 Rxe3+ 3.Bxe3 Qxe3+&lt;/code&gt;, when Black has a queen and two pawns for a rook, and can win at her leisure. But even if White has the move, he is so tied up in knots that he can't stop that operation (or something similar). For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;2k5/1pp2p2/p5p1/3b4/2NBq2P/1PK1N1r1/P7/3R4 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Re1 &#xA;    ( 1.Rd3 Bxc4 2.bxc4 f5 3.Kd2 f4 )&#xA;1...Bxc4 2.bxc4 f5 *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black can continue to pick up material with her queen in the open field, and White won't even have an army with which to dream of mounting an improbably comeback.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2014-09-04T03:15:27.390" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6236" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6234" CreationDate="2014-09-04T03:51:12.697" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;White is doomed. Black's material advantage is overwhelming. Black wins by trading the pieces away. White's chances go away too. It will come down to Black's Q overpowering the White R, or the Black pawns running downfield to score a touchdown.  If it's Black's move:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[title &quot;Black to move&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;2k5/1pp2p2/p5p1/3b4/2NBq2P/1PK1N1r1/P7/3R4 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Bxc4 2. bxc4 Rxe3 3. Bxe3 Qxe3+ 4. Rd3 Qe1+ (4... Qxd3 5. Kxd3 Kd7)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White has no immediate threats and can't really lose more material. So the exchanges are rather forced.  The reason I recommend trading the pieces off here is that Black has a significant material advantage. Each even trade makes Black's remaining pieces relatively stronger.  In addition, Black can create passed pawns on both sides of the board. Black can trade his Queen for the Rook and have an easy win that way, if he wishes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it is White's move, it isn't so easy because White has no moves.  I can't really think of a good move. &lt;code&gt;1. Rd3&lt;/code&gt; maybe.  The only thing White has is a cheap-shot checkmate by &lt;code&gt;Bf6&lt;/code&gt; followed by &lt;code&gt;Rd8#&lt;/code&gt;. It is unlikely Black will let him do it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Regarding your other question, how could you figure this out, there's really no way except to try.  You're on the right track when you count points and know Black is way up. After that, you examine the board and come up with a strategy.  My strategy for this position is to trade pieces. So then I ask myself, &quot;how can I do this?&quot;.  The Bishop capture on &lt;code&gt;c4&lt;/code&gt; was the first thing I saw.  I realized he had to recapture, so he had 2 choices, pawn or King. If he used the pawn, I'd weaken his pawn structure even further - disconnected pawns are weak. So that was good. It's a combination of having a strategy, then looking for tactics to implement the strategy.  When I see a poorly placed King and I have my Queen, I am trying to find forks everywhere. Or pawns that can't defend themselves.  The &lt;code&gt;Qf2&lt;/code&gt; queen move forks the &lt;code&gt;a&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;h&lt;/code&gt; pawns.  One will drop. I am not too worried about White's Rook because if it gets too far from his King, I'll be able to grab it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2014-09-04T23:05:33.137" LastActivityDate="2014-09-04T23:05:33.137" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6237" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5971" CreationDate="2014-09-04T06:27:48.030" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sorry, I had to downvote your question, because you tried something that you weren't supposed to. Stockfish is a chess engine; it always and always assume a move given is legal. If you give it an illegal move, the behavior is undefined - from a crash to jumping king. Anything could happen if you give a move as illegal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nobody would use an engine to verify a move's legality. This is done by the GUI. You'll need to incorporate a move generator into your project.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="3444" LastEditDate="2018-12-03T11:27:37.307" LastActivityDate="2018-12-03T11:27:37.307" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="6239" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5971" CreationDate="2014-09-04T07:25:15.723" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;Stockfish assumes that all FEN positions you feed it are legal positions. If you feed it an &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessvideos.tv/bimg/5rs712zf8j6g.png&quot;&gt;illegal position&lt;/a&gt; and ask it to evaluate it, it will likely crash:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Stockfish 5 64 by Tord Romstad, Marco Costalba and Joona Kiiski&#xA;position fen 4k3/4p3/8/8/8/8/8/3KP3&#xA;go depth 14&#xA;Segmentation fault: 11&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But you could use a Python library such as &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/cgearhart/Chessnut&quot;&gt;Chessnut&lt;/a&gt; to validate moves. Chessnut returns all legal moves with &lt;code&gt;get_moves()&lt;/code&gt; and raises an InvalidMove exception if you pass an illegal move to &lt;code&gt;apply_move()&lt;/code&gt;, as shown in their example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;from Chessnut import Game&#xA;&#xA;chessgame = Game()&#xA;print chessgame  # 'rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1'&#xA;&#xA;print chessgame.get_moves()&#xA;&quot;&quot;&quot;&#xA;['a2a3', 'a2a4', 'b2b3', 'b2b4', 'c2c3', 'c2c4', 'd2d3', 'd2d4', 'e2e3', &#xA; 'e2e4', 'f2f3', 'f2f4', 'g2g3', 'g2g4', 'h2h3', 'h2h4', 'b1c3', 'b1a3', &#xA; 'g1h3', 'g1f3']&#xA;&quot;&quot;&quot;&#xA;&#xA;chessgame.apply_move('e2e4')  # succeeds!&#xA;print chessgame  # 'rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/4P3/8/PPPP1PPP/RNBQKBNR b KQkq e3 0 1'&#xA;&#xA;chessgame.apply_move('e2e4')  # fails! (raises InvalidMove exception)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You could update the game each move with Chessnut, and only pass moves to Stockfish for evaluation if Chessnut says they're valid.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2130" LastActivityDate="2014-09-04T07:25:15.723" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6240" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6243" CreationDate="2014-09-04T12:50:00.233" Score="4" ViewCount="5877" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am looking for book recommendations on the Queen's Gambit.  I already own some general opening books, which cover many openings and also many variations in each opening.  However, I am not advanced enough to figure out the strategic plans attached to the many variations by myself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So what I am looking for is something that is less broad than e.g. Fundamental Chess Openings.  On the other hand, if possible, I would not want to delve only into the details of a single reply, e.g., QGD.  So what I am looking for is a book that somehow covers a reasonable amount of different defenses in reply to the Queen's Gambit.  Of course I understand that this is a huge topic.  But at least a book that covers roughly QGA, QGD and the Slav would be nice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3529" LastActivityDate="2014-09-04T17:37:40.493" Title="What are good books for learning Queen's Gambit opening" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;queens-gambit&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6241" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-09-04T14:40:03.977" Score="2" ViewCount="1027" Body="&lt;p&gt;Look at &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.computerchess.org.uk/ccrl/4040/cgi/compare_engines.cgi?family=Stockfish&amp;amp;print=Rating%20list&amp;amp;print=Results%20table&amp;amp;print=LOS%20table&amp;amp;print=Ponder%20hit%20table&amp;amp;print=Eval%20difference%20table&amp;amp;print=Comopp%20gamenum%20table&amp;amp;print=Overlap%20table&amp;amp;print=Score%20with%20common%20opponents&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this engine rating list&lt;/a&gt; which compares all the versions of Stockfish.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After the name of each engine we can see one of these three things:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;4CPU&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;2CPU&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Nothing, which probably means: 1CPU&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And it seems that the same engine is stronger by roughly 80 Elo when run on 4CPU instead of 1CPU.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not exactly sure what the number of &quot;CPU&quot; is... Is it related to the number of cores?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would like to know if my computer is 1CPU, 2CPU or 4CPU.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is the specifications of my computer (which I found in Control Panel\System and Security\System):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Alienware M18x&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Windows 8.1&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-3740QM CPU @ 2.70 GHz 2.70 GHz&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Installed memory (RAM): 16.0 GB&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;System type: 64-bit operating system, x64-based processor&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So is my computer 1CPU, 2CPU or 4CPU ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3237" LastEditorUserId="10905" LastEditDate="2016-11-22T17:42:56.453" LastActivityDate="2016-11-22T17:42:56.453" Title="What is the number of &quot;CPU&quot; next to each engine's name in engines rating list? And is my computer 1CPU, 2CPU or 4CPU?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;programming&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6242" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6241" CreationDate="2014-09-04T14:46:30.347" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Before multicore processors, if you saw something like 4 CPUs they would be referring to a chess engine running on a computer that had a motherboard that actually had 4 separate processors on it. Now, they they could be referring to multicore processors. For example, your i7 is a quad-core processor with 4 processor cores. It's like 4 processors in 1 package.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's hard to say for sure which one it is, because even after reading their testing information in the about page, etc. They do not make clarifications about the actual hardware it is running on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is all I could find: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Should be set to the same value of either 128 or 256 MB for all engines in a match or tourney. There are two exeptions: 1) Engines using 2 CPUs should have double hash size, compared to single-CPU engines in the same tourney. 4-CPU engines should have 4 times amount of hash. 2) Smaller hash size can be used if an engine has problems with particular hash size, or if it does not allow to configure hash size.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3118" LastActivityDate="2014-09-04T14:46:30.347" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6243" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6240" CreationDate="2014-09-04T17:37:40.493" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The best for QGD is &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1857442563&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Mathew Sadler-Queen's Gambit declined&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt; in my opinion. Every line in the Queen's Gambit declined has been explained. It is dated, so you will need to do your own research to find latest theory. Still, QGD is &quot;stable&quot; opening so theory rarely changes here...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For Queen's Gambit accepted, you could try a book from &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1857444159&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Starting Out&lt;/a&gt; series, or &lt;em&gt;Semko &amp;amp; Sakaev-Queen's Gambit Accepted.&lt;/em&gt; QGA is simple, its all about not letting Black to finish development. You just need the moves to survive the opening. Maybe you will need to learn how to play against Isolated pawn. If that is the case, you can start with &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/5023/strategy-in-isolated-queen-pawn-positions/5024#5024&quot;&gt;this post&lt;/a&gt; on Chess SE.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for Slav defense, again Black aims for solidity and White tries to hinder his harmonious development. The lines are sharp but easy to understand, and you need to know theory. Maybe sometimes you will end with &quot;hanging pawns&quot; but there is a book about this type of middlegame. The best book I found on Semi-Slav is one from &lt;em&gt;David Vigorito.&lt;/em&gt; As for Slav, again you can Google for one of the Starting out series.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Of course I understand that this is a huge topic. But at least a book that covers roughly QGA, QGD and the Slav would be nice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Lars Schandorrf-Playing the Queen's Gambit 2nd edition&lt;/em&gt; could be what you want. It gives you most up to date theory at this point. Combine it with the above books and you should be fine. For latest opening theory you could consider getting 2 volumes from Avrukh ( &lt;em&gt;Grandmaster repertoire 1&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;Grandmaster repertoire 2&lt;/em&gt; ).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;CONCLUSION:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Shandorrf and Avrukh give opening moves but don't explain basic ideas.&lt;/strong&gt; I have listed them so you can survive opening &lt;strong&gt;as there were recent novelties&lt;/strong&gt; in the Semi-Slav and Slav. For basic ideas get Starting out series and Sadler's book, they should be enough for you to start.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my opinion this is the best you can do to solve your problem at the moment. If you need further help leave a comment. Good luck!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2014-09-04T17:37:40.493" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6244" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2014-09-04T17:58:36.550" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Questions concerning endgames that feature both rook(s) and minor piece(s).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2014-09-04T17:58:36.550" LastActivityDate="2014-09-04T17:58:36.550" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6245" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2014-09-04T17:58:36.550" Score="0" Body="Questions concerning endgames that feature both rook(s) and minor piece(s)." OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2014-09-04T17:58:36.550" LastActivityDate="2014-09-04T17:58:36.550" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6246" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-09-05T00:32:32.317" Score="3" ViewCount="883" Body="&lt;p&gt;Note that I don't want the exact values, I only need approximations. And I am only interested in small values of n (not more than 12).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3237" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-09-29T14:02:36.650" LastActivityDate="2017-09-29T14:02:36.650" Title="How many positions are there in n-pieces endgame tablebases for different values of n?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;statistics&gt;&lt;tablebases&gt;&lt;mathematics&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2014-09-05T14:49:39.313" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6247" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6246" CreationDate="2014-09-05T01:19:25.427" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;This depends a great deal on how (and what) you count. In &lt;a href=&quot;http://kirill-kryukov.com/chess/discussion-board/viewtopic.php?f=6&amp;amp;t=6639&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;a discussion at the CCRL board&lt;/a&gt;, Kirill Kryukov offers the following counts on the number of unique legal positions (NULP) for some small numbers of pieces:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Pieces          NULP&#xA;  2                  462&#xA;  3              368,079&#xA;  4          125,246,598&#xA;  5       25,912,594,054&#xA;  6    3,787,154,440,416&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But it is important to note that his numbers (which he was in fact soliciting independent confirmation of, so take with a grain of salt) depend on his definition of a legal position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I use simple definition of legality: 1. Side to move does not give check. (2. No pawns on promotion rank or before the starting rank. 3. Exactly one white king and exactly one black king are on the board).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus he doesn't consider the matter of positions actually being reachable from the starting position of chess, for instance. There is a lot of discussion there to go through if you wish.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another key point is that these position counts take the symmetries of the chessboard into account. With the 2-piece positions, for example, the naive count (which would be reduced a bit for legality, i.e. non-touching kings) would be roughly &lt;code&gt;64 * 63 = 4,032&lt;/code&gt;. The reason his count is so much less is because he is counting unique positions as would be stored in tablebases, where for the sake of saving space positions that are symmetric variants of one another are not counted distinctly. The &lt;code&gt;462&lt;/code&gt; 2-piece positions can be pictured like this (and forgive my ugly drawing):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/IxLFK.png&quot; alt=&quot;2-piece position count&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Taking symmetry redundancies into account, there are only 10 unique squares where our first king could be placed (those within the red border). And then, taking legality and further symmetries into account, there are only so many remaining squares where the second king could be placed (indicated by the numbers, for each of the 10 initial squares). These sum up to the &lt;code&gt;462&lt;/code&gt; unique positions in question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To illustrate one case, why is the count &lt;code&gt;30&lt;/code&gt; for the d4 square? Of the &lt;code&gt;63&lt;/code&gt; remaining squares, &lt;code&gt;8&lt;/code&gt; wouldn't be legal. Of the remaining &lt;code&gt;55&lt;/code&gt;, the &lt;code&gt;5&lt;/code&gt; on the long diagonal are all unique, but the remaining &lt;code&gt;50&lt;/code&gt; come in &lt;code&gt;25&lt;/code&gt; pairs of squares whose resulting positions are no longer unique with respect to the symmetries of the board (in particular, they are mirror images of one another when reflected across the long diagonal). So there are only &lt;code&gt;5 + 25&lt;/code&gt; unique placements of the second king once we place the first king on d4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2014-09-05T01:25:14.803" LastActivityDate="2014-09-05T01:25:14.803" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6248" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6228" CreationDate="2014-09-05T08:31:19.403" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Try the &lt;a href=&quot;http://chesstempo.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://chesstempo.com&lt;/a&gt; tactics server. It automatically adjusts the level of exercises to each user based on his or her performance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3456" LastActivityDate="2014-09-05T08:31:19.403" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6249" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-09-06T13:27:00.507" Score="6" ViewCount="484" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let us say that two players are playing each other. The are supposed to be in the same level (You can take that as an equal longtime ELO). They might be playing blitz, or rapid. But suddently, one of them blunders a pawn. Too bad. But the guy with one less pawn has more time. Is he compensated?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So to clear this out:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a formula, supposing that the pieces have the following values:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Pawn - 1&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Knight/Bishop - 3&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Rook - 5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Queen - 9&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And that there is a time difference between both players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Regarding all factors, so remaining time for both players, increment, is there a formula that calculates what a piece is worth in time?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Increment will be a very important factor to consider. Because increment can save you if you have a very small amount of time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also the results cannot be precise to the maximum. We will suppose that the position would be equal if the lost piece was suddenly there. So 0.00.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please ask me in the comments if you need any extra details.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the comments it was noted to me that a passed pawn position could be fatal. So I am adding this condition:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The position will be valued by an computer program as 1.00 if a pawn is lost, 3.00 if a knight/bishop is lost, etc. This is to limit the search to games where the win is still unclear.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3405" LastEditorUserId="3405" LastEditDate="2014-09-07T10:52:51.590" LastActivityDate="2014-09-21T14:47:56.113" Title="Worth of a piece in time" Tags="&lt;blitz&gt;&lt;point-value&gt;&lt;pieces&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="13" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6250" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-09-06T16:13:54.477" Score="7" ViewCount="468" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are multiple instances of books that promise winning opening repertoire. What about drawish openings, drawish strategies, etc?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, are there books focused solely on drawing?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3405" LastActivityDate="2014-09-07T03:43:13.993" Title="Books on drawing" Tags="&lt;draw&gt;&lt;books&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6251" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6250" CreationDate="2014-09-06T16:41:16.050" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Books focused on defense essentially fall into this category. When defending a difficult -- or especially an objectively lost -- position, the best one can realistically hope for absent a major blunder by the opponent is to hold out for a draw via stubborn defense. You probably won't find opening repertoire books specifically geared toward drawing, though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One book that I highly recommend is &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1857441540&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;The Art of Defence in Chess&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt; by Polugaevsky and Damsky. (Note the British spelling; there is a similarly-titled &lt;em&gt;The Art of Defense in Chess&lt;/em&gt; By Soltis, which I have no experience with.) I got my hands on this book early on in my tournament playing days, and it was truly eye-opening. It covers useful topics like fortresses, defensive exchange sacrifices, counterattack, etc. And it does so with many fantastic examples from grandmaster play, along with many illustrative exercises. (Some of the reviews of this book at the link I gave note that it might not be suitable below certain rating thresholds. While I agree that it is probably even more useful to somewhat stronger players, I reiterate that I got a lot out of it even when I first started playing competitively.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another good book is Colin Crouch's &lt;em&gt;How to Defend in Chess&lt;/em&gt;, which explores defense via the  games of Lasker and Petrosian. This book isn't the same sort of topic-by-topic defensive manual that Polugaevsky/Damsky is, but instead is a well-annotated games collection focusing on defensive masterpieces by two great defenders.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2014-09-06T16:41:16.050" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6252" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5736" CreationDate="2014-09-06T17:55:14.540" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Six months ago a match was held on ICC: Komodo, one of the strongest engine, faced hundreds of people combined. Komodo won.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessclub.com/article/icc-vs.-komodo-online-voting-match&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.chessclub.com/article/icc-vs.-komodo-online-voting-match&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3237" LastActivityDate="2014-09-06T17:55:14.540" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6253" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6250" CreationDate="2014-09-06T18:03:43.960" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Opening repertoire books for Black that are pitched at a high level of player (for example, the GM Repertoire books from Quality Chess) often have an emphasis on lines in which Black can reach a safe draw, and it is not considered to be much of a drawback for a line not to offer many winning chances. That is because when both players are very good, Black is generally satisfied with a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are no opening books (at least, there shouldn't be) that focus on achieving a draw as White.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2014-09-06T18:03:43.960" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6254" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6250" CreationDate="2014-09-07T02:56:19.987" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Andy Soltis - The Art of Defense in Chess.  Great book. Suitable for B players and lower.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/article/view/quotthe-art-of-defense-in-chessquot-by-andrew-soltis&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Here's a review of the book&lt;/a&gt;. 25 years later, I remember the excerpt.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2014-09-07T03:43:13.993" LastActivityDate="2014-09-07T03:43:13.993" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6256" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-09-08T04:32:36.627" Score="8" ViewCount="355" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 Nf6&#xA;2. c4 g6&#xA;3. Nc3 Bg7&#xA;4. e4 d6&#xA;5. Nf3 O-O&#xA;6. Be2 e5&#xA;7. O-O Nc6&#xA;8. d5 Ne7&#xA;9. Ne1 Nd7&#xA;10. Be3 f5&#xA;11. f3 f4&#xA;12. Bf2 g5&#xA;13. b4 Nf6&#xA;14. c5 Ng6&#xA;15. cxd6 cxd6&#xA;16. Rc1 Rf7&#xA;17. Nb5 a6&#xA;18. Nc3 Bf8 &#xA;19. Na4 Bd7&#xA;20. Nb6 g4&#xA;21. Nxa8 g3&#xA;22. hxg3 fxg3&#xA;23. Bxg3 Nh5&#xA;24. Bf2 Ngf4&#xA;25. Nb6 Rg7&#xA;26. Nxd7 Qxd7&#xA;27. Kh2 Nxg2&#xA;28. Nxg2 Rxg2+&#xA;29. Kxg2 Nf4+&#xA;30. Kg1 Qh3 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I won that game, but I feel like I got lucky. I blundered in this game. I feel that letting white capture my rook on a8 was a blunder. Also what if white captured g4 then I have to capture e4 with my knight. White then captures my rook at a8. I don't see any compensation for black for the lost of material. I also don't see how to continue the attack through this variation. What could I have done better as black against my opponent? What are some key ideas in the King's Indian Defense that I missed in this game? What concepts should I grasp from this game I played to become a better chess player and better using the King's Indian Defense? When is it the right time to give up the rook on a8 for an attack on the king side? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3149" LastEditorUserId="3149" LastEditDate="2014-09-08T08:57:37.060" LastActivityDate="2019-07-01T20:48:27.590" Title="What are some stronger moves I can play next time in the King's Indian Defense?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;kings-indian&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6257" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6265" CreationDate="2014-09-08T16:48:48.197" Score="7" ViewCount="2694" Body="&lt;p&gt;An opponent I have heretofore easily beaten has started playing Alekhine's defense against me.  I am no longer easily beating my opponent, and indeed would be repeatedly losing to him, if only he had more skill and blundered less.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Alekhine's defense&quot;]&#xA;[StartPly &quot;2&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 Nf6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Like any chess player who enjoys sharp competition, I am most pleased that my opponent is somehow fighting better than he used!  Apparently however, I do not understand Alekhine's defense.  Alekhine's defense is perplexing me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One reads that the usual continuation is 2. e5; but, admittedly, the idea of overextending the king's pawn &lt;em&gt;as soon as White's second move&lt;/em&gt; does not appeal to me.  On the other hand, alternatives like 2. Nc3 or 2. d3 seem too passive, whereas 2. Nf3 Nxe4 does not look promising.  Maybe the weird-looking 2. f3 is the answer?  But then Black just replies 2... e5, transposing to a kingside open game while sidestepping the Ruy Lopez, the Italian game, Evans' gambit, the king's gambit, etc.; so, no, 2. f3 looks even worse than the other options as far as I can see.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alekhine%27s_Defence&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Wikipedia's entry&lt;/a&gt; on the topic is pretty good, but does not persuade me.  What does persuade me is that Alekhine's defense is repeatedly giving an otherwise weak Black opponent good chances to beat me.  Of course, I could cravenly avoid the whole problem by opening 1. d4; but still, eventually, one would like to confront the problem rather than avoid it, if one could.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What am I misunderstanding, please?  Is the distasteful 2. e5 really White's only good, active response to Alekhine's defense?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="315" LastEditorUserId="315" LastEditDate="2014-09-11T10:59:17.033" LastActivityDate="2019-10-28T04:29:09.990" Title="Against Alekhine's defense, can White avoid 2. e5?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;alekhines-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="8" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6258" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6374" CreationDate="2014-09-08T17:11:36.607" Score="4" ViewCount="745" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why has it become standard to decline the queen's gambit as below:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which blocks the bishop, rather than: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.d4 d5 2.c4 Bf5 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By analogy to the king's gambit:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.f4 Bc5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3456" LastEditorUserId="7385" LastEditDate="2015-05-15T02:42:28.170" LastActivityDate="2015-05-15T02:42:28.170" Title="Queen's Gambit Declined: Why 1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 rather than 2..Bf5?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;queens-gambit&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6259" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6260" CreationDate="2014-09-08T20:01:40.997" Score="7" ViewCount="745" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As we know, women chess is much more unpredictable than men’s. Women chess is also uncompromised and very entertaining. Men chess is more solid, pragmatic and conservative, and women game, on the contrary, is brighter, more emotional.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-Andrei Selivanov, Vice-President of the Russian Chess Federation&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this true? Do women tend on average to be more aggressive and more tactical in nature while men are more solid and positional?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3237" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2014-09-08T20:45:53.760" Title="Is it true that women's style of play tend on average to be slightly more aggressive than men's style of play?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;&lt;aggressive-play&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6260" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6259" CreationDate="2014-09-08T20:45:53.760" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;No. The evidence I've heard for the argument you saw was that top women's play has a lower draw rate than top men's play. The problem with that line of thinking is that if you look at men's games at the same Elo level as the top women, about 2500-2600, the draw rate is the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3270" LastActivityDate="2014-09-08T20:45:53.760" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6261" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18835" CreationDate="2014-09-09T08:19:13.860" Score="20" ViewCount="2083" Body="&lt;p&gt;Because the chess site this was on takes its puzzles from real games and gives the move numbers, potential solvers knew that the following position was reached after exactly 10 moves by each player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;2bk2nr/p1p2ppp/2p5/2p5/2P1P3/2N5/Pr3PPP/R3KB1R w - - 0 11&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Given that information, can one prove that 11. 0-0-0+ in the above diagram is legal?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(i.e., that neither the white King nor the Ra1 has moved so far)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems to me like that's not enough total moves for white to have spent two&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;moves &quot;shuffling&quot;, but I can't come up with any proof or a counterexample-game.&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user2668" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-05-28T22:28:36.703" LastActivityDate="2020-05-28T22:28:36.703" Title="Can it be proven that 11. 0-0-0+ is legal in this position?" Tags="&lt;castling&gt;&lt;retrograde-analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6262" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6261" CreationDate="2014-09-09T12:30:04.123" Score="21" Body="&lt;p&gt;Ok after playing around with a couple of lines, I finally found one line that shows it's still perfectly legal to play long castles for white at move 11, here it is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;possible 11.O-O-O+&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.c4 Rb8 4.d4 exd4 5.Nxd4 Bc5 6.Nxc6 dxc6 (6... bxc6 7.Be3 d6 8.Bxc5 dxc5 9.Qxd8+ Kxd8 10.Nc3 Rxb2 11.O-O-O+) 7.Qxd8+ Kxd8 8.Be3 b6 9.Bxc5 bxc5 10.Nc3 Rxb2 11.O-O-O+&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Added another continuation, taking on c6 with the b-pawn, same position results and same number of moves needed!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To conclude, because I reached the given position in exactly 11 moves, and did not play any redundant moves (e.g. Nf3 then back to Ng1 again), it means that all the played moves were necessary, their order can be different, but point is there was no spare move to use and destroy white's castling (e.g. an impossible scenario would be black exchanging queen on d1, Kxd1, then black plays Kxd8, and white goes back to e1, but that took up 2 more moves than the line I showed, so impossible to reach the position you're looking for in 11 moves after such line)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Long story short, castling is perfectly possible here, and in 11 moves black could not have done anything to prevent us from castling and still manage to reach the final position we want. Interesting post by the way, +1.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Alternatively one can also just look at the final position and count the necessary number of moves, that must take place for this position, I elaborate: have the final position in mind: let's take black's point of view: Pawn moves needed to obtain the final position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;e5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;exd4 (why black has to take on d4 and not white on e5 is explained in the diagramm below)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;bxc6 or dxc6&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;b6 or d6 &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;bxc5 or dxc5, &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Development moves: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;6&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Nc6 (to be captured on c6, otherwise there cannot be a pawn on c6 and not have knight on b8)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Bc5 (otherwise c5 pawn impossible)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Rb8 (otherwise Rxb2 never possible)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Remaining necessary moves: Queen d8 capture and pawn b2 capture:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;9&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Kxd8&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Rxb2&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And we find ourselves at the 11th move again, where all we did was just consider the most straighforward ways our pieces could end up where they are in the shown puzzle. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's see if we reach the same position via another path, showing why exd4 is the fastest way to reach the final position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Why black must take on d4 and not white on e5:&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.c4 Rb8 4.d4 Bc5 5.dxe5 Nxe5 6.Nxe5 d6 7.Nc6 bxc6 8.Be3 Rxb2 9.Bxc5 dxc5 10.Qxd8+ Kxd8 11.Nc3 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here we are at move 11 and we still have to play Nc3... clearly because we played 2 knight moves for black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally let's demonstrate why in the fastest path to the final position, white has to be taking on d8 (queen exchange) and not the other way around:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;A line white cannot castle but the final position cannot be reached within the 10 required moves (so impossible for our purposes)&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.c4 Rb8 4.d4 exd4 5.Nxd4 Bc5 6.Nxc6 dxc6 7.Nc3 Qxd1+ 8.Kxd1 b6 9.Be3 Kd8 10.Bxc5 bxc5 11.Ke1 Rxb2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We lost 2 king moves(capture on d1 then back to e1) for white in this line, hence the Rxb2 only happening at the 11th move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So it was shown that the only line leading up the the final position within 10 moves, is one where white still must be able to castle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT:&lt;/strong&gt; A summary of the discussed elements in the comments:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The proof presented in this answer is purely deduction based, in the sense that the simple fact of having reached the position in exactly 11 moves without having made any redundant (or insensitive to the position) moves, implies that 11.O-O-O+ should be legal without exception. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;What does redundant mean here?&lt;/em&gt; &quot;Redundant moves&quot;: here, are defined as moves that do not bring us any closer to the final position, or would even deviate us from it. For example playing Nf3, then back to Ng1, would be redundant. Playing Be2 then back to Bf1 would be redundant, and so on. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Point being, in any variation, you may come up with, that would take away white's castling rights, will imperatively entail redundant moves, that will in turn delay reaching the final position by a couple of moves. (As an exercise, try some of your ideas, it is interesting, and see how many moves it takes you.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Looking at such problem from a combinatorics point of view, may be possible, but would be too complicated as we're looking at a depth of moves(tree lines) resulting from 11 moves. Instead, like most chess puzzles, one has to look at it from a purely heuristic point of view, and find the right ideas that would go in the direction of proving the question at hand. Finally, in chess, one usually has an easier time looking for counter examples(proof by contradiction), which is why it is encouraged to look into some of the lines on your own.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3594" LastEditorUserId="3594" LastEditDate="2014-09-09T21:20:03.680" LastActivityDate="2014-09-09T21:20:03.680" CommentCount="13" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6263" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6257" CreationDate="2014-09-09T17:19:30.297" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;A very correct answer to the Alekhine Defense is 2.d3. Strange looking, but after the Nf3,g3,Bg2,Nbd2,O-O, you get a full KIA setup, a favourite of Bobby Fischer, among others.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King&amp;#39;s_Indian_Attack&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King's_Indian_Attack&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not only is this setup easy to learn, but a great answer to almost everything you don't fully know. The transpositions from other openings aren't rare, so it is a good thing to learn. Also, you don't have to learn lines by heart, but rather middlegame plans.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also one last thing. Since your opponent already has a knight on f6, this makes him go on a mainline in the KIA, so you will find even more examples of games. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this helps. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3405" LastEditorUserId="315" LastEditDate="2014-09-09T18:04:16.440" LastActivityDate="2014-09-09T18:04:16.440" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6264" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6257" CreationDate="2014-09-10T01:49:45.370" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;2.e5 is easily the best move in the position. Sorry. (In my database it is the only move that scores better than 50%.) Yes, you have to worry about overextending, but overall the pros outweigh the cons. In chess there is no way to always get the sort of opening position that you're most comfortable with; you have to deal with the fact that sometimes your opponent will get you into his territory. That's life.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you must play something else, I recommend 2.Nc3. 2...e5 is a transposition to the Vienna, and 2...d5 3.exd5 Nxd5 4.Bc4 is okay and certainly isn't overextended. But you are better off calling Black's bluff and learning to play actual Alekhine positions. For you, I recommend the Modern variation (2...Nd5 3.d4 d6 4.Nf3), which keeps a space advantage but avoids (or at least delays) lots of committal pawn moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2014-09-10T01:49:45.370" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6265" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6257" CreationDate="2014-09-10T05:10:07.500" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yet another 2nd move option for White is 2.Bc4 if you don't mind swapping a bishop for a knight, because if Black plays 2...Nxe4 you have to go 3.Bxf7+ Kxf7 4.Qh5+ etc. In the unlikely event that Black plays 2...e5 you won't play 3.Nc3 (since you don't like the Vienna Game) but instead 3.d4 or 3.Nf3 or 3.d3. (Yes, 2.Bc4 is a silly move, but it makes more sense than 2.f3.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On 2.Nc3 the Alekhine's Defense players I know will play 2...d5. Then 3.d4!? leads to the Blackmar-Diemer Gambit (3...dxe4 4.f3) or the Hübsch Gambit (3...Nxe4 4.Nxe4) or just possibly the French Defense (3...e6). In the event of 2.Nc3 e5 you you can still avoid the dreaded Vienna Game by playing 3.Nf3 Nc6 4.d4 exd4 5.Nd5! (the Belgrade Gambit).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2299" LastEditorUserId="2299" LastEditDate="2016-05-04T07:12:27.407" LastActivityDate="2016-05-04T07:12:27.407" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6266" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6028" CreationDate="2014-09-10T09:00:49.067" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, exactly. Blitz: 3-5 minutes per side, usually no increment. Bullet: 1 or 2 minutes per side. Rapid: 15 to 60 minutes per player. sometimes with a small time increment per move for example 10 seconds.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For me personally, i like it so far because as far as i know, FIDE online arena is one of the Premium Chess members which i suppose all of National Federations are also members of Premium Chess. And its very interesting to play with people from world federations. The interface indeed can be improved a lot, but i do like their design and website.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3798" LastActivityDate="2014-09-10T09:00:49.067" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6267" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6028" CreationDate="2014-09-10T16:27:40.210" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think all the above said is true - but i think most online chess platforms differ a little from the fide definition: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;FIDE takes &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Basetime + 60 * increment &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;for their calculation and then says &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Bullet &amp;lt; 3 minutes &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Blitz &amp;lt;= 10 minutes &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Rapid &amp;lt;= 60 minutes&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While most other platforms take &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Basetime + 40 * increment&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;as a base for their calculation - so the very weird timecontrol &#xA;0 minutes + 4 seconds per move is usually considered Bullet&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1516" LastActivityDate="2014-09-10T16:27:40.210" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6268" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5769" CreationDate="2014-09-10T16:41:47.477" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The engine opening books in polyglot format store the fen in a 64 bit hash. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;see &lt;a href=&quot;http://hgm.nubati.net/book_format.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://hgm.nubati.net/book_format.html&lt;/a&gt; for more information&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;note that they leave out the information about the movenumber and the actioncounter which counts the number of moves without pawn moves or taking until the 50 move rule draw. But all the other information like castling possibilities or enpassants are included.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1516" LastActivityDate="2014-09-10T16:41:47.477" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6269" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6138" CreationDate="2014-09-10T20:28:31.937" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Go to &lt;em&gt;Engine-&gt;Change main Engine...&lt;/em&gt; All you have to do then is select &lt;em&gt;StockFish&lt;/em&gt; and click &lt;em&gt;OK.&lt;/em&gt; Then click on &lt;em&gt;New Game&lt;/em&gt; icon and the change will be applied, you should see title change from &lt;em&gt;Fritz&lt;/em&gt; to &lt;em&gt;StockFish.&lt;/em&gt; All that is left is to setup a position and run analysis... &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastActivityDate="2014-09-10T20:28:31.937" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6270" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5397" CreationDate="2014-09-11T02:04:11.503" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have release a free Android version of Star Trek chess.  It uses the “The Federation Standard 5.0” rules.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=awfsoft.app.TriDChess&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=awfsoft.app.TriDChess&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3803" LastActivityDate="2014-09-11T02:04:11.503" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6271" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5611" CreationDate="2014-09-11T08:21:31.307" Score="4" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes the media would report the &lt;em&gt;number of moves&lt;/em&gt; the game lasted as some kind of indication of how badly an opponent was &quot;crushed&quot;. If Magnus was to lose in less than 20 moves, that could be considered &quot;badly beaten&quot; by whomever he was playing, and I'm sure anybody reporting on it would mention that fact. To make it more sophisticated, you could count the number of moves until one side had a substantial advantage (i.e. Nakamura was losing by move 17, even if he managed to draw it out until move 63).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Another method I can think of is to use the computer evaluation during and at the end of the game. For example, recently Nakamura was +10 against Carlsen in a game (which Carlsen subsequently won) - that obviously gives an indication of what type of lead Nakamura threw away. By looking at the computer evaluation over the length of the game, you can get some idea of who was winning by when (although how you would coalesce that into a single number is something the statisticians may want to have a go at).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Personally, I'm perfectly fine with chess having only a simple ternary outcome. I am always skeptical of using alternative scoring methods. Does 4-0 &lt;em&gt;really&lt;/em&gt; mean Liverpool crushed Arsenal? What if the score was 1-0 with 5 minutes left, and Liverpool's forward scored a hat trick while Arsenal was pushing aggressively? Maybe Arsenal even missed 5 good shots on goal during that last 5 minutes. Is it fair that Arsenal is now eliminated due to a worse goal difference? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1816" LastEditorUserId="1816" LastEditDate="2014-09-11T12:46:17.653" LastActivityDate="2014-09-11T12:46:17.653" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6272" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6274" CreationDate="2014-09-11T11:10:57.877" Score="16" ViewCount="12266" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am looking for an examples of a free chess set icons. It would be nice if the place allow to download them, but this is not really important, as I will still need to redraw them in svg format.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just to explain what I mean by chess set icons. I need them to customize user's pieces on my chess server. Basically I am looking for examples like this (image from &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Chess_symbols.PNG&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/TXd0q.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but not like this (image from &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.thechesspiece.com/proddetail.asp?prod=Jazzy-Trio-Knight&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;TheChessPiece&lt;/a&gt;): &#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/woLMj.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also is it possible that some particular chess icons are patented and hence I can not use them?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="703" LastEditorUserId="3825" LastEditDate="2014-09-12T20:22:01.093" LastActivityDate="2019-09-04T14:54:25.377" Title="Chess set icons" Tags="&lt;chessboards&gt;&lt;pieces&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6273" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5611" CreationDate="2014-09-11T11:13:10.093" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know of two.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The ELO rating. Players are awarded points based upon the result of the game versus the expectation. The rating is used to rank players in terms of skill. Higher rating denote higher skill. Higher rating carry more prestige. A higher rating also gives one an advantage in USCF Swiss-style tournaments and higher rated players are paired against lower rated players, giving the former a better chance at a win/loss result that nets prize money.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;In some tournaments, draws are awarded .4 points. This makes two draws markedly less valuable than a win and a loss. This has been done to encourage players to play decisive games.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2014-09-11T11:13:10.093" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6274" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6272" CreationDate="2014-09-11T11:16:38.377" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;You might look for a chess set &lt;em&gt;font&lt;/em&gt;. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.enpassant.dk/chess/fonteng.htm&quot;&gt;Here are several&lt;/a&gt;. Licensing information is included. It looks like they have been scanned from old books in some cases.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2014-09-11T11:16:38.377" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6275" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5611" CreationDate="2014-09-11T14:02:31.210" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Bilbao 2008 tournament used the FIFA scoring system:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;3 for a win &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;1 for a draw&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;0 for a loss&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It has been used at other tournaments such as the London Chess Classic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The aim is to encourage 'fighting chess' and discourage early draws as the tournament result favours those who have won most games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3417" LastActivityDate="2014-09-11T14:02:31.210" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6276" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6272" CreationDate="2014-09-11T15:01:18.680" Score="22" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://pychess.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;PyChess&lt;/a&gt; has about 20 fonts and SVGs bundled &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/pychess/pychess/tree/master/pieces&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;in its source code&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/LxPpD.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/V2TOK.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/eMRwx.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2599" LastEditorUserId="14044" LastEditDate="2017-08-17T12:37:52.763" LastActivityDate="2017-08-17T12:37:52.763" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6277" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6261" CreationDate="2014-09-11T15:02:56.253" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;We can deduce nine moves that white absolutely had to make to get to this position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;At least three moves were required to put white's pawns and its queen's knight there (3 total)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Either the c- or d-rank pawn was captured after it moved. That's another move (4 total)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The pieces captured on c5 and c6, whatever they were, needed at least two moves to get there. That's four extra moves. (8 total)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If the piece captured in c6 isn't white's missing knight (which needs 3 move to get there), that knight had to be captured in d4 by the e pawn, and that means the queen or bishop had to capture it on their way to capture on the c-file, adding another move anyway (not to mention what it means about the missing white pawn). That's another move. (9 total)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This position without possible castling requires two more moves (moving the castle or king back and forth), and it's impossible to fit them in.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3806" LastEditorUserId="3806" LastEditDate="2014-09-22T01:04:58.420" LastActivityDate="2014-09-22T01:04:58.420" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6278" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-09-11T16:49:29.867" Score="3" ViewCount="118" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm really struggling to find the proper white move. Can someone help me? Also, is there some tool to assist training?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;White to move&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;2k3rr/pbpp4/1pn1p4/8/2PPB1qp/2N1P2Q/PP4P1/2R2RK1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3807" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-04T21:49:28.603" LastActivityDate="2020-04-04T21:49:28.603" Title="Chesss training-Can’t find the proper white move" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;training&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="6279" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5611" CreationDate="2014-09-11T17:30:14.073" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;People have proposed adding a new fourth result for stalemate, where (for example) the stalemated player would get 1/4 point and the stalemating player would get 3/4 points. Unfortunately I don't have a reference at hand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2014-09-11T17:30:14.073" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6281" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6278" CreationDate="2014-09-11T20:21:43.567" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The answer is &lt;strong&gt;1.Rf8+&lt;/strong&gt;, as Cleveland commented. You remove the defender of the queen on g4 (that is, the rook on g8) by distracting it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;2k3rr/pbpp4/1pn1p3/8/2PPB1qp/2N1P2Q/PP4P1/2R2RK1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Rf8+ Rxf8 {1...Nd8 2.Qxg4 Rxg4 3.Bxb7+ Kxb7 4.Rxh8} 2.Qxg4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Wins the black queen in exchange for a rook, which means that white is winning. If black doesn't take the rook and instead blocks the check with 1...Nd8, white exchanges queens with 2.Qxg4 Rxg4, then exchanges bishops on b7 with check (3.Bxb7+ Kxb7) because the bishop was attacked twice, and then wins the rook on h8 (4.Rxh8).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for training tools, workbooks that explain a tactical theme and then give a number of exercises is the usual way, e.g. the Steps Method. A good website like that is &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesstactics.org/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Predator at the Chessboard&lt;/a&gt;, where a tactic like this could fit in chapter 5.2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2014-09-11T20:21:43.567" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6282" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6283" CreationDate="2014-09-11T21:58:26.997" Score="28" ViewCount="10635" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why are there separate tournaments for men and women?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is obvious that in physical sports men have a huge advantage, but what is the reason why in chess we differentiate by gender?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3809" LastEditorUserId="2565" LastEditDate="2014-12-11T22:49:49.193" LastActivityDate="2016-10-04T12:25:24.223" Title="Why are there separate tournaments for men and women?" Tags="&lt;history&gt;&lt;tournament&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6283" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6282" CreationDate="2014-09-11T22:19:18.137" Score="17" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess as an activity is not appealing to many women. Because there are so few women in open tournaments, it can be quite intimidating for a girl or woman to start playing the game. Imagine being one of the 1-3% of female players at a large open tournament. They receive constant attention and stares (it is much worse if they are conventionally attractive). Some women like this or are not horribly pushed away by it. Many are.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus, girls-only tournaments were born. In the US, there is a National Girls Championship every year near Chicago which attracts 200+ participants. This is a place for them to play without having the pressure of being basically a foreign entity at most open tournaments. I think that scholastic tournaments for girls are a very positive part of the chess world.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other end of the spectrum, and what I don't like, is the structure of the Women's World Championship, Women's Olympiad and various national women's championships.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My basic issue with these events is that they essentially encourage top women to get to a certain point (about 2500 Elo) and then stop improving. Take the history of Olga Girya (&lt;a href=&quot;http://ratings.fide.com/hist.phtml?event=4195752&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://ratings.fide.com/hist.phtml?event=4195752&lt;/a&gt;) for example. I count 23 events that she has played since Novemeber 2012-the last time that she played in an open tournament. In many of those 23 she played not a single woman that was higher rated than herself. She has been making plenty of money, but her growth as a player has been stunted by playing in such a closed pool.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Irina Krush, in the US, recently made GM. She has been playing in US Women's Championships since she was 14 and has been one of the top two or three seeds for maybe the last 10 years. How much better would she have been if she had instead been competing against the best players in the country in the Open championship? I think it is almost unquestionable that playing against inferior opponents so often been a detriment to her improvement.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3270" LastEditorUserId="3270" LastEditDate="2014-09-12T13:51:29.640" LastActivityDate="2014-09-12T13:51:29.640" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6284" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6285" CreationDate="2014-09-11T23:39:50.483" Score="0" ViewCount="151" Body="&lt;p&gt;I no longer have this game, although I do remember losing it. Here's the setup of the game, with White to move:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;2b1kb1r/r5pp/8/p1pQBp2/qn1P1P2/6P1/4P2P/2R1KR2 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3812" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2014-09-12T00:23:26.593" LastActivityDate="2014-09-12T00:38:55.763" Title="What should you do in this position?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6285" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6284" CreationDate="2014-09-11T23:47:00.577" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;White can safely resign. He is down 2 pieces without compensation and Black has a passed pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, Black's King is not secure, so if the White Q could get a check in, it is possible the Queen and Bishop could be a threat.  However, I see nothing here that makes me think White can get anything going.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So &lt;code&gt;Qc4&lt;/code&gt; to keep the Queen close to the action while keeping an eye on &lt;code&gt;g8&lt;/code&gt; to prevent castling. This pins the Knight on &lt;code&gt;b4&lt;/code&gt; though I don't know that it matters much.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If White gets time, he could consider &lt;code&gt;Kf2&lt;/code&gt;.  This will connect the White rooks in preparation for Rfd1, after which White shoves the d-pawn down Black's gullet.  If Black takes it, all the better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But White really is doomed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2014-09-12T00:38:55.763" LastActivityDate="2014-09-12T00:38:55.763" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6286" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6272" CreationDate="2014-09-12T00:16:04.157" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;Unicode has chess piece icons in it.&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_symbols_in_Unicode&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_symbols_in_Unicode&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This means you could look for a font which includes the chess symbol unicode block and has a license which fits your purpose. Most fonts are in TrueType format which is already vector-based and can be converted to SVG with &lt;a href=&quot;https://xmlgraphics.apache.org/batik/tools/font-converter.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Apache SVG Font Converter&lt;/a&gt;. This would mean you wouldn't even need to redraw them manually.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3813" LastEditorUserId="3833" LastEditDate="2014-09-13T12:16:05.163" LastActivityDate="2014-09-13T12:16:05.163" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6287" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6272" CreationDate="2014-09-12T01:05:58.777" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm sure unicode has a range of codes for both white and black game pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Use a font like Arial or Tahoma. In the U2600 Range.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3814" LastActivityDate="2014-09-12T01:05:58.777" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6288" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2911" CreationDate="2014-09-12T05:32:56.017" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are lots of websites on internet which helps you to check your ELO rating like &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessmaniac.com/ELORating/ELO_Chess_Rating.shtml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.chessmaniac.com/ELORating/ELO_Chess_Rating.shtml&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also try &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.forwardchess.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.forwardchess.com/&lt;/a&gt; to improve your chess skills which will definitely help you to improve your ELO rating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3815" LastActivityDate="2014-09-12T05:32:56.017" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6289" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2911" CreationDate="2014-09-12T05:45:32.977" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;http://chesstempo.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://chesstempo.com&lt;/a&gt; tactics server provides an estimate of FIDE rating based on your tactical performance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3456" LastActivityDate="2014-09-12T05:45:32.977" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6290" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5811" CreationDate="2014-09-12T05:47:49.427" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The app &quot;Analyze your games&quot; is free (no adds) and you can find it here:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.bento.analyzeyourgames&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.bento.analyzeyourgames&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3816" LastActivityDate="2014-09-12T05:47:49.427" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6291" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6272" CreationDate="2014-09-12T09:57:59.240" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;When you are looking for more interesting Chess icons including heterodox pieces, look here for a great list:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessvariants.org/index/imagequery.php?type=DTP&amp;amp;numberofcols=2&amp;amp;displayauthor=1&amp;amp;displayinventor=1&amp;amp;usethisheading=Desktop+Publishing+Resources+By+Image&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.chessvariants.org/index/imagequery.php?type=DTP&amp;amp;numberofcols=2&amp;amp;displayauthor=1&amp;amp;displayinventor=1&amp;amp;usethisheading=Desktop+Publishing+Resources+By+Image&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are going for the simple, just use Unicode.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3819" LastActivityDate="2014-09-12T09:57:59.240" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6292" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6282" CreationDate="2014-09-12T13:03:24.883" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is probably the only frequently recurring question in chess that is ideological in nature, rather than chess-related.  By this I do not mean that it is a bad question, but only that it is a question likely to elicit bad answers, and moreover to elicit bad answers with great heat.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you believe that men and women should not differ by sex in any significant way that is relevant to chess, then you are likely to suppose, and look for, and even imagine, bad faith as an explanation.  On the other hand, if you believe that men and women differ by sex in lots of ways, several of which are probably relevant to chess, even if we are not aware of all these ways, then there is no mystery, is there?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have little doubt that the typical female chess master finds tends to find male-dominated tournament conditions somewhat uncomfortable.  I have little doubt that these conditions discourage some women from seriously pursuing chess.  I have much doubt however that the problem could or should be solved.  Indeed, I have much doubt that the problem is actually a problem.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One should not automatically assume that a woman is at a social disadvantage in chess, incidentally.  She may be (and so what?), but one should not automatically assume it.  Will I get hate mail if I notice the significant proportion of female chess masters who have &lt;em&gt;married&lt;/em&gt; their top opponents?  Probably.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Typically, obviously, for whatever reason, though of course with exceptions, women are much, much less interested in chess than men are.  We don't really know whether women, as women, are inherently less capable of top-level chess than men are (women might be &lt;em&gt;more&lt;/em&gt; capable, for all I know, though I somewhat doubt it); but, if you judge by the evidence on the face of it, well, the evidence does seem to suggest that men were on average at least a little better at chess.  (I have four sons and two daughters, and in my family the top chess talent so far is a seven-year-old daughter, who probably outplays her two elder brothers at the same age, and &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/q/6257/315&quot;&gt;who has recently started giving me a lot of trouble with Alekhine's defense&lt;/a&gt;; but I am aware that this is not typical.  Nor would it surprise or dismay me if the daughter in question lost interest in chess as she matured.  Nor will I condone imaginary, question-begging nonsense about women being unequal at chess because fathers like me supposedly hadn't encouraged them enough.  I encourage &lt;em&gt;none&lt;/em&gt; of my children enough to make them likely future chess masters&amp;mdash;chess just is not that important&amp;mdash;but if I did indeed encourage my daughter less, this would be no one's business but hers and mine.)  The inherent equality of men and women as chess players was not specifically asked, but I mention it because it is usually on the mind of people who discuss such questions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I admit that I do not see the problem as a problem.  Since tournaments are already open to women, and since reasonable steps have already been taken to make the male-dominated atmosphere as nonthreatening as it can be under the circumstance, the circumstance is what it is.  If some women then prefer to play in strictly female tournaments, well, I have no idea (or interest) as to why they would prefer this, but it doesn't bother me.  Strictly female tournaments are fine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Strictly male tournaments would be fine, too, in theory, I suppose, except that no one (including me) seems to be interested in organizing or participating in those.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="315" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2014-09-12T14:45:41.080" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6293" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-09-12T16:48:24.317" Score="2" ViewCount="275" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was playing a game of chess and I was playing black. I had a rook on b2. I had control of the b1 square. My opponent white did not have any pawns in the second  rank. My opponent; white castled queenside. Is it illegal for his rook to pass the b1 square considering his rook passed the b1 square I had control of. Wouldn't it make this castle move illegal on white's part?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3822" LastEditorUserId="3823" LastEditDate="2014-09-12T19:02:19.450" LastActivityDate="2014-09-12T19:02:19.450" Title="Is castling legal regarding rooks passing over attacked squares?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;castling&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2014-09-12T21:53:49.817" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6294" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6293" CreationDate="2014-09-12T17:15:15.867" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is still possible to castle if the &lt;strong&gt;rook&lt;/strong&gt; passes through squares that are attacked(under control by opponent's rook e.g. as you say), it's only in the case of the &lt;strong&gt;king&lt;/strong&gt; that such scenario prohibits you from castling.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Have a look at the post Cleveland has suggested in the comments.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's an example anyway: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;O-O-O&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;2bk2nr/p1p2ppp/2p5/2p5/2P1P3/2N5/Pr3PPP/R3KB1R w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.O-O-O+&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3594" LastActivityDate="2014-09-12T17:15:15.867" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6295" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4987" CreationDate="2014-09-13T03:55:03.067" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Blank Chess is a great introduction to chess pieces and movement. Check out the rules at &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.blankchess.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.blankchess.com&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3829" LastActivityDate="2014-09-13T03:55:03.067" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6296" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-09-13T04:03:56.607" Score="3" ViewCount="871" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the chess variants Chess960 (aka Fischer Random Chess) and Chess480 the castling moves are radically different. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do the castling rules in Chess960 favor established FIDE Chess players more than the castling rules in Chess480 and if so why?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are other reasons to favor one castling system over the other?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3829" LastActivityDate="2018-08-21T19:05:04.880" Title="Chess960 vs. Chess480 castling moves? Which is better?" Tags="&lt;castling&gt;&lt;chess960&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6297" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6302" CreationDate="2014-09-13T08:59:43.193" Score="12" ViewCount="1005" Body="&lt;p&gt;Basically, I would like to ask people to share their knowledge on famous and/or particularly instructive examples of chess positions, which chess engines do not understand well (i.e. do not evaluate correctly).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A good example of the kind of positions I am interested in is the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rook_and_pawn_versus_rook_endgame#Van.C4.8Dura_position&quot;&gt;Vančura Position-Wiki&lt;/a&gt; (cf. also &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.chessbase.com/post/karsten-mueller-understanding-the-vancura-draw&quot;&gt;Vančura Position-Chessbase&lt;/a&gt;), which occurred very recently (at the Sinquefield Cup 2014) in the game &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1772860&quot;&gt;Carlsen-Aronian&lt;/a&gt;. Although the engine was saying white is completely winning, the game was a theoretical draw after black's 48th move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks in advance!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S. I should stress that I am looking for realistic examples, i.e. those which are likely to happen in a real game. Positions of the following type,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;4k3/4p3/3pPp2/2pP1Pp1/1pP3Pp/pP1K3P/P2RRR2/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and similar artificial positions is &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; the kind of thing I am looking for.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I should also say that endgame tablebase examples are OK. The only requirement is that engines (run on an average computer) are not able to evaluate the position correctly after given, say, 10-15 minutes time to &quot;think&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2792" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2014-09-13T16:56:52.333" LastActivityDate="2015-03-06T06:42:53.003" Title="Instructive chess positions (and famous games/studies containing these) that engines do not understand well" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="7" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6298" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6296" CreationDate="2014-09-13T11:37:37.987" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe the premise of the question is rather unclear! If you're already saying that there are a set of &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fide.com/component/handbook/?id=124&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE rules for castling&lt;/a&gt;, then the comparison between other types of chess should be straightforward, wouldn't you say? Either they follow the rules or they don't, whereas you seem to be asking for a crude-subjective-qualitative comparison here (you use words like &quot;which is better&quot; or &quot;favored&quot;...), which is kinda impossible because castling in standard chess has well defined rules.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First off, unlike the well-known chess960 mode, chess480 still lacks a coherent definition as many different types of it exists apparently(one where queen has to be restricted to appear on the left of the king, other where the king has to be on dark squares etc.) so as long as there's not a coherent and consistent description of the game, it remains very difficult to do any comparison (unless e.g. you ask for a specific scenario).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But anyway, all that differs, is basically the positions of rook/king after castling, in chess480 in certain scenarios, if possible, unlike Chess960, the final position after castling will not be the same as the final position of a castling move in traditional chess. Quote and image from &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess960&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;the king is transferred from its original square two squares towards&#xA;  (or over) the rook, then that rook is transferred to the square the&#xA;  king has just crossed (if it is not already there). If the king and&#xA;  rook are adjacent in a corner and the king cannot move two spaces over&#xA;  the rook, then the king and rook exchange squares.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In chess480: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ZtIcK.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In chess960:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/LeIy5.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So as far as traditional castling rules are concerned, they are both equally undermining, as for one thing in either mode, the kings can be found on squares other than e-square in the initial setup and still be castled...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe you could further clarify, as to what exactly you intend to achieve with such comparison. (and if you do, then I will edit my reply accordingly.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3594" LastActivityDate="2014-09-13T11:37:37.987" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6299" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6303" CreationDate="2014-09-13T12:41:24.287" Score="5" ViewCount="278" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm a beginner with openings and Steinitz principles, and I'm in the interesting position where I can develop an artificial intelligence which is better than me in chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After the &lt;code&gt;e4 c6&lt;/code&gt;, I have played the following variant against my machine, where I tried to refuse the Caro-Kann game to see if I can manage outside the commonly known combinations:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Caro-Kann refutation&quot;]&#xA;[StartPly &quot;36&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c6&#xA;2. c3 d5&#xA;3. Qc2 Be6&#xA;4. d4 Nbd7&#xA;5. h3 f6&#xA;6. Bd3 dxe4&#xA;7. Bxe4 g6&#xA;8. Bf4 g5&#xA;9. Bg3 Qa5&#xA;10. Nge2 h5&#xA;11. Bg6+ Kd8&#xA;12. Nbd2 h4&#xA;13. Nb3 Qb6&#xA;14. Bh2 Qb5&#xA;15. Bd3 Qa4&#xA;16. Kd2 Bd5&#xA;17. Rhg1 Rh5&#xA;18. Be4 Rh8&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At this point I'm stuck and still haven't managed to gain a real advantage and every idea I get seems to lead to a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Were my moves relevant or is my defense fragile? Can I still overthrow black at this point?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3835" LastActivityDate="2020-02-08T18:19:42.593" Title="What's my next move against this Caro-Kann variant?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;caro-kann&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6300" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-09-13T14:12:20.717" Score="13" ViewCount="1663" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can anyone recommend any good sources such as periodicals, websites, or what not to stay up to date on the latest opening theory? I am willing to pay if the source requires such. How do the top Grandmasters stay up to date on the latest theory?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3357" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2014-09-13T15:40:09.367" LastActivityDate="2014-09-20T21:02:23.807" Title="Top sources for opening theory" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;theory&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6301" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6300" CreationDate="2014-09-13T16:11:11.737" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;The top players in the world keep up with theory by actually looking at the latest games to be played. Every week, Mark Crowther collects all available games and prepares them in downloadable format here: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.theweekinchess.com/&quot;&gt;http://www.theweekinchess.com/&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For players who can't look at a new move and instantly tell the ideas behind it (pretty much everyone below FIDE 2600), there is the Chess Informant: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessinformant.rs/&quot;&gt;http://www.chessinformant.rs/&lt;/a&gt;. It comes out 4 times a year and has been in publication since 1966. It won't keep you nearly as current as checking the TWIC games every week but it will at least have someone to explain the moves to you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3270" LastActivityDate="2014-09-13T16:11:11.737" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6302" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6297" CreationDate="2014-09-13T17:43:46.023" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;The following two links seem to be exactly what you are looking for (many such positions in each one of them).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.chessbase.com/post/can-we-still-deceive-computers-in-chess&quot;&gt;http://en.chessbase.com/post/can-we-still-deceive-computers-in-chess&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/positions-engines-get-wrong--please-contribute&quot;&gt;http://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/positions-engines-get-wrong--please-contribute&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A cute study, which engines are unable to solve last I checked (white to move and win):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;6r1/p1p1p1pP/P1PpP1P1/8/2P1B3/2K3pp/3P2rq/R5bk w - - 1 0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3831" LastEditorUserId="3831" LastEditDate="2014-09-13T18:03:39.810" LastActivityDate="2014-09-13T18:03:39.810" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6303" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6299" CreationDate="2014-09-13T20:08:33.150" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are in fact quite a few mistakes on both sides, but I can't correct the AI, so this is for White:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;3.Qc2 is already bad - it is does not contribute to the fight for the center (and this is a fast one, no time for slow moves). After pawns exchange on e4 black plays Nf6 with tempo and gains the &quot;first move advantage&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;6.h3 is slow in that it doesn't develop anything and doesn't stop any threat (Black's white bishop already chose a square which is not g4).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;10.Nf3 is better than Ne2 - controls more critical square and looks over Black's weakened kingside.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;13.Nb3 is a straight up blunder. 13...Bxb3 with threat on the queen forces 14.Qxb3 with time for Black's 14...hxg3 - up a piece.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;15.Nc5 is winning. There are many variations here but after knights are exchanged you threaten 0-0-0 with check and some very strong tactics.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;16.Kd2 is weak - centralizing the king while still in the midgame is risky and serves little purpose. Better is 0-0 at least.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;17.Rhg1 while not a mistake seems uncalled for. The h rook seems better placed at e1 aiming at the half-open file and close to Black's king (with no castle rights). I think that Bxg2 for Black will be too slow as white has chances of trapping Black's Queen with moves like c4, Nc3 and a3 etc.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;You have a better position, don't exchange pieces with 18.Be4. Something like c4 forces his bishop away, then follow with something along the lines of Rooks to e1 and d1, N to c3 (not necessarily in this order) and remember that if Black moves Q to a6 you have c5 with discovery of the bishop on the queen.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2997" LastEditorUserId="2997" LastEditDate="2014-09-13T20:13:48.350" LastActivityDate="2014-09-13T20:13:48.350" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6305" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6306" CreationDate="2014-09-14T16:45:51.210" Score="4" ViewCount="1476" Body="&lt;p&gt;Fools Mate is simple as black, white opens right up, 2 moves, done.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But if you attempt to do this as white, once you move, black moves, you move, it's only check, there is no checkmate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it possible to get a 2 move checkmate as white?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3812" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-04-29T15:41:12.920" LastActivityDate="2021-04-29T15:41:12.920" Title="Fool's Mate - As White?" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;fools-mate&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6306" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6305" CreationDate="2014-09-14T17:15:27.533" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;No. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With two moves as white, you can get out a maximum of one attacker to deliver a check. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With one move as black, there is no weakness you can create that leaves you unable to defend a check from any given attacking vector.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3270" LastActivityDate="2014-09-14T17:15:27.533" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6307" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4987" CreationDate="2014-09-14T17:53:08.853" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Maybe cut the board down to half (in width) so there's 1 rook, 1 bishop, 1 queen, 1 king, and 4 pawns each?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3812" LastActivityDate="2014-09-14T17:53:08.853" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6309" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6310" CreationDate="2014-09-15T14:00:06.663" Score="9" ViewCount="973" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was playing a 3-minute game, my opponent had around 15 seconds to my ~50 seconds when he managed to cancel out the last pawns to make it so we each had a king and a rook. I let his time run out and he accused me of poor form. Should that have been a draw?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="966" LastActivityDate="2014-09-22T19:30:51.833" Title="Is it poor form to win a drawn position on time?" Tags="&lt;draw&gt;&lt;etiquette&gt;&lt;time-control&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6310" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6309" CreationDate="2014-09-15T14:31:59.073" Score="16" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is opinion based and therefore not a great fit for the Stack Exchange format, but here are my thoughts anyway.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The lower the time limit, the more acceptable it is from a sportsmanship view. In standard long time controls, this is really poor form. In 1-minute (&quot;bullet&quot;), anything goes, including this. The reasoning is that in these really fast forms of chess, the clock is as much a part of the game as the board is (so 15 vs 50 seconds is actually a type of winning position), whereas in slow chess the clock is more of a necessary concession to tournament organizers, not something equal games should be decided on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm in doubt about 3 minute chess. It's very fast, but I'm not sure on which side of the fence it is, that'll be different from person to person.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Personally I always offer a draw when this position arises, but then I only play for fun, not for big bucks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;K + B vs K + B with bishops on opposite colors is even worse, it's hardly even possible to make a blunder in that. At least with rooks you have to watch out for skewers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2014-09-15T14:31:59.073" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6311" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4987" CreationDate="2014-09-15T14:34:05.100" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;ALL MINI-GAMES COURTESY OF &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1906388679&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;STUDYING CHESS MADE EASY BY ANDREW SOLTIS&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;8/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/8 w - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Pawn Wars&quot; is a great way to play and teach kids about chess, each player starts with only pawns on their starting squares and the winner is the first one to reach the eighth rank, this teaches kids about pawn play and promotion. Then later you can bring in the kings, then they will rarely forget the power of the king in the endgame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;7n/8/2pppp2/2p2p2/2P2P2/2PPPP2/8/N7 w - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This one is called Forbidden City, this is probably the best way to learn how to play with the Knights, Whites goal is to get to h8 and return to a1, blacks goal is to get to a1 and return to h8. Neither Knight can land on a square where they can be eaten by a pawn, or a square which contains a pawn and they can never enter the square the pawns have formed, thus the name, Forbidden City. Of course whoever moves first should win but it is not so easy for beginners.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;r7/8/8/8/8/8/2PPPPPP/8 w - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is called Rook vs Pawns, White wins if one of the pawns queens and Black wins if he/she can eat all of White's pawns, this can help teach kids the power of passed pawns and the lateral attacks of the Rook.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3357" LastActivityDate="2014-09-15T14:34:05.100" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6312" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6300" CreationDate="2014-09-15T16:04:01.250" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Another high quality source of opening analysis is the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.newinchess.com/Yearbook/&quot;&gt;New in Chess Yearbook&lt;/a&gt; series. It also appears four times a year with hundreds of pages on the newest opening theory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1485" LastActivityDate="2014-09-15T16:04:01.250" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6313" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6358" CreationDate="2014-09-15T18:51:49.407" Score="6" ViewCount="2475" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am currently using the exchange variation of the Caro-Kann, so the:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Caro-Kann refutation&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.exd5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am looking for a more tactical approach. Is the fantasy variation worth it? Or are there more tactical variations?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3405" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2014-09-15T18:58:56.250" LastActivityDate="2017-04-17T19:34:11.010" Title="Tactical variations in the Caro-Kann?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;caro-kann&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6315" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6318" CreationDate="2014-09-16T05:48:20.280" Score="81" ViewCount="26960" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am 25 years old. I have been interested in playing chess since my school days but I never played seriously. One year back I realized that I want to become good chess player and I started. Most of the time I play online games on chess.com. I am a very poorly rated player, about 1100 on chess.com. I have two concerns here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Am I too old to start chess? I have been playing for almost 1 year but I didn't find much difference in my chess rating. How many days will it take for me to become a good player like 1800+?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Whenever I lose my game, I lose my confidence and I am very afraid to play the next game. I sometimes feel bad after a loss, especially if I lose against a lesser rated player than me. Does anyone else get this feeling?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3847" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-08-17T01:49:37.483" LastActivityDate="2020-09-02T01:37:03.320" Title="Can I improve my chess? Or am I too old?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;training&gt;&lt;psychology&gt;" AnswerCount="17" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="30" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="6316" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4743" CreationDate="2014-09-16T06:26:24.577" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, chess requires 100% skill, that's why bookmakers may offer poker games, dominos etc., but absolutely not chess because a good player will constantly win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3848" LastActivityDate="2014-09-16T06:26:24.577" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6317" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6315" CreationDate="2014-09-16T08:55:43.700" Score="42" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can still improve, 25 years is not old. At 40, I'm rated about 300 points higher than at 25, and I hope to improve further (although that isn't realistic as I'm not spending any time on the game...).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://schaken-brabo.blogspot.nl/2013/01/sterke-jan-scoort-een.html&quot;&gt;This article in Dutch&lt;/a&gt; is about a (strong, 2200 or so) player who started playing again at 60 and scored an IM norm with a huge overscore a few years later, and I know several people who went from 21xx to 23xx or so later in life.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;But&lt;/strong&gt;, 1) You have to work seriously at chess, and play serious tournament games, and 2) you can't really expect to go up more than 100 points per year, or maybe 200 early on. From 1100 to 1800 will take five years or so, it's not a matter of days.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;About your other question -- completely forget about your rating and the rating of your opponent, and don't focus on results. Focus on playing good moves. After each game, think really hard about what you could have done better, and why you didn't think of that during the game, regardless of the result. The moment you start thinking about the result of the game while playing it, is the moment you spend too many thoughts on things other than finding the best move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Forget about ratings, focus on finding good moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2014-09-16T08:55:43.700" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6318" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6315" CreationDate="2014-09-16T09:25:01.677" Score="86" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is never too late to learn anything (chess, phd, new job, skateboarding). Also you have really small chances of being new superGM :-).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Analyse, not just play. Each game you lost you should review and try to understand why exactly have you lost. Your analysis should depend on your chess level.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Learn standard openings (first starting moves and be sure that you know how to reply to them as well as easy traps to avoid and exploit). No need to go too deep (trying to memorize 15 moves if you are on 1100 level), start with 5 moves and try to understand the reason with them. While doing this look how to reply to standard opening that people use against you.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Solve puzzles&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Learn standard endgames like mating with Q or R, to be able to win in easy situations&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And do not be scared (you aren't in a boxing match where you can have some problems if you lost). All you are losing are the imaginary points on the imaginary server to an imaginary guy whom you most probably will never see again. There are things in life more scary than that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="703" LastEditorUserId="14255" LastEditDate="2017-09-11T14:36:41.423" LastActivityDate="2017-09-11T14:36:41.423" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6319" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6315" CreationDate="2014-09-16T09:57:48.657" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are already great answers to your question - I just want to add a few notes. If you were to begin playing the guitar at age 25, would you expect to play like Eric Clapton within 6 months? 1 year? 10 years? Maybe not impossible, but highly unlikely, and nobody who takes up the guitar should expect this to be achievable. Eric Clapton has probably been practising and playing guitar seriously - and by seriously I mean in the order of 6 hours a day - since he was a kid. Sure, one day you &lt;em&gt;may&lt;/em&gt; be able to play like him, if you put in the same amount of time and effort as he did back when he was 6, but it is generally unlikely that you will find the time to do so as an adult with work and family responsibilities.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And so it is with chess. I think many people make the mistake of thinking about chess as a &lt;em&gt;mental trick&lt;/em&gt; rather than a skill that requires years of toning, practice and maintenance. The process of learning chess is very similar to the process of learning to play a musical instrument - your brain's neural network needs to be configured in order to produce optimal performance, and that takes years. But don't give up! Many grandmasters have been playing serious chess since their early childhoods - to expect to play like a GM within a few years is just as impractical as in the case of playing guitar.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are looking for some consolation after losing a game - I think about Capablanca who said something to the line of: You learn more from losing that from winning - you can only become a master at chess once you have lost hundreds of games. I don't know if it's true, or if he even said that, but it sure makes me feel better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1816" LastActivityDate="2014-09-16T09:57:48.657" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6320" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6315" CreationDate="2014-09-16T10:48:31.003" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have played chess in my school days and didn't play afterwards for a long time. Then I started playing games on chess.com and the experience isn't the same as playing with a real person. Like you have said when playing on chess.com, since I'm shown a rating, I tend to play the game with the intention of improving the rating. And to do that as quickly as possible. So then I play a 10minute game and get through it quickly and then play another one and so on. This way, the things you learn will be very little.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I would suggest that you join a Chess club in your area and play with people face to face. When playing at school we didn't use clocks as often and we discussed the game after its finished which helps you to improve. And if you join a chess club you will get good guidance on what to learn at different skill levels etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;So my suggestion is, join a Chess club and play with actual people&lt;/strong&gt; (this is in addition to what others have mentioned)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3850" LastActivityDate="2014-09-16T10:48:31.003" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6321" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6315" CreationDate="2014-09-16T11:20:47.947" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;Great questions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1) Is it too old for me to start chess. Because I have been playing&#xA;  for almost 1 year but i didn't find much difference in my chess&#xA;  rating. how many days will it take to me to become good player like&#xA;  1800+?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;25 is not too old at all. Advancement in chess just takes a while. You have to learn the game and learn to think in the game's terms. I don't know what an 1800 rating is on the chess.com site.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;2) Whenever I lose my game, I lose my confidence and very afraid to&#xA;  play next game. and I feel bad sometimes If I lose by less rated&#xA;  player than me. does anyone get this feeling?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All the time. No one likes to lose. But consider that most tournaments pair people of equal strength together. So you can expect to lose half your games. Ratings are &lt;em&gt;approximations&lt;/em&gt; and people aren't perfect. I have drawn USCF masters on more than one occasion... and lost to &quot;C&quot; players.  My advice is not to worry about rating points, or winning or losing. Just play the best game you can. The rest will follow.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, playing online is great, but join your local chess club and play face-to-face. It's &lt;em&gt;much&lt;/em&gt; better and people will help you learn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2014-09-16T11:20:47.947" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6322" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1496" CreationDate="2014-09-16T11:53:33.507" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Download Chess Wizard from this site:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess-wizard.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chess-wizard.com/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's completely free and lightweight. It also supports UCI engines. You can &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.xs4all.nl/~vermeire/BrutusRND.rar&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;download the BrutusRND engine&lt;/a&gt;, which plays random legal moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also &lt;a href=&quot;http://wbec-ridderkerk.nl/html/details1/Ufim.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;download ufim_802&lt;/a&gt;, which is a very weak engine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3852" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-08-01T11:15:59.970" LastActivityDate="2019-08-01T11:15:59.970" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="6323" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6315" CreationDate="2014-09-16T13:40:21.027" Score="18" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's never too late for you to start or improve in chess. I used to play in several FIDE and USCF chess tournaments. I played against a wide age range, from 5 year olds to 70+ year olds. There are many chess players of all age ranges and skill levels.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I played chess for about 10 years before I actually joined a chess club. At first, I was not able to beat the better players... but I did a few things that made it possible to easily beat even the ones that used to be hard for me to beat.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Back in the 1990s, before Internet access and online chess was widespread, I had one of those &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/B003DMITE6&quot;&gt;roll-up chess boards&lt;/a&gt; that included pieces. I got some of Yasser Seirawan's &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_fb_0_15?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&amp;amp;field-keywords=yasser+seirawan&amp;amp;sprefix=yasser+seirawan%2Ctoys-and-games%2C429&amp;amp;rh=n%3A283155%2Ck%3Ayasser+seirawan&quot;&gt;books&lt;/a&gt; that taught me about chess strategy and tactics. The instructions are very clear cut. I suggest reading those in order: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1857443853&quot;&gt;Winning Chess Strategies&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1857443861&quot;&gt;Winning Chess Tactics&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Setting up pieces with a physical board to follow diagrams in the books can take up time. If you have an iPad, you can download apps like Chess Pro and it will let you set up position and take back moves if you have to. There should be programs available for your PC that can do that too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Getting to 1800+ rating does not usually happen overnight (but can take months or years), unless you beat a lot of high rated players while your rating is provisional. Provisional means there's a number of games you're allowed to play to establish your rating for the first time. Your rating moves up and down faster during the provisional phase. USCF and FIDE have different numbers of provisional games to establish initial rating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have never let losing a game bother me too much, even before I knew good chess strategies and tactics. &lt;strong&gt;It's a lack of knowledge of chess strategies and tactics that usually causes you to lose when you are new to chess.&lt;/strong&gt; For example, some chess strategies you may not yet know are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Know the value of each chess piece; don't sacrifice higher value pieces in exchange for your opponent's lower value pieces. You'll lose fast if you don't know the value of your pieces&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Try to control the center of the board if you can&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Use your opponent's mistakes to your advantage&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;And more&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Winning Chess Strategies teaches you how to do those. Do not be discouraged if you keep losing games. Just pick up one of those books and learn. You'll have an easier time then. There are many good resources out there but Seirawan's books are very straight to the point.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Everyone has great suggestions... you definitely may want to look into joining a local chess club. It's pretty fun to play casual chess or blitz with the other players and having a coach to teach you can also come in handy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3853" LastEditorUserId="3853" LastEditDate="2014-09-16T14:49:47.297" LastActivityDate="2014-09-16T14:49:47.297" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6324" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6315" CreationDate="2014-09-16T14:43:45.593" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's never too late :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Becoming a good player like FIDE 1800+ takes time, but in time it will come.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Of course this feeling is completely natural, it happens to everyone, the way to overcome this is to take each game one at a time and analyze your losses. Never lose faith in yourself! Determination, motivation and hard work will ultimately be what will cause you to prevail in the end.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tips for improvement:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Basic Endgame Study&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Tactics Training&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Basic Opening Principles&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://home.comcast.net/~danheisman/Events_Books/General_Book_Guide.htm&quot;&gt;Book Recommendations by Dan Heisman&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chesstempo.com/&quot;&gt;Chess Tactics Website&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.thechesswebsite.com/&quot;&gt;Chess Video Site&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3357" LastActivityDate="2014-09-16T14:43:45.593" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6325" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6330" CreationDate="2014-09-16T14:54:01.127" Score="8" ViewCount="2736" Body="&lt;p&gt;every now and then I have heard the saying &quot;1. e2-e4 -- The favorite opening move of Ostap Bender.&quot; In Alexei Kornev's book &quot;A practical white repertoire with 1. d4 and c4&quot; the author writes:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Ostap Bender is the picaresque hero of the hugely popular Russian comic novel “The Twelve Chairs” (1928) by Ilf and Petrov. It is still not widely known in the West, despite the efforts of, for instance, Mel Brooks, who made a film adaptation of it in 1970.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately, I have not read the novel (has it anything to do with chess?) and I also have not watched the film by Mel Brooks (I only know &quot;Spaceballs&quot;). Ostap Bender even has a &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ostap_Bender&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Wikipedia entry&lt;/a&gt; but it does not explain why his favorite opening move is supposed to be e4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could anyone please explain what it is all about Ostap Bender and the move e4?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3855" LastEditorUserId="3855" LastEditDate="2014-09-17T08:28:20.290" LastActivityDate="2015-05-16T13:11:21.847" Title="Does anyone know the anecdote about Ostap Bender?" Tags="&lt;famous-players&gt;&lt;fiction&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6326" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6325" CreationDate="2014-09-16T15:44:31.787" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The answer is the book that's actually referenced in the wikipedia article.  In chapter thirty four.  Bender moves the king pawn two spaces in all the games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Twelve_Chairs&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Twelve_Chairs&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://lib.ru/ILFPETROV/ilf_petrov_12_chairs_engl.txt&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://lib.ru/ILFPETROV/ilf_petrov_12_chairs_engl.txt&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS: Life of Brian was Monty Python, not Mel Brooks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3842" LastEditorUserId="3842" LastEditDate="2014-09-16T18:20:40.610" LastActivityDate="2014-09-16T18:20:40.610" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6327" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-09-16T17:30:26.710" Score="2" ViewCount="2031" Body="&lt;p&gt;What are the average number of moves per game with regards to what opening has been played?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3861" LastActivityDate="2015-11-18T18:13:07.270" Title="Average number of moves per game" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;statistics&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6328" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6315" CreationDate="2014-09-16T17:35:09.197" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;You mention &quot;I am 25 years old... Am I too old to start chess&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Emphatically, no. You can resume playing at that age and continue to improve your skills. Chess is not a physical skill; as others have stated, it requires mental training. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I cannot find a page currently due to network blocks, but I would suggest learning the so-called 10 Commandments of chess. &#xA;1. Do not move a piece twice when opening (the idea being it is better to develop two pieces that move one twice)&#xA;2. Move to control the center of the board.&#xA;3. Knights before bishops. I struggle with this one and it is likely a tactical blind spot on my part (we all need to continue learning). I think that it relates to the knights being more versatile when controlling the center, which plays into 2.&#xA;4. Trade when ahead. If you ever are up in material (knowing this as stated by other answers is critical), continue to offer trades. If your opponent takes them, you push your advantage. The opponent who refuses must generally spend a move to get away and thus is not able to advance a plan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I cannot recall the others, but initiative is also key and is an underlying backbone to much of this. If you retain initiative and freedom of movement, you are more likely to succeed. Constantly having to react to an opponents attacks is generally a disadvantage. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for ratings, once past the preliminary period (as mentioned by others) it becomes increasingly difficult to change your rating. To increase it you must play (and for maximum effect, beat) players who are more advanced than you are. Winning will require you to learn new skills and tactics. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Whenever I lose my game, I lose my confidence and very afraid to play next game and I feel bad sometimes, especially if I lose against a lesser rated player than me. Does anyone get this feeling?&quot; Yes, I would venture to guess that it is fairly common, but remember, the ratings are not exact and everyone has good and bad games. Don't let yourself become fixated on your (or your opponent's) rating. Learn and practice basic strategy and tactics to improve your gameplay.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Two things in closing. One, I find it extremely difficult to focus on an electronic board, to the point that playing online I will often set up a physical board and move the pieces on it to keep perspective. Two, simple algebraic notation (a-h, 1-8) will help you document your games so that you can look over them later, figure out where things turned for the win or went off the rails. This can help a coach look over a game and suggest changes and help you learn more about how you play. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3860" LastEditorUserId="3860" LastEditDate="2014-09-16T21:41:06.603" LastActivityDate="2014-09-16T21:41:06.603" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6329" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6300" CreationDate="2014-09-16T18:52:05.640" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a paid journal at &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesspublishing.com/content/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.chesspublishing.com/content/&lt;/a&gt; with different specialists  monitoring different openings (this is sometimes referred in bibliography of chess books).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess evolution also has GM analysis: &lt;a href=&quot;http://chess-evolution.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://chess-evolution.com/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For game collections, also ChessOk, delivers small chunks free every month: &lt;a href=&quot;http://chessok.com/?page_id=694&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://chessok.com/?page_id=694&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also the GM Repertoire from Quality Chess, has many original analysis: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.qualitychess.co.uk/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.qualitychess.co.uk/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, Since I am far from GM, I would also recommend as useful the Move by Move, Starting opening x series, and others from Everymanchess, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.everymanchess.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.everymanchess.com/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2607" LastActivityDate="2014-09-16T18:52:05.640" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6330" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6325" CreationDate="2014-09-16T20:45:27.317" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a person who read the book, I will explain:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So Bender is a con-artist from the book, and as any person of such kind he tries to transfer money from other people to himself. He has done a lot of such things in the book, but you are interested in the chess part. In this part Bender came to some average small city and was looking for a way to get some money. He found a chess club, where he decided to play chess having no idea how to do so. His idea was to create a simultaneous match with as many opponents as possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He called himself a GM, wrote an ads where he told that he (GM) a lesson of how to play chess and will play a simul game on 100+ chessboards. Take your chessboards, pay fee for a game, fee for an entrance and you good.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Before he started the game, he was able to persuade the owners of chess club to give him all the money by explaining them his idea how to make their city and their chess club one of the most profitable. He told that he would you all his connections in chess world (he is GM, who knows Lasker and Capablanka) to organize next world chess tournament in their city which will eventually makes it better than Moscow, New York and will give huge amount of money.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Back to simul games. When people came - he started to abstractly speak about chess, how cool the game is, how is it connected to everything without any details. Then he started his games. Because he had no knowledge how to play, he decided to play 'solid' e2-e4 (he new that he can not lose straight after that move).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So he played e2-e4 with everyone. His games were not long, soon he lost to the first guy, was doing mistakes with chess movements, tried to steal a piece and so on. He lost to almost every player and ran away.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S. it might not be 95% accurate and looks like a starting place for my own book, so do not be mad with inaccuracies.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="703" LastActivityDate="2014-09-16T20:45:27.317" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6331" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6315" CreationDate="2014-09-17T03:56:28.217" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'll answer by relating my own experience.  I started playing chess at 34.  It was pretty frustrating at first but once you start making progress it gets really exciting.  My recipe for progress is to train in phases.  In one phase I do tactics puzzles.  Chess.com is decent for that, Chesstempo.com much better.  I have subscriptions for both.  Then after a few weeks, I get tired solving tactics and stop improving.  That's when I switch to the next phase which consists of actually playing games.  In a playing phase, I exclusively play fast games, to train fast visual analysis, or slow games to train strategy.  And then when I get tired of that, I come back to tactics.  Switching phases is always pretty exciting because usually I make a decent jump forward in one phase by applying the stuff that I learned in the last phase.  Another phase is the study phase in which I read books -- I love all of Silman's books -- and watch video's on Youtube.  But these phases are typically shorter because I have to apply stuff to make it stick.  Using this strategy of alternating phases I'm making more or less linear progress.  My progress is not terribly fast but fast enough to satisfy me.  Am I going to be a GM or win competitions?  No.  Do I have fun?  Hell, yes!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3863" LastEditorUserId="3863" LastEditDate="2020-07-03T11:42:16.040" LastActivityDate="2020-07-03T11:42:16.040" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="6332" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6315" CreationDate="2014-09-17T04:18:39.030" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;you can always improve as long you keep practicing. The first thing the comes to mind is smartphones apps or online chess websites. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3864" LastActivityDate="2014-09-17T04:18:39.030" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6333" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1519" CreationDate="2014-09-17T07:53:26.083" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am surprised that no one yet mentioned &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessvariants.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chessvariants.com/&lt;/a&gt; --- the most comprehensive web site on Chess variants I am aware of. They also support a play-by-mail server for many Chess variants.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Chess variants offer there are range from &lt;a href=&quot;https://chessvariants.com/index/mainquery.php?category=Usual-Modest&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Modest variants&lt;/a&gt; (which is probably close to the variants the original poster is looking for) to rather wild and deviating variant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3819" LastEditorUserId="3819" LastEditDate="2019-02-07T13:20:58.540" LastActivityDate="2019-02-07T13:20:58.540" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="6336" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6315" CreationDate="2014-09-17T10:35:40.523" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Straight answers to you questions in the title&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Can I improve my chess?&lt;/em&gt; &lt;strong&gt;Yes!!!*&lt;/strong&gt;, cheer up now :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Am I too old?&lt;/em&gt; &lt;strong&gt;No!!!&lt;/strong&gt;, you are young chap.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;My guesses, why you might be losing games&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You are still not playing seriously&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You might be playing with cheaters. This is hard to conclude but there is a chance.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You might playing with same player over and over. Don't play with same player more than 4 games if he is completely dominating you. You should be playing with this kind of people to improve your game but avoid until untill you feel confident out your skill progression&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;My Tips to improve your game&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Best way is keep playing&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Try playing offline with your family members/neighbors/schools mates(online gamers might be cheating you using help of computer/chess engine). May be there is a chess club near you which is best way for improving your game.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Read chess books (especially the titles with Chess Openings For beginners, apologize for not suggesting a particular book which I might do later)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Understanding Chess Notation is not must but it really helps a lot in the learning by analyzing old popular games or online games or for yourself for post game analysis.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Forgot about youtube. (I am bit jealous about the luxuries/technology/resources you guys accessing at your age) there are some good youtube channels teaching chess especially about book openings&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Solve Chess Puzzles which can be found in some of the News Papers, Online sites etc.,&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Last and least (yes... not, 'not the least'), Buy/Download a free chess program which can help. May be you can download app if you have access to tablet. There are some good tutor apps which will aid you improve your game. Make sure you play longer formats such as 45 minutes 60 minutes or more.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="910" LastActivityDate="2014-09-17T10:35:40.523" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6337" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6194" CreationDate="2014-09-17T14:03:39.563" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The commenters seem to agree unanimously&amp;mdash;and please pardon the necessary formalism!&amp;mdash;as follows:  Quintuple repetition arises when, and only when, the position on the chessboard is the same after moves &lt;em&gt;n,&lt;/em&gt; &lt;em&gt;n+2,&lt;/em&gt; &lt;em&gt;n+4,&lt;/em&gt; &lt;em&gt;n+6&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;n+8&lt;/em&gt; for any nonnegative &lt;em&gt;n,&lt;/em&gt; where &lt;em&gt;n&lt;/em&gt; need not be an integer but &lt;em&gt;2n&lt;/em&gt; is indeed an integer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, quintuple repetition arises if the position is the same after 31.5, 33.5, 35.5, 37.5 and 39.5 moves&amp;mdash;that is, if the position is the same after White's 32nd, 34th, 36th, 38th and 40th moves.  Whether positions after 38, 38.5 and/or 39 moves happen also to repeat earlier positions is irrelevant to the rule.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The example given in the question is indeed a draw by quintuple repetition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="315" LastActivityDate="2014-09-17T14:03:39.563" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6338" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-09-17T21:04:12.350" Score="8" ViewCount="1586" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there a 'refutation', i.e. a defense for black that leads to a guaranteed advantage assuming perfect play, against the Muzio gambit?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[StartPly &quot;11&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.f4 exf4 3.Nf3 g5 4.Bc4 g4 5.O-O gxf3 6.Qxf3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3870" LastEditorUserId="1201" LastEditDate="2014-09-18T16:50:37.727" LastActivityDate="2014-09-18T17:50:06.713" Title="Is there a refutation of the Muzio gambit?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;gambits&gt;&lt;kings-gambit&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6339" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6338" CreationDate="2014-09-17T21:18:07.890" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;First of all, I should point out that it's actually simplest to avoid the Muzio altogether with Black; i.e. meeting &lt;strong&gt;1 e4 e5 2 f4 exf4 3 Nf3 g5 4 Bc4&lt;/strong&gt; with 4...Bg7 (the Hanstein Variation) or 4...Nc6! (transposing to a line of the Bishop's Gambit which is probably favourable for Black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But that doesn't really answer your question, does it? :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After 1 e4 e5 2 f4 exf4 3 Nf3 g5 4 Bc4?! &lt;strong&gt;g4!? 5 0-0 gf 6 Qxf3 Qf6! 7 e5!&lt;/strong&gt;, Black almost always plays 7...Qxe5, which has been analyzed for centuries, and the verdict is still unclear. However, in his recent book, John Shaw puts forth the view (supporting by the strongest engines) that &lt;strong&gt;7...Qf5!&lt;/strong&gt; leaves White with doubtful compensation for the piece.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Conclusion : 4...Nc6! and 4...Bg7 give Black good prospects to play for an edge in a relatively simple position (which is a good practical choice given the rarity with which Black meets this variation). Speaking about the Muzio proper, things are much less clear, but 7...Qf5 should be better for Black (albeit complicated).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3871" LastActivityDate="2014-09-17T21:18:07.890" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6341" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4" CreationDate="2014-09-18T01:44:21.747" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Like some people have mentioned in the thread, both time and piece handicaps are popular in chess.  You also can do &quot;wager&quot; handicaps if you're playing for cash or play-money currency.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are several chess websites that now offer handicapping to help bridge the often vast skill-level differences in chess.  Out of all of them I recommend:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.velocitychess.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.velocitychess.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This site allows ANY combination of piece, cash, and wager handicap.  For example, as a USCF master, I may offer a weaker player an extra starting knight, his 5 minutes to my 1 minute, and 3:1 wager odds in his favor for a game.  It is a lot of fun!  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3484" LastActivityDate="2014-09-18T01:44:21.747" CommentCount="0" CommunityOwnedDate="2014-09-18T01:44:21.747" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6342" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6197" CreationDate="2014-09-18T02:00:27.390" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;In order to answer your question, pros and cons of the doubled pawns must be listed. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I shall start with pros:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You get additional open file;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You get additional diagonal;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;you get addition protective or attacking power;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let me explain the last statement with the example from football. Imagine you have 2 players standing in a line, one being in front and the other behind ( just like doubled pawns ). If first player fails to stop the attacker, his &quot;doubled&quot; teammate ( the one standing behind ) can step in and stop the attacker. The same goes with offense -&gt; if first player fails to score, the &quot;doubled&quot; teammate might step in, steal the ball and score. &lt;strong&gt;By doubling pawns, it is as if you play 2 versus 1, in the battle of controlling squares.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A small example can illustrate this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;White to move&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;k2r3r/pp3ppp/8/2p1p3/2P1P3/2P5/P4PPP/K2R3R w - - 0 1&quot;]  &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White stands better here as he can play &lt;code&gt;1.Rd5!&lt;/code&gt;, thus obtaining the initiative, which gives him an advantage. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is just an example, and the point is to consider what happens if Black is to move? If not for the doubled pawns, Black could follow the same plan ( &lt;code&gt;1...Rd4!&lt;/code&gt; ) and obtain advantage due to having initiative. That was the protective strength I talked about in the last statement above. It is as if you get &lt;strong&gt;double&lt;/strong&gt; firepower on &lt;code&gt;d-file&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;b-file&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The same applies in offense, and yet another &quot;dumb&quot; example can illustrate that:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;White to move&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;7k/1pp5/8/2P5/P1P5/8/8/7K w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.c6! b6 ( 1...bxc6 2.a5+- ) 2.c5! bxc5 3.a5 c4 4.a6 c3 5.a7 c2 6.a8=Q+ Kh7 7.Qa3+- &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Again, you can see the &lt;strong&gt;supremacy&lt;/strong&gt; White has on the &lt;code&gt;b-file&lt;/code&gt;, because even if front pawn &quot;misses&quot; the mark, his &quot;rear&quot; friend will be able to strike. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I really hope that you understand now what I meant when saying that you get your firepower doubled. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To conclude: The strength of doubled pawns is the &lt;strong&gt;speeding up of piece development&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;stronger control&lt;/strong&gt; of the adjacent squares.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now is the time for cons:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;doubled pawn, &lt;strong&gt;the rear one&lt;/strong&gt;, has limited mobility and is usually a choke point for his own pieces;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;rear pawn&lt;/strong&gt; can't act as a normal pawn -&gt; he can't support/protect the pawn he stood next to ( before he was doubled ) nor the pawn that stands in front of him -&gt; he cant participate in controlling the square in front of the front pawn, nor the square in front of the pawn he &quot;abandoned&quot; by being doubled;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;by doubling pawns, additional &quot;pawn island&quot; is created which weakens pawn structure's defensive potential;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;in endgame, they can't create passed pawn since they are &quot;held&quot; by one opposing pawn;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Several examples must illustrate the above statements before I finally turn to the positions you mentioned in your post. Let us start from endgame disadvantage:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Doubled pawns are useless&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;7k/p7/8/P7/P7/8/8/7K w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As we can see, the above endgame is a draw. Doubled pawns can't enforce promotion to queen, because they act as single pawn. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for static weaknesses of the doubled pawns, we can use the position similar to one from your post ( the Nimzo-Indian defense ):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;White to move&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;8/ppk1bppp/8/2p1p3/P1P1P3/2P1B3/5PPP/6K1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Eventhough White is on the move above, the position is lost for him. Pawn at &lt;code&gt;c3&lt;/code&gt; is a choke point as he prevents bishop to defend the entry point for Black king. If this pawn was anywhere on the &lt;code&gt;b-file&lt;/code&gt;, White would easily defend with &lt;code&gt;Bd2&lt;/code&gt;, since piece coordination would not be hindered.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the above diagrams, and in diagrams in your post, notice that side with doubled pawns have an extra &quot;pawn island&quot;, and notice how this &lt;strong&gt;hinder pawn structure's flexibility.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for their inability to act as normal pawns, this example might be good:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;White to move&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;r4rk1/p4ppp/bp1n4/n1p1p3/q1P1P3/P1PBB3/3NQPPP/RR4K1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although White is on the move, he can't defend &lt;code&gt;c4&lt;/code&gt; pawn. If &lt;code&gt;c3&lt;/code&gt; pawn was on &lt;code&gt;b2&lt;/code&gt; everything would be fine, since &lt;code&gt;c4&lt;/code&gt; pawn would have &lt;strong&gt;natural pawn support&lt;/strong&gt; with &lt;code&gt;b3&lt;/code&gt;. This example also demonstrates well doubled pawn being a choke point, because if &lt;code&gt;c3&lt;/code&gt; pawn was on &lt;code&gt;b2&lt;/code&gt; White could play &lt;code&gt;Rc1&lt;/code&gt;, defending the pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The best example demonstrating rear pawn's inability to act as a normal pawn is the following position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Doubled pawn can't act as normal pawn&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;6k1/ppp2ppp/3p4/2nPp3/2P1P3/2P5/P1B2PPP/6K1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White can't dislodge the knight, yet if the rear doubled pawn was &quot;normal&quot; ( on &lt;code&gt;b2&lt;/code&gt; ) White plays &lt;code&gt;b4&lt;/code&gt; and kicks the pesky knight. Therefore, &lt;strong&gt;always strive to fore doubled pawns adjacent &quot;neighbors&quot; to advance.&lt;/strong&gt; This will create the &quot;hole&quot; in front of the doubled pawns which is &lt;strong&gt;always&lt;/strong&gt; useful outpost for your pieces, and that &quot;hole&quot; is &lt;strong&gt;permanent&lt;/strong&gt; weakness.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore comes logical conclusion for why doubled pawns are weak: &lt;strong&gt;They weaken pawn structure's defensive and attacking potential.&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is time to answer your questions, so let us start from the first position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Why is this kind of double pawn particularly devastating for white?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;4k3/ppp2ppp/3p4/4p3/4P3/2PP4/P1P2PPP/4K3 w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This pawn structure is better for Black because he can defend his pawns with other pawns. White on the other hand has weakened pawn structure as he can't defend &lt;code&gt;a2&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;c2&lt;/code&gt; pawns with nearby pawns. This means that Black can force White pieces to assume passive positions in order to defend the mentioned weak pawns, something like in my previous diagram.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Without the actual position with all the pieces, it is hard to analyze further so I will make necessary assumptions, in order to answer your question better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First of all, &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt; is very risky since Black plays &lt;code&gt;...c5!&lt;/code&gt; and puts your pawn structure under pressure. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you exchange with &lt;code&gt;dxe5&lt;/code&gt;  he plays &lt;code&gt;...dxe5&lt;/code&gt; and will get slight pressure with &lt;code&gt;...Qa5&lt;/code&gt;. Your queenside pawns are scattered, and unable to defend, so you will go into passive defense ( I doubt you can use open &lt;code&gt;d-file&lt;/code&gt; in such positions that fast to generate counterplay that will compensate a pawn loss ). Furthermore, he now gets excellent &lt;code&gt;c4&lt;/code&gt; square as a post for a bishop or a knight ( again, doubled pawn can't act as a normal pawn ). Black could also get slight pressure by playing &lt;code&gt;...Rfd8&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;...Rad8&lt;/code&gt; at some point because your queen will have a hard time finding a good square ( ideal &lt;code&gt;c2&lt;/code&gt; square is occupied by the doubled pawn-&gt; excellent example for doubled pawn being a choke point ).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you exchange with &lt;code&gt;dxc5&lt;/code&gt; he could recapture with a piece and play &lt;code&gt;...Rc8&lt;/code&gt; putting doubled pawns under pressure. Again, you will not be fast enough to generate counterplay against his pawn at &lt;code&gt;d6&lt;/code&gt; because you will waste time for the queen ( doubled pawn is a choke point again! ). The outpost on &lt;code&gt;c4&lt;/code&gt; would be even stronger then.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you decide to &quot;do nothing&quot; Black plays &lt;code&gt;...cxd4&lt;/code&gt; followed by &lt;code&gt;...exd4&lt;/code&gt; and gets initiative because he will surely be better developed ( &lt;code&gt;c2&lt;/code&gt; pawn is a choke point ). He will trade &lt;code&gt;d6&lt;/code&gt; pawn for your &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;c2&lt;/code&gt; pawn and will have better chances in the endgame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, you must keep your pawn structure &lt;strong&gt;flexible&lt;/strong&gt;. Your best bet would be to maintain current pawn structure. Without seeing the rest of the pieces I can't give further advice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for the position in your 2nd diagram, the key is control of the &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; square. The ideas and features of that position are explained in any decent repertoire book so I will stop here because this post is too long already...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastEditorUserId="2042" LastEditDate="2014-09-22T00:27:10.940" LastActivityDate="2014-09-22T00:27:10.940" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6343" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="7699" CreationDate="2014-09-18T11:12:50.343" Score="6" ViewCount="1225" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are there any celebrities, such as artists, politicians, etc, that also have a FIDE title? Also I don't want people whom had chess as a catapult to their job, because Karpov would be a great example of a politician who became so because of chess, or Carlsen whose modeling career is chess-based.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3405" LastActivityDate="2014-10-26T17:04:48.623" Title="Famous celebrity chessplayers?" Tags="&lt;titles&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6344" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6315" CreationDate="2014-09-18T14:05:39.327" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;We have so many learning tools now. Internet is the first one, you used it to ask this question, why don't you try this website:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://primamossa.it&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://primamossa.it&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's all about openings (aperture in italian), you will find in the &lt;em&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://primamossa.it/index_explorer.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Enciclopedia aperture&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt; section more than 2 milion records of the best players in the world. You have quiz as well. I prefer the learn-by-smile approach. XD&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Try to play against the computer and find the best response based on the enciclopedia. After 100 games I m sure you'll be at a good level.  XD&#xA;Hope this helps&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3876" LastActivityDate="2014-09-18T14:05:39.327" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6345" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6327" CreationDate="2014-09-18T16:27:28.167" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've heard that in high level games the average move count is about 40. It is important to note that there are some quick draws and resignations, thus if a game was played to checkmate, the move count would be higher than 40. I would expect that closed games last longer than open games. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3872" LastActivityDate="2014-09-18T16:27:28.167" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6346" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2508" CreationDate="2014-09-18T16:30:34.933" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In high level games, white wins 30 percent and black wins 20 percent. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3872" LastActivityDate="2014-09-18T16:30:34.933" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6347" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6338" CreationDate="2014-09-18T17:50:06.713" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;After achieving the state of the 'Muzio Gambit', White has a very distinct advantage via development. But at that point, the advantage is firmly established: Anything that Black could've done to prevent such an egregious advantage would've prevented the board from reaching the defined 'Muzio Gambit'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only thing that could save Black at that point, is if White does not maintain &lt;em&gt;constant&lt;/em&gt; attack pressure, and allows Black to develop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have never come across any technique that Black could do to regain control from a very aggressive White player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3844" LastActivityDate="2014-09-18T17:50:06.713" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6348" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6313" CreationDate="2014-09-18T21:08:37.640" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The hardest for black to meet is the Advance Variation. You might want to look at the latest games of Fabiano Caruana. He won with the Advance Variation against Maxime Vachier-Lagrave very recently.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Otherwise I would recommend playing 3.Nc3 dxe4 4.Nxe4. This variation gives white a slight edge where you can go for h2-h4 and O-O-O. White is very solid there. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Caro-Kann is overall very solid, and as white you need to play very accurately to maintain your first move advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3885" LastEditorUserId="11202" LastEditDate="2017-04-17T19:34:11.010" LastActivityDate="2017-04-17T19:34:11.010" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6349" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="693" CreationDate="2014-09-19T03:31:40.223" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can try Christal Kernel's &lt;a href=&quot;https://itunes.apple.com/in/app/chess-wizard/id916537412?mt=8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chess Wizard&lt;/a&gt; for iOS.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It trains you while playing. It gives a feeling that there is a real coach around. Throws situation based puzzle on the board. Makes the game interesting for the learners.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://crystalkernel.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Detailed information on their website&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2555" LastEditorDisplayName="user4378" LastEditDate="2016-01-20T17:06:36.970" LastActivityDate="2016-01-20T17:06:36.970" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6351" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6327" CreationDate="2014-09-19T13:24:24.223" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you consider the ChessGames.com database, whose statistics are posted on &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/chessstats.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chessgames.com/chessstats.html&lt;/a&gt;, that would be around 40 moves. I do not posses the program, but on ChessBase you may use any Mega Database, as pointed out on the thread &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/2506/what-is-the-average-length-of-a-game-of-chess&quot;&gt;What is the average length of a game of chess?&lt;/a&gt;, check it yourself: you can introduce the first moves of the opening you desire and look up the &quot;median move value&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3890" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2014-09-19T13:24:24.223" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6352" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="693" CreationDate="2014-09-19T13:54:04.313" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;For the several facets of the game, you may use different apps. I include them all on the comments, since I'm not allowed to post them here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Tactics:&lt;/strong&gt; This very important part of the game can be trained by the already mentioned app &quot;Tactics Trainer&quot;. I'm a daily user, and it's excellent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Openings:&lt;/strong&gt; The best app I can think of in this area is &quot;Chess Repertoire&quot;. The app is excellent, with a nice clean design and with more opening positions that you'll need. It even has space for personal annotations and novelties. The sole drawback is that only the first moves are free, and you've to pay for the rest of it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Endgame:&lt;/strong&gt; I've been recommended &quot;Chess Endings&quot;, which is not free, and cannot say much about it. You may try it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Casual play:&lt;/strong&gt; I strongly suggest the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess.com&lt;/a&gt; app. You have a few additional tactics problems, but the interesting thing is the correspondence and live chess, playing whenever you feel.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Analysis:&lt;/strong&gt; With abysmal difference, the best analysis tool you can possess for a mobile device is &quot;Scid&quot;. It is beautiful, the pieces are shown clearly, there's space for the game score and admits an engine. It also allows you to export games to .pgn and many more things. Priceless, but open source and free.&#xA;Despite it comes with an engine by default, Stockfish, downloadable from &lt;a href=&quot;http://stockfishchess.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;, can be compiled into any Linux device, and it's certainly the best option if you possess an Android.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3890" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T19:16:06.553" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T19:16:06.553" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="6353" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6313" CreationDate="2014-09-19T14:27:55.470" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The exchange variation, provided you continue with the Panov attack, is actually very tactical and aggressive. If you are looking for something quite different, I suggest what I play: the advance variation with an early h4 push.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That would be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[StartPly &quot;7&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. e5 Bf5 4. h4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;on &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.365chess.com/opening.php?m=8&amp;amp;n=612&amp;amp;ms=e4.c6.d4.d5.e5.Bf5.h4&amp;amp;ns=3.31.21.32.35.35.612&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; website you can find some of the more common approaches to the variation. More than just a tactical sideline, it is extremely tricky, so you should know a few things before going into this mess. There are many lines where black has &quot;only moves&quot;, but it is thought to not be very promising because in the end (after like 20 forced moves) black stands ok.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The thing is, most players who face this line have never seen it before, and they play the natural moves, falling into one of the hundred pitfalls available. An example is if black simply ignores h4 and plays 4. ... e6. After 5. g4, his bishop is trapped. This is only the first trap that you set (and on blitz, it's a very common one). Another one occurs after:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[StartPly &quot;7&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. e5 Bf5 4. h4 h6 5. g4 Bh7 6. e6 fxe6 7. Bd3 Bxd3 8. Qxd3 Qd6 9. f4 Nd7 10. Nf3 O-O-O 11. Ne5 Nxe5 12. fxe5 Qd7 13. h5,&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;where black simply played normal moves to advance e5 and get rid of his doubled pawns, but in the end is playing without the three pieces of the kingside. I've played this line myself a couple of weeks ago, with devastating effect (I won on 20 moves, the idea is to simply double/triple on the f file).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is just a few flavors of this sideline, check it out for yourself and see if the positions arising from it suit you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3890" LastEditorUserId="3890" LastEditDate="2014-09-19T18:12:07.413" LastActivityDate="2014-09-19T18:12:07.413" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6354" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6327" CreationDate="2014-09-19T14:47:36.193" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I wrote a simple PHP script which parses ELO codes and the corresponding number of moves from chess games in PGN files. This script will output the ELO code and number of moves into a CSV file. The averages can then easily be evaluated in Excel for example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I ran my script on a PGN file with about 6000 games which I downloaded from &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.theweekinchess.com/twic&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;The Week in Chess&lt;/a&gt;. You can view the result here:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/hOFWx.png&quot; alt=&quot;Average # of moves per ECO&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/hOFWx.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Full size&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to evaluate millions of games, to get better averages, I suggest you use Pig script or some other scripting languages which can easily handle big chunks of data.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3891" LastActivityDate="2014-09-19T14:47:36.193" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6355" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6327" CreationDate="2014-09-19T16:11:34.030" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's not about opening, it's about level of players in game. Beginner vs beginner game tends to have more moves on average, because they do not surrender easily. One forces second to mate him with his rook or something and it lasts forever. Games of serious players are mostly drawish, so let's say 20-40 moves on average. Of course, there are so many exceptions, long endgames etc, but they are rarely met in comparision to &quot;fast&quot; draws. It is really hard to give you exact answer on this. Try to ask more precisevely so we might figure out something&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3895" LastActivityDate="2014-09-19T16:11:34.030" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6356" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6207" CreationDate="2014-09-19T16:35:05.140" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a matter of fact, they do &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; use the whole tablebase, as one may check by introducing the following pieces on the board:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White: Kg8.&#xA;Black: Bc3, Bd4, Kf2, Pf3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The thing is, some positions are considered &quot;uninteresting&quot; because of the inevitable and obvious outcome of the game. Some of them, like the the positions with a lone king versus a king and five pieces, are simply omited from the calculations. However, every user of a tablebase may reject certain positions as trivial, and I believe the restriction used by the website you mention has many (or at least a few) of this rejections.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They certainly reduce the size of the standard tableblases at least to a tenth of the size you mention, since not even some basic pawn and kings endgames are covered (try Kg7 for white and Kg2 plus Pg3 for black), and this goes for both sides. Moreover, provided they use a similar technology as @oleksii does, I doubt they have any problem.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;@Jason Lepack on the comments to the question said that the computer needs them. I ignore that, but after reading the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endgame_tablebase&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;article&lt;/a&gt; on Wikipedia and what I've seen on the website you provide and a few tries, I'm pretty sure that one does not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;About the smallest size, I would consider how to decide wether a position is &quot;trivial&quot; or not. I guess that esentially all positions involving a lone king vs king plus any number of pieces should be eliminated. Plus, most of the endings of king vs king and pawns, even with pawns on both sides, can be &quot;solved&quot; on a decent time by a computer. I'd also leave out any position where the material difference is greater than 3, since this would mean a piece down or four pawns up, which cannot be drawn even with different colour bishops... Continuing this way, one may get pretty light on memory size, I guess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And the generator provided by @MikhailTal looks pretty awesome, now that's condensed information.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3890" LastActivityDate="2014-09-19T16:35:05.140" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6357" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6256" CreationDate="2014-09-19T17:01:57.250" Score="5" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;won that game, but I feel like I got lucky. I blundered in this game. I feel that letting white capture my rook on a8 was a blunder&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Everything you said was correct. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Also what if white captured g4 then I have to capture e4 with my knight. White then captures my rook at a8. I don't see any compensation for black for the lost of material. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Again, I agree with your conclusion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I also don't see how to continue the attack through this variation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can't, because White plays &lt;code&gt;Rc7&lt;/code&gt; and keeps everything under control. Even if you &quot;get&quot; classical &lt;code&gt;...Bh3&lt;/code&gt; sacrifice he will have &lt;code&gt;Rxc7+&lt;/code&gt; in that setup and your attack is dead. Bishops and knight will easily repel your minor pieces, not to mention that extra rook...&#xA;Since it was long time since I played actively KID ( both as Black and White ), I had to check theory as well. You missed the &lt;strong&gt;key move&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;code&gt;19...Nd7!&lt;/code&gt; which stops White queenside action in its tracks, in my opinion. This is also the move theory recommends.     &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What could I have done better as black against my opponent?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think your first mistake, and very serious one, was &lt;code&gt;19...Bd7?!&lt;/code&gt;. I would simply follow theory and respond with &lt;code&gt;19...Nd7!&lt;/code&gt;, stopping White's shenanigans at queenside. His attack is severely slowed down, while you can continue the attack with &lt;code&gt;...h5&lt;/code&gt;. This is the only important moment you can use in this game to improve.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Aside from that, you made some serious blunders he could have exploited. After he took the rook the game was over, but you managed to &quot;come back&quot;. In many occasions you gave him a chance for turnover, which is a result of poor combinational skill. You need to practice more, especially when you play this opening, and especially when you play this line. Tactics is everything for Black here! See the comments in the game below to see all the mistakes and suggested improvements.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Game analysis&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.e4 d6 5.Nf3 O-O 6.Be2 e5 7.O-O Nc6 8.d5 Ne7 9.Ne1 Nd7 10.Be3 f5 11.f3 f4 12.Bf2 g5 13.b4 Nf6 14.c5 Ng6 15.cxd6 cxd6 16.Rc1 Rf7 17.Nb5?! ( 17.a4!? ) 17...a6 18.Nc3 Bf8 19.Na4 Bd7?! ( 19...Nd7!? ) 20.Nb6 g4? ( 20...Rb8!?+/= ) 21.Nxa8+- g3? ( 21...Qxa8 22.Rc7+- ) 22.hxg3 ( 22.Nc7!? gxf2+ 23.Rxf2) 22...fxg3 23.Bxg3 Nh5 24.Bf2 ( 24.Bh2!? Bh6 25.f4 Nhxf4 26.Bxf4+- ) 24...Ngf4 25.Nb6 Rg7 26.Nxd7?? ( 26.g4!+- Nh3+ 27.Kh1 Nxf2+ 28.Rxf2 Qxb6 29.Rh2 ) 26...Qxd7?? ( 26...Rxg2+! $8 27.Nxg2 Qg5-+ ) 27.Kh2?? ( 27.g4!+- ) 27...Nxg2?? ( 27...Rxg2!+ $8 28.Nxg2 Qh3+ 29.Kg1 Qxg2# ) 28.Nxg2?? ( 28.Rc7!! Qc7 29.Nxg2+- ) 28...Rxg2+ 29.Kxg2 Nf4+ 30.Kg1 Qh3 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What are some key ideas in the King's Indian Defense that I missed in this game?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You missed nothing, push &lt;code&gt;...f5&lt;/code&gt; -&gt; deliver checkmate or die. The concept is easy to grasp :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;The only time you sidestep this pattern is in Yugoslav attack, but that is a different story ( White there goes for fianchetto with &lt;code&gt;g3 + Bg2&lt;/code&gt; ). In that case you prepare exchange sacrifice with &lt;code&gt;...Rxb2!&lt;/code&gt;, but this is off-topic here. If you need further questions about this line post them as a new question.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What concepts should I grasp from this game I played to become a better chess player and better using the King's Indian Defense?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can't play this line unprepared, you &lt;strong&gt;must&lt;/strong&gt; know theory of this line very well. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This line is so forced that one wrong move will cost you the game. Already after &lt;code&gt;19...Bd7?!&lt;/code&gt; White stood better! You had no counterplay after that, and if you played &lt;code&gt;...Rb8&lt;/code&gt; he could simply take your light-squared bishop and destroy &lt;strong&gt;every&lt;/strong&gt; mean of counterplay you have ( &lt;strong&gt;the point of this line is to sacrifice that bishop for &lt;code&gt;h3&lt;/code&gt; pawn&lt;/strong&gt; ). Without your key attacker, your attack would be dead, while he would first bolster his kingside, and then demolish you on the queenside, since you would have no natural kingside counterplay.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Second thing, your tactical skill must be very high, because this line relies solely on that. There are no &quot;hidden gems&quot; it is raw and simple -&gt; mate or die. You missed several times clean win which gave him the chance &lt;strong&gt;to win the game&lt;/strong&gt;. I hope you will understand just how devastating blunders, or even imprecise moves, can be in this line, so please sharpen your tactical skill.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Third, play &quot;clean chess&quot;. After &lt;code&gt;27.Kh2??&lt;/code&gt; you had &quot;clean victory&quot; with &lt;code&gt;27...Rxg2+! 28.Nxg2 Qh3+ 29.Kg1 Qxg2#&lt;/code&gt; yet you decided to complicate with &lt;code&gt;27...Nxg2??&lt;/code&gt; after which he could have &lt;strong&gt;won&lt;/strong&gt; the game with &lt;code&gt;28.Rc7!!&lt;/code&gt;. Always aim &lt;strong&gt;to destroy opponent's counterplay&lt;/strong&gt;, especially in these positions. If you have a queen and pawn versus rook, give the queen for the rook and win simple pawn endgame. In this opening, and in this mainline, there is always venom in position and &quot;playing with fire&quot; can backfire, in view of you stalemating the opponent or not seeing some cheap tactics. &lt;strong&gt;If you have a forced win, then by all means, win by force!&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;When is it the right time to give up the rook on a8 for an attack on the king side?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Only if you are certain that your attack is so strong that it will at least get you perpetual check or will win you back the material. Other than that, forget it!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;SUMMARY:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well played, keep sharpening your tactical skill and learn theory to the &lt;strong&gt;last&lt;/strong&gt; book move. Always aim to win the easiest way because this line is minefield and you never know when you will allow your opponent to play some crazy intermediate move that will give him magnificent comeback ( or maybe you will blunder a cheap tactical shot ).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you have further questions leave a comment. Best regards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2019-07-01T20:48:27.590" LastActivityDate="2019-07-01T20:48:27.590" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="6358" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6313" CreationDate="2014-09-19T18:31:47.733" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would also suggest the &quot;caveman&quot; variation.  Below is a nice article on this opening:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.kenilworthchessclub.org/games/java/2013/complete-caveman.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.kenilworthchessclub.org/games/java/2013/complete-caveman.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am a FM, and have played this opening successfully at the tournament level.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3484" LastActivityDate="2014-09-19T18:31:47.733" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6359" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5860" CreationDate="2014-09-20T08:15:19.923" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can get the FIDE rating list &lt;a href=&quot;http://ratings.fide.com/download.phtml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;. I used R statistical software to analyse the data for the latest OTB rating list (of 15th Sep. 2014). At the moment there are 383543 active FIDE players. Among them, slightly less than one third (107320 players) are rated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As noted by others, the FIDE rating floor is 1000: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;Players whose ratings drop below 1000 are listed on the next list as ‘delisted’. Thereafter, they are treated in the same manner as any other unrated player.&quot; (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=172&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Rating Regulations effective from 1 July 2014&lt;/a&gt;, article 7.21).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From that I understand that players going below 1000 Elo are unrated at all effects. However, the list shows 14 people with a rating of 0 (I do not know what this means, though).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For rated players, please see the figure below. It shows the number of FIDE active rated players for different Elo intervals: 1000-1100, 1100-1200, etc. So, to answer your last three bullets, as of 15th Sep. 2014:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;there are 31603 players with Elo higher than 2000, or 8.2% of the&#xA;total&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;there are 10220 players with Elo higher than 2200, or 2.7% of&#xA;the total &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;there are 768 players with Elo higher than 2500, or 0.2% of&#xA;the total&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/OXOgf.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3757" LastEditorUserId="3757" LastEditDate="2014-09-25T18:20:31.357" LastActivityDate="2014-09-25T18:20:31.357" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6360" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6300" CreationDate="2014-09-20T15:59:27.830" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;As already said, top GM keep up with the theory by simply looking at the games played. In think the sources provided by @Cleveland are excellent, and just in case you may want to keep up to the games live, the chess website &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessbomb.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;ChessBomb&lt;/a&gt; follows the main events being played on the planet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another source for top opening preparation could be the &quot;Master's Bulletin&quot;. This is a monthly magazine issued by the website &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chess.com&lt;/a&gt;, featuring top GMs explaining their ideas and modern repertoires. It covers other areas of chess, but the opening is certainly the more treated. You may find the different issues &lt;a href=&quot;http://shop.chessvibes.com/the-masters-bulletin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; and the full list &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/article/view/the-masters-bulletin-archive?ncc=2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;. In that last link, some of the first issues are free, check them out and see if they meet your expectations on top preparation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For tournament play, I find the useful website &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.365chess.com/opening.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;365chess.com&lt;/a&gt; more than enough. You only need to get registered to benefit from around 3M games (the Big Database), organised by the popularity of the move made. This is not the latest theory though, as some relatively old lines are now out of favour at the top, but still have more played games in total than the modern ones. For the latest theory, you may want to become a supporter of the site (only one time is enough for full access) and get access to the Masters Database, where only games with both players over 2400 are included (and most are not included on the other).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The same idea as the Masters Database can be found on the webpage &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/explorer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chessgames.com&lt;/a&gt;. By being a registered member (which is free) you have access to a depth of around 12 moves, and have to become premium for the full depth. On this website you can also access the &quot;Chess Games Collection&quot; tab and look for a certain opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3890" LastEditorUserId="3890" LastEditDate="2014-09-20T21:02:23.807" LastActivityDate="2014-09-20T21:02:23.807" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6361" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2217" CreationDate="2014-09-20T16:26:03.077" Score="-3" Body="&lt;p&gt;1) e4 Nc6 2) d4 d5 is also a good choice, got great results with it.&#xA;3) ed: Qd5: and d4 is weak&#xA;3) e5 a6 (!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;have a try ;-)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3901" LastActivityDate="2014-09-20T16:26:03.077" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6362" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5815" CreationDate="2014-09-20T16:28:55.303" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is just my opinion, as I doubt the question can be objectively answered, but I don't think this is feasible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are a few big problems arising from the idea of going backwards in the game of chess, and not only that the pawns' movement must be inverted, but also concerning the captured pieces. How to decide when a captured piece can &quot;emerge&quot; from the graveyard is, IMO, quite challenging. One can't simply set that every time an opponent's piece moves, you can put a captured piece on the square just left empty, since this would mean that a player has the right to &quot;move&quot; twice: to choose which piece to put on said position and then to move another (not necessarily different) piece. And this same problem applies to pawn promotion, when a player could choose to transform a piece on the last rank to a pawn on the seventh (or second). This doesn't happen in normal chess and I find it a little of an abomination.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Moreover, assuming all the pieces are already on the board, none of them can be captured (including the king, who now can enter into check but cannot be checked by an enemy piece). Plus, there are several strategies that any of the two players can adopt as to win almost immediately, one of them being to put a knight on the last rank, for example on a bishop's square. It would be impossible to a black piece to dislodge it, but if all the pawns are on their starting squares, the knight can go back to his place while the bishop can never trespass the pawn &quot;chain&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This would lead to problems concerning what moves are legal and what are illegal. If, for example, we assume that a player must be capable of completing his objective, that is, any move that impedes the opposing player to complete his task is illegal (like forcing him to put first all the pawns on their squares but leave out the queen), would mean that one can enter a never-ending discussion of &lt;em&gt;when&lt;/em&gt; a knight shall leave the last rank (the pawn has to be two squares advanced, or one, but what if the knight has all the other exits blocked and can no longer move, is it illegal to move the pawn thus A wins or the knight is in an illegal position thus B wins...). Or maybe we shall decide that if a player cannot attain his objective, he directly loses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well, I have to accept that maybe it is plausible to make such a game, but that would not resemble much the chess rules, and they would be so complicated that I don't think the game could be playable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3890" LastEditorUserId="3890" LastEditDate="2014-09-20T18:19:39.850" LastActivityDate="2014-09-20T18:19:39.850" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6363" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="73" CreationDate="2014-09-20T17:11:08.347" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe there are a few gambits completely solved, that is, analyzed up to positions that either the material advantage is enough to guarantee a win or this win is achieved by means of technique (if the final position is not directly checkmate). The only one that I know a proof of, however, is the Latvian Gambit:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 e5 2. Nf3 f5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Spanish analyst Alejandro Melchor provides two very insightful .pgn with what he considers to be the refutation of said defense. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.filedropper.com/leton1&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Here&lt;/a&gt; you may download the first one and &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.filedropper.com/leton2&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; you may download the second one. He also wrote an &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.filedropper.com/apend&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;appendix&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They both are deep in calculations and very detailed, if you ever want to play perfect chess against this gambit, then good luck. Even if a gambit is &quot;refuted&quot;, not many know these lines and the ensuing complications. This makes almost any gambit, refuted or not, completely playable (provided you are not facing a super-GM).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.D.: I had to upload the files via a third party, I hopes it's not inconvenient, since I don't know if it's possible to upload files directly via Stackexchange.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3890" LastEditorUserId="3890" LastEditDate="2014-09-20T17:36:18.477" LastActivityDate="2014-09-20T17:36:18.477" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6365" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5479" CreationDate="2014-09-20T19:40:42.527" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am currently doing some research on the subject and hopefully can provide a more complete answer later, but apparently Capablanca did not invest much time. As he said (extracted from &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chesscollection?cid=1012971&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; compilation) about his tenth move:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I thought for a little while before playing this, knowing that I would be subjected thereafter to a terrific attack, all the lines of which would be of necessity familiar to my adversary. The lust of battle, however, had been aroused within me. I felt that my judgment and skill were being challenged. I decided that I was honor bound, so to speak, to take the pawn and accept the challenge, as my judgment told me that my position should then be defensible. – Jose Raul Capablanca&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit 1:&lt;/strong&gt; The tournament time controls on the late XIX and early XX centuries were similar (but not exactly the same) to the Classical time control, that is, 120 minutes for 30/40 moves, plus an additional 60 minutes for the next 15/20 moves (with obviously no time added back then, and occasionally 15 extra minutes were added for the rest of the game once the final control was reached). This is backed up by a few links to tournaments like &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vienna_1898_chess_tournament&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Vienna 1898&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_1900_chess_tournament&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Paris 1900 (1)&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chesscollection?cid=1012305&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Paris 1900 (2)&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ostend_1907_chess_tournament&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Ostend 1907&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Petersburg_1914_chess_tournament&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;St. Petersburg 1914&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlsbad_1929_chess_tournament&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Carlsbad 1929&lt;/a&gt; (and I'll stop the counting here). There were surely many more with this 30 moves on 120 minutes plus 15 moves on 60 minutes or similar time controls.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus, I think it's reasonable to assume that Capablanca and Marshall were playing this time control. Now, the opening phase of the game is mainly an automatic one, where if still on book you simply blitz the lines you like. As my coach says, when you know a theoretical line, you don't waste much time thinking about the correctness of such line, you just play it out. Based on actual games from GMs, they invest around 15-30 seconds per move on the opening, that is, the first 10-15 moves (sometimes even more if they enter a big theoretical line). So we can safely assume that Capablanca's time had been reduced by more or less 5-10 minutes by the time he faced the decision to take or not the pawn on the tenth move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If we assume this reasoning correct, I think that Capablanca had 110 minutes for the remaining 20 moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit 2:&lt;/strong&gt; As the member &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/members/view/batgirl&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;batgirl&lt;/a&gt; of &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess.com&lt;/a&gt; pointed out to me, the information about the time controls for the tournament is available in the tournament book &quot;International Masters' Tournament of the Manhattan Chess Club, October-November, 1918&quot;. According to it's 11th page, the rules governing the games at the event were:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;THE CODE AND SUPPLEMENTARY RULES.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The following is a copy of the minutes of a meeting of the players and committeemen, held the day before play was scheduled to begin, and at which a number of special regulations were discussed and adopted to supplement the Revised Draft of the American Chess Code:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;At a meeting of the competitors and committee (Messrs. Marshall, Morrison and Whitaker being absent), held at the Manhattan Chess Club on the afternoon of October 20, it was voted to adopt the Revised Draft of the American Chess Code (British Chess Code) as the Code to govern this tournament, insofar as its terms do not conflict with any of the special regulations adopted at this meeting and hereinafter mentioned.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;After a discussion of the advisability of the adoption of the rule providing for the moving of the King as a penalty for illegal moves, it was voted to apply this rule (or &quot;Penalty C&quot; of the Code) only to such instances where the illegality affects sealed moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;It was decided that a game may be declared drawn at any time by mutual consent of opponents.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Where any player sets up a claim (as for a draw because of a threefold repetition of position), which, upon investigation, turns out to be false, such player making false claim shall have charged against his playing time on his clock so much of the time as may be required for examination and demonstration of the claim, provided, however, he is not penalized more than thirty minutes for any one such false claim.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;There shall be no analysis by any of the competitors of pending games, either their own or those of other competitors, during the regular sessions of play and the evening intermission, within the confines of the Manhattan Chess Club rooms. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The time limit shall be Thirty (30) moves in the first two hours and fifteen (15) moves each hour thereafter.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Any claim for exceeding the time limit must be made before the player, against whom the claim is directed, has completed his 30th, 45th, 60th, 75th (etc.) move. It shall be the duty of the Umpire to declare forfeited any game the moment a player has exceeded the time limit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In the event of a player's withdrawing from the tournament, the games played by him up to that time shall stand as scored, if at the time of his withdrawal he shall have completed his schedule of games for the entire first round, in which case all of his other scheduled games shall be forfeited to his opponents; if he has not completed the first round (meaning half of the tournament), all of the games played by him shall be cancelled.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Adjourned games shall be played on Mondays in the order of the schedule. All adjourned games must be played to completion before any games of the second round (or half) of the tournament are begun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The regular hours for play on six days of each week, exclusive of Monday, shall be from 2.30 P. M. to 6.30 P. M. and from 8 P. M. to 11 P. M. On &quot;Mondays the same hours shall obtain for adjourned games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Appeals from decisions of the umpire shall be submitted to the referee by the tournament committee of the Manhattan Chess Club and at the discretion of the said committee.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The entry fee shall be $20.00 for each player and shall be returned upon completion of his schedule of games, and forfeited if such schedule be not completed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The prizes shall be: First, $300; second, $200; third, $100; fourth, $50. Non-prize winners shall receive payment at the rate of $5 for each point scored.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Prizes for the most brilliant games: First, $30; second, $20.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus, there were 60 minutes added to the clock for every 15 extra moves on the board after the 30th one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3890" LastEditorUserId="3890" LastEditDate="2014-09-21T16:27:37.743" LastActivityDate="2014-09-21T16:27:37.743" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6366" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="347" CreationDate="2014-09-20T21:53:40.120" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Adding up to the answer by @Eve Freeman, I would suggest looking up how does the best computer engine in the world, Stockfish, evaluate a given position. As the &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;source code&lt;/a&gt; is open, you can do it for free. I think the file with the evaluation function you are looking for is &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/blob/master/src/evaluate.cpp&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this one&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3890" LastEditorUserId="142" LastEditDate="2019-06-30T18:47:17.747" LastActivityDate="2019-06-30T18:47:17.747" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="6367" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6188" CreationDate="2014-09-21T01:48:41.160" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;My interpretation of the rules (which in this aspect I believe to be correct) is the same as yours. Although the example you provide with castling rights is conceptually a little more challenging, the problem is exactly the same as the one arising when the &quot;en passant&quot; rule is allowed on the first move:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;White to open, illustrating sect. 9.2&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1/2 - 1/2&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. d4 Nf6 3. d5 c5 {First time this position happens.} 4. Qf3 Ng8 5. Qd1 Nf6 {Second time this &quot;position&quot; happens, but now white cannot take the pawn en passant, thus making actually this the first time this position happens.} 6. Qf3 Ng8 7. Qd1 Nf6 {Second time this position happens. This is not yet a draw.} 8. Qf3 {EDIT: As the OP pointed out, technically this is the first time a threefold repetition occurs in the game.} Ng8 9. Qd1 Nf6 {Now this is a draw.} 1/2 - 1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, nowadays the FIDE &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fide.com/component/handbook/?id=171&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;rules&lt;/a&gt; are very clear and misinterpretations on this subject should (fortunately) no longer be a problem. Article 9.2 now covers both cases, and reads:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;9.2&#xA;  The game is drawn, upon a correct claim by a player having the move, when the same position for at least the third time (not necessarily by a repetition of moves):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;is about to appear, if he first writes his move, which cannot be changed, on his scoresheet and declares to the arbiter his intention to make this move, or&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;has just appeared, and the player claiming the draw has the move.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Positions areconsidered the same if and only if the same player has the move, pieces of the same kind and colour occupy the same squares and the possible moves of all the pieces of both players are the same. Thus positions are not the same if:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;at the start of the sequence a pawn could have been captured en passant.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;a king or rook had castling rights, but forfeited these after moving. The castling rights are lost only after the king or rook is moved.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, your (our) interpretation is the correct one, and there is no other possible alternative interpretation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3890" LastEditorUserId="3890" LastEditDate="2014-09-21T16:33:30.043" LastActivityDate="2014-09-21T16:33:30.043" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6368" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6372" CreationDate="2014-09-21T04:03:10.547" Score="4" ViewCount="153" Body="&lt;p&gt;Continuing my question on double &lt;code&gt;c&lt;/code&gt;-pawn.I am studying on this topic and I came to this position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Bb5 Bb4 5.O-O O-O 6.d3 d6 7.Bg5 Bxc3 8.bxc3 Qe7 9.Re1 Nd8 10.d4 Ne6 11.Bc1 c5 12.Bf1 Rd8 13.d5 Nf8 14.c4 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my opinion, black's position is better here due to the double knights. However, I couldn't find any concrete continuation in this position for black. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;Ng6-Nh4-Nf4&lt;/code&gt; seems intuitive but then, I don't want to give up knights easily.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;It's hard to exploit the double &lt;code&gt;c&lt;/code&gt;-pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;Bg4&lt;/code&gt; swapping the knight for bishop seems appealing but I don't know if this is good as this gives white double bishop advantage in endgame.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;My question is that&lt;/strong&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Is my analysis true?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Is &lt;code&gt;11. ...c5&lt;/code&gt;,the pawn break good (or are there any mistakes in the previous move)?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Are there any other ways to break this position?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Who stands better here?    &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3381" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2014-09-21T14:10:56.517" LastActivityDate="2014-09-21T14:10:56.517" Title="How do I play against this kind of position with double c pawn?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;doubled-pawn&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6370" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6368" CreationDate="2014-09-21T12:12:03.333" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;ad 1: Partially, yes. Ng6 is a good move but it will get surely met by white's g3. That's natural. Still u want to move your knight from f8, this square is for your rook.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ad 2: Of course c5 was a good move. You played the opening correctly!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ad 3: Yes, the natural plan is to prepare f5 break. Something like Ng6, Rf8, Nh7, f5&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ad 4: I would say rather equals. White has pair of bishops but c-pawns might be an issue later on. Good position to evaluate players' strength. Good luck!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3895" LastActivityDate="2014-09-21T12:12:03.333" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6371" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6193" CreationDate="2014-09-21T12:51:22.127" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is really really wide and there are entire books written on this topic. But a few words of comment from me:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ad 1: First of all, it's not necessarily Petrov's anymore. &lt;code&gt;3. ... - Nc6&lt;/code&gt; transposes into Four Knight's / Scotch for example (yeah, entire books here as well). &lt;code&gt;3. ... - Bb4&lt;/code&gt; is a bit more &quot;Petrov's&quot; move. Then something like &lt;code&gt;4. Ne5 - 0-0 5. Be2 - Re8 6. Nd3 - Bc3 7. dc3 - Ne4&lt;/code&gt; and we have a kind of Ruy Lopez with a tempo more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ad 2: a) I think there's no point in typing here whole lines of theory. In this variation, IMHO, you need to prepare &lt;code&gt;c4&lt;/code&gt; sooner or later. Otherwise it's unlikely to get advantage. The second line you mentioned &lt;code&gt;5. Nc3&lt;/code&gt; is about getting ahead in development. The cost of it isn't that high. It's doubled c-pawns which are not an issue as long as there are pieces on board. (Fortunately, black has &lt;code&gt;d-pawn&lt;/code&gt;. With &lt;code&gt;e-pawn&lt;/code&gt; those structures might be problematic when it comes to endgames. So a tip from this sentence might be &quot;rather don't exchange on e5 letting black capture with d-pawn&quot;). Usually White is able to launch some attack on black's kingside castle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ad 3: I have never played those lines in my life. Sorry.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyway, Petrov's defense is rather logical and quite easy to play. You don't even have to know theory very well to get slightly advantageous position by thinking at the table. As I mentioned before, you should narrow your question a bit. To get a really valuable answer we would have to rewrite whole books here :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3895" LastEditorUserId="11202" LastEditDate="2017-05-04T06:07:07.690" LastActivityDate="2017-05-04T06:07:07.690" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6372" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6368" CreationDate="2014-09-21T13:31:11.640" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This reminds me of this &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/article/view/my-favorite-classic-games-part-1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;article&lt;/a&gt; by Jeremy Silman. The position you discuss is difficult to evaluate, as both parties have assets and drawbacks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first thing to notice is that the position is closed. Thus, if it doesn't open up, certainly black is not standing worse because of the two knights. However, these knights are severely restricted, and if you play:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Bb5 Bb4 5.O-O O-O 6.d3 d6 7.Bg5 Bxc3 8.bxc3 Qe7 9.Re1 Nd8 10.d4 Ne6 11.Bc1 c5 12.Bf1 Rd8 13.d5 Nf8 14.c4 Ng6!? 15. g3!&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This last move deprives the knights of many good squares, and they do not seem so useful now. Moreover, we shall not forget that white already possesses the bishop pair, and any plans involving &lt;code&gt;b5&lt;/code&gt; will open the position for the &lt;code&gt;Bf1&lt;/code&gt; to come to life. Other plans for white to consider at this point are &lt;code&gt;Rab1&lt;/code&gt; and at some point &lt;code&gt;f4&lt;/code&gt; to blast the position open. Black needs to find active play to avoid getting excessively pressured by the bishops. This can go via &lt;code&gt;h6-g5&lt;/code&gt;, since all black pieces are on the kingside and it makes sense to start an attack there (plus, has the advantage of discouraging &lt;code&gt;f4&lt;/code&gt; and keeping the position closed).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now that we have outlined the main characteristics of the position, to your questions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Your analysis is correct as long as the position remains closed: black has more or less equalized. However, he cannot sit and wait, he needs active play to avoid getting too much pressure on the &lt;code&gt;b7&lt;/code&gt; pawn and having the position uncontrolled when opened.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The move &lt;code&gt;11. ... c5&lt;/code&gt; is correct, but the pawn break &lt;code&gt;b5&lt;/code&gt; is probably not the move you are looking for, since it opens files for both the &lt;code&gt;Bf1&lt;/code&gt; and the &lt;code&gt;Rb1&lt;/code&gt;, that will inevitable end up there.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The GM Akiba Rubinstein followed a very original play, by keeping a knight and the position closed, he benefited from the fact that the &lt;code&gt;c5&lt;/code&gt; square is extremely weak, and a knight there is not easily dislodged. You can learn more about it on the above referenced article, but in general, black does &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; want to open the position.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The position as it is is basically equal, black might have a slight advantage concerning the activity of the minor pieces (those two nice knights) but white has this same advantage about the major pieces, with the semi-open &lt;code&gt;b&lt;/code&gt;file. It is up to the players to choose a good plan and implement it correctly, but white is easier to play from a practical point of view.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3890" LastEditorUserId="3890" LastEditDate="2014-09-21T13:40:11.113" LastActivityDate="2014-09-21T13:40:11.113" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6373" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6249" CreationDate="2014-09-21T14:47:56.113" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;This question can hardly have an objective answer, as the time controls and the strength of the players both matter a lot while valuing material and time management. A partial answer would be given assuming a time control of 1 minute. For this time control, regardless of the strength of the players, we can safely say that on lost positions the knight is the most valuable piece (after the queen). This is stated many times by IM Daniel Rensch on his &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL-qLOQ-OEls4-V65cOOr8DIWq-qxH33zI&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Bullet Brawl Series&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When the player possessing the knight has more time, this difference is accentuated as he may look for tricks and swindles to try to make his opponent blunder or even lose on time. The forking ability of the knight is what makes it such a good piece in bullet, as some times the fork occurs and the knight cannot even be captured after he wins one of the forked pieces. This advantage is almost completely nullified when there is some kind of increment, allowing the players to take their time and think a bit more about the position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3890" LastActivityDate="2014-09-21T14:47:56.113" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6374" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6258" CreationDate="2014-09-21T15:34:42.733" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, as @RemcoGerlich pointed out extremely well, the analogy is not exactly the same:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;And the analogy to the king's gambit is flawed because there &lt;code&gt;3. Kg3&lt;/code&gt; isn't a move ;-), and &lt;code&gt;3. fxe5&lt;/code&gt; is not a threat because &lt;code&gt;3. ... Qh4+&lt;/code&gt; is devastating. That means in the QG white actually has pressure on the &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt; pawn, and in the KG he doesn't, at least not yet. Someone should combine these comments and make an answer, I don't have time... –  RemcoGerlich Sep 9 at 7:38&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But the most important reason why this is not played is that there &lt;em&gt;will&lt;/em&gt; be too much pressure on the &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt; pawn by the natural move &lt;code&gt;Nc3&lt;/code&gt; and even &lt;code&gt;Qb3&lt;/code&gt; in some cases. This means it's not a good time to start developing pieces, not to say breaking the &quot;principle&quot; of knights getting developed before bishops, as the pawn has to be supported.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A good example was provided by @kahen:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;@AlwaysLearningNewStuff &lt;code&gt;1. d4 d5 2. c4 Bf5 3. Qb3 e5!?&lt;/code&gt; is quite messy though. White gets the upper hand more easily with the simple &lt;code&gt;3. Nc3 e6 4. Nf3&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;3. cxd5 Bxb1 4.Qa4+ Qd7 5.Qxd7+ Nxd7 6.Rxb1 Ngf6&lt;/code&gt; –  kahen Sep 8 at 21:15&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Taking a look at the mentioned lines:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[StartPly &quot;4&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. c4 Bf5 3. Nc3 (3. Qb3 e5!?) (3. cxd5 Bxb1 4.Qa4+ Qd7 5.Qxd7+ Nxd7 6.Rxb1 Ngf6) e6 4. Nf3 {This is the main answer to black's second move. Notice how the black bishop can be easily exchanged by one of the knights if white wants to (and gaining the bishop pair in the process), and also how the b7 pawn can be subjected to attack by Qb3, putting further pressure also on d5.}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The thing is, this line gives white too many options concerning developing with tempo and forces black to catch up to him on every move. While not directly losing, it's understandable that modern chess players prefer to avoid such problems by leaving the bishop on its starting square, and seizing the initiative otherwise.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3890" LastActivityDate="2014-09-21T15:34:42.733" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6375" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="7902" CreationDate="2014-09-21T15:50:32.577" Score="7" ViewCount="318" Body="&lt;p&gt;Lately, we have done an experiment in our chess club and liked it much. We were 4 players, and we wanted to play simultaneous each against each other. This setup worked (more or less, see the following diagram):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/h21YN.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The players 1, 2, and 3 may sit on their tables, but the player 4 (myself) had to walk around from board to board (identified by &lt;code&gt;Pl4&lt;/code&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then a 5th player came around, and we could not find a reasonable setup where we can play and know who is playing where.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this a known problem, and for how many are solutions known? For 2, 3, and 4, it is easy, but how about higher numbers?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3005" LastEditorUserId="550" LastEditDate="2014-11-25T07:56:48.133" LastActivityDate="2014-11-25T07:56:48.133" Title="How to play chess against a large number of players simultaneously?" Tags="&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;simultaneous&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6376" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="940" CreationDate="2014-09-21T15:57:20.260" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Although not exactly the Exchange Variation, the Berlin Wall (also arising from the Spanish and sharing many features with the Exchange Variation) is a very common opening nowadays on top GM games:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;The Berlin Wall&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 Nf6 4. O-O Nxe4 5. d4 Nd6 6. Bxc6 dxc6 7. dxe5 Nf5 8. Qxd8 Kxd8.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Despite being technically an endgame and the white pawn majority on the kingside being more or less mobile (thus awarding him a theoretically tangible advantage), this is a modern tabiya of chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3890" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-07-20T11:23:08.417" LastActivityDate="2019-07-20T11:23:08.417" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="6377" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6149" CreationDate="2014-09-21T18:05:33.610" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are no complete openings refuted by computer analysis from scratch as far as I know. There has been computer assistance in the analysis of more than a few gambits, &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/73/what-proofs-for-refuted-gambits-are-there/6363#6363&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; you can look for more details. However, in modern opening theory, computer evaluations (running on powerful software) are given a very high regard by the top players, and this has caused some openings to fall in use, as being thought to not provide any advantage. One of these opening is the Italian game:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Italian game - drawing line&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Bc5 4. c3 Nf6 5. d4 exd4 6. cxd4 Bb4 7. Bd2 Nxe4 {This was considered to be a greedy line that lead nowhere for black, since white gets active play and centralizes his pieces effortlessly. Nowadays, this has become a drawing line for black.} 8. Bxb4 Nxb4 9. Bxf7 Kxf7 10. Qb3 d5 11. Ne5 Ke6! {This was the discovery of the computer.} (11...Ke8 12.Qxb4 {This was the old line, with a very comfortable game for white.}) 12. Qxb4 Qf8! {And now the black queen attacks both the white queen and the f2 pawn, forcing the exchange.} 13. Qxf8 Rxf8 {The position is absolutely equal.}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The problem is the huge number of variations the computer has to calculate. This number of different chess positions is considered to be around 10^50, and these positions can be achieved via many different move orders. Thus, the current algorithms that involve MinMax and similar weight-based methods can hardly cover a fraction of those variants.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An enlightening example is to see how the endgame tablebases are generated. They start from the mated position and go backwards, they do &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; use the tree-search that characterizes computer engines because it has too many branches for an efficient computation. This is a reason why a computer sometimes gives advantages in theoretically drawn positions: he does not see the end of the variation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;IMHO, it doesn't really make sense to have a project to solve an opening (at least not operating in polynomial time) due to the enormous number of possible lines and the time that takes to analyze them all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3890" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2014-09-21T18:05:33.610" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6378" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4326" CreationDate="2014-09-21T18:40:26.153" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are other two very important events that follow a different scoring system for the games than the usual W - 1, D - 1/2, L - 0. The first is the Bilbao Masters, you can find information about it on their &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.bilbaomastersfinal.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;main site&lt;/a&gt;. Although they do not feature short games, the points awarded are W - 3, D - 1, L - 0. The other is the Zurich Chess Challenge, also interesting information is available on their &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zurich-cc.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;main site&lt;/a&gt;. This event features several blitz, rapid and classical rounds, the blitz pgames only count for the initial standings, while others receive different points (W - 1, D - 1/2, L - 0 for the rapid and W - 2, D - 1, L - 0 for the classical) according to the time controls.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are very few events that feature a distribution of points per game different to the classic one. But if you are only interested in watching rapid chess, I would consider the first part of the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tal_Memorial&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Tal Memorial&lt;/a&gt;, the Rapid and Blitz Chess Championships and the tiebreaks of the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_World_Cup_2015&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;World Cup&lt;/a&gt;. All of this events are held anually.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3890" LastActivityDate="2014-09-21T18:40:26.153" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6379" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="7678" CreationDate="2014-09-21T18:45:41.447" Score="2" ViewCount="566" Body="&lt;p&gt;In normal chess, black isn't that bad, but not that good either. White has the initiative and opening theory dictates how to win these positions. Variants like &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess960&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chess960&lt;/a&gt; have made it possible to play with common sense rather than grandmaster sense. But still correct play leads to the same result in variants that do not offer a pawn for either side right in the opening. While there are many books that try to convince me that black is OK, still the statistics show other things for normal chess at least. So that leads me to my question.&#xA;Are there any chess variants where black is considered equal? Not better, just equal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3405" LastEditorUserId="291" LastEditDate="2014-09-21T20:54:41.460" LastActivityDate="2017-04-15T11:16:40.840" Title="Chess variants where black is considered equal?" Tags="&lt;chess-variants&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6380" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6218" CreationDate="2014-09-21T19:00:34.560" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In general, yes, all of the games played in an official event count and can make you lose or win rating points.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, rapid tiebreaks in the World Cup count for the rapid FIDE rating, while the Armageddon tiebreaks count as blitz. In the Norway Chess, the classification process via blitz games also counts for the FIDE blitz rating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3890" LastActivityDate="2014-09-21T19:00:34.560" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6382" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-09-21T19:42:30.123" Score="9" ViewCount="340" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am looking for audio or subtitle English translation of &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0382724/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this 1973 movie by director Sergey Mikaelyan&lt;/a&gt;. Does anyone know if that is available anywhere?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="618" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-01-09T17:12:36.400" LastActivityDate="2017-07-04T15:26:43.670" Title="Has the Soviet movie &quot;Grandmaster&quot; ever been translated into English?" Tags="&lt;history&gt;&lt;film&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6383" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6379" CreationDate="2014-09-21T22:11:12.983" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is a &lt;a href=&quot;http://computerchess.org.uk/ccrl/404FRC/opening_report_by_white_score.html#table_start&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;link with statistical information&lt;/a&gt; about different kind of chess960 positions. If you will look at the very bottom, where white score is the worse ( &lt;code&gt;White score = (White's winning percentage) + (Draw percentage / 2)&lt;/code&gt; ), you can see that positions like &lt;code&gt;RBQKBRNN&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;RNKBBRNQ&lt;/code&gt; are statistically favorable for black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;P.S.&lt;/strong&gt; statistics does not really mean that they are in fact good for black. It might also mean that the engines who played black in these positions where much higher. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="703" LastActivityDate="2014-09-21T22:11:12.983" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6384" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-09-22T05:12:18.860" Score="0" ViewCount="185" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there a database for the different starting positions of Chess960? I would like it to have only human played games, because it it was for engines, I'd have &lt;a href=&quot;http://computerchess.org.uk/ccrl/404FRC/opening_report_by_white_score.html#table_start&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;lots of computer chess games.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3405" LastEditorUserId="3890" LastEditDate="2014-09-22T13:08:33.727" LastActivityDate="2015-02-28T14:13:04.697" Title="Chess960 human database?" Tags="&lt;chess960&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6385" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-09-22T08:29:55.307" Score="13" ViewCount="33804" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a novice at chess. I am around 1400-1600 chess rating. I have struggled to find any sound aggressive openings for black against E4. As white I play the Scotch Gambit which I have great success with.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can anyone recommend any sound openings for black that are aggressive and could you explain the theory behind it also? I prefer openings that don't need a lot of lines to remember. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3909" LastEditorUserId="23619" LastEditDate="2020-09-09T22:26:26.283" LastActivityDate="2021-02-16T11:12:39.117" Title="An aggressive opening for Black against 1. e4" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;1.e4&gt;" AnswerCount="14" CommentCount="7" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="6386" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6402" CreationDate="2014-09-22T15:03:41.123" Score="4" ViewCount="14870" Body="&lt;p&gt;What strategy should I use to win a chess game against a chess computer?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The engine is able to make decisions on an about 3 moves deep search graph.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please do not say check every move in the next 4 moves...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3812" LastEditorUserId="10905" LastEditDate="2016-11-22T16:33:11.530" LastActivityDate="2019-12-29T10:49:42.983" Title="Tips on how to beat a computer?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6387" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6386" CreationDate="2014-09-22T17:42:59.893" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;play closed positions. Play positionally. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3 moves deep will be a weak computer, thus, just play well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3872" LastActivityDate="2014-09-22T17:42:59.893" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6388" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6386" CreationDate="2014-09-22T18:45:58.223" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;If your computer is so weak to calculate &lt;code&gt;only 3 moves&lt;/code&gt; then you can easily got for trades and play endgame. It will be easier to you to overcalculate him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just do not blunder, and hey, you were right, calculate 4 or even more! Practise, practise and practise again! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Would you mind sharing few games of yours? We'd be able to see what kind of mistakes you do and give you a better advice :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3895" LastActivityDate="2014-09-22T18:45:58.223" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6389" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6386" CreationDate="2014-09-22T18:54:22.387" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Computers' main strength are tactical positions. So steer into quite positions. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another good thing to do is to learn your openings well. Why? Computers usually will play the same thing in depth 3 over and over. So you will be able to learn what the computer plays, like studying an opponent's previous games. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another tip is go to the endgame. The weak calculation power helps you a lot. Try to transpose into King and Pawn endgames, and learn them well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The last thing to keep in mins is that computers do not blunder. They will play what they think is the best, while humans might not even notice an hanging piece. Try to be attentive, and check ahead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Remember to practice!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3405" LastActivityDate="2014-09-22T18:54:22.387" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6390" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6385" CreationDate="2014-09-22T19:00:50.770" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Sicilian defense is probably your best choice, since you want aggressive play. However, there is a lot theory and lines but probably knowledge of a few lines and some plans is good enough for your level. &#xA;I play the scotch gambit as white as well. I play e5 however, which has a lot of aggressive lines too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3872" LastActivityDate="2014-09-22T19:00:50.770" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6391" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6385" CreationDate="2014-09-22T19:04:39.663" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;SICILIANS. Most of variations in Sicilian defense are double-edged. The problem is I'm not sure if 1400-1600 is good level to play Najdorf or Dragon for example. Well, you can try. The problem is, your oponents are likely to not know theory very well. Would you have enough understanding to take adventage of not too accurate moves?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One &quot;funny&quot; variation I used to play is &lt;code&gt;1. e4 - c5 2. Nf3 - e6 3. d4 - cd4. 4. Nd4 - Nf6. 5. Nc3 - Bb4&lt;/code&gt; This variation is rather BAD for black. But white has to know theory, otherwise you can easily equalize or even get adventage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More solid (and times more complex) is Taimanov. A great book by John Emms was written on this topic. I would suggest this one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Considering your opponent are &amp;lt;1800 and I have faced players over 2000/2100 not knowing anything about above variations I would suggest you having a look at one of many of &lt;code&gt;1. e4 - c5 2. Nf3 - e6&lt;/code&gt;. Take a look what fits your style.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You would be surprised how many people don't know anything about Sicilians with &lt;code&gt;e6&lt;/code&gt;! Wish you good luck with your reppertoire!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3895" LastActivityDate="2014-09-22T19:04:39.663" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6393" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5744" CreationDate="2014-09-22T19:17:02.863" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;standard time controls will help more than blitz, however, the inability for blitz to improve play has been exaggerated. Blitz can help you practice your openings. Blitz can help you spot simple tactics. Blitz can help you avoid hanging pieces. Blitz can help players familiarize with how pieces move. Blitz can help you cope under time pressure situations. Of course, standard time controls have their advantages that outweigh the benefits of blitz, but for beginners, it is not too bad play blitz. I almost exclusively played bullet and blitz chess and became 1800 uscf ( I also studied from youtube). I got stagnated however, and it was standard time controls that got me out of 1800 and improve.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3872" LastActivityDate="2014-09-22T19:17:02.863" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6394" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="823" CreationDate="2014-09-22T19:19:37.670" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;you can play blindfold on chess.com. That is a good way to practice if you are like me and dislike playing against computers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3872" LastActivityDate="2014-09-22T19:19:37.670" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6395" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5022" CreationDate="2014-09-22T19:22:26.533" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;the ability to play blindfold chess develops naturally as chess ability improves. By getting better at chess, one gets better at blindfold chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3872" LastActivityDate="2014-09-22T19:22:26.533" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6396" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="442" CreationDate="2014-09-22T19:25:12.250" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It depends on the person. I use to teach chess to children and some very young kids could not learn chess while others could. Because of this, I am impressed by the people above who learned how to play chess at two. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3872" LastActivityDate="2014-09-22T19:25:12.250" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6397" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6309" CreationDate="2014-09-22T19:30:51.833" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Though in long time controls, there is a slight courtesy, quick time controls is perfectly okay to win on time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3872" LastActivityDate="2014-09-22T19:30:51.833" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6398" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23640" CreationDate="2014-09-22T19:58:31.100" Score="1" ViewCount="979" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am looking for a tree of sorts, like the one of Chessmaster XI, but with deeper analysis, like why is this move good.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, e4 gets the center, with the idea of opening the bishop. e5 comss.with the same idea, and go as far as 30 moves in theoretical lines such as the Najdorf with ideas behind them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So a compilation of opening theory in digital format, of everything, including new developements.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For MCO, I am looking for a digital software that can fully explore it, like a ChessBase Tree.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3405" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-28T13:18:42.633" LastActivityDate="2021-04-26T10:27:09.047" Title="A digital tree (with annotations) of all chess opening moves discovered by theoreticians" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;theory&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="6399" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="442" CreationDate="2014-09-22T20:29:30.847" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;As young as possible, but start them with a simpler board: A King and a few pawns. When ready, add a Rook. Slowly work the pieces in, so they can grasp each piece's role in time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A full board is pretty overwhelming to any beginner.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3844" LastActivityDate="2014-09-22T20:29:30.847" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6400" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6385" CreationDate="2014-09-22T21:09:01.063" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Against a king pawn opening, one of the most straightforward and aggressive ways to defend is the Scandinavian. If you don't want much theory, I would suggest the Bronstein (also called Pytel-Wade) variation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Scandinavian, Bronstein variation&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 d5 2.exd5 Qxd5 3.Nc3 Qd6 {This is the move that characterizes the Bronstein variation among the rest.} 4.d4 Nf6 5. Nf3 a6 {This is the usual position you'll find when playing Qd6. Simple development, nothing fancy.} 6. g3 Bg4 7. Bg2 Nc6 8. O-O O-O-O&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is an easy opening to play, without much (if any) theory, as black's plan is very easy: &lt;code&gt;Bg4&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;Nc6&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;O-O-O&lt;/code&gt; and go crazy against almost any development scheme that white adopts. Definitely a line worth consideration, albeit a risky one. As white possesses as much counterplay as black, plus more development (as his dark-squared bishop doesn't need any pawn moves to get out of the first rank).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you wish a more challenging option for white and not let him get his way so easily, you may try a variation of the Sicilian of your choice. To get the initial grasp of the Sicilian, I recommend the Taimanov variation, which is not extremely theoretical but needs some studying:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Sicilian, Taimanov&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 e6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nc6 {This move order avoids studying the Rossolimo variation, which is a little annoying variation in my opinion.}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, if you are looking for something crazy, the Pin variation (which I do &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; recommend for serious play, but you asked for an aggressive opening without too much theory...) is a very aggressive one, and there is only one line that's worth mentioning (which is really not much in means of theory volume). Despite this, this line is almost a refutation of the variation, so you may try to gamble your way out if white doesn't know what he's doing or die a horrible and painful way. Here you have an outline of the variation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Sicilian, Pin variation&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 e6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 Bb4 {This is the starting position of the variation. Not many people know the correct continuation for white, and this plays in your favor. However, against correct play this line is probably just losing.} 6. e5 Nd5 7. Bd2 Nxc3 8. bxc3 Be7 9. Qg4 O-O {Yes, here black's best option is to simply sacrifice the exchange. If white accepts, black has unquestionable influence over the dark squares, but he is still not in extremely good shape.} 10. Bh6 g6 11. h4! {This is the main tabiya of the variation. The discovery of this move has &quot;doomed&quot; the whole pinning the Nc3.} Qa5 {The only reasonable move is to look out for counterplay.} 12. Qg3 d6 13. Nb5 Nc6 14. h5 Nxe5 15. f4! {Here theory begins to get blurry, but this move unquestionably hands white the initiative and a very very dangerous attack.}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Conclusion:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I recommend you try the Scandinavian and aim for messing things up in the early stages of the game. It is always fun playing for mating attacks and on these lines you'll certainly have many chances to do so.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If you are a gambler and like risks and do not mind playing (almost-surely-)flawed lines, try the Pin variation. You will get a taste of what playing the Sicilian is, and maybe upgrade your repertoire to the Taimanov or other in the future.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3890" LastEditorUserId="3890" LastEditDate="2014-09-23T05:36:47.000" LastActivityDate="2014-09-23T05:36:47.000" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6401" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6398" CreationDate="2014-09-22T21:43:11.580" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;The tree you describe here is the dream of every chess player. Unfortunately, there are only such trees (with moves explained, if the moves are not explained what you are asking for is the &lt;a href=&quot;https://shop.chessbase.com/en/products/opening_encyclopedia_2014&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Opening Encyclopedia&lt;/a&gt;) on very concrete openings and with very little depth, and they almost never contain annotations explaining the moves, as they are used only for reference. The reason of the little depth is that opening theory is evolving at every top game, as discussed on &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/6300/top-sources-for-opening-theory&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; question. Thus, making such compilation including new developments is something that I can assure you, it does not exist.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What you can do is have a look at the book series &quot;Move by move&quot; by Everyman. You can find some of the books &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesshouse.com/move_by_move_series_s/465.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;, with a little description and what the aim of the series is. These series &lt;strong&gt;do&lt;/strong&gt; present a compilation of certain lines (not all, as this would occupy several &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessinformant.rs/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess Informant&lt;/a&gt; monographs) with every move explained. This is not the usual approach to opening theory, and one of the reasons that these series are popular.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Despite not being an opening book, the title &quot;Logical chess: move by move&quot; by Irving Chernev features the exact same comments that you made about the two opening moves. Here he covers several (full) games, from opening to endgame, and every single move has annotations of the same style that you ask for. It is a classic and an outstanding book, both for amateur and to club player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3890" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2014-09-23T20:26:45.920" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6402" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6386" CreationDate="2014-09-22T22:13:19.063" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are several important points to know when playing a computer:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;They will certainly outplay you in sharp positions, and they make nonsense moves in closed positions that involve positional play.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;They have an horizon, that is, a moment where they cannot see any further.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;They are very, very greedy. A pawn is a pawn they say, and the computer certainly likes material.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Knowing these, a human can try to capitalize by closing the position, simplifying and drying it until the computer has almost no tactical base, and simply makes useless moves. If the human manages to make the computer blunder (because of its horizon it cannot calculate further, but the human clearly sees that his positional advantage will grant him the win) or develops a (&lt;em&gt;positional&lt;/em&gt;) plan that simply destroys the computer's position strategically, he most certainly will own the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some famous examples are provided by the top GM Hikaru Nakamura. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1497429&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Here&lt;/a&gt; against Rybka you can see how he benefits from the fact that Rybka's programming does not allow it to give a draw when it's up in material (it was two exchanges up and about to arrive to the 50 move rule), and thus blunders several pawns trying to push the game and loses. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/news/gm-nakamura-tries-to-prove-he-is-no-stockfish-7982&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Here&lt;/a&gt; you may look for more information on the match Nakamura (2770 ish) - Stockfish (3300 ish), where the GM had many great closed positions that seemed to end inevitably in a draw, but pushed too hard for the win and ended up losing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3890" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-12-29T10:49:42.983" LastActivityDate="2019-12-29T10:49:42.983" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="6403" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6385" CreationDate="2014-09-23T08:10:25.960" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;White is one move ahead, and attacking. You &lt;em&gt;can't&lt;/em&gt; be aggressive yet, or you'll just lose!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You have two choices: either you try to contain white, and when that is done and the position is equal, then you try to become active yourself. Or, you let him expand, but make sure you'll have your own trumps as well. The first way will lead to more or less symmetric positions, the second way is only possible if you make the position as asymmetric as possible: then he can have his trumps, and you can have yours.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The most famous asymmetric way of playing against 1.e4 is the &lt;strong&gt;Sicilian&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pp2pppp/3p4/8/3NP3/8/PPP2PPP/RNBQKB1R b KQkq - 0 4&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example Sicilian after 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;If&lt;/em&gt; white goes for this (he has plenty other options that are very strong too, black has other 2nd moves with the same idea), then he played 3.d4 to open the center, he'll have extra space, open diagonals for his bishops and great chances of an attack -- but you'll have your trumps too. You have 2 pawns vs 1 in the center, can move a rook to the c-file, and you have no weaknesses. You're &lt;em&gt;very far away&lt;/em&gt; from having your own attack, but if white expands too much... BOOM. Not easy to play, but white has no way to simply control the game from here, he needs to attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another way is the Pirc / Modern, characterized by putting a bishop on g7. With Nf6 in it's a Pirc, without it's a Modern. E.g.,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;rnbqk2r/ppp1ppbp/3p1np1/8/3PPP2/2N2N2/PPP3PP/R1BQKB1R b KQkq - 2 5&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Again a very asymmetric position, white and black are doing very different things. But white has much more space, and he's looking for an attack. Black is thinking that he will be able to defend, and &lt;em&gt;then&lt;/em&gt;, white will have thrown too many pawns ahead, leaving behind all kind of empty space... again, counter attack coming up, &lt;em&gt;if&lt;/em&gt; black survives.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So those are ways to play for the counter attack; counter attack is only possible if you manage to weather the attack first.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Otherwise, forget about attacking for now, and try to get an equal position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastEditorUserId="924" LastEditDate="2014-09-23T08:32:13.477" LastActivityDate="2014-09-23T08:32:13.477" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6404" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-09-23T17:46:16.263" Score="1" ViewCount="366" Body="&lt;p&gt;The caveman Caro-Kann goes:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3.e5 Bf5 4. h4 h5 5. Bg5!?&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any anotated games, resourses, books, etc, are apreciated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3405" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2014-09-23T22:18:23.337" LastActivityDate="2014-09-26T16:58:56.600" Title="Resources on the caveman Caro-Kann" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;caro-kann&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6407" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-09-23T21:11:28.547" Score="2" ViewCount="373" Body="&lt;p&gt;I heard that they lose some time or that they lose the game. I'm not sure what happens.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3872" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-01-31T01:51:21.870" LastActivityDate="2021-02-03T00:08:04.690" Title="What are the official rules if your opponent makes an illegal move?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;learning&gt;&lt;illegal-move&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="6410" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6407" CreationDate="2014-09-23T22:42:55.057" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;By the FIDE &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fide.com/component/handbook/?id=124&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Laws of Chess&lt;/a&gt;, article 7.4:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;7.4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;a. If during a game it is found that an illegal move, including&#xA;failing to meet the requirements of the promotion of a pawn or&#xA;capturing the opponent’s king, has been completed, the position&#xA;immediately before the irregularity shall be reinstated. If the&#xA;position immediately before the irregularity cannot be determined the&#xA;game shall continue from the last identifiable position prior to the&#xA;irregularity. The clocks shall be adjusted according to Article 6.13.&#xA;The Articles 4.3 and 4.6 apply to the move replacing the illegal&#xA;move. The game shall then continue from this re-instated position.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;b. After the action taken under Article 7.4.a, for the first two&#xA;illegal moves by a player the arbiter shall give two minutes extra&#xA;time to his opponent in each instance; for a third illegal move by&#xA;the same player, the arbiter shall declare the game lost by this&#xA;player. However, the game is drawn if the position is such that the&#xA;opponent cannot checkmate the player’s king by any possible series of&#xA;legal moves.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That is, on the two first illegal moves of your opponent, you gain time on your clock (two minutes, which likely does nothing), but on the third illegal move of your opponent, they lose the game (unless it was already impossible for them to lose it).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3890" LastEditorUserId="3890" LastEditDate="2021-02-03T00:08:04.690" LastActivityDate="2021-02-03T00:08:04.690" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="6411" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6385" CreationDate="2014-09-24T00:44:32.400" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would concentrate on maintaining a strong center. e4 Match it with e5. THe different moves in the the beginning should be a move to control the center. Pawn moves or knight moves. Develop knights before bishops. Don;t get your queen out too early. Ther;s a lot of players that think that they can dominate the board with their queen. Instead of developing they're having to move their queen because it's under attack. Castle early. #1in the game is kingsafety.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3822" LastActivityDate="2014-09-24T00:44:32.400" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6416" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6422" CreationDate="2014-09-24T15:09:25.727" Score="6" ViewCount="4648" Body="&lt;p&gt;Most people say chess is a draw, and it is quite believable, white is but a tempo up, and skill plays a lot of part in the game. But even the most skillful agree that blunders are made, in some games more than other. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How have blunders affected black losses? Have games where black lost been only played best or second best moves?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How many games, out of the ones that white won, ended because of blunders, and could have been saved otherwise? Is there a statistic for this? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3405" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2014-09-24T20:32:19.233" LastActivityDate="2014-09-29T19:24:43.933" Title="Does black really have a disadvantage?" Tags="&lt;theory&gt;&lt;statistics&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="12" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6417" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6407" CreationDate="2014-09-24T18:29:53.060" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;When it comes to Blitz games (5 minutes or 3 minutes + 2 seconds) first illegal move loses the game on the spot. Other solutions (like adding 2 minutes) would lead to total confusion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Keep in mind, after your oponent has made an illegal move, you are obliged to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;stop the clock&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;call the arbiter&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;explain what happened&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(btw, you must have time on your clock, if you are already at 0:00 then you can't do anything)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3895" LastEditorUserId="3895" LastEditDate="2014-09-24T18:41:25.493" LastActivityDate="2014-09-24T18:41:25.493" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6420" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6423" CreationDate="2014-09-25T01:06:43.513" Score="1" ViewCount="819" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just read the question: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/1346/what-are-some-good-quality-magnetic-chess-sets&quot;&gt;What are some good quality magnetic chess sets?&lt;/a&gt; and I was left with a few more general questions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What is a comfortable board size for home vs travel?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What height of chess pieces are most common?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What type of wood indicates a quality board?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What board companies are most reputable?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Are magnetic boards good to have for home tables?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Any other important things to consider when purchasing a board?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3916" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-06-04T07:42:51.057" LastActivityDate="2018-06-04T07:42:51.057" Title="What are the characteristics of a good chess board?" Tags="&lt;chessboards&gt;&lt;chess-set&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6421" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6416" CreationDate="2014-09-25T03:40:32.620" Score="-4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, black does really have a dissadvantage. This is because white always goes first allowing white to be able to gain a checkmate&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3923" LastActivityDate="2014-09-25T03:40:32.620" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6422" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6416" CreationDate="2014-09-25T07:51:48.657" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;We have no way of knowing this, chess isn't remotely close to being solved. We only know that as opening theory digs deeper, it finds it harder and harder to find advantages for white, so the game is probably a draw. But that's no proof.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;If&lt;/em&gt; the game is a draw, then any game that is won by either side must involve at least 1 wrong move. But we don't know which move was wrong. It is &lt;em&gt;likely&lt;/em&gt; that most games involve quite a few bad moves. Mine do, anyway.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Using a computer doesn't help -- they're nowhere near strong enough. A match between the two strongest computers on really strong hardware gives many decisive results, so they're not playing perfectly, and they look much deeper than 10 ply. Their scores (+2, -2, etc) are merely estimates and not the final truth.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White does have a &lt;em&gt;practical&lt;/em&gt; advantage, proven by the fact that white consistently scores a little bit better than black on all levels. Apparently, white gets positions that are &lt;em&gt;easier to play right&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2014-09-25T07:51:48.657" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6423" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6420" CreationDate="2014-09-25T11:22:14.933" Score="3" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;home - 3.75&quot; king on 2.25&quot; squares. Travel - no opinion. But the USCF used to sell a chess board 'wallet' that would fold up (with the pieces) and go in your pocket. Perhaps they still do.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;3.75&quot; King for me. No more, no less.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Any hardwood.  I like maple and walnut.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.houseofstaunton.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;House of Staunton&lt;/a&gt;, but you'll pay top dollar. While you are there, check out their &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.houseofstaunton.com/the-reykjavik-ii-series-chess-set-3-75-king.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Reykjavic II chess set&lt;/a&gt;.  Ah, the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.houseofstaunton.com/the-reykjavik-ii-series-chess-set-and-board-combination.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;board and set combo (with a box!) is on sale&lt;/a&gt;. I prefer boxwood and ebony, but boxwood and ebonized boxwood works for me too.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;It is unnecessary.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;A vinyl board just rolls up - easy to store, easy to take to the club. Another option is to make your own. Here's &lt;a href=&quot;http://tony-stormcrow.blogspot.com/2009/10/i-finished-another-chessboard.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;one I made&lt;/a&gt;.  &lt;a href=&quot;http://tony-stormcrow.blogspot.com/2008/05/making-chessboard.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;And here's another&lt;/a&gt;, with the steps I took.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2014-09-25T11:22:14.933" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6424" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6425" CreationDate="2014-09-25T18:31:36.200" Score="1" ViewCount="1221" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a follow up to my original question &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/6420/what-are-the-characteristics-of-a-good-chess-board&quot;&gt;What are the characteristics of a good chess board?&lt;/a&gt; I was wondering what companies are the most reputable for Chess board construction.  Since I am just a beginner I am curious at lower cost beginner boards, but also in other boards that I might want to splurge on one day if I really get into Chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3916" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.193" LastActivityDate="2019-11-29T12:19:23.913" Title="What Chess board companies are the most reputable?" Tags="&lt;chessboards&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6425" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6424" CreationDate="2014-09-25T23:12:30.913" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The standard vinyl board is hard to beat for everything except showing off a chess set.  You can get them for cheap from the USCF or from any other purveyor of chess gear.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's one from &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.king-cart.com/cgi-bin/cart.cgi?store=CajunChess&amp;amp;category=Vinyl%20and%20Rollup%20Chess%20Boards&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Cajun chess for $4&lt;/a&gt;.  I bought a few sets from them. I like them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Looks like tournament-sized wooden boards begin at $50.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2014-09-25T23:12:30.913" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6426" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6424" CreationDate="2014-09-25T23:53:08.877" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't really know any cheap chess board companies, but checking out websites like&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesshouse.com/chess_board_s/151.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;The Chess House&lt;/a&gt; can yield very good results.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For a nice splurge, the best boards are without a doubt the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.digitalgametechnology.com/site/products/electronic-boards&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;DGT&lt;/a&gt; ones,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3357" LastActivityDate="2014-09-25T23:53:08.877" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6428" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6404" CreationDate="2014-09-26T06:53:31.303" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is some analysis at the Kenilworthian blog. See &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.kenilworthchessclub.org/games/java/2007/caro-adv-h4.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.kenilworthchessclub.org/games/java/2007/caro-adv-h4.htm&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.kenilworthchessclub.org/games/java/2011/cavewoman.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.kenilworthchessclub.org/games/java/2011/cavewoman.htm&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.kenilworthchessclub.org/games/java/2013/complete-caveman.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.kenilworthchessclub.org/games/java/2013/complete-caveman.htm&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://kenilworthian.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/the-complete-caveman-caro-kann_20.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://kenilworthian.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/the-complete-caveman-caro-kann_20.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Download for the PGN:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~goeller/kenilworth-pgn/complete-caveman.pgn&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~goeller/kenilworth-pgn/complete-caveman.pgn&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and also analysis by Dennis Monokroussos here:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.thechessmind.net/storage/chess-posts/anand_shirov_leon2011_day3.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.thechessmind.net/storage/chess-posts/anand_shirov_leon2011_day3.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1035" LastEditorUserId="1035" LastEditDate="2014-09-26T16:58:56.600" LastActivityDate="2014-09-26T16:58:56.600" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6429" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-09-26T18:29:45.350" Score="5" ViewCount="5469" Body="&lt;p&gt;The king's gambit has a lot of initiative and attack. Is there a good defense to neutralize this initiative?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3872" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2014-09-26T18:54:12.807" LastActivityDate="2020-02-25T16:53:39.140" Title="What are some good defenses against the king's gambit?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;kings-gambit&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6430" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6429" CreationDate="2014-09-26T18:41:20.293" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The best way is Fischer's way. he had a low opinion of it, and so he wrote an entire paper on it's neutralization. Here is the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.academicchess.org/images/pdf/chessgames/fischerbust.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;paper&lt;/a&gt; and here is his &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King&amp;#39;s_Gambit,_Fischer_Defense&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;proposal&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;King's gambit bust!&quot;]&#xA;[StartPly &quot;6&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. e4 e5&#xA; 2. f4 exf4&#xA; 3. Nf3 d6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What have we achieved here. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Our opponent is a pawn down&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Our bishop is freed, pointing at the somewhat weakened kingside. With the idea of Bg5 and other threats.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The knight jump on e5 isn't a plan anymore&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Lots of ideas for black.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3405" LastActivityDate="2014-09-26T18:41:20.293" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6431" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6416" CreationDate="2014-09-26T21:47:05.017" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a theory that white would have the disadvantage, because he's the first to ruin his/her position. This is based on the concept of zugzang:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Zugzwang (German for &quot;compulsion to move&quot;, pronounced [ˈtsuːktsvaŋ]) is a situation found in chess and other games, where one player is put at a disadvantage because he must make a move when he would prefer to pass and not to move. The fact that the player is compelled to move means that his position will become significantly weaker. A player is said to be &quot;in zugzwang&quot; when any possible move will worsen his position.[1]&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although this has not actually been proven.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For more information on zugzang:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zugzwang&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zugzwang&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3812" LastActivityDate="2014-09-26T21:47:05.017" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6432" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6416" CreationDate="2014-09-26T23:10:31.870" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Yes.&lt;/strong&gt; In chess, white has the advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Why?&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Cause they play first, so they can narrow the huge amount of possible lines, by choosing the initial movement (one in twenty possible) what causes the game start being a little predictive.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The second movement (first by black) depends largely on this white's initial movement. So, we can say that already (in black's first movement) they are restrain to a fewer set of moves (not in the legal way, but in the tactical or strategic way).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Because we are humans, and we do get distracted by little psychological advantages. Like playing first. I do agree, that if played perfectly, chess should always be draw. But humans or computers, due to the incredible large amount of possible games, are so far away from a perfect game of chess, we should not consider chess as a theoretical finite game, and we should take deeply in consideration all the human variables that get's in play.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Math!. Statistics shows that. If you take a look at statistics, white does wins more than black, enough to say that there is a relation between who moves first and who wins.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Theory. Much material by Grand Masters who have spend their lives in chess, do get a clear advantage to white, and spend whole chapters/books on: for white, how to use the advantage to win, for black, how to draw.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;White can even play relaxed in the begging, like playing 1. Nf3 or similar, so it can pass the initial stress to the opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I will edit, to show some references, and review my English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2262" LastActivityDate="2014-09-26T23:10:31.870" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6433" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6416" CreationDate="2014-09-27T01:34:44.890" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Imagine a game of Tug Of War played where Black starts twice as close to the dividing line as White does. If both teams &quot;play perfectly&quot;, it will be a draw and neither side will be drawn over the line. But in practice the Black team has a lower margin for error than White does and is more likely to lose than White is. That is the case in chess. Black doesn't lose more because he blunders more often, he loses more because he has less room for error.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2014-09-27T01:34:44.890" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6434" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6436" CreationDate="2014-09-27T03:12:59.850" Score="5" ViewCount="959" Body="&lt;p&gt;Could a player sacrifice 3 of his pieces , the opponent's King being forced to take each piece in a sequence of moves where the opponent's King lands on a space where it is promptly checkmated? A kind of 3-move forced checkmate. Could this be done with 4 moves?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3055" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-04T22:11:44.063" LastActivityDate="2020-09-02T22:12:30.843" Title="About forcing a checkmate" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;problems&gt;&lt;forced-move&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6435" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-09-27T03:26:15.460" Score="0" ViewCount="171" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is it ever legal for a king to put the other king in check, even if after the king is taken by the opposing king, the king doing the taking puts himself into check?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3934" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2014-09-27T03:35:27.013" LastActivityDate="2015-01-20T20:06:17.620" Title="Kings and check" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;kings&gt;&lt;check&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6436" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6434" CreationDate="2014-09-27T03:56:55.393" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;White to play and mate in 4, while forcing the black king to capture on each move:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;1r2qrnk/3R1bRp/pp2nBpp/p3P3/4B3/5PPQ/PPP3N1/1K6 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Solution:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt; 1.Rxh7 Kxh7  &lt;br&gt; 2.Bxg6 Kxg6  &lt;br&gt; 3.Qf5 Kxf5  &lt;br&gt; 4.Nh4#  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="14079" LastEditDate="2019-09-27T12:42:34.837" LastActivityDate="2019-09-27T12:42:34.837" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="6437" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6435" CreationDate="2014-09-27T07:45:14.277" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Simply, no. The rules do not allow this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BUT, there are two occasions where this is allowed:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Some Chess Variants : &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Losing_chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Losers Chess for example.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In Odds Chess. A not so popular odd was to give the weaker opponent's king two squares to move. Thus, it is possible to check the other king.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3405" LastActivityDate="2014-09-27T07:45:14.277" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6438" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6385" CreationDate="2014-09-27T09:50:47.907" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;1400-1600? Just responding e5 will get you aggressive, open games more often than not. The chances that you'll actually wind up defending the kind of theoretical, slightly inferior cramped positions that result from best play in the open game are very low. Your opponent will probably just trot out pieces and allow you to equalize or even seize the advantage pretty easily if you know what you're doing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The suggestion of the Scandinavian is also not bad. I don't like the Sicilian at this level because it will probably just degenerate into some kind of irregular closed Sicilian that's fine for Black but hardly &quot;aggressive.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Honestly, worrying in detail about the &quot;style&quot; of opening you should be playing at this level is a symptom of misplaced priorities. Games at this level are won by 2- and 3- move tactical shots. That's another reason to favour e5, it leads quickly into the kind of games where these shots are most prevalent, without a lot of byways.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="258" LastActivityDate="2014-09-27T09:50:47.907" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6439" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6429" CreationDate="2014-09-27T10:54:51.250" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not an e5-player, but sometimes I play it when I know that someone is well-prepared against my usual defenses or in blitz games for fun. Here is what I'm using:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;KG random side variation&quot;]&#xA;[StartPly &quot;16&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. e4 e5&#xA; 2. f4 exf4&#xA; 3. Nf3 Ne7&#xA; 4. Bc4 d5&#xA; 5. exd5 Nxd5&#xA; 6. O-O Be7&#xA; 7. d4 Be6&#xA; 8. Qe2 O-O&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;3. Ne7&lt;/code&gt; might be rated as suspicious but it's viable move to make. It's not widely played so there's a chance that your oponent won't know theory here at all. Those kinds of position are rather equals for human beings. Of course it's always a tiny tiny plus but it's nothing decisive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3895" LastActivityDate="2014-09-27T10:54:51.250" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6442" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6449" CreationDate="2014-09-27T21:04:10.420" Score="12" ViewCount="25289" Body="&lt;p&gt;While downloading some games I came across some files in ChessBase format:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;.cbv&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;.cbf&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;.cbh&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would like to know if is is possible to convert these files to .pgn format without using proprietary software and how it can be made.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3757" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T20:47:13.207" LastActivityDate="2021-04-30T17:03:05.630" Title="How to convert ChessBase format files to .pgn?" Tags="&lt;pgn&gt;&lt;chessbase&gt;&lt;download-games&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="6443" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6445" CreationDate="2014-09-28T01:51:37.957" Score="4" ViewCount="12491" Body="&lt;p&gt;When playing against a novice player, how can you attempt to force stalemate (please don't ask how you would get there against a novice player)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3812" LastActivityDate="2014-09-28T03:34:22.720" Title="Tricks to force stalemate?" Tags="&lt;stalemate&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2014-10-04T03:59:09.197" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6444" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6429" CreationDate="2014-09-28T03:19:42.680" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've had success with the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King&amp;#39;s_Gambit#Cunningham_Defence:_3...Be7&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Cunningham Defense&lt;/a&gt; as it keeps White from castling: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Cunningham Defense&quot;]&#xA;[StartPly &quot;9&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 &#xA;2. f4 exf4 &#xA;3. Nf3 Be7 &#xA;4. Bc4 Bh4+&#xA;5. Kf1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3298" LastEditorUserId="3298" LastEditDate="2014-09-28T03:41:51.957" LastActivityDate="2014-09-28T03:41:51.957" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6445" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6443" CreationDate="2014-09-28T03:34:22.720" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;I assume you are asking how to force your opponent to stalemate you, rather than vice versa.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Get rid of almost all of your pieces, except for your queen or rooks, or pieces that are pinned against your king.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Make sure all your pawns are blocked and can't move.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Make sure your king has no legal moves.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Check his king relentlessly with whatever pieces remain, feeling free to place the pieces where they can be taken, such as adjacent to his king.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Ideally, you are now in a situation where either he will be subject to perpetual check or he will take all your remaining pieces and you will be stalemated.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Keep in mind that this is not an actual strategy that ever works except 1) against novices, 2) in blitz games, or 3) in very rare circumstances in serious games. But those circumstances do exist. Generally you find that two of the first three steps in this process have already happened and start looking for ways to engineer the rest. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1252040&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Evans-Reshevsky&lt;/a&gt; is the most famous example of a stalemate swindle in top-level play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2014-09-28T03:34:22.720" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6446" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-09-28T04:58:06.927" Score="5" ViewCount="713" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've heard that it helps your tactical skills, but can a chess variant really help you in tactics more than simply playing standard chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3872" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2014-09-28T08:28:08.410" LastActivityDate="2019-12-30T01:05:32.113" Title="Does playing bughouse have any benefits on your chess game?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;bughouse&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6447" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6446" CreationDate="2014-09-28T05:31:52.050" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Bughouse really doesn't. What can help you is &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shogi&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;shogi&lt;/a&gt;. Shogi is similar to chess but with complications that start almost immediately and become much more crazy than in chess. The reports that I have had from multiple players who went from chess, to shogi, back to chess is that the chess tactics suddenly seem exceedingly easy when you return.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To speculate for a moment, bughouse is harmful because it is similar enough to chess that it interferes with your thinking about chess. Shogi is sufficiently different to be separable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3270" LastActivityDate="2014-09-28T05:31:52.050" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6448" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6446" CreationDate="2014-09-28T10:53:04.890" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my opinion it might be okay. Playing bughouse develops your imagination in some way. You might be a little bit better at attacking. But... such a slight improvement is obviously not worth investing that much time, that's for sure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3895" LastActivityDate="2014-09-28T10:53:04.890" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6449" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6442" CreationDate="2014-09-28T11:17:31.960" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well since the protocols creating cbv, cbf and cbh formats are not made publicly available, one will certainly not find any such conversion tool (i.e. unclear how they are encoded to reverse them to pgn).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other reason maybe that the difference between all these formats is just due to an &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incremental_encoding&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;incremental encoding&lt;/a&gt;&quot; that is being used, which means that for it to be possible to go backward, to a pgn format, only the chessbase engine can do so!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Until a way around this is found, you can use &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.playchess.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;playchess free program&lt;/a&gt; or easier the &lt;a href=&quot;http://web.archive.org/web/20090822130548/http://www.chessbase.com/download/cblight/index.asp?newsid=5654&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chessbase light&lt;/a&gt; (which is free), where using &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;choose file-&gt;new database and create pgn files&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;will allow you to obtain pgn formats again. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3594" LastEditorUserId="3594" LastEditDate="2020-03-23T18:44:31.947" LastActivityDate="2020-03-23T18:44:31.947" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6450" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4927" CreationDate="2014-09-28T12:53:57.873" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Absolutely not, a human has no chance whatsoever to win against supercomputers these days, even at 10 to 1 ratio on time. Chess engines on supercomputers are so sophisticated these days that they can calculate up to 200 million moves per second, versus a human's ability to calculate 2 moves per second at most. Besides, the computer -- just like a human -- doesn’t wait for the opponent to make his move to start thinking; it is constantly weighing all the options even before the opponent makes its move. So I think the time ratio is irrelevant in this case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3941" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2014-09-28T13:21:38.957" LastActivityDate="2014-09-28T13:21:38.957" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6451" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-09-28T13:34:16.670" Score="2" ViewCount="1582" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are many good gambits, from tactical ones such as the Fried Liver Attack, the Evans Gambit, or the King's Gambit, to positional ones such as the Volga Gambit. But there are many bad gambits, such as The Omega Gambit(1.d4 Nf6 2.e4?) or gambits with one trap in mind, and nothing else (Blackburne-Shilling Gambit). Are there more of such gambits?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3405" LastActivityDate="2020-08-16T23:14:28.600" Title="List of bad gambits?" Tags="&lt;gambits&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6452" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6454" CreationDate="2014-09-28T13:37:13.250" Score="9" ViewCount="1218" Body="&lt;p&gt;Does anybody have some indication of a book, site, video, etc,, which explores this variation of Scotch Opening for Black? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 exd4 4. Nxd4 Bc5 5.Be3 Qf6 6.c3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have lost a lot of games playing 5...Qf6. Does there exist some good continuation for black here? If not, what should be the alternative to 5...Qf6?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3902" LastEditorUserId="11202" LastEditDate="2017-04-17T17:25:19.077" LastActivityDate="2017-04-17T17:25:19.077" Title="Scotch Opening - How to play" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;learning&gt;&lt;scotch-game&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6453" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6429" CreationDate="2014-09-28T13:42:20.830" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you're looking to “fight fire with fire”, the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King%27s_Gambit#Falkbeer_Countergambit:_2...d5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Falkbeer Countergambit&lt;/a&gt; may interest you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Falkbeer Countergambit&quot;]&#xA;[StartPly &quot;9&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 &#xA;2. f4 d5!? &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are interested in very sharp, attacking play, then you will enjoy this defense.  White must be very careful from the beginning because it is very easy to lose the game from a single misstep.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Falkbeer Countergambit&quot;]&#xA;[StartPly &quot;9&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 &#xA;2. f4 d5!? &#xA;3. fxe5?? Qh4+&#xA;4. g3 Qxe4+&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3322" LastActivityDate="2014-09-28T13:42:20.830" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6454" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6452" CreationDate="2014-09-28T13:50:42.657" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd recommend &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/185744387X&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Starting Out: The Scotch&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It covers everything the Scotch has to offer, and it is written by an expert player in it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Like the rest of the Starting out Series, it explains everything you will ever need to know on the opening. It offers great tips on whatnot. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are lots of sources for minor stuff. &lt;a href=&quot;http://chesscafe.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chess Caffe is a great source.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also playing makes you understand it more. Hope it helps!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3405" LastActivityDate="2014-09-28T13:50:42.657" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6457" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5621" CreationDate="2014-09-28T17:29:06.087" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Following from the last line:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[StartPly &quot;8&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 d5 2.c4 dxc4 3.e3 b5 4.a4 Ba6 5.axb5 Bxb5 6.Nc3 {If black tries to defend the pawn:} Ba6 7.Qf3 c6 {The only reply that doesn't instantly lose the rook.} 8.Rxa6 Nxa6 9.Qxc6+ Qd7 10.Qxa8+ Qd8 11.Qc6+ Qd7 12.Qxa6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Killing him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3944" LastEditorUserId="3890" LastEditDate="2014-09-28T19:36:02.107" LastActivityDate="2014-09-28T19:36:02.107" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6458" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6451" CreationDate="2014-09-28T18:52:26.797" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;latvian, halloween, wing, englund, elephant, freds, colorado, danish gambit, tennison, and budapest gambit of the top of my head. These gambits are unsound and a proper response will have the gambiter in a worse position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some gambits I do like are kings gambit, smith morra, evans, queens, scotch, benko, lisitsin, staunton, fried liver(Na5), froms.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3872" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-08-16T23:13:59.737" LastActivityDate="2020-08-16T23:13:59.737" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="6459" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6452" CreationDate="2014-09-28T18:57:06.240" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I suggest you also have a look at &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/B00A38YL4K&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;The Scotch Game&lt;/a&gt; by Yelena Dembo and Richard Pallister. This is &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; a book for people wanting to discover and learn the ideas of the opening, but rather a complete repertoire for white to play it. Thus, it offers several possible continuations for white in almost every variation, all explored in depth and detail (which suits your needs as black, as you'll know what may be played against you).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Concerning the line you ask for, it is a main line, so it is deeply covered. Bear in mind that the Scotch Game is almost a gambit (and a completely different one to the Scotch Gambit, the sacrificed pawn is e4 and not d4. This leads to quite different positions), so many times you don't &quot;lose&quot; the e4 pawn (or &quot;win&quot;, as you are black), you are (at least at high level chess) sacrificing it for a very strong attack if black accepts it (which he usually does not, it is very dangerous).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The main line you ask for is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 exd4 4. Nxd4 Bc5 5.Be3 (5. Nb3 {Is a very reasonable and interesting sideline that offers good prospects (even attacking chances!), both in the middlegame and endgame. However, it is regarded as offering only a tiny edge for white.}) Qf6 6.c3 Nge7 7. Bc4 (7. g3 d5 8. Bg2 dxe4 9. Nd2 Bxd4 10. cxd4 Bf5 {The d4 pawn is taboo, as the knight comes to e4 with tempo on the queen and double attacking d4.} 11. Nxe4 Bxe4 12. Bxe4 O-O-O {This is a sideline that, if I remember correctly, is also looked at in the book.}) Ne5 8. Be2 Qg6 9. O-O  d6 {In the main line, black does not want to accept the pawn. The danger is quite real.}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, of course, these lines have some theory, despite being quite linear. Moreover, any slight misstep by any of the players usually result in the lost of the game, as the line is razor sharp. This is why some grandmasters now are playing &lt;code&gt;5.Nb3&lt;/code&gt; against it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And a proof that the whole setup sacrifices the e4 pawn is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 exd4 4. Nxd4 Qh4 {Where white loses the pawn by force.}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, if you want a quick look at the book, you can download it from &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.4shared.com/file/wxjRJsds?locale=en&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;, but if you like it, I suggest you buy it. After all, the authors have spend many hours of work on it and deserve compensation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3890" LastEditorUserId="11202" LastEditDate="2017-04-17T17:25:06.767" LastActivityDate="2017-04-17T17:25:06.767" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6460" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-09-28T19:25:02.423" Score="3" ViewCount="78" Body="&lt;p&gt;I love the usual way of playing chess, but I also like a lot &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cylinder_chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Cylinder chess&lt;/a&gt;. Does anybody know a book, website or other way of learning more about it? Like maybe a strategy book about cylinder chess or a book about opening theory on it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3890" LastActivityDate="2015-02-28T13:45:17.320" Title="Material for knowing more about Cylinder Chess" Tags="&lt;chess-variants&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6461" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-09-28T19:26:38.333" Score="3" ViewCount="476" Body="&lt;p&gt;Does anybody know a website where I can play &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cylinder_chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Cylinder Chess&lt;/a&gt;? I'm looking for something similar to &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chess.com&lt;/a&gt; but for Cylinder.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3890" LastActivityDate="2014-12-09T16:55:26.930" Title="Website for playing Cylinder Chess" Tags="&lt;chess-variants&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6462" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5253" CreationDate="2014-09-29T02:52:46.523" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chessok.com/?page_id=27966&quot;&gt;http://chessok.com/?page_id=27966&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;History Note&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first ending tablebases - for all 4-piece endgames - were built by the end of the 80-s. In the beginning of the 90-s, the same task was done for 5-pieces. In 2005, 6-piece endings were solved in Nalimov Tablebases which are now used by many professional chess programs and services.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Experts didn’t expect 7-piece endings to be cracked and catalogued until after 2015, but Convekta Ltd, namely programmers Zakharov and Makhnichev - the developers of the Aquarium interface - managed to solve this task in just 6 months using a new algorithm designed specifically for this purpose and run on the Lomonosov supercomputer based in the Moscow State University.&#xA;Lomonosov Tablebases&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a result, we now have 525 tablebases of the 4 vs. 3 type and 350 tablebases of the 5 vs. 2 type. The calculations for 6 pieces playing against a lone king weren’t done because the outcome is rather obvious.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The total volume of all tablebases is 140 000 gigabytes, which is obviously too much for personal computers. Lomonosov Tablebases will be accessible online from the Aquarium interface and on the chessok.com website. All users of ChessOK Aquarium, Houdini Aquarium and Chess Assistant products get free access to the service for the period specified in their product description.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3951" LastActivityDate="2014-09-29T02:52:46.523" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6464" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6465" CreationDate="2014-09-29T08:00:49.043" Score="16" ViewCount="1817" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Team Chess Championships, what is the proper etiquette for being a player?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This question is mainly focused on:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Can I see my teammates’ games during the match? (I suspect I can.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If I win quickly, can I go away, or should I stay?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If I leave the hall after winning, can I return?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Can I have contact with my teammates? If so, to what extent is this limited?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Can I call a friend, and let him play in the now empty board of my match, for opinions on the game just finished, or am I forced to do it outside? (This is assuming, of course, that we don’t talk loudly.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3405" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-20T19:47:14.280" LastActivityDate="2020-03-20T19:47:14.280" Title="What is the proper etiquette in Team Chess Championships?" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;etiquette&gt;&lt;team&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6465" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6464" CreationDate="2014-09-29T08:15:29.480" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;Officially most of it depends on the team competition, it will have regulations. But I think these questions will have pretty much the same answers everywhere.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Yes, you're sitting right next to them, and you can walk around as usual, so you can see their boards.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Usually teams have a team leader also, whose role is to advise you about offering or accepting a draw (but not in a way that gives you information about his opinion of your own position! If you ask him &quot;Can I offer a draw?&quot;, he must answer yes or no immediately; he can't walk up to your board, think for a while, then say no. It would be obvious then that he thought you had the better position, which is a big no-no). He can otherwise watch all games all the time though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;You can leave if you want. The team leader has to sign the result form at the end, but the players are done when their game is over. Most of the time you'll be eager to know the end result and stay, though.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Re-entering the hall really depends on the regulations. You'll be a spectator. In most amateur leagues, spectators can just stand next to the boards if they wish, so so can you.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Officially you can not speak to anybody during any chess game, including team matches. Practice is slightly less rigorous. If you discuss the ongoing chess games, you're definitely over the line.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;No, of course you can't analyze a game right next to ongoing games, that's clearly distracting for the players. Usually there will be a separate room where games can be analyzed.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2014-09-29T08:15:29.480" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6466" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6464" CreationDate="2014-09-29T08:18:45.933" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just from my experience playing in a lowly ECF English county league:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Does not seem to be a problem.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;No problem - just check with your captain that he got your score and ask if he wants you to do anything else (perhaps he needs help with cleaning up the venue or such).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Does not seem to be a problem in the county leagues, but I believe FIDE is now quite strict with whom is allowed into the playing area. I would check with the tournament rules.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Not encouraged. I've had the occasional &quot;supporting&quot; smile or nod from a team mate while getting a drink from the club bar, or a &quot;how do you do?&quot; from non-playing members of the club, but generally I think you are asking for trouble if you start a significant conversation with anyone while your game is in progress. It is likely that the opposing captain will lodge a complaint if he thinks you may be discussing your game, and it does not take much to get their suspicion kindled in my experience.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It seems to be OK to use the empty board for a friendly with another player (and it does happen on occasion), provided that you maintain the match playing conditions - i.e. do not start a conversation or do anything that interfere with the players still at play. I don't think it is appropriate to discuss your game though, since that would cause unnecessary noise in the playing area. Once again, FIDE is probably more strict on this.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1816" LastEditorUserId="1816" LastEditDate="2014-09-29T08:37:14.500" LastActivityDate="2014-09-29T08:37:14.500" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6467" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6452" CreationDate="2014-09-29T16:46:31.920" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Instead of Bc5, black can play Bb4+. This is what is recommended by chessexplained(youtube channel).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3872" LastActivityDate="2014-09-29T16:46:31.920" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6468" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-09-29T16:53:56.150" Score="10" ViewCount="1330" Body="&lt;p&gt;Someone told me that you can use a chess database for correspondence chess, but this seems a little like cheating. Does anyone has some information on this subject. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3872" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2014-09-29T17:14:11.620" LastActivityDate="2014-09-29T20:29:35.463" Title="Is it legal to use a chess database in correspondence chess?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;database&gt;&lt;correspondence-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6469" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6468" CreationDate="2014-09-29T16:57:07.193" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to the official rules of the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.iccf.com/message?message=447&quot;&gt;International Correspondence Chess Federation&lt;/a&gt;, you are allowed and encouraged to. It is regarded as learning an opening. Of course, there are different rules for some sites, but most sites follow the ICCF rules.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3405" LastActivityDate="2014-09-29T16:57:07.193" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6470" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5401" CreationDate="2014-09-29T17:23:12.517" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;6x6 chess exist. See this page from Wikipedia:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minichess#6.C3.976_chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minichess#6.C3.976_chess&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="813" LastActivityDate="2014-09-29T17:23:12.517" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6471" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2596" CreationDate="2014-09-29T17:38:37.693" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here's an interesting alternative. Play bullet chess. Bullet chess is all about seeing your opponents threats and dumb blunders. It helps you familiarize with the pieces and how they move and helps you to avoid blunders and see threats quickly. Bullet also improves your ability to cope in time pressure, and that is where most blunders happen. Of course, bullet chess should not be the main means of improvement, but it does improve one's abilities during time pressure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3872" LastActivityDate="2014-09-29T17:38:37.693" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6472" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-09-29T17:44:04.643" Score="2" ViewCount="145" Body="&lt;p&gt;White would playing as if they are black, but with the insertion of h4. Does this insertion give enough advantage to white to at least equalize? Does the insertion of h4 weaken white's position even more than if white skipped his first move. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3872" LastActivityDate="2014-09-29T18:24:58.180" Title="Does black have an advantage if white plays 1. h4" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6473" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6468" CreationDate="2014-09-29T17:47:54.103" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In accordance with the reference to the ICCF, I think that it's also placed upon you and your correspondent to agree to such things: It's not something that should be kept secret from your opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3844" LastActivityDate="2014-09-29T17:47:54.103" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6474" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-09-29T17:49:28.600" Score="11" ViewCount="9122" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;1. b4&lt;/code&gt; It seems like that black can some how equalize. Despite this, I somehow get tricked and lose my games against this opening. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3872" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-02-01T18:03:45.720" LastActivityDate="2020-08-03T23:09:59.267" Title="How to play against the Polish opening?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="8" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6475" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6474" CreationDate="2014-09-29T17:58:30.327" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Could you be more precise please? Give us some lines in which you have difficulties. Polish defense is rather bad opening, imho can work only as some kind of surprise weapon against not too experienced players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Until you are more precise with exact variations my advice is super-simple and general:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;maintain strong center with &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;code&gt;f3&lt;/code&gt; is usually good since in polish defense there's a Bishop on b7&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;develop your pieces to active squares&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Be careful with &lt;code&gt;Nc3&lt;/code&gt; since it might be met with &lt;code&gt;b4&lt;/code&gt; in some variations (I don't say it's bad move, just be careful)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;edit&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I just noticed I made a mistake with opening names.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well, &lt;code&gt;1. b4&lt;/code&gt; is not a bad move. It's kind of English (&lt;code&gt;1. c4&lt;/code&gt;) in many cases. You can't exploit it and get adventage. White color is white color. One tricky variation I 'fell into' is:&#xA;&lt;code&gt;1. b4 - d5 2. Bb2 - c6 3. e3 - a5 4. a3 - Qb6 5. c4&lt;/code&gt;. At first I thought I busted oponent, but it's nothing. About equals there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3895" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2014-09-29T18:06:48.843" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6476" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6472" CreationDate="2014-09-29T18:24:58.180" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Imagine a variation that there is white's Bg5 or Ng5 which should be met h6. I mean theoretical lines. And then play with black as you were white. I think that &lt;code&gt;1. h4&lt;/code&gt; makes white worse than black usually is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;White has difficulties with castling short&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;g4 instantly weak&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3895" LastActivityDate="2014-09-29T18:24:58.180" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6477" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1581" CreationDate="2014-09-29T18:27:55.663" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The nearest thing I can think of is a Sports Sciences (Masters) Degree. See &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.icu.ie/articles/62&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; for an example. On a quick website recognition, I haven't found any specialised on chess. But then you can complete your background with some chess-related course, work or volunteering.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then, if you are interested in pursuing a PhD I can think of many areas you could address:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;psychological aspects of the game (but much work has already been done there)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;pedagogical methods to teach the game (with a background in software engineering I could suggest research in computer-based pedagogical or training methods)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;health (and mental health) benefits of playing chess&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;physical training and nutrition of professional chess players (which is the best way to keep them strong enough to play through an important tournament at the best of their capacities)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;whatever you can think of ;-) (with the condition you win a suitable PhD grant)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But with a Masters in software engineering you could also make a PhD on computer chess or mathematical aspects of the game!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3757" LastActivityDate="2014-09-29T18:27:55.663" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6478" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-09-29T18:33:45.977" Score="4" ViewCount="663" Body="&lt;p&gt;Suppose I played a chess game with 60 minutes on both side. I play blindfolded while my opponent does not. Assuming that my rating is 2000 fide, what rating would my opponent have to be so that the expected score is a draw? Is this dependent on a person's rating? This question might be hard to answer. I am interested to know if anyone has any insight from their experience playing blindfolded. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3872" LastActivityDate="2014-10-01T18:35:14.677" Title="How much worse would I play if I played blindfolded?" Tags="&lt;elo&gt;&lt;blindfold-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6479" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6478" CreationDate="2014-09-29T19:20:00.787" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;My suspicion is that your blind strength increases in some relation to your &lt;strong&gt;sighted strength&lt;/strong&gt; as well as your &lt;strong&gt;experience with blindfolded play&lt;/strong&gt;, but I very much doubt that there's a specific (or even vague) formula. For instance, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2972788/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this article&lt;/a&gt; (actually a review of &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.blindfoldchess.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Blindfold Chess&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt; by Eliot Hearst and John Knott) mentions that &quot;Some of the strongest blindfold chess masters claim that the strength of their blindfold play is similar to that of their sighted play.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Answering this question &quot;definitively&quot; would likely require a dedicated study on the topic (an idea also mentioned in that review), pitting players of varying strengths against one another multiple times, alternately blindfolded and not, and comparing all the results. It would be a very interesting study, I think!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1201" LastEditorUserId="1201" LastEditDate="2014-10-01T18:35:14.677" LastActivityDate="2014-10-01T18:35:14.677" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6480" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6416" CreationDate="2014-09-29T19:24:43.933" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Black is not necessarily disadvantaged ie You want to play Ponziani's Opening or the Scotch Game or other similar e4 game. Black replies with a Modern or a Pirc or something similar none open game,or even the Petrof defence! White is now disadvantaged as he has to steer away from his 'favourites' and into the KIA. You have to know far more games openings on the Kings side than on the Queens side,- fact. I have seen stats that say that more white wins come from the queens side,despite all the forore about the attacking Kings side.&#xA;Apart from that, common sense tell us that if there were a 'forced win' in chess, for either side,then simply nobody would play the game.&#xA;Less room for error, in Blacks case - Yes I agree with dfan. Thus we have the answer we seek, and that is this:- YOU WIN OFF OF YOUR OPPONENTS MISTAKE. Cheers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3942" LastActivityDate="2014-09-29T19:24:43.933" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6481" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6468" CreationDate="2014-09-29T20:29:35.463" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;My teacher always said that using engines and suchlike didn't matter, as generally players in correspondence chess can analyse deeper than a computer can. That was a few years ago, so the state of technology might have changed now. Also, this probably only applies if you are above certain level of ability.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2427" LastActivityDate="2014-09-29T20:29:35.463" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6482" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6474" CreationDate="2014-09-29T22:13:42.527" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have played against this opening a lot, sometimes in bullet sometimes in blitz games, and even in casual ones without the clock. some of the opponents were strong candidate masters and sometimes a FIDE master would use it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The easiest defense for me is &lt;code&gt;1...e5&lt;/code&gt; and on &lt;code&gt;2.Bb2&lt;/code&gt; to simply take on &lt;code&gt;b4&lt;/code&gt;. This has several benefits:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;White is behind in development ( plays twice with the bishop );&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Black hinders White's fight for the center by keeping bishop on &lt;code&gt;a5-e1&lt;/code&gt; diagonal. This is very effective method that simply squelches any initiative White has. He may be equal in the resulting &lt;em&gt;tabya&lt;/em&gt; but that is all he gets, and frankly, I believe Black has an easier game;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Black gets half-open &lt;code&gt;e-file&lt;/code&gt; which is very useful, since he will play &lt;code&gt;...d5&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;...Re8&lt;/code&gt; at some point, so he can count on &lt;code&gt;...d4&lt;/code&gt; push to generate initiative;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Being behind in development and restrained in center, White can't really use &lt;code&gt;b-file&lt;/code&gt;;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Since Black has development advantage, the opening of the game benefits him ( &lt;code&gt;...d4&lt;/code&gt; push mentioned above is useful for this );&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;All of the Black pieces can acquire &lt;strong&gt;best&lt;/strong&gt; squares ( knights on &lt;code&gt;c6&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;f6&lt;/code&gt;, bishops on &lt;code&gt;b4&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;g4&lt;/code&gt; );&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Black has no pawn weaknesses, nor weak pieces, while White has weak pawn at &lt;code&gt;a2&lt;/code&gt;;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That is why I would advise you the above approach when battling the Sokolsky attack ( known also as Polish opening or Orangutan ). I have looked into &lt;em&gt;Fritz&lt;/em&gt; opening database and found the lines I think give good game for Black in the easiest way ( I have added multiple hoices for Black so you can have a wider choice ). I am going to present them in the below diagram and will explain typical positions and plans afterwards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Recommended theory for Sokolsky attack&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.b4 e5 2.Bb2 ( 2.a3 d5 3.Bb2 ( 3.e3 Nf6 4.Bb2 Bd6 5.Nf3 ( 5.c4 c6 6.Nf3 Qe7 7.Nc3 a6 ) 5...Qe7 6.c4 c6 7.Nc3 a6 ) 3...Bd6 4.e3 ( 4.Nf3 Qe7 5.e3 Nf6 6.c4 c6 7.Nc3 a6 ) ( 4.f4 exf4 5.Bxg7 Qh4+ 6.g3 fxg3 7.Bg2 gxh2+ 8.Kf1 Nf6 9.Nf3 ( 9.Bxh8 Ne4 10.Bxe4 dxe4 ) 9...Qg3 10.Bxf6 ( 10.Bxh8 Bh3 ) 10...Rg8 11.Rxh2 Qg6 12.Be5 Bxe5 13.Nxe5 Qf6+ 14.Kg1 Qxe5 ) 4...Nf6 5.Nf3 ( 5.c4 c6 6.Nf3 Qe7 7.Nc3 a6 ) 5...Qe7 6.c4 c6 7.Nc3 a6 ) ( 2.b5 d5 3.Bb2 Bd6 4.e3 ( 4.Nf3 Qe7 ) ( 4.f4 exf4 5.Bxg7 Qh4+ 6.g3 fxg3 7.Bg2 gxh2+ 8.Kf1 Nf6 9.Nf3 ( 9.Bxh8 Ne4 10.Bxe4 dxe4 ) 9...Qg3 10.Bxf6 ( 10.Bxh8 Bh3 ) 10...Rg8 11.Rxh2 Qg6 12.Be5 Bxe5 13.Nxe5 Qf6+ 14.Kg1 Qxe5 ) 4...Nf6 ) 2...Bxb4 3.Bxe5 Nf6 4.c4 ( 4.c3 Be7 ) ( 4.Nf3 O-O 5.e3 d5 ) 4...O-O 5.Nf3 ( 5.e3 d5 6.cxd5 ( 6.Nf3 c5 7.cxd5 Nxd5 8.Be2 Nc6 9.Bb2 Bf5 ) ( 6.Qb3 c5 7.a3 Ba5 8.cxd5 Nxd5 9.Bc4 Nb6 10.Be2 Nc6 11.Bb2 Be6 ) ( 6.a3 Ba5 7.cxd5 Nxd5 ) 6...Nxd5 7.Nf3 Re8 ( 7...Be7 8.a3 c5 9.Be2 Nc6 10.Bb2 b6 11.O-O Bb7 ) 8.Bb2 ( 8.Be2 Rxe5 9.Nxe5 Qf6 10.f4 Nxe3 11.Qb3 Nxg2+ 12.Kd1 Nxf4 13.Nxf7 Qxf7 14.Bc4 Be6 15.Bxe6 Nxe6 ) 8...Be7 ) 5...Nc6 6. Bb2 d5 7. cxd5 Nxd5 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;OK, now you have thorough coverage of your repertoire with Black. I have tried to keep the number of lines to minimum, but &lt;strong&gt;all&lt;/strong&gt; relevant White replies had to be covered. It is time to explain the ideas and plans in each separate position for Black:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;White takes pawn at e5, Black takes pawn on b4&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;r1bq1rk1/ppp2ppp/2n5/3n4/1b6/5N2/PB1PPPPP/RN1QKB1R w KQ - 0 8&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the above position Black has no weak pieces, he is not cramped and has development advantage. White on the other hand does have central pawn majority but he can't utilize it to gain initiative. The best he can do is &lt;code&gt;e3&lt;/code&gt; so he can safely finish development. Notice the tremendous pressure &lt;code&gt;Bb4&lt;/code&gt;+ &lt;code&gt;Nd5&lt;/code&gt; exert on the White position by pressuring the dark squares ( &lt;code&gt;c3&lt;/code&gt; and the entire &lt;code&gt;a5-e1&lt;/code&gt; diagonal! ). &lt;strong&gt;This is the key idea of Black's defense in this, and similar positions -&gt; to control &lt;code&gt;a5-e1&lt;/code&gt; diagonal and the dark squares.&lt;/strong&gt; Black is more than fine here and simply playing natural moves should give you satisfactory position. It is White who fights for equality here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Tremendous exchange sacrifice for Black&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;rn4k1/ppp2qpp/4n3/8/1b6/1Q6/P2P3P/RN1K3R w - - 0 16&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is one of the variations from the above diagram that is most complex but is easy to play with Black. Black has sacrificed the rook for a knight, bishop, two pawns and exposed White king. The compensation is more than enough and Black has a winning position in my opinion. Just develop &lt;code&gt;Nb8&lt;/code&gt; and do not be afraid of &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt;, threatening to fork the knights with &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt;, because you have &lt;code&gt;...Rd8!&lt;/code&gt; which pins the pawn and gives decisive initiative. White can't survive because of his exposed king and lag in development. Again, you are fine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;White plays the weak f4 attack&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.b4 e5 2.a3 d5 3.Bb2 Bd6 4.f4 exf4 5.Bxg7 Qh4+ 6.g3 fxg3 7.Bg2 gxh2+ 8.Kf1 Nf6 9.Nf3 ( 9.Bxh8 Ne4 10.Bxe4 dxe4-+ ) 9...Qg3 10.Bxf6 ( 10.Bxh8 Bh3-+ 11.Rxh2 $8 Ng4 ) 10...Rg8 11.Rxh2 Qg6 12.Be5 Bxe5 13.Nxe5 Qf6+ 14.Kg1 Qxe5 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The whole point of &lt;code&gt;f4&lt;/code&gt; lines is to accept the pawn, gambit the rook on &lt;code&gt;h8&lt;/code&gt; and smash White in the coming attack. These lines can be tricky so you could additionally analyze them with an engine, just to see how exactly can you capitalize on your advantage the easiest. Again, nothing to worry here, Black has a winning attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;White doesn't take the Black's pawn at e5&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;rnb1k2r/1p2qppp/p1pb1n2/3pp3/1PP5/P1N1PN2/1B1P1PPP/R2QKB1R w KQ - 0 14&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here, White is smart and doesn't wish to make early trouble. He will finish development first, and then will try to capitalize on his queenside space advantage. The most typical plan in similar pawn structures is &lt;em&gt;minority attack&lt;/em&gt;. That is why Black played &lt;code&gt;...a6&lt;/code&gt; at some point, to hinder this plan. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black will maintain his advantage in center, and will refute any type of wing play White bases. Remember the golden rules:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Attack in the center refutes the wing attack;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Who controls the center, controls the wings too;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would recommend you to study Orthodox defense of the QGD, and the Exchange variation of the QGD as positional transformations of the above position will have very similar plans like in the mentioned lines. &lt;em&gt;M.Sadler-Queen's Gambit Declined ( 2000 )&lt;/em&gt; is dated but excellent starting point. The book is clearly written and explains all the plans that might crop up here. You might need to learn about Isolated Queen's Pawn, and &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/5023/strategy-in-isolated-queen-pawn-positions/5024#5024&quot;&gt;my answer to this question&lt;/a&gt; might be helpful as a starting point. For further reading I highly recommend &lt;em&gt;A.Soltis-Pawn Structure Chess ( 1995 )&lt;/em&gt; as it is simply awesome.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you have further questions leave me a comment. Hopefully this helps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastEditorUserId="13753" LastEditDate="2017-11-26T08:23:39.310" LastActivityDate="2017-11-26T08:23:39.310" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6483" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6485" CreationDate="2014-09-30T14:28:19.947" Score="14" ViewCount="2503" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am looking for books that can help me improve without a physical/digital chessboard. I have a kindle, and I have many places in school where I can read, but not many where I can open a chessboard without people coming from all 4 corners to see what I am doing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To help for further reference, I am 1750 in Correspondence chess in chess.com&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3405" LastEditorUserId="3405" LastEditDate="2014-09-30T18:30:50.900" LastActivityDate="2020-11-02T16:26:54.983" Title="Books that help improve your chess without a chessboard?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;books&gt;" AnswerCount="10" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6484" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6483" CreationDate="2014-09-30T14:32:23.520" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Any book of tactical problems would fit the bill. My favorite is the Chess School series (aka Manual of Chess Combinations) by Ivashchenko et al.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2014-09-30T14:32:23.520" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6485" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6483" CreationDate="2014-09-30T15:24:24.253" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;One book that can mostly be read without a chess board is Willy Hendriks' &quot;Move First Think Later&quot;, one of my favourite chess books. It mostly contains puzzles and some interesting musings from the author.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, even though you are not looking for a digital solution, I have to add that I find DroidFish (available on Android) to be a nice compact way to read chess books on my daily commute while still having the power of a GM level analyst right there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1816" LastActivityDate="2014-09-30T15:24:24.253" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6486" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6488" CreationDate="2014-09-30T16:14:14.457" Score="10" ViewCount="4461" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/dqBn3.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the thought process behind playing d5 in this position?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3305" LastActivityDate="2016-07-14T04:00:22.590" Title="Why is d5 the best move in this position?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;pawns&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6487" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6478" CreationDate="2014-09-30T17:35:01.363" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think it is ridiculous to assume that someone's normal rating would in any way be indicative of their blindfold rating. Your understanding of chess and ability to play with the chess pieces in front of you has little to do with your ability to hold all of the information in your head. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only assumptions you can make are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;A)&lt;/strong&gt; a person isn't going to be better at blindfold chess than they are at regular chess&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;B)&lt;/strong&gt; someone with a higher rating in regular chess is &lt;em&gt;more likely&lt;/em&gt; to be better at blindfold chess than a lower rated player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3969" LastEditorUserId="3969" LastEditDate="2014-10-01T16:18:52.243" LastActivityDate="2014-10-01T16:18:52.243" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6488" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6486" CreationDate="2014-09-30T18:39:21.713" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure if it's the best one but...&#xA;First of all, it breaks black's pawn structure. Look at black pieces: &lt;code&gt;Bf8&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;Nh7&lt;/code&gt;, rooks haven't moved, King is in the center. If you have safe king, developed pieces and your oponent is miles behind you, you want to open files. &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt; is a move that I would do without much thinking. Such move just must be good!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After &lt;code&gt;1. ... - exd5 2. N4c3&lt;/code&gt; and pawn on d5 falls. &lt;code&gt;Be6&lt;/code&gt; doesn't work due to simple &lt;code&gt;f5&lt;/code&gt;. This position is much much better for White. Look at this structure. Pawn on d6, black pieces. Argh, I don't like it soo much from black's perspective. And keep in mind, pawn on g5 is hanging because of &lt;code&gt;1. Bh7 - Rh7 2. fg5 - hg5 3. Bg5&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3895" LastEditorUserId="3895" LastEditDate="2014-09-30T18:56:45.430" LastActivityDate="2014-09-30T18:56:45.430" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6489" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6486" CreationDate="2014-09-30T20:18:20.203" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;user3447603 has already given a nice answer, so I'll just add something orthogonal to his: Bear in mind that d5 comes with a double attack, c6 and e6, so black's ideal response of e5 is not allowed anymore (to try and keep e-file blocked). So either he takes it and destroys his center and gives up the e-file, or he moves the knight and allows black to take on e6 (not the best move but still) and play around the weakened central pawns (also f5 coming in some variations). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally this position demands for crude forcing moves, simply because practically speaking you don't want to give black the opportunity to long castle and secure his king. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On a last note, all things said, one shouldn't get carried away here and wrongly assume that any crude and aggressive attack is going to work out, after all no matter how advantageous your position, you need to calculate things.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3594" LastActivityDate="2014-09-30T20:18:20.203" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6491" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-09-30T22:15:32.777" Score="8" ViewCount="2040" Body="&lt;p&gt;If the King's Gambit is unsound, how could a world champion play it often? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3872" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2014-10-01T00:40:56.763" LastActivityDate="2019-12-05T12:37:38.523" Title="Why did Spassky play the King's Gambit?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;history&gt;&lt;kings-gambit&gt;&lt;spassky&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6492" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6491" CreationDate="2014-09-30T22:19:26.273" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;King's Gambit is not really a horrible opening. Just after all the theory that has been amassed since Spassky has shown that it loses white's advantage. There are other openings that create a good amount of initiative without the possibility of falling into a losing position. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3962" LastActivityDate="2014-09-30T22:19:26.273" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6493" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6474" CreationDate="2014-09-30T22:24:22.000" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;a good line for black is 1b4 c6 2Bb2 Qb6 3a3 a5 4c3 and from their it should be better for black. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3962" LastActivityDate="2014-09-30T22:24:22.000" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6494" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6461" CreationDate="2014-10-01T14:27:54.190" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am not familiar with this variant, but as most variants, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.pathguy.com/chess/Cylinder.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;pathguy has it.&lt;/a&gt; You can also play in &lt;a href=&quot;http://brainking.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://brainking.com/&lt;/a&gt; correspondence and using &lt;a href=&quot;http://home.hccnet.nl/h.g.muller/CVfairy.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://home.hccnet.nl/h.g.muller/CVfairy.html&lt;/a&gt; to play against an engine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also I cannot confirm it, but ICC has lots of chess variants. You might want to check it out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3405" LastActivityDate="2014-10-01T14:27:54.190" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6495" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6452" CreationDate="2014-10-01T18:50:53.167" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The book &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/0713489405&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;the scotch game explained&lt;/a&gt; by Gary Lane has a chapter that covers the variation in question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Looking &lt;a href=&quot;http://chesstempo.com/gamedb/opening/1925&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; Qf6 is played in the majority of games from the line up until that point. If you are not happy with the line maybe look at a different reply to the scotch.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3973" LastActivityDate="2014-10-01T18:50:53.167" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6496" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6497" CreationDate="2014-10-01T23:35:17.380" Score="11" ViewCount="663" Body="&lt;p&gt;Or do they always keep white on the bottom, as is the case with most historic games? Wouldn't it be easier for them to spot patterns from old games if they always oriented the board the same way in their minds?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3974" LastActivityDate="2014-10-01T23:47:06.900" Title="Do chess masters think with the board flipped when playing black?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;grandmaster&gt;&lt;psychology&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6497" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6496" CreationDate="2014-10-01T23:47:06.900" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;In &lt;em&gt;Blindfold Chess&lt;/em&gt; (Hearst-Knott; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2972788/&quot;&gt;reviewed and summarized here&lt;/a&gt;), a natural beginning place for studying the thought processes of chess masters, the authors discover this (quote from the link):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;blindfold chess masters consistently report that what they visualize are not images of pieces or chessboards, but abstractions of these with minimal or no physical features.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And later, they describe their mental state in a variety of telling ways:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;“no mental pictures,” “abstract knowledge,” “I know where the pieces are,” “only an abstract type of representation,” “only relationships,” “no real picture,” “the significance of a piece,” “knowing what combination or plan is in progress,” “lines of force,” “pieces are only friend or foe, carriers of particular actions,” “sort of formless visions of the positions,” and so forth. Many of the masters report that they have no mental image at all (p.151).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This suggests that your question is actually based on a faulty premise: that chess masters explicitly visualize a board while contemplating a position. Instead of colored pieces &quot;visualized&quot; on a board, they seem likely to think about the position in a more abstract fashion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The source covers blindfold chess, naturally, but I would be astonished if the same concepts were not true for most masters in general.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;sub&gt;I'm not master level myself, but for what it's worth, I would also describe my mentalization process in similar, abstract terms. I almost never &quot;picture&quot; the board.&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1201" LastActivityDate="2014-10-01T23:47:06.900" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6498" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-10-02T01:51:41.353" Score="7" ViewCount="227" Body="&lt;p&gt;So I've been playing chess for about 7 months regularly. I learned basic movements years and years ago but tactically there was nothing. Over the 7 months tactically I've learned basic moves, beginner tactics and things. I slowed my game down and I've noticed significant improvement. I'm ready to take the next step. I have not studied any openings, mid game or end game strategies. What comes first, or does there need to be a balance?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3975" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2014-10-02T05:24:49.390" LastActivityDate="2014-10-03T09:04:46.960" Title="What do I do next?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;beginner&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6499" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6498" CreationDate="2014-10-02T02:51:29.760" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Tony has it right in his comment. The only way that you're going to proceed beyond beginner level is to start playing regularly in person against people stronger than you. If you play with the same group often they will also be able to identify holes in your game which you can fix during your study time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3270" LastActivityDate="2014-10-02T02:51:29.760" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6500" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6498" CreationDate="2014-10-02T06:59:36.453" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;I heard that Russian professional players start by studying endgame, then middle game, then openings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you think about it, that makes sense: if you don't master winning or forcing draw with 2 pieces against 1, how can you know how to play correctly with 16 pieces against 16?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A lot of things in openings don't make sense if you don't consider things like pawn structure, which can determine win or loss in the endgame, and determine whether your advantage is in exchanging material or ensuring mobility for your pieces during the middle game. That's one example among many.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In general, if you know which endgames are good for you and which are bad, you know what to look for during the middle game. Same reasoning applies with openings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That would be my advice. Besides, play with stronger players who can teach you things.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user3243" LastActivityDate="2014-10-02T06:59:36.453" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6501" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-10-02T20:28:05.063" Score="9" ViewCount="1760" Body="&lt;p&gt;Loser chess has a benefit of sorts. There are many turns where moves are forced. So my question is, has it been solved? I'd say that the move tree is much smaller than chess. If not:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;How much would it weight? Have there been any studies on the number of moves?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;How much time would it take? The number of positions will probably be much less than normal, so the time should be much less. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Are there any ongoing projects?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3405" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-17T02:30:37.610" LastActivityDate="2020-08-17T02:30:37.610" Title="Has loser chess been solved?" Tags="&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;losing-chess&gt;&lt;solving&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6502" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6483" CreationDate="2014-10-02T21:04:34.657" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;What I consider &lt;em&gt;the&lt;/em&gt; book that can be read without any need of a chessboard is the classic &quot;Logical chess move by move&quot; by Irving Chernev. I's a book designed for players in the 1400-1800 OTB range, so I think it definitely will suit you. Moreover, this book teaches both conceptual and strategical ideas via move by move analysis of full games, so it is an entertaining and profitable read.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On books about tactics, which can be definitely read without a chessboard in front of you, I recommend &quot;Chess Training Pocket Book&quot; by Lev Alburt. This book presents 300 of the (arguably, but not much) most important positions in chess. They all feature some must-known concept or tactic and are analyzed deeply in a few lines. This book is well suited for players around 1700-2100. The book presents the problems on the left page and the answers to them on the right page, so you don't have to swing back and forth the book, and can be used for training at virtually every place you may open a book. It is extremely useful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3890" LastActivityDate="2014-10-02T21:04:34.657" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6503" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6483" CreationDate="2014-10-02T23:52:49.903" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Many tactics books are suitable to read without a board,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/9197524425&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Understanding Chess Tactics&lt;/a&gt; by Martin Weteschnik is one, where it is specifically designed to be read without a board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/9056912437&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Forcing Chess Moves&lt;/a&gt; by Charles Hertan where only a few times you need a board&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1906388709&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;1000 checkmate combinations&lt;/a&gt; by Viktor Henkin &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/081293671X&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chess tactics for champions&lt;/a&gt; by Susan Polgar and Paul Truong&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Far too many other tactics books to mention, :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although keep in mind that you will have to visualize sometimes and keep variations in your head, although this is typical of such books.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3357" LastActivityDate="2014-10-02T23:52:49.903" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6504" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6483" CreationDate="2014-10-03T00:19:57.180" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I greatly enjoyed Jonathan Rowson's books &lt;em&gt;Chess for Zebras&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;The Seven Deadly Chess Sins&lt;/em&gt;. And mark, I read them without a board (many times). Rowson's style is entertaining -even funny at times. And I think these books give you a good understanding of the game beyond tactics and strategy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Given your question &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/6416/does-black-really-have-a-disadvantage&quot;&gt;Does black really have a disadvantage?&lt;/a&gt;&quot;, &lt;em&gt;Chess for Zebras&lt;/em&gt; might particularly interest you. In it Rowson deals with this question among other things, such as which is the advantage when playing with white, which is the good side of playing with black, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3757" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2014-10-03T00:19:57.180" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6505" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6483" CreationDate="2014-10-03T04:40:51.357" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Soltis' &lt;em&gt;The Art of Defense&lt;/em&gt; in Chess is great. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should strive to never use a chessboard when reading books. Use you mind. This isn't real practical when you're working through an Informant, but for normal books, you should be able to do it.  It saves a lot of time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2014-10-03T04:40:51.357" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6506" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6501" CreationDate="2014-10-03T07:34:24.443" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;To the third question: yes, there are. I found one, at least.&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://magma.maths.usyd.edu.au/~watkins/LOSING_CHESS/&quot;&gt;This page&lt;/a&gt; should interest you. It has some articles, proof trees and is updated regularly, it seems. The articles and files on the page also give some indication as to the first two questions, for example the number of nodes and size of the proof tree files. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It appears that game as a whole is not solved, but some of the more common variations are.&#xA;There are also some &lt;a href=&quot;http://poincare.matf.bg.ac.rs/~andrew/suicide/StanGold/etables.htm&quot;&gt;endgame tablebases&lt;/a&gt; available.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Remember, as one comment stated - many moves in the game are not forced, thus vastly increasing the number of possibilities.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3831" LastEditorUserId="3831" LastEditDate="2014-10-03T07:42:32.447" LastActivityDate="2014-10-03T07:42:32.447" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6507" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6498" CreationDate="2014-10-03T09:04:46.960" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my opinion: you need to play a lot, and you need to know what great chess looks like, as a source of inspiration. Chess isn't a school subject, it's a beautiful game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would get &lt;em&gt;one&lt;/em&gt; really great chess book, of the &quot;instructive game collection&quot; type. So that you can replay the games, try to emulate them, and come back to them lots of times and learn a new thing each time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For many players who started in the 70s, Fischer's &quot;My 60 Memorable Games&quot; was that book, but a lot of heavy competition has come out since then.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My recommendation would be Polgar's &quot;How I Beat Fischer's Record&quot;. It's the first book of three, she wrote them as a collection of her games that are also teaching books. They got ridiculously good reviews. She wrote them together with Mihail Marin, who is one of the best instructive chess writers alive. Her story is inspiring (best female player ever, youngest GM ever at the time she became GM, etc), but most of all she's one of the most attacking players ever and attacking chess is the way most people wish they could play. Let Judit guide you!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2014-10-03T09:04:46.960" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6508" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-10-03T12:30:54.520" Score="14" ViewCount="2847" Body="&lt;p&gt;What would be the Elo of a computer program that plays random moves?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the sake of simplicity, assume that he never asks for a draw or resigns and never accepts a draw offer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3981" LastEditorUserId="3270" LastEditDate="2014-10-03T16:54:57.710" LastActivityDate="2018-12-27T14:22:52.280" Title="What would be the elo of a computer program that plays at random?" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;elo&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6509" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6508" CreationDate="2014-10-03T14:26:34.670" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Truly random play is much worse than you would probably think. The USCF absolute floor is 100 and this program would never rise above that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3270" LastActivityDate="2014-10-03T14:26:34.670" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6510" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6508" CreationDate="2014-10-03T15:42:00.183" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The problem with random play is that on an average chess position there are many many moves (from 20 in the opening to easily 50 or more in complicated endgames), but only a handful of those are acceptable. Random moves will result in total discoordination from the very beginning of the game. Moreover, capturing less valuable pieces would be very common, specially in the middlegame. This said, even against extremely weak opposition, the computer will, in the long run, blunder: tons of material will be traded and possibly not many good for the computer, the computer will be undoubtedly undeveloped, his king won't be safe and possibly not even castled...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So many bad things piling up, and extremely quickly, will result in a sure defeat for the machine. His Elo will probably be 0 FIDE.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3890" LastActivityDate="2014-10-03T15:42:00.183" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6511" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5572" CreationDate="2014-10-03T16:33:45.050" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you are into ebooks, there are a couple of books related to this on the Kindle store, one of them seems specifically dedicated to Exchange Slav:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss/189-5866976-1535411?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;amp;field-keywords=slav+exchange&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss/189-5866976-1535411?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;amp;field-keywords=slav+exchange&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="618" LastActivityDate="2014-10-03T16:33:45.050" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6512" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6508" CreationDate="2014-10-03T17:41:35.640" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;A very good answer would be to do this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Use numpy, a very weak game engine, 1500 ELO or so, and attach a python script to it. There are many libraries that provide you with the possible moves in a position, so we can pick one at random. I will post the results later.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://creative-co.de/random_chess/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://creative-co.de/random_chess/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should also check this out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3405" LastEditorUserId="3405" LastEditDate="2014-10-09T17:49:24.563" LastActivityDate="2014-10-09T17:49:24.563" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6513" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-10-03T19:32:49.007" Score="7" ViewCount="174" Body="&lt;p&gt;The World Chess Championship between Lasker and Capablanca in &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chess.pl?tid=54111&quot;&gt;1921&lt;/a&gt; was organised as the winner would be the first to 8 points, draws not counting, and if this goal was not reached, the player with more points after 24 games would be declared the winner. Lasker forfeited after 14 games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The winner of the World Chess Championship between Karpov and Kasparov in &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Chess_Championship_1984&quot;&gt;1984&lt;/a&gt; would be the first to achieve 6 victories. The match was suspended after 48 games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Those are only two examples of extremely long scheduled matches with many interesting games. However, nowadays the matches are much shorter. The &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Chess_Championship_2013&quot;&gt;2013&lt;/a&gt; World Chess Championship was scheduled to be only 12 games, and the last two were not necessary so there were only 10 games!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there any particular reason why the matches are now much shorter?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3890" LastEditorUserId="3890" LastEditDate="2014-10-03T20:27:39.660" LastActivityDate="2014-11-14T03:21:37.020" Title="Why has the number of games decreased over time in WCC?" Tags="&lt;world-championship&gt;&lt;fide&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6514" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-10-03T23:06:39.620" Score="3" ViewCount="165" Body="&lt;h2&gt;INTRODUCTION:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Recently, I have played online blitz game against very strong GM ( who is also a chess writer ). I didn't even know it until asking him if he has any ELO / title. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We played 7 games and I lost all of them. Although I know my opening choice for White is &quot;idiotic&quot; I just couldn't resist and &quot;went Sparta on him&quot; -&gt; sadly, he dispatched me with ease. Still, with Black, I offered real resistance. Even he said that he had to &quot;work for those wins.&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I knew &lt;strong&gt;exactly&lt;/strong&gt; when I made the mistake in all the 7 games, but for the life of me, &lt;strong&gt;I was not able to find an idea on how to generate long-term counterplay.&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even analysis with &lt;em&gt;StockFish 5&lt;/em&gt; confirmed my evaluations but the engine couldn't find any move that will give me counter-play when I was Black. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It also confirmed that the GM played &lt;strong&gt;the only winning moves&lt;/strong&gt; which confirms that his above comment wasn't an &quot;empty&quot; compliment but the truth.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am interested in improving the &lt;code&gt;3...Qd8&lt;/code&gt; line of the &lt;em&gt;Scandinavian defense&lt;/em&gt; so I will limit my question to the positions that arose from those games. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;RELEVANT INFORMATION:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To further help you, I will quote the opening positions from those games, and will give additional info / instructions in order to make your task easier.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;How can Black generate counterplay?&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 d5 2.exd5 Qxd5 3.Nc3 Qd8 4.d4 c6 5.Nf3 Bf5 6.Nh4! Bg6 7.g3! e6 8.Bg2 Be7 9.Nxg6 hxg6 10.O-O Nf6 11.Ne2! ( 11.a3 a5! $8 ) 11...Nbd7 12.a4 O-O?! ( 12...a5! $8 ) 13.a5! $16&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The point of &lt;code&gt;Ne2!&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;a5!&lt;/code&gt; is in grabbing as much space as possible in the center ( with subsequent &lt;code&gt;c4&lt;/code&gt; ) and queenside. He also tried with &lt;code&gt;a3&lt;/code&gt; instead of &lt;code&gt;a4&lt;/code&gt; in other games, but the idea was the same: &lt;code&gt;Ne2&lt;/code&gt; -&gt; &lt;code&gt;c4&lt;/code&gt; -&gt; gain space on the queenside. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;His &lt;code&gt;Bg2&lt;/code&gt; killed my &lt;code&gt;...c5&lt;/code&gt; push, so I was without any counterplay. I still think Black would be fine if he had played &lt;code&gt;12...a5!&lt;/code&gt;, but I don't see how to generate freeing break or any other sort of counterplay. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a good chess writer he knew for &lt;code&gt;Nh4&lt;/code&gt; + &lt;code&gt;Nxg6&lt;/code&gt; + &lt;code&gt;g3!&lt;/code&gt; plan from the Slav defense, but so did I. It didn't surprise me. His &lt;code&gt;Ne2!&lt;/code&gt; maneuver &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/6114/cant-find-long-term-plan-for-black&quot;&gt;didn't surprise me either&lt;/a&gt; but the idea to gain space on queenside threw me off.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;QUESTION:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How can Black generate queenside counterplay that gives him equality?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Please avoid computer-only analysis. This is the position where they can do little as it involves planning, for which engines are not capable of.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2014-12-29T22:55:51.193" Title="Can't engineer queenside play for Black" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;scandinavian-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6515" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6514" CreationDate="2014-10-04T08:00:23.823" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was not able to find an idea on how to generate long-term counterplay.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How can Black generate queenside counterplay that gives him equality?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It might be cruel for you but...answer is simple: in this position black can not achieve equality or counterplay at all. Your opening choice made you wait for him to kill you or if he's not able to (can't find as you said 'best moves'), then it might end in a draw. Scandinavian is not a good choice in case of counterplay.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's have a look at the position without using any engines:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White adventages:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Space&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Pair of bishops&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Pawn structure&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black has no pluses in this position at all. If you are standing worse you want to simplify the position by exchanging some pieces. However, looking at the black's pawn structure, it might be a bad idea to go for an endgame with doubled pawns which make the majority less effective and more vulnerable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you mentioned before, &lt;code&gt;12. ... - a5&lt;/code&gt; might have been better than &lt;code&gt;12. ...-O-O&lt;/code&gt;. I would rather play &lt;code&gt;a5&lt;/code&gt; myself. Once he got to a5 square he might want to play &lt;code&gt;a6&lt;/code&gt; and create weakness n &lt;code&gt;c6&lt;/code&gt; making his &lt;code&gt;Bg2&lt;/code&gt; even stronger. And you can't really play &lt;code&gt;a6&lt;/code&gt; yourself leaving a nice hole on &lt;code&gt;b6&lt;/code&gt; and making &lt;code&gt;b7&lt;/code&gt; pawn vulnerable for rest of the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another thing is, I don't understand why you'd like to play on a queenside when you are 3-4 in terms of pawns there. Any &lt;code&gt;b-pawn&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;c-pawn&lt;/code&gt; move there makes his white-squared bishop a monster.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To sum up, I'm against that Scandinavian. Reason is simple: If there's a skill gap between you and your opponent, you end up in a (bit) worse, positional position, sooner or later you will get crushed. You have much better chances to play, as you called, &lt;code&gt;sparta&lt;/code&gt;. There's better chance in complicated tactical positions against GM than playing against his positional (and overall chess) understanding and huge experience. Scandinavian is praying for a draw for me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3895" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2014-10-04T08:00:23.823" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6516" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-10-04T09:37:00.203" Score="4" ViewCount="797" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to play bughouse with my friend against other players, is there any android app that lets me team up with my friend and play bughouse?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;preferably at our own pace, not the the fast bughouse that is played in tournaments, because we live in different timezones, he lives in australia, me in +3 GMT, and we have work so the probability of the two of us being online at the same time is so low&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1105" LastActivityDate="2016-08-19T23:23:03.623" Title="Is there any bughouse android app?" Tags="&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;online&gt;&lt;websites&gt;&lt;bughouse&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6518" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-10-04T10:20:54.037" Score="6" ViewCount="1935" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have had mixed opinions on if it is tactical or positional, so I'm asking it here as an tiebreaker.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3405" LastEditorUserId="3890" LastEditDate="2014-10-04T12:57:44.170" LastActivityDate="2014-10-04T15:22:29.270" Title="Is the Dutch positional or tactical" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;dutch-defense&gt;&lt;style&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6519" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6520" CreationDate="2014-10-04T11:25:12.177" Score="5" ViewCount="943" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am looking for a comprehensive list of ECO codes with various variations together with a corresponding list of moves. Basically something like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;B01 Scandinavian (centre counter) defence 1. e4 d5&#xA;B01 Scandinavian defence, Lasker variation 1. e4 d5 2. exd5 Qxd5 3. Nc3 Qa5 4. d4 Nf6 5. Nf3 Bg4 6. h3&#xA;B01 Scandinavian defence 1. e4 d5 2. exd5 Qxd5 3. Nc3 Qa5 4. d4 Nf6 5. Nf3 Bf5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The best I was able to find is &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.365chess.com/eco.php&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this resourse&lt;/a&gt;, but it is kind of bad, because all they can give me about Sicilian is this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;B20-B99 Sicilian defence1. e4 c5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="703" LastActivityDate="2014-10-04T11:31:21.213" Title="Comprehensive list of ECO codes together with the list of moves" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6520" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6519" CreationDate="2014-10-04T11:31:21.213" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://sourceforge.net/p/scid/code/ci/master/tree/scid.eco&quot;&gt;Here&lt;/a&gt; is the file used by &lt;a href=&quot;http://scid.sourceforge.net/&quot;&gt;Scid&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1761" LastActivityDate="2014-10-04T11:31:21.213" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6521" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6518" CreationDate="2014-10-04T12:27:17.203" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Dutch has definitely a sound positional base, that is, with &lt;code&gt;f5&lt;/code&gt; you take under control the center (&lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt;), prepare to develop your knight behind a pawn (which is usually good as the squares diagonally to the pawn are now defended twice. This is the reason you play &lt;code&gt;c4&lt;/code&gt; in the Queens Gambit and only after &lt;code&gt;Nc3&lt;/code&gt; btw) and aim for fast counterplay or a solid setup.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want a solid setup and play in a position where it's all about maneuvering, the Stonewall is the setup you desire. It is sound positionally speaking, though you have to take care of the hole you leave in &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt;. In order to equalize, black has to find a concrete plan and good implementation, as these lines always give a slim but almost perpetual advantage for white. If you want to go for dynamic positions, choose the Leningrad setup, but bear in mind that you are taking some risk because of the early weakening of the kignside. The counterplay many times arise from fianchettoing the dark squared bishop and looking for an attack on the kingside, which you have to be precise when making it as it leaves your king somewhat open and sometimes weaker than the opponents.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are very powerful upsides to playing the Dutch, one of them being that the most challenging attack for white involves a kingside fianchetto, so the opening preparation becomes somewhat easier in the main lines. The downside is that with &lt;code&gt;f5&lt;/code&gt; so early on in the game, there are multiple gambit opportunities for white that, if accepted, lure black into positions where he must be able to defend precisely and for a long time before cashing in is material advantage (of course, there is always the option of declining the gambit, but some of them are as provocative as &lt;code&gt;2.g4&lt;/code&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Conclusion:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Dutch is a sound positional opening. Wehther you want to play positional chess or tactical chess depends almost entirely on your (black) side: go for a Classical (half positional-half tactical), a Stonewall (highly positional) or a Leningrad (highly tactical). However, the player must know a fair amount of theory to be safe.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit:&lt;/strong&gt; You may also look the Dutch as a flipped Sicilian, as the pawn structure is similar. This is also in favor of the Dutch being positionally sound. However, don't look further, as the plans and maneuvers in the openings are in general completely different.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3890" LastEditorUserId="3890" LastEditDate="2014-10-04T15:22:29.270" LastActivityDate="2014-10-04T15:22:29.270" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6522" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6530" CreationDate="2014-10-04T12:48:45.703" Score="2" ViewCount="2569" Body="&lt;p&gt;In general, the Queen's Indian is not much seen at top levels when arising from the ECO move order:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;    1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nf3 b6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, many games transpose from the Nimzo-Indian defense:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;    1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 Bb4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When at some point black plays &lt;code&gt;b6&lt;/code&gt; in order to fianchetto his light squared bishop. Now, these two openings have different basic plans and different kinds of players are adept at them: the Nimzo-Indian is known to be a reliable weapon against &lt;code&gt;1.d4&lt;/code&gt; and the Queen's Indian is thought to be a little too passive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The doubts I have are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Which kind of players like switching between those two defences?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What is the goal of said transposition? (e.g. why not follow the main line?)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Why are such different conceptual openings usually transposed, when in certain lines not even the plans or pawn structure is the same?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3890" LastEditorUserId="11202" LastEditDate="2017-06-30T12:07:46.117" LastActivityDate="2017-06-30T12:07:46.117" Title="Playing the Queen's Indian. Which kind of players?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;nimzo-indian&gt;&lt;queens-indian&gt;&lt;style&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6523" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2014-10-04T12:52:51.397" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Players are aggressive, tactical, positional, passive, suicidal, ... The way they play defines their style. Openings can also be aggressive, tactical, positional, passive, suicidal, ... They are characterized by the lines which arise from them, and whether those offer aggressive, tactical, positional (and so on) chances.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3890" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2014-10-05T15:07:32.403" LastActivityDate="2014-10-05T15:07:32.403" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6524" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2014-10-04T12:52:51.397" Score="0" Body="The style of players is how they play. The style of the opening is which players are suited best for it." OwnerUserId="3890" LastEditorUserId="3890" LastEditDate="2014-10-04T14:20:17.697" LastActivityDate="2014-10-04T14:20:17.697" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6525" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-10-04T14:34:57.113" Score="3" ViewCount="1194" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am having some trouble on defeating this opening. Any general tips you can offer me? I use the d4-Nf3-Nc3-Bd3-Be3 formation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3405" LastEditorUserId="3405" LastEditDate="2014-10-04T15:48:40.440" LastActivityDate="2017-06-30T15:57:02.573" Title="How to beat 1.e4 g6/b6?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;modern-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="10" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6526" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-10-04T15:57:10.697" Score="2" ViewCount="448" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to know which international game has the longest sequence of forced moves until checkmate, even if the opponent resigned the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks in advance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note : Result should not be drawn [1/2 - 1/2] (i.e we should consider 50 move rule).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3131" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-10-03T12:03:51.537" LastActivityDate="2017-10-03T12:03:51.537" Title="Which international tournament chess game has the record of longest sequence of forced moves until checkmate?" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;forced-move&gt;&lt;records&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6527" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6525" CreationDate="2014-10-04T16:24:54.653" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not a long time member here but I was pretty sure that question regarding this opening will show up. First of all, this kind of defense is really great against weaker players, let's say &amp;lt;1800, who don't know how to place their pieces/how to maneuver properly. By doing this, black dodges theoretical conversation, which can be pretty desirable. Since you gave us only two moves of black &lt;code&gt;g6 and b6&lt;/code&gt;, I can't provide you lines or variations, no point to consider all possible setups of black pieces. If you want - share a game with us, I'll be glad to point out not-the-best moves. For now I can only give you few tips:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Avoid playing &lt;code&gt;Bd3 and Be3&lt;/code&gt;. That's too squeezed. The light-squared bishop should be placed on &lt;code&gt;c4&lt;/code&gt; in most cases. (I assume black plays &lt;code&gt;e6 and d6&lt;/code&gt; not &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt;. (See, you should be more precise!:)).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You can wait to develop the dark-squared bishop a bit. &lt;code&gt;g5&lt;/code&gt; might be a nice spot occasionally.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;As &quot;waiting moves&quot; to use above, you can castle, or play &lt;code&gt;Qe2&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When your opponent plays &lt;code&gt;a6&lt;/code&gt; consider responding with &lt;code&gt;a4&lt;/code&gt; to avoid some &lt;code&gt;b7-b5-b4&lt;/code&gt; followups.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;And the most important: do NOT hurry here. Don't go all in too early, in such set-ups black has an easy counter-attack in the center once you commit to go all in on a side. It's serious. I saw many people losing games due to immediate attacks like &lt;code&gt;Be3, Qd2, Bh6, h4&lt;/code&gt; and stuff.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3895" LastEditorUserId="11202" LastEditDate="2017-06-30T12:08:46.173" LastActivityDate="2017-06-30T12:08:46.173" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6530" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6522" CreationDate="2014-10-04T17:10:02.470" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Many Nimzo players already have the Queen's Indian Defense on their repertoire to deal with &lt;code&gt;3. Nf3&lt;/code&gt;. Such players may transpose between the two defenses whenever they have the opportunity and feel like switching.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To be more precise, it is after &lt;code&gt;4. Nf3&lt;/code&gt; that black has the option to enter a QID/Nimzo hybrid with &lt;code&gt;4... b6&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    [StartPly &quot;8&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;    [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;    1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 Bb4 4. Nf3 b6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nimzo-indian set-ups with a black &lt;code&gt;b6&lt;/code&gt; without a white &lt;code&gt;Nf3&lt;/code&gt; are still classified as Nimzo-Indians.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A reason to play &lt;code&gt;b6&lt;/code&gt; in a purely  Nimzo-Indian position is that it usually leads to slower games where you can outmaneuver your opponent in the long run. A famous example is Garry Kasparov vs Vladimir Kramnik (2001), where black had to win to level the match.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;      [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;      [Event &quot;Botvinnik Mem Rapid Match&quot;]&#xA;      [Site &quot;Moscow RUS&quot;]&#xA;      [Date &quot;2001.12.08&quot;]&#xA;      [EventDate &quot;2001.12.08&quot;]&#xA;      [Round &quot;6&quot;]&#xA;      [Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;      [White &quot;Garry Kasparov&quot;]&#xA;      [Black &quot;Vladimir Kramnik&quot;]&#xA;      [ECO &quot;E44&quot;]&#xA;      [WhiteElo &quot;2838&quot;]&#xA;      [BlackElo &quot;2809&quot;]&#xA;      [PlyCount &quot;104&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;      1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 Bb4 4. e3 b6 5. Nge2 Bb7 6. a3 Be7&#xA;      7. d5 O-O 8. Ng3 Re8 9. Be2 Bf8 10. e4 d6 11. O-O Nbd7 12. Be3&#xA;      c6 13. Qd2 Rc8 14. dxe6 fxe6 15. f4 Qe7 16. Rad1 Rcd8 17. Kh1&#xA;      Qf7 18. Qc2 Kh8 19. b4 e5 20. Nf5 d5 21. exd5 cxd5 22. Nb5 Qg6&#xA;      23. Bf3 Rc8 24. Qb1 e4 25. Nh4 Qf7 26. Be2 a6 27. Nc3 dxc4&#xA;      28. Qb2 b5 29. Nf5 Nd5 30. Nxd5 Qxf5 31. Nc3 Nf6 32. h3 Rcd8&#xA;      33. Rxd8 Rxd8 34. Rd1 Rxd1+ 35. Bxd1 Qd7 36. Be2 Bc6 37. Qc1&#xA;      g6 38. Qg1 Bg7 39. Bd4 Kg8 40. Be5 Nd5 41. Bxg7 Qxg7 42. Nxd5&#xA;      Bxd5 43. Qc5 Qa1+ 44. Kh2 Bf7 45. Bg4 Kg7 46. Qc7 Qf6 47. Bd1&#xA;      h5 48. a4 Qd4 49. Bc2 e3 50. f5 e2 51. fxg6 e1=Q 52. Qxf7+ Kh6&#xA;      0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Vladimir Kraminik in New in Chess(2002/1), comment after &lt;code&gt;4... b6&lt;/code&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;At the board I decided to play the strange set-up that follows in order to keep all the pieces on the board and keep the pawn-structure flexible. Garry said after the game that he had a much better position. Well, it is clear that if you want to win against Garry Kasparov with black you have to make some concessions and play a worse position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1485" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2014-10-04T21:28:03.467" LastActivityDate="2014-10-04T21:28:03.467" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6531" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-10-04T21:35:00.590" Score="12" ViewCount="1295" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am looking for a precise definition for a blunder. Computers often flag moves as blunders for any move that loses a point advantage or more. But what if I am completely winning and I decide to simplify the game by &quot;sacrificing&quot; my material plus. The computer may say that I lost more than a point advantage, but am I not more likely to win? There is also the scenario where a move may improve your position as evaluated by the computer but greatly decreases your chance of winning. Thus, I am interested in opinions on defining a better definition of a blunder than the computer uses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3872" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2014-10-04T21:38:52.477" LastActivityDate="2014-10-05T14:15:47.837" Title="What is a blunder?" Tags="&lt;terminology&gt;&lt;blunder&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6532" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6531" CreationDate="2014-10-04T22:02:48.407" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is an interesting question. It seems  that the higher the skill level, the less it takes to consider something a blunder. A GM may consider getting double pawns in a certain position a blunder while weaker players may just see it as a mistake or may not even call it a bad move. So how you call a blunder depends on your skill level because higher level players can better take advantage of all ranges of mistakes compared to weaker players. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3962" LastActivityDate="2014-10-04T22:02:48.407" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6533" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6531" CreationDate="2014-10-05T01:00:27.940" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;A blunder is a move that gives your opponent enough of an advantage to win, or to get a draw after you should have won.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As someone else pointed out, it depends on the skill level. At a high level, the &quot;loss&quot; of a move or a key square may be a blunder. For intermediate players, maybe the loss of a pawn, and for beginners, maybe one or more pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That is, these &quot;advantages&quot; are large enough, relative to the skill level, that upon seeing one of them, you can reasonably predict the likely winner.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastEditorUserId="17" LastEditDate="2014-10-05T14:15:47.837" LastActivityDate="2014-10-05T14:15:47.837" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6534" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6522" CreationDate="2014-10-05T01:02:43.250" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;A person (from almost a century ago), for whom the Queen's Indian defense was a favorite, was (then) World Champion, Jose Raul Capablanca.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He was a &quot;slow&quot; positional player, not known for (although certainly capable of) sharp tactical play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See also, this &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/1838/what-are-the-main-ideas-and-goals-in-the-queens-indian-defense/4635#4635&quot;&gt;question.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.193" LastActivityDate="2014-10-05T18:31:19.717" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6535" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6531" CreationDate="2014-10-05T01:05:19.717" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;The first English definition of blunder I see is &quot;a stupid or careless mistake&quot;, and that's how I have always perceived the term in chess. It's not the severity of the error that matters so much as how silly and avoidable it is. If you played a move that takes the evaluation from 0 to -10 because you missed all the implications of a spectacular sacrifice that needed to be calculated out to 10 moves to verify its soundness, that's not a blunder, but if you played a move that takes the evaluation from 0 to -1 because you just didn't notice that a pawn was hanging, that is a blunder.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2014-10-05T01:05:19.717" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6536" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6491" CreationDate="2014-10-05T01:15:49.733" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The King's Gambit has been analyzed to the point, where White fails to retain his advantage with proper play by Black. That's why it is inadvisable to use it against opponents as strong as you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But it is an aggressive opening that works well against &lt;em&gt;weaker&lt;/em&gt; opponents. Spassky may have won more games against weaker players using it than players of equal strength playing different openings against the same opponents. Spassky's record was among the &quot;best,&quot; until he ran into top-flight competition, notably Fischer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2014-10-05T01:15:49.733" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6538" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6483" CreationDate="2014-10-05T10:06:46.853" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;Chess: 5334 Problems, Combinations, and Games&quot; is a wonderful book written by Laszlo Polgár. It is a very large book covering 1104 pages, but worth every page..&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3992" LastEditorUserId="3890" LastEditDate="2014-10-05T15:07:21.557" LastActivityDate="2014-10-05T15:07:21.557" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6539" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4452" CreationDate="2014-10-05T14:14:48.827" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesshouse.com/Total_Chess_Training_IV_p/a224.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.chesshouse.com/Total_Chess_Training_IV_p/a224.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chessok.com/shop/index.php?main_page=product_info&amp;amp;cPath=7_26_44&amp;amp;products_id=523&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://chessok.com/shop/index.php?main_page=product_info&amp;amp;cPath=7_26_44&amp;amp;products_id=523&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The are many online guides about chess defensive strategies, but there seem to fewer products. Books, as the other post mentioned, are also useful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These are some links.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3993" LastActivityDate="2014-10-05T14:14:48.827" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6540" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6483" CreationDate="2014-10-05T15:31:59.040" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recommend &quot;Invisible Chess Moves.&quot; It focuses on our tendency to miss certain tactics and helps readers correct these tendencies. It also won ChessCafe book of the year.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3872" LastActivityDate="2014-10-05T15:31:59.040" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6541" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-10-06T10:20:09.027" Score="3" ViewCount="431" Body="&lt;p&gt;This quite a technical question, anybody who knows about the program Chessbase (12) and how it works please feel free to answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Recently I downloaded many PGN files from the website The Week in Chess,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I copied all of the games (over 100,000) into my current &lt;strong&gt;unedited&lt;/strong&gt; version of &lt;strong&gt;Chessbase Megadatabase 2014&lt;/strong&gt;, the games were installed &lt;strong&gt;successfully&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The problem is that when I do the &lt;em&gt;'Opening Report'&lt;/em&gt; and the player &lt;em&gt;'Dossier'&lt;/em&gt;, I find that my TheWeekinChess download games are &lt;strong&gt;ignored&lt;/strong&gt;, I know this because all of the TheWeekinChess downloads are games from 2014 and none of these are shown in the Opening Reports (main lines) and player Dossiers (top players).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, I input the moves &lt;code&gt;1.e4 c5&lt;/code&gt; (Sicilian), click &lt;em&gt;Opening Report&lt;/em&gt; and it works but the latest games are all played in 2013 even though there are games from the year 2014 in the database.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I search for a player in the Player Encyclopedia, for example: Magnus Carlsen, I click dossier and it works perfectly fine; but then again the games go no further than 2013.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could anyone show me a way to solve this problem?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3357" LastActivityDate="2015-02-12T13:41:40.027" Title="Configuring TheWeekinChess downloads with Megadatabase 2014" Tags="&lt;chessbase&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6542" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6446" CreationDate="2014-10-06T12:21:44.093" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I initially felt bughouse (or crazyhouse) would definitely help improve one's chess. I thought this since you have to do the extra thinking of where you would optimally place the captured pieces that you have. But when I tried playing it, its way different and difficult and went out of hand pretty quickly for me. So I feel there's hardly any use trying to play bughouse inorder to improve your regular chess, as it is a completely different game altogether.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3158" LastActivityDate="2014-10-06T12:21:44.093" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6543" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-10-06T20:42:52.223" Score="18" ViewCount="4755" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am starting to play with chess engines. I notice that the best chess engines can take several minutes to move. I am wondering why. Before each move the engine examines all legal future moves to some depth. However it then seems to repeat this exercise for the next move. Given that the previous move was already included in the tree of moves examined, is this not inefficient ? Or have I misunderstood ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[Edit: I am assuming that the reason why move analyses are not cached is due to some memory limitations of the computer that just make it faster to restart the analysis]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3999" LastEditorUserId="3999" LastEditDate="2014-10-06T21:29:35.737" LastActivityDate="2015-09-27T04:49:46.303" Title="Do chess engines store all of the previously analysed positions between moves" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6544" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6543" CreationDate="2014-10-06T21:24:49.453" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Example evidencing the memory of the engine:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Consider positions where deep theoretical novelties are discovered, in particular the game &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1772668&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Caruana vs Topalov&lt;/a&gt; played this year. When you let the engine analyze the position after move 12 for a more or less short amount of time (say 10-15 minutes) you may check the suggested moves and see that the TN (&lt;code&gt;13.Re2!&lt;/code&gt;) does not appear among them. Introduce the move yourself, go back a move and let the engine analyze again the same position for more or less the same time. Surprisingly, after some thought, now the engine does consider the TN among the best moves and approves it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT: The original answer (kept below) is wrong, however, it provides a useful example of the memory of the engine, which has been quoted at the top.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as I know, they do not, that is, they start the tree search almost from scratch at every move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, they must have some kind of function that actualizes the values for each move, and this function surely has some short-term memory. Some examples are positions where deep theoretical novelties are discovered, in particular the game &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1772668&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Caruana vs Topalov&lt;/a&gt; played this year. When you let the engine analyze the position after move 12 for a more or less short amount of time (say 10-15 minutes) you may check the suggested moves and see that the TN (&lt;code&gt;13.Re2!&lt;/code&gt;) does not appear among them. Introduce the move yourself, go back a move and let the engine analyze again the same position for more or less the same time. Surprisingly, after some thought, now the engine does consider the TN among the best moves and approves it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm no expert on chess software, but this happens. This can be at least partially explained if (as said) the function that evaluates the moves for the position has some memory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3890" LastEditorUserId="3890" LastEditDate="2014-10-07T23:55:39.903" LastActivityDate="2014-10-07T23:55:39.903" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6545" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6543" CreationDate="2014-10-06T21:38:15.087" Score="21" Body="&lt;p&gt;Programming chess engines is very complicated territory, so right up front I'll point you to the &lt;a href=&quot;https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/&quot;&gt;Chess Programming Wiki&lt;/a&gt;, which has a lot of great information on this topic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Background&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess calculations (and many similar things) are generally modeled and thought of as &quot;game trees&quot; or &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decision_tree&quot;&gt;decision trees&lt;/a&gt;&quot;. Broadly, this tree is a directed graph, with one node at the top (the current position), leading to a node for each possible move, each of which leads to more nodes for each possible &lt;em&gt;next&lt;/em&gt; move, and so on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In their most simplistic, brute-force form, Chess engines generate all positions on this tree down to some depth limit (&quot;ply&quot;), evaluating each resulting position based on some complex criteria&lt;sup&gt;1&lt;/sup&gt;. Then it plays the move that seems to lead to the best result. Nowadays, &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_chess#Search_techniques&quot;&gt;a lot of really complicated techniques&lt;/a&gt; have been developed to limit the number of positions that the engine has to look at, but I'm going to ignore those for the purpose of this answer, because they don't change the real issue at hand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Math Tangent&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The basic reason that engines typically take about the same amount of time to consider each move is that the size of the decision tree increases exponentially with depth (&lt;code&gt;k&lt;/code&gt;). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Consider the starting position. The top of the tree (&lt;code&gt;k=0&lt;/code&gt;) is one node. There are twenty possible first moves for White, so there are twenty nodes at depth &lt;code&gt;k=1&lt;/code&gt;. Then, Black also has twenty available moves for each of White's options: so at &lt;code&gt;k=2&lt;/code&gt;, there are &lt;code&gt;20 * 20 = 400&lt;/code&gt; possible positions! And it only gets worse as the players develop their pieces!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, let's pretend that there are always twenty possible moves for each player at any given time&lt;sup&gt;2&lt;/sup&gt;. You instruct the computer to look ahead five moves for each player (ten ply). &#xA;Let's look at the size of the brute-force tree at each level. For fun, we'll also look at the total number of positions in the tree (from the top to the given level).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Ply |    Positions   |  Total Tree Size&#xA;----------------------------------------&#xA; 0  | 1              | 1&#xA; 1  | 20             | 21&#xA; 2  | 400            | 421&#xA; 3  | 8000           | 8421&#xA; 4  | 160000         | 168421&#xA; 5  | 3200000        | 3368421&#xA; 6  | 64000000       | 67368421&#xA; 7  | 1280000000     | 1347368421&#xA; 8  | 25600000000    | 26947368421&#xA; 9  | 512000000000   | 538947368421&#xA;10  | 10240000000000 | 10778947368421&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The result of each level being exponentially larger than the previous level is that the size of the whole tree is dominated by the &lt;em&gt;bottom level&lt;/em&gt;. Consider the example above: the last level alone contains ten trillion nodes. The entire rest of the tree only contains five hundred billion. The tenth ply contains about 95% of the nodes in the entire tree (this is actually true at each level). In practice, what this means is that &lt;strong&gt;all of the search time is spent evaluating the &quot;last&quot; move.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Answer&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So how does this relate to your question? Well, let's say the computer is set to ten ply, as above, and further it &quot;remembers&quot; the results of its evaluations. It calculates a move, plays it, and then you make a move. Now two moves have been made, so it prunes all the positions from memory related to the moves that didn't happen, and is left with a tree that goes down the remaining eight moves that it already calculated: 26,947,368,421 positions! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All right! So we only need to calculate the last two ply! Using our 20-moves-at-each-depth estimate, the total number of moves we need to calculate here is still over ten trillion. The positions we already calculated only account for 2.5% of the possibilities! So even by caching last move's results, the best we can hope for is a 2.5% increase in speed! At heart, this is why even if your program caches previous results, you don't usually see a significant speedup between moves (excepting cases when the computer finds a forced mate or something, of course!).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Simplification Disclaimer&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is &lt;em&gt;a lot&lt;/em&gt; of complexity involved in this question, which is why I linked to the programming wiki at the very top and only attempted to explain the answer in broad mathematical terms. In reality, programs &lt;em&gt;do&lt;/em&gt; generally cache parts of the tree from move to move, and there are other reasons why that's insufficient on its own--some simple reasons (e.g. a certain line might look good out to eight moves, but ends with a back-rank mate on move nine!) and many highly complicated ones (generally related to various clever pruning methods). So the computer must keep looking further ahead in an attempt to avoid making bad assumptions based on the previous move's cut-off depth.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;sup&gt;1&lt;/sup&gt;I'm not going to get into heuristic functions here, because that's its own incredibly complex area, but there are frequently some gains that can be achieved via position caching schemes here as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;sup&gt;2&lt;/sup&gt;An average branching factor of 20 is &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shannon_number&quot;&gt;probably much too low&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1201" LastEditorUserId="1201" LastEditDate="2014-10-07T02:30:46.143" LastActivityDate="2014-10-07T02:30:46.143" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6546" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6543" CreationDate="2014-10-07T01:05:20.247" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Henry Keiter already gave you a general answer, I'll give you a more technical answer. It's all about transposition table, search depth and cutoff. The discussion here is MUCH more technical than other answers, but it'll be beneficial to whoever wants to learn chess programming.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's a common misunderstanding that if a position was evaluated before, the evaluation score could be reused as long as there is enough memory to store the moves. Chess programming is more complicated than that. Even given infinite memory, you'd still have to search the positions again. For each move, an evaluation score is attached with its deep and its bound. For instance, if the engine stores a move by fail-high, the table entry would have a lower bound. This means, if you're looking for a position you'd still have to check the bounds whether you can use the previous evaluation score.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Apart from that, each evaluation has a depth attached to it. In an iterative-deepening framework, as you increase the depth for each iteration, you'd still have to search those positions that you have searched already in the previous iteration.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The short answer to your question is that &lt;strong&gt;an engine does store all of the previous analyzed positions (as long as enough memory), but those stored results can't be reused as easily as you might have thought&lt;/strong&gt;. In an opening phase where there are less repetitions, those stored results are most useful for move-ordering and a dozen of move-reduction heuristics. For example, one would assume the best move from the last depth be the best move in the current depth, so we'd sort the move lists and search the best move before any other moves. Hopefully, we'd get an early fail-high cutoff.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We don't have infinite memory for storing the positions. We'd need to define a hashing algorithm. Zobrist hashing algorithm give us a pseudo-random distribution, but sooner or later we'd still have to replace some existing entries.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2014-10-08T05:59:53.723" LastActivityDate="2014-10-08T05:59:53.723" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6547" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6543" CreationDate="2014-10-07T01:46:43.957" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;A typical chess engine will store some of the positions and their bracketing alpha-beta scores in a &lt;em&gt;transposition table&lt;/em&gt; that can be consulted during subsequent searches.  This table isn't consulted directly to choose the next move, but it makes searching for that move more efficient in two ways.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;A position will likely be encountered multiple times in a search tree, being reached by a transposition or permutation of a sequence of moves.  Because the table can be consulted such a position may only need to be evaluated few times (for different fixed search depths) instead of dozens of times as the position is visited and revisited.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;A standard technique for alpha-beta searches is to use &lt;em&gt;iterative deepening&lt;/em&gt;, repeatedly probing the tree at a greater search depth until the terminal depth is reached.  The valuation scores computed in earlier iterations are used to order the moves searched in later iterations.  Alpha-beta is known to perform better (i.e. prune more of the search tree) if good moves are searched before bad moves.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="61" LastEditorUserId="61" LastEditDate="2014-10-07T03:07:24.580" LastActivityDate="2014-10-07T03:07:24.580" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6548" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6549" CreationDate="2014-10-07T10:49:50.823" Score="5" ViewCount="831" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm a Caro-Kann player who is coming up against the line 1. e4 c6 2. c4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This line has a few names, such as the &quot;Anti Caro-Kann&quot; and the &quot;Quasi Panov-Botvinnik&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The books recommend 2...d5. Afterall 1...c6 prepared 2...d5. But the line 2...d5 3. cxd5 cxd5 4. exd5 Qxd5 leads to a move down variation of the regular Panov-Botvinnik, so the books recommend after 4. exd5 to play 4...Nf6 to eventually regain the pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is, can black feasibly side-step these tricky variations with 1. e4 c6 2. c4 b5(!?). Does this reach a playable middlegame for black?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2019-09-25T17:32:50.000" Title="Alternative plan in the Caro-Kann" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;caro-kann&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6549" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6548" CreationDate="2014-10-07T16:30:39.327" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a creative idea but unfortunately it does not look playable. After 7 minutes, Stockfish 5 gives the position after 2... b5 as +.87. This means that white is up a pawn for very little compensation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3270" LastActivityDate="2014-10-07T16:30:39.327" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6550" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-10-07T20:17:25.900" Score="4" ViewCount="260" Body="&lt;p&gt;I realise that there are a finite number of tactical techniques such as forks and skewers and pins but I find them hard to identify in everyday play. I have started using chess.com's tactics trainer and am gradually making progress. However I think that this is ultimately a pattern recognition problem. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So my question is whether it is possible to reduce all of the tactical tricks to a finite set of graphical images that I could stare at and memorise in the same way children learn their letters. I think that this may get my brain to identify these opportunities more quickly when they arise on a chess board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3999" LastActivityDate="2015-06-23T22:05:27.230" Title="Can tactics be reduced to a finite number of simple patterns that can be learned?" Tags="&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;training&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6551" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="7659" CreationDate="2014-10-07T20:24:10.370" Score="3" ViewCount="6472" Body="&lt;p&gt;I play regularly long games (60min each) with Droidfish/Stockfish the depth is always close around 21.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From time to time I overlook taktical flaws in my moves, obviously playing on worse positions against an engine makes no sense, so I take my move back. Technicaly the engine does the same, when it changes the evaluation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That being said I most of the time end up in endgames that are drawn.&#xA;With black I have trouble drawing the game but I eventualy will.&#xA;With white I might have a edge, but the engine just always can hold a draw, somehow blockading the position to force a repetition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am a very positional player and i guess that is the reason I get these draws, because I mostly avoid taktical positions. NOTE: I am not going for totaly closed positions, I am playing normal positional chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I do not think I can beat the engine with black that would be asking for to much but I will try with white.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I play the Benko Opening wih white (1.g3).  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are curious here is the last  game I played with Droidfish: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. g3 d5 &#xA;2. Nf3 Nf6 &#xA;3. Bg2 c6 &#xA;4. O-O Bf5 &#xA;5. d4 g6 &#xA;6. a4 Bg7 &#xA;7. b3 O-O &#xA;8. Bb2 e6 &#xA;9. Nbd2 Nbd7 &#xA;10. c4 Re8 &#xA;11. Rc1 Rc8 &#xA;12. Nh4 Bf8 &#xA;13. Nxf5 exf5 &#xA;14. e3 Qa5 &#xA;15. Nf3 Ne4 &#xA;16. cxd5 cxd5 &#xA;17. Ne5 Rxc1 &#xA;18. Qxc1 Qd8 &#xA;19. Nd3 Bd6 &#xA;20. Ba3 Ndf6&#xA;21. Bxd6 Qxd6 &#xA;22. Qc2 Qa3 &#xA;23. Rc1 h5 &#xA;24. Qb2 Qd6 &#xA;25. Ne5 Kg7 &#xA;26. b4 Re7 &#xA;27. f3 Ng5 &#xA;28. Kf2 Ne6 &#xA;29. h4 Rc7 &#xA;30. Rxc7 Qxc7 &#xA;31. Bf1 Nd7 &#xA;32. Nd3 Nf6 &#xA;33. a5 Ne8 &#xA;34. Qc1 Qxc1 &#xA;35. Nxc1 Nd6 &#xA;36. Nd3 Nc7 &#xA;37. Ne5 Ne6 &#xA;38. Nd7 Nf8 &#xA;39. Nc5 Ne6&#xA;40. Bd3 b6 &#xA;41. Nd7 bxa5 &#xA;42. bxa5 Nb7 &#xA;43. a6 Nbd8 &#xA;44. Ke2 f6 &#xA;45. Kd2 Kf7 &#xA;46. Kc3 Ke7 &#xA;47. Nc5 Nc7 &#xA;48. Kb4 Nc6+ &#xA;49. Ka4 Nd8 &#xA;50. Bb5 Nde6 &#xA;51. Bf1 Kd6 &#xA;52. Kb4 Nf8 &#xA;53. Bd3 Nfe6&#xA;54. Bb5 Ng7 &#xA;55. Nb7+ Ke7 &#xA;56. Bd3 Nge6 &#xA;57. Nc5 Kd6 &#xA;58. Nb7+ Ke7 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It went some moves on but ended in a repetition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am not really a fan of 1.e4 or sicilian type positions.&#xA;I kinda got the opinion that you can not really beat the engine in a long positional game in contrast to human players because the engine makes very few inaccuracies.&#xA;I guess the most chances are in a complex middle game. (I would still like them to be positional, maybe mixed with taktics)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I couldlnt really find any good (human vs engine) games where the engine was in trouble.&#xA;I will take a look now at recent engine games stockfish lost maybe that will give me a clue how to beat an engine beast.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe in the mean time you will have some usefull ideas, because that is what we are the best in (for now).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3885" LastEditorUserId="3885" LastEditDate="2014-10-08T13:06:01.160" LastActivityDate="2020-02-07T20:05:16.747" Title="How to go about beating chess engines?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="13" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6553" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6550" CreationDate="2014-10-08T08:35:11.340" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would say that, indeed, the vast majority of tactics falls into some kind of pattern and there are a number of them but not too many.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my opinion there are two issues that you need to improve in order to improve tactics in your games.  First, you need to know the basic patterns, that is you have to know how they look like and what is the main idea in exploiting them.  Often the basic ideas of the pattern cannot be applied out of the box and you will need to find the right moves to actually implement the combination.  The second issue is that, of course, you have to spot these patterns on the board and exploit them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For picking up the patterns a tactics book that presents problems grouped by patterns, together with some explanations how to exploit them, is very useful.  E.g. &quot;Tune Your Chess Tactics Antenna&quot;.  To facilitate the second step, such books often have mixed exercises at the end, where you are not told what the pattern is you should find, but then almost any tactics book with mixed problems will be okay.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3529" LastActivityDate="2014-10-08T08:35:11.340" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6554" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6556" CreationDate="2014-10-08T10:52:22.437" Score="4" ViewCount="563" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have a paperback version of A65 The Benoni by Chess Informant. This is my first monograph ever, and I cannot understand how to read it. Any ways to do it? Searching didn't help at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3405" LastActivityDate="2014-10-08T12:19:50.973" Title="How can I read an Chess Informant Monograph" Tags="&lt;eco&gt;&lt;modern-benoni&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6555" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6561" CreationDate="2014-10-08T11:24:41.443" Score="12" ViewCount="733" Body="&lt;p&gt;When your opponent moves a pawn to a position where it can be captured by one of your pawns, how should you determine whether to capture it, push past it or leave the tension on the board and make a different move?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I appreciate that the answer may vary with pawn structure, game phase, and style of play (e.g. a preference for open or closed games), and I know that pushing past is not always an option (break moves, pushing to unsafe squares). But are there any guiding principles to make the decision easier? Are there any books or videos that cover this subject?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ideally I'd like an answer involving general principles but – in case it helps to illustrate them – here are some sample positions you can refer to if you'd like. (Using your own positions instead is fine too, though!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Game 1: Black plays d5, White to move&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;r1bqk2r/pp2npbp/2n1p1p1/2pp4/4PP2/1PN2N2/P1PPB1PP/R1BQ1RK1 w kq - 14 8&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Should White capture on d5, push past to e5, or leave the tension?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Game 2: Black plays d5, White to move&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;rnbqkbnr/ppp2ppp/4p3/3p4/3PP3/8/PPP2PPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 4 3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Capturing (exchange), pushing past (advance), and leaving the tension (Nc3/Nd2 etc.) are all popular lines against the French. Are there any common principles that can be applied to help determine the most favourable line? (Nc3 is most common, but what principles explain why that's favourable to capturing or pushing?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Game 3: Black plays d5, White to move&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;rnbqkb1r/ppp2ppp/4pn2/3p4/2PP4/5N2/PP2PPPP/RNBQKB1R w KQkq - 6 4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Should White capture on d5, push past to c5, or leave the tension?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Game 4: White plays e4, Black to move&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;r1bbr1k1/pppn2pp/3ppn2/5p1q/2PPP3/BPN2NP1/P1Q2PBP/3R1RK1 b - - 23 12&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pushing the pawn to f4 gives up the pawn with no compensation, so should Black capture on e4 or play another move?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2130" LastActivityDate="2019-06-25T06:17:43.983" Title="Pawn confrontations: capture, push past, or leave the tension?" Tags="&lt;pawns&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6556" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6554" CreationDate="2014-10-08T12:19:50.973" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the very first pages of the book you will find &lt;em&gt;code system&lt;/em&gt;. It is described in 5 world languages and Serbian. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is important to know so you can see at the end of the line what is the final evaluation of the position, if there are any novelties or alternative moves and so on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then you can skip the pages all the way to the line you wish to investigate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Main line is written in bold font and the subvariations are given in normal font. This is the important part, and probably the one that confuses you:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you see a number next to the move, something like &lt;strong&gt;♘f3&lt;sup&gt;19&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; this means that there are alternative moves. You can find them by searching for that number ( in our case 19 ) in the section that comes after the main lines end. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Below is the picture of what I am talking about:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/u76Rk.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You seek the number next to the move in the section marked with an arrow, at the bottom of the picture. Instead of playing &lt;code&gt;♘f3&lt;/code&gt;, from our example above, you play the move from that section. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's it! If you have further questions leave me a comment ( for now there is nothing else I can do to help because your question is not specific enough ).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this helps, good luck!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastActivityDate="2014-10-08T12:19:50.973" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6557" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6551" CreationDate="2014-10-08T14:29:43.463" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;While it is extremely difficult for a human to beat the top chess engines, many of the mobile engines (like Driodfish) are still beatable. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;I will consider &lt;strong&gt;Driodfish 1.53&lt;/strong&gt; since that's the one currently installed on my Android phone and is similar to the one the OP is using.&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Engines are very good at tactics, so humans cannot realistically hope to beat them there. However, engines don't &quot;understand&quot; strategy. The top engines can cope with this because they simply think way too deep and can tactically compensate for lack of strategic understanding. They also have good evaluation functions. However, the weaker mobile engines still lack in this area. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the way to beat these engines is to achieve those kind of positions where strategically you have an edge at the cost of some temporary tactical disadvantage (like material). Engines can often be lured into such positions. For instance, consider this game I just played with Droidfish 1.53. At the cost of a pawn (temporary tactical disadvantage), I was able to secure a very strong advantage for myself many moves later. The computer failed to see this when it went for the material advantage - &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Wes&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Droidfish 1.53&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. c4 c6 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. e3 e6 5. Nf3 Nbd7 6. Qc2 Bd6 7. g4 Nxg4 &#xA;8. Rg1 h5 9. h3 Qf6 10. Be2 Nh6 11. e4 Bb4 12. Bg5 Qg6 13. Bd3 dxc4 &#xA;14. Bxc4 Qh7 15. O-O f6 16. Bxe6 fxg6 17. Nxg5 Qg6 18. f4 Bxc3 &#xA;19. bxc3 Qf6 20. f5 Nf8 21. e5 Qe7 22. Bxc8 Rxc8&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Droidfish 1.53 itself now evaluates this position as a clear advantage for White. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As great a player as Garry Kasparov himself employed this strategy in some of his games against the top engines of that time. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1260051&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Garry Kasparov vs Deep Junior 2003, Round 1, 1-0&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;  [White &quot;Garry Kasparov&quot;]&#xA;  [Black &quot;Deep Junior&quot;]&#xA;  [Date &quot;2003&quot;]     &#xA;&#xA;  1. d4 d5 2. c4 c6 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. e3 e6 5. Nf3 Nbd7 6. Qc2 Bd6 7. g4 dc4 &#xA;  8. Bc4 b6 9. e4 e5 10. g5 Nh5 11. Be3 O-O 12. O-O-O Qc7 13. d5 b5 &#xA;  14. dc6 bc4 15. Nb5 Qc6 16. Nd6 Bb7 17. Qc3 Rae8 18. Ne8 Re8 19. Rhe1 Qb5 &#xA;  20. Nd2 Rc8 21. Kb1 Nf8 22. Ka1 Ng6 23. Rc1 Ba6 24. b3 cb3 25. Qb3 Ra8 &#xA;  26. Qb5 Bb5 27. Rc7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1269887&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Garry Kasparov vs X3D Fritz 2003, Round 1 1/2-1/2&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;  [White &quot;Garry Kasparov&quot;]&#xA;  [Black &quot;X3D Fritz&quot;]&#xA;  [Date &quot;2003&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;   1. Nf3 d5 2. c4 c6 3. d4 Nf6 4. Nc3 e6 5. e3 Nbd7 6. Qc2 Bd6 7. g4 Bb4 &#xA;   8. Bd2 Qe7 9. Rg1 Bc3 10. Bc3 Ne4 11. O-O-O Qf6 12. Be2 Nf2 13. Rdf1 Ne4 &#xA;   14. Bb4 c5 15. cd5 ed5 16. dc5 Qe7 17. Nd4 O-O 18. Nf5 Qe5 19. c6 bc6 &#xA;   20. Bf8 Kf8 21. Ng3 Ndc5 22. Ne4 Ne4 23. Bd3 Be6 24. Be4 de4 25. Rf4 Bd5 &#xA;   26. Qc5 Kg8 27. Rgf1 Rb8 28. R1f2 Qc7 29. Rc2 Qd7 30. h4 Qd8 31. g5 Ba2 &#xA;   32. Re4 Qd3 33. Rd4 Qe3 34. Rcd2 Qe1 35. Rd1 Qe3 36. R1d2 Qg1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2429" LastEditorUserId="2429" LastEditDate="2014-10-08T14:39:11.163" LastActivityDate="2014-10-08T14:39:11.163" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6560" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4096" CreationDate="2014-10-08T18:42:51.223" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Something unusual, a bit crazy and probably incorrect... but defnitely worth a try, cuz it often works! Especially in blitz games. The variation I'm going to paste here is obviously after white has played badly, but a lot of people lose their minds when they face such a 'novelty'. When white plays correctly he gets some adventage obviously.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]  &#xA;1. e4 c5 2. c3 d5 3. exd5 Qxd5 4. d4 e5 5. dxe5 Qxd1 6. Kxd1 Nc6 7. f4 Bg4 8. Nf3 O-O-O 9. Kc2 Bf5 10. Kb3 c4 11. Kc4 Be6 12. Kb5 Rd5 13. Kc4 Na5#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course white blundered horribly with &lt;code&gt;9. Kc2&lt;/code&gt; which is losing. Anyway, this move looks natural when you have &lt;code&gt;c3&lt;/code&gt; played and that's probably why people are losing as white here. Of course &lt;code&gt;6. f4&lt;/code&gt; isn't neccessary, &lt;code&gt;6. Nf3&lt;/code&gt; is also okay. I like this variation, it's not drawish*, which is what you asked for. You sacrifice a pawn for a development and the initiative. It's fun to play, try yourself! Hope you like it and share your results with us.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*drawish is for example &lt;code&gt;4. Nf3 - Nc6 5. d4 - e5 6. Ne5 Ne5 7. de5 Qe5&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;edit&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I should have mentioned: if white doesn't fall for that 'trap', you shouldn't try to take back that &lt;code&gt;e5-pawn&lt;/code&gt; that brutally, but simply play &lt;code&gt;f6&lt;/code&gt; and recapture with your knight. It's like someone said &amp;quot;be quick or be dead&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3895" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2014-10-08T18:42:51.223" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6561" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6555" CreationDate="2014-10-08T19:24:55.593" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is too complex to have straight principles. Of course there are some patterns that you are going to recognize during your improvement and there are also easy things. I'm going to mention a few at the end of this post. First of all, let me refer to positions cited by you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Position #1&#xA;Key is calculating, always, and this is great example. First thing you should do is asking yourself: what can I do? Can I not react, keep the tension? The answer is 'No.'. Your &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; pawn is hanging. You can't play &lt;code&gt;d3&lt;/code&gt; because you'd lose your knight then. &lt;code&gt;Bd3&lt;/code&gt;? Too facticious obviously. So now comes the question: &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;exd5&lt;/code&gt;? Well, after &lt;code&gt;exd5 - Nxd5&lt;/code&gt; &lt;code&gt;c3&lt;/code&gt; is hanging, &lt;code&gt;f4&lt;/code&gt; is hanging, I don't really like it. There are moves like &lt;code&gt;Ba3&lt;/code&gt; but somehow I don't like playing such moves. To sum up, after a moment of fast calculation, I'd choose &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Position #2&#xA;You mentioned all the possibilities. Why do people choose &lt;code&gt;3. Nc3&lt;/code&gt; frequently? It's most aggressive, probably giving best chances. But it's also most complicated, definitely. &lt;code&gt;Nd2&lt;/code&gt; is also quite nice, if I recall correctly it's Micheal Adams' favourite choice. If you want a draw just exchange and develop your pieces. Positions after &lt;code&gt;3. exd5&lt;/code&gt; are mostly drawish. &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt; are for closed-positions-lovers. You should know what fits your play-style. If you are willing to be better at french, I suggest you nice video series on this topic by Rustam Kasimdzhanov, I think it's chessbases' stuff.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Position #3&#xA;It's also all theory. You can play exchange variation or keep tension. That's also something you should fit to your play-style. One thing is for sure, never play &lt;code&gt;4. c5&lt;/code&gt; here. That's losing advantage on the spot. Simple &lt;code&gt;4. ... - b6&lt;/code&gt; and you are not white anymore after few moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Position #4&#xA;It's calculation...again. As you correctly mentioned: playing &lt;code&gt;f4&lt;/code&gt; is pointless. It's giving up a pawn for literally free. So again, two choices here. If we don't take, what do we play? &lt;code&gt;f5&lt;/code&gt; is hanging, so let's defend it. We can play &lt;code&gt;g6&lt;/code&gt; and create additional holes or move our &lt;code&gt;Nd7&lt;/code&gt; to &lt;code&gt;f8&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;b6&lt;/code&gt; to discover your &lt;code&gt;Bc8&lt;/code&gt;. Once we jump anywhere (same after &lt;code&gt;g6&lt;/code&gt;) white is going to play &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt;. Black is too squeezed. His pieces are passive, his Queen is on &lt;code&gt;h5&lt;/code&gt; doing nothing. It's hard to find a continuation. And again, after few moments we are sure we should capture on &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt;. So &lt;code&gt;... - fxe4&lt;/code&gt; is a move here, then best to exchange Knights since when you are the passive one, you should look for exchanges.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now few easy positions with patterns or principles.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;4k3/pp3ppp/3p4/4p3/3PP3/8/PP3PPP/4K3 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You rather don't want to &lt;code&gt;exd4&lt;/code&gt; because your &lt;code&gt;d6&lt;/code&gt; pawn is weak then. (assuming there are more pieces of course.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;8/1p6/2p5/1PPp4/3P4/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You rather don't &lt;code&gt;cxb5&lt;/code&gt; because then your &lt;code&gt;d5-pawn&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;b7-pawn&lt;/code&gt; are weak. (assumption like above)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Those 2 above were pretty easy, now something more difficult (but not too difficult) and illustrative.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;8/p5pp/1p1bk3/PPp4P/2P1K1P1/8/4N3/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As white you should play &lt;code&gt;a6&lt;/code&gt; here. Whole point is in the future your plan will be something like that: &lt;code&gt;Nc1-b3-a5-c6&lt;/code&gt;. Taking advantage of impossible &lt;code&gt;bxa5&lt;/code&gt; because of &lt;code&gt;b6&lt;/code&gt;. Of course this must be calculated (again!) and well prepared. This is just and example of pattern. Unfortunately, this is probably impossible to paste you 1000 examples here. This comes along with experience and you will notice that for yourself. Those were just few examples, hope you get my point. Good luck!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3895" LastEditorUserId="15619" LastEditDate="2019-06-25T06:17:43.983" LastActivityDate="2019-06-25T06:17:43.983" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="6562" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-10-09T00:40:58.763" Score="0" ViewCount="719" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've heard that the most common evaluation unit is 1/100 of a Pawn. But some engines use 1/1000 of a Pawn as their evaluation unit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've also heard that Stockfish used 1/256 of a Pawn as its evaluation unit (although it was 5 years ago, maybe it has changed today).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So what about the strongest and best-know chess engines: Komodo, Houdini, Fritz, Hiarcs, Gull, etc... what evaluation unit do they use?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3237" LastActivityDate="2014-11-08T09:11:43.477" Title="What fraction of a Pawn do the most powerful chess engines (Komodo, Stockfish, Houdini, Fritz, Hiarcs, Gull, ...) use as their evaluation unit?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;programming&gt;&lt;point-value&gt;&lt;fritz&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6563" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-10-09T02:07:02.067" Score="0" ViewCount="471" Body="&lt;p&gt;As the title of the question says, I'm looking for a chess program that evaluates my playing and adapts its level to it. Maybe Lucas Chess does this (it's said that it does), but I found the tips of the movements I could play were full of mistakes... I don't have a lot of experience in this field and I know Lucas Chess is recommended by people who know chess much better than me.&#xA;But that was my experience.&#xA;So I started searching for other programs. I exchanged some e-mails with people at Schredder and they said the program does this, but it is expensive (in fact I don't mind, if it does this), and I want to do a good search. Maybe someone knows a good program for this kind of thing I'm trying to do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4010" LastActivityDate="2014-10-09T12:01:38.433" Title="Looking for a chess program that evaluates my playing and adapts its level to it" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;evaluation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6564" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6562" CreationDate="2014-10-09T09:07:50.380" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess engines use centi-pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Centipawns&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Centipawns&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2014-10-09T09:07:50.380" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6565" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-10-09T09:53:40.820" Score="3" ViewCount="965" Body="&lt;p&gt;Has anyone calculated the average Elo rating of a chess computer as a function of the number of half moves or plys ahead it can look. I realise that the Elo is also a function of the choice of move then taken which may differ from engine to engine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3999" LastEditorUserId="3999" LastEditDate="2014-10-09T15:36:53.007" LastActivityDate="2015-03-30T13:24:08.370" Title="What is the Elo rating of a chess computer that can only look 1, 2, 3, ... moves ahead" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;rating&gt;&lt;ply&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6566" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-10-09T11:31:01.100" Score="2" ViewCount="1994" Body="&lt;p&gt;The FIDE assigns a player not one but three different ratings:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;For classical games featuring long time controls, that is, 90 minutes for the first 40 moves + 30 minutes for the rest of the game + 30 seconds increment from move one, the players have a &lt;em&gt;standard rating&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;For games played with a time control of 15 minutes + 10 seconds increment, the players have a &lt;em&gt;rapid rating&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;For games played with a time control of 3 minutes + 2 seconds increment, the players have a &lt;em&gt;blitz rating&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A similar method for rating players is also implemented by many websites like &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chess.com&lt;/a&gt; and the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessclub.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;ICC&lt;/a&gt;. Why is this done? Wouldn't it be easier and more efficient to measure the global strength of a player to have only one rating?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;This question is based on one that was being closed because of being unclear what it was asking.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3890" LastEditorUserId="3890" LastEditDate="2014-10-09T21:33:26.657" LastActivityDate="2014-10-09T21:33:26.657" Title="Why the ratings used for different time controls are different?" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;elo&gt;&lt;fide&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6567" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-10-09T12:00:45.493" Score="3" ViewCount="363" Body="&lt;p&gt;In a 5-minute match a player makes an illegal move leaving his king in a check position. This usually gives the victory to the opponent, if he sees it and captures the king.&#xA;Otherwise, if the opponent doesn't claim the illegal move within 2 moves, the game just continues as if nothing happened.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But what happens, if the opponent runs out of time just before he captures the king?&#xA;Is it a time win, since the opponent didn't claim the illegal move within his time limit?&#xA;Or does the illegal move automatically lose, once it is noticed?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the illegal move automatically loses, that raises the following theoretical question:&#xA;What if nobody immediately sees the illegal move, and the game is considered to be lost on time. But after a while the opponent notices the illegal move and claims it. Is there a time limit to that, and how is it enforced after the clocks have stopped ticking?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And lastly, would the decision be any different, if the match was longer/shorter?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4014" LastActivityDate="2014-12-12T12:42:40.117" Title="Illegal move or forfeit on time - who wins this 5-minute match?" Tags="&lt;illegal-move&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6568" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6563" CreationDate="2014-10-09T12:01:38.433" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Shredder app for IOS/Android has the following (optional) feature:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The program assigns to you a starting Elo.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When you play it, it adjusts its internal strength to match your Elo.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;After the game, it adjusts your Elo based on the result.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The next game, it again adjusts its strength based on your Elo.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you win more, it becomes more competitive until you reach a stage where your win ratio reaches around 50%. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;About it being expensive - I recall paying about $5-10 for it, I guess it's up to you to decide whether that is worth the feature. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A few caveats from my experience:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The Elo calculated by Shredder is not a good estimate of your FIDE Elo. I stopped playing Shredder at around 1800, while my actual FIDE rating is less than 1600.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Shredder is better than most, but still not very good at simulating &quot;human&quot; play. This is especially noticeable at the lower strength settings - it will play like a GM for a few moves, then make a rather stupid tactical mistake, and then proceed to play like a GM.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are simply looking to have a bit of fun, then Shredder is great for that purpose, but if you are looking for a way to measure your playing strength as it would be against human opposition, it is simply not suitable for that - the only way you can measure how good you are against humans is to play humans.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1816" LastActivityDate="2014-10-09T12:01:38.433" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6569" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6566" CreationDate="2014-10-09T15:42:48.223" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Different (though related) skills are involved in standard chess and blitz chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The standard rating is the one that really &quot;counts&quot; as far as people's lists of the best chess players goes. So you don't want to contaminate that rating, used for hours-long serious games, with results from 5-minute games. The blitz and rapid ratings were introduced recently so that players' games at those time controls can count for something without affecting their &quot;real&quot; standard rating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2014-10-09T15:42:48.223" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6570" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6566" CreationDate="2014-10-09T15:47:14.827" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Take it from me. I am an 1750 ELOist in correspondence games, and a 1150 in blitz. Why would you ask? I am a very slow thinker. The ideas I spew out in blitz aren't as good. There is no time to remember theory, unlike in slow and correspondence chess.(You can check it if you forgot it in the latter) There are other players, such as Nakamura, that are much better in blitz and bullet rather than in slower chess. I can think of some in my chess club too!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the end, rating is but a number. Have fun!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3405" LastActivityDate="2014-10-09T15:47:14.827" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6571" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6566" CreationDate="2014-10-09T18:46:23.853" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Of course not! Blitz game and standard time game are two different games...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Wouldn't it be more easy and efficiento to measure the global stranght&#xA;  of a player to have only one rating?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is not much of a problem to divide ratings in those 3 categories. It's not people who calculate it, it's not a problem for a computer/system to do so. And 3 different ratings give you more clear picture of strength of given player at given 'mode'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course there are people who play similarily well blitz or classic (so they have 3 similar ratings) BUT on the other hand I know people that their ratings differ significantly. Once upon a time there was a GM on my team rated above 2500 FIDE who couldn't* play blitz games. He was losing to average players 2000-2100 every tournament. Those were times when we all had one rating. And I think there is no point for this guy to be 2500 in blitz tournaments when he loses 2nd or 3rd round in some random Open. And there are also players who play agressively and unclearly, tacticans. They know surprising variations which are obviously incorrect but...they have great successes in blitz games. So they are rated higher in this mode. I find this solution perfect!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3895" LastActivityDate="2014-10-09T18:46:23.853" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6572" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4096" CreationDate="2014-10-10T10:06:19.240" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I play the &lt;strong&gt;Accelerated Dragon&lt;/strong&gt;, which is kind of an universal response to &lt;code&gt;1.e4&lt;/code&gt;, and has the advantages of always being able to keep the positions into familiar territory for you: similar pawn structure, best squares for the pieces and many ideas are recurrent in different variations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Against the Alapin (&lt;code&gt;2.c3&lt;/code&gt;) Sicilian I suggest:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 c5 2.c3 (2.d4 cxd4 3.c3 g6 4.cxd4 d5!) g6 3.d4 cxd4 4.cxd4 d5! {This position may also arise from the Smith-Morra gambit as shown above, so you are cutting off studying time! And it's completely sound.} 5.e5 (5.exd5 {This is the most challenging approach, but because of the position being not exactly the most played, advancing feels more natural.}  Nf6 6. Nc3 Nxd5 {Some theorists suggest that this is hurrying too much to get the pawn back, but if you don't take it now you may end up struggling to get it back.} 7. Bc4 Nb6 8. Bb3 Bg7 {This is a sample line where black has driven the game into his territory and achieved an imbalanced position. A draw would be the most likely outcome though}) (5. Nc3 {This is a tricky sideline that's not much played, but worth knowing at least a few moves deep.} dxe4 6. Bc4 Bg7 7. Qb3 e6) {This is probably the move you'll face the most, so I'll expand more on it.} Nc6 6. Nc3 Bg7 7. Bb5 Nh6 {The knight goes to f5.} 8. Nge2 O-O 9. O-O Nf5 {Notice how the e pawn is not yet moved, you don't want to lock your bishop in.}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The main idea behind this move order is that white's interesting possibilities are highly restricted compared to others. If he goes for the most challenging approach, he would have to commit to an isolated &lt;code&gt;d&lt;/code&gt; pawn, which is not usually the taste of &lt;code&gt;1.e4&lt;/code&gt; players. If not, the'll have to play an improved version for black of the French Defense or try some &quot;one-move threat&quot; lines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You'll most likely face opponents that advance you on &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt;. The main idea for black is trying to put loads of pressure on the weak &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt; pawn. Moves like &lt;code&gt;Qb6&lt;/code&gt; are always to be looked at, specially since it could potentially be a double attack against also &lt;code&gt;b2&lt;/code&gt;. This is why white's bishop is developed to &lt;code&gt;b5&lt;/code&gt;, to avoid the double attack and to allow exchanging an attacker on said pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As said in the comments of the game, you &lt;em&gt;don't&lt;/em&gt; want to play &lt;code&gt;e6&lt;/code&gt; just yet. On some positions where black achieves the &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt; advance, the &lt;code&gt;Bc8&lt;/code&gt; simply doesn't play. Now, he has an alternative route and on some variations it even goes to &lt;code&gt;e6&lt;/code&gt; itself. This is why this position is, for black, much better than the ordinary French Defense position that it may &quot;transpose&quot; to.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This said, the main ideas of attacking on the queenside still hold, and an interesting move to know is a well-timed &lt;code&gt;f6&lt;/code&gt;. This little pawn break allows the &lt;code&gt;Bg7&lt;/code&gt; bishop to come into play with devastating effect, as the &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt; pawn normally cannot stand the pressure. Of course, such a move has to be always played carefully, but if &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt; would be possible in the near future, to take under control the whole center, it is definitely a good idea to consider it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Conclusion:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you like Dragon-like structures (or time is a big issue for you) and dynamic play, I encourage you to try this. The positions are essentially imbalanced, there is no queen trade in the near future and many tactical motifs typical from the Dragon are still playing an important role.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3890" LastActivityDate="2014-10-10T10:06:19.240" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6573" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6565" CreationDate="2014-10-10T11:20:33.620" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is an area that academic can write papers on it. The relationships is complicated and might not be quantified.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Essentially, it's a non-linear relationship where the improvement is most obvious in shallow depth. The benefit diminishes as the engine go deeper and deeper in the search.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Reference: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Depth&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Depth&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Look for the &quot;Diminishing Returns&quot; section and you'll know more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2014-10-10T11:20:33.620" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6574" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-10-10T12:13:18.053" Score="15" ViewCount="4290" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am losing a game. My only option is to check my opponent non stop. I have no chance to checkmate him. I am only hoping to force a draw. Is this proper chess etiquette?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4020" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2016-10-09T00:03:44.687" LastActivityDate="2016-10-16T19:28:00.887" Title="He has two queens. I have one. Is it proper chess etiquette to check him non stop just to avoid losing?" Tags="&lt;draw&gt;&lt;etiquette&gt;&lt;check&gt;&lt;perpetual&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6575" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6574" CreationDate="2014-10-10T13:23:52.490" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;What you are describing is Perpetual Check: &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perpetual_check&quot;&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perpetual_check&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is covered in the rules of chess and the result of such a game is a draw. It is up to your opponent to try and avoid this situation if he thinks he can win. Conversely, if you might lose you should try to get into some kind of draw situation to avoid a loss.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anecdote: A queen vs. queen, knight, and bishop did the same thing at the club quick tournament last night.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3445" LastActivityDate="2014-10-10T13:23:52.490" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6576" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6574" CreationDate="2014-10-10T13:56:45.540" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, it is proper chess etiquette. You are not obliged to resign if you have an inferior position. If you can force a 3-move repetition draw by non-stop checks (called &quot;&lt;strong&gt;perpetual checks&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;) you definitely should. Players at the highest level have done this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In fact, we even celebrate some games which have ended with perpetual check by the side with the weaker material. Consider the famous &quot;&lt;strong&gt;Immortal Draw&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; game - &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1250160&quot;&gt;Carl Hamppe vs Philipp Meitner 1872, 1/2-1/2&lt;/a&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  [Event &quot;Vienna&quot;]&#xA;  [Site &quot;Vienna&quot;]&#xA;  [Date &quot;1872&quot;]&#xA;  [Result &quot;1/2-1/2&quot;]&#xA;  [White &quot;Carl Hamppe&quot;]&#xA;  [Black &quot;Philipp Meitner&quot;]&#xA;  [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;  1. e4 e5 2. Nc3 Bc5 3. Na4 Bxf2+ 4. Kxf2 Qh4+ 5. Ke3 Qf4+ &#xA;  6. Kd3 d5 7. Kc3 Qxe4 8. Kb3 Na6 9. a3 Qxa4+ 10. Kxa4 Nc5+&#xA;  11. Kb4 a5+ 12. Kxc5 Ne7 13. Bb5+ Kd8 14. Bc6 b6+ 15. Kb5 Nxc6&#xA;  16. Kxc6 Bb7+ 17. Kb5 Ba6+ 18. Kc6 Bb7+ 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2429" LastActivityDate="2014-10-10T13:56:45.540" CommentCount="11" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6577" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="7592" CreationDate="2014-10-10T18:22:29.957" Score="2" ViewCount="1058" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been a Chess.com user for a little over 3 years now. I play EVERY day, usually have anywhere from 10 to 50 games going on any single day.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since I've started, my rating has only gone up about 150 points. For the past 6 months, my Elo has stayed fairly close to 1400.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know Chess.com has the feature of evaluating the games that I've played and suggests what I did wrong, but I have to request all of those games to be reviewed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there another tool/app that can evaluate the strength of individual moves during each and every game, that would tell me the &quot;strength&quot; of the move? For example, if I stupidly put my queen in a position where the opponent can take it, then that's a blunder and would be rated very poorly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or, is there a way to automate all of the Chess.com games to be reviewed by the engine to determine how I did in each?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3104" LastEditorUserId="3890" LastEditDate="2014-10-10T19:14:55.427" LastActivityDate="2014-10-12T23:41:24.353" Title="Evaluating Elo rating on a per move basis" Tags="&lt;elo&gt;&lt;evaluation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="8" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6578" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6577" CreationDate="2014-10-11T00:14:07.010" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, such tools exist and they are called chess engines. Look at &lt;a href=&quot;http://stockfishchess.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;stockfish&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cruxis.com/chess/houdini.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;houdini&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.rybkachess.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;rybka&lt;/a&gt; there are a lot of &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.playwitharena.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;GUIs&lt;/a&gt; (graphical user interfaces for them). They will report inaccuracies, mistakes and blunders and will show you better lines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nonetheless you will be able to automate this process, but the question is 'what will you do' when the engine will analyse your ~ 33.000 games? To actually get something from this analysis - you need to go step by step through a game and make some thinking. So I would rather forget about all those games (may be selecting a few that you think are super cool) and start analyse new games that you will play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also irrelevant to the question, but as suggested by others learning chess and playing chess is completely different (also might sound the same). I have seen many players who play tens of games per day (mostly 1-3 minutes, where half of the moves are completely random). They randomly win/draw/lose, but stay on the same rating, because they do not learn from their mistakes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From my own experience (which basically means nothing) I was staying at the same 1400 rating for 4 month randomly playing games. I also thought that this might help, but it did not. Then I started to analyse my games and played longer games (10 minutes), play puzzles and learn openings. I played at maximum 4 games per day and in 6 months I was able to boost it to 1800 and improve it even further later. Take a look at &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/6318/703&quot;&gt;my answer&lt;/a&gt; to see some insights how you can advance your game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="703" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.193" LastActivityDate="2014-10-11T00:14:07.010" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6579" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5356" CreationDate="2014-10-11T03:54:13.990" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess is a game of &quot;war between two kingdoms&quot;. One potential war action is a siege. Sieges have a couple general outcomes -- either the kingdom under siege collapses and the kingdom is lost or it withstands the siege until the attacking army is forced to withdraw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the siege can be withstood, if there are sufficient resources to outwait the enemy, the result is a 'stalemate'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's essentially the underlying basis. It's not possible for the attackers to breach the defenses, and the defenders cannot escape but rather must stay within the defensive position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4034" LastActivityDate="2014-10-11T03:54:13.990" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6581" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="6583" CreationDate="2014-10-11T15:38:12.973" Score="3" ViewCount="380" Body="&lt;p&gt;This position is from a game I played.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/yU4rR.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I played &lt;code&gt;Bxa1&lt;/code&gt;. I'm wondering if instead of &lt;code&gt;Bxa1&lt;/code&gt; I played &lt;code&gt;Bxe5&lt;/code&gt; then he might have played &lt;code&gt;fxe5&lt;/code&gt; then I play &lt;code&gt;Bd3+&lt;/code&gt;. Is that a better continuation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I didn't like his pawn on e5 threatening my knight and wasn't able to find a way to get anything out of the position beside his rook, so i decided to play the simpler move, &lt;code&gt;Bxa1&lt;/code&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1105" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2014-10-11T17:45:08.197" LastActivityDate="2014-10-11T17:45:08.197" Title="Is it better to take the knight in this position?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6582" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6581" CreationDate="2014-10-11T16:11:58.547" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;1... Bxa1 2. Rxa1 Be4 will remove another piece from the game leaving you a rook up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1... Be4 is also a possibility since you'd be threatening to win the bishop on g2. If he trades the bishop, you recapture with the knight and now you're threatening the fork on g3 as well as the rook on a1.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I probably prefer the simpler Bxa1. You're already up a piece and a pawn. White has no compensation. There's no reason to complicate things.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2014-10-11T16:11:58.547" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6583" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6581" CreationDate="2014-10-11T16:12:30.403" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the initial diagram position, Black is already so much material ahead that either &lt;code&gt;1...Bxa1&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;1...Bxe5&lt;/code&gt; keeps an overwhelming advantage. But &lt;code&gt;1...Bxa1&lt;/code&gt; is the most straightforward, and in any case White need not allow &lt;code&gt;2...Bd3+&lt;/code&gt; after &lt;code&gt;1...Bxe5 2.Nxe5&lt;/code&gt;. Black can first kick the knight with &lt;code&gt;1...b5&lt;/code&gt; before following with &lt;code&gt;2...Bxe5&lt;/code&gt; to get the &lt;code&gt;...Bd3+&lt;/code&gt; idea in; that also keeps a huge plus for Black, but still the simple &lt;code&gt;1...Bxa1&lt;/code&gt; is cleanest.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;????.??.??&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;*&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;3r1rk1/pp2npp1/4pn2/4Nb1p/2Nb1P2/1P4PP/P3K1B1/R4R2 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1...Bxa1 &#xA;    ( 1...Bxe5 $6 {Black starts out ahead so much material that this is &#xA;    perfectly fine, but it is not best, and sloppy if nothing else.} 2.&#xA;    Nxe5 {Covering d3, so Black cannot pick up the additional exchange via&#xA;    ...Bd3+.} &#xA;        ( 2.fxe5 Bd3+ 3.Ke1 Nd7 {Black is winning handily, but won't be up&#xA;        a whole rook and pawn immediately as in the main line.} 4.Bxb7 &#xA;        Bxc4 5.bxc4 Nxe5 )&#xA;    )&#xA;    ( 1...b5 {An attempt to improve on the 1...Bxe5 line, but to no avail,&#xA;    and still not as good as just snapping off the rook immediately.} 2.&#xA;    Ne3 Bxe5 {Black's first move has deprived White of the knight &#xA;    recapture, but we end up in much the same position as after 1...Bxe5 &#xA;    2.fxe5 Bd3+ 3.Ke1 anyway.} 3.fxe5 Bd3+ 4.Ke1 Nd7 5.Rf2 Nxe5 )&#xA;2.Rxa1 &#xA;    {Black is simply up a rook and pawn with an easily winning position.}&#xA;*&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2014-10-11T16:12:30.403" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6585" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="7584" CreationDate="2014-10-11T19:38:23.720" Score="4" ViewCount="446" Body="&lt;p&gt;Does anybody know if there is a standard &quot;place&quot; to keep the scoresheets of past games? I am currently using a photo album since the size of developed photos is more or less the size of my scoresheet when I fold it once, but I would like something more &quot;professional&quot; (that is, less homespun).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know that there are &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/B007GPE6N4&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;scorebooks&lt;/a&gt;, but that would mean that I have to write up again all my games. I would like to keep the scoresheets, and if possible for fast review (for preparation purposes).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3890" LastActivityDate="2016-05-25T04:27:35.757" Title="Where to keep the scoresheet" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;scoresheet&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6586" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2014-10-11T19:39:32.867" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In rated over-the-board games, the official piece of paper where the moves are recorded.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3890" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2014-10-12T00:17:07.237" LastActivityDate="2014-10-12T00:17:07.237" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="6587" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2014-10-11T19:39:32.867" Score="0" Body="The piece of paper where the moves are recorded." OwnerUserId="3890" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2014-10-12T00:17:00.727" LastActivityDate="2014-10-12T00:17:00.727" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7584" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6585" CreationDate="2014-10-11T20:20:21.957" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;A cigar box is one way that I've heard of in the past.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Those scorebooks are totally 100% absolutely worth it btw. It's vastly more organized than having hundreds of loose sheets.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3270" LastActivityDate="2014-10-11T20:20:21.957" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7585" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="7586" CreationDate="2014-10-12T09:33:34.900" Score="1" ViewCount="1079" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am looking for books in the Benoni where this sequence of moves is played, so:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 c5 3.d5 e6 4. Nc3 exd5 5. cxd5 d6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And black's plan after that is g6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also if possible that it can be electronically downloaded/bought.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3405" LastActivityDate="2014-10-25T17:03:01.250" Title="Looking for books on the Benoni" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;modern-benoni&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7586" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7585" CreationDate="2014-10-12T11:14:45.267" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Depending on what you are looking for, there are a few interesting books. If you are looking for a book to start to learn the opening, I suggest you take a look at:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1857443667&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Starting out: Modern Benoni&lt;/a&gt; by Endre Dr. Vegh.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In such case, you may also want to round up your repertoire with the companion book:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1857443799&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Starting out: Benoni Systems&lt;/a&gt; by Alex Raetsky.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which provides a more complete coverage of some similar lines (but not exactly the same, although some intersection is inevitable) that are not exactly achieved through the main move order.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you already know how to play or what you want to play and are looking only for ideas, then the Dangerous Weapons book is definitely what you may want to check:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1857445716&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Dangerous Weapons: The Benoni and Benko&lt;/a&gt; by several authors.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Last but not least, if you are already a well versed player on the Modern Benoni and just want to keep up with some theoretical developments in the last years, and what trends are being followed, I strongly suggest the book:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/185744681X&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chess Developments: The Modern Benoni&lt;/a&gt; by Richard Pallister.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My experience with the Chess Development series arises from the &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1857446755&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Dragon&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1857446895&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Grunfeld&lt;/a&gt; books, which definitely are worth the money if that is what you are looking for.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I obviously have not fully read them all. I have read a couple of chapters of the first three books, and the last one comes from my experience with the series as a whole.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3890" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2014-10-12T19:55:13.337" LastActivityDate="2014-10-12T19:55:13.337" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7587" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7585" CreationDate="2014-10-12T16:30:25.437" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1907982590&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Grandmaster Repertoire: The Modern Benoni&lt;/a&gt; by Marian Petrov comes highly recommended, ideas are explained and there are many variations to choose from, as is charateristic of the GM repertoire series. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3357" LastActivityDate="2014-10-12T16:30:25.437" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7588" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="7590" CreationDate="2014-10-12T16:48:39.027" Score="9" ViewCount="9017" Body="&lt;p&gt;We have a small local chess club group on Facebook and chess.com, and we want to organize a small event where all the members can play against each other. We will ask players who play for the national teams to join. If they do, it's going to be big, and therefore I need to organize it in a decent way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are 5 admins for the group. One is me, two living abroad and can't make it, another one who can't make it because of some other reason, and the fifth isn't active. I don't know if he's alive, to be honest. :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So from the looks of it, it seems as though I will be responsible for organizing it. I might ask some members to help me since I'm disabled. I haven't joined any chess clubs because they are too far from my home, therefore I have basic questions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These are my questions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Do you buy chessboards for the players? Or, are the players responsible for getting them? If so, what happens if a player doesn't bring his board with him? And if it's my responsibility to buy boards, how many should I buy? Half the number of the participants, or a board for each one? What about the quality of the boards? Do they have to be made out of wood or decent plastic or would anything do?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Do I have to buy the score sheets? Or, are they not important for small friendly events?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Do I have to divide them into groups? What if I don't know their Elo? Do I let them play each other randomly 2500 vs 1200 Elo? :) or do I ask for age?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What is the ideal location? An internet cafe? a restaurant? or should I ask a local chess club to open the doors for us for 1 event, maybe that way, the boards, and everything will be ready. But what if they refuse, what's the plan b, outside of a chess club?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;How many trophies are there usually? 3? I want to know so I can buy them.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Should I play or should I just be an organizer? What if there's a problem? Should members play the roles of arbiters, when they are not playing?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is there a question I should have asked and didn't? Did I forget about something? Anything else I need to know?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: I ust want to say that the vice president will take care of some details indicated in the answer below.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1105" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-01-31T01:48:02.980" LastActivityDate="2021-01-31T01:48:02.980" Title="What do you need in order to organize a chess tournament?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;tournament&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="7" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="7590" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7588" CreationDate="2014-10-12T20:39:33.920" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;A few things should come first, others can come later.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One, &lt;strong&gt;what type of event do you want to run?&lt;/strong&gt; Several of the later questions depend on how formal the event is going to be, and people need to know what kind of an event it will be before they know whether they want to come at all. You have zero experience and mention the word casual, so we'll go for very casual, fun, not formal at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Two, &lt;strong&gt;how many people can you reasonably expect?&lt;/strong&gt; You need to know a minimum number (if fewer than this number of people have registered a week before the tournament, we'll need to cancel), and a maximum (we can't accommodate more than this number of people). This ties in with important question three.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Three, &lt;strong&gt;how long do you want it to take&lt;/strong&gt;. Will this be a whole day tournament, only an evening? Are you thinking of blitz, or rapid, or standard? If it's standard, you can only fit one or two games into an evening, but a whole blitz tournament easily goes. The time control that most says &quot;fun and casual&quot; to me is 10 minutes per game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Four, &lt;strong&gt;the venue&lt;/strong&gt;. This differs by type of event (we're casual), and before you start looking for one you need to know roughly what size you want, and after you've arranged it, this decides the min and max people. You'll also need a very different venue if you want it for one day or for the evening. I would &lt;em&gt;definitely&lt;/em&gt; contact the local chess club, because hey, they're the local chess club! They might even enjoy helping you out with all this stuff for fun (in my country anyway, these are purely amateur organizations doing chess stuff as a hobby). Other than that, when I think casual chess tournament with people I know from the Internet, I think &lt;em&gt;lots of beer&lt;/em&gt;. Look for tables in local bars, or event rooms at local bars, that sort of thing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You'll also have a &lt;strong&gt;date&lt;/strong&gt; by now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So now you can tell people, &lt;em&gt;&quot;We're doing a fun and casual, 10 minute / game rapid tournament, unrated, time X on date Y in venue Z. Please register if you want to come!&quot;&lt;/em&gt;&#xA;No, wait, you can't -- &lt;strong&gt;you don't know yet how much it's going to cost!&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's talk a little bit about systems. Formal competitive chess tournaments often apply the &lt;em&gt;Swiss System&lt;/em&gt;. It's very fair, you play against people who have the same number of points as you have, you get more or less equal numbers of black and white, and often the best players wins. &lt;strong&gt;It's a nightmare to run correctly&lt;/strong&gt;, mainly because you have to get all the results after each round, enter them all correctly into the computer (or do it by hand, let's not) and then print out new pairings and find out something has always gone wrong. And even if it goes perfectly, people have to wait until the last game of the round is finished all the time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Let the players do the work&lt;/strong&gt;. For groups up to around 10 players or so where everybody plays everybody, there are &quot;Berger tables&quot; with pairings for each round: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.tournamentdirector.co.uk/berger_pairings.html&quot;&gt;http://www.tournamentdirector.co.uk/berger_pairings.html&lt;/a&gt; . Show the players the pairings table, and let them fill in the results on a form you have printed out beforehand. No work for you during the tournaments.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you have too many players (too many rounds for the time you have the venue), there's the &lt;strong&gt;Amsterdam System&lt;/strong&gt;: first put players in small groups, of 4 or 6 people. Make one player the leader of that group, and give him a form for it. Let them play a little subtournament. When all subtournaments are done, make a ranking of all the players based on the points they got, then make new groups based on that. A finals group with all the best players, second group with the second best, etc. The key is that during most of the tournaments, the players are doing the administration and it all goes a lot faster.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Oh yes, &lt;strong&gt;your questions&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chessboards: You're not going to become a chess club, are you? Try to borrow some from the chess club, and otherwise let people bring their own. Let them bring clocks, too! White player has choice of set.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Buying score sheets: Not necessary in an informal rapid tournament.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Dividing into groups: Not necessary in an informal rapid tournament (and in the Amsterdam System, they end up in the right group soon enough anyway).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Location: mentioned some things already.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Trophies: &lt;strong&gt;More is always better&lt;/strong&gt;. Prizes can be silly things, I've won Tupperware stuff at great chess tournaments. Bottles of wine always work well as top prizes, but the golden rule is that more than half the people should go home with at least a tiny something. Besides the obvious best junior, best female, best organizer, prize for the guy who came last, prize for the guy who came second to last and expected he didn't have to come up and collect a prize, player whose performance was least noticeable, etc etc. Prize givings like these are great memories for everyone, and any other kind is instantly forgotten. And don't do money prizes, you're a casual tournament.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Play yourself: You &lt;em&gt;can&lt;/em&gt;, but you better have everything for pairings and results exactly planned out, and it's going to be hectic. Playing arbiters: formal arbiters aren't necessary in a purely informal tournament without money prizes, but if there are any actual arbiters or very experienced players in your group, that's very helpful to know. Make them the Committee of Appeal and let them handle people who argue.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And now I need to sleep. HTH.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(I still don't know about the cost. It's venue + prizes / number of players, but if the venue cost is fixed and you don't know the number of players, you have to fiddle it to prevent too much risk for yourself)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Addendum: and &lt;strong&gt;don't do this alone&lt;/strong&gt;. Some assistants when it gets all hectic are needed)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastEditorUserId="924" LastEditDate="2014-10-12T20:44:45.603" LastActivityDate="2014-10-12T20:44:45.603" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7591" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6146" CreationDate="2014-10-12T22:44:09.080" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to my analysis, it seems like a clear win. Black can't force the exchange of the remaining white pawn,  White has the Bishop of the appropriate color, and Black can't prevent White to improve the position of its pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An important tactical finesse: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1..Ke5 2.Kg2 Rxe1 3. Re7+&lt;/strong&gt;, winning the Rook.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another important idea: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1..g4 2. Rf6 g3 3. Rg6!&lt;/strong&gt; (3. Rxh6 g2+ 4. Kxg2 Rxf1 5. Rf6 =) &lt;strong&gt;3..Ra5 4. Rg4+&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and the g pawn falls.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Note that 2. Kg2 is also possible, with the same idea as above.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It should be a matter of time for Black to lose its remaining pawns, since the black King is cut off from them.  I can't offer any concrete lines, so perhaps I'm wrong here. But what I know is that &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;W: &lt;strong&gt;Kf1, Be1, Rh6, h5&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;B: &lt;strong&gt;Ra1, Kf5&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;is a win in the tablebases. It does not seem to be possible to prevent White to play Rh8 and h5-h6, after which the pawn is immune. As soon as it gets attacked by some Rh2, White has Rg8+, repeating the same tactical theme as above, or Bd2, protecting the pawn directly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've played some games with an extra Black pawn, and I have yet to save one game against Stockfish. One annoying bug of having a pawn on g4 is that black King can't move on g4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4042" LastActivityDate="2014-10-12T22:44:09.080" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7592" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6577" CreationDate="2014-10-12T23:41:24.353" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is there another tool/app that can evaluate the strength of individual moves during each and every game, that would tell me the &quot;strength&quot; of the move?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To be able to evaluate the strength of individual moves, one needs to estimate the difficulty level of the position. This estimation rests on two ingredients: the ability to evaluate the position (almost) perfectly, and a sample of responses for that position from a pool of players with different strength. This is thus an empirical question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For tactical training, there are straightforward implementations, such as this one:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chesstempo.com/user-guide/en/tacticRatingSystem.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://chesstempo.com/user-guide/en/tacticRatingSystem.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can add to the accuracy of a solution a time element:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chess.emrald.net/time.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://chess.emrald.net/time.php&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For &lt;em&gt;any&lt;/em&gt; kind of position, I believe it's still an open problem. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A related question is the &lt;em&gt;optimality&lt;/em&gt; of play. To that effect, Guid &amp;amp; Bratko did an interesting study:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The basis for their evaluation was the difference between the position values resulting from the moves played by the human chess player and the moves chosen as best by the chess program Crafty. They compared the average number of errors in the player's game. Opening moves were excluded, in an attempt to negate the progress in chess opening theory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_top_chess_players_throughout_history&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_top_chess_players_throughout_history&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But such study cannot estimate the strength of a player as requested by the querent. It can only evaluate optimality of play, and order players according to this evaluation. This does not give ELO or complexity of any given move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4042" LastActivityDate="2014-10-12T23:41:24.353" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7593" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6585" CreationDate="2014-10-13T06:03:21.317" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I used to keep scoresheets in the past, but it's tedious to keep them. Firstly, you may not recognise the writing that you recorded in hurry during the game. Besides, it is hard to be systematic with them: a single shuffle will make your games jumble up, and it will waste a lot of time. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, instead of doing it manually, I do it electronically. The main recommendation of mine is chess apps. For me, it's just Droidfish. You can get them on apps stores and it is free. Now comes the fun part. You can input your game by manual, which is playing out moves on your phone in double player mode and save it. You can also play the moves out in programs and get its pgn, then input into your phone using a cable. Either way its good.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Alternatively, chess5.com is a good website to keep your games. And do remember, if you use droidfish, keep a copy of the pgn file of your game in your computer in case your phone breaks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Have fun&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3381" LastActivityDate="2014-10-13T06:03:21.317" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7594" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="7595" CreationDate="2014-10-13T06:56:37.137" Score="8" ViewCount="781" Body="&lt;p&gt;How many chess variant are there? (Apparently a lot.) If possible could you include the popularity of each variant and its major event. For example, I know that there's a US bughouse chess championship. The list doesn't have to be comprehensive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3381" LastEditorUserId="417" LastEditDate="2014-10-13T15:19:47.823" LastActivityDate="2019-01-24T21:31:21.483" Title="A list of chess variants and their popularity" Tags="&lt;chess-variants&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7595" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7594" CreationDate="2014-10-13T07:50:21.920" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;To simply name a few of the variants here would need a huge amount of space, because there are many. However, you have a list of variations in the Wikipedia entry:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_variant&quot;&gt;Chess variant&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This entry is not comprehensive, and a few variations that cannot be found there appear in the webpage:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessvariants.org/alphabet.html&quot;&gt;Alphabetical Index of Chess variants&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These sites do not come with popularity rankings, and the same way chess itself probably does not have a &quot;major&quot; event (one could consider the World Chess Championship to be it, but as only two players play and the number of games and funds has been so drastically reduced, I'm not sure anymore), probably there is not a single &quot;major&quot; event for these variants too. However, to a certain extent, the length of the Wikipedia article on a certain variation can measure its popularity, so I suggest you take a look at the Wikipedia category:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Chess_variants&quot;&gt;Category: Chess variant&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3890" LastActivityDate="2014-10-13T07:50:21.920" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7596" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="7597" CreationDate="2014-10-13T08:03:35.573" Score="3" ViewCount="333" Body="&lt;p&gt;Many times one can read in chess magazines the world &quot;beautiful&quot;. Comments like &quot;that move/combination/execution/problem/solution was beautiful&quot; are our daily bread when we read game analysis. What are the characteristics a move, combination, execution, position or other have to have for it to be considered beautiful? How the concept of aesthetically pleasing can be understood in chess?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3890" LastActivityDate="2015-07-18T21:07:19.950" Title="The beauty of chess" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;theory&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7597" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7596" CreationDate="2014-10-13T09:12:07.537" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Aesthetics is a philosophical question, and hence the answer you get will depend greatly on the philosophical views of the person. As a scientific realist, I believe that our sense of aesthetic beauty is defined by how our brain processes respond to a sensual stimulus (in this case a chess problem/combination/tactic), which in turn is driven by our evolutionary history.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So in this context, what properties make a chess problem &quot;beautiful&quot;, and why those specific properties? Take all this with a massive heap of salt, since I'm not an evolutionary psychologist or philosopher of aesthetics:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Efficiency: We prefer solutions that do not involve unnecessary moves, or wastage of resources.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Intention: We prefer a solution that was intentionally planned to one that simply happened out of chance. This may be because we like to be in control of our actions.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Harmony: We like solutions where pieces work together to achieve a goal - this can be related to a desire to use resources effectively, which in turn is also about efficiency.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Perfect play: we prefer solutions where the opponent is not required to blunder in order to achieve our goal - this could be due to a desire to be clinical and leave nothing up to chance.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Simplification: A sequence of moves that transposes a complex scenario into a simple advantage may relate to our need to take control of a situation.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1816" LastActivityDate="2014-10-13T09:12:07.537" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7599" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="7600" CreationDate="2014-10-13T09:28:26.957" Score="0" ViewCount="272" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just played chess on my mac and the computer (black) won. Here's the final board:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/bBwdr.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Final board&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why couldn't I, white, use my king (D4) to take the black queen (C5)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4045" LastActivityDate="2014-10-13T09:34:15.343" Title="Why did the computer win?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;winning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7600" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7599" CreationDate="2014-10-13T09:34:15.343" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Because the queen is protected by the bishop on A3. Therefore its checkmate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user3598" LastActivityDate="2014-10-13T09:34:15.343" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7601" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-10-13T11:18:33.970" Score="2" ViewCount="342" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have a friend who is an improving chess player. He wants to progress in his game. The problem with him is that he plays really good with much stronger opponents but, often lose many games surprisingly with even much weaker opponent &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;which makes him less-confident&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;. I really want to solve his problem by understanding his psychology but i can't. Would anyone like to help me to solve his problem?  Is there any chess course to help him out... ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4046" LastEditorUserId="1816" LastEditDate="2014-10-13T12:35:27.757" LastActivityDate="2020-03-06T16:21:28.690" Title="Chess Psychology" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;psychology&gt;&lt;programming&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7603" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7601" CreationDate="2014-10-13T14:05:35.763" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think it's absolutely natural: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Playing against strong players is often much easier. You can’t lose anything, you can only win. I personally have often the problem playing against strong players that I think I probably will lose and am too much passive, that my opponent often has too much time to rise his power against my vulnerable kingside.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Playing against weak players can rise pain of losing. Each player has to be aware, that losing against a weaker player is not a shame, it often depends that the outcome of an unusual opening will be unclear.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would give him following advice to improve his chess skills playing against weaker player:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If he plays against weak player he should play continuous and not try to create complicate mating nets which are often unclear.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;May be he should play many times in succession against weak player in order to reduce his worry of losing.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;He should read good books about chess psychology. I personally have profited much studying the book &quot;&lt;strong&gt;Devious Chess - How to bend the rules and win&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;, a book from Amatzia Avni, a master chess psychologist who has studied psychology in Israel and has written a number of books on chess psychology, published by Batsford.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4047" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-06T16:20:16.703" LastActivityDate="2020-03-06T16:20:16.703" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="7604" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="7605" CreationDate="2014-10-13T19:41:02.607" Score="2" ViewCount="786" Body="&lt;p&gt;Spanish exchange: &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruy_Lopez,_Exchange_Variation&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruy_Lopez,_Exchange_Variation&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Using the image in the Wiki page, after 4 ... dxc6, why can't white just respond by Nxe5, thereby gaining advantage by having one more pawn?  None of the books / articles I have read has ever even discussed this move...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4049" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2014-10-13T20:38:21.330" LastActivityDate="2014-10-13T20:38:21.330" Title="What's the problem with 5. Nxe5 in Spanish Exchange?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;ruy-lopez&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7605" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7604" CreationDate="2014-10-13T19:46:56.690" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;After 5. Nxe5, black has two ways to recover the pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first is 5... Qd4, forking the knight on e5 and the pawn on e4. White cannot defend both so has to move his knight, after which black takes on e4 with check and has a fine game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The second is 5... Qg5, forking the knight on e5 and the pawn on g2. White again has to move his knight, leaving black free to take on g2 and gain a tempo attacking white's rook.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3270" LastActivityDate="2014-10-13T19:46:56.690" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7606" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7601" CreationDate="2014-10-13T20:13:08.923" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think it's really a common problem. Many people facing stronger opponents are playing for a draw, even as white. I think that the key is to wait and let them commit mistakes instead of going Rambo-mode. I did it myself on Sunday. I lost a game to a much weaker opponent just because I went kamikaze instead of pushing the wood slowly. He should try to stay cool. A draw is not a bad result at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3895" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-06T16:21:28.690" LastActivityDate="2020-03-06T16:21:28.690" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="7607" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-10-14T17:54:40.170" Score="5" ViewCount="3240" Body="&lt;p&gt;Since computers have surpassed by now all humans, it should be very easy for it to emulate a strength of an weaker player. So the idea is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Supply a number of games&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The computer ajusts its options (Rating, Cowardice, Pawn Structure play, etc) to the player&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For people who think the behavior of an engine cannot be changed to fit nearly a human:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://wbec-ridderkerk.nl/html/UCIProtocol.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://wbec-ridderkerk.nl/html/UCIProtocol.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can set the options to be correct, but I was looking for an program to fit those options more or less.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also ChessMaster has multiple characters you can play against, and I think they have some well defined traits : Passive, values bishops, etc. I think it is possible to find those preferences if you put enough games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3405" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2014-11-02T22:56:03.033" Title="How to make a computer play like a player?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;style&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7608" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7607" CreationDate="2014-10-14T23:53:34.863" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I couldn't make one play like a human.  But it could play less than perfect. Have it select its move randomly from the top &quot;n&quot; moves, where lower value of &quot;n&quot; denote higher strength.  n=1 would mean the computer would play the best move every time.  An n of 2 would mean the machine would select randomly between the best 2 moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There would have to be exceptions to allow the machine to make immediate recaptures, etc., so it doesn't simply drop pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would venture that I, as a &quot;B&quot; player, could not beat Stockfish with n=10.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2014-10-14T23:53:34.863" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7609" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7607" CreationDate="2014-10-15T00:23:56.917" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;Firstly, you &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;must understand&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; how an engine plays chess, because if you don't you'll never understand why it's hard. Without going into too much technical details, an engine doesn't think. Even the most powerful chess engine in the world don't know how to play chess, they examine hundreds and thousands of positions. For each position, the engine uses some heuristic to derive a static evaluation for each position. The engine uses a technique known as alpha-beta to derive the overall optimal evaluation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The key point to note that chess engine doesn't know how to play chess, it's simply a calculator. It doesn't know how to adjust itself from games, simply because it doesn't understand anything about chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's &lt;strong&gt;very easy&lt;/strong&gt; to tune down an engine's strength, but making it to play truly like a human is awfully hard. A chess engine never blunders, never forgets anything, never panic because you launch a king-side attack, never biased towards particular opponents etc. The way computer makes a move is simply very different to how you make a move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'll give you an example. Have you tried those weak playing levels in a chess app? Yes, you beat them easily, but that might be because they gave you a pawn for absolutely no reason and not under any pressure. Those engines were programmed to simulate blunders, but they couldn't simulate pressure, they just randomly blunder pawns and pieces. This is not a human play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Programmers have tried to optimize an engine based on machine learning but with little success.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2014-10-15T00:23:56.917" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7610" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7607" CreationDate="2014-10-15T00:24:15.770" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am not really sure I understand your question: are you asking how to do this, or pushing your ideas for others to evaluate? In any case, let me try.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First of all why do people say that computer can not play like a human. To support such claim there should be at least some studies which tells that a human can determine (with some accuracy) whether a game was played by the machine or not. (There was Kasparov accusing Deep Blue team that they used a human to help a machine, but no one proved anything). Something like a &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_test&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Turing test&lt;/a&gt;. I have not heard about such studies and I highly doubt that an above average chess player can accurately predict whether the game is played against a computer. For example, can you determine who is a machine here (or may it is just two humans):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Nc3 f5 4. exf5 Bc5 5. Nxe5 Qe7 6. f4 Nf6 7. Bb5 Nd4 8. a4 a6 9. Be2 d6 10. Nc4 Bxf5 11. Ne3 O-O 12. Bc4+ Kh8 13. Ne2 Bxc2 14. Nxc2 Ng4 15. Ncxd4 Bxd4 16. Qb3 d5 17. Bxd5 Rae8 18. Bf3 Rxf4 19. Qxb7 Bc5 20. a5 Rff8 21. Qxa6 Qd7 22. h3 Ne5 23. Kd1 Nxf3 24. gxf3 Qd5 25. Kc2 Qxf3 26. Ng3 Qxg3 27. Rhf1 Qxh3 28. Rxf8+ Bxf8 29. Qb5 Re6 30. a6 Qh1 31. Ra4 Re1 32. Ra1 Re6 33. Ra4 Re1 34. Ra1 Re6 35. a7 Rc6+ 36. Kb3 Qf3+ 37. Ka2 Rc5 38. Qa4 Qd5+ 39. Kb1 Qh1 40. Ka2 Qd5+ 41. Kb1 Qh1 42. Ka2 Qd5+ 43. Kb1 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Theoretically it is not hard to simulate game of a weaker opponent or an opponent with some preferences (we humans have preferences). In all artificial intelligence the move is determined based on a scoring function. So by modifying a scoring function you can achieve the game similar to what you want. For example if you want your machine to be more aggressive (attacking the opponent, sometimes even recklessly) you can modify it in such a way, that it will prefer lines where a lot of things can go wrong for the opponent. Even if with the best play you became a little bit worse.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because you can modify a scoring function in any possible way, you can resemble the preferences of some humans playing solid/drawish lines, attacking, preferring knights over bishops, two rooks over a queen. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="703" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2014-10-15T01:29:38.180" LastActivityDate="2014-10-15T01:29:38.180" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7611" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-10-15T03:23:20.270" Score="6" ViewCount="545" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why is it important to develop your pieces to put &quot;pressure&quot; on opponent's pawn(s)? I hear this a lot from YouTube videos in which experienced chess players commenting as the game develops. It's &quot;just&quot; a pawn! Why design a tactic or strategy around a pawn?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4056" LastEditorUserId="3890" LastEditDate="2014-10-15T20:38:29.170" LastActivityDate="2016-07-13T16:23:39.247" Title="Putting pressure on pawns" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;pawns&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7612" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="7614" CreationDate="2014-10-15T03:31:57.867" Score="11" ViewCount="3163" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sometimes when there are no clearly optimal moves, a computer or a human master player would push their pawns on &lt;code&gt;a&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;h&lt;/code&gt; files (the edges of the board), for no clear reasons.  What would be the motivations behind such moves?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4049" LastActivityDate="2017-05-02T18:18:00.450" Title="What are the motivations behind pawn moves on a and h files?" Tags="&lt;pawns&gt;&lt;pawn-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7613" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7611" CreationDate="2014-10-15T07:01:28.287" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Attacking a piece is often not very useful: the piece does not feel any pressure but just moves away. A pawn won't escape so easily, so attacking a pawn forces the opponent's pieces to defend it and thus limits their freedom. There are a few possible gains of an attack on a pawn: the opponent cannot get enough pieces to defend the pawn so you immediately win the pawn, or his pieces are so badly placed defending the pawn that you can gain advantage on another part of the board, or the pawn has to move and leave weak squares on both sides of it because it cannot ever again protect the squares that it attacked a move ago.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1761" LastActivityDate="2014-10-15T07:01:28.287" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7614" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7612" CreationDate="2014-10-15T07:55:53.757" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;The question is extremely open, as these pawns may be moved for many reasons depending on the position you are facing. In a general sketch, you may consider five kind of &lt;code&gt;a&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;h&lt;/code&gt; pawn moves:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;To create some luft for the king, that is, avoid once and for all the back rank threats.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;r5k1/5ppp/8/8/8/8/5PPP/1R4K1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this position, neither rook can leave the back rank, because if they do &lt;code&gt;Rb8&lt;/code&gt; for white or &lt;code&gt;Ra1&lt;/code&gt; for black are checkmate (this is called &lt;em&gt;to have a weak back rank&lt;/em&gt;). For this reason, it is useful to move &lt;code&gt;h4&lt;/code&gt; for white or &lt;code&gt;h5&lt;/code&gt; for black, in order to be able to escape via &lt;code&gt;h2&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;h7&lt;/code&gt; if the rook leaves the back rank.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;To attack the enemy castled king, as opening the &lt;code&gt;h&lt;/code&gt; file usually comes with dangerous threats of infiltration with the major pieces near the king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 g6 6. Be3 Bg7 7. f3 O-O 8. Qd2 Nc6 9. Bc4 Bd7 10. O-O-O Rc8 11. Bb3 Ne5 12. h4 {This is a main line in the Yugoslav Attack of the Dragon. The plan is to go full aggression on the kingside: blast open the `h` file, play `Bh6`, exchange bishops and continue `Qh6` with mate threats on `h7`. To parry all the threats that white will make, precision is essential, since many good looking moves are actually horrible blunders.}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;To gain space, either by a further advance of an adjacent &lt;code&gt;b&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;g&lt;/code&gt; pawn or by avoiding a piece to be pushed away by a pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 g6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Bg7 5. c4 Nc6 6. Be3 Nf6 7. Nc3 O-O 8. Be2 d6 9. O-O Bd7 10. Qd2 Nxd4 11. Bxd4 Bc6 12. f3 a5 {This is a main line in the Maroczy Bind of the HyperAccelerated Dragon. With this move, black makes sure the `b4` advance that white wants to make is delayed at least for some moves. Moreover, as is seen in the following moves, this allows black's knight to get a comfortable home in `c5`, as for the moment he cannot be dislodged.} 13. b3 Nd7 14. Be3 Nc5 {And white will have to prepare his plan of gaining space on the queenside thoroughly.}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another fact (credit to &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/users/1761/jik&quot;&gt;JiK&lt;/a&gt; for pointing it out) that encourages the move of an &lt;code&gt;a&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;h&lt;/code&gt; pawn before moving the corresponding &lt;code&gt;b&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;g&lt;/code&gt; pawn is that the former often do not leave behind as big holes (or any holes at all) as the latter. This is because the pawns on the edge on the board only protect one square on the 3rd/6th rank, and many times the bishop pawn wasn't moved and already covers it, or in the event of leaving a hole, the queen's knight's file usually is away from the main action, so it may not be very important (one should consider very carefully whether leaving a hole in front of one's king).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;4&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;To defend against pins in order to drive away enemy pieces or to take away a concrete square from them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Bc5 4. d3 Nf6 5. c3 d6 6. O-O O-O 7. Bb3 a6 8. Nbd2 Ba7 9. h3 {This is a main line in the Giuoco Pianissimo. With the last move, white avoids the unpleasant pin of the `c3` knight by `Bg4`. This also creates some breathing space for the king, but that is not the main idea behind the move. The reason it is played now and not a few moves before is mainly because you are prioritizing piece development.}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;To preserve a bishop from getting exchange (credit to &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/users/1485/dag-oskar-madsen&quot;&gt;Dag Oskar Madsen&lt;/a&gt; for pointing it out). Usually bishops are slightly better than knights, and giving your opponent the bishop pair would require to play with extra care in the endgame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. d4 Nf6 2. Nf3 g6 3. Bf4 Bg7 4. e3 O-O 5. Be2 d6 6. h3 {This is a main line in the London system. With the last move, white gives the `Bf4` a retreat in the event of `Nh5` while keeping it on the `h2-b8` diagonal, helping to tighten the grip on the dark squares. The reason `Nh5` earlier (when white pushes `e3`) does not work so well is because it allows a chronicle weakening of black's kingside, and the reason `Nh5` does work if `h3` is not played is half-positional half-tactical.}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This last position is quite complex, if interested you may want to look at &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.365chess.com/opening.php?m=22&amp;amp;n=925853&amp;amp;ms=d4.Nf6.Nf3.g6.Bf4.Bg7.e3.O-O.Be2.d6.O-O.Nh5.Bg5.h6.Bh4.g5.Nfd2.gxh4.Bxh5.e5.c3&amp;amp;ns=7.14.20.48.472.548.473.2005.8227.9575.8752.116377.206132.238612.206133.238613.328161.354034.328162.765282.925853&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; link for some variations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Conclusion:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's important to bear in mind that every move should be useful, as you must contribute to the global synergy of your pieces in order to achieve a better position. Usually at master or computer level, when they do not find the optimal move (although the computer usually does) or placement for their pieces, they always tend to achieve some kind of positional advantage, and those listed above are mainly of this kind.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT:&lt;/strong&gt; Examples have been added and a fifth case has been added.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3890" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.193" LastActivityDate="2014-10-16T11:08:43.350" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7615" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7611" CreationDate="2014-10-15T13:11:06.857" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In chess, pawns are the only pieces that cannot move backwards and the ones that have the less mobility. Thus, while in the opening a knight or bishop could simply retreat or be exchanged, a pawn usually has not so many options.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is specially relevant in the opening. Consider for example the moves:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;1.e4 e5 2.Bc4&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this position, black has may good moves: &lt;code&gt;Nf6&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;Nc6&lt;/code&gt; being the best, &lt;code&gt;Be7&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;Bc5&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;Bb4&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;d6&lt;/code&gt; also being playable. Now, consider the moves:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now the &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt; pawn is attacked and it black sees his options severely restricted if he wants to defend it, only &lt;code&gt;Nc6&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;d6&lt;/code&gt; being sensible in order to do so.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another important reason is that sometimes the pieces are unable to defend the pawn. This usually happens in the endgame or late middlegame, where some material has been exchanged, but also in some opening variations. To defend the pawn and not lose it, he has to be advanced, leaving behind him weak squares. Around those weak squares a player may be able later in the game to infiltrate the enemy territory and achieve a winning position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3890" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-07-13T16:23:39.247" LastActivityDate="2016-07-13T16:23:39.247" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7616" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5988" CreationDate="2014-10-15T13:37:58.717" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have no mathematical formula to calculate the value of a knight or bishop depending on the time control (which is a related question and was asked &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/6249/worth-of-a-piece-in-time/6373#6373&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;), but as I am mainly a &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess.com&lt;/a&gt; user and thus play blitz and rapid on the internet, I'll try to make an educated guess. My answer will be based on chess played with a mouse, not OTB.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are several factors while considering the numerical value of the knight and the bishop that have to be taken into account.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.1. The bishop is a long range piece, and this means that you have to make longer moves when moving it and consider more squares it can attack and defend.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.2. The knight is a short range piece, and thus you only have to care about a smaller part of the board when moving it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.1. The bishop can only control half the board, and thus your opponent may easily avoid it by simply placing his pieces on the opposite color.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.2. The knight, albeit slower, can control the whole board, this means that your opponent's king is not safe of checks anywhere, and checks are quite time consuming (at least from a couple to a handful of seconds).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3.1. The bishop moves (diagonally) are very predictable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3.2. The knight moves (L shape and able to jump over pieces) are hard to predict, and it's easy to blunder forks when one is hopping around you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The references to time consuming moves may look quite odd to players that do not use the internet. However, they do play an important role, since the time control is so reduced that almost instant answers are needed in the endgame, and these cannot be easily reached by long-range pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There may be more, but I consider these points, specially the last one, the most important. If we consider the pros and cons, clearly the surprise factor of the knight and the fact that he is more consuming to your opponent than the bishop, give him the upper hand. By experience, I have lost many games and draw winning positions being low on time and blundering a fork to a knight, and also spent a few extra seconds on the clock due to an unexpected check and ended up losing on time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is why I consider the knight to be at least &lt;strong&gt;4.00&lt;/strong&gt; pawns, while the bishop keeps his &lt;strong&gt;3.25&lt;/strong&gt; pawns. However, in some positions (all the pawns in one side, or all the pawns blocked, or the enemy king cut off, or similar positions where the knight can easily outmaneuver the bishop) I would give the knight a full pawn advantage at &lt;strong&gt;4.25&lt;/strong&gt; pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am well aware that this answer is completely subjective, but as said, I couldn't find a way to quantify these advantages.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3890" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2014-10-15T13:37:58.717" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7617" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7611" CreationDate="2014-10-15T16:52:47.003" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a generality, you aren't going to win a good chess match with a singular, huge move that completely devastates your opponent. (If you do, they are not a worthwhile opponent and the playing level in question is novice.) Therefore, you need to coordinate attacks to be synchronized and cumulative. The more advanced the player, the more intricate and multi-faceted the attack. As your skill increases, you will start to use all of these minute details to your advantage, aspiring that they all add up to an insurmountable attack vector.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, the more advanced you get, the more that these &quot;tiny&quot; things &lt;strong&gt;really&lt;/strong&gt; matter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3844" LastActivityDate="2014-10-15T16:52:47.003" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7619" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-10-16T14:03:57.137" Score="6" ViewCount="1234" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm going through a chess tutorial (Shredder). One of the exercises begins where all pawns are in their starting positions. I have a queen and my opponent has a rook and a knight, again all in starting positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    [FEN &quot;r5n1/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/3Q4 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;    [Title &quot;Exercise - Capture all the pieces&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I need to eliminate the opposing pieces or at least prevent them from moving. At the &quot;hard&quot; setting I can't even get close to succeeding.  Can anyone give me some clues, or things to consider as I try to &quot;win&quot; this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4066" LastEditorUserId="3890" LastEditDate="2014-10-16T21:08:39.863" LastActivityDate="2014-10-16T21:08:39.863" Title="Queen vs rook &amp; knight with all pawns" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;best-practice&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7620" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7619" CreationDate="2014-10-16T14:15:11.970" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Attack those pawns on side where is no rook. Once he makes a hole, get your queen on his backs. This way you will be able to grab like 2~ I'd say. Then run with a pawn on a free file.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;1. e3/e4 - Nc6 2. Qh5-h6 3. Qg4-g6 4. Qf4-h5 5. Qh6&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;just an example&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3895" LastActivityDate="2014-10-16T14:15:11.970" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7621" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5809" CreationDate="2014-10-17T06:52:44.440" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;A short and partial answer based on recent use by your editor is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is it useful for posting static diagrams (just one position image) in blogs and forums?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, yes it is, and quite a bit. It works nicely and the design is timeless.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is it useful for posting dynamic diagrams (showing games or parts of games)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Indeed, for showing full games with no interaction with the user, the dynamic diagrams work perfectly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is it useful for posting chess puzzles?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The same answer to the first question is valid, as static diagrams may very well in some articles be problems.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think the editor is quite good for a free one, and I will encourage it's use among my students. If your could improve the quality of the pieces though, that would be nice, as they appear to be quite pixelated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3890" LastActivityDate="2014-10-17T06:52:44.440" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7623" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="7624" CreationDate="2014-10-17T07:41:06.433" Score="1" ViewCount="146" Body="&lt;p&gt;When playing computer chess software I find myself wondering &quot;who's winning right now according to the computer?&quot;. For example: I make a bad move but I don't realize it yet - but the computer looking 5 moves ahead immediately realizes that I've made a terrible mistake.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The computer AI must have this information internally (it's own evaluation of the current board position).  Is there an example of a computer chess game that shows this (ideally for iPhone so I can teach myself while on the train)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4072" LastEditorUserId="3890" LastEditDate="2014-10-17T16:28:25.240" LastActivityDate="2014-10-17T16:28:25.240" Title="Chess software that shows current score" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;training&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7624" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7623" CreationDate="2014-10-17T07:49:39.850" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;One chess program with the feature you are looking for is the Shredder app (available on both IOS and Android for a small-ish fee). It has a dial-like control under the board that swings left or right depending on who is winning, but without telling you what the next best move is. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1816" LastActivityDate="2014-10-17T07:49:39.850" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7627" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7623" CreationDate="2014-10-17T10:48:17.527" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Disclaimer: I wrote SmallFish.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would recommend SmallFish on iOS. It's free, and it has the most powerful engine on iOS. It has very advanced analysis feature, look at the screenshot&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/tz5x9.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/vghSD.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2014-10-17T10:48:17.527" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7630" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2594" CreationDate="2014-10-18T11:51:03.170" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;First of all, I do not know if trying the feature Opening Report on a single game (or a database composed of a single game) would show the variations in the ECO tree. If you have not tried it, this would be my first step.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also don't know if the ECO table can be directly printed as on ChessBase (it certainly is a great feature), but what you can do, albeit being a bit more of work, is to make a SCID database rewriting all the variations as whole (unfinished) games, and then use Opening Report to get the desired ECO tables.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What I mean by this is that if I have a game that goes:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;    1. e4 e5 2. Bc4 (2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4) Nc6 3. Qh5 Nf6 4. Qxf7#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then the variation shall be included in the database and this game would be split into two, the main line and the variation, when being rewritten. When using Opening Report on this variation filled database, you will certainly obtain the ECO tables (and more).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This should not be extremely difficult and hopefully not long. I suggest you take a look at this &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessvideos.tv/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6635&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;video&lt;/a&gt;, as here the theme of easily including and saving variations in a game is a bit discussed (although the main purpose of the video is to use SCID to develop an opening repertoire).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3890" LastActivityDate="2014-10-18T11:51:03.170" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7631" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6296" CreationDate="2014-10-18T12:33:58.950" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe the question is quite subjective, but nonetheless, I think that both castling rules were designed to favor &quot;classical&quot; chess players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you think about a chess variant that permutes the starting position of the pieces but that also wants to allow castling, you immediately face the problem that in the &quot;classical&quot; chess both the final position of the rook and king and the number of squares the king and rook have been moved is perfectly clear when castling on either side (since the starting position is always the same), but this is obviously not possible for your variant. (This is also an important point of discussion in &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cylinder_chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Cylinder Chess&lt;/a&gt;, although here the starting position is fixed.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In our variation, you may only accept one of those premises: either the rook's and king's final position is the same as in &quot;classical&quot; chess (as is chosen in &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess960&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chess960&lt;/a&gt;) or they move the same amount of squares as in &quot;classical&quot; chess (as is chosen in &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess960#Chess480&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chess480&lt;/a&gt;). That is, the standard rules are being split into two different branches.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a FIDE chess player, I feel it is way more comfortable to know where my rook and king are going to be when they castle (that  is, I will know where will I have to defend) that not, so I think Chess960 castling rules suit FIDE chess players best. An important argument for those novice to chess not being comfortable with this variation is that the final position of king and rook may look completely arbitrary, and understandably not appealing. More on this subject can be found on this &lt;a href=&quot;http://chess960.net/castling-in-chess480&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;article&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3890" LastActivityDate="2014-10-18T12:33:58.950" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7632" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-10-18T14:52:32.800" Score="3" ViewCount="1348" Body="&lt;p&gt;Obviously if you get checkmate from it it's fine, but at what point does it become unacceptable?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3812" LastActivityDate="2021-01-11T06:17:15.530" Title="At what point is sacrificing a queen a bad move?" Tags="&lt;queens&gt;&lt;sacrifice&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7633" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7632" CreationDate="2014-10-18T14:59:42.477" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are (basically) two ways to justify a sacrifice: checkmate, or win the material back.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you sac a queen you are probably not winning the material back unless it's part of a little combination, like setting up a knight fork (although it is possible, especially if you have a far-advanced pawn), so generally you won't do it unless you can mate your opponent as a result.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(I assume that you are talking about &quot;real&quot; queen sacrifices and not something like trading your queen for two rooks.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2014-10-18T14:59:42.477" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7634" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="7645" CreationDate="2014-10-18T15:04:22.993" Score="1" ViewCount="264" Body="&lt;p&gt;What are some tips to tell if you are close to checkmate?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3812" LastActivityDate="2014-10-19T14:59:46.670" Title="How to tell how far you are from checkmate?" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7635" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7632" CreationDate="2014-10-18T16:18:55.737" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you can't calculate a clear win after sacrificing your queen, do not do it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2014-10-18T16:18:55.737" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7636" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7634" CreationDate="2014-10-18T19:24:29.763" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;when the opponent's king is open and you have a lot of pieces around your opponent's kings. Also, if your opponent does not have many defenders.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3872" LastActivityDate="2014-10-18T19:24:29.763" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7637" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-10-18T19:38:20.003" Score="5" ViewCount="215" Body="&lt;p&gt;I like to play the Danish gambit opening. Frequently, black won't take the last pawn to complete the standard opening, but instead plays the knight as shown below. I'll generally play Queen to &lt;code&gt;b3&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;f3&lt;/code&gt;. But then black plays Knight to &lt;code&gt;a5&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt;, respectively, which results in losing the &lt;code&gt;c4&lt;/code&gt; bishop. Is there a nice way for white to respond to &lt;code&gt;Nc6&lt;/code&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;r1bqkbnr/pppp1ppp/2n5/8/2B1P3/2p5/PP3PPP/RNBQK1NR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4081" LastEditorUserId="3890" LastEditDate="2014-10-19T22:53:40.593" LastActivityDate="2014-10-19T22:53:40.593" Title="Deviating from standard Danish gambit" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;gambits&gt;&lt;minor-variations&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7638" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7637" CreationDate="2014-10-18T21:57:46.933" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just develop your pieces. &lt;code&gt;5.Nf3&lt;/code&gt; makes sense, preparing to castle. &lt;code&gt;5.Nxc3&lt;/code&gt; is also reasonable; if Black refuses to play &lt;code&gt;... cxb2&lt;/code&gt;, you'll probably have to play &lt;code&gt;Nxc3&lt;/code&gt; at some point anyway. These are the only two &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.365chess.com/opening.php?m=9&amp;amp;n=3595&amp;amp;ms=e4.e5.d4.exd4.c3.dxc3.Bc4.Nc6&amp;amp;ns=3.5.74.130.434.503.435.3595&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;regularly played moves&lt;/a&gt; in the given position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastEditorUserId="3890" LastEditDate="2014-10-19T16:37:31.543" LastActivityDate="2014-10-19T16:37:31.543" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7640" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2014-10-19T10:12:41.390" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2014-10-19T10:12:41.390" LastActivityDate="2014-10-19T10:12:41.390" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7641" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2014-10-19T10:12:41.390" Score="0" Body="For questions about the boards used for playing chess." OwnerUserId="1485" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2014-10-19T13:20:22.653" LastActivityDate="2014-10-19T13:20:22.653" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7642" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2014-10-19T10:25:34.713" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2014-10-19T10:25:34.713" LastActivityDate="2014-10-19T10:25:34.713" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7643" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2014-10-19T10:25:34.713" Score="0" Body="For questions regarding the game complexity of chess, in particular the number of possible chess games and the number of possible chess positions." OwnerUserId="1485" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2014-10-19T13:20:30.213" LastActivityDate="2014-10-19T13:20:30.213" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7644" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7634" CreationDate="2014-10-19T13:30:52.017" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Checkmate can occur in thousands of different ways, usual as well as unusual. There are many typical checkmate patterns that you can learn by studying games, solving tactical problems, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You cannot be &quot;close&quot; to checkmate. Either you have a combination that leads to checkmate or you don't.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastActivityDate="2014-10-19T13:30:52.017" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7645" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7634" CreationDate="2014-10-19T14:59:46.670" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is extremely difficult to know how far you are from checkmate. If you could calculate as deep as you wanted (essentially, &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solving_chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;solve chess&lt;/a&gt;), then you would be able to look it up on a database. My suggestion then is that you try to calculate and see if you find a series of moves that do the job. As this series of moves will very likely proceed from a tactical motif, I strongly suggest that you study a few of the many indicators that allow you to know whether a tactical combination is possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a starting point, you may want to check &lt;a href=&quot;http://chesstempo.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chess Tempo&lt;/a&gt; and it's &lt;a href=&quot;http://chesstempo.com/tactical-motifs.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Tactical Motifs&lt;/a&gt; list, which include many of the most basic and important ones.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3890" LastActivityDate="2014-10-19T14:59:46.670" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7648" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-10-19T19:08:33.813" Score="-6" ViewCount="355" Body="&lt;p&gt;Take a look at this position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;4k3/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/4K3 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a popular chess &quot;tabiya&quot; at our club. The young students play it quite often actually. I placed this position in Deep Fritz 14 for 10 minutes or so, and it told me the game was a draw. A computer isn't needed to figure this out anyhow. Then an idea struck me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since pawn moves are the only ones you cannot turn back, shouldn't this position be with the addition of pieces a draw? I am inclined to think so, encouraged by the popular &quot;Chess is a draw&quot; theory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3405" LastActivityDate="2014-10-20T11:30:47.397" Title="Is this assumption correct or not?" Tags="&lt;theory&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7649" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7648" CreationDate="2014-10-19T20:15:13.673" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Should&lt;/em&gt; it be a draw? Probably. I don't think this line of thinking gets us any closer to a definitive answer though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3270" LastActivityDate="2014-10-19T20:15:13.673" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7650" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7648" CreationDate="2014-10-19T21:02:18.787" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If your assumption is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If a position is a draw and I add new pieces, then the position is still a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then this is certainly false. As a proof, you may have a look at the position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;      [FEN &quot;r4b1k/2R3np/3p2p1/3Qp1N1/qrb1P2P/P5N1/1B4P1/K1R5 w - - 10 35&quot;]&#xA;      [Title &quot;White to move and draw&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which is a draw by perpetual check. Notice how black is threatening mate and attacking white's queen at the same time. Now, add a white pawn on &lt;code&gt;e3&lt;/code&gt;, a white rook on &lt;code&gt;e2&lt;/code&gt;, a black pawn on &lt;code&gt;e6&lt;/code&gt; and a black rook on &lt;code&gt;e7&lt;/code&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;      [FEN &quot;r4b1k/2R1r1np/3pp1p1/3Qp1N1/qrb1P2P/P3P1N1/1B2R1P1/K1R5 w - - 10 35&quot;]&#xA;      [Title &quot;White to move and fail to draw&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which is no longer a draw, since the added pawn blocks the discovered check and the rook controls the &lt;code&gt;f7&lt;/code&gt; square, allowing black to either checkmate white or to win enough material to convert without problems. Note that this also works without adding the extra pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A more tranquil position that also proves the assumption wrong is the next one:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;      [FEN &quot;k7/1p6/pP6/P2K4/8/8/5B2/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;      [Title &quot;An effortless draw&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Despite being a piece down, black has achieved a drawn position. By simply moving the king back and forth from &lt;code&gt;a8&lt;/code&gt; to &lt;code&gt;b8&lt;/code&gt; black has secured the half point. Note how the position is still a draw without the extra bishop for white. Now, add a white pawn on &lt;code&gt;h2&lt;/code&gt; and a black pawn on &lt;code&gt;h7&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;      [FEN &quot;k7/1p5p/pP6/P2K4/8/8/5B1P/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;      [Title &quot;An effortless win&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The position is no longer a draw since white can chase off that extra pawn and queen his. If black leaves the protection of his pawns, white can choose to either win by the &lt;em&gt;fox in the chicken coop&lt;/em&gt; principle or by securing a safe route to &lt;code&gt;h8&lt;/code&gt; to his pawn. Note that the position arising from the one without the extra bishop is also a win for white.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3890" LastEditorUserId="3890" LastEditDate="2014-10-20T11:30:47.397" LastActivityDate="2014-10-20T11:30:47.397" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7651" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7612" CreationDate="2014-10-20T01:50:43.957" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;@pablo has listed some of the common motivations for moving rook pawns. I will mention some &lt;strong&gt;uncommon&lt;/strong&gt; but interesting ones. I have used all of these in real games. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Set up a &lt;strong&gt;queen trap&lt;/strong&gt; to develop a bishop. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. e3 e5 2. Qf3 d5 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. d4 e4 5. Qg3 h6 $1 (5... Bd6 $6 6. Qxg7 Rg8 7.&#xA;  Qh6) 6. Nge2 Bd6 7. Qxg7 Rh7!&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Prevent a &lt;strong&gt;pinning Bishop&lt;/strong&gt; from being dislodged, as in the Ruy Lopez. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Bxc6 dxc6 5. O-O Bg4 6. h3 h5 $5 7. hxg4 $2 (&#xA; 7. d3!) 7... hxg4 8. Nxe5?? (8. d3 gxf3 9. Qxf3 Qh4 10. Qh3 Qxh3 11. gxh3 Rxh3)&#xA; 8... Qh4 9. f4 g3 10. Nf3 Qh1#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2429" LastActivityDate="2014-10-20T01:50:43.957" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7652" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7632" CreationDate="2014-10-20T08:04:46.960" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's the queen, the best piece on the board. Sacrificing it is almost always bad!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think most people never play a correct queen sacrifice in their lives, apart from those cases where it checkmates immediately or the threats are so large that it wins the material back immediately.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There &lt;em&gt;are&lt;/em&gt; cases where a pure positional queen sacrifice seems to work, for instance there are some lines in the King's Indian where Black sacrifices the queen for two pieces and two pawns, which is not usually considered equivalent to a queen. This is known as Bronstein's queen sacrifice line:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.e4 d6 5.f3 O-O 6.Be3 e5 7.d5 Nh5 8.Qd2 Qh4+&#xA;9.g3 Nxg3 10.Qf2 Nxf1 11.Qxh4 Nxe3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black will also win the pawn on c4. I don't know what current theory thinks of this line, but I don't think it's refuted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But, again, there's a reason this line is famous -- positional queen sacrifices almost never work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2014-10-20T08:04:46.960" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7653" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-10-20T11:06:26.380" Score="11" ViewCount="2074" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm a club player around 2100 FIDE rating trying to learn the Sicilian Sveshnikov, with the black pieces, for long time controls (2 hours/game). What books do I need to read in order to learn this opening properly?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Themes I would like to see in the books:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;How to deal with most common variations&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Possible transpositions&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Ideas in middle game&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Pawn structure and how to approach it&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Traps to be aware of&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Common endgames&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4057" LastActivityDate="2017-05-19T09:07:40.070" Title="Good books to learn Sveshnikov Sicilian" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;&lt;books&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7654" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="7664" CreationDate="2014-10-20T12:20:22.240" Score="5" ViewCount="267" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have a list of around 20k games played on a popular online website. I would like to run some statistical analyses on these games. I'm not talking about analysing specific games, but rather finding common patterns that arise.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've looked at some popular sites on the internet that provide such statistics, but I'm wondering if there might be any more. So far I've got:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Popular openings grouped by ECO.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Most common endgames.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Average rating difference between opponents.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Frequent players.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Longest streak (rematch count).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What other kinds of statistics might reveal something about the community, players, tendencies and more?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks for the suggestions so far. I apologize if I wasn't very clear with the question, so let me clarify some things: I would like to avoid analysing all the games (such as finding the point at which its +-2, or finding recurring tactical motifs, as these require going through each game and running it by an engine). I'm more interested in getting information and statistics about that particular collection of games, so having access to more games isn't necessarily a better thing. I hope this can steer the answers in the intended direction.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4090" LastEditorUserId="4090" LastEditDate="2014-10-20T19:03:45.880" LastActivityDate="2014-10-21T09:29:46.873" Title="What are some common statistical analyses we can run on many games (~20k games)?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;statistics&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7655" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-10-20T13:06:25.773" Score="4" ViewCount="307" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have a database (Scid) that is mostly made up of games downloaded from TWIC. I know my rating (low 2000s).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As an example, I want to play the Classical Sicilian as black. It can be reached either as 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 Nc6, or with 2...Nc6 and 5...d6, my choice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, White has many other options as well, and I want to divide my time proportionally. If I reach the Classical 50% of the time (after 1.e4), I should devote 50% of my 1.e4 black training time to it. Maybe 20% of the time 3.Bb5 is played, et cetera.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What's the best way to figure out such percentages correctly?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2014-11-03T21:24:26.953" Title="How can I use Scid to figure how I should divide study time for each opening line?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;database&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7656" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7654" CreationDate="2014-10-20T15:12:00.260" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think it would also be useful to also have:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Who won - white or black.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;At what move did one side gain a significant advantage (+-2).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Number of blunders per side.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Number of tempo gaining moves per side.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If possible these statistics may be sorted by opening and/or endgame and/or user rating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, if you could create chess puzzles based on tactics seen in these games (like &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.lichess.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;lichess.org&lt;/a&gt; does), I would be very impressed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3884" LastEditorUserId="3890" LastEditDate="2014-10-20T18:16:00.503" LastActivityDate="2014-10-20T18:16:00.503" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7657" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-10-20T16:25:37.460" Score="10" ViewCount="1680" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to the official FIDE rules for otb games, does the above description warrant the touch move rule?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3872" LastActivityDate="2015-05-12T23:34:58.340" Title="If I accidentally knock over a rook with my elbow while reaching for another piece, do I have to move the rook?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;rules&gt;&lt;otb-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7658" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7657" CreationDate="2014-10-20T16:50:15.433" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;No.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The relevant part in &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fide.com/component/handbook/?id=171&amp;amp;view=article&quot;&gt;FIDE's Laws of Chess&lt;/a&gt; is Article 4.3 which contains the word &lt;em&gt;deliberately&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;4.3 Except as provided in Article 4.2, if the player having the move&#xA;      deliberately touches on the chessboard:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;a. one or more of his own pieces, he must move the first piece touched which can be moved&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;b. one or more of his opponent’s pieces, he must capture the first piece touched which can be captured&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;c. one piece of each colour, he must capture the opponent’s piece with his piece or, if this is illegal, move or capture the first&#xA;      piece touched which can be moved or captured. If it is unclear,&#xA;      whether the player’s own piece or his opponent’s was touched first,&#xA;      the player’s own piece shall be considered to have been touched&#xA;      before his opponent’s.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The situation you describe once happened to a team mate of mine. The opponent wanted him to move the touched piece according to the rule, but the arbiter explained it had to be deliberate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1485" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2014-10-20T17:15:55.737" LastActivityDate="2014-10-20T17:15:55.737" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7659" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6551" CreationDate="2014-10-20T17:55:10.607" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just won today with black against Droidfish/Stockfish-5 depth 21.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. d4 Nf6 &#xA;2. c4 e6 &#xA;3. Nc3 Bb4 &#xA;4. e3 b6 &#xA;5. Bd3 Bb7 &#xA;6. Nf3 O-O &#xA;7. O-O Bxc3 &#xA;8.bxc3 c5 &#xA;9. Nd2 Nc6 &#xA;10. Rb1 d6 &#xA;11. Bb2 e5 &#xA;12. f3 Nd7 &#xA;13. d5 Ne7 &#xA;14. Ne4 Qc7&#xA;15. Qe2 h6 &#xA;16. Nf2 f5 &#xA;17. e4 f4 &#xA;18. Bc2 Ng6 &#xA;19. Ba4 Nf6&#xA;20. Qc2 Nh5 &#xA;21.Rbe1 Ne7 &#xA;22. Nd3 g5 &#xA;23. Nf2 Nf6 &#xA;24. Qe2 Kh8 &#xA;25. Bc2 Rg8&#xA;26. Qd3 Rg7 &#xA;27. g4 Ng6 &#xA;28. Qe2 Rag8 &#xA;29. Nd3 Bc8 &#xA;30. Rf2 Rh7 &#xA;31. h3 h5 &#xA;32. Rh2 Kg7 &#xA;33. Qd2 Rgh8&#xA;34. Ree2 Nh4 &#xA;35. Ne1 hxg4 &#xA;36. hxg4 Bxg4 &#xA;37. fxg4 Nxg4&#xA;38. Bd1 Qd7 &#xA;39. Ba3 Nxh2 &#xA;40. Rxh2 g4 &#xA;41. Rh1 Kf8 &#xA;42. Kf2 g3+ &#xA;43. Ke2 g2 &#xA;44. Rg1 Qh3 &#xA;45. Qd3 Qh2&#xA;46. Kf2 Rg7 &#xA;47. Bc1 Rg3 &#xA;48. Qe2 Rf3+ &#xA;49. Qxf3 Nxf3 &#xA;50. Bxf3 Qg3+ &#xA;51. Ke2 Rh1 &#xA;52. Rxh1 Qxf3+ &#xA;53. Nxf3 gxh1=Q &#xA;54. Ne1 Qxe4+ &#xA;55. Kd1 Qxc4 &#xA;56. a4 Qxa4+&#xA;57. Nc2 f3 &#xA;58. Be3 Qc4 &#xA;59. Kc1 Qxc3 &#xA;60. Bf2 a5 &#xA;61. Be3 a4 &#xA;62. Bd2 Qd3&#xA;63. Be1 a3 &#xA;64. Bh4 Qf1+ &#xA;65. Kd2 f2 &#xA;66. Ke3 Qc1+ &#xA;67. Kxf2 Qxc2+&#xA;68. Ke3 a2 &#xA;69. Kf3 a1=Q &#xA;70. Kg4 Qg6+ &#xA;71. Kf3 Qf1+ &#xA;72. Bf2 Qd1+ &#xA;73. Ke3 Qgd3&#xA;# 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well, you can see multiple things that might help to defeat Stockfish:&#xA;(Should help you against humans, too. ;-)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Do not give the engine any kind of counterplay.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Such positions are more likely to be found in closed games.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Keep pawms on the board, do not exchange to much of them.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Create imbalanced positions e.g Bishop/Knight exchange, double pawns etc.&#xA;the plan is to play a long game.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Play very sound openings.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is possible to win ;-)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3885" LastActivityDate="2014-10-20T17:55:10.607" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7661" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7654" CreationDate="2014-10-20T18:27:45.560" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Another interesting statistic is to consider the most common &lt;a href=&quot;http://chesstempo.com/tactical-motifs.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;tactical motifs&lt;/a&gt; (taking, for example, the list from &lt;a href=&quot;http://chesstempo.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;ChessTempo&lt;/a&gt;), and the times they appear (how common are they) depending on each opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you &quot;only&quot; have 20k games, I suggest you take a look at the website &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.365chess.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;365Chess&lt;/a&gt;, where you have more than 3 million games for free.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3890" LastActivityDate="2014-10-20T18:27:45.560" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7662" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-10-20T18:57:21.133" Score="5" ViewCount="1652" Body="&lt;p&gt;A &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1012733&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;miniature&lt;/a&gt; is a short game of chess. Depending on the forums you ask in or the blogs you look at, the length of the miniature is always a problem.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a standard number of moves under which the game is considered to be a miniature? Is there a reason that number is special?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not even &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossary_of_chess#Miniature&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt; has a concrete definition regarding this aspect of the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3890" LastActivityDate="2020-03-13T16:39:39.960" Title="How long is a miniature?" Tags="&lt;master-games&gt;&lt;famous-games&gt;&lt;game-length&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7663" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7654" CreationDate="2014-10-21T08:13:39.227" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some other interesting statistics may be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Player tendencies to preserve knights or bishops&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;correlation between preserving certain pieces and wins/losses&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;game length compared to loss of certain pieces&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Opening preferences compared to player strength&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4093" LastActivityDate="2014-10-21T08:13:39.227" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7664" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7654" CreationDate="2014-10-21T09:29:46.873" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can find posistional themes and other interesting info from SCIDvsPC software. Sample of output-&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;4.3 Positional Themes&#xA;&#xA;Frequency of themes in the first 20 moves of each game:&#xA;Same-side castling:             73%    White Isolated Queen Pawn:       8%&#xA;Opposite castling:               8%    Black Isolated Queen Pawn:       8%&#xA;Kingside pawn storm:            15%    White Pawn on 5/6/7th rank:     52%&#xA;Queens exchanged:               40%    Black Pawn on 2/3/4th rank:     34%&#xA;Only one side has Bishop pair:   6%    Open c/d/e file:                50%&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I had answered the same on this question: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/6142/chess-olympiad-statistcs/6145#6145&quot;&gt;Chess Olympiad statistics&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3158" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2014-10-21T09:29:46.873" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7665" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-10-21T10:36:58.670" Score="4" ViewCount="446" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd like to know what sort of a chess player I am. Am I too much of an attacker, or a defender? Or maybe, a little bit of both? On the contrary, I enjoy attacking and deploying stealthy tactics but I'd like to know from you guys, what KIND of a player am I?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are two games from which you can tell my style. In the first one, I play as white and in the second, black. (Note that both of the opponents were defeated due to resignation)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[First]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.lichess.org/TB2LHLZi#0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://en.lichess.org/TB2LHLZi#0&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[Second]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.lichess.org/TZGTdIyr#0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://en.lichess.org/TZGTdIyr#0&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So there it is; now what do you think?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4094" LastEditorUserId="4094" LastEditDate="2014-10-21T10:56:55.087" LastActivityDate="2014-10-21T15:15:38.057" Title="What type of a chess player am I?" Tags="&lt;style&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7666" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7665" CreationDate="2014-10-21T11:44:11.897" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is hard to tell with only 2 games. But you seem to be a tactical player. You capitalized on tactical errors in both games.  Were the games against the same person? They felt like it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2014-10-21T11:44:11.897" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7667" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7662" CreationDate="2014-10-21T14:28:06.587" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have an old book in my house, 500 King's Gambit Miniatures, and in the first pages the games, at the least, didn't pass 30 moves. I think it is a very good definition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3405" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-03-13T16:39:39.960" LastActivityDate="2020-03-13T16:39:39.960" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="7668" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-10-21T14:35:28.510" Score="1" ViewCount="205" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 exd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nxc6 bxc6 6.e5 Qe7 7.Qe2 Nd5 8.c4 Nb6 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are two variations here. Nd2 and b3. Which fits best to the criteria?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3405" LastActivityDate="2014-11-21T12:15:15.217" Title="What is the most agressive, tactical, attacking, line in this Mieses?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;scotch-game&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7669" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7665" CreationDate="2014-10-21T15:15:38.057" Score="4" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Here are two games from which you can tell my style.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How could anyone judge something like this basing on &lt;strong&gt;two&lt;/strong&gt; games? Imho those games aren't good examples at all. Those weren't any tactical, sharp games and not positional ones for sure. Your opponents just blundered. But you have taken adventage of it, so you're &lt;strong&gt;perceptive&lt;/strong&gt;, that's good for you:) A bit offtopic: I'd suggest you to learn some openings, I've got a feeling that you don't have a solid repertoire.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3895" LastActivityDate="2014-10-21T15:15:38.057" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7670" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-10-22T05:46:08.503" Score="2" ViewCount="2054" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm fascinated by the Colle system, but I'm not sure if it's applicable when you play as black.  Does anyone have experience in this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4049" LastActivityDate="2014-10-22T10:49:39.710" Title="Play Colle system as black?" Tags="&lt;colle-system&gt;&lt;colle-zukertort&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7672" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7670" CreationDate="2014-10-22T10:42:49.633" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Playing against &lt;code&gt;1.d4&lt;/code&gt; a similar pawn structure to the Colle, but with reversed colors for black, leads to a defense known as the semi-Slav:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;      [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;      [Title &quot;The semi-Slav&quot;]&#xA;      1. d4 d5 2. c4 c6 {The Slav defense to the Queen's gambit.} 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. Nc3 e6 {The semi-Slav defense to the Queen's gambit.}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The main characteristic of said structure are the pawns on &lt;code&gt;c6&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;e6&lt;/code&gt;, mirroring the ones on &lt;code&gt;c3&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;e3&lt;/code&gt; that characterize the Colle-like systems. The standard development for black also follows the general guidelines that are common in the Colle, that is, &lt;code&gt;Bd6&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;0-0&lt;/code&gt; (although in some variations this move is delayed), &lt;code&gt;Ngd7&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; when allowed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This defense is a very well respected one, and it has been used as a drawing weapon by &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viswanathan_Anand&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Viswanathan Anand&lt;/a&gt; many &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/article/view/monster-opening-preparation&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;times&lt;/a&gt;. It has the drawback of needing a huge amount of theory in order to not fall behind in development and getting a passive position out of the opening. Players willing to play this need to have patience and accept playing in an somewhat inferior position for many moves before equalizing, and only then looking for an advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3890" LastEditorUserId="3890" LastEditDate="2014-10-22T10:49:39.710" LastActivityDate="2014-10-22T10:49:39.710" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7673" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7668" CreationDate="2014-10-22T11:24:45.843" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think you are mixing some variations. In the main line Mieses, certainly &lt;code&gt;9.b3&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;9.Nd2&lt;/code&gt; are two of the most played moves:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 exd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nxc6 bxc6 6.e5 Qe7 7.Qe2 Nd5 8.c4 Ba6 9.b3 {This is the main line.} (9.Nd2 {This is the third most common move.}) (9.g3 {This is the second most common move.})&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, in the position you are concerned with, you may be much more aggressive than any of those moves. Black has wasted yet another tempo with his knight, and bear in mind that you don't need to overprotect the &lt;code&gt;c4&lt;/code&gt; pawn as it is already protected by two pieces. Possibly the best move is to develop another piece and go for a mating attack as early as possible:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 exd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nxc6 bxc6 6.e5 Qe7 7.Qe2 Nd5 8.c4 Nb6 9.Nc3! {The knight can be developed to a more active square, and has more control over the center, which will be extremely important, since in the main line black gets a passed pawn and white will need to control it.} Qe6 10. Qe4 g6 (10... Ba6 {Should also be looked at for white.}) 11. Bd3 (11. f4 {Is a possible different move order, perhaps over aggressive, which may transpose or get into completely different territory.}) Bg7 12. f4 O-O 13. O-O {This is more or less a common subvariation of the Mieses.} Ba6 14. b3 d5 15. cxd5 cxd5 {Around this move, the book/theory begins to get fuzzy and some other interesting responses have been tried.} 16. Qe2 (16. Qf3 {Is also to be considered.}) Bxd3 17. Qxd3 c5 18. Ba3 Rac8 (18... Rfc8 {Is also valid, but offers slightly smaller chances.}) {This is the main subvariation line, but quite a few digressions are possible.}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although the position is roughly equal, maybe with a slight plus for white, to make a small mistake is very easy, and those mistakes come with great doses of punishment and pain, since a little slip in these lines will very likely cost the game. White has to be constantly looking out for moves like &lt;code&gt;f5&lt;/code&gt; (which can be played even if the bishop has not been fianchettoed) and black has to avoid getting crushed by the bind the &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt; pawn makes. This is not a position you can play mechanically and positional, but a very complex tactical struggle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3890" LastActivityDate="2014-10-22T11:24:45.843" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7675" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-10-22T16:45:12.270" Score="6" ViewCount="3062" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is common for strong chess players to have chess games in memory. Is this because it helps to memorize chess games?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3872" LastActivityDate="2015-03-03T18:07:40.420" Title="Does memorizing chess games improve chess ability?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;rating&gt;&lt;preparation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7676" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7675" CreationDate="2014-10-22T19:20:05.990" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would switch the cause and effect. Strong players have many games memorized because chess memory improves with strength, not because the memorization made them strong. I am not saying that memorizing games is useless but I think that there are more efficient ways to improve.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3270" LastActivityDate="2014-10-22T19:20:05.990" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7677" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7675" CreationDate="2014-10-22T20:00:45.167" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am not sure if memorizing games helps as much as studying games. If you want to learn how masters execute long-term plans or how tactics support strategies or how strategies yield tactical opportunities - then you want to study games (or sequences of moves). &#xA;Having memorized games (and positions) can help very much when it comes to teaching chess. When I demonstrate the Opera Game to my son I want the experience to be seamless - not interrupted by me looking up the next move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4104" LastActivityDate="2014-10-22T20:00:45.167" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7678" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6379" CreationDate="2014-10-22T20:09:12.193" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;In &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V._R._Parton#Synchronistic_Chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Synchronistic Chess&lt;/a&gt;, both players make their moves simultaneously. Black &lt;em&gt;must&lt;/em&gt; be quite equal in this variant!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Additionally, a bunch of the variants listed on the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_variant&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Wikipedia page&lt;/a&gt; could likely be considered &quot;equal&quot; for Black, as they may involve &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_variant#Chess_with_incomplete_information_or_elements_of_chance&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;elements of chance&lt;/a&gt; that would be far more significant than the first-move advantage normally conferred on White. &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penultima&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Some variants&lt;/a&gt; have arbitrary rules that change from game to game, though these may be getting so far removed from actual Chess that their inclusion is a bit questionable. ;-)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1201" LastEditorUserId="1201" LastEditDate="2014-10-22T20:14:14.887" LastActivityDate="2014-10-22T20:14:14.887" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7679" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="7682" CreationDate="2014-10-22T20:11:22.427" Score="0" ViewCount="169" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can someone provide computer analysis that confirms or refutes the correctness of &lt;code&gt;...e5&lt;/code&gt;, played in the below positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Black relies on tactics to carry out freeing break&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;rn1qkb1r/pp3pp1/2p2np1/4p3/3P4/6P1/PPP1NPBP/R1BQK2R w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.dxe5 Qxd1+ 2.Kxd1 Ng4 3.Ke1 Nxe5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Second position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;White loosened control over center so Black tries e5 break&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;r2qkb1r/pp1n1pp1/2p2np1/4p3/3P4/6P1/PPP1NPBP/R1BQ1RK1 w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My computer is very old and weak, so I can't be confident in its analytical powers. If you could provide &lt;strong&gt;concrete lines&lt;/strong&gt; that refute or verify the correctness of &lt;code&gt;...e5&lt;/code&gt;, played in both diagrams, I would highly appreciate it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastActivityDate="2014-10-24T11:35:06.333" Title="Is e5 fully playable in the following positions?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7680" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="7692" CreationDate="2014-10-22T21:10:49.927" Score="2" ViewCount="498" Body="&lt;p&gt;For a given position, I'd like to compute an evaluation of the 3 best moves.&#xA;I send this to Stockfish:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;setoption name MultiPV value 3&#xA;position startpos&#xA;go movetime 500.0 // search for 0.5 seconds&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I get the following result:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;info depth 1 seldepth 1 score cp 84 nodes 71 nps 35500 time 2 multipv 1 pv e2e4&#xA;info depth 1 seldepth 1 score cp 80 nodes 71 nps 35500 time 2 multipv 2 pv d2d4&#xA;info depth 1 seldepth 1 score cp 72 nodes 71 nps 35500 time 2 multipv 3 pv e2e3&#xA;[...]&#xA;info depth 13 seldepth 17 score cp 20 nodes 521614 nps 1575873 time 331 multipv 1 pv d2d4 d7d5 b1c3 g8f6 g1f3 e7e6 e2e3 b8c6 f1d3 f8d6 e1g1 e8g8 c1d2 c8d7 c3b5 e6e5&#xA;info depth 13 seldepth 17 score cp 20 nodes 521614 nps 1575873 time 331 multipv 2 pv g1f3 d7d5 d2d4 g8f6 b1c3 e7e6 e2e3 b8c6 f1d3 f8d6 e1g1 e8g8 c1d2 c8d7 c3b5 e6e5&#xA;info depth 13 seldepth 17 score cp 13 nodes 521614 nps 1575873 time 331 multipv 3 pv e2e4 e7e5 g1e2 b8c6 d2d4 e5d4 e2d4 g8f6 b1c3 f8b4 d4c6 b7c6 e4e5 f6d5&#xA;info depth 14 seldepth 18 score cp 15 nodes 771138 nps 1536131 time 502 multipv 1 pv d2d4 d7d5 g1f3 g8f6 e2e3 e7e6 f1d3 b8c6&#xA;info depth 14 seldepth 18 score cp 15 nodes 771138 nps 1536131 time 502 multipv 2 pv g1f3 d7d5 d2d4 g8f6 e2e3 e7e6 f1d3 b8c6&#xA;info depth 14 seldepth 18 score mate 0 upperbound nodes 771138 nps 1536131 time 502 multipv 3 pv e2e4 e7e5 g1e2 b8c6 d2d4 e5d4 e2d4 g8f6 b1c3 f8b4 d4c6 b7c6 e4e5 f6d5&#xA;info nodes 771138 time 502&#xA;bestmove d2d4 ponder d7d5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The line &lt;code&gt;info depth 14 seldepth 18 score mate 0 upperbound ... multipv 3 pv e2e4 ...&lt;/code&gt; is not useful to me. It indicates that &quot;1.e4&quot; was pruned from the evaluation -- Since it's worse than &quot;1.d4&quot; or &quot;1.Nf3&quot;, it was assigned the trivial upper bound of &lt;code&gt;mate 0&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How can I prevent this from happening? I want an evaluation for each of the top 3 moves, not simply an upper/lower bound. One solution is to run another analysis from &lt;code&gt;position startpos e2e4&lt;/code&gt;. Is there a simpler way?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4105" LastEditorUserId="4105" LastEditDate="2014-10-25T17:31:36.700" LastActivityDate="2014-10-25T17:31:36.700" Title="Stop SF MultiPV from returning an upperbound" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;evaluation&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;uci&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7682" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7679" CreationDate="2014-10-23T11:44:40.647" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;A quick analysis of the first position shows that &lt;code&gt;0...e5&lt;/code&gt; was playable in that there was not a fundamentally better choice.  Stockfish would prefer &lt;code&gt;0...Nbd7&lt;/code&gt; but the resulting score is only .2 points better than &lt;code&gt;0...e5&lt;/code&gt;.  Those fractions add up after a while, but if one is looking to uncramp one's game, it could be a bargain.  7 hours of grinding shows that neither side gets much of an advantage after &lt;code&gt;0...e5 1. O-O&lt;/code&gt;. The score settled on about .75 in White's favor.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's the continuation at 15 minutes per move. I think this shows that 1... e5 is playable and leads to a sharp game.  White retains a slight advantage the whole time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[fen &quot;rn1qkb1r/pp3pp1/2p2np1/4p3/3P4/6P1/PPP1NPBP/R1BQK2R w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;2.O-O Nbd7 3.b4 Be7 4.Rb1 O-O 5.c4 exd4 6.Nxd4 Nb6 7.b5 c5 8.Nb3 Qxd1 9.Rxd1 Nxc4 10.Bxb7 Rad8 11.Re1 Bd6 *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's the second position. I didn't see ALNS's message until this morning, so I thought I might as well post the results. There is a deviation in the moves, probably the result of me using the computer last evening while the program chugged in the background.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[fen &quot;r2qkb1r/pp1n1pp1/2p2np1/4p3/3P4/6P1/PPP1NPBP/R1BQ1RK1 w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.b4 Be7 2.Rb1 O-O 3.c4 exd4 4.Nxd4 Nb6 5.c5 Nbd5 6.Qb3 a5 7.a3 Qd7 8.Bb2 Nc7 9.Rbd1 Nfd5 10.Nc2 Qg4 11.Bf3 Qf5 12.Rfe1 Rfe8 13.Be4 Qg4 14.Qc4 Qh5 *&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The machine tallies this position as anywhere from .55 to .70 (&lt;em&gt;through the next 16 moves!&lt;/em&gt;) depending on the exact variation being calculated. That is, there is no appreciable change in the score in the entire variation. It would seem &lt;code&gt;0... e5&lt;/code&gt; is a viable move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2014-10-24T11:35:06.333" LastActivityDate="2014-10-24T11:35:06.333" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7683" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="7685" CreationDate="2014-10-23T13:37:13.103" Score="1" ViewCount="92" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would like to play correspondace chess, but in order to use it as training for my openning repertoire, I want to agree with the oponent which opening to use.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, We bith give a list of openings/variations and agree in which position start playing. Is any website with this functionality?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2872" LastActivityDate="2014-10-23T15:26:25.220" Title="Correspondece chess on agreed openings" Tags="&lt;correspondence-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7684" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7683" CreationDate="2014-10-23T13:47:19.177" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Gameknot allows &lt;a href=&quot;http://gameknot.com/start-minit.pl&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;mini-tournaments&lt;/a&gt; to specify a starting position for all games in the tournament. This is a popular way to explore openings; I do it frequently.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mini-tournament participation does require that you've completed a few games on the site already though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1201" LastActivityDate="2014-10-23T13:47:19.177" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7685" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7683" CreationDate="2014-10-23T13:55:51.270" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.redhotpawn.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot; title=&quot;Red hot pawn&quot;&gt;Red hot pawn&lt;/a&gt;, you can create an open invite with any starting position you like. With free account, the number of simultaneous unfinished games is limited to 6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1761" LastActivityDate="2014-10-23T13:55:51.270" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7686" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7683" CreationDate="2014-10-23T15:26:25.220" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;On &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chess.com&lt;/a&gt; you may set an open &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/echess/create_game&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;challenge&lt;/a&gt; with a predetermined position (to choose from a list, click the &quot;Show more options&quot; box), and if one game is not enough you even have the option of joining a &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/tournaments/myhome&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;tournament&lt;/a&gt;, some of which have the starting position of a certain opening or variation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With a free account, you are allowed to issue as many challenges as you want, join as many official tournaments as you want and join one non-official tournament. If you want to create your own, you must go premium.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3890" LastActivityDate="2014-10-23T15:26:25.220" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7687" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-10-23T19:59:24.530" Score="5" ViewCount="374" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[fen &quot;r1bqk2r/ppp3Bp/2n5/8/1b2p3/1P2n1P1/P4PBP/RN1Q1KNR w kq - 0 13&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was playing a game where I got to this position as black on lichess.org - the analysis said that checkmate was unavoidable for white and it was a mate in 7. I played with it some more but I can't see the mate in 7. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wonder what should be my approach to checkmating efficiently? Is it just by playing more games or are there some tips I should know?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4102" LastEditorUserId="1761" LastEditDate="2014-10-30T15:12:06.543" LastActivityDate="2014-10-30T15:12:06.543" Title="What should be my approach to checkmating efficiently?" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7688" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7687" CreationDate="2014-10-23T20:20:20.957" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here you are. Obviously &lt;code&gt;1. fxe3&lt;/code&gt; is mate in two...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[fen &quot;r1bqk2r/ppp3Bp/2n5/8/1b2p3/1P2n1P1/P4PBP/RN1Q1KNR w kq - 0 13&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Ke2 Qxd1 2.Kxe3 Bc5 3.Bd4 Bxd4 4.Kxe4 Qc2 5.Kd5 Qd3&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;followed by mate in next move&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;edit&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Regarding to comment below:&#xA;It's about calculating of course. A matter of practise. First of all, you should calculate all the forcing moves: checks and captures. Try to imagine how the mate (final position) would look like. Those are my small advices:) Anyway I think that this position is not a good example at all. See, in this position you're going to take white's Queen. I wouldn't bother myself counting all up to mate. Why would I? The game is already over, doesn't matter if I mate in 6 moves or in 9.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3895" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2014-10-23T21:11:08.250" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7689" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7687" CreationDate="2014-10-23T20:31:38.633" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are a fair number of lines toward the end that make the fact that mate is forced a little hard to spot, but it's certainly doable. A couple example lines:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;r1bqk2r/ppp3Bp/2n5/8/1b2p3/1P2n1P1/P4PBP/RN1Q1KNR w kq - 0 0&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Ke2 (1.fxe3 Qxd1+ 2.Kf2 Qe1#) Qxd1+ 2.Kxe3 Qd3+ 3.Kf4 Bd6+ 4.Kg5 Qd5+ 5.Kh6 Bg4 6.Bxh8 (6.Be5 Qxe5 7.Bxe4 Bf8#) Qh5+ 7.Kg7 Qg6#&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for learning to spot these mates yourself, part of the trick is recognizing that Black's pieces are hugely more active than White's, especially after the White Queen is gone. Black should look to control the White King's movement easily with the two Bishops and the Queen, and mate is surely inevitable. Finding the &lt;em&gt;fastest&lt;/em&gt; mate is always nice, but at the end of the day, any line will do as long as it doesn't provide an opportunity for White to escape!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When calculating mating lines (or any combination), it's easiest to look for &lt;em&gt;forcing&lt;/em&gt; moves: moves which leave the opponent with only a single move, if possible. This naturally limits the number of lines you have to calculate. Good candidates for forcing moves are checks, or other threats which must be dealt with immediately. For instance, I found the line above by simply evaluating, at each step, the move that gives White as few resulting choices as possible. Even &lt;code&gt;5...Bg4&lt;/code&gt; is a forcing move, because it threatens immediate mate via &lt;code&gt;...Qh5&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1201" LastEditorUserId="1201" LastEditDate="2014-10-28T22:19:10.703" LastActivityDate="2014-10-28T22:19:10.703" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7690" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-10-23T22:03:49.940" Score="9" ViewCount="7198" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a fairly new chess player (say 1400) and I would like to play against Stockfish and win some of the time. If I change the strength to 1400 then what does the algorithm actually do ? Does it make random blunders or does it simply reduce its depth and thereby only see the easiest tactical combinations of moves. If so, what would the depth be for a 1400 rating ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3999" LastActivityDate="2017-01-18T02:32:54.800" Title="How does a chess engine mimic an Elo rating" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;elo&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7691" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7690" CreationDate="2014-10-23T23:52:57.157" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;In strength reduction mode, Stockfish starts a multi-pv where the engine searches for more than one best move. When the engine needs to make a move, it looks for all the possibilities in the multi-pv moves and choose a move with the following algorithm:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Filter out a move if it's a gross blunder. It does that by comparing its score with another multi-pv score.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Generate a small random number and applied it to a multi-pv score&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Pick the move if the transformed score is the best&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It might sound complicated but it isn't, let's do an example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Say, I exchanged my queen with yours. You could take my queen with your bishop or pawn. If you did it with your bishop, the position would have been equal. If you did with your pawn, your pawn position would have been ruined and lead to a slightly inferior position. If you did anything else, I would be a queen ahead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A possible scoring would be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;BxQ -&gt; 0.00&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;PxQ -&gt; -0.34&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Kh8 -&gt; -9.99&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not taking back the queen is a gross blunder and should be avoided whenever possible. When applied to the algorithm:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Calculation&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Engine considers BxQ&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The best score is 0.00. Since this is the first move, there is nothing to do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Engine considers PxQ&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Notice that without giving the move PxQ a small random boost, it'd never would be chosen because the best score (0.00) is greater than the score for PxQ (-0.34).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stockfish generates a small positive number and add it to PxQ. Now, there're two possibilities. If the random number is too small, say, 0.10, the added score (-0.34 + 0.10 = -0.24) is still too small compared to the best score (0.00), and it'd been discarded. If the generated random number is sufficient to push the PxQ score above the best score, for instance, 0.40. The new score for PxQ would have been 0.06 and it's greater than 0.00. Therefore, Stockfish would pick the PxQ.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Engine considers Kh8&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not taking back the queen is a gross blunder. The difference between it with the previous move is too big (-9.99 - -0.34). Stockfish wouldn't consider it, and discard it immediately.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Implication&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The engine will not play random chess&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The possibility of making an inferior move depends on the random generator. The generator usefulness also depends on the strength level. The weaker you ask Stockfish be, the more likely the generator will generate a bigger number.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Stupid blunders are avoided&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The move Stockfish plays is unpredictable, simulating human's unpredictable behavior.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Stockfish doesn't mimic Elo rating. It only gives you 20 strength levels.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edited&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The poster was concern about a link to the Stockfish for iOS in the comments. Please note that the statement in the link &lt;em&gt;&quot;Set the strength of the engine on a 0 to 2500 scale. This scale roughly corresponds with the human ELO scale. 0 is absolutely terrible play, while 2500 is maximum strength.&quot;&lt;/em&gt; is misleading and simply wrong. To see why, the page wasn't written by a Stockfish engine developer. The writer misinterpreted the scaling reported in the app. In reality, if you give the app, say Elo 2000, the app maps it to one of the 20 strength levels. Whatever Elo rating that you see in the app means absolutely nothing, it's just an easy way for an end-user to adjust the levels. There is no direct relationship between a strength level to a Elo rating. Think like this, if I modify the source code and expand the range from 0,20 to 0,40. Now when you choose strength 30, what's the rating? I could tell you it's Elo 2400, or Elo 2500, or Elo 3500.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At the end of the day, Stockfish doesn't mimic Elo strength. The Elo labels that you see in the app are simply just beautiful labels that pretend there is a relationship.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2017-01-18T02:32:54.800" LastActivityDate="2017-01-18T02:32:54.800" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7692" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7680" CreationDate="2014-10-24T00:00:22.550" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You'll need to give the engine more time to think.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edited&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The poster was concern about &lt;em&gt;&quot;upperbound&quot;/&quot;lowerbound&quot; is only returned at the largest depth&quot;&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The question makes absolutely no sense. I don't want to get into too much technical details because you need to understand the alpha-beta algorithm. upperbound/lowerbound is &lt;strong&gt;NOT&lt;/strong&gt; something that an end-user ever needs to worry about. It's meant for engine debugging, the information is only and only useful for engine developers. No chess software with a Stockfish engine would tell you anything related to the bounds. Stockfish reports the upperbound/lowerbound information whenever it encounters one for every 3 seconds.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can't directly answer your question because it is not a valid question. upper and lower bounds are really not something that you should worry. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2014-10-25T03:10:33.920" LastActivityDate="2014-10-25T03:10:33.920" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7693" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2014-10-24T10:22:50.283" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2014-10-24T10:22:50.283" LastActivityDate="2014-10-24T10:22:50.283" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7694" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2014-10-24T10:22:50.283" Score="0" Body="one out of three possible results in a chess game (win, draw and loss are the 3 possible results)." OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-09-29T13:05:40.390" LastActivityDate="2017-09-29T13:05:40.390" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7695" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5949" CreationDate="2014-10-25T05:12:27.170" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The correct wording is &quot;properly taught, a student can learn more in a few hours than he would find out in ten years of untutored trial and error&quot;. The oldest reference to the quote I found is in this &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.newspapers.com/newspage/10292301/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;newspaper article&lt;/a&gt; of 1973.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3757" LastActivityDate="2014-10-25T05:12:27.170" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7698" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6424" CreationDate="2014-10-25T12:00:04.387" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Most reputed brand in Chess boards is probably Staunton. They are manufactured by &#xA;Jacques of London and have been in circulation since 1849!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4106" LastEditorUserId="3890" LastEditDate="2014-10-27T12:54:56.220" LastActivityDate="2014-10-27T12:54:56.220" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7699" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6343" CreationDate="2014-10-25T12:13:12.133" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;here's a list of some famous chess players who were able gain fame in other areas.Just to mention ,none of them are actors or politicians.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Former world Champion Mikhail Botvinnik was a famous computer scientist and electrical engineer. He was one of earliest pioneers of AI.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Attacking player Extraordinaire Rashid Nezhmetdinov was also a checkers player,strong enough to participate in Soviet Checkers Championships.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Fred Reinfield was an author who wrote several books ranging from Philately,Numismatics to Physics,Geology and medicine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Milan Vidmar was a very well known academic and electrical engineer who actually became an university's Chancellor(Equivalent to Dean) and went on to build a Institute which now bears his name.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Former world champion Max Euwe- Mathematician&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mark Taimanov- Concert Pianist&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Robert Hübner is a papyrologist and was recognised as a leading player of Xiangqi(a chinese board game) who was not from China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are some players who does not fit &quot;famous in other areas&quot; bill, but still were able to build their own career in other fields.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lajos Portisch- Opera Singer&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;John Nunn- Mathematician&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4106" LastEditorUserId="4106" LastEditDate="2014-10-25T13:27:24.637" LastActivityDate="2014-10-25T13:27:24.637" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7700" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="7701" CreationDate="2014-10-25T14:12:12.503" Score="3" ViewCount="516" Body="&lt;p&gt;In some openings, like Nimzo-Indian, the usual e-pawn move is e3, while in openings like the KID, White can play e4.&#xA;Is there some guidelines to know when you can play e2-e4?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3423" LastActivityDate="2014-10-25T22:14:12.053" Title="e3 vs e4 in 1.d4 openings" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;1.d4&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7701" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7700" CreationDate="2014-10-25T14:55:07.823" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the Nimzo-Indian, Black's entire opening strategy is built around restricting the e4 push. 1... Nf6 stops it immediately. 2... e6 prepares 3... Bb4, which stops it again. Black's takeaway from the opening is that white is generally only able to achieve e4 by making some concession.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the King's Indian, Black makes no attempt to stop the e4 push other than 1... Nf6 which is of course only a temporary delay. 2... g6 and 3... Bg7 are both aimed at d4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, you can tell when you can play e4 by looking at the idea of Black's moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3270" LastActivityDate="2014-10-25T14:55:07.823" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7702" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7585" CreationDate="2014-10-25T17:03:01.250" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;May I refer 'The Modern Benoni' by GM Norwood. Its light weight compared to others referred here, but is a good book if you are staring out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then there's 'The Complete Benoni' by Lev Psakhis&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4106" LastActivityDate="2014-10-25T17:03:01.250" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7703" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7700" CreationDate="2014-10-25T22:14:12.053" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Besides knowing the &quot;why&quot; of the variation you are playing rather than the &quot;what&quot; to play in each position, that is, prioritizing concepts to line memorization, I would say that an easy way to check when a push is favorable or not is by analyzing whether the position has benefited from it or not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is extremely important to know and understand what white and black are trying to do in the opening. This general ideas may be such as &quot;winning queenside space&quot;, &quot;developing quickly&quot;, &quot;impeding the e4 push&quot;, &quot;impeding the d4 push&quot;, &quot;pressuring the e4 square&quot; and many more are what, in general, guide the player to the making of certain moves above others.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you have not a general idea about the opening, then the easiest way to see if a push is all right is to see if it has no tactical or positional drawbacks. If with your push you are losing a pawn, then it's probably not the best option. If with it you are threatening to win a huge amount of space on the center and cramp the other's position (and no tactical drawbacks arise) then probably it not only is a playable move, but a good one too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3890" LastActivityDate="2014-10-25T22:14:12.053" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7704" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6424" CreationDate="2014-10-26T09:56:36.197" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;DGT chessboards are the best. The digital chessboards are definitely helpful in your chess career, besides, the quality is really good; the only downside is that it is quite expensive. However, I would say the board is worth the price.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3381" LastActivityDate="2014-10-26T09:56:36.197" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7705" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-10-26T12:27:21.670" Score="4" ViewCount="489" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a good player when I have a plan. If I have a certain goal in mind, I can see the way to it. But in quiet, planless, positions, I have difficulty as an attacking and tactical player. What is the best way to cope with them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3405" LastActivityDate="2014-10-26T21:53:13.353" Title="How to work out quiet positions?" Tags="&lt;middlegame&gt;&lt;planning&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7706" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7705" CreationDate="2014-10-26T12:37:58.597" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It seems you are good in tactical calculations and you can find combinations well, but you lack in strategical moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think, you should improve your &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_middlegame&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;middle-game&lt;/a&gt; skills. To achieve this, you can read middle-game books and analyse the games of GMs. For example, try to guess the next move in those games, after that try to understand why they played that move... . &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, there are many useful middle game tutorials and training sites on the Internet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1824" LastActivityDate="2014-10-26T12:37:58.597" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7707" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-10-26T12:39:24.610" Score="6" ViewCount="958" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;  1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 c5 3.d5 e6 4.Nc3 exd5 5.cxd5 d6 6.e4 g6 7.f4 Bg7 8.Bb5+&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How can black respond in the following position?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3405" LastActivityDate="2020-08-04T01:17:14.590" Title="How to respond to the Taimanov attack in the Benoni?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;modern-benoni&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7708" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7707" CreationDate="2014-10-26T15:26:33.707" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;8...Nfd7&lt;/strong&gt; is the most popular line among Grandmasters. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1252423&quot;&gt;Bareev vs Topalov 2002, 0-1&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1693668&quot;&gt;Bostari vs Polgar 2011 0-1&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;8...Nbd7&lt;/strong&gt; is extremely risky and requires thorough preparation. White does seem to get at least a minimal endgame advantage in the 8...Nbd7 line with best play by Black. Since the advent of strong engines, Grandmasters have avoided it and I would recommend avoiding it as well. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;8...Bd7&lt;/strong&gt; is just bad and White easily gets an advantage. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I provide some sample lines - &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;     [Event &quot;8...Nfd7 is Black's best move&quot;]&#xA;     [Date &quot;2014.10.26&quot;]          &#xA;     [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;     1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 c5 4. d5 exd5 5. cxd5 d6 6. e4 g6 7. f4 Bg7 8. Bb5+&#xA;     Nfd7 (8... Nbd7 9. e5 dxe5 10. fxe5 Nh5 11. e6 Qh4+ 12. g3! (12. Kd2?! fxe6 13.&#xA;     dxe6 O-O 14. exd7 Bxd7 15. Bxd7 Rf2+ 16. Nge2 Rd8=) 12... Nxg3 13. hxg3 Qxh1 14.&#xA;     Be3 Bxc3+ (14... O-O 15. exd7 Bxd7 16. Bxd7 Rfe8 17. Bxe8 Rxe8 18. Qe2 Bh6 19.&#xA;     Kf1 Bxe3 20. Qg2) (14... Qg2 15. exd7+ Bxd7 16. Bxd7+ Kxd7 17. Qg4+ Kd8 18.&#xA;     O-O-O) 15. bxc3 a6 16. exd7+ Bxd7 17. Bxd7+ Kxd7 18. Qg4+ f5 19. Qf3 Qxf3 20.&#xA;     Nxf3) (8... Bd7? 9. e5 dxe5 (9... Qe7 10. Qe2 dxe5 (10... Nh5 11. g4) 11. d6)&#xA;     10. fxe5 Nh5 11. Nf3 O-O 12. Bxd7 Nxd7 13. g4) 9. a4 O-O (9... Qh4+!? 10. g3 Qe7&#xA;     11. Nf3 O-O 12. O-O Na6 13. Re1 Nb4) 10. Nf3 Na6 11. O-O Nb4 12. Re1 a6 13. Bf1&#xA;     Re8&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2429" LastEditorUserId="2429" LastEditDate="2014-10-26T15:38:47.917" LastActivityDate="2014-10-26T15:38:47.917" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7709" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7705" CreationDate="2014-10-26T15:27:50.933" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;A good middlegame strategy book will help you figure out what sort of plans you can execute besides just attacking ones. I enthusiastically recommend &lt;em&gt;Mastering Chess Strategy&lt;/em&gt; by Johan Hellsten, a very nice breakdown of all the standard strategic plans and tactics, with hundreds of problems to test your understanding.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2014-10-26T15:27:50.933" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7710" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7705" CreationDate="2014-10-26T17:02:45.163" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You could develop an opening repertoire that prevents quiet games. for example, play e4 as white, e5 or c5 as black. Against d4, play f5(dutch). This will considerably reduce &quot;quiet&quot; games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3872" LastActivityDate="2014-10-26T17:02:45.163" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7711" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6343" CreationDate="2014-10-26T17:04:48.623" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Jose Raul Capablanca was a Cuban diplomat, in addition be being World Champion, in 1921-1927,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2014-10-26T17:04:48.623" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7712" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8109" CreationDate="2014-10-26T21:08:48.710" Score="3" ViewCount="437" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let's imagine I have a pgn file with each game starting from a tactical position, and I want to identify the games where the solution was the only one. Basically an engine would have to evaluate several possible moves, and the evaluation margin between the first best move and the second best move would have to be above a certain threshold (e.g. &gt;3.00 pawns). I do not want to load up manually every game and look at the engine evaluation - that's the step I am hoping to eliminate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am interested to hear of any GUI based solutions, or even script based (e.g. modifications to this - &lt;a href=&quot;http://sourceforge.net/p/scid/mailman/message/29220017/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://sourceforge.net/p/scid/mailman/message/29220017/&lt;/a&gt; - I like this script, but can't get it up and running easily because SCID TCL interpreter on Windows seems to come without Expect package ...)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="618" LastActivityDate="2014-12-16T10:06:56.530" Title="What are the options to automatically identify games where the first move played was the best by a margin?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;pgn&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7713" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7705" CreationDate="2014-10-26T21:53:13.353" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;When there is no concrete plan of action possible, the general plan should be to - &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Improve the position of your pieces&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Trade off bad pieces if possible&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Try to create weaknesses in your opponent's position&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Keep your king safe and see if the enemy's king position can be compromised.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2429" LastActivityDate="2014-10-26T21:53:13.353" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7715" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="7716" CreationDate="2014-10-27T19:12:54.617" Score="3" ViewCount="1178" Body="&lt;p&gt;DGT boards allow it to be connected with a computer, and thus sending it the moves. WHat algorithm does it use to verify the moves pieces?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3405" LastActivityDate="2018-12-14T07:11:34.117" Title="What system do DGT boards use?" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;chessboards&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7716" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7715" CreationDate="2014-10-27T19:44:58.070" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessprogramming.org/DGT_Board&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;This page&lt;/a&gt; contains a lot of information about DGT boards, including the patent, detailed description of technologies and algorithms used. Many additional references are provided, too. It is definitely an interesting read!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3831" LastEditorUserId="17895" LastEditDate="2018-12-14T07:11:34.117" LastActivityDate="2018-12-14T07:11:34.117" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="7717" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6059" CreationDate="2014-10-28T07:24:44.877" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT:&lt;/strong&gt; With the advent of Lc0 and the new Stockfish 13, unfortunately this question is now beyond human comprehension.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am not very well versed on the theory of chess computer programs, but I've used them for a long time. At first, I used &lt;strong&gt;Houdini&lt;/strong&gt;, then switched for a few months to &lt;strong&gt;Rybka&lt;/strong&gt;, back to Houdini, had another short incursion into &lt;strong&gt;Komodo&lt;/strong&gt;, back to Houdini and now I've been using &lt;strong&gt;Stockfish&lt;/strong&gt; for a year or so. The following is based on my personal feelings with the aforementioned engines (and thus, subjective).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Rybka&lt;/strong&gt;: It is the model of a tactical player. Playing on (very) low depth, some times deviates from the opening theory just to see if the opponent would fall into a well-hidden trap. Playing on normal depth, it takes a little to make his mind, but he finally chooses (usually) a theoretical line. It also relies strongly on tricks and tactics to avoid calming the position (although not always with success). When in a closed position, this engine collapses.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Komodo&lt;/strong&gt;: It plays half-positional, half-tactical. That is, he has no preference over either, but has good calculating power and can play relatively good in semi-closed positions. His endgame skills, however, are what differentiate him from other engines. There he is hard to beat when in an inferior position and plays accurately when having a small advantage.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Houdini&lt;/strong&gt;: This is a good combination of tactical abilities and positional understanding. Can evaluate well (not great, but well) closed positions and two of his main characteristics are long combinations involving piece sacrifices to recover the piece and even win a couple of pawns after 10 to 15 moves and a tremendous defensive capability, being able to hold a draw in seemingly lost positions (it is said that this is where the name came from, in reference to his escapist abilities). Not extremely good at the endgame.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Stockfish&lt;/strong&gt;: Extreme versatile engine, can calculate long and precise and has a good understanding of the positional nuances of a closed position. There are few positions in which he cannot perform well, and these can be easily tuned from the &amp;quot;options&amp;quot; available in any GUI (that is, change the way he always looks for a win or if he can allow a draw when having material advantage). However, I think it has a small tendency to drawish positions.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3890" LastEditorUserId="3890" LastEditDate="2021-05-08T14:50:13.507" LastActivityDate="2021-05-08T14:50:13.507" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="7718" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6483" CreationDate="2014-10-28T16:43:13.930" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chapters.indigo.ca/books/product/9780553263152-item.html?s_campaign=goo-PLATest&amp;amp;gclid=CN2TpZHlz8ECFcyyMgodKDAA4Q&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess&lt;/a&gt; is a great book on chess fundamentals for newcomers and skilled players. I have it and read it (play it?) without a board, as it's designed this way. It presents a puzzle on one page, and gives the answer and a breakdown on the next. Very well done overall.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3950" LastActivityDate="2014-10-28T16:43:13.930" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7719" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6091" CreationDate="2014-10-29T07:46:03.343" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The book &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1857445309&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Starting Out: The Accelerated Dragon&lt;/a&gt; provides a basic but deep coverage of the opening. As the main drawback of the Accelerated Dragon is the possibility of facing the Maroczy Bind, in his book Andrew Greet provides almost 170 pages of knowledge. The coverage is incredibly thorough, including the Classical variation, the Gurgenidze system, the &lt;code&gt;Ng4&lt;/code&gt; system, avoiding the exchange on &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt; and even has a long chapter only for other playable sidelines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On this same line goes the almost classic &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1857442083&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Accelerated Dragons&lt;/a&gt;, providing slightly less of 150 pages covering similar material. However, this book is extremely dense and undoubtedly contains more information and in more depth that the other, providing as many theoretical variations and analysis of the positions as prose explaining the matters going on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For a thorough introduction to the subject, the first is in order, and for a perfection of the positions, the second is a great ally.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit:&lt;/strong&gt; Both books are thought (by the authors) to be an opening repertoire for black, but despite their stated preferences for the defending side, always keep an impartial position. Examples of this are present specially on the Maroczy Bind, where black risks becoming too passive (as in the Classical variation) and all authors agree that some of the positions arising from the main Classical variation are to be avoided at all costs, deviating with &lt;code&gt;b6&lt;/code&gt; instead of &lt;code&gt;d6&lt;/code&gt; many times. This is also patent in the Hyper-Accelerated Dragon, which is not the subject here but also is covered by the books, where some positions are extremely doubtful and should be played only as a strong gamble and at our own risk.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3890" LastEditorUserId="11202" LastEditDate="2017-06-23T06:58:55.677" LastActivityDate="2017-06-23T06:58:55.677" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7720" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7662" CreationDate="2014-10-29T09:47:39.237" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The answer, as hinted in the other comments, is that there isn't a solid definition. Unlike @Mikhail Tal's answer, though, the number I had always head was 20 moves (40ply) or thereabouts. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Those who are familiar with 30 as a boundary might think of this as too short, but as an example the &quot;Opera Game&quot; was only 17 moves and the &quot;Immortal Game&quot; for all its action was only 22. I would posit that the reason that books like &lt;em&gt;500 King's Gambit Miniatures&lt;/em&gt; use 30 as a boundary is simply because there probably aren't enough games under 20 that are off worthwhile quality and that a potential reader hasn't already like seen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4130" LastActivityDate="2014-10-29T09:47:39.237" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7721" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-10-30T02:53:39.887" Score="6" ViewCount="545" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is it legal to underpromote a pawn to opponent's pieces? For example, in the below position, promoting White's pawn to a Black knight will be a win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;r7/kPR5/8/K7/8/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Title &amp;quot;Underpromotion&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4136" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-12-15T00:37:26.307" LastActivityDate="2020-12-15T00:37:26.307" Title="Underpromoting a pawn" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;pawn-promotion&gt;&lt;loopholes&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ClosedDate="2014-10-30T13:46:31.170" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="7722" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7721" CreationDate="2014-10-30T03:04:37.660" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, it is not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;FIDE Laws of chess, clause 3.7e:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;When a pawn reaches the rank furthest from its starting position it&#xA;  must be exchanged as part of the same move on the same square for a&#xA;  new queen, rook, bishop or knight &lt;strong&gt;of the same colour&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2014-10-30T03:04:37.660" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7723" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-10-31T07:39:59.040" Score="7" ViewCount="150" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;&quot;] &#xA; 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 a6 6. Bg5 e6 7. f4 b5 8.e5 dxe5 9. fxe5 Qc7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I was actively playing, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.thinking-approach.org/index.php?id=2135&quot;&gt;250000 cigarettes ago&lt;/a&gt;, the Polugayevsky's fantastic idea of 7. ... b5 effectively took 7. f4 out of practice. What is the current state of the art (at 2000 level preferably)? Did White develop any countermeasure?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3774" LastEditorUserId="3774" LastEditDate="2014-10-31T07:45:45.503" LastActivityDate="2014-10-31T09:22:54.807" Title="Current state of Polugayevsky/Najdorf" Tags="&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;&lt;najdorf&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7724" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7723" CreationDate="2014-10-31T09:22:54.807" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;With this particular continuation &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;10&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;xf6 ...Qe5+&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Be2 ...Qxg5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;0-0&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;should provide white with good play, I've compared some databases which generally favor white in this position. Instead of B5 many players including grandmasters favor an immediate 7...Qb6. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I suggest looking into some databases(chessgames.com has a fair amount of games as does chess.com however chess.com requires membership for proper database analysis) to see possible continuations since I do not play this particular variation. I can only assume computer analysis has somewhat dealt with the b5 variation since it does not provide black with much development and leaves space open for white's knights.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4093" LastActivityDate="2014-10-31T09:22:54.807" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7725" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-10-31T11:42:10.447" Score="4" ViewCount="2346" Body="&lt;p&gt;In chess tournaments, when you win you get 1 point, when you draw you get 0.5 point, when you lose you get 0 point.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So we have to use two additional symbols to represent the score of a player: the radix point and the digit &quot;5&quot;.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Or sometimes we use three additional symbols: &quot; 1 / 2 &quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is: why don't we just multiply everything by 2?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;When you win you would get 2 points, when you draw you would get 1 point, when you lose you would get 0 point.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This would simply have the benefit of economizing symbols and making the scores shorter. No more &quot;.5&quot; or &quot;1/2&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3237" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-07-28T14:11:02.453" LastActivityDate="2016-07-28T14:11:02.453" Title="Why don't we use this scoring system: 2 points for a win, 1 point for a draw, 0 point for a lose?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="7" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7726" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7725" CreationDate="2014-10-31T14:21:19.997" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;Because it's a long-established convention and changing it at this point would be much more trouble than it's worth.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the words of Gerald Weinberg &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Things are the way they are because they got that way&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3270" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2014-10-31T20:43:19.273" LastActivityDate="2014-10-31T20:43:19.273" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7727" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7725" CreationDate="2014-10-31T17:09:06.000" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;Each game of chess is worth a total of 1 point.  The winner takes the whole point, the loser gets none of it, and a draw gives each player an equal portion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This makes it easier to create player statistics, because each game is worth exactly 1 point.  Divide their total score by the number of games played and you get a percentage of games won/lost.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To some degree this is the same as asking why we use pi rather than tau in mathematics.  For some operations pi is easier to work with, for others tau is easier to work with.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While a 2 point system would make some things easier, it would make others harder.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3386" LastActivityDate="2014-10-31T17:09:06.000" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7728" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="7732" CreationDate="2014-10-31T20:48:26.647" Score="2" ViewCount="402" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am looking for advice how to prepare opening, so i could easily skim over it after a while. Create databases for every opening with analyzed games? But some positions can occur after different openings. Create artificial games per opening with lots of variation and store in one database? Should i add notes?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am limited to SCID and Chessx because i use Linux. But general ideas a highly welcomed too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1741" LastActivityDate="2014-11-01T14:02:33.390" Title="Best way to prepare files with openings for future use" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;preparation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7730" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-11-01T08:49:03.883" Score="2" ViewCount="323" Body="&lt;p&gt;ChessTempo offers a service to see all the games of your opponent. The thing is, it also shows what the opponents played. So if I see 100 times &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; was played, 60 of the times might be because of the opponent. How can I only see the moves made by the person I'm going to face?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3405" LastEditorUserId="3890" LastEditDate="2014-11-01T14:07:25.700" LastActivityDate="2014-11-01T14:07:25.700" Title="How do I prepare against someone if I have a database of his games" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;preparation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7731" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7730" CreationDate="2014-11-01T09:15:26.627" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;First of all, I don't think that chesstempo or other sites are actually good for preparation. I just took a look and saw that there are only 9 moves of each game displayed. If you are taking chess seriously, it's better to get the chessbase or at least fritz. They are more user friendly and statistics are better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Regarding your question's title. Preparation is a complicated process. It depends mostly on time you are willing to spend on it. If you got tons of time and the game you are preparing to is very important, you should totally x-ray your opponent looking at all the games. Probably with someone more experienced in order to advise you a little bit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyway, some basic stuff:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Check what openings your oponent play and what is his win rate/draw rate/lose rate, you know why.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What is your standard answer to his opening? Do you feel comfortable with it? What's your W/D/L ratio there? Are there game of YOURS in database? &lt;strong&gt;Keep in mind, your oponent might be prepared aswell!&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Are there any games/variations that your oponent has a big lose rate? How well do you understand those positions? Do you know any similar structures that you could drag him into?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So in simple words: spot the weakness and exploit, that's it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3895" LastActivityDate="2014-11-01T09:15:26.627" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7732" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7728" CreationDate="2014-11-01T10:06:00.647" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here I will describe the usual and probably best way of preparing an opening repertoire.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Black&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The usual way to prepare an &lt;strong&gt;opening repertoire&lt;/strong&gt; with &lt;strong&gt;black&lt;/strong&gt; is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Depending on your style of play, skim through several games with different openings that suit your style of play and &lt;em&gt;choose one (opening) for every starting move&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Starting with the most played (usually &lt;code&gt;1.e4&lt;/code&gt;) have a general look at the main line and a couple of important sidelines of your preferred defense. &lt;em&gt;Choose a line&lt;/em&gt; that you like and feel comfortable with the position. Bear in mind that whenever black can deviate, you may only choose one deviation to begin with, but whenever white can deviate you must have a look at all (or at least most of) the deviations.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Build up an personalized &lt;em&gt;file&lt;/em&gt; with your choice of opening repertoire. This should include the line you have chosen, the possible deviations for white and your answers. When theory ends, you should add a sample game (or even two if possible) with a relevant idea or position on said subline. Concerning the notes, if you find an annotated game (the annotator having a good level, preferably GM and that the game was his) on your pet line (or even if it's not your pet line) with relevant commentaries, it is surely a good idea to include it in your repertoire.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;This is not always strictly necessary since most people only play for fun, but in general it is useful to check (now or when choosing the lines you want to play) that your repertoire is &lt;em&gt;sound&lt;/em&gt;, or &lt;em&gt;at least playable&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Repeat 2. and 3. for the rest of the opening moves.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Example&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Despite the huge variety of opening moves, you may choose intelligently your opening repertoire so that you only have to prepare a couple of main defenses and get away with playing similar positions with different move openings. The main opening moves are &lt;code&gt;1.e4&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;1.d4&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am a tactical player, so against &lt;code&gt;1.e4&lt;/code&gt; I will play the Sicilian Dragon. Against every possible attack by white (Smith-Morra, Classical variation, Yugoslav attack, Russian system and so on) I will prepare the main line in almost all of them, since it is more probable that the'll play into may preparation that way. Particularly, on the Yugoslav attack I will play the Chinese Dragon (&lt;code&gt;Rb8&lt;/code&gt; instead of &lt;code&gt;Rc8&lt;/code&gt; at some point). I will play &lt;code&gt;Be6&lt;/code&gt; aginst the Classical variation. I will play &lt;code&gt;e6&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;Nge7&lt;/code&gt; against the Closed Sicilian and so on. I will prepare a file on this defense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Following this same tactical ideas, and because it also is a fianchetto defense (and I am used to having my bishop on &lt;code&gt;g7&lt;/code&gt; because of my main defense against &lt;code&gt;1.e4&lt;/code&gt;) I will play the Grunfeld defense against &lt;code&gt;1.d4&lt;/code&gt;. The main attacks are (of the Exchange Variation) &lt;code&gt;Bc4&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;Be3&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;Nf3&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;Rb1&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;Qc3&lt;/code&gt; and others, and againts all of them I will choose a more positional setup (&lt;code&gt;Bg7&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;c5&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;Nc6&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;Bd7&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;b6&lt;/code&gt; on the main line, and the ideas are similar on the rest), as the opening is already quite tactical to need to memorize hundreds of forced lines. I won't lack of tactical opportunities. I will prepare another file on this defense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, because of my opening choice, against &lt;code&gt;1.c4&lt;/code&gt; I can use a Sicilian Dragon setup (the symmetrical English), so I won't have to choose another defense. Moreover, against &lt;code&gt;1.Nf3&lt;/code&gt; I can also play &lt;code&gt;1... c5&lt;/code&gt; and enter similar positions to the ones I know. This means that my whole repertoire is reduced to &quot;only&quot; two defenses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;White&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The usual way to prepare an &lt;strong&gt;opening repertoire&lt;/strong&gt; with &lt;strong&gt;white&lt;/strong&gt; is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Depending on your style of play, &lt;em&gt;choose an opening move&lt;/em&gt;. The general guidelines for this are that &lt;code&gt;1.e4&lt;/code&gt; is for tactical players, &lt;code&gt;1.d4&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;1.c4&lt;/code&gt; are for positional players. This however highly depends on the position the defender chooses. Other opening moves are, in general, not as good as those three.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Make a list of the main &lt;em&gt;defenses&lt;/em&gt; to the opening move you have chosen.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Starting with the most commonly played, have a general look at the main line and a couple of important sidelines. &lt;em&gt;Choose a line&lt;/em&gt; that you like and feel comfortable with the position. Bear in mind that whenever white can deviate, you may only choose one deviation to begin with, but whenever black can deviate you must have a look at all (or at least most of) the deviations. This is the exact opposite that happened with your repertoire with black.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Same as 3. before, &lt;em&gt;build up a repertoire file&lt;/em&gt;. The same comment on 4. applies, &lt;em&gt;soundness&lt;/em&gt; of the lines are generally good advice.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Repeat 3. and 4. on this list for every other defense you may face, going through the list starting with the more common.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Example&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As I am a tactical player, I will open the game with &lt;code&gt;1.e4&lt;/code&gt;. The main defenses I will face are: Sicilians, &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt; answers, French, Caro-Kann, Pirc and Scandinavian.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Every one of them has his own body of theory, but I will choose the open Sicilian (trying to play more or less main lines against all the Sicilians), the Yugoslav attack against the Dragon, the Richter-Rauzer attack against the Classical, the English attack against the Najdorf and Scheveningen and so on. I will also play the Scotch against &lt;code&gt;1... e5&lt;/code&gt; since it's a very tactical opening. I will play the Tarrasch &lt;code&gt;Nf4&lt;/code&gt; against the French, which is a very wild line. The Caveman attack against the Caro-Kann (from the Advance variation, an early &lt;code&gt;h4&lt;/code&gt;), the Hungarian attack against the Pirc and the main line against the Scandinavian will be the rest of my repertoire.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, this has to be well researched and saved in a file.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Conclusion&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This task should not be extremely difficult, but it will be long. I suggest you take a look at this &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessvideos.tv/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6635&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;video&lt;/a&gt;, as his main purpose is to teach how to use SCID to develop an opening repertoire. Choose wisely, as good choices will serve you well for the rest of your chess life, whereas poor ones will have to be changed over and over.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3890" LastEditorUserId="3890" LastEditDate="2014-11-01T14:02:33.390" LastActivityDate="2014-11-01T14:02:33.390" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7733" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-11-02T00:00:42.623" Score="7" ViewCount="685" Body="&lt;p&gt;Below is example of a Caro-Kann endgame - Evelev - Epstein - with White having a pawn on h5, and both sides with majority on each side of the board. While the game below ended as a draw, I wonder if White could have tried something more aggressive in that structure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  [FEN &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. Nd2 dxe4 4. Nxe4 Bf5 5. Ng3 Bg6 6. h4 h6 7. Nf3 Nd7 8. h5&#xA;Bh7 9. Bd3 Bxd3 10. Qxd3 Qc7 11. Bd2 Ngf6 12. Ne4 e6 13. O-O-O O-O-O 14. g3&#xA;Nxe4 15. Qxe4 Nf6 16. Qe2 Bd6 17. c4 c5 18. Bc3 cxd4 19. Nxd4 a6 20. Kb1 Qb6&#xA;21. f4 Bb4 22. Bxb4 Qxb4 23. Nf3 Rxd1+ 24. Rxd1 Rd8 25. Ne5 Rxd1+ 26. Qxd1 Qe7&#xA;27. Kc2 Nd7 28. Nxd7 Qxd7 29. Qxd7+ Kxd7 30. Kd3 Kd6 31. Kd4 b6 32. b4 Kc6 33.&#xA;Ke4 f6 34. Kd4 Kd6 35. Kd3 Kc6 36. Ke4 Kd6 37. Ke3 Kc6 38. Kd4 Kd6 39. Ke4 Kc6&#xA;40. Kd4 Kd6 41. Ke4 Kc6 42. Kd4 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="618" LastEditorUserId="2789" LastEditDate="2014-12-16T02:50:45.353" LastActivityDate="2017-04-20T06:47:20.343" Title="Does a typical pawn endgame from Classical Caro-Kann lead to a draw?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;caro-kann&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7734" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7733" CreationDate="2014-11-02T12:37:30.290" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;First of all: position above is a DEAD draw. Only a heavy blunder can change this. No other chances, no more tricks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To the question: Those &lt;code&gt;3. Nc3/Nd2&lt;/code&gt; Caro-Kann variations might lead to a drawish endgames. But it's always a tiny tiny plus for white due to those advanced king-side pawns (some possibilities to sac a piece there or something). If you want to get as much as possible out of the Caro-Kann you should get familiar with advanced variation (&lt;code&gt;3. e5&lt;/code&gt;). If you don't want to invest time, I can give you a small advice: In those variations there usually is knight + dark squared bishop vs knight + dark squared bishop (+ queens, rooks ofc). &lt;strong&gt;As white, your goal is to exchange your knight for a bishop or exchange your bishop for a knight.&lt;/strong&gt; Positions after such a trade are often favourable for white. This is a tiny advice but you can try it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, here is a position that I played a long time ago. Not quite sure about the exact placement of a-b-c pawns, but never mind. It was a dead draw of course:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/1p1k1pp1/p3p2p/P1p1P2P/2P2PP1/3K4/1P6/8 w - - 0 2&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Until my opponent decided to play &lt;code&gt;1. ... - g6&lt;/code&gt; in order to exchange or create a passed pawn on the &lt;code&gt;h-file&lt;/code&gt; if I'd make a mistake. Of course the opponent was low rated, but it shows that black is able to blunder. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3895" LastEditorUserId="11202" LastEditDate="2017-04-20T06:47:20.343" LastActivityDate="2017-04-20T06:47:20.343" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7735" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="7736" CreationDate="2014-11-02T20:05:37.370" Score="3" ViewCount="1311" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a very good attacking and tactical player. There is just one problem. While I catch combinations that might even require 5 or 6 moves, I cannot find 1 turn ones. Let's see this game I played today:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 exd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 Nbd7 6. Bc4 Ne5 7. Bb3 Be7 8.&#xA;Bf4 O-O 9. Qd2 Ng6 10. Bg5 Re8 11. O-O-O c6 12. h4 d5 13. exd5 Nxd5 14. Bxe7&#xA;Ndxe7 15. h5 Ne5 16. h6 g6 17. Qf4 Nd5 18. Nxd5 cxd5 19. Nf3 Nxf3 20. Qxf3 Qg5+&#xA;21. Kb1 Bg4 22. Qc3 Qe5 23. Qxe5 Rxe5 24. Rxd5 Re2 25. Rhd1 Ree8 26. R1d4 Re1+&#xA;27. Rd1 Rxd1+ 28. Rxd1 Bxd1 29. f3 Be2 30. c4 b5 31. cxb5 Bxb5 32. Bd5 Rc8 33.&#xA;Be4 f5 34. Bc2 Kf7 35. a4 Rxc2 36. Kxc2 Bxa4+ 37. b3 Bb5 38. g4 f4 39. Kc3 Kf6&#xA;40. Kd4 Kg5 41. Ke4 Bc6+ *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was white. This is the one I am presenting, but there are many games where I missed 1 turn tactics. Please help me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3405" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-11-02T20:45:33.050" LastActivityDate="2014-11-11T15:53:32.730" Title="How to fix 1 turn tactical errors" Tags="&lt;training&gt;&lt;blunder&gt;&lt;calculation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7736" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7735" CreationDate="2014-11-02T20:44:56.903" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is a common problem to calculate all the variations and then suddenly realize that the first move was simply terrible. Actually, there is a rule that should be applied after finishing a complicated calculation, the Blumenfeld rule!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Blumenfeld rule is formulated roughly as follows. After finishing a complicated calculation, take a fresh look at the position on the board. Try to picture the position directly after the next move you plan to make. Check whether you are missing something trivial. Are you perhaps losing a piece after this move? Are you missing a simple check that makes you lose material? Perhaps you will even be checkmated in a few moves? Only after completing this check for terrible blunders can you now go on and make your move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This rule does not come easy to any player at any level!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastActivityDate="2014-11-02T20:44:56.903" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7737" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7735" CreationDate="2014-11-03T00:03:23.310" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The answer is simple and cruel -&gt; evaluation of the position. Unfortunately, being inactive for 10+ years, I suffer from the same problem so I know what I am talking about. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You will not find a winning move, nor winning lines, unless you evaluate that they are there in the position. That is why you miss those moves -&gt; you didn't even consider that such possibilities exist in the position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can you answer me these questions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;How did you evaluate the position in the game, after your opponent played &lt;code&gt;17...Nd5&lt;/code&gt; ?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Did you even consider &lt;code&gt;18.Bxd5 cxd5 19.Nxd5!&lt;/code&gt; since &lt;code&gt;19...Qxd5?? 20.Qf6 Nd3+! 21.Rxd3 Qe5 22.Re3! Qxf6 23.Rxe8#&lt;/code&gt; mates? Did you see this line, and if you did why did you dismissed it?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Why didn't you play &lt;code&gt;19.Bxd5!&lt;/code&gt; with the same mating tactic as above, instead of weak &lt;code&gt;19.Nf3&lt;/code&gt; ?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What I am trying to say is that you didn't evaluate the position properly. Maybe you thought it was advantage for White ( &lt;code&gt;+0.80&lt;/code&gt; or something similar... ) while I believe it was won for White ( &lt;code&gt;+1.60&lt;/code&gt; at least ). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;I strongly believe that you would have found these lines on your own if you thought you had a won position.&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Solving tactical puzzles can fix this problem to some extent, but you really need to learn how to evaluate the position properly and this comes with experience. Reading books about typical middlegame positions helps as well, so does strong knowledge of endgames. These will help you in the beginning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I advise you to start with tactical puzzles, and then move towards typical middlegame positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastActivityDate="2014-11-03T00:03:23.310" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7738" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7655" CreationDate="2014-11-03T21:24:26.953" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would recommend an iterative approach to study an opening system. Use it in a game, then analyze the opening with a large opening tree, book and engine. For example, you can use the Chessbase mobile app or the corresponding Chessbase Online site. You can record your conclusions in your own opening database file, e.g. using Scid.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By continuously using and improving an opening system, learning and winning will go hand in hand. By immediately analyzing the opening after every played game (online as well as over the board), you will improve your opening skills step by step.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastActivityDate="2014-11-03T21:24:26.953" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7740" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-11-04T20:41:57.043" Score="-16" ViewCount="3283" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have a tournament game tomorrow, and I'm white against a Pirc/French guy. What is the easiest way, learnable in 10 mins or so, to play against it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In addition to the Pirc question, I play the Tarrasch usually, but I am looking for something more active.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3405" LastEditorUserId="3890" LastEditDate="2014-11-04T23:47:21.233" LastActivityDate="2017-11-02T18:06:56.037" Title="What is the best way to beat a French?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;french-defense&gt;&lt;preparation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2016-12-25T06:29:20.133" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7741" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7740" CreationDate="2014-11-04T21:17:59.700" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Mate, please... What do you want to learn in 10 minutes? Be serious... People spend years on learning openings. The French is complicated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But well, to the question: if you have no idea about french and your opponent is familiar with it, you have 2 choices:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a) Play the exchange variation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. exd5 exd5 4. Bd3 Bd6 5. Qf3 Nf6 6. h3 O-O 7. Ne2 Be6 8. O-O c6 9. Bf4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The point is to exchange the dark-squared bishops because white's one is a bit worse than black's one. It's a tiny tiny tiny tiny plus. If you manage to get an ending with a Knight vs light-squared bishop you have chances to win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;b) The other choice is... to play something crazy. Go for &lt;code&gt;1. b4&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;1. f4&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;1. g4&lt;/code&gt;. There are many &quot;unusual&quot; variations around. You know, he &lt;em&gt;knows&lt;/em&gt; the French, you don't. It's better to get an unusual position that you both don't know or even you know a little bit about.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3895" LastEditorUserId="3890" LastEditDate="2014-11-04T23:49:50.490" LastActivityDate="2014-11-04T23:49:50.490" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7742" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-11-05T00:00:18.913" Score="9" ViewCount="1183" Body="&lt;p&gt;If I touch one of my opponent's pieces with one of my pieces, but do not touch it with my fingers, do I then have to take it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This question was raised in a junior school when one player touched his opponent's piece deliberately with one of his pieces and was about to take it, but decided against before touching it with his fingers. A dispute arose and as the tutor I was asked whether the piece was deemed to have been touched. Not a bad question from 10 year olds, and I was unable to give a definitive answer. I said I would find out and hence my plea for help. I face them again on Friday and still feel on shaky ground. Help appreciated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4168" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2021-03-29T09:13:01.677" LastActivityDate="2021-03-29T09:13:01.677" Title="Touching an opponent's piece with one of your pieces" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;fide&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="7743" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4128" CreationDate="2014-11-05T02:53:23.277" Score="16" Body="&lt;p&gt;Solution by Friedrich Burchard &amp;amp; Friedrich Hariuc (1976) in &lt;strong&gt;96 Half-moves&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 f5 2.e5 Nf6 3.exf6 e5 4.g4 e4 5.Ne2 e3 6.Ng3 e2 7.h4 f4 8.h5 fxg3&#xA;9.h6 g5 10.Rh4 gxh4 11.g5 g2 12.g6 Bg7 13.hxg7 g1=Q 14.f4 h3 15.f5 h2&#xA;16.b4 a5 17.b5 a4 18.b6 a3 19.Bb2 Ra7 20.bxa7 axb2 21.a4 b5 22.a5 b4&#xA;23.a6 b3 24.c4 h1=Q 25.c5 h5 26.c6 Bb7 27.cxb7 c5 28.d4 c4 29.d5 Nc6&#xA;30.dxc6 c3 31.c7 c2 32.c8=Q c1=Q 33.b8=Q Qcc7 34.a8=Q d5 35.a7 d4&#xA;36.Nc3 dxc3 37.Qa6 c2 38.Qa8b7 c1=Q 39.a8=Q Qhd5 40.gxh8=Q+ Kd7 41.g7&#xA;bxa1=Q 42.g8=Q b2 43.f7 b1=Q 44.f8=Q h4 45.f6 h3 46.f7 h2 47.Qfa3 h1=Q&#xA;48.f8=Q exf1=Q+&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Credit goes to &lt;em&gt;d'alar'cop&lt;/em&gt; from  &lt;a href=&quot;https://puzzling.stackexchange.com/a/3545/4376&quot;&gt;his answer&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="478" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:50:55.327" LastActivityDate="2014-11-05T02:53:23.277" CommentCount="7" CommunityOwnedDate="2014-11-05T02:53:23.277" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7744" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7740" CreationDate="2014-11-05T08:56:09.190" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think you can learn anything properly in 10 minutes, but if you want a tactical line that leads to slightly offbeat positions, the I've got one for you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The line in question is the so called Milner-Barry gambit. It goes as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. e5 c5 4. c3 Nc6 5. Nf3 Qb6 6. Bd3 Bd7 7. O-O cxd4 8. cxd4 Nxd4 9. Nxd4 Qxd4 10. Nc3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The idea is to keep the black king in the center and harass him way before he has time of developing the pieces to any active square. In case of an early castling or even castling in not the best conditions, white already has his whole army looking at the kingside and the attack is very powerful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Keep in mind that this is a gambit, so one cannot in general stick to standard development, but usual moves in this positions are &lt;code&gt;Qg4&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;Re1&lt;/code&gt; and benefit from the pin of the &lt;code&gt;e6&lt;/code&gt; pawn, as at some point black will take on &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;Kh1&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;f4&lt;/code&gt; with ideas of &lt;code&gt;f5&lt;/code&gt; and blasting open the position. If &lt;code&gt;Qg4&lt;/code&gt; is not played, then &lt;code&gt;Qe2&lt;/code&gt; is another useful post for the queen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a gambit that has an all right reputation, but is not seen at top level since it doesn't offer anything special with correct play by black. Against unprepared opponents, they usually think that the pawn sacrifice is actually a blunder (so many pawns are lost everyday against the French with the Advance variation), and do not defend correctly against the following attack, which allows for a quick sweep in case of black playing &lt;code&gt;Bc5&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;Ne7&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;0-0&lt;/code&gt; as white's attack is deadly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3890" LastActivityDate="2014-11-05T08:56:09.190" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7745" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7742" CreationDate="2014-11-05T09:15:40.537" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fide.com/component/handbook/?id=124&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Laws of Chess&lt;/a&gt;, this all depends on whether it was intentional or not (of course, here I'm assuming you play under a Federation that follows the FIDE rules, or very similar ones). &lt;strong&gt;Article 4: The act of moving the pieces&lt;/strong&gt; stands as follows (article 4.2 is the adjusting rule):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;4.3&#xA;  Except as provided in Article 4.2, if the player having the move deliberately touches on the chessboard:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;a.&#xA;  one or more of his own pieces, he must move the first piece touched which can be moved&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;b.&#xA;  one or more of his opponent’s pieces, he must capture the first piece touched which can be captured&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;c.&#xA;  one piece of each colour, he must capture the opponent’s piece with his piece or, if this is illegal, move or capture the first piece touched which can be moved or captured. If it is unclear, whether the player’s own piece or his opponent’s was touched first, the player’s own piece shall be considered to have been touched before his opponent’s.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the move is not intentional (you drop your piece over an opponent's), then you don't have to take it. If it is intentional, it is certainly true that it is not specified if touching is with the fingers or the pieces, but as many players use both, I would say that both apply as touching.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3890" LastActivityDate="2014-11-05T09:15:40.537" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7746" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4070" CreationDate="2014-11-05T15:14:41.430" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Technically speaking, the shortest game in a World Championship is &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Chess_Championship_1972#Game_2:_Fischer_forfeits&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Game 2&lt;/a&gt; of the Fischer vs Spassky Match 1972, where Fischer did not show up to play and lost by forfeit. Fischer was supposed to play White in this game, so no moves were made on the board. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another similar situation occured in &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Chess_Championship_2006#Game_5.2C_Kramnik.E2.80.93Topalov.2C_0.E2.80.931_.28forfeit.29&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Game 5&lt;/a&gt; of Topalov vs Kramnik World Championship match in 2006, where Kramnik who was supposed to play White didn't show up for the game. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2429" LastEditorUserId="2429" LastEditDate="2014-11-05T20:39:54.827" LastActivityDate="2014-11-05T20:39:54.827" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7747" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="7749" CreationDate="2014-11-05T17:50:29.127" Score="4" ViewCount="2649" Body="&lt;p&gt;Does anyone know the function which dictates which three of these time-control categories any particular game would fall under?  For example, I know that a 3 0 is the quickest blitz game that can be played but I would be unsure whether or not a 2 3 (2 minutes on each persons clock with 3 second increments added) would be blitz or bullet.  I'm assuming there is a fairly simplistic formula I could plug these metrics into for a definitive answer but I have yet to stumble upon it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks ^_^&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3093" LastActivityDate="2016-09-14T03:04:00.640" Title="Time Control for Bullet, Blitz and Standard" Tags="&lt;time-control&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7748" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7747" CreationDate="2014-11-05T18:25:05.423" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I do not think that there is a simple formula. It is similar to the paradox between defining heaps of sand or grains of sand. It is difficult to draw the line precisely. If a formula is necessary, I would define it by how much time is used. &#xA;Assuming that the barriers between blitz and bullet(lightning) is 3 0. &#xA;A time control can be written as (x,y), for example, (3,0) is the quickest time control for blitz. &#xA;Let F(x,y)=2x+(4/3)y. &#xA;The 4/3 was created by the expected time used in a game that last 40 moves(supposedly the average length of a game).&#xA; F(2,3)=2(2)+(4/3)(3)=4+4=8 Therefore, (2,3) is blitz because it is greater than the boundary defined by F(3,0)=2(3)+0=6&#xA;The same can be done for standard chess, but a boundary must be specified.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3872" LastActivityDate="2014-11-05T18:25:05.423" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7749" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7747" CreationDate="2014-11-05T18:29:20.680" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is no such globally accepted formula. Time controls are defined only by their formal definitions (as unhelpful as that sounds). Any further descriptive language, like &quot;blitz&quot; or &quot;lightning&quot; or &quot;bullet&quot;, while they carry certain conventional connotations, do not have objective criteria. However, certain organizations may define these terms concretely within their own domains.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;USCF&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The USCF &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.uschess.org/docs/gov/reports/RulebookChanges.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;defines&lt;/a&gt; three time-control zones: &lt;em&gt;Regular&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;Quick&lt;/em&gt;, and &lt;em&gt;Blitz&lt;/em&gt;. Different sets of time controls fall into one (or more--it is possible for a game to count as &lt;em&gt;both&lt;/em&gt; Regular and Quick, in which case the player's ratings in both categories are affected) of these categories. Determining the category is simple: calculate the [estimated] &lt;em&gt;total playing time&lt;/em&gt; (&lt;code&gt;TPT_U&lt;/code&gt;) as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;TPT_U = Minutes + SecondsPerIncrement&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;code&gt;TPT_U&lt;/code&gt; is then slotted into a zone as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;TPT_U &amp;gt; 65: Regular&#xA;30 ≤ TPT_U ≤ 65: Regular AND Quick&#xA;10 &amp;lt; TPT_U &amp;lt; 30: Quick&#xA;5 ≤ TPT_U ≤ 10: Blitz&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;FIDE&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;FIDE &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=171&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;defines&lt;/a&gt; (as far as I can tell) two time-control zones beyond the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fide.com/component/handbook/?id=39&amp;amp;view=category&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;standard FIDE time control&lt;/a&gt;: &lt;em&gt;Rapid&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;Blitz&lt;/em&gt;. To determine which of these zones a time control falls within, calculate the [estimated] &lt;em&gt;total playing time&lt;/em&gt; (&lt;code&gt;TPT_F&lt;/code&gt;) as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;TPT_F = Minutes + SecondsPerIncrement&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;code&gt;TPT_F&lt;/code&gt; is then slotted into a zone as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;10 &amp;lt; TPT_F &amp;lt; 60: Rapid&#xA;TPT_F ≤ 10: Blitz&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;CHESS.COM&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess.com &lt;a href=&quot;https://support.chess.com/customer/portal/articles/1444851-why-are-there-three-different-ratings-in-live-chess-&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;defines&lt;/a&gt; three time-control zones: &lt;em&gt;Standard&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;Blitz&lt;/em&gt;, and &lt;em&gt;Bullet&lt;/em&gt;. To determine which of these zones a time control falls within, calculate the [estimated] &lt;em&gt;total playing time&lt;/em&gt; in minutes (&lt;code&gt;TPT_C&lt;/code&gt;) as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;TPT_C = Minutes + 2/3*SecondsPerIncrement&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This assumes a forty-move game and is derived from the following expression (multiply the increment in seconds by forty, then convert to minutes):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;TPT_C = Minutes + (40 * SecondsPerIncrement / 60)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;code&gt;TPT_C&lt;/code&gt; is then slotted into a zone as follows*:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;15 ≤ TPT_C: Standard&#xA;3 ≤ TPT_C &amp;lt; 15: Blitz&#xA;TPT_C &amp;lt; 3: Bullet&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*I've had to extrapolate here, as the &lt;a href=&quot;https://support.chess.com/customer/portal/articles/1444851-why-are-there-three-different-ratings-in-live-chess-&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;definition&lt;/a&gt; actually appears to leave a gap between 14 and 15 minutes. I've filled this gap in the manner I considered most likely to be accurate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Examples&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Base | Incr | TPT_U | TPT_F | TPT_C | USCF  | FIDE  | CHESS.COM&#xA;-----|------|-------|-------|-------|-------|-------|----------&#xA; 2   | 1    | 3     | 3     | 2.667 | N/A   | Blitz | Bullet&#xA; 3   | 0    | 3     | 3     | 3     | N/A   | Blitz | Blitz&#xA; 3   | 2    | 5     | 5     | 4.333 | Blitz | Blitz | Blitz&#xA; 5   | 0    | 5     | 5     | 5     | Blitz | Blitz | Blitz&#xA; 10  | 0    | 10    | 10    | 10    | Blitz | Blitz | Blitz&#xA; 10  | 1    | 11    | 11    | 10.67 | Quick | Rapid | Blitz&#xA; 14  | 3    | 17    | 17    | 16    | Quick | Rapid | Standard&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1201" LastEditorUserId="1201" LastEditDate="2014-11-05T19:22:39.290" LastActivityDate="2014-11-05T19:22:39.290" CommentCount="13" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7750" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-11-06T09:44:55.517" Score="3" ViewCount="529" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I once watched a chess game on television, one player use a trick named &quot;Rook Box&quot; to draw a game. I didn't understand its move and so, I want to know what is &quot;Rook Box&quot; in chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know it's a good trick for making a game draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4176" LastEditorUserId="3890" LastEditDate="2014-11-06T21:52:09.653" LastActivityDate="2014-11-06T23:48:52.777" Title="What is &quot;Rook Box&quot; and its use?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;draw&gt;&lt;rooks&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7751" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-11-06T13:10:38.260" Score="5" ViewCount="899" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm really not good at the french when I'm with white, is there a good way to avoid it and get my opponent outside of their preparation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="482" LastEditorUserId="4043" LastEditDate="2014-11-06T18:23:56.820" LastActivityDate="2014-11-08T13:38:00.277" Title="How can the french opening be avoided?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;french-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="9" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7752" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7751" CreationDate="2014-11-06T14:49:57.560" Score="-10" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;This is the most monotonous and annoying play you can imagine - it rarely gives rise to combinations of some interest.  -  Serafino Dubois&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's one of that really say about french opening.&#xA;As you said you're playing as white, &#xA;I'd like to Recommend you to go for 1. d4 (in french opening it starts with 1. e4 e6)&#xA;and go for  King's Indian Defence, It's really useful and I personally won 60% Matches with it.&#xA;Otherwise if you for 1. e4 you have a less chance for French Opening, as there is High for King's Gambit [Source : My personal games]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's say that you get French Opening, then go for French Defense:Frankfurt Variation&#xA;that is 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Bg5 Be7 5.e5 Ng8 6.Be3 b6&#xA;It's really belived to be Advantage for white. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyways, It's Chess and Completely Depends upon How you play it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4177" LastActivityDate="2014-11-06T14:49:57.560" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7753" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="346" CreationDate="2014-11-06T16:38:36.973" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;To me, it is still unclear what one would call &lt;em&gt;perfect&lt;/em&gt;, but in terms of wins, Anderssen struck twice with the most unbelievable wins in the history of chess, which I'm going to paste here, the Immortal Game. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;First International Tournament&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;London UK&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;1851.06.21&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;1&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Adolf Anderssen&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Lionel Kieseritzky&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;C33&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;50&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. f4 exf4 3. Bc4 Qh4 4. Kf1 b5 5. Bb5 Nf6 6. Nf3 Qh6 7. d3 Nh5 8. Nh4 Qg5 9. Nf5 c6 10. g4 Nf6 11. Rg1 cxb5 12. h4 Qg6 13. h5 Qg5 14. Qf3 Ng8 15. Bf4 Qf6 16. Nc3 Bc5 17. Nd5 Qb2 18. Bd6 Bg1 19. e5 Qa1 20. Ke2 Na6 21. Ng7 Kd8 22. Qf6 Nf6 23. Be7#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3477" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2015-08-13T06:36:14.017" LastActivityDate="2015-08-13T06:36:14.017" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7754" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7750" CreationDate="2014-11-06T23:48:52.777" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, it is as simple as encasing a rook in a virtual box. We'll take the example and see it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [Date &quot;????.??.??&quot;]&#xA; [Result &quot;*&quot;]&#xA; [FEN &quot;1k5r/1P3K2/8/2p2p2/7p/4P3/8/3R4 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 fxe4 2.Kg7 Rh5 3.Kg6 Re5 4.Kf6 Re8 5.Kf7 Rh8 6.Kg7 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We see that the rook is trapped inside a 4x4 box. Losing the rook means losing the position, and the only way not to lose it is to stay inside the box, and be constantly pushed by the king. If White doesn't do so, he is in serious trouble.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3405" LastActivityDate="2014-11-06T23:48:52.777" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7755" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7751" CreationDate="2014-11-07T19:49:02.083" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Depends on your style. You may go with  &lt;code&gt;2 c4&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;2 g3&lt;/code&gt; would lead to very different positions&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4183" LastActivityDate="2014-11-07T19:49:02.083" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7756" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7751" CreationDate="2014-11-08T13:38:00.277" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm assuming that you are trying to avoid French-like positions, rather than avoiding the named opening - the latter is latter impossible after 1.e4 as most texts consider the French beginning as soon as black plays 1.e6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In short, if you want to play 1.e4 regularly there is no way of avoiding the French Defence with a 'standard' opening. After 1.e4 e6, all sensible moves from White can be made to resemble some features of the French if Black wants to press the game in that direction. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To give some general advice: avoiding an opening by playing really unusual moves almost always results in objectively worse positions if your opponent plays correctly. Because of this, I'd recommend putting time into finding a &lt;em&gt;response&lt;/em&gt; to the French that gives you a position that you feel more comfortable with. The Exchange variation is very different from the Advance, which is different again from the Classical and Winawer. With the number of different lines you should eventually be able to find something you at least don't feel too uncomfortable playing. Alternatively, a system-like approach with the King's Indian Attack (KIA) or similar could work if you don't want to learn lines that your opponent may be more familiar with.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="550" LastActivityDate="2014-11-08T13:38:00.277" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7757" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="7758" CreationDate="2014-11-08T13:41:04.373" Score="7" ViewCount="1154" Body="&lt;p&gt;In a hypothetical tournament game where there is a completely forced series of moves for your opponent (e.g. their next move is an only-move and you have already decided on the response), would it be legal to record the moves before they have been played?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="550" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-11-09T21:33:03.463" LastActivityDate="2014-11-10T03:44:27.807" Title="Is it legal to record moves that have not yet been played?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;notation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7758" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7757" CreationDate="2014-11-08T15:43:49.273" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, it isn't legal for two reasons,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One, lets say that the opponent gave you an handshake. That would mean that the recorded moves are null, and it may cause some troubles with the arbiters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Two, Article 8.1:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In the course of play each player is required to record his own moves&#xA;  and those of his opponent in the correct manner, move after move, as&#xA;  clearly and legibly as possible, in the algebraic notation (Appendix&#xA;  C), on the score sheet prescribed for the competition. It is forbidden&#xA;  to write the moves in advance, unless the player is claiming a draw&#xA;  according to Article 9.2 or 9.3 or adjourning a game according to the&#xA;  Guidelines of Adjourned Games point 1.a.. A player may reply to his&#xA;  opponent’s move before recording it, if he so wishes. He must record&#xA;  his previous move before making another. Both players must record the&#xA;  offer of a draw on the score sheet. (Appendix C.13) If a player is&#xA;  unable to keep score, an assistant, who must be acceptable to the&#xA;  arbiter, may be provided by the player to write the moves. His clock&#xA;  shall be adjusted by the arbiter in an equitable way&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note especially the:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;It is forbidden to write the moves in advance, unless the player is&#xA;  claiming a draw according to Article 9.2 or 9.3 or adjourning a game&#xA;  according to the Guidelines of Adjourned Games point 1.a..&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can find the rulebook &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fide.com/images/stories/NEWS_2013/FIDE/Arbiters_Manual_2013.pdf&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3405" LastActivityDate="2014-11-08T15:43:49.273" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7759" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-11-08T20:19:38.513" Score="-4" ViewCount="349" Body="&lt;p&gt;As far as I remember, Anand was(is) primarily an 1.e4 player throughout his career. Yet in the first game of the Carlsen-Anand match he opted to open with 1.d4. What are the potential benefits of such an opening choice in a situation like this? Is Anand simply wary of having to face the Berlin Defense, or is there another benefit to choosing 1.d4?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3405" LastEditorUserId="550" LastEditDate="2014-11-09T14:08:18.220" LastActivityDate="2014-11-09T14:08:18.220" Title="Why did Anand start with d4?" Tags="&lt;carlsen-anand-2014&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="10" ClosedDate="2014-11-10T08:03:19.063" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7760" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7759" CreationDate="2014-11-08T21:06:09.633" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Anand primarily played 1. d4 in each of his 3 successful world championship matches between 2008 and 2012. In his 2013 match vs. Carlsen he favored 1. e4 before switching to 1. d4 for his last white of the match (game 9). Given the disastrous result of the 2013 match for him, I don't think it's surprising that he is apparently relying on 1. d4 this time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3270" LastActivityDate="2014-11-08T21:06:09.633" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7762" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="7769" CreationDate="2014-11-09T16:22:37.013" Score="13" ViewCount="1527" Body="&lt;p&gt;At Black's 34th move in Game 2 of the Carlsen-Anand match, Anand blundered with &lt;code&gt;34...h5??&lt;/code&gt;. What were his chances for salvaging the draw if he had defended actively via, say, &lt;code&gt;34...Qd2&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;34...Qd4&lt;/code&gt;, counterattacking the f2 pawn?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;5rk1/4R1pp/3q1p2/p1p2P2/P3Q2P/5p2/2P2PPK/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;WCC&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Sochi&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2014.11.09&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;2&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Magnus Carlsen&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Viswanathan Anand&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.g3 h5?? &#xA;    ( 1...Qd2 )&#xA;        ( 1...Qd4 )&#xA;2.Qb7 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm looking for explanations of how White should then push for victory, and how Black should best respond, backed up with concrete analysis. &lt;strong&gt;Please note that I'm not at all interested in pure engine evaluations&lt;/strong&gt;, but rather verbal, human annotations of the possibilities (though engine-&lt;em&gt;checked&lt;/em&gt; analysis is certainly encouraged).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2014-11-12T05:04:56.907" Title="Carlsen-Anand, Game 2. Could Black hold if not for 34...h5?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;carlsen-anand-2014&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7763" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7762" CreationDate="2014-11-09T19:50:20.860" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'll make the answer clearer later, but for now, yes Anand had perfect drawing chances, for several reasons:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Rook and Queen endgames tend to be harsh and fighting, they are like semi-endgames semi-middlegames, but still drawish. Constant checks and the long range pieces make it easy to cover all bases, sometimes even 2 pawns down.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If a piece was exchanged, the situation would be even more drawish than it was before.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Usually in endgames, engines can't see a draw, because they have to search really deep. That's why we have tablebases. While the engine gave carlsen a plus, it was a fake advantage. With correct play from both sides, draw would probably ensue.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The game was a technical one. After the time trouble, Anand would probably find the draw. It is a technical endgame, so I'd have no fear on it.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'll add some examples, and engine analysis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3405" LastActivityDate="2014-11-09T19:50:20.860" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7764" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2014-11-09T20:10:38.347" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The tag is for questions involving the 2014 World Championship match between Magnus Carlsen, the reigning champion, and Vishy Anand, the challenger. The match was played in Sochi, Russia in November 2014. The reigning champion successfully defended his title with the score 6,5-4,5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3405" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2014-11-30T21:42:01.157" LastActivityDate="2014-11-30T21:42:01.157" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7765" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2014-11-09T20:10:38.347" Score="0" Body="Questions about the World Chess Championship 2014 between defending champion Magnus Carlsen and challenger Viswanathan Anand." OwnerUserId="3405" LastEditorUserId="10867" LastEditDate="2018-04-02T19:43:11.667" LastActivityDate="2018-04-02T19:43:11.667" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7766" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7762" CreationDate="2014-11-09T20:49:37.967" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Anand could have chosen&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;5rk1/4R1pp/3q1p2/p1p2P2/P3Q2P/5p2/2P2PPK/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;WCC&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Sochi&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2014.11.09&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;2&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Magnus Carlsen&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Viswanathan Anand&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.g3 Qd2 2.Qxf3 Qxc2 3.Kg2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After which we reach a Queen+Rook middlegame. In such middlegames, the following factors are critical:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;King safety&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Piece harmony (coordination and collaboration between the Queen and Rook)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My evaluation of the position above is as follows. Black's King is less safe, since the f-pawn is on f6, exposing the seventh rank for the white Re7 and making it possible for white to attack the g7-square. Further, the white Re7 is better placed than the black Rf8. The white Qf3 is controlling the h1-a8 diagonal, safe guarding the white Kg2 as well as threatening Qf3-g4, Qf3-d5 and Qf3-b7.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White can have the following strategy: use the better King safety and harmony to attack the enemy King and checkmate and/or win material along the way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black can have the following strategy: keep the pieces active, try to make them collaborate better, seek a counter attack on the enemy King, try to exchange queens.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think the position is better for white yet black can still fight. For example&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;5rk1/4R1pp/3q1p2/p1p2P2/P3Q2P/5p2/2P2PPK/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;WCC&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Sochi&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2014.11.09&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;2&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Magnus Carlsen&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Viswanathan Anand&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.g3 Qd2 2.Qxf3 (2.Qe6+ Kh8 3.Qf7 Qxf2+ 4.Kh3 Qf1+ 5.Kg4 h5+ 6.Qxh5+ Kg8=) Qxc2 3.Kg2 Kh8 4.Qg4 (4.Qb7 Qxf5 5.Rxg7 Rd8) Rg8&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Conclusion from the position after 1...Qd2:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;5rk1/4R1pp/3q1p2/p1p2P2/P3Q2P/5p2/2P2PPK/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;WCC&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Sochi&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2014.11.09&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;2&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Magnus Carlsen&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Viswanathan Anand&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.g3 Qd2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Black should play Kg8-h8, Rf8-g8 and h7-h6 to secure the kingside.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Black should trade all the pawns on the queenside and play 3 against 4 on the kingside.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;White should try to prevent this from happening.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-11-10T19:49:01.183" LastActivityDate="2014-11-10T19:49:01.183" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7767" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="7776" CreationDate="2014-11-09T22:41:21.717" Score="4" ViewCount="323" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is one of my games&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 Nf6 2.e5 Nd5 3.d4 d6 4.Bc4 Nb6 5.Bb3 Nc6 6.Bf4 dxe5 7.dxe5 Qxd1+ 8.Kxd1, Bg4+ 9.f3 Bh5 10.g4 Bg6 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black to move, I played &lt;code&gt;dxe5, dxe5, Qxd1 Kxd1&lt;/code&gt; and now I played &lt;code&gt;Bg4+&lt;/code&gt; so that he plays &lt;code&gt;f3&lt;/code&gt; and block his knight, well if he blocks the check with his knight i take it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;flip the board to see from my point of view, i don't know how to flip it by default.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and after &lt;code&gt;f3&lt;/code&gt; I played &lt;code&gt;Bh5&lt;/code&gt; so that he plays &lt;code&gt;g4&lt;/code&gt; stretching his pawns and then &lt;code&gt;Bg6&lt;/code&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this setup good for black? Is there a better setup?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I rarely play this defense and there isn't too much material on balogh variation, so i was trying to avoid some common traps if I fianchetto the black bishop so I tried to block the knight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not asking to analyze this particular game because my opponent is below 2000 so if you play correctly you could beat him, I'm asking is &lt;code&gt;Bg4+&lt;/code&gt; playable at the GM or masters level? If not, why not?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1105" LastEditorUserId="1105" LastEditDate="2014-11-09T23:28:52.477" LastActivityDate="2020-10-09T23:00:06.110" Title="Is Bg4+ good in this position in the Alekhine Defense?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;alekhines-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7768" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="7790" CreationDate="2014-11-09T22:53:53.677" Score="3" ViewCount="873" Body="&lt;p&gt;The rules of chess are straightforward so I must ask what does the chief arbiter do? what is the difference between him and a regular arbiter?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example Anand and Carlsen had to meet him behind closed doors before the world championship started.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1105" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-01-05T20:38:19.387" LastActivityDate="2021-01-05T20:38:19.387" Title="What does the chief arbiter do?" Tags="&lt;world-championship&gt;&lt;arbiters&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7769" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7762" CreationDate="2014-11-10T00:00:01.417" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my analysis, I found Black's kingside position to be more solid than it seems at first glance. After &lt;strong&gt;Kh8&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;Rg8&lt;/strong&gt;, Black defends &lt;strong&gt;g7&lt;/strong&gt; very well.  Black should play &lt;strong&gt;34...Qd2&lt;/strong&gt;, after which his Black's strategy is simple - push &lt;strong&gt;h6&lt;/strong&gt; to create a flight square for the king. Keep the queen active and target White's c-pawn and a-pawn. In some situations, Black can even go for a queen exchange and enter into a drawn rook endgame. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;35. Qxf3&lt;/strong&gt; is drawn, as per what I analyzed. Black grabs the c-pawn and it's impossible to break Black's kingside without advancing the kingside pawns. But if White advances the kingside pawns, then his own king is opened to to checks by the Black Queen. I played this position in a Blitz game with Houdini 1.5 and Stockfish 4 and was able to draw both. Here's the sample game with Houdini and Stockfish. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  [FEN &quot;5rk1/4R1pp/3q1p2/p1p2P2/P3Q2P/5pP1/2P2P1K/8 b - - 0 34&quot;]&#xA;  [White &quot;Houdini 1.5/Stockfish 4&quot;]&#xA;  [Black &quot;Wes&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;  1... Qd2 2. Qxf3 Qxc2 3. Ra7 (3. Kg2 Kh8) 3... Qd2 4. Kg2 Kh8 5. Qc6 Qb4 &#xA;  6. Rc7 Rg8  7. Qd5 Qxa4  8. Rxc5  h6  9. Rxa5  Qb4  10. Ra7  Re8  11. Rd7  Qe4+  &#xA;  12. Qxe4  Rxe4  13. h5  (13. Rd8+ Kh7  14. h5  Ra4  15. Rf8  Rb4=) 13... Kg8  &#xA;  14. Kf3  Ra4  15. g4  Rb4 16. Kg3 Rb3+  17. f3  Rb4  18. Rc7  Ra4  19. Rb7  Rc4 &#xA;  20. Ra7  Rb4  21. Rd7  Ra4  22. Re7  Rb4 23. Kg2  Ra4 24. Rd7  Rb4  25. Rc7  Ra4  &#xA;  26. Kf2  Ra3  27. Rb7  Rc3 28. Rd7  Rb3  29. Re7  Ra3 30. Rc7  Rb3  31. Kg2  Ra3&#xA;  32. Rb7=&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White can also try the tricky idea of &lt;strong&gt;35. Qe6+!?&lt;/strong&gt; followed by &lt;strong&gt;36. Qe3&lt;/strong&gt;, hoping to go into a slightly better rook endgame, which by no means is easy to win and probably drawn. Black doesn't have to go into this endgame and can choose to simply follow the former plan of keeping the queen active and targeting White's queenside pawns. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;   [FEN &quot;5rk1/4R1pp/3q1p2/p1p2P2/P3Q2P/5p2/2P2PPK/8 w - - 0 34&quot;]&#xA;   [White &quot;Carlsen&quot;]&#xA;   [Black &quot;Anand&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;    1. g3 Qd2 2. Qe6+!? Kh8 3. Qe3 (3. Re8 Qxf2+ 4. Kh3 Qf1+ 5. Kg4 h5+! 6. Kxh5 Rxe8&#xA;    7. Qxe8+ Kh7=) (3. Qf7 Qxf2+ 4. Kh3 Qf1+ 5. Kg4 h5+! 6. Qxh5+ Kg8 7. Qg6 Qc4+ &#xA;    8. Kxf3 Qf1+ 9. Kg4 Qd1+ 10. Kh3 Qh1+ 11. Kg4 Qd1+=) 3...Qd5 (3...Qxc2 4. Re8+-) &#xA;    (3... Qxe3 4. fxe3 Rb8 5. Kg1 g5 6. fxg6 hxg6 7. Ra7 Rb2 8. Kf2 Rxc2+ &#xA;    9. Kxf3 c4 10. Rxa5 Ra2 (43... f5) 11. Ra7 Kg8  &#xA;    12. e4 (12. Ke4 c3 13. Kd3 c2 14. Kd2 f5 15. a5=) 12...c3 13. Ke3 Rg2 &#xA;    14. Rc7 Rxg3+ 15. Kd4 Rg1 16. Rxc3 Ra1 17. Rc4 Kf7 &#xA;    18. Kd5 g5 19. hxg5 (19. h5 Rd1+ 20. Kc6 g4 21. a5 g3 22. Rc2 Ra1 &#xA;    23. Kb6 Rb1+ $11) 19...fxg5 20. e5 Rd1+ 21. Rd4 Rb1+=)&#xA;    4. Re8 (4. Rc7 Rg8 5. Rxc5 Qd1 6. Rc3 h6 7. Qxf3 Qxf3 8. Rxf3 Rc8=)&#xA;    4... Kg8 5. Qe7 Qf7 6. Rxf8+ Qxf8 7. Qc7 h6 8. Qxa5 Kh7 9. Qb6 c4 10. a5&#xA;    Qa3 11. a6 Qc1 12. g4 Qxc2 13. a7 Qe4 14. Kg3 c3 15. Qc5 c2=&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A successful strategy for White therefore would involve keeping the &lt;strong&gt;a-pawn&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;c-pawn&lt;/strong&gt; alive and also try to push &lt;strong&gt;g4-g5&lt;/strong&gt; to break Black's kingside. Black can still counter this approach with the strategy of active play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A good try for White is &lt;strong&gt;35. Qc4+!?&lt;/strong&gt;, grabbing the &lt;strong&gt;c-pawn&lt;/strong&gt; and creating a passed pawn. White will try to break Black's kingside with &lt;strong&gt;g4-g5&lt;/strong&gt;. The drawback of this line is Black's pawn on &lt;strong&gt;f3&lt;/strong&gt; remains alive and therefore Black is able to set up a counter attack against White's  &lt;strong&gt;f2&lt;/strong&gt; pawn (White's king cannot defend it) and also set up mate threats on &lt;strong&gt;g2&lt;/strong&gt;. Black can also counter the threat of &lt;strong&gt;g4-g5&lt;/strong&gt; with the incredible idea of &lt;strong&gt;Kh7&lt;/strong&gt; followed by &lt;strong&gt;Rh8!&lt;/strong&gt; in some variations. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I believe &lt;strong&gt;35. Qc4+!?&lt;/strong&gt; is the most interesting line, but Black can still hold with active play. Here's some analysis - &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;   [FEN &quot;5rk1/4R1pp/3q1p2/p1p2P2/P3Q2P/5p2/2P2PPK/8 w - - 0 34&quot;]&#xA;   [White &quot;Carlsen&quot;]&#xA;   [Black &quot;Anand&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;    1. g3 Qd2 2. Qc4+!? Kh8 3. Qxc5 h6 4. Rc7 (4. c4 Rd8 5. Qa7 (5. Qe3 Qd1 6. Qe1 Qd4  &#xA;    7. Re3 Qxc4 8. Qxa5 Rd1 9. Qa8+ Kh7 10. Qxf3 Ra1 11. Re2 Rxa4) 5... Rd4!! &#xA;    6. Qa8+ Kh7 7. Qxf3 Rxh4+ 8. gxh4 Qd6+ 9. Kh3 Qxe7) (4. Ra7 Re8 5. Rxa5 Qe1 &#xA;    6. Ra7 Qf1) 4... Re8 5. Qa7 Rg8 (5... Re2 6. Rc8+ Kh7 7. Qf7 Rxf2+ 8. Kh3 Rh2+ &#xA;    9. Kg4 h5+ 10. Qxh5+) 6. Qe3 (6. c4?? Qe2 7. Qe3 Re8!) 6... Qd6 (6... Qxe3 &#xA;    7. fxe3 Re8 8. Kg1 (8. Rc3 Re4 9. Kg1 Rxa4 10. Kf2 Kh7 11. Kxf3 Ra1 12. Rc7 h5 &#xA;    13. c4 a4 14. Ra7 a3 15. e4 a2 16. Kg2 Kg8 17. c5 Rc1 18. Rxa2 Rxc5 19. Ra8+ Kh7&#xA;    20. Kf3 g6 21. Ra7+ Kh6 22. Ra6 Kg7) 8... Rxe3 9. Rc5 Re2 (9.. Re5 &#xA;    10. Rxe5 fxe5 11. c4 Kg8 12. c5 Kf7 13. g4 Ke7 14. g5 hxg5 15. hxg5 Kd7 &#xA;    16. f6 gxf6 17. g6) 10. c4 Rg2+ 11. Kf1 Rxg3 12. Rxa5 Rg4 13. Rc5 Rxh4 14. Kf2 h5&#xA;    15. a5 (15. Kxf3 Kh7 16. a5 Rh3+ 17. Ke4 Ra3 18. Rb5 h4=) 15... Kh7 &#xA;    16. Rc7 Rh2+ 17. Kxf3 Ra2 18. Ra7) 7. Rc4 Qa6 8. Qc5 Kh7 9. g4 (9. Qc6 Qxc6 &#xA;    10. Rxc6 Re8 11. Rc5 Re2 12. g4 Re4 13. Rxa5 Rxg4 14. Kh3 h5 15. Ra7 Rg2 &#xA;    16. Rc7 Rxf2 17. Kg3 Rf1 18. a5 f2 19. Kg2 Ra1 20. Kxf2 Rxa5=) (9. Qc7 Qa8 &#xA;    10. Kh3 Qe8) (9. Kh3 Re8 10. Qb5 Qxb5 11. axb5 Rb8 12. Rc5 a4 13. c4 a3 &#xA;    14. Rd5 a2 15. Rd1 Rc8 16. Ra1 Rxc4 17. Rxa2 Rb4 18. b6 Rxb6 19. Kg4 Rb4+  &#xA;    20. Kxf3 Rc4=) 9... Qb7 10. Qc6 Qb8+ 11. Qc7 (11. Kh3 Qb1 12. Kg3 Qg1+ &#xA;    13. Kxf3 Rd8=) 11... Qe8 12. Qg3 Qe2 13. Rc7 Rh8! 14. Rc3 Qe4 15. Qxf3 Qxa4 &#xA;    16. Rc7 Rd8=&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2429" LastEditorUserId="2429" LastEditDate="2014-11-12T01:42:29.040" LastActivityDate="2014-11-12T01:42:29.040" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7770" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7757" CreationDate="2014-11-10T03:44:27.807" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The answer from Tal refers to the FIDE rules, the USCF rules are a little bit different, but have recently been changed to be less friendly to writing down moves before making the move.  The specific situation you refer to in your question, writing down a string of moves ahead of time, would be illegal under both FIDE and USCF rules.  While the USCF rules do not specifically state you can only write the next move, they definitely infer it by stating a move may be written before the move is made (old rule), and that no other notes except those mentioned in the rule book are allowed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The rules have changed since the addition of electronic scorecards, and it is now illegal to record a move before making it.  Though the penalty recommended to TDs is just that a warning be issued.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The USCF rulebook is not available in electronic form, so I can't copy and paste the relevant sections, nor link to them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4192" LastActivityDate="2014-11-10T03:44:27.807" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7771" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-11-10T13:50:11.173" Score="3" ViewCount="1751" Body="&lt;p&gt;The world elite usually practises extremely deep opening preparation based on established theory, with the first move that has never been played before often coming after the 20th turn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are some recent (last 20 years) examples of top-class players deviating from theory early (say, on the 8th move or before)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user3297" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-07-28T13:11:25.597" LastActivityDate="2016-07-28T13:11:25.597" Title="Examples of recent early opening novelties at the top level" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;novelties&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7772" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7771" CreationDate="2014-11-10T14:58:50.703" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Aronian vs Anand at Candidates 2014 (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1751406&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1751406&lt;/a&gt;) was out of theory after Black's 3rd move, but only because White played an extremely odd opening which will probably never be repeated at the top level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Aronian vs Leko at Morelia-Linares 2008 (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1486033&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1486033&lt;/a&gt;) featured a strong novelty on White's 9th move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3270" LastActivityDate="2014-11-10T14:58:50.703" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7773" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7771" CreationDate="2014-11-10T19:56:18.457" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The most bold novelty I have seen in recent chess is definitely the one played by Richard Rapport against Leinier Dominguez Perez on the 2014 Tata Steel tournament. You can find the game &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1744313&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;. As a peek of the game, the first moves were:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Richard Rapport&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Leinier Dominguez Perez&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. c4 c5 2. Nc3 g6 3. g4!!&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I find that Richard Rapport is a player that will most likely shock your chess, no matter what level do you have. He plays unconventional and uncompromising chess, trying new things against the best players. Even in this tournament, one of the best of the year, he played innovative chess in many of his games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For a compilation of all his games in said tournament, click &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chess.pl?tid=82986&amp;amp;pid=123427&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3890" LastEditorUserId="3890" LastEditDate="2014-11-10T20:19:51.560" LastActivityDate="2014-11-10T20:19:51.560" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7774" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7771" CreationDate="2014-11-10T20:03:05.597" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Another famous example is Zvjaginsev in the Russian Championship Superfinal 2005, against ex-FIDE World Champion Khalifman:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;ch-RUS Superfinal&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Moscow RUS&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2005.12.20&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;2005.12.19&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;2&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Vadim Zvjaginsev&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Alexander Khalifman&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;B20&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;2659&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;2653&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;73&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Na3 Nc6 3. Bb5 Qc7 4. Nf3 g6 5. c3 a6 6. Bxc6 Qxc6&#xA;7. O-O Bg7 8. d4 d6 9. d5 Qc7 10. h3 Nf6 11. Bf4 O-O 12. Re1&#xA;b5 13. Qd2 Bb7 14. Rad1 Rfe8 15. c4 Qb6 16. Bh6 Bh8 17. b3 e6&#xA;18. Ng5 exd5 19. cxd5 Re7 20. Re3 Rae8 21. Rde1 a5 22. Nb1 b4&#xA;23. Qc2 Nd7 24. Nd2 Ba6 25. Ngf3 Ne5 26. Bg5 Nxf3+ 27. Nxf3&#xA;Rd7 28. e5 dxe5 29. Nxe5 Rxd5 30. Nxf7 Rxe3 31. Rxe3 Kxf7&#xA;32. Re7+ Kf8 33. Qe4 Rd1+ 34. Kh2 Qd6+ 35. f4 Bf6 36. Bh6+ Kg8&#xA;37. Qa8+ 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After 2.Na3!? Khalifman allegedly pointed at the knight and laughed out loud, but he still lost in the end. Zvjaginsev repeated the move quite a few times afterwards and other GMs have played it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In general, novelties after move 20 are quite rare. Yes some opening theory goes that deep, and sometimes those lines are played, but especially the absolute top GMs tend to avoid such lines because the earlier both players are thinking on their own, the higher the chance the better player wins. Between move 10 and 15 is probably about normal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastEditorUserId="924" LastEditDate="2014-11-10T20:36:56.940" LastActivityDate="2014-11-10T20:36:56.940" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7775" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="7778" CreationDate="2014-11-10T20:19:36.953" Score="12" ViewCount="569" Body="&lt;p&gt;In game 1 of the World Championship 2014 between Carlsen and Anand, Anand chose 12.gxf3. Why not play 12.Qc3+ instead? It takes control over the a1-h8 diagonal and prevents the black Nc6 to jump to d4 or e5. In addition, it gives white the option to grab on f3 with the queen, keeping the pawn structure on the kingside intact.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;WCh 2014&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Sochi RUS&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2014.11.08&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;1&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Anand, Viswanathan&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Carlsen, Magnus&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1/2-1/2&quot;]&#xA;[Eventdate &quot;2014.11.08&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 d5 4.cxd5 Nxd5 5.Bd2 Bg7 6.e4 Nxc3 7.Bxc3 O-O 8.Qd2 Nc6 9.Nf3 Bg4 10.d5 Bxf3 11.Bxg7 Kxg7 12.Qc3+&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastEditorUserId="4182" LastEditDate="2014-11-29T16:24:33.297" LastActivityDate="2021-01-04T15:48:25.990" Title="Anand - Carlsen Game 1 WCh 2014, why not 12.Qc3+?" Tags="&lt;world-championship&gt;&lt;anand&gt;&lt;carlsen&gt;&lt;carlsen-anand-2014&gt;&lt;grunfeld-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7776" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7767" CreationDate="2014-11-10T21:01:55.313" Score="3" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 Nf6 2. e5 Nd5 3. d4 d6 4. Bc4 Nb6 5. Bb3 Nc6 6. Bf4 dxe5 7. dxe5 Qxd1+ 8. Kxd1, Bg4+ 9. f3 Bh5 10. g4 Bg6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think that the position after &lt;code&gt;10...Bg6&lt;/code&gt; is better for black. The white bishops are not collaborating very well. In fact, the white bishops are virtually useless at the moment. In addition, the white king needs to make a couple of moves to find a reasonable position, if it will find it at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black wants to play &lt;code&gt;O-O-O&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;e7-e6&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;h7-h5&lt;/code&gt;. White could very well become crushed here. I think that &lt;code&gt;6.Bf4&lt;/code&gt; was not the best choice for white, &lt;code&gt;6.e6&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;6.exd6&lt;/code&gt; should be better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastEditorUserId="3890" LastEditDate="2014-11-13T11:35:24.903" LastActivityDate="2014-11-13T11:35:24.903" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7777" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6194" CreationDate="2014-11-10T21:57:51.340" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;this seems to be quite academical, because after 6... before intending Bc8 which would get into a threefold repition of position the black player may request a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4197" LastActivityDate="2014-11-10T21:57:51.340" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7778" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7775" CreationDate="2014-11-10T21:57:56.313" Score="10" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;           [FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;                [Event &amp;quot;WCh 2014&amp;quot;]&#xA;                [Site &amp;quot;Sochi RUS&amp;quot;]&#xA;                [Date &amp;quot;2014.11.08&amp;quot;]&#xA;                [Round &amp;quot;1&amp;quot;]&#xA;                [White &amp;quot;Anand, Viswanathan&amp;quot;]&#xA;                [Black &amp;quot;Carlsen, Magnus&amp;quot;]&#xA;                [Result &amp;quot;1/2-1/2&amp;quot;]&#xA;                [Eventdate &amp;quot;2014.11.08&amp;quot;]&#xA;            &#xA;                1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 d5 4.cxd5 Nxd5 5.Bd2 Bg7 6.e4 Nxc3 7.Bxc3 O-O 8.Qd2 Nc6 9.Nf3 Bg4 10.d5 Bxf3 11.Bxg7 Kxg7 12.Qc3+ e5 (13.dxc6 Be4 14. Qe5 f6 15. Qc3 Re8 16. Be2 Bxc6)&#xA;    (13.gxf3 Nd4 )     &#xA;   (13.Qxf3 Nd4 ) &#xA;   (13.dxe6 Qf6 14. Qxf6 Kxf6 15. gxf3 fxe6) &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Computer Houdini 1.5a w32 suggests 13... e5&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now four options for white 13.dc 13.de ep, 13.gf or 13.Qf3 anything else loses a piece.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;After 13. dc black replies 13... Be4 and white cannot take pawn on e5. If 14. Qe5 then 14... f6 15. Qc3 (15 Qe4 loses a queen). 15... Re8 this forces white reply  16. Be2 and black just takes on c6 16.... Bc6 , this is a win for black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;13.gxf6 black moves its knight to the centre 13... Nd4 Knight on d4 cannot be moved. Pawn on f3 is weak. Black is better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;13.Qf3 Again same idea – black’s knight occupies the centre Nd4 and whatever white answer is black threatens to crush the white centre 14... c6. Again black is better (maybe not as good as after 13. gf)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;13.dxe6 e.p. black needs to cover the diagonal – 13... Qf6 or 13... Qd4 anything else consolidates white’s position in the centre.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;13...Qf6 14 Qf6 (otherwise black takes on c3) 14... Kf6 (forced) 15 gf (forced) 15... fe again black is better (weakness on f3)&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;13...Qd4 white cannot take on d4, so 14. e7 (if 14. gf black takes on c3 and again weakness on f3 is giving black an advantage)  14... Re8 15. gf again cannot take on d4. And now either 15...Re7 or 15... Qc3 and black has better pawn structure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4196" LastEditorUserId="4196" LastEditDate="2021-01-04T15:48:25.990" LastActivityDate="2021-01-04T15:48:25.990" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="7779" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7762" CreationDate="2014-11-10T22:08:26.507" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a small contribution, I would like to quote GM Dejan Bojkov from his &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/news/sochi-world-championship-carlsen-wins-game-2-4344&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;analysis and commentary&lt;/a&gt; of the game, where he mentions a line similar to one already thoroughly analysed by &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/users/2429/wes&quot;&gt;Wes&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;5rk1/4R1pp/3q1p2/p1p2P2/P3Q2P/5pP1/2P2P1K/8 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Carlsen, Magnus&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Anand, Viswanathan&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1...Qd2 2.Qxf3 Qxc2 3.Ra7 Re8 4.Rxa5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Magnus would still need to show good technique to deserve the full point. - GM Dejan Bojkov&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3890" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2014-11-11T06:53:30.010" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7780" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7735" CreationDate="2014-11-11T15:46:41.587" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You missed at least TWO tactical chances.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On move 26, you made a very common mistake; you failed to realize that your king was smothered in your &quot;back rank.&quot; If you had realized this, you would have moved your rook on d1 along the first rank, instead of &quot;chasing&quot; the bishop, and allowing what turned out be a deadly pin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many players play h3, or in this case, a3, as soon as possible, because of all the potential combinations that can arise from this pattern, which appears time and again. (You should have played a3 on move 25 before moving the rook to d1). I would guess that a lot of your &quot;one move&quot; faux pas arises from not knowing patterns like these. Learn them, and a lot of mistakes will go away.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can see how your rook on d1 was &quot;hobbled&quot; by the insecurity of the king's position. The safety of the king is the first priority in chess. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As pointed out by Always Learning New Stuff, you also missed an opportunity on move 19 to play Bxd5, capturing the d pawn, and &quot;forking&quot; the knight and f pawn (the latter leads to mate). When Black defends the f pawn, you can capture the knight with B, thereby avoiding the &quot;skewer&quot; of your queen and rook by the Black bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But the &quot;back rank&quot; problem is the more common one, which is why I answered it first.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastEditorUserId="17" LastEditDate="2014-11-11T15:53:32.730" LastActivityDate="2014-11-11T15:53:32.730" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7781" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="7885" CreationDate="2014-11-12T07:58:09.453" Score="11" ViewCount="754" Body="&lt;p&gt;Food and liquid intake provides a human body with energy. Yet having a meal before a chess game can cause the body to focus more on digestion than chess. While lack of energy during a six hour game can cause loss of focus and thereby mistakes. Getting thirsty can have a similar adverse effect. When and what should one eat and drink before and during a chess game with classical time controls? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastActivityDate="2014-11-23T23:00:31.893" Title="Eating and drinking before and during a game" Tags="&lt;best-practice&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="10" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7782" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6567" CreationDate="2014-11-12T08:04:35.347" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the illegal move has to be noticed by the opponent who should then immediately stop the clock and call the arbiter to claim and get the victory. Yet if the opponent fails to notice the illegal move and runs out of time,  then this player thereby loses on time. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastActivityDate="2014-11-12T08:04:35.347" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7783" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="7784" CreationDate="2014-11-12T18:25:08.043" Score="6" ViewCount="216" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am trying to return to competitive chess after 10+ years of inactivity. I am playing the QGD so the third game of the Carlsen - Anand match is very important for me. It seemed to me that Black had equal position in these lines yet now I am not so sure. That &lt;code&gt;17.Ng5&lt;/code&gt; leap is really nasty, and after &lt;code&gt;20.fxe4&lt;/code&gt; White also seemed in command. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since I don't wish to change repertoire I am asking here for help to improve the game for Black so he can reach fully playable position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are the moves of the game:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[White &quot;Anand, Vishwanathan&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Carlsen, Magnus&quot;] &#xA;[Event &quot;WCC 2014&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;3&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nf3 d5 4. Nc3 Be7 5. Bf4 O-O 6. e3 Nbd7 7. c5 c6 8. Bd3 b6 9. b4 a5 10. a3 Ba6 11. Bxa6 Rxa6 12. b5 cxb5 13. c6 Qc8 14. c7 b4 15. Nb5 a4 16. Rc1 Ne4 17. Ng5 Ndf6 18. Nxe4 Nxe4 19. f3 Ra5 20. fxe4 Rxb5 21. Qxa4 Ra5 22. Qc6 bxa3 23. exd5 Rxd5 24. Qxb6 Qd7 25. O-O Rc8 26. Rc6 g5 27. Bg3 Bb4 28. Ra1 Ba5 29. Qa6 Bxc7 30. Qc4 e5 31. Bxe5 Rxe5 32. dxe5 Qe7 33. e6 Kf8 34. Rc1 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastEditorUserId="307" LastEditDate="2014-11-12T22:55:34.847" LastActivityDate="2014-11-14T22:14:39.453" Title="Anand - Carlsen WCC 2014 ( game 3 ) -&gt; at which moments Black was able to equalize?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;carlsen-anand-2014&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7784" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7783" CreationDate="2014-11-12T19:24:39.503" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Analysing the whole game, not just the opening moves, the main problem with black's position was the dark squares. Despite having his dark squared bishop, once the pawn marched to &lt;code&gt;c7&lt;/code&gt; the dominance of &lt;code&gt;Bf4&lt;/code&gt; over &lt;code&gt;Be7&lt;/code&gt; was beyond any doubt. It is true that Carlsen made a few mistakes with several recaptures, but these moves were natural and probably every human would have made them in his position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is why my main suggestion is to play the line arising after &lt;code&gt;6... Nh4&lt;/code&gt;, getting rid of that annoying bishop and avoiding the pawn from ever reaching &lt;code&gt;c7&lt;/code&gt;. The game may then steer into semi-Slav (if black plays &lt;code&gt;c6&lt;/code&gt;) or Tarrasch (if black plays &lt;code&gt;c5&lt;/code&gt;) pawn structures, where the choice is only yours.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3890" LastEditorUserId="3890" LastEditDate="2014-11-12T22:06:15.370" LastActivityDate="2014-11-12T22:06:15.370" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7785" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="7786" CreationDate="2014-11-13T07:20:46.740" Score="9" ViewCount="812" Body="&lt;p&gt;After:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 Nd4 4. Nc3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;it looks like white is leading in development at the moment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4209" LastEditorUserId="3890" LastEditDate="2014-11-13T15:28:26.013" LastActivityDate="2014-12-18T22:05:22.567" Title="Why is the move 4.Nc3 rare in Bird's defence?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;ruy-lopez&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7786" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7785" CreationDate="2014-11-13T10:12:33.813" Score="16" Body="&lt;p&gt;While it is true that at the moment white is leading in development, the move &lt;code&gt;Nc3&lt;/code&gt; interferes directly with white's plans. This is why it is seldom played. From now on I will severely criticize this move, but it is by no means a losing one or one that offers any immediate advantage to black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In every opening, but this is particularly important in the Ruy-Lopez, the two main goals are to control the center and develop your pieces (remember, a piece is developed when it's doing something useful in the square it is. Sometimes a piece is better left on its starting square if you don't see a good place for it). To do so, a normal plan after &lt;code&gt;Bb5&lt;/code&gt; is to play &lt;code&gt;c3&lt;/code&gt; preparing &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt;, when white will achieve the perfect center (namely a pawn on &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt; and another on &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt;) even if black captures on &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt;, as he will be able to recapture with a pawn. So, even if your knight is &quot;developed&quot; (my next point will be that the knight is probably not specially useful here), it prevents the pawn from reaching &lt;code&gt;c3&lt;/code&gt; and interferes with one of the two main goals of an opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The move has also a number of drawbacks that are conceptually maybe not so important as this one, but that also put people back from playing it. The most common is that after black plays &lt;code&gt;d6&lt;/code&gt;, the natural square for his light squared bishop is &lt;code&gt;g4&lt;/code&gt; pinning the knight. If white is able to play &lt;code&gt;Nbd2&lt;/code&gt;, he defends the pin and the queen is free to move without compromising the pawn structure, but if his knight is already on &lt;code&gt;c3&lt;/code&gt; the pin can be quite annoying. Another important one is that if the bishop is chased away via &lt;code&gt;a6&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;b5&lt;/code&gt;, sometimes he can hugely benefit from being placed on &lt;code&gt;c2&lt;/code&gt;, defending the &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; pawn and having attacking prospects on the kingside if the pawn ever moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, in this particular position, with this move you are giving up the bishop pair. It is true that you gain a temporary initiative, but with so few developed pìeces it is hard to get an attack going, specially when black is only a couple of moves away from castling. I do not think this initiative is something special, whereas the two bishops will bring a lot of pain after &lt;code&gt;c6&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt; (not necessarily right away, but that is a plan), opening up the position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Summing up, while you are developing a piece, a considerable number of small concessions are being made, and this adds up to something that you may do not want out of the opening: you have poor coordination from the start, you may have lost the bishop pair and not even have any structural advantages for it (as in the Exchange Ruy-Lopez) and you must look for a new non-standard plan as you have blocked your &lt;code&gt;c&lt;/code&gt; pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3890" LastEditorUserId="3890" LastEditDate="2014-12-18T22:05:22.567" LastActivityDate="2014-12-18T22:05:22.567" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7787" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-11-13T13:19:33.960" Score="6" ViewCount="1169" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there any strategic importance in having pawns at the centre of the board? Please provide a detailed explanation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4213" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-11-13T15:22:42.777" LastActivityDate="2014-11-19T02:27:23.163" Title="Is it important to have pawns at the centre of the board?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;&lt;pawns&gt;&lt;center&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7788" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7787" CreationDate="2014-11-13T15:20:53.970" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm going to assume that the importance of the center in general terms is already something you are aware of. In short, controlling the center means that your pieces will be able to access/utilize the whole board much better than if your opponent does.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pawns allow a strong control of the center by virtue of the fact that they are both weak (meaning your opponent will be unlikely to trade a stronger piece for one) and the fact that they cannot move backwards or readily across files (meaning that it's relatively easy to create situations where one side's pawns cannot be attacked by the opponent's pawns, even if material is even). This of course assumes that one player is occupying the center with pawns (see: 'big center') and the other is not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A more likely situation is one where both players are occupying the center with pawns, and the more important effect of this is that it helps determine the character of the game. If the center is blocked, the position is often vastly different to when the center pawns are traded for each other, leaving plenty of room for the long-range pieces to move around. Neither of these situations is inherently better for one side, but can allow a player to reach positions they are more comfortable with, or use their pieces more effectively than the opponents (e.g. a wide-open position can generally be said to favor a side that has bishops instead of knights, if there in an inequality there).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="550" LastActivityDate="2014-11-13T15:20:53.970" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7789" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6513" CreationDate="2014-11-13T16:33:20.940" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think there's going to be a definitive answer for this: Terms are decided largely by FIDE with a small amount of input from the incumbent champion and challenger, meaning that people like us can't really know. I can however highlight a few factors that I think play a role.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;As GuRoux hinted at, not running over other tournaments is a plus. Not just because of divided attention of the community, but because it means that at least two (and likely more, considering the role of seconds) of the worlds top players won't be able to compete in any other tournament while the WCC is ongoing.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Attention span. As an extreme example, the 1984 championship went for 48 (not a typo) games before the match was called off by the president of FIDE. It's hard to expect players or spectators to put aside such large amounts of time when there's no garuantee of a result, and people who are not really 'into' chess will likely stop watching quite quickly.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Increased costs. Aside from the high costs that are present in all post-Fischer-era matches (venue, hotels, prize pool, etc). there are a number of other expenses that have come up in recent years. To give only one example, the current (2014) match between Carlsen and Anand is being streamed live to the internet, which requires a production crew (streaming like that is harder than it looks) and commentators (I can't imagine the experience and quality of a top player and commentator such as Svidler coming cheap). It's true that this allows for advertising possibilities which might cover those costs, but that means that you need to find even more sponsors to cover both new and traditional expenses, and with more sponsors you can ask for less money as they share less of the limelight.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The format promotes attacking chess, in much the same way that 20/20 cricket promotes high-risk/high-reward play over the traditional test match format. The aforementioned Karpov-Kasparov match went for 48 games, but at the conclusion the score was 5-3 (five times as many draws as wins, and the ratio was even worse but for the last two games). Even people already interested in chess would likely lose interest with continual draws, not to mention attempting to attract new players. In a shorter format, you are forced to go on the offensive, because there is less time to make up a mistake arising from a mistake after passive play. Tiebreaks with decreasing time controls also means that the luck factor increses there, and so both players will likely want to avoid that.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In general I agree that 12 games is very short, but it's almost inconcievable that at 24-game match would occur these days, and even 16-18 would likely be stretching things considering the chess world's continued problems with finding and maintaining sponsorship.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="550" LastEditorUserId="550" LastEditDate="2014-11-14T03:21:37.020" LastActivityDate="2014-11-14T03:21:37.020" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7790" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7768" CreationDate="2014-11-13T16:46:00.277" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The chief arbiter is in practice no different from a standard arbiter - it is more a convenience in tournament organization. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In many tournament there are so many players that it is necessary to have several arbiters, and of those usually the one with the highest title (often IA for professional or large tournaments) is considered the 'chief' arbiter who is responsible as arbiter for all purposes that concern FIDE, etc. and to whom all other arbiters report. This also allows for less experienced arbiters to be used where necessary, as disputes with a less experienced arbiter (unlikely, but possible) can then be taken to the chief arbiter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="550" LastActivityDate="2014-11-13T16:46:00.277" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7791" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6010" CreationDate="2014-11-13T16:58:41.017" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In short, you don't have an engine installed that is able to use the mate search function. The scrollable box should show all engines you have installed that are capable of the mate search function, so either you don't have one installed (unlikely if you have a legitimate copy of Fritz 12) or the UI is unable to recognize it for some reason.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="550" LastActivityDate="2014-11-13T16:58:41.017" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7792" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2347" CreationDate="2014-11-13T21:56:43.807" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Hold down &lt;code&gt;Control&lt;/code&gt; and click on the starting square to begin the arrow, then on the square the arrow will be pointing at.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4219" LastEditorUserId="3890" LastEditDate="2014-11-14T00:33:33.663" LastActivityDate="2014-11-14T00:33:33.663" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7794" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-11-14T02:01:58.703" Score="13" ViewCount="562" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are there any books or articles devoted to &lt;em&gt;composing&lt;/em&gt; retrograde analysis problems? It seems that you would need some techniques beyond ones for standard problems.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4221" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-09-14T04:35:48.350" LastActivityDate="2020-09-14T04:36:30.060" Title="About how to compose retrograde analysis problems" Tags="&lt;retrograde-analysis&gt;&lt;composing&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="7795" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-11-14T03:32:38.363" Score="2" ViewCount="672" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd like to start a notebook as I learn more about chess.  I see the interactive diagrams here on stackexchange and think these would be excellent to integrate into my notes.  I'm looking for something that I could use to next through the positions or lines and draw arrows/highlight squares etc in addition to my text notes.  Do you guys have any recommendations on software/apps to accomplish this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4222" LastActivityDate="2014-11-14T05:04:17.983" Title="Chess Note Taking?" Tags="&lt;software&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7796" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7795" CreationDate="2014-11-14T03:36:25.937" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure how this would help you with your notebook, but most modern GUIs allow for drawing arrows, highlighting squares, etc. For example, Fritz allows you to draw arrows by alt-clicking and highlighting by right-clicking. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are looking for something more advanced than this, you might want to take a look at Lucas Chess, which has a feature called 'Director' that allows you to draw various shapes, etc. over the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="550" LastActivityDate="2014-11-14T03:36:25.937" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7797" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7795" CreationDate="2014-11-14T05:04:17.983" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Thank you for your suggestion, I will have to check out Lucas chess as it looks very powerful.  I just found Scid vs PC/Mac which is quite excellent for my needs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's a link for others interested&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://scidvspc.sourceforge.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://scidvspc.sourceforge.net/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The interface is not that intuitive but there are many videos on youtube to learn more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While it allows all types of annotations I find using these shorctuts are very useful:&#xA;You can hold shift and click a square to highlight it&#xA;You can hold control and click start square then end square to draw an arrow&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4222" LastActivityDate="2014-11-14T05:04:17.983" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7798" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-11-14T06:29:12.537" Score="3" ViewCount="358" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there a site I can go to or a software which I can use which will help me to analyse a chess position?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4225" LastActivityDate="2018-07-06T08:48:01.000" Title="Analysis of a chess position?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7799" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7798" CreationDate="2014-11-14T07:55:40.520" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;That depends on what you mean by 'analyse'. Any chess engine with a GUI will allow you to input a position and get sample lines from the engine, while letting you try out variations. Online services that allow this include &lt;a href=&quot;http://lichess.org&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://lichess.org&lt;/a&gt; (you'd have to upload a game's PGN there first) or &lt;a href=&quot;http://analysis.cpuchess.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://analysis.cpuchess.com/&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If by 'analyse' you mean study and learn from the nuances of a position, then the short answer is no - while a GUI might provide a way of easily resetting the board to certain states, it can't do the hard work for you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="550" LastActivityDate="2014-11-14T07:55:40.520" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7800" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-11-14T08:18:36.397" Score="5" ViewCount="1013" Body="&lt;p&gt;I sometimes find it very difficult to determine the accurate moves in middle game. When a tough opponent is in front of me I dont let to attack at first. I strengthen my defense. But if I ever try to attack, the opponent destroys my defense and I fail! Sometimes I feel this is the right move and also understand the consequence of the move! But still there remain quirks on my move and the opponent take the advantage! I even find it difficult to calculate moves as there are so many possibilities for an opponent!  So i want to know how to determine the accurate moves as the grandmasters do and also how many moves should I calculate before any move?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[White &quot;NN&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;user4226&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;1&quot;]&#xA;     [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 Nf6 4. d3 Bc5 5. a3 d6 6. b4 Bb6 7. Bxc6+ bxc6 8. h3 O-O 9. Bb2 a5 10. O-O Be6 11. Nbd2 Nh5 12. Nxe5 dxe5 13. Qxh5 f6 14. Rad1 axb4 15. axb4 Ra2 16. Rb1 Bd4 17. Bxd4 Qxd4 18. Rfc1 Rb2 19. Rxb2 Qxb2 20. Qd1 Qxb4 21. Rb1 Qe7 22. Rb7 Qd7 23. Nb3 Bxb3 24. Rxb3 f5 25. exf5 Qxf5 26. f3 Rd8 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4226" LastEditorUserId="11202" LastEditDate="2017-06-30T12:09:06.953" LastActivityDate="2017-06-30T12:09:06.953" Title="Need some helps with the tactics in the middle game" Tags="&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;middlegame&gt;&lt;calculation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="7" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7801" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7800" CreationDate="2014-11-14T09:43:52.710" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess is a skill that requires hard work and dedicated toning, just like learning to play a musical instrument. Unless you are very exceptional, you won't become a master at it within a few weeks, months or years (the good news is that you don't have to be a master to have fun with chess). Some players were lucky enough to be very talented, had the opportunity to start young and maintained an almost obsessive interest in it - they are the ones most likely to become IM's or GM's after 10 to 15 year of dedication. Most of us just play for fun and must maintain a realistic perspective.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I suggest you read Willy Hendriks' book &quot;Move First, Think Later&quot;. The book addresses the very essence of your question, which is: How do I improve my chess?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a warning, the book &lt;em&gt;is&lt;/em&gt; controversial, especially since it spends a lot of effort in undermining certain common conceptions about chess improvement. Hendriks is not scared of taking on the establishment of chess training.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From memory, here is a list of things he suggests you focus on:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Tactical puzzles. Nothing improves your chess quicker than doing a lot (as in thousands) of puzzles, as it &quot;programs&quot; your brain to spot good moves and continuations.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Play a lot. Over the board, on the internet, as much as you have an appetite for.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Notate and study your games. Try to understand where you went wrong (I, for example, found I have a weakness in spotting tactics on my king behind the pawn line).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Focus on the things that motivate &lt;em&gt;you&lt;/em&gt;. For example, here on chess.SE you will often see the advice &quot;don't study opening theory at beginner level&quot;. Well, if you &lt;em&gt;like&lt;/em&gt; studying opening theory, then studying opening theory is &lt;em&gt;perfectly fine&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is a list of things he suggests you don't waste your time on:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Worrying about general rules and common adages (for example &quot;the bishop pair&quot;, &quot;respond to an attack on the flank with an attack in the center&quot;, leave your thinking time for the &quot;critical moment&quot;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Approaching chess from some ideological/academic angle (like Silman's &quot;imbalances&quot;). Hendriks argues that chess ability is not a rational skill, and a rational-based approach will not help in improving it greatly (this point probably needs some elaboration - he's not saying chess is &lt;em&gt;irrational&lt;/em&gt;, but that taking some kind of &lt;em&gt;reasoned&lt;/em&gt; approach won't help you much - you are going to be better off with an intuition toned through practice than over-the-board reasoning). &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Worrying about developing some kind of structured thought process (for example: 1. Consider threats. 2. Consider attack points. 3. Consider tactical motifs. 4. Consider alternatives etc etc). Hendriks argues from findings in neuroscience that your brain functions heavily in parallel - don't try to serialize your thinking by adopting a thought process that sub-divides goals - instead, let your brain do its work naturally. Just find the good move!&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Trying to calculate every position 10 moves deep. GM's don't generally calculate that deep (unless the tactical situation calls for it, of course).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Following some abstract &quot;plan&quot;. Rather, focus on finding good squares for you pieces and making good moves that forces your opponent to counter actively.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Spending 10,000 hours doing it even if you hate it.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1816" LastEditorUserId="1816" LastEditDate="2014-11-17T09:19:40.870" LastActivityDate="2014-11-17T09:19:40.870" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7802" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7800" CreationDate="2014-11-14T10:11:02.510" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Based on the way your question is written, I think your problem is that you think only about &quot;attacking&quot; and &quot;defending&quot;, not about the targets what you should attack or defend. If you try hard to do something that your position is not good for, you end up making your position worse even if you calculate perfectly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't know your playing strength, but I think I improved from ~1400 to ~1600 in a month just by reading IM Jeremy Silman's &quot;The Amateur's Mind&quot;. It taught me one thing: you need to have an idea what you want to achieve in the position before you start calculating. So plans in chess are not series of moves moves but rather something like &quot;I wan't to attack that weak pawn so he has to defend it and then I can use my more active pieces to attack that other weak square there.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not claiming Silman's thinking technique is excellent. Now (as a ~2000 player) I use it for analyzing games and training with unlimited time, but in games I use it mostly to determine weaknesses and strengths of both sides in the position. I've found the actual technique to be too unpractical (&quot;ideological&quot; as @firtydank says in his answer) for real games. For example, he says somewhere that if you have 60 minutes on the clock, it's OK to spend 45 minutes trying to come up with a plan, because once you have a plan, you instantly know what to do in the next moves. My experience tells that around 90 % of the time, my opponent's move is completely unpredicted by me, and around 50 % of the time, it ruins my previous plan, and I have to come up with a new one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, here's the main point of my answer: If my original plan was somewhat sensible, my opponent needs to take it into account, and thus he can't do whatever he likes, and I have good chances of winning the game, even if I have to find a new plan each move. If my original plan is totally useless, my opponent doesn't need to care about it and will be able to do whatever he wants, most likely winning the game. Often it looks like I've made a tactical error, allowing him to attack, but I think tactical and strategical errors go somewhat hand in hand: it is easy to miscalculate if you are under pressure, and it's easy to miss opponent's attacking chances if you don't know that he has a good position for attacking because your pieces are not putting any pressure on his position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1761" LastActivityDate="2014-11-14T10:11:02.510" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7803" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19566" CreationDate="2014-11-14T17:15:05.077" Score="4" ViewCount="243" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latvian_Gambit&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Wikipedia article on the Latvian Gambit&lt;/a&gt; says that the name &lt;em&gt;Latvian Gambit&lt;/em&gt; was made official by the FIDE Congress of 1937. I didn't realise that FIDE was in the business of approving names of openings, so my question is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What other opening names have been made official by FIDE?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4182" LastActivityDate="2018-01-01T19:33:00.947" Title="FIDE-approved opening names" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;fide&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7804" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7803" CreationDate="2014-11-14T18:00:08.517" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You're asking for a list that isn't really available and might never be complete even if it is. For what it's worth, I'm not aware of any other openings that have had their titles FIDE approved.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In general, FIDE does not deal with the names of openings - to give one simple example there is still ambiguity about whether to call &lt;code&gt;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5&lt;/code&gt; the &lt;code&gt;Spanish Opening&lt;/code&gt; or the &lt;code&gt;Ruy Lopez&lt;/code&gt;. These things are normally more a matter of convention and influenced almost entirely by the use of names in the written works about them. As a result, I believe that the approval of the name 'Latvian Gambit' was more a special recognition than a matter of actually attempting to codify opening names on any significant scale.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="550" LastEditorUserId="11629" LastEditDate="2018-01-01T19:33:00.947" LastActivityDate="2018-01-01T19:33:00.947" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7805" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="7806" CreationDate="2014-11-14T18:14:05.470" Score="3" ViewCount="601" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the maximum Elo rating that Magnus Carlsen could have if he loses the World Chess Championship 2014 to Anand? Would this result from a 6.5-5.5 result or would the relative rating change mean that if he lost more quickly that would be better? Also, are the players playing 12 rounds regardless of the current score?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4043" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-05-10T17:53:50.600" LastActivityDate="2021-05-10T17:53:50.600" Title="What is the maximum Elo rating that Magnus Carlsen could have if he loses the 2014 WCC to Anand?" Tags="&lt;elo&gt;&lt;world-championship&gt;&lt;carlsen&gt;&lt;anand&gt;&lt;carlsen-anand-2014&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="7806" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7805" CreationDate="2014-11-14T18:56:57.317" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;In a hypothetical situation where Carlsen knew that he was going to lose the match and his number one priority was to preserve his rating points, then his best option would be to lose as quickly as possible. As pointed out in &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/2886/rating-calculations-for-anand-carlsen-world-championship/&quot;&gt;this question&lt;/a&gt; (EDIT: Values updated as per JiK's comment below), Carlsen will lose 1 rating points for each game he draws with Anand. The only way that he could extend the match and &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; lose points in the process would be to win as many games as possible before losing. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Assuming Anand wins with the minimum possible score of 6.5/12, Carlsen will lose a minimum of 17 points (11 draws x 1, 1 loss x 6). This does not change if draws are replaced by a win for either side.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, if Anand was going to win with a draw and 6 wins, then Carlsen stands to lose&#xA; 37 points. If Carlsen somehow knew this would be how Anand would win, then he could attempt to interpose as many of his own wins (up to 5) as possible, ameliorating the loss somewhat. Even in this situation, Carlsen's best result remains a net loss of 17 points.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT:&lt;/strong&gt; And to answer the question as it is worded in the title: Carlsen's rating (assuming no results outside the WCC match are counted) would be no more than 2863.0 - 17 = &lt;strong&gt;2846.0&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="550" LastEditorUserId="550" LastEditDate="2014-11-16T18:50:25.167" LastActivityDate="2014-11-16T18:50:25.167" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7807" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-11-14T19:57:30.360" Score="5" ViewCount="218" Body="&lt;p&gt;I remember this from the days entering high school ;) Fide.com has this very well made online game room, much like yahoo's in terms of functionality, but much cleaner and with some funky rating system (started at 0 and 20-30 was strong!).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also remember that the best players there, or those who won some online tournament there, would play on the actual Fide finals -- back in the days when it was knock-out 128 or something like that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am just wondering when this got cancelled and the website got crapped into what it's now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://web.archive.org/web/20010707032253/http://www.fide.com/cgi-bin/material/main.pl&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Here&lt;/a&gt; is what it looked like then. Just wondering if there is an easy way to get to a top tournament today.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4230" LastEditorUserId="4230" LastEditDate="2014-11-14T20:08:04.947" LastActivityDate="2015-11-16T13:35:55.677" Title="Around 00-01 Fide had a great online arena. What happened to that?" Tags="&lt;fide&gt;&lt;online&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7809" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7783" CreationDate="2014-11-14T22:14:39.453" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;After 3 days of analyzing the position and searching through the Internet, I have decided to switch from playing &lt;code&gt;7...c6&lt;/code&gt; to &lt;code&gt;7...Nh5&lt;/code&gt;. It seems that Black has easier time here, with fully equal chances. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Next, I have searched online for comments about &lt;code&gt;17...Nxg5&lt;/code&gt; as I really liked the move. That didn't turn out too well for Black, so I had to satisfy myself with the game continuation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I will use this opportunity to give credit to the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/news/vishy-anand-levels-score-in-game-3-in-sochi-world-championship-8702&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;GM Erwin l'Ami&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.chessbase.com/post/sochi-g3-anand-strikes-back-with-a-vengeance&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;GM Daniel King&lt;/a&gt;. Their analysis was very helpful and helped me to cut the amount of time I spent analyzing the whole game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;WCC 2014&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;3&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Anand, Vishwanathan&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Carlsen, Magnus&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;] &#xA;&#xA;1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nf3 d5 4. Nc3 Be7 5. Bf4 O-O 6. e3 Nbd7 7. c5 c6 ( 7...Nh5!) 8. Bd3 b6 9. b4 a5 10. a3 Ba6 11. Bxa6 Rxa6 12. b5 cxb5 13. c6 Qc8 14. c7 b4 15. Nb5 a4 16. Rc1 Ne4 ( 16...Ra5?! 17. Bd6 Rxb5 18.Bxe7 b3 19.Bxf8 Nxf8 20.O-O ) 17. Ng5 Ndf6 ( 17...Bxg5 18.Bxg5 Ra5 19.Be7!? Rxb5 20. Bxf8 Kxf8 21. Qxa4 Ra5 22.Qxb4+ Ke8! $13) ( 17...Nxg5?! 18.Bd6 Ra5 19.Bxe7 Rxb5 20. axb4! $16) 18. Nxe4 Nxe4? ( 18...dxe4!? 19.Nd6 Bxd6 20.Bxd6 b3 21.Bxf8 Kxf8 $13) 19. f3! Ra5 20. fxe4!N Rxb5 21. Qxa4 Ra5 22. Qc6 bxa3 ( 22...dxe4 23.a4! ) 23. exd5 Rxd5 24. Qxb6 Qd7 25. O-O?! ( 25.Qa6! Rc8 26.Rb1! Rxc7 27.Rb8+ Bd8 28.Bxc7 Qxc7 29.Rc8+-) 25...Rc8 26. Rc6 g5 ( 26...Bf6 27.Qa6 e5 28.dxe5 Bxe5 29.Bxe5 Rxe5 30.Rfc1 Rd5 31.Qxc8+!! Qxc8 32.Rb6+-) 27. Bg3?! ( 27.Be5!? Bb4 28.Qxb4 Qxc6 29.Qe7! $36) 27...Bb4! 28. Ra1! Ba5? 29. Qa6 Bxc7? 30. Qc4! e5 31. Bxe5 Rxe5 32. dxe5 Qe7 33. e6 Kf8 34. Rc1 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastActivityDate="2014-11-14T22:14:39.453" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7810" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="7811" CreationDate="2014-11-14T22:30:28.480" Score="5" ViewCount="3133" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are many chess problems and studies that are very nuanced and can take ages to properly figure out. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the chess puzzle/problem with the longest (proven) solution?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4130" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-05T00:35:59.793" LastActivityDate="2021-05-30T02:20:30.610" Title="What is the most complex chess problem?" Tags="&lt;problems&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="9" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7811" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7810" CreationDate="2014-11-15T01:30:53.457" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you're looking for the puzzle with the longest forced sequence, it would be &lt;a href=&quot;http://tb7.chessok.com/articles/Top8DTM_eng&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this position&lt;/a&gt; ,which contains a win for white in 549 moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;1n1k4/6Q1/5KP1/8/7b/1r6/8/8 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It was found by computers from the generation of 7-man endgame tablebases, and there are several similar positions with the same distance to mate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If that seems a little extreme, then the longest mate puzzle made by a human was Otto Blathy's 'monster', which is a mate in 292 moves but contains an illegal starting position (i.e. it could never occur in a real game).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you won't accept that, then &lt;a href=&quot;http://web.iol.cz/vaclav.kotesovec/neweklow.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; are the current record-holders for the longest puzzles created by a person from legal positions - A mate in 271 with 'obtrusive units' (legal, but must have come about through piece promotion, such as having two dark-squared bishops) and a mate in 267 without those. And, surprisingly, both of those were created by the &lt;em&gt;same&lt;/em&gt; person.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for the &amp;quot;most variations that don't work&amp;quot; as you stated, it's probably also the mate in 549 listed above, with the number of moves that would let the other player slip out or otherwise prolong the sequence even more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="550" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2020-04-05T00:39:48.787" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="7812" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5470" CreationDate="2014-11-15T05:35:52.227" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;My name is Sean Castleton and I am currently rated 2362. I have had a lot of success playing the Grob Attack over the years and developed an opening repertoire with it. I was influenced early on by GM Michael Basman's book &quot;The Killer Grob&quot; and have played it exclusively at both club and tournament levels. What I like about the Grob, is that it is an extremely aggressive opening and quite unique. It takes your opponent out of their game from the get-go and as a result fairs well in blitz.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The last few years I improved on it a lot with the Houdini chess engine, which has greatly helped my game and taught me more techniques in sacrifice. Posted below is a link to my Grob Attack PGN opening database which contains 5000 games/lines. The games/lines ratio is approximately 65% winning or won and 35% equal. I capped off the lines at move 20, because as aforementioned, you are usually left with winning chances. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Download Link: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.dropbox.com/s/6ktvm8zm75ueum4/Grob%20Attack%20Repertoire.rar?dl=0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.dropbox.com/s/6ktvm8zm75ueum4/Grob%20Attack%20Repertoire.rar?dl=0&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4232" LastEditorDisplayName="user7637" LastEditDate="2019-01-23T15:08:28.823" LastActivityDate="2019-01-23T15:08:28.823" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="7814" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5470" CreationDate="2014-11-15T07:40:52.227" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Actually, this is precisely what a Grob player wants you to think and play. The tactics behind the Grob, as with other wing type openings, such as the Polish Opening, the St. George, ect., are to give the opponent the center, only to undermine it later. The Grob Attack immediately invokes a domineering presense on the center as in the case of the Grob Gambit Accepted, i.e. 1.g4 d5 2.Bg2 Bxg4 3. c4 c6 4. cxd4 cxd4 5. Qb3... This is the main line of the GGA, and as you can see, not only places black in a bit of a quandry with domineering pressure on the center, but also threatens his b7 pawn a Queen Rook. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4233" LastEditorUserId="4233" LastEditDate="2014-11-15T07:46:03.667" LastActivityDate="2014-11-15T07:46:03.667" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7815" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5555" CreationDate="2014-11-15T09:10:22.253" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Raymond Smullyan's &lt;em&gt;Chess Mysteries of the Arabian Knights&lt;/em&gt; has some problems where one of the pieces is actually a different piece; you have to figure out which piece.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The problems there which fit this description appear to be these:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3 5 23 28 29 30 39 41 42 43&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4221" LastActivityDate="2014-11-15T09:10:22.253" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7816" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="7817" CreationDate="2014-11-15T16:07:04.840" Score="9" ViewCount="307" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is wrong with &lt;code&gt;10...Ne4&lt;/code&gt; instead of &lt;code&gt;10...Nd7&lt;/code&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems to me that it was a better move -&gt; Black exchanges one more piece which relieves his cramped position and he obtains the bishop pair.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can someone explain why &lt;code&gt;10...Ne4&lt;/code&gt; is inferior to &lt;code&gt;10...Nd7&lt;/code&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is the position I am talking about:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[White &quot;Carlsen, Magnus&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Anand, Vishwanathan&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;WCC 2014&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;r1bk3r/1p3ppp/p1p1pn2/4P3/1bP5/2N5/PP3PPP/R1B1KB1R b KQ - 0 1 &quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1...Ne4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastActivityDate="2014-11-16T01:45:09.047" Title="Carlsen - Anand, game 6 WCC 2014 -&gt; why Black didn't play 10...Ne4 to try to equalize?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;carlsen-anand-2014&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7817" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7816" CreationDate="2014-11-16T01:45:09.047" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;10...Ne4&lt;/strong&gt; doesn't help Black preserve the bishop pair. After the surprising move &lt;strong&gt;11.a3!&lt;/strong&gt;, Black is forced to take the knight on &lt;strong&gt;c3&lt;/strong&gt; with the bishop and then we reach a position similar to the one in the game, except that Black's knight is on a more vulnerable e4 square than on a safe square like &lt;strong&gt;d7&lt;/strong&gt;. The pawn on &lt;strong&gt;c3&lt;/strong&gt; cannot be captured without a significant positional loss to Black. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;   [FEN &quot;r1bk3r/1p3ppp/p1p1pn2/8/1bP1P3/2N5/PP3PPP/R1B1KB1R w KQ - 0 10&quot;]&#xA;   [White &quot;Carlsen&quot;]&#xA;   [Black &quot;Anand&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;   1. e5 Ne4 2. a3! Bxc3+ (2... Nxc3?? 3. axb4 Ne4 4. f3! +-) (2... Ba5 3. b4 Nxc3&#xA;   4. bxa5+=) 3. bxc3 Kc7 (3... Nxc3? 4. a4! Ne4 5. Be3 f6 6. Bd3 Ng5 7. O-O&#xA;   Nf7 8. exf6 gxf6 9. f4 +=) 4. Be3 b6 5. Bd3 Nc5 6. Bxc5 bxc5 7. O-O-O+=&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2429" LastActivityDate="2014-11-16T01:45:09.047" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7818" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-11-16T01:53:49.623" Score="11" ViewCount="4261" Body="&lt;p&gt;CPT is software for testing (among other things) one's opening repertoire knowledge.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm wondering if there are any other similar pieces of software I should consider.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1752" LastActivityDate="2020-07-03T14:55:02.410" Title="What alternatives are there to Chess Position Trainer?" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;memorization&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7821" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-11-16T06:30:58.780" Score="5" ViewCount="2274" Body="&lt;p&gt;What would happen in a 10-game match between one of the strongest human player (Carlsen, Caruana, Aronian, Kramnik or Anand) and one of the strongest engine (Komodo, Stockfish or Houdini), but with the following two conditions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The human always has the White pieces in every single game.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The human is given draw odds: a draw is counted as a White win (i.e. in the advent of a draw White gets 1 point and Black gets 0 point).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The games are played at classical time control: 120 minutes for the first 40 moves, 60 minutes for the next 20 moves and then 15 minutes for the rest of the game with an increment of 30 seconds per move starting after move 61 has been made.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The engine is run on a powerful computer, gets 7-piece Lomonosov endgame tablebases, has permanent brain (ponder) on, and has a big opening book designed to avoid getting into drawish positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3237" LastActivityDate="2018-12-07T08:18:41.340" Title="Can a human defeat an engine in a 10-game match if he is given the White pieces and draw odds in every game?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;draw&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;houdini&gt;&lt;computer-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7822" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1624" CreationDate="2014-11-16T17:11:39.597" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;The two previous answers both suggested that this position is a draw, but I believe it's a win for White.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stockfish 5 evaluates the position at more than +10 if left to run for long enough (e.g., to depth 40), which sounds pretty decisive, but of course Stockfish isn't infallible. I generated a FinalGen tablebase for the position, but unfortunately it wasn't able to solve the position fully, though it did show that the moves 1.Kf3 and 1.Kf1 lose. Stockfish evaluations for the positions after 1.Kf3 and 1.Kf1 eventually drop below -10, which suggests that Stockfish does understand what is going on here, and its evaluations (at depth 40 or more) should be taken seriously.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The question, of course, wasn't about the game-theoretic status of the position, but about the strategy. The basic strategy is to block the opponent's pawns and aim for zugzwang. White's first move appears to give him a decisive advantage in doing this, provided he starts by moving his king towards the queenside (1.Kd1, 1.Kd2 or 1.Kd3). Here's a sample line:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/pppk4/8/8/8/8/4KPPP/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Kd3 Ke6 2.h4 Kf7 3.h5 Kg7&#xA;( 3...a5 4.Kc4 a4 5.Kb4 b5 6.f4 c5+ 7.Ka3 c4 8.Kb4 Kg7&#xA;( 8...Kf6 9.g4 Kg7 10.f5 )&#xA;9.f5 Kg8 10.g3 Kg7 11.g4 Kg8 12.h6 Kh7 13.g5 Kg8 14.g6 Kf8 15.f6 $18 )&#xA;4.g4 Kh6 5.Kc3 a5 6.f4 a4 7.f5 Kg5&#xA;{ The kingside is now mutual zugzwang: Black can't move there without allowing promotion, and White can't move there without losing a pawn. Play therefore switches to the queenside. }&#xA;( 7...b5 8.f6 $18 )&#xA;8.Kb4 b5 9.Ka3 c5 ( 9...c6 10.Kb4 c5+ 11.Ka3 c4 12.Kb4 $23 { Zugzwang. } )&#xA;10.Ka2 b4 11.Kb2 a3+ 12.Kb3 c4+ 13.Ka2 c3 14.Kb3&#xA;{ The queenside is now also mutual zugzwang, so Black to move loses. }&#xA;14...c2 15.Kxc2 a2 16.Kb2 b3 17.Ka1 Kf6 18.h6 Kf7 19.g5 Kg8 20.g6 Kf8 21.f6 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black could try to avoid zugzwang by mimicking White's moves, but he can't mimic checks, and this is in any case a recipe for losing a direct race to promote. Here's a sample line:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/pppk4/8/8/8/8/4KPPP/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Kd3 Ke6 2.h4 a5 3.Kc4 Kf5 4.h5 a4 5.g4+ Kg5 6.Kb4 b5 7.f4+ Kh6 8.f5 c5+&#xA;9.Ka3 c4 10.f6 c3 11.g5+ Kxg5 12.f7 b4+ 13.Ka2 b3+ 14.Kb1 a3 15.f8=Q a2+&#xA;16.Ka1 c2 17.Qc5+ 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4182" LastEditorUserId="4182" LastEditDate="2014-11-21T19:19:44.150" LastActivityDate="2014-11-21T19:19:44.150" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7823" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7821" CreationDate="2014-11-16T17:19:23.263" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, a strong Grandmaster can beat the strongest chess engine given these conditions. Still, these conditions highlight the fact that today, the best engine is much stronger than the best human player. Thus, the human player needs considerable odds in order to agree to the next human versus machine match.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yet, imagine a strong Grandmaster (e.g. Elo &gt; 2700) agreeing to these terms (10 games with classical time controls, white in every game, draw means win for the human player). Then, imagine the human player losing the match. I think a human player would prefer losing a match without any odds than a match with odds.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In addition, perhaps more subtle conditions need to be offered to even out the gap in strength between the human and the machine. Since an engine is so excellent at pushing a small advantage to a victory, draw odds may turn out to be too rigid. For example, if the engine does not have more than 1.0 pawns advantage after 30 moves, the game is drawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Clarification. While a human player can theoretically win such a match, I think that the engine is more likely to win such a match, because the engine is much stronger. The engine in this case would have an excellent opening tree, would most likely not blunder a single time and would most likely identify and use every single blunder made by its human opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2014-11-17T07:18:33.737" LastActivityDate="2014-11-17T07:18:33.737" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7824" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7821" CreationDate="2014-11-16T18:21:22.483" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;In contrast to Rauan Sagit, I'm going to offer some reasons I think any human should (assuming they don't get lucky and play some computer-level games themselves) lose such a match. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Elo differential: As of Nov.15, 2014, the highest-ranked engine on &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.computerchess.org.uk/ccrl/4040/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;CCRL 40/40&lt;/a&gt; is Komodo with an Elo of 3303 on relatively modest hardware of an Athlon 64 X2 4600+ 2.4 GHz (Engine ratings were initially based on human ones, but you could debate how relevant it is to compare the two. We have no other metrics, though, so I'm going with this). The all time peak rating was Carlsen's 2882 - let's use him as our example and assume he is able to play consistently at a 2882 rating level. This is a differential of 421, and the central observation of the Elo rating system is that a rating difference of 400 points should correlate to a &lt;strong&gt;95% probability of the higher rated player winning&lt;/strong&gt; (not counting the possibility of draws). Top GM games draw around 50% of the time, meaning that even if this rate stays the same, Carlsen will be fighting for draws with no practical possibility to push for a win. This means that, &lt;em&gt;at best&lt;/em&gt;, you would be expecting him to stand a chance of &lt;em&gt;just&lt;/em&gt; winning the match with him playing at a peak level consistently throughout the match.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Time control: If the time control is short, humans are likely to blunder when at best computers will make sub-optimal positional choices. If the games are long, it becomes very hard for the human player to remain consistent until the end of the match.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The engine (assuming the people setting it up actually want it to win) would have it's 'contempt for draws' set really high, meaning it would keep pushing on until the human cracked.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The psychology of such a match (assuming that there is enough of a prize/prestige for the human to be taking it seriously) can be really taxing on the human player. Kasparov-Deep Blue were 6-game matches and Kasparov was finding to hard to maintain his mindset and mental stamina well before the end of these. Of course, there were other factors at play at the time, but a 10-game classical control match is very taxing.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd also point out that Rauan's last paragraph suggest a modification that would likely make it &lt;em&gt;too&lt;/em&gt; easy for a human player to win. keeping the computer's calculated advantage relatively low after 30 moves should not be too difficult with appropriate opening choices. I think a better adjustment would be that if the score is 0.00 +- 0.05 for at least 5 ply &lt;em&gt;and&lt;/em&gt; the human offers a draw, the machine must accept. Either that, or make the match take place over a long period of time, with one game every 3 months or so (in amongst other tournaments) to prevent fatigue.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="550" LastActivityDate="2014-11-16T18:21:22.483" CommentCount="11" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7825" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7787" CreationDate="2014-11-16T22:28:45.883" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let's imagine a white pawn on e4. It has the following functions&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Control the central squares e4 and d5.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Create two posts on d5 and f5 for light and heavy pieces.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Close the diagonals h1-a8 and b1-h7 from enemy diagonal pieces.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Dynamic possibility of e4-e5, e.g. kicking a black knight from f6.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastActivityDate="2014-11-16T22:28:45.883" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7826" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-11-17T13:27:40.940" Score="14" ViewCount="3362" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the Anand vs Carlsen Match 6, why was move 26 a blunder for both players?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[White &quot;Carlsen&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Anand&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;6rr/1k3p2/1pb1p1np/p1p1P2R/2P3R1/2P1B3/P1B2PP1/2K5 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Kd2? a4?&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4247" LastEditorUserId="3405" LastEditDate="2014-11-20T21:07:21.000" LastActivityDate="2015-06-05T20:21:02.410" Title="Why was move 26 in Carlsen-Anand 2014 WC Game 6 a blunder by both players?" Tags="&lt;blunder&gt;&lt;carlsen-anand-2014&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7827" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-11-17T13:34:50.300" Score="6" ViewCount="850" Body="&lt;p&gt;While I write this question, I am certain I completely miss the spirit of the world championship. But however, I got curious about how well the cheating-countermeasures at the championship actually work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Before the match, I watched a TV program which explained how the games would be, and they showed us a metal detector that the players had to go through before every match. The purpose of the metal detector was to find devices that could be used for cheating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In today's match (number 7), I notice that Anand is wearing his wrist watch. I would believe this would trigger the metal detector, and I doubt they would dismantle it to check if it's ok.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since the metal detector is a countermeasure to cheating, should they let devices such as wristwatches pass?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I seriously doubt that anyone would cheat at this level - I cannot imagine the impact it would have on the game (their career). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="907" LastEditorUserId="907" LastEditDate="2014-11-18T08:07:45.603" LastActivityDate="2020-08-04T01:12:14.707" Title="Is Anand possibly cheating (the metal detector)?" Tags="&lt;world-championship&gt;&lt;cheating&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7828" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7827" CreationDate="2014-11-17T13:49:07.217" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's just a watch. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Obviously it'd be a different story if the watch was a smartwatch, had some type of detailed display(digital) or did anything else but tell the time in an analog fashion. These players are being monitored by camera and by people live for the entire duration of their matches. The odds of getting away with cheating are incredibly small.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4093" LastActivityDate="2014-11-17T13:49:07.217" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7829" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7826" CreationDate="2014-11-17T13:53:29.157" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Carlsen's move(26.Kd2) was a blunder because of Anand's practically winning move(26...Nxe5!) which had a discovered attack on the rook on G4(and potential to take on C4). The double blunder occurred when Anand missed this move and played A4 which is a clear blunder when he had another great move available to him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4093" LastActivityDate="2014-11-17T13:53:29.157" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7830" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7826" CreationDate="2014-11-17T16:44:49.480" Score="16" Body="&lt;p&gt;Carlsen's &lt;code&gt;26.Kd2&lt;/code&gt; is a a blunder because it exposes the White King to a tactic that wins two pawns and gives Black terrific pressure. The tactic is effectively a guarantee of victory for Black:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;6rr/1k3p2/1pb1p1np/p1p1P2R/2P3R1/2P1B3/P1BK1PP1/8 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1...Nxe5! 2.Rxg8 (2.Rxe5? Rxg4) Nxc4+! {The Knight gets out of danger, with check and an extra pawn--you couldn't ask for anything better!} 3.Kd3 (3.Ke2 Rxg8) Nb2+ 4.Ke2 Rxg8 {Black is now two full pawns ahead, with lots of pressure on the weak g2 pawn and vastly better pawns for the endgame. }&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The point is that &lt;code&gt;2...Nxc4+&lt;/code&gt; wins Black a second free pawn, by virtue of the check against the White King. Without the ability to get the Knight out of danger with check, &lt;code&gt;...Nxe5&lt;/code&gt; is not possible (because White could then simply trade Rooks and then recapture the Knight with a winning position).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anand's mistake on &lt;em&gt;his&lt;/em&gt; twenty-sixth move was that he missed this tactic, playing &lt;code&gt;26...a4&lt;/code&gt; very quickly and allowing Carlsen to correct his mistake by moving his King away from &lt;code&gt;d2&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1201" LastEditorUserId="1201" LastEditDate="2014-11-19T00:35:14.857" LastActivityDate="2014-11-19T00:35:14.857" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7831" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7827" CreationDate="2014-11-17T23:51:31.897" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The organizers certainly noticed the watch, if you did. Therefore, since it was allowed at the match, they must have determined that it could not aid chess play in any way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Their reasoning should be simple: either the watch communicates with an outside device in order to signal the player, or else the watch does all chess calculation itself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Communication with an outside device requires radiation which is easily monitored by a counter-cheating system, and a watch that could &lt;em&gt;a)&lt;/em&gt; internally calculate chess moves at such a strength as to aid an elite human, &lt;em&gt;b)&lt;/em&gt; accurately yet undetectably signal the wearer from an analog clockface, and &lt;em&gt;c)&lt;/em&gt; accurately read the chess board, is currently technologically impossible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hence, dismantling the watch is unnecessary until technology allows undetectable wireless communication or a computer of the described caliber becomes even a remote possibility.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="86" LastActivityDate="2014-11-17T23:51:31.897" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7832" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-11-18T05:58:58.980" Score="4" ViewCount="358" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm building my White repertoire.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After 1. Nf3 d5 2. d4 Nf6 3. c4 e6 4. g3 Be7 5. Bg2 O-O 6. O-O dxc4 7. Ne5 c5 8. dxc5 Qc7 9. Nxc4 Rd8 we reach the following position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;1. Nf3 d5 2. d4 Nf6 3. c4 e6 4. g3 Be7 5. Bg2 O-O 6. O-O dxc4 7. Ne5 c5 8. dxc5 Qc7 9. Nxc4 Rd8&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is: which move should I choose?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;ol start=&quot;10&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Qc2&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;ol start=&quot;10&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Qb3&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;ol start=&quot;10&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Qa4&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are the advantages and disadvantages of each one of them?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would like to choose the move which (on average) leads to the most positional, solid, quiet and strategic positions (not sharp and tactical positions).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are only 6 games which reached this position in my opening database: White played 10. Qc2 in 3 of them, and White played 10. Qb3 in the other 3 of them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Komodo 8 says after a depth of 26 plies (2 hours):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;ol start=&quot;10&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Qc2 : +0.22&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;ol start=&quot;10&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Qb3 : +0.36&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;ol start=&quot;10&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Qa4 : +0.37&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stockfish 5 says after a depth of 31 plies (1 hour):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;ol start=&quot;10&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Qc2 : +0.18&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;ol start=&quot;10&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Qb3 : +0.32&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;ol start=&quot;10&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Qa4 : +0.32&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Gull 3 says after a depth of 25 plies (5 hours):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;ol start=&quot;10&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Qc2 : +0.00&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;ol start=&quot;10&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Qb3 : +0.30&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;ol start=&quot;10&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Qa4 : +0.22&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3237" LastEditorUserId="3237" LastEditDate="2014-11-18T18:15:50.543" LastActivityDate="2014-11-28T18:37:13.783" Title="In the Delayed Open Catalan, what is the best move after 7. Ne5 c5 8. dxc5 Qc7 9. Nxc4 Rd8?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;&lt;catalan&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7833" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="7835" CreationDate="2014-11-18T07:24:02.850" Score="4" ViewCount="1078" Body="&lt;p&gt;The recently concluded Game 7 of the 2014 Carlsen-Anand match went to move 122 before a draw was reached due to insufficient material. Is this the longest game played in a World Chess Championship match? If it is, what was the previous record holder? If it isn't, what games have gone longer?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Extra bonus points if you can also list the longest &lt;em&gt;decisive&lt;/em&gt; game from a World Chess Championship match.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Clarification:&lt;/em&gt; By World Chess Championship I mean anything played for the FIDE or PCA titles, or the undisputed title if pre-FIDE.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="550" LastActivityDate="2014-11-19T02:07:09.833" Title="What was the longest World Championship game?" Tags="&lt;history&gt;&lt;world-championship&gt;&lt;carlsen-anand-2014&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7834" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7827" CreationDate="2014-11-18T07:33:34.683" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think Anand is cheating at all, but it's an interesting hypothetical. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A more reasonable thing to ask is: how long has Anand been wearing that watch? Many people wear the same accessories for many years if they have significance, so it's even possible that the watch has been used in tournaments long before cheating like this was worthwhile or viable. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another factor is that Anand has already lost one game and come perilously close to losing a second. While it's not inconcievable that this is just a ruse to make later (illegitimate) wins seem real, you'd have to be pretty dumb to go to all that trouble to cheat &lt;em&gt;and then lose anyway&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The final thing to note is that as Peter Svidler noted in the commentary (I think during Game 2?), all wireless radiocommunications signals are being jammed in the venue.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="550" LastActivityDate="2014-11-18T07:33:34.683" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7835" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7833" CreationDate="2014-11-18T08:58:48.667" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;The longest ever World Championship game was played between Korchnoi and Karpov; it lasted for 124 moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;WCC 1978 Game 5&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1/2-1/2&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Viktor Korchnoi&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Anatoly Karpov&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;E42&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. c4 Nf6 2. d4 e6 3. Nc3 Bb4 4. e3 c5 5. Nge2 d5 6. a3 Bxc3+ 7. Nxc3 cxd4 8. exd4 dxc4 9. Bxc4 Nc6 10. Be3 O-O 11. O-O b6 12. Qd3 Bb7 13. Rad1 h6 14. f3 Ne7 15. Bf2 Nfd5 16. Ba2 Nf4 17. Qd2 Nfg6 18. Bb1 Qd7 19. h4 Rfd8 20. h5 Nf8 21. Bh4 f6 22. Ne4 Nd5 23. g4 Rac8 24. Bg3 Ba6 25. Rfe1 Rc6 26. Rc1 Ne7 27. Rxc6 Qxc6 28. Ba2 Qd7 29. Nd6 Bb7 30. Nxb7 Qxb7 31. Qe3 Kh8 32. Rc1 Nd5 33. Qe4 Qd7 34. Bb1 Qb5 35. b4 Qd7 36. Qd3 Qe7 37. Kf2 f5 38. gxf5 exf5 39. Re1 Qf6 40. Be5 Qh4+ 41. Bg3 Qf6 42. Rh1 Nh7 43. Be5 Qg5 44. Qxf5 Qd2+ 45. Kg3 Nhf6 46. Rg1 Re8 47. Be4 Ne7 48. Qh3 Rc8 49. Kh4 Rc1 50. Qg3 Rxg1 51. Qxg1 Kg8 52. Qg3 Kf7 53. Bg6+ Ke6 54. Qh3+ Kd5 55. Be4+ Nxe4 56. fxe4+ Kxe4 57. Qg4+ Kd3 58. Qf3+ Qe3 59. Kg4 Qxf3+ 60. Kxf3 g6 61. Bd6 Nf5 62. Kf4 Nh4 63. Kg4 gxh5+ 64. Kxh4 Kxd4 65. Bb8 a5 66. Bd6 Kc4 67. Kxh5 a4 68. Kxh6 Kb3 69. b5 Kc4 70. Kg5 Kxb5 71. Kf5 Ka6 72. Ke6 Ka7 73. Kd7 Kb7 74. Be7 Ka7 75. Kc7 Ka8 76. Bd6 Ka7 77. Kc8 Ka6 78. Kb8 b5 79. Bb4 Kb6 80. Kc8 Kc6 81. Kd8 Kd5 82. Ke7 Ke5 83. Kf7 Kd5 84. Kf6 Kd4 85. Ke6 Ke4 86. Bf8 Kd4 87. Kd6 Ke4 88. Bg7 Kf4 89. Ke6 Kf3 90. Ke5 Kg4 91. Bf6 Kh5 92. Kf5 Kh6 93. Bd4 Kh7 94. Kf6 Kh6 95. Be3+ Kh5 96. Kf5 Kh4 97. Bd2 Kg3 98. Bg5 Kf3 99. Bf4 Kg2 100. Bd6 Kf3 101. Bh2 Kg2 102. Bc7 Kf3 103. Bd6 Ke3 104. Ke5 Kf3 105. Kd5 Kg4 106. Kc5 Kf5 107. Kxb5 Ke6 108. Kc6 Kf6 109. Kd7 Kf7 110. Be7 Kg8 111. Ke6 Kg7 112. Bc5 Kg8 113. Kf6 Kh7 114. Kf7 Kh8 115. Bd4+ Kh7 116. Bb2 Kh6 117. Kg8 Kg6 118. Bg7 Kf5 119. Kf7 Kg5 120. Bb2 Kh6 121. Bc1+ Kh7 122. Bd2 Kh8 123. Bc3+ Kh7 124. Bg7 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3249" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2014-11-19T02:07:09.833" LastActivityDate="2014-11-19T02:07:09.833" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7836" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7818" CreationDate="2014-11-18T12:23:35.593" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The very commercial &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.bookup.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Bookup&lt;/a&gt; (also goes by the name Chess Openings Wizard) is probably the big contender for the PC. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I believe there are a few phone apps that help with this as well like the &lt;a href=&quot;https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/chess-opening-trainer-position/id505079674?mt=8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chess Opening Trainer&lt;/a&gt; (iPhone)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1751" LastEditorUserId="1751" LastEditDate="2014-11-18T12:29:37.400" LastActivityDate="2014-11-18T12:29:37.400" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7837" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="7856" CreationDate="2014-11-18T15:49:11.520" Score="0" ViewCount="128" Body="&lt;p&gt;IBM's &quot;Deep Blue&quot; computer can beat any human being, including a former world champion such as Gary Kasparov. Thus, it follows that Deep Blue must give a handicap to a human player in order for a human to have a chance of winning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In games like golf, handicaps are relative to &quot;par,&quot; that is, the number of strokes a &quot;scratch&quot; golfer would require to play a hole or a field. By definition, most players require a positive handicap relative to &quot;par;&quot; a few can get by with a negative handicap. In &quot;Deep Blue's&quot; case, all the handicaps would be positive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Has Deep Blue, in fact, given such handicaps to humans (a pawn, piece, or more)? If so, what were the results? Can a handicapping system be constructed around how large a handicap a human player would need to beat &quot;Deep Blue?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastEditorUserId="17" LastEditDate="2014-11-18T17:33:06.757" LastActivityDate="2014-11-20T11:48:41.493" Title="Does Deep Blue give handicaps?" Tags="&lt;handicapping&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7838" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="7839" CreationDate="2014-11-18T15:58:42.797" Score="3" ViewCount="395" Body="&lt;p&gt;Ok, we set the clocks so that the weaker player gets 15 minutes on the clock, and the stronger player gets only five. In theory, that gives the weaker player three times as much time to think, which should be an advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Except that the stronger player can use the weaker player's time to think. OK, the weaker player has &quot;extra&quot; time to think out a response to the stronger player's last move, but the stronger player can be thinking about the same possible responses (and more). When I am the stronger player (seldom), I can usually anticipate the weaker player's response, plan my countermove, etc., all on the other player's time. If a computer were the stronger player, this advantage might be even more pronounced, because a computer can &quot;think&quot; in nanoseconds.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Apparently, this is not the way things work (yours truly aside)? So how does a time advantage confer a meaningful advantage to the weaker player? Is it necessary to force the stronger (human) player to &quot;look away&quot; from the board during the weaker player's turn so that the stronger player doesn't benefit from the weaker player's time?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2016-09-29T01:31:43.707" Title="How does &quot;time odds&quot; confer an advantage to the weaker player?" Tags="&lt;handicapping&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7839" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7838" CreationDate="2014-11-18T16:11:35.623" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Indeed, you can think on your opponent's time. However,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Your opponent may make a move you didn't expect&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Your calculation may be slightly worse because you had to see one ply farther&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Even if he played a move you expected, you may have been looking at four possible moves of his, so you only spent 1/4 of your thinking time on the move he actually made&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If he played his move relatively quickly, you're thinking on your own time basically from the start&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you point out, having less time doesn't give you as big a disadvantage as it might first appear. However, it is still a real disadvantage. If you think the penalty is not great enough for a given match, just increase the time difference.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2014-11-18T16:11:35.623" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7840" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7837" CreationDate="2014-11-18T16:35:17.883" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Note that IBM's chess computer was called &quot;Deep Blue&quot;, not &quot;Big Blue&quot;. It was dismantled a long time ago and current chess engines are significantly stronger than it anyway.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There have been some handicap matches against computer chess engines, although I'm not aware of any very recent ones.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In 2007 &lt;a href=&quot;http://rybkaforum.net/cgi-bin/rybkaforum/topic_show.pl?tid=519&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Rybka played a match against GM Jaan Ehlvest&lt;/a&gt; with pawn odds, winning 5.5-2.5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In 2008 &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.chessbase.com/post/the-dzindzi-rybka-3-handicap-match&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Rybka played a match against GM Dzindichashvili&lt;/a&gt; with pawn and move odds, winning 2.5-1.5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also in 2008 &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.chessbase.com/post/the-milov-vs-rybka-handicap-match&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Rybka played a match against GM Milov&lt;/a&gt; with two regular games (winning 1.5-0.5), two pawn and move odds games (losing 1.5-0.5) and four games with exchange odds (losing 2.5-1.5).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not aware of more recent handicap matches. At this point I think that the handicap required for a GM to have an equal chance against the strongest chess engines would be large enough that the GM would not find such a match appealing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2014-11-18T16:35:17.883" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7841" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="7842" CreationDate="2014-11-18T16:38:34.003" Score="3" ViewCount="149" Body="&lt;p&gt;Instead of &lt;code&gt;25.Rfc1&lt;/code&gt; as played in the game, why not &lt;code&gt;25.Rc7&lt;/code&gt; to try for slight advantage or small initiative ( &lt;code&gt;Ne5&lt;/code&gt; could follow or trying to bring other rook to the seventh rank... )?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[White &quot;Anand, Vishwanathan&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Carlsen, Magnus&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;WCC 2014&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1/2-1/2&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 d5 4.Nc3 Be7 5.Bf4 O-O 6.e3 c5 7.dxc5 Bxc5 8.a3 Nc6 9.Qc2 Re8 10.Bg5 Be7 11.Rd1 Qa5 12.Bd3 h6 13.Bh4 dxc4 14.Bxc4 a6 15.O-O b5 16.Ba2 Bb7 17.Bb1 Rad8 18.Bxf6 Bxf6 19.Ne4 Be7 20.Nc5 Bxc5 21.Qxc5 b4 22.Rc1 bxa3 23.bxa3 Qxc5 24.Rxc5 Ne7 25.Rfc1 Rc8 26.Bd3 Red8 27.Rxc8 Rxc8 28.Rxc8+ Nxc8 29.Nd2 Nb6 30.Nb3 Nd7 31.Na5 Bc8 32.Kf1 Kf8 33.Ke1 Ke7 34.Kd2 Kd6 35.Kc3 Ne5 36.Be2 Kc5 37.f4 Nc6 38.Nxc6 Kxc6 39.Kd4 f6 40.e4 Kd6 41.e5+  1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastActivityDate="2014-11-18T19:20:12.407" Title="Carlsen-Anand, game 8 -&gt; how can Black repel 25.Rc7?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;carlsen-anand-2014&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7842" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7841" CreationDate="2014-11-18T19:20:12.407" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is definitely worth considering, and probably an equally good move, but unfortunately it only leads to a similar simplification of the position (rather quickly), so &lt;code&gt;Rc7&lt;/code&gt; wouldn't really give an edge because black is well prepared to face it, as &lt;code&gt;Ne7&lt;/code&gt; prepares it. Either black replies by &lt;code&gt;25.Rc7 Bc6&lt;/code&gt;, locking the rook in to force the exchange, e.g. &lt;code&gt;26.Nd4&lt;/code&gt; is just met by &lt;code&gt;Rc8&lt;/code&gt;. Alternatively black can just exchange on f3, and play for minor activity himself, e.g. &lt;code&gt;Nd5&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;Rd2&lt;/code&gt; after &lt;code&gt;gxf3&lt;/code&gt;. (not necessarily a desired double-pawn structure for white either). Instead Anand went for activating his other rook and double his c-file, but black is just prepared enough to challenge it with an immediate Rc8, so long story short, the position just doesn't have much left in it to play for.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[White &quot;Anand, Vishwanathan&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Carlsen, Magnus&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;WCC 2014&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1/2-1/2&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 d5 4.Nc3 Be7 5.Bf4 O-O 6.e3 c5 7.dxc5 Bxc5 8.a3 Nc6 9.Qc2 Re8 10.Bg5 Be7 11.Rd1 Qa5 12.Bd3 h6 13.Bh4 dxc4 14.Bxc4 a6 15.O-O b5 16.Ba2 Bb7 17.Bb1 Rad8 18.Bxf6 Bxf6 19.Ne4 Be7 20.Nc5 Bxc5 21.Qxc5 b4 22.Rc1 bxa3 23.bxa3 Qxc5 24.Rxc5 Ne7 25.Rc7 Bc6 (25...Bxf3 26.gxf3 Rc8 27.Rfc1 Red8 28.Be4 a5 29.f4 Kf8) 26.Nd4 Rc8 27.Rxc8 Rxc8 (27.Ra7 Bd5) 28.Rc1 Bb7 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3594" LastActivityDate="2014-11-18T19:20:12.407" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7843" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7787" CreationDate="2014-11-19T02:27:23.163" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is it important to have pawns at the centre of the board?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No it is not. Actually, it is not mandatory. To understand why, we must go down the chess history lane a bit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the old days, there was an opinion that if you don't have pawns in the center you can't really count to survive the game. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Practice showed the wonderful benefits of pawn center: they can move forward, pushing away opposing pieces into passive or simply bad squares, while weakening opposing pawn structure. The further they advance, the greater the chance for their owner to get extra piece, since there is no other way to stop their promotion. If you manage to somehow block them, you are still in danger -&gt; you need time to organize your badly placed pieces and your good pieces are restricted in action because they have to block the central pawns. Furthermore, you will find yourself lacking space for maneuvering. Meanwhile, owner of the central pawns gains HUGE amount of time and strong central outposts for his pieces, not to mention space advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is no wonder why such games ended fast in favor of the side owning central pawns. One good illustrative example is the following one:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Italian game&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.c3 Nf6 5.d4 exd4 6.cxd4 Bb6? 7.d5 Ne7 ( 7...Na5 8.Bd3 c5 9.d6! ) 8.e5 Ng4 ( 8...Ne4 9.d6 Nxf2 10.Qb3 ( 10.Qe2 Nxh1 11.Bg5 Bf2+ 12.Kf1 c6 13.Bxe7 Qb6 14.Ng5 Rf8 15.Qh5+- ) 10...Nxh1 11.Bxf7+ Kf8 12.Bg5! ) 9.d6 cxd6 ( 9...Bxf2+ 10.Ke2 ) 10.exd6 Nc6 11.Bg5!&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Things got even worse when Queen's Gambit was discovered. Since White was able to &lt;strong&gt;always&lt;/strong&gt; return the gambited pawn &lt;strong&gt;and maintain central dominance&lt;/strong&gt; all GMs of that time switched to &lt;code&gt;1.d4&lt;/code&gt; since all Black could do is to fight for a draw from the very start. He could never create really dangerous counterplay. The game started dying, which is best illustrated in Capablanca-Alekhine world championship match. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Soon a rebellion came in view of young masters who were prepared to take radical measures in order to revive the game, and improve Black's chances to win. They came to an idea to control center from afar &lt;strong&gt;with pieces only&lt;/strong&gt; but that didn't turn out well. Their movement was called &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypermodernism_%28chess%29&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;hypermodernism&lt;/a&gt;. In the end, space advantage provided by central pawns was too much to offer equality. Although it was enough in the beginning, over time White would simply &quot;suffocate&quot; Black. Hypermodernists recognized that they need to &lt;strong&gt;include pawns as well&lt;/strong&gt; into the fight and once that happened chess was saved. A whole new set of openings was created and they were playable. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The dogma of having pawns in the center in order not to lose was crushed and new strategy was born. An opening that best illustrates this principle is the main line of the Grunfeld's defense. Here is an illustrative game that shows hypermodern concept of battling pawn center with pieces:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Alexander Alekhine&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Ernst Gruenfeld&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 d5 4. Bg5 Ne4 5. cxd5 Nxc3 6. bxc3 Qxd5 7. Nf3 Bg7 8. e3 c5 9. Bb5+ Bd7 10. c4 Qe4 11. O-O Bxb5 12. cxb5 Nd7 13. Rc1 b6 14. Qb3 h6 15. Bh4 O-O 16. Rc4 Qe6 17. Rd1 Rfe8 18. d5 Qd6 19. Bg3 e5 20. dxe6 Qxe6 21. Rd6 Qe7 22. Ra4 Nf8 23. Qd5 Rad8 24. Nd2 Rxd6 25. Bxd6 Rd8 26. Nc4 Qd7 27. h3 Ne6 28. Qe4 Bf8 29. Bxf8 Qd1+ 30. Kh2 Qxa4 31. Be7 Re8 32. Bf6 Ng7 33. Qd3 Qxa2 34. Bb2 Re6 35. Qc3 f6 36. Qd3 h5 37. e4 Qa4 38. Nd6 Qb4 39. Nc4 Qxb5 40. f4 Qc6 41. e5 f5 42. Nd6 Re7 43. Qg3 Kh7 44. Qg5 Qd7 45. Qg3 Ne6 46. Qf3 b5 47. Qa8 Qd8 48. Qd5 b4 49. g3 a5 50. Qc6 Qd7 51. Qa6 a4 52. Ba1 a3 53. Qc4 Qc6 54. Kg1 Qf3 55. Kh2 Qf2+ 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This prelude is important for your next question: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is there any strategic importance in having pawns at the centre of the board? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes. To continue from above: although Black was able to &quot;snipe&quot; White from afar, and counterstrike his center from wings, White found a way to fight for advantage, thanks to his central pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nowadays, White will use central pawns to seize space thus containing Black's development advantage. He also is the one who usually has more plans available as he has stronger presence in the center. This is best illustrated in King's Indian defense -&gt; Black usually has only one good plan, to push &lt;code&gt;...f5&lt;/code&gt;, while White's space advantage ( which stems from his central pawns ) gives him several plans available: he can open center, he can castle kingside launching queenside action, he can castle queenside launcing kingside pawnstorm, and he can try to control entire board by leaving king in the center and play &lt;code&gt;h3&lt;/code&gt; + &lt;code&gt;g4&lt;/code&gt; ( I think this is called Makagonov system ).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;King's Indian defense and Grunfeld defense really illustrate well &lt;em&gt;pawns in center&lt;/em&gt; vs &lt;em&gt;no central pawns&lt;/em&gt; pros and cons.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am too tired to continue, and I slowly start to lose my focus so I will top here. If you have further questions leave a comment. Best regards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastActivityDate="2014-11-19T02:27:23.163" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7844" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-11-19T10:31:29.267" Score="13" ViewCount="2553" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is a mate-in-4 I have been trying to solve:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;2r4r/b5pp/q3pp2/8/4QBk1/8/3R1PPK/4R3 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(white mates in 4).  I have been looking at it for about half an hour but not solved it. My question is: &lt;strong&gt;what can I do to improve my ability to solve problems like this&lt;/strong&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(please don't just give the solution, I can easily find that by computer, but you can't use computers in a game).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is what I have tried so far.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Enumerating attacks and checks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;White checks: Qf5+, Qg6+, Qf3+, Qxe6+, B-anywhere+, f3+ &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;White captures: Qxh7&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Black checks: none&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Black captures: Bxf2&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Enumerating other ideas:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Black can play Bxf2 or Qf1 which will cause havoc for a move , so probably the solution is checks on every move; at least the first two&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;White has to be careful not to let BK run to g6 as then it can move to f7 escaping mate in 4&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In several variations below, Kh5 escapes with ...g5 or other pawn cover, so I am looking for tricks involving sacrificing rook to break that pawn cover.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tree of analysis (have omitted some sub-variations that mate for brevity)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Be3+ Kh5; Rd5+ g5; ???&#xA;Bc7+ (or other B moves) Kh5; Rd5+ g5; ????&#xA;                             g4+ Kh4; ????&#xA;Qf3+ Kf5; Qh5+ (otherwise Kg6) g5; g4+ Kxf4; ????&#xA;Qf5+ or Qg6+ or Qxh7 don't go anywhere&#xA;Qe6+ Kxf4; Re4+ Kg5; Rg4+ Kh6; ????&#xA;f3+ Kh5; g4+ Kh4; ????&#xA;    Rd5+ g5; g4+ Kh6; ????&#xA;&#xA;Rd3 Qxd3; Qxd3 Kxf4; no mate&#xA;Re3 Bxe3; Bxe3 can't be better than 1.Be3&#xA;Rd5 exd5 Be3+: doesnt work&#xA;g3: doesn't seem to do anything, Black can wait&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now I have looked at all the checks and some other interesting moves, none of them work, and so to solve the problem online I'd be reduced to just guessing random moves (and then probably being stumped on the resulting mate-in-3 for a while, as if I could solve that easily then I would have realized the first move by now).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But in a real game that is not possible; so where do I go from here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there always a &quot;key idea&quot; to look for (and if so, how do I look) or sometimes do you just have to be able to brute force every possible move no matter how unlikely? I can't even think of any more candidates I haven't checked.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4223" LastEditorUserId="924" LastEditDate="2014-11-19T11:04:11.793" LastActivityDate="2017-04-05T18:49:59.380" Title="How to solve mate-in-N problems" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7845" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7844" CreationDate="2014-11-19T23:38:29.913" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Assuming this is a chess &lt;em&gt;problem&lt;/em&gt;, then you want to start by looking at things that show up as problem themes, more than as game themes.  There are a few salient features of the position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;White's queen-bishop battery; it seems very likely that discovered checks from the bishop are likely to be a mating resource.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The white bishop being on a line with the king, thus leaving it vulnerable to a pin from either the Ba7 or the Qa6.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The open h-file, and in particular the possibility of a king-rook battery to deliver mate.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;More remotely, the possibilities for interference between the black pieces (e.g., bishop/rook interference on c5).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Given these, I would investigate the possibility of a move like Rh1; this offers up the threat of 2. Be3+ Kh5  3. Kg1 mate and forces black to defend immediately. The most natural defenses are via the aforementioned pinning moves, 1...Bb8 and 1...Qd6, so I'd start looking there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;--&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Assuming, OTOH, that the problem is a tactics puzzle more than a 'chess problem' problem, then I'll just point out that your analysis missed one particular bishop check, and you should consider the question of where the bishop can go that covers key squares in the vicinity of the king; not just for a mating net, but also as possible 'drop points' for the queen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4270" LastActivityDate="2014-11-19T23:38:29.913" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7846" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="7851" CreationDate="2014-11-19T23:42:42.723" Score="2" ViewCount="117" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have played a game against a computer and came to the following position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Black to move&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;1&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;3q2k1/pp1r1p1p/2p1p1p1/2Pr2P1/P2P1P2/4Q3/1P1R3P/3R2K1 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I gave my best to capitalize, but in the end game was spectacularly drawn (3 queens were on the board at some point, but I have managed to save myself with perpetual check).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I feel sad because I believe that Black should be able to win the game from the position above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can you demonstrate a winning plan from this position?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastEditorUserId="550" LastEditDate="2014-11-20T00:12:27.363" LastActivityDate="2014-11-20T01:09:08.870" Title="Can Black capitalize?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7847" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7844" CreationDate="2014-11-19T23:53:44.003" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I start off by looking at the king positions. White's King is well protected; Black's is not. Notice all the spots the Black K cannot go. Aim to take away all the safe spots.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If we chase the Black K around, what's the worst that can happen?  That it escapes through the hole on &lt;code&gt;f7&lt;/code&gt;. Preventing this is the entire point of the problem. The White Q is blocking that hole so I would not be inclined to move it. Then I looked at various discovered checks with the B.  I saw &lt;code&gt;Bh6+&lt;/code&gt; but didn't see a lot more after that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then I noticed the Black K is in danger from the White pawns.  So what happens if we let the pawns do the heavy lifting? Try that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Black Q and B shut down the White Rooks by controlling &lt;code&gt;d3&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;e2&lt;/code&gt;, and &lt;code&gt;e3&lt;/code&gt;. How can we bring some heavy wood into the game?  It would probably be helpful if we we able to place a R on &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt;, or &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, without giving the solution, that's my initial approach.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2014-11-19T23:53:44.003" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7848" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-11-20T00:09:14.680" Score="4" ViewCount="747" Body="&lt;p&gt;If few best computer players would be playing against themselves, chances of white winning would depend on the opening used. That way after simulating thousands of games the best opening would be found that is strictly better than the others. &#xA;Is there a flaw in this procedure? Has this ever been done before?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4271" LastEditorUserId="4271" LastEditDate="2014-11-20T04:07:40.747" LastActivityDate="2018-12-19T06:02:04.553" Title="Why different openings are used by computer players?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;engines&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7849" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7844" CreationDate="2014-11-20T00:28:05.737" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The other two answers give you a several good hints to solve the problem in your question, so I won't deal with that specifically. As for the heart of your question &lt;strong&gt;&quot;What can I do to improve my ability to solve problems like this?&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;, I might be able to offer a little help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first thing to note is that there is no way to really improve &lt;em&gt;except&lt;/em&gt; to continue solving mate problems. The important thing here is that you will both learn (and continually improve on) a process that you can use to solve any position that you believe might contain a mate somewhere, and more importantly that you will be repeatedly exposed to different tactical and mating 'patterns' within each problem.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A good way of doing this is to work iteratively from the shorter puzzles to larger ones. Some people like to take pride in being able to solve puzzles with a large number of moves, but restrict themselves to the simpler varieties so as to avoid damaging their ego. In reality, there are many problems that are mates in 2 or 3 that can take a decent amount of concentration to properly solve, so there's no shame in looking at the shorter ones. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a resource for doing this I recommend a book similar to Laszlo Polgár's &lt;em&gt;Chess: 5334 Problems, Combinations and Games&lt;/em&gt; (ISBN 1579125549), which begins with several hundred Mate-in-1 puzzles before ramping up to mates in 2 and 3. The here is that you get a reasonable grounding in all of the basic patterns that occur in one-move mates, then two, three and so on. Even just solving the first section of this can benefit if you haven't done any serious training in this area before.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is not exactly the sexiest way of improving your vision, as it does require some work, but it is also less demanding than it sounds, and should be something that sticks with you throughout your playing career.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="550" LastActivityDate="2014-11-20T00:28:05.737" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7850" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7844" CreationDate="2014-11-20T00:28:51.920" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Basically it is &quot;trial and error&quot;!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess is all about analysis, and doing it in a proper way! That means not wasting time with things that go no where! This is the main difference between beginner and master level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Especially for mate tactics what can help you to find your way through is to be acquainted with the most common mate patterns, which are pretty much clear in Mate in 1 or 2 positions, but not that much in Mate in 3 and 4 where the mate pattern needs to be built for the mate to happen. It could mean removing a defender, or reducing the scape area for the king placing a piece in a better position, etc... until you can apply the mate!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For your problem try to see what happens after Rh1... =]]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are some of the most common &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Checkmate_pattern&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;mate patterns&lt;/a&gt;.&#xA;So what would be the mate pattern for your problem?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The more chess pattern positions, not only mates but also pins, fork, interference, etc... you have, the more quickly you will make good analysis of positions. You can achieve this by solving tactics in a daily manner. The habit to solve a minimum of 20 tactics a day has helped me to improve a lot in my chess lately.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I hope this might be of some help!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4268" LastActivityDate="2014-11-20T00:28:51.920" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7851" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7846" CreationDate="2014-11-20T01:09:08.870" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;After &lt;strong&gt;1...b6!&lt;/strong&gt; Black can win a pawn. Whether that will be a winning endgame or not is a different matter, but I don't see a better plan for Black. So &lt;strong&gt;1...b6&lt;/strong&gt; looks like the most reasonable way to pursue a win. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;3q2k1/pp1r1p1p/2p1p1p1/2Pr2P1/P2P1P2/4Q3/1P1R3P/3R2K1 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Comp&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;ALNS&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... b6 2. cxb6 (2. b4 a5 3. cxb6 axb4 4. Rc1 Qxb6 5. Rc4 b3 6. Rb2 Rxd4 7.&#xA;Rxd4 (7. Rxb3 Rd1+ 8. Kg2 R7d2+ 9. Kf3 Qd8) 7... Qxd4 8. Qxd4 Rxd4 9. Rxb3 Rxa4&#xA;10. Rf3 Kf8) 2... axb6 3. b4 (3. Kf1 c5 4. Qe4 cxd4) (3. Rc2 c5 4. Rc4&#xA;cxd4) 3... c5 4. bxc5 bxc5 5. h4 cxd4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2429" LastActivityDate="2014-11-20T01:09:08.870" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7852" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1578" CreationDate="2014-11-20T04:54:53.340" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm the biggest fan of Fischer as a chess player but toward the end he was unstable/crazy.   Some examples: he thought he was black-listed by world jewery (quote), he thought every move of every game of the Kasparov-karpov matches was pre-arranged, he thought that the Russians might try to control his brain by sending signals through his tooth fillings (true?), he did not believe that the holocaust occurred, he did not shave for six months or so while in a Japanese jail, he did not defend his title (he was certainly justified in not playing under FIDE rules but why not independently?), he accused Jews of mutilating their children (quote) because they circumcised their children, he refused all offers after beating Spassky, he went into hiding for twenty years after winning the title.  One or two of these might not be a big deal but collectively they signal something was wrong.    &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4272" LastActivityDate="2014-11-20T04:54:53.340" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7853" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7848" CreationDate="2014-11-20T10:38:13.687" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You may underestimate the number of games you need to determine the &quot;best&quot; opening by simulation. The differences between different openings are very small and to get a solid statistical judgment a few thousand games for each opening may be insufficient.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then comes the question of the best response: There is an opponent, after all, and to build an opening book you must test for the strongest responses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Still, this is all statistical and we know that it is not possible to solve chess computationally at the time being. A deep analysis may find a flaw in the &quot;best&quot; opening that is out of sight for current chess engines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To your last question: For the chess variant &quot;Schoolbook&quot; (a variant of the Carrera-Capablanca type with rook-knight and bishop-knight compounds) its author Sam Trenholme has started to build an opening book using the method you propose, see &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessvariants.org/index/msdisplay.php?itemid=MSschoolbook&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.chessvariants.org/index/msdisplay.php?itemid=MSschoolbook&lt;/a&gt; (comment at the bottom of the page).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3819" LastActivityDate="2014-11-20T10:38:13.687" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7855" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7848" CreationDate="2014-11-20T11:39:46.873" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;If the question is asking why computer engines don't use much narrower opening books that could theoretically be analyzed deeper (and thus be objectively 'better'), the answer is simply that it actually makes the engine weaker because the chance of leaving the book becomes greater with a deep-but-narrow book (as suggested) instead of a shallow-but-broad one. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You could come up with an incredibly detailed book for one specific mainline opening (and some people have tried this, a notable example being for the Halloween Gambit), but there are several problems:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If the opening your engine will play is known because there's really only one line used, it's easier to research that and include a refuation in a competing engine's book.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If your engine only has a very narrow book, then it's relatively easy to generate an opening book that is broader and using a small amount of randomness in the engine would provide a fair chance of deviating and staying in book long after your engine is thinking for itself (which is generally a bad idea for an engine in the opening).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If your engine knows a certain opening up to move 50, then it's not difficult for a competitor to take that book and expand that one opening up to move 55, thereby having a decent advantage. It's a real problem when your book contains thousands of different lines, though.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a result of these, having a broader book is a benefit both offensively (you might be in book longer) and defensively (less likely to be brought out of book quickly), and requires only a small sacrifice in depth.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="550" LastEditorUserId="550" LastEditDate="2014-11-20T11:49:51.903" LastActivityDate="2014-11-20T11:49:51.903" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7856" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7837" CreationDate="2014-11-20T11:48:41.493" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm going to answer this question from a literal interpretation - dfan's answer gives some nice background that may be what you're looking for but doesn't answer the question directly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are three things to note about &lt;strong&gt;Kasparov - Deep Blue specifically&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The match was actually really close. There have been accusations that IBM actually cheated by not just using an engine but also GM assistance during the match, and even discounting this you could probably argue that Kasparov would have come out on top if it weren't for the distractions surrounding the games rather than the games themselves. As a result it seems fair to assume that Deep Blue was at beast around the same strength as Kasparov was, and so pawn odds would probably be unnecessary as it would give the human too much of an advantage.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Deep Blue was dismantled almost immediately after the match, so the answer to whether it's possible to play an odds game &lt;em&gt;now&lt;/em&gt; against it is no. Similarly, nobody has played against it since the second match.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It's very likely that at some point the developers &lt;em&gt;did&lt;/em&gt; play odds games against the engine while developing it - GM Christiansen was involved with the development but it's very common for software/hardware developers to test things out as they make them and they wouldn't have been able to test out the machine's full functionality without odds because they likely weren't world-class GMs themselves.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="550" LastActivityDate="2014-11-20T11:48:41.493" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7857" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7848" CreationDate="2014-11-20T12:58:07.660" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Such a process would only find out which opening works best against the current version of itself. Nobody cares how well a computer plays against itself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For some computer vs computer events (like TCEC), it is common practice to pick some opening position after 8 moves or so, and then play without opening book.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For &lt;em&gt;customers&lt;/em&gt;, people who buy engines to play games against it, it is most important that it plays a wide variety of openings (variety is more fun), and that it is very up to date with current theory, for practice reasons.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the main people interested in really great opening books for computer vs computer play are the kind of people who run their engines 24/7 on sites like Playchess to play against other computers, trying to improve their computers' ratings. They basically do this process manually, by watching the results and updating the opening books by hand where needed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And on top of all that, remember that chess is most likely a draw. All the very theoretical, forced, deep lines that computers are great at analyzing out (like the Najdorf Poisoned Pawn, say) tend to lead to forced draws in all lines. Once everybody knows too much, they have to switch to something less well known.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2014-11-20T12:58:07.660" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7858" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-11-20T17:13:10.807" Score="5" ViewCount="596" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have used this opening some times and I won.But sometimes I was almost destroyed.Is the move 6.Qd4 dubious or am I doing something wrong later?   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 g6 5.Nxc6 bxc6 6.Qd4 Nf6 7.e5 Ng8 8.e6 Nf6 9.exf7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2021" LastEditorUserId="2429" LastEditDate="2014-11-20T18:04:29.297" LastActivityDate="2014-11-21T01:33:31.437" Title="Is this Sicilian opening dubious?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7860" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5391" CreationDate="2014-11-20T19:08:50.310" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Try deleting the wav file that relates to the checkmate audio. All sounds can be modified or deleted directly from the files. There's nothing wrong with deleting these files ... I've done so for years and never had any problems. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4277" LastEditorUserId="4277" LastEditDate="2015-10-23T11:01:14.420" LastActivityDate="2015-10-23T11:01:14.420" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7861" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7858" CreationDate="2014-11-20T20:44:15.760" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;After a quick check, the final position after&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 g6 5.Nxc6 bxc6 6.Qd4 Nf6 7.e5 Ng8 8.e6 Nf6 9.exf7 Kxf7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;is evaluated as equal by the engine (Komodo 6). Black has the king on f7, where it can become a target along the a2-g8 diagonal and by a white knight reaching e5 or g5. Yet, black is ready for d7-d5 and the white g1-knight has been exchanged off the board. Meanwhile, black has better control in the center thanks to the e7-pawn ready to push e7-e5 at some point.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black has a more or less clear plan with Bf8-g7, e7-e5, Rh8-e8 and d7-d5. Black probably wants to exchange queens with Qd8-b6 at some point. While white has to be a bit more creative and try to launch an attack on the enemy king. Perhaps with Bf1-e2 and h2-h4-h5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All in all, the position is interesting and rich in ideas. It seems fully playable for white as well as black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastActivityDate="2014-11-20T20:44:15.760" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7862" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-11-20T20:50:41.823" Score="5" ViewCount="2981" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm running Stockfish with MultiPV=7:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;script: setoption name MultiPV value 7&#xA;script: ucinewgame&#xA;script: position startpos moves d2d4 g8f6 c2c4 g7g6 b1c3 d7d5 c1f4 f8g7 f4e5 d5c4 e2e3 b8c6 d1a4 e8g8 e5f6 g7f6 f1c4 a7a6 c4d5 b7b5 a4d1 c8b7 a2a3 e7e6 d5f3 c6a5 f3b7 a5b7 b2b4 c7c5 b4c5&#xA;script: isready&#xA;engine: readyok&#xA;script: go movetime 600000.0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I look at the &quot;multipv 7&quot; lines, I see a strange evaluation at the end of the analysis:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;engine: info depth 1 seldepth 1 score cp -74 nodes 463 nps 66142 time 7 multipv 7 pv e6e5 g1e2 e5d4 e3d4&#xA;engine: info depth 2 seldepth 2 score cp -74 nodes 1314 nps 187714 time 7 multipv 7 pv e6e5 g1e2 e5d4 e3d4&#xA;engine: info depth 3 seldepth 4 score cp -79 nodes 3193 nps 399125 time 8 multipv 7 pv d8c7 c3e4 c7a5 d1d2&#xA;engine: info depth 4 seldepth 6 score cp -106 nodes 6224 nps 622400 time 10 multipv 7 pv d8c7 g1e2 c7a5 d1d2&#xA;[268 lines omitted]&#xA;engine: info depth 31 seldepth 52 score cp -70 nodes 3472890690 nps 6622358 time 524419 multipv 7 pv e6e5 c5c6 a8c8 d4d5 d8a5 g1e2 e5e4 a1c1 b7c5 e1g1 f6e5 d5d6 f8d8 c3e4 c5e4 d6d7 c8c7 d1d5 e4c3 e2c3 e5c3 d5d6 c3b2&#xA;engine: info depth 31 seldepth 52 score mate 0 upperbound nodes 3666345467 nps 6585523 time 556728 multipv 7 pv d8e7 a1c1 a8c8 c3e4 e6e5 d4d5 b7c5 d5d6 c5d3 d1d3 c8c1 e1d2&#xA;engine: info depth 32 seldepth 52 score mate -7 lowerbound nodes 3696286819 nps 6601691 time 559900 multipv 7 pv d8e7 a1c1 a8c8 c3e4 e6e5 d4d5 b7c5 d5d6 c5d3 d1d3 c8c1 e1d2 e7e6&#xA;engine: info depth 32 seldepth 52 score mate -7 nodes 3992249349 nps 6653549 time 600018 multipv 7 pv d8e7 a1c1 a8c8 c3e4 e6e5 d4d5 b7c5 d5d6 c5d3 d1d3 c8c1 e1d2 e7e6&#xA;engine: info nodes 3992249349 time 600018&#xA;engine: bestmove d8a5 ponder g1e2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why does the 3rd-to-last line give &quot;score mate -7&quot;?&#xA;I believe this is a lower bound due to pruning (as in my &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/7680/stop-sf-multipv-from-returning-an-upperbound&quot;&gt;previous question&lt;/a&gt;), but the line does not say &quot;lowerbound&quot;.&#xA;How can I extract the correct evaluation? I doubt the position is a mate in 7.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Full output is &lt;a href=&quot;http://pastebin.com/raw.php?i=kt89NXPZ&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 d5 4. Bf4 Bg7 5. Be5 dxc4 6. e3 Nc6 7. Qa4 O-O 8.&#xA;Bxf6 Bxf6 9. Bxc4 a6 10. Bd5 b5 11. Qd1 Bb7 12. a3 e6 13. Bf3 Na5 14. Bxb7&#xA;Nxb7 15. b4 c5 16. bxc5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4105" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2016-03-21T04:28:02.840" Title="Why does Stockfish give &quot;score mate -7&quot; for this position?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;engines&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;uci&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7863" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7862" CreationDate="2014-11-20T22:54:38.167" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Fist things first, I put the position into another chess program (Chessmaster, because I find it has the most reliable mate-search function) and told it to brute-force search for a mate. This is what it found:&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/AKpDZ.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;mate-search result&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So to answer one part of your question, no, there isn't a mate in 7 here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That leaves the question of why you are getting the lines:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;engine: info depth 32 seldepth 52 score mate -7 lowerbound nodes 3696286819 nps 6601691 time 559900 multipv 7 pv d8e7 a1c1 a8c8 c3e4 e6e5 d4d5 b7c5 d5d6 c5d3 d1d3 c8c1 e1d2 e7e6&#xA;engine: info depth 32 seldepth 52 score mate -7 nodes 3992249349 nps 6653549 time 600018 multipv 7 pv d8e7 a1c1 a8c8 c3e4 e6e5 d4d5 b7c5 d5d6 c5d3 d1d3 c8c1 e1d2 e7e6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would suggest that the first of these is stating that as far as the engine has calculated, there is &lt;em&gt;no&lt;/em&gt; mate in 7, hence the term lowerbound. The next line indicates that the engine is initiating a PV-search &lt;em&gt;for&lt;/em&gt; a mate in 7.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="550" LastActivityDate="2014-11-20T22:54:38.167" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7864" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5391" CreationDate="2014-11-20T23:02:02.353" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Turning off the audio announcements should be possible by going File &gt; Options &gt; Multimedia and then setting Audio to 'off'. I have no idea if this will disable the blunder dialog, but I cannot see anything else that would do it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="550" LastActivityDate="2014-11-20T23:02:02.353" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7865" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7858" CreationDate="2014-11-20T23:15:22.107" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;'Dubious' is a vague term. Rauan's answer would seem to suggest that an engine would have little trouble defending the position as either side, but there's a little more to it than that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Firstly, an engine being able to hold a position does not necessarily mean that it is not 'dubious' - it may be extremely difficult for a human to play without the resourcefulness of an engine, and probably means that you would be playing for a draw against a strong human. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Secondly, with the move Qd4 you have given up almost all of white's initiative because the queen will lose time once attacked. As white you generally want to be pushing for a win and be able to make as much use of the first move advantage as possible, but that advantage has just been lost. As expected, engine analysis goes from a (very) small plus for white to more or less equal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, Black has a much easier time finding moves from this position - his plan of developing pieces while gaining time where possible on the queen, then moving the kind to safety, making use of the half-open files and occupying the center gives him several options at every turn. By comparison, white will likely spend much of the next few moves reacting to black's choices while hoping that long-term kingside safety is enough compensation for the lead that black should get in development, central control and attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Objectively you are not worse in this position (engine searches eventually give a small minus score, but so small as to be negligible), but that does not mean that Qd4 was a good move when you had a small advantage beforehand. This is not to say that &lt;em&gt;you&lt;/em&gt; shouldn't play it if you find that the resulting games are enjoyable, but it is hard to argue that it is objectively the right decision.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="550" LastActivityDate="2014-11-20T23:15:22.107" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7866" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7858" CreationDate="2014-11-21T01:25:08.513" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, &lt;strong&gt;6. Qd4&lt;/strong&gt; is not a dubious move. In the variation that you mentioned, the moves that are actually dubious are &lt;strong&gt;7...Ng8&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;8. e6&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;8. e6&lt;/strong&gt; is dubious because it &quot;forces&quot; Black to develop his knight to a good square (!) and also gives up White's strong central pawn on &lt;strong&gt;e5&lt;/strong&gt;, which could have hindered the development of Black's knight on &lt;strong&gt;g8&lt;/strong&gt;. After &lt;strong&gt;9. exf7+&lt;/strong&gt;, it may seem that Black is robbed of the castling option, but that is just superficial. Black can easily develop his bishop to &lt;strong&gt;g7&lt;/strong&gt; and bring the h8 rook to e8 or f8 as needed. None of White's pieces can really exploit Black's king position on &lt;strong&gt;f7&lt;/strong&gt;, so White gains nothing from giving up the e-pawn. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;7...Ng8&lt;/strong&gt; is dubious because there is a better square for the knight - &lt;strong&gt;d5&lt;/strong&gt;. Also, after &lt;strong&gt;7...Ng8&lt;/strong&gt;, White isn't forced to play &lt;strong&gt;8. e6&lt;/strong&gt;, so the knight will have to waste another tempo for development. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;6. Qd4&lt;/strong&gt; is playable. It has been played by players of the calibre of former world champion &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1028158&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Emmanuel Lasker&lt;/a&gt; and also Grandmaster &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1758622&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Beliavsky&lt;/a&gt;. After 6...Nf6 7. e5 Nd5, the position is equal but playable for both sides. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA; [White &quot;6.Qd4&quot;]&#xA; [Black &quot;Playable&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 g6 5. Nxc6 bxc6 6. Qd4 Nf6 7. e5 Nd5 (&#xA; 7... Ng8?! 8. Nd2! (8. e6?! Nf6 9. exf7+ Kxf7) 8... Bg7 9. Nf3 d6 (9... f6 10. e6&#xA; dxe6 11. Bc4 Qxd4 12. Nxd4 e5 13. Nxc6 Bb7 14. Bb5) 10. Bf4) 8. Nc3=&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2429" LastEditorUserId="2429" LastEditDate="2014-11-21T01:33:31.437" LastActivityDate="2014-11-21T01:33:31.437" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7867" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-11-21T03:41:49.727" Score="13" ViewCount="1379" Body="&lt;p&gt;My question concerns the final position in the game&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Judit Polgar vs Garry Kasparov&#xA;It (cat.19) (1996)  ·  Sicilian Defense: Najdorf. Amsterdam Variation (B82)  ·  0-1 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[White &quot;Polgar&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Kasparov&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.f4 e6 7.Qf3 Qb6 8.a3 Nc6 9.Nxc6 bxc6 10.b3 Bb7 11.Bb2 d5 12.Bd3 c5 13.exd5 exd5 14.O-O-O O-O-O 15.Na4 Qc7 16.Bf5+ Kb8 17.Be5 Bd6 18.Qc3 d4 19.Bxd6 Qxd6 20.Qxc5 Qxf4+ 21.Kb1 Rd5 22.Rdf1 Qe5 23.Qc4 Rb5 24.Qxf7 Bd5 25.Qxg7 Rg8 26.Qh6 Bxb3 27.cxb3 Rxb3+ 28.Kc1 Qc7+ 29.Bc2 d3 30.Qf4 Rc8 31.Qxc7+ Rxc7 32.Rf2 Ne4 33.Rf8+ Ka7 34.Rf7 Rbb7 35.Rxc7 Rxc7 36.Rd1 Rxc2+ 37.Kb1 Rxg2 38.Rxd3 Rxh2 39.Rd7+ Kb8 40.Re7 Nd2+ 41.Kc1 Nb3+ 42.Kd1 h5 43.Re3 Nd4 44.Nc5 a5 45.Nb3 Nc6 46.Rc3 Kb7 47.Ke1 Kb6 48.Kf1 Rh4 49.Kg2 Nd4 50.Nxa5 Kxa5 51.Rc5+ Kb6 52.Re5 Kc6 53.Kg3 Rh1 54.Kg2 Kd6 55.Ra5 Rh4 56.Kg3 Rg4+ 57.Kh3 Ne2 58.Rxh5 Rg3+ 59.Kh4 Rxa3 60.Kg4 Ke6 61.Rb5 Rg3+ 62.Kh4 Rg1 63.Rg5 Rf1 64.Ra5 Kf6 65.Ra8 Rg1 66.Rf8+ Ke5 67.Re8+ Kf4 68.Rf8+ Ke4 69.Re8+ Kf3 70.Kh5 Ng3+ 71.Kh6 Nf5+ 72.Kh7 Kf4 73.Rb8 Rg7+ 74.Kh8 Rd7 75.Re8 Kg5 76.Re6 Nd4 77.Re1 Kf6 78.Rd1 Rd5 79.Ra1 Ne6 80.Ra6 Kf7 81.Ra7+ Kg6 82.Ra8 Rd7 83.Rb8 Rc7 84.Kg8 Rc5 85.Ra8 Rb5 86.Kh8 Rb7 87.Rc8 Nc7 88.Rg8+ Kh6 89.Rg1 Rb8+ 90.Rg8 Ne8 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White resigned, but I cannot find a win for Black. As long as&#xA;Black keeps his R &amp;amp; N on the 8th rank, White shuttles his R between g8&#xA;and f8. If Black moves his N, W plays R takes R. If Black moves his R,&#xA;W plays R x N.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The idea I'm missing must involve moving the Black King. But I would&#xA;appreciate a detailed explanation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4267" LastEditorUserId="1201" LastEditDate="2014-11-21T19:32:56.797" LastActivityDate="2016-12-19T12:46:28.577" Title="Why did Polgar resign?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;kasparov&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7868" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7867" CreationDate="2014-11-21T03:51:50.160" Score="6" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[FEN &quot;1r2n1RK/8/7k/8/8/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Rf8 Kg6 2. Rg8+ Kf7 3. Rg1 Nf6+ (3. Kh7 Nf6+ 4. Kh6 Nxg8 (4...Rxg8??)) 4. Rg8 Rxg8#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2014-11-21T03:58:32.620" LastActivityDate="2014-11-21T03:58:32.620" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7869" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7867" CreationDate="2014-11-21T03:54:56.933" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;If white ever trades her rook for black's knight, the game is lost. The only move for her is thus &lt;strong&gt;91.Rf8&lt;/strong&gt;, which is answered by &lt;strong&gt;92.Kg6 Rg8+ 93.Kf7&lt;/strong&gt; resulting in the following position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;1r2n1RK/5k2/8/8/8/8/8/8 w - - 66 93 &quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Rg1 (1.Rxe8 Rxe8 2.Kh7 Re6 3.Kh8 Rh6#) (1.Rg7 Nxg7 2.Kh7 Rb6 3.Kh8 Rh6#) (1.Kh7 Nf6+) Nf6  2. Rg8 Rxg8#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and now any rook move loses to the discovered mate Nf6# or loses the rook entirely&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="550" LastEditorUserId="550" LastEditDate="2016-12-19T12:46:28.577" LastActivityDate="2016-12-19T12:46:28.577" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7871" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5470" CreationDate="2014-11-21T09:46:40.093" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You have a solid understanding of basic opening tactics. Yes, developement in the center is indeed the protocol for answering wing attack openings. But the Grob Attack, being a kingside wing attack opening, is somewhat of a different animal, in that the looming g4 pawn inhibits the developement of black's king knight to it's important post at f6, opting him to play the slower, more awkward Ne7. Not only that, but should black castle kingside, g4 is often accompanied by a pawn storm with the f4 and h4 pawns, much akin to the dreaded Stonewall Attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4235" LastActivityDate="2014-11-21T09:46:40.093" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7872" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="7881" CreationDate="2014-11-21T16:25:48.803" Score="6" ViewCount="327" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;White to move&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;8/p3k3/1p2b2p/2pBPpp1/7P/P1P1K1P1/2P5/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Computer played &lt;code&gt;1.c4?&lt;/code&gt;after which I played &lt;code&gt;1...Bxd5!&lt;/code&gt;and the pawn endgame was lost for White. I wonder if there was a way for Black to win this game, with best play from both sides?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastActivityDate="2014-11-23T17:32:44.567" Title="Can Black win this bishop endgame?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;bishop-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="8" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7875" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-11-22T20:11:01.093" Score="5" ViewCount="811" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I play in tournaments, I do not know when it is legal to stop chess notation. Also, if my opponent stops notating, is it okay for me to stop notating as well?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3872" LastActivityDate="2017-08-28T16:15:20.030" Title="How much time on my clock do I have to lose before it is legal to stop notating?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;etiquette&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7876" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7875" CreationDate="2014-11-22T20:42:20.200" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=171&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot; title=&quot;FIDE Laws of Chess&quot;&gt;FIDE Laws of Chess&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Article 8: The recording of the moves&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;8.4 If a player has less than five minutes left on &lt;strong&gt;his&lt;/strong&gt; clock at some stage in a period and does not have additional time of 30 seconds or more added with each move, then for the remainder of the period &lt;strong&gt;he&lt;/strong&gt; is not obliged to meet the requirements of Article 8.1. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Article 8.1 is the one that states that players need to keep record of the moves and what the players must and must not write to the scoresheet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;When I play in tournaments, I do not know when it is legal to stop chess notation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You may stop notating when your clock shows less than five minutes and you get no increment or increment of less than 30 seconds. You have to start again at the start of the next period, that is, when more time is added to your clock (not the increment but for example at move 40).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Also, if my opponent stops notating, is it okay for me to stop notating as well?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It makes no difference whether your opponent has to write the moves or not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1761" LastEditorUserId="1761" LastEditDate="2014-11-23T12:42:47.917" LastActivityDate="2014-11-23T12:42:47.917" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7877" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-11-22T21:35:50.163" Score="2" ViewCount="108" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am working on developing statistics around the middlegame. During searching I found a little information about PARADISE (PAttern Recognition Applied to DIrecting SEarch), which was developed by Wilkins in 1980. Do you know anything about PARADISE? Or do you know any similar software? I will appreciate any kind of answer which helps me dig deeper.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4264" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2014-11-23T00:28:02.597" LastActivityDate="2014-11-25T18:29:06.283" Title="Looking for information on PARADISE (software)" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;engines&gt;&lt;middlegame&gt;&lt;patterns&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7878" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-11-23T02:12:38.010" Score="4" ViewCount="507" Body="&lt;p&gt;Wondering how long it would take a TOP10 Supercomputer to fully construct an 8-man tablebase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1130" LastActivityDate="2014-11-23T04:04:39.377" Title="How long would it take China's Tianhe-2 Supercomputer to produce an 8-man tablebase?" Tags="&lt;tablebases&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7879" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7878" CreationDate="2014-11-23T02:57:31.787" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;From the bottom of &lt;a href=&quot;http://ldis-sw.cs.msu.ru/articles/Top8DTM_eng&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this page&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Unfortunately the size of 7-man tablebases &lt;strong&gt;(sic. - the author means 8-man here)&lt;/strong&gt; will be 100 times larger than size of 7-man tablebases. To fully compute them, one will need about 10 PB (10000 TB) of disk space and 50 TB of RAM. Only top 10 supercomputers can solve 8-man problem in 2014. So don't hold your breath expecting new breakthroughs too soon - the first 1000-move mate is unlikely to be found until 2020 when a part of a TOP100 supercomputer may be allowed to be used for solving this task.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This doesn't give a complete answer, but it would suggest that if you could find an estimated time for the Tianhe-2 to generate a 7-man tablebase and then multiply that result by 100, you should get a ballpark figure for the time required, probably accurate to within an order of magnitude.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="550" LastEditorUserId="550" LastEditDate="2014-11-23T04:04:39.377" LastActivityDate="2014-11-23T04:04:39.377" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7880" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="7888" CreationDate="2014-11-23T16:28:27.227" Score="3" ViewCount="995" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm looking for good resources to learning the Bogo-Indian opening: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA; 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nf3 Bb4+.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For background purposes, I play at around the 1750 elo level. I like closed positions (I play the Caro-Kann &amp;amp; Slav defence as Black, &amp;amp; always open with 1. d4 as White). Lastly, I'm motivated to learn the Bogo-Indian because I'd like to avoid the Nimzo-Indian.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks in advance!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastEditorUserId="3405" LastEditDate="2014-11-24T10:55:52.577" LastActivityDate="2020-08-16T22:59:21.097" Title="Resources on the Bogo-Indian opening" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;bogo-indian-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7881" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7872" CreationDate="2014-11-23T16:31:30.763" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It seems that member &lt;em&gt;Dag Oskar Madsen&lt;/em&gt; was right, &lt;code&gt;...Kd7!&lt;/code&gt;, cutting off the White bishop's access to &lt;code&gt;c8&lt;/code&gt;, is the winning idea. The only trap Black must evade is to lose the bishop after &lt;code&gt;...Ba2&lt;/code&gt;. Below is my analysis: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;White to move&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;8/p3k3/1p2b2p/2pBPpp1/7P/P1P1K1P1/2P5/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Bb7 $8 { Every other move lose the pawn on e5. } ( 1.c4? Bxd5 2.cxd5 b5!-+ ) 1...Kd7! { As member Dag Oskar Madsen pointed out, this move offers best winning chances because it cuts of bishop's access to c8 square. Now when Black bishop moves White will not be able to stop Black king to reach e6 and the e5 pawn will fall. } 2.Kd3 b5! ( 2...Ba2 3.hxg5 hxg5 4.c4 Ke6 5.a4! Kxe5 6.Kc3 f4 7.gxf4+ Kxf4 8.Bd5 $8 g4 9.Kb2 Bxc4 10.Bxc4 Ke4 11.Kc3 g3= ) 3.Ke3 $8 { Otherwise Black plays Bc4+ and gets time to play Ke6, winning the e5 pawn and with it the game. } Bc4 4.Ba6 Ke6 5.hxg5 hxg5 6.a4 Kxe5 7.Kf2 { There is no need to fear axb5 because White can not keep that pawn in the long run because his bishop is badly placed. White will need to reposition the bishop in order to fight Black passed pawn, after which Black bishop takes the b5 pawn. } Ke4 8.axb5 Ke5 9.Kf3 Bd5+ 10.Ke2 Be4 11.Ke3 Bxc2 $17&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2014-11-23T17:32:44.567" LastActivityDate="2014-11-23T17:32:44.567" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7883" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2014-11-23T21:18:03.907" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2014-11-23T21:18:03.907" LastActivityDate="2014-11-23T21:18:03.907" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7884" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2014-11-23T21:18:03.907" Score="0" Body="The Bogo-Indian Defense is the opening characterized by the moves 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 Bb4+." OwnerUserId="4182" LastEditorUserId="4182" LastEditDate="2014-11-23T23:00:09.967" LastActivityDate="2014-11-23T23:00:09.967" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7885" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7781" CreationDate="2014-11-23T23:00:31.893" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have played tennis and chess both quite seriously for several years and my preparation towards a game when it comes to food, is basically the same. I try to eat around 4 hours before the game, some pasta with a light sauce or no sauce at all, avoid red meats 24 hours prior to the game and rink only water the day of the game. If I am to start in the morning then a light breakfast. In general I would rather play with a non-full stomach but here's the &quot;secret&quot;, I do eat a chocolate bar at the beginning of my chess games and have a bottle of water at hand, this helps me greatly to keep my blood pressure normal, and able to focus on the game without feeling hungry even after 4 or 5 hours of play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I guess my advice is to know what works for you, I have seen that avoiding heavy meals is generally good for performance but if you (like me) need an extra kick, pick up an energy bar of some sort (I would avoid coffee because of the possibility of needing to go to the toilet at a bad time).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All the best and hope it helps! :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1378" LastActivityDate="2014-11-23T23:00:31.893" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7886" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-11-24T02:57:49.793" Score="3" ViewCount="318" Body="&lt;p&gt;Do you guys know some site that is really good, well organised, with video lectures for learning general concepts of chess like openings, middle-game, end-games, tactics, and, furthermore, for free? What do you recommend? Grateful!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3902" LastActivityDate="2014-11-24T10:33:29.137" Title="A Really Good Site" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;websites&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7887" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7880" CreationDate="2014-11-24T04:12:57.843" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;One of my favorite chess you-tuber's - IM Christof Sielecki has written a book on it: Opening Repertoire: Nimzo and Bogo Indian &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1781941092&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.amazon.com/dp/1781941092/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It would be worth to take a look at it!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3158" LastActivityDate="2014-11-24T04:12:57.843" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7888" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7880" CreationDate="2014-11-24T06:10:57.663" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a moderate chapter on it in &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.qualitychess.co.uk/products/1/53/grandmaster_repertoire_2_-_1d4_volume_2_-_by_boris_avrukh/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Boris Avrukh's 1.d4 Volume 2&lt;/a&gt;, you can download a pdf excerpt from the website to see.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And the &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1781941092&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Sielecki book&lt;/a&gt; is at the time of writing (Nov 24 2014) not out yet (Jan 31 2015).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other than that there aren't many decent works on this, and if so, most of them are outdated, scanning through databases and viewing GM games (preferably with annotations) can help a lot though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are also various videos on youtube, just search up the opening name&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A &lt;a href=&quot;http://shop.chessbase.com/en/products/martin_the_abc_of_bogo_indian&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chessbase DVD by IM Andrew Martin&lt;/a&gt; covers it solely&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Alternatively you can check the C&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesspub.com/cgi-bin/chess/YaBB.pl?board=bogo&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;hess Publishing Forum&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3357" LastActivityDate="2014-11-24T06:10:57.663" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7889" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7886" CreationDate="2014-11-24T06:44:11.647" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.thechesswebsite.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;The Chess Website&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And If you go premium on &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chess.com&lt;/a&gt; you can have full access to their video library&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course youtube is a very good source, many very good chess channels&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3357" LastActivityDate="2014-11-24T06:44:11.647" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7890" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7886" CreationDate="2014-11-24T08:50:16.400" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Try my blog.I am posting some postion and some videos that are made by me currently I am making videos in marathi language but hope I will be doing in english soon..The position given are very instructive..I hope you too like them the link of the site is  &lt;a href=&quot;http://koravichess.blogspot.in/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://koravichess.blogspot.in/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2516" LastActivityDate="2014-11-24T08:50:16.400" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7892" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="7896" CreationDate="2014-11-24T10:25:24.133" Score="9" ViewCount="206" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to Wikipedia recent world championship tournaments have been played in these years:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2006 &#xA;2007&#xA;2008&#xA;2010&#xA;2012&#xA;2013&#xA;2014&lt;br&gt;&#xA;2016    &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is logic behind this, sometimes they are played every year and some there is gap of year? I can't find explanation for this inconsistency. Why wont there be game in 2015?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4301" LastActivityDate="2014-11-25T10:25:41.973" Title="Inconsistent timings of world championships" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;world-championship&gt;&lt;fide&gt;&lt;carlsen-anand-2014&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7893" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7886" CreationDate="2014-11-24T10:33:29.137" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's hard to make a suggestion without knowing your rating of approx. level, but here's a try.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My suggestions would be the following YouTube channels:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(1) &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/user/Majnu2006/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Majnu&lt;/a&gt;.&#xA;Especially check out the &quot;Chess middlegame training&quot; and &quot;Practical chess endgames&quot; playlists. I like Majnu's videos because, not only is he a good player, but he also manages to explain ideas and plans in chess in a very simple manner. The concepts really stick in your mind, and you get to actually use them in your games. And from the way he explains things, you can see that he loves the game, which is also inspiring. I recommend Majnu highly (especially to beginners). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(2) &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/user/SeanGGodley/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;SeanGGodley&lt;/a&gt;.&#xA;Excellent analysis of famous games and players. The book &quot;My system&quot; by A. Nimzowitsch is considered to be one of the most important books in chess history, and Sean has a playlist dedicated to this book. Excellent and (pretty) detailed analysis make him one of my favourite YouTube channels for improving my game. Also, Sean is a great narrator in my opinion, and that makes it easier to follow his thoughts. However, Sean's videos are maybe too much for beginners. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(3) &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/user/thechesswebsite/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;thechesswebsite&lt;/a&gt;.&#xA;Many videos on openings and traps, as well as other things. Just check out the playlists on this channel. Great stuff!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, there are more interesting channels out there, but these are my favourites. I would also like to mention &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/user/kingscrusher&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;KingsCrusher&lt;/a&gt;, who produces videos on a daily basis (for couple of years now). This channel discusses a lot of different chess topics, so it's very likely that you'll find something of interest there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Enjoy!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2792" LastActivityDate="2014-11-24T10:33:29.137" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7894" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2014-11-24T11:07:47.437" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2014-11-24T11:07:47.437" LastActivityDate="2014-11-24T11:07:47.437" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7895" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2014-11-24T11:07:47.437" Score="0" Body="Universal Chess Interface (UCI) is the interface protocol used by most of the major chess engines." OwnerUserId="4182" LastEditorUserId="4182" LastEditDate="2014-11-24T11:53:47.170" LastActivityDate="2014-11-24T11:53:47.170" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7896" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7892" CreationDate="2014-11-24T12:15:27.813" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The world chess championship has been notorious for having inconsistencies in the years it is played in. Allegedly the world champion had been able to refuse challenges in the past for a plethora of reasons(not enough money, not wanting to play in a certain country) as well as issues with financing for the world championship(after all someone's gonna have to pay these people their millions).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Carlsen had made a point out of being okay with being challenged more consistently. Still to host a world championship each year would be very difficult due to aforementioned issues and the fact that a lot of players want their chance at the title which means they'll have to play in a separate tournament just to decide who is allowed to actually challenge Carlsen for the title. People get their qualifications to try and qualify for the world chess championship by winning certain tournaments which can also lead to delays when it comes to the final.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A lot of time has passed when all that has happened which leads to inconsistent timings of the world championship.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4093" LastActivityDate="2014-11-24T12:15:27.813" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7897" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="7898" CreationDate="2014-11-24T12:35:53.263" Score="4" ViewCount="6807" Body="&lt;p&gt;Self explanatory title, Most of the sites i have visited, Only allow downloading one game at once, So if i want to download several, It takes ages. So, is there is a website which allows downloading several pgn master games at once?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4304" LastActivityDate="2019-08-20T10:39:32.440" Title="Where to download chess master games(pgn format)/databases for android for free?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7898" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7897" CreationDate="2014-11-24T13:58:17.310" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.pgnmentor.com/files.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.pgnmentor.com/files.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Allows you to download by player, by opening or by event where the game was played.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3270" LastActivityDate="2014-11-24T13:58:17.310" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7900" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="7901" CreationDate="2014-11-24T19:40:34.790" Score="5" ViewCount="174" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am watching some commentary on the World Championship Games. This is from Game 1:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;rnbq1rk1/ppp1ppbp/6p1/8/3PP3/2B5/PP1Q1PPP/R3KBNR b KQ - 0 8&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Anand&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Carlsen&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The commentator states that Carlsen has several moves available to him at this point, including one which confuses me: 1. ...Bg4. I see that it stops White from castling, but after 2. f3 that Bishop seems silly. The pawn structure looks unfavorable but not fatally so after a bishop retreat. Alternatively, White can also play 2. Nf3, 2. Ne2 or 2. Be2 to set up an exchange.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What's the deal with 1. ...Bg4?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4307" LastEditorUserId="4182" LastEditDate="2014-11-24T21:49:27.370" LastActivityDate="2014-11-25T03:00:05.873" Title="Is this continuation of D85, Gruenfeld Defence, Exchange Variation, tenable?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;carlsen-anand-2014&gt;&lt;grunfeld-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7901" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7900" CreationDate="2014-11-24T23:54:27.597" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have little idea about the Gruenfeld &lt;strong&gt;(hopefully someone who is more familiar or a better player than I am can give a more complete answer)&lt;/strong&gt;, but a few points you may have overlooked:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;After &lt;strong&gt;1...Bg4 2.f3&lt;/strong&gt;, as you say the pawn structure is marginally weaker, but there's also a bigger problem of how white will develop the g1-knight. Nf3 is now impossible, Nh3 looks bad and if black's bishop stays on the c8-h3 diagonal he can then give white doubled h-pawns. Ne2 might look plausible,  but there's then a problem of how to move the knight from there. c3 and d4 can't be reached without a move vacating that square first, which will probably require other preparations as well, Nf4 too soon is dangerous as it could force white to make even more concessions in pawn structure if Bh6 is allowed, pinning the knight to the queen. Finally, g3 is a poor spot for the knight as the g6-pawn takes away two future squares and e4 is already being taken up by a pawn.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In grandmaster praxis, a draw with black is a respectable result, and trading off the bishops after &lt;strong&gt;1...Bg4 2.Be2&lt;/strong&gt; gets black somewhat closer to this result.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1...Bg4 2.Nf3&lt;/strong&gt; gives white doubled pawns after the exchange, and the half-open file that results isn't that useful as it faces onto a reinforced pawn. It also leaves the knight on e2 (assuming white does not want to lose castling rights or lose the d4 pawn) with the same problems as mentioned above.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="550" LastEditorUserId="550" LastEditDate="2014-11-25T03:00:05.873" LastActivityDate="2014-11-25T03:00:05.873" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7902" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6375" CreationDate="2014-11-25T00:16:02.320" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here are some ideas that might help!&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/77i6o.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4268" LastEditorUserId="4268" LastEditDate="2014-11-25T01:38:14.097" LastActivityDate="2014-11-25T01:38:14.097" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7903" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-11-25T00:53:42.717" Score="3" ViewCount="160" Body="&lt;p&gt;There has been a rising faction of chess players who believe that professional chess is too drawish. What are some ways that tournaments fight against the prevalence of draws?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3872" LastActivityDate="2014-11-28T17:12:36.273" Title="What are some methods that tournaments use to limit draws?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;draw&gt;&lt;tournament&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7905" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7903" CreationDate="2014-11-25T02:47:34.027" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The problem with chess having a large number of draws cannot itself be solved - it is simply a result of the defensive possibilities in many systems and the fact that high-level play reduces the number of losses due to simple mistakes. Without a fundamental change to the rules of chess this is not likely to change.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There have been several measures to prevent top players from agreeing to draws before the positions are completely played out, which I'll mention below. One thing to keep in mind, however, is that draws by agreement are often used by players in long tournaments as a way of preventing fatigue or simply playing on in dead positions until someone makes a mistake, and it's up for debate whether forcing/encouraging play in such conditions makes for chess that is more interesting or of better quality, or if it detracts from the events in which those rules are used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The most commonly talked about variant is what are known as 'Sofia rules' (introduced in a tournament at Sofia in 2005), which states that no draws can be agreed before the position itself becomes a theoretical draw, though this assumes that the arbiter is theoretically competent enough to realise that the drawn position is a draw, and doesn't stop the players deliberately trading down into such a position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The main other option that has been suggested is to provide more points for a win than for a draw, thereby hopefully making the players want to push for a win as a win and a loss is still worth more points than two wins. There has been some discussion that this is unfair to players in hard-fought draws, however.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'll also link you to &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draw_by_agreement#Steps_taken_to_discourage_draws_or_short_draws&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this wikipedia article&lt;/a&gt;, which lists some other things that have been suggested over the years.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="550" LastActivityDate="2014-11-25T02:47:34.027" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7906" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="7911" CreationDate="2014-11-25T03:50:20.843" Score="2" ViewCount="4044" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am able to develop my pieces systematically and purposefully. I am also good at defending my pieces. However, when the game gets closer to an end, I need to be able to see different mate variations easily. But alas I am having difficulty seeing them. As a result, I often start losing my positional advantage and win the game in more moves than it should actually take. Thanks in advance for your help!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4056" LastActivityDate="2017-03-17T02:50:53.327" Title="How do I improve my checkmate skills?" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;pieces&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7907" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7906" CreationDate="2014-11-25T09:58:35.953" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'll try my best to answer this rather ambiguous question however I'd like to note that if you want help in chess your best bet is to familiarize yourself with terms like &quot;tactics&quot;, &quot;strategy&quot; and so forth.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A little bit on 3 major terms in chess, or at least how I perceive them to be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Tactics&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;patterns in chess(calculable) that lead to something factual such as winning a pawn, winning a piece, mating and so forth. Usually a forced sequence of moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Strategies&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Really just the general plan you're following. If you try to pressure a certain square or use a sequence of moves to go on the offense and had that as your plan that's an implementation of a strategy. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Positional play&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The most ambiguous term, it's generally just logical chess; Knights are strong in the center so you'd play your knight there if you had the opportunity. You don't follow a particular strategy nor did you calculate variations to see if this knight will lead to a definite advantage but because experience and general chess knowledge dictates knights are strong in the center you can conclude there is no downside to having it there, the opposite even. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All these terms can become moot easily, miscalculations, positional play that's not backed up by proper think-work and strategies that become invalid due to the opponent playing out his own game... You get the point.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So what we're looking for here is the term tactics, the pure act of seeing forceful moves that lead to a certain advantage. Tactics are something usually gained through practice and lots of experience, it also helps when you are familiar with the basic mates(mentioned before like King+Queen, King+rook, and King+2xbishop or King+bishop+Knight if you're feeling really up to the task) but also mates that simply involve certain patterns. Here's a supersimple one but you get the idea:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1K6/PPP5/8/8/8/4r3/3k4/8 b - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's a few ways to practice tactics:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Books&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Books that involve endgames will always be great, they involve a great deal of tactics and will surely strengthen your ability to see them throughout the entire game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess puzzle books are another great idea.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Websites&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's not forget this great resource called the internet, there's websites out there with tactics trainers designed to take in account your playing strength as you do their puzzles. Two of these I'm aware of are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;www.Chess.com&lt;br&gt;&#xA;www.Chesstempo.com&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Especially Chesstempo is a great resource.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4093" LastActivityDate="2014-11-25T09:58:35.953" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7908" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7892" CreationDate="2014-11-25T10:25:41.973" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Due to funding and other problems with FIDE, the world championship schedule has been changed many times during past few years. TLDR: After the title reunification match in 2006, there was a tournament in 2007, followed by matches in every two years, starting from 2008. The 2013 match was an exception.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The match in 2006 was the reunification match between the FIDE world champion (decided in knockout tournaments by FIDE) Topalov and the classical world champion (decided by matches against the current classical world champion) Kramnik. Before the match, FIDE had announced that there is a world championship tournament in 2007. Kramnik and Topalov agreed to that. Before the 2007 tournament, there was also an agreement that if Kramnik (2006 winner) does not win, the winner of 2007 tournament needs to play against him in a match in 2008. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After that match, FIDE had decided to have a 2-year world championship cycle. However, there were some problems with some players withdrawing from the qualification tournaments because rule changes by FIDE, see e.g. the list in &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Chess_Championship_2012#Timeline_of_changes&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia's page&lt;/a&gt; on the 2012 match or &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.chessbase.com/post/magnus-carlsen-drops-out-of-world-championship-cycle&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Carlsen's interview&lt;/a&gt;. FIDE apparently reacted to that and shortened the world championship cycle: the qualification cycle for the 2012 match started in 2008, and the qualification cycle for the 2013 match started in 2011. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As to when it was decided that there are matches in both 2013 and 2014, my memory fails me. The lists in &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.chessbase.com/post/breaking-news-fide-announced-new-dates-for-candidates&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chessbase&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fide.com/component/content/article/1-fide-news/6020-fide-announces-dates-for-world-chess-championship-cycles.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE web site&lt;/a&gt;, both dated on March 28th 2012, are different. The &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.chessbase.com/post/fide-to-receive-10-12-million-euros-for-upcoming-cycles&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE contract with Agon&lt;/a&gt; in early 2012 might also have something to do with it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1761" LastActivityDate="2014-11-25T10:25:41.973" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7909" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7877" CreationDate="2014-11-25T18:29:06.283" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;A very informative article about PARADISE was published by Wilkins himself  in &quot;Artificial Intelligence, Volume 14, Number 2&quot; (September 1980), which I was lucky to get my hands on years ago when I was writing my diploma thesis on chess programming and kept it since then.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Unfortunately, it is rather difficult to get at these days. But the article should have been reprinted in &quot;Computer Chess Compendium&quot;, by D. Levy, which still appears to be available: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.abebooks.com/search/sortby/3/an/David+Levy+/tn/+Compendium&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Abe Books&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Other than that, I was only able to dig out some working notes related to the program (written in a dialect of Lisp) again by Wilkins himself, which also apparently contains some program fragments: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ai.sri.com/pubs/files/465.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Working notes on Paradise chess patterns&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Should you stumble upon additional sources, please keep us informed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4318" LastActivityDate="2014-11-25T18:29:06.283" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7910" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-11-25T21:50:12.977" Score="6" ViewCount="416" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why there are no good videos on Open Ruy Lopez for Black? Is the variation too bad for Black? There are lots of videos from the White side, but I did not find any good videos from the black side; why is it so?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2516" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2014-11-27T05:12:10.460" LastActivityDate="2020-01-29T18:23:33.123" Title="Open Ruy Lopez for Black" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;ruy-lopez&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7911" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7906" CreationDate="2014-11-25T22:28:17.203" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The situation you find yourself in, is actually very common and also an issue for most amateurs. I think you will find out soon that there's no &quot;one&quot; answer that works for everyone. But there are of course suggestions that you may find useful:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Most promising way to improve your ability in finishing up games or checkmating, is solving &lt;strong&gt;puzzles&lt;/strong&gt;. There are so many good puzzle books, websites/apps... you name it! Just start practicing and try to solve them, and in no time you will notice your improvement. &lt;em&gt;Why it helps you may ask?&lt;/em&gt; think of it this way: Knowing how to finish games (or finding checkmates) means being familiar to the patterns present in your position (each game has its own details), and a pattern needs first to be noticed. To notice pattern/combinations/ideas, you first need to have been &lt;strong&gt;exposed&lt;/strong&gt; to them in some way. That's what chess puzzles mainly do for you: they expose you to all sorts of ideas and force you to find them as otherwise you cannot solve the puzzle. Whereas just playing games over and over does not do the same for you, because there, you're not limited to one solution and instead of trying to find the right patterns(shortest finishes/checkmate paths) you just go with your already-made-intuition. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Second best suggestion I can think of, is reviewing your own games with an engine. Engines are in my opinion very much mis-used these days. They are amazingly productive when used to assist you while reviewing your already-played-games. With an engine, you will simply see where you may have missed out on some of the shorter paths towards finishing the game etc. Specially endgames where you have huge advantages, and you still find yourself playing out 20 moves, with an engine you will be fed the right ideas right off, so try to mull over them and don't just take them lightly. By doing this for most of the games you play, you will gather a very important amount of tactics/ or just useful ideas, that will help more easily concretize your advantages towards victories!&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some known and nice chess websites: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chesstempo.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;ChessTempo&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chessok.com/?page_id=359&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;ChessOK&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.shredderchess.com/daily-chess-puzzle.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Shredderonline&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.sparkchess.com/chess-puzzles.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Sparkchess&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Tactics and puzzles in &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/forum/category/daily-puzzles&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;chess dot com&lt;/a&gt; are great too.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Finally whatever phone you use, I'm sure you will find many free apps for chess puzzles.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Recommended chess books containing puzzles:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/190198334X&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;The Ultimate Chess Puzzle Book&lt;/a&gt;, very famous, written by John Emms &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Another great one is, &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1857441400&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Garry Kasparov's Chess Puzzle Book&lt;/a&gt;, but of course it's not best if you just want checkmate puzzles.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A favorite of mine is, &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1906454035&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;John Nunn's Chess Puzzle Book&lt;/a&gt;, which again is not only about checkmates, but instead contains all sorts of very advanced puzzles.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Of course the list can be very long, but do bear in mind that when it comes to checkmate puzzles, you don't really need to find the famous books, you just need any decent collection of them, (in any library you will find many relatively unknown puzzle books, that will perfectly do the job), as the idea here is to &quot;gather as many ideas as possible&quot; so in your own games you will notice and re-use the learnt patterns.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In order to conclude, the more puzzles you try to solve, the more games you study, the more you simply watch chess games, the richer your bag of ideas/patterns/combinations will become.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3594" LastEditorUserId="550" LastEditDate="2014-11-26T00:34:44.373" LastActivityDate="2014-11-26T00:34:44.373" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7912" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-11-26T12:06:42.163" Score="0" ViewCount="180" Body="&lt;p&gt;What are common sacrifical themes in mating attacks? For example, the Greek Bishop Sacrifice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3405" LastActivityDate="2020-08-27T03:28:32.313" Title="Common sacrifice themes in attacks?" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2014-12-04T00:25:47.570" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7913" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7910" CreationDate="2014-11-26T15:48:01.367" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why are you looking for video?  How about looking for a game? Checkout chessgames.com then search for Open Ruy Lopez ECO code to look for games won by black. It will show you how black piece should play against open Ruy Lopez&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2472" LastActivityDate="2014-11-26T15:48:01.367" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7914" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="7994" CreationDate="2014-11-26T20:39:23.580" Score="9" ViewCount="3046" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have been playing chess practically all of my life but during phases, I would play a lot for a couple of months and then spend a whole year without playing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Right now I am in one of those phases but I am determined to stick with it and really improve so I have been taking on tactics and end game studying but my Achilles heel has always been the opening theory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I really like to play the Sicilian defense, in particular the Dragon and have a couple of books on it but there are so many different replies and variations after 1. ..., c5 that going this route seems like an impossible undertaking, I've even read somewhere about the &quot;Sicilian Jungle&quot;, and I've had a few bad experiences when trying to force a Dragon-like structure without considering white's responses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So my question is; considering white's most common responses to the first couple of moves, which variations are the ones the would be more beneficial to begin this training and that can help limit white's options?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4327" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T18:45:54.050" Title="How to build a simplified Sicilian defence reperoire" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7915" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7897" CreationDate="2014-11-27T06:26:00.167" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://smallchess.com/Games/Magnus%20Carlsen.pgn&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://smallchess.com/Games/Magnus%20Carlsen.pgn&lt;/a&gt; for games on Magnus Carlsen. It doesn't need to be unzipped as in pgnmentor, it's also more recent (includes the recent world championship).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Alternatively, you can download games for free at: &lt;a href=&quot;http://smallchess.com/Games/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://smallchess.com/Games/&lt;/a&gt; . Again, no need to unzip anything.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Updated: I own the site and personally prepared those files.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2014-11-27T07:05:50.013" LastActivityDate="2014-11-27T07:05:50.013" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7916" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7832" CreationDate="2014-11-27T10:29:58.950" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I play the Catalan in a constant basis, and in this position I would play Qb3 for the following reasons:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;10.Qa4 =&gt; does not look that great because at any moment black can play Bd7 (gaining a tempo on the queen) and then Bc6, and thus, releasing some of the pressure in the light squares of the queenside.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Line:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;1. Nf3 d5 2. d4 Nf6 3. c4 e6 4. g3 Be7 5. Bg2 O-O 6. O-O dxc4 7. Ne5 c5 8. dxc5 Qc7 9. Nxc4 Rd8 10. Qa4 Bd7 11. Qb4 Bc6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;10.Qc2 =&gt; leave the queen &quot;tactically vulnerable&quot; and, in some lines, disconnect the queen from the knight in c4 (after Nc3, for instance). Two SAMPLES lines to consider:&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example 01:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;1. Nf3 d5 2. d4 Nf6 3. c4 e6 4. g3 Be7 5. Bg2 O-O 6. O-O dxc4 7. Ne5 c5 8. dxc5 Qc7 9. Nxc4 Rd8 10. Qc2 Bxc5 11. Nc3 Bxf2+ 12. Rxf2 Qxc4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example 02:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;1. Nf3 d5 2. d4 Nf6 3. c4 e6 4. g3 Be7 5. Bg2 O-O 6. O-O dxc4 7. Ne5 c5 8. dxc5 Qc7 9. Nxc4 Rd8 10. Qc2 Bxc5 11. h3 b5 12. Ncd2 Bxf2+ 13. Rxf2 Qxc2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not saying in any way, shape or form that these lines are good, I'm just trying to point out the tactical themes that could arise from such positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;10.Qb3 =&gt; There is no tempo gaining move on the queen. The knight on c4 would be protected even after the natural move Nc3. And you keep the pressure on b7.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The three moves are good but if you want a quiet, positional game but maintaining long term pressure I would recommend Qb3. The other 2 keep some dynamism in the position and could bring complications in the long run.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4057" LastEditorUserId="4057" LastEditDate="2014-11-28T18:37:13.783" LastActivityDate="2014-11-28T18:37:13.783" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7917" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-11-27T14:00:19.713" Score="4" ViewCount="874" Body="&lt;p&gt;Taking the recent Anand-Carlsen match as an example, I know that grandmasters spend incredible amounts of time in opening preparation, and Anand's play to refute certain lines of the Berlin defense was impressive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But once reaching game 10, 11, or 12 and desperately needing a win, why don't players make an effort to force the game off into some opening line that the opponent almost certainly hasn't prepared for? &lt;em&gt;Not&lt;/em&gt; into some fringe or unorthodox opening, but into solid openings that are just much less familiar for the opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Much the same way that an American football team must spend at least some small amount of time practicing &quot;trick&quot; plays, like on-side kicks or throw-back passes, or much like a football (soccer) team might practice very special free kick formation for late in a game when a goal is needed very quickly -- shouldn't it be normal to prepare for a championship match by spending at least a small amount of time studying some very different openings that the opponent has not faced recently or does not appear to be as strong in?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not endorsing these as candidates for specifically Anand v. Carlsen, but I might have expected to see some different variations of Sicilian, or to see Dutch Defense, Benoni Defense, or to see Reti opening, and to play in lines that don't transpose easily to positions that are similar to the main lines played (Grünfeld, Berlin, etc.).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not saying Anand's openings were the problem in the match -- he often played well with great opening prep and blundered later on. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am just asking why it is so uncommon to see players deviate to some &quot;special preparation&quot; in late stages of a match when they are trailing and need a win. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Wouldn't that be one of the scenarios that they prepare for specifically prior to the match starting? &quot;What if I find myself down 1 point late in the match and my opponent has shown clear strength in the most frequent openings from the match? How will I steer the game into unknown territory?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4331" LastEditorUserId="4331" LastEditDate="2014-11-27T14:13:11.710" LastActivityDate="2014-12-07T23:16:16.270" Title="Why is it rare to see unusual &quot;special&quot; opening preparation by trailing player late in a match?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;grandmaster&gt;&lt;preparation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7918" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-11-27T16:53:48.990" Score="6" ViewCount="2121" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is the problem-find a chess game that begins with 1. e4 and ends on the fifth move with knight takes rook mate, which determines who gives the mate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a famous puzzle. For additional information and its history, see &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.chessbase.com/post/the-infamous-1999-chebase-christmas-puzzle-160813&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this nice article&lt;/a&gt; on ChessBase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4335" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-09-15T01:11:04.970" LastActivityDate="2021-04-19T22:14:52.860" Title="A conditional retrograde analysis problem" Tags="&lt;problems&gt;&lt;retrograde-analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="7919" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="7920" CreationDate="2014-11-27T19:17:59.400" Score="4" ViewCount="188" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm an amateur chess enthusiastic and I have a somewhat esoteric question about the rules of moving on a turn. In chess, is there a specified rule that a player &lt;em&gt;must&lt;/em&gt; move a piece during her turn?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I realize that in a chess game, there is no reason to not move a piece. But I'm designing puzzles relating t o chess and whether this rule exists matters for the puzzle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4336" LastActivityDate="2014-11-27T20:23:17.020" Title="Rule enforcing a player to move on a turn?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;rules&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7920" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7919" CreationDate="2014-11-27T20:14:28.637" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, there is a rule that a player must make a move during her turn. If the player in turn has no legal moves and her king is not in check, then the game is drawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I realize that in a chess game, there is no reason to not move a piece.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Actually, almost &lt;em&gt;all chess endgame theory&lt;/em&gt;, and thus &lt;em&gt;a huge part of the whole game of chess is based on the fact that a player has to move a piece during her turn&lt;/em&gt;. I'll explain this by a simple example and some handwawing. Consider for example the following endgame:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[title &quot;White to move and win&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;4k3/8/4K3/4P3/8/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Kf6 Kf8 2. e6 Ke8 3. e7 Kd7 4. Kf7 Kd6 5. e8=Q&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If, at her 4th move, Black didn't have to move the king, the game would be drawn, as there is no way for White to promote her pawn. However, because Black king has to step away, White gets a new queen and wins the game. (Note that this does not mean that a king and a pawn always win against a lone king; very often the game will be drawn, because also White has to make moves she would not want to make.) A situation like this, where having the turn actually makes your position significantly weaker, is called a &lt;em&gt;zugzwang&lt;/em&gt;; for more examples, see for example the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zugzwang&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia article&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This and more complex endgames are the reason why one pawn advantage is often enough to win: You can exchange pieces until you get to an endgame where you can then often convert the extra pawn to a win. Very often the winning technique of king and pawn endgames are based on the fact that the winning side can force the losing side's king to step away from defending important squares simply because the king cannot stay on the best square forever. The winning technique of many other endgames is then based on the fact that the winning side can threaten to convert to a winning king and pawn endgame, restricting the options the losing side has.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1761" LastEditorUserId="1761" LastEditDate="2014-11-27T20:23:17.020" LastActivityDate="2014-11-27T20:23:17.020" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7921" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2865" CreationDate="2014-11-27T21:43:49.383" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a very weird statement. IMHO.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only thing that I can tell you is that back when I was in the University the school team's coach, who was an IM, insisted in that the &quot;advanced&quot; beginners and low intermediates would learn the Sicilian Dragon since it is a very dynamic opening and there are lots of tactical themes happening all the time so it was good for them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some food for thought :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4327" LastActivityDate="2014-11-27T21:43:49.383" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7922" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-11-27T21:46:45.270" Score="2" ViewCount="189" Body="&lt;p&gt;Im pretty new and i was analyzing the opening stages of one of my recent games. I was playing white and we started off&#xA;&lt;code&gt;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 e6&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    [StartPly &quot;6&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;    [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;    1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 e6 4. Nc3 (4.d5 Nd4 5.Nxd4 cxd4 6.Qxd4 Qb6 7.Be3 Qxd4 8.Bxd4 exd5 9.exd5 Ne7 10.Nc3 Nf5 11.O-O-O Nxd4 12.Rxd4 Bc5 13.Re4+ Kd8)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now my next move was &lt;code&gt;Nc3&lt;/code&gt; (but doesn't really matter) and the lichess computer analysis marked this as a mistake and proposed playing d5 instead (leading to the computer generated variation &lt;code&gt;4.d5 Nd4 5.Nxd4 cxd4 6.Qxd4 Qb6 7.Be3 Qxd4 8.Bxd4 exd5 9.exd5 Ne7 10.Nc3 Nf5 11.O-O-O Nxd4 12.Rxd4 Bc5 13.Re4+ Kd8&lt;/code&gt;) which presumably has me 1.4 pawns up. I looked up this variation on chesstempo and found that it was never played in 2200+ vs 2200+ play, but used 57 times in all games of the database. In those game it lead to white winning in 82.5% of the games.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Which variations make this move &quot;bad&quot; in top level play (except for the fact that &lt;code&gt;3. d4 e6&lt;/code&gt; wouldnt happen in the first place aka preselection against this variation)?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;What are good alternative 4.?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;If the d5 variation is not that strong, why does the computer engine still recommend it. Is it just an error in the way it assesses the position, is there a lack of depth / computing time?   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4337" LastEditorUserId="2789" LastEditDate="2014-11-30T23:07:35.747" LastActivityDate="2014-12-31T00:01:27.370" Title="Open Sicilian Variation, newbie question" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;&lt;minor-variations&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7923" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4809" CreationDate="2014-11-27T22:16:44.550" Score="-1" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. c3 d5 3. Nf3 dxe4 4. Qa4+ Nd7 5. Qxe4 Ngf6 6. Qc2 e5 7. d4 exd4 &#xA;8. Bg5 Qe7+ 9. Be2 Ne5 10. O-O Nxf3+ 11. Bxf3 Be6 12. Re1 O-O-O 13. Qa4 a6 &#xA;14. cxd4 Rxd4 15. Qc2 Qc7 16. Nc3 Ng4 17. Bxg4 Rxg4 18. Be3 Qc6 19. g3 Bd6 &#xA;20. Ne2 f6 21. Rac1 c4 22. Nd4 Qd5 23. Nxe6 Qxe6 24. b3 Bb4 25. Re2 b5 26. &#xA;Bf4 Qd5 27. Rd1 Qf3 28. Qf5+ Kb7 29. Qd7+ Ka8 30. Re8+ Rxe8 31. Qxe8+ Kb7 &#xA;32. Rd7+ Kb6 33. Qe6+ Bd6 34. Qxd6+ Ka5 35. Bd2+ c3 36. Qc7+ Kb4 37. Qd6+ &#xA;Ka5 38. Be3 Rxg3+ 39. hxg3 Qxe3 40. fxe3 c2 41. Qa3+ Kb6 42. Qc1 Kc6 43. &#xA;Rxg7 h6 44. Qxc2+ Kd6 45. Qc7+ Kd5 46. Rd7+ Ke6 47. Qd6+ Kf5 48. Re7 Kg6 &#xA;49. Qe6 h5 50. Qe4+ Kg5 51. Qf4+ Kg6 52. g4 hxg4 53. Qxg4+ Kh6 54. Rg7 f5 &#xA;55. Qg6# 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4340" LastEditorUserId="4182" LastEditDate="2014-11-28T14:56:50.127" LastActivityDate="2014-11-28T14:56:50.127" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7924" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7922" CreationDate="2014-11-28T02:07:28.987" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;4.d5 move is strong. Black 3. e6? wasnt good.&#xA;After  1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 your opponent should play cd4 and after 4. Nd4 e6&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This variation of course doesnt exist in top level play because 3. e6 was horrid. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4342" LastActivityDate="2014-11-28T02:07:28.987" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7925" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4893" CreationDate="2014-11-28T08:35:55.860" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;+1 ply is estimated +55..70 ELO gain (a lot of researches on this topic)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I guess that within these 15 depths there may be trillions way to escape a checkmate or capture of important piece.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The thing is that all this &quot;trillions&quot; were calculated by A @ D=30, and if A choose move with winning eval, it mean that it calculated all this &quot;trillions&quot; and no matter which of &quot;trillions&quot; moves opponent reply - move is still winning&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4345" LastActivityDate="2014-11-28T08:35:55.860" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7927" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7917" CreationDate="2014-11-28T16:25:14.223" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It happens, but there's a reason why it doesn't happen often, and, when it does, why it doesn't work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First off, there's a psychological reason not to do it; it's uncomfortable. If the match is going badly for you, it's natural for you to fall back on familiar weapons: positions that you know how to play better than any others. When you do that, when you stand on familiar (&quot;home,&quot; if you will) ground, you feel more secure and play better than if you're in less familiar territory. And when you play better, you're more likely to score better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, there's the unknown. When you're down by a point late in the match, a single failure ends your chances. And, when you decide to divulge radically from your &quot;normal&quot; game approaches for this one game, you don't know with certainty how well your opponent can play those positions. So you divert time away from preparing to play comfortable positions even better than you currently play them (after all, no one plays their comfortable positions perfectly, there's always room for improvement) to learning how to play a completely different position passably well. And, when the day of the game dawns and you uncork it, you find out your opponent actually likes to play those positions, just never gets the chance to because opponents haven't so far let that happen. And down go your chances of leveling the match in a flaming crash.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Romantic notions like risking everything on one wild roll of the dice don't occur naturally to the vast majority of top chess players, because the tendency to do so keeps them from making it to the top, except in the rarest of circumstances.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A GM once told me chess was a little like tennis; &quot;sometimes the only thing you can do is hit the ball back over the net and try to give your opponent another chance to make a mistake.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You're far more likely to see a player pull divergences like that that early in a match than late, such as Fischer pulling out 1.c4 to open Game 6 of the 1972 match (that match was for 24 games, so G6 there would have been like G3 of Carlsen-Anand). If it doesn't work, then the player still has the energy to save the draw if possible, and time to recover from the failure if not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="657" LastActivityDate="2014-11-28T16:25:14.223" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7928" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7912" CreationDate="2014-11-28T16:59:23.187" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not exactly sure what you're after with that question, but here's something to at least open the ground a little.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &amp;quot;Greek Gift&amp;quot; I think is more a name for a particular sacrifice than a theme. It employs a couple of themes, e.g., line clearance and decoy -- line clearance opens a hole in the castled position for other pieces to use for attacks, and decoy brings the enemy king to a square where it can more easily be attacked. Another famous sacrifice using those themes is Lasker-Bauer (Lasker's double bishop sacrifice).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are numerous resources covering tactical themes, going back to Spielmann's &amp;quot;The Art of Sacrifice In Chess&amp;quot; but a couple of the best resources for mating themes and patterns are Renaud &amp;amp; Kahn's &amp;quot;Art Of The Checkmate&amp;quot; and Vukovic's &amp;quot;The Art of Attack in Chess&amp;quot; (of the two I'd prefer the latter only because it covers more than just checkmates, but all three books are well worth the time to study them).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Vukovic's book, chapters 4 &amp;amp; 5 deal in general with your question of checkmating themes. As for the &amp;quot;Greek Gift&amp;quot; itself, he spends chapter 6 specifically on that sacrifice. Eugene Znosko-Borovsky in &amp;quot;The Art of Chess Combination&amp;quot; spends a chapter on it (and another on Lasker's double-bishop sacrifice) and Former US Correspondence Champion Jon Edwards devoted an entire book to it (Sacking The Citadel).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="657" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-08-27T03:28:32.313" LastActivityDate="2020-08-27T03:28:32.313" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="7929" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7903" CreationDate="2014-11-28T17:12:36.273" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yep. Mark Dvoretsky's proposal (that eventually became &quot;Sofia rules&quot;) and doing things like borrowing other sports use of 3 points for a win and 1 point for a draw (the essential property being needing more than 2 draws to equal one win) have all been tried (including one rather complex system involving giving different points for draws with white and black). Other proposals that have not been tried involve making changes to the rules of chess itself, such as making stalemate into either a loss (for the side being stalemated) or making it count as something less than a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ironically, one that saw a great deal of success was tried and later discarded in the 19th century. The essence of the rule was that in the event of a draw, the players would reset the pieces and play another game, because a decisive result was required before their encounter could end. As defensive technique improves, this becomes onerous if the same time control is employed, hence today's match tie-breakers of constantly descending time controls. I've often wondered what would happen if a one-round-per-day tournament today used that technique: In the event of a draw, reset the pieces and play g/30, then g/15. then g/10, etc., until a decisive result is achieved.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="657" LastActivityDate="2014-11-28T17:12:36.273" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7930" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7897" CreationDate="2014-11-28T17:23:11.003" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you're only getting one game at a time, you are &lt;strong&gt;really&lt;/strong&gt; hitting the wrong sites. There are literally thousands of sites you can do collections at, ranging from the University of Pittsburgh Chess Club, to Mark Crowther's excellent This Week In Chess to New In Chess's pgn versions of the games in their yearbooks and magazines. Google is your friend, in this case, because there are far too many to list in a forum post: &quot;PGN Chess games&quot; yields over 6 million hits and &quot;PGN chess games database&quot; over 300K of them. Have fun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="657" LastActivityDate="2014-11-28T17:23:11.003" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7931" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6491" CreationDate="2014-11-28T17:57:30.827" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;The King's Gambit has been &quot;refuted&quot; at several points in the past. Most have later been proven incorrect, IIRC only two lines at this point seem suspect. But that's not the point. The point is: how many of your opponents know enough about those lines to play them as accurately as required to win? (John Shaw in his book on the KG noted analyzing one of the resulting positions overtaxed the water-cooling in the computer he was using to help analyze it.) Refuting something in theory does not equate to refuting it in over-the-board play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bent Larsen once said &quot;I don't often play a move I know how to refute.&quot; Which, of course, means sometimes he &lt;strong&gt;does&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Refutations&quot; of white openings often fall into the category described above, which is that white fails to maintain the advantage of the first move. Give that some thought while asking yourself the question: &quot;would I rather play a position that retains a slight advantage if I follow a fixed and complex series of moves, or would I rather play a level position that I understand completely and am comfortable playing?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's that last bit that tips the balance. I know a national master that loves to play the Blackmar-Diemer Gambit. His preference is so well known that everyone he plays has the opportunity to &quot;book up&quot; on that opening, of which by most reports &quot;fails to maintain the white opening advantage&quot; would be a kind description. Yet he won. Consistently. Yes, even against other masters. (I've won more than I've lost with it myself, though I don't make a &quot;steady diet&quot; of it.) He was so familiar with the strategies and tactics of the resulting positions he was comfortable playing them against anyone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And that's the point. If it's a position you're comfortable playing, it doesn't matter even if a computer says you stand a few centi-pawns worse. (Heck, unless your opponents are routinely over 2200ELO even a theoretical full pawn difference may not matter.) If you understand and are comfortable in the middlegames that arise from it, you'll win more than your &quot;objectively evaluated&quot; share of them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="657" LastActivityDate="2014-11-28T17:57:30.827" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7932" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-11-28T17:59:25.930" Score="5" ViewCount="7903" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am relatively a new chess player and been improving my strength in the opening for a while and would like to know which opening is the most defensive. 1.e5 seems a little too aggressive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4348" LastActivityDate="2021-03-23T06:58:31.787" Title="Which opening is most defensive as black?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7933" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5601" CreationDate="2014-11-28T18:19:20.463" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Ummm. &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.gnu.org/software/xboard/whats_new/4.8.0/index.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://www.gnu.org/software/xboard/whats_new/4.8.0/index.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;With XBoard 4.8.0 the GTK build can be considered as stable as the Xaw build. In some areas it might not be perfect yet in all areas, but in other areas, such as the ICS Interaction window, it is already developed beyond the Xaw version, and the GTK build is in general superior to the obsolete Xaw interface.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The GTK build can also be interfaced with OS X through the GtkOsx library. So OS X is now amongst the officially supported platforms, and a special configure option is available to build XBoard as OS X App.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That having been said, I haven't used it. It would appear from the notes that's not only able to be built as an OS X app, but an app bundle can be found here: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.open-aurec.com/wbforum/viewtopic.php?f=19&amp;amp;t=53274&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.open-aurec.com/wbforum/viewtopic.php?f=19&amp;amp;t=53274&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope that helps. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="657" LastActivityDate="2014-11-28T18:19:20.463" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7934" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="848" CreationDate="2014-11-28T18:44:49.410" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a variant on the &quot;live chess&quot; thing, one exhibition that we used to do was to use large (and sometimes fanciful) pieces. (I remember doing one with a piece set based on farm animals for a state fair exhibit, for example.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The idea is two players who call out the moves and one or two volunteers who walk around on top of the board and move the pieces. People will often stop and watch as the players circle the large board looking at the position and thinking. The farm board mentioned above was also elevated, so we often moved around as if &quot;sighting&quot; down a diagonal or file. There's lots of opportunity for physical comedy or other theater in those cases, as well as trash talk. (Trash talk is a good tool for engaging the crowds, so long as it's good-natured and fun, rather than violent or personally offensive. The line between isn't always clear, and changes with the potential audience for the exhibition.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="657" LastActivityDate="2014-11-28T18:44:49.410" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7935" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="7942" CreationDate="2014-11-28T23:39:01.453" Score="1" ViewCount="95" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have a problem when I have developed all minor pieces and castled. The position looks perfect for me and my opponent. I don't want to move a piece since that would ruin the position and create weaknesses. Most often I end up with an unclear attack that works or not, i.e. I jump out and see what happens. Is this an unknown problem? Am I just lazy in calculating? Is there some good source to help me (drugs, books website, rules of thumb)? What should I look for? Should I think in some special order? Does this stage have a special name?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="58" LastActivityDate="2014-11-29T16:53:30.927" Title="First play in middle game" Tags="&lt;middlegame&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7936" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="7937" CreationDate="2014-11-29T00:19:44.997" Score="2" ViewCount="103" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have played blitz game on &lt;em&gt;lichess&lt;/em&gt; as Black and entered into drawn bishop endgame. My opponent tried to force the matters and lost in the end but at some point very interesting position arose, where White had only one permanent weakness. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am interested to know if Black can win the following endgame by creating second weakness in White position, or simply breaking through with his king. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Black to move&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;8/p7/2bk1p2/2p3p1/5PP1/1B4K1/PP6/8 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastActivityDate="2014-11-29T01:35:34.443" Title="Can Black create the second weakness?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;bishop-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7937" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7936" CreationDate="2014-11-29T01:35:34.443" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;After &lt;strong&gt;1...Bd5&lt;/strong&gt;, Black can win at least a pawn. White cannot take on &lt;strong&gt;d5&lt;/strong&gt; because that's a clearly won king endgame for Black- Black threatens to go &lt;strong&gt;Kd4-Kd3-c2&lt;/strong&gt; and take the pawn on &lt;strong&gt;b2&lt;/strong&gt;. If White tries to defend with &lt;strong&gt;Ke2&lt;/strong&gt;, then &lt;strong&gt;Ke4&lt;/strong&gt; from Black wins the &lt;strong&gt;g-pawn&lt;/strong&gt; and the game. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2429" LastActivityDate="2014-11-29T01:35:34.443" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7938" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7932" CreationDate="2014-11-29T01:51:39.907" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a subjective question, so I'll give a subjective answer. In my opinion, the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippopotamus_Defence&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Hippopotamus Defense&lt;/a&gt; is the most defensive opening. Here's a typical Hippopotamus structure - &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;   [FEN &quot;r2qk2r/pbpnnpbp/1p1pp1p1/8/2PPP3/2N1BN2/PP2BPPP/R2Q1RK1 w kq - 0 9&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black doesn't even move a pawn to the 4th rank! All of Black's minor pieces are developed on the second rank and Black keeps his pawns on the third rank. Essentially, Black plays a waiting game for a while, and tries to provoke White into doing something concrete and then Black reacts accordingly. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S. &lt;em&gt;Since you're a beginner, &lt;strong&gt;I would advise NOT to use this opening&lt;/strong&gt;. Yes, it is the most defensive opening, but if you're afraid of playing 1...e5 then you ought to first correct that instead of trying to play something else! Even with 1...e5, Black can reach defensive setups.&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2429" LastActivityDate="2014-11-29T01:51:39.907" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7939" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="7946" CreationDate="2014-11-29T15:49:37.140" Score="3" ViewCount="189" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to know if there is any web site that maintains the recording of the famous chess tournaments. I am not looking for the video recordings, but the recording of the moves. For eg.  I am currently looking for all the recent matches held between Carlsen and Anand in November, 2014.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4350" LastActivityDate="2014-11-30T17:47:49.027" Title="Where can I see the recorded chess matches?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7940" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7939" CreationDate="2014-11-29T16:28:57.940" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;This Week In Chess is probably the best place to go for those. New game files are posted weekly. Though in the case of Carlsen-Anand 2014, it's probably available from dozens of places, including the official website of the match itself: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.sochi2014.fide.com/results/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.sochi2014.fide.com/results/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="657" LastActivityDate="2014-11-29T16:28:57.940" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7941" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7918" CreationDate="2014-11-29T16:47:55.710" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;The solution is as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt; 1.e4 Nf6 2.f3 Nxe4 3.Qe2 Ng3 4.Qxe7+ Qxe7+ 5.Kf2 Nxh1#&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2014-11-29T16:47:55.710" CommentCount="0" CommunityOwnedDate="2014-11-29T16:47:55.710" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7942" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7935" CreationDate="2014-11-29T16:53:30.927" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You're having issues with the transition to the middle game. I'm not sure what your current skill level is, so this advice is going to be a bit scattered.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First World Correspondence Champion CJS Purdy (Art of Chess Annotation vol 1 and/or Search For Chess Perfection) details a thinking process which consists of things to think about when on move and when your opponent is on move. Jeremy Silman (How To Reassess Your Chess) has a modified version of it. There's another approach in Alexander Kotov's Think Like A Grandmaster.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If your problem is more what to think than how, Former World Champion Max Euwe (with Walter Meiden) did a two-volume set (Middlegame) and the Soviet school was fond of a two-volume set from Romanovsky of the same name.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They all say it better than I can, but the tl;dr of it is that once you have completed development you look first for the tactical opportunities your opponent will give you. Everyone you play will give you those opportunities, you just need to be able to recognize them when they happen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes there will be nothing specific to do. If that's the case, then proceed with a more general approach.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Try to &quot;read&quot; the position, the way a golfer might read a green; look for strengths and weaknesses in your opponent's position and your own. Your task is to weaken your opponent's strong squares, and use their weak squares to advance your pieces across the the center of the board. As for your own, you eliminate your own weak squares and keep the strong ones strong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you might expect, you can't do all four at the same time, so your thinking centers around what weaknesses you can exploit that will gain you more than you lose by exploiting them, and whether your own weaknesses can be easily exploited. (A weakness isn't real unless it can be exploited.) As you locate tasks (undermine this point, occupy this one with a knight, defend this) you'll see that some fit together into a sequence (can't occupy this outpost until I control this other square, need to defend this point so the opponent can't get around me, etc.) and that &quot;sequence&quot; is called a plan and you decide to follow it until/unless something better presents itself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Kind of vague, I know, but so was the question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="657" LastActivityDate="2014-11-29T16:53:30.927" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7943" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="914" CreationDate="2014-11-29T17:11:10.053" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's not a good recipe for learning how to play like a famous player, but it's a good recipe to follow to &lt;strong&gt;find out&lt;/strong&gt; if you should try to play like them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;IOW, check out how comfortable you are playing those positions. You may want to play like Tal or Shirov, but you may discover you're more adept at playing like one of their opponents (meaning the moves made by an opponent like Petrosian or Karpov or Kramnik were easier for you to find while playing over the games than your &quot;target&quot;). Everyone has natural tendencies as a chess player, and especially during development it's good to figure out what they are and use them to your advantage. You'll progress quicker and have more fun. When that has taken you as far as it's going to, then will be the time to &quot;branch out&quot; into other positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="657" LastActivityDate="2014-11-29T17:11:10.053" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7944" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4232" CreationDate="2014-11-29T17:25:11.580" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;What are the odds of a middle game player defeating an endgame player?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well, given the Kasparov-Karpov match history, I'd say, &quot;Pretty Good!&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Seriously, the answer is less about phases of the game and more about the players themselves. The &quot;endgame player&quot; has to be able to survive the best shots of the &quot;middlegame player&quot; before the endgame even arrives.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the case of Anand-Carlsen, I really don't think second-guessing Anand's match preparation means anything. From where I sat, Carlsen would have won, no matter Anand's preparation. He's simply the better player, and while short matches like the current WC events allow greater probability for randomness to elevate the lesser player, it wasn't enough to save Anand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just like Fischer wasn't going to be beaten by any of his elders, and Karpov, and Kasparov, Carlsen is going to sit in that seat until one of his generation, or the next, rises up (Caruana, perhaps?) to unseat him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="657" LastActivityDate="2014-11-29T17:25:11.580" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7945" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1309" CreationDate="2014-11-29T17:59:52.663" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;My first strategic thought would be to see if tactically I could get to a position with pawns on a3 and b4, rooks on c1 and d1, knights on f4 and b3. Alternative might be the B on b3 with the Knight on a4 and the other knight dropping in to d3 instead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Like all such &quot;schematic thinking&quot; approaches to the game, you have to spend the time to figure out what your opponent can do to stop it. (And what those moves give you. For example, if you get the pawns to a3/b4 and knock off the dark-squared bishop early, you can consider planting a knight on a5 to further pressurize the c-pawn.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Who stands better?&quot; is always the main question, but I can say I'd rather be playing White than Black in that position. For example, White can probably force a passed pawn eventually while there's no way short of a massive blunder Black ever will. I think this position could be classed as &quot;Carlsbad,&quot; only in the real Carlsbad positions the black pawn is on e6 and not f6. Personally, I think f6 is a worse place for the pawn, so the Carlsbad strategies should be even easier and stronger.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White's quietest path to victory is to swap d and e pawns for Black's c and d pawns, at which point removing the pieces is a won endgame for White. The most important piece swap is Knight for dark-square bishop, because doing so eliminates a horde of horrible opposite-colored Bishop endgame possibilities, none of which are won.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I'd spend my thinking time evaluating these strategic ideas, trying to see which ones I would be able to impose tactically, keeping them in mind and being willing to switch between them as opportunity dictated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="657" LastActivityDate="2014-11-29T17:59:52.663" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7946" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7939" CreationDate="2014-11-30T01:43:38.633" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would recommend &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;chessgames.com&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, if you want to find out more about the Zurich 1959 tournament, just go to the mentioned site, find a link to &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/collections&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Collections&lt;/a&gt; and search for Zurich 1959. You should be able to find &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chesscollection?cid=1016653&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this link&lt;/a&gt;, with the list of all games played there, sorted according to rounds. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To find all games between Carlsen and Anand in 2014, just use the search bar on the homepage of chessgames.com. To find the WCh match in 2014, follow the above procedure and it should lead you to &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chess.pl?tid=84885&amp;amp;crosstable=1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this link&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Enjoy! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2792" LastActivityDate="2014-11-30T01:43:38.633" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7947" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4232" CreationDate="2014-11-30T04:49:38.507" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would say that a strong middle game player would understand the middle game enough to know that the particular stage sets up the middle game. For example, simple things like pawn islands, doubled up pawns, bishops, pawn structure, and backward pawns are things that good middle game players will look for. Thus, even if the good endgame player gets the game to the endgame, the middle game player would already have an advantage. Seems to me that the middle game player has considerable better chances.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3872" LastActivityDate="2014-11-30T04:49:38.507" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7948" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7939" CreationDate="2014-11-30T17:47:49.027" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://database.chessbase.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;database.chessbase.com/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I recommend you this, it is one of the oldest and best chess database, containing most of all the recognized rated games. Also, there are lot of features in here, for example: You can make your moves or place a position on the board you wish and search for the same kind of position played by any player and then also go through the whole game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also there is computer analysis to the downright of the screen to check what the computer evaluates after each move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this helps. :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4354" LastActivityDate="2014-11-30T17:47:49.027" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7949" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="7950" CreationDate="2014-11-30T18:08:57.207" Score="45" ViewCount="23641" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am 25 years old. I play online chess regularly and I am rated about 1900 on chess.com. And I recently won a local tournament. Now I want to start playing professional chess. Here are some of my questions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is it too late for me to be ambitious? I am aiming for a GM title in 5 years time. I don't doubt my learning abilities or memory, as is usually the case for the older aspirants, since I solve problems for a living (computer science/ mathematics). However I am not sure if I can afford the kind of time needed. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;So my second question is about time:&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;How many hours do serious players put into preparation and analysis? I estimate to be able to put in about 30-35 hours a week.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;How many tournaments/ games does it take to be a GM? I need an estimate. Is 5 years too little? I am imagining playing 3-4 tournaments a year.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;GM is a long way. So here are more basic questions:&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;How does one find the right tournaments? I don't want to travel too far. Also I don't want to pay hefty fees to enter tournaments. And the participants should be all roughly around my level or slightly better.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What FIDE rating does a rating of 1900 on chess.com equate to?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4062" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2018-09-24T20:59:10.983" LastActivityDate="2020-02-17T22:05:24.200" Title="Is it too late for me to start professional chess?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;tournament&gt;" AnswerCount="13" CommentCount="10" FavoriteCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="7950" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7949" CreationDate="2014-11-30T20:12:26.223" Score="47" Body="&lt;p&gt;I will write from the perspective of my home country, USA. If you are in a different country, you can likely find parallels.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is it too late for me to be ambitious?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is never too late to learn more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I am aiming for a GM title in 5&#xA;  years time. I don't doubt my learning abilities or memory, as is&#xA;  usually the case for the older aspirants, since I solve problems for a&#xA;  living (computer science/ mathematics).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5 years is not much time from going from an amateur skill level to earning a GM title. I am also a CS/Math guy. A good one. It doesn't always translate to chess as my lofty 1650 USCF rating will tell you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;How many hours do serious players put into preparation and analysis? I estimate to be&#xA;  able to put in about 30-35 hours a week.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That should do it.  Expect to be very good in 5.5 years of extremely focused work. (10,000 hours for mastery...)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;How many tournaments/ games does it take to be a GM?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unanswerable. But expect hundreds and hundreds of serious, focused games. Not blitz. Tournament speed games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is 5 years too less? I am imagining playing 3-4 tournaments a year.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is hard to image anyone with no over-the-board rating can become a GM in 5 years. A few young adults do it and they get their names in Chess Life for it. You need to be playing serious games every week. Plan on some sort of a local tournament every month, plan on 3 or 4 nights at your local chess club playing opponents as serious as you are.  And get an instructor.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;How does one find the right tournaments? I don't want to travel too far. Also I don't&#xA;  want to pay hefty fees to enter tournaments. And the participants should be all roughly&#xA;  around my level or slightly better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;USCF tournaments are generally very affordable as chess is not a profitable venture for 99% of the participants. Check the USCF web site for chess clubs near you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Becoming a professional at anything worthwhile is not cheap. Expect to pay thousands annually in hotels, food, transportation, instruction, equipment, entry fees, and so forth.  If you aren't willing to invest you should temper your expectations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;How much a rating of 1900 on chess.com translate to in real?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It doesn't. There is no reliable way to compare that rating with any other rating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You've set yourself a lofty goal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I recommend you play some rated games and earn a rating. This will tell you how hard you'll have to work to become a GM. Let's say your rating is 2000 USCF.  That's an very respectable 'expert' rating. To be a GM, you would have to improve to about an 2600 USCF.   So you'll need 600 points. Every 400 points of improvement means that your old self would have no appreciable chance of defeating your new self. So you'd have to make a Herculean 400 pt improvement, &lt;em&gt;and then become dominant over that new self&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="1761" LastEditDate="2014-12-02T19:30:32.813" LastActivityDate="2014-12-02T19:30:32.813" CommentCount="15" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7951" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7949" CreationDate="2014-11-30T21:20:49.133" Score="38" Body="&lt;p&gt;It depends what you mean by 'professional'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to support yourself solely by playing tournaments, the answer is definitely no. At the very least that would require being in the top 50 in the world which takes a lifetime of work starting at a very young age.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to support yourself by playing and teaching, that is much more feasible. Provided that you are charismatic and can demonstrably improve your students, you could probably make it work with a low master title in the US.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to get to GM and not really care about making money from it, that is possible. At 30-35 hours a week I would say that 5 years is ambitious but doable. Almost nobody has the drive to actually put in that much work though, which is why it is rare.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tournaments: 3-4 tournaments a year is way, way too low. To get to GM like that you would have to make massive rating gains in every tournament you play, which is not a realistic plan. You should be aiming to play every single weekend at long time controls. Your opponents should be as strong as you can possibly find. This is tough to do in the US unless you live in a few select areas: New York City, San Francisco, Dallas and maybe Saint Louis and Los Angeles would fit the criteria.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You have to study the right things. Read the spine off of Dvoretsky's Endgame Manual. Do hard calculation puzzles on a daily basis. Play through tons of high-level games. Don't look at opening theory until you're &gt;2300. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I hope you succeed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3270" LastEditorUserId="3270" LastEditDate="2014-11-30T22:30:30.827" LastActivityDate="2014-11-30T22:30:30.827" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7952" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7922" CreationDate="2014-11-30T23:17:23.093" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I might be misinterpreting your question but it seems that you're asking something like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;My computer says that such-and-such a variation of the Sicilian defence is really strong for white but it never comes up in games between strong players. Has my computer made a mistake?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No, your computer hasn't made a mistake. The reason that this variation never comes up in games between strong players is that it's too good for White. Black has plenty of better options than allowing White to get into this position. Black's a whole pawn down, he has an isolated pawn and he still has a lot of work to do to get his pieces into the game; in contrast, after something like Bb5 and Rhe1, White has everything developed, has full control of the open e-file and is aiming a lot of material at the vulnerable e8 square.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black's mistake is 3...&amp;nbsp;e6, which looks like it controls d5 but doesn't because white can just play 4.d5 and either win a pawn or kick Black's knight around.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ultimately, the point of 1...&amp;nbsp;c5 is to prevent White from playing d4 because, if he does, Black will exchange his c-pawn for White's more valuable d-pawn. Typically, White says &quot;I don't care!&quot; and plays d4 anyway, since exchanging pawns on d4 gives White a strongly placed piece in the centre. Because Black doesn't have a c-pawn any more, he probably doesn't want to play ...&amp;nbsp;e5 to push the piece from d4, because that would leave his own d-pawn backward and vulnerable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, after 3...&amp;nbsp;e6, there's nothing particularly bad about 4.Nc3, &lt;em&gt;per se&lt;/em&gt;. Indeed, after 4.Nc3 cxd4 5.Nxd4, we've reached a perfectly normal variation of the Sicilian via a different move order: the normal route to that position is 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 e6 5.Nc3.  Both sides have a decent position; the only problem with 4.Nc3 is that it fails to punish Black's mistake.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2789" LastActivityDate="2014-11-30T23:17:23.093" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7953" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7949" CreationDate="2014-12-01T03:19:55.887" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;Hate to dash your dreams but 15-20 tournaments (especially in the US, but pretty much anywhere) is not going to cut it, even if it were granted that 1900 on chess.com directly translated to 1900USCF.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) Ratings involving different pools of players will of necessity diverge. It's the nature of the mathematics involved, so I can say with a great degree of certainty that 1900 chess.com will not translate to 1900 anywhere else on the planet. The rating is an approximate ordering within a given population. If the population differs, the number representing that playing strength will differ.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) It will, again with near certainty, be impossible to select tournaments in which all players will be near the same rating level, regardless of the rating level you choose.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) For the most part, it will be impossible to find tournaments with a significant number of players at the higher end of your proposed scale without paying large entry fees. (There will be more exceptions to this than the first two points, but still not very many.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4) Probabilities are against you. I'm most familiar with USCF ratings so this math will apply to them, but it won't be all that different in other places. If you play someone exactly your rating, you can gain a max of 16 rating points by beating them. In order to gain 600 rating points (assume the 1900 is ELO, 2500 is minimum rating to be awarded the GM title) that means you will have to score +38 against that pool of opponents. That works out to +2 in every single tournament for five years. Haven't checked, but I seriously doubt anyone this side of Kasparov has managed that feat. For example: Magnus Carlsen played 50 games in 2012, and only managed a +17 score for the year, so unless you're farther above everybody than Carlsen is, the odds are pretty heavily stacked against you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;IIRC, only one person went several years without a defeat in history; that was Capablanca. If you're as good as he was, you have a chance, I guess. Otherwise you're going to have to expect to lose games along the way. To be +7 every year for five years will be an impressive achievement. to be +7 any year while playing opposition whose actual strength is 100 points below yours while their rating is equal to yours would require a minimum of 25 games. Make the difference 50 points and the number of games goes over 28.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, it might surprise you to know very few GM's even are making a living off of chess tournaments. Most make their living writing or teaching, not playing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="657" LastActivityDate="2014-12-01T03:19:55.887" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7954" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7932" CreationDate="2014-12-01T03:21:52.840" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You could try &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caro%E2%80%93Kann_Defence&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Caro-Kann Defense&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Defence&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;French Defense&lt;/a&gt;. Both are famous for being very solid and less risky.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3158" LastActivityDate="2014-12-01T03:21:52.840" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7955" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="7957" CreationDate="2014-12-01T07:04:11.390" Score="8" ViewCount="761" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can white force this position&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    [Title &quot;KN vs K&quot;]&#xA;    [FEN &quot;8/8/8/8/8/8/5k1N/7K w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;into this position?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    [Title &quot;KN vs K&quot;]&#xA;    [FEN &quot;k7/8/1K1N4/8/8/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Background:&#xA;Yesterday I finally figured out the &lt;strong&gt;KBN vs K&lt;/strong&gt; after one year of trial and error. Solving endgame problems like this is like crack to my brain. The 'fifth' &lt;em&gt;fundamental checkmate&lt;/em&gt; and next in line seems to be the &lt;strong&gt;KNN vs KP&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this game, one of the Ns only play a passive role, with the other N and the K are doing all the moves, I started wondering if the same approach is possible in the &lt;strong&gt;KBN vs K&lt;/strong&gt;: Force the king to the corner with only K and N, and then deliberately deliver the checkmate with on B's first move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any concrete suggestions that could lead to an answer will be greatly appreciated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A related question: is there an engine that can search for such non-checkmate positions?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1906" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-03-12T17:17:15.850" LastActivityDate="2020-08-04T03:57:58.503" Title="Can K + N vs K force black into any corner?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;knights&gt;&lt;knight-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7956" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="7959" CreationDate="2014-12-01T07:32:24.113" Score="7" ViewCount="9193" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a begineer level player on &lt;a href=&quot;http://chess.com&quot;&gt;chess.com&lt;/a&gt; with rating around 1500. I play daily 2-3 games with &lt;code&gt;15|10&lt;/code&gt; mins time control for each player. I find it difficult to get time to study chess books, and was thinking of playing against a Chess Engine. I have &lt;code&gt;Shredder&lt;/code&gt; Chess installed in my system.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How can I make use of it to help improve my games. I set it at the highest strength and play though I have the option to take back and replay my moves. How to make the best use of the Chess engines?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="838" LastActivityDate="2015-05-13T03:20:08.007" Title="Can playing against Computer help?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;learning&gt;&lt;engines&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;middlegame&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="9" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7957" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7955" CreationDate="2014-12-01T08:22:33.200" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am not aware of being able to use an engine to calculate the possibility of such moves and no it is not possible to do this with one knight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The easiest way to figure this out is by backtracking the position by one or two moves. No matter in which position the white king or knight were before this situation arose, black was not obligated to move to the corner of the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1k6/8/K2N4/8/8/8/8/8 w - - 0 0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;black can move to C7&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;8/k7/2KN4/8/8/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;black can move to A6&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;8/k1K5/3N4/8/8/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;black can move to A6 here as well&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;2k5/8/1K6/1N6/8/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And Regardless of the position of the Knight the black king has a square on D8 to go to.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only way to actually get this done is if the king was in the corner to begin with:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;k7/8/1K6/1N6/8/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4093" LastActivityDate="2014-12-01T08:22:33.200" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7958" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7949" CreationDate="2014-12-01T08:40:51.937" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is never too late to start, but you have to weigh your available resources (mainly time, and energy) against your potential achievements (2200 rating? title? norms?). For most people, the cost-benefit analysis does not justify the huge time investment mandated by a &quot;professional&quot; involvement. They can continue to compete in rated events like professional players out of interest, but they do not consider themselves as playing professionally.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="46" LastEditorUserId="46" LastEditDate="2014-12-02T00:12:39.827" LastActivityDate="2014-12-02T00:12:39.827" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7959" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7956" CreationDate="2014-12-01T09:52:35.287" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;For computer engines it is much harder to simulate a &quot;human&quot; style than just playing good. If you want to improve your play against humans, play against humans. Use the engines to analyze your games. As already commented, fast or blitz games (but please not faster that ~5 min, as the &quot;quality&quot; of the games decreases rapidly at this point) are a good way to learn to &quot;see&quot; quickly dangers and opportunities, and to have more tactics as usual on the board (as positional play becomes only important after you don't lose most games tactically). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I recommend &lt;a href=&quot;http://lichess.org&quot;&gt;lichess.org&lt;/a&gt;, which is free and offers (at least) three nice features: Computer assisted error checking after games, training positions from real games, and invitation by eMail &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="35" LastActivityDate="2014-12-01T09:52:35.287" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7961" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7949" CreationDate="2014-12-01T10:05:44.407" Score="21" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think aiming for GM is really unrealistic. Aiming for the GM title is something that players do who are IM, have improved since, and feel they want to push further.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think that amount of preparation time could work, but it's not the most important thing. Most important is &lt;em&gt;playing serious tournament games&lt;/em&gt;. Chess is not about knowledge, it's about skill, and you learn by doing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am baffled by the idea of not wanting to travel much and not wanting to play a lot of tournaments, while striving to be a chess professional. What do you think chess professionals &lt;strong&gt;do&lt;/strong&gt;? Answer: it doesn't involve being at home much. And the only way to become one is to start living that life and becoming really really good at it after many years, before that it only costs money. That's probably the main reason GMs are often so young: they still have parents paying for the first ten years of their hobby.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The vast majority of fanatical tournament players of course never breach 2200 let alone higher levels, so the number is a bit meaningless, but I think most GMs become one after about 500-1000 games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, five years is too few, but more importantly 3-4 tournaments per year is &lt;em&gt;by far&lt;/em&gt; too few.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2014-12-01T10:05:44.407" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7962" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="7968" CreationDate="2014-12-01T10:56:20.133" Score="9" ViewCount="7931" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is generally considered that white has better chances of winning in chess. This is due to white's initiative, since white gets to move first. The difference in chances seems to get more significant, as the level of play gets higher. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, I suppose most grandmasters will choose to play white, whenever they are given the choice (especially in crucial games). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(1) What is the general view on the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_chess#Overview&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Armageddon tiebreak&lt;/a&gt; in that respect? Is there a clear preference in tournament play, or are white and black equally liked in Armageddon? What are opinions on this at the top level?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(2) Take the extreme example. In case of a tie after all classical, rapid and blitz games in a WCh match, there would be a drawing of lots, and the player who wins, gets to choose the colour in the Armageddon game. Which colour would be the choice of most GMs?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Remark.&lt;/em&gt; There are many variants of the Armageddon tiebreak. To avoid ambiguity, let us fix the time control used in the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/FIDE/handbook/FWCM2014.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;rules&lt;/a&gt; for the Anand-Carlsen WCh match 2014:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The player with the white pieces shall receive 5 minutes, the player with the black&#xA;  pieces shall receive 4 minutes whereupon, after the 60th move, both players shall receive an&#xA;  increment of 3 seconds starting from move 61. In case of a draw the player with the black&#xA;  pieces is declared the winner.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2792" LastActivityDate="2020-10-13T07:03:23.563" Title="Which side has the advantage in an Armageddon tiebreak game?" Tags="&lt;statistics&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7963" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7949" CreationDate="2014-12-01T10:57:08.087" Score="27" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think there is only one reasonable answer: You're too old.&#xA;Learning chess is like learning a language. And that's not a metaphor. You learn &quot;chunks&quot; of piece constellations, just like you would learn typical turns of phrase. You get a feeling which phrases and expressions go together and which don't. One day you just know where to put your pieces in certain positions. &#xA;I bring up this comparison, because you probably know people who learnt your language after their teens. Even those that have mastered your language to a very high degree are still recognisable as non native speakers. And of course they garnered much more experience than you could in a 35h week.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could you still learn Chinese well enough to write a decent novel in it?&#xA;Could you still learn to play the violin well enough to make a living in a professional orchestra?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe in some exceptional cases these things are actually possible. But you should rate your success probability as &amp;lt;1%.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not trying to dissuade you from putting in time to improve your chess. But spending five years on chess and chess alone and to expect some financial returns at the end … that's definitely a bad idea. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But fortunately, you don't have to take my word for it. Just put in 10-20h a week for a year and see where it gets you. If you reach 2000 Elo in that time, you clearly have some potential. And anyway, you'll have a much better idea of what you are actually aiming to reach. &#xA;Wanting to become a chess professional without ever having played a tournament game, is a lot like wanting to become a F1-pilot without ever having driven a car. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I remember a blog by somebody setting out to do exactly what you want to do:&#xA;roadtograndmaster.com&#xA;Might give you a better idea of what you are up against.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2014-12-01T22:31:14.363" LastActivityDate="2014-12-01T22:31:14.363" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7964" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7956" CreationDate="2014-12-01T11:23:01.383" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;A computer chess engine obviously shows or plays the best move according to its strength. But in accordance to your improvement in chess given the fact you are a beginner, playing against the highest strength computer might not help you to have the best results. Chess from human point of view and computers point of view are very much different though obviously the rules are same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you are a beginner let me explain you how computer thinks and how beginners should.&#xA;A chess engine plays its best move, by calculating thousands of positions, and many variations from a single position. All it does is Math and because it is a computer it does it quick and  accurate. But beginners can't do that. It is needed to learn the various concepts and ideas of chess to understand a particular position and your improvement in chess depends on how well you understand a particular position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's say you are playing against computer and you end up in a bad position so you take back your moves and make other moves, and then again somewhere end up in a bad position. This does not help you to understand what is going wrong in your chess or how can u improve or what is your actual strength, because how much ever you try, you end up in bad positions because obviously the strength of the engine is so high up to the level of GrandMaster or even higher.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Use your chess engine to analyze your game after you finish it. Playing games of 15:10 time control is good for beginners, do no go into blitz now but a couple of games now and then is fine for fun. Its good for you to play long time control games because there you have more time to think and understand positions occurring from it. You will have time to think of a proper plan which you think is best for a position and then you can make your move accordingly. This also helps in analysis after the game. While analyzing, when chess engine shows some other moves/variation as a better one.. check that line(variation) out completely and there you can find what the plan of the computer was and how was it different from your plan for that particular position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Check this great article, it helps you with various aspects of chess and helps you plan your study in chess from the level of beginners to Advanced. :) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/article/view/study-plan-directory&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;http://www.chess.com/article/view/study-plan-directory&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4354" LastActivityDate="2014-12-01T11:23:01.383" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7965" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7962" CreationDate="2014-12-01T11:39:40.150" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you ask this question to any FIDE officials they will answer you that nobody has advantage. Because ultimately, tiebreaks have to be fair. If it's not fair, then no one will want to play it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, in practical black has an advantage due to the psychological advantage to just hold the draw. In fact, to compensate this, there is a new system of players bidding for time in order to get the sides.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, if A and B is to play off against each other. They will have to offer the time they are willing to take in order to get black, A offers 3 minutes for black against white's 5 minute; B offers 4 minutes to play as black. Hence A wins the bid and the game proceed with 5 minutes for white, and 3 minutes for black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyway, I haven't came across any statistics for armageddon tie breaks. But I am pretty sure that it depends on your style of playing to say that which side is advantageous. For an attacking player, white is obviously better, while for a defending player, black is probably a good choice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3381" LastActivityDate="2014-12-01T11:39:40.150" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7968" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7962" CreationDate="2014-12-01T11:58:53.987" Score="5" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;It is generally considered that white has better chances of winning in chess.&#xA;  This is due to white's initiative, since white gets to move first. The difference&#xA;  in chances seems to get more significant, as the level of play gets higher.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That is completely correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But in an armegeddon game the expected draw ratio is just as important as the white advantage and much more variable over playing strength and time controls. &#xA;So the stronger the players and the longer the time control, the better it is to take black, because a draw becomes more likely. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To give a real life example: A few years back Gata Kamsky became US champ by playing the black pieces with 25 min on the clock against his opponent's 60 min. That's quite a different ratio compared to the Carlsen-Anand tiebreak time control …&#xA;Kamsky's choice was justified by the rather long time control and the high level of competition. With a 2:1 time advantage I (a 2100 Elo player) would have taken white any day.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So there is a tradeoff between time control, playing strength and personal style in as much as they influence the expected draw ratio and the expected white advantage. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2014-12-01T11:58:53.987" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7969" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="7981" CreationDate="2014-12-01T14:03:30.660" Score="2" ViewCount="208" Body="&lt;p&gt;Beside the chess sets and clocks, what materials are needed? I took care of the place, I'm talking about chess materials needed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now lets talk about the materials, I would like to buy them this week, I was looking at wholesalechess.com, but I wanted to ask you first, you are the almighty experts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What I want is to buy,  between 10 or 12 chess sets and 10 or 12 clocks (Do I need something else?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I want free shipping to Lebanon, middle east, I want something that is quality and somehow cheap, I would prefer digital clocks, and club chess sets &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.leschischool.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/Chess-set-13.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;like this&lt;/a&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would like to be able to communicate with the seller, maybe I could ask him for a discount, or ask him for advice. I would like buyer protection, credit card gateway (paypal isn't available in my country) new items, nothing used, fast support, and fast shipping (ideally less than a month).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Second question &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/7970/how-does-a-chess-club-become-recognized-by-fide&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1105" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2015-06-02T12:30:31.400" Title="Opening a chess club" Tags="&lt;chessboards&gt;&lt;chess-clocks&gt;&lt;clubs&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7970" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="7971" CreationDate="2014-12-01T14:06:46.893" Score="9" ViewCount="844" Body="&lt;p&gt;First question &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/7969/opening-a-chess-club&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;, I split it into 2 questions&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What would it take for the club to be recognized by FIDE? At first the club would be a place to have fun, but later on, I would like that the club become recognized  by FIDE, I would like to give the members FIDE ratings and to participate in local and international events.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1105" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-09-22T22:44:12.730" LastActivityDate="2019-09-22T22:44:12.730" Title="How does a chess club become recognized by FIDE?" Tags="&lt;fide&gt;&lt;clubs&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="7971" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7970" CreationDate="2014-12-01T14:26:14.263" Score="7" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What would it take for the club to be recognized by FIDE?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;FIDE does not recognize chess clubs (except perhaps maybe for club world cup competitions?). Depending on your country, your national chess federation (NCF) will likely need to recognize your club to allow you to participate in national team tournaments.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I would like to give the members FIDE ratings&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;FIDE gives the ratings to players who have played in a tournament that has been registered as a FIDE-rated tournament. If you want to organize such a tournament, you should discuss with your NCF.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;and to participate in local and international events.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your NCF may require each player to belong to a club recognized by the NCF before participating in tournaments rated by NCF. In international events, there is no requirement by FIDE to belong to a national club, but each player needs to register with FIDE via the NCF before entering the competition (since July 2014; before that registration was possible after the tournament). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1761" LastActivityDate="2014-12-01T14:26:14.263" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7972" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2014-12-01T16:23:30.907" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2014-12-01T16:23:30.907" LastActivityDate="2014-12-01T16:23:30.907" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7973" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2014-12-01T16:23:30.907" Score="0" Body="The Catalan is the opening characterized by the moves 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.g3." OwnerUserId="4182" LastEditorUserId="4182" LastEditDate="2014-12-01T22:31:27.207" LastActivityDate="2014-12-01T22:31:27.207" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7974" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7956" CreationDate="2014-12-01T18:06:32.713" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As stated above, I would stick to playing games against real people and then analyzing them with your computer engine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3872" LastActivityDate="2014-12-01T18:06:32.713" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7976" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-12-01T19:40:36.510" Score="4" ViewCount="972" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just wanted to ask which is the best way to play against the Glek system. It's quite a rare opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So there are two lines. One line is with Bc5 and the other is with d5. Which line according to you is better for Black, or is there any other system that will bring a better position for Black? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;e4 e5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Nf3 Nc6&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Nc3 Nf6&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;g3&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and the other one is &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;e4 e5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Nc3 Nc6&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;g3&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and in this position one of my opponent developed his knight on e2 instead of f3, cannot call it a Glek system though! But can any one tell the plans to fight this line too?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2516" LastEditorUserId="11202" LastEditDate="2017-05-03T05:46:33.343" LastActivityDate="2020-08-05T22:44:47.170" Title="Best way to play against Glek system?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7977" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8026" CreationDate="2014-12-01T20:38:13.390" Score="5" ViewCount="944" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a graduate student studying statistics and I play chess once in a while for fun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was thinking (just for the fun of it) -- applying some of what I've learned in statistics to chess games: I want to perform statistical analysis of chess games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note: My primary purpose is recreation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Tinkering around&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Re-producing earlier works -- for example how much of an advantage does white have over black&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Looking at mid-game winning patterns&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Etc. etc.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So to that:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I need a large collection of chess games (historic data)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I will then analyze them using R which is a statistical programming language&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I'm looking a collection of games that I can then use as my data set (I would love to get a list of open source chess databases -- commercial chess database might have restrictions on em)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I'm looking for any reference material -- like seminal papers in this area.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4372" LastEditorUserId="4372" LastEditDate="2014-12-08T18:51:25.447" LastActivityDate="2014-12-08T23:16:32.897" Title="Chess Statistics How to?" Tags="&lt;statistics&gt;&lt;chess-algorithms&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7978" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7977" CreationDate="2014-12-01T21:50:53.967" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;That's an unique thing that you are doing. However to help you, to collect most of all the games played by recognized rated players around the world, the below website will help you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://database.chessbase.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;database.chessbase.com/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4354" LastActivityDate="2014-12-01T21:50:53.967" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7979" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7977" CreationDate="2014-12-01T23:47:10.537" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'll leave others to point you a correct database for the games because I'll focus more on the statistical part.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, you need to ask yourself what you want to analyze. If you don't know, you should really ask yourself what problem you want to address. Your question simply say &quot;I want to do something, but I don't know what to do.&quot;. There're infinite ways how a database of chess games can be analyzed. I'll point to you for some areas.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Whether white has an advantage&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Given a large data set, if we assume the games are independent we might strip away the draws. Then we might assume a binomial distribution with p=0.5 and try to detect statistical significance. However, this approach assumes that the players are equal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;There's rumor that Carlsen got most of his points from players older than him (last generation like Anand) but suffers against like Caruana and Giri. Is that true?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You might use a two samples-mean t-test or something like that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Whether Elo rating is really inflated&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Given a set of games between two players (or computers), is one player really better than another?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, Carlsen has beaten Nakamura many games without a loss. Does it mean Carlsen is a better player? Did that happen because Carlsen was simply lucky.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;5&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Correlation between world-number one and world champion&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a positive correlation? Are they independent?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;6&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Whether the Elo rating system really make sense&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There were some articles on Chessbase about it a while ago. I don't remember the names so you'll need google yourself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2014-12-02T09:03:56.057" LastActivityDate="2014-12-02T09:03:56.057" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7980" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7976" CreationDate="2014-12-02T03:26:36.613" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;At one point, I considered picking up the Glek variation, but I found the variation of &lt;strong&gt;4... d5&lt;/strong&gt; to be far too problematic. Keep in mind, that the principle idea of the variation is to retain a knowledge advantage, but most importantly, retain plenty of opportunity for out-playing the opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On this line, the d5 line puts direct challenge to the idea. Further, &lt;strong&gt;5. exd5 Nxd5 6. Bg2 Nxc3 7. bxc3&lt;/strong&gt; From here, you should find a nice niche line. I recommend starting with &lt;strong&gt;7...&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;strong&gt;Bc5&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;strong&gt;Bd6&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you put any length of study into this line, you will face no issue what so ever in this variation. Most important though, especially for this line, is to master the principles of the strategy here instead of long series of lines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Sample Game&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is a nice execution by the French GM Laurent Fressinet where he managed to win against this opening (played against the eponym himself, the German GM Igor Glek)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Katernberg GER&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;13&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Glek, Igor&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Fressinet, Laurent&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;2537&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;2658&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;C47&quot;]&#xA;[Opening &quot;Four Knights&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;111&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. g3 d5 5. exd5 Nxd5 6. Bg2 Nxc3 7. bxc3&#xA;Bc5 8. O-O O-O 9. d3 Bg4 10. h3 Bh5 11. g4 Bg6 12. Ng5 h6 13. Ne4 Bb6 14.&#xA;Ba3 Re8 15. Kh2 Qd7 16. Rb1 Nd8 17. f4 exf4 18. Rxf4 Ne6 19. Rf1 c6 20. Kh1&#xA;Bxe4 21. Bxe4 Ng5 22. Bg2 Re6 23. Rf5 g6 24. Rf4 Rae8 25. Qf1 Bc7 26. Rf6&#xA;Bb8 27. Bc5 Re2 28. Bg1 Rxc2 29. Rf2 Rxc3 30. Re2 Rxe2 31. Qxe2 Rxd3 32. h4&#xA;Ne6 33. Rxb7 Qxb7 34. Qxd3 Qc7 35. Qb3 c5 36. Bd5 Qf4 37. a4 Be5 38. Qf3&#xA;Qxf3+ 39. Bxf3 Bd4 40. Bh2 c4 41. Kg2 c3 42. Bd1 Bf6 43. Bg1 Nd4 44. Bxd4&#xA;Bxd4 45. Kf3 Kg7 46. Kf4 Bf2 47. h5 Kf6 48. Kf3 Bb6 49. Ke4 Kg5 50. Kd3 Ba5&#xA;51. Be2 gxh5 52. gxh5 f5 53. Bd1 Kf4 54. Ke2 Kg3 55. Kf1 f4 56. Bc2 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1042" LastEditorUserId="1042" LastEditDate="2014-12-03T01:25:54.727" LastActivityDate="2014-12-03T01:25:54.727" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7981" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7969" CreationDate="2014-12-02T03:48:22.447" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The manufacturer of the Game Timer II clock used to give a good discount to anyone buying 5+, but that was before they were owned by Excalibur; no idea if they currently do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my experience running a chess foundation, most of the manufacturers are open to quantity discounts, but you need to contact them directly in order to find out what they are. (Often they will give you the same price they give the retailers.) Retailers like wholesalechess.com are often willing to do some discounting, but usually they give you a table on their website of where the quantity breaks come in. Sometimes the price breaks don't happen before 25 or 50, though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bottom line is it never hurts to ask.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for what else, depends on what you're aiming for with the club. Boards, sets and clocks are all you really need to get going. Other supplies might include pencils and scoresheets for official games, a large demo board (or electronic display, depending upon budget -- we typically use demo boards with pockets on each square for the piece) can come in handy if someone is going to give demonstrations or lessons for the club members.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="657" LastActivityDate="2014-12-02T03:48:22.447" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7982" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7914" CreationDate="2014-12-02T03:53:54.537" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Alas, the Sicilian is not an opening for the faint of heart. It strives to exploit the complexity and dynamic nature of the position, so it is quite hard to find shallow solutions. At risk of avoiding your question, I would say that it is best, if you want to avoid theory, to pick up a line more alike the open game. Still, I did my best to show a nice plan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, lets handle the move 2 anti-Sicilians (&lt;strong&gt;2. c3&lt;/strong&gt;). In general, they are in fact designed to reduce complexity, so a small bit of knowledge can go a long way. Against &lt;strong&gt;2. Nc3&lt;/strong&gt;, you should continue with the move that you use against &lt;strong&gt;2. Nf3&lt;/strong&gt;. The closed Sicilian is a relatively complex opening still, but I find that up until 2000 USCF (or 1800 FIDE), Closed Sicilian players do not have a grasp of theory, so you can likely be safe to skim on that section of your study.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Against the Alapin Sicilian, the general recommendation is &lt;strong&gt;2... Nf6&lt;/strong&gt;. However, I think the line &lt;strong&gt;2... e6&lt;/strong&gt; is underrated, so you may be able to use it to avoid theory. After all, particulars have to be studied individually. It is recommendable to find a personal line that is intuitive, but your general idea is to play &lt;strong&gt;d5&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For a generic solution against the open Sicilian &lt;strong&gt;2. Nf3&lt;/strong&gt;, you will want to avoid playing the Najdorf at least as every chess player and there grandmother has a way to play against it. Your try of using a Dragon-esque system was likely difficult as it is a highly theoretical variation and even then, semi-dubious. In addition, it seems troubling to play any line starting with &lt;strong&gt;2... Nc6&lt;/strong&gt; due to the Rossolimo and the very sharp nature of the lines here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My recommendation has to be the Kan variation (&lt;strong&gt;2... e6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 a6&lt;/strong&gt;). While it can be a bit difficult to learn, it is one of the less sharp lines and it is seldom studied by lower rated players. I would try playing around in some relatively short games and seeing where you falter. There is plenty of material on the specifics of the Kan variation, but the general idea is to play Nf6, d6, Be7, O-O, Nbd7, and Re8. This sort of &quot;hedgehog&quot; style position gives plenty of opportunity to both sides and should not require too much theoretical knowledge.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Good luck :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1042" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T18:45:54.050" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T18:45:54.050" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="7983" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7862" CreationDate="2014-12-02T04:02:08.540" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your largest issue here is the fact that you are using mutli-PV at 7. They often yield unreliable results, so I would recommend moving that down to 3 or lower. When I am doing serious analysis, I often keep it on 1 to maximize performance. After all, it takes more than n times longer per depth per PV.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Otherwise, the engine has no issue evaluating the position and does not find a false mate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1042" LastActivityDate="2014-12-02T04:02:08.540" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7984" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7956" CreationDate="2014-12-02T10:08:25.603" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I play against a computer and humans regularly.&#xA;The difference is that a computer is quite happy to throw the 'rule' book away and just do what works in a given position, whereas humans can get fixated on particular ideas.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As an example, I was analysing a position involving a pawn 1 square from promotion. All of the humans were focussed on finding a way to get the pawn to queen, but completely overlooked a completely different tactic forcing mate. It's good to start thinking like this 'unconstrained' way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The other thing that computers are good at is defending. Even strong human players can crumble quickly in the face of a seemingly overwhelming attack. Computers don't get emotional and can keep finding 'must' moves to keep the game alive (which is extremely annoying), you can learn a lot about the art of defense by playing a computer from a position where you have sacrificed significant material for an attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="350" LastActivityDate="2014-12-02T10:08:25.603" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7985" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="914" CreationDate="2014-12-02T19:00:43.937" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are players who have an intuitive talent that sets them apart, even from their world class opponents. I think Tal is one of those players, as is Karpov or Carlsen. Often with those players, there is no strong connection between their style and the openings they play. They just try to &quot;get a position&quot;, because they are able to outplay their opponents in the middle- or endgame. They don't have much of a scientific vibe, unlike players like Kasparov, Kramnik or Botvinnik. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's not to say that Tal didn't play aggressive openings, the benoni is certainly aggressive, as is the sicilian. But he also played rather solid mainline stuff and not only in his later years. I think he was basically ok with any line that kept the queen and enough pieces on.&#xA;If you look through his games, I think you will find that the craziness in them doesn't stem from the opening variations. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So you can certainly copy his openings, but that will not lead to &quot;Tal-like&quot; positions. These are the result of very creative and radical middlegame decisions. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is bit ironic, but if you chose any of Tal's openings, it will probably make sense to look at the games of a more scientific player, who specialized on this variation, to find out how to play it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2014-12-02T19:00:43.937" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7986" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="7989" CreationDate="2014-12-02T23:59:46.310" Score="6" ViewCount="600" Body="&lt;p&gt;I used to play the Caro-Kann a lot as black. One line that I reached many times in advanced variation is: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;   [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. e5 Bf5 4. g4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this position I saw one game where Anand played Bc8 and in my experience this line is very solid. The move Bg6 suffers some pressure from the pawn sacrifice e6, when the development of the bishop on f8 becomes difficult, and white easily controls e5. I saw one game Topalov vs Morozevich where Morozevich played Bg6, but then Topalov did not commit himself with e6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is: should the pawn sacrifice e6 be feared?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2984" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-04-20T10:52:49.800" LastActivityDate="2017-04-20T10:52:49.800" Title="Caro-Kann advanced variation pawn sacrifice" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;caro-kann&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7987" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-12-03T00:18:54.173" Score="1" ViewCount="1158" Body="&lt;p&gt;In one interview, I do not remember when (please if someone knows give the link), Kramnik quoted that the best endgame player is Alexei Shirov... I think this interview was around year 2000. Obviously for anyone to reach the very top level they must be very strong in the endgame. Now, I do not think anyone would support Shirov as the best in endgame because he is not top 20 anymore and the world champion extracts most of his wins in the endgame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Who is the strongest player in endgame nowadays?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2984" LastEditorUserId="550" LastEditDate="2014-12-03T00:44:45.777" LastActivityDate="2014-12-03T10:09:36.517" Title="Best current player in the endgame?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;super-grandmaster&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ClosedDate="2014-12-04T00:23:09.347" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7988" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-12-03T01:31:42.833" Score="3" ViewCount="324" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not sure if this is relevant to chess, so please redirect if necessary. But I figured I would get the best chess-based response here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How would one apply the principles of chess to everyday life?  There is always a lot of talk in fiction about how some character is a great chess prodigy which helps him make lots of money somehow or achieve impossible feats because they can think 20 steps ahead.  This causes me several problems:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Often you are thinking of what you want to accomplish, while your opponent is thinking about what he wishes to accomplish. While we can anticipate their reactions to our moves, how is it possible to anticipate all of the variables when considering the opponents desires AND their reactions to our moves.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;As a result of Problem 1 above, the equation is constantly changing, not only rearranging but also completely reformulating... all in your head.  It is one thing to master maneuvers in the game of chess relative to its rules and layout, but I am talking about translating these skills to any game, or situation in life, and on the fly. Experience in a single task is one thing, but this adaptability I am referring to is another.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;As a result of Problem 1 and 2 above, often times our end moves depend on some key decision or action by our opponent, usually at a crucial point that determines if we will continue with our current strategy or not. Better plans would not rely on this, but this seems to be inevitable. Sure, one can bottleneck their opponent into a situation where they are forced to make the move you desire them to make, or make them think that their move is what they want to do, but this reliance has often proven to be problematic. Not only because it is difficult to anticipate all possible moves, but also because of mere chance and environmental variables (completely uncontrollable and seemingly unforeseeable).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;As a result of Problem 1, 2 and 3 above, it seems unlikely or almost silly to pick out a game plan to begin with, in chess or in life, and move solely towards that goal.  Yes, it is possible to set out on a journey for a particular destination and adjust accordingly to reach that destination when steered off course.  It is also sometimes desirable to sometimes &quot;land&quot; somewhere near your desired destination because near enough is good.  But when people execute plans that are 20 steps in advance and calculate all possible configurations leaving nothing to chance, this seems to me to be impossible or not a reality for most people to able to perform.&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To sum: In fiction and (I think) real life, elaborate plots which involve many variables often tip their hat to a foundation in chess. I understand fiction is fiction, and many of these plots are unrealistic, but is it possible to think this way without being a savant?&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;CLARIFICATION:&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I changed the title to reflect that the question is mainly dealing with elaborate endgame strategies. These occurs both in life and also, I believe, in chess. Clearly, I am not an avid chess player, although I have a working knowledge of the game. Perhaps my understanding of how different chess strategies work and how agile they can be, but you often hear about people playing the game in their head before it is actually played which would seem to be a useful skill if applied to a majority of such sequentially reactive tasks. From the answers I have received thus far, it seems that there is very little correlation in between good at chess an then being good at something else with little practice of a result of having their chess skills. When I say &quot;something else&quot;, I am mainly referring to life and dealing with its problems, which could be reduced down to a sequentially reactive series or tasks.  From what it sounds like, the reverse may be as equally true: someone good at business, sports, military or other strategic game might have a propensity for chess when first beginning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is not a philosophy forum, I understand. But if I asked this question in the Philosophy section, how many knowledgeable chess players would be answering?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To finalize my point: mastery of the strategy game &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_%28game%29&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;&quot;Go&quot;&lt;/a&gt;, or &quot;Wei Qi&quot;/&quot;Weiqi&quot; in Chinese, is one of the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Arts&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;four cultivated arts&lt;/a&gt;, and was probably considered this due to the strategy-based techniques it requires and mental abilities it may (or may not) develop. This has not been proven, if you believe what you read in the 'Psychology' section of the &quot;Go&quot; Wikipedia article. This game shares many fundamental qualities with chess, in my opinion, so I was curious if chess also cultivates something more in a human being than, say, playing a musical instrument or a sport.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And then to bring it full circle and lose even more readers:&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;This question may have been two seperate parts that I was trying to combine into one.&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;1. Does elaborate endgame strategy truly work despite my claims for Problems #1, #2, #3 and #4 in the original section of this post?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;2. Can the elaborate endgame strategy learned and used in chess be applied to life directly?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4382" LastEditorUserId="4382" LastEditDate="2014-12-04T21:45:25.157" LastActivityDate="2014-12-04T21:45:25.157" Title="Chess As It Relates To Elaborate Endgame Strategies" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="0" ClosedDate="2014-12-10T09:31:45.713" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7989" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7986" CreationDate="2014-12-03T02:34:20.957" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The move &lt;strong&gt;4. g4&lt;/strong&gt; is slightly dubious compared to the more solid option of &lt;strong&gt;4. Nc3&lt;/strong&gt; (among Nc3), as it forces white to play &lt;strong&gt;5. f3&lt;/strong&gt; if black opts for the mainline &lt;strong&gt;4... Be4&lt;/strong&gt;. Therefore I recommend this choice in general. It does, to an extent, weaken the idea of &lt;strong&gt;e6&lt;/strong&gt;. However, &lt;strong&gt;4... Bg6&lt;/strong&gt; is an option and a more common one at that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The pawn sacrifice is actually quite common at the amateur level and can be an issue for the unprepared. Your most principled choice in your line is &lt;strong&gt;5... fxe6&lt;/strong&gt; and it does work quite often well. After the mainline (if it can be so called) &lt;strong&gt;6. Bd3&lt;/strong&gt;, black should continue &lt;strong&gt;6... Bxd3 7. Qxd3 Qd6&lt;/strong&gt; followed by the eventual fianchettoing of the bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While this will not give you a simple win as black, it is clear that black's position is at least equal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1042" LastEditorUserId="11202" LastEditDate="2017-04-20T07:17:44.357" LastActivityDate="2017-04-20T07:17:44.357" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7990" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7987" CreationDate="2014-12-03T05:52:45.640" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The blatantly obvious answer would be Magnus Carlsen who is also the No.1 player in the world, his ability to squeeze out wins from drawn endings is unsurpassed (with a few exceptions, e.g Andersson and Smyslov). Other than that I would naturally consider Vladimir Kramnik, although it is very hard to draw the lines between the various stages of the game nowadays as most of the top players nowadays are extremely versatile and have a universal style of play. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3357" LastActivityDate="2014-12-03T05:52:45.640" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7992" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7988" CreationDate="2014-12-03T10:22:35.947" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Based on my personal opinion: I'm not sure I understand your question entirely, but if your question is: &quot;does chess help you solve everyday life problems&quot;, I would say not more so than any other sport/hobby/(insert some thing that requires skill to master).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I saw an excerp from a documentary about chess players being made around the time of the Olympiad in Tromso, where the narrator makes a statement similar to: &quot;I'm going to ask the best minds in the world how they would go about fixing the world&quot;. Part of the documentary featured Kramnik in explaining how he is shocked at how business people fail to &quot;consider the moves of their opponents, which comes naturally for me as a chess player&quot;. I stopped watching at that point, because I think the documentary failed in its premise.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess GM's or players do not have superior minds, better thinking ability, higher IQ's or any other special intrinsic skill that &quot;ordinary&quot; people do not have, except for one - they are better at playing chess. People get good at something if they devote time to it, find it interesting, keep at it and yes, have some talent and psychological traits for it. Being good at chess does not mean you are going to be good at anything else (i.e. business, politics, maths, whatever). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, that means I don't think Kramnik's view on how to go about doing business means much. I'm not saying he is necessarily &lt;em&gt;ignorant&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;uninformed&lt;/em&gt;, but the fact that he is a super GM at chess gives him no credentials to comment about doing business any more than if we were to ask Bono, Stephen Hawkins or Messi.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1816" LastEditorUserId="1816" LastEditDate="2014-12-03T10:28:49.093" LastActivityDate="2014-12-03T10:28:49.093" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7993" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7988" CreationDate="2014-12-03T12:39:35.743" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Garry Kasparov wrote a book called &lt;em&gt;How Life Imitates Chess&lt;/em&gt;, where he considers parallels between the two.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I will point out that this is a controversial topic though. For example, its been observed that strong chess players have strong memories, but does that apply off the chessboard?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyway, chess &lt;em&gt;may&lt;/em&gt; help you develop transferable skills, such as logic, predicting competitors' actions, building a strong memory etc., but the jury seems to be out on this one. But not many people would argue that playing chess gives you exceptional abilities as described in popular fiction.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2014-12-03T12:39:35.743" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7994" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7914" CreationDate="2014-12-03T15:02:19.687" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There actually is one (semi-respectable) sicilian, that really cuts down on white's options: The Nimzo-Sicilian.&#xA;The Nimzo-Sicilian is characterised by the moves 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nf6!?&#xA;Now 3.d4 hangs the e4 pawn … you will encounter that a lot in blitz.&#xA;After 3.Nc3 there is 3…d5 leaving the usual sicilian structures behind.&#xA;After 3.e5 you play 3…Nd5, where play can transpose to the Alapin.&#xA;The very sharp mainline is a pawnsac 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.e5 Nd5 4.Nc3 e6 5.Nd5 ed 6.d4 Nc6 7.dc Bc5 8.Qd5 Qb6 …&#xA;After 1.e4 c5 2.Nc3 you have to play 2…e6 first. Here you can chose to go for a number of variations, maybe the Kan is actually a good choice. But you have to realise that 2.Nc3 is already a concession by white: Even the accelerated dragon is now better than after 2.Nf3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now this seems like a pile of variations already, so what did you actually gain?&#xA;- No Bb5-variations (and you could still transpose to the Sveshnikov!).&#xA;- No Maroczy-bind: Which is a nice way to play against the Kan via 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 e6 3.c4 ...&#xA;- The GrandPrix-Attack (1.e4 c5 2.Nc3 …3.f4) is not as strong as against 2.d6 (because you are ready to play d5 in one move).&#xA;- You can play the same move against the Alapin (2.c3 Nf6).&#xA;- The Nimzo-Sicilian is very rare, so usually your opponents won't have much of a clue about it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So why doesn't anybody play it? In the pawnsac-mainline the current theoretical assessment is a worse endgame for black, that probably deters GMs. But to get there white has to survive several tactical shots with a king in the middle of the board and playing this mainline isn't even forced for black!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have played it for years and it usually leads to an open fight, where both sides are quickly out of book (my opponent, because the variation is so rare, and I, because I'm to lazy to prepare).&#xA;To me the Nimzo Sicilian is also an transposition paradise: You can cut out a lot of options for your opponent and still often reach the Kan or Sveshnikov. It is also a pain for Bb5 or Maroczy-players, because they suddenly realise that they didn't actually solve their &quot;sicilian problem&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2014-12-03T15:02:19.687" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7995" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-12-03T22:37:54.837" Score="9" ViewCount="675" Body="&lt;p&gt;After:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Nf3 Bf5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I want to put a lot of pressure in black's position, I used to follow the game with:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5.cxd5 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And here black has two major options:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i) 5... cxd5&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;rn1qkb1r/pp2pppp/2p2n2/3P1b2/3P4/2N2N2/PP2PPPP/R1BQKB1R b KQkq - 0 5&#xA;&#xA;5... cxd5 6.Qb3 Qb6 7.Nxd5 Qxb3 8.Nxf6+ exf6 9.axb3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think it's very good for white&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ii) 5... Nxd5, and here I found searching in a database a move that looks like strong, Nd2!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;rn1qkb1r/pp2pppp/2p2n2/3P1b2/3P4/2N2N2/PP2PPPP/R1BQKB1R b KQkq - 0 5&#xA;&#xA;5... Nxd5 6. Nd2 e6 7.e4 Nxc3 8.bxc3 Bg6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And in this position white has a solid center and looks for me a little better&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I want more, how should I continue after 4...Bf5?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2984" LastEditorUserId="2984" LastEditDate="2014-12-04T09:04:07.877" LastActivityDate="2016-02-02T18:11:26.273" Title="slav defense, black's bishop early development punishment" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;slav-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7996" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="693" CreationDate="2014-12-04T00:18:23.940" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Try &lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.dorisstreetgames.chessrun&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot; title=&quot;Chess Run&quot;&gt;Chess Run&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's a chess-based platform game - not a pure chess game but a platform game featuring the standard chess pieces which are used to cross a burning board filled with enemy pieces.&#xA;You have the option of highlighting squares that your pieces can move to so it's a good way of learning the moves. It's also fast-paced so will help with speed chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4389" LastActivityDate="2014-12-04T00:18:23.940" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7997" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="848" CreationDate="2014-12-04T10:54:36.320" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;What always comes across as pretty impressive, is blindfold chess. But of course &quot;wow&quot;ing people is different from convincing them something is fun. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also think blitz usually comes across as dynamic and fun, especially if you can show the game on a big screen with some good commentary. Another idea is to have the clock on an separate table so you always have to do a little sprint to press your clock. That definitely involves a lot of action.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But you also have to consider whether it really should be your objective to win over those people, who have a decidedly negative attitude towards chess. &#xA;Chess IS an activity, where you sit down for hours and think. The attraction of chess, is the attraction of mental activity. So you definitely shouldn't move to much away from that, just to accommodate people who aren't interested anyway.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2014-12-04T10:54:36.320" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7998" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2422" CreationDate="2014-12-04T11:31:15.717" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think Daniel's answer is excellent (+1) but want to add a few thoughts anyway.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Would a 32-piece tablebase really replace chess engines?&#xA;The answer is definitely no!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To play good chess, more information is needed than whether a move is winning, drawing or losing. Of course such a database would be unbeatable, but it would hardly beat anybody either. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To play chess strongly it is not enough to chose a non-losing move at every turn. Of the many drawing moves in each position, there are only a few that put real pressure on the opponent. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Existing chess engines are made significantly stronger by accessing tablebases. But as the databases grow, the access time would become a prohibiting factor long before using every atom in the universe for memory ;-).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I think your conclusion is just wrong:&#xA;Such a database would never lose and hardly ever win. It wouldn't tell us anything about openings except that almost all of them are draws.&#xA;We could probably devise new algorithms to mine this database and come up with interesting conclusions about all kinds of positions, but I think this wouldn't change the world of chess in any significant way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2014-12-04T11:31:15.717" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="7999" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="848" CreationDate="2014-12-04T18:48:52.690" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;A couple ideas...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) I remember kids really loved &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_Chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;battle chess&lt;/a&gt; back in the day...  Its fun seeing the pieces actually fight.  I bet it wouldn't be too hard to resurrect that computer program.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) I remember kids at the Berkeley Chess club were really into &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bughouse_chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Bughouse chess&lt;/a&gt;... having a teammate made for crazy complication and cooperation.  It tended to be a much noisier game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="606" LastActivityDate="2014-12-04T18:48:52.690" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8000" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5660" CreationDate="2014-12-04T18:59:25.253" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;judochess.com is the new tempest chess website, there are some highly skilled players but servers sometimes lag&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4393" LastActivityDate="2014-12-04T18:59:25.253" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8003" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8005" CreationDate="2014-12-04T20:45:36.907" Score="2" ViewCount="138" Body="&lt;p&gt;After being squeezed for an entire game I got the chance to ease my position with a pawn exchange. Incidentally, this would open lines for my pieces to attack opponent's weakened king. I played &lt;code&gt;...b6-b5&lt;/code&gt; in the position below, and won. Computer played badly so I ask here for help to determine objective assessment of the below position -&gt; does &lt;code&gt;...b6-b5&lt;/code&gt; give equality for Black or can he aim for more?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Black to move&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;2r3k1/p4p1p/qp2p1p1/4Q3/2PR1P2/P7/1P4PP/7K b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1...b5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;EDIT:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To help the viewers understand the nature of this question, here are the lines I saw that convinced me that Black suddenly gets good chances after &lt;code&gt;...b5&lt;/code&gt; :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Black to move&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;2r3k1/p4p1p/qp2p1p1/4Q3/2PR1P2/P7/1P4PP/7K b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1...b5 2.c5 (2.Rd7 (2.cxb5? Rc1+) 2...bxc4 3.Qf6 Rf8 4.Qe7 {Trying to win back the pawn} c3! {With the threat of Qf1 checkmate, and cxb2 Black should win in my opinion} ) 2...b4! {Threatening Qf1 checkmate} 3.Qe3 $8 bxa3 4.bxa3 $8 (4.Qxa3? Qf1$) 4...Qf1 5.Qg1 Qxg1+ 6.Kxg1 Rxc5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think &lt;code&gt;2.Rd6&lt;/code&gt; was played in the game but I can't remember what happened nor what I had in mind as a response... Since it is clear that after that move Black must defend, my question is answered -&gt; Black can not aim for more than an equality :(&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastEditorUserId="2042" LastEditDate="2014-12-05T07:32:56.103" LastActivityDate="2014-12-05T07:32:56.103" Title="Does ...b5 give Black an advantage?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8004" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-12-04T22:30:00.637" Score="1" ViewCount="7213" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am looking for a relatively up to date opening book for stockfish5 chess engine. I do not need it to be created by a stockfish team (only to work together with stockfish).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Up till now the only thing I was able to find is &lt;a href=&quot;http://support.stockfishchess.org/discussions/questions/767-opening-book&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;really old book&lt;/a&gt; (it was updated during the time of version 2).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there anything newer?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="703" LastActivityDate="2016-07-25T20:36:44.190" Title="Opening book for stockfish" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8005" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8003" CreationDate="2014-12-05T01:10:11.200" Score="3" Body="&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Rd6 followed up with 3. c5 looks strong for White, unless I am missing some obvious tactics.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3774" LastActivityDate="2014-12-05T01:10:11.200" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8007" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4517" CreationDate="2014-12-05T07:07:53.503" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I played the Yugoslav attack when a IM played the Dragon against me, and in my chess area they do not know how to play the Dragon variations with me. It's quite solid with lots of tactical opportunities, however it's also dangerous for both sides so be careful when playing it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2527" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2019-01-22T14:34:59.780" LastActivityDate="2019-01-22T14:34:59.780" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="8008" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-12-05T11:41:21.980" Score="1" ViewCount="453" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have recently umm downloaded the Dragon Cookbook from Chessbase. It is filled with human and computer games in the dragon. The thing is, are previously played computer games allowed to be seen in correspondence chess? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3405" LastActivityDate="2014-12-06T13:21:33.370" Title="Is studying computer games legal in correspondence chess?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;engines&gt;&lt;correspondence-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8009" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8008" CreationDate="2014-12-05T11:52:09.593" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is not illegal to view and use previously played Chess games, some people even use Chess Analyse programs while playing on (for example) the internet. However most websites do not allow you to use programs to gain benefits over other players, including but not limited to analyzers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ofcourse it is allowed to study previously played Chess games, you can even learn a lot from them!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4396" LastActivityDate="2014-12-05T11:52:09.593" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8010" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8008" CreationDate="2014-12-05T20:14:25.590" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;On chess.com, use of books and game databases is allowed. Use of engines and tablebases is not. Your book is either a book or a game database and therefore fine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are also sites that don't allow any outside help (no books, no databases), and on the other hand the ICCF (the offiical FIDE-affiliated Correspondence Federation that is also completely online nowadays) does allow engine use, so it's best to always check the rules of the actual site you're using.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2014-12-05T20:14:25.590" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8011" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8012" CreationDate="2014-12-05T22:34:35.880" Score="1" ViewCount="840" Body="&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.budva2013.org/live/d/tfd.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.budva2013.org/live/d/tfd.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have no particular interest in this tournament, but I often seen displays like this and wish to extract games without needing to type them out manually. Is there some way to download the PGNs?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1752" LastActivityDate="2018-02-10T18:40:22.397" Title="Is there any way to extract PGNs from a DGT live games presentation?" Tags="&lt;pgn&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8012" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8011" CreationDate="2014-12-05T23:07:23.213" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.budva2013.org/live/d/tfd.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.budva2013.org/live/d/tfd.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you remove the last file name, you get the listing of the contents of the directory:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.budva2013.org/live/d/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.budva2013.org/live/d/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The .txt files are files used by the Flash program to find the moves. But there also is a pgn file:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.budva2013.org/live/d/games.pgn&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.budva2013.org/live/d/games.pgn&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, if I recall correctly, the pgn file does not always exist. If it does not exist, one way would be to write a script that parses the pos##.txt files which contain all moves even when the games are ongoing. I thought of doing that before the pgn files started appearing (probably an update of the dgt software?) in the directories, but never got started.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1761" LastActivityDate="2014-12-05T23:07:23.213" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8013" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4588" CreationDate="2014-12-06T05:10:05.573" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Problem with d-pawn openings is that you won't get away without learning substantial amount of theory.This goes true for every single line from systems like Stonewall and Colle to Queen's Indian Defense. I don't really know of a system which doesn't require the enormous amount theory generally associated with d-pawn openings. Chigorin has very little theory associated with it because it is a an unusual opening and its theory is not very well developed. Here are some suggestions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Against 1.d4 d5 2.c4 you can try Albin Counter Gambit (ECO:D08–D09). This is an attempt get out of well developed theoretical lines of Queen's Gambit.(Morozevich is the only one who regularly this variation at Master level.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. c4  e5&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If you like tactical positions and imbalances,you could try Modern Benoni(ECO:A60–A79)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 Nf6 2.c4 c5 3.d5 e6 4.Nc3 exd5 5. cxd5 d6*&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If you are looking for solid positional play,you could try Modern Defense(ECO:B06).(I would recommend this since you can use it against King pawn openings as well)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note: It is actually categorised Under King Pawn openings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 g6 2. e4 Bg7&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;My personal favorite against Queen's Gambit is Tarrasch Defense(ECO:D32–D34).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 c5&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If any of above openings Doesn't seem appealing , you can try Dutch Defense(ECO:A80–A99).Hikaru Nakamura plays this opening a lot by the way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[FEN &quot;put your fen here but it's optional. You can leave this tag out&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 f5 *&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I do love King's Indian Defense. But I love smashing it as white(Again you will have to &#xA;   learn ridiculous a lot of theory here.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Have fun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A little edit: This is all assuming that you don't want to bolster the position up and go for a draw playing Slav Defense(ECO:D10–D19)(This doesn't help because you must learn almost the same amount of theory you have to learn to play Queen's Gambit Declined).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4106" LastEditorUserId="4106" LastEditDate="2014-12-06T05:23:14.910" LastActivityDate="2014-12-06T05:23:14.910" CommentCount="0" CommunityOwnedDate="2014-12-06T05:10:05.573" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8014" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7932" CreationDate="2014-12-06T05:48:42.360" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you are looking defensive openings for black I would recommend Caro Kann Against 1.e4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Slav defense against 1.d4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. c4 c6&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Be careful though, Because Caro Kann isn't exactly an opening for beginners and Some variations of Slav can lead to position requiring precise Tactical play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4106" LastActivityDate="2014-12-06T05:48:42.360" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8017" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7932" CreationDate="2014-12-06T13:34:26.710" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In a standard French exchange defense the goal is to reach the endgame as soon as possible. It typically leaves the king's rook file open with pawns on b2, b3, and c2 for white and vice versa for black and a castled king-side. Only the rooks and queens are left in play. Besides all the exchanges it leads to a long and tedious (very passive)endgame.&#xA;In my studies I find the Sicilian dragon in response to the English fianchetto (copy cat essentially) leads to a waiting game until the first decides to make an advancing move. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ultimately however it all relies on the player. Garry Kasparov for example loves to attack and with devastating effect. However one can choose to play passive and slowly take their opponent down. The best advice would be to experiment with all the defenses mentioned and see which you prefer or find some of your own.&#xA;Best of luck with your search!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4402" LastActivityDate="2014-12-06T13:34:26.710" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8018" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-12-06T16:29:51.473" Score="3" ViewCount="99" Body="&lt;p&gt;I use Fritz 13, and in Blundercheck mode on a batch of games won by White, only want it to point out alternatives for the winner, that is white (I don't expect to have very many suggestions for improvement, because the games are selected as good wins by White). Yet I get a bunch of suggestions for improvement for Black, regardless of whether I pick &quot;Side to analyze&quot; as 'White' or 'Winner'. It seems that the output is the same whether I pick that, or 'Both'. Is this a bug in Fritz? Is anyone else seeing it work properly?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="618" LastEditorUserId="4182" LastEditDate="2014-12-06T22:46:59.750" LastActivityDate="2014-12-06T22:46:59.750" Title="Does Fritz &quot;Blunder Check&quot; mode respect &quot;Side to Analyze&quot; option?" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;fritz&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2019-06-23T09:13:16.713" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8019" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8023" CreationDate="2014-12-06T17:29:53.157" Score="0" ViewCount="3374" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm black a lot and I really like being offensive, but turning it around on white can be really hard, so what's a good opening?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Please don't say fools mate or scholar's mate etc.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3812" LastActivityDate="2015-01-06T22:40:49.903" Title="What's the most offensive opening for Black?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;attack&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8020" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8019" CreationDate="2014-12-06T17:38:04.227" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;My kind of man! I love playing aggressive as black and I have found that the Sicilian works well. Its many variations can lead to passive or aggressive games. Until recently I favoured the dragon variation which fianchettoes you bishop in front of your king-side castled king. Now I have found a new line that I enjoy more. e4 c5, Nf3 e6, and if white plays d4 go d5. I love this counter attack because it can go badly for white either way he takes. It is called Marshall counter attack. e5 follows the develop Nc6. This will not happen all the time but it sets you up for a strong central positions with lots of modes of attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pp3ppp/4p3/2pp4/3PP3/5N2/PPP2PPP/RNBQKB1R w KQkq d6 0 4&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4402" LastEditorUserId="4402" LastEditDate="2015-01-06T22:24:12.123" LastActivityDate="2015-01-06T22:24:12.123" CommentCount="19" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8021" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8132" CreationDate="2014-12-06T17:49:49.030" Score="5" ViewCount="2024" Body="&lt;p&gt;When you're down a few pieces or even in a bad position, which is better, playing offensive or defensive?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3812" LastActivityDate="2014-12-21T16:23:30.430" Title="What's the best play when you're losing?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;losing&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8022" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8021" CreationDate="2014-12-06T18:30:08.363" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Usually when you are decisively down in material, the best option is to make the position as complicated as possible. If you don't create any threats, your opponent doesn't have a chance to go wrong. And if nothing special happens, you are going to lose. So stir it up, create a mess, chaos on the board and suddenly everything is possible again, especially if you're opponent tries to play it super safe and gets low on time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If your position is just somewhat worse, however, lashing out with some sacrifices often makes it much easier for your opponent to finish you off. So dogged defence against all tactical possibilities is often a better try in such a situation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course if your position is somewhere between worse and lost, it is often hard to decide which way to go. Miss too many chances to mess it up and suddenly you're dead lost. Mess it up to early and suddenly you get messed up. ;-)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One final tip: Try to be ahead on the clock. It is a very common scenario that you defend very well for a long time, and just when the position is equal again, you blunder the game away, because you're low on time. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An example by the current World Champ:&#xA;Carlsen-Topalov, 2012:&#xA;Incredibly Carlsen just overlooked 20…Nb2, as he said after the game, but he immediately sacrificed a lot more material to get an attack going. Objectively this shouldn't have been enough, but he created enough chaos to eventually confuse Topalov and in the end even win the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. Bb5+ Nd7 4. c3 Ngf6 5. Qe2 a6 6. Ba4 Qc7&#xA;7. O-O e5 8. d4 b5 9. Bc2 cxd4 10. cxd4 Be7 11. Nc3 O-O&#xA;12. Bg5 h6 13. Bh4 Bb7 14. Rad1 Rac8 15. Bb3 Rfe8 16. dxe5&#xA;dxe5 17. Bg3 Bf8 18. h3 Nb6 19. Nh4 Nc4 20. Nf5 Nxb2 21. Bh4&#xA;Nxd1 22. Bxf6 Nxc3 23. Qg4 Bxe4 24. Nxh6+ Kh7 25. Bxf7 Qxf7&#xA;26. Nxf7 gxf6 27. f4 Bg6 28. Qh4+ Kg7 29. fxe5 Ne4 30. Rxf6&#xA;Bc5+ 31. Kh2 Nxf6 32. Qxf6+ Kh7 33. Ng5+ Kh6 34. Ne6 Rxe6&#xA;35. Qxe6 Re8 36. Qf6 Be7 37. Qxa6 b4 38. Qc4 Bf8 39. g4 Kh7&#xA;40. e6 Bd6+ 41. Kg2 Be7 42. Qc7 Kg8 43. Kg3 Kf8 44. Qf4+ Kg7&#xA;45. Qd4+ Kg8 46. h4 Rd8 47. Qc4 Bd3 48. Qc6 Bb1 49. h5 Bxa2&#xA;50. Qe4 Kh8 51. h6 Bf6 52. e7 Re8 53. Qf4 Bg7 54. hxg7+ Kxg7&#xA;55. g5 Kg8 56. Qf6 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastEditorUserId="4362" LastEditDate="2014-12-19T13:57:06.767" LastActivityDate="2014-12-19T13:57:06.767" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8023" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8019" CreationDate="2014-12-06T18:41:03.483" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is an incredibly general question, because obviously white is allowed to make some moves as well … there is no one fits all aggressive defence. &#xA;But to give an equally general answer: If you like to play aggressively playing gambits makes a lot of sense. So everything with &quot;gambit&quot; in its name is a valid choice. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'll give a few examples and will assume that you didn't specify whites opening because all your opponents play 1.e4. ;-)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This would be the Latvian Gambit against the Italian Game:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latvian_Gambit&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latvian_Gambit&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 f5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is the Schliemann-Jaenisch-Gambit against the Ruy Lopez:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 f5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Generally the idea of these gambits is to speed up the development of your pieces at the cost of a pawn and to gain greater central control by diverting your opponents central pawns. &#xA;If you play well, central control and active pieces will lead to an attack. &#xA;If you play badly, you're just down a pawn ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastEditorUserId="4362" LastEditDate="2014-12-06T19:37:33.310" LastActivityDate="2014-12-06T19:37:33.310" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8024" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="848" CreationDate="2014-12-06T20:12:46.260" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Show the 1995 Dutch movie &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113598/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Lang leve de koningin&lt;/a&gt; (&quot;Long live the queen&quot;) with subtitles in your language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a great kids movie about (among other things) chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgoaXy1nch8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;trailer on Youtube&lt;/a&gt;. There's even a (probably illegal) full length copy on Youtube.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You'd have to find out about legal rights to show it of course.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4378" LastActivityDate="2014-12-06T20:12:46.260" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8025" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="848" CreationDate="2014-12-06T20:15:06.750" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The chances are small that you can set this up, but it would be great: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Organize it when there's an important chess match going on and have that broadcast live during the exhibition, maybe with someone commenting.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4378" LastActivityDate="2014-12-06T20:15:06.750" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8026" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7977" CreationDate="2014-12-07T00:11:22.307" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I started doing something similar some time ago. So I can give you some advice. As already stated by @Student T, you need to define precisely which is the question you want to answer with statistics. I will not repeat his argument which is complete enough, but let me just say that defining well your problem is essential to select your methods of analysis and the selection of data.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The dataset. If you are interested in analysing games, one good option might be the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.theweekinchess.com/twic&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;The Week In Chess database&lt;/a&gt;, which includes all the games of international competitions (= games of high-rated players). Another possibility is the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.top-5000.nl/pgn.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;million base&lt;/a&gt;, containing 2.2 million games. Whereas if you are interested in analysing ratings, you can download FIDE rating list &lt;a href=&quot;http://ratings.fide.com/download.phtml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;, for example. In downloading the dataset(s) you want to use, you should consider the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.1. The format: chessbase format is proprietary, which means it is difficult to know which are its specifications and, in consequence, to extract the data. The format pgn is more convenient, you can process it as a textfile and extract the information you need using the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.saremba.de/chessgml/standards/pgn/pgn-complete.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;pgn file specifications&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.2. How to filter the data / which data to include in the database (in statistical parlance, sampling and stratification issues). For this you need to specify which is your population. Are you interested in games of high-rated players? Then, it is easy to find the games and databases include many. In contrast, it is more difficult to find games of unrated or lower-rated players, but you can find some of them in the websites of some national chess federations (&lt;a href=&quot;http://chess.ca/pgn-downloads&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Canada&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessscotland.com/gamedownload/games.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Scotland&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.welshchessunion.org.uk/games&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wales&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.icu.ie/downloads?utf8=%E2%9C%93&amp;amp;type=pgn&amp;amp;description=&amp;amp;year=&amp;amp;access=all&amp;amp;order=updated&amp;amp;button=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Ireland&lt;/a&gt;...). Also, there might be differences in the behaviour of chess players depending on the type of competition (individual or by teams; human, computer or correspondence games; etc.). Do you include all type of competitions or you leave out some of them?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.3. Rating systems inhomogeneities. Chess rating systems are usually based on professor Arpad &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elo_rating_system&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Elo rating system&lt;/a&gt;, but with different coefficient values. For example, USCF and FIDE ratings are not equivalent. And the value of coefficients can also change with time (see &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fide.com/component/content/article/1-fide-news/5421-changes-to-rating-regulations.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; for an example).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Some bibliography. I can hint you little reference material. Some time ago I did a quick search on Scopus and didn't find any interesting article (but you could try to dig deeper). However, some years ago I looked through a book on &lt;a href=&quot;http://books.google.fr/books/about/Schach_und_Zahl.html?id=cR0QmgEACAAJ&amp;amp;redir_esc=y&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chess and mathematics&lt;/a&gt;. It dealt with geometrical, combinatorial and probability issues, but not with statistical analyses. It was originally written in German and there is also a translation to Spanish, but I don't think there is an English version. You can find some similar references in &lt;a href=&quot;http://mathworld.wolfram.com/Chess.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wolfram MathWorld's Chess article&lt;/a&gt;. You might also be interested in &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/982/do-strong-players-move-their-pieces-with-different-relative-frequencies-than-wea/1117#1117&quot;&gt;this analysis&lt;/a&gt; of piece moving rate as a function of Elo rating. Regarding the rating system, the seminal work is professor Elo's book &lt;em&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://books.google.fr/books/about/The_rating_of_chessplayers_past_and_pres.html?id=8pMnAQAAMAAJ&amp;amp;redir_esc=y&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;The rating of chessplayers, past and present&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3757" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.193" LastActivityDate="2014-12-08T23:16:32.897" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8027" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7917" CreationDate="2014-12-07T23:16:16.270" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I looked through the WC matches since 1995 (Kasparov-Anand) to try to validate the claim that surprise openings aren't used very often at the end of matches. I found that generally this holds true, with some notable exceptions. Particularly, in both of his WC matches where he trailed with two games to go, Vladimir Kramnik has pulled out sharp tactical openings that he rarely or never played previously.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In 2004 vs. Peter Leko (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chesscollection?cid=1002400&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chesscollection?cid=1002400&lt;/a&gt;) he was down 6.5-5.5 in a 14-game match when he played a Benoni in game 13. While he did not win that game, he generated excellent chances and likely missed a win in the endgame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In 2008 vs. Viswanathan Anand (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chess.pl?tid=65865&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chess.pl?tid=65865&lt;/a&gt;), he was down 6-4 in a 12-game match when he played a Najdorf Sicilian in game 11. He did not win that game either, but he certainly avoided his renowned Berlin or the Petroff.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In 2013, Anand was down 5-3 going into game 9 of a 12-game match against Magnus Carlsen (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chess.pl?tid=81142&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chess.pl?tid=81142&lt;/a&gt;) when he played the 4. f3 Nimzo. He got a strong attack but ultimately blundered and lost the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, there is an additional reason that surprise openings do not appear often, which is that many matches are level towards the end and both players want to get to the tiebreaks without expending too much effort. I find this to be the case in Kramnik-Topalov 2006, Anand-Gelfand 2012, and Anand-Topalov 2010 (although Topalov badly blundered in the last game and lost).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That leaves the following matches where a surprise opening did not appear: Kasparov-Anand 1995 (the last few games were sharp Sicilians, which had been played several times in the match already), Kasparov-Kramnik 2000, and Carlsen-Anand 2014. In Carlsen-Anand 2014, Anand had been getting good play from his openings as White and I see no reason that he should have deviated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That leaves the only really inexplicable case as Kasparov-Kramnik, where Kasparov seems to have just lost his will to dominate after the match started out badly. He had been the dominant player in the world for over a decade and maybe finally being brought low was too fatiguing for him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3270" LastActivityDate="2014-12-07T23:16:16.270" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8028" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8019" CreationDate="2014-12-07T23:22:37.983" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Against e4, I like c5 (Sicilian Defense). Against d4, I like f5, (Dutch Defense), as suggested by another answerer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These openings aren't totally offensive, because White has the offense. But they are &lt;strong&gt;counter&lt;/strong&gt;-offensive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically, they are as offensive as one can get while having the second move. It is a fight from the &quot;get go&quot; for the initiative.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2014-12-07T23:22:37.983" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8029" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4588" CreationDate="2014-12-07T23:28:37.293" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;My initial reply to d4 is Nf6, because it is &quot;non-committal.&quot; (It prevents an immediate e4).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If White plays c4 next, you have several choices. You can play e6, opening a diagonal for the Black squared bishop, and preparing a Queen's Indian or Nimzo-Indian defense without committing to an early d5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My favorite variation is g6 (Grünfeld), followed by the fianchetto on the third move. I can castle as early as the fourth move. This, plus the advantage of holding my pawns back, may cause White to overextend.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-10-01T07:48:36.277" LastActivityDate="2016-10-01T07:48:36.277" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8030" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-12-08T07:44:54.820" Score="5" ViewCount="5329" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to be able to train my mating skills by making a chess engine play positions that others have resigned from.  Is there a way to make a chess engine play a particular position?  I am using stockfish and scid vs pc at the moment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4415" LastActivityDate="2014-12-09T05:03:24.080" Title="Make chess engine play a particular position" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;scid&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8031" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-12-08T13:30:38.123" Score="3" ViewCount="4890" Body="&lt;p&gt;So I've used the Chess Mentor feature on Chess.com, and completed all of the free courses, and am now using it at 1 lesson a day(extremely slow).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, I've been considering buying a membership, namely a Diamond one. How useful is the Chess Mentor when considering non-private coaching? By that I mean a class with about 15-20 people taught by a 2000 rated player (Don't have many good players in my country). Would it give a noticeable increase in performance, or would it be just a slight improvement?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4416" LastActivityDate="2014-12-12T15:01:20.770" Title="How useful is Chess.com Chess Mentor?" Tags="&lt;online-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8032" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8030" CreationDate="2014-12-08T14:58:11.910" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have no specific knowledge about stockfish, but usually there is an Graphic User Interface (GUI) to a chess engine. The GUI allows you to edit a game (making moves---do this because it takes care of fine details like castling rights and right to en passant) or edit a position (placing pieces) and than let the engine play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can specify who is on the move and which colour(s) the engine should play independently.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3819" LastActivityDate="2014-12-08T14:58:11.910" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8033" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6194" CreationDate="2014-12-08T15:14:41.917" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;First note that your link to Geurt Gijssen. Arbiter's Notebook. is broken. ChessCafe.com have put almost all their stuff behind a paywall.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The purpose of this rule and of the related 75-move rule (after 75 moves with no captures or pawn moves the arbiter can / must step in and declare a draw) are for the benefit of arbiters. In summary they are the &quot;I've got a home to go to and a warm bed waiting for me&quot; rules. The key point here being that these two rules do not require a player to make a claim but instead the arbiter can intervene to stop the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your example is not a draw under the rule. Here is how it works:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White's alternate moves must be identical.&#xA;Black's alternate moves must be identical.&#xA;For 5 consecutive, alternate White's turns the position must be identical.&#xA;For 5 consecutive, alternate Black's turns the position must be identical.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If that gobbledygook sounds confusing here is an example of a drawn game under the new rule:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) Nc3 Nc6&#xA;2) Nb1 Nb8&#xA;3) Nc3 Nc6&#xA;4) Nb1 Nb8&#xA;5) Nc3 Nc6&#xA;6) Nb1 Nb8&#xA;7) Nc3 Nc6&#xA;8) Nb1 Nb8&#xA;9) Nc3 Nc6&#xA;10) Nb1 Nb8&#xA;11) Nc3 Nc6&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that after Black's 4th move White could have claimed a draw under the 3-fold repetition rule and after White's 5th move either player could claim a draw on their turn. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If either player deviates from the strict repetition then the conditions are not fulfilled. For instance if White's 3rd and 4th moves are Nf3 and Ng1 then the strict sequence required for the satisfaction of the rule is broken.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that the rule says &quot;for at least five consecutive alternate moves by &lt;strong&gt;each&lt;/strong&gt; player&quot;. If it said &quot;either player&quot; instead of &quot;each player&quot; then the position and sequence in question would be a draw. But the example fails because it is only identical before alternate White moves and not before alternate Black moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since 3-fold repetition draws can only be claimed when the moves are recorded they cannot normally be claimed during rapid and blitz games. The new rules allow the arbiter to intervene and stop the game provided he has witnessed and noted the moves and continue with the next round or go home to bed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;30/12/2014: There were two International Arbiters at our club annual rapid championship last night. I asked one of them and he was very clear. The rule:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;the same position has appeared, as in 9.2b, for at least five&#xA;  consecutive alternate moves by each player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;according to him means that after 5 alternate white moves the position must be the same in the meaning of 9.2b and after 5 alternate black moves it must be the same in the meaning of 9.2b and that this sequence of moves must be consecutive i.e. the first repeating black position must come immediately before or immediately after the first repeating white position and not part way through the sequence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS It's probably worth noting the answer he gave to a supplementary question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Question: What happens if after one player wins through resignation / checkmate / flag fall it is discovered that there was an earlier 5 fold repetition? Should the result be changed to a draw?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Answer: Emphatically no. Just as the 3 fold repetition rule is for the benefit of the players, they may choose to claim by it or not at the specific time the incident occurs, so is the 5 fold repetition rule for the benefit of the arbiter, he may choose to enforce it or not at the time the incident occurs. He may not enforce it retrospectively. The win stands.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: Well, it seems that the IA I consulted was wrong. Hidden away in section 6.2a of the FIDE Handbook it says this&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A move is also completed if: 1.the move ends the game (see Articles&#xA;  5.1.a, 5.2.a, 5.2.b, 5.2.c, 9.6a, 9.6b and 9.7)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;9.6a and 9.6b are the two new draw rules, 5-fold repetition and 75 moves with no captures or pawn moves. So, they are elevated by this throw-away clause to the same level as checkmate, stalemate, resigns and agreed drawn. The arbiter has no more choice than he does with checkmate, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2015-06-27T20:20:43.363" LastActivityDate="2015-06-27T20:20:43.363" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8034" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-12-08T20:08:10.563" Score="3" ViewCount="134" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have tried to resurrect an old line and use it in my repertoire. Every single time I play it I reach positions similar to this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;White to move&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;r2q1rk1/pbpnbppp/1p2pn2/8/3PNB2/3B1N2/PPP1QPPP/R4RK1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Usually, engines and most human opponents continue with &lt;code&gt;c4&lt;/code&gt;. I almost always go for &lt;code&gt;Re8&lt;/code&gt; + &lt;code&gt;Qc8&lt;/code&gt;, so I can safely play &lt;code&gt;...c5&lt;/code&gt; (the Queen is off the d-file so there will be no pressure from a potential &lt;code&gt;Rd1&lt;/code&gt;, and &lt;code&gt;Be7&lt;/code&gt; is protected so there will be no &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt; tricks).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;QUESTIONS:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can we confirm that this is the correct plan, or does Black have better moves at his disposal?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If my plan is viable, how should I proceed when White exchanges on &lt;code&gt;c5&lt;/code&gt;-&gt; recapture with a pawn or with a piece?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What would be my long-term plan in the resulting position-&gt; minority attack with &lt;code&gt;...a6&lt;/code&gt; + &lt;code&gt;...b5&lt;/code&gt; or fighting for &lt;code&gt;...e5&lt;/code&gt; push? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastEditorUserId="11202" LastEditDate="2017-05-18T06:33:27.213" LastActivityDate="2017-05-18T06:33:27.213" Title="Can Black perform a successful freeing break? If yes, what would be his long-term plan after?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;middlegame&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8035" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8034" CreationDate="2014-12-09T00:45:19.387" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;c5 is, by far, the preferred idea and line here, because it not only frees up the light squared bishop, breaks and challenges the d4 pawn, as in some Rubinstein lines, but also allows your queen to visit in e7, and park your rooks on c8 and d8 respectively.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is by far, in terms of breaks, the most effective, and does not allow white the luxury of a kingside attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, as white, it would be beneficial, tactically, to park your a-rook on d1 to prevent c5 and then try to play on the d-file with doubled rooks and c3 (to prevent counterplay).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3540" LastActivityDate="2014-12-09T00:45:19.387" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8036" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8043" CreationDate="2014-12-09T03:55:18.960" Score="5" ViewCount="2574" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am new to FEN notation. I understand its importance for describing position of pieces on board. I also understand FEN notations after reading about it in Wikipedia. However, it is a time taking procedure to write it down manually. I am looking for a software or web site, which allows me to place the pieces on the board, and then create FEN notation automatically.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4350" LastActivityDate="2020-03-18T16:10:41.400" Title="Software to create FEN notation?" Tags="&lt;fen&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8037" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8036" CreationDate="2014-12-09T04:06:35.943" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;SCID will do it.  Create a position using &lt;code&gt;Edit-&amp;gt;Setup Board&lt;/code&gt;. There's a text box at the bottom of the setup window with the FEN.  Or, if you've been playing against the computer, you can just say &lt;code&gt;Edit-&amp;gt;Copy FEN&lt;/code&gt; to get the board's current position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2014-12-09T04:06:35.943" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8038" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8030" CreationDate="2014-12-09T05:03:24.080" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Scid vs PC got to Edit &gt; Setup Board. Here you can setup the board with a particular position, set side to move and castling flags. Easier is if you have a FEN of the position, you could just paste this and use it directly. Click OK once you are done to get the position on the main board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now navigate to Play &gt; Computer-UciEngine &gt; Choose your stockfish engine, Check &quot;Start from current position&quot;, Set desired time control and click &quot;Play&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3158" LastActivityDate="2014-12-09T05:03:24.080" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8039" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8031" CreationDate="2014-12-09T05:41:57.437" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I personally don't benefit much from the mentor. However, that is just a preference in learning styles. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I still highly recommend a diamond membership for the tactics trainer and videos, as a good, organized at of videos with tactics will make your rating skyrocket!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I suggest Colle-Zuckertort/London systems and Dutch stonewall.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3540" LastActivityDate="2014-12-09T05:41:57.437" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8040" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8019" CreationDate="2014-12-09T05:52:54.953" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sicilian Najdorf or dragon, if you like sharp theoretical lines. Otherwise, Such stonewall for counter offensive attacks. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, don't forget the French, as it can easily transition into A Dutch-like position with f5 or even h5 early on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3540" LastActivityDate="2014-12-09T05:52:54.953" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8041" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8047" CreationDate="2014-12-09T07:31:42.623" Score="12" ViewCount="613" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm sure most of us have done it at least once ... I had a position where one of my pieces were under direct threat - I was a pawn up, but my opponent attacked my rook with his bishop and threatened to get the pawn back if I was careless. I tried to calculate every possible continuation and got lost in the possibilities ... and before I knew it, I was totally absorbed by the position 4 or 5 moves ahead and completely forgot that my rook was hanging. Keeping a mental eye on the future position instead of the position in front of me, I made a silly move (moved my knight, if I recall) and lost my rook.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Naturally, and quite embarrassingly, my teammates all wanted to know what happened since it looked so good for me at one point. Instead of trying to explain the intricacies of the position, it would be convenient if I could tell my club mates that I lost because of an &quot;X-blunder&quot;. Does this type of blunder have a name?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1816" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-04T20:11:41.353" LastActivityDate="2020-03-04T20:11:41.353" Title="Is there a name for this common type of blunder?" Tags="&lt;blunder&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="8042" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5615" CreationDate="2014-12-09T08:19:21.263" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The simple answer is because it is required by the FIDE competition rules.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The more complicated reason is that you cannot easily enforce other laws if you do not have your own written record.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is a requirement to record all draw offers by writing &quot;=&quot; against the move when a draw offer is made. It is illegal to disturb your opponent by making repeated draw offers. If this happens the only way you can prove this is by means of the written score sheets. Draw offers are not recorded electronically.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Draw by 3-fold repetition. If you make an incorrect claim for a draw by 3-fold repetition your first penalty is to have your opponent given an extra 2 minutes on the clock. For a second offence you lose the game. A 3-fold repetition can unfold over many moves. It is not required that it take place over consecutive moves. The only way you can double check this to avoid a penalty for an incorrect claim is by examining your own score sheet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that in a recent GM competition where because of the time controls (either rapid or blitz) the players were not required to record the moves the British GM Nigel Short wanted to claim a draw by 3 fold repetition but didn't make a claim because he didn't have a written scoresheet. He went on to lose the game and raised the point afterwards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that in any case rule 6.13 states that:&#xA;&quot;Screens, monitors, or demonstration boards showing the current position on the chessboard, the moves and the number of moves made/completed, and clocks which also show the number of moves, are allowed in the playing hall. &lt;strong&gt;However, the player may not make a claim relying only on information shown in this manner&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2014-12-09T08:19:21.263" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8043" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8036" CreationDate="2014-12-09T09:00:54.997" Score="7" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I am looking for a software &lt;strong&gt;or web site&lt;/strong&gt;, which allows me to place the pieces on the board, and then create FEN notation automatically.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I personally use &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.apronus.com/chess/wbeditor.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this site&lt;/a&gt; for that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is free, and it is &lt;strong&gt;an online tool.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Ma7Ld.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;REMARKS:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;If you wish to put that FEN in our diagram you paste that code like this:&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Press space bar 4 times;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Type square brackets ( &lt;code&gt;[]&lt;/code&gt; );&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Type &lt;code&gt;fen &quot;&quot;&lt;/code&gt; inside the brackets ( &lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&lt;/code&gt; );&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Paste your code inside the &lt;code&gt;&quot;&quot;&lt;/code&gt; ( &lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;Your FEN goes here&quot;]&lt;/code&gt; );&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;If you decide to input variations you need to do this:&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;5&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Press enter twice;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Press space bar 4 times;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Input moves;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is an example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/a3eLm.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;If you have further question leave a comment and I will help you. Also read &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/373/can-i-post-an-annotated-pgn-chess-board-in-chess-stackexchange-com&quot;&gt;this thread&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;END OF REMARKS&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hopefully this answer helps you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Best regards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-03-16T15:50:45.707" LastActivityDate="2014-12-09T09:00:54.997" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8044" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5615" CreationDate="2014-12-09T09:27:51.427" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's one reason I can think of which no one else mentioned. Super GMs might still need the scoresheet to backtrack to moves that happened earlier to get some clues on the opponents strategy or to think of lines in their theoretical preparation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3158" LastActivityDate="2014-12-09T09:27:51.427" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8045" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1408" CreationDate="2014-12-09T09:39:04.713" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;How far ahead a strong player like Anand sees depends on the position. On move 1 he doesn't see any moves ahead because he doesn't know which of several perfectly good replies his opponent will play. In the endgame there might be a forced line which is 15 or 20 moves long which he will see and so, by the way, will many weaker players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The two significant differences between a strong human and a supercomputer are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) A supercomputer can calculate much, much faster than any human and so can consider many more moves (orders of magnitude more) than any human in the same time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) Very strong players are much better at evaluating a position than supercomputers. This means that they can quickly reject unpromising lines and so dramatically reduce the number of variations they need to consider and do this much better than the supercomputer. Effectively they can often see as far, sometimes even further than the supercomputer. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Incidentally, this superior evaluation ability separates strong grandmasters from not only supercomputers but also ordinary players like you and me, or at least me ;-).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Weaker players are often not that much different in their calculating abilities from stronger players. They just don't recognize whether the resulting position is good or bad anything like as well as the stronger players do. Their poor evaluation abilities mean that they waste time, just like the supercomputer, analyzing unpromising variations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2014-12-09T09:39:04.713" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8046" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7932" CreationDate="2014-12-09T09:59:19.640" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Looking back to my earlier days I would recommend Petrov's Defence. &#xA;1) e4 e5&#xA;2) Nf3 Nf6&#xA;which, with a bit of luck, will turn into the safe, boring 4 Knights.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know you think e5 is too aggressive. It isn't. Other moves are too passive and according to Chessbase you will lose more games with other replies. You will find defence much easier if you haven't already given away the center.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You will need to have an answer to the King's Gambit. Either an early d4 or Fischer's Defense were what I used in my early days.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nowadays I play either the French or the Lion (a variation of Philidor's which delays e5 until move 3 or later) but both of these require more book learning and can have some very aggressive variations indeed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2014-12-09T09:59:19.640" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8047" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8041" CreationDate="2014-12-09T12:15:02.700" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is probably a bit more general than what you describe, but one move blunders are often called (a case of) &quot;chess blindness&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not a hundred percent sure, what exactly happened in you're case but often people make the second move of a combination (or variation) first, because they are ahead of the actual position. But I don't know a succinct term for that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you listen to top players post game interviews, what you hear incredibly often is &quot;I just forgot about move xy&quot;. I guess if that description is good enough for Aronian and Co, it is good enough for us. ;-)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another loosely connected term is &quot;residual image&quot;. This describes the case when you are calculating and pieces that already moved, are still on their original square in your mind. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastEditorUserId="4362" LastEditDate="2014-12-10T09:31:12.337" LastActivityDate="2014-12-10T09:31:12.337" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8048" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5022" CreationDate="2014-12-09T15:35:04.913" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't play blindfold but I've been told by people who do that if I want to start learning / training then the place to start is by mentally splitting the board into 4 quarters: a1-4xd1-4, e1-4xh1-4, a5-8xd5-8, e5-8xh5-8. Then picture the pieces in these 4 quarters independently of each other. So, hold in your mind a picture of the first quadrant. Then do the same for the second quadrant, etc. Finally bring the 4 quarters together in your mind.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've not tried this but it makes sense on the principle of &quot;crawl, walk, run&quot; and is similar to what bridge players do, counting up to 13 in lots of different ways (4xsuits + 4xplayers, etc)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2014-12-09T15:35:04.913" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8049" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5028" CreationDate="2014-12-09T16:02:01.050" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;One interesting forced mate which nobody has mentioned is K+N+N v K+P.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Provided the pawn is not far advanced the side with the 2 knights drives the opposing king towards a corner. At a certain point when the driving can be completed by K+N the other knight blockades the pawn. The K+N finish driving the opposing king into a corner, building a prison, say a1+b1 (i.e. the opposing king can only alternate between a1 and b1), with king on b3 and knight on a2. The blockading knight then comes over to help deliver checkmate with stalemate avoided because the pawn can move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similar game shown below:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;2k5/7p/2K1N3/5N2/8/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Ne7+ Kb8 &#xA;2. Kb6 h5 &#xA;3. Nc5 h4&#xA;4. Nd7+ Ka8&#xA;5. Nd5 h3&#xA;6. Nc7#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="2041" LastEditDate="2014-12-09T23:43:10.747" LastActivityDate="2014-12-09T23:43:10.747" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8050" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4586" CreationDate="2014-12-09T16:27:54.823" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm afraid the earlier answer is just plain wrong on the subject of illegal moves. An illegal move in both rapidplay and blitz does lose the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is the relevant section of the rules:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;An illegal move is completed once the player has pressed his clock. If&#xA;  the arbiter observes this he shall declare the game lost by the&#xA;  player, provided the opponent has not made his next move. If the&#xA;  arbiter does not intervene, the opponent is entitled to claim a win,&#xA;  provided the opponent has not made his next move. However, the game is&#xA;  drawn if the position is such that the opponent cannot checkmate the&#xA;  player’s king by any possible series of legal moves. If the opponent&#xA;  does not claim and the arbiter does not intervene, the illegal move&#xA;  shall stand and the game shall continue.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that if your opponent leaves his king en prise he has made an illegal move and if no arbiter is watching your game and so can't or doesn't intervene then you should claim the win. If you take your opponents king then you legitimize his move and are yourself making an illegal move. He can then claim the game!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Only in the special circumstances that a rapidplay competition had at least one arbiter per 6 players AND the arbiters recorded the moves would standard rules apply.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Regarding the question about touch-move in rapidplay, the first time I played a formal rapidplay competition I had the same belief as the OP. My opponent was bemused (but didn't actually burst out laughing) when at one stage I took back one move before pressing the clock and made another move. The arbiter soon put me right.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2014-12-09T16:27:54.823" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8051" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5022" CreationDate="2014-12-09T16:39:02.397" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I play in chess tournaments in Philadelphia and in the U1500 section( i think) is a blind man. He has his own separate room to play in and there are special rules that apply to him. To record the moves he has an audio recording device. He also plays with 2 boards. The main board with the real pieces the opponent plays with and a special board with peg holes for the pieces. On the pieces of the special board are  metal balls on the Black pieces so he can distinguish pieces. He is allowed to touch all the pieces on his board so he can visualize. His opponent has to help him and move his pieces on the main board but he is very independent non the less!&#xA;In my mind that is the real blindfolded chess! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4402" LastActivityDate="2014-12-09T16:39:02.397" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8052" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6461" CreationDate="2014-12-09T16:55:26.930" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;If i remember correctly, you can play this variant on &lt;code&gt;www.buho21.com&lt;/code&gt;.&#xA;The only problem is that nearly everything is written in spanish there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4424" LastActivityDate="2014-12-09T16:55:26.930" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8053" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1567" CreationDate="2014-12-09T17:23:05.697" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;As already pointed out the tactical draw offer is a fine psychological weapon.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The variant that I used to fall for and then later adopted went like this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Setup: A rating difference (ELO or equivalent) of 100 - 200 points. The weaker player struggling in the opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Hit: Just as you are about to equalize make the offer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Psychology: Improving kiddies in my chess club used to do this regularly to me as their ratings approached mine. The feeling in the &quot;mark&quot; is one of indignation. &quot;How dare this patzer / pipsqueak (or whatever) make such an impudent offer? I'm going to crush the little ****!&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The losing blunder often follows shortly afterwards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once I cottoned on to what was happening I managed to fix my attitude and even used the ploy myself successfully a few times against a stronger player in our club. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: I've been rereading Jonathan Rowson's &quot;Chess for Zebras&quot; ( an excellent book, by the way) and came across this example where he fell for the tactical draw offer from the weaker player. I've just included two of Rowson's comments. He comments almost every line at times giving great insight into his thinking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;1k1r4/1p3p2/p3b1pp/P1nN4/2PRP3/5BP1/6P1/6K1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Bundesliga&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2000/1&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Straeter&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Rowson&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Bd1 h5 2.Kf2 Rh8 3.Ke3 h4 4.gxh4 Rxh4 5.Nf4 Bc8 6.g3 Rh8 7.Rd5 Ne6 8.Bf3 Re8 9.e5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;My opponent offered a draw with this move. Had I accepted, the match&#xA;  would also have been drawn, and this would have been a huge&#xA;  disappointment for our team, but not a complete disaster. In any case,&#xA;  I didn't really come to terms with the fact that my position had&#xA;  deteriorated over the last few moves, and I felt somehow possessed, as&#xA;  if I had to win this game at all costs. I arrogantly rejected the&#xA;  offer with an immediate &quot;No!&quot; and this arrogance tainted my thinking&#xA;  in what follows.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;1kb1r3/1p3p2/p3n1p1/P2R4/2P1PN2/4KBP1/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Bundesliga&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2000/1&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Straeter&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Rowson&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e5 Nd8 2.Rc5 Ne6 3.Nxe6 fxe6 4.Kf4 Rh8+ 5.Kg4 Rd8 6.Kh4 Rh8+ 7.Kg5 Rh3 8.Kg4 Rh8 9.Be4 Rg8 10.Kg5 Bd7 11.Kf6 g5 12.Bg6 g4 13.Bf7 Rh8 14.Ke7 Bc6 15.Bxe6 Kc7 16.Bd5 Rh5 17.Bg2 Rf5 18.Be4 Rh5 19.Kf6 Rh3 20.e6 Rh6+ 21.Bg6 Kd6 22.Rxc6+ bxc6 23.e7 Rxg6+ 24.Kxg6 Kxe7 25.Kf5 Kd6 26. Kxg4 Kc5 27.Kf5 Kxc4 28.g4 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A truly painful defeat, compounded by the fact that it meant our team&#xA;  lost the match, and with it any realistic chance of winning the league&#xA;  that year. In any case, this game made a deep impression on me and I&#xA;  resolved to understand what happened, not so much on the board, but&#xA;  psychologically - in terms of my competitive attitude.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT END:    &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Whether or not you try any of these tricks in your own games you should take away one important point. You should work out in advance what your approach is to draw offers to make sure you yourself don't fall for these tricks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first point to note is that the reason your rating is 200 points higher than your opponents is because over the long run you make fewer mistakes than your opponent. It does not mean that you are superior to him in every way nor are you entitled to win every game. There will be days when he plays well and you play badly and if he offers you a draw when he is clearly winning then take it!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unless there are special circumstances (e.g. last round, prize money at stake) I ask myself two questions when I'm offered a draw:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) Is it just too early? I'm enjoying myself too much in the struggle?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) Do I have a plan to win the game?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If both answers are no then I accept the offer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Special circumstances and question 1 are answered very quickly. For question 2 I can take as much time as I have left on the clock minus the time I estimate it will take to implement the plan. Take my time, try and work out a winning plan. If I don't find one then irrespective of our relative ratings I accept the offer. It must be a good day for him and a bad day for me but let's not make it worse.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2015-09-22T17:46:59.717" LastActivityDate="2015-09-22T17:46:59.717" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8054" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8041" CreationDate="2014-12-09T18:11:03.427" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Alexander Kotov, in his book Think Like a Grandmaster, described this sort of a blunder as a &lt;a href=&quot;http://books.google.com/books?id=CG3RAwAAQBAJ&amp;amp;pg=PA25-IA18&amp;amp;lpg=PA25-IA18&amp;amp;dq=blindspot%20think%20like%20a%20grandmaster&amp;amp;source=bl&amp;amp;ots=qdBD7gUUFU&amp;amp;sig=7GVgWjChSkRXhmI6QvkqPrGgPTE&amp;amp;hl=en&amp;amp;sa=X&amp;amp;ei=VjqHVOyvJtOiugTMyILAAw&amp;amp;ved=0CC8Q6AEwAg#v=onepage&amp;amp;q=blindspot%20think%20like%20a%20grandmaster&amp;amp;f=false&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;blind spot&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2429" LastActivityDate="2014-12-09T18:11:03.427" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8055" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8041" CreationDate="2014-12-09T22:29:11.247" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's a form of cognitive dissonance. In psychology, cognitive dissonance is the mental stress or discomfort experienced by an individual who holds two or more contradictory beliefs, ideas, or values at the same time, or is confronted by new information that conflicts with existing beliefs, ideas, or values.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The fact that so much of chess is in the mind where pieces are moved about without any actual physical changes on the board, it's easy, especially after a period of time when fatigue becomes a factor, to lose track of what's on the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At some point we ALL see things that aren't there and miss things that are.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And that's why playing even a relatively mediocre chess engine is so frustrating. Every move is a fresh position for a Silicon chip or two.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4425" LastActivityDate="2014-12-09T22:29:11.247" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8056" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8059" CreationDate="2014-12-10T05:57:00.770" Score="2" ViewCount="757" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recently purchased the book &quot;Chess: 5334 Problems, Combinations, and Games&quot; by Laszlo Polgar, just to learn more about moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This book has 3411 &quot;Mate in two&quot; problems and 743 &quot;Mate in three&quot; problems. The book is great but I have a question about the solutions to these problems.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, the solution to this mate-in-two (white to move first) problem # 1135 (from p. 247)...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;rkn5/pp1R4/2pn4/2N5/8/8/8/K w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;...is given (in figurine algebraic notation) as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;Rb7&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The solutions to both the mate-in-two and the mate-in-three problems list only one step (the book does not explain the reason for this).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How should a person read this solution? Is it the supposed final location of the white rook? And is this way of listing solutions common practice in chess books?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4428" LastActivityDate="2014-12-10T08:29:08.657" Title="Question about solutions given in a chess book for mate-in-two and mate-in-three" Tags="&lt;notation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8057" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8056" CreationDate="2014-12-10T06:38:10.260" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The reason for giving just a first move is that the rest should be obvious (if you figured out the first move, you'd know how to continue). And yes, it is a standard practice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is it the supposed final location of the white rook?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Again, yes. In a long notation the move would be spelled &lt;code&gt;Rd7-b7&lt;/code&gt;, but since there's only one rook able to land on &lt;code&gt;b7&lt;/code&gt;, the initial square is omitted. In short notation the initial square is only spelled out to disambiguate the move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3774" LastEditorUserId="3774" LastEditDate="2014-12-10T06:51:18.547" LastActivityDate="2014-12-10T06:51:18.547" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8058" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-12-10T08:22:34.377" Score="8" ViewCount="243" Body="&lt;p&gt;We all know this beautiful theme of self-interference.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Loveday, mate in 3&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;3R4/5K2/8/4k1P1/4p3/7B/4p3/8 b - - 1 0&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Solutiom: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt; 1. Bf1 d6 2. Re2 Kc4 3. Re4#&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Has such a motive ever occur in an OTB game?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3774" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-03-28T16:40:06.433" LastActivityDate="2020-03-28T16:40:06.433" Title="Indian theme in real life" Tags="&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;problems&gt;&lt;master-games&gt;&lt;otb-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="8059" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8056" CreationDate="2014-12-10T08:29:08.657" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think it's slightly unusual to only give the first move, or a little outdated. But it saves space and the assumption is that if you found the right solution, you can confirm it by seeing the first move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also think that Polgar originally intended this book (and his other &quot;big books&quot;) as a collection of problems for &lt;em&gt;coaches&lt;/em&gt; to select problems for their students from, because doing 5000+ mate in 2 and mate in 3 problems is a bit much for self-study. The coaches are expected to be of sufficient strength already, and to be able to select some problems with a common theme that they need for some lesson.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The whole answer, in this case, is of course 1.Rxb7+ Nxb7 (forced) 2.Na6#.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The 'x' and '+' in Rxb7+ are strictly speaking not necessary, so some books omit it. Again, that's a bit of an outdated practice since it's just not that user friendly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2014-12-10T08:29:08.657" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8061" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1567" CreationDate="2014-12-10T15:27:20.777" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here's another trick it's worth knowing about. It's not one I've ever managed to pull but I've fallen for it a few times and lately I've managed to spot it and avoid it. Sadly I didn't learn the trick by analyzing what was going on in my games rather I spotted it when watching friends fall for it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's funny how your rating drops 200 points when you sit down to play and rises 200 points when you stand up and go and watch someone else's game ;-)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The setup: a 400+ rating difference and the game is heading for a draw! In fact it is dead drawn. So dead drawn that as long as the weaker player steadfastly sticks to his ambition to draw it is going to be a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With such a large rating difference the stronger player really can't afford a draw. The tactical draw offer isn't likely to work. The stronger player can't accept the draw. So, what is he going to do? What he needs is a sucker punch.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My club runs a regular Monday night 9 round Swiss standard FIDE rated competition with large enough prizes that 3 or 4 grandmasters will usually turn up to hoover up the prize money. Nevertheless for us low life players we occasionally get the chance for a shot at glory against one of these chess demi-gods. Usually it ends quickly and ignominiously, fortunately before any of our friends' games have finished so they don't witness our humiliation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But once or twice a year you'll get up from the finish of your game, look up to see how Joe is getting on against the GM and, lo and behold! the pair of them are still sitting at the table.  Maybe he's in there with a chance?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;About a year or so ago I got up in that situation and saw that a regular sparring partner was in that exact position. Not only that, the game looked to be a dead draw. 2 rooks and a few pawns each, a couple of weaknesses each, no real chance to mount a serious attack against any of the weaknesses. All Joe had to do was hold his nerve and glory (at least from his peers) was guaranteed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They must have just recently reached the position because Joe made the regulation draw offer and without blinking or hesitating the GM made his move and pressed his clock. What followed was some fairly meaningless looking maneuvering by the GM. Joe didn't move from his bunker. Then the GM made a weak looking move. Joe could move one of his rooks into the GM's position and make a couple of threats. They were easy enough to parry but there was no danger. If the threats didn't come off Joe could always move his rook back into the bunker.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The GM parried the threats but did so clumsily. Joe could, if he wanted penetrate even deeper and it looked like he could win a pawn. However with my extra 200 ratings courtesy of supporting my weight on my feet rather than backside I could see that once that pawn was won the rook would take a while to get back into play and in the meantime his remaining bunkered rook and king wouldn't be able to handle the threats from the GM's two rooks and king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Don't do it!&quot; I wanted to shout, but it wouldn't have made any difference, apart from getting me thrown out. Joe was seeing through red mist, he thought he'd won the lottery. He wasn't just going to draw with the GM, he was going to win! The GM landed his sucker punch and Joe was the sucker.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Losing a dead drawn game to one of your peers hurts a bit but doing so against a much, much stronger really hurts. It hurts so much that the pain spreads to the spectators. Everybody loves an underdog and an upset and you nearly did it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why did it happen? If you're like me your whole game plan was aimed at the draw. Luck was on your side and you cooly managed to execute 98% of the plan. You did the hard work but at the last moment you let emotion overwhelm your rational side and fell for a cheap trick from the GM. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Remember the GM has earned his title. If he appears to do something stupid just remember who you are playing. You have two choices. The first is to trust your opponent and stick to your plan blindly. A bird in the hand and all that. Opportunities like that are scarce. The second option is to suspect that despite all the evidence your opponent has made a mistake. After all, he played badly enough to let you get the drawn position in the first place. Maybe it just isn't his day?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are going to do that you better have plenty of time on your clock and you better put in your maximum effort in analyzing the consequences.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you massively outrate your opponent and you end up in very drawn position what do you do? You give him hope of even greater glory, a win! You lure him gradually down a path of getting more and more out of position with the promise of material or positional gain. Only you've seen just a little bit further. The alluring path leads to his doom.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is an old trick and is standard procedure against computers, usually with prepared variations. Often prepared with the help of computers ;-) Lure the computer with a sacrifice who's payoff is outside the computer's calculation range and it will blindly fall into the trap.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2014-12-10T15:27:20.777" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8062" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8219" CreationDate="2014-12-10T15:31:47.113" Score="1" ViewCount="841" Body="&lt;p&gt;I ended up struggling quite a bit to finish off this position against a better player (I had the knight) and I'm pretty sure he did not play optimally. I've not found much info of this end game. Is a King, Rook and Knight vs King and Knight end game generally a win for the player with the rook?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4043" LastActivityDate="2014-12-27T11:07:01.767" Title="Is a King, Rook and Knight vs King and Knight end game generally a win for the player with the rook?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;rook-and-minor-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8063" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8072" CreationDate="2014-12-10T15:42:34.670" Score="-3" ViewCount="283" Body="&lt;p&gt;Topalov's rating hasn't changed since a long time. And he hasn't signed for any of the upcoming tournaments. I wonder if he has retired, after reaching that 2800 mark? He isn't playing the Grand Prix even.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4062" LastActivityDate="2014-12-11T18:56:54.357" Title="Has Topalov retired?" Tags="&lt;famous-players&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="6" ClosedDate="2014-12-12T02:49:53.683" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8064" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8062" CreationDate="2014-12-10T18:22:23.990" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;King + Rook + Knight versus King + Knight. Win? Yes!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My spontaneous thought is to win in two stages.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Catch and win the enemy knight or exchange knights.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Checkmate the enemy king&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first stage should be achieved by hunting down the enemy knight. The second stage is a K+R vs K checkmate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastActivityDate="2014-12-10T18:22:23.990" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8065" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5403" CreationDate="2014-12-10T18:33:24.750" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a strong club player myself, when my opponent makes a brilliant combination, I sometimes give him/her (and the audience) the chance to observe checkmate for the beauty of the game. So, making useless moves isn't always unsportsmanlike.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4430" LastActivityDate="2014-12-10T18:33:24.750" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8066" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8067" CreationDate="2014-12-10T22:19:04.577" Score="1" ViewCount="730" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was playing a 15 min game vs some 2300 guy. He doesn't take any time to think about his next move, not even a second, not even against a c4 opening. When i offered him to play, he accepted immediately, instantly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He blunders or should I say, he plays slow moves, but he's strong, so no obvious blunders. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it possible that bots play on FICS servers? Like you run a bot client, connect it to the server and that's it? since there's no CAPTCHA or anything to make sure that you're a human? And since you can connect to FICS in so many ways?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1105" LastEditorUserId="11202" LastEditDate="2017-06-03T07:12:25.967" LastActivityDate="2017-06-03T07:12:25.967" Title="Is it possible to play vs bots on FICS?" Tags="&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;cheating&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8067" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8066" CreationDate="2014-12-11T09:15:41.670" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;To answer your question: There are computer accounts in FICS, with handles ending in (C). Also guests may be computers. There might be computers also behind other players, but that's against the rules of FICS. Engines can be connected to FICS using &lt;a href=&quot;http://sourceforge.net/projects/icsdrone/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;icsDrone&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.gnu.org/software/xboard/FAQ.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;XBoard/WinBoard&lt;/a&gt; with Zippy, or similar tools.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1761" LastActivityDate="2014-12-11T09:15:41.670" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8068" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8091" CreationDate="2014-12-11T14:59:35.290" Score="4" ViewCount="721" Body="&lt;p&gt;Recently I played a game in a High School league match as the top board. I played f4 followed by d5 (very standard). I played passively and waited out his attack and soon gained the momentum. At around the 25th move we progressed to this situation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;r5k1/p1q5/5rp1/2p1Np2/1p1n1P2/1P1PR3/P1P2Q2/1K2R3 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA; [Title &quot;White to Move&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It was my move and I saw mate in 3 with &lt;code&gt;Qh4/Rh1/Qh8++&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I played Qh4 attacking his rook and impending mate. He responded Qg7 which I feel was a strong defense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's when I saw my winning move from this position: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;r5k1/p5q1/5rp1/2p1Np2/1p1n1P1Q/1P1PR3/P1P5/1K2R3 w - - 2 2&quot;]&#xA; [Title &quot;White to Move&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nd7!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How does he respond without going down the exchange or significant material?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If - QxN &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;QxR down the exchange and threatening to take more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He plays Rd6?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;r5k1/p2N2q1/3r2p1/2p2p2/1p1n1P1Q/1P1PR3/P1P5/1K2R3 w - - 4 3&quot;]&#xA;[Title &quot;White to Move&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Re8+ now wins, right? There's a mate there for sure, but can he escape without losing his queen? If not the game?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;     [FEN &quot;r3R1k1/p2N2q1/3r2p1/2p2p2/1p1n1P1Q/1P1P4/P1P5/1K2R3 b - - 5 3&quot;]&#xA;     [StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;     [Title &quot;Black to Move&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;black resigns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT:&#xA;After some analyizing I think after Nd7 Black has lost. I cant see any possible escape from an actual Mate. please correct me if I am wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4402" LastEditorUserId="11202" LastEditDate="2017-05-04T07:53:21.120" LastActivityDate="2017-05-05T16:28:33.700" Title="Is there a forced mate/ winning advantage?" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;winning&gt;&lt;material-balance&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8070" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8062" CreationDate="2014-12-11T17:21:59.300" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Win for the player with the Rook would be very hard to achieve. There is no real way to explain it without an in depth book reading im sorry to say. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4402" LastActivityDate="2014-12-11T17:21:59.300" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8071" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-12-11T18:09:45.707" Score="8" ViewCount="1488" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am an unrated player. I am looking for ways to improve my endgame. I am currently using:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Dvoretsky's Endgame Manual&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Pandolfini's Endgame Course&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(I am personally finding the former to be tough. So I am planning to revise the second first).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So here are my questions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Please inform me about other sources I should check?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I have heard about endgame table bases on several occasions. But I felt them to be too much information and not enough wisdom. So I have ignored learning more about them. Please advise me about how to have a systematic principled way of assimilating the endgame tables.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I want to read more about mathematical expositions on chess. I am familiar with works of &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.webcitation.org/5oFLE7Mgx&quot;&gt;Shannon&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://fragrieu.free.fr/SearchingForSolutions.pdf&quot;&gt;Victor Allis&lt;/a&gt;. I want to read what Combinatorial game theorists have to say about chess. I for example know about this research &lt;a href=&quot;http://gamescrafters.berkeley.edu/&quot;&gt;group&lt;/a&gt; at UC Berkley. Please share if you know any interesting lead along this direction. (I am aware these efforts digress from the real problem of playing tournaments, but I am of the opinion these would help make a stronger player. Please tell me what do you think).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4062" LastEditorUserId="4062" LastEditDate="2014-12-11T18:28:32.300" LastActivityDate="2018-09-24T20:52:11.593" Title="Suggestions for endgame training" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;training&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8072" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8063" CreationDate="2014-12-11T18:56:54.357" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think there is no reason to suppose Veselin Topalov has retired.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;Topalov's rating hasn't changed since a long time&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The last change in &lt;a href=&quot;http://ratings.fide.com/id.phtml?event=2900084&quot;&gt;Topalov's rating&lt;/a&gt; was in October, just two months ago. He has previously spent periods of up to 4 months without playing. So that seems normal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;I wonder if he has retired, after reaching that 2800 mark?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Topalov has been above 2800 before. His maximum rating was 2813 in 2006 and again in 2009. I don't see any reason why he should stop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;He isn't playing the Grand Prix even.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aESw9LhsmzM&quot;&gt;this interview&lt;/a&gt; (minute 8:30) given during the Chess Olympiad, he isn't a great fan of the Grand Prix series (see also &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess24.com/en/read/news/caruana-tops-grand-prix-line-up&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3757" LastActivityDate="2014-12-11T18:56:54.357" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8073" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1236" CreationDate="2014-12-11T19:02:39.840" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;One of my teacher's former students was on the chess team at school and was an advanced computer programmer. He often played with the ICC using an engine using Fischer's moves. When my teacher asked him about this event, the student basically said &amp;quot;I'm not saying I didn't do it.&amp;quot; I don't know if this is true, but I thought that this was a funny coincidence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4402" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-05-25T19:49:44.363" LastActivityDate="2021-05-25T19:49:44.363" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="8074" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8031" CreationDate="2014-12-12T02:53:20.710" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Me too! I am also a free member at chess.com (@datfreshmandude if you're daring to look for me;) ) and Chess Mentor has helped me to a small degree.  It has helped me in openings, and the advantage to Chess Mentor over Tactics Trainer is that Chess Mentor not only gives reasoning for why a solution is right/wrong, but it is also written by GMs and IMs (at least I think they are).  So you are almost sure to get a good lesson out of the day.&#xA;The problem with some of the puzzles (most, I daresay) is that they don't apply in 99.99% of the games you play.  Some of them you have to be in that EXACT position to really get anything out of it, in the long term.  But it does help you look for things you have never seen before.&#xA;For me it has taught me when to make a sacrifice, for example, to sac a rook for a bishop.  I never even considered it before, but now I am looking for ways like that to make my position better.&#xA;Because of chess mentor I now look for better ways to improve my position.  In fact, I would much rather have a good position then be up in material.  I had an opponent that was ahead a full rook for 10 moves, but I ended up destroying him because of his weak kingside.&#xA;Things like this you'll eventualy catch on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But if you really want to get better and improve, here's what you do: You lose games.&#xA;I'm not recommending this on purpose, but you learn a lot from lost games.  You learn what things you should have taken advantage of but decided not to... and also, in my case, it will tell me that I should not have been so recklessly aggressive. (I play aggressively, open position, and love queenside castling in order to full on assault the other players kingside).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are a free member on chess.com, which I assume from the information you have given, I recommend playing as many tactics trainer and chess mentor puzzles that it will let you.  (normally about 6 total).  But best yet is to play against other players.&#xA;Dont just play against fellow players who are the same skill level and rating as you.  Play against players who are rated much higher.  They will teach you a lot when you lose.&#xA;Play against lower rated players. they will teach you how to better find holes in their positions because almost all lower rated players have the same Achilles Heel: weak pawn structures.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Good luck and I hope you won't hestitate to contact me if you need any more help or just want to play a game.  I like analyzing games with the player afterwards whether I've won or not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ryan&#xA;@datfreshmandude  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4441" LastActivityDate="2014-12-12T02:53:20.710" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8075" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6567" CreationDate="2014-12-12T09:40:31.393" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;When an illegal move is completed once the opponent’s clock has been started. The opponent is entitled to claim a win before he has made his own move. However, if the opponent cannot checkmate the player’s king by any possible series of legal moves, then the claimant is entitled to claim a draw before he has made his own move. Once the opponent has made his own move, an illegal move cannot be corrected unless mutually agreed without intervention of an arbiter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as the time/check priorities go... As far as I'm aware(and in any tournament I have played in thus far) any player that is first to claim for a win will win the game, UNLESS both flags have fallen in which case it becomes a draw. It is part of the game(especially in blitz) for a player to be aware of the clock and there is no default loss when a player's time hits 0 unlike online chess where this is done automatically.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since someone wanted a conclusive pointer to a rule that enforces this... which took a while it is found in the fide rulebook which can be found at &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fide.com/component/handbook/?id=124&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.fide.com/component/handbook/?id=124&amp;amp;view=article&lt;/a&gt; &#xA;There is also a short section regarding blitz(which is less than 15 minutes) which seems to handle the same format.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/umauI.png&quot; alt=&quot;Fide rules regarding rapidplay&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/RICUa.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4093" LastEditorUserId="4093" LastEditDate="2014-12-12T12:42:40.117" LastActivityDate="2014-12-12T12:42:40.117" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8076" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8071" CreationDate="2014-12-12T13:44:04.607" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The kind of book you need depends on your level and what you are looking for. Dvoretsky's book is of high quality, well-researched, magnificently analysed and ... pretty much useless if you are under 2400. Well, OK, maybe not &lt;em&gt;useless&lt;/em&gt;, but I prefer my chess study to be a little more enjoyable than studying advanced theoretical mathematics. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For something more engaging and accessible, I prefer &quot;Fundamental Chess Endings&quot; by Karsten Muller and Frank Lamprecht. It covers the same topics as Dvoretsky, but with less emphasis on highly theoretical analysis and more on problem solving and practical considerations. But I'm below 1600, so my needs may be different than yours.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;End game tablebases, as far as I know, is a complete tree of chess positions that have been solved using a brute force technique by evaluating every possible move. There is no practical way for a human brain to remember the terrabytes of data that it contains for use in OTB games. It would be like learning to play Call of Duty by simulating every possible action of every possible player. The data will only be interesting to people trying to create bots.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1816" LastEditorUserId="1816" LastEditDate="2014-12-12T14:11:03.350" LastActivityDate="2014-12-12T14:11:03.350" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8077" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8031" CreationDate="2014-12-12T15:01:20.770" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Like Ryan Orr I too am a free member of Chess.com. I love the site and it has been very useful to my chess learning! You are right in saying that getting a coach of sorts would be more beneficial to you. However Chess.com has many useful resources (developed by GMs) for their members to use. Tactics trainer and Chess mentor are the only real learning tools &quot;fully&quot; accessible to free member. Limited to 3 tactics per day, only the free trials for the mentor. So it would be worth your while to get some sort of paid membership. The price is up to you but I would agree with you to take advantage.&#xA;There is another feature available to the free member that starts you from a position and lets you play against a computer and try and win. Use that as well!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4402" LastActivityDate="2014-12-12T15:01:20.770" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8078" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6282" CreationDate="2014-12-12T15:45:37.010" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It may simply be that the population of advanced (i.e professional) chess players that are also women is very small (as has been pointed out). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Statistically speaking (assuming that the skills and abilities required for chess playing are evenly distributed among the population without any bias for either sex) if there are an equal number of men and women in the professional chess world, and the chess world population is reasonably high, there should be an even distribution of skill across those players (meaning for every man of a certain skill, there is a women of about equal skill for every rating level). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Back to the original question, because the above conditions do not exist (as some one pointed out, the top 50 chess players do not include women), perhaps it is necessary to separate the populations of women chess players from men for some &quot;idealized&quot; fair competition. Still, even as I write this, I am not entirely convinced that in its origin, women's tournaments were not a matter of sexism in the chess community. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The simple solution would be to have more women in the professional chess world, which, besides creating skill equality, as mentioned above, would also create an equality in terms of voiced opinion. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4445" LastActivityDate="2014-12-12T15:45:37.010" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8079" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4925" CreationDate="2014-12-12T15:50:11.777" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In terms of societal perception, I would imagine that for the vast majority of chess players (90%) chess is more of a hobby than an actual sport. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the other 10% which are essentially professionals, chess can be defined and perceived as a sport. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Though as someone else mentioned, the idea of a &quot;sport&quot; is ultimately subjective.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4445" LastEditorUserId="4445" LastEditDate="2014-12-13T17:13:41.850" LastActivityDate="2014-12-13T17:13:41.850" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8080" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4925" CreationDate="2014-12-12T16:26:19.137" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to Wikipedia, sport is defined as follows&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Sport (or sports) is all forms of usually competitive physical activity which, through casual or organised participation, aim to use, maintain or improve physical ability and  skills while providing entertainment to participants, and in some cases, spectators.[2] Hundreds of sports exist, from those requiring only two participants, through to those with hundreds of simultaneous participants, either in teams or competing as individuals.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to Google definition&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Sport is an activity involving physical exertion and skill in which an individual or team competes against another or others for entertainment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus, it seems to boil down to whether chess is a physical activity and skill. To begin with, as far as I know, the majority of the world's population does not regard chess as a sport but rather as a board game. Yet, when focusing on the skill set required to be great at chess, the physical factors are significant. Perhaps not as much the actual motion of moving the pieces and pressing the chess clock. Although there is a certain skill in executing your moves quickly and flawlessly. Yet more in terms of physical endurance. The ability to stay focused and sharp for a long period of time (e.g. 6 hours). The ability to make 40 or more good decisions during that time span. The mind set to win the game. There is also an undeniable amount of entertainment in top level chess!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My answer is that chess can be defined as a sport. But it is not considered to be a sport, because it is a board game, and board games are not associated to sports.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastActivityDate="2014-12-12T16:26:19.137" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8081" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4925" CreationDate="2014-12-12T17:47:26.147" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The answer is also totally dependent on your definition of a sport.&#xA;My definition is: A competition between two or more opponents that requires physical, mental, and emotional strain on those participating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sports like Baseball requires a large amount of mental strategy and planning. For example; sacrifice bunts, intentional walks, stealing bases, and field positioning based on the batters batting record.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chess people dont think that sitting at a board takes a toll on as person, but try sitting there for hours on end and sometimes for multiple day in a row.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Rauan Sagit is right in saying that by standard definitions chess is not a sport because it is classified a a board game. I refer back to my original statement in saying that it all depends on your definition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To give another prevalent world example: the world of eSports (i.e. Video games) can playing video games be a sport?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I hope this helps :D&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4402" LastActivityDate="2014-12-12T17:47:26.147" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8082" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-12-12T22:07:17.723" Score="3" ViewCount="850" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a novice in C#.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I am looking for the code(s) of one or more chess program(s) written in C#.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Preferably, the code(s) should be short, clean, straightforward, very simple, and use only basic things (try to avoid complicated system namespace / library). It does not matter if the program is not very strong.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;If you could also provide some explanations of the different parts of the code it would be even better.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The part of the code which interests me the most is the part which stores all the many millions positions at different depths.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Can this be done in a multidimensional array?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I was thinking that maybe the first two dimensions of the array could represent the two-dimensional boards, the 3rd dimension of the array could represent all the possible positions at a depth of 1 ply, the 4th dimension of the array could represent all the positions at a depth of 2 plies, the 5th dimension of the array could represent all the positions at a depth of 3 plies, etc... But perhaps that would be a little too messy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3237" LastActivityDate="2014-12-12T23:39:07.027" Title="Could you show me the code(s) of one or more simple chess program(s) written in C#?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;programming&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8083" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8082" CreationDate="2014-12-12T22:59:25.640" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Although it is written in C, you might want to take a look at &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.tckerrigan.com/chess/tscp&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Tom Kerrigan's Simple Chess Program (TSCP)&lt;/a&gt; which is created for this very purpose—to allow beginners to see what a simple chess engine is made of.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1761" LastActivityDate="2014-12-12T22:59:25.640" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8084" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8082" CreationDate="2014-12-12T23:39:07.027" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is &#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://sharpchess.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://sharpchess.com/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And &#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/36112/Chess-Program-in-C&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/36112/Chess-Program-in-C&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But since chess engines are very cpu intensive and carefully tweaked for performance, if you want to do anything serious, you'd rather move to C/C++ as your implementation language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And dont forget the wiki for chess programming: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;with many documented advanced techniques in the field.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2607" LastActivityDate="2014-12-12T23:39:07.027" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8085" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="457" CreationDate="2014-12-13T02:56:06.990" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just posted a review of the DGT board on Amazon. The software related to the DGT boards is VERY UNSTABLE and crashes too often to make them usable in practical play. Here is a link to the review, but ultimately here is what I said also:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;URL: &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/B003M88VKS&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003M88VKS#customerReviews&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A friend and I both have the DGT board and while the board and chess pieces appear to work fine, we have tried to get the related software drivers and ICC.com and PlayChess.com to cooperate. We have failed and have sent logs to DGT support for anwers after having done everything they recommended and installed latest drivers and software. The physical boards seem generally fine but the software does not work well (stability) across the internet sites ICC.com and playchess.com. We are only able to get through a game or a fraction of the game before all stops working. The boards seem stable if you play Fritz locally, but considering our goal was to play each other via the Internet, and not just play a computer locally, the DGT boards so far has not been a good investment. Be aware that they probably work fine locally on your computer but not very well across the Internet in their current release of software as of the time of this post. We are still actively sending logs and working with DGT support to try and improve the situation, but no luck. We have tried 4 computers, Windows 7 32 bit and 64 bit so far, and loaded all their latest drivers etc. We are greatly disappointed so far. We also wish chess.com would support the DGT board in the future, but that is an aside, but be aware chess.com is not supporting the DGT board so far also.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4449" LastActivityDate="2014-12-13T02:56:06.990" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8086" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-12-13T03:45:10.850" Score="6" ViewCount="974" Body="&lt;p&gt;As Black, after 1. d4 d5 2. c4 c6 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. Nc3, I like to play 4... dxc4 5. a4 Bf5, but I am afraid to play 4... dxc4 because of 5. e4, the Tolush-Geller Gambit (always followed by  5... b5 6. e5 Nd5 7. a4 e6)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  [StartPly &quot;9&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;  [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;  1. d4 d5 2. c4 c6 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. Nc3 dxc4 5. e4 b5 6. e5 Nd5 7. a4 e6 (5. a4 Bf5)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am a 1800 Elo player who likes quiet and strategic positions, so this gambit which leads to insanely sharp tactical positions is frightening me...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But is this gambit really sound?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Does it really give White enough compensation for the sacrificed Pawn?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Should I really be afraid of it?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Should I really abandon 4... dxc4 because of this gambit and choose something else instead (maybe 4... a6 the Chebanenko)?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3237" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2014-12-13T21:16:52.387" LastActivityDate="2015-04-26T07:20:54.647" Title="Should I be afraid of the Slav Tolush-Geller Gambit?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;gambits&gt;&lt;slav-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8087" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8086" CreationDate="2014-12-13T07:01:52.490" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is quite sound in my opinion. As White I always welcome &lt;code&gt;dc&lt;/code&gt;: Black surrenders the center, and asserting a control over it is well worth the pawn. I am not so much sure about 6. e5 though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3774" LastActivityDate="2014-12-13T07:01:52.490" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8088" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5022" CreationDate="2014-12-13T10:31:50.563" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is not a technical answer. Playing blindfold can be practiced and you can gain proficiency upto a level. But beyond that level, as it is with normal chess, you need talent, pure talent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4453" LastActivityDate="2014-12-13T10:31:50.563" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8089" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4925" CreationDate="2014-12-13T16:19:31.243" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would argue that chess is &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; a sport, since it doesn't require anything more than the absolute minimum of physical co-ordination. In fact, it doesn't even require that &amp;ndash; one can perfectly well play by announcing one's moves and having somebody else move the physical pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Kirsan Ilyumzhinov &lt;a href=&quot;http://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1827716,00.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;is annoyed&lt;/a&gt; that curling, often referred to as &quot;chess on ice&quot;, is included in the Olympics but chess isn't. I'd argue that the fundamental difference is that, in curling, somebody who has never played before wouldn't be able to figure out what &quot;move&quot; to play and wouldn't be able to execute that &quot;move&quot; even if told exactly where to put the stone; in chess, a novice has no idea what move to make but, if Magnus Carlsen tells them &quot;Put the queen on that square&quot;, they could do that without any difficulty.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, administratively, it often makes sense to classify chess as a sport. For example, the International Olympic Committee &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.olympic.org/chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;includes FIDE&lt;/a&gt; on its list of recognized sporting federations. And it would probably make sense for an organization that funds sports for children to fund chess too, since playing chess has many of the benefits of any individual sport on a child's development, with the obvious exception of physical exercise.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2789" LastActivityDate="2014-12-13T16:19:31.243" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8090" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="808" CreationDate="2014-12-13T16:24:25.477" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If it's a normal game, a rook against a knight will always be a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In very rare situation both can win:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A knight wins here in this position&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [Title &quot;White to move&quot;]   &#xA; [FEN &quot;8/8/8/8/8/8/r2N4/k1K5 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A rook wins here in this position&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [Title &quot;White to move&quot;]   &#xA; [FEN &quot;8/2R5/8/8/7k/3K4/8/4n3 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4454" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2014-12-13T16:42:46.163" LastActivityDate="2014-12-13T16:42:46.163" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8091" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8068" CreationDate="2014-12-13T17:59:52.550" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Congratulations on a fine win. I see you have dominated the center with your knight which is backed up by doubled rooks on an open file.  Your king is in a safe position, compared to black's drafty King position. Black's queen is passive though not poorly placed. One of black's rooks is still in the box and is undefended.  It's vulnerable.  The other rook is also undefended and passive. But at least it is offering a feeble defense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you dilly-dallied, Black could move his knight to the awesome c3 square. So I am glad you did not do that. Also, if the pieces suddenly disappeared from the board, he would have a passed pawn on the f-file which could be fatal for you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This position proves the adage, &quot;If you find a good move, wait, and find a better move.&quot;  White wins with Qh4.  I'm sure you can win this game by force but I can't find a mate. It's amazing how resilient even crummy positions can be, if the losing player is willing to play until the bitter end.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This statement set off my danger alarm:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;QxR down the exchange and threatening to take more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Being up the exchange is not a clear-cut win. You need to see the 'more' before assuming you're going to get the full point.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Qh4 is spot-on in that it forwards an agenda (exploit the drafty house) while hitting the lose rook. What's not to like?  But what I think you have missed here is the wretched state of the g6 pawn.  What if you double up on it with Qg2.  Now you're threatening to denude the king even more, while hitting the lose liability, oops I mean rook, on a8. Because Black's rooks are lose, you can move with tempo. It's like getting free moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[FEN &quot;r5k1/p1q5/5rp1/2p1Np2/1p1n1P2/1P1PR3/P1P2Q2/1K2R3 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Qg2 Raf8 2. Nxg6 (2... a6?? 3.Ne7+ Kf7 4.Qd5+ looks_strong) Rxg6 3. Qxg6+ Qg7 4.Qd6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;code&gt;a6&lt;/code&gt; move is a throw-away to show what can happen if Black plays poorly. It's what's coming if he does not take evasive action.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The main line sees you getting an exchange and a pawn. Super easy, too, and offers Black nothing in return.  Now your queen dominates black's undefended queenside. The &lt;code&gt;c5&lt;/code&gt; pawn will likely fall, leaving the Knight trapped. If he saves the Knight, you probably get the b4 pawn if you want it.  NOW if the pieces drop off, you have connected passed pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black's king will never be safe with white's queen and rooks on the board. This means he must always defend against fast checkmates and getting pieces pinned against the king. He's going to be down material and defensive. Further, I don't see how black holds the c5 pawn and he's in danger of losing the knight which is hemmed in.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit - I like to run positions in Stockfish (a chess engine.)  I let this one run. 20 minutes into its analysis, it switched black's first response from Raf8 to Nb5.  That is, it advocates that black simply drop the rook on a8. &lt;code&gt;1. Qg2 Nb5 2. Qxa8.&lt;/code&gt; wow. It rates the initial position as a crushing win for white. What is important to realize is that &lt;em&gt;the moves are there if you're clever enough to find them.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2014-12-13T18:38:19.507" LastActivityDate="2014-12-13T18:38:19.507" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8092" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2422" CreationDate="2014-12-13T18:28:41.237" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think someday chess will be solved.  Why?  Because, well, not that long ago, playing chess against a computer was weird and unthinkable! How could you train a computer to play chess?  Well, they did it! (In addition, the idea of a computer was strange...)&#xA;My point is, it might seem weird because we've never seen of or heard of it.  Its not something we can easily imagine.  But technology is expanding at an exponential rate.  I wouldn't be surprised if in the near future (10+ years) that it is solved, in one form or another.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4441" LastActivityDate="2014-12-13T18:28:41.237" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8093" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2014-12-13T21:34:37.950" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2014-12-13T21:34:37.950" LastActivityDate="2014-12-13T21:34:37.950" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8094" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2014-12-13T21:34:37.950" Score="0" Body="An endgame where each side has a king, a bishop, and possibly some pawns." OwnerUserId="1485" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2015-04-02T22:19:37.497" LastActivityDate="2015-04-02T22:19:37.497" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8095" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-12-13T21:52:11.923" Score="4" ViewCount="2311" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am currently writing a capstone position paper about the optimum age for a person to start learning chess. I have come to the conclusion that the optimum age is 5-6. I need help brainstorming reasons though. So far I have:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Most grandmasters learn chess at this age.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Children's brains are like sponges at this age.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any other ideas would be very helpful. Thank you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4459" LastEditorUserId="3890" LastEditDate="2014-12-14T08:39:12.450" LastActivityDate="2014-12-22T15:54:12.343" Title="What is the best age to learn chess?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8096" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6297" CreationDate="2014-12-14T08:23:25.947" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chesstempo.com/chess-tactics/90023&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://chesstempo.com/chess-tactics/90023&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;The final position of the solution is an ending with queen against two knights with pawns on both sides where the knights can set up a blockade. Looks like a draw but the engine evaluates that the queen side wins.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;8/5ppk/7p/3pP3/5P2/5N1P/4NKP1/7q b - - 0 5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3456" LastEditorUserId="3456" LastEditDate="2014-12-14T15:24:47.327" LastActivityDate="2014-12-14T15:24:47.327" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8097" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8106" CreationDate="2014-12-14T14:59:03.377" Score="8" ViewCount="2112" Body="&lt;p&gt;I see that there are several chess bots playing on FICS. I would like to have my own chess engine running on FICS (guest mode is ok), but so far I haven't found any bot source code. I tried eboard and Raptor but these are only interface and do not allow a FICS - engine game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4118" LastEditorUserId="10905" LastEditDate="2016-07-28T12:28:44.120" LastActivityDate="2017-07-23T07:03:24.520" Title="How to connect a UCI chess engine play on FICS?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;uci&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8098" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6297" CreationDate="2014-12-14T17:30:24.860" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Besides fortresses, another type of position the engines tend to get wrong is when the weaker side is about to promote a pawn but the promotion can be delayed indefinitely. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;5Q2/8/8/8/2k5/7P/1p4PK/r7 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Anatoly Karpov&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Anthony Miles&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot; Biel&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;1990  (analysis, white to move)&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For a human player it is easy to see that this is a draw, but the engine has to try all the different checks from all possible squares in all different orders. (I haven't tested this position with the newest engines, perhaps some of them can handle this?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1485" LastActivityDate="2014-12-14T17:30:24.860" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8099" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-12-14T19:54:29.150" Score="7" ViewCount="898" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am looking for ideas on how to have my 9 year old son analyze his chess games. Is there a software that he could use?  He may not want to analyze the already played games on a chess board by himself. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4463" LastActivityDate="2015-01-14T19:07:28.827" Title="Best strategy for analyzing chess games played by a kid" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8100" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-12-14T23:25:09.930" Score="15" ViewCount="3532" Body="&lt;p&gt;After reading Micheal de Maza's article &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&amp;amp;rct=j&amp;amp;q=&amp;amp;esrc=s&amp;amp;source=web&amp;amp;cd=2&amp;amp;cad=rja&amp;amp;uact=8&amp;amp;ved=0CCYQFjAB&amp;amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.masschess.org%2FChess_Horizons%2FArticles%2F2001-04_Sample_400_Points_Part_2.pdf&amp;amp;ei=Ow-OVIbJOZLCsASFtoKYAQ&amp;amp;usg=AFQjCNEKwuy3FhAzAiahYS4lpRd1gEAJCQ&amp;amp;sig2=KGcXGV4K-IUvrPdddymIgA&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;400 Points in 400 Days&lt;/a&gt; and the paper &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.brunel.ac.uk/~hsstffg/preprints/Training_in_chess.PDF&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Training in Chess: A Scientific Approach&lt;/a&gt; by Gobet and Jansen, &#xA;I have come to the conclusion that effective gains in chess skill for players below the A-class rating (&amp;lt;1900) must come from an equal gain in tactical ability. This is pretty well known in the chess community, and most people, when asked how to improve, will point to tactics.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once we accept this idea of tactics being the foundation of amateur (&amp;lt;1900) improvement, it becomes a simple matter of methods, results and efficiency. In this regard, most chess players will look to books and websites which offer &quot;chess puzzles&quot;. Some of the more popular websites, CTS (Chess Tactics Server) and ChessTempo, offer random puzzles, ordered by difficulty. Having used these websites for the better part of two years, one of the main problems I've found is the loss of &quot;sharpness&quot; or &quot;board vision&quot; when the regularity of puzzle reviews are interrupted. Often, even a gap of 1 week can severely cripple any progress made in tactical ability, so that constant daily practice is needed to maintain any growth. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then I read about Micheal de Maza (from an article by Dan Heisman) and his method to increase 400+ rating points in a little more than a year. The crux of his method is what he calls &quot;the seven circles&quot; where he does 7 passes through a chess puzzle book, at which point he can solve the puzzles near instantly. In other words, he has &lt;strong&gt;memorized&lt;/strong&gt; the puzzles and their solutions by &lt;strong&gt;sight&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now it is my opinion that the book he chose to &quot;memorize&quot; (Chess Manual of Combinations) had a greater contribution than his actual method (the method is very inefficient, as I will discuss later) but I also believe that the memorization component was essential to sustained (i.e permanent) chess growth. Looking through the Chess Manual of Combinations, I can see that it follows many of the principles laid out in the second paper (especially regarding the building up of positions from the simple to the complex to create an internal hierarchy); it is also ordered by theme and difficulty. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But the question remains, what is the most efficient way to memorize this material? Certainly, doing seven passes through the book seems to be the most inefficient way (brute force usually is).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am a big fan of spaced repetition software such as Anki, and I think that this software can be combined with the memorization method to yield some significant results, but before I begin such an undertaking I wanted to ask if anyone has already tried a similar approach (if not spaced repetition, at least the memorization of puzzles) and what results they obtained (particularly if it was quantitative, i.e changes in ratings). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, I have &quot;Anki-ed&quot; the Manual of Chess Combinations (Volume 1a only, 2a is in the works) and am wondering if anyone else is willing to experiment with this method along with me. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4445" LastEditorUserId="10867" LastEditDate="2016-07-28T20:35:50.497" LastActivityDate="2019-11-06T08:54:16.617" Title="Effectiveness of a spaced repetition system (SRS) for memorizing tactical patterns for long-term skill gain?" Tags="&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;puzzles&gt;&lt;training&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8101" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8095" CreationDate="2014-12-14T23:37:14.077" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a hobby, it can be learned at any age and enjoyed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a career or competitive endeavor, as with other sports, the earlier, the better. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4445" LastActivityDate="2014-12-14T23:37:14.077" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8102" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-12-15T01:55:13.037" Score="6" ViewCount="1367" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am not sure what to play as Black in the Classical Variation of the Caro-Kann, after 1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 dxe4 4. Nxe4 Bf5 5. Ng3 Bg6 6. h4 h6 7. Nf3 Nd7 8. h5 Bh7 9. Bd3 Bxd3 10. Qxd3&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  [StartPly &quot;19&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;  [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;  1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 dxe4 4. Nxe4 Bf5 5. Ng3 Bg6 6. h4 h6 7. Nf3 Nd7 8. h5 Bh7 9. Bd3 Bxd3 10. Qxd3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What I would like is the most positional, strategic, quiet, slow, closed, boring, dry and solid variation (the variation which is the least sharp and tactical).&lt;br&gt;&#xA;And I would like to castle on the same side as White.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So what exactly should I play? And what are the differences between starting first with 10...e6 or 10...Qc7 or 10...Ngf6 ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3237" LastActivityDate="2017-05-04T05:05:42.940" Title="In the Classical Variation of the Caro-Kann, what is the most positional, strategic, quiet, slow, closed, boring, dry and solid variation for Black?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;&lt;caro-kann&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8103" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8068" CreationDate="2014-12-15T02:14:53.960" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You will win the queen. After your move re8 he has only 3 moves:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Interpose with Q which loses Q&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Kf7 Re7 mate&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Rxe8 Rxe8 and he either interposes his queen which loses his queen, or Kf7 and Qe7 mate. Good game, son!&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4465" LastEditorUserId="11202" LastEditDate="2017-05-05T05:59:07.923" LastActivityDate="2017-05-05T05:59:07.923" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8104" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8097" CreationDate="2014-12-15T03:41:27.887" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You could connect to FICS using simple telnet program. This is the basis of writing bots. Mekk- the author of watchbot on FICS has created an excellent tutorial, on going about writing FICS bots. Here's the link:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://blog.mekk.waw.pl/archives/7-How-to-write-a-FICS-bot-part-I.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://blog.mekk.waw.pl/archives/7-How-to-write-a-FICS-bot-part-I.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Overall, the workflow would be something like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a) Create a FICS client program (using any programming language) that interacts with the FICS server using telnet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;b) Host your engine and fics client on some machine (maybe your desktop or a server)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;c) Use the fics client to play games on fics, while at the same time interacting with your chess engine to evaluate the moves and feeding it back to fics client.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3158" LastActivityDate="2014-12-15T03:41:27.887" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8105" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8099" CreationDate="2014-12-15T04:01:41.700" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, there are many softwares which do the analysis (also termed annotation) of chess games using chess engines. Some free software for Windows are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://scidvspc.sourceforge.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Scid Vs PC&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.playwitharena.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Arena&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Commercial software:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.chessbase.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chessbase&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are numerous other softwares both free and commercial for specific platforms like Mac, Android, iPhone etc.,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Typically after your son plays the game, the game needs to be entered into the chess software as a new game. If he plays the game online, then you could use the PGN file for this purpose. The software (using the chess engine), can point out the evaluation of each move (whether its good or bad), by means of a simple scoring scheme (positive scores indicate good for white, negative indicate good for black). The GUI also point out or flags bad moves for consideration. Typically, analyzing games with the software is for finding tactical mistakes, blunder checks, ideas in specific positions and opening preparation. For a clear understanding of why a particular move was chosen as best in a position, would involve understanding positional concepts. This can be gained by acquiring knowledge through self-study or through a coach.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If software isn't working out well, you could submit the games played to a strong player or coach for his/her inputs. This facility is available online on many internet chess sites.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3158" LastEditorUserId="3158" LastEditDate="2014-12-15T06:00:43.273" LastActivityDate="2014-12-15T06:00:43.273" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8106" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8097" CreationDate="2014-12-15T07:43:57.923" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can use &lt;a href=&quot;http://sourceforge.net/projects/icsdrone/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;icsDrone&lt;/a&gt; or &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.gnu.org/software/xboard/FAQ.html#tag-B.16&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Zippy with Winboard&lt;/a&gt; to connect an engine using the Winboard protocol to FICS. You can use &lt;a href=&quot;http://wbec-ridderkerk.nl/html/details1/PolyGlot.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;PolyGlot&lt;/a&gt; as an adapter between Winboard and UCI protocols to connect your UCI engine to Winboard or icsDrone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1761" LastActivityDate="2014-12-15T07:43:57.923" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8107" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2422" CreationDate="2014-12-15T08:53:04.120" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, it would not be possible for such a database to exist. Calculating it would require an infeasibly large computer and the calculation would take so long that your computer wouldn't exist for long enough to complete the task.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Claude Shannon estimated that there are around &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shannon_number&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;10&lt;sup&gt;43&lt;/sup&gt; possible positions&lt;/a&gt; in chess and your database would need to store the outcome of all of these (this would be, essentially, a 32-man &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endgame_tablebase&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;tablebase&lt;/a&gt;). However, it is estimated that the &lt;a href=&quot;http://education.jlab.org/qa/mathatom_05.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Earth contains only about 10&lt;sup&gt;50&lt;/sup&gt; atoms&lt;/a&gt; so, even if you could build a memory cell out of just 10,000,000 atoms, you would still need a computer the size of the Earth just to store all the positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But such a huge computer brings big problems. The earth's diameter is about 12,800 kilometres and light takes about 43ms to cross that distance.  That means that, if a clock cycle lasts longer than 43ms, then not only do you have horrible &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clock_skew&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;clock skew&lt;/a&gt; but different parts of your computer aren't even on the same clock cycle. Avoiding this limits your clock speed to about 23.5Hz (not GHz or MHz; just Hz).  Even if you could completely evaluate a position in a single clock cycle, that means your computer would take about 4.3x10&lt;sup&gt;41&lt;/sup&gt; seconds to complete its task. That's about 1.4x10&lt;sup&gt;34&lt;/sup&gt; years. That's 14 million billion billion billion years.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Astrophysicists believe that the universe will look &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_of_an_expanding_universe&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;radically different&lt;/a&gt; in 1.4x10&lt;sup&gt;34&lt;/sup&gt; years than it does now. By then, stars will have long ago ceased to exist and even elements that are in no meaningful sense radioactive will have undergone large amounts of radioactive decay. Even the protons that form atomic nuclei will have undergone significant radioactive decay.  So your earth-sized computer simply won't exist any more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2789" LastActivityDate="2014-12-15T08:53:04.120" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8108" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8100" CreationDate="2014-12-15T09:42:35.557" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some experiences:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I did some chess training with Anki and it is certainly a viable way to do it. Though I think I prefer to actually play out the solution on a (virtual) board. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;After three passes I am usually able to solve the puzzles instantly, so 7 passes seems to be quite excessive. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I'm not so sure you really have to memorise concrete positions. After all, the motifs turn up again and again anyway, and solving exactly the same positions again and again might condition you to no search for the exceptions anymore. (I noticed that a lot with youngsters who already have a good tactical eye.)&#xA;This plays into the difference between tactical vision and calculation: If you do too much of these drills your tactical vision improves, but your calculation gets worse. (Like playing too much blitz.)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;To me personally right now, it seems to be more beneficial to sit down for half an hour and solve some deep and difficult exercise to the end instead of &quot;remembering&quot; 200 easy tactical positions. But you specified &amp;lt;1900 and in that area of chess strength tactical drills certainly work. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I read some rather dubious stuff about de Maza, which I won't repeat here. But suffice to say, his book is not to be taken as a scientific study ...&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Addendum: With &quot;exceptions&quot; I mean cases, where the obvious tactical motif doesn't work for some deeper reason or maybe just because of a random tactical detail.&#xA;The &quot;concrete evidence&quot; that memorising position might have some negative side effects, is mostly based on the experience that many players, who do a lot of tactics, get fast but superficial at recognising tactical opportunities.(Many players are afraid of up and coming youngsters and their tactical acumen, but for me, if I myself am in decent tactical shape, those are usually the easy games.) &#xA;I fear I didn't use Anki long enough to tell you about longterm &quot;sharpness&quot;. But this is a very fuzzy thing to address in any case. Some rust always accumulates.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastEditorUserId="4362" LastEditDate="2014-12-16T08:48:42.770" LastActivityDate="2014-12-16T08:48:42.770" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8109" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7712" CreationDate="2014-12-15T10:46:21.210" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is not too difficult to do this with a python script:&#xA;You basically start the engine as a subprocess and communicate via &quot;uci&quot;.&#xA;I'll post some not very pretty code snippets and try to explain what you have to do:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;engine=subprocess.Popen('./stockfish-5-        64',universal_newlines=True,stdin=subprocess.PIPE,stdout=subprocess.PIPE,)&#xA;&#xA;def put(command):&#xA;    print command&#xA;    engine.stdin.write(command+'\n')&#xA;&#xA;    if command!='quit':&#xA;        engine.stdin.write('isready\n')&#xA;        while(True):&#xA;            text=engine.stdout.readline().strip()   &#xA;            print&#xA;            print text&#xA;            print&#xA;            if text == 'readyok':&#xA;                return&#xA;&#xA;def get():&#xA;    engine.stdin.write('isready\n')&#xA;    while(True):&#xA;        text=engine.stdout.readline().strip()&#xA;        print text&#xA;        if text == 'readyok':&#xA;            break&#xA;        if text !='':&#xA;            print text&#xA;&#xA;def getResult(depth):&#xA;    Result=[]&#xA;    while(True):&#xA;        text=engine.stdout.readline().strip()   &#xA;        liste=text.split()  &#xA;        if text[:22]==&quot;info depth &quot;+str(depth)+&quot; seldepth&quot; and liste[15]=='1':&#xA;            Result=[]&#xA;        if text[:22]==&quot;info depth &quot;+str(depth)+&quot; seldepth&quot;:&#xA;            Result.append(text)&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;        if text[:8] == 'bestmove':&#xA;            break&#xA;&#xA;    Scores=[]&#xA;    for line in Result:&#xA;        liste=line.split()&#xA;        Scores.append(liste[7])     &#xA;&#xA;    return Scores&#xA;&#xA;def Game_Analysis(game):&#xA;    scorestring=''&#xA;    moves=''&#xA;    for x in range(len(game)-1):&#xA;        moves+=game[x]+' '&#xA;        command='position startpos moves '+moves&#xA;        put(command)    &#xA;        get()&#xA;        put('go depth 15')&#xA;        Scores=getResult(15)&#xA;        for score in Scores:&#xA;            scorestring+=score+' '&#xA;        scorestring+='\n'&#xA;    return scorestring&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;get()&#xA;put('uci')&#xA;get()&#xA;put('setoption name MultiPV value 20')      &#xA;get()&#xA;&#xA;print Game_Analysis(game)&#xA;&#xA;put('stop')&#xA;put('quit')&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, get() and put() are for communicating with the engine. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;put('uci') starts the dialog.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;put('setoption name MultiPV value 20') tells the engine to return the best twenty moves. (In your case you really only need 2)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;command='position startpos moves '+moves&lt;br&gt;&#xA;put(command)  This sets up the position, unfortunately the moves aren't pgn but in uci-format. So you'll probably have to transcribe or use FEN.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In GetResult() I extract the 20 best scores of the position. Then you only need to look for a big difference between move one and move two.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Game_Analysis(game) extracts the 20 best scores for every position in a game, here given as a list of uci-formated moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To deal with the uci-format and really understand these commands you should have a look at the uci=Universal Chess Interface.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastEditorUserId="4362" LastEditDate="2014-12-16T10:06:56.530" LastActivityDate="2014-12-16T10:06:56.530" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8110" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8099" CreationDate="2014-12-15T11:13:49.050" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Beyond the fact that it's easier to go backwards and forwards through a game and try out variations on a computer than on a physical board (it remembers where the pieces were), software probably isn't very relevant because it's usually rather hard to interpret what the software is saying. Often it will highlight tactical blunders, which is fine: you look at the moves it gives you and you see that you could have won a knight or your opponent could have taken your rook.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, computers are very poor at giving strategic guidance, which is what most beginners really need.  Avoiding gross tactical blunders is mostly just a matter of practice (and, OK, it's plenty enough to win most games against other nine-year-olds). But, to get any farther, it's not enough just to play aimlessly but without blunders.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you're an OK player yourself, you can probably offer much more to your son than any computer could. If you don't feel that you're a good enough player to teach anything much to your son, I'd say that your best options are to either both learn together (your greater intellectual maturity will help you structure things and choose what to do next; his greater ability to soak up everything like a sponge will help to push you both) or to enroll him in a chess club where somebody more experienced can take on that teaching role. If he's really keen, you could even hire a coach for him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks to JiK for a helpful comment that was edited into this answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2789" LastEditorUserId="2789" LastEditDate="2014-12-15T11:29:46.603" LastActivityDate="2014-12-15T11:29:46.603" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8111" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8097" CreationDate="2014-12-16T01:49:28.540" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have uploaded my script on &lt;a href=&quot;http://smallchess.com/Scripts&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://smallchess.com/Scripts&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The script provides you infinite flexibility because you choose your engine, time limit etc in bot.ini. You should also update your login in FICSLogin.txt. The script is written in perl and therefore runs on all platforms.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2014-12-16T01:49:28.540" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8112" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-12-16T10:44:53.083" Score="14" ViewCount="2065" Body="&lt;p&gt;I hear this term in online commentaries. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have a vague sense of what it means: you earn yourself some good moves by ignoring a portion of the board and focusing on more promising parts of your play. It's as if you are telling your opponent: Sure you are threatening, but I am going to ignore it for I can also threaten you. So the players now try to prove whose threat is stronger.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Consider &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1751305&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Anand-Andreikin&lt;/a&gt; for example. Andreikin found a draw by evaluating that his queen side was stronger. He chose to ignore Anand's strong king side. Or &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1778621&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Anand-Carlsen&lt;/a&gt;, where Anand found a draw by finding counterplay with 44. Qh1. I am looking for heuristics/ rules of thumbs in this theme of playing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I feel my understanding of the term is still loose. So:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Could you explain what is counterplay with some instructive example?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;How to evaluate the potential of counterplay, i.e. - how to decide under practical playing conditions whether to counter attack or respond to the threat?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I feel the term is related to the idea of 'complicating a position'. Is it? (I have &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1745310&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Nakamura-Carlsen&lt;/a&gt; on my mind, but it may not be the best example).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I have also heard of players talking of prophylaxis to prevent potential counterplay. Again can you give some heuristics to decide, whether to get prophylactic in a winning position or not? This is the same question as 2, except from the other player's point of view.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4062" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-09-18T18:33:52.463" LastActivityDate="2019-09-18T19:27:20.597" Title="What is counterplay?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;counterplay&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="8113" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1567" CreationDate="2014-12-16T11:10:57.083" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think most psychological tricks that still fall within the boundaries of fair play are connected to time trouble. Here are some tricks to deal with an opponent in time trouble:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If he just got into time trouble and he is hovering at the board, hand ready to move, eyes wide open … wait (if you still have plenty of time). After 15-20 min his adrenalin level will drop and he will be much less ready to deal with what follows.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Don't go for a forcing variation. If possible, change the pawn structure. Play in time trouble is often conducted on a higher level than blitz, because the time trouble addict can draw on all his thoughts about the structure from earlier in the game. If you change the pawn structure, you take that away from him. If you cannot change the pawn structure, just making a quiet move is often very hard to react to.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Think deeply about the position and try to anticipate his response. Then bang out the next 3-4 moves. If you have done it right, he will be in terra incognita, with no time, low adrenaline and a new pawn structure to adapt to.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another little thing, that for some reason works incredibly well against some players: &#xA;If you see him fall into deep thought, stand up and go away from the board. But whenever he straightens up and seems ready to move, go back to the board and just look at the position. Often that is enough to make him &quot;go back to sleep&quot; again.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2014-12-16T11:10:57.083" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8114" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8112" CreationDate="2014-12-16T11:57:05.433" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is actually quite a sensible question and it isn't about the English word 'counter' as JiK suggests, but about the English word 'play'. ;-)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To have 'play' in a position basically means that you are able to create threats. The possibility to create threats isn't really linked to how complicated a position is. But a position in which only one player can create threats usually isn't very complicated. &#xA;So there are positions with counter play that aren't very complicated, but going for counter play often complicates a position. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'counter' just means that your opponent had all the play before and only now you start to strike back. &#xA;You could say that 'counter play' is a defensive technique. You may not be able to parry your opponents threats, but by creating counter threats you can dissuade him from executing his threats. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'll try to come up with some endgame example later …&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No endgame, but very recent and a really nice fight - Adams-Caruana:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Ba4 Nf6 5. O-O Be7 6. Re1 b5&#xA;7. Bb3 O-O 8. d3 d6 9. c3 Na5 10. Bc2 c5 11. Nbd2 Nc6 12. Nf1&#xA;h6 13. Ne3 Re8 14. a4 Be6 15. h3 Bf8 16. Nh2 b4 17. Bb3 Rb8&#xA;18. Bc4 bxc3 19. bxc3 d5 20. Bxa6 Qa5 21. c4 Qxa6 22. exd5&#xA;Bxd5 23. cxd5 Nb4 24. Ra3 Nfxd5 25. Neg4 f6 26. Nf1 Rbd8&#xA;27. Ng3 c4 28. Nxh6+ gxh6 29. Qg4+ Kh8 30. dxc4 Ne7 31. Qh5&#xA;Ng8 32. Nf5 Qb7 33. Rg3 Qh7 34. Nh4 Ne7 35. Ba3 Nbc6 36. Kh2&#xA;Bg7 37. Bxe7 Nxe7 38. Rd1 Qg8 39. Rb1 Rb8 40. Rd1 Red8 41. c5&#xA;Rxd1 42. Qxd1 Rb4 43. Qd7 Rxh4 44. Qxe7 Rd4 45. c6 Qf8 46. Qb7&#xA;Rb4 47. Qd7 Rd4 48. Qb7 Rb4 49. Rc3 f5 50. Qd7 Rd4 51. Qe6 Rd6&#xA;52. Qxd6 Qxd6 53. c7 e4+ 54. g3 Bxc3 55. c8=Q+ Kh7 56. Qxc3 f4&#xA;57. gxf4 Qxf4+ 58. Qg3 Qd2 59. Qc7+ Kg6 60. Qb6+ Kh7 61. Qb7+&#xA;Kh8 62. Qa8+ Kg7 63. Qxe4 Kf6 64. Qf3+ Kg6 65. Kg2 Qa2&#xA;66. Qe4+ Kf6 67. Qf4+ Kg6 68. Qd6+ Kg7 69. Qe5+ Kh7 70. a5&#xA;Qg8+ 71. Kh2 Qf7 72. Qe4+ Kg7 73. a6 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you look at the position after 27.Ng3 it looks pretty depressing for white. Black has all the play, d3 is weak and white is lacking space. But 27…c4 gave Adams the possibility to create counter play against the black king, by sacrificing his knight on h6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Concerning wisdom: I'm not sure you will have much luck searching for heuristics. Counter play and prophylaxis mostly rely on accurate calculation and maybe some alertness for tactical possibilities. Apart from that it is just an aspect of your positional feel for the game, to know how much play you can allow your opponent and when you have to throw a spanner into his works no matter what the cost.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastEditorUserId="4362" LastEditDate="2014-12-16T15:01:37.967" LastActivityDate="2014-12-16T15:01:37.967" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8115" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8095" CreationDate="2014-12-16T13:30:06.877" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some famous players learned at 4 or so, for Carlsen it was 8, for me it was 11.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My daughter is 6. I'd love to teach her chess. She loves playing games, but she hates the fact that someone has to lose (if a player is behind in a multiplayer game, she'll help that player instead of trying to win). She also hates the concept of a fixed set of rules that daddy knows and that have to be abided by... so she's invented her own &quot;chess&quot; (take a board and two sets of pieces, put all the white ones on white squares, all the black ones on black squares, and that's it). She also likes to take my Yusupov books and put the pieces on the board just like they are in some diagram, but is completely uninterested in the purpose of those diagrams. This is wonderful, she has her own mind.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's completely impossible to actually teach her chess at this age though. So the answer to the question can only be &quot;it depends entirely on the child&quot;. Whenever the kid becomes interested in learning chess is the best age.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(that said, if they taught the rules of chess &lt;em&gt;at school&lt;/em&gt; right now, she'd probably soak them up. But what would that accomplish?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2014-12-16T13:30:06.877" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8116" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5403" CreationDate="2014-12-16T14:50:51.960" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Imho unsporting, but legal, behaviour on the board is mostly done by not resigning:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If you play until mate in a position where mate is not immediately imminent, but you are completely lost.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If you let your time run out instead of resigning, effectively forcing your opponent to wait unnecessarily.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is from the point of view of a tournament player. Casual players might have a different approach, especially to point one. The mentioned &quot;torturing your opponent by promoting all your pawns before checkmating&quot; is really only possible if your opponent should have resigned already. (And might be an adequate way to show him that he cannot touch you with his unsporting behaviour, that in fact you enjoy playing on in a completely winning position.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2014-12-16T14:50:51.960" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8117" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-12-16T17:29:23.583" Score="1" ViewCount="7846" Body="&lt;p&gt;If we created a very powerful supercomputer (as powerful as the current most powerful supercomputers) which was only designed to find forced mates, how many positions could it calculate per second?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I only need an approximation. And remember, the computer doesn't waste time evaluating every single positions (like normal engines do); it just calculates as far as he can until he finds a forced mate (if there is any).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I tried to find the answer to the question myself, but I'm not sure at all if my conclusion is correct. So what follows may be wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I found that the supercomputer Deep Blue &quot;was capable of evaluating 200 million positions per second&quot; (from Wikipedia).  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;But Deep Blue was old, supercomputers have became much more powerful since 1997, and Deep Blue wasted time evaluating every positions.  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Therefore 200 million is only a lower bound for the answer to this question.  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since Deep Blue had a performance of 11.38 GFLOPS, and the current most powerful supercomputer (Tianhe-2) has a performance of 33.86 PFLOPS = 33 860 000 GFLOPS, we could estimate that the answer would be closer to 200 000 000 * 33 900 000 / 11.38 = 6 * 10^14 = 600 trillion positions per second. That seems like a lot, but taking into account that in average a position has around 35 legal moves, given 3 minutes such a computer would only be able to calculate every single positions up to a depth of 11 plies. Since Deep Blue wasted time evaluating every single of those 200 million positions per second, I believe Deep Blue should have been able to calculate approximately a billion positions per second if it didn't have to evaluate them.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the true answer to the question is probably closer to 3 * 10^15 = 3 quadrillion positions per second. That's still not much: given 30 seconds it would just be able to calculate everything up to a depth of 11 plies. Even given an entire year it would only be able to calculate every positions up to a depth of 15 plies.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3237" LastEditorUserId="315" LastEditDate="2019-03-27T21:20:11.697" LastActivityDate="2021-05-17T22:50:08.010" Title="How many positions per second can a modern supercomputer calculate?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;computer-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="8" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="8118" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8117" CreationDate="2014-12-16T18:09:15.780" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am unable to comment so im commenting here. Do you assume the computer starts calculating from the very beginning of the game or from a middle-endgame position? From the very beginning it would be impossible to find a forced mate because if both sides were to play their best lines it would be a draw. Lets say for example that out of the infinite chess mate positions possible it comes up with the fools mate first. If your computer were to calculate to find the first available mate it would find that. The question would be better asked if you have a move min or max to help centralize the math.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Potentially super computer in the future will have unimaginable processing rates and they will progress in their ability until infinity would we conclude then computers could calculate infinite amount of moves in a second? It was good you defined your parameters in the beginning by keeping the processing power limited to today's limits.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As refered to in the first comment the question should be how many positions a comp can generate in a second. To analyse a move and its infinite amount of possible positions would take infinitely long.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I might be rambling on at this point but i just wanted to ask a few questions to help refine your questions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4402" LastActivityDate="2014-12-16T18:09:15.780" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8119" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8117" CreationDate="2014-12-16T19:11:35.370" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;To answer the question in the title: In chess programming, &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessprogramming.org/Perft&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;perft&lt;/a&gt; is used for debugging move generators and testing their performance: the goal is simply to calculate the number of possible ways the game could continue until a mate or a stalemate for the next N moves. Modern engines give around 10-100 million nodes per second using one core of a modern processor. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.talkchess.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=48387&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;This program&lt;/a&gt; apparently searches 20 billion nodes per second using a modern GPU instead of a CPU.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, as I said in the comments, searching for a mate in N moves is very different than searching all possible moves until that depth. The following observation is the heart of &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha%E2%80%93beta_pruning&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;alpha-beta pruning&lt;/a&gt;: for example, if you have found that after 6.Nc3 Qxb4 7.Nd3 white can mate, there's no need to see what happens after 6.Nc3 Qxb4 7.a4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another, perhaps more likely example: You have found that the position after 5.e3 is drawn, and then find out that 5.e4 Qc7 gives a draw, too. Now we already know that the position before 5.e4 is at least a draw for white, and find out that the position after 5.e4 cannot be a win for white. Because it does not matter whether white draws or loses after 5.e4, we don't have to see what happens after 5.e4 Qb6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you probably can see, move ordering is critical here: it is beneficial to search best moves first. In fact, with perfect move-ordering, alpha-beta can reduce the number of searched nodes to approximately square root of the original value. So with perfect move-ordering, the number of positions needed to search for mate in 10 plies would be 35^5, not 35^10. But to get a good move ordering, one needs to do something else than just generate moves: perhaps evaluate the intermediate positions to get a good hint of the values of the moves. Of course, for the search of mate in, say, 20 plies, the best evaluator function would probably be different than what is used in engines designed to play a full game of chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1761" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2021-05-17T16:21:26.400" LastActivityDate="2021-05-17T16:21:26.400" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="8121" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-12-16T21:17:51.743" Score="2" ViewCount="1001" Body="&lt;p&gt;I really would like to play chess, nevertheless, I do not have access to physical chess players. My question is, how do I find people to play chess with me by email? I have not been successful in finding anyone yet. I would like to play against a human, as I would like to practice AN, and that I think that a human is more interesting to play against. The computer is rather boring...&#xA;   Also, I would be interested in playing Chess Variants, such as Hex Chess. People who play such seem to be even more rare.&#xA;   In conclusion, I need help on how to find someone to play against, not only chess, but chess variants. As for the variants, I would be happy to know how to access them online or download them, as well.&#xA;   Thank you! I look forward to learning these things.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4473" LastActivityDate="2021-05-21T16:05:16.523" Title="How do I find people to play chess with me through correspondence?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;engines&gt;&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;notation&gt;&lt;correspondence-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8122" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8121" CreationDate="2014-12-16T21:38:45.563" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have never been particularly interested in correspondence chess, but the internet is full of chess servers. On many of them can you play correspondence chess:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Internet_chess_servers&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Internet_chess_servers&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is a similar question, with a possibly useful answer:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/2845/best-websites-for-correspondence-chess&quot;&gt;Best websites for correspondence chess?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2014-12-16T21:38:45.563" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8123" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8125" CreationDate="2014-12-17T01:55:43.937" Score="6" ViewCount="12711" Body="&lt;p&gt;Could Stockfish beat Magnus Carlsen if its moves were calculated with the UCI command &quot;go depth 16&quot;?&#xA;If not, how can I find the depth &quot;d&quot; at which Stockfish's strength surpasses top GMs?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We assume Magnus has &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=39&amp;amp;view=category&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;standard time controls&lt;/a&gt;, and Stockfish limited only by search depth.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would love to see a graph of Stockfish ELO (against an opponent with standard time controls) vs search depth. Does anything similar exist?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Context: I'm analyzing GM games to see when humans make mistakes, like &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.chessbase.com/post/using-che-engines-to-estimate-human-skill&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt;.&#xA;I want to set my search depth &quot;d&quot; so that when the engine and human moves disagree, I can be confident that the human has made a mistake.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4475" LastActivityDate="2019-12-26T18:11:54.773" Title="Stockfish ELO vs search depth" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;elo&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;human-versus-machine&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8124" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8121" CreationDate="2014-12-17T04:05:04.763" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The USCF can help you, if you're in the USA.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.uschess.org/content/blogcategory/82/393/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;click here&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2014-12-17T04:05:04.763" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8125" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8123" CreationDate="2014-12-17T08:16:13.507" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;There actually is an ambitiously worked out answer out there:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://web.ist.utl.pt/diogo.ferreira/papers/ferreira13impact.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://web.ist.utl.pt/diogo.ferreira/papers/ferreira13impact.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On page 77 you get the relevant table:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;depth: elo:&#xA;&#xA;20    2894&#xA;&#xA;19    2828&#xA;&#xA;18    2761&#xA;&#xA;17    2695&#xA;&#xA;16    2629&#xA;&#xA;15    2563&#xA;&#xA;…&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So my comment was slightly off, depth 20 is already very strong. Still the point remains, that it is hard to compare search depth between different engines, because it is never brute force and selectively they go much deeper than the given depth. (In the paper they used Houdini 1.5, maybe some engine expert can relate Houdini-search depth to Stockfish search depth.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2014-12-17T08:16:13.507" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8126" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8121" CreationDate="2014-12-17T08:35:49.363" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Try &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.itsyourturn.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;It's Your Turn&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There you can play correspondence chess, as well as many different chess-variants (including Hex) and other games (like Go, for example). Basic usage is free, upgrading your account offers more options, but it is not free. I have been playing correspondence chess on this site for some years now, without upgrading my account and I am pretty happy with the site. Enjoy!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2792" LastActivityDate="2014-12-17T08:35:49.363" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8128" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8129" CreationDate="2014-12-17T10:50:47.253" Score="1" ViewCount="165" Body="&lt;p&gt;Imagine a situation where our queen, opponent's bishop and opponent's king are in same vertical line such that if bishop was not there, there would be a check.&#xA;Now the opponent, somehow unnoticeably removes the bishop from the line which straight leads to our victory.&#xA;.&#xA;.&#xA;So is this a fouls and should be reversed or a rule or something??&#xA;Answer please,!!!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4479" LastActivityDate="2014-12-17T11:08:56.383" Title="Awkward situation. Take it or leave it!" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8129" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8128" CreationDate="2014-12-17T11:08:56.383" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;This depends on the rules you are playing under:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In blitz chess with very short time control, an illegal move, such as putting your king into check, usually loses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Fide rated tournament games only the second illegal move loses, so he would just have to put the bishop back and make a different move with the bishop (such as taking your queen …).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In olden times there was the rule that you'd have to take back an illegal move and make a king move instead, as a way of punishment, because quite often making a king move would just be a loss of time.&#xA;I think this is a good compromise for casual games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I remember an anecdote about this old rule:&#xA;Two masters were playing and after 2…Qd5 white wanted to attack the queen with 3.Nc3. But he fumbled the piece and played 3.Bc3 instead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The king move punishment unfortunately led to immediate mate …&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&#xA;1.e4 d5 2.exd5 Qd5 3.Ke2 Qe4#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2014-12-17T11:08:56.383" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8131" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-12-17T17:54:32.617" Score="4" ViewCount="900" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want Stockfish to play for 1 hour per move and I want Komodo to play for 2 minutes per move. Is there a GUI that can do this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Arena has the option to set the seconds per move but both engines will have the same time control. I want a different time control for each engine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4482" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2014-12-19T02:58:44.323" LastActivityDate="2015-06-23T17:00:27.887" Title="Chess GUI with Time Handicap for Engine vs Engine matches" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8132" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8021" CreationDate="2014-12-17T19:05:49.590" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The first question to ask yourself when you are losing is &quot;Is it time to resign yet?&quot; Sometimes the best play is to resign. There are two good reasons for resigning:&#xA;1) Like when a boxer's trainer throws in the towel or the referee stops the fight - to save yourself from further punishment.&#xA;2) Out of respect for your opponent in the case where you have absolutely no hope and you are a masochist and so 1) doesn't apply.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not being a masochist I generally only play on when I can come up with a plan that gives me some hope. Obviously the plan depends on the position on the board. You can't just plan to launch a wild sacrificial attack in all circumstances and expect it to have any chance of working.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are some standard situations and plans to go with them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) Situation: Opponent is a piece for one or two pawns up and he only has 2 or 3 pawns left himself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Plan: try and exchange off all his pawns. If the major pieces (rooks and queens) are off the board I may even be able to sacrifice a minor piece for a pawn at the end to secure the draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) Situation: Opponent has a difficult &quot;book&quot; win, say R v N which is separated from the king or B+N.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Plan: know what he needs to do to win and try and foil him. He many not know what to do. e.g. against B+N move my king towards the &quot;wrong&quot; corner for my opponent. in R v distant N try and reconnect my K and N.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) Situation: Straightforward pawn down in an endgame where I would be confident of winning if colours were reversed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Plan: Activate my king and attack on the side where he doesn't have a majority. If at all possible don't move pawns on the side of his majority. Don't just wait passively for him to carry out his plan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4) Situation: Not very many available moves&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Plan: Look for stalemate possibilities.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5) Situation: Lots of material down. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Plan: Look for a fortress (position where despite my material deficit I can block him from winning)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;6) Situation: a couple of pawns down in an endgame where along with a few pawns we have a rook and opposite coloured bishops.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Plan: Try and get the rooks off. Then get my pawns on the same colour as my bishop so that it can defend them. Opposite coloured bishop endgames are very difficult to win. It is very difficult to move a passed pawn onto the colour of the opposite bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you can see from these examples there is no general all-purpose plan. What you need to do depends very much on the position. In one kind of position you need to get the pawns off, in another specific pieces off. In one position you need to attack to avoid being ground down, in another try and build a fortress and hunker down.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What you will also see is that the knowledge you need to implement these different plans is mostly endgame knowledge. Not for nothing do the experts advise that the most important part of the game to study for maximum benefit is the endgame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's an example of 5 from one of my games. We are both down to about 2 minutes each on the clock with a 30 second increment. I'm winning and shortly will win the d pawn after which I can go after the g and h pawns. Unfortunately I blunder, take the d pawn too soon and suddenly I'm rook for queen down. I play on and spot a chance to go for a variation of the standard R+P v Q fortress. Fortunately my opponent is ignorant of this and lets me get the fortress. He demonstrates his ignorance of the fortress by playing on for about 20 moves after the game snippet below.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[White &quot;Towers &quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;S.E.A 21/10/2013 - drawing with a fortress&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;8/5pk1/5n2/2Rp1q2/5Np1/4P1P1/5PK1/3R4 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Nxd5 Qf3 2.Kh2 Qxd1 3.Nf4 Ne4 4.Nh5+ Kh7 5.Rf5 Qd7 6.Nf6 Nxf6 7.Rxf6 Kg7 8.Rf4 f5 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I will look for an additional example of 3, again from my own games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2014-12-21T16:23:30.430" LastActivityDate="2014-12-21T16:23:30.430" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8133" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8121" CreationDate="2014-12-17T19:58:31.603" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess. com has correspondence chess with move time limits. Its a good option though if you want more letters written back and forth it isnt for you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4402" LastActivityDate="2014-12-17T19:58:31.603" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8134" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="548" CreationDate="2014-12-17T20:10:49.010" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I take 3 things into consideration when thinking about resigning:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) The position on the clocks&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) The position on the board&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) The relative strength of my opponent&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First off, if either I or my opponent are down to the last 2 minutes on the clock then I usually play on unless I'm really staring down the barrel. Something might happen and if it is disrespectful or masochistic it is only for another couple of minutes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A concrete example of this the other way round happened to me a couple of years ago. I was winning comfortably (much better position plus an exchange and 2 pawns up) against a player rated about 200 points stronger than me. But, and it's a big but, I had 5 minutes left and he had 50 minutes. He played on, naturally, and with his extra time and the pressure I felt to try and win he managed to win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another player I know who has been within 50 ratings points of me for most of the last 15 years always used to resign the move before checkmate regardless of the situation or opponent. I found this deeply disrespectful and on one occasion about 12 years ago tried to teach him a lesson. I got a comfortable material advantage to the extent that I could do pretty much what I wanted. I still had 5 pawns left at this stage and implemented the following plan. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I won all his remaining pawns and then started advancing my 5 connected pawns up the board as a unit. Once I had 5 pawns on the 7th rank I started queening them with the intention of ending up with 5 queens on the board if possible. He resigned after I queened the third pawn and explained to me that he was resigning because I had a mate in 3. I counter explained that I wasn't interested in mate until I'd queened all 5 pawns (in case he hadn't guessed).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He appeared at the time to be completely unaffected by this although maybe other, more blunt, folk had a word with him because the last time I beat him he resigned in an endgame a pawn down when I was 2 or 3 moves from queening a pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've never lost to a player more than 200 points lower than me (due as much as anything to lack of opportunity) but when I beat a master rated about 500 points higher than me he resigned 3 or 4 moves before an inevitable checkmate. Fair enough, I think.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At the other extreme about 10 years ago playing a player about 200 points stronger than me I was completely outplayed in the opening and middlegame and as his threats mounted I found myself losing the exchange. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To his surprise I resigned. Why didn't I play on, he wanted to know, I was only an exchange down. The problem, I explained to him, was that before I lost the exchange I had a desperate position and after I lost the exchange I still had a desperate position only now I was an exchange down and within a few moves more material was going to follow and I would still be in a desperate position. He seemed disappointed, the sadist!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand I have several times against stronger opposition had the experience during the postmortem after a loss finding out that my opponent and I both had the impression that we were winning until quite late in the game, mistakenly on my part, obviously. They may very well have felt that I could have resigned sooner. Unfortunately my ability to evaluate the position accurately wasn't good enough to know that I was losing and should have resigned! If it had been I wouldn't have got into that position in the first place.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2014-12-17T20:10:49.010" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8136" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2014-12-18T02:32:55.513" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2014-12-18T02:32:55.513" LastActivityDate="2014-12-18T02:32:55.513" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8137" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2014-12-18T02:32:55.513" Score="0" Body="Doubled pawns are two pawns of the same colour on the same file." OwnerUserId="1485" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2014-12-18T12:22:09.773" LastActivityDate="2014-12-18T12:22:09.773" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8138" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8021" CreationDate="2014-12-18T05:34:28.527" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is always best to play offensive if you are losing, if you play defensive then you will just suffer as your opponent keeps expanding his advantage. Do not take on the offensive so quickly though if you are in a bad position. You have to judge the position correctly and just try to find the best moves, however if it is astoundingly poor then you need to complicate it as much as possible. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The same goes for if you are material down, your best bet is to complicate the position. It would be your only chance against a formidable opponent. This has been proven in practice many times, in one of my games I was a pawn in an early middlegame against an FM but gave up another one(!) to complicate the position and eventually it got extremely complicated and petered out to a draw. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3357" LastActivityDate="2014-12-18T05:34:28.527" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8139" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8141" CreationDate="2014-12-18T07:30:00.760" Score="7" ViewCount="1212" Body="&lt;p&gt;I like to get my knight behind c4 and I don't mind exchanging that pawn, I just don't like it to get stuck behind my knight, therefore I often play the English opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there an established opening where both knights get behind c4 and f4 pawns? Even if that means exchanging those pawns with the d or e pawns? I mean, is there an opening where it goes like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;c4 Nc6, &quot;or something&quot;, f4&lt;/code&gt; and then later on Nf3 followed by Nc3&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;if so, then how well does that opening score?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1105" LastEditorUserId="3063" LastEditDate="2014-12-19T03:12:54.323" LastActivityDate="2014-12-20T14:54:02.287" Title="Is there an opening where both knights get behind c4 and f4 pawns?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;theory&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8140" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8102" CreationDate="2014-12-18T07:35:34.270" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you are not sure what to play in this position, you had probably better not play a variation leading to it. However, if you happen to reach it, the first thing to decide is which way you would prefer to castle. If you strive for the Queenside (e.g. you believe that Black's &lt;code&gt;O-O&lt;/code&gt; gives White an attack you cannot parry), an immediate &lt;code&gt;Qc7&lt;/code&gt; is to be considered. Otherwise just develop your pieces; &lt;code&gt;e6&lt;/code&gt; is most flexible IMHO, but again it is a matter of taste.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S. the list of adjectives you've presented is quite contradictory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3774" LastEditorUserId="11202" LastEditDate="2017-05-04T05:05:42.940" LastActivityDate="2017-05-04T05:05:42.940" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8141" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8139" CreationDate="2014-12-18T08:31:28.237" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is the Four-Pawn-Attack against the King's Indian. &#xA;I'm not sure how well it scores, but it has fallen out of fashion for some reason.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&#xA;1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.e4 d6 5.f4 O-O 6.Nf3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In general it is hard to reach this setup because black usually stakes a claim in the center as well. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Conceivably you would also get this setup in a Stonewall-Attack, if your opponent doesn't play c5, or maybe in a kind of Meran, where you suddenly throw in f4 instead of Nf3. But this is rather un-theoretical and presumably too slow to be good.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And of course after 1.c4 c5 you could go 2.f4. &#xA;This has been played by a handful of players and there seems to be no immediate refutation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastEditorUserId="4362" LastEditDate="2014-12-18T08:57:04.450" LastActivityDate="2014-12-18T08:57:04.450" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8142" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2014-12-18T11:56:47.890" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2014-12-18T11:56:47.890" LastActivityDate="2014-12-18T11:56:47.890" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8143" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2014-12-18T11:56:47.890" Score="0" Body="A pawn is said to be an isolated pawn if there are no pawns of the same colour on adjacent files." OwnerUserId="1485" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2014-12-18T12:22:16.377" LastActivityDate="2014-12-18T12:22:16.377" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8144" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8139" CreationDate="2014-12-18T13:18:37.933" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I play the Dutch with some variation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;r1bqkb1r/pp2pppp/2n2n2/2pp4/5P2/1P3N2/PBPPP1PP/RN1QKB1R w KQkq - 2 5&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is the typical line I see. It gets very dangerous if you dont know how to defend against blacks counter attack. e4 if a very good move to prevent blacks d4 push.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now the 4 pawn attack is extremely fun to play it is very hard to pull of if your opponent knows what they are doing. And it only ever works against the Kings Indian.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Back to your question, I don't think there is a common opening where you get BOTH knights behind your pawns but the English or the Dutch are both good opening to get either knight behind f4 or c4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4402" LastActivityDate="2014-12-18T13:18:37.933" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8145" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5020" CreationDate="2014-12-18T15:36:38.047" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you take a look at this beautiful demolition job Carlsen-Smeets,Wijk aan Zee, 2009, you'll notice a few things:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&#xA;1.c4 c6 2.e4 d5 3.exd5 cxd5 4.cxd5 Nf6 5.Nc3 Nxd5 6.Nf3 Nc6&#xA;7.Bb5 e6 8.O-O Be7 9.d4 O-O 10.Re1 Bd7 11.Bd3 Rc8 12.Nxd5 exd5&#xA;13.Ne5 Bf6 14.Bf4 g6 15.Qb3 Na5 16.Qb4 Be6 17.Bh6 Bg7 18.Bxg7&#xA;Kxg7 19.h4 Re8 20.h5 f6 21.Nf3 b6 22.Bb5 Re7 23.Re2 Rcc7&#xA;24.Rae1 Kf7 25.Qd2 Qf8 26.Qf4 Bf5 27.g4 Bc8 28.b4 Nb7 29.Bc6&#xA;1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Carlsen gets a knight to e5 asap (leaving the d4-pawn only indirectly protected)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Playing g6 (g3) can be a positional liability, because if you have to play f6 (f3) to kick out the enemy knight, your whole kingside becomes weak.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Initiative is key: The one who poses threats, will be the one whose d-pawn is strong, the one who has to react, will be the one whose d-pawn will be weak.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Grabbing an open file with your rooks, might be the last straw that breaks your opponents back.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course many games with the double isolated d-pawns are rather different affairs: The heavy pieces bleed out through the open lines. e4/c5 (e5/c5) are protected by the adjacent pawns and in the ending nothing much happens.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2014-12-18T15:36:38.047" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8146" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8021" CreationDate="2014-12-18T18:53:58.543" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Play for a draw. Unless you are obviously beaten. If there are lots of drawing lines do play on! Plus its good practice to play through an endgame where a draw is likely.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4402" LastActivityDate="2014-12-18T18:53:58.543" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8147" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8102" CreationDate="2014-12-18T19:02:42.837" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;A suggestion i would give is a standard procedure for any game with knights, Look for a strong square, i.e. Nd5. Like i commented on your question, if white chooses to castle queen-side he would weaken his position to chase with c4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can bet on white aggresivly attacking your under developed king-side. It might be beneficial to castle queen-side because white lacks his light-squared bishop. I could look up options for you later but that might take time. Let me know if you want me too! :D&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4402" LastActivityDate="2014-12-18T19:02:42.837" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8148" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2281" CreationDate="2014-12-18T20:44:48.413" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess is supposed to be a fight! Your play, particularly in the middle section of the game resembled a piece of limp lettuce. You let him have the center and made no effort to compete or undermine it. If he is allowed to move his pieces into the middle of the board with no opposition from you whatsoever then of course he's going to win!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Somewhere round about move 16 or 17 the position was crying out for something like a5 to undermine his c pawn (or give him a weak b pawn if he lets you play ab). Seriously, what were you thinking of playing Rac8? That rook belongs on d8 not c8. What's that? It can't go there because of the bishop on g5? So, do something about it! Kick him away!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Speaking of which, after he recaptures with the d pawn on move 20, abdicating the center, your f and e pawns were screaming out to you to unleash them with f6 followed by e5 after which you miraculously have a firm grip on the center but you blocked your ears and moved your queen's rook pointlessly &lt;em&gt;again&lt;/em&gt;!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The whole point of the rope-a-dope (just give him the center without a fight) strategy you seemed to adopt is to prepare some counterpunches, some timely pawn breaks that break up his position and show that he has over stretched. That seemed to be the last thing on your mind and you paid the price.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2014-12-18T20:44:48.413" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8150" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2826" CreationDate="2014-12-19T14:08:38.100" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The FIDE rules have a solution for you. If you have a 30 second increment then you have to write the moves down in any case. If you don't get the increment then the Quickplay Finishes section of the rules in Appendix G apply and article G.5 fits your problem. Note that this applies only to Standard and Rapid games. In Blitz games you are on your own. Losing on time in such a position is part of the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that article G.4, which is referenced, just says that with less than 2 minutes left you can request a 5 second increment if possible. You would only do this if you were trying to win and needed more time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;G.5&#xA;  If Article G.4 does not apply and the player having the move has less&#xA;  than two minutes left on his clock, he may claim a draw before his&#xA;  flag falls. He shall summon the arbiter and may stop the chessclock&#xA;  (see Article 6.12 b). He may claim on the basis that his opponent&#xA;  cannot win by normal means, and/or that his opponent has been making&#xA;  no effort to win by normal means&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What this means is that you have to continue playing until you have less than 2 minutes left on the clock, then stop the clocks and call the arbiter and make your claim. In your situation the arbiter will defer his decision, ask you to play on and watch what happens. He will then decide if in his opinion your opponent cannot win by normal means or is making no effort.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If he decides in your favour you get a draw. If he decides against he will give your opponent an extra 2 minutes on the clock.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2014-12-19T14:08:38.100" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8151" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2426" CreationDate="2014-12-19T14:18:58.393" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I liked the 175-move rule and was sorry to see it go, since it&#xA;lightened certain burdens of subjective judgment and of overextended&#xA;hospitality from the shoulders of a tournament organizer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You will be pleased to know that FIDE also liked the idea so much that they have implemented a 75-move rule which took effect on July 1 2014&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-08-16T22:37:56.090" LastActivityDate="2020-08-16T22:37:56.090" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="8152" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8154" CreationDate="2014-12-19T17:39:35.563" Score="1" ViewCount="2328" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know that the old good question about engines vs humans has been asked multiple times, e. g. &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/1997/are-the-best-engines-better-than-the-best-humans&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But what about random chess (aka Fischer chess or chess960)? Can humanity feel confortable about struggling machines in this game?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do you know of plays or championships that throws any light about the question?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4488" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.193" LastActivityDate="2018-10-26T16:02:09.940" Title="Who is best at Fischer Random chess, humans or engines?" Tags="&lt;chess960&gt;&lt;human-versus-machine&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8153" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8139" CreationDate="2014-12-19T17:50:16.023" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The set-up with early &lt;code&gt;c4&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;f4&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;Nc3&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;Nf3&lt;/code&gt; can seldom be played successfully. Most often black's central pawns will stop this plan or chase away one of white's knights. For example &lt;code&gt;1. f4 d5 2. c4 d4&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;1. c4 Nf6 2. Nc3 e6 3. f4 d5 4. Nf3 d4&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The set-up can only be recommended if black refrains from putting pawns in the center, for instance by choosing a Dutch set-up themselves. In this case you can find games with strong players on the white side using this plan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;IM Gorbatov played a game where the white &lt;code&gt;c&lt;/code&gt;- and &lt;code&gt;f&lt;/code&gt;-pawns got exchanged for black's central pawns, like you speculated would happen:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  [Event &quot;Montecatini Terme (Italy)&quot;]&#xA;  [Date &quot;1999&quot;]&#xA;  [Round &quot;5&quot;]&#xA;  [White &quot;Gorbatov Alexej (RUS)&quot;]&#xA;  [Black &quot;Schwenk Andreas (GER)&quot;]&#xA;  [Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;  [FEN &quot; &quot;]&#xA;  1.c4 f5 2.f4 Nf6 3.Nc3 e6 4.Nf3 d5 5.e3 c6 6.b3 Bd6 7.Bb2 O-O&#xA;  8.Be2 Nbd7 9.O-O Qe7 10.Nd4 Ne4 11.Bf3 Ndf6 12.g3 Nxc3 13.Bxc3&#xA;  Kh8 14.Bg2 dxc4 15.bxc4 e5 16.fxe5 Bxe5 17.Qc2 Qc5 18.Qb3 a5&#xA;  19.a4 Ne4 20.Bxe4 fxe4 21.Rxf8+ Qxf8 22.Rf1 Qg8 23.Nf5 Bxf5 24.Rxf5&#xA;  Bxc3 25.Qxc3 Qe6 26.Rg5 Qf6 27.Rxa5 Rxa5 28.Qxa5 h6 29.Qh5 Qe6&#xA;  30.c5 Kh7 31.Kf2 g6 32.Qh4 g5 33.Qh5 Kg7 34.Ke1 Qe7 35.Qg4 Kg6&#xA;  36.h4 Qe5 37.Kf2 Qf6+ 38.Kg2 Qe7 39.Kh3 Kf6 40.Qh5 Kg7 41.hxg5&#xA;  hxg5 42.Kg4 Qd7+ 43.Kxg5 Qd8+ 44.Kf4 Qxd2 45.Qe5+ Kg8 46.Qb8+&#xA;  Kg7 47.Qxb7+ Kg8 48.Qc8+ Kg7 49.Qg4+ Kh8 50.Qh5+ Kg7 51.Qe5+&#xA;  Kg8 52.Qe6+ Kg7 53.Qe7+ Kg8 54.Qxe4 Qd7 55.Qg6+ Kh8 56.Qh5+ Kg8&#xA;  57.Qg4+ 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A more high-profile game is the following, where white had some chances but over-pressed:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [Event &quot;Sarajevo&quot;]&#xA; [Site &quot;Sarajevo&quot;]&#xA; [Date &quot;1960&quot;]&#xA; [Round &quot;6&quot;]&#xA; [Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA; [White &quot;Bent Larsen&quot;]&#xA; [Black &quot;Petar Trifunovic&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA; 1.f4 f5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.g3 b6 4.Bg2 Bb7 5.O-O e6 6.c4 Be7 7.Nc3&#xA; O-O 8.d4 Ne4 9.d5 Nxc3 10.bxc3 Na6 11.a4 Nc5 12.a5 Rb8 13.Nd4&#xA; Bf6 14.Ba3 Re8 15.dxe6 dxe6 16.Bxb7 Bxd4+ 17.cxd4 Nxb7 18.axb6&#xA; axb6 19.Qd3 Qd7 20.Rfd1 Nd6 21.d5 e5 22.Rf1 b5 23.c5 Nc4 24.c6&#xA; Qf7 25.fxe5 Rxe5 26.d6 Rd8 27.d7 Qe6 28.Qf3 Nd2 29.Qf4 Nxf1&#xA; 30.Rxf1 Rxe2 31.Qxf5 Qe3+ 32.Kh1 Qxa3 33.Qg5 Qe7 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally a historical game. White was one of the strongest players of the world at the time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [Event &quot;MacDonnell - Mackenzie 1862/63&quot;]&#xA; [Site &quot;London ENG&quot;]&#xA; [Date &quot;1862&quot;]&#xA; [Round &quot;9&quot;]&#xA; [Result &quot;1/2-1/2&quot;]&#xA; [White &quot;George Alcock MacDonnell&quot;]&#xA; [Black &quot;George Henry Mackenzie&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA; 1.c4 f5 2.Nc3 Nf6 3.f4 e6 4.Nf3 Be7 5.e3 O-O 6.Be2 d6 7.b3 b6&#xA; 8.Bb2 Bb7 9.O-O Nc6 10.d4 Qd7 11.Qe1 Nd8 12.Rd1 Nf7 13.Qd2 Ne4&#xA; 14.Qc2 Bf6 15.Bd3 d5 16.Ne5 Nxe5 17.dxe5 Nxc3 18.Qxc3 Be7&#xA; 19.cxd5 Bxd5 20.e4 fxe4 21.Bxe4 c6 22.Qd3 Bc5+ 23.Kh1 g6 24.a3&#xA; b5 25.b4 Bb6 26.Bxd5 cxd5 27.Rc1 Rac8 28.Rcd1 Rc4 29.Qg3 Qf7&#xA; 30.Bc1 Qf5 31.Rd3 Rfc8 32.Bd2 Rd4 33.Rff3 Rc2 34.Rxd4 Rxd2&#xA; 35.Rdd3 Bf2 36.Qh3 Qe4 37.Qxe6+ 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1485" LastActivityDate="2014-12-19T17:50:16.023" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8154" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8152" CreationDate="2014-12-19T18:34:41.480" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;You have to understand, that a top ten player is superior to an engine in the opening, because he used engines to analyze openings for many years, and because engines usually don't have an opening book on the level of the preparation of a top player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In chess 960 you basically take away the opening book for both players and at the very top this actually benefits the engine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I think there can be no doubt, that engines would be similarly superior in chess960 as in normal chess. But the only Human-Engine match I know of was still won by the human player: Peter Svidler vs Baron, 1,5:0,5 in the year of 2005.&#xA;Of course the big jump in engine strength only came with Rybka in the very same year 2005.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2014-12-19T18:34:41.480" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8155" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8139" CreationDate="2014-12-20T14:54:02.287" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In addition to the openings that other users have already linked, the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alekhine%27s_Defence#Four_Pawns_Attack:_3.d4_d6_4.c4_Nb6_5.f4&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Four Pawns Attack in Alekhine's Defence&lt;/a&gt; can result in the two knights behind the c4 and f4 pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&#xA;1.e4 Nf6 2.e5 Nd5 3.c4 Nb6 4.d4 d6 5.f4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The main line after the above position, however, results in black's d-pawn being traded for white's f-pawn, so the knight being behind the f4 pawn doesn't happen in most lines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4263" LastActivityDate="2014-12-20T14:54:02.287" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8156" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8241" CreationDate="2014-12-20T19:06:10.543" Score="6" ViewCount="627" Body="&lt;p&gt;Article 8.1a states that:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In the course of play each player is required to record his own moves&#xA;  and those of his opponent in the correct manner, move after move, as&#xA;  clearly and legibly as possible, in the algebraic notation (Appendix&#xA;  C), on the ‘scoresheet’ prescribed for the competition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Appendices C2 and C3 state:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;C.2  Each piece is indicated by an abbreviation. In the English&#xA;  language it is the first letter, a capital letter, of its name.&#xA;  Example: K=king, Q=queen, R=rook, B=bishop, N=knight. (N is used for a&#xA;  knight, in order to avoid ambiguity.)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  C.3 For the abbreviation of&#xA;  the name of the pieces, each player is free to use the name which is&#xA;  commonly used in his country. Examples: F = fou (French for bishop), L&#xA;  = loper (Dutch for bishop). In printed periodicals, the use of figurines recommended.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hence foreign languages and, indeed, foreign alphabets are allowed in the part of the notation denoting the piece moved. I believe I've seen Greek letters for pieces in a top level scoresheet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, C5 states:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The eight files (from left to right for White and from right to left&#xA;  for Black) are indicated by the small letters, a, b, c, d, e, f, g and&#xA;  h, respectively.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;C7 goes on to state:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;As a consequence of the previous rules, each of the sixty-four squares&#xA;  is invariably indicated by a unique combination of a letter and a&#xA;  number.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and then goes on to give a picture of a chessboard with the squares annotated with a1 through h8.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No allowance is made here for use of foreign alphabets and indeed in the aforementioned scoresheet that I saw the letters a through h were used for the files.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Am I correct in believing that the effect of these rules is that while native Russian, Greek, Arabic, Hebrew, Thai, Hindi, etc. speakers may use the standard abbreviations for the pieces in their own alphabets they must use the Latin letters a through h for the files rather than, for instance, alpha, beta, gamma, delta etc. for a Greek person?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2014-12-30T07:11:32.040" Title="FIDE rules regarding use of foreign languages in algebraic notation" Tags="&lt;fide&gt;&lt;annotation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8157" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="327" CreationDate="2014-12-20T20:09:30.613" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;First of all, I really like Andrew's answer apart from the part where he talks about trying to randomize the position against a better player. Better players almost always have better evaluation skills than weaker players and so everything else being equal (including pure calculating skill) they will make better judgments faster than you in random positions as well as calm positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No, what I would advise against both much stronger and much weaker players is rather banal. With Spock-like detachment and lack of emotion play the position not the man (or woman). Do not try and play an ELO rating! When it is your turn just try and find the objectively best move and play it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have seen master level players come unstuck by playing the ELO rating or the man rather than the position. In one case, knowing that they were a much better endgame player they coasted through the opening and middlegame into an endgame the stubborn weaker player managed to draw. I will dig up an example game and post later.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Preparation before the game is a different matter. If your opponent has a particular known weakness or you have a particular strength then by all means try and steer the game in that direction. Having white can be a big advantage here as it lets you cut down the possibilities but sometimes you can also do this with black. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When it comes to preparation the randomizing advise can get a chance. If you've played the player before with the same colours and you see a chance to divert the opening the pair of you played last time into a particularly tactical variation then prepare, study and unleash this variation if you get the chance. If nothing else it is very likely to gain you time on the clock and it may just be your lucky day. But ad hoc randomizing during the game is something I would advise against.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2014-12-20T20:09:30.613" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8158" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4311" CreationDate="2014-12-20T20:38:42.200" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think that in a FIDE tournament you would fall foul of article 11.3a&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;During play the players are forbidden to use any notes, sources of&#xA;  information or advice, &lt;strong&gt;or analyse any game on another chessboard&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While demonstration boards are allowed in the playing area the problem here is that you have control of the pieces. The fact that you claim you are only moving the pieces on the 2d board after the moves on the main board and then only to match the main board is irrelevant. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The implication of allowing you to even have this board next to you is that an arbiter would have to stand over you full time to ensure you don't start analyzing. In other words, &quot;No way!&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2014-12-20T20:38:42.200" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8159" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4763" CreationDate="2014-12-20T21:02:14.657" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;What you should do particularly when you have just lost to a stronger player is ask them if they will go over the game with you. This normally means going to a separate room if you are playing a tournament but I have had strong players silently play over a few variations showing me where I went wrong without attracting the ire of the arbiters. The &quot;silent&quot; part, though, is vital and if you actually want to discus the game you will have to go to the analysis room or get thrown out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Losing to much stronger players and having them analyze with you afterwards is absolutely invaluable. I have learned a lot this way. You should take every chance you get to do this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2014-12-20T21:02:14.657" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8160" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4763" CreationDate="2014-12-20T21:33:06.720" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;World champion Jose Raul Capablanca once said, &quot;From few of my won games have I learned as much as most of my losses.&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So look upon a lost game as learning experience. They're usually easier to remember than your wins. To this day, I remember how someone beat me forty years ago with a $450 hotel on Baltic avenue because I had mortgaged everything getting both the green and the maroon monopolies. (All right, that's a different game, but you get the point.) Because the lost games are easy to remember, it's also easy to identify, and hopefully correct your mistakes. (The hardest mistakes to identify are those that should have cost you the game, but didn't.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Capablanca's case, most of his lost games came from making the wrong decision at a critical turning point. He even saw the fork in the road ahead of time, but lost his caution when it was time to pull the trigger. Ultimately, his opponent's threats were larger than they seemed at the time, and he lost by misjudging them. When he went back, he worked through how the better choice could have allowed him to draw, or even win the game. That made him good at making the &quot;better choice&quot; in the future.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2014-12-20T21:33:06.720" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8161" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-12-21T06:22:36.517" Score="8" ViewCount="5685" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm a 1750 Elo player, and 6 months ago I bought the book &lt;em&gt;Grandmaster Repertoire: The Caro-Kann&lt;/em&gt; by Lars Schandorff, and I was disappointed.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my opinion, the repertoire proposed in the book is too sharp and tactical:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Against the Classical he wants to castle on opposite sides&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Against the Short Variation of the Advance he wants to play 5...c5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Against the Panov he wants to play 5...Nc6&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What I would like is a book suggesting much more positional, strategic, solid, boring and quiet variations:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Against the Classical I want to castle on the same side as White&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Against the Short Variation of the Advance I want to play anything but 5...c5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Against the Panov I want to play 5...e6&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please suggest me some books! (And don't hesitate to suggest me more than one book.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3237" LastEditorUserId="3237" LastEditDate="2014-12-22T18:33:45.123" LastActivityDate="2016-04-22T13:09:23.770" Title="What are some good books on the Caro-Kann which propose a Black repertoire based on positional, strategic, solid, boring and quiet variations?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;&lt;caro-kann&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8162" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2031" CreationDate="2014-12-21T15:46:56.400" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would take issue with the claim in the question that golden rules like these general principles are true.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For a beginner these general Nimzowitschian &lt;em&gt;guidelines&lt;/em&gt; are a very useful guide for directing your attention towards the kind of moves you should consider first and away from moves which are likely to be less useful. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However there will likely come a time when regarding these guidelines as strict rules which you shouldn't contemplate breaking will hold you back and leave your game stuck in a rut. John Watson wrote a very good book called &quot;Secrets of Modern Chess Strategy&quot; where he tries to update Nimzowitsch for the 21st century. In a follow on book called &quot;Chess Strategy in Action&quot; he gives lots of games and game snippets illustrating his ideas and how modern master level chess departs from the strict observance of &quot;golden rules&quot; like these.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is one of his examples to show how moving knights to the edge of the board (and moving them lots of times before completing development) can even be good!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[White &quot;Serper&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Nenashev, Novosibirsk 1989&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 c5 3.d5 e6 4.Nc3 exd5 5.cxd5 d6 6.e4 g6 7.Bd3 Bg7 8.Nge2 O-O 9.O-O Ng4 10.h3 Ne5 11.Bc2 Na6 12.f4 Nc4 13.b3 Na5 14.a3 b5 15.Rb1 b4 16.Na2 bxa3 17.Bxa3 Rb8 18.Kh2 Bd7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Amazing! Watson's point is that modern masters have moved towards a position of move independence where the dictates of the position on the board overrule any old fashioned dictums that may have provided useful guidance 100 years ago.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, to answer your last 3 questions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes it is good to move your knight or even both knights to the edge, depends on the position. A more prosaic example than the one above would be in the French Winawer where if White plays Bd2 then Nh6 can be a good move for Black even though White can play BxN breaking up Black's pawns in front of his King.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Quite often edge pawns &lt;em&gt;should&lt;/em&gt; be moved, usually to kick or discourage an opposing bishop. It is standard for Black to play a6 on the 3rd move of the Ruy Lopez, for instance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes it is not only OK to use your queen early on but even good. There are a number of black openings (like the French for instance) where Black plays an early Qc7 or Qa5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2014-12-21T16:06:34.297" LastActivityDate="2014-12-21T16:06:34.297" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8163" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-12-21T15:57:21.590" Score="5" ViewCount="591" Body="&lt;p&gt;Does FIDE or any national organization offer any guidelines on prize distribution for chess tournaments?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there specific patterns on how top-heavy the payout should be, or the balance between place and class prizes which have wide adoption?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4497" LastActivityDate="2018-03-24T15:12:06.200" Title="Guidelines for chess tournament prize distribution" Tags="&lt;tournament-directors&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8165" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2014-12-21T19:03:27.980" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2014-12-21T19:03:27.980" LastActivityDate="2014-12-21T19:03:27.980" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8166" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2014-12-21T19:03:27.980" Score="0" Body="Endgames where each side has a king, a rook, and possibly some pawns" OwnerUserId="1485" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2015-04-02T22:19:30.227" LastActivityDate="2015-04-02T22:19:30.227" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8167" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8121" CreationDate="2014-12-21T20:19:55.397" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;redhotpawn.com,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can play for free or access tournaments thru a subscription (50 USD p/yr).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Has the usual facilities (keep an archive of all your games, get notification by email when an opponent has played, etc).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I used to play a lot myself, but lastly don't have a lot of time :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2607" LastActivityDate="2014-12-21T20:19:55.397" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8168" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8169" CreationDate="2014-12-21T20:27:31.670" Score="9" ViewCount="998" Body="&lt;p&gt;Suppose I nudge a piece back on to the center of its square using a light tap with the back of my little finger. Will this constitute touching the piece within the meaning of the FIDE touch-move rule?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-09-29T09:49:56.497" LastActivityDate="2019-10-22T16:46:29.800" Title="If on my turn I adjust a piece on its square without saying &quot;J'adoube&quot; or equivalent do I have to move it?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;fide&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8169" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8168" CreationDate="2014-12-21T20:27:31.670" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;Article 4.3 of the FIDE rules states:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Except as provided in Article 4.2, if the player having the move&#xA;  touches on the chessboard, &lt;strong&gt;with the intention of moving or capturing&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, if it is clear that my intention is merely to adjust the position of one of the pieces then touch-move does not apply. Of course it must be done on my turn otherwise I am liable to be penalized for disturbing the opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT (2018): The latest 2018 edition of the FIDE Laws of Chess contradict this -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;4.2.1 Only the player having the move may adjust one or more pieces on their squares, provided that he first expresses his intention (for&#xA;  example by saying “j’adoube” or “I adjust”).&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  4.2.2 Any other physical contact with a piece, except for clearly accidental contact, shall be considered to be intent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, if I clumsily brush a piece with my army or knock one or more pieces over this does not count as intention. However if I adjust a piece without saying &quot;j'adoube&quot; or the equivalent then I must move the piece.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-10-22T14:59:10.707" LastActivityDate="2019-10-22T14:59:10.707" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="8170" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8172" CreationDate="2014-12-22T05:45:34.677" Score="10" ViewCount="1402" Body="&lt;p&gt;The 50-move rule states that if no capture or pawn move occurs for 50 consecutive moves, then either player may claim a draw. It seems like the 50-move rule is never truly necessary to determine that a game between two sufficiently competent human players is drawn. I know that there are forced checkmates that involve sequences of moves much longer than 50 (I was reading about a mate in 545), but none of these could be found and played by a human within any reasonable time control.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do games between GMs ever actually end because of the 50-move rule, or do they always agree to a draw long before this is necessary?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4263" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-10-24T06:13:25.307" LastActivityDate="2020-10-24T06:13:25.307" Title="Is the 50-move rule ever used in grandmaster games?" Tags="&lt;draw&gt;&lt;grandmaster&gt;&lt;50-move-rule&gt;&lt;claim-draw&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="8171" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8156" CreationDate="2014-12-22T05:52:04.463" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a native Russian player I may assure you that we always used the suggested notation, e.g. Фd4 or Лd1 (Ф - ферзь - for Queen, Л - ладья - for Rook, etc); even the 6 years old beginners did so. Nobody ever was insane enough to suggest Russian alphabet for encoding files.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3774" LastActivityDate="2014-12-22T05:52:04.463" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8172" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8170" CreationDate="2014-12-22T05:58:10.553" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, sometimes the 50-move rule comes up in grandmaster play. One recent example that comes to mind was the game &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1716505&quot;&gt;Ushenina-Girya (Geneva 2013)&lt;/a&gt;, in which the reigning women's world champion failed to convert a knight-and-bishop checkmate within the required 50 moves, and the game was drawn. So this is a case where it's a theoretical win, but the stronger side couldn't put it away quickly enough. I would imagine there are some similar examples in the rook-and-bishop vs. rook ending.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Women Grand Prix Geneva&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Geneva SUI&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2013.05.06&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;2013.05.03&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;4&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1/2-1/2&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Anna Ushenina&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Olga Girya&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;D11&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;2491&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;2463&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;251&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. c4 c6 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. Qb3 dxc4 5. Qxc4 Bf5 6. g3 e6&#xA;7. Bg2 Nbd7 8. O-O Be7 9. e3 O-O 10. Rd1 Qc7 11. Nc3 Bg6&#xA;12. h3 Rad8 13. Qe2 e5 14. e4 exd4 15. Nxd4 Rfe8 16. Bf4 Qc8&#xA;17. Be3 Bb4 18. f3 Qb8 19. Bf2 Bh5 20. Qc2 Bd6 21. Nce2 Bg6&#xA;22. a3 h5 23. b4 Ne5 24. Qb3 Nxf3+ 25. Nxf3 Nxe4 26. Nh4 Nxf2&#xA;27. Kxf2 Bh7 28. Nf3 Re7 29. Ra2 Rde8 30. Rad2 Bc7 31. Nfd4&#xA;Bb6 32. Qf3 Qe5 33. Kg1 a5 34. Kh1 axb4 35. axb4 Qg5 36. h4&#xA;Qh6 37. Nf4 Re3 38. Qxh5 Rxg3 39. Qxh6 gxh6 40. Nh5 Rg6&#xA;41. Re2 Rxe2 42. Nxe2 Kf8 43. Bh3 Bc7 44. Bf5 Rd6 45. Rxd6&#xA;Bxd6 46. Bxh7 Be7 47. Nhf4 Bxh4 48. Bf5 Ke7 49. Nd3 Kd6&#xA;50. Nc3 Kc7 51. Kg2 Kb6 52. Kf3 Bf6 53. Ne4 Be7 54. Bc8 Kc7&#xA;55. Bg4 Kb6 56. Nec5 Kb5 57. Nxb7 Bxb4 58. Nxb4 Kxb4 59. Nd8&#xA;c5 60. Nxf7 c4 61. Ke2 Kc3 62. Kd1 Kb2 63. Nxh6 c3 64. Bf5 Kb3&#xA;65. Bc2+ Kb2 66. Nf5 Ka1 67. Ne3 Kb2 68. Nd5 Ka1 69. Ke2 Kb2&#xA;70. Kd3 Kc1 71. Ba4 Kb2 72. Nxc3 Ka1 73. Nd1 Ka2 74. Bc2 Ka1&#xA;75. Kc3 Ka2 76. Bb3+ Ka1 77. Ne3 Kb1 78. Nc2 Kc1 79. Ba2 Kd1&#xA;80. Nd4 Ke1 81. Kd3 Kf2 82. Bd5 Kg3 83. Ke3 Kg4 84. Be4 Kg5&#xA;85. Kf3 Kf6 86. Kf4 Kg7 87. Kg5 Kf7 88. Kf5 Kg7 89. Bd5 Kh6&#xA;90. Ne6 Kh7 91. Kf6 Kg8 92. Nf4+ Kh8 93. Be4 Kg8 94. Nh3 Kh8&#xA;95. Ng5 Kg8 96. Nf7 Kf8 97. Bh7 Ke8 98. Bf5 Kf8 99. Nh6 Ke8&#xA;100. Nf7 Kf8 101. Ne5 Kg8 102. Ng6 Kh7 103. Be6 Kh6 104. Bg8&#xA;Kh5 105. Ne5 Kh4 106. Kf5 Kg3 107. Bc4 Kf2 108. Kf4 Ke1&#xA;109. Ke3 Kd1 110. Bd3 Kc1 111. Nc4 Kd1 112. Nb6 Kc1 113. Na4&#xA;Kd1 114. Be4 Kc1 115. Bd3 Kd1 116. Nb2+ Kc1 117. Nc4 Kd1&#xA;118. Bg6 Kc1 119. Bf5 Kd1 120. Nb6 Kc1 121. Na4 Kd1 122. Nb2+&#xA;Kc1 123. Nc4 Kd1 124. Kd3 Kc1 125. Kc3 Kd1 126. Bd3 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2014-12-22T05:58:10.553" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8173" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5078" CreationDate="2014-12-22T11:18:49.893" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;From the seventies to the nineties, there was a development in chess, that more and more, a chess professional was someone, who tried to outprepare his opponent or make  a draw if this didn't work out. Or in many cases, try to outprepare weaker opponents and make a draw right away with his stronger opponents.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is one of the reasons, why Karpov and Kasparov were so incredibly dominant: They both had a far superior opening preparation compared to the other players and a team of seconds at home, which worked hard to keep it this way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nowadays computers have enabled players from all around the world, to create an opening repertoire that isn't easily crushed by the top players. This, together with anti-draw rules, has shifted the focus back to middlegame and endgame-proficiency. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Personally, I'm very happy that we have a world champion who just tries to &quot;get a position&quot; that his opponent didn't work out to a draw, and then proceeds to outplay even the very top. To my mind this shows, that chess isn't dead and isn't likely to ever die the &quot;draw death&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Incidentally the players you mentioned (Topalov, Kramnik, Anand) are all part of the &quot;old&quot; generation. Their biggest successes are all based on superior opening preparation and they still base their play very much on the &quot;old&quot; model. &#xA;(I'm not trying to say there is complete paradigm shift, there are young players who concentrate on the opening as well, but still, it is a noticeable and welcome change.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2014-12-22T11:18:49.893" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8174" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2793" CreationDate="2014-12-22T13:49:41.093" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;One important aspect of doubled pawns is, that pawn majorities, which encompass doubled pawns, usually aren't able to create passed pawns on their own, i.e. without help from another piece:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So in this position, although material is even, white will win by creating a passed f-pawn. Black isn't able to create counterplay with his own majority because it has been crippled by the taking on c6. White will just wait out any advances on the queenside without moving his pawns from a3 or c3 (unless he has to recapture). Note, that a3-b2-c3 is a good defensive setup, a2-b2-c2 would actually allow a breakthrough.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;8/ppp5/2p1k1pp/8/4KPPP/P1P5/1P15/8 w - - 1 13&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this example it looks less obvious that there is no passed pawn for black's majority, but in fact white just has to modify his defensive setup:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;8/p1p5/2ppk2p/8/P3K1PP/1P6/2P5/8 w - - 1 13&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So pawn majorities are devalued by doubled pawns and as a result, pure pawn endgames are often lost. Funnily enough pawn &lt;strong&gt;minorities&lt;/strong&gt; are often better at stopping the opposing pawns …&#xA;But in practice this is less relevant, because doubled pawn majorities are usually isolated as well and therefore quite weak if attacked. &#xA;But in a position like this, white wouldn't be able to create a passer without allowing black a passed pawn as well ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;8/8/8/5p2/pk3p1p/8/K3PPPP/8 w - - 1 13&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2014-12-22T13:49:41.093" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8175" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-12-22T15:51:03.647" Score="3" ViewCount="164" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the local chess club of which I recently became member we typically play games with time control described in the title. DGT's manuals are terrible so I do not know which DGT clock supports this time control. I tried to contact DGT regarding this, but nobody answered.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS. someone please make a &lt;a href=&quot;/questions/tagged/dgt&quot; class=&quot;post-tag&quot; title=&quot;show questions tagged 'dgt'&quot; rel=&quot;tag&quot;&gt;dgt&lt;/a&gt; tag.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4501" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2014-12-22T21:00:23.617" LastActivityDate="2016-07-15T08:20:33.953" Title="Is it possible to setup DGT Easy+ Gametimer for a 75' for first 30 moves, and 15' for the rest of the game?" Tags="&lt;time-control&gt;&lt;chess-clocks&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8176" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8095" CreationDate="2014-12-22T15:54:12.343" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The best answer is - any.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I got my first chess-board when I was 5 years old, and that is the time when I learned chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4501" LastActivityDate="2014-12-22T15:54:12.343" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8177" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8168" CreationDate="2014-12-22T15:56:56.933" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;As far as I know - yes. If you do not say &lt;em&gt;J'adoube&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;adjusting&lt;/em&gt; before you touch the piece, you have to move it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4501" LastActivityDate="2014-12-22T15:56:56.933" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8179" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4763" CreationDate="2014-12-22T17:08:05.620" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I humbly believe the best way to learn chess is to learn from lost games. Analyse &lt;em&gt;all&lt;/em&gt; your games, especially those that were not successful. - You will learn a lot from own mistakes, and you will most likely remember that &quot;breaking point&quot; when you enounter it again, and think &quot;no, I will not fall for that again&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4501" LastActivityDate="2014-12-22T17:08:05.620" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8180" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8175" CreationDate="2014-12-22T17:29:21.090" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;My understanding is that this is sold as a budget / beginner's clock which does not support additional periods and so is not suitable for your needs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You are probably better off springing for the DGT 2010 or DGT XL which I believe are both approved for FIDE competition. The 960 looks a bit flimsy for robust club use although I have no experience using it so it may be tougher than it looks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2014-12-22T17:29:21.090" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8181" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7949" CreationDate="2014-12-22T21:15:31.427" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;You have a lot of pessimistic answers mostly based, as far as I can tell, on the assumption that you live in America. Well, apart from a brief period during Fischer's prime the US has been a bit of a chess desert. If you live somewhere better, have the talent (who can tell?) and are prepared to work hard then, yes, it isn't unreasonable to become a chess GM although 5 years is probably too ambitious. 10 years perhaps more realistic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you can see from this &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_chess_grandmasters&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;list of GMs on Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt; many gain the GM title in their 30's and a few even in their 40's. As for opportunity, if I had your youth, talent and dedication I might have a good chance ;-). My local club runs a FIDE rated 9 round Swiss 3 times a year with 3 or 4 GMs at the top level down to my level which is probably not too far off your level. There are 2 GMs and one IM in the club who give training / tuition, so I would have every chance to get the chess I needed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I ever became good enough then norm tournaments would come my way mostly via tournaments within a radius of 100 miles. Just playing on one of the top boards for the club first team in the national league (rather than something like the 10th team in the regional A league as at present) would be one norm possibility. Once every 3 or 4 years our club chairman manages to raise enough money to run a 10 player all-play-all where norms are available with one or two places reserved for our club aspirants. 4 or 5 other clubs within a 50 mile radius also manage such tournaments although the one or two untitled places go to their players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, if you live in the right area, somewhere on the right side of the Atlantic would be a good start ;-), then you have a chance. If you don't then your chances are bleak.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One piece of advice I would give is that you need to start playing stronger players as much as possible. If you are regularly playing tournament games against players 300 or 400 points higher than you then you may end up getting beaten up regularly but you will quickly get a feeling as to whether or not you have what it takes and you will get a much better feeling for what it takes. In other words it is probably the quickest way for you to find out for yourself if your ambition is realistic or not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2018-09-24T20:55:41.830" LastActivityDate="2018-09-24T20:55:41.830" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="8182" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8184" CreationDate="2014-12-22T23:35:46.220" Score="3" ViewCount="137" Body="&lt;p&gt;The following position is White to move:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;1Q5r/1p2kppp/1q2b3/r1p3P1/p2pB3/P2P3P/1PP1P3/1KR2R2 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm a newbie in chess and I want to know, how to solve this problem in a quick way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6897" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2014-12-23T05:19:18.800" LastActivityDate="2014-12-23T05:19:18.800" Title="Solving a problem from a Jan Prezewoznik book" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8183" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8019" CreationDate="2014-12-23T01:42:10.747" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you want a recklessly aggressive defense, try the Saint George's defense (&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._George_Defense&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._George_Defense&lt;/a&gt;). On a more serious note, the Sicilian Dragon or the Najdorf are solid aggressive defenses. Another aggressive defense that is overlooked is the Scandinavian. However, those are only good against e4 openings. Against d4 openings, the Dutch Leningrad is a very open, aggressive opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These are just opinions. My personal preferences differ from these though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3533" LastActivityDate="2014-12-23T01:42:10.747" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8184" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8182" CreationDate="2014-12-23T05:18:55.387" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The nature of the problem that this position presents is first this: to correctly assess the situation on the board, and in particular to recognize the immediate and impending problems White is facing. As this answer will show, there is a lot of concrete analyzing one can do from this position, but the point I want to stress is that just answering that first question (and with only simple calculating) goes a very long way toward narrowing down what moves are even reasonable to consider, and can ultimately lead to &lt;code&gt;1.Rxf7+&lt;/code&gt; as mentioned in Dag's comment above. What follows is one rough path of thought that one might take when facing this position in a game, and some analysis follows below.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Obviously White's queen is attacked, and something must be done about that, so that already cuts down our options considerably. There is a free rook on offer via &lt;code&gt;1.Qxh8&lt;/code&gt;, so what happens if we just take it? The thing to note there is that after the direct &lt;code&gt;1...Rb5&lt;/code&gt;, all three of Black's pieces are bearing down on the white king, while the four white pieces are all unable to help defend. It turns out that to stave off mate there, White would need to shed a losing amount of material. Once one sees this &lt;code&gt;1...Rb5&lt;/code&gt; threat at all, it's pretty clear that any of &lt;code&gt;1.Qh2/Qg3/Qf4&lt;/code&gt; leave the queen similarly out of play such that White is unable to defend properly against &lt;code&gt;1...Rb5&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;1.Qe5&lt;/code&gt; is a different case, as it can potentially serve a defensive purpose (supporting &lt;code&gt;Bd5&lt;/code&gt; to nullify the black bishop) and has some bite to it by keeping the queen in the vicinity of the black king. In its favor, Black could no longer respond with &lt;code&gt;1...Rb5?&lt;/code&gt; without the tables turning (see analysis below). Since e5 was the only remaining safe square for the queen, we might feel satisfied with that choice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But here we should do a little concrete calculating: instead of &lt;code&gt;1...Rb5?&lt;/code&gt;, the move &lt;code&gt;1...c4&lt;/code&gt; unveils a new attack on the queen and threatens &lt;code&gt;1...c3&lt;/code&gt;; because of that, it's almost game over by that point. But &lt;code&gt;1.Qe5&lt;/code&gt; seemed like the only place we could put the queen, so we might need to bite the bullet and answer &lt;code&gt;1...c4&lt;/code&gt; best we can. There the options would be truly limited, and the only way to keep the game going &lt;em&gt;at all&lt;/em&gt; from there would be avoiding &lt;code&gt;...c3&lt;/code&gt; by stirring things up with the desperado sacrifice &lt;code&gt;2.Rxf7+&lt;/code&gt;. (As noted in the analysis, Black actually does need to take care in those complications, and so though this whole approach is objectively not the best from the starting position, it might be a decent practical play.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With all that laid out, though, we could now at least ask ourselves, what if we try the same complicating idea from the start? The play will be similar to after &lt;code&gt;1.Qe5 c4 2.Rxf7+&lt;/code&gt;, and at this point the only way to decide between that path and &lt;code&gt;1.Rxf7+&lt;/code&gt; is to bear down and try to calculate the consequences of each (as in the analysis tree below). But note that we're able to get down to these two basic options just by looking a couple of moves deep in combination with a general sense of danger (e.g. our pieces out of play while our opponent's pieces are all attacking). If all goes right in our calculations, we'll find that in fact &lt;code&gt;1.Rxf7+&lt;/code&gt; gives at least a perpetual (which isn't trivial to work out in full from the start); but again, we're forced into the &lt;em&gt;idea&lt;/em&gt; from more general considerations before even getting bogged down in variations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;1Q5r/1p2kppp/1q2b3/r1p3P1/p2pB3/P2P3P/1PP1P3/1KR2R2 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Rxf7+ &#xA;    ( 1.Qe5 c4 2.Rxf7+ Kxf7 3.Rf1+ Ke8 &#xA;        ( 3...Ke7 $2 4.Qxg7+ Kd6 5.Qxh8 c3 6.Qf8+ Kc7 7.Qe7+ Bd7 8.Qb4 $10&#xA;        )&#xA;    4.Qb8+ Qd8 &#xA;        ( 4...Kd7 $2 5.Qxh8 c3 6.Qxg7+ Kd6 7.Qf8+ Kc7 8.Qe7+ Bd7 9.Qb4 $10&#xA;        )&#xA;    5.Qxb7 Qd6 {White has no perpetual, and ultimately the extra black &#xA;    rook will tell against the extra white pawns.} )&#xA;1...Bxf7 &#xA;    ( 1...Kxf7 2.Rf1+ Ke7 3.Qxh8 Rb5 4.Qxg7+ Kd6 5.Qf8+ Kd7 6.Rf7+ Bxf7 7.&#xA;    Qxf7+ Kc8 8.Qe8+ Kc7 9.Qe7+ Kb8 10.Qe8+ Ka7 11.Ka1 Rxb2 12.Qxa4+ Kb8 &#xA;    13.Qe8+ Ka7 $10 )&#xA;2.Qe5+ Qe6 &#xA;    ( 2...Kd7 3.Bf5+ $16 )&#xA;    ( 2...Be6 3.Qxg7+ Kd6 4.Qxh8 Rb5 5.Qf8+ Kd7 6.Qg7+ $10 )&#xA;3.Qc7+ Ke8 4.Qb8+ &#xA;    ( 4.Qxa5 Qa2# )&#xA;4...Kd7 5.Qxb7+ $10 *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2014-12-23T05:18:55.387" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8185" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8186" CreationDate="2014-12-23T12:52:08.523" Score="-1" ViewCount="167" Body="&lt;p&gt;As my English chess vocabulary is very poor, I might pass near the solution but didn't see it... So here's my question :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Can the white King go to d5 or f5 since the black Knight can't move ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/hqSRJ.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4510" LastActivityDate="2014-12-23T13:34:29.943" Title="Chess rule clarification" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2014-12-26T18:00:52.213" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8186" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8185" CreationDate="2014-12-23T13:34:29.943" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, the move is illegal. Even though the knight is pinned, the king can't move to the square under it's control.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3381" LastActivityDate="2014-12-23T13:34:29.943" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8187" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8196" CreationDate="2014-12-23T15:49:53.970" Score="5" ViewCount="198" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a Svesnikvov player (rated ~1800) the following idea was shown to me recently:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;11. ..Qg5!?&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;1&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 e5 6.Ndb5 d6 7.Bg5 a6 8.Na3 b5 9.Bxf6 gxf6 10.Nd5 f5 11.Bd3 Qg5!?&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems quite interesting. At least 12. Nc7+ grabbing the rook leads to a nice game for Black. However White is not forced to do that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;12&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;g3 is the obvious alternative, when 12. ..Rb8 seems playable. Maybe one can sac the rook even here?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However 12. ef is the computer‘s choice. The tactical point is that 12. ..Qxg2 13. Nf6+ K somewhere Be4 is just horrible for Black – and in many other variations he has problems getting the pawn back. After guarding the fork with Kd8 (or sth. else? Maybe saving the rook ist not necessary here?) White can castle. And whenever Black tries to get his pawn Back, White plays f4 with a great game. The best I found here was some line where Black got an ending with a horrible Bishop and worse pawn structure – also not very satisfying.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I‘d like to apply such a move against stronger opponents (rated 2000+, even 2200+ [in a Swiss tournament I could face such opponents]), where my &quot;normal&quot; winning or even drawing chances are not that great. So it is not that big of a deal if I get a slightly worse game, but I want to have great fighting chances – and the advantage that I have pre-analysed the position at home. I am also willing to give away &quot;some&quot; material (the f5 pawn, the a8 rook) for a nice attack. I just do not want to play the line the computer recommends after 12. ef – that‘s definitely not a position I can hold against a stronger opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So my question is: Do you have any experience playing this line? Are many players aware of 12. ef or find that move on the board? Is there a more fighting continuation (which may be objectively worse, but where White has to play very precise)? If White does not grab the rook right away with 12. Nc7+, do I really have to protect it next move? For example, after 12. g3, does Black have (crazy?) attacking chances, if he gives up his rook?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I do &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; want to discuss the concept of playing an objectively worse move against a stronger opponent just to get some chances, if he fails to find the best moves. Both &quot;Forget about 11. ..Qg5, just spend your time on analysing 11. ..Be6 and try to beat your opponents there&quot; or &quot;play the board, not the player!&quot; may (or may not) be reasonable suggestions, but they are of no interest here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4050" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2014-12-23T16:09:59.757" LastActivityDate="2014-12-25T09:26:34.710" Title="11. ..Qg5 in Svesnikov possible?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8188" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-12-24T04:38:11.263" Score="1" ViewCount="806" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not so long ago I was looking for a &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/q/6519/703&quot;&gt;comprehensive list of openings&lt;/a&gt; (and received an excellent answer with a huge list). Hearing a lot about unsound openings, I am curious whether I can have a comprehensive list (I have read &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/q/6451/703&quot;&gt;this answer&lt;/a&gt;, but it is just a few gambits) of unsound openings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="703" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.193" LastActivityDate="2015-02-09T18:52:38.577" Title="Is there a list of unsound openings?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;statistics&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8189" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-12-24T04:56:48.047" Score="2" ViewCount="186" Body="&lt;p&gt;I read from &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pawn_storm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;wikipedia&lt;/a&gt; that:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A pawn storm is a chess strategy in which several pawns are moved in&#xA;  rapid succession toward the opponent's defenses. A pawn storm usually&#xA;  involves adjacent pawns on one side of the board—the queenside (a, b,&#xA;  and c files) or the kingside (f, g, and h files).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But it does give an exact definition. Is there a precise definition of king-side/queen-side pawn storm, that I can use to programmatically detect this theme?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="703" LastActivityDate="2014-12-24T14:58:58.960" Title="How can I programmatically detect kings side / queen side pawn storm" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;pawns&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8190" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8189" CreationDate="2014-12-24T14:58:58.960" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I doubt there is any generally accepted definition for a pawn storm. Chess is not a science after all. Anyway, it should be possible to write a program detecting most pawn storms with only few false positives. Because of the lack of any clear definition, other chess players will be more or less satisfied with your results.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So here is my approach. Obviously this is quite subjective – it highly depends on my view of pawn storms.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;At first you have to rule out endgames. In a King and Pawn endgame I would not call rapid pawn movements a pawn storm. There is also no clear definition when an endgame starts, but the number of pieces (and their value) one the board could give a clue.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In my experience the phrase &quot;pawn storm&quot; is mostly used for a pawn storm towards the king. I would not call a minority attack a pawn storm. So if the king is on the f,g or h files, the pawn storm should occur on these files as well (which can be easily checked by your program.) If you want to include minority attacks, just ignore this point.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;For the actual pawn storm I‘d just use a simple numeric value, eg. &quot;two pawns on adjacent flank files have reached the fifth rank&quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;As &quot;rapid&quot; is in Wikpedia‘s explanation: Again, use some numeric value such as &quot;For a certain amount of moves at least all three moves a pawn on that flank is moved.&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4050" LastActivityDate="2014-12-24T14:58:58.960" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8191" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-12-24T19:03:18.630" Score="2" ViewCount="387" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a 1900 (approximately) and still get depressed every time my white opponent opens with 1.d4. I just don't seem to find my way with this opening. Currently i play nimzo and QID but both are quite heavy on theory and nimzo just gets very sad if white goes for Bd2. I prefer solid positions, for instance I really enjoy play caro-kann or french against 1.e4.. So what defence against 1.d4 you think I'd enjoy? Thanks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4516" LastActivityDate="2014-12-31T16:10:29.103" Title="Suitable defence for 1.d4" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;1.d4&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8192" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8191" CreationDate="2014-12-24T19:53:53.313" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Try the Dutch Stonewall. If you are a French player, you can play the move order 1. d4 e6. After 2. e4 you have a French, after 2. c4 f5 you are in a dutch, avoiding the staunton gambit (not a problem in its own, but if you prefer solid play ...)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After that, with a stonewall setup you have a solid middlegame, albeit a little passive&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS: I am 1900 too. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4517" LastEditorUserId="3477" LastEditDate="2014-12-30T01:52:52.977" LastActivityDate="2014-12-30T01:52:52.977" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8193" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-12-25T03:46:35.570" Score="3" ViewCount="107" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.d3 Nf6 5.Ng5 O-O 6.Bxf7 Rxf7 7.Nxf7 Kxf7&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I understand that black should aim for d7-d5 to open up the game, but what else? Are piece exchanges good or bad? Can I get a winning endgame? How and where to attack?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I understand the theory for positions like these, but the advantage always just fizzles out into nothing for me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4518" LastActivityDate="2014-12-25T11:06:07.493" Title="How can black exploit this lead in development?" Tags="&lt;middlegame&gt;&lt;italian-game&gt;&lt;minor-pieces&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8194" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-12-25T04:44:48.583" Score="2" ViewCount="690" Body="&lt;p&gt;If a pawn is promoted, does that count as a move?  What if a rook is waiting and could capture the new queen in one move? What exactly happens when a pawn is promoted?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4519" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-05-27T12:34:49.667" LastActivityDate="2019-05-27T12:34:49.667" Title="Pawn promotion movement" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;pawns&gt;&lt;pawn-promotion&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="8195" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6313" CreationDate="2014-12-25T05:30:40.387" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well a fun tactical line to try against caro-kann (more for blitz) would be a variation in the advanced, it goes like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1.e4 c6, 2.d4 d5, 3.e5 Bf5 4.g4?! Be4, 5.f3 Bg6, 6.h4 h6, 7.h5 Bh7, 8.e6!? fxe6 9.Bd3 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So with precise play, black should certainly be fine if not better; but your opponent needs to be quite accurate while you relatively have an easy game/plan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that many time Black doesn't notice &lt;code&gt;4... Be4&lt;/code&gt; which in fact crucial, You definitely don't want to allow (as black) white to play &lt;code&gt;Nf3&lt;/code&gt; and then &lt;code&gt;Ne5&lt;/code&gt; :O (around move 9-10).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4516" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2014-12-25T12:30:39.290" LastActivityDate="2014-12-25T12:30:39.290" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8196" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8187" CreationDate="2014-12-25T09:26:34.710" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I looked at that line a few years back, with the same intention of surprising stronger players. But I never played it in a tournament game and my blitz games didn't lead to particularly positive emotions …&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think 12.ef definitely can be found by a decent player and the only reason why people probably won't play it is, that there is an abundance of good other, more solid, moves. If I remember correctly even 12.g4 can be played.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No strong player will just grab the rook against a weaker player, if he has never seen the line before. Actually I think, that this kind of semi-bluff works better if grabbing material is the only decent way to continue.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So my conclusion was that 11…Qg5 means taking a risk without having a realistic hope of getting a reward. You would have to prepare against 12.Nc7, g3, g4, ef, Qf3, 0-0 and none of these moves is even an outright blunder for white!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to lead your opponent on a very narrow path through the jungle, that only one can leave alive, make sure the path is not just narrow for yourself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2014-12-25T09:26:34.710" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8197" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8194" CreationDate="2014-12-25T10:41:53.173" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The pawn promotion is part of the move of a white pawn to the eighth (or for a black pawn to the first) row. So you move the pawn to eighth row and replace it immediately with a piece of your choice (except kings, pawns or pieces of the opposite color). You don't need to spend an extra move for the promotion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If a rook can immediately take your new queen, well such is life … ;-)&#xA;Maybe promoting wasn't such a good move then ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2014-12-25T10:41:53.173" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8198" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8193" CreationDate="2014-12-25T11:06:07.493" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't see why you should go for d5. Generally speaking opening lines is beneficial for the side with the rooks. And your pieces will get or already occupy nice active squares without d5. I'm not saying it is necessarily bad, but it strikes me as a plan that can definitely backfire. Just imagine you have an isolated pawn on e5 and white's rooks are lined up on the e-file ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Right now you are up material and you have better development. I would just get my king back to safety with Kg8 and then proceed to develop my pieces (d6,Be6,Rf8, maybe Qe8-g6). My longterm plan would be to build an attack against the enemy king, because rooks are bad defenders and you will be able to have a more pieces in the attack than he can bring into the defence. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Going for an endgame entails a certain amount of risk, because in position where there aren't many pawns left, the rooks gain power. Right now you are significantly better, but if you would take two pieces and three pawns and maybe the queens away from the board for both sides, the fight would be much more even.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2014-12-25T11:06:07.493" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8199" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6313" CreationDate="2014-12-25T11:39:11.713" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;One aggressive idea against the Caro-Kann is to basically play the Blackmar-Diemer-Gambit, while ruling out a lot of defences (because black has already played c6). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&#xA;1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 dxe4 4.f3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are some nice immediate tricks, like 4…ef 5.Nf3 Bg4 6.Bc4 Nf6 7.Bxf7+&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or 4…ef 5.Nf3 Bf5 6.Bc4 Nf6 7.Ne5 e6 8.0-0 Nd7 9.Rxf5!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And if black goes for an immediate queen swap that is fortunately quite bad for black:&#xA;1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 dxe4 4.f3 e5 5.Be3 ed 6.Bxd4 c5 7.Be5 Qxd1 8.Rxd1 with a big lead in development and the threat Nb5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2014-12-25T11:39:11.713" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8200" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8131" CreationDate="2014-12-25T11:57:02.107" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Arena can do this!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Suppose a game has a time control with x minutes for y move(s). In your case you need x=2 for Komodo and x=60 for Stockfish. You achieve this by doing the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Go to menu &lt;strong&gt;Engines &gt; Manage&lt;/strong&gt; and in the tab &lt;strong&gt;Details&lt;/strong&gt; find each engine in the left panel &lt;strong&gt;Installed Engines&lt;/strong&gt;. In the right panel &lt;strong&gt;Selected Engine&lt;/strong&gt; go to the tab &lt;strong&gt;Special&lt;/strong&gt; and change the value for &lt;strong&gt;Strength(%)&lt;/strong&gt;. In your case, when starting a game with 60 minutes for 1 move, the adjusted strengths would be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Stockfish 100%; resulting in 1*60 minutes for 1 move&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Komodo ~3%; resulting in 0.03*60 minutes for 1 move&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1887" LastEditorUserId="1887" LastEditDate="2014-12-25T12:31:44.023" LastActivityDate="2014-12-25T12:31:44.023" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8201" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8205" CreationDate="2014-12-25T14:25:14.637" Score="5" ViewCount="5219" Body="&lt;p&gt;I once heard that Bobby Fischer pawn promoted to a rook, and then on a subsequent move, castled with that rook. I have been searching for the move history of this game, if it really did happen, but I haven't been able to find it on the Internet. Am I just searching for a rumor, or did this really happen? Where can I find the move history for this game if it really did happen?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1583" LastActivityDate="2015-10-07T21:23:41.477" Title="Did Bobby Fischer castle with a pawn promoted to a rook?" Tags="&lt;castling&gt;&lt;pawn-promotion&gt;&lt;fischer&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8202" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8201" CreationDate="2014-12-25T14:39:03.380" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This won't have happened in a tournament because it is against the rules but could have happened in a friendly blitz game. Given Fischer's character I think it's extremely unlikely even in a blitz game. The promoted rook would have had to make its way back to one of the corner squares and I don't think Fischer would be able to even consider castling with it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2014-12-25T14:39:03.380" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8203" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8201" CreationDate="2014-12-25T15:10:29.317" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fide.com/FIDE/handbook/LawsOfChess.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;By FIDE rule 3.8.b&lt;/a&gt;, it would not be valid as the rook would have to move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2014-12-25T15:10:29.317" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8204" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8163" CreationDate="2014-12-25T15:20:52.237" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are no official guidelines for how big the prizes should be or even if they should even be money.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As an example our club winter swiss starting in January is offering $500, $375, $250, $175, $100 in the open section and $150, $100, $50 in under 1850 section.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The amounts of the prizes for the different places is not something you should obsess about. Of far greater importance is how prizes are going to be awarded in case of ties. This must be decided in advance and announced before the tournament starts. Ideally it should appear in promotional literature produced before the event.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For reference our club offers cash prizes and trophies (not wishing to be too insulting, it's the thought that counts, but typically these cost &amp;lt; $5 down the local trophy making shop). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Cash prizes are split evenly between equal place finishers with no attempt at tie-breaks. This is the intelligent approach which avoids too much worrying or fighting over the calculation of numbers after the decimal point. Trophies &lt;em&gt;are&lt;/em&gt; split using a tie-break system (Solomon-like solutions cutting up a trophy don't make sense) and are also spelt out in the pre-tournament conditions, usually median Buchholz followed by various flavours of Sonneborn-Berger.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2014-12-31T14:07:09.937" LastActivityDate="2014-12-31T14:07:09.937" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8205" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8201" CreationDate="2014-12-25T15:46:24.213" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;There was a time when the FIDE rules didn't specify that a king and rook&#xA;need to be on the same rank in order to castle.  This meant that, assuming&#xA;the other requirements for castling were met, it was legal for White to&#xA;castle with a rook on e8 (or Black with a rook on e1), provided that rook&#xA;had never moved (which could only happen if it was a promoted pawn).&#xA;This interpretation was never intended, of course, and the wording has since&#xA;been fixed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've never heard of Fischer (or any other player) taking advantage of&#xA;this glitch in the rules, but it was used in at least one chess problem.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4182" LastActivityDate="2014-12-25T15:46:24.213" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8206" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8208" CreationDate="2014-12-25T17:27:06.210" Score="5" ViewCount="553" Body="&lt;p&gt;To what extent is the power of team captain in team tournaments (like Olympiad)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can the team captain decide which board he wants to offer draw even though the position is winning without the consent of team players?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can the captain decide which player is not playing if there is a substitute player?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3381" LastActivityDate="2014-12-25T19:22:25.513" Title="What is the power of team captain in team tournaments?" Tags="&lt;team&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8207" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5582" CreationDate="2014-12-25T17:29:04.293" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;From teaching my kids I would agree with starting with KQvK and KRvK but I found that the ideas behind KPvK were  a bit too tricky for this level. The opposition and getting the king in front of the pawn were a bit too tricky for beginners. I found KRRvK to be very good not just because it is easy but also because it gives an easy introduction to the &quot;hungry hogs&quot;, 2 rooks on the 7th rank. So, KRRvK comes at the same time as the other two basic endings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Before going for KPvK I would introduce games with just 8Pv8P (no kings), first to get a pawn to the 8th wins, then add kings, same rules. Not being funny but I think this ending comes much later, say at 1200. For Philidor and Lucena I would say around about 1500 or 1600&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2014-12-25T17:29:04.293" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8208" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8206" CreationDate="2014-12-25T19:10:38.337" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are two levels of team captain powers, official powers / rights and powers that his/her national federation confers. Examples of these would be that a team player may ask his team captain if he may accept a draw offer. The captain's advice is non-binding. This is an official power. Normally players are not allowed to discuss their games with anybody and asking advice about a draw offer would count as such.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that the captain is not allowed to remind the player to press the clock and strictly speaking he shouldn't even tell the player his opponent has moved if the player has gone to the toilet or for a coffee.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Agreeing a draw on somebody else's board is a power that the national federation confers (or not) on the captain and the player involved acquiesces to this by accepting a place in the team. There have been cases where in the last round a team just needs a draw (2-2) to win or secure a particular position and even though they are playing a weaker team they come out, play a few moves and then everyone agrees a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Deciding who plays and who rests is usually a question for the manager and captain although obviously players can also have input. &quot;Captain, I'm absolutely knackered. I need a day off. Give me a rest, please&quot; or &quot;I just want to play every game. Rest somebody else.&quot; Ultimately these are management decisions and the captain and the manager will make the final decision.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;FWIW a few years ago my team captain (at a level at least a dozen levels below Olympiad, I hasten to add) used to tell me I had to refuse draw offers if we were losing, regardless of the position on my board. Needless to say I didn't pay much attention!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are the official FIDE rules governing the role of the captain:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;13&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Team Captain’s Role in Team Tournaments&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(a) The role of a team captain is basically an administrative one during play. Depending on the regulations of the specific competition, the captain shall be required to deliver at a specific time a written list naming the players in his team participating in each round, to communicate to his players their pairing, to sign the protocol indicating the results in the match at the end of the play, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(b) Whenever the team captain speaks to one of his players, he should do so only through or in the presence of an arbiter, using a language the arbiter can understand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(c) A captain is entitled to advise the players of his team to make or accept an offer of a draw or to resign a game, unless the regulations of the event stipulate otherwise. He must confine himself only to brief information, based solely on the circumstances pertaining to the match. He may say to a player, “offer a draw”, “accept the draw”, or “resign the game”. For example, if asked by a player whether he should accept an offer of a draw, the captain should answer “yes”, “no”, or delegate the decision to the player himself. He shall give no information to a player concerning the position on the chess board and/or the clock times, nor consult any other person and/or computer as to the state of the game. The captain shall refrain from any intervention during play. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(d) Players are subject to the same prohibitions. Even though in a team competition there is a certain team loyalty, which goes beyond a player’s individual game, a game of chess is basically a contest between two players. Therefore a player must have the final say over the conduct of his own game. Although the advice of the captain should weigh heavily with the player, the player is not absolutely compelled to accept that advice. Likewise, the captain cannot act on behalf of a player and his game without the knowledge and consent of the player. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(e) A team captain should encourage his team always to follow both the letter and the spirit of Article 12 of the FIDE Laws of Chess concerning the conduct of the players. Team championships, in particular, should be conducted in the spirit of the highest sportsmanship.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2014-12-25T19:22:25.513" LastActivityDate="2014-12-25T19:22:25.513" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8209" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8112" CreationDate="2014-12-25T19:33:50.130" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I could say something about a counter attack from a beginner's point of view:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;What is a counterattack?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If one of your pieces is threatened by your opponent, then you should threaten the opponent's highest value pieces in your next immediate move (at least that piece should have higher value than your piece which is under threat).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Example:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If your rook was rook was surrounded by opposing pieces at that time, if you attack opponent's king instead of saving your rook. This is called a &lt;strong&gt;counterattack&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Wait, is this really a counterattack?&lt;/strong&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this attack if your opponent surrender,(such as a &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Back-rank_checkmate&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;back rank mate&lt;/a&gt;) then only it would be a successful counterattack. Otherwise, you are the victim.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;What about prophylaxis?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the above case if your opponent already took precautionary action(&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prophylaxis_%28chess%29&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;prophylaxis&lt;/a&gt;) by moving a rook pawn to avoid back rank mate, then there's no other choice than counterattack their queen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Whether to counterattack or respond to the threat&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If your &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;attack &amp;gt; opponent's prophylaxis         --- then counterattack  &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;otherwise,  respond to the threat.p&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;How to evaluate?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the above case even if you are able to surround your opponent's queen you should not come to conclusion that you are counterattacking. At this time you should evaluate your prophylaxis, because you are going to take his queen. But he may take your king in counter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So here is a revised formula for you:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;your (attack + prophylaxis)  &amp;gt; opponent's (prophylaxis + attack)&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then you are the perfect counterattacker.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I hope that this helps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3131" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-09-18T19:27:20.597" LastActivityDate="2019-09-18T19:27:20.597" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="8210" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8211" CreationDate="2014-12-25T23:10:55.857" Score="2" ViewCount="1717" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the opening, when the black knight goes to c6 white often responds with bishop to b5. What is the purpose of this move?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example the Ruy Lopez/Spanish opening:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4527" LastEditorUserId="2789" LastEditDate="2015-01-01T18:37:28.010" LastActivityDate="2015-01-01T18:37:28.010" Title="Understanding Bb5 after Nc6 in the opening" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;beginner&gt;&lt;ruy-lopez&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8211" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8210" CreationDate="2014-12-26T09:50:07.643" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;This opening is called the Ruy Lopez or the Spanish Game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is actually quite logical: 2.Nf3 attacks the e5 pawn and Nc6 defends against this attack. Now Bb5 attacks the defender, which renews the attack on e5. For tactical reasons the threat of taking on c6 and then taking on e5 isn't acute yet, but the idea is nonetheless to exert pressure on the black pawn on e5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Additionally 3.Bb5 makes it possible for white to castle in one of the next moves. This is another motivation for an early kingside development.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2014-12-26T09:50:07.643" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8212" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2687" CreationDate="2014-12-26T10:14:05.610" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The most brazen example of this occurred in a tournament in 1975 in Luton, England when Tony Miles (Britain's first native born over the board IGM) and Stewart Reuben (now a respectable member of the FIDE rules commission) agreed a draw without playing any moves. Miles needed a draw to win the competition and for Reuben a draw against a much stronger player guaranteed him a high place in the tournament.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It ended badly, however, when the arbiter decided to award both players 0.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_in_chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt; the relevant rule used was:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;a player may only offer a draw at the moment he has made a move and&#xA;  must then start the other player's clock&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Today this wouldn't quite work. The relevant rule section is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;An offer at any other time during play is still valid but Article 11.5&#xA;  must be considered.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But this situation would be covered by the general:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;11.1  The players shall take no action that will bring the game of chess into disrepute.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2014-12-26T11:17:39.893" LastActivityDate="2014-12-26T11:17:39.893" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8213" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-12-26T11:39:42.467" Score="3" ViewCount="204" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are some opening lines where grabbing material is very dangerous – &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/8187/11-qg5-in-svesnikov-possible&quot;&gt;another question of mine serves as a good example&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, are there some trick lines where the only reasonable choice is to grab extra material leading to a game playable for the player offering material? At first some gambits come to mind where one has to take a pawn first, but rather often gives it back quite soon.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I hope there exist a lot of examples, and maybe this question will see a lot of great answers then. To specify the question, I am searching for opening ideas where:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In a position which is roughly equal, one side (player A) sacrifices a lot of material – more than a pawn, the more the better.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The other side (player B) has to take that material in order not to get a worse position.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;After B grabs that material, A gets a playable position. (That does not mean sacrificing material had to be the best move available.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Ideally these lines occur rather often in actual games. Such a trick on move 24 in an opening no one plays is of course less interesting.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4050" LastEditorUserId="11202" LastEditDate="2017-05-19T06:32:11.957" LastActivityDate="2017-05-19T06:32:11.957" Title="(Opening) Traps whose only solution is to grab material" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8214" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8213" CreationDate="2014-12-26T15:46:04.247" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I answered your other question and mentioned that a semi-bluff sacrifice works better if the best counter is to take the material, I actually had a specific opening line in mind. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have never played the line with black myself, but I recommended it to a friend, who won some very nice games against stronger opposition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The line I'm talking about is a sacrificial variation of the Löwenthal-Sicilian. You sac a pawn on your ninth move and continue with a rook sacrifice. The line I give below is just a sample line. There's quite a little tactical labyrinth for white to navigate. There is no direct refutation, only a better endgame for white in some line that I cannot remember. There are a lot of ways for white to go wrong, even if he doesn't take the rook for example, it can be quite tricky to get the knight out again. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 e5 5. Nb5 a6 6. Nd6+ Bxd6 &#xA;7. Qxd6 Qf6 8. Qd1 Qg6 9. Nc3 d5 10. Nxd5 Qxe4+ 11.Be3 Nd4 12.Nc7 Ke7&#xA;13. Nxa8 Nxc2 14. Kd2 Nxe3 15. fxe3 Nf6 16. Qb3 Rd8 17. Ke1 Ng4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2014-12-26T15:46:04.247" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8215" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-12-27T02:27:07.537" Score="3" ViewCount="267" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here are the columns displayed in an opening tree on ChessBase 12:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/GhZhw.png&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would be interested in adding two columns:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;A column which displays the percent of time each move is played in the position.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;So for the starting position it should display something like that: 1.e4 42% - 1.d4 40% - 1.Nf3 9% - 1.c4 6% - etc.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;A column which displays &quot;Perf&quot; minus &quot;Av&quot;.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&quot;Av&quot; is the average Elo before the game has started of the players who played that move. &quot;Perf&quot; is the average Elo after the game has ended of the players who played that move.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;So &quot;Perf&quot; minus &quot;Av&quot; is equal to the average Elo one is expected to gain by playing that move.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;In my opinion &quot;Perf&quot; minus &quot;Av&quot; is even more useful than the average score (the percent of time White wins plus half the percent of time it ends in a draw). And it takes me a lot of time to calculate and remember them every time.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3237" LastActivityDate="2016-01-18T04:36:12.007" Title="In a ChessBase opening tree how can we put a column that displays the percent of time each move is played or a column that displays &quot;Perf&quot; minus &quot;Av&quot;?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;engines&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;database&gt;&lt;chessbase&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8216" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8071" CreationDate="2014-12-27T09:14:39.303" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;40 years ago the answer would have been simple - Reuben Fine's &quot;Basic Chess Endings&quot; was the bible of endgames. Even as late as 15 years ago it was the standard reference that I consulted after messing up an endgame I wasn't familiar with.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nowadays John Nunn's &quot;Understanding Chess Endgames&quot; is my first call when I have questions about a particular endgame. Nunn's books are usually very uptodate in terms of the latest computer analysis and his own analysis is pretty good too ;-).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For learning more about endgames as a book to just sit down and read through I really like &quot;Just the Fact!&quot; by Alburt and Krogius in their Comprehensive Chess Course series.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2014-12-27T09:14:39.303" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8217" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5758" CreationDate="2014-12-27T09:37:26.237" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The general rule taught to beginners is that one pawn is worth 3 tempi although in practice it depends on many things like position and which pawn. Pawn sacrifices are usually made to open up the position and given the pieces of one side freer / quicker development. b pawns and g pawns seem to be particularly poorly valued and in some openings appear to be jettisoned on a whim ;-) while d and e pawns, the center pawns, are valued much more highly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;None of this takes any account of the positional sacrifice where there is no gain in tempi rather, as in some IQP positions, lines are opened up or points of attack switched.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2014-12-27T09:37:26.237" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8218" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5023" CreationDate="2014-12-27T10:25:15.543" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Alexander Baburin has actually written a whole book on the IQP called &quot;Winning Pawn Structures&quot;. Although his personal bias is evident from the title his book is relatively even handed with a large section dedicated to &quot;Disadvantages of the isolated d-pawn&quot; which basically gives many examples and principles of how to deal with the isolani.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Whether you want to make a study of the IQP or not this is a useful book which gives many examples of attacking play in IQP positions which can carry over into the rest of your play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2014-12-27T10:25:15.543" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8219" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8062" CreationDate="2014-12-27T11:07:01.767" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the way to approach the problem of winning this type of position is to look at what the textbooks have to say about KRvKN and try and apply that with the benefit of having an extra knight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nunn identifies two wins, one where the knight and king are widely separated and one where the king gets trapped near a corner. The drawing plan for the K+N is to keep the two pieces together near the center of the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Fine (still a useful reference more 70 years after being published!) identifies 3 winning strategies:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) Mating threats&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) Pinning the knight against the king when the king has to abandon the knight&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) Stalemating the knight and capturing it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With an additional knight these threats can be more generalized because if the knights are exchanged the win is easy and the stronger side can even sacrifice his knight to lure the opposing knight far enough away from the king to make it winnable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2014-12-27T11:07:01.767" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8220" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8227" CreationDate="2014-12-27T14:36:12.393" Score="7" ViewCount="917" Body="&lt;p&gt;After playing horribly in the opening, my opponent played a couple of suboptimal moves which suddenly allowed me to exchange some pieces and get the following unclear position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I thought about giving the h pawn away, giving White two potentially&#xA;useless h pawns if he captures gxh4. However, I thought that making &#xA;use of it would require trading my g pawn for the White f pawn, which&#xA;seems to be impossible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[White &quot;Villain (2200)&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Hero (2000)&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;2B3k1/5pp1/4pn2/8/3P3p/4P1PP/5P1K/8 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Ne4 2.Kg2 hxg3 3.fxg3 *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The position after fxg3 was when I needed to formulate a plan. I thought of several options, all of which are more or less passive defenses, as I think moving my pawns would only weaken them and gain nothing in any position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;First idea:&lt;/strong&gt; Leave my king on g8, and sacrifice the knight to get a fortress. &#xA;More precisely, force White to move his pawn to g6 and trade the &#xA;knight and f7 and e6 pawns for White's other pawns  (king, pawn g6, &#xA;light-squared bishop vs. king g8, pawn g7). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;Draw&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;6k1/6p1/3K2P1/8/4B3/8/8/8 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I didn't see any&#xA;way to force this: if White can keep any pawn not in g6, he wins if I sacrifice the knight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Second idea:&lt;/strong&gt; Leave my king to protect the g pawn. This forces White to exchange &#xA;the e pawns. Then I can use my king to stop the passed d pawn and my &#xA;knight to stop the kingside pawns. However, from what I calculated (and analyzed afterwards), it seems it is not sufficient. This is just an example &#xA;of what I think could happen; I haven't checked every move thoroughly, but the general idea is still the same: Black can block &#xA;White's d pawn, but White can always force a win due to Black &#xA;knight's limited mobility and zugzwang.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[White &quot;Villain (2200)&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Hero (2000)&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;2B3k1/5pp1/4p3/8/3Pn3/4P1PP/6K1/8 b - - 0 3&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;3... Nd6 4.Ba6 Kf8 5.Bd3 Kg8 6.Kf3 Kf8 7.e4 Kg8 8.d5 exd5 ( 8...Kf8 9.e5 ) 9.exd5 Kf8 10.Ke3 Kg8 11.Kd4 Kf8 12.Kc5 Ke7 13.Kc6 g6 ( 13...f6 14.Kc7 Ne8+ 15.Kc6 ) 14.Kc7 Ne8+ 15.Kc6 f5 16.g4 fxg4 17.hxg4 g5 18.Bg6 Nf6 19.d6+ Kd8 20.Bf5 Ng8 21.Kd5 Nf6+ 22.Ke6 Nd7 23.Kf7 Ne5+ 24.Kf6 Nc4 25.d7 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;During the game I remembered that KBPvKN with the advanced pawn can be a win in some positions. However, I didn't remember when that happens, and I also couldn't see&#xA;any way to force the exchange of all kingside pawns before allowing White to advance his pawn this far. In post mortem, I was able to blitz a win against the opponent in a position similar to this (without the g pawns), even though he claimed it is an easy draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Third idea:&lt;/strong&gt; Use my king to stop the d pawn, exchange my e pawn to White's d or e pawn and force him to defend the isolated pawn so he can't make progress. This is what I decided to do in the game, making by endgame skills look ridiculous.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[White &quot;Villain (2200)&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Hero (2000)&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;2B3k1/5pp1/4p3/8/3Pn3/4P1PP/6K1/8 b - - 0 3&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;3... Kf8 4.Ba6 Ke7 5.Bd3 Nf6 6.Kf3 Kd6 ( 6...e5 7.dxe5 Nd7 8.Kf4 Ke6 9.Bc4+ ) 7.Bc4 Nh7 8.h4 Nf6 9.g4 Nd7 10.g5 f6 11.Kg4 Nb6 12.Bb3 e5 13.gxf6 gxf6 14.h5 Ke7 15.h6 Kf8 16.Kf5 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Something like 6...e5 was my idea but I couldn't make it work in any position. For example, after 6...Kd6 7.Bc4, I realized the f7 pawn would hang. I saw no other way to make my position any better: any pawn move would weaken them and any king move would give White more space. Only after 13.gxf6 I realized that my plan of moving king to stop the d pawn allowed White's king to break through easily.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question:&lt;/strong&gt; Did I miss something? Was one of these plans drawing after all, or is there a resource I didn't see, or is the game simply lost?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1761" LastActivityDate="2020-04-01T00:02:55.047" Title="Can Black save this Knight vs Bishop endgame with a pawn down?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;draw&gt;&lt;minor-pieces&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8221" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2199" CreationDate="2014-12-27T14:39:26.383" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The first step in playing for a draw is opening preparation. Ideally you know what your opponent usually plays and can prepare something against that. The key, obviously, is to pick calm openings with little in the way of tactics. If you can get the queens off early so much the better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Kramnik gave the ultimate example in his match with Kasparov when he used the Berlin Wall variation of the Ruy Lopez. Time and again he quickly reached a queenless middlegame with simple, clear themes and a clear plan to achieve and maintain equality.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In general aim to strengthen your position rather than launch attacks. Pay attention to Nimzowitschian themes like over protecting the center, finding good squares for your pieces, completing your development harmoniously, putting your king safe by castling. Of course you would normally aim to do these things  anyway (wouldn't you?) but when aiming for a draw make these your priority before any tactical plans you might be tempted by.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When tactics do arise put the emphasis, where possible, on simplifying via exchanges rather than complicating the position. At the same time don't make the mistake of chasing exchanges. If your opponent is stronger he will not try and avoid exchanges completely but will instead try and make sure that if exchanges do occur then they are on his terms and his position is marginally improved by the exchange.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Be aware that, particularly in the endgame, playing for a draw does not mean playing passively. Unless you achieve a fortress position where your opponent simply can't make progress you will still have to take care in the endgame to play actively. Rooks are better attacking enemy weak pawns than defending yours if possible. Your king should be active aiming to attack enemy pawns if possible and opposing the enemy king when he tries to threaten your pawns rather than just passively defending. If you have a pawn majority on one side and a minority on the other try and push the majority and play on that side rather than move the other pawns except for absolutely necessary for defense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Playing for a draw is a mindset and you mustn't let yourself be distracted by tactical ploys by your opponent. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2014-12-27T14:39:26.383" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8222" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7800" CreationDate="2014-12-27T17:42:06.733" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;First of all Willy Hendriks' book &quot;Move First, Think Later&quot; is clearly not for you nor firtydank. It is for the more experienced player who is already very familiar with the rules, vaguely aware that there are exceptions and wanting to know more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Second, it is clear that you &lt;em&gt;don't&lt;/em&gt; have much of a clue about general principles. When I saw your move 11 .. Nh5 my initial reaction of WTF? wasn't because I immediately saw you were dropping a pawn (that came later) it was because it is completely uncalled for and does nothing to address the needs of the position. It is just a wild planless attacking move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are the needs of the position? Well, you should stop and take stock. First of all, you have the bishop pair which &lt;em&gt;is&lt;/em&gt; a long term advantage (ignore firtydank and Willy Hendriks ;-). The long term question for you is how to take advantage of the bishop pair. But the short term comes before the long term.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Before that you have a pawn weakness on the queenside with your isolated rook's pawn and perhaps more pressing white can actually make a clear passed pawn on the queenside with bxa and then his a pawn is going to win him the endgame and may very well cause you serious problems in the middlegame. Chop it off first with axb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then note that you haven't completed your development. Your rooks aren't connected. Decide whether you want to play Qe7 or Qd7. But wait! If you play Qd7 you'll block your bishop and he will likely play Ng5 threatening to take your bishop and deprive you of your bishop pair advantage. So, maybe h6 first to prevent that. h6 also has the advantage of making air for your king. Not urgent now but later in the game your opponent won't have the chance of a cheap back rank mate if you give your king some air.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, next h6. Meanwhile White also gets to move. Did he play d4? He would like to! If he did you will have to deal with that next. If he didn't, where do you put your queen? Well, you have lots of pieces pointing at the kingside. Maybe you want your queen on d7 backing up the bishop for a possible sacrifice on a3? Maybe you want to consider g5 then g4? Or how about Nh7 - g5 and start an attack that way? If he plays NxN you have QxN and Bxh3 is a serious threat. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, not all of these are necessarily sound. Maybe even none of them are, but these are the kind of thoughts you should be having in the position after white's 11th move. See that the position calls for axb followed by h6 on your next move then see what white does and only &lt;em&gt;then&lt;/em&gt; think about how you are going to launch a kingside attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that one of the basic principles which firtydank is perhaps suggesting you ignore is that you have to have some kind of excuse to launch an attack. If white has done nothing wrong and you don't have some kind of advantage in the area where you want to attack then an attack is going to fail against a half decent opponent. So, if you don't have that kind of advantage yet then continue the build up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You also need to be aware of things that would be positionally bad for you. If you play c5 then you are turning your black squared bishop into a bad bishop because it is blocked by a lot of your own pawns. It will be in danger of becoming just a &quot;tall pawn&quot;. Beware of playing c5 or letting your opponent trick or manoeuvre you into playing it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2014-12-27T17:42:06.733" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8223" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7662" CreationDate="2014-12-27T20:09:20.310" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you are talking about the embarrassment of losing in so few moves that it counts as a miniature then the answer is 20.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are trying to scrape together as many short games as you can then the answer is 30, but the one that really counts, that really hurts is the 20 move one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2014-12-27T20:09:20.310" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8224" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8220" CreationDate="2014-12-27T20:26:30.917" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;What if you don't play &lt;code&gt;fxg3&lt;/code&gt;? It seems that white &lt;code&gt;h-pawn&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;g-pawn&lt;/code&gt; that can create a passer is a big head-ache for black. It does not look like white can capture &lt;code&gt;h-pawn&lt;/code&gt; easily, their doubled pawns on the &lt;code&gt;h-file&lt;/code&gt; would not look very good.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe in your initial position you could play &lt;code&gt;Kh7&lt;/code&gt;, and then to &lt;code&gt;g6&lt;/code&gt;. The &lt;code&gt;f7-pawn&lt;/code&gt; is safe while the knight is on &lt;code&gt;f6&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="307" LastActivityDate="2014-12-27T20:26:30.917" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8225" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8226" CreationDate="2014-12-27T22:54:57.287" Score="10" ViewCount="826" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Y4Psh.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;the position&quot;&gt; Here you can see two weak squares-b6 &amp;amp; d6. That's what my chess book says, and in order to use these two weak squares, one must consider the moves Nf3-d2-c4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Actually, the story is more complicated (black has the strong reply ...Nc5, but for me it doesn't matter for the moment).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I searched good ideas for white, I saw the two weak squares, but my thoughts were : &quot;Okay, there are two weak squares, but 1/ Nd7 can take at b6, it is well put at d7 to do that 2/ for e6, Nf6 can move to e8, and moreover Bg7 can move to f8. So the two squares are not useful for me&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a chess player, could you give me some reasons for not rejecting the positioning of knights or bishops on weak squares? Should I always try to put them on such squares, hoping the exchanges will end with a better position for me?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1855" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2019-04-23T14:01:00.720" LastActivityDate="2019-04-25T20:10:07.347" Title="Why should I try to put knights on weak squares when they can be taken easily?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;knights&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="8226" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8225" CreationDate="2014-12-27T23:27:05.517" Score="16" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is true, that sometimes occupying weak squares with your pieces will just lead to exchanges and no advantage whatsoever. But there is a well known dictum in chess, that &quot;the threat is stronger than the execution&quot;. &#xA;This means that just threatening to occupy a weak square can severely restrict your opponent's possibilities. Just imagine you brought a knight to c4 and your opponent was set on the idea to either play Nd7xb6 or Nf6-e8 if you dropped your piece into b6 or d6. This would leave him unable to move either knight until you executed your threat. Which in turn would hamper his development, because his bishop cannot move, which in turn means his rooks cannot be connected. And of course you wouldn't oblige him and execute your threat, you would just keep it hanging over his head. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, in this specific position, taking the knight on b6 wouldn't solve blacks problems. After you retake with the bishop you actually control the square d8. This is very relevant, because it means that he cannot oppose you with his rooks on the d-line. So, bringing a knight to b6, retaking with the bishop and then taking control of the d-line by doubling your rooks, seems like a valid plan to use the weakness of b6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course these are purely strategic musings, it is always the question whether a plan can be executed tactically. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2014-12-27T23:27:05.517" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8227" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8220" CreationDate="2014-12-28T00:17:32.760" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think it is good to notice the possibility of different fortresses, like the one you mention, and of course the wrong coloured bishop for the h-pawn. But to turn reaching such a fortress into a &quot;plan&quot; is way to early in this position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think fxg3 was probably ok. At the first glance it looks ugly that now there are white prospects for a passer on the d-line and on the h-line, but your g and f-pawns can actually deal with the white g and h-pawns. Against g4 and h5 you should play f6 and against h4 and g5 (like in the game) you could have played g6. These setups prevent an h-passer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But maybe 10.f6 was still ok. Then you certainly should have played 11…fg 12.Kg5 Nf8 which prevents the intrusion of the white king. But even here h5-e4-e5-h6 and Kf6 might just win for white.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An engine will be able to come up with better lines, but my feeling is that&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Keeping your pawns compact.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Keeping the white king away.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Preventing a h-passer.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;might have earned you a draw. (Coincidentally you violate all these guidelines with the move e5, after which you are surely completely lost.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2014-12-28T00:17:32.760" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8228" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8220" CreationDate="2014-12-28T14:57:57.443" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the second idea, it looks to me like 8... exd5 is a mistake. I would try 8... e5 instead, accomplishing your idea of putting the pawns on dark squares, followed by f6, Kf8 and Ke7. If the white king comes to g6, you just move back to f8. The knight will always have a move that the bishop doesn't cover. The most challenging idea looks like playing h4 and g5. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[White &quot;Villain (2200)&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Hero (2000)&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;2B3k1/5pp1/4p3/8/3Pn3/4P1PP/6K1/8 b - - 0 3&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;3... Nd6 4.Ba6 Kf8 5.Bd3 Kg8 6.Kf3 Kf8 7.e4 Kg8 8.d5 e5 ( 8...exd5) 9. h4 Kf8 10. g4 f6 11. g5 fxg5 12. hxg5 Kf7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and it doesn't look to me like White can make progress. If White brings the king to support the g-pawn instead advancing the h-pawn, Black could recapture on f6 with the king and that also looks like a fortress.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I haven't checked the moves leading up to 8. d5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3270" LastActivityDate="2014-12-28T14:57:57.443" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8229" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8231" CreationDate="2014-12-28T19:47:42.040" Score="28" ViewCount="4529" Body="&lt;p&gt;In 2004 the British illusionist, Derren Brown, despite being a very poor chess player &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.chessbase.com/post/the-magical-che-experiment&quot;&gt;scored +4 -3 =2 against 9 strong chess players&lt;/a&gt; including scoring 2/4 against 4 grandmasters in a simul. Of course it was a blind simul (the players couldn't see each other) with alternating colours where he just copied moves between pairs of boards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All good, clean fun when performed as entertainment, but what happens when it happens in real life? In a serious competition? What are the sanctions? What can the arbiter do about it? Is it even illegal?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When this was put to Geurt Gijssen in &lt;a href=&quot;https://web.archive.org/web/20130117183924/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/geurt174.pdf&quot;&gt;An Arbiter's Notebook&lt;/a&gt; his reply was basically nothing!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In my opinion, an arbiter has no possibilities to forbid this&#xA;  behaviour.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stewart Reuben describes a situation which occurred in an U13 match between England and Sweden about 30 years ago where the Swedish players with white copied the moves made by the English players on the boards next to them and similarly the Swedish black players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once the English players realized what was going on one of them, Darren Lee, deliberately lost a piece to see what would happen. The blunder was faithfully copied by the young Swedish player. Eventually the English boys solved the problem by just sitting there until they were in acute time trouble and then blitzed their opponents who didn't have time to continue with their cheating and England ran out 3-1 winners.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stewart Reuben's suggestion is to make use of article 11.3 a. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;During play  the players  are  forbidden  to make use of  any notes, &#xA;  sources of information or advice, or analyse any game on another chessboard.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However it is a stretch to describe what is going on as &quot;analysis on another chessboard&quot; and it is unclear if you can actually impose a penalty based on this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only solution he could suggest was moving same coloured boards affected to another room or another part of the same room to prevent the copying.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In case you think this sort of thing doesn't happen at the highest level here are 3 games from the round 13 of the 1955 Gothenburg Interzonal, although I suspect no way were any of the black's copying!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[White &quot;Keres &quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Najdorf, Gothenburg 1955 round 13&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 a6 6. Bg5 e6 7. f4 Be7 8. Qf3 h6 9. Bh4 g5 10. fxg5 Nfd7 11. Ne6 fxe6 12. Qh5 Kf8 13. Bb5 Kg7 14. O-O Ne5 15. Bg3 Ng6 16. gxh6 Rh6 17. Rf7 Kf7 18. Qh6 axb5 19. Rf1 Ke8 20. Qg6 Kd7 21. Rf7 Nc6 22. Nd5 Ra2 23. h4 Qh8 24. Ne7 Ne7 25. Qg5 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[White &quot;Geller &quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Panno, Gothenburg 1955 round 13&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 a6 6. Bg5 e6 7. f4 Be7 8. Qf3 h6 9. Bh4 g5 10. fxg5 Nfd7 11. Ne6 fxe6 12. Qh5 Kf8 13. Bb5 Ne5 14. Bg3 Bg5 15. O-O Ke7 16. Be5 Qb6 17. Kh1 dxe5 18. Qf7 Kd6 19. Rad1 Qd4 20. Rd4 exd4 21. e5 Kc5 22. Qc7 Nc6 23. Bc6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[White &quot;Spassky &quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Pilnik, Gothenburg 1955 round 13&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 a6 6. Bg5 e6 7. f4 Be7 8. Qf3 h6 9. Bh4 g5 10. fxg5 Nfd7 11. Ne6 fxe6 12. Qh5 Kf8 13. Bb5 Kg7 14. O-O Ne5 15. Bg3 Ng6 16. gxh6 Rh6 17. Rf7 Kf7 18. Qh6 axb5 19. Rf1 Ke8 20. Qg6 Kd7 21. Rf7 Nc6 22. Nd5 Ra2 23. h3 Qh8 24. Ne7 Ne7 25. Qg5 Ra1 26. Kh2 Qd8 27. Qb5 Kc7 28. Qc5 Kb8 29. Bd6 Ka8 30. Be7 Ra5 31. Qb4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I once did something similar myself. My opponent, white, outrated me by about 200 points but turned up about 30 minutes late. meanwhile I kibitzed the game of a player about 400 points stronger than me who often played one of my favourite openings as black. He got a powerful attack although eventually his opponent neutralized it and then my opponent turned up and I had to concentrate on my game. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I followed the moves I'd seen played on the higher board and was delighted when my opponent unwittingly did the same and I got the same powerful looking attack. At a key moment we ended up repeating moves when my opponent alternately checked me and then defended with the checking piece while I alternately blocked the check and then moved the blocker back into the attack, but still a good result.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-12-03T14:04:06.783" LastActivityDate="2020-12-03T14:04:06.783" Title="How should an arbiter handle copying moves from another game?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;fide&gt;&lt;cheating&gt;&lt;arbiters&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8230" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8215" CreationDate="2014-12-29T00:20:02.440" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You cannot do this in ChessBase 12.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2014-12-29T00:20:02.440" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8231" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8229" CreationDate="2014-12-29T06:47:54.890" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;You must realize that no one may figure out a line like that over the board. This variation (up to &lt;code&gt;8. ... g5 9. Bh4&lt;/code&gt;) was quite popular in fifties, and for such an important tournament was obviously heavily analyzed. The Argentinians came well prepared with &lt;code&gt;10. Nf7&lt;/code&gt;. It turned out that Soviets were equally well prepared with &lt;code&gt;13. Bb5&lt;/code&gt;. A teamwork at its best.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Gothenburg variation was born.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3774" LastActivityDate="2014-12-29T06:47:54.890" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8233" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-12-29T19:51:05.153" Score="8" ViewCount="16413" Body="&lt;p&gt;My question is how the chess24 blitz-rating compares to the rating of other servers, like ICC or the ChessBase server. And whether the chess24-rating inflated over the last few month. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason for my question is that I used to play a little on chess24 and I had a rating of around 2100, which is comparable to my blitz rating on ICC or on ChessBase. But now after a hiatus of a few month I blitzed my rating quite steadily over 2300. Of course I want to know whether I'm just in stellar form (doesn't feel like it) or whether this is a peculiarity of chess24.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: Maybe it was just stellar form. My new year tournament went very well indeed ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: Now it's four years later and I am usually rated around 2600 on chess24 with peaks up to 2800. Seems like there is a steady inflation going on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T19:08:56.323" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T19:08:56.323" Title="How does the chess24 rating compare to other server ratings?" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="8234" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4588" CreationDate="2014-12-29T20:13:58.060" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is your rating? If it is 1800-2000 FIDE/ 1900-2100 USCF then the Chigorin is a great choice. The best book in my opinion is the misleadingly titled Play 1...Nc6 by Christoph Wisnewski (Scheerer) which recommends the Chigorin and 1...Nc6 against 1.c4 and 1.Nf3 dealing with transpositional play from white (and 1.e4 Nc6). Quite a short book and should be easy to get hold of from Amazon. Good luck!&#xA;For more info see this thread &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesspub.com/cgi-bin/chess/YaBB.pl?num=1183569483/165&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.chesspub.com/cgi-bin/chess/YaBB.pl?num=1183569483/165&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4543" LastEditorUserId="4543" LastEditDate="2014-12-29T20:21:40.323" LastActivityDate="2014-12-29T20:21:40.323" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8235" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8233" CreationDate="2014-12-29T20:33:42.483" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found chess24 full of relatively serious players whereas playchess seemed more like hobbyists. Your style might have changed a bit where you score well against serious players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4543" LastActivityDate="2014-12-29T20:33:42.483" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8236" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8191" CreationDate="2014-12-29T20:36:56.360" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Play the Chigorin! I went from 1900 to 2000 FIDE playing it. A good book is play 1...Nc6 by Christoph Wisnewski. Good luck.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4543" LastActivityDate="2014-12-29T20:36:56.360" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8238" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6514" CreationDate="2014-12-29T22:55:51.193" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;3...Qd8 is a very passive move and you should be playing more active moves in the opening for counterplay. It may have been played by strong players but usually it's for a draw. Example Lutz-Adams &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessworld.net/chessclubs/ltpgnviewer32/ltpgnboard.asp?GameID=584891&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.chessworld.net/chessclubs/ltpgnviewer32/ltpgnboard.asp?GameID=584891&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4543" LastActivityDate="2014-12-29T22:55:51.193" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8239" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7995" CreationDate="2014-12-30T05:27:55.983" Score="-4" Body="&lt;p&gt;You could play either:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;d*5 (better defense).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Ne4 (good defense and offense).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Qd6 (to let queen out so could attack later)************personally think this is best.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;e6 (better positioning).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4547" LastEditorUserId="3890" LastEditDate="2015-01-01T18:43:23.853" LastActivityDate="2015-01-01T18:43:23.853" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8240" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8530" CreationDate="2014-12-30T07:02:55.090" Score="6" ViewCount="609" Body="&lt;p&gt;Assuming the rules of &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.oocities.org/william_dagostino/millennium_3d_chess.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;millennium 3d chess&lt;/a&gt;, what are the minimum required pieces for checkmate?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I realize this is an extremely difficult question, but in regular (2-dimensional) chess, we have rules of thumb for when two players should draw during the endgame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A few examples of these kinds of scenarios (in 3d chess) would be much appreciated. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4549" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2014-12-30T11:46:58.737" LastActivityDate="2015-02-11T15:10:25.923" Title="What are the minimum required pieces for checkmate in 3d chess?" Tags="&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;stalemate&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8241" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8156" CreationDate="2014-12-30T07:11:32.040" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There was an International Arbiter at our club annual rapid championship last night and when I asked him this question he was rather dismissive, I'm afraid. The rule is not intended to discriminate against speakers of languages with non-Latin alphabets and of course they may also use their alphabet for the files.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2014-12-30T07:11:32.040" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8243" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5320" CreationDate="2014-12-30T13:16:24.610" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;struggling to maintain concentration after 3+ hours into a game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is not something that you can fix with chess exercises. This is a physical problem.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I had something similar a few years ago although I'm embarrassed to admit that it kicked in after about 30 minutes! During our winter club competitions you typically get between 40 and 50 players crammed elbow to elbow in one large room with the windows shut. I was unfit at the time and if my opponent inconsiderately had a long think 10 or 12 moves into the game I found myself nodding off from the warmth and lack of oxygen in the room.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Round about the same time I read a (junk science) newspaper article saying that dieing to go for a pee improved concentration. I came up with the combination solution of starting the game with a paper cup of cold water, sipping regularly and going for a refill when it was empty. This meant that every 10 or 15 moves I was getting up to go to the kitchen where I could open the window and take a few deep breaths of cold air as I refilled my cup. Later in the game I was making regular trips to the toilet ;-) where again there was an open window and fresh air.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now I'm fit again and don't have the same problem.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another approach is to look at cold remedies. The one I take when I have a heavy cold or touch of flue has the following active ingredients: paracetamol 300mg, caffeine 25mn, phenylephrine hydrochloride 5mg. Make of that what you will.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would, however, point you towards the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/component/content/article/1-fide-news/7189-chess-wada-anti-doping-policy-nutrition-and-health.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE anti-doping policy&lt;/a&gt; . In particular if you are close to the Australian women's team note this section:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The most relevant banned substances for chess are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;• Amphetamines – e.g. Adderall, Ritalin&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;• Ephedrine and Methylephedrine – Prohibited by WADA when its concentration&#xA;in urine is greater than 10 micrograms per milliliter&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;• Pseudoephedrine is prohibited when its concentration&#xA;in urine is greater than 150 micrograms per milliliter&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Substances not present on the Prohibited List but represented in the&#xA;Monitoring Program:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;• Caffeine – Included in WADA 2013 Monitoring&#xA;Program and relevant for in-competition testing only. Any test reading&#xA;of less than 400 milligrams poses no problem.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;• Codeine – A common ingredient in, for example, preparations used&#xA;to treat coughs and&#xA;stomach upsets. Any dosage is highly unlikely to be significant when&#xA;taken in normal therapeutic quantities.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just how this relates to common cold medication I don't know although a British skier had his Olympic bronze medal taken away from him after taking such a cold remedy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2014-12-30T13:16:24.610" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8244" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5320" CreationDate="2014-12-30T15:29:43.963" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;To avoid elementary mistakes simply study tactics before a tournament. chess.emrald.net is a good place to do drills.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4543" LastActivityDate="2014-12-30T15:29:43.963" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8246" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8247" CreationDate="2014-12-30T17:43:23.987" Score="6" ViewCount="2419" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I was growing up in the 60's and 70's it was the Russian magazine Shakhmatny Bulletin according to Bobby Fischer. In our chess club we generally believed that the reason the club's best player was the best player was because he had a subscription. He was a lecturer (or what Americans call a professor) in Russian at Durham University and translated into English most of the chess books in your library by Russian authors (Kasparov's My Great Predecessors, for example).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For Kasparov it was Chess Informant from the former Yugoslavia.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What characterized these two publications was that they were mainly just game scores of the strongest players around the world, mostly east European. Although Shakhmatny Bulletin was in Russian since the games were unannotated you really only needed to know the Russian annotation for the pieces. Informant was completely language free.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nowadays there is little call for such games collections because we all have chess databases with online updates from The Week In Chess and ChessBase. What we want in a chess magazine is top class analysis of the best games and the latest inside news. The nearest I can come up with today is the Dutch magazine published in English, New in Chess, but all I have to compare it with are more parochial English magazines like BCM and Chess. I've never even seen a copy of the American magazine Chess Life, for instance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I lived in Germany I used to occasionally read a German magazine called Kaissiber which I thought was very good but rather difficult since it was in German.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is NiC currently the best chess magazine out there? Or should I be reading something else?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2014-12-31T06:06:57.180" Title="What is the best chess magazine in the world? And what makes a great chess magazine today?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8247" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8246" CreationDate="2014-12-31T06:06:57.180" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess Informant and Chess Life are targeting very different strata; it is not possible to compare them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I was growing up in 60s and 70s - in Soviet Union - we the amateurs were reading &quot;Shakhmaty v SSSR&quot; and &quot;64&quot;. I didn't bother reading the Bulletin until I reached a Kandidate Master level. The Informant was of use for professional only.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Books were much more important than magazines. Every serious tournament (such as USSR championship, Chigorin, the Interzonal, etc) was followed up with the corpus of heavily analyzed games. There was also an unspoken rule (attributed to and driven by Botvinnik) that each Grandmaster must publish at least one book.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sorry for ranting.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3774" LastActivityDate="2014-12-31T06:06:57.180" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8248" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5320" CreationDate="2014-12-31T08:51:44.450" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Nobody touched on this point before, so here we go:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I had the same problem, when I started playing tournament chess. Although I was physically extremely fit, I would start blundering after 4 h. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I got rid of this by drinking a coke after 3-4 h. Drinking something cold and getting some caffeine probably didn't hurt, but the main reason for my blunders was lack of sugar. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nowadays I try to keep my sugar level constant by eating some chocolate, fruits or nuts in regular intervals. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2014-12-31T08:51:44.450" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8249" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8252" CreationDate="2014-12-31T15:02:59.690" Score="9" ViewCount="2291" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm toying with the idea of building a tactical training tool. For my idea to work, I need positions that are categorized by motif and difficulty.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A lot of tools seem to have this, and I doubt they're all building up thousands of positions by hand. So there must be databases out there, available for use (free or commercial are both okay), and probably already tagged. Any idea where to start looking?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4558" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2020-07-26T12:12:37.283" LastActivityDate="2020-07-26T12:12:37.283" Title="Where can I find databases of tactical problems, categorized and ranked by difficulty?" Tags="&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;training&gt;&lt;database&gt;&lt;programming&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="8250" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2014-12-31T15:05:41.883" Score="7" ViewCount="683" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 d6 2. e4 g6 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. Nf3 c5 5. dxc5 Qa5 6. cxd6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Above you can see the first moves of a Pirc Defense game. To study this opening, I learn with the book &quot;Pirc Alert!&quot; by Lev Alburt and Alex Chernin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After 4. Nf3, there is a trick which consists of ...c5, ...Qa5 (two pawns are threatened) and ...Qxc5, winning the pawn, ...c5 and bringing a Sicilian Dragon pawn structure, which is very good. But today I played an Internet game (seen above) and White's move 6. cxd6 seems very good. The authors of my book didn't speak about this move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I had over viewed the position after 6. dxc6 and neither I nor my chess engine. could find any strong reply.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is the move 6... exd6 strong? What is Black's best reply to 6. cxd6?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1855" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-12-09T02:13:41.307" LastActivityDate="2020-02-15T23:18:59.060" Title="In the Pirc, bringing a dragon pawn structure fails" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;pawn-structure&gt;&lt;pirc-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="8251" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8191" CreationDate="2014-12-31T16:10:29.103" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Nimzo and QID are two of the most highly respected and powerful responses to 1.d4 the Nimzo has always been seen as the tough nut to 1.d4 and it was said that people played 1.e4 so they wouldn't have to face the Nimzo! The theory in both are quite heavy yes but it's not unmanageable and you would be in good company as well playing these two openings as they have all been championed by multiple world champions from the past and present.The move Bd2 in the Nimzo (assuming in response to 3...Bb4 ?)is just considered bad for white as the Bishop is misplaced on d2 and black gains good control over e4 after castles and b6. Please just don't abandon openings as rich as these as they provide a great learning tool and exposes you to a multitude of positionally as well as tactically rich positions. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Slav is considered super solid but be aware that white can achieve a relatively easy draw via exchanging on d5 after 2...c6,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another point behind the Nimzo is that it provides chances for a win and produces double-edged positions with chances for both sides.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3357" LastActivityDate="2014-12-31T16:10:29.103" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8252" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8249" CreationDate="2014-12-31T16:11:01.350" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;This kind of thing isn't done by hand, but by computer programs. It is not too difficult to run some program on a game database and extract all positions suitable for a tactical exercise.&#xA;Sorting them by difficulty will be done over time, when statistics accumulate how often they are solved correctly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course there are tactical exercise positions out there, but I don't know any that are already sorted by motif or difficulty. This is a site with 10,000 tactical positions (surely mined by a computer):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.wtharvey.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.wtharvey.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastEditorUserId="4362" LastEditDate="2014-12-31T17:41:08.447" LastActivityDate="2014-12-31T17:41:08.447" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8253" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8250" CreationDate="2014-12-31T16:19:49.190" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yeah, seems like black just blundered a pawn with c5.&#xA;Probably you just mixed up the variation and you really wanted to play:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&#xA;1. d4 d6 2. e4 Nf6 3. Nc3 g6 4. f4 Bg7 5. Nf3 c5  &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That is quite a common variation, I looked at 6.dc Qa5 7.Qd4 for white a while back, if I remember correctly. So maybe you should just check your book again, it's unlikely they made such a mistake.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2014-12-31T16:19:49.190" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8254" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5320" CreationDate="2014-12-31T16:25:24.180" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just study loads of tactical exercises and it will become second nature to you. I can recommend websites such as chesstempo and chess tactics server for such practice. To be able to maintain concentration effectively for long periods of time you would need to update your physical condition :). Although it is not so critical in chess as in tennis shall we say, an example is Viktor Korchnoi, the guy is 80+ and yet still plays at a very high level! This demonstrates that despite his obviously poor physical condition his massive skill, experience and understanding Of chess trump this. I would say exercise and improvement of chess playing skill and understanding (achieved by constant practice (tournaments every two months) and personal study time (or even better with a coach) )can improve your concentration immensely. I can also say that walking around during the game helps greatly in keeping you sharp (but be careful of getting distracted!) Also do not neglect study of endgames and positional chess as these are the keys to improved play, doing this would be fatal. Also try to have fun and, motivation and determination is the key! :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3357" LastActivityDate="2014-12-31T16:25:24.180" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8255" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="758" CreationDate="2014-12-31T18:05:49.940" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Chigorin is a good opening for tactical players. As in the Sveshnikov the pawn structure is half fixed half dynamic if you know what I mean. Play 1...Nc6 by C. Wisneweski is the best book in my opinion. At some stage if you keep improving you will need a line against the Pirc as good players in open tournaments tend to know it quite well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4543" LastActivityDate="2014-12-31T18:05:49.940" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8256" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8250" CreationDate="2015-01-01T01:01:57.877" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I play like this with the white pieces&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. d4 d6 2. e4 Nf6 3. Nc3 g6 4.h3 Bg7 5.Nf3 O-O 6.Bd3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as I understand, black already has a &quot;dragon structure&quot; because the dragon pawn chain is h7-g6-f7-e7-d6 and has nothing to do with the c-pawn. It is true that the Dragon variation is found in the Sicilian system. But the dragon pawn structure has nothing to do with the c-pawn to my knowledge. As for the c7-c5 push in this system, usually black prefers c7-c6 instead, preparing b7-b5, opening the c7-square for the queen and taking control over the d5-square.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastActivityDate="2015-01-01T01:01:57.877" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8257" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-01-01T05:20:47.050" Score="6" ViewCount="1575" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.blankchess.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Blank Chess&lt;/a&gt; is a variant where the board starts empty and the first two moves are placing the Kings on your side of the board. You can then either place a piece or move a piece in subsequent turns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I recorded a game I played with my son in the same notation one would use for &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crazyhouse&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;CrazyHouse&lt;/a&gt;, and would like to record it in a PGN (or &lt;a href=&quot;http://bughousedb.com/Lieven_BPGN_Standard.txt&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;BPGN&lt;/a&gt;) format to show it to friends.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does anyone know where I can find such an editor online, or failing that, one that I can download to my Mac?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3829" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-07-10T19:53:02.093" LastActivityDate="2017-03-11T21:28:02.007" Title="Is there an online PGN editor for Blank Chess?" Tags="&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;notation&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8258" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-01-01T12:08:21.697" Score="8" ViewCount="1239" Body="&lt;p&gt;In an opening tree (also called &quot;opening explorer&quot; or &quot;openings book&quot;) on ChessBase 12, here are the statistics that we get after 1. Nf3 c5 :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/2OH1h.png&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So it seems that after 1. Nf3 c5 White will play 2. e4 93% of the time.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;It is obvious that these statistics are nonsense.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Everyone knows that after 1. Nf3 c5 White will play 2. c4 50% of the time, 2. g3 30% of the time, and 2. e4 only 10% of the time.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;White players who play 1. Nf3 are generally not very interested to get into an Open Sicilian...&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&quot;2. e4 464238&quot; does not mean &quot;in this position White has played the move 2. e4 464238 times&quot;, it just means &quot;the position reached after the move 2. e4 has been reached 464238 times by different move orders&quot;.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;How can we resolve this problem?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;It should not be physically impossible, since most other opening trees do not have this issue (&lt;a href=&quot;http://chessok.com/?page_id=352&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;ChessOK's opening tree&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.365chess.com/opening.php&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;365Chess' opening explorer&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ficsgames.org/openings.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;FICS' opening explorer&lt;/a&gt; do not have this problem).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When we do a right click, and then click on &quot;Properties&quot;, this window pops up:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/5QiNg.png&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But unfortunately checking or unchecking the box &quot;Unplayed transpositions&quot; does not seem to do anything.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3237" LastActivityDate="2016-10-14T02:10:10.567" Title="In an opening tree on ChessBase, how can we fix the statistics so that transpositions are not taken into account in the total number of games?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;statistics&gt;&lt;database&gt;&lt;chessbase&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8259" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-01-01T13:05:06.973" Score="4" ViewCount="1386" Body="&lt;p&gt;The TimeControl formats I've found on the web split the TimeControl in time periods separated by a special character, for instance:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;G/90 (one period with 90min to end the game)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;G/90+30 (one period with 90min to end the game and 30sec of increment)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;40/90, SD/30+30 (two periods, 90min to play 40 moves followed by 30 min to end the game with 30sec of increment)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, in the last example the increment is related to the second period (the sudden death).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=39&amp;amp;view=category&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=39&amp;amp;view=category&lt;/a&gt; for all major FIDE events the TimeControl is 90 minutes for the first 40 moves followed by 30 minutes for the rest of the game with an addition of 30 seconds per move starting from move one. Here the increment starts from move 1. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How can I describe that in a formal notation?&#xA;Is 40/90+30, SD/30+30 the correct way?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PGN standard has a different approach (the separator character is &quot;:&quot; and the increment is allowed only in the sudden death period, which is simply expressed in seconds):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;40/5400:1800+30&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but it seems the increment is not allowed for the first period (in case of a multi-period time conrol). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How can I express the FIDE TimeControl in the PGN tag as well?&#xA;I tryed to download PGN games of FIDE events but I couldn't find any of them with TimeControl tag.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4562" LastEditorUserId="4562" LastEditDate="2015-01-04T14:16:01.110" LastActivityDate="2015-08-02T17:24:37.513" Title="What is the TimeControl format for FIDE tournament?" Tags="&lt;fide&gt;&lt;pgn&gt;&lt;time-control&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8260" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8250" CreationDate="2015-01-01T13:29:32.377" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Black gets his pieces to attacking posts after cxd6. Nxe4 is a good reply and Black threatens to take multiple times on c3. The extra pawn isn't that important compared with the relative quality of Black's pieces. Bg7 Nc6 and Bg4 are coming with good development and chances for the Black player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4543" LastActivityDate="2015-01-01T13:29:32.377" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8262" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1432" CreationDate="2015-01-02T02:31:59.347" Score="23" Body="&lt;p&gt;Actually, the bishop and knight mate is not as slippery as it appears.  I have checked this on a tablebase program I wrote.  On a 10x10 board, the side with the bishop and knight (say white) can force mate in at most 47 moves.  White can even force mate on a 16x16 board, in at most 93 moves.  I believe mate can be forced on an arbitrarily large even size board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, on an odd size board, I've confirmed that white cannot force mate if the bishop is on the wrong color.  Mate can only be forced in a good corner (one that the bishop controls), so if there are no good corners, mate cannot be forced.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the 10x10 board, the following is an optimal mate in 47.  The starting position is W: Ka1, Nb1, Bc1; B: Kc2.  &lt;strong&gt;1.Bb2 Kb3 2.Ba3 Kc2 3.Ka2 Kd3 4.Kb3 Ke4 5.Kc4 Ke5 6.Bg9 Kf4 7.Kd5 Kf5 8.Be7 Kf4 9.Ke6 Kg4 10.Ke5 Kf3 11.Kf5 Kg2 12.Kg4 Kf2 13.Kf4 Kg2 14.Nd2 Kh1 15.Kg3 Ki2 16.Nf3 Ki1 17.Kh3 Kh1 18.Bf6 Ki1 19.Nh2 Kh1 20.Bj2 Kg1 21.Ng4 Kf1 22.Kg3 Ke2 23.Nf2 Kd2 24.Bf6 Ke3 25.Bg7 Kd2 26.Kf4 Kc2 27.Ke4 Kd2 28.Bd4 Ke1 29.Nh1 Kf1 30.Kf3 Ke1 31.Be3 Kd1 32.Ke4 Kc2 33.Kd4 Kd1 34.Kd3 Ke1 35.Ng3 Kd1 36.Bc5 Ke1 37.Bd4 Kd1 38.Bc3 Kc1 39.Nf5 Kd1 40.Ne3 Kc1 41.Kc4 Kb1 42.Kb3 Kc1 43.Be1 Kb1 44.Bd2 Ka1 45.Nc2+ Kb1 46.Na3+ Ka1 47.Bc3#&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This can be played out on &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.apronus.com/chess/pgnviewer/?p=AKNB_________k_______________________________________________________________________________________0&amp;amp;m=Bb2_Kb3_Ba3_Kc2_Ka2_Kd3_Kb3_Ke4_Kc4_Ke5_Bg9_Kf4_Kd5_Kf5_Be7_Kf4_Ke6_Kg4_Kf6_Kf3_Kf5_Kg2_Kg4_Kf2_Kf4_Kg2_Nd2_Kh1_Kg3_Ki2_Nf3_Ki1_Kh3_Kh1_Bf6_Ki1_Nh2_Kh1_Bj2_Kg1_Ng4_Kf1_Kg3_Ke2_Nf2_Kd2_Bf6_Ke3_Bg7_Kd2_Kf4_Kc2_Ke4_Kd2_Bd4_Ke1_Nh1_Kf1_Kf3_Ke1_Be3_Kd1_Ke4_Kc2_Kd4_Kd1_Kd3_Ke1_Ng3_Kd1_Bc5_Ke1_Bd4_Kd1_Bc3_Kc1_Nf5_Kd1_Ne3*_Kc1_Kc4_Kb1_Kb3_Kc1_Be1_Kb1_Bd2_Ka1_Nc2*_Kb1_Na3*_Ka1_Bc3M&amp;amp;w=10&amp;amp;h=10&amp;amp;n=0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;apronus.com.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After 23. Nf2, we have a position just like the one shown in Andrew's answer (but upside down: W: Kg3, Bj2, Nf2; B: Ke2).  If we make this board 8x8 by removing the a and b columns (and rows 9 and 10), it would be mate in 14, but here it's mate in 25.  In the optimal line above, the black king never really tries to escape towards the a10 corner.  Let's say he does, with &lt;strong&gt;23. ... Kd2 24. Bf6 Kc2&lt;/strong&gt;.  This move shortens the mate by one move, with the continuation &lt;strong&gt;25.Kf3 Kb3 26.Ke4 Ka4 27.Kd5 Kb5 28.Bd4 Ka4 29.Kc4 Ka5 30.Kc5 Ka6 31.Kc6&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The black king can only escape as far as a6, and is ultimately still trapped in the good a1 corner.  The rest of this continuation is &lt;strong&gt;31. ... Ka5 32.Nd3 Ka4 33.Kc5 Ka5 34.Nb4 Ka4 35.Kc4 Ka5 36.Be3 Ka4 37.Bb6 Ka3 38.Nd3 Ka4 39.Nb2 Ka3 40.Kc3 Ka2 41.Kc2 Ka3 42.Ba5 Ka2 43.Bb4 Ka1 44.Nd3+ Ka2 45.Nc1+ Ka1 46.Bc3#&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is the number of moves to force mate on every even sized board from 4 to 16.  4: 15; 6: 22; 8: 33; 10: 47; 12: 64; 14: 78; 16: 93.  Note that on any size board there are a handful of positions that are drawn because black can win a piece immediately.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The following is an optimal mate in 92 on a 16x16 board.  The starting position is again W: Ka1, Nb1, Bc1; B: Kc2. &lt;strong&gt;1.Bb2 Kb3 2.Bi9 Ka4 3.Kb2 Kb5 4.Kc3 Kc6 5.Kd4 Kd7 6.Ke5 Ke8 7.Kf6 Kf8 8.Kg6 Kg8 9.Bg11 Kf9 10.Kh7 Ke10 11.Kg8 Kf11 12.Bi9 Ke10 13.Kh9 Kd11 14.Kg10 Ke10 15.Bg11 Kd9 16.Kf9 Kc10 17.Ke10 Kc11 18.Ke11 Kc12 19.Nd2 Kd13 20.Ne4 Ke14 21.Nf6 Kf13 22.Kf11 Ke14 23.Ke12 Kd15 24.Kd13 Ke16 25.Ke14 Kd16 26.Nd7 Kc16 27.Ne9 Kb15 28.Kd15 Kb14 29.Bf10+ Kb15 30.Nd11 Ka16 31.Nc13 Kb16 32.Kd16 Ka15 33.Kc15 Ka16 34.Kc16 Ka15 35.Na12+ Ka16 36.Nb14 Ka15 37.Nd13 Ka14 38.Nc11 Ka13 39.Bc13 Ka14 40.Kc15 Ka13 41.Kc14 Ka14 42.Bd12 Ka13 43.Na10 Ka12 44.Kc13 Kb11 45.Nb12 Ka12 46.Kc12 Ka13 47.Be11 Ka12 48.Bf12 Ka13 49.Bc15 Ka12 50.Nd11 Ka11 51.Bf12 Ka12 52.Nc13 Ka11 53.Kc11 Ka10 54.Nd11 Ka9 55.Nb10 Kb9 56.Kb11 Ka9 57.Kc10 Ka10 58.Bg13 Ka11 59.Be15 Ka10 60.Nd9 Ka9 61.Bh12 Ka10 62.Nc11+ Ka9 63.Kc9 Ka8 64.Nd9 Kb7 65.Nb8 Ka7 66.Kc8 Ka8 67.Bg11 Ka9 68.Be13+ Ka8 69.Nd7 Ka7 70.Bh10 Ka8 71.Nc9 Ka7 72.Kc7 Ka6 73.Kc6 Ka7 74.Bd6 Ka6 75.Bc5 Ka5 76.Ne8 Ka4 77.Kd5 Kb3 78.Kd4 Kc2 79.Bb4 Kb3 80.Kc5 Ka2 81.Kc4 Kb1 82.Kc3 Kc1 83.Nd6 Kd1 84.Kd3 Kc1 85.Nc4 Kd1 86.Ba5 Kc1 87.Bd2 Kb1 88.Kc3 Ka2 89.Kc2 Ka1 90.Kb3 Kb1 91.Na3+ Ka1 92.Bc3#&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is long, but playing through it definitely helped convince me that white could force mate on an arbitrarily large board.  In the first phase, the white king and bishop can corral the black king while buying tempi for the white knight to catch up.  Once the black king is trapped in the bad corner (a16 in this case), it is shuffled down the a-file with very little breathing room.  Although the procedure is significantly more complicated than a W maneuver, white appears to always be in complete control.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4569" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-05-13T16:01:27.940" LastActivityDate="2021-05-13T16:01:27.940" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="8263" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8258" CreationDate="2015-01-02T15:32:37.543" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can get this information from the Reference tab, rather than the Openings Book tab. (Of course the stats will correspond exactly only if your openings book was made from your reference database.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2015-01-02T15:32:37.543" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8264" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4596" CreationDate="2015-01-02T16:22:55.523" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your friend and the existing answer here are both right: You can't do that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's no explicit law of chess for just this situation because it's fully covered by a slightly more general article from the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/component/handbook/?id=208&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Laws of Chess&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;3.9.1 The king is said to be 'in check' if it is attacked by one or more of the opponent's pieces, even if such pieces are constrained&#xA;  from moving to the square occupied by the king because they would then&#xA;  leave or place their own king in check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This covers both your case -- the square is considered 'attacked' by the opponent's king even though it could not be moved there because of the rook -- and other cases, e.g. a piece pinned against it's king is still considered to attack all the squares it could move to were it not for the pin, hence the opposing king cannot be moved to any of them. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4573" LastEditorUserId="16057" LastEditDate="2018-05-23T21:33:55.043" LastActivityDate="2018-05-23T21:33:55.043" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="8266" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8295" CreationDate="2015-01-02T23:21:35.950" Score="5" ViewCount="199" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can the white King move a space to the right, into the original location of the black king? This would be disallowed in standard chess, as one cannot intentionally put themselves into check. However, in rollerball chess, moving the king into this square is supposed to end the game, giving white the win. Thanks in advance!&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.imgur.com/vy0qyf3.png&quot; alt=&quot;1&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4577" LastActivityDate="2016-02-11T13:27:14.847" Title="Is this move valid in the rollerball chess variant?" Tags="&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;illegal-move&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8267" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1519" CreationDate="2015-01-03T01:28:57.990" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Try Connect Score. The game combines Chess with Dots and Boxes. The game can be viewed at: &lt;a href=&quot;http://connect-score.blogspot.ca/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://connect-score.blogspot.ca/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Rick Nordal&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4578" LastActivityDate="2015-01-03T01:28:57.990" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8268" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5147" CreationDate="2015-01-03T05:55:14.857" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;@ragu.pattabi wrote:&#xA;{&#xA;Agreed pre written notes are not allowed. But it still doesn't seem to forbid alternative moves ('other relevant data') –  ragu.pattabi Mar 30 '14 at 15:12&#xA;}&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The rule definitely forbids writing your style of annotations on anything including your scoresheet, until after the game is completed. Definitely.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Reasons Why - include the following:&#xA;Nobody wants the hassle of having to scrutinize your &quot;annotations&quot; to see if that is what they are. Any magician could devise codes to look like annotations but mean something else. And a hundred other reasons.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4581" LastActivityDate="2015-01-03T05:55:14.857" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8269" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7962" CreationDate="2015-01-03T06:29:37.087" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;Armageddon Chess is a &lt;em&gt;fair&lt;/em&gt; tie-break system only if the two players &lt;em&gt;bid&lt;/em&gt; for how much time Black should have.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Foolishly most times I see Armageddon specified there is no bidding. Instead the Tournament Organizer gazes into his magic oracle which tells him the exactly correct fair amount of time to give to Black (the T.O. is careful to never let us see the oracle for ourselves). This no-bid foolishness amazes me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4581" LastActivityDate="2015-01-03T06:29:37.087" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8270" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8271" CreationDate="2015-01-03T11:34:45.673" Score="2" ViewCount="472" Body="&lt;p&gt;What are Difficult lines for black in accelerated dragon?the most problematic line for black in the accelerated dragon&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4582" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2015-01-03T13:21:09.470" LastActivityDate="2015-01-03T15:20:27.137" Title="Problematic lines for black in accelerated dragon" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2015-01-06T00:34:34.013" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8271" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8270" CreationDate="2015-01-03T15:20:27.137" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you play the accelerated through the move order 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 g6 then the most problematic would be the  maroczy bind after 5.c4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But then through that move order you may not even get it as opponents may instead of 3.d4 play 3.Bb5 (Rossolimo) which is very popular.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you play it through the move order 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 g6 then by far the most testing line is 3.d4 cxd4 4.Qxd4 and both sides have to be very well prepared but black more than white for sure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3357" LastActivityDate="2015-01-03T15:20:27.137" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8272" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8259" CreationDate="2015-01-03T15:26:51.967" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;but it seems the increment is not allowed for the first period&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as I can see from the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.saremba.de/chessgml/standards/pgn/pgn-complete.htm#c9.6.1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;standard&lt;/a&gt; it is allowed in the first period only if there is only one period. Specifically it is allowed only in the last period.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;•The fifth TimeControl field kind is used for an &quot;incremental&quot; control&#xA;  period. It should only be used for the last descriptor in a&#xA;  TimeControl tag value and is usually the only descriptor in the value.&#xA;  The format consists of two positive integers separated by a plus sign&#xA;  (&quot;+&quot;) character. The first integer gives the minimum number of seconds&#xA;  allocated for the period and the second integer gives the number of&#xA;  extra seconds added after each move is made. So, an incremental time&#xA;  control of 90 minutes plus one extra minute per move would be given by&#xA;  &quot;4500+60&quot; in the TimeControl tag value&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only suggestion is the standard one regarding these questions about PGN which is to put the information in a comment field. The standard is old and no longer maintained as far as I know.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2015-01-03T15:26:51.967" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8273" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5468" CreationDate="2015-01-03T20:11:16.217" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;For Windows desktop there is &lt;a href=&quot;http://sourceforge.net/projects/chessx/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;ChessX&lt;/a&gt; and for a modern / metro app there is &lt;a href=&quot;http://apps.microsoft.com/windows/en-gb/app/pgnviewer/c8016498-a479-4a02-a10b-fd452f06e7c5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;PgnViewer&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2015-01-03T20:11:16.217" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8274" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-01-03T23:04:02.130" Score="3" ViewCount="2682" Body="&lt;p&gt;I play on chess.com which is usually a very positive and pleasant experience. I like to play five minute time controls with 0 second increments which means it translates to a very fast paced game. Often, I will enter tournaments with this time control.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Recently, I have been forced to play with a player who I strongly believe is using a computer. I figured it would be very easy to have another chess program open in a different window and play the moves your opponent is playing and respond likewise, but I didn't think this would be possible in such a rapid chess game. He is moving very quickly without making any mistakes and setting up very strong combinations. Is it possible that he has configured his computer to be wired into the game where it moves without him having to switch between windows or programs?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3093" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-11-22T14:03:54.907" LastActivityDate="2016-11-22T14:03:54.907" Title="Computer assistance in online blitz chess" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;cheating&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8275" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8294" CreationDate="2015-01-04T00:50:31.983" Score="3" ViewCount="2374" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can you compile Stockfish on Windows (without Unix/GNU), perhaps via Visual Studio?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The official &amp;quot;how to compile Stockfish on Windows&amp;quot; suggests using MinGW (see links below) and I am looking for a Windows-specific project build of Stockfish if it exists.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Links:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://support.stockfishchess.org/kb/advanced-topics/compiling-stockfish-on-windows&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Compiling Stockfish on Windows&lt;/a&gt; (dead link, verified on 26.12.2020);&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish#compiling-stockfish-yourself-from-the-sources&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Compiling Stockfish yourself from the sources&lt;/a&gt; (link added on 26.12.2020);&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://sourceforge.net/projects/mingw/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;MinGW - Minimalist GNU for Windows&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3950" LastEditorUserId="10867" LastEditDate="2020-12-26T18:54:11.930" LastActivityDate="2020-12-26T18:54:11.930" Title="Can you compile Stockfish on Windows without Unix/GNU?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;computer-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="8276" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8293" CreationDate="2015-01-04T02:41:55.537" Score="3" ViewCount="5217" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am looking for an efficient (fast) program to generate next moves for all pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I need it in C++, because I will program in C++.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4585" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-04-01T19:05:44.693" LastActivityDate="2016-04-01T19:05:44.693" Title="An efficient program, which generates all next moves for all pieces in C/C++" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;software&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8278" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8276" CreationDate="2015-01-04T16:25:10.197" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think it is unreasonable to ask for this as a stand-alone program because its implementation will be very dependent on the design of your program as a whole. In particular, it completely depends on how you are storing each position: how are you representing the board and pieces? How do you keep track of where each piece is after each move? How do you know which squares a piece &lt;em&gt;can&lt;/em&gt; move to (is there a piece there already? Is there a piece blocking the bishop's movement as it goes from c1 to f4?)? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, once you have a implemented all of the above &lt;em&gt;perfectly&lt;/em&gt; then the problem of generating the moves that each piece can make becomes quite easy: simply iterate over every piece and for every piece iterate over all of its valid moves (how you store moves is, again, entirely up to you).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, &lt;a href=&quot;https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; is a great resource that gives a good overview of some important topics in chess programming.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3322" LastActivityDate="2015-01-04T16:25:10.197" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8280" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8281" CreationDate="2015-01-04T19:23:30.797" Score="2" ViewCount="219" Body="&lt;p&gt;Whilst playing a casual game against computer on an iPhone app I was faced with this situation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/upVPa.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With white to move, the computer tells me I have a saving move but I clearly do not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Am I right in thinking this is a glitch or is there an obscure play that I could have used to save my King?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4590" LastActivityDate="2015-01-05T19:23:28.527" Title="Glitch or mate?" Tags="&lt;software&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8281" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8280" CreationDate="2015-01-04T19:58:33.977" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Assuming the last move was ...Re1 it sure looks like mate to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4415" LastActivityDate="2015-01-04T19:58:33.977" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8282" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8274" CreationDate="2015-01-04T20:44:29.523" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;5 0 is slow enough it would be easy to cheat in another window, especially if you are capable of moving on your own at least part of the time. It sounds like chess.com has an active detection system although they don't disclose all of the details. (It may be possible to automatically cheat, as you say, but it would be a lot more effort. &lt;em&gt;edit&lt;/em&gt;: at least, I think it would be...)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would download the PGN of your game and analyze it against a free computer program like Stockfish. If they truly made almost no mistakes/almost always made optimal moves (and you think they shouldn't have) I recommend you report the suspected cheater. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/forum/view/community/chesscom-policy-on-cheating&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.chess.com/forum/view/community/chesscom-policy-on-cheating&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="142" LastEditorUserId="142" LastEditDate="2015-01-04T20:54:57.520" LastActivityDate="2015-01-04T20:54:57.520" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8283" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8284" CreationDate="2015-01-04T21:50:12.657" Score="11" ViewCount="5857" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can someone explain this time control notation to me?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;6SS, 40/120 sd30 d5&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4049" LastActivityDate="2018-11-12T16:05:13.667" Title="Time control notation explained?" Tags="&lt;time-control&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8284" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8283" CreationDate="2015-01-04T21:59:32.077" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;That indicates slightly more than just the time control:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;6SS indicates a 6-round &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss-system_tournament#Chess&quot;&gt;Swiss system&lt;/a&gt; tournament.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;40/120 indicates that each side will have 120 minutes to make the first 40 moves of the game.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;sd30 indicates that after the first 40-move time control is met, each side will have an additional 30 minutes for the remainder of the game (&quot;sd&quot; = sudden death).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;d5 indicates that there will be a 5-second delay on each move, during which one's clock will not yet have started to tick.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2015-01-04T21:59:32.077" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8285" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8286" CreationDate="2015-01-05T01:28:30.723" Score="5" ViewCount="2846" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't have many friends to play chess with that are at my skill level so many times I am forced to play against the computer. It seems like the computer plays much differently than a human, or at least, so I hear. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it necessary to play against humans to increase your ability or can playing against the computer yield the same result?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4592" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2015-07-12T18:59:33.330" LastActivityDate="2018-11-21T17:40:25.170" Title="Playing solely against chess engine?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8286" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8285" CreationDate="2015-01-05T04:50:05.780" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Playing against an engine is definitely still good practice for your chess. You can typically scale the strength of the engine to make it harder or easier depending on your level. In my experience it tends to be bit boring since most engines tend to favour particular openings and a fairly aggressive style of play.  To combat this you can tell the engine to play a certain line, but this also takes some of the excitement out since you know in advance what the engine will play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Aside from engines there are always plenty of online options to find a game. For example chess.com is a free site where you can play against basically any strength player. It also offers live matches as well as correspondence games. You can filter by ELO rating to find games against opponents who would suit your skills. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1815" LastActivityDate="2015-01-05T04:50:05.780" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8287" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4596" CreationDate="2015-01-05T09:02:34.770" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is illegal to play a move that results in your king being on an attacked square, or, as &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=171&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;the official rules&lt;/a&gt; put it, emphasis mine:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The king is said to be 'in check' if it is attacked by one or more of&#xA;  the  opponent's pieces, even if such pieces are constrained from&#xA;  moving to the square occupied by the king because they would then&#xA;  leave or place their own king in check. &lt;strong&gt;No piece can be moved that&#xA;  will either expose the king of the same colour to check or leave that&#xA;  king in check&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Moving your king next to his would leave your king in check (the square is attacked by the opponent's king), so you're not allowed to do that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Backing up&quot; a king never makes sense; you aren't even allowed to let your king be captured, so what might happen after that capture is always irrelevant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2015-01-05T09:02:34.770" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8288" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8257" CreationDate="2015-01-05T13:07:09.067" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think you are looking for something like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.apronus.com/chess/wbeditor.php?w=8&amp;amp;h=8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.apronus.com/chess/wbeditor.php?w=8&amp;amp;h=8&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can create your own position, load/export PGN/FEN formats.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4596" LastEditorUserId="4596" LastEditDate="2015-01-05T13:17:49.770" LastActivityDate="2015-01-05T13:17:49.770" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8290" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1432" CreationDate="2015-01-05T21:42:50.153" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the biggest distinction we can make here is how many moves it will take to mate the king. There is plenty of evidence above that proves it is possible to mate on an almost ainfinitely increasing board (assuming it stays a square and not a rectangular, as to why ai have no idea). In a tournament there is a 50 move rule to prevent needlessly long games. It is possible to mate with this scenario on a 8x8 board within the confines of 50 moves but with little room for error. The bigger the board, the more space you need to corral the King into the corner m which results in 90+ move mates. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To summarize, as long as the board is square (Length=width), then a KBN vs K mate is achievable. I cannot answer if the board is rectangular. aid someone else knows, they can answer that if they want or you could edit you question!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4402" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-01-15T13:47:38.727" LastActivityDate="2020-01-15T13:47:38.727" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="8291" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-01-05T23:34:39.103" Score="8" ViewCount="2396" Body="&lt;p&gt;So I have not been this interested in chess for a very long time indeed. This problem was posed to me by someone who has recently become experienced in chess and also participated in a chess tournament, in which he did fairly well considering his level of experience.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;White to move and mate in 1&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;8/kPR5/5Q2/8/8/8/6B1/4K3 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From my own deductions, the only possible way in which to even begin to solve the problem is with the move b7 to b8. However, I have yet to figure out how promoting the pawn can have an effect on the eventual outcome of the scenario, seeing as the black king can simply take whichever piece I decide to transform the pawn into.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The last hint I was given, by the person who posed to question to me, was that the relationship between the piece into which the pawn is transformed and the black king is paramount to the solution.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please help me. All the chess engines I have tried using after an absurd amount of time, trying to figure it out by myself, and doing it with the help of others have failed me. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All helpful tips/hints/advice/directions which may lead to the correct answer are welcome.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4599" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-10-24T21:14:47.697" LastActivityDate="2019-10-24T21:14:47.697" Title="Pawn Promotion Endgame Problem-White to move and mate in 1" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;pawns&gt;&lt;problems&gt;&lt;pawn-promotion&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="8292" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8291" CreationDate="2015-01-05T23:48:25.827" Score="23" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's probably a trick problem with a promotion to a black knight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Such promotions to the wrong colour are not allowed, and never were. In the official rules it is now specifically pointed out that the new piece has to have the same colour as the promoted pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;FIDE's laws of chess, Article 3.7 e:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;When a pawn reaches the rank furthest from its starting position it&#xA;  must be exchanged as part of the same move on the same square for a&#xA;  new queen, rook, bishop or knight of the same colour. The player’s&#xA;  choice is not restricted to pieces that have been captured previously.&#xA;  This exchange of a pawn for another piece is called ‘promotion’ and&#xA;  the effect of the new piece is immediate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1485" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2015-01-05T23:54:51.910" LastActivityDate="2015-01-05T23:54:51.910" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8293" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8276" CreationDate="2015-01-06T00:52:37.743" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://support.stockfishchess.org/discussions/questions/1422-generation-of-next-moves-for-all-pieces&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://support.stockfishchess.org/discussions/questions/1422-generation-of-next-moves-for-all-pieces&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should use Tord (the person who wrote Stockfish)'s C++ move generation code. It's easy, simple, fast and good. It uses magic bitboard.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2015-01-06T02:27:57.203" LastActivityDate="2015-01-06T02:27:57.203" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8294" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8275" CreationDate="2015-01-06T00:54:42.337" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The stockfish source code can be easily compiled with gcc, Visual Studio, XCode etc. In Visual Studio, create an empty project, use the mouse to drag all files in Stockfish into the project then press the compile button. Very simple.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only reason that Visual Studio is not listed in the documentation is that the website maintainer (Daylen Yang) is a Mac and Linux user. He doesn't have Windows installed so he didn't care about it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2015-01-06T00:54:42.337" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8295" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8266" CreationDate="2015-01-06T05:24:36.937" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;No it is not legal. Just like in normal chess the king cannot move into check, even if it would 'win' the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rollerball_%28chess_variant%29&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rollerball_%28chess_variant%29&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1815" LastActivityDate="2015-01-06T05:24:36.937" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8297" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8291" CreationDate="2015-01-06T06:44:41.980" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Mate in one move is impossible here, but there is a forced mate in two. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You're right that the solution begins with a pawn promotion; you just need to continue playing out the line. Promote to any piece - it doesn't matter which - and the only legal move for black is to capture the new piece. Then simply drop your queen to D8 (or B6), and it's mate in two.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/kPR5/5Q2/8/8/8/6B1/4K3 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.b8=N+ Kxb8 2.Qd8# 1-0 (2.Qb6# 1-0)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3617" LastEditorUserId="3617" LastEditDate="2015-01-06T06:56:51.950" LastActivityDate="2015-01-06T06:56:51.950" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8299" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-01-06T09:29:45.327" Score="17" ViewCount="1574" Body="&lt;p&gt;If your opponent makes an accidental move, e.g. by slipping the mouse, and it is obvious that is was accidental, how should you continue? Should you just play the best move as if your opponent's last move was intentional? Some of my opponents have suggested that I should accept a draw in such situations. Others have asked me to make a dummy move, so that they could undo their last move by moving the piece back to the square where it was before.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4605" LastActivityDate="2021-03-30T22:15:49.363" Title="Accidental moves in online chess" Tags="&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;etiquette&gt;" AnswerCount="8" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8300" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8299" CreationDate="2015-01-06T09:43:43.330" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;FICS has a &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.freechess.org/Help/HelpFiles/takeback.html&quot;&gt;takeback&lt;/a&gt;&quot; option; other sites may have something similar.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The link gives full details but the idea is that you type &lt;code&gt;takeback n&lt;/code&gt; to request undoing n half-moves. Either player can do this so, if you make a mouse-slip, you can just type &lt;code&gt;takeback&lt;/code&gt; to ask your opponent to undo that move (n=1 is assumed if you don't specify); if your opponent makes a mouseslip, you can still type &lt;code&gt;takeback&lt;/code&gt; to allow them the chance to undo. In the second case, you don't have to wait for your opponent to reply while your clock ticks away: if you make your move, the takeback is modified to &lt;code&gt;takeback 2&lt;/code&gt; so your opponent has the offer of undoing both his mistake and your reply to it. When offered a takeback, you can either accept or decline; making a move automatically declines. Accepting a takeback also resets the clocks to what they were at the moment when the mouse-slip was made.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On sites where this is not available, I'd recommend not making a dummy move, unless you were already in a losing position. You don't know that your opponent will behave honourably. They might exploit your generosity. I also wouldn't offer a draw unless, perhaps, a draw would have been a reasonable outcome before the mouse-slip. If your opponent was already losing, why should they gain half a point just by making a mouse-slip?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2789" LastActivityDate="2015-01-06T09:43:43.330" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8302" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-01-06T12:07:35.207" Score="0" ViewCount="91" Body="&lt;p&gt;Taking as an example, this blog: &lt;a href=&quot;http://wellingtonchess2012.blogspot.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://wellingtonchess2012.blogspot.com/&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can download the games manually by going to each game, clicking on &quot;KVChess V2.31&quot; in the bottom left corner, which then directs me to &lt;a href=&quot;http://kvchess.com/publish.html?pgndata=%5BEvent%20%22%3F%22%5D%20%5BSite%20%22%3F%22%5D%20%5BDate%20%222014.12.12%22%5D%20%5BRound%20%22%3F%22%5D%20%5BWhite%20%22Croad%2C%20Nic%22%5D%20%5BBlack%20%22Nijman%2C%20Brian%22%5D%20%5BResult%20%220-1%22%5D%20%201.%20d4%20e6%202.%20Nf3%20b6%203.%20g3%20Bb7%204.%20Bg2%20c5%205.%20O-O%20Nf6%206.%20c4%20cxd4%207.%20Qxd4%20Bc5%208.%20Qf4%20h6%209.%20Nc3%20Nc6%2010.%20b3%20Ne7%2011.%20Bb2%20Ng6%2012.%20Qd2%20O-O%2013.%20Rad1%20Qe7%2014.%20Qc1%20Rac8%2015.%20Na4%20d5%20%2815...%20Bc6%20%7B%20is%20safer%7D%20%29%2016.%20Nxc5%20bxc5%2017.%20Rfe1%20Rfd8%2018.%20Ne5%20Nxe5%2019.%20Bxe5%20Ne8%2020.%20e3%20dxc4%2021.%20Bxb7%20Qxb7%2022.%20Qxc4%20Rd5%2023.%20Rxd5%20exd5%2024.%20Qg4%20Rc6%2025.%20Rd1%20Re6%2026.%20Bc3%20Nf6%2027.%20Qf5%20%2827.%20Bxf6%20Rxf6%2028.%20Qh5%20Rd6%2029.%20e4%20g5%2030.%20h4%20d4%2031.%20hxg5%20Qxe4%2032.%20gxh6%20Rg6%2033.%20h7%20%20Kh8%2034.%20Qxc5%20Rxg3%20%2035.%20fxg3%20Qe3%20%2036.%20Kg2%20Qe2%20%2037.%20Kh3%20Qxd1%2038.%20Qf8%20%20Kxh7%2039.%20Qxf7%20%20Kh8%20%2410%29%2027...%20d4%20%242%20%7B%5Bright%20idea%2C%20wrong%20move%20order.%20It%20was%20better%20to%20play%20g7-g6%20first%5D%7D%20%20%2827...%20g6%20%241%2028.%20Qd3%20Ne4%2029.%20Bb2%20%2829.%20Ba1%20Kf8%20%245%2030.%20h4%20Ra6%2031.%20Qc2%20g5%20%245%2032.%20f3%20Qc7%2033.%20fxe4%20Qxg3%20%2034.%20Qg2%20Qxe3%20%2035.%20Qf2%20Qxf2%20%2036.%20Kxf2%20dxe4%20%7B%20unclear%7D%20%29%2029...%20d4%2030.%20exd4%20c4%20%241%2031.%20Qc2%20%2831.%20Qxc4%20%246%20Nd2%2032.%20Rxd2%20Re1%20%2033.%20Qf1%20Rxf1%20%2034.%20Kxf1%20Qh1%20%2035.%20Ke2%20Qe4%20%20%2410%29%20%2031...%20cxb3%2032.%20axb3%20%2832.%20Qxb3%20%244%20Rb6%29%2032...%20Qd5%2033.%20Bc1%20a5%2034.%20Qd3%20%2834.%20Bxh6%20g5%2035.%20Qc8%20%20Kh7%2036.%20Bf8%20Qxb3%29%2034...%20Nd6%20%7B%20and%20it%20is%20hard%20for%20White%20to%20make%20progress%7D%20%29%2028.%20exd4%20g6%2029.%20Qf4%20%2829.%20Qc2%20%2416%29%20%20%2829.%20Qd3%20Rd6%2030.%20Qe3%20Kh7%2031.%20d5%20Rxd5%2032.%20Rxd5%20Nxd5%2033.%20Qxc5%20Nxc3%2034.%20Qxc3%29%2029...%20Ne4%20%246%20%2829...%20Qd5%20%7B%20%5BWhite%20is%20only%20somewhat%20better%5D%7D%20%29%2030.%20Bb2%20%244%20%2830.%20Qf3%20%241%20Rf6%20%244%2031.%20dxc5%20%243%20Rxf3%2032.%20Rd8%20%20Kh7%2033.%20Rh8%23%29%2030...%20Ng5%2031.%20dxc5%20%2831.%20d5%20Nh3%20%2032.%20Kf1%20Nxf4%2033.%20dxe6%20Nxe6%29%20%2031...%20Nh3%20%2032.%20Kf1%20Qh1%23%200-1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;a link like this&lt;/a&gt;, after which I can copy-paste the PGN. However, it's very tedious to need do this game by game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there some automatic way to accomplish the same goal of extracting the games?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1752" LastActivityDate="2015-01-07T07:45:15.217" Title="Is there a way to automatically download KnightVision games from a chess blog?" Tags="&lt;pgn&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8303" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8302" CreationDate="2015-01-06T12:31:25.373" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;you can do it in next way: open browser console (I tested it under google Chrome) and past next line:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;document.getElementsByName(&quot;flashvars&quot;)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then press Enter and you'll see something like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[&amp;lt;param name=​&quot;flashvars&quot; value=​&quot;orientation=H&amp;amp;tabmode=false&amp;amp;light=f4f4fF&amp;amp;dark=0072b9&amp;amp;bordertext=494949&amp;amp;headerforeground=ffffff&amp;amp;mtforeground=000000&amp;amp;mtvariations=FF0000&amp;amp;mtmainline=000000&amp;amp;mtbackground=ffffff&amp;amp;pgndata=[Event &quot;Club championship 2014&quot;]​ [Site &quot;Wellington Chess Club&quot;]​ [Date &quot;2014.12.11&quot;]​ [Round &quot;?&quot;]​ [White &quot;Michael Sole&quot;]​ [Black &quot;Aran Mol&quot;]​ [Result &quot;0-1&quot;]​  1. e4 Nc6 2. Nf3 d5 3. exd5 Qxd5 4. Nc3 Qa5 5. d4 Bg4 6. Bb5 O-O-O 7. Bxc6 bxc6 8. O-O Qh5 9. h3 Bxf3 10. Qxf3 Qxf3 11. gxf3 Nf6 12. Be3 a6 13. Ne4 e6 14. c4 h6 15. Rac1 Nd7 16. c5 f5 17. Nc3 g5 18. Rfe1 Bg7 19. Rcd1 e5 20. Ne2 f4 21. Bc1 exd4 22. Nxd4 Bxd4 23. Rxd4 Nxc5 24. Rc4 Nd3 25. Re6 Rhe8 26. Rexc6 Re1%2B 27. Kg2 Rd7 28. Rc2 Nb4 29. Bd2 Nxc2 30. Bxe1 Nxe1%2B 31. Kf1 Kb7 32. Rxh6 Nxf3 33. Rh5 Nd2%2B 34. Ke2 Ne4 35. Kf3 Re7 36. h4 Nd2%2B 37. Kg4 gxh4 38. Rxh4 f3 39. Kg3 c5 40. Rh6 Re1 41. Kf4 Re2 42. Rd6 Rxf2 43. Kf5 Re2 44. Rd3 f2 0-1&quot;&amp;gt;​, &amp;lt;param name=​&quot;flashvars&quot; value=​&quot;orientation=H&amp;amp;tabmode=false&amp;amp;light=f4f4fF&amp;amp;dark=0072b9&amp;amp;bordertext=494949&amp;amp;headerforeground=ffffff&amp;amp;mtforeground=000000&amp;amp;mtvariations=FF0000&amp;amp;mtmainline=000000&amp;amp;mtbackground=ffffff&amp;amp;pgndata=[Event &quot;?&quot;]​ [Site &quot;?&quot;]​ [Date &quot;2014.12.12&quot;]​ [Round &quot;?&quot;]​ [White &quot;Croad, Nic&quot;]​ [Black &quot;Nijman, Brian&quot;]​ [Result &quot;0-1&quot;]​  1. d4 e6 2. Nf3 b6 3. g3 Bb7 4. Bg2 c5 5. O-O Nf6 6. c4 cxd4 7. Qxd4 Bc5 8. Qf4 h6 9. Nc3 Nc6 10. b3 Ne7 11. Bb2 Ng6 12. Qd2 O-O 13. Rad1 Qe7 14. Qc1 Rac8 15. Na4 d5 (15... Bc6 { is safer}​ )​ 16. Nxc5 bxc5 17. Rfe1 Rfd8 18. Ne5 Nxe5 19. Bxe5 Ne8 20. e3 dxc4 21. Bxb7 Qxb7 22. Qxc4 Rd5 23. Rxd5 exd5 24. Qg4 Rc6 25. Rd1 Re6 26. Bc3 Nf6 27. Qf5 (27. Bxf6 Rxf6 28. Qh5 Rd6 29. e4 g5 30. h4 d4 31. hxg5 Qxe4 32. gxh6 Rg6 33. h7%2B Kh8 34. Qxc5 Rxg3%2B 35. fxg3 Qe3%2B 36. Kg2 Qe2%2B 37. Kh3 Qxd1 38. Qf8%2B Kxh7 39. Qxf7%2B Kh8 $10)​ 27... d4 $2 {[right idea, wrong move order. It was better to play g7-g6 first]​}​  (27... g6 $1 28. Qd3 Ne4 29. Bb2 (29. Ba1 Kf8 $5 30. h4 Ra6 31. Qc2 g5 $5 32. f3 Qc7 33. fxe4 Qxg3%2B 34. Qg2 Qxe3%2B 35. Qf2 Qxf2%2B 36. Kxf2 dxe4 { unclear}​ )​ 29... d4 30. exd4 c4 $1 31. Qc2 (31. Qxc4 $6 Nd2 32. Rxd2 Re1%2B 33. Qf1 Rxf1%2B 34. Kxf1 Qh1%2B 35. Ke2 Qe4%2B $10)​  31... cxb3 32. axb3 (32. Qxb3 $4 Rb6)​ 32... Qd5 33. Bc1 a5 34. Qd3 (34. Bxh6 g5 35. Qc8%2B Kh7 36. Bf8 Qxb3)​ 34... Nd6 { and it is hard for White to make progress}​ )​ 28. exd4 g6 29. Qf4 (29. Qc2 $16)​  (29. Qd3 Rd6 30. Qe3 Kh7 31. d5 Rxd5 32. Rxd5 Nxd5 33. Qxc5 Nxc3 34. Qxc3)​ 29... Ne4 $6 (29... Qd5 { [White is only somewhat better]​}​ )​ 30. Bb2 $4 (30. Qf3 $1 Rf6 $4 31. dxc5 $3 Rxf3 32. Rd8%2B Kh7 33. Rh8#)​ 30... Ng5 31. dxc5 (31. d5 Nh3%2B 32. Kf1 Nxf4 33. dxe6 Nxe6)​  31... Nh3%2B 32. Kf1 Qh1# 0-1&quot;&amp;gt;​, &amp;lt;param name=​&quot;flashvars&quot; value=​&quot;orientation=H&amp;amp;tabmode=false&amp;amp;light=f4f4fF&amp;amp;dark=0072b9&amp;amp;bordertext=494949&amp;amp;headerforeground=ffffff&amp;amp;mtforeground=000000&amp;amp;mtvariations=FF0000&amp;amp;mtmainline=000000&amp;amp;mtbackground=ffffff&amp;amp;pgndata=[Event &quot;WCC&quot;]​ [Site &quot;WCC&quot;]​ [Date &quot;2014.11.29&quot;]​ [Round &quot;10&quot;]​ [White &quot;Nick Barr&quot;]​ [Black &quot;Michael Sole&quot;]​ [Result &quot;0-1&quot;]​  { I was playing Nick Barr and he played the Queen’s gambit. I was expecting this since this is what happened last game. The game finished at 11:​45 and closely matched our last game. }​ 1. d4 d5 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 Nf6 { Queen’s gambit declined main-line}​ 4. cxd5 exd5 { Exchange line}​ 5. Bg5 Nbd7 6. e3 Be7 7. Bd3 O-O 8. Qc2 h6 {First non-book move.    }​ 9. Bh4 b6 {This move helps prepare for c5 and Bb7. }​ 10. Nf3 c5 {This move challenges White’s centre. }​ 11. dxc5 Nxc5 {This is a nice outpost for the Knight. }​ 12. Be2 $6 {I feel that this move is not needed as the Bishop pair is not doing much here and that a developing move would be better. This move also gives up some pressure on the e4 square.      }​ (12. Rd1)​ 12... Bb7 { Putting more pressure on e4}​ 13. Nd4 { This is a nice place for his Knight and stays here for some time}​ 13... Rc8 { Grabbing the c file}​ 14. Qd1 $6 { Again I feel that this move is not needed as the Knight was protected by the b-pawn. This move could have been spent on castling }​  (14. O-O)​ 14... Nfe4 {Getting a nice place for my knight and threatening NxNc3 and then after the recapture, Ne4 wins the c-pawn. The bishop is also under attack.  }​ 15. Bxe7 Qxe7 {I like this position for Black }​ 16. Rc1 {Stopping the loss of the c-pawn }​ 16... Nxc3 17. Rxc3 Ne4 {This gains the c-file for Black }​ 18. Rb3 {I thought about this move for around 10 minutes here deciding between Qg5 and Rc5}​ 18... Rc5 {I picked this move to wait for White to castle before moving the Queen as it is in a nice place to attack the Queenside   }​  19. O-O Rfc8 {Further marking the c-file }​ 20. f3 $5 { This is the type of move I was waiting for as this weakens his king side and gives me a target to attack.}​ 20... Nd6 21. Ra3 { Attacking the a-pawn}​ 21... a6 {Setting a trap. }​  22. Qd3 { This move gives me the very useful c4 square for my Knight}​  (22. Bxa6 Bxa6 23. Rxa6 Qxe3%2B 24. Kh1 Rc1)​ 22... Nc4 23. Rb3 Re8 { Putting pressure on e3}​ 24. Nf5 $2 Qe6 $6 {This is not the best move to win the pawn Qf6 is better. }​  (24... Qf6)​ 25. Kf2 $2 {This move does little to protect the pawn }​ 25... Bc8 { Attacking the Knight}​ 26. Nd4 $2 { This move loses the pawn.}​ 26... Qf6 27. Qd1 $2 { Losing more protection}​ 27... Qh4%2B 28. Kg1 {Losing the exchange}​ 28... Nxe3 29. Qe1 $4 { This loses the Knight}​ 29... Qxd4 30. Qf2 Nf5 $2 { While this move is winning Rc2 is better}​ 31. Rxb6 $4 { Re2 is fatal now}​ 31... Qxf2%2B $2 { Not taking the bishop}​  (31... Rxe2)​ 32. Kxf2 $2 { giving the Bishop back}​ 32... Rc2 33. Re1 Nd4 34. Rb8 Rexe2%2B 35. Rxe2 Rxe2%2B 36. Kg3 { }​ 36... Re8 {Winning for Black }​ 37. b4 Nb5 38. a4 Nc3 39. b5 Bd7 40. Rb7 Bxb5 41. axb5 axb5 {Getting rid of the pawns}​ 42. Rb6 Rc8 43. Kf2 Re8 44. g4 Kf8 45. h4 Re2%2B 46. Kg3 Ke7 47. g5 hxg5 48. hxg5 Kd7 49. Kg4 Kc7 50. Ra6 Kd7 51. Kf5 g6%2B 52. Kf6 {I played the risky move of Re6%2B giving white promotion chances}​ 52... Re6%2B 53. Rxe6 fxe6 54. Kxg6 Ke7 $2 {I played this thinking that white would play Ka6 so my king could keep up}​ 55. Kh7 $1 { This move makes promotion a sure thing}​ 55... b4 56. g6 b3 57. g7 b2 58. g8=Q {He promotes first but I promote with check }​ 58... b1=Q%2B {Now I can swap Queens and queen my other pawns }​ 59. Qg6 { If the king moves then I can still swap}​  (59. Kh6 Qh1%2B 60. Kg7 Qg1%2B)​ 59... Qxg6%2B 60. Kxg6 d4 61. f4 d3 62. f5 exf5 63. Kxf5 d2 { Black resigned here.}​ 0-1&quot;&amp;gt;​&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can easy copy this. If you need you can make some performance on this text as well. If you need more help just let me know.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4264" LastActivityDate="2015-01-06T12:31:25.373" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8304" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8305" CreationDate="2015-01-06T16:05:02.657" Score="9" ViewCount="1896" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[FEN &quot;8/3RkQ2/3B4/8/8/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Is there a way out for Black?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt; My son and I finished this way (only the relevant parts of the position are shown in the diagram), but reading about stalemates now has us confused. We are new to the game and I would appreciate an explanation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4612" LastEditorUserId="2149" LastEditDate="2015-01-08T15:44:11.930" LastActivityDate="2015-01-26T20:35:12.613" Title="Is this a checkmate for White?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;stalemate&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8305" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8304" CreationDate="2015-01-06T16:09:31.623" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;This would be checkmate, because the king is in check and has no valid move to escape. But it's impossible to get into this position if you follow normal chess rules. The most you can do is a double-check (using a discovered attack), but your position shows a triple-check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The stalemate rule is only applicable when the king is not in check, so it doesn't apply here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="45" LastEditorUserId="45" LastEditDate="2015-01-06T16:15:09.133" LastActivityDate="2015-01-06T16:15:09.133" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8306" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8299" CreationDate="2015-01-06T18:38:49.247" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;If my opponent makes a mouse slip, I either offer a draw or continue with the best available move. It depends a bit on my mood. If I make a mouse slip, I just continue as usual and don't expect any favors in return. I can add that using a &quot;click, click&quot; method instead of drag and drop decreases the risk of mouse slips.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastActivityDate="2015-01-06T18:38:49.247" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8307" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8304" CreationDate="2015-01-06T19:54:16.737" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is explanation about Discovered Check:&#xA;Discovered check happens when one piece moved and after moving that piece the attack of anther piece touches the king it is discovered check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Discovered Check could be happend and result maximum 2 checks Suppose an empty Chess board and if my enemy's black king on E file on E8 square and my white rook is on E1 and white bishop is on E2 then if i move my white bishop to H5 square now note the situation&#xA;My bishop is attacking from H5 square to my enemy king&#xA;My rook's way is cleared now and rook now attacking from E1 square.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;this is one illustration of Discovered check many other possibilities could happen in game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You could play with me on Chess.com my username is hasanbadshah :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;remember two rooks can never create a discovered check.&#xA;but queen+rook can create it would be like of rook move and check, which result cleared the queen's way which also threatening the enemy king so it is discovered.&#xA;If any confusion u have feel free to post.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3930" LastActivityDate="2015-01-06T19:54:16.737" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8308" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8019" CreationDate="2015-01-06T22:40:49.903" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;One resource you can try is looking up famous attacking chess masters, and checking out their favorite openings, for instance on the Most Played Openings section of their chessgames.com page. For instance, both Tal and Kasparov liked to play the Sicilian against 1. e4 and it shows up as their most-played opening as black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/player/mikhail_tal.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.chessgames.com/player/mikhail_tal.html&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/player/garry_kasparov.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.chessgames.com/player/garry_kasparov.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can see that a more all-round player like Spassky often played the Ruy Lopez, and that Karpov, who preferred closed positions and positional struggles, often played the Caro-Kann.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In general, though, even the attacking masters have to first equalize as black, then attack. If you get reckless you might fluster some opponents, especially in blitz, but you will also often be severely punished! Seeing how the attacking masters make that transition and go on the offensive is crucial if you want your attacks to really mean something and not just be superficially menacing-looking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4615" LastActivityDate="2015-01-06T22:40:49.903" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8310" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-01-07T00:22:11.437" Score="3" ViewCount="892" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm basically fishing for suggestions here... there is &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.kaggle.com/c/finding-elo&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;an AI contest to figure out a person's rating from a single game&lt;/a&gt;. The contest's description mentions Ken Regan's approach that makes use of engine evaluations of players' moves (and the contest's accompanying game data is pre-equipped with engine evaluations for such use). What other kinds of factors do you believe would be useful for such a task?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I could imagine things like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Ability to follow recent opening theory (for strong players)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Total number of blunders (for weak players)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;At what point in the game did resignation occur? (for strong players, it often evaluates to numbers closer to a draw than for weak players)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Average depth of tactical traps avoided&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other ideas?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="606" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2015-01-07T02:28:32.407" LastActivityDate="2015-01-07T10:05:21.560" Title="How would you figure out someone's Elo rating from a single game of chess?" Tags="&lt;elo&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="8" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8311" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8302" CreationDate="2015-01-07T07:45:15.217" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Everything after parameter pgndata is pgn data (obviously))). Simplest what you can do just copy information which you retrieved into text editor and organize. For example the line which I provide in the answer after organizing will look like:&#xA; &lt;code&gt;[&amp;lt;param name=​&quot;flashvars&quot; value=​&quot;orientation=H&amp;amp;tabmode=false&amp;amp;light=f4f4fF&amp;amp;dark=0072b9&amp;amp;bordertext=494949&amp;amp;headerforeground=ffffff&amp;amp;mtforeground=000000&amp;amp;mtvariations=FF0000&amp;amp;mtmainline=000000&amp;amp;mtbackground=ffffff&amp;amp;pgndata=&#xA;[Event &quot;Club championship 2014”]​&#xA;[Site &quot;Wellington Chess Club”]​&#xA;[Date &quot;2014.12.11&quot;]​ [Round &quot;?”]​&#xA;[White &quot;Michael Sole”]​&#xA;[Black &quot;Aran Mol”]​&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1”]​&lt;br&gt;&#xA;1. e4 Nc6 2. Nf3 d5 3. exd5 Qxd5 4. Nc3 Qa5 5. d4 Bg4 6. Bb5 O-O-O 7. Bxc6 bxc6 8. O-O Qh5 9. h3 Bxf3 10. Qxf3 Qxf3 11. gxf3 Nf6 12. Be3 a6 13. Ne4 e6 14. c4 h6 15. Rac1 Nd7 16. c5 f5 17. Nc3 g5 18. Rfe1 Bg7 19. Rcd1 e5 20. Ne2 f4 21. Bc1 exd4 22. Nxd4 Bxd4 23. Rxd4 Nxc5 24. Rc4 Nd3 25. Re6 Rhe8 26. Rexc6 Re1%2B 27. Kg2 Rd7 28. Rc2 Nb4 29. Bd2 Nxc2 30. Bxe1 Nxe1%2B 31. Kf1 Kb7 32. Rxh6 Nxf3 33. Rh5 Nd2%2B 34. Ke2 Ne4 35. Kf3 Re7 36. h4 Nd2%2B 37. Kg4 gxh4 38. Rxh4 f3 39. Kg3 c5 40. Rh6 Re1 41. Kf4 Re2 42. Rd6 Rxf2 43. Kf5 Re2 44. Rd3 f2 0-1&quot;&amp;gt;​, &#xA;&amp;lt;param name=​&quot;flashvars&quot; value=​&quot;orientation=H&amp;amp;tabmode=false&amp;amp;light=f4f4fF&amp;amp;dark=0072b9&amp;amp;bordertext=494949&amp;amp;headerforeground=ffffff&amp;amp;mtforeground=000000&amp;amp;mtvariations=FF0000&amp;amp;mtmainline=000000&amp;amp;mtbackground=ffffff&amp;amp;pgndata=&#xA;[Event &quot;?”]​&#xA;[Site &quot;?”]​&#xA;[Date &quot;2014.12.12”]​&#xA;[Round &quot;?”]​&#xA;[White &quot;Croad, Nic”]​&#xA;[Black &quot;Nijman, Brian”]​&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1”]​&lt;br&gt;&#xA;1. d4 e6 2. Nf3 b6 3. g3 Bb7 4. Bg2 c5 5. O-O Nf6 6. c4 cxd4 7. Qxd4 Bc5 8. Qf4 h6 9. Nc3 Nc6 10. b3 Ne7 11. Bb2 Ng6 12. Qd2 O-O 13. Rad1 Qe7 14. Qc1 Rac8 15. Na4 d5 (15... Bc6 { is safer}​ )​ 16. Nxc5 bxc5 17. Rfe1 Rfd8 18. Ne5 Nxe5 19. Bxe5 Ne8 20. e3 dxc4 21. Bxb7 Qxb7 22. Qxc4 Rd5 23. Rxd5 exd5 24. Qg4 Rc6 25. Rd1 Re6 26. Bc3 Nf6 27. Qf5 (27. Bxf6 Rxf6 28. Qh5 Rd6 29. e4 g5 30. h4 d4 31. hxg5 Qxe4 32. gxh6 Rg6 33. h7%2B Kh8 34. Qxc5 Rxg3%2B 35. fxg3 Qe3%2B 36. Kg2 Qe2%2B 37. Kh3 Qxd1 38. Qf8%2B Kxh7 39. Qxf7%2B Kh8 $10)​ 27... d4 $2 {[right idea, wrong move order. It was better to play g7-g6 first]​}​  (27... g6 $1 28. Qd3 Ne4 29. Bb2 (29. Ba1 Kf8 $5 30. h4 Ra6 31. Qc2 g5 $5 32. f3 Qc7 33. fxe4 Qxg3%2B 34. Qg2 Qxe3%2B 35. Qf2 Qxf2%2B 36. Kxf2 dxe4 { unclear}​ )​ 29... d4 30. exd4 c4 $1 31. Qc2 (31. Qxc4 $6 Nd2 32. Rxd2 Re1%2B 33. Qf1 Rxf1%2B 34. Kxf1 Qh1%2B 35. Ke2 Qe4%2B $10)​  31... cxb3 32. axb3 (32. Qxb3 $4 Rb6)​ 32... Qd5 33. Bc1 a5 34. Qd3 (34. Bxh6 g5 35. Qc8%2B Kh7 36. Bf8 Qxb3)​ 34... Nd6 { and it is hard for White to make progress}​ )​ 28. exd4 g6 29. Qf4 (29. Qc2 $16)​  (29. Qd3 Rd6 30. Qe3 Kh7 31. d5 Rxd5 32. Rxd5 Nxd5 33. Qxc5 Nxc3 34. Qxc3)​ 29... Ne4 $6 (29... Qd5 { [White is only somewhat better]​}​ )​ 30. Bb2 $4 (30. Qf3 $1 Rf6 $4 31. dxc5 $3 Rxf3 32. Rd8%2B Kh7 33. Rh8#)​ 30... Ng5 31. dxc5 (31. d5 Nh3%2B 32. Kf1 Nxf4 33. dxe6 Nxe6)​  31... Nh3%2B 32. Kf1 Qh1# 0-1&quot;&amp;gt;​, &#xA;&amp;lt;param name=​&quot;flashvars&quot; value=​&quot;orientation=H&amp;amp;tabmode=false&amp;amp;light=f4f4fF&amp;amp;dark=0072b9&amp;amp;bordertext=494949&amp;amp;headerforeground=ffffff&amp;amp;mtforeground=000000&amp;amp;mtvariations=FF0000&amp;amp;mtmainline=000000&amp;amp;mtbackground=ffffff&amp;amp;pgndata=&#xA;[Event &quot;WCC”]​ &#xA;[Site &quot;WCC”]​ &#xA;[Date &quot;2014.11.29”]​ &#xA;[Round &quot;10”]​ &#xA;[White &quot;Nick Barr”]​ &#xA;[Black &quot;Michael Sole”]​ &#xA;[Result &quot;0-1”]​&lt;br&gt;&#xA;{ I was playing Nick Barr and he played the Queen’s gambit. I was expecting this since this is what happened last game. The game finished at 11:​45 and closely matched our last game. }​ 1. d4 d5 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 Nf6 { Queen’s gambit declined main-line}​ 4. cxd5 exd5 { Exchange line}​ 5. Bg5 Nbd7 6. e3 Be7 7. Bd3 O-O 8. Qc2 h6 {First non-book move.    }​ 9. Bh4 b6 {This move helps prepare for c5 and Bb7. }​ 10. Nf3 c5 {This move challenges White’s centre. }​ 11. dxc5 Nxc5 {This is a nice outpost for the Knight. }​ 12. Be2 $6 {I feel that this move is not needed as the Bishop pair is not doing much here and that a developing move would be better. This move also gives up some pressure on the e4 square.      }​ (12. Rd1)​ 12... Bb7 { Putting more pressure on e4}​ 13. Nd4 { This is a nice place for his Knight and stays here for some time}​ 13... Rc8 { Grabbing the c file}​ 14. Qd1 $6 { Again I feel that this move is not needed as the Knight was protected by the b-pawn. This move could have been spent on castling }​  (14. O-O)​ 14... Nfe4 {Getting a nice place for my knight and threatening NxNc3 and then after the recapture, Ne4 wins the c-pawn. The bishop is also under attack.  }​ 15. Bxe7 Qxe7 {I like this position for Black }​ 16. Rc1 {Stopping the loss of the c-pawn }​ 16... Nxc3 17. Rxc3 Ne4 {This gains the c-file for Black }​ 18. Rb3 {I thought about this move for around 10 minutes here deciding between Qg5 and Rc5}​ 18... Rc5 {I picked this move to wait for White to castle before moving the Queen as it is in a nice place to attack the Queenside   }​  19. O-O Rfc8 {Further marking the c-file }​ 20. f3 $5 { This is the type of move I was waiting for as this weakens his king side and gives me a target to attack.}​ 20... Nd6 21. Ra3 { Attacking the a-pawn}​ 21... a6 {Setting a trap. }​  22. Qd3 { This move gives me the very useful c4 square for my Knight}​  (22. Bxa6 Bxa6 23. Rxa6 Qxe3%2B 24. Kh1 Rc1)​ 22... Nc4 23. Rb3 Re8 { Putting pressure on e3}​ 24. Nf5 $2 Qe6 $6 {This is not the best move to win the pawn Qf6 is better. }​  (24... Qf6)​ 25. Kf2 $2 {This move does little to protect the pawn }​ 25... Bc8 { Attacking the Knight}​ 26. Nd4 $2 { This move loses the pawn.}​ 26... Qf6 27. Qd1 $2 { Losing more protection}​ 27... Qh4%2B 28. Kg1 {Losing the exchange}​ 28... Nxe3 29. Qe1 $4 { This loses the Knight}​ 29... Qxd4 30. Qf2 Nf5 $2 { While this move is winning Rc2 is better}​ 31. Rxb6 $4 { Re2 is fatal now}​ 31... Qxf2%2B $2 { Not taking the bishop}​  (31... Rxe2)​ 32. Kxf2 $2 { giving the Bishop back}​ 32... Rc2 33. Re1 Nd4 34. Rb8 Rexe2%2B 35. Rxe2 Rxe2%2B 36. Kg3 { }​ 36... Re8 {Winning for Black }​ 37. b4 Nb5 38. a4 Nc3 39. b5 Bd7 40. Rb7 Bxb5 41. axb5 axb5 {Getting rid of the pawns}​ 42. Rb6 Rc8 43. Kf2 Re8 44. g4 Kf8 45. h4 Re2%2B 46. Kg3 Ke7 47. g5 hxg5 48. hxg5 Kd7 49. Kg4 Kc7 50. Ra6 Kd7 51. Kf5 g6%2B 52. Kf6 {I played the risky move of Re6%2B giving white promotion chances}​ 52... Re6%2B 53. Rxe6 fxe6 54. Kxg6 Ke7 $2 {I played this thinking that white would play Ka6 so my king could keep up}​ 55. Kh7 $1 { This move makes promotion a sure thing}​ 55... b4 56. g6 b3 57. g7 b2 58. g8=Q {He promotes first but I promote with check }​ 58... b1=Q%2B {Now I can swap Queens and queen my other pawns }​ 59. Qg6 { If the king moves then I can still swap}​  (59. Kh6 Qh1%2B 60. Kg7 Qg1%2B)​ 59... Qxg6%2B 60. Kxg6 d4 61. f4 d3 62. f5 exf5 63. Kxf5 d2 { Black resigned here.}​ 0-1&quot;&amp;gt;​&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4264" LastActivityDate="2015-01-07T07:45:15.217" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8312" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8310" CreationDate="2015-01-07T10:05:21.560" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I also try to take part in that competition, although I'm not sure I will be able to spare the time and computational effort to actually make a submission. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately I think the Kaggle data set of engine evaluations isn't suitable to get the best possible result. I think it is crucial to not only have the evaluation of the best move, but also of the inferior choices. &#xA;The reason is that you need to calculate some kind of measure of the complexity of the position to weight the accuracy shown by the players. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In short: It is hard to be accurate in a complex position and easy to be accurate in a simple position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another problem is that at a runtime of one second per move, stockfish probably isn't much stronger than the average player in the dataset (which would be around 2200 Elo) …&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So to create a decent dataset one would have to invest a lot of cpu-hours. 50000 games x 40 moves x 1second (or more) &gt;= 555 hours.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To create an opening tree that allows you to see when the players deviate from already played games and how strong the players of the played games were, is another idea to give an initial guess of the players strength.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So my rough outline is to create an opening tree to get an initial guess of the strength, ignore the moves played in the opening, weight the accuracy of the moves after the opening phase with the complexity of the position and do some kind of linear regression analysis. Maybe look out not to overvalue time trouble blunders.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think the key is to get a good &quot;complexity number&quot;. The other possibilities you mention … &quot;number of blunders&quot; just reduces &quot;accuracy of play&quot; to something similar with less information. &quot;Depth of tactical traps avoided&quot; is tricky and may computationally be even more expensive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-01-07T10:05:21.560" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8313" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8299" CreationDate="2015-01-07T11:26:27.973" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;Mouse slips are a result of moving too fast. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why should your opponent have the advantage of moving fast, without suffering the disadvantage of slipping once in a while? So in blitz I wouldn't accept any takebacks, it's just part of the game. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course in longer time controls you could show more leniency ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-01-07T11:26:27.973" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8314" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5858" CreationDate="2015-01-07T19:57:36.707" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would recommend &lt;a href=&quot;http://chessdb.sourceforge.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;ChessDB&lt;/a&gt; which claims to be the best free chess database program out there, although that was in 2007 ;-). It is quite powerful for a free program with the ability to download from TWIC from within the program. Also import from a player's ICC history. You can hook up to UCI interface games engines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course you can save your games into a database but you cannot import Chessbase format. It has good search capabilities for a free program like player reports and search for games with exact position match.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2015-01-07T19:57:36.707" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8315" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-01-07T20:19:39.570" Score="4" ViewCount="24071" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can a player move their king into check if the opponents piece that is able to take king, is putting opponents king in check?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5623" LastEditorUserId="15365" LastEditDate="2018-08-31T15:27:15.437" LastActivityDate="2018-08-31T15:27:15.437" Title="Moving king into check" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;illegal-move&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="6" ClosedDate="2019-09-25T15:03:40.687" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8316" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8315" CreationDate="2015-01-07T20:22:32.483" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;No. Check is check, even if the checking piece cannot legally move. There is extensive discussion of this in the answers to the question &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/2348/illegal-move-can-put-a-king-in-check?rq=1&quot;&gt;illegal (?) move can put a king in check?&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.193" LastActivityDate="2015-01-07T20:22:32.483" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8317" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8318" CreationDate="2015-01-07T21:57:07.217" Score="8" ViewCount="1065" Body="&lt;p&gt;While trying to teach my 4 year oldson the rules of chess, I found it difficult to explain the rules of check, checkmate and stalemate. Having already explained the moves of each piece and how capturing works, I found it much easier to say simply that one wins by capturing the other king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Was this variant ever considered and would strategy be significantly different from normal chess? What are the essential differences between normal chess and this (arguably simpler to explain) variant?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What I can think of are the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;there's more chance of losing due to a &quot;silly mistake&quot;, by &quot;stepping into check&quot; or failing to move out of it.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;a particular kind of stalemate is now impossible. If one is not currently checked but can only move into a check, then one loses, whereas in normal chess this is a stalemate.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These don't seem like crucial problems. Am I overlooking something else? How to &quot;motivate&quot; the normal rules when teaching chess to a child?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5624" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-01T15:22:20.680" LastActivityDate="2020-04-01T15:22:20.680" Title="Chess variant where king is captured" Tags="&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;kings&gt;&lt;captures&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="8318" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8317" CreationDate="2015-01-07T22:11:59.950" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Other than making stalemate impossible as you already mentioned, it doesn't seem to me like this would make a meaningful difference (or any difference) to the strategy of the game. If you allow your King to be captured, that's presumably the worst move you could possibly make, so with best play the King wouldn't be captured until after it has been checkmated conventionally anyway.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Especially when teaching the rules to a four-year-old, I'd say this house rule is totally benign, as long as it's eventually explained that it's nonstandard, once he's got a better grasp on the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1201" LastActivityDate="2015-01-07T22:11:59.950" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8319" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="75" CreationDate="2015-01-08T08:25:18.000" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't know whether these 2 opening positions have a name. But I have been on the losing side playing black in both these different types of games. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At the end of the game for these 2 boards, the white wins by checkmate. And I don't think they are very trivial board positions either.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5&#xA;2. Nf3 Nc6&#xA;3. d4 exd4&#xA;4. Ng5 h6&#xA;5. Nxf7 Kxf7&#xA;6. Bc4+ Ke8&#xA;7. Qh5+ Ke7&#xA;8. Qf7+ Kd6    &#xA;9. Bf4+ Kc5&#xA;10. Qd5+ Kb6&#xA;11. Qb5#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5&#xA;2. Nf3 Nc6&#xA;3. Bc4 h6&#xA;4. Nc3 d6&#xA;5. O-O Bg4&#xA;6. Nxe5 Bxd1&#xA;7. Bxf7+ Ke7&#xA;8. Nd5#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4583" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2019-05-20T13:02:52.840" LastActivityDate="2019-05-20T13:02:52.840" CommentCount="2" CommunityOwnedDate="2015-01-08T08:25:18.000" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="8320" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8315" CreationDate="2015-01-08T10:37:43.860" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is never, &lt;em&gt;ever&lt;/em&gt; legal to move into check. Period. No ifs, no buts. No exceptions whatsoever.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's the best way to think about it, since it gives the least scope for confusion. If you want to think of it in terms of capturing the king ending the game, look at it this way: if you move into check, your opponent can capture your king, which immediately ends the game. It's irrelevant if your opponent's capture caused him to move into check too: you can't retaliate by capturing his king because the game already ended.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2789" LastActivityDate="2015-01-08T10:37:43.860" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8321" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-01-08T15:22:10.747" Score="-6" ViewCount="1919" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recently played a game where I sacked a knight and a rook for a queen and pawn. That got me thinking, how many pieces would you sack for a queen?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason I am not interested in theories is because I've seen many super GMs who sacked everything for a queen and won, I think that a queen is worth much more than 9pts, and that the player who loses his queen doesn't stand a chance in most cases, unless he has some mating attack or a strong passed pawn. So I want to consider an example about a handicapped chess match, right from the start. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Say there's a handicapped chess where each player removes few pieces, one player removes his queen, how many pieces can the other player remove from the board? The result should be a win for the first player. The match is  between two computers of similar strength, does it get more equal than that? I don't think so.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I want to see the PGN behind the theory - take from one player two rooks and take from the other a queen, rook equal 5 pawns so in theory, the one who lost his queen should be better and I doubt it because he won't be able to activate the rooks fast enough. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1105" LastEditorUserId="1105" LastEditDate="2015-01-08T22:33:14.613" LastActivityDate="2017-11-02T01:47:44.380" Title="How many pieces would you sack for a queen?" Tags="&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;queens&gt;&lt;sacrifice&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="16" ClosedDate="2018-01-17T13:33:06.603" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8322" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4374" CreationDate="2015-01-08T18:10:42.943" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;These kind of games are called &quot;consultation matches&quot; and, although rare today, used to be much more common. The teams usually consisted of just two players each for the obvious reasons. Getting agreement between more and more players becomes more and more difficult.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Between 1958 and 1964 the BBC had a weekly chess programme on the radio which featured several of these matches. The tapes of the programmes have long been overwritten with other programmes but some of the programmes were written up in a book by Terence Tiller called &quot;Chess Treasury of the Air&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are some of the results -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Alexander &amp;amp; Golombek 0 - 1 Clarke &amp;amp; Penrose&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bisguier &amp;amp; Penrose 0 - 1 Golombek &amp;amp; Gligoric&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Fischer &amp;amp; Barden 0.5 - 0.5 Penrose &amp;amp; Clarke (adjudicated by Euwe as they ran out of time - 8 hours!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Gligoric &amp;amp; Penrose 0 - 1 Tal &amp;amp; Golombek&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, not many draws there, although the main aim was probably entertainment for the listening audience.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2015-01-08T18:10:42.943" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8323" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8412" CreationDate="2015-01-08T18:28:08.523" Score="5" ViewCount="340" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was wondering what the maximum number of captures in a position is, either in a real game or a problem.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1703" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-12-10T15:29:41.090" LastActivityDate="2020-12-11T14:41:03.570" Title="Maximum number of captures in a position" Tags="&lt;problems&gt;&lt;records&gt;&lt;captures&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="8324" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8071" CreationDate="2015-01-08T21:08:04.403" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a source for other ways to practise endgames may I suggest my own website called &lt;a href=&quot;http://chessendgames.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://chessendgames.com&lt;/a&gt;, which is dedicated to training and improving endgame techniques. It has an interactive interface where you play against the computer engine. The website allows you to measure your endgame technique improvements while you play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5628" LastActivityDate="2015-01-08T21:08:04.403" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8325" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8321" CreationDate="2015-01-10T02:30:21.490" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would sack everything for anything if I could see it was a forced mate. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The 'points' you're referring to are general guidelines only, and completely dependent on the position. For example, both a Knight and a Bishop are worth 3 points. In a very closed position a Knight is FAR stronger than a Bishop, and vice-versa. All pawns are worth one point, but a center pawn is generally stronger than a side pawn, and of course they all get stronger as they advance (and if they have a neighbor for support).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similarly, in an open position two Rooks can be stronger than a queen and a pawn, but in a closed position all bets are off.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, as far as your question, 'if one player removes his queen, how many pieces can the other player remove from the board?', I assume you're talking about in the opening, before play has started? In that case, removing early activated pieces and central pawns will give the queen an early advantage, which would likely decide the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, if you remove both bishops and three center pawns, the non-queen side will have the early advantage (too much for a single queen to defend). But if you remove two rooks, then the queen should have the advantage since the rooks normally don't come into play until the middle game, when lines start to open up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5629" LastActivityDate="2015-01-10T02:30:21.490" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8326" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="347" CreationDate="2015-01-10T05:27:18.377" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;This link is the best starting point IMHO. I am using this as my starting point for my own chess program &amp;amp; finding it simple to understand and useful too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Simplified+evaluation+function&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Simplified+evaluation+function&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5632" LastActivityDate="2015-01-10T05:27:18.377" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8327" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-01-10T05:59:26.447" Score="34" ViewCount="75105" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have been playing on lichess for a while and it strikes me how low ratings are compared to other rating systems. This is not to say that players are weaker, I have quite the opposite feeling, but ratings are Glicko, rather than Elo, and this the number of players is reasonably low, so this prevents inflation but still...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am wondering what a typical low-2000s FIDE player's rating is on lichess. (I assume that higher rated players don't play online chess?) Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4230" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2015-02-14T20:51:23.277" LastActivityDate="2019-01-26T03:22:00.020" Title="How do FIDE rated players perform on lichess?" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;elo&gt;&lt;glicko&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="8" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8328" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8304" CreationDate="2015-01-10T06:18:30.313" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a trick question.  Technically the chess board is invalid.  Where is the white King?  Still, this is a check mated position.  This is the second check mated position&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4606" LastActivityDate="2015-01-10T06:18:30.313" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8329" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8347" CreationDate="2015-01-10T07:49:49.180" Score="3" ViewCount="262" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are there 'legitimate' chess positions were say white can force a mate by sacrificing  4 of its pieces in succession one after the other? Can this be done even if white has less material than black?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5633" LastActivityDate="2019-11-14T03:13:42.450" Title="About unusual forced mates" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;check&gt;&lt;forced-move&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8330" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1202" CreationDate="2015-01-10T10:06:23.347" Score="-3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Я сам играю правильно  2.d5 ed 3.ed &#xA;a)cd5 +0.22&#xA;b)d4 +0.06&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;cxd5 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4 Qd5 5 Nc3 Qa5 6.d4 Nf6 7.Nf3 Be6 &#xA;4 Nf6 5 Bb5+! Bd7 6.Qe2 Be7 7.Nf3 0-0 8.Nc3 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5634" LastActivityDate="2015-01-10T10:06:23.347" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8331" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-01-10T10:57:10.733" Score="17" ViewCount="98027" Body="&lt;p&gt;This question is somewhat related to &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/5135/can-the-total-number-of-possible-wins-draws-losses-be-calculated&quot;&gt;Can the total number of possible wins/draws/losses be calculated?&lt;/a&gt;, but slightly different. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a recent TV show episode that claims that there are &quot;more possible games of chess than atoms in the universe&quot;. They go on that &quot;each possible move represents a different game, a different universe [..]&quot;; &quot;by the second move there are 72084 possible games, by the third -- 9 million, by the fourth --- 318 million&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So is the total number of chess games infinite, for all practical purposes given human and technological limitations? And do the above numbers actually hold up to scrutiny? (i.e. What are the estimated possible games by, say, the 10th move?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Curiously, Wikipedia &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_game&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;seems to be implying&lt;/a&gt; that the number of games can be estimated: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;the number of possible games [in Go] is vast (10&lt;sup&gt;761&lt;/sup&gt; compared, for example, to the 10&lt;sup&gt;120&lt;/sup&gt; possible in chess)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5635" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2019-02-20T17:26:53.957" Title="Is the number of possible chess games infinite?" Tags="&lt;theory&gt;&lt;statistics&gt;&lt;game-complexity&gt;" AnswerCount="9" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8332" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8331" CreationDate="2015-01-10T13:06:58.547" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Q1: Yes. The total number of chess games can be considered infinite for all practical purposes. We don't have the technology to brute force over the first 13 moves from the initial position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Q2: The actual numbers all the way up to depth 13 is known. The exact number of possible positions for the 10th moves is 69,352,859,712,417. Read &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shannon_number&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this Wikipedia article&lt;/a&gt; for more details.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is an attempt for depth 14 but so far the calculation after months and months is still running.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2019-02-20T17:26:53.957" LastActivityDate="2019-02-20T17:26:53.957" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="8334" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8331" CreationDate="2015-01-10T17:26:43.930" Score="21" Body="&lt;p&gt;The maximum number of moves in a chess game is not infinite, it's 11797 plies = 5898 moves and a half. This is due to the fifty-move rule.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So no, the number of possible chess games is not infinite.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The maximum number of legal moves in a position is 218. So a crude upper bound for the number of possible chess games is 218^11797 = 10^27586&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Wait, actually after fifty moves without any capture or pawn movement the players can also continue playing without claiming the draw...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Article 9.3 of FIDE Laws of Chess states that:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;9.3   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The game is drawn, upon a correct claim by a player having the move,&#xA;  if:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;he writes his move, which cannot be changed, on his scoresheet and declares to the arbiter his intention to make this move which will&#xA;  result in the last 50 moves by each player having been made without&#xA;  the movement of any pawn and without any capture, or&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;the last 50 moves by each playerhave been completed without the movement of any pawn and without any capture.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I guess the number of possible chess games could be considered as infinite then...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But if you're not interested with the previous theoretical numbers:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The average number of legal moves in a position is around 35, and the average length of a chess game is around 40 moves = 80 plies, so an estimate of the number of &quot;rational&quot; chess games is 35^80 = 10^123&lt;br&gt;&#xA;As for the total number of legal positions, it's somewhere between 10^40 and 10^50.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3237" LastEditorUserId="3237" LastEditDate="2015-01-11T12:20:35.637" LastActivityDate="2015-01-11T12:20:35.637" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8335" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2015-01-10T18:59:54.870" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2015-01-10T18:59:54.870" LastActivityDate="2015-01-10T18:59:54.870" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8336" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2015-01-10T18:59:54.870" Score="0" Body="Fritz is a commercial chess engine published by the company ChessBase." OwnerUserId="1485" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2015-01-10T19:17:28.143" LastActivityDate="2015-01-10T19:17:28.143" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8337" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8299" CreationDate="2015-01-11T15:05:08.173" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is no 'right' answer to this. Personally, my rule is that I never give takebacks and I never ask for them. If I make a mouseslip then I'll live with it and if I come up against someone who whines or complains because I won't give a takeback then I'll add them to my no-play list.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's probably no accident that this attitude seems to be more common the higher up the rating lists you go.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4159" LastActivityDate="2015-01-11T15:05:08.173" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8338" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1521" CreationDate="2015-01-11T17:43:35.373" Score="16" Body="&lt;p&gt;Number of screen switches and speed of play are meaningless. If you use these to complain to the organizers of an online chess playing website they will laugh at you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are two ways to tell if someone is cheating. The first is the &quot;smoking gun&quot;. Consider this game section -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[White &quot;Allwermann,Clemens (1900) &quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Kalinitschev,Sergey (2505) Boeblingen (9), 30.12.1999&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;r6k/1p3Rpp/p2p1bq1/3N4/2P5/1P6/P1b2QPP/5RK1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Qa7 Rg8 2.Qxb7 Be4 3.Nf4 Qf5 4.Qd7 Qe5 5.Kh1 g5 6.Nh3 g4 7.Nf2 Bf5 8.Nxg4 Be4 9. R7xf6 Bxg2+ 10. Kxg2 Qe4+ 11. Kh3 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The question is what would you play in the that position? The situation is that a win in this, the last round of the competition, will win you the tournament ahead of a string of grandmasters. Not bad for a mere 1900. I suspect most of us would play something reasonably solid which keeps the win. Moves like Rxb7 or Rd7 or (for cowards like me ;-) Rxf6. Qa7 is a heart-stopper of a move, a smoking gun. Fritz rates as the best move in the position, a whopping 0.1 ahead of the next best move, Rd7.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Smoking gun #2 game at the end of the game when black resigned leaving the 1900 rated player as the tournament outright winner. What would you say to Kalinitschev in that position?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is how the conversation went:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Allwermann: &quot;It's mate in 8&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Kalinitschev: &quot;I don't think so&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Allwermann: &quot;“Check it out, you'll find I'm right&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Allwermann was right, of course. Can you find the mate in 8 in the final position? Without silicon assistance?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, you have your smoking gun and you take it to the organizers. What will they do?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well, then comes the second way of detecting and proving beyond reasonable doubt that cheating is going on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They will need to collect at least 20 games each with at least 20 non-database moves and feed them into an engine for checking. Basically what they are looking for is the percentage of the time the suspect chooses a non-database move which matches the engine's first pick, one of first 2 picks, one of first 3 picks. The &quot;proof&quot; thresholds are -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Top 1 65%&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Top 2 80%&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Top 3 90% &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A recent example is the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.chessbase.com/post/cheating-suspicion-at-the-zadar-open-in-croatia&quot;&gt;furore over the performance of Borislav Ivanov&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are his statistics -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Zadar 19th:&#xA;Houdini 1.5a x64 Hash:256 Time:30s Max Depth:20ply&#xA;{ Borislav Ivanov (Games: 9) }&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;{ Top 1 Match: 210/314 ( 66.9% ) Opponents: 150/313 ( 47.9% )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;{ Top 2 Match: 270/314 ( 86.0% ) Opponents: 207/313 ( 66.1% )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;{ Top 3 Match: 285/314 ( 90.8% ) Opponents: 238/313 ( 76.0% )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;{ Top 4 Match: 293/314 ( 93.3% ) Opponents: 267/313 ( 85.3% )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the 8th round the live feed went down (it is suspected that this allowed his outside help get the moves) and he lost to GM Predojevic. If this result is removed then the new statistics are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Zadar 19th:&#xA;Houdini 1.5a x64 Hash:256 Time:30s Max Depth:20ply&#xA;{ Borislav Ivanov (Games: ) }&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;{ Top 1 Match: 197/287 ( 68.6% ) Opponents: 135/286 ( 47.2% )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;{ Top 2 Match: 252/287 ( 87.8% ) Opponents: 188/286 ( 65.7% )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;{ Top 3 Match: 265/287 ( 92.3% ) Opponents: 218/286 ( 76.2% )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;{ Top 4 Match: 272/287 ( 94.8% ) Opponents: 242/286 ( 84.6% )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you see, both sets of statistics would get him thrown of a chess server.&#xA;For comparison here is the analysis for game 8 when the feed was down:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;{ White: Borislav Ivanov }&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;{ Top 1 Match: 13/27 ( 48.1% )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;{ Top 2 Match: 18/27 ( 66.7% )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;{ Top 3 Match: 20/27 ( 74.1% )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;{ Top 4 Match: 22/27 ( 81.5% )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;{ Black: Borki Predojevic }&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;{ Top 1 Match: 15/27 ( 55.6% )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;{ Top 2 Match: 19/27 ( 70.4% )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;{ Top 3 Match: 20/27 ( 74.1% )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;{ Top 4 Match: 25/27 ( 92.6% )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that FIDE has set up a commission to investigate ways to detect and combat computer cheating. Their guidelines are &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/images/stories/NEWS_2014/FIDE_news/4th_PB_Sochi_Agenda_Minutes/Annex_50.pdf&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;. Note this section:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;E. The FIDE Internet-Based Game Screening Tool&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;FIDE will supply an Internet-based Game Screening Tool, which will be&#xA;  accessible to all authorized FIDE officials (IO, IA, ACC members) and&#xA;  National Federations . It shall be hosted on a FIDE-dedicated webpage&#xA;  and will enable authorized parties to upload games in PGN format for a&#xA;  “fast test” that will identify potential outliers in a tournament . By&#xA;  “screening” it is understood that this provides only a preliminary&#xA;  test with no judgment value, except that it may be cited while&#xA;  rejecting allegations and declining to proceed to a manual full test .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2015-01-11T17:43:35.373" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8339" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8285" CreationDate="2015-01-11T17:52:26.550" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Since you don't mention your elo rating, I would limit for entry level options:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For Chess engines, I suggest the Chessmaster for PC, has many personalities and can play with different styles/openings, so that adds variety (still can be very strong: &gt;2600 elo in the strongest personalities).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On Android I have played lately this one: &lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=uk.co.aifactory.chessfree&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=uk.co.aifactory.chessfree&lt;/a&gt;, but there are many others.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Still no matter which engine I try, I feel for a given elo rating, a typical engine plays better tactically than a human of similar rating, but worst positionally/strategically than a human of similar rating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess.com is good, also for email chess I like redhotpawn.com.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, I would also suggest playing Chess solo!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;UPDATE:&#xA;A couple of other Android apps (based on PC engines): Shredder &amp;amp; Chess Genius, they have tunnable difficulty and play more positional chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2607" LastEditorUserId="2607" LastEditDate="2017-02-07T04:20:56.203" LastActivityDate="2017-02-07T04:20:56.203" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8340" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5125" CreationDate="2015-01-11T18:33:15.720" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;One of the most famous computer mistakes was in &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Blue_versus_Garry_Kasparov#Game_2_2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;game 2 of the 1997 rematch between Deep Blue and Kasparov&lt;/a&gt;.  Deep Blue won that game, but it made a mistake which should have allowed Kasparov to force a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;This is possible because Deep Blue moved 44.Kf1 instead of an alternate move of its king. Regarding the end of game 2 and 44.Kf1 in particular, chess journalist Mig Greengard in the Game Over film states, &quot;It turns out, that the position in, here at the end is actually a draw, and that, one of Deep Blue's final moves was a terrible error, because Deep Blue has two choices here. It can move its king here or move its king over here. It picked the wrong place to step.&quot; Another in that film, four-time US champion Yasser Seirawan, then concludes that, &quot;The computer had left its king a little un-defended. And Garry could have threatened a perpetual check, not a win but a perpetual check.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Whether or not you consider Deep Blue from 1997 &quot;modern&quot; is your call.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1070913&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;some kibitzing about that game&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5641" LastActivityDate="2015-01-11T18:33:15.720" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8341" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8249" CreationDate="2015-01-11T19:36:06.837" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is one, &lt;a href=&quot;http://dejascacchi.altervista.org/exercises.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://dejascacchi.altervista.org/exercises.htm&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;Thus are from real games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also the online chess site, chesstempo.com, has problems with an elo rating (calculated as an accumulated result of the success rate of solving by other players of the same site, and it has rankings too). Also has endings problems. All problems seem to be computer generated (for analysis of games).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also the now death spaniard magazine, &quot;Ocho x Ocho&quot; (from 80s - 90s) had in each number problems classified by 5 levels (Google &quot;ocho x ocho revista de ajedrez&quot;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The books from Franc Loheac Ammoun, available in several languages, for example &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.amazon.fr/Testez-vous-aux-%C3%A9checs-Frank-Loh%C3%A9ac-Ammoun/dp/2501014006&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.amazon.fr/Testez-vous-aux-%C3%A9checs-Frank-Loh%C3%A9ac-Ammoun/dp/2501014006&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;or &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/8480192410&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.amazon.com/Compruebe-Nivel-Ajedrez-Desarrolle-Razonamiento/dp/8480192410/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&amp;amp;qid=1421005140&amp;amp;sr=8-2&amp;amp;keywords=Frank-Loh%C3%A9ac-Ammoun%2F&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;Put you to solve tactical problems and then calculates your rating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are other I forgot, will update it here as I remember...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2607" LastActivityDate="2015-01-11T19:36:06.837" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8342" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8343" CreationDate="2015-01-11T20:04:53.810" Score="4" ViewCount="1509" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know two pawnless endgames that go over the 50-move rule.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;King and 2 Bishops vs. King and Knight = 70 moves average.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;King, Rook and Bishop vs. King and 2 Knights = 200 move average.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What others are there?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5649" LastEditorUserId="2789" LastEditDate="2015-01-12T22:49:14.317" LastActivityDate="2020-04-29T18:22:39.207" Title="What are the hardest pawnless endgames that go over the 50-move rule?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;50-move-rule&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8343" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8342" CreationDate="2015-01-12T00:21:05.660" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to wikipedia &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pawnless_chess_endgame&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pawnless_chess_endgame&lt;/a&gt;, section &quot;Endgames requiring more than 100 moves to win&quot;, the longest is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;R+N vs N+N = 243 moves&#xA;with 78% of winning chances.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;R+B vs N+N = 223 moves&#xA;with 96% of winning chances.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;R+N vs B+N = 190 moves&#xA;with 72% winning chances.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and the list goes on...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another way is looking at the database of mutual zugzwangs at &lt;a href=&quot;http://chess.jaet.org/cgi-bin/mzugs?sort=wmaxdtm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://chess.jaet.org/cgi-bin/mzugs?sort=wmaxdtm&lt;/a&gt; sorted by maxdtm (depth to conversion or mate).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;John Nunn's book &quot;Secrets of pawnless endgames&quot; (I love that book) in the 2nd editions expands coverage to some of the endings mentioned (although very briefly).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2607" LastEditorUserId="10601" LastEditDate="2017-08-09T05:08:35.507" LastActivityDate="2017-08-09T05:08:35.507" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8344" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8345" CreationDate="2015-01-12T06:07:52.350" Score="2" ViewCount="129" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are their possible positions where the 'white' side is losing but the person is in a  situation where they can force a stalemate? Are there chess positions one can 'look out for' to enable one to force a stalemate if 'needed'?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5633" LastActivityDate="2015-01-12T09:13:01.700" Title="About stalemates and how to cause one" Tags="&lt;stalemate&gt;&lt;forced-move&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8345" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8344" CreationDate="2015-01-12T08:38:52.867" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, and it is not even a particularly rare occurrence. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Whenever you notice (in a bad position) that there are hardly any legal moves left to you, you can try to find a way to sacrifice your last mobile pieces. A frequent motive is the &quot;untouchable rook&quot;, where the last mobile piece, a rook, keeps checking the enemy king. And if it is taken, the result is a stalemate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is a recent example, played between two engines:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. c4 c6 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. Nc3 dxc4 5. a4 Bg4 6. e4 Bxf3&#xA;7. gxf3 e6 8. Rg1 Qc7 9. e5 Nd5 10. Bxc4 Nb6 11. Bb3 a5&#xA;12. Be3 Na6 13. Qe2 O-O-O 14. O-O-O g6 15. Kb1 Kb8 16. Ne4 Be7&#xA;17. Bh6 Rd7 18. Nd6 Bxd6 19. exd6 Rxd6 20. Bf4 Nc8 21. Qe5&#xA;Rhd8 22. Qg7 h5 23. Rc1 Nb4 24. Bg3 b6 25. Rcd1 Kb7 26. Be5&#xA;R8d7 27. f4 Qd8 28. f5 exf5 29. Bxd6 Nxd6 30. f3 f4 31. Qe5&#xA;Nf5 32. Qxf4 Nxd4 33. Bc4 Ka7 34. h4 c5 35. Rge1 Rb7 36. Rc1&#xA;f6 37. Rc3 g5 38. hxg5 fxg5 39. Qe5 Rd7 40. Qe4 h4 41. Qg4 Re7&#xA;42. Re4 Qe8 43. Rce3 Rxe4 44. Rxe4 Qxa4 45. Re7+ Kb8 46. Bb3&#xA;Nxb3 47. Qf4+ gxf4 48. Rb7+ Kc8 49. Rc7+ Kd8 50. Rd7+ Ke8&#xA;51. Re7+ Kf8 52. Rf7+ Kg8 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And here a more human example: Black ditches his last four pieces ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Bb5 Bb4 5.O-O O-O 6.d3 d6 7.Bg5&#xA;Bxc3 8.bxc3 Qe7 9.Re1 Nd8 10.d4 h6 11.Bc1 a6 12.Bd3 Bg4 13.h3&#xA;Bd7 14.a4 a5 15.Nh4 Nc6 16.Nf5 Bxf5 17.exf5 Qd7 18.g4 exd4&#xA;19.cxd4 Nxd4 20.Bb2 c5 21.Bxd4 cxd4 22.Bb5 Qc7 23.Qxd4 d5&#xA;24.Re2 Rad8 25.Rae1 Rd6 26.Re7 Qxc2 27.Rxb7 Ne4 28.Re2 Qc1+&#xA;29.Kg2 Qc8 30.Re7 Qd8 31.Qa7 Nf6 32.Rc7 d4 33.Ree7 d3 34.Rxf7&#xA;Rxf7 35.Rxf7 d2 36.Rxg7+ Kh8 37.Be2 d1=Q 38.Bxd1 Rxd1 39.Rg6&#xA;Qd5+ 40.Kg3 Rd3+ 41.Kh4 Rxh3+ 42.Kxh3 Qh1+ 43.Kg3 Nh5+ 44.gxh5&#xA;Qf3+ 45.Kh2 Qg2+ 46.Kxg2 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-01-12T08:38:52.867" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8346" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8344" CreationDate="2015-01-12T08:46:00.403" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, if the player can force stalemate, then he isn't lost. So the strict answer is no :-)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are many elementary endgames where a successful defence is possible only because of stalemate, like king + pawn vs pawn:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/3k4/8/2KP4/8/8/8/8 b KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1...Kc7! 2.d6+ Kd7 3.Kd5 Kd8 4.Kc6 Kc8 5.d7+ Kd8 Kd6 =&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or king + queen vs king + pawn with the pawn on the c file:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;7K/8/6Q1/8/8/8/2p5/1k6 w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Kg7 Kb2 2.Qb6+ Ka1 3.Qc5 Kb1 4.Qb4+ Ka1 5.Qc3 Kb1 6.Qb3+ Ka1!&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and if white takes the pawn now, it's stalemate, so he can't progress.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastEditorUserId="924" LastEditDate="2015-01-12T09:13:01.700" LastActivityDate="2015-01-12T09:13:01.700" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8347" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8329" CreationDate="2015-01-12T09:09:50.640" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are many beautiful sacrificial games out there and if you look at composed position you will find even more sacrificial combinations leading to mate. This is one of the most famous games, Anderssen-Kieseritsky from 1851, called &quot;The immortal game&quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.f4 exf4 3.Bc4 Qh4+ 4.Kf1 b5 5.Bxb5 Nf6 6.Nf3 Qh6&#xA;7.d3 Nh5 8.Nh4 Qg5 9.Nf5 c6 10.g4 Nf6 11.Rg1 cxb5 12.h4 Qg6&#xA;13.h5 Qg5 14.Qf3 Ng8 15.Bxf4 Qf6 16.Nc3 Bc5 17.Nd5 Qxb2 18.Bd6&#xA;Bxg1 {It is from this move that Black's defeat stems. Wilhelm&#xA;Steinitz suggested in 1879 that a better move would be&#xA;18... Qxa1+; likely moves to follow are 19. Ke2 Qb2 20. Kd2&#xA;Bxg1.} 19. e5 Qxa1+ 20. Ke2 Na6 21.Nxg7+ Kd8 22.Qf6+ Nxf6&#xA;23.Be7# 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There surely are games out there that concur even more exactly to your specifications, but generally sacrificing pieces to mate the enemy king is a normal occurrence in chess games. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-01-12T09:09:50.640" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8348" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-01-12T17:14:39.187" Score="5" ViewCount="7682" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are plenty of chess tactics trainers out there on the internet. What trainer works best for you? Why?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5653" LastActivityDate="2018-06-24T10:45:08.560" Title="What's the best chess tactics trainer on the web?" Tags="&lt;tactics&gt;" AnswerCount="8" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8349" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1372" CreationDate="2015-01-12T17:18:07.327" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Calculation is often improved by practicing more and more, and analyzing your thought process. This helps understand the decision making process you use to come up with a solution. Together with chunks, or knowledge about patterns, a player would become better at his calculation. &#xA;In order to train this skill, one might either use chess books like Anthology of Chess combinations, or free chess tactics trainers like &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessity.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chessity&lt;/a&gt;, which is quite fun to solve. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5653" LastActivityDate="2015-01-12T17:18:07.327" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8350" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8348" CreationDate="2015-01-12T18:33:05.103" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;chesstempo.com. &#xA;free&#xA;tactics gets harder as your tactics rating increases&#xA;can play standard or blitz tactics (rating adjustment dependent on time took or independent)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3872" LastActivityDate="2015-01-12T18:33:05.103" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8351" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8348" CreationDate="2015-01-12T19:31:17.780" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd agree that chesstempo.com seems to be one of the best, but I'd question how much use the basic (free) version is for improving your play. As the previous answer says, the problems get harder as you get them right which means you end up doing problems which are too hard for effective training. Also, you cannot choose themed problems.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The paid version, on the other hand, offers the possibility to build training sets based on quality, difficulty and theme. So, if you want a set of ~100 discovered attack problems which take you 30sec - 1min to solve you can easily request this, with the option of spaced repetition for failed problems.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4159" LastActivityDate="2015-01-12T19:31:17.780" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8352" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="99" CreationDate="2015-01-13T07:33:33.640" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chessity.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;chessity.com&lt;/a&gt; is fun, and the free membership offers 20 puzzles/day and access to multiplayer games. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5653" LastActivityDate="2015-01-13T07:33:33.640" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8353" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-01-13T13:17:33.113" Score="5" ViewCount="815" Body="&lt;p&gt;Simply, which of the following two approaches will typically improve tactical ability the fastest:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Doing puzzles around a known theme or tactical motif - i.e. do 100 puzzles that involve a discovered attack, or a skewer, or mate in 3, mate in 2 etc. etc.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Doing random puzzles where you don't know the theme or motif behind the puzzle. You may even throw in a number of puzzles without a tactical solution to simply force you think about the next best move.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I always assumed number 2 would be better, but is there any research/authoritative anecdotes/good reasoning that show it is better to do 1?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1816" LastActivityDate="2015-01-21T06:29:36.193" Title="Productive tactical puzzles: random or themed?" Tags="&lt;tactics&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8354" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8100" CreationDate="2015-01-13T13:43:37.137" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is just anecdotal, and correlation is not the same as causation, but a few years ago I started using the Mnemosyne spaced repetition program to memorize&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Opening lines (a few thousand cards here alone)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Positions from&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Yusupov, &lt;em&gt;Build Up Your Chess&lt;/em&gt; et al&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Hellsten, &lt;em&gt;Mastering Chess Strategy&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Ivashchenko, &lt;em&gt;Manual of Chess Combinations&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Rosen, &lt;em&gt;Chess Endgame Training&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;My own games where I had made a bad decision&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;During this time, my USCF rating, which had never moved much as an adult, went from under 1800 to over 2000.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2015-01-13T13:43:37.137" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8355" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="99" CreationDate="2015-01-13T17:57:10.877" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;chess24.com 5 free problems a day.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4543" LastActivityDate="2015-01-13T17:57:10.877" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8357" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8358" CreationDate="2015-01-13T18:49:34.237" Score="4" ViewCount="581" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the following &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/tactics/?id=197207&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;puzzle&lt;/a&gt;, 5. Kb6 is considered better than 5. Kc7. Doesn't Kc7 force Black to sacrifice his knight (sooner)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/3n4/8/1P3k2/1P6/4K2P/8/8 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Nb6 2. Kd4 Ke6 3. Kc5 Nd7+ 4. Kc6 Ne5+ 5. Kb6 Nd3 6. Ka5 Kd7 7. h4 Nf4 8. &#xA;Ka6 Nd5 9. h5 Nxb4+ 10. Ka5 Nd5 11. h6 Nf6 12. Ka6 Kc7 13. Ka7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3090" LastEditorUserId="3090" LastEditDate="2015-01-13T18:55:25.963" LastActivityDate="2015-01-13T19:48:03.507" Title="Question about knight vs. 3 pawns endgame" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;puzzles&gt;&lt;knights&gt;&lt;passed-pawn&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8358" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8357" CreationDate="2015-01-13T19:48:03.507" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;After 5. Kc7 it is a draw, e.g&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/3n4/8/1P3k2/1P6/4K2P/8/8 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Nb6 2. Kd4 Ke6 3. Kc5 Nd7+ 4. Kc6 Ne5+ 5. Kc7 Nd3 6. b6 Nb4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3774" LastActivityDate="2015-01-13T19:48:03.507" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8359" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8342" CreationDate="2015-01-13T20:45:29.623" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you mean &quot;hardest&quot; == &quot;longest&quot;: There are 7-man table bases available and it is said that the longest pawnless ending takes 549 moves. It is KQB vs. KRBN.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Resources: &lt;a href=&quot;http://tb7.chessok.com/articles/Top8DTM_eng&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://tb7.chessok.com/articles/Top8DTM_eng&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And in case you are too lazy to go through the moves by yourself :-): &lt;a href=&quot;http://tb7.chessok.com/probe/745/61&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://tb7.chessok.com/probe/745/61&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think that is what is known today. I would not be surprised if even longer pawnless endings exists with 8 pieces on the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5658" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-29T18:22:39.207" LastActivityDate="2020-04-29T18:22:39.207" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="8360" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8348" CreationDate="2015-01-13T23:11:21.640" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I like chess.emrald.net/ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;because you really need to be fast to score points. this lets you improve blitz awareness a lot. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;im 2100 fide. but on chess tactics i barely reach 1800&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Have fun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5659" LastActivityDate="2015-01-13T23:11:21.640" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8362" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8099" CreationDate="2015-01-14T19:07:28.827" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You could ask him to write down his thought process for every move. If you checked books like the &quot;zurich international chess tournament 1953&quot; by david bronstein, you'll realize that analysis doesn't always have to be bunchy long vague variations. Simple sentences might just make sense too. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5653" LastActivityDate="2015-01-14T19:07:28.827" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8363" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8348" CreationDate="2015-01-14T19:11:56.580" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I use the chess tactics training site &lt;a href=&quot;http://chessity.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chessity&lt;/a&gt; I tried many platforms, and each is good at something, but when it comes to fun, Chessity seems better. Wonder what others think. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5653" LastActivityDate="2015-01-14T19:11:56.580" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8364" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8365" CreationDate="2015-01-14T19:16:34.217" Score="2" ViewCount="501" Body="&lt;p&gt;I notice that many chess player, especially kids lose their ability to motivate themselves, especially because of the highly commercialization of the game. It seems as if playing for fun today isn't very relevant, and people disappear out of the game. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5653" LastActivityDate="2017-06-29T09:19:22.590" Title="What motivates you to play chess and continuously get better at it?" Tags="&lt;psychology&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8365" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8364" CreationDate="2015-01-14T21:02:46.097" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are 4 motivations to playing the game, which will vary by person:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Aesthetic appeal&lt;/strong&gt;: Some players are motivated by compositions where paradoxical moves are required. Others are motivated by sweeping combinations or profound ideas. Recall the feeling that you had the first time you saw a smothered mate. This is the aesthetic motivation&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Competitive struggle&lt;/strong&gt;: Some people are motivated to win, to show their supremacy at the board. Or they are motivated to show their fighting spirit or tenacious defensive abilities against strong opposition. They might be motivated to win a trophy or prize money. These are the kinds of people who see chess as a sport primarily&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Personal improvement&lt;/strong&gt;: For myself, I was drawn to chess because I wanted to improve my concentration. Others are drawn because they want to develop a way to think logically that they can apply elsewhere in their lives. Others do it to develop their memory&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Fun&lt;/strong&gt;: Contrary to your post, many people just play for the fun of it! For example, when I held a chess club in my workplace during lunch, people sacrificed liberally, took big risks and (heaven forbid) had a chat whilst playing!&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Each person is likely to have a combination of these motivations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2015-01-14T21:02:46.097" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8366" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2569" CreationDate="2015-01-14T22:15:07.760" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I find that in many 960 starting positions there tends to be a weak square (pawn) that may have no protection at all, I look for that first.  I play quite a bit of 960 mixed with normal chess and find that controlling the center with central and flank pawns (to release a queen or whatever you need to).  This game is quite aggressive, and attacking first will work many times, but you do have to make sure you have enough pieces available to actually pull off a mate or you will just be resigning quickly.  I like to control the center and delay castling until your opponent has committed to a side of the board then either leave my king where it is, and just attack, or castle to the opposite side and ruin his plan.  It really ends up turning into regular chess after a few moves in the beginning.  Once you castle and get your pieces out, it will just look like a complicated regular chess game.  I find that there are many opportunities to pull off forking tactics to at least win an exchange.  It's really a chance for tactics all over the place, and at any moment, much more than regular chess.  You really need to watch what your opponent is trying to get going and to stop what he's up to.  Be very aware of the squares that could fork your own pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5665" LastActivityDate="2015-01-14T22:15:07.760" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8367" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8364" CreationDate="2015-01-15T00:33:12.103" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well you have to feel the beauty of the marriage of its artistic component to it scientific(should i say mathematic for more accuracy?) component in order to appreciate the game. Plus it makes you feel smart and let others think you re smart even if you're dumb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4516" LastActivityDate="2015-01-15T00:33:12.103" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8368" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8364" CreationDate="2015-01-15T05:10:35.047" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess via phone application had provided me the time to play whereas I did not for many years due to lack of finding an opponent in person. I play chess every day, sometimes a full game and sometimes just a few moves. It's now convenient, so I play more often.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3205" LastActivityDate="2015-01-15T05:10:35.047" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8369" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8353" CreationDate="2015-01-15T05:33:54.883" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my experience if you are starting out it is better to solve same thematic tactical problems in a series and slowly moving onto other themes. After you get accustomed with the themes random problems or problems which doesn't tell you what to do helps. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4619" LastActivityDate="2015-01-15T05:33:54.883" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8370" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-01-15T13:30:39.937" Score="1" ViewCount="133" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm lazy doing long calculations for each chess move though I like the open-line games which of course would require longer calculations than the closed ones which target simplification.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Question is...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can you direct me to chess openings that won't require me to do long calculations but would give me an open game? Can you also note some grand masters which are not that of a genius but like to play the open line games?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you in advance!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5670" LastEditorUserId="291" LastEditDate="2015-01-15T13:33:55.907" LastActivityDate="2015-01-15T14:25:56.820" Title="Chess opening and chess master to look up to" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8371" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-01-15T14:15:10.653" Score="3" ViewCount="128" Body="&lt;p&gt;Did you know that Verdoni was known to be a chess champion in the 19th century, but what was his first name? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5649" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2015-01-17T00:26:52.207" LastActivityDate="2015-01-17T00:26:52.207" Title="What was Verdoni's first name?" Tags="&lt;history&gt;&lt;famous-players&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8372" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8370" CreationDate="2015-01-15T14:25:56.820" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is kind of a weird question because, as you rightly note, open games usually are more tactical and sharper than closed games. But it is possible to play 1.e4, and by extension the open games, in a quieter and more positional manner than is usually done. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The most famous proponent of this way of playing is Anatoly Karpov, who played 1.e4 throughout his life and is nevertheless regarded as a very positional player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But the player I would recommend you study is a different one:&#xA;I have always found that, of all world class players nowadays, &lt;strong&gt;Mickey Adams&lt;/strong&gt; is the most instructive to follow. Like Karpov he is a 1.e4 player and something of a positional genius. Unlike Karpov he doesn't rely on a team of seconds to get him to the forefront of theory, so I have always found him to play more &quot;ordinary&quot; positions. If you look at his games you can usually easily imagine getting this kind of position in your own games (unlike some super sharp 30-move theory battle other players indulge in).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Generally regarding openings this would mean playing the Ruy Lopez against 1…e5, the Tarrasch against 1…e6 and either the Rossolimo or some short castles + a4 + f4 against the sicilian.&#xA;Against 1.e4 you would play e5. And against 1.d4 I think Adams usually plays the Nimzo, though that might be outside the scope of this question aka open positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-01-15T14:25:56.820" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8373" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8327" CreationDate="2015-01-15T17:19:39.590" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;I do agree that ratings seem a bit lower on lichess than on other websites, and actually I find this system much more stable. I am just over 2000 on FIDE elo and about the same on lichess (~2100 classical, ~2000 bullet). I have to say that it is the only place where I got a ranking reasonably near to my real ranking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4424" LastActivityDate="2015-01-15T17:19:39.590" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8374" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-01-15T22:35:08.140" Score="3" ViewCount="688" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm currently hovering around 1970 USCF and am lucky enough that in the next 6 months, I have nearly nothing to do. I'm a returning student, 27 years old, who only needs 1 class to get my degree. I don't need a job currently as my housing is paid for through scholarship.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, I've decided to take a make a strong leap towards one of my life aspirations, which is to achieve the NM title. I know I'd have to play in a ridiculous amount of tournaments in the next 6 months to get there, but that is okay (I've got the time).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My problem is that I need some structure to really push ahead. If I'm not given any structure or set one for myself, I'll probably play League of Legends and Dragon Age Inquisition and then go... crap, wth was I doing!?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've tried putting a few plans together, but everything seems a little rough. I know I need work across the board (Opening, Middlegame, Endgame, Calculation, Strategy, etc.) but due to the sheer volume of stuff, I'm a little lost.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also have nearly unlimited resources. I have Chessbase, have roughly 200 books in CBH format along with another 300 or 400 books as PDFs. If there is a good chess book, I probably have it (which adds to my problem of figuring out what in the world I need to focus on). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know I can set aside 3 hours a day, every day for certain (weekends included). More than 3 hours and some days I may have to cut it short. Any help in creating a solid training plan of what I should work on each day? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5675" LastActivityDate="2016-02-04T15:32:45.670" Title="Training plan for going from High Class A/Low Expert to National Master... Help?" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;training&gt;&lt;books&gt;&lt;study&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8375" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-01-16T03:19:25.300" Score="4" ViewCount="143" Body="&lt;p&gt;Aside from the blunder 27 Nh3, what moves should have been made to make this game winning for white?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&#xA;&#xA;   1. d4  Nf6 2. c4  g6 3. Nc3  Bg7 4. e4  d6 5. f3  O-O 6. Be3  Nc6 7. Qd2  a6 8. a4  e5 9. d5  Na5 10. Ra3  b6 11. b4  Nb7 12. h4  a5 13. b5  h5 14. Be2  Nh7 15. g4  hxg4 16. fxg4  f5 17. gxf5  gxf5 18. Bg5  Bf6 19. Bh6  Bxh4+ 20. Kd1  Bg5 21. Bxg5  Qxg5 22. Qxg5+  Nxg5 23. Nf3  Nxf3 24. Bxf3  f4 25. Ne2  Rf7 26. Ng1  Rh7 27. Nh3  Bxh3 28. Be2  Bd7 29. Rg1+  Kh8 30. Ke1  Rg8 31. Kf1  Rh3 32. Ra1  Rxg1+ 33. Kxg1  Nc5 34. Re1  Rg3+ 35. Kf2  Nxe4+ 36. Kf1  Bh3#  0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5670" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-01-12T04:40:38.513" LastActivityDate="2020-01-12T04:40:38.513" Title="Better moves-game analysis" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="8377" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8375" CreationDate="2015-01-16T07:44:37.580" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;White winning at when? After a pointless 8. a4 Black has an upper hand. 15. g4 is a blunder, but White already is in a pretty bad shape (19. Nf3 might give White some fighting chances). At 20. ... Bg5 White may resign.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3774" LastEditorUserId="3774" LastEditDate="2015-01-16T08:07:42.057" LastActivityDate="2015-01-16T08:07:42.057" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8378" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8371" CreationDate="2015-01-16T15:27:43.590" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;To expand BKFM's comment, &lt;a href=&quot;http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verdoni&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this article&lt;/a&gt; says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Verdoni, dessen Vorname und Geburtsjahr unbekannt sind, soll&#xA;  italienischer Herkunft gewesen sein. Sein schachliches Wirken vollzog&#xA;  sich in Paris und später in London.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This translates loosely as &quot; Verdoni, whose first name and date of birth are unknown, was of Italian stock. His chess career was in Paris and later London.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2015-01-16T15:27:43.590" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8379" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8374" CreationDate="2015-01-16T17:46:49.267" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think you need 3 components to your campaign:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) Play lots of tournament chess (which you are planning on anyway) preferably against players stronger and much stronger (+200) than you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) Analyze your own games and those of your opponents (where the draw is made far enough in advance and you can find their games - over time you will have games that you have played against them).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) A course of theoretical study.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your game analysis you are looking to identify when and how you lose games with a view to fixing your problems. Feed them into a chess engine. Stockfish is powerful and free. ChessDB is a good free equivalent of Chessbase in case you have an old or crippled version. At this stage you are aiming to identify lapses of concentration, weak tactical ability / poor chess imagination and &quot;drift&quot; where you aimlessly let your advantage slip away (planlessness or bad plans) or that of your opponent gradually build up (poor fighting spirit).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you analyze your future opponents' games you are looking to see what they play against your repertoire and look for chances to unsettle them and take the initiative. Prepare what you are going to play against their different likely possibilities and familiarize yourself with the plans appropriate to the position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your theoretical studies you are going to want to systematically address 3 or 4 areas.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) Opening preparation. Decide which openings suit your style and available time for study. Very sharp, current openings will require a lot of work to stay uptodate. You may prefer to limit your required study by choosing openings where you can quickly limit your opponents good replies.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) Every time you lose an ending or draw one you should have won make a point of going over the theory of that particular ending in something like one of John Nunn's books. Gratuitously study endings you are unfamiliar with. This may not pay off in immediate extra points from getting into these endings (although over time it likely will) but it will improve your general endgame play and in particular your approach to the endgame. A good example of this would be KNBvK.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) Hone tactics. There are lots of books out there stuffed of tactical problems. Pick one and do a few every day.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4) General chess study. There are several book-series courses out there. The most famous is Dvoretsky's &quot;School of Chess Excellence&quot; series. No offence meant, but I think this is likely to be too advanced for you. I have several of these on my bookshelves but have never managed to read more than a few pages. Maybe when you are going for your IM or GM title ;-). Yusupov has done 3 series of 3 books each - &quot;Build Up Your Chess&quot;, &quot;Boost your chess&quot; and &quot;Chess Evolution&quot; which I would recommend you start with. I'm a similar level to you and have actually worked through 2 out of the 9 books and felt I got a lot out of them. You have the time so work through them systematically.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Under the heading of general chess study you should also read &quot;left field&quot; books which will broaden your chess outlook. Example books would be Jonathan Rowson's &quot;Chess for Zebras&quot; and &quot;The Seven Deadly Chess Sins&quot;, John Watson's &quot;Secrets of Modern Chess Strategy&quot;, Willy Hendriks' &quot;Move First, Think Later&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2015-01-16T17:46:49.267" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8380" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8375" CreationDate="2015-01-16T19:31:12.230" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;You don't seem to know the kind of plans that arise out of the way you played the opening. You lined up the Be3/Qd2 &quot;gun&quot; and then never fired it! You needed to play Bh6 at an early stage and look at the possibility of h4,h5 and maybe even sacrifice the exchange if conditions are right if he plays Nxh5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Winning&quot; is another question, but you never really made him struggle and fight. Your hand was never anywhere near his windpipe!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;25&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Ne2 isn't great. I know you are already a pawn down at this stage, but leave the knight there to protect the pawns and instead look at Ra2-h2 to build a rook battery on the h file. It's a much quicker attempt to get at his exposed king while he is still a bit disorganized.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2015-01-16T19:31:12.230" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8381" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8348" CreationDate="2015-01-16T23:54:26.820" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Check out &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgym.net/flash/exercises.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chess Gym&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;I started this to get some end game help but they have a tactic trainer also&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5667" LastActivityDate="2015-01-16T23:54:26.820" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8382" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8348" CreationDate="2015-01-17T09:29:04.803" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesscademy.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chesscademy&lt;/a&gt; is a cool new site. You can solve problems which gets harder as your tactics rating increases. There are also free courses you can take.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4619" LastActivityDate="2015-01-17T09:29:04.803" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8384" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8403" CreationDate="2015-01-17T10:53:28.593" Score="4" ViewCount="1378" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would like to have some analysis in the following setting:&#xA;&lt;code&gt;1. e4 Nf6 2. e5 Nd5&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, what is best for white? The move &lt;code&gt;3. c4&lt;/code&gt; continues the attack, but can create a &quot;pawn weakness&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4527" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2015-01-17T11:28:31.017" LastActivityDate="2015-01-19T12:36:02.577" Title="When Black opens with Nf6 after e4 - Beginner question" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;knights&gt;&lt;beginner&gt;&lt;alekhines-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8385" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8384" CreationDate="2015-01-17T12:25:23.643" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Read up on The Alekhine Defense.  It's a Hypermodern opening wherein Black purposefully allows his King's knight to be harassed by pawns. The intent of this is for Black to allow White to induce weaknesses in his pawn structure which eventually collapses. On the other hand, if White can keep it together, he retains a tremendous amount of space in which to develop an attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's an example where Shabalov beats Nakamura with this defense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Nakamura, Hikaru (2658)&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Shabalov, Alexander (2606)&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;USA-ch&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Stillwater&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;05/18/2007&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;4&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 Nf6 2. e5 Nd5 3. c4 Nb6 4. d4 d6 5. exd6 cxd6 6. Be3 g6 7. d5 Bg7 8. Bd4 Bxd4 9. Qxd4 O-O 10. h4 e5 11. Qd2 f5 12. Nf3 Qf6 13. Nc3 Na6 14. Qh6 Qg7 15. Qd2 h6 16. Nb5 Rf6 17. Qa5 Nd7 18. Qa3 Qe7 19. Be2 e4 20. Nd2 Ne5 21. O-O-O Nc5 22. Kb1 Ncd3 23. Bxd3 Nxd3 24. Rhf1 Bd7 25. Nd4 Qe5 26. Qc3 b5 27. cxb5 Rf7 28. f3 Rc8 29. Nc4 Qxd5 30. fxe4 Qxc4 31. Qxd3 Qxd3+ 32. Rxd3 fxe4 33. Rxf7 exd3 34. Rf1 Rc4 35. Nc6 d2 36. Ne7+ Kg7 37. Rd1 Kf7 38. b3 Rc1+ 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2015-01-17T18:23:44.757" LastActivityDate="2015-01-17T18:23:44.757" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8386" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8384" CreationDate="2015-01-17T14:56:38.153" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It indeed creates a pawn weakness, that's why you should play d4. and if develops his knight, then go one with c4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5649" LastActivityDate="2015-01-17T14:56:38.153" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8387" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8394" CreationDate="2015-01-17T15:35:51.810" Score="11" ViewCount="1946" Body="&lt;p&gt;After the initial moves of the Nimzo-Indian 4.Bd2 is rarely played and it gets poor results according to databases.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 Bb4 4. Bd2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It looks like the most natural move to me, because:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;After Bxc3 Bxc3 White keeps the bishop pair and preserves the pawn structure.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It breaks the pin, so the knight can influence the center again.  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It doesn't block any piece and it develops a piece.  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And Bd2 is played against Bb4 in other openings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, why the move is weak?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3423" LastActivityDate="2016-08-13T16:59:44.913" Title="Why not 4.Bd2 in the Nimzo-Indian?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;nimzo-indian&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8388" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8389" CreationDate="2015-01-18T02:28:11.267" Score="3" ViewCount="994" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would like to know why some openings are called &quot;defences&quot; and other all called &quot;openings.&quot; What is the difference?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5691" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2015-01-19T18:49:26.433" LastActivityDate="2015-02-15T23:13:40.483" Title="What is the difference between an opening and a defence?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8389" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8388" CreationDate="2015-01-18T02:55:47.230" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;The opening&quot;, in general, is the first phase of a game of chess, in which both sides develop their pieces. It is followed by &quot;the middlegame&quot; and, if the game gets that far, &quot;the endgame&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When people talk about &quot;an opening&quot;, they are referring to a particular series of opening moves that has a name. For example, 1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 is the Queen's Gambit Declined, and 1.d4 d5 2.c4 dxc4 is the Queen's Gambit Accepted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Openings that are defined by the moves that Black makes are often called &quot;defenses&quot;, since White is generally considered the attacker and Black the defender by default. For example, 1.e4 c5 is the Sicilian Defense and 1.e4 e6 is the French Defense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2015-01-18T02:55:47.230" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8390" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-01-18T11:05:53.610" Score="0" ViewCount="139" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let's say you arrange a position that gives a player the maximum number of choices among possible moves. How does that position look like and how many possible moves are in that position?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3305" LastActivityDate="2015-01-18T13:24:50.340" Title="What is the maximum number of possible moves a player can choose from?" Tags="&lt;combinations&gt;&lt;mathematics&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ClosedDate="2015-01-18T15:48:39.110" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8391" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8398" CreationDate="2015-01-18T12:25:17.360" Score="2" ViewCount="3519" Body="&lt;p&gt;I came across the opening Nf3 wich I find very beatiful. I know that it could lead to the Réti opening. My question is: beside the Réti opening what are the most commun openings following the Nf3 and what are considered to be the weackness of this move?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4527" LastActivityDate="2015-01-19T10:20:32.327" Title="Opening with Nf3 - beginner" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;beginner&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8392" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4490" CreationDate="2015-01-18T13:09:52.723" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;After some searching, it seems that this composition is the current record holder. 218 moves; legal position with promotions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;R6R/3Q4/1Q4Q1/4Q3/2Q4Q/Q4Q2/pp1Q4/kBNN1KB1 w - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another version of the position (same number of moves):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;3Q4/1Q4Q1/4Q3/2Q4R/Q4Q2/3Q4/1Q4Rp/1K1BBNNk w - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Bonus:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;79 moves (for black); from actual game between Davis and Panchanathan, source from Tim Krabbe's list of chess records:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;4r1k1/p4pp1/2n2n1B/2b5/N6Q/P2q1N2/1r4PP/R4R1K w - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;99 moves (for white); all pieces on board:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;q2Q3r/n6R/kpB1N1K1/p1p1Bppp/1PN3P1/1n1pp1b1/P1PPPP1P/r5Rb w - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;164 moves (both sides counted); all pieces on board:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;R6R/pbpppK2/1B1QNNp1/1p3p1p/P1P3P1/1Pnnq1b1/2kPPPBP/r6r w - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;324 moves (both sides counted):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1QqQqQq1/r6Q/Q6q/q6Q/B2q4/q6Q/k6K/1qQ1QqRb w - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;412 moves (both sides counted); a curiosity, illegal position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;QQqQqQqq/q6Q/Q6q/q6Q/Q6q/q6Q/Q6q/QqQqQqQq w - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Main source: Guide to Fairy Chess. The book is a bit old, so there might be new record holders, but if that's the case, I was unable to find them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3831" LastEditorUserId="3831" LastEditDate="2019-07-15T12:48:27.663" LastActivityDate="2019-07-15T12:48:27.663" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="8393" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8391" CreationDate="2015-01-18T13:24:31.753" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Nf3 is part of a lot of openings, so we can find a lot of transpositions, for example:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Slav defense 1.Nf3 Nf6 2.d4 d5 3.c4 c6&lt;br&gt;&#xA;King Indian defense 1.Nf3 Nf6 2.d4 g6 3.c4 Bg7 4.Nc3&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Queen Gambit Declined 1.Nf3 d5 2.d4 Nf6 3.c4 c6&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Sicilian defense 1.Nf3 c5 2.e5&lt;br&gt;&#xA;English opening 1.Nf3 c5 2.c4  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.Nf3 is not weak, and it is flexible. It is the third most usual first move, after 1.e4 and 1.d4&lt;br&gt;&#xA;As a beginner, people will advice you 1.e4 though, because it leads to open games in which you will practice your tactics.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3423" LastEditorUserId="3423" LastEditDate="2015-01-18T13:32:03.237" LastActivityDate="2015-01-18T13:32:03.237" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8394" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8387" CreationDate="2015-01-18T15:52:11.693" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are really two questions here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Why is 4.Bd2 rarely played?&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In a nutshell, 4.Bd2 is playable, but there are better alternatives.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;After Bxc3 Bxc3 White keeps the bishop pair and preserves the pawn structure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even if Black decides to reply with 4...Bxc3, White won't keep his bishop pair after 5...Ne4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. d4 Nf6 c4 e6 Nc3 Bb4 Bd2 Bxc3 Bxc3 Ne4 Qc2 Nxc3 Qxc3&#xA;(6. Bb4 c5 dxc5 Qf6 Nf3 Qxb2 Rb1 Qxa2)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;It breaks the pin, so the knight can influence the center again.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black pins the knight to prevent White from playing e4. Even after 4.Bd2, White cannot do this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. d4 Nf6 c4 e6 Nc3 Bb4 Bd2 O-O e4? Bxc3 Bxc3 Nxe4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;It doesn't block any piece and it develops a piece.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But it leaves the pawn on d4 undefended and prevents the queen from defending the bishop if it develops to d3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's look at the alternatives:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. d4 Nf6 c4 e6 Nc3 Bb4 e3&#xA;(4. Qc2)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4.e3 (Rubinstein System) ignores the pin, prepares to develop the bishop to d3, protects the pawn on d4 and takes White one step closer to castling.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4.Qc2 (Classical Variation) is a better alternative to 4.Bd2 if you want to avoid doubled pawns at all costs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Why does 4.Bd2 get poor results according to databases?&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As I said before, 4.Bd2 is playable. In fact, it's what Stockfish suggests after 3...Bb4. However, engines are particularly bad at openings and, as we have seen before, there are better alternatives.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, 4.Bd2 is mostly played by amateurs, which face the Nimzo-Indian and do not know the corresponding theory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This makes the winning percentages in databases entirely useless. For example, according to &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.365chess.com/opening.php&quot;&gt;365Chess.com&lt;/a&gt;, White's first move with the highest winning percentage is 1.Na3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2568" LastEditorUserId="2568" LastEditDate="2015-01-18T20:23:14.197" LastActivityDate="2015-01-18T20:23:14.197" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8395" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8397" CreationDate="2015-01-18T20:59:52.277" Score="1" ViewCount="1865" Body="&lt;p&gt;I seem to have fairly good success against the London system and the Colle using the Queen's Indian defense. Has there been any games at the Senior master level where the Queen's Indian has been used?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5696" LastEditorUserId="5696" LastEditDate="2015-01-19T12:55:36.903" LastActivityDate="2015-03-22T21:45:27.860" Title="Battling the London System" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;colle-system&gt;&lt;queens-indian&gt;&lt;london-system&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8396" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8395" CreationDate="2015-01-19T00:16:08.290" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I set out to answer my own question with the help of two computers. A Dell desk top using Windows 7 and a Dell laptop using Windows XP. The desktop used Deep Fritz 12 and Fritz 11 was used on the laptop. I played the London opening against Deep Fritz 12 and it appeared to use the Semi-Tarrasch.  After I set-up the opening in Fritz 11, Deep Fritz 12 lost to Fritz 11. I wanted to try the Queens Indian. The second time I played the London system against Deep Fritz 12 Deep Fritz wanted to play the Grunfeld. I had to force it to play the Queens Indian. After 51 moves Fritz 11 resigned.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;Blitz 45m&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Independence&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;????.??.??&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Gyr_man/Fritz 11&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Deep Fritz 12&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;*&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;80&quot;]&#xA;[TimeControl &quot;2700&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 {0} Nf6 {0} 2. Nf3 {0} e6 {0} 3. Bf4&#xA;{0} b6 {0} 4. e3 {0} Be7 {0} 5. h3 {16} Bb7 {3} 6. Be2 {166} d5 {217} 7. Nc3 {&#xA;154} O-O {0} 8. O-O {134} c5 {0} 9. Ne5 {186} Nc6 {0} 10. Bb5 {151} Rc8 {0} 11.&#xA;a3 {70} cxd4 {83} 12. Bxc6 {90} Bxc6 {0} 13. Nxc6 {167} Rxc6 {0} 14. exd4 {97}&#xA;Bd6 {21} 15. Qd2 {61} Bxf4 {171} 16. Qxf4 {14} Qc7 {275} 17. Qg5 {155} Ne8 {123&#xA;} 18. Rfd1 {63} Nd6 {179} 19. Qg3 {6} Rc8 {60} 20. Ra2 {66} b5 {87} 21. Qf4 {52&#xA;} a5 {131} 22. Raa1 {10} Qd8 {122} 23. Rab1 {70} h6 {39} 24. Ra1 {70} Rc4 {177}&#xA;25. g3 {12} g5 {26} 26. Qf3 {63} Kg7 {0} 27. Kg2 {39} b4 {1} 28. axb4 {63} axb4&#xA;{0} 29. Na2 {53} Rxc2 {18} 30. Nxb4 {39} Rxb2 {0} 31. Nd3 {105} Rbc2 {0} 32.&#xA;Nc5 {100} Nf5 {45} 33. Qd3 {33} Rc4 {0} 34. Rdc1 {20} Ra8 {11} 35. Rxa8 {23}&#xA;Qxa8 {0} 36. Nb3 {34} Qa4 {34} 37. Ra1 {22} Qb4 {57} 38. Ra7 {11} Qb6 {40} 39.&#xA;Ra2 {20} Qc7 {5} 40. Qd2 {0} Nxg3 {29} (40... Nxg3 {7} 41. fxg3 {41} Rc3 {0}&#xA;42. Qf2 {59} Rxb3 {0} 43. Rd2 {22} h5 {38} 44. Rb2 {39} Rxb2 {2} 45. Qxb2 {19}&#xA;h4 {17} 46. gxh4 {8} gxh4 {27} 47. Qf2 {11} Qg3+ {7} 48. Qxg3+ {33} hxg3 {0}&#xA;49. Kxg3 {14} Kg6 {1} 50. Kf3 {26} Kg5 {4} 51. Kg3 {27} Kh5 {4}) *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5696" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2015-01-19T00:34:45.650" LastActivityDate="2015-01-19T00:34:45.650" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8397" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8395" CreationDate="2015-01-19T08:23:37.210" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you click yourself through the opening moves at &lt;a href=&quot;http://chessok.com/?page_id=352&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://chessok.com/?page_id=352&lt;/a&gt; you'll find that after 1. d4 Nf6 2. Bf4 e6 3. Nf3 b6  there are still 1907 games, the highest white rating is 2724 and the highest black rating is 2815.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the queen's indian setup against the London is completely respectable and was even played by Kasparov (in some kind of internet blitz games, but still …).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is not particularly surprising, after all it is a very solid setup vs a very solid setup. Nobody is trying to refute anybody's opening play, hard to imagine anybody would be much better/worse already.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-01-19T08:23:37.210" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8398" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8391" CreationDate="2015-01-19T10:20:32.327" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;1.Nf3&lt;/code&gt; can transpose into almost any opening depending on your opponent and you, it is ultra-flexible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just to show its flexibility:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you play &lt;code&gt;1.Nf3&lt;/code&gt; and your opponent responds with &lt;code&gt;1...d5&lt;/code&gt; then you can play &lt;code&gt;2.c4&lt;/code&gt; to go into the Reti or &lt;code&gt;2.g3&lt;/code&gt; to maintain flexibility and play the King's Indian Attack or some other pseudo-slav with Bf5/g4, all this stuff. Or you could play &lt;code&gt;2.d4&lt;/code&gt; and it would transpose to a Queen's Pawn opening then from that point it would be a different story.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The same goes with &lt;code&gt;1.Nf3 Nf6 2.d4&lt;/code&gt; where it transposes to a queen's pawn opening with an early Nf3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As user3671618 said you could also go into King's Pawn openings after &lt;code&gt;1.Nf3 c5 2.e4&lt;/code&gt; which would be a Sicilian. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also after &lt;code&gt;1.Nf3 g6 2.e4&lt;/code&gt; would also transpose to a modern.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The point is that most Grandmasters use 1.Nf3 as a trans positional tool, like for example to get to the Catalan after &lt;code&gt;1.Nf3 d5 2.g3 Nf6 3.Bg2 e6 4.0-0 Be7 5.c4&lt;/code&gt; and later d4 and White has avoided all the Bb4+ problems associated with employing the Catalan through its classical move order which is out of the scope of this post. Of Course Black does not have to play in such fashion and the drawback of the early fianchetto is that Black usually has the luxury of bringing his dark squared bishop out instead of blocking it in via e6. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;1.Nf3&lt;/code&gt; is mainly used as an ultra-flexible trans-positional tool to avoid certain lines. For example after &lt;code&gt;1.Nf3 d5&lt;/code&gt; many grandmasters play &lt;code&gt;2.d4&lt;/code&gt; and so they avoid all the King's Indian, Grunfeld, Nimzo, Benoni, Benko systems as the pawn on d5 is already committed. One of the most famous practitioners of this approach was GM Alexander Wojtkiewicz, there is a famous book series written on him titled Wojo's Weapons, he played &lt;code&gt;1.Nf3&lt;/code&gt; exclusively as a trans-positional tool.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;1.Nf3&lt;/code&gt; is just as good as &lt;code&gt;1.e4&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;1.d4&lt;/code&gt;, this can be best explained by the simple opening principle that it develops a Kingside piece towards the center! Former World Champion Vladimir Kramnnik is another &lt;code&gt;1.Nf3&lt;/code&gt; devotee and many of the World's best players employ it in their repertoires.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The drawbacks are that you just cut out so many openings and lose many options, but this is why many &lt;code&gt;1.Nf3&lt;/code&gt; players play it! They want to avoid the problematic defenses associated with &lt;code&gt;1.d4&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;1.e4&lt;/code&gt;. It is mainly used as a move-order trick and to maintain flexibility.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I would recommend for a beginner not to play &lt;code&gt;1.Nf3&lt;/code&gt; as many times you would have to venture into the English and complex sub-variations of other openings which I believe contain so many subtle-move orders so &lt;code&gt;1.d4&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;1.e4&lt;/code&gt; are much better in improving your play since they are much easier to understand for the improving amateur and you gain a greater wider variety of positions from them which exposes you to many different themes and ideas and would contribute greater to your improvement.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3357" LastActivityDate="2015-01-19T10:20:32.327" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8400" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-01-19T12:12:11.193" Score="3" ViewCount="1156" Body="&lt;p&gt;My friend claims that there is a mate in the next move. White to move and checkmate. I am aware of 3 mates in 2 variations:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1. Qd1 Kd3 2.Rxd5#&#xA;&#xA;1. Qd1 Kc5 2.Qg1#&#xA;&#xA;1. Qd1 Kxe5 2.d4#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I cannot seem to find a mate in one move!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I ran it through Houdini and Rybka, both spat out the above variations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am aware that the engines dont normally miss these mate in 1 moves, still He seems to be sure (maybe he's wrong). Just want some 'experts' to confirm this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/LWD1e.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2437" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2015-10-22T16:49:59.913" LastActivityDate="2015-10-22T16:49:59.913" Title="Is there a checkmate in the next move?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;checkmate&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8401" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8400" CreationDate="2015-01-19T12:19:00.757" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is no mate in one move here, as there is 9 (Txb4+, Txd5+, Te4+, Dc5+, Dc4+, Dc3+, Dd3+, De4+, Db2+) way to do check black king but none of them gives mate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also it could be very interesting to find some example where Rybka or Houdini (or others...) can miss a mate in one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3480" LastActivityDate="2015-01-19T12:19:00.757" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8402" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8406" CreationDate="2015-01-19T12:24:24.343" Score="9" ViewCount="1660" Body="&lt;p&gt;Do you know example where recent chess engines (Houdini, Rybka, Komodo, ...) failed to find a forced checkmate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I guess they must find mate in 1 or 2 all the time but maybe are they failing to be as creative as human some times.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3480" LastActivityDate="2018-06-25T09:38:21.607" Title="Forced checkmate examples where engines fail" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;checkmate&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8403" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8384" CreationDate="2015-01-19T12:36:02.577" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;1.e4 Nf6 is called Alekhine Defence.&#xA;It's an hypermodern opening as it doesn't directly fight for the center but more aim to provoke weakness in White camp and then counter-attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also White has several option, first he can try not to push by playing :&#xA;2.Nc3&#xA;2.Bc4 as after 2...Nxe4 White get back the pawn with 3.Bxf7 Kxf7 4.Qh5+ g6 5.Qd5+&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Still, it's better to take the center :&#xA;2.e5 Nd5 and now White has to decide whether or not he will push his pawns, so 3 systems are relevant :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;the modern approach, White delays c4 : 3.d4 d6 4.Nf3 just finishing his development without giving weakness&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;3.d4 d6 4.c4 Nb6 5.exd6 and now Black has a choice between ...exd6 or ...cxd6 depends where he wants to put his bishop f8.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;the most agressiv : 3.d4 d6 4.c4 Nb6 5.f4 just taking as much space as possible, I think this is the most critical continuation.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3480" LastActivityDate="2015-01-19T12:36:02.577" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8404" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8402" CreationDate="2015-01-19T12:38:22.730" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are some tricky positions, where it looks like there is no solution, but then it turns out white must be able to take en passant. In these positions engines might overlook the mate, because they don't have the information about the last black move, whereas a human can deduce this information by retrograde analysis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;4k2r/8/5B1P/3R1KpP/8/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this position it is impossible to determine which variation leads to mate in two. It is only possible to show that there must be a mate in two-variation.&#xA;Either black moved the pawn on his last move - then taking en passant leads to mate. Or he moved his king or rook - then king e6 leads to mate, as there is no more castling possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit:&#xA;Another answer, that is just as irrelevant for all practical purposes:&#xA;As we all know thanks to tablebases, there is a big number of forced checkmates out there, that are far beyond the calculation horizon of any engine. Of course we can use tablebases to detect those mates, but it doesn't take any stretch of the imagination, to acknowledge the existence of forced checkmates over thousands of moves, that aren't now, and likely never will be stored in a tablebase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastEditorUserId="4362" LastEditDate="2015-01-19T13:46:24.290" LastActivityDate="2015-01-19T13:46:24.290" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8406" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8402" CreationDate="2015-01-19T14:42:14.007" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;Positing this answer in addition to the answers/comments on tablebases and endgames with ridiculously long forced mates.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White to move and win (I do not know the author of this study, unfortunately). The engines will tend to fail on this and similar problems. &#xA;As far as I tried, all recommend to move hxg8=Q. Some show 0.00 and are soon thereafter putting black in a stalemate; some show slight advantage for white and are trying to play the game out by letting black to activate his pieces. Further explanation (and hint to the solution) given in the spoiler block below the diagram.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;6r1/p1p1p1pP/P1PpP1P1/8/2P1B3/2K3pp/3P2rq/R5bk w - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Explanation spoiler:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt; The forced mate is not found because the engines use pruning heuristic. It removes certain branches from search tree, after deeming them as irrelevant to the search result (see: &lt;a href=&quot;http://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Pruning&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Pruning&lt;/a&gt;). In case of this puzzle, the solution consists of many subsequent sacrifices and its branch tends to be discarded when searching. Note: Possibly, with tweaked parameters and mate-search heuristic when exact number of moves required is provided, they could find the solution, but I have not tried that. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Solution spoiler:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt; Depending on black's move choices, a few solutions exist (the idea is always the same, though and up until move 12 the line is always the same, too). Here's an example: 1. hxg8=N d5 2. Bf3 d4+ 3. Kb4 d3 4. Nh6 gxh6 5. g7 h5 6. g8=N h4 7. Nf6 exf6 8. e7 f5 9. e8=N f4 10. Nd6 cxd6 11. c7 d5 12. c8=N dxc4 13. Nb6 c3 14. dxc3 d2 15. Kb3 d1=Q 16. Rxd1 axb6 17. a7 b5 18. a8=Q b4 19. Be2 bxc3 20. Bf1 c2 21. Rc1 f3 22. Qxf3 Bf2 23. Bxg2+#&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3831" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2018-06-25T09:38:21.607" LastActivityDate="2018-06-25T09:38:21.607" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="8408" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1709" CreationDate="2015-01-19T20:22:34.443" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recommend using the Queen's Indian defense. I posted my own comment, entitled &quot;Battling the London System&quot; I copied and pasted a game between my two computers using the Queens Indian defense against the London system. The program using the Queen's Indian defense won.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5696" LastActivityDate="2015-01-19T20:22:34.443" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8409" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8400" CreationDate="2015-01-19T22:27:11.810" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Essentially, for mate in one, white needs to give check and guard e5. If the Q checks on b2, this opens c5 and d3 for the black K. If the Q checks on c3 or e4, it can be captured. If the Re5 checks on e4 or d5, it can be captured. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is no mate in one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, now I look at this again, I can see that it might be the &lt;em&gt;wording of the question&lt;/em&gt; that is wrong. White can certainly &lt;strong&gt;end&lt;/strong&gt; the game in one move. f4, Kf4, Kf5, Rbf4 and any non-checking move by the Re5 will end the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In stalemate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So you might say, by a trick of phrasing, that's a kind of &quot;mate in the next move&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5664" LastEditorUserId="5664" LastEditDate="2015-05-28T00:07:50.063" LastActivityDate="2015-05-28T00:07:50.063" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8410" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8411" CreationDate="2015-01-20T05:57:14.597" Score="5" ViewCount="925" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to endgame tablebases, this position is a draw:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;3r4/6R1/1kp5/8/8/8/5K2/8 w - - 1 61&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. Ke3 Kc5 2. Rg4 Kb5 3. Ke2 c5 4. Rg3 Kb4 5. Ke1 c4 6. Rg4 Kb3 7. Rg7 c3 8. Rb7+ Kc2 9. Rb4 Re8+ 10. Kf2 Kd2 11. Rd4+ Kc1 12. Rc4 c2 13. Rc7 Rb8 14. Ke2 Kb2 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nevertheless, I (as black) played on and marched the king and pawn down the board and won without much trouble.  The endgame tablebase gives &lt;code&gt;3. Ke2&lt;/code&gt; as the losing move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Question&lt;/em&gt;: How does one draw this endgame as white?  (Is there a name for this position?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not finding the tablebase particularly educational.  It works, but I'm not sure why.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2785" LastActivityDate="2017-06-08T23:51:07.447" Title="How to draw this rook and pawn vs. rook endgame?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;rook-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8411" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8410" CreationDate="2015-01-20T09:14:35.770" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;In your diagram/game, black is allowed to set up a Lucena position and therefore wins. However, with correct way of harassing the black king, it is possible to prevent that from happening. After 2... Kc5, you can utilize what's called a frontal defense by playing 3. Rg1. In the lines shown below, black simply cannot proceed. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Note, that this defense may or may not work depending on which line and how advanced the opponents pawn is - see reference below.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;3r4/6R1/2p5/2k5/8/4K3/8/8 w - - 0 2&#xA;&#xA;1. Rg1 Kb4 2. Rb1+ Kc4 (2... Ka4 3. Ra1+ Kb3 4. Rc1 Rc8 5. Kd4 (5... Rd8+ 6. Kc5=) Kb4 6. Rb1+=) 3. Rc1+ Kb5 4. Rb1+=&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If black moves his rook away from d-file in attempt to block your checks or harass your king, then you can bring your king in front of the pawn and set up a 3rd rank defense - Philidor position or a back rank defense (depending on how the game develops).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rook_and_pawn_versus_rook_endgame&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this wiki page&lt;/a&gt; gives an excellent quick overview of R+P vs R endings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3831" LastEditorUserId="3831" LastEditDate="2015-01-20T11:39:19.247" LastActivityDate="2015-01-20T11:39:19.247" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8412" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8323" CreationDate="2015-01-20T13:28:58.520" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have some records from a book published in 1969. They might have been surpassed since then, but if that is the case, I was not able to locate that information. I guess, since there is no reply after ~2 weeks, this should be better than nothing. These are records for captures by one side.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;74 captures; legal position:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;T. W. Marlow &amp;amp; William Cross, Problem 05/1967&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;r1n1n1b1/1P1P1P1P/1N1N1N2/2RnQrRq/2pKp3/3BNQbQ/k7/4Bq2 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Additional Source: &lt;a href=&quot;https://pdb.dieschwalbe.de/P1178639&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Die Schwable Chess Problem Database Server&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit: In response to the comment - here's a legal position without underpromotions in play, 65 captures possible.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;T. W. Marlow &amp;amp; William Cross, Problem 05/1967&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;k2Kb2R/1RrQnQN1/8/BqQbQqQn/8/1QbQqQNB/8/3rQq2 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Additional Source: &lt;a href=&quot;https://pdb.dieschwalbe.de/P1178637&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Die Schwable Chess Problem Database Server&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;em&gt;Guide To Fairy Chess&lt;/em&gt; by Anthony Dickins.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3831" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-12-11T14:41:03.570" LastActivityDate="2020-12-11T14:41:03.570" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="8413" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2017" CreationDate="2015-01-20T15:50:33.313" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some here have stated that white has a one-move advantage, which is certainly incorrect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White has a half-move advantage. It is true that before each black move, white is ahead one move. However, after each black move, equal moves have been made by each side. Averaging all decision points in the game yields a .5 move advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, it is easy to see that there are a number of ways to give up a move immediately in most real-world games, if having it were not actually an advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If we take a simple example of a mirrored game, where black attempts to duplicate every move of white's, white will rapidly be ahead material. You could argue that being ahead material is not an advantage in some configurations, but having the choice to take that material, having more control of the outcome, certainly is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You might find the previous concept absurd, but let's look at it from another perspective. Given every possible exactly mirrored board position, it seems intuitive that more of them would be mate-in-one for the first to move. (I have not done this calculation, but it would be an interesting and probably achievable search to run.) If we broaden this to all possible configurations, it seems intuitive that mate-in-one would on-average be more accessible to the first to move. Etc. And we need not follow this trail too deeply, either. Forced mate-in-six is a challenging find for most humans.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many people have played many games of chess, some without any preconceived notions. If a clear way to neutralize white's opening advantage with certainty had been played, it would be well-documented by now. In fact, much opening strategy exists in chess surrounding this concept. See chess &quot;tempo&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In endgames a well-known concept is zugzwang, where a clear disadvantage exists to having to move. However, this disadvantage exists because of the lack of choice, not because of having first choice; the move a player must make is disastrous (or more accurately the disaster has already occurred). Reiterating tbischel's comment, chess may never be solved by man. Because of this, we play games forwards, rather than backwards, as humans - and because of THAT, having the first move is an advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5704" LastEditorUserId="5704" LastEditDate="2015-01-20T16:27:55.690" LastActivityDate="2015-01-20T16:27:55.690" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8414" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-01-20T16:21:42.133" Score="0" ViewCount="94" Body="&lt;p&gt;ok so here is the issue I'm having... I am playing a correspondence game online and I came across a situation where I pinned my opponents rook against his King and in between his rook and my king is his pawn. if it's my turn can I take the pawn? there would be nothing in between my king and his rook but his rook would not be able to move because it is pinned against his king. let me know. thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5705" LastEditorUserId="5705" LastEditDate="2015-01-20T18:04:47.257" LastActivityDate="2015-01-20T20:00:18.440" Title="Can my King take?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;rules&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="4" ClosedDate="2015-01-20T22:31:31.137" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8416" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6435" CreationDate="2015-01-20T20:06:17.620" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is illegal. A king cannot capture another King. The king is the only chess piece that cannot be captured like other pieces, where they are physically removed from the chess board.  The kings cannot be on adjacent squares, that is on squares next to each other. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please note that my response is for normal chess not the other variants where such moves are allowed. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5707" LastActivityDate="2015-01-20T20:06:17.620" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8418" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8353" CreationDate="2015-01-21T06:29:36.193" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I had the same question when I thought about tactical improvement. What seems to be working for me is an &quot;inclusive&quot; approach. Don't stick to one method, as each method seems to be helping in different ways. This applies to degree of difficulty of chess problems as well. At one point in time, I could solve tactics problems rated 1800+ on lichess very easily only to stumble on problems rated 1500 and below. So a mix of all seems to be working well for me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3158" LastActivityDate="2015-01-21T06:29:36.193" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8419" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-01-21T08:55:37.323" Score="9" ViewCount="844" Body="&lt;p&gt;This game at move 69 - &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess24.com/en/watch/live-tournaments/tataSteelMasters2015/9/1/3&quot;&gt;https://chess24.com/en/watch/live-tournaments/tataSteelMasters2015/9/1/3&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;8/2p5/1pBpK1k1/1P1P2N1/7r/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Anish Giri&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Ding Liren&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Tata Steel Chess&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2015.01.20&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Giri thought for 6 minutes and decided to save the knight. Is the continuation for sacrifice really counterintuitive? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3007" LastEditorUserId="1761" LastEditDate="2015-01-21T11:40:46.107" LastActivityDate="2015-01-21T12:51:01.660" Title="Why didn't Giri go for the pawns against Ding Liren (Tata Steel 2015)?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8420" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8419" CreationDate="2015-01-21T09:34:59.763" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I saw the live broadcast yesterday I was sure he would go for the knight sacrifice. And I still think he probably intended to. It is in no way counterintuitive, I think it is rather the obvious candidate for a winning continuation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But of course a knight is a knight and the queening of one of the white pawns is still some ten moves away. He probably tried to work it out completely to the point where black has to give his rook and the ending is beyond any doubt one hundred percent winning, and after 68 moves of an extremely hard fought game he just couldn't do it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And in the end, instead of wasting any more time, he decided to play it save. So my take on this is that tiredness and the irrational fear to overlook some miracle save lead to a more practical decision.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastEditorUserId="4362" LastEditDate="2015-01-21T09:42:09.140" LastActivityDate="2015-01-21T09:42:09.140" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8421" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5188" CreationDate="2015-01-21T10:58:32.717" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;My feeling is that a queen would be too much. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My reasoning is that without a queen it is very unlikely that the double move will ever lead to a winning attack. So at one point the double move will have to be used to &quot;win&quot; the queen, but if white takes care to always protect the queen this will probably lose some material.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Something materially equivalent like both rooks strikes me as better, because it doesn't impede blacks dynamical chances in the same way. Possibly rook+knight or rook+bishop would be even more balanced.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-01-21T10:58:32.717" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8422" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8419" CreationDate="2015-01-21T12:51:01.660" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why he played something is a question that can only be answered by asking him, or by speculating. However, the following seems reasonable:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is not the goal of most players to play the strongest move in each position, but it is their goal to win the game. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Perhaps he just analysed till the point where he saw/thought that &lt;strong&gt;Nf3 would be good enough to win the game&lt;/strong&gt; and then just played it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5714" LastActivityDate="2015-01-21T12:51:01.660" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8423" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-01-23T00:32:40.123" Score="4" ViewCount="647" Body="&lt;p&gt;Which tie break system would be used in Tata Steel 2015?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I didn't find it on the tournament website. I don't know how to get it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5691" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2015-01-23T17:24:27.917" LastActivityDate="2017-10-01T01:40:32.187" Title="Which tie break system would be used in Tata Steel 2015?" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8424" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8425" CreationDate="2015-01-23T00:37:51.517" Score="6" ViewCount="417" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been reading and enjoying the site immensely.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the &amp;quot;Endgame Tablebase&amp;quot;?  I see it referenced frequently.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5726" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-19T22:47:20.047" LastActivityDate="2020-08-20T01:51:40.767" Title="Endgame Tablebases-What are they?" Tags="&lt;terminology&gt;&lt;tablebases&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="8425" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8424" CreationDate="2015-01-23T03:09:38.440" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endgame_tablebase&quot;&gt;Endgame tablebases&lt;/a&gt; are essentially databases containing known endgame positions that have been “solved”, so to speak. That is, every position in an endgame tablebase will have a corresponding result which will either be a win for white, a win for black, or a draw (assuming perfect play). They are used by chess engines because it is much more efficient for the computer to look up an endgame position in a database to get the result of the endgame rather than exhausting all the possible variations to determine the result. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3322" LastActivityDate="2015-01-23T03:09:38.440" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8426" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1050" CreationDate="2015-01-23T04:35:38.110" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The simplest most obvious answer I feel is overlooked here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-When begginers go off book too early, they r making a mistake. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To put it simply, chess masters have debated the best first few moves of chess for hundreds of years and famous openings are the result. If someone one goes off book too early, often it means if you look enough moves ahead, they will be forced to give up material.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The lines we have now are not necessarily perfect, but they have a lot tactical sense behind them. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would suggest beginner's try ignoring book lines for a time. The only way to know where the mistakes are is to play through them. Then you'll recognize them and know what to do when an opponent falls into one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5727" LastActivityDate="2015-01-23T04:35:38.110" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8428" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-01-23T12:06:00.423" Score="1" ViewCount="466" Body="&lt;p&gt;guys, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What kind of software/apps do you use to track your results of games with friends or in clubs?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How do you track your wins/losses and progress while casually playing chess?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5729" LastActivityDate="2015-01-24T02:50:50.980" Title="Software for tournaments, leaderboards and result tracking" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;tournament&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8429" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8433" CreationDate="2015-01-23T19:48:38.203" Score="4" ViewCount="262" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;rn1qk2r/pbp2ppp/1p1bpn2/8/2P5/5NP1/PB1PPPBP/RN1Q1RK1 b kq - 0 8&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Villain (2075)&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Hero (1950)&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;8... c5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was Black in this position. To me, it immediately looks like the position calls for 8...c5: I need to prevent White from taking over the center, I need more space for my pieces, and I need to protect my queenside from attack on the long diagonal h1-a8. My plan was to play c5 and Qc7 to target the center with all my pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, after considering the move, I thought that it does not help me much: after I have played for example c5, Qc7, and Nc6, I didn't see any possible continuations. My bishop is going nowhere on the d6-h2 diagonal, and my knights have no good squares nearby if white protects d4, so I would probably need to continue with 0-0, Nfd7 and f6 to put something on e5 to get any control of the game. I also dreamed of building an attack with something like h7-h5-h4 but decided that it takes way too long and white has too many ways to defend.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I decided that I really need to keep the c5 square free in order to have the choice to play Nc5 or Bc5 (or even Bb4 at some positions) later. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, the queenside still is a problem, so I ended up playing 8...c6, which allowed 9.Re1 threatening e2-e4-e5, forcing me to block the e5 square with my pawn, resulting in a loss after 12 moves of misery (apparently 9.e4 would have been even better). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After the game, my opponent said that I should have played c5, but didn't say anything after I mentioned that I thought it restricts my mobility too much. Was it really a good move? Was it the least bad idea in this position? Is there something better? How can I know the answer during the game without calculating every variation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1761" LastActivityDate="2015-01-24T13:09:37.477" Title="Is 8...c5 good in this position, or does it restrict Black's mobility too much?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8430" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8429" CreationDate="2015-01-23T22:33:45.353" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;c5 looks good to me. I don't see how it restricts your mobility. At this stage in the game your bishop doesn't need to occupy any squares on White's queen side, and could benefit from having a retreat square on c7. As you mentioned, c5 restricts White by challenging control of d4. Overall I think it must increase your mobility because you will have more space. Even if you are playing an opening with a restrained pawn structure, you still want to expand if your opponent plays passively. I think that's the best you have here, along with completing your development.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't think there is any way to know that this idea is the best during a game or even after. If there are tactical considerations, you can calculate your way through it, but ideas are unlimited. Grandmasters are always rewriting theory by finding new ideas in old positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2681" LastActivityDate="2015-01-23T22:33:45.353" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8431" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8428" CreationDate="2015-01-24T02:50:50.980" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recommend SCID. It's free and works on any operating system, and there are even mobile versions available.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as recording your games during casual play, I would just use regular score sheets and enter them in the computer later. If you play online, sites like Chess.com let you download your games in PGN format, which can be imported into SCID or other database software.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most people who use databases prefer to only include their tournament games, since casual games are going to show patterns that might not apply when you're playing serious chess. You could keep them in a separate database if you really want to record everything.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For fun, see how much of a casual game you can play back from memory after the game is over. You will remember more if:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You are consistent with the openings you play.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Your moves follow a general plan.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You actively concentrate on what is happening on the board, how you got there, and where you're headed. This keeps the sequence of moves fresh and connected, for reconstructing later.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2681" LastActivityDate="2015-01-24T02:50:50.980" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8432" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-01-24T11:56:52.983" Score="7" ViewCount="304" Body="&lt;p&gt;I had this position today, with White to play:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    [FEN &quot;8/1p3kpp/p1n1p3/3p4/3P4/1P2B3/P2K1PPP/8 w - - 0 25&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What should White's plan be to try and win, and are there any particular pawn structures White should aim for? Does White actually have any advantage?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the game I got to the following position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/2B5/2n1pk2/p2p2p1/Pp1P2P1/1P2KP2/8/8 w - - 1 35&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and there seems to be nothing (the computer doesn't find any way to make progress either). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was hoping to use the fact that I have a tempo available (Bc7-b6) to force my king through the kingside after something like f4 gxf4; Kxf4 Kg6; g5 , and move my king around Kh5-h6, however Black always has ...e5! to break out once my bishop is on b6 and my king is not covering e5 or d3.  The actual game followed my idea but it ended up in a wrong-colour rook pawn situation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4223" LastActivityDate="2015-02-01T00:09:00.470" Title="N vs. B ending, pawns on both sides" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;minor-pieces&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8433" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8429" CreationDate="2015-01-24T12:09:36.680" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think ...c5 is a good move. The c5 square is not available to your pieces (his d2-d4 would kick your pieces) so you may as well occupy it with the pawn. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;...c6 is horrible because you block your b7 bishop which is currently your best piece! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your position is slightly inferior because White has an extra central pawn available (he did well to manage to exchange his b-pawn for your d-pawn, effectively: he now has a half-open b-file to use, and he has better central control).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can't allow him to play d4 and e4, you will get crushed. ...c5 stops d4 (or at least, means you can exchange that pair of pawns). At this stage I'd be looking to meet e4 with ...e5 , which would shut down both of his bishops (It harms your bishops too, but his bishops are better than yours, so you gain more out of this deal).   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You'd then try to find good squares for your knights. He will undoubtedly go for Nd5 so you'd probably have to exchange that off.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I tried to check this position in opening references, but Black has basically &lt;em&gt;never&lt;/em&gt; fianchettoed the QB in response to White's system here. We should conclude from this that it's a bad idea. It seems that your QB is strong here -- although you have to watch out for tactics with his knight moving -- , however your other pieces are all uncoordinated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The most common way to create and support a centre as Black against White's system is ...c6 and ...d5 . I'm guessing that you played ..b6 and ..dxc4 where it would have been much more solid to play ...c6 which is a standard variation against the Reti. It is slightly passive because your bishop is behind its pawns but this is not a serious problem so long as you develop your other pieces smoothly (similar to a reverse Colle System). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4223" LastEditorUserId="4223" LastEditDate="2015-01-24T13:09:37.477" LastActivityDate="2015-01-24T13:09:37.477" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8434" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8432" CreationDate="2015-01-24T15:26:13.103" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The following is from a post I wrote for the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.facebook.com/chessendgame&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chess Endgame Facebook page&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;We have seen how bishops and knights maneuver against each other when one of them has an extra pawn to promote. Next we will look at positions where the true strengths and weaknesses of each piece play the deciding factor.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In general, the bishop is stronger in positions with pawns on both wings (especially passed pawns), due to its long range movement. The knight excels with pawns on only one wing. However, an exception can occur when pawns are on both wings, but the bishop's pawns are locked on the same square color as the bishop itself. In such a situation, the knight can take its time moving across the board, because the bishop will suffer from its limited access to only 32 squares.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In these situations, the differences between the minor pieces are often more significant than possessing a protected passed pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You already analyzed the position with a computer, so I hope these general strategy tips will be helpful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2681" LastActivityDate="2015-01-24T15:26:13.103" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8436" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-01-24T17:04:16.387" Score="3" ViewCount="313" Body="&lt;p&gt;Could black have taken the queen here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note the bishop and the knight &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;r5k1/1b3Qpp/5b2/p1p1N3/2P2P1P/8/P1N5/K4Rn1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA; [Title &quot;Can black take the queen?&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5736" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2015-01-24T17:26:30.920" LastActivityDate="2018-01-30T07:39:37.270" Title="Could black have taken the queen here?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8437" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8436" CreationDate="2015-01-24T17:23:45.760" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, black could not have taken the queen. Taking the queen would put black's king into check, which is not legal. Black cannot take the knight either because black's king would still be in check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5738" LastEditorUserId="15223" LastEditDate="2018-01-30T07:39:37.270" LastActivityDate="2018-01-30T07:39:37.270" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8438" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8436" CreationDate="2015-01-24T17:33:48.773" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a common confusion for beginners. The rule is that no player is ever allowed to expose their king to check. Never Ever.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The logic of this rule comes down to the fact that the game is turn based, and if the black king captures the white queen, black will lose his king first. The rules of chess don't allow it to go that far, but that doesn't change the principle that the first player to lose their king loses the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess variants are obviously an exception, with one popular variant being speed chess. If you are playing a game with a very short time control (e.g. 5 minutes per side) it is generally okay to capture the king. Most players consider this a reasonable way to deal with the limited time, where every second counts. If you don't realize your king is in check, stopping the game to sort it out pretty much ruins the game. An exception to this exception is online speed chess, where the computer is able to block illegal moves instantly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2681" LastActivityDate="2015-01-24T17:33:48.773" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8439" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8161" CreationDate="2015-01-24T17:54:17.723" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;A quick search turned up this interesting book: &quot;Black Defensive System For The Rest Of Your Chess Career&quot; by Andrew Soltis. &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/0875681662&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.amazon.com/Black-Defensive-System-Chess-Career/sim/0875681662/2&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What attracts me to this book:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;GM Andrew Soltis is an excellent chess writer. His other books that I've read are very accessible to all players.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;This book is about the Caro-Slav pawn formation. The same structure you play against 1.e4 also works against 1.d4, saving you a lot of study time.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Soltis analyzes the Caro-Slav formation in his classic book &quot;Pawn Structure Chess&quot;, but here you will find a practical guide to using it in tournament games.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a bonus tip, you can also reach the Caro-Slav formation through the Scandinavian Defense: 1.e4 d5 2.exd5 Qxd5 3.Nc3 Qa5 followed by c6 and e6. It looks aggressive to many players due to the early development of the queen, but usually results in a strategic position when played properly. Few 1.e4 players dedicate much time to preparing for this defense, so it's an excellent surprise weapon. If you decide the Caro Kann is too dense with theory, understanding the pawn structure gives you this less analyzed alternative.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Good luck in your chess!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2681" LastActivityDate="2015-01-24T17:54:17.723" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8440" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="285" CreationDate="2015-01-25T06:12:31.763" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;To some of you so called experts on opening play...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thinking that what opening you play hinders your middle and endgame technique is totally false. Blaming getting out played in the middle game and losing on the opening you choose is also false thinking. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many GMs and IMs use these systems. If you can't get these openings to work for you then your not going to get a main line to work either. Learning main line openings does NOT improve your chess.  Chess is really about tactics, the  middle and the end game. The opening is only a part of the over all game. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is a quote from John Cox who is an IM 2400ish FIDE rating from his book  &quot;Dealing with d4 Deviations&quot;&#xA;&lt;em&gt;&quot;In the 1930's the top guys didn't know whether these openings or the Queens Gambit were better. These were the 2700s of their day; They understood chess a lot better than I do, and if something wasn't obvious to them, it was arrogant of me to think it would be obvious to me if i just figured it out over the board. I could list easily a hundred 2550+ players who have succumbed to the openings in this book&quot;&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;He admits he's been torched many times by these opening systems too...&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is a clue... 99.9% of his book doesn't bust any system... all his book does is get you to a level position as black. Then what are you going to do then... Wing it? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Alekhine, Lasker,  Capablanca etc all used these openings..  Currently Kamsky  Blatny Kovacevic Hodgson Yusupov Hebden use these system against top tier GMs. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;People who think an opening effects their chess technique or skill are the type that   chase openings over and over, never really mastering a single one. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5743" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T17:20:56.713" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T17:20:56.713" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="8441" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2506" CreationDate="2015-01-25T06:42:41.880" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sahovski Informator publishes approximately 700 of the Best or Most Interesting games of the preceding several months, played by Grandmasters around the world.  I have found the average number of moves in several volumes to converge at between 43 and 44 moves per game.  This is, of course, for Grandmasters in tournaments or matches, so they are not giving up easily.  Also, interestingly, the number of moves is slowly increasing as time goes forward, indicating perhaps that fewer mistakes are being made, so that games are taking longer.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Also, there is a small variation in length based on the openings - e4-e5; d4-d5; d4-nf6; e4-c5 etc, but it doesn't seem significant.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5744" LastActivityDate="2015-01-25T06:42:41.880" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8442" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="677" CreationDate="2015-01-25T06:53:20.047" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd recommend against a Grunfeld  white play reversed Catalan lines    Against a KID either the Torre or... Or.. Play the French vs KIA lines as white!!! Pretty solid lines &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stonewall against delayed c5! Sure! Chances are your playing a Sicilian fanatic who plays that set up against everything... And who at the very least is gonna hate you for A) playing an opening he's not familiar with and that will not give him any of his normal attacking lines.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in the End U will have to learn solid line for the Dutch and a Anti Benoni line. Should be doable with the standard opening moves d4  Nf3 &amp;amp; e3 etc... won't be a Colle.. but ya can't have your cake and eat it to... &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just don't go chasing openings .. stick with the Colle &amp;amp; master it and then add to it where you think necessary.  Work on your middle and end game technique and study tactics... &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5743" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T19:25:52.033" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T19:25:52.033" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="8443" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8447" CreationDate="2015-01-25T06:57:51.670" Score="2" ViewCount="676" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can you please recommend good books for- Grunfeld and Sicilian defense. Would prefer separate books for either. Specially one which contains deeper analysis and has recent games illustrated. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5745" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T16:50:23.523" Title="Good books for- Grunfeild and Sicilian defence" Tags="&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;&lt;grunfeld-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8444" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-01-25T15:53:37.207" Score="5" ViewCount="566" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a series of USCF scholastic tournaments run by a certain group of schools that accepts outside players as well. I've suspected for some time that they intentionally manipulate their swiss pairings to favor students in their schools either for tie break, or other purposes (such as increasing rating for their members). I recognize that Swiss pairings are tricky and have some complications (such as B vs W, avoiding teammates playing etc) but in one tournament in particular:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;They did not seed by rating. One of their &quot;stars&quot; who was lower rated than the highest rated started getting higher pairings.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In a fourth round pairing, there were 4 players with 3 points. Rating 1 &amp;amp; 2 were team mates and their &quot;star&quot; was #3. #1 should play #3 and #2 should play #4. Instead #1 played #4 and #2 played #3.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In the final round, rating #1 had 4 points (having lost in round 4) and there were 13 players with three points. The TD had #1 play #12 (in the 3.0 group). The TD claimed that in the final round ONLY they pair so that #1 would have the &quot;best chance to win&quot;. The same TD claimed that earlier rounds are paired by looking at tie break score rather than rating (i.e., looking at the cumulative score of opponents) -- even though their own organization's documents claim they pair by using rating seeded methods.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The effect of these pairing oddities is that #1 gets a hard time on tie break whereas lower rated players got better tie breaks, even though my understanding is that the opposite should be true in general. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Question A: How much latitude do TD's have in pairings?&#xA;Question B: Do these circumstances rise to the level of &quot;pairing manipulation&quot;?&#xA;Question C: If the answer to B is &quot;yes&quot;, what penalities/sanctions (if any) are available?&#xA;Question D: If the answer to  B is &quot;yes&quot;, are there known/similar examples of such manipulation that have been exposed?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Added: In response to an answer below (thanks!), here is the cross table. I've removed names and IDs and slightly adjusted rating numbers to try to keep the tournament confidential. (None of the rating changes affect the order of initial rating).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; Pair | Player Name                     |Total|Round|Round|Round|Round|Round| &#xA; Num  | USCF ID / Rtg (Pre-&amp;gt;Post)       | Pts |  1  |  2  |  3  |  4  |  5  | &#xA;-----------------------------------------------------------------------------&#xA;    1 |                                 |5.0  |W   7|W  16|W  30|W   4|W   5|&#xA;   ZZZ|          / R:  877   -&amp;gt; 1032    |     |B    |W    |B    |W    |B    |&#xA;-----------------------------------------------------------------------------&#xA;    2 |                                 |5.0  |W  10|W  19|W  20|W  24|W   9|&#xA;   ZZZ|          / R:  802   -&amp;gt; 931     |     |B    |W    |B    |W    |B    |&#xA;-----------------------------------------------------------------------------&#xA;    3 |                                 |4.0  |W  32|W  21|W  13|L   5|W  17|&#xA;   ZZZ|          / R:  945   -&amp;gt; 940     |     |B    |W    |B    |W    |B    |&#xA;-----------------------------------------------------------------------------&#xA;    4 |                                 |4.0  |W  46|W  18|W  14|L   1|W  12|&#xA;   ZZZ|          / R:  913   -&amp;gt; 929     |     |W    |B    |W    |B    |W    |&#xA;-----------------------------------------------------------------------------&#xA;    5 |                                 |4.0  |W  33|W  12|W   6|W   3|L   1|&#xA;   ZZZ|          / R:  761   -&amp;gt; 917     |     |W    |B    |W    |B    |W    |&#xA;-----------------------------------------------------------------------------&#xA;    6 |                                 |4.0  |W  37|W  17|L   5|W  22|W  15|&#xA;   ZZZ|          / R:  725   -&amp;gt; 797     |     |B    |W    |B    |W    |B    |&#xA;-----------------------------------------------------------------------------&#xA;    7 |                                 |4.0  |L   1|W  39|W  21|W  20|W  16|&#xA;   ZZZ|          / R:  463   -&amp;gt; 695     |     |W    |B    |B    |W    |B    |&#xA;-----------------------------------------------------------------------------&#xA;    8 |                                 |4.0  |W  41|L  30|W  34|W  13|W  18|&#xA;   ZZZ|          / R:  481   -&amp;gt; 642     |     |B    |W    |B    |W    |W    |&#xA;-----------------------------------------------------------------------------&#xA;    9 |                                 |3.5  |W  31|D  24|W  44|W  11|L   2|&#xA;   ZZZ|          / R:  758   -&amp;gt; 756     |     |W    |B    |B    |W    |W    |&#xA;-----------------------------------------------------------------------------&#xA;   10 |                                 |3.5  |L   2|D  52|W  35|W  26|W  28|&#xA;   ZZZ|          / R:  513   -&amp;gt; 523     |     |W    |B    |W    |B    |W    |&#xA;-----------------------------------------------------------------------------&#xA;   11 |                                 |3.5  |H    |W  40|W  28|L   9|X    |&#xA;   ZZZ|          / R:  152P22-&amp;gt; 348     |     |     |B    |W    |B    |     |&#xA;-----------------------------------------------------------------------------&#xA;   12 |                                 |3.0  |W  34|L   5|W  23|W  29|L   4|&#xA;   ZZZ|          / R:  811   -&amp;gt; 803     |     |B    |W    |B    |W    |B    |&#xA;-----------------------------------------------------------------------------&#xA;   13 |                                 |3.0  |W  35|W  25|L   3|L   8|W  31|&#xA;   ZZZ|          / R:  680   -&amp;gt; 681     |     |W    |B    |W    |B    |W    |&#xA;-----------------------------------------------------------------------------&#xA;   14 |                                 |3.0  |W  23|W  22|L   4|L  16|W  32|&#xA;   ZZZ|          / R:  668   -&amp;gt; 678     |     |B    |W    |B    |W    |B    |&#xA;-----------------------------------------------------------------------------&#xA;   15 |                                 |3.0  |W  45|W  29|L  24|W  30|L   6|&#xA;   ZZZ|          / R:  657   -&amp;gt; 672     |     |B    |W    |B    |W    |W    |&#xA;-----------------------------------------------------------------------------&#xA;   16 |                                 |3.0  |W  38|L   1|W  33|W  14|L   7|&#xA;   ZZZ|          / R:  637   -&amp;gt; 653     |     |W    |B    |W    |B    |W    |&#xA;-----------------------------------------------------------------------------&#xA;   17 |                                 |3.0  |W  49|L   6|W  43|W  40|L   3|&#xA;   ZZZ|          / R:  629   -&amp;gt; 626     |     |W    |B    |W    |B    |W    |&#xA;-----------------------------------------------------------------------------&#xA;   18 |                                 |3.0  |W  36|L   4|W  32|W  19|L   8|&#xA;   ZZZ|          / R:  598   -&amp;gt; 619     |     |B    |W    |B    |W    |B    |&#xA;-----------------------------------------------------------------------------&#xA;   19 |                                 |3.0  |W  52|L   2|W  37|L  18|W  30|&#xA;   ZZZ|          / R:  602   -&amp;gt; 605     |     |W    |B    |W    |B    |B    |&#xA;-----------------------------------------------------------------------------&#xA;   20 |                                 |3.0  |W  51|W  43|L   2|L   7|W  36|&#xA;   ZZZ|          / R:  616   -&amp;gt; 601     |     |W    |B    |W    |B    |W    |&#xA;-----------------------------------------------------------------------------&#xA;   21 |                                 |3.0  |W  39|L   3|L   7|W  44|W  34|&#xA;   ZZZ|          / R:  583   -&amp;gt; 578     |     |W    |B    |W    |B    |W    |&#xA;-----------------------------------------------------------------------------&#xA;   22 |                                 |3.0  |W  27|L  14|W  49|L   6|W  29|&#xA;   ZZZ|          / R:  548   -&amp;gt; 570     |     |W    |B    |W    |B    |B    |&#xA;-----------------------------------------------------------------------------&#xA;   23 |                                 |3.0  |L  14|W  31|L  12|W  49|W  40|&#xA;   ZZZ|          / R:  481   -&amp;gt; 538     |     |W    |B    |W    |B    |W    |&#xA;-----------------------------------------------------------------------------&#xA;   24 |                                 |2.5  |W  48|D   9|W  15|L   2|F    |&#xA;   ZZZ|          / R:  725   -&amp;gt; 741     |     |B    |W    |W    |B    |     |&#xA;-----------------------------------------------------------------------------&#xA;   25 |                                 |2.5  |W  26|L  13|L  29|D  41|W  45|&#xA;   ZZZ|          / R:  719   -&amp;gt; 642     |     |B    |W    |B    |W    |B    |&#xA;-----------------------------------------------------------------------------&#xA;   26 |                                 |2.5  |L  25|D  35|W  42|L  10|W  41|&#xA;   ZZZ|          / R:  295P5 -&amp;gt; 336P10  |     |W    |B    |W    |W    |B    |&#xA;-----------------------------------------------------------------------------&#xA;   27 |                                 |2.5  |L  22|L  36|D  48|W  50|W  42|&#xA;   ZZZ|          / R:  228P5 -&amp;gt; 252P10  |     |B    |W    |B    |W    |B    |&#xA;-----------------------------------------------------------------------------&#xA;   28 |                                 |2.5  |D  40|W  50|L  11|W  45|L  10|&#xA;   ZZZ|          / R:  125P17-&amp;gt; 236P22  |     |W    |B    |B    |W    |B    |&#xA;-----------------------------------------------------------------------------&#xA;   29 |                                 |2.0  |W  42|L  15|W  25|L  12|L  22|&#xA;   ZZZ|          / R:  738   -&amp;gt; 668     |     |W    |B    |W    |B    |W    |&#xA;-----------------------------------------------------------------------------&#xA;   30 |                                 |2.0  |W  47|W   8|L   1|L  15|L  19|&#xA;   ZZZ|          / R:  667   -&amp;gt; 629     |     |W    |B    |W    |B    |W    |&#xA;-----------------------------------------------------------------------------&#xA;   31 |                                 |2.0  |L   9|L  23|W  52|W  47|L  13|&#xA;   ZZZ|          / R:  490   -&amp;gt; 456     |     |B    |W    |W    |B    |B    |&#xA;-----------------------------------------------------------------------------&#xA;   32 |                                 |2.0  |L   3|W  51|L  18|W  43|L  14|&#xA;   ZZZ|          / R:  436   -&amp;gt; 423     |     |W    |B    |W    |B    |W    |&#xA;-----------------------------------------------------------------------------&#xA;   33 |                                 |2.0  |L   5|W  41|L  16|L  34|W  44|&#xA;   ZZZ|          / R:  377P8-&amp;gt; 361P13   |     |B    |W    |B    |W    |W    |&#xA;-----------------------------------------------------------------------------&#xA;   34 |                                 |2.0  |L  12|W  47|L   8|W  33|L  21|&#xA;   ZZZ|          / R:  246P10 -&amp;gt; 330P15 |     |W    |B    |W    |B    |B    |&#xA;-----------------------------------------------------------------------------&#xA;   35 |                                 |2.0  |L  13|D  26|L  10|D  48|W  49|&#xA;   ZZZ|          / R:  280P9 -&amp;gt; 280P14  |     |B    |W    |B    |W    |B    |&#xA;-----------------------------------------------------------------------------&#xA;   36 |                                 |2.0  |L  18|W  27|L  40|W  46|L  20|&#xA;   ZZZ|          / R:  180   -&amp;gt; 266     |     |W    |B    |W    |B    |B    |&#xA;-----------------------------------------------------------------------------&#xA;   37 |                                 |2.0  |L   6|W  38|L  19|L  42|W  48|&#xA;   ZZZ|          / R:  188   -&amp;gt; 231     |     |W    |B    |B    |W    |B    |&#xA;-----------------------------------------------------------------------------&#xA;   38 |                                 |2.0  |L  16|L  37|L  47|W  51|W  46|&#xA;   ZZZ|          / R: Unrated-&amp;gt; 200P5   |     |B    |W    |W    |B    |W    |&#xA;-----------------------------------------------------------------------------&#xA;   39 |                                 |2.0  |L  21|L   7|L  46|W  52|W  47|&#xA;   ZZZ|          / R:  111P14-&amp;gt; 174P19  |     |B    |W    |W    |B    |W    |&#xA;-----------------------------------------------------------------------------&#xA;   40 |                                 |1.5  |D  28|L  11|W  36|L  17|L  23|&#xA;   ZZZ|          / R:  599   -&amp;gt; 483     |     |B    |W    |B    |W    |B    |&#xA;-----------------------------------------------------------------------------&#xA;   41 |                                 |1.5  |L   8|L  33|W  51|D  25|L  26|&#xA;   ZZZ|          / R: Unrated-&amp;gt; 262P5   |     |W    |B    |W    |B    |W    |&#xA;-----------------------------------------------------------------------------&#xA;   42 |                                 |1.5  |L  29|D  45|L  26|W  37|L  27|&#xA;   ZZZ|          / R:  296   -&amp;gt; 245     |     |B    |W    |B    |B    |W    |&#xA;-----------------------------------------------------------------------------&#xA;   43 |                                 |1.5  |B    |L  20|L  17|L  32|D  50|&#xA;   ZZZ|          / R:  201P18-&amp;gt; 165P22  |     |     |W    |B    |W    |B    |&#xA;-----------------------------------------------------------------------------&#xA;   44 |                                 |1.5  |H    |W  46|L   9|L  21|L  33|&#xA;   ZZZ|          / R:  130P21-&amp;gt; 155P25  |     |     |B    |W    |W    |B    |&#xA;-----------------------------------------------------------------------------&#xA;   45 |                                 |1.5  |L  15|D  42|W  50|L  28|L  25|&#xA;   ZZZ|          / R:  105P5 -&amp;gt; 135P10  |     |W    |B    |W    |B    |W    |&#xA;-----------------------------------------------------------------------------&#xA;   46 |                                 |1.0  |L   4|L  44|W  39|L  36|L  38|&#xA;   ZZZ|          / R:  448P5 -&amp;gt; 266P10  |     |B    |W    |B    |W    |B    |&#xA;-----------------------------------------------------------------------------&#xA;   47 |                                 |1.0  |L  30|L  34|W  38|L  31|L  39|&#xA;   ZZZ|          / R:  271P5 -&amp;gt; 200P10  |     |B    |W    |B    |W    |B    |&#xA;-----------------------------------------------------------------------------&#xA;   48 |                                 |1.0  |L  24|L  49|D  27|D  35|L  37|&#xA;   ZZZ|          / R:  255   -&amp;gt; 185     |     |W    |B    |W    |B    |W    |&#xA;-----------------------------------------------------------------------------&#xA;   49 |                                 |1.0  |L  17|W  48|L  22|L  23|L  35|&#xA;   ZZZ|          / R:  154P5 -&amp;gt; 173P10  |     |B    |W    |B    |W    |W    |&#xA;-----------------------------------------------------------------------------&#xA;   50 |                                 |1.0  |H    |L  28|L  45|L  27|D  43|&#xA;   ZZZ|          / R:  188   -&amp;gt; 150     |     |     |W    |B    |B    |W    |&#xA;-----------------------------------------------------------------------------&#xA;   51 |                                 |1.0  |L  20|L  32|L  41|L  38|W  52|&#xA;   ZZZ|          / R:  139   -&amp;gt; 144     |     |B    |W    |B    |W    |W    |&#xA;-----------------------------------------------------------------------------&#xA;   52 |                                 |0.5  |L  19|D  10|L  31|L  39|L  51|&#xA;   ZZZ|          / R:  101P4 -&amp;gt; 104P9   |     |B    |W    |B    |W    |B    |&#xA;-----------------------------------------------------------------------------           &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5747" LastEditorUserId="291" LastEditDate="2015-01-25T21:10:28.130" LastActivityDate="2020-01-11T20:32:39.253" Title="Illegal swiss pairings?" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8445" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8436" CreationDate="2015-01-25T17:59:33.417" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Versions of this question are regularly asked here at chess.SE. Notice that the rules of the game leave no room for ambiguity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Fide Laws of Chess, Article 3.9:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The king is said to be 'in check' if it is attacked by one or more of the opponent's pieces, even if such pieces are constrained from moving to that square because they would then leave or place their own king in check. No piece can be moved that will either expose the king of the same colour to check or leave that king in check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is not legal for black to take the queen since it would expose the black king to check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1485" LastActivityDate="2015-01-25T17:59:33.417" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8446" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8444" CreationDate="2015-01-25T18:38:15.390" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Generally there is a little latitude that TD's have in order to avoid pairing teammates, but almost always there is a computer program used to do the pairings and that removes any possibility of manipulation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you have links to the USCF crosstables post them here and we can take a better look.  If the tournaments are rated by the USCF, the TD can receive sanctions if he is clearly manipulating pairings to favor certain players.  If the tournament is unrated, there's really nothing that the USCF can or will do, in that case the only real option is to vote with your feet and avoid those tournaments.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From what you've described, there are definitely cases where example #2 would be the correct way to pair (depending on color history and the ratings of the players involved).  It's possible that pairing players by tiebreaks is also allowed, so long as it's announced in advance (it would be a variation from standard pairing rules, so it has to be announced in all pre-tournament publicity).  The last example is really never allowed, and if there are crosstables to that effect, the USCF would almost definitely be interested, especially if this is a common occurrence. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you'd like to pursue this further with the USCF, the way to go about that would be to submit an ethics complaint.  There are &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.uschess.org/content/view/12650/35/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;directions for that on the USCF web site&lt;/a&gt;.  In short, submit all evidence that should be considered and a $25 &quot;good faith&quot; deposit and then the USCF Ethics Committee will review the complaint.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Based on the crosstable, it's very unlikely that this event alone would be enough for an ethics complaint.  All of the leaders were paired within the score group (or with someone a half point behind).  That is definitely reasonable, especially when teammate pairings might have been avoided.  It's possible that with several crosstables patterns of favoritism might emerge, but again, this one alone looks at least reasonable on its own.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12" LastEditorUserId="12" LastEditDate="2015-01-25T21:37:17.287" LastActivityDate="2015-01-25T21:37:17.287" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8447" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8443" CreationDate="2015-01-26T00:39:13.630" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are many types of Sicilians so you should specify which one you intend to play,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But generally a good book is: &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1857445880&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Starting out: The Sicilian&lt;/a&gt; by John Emms &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although there are a whole multitude of excellent books written about specific Sicilians so if you could specify more than I could recommend some excellent books on those specific Sicilians.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For Grunfeld it's a little simpler, an excellent book is &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1901983099&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Understanding the Grunfeld&lt;/a&gt; by Jonathan Rowson, which is a very well regarded book.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are many more excellent Grunfeld books but far too many to mention in this post.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3357" LastActivityDate="2015-01-26T00:39:13.630" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8448" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8432" CreationDate="2015-01-26T09:07:28.443" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;While this position is probably a dead draw, there is no way white could claim even the slightest advantage here. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sure, there are pawns on both sides of the board, but the d4-pawn closes the juiciest diagonals for the bishop and is an eternal target for the black knight. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even more important is the fact, that after black plays b5 the queenside is completely sealed. The white king cannot intrude and the bishop cannot attack anything. The same isn't true for the black knight … if white walks his king to the kingside he has to take possible counter play on the queenside into account.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just playing g6 and putting the king on f7 should be enough to defend the kingside for black. But if ever black really starts to march on the kingside with king and pawns, this frees up the black knight not only for queenside counterplay but also for kingside defence. I don't see how that would ever result in a white breakthrough.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So to sum up: This just isn't a position where white can put any pressure on black. Of course in the game apparently black put a lot of pawns on black squares, turning them into targets for the white bishop, but even that wasn't enough to tip the scales.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-01-26T09:07:28.443" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8449" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-01-26T10:23:06.170" Score="0" ViewCount="142" Body="&lt;p&gt;I used to go to the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.nowinchess.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.nowinchess.com/&lt;/a&gt; website to see what are the new tournaments, and grab PGN files of past tournaments. It was simple, and excellent. Suddenly, two weeks ago another content appeared, not in English... Does anyone have any idea what happened?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4501" LastActivityDate="2015-02-26T11:17:18.993" Title="Does anyone know what happened to nowinchess.com?" Tags="&lt;websites&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8451" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8449" CreationDate="2015-01-26T13:28:29.433" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There wasn't any upload after middle of the year 2013. When I was there last September I already had the feeling that the service has stopped.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5756" LastActivityDate="2015-01-26T13:28:29.433" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8452" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8464" CreationDate="2015-01-26T18:24:50.117" Score="9" ViewCount="607" Body="&lt;p&gt;I often play this variation of the Queen's Gambit Accepted:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. c4 dxc4 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. e3 e6 5. Bxc4 a6 6. O-O c5 7. dxc5 Qxd1 8. Rxd1 Bxc5 9. a3 b5 10. Be2 Bb7 11. b4 Be7 12. Bb2 Nbd7 13. Nc3 O-O 14. Rac1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is, what are the plans for White &amp;amp; Black? I get a bit lost when I reach this position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, any other tips on my opening would be most appreciated&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2015-01-29T10:58:35.220" Title="Plans for White and Black in the Queen's Gambit Accepted" Tags="&lt;queens-gambit-accepted&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8453" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8304" CreationDate="2015-01-26T20:35:12.613" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is not checkmate, since it's not possible to get in this position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5649" LastActivityDate="2015-01-26T20:35:12.613" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8454" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8449" CreationDate="2015-01-27T10:30:18.067" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;They are rebuildin the site. You could find the tournaments in nowinchess.com/wp/live.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Probably you should write a comment to ask them to translate the site.&#xA;If you need help I can do it for you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2872" LastActivityDate="2015-01-27T10:30:18.067" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8455" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-01-27T18:38:58.460" Score="5" ViewCount="2022" Body="&lt;p&gt;We live in a strange country. Instead of having championships for all group ages(U10, U12, etc) they just place everyone in a tournament and ship the top people of each group-age. I am third best in the U18(not because I'm a born talent, but because of lack of talents), and I have two competitors. The Nr.1 has beaten several IMs, the second one just got a 2070 rating in his first tournament ever, so you realize my situation. Not only do I have to face them in my group age, but also several other talented kids. So to make sure, I am going to use an offbeat, yet great opening, the Ponziani. I am sure no one knows this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have seen several opening lines of this, but I want to know what are the plans in the:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Nf6 variation&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;d5 variation&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;f5 variation&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Other minor variations&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3405" LastActivityDate="2015-06-20T15:22:28.453" Title="The Ponziani - What are the plans?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8456" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8461" CreationDate="2015-01-27T20:33:02.793" Score="7" ViewCount="15551" Body="&lt;p&gt;I enjoy watching chess videos where, say, an opening is analyzed and besides the main line, the lecturer also explores alternatives and explains why they are bad or good. I would like to do this exploration on my own.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The way I imagine doing it is playing as both White and Black on my Arena 3.5 with Stockfish engine installed. I'd like ot be doing all the moves myself, but having the engine explore possible moves only as suggestions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For now, I am stuck having to stop the engine on every move by pressing the red cross on the rightside panel, undoing the move done after I press the cross, and performing my own move. How to set up Arena to work the way I would like, or perhaps there is alternative free software that does this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5762" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-12-10T17:58:52.473" LastActivityDate="2020-12-10T17:58:52.473" Title="Arena: How to have the engine only analyze and let me play as both White and Black" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;arena&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="8457" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8455" CreationDate="2015-01-27T20:48:48.203" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to open with.  I can't answer the question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BUT&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm watching this video on youtube based upon your question and found it interesting and full of opinion.  IF you have not seen it, perhaps something in it will give you what you are looking for.  Due to my reputation being below 15 I can't comment, which I would have done, if I could have.  So apologies for posting this as an answer.  Look forward to somebody actually answering this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;here's the link.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_caorxTE2w&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_caorxTE2w&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5726" LastActivityDate="2015-01-27T20:48:48.203" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8458" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8455" CreationDate="2015-01-27T21:01:37.247" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Ponziani move order is that shown on the board below:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. c3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With 3. c3, White aims to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Prepare the pawn push d4&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Avoid the Ruy Lopez &amp;amp; Italian game lines, though transpositions can occur&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The down side of this non-developing move is that the queen-side knight is deprived of its best square. White often sacrifices material or structure (by accepting an isolated Queen's pawn) to develop.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In response to this, Black has 3 main moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;3...Nf6&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;r1bqkbnr/pppp1ppp/2n5/4p3/4P3/2P2N2/PP1P1PPP/RNBQKB1R b KQkq - 0 3&#xA;&#xA;3...Nf6 4. d4 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, Black can accept the gambit with 4...Nxe4. Play goes 5. d5 Ne7. 5...Nb8 is also played, but less often than 5...Ne7. White's plan here is as with an gambit - build a development lead, keep the initiative &amp;amp; attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or, he can accept the pawn with 4...exd4. Play goes 5. e5 Ne4 6. Qe2 d(f)5 7. exd(f)5 e.p., opening the position. White often gets an isolated Queen's paw position in these lines, which should be played like a gambit (keep the initiative, avoid trades &amp;amp; attack).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lastly, Black can play 4...d5, leading to a complex game with lots of central tension. Play goes 5. Bb5 aims to develop &amp;amp; prepare tactics based on the theme of removing the defender.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;3...d5&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;r1bqkbnr/pppp1ppp/2n5/4p3/4P3/2P2N2/PP1P1PPP/RNBQKB1R b KQkq - 0 3&#xA;&#xA;3...d5 4. Qa4 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Play can go 4... Qd6 5. Na3 (preparing to attack the Queen) Nf6 6. Nb5 Qe7 7. d3, and White has better development, a space advantage &amp;amp; a solid structure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Play can also become very complicated with 4... Bd7 exd5 5. Nd4, where Black is trying to develop with tactics against the Queen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;3...f5!?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;r1bqkbnr/pppp1ppp/2n5/4p3/4P3/2P2N2/PP1P1PPP/RNBQKB1R b KQkq - 0 3&#xA;&#xA;3...f5 4. exf5 Qf6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a gambit with play similar to the Latvian gambit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2015-01-27T21:01:37.247" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8459" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1709" CreationDate="2015-01-27T22:52:31.177" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;Main lines&quot; of the London System (with ...d5) start off with 1. d4 d5; 2. Bf4. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is an important line to learn when faced with &lt;strong&gt;1. d4 d5; 2. Nf3 Nf6; 3.Bf4&lt;/strong&gt; (which of course can arise via transposition: 1. d4 Nf6; 2. Nf3 d5; 3.Bf4).  This is inaccurate for white because of the following line:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.d4 d5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. Bf4 c5 4. e3 Nc6 5. c3 Qb6 6. Qb3 c4!&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now 7.Qc2 allows 7...Bf5! and Black is at least equal. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1479424&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Sample game&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If White plays &lt;strong&gt;7.Qxb6&lt;/strong&gt; it is nice for Black; Bc7 can be met either by Ra6 or b5. Black has a ready-made minority attack on the queenside.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White can avoid this whole line with &lt;strong&gt;3. c3&lt;/strong&gt; however (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1531999&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Sample game&lt;/a&gt;), so Black still needs to learn other plans against the London System. Another possible variation is &lt;strong&gt;6.Qc2!?&lt;/strong&gt; which leads to extreme complications.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4223" LastEditorUserId="4223" LastEditDate="2016-06-15T23:47:36.717" LastActivityDate="2016-06-15T23:47:36.717" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8460" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8456" CreationDate="2015-01-28T06:53:11.050" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe Fritz version something like 5.32 is available as a free download. Fritz allows you to plug in your engine of choice, so no problem using the Fritz interface with the latest free engine. Stockfish is fine and works on my setup with Fritz.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once you do that Fritz has an infinite analysis mode which does exactly what you want.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: Fritz 5.32 looks to be difficult to find. However ChessDB (&lt;a href=&quot;http://chessdb.sourceforge.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://chessdb.sourceforge.net/&lt;/a&gt;) will also do this. Just attach the engine of your choice and open an analysis window as you enter the moves on the board the analysis will show up in the window.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2015-01-28T07:18:06.010" LastActivityDate="2015-01-28T07:18:06.010" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8461" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8456" CreationDate="2015-01-28T09:51:39.523" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Arena 3.5, you can hit the &quot;Edit&quot; button next to &quot;Analyze&quot;, and continue doing moves. In the edit mode, it does not try to do a move automatically. If you keep the &quot;Analyze&quot; button as pressed, then it will analyze both sides of the game. I think this is what you are looking for. See screenshot attached.&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/SPy7p.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3158" LastActivityDate="2015-01-28T09:51:39.523" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8462" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8465" CreationDate="2015-01-29T06:38:18.930" Score="2" ViewCount="4140" Body="&lt;p&gt;Hi guys I have a problem with using stockfish engine which is using UCI protocol. I wanted to play black and the computer white. But so far I think that uci engine has no notion of state and it gives me the same best moves over. I wanted to know if there's a way to set UCI engine to play as black or white so when am playing as white and gives it move in FEN string notation. It will suggest a move to black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have the following log below:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;...&#xA;option name Emergency Move Time type spin default 30 min 0 max 5000&#xA;option name Minimum Thinking Time type spin default 20 min 0 max 5000&#xA;option name Slow Mover type spin default 80 min 10 max 1000&#xA;option name UCI_Chess960 type check default false&#xA;...&#xA;&#xA;uciok&#xA;setoption name Hash value 128&#xA;ucinewgame&#xA;&#xA;position startpost moves Ng1f3&#xA;info depth 1 seldepth 1 score cp 82 nodes 27 nps 27000 time 1 multipv 1 pv e2e4&#xA;info depth 2 seldepth 2 score cp 9 nodes 155 nps 155000 time 1 multipv 1 pv d2d4&#xA; d7d5&#xA;info depth 3 seldepth 3 score cp 56 nodes 278 nps 278000 time 1 multipv 1 pv d2d&#xA;4 d7d5 g1f3&#xA;info depth 4 seldepth 4 score cp 8 nodes 749 nps 749000 time 1 multipv 1 pv d2d4&#xA; g8f6 g1f3 d7d6&#xA;...&#xA;stop&#xA;&#xA;bestmove e2e4 ponder e7e5&#xA;&#xA;Comment : I make a move e2e4 and computer makes a move e7e5&#xA;&#xA;position startpos e7e5 (based on last computer move)&#xA;&#xA;go infinite&#xA;wait (5sec)&#xA;&#xA;bestmove e2e4 ponder e7e5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why is it still e2e4 ponder e7e5, the same best move as the last one. How can I set it to give a best move for black player (me). What kind of commands do i need to set here? Desperately need your help on this guys. Thanks&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;EDITED&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Guys I really appreciate your healthy discussion over this. But I only understand a few concepts regarding UCI engine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's what I have understood so far.&#xA;-&amp;gt; There is no FEN to PGN conversion because FEN is the positions of the chess pieces after a number of moves and its not possible to convert it to PGN because FEN doesn't contain the sequence necessary to be converted to PGN&#xA;-&amp;gt; PGN on the other hand contains the moves of the players in sequence so it can easily be converted to FEN&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Right now my problem is that DGTs electronic board only gives FEN where I use it as an input to our application and am still researching on how I can get PGN from it. I know Fritz shows the PGN as well as other GUI's.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Any ideas on where to proceed from here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5770" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2015-01-29T15:45:27.910" Title="UCI engine state notion" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;engines&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;evaluation&gt;&lt;uci&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8463" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8462" CreationDate="2015-01-29T07:35:04.923" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;When you give the position, you always have to give all the game moves, if you start with 'startpos'. The command basically means: Start with the starting position and then execute all these moves and then start to think …&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'position startpos e7e5' is probably just the starting position, because e7e5 isn't a legal move. After all in the starting position it's white to move. (To relinquish the move right you'd have to give a zero move which is 0000, I think.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So it just isn't thinking about the position you think it is thinking about.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There surely is a way to just update the position held internally by the engine, but I'm too lazy to look it up now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: As you are a chess-stackexchange (and therefore maybe chess-) newcomer, I also want to add, that possibly you won't have much fun playing against stockfish. The top engines just crush every human player. If your goal is to play an open game with chances for both sides, there are probably better options …&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: So actually this is the situation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The DGT-board gives you a FEN.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You'll give &quot;position fen FEN&quot; to stockfish.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Stockfish gives you a bestmove.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You'll give the move to the robot and it executes it on the board.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Your human player makes a move.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;… and back to the first point.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastEditorUserId="4362" LastEditDate="2015-01-29T15:45:27.910" LastActivityDate="2015-01-29T15:45:27.910" CommentCount="16" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8464" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8452" CreationDate="2015-01-29T10:58:35.220" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not an expert on this line, but one idea from &quot;Study chess with Matthew Sadler&quot; stuck in my mind: To play against the b7-bishop with f3 and e4. So that might be an objective for white. For black this is probably harder to archive, because the Nc3 is ready to jump into d5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But this Nc3 instead of Nd2 gives black a different target: The square c4. Say after 14…Rc8 15.Nd4 Ne5 makes some sense, to jump into c4 and possibly acquire the bishop pair. Though after 16.Nb3 this doesn't yet work tactically, because of 16…Nc4 17.Bxc4 Rxc4 18.Na5 Rc7 19.Nxb5 …&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So maybe 14…Rc8 15.Nd4 Nb6 is better, because on b6 the knight will be more stable. Then 16. Nb3 and possibly Nfd5 with the idea to exchange the Nc3 and go Bb7-d5-c4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This was a bit of a stream of consciousness, but I'll try to sum up:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Playing f3 and e4 to blunt the bishop b7 is an idea.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The squares c5,a5 and c4,a4 are targets for the pieces. Especially the knights can be very annoying if they reach such a square.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;There is always the idea of playing a4/a5 to try and liquidate the whole queenside, especially if there is still a rook on the a-file. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;This might look like a very calm position, but with so many pieces still on the board, you should definitely look out for tactical possibilities.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If you don't find anything better to do, you can move your king closer to the centre: It is always possible, that some mass exchanges leave you in an endgame, where the king centralisation will be key.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-01-29T10:58:35.220" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8465" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8462" CreationDate="2015-01-29T12:20:48.157" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Use the &quot;position fen&quot; command.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, take a look at &lt;a href=&quot;http://support.stockfishchess.org/kb/advanced-topics/uci-protocol&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://support.stockfishchess.org/kb/advanced-topics/uci-protocol&lt;/a&gt;. From the example in the link, you could easily change to black's move by&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;position fen rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR b KQkq - 0 1&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Simply change &quot;... w KQkq&quot; to &quot;... b KQkq&quot;. The letter tells the engine which color to move for the position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To start an infinite analysis, use &quot;go infinite&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please note that &quot;position startpos&quot; assumes a valid move sequence. Failed to do so will result in undefined behavior - it could crash, do nothing or something else.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edited:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;FEN and PGN are two different things. FEN represents a particular position on the board. PGN is the whole game. You don't convert from one to the other. Talking about conversion is meaningless.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;You don't do &quot;position startpos FEN1 FEN2 FEN3 FEN4&quot;, please read the UCI specification again. You give the moves with the startpos command, not the position itself.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Stockfish doesn't care how you tell it to reach a particular position.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;There is a comment that giving a startpos would be a better way to start a game. But why? Think again, and ask yourself, why?? Why would you think giving a command like &quot;startpos e2e4 e7e5 .... ..... (20 more moves) .... .... &quot; is better than simply giving out the FEN of the position? You typically use a chess GUI to interact with an engine, and the chess GUI must have its own chess-board validator. It's quite easy to generate a FEN string from a validator. However, generating a sequence of moves from the initial position would involve looping over all moves, the complexity of the operation is O(n) where n is the number of moves in the game. Furthermore, you'd have to reserve extra buffer to save the long string. The engine would then have to parse the long string, again this is a slow operation. The startpos is strictly unnecessary.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edited Again for the poster&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PGN can technically be converted into a sequence of FEN positions, but it's meaningless. Nobody does that. Your confusion is all based on the fact that you don't know how to interact with an engine. Don't worry, I'll guide you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Before you can do anything, you'll need a board generator in your own code. You'll need it because you need something to tell Stockfish what to do, and the only way to do that is with a board generator. Every single chess GUI has it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Make sure you can use your board generator to convert your position to a FEN or a sequence of moves from the initial position. Either way works, you don't need a PGN. I repeat, you DON'T NEED a PGN to interact with a chess engine. Forget about the PGN, period.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, it's easy. You make a move on your physical chess board. Your board generator updates the move and sends the update to Stockfish. The update could be a FEN string or a sequence of moves from the initial position. It doesn't really matter which way you go. I recommend the FEN approach because it'll be easier for you to debug your UCI session.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2015-01-29T15:35:25.623" LastActivityDate="2015-01-29T15:35:25.623" CommentCount="20" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8466" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8468" CreationDate="2015-01-29T16:03:20.133" Score="2" ViewCount="473" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been invited by a club to join. I've never played  in a club before. He said I should sign papers, and then I can play for fun and free and represent the club in tournaments.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is, do you sign a contract or some papers when joining a club? The reason I'm worried is because in my country it's common for football and Volley-ball clubs to seduce the youth into signing life long contracts.  (maybe against the law but few go to court to demand justice, and  most of the times the clubs win the case)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My uncle was the best volley-ball player in the country, now retired, signed a life long contract and couldn't go to other clubs because his club refused to release his contract. My friend has signed a similar contract with a youth football team and now he can't join a professional team so he quit football (soccer).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have other concerns as well, for instance the club plays most of the times afternoon, I have university or maybe I don't want to go, maybe I prefer playing Xbox  at home.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I mean if joining a club is just for fun, then why signing a contract? Signing a contract is the exact opposite of having fun. And chess is an individual game. Besides, if he wants me to sign, so he can coach me, I don't need coaching, I'm satisfied with my level of chess and all I want is to have fun if my free time by joining a club.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If he wants my signature to make sure I don't join another club, then it's none of his business, I'm leaving my country soon and when I do so, I will join another club. I want no strings attached, otherwise I prefer to play online.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So when you join a club do you sign papers? If so what do you look for when reading the contracts? Is there anything I should be concerned about. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1105" LastEditorUserId="1105" LastEditDate="2015-01-29T16:36:58.180" LastActivityDate="2020-01-22T16:28:04.460" Title="Do you sign papers when joining a chess club?" Tags="&lt;clubs&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8467" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8161" CreationDate="2015-01-29T16:15:55.073" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would suggest &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.amazon.co.uk/Caro-Kann-Move-Cyrus-Lakdawala/dp/1857446879/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;amp;ie=UTF8&amp;amp;qid=1422547631&amp;amp;sr=1-1&amp;amp;keywords=caro-kann&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;The Caro-Kann: Move by Move&lt;/a&gt;. The author, Cyrus Lakdawala, is very lucid &amp;amp; seems to play in the style that appeals to you. Specifically:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;He advocates same side castling in the classical variation&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;He gives an alternative to the ...c5 break in th advance variations, namely the ...f6 break&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;He advocates ...e6 in the Panov&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The move by move series goes through top level games with question and answer format. Many of the games covered were played by Karpov, so if you like his style of play, then you'll like the book. Smyslov, the endgame virtuoso, has a significant number of games too, seeing as the first few chapters cover the Smyslov variation of the classical lines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS. I have no affiliation with the author - I'm recommending the book because I'm a Caro-Kann player who likes the book.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2015-01-29T16:15:55.073" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8468" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8466" CreationDate="2015-01-29T16:40:10.743" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, usually you sign papers when you join a club. After all you commit yourself to paying the membership fee (even if in your case there is none) and for a financial commitment there has to be some kind of legal foundation. And there are other issues like whether it is allowed to play for several clubs, whether you get a national rating or an Elo and what happens with your personal data in that case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But this shouldn't be a big deal. If the contract is a very long and complicated affair, I would get suspicious, too. Best take the contract home and show it to your parents, or somebody who can assess it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: This is the way it is usually done in Germany. But clubs are taken very seriously in our country. ;-) And our chess league system is really very thoroughly organised, so maybe that plays a role as well. Basically every club has a set of rules, pretty much like a democratic constitution, which you have to accept by signing. And although you can be a member of many clubs, you can only be an &quot;active&quot; member of one club at a time, so that is usually specified in the application form as well. (Except when you are a women, then you can be &quot;active&quot; for the normal league system for one club, and &quot;active&quot; in the women's league for another club …). Then you have to agree that your personal data is used for all kinds of nefarious purposes (like rating), and possibly acknowledge that it will take x month to end the membership (So if you end the membership too late, another payment is due). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastEditorUserId="4362" LastEditDate="2015-01-30T08:55:04.250" LastActivityDate="2015-01-30T08:55:04.250" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8469" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8466" CreationDate="2015-01-29T18:24:52.853" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the United States, this would be very uncommon. I've belonged to many clubs, and I have never signed a contract of any sort. They typically collect annual membership fees, and for that you do not need a contract in this country, because there is no commitment to continue paying. This money goes toward renting the club space and hosting tournaments.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your country, things may be different. A chess club may not be as informal as it is here. It might be more of a team than a club. Or maybe this particular club is trying to be a school, or operate like a business.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you're concerned about them trying to take away your freedom, read the contract. If it doesn't make sense why they included something, don't sign. Start your own club and make it be just for fun. Also consider joining or starting a chess club at your university. That kind of involvement looks good when you graduate or transfer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2681" LastEditorUserId="2681" LastEditDate="2015-01-29T18:36:50.503" LastActivityDate="2015-01-29T18:36:50.503" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8470" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8473" CreationDate="2015-01-30T07:45:24.053" Score="6" ViewCount="1275" Body="&lt;p&gt;In 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 e6 3.d4, why does white play and exchange the c5 pawn?&#xA;If white does not do so, how can I take advantage of this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As an example:&#xA;1.e4 c5&#xA;2.Bc4 e6&#xA;3.Bb3 Nc6&#xA;4.Nf3 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;what is the best response from black?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3050" LastActivityDate="2017-12-29T09:21:57.233" Title="In sicilian defence, why would white always exchange the c5 pawn. What harm would it do otherwise?" Tags="&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;&lt;1.e4&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8471" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8466" CreationDate="2015-01-30T09:17:32.593" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Finland, chess clubs are registered associations, and there's no reason to sign anything when joining one, only to give your basic information and pay the membership fee - and I've never heard of that happening. I don't know about the culture in other countries.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, some top players in a team of a chess club might sign contracts saying that the club agrees to pay their travel to team matches, and probably some extra, and the players agree to play in the matches.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If he wants my signature to make sure I don't join another club&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've never seen this either: the Finnish Chess Federation only allows a player to represent one club at a time (though he can be a member of multiple chess clubs) so there's no need for a club to have a separate contract for that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Technically, the club might benefit from being able to prevent people to join other clubs ever, because that would mean they would have more members and perhaps more money. But to me this sounds no different than saying that a person would benefit from having you sign a paper saying you buy his shoes for 10 000 €. People can try to cheat you into signing all kinds of papers, and unfortunately there's no way for strangers on the Internet to know about particular cases. We don't know if that is common in your country.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As others have said, I suggest you ask the contact person what the papers are about, and read them before signing them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1761" LastActivityDate="2015-01-30T09:17:32.593" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8472" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-01-30T09:37:38.543" Score="3" ViewCount="4415" Body="&lt;p&gt;Preferably written in javascript, but the language really doesn't matter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3326" LastActivityDate="2016-03-14T01:41:29.513" Title="Which is the smallest chess engine with ELO at least 2000?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8473" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8470" CreationDate="2015-01-30T10:55:30.973" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;White doesn't always play d4. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Apart from the line you mention, there is also the King's Indian Attack and the Closed Sicilian, where white plays g3 and Bg2, the Grand Prix Attack, where white plays f4 and the Rossolimo, where white plays Bb5 (after Nc6 or d6).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In all those lines d3 is usually played instead of d4. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But 3.d4 is the most common line: It removes the influence of blacks c5-pawn on the centre and installs a knight on a very central square. This leads to a space advantage for white, which can often result in quick attacking victories. Black on the other hand has longterm trumps in his two central pawns and open c-file. This setup leads to strategically and tactically very rich positions, which explains part of the popularity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not playing 3.d4 doesn't lead to a worse position for white. It only arguably makes it easier for black to reach an equal position. Even the line you give, which really is unusual, doesn't guaranty black an advantage. He will probably just continue to develop with Nf6, Be7, 0-0 and maybe at one point expand on the queenside or play d5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-01-30T10:55:30.973" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8474" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8472" CreationDate="2015-01-30T12:17:20.093" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not aware of any &quot;small&quot; chess engine written in JavaScript, but there's a &quot;small&quot; engine written in C. Micro-max has about 1900 to 2000 rating, depends on the rating list and testing condition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.computerchess.org.uk/ccrl/4040/cgi/engine_details.cgi?print=Details+%28text%29&amp;amp;eng=Micro-Max%204.8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.computerchess.org.uk/ccrl/4040/cgi/engine_details.cgi?print=Details+%28text%29&amp;amp;eng=Micro-Max%204.8&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that it's not the smallest engine, but the engine that is even smaller than Micro-max plays awful chess (dropping pieces) and even walk into check (illegal move).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2015-01-30T12:17:20.093" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8475" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6282" CreationDate="2015-01-30T16:37:00.267" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just like in other sports women are less likely to be motivated by society to pursue greatness or a high skill level. It's the &quot;you throw like a girl&quot; concept. In this patriarchy women are taught that they should not be the ones performing in those tournaments. The separation between women and men in chess is just remnant of roots of the chess society, which is undoubtly patriarchaic. I don't think women will get less stares in an women-only tournament, and the setting itself won't be different too. Also if women where to be able to compete in such levels it would also give them the chance to improve by playing against those high-level players. It's just lazy to assume, those rulings are being made to protect women from this unfriendly competitive enviroment. It's also not a biological difference, that causes women to be less competetive and therefore not reach the level of top class chess players. The olympic games for example show us that women are just as competetive as men and can compete in the same enviroment as them. The seperation there is needed because women and men have a different physiology than women and can therefore show a higher physical capacity. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;english isn't my motherlanguage, so I want to apologize for some of my mistakes and bad expressions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5778" LastActivityDate="2015-01-30T16:37:00.267" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8477" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8400" CreationDate="2015-01-31T08:46:08.730" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's a silly trick.  The board is upside-down!  The bottom left square is h8, and the top right is a1.  A legal move for white (but not a mate in 1) would be &lt;code&gt;1. e8=Q&lt;/code&gt;.  Look at it upside-down for a minute, readjust your perception of which squares are controlled by pawns, and you'll soon find a mate in 1.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5781" LastEditorUserId="5781" LastEditDate="2015-02-14T12:48:32.893" LastActivityDate="2015-02-14T12:48:32.893" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8478" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8455" CreationDate="2015-01-31T17:37:17.187" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;This book might help - Play the Ponziani by Dave Taylor.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.amazon.co.uk/Play-Ponziani-Everyman-Chess-Taylor/dp/1857446208&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.amazon.co.uk/Play-Ponziani-Everyman-Chess-Taylor/dp/1857446208&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4543" LastActivityDate="2015-01-31T17:37:17.187" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8479" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6282" CreationDate="2015-01-31T17:45:19.047" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Excellent question. There's no good reason for it. Gender differentiation probably has a negative effect on female achievement in chess. Notably Judit Polgar (until recently the highest rated woman ever to play the game) never played in female only events. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It might have been thought that a woman could never win a Fields medal in mathematics, and this happened recently, so there's no reason to believe there wouldn't be a female world chess champion one day.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4543" LastActivityDate="2015-01-31T17:45:19.047" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8480" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8443" CreationDate="2015-01-31T18:00:09.760" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Winning with the Sicilian by Mark Taimanov.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4543" LastActivityDate="2015-01-31T18:00:09.760" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8481" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-01-31T18:21:01.367" Score="4" ViewCount="2491" Body="&lt;p&gt;I played the London system for the first time today and encountered a problem in my second game (I won my first).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;rn1qkb1r/ppp1pppp/5n2/3p1b2/3P1B2/5N2/PPP1PPPP/RN1QKB1R w KQkq - 4 4&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the best response to black copying your moves in the London?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5782" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2015-02-01T00:42:45.893" LastActivityDate="2015-03-03T13:26:05.757" Title="London System: how to defeat copying moves?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;london-system&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="10" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8482" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8432" CreationDate="2015-02-01T00:09:00.470" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Does White actually have any advantage? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No, White has no advantage here whatsoever. With proper play, the game should end in a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why I am I so certain that White has nothing in this position? Well, let us analyze the position using the diagram I submitted below:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Qmz0r.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Red color represent squares that Black knight control, while pink color represents squares controlled by Black pawns. Green color represents squares on which Black king can penetrate into White camp.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By looking at the diagram, you can clearly see the barrier knight and pawns on the queenside create for the White king. You can see that Black has sealed the queenside and White can not create any counterplay there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White can not penetrate through center of the board either, as we can clearly see on the diagram, since &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt; + &lt;code&gt;e6&lt;/code&gt; pawns and knight block entry points.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This leaves kingside as the last hope, but Black king has a route ( marked with green color ) that can take to prevent White king to penetrate. White &lt;strong&gt;can not&lt;/strong&gt; stop Black king to take this route.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black bishop has no targets to attack, and is bound to the defense of the &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt; pawn. This pawn is a serious weakness in White camp and the biggest problem is that White &lt;strong&gt;can not&lt;/strong&gt; get rid of it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black knight is very well posted, and restricts White pieces to the defense of the weak pawn. Black king is about to get active as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;CONCLUSION:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White must play &lt;code&gt;g4!&lt;/code&gt; in order to prevent Black king from penetrating. After that move he has sufficient resources to defend with ease.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What should White's plan be to try and win&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White must wait for a mistake, after playing &lt;code&gt;g4!&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;are there any particular pawn structures White should aim for?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White has better minor piece for the endgame, but that weak pawn hinders him to utilize his advantage. In endgames, bishop is always stronger than a knight, &lt;em&gt;if the side with the bishop has no weaknesses.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White should strive to create imbalance by forcing Black somehow to play &lt;code&gt;...e5&lt;/code&gt;. The passed pawn is nothing special as it is central one, and bishop is fast enough to catch it on time, so Black would not have much.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, after &lt;code&gt;...e5&lt;/code&gt;, white should aim to create a passed &lt;code&gt;h&lt;/code&gt; pawn in order to play for the win. That pawn should reach &lt;code&gt;h6&lt;/code&gt; so the bishop could defend it from afar, while keeping &quot;an eye&quot; on the Black passed pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This would tie Black king/knight to the proximity of the White passed pawn, enabling White king to possibly penetrate on the queenside.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, this is all hypothetical talking, Black would never allow such a thing to happen. Your question was about winning pawn structure, so my answer is to get the pawn structure where you have passed &lt;code&gt;h&lt;/code&gt; pawn, and &lt;code&gt;d&lt;/code&gt; pawn is exchanged. That is the pawn structure White should aim for. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Your second diagram looks very promising, but at the moment I have no time to analyze it. I believe you could have won with slightly better play. He (or she?) made such terrible moves, that if pressured just for few more moves, he/she would crack ( I am 100% sure of this ). Maybe I will update this post with thorough analysis -&gt;let us hope that I will solve the problems at work.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Best regards, feel free to leave a comment if you need help or you have anny follow up questions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastActivityDate="2015-02-01T00:09:00.470" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8483" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8481" CreationDate="2015-02-01T07:35:47.470" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you play the London then you have to be aware and ready for favourable transpositions to other openings like the Queen's Gambit, Slav, Barry Attack (John Nunn famously lost twice to Hebden against this and then complained bitterly that the derogatory name, &quot;Barry Attack&quot;, just rubbed salt into the wound ;-), 150, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is such a case. Here, or even on the previous move, White should be looking to play c4 for a QGD variation where the black bishop is misplaced on f5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Check out chapter 7 Symmetrical: 2...Bf5 and 3...Bf5 of &quot;Win with the London System&quot; by Sverre Johnsen and Vlatko Kovacevic for more ideas.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2015-02-01T07:35:47.470" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8484" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8487" CreationDate="2015-02-01T11:16:56.520" Score="2" ViewCount="479" Body="&lt;p&gt;Does anyone know, what the exact time control was for the groups A and B in the&#xA; tata steel tournament last month ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I remember something with 100 minutes for 40 moves and 50 minutes for 20 moves&#xA; and 15 minutes for the rest and 30 seconds increment from move 1. Is this&#xA; correct ? And was the time control identical for group A and group B ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5784" LastActivityDate="2015-02-01T11:58:25.360" Title="What was the time control in tata steel tournament?" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;time-control&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8485" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8486" CreationDate="2015-02-01T11:25:52.640" Score="3" ViewCount="210" Body="&lt;p&gt;I wanted to know the ranking of Baadur Jobava after his disastrous tournament in&#xA; Tata Steel. But the only updated ranking list I found got to 2700 Elo and Jobava&#xA; seems to be below this mark now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does anyone know the actual ranking and the ELO ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5784" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2015-02-01T17:51:44.143" LastActivityDate="2015-02-01T17:51:44.143" Title="Ranking of Baadur Jobava" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;elo&gt;&lt;grandmaster&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8486" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8485" CreationDate="2015-02-01T11:38:02.520" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Today the newest Elo list was published:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.chessbase.com/post/february-2015-ratings-the-fulfillment-of-promise&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://en.chessbase.com/post/february-2015-ratings-the-fulfillment-of-promise&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;48.   Jobava, Baadur 2696&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-02-01T11:38:02.520" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8487" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8484" CreationDate="2015-02-01T11:45:44.083" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.tatasteelchess.com/tournament/information&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.tatasteelchess.com/tournament/information&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Time control&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The time control is: 100 minutes for 40 moves, followed by 50 minutes for 20 moves, then 15 minutes for the remaining moves with 30 seconds cumulative increment for each move starting from the first move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So you remembered correctly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And, yes, should be the same for A and B.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastEditorUserId="4362" LastEditDate="2015-02-01T11:58:25.360" LastActivityDate="2015-02-01T11:58:25.360" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8488" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4136" CreationDate="2015-02-01T14:54:58.583" Score="18" Body="&lt;p&gt;If this helps, I'm developing an interactive tree graph with chess traps and openings at &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesstree.net&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chesstree.net&lt;/a&gt;. Currently, it shows common openings, how often they are used, and their win-loss ratios. You can also search openings and save your custom openings with comments. It also has a batch of traps in it, although their presentation is yet somewhat unrefined.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5787" LastEditorUserId="5787" LastEditDate="2015-10-15T09:13:53.823" LastActivityDate="2015-10-15T09:13:53.823" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8490" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8491" CreationDate="2015-02-01T21:06:01.507" Score="7" ViewCount="1623" Body="&lt;p&gt;I find it interesting that the Queen can move with the same capabilities as the Rook and the Bishop, but cannot 'jump' or move like the Knight, I understand that this would overpower the queen but theoretically could make the game more interesting, quicker, or more strategic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I want to know, what are the practical implications of giving the Queen this extra move-set?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there any obscure chess variations where this is allowed?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4590" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-11-16T22:59:02.290" LastActivityDate="2019-11-16T22:59:02.290" Title="Queen with Knight capabilities" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;history&gt;&lt;unorthodox-pieces&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8491" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8490" CreationDate="2015-02-01T21:31:46.233" Score="6" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Are there any obscure chess variations where this is allowed?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are. One name for the queen+knight hybrid piece is the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_%28chess%29&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Amazon&lt;/a&gt;. As noted in the Wikipedia entry on the Amazon piece I just linked to, the Amazon appears in the variant sometimes called &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessvariants.org/historic.dir/indiangr1.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Turkish Great Chess&lt;/a&gt;, a game played on a 10x10 board and featuring besides the Amazon (which is typically called a Giraffe in Turkish Great Chess) two other &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairy_chess_piece&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;fairy chess pieces&lt;/a&gt;: a bishop+knight piece (Vizir) and a rook+knight piece (War Machine). (Those sorts of pieces appear under yet different names in the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capablanca_chess&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Capablanca Chess&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seirawan_chess&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Seirawan Chess&lt;/a&gt; variants as well.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/JM95T.png&quot; alt=&quot;Turkish Great Chess&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A second variant that is mentioned in the Amazon Wikipedia entry is &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessvariants.org/unequal.dir/maharaja.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;The Maharaja and the Sepoys&lt;/a&gt;, which provides a severe test for the might of the Amazon: namely, it pits a lone Amazon (Maharaja) against a standard chess army on an 8x8 board. An Amazon is capable of checkmating a king by itself, and that is its objective, while the standard army is tasked with checkmating the very mobile Amazon. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ANfzB.png&quot; alt=&quot;Maharaja and the Sepoys&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2015-02-01T21:52:42.310" LastActivityDate="2015-02-01T21:52:42.310" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8492" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8493" CreationDate="2015-02-02T06:28:27.503" Score="6" ViewCount="2572" Body="&lt;p&gt;I need help from someone who knows about UCI engines. I am giving the command by double clicking on stockfishengine.exe and manually entering commands.&#xA;I wanted to play white and I am running arena to play as computer (black).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I entered the following pgns in sequence:&#xA;e2e4, e7e5 (arena)... , e2e4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Commands entered:&#xA;uci&#xA;...&#xA;ucinewgame&#xA;...&#xA;position startpos&#xA;...&#xA;go infinite&#xA;...logs here...&#xA;stop&#xA;bestmove e2e4 ponder&#xA;------------&#xA;Arena GUI using stockfish engine made move : e7e5&#xA;------------&#xA;position startpos e2e4 e7e5&#xA;go infinite&#xA;...&#xA;logs here&#xA;...&#xA;stop&#xA;bestmove e2e4 ponder e7e5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you can see above its still giving me e2e4 it should have suggested other moves for white instead of giving me the same best move. Can anyone help me on this? Thanks&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Update:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Its still giving me the same best move. Maybe their are other things that I have to set before issuing position startpos ... command?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/X2FDF.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/IyHQM.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5770" LastEditorUserId="5770" LastEditDate="2015-02-02T07:14:39.477" LastActivityDate="2015-02-02T07:14:39.477" Title="UCI engine command white giving the same move" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;engines&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;uci&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8493" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8492" CreationDate="2015-02-02T07:04:57.640" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Follow my instructions in the screenshot.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/NJVbZ.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ScFkR.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2015-02-02T07:04:57.640" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8494" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-02-02T09:02:12.917" Score="4" ViewCount="4060" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there a way to read a PGN file using the Stockfish engine? If so, please give a sample command.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5770" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-04-29T12:10:24.303" LastActivityDate="2021-04-29T12:10:24.303" Title="Reading PGN files using thr Stockfish engine" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;pgn&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;uci&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="8496" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-02-02T12:21:14.230" Score="3" ViewCount="148" Body="&lt;p&gt;In these two games, can you describe the performance of White? Whether it was highly tactical, aggressive or positional...etc&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 d5 2. exd5 Nf6 3. d4 Bf5 4. c4 e6 5. dxe6 fxe6 6. Nc3 Bb4 7. a3 Bxc3+ 8.&#xA;bxc3 c5 9. Bd3 Qa5 10. Ne2 cxd4 11. Bxf5 exf5 12. O-O dxc3 13. Rb1 O-O 14. Rxb7&#xA;Nc6 15. Rb5 Qa6 16. Qd3 Rad8 17. Qxc3 Qc8 18. Be3 a6 19. Rb6 Rf7 20. f3 Re8 21.&#xA;Nf4 Ne5 22. Rc1 Qxc4 23. Qxc4 Nxc4 24. Rxc4 Rxe3 25. Rxa6 Rd7 26. a4 Re1+ 27.&#xA;Kf2 Ra1 28. h4 Kf7 29. a5 Ng8 30. Rc8 Ne7 31. Rb8 Ra2+ 32. Kg3 Ng8 33. h5 Nf6&#xA;34. Rb5 g6 35. hxg6+ hxg6 36. Rbb6 Nh5+ 37. Nxh5 gxh5 38. Rf6+ Kg8 39. Rxf5&#xA;Rg7+ 40. Kf4 Rgxg2 41. Rxh5 Rgd2 42. Ke5 Rd7 43. Ke6 Rc7 44. f4 Rg2 45. Rg5+&#xA;Rxg5 46. fxg5 Kg7 47. Kd5 Rc1 48. Rb6 Kf7 49. a6 Kg7 50. a7 Ra1 51. Rb7+ Kg6&#xA;52. Kc6 Rc1+ 53. Kb6 Ra1 54. Kc7 Kxg5 55. Kb8 Kf4 56. a8=Q Rxa8+ 57. Kxa8 Ke5&#xA;58. Rh7 Kd5 59. Kb7 Kc4 60. Rd7 Kc5 61. Rd8 Kb5 62. Rc8 Kb4 63. Kb6 Ka3 64. Kb5&#xA;Kb3 65. Rc6 Ka3 66. Kc4 Kb2 67. Kb4 Ka1 68. Rc2 Kb1 69. Kb3 Ka1 70. Rc1# 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. Nf3 Nf6 2. d4 e6 3. Bf4 Nc6 4. e3 Nh5 5. Bg5 Be7 6. Bxe7 Qxe7 7. c4 Qb4+ 8.&#xA;Nc3 Qxb2 9. Nb5 O-O 10. Qb1 Qxb1+ 11. Rxb1 d6 12. Nxc7 Rb8 13. Nb5 d5 14. cxd5&#xA;exd5 15. Bd3 Bg4 16. Ne5 Nf6 17. Nxg4 Nxg4 18. Nd6 b6 19. Rc1 Na5 20. Ke2 Rfd8&#xA;21. Nb5 Rb7 22. Rc2 g6 23. Rhc1 Kg7 24. Rc7 Rxc7 25. Rxc7 Nxh2 26. Nxa7 Ra8 27.&#xA;f3 Nc4 28. Kf2 Nb2 29. Be2 Nc4 30. Bxc4 dxc4 31. Kg1 Nxf3+ 32. gxf3 h6 33. a4&#xA;c3 34. Nb5 c2 35. Rxc2 Rxa4 36. Rc7 Kf6 37. Nd6 Ra1+ 38. Kf2 h5 39. Nxf7 b5 40.&#xA;Ne5 g5 41. Rc6+ Ke7 42. Rb6 h4 43. Rxb5 Ra2+ 44. Kg1 h3 45. Rb6 Re2 46. d5 Rd2&#xA;47. e4 Kf8 48. d6 Kg8 49. Rb8+ Kg7 50. d7 Kf6 51. Re8 h2+ 52. Kh1 Rd1+ 53. Kxh2&#xA;Rd2+ 54. Kh3 Rd1 55. d8=Q+ Rxd8 56. Rxd8 Kxe5 57. Kg4 Kf6 58. Rd5 Kf7 59. Kxg5&#xA;Ke6 60. f4 Kf7 61. Re5 Kg7 62. Rf5 Kh8 63. Kg6 Kg8 64. e5 Kh8 65. Rf8# 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5791" LastActivityDate="2015-02-02T13:25:42.370" Title="Describe White's performance in these two games" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;attack&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8497" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8496" CreationDate="2015-02-02T13:25:42.370" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, certainly not highly tactical or aggressive. Both games strike me as rather slow and systematic. You can call that solid, if you like, though the openings seemed to be a bit shaky. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seemed to me that you saw the tactical details a lot better than your opponents, which made the games rather onesided. But that is not so much a stylistic difference, but a difference in strength. Of course, more evenly matched games usually give a better impression of a player's style, so next time maybe choose games games where you actually meet some resistance (possibly even lose! ;-)).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some GMs say that amateurs don't have a style of play. They say a true chess style only develops when you reach master strength. I think that is chauvinistic bullshit. The weaker you are, the stronger personal preferences feature in your choice of moves. To me that is part of the beauty of chess, you can be creative even if you don't know much more than the rules.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-02-02T13:25:42.370" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8498" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7653" CreationDate="2015-02-02T13:33:58.797" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think one of the best books on the subject has been written by Rogozenko.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;The Sveshnikov Reloaded&lt;/code&gt; explains the ideas very well with plenty of textual analysis and not only pages of long variations with only Informant type evaluation symbols. I have the book at home (even though I mainly play Najdorf and accelerated Dragon Sicilians), and I remember that one of things that pleases me most in this book is Rogozenko's clear explanations of the subtleties of move order tricks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first edition is a bit outdated and might run into refutations, especially in the tactical lines (such as the bishop sacrifice line). But if I am not mistaken there is a &quot;recent&quot; (2012?) second edition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is the Quality Chess edition. According to me, one of the best editing houses around.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3528" LastEditorUserId="11202" LastEditDate="2017-05-19T09:07:40.070" LastActivityDate="2017-05-19T09:07:40.070" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8499" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8494" CreationDate="2015-02-02T14:05:27.867" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;No. Stockfish is an engine not GUI, it doesn't know or understand PGN. The bigger problem is why would you do that? Why would you want to use an engine on a PGN game? This is like giving a calculator your math exam and hope it'll give out answers magically. Please rethink why you would want to do this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2021-01-31T09:44:12.197" LastActivityDate="2021-01-31T09:44:12.197" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="8500" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8503" CreationDate="2015-02-02T20:28:33.537" Score="8" ViewCount="1128" Body="&lt;p&gt;Apart from the FEN notation, are there other even more compact known chess-position notations? One that would of course also entail castling rights, and en passant possibilities. &#xA;One really missing bit in the FEN is the fact that it carries no information as to whether the position corresponds to a checkmate or check for that matter. Of course one can always put the position on the board and see if it's a checkmate or not, but it is not directly deducible from the notation. So such property would also be of importance in distinguishing between possible notations (apart from compactness etc.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it helps, this is asked for practicality and efficiency reasons in programming. Thanks for any suggestions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5790" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-09-21T17:48:25.330" LastActivityDate="2019-09-21T17:48:25.330" Title="Alternatives to the FEN notation" Tags="&lt;notation&gt;&lt;fen&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="8501" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8500" CreationDate="2015-02-03T15:51:20.733" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Extended Position Description (&lt;a href=&quot;https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Extended+Position+Description&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;EPD&lt;/a&gt;) adds &quot;operations&quot; to FEN. These operations include, among others, best move, repetition count, and predicted move. It's not, obviously, more compact, but it does more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2297" LastActivityDate="2015-02-03T15:51:20.733" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8502" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8513" CreationDate="2015-02-03T19:09:28.630" Score="3" ViewCount="572" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there any web chess interface that lets me handle chess pieces as I like ?&lt;br&gt;&#xA; I mean  it will allow me to drag and drop pieces wherever I want them to be on the chessboard and add as many pieces as I like on it. I don't want an engine. I need simply an interface on the web, or some simple html files that I will use on my laptop.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Thank you in advance for any suggestions &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2282" LastEditorUserId="2282" LastEditDate="2015-02-04T09:06:34.873" LastActivityDate="2015-02-06T12:29:45.710" Title="Web Interface for training by dragging and dropping pieces" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;chessboards&gt;&lt;websites&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8503" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8500" CreationDate="2015-02-03T19:28:46.073" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Since you're talking about programming, you're presumably looking for a storage scheme more compact &lt;em&gt;in computer memory space&lt;/em&gt; than FEN. Besides going out to research how it's done in large tablebases, two possibilities come to my mind immediately.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Normal FEN&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the sake of this discussion, &quot;normal&quot; FEN is just a typical text string represented with 1-byte (8-bit) characters. Let's look at a &lt;em&gt;simplified worst case&lt;/em&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;r1b1k1n1/1p1p1p1p/p1p1p1p1/1n1q1b1r/R1B1P1N1/1P1P1P1P/P1P1K1P1/1N1Q1B1R w KQkq e3 999 999&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This isn't a valid FEN of course, but it's an effective upper bound on our complexity. There are eight characters per rank, plus seven slashes, five spaces, and thirteen additional characters make up the remaining fields. That's 89 characters, for a total size of &lt;strong&gt;712 bits&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Compressed FEN&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This version is just taking the a FEN representation and using some basic observations to reduce the number of bits required to store it. Here are our observations:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The slashes are unnecessary for machine storage; each rank must simply &quot;add to 8&quot;. So we can eliminate slashes in our internal representation.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The remaining possible characters (in the first section) are: &lt;code&gt;kK qQ rR bB nN pP 12345678&lt;/code&gt;. Distinction between 20 characters fits in five bits, so in our simplified worst case, we have five bits times eight files times eight ranks is 320 bits for the first part.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;We don't need any spaces; again they're a convenience for humans. That saves us five characters.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;Who has the move&quot; is one bit: White or Black.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Castling availability is four bits: available/unavailable for each of &lt;code&gt;KQkq&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;En passant&lt;/em&gt; is usually unavailable, and it can occupy a lot of space (six bits to represent all squares), so let's move it to the end and make it optional: if &lt;em&gt;en passant&lt;/em&gt; bits are present, it's available, but if it's unavailable we just terminate the representation after the move &amp;amp; half-move bits to save space.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;For simplicity, I'm just allocating ten bits for each of the move and half-move counters. This means that games represented in this format cannot exceed 1023 moves (half-moves since the last capture or pawn advance). &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Our full format looks like this (in a simplified worst case with &lt;em&gt;en passant&lt;/em&gt; available):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&amp;lt;position&amp;gt;&amp;lt;whose move&amp;gt;&amp;lt;castling&amp;gt;&amp;lt;half moves&amp;gt;&amp;lt;full moves&amp;gt;&amp;lt;en passant&amp;gt;&#xA; 320 bits  1 bit       4 bits    10 bits     10 bits     6 bits&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This gives us a total size of &lt;strong&gt;351 bits&lt;/strong&gt; in our impossible worst case, a little less than half the size of our starting point.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;µFEN&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If we abandon FEN altogether for the meat of the representation, we can slim it down a little further. Consider a single arbitrary square. That square can be empty, or it can have a piece on it. If it has a piece, it may be either white or black, and it may be a King, Queen, Rook, Bishop, Knight, or Pawn. That's a total of thirteen different states, which we can represent in four bits; something like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;0000: empty square&#xA;0001: White Pawn&#xA;0010: White Knight&#xA;0011: White Bishop&#xA;0100: White Rook&#xA;0101: White Queen&#xA;0110: White King&#xA;0111: unused&#xA;1000: unused&#xA;1001: Black Pawn&#xA;1010: Black Knight&#xA;1011: Black Bishop&#xA;1100: Black Rook&#xA;1101: Black Queen&#xA;1110: Black King&#xA;1111: unused&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Obviously there are some unused &quot;partial bits&quot;, so this scheme could almost certainly be improved further by someone with more knowledge of compression techniques, or simply a more careful mapping of the different states. Also in practice, this might be &lt;em&gt;larger&lt;/em&gt; than the &lt;em&gt;Compressed FEN&lt;/em&gt; described above, since there's no compression of contiguous blank spaces. However, it does represent the whole board in a constant 256 bits (4 bits * 64 squares), which is a 20% improvement in the worst cases.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For simplicity, we'll just tag on the latter half of the &lt;em&gt;Compressed FEN&lt;/em&gt; to complete the representation. So the format looks like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&amp;lt;position&amp;gt;&amp;lt;whose move&amp;gt;&amp;lt;castling&amp;gt;&amp;lt;half moves&amp;gt;&amp;lt;full moves&amp;gt;&amp;lt;en passant&amp;gt;&#xA; 256 bits  1 bit       4 bits    10 bits     10 bits     6 bits&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That gives us a worst-case space requirement of &lt;strong&gt;287 bits&lt;/strong&gt;. Not too bad!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Note 1:&lt;/strong&gt; Remember, this is all just a &lt;em&gt;worst-case analysis&lt;/em&gt; because I have a computer science background. Standard FEN usually performs much better than I have described it, since normal positions aren't the everyone-on-the-white-squares scenario I've used for comparisons here. So the percent improvements are likely a little lower than I've actually represented, but the trend probably still holds, at least for the compressed FEN representation. I'd be very interested if someone wanted to do a probabilistic average-case analysis for standard FEN (and by extension, the compressed version proposed above)!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Note 2:&lt;/strong&gt; Remember that the speed tradeoffs for dealing with compressed formats may or may not be worth it for your applications! Depending on what language you're using and the level of control you have over individual bits, you may find that simple FEN is significantly faster to &lt;em&gt;use&lt;/em&gt;, even if it requires more space!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Note 3:&lt;/strong&gt; If you wanted to add a &quot;check/checkmate/no-check&quot; indicator to either of the new proposed notations, it's an extra two bits to represent the three additional states. Just toss it in before the &lt;em&gt;en passant&lt;/em&gt; indicator.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1201" LastEditorUserId="1201" LastEditDate="2015-02-04T06:22:38.003" LastActivityDate="2015-02-04T06:22:38.003" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8504" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8500" CreationDate="2015-02-03T20:43:56.527" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Unless I am missing something obvious, the representation&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;0      empty&#xA;100    white pawn&#xA;101    black pawn&#xA;110xxx any piece except Rook&#xA;111x   Rook&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;encodes a full house (that is, prior to any capture) in 32*1 + 16*3 + 12*6 + 4*4= 168 positional bits. Plus, of course, 4 castle bits, 3 en passant bits, and 7 or 8 50-move-rule bits.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The worst case (8 pawns has been promoted by the cost of capturing 8 other pawns, resulting in 20 pieces + 4 rooks on board) requires 40*1 + 20*6 + 4*4 = 176 positional bits.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3774" LastActivityDate="2015-02-03T20:43:56.527" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8505" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8506" CreationDate="2015-02-03T21:22:24.347" Score="9" ViewCount="940" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recently found time to make a study plan and improve my playing strength. Using this plan, I was able to achieve a 1900 average rating on online chess sites. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since a couple of days, I have in a certain sense &quot;lost the feel&quot; of the game, for seemingly no reason at all, and my playing strength quickly dropped to the 1600-1700 range. No matter how hard I try, I don't seem to regain those abilities I had mere weeks ago. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How do I get that &quot;chess focus&quot; back? Has anyone had this experience before?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4215" LastActivityDate="2019-12-28T23:11:00.003" Title="Worrying inconsistency in playing strength" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;rating&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8506" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8505" CreationDate="2015-02-04T00:19:24.390" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;Don't worry you're not alone in this, I can assure you almost all chess players/enthusiasts go through such periods, not only at the start, but throughout their whole chess experience. Of course there are many elements involved here, that at the end of the day define your performance, but let's stick to those that are most common for all: (&lt;em&gt;bear in mind these points are purely speculative as I cannot possibly know what may be truly causing your performance drop without actually knowing you!&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning_curve&quot;&gt;Learning curve&lt;/a&gt;: Basically whatever new we learn and try to incorporate with our chess knowledge, be it new tactics, new positional ideas, more opening varieties, weird endgame situations, etc. there's some minimum necessary time involved (different for everyone of course) to be able to put these new ideas into practical usecases and actually make them work. Why? well one immediate reason is that everyhting in chess requires some amount of experience until it comes closer to being understood. Prime example is when we all first learnt about different checkmating ideas, and then wanted to immediately apply them in every game we played, and of course instead we just end up losing because by giving such strong importance just to some checkmating pattern we become completely ignorant to the more basic ideas underlying each position (activity, safety, structure etc.). So I think you most probably had an immediate boost to your rating (reaching 1900) more by blind chance than anything else.  &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;What you should retain from my first bullet point is: stay positive (i.e. care more about your play than rating, it's just a number after all...) and keep playing your usual chess, and whatever new you learn along the way, as you keep playing you will get more and more appropriate chances to putting them into good use, meaning you should let the occasions present themselves first and then try applying what you've learnt. By no means you should take this statement as equivalent to &quot;not controlling the evolution of the game&quot;, after all that's the whole point of positional play(keeping a grip on the position and imposing its evolution on your opponent to the extent that you can), my point only concerned specific precise new things that you may learn, e.g. rook endings, or known theoretical drawn configurations etc. In this way you will slow by slow incorporate everything new that you learn much more naturally. Simply put by playing more you will discover more about the applicability of the things you've learnt.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Now one orthogonal reason to the previous two would be: ratings are always fluctuating, specially on online servers (we most often just play for fun and mess around hence may end up losing a lot of points suddenly-also bearing in mind that they're usually short time control games-&gt;hard to keep a consistent rating), so I think everyone experiences this at any level, what is more important is your &lt;strong&gt;average&lt;/strong&gt; rating, say in the last 2 months, that says a lot more about your performance. I myself have always had drops of roughly -+200 rating points every now and then, same goes for most of my friends and people I play against. Chess is really a lot about struggling, because of the extremely rich dynamics of the game, in every game there are so many things that are completely different and unknown compared to our previous experience.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Another point you brought up was &quot;chess focus&quot;: One's mind may very well be completely at ease before sitting down and playing a game of chess, but may still lose his/her focus easily during the game if not careful. At any stage of the game, it is extremely crucial to stay completely alert of at least the most important elements of the position (no need for examples here really). But how? well apart from the fact that everyone has different ways of getting hooked into a game (concentrating), there are general ways of staying focused: e.g. whether it's your turn to play or not, you should be continuously calculating relevant lines to your postions, and absolutely avoid saying to yourself &quot;I'll just wait and see what he/she plays then I'll think about my move&quot;, instead you should always assume that there are more things to the position at hand that you see at first sight, so the more you try to calculate different variations (within the time you have) regardless of whether they're &lt;em&gt;working&lt;/em&gt; lines, you will nonetheless discover more about the space of possibilities hidden in the position, and always assume your opponent is going to play the best move you can think of. All of this, as part of your general attitude towards chess-playing, will to some extent improve your focusing abilities. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Enough with speculations :) My last advice: just keep up your playing routines and don't allow for big gaps of inactivity in your playing as much as you can, don't be ignorant towards your losses, instead dig into them as much as you can and you'll have a lot more concrete improvements resulting from that than anything else. Hope this has been helpful!&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3594" LastActivityDate="2015-02-04T00:19:24.390" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8507" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8502" CreationDate="2015-02-04T00:38:57.820" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The chess.com analysis board is probably what you are after, you don't even need to have legal moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/analysis-board-editor&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.chess.com/analysis-board-editor&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1815" LastActivityDate="2015-02-04T00:38:57.820" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8508" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8502" CreationDate="2015-02-04T23:57:08.017" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's also the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.lichess.org/editor&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;lichess board editor&lt;/a&gt;. It supports all the features you want, and will also let you get a computer analysis or play the position against the engine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5804" LastActivityDate="2015-02-04T23:57:08.017" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8509" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8331" CreationDate="2015-02-05T10:29:27.997" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to my calculations is about 10 ^ 134 different variants of the game&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://jknow.republika.pl/chessexplorer/szachy.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://jknow.republika.pl/chessexplorer/szachy.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5809" LastActivityDate="2015-02-05T10:29:27.997" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8510" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8331" CreationDate="2015-02-05T12:52:37.653" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;One simple argument that the number of chess games is finite could be as follows. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Due to the 50-move rule, any 50-move subsequence of a given chess game will contain at least one capture or a pawn move. Since there are finitely many pieces on the board, and since pawns can move only finitely many times during a game, the number of moves in a chess game has a finite bound. Since in each move, there are only finitely many possibilities, the numbers of all games is finite.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that this argument is almost useless if one wants to get an estimate on the number of possible games. If for nothing else, the only thing I use above is the 50-move rule and how the pieces move, so the repetitions are allowed (max. 50-fold repetitions, of course). Hence, the argument is just theoretical, not practical.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2792" LastActivityDate="2015-02-05T12:52:37.653" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8511" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-02-05T21:17:22.807" Score="4" ViewCount="218" Body="&lt;p&gt;I remember some statistics by Guy Haworth from the endgame KQPKQ (queen + pawn vs queen).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One of the statistics was the maximum DTC depending on the place of the white pawn (due to symmetry, it can be assumed that the pawn is on the queenside), but I cannot find it anymore.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does anyone know where the statistics are?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I watched a Karsten-Mueller-DVD about this endgame and he stated that the bishop pawn gives the best winning chances. Perhaps, the statistics can approve this claim.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5784" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2015-02-06T04:58:22.310" LastActivityDate="2015-02-06T05:17:52.333" Title="Longest DTC in the endgame KQPKQ depending on the place of the white pawn" Tags="&lt;theory&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;tablebases&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8512" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8511" CreationDate="2015-02-06T04:56:11.650" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is a partial answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The paper &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.academia.edu/1449972/Chess_endgames_data_and_strategy&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Chess Endgames: Data and Strategy&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt; by Tamplin and Haworth reports, among other things, the maximum depth-to-conversion (DTC) and depth-to-zeroing (DTZ) among winning KQPKQ positions. Table 1b in the appendix indicates a maximum DTC of 114 among winning white-to-move positions, and Table 2a indicates a maximum DTZ of 71 for the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That article unfortunately does not include separate maximum DTC or DTZ metrics for the 4 respective queenside pawn options, but I can at least confirm that the maximum DTZ of 71 involves a rook pawn, and this maximal example was already given in Thompson's pioneering 1986 tablebase paper &lt;a href=&quot;http://pdos.csail.mit.edu/~rsc/thompson86endgame.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Retrograde Analysis of Certain Endgames&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt;. On p.138, the following position and maximal play line are indicated:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;Thompson 1986&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;????.??.??&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;KQPKQ&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Maximum DTZ&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;8/q7/P6k/Q7/8/8/8/6K1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Kg2 Qg7+ 2.Kh1 Qf6 3.Qd2+ Kg7 4.Qd7+ Kg6 5.Qd3+ Kg7 6.Qg3+ Kf8 7.Qb8+ &#xA;Kf7 8.Qc7+ Kg6 9.Qc4 Qf3+ 10.Kh2 Qe3 11.Qf1 Qe5+ 12.Kh1 Qh8+ 13.Kg2 Qa8+ &#xA;14.Kg1 Qa7+ 15.Kh1 Qd7 16.Qf2 Kh5 17.Qe2+ Kg6 18.Qe4+ Kh5 19.Qc4 Qa7 20.&#xA;Qe2+ Kg5 21.Kg2 Qd4 22.Qf2 Qe4+ 23.Qf3 Qd4 24.Qe2 Kg6 25.Qb5 Qe3 26.Kf1 &#xA;Qe4 27.Kf2 Qd4+ 28.Kf3 Kh6 29.Qc6+ Kg7 30.Qc7+ Kg6 31.Qg3+ Kh5 32.Qh3+ Kg5&#xA;33.Qe6 Qd1+ 34.Qe2 Qd5+ 35.Kf2 Qf5+ 36.Kg1 Qb1+ 37.Kg2 Qg6 38.Qc4 Kh5+ 39.&#xA;Kf2 Qf6+ 40.Ke3 Qe5+ 41.Kd3 Kg5 42.Kc2 Qe3 43.Kb2 Kg6 44.Qb5 Kh6 45.Kc2 &#xA;Qe6 46.Kc3 Qd6 47.Kc4 Kg7 48.Qg5+ Kh8 49.Qh5+ Kg7 50.Qg4+ Kf7 51.Qf5+ Kg7 &#xA;52.Qc8 Qf4+ 53.Kb5 Qf6 54.Qc6 Qb2+ 55.Kc5 Qf2+ 56.Kd6 Kg6 57.Kd5+ Kh7 58.&#xA;Qc7+ Kh8 59.Qc3+ Kh7 60.Kc6 Qf5 61.Kb6 Qe6+ 62.Kb7 Qe4+ 63.Kb8 Qb1+ 64.Kc7&#xA;Qa2 65.Qc6 Kh8 66.Kb8 Qb3+ 67.Qb7 Qg3+ 68.Ka8 Qh3 69.Qc6 Qg4 70.Qc3+ Kh7 &#xA;71.a7 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2015-02-06T05:17:52.333" LastActivityDate="2015-02-06T05:17:52.333" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8513" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8502" CreationDate="2015-02-06T12:23:29.150" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You may want to try &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.apronus.com/chess/wbeditor.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.apronus.com/chess/wbeditor.php&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It has (among other nice features) two boards: on the left one, you can do everything you like, and the right one allows only legal moves. After you are done with the analysis, you can easily get the pgn code. Pretty simple and useful site. It is free and no registration is required. Enjoy!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2792" LastEditorUserId="2792" LastEditDate="2015-02-06T12:29:45.710" LastActivityDate="2015-02-06T12:29:45.710" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8514" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2015-02-07T15:54:08.847" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2015-02-07T15:54:08.847" LastActivityDate="2015-02-07T15:54:08.847" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8515" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2015-02-07T15:54:08.847" Score="0" Body="A minor variation is a variation that is not among the main lines in an opening." OwnerUserId="1485" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2015-02-07T19:10:02.500" LastActivityDate="2015-02-07T19:10:02.500" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8517" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8188" CreationDate="2015-02-07T20:58:51.357" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is not an answer, just an explanation why it is difficult to generate a list of unsound openings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is the famous quote &lt;em&gt;&quot;Any opening is good enough to be played if its reputation is bad enough&quot;&lt;/em&gt; - Tartakower. This tongue-in-cheek quote implies that there are many good ideas in openings which are considered refuted or unsound. More specifically, &lt;em&gt;&quot;If an opening cannot be refuted by concrete variations, it is playable, even when it appears on the verge of catastrophe&quot;&lt;/em&gt; - Averbakh. So, for an opening to be considered unsound, it has to fail to some specific tactic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lets highlight this with a game. The game below is a mismatch between Karpov (elo 2725) against Miles (elo approx. 2575). Miles plays the eccentric St George variation, 1. e4 a6 and wins! Miles chose this opening because he knew Karpov had an encyclopedic knowledge of all the mainstream openings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[White &quot;Karpov&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Miles&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 a6 2. d4 b5 3. Nf3 Bb7 4. Bd3 Nf6 5. Qe2 e6 6. a4 c5 7. dxc5 Bxc5 8. Nbd2 b4 9. e5 Nd5 10. Ne4 Be7 11. O-O Nc6 12. Bd2 Qc7 13. c4 bxc3 14. Nxc3 Nxc3 15. Bxc3 Nb4 16. Bxb4 Bxb4 17. Rac1 Qb6 18. Be4 O-O 19. Ng5 h6 20. Bh7+ Kh8 21. Bb1 Be7 22. Ne4 Rac8 23. Qd3 Rxc1 24. Rxc1 Qxb2 25. Re1 Qxe5 26. Qxd7 Bb4 27. Re3 Qd5 28. Qxd5 Bxd5 29. Nc3 Rc8 30. Ne2 g5 31. h4 Kg7 32. hxg5 hxg5 33. Bd3 a5 34. Rg3 Kf6 35. Rg4 Bd6 36. Kf1 Be5 37. Ke1 Rh8 38. f4 gxf4 39. Nxf4 Bc6 40. Ne2 Rh1+ 41. Kd2 Rh2 42. g3 Bf3 43. Rg8 Rg2 44. Ke1 Bxe2 45. Bxe2 Rxg3 46. Ra8 Bc7 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To answer your question, you would need to figure out which openings have a concrete tactical refutation, rather than ones that are offbeat.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastEditorDisplayName="user1108" LastEditDate="2015-02-09T18:52:38.577" LastActivityDate="2015-02-09T18:52:38.577" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8518" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8519" CreationDate="2015-02-08T15:14:31.757" Score="1" ViewCount="240" Body="&lt;p&gt;Who was the very first one to ever use the quote &quot;Chess is art&quot;? Like who was the first one?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5649" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2018-09-22T12:53:17.000" LastActivityDate="2018-09-22T12:53:17.000" Title="&quot;Chess is art&quot; who was the first one to use this quote?" Tags="&lt;history&gt;&lt;psychology&gt;&lt;quotations&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8519" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8518" CreationDate="2015-02-08T16:31:48.373" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think anybody has made such a claim. &quot;Chess is &lt;em&gt;an&lt;/em&gt; art&quot; is another matter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Vaclav Havel (former Czech prime minister) is supposed to have said that when he visited the Carlsbad tournament.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Karpov is supposed to have said &quot;Chess is everything - art, science, and sport.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If anyone should know it would be &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcel_Duchamp&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Marcel Duchamp&lt;/a&gt; the artist who gave up art for chess. Although since he put forward a urinal as a work of art I would hope that he would put chess on a more elevated plane.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Perhaps the most quoted saying about the nature of chess is &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Siegbert_Tarrasch&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Tarrasch's&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Chess, like love, like music, has the power to make men happy&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which does it for me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2015-02-08T16:31:48.373" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8520" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7653" CreationDate="2015-02-08T18:07:05.150" Score="1" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Sveshnikov Reloaded - Dorian Rogenzenko&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The Complete Sveshnikov Sicilian - Yuri Yakovich&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The Sveshnikov Sicilian - Mikhail Krasenkov&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The Easiest Sicilian - Atanas Kolev and Trajko Nedev.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My personal favourites are 4. and 2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4543" LastEditorUserId="4543" LastEditDate="2016-01-21T15:22:01.967" LastActivityDate="2016-01-21T15:22:01.967" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8522" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8523" CreationDate="2015-02-09T06:29:26.303" Score="2" ViewCount="242" Body="&lt;p&gt;Today I was solving a chess problem as following picture : &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;r1bqr1k1/1p3nbp/2pp2p1/2n2P2/p1PN1P2/2N1B1PP/PPQ3B1/R3R1K1 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The solution given was &lt;code&gt;1...Rxe3&lt;/code&gt;, but I did not get the actual benefit of this solution. Can anyone explain this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="917" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2015-02-09T07:34:53.833" LastActivityDate="2015-02-09T07:34:53.833" Title="Chess puzzle that is hard to understand" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;puzzles&gt;&lt;bishops&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8523" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8522" CreationDate="2015-02-09T07:28:34.123" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The point is that after &lt;code&gt;1...Rxe3&lt;/code&gt; Black will be winning material, as the sole defender of the white knight has been removed, and a pin tactic is coming. Specifically, after &lt;code&gt;2.Rxe3&lt;/code&gt; (anything other than this recapture means Black has just won a piece for nothing) and &lt;code&gt;2...Bxd4&lt;/code&gt;, White has no way to stop the follow-up &lt;code&gt;3...Bxe3+&lt;/code&gt; since the rook is pinned to the king, and so Black has netted an extra piece anyway.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;r1bqr1k1/1p3nbp/2pp2p1/2n2P2/p1PN1P2/2N1B1PP/PPQ3B1/R3R1K1 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1...Rxe3 2.Rxe3 Bxd4 *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2015-02-09T07:28:34.123" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8524" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8518" CreationDate="2015-02-09T10:04:59.873" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Apparently this is a quote attributed to Alexander Alekhine:&#xA;&quot;To me, chess is not a game; it is art.&quot;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lubomir-kavalek/chess-art-under-alekhines_b_3195822.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lubomir-kavalek/chess-art-under-alekhines_b_3195822.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is probably a translation from Russian (or maybe French?), so there also exists Brian Towers preferred version: &#xA;&quot;Chess for me is not a game, but an art. Yes, and I take upon myself all those responsibilities which an art imposes on its adherents. – Alexander Alekhine.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-02-09T10:04:59.873" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8525" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="486" CreationDate="2015-02-09T10:53:27.700" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;There seems to have been a rule in medieval chess, that does explain the invention of castling at least partly:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;The King's leap: for his first move, the King could jump at the 2nd square vertically, horizontally, diagonally or like a Knight. From e1 he could jump on c1, c2, c3, d3, e3, f3, g3, g2 ou g1. He could jump over an occupied square but not over a square under threat by an opposing piece. He could not capture with this leap nor jump to escape a check. However, he could still leap if he had been put in check on the previous moves.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://history.chess.free.fr/mediaeval-chess.htm&quot;&gt;http://history.chess.free.fr/mediaeval-chess.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Shatranj (and this variation of it) was a slow game and the king much less vulnerable then in today's chess (basically like a complicated endgame). So to speed it up, you could centralise your king in one move. When the queen and bishop suddenly got powerful, the king's leap was better used to hide your king away. Turning the rook move and the inevitably following king's leap into one move is very similar to turning the first two moves of a pawn into one double move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the introduction of castling was more evolution than revolution … ;-)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-02-09T10:53:27.700" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8526" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5644" CreationDate="2015-02-09T13:45:01.813" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Of course everything depends on the position, but isolated passed pawns have two properties that usually make them more of an asset than a liability:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They are fast:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;3K4/8/8/5ppp/8/8/P4P1P/2k5 w KQkq - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this position, although the black majority is already advanced, white still promotes first (and wins) even if black moves first. If the kings were on more realistic squares, this would mean, that the black king has to hurry to the passer and the white king could try to attack the black kingside.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Often losing them is a tolerable worst case scenario:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;6k1/5ppp/8/8/8/8/6PP/6K1 w KQkq - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This pawn ending is lost, but … this position is generally still holdable for white IF there are still pieces on the board. So quite often you can try to promote your passed pawn on the queenside or the centre and still be confident to hold the draw if you mess it up and lose the pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I think the most likely scenario of a bad isolated passed pawn is one, where that pawn is safely blockaded and the other side still has the possibility to create an own passer on the queenside. So something like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;8/4kppp/1p1n4/p2P4/8/2N6/1P2KPPP/8 w KQkq - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-02-09T13:45:01.813" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8527" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4414" CreationDate="2015-02-09T13:57:09.433" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just posted an answer to this question &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/486/how-did-castling-originate&quot;&gt;How did castling originate?&lt;/a&gt; and I think it offers a missing part of the answer to this questions as well: What the rationale is, behind not being able to castle out of check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Historically castling was probably two moves (the rook move and the king's leap), that were merged into a double move, because they basically always followed directly one after the other. Just like the double move of the pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And just like you cannot escape capture from an enemy pawn, by just moving past it, you cannot escape check by just castling: In both cases the &quot;double move&quot; is dissected into the two original moves - the pawn can be taken en passant and the king could still be taken after the rook move, making castling illegal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In both cases the rationale is speeding up the game, without changing what was possible before.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2015-02-09T13:57:09.433" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8528" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1884" CreationDate="2015-02-09T18:33:22.727" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;worth learning theory - by that, I mean general principles in the opening. Understanding what you are doing and why. Not theory as in memorising book, in my view, for most players. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Instead - learn tactics and endings, first and foremost. And middlegame positional ideas. And pawn structure / pawn power.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The problem with learning book is this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;you think you are stealing a march on games, but really you're not.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;it is a &lt;em&gt;Very&lt;/em&gt; inefficient way to get better, as it takes ages, and&lt;br&gt;&#xA;subject to change and fashion. (People might not ever play these&lt;br&gt;&#xA;lines in future!)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;tactics and endings knowledge can also be much more decisive than&lt;br&gt;&#xA;some opening where you get a 0.2 eval advantage. Which is pointless&lt;br&gt;&#xA;if you then do not know how to play the position. Which you won't -&lt;br&gt;&#xA;as you don't know why you played into it.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;General principles will inform how to play the opening, and ward off needless breaking of these principles. But still break them sometimes, it is more fun and adds to the artistic experience. Also useful for psychological expediency, of course. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1311" LastActivityDate="2015-02-09T18:33:22.727" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8529" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3962" CreationDate="2015-02-09T18:38:01.730" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, you should learn simpler games like the Open Games first. Kasparov has said the Sicilian should only be played by GMs. You will learn a lot more about chess playing the Open Games or the French Defense to start with. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The thing is White usually gets to call the shots in all openings. This can be got round by learning more theory eg in the Sicilian but it will count against you if you improve because your results will be based on theory in specific openings rather than overall understanding. I would recommend the Scandinavian 1. e4 d5 where White can put you on the back foot but only by learning theory and Black retains a solid setup.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4543" LastActivityDate="2015-02-09T18:38:01.730" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8530" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8240" CreationDate="2015-02-09T23:01:39.360" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The following are minimum involving various pieces:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;King + Queen&lt;br&gt;&#xA;King + Rook + Any Piece&lt;br&gt;&#xA;King + 2 Bishop&lt;br&gt;&#xA;King + 2 Knight&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is only the theoretical minimum to actually mate. Whether or not it is possible to force a mate in this situation is a different question. You can see these mates by placing both kings in a corner, one on board 1, and the other on board 3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="295" LastEditorUserId="4182" LastEditDate="2015-02-10T11:20:13.480" LastActivityDate="2015-02-10T11:20:13.480" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8531" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8532" CreationDate="2015-02-09T23:12:58.230" Score="11" ViewCount="11195" Body="&lt;p&gt;Ok, I know this will be a vague question... I recently played against a friend three games, and lost all of them, and the problem was that he played his queen very early in the game (second move). I was told that this isn't a very good strategy, but the truth is that I lost...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can somebody give me the main themes for a early queen, and how to respond?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4527" LastActivityDate="2020-08-08T13:48:04.673" Title="Moving the queen early in the game - beginner" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;queens&gt;&lt;beginner&gt;" AnswerCount="11" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8532" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8531" CreationDate="2015-02-09T23:20:54.027" Score="18" Body="&lt;p&gt;The main issue with developing your queen early is that it is a very valuable piece, so pretty much any time your opponent threatens to take it, he is threatening to win material. (Contrast with developing your knights, say; if your opponent threatens to take it, unless he's threatening to take with a pawn, he is often just really offering an equal exchange.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The best way to take advantage of your opponent's early queen development is to exploit this by attacking it while developing your own pieces. If you can combine development with attacking the queen this way, you'll get all your pieces onto useful squares while he wastes time moving his queen around, and you'll be in much better position to do something in the middlegame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A simple example of this is 1.e4 e5 2.d4 exd4 3.Qxd4 Nc6, developing the knight while attacking the queen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2015-02-09T23:20:54.027" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8533" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8531" CreationDate="2015-02-10T01:00:51.717" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is true (per @dfan) that bringing the Queen out early invites attack and wastes the Queen-mover's time. In more advanced play, this is very very bad.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But for beginners, it doesn't matter a bit. Beginners waste moves all the time. It's simply part of (and perhaps the definition of) a beginner. Chances are, you won't know exactly how to exploit the premature Queen even if you chase her around with piece development.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other side, move your Queen early and see what happens. Play daring, play dashing, take chances, have fun, and cut some heads.  You'll score a lot of wins by being aggressive. And you'll get your head cut some, too. /shrug&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Against better opponents, this will not work as well and you'll have to up your game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2015-02-10T01:00:51.717" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8534" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8535" CreationDate="2015-02-10T11:53:42.150" Score="1" ViewCount="87" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am confused about the result of the Grenke Chess Classics 2015.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At the one hand, Magnus Carlsen won 3 games and Arkadij Naiditsch only 2, so due to&#xA; the tiebreaker-rule, Carlsen should have won the tournament.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But then I noticed that 5 tie break games were added.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is true and who won the tournament ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5784" LastEditorUserId="5784" LastEditDate="2015-02-10T12:47:24.663" LastActivityDate="2015-02-10T12:47:24.663" Title="Confusion about the tie-break in the Grenke Chess Classics 2015" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;carlsen&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8535" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8534" CreationDate="2015-02-10T12:06:08.323" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Carlsen won the tie-break (and the tournament). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Quite dramatically, after trading wins in the rapid and draws in the blitz games, with a win in the armageddon game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The tie-break rules were only used to sort out the places apart from the first place.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.grenkechessclassic.de/en/grenke-chess-classic-2015/rules-regulations&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.grenkechessclassic.de/en/grenke-chess-classic-2015/rules-regulations&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.chessbase.com/post/grenke-final-carlsen-wins-in-armageddon&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://en.chessbase.com/post/grenke-final-carlsen-wins-in-armageddon&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-02-10T12:06:08.323" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8536" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-02-10T13:33:52.253" Score="1" ViewCount="906" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been using ARENA for quite a while(5 years to be specific) and I have a collection of Winboard engines that I love. I recently parted with $140 to buy Fritz 14. But to my dismay it doesn't support Winboard engines. This is a big disappointment considering the cost of the product. How can I get my favorite WB engines to play in the FRITZ GUI? Why doesn't ChessBase include native WB support with their products?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5839" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T20:43:04.833" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T20:43:59.080" Title="What's with ChessBase and WB engines?" Tags="&lt;chessbase&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="8537" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8531" CreationDate="2015-02-10T15:15:45.670" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If your opponent played his queen on the second move, the game probably resembles this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;e4 e5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Qh5?!&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now you can just develop your knight&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;... Nc6&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If he chooses to continue calmly, you can follow up with Nf6, and his queen is already forced to move. So probably he will continue like so:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Bc4 &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now you need to resolve the threat, after which you can simply continue your development with a small advantage. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;... g6&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Qf3 Nf6&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And here most players would prefer to play black, so we can conclude that white lost his opening advantage by wasting time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5714" LastActivityDate="2015-02-10T15:15:45.670" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8538" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1975" CreationDate="2015-02-10T22:01:29.623" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is an android game on Google play called Capture the Queen. The idea is that you are on a 4X4 board with several pieces vs a lone queen. Using legal chess moves, can you capture the queen before she captures all you pieces. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I taught my kids (around 6-7 years old at the time) using this type of exercise.  It teaches them the pieces and their moves without the complexity of a full game. You can control the placement and the size of the board to match the skills of your child. As they grow more mature, introduce them to the full game. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another trick is to allow them to 'flip the board'. So when they reach a point they can't find a move, they call flip the board and you and they switch sides. Now it is your turn and you can show them the move they needed to make. But now, they play your side. Eventually, my kids got smart and learned to play into a crappy position and then 'flip the board'. It became a challenge to dig my self out of the hole they had gotten into.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also look at &lt;a href=&quot;http://smile.amazon.com/Think-Fun-3400-ThinkFun-Solitaire/dp/B0032UKQFO/ref=sr_1_61?ie=UTF8&amp;amp;qid=1423605790&amp;amp;sr=8-61&amp;amp;keywords=chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://smile.amazon.com/Think-Fun-3400-ThinkFun-Solitaire/dp/B0032UKQFO/ref=sr_1_61?ie=UTF8&amp;amp;qid=1423605790&amp;amp;sr=8-61&amp;amp;keywords=chess&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5846" LastActivityDate="2015-02-10T22:01:29.623" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8540" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1975" CreationDate="2015-02-11T12:37:07.657" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would recommend using some very stripped down versions of the chess which are superb for learning, as they are simple to set up, establish the rules but teach chess aspects quickly and in a FUN way (the most important!) :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They help to understand each piece, taken by turn:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a) Pawn vs pawn, where the first person who cannot move loses. This is an idea from Richard James Chess for Kids book - recommended. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;E.g. place a pawn for each side on its starting square, facing each other. &#xA;The Pawn Wars of Andrew Soltis has extended versions of this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;b) Bishop VS 3 black pawns (usually on a,b,c file) . &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One person takes the bishop and  tries to stop  all the pawns. Black wins if one pawn reaches the other side.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;c) Try same with Rook vs 4 / 5 pawns... teaches seventh rank and attacking power of rook from side and behind. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;d) Queen vs 8 pawns...nice to play&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e) King maze. Set up a position where white has a king which has just  single route to c8 (say) giving black plenty of pieces. Then these are &quot;Frozen&quot; and the pupil should find a way through for the king. Can vary this in several routes - find the fastest route. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Repeat similar with a piece on h8 and a Knight on a1 and has to take in as few moves as possible, perhaps with more of his own side pieces to obstruct and make it tricky. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;f) Another good rook one is Rooks starting squares for both players. Then pawns placed radnomly but they cannot move. First to eat up all the pawns wins. If you can play with rooks you can do well at chess ;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;g) one person has two bishops the other has two rooks. First to take a piece wins. (Should be drawn, but be careful!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This website lists and explains several mini-games, a great resource:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://exeterchessclub.org.uk/content/mini-chess-games&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://exeterchessclub.org.uk/content/mini-chess-games&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1311" LastActivityDate="2015-02-11T12:37:07.657" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8541" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="531" CreationDate="2015-02-11T12:40:18.887" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can solve chess problems this way by sleeping on the problem. But I would say you have improved because you play less bullet, which is not good for most aspects of chess generally, and most likely detrimental as it does not help you to generate situations where you must work to find the best move and therefore experientially learn. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1311" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T19:58:30.867" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T19:58:30.867" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="8543" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8240" CreationDate="2015-02-11T15:10:25.923" Score="-3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is the following pieces you can do checkmate with: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;King + Queen&#xA;King + Rook&#xA;King + 2 Bishops&#xA;King + 2 Knights&#xA;King + Knight + Bishop&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5852" LastActivityDate="2015-02-11T15:10:25.923" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8544" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-02-11T18:35:14.540" Score="3" ViewCount="2171" Body="&lt;p&gt;I search an online chess games database which should be free and it would be nice if no&#xA; registration would be required.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I want to be able to search for the basic criterions year and ELO.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It would be nice if the database contains only classical games. It is annoying if&#xA; rapid, blitz, blind and friendly games are also in the database.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does anyone know a database fulfilling my criterions ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5784" LastActivityDate="2020-01-07T16:55:42.013" Title="Which online database is the best?" Tags="&lt;database&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8546" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-02-11T18:42:52.490" Score="5" ViewCount="518" Body="&lt;p&gt;It was stated at this forum that the 7-men-endgames are still not available online.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What about the special endgame KRPPKRP (Rook and 2 pawns against Rook and 1 pawn) ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It would be nice if the database covers also DTC or DTZ, ideally both.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5784" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2015-03-29T11:33:59.270" LastActivityDate="2019-06-19T09:02:49.490" Title="Is there an online database for the endgame KRPPKRP?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;database&gt;&lt;tablebases&gt;&lt;rook-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8547" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8544" CreationDate="2015-02-11T18:53:59.437" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;How about this website: &lt;a href=&quot;http://database.chessbase.com/js/apps/database/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://database.chessbase.com/js/apps/database/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's pretty good.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5852" LastActivityDate="2015-02-11T18:53:59.437" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8548" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-02-11T20:07:42.617" Score="3" ViewCount="1302" Body="&lt;p&gt;How To Reassess Your Chess 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th Edition&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What's the difference? Are these improvisations or just parts?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5649" LastActivityDate="2015-06-04T22:45:28.563" Title="What are the differences between the How To Reassess Your Chess books from Jeremy Silman?" Tags="&lt;books&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8549" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8548" CreationDate="2015-02-11T20:40:25.617" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The editions do not form a series. It just is that the 4th edition is the one released at the latest date (October 2010) with revisions to the text.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is also a workbook which contains a summary of the main book, with about 300 examples with detailed answers. This was released in December 2000. This is the book that I personally found the most useful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2015-02-11T20:40:25.617" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8550" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8331" CreationDate="2015-02-11T23:25:13.297" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;At some point you'll run out of combinations. So the answer is basically no.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5852" LastActivityDate="2015-02-11T23:25:13.297" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8551" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3962" CreationDate="2015-02-12T04:01:54.517" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sicilian will make you a tough player and will save you from early losses, as e pawn is responsible for saving the f7 pawn, and e pawn advance is delayed most often in sicilian, so there is no immediate threat from white's light colored bishop attacking f7. All openings are playable at all levels. Stick to one opening and you will slowly learn all pitfalls.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5855" LastActivityDate="2015-02-12T04:01:54.517" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8552" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8558" CreationDate="2015-02-12T04:55:50.903" Score="8" ViewCount="435" Body="&lt;p&gt;The only move suggested here by every chess engine is &lt;code&gt;17. b4&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can anyone please advise why is it so important?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;r3k2r/ppp2pp1/7p/3pP3/3P2b1/5N2/RP1KBPPP/7R w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5856" LastActivityDate="2015-02-12T13:37:00.990" Title="Why is b4 the only move suggested by every chess engine?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;evaluation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8553" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8706" CreationDate="2015-02-12T09:43:27.270" Score="1" ViewCount="606" Body="&lt;p&gt;What does coaching actually mean in chess?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In relation to that, how is it possible for a chess player to coach two different players? Do the trainees share their work, or does the coach work on different areas of the game with each player, and in that way avoid any &quot;moral conflicts&quot;? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Two of the most notable examples would be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-Peter Heine Nielsen, who was coaching Anand for &lt;em&gt;ten&lt;/em&gt; years (&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Heine_Nielsen&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Wiki&lt;/a&gt;), before switching to his main WCC rival Carlsen in 2013 (although he was also helping Carlsen before 2013);&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-Vladimir Chuchelov, who coached both Fabiano Caruana and Anish Giri (I am not sure whether he even coached them simultaneously at some point).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, Gelfand stated in 2012 that he refused an offer from Kasparov to help him in his match against Anand, since Kasparov was helping Anand in his WC match against Topalov in 2010.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I cannot imagine coaches deliberately trying to keep secret some of the work they have previously done (it seems too artificial). Also, revealing all the secrets of the player they previously worked with, does not seem to me as &quot;morally sound&quot;. So, what is the deal then?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2792" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2016-03-12T09:14:51.037" LastActivityDate="2016-03-12T09:14:51.037" Title="Chess coaching and coaches training different players" Tags="&lt;preparation&gt;&lt;coach&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8554" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-02-12T11:26:03.233" Score="7" ViewCount="203" Body="&lt;p&gt;What was the first women-only event held in Chess history?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5653" LastActivityDate="2019-07-03T14:19:25.047" Title="Women in Chess - First women-only event." Tags="&lt;history&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8555" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8556" CreationDate="2015-02-12T11:36:28.443" Score="2" ViewCount="980" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have seen many games that do not end by checkmate but still say 0-1 or 1-0.  The following picture also shows that the game did not end but White won. Can anyone please explain this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/NBAQa.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="917" LastEditorUserId="291" LastEditDate="2015-02-12T13:56:05.620" LastActivityDate="2015-02-12T13:56:05.620" Title="Rules for ending a chess game" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;rules&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8556" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8555" CreationDate="2015-02-12T11:40:01.700" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It means one of the players resigned or lost on time.  In the game above, White threatens mate on g6 if the black Queen can be deflected from its defense. So White threatens &lt;code&gt;Qxe8&lt;/code&gt; followed by &lt;code&gt;Qxg6#&lt;/code&gt;.  If Black plays &lt;code&gt;37... Qf7&lt;/code&gt;, White responds with &lt;code&gt;Qxd7&lt;/code&gt; which threatens the Black Queen and a potential mate on g7. It's a mess that at best ends up with Black being down a ton of material.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2015-02-12T11:50:31.343" LastActivityDate="2015-02-12T11:50:31.343" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8557" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8554" CreationDate="2015-02-12T13:30:32.223" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The first women's world chess championship was held in London in 1927 and won by Vera Menchik (who successfully defended her title until she died during the Second World War). The WWCC was organized by FIDE in 1924.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There doesn't seem to be any record of a women-only tournament before that time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3480" LastEditorUserId="550" LastEditDate="2015-09-12T17:09:00.707" LastActivityDate="2015-09-12T17:09:00.707" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8558" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8552" CreationDate="2015-02-12T13:37:00.990" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;Black is down material but still has some strength. The most obvious one is that he has a pawn majority on the queenside, meaning potentially passed pawn if he manages to push his majority. So Black's plan will be to put both rooks behind the pawns and go for ...a5-a4, ...b5-b4 etc...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In a very simple way White can fight against Black play (it's prophylaxie) by pushing b4 preventing ...a5 and ...c5.&#xA;Moreover if we manage to push b4-b5, the pawn on a7 will now be a weakness so we can attack it (doubling rooks on a-file).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3480" LastActivityDate="2015-02-12T13:37:00.990" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8559" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6541" CreationDate="2015-02-12T13:41:40.027" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Mega Database 2014 is in chessbase format and contains not only the games but several pre-requisite to all options proposed by Chessbase 12.&#xA;So by using pgn files, you will find the games in your database but they are not optimize for the others options.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3480" LastActivityDate="2015-02-12T13:41:40.027" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8560" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8563" CreationDate="2015-02-12T16:21:31.267" Score="3" ViewCount="1327" Body="&lt;p&gt;One aspect of my style in chess is that I like to trade a lot.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is trading too much bad?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5852" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-07-13T15:52:01.383" LastActivityDate="2020-03-29T09:41:06.270" Title="Is It Good Or Bad To Trade Too Much?" Tags="&lt;theory&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;pieces&gt;&lt;style&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8561" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13142" CreationDate="2015-02-12T17:08:07.743" Score="7" ViewCount="2100" Body="&lt;p&gt;Which player of the top 50 has the lowest drawing rate ? Who is it in the top 100 ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And which woman in the top 50 has the lowest drawing rate ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5784" LastEditorUserId="3757" LastEditDate="2015-02-13T01:56:08.500" LastActivityDate="2016-08-28T00:10:14.423" Title="Top player with the lowest drawing rate" Tags="&lt;draw&gt;&lt;statistics&gt;&lt;famous-players&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8562" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8560" CreationDate="2015-02-12T18:23:01.477" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It mostly depends on your position, and who is ahead in material. Generally, if you're behind in material, you should avoid even trades. But if you're ahead in material, or even and you have some positional advantages, trading can be a good thing. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5854" LastActivityDate="2015-02-12T18:23:01.477" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8563" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8560" CreationDate="2015-02-12T21:02:12.877" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;Trading &lt;em&gt;for the sake of trading&lt;/em&gt; is bound to be in your opponent's favour more often than not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Generally speaking, &lt;em&gt;recapturing&lt;/em&gt; often activates the piece that can capture back. Consider two rooks on an open file, both protected by another, pretty passive rook on the a-file. The side that trades loses control of the open file and is stuck with the a-file rook, but the sides that recaptures gets to move his previously passive rook from the a-file to the open file.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, if you delay trading, you &lt;em&gt;keep options open&lt;/em&gt;. As long as you still have several options, the opponent has to keep defences up against all of them, but as soon as you actually choose one (make the trade), that releases tension and usually frees up the game of the opponent a bit. Don't release tension without a reason.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Worst, if the opponent &lt;em&gt;knows&lt;/em&gt; that you like to trade, he may offer trades that work in his favour positionally, and you'll go for them. That will get you a bad position very quickly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A trade is a way to change the nature of the position. Only go for trades that change the position in your favour, otherwise keeping the opponent guessing is better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2015-02-12T21:02:12.877" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8564" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8560" CreationDate="2015-02-13T00:35:22.127" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Trading pieces off the board being good or bad usually depends on the position, and there are a variety of situations to consider that could lead to a positional advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) Try to avoid trades when behind in material. If you're behind 3 points in material, the more pieces that come off the board, the more crippling that disadvantage comes. The more pieces on the board, the more you have to work with to create discovered attacks, forks, skewers, pins etc. On the flip side, try to force trades when you're ahead in material, as the more pieces comes off the board, the more you will disarm your opponents ability to fight back.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/UqqiR.png&quot; alt=&quot;White continues to pick off pawns, not afraid to offer a trade to increase advantage on material differences.&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The image above is from one of my games that I'm currently playing online in correspondence with myself as the white pieces. Here I've just captured a pawn with my last queen move. My goal is to pick off as many pawns as I can, and if an opportunity to force the trading of the queens and rooks comes off the table comes I will take it. Being up an entire rook is a big advantage, in an end game position where black has no rook or queen, white can easily use his rook and king to pick off pawns for an easy end game win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) It's always a great idea to trade off a bad minor piece for your opponent's good pieces. For example, consider this board:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/40O6N.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;bad bishops&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this position black has what's considered to be a bad light squared bishop, the reason being the pawns. All of blacks pawns are locked in on light squares, getting in the way of the black bishop. Where as whites bishop is very very good, because it has plenty of targets to go after and capture. Together with careful maneuvering of both players kings white has better chances to win this end game. So trading the bishops off for the white player is a bad decision, where as if the bishops could come off the board, it would be better for black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) Closed versus open games&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In general when you have a closed game, knights are better than bishops. And bishops are usually better on an open game. The pawns will dictate whether the board is open or closed. If the pawns are set up in a way that closes down the diagonals, disallowing the bishops from slicing through the board, then it's closed. If you can capture a knight with a bishop in a closed game, that will usually help your position. The image below is an example of an open game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/HOkun.png&quot; alt=&quot;Closed Game&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4) Monster Piece&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's a very good idea to trade off a piece that is dominating your position. Take this example where white has it's knight firmly placed in the d5 square.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/4ueNe.gif&quot; alt=&quot;Monster Knight&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This knight can comfortably attack the majority of the board for the black army. If black can remove such a threat by trading off his own knight, it would improve the situation for him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5) Cramped Positions&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If your army is hemmed in by your own pawns, preventing the natural development of your pieces towards the center of the board then it's a great idea to trade off pieces to give your pieces more options to attack and defend.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/1iORv.gif&quot; alt=&quot;Cramped Position&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Looking at the image above, we can see that black is experiencing a cramped position to the extreme! Only blacks queen and knight has some options for movement, where as if you look at white's game it's much easier to play. White's bishop can slice through the position and attack key defending pawns, the white knight can jump in at all any time, both rooks are connected and could easily be swung over to the A1 file to apply even more pressure. White should keep the tension, where as black should to try to trade and release the pressure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Those are some of the major themes and ideas that I follow in my own games. Of course there is always exceptions and the position of the pawns generally drive which decisions are good and bad.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I hope this helps!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5830" LastEditorUserId="22932" LastEditDate="2020-03-29T09:41:06.270" LastActivityDate="2020-03-29T09:41:06.270" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="8565" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8505" CreationDate="2015-02-13T23:17:08.497" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;One other possibility is that the average rating of players in online chess websites can also fluctuate quite a bit by the population of the online community. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A good example of this is that I've been playing pretty consistently on chess.com for the last 8 years, and my rating there peaked in the high 1500's, and I seem to be down to the mid 1400's.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also noticed that this rating fluctuated in a lot of my friends who also play with me on that same community. Over the last 8 years, chess.com's ranked player count doubled, and thus all the ratings of players also shifted as more competitor's entered the community.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Rating points are always going to be relative and fluctuate with the community population as more beginners come into the game, they play and lose against each other keeping their group within the same range, while the players above them can pushed further up in the rating pools.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is all based on my personal experience having played online for quite a while, and reading over the stats available to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5830" LastActivityDate="2015-02-13T23:17:08.497" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8566" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8561" CreationDate="2015-02-14T00:27:06.217" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to the FIDE statistics, caruana draws 40 percent of the time and nakamura draws 41 percent. Out of top 12 individuals I checked, these are the lowest. Nakamura is famous for not accepting or offering draws but likes to play everything out. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3872" LastActivityDate="2015-02-14T00:27:06.217" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8567" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-02-14T00:39:53.777" Score="6" ViewCount="1383" Body="&lt;p&gt;I dislike the positions in the sicilian in which both sides kamikaze each other. What are some popular anti sicilians which will bring the black players out of their comfort zone?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3872" LastEditorUserId="5830" LastEditDate="2015-02-14T13:14:43.797" LastActivityDate="2015-03-21T17:52:58.323" Title="What are some popular anti sicilians and what are their respective strengths and weaknesses?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8568" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6194" CreationDate="2015-02-14T04:46:29.920" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;During the FIDE refresher course for International Arbiters, it has been strongly recommended to apply this rule very strictly. Which means that IA are strongly encouraged to change an already signed result if it is later discovered that a quintuple repetition has occurred. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After a quintuple repetition, the game is drawn without any formality, no claim is required. The game is also implicitly over, meaning that all that happens after is irrelevant. For the 75 moves draw, if there is a mate, it will prevail. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the result reported by the players is anything other then a draw, this means that both players have, wilfully or not, signed a wrong result. This situation is governed by Article 8.7   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At the conclusion of the game both players shall sign both scoresheets, indicating the result of the game. Even if incorrect, this result shall stand, unless the arbiter decides otherwise.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5860" LastActivityDate="2015-02-14T04:46:29.920" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8569" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-02-14T11:38:55.660" Score="5" ViewCount="412" Body="&lt;p&gt;I use the LokaSoft web service for 5-piece endgames, but cannot find one for 6 pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BTW, by web service I mean a software function capable of being called over the internet (see &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_service&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_service&lt;/a&gt;), not simply a service being offered on the web.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5861" LastEditorUserId="5861" LastEditDate="2015-02-14T17:59:40.200" LastActivityDate="2015-04-28T12:48:17.643" Title="Is there a Web Service available for 6-piece endgame tablebases?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;tablebases&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8571" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8567" CreationDate="2015-02-14T12:52:20.693" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;First off when dealing with the Sicilian defense there is a lot of ground to cover and this question is very broad as the open Sicilian has 4 major variations and the closed Sicilian has at least 3 major variations that immediately come into my mind.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The following are good readings for anti-sicilians:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Alapin Variation,&#xA;Moscow Variation,&#xA;Rossolimo Variation,&#xA;Grand Prix Attack,&#xA;The Closed Sicilian (this has 3 major variations),&#xA;Smith-Morra Gambit,&#xA;Wing Gambit&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now if you wish to avoid the Sicilian entirely, you may want to consider switching your own opening strategy. As white and black I see the Sicilian a lot in online play, I started using the queens gambit as white to go into fresh lines of play which leads to a more relaxed build up of both players armies into the middle game, it also has several trapping lines that you can use to catch an uneducated player with.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I hope that helps, just keep in mind that when dealing with the Sicilian there is a lot of theory to cover and it is considered the most solid reply to white's king pawn opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;References:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/blog/Torkil/anti-sicilians&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.chess.com/blog/Torkil/anti-sicilians&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossary_of_chess#Anti-Sicilian&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossary_of_chess#Anti-Sicilian&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5830" LastEditorUserId="5830" LastEditDate="2015-02-14T12:59:01.113" LastActivityDate="2015-02-14T12:59:01.113" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8573" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5158" CreationDate="2015-02-14T13:16:19.173" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;We can compile some &quot;statistics&quot; from the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ficsgames.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FICS games database&lt;/a&gt;.  It doesn't have correspondence games, but it has a range of time controls and a range of ratings, so we can extrapolate a little bit.  I'm putting &quot;statistics&quot; in quotes because this is low quality data (nothing against FICS, but online ratings aren't always the most reliable) and very sketchy analysis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've taken the rated blitz and standard games from January 2014 (just picked a month at random), restricted to &quot;close&quot; games (meaning that the ratings of the two players differ by less than 100 points), and grouped them into bands with ratings 900-1000, 1000-1100, etc.  (Each game belongs to the band for the average rating, e.g. if it's 1480 vs 1510, then the average is 1495 so it goes into the 1400-1500 band.)  Below you can see graphs of the drawing percentages for each band.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Overall, the draw rate is slightly higher for standard games (4.9%) than for blitz (4.1%).  Generally speaking, higher rated players seem more likely to draw, but there are some odd blips.  The very strongest players are mostly computers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/7A6SJ.gif&quot; alt=&quot;Graph of drawing rates for FICS blitz games, January 2014&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Pxc5D.gif&quot; alt=&quot;Graph of drawing rates for FICS standard games, January 2014&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Draw rates for blitz games:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;   rating band    draw rate         number of games&#xA;         650      0.14285714               7&#xA;         750      0.06250000             128&#xA;         850      0.02761001            1159&#xA;         950      0.02683616            6372&#xA;        1050      0.02766602           18145&#xA;        1150      0.02921338           42994&#xA;        1250      0.03549412           68941&#xA;        1350      0.03599521           93568&#xA;        1450      0.03968357          108080&#xA;        1550      0.04040593           96075&#xA;        1650      0.04451169           73037&#xA;        1750      0.04832920           50425&#xA;        1850      0.05731055           32542&#xA;        1950      0.06335272           17884&#xA;        2050      0.07692308            6058&#xA;        2150      0.07191781            1168&#xA;        2250      0.04819277              83&#xA;        2350      0.22137405             131&#xA;        2450      0.32692308             312&#xA;        2550      0.30275229             109&#xA;        2650      0.42307692              26&#xA;        2750      0.52356021             191&#xA;        2850      0.63428571             175&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Draw rates for standard games:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;   rating band    draw rate         number of games&#xA;         950      0.00000000               1&#xA;        1050      0.00000000              23&#xA;        1150      0.02554745             274&#xA;        1250      0.01761364            1760&#xA;        1350      0.02784332            6357&#xA;        1450      0.03215792           12563&#xA;        1550      0.03699803           15190&#xA;        1650      0.04336597           16649&#xA;        1750      0.05255485           14404&#xA;        1850      0.06633868            6301&#xA;        1950      0.09838646            2541&#xA;        2050      0.11631664            1238&#xA;        2150      0.16666667             210&#xA;        2250      0.30069930             143&#xA;        2350      0.26229508             183&#xA;        2450      0.39890710             183&#xA;        2550      0.47738693             199&#xA;        2650      0.56578947              76&#xA;        2750      0.44642857             112&#xA;        2850      0.25000000               4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5781" LastEditorUserId="5781" LastEditDate="2018-10-03T10:16:26.733" LastActivityDate="2018-10-03T10:16:26.733" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="8575" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8531" CreationDate="2015-02-15T01:59:42.190" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Although I don't know exactly what moves your opponent used, in the beginner ranks sometimes people use &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scholar%27s_mate&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Scholar's Mate&lt;/a&gt; as an attempted opening.  It involves getting the queen out and parading her around the board for an attack and possible mate on f7.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The basic counterstrategy for a Scholar's Mate type opening from White is to keep protecting f7 for Black, and then to take swipes at the opponent's queen while developing your minor pieces.  If you do this patiently without giving up any tactical moves, you can get all your pieces awake and developed, while your opponent's pieces remain asleep at home.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5702" LastEditorUserId="5702" LastEditDate="2020-08-07T20:25:35.280" LastActivityDate="2020-08-07T20:25:35.280" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="8576" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8536" CreationDate="2015-02-15T06:07:21.930" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;ChessBase products only support two protocols:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) Their own proprietary (used by the .eng engines)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) The UCI (used by by many commercial / open source engines)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You must see a &quot;Create UCI Engine&quot; option in either Fritz or ChessBase (I used it all the time to make tournaments between engines).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also use Arena for engine tournaments and supports both UCI / Winboard. You should be able to use UCI engines in both Arena / ChessBase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some notes:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;There are adapters for Winboard to UCI like &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/4078/a-good-uci-to-winboard-adapter&quot;&gt;Good UCI to WinBoard adapter&lt;/a&gt; (but I don't have seen the opposite).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I have learned that whenever I have to buy a commercial engine (like Houdini or Komodo) I prefer to not buy it thru ChessBase (because they only provide the .eng and only works in their own interface).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2607" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T20:43:32.160" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T20:43:32.160" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="8577" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2812" CreationDate="2015-02-15T19:14:17.220" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes it's pretty good for attacking play and tactics if White isn't careful. Master the positional ideas first and then interweave the tactics. Although most of the tactics will be in White's favour there is the thematic ...Rxf3 exchange sac eg in the Tarrasch.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4543" LastActivityDate="2015-02-15T19:14:17.220" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8578" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6194" CreationDate="2015-02-15T19:21:15.683" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The rule is there to stop players playing on repeating the position ad infinitum. Threefold repetition has to be claimed by a player, an arbiter can step in to end the game in a draw after fivefold repetition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4543" LastActivityDate="2015-02-15T19:21:15.683" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8579" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-02-15T22:12:27.957" Score="5" ViewCount="438" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have seen variations of other board games or strategy games where the aim is to actually 'lose' the game by forcing your opponents to make moves. Applying this concept to the rules of chess, would it require a completely different set of skills and thinking to let your opponent checkmate you first? Is the variation of moves and the analysis of the moves different if the winning objective or condition is reversed?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5870" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-04-23T00:32:00.003" LastActivityDate="2021-04-23T09:00:27.273" Title="Theoretically, is the analysis of the moves more complex if the objective is to be the first to be checkmated?" Tags="&lt;theory&gt;&lt;rules&gt;&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;checkmate&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="8580" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8531" CreationDate="2015-02-15T22:59:08.013" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The queen is a very powerful piece. If she moves, she's probably attacking something.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Make sure that if your friend attacks something with his queen, you defend (or move) it. Not doing so and letting the queen take your piece (without being recaptured) is a good way to lose. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the queen keeps moving, and you keep defending, pretty soon you'll have everything defended, and the queen will have nothing left to attack. You'll be ahead in development, and have the advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2015-02-15T22:59:08.013" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8581" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8388" CreationDate="2015-02-15T23:13:40.483" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;A &quot;defense&quot; is a subset of an &quot;opening.&quot; It is a system for Black against standard opening moves such as d4 or e4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other &quot;openings&quot; are named from White's point of view, such as Ruy Lopez (e4) or the Colle System (d4).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2015-02-15T23:13:40.483" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8582" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8579" CreationDate="2015-02-16T01:40:13.730" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Although &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selfmate&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;selfmate&lt;/a&gt; is a popular type of chess problems, the concept you have described simply would not work in a chess game played from the starting position; your opponent would need to cooperate with you if you want to get yourself mated. This means that any game played by chess players of any skill level would almost certainly end in a draw under your rules, which unfortunately makes your question moot.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1813" LastActivityDate="2015-02-16T01:40:13.730" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8583" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8585" CreationDate="2015-02-16T05:57:46.547" Score="10" ViewCount="1077" Body="&lt;p&gt;I read Turing had some algorithm or method he could use to play chess 'against' this pen and paper algorithm assigning certain numerical values to each piece. Is this true? Is there a pen and paper algorithm one can use to play a kind of chess with oneself?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5633" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2015-02-16T12:09:45.273" LastActivityDate="2017-09-30T07:47:49.817" Title="About Alan Turing and chess" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;history&gt;&lt;chess-variants&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8584" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8583" CreationDate="2015-02-16T13:52:36.477" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, Turing created a &quot;Paper Machine&quot; along with David Champernowne in 1948 that they called &quot;Turochamp&quot;. As far as I know he only played one recorded game with the system, against Alick Glennie (full game found &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1356927&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;). There was only one recorded game against the Paper Machine because it took a very long time. Calculating one move without an electronic computer could take up to an hour.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can read more about Turochamp &lt;a href=&quot;https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Turochamp&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have not found any source code for running Turochamp yourself, but I&quot;m sure someone out there has coded it. For the 100th anniversary of Turing's birth Kasparov played a game against the Paper Machine, notes &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.chessbase.com/post/alan-turing-plays-garry-kasparov-at-che-58-years-after-his-death&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16" LastEditorUserId="16" LastEditDate="2015-02-16T16:28:26.827" LastActivityDate="2015-02-16T16:28:26.827" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8585" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8583" CreationDate="2015-02-16T14:08:43.287" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, he played a game against Alick Glennie, actually he created an algorithm based on mathematical calculations. Then he tried his algorithm using pen and paper to do calculations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Alan Turing&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Alick Glennie&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nc3 Nf6 3.d4 Bb4 4.Nf3 d6 5.Bd2 Nc6 6.d5 Nd4 7.h4 Bg4 8.a4&#xA;Nxf3+ 9.gxf3 Bh5 10.Bb5+ c6 11.dxc6 O-O 12.cxb7 Rb8 13.Ba6 Qa5&#xA;14.Qe2 Nd7 15.Rg1 Nc5 16.Rg5 Bg6 17.Bb5 Nxb7 18.O-O-O Nc5&#xA;19.Bc6 Rfc8 20.Bd5 Bxc3 21.Bxc3 Qxa4 22.Kd2 Ne6 23.Rg4 Nd4&#xA;24.Qd3 Nb5 25.Bb3 Qa6 26.Bc4 Bh5 27.Rg3 Qa4 28.Bxb5 Qxb5&#xA;29.Qxd6 Rd8 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The main idea of algorithm is &lt;a href=&quot;http://antheacarson.hubpages.com/hub/The-1952-Paper-Chess-Computer-of-Alan-Turing&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Mobility: For the queen, rooks, bishops, add the square roots of the number of moves that the piece can make, counting a capture as two moves.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Piece safety: For the rooks, bishops and knights add 1 point if there is one defender and 1.5 if there is more than one&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;King mobility: For the king use the same method of scoring as for the piece, but do not count castling&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;King safety: Deduct points for the king's vulnerability, defined as the number of moves that a queen could make were it on the square of the king&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Castling: add 1 point if castling is still legally possible after this move. Add another point if castling is immediately possible or if a castling move has just been made&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Pawn credit: score .2 points for each rank advanced and .3 points for each pawn defended by one or more non pawns&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Check and mate threats. Score 1 point for the threat of mate, and .5 points for a checkmaterial values used to each of the pieces were:pawn =1, knight=3, bishop=3.5 rook =5, queen=10&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1824" LastActivityDate="2015-02-16T14:08:43.287" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8586" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8102" CreationDate="2015-02-16T22:15:14.263" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;You are the author of a series of questions of the type &quot;What is the most boring way to play&quot; and whereas I am fond of positional play as well, I must say that the way the question is formulated is completely wrong. I played the Caro-Kann for years and there is simply no way to avoid an heated battle in some variations, unless you are ready to make a lot of concessions and compromise your game by getting a very passive and unpromising position.&#xA;To excel at chess, you must master various types of positions. Avoiding these will stop your progress. You cannot beat regularly stronger players by using positional means only - they will master these positions as well as you do, but are also able to play dynamically. &#xA;Look at Petrosian's games, he was able to attack fiercely.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2428" LastEditorUserId="2428" LastEditDate="2015-03-09T20:59:34.203" LastActivityDate="2015-03-09T20:59:34.203" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8587" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-02-16T22:43:15.373" Score="1" ViewCount="793" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why do they change openings if engines only like one?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5877" LastActivityDate="2015-02-18T06:41:25.390" Title="Why do Grandmasters play different openings but engines not?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8588" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8589" CreationDate="2015-02-17T01:15:30.480" Score="3" ViewCount="4772" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am playing a game at the moment and I want to know if the King can take a piece that is being protected by another piece... that cannot move. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why can't the other, protecting, piece move? Because it would put the other King in check. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/0UIAr.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/0UIAr.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In other words: Can the Black King take the White Rook?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5879" LastEditorUserId="5879" LastEditDate="2017-02-03T10:40:44.223" LastActivityDate="2017-02-03T10:40:44.223" Title="Can the King be put in Check by a piece that cannot move?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ClosedDate="2015-02-17T03:09:35.617" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8589" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8588" CreationDate="2015-02-17T02:01:31.917" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, the black king cannot capture the rook in the position. The simple explanation is that the white knight will capture your king before your rook captures your opponents king. Personally, chess should not have rules such as check and checkmate. The aim of the game should be to capture the king, not checkmate the king. I speculate that these rules of checking and checkmate was formed by etiquette anyways since even in Xiang qi where the object is to capture the &quot;king,&quot; you still say check, and I learn that it was a convention of etiquette. .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3872" LastActivityDate="2015-02-17T02:01:31.917" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8590" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8587" CreationDate="2015-02-17T02:07:53.887" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Grandmaster play different openings because of preperation against an opponent or because they just feel like playing different positions. Also, if a grandmaster plays many openings, it is much harder to prepare for him/her. Engines usually are programed to play one of several opening moves. Also, you asked &quot;why do they change openings if engines only like one?&quot; Engines are not the absolute authority for openings, thought they are good, because a lot of openings have plans and positional aspects that are too far for computers to understand. Instead, engines often help a person understand an opening, but much evaluations from computers are taken with a grain of salt. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3872" LastActivityDate="2015-02-17T02:07:53.887" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8591" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8587" CreationDate="2015-02-17T07:30:34.677" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Engines&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Engines usually have opening databases. Every variant in each opening has a pre-calculated score and according to the opponent's move, engines will choose highest scored move. So, sometimes you may feel they play as same as previous games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But, that's not all, many good engines will choose a random move among a group of best candidate moves because their programmers don't like biased engines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Grandmasters&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, grandmasters, they know lots of openings and they're incredibly skilled on some of them. Sometimes they persist on a specific opening to learning more. Sometimes they play different openings against opponents to make them surprised or confused.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Head-to-head matches between two grandmasters usually lead to a little number of openings. Because the white player tries to choose an opening based on his power and opponent's weakness.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1824" LastEditorUserId="1824" LastEditDate="2015-02-17T10:46:09.317" LastActivityDate="2015-02-17T10:46:09.317" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8592" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8593" CreationDate="2015-02-17T13:51:35.033" Score="18" ViewCount="7222" Body="&lt;p&gt;I participated in a club and went to training. The guy who played against me is right-handed, so he placed the clock on the right. I'm left-handed, so I play with the left hand and press the clock with my right hand since it's closer. It's not very convenient to press it with my left hand, as it's too far.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was told that in tournaments, I have to press the clock with the same hand I use to move pieces. This is very annoying; is it a real rule? And can I place the clock on the left side? Why does the right-handed player get to place the clock on his right and not the other way around?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1105" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-03-26T18:18:55.987" LastActivityDate="2021-03-26T18:18:55.987" Title="Pressing the clock using the same hand you use to move the pieces" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;pieces&gt;&lt;chess-clocks&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="8593" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8592" CreationDate="2015-02-17T14:14:39.103" Score="20" Body="&lt;p&gt;The numbers refer to rules in the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fide.com/component/handbook/?id=171&amp;amp;view=article&quot;&gt;FIDE laws of chess&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;6.2. A player must press his clock with the same hand with which he made his move. It is forbidden for a player to keep his finger on the clock or to ‘hover’ over it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The rule that you have to press the clock with the same hand that you use to move the pieces is there to prevent players from pressing the clock before they have completed the move: if one is in such a time trouble that this rule matters, he/she would very probably, perhaps unconsciously, press the clock before he has clearly released his hand from the piece if this rule was not enforced. Nobody wants to see their opponent's hand over the board when their clock is running and they need to make a move quickly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Often, the player with the black pieces is allowed to decide which side of the board the clock is on. Technically, the arbiter may place the clock on the side of the board where he sees it better [rule 6.5]. Often the player with the black pieces may choose on which side of the board he sits on, amounting to the same. (But this is no longer a rule in the Fide laws; some tournaments may not allow even doing that, for example because of carefully adjusted digital boards; in these cases the clock is almost always on the queenside (black's right hand side and white's left hand side).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1761" LastActivityDate="2015-02-17T14:14:39.103" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8594" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8592" CreationDate="2015-02-17T14:26:22.997" Score="18" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, press the clock with the same hand you use to move pieces is an actual rule in official tournaments (see &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=171&amp;amp;view=article&quot;&gt;Article 6.2.b of the FIDE Laws of chess&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Concerning the placement of the clock before the game, &lt;em&gt;&quot;the arbiter shall decide where the chessclock is placed&quot;&lt;/em&gt; (see Article 6.5 in the same link as above). However the arbiter doesn't always give a recommendation. In that case it is conventional that the player with the Black pieces chooses the side for the clock.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6880" LastActivityDate="2015-02-17T14:26:22.997" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8596" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8587" CreationDate="2015-02-18T06:41:25.390" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Engines play on the board.  Grandmasters play their opponent.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Grandmasters usually not only play to their strengths, but their opponent's weaknesses.  They will mix it up based on what they believe their opponent is least prepared to deal with.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Engines could theoretically do this too, but its hard enough to play by the rules of chess alone, much less try to include human psychology of the opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6885" LastActivityDate="2015-02-18T06:41:25.390" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8597" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-02-18T10:28:56.563" Score="0" ViewCount="142" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Title &quot;Bskg vs NN&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 d5 2.c4 dxc4 3.e3 Nc6 { A mistake, blocks counterplay based on c7-c5 } 4.Bxc4 { Seems passive and the light squared bishop is locked in. However, e7-e5 is difficult with the knight on c6 in view of d4-d5 } 4...e6 5.Nf3 Bd6 6.Nc3 Nf6 7.O-O O-O 8.e4 { Is this move good? It was the only plan I found } 8...e5 9.dxe5 { I thought I would have an advantage in the following endgame due to my central pawn, but I now like d5 better as it seems more ambitious } 9...Nxe5 10.Nxe5 Bxe5 11.Qxd8 Rxd8 12.Bg5 { I think the simplification was a bad idea for white, black's d-rook and dark square bishop are very strong. } 12...b6 13.Bd5 Rb8 14.Rfd1 { Trying to take the initiative with tactical threats and taking the open file } 14...Rf8 15.h3 h6 { Isn't Ba6 better? } 16.Be3 Bb7 { nxd5 was a bit scary and Ba6 would be good, but after the move that was played I think white is better again. The rook is bad on b7 and white gains time } 17.Bxb7 Rxb7 18.Bd4 { bxd4 activates white's rooks and Re8 is strongly met by f4 } 18...Re8 19.Bxe5 Rxe5 20.f4 Rc5 21.e5 { The knight must move to a terrible square } 21...Nh5 { Here the knight will be lost } 22.Rd4 Rb8 23.g4 Nxf4 24.Rxf4 Rxe5 25.Rd1 c6 26.Rd7 a5 27.Rfxf7 Rg5 28.Ne4 Rg6 29.Kg2 h5 30.Kf3 hxg4 31.hxg4 Kh7 32.Ng3 Rg8 33.Nf5 Kh8 34.Ne7 &#xA;1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I had white.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4518" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2015-02-18T12:03:57.780" LastActivityDate="2015-06-19T01:30:01.683" Title="Feedback on my game?" Tags="&lt;queens-gambit-accepted&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8598" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8597" CreationDate="2015-02-18T12:02:48.147" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;A good game between equally matched players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;3. e4&lt;/code&gt; is more common and is one of the points of the gambit - you gain more space. You're going to use an extra move to get it to &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; on move 8. Might as well do it on move 3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;9. dxe5&lt;/code&gt; allows a series of trades that sucks the life out of the game. I think &lt;code&gt;9. d5&lt;/code&gt; is slightly stronger and is what I expected you to play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;14...Rf8&lt;/code&gt; made my face hurt. Instead, consider &lt;code&gt;Ba6&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;Be6&lt;/code&gt;. The latter allows an isolated e pawn but it connects the rooks and removes White's best piece.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;15...h6&lt;/code&gt; I'd have &lt;code&gt;Nxd5&lt;/code&gt; to kill that good Bishop. That would be add sense to the &lt;code&gt;Rf8&lt;/code&gt; move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After &lt;code&gt;16. Bb7&lt;/code&gt;, followed by &lt;code&gt;... c5&lt;/code&gt;, Black's Rook is not so badly placed and is closer to making a battery.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;21... Nh5&lt;/code&gt; A Knight on the rim is dim.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;26. Rd7&lt;/code&gt; is a strong move. Note this would not have been possible had Black not wasted a move with &lt;code&gt;22... Rb8&lt;/code&gt; but instead simply pushed the &lt;code&gt;c&lt;/code&gt; pawn per a previous comment.  That is, consider &lt;code&gt;18... Bxd4 19. Rd4 c5 20. Rd2 Re8&lt;/code&gt;.  White may be better, but there's no obvious win here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The game didn't do a lot for me as the trades removed most of the tension. Had Black not blundered the Knight it was looking drawish though I did prefer White's more active Rooks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="3774" LastEditDate="2015-02-19T00:02:41.380" LastActivityDate="2015-02-19T00:02:41.380" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8599" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-02-18T14:17:01.663" Score="0" ViewCount="268" Body="&lt;p&gt;A quite technological question so this is for the tech-people out there! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are the most important parts of a computer for Chessbase Database searching? For example, opening reports and reference, as on my current laptop it is fast but scanning through popular variations can be time-consuming which is not practical for overnight preparation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3357" LastActivityDate="2015-02-19T21:08:22.500" Title="Most important aspects of computer for scanning through databases in Chessbase?" Tags="&lt;database&gt;&lt;chessbase&gt;&lt;hardware&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8600" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8610" CreationDate="2015-02-18T14:40:08.960" Score="3" ViewCount="637" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know only a couple. Fictions refers to movies or novels but not poems. Do you know any of them?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5691" LastActivityDate="2015-02-19T14:19:31.913" Title="What is/are the bests poems about chess?" Tags="&lt;fiction&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8601" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8600" CreationDate="2015-02-18T15:55:20.710" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Say this one- &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;'Tis all a Chequer-board of Nights and Days Where Destiny with Men for&#xA;  Pieces plays: Hither and thither moves, and mates, and slays, And one&#xA;  by one back in the Closet lays. -- Omar Khayyam&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="213" LastActivityDate="2015-02-18T15:55:20.710" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8602" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8600" CreationDate="2015-02-18T19:15:55.200" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I like this one -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;I'd be a happier man if I could play the Caro-Kann&#xA;But it seems to me when I play pawn to QB3&#xA;White gets a knight on K5, and then as sure as I'm alive&#xA;My Rook file's opened and my Queen exposed to dangers unforseen&#xA;By Nimzowitch and all that lot who think the Caro rather hot&#xA;Then if I reach the middle game my play is lifeless cold and tame&#xA;White's game is logical and bright, while nothing I can do is right.&#xA;I grow so tired of &quot;Check&quot;, &quot;Check&quot;&#xA;&quot;Check&quot;, that I become a nervous wreck&#xA;And get into a hopeless pin, allowing White an easy win.&#xA;Tell Nimzowitch it's all a plant. The opening's really Caro-Can't&#xA;&#xA;- Huxley St. John-Brooks.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4543" LastActivityDate="2015-02-18T19:15:55.200" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8603" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-02-18T21:17:27.510" Score="1" ViewCount="64" Body="&lt;p&gt;[Event &quot;Russia vs China&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Sochi RUS&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2009.08.17&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;2009.08.15&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;3&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Ding Liren&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Nikita Vitiugov&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;D45&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;2530&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;2681&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;81&quot;]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;d4 Nf6 2. Nf3 d5 3. c4 e6 4. Nc3 c6 5. e3 Nbd7 6. Qc2 Bd6 7. g4 h6 8. h3 a6 9. c5 Be7 10. Rg1 b6 11. cxb6 Qxb6 12. g5 hxg5 13. Nxg5 Rg8 14. Na4 Qa7 15. Qxc6 Bb7 16. Qc2 Rc8 17. Nc3 e5 18. Bd2 exd4 19. exd4 Qxd4 20. Be3 Qb4 21. O-O-O Nc5 22. f3 Bc6 23. Bd4 a5 24. Rg2 a4 25. Re2 Rc7 26. Be5 Rd7 27. Rd4 Qb6 28. h4 a3 29. b3 Rb7 30. Bh3 Rh8 31. b4 Ncd7 32. Na4 Qb5 33. Bd6 Ng8 34. Nc3 Qb6 35. Qf5 Kd8 36. Nxf7+ Kc8 37. Bc5 Nh6 38. Bxb6 Nxf5 39. Bxf5 Bf6 40. Nxd5 Kb8 41. Nxf6 1-0&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which time control was set in this game ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5784" LastActivityDate="2015-02-18T22:10:09.620" Title="Which time control was set in the following game?" Tags="&lt;time-control&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8604" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8603" CreationDate="2015-02-18T22:10:09.620" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've looked all over the web and cannot find the specific time control used, but according to many sources I found via Google, this game was the 3rd round of the classical portion of the annual Russia vs China match, so definitely NOT a rapid/blitz game. I believe in recent years the classical time control for that event has been 40 moves in 90 minutes (relatively quick for that level).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5854" LastActivityDate="2015-02-18T22:10:09.620" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8605" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-02-18T22:34:02.323" Score="2" ViewCount="1346" Body="&lt;p&gt;I`m a novice of chess, but have been enjoying playing the program that came on my mac book pro. It seems to me that there have been some moves the computer will not allow me to make. For instance, mac had me in check with a knight but I had a direct diagonal on the knight with a pawn. The computer would not allow me to take the knight. Another instance was I had had the mac king in check with my queen (diagonal) and the king took my queen but, in the reverse my king could not take macs queen. More recently I had a diagonal kill with my king on macs rook. The computer would not allow my king to make the move and take the rook. A one space move. Directly next to each other diagonally. Are there situations where pawns can't take knights or Kings can't take queens or rooks?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6895" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2015-02-18T23:42:34.750" LastActivityDate="2015-02-18T23:42:34.750" Title="Mac computer chess" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;human-versus-machine&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8606" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8605" CreationDate="2015-02-18T23:40:38.390" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Are there situations where pawns can't take knights or Kings can't take queens or rooks?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, all the situations described in your post could happen, consistent with the rules of chess. For instance, in each of the following two positions the white pawn cannot capture the knight because it is &lt;em&gt;pinned&lt;/em&gt; to the white king. That is, the capture would open the king to check, and so is not a legal move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;8/5k2/6b1/3n4/4P3/3K4/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;4r3/5k2/8/3n4/4P3/8/4K3/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But there's nothing special about the pieces involved being pawns or knights; the relevant point is simply that the capture would expose the king to check, and such a move is never legal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similarly, a king isn't allowed to capture any opposing piece that is defended by one of its compatriots, again for no other reason than that such a move would expose the king to check. Thus the white king may not capture the rook in the following position, as doing so would place the king into check from the knight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;8/5k2/4n3/8/3r4/2K5/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2015-02-18T23:40:38.390" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8608" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8612" CreationDate="2015-02-19T09:51:21.140" Score="8" ViewCount="14308" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would appreciate if somebody could recommend a good Swiss pairing program. I'd prefer online version with multi-language option and free version but cheap one is also good.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've found &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.free-swiss.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.free-swiss.com/&lt;/a&gt; but do you know other ones?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5848" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T17:36:44.917" LastActivityDate="2021-03-09T06:14:51.600" Title="Looking for online Swiss pairing software" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;swiss-pairing&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="8609" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8613" CreationDate="2015-02-19T10:01:47.377" Score="2" ViewCount="814" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm thinking about to develop an online service to provide free software for helping chess tournaments organizers with pairing systems like swiss, round robin, team-swiss, team-round robin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could you, please, send me some learning materials how those pairing systems work?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5848" LastActivityDate="2015-02-19T20:42:58.383" Title="How to write a swiss pairing software" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;software&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8610" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8600" CreationDate="2015-02-19T14:19:31.913" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here's a poem by Jorge Luis Borges:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;AJEDREZ&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;En su grave rincón, los jugadores&#xA;rigen las lentas piezas. El tablero&#xA;los demora hasta el alba en su severo&#xA;ámbito en que se odian dos colores.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Adentro irradian mágicos rigores&#xA;las formas: torre homérica, ligero&#xA;caballo, armada reina, rey postrero,&#xA;oblicuo alfil y peones agresores.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Cuando los jugadores se hayan ido,&#xA;cuando el tiempo los haya consumido,&#xA;ciertamente no habrá cesado el rito.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;En el Oriente se encendió esta guerra&#xA;cuyo anfiteatro es hoy toda la tierra.&#xA;Como el otro, este juego es infinito.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;II&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tenue rey, sesgo alfil, encarnizada&#xA;reina, torre directa y peón ladino&#xA;sobre lo negro y blanco del camino&#xA;buscan y libran su batalla armada.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No saben que la mano señalada&#xA;del jugador gobierna su destino,&#xA;no saben que un rigor adamantino&#xA;sujeta su albedrío y su jornada.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;También el jugador es prisionero&#xA;(la sentencia es de Omar) de otro tablero&#xA;de negras noches y de blancos días.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Dios mueve al jugador, y éste, la pieza.&#xA;¿Qué Dios detrás de Dios la trama empieza&#xA;de polvo y tiempo y sueño y agonías?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;English translation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In their solemn corner, the players move&#xA;The slow pieces. The board detains them&#xA;Until the dawn in its severe world&#xA;In which two colors hate each other.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Within the forms irradiates magic&#xA;Strictness: Homeric rook, swift&#xA;Knight, armed queen, crucial king,&#xA;Oblique bishop and aggressive pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once the players have finally left,&#xA;Once time has devoured them,&#xA;Surely the ritual will not have ended.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the orient like this very war flared up&#xA;Whose amphitheater today is the earth entire.&#xA;Like the other, the game is infinite.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;II&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Weakling king,  slanting bishop, relentless&#xA;Queen, direct rook and cunning pawn&#xA;Seek and wage their armed battle&#xA;Across the black and white of the field.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They know not that the player’s selected&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Hand governs their destiny,&#xA;They know not that a rigor adamantine&#xA;Subjects their will and rules their day.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The player also is a prisoner&#xA;(The saying  is Omar’s) of another board&#xA;Of black nights and of white days.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;God moves the player, and he, the piece.&#xA;Which god behind God begets the plot&#xA;Of dust and time and dream and agonies?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="446" LastActivityDate="2015-02-19T14:19:31.913" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8611" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8592" CreationDate="2015-02-19T20:25:43.803" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;To back up the other answers, yes of course it's a rule. Moving with one hand and pressing the clock with the other is cheating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a right-handed player (i.e. I write with my right hand) I make the obvious choice, when I'm given it, of putting the clock on the left hand side. Moving with the left hand is just as easy as with the right but I need my scorebook / scoresheet on the right hand side so that I can write the moves with my right hand. That is much easier with the clocks on the left. That way the clock doesn't take space I need for my scorebook and my clock action doesn't interfere with writing the moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My advice is learn to move with your left hand. It is much easier than learning to write with your left.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2015-02-19T20:25:43.803" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8612" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8608" CreationDate="2015-02-19T20:32:08.730" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;My club uses &lt;a href=&quot;http://swiss-manager.at/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Swiss Manager&lt;/a&gt;. It is very good but not cheap. 150 euros for the full version, 75 euros for the light. It is perhaps worth looking at what it does to get ideas if you are thinking of writing your own.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One I downloaded some time ago but still haven't got round to playing (so I can't give any recommendation) is &lt;a href=&quot;http://sourceforge.net/projects/oswiss/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;OSwiss&lt;/a&gt; which is a project on Sourceforge.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2015-02-19T20:56:13.143" LastActivityDate="2015-02-19T20:56:13.143" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8613" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8609" CreationDate="2015-02-19T20:42:58.383" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You should start with the section of the FIDE web site which describes the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fide.com/component/handbook/?id=18&amp;amp;view=category&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Swiss Rules&lt;/a&gt;. This has sections giving detailed descriptions of the different systems for making the pairings along with much other useful information.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is also worth looking at the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fide.com/component/handbook/?id=20&amp;amp;view=category&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;FIDE Tournament Rules&lt;/a&gt; which includes tables for round robin tournaments and descriptions of tie break methods which it is good to also have in a pairing program.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2015-02-19T20:42:58.383" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8614" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8599" CreationDate="2015-02-19T21:08:22.500" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are really 4 components to your computer's speed and the speed that a program will achieve. These are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) Disk speed. For big database searches this is probably the most important. The faster the disk the better so you probably want to store your data on an SSD if possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) The amount of memory. If large amounts of data are involved and the program is well written to take advantage of as much memory as you have then this is very important. For large commercial databases run by big businesses the default solution to poor performance is to add more memory but here I am talking about relational databases like Oracle, DB2, SQL Server etc. Still important for a chess database program if it is well written.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) Number of cores or processors in the CPU. If the program is written to support multi-threading (and if it is any good then it should) then the more cores the faster it will run.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4) Raw CPU speed. This is probably the least important but still important particularly for poorly written single-threaded programs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2015-02-19T21:08:22.500" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8615" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-02-20T06:50:31.403" Score="3" ViewCount="326" Body="&lt;p&gt;So, I played quite a bit a few years ago, at the 1500-1600 level, and now I'm getting back into things a bit.  I figured I'd use the chance to shore up my opening repertoire.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At the moment, I play 1. c4 as white and love it. I'm also pretty happy with the dragon as black vs e4.  Vs d4 though, I have issues.  I used to play the KID vs d4, but never really liked it. I like the fianchetto, but it was cramped in all the wrong ways, I never felt like I had good pawn breaks, and my minor pieces always were tripping over each other.  I like fianchetto positions in general. Before the English, I played a lot of KIA, and before the Dragon, Pirc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So what should I look into vs d4 if I like the Dragon, and especially the English?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6905" LastEditorUserId="11202" LastEditDate="2017-04-26T03:28:29.477" LastActivityDate="2017-04-26T09:01:25.670" Title="Openings vs 1. d4" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;1.d4&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8616" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8615" CreationDate="2015-02-20T09:44:18.307" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would try the Gruenfeld in your position. It has the fianchetto without the cramping and has a lot of scope for someone who likes a tactical, non-symmetric counter-punching kind of game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2015-02-20T09:44:18.307" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8618" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8615" CreationDate="2015-02-20T14:54:51.980" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just as Brian Towers I would recommend you to give a look at the Grunfeld. The main difference with the KID is that you react faster in the center with &lt;em&gt;3...d5&lt;/em&gt; and the resulting positions are often more open and &quot;enjoyable&quot; for your g7-bishop.&#xA;Other possibilities are the Benoni: play with c5 instead of e5 (in the KID) and with Queenside pawn play. Or the Benko Gambit which can lead to attacking positions with a dominant black square bishop (but depending on white's answer, the fianchetto won't always be the best option). In any case welcome back in the chess world and I wish you the best of luck with your black Dragon (a favorite of mine too)!!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6893" LastActivityDate="2015-02-20T14:54:51.980" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8619" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8620" CreationDate="2015-02-20T14:58:36.313" Score="4" ViewCount="160" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am studying a book about chess strategy, and in the chapter concerning the d4,e4 center I have this game:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(PACHMAN, VESELY, Pragues, 1953)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;r1b2rk1/pp1nqppp/2pb1n2/4p3/2PP4/2N1PN2/P1Q1BPPP/R1B1R1K1 b - - 0 11&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The last move of white is 11.Re1!, and the author said black can no more play exd4 because the queen has to retreat from the column e with a loss of time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But there is still the bishop in the column e!&#xA;Is it a master subtlety? I mean that if the bishop moves, it has no threats and the black queen has time to escape from the column e...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1855" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2015-02-20T16:08:40.090" LastActivityDate="2015-02-20T19:48:06.240" Title="A question about the time to evacuate a queen in a master game" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;queens&gt;&lt;master-games&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8620" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8619" CreationDate="2015-02-20T15:37:15.827" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Very good question and I'll try my best to answer properly. As you correctly pointed out, there would be no direct threat on the black queen after 11...exd4 12.exd4 because of the e2 bishop on the e-file (and no good discovery). But if we think further, what does the rook e1 really achieve for the white camp in the current position? Honestly, it's not doing much at all: protecting an already protected bishop and that's about it. Now considering the position after 11...exd4 12.exd4. In that case, the e1-rook is ideally placed on a open file and almost directly facing the black queen. Black would have to lose a tempo at some point by moving his queen and white could prepare an invasion on this e-file. Obviously it's a long-term plan but it's actually what strategy is all about! &#xA;To conclude, I would say that 11...exd4 is not a great move because it justify the previous white move 11.Re1. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6893" LastActivityDate="2015-02-20T15:37:15.827" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8622" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8619" CreationDate="2015-02-20T19:48:06.240" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I disagree to a certain extent with the author. The big problem after ed ed is that white's pawns on d4 and c4 have a lock on the center and black has no further stake in the center having given up his e5 pawn. Some time in the past black also managed to exchange his well placed pawn on d5 for white's poorly placed pawn on b3 which now looks like a big mistake as it was the first step in giving up the fight for the center. Black is also a bit cramped with his pieces stepping on each others' toes. Admittedly a big part of the problem is the queen on e7.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Imagine one small change to the position, black's queen on c7 instead of e7. Now ed is a real problem for white. Black can follow up with Ng4 with threats against h2 and f2 and Ndf6 to come unleashing the white squared bishop. Both g3 and h3 for white have their tactical drawbacks. As it is black will need to do some regrouping of his pieces before he can make any freeing pawn breaks or captures.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2015-02-20T19:48:06.240" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8623" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8626" CreationDate="2015-02-21T15:22:00.933" Score="3" ViewCount="1670" Body="&lt;p&gt;Which currently active player is the youngest and which the oldest ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Korchnoi is a candidate for the oldest, but I do not know if he is still active.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5784" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2019-05-20T12:52:42.237" LastActivityDate="2019-05-20T12:55:01.727" Title="Youngest and oldest active player" Tags="&lt;famous-players&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="8624" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8623" CreationDate="2015-02-21T16:31:42.860" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;A good candidate for the oldest GM is Yuri Averbakh, (but not sure he is active anymore) see &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuri_Averbakh&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for the youngest, I would say &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.chessbase.com/post/moscow-open-the-four-year-old-veteran&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this guy&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for Korchnoi, yes, he is still alive, see &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.chessbase.com/post/viktor-korchnoi-interview-true-to-himself&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this interview&lt;/a&gt; on Chessbase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2607" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2019-05-20T12:53:45.207" LastActivityDate="2019-05-20T12:53:45.207" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="8625" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8623" CreationDate="2015-02-21T18:45:04.953" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not the current youngest and oldest but back in 1990 I was board 2 for Wincanton chess club (England) in the East Somerset league. Boards 3 and 4 were 11 year-old Jack Rudd and 89 year-old RG Gray (&lt;em&gt;Mr.&lt;/em&gt; Gray to relative youngsters like me ;-). Then the captain broke the bad news to me. Jack was being promoted and I was down to board 3. Suddenly I was playing between 2 players whose ages added up to 100 but with an age difference of 78. So, good candidates for the youngest and oldest to play at the same time for the same team.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Only in chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that Mr Gray had been playing chess long enough and at a high enough level that he played against Tartakover when he took refuge in England during the second world war and hence has a Morphy number of 3. Jack has beaten James Sherwin and hence has a Fischer number of 2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2015-02-21T18:45:04.953" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8626" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8623" CreationDate="2015-02-22T00:34:59.433" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The answer to your question&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Korchnoi is alive. And playing! He played a match against Wolfgang Ulhmann last week (15-16 February 2015) in the Veterans section of the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zurich-cc.com/results.html&quot;&gt;Zürich Chess Challenge&lt;/a&gt;. He won two games and lost two.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, today (22 February 2015) the oldest active GM is the American &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Bisguier&quot;&gt;Arthur B. Bisguier&lt;/a&gt; (Elo 2170) born in 1929. Korchnoi was born two years later.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But the most veteran player title is for &lt;a href=&quot;http://ratings.fide.com/card.phtml?event=2109271&quot;&gt;Lourenço Joao Cordioli&lt;/a&gt; (Elo 1928), a Brasilian lawyer born in 1916. And he plays still; he actually got the 100th place in the &lt;a href=&quot;http://chess-results.com/tnr146738.aspx?lan=10&amp;amp;art=0&amp;amp;turdet=YES&amp;amp;flag=30&amp;amp;wi=984&quot;&gt;Floripa Chess Open 2015&lt;/a&gt; on January.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The youngest FIDE rated players are two boys born in 2010, an Indian boy rated 1036 and an Iranian boy rated 1340. I prefer not to give the names to protect their privacy, since they are so young.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The youngest GM is &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Sevian&quot;&gt;Samuel Sevian&lt;/a&gt; (Elo 2531, born in 2000), the youngest USA GM at the age of 13 years, 10 months, 27 days. There are also two WGMs born the same year:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhansaya_Abdumalik&quot;&gt;Zhansaya Abdumalik&lt;/a&gt; (Elo 2379) from Kazakhstan and &lt;a href=&quot;http://ratings.fide.com/card.phtml?event=13403729&quot;&gt;Gunay Mammadzada&lt;/a&gt; (Elo 2334) from Azerbaijan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Some details on how I found the information&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To answer your question I have used the latest &lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/download.phtml&quot;&gt;FIDE list&lt;/a&gt; of active players of February 12th 2015. But it has been more difficult than expected because of errors and missing data in the list.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, there was one player in the list born in 2049?! (maybe 1949?), another one in 205 (2005?), another in 1881 (1981?) and another in 1895 (1985?). Then, quite a lot of players had 0 or 1900 as birth year, which surely means that it is unknown.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And finally, according to the FIDE list there are 1 active player born in 2015 (?!), 3 born in 2014, 5 born in 2013, 3 born in 2012, 19 born in 2011... all of them unrated (of course). I confess I don't know what this means.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyway, I started looking for the oldest player. The first serious candidate was Carl Weibrecht (German, born in 1911, no FIDE rating). Although he appears as active in the list, I found a message in the website of &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.schachkreis-zugspitze.de/meldungen?Kategorie=Sonstiges&quot;&gt;Schachkreis Zugspitze&lt;/a&gt; dated May 1st 2011 saying &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;Chess Circle Zugspitze mourns chess friend Carl Weibrecht from&#xA;  Garmisch&quot; (Google translated).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So he might not be active, after all...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The second candidate to the oldest player title was Dr. Horst Reichel, professor in Computer Science (also German, born in 1912, no FIDE rating). I have found &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.365chess.com/players/Horst_Reichel&quot;&gt;some of his games&lt;/a&gt; for the period 2003-2006, but not later. So I am not sure if he is still playing. However, if the birthdate is correct he played till well passed 90 years old.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then, there are other apparently active players born in 1915 (all without FIDE rating)... And at this point I decided to restrict the search to rated players and GMs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3757" LastActivityDate="2015-02-22T00:34:59.433" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8627" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5583" CreationDate="2015-02-22T07:32:13.557" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is no other retro-book by Smullyan but there is a &lt;strong&gt;very rich&lt;/strong&gt; collection of problems, tutorials, bibliography, etc. on &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retrograde_analysis&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Retrograde Analysis&lt;/a&gt; freely available at &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.janko.at/Retros/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.janko.at/Retros/&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is familiarly called &lt;em&gt;The Retro Corner&lt;/em&gt; and exists since the early 1990s !! It has a mailing list where you can ask any question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The two books by Smullyan are a wonderful introduction, but then you'll want to move forward and look at exquisitely elegant problems (that are not necessarily very hard to solve).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3446" LastActivityDate="2015-02-22T07:32:13.557" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8628" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7794" CreationDate="2015-02-22T07:35:30.127" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;See my answer to &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/5583/about-retrograde-analysis/8627#8627&quot;&gt;About retrograde analysis&lt;/a&gt;. The Retro Corner is not about &lt;em&gt;composing.&lt;/em&gt; but it has lots of easy and hard examples with detailed solutions, comments, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3446" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-09-14T04:36:30.060" LastActivityDate="2020-09-14T04:36:30.060" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="8629" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="178" CreationDate="2015-02-22T07:44:03.437" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is &lt;em&gt;The Flanders Panel&lt;/em&gt;, a crime novel written in 1990 by best-selling Spanish author Arturo&#xA;Pérez-Reverte.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The plot revolves around an old painting, where a chess position between two players appears incidentally in the background. Upon close inspection the position reveals mysterious things that I won't spoil.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3446" LastActivityDate="2015-02-22T07:44:03.437" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8630" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-02-22T10:01:38.817" Score="2" ViewCount="320" Body="&lt;p&gt;Lately I've been wondering what could be maximum Elo achieved by a computer. I mean, we have super-computers, give super computer (1st in the world) chess program and let it play, it will probably pre-calculate first 30 (or maybe 50) moves within a second.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I went Googling and this site offered, kind of answer, particularly this one:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/5252&quot;&gt;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/5252&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Answer shortly was:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Given these assumptions, the machine will max out at about 3351 ELO1,&#xA;  where if it wins, its Elo will increase by less than half a point&#xA;  (+0.49 to 3351.49), which will be discarded (rounded down to 3351).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Okay, so there's 3351 Elo, which currently maxxed out value. Is there any other value that I could absolutely assign to human as well as computers? I don't want to sound cocky, but I'd really like to compare power of my processor to the one of human brain. Of course I know that processors as fast as human brain will come within 40 years and don't exist now. But I mean, I want to measure and compare on how &lt;strong&gt;my computer&lt;/strong&gt; performs compared to &lt;strong&gt;champions&lt;/strong&gt;. In absolute values, so it's not just limited because it's extremely relative. Just... you know, hard to explain, I hope you understand. Is there such absolute measure for human/computer calculation/prediction?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6916" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.193" LastActivityDate="2015-02-24T08:33:06.760" Title="Is this really limitation of absolute ELO?" Tags="&lt;software&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8631" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9683" CreationDate="2015-02-22T10:26:21.120" Score="4" ViewCount="426" Body="&lt;p&gt;In &quot;How Life Imitates Chess&quot;, end of chapter 16, Kasparov says that positions needing 200 moves to win have been discovered with the help of computers. So I am wondering which such position is, which the moves are and who discovered it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3757" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-11-16T01:28:50.877" LastActivityDate="2020-04-29T18:19:33.677" Title="Which is the 200 move won position?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;problems&gt;&lt;game-complexity&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8632" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8631" CreationDate="2015-02-22T10:52:20.640" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Many such positions were found thanks to endgame databases. Below is the &lt;a href=&quot;http://tb7.chessok.com/articles/Top8DTM_eng&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;record holder&lt;/a&gt;, which is 549 moves long.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;1n1k4/6Q1/5KP1/8/7b/1r6/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, probably more remarkable is this 19th century (!!) composition by Otto Blathy (he authored several other similar monstrous problems). White to move and mate in 292 moves. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;q5nn/1p2p3/p1k1P1p1/6Pp/PKp1p1pP/8/2P1P1PP/3Q4 w - - 0 0 &#xA;&#xA;1. Qd7+ Kb6 2. a5+ Ka7 3. Qd4+ Kb8 4. Qd8+ Ka7 5. Qb6+ Kb8 6. c3! Kc8 7. Qc5+ Kb8 8. Qe5+ Kc8 9. Qd5 Kc7 10. Qd7+ Kb8 11. Qd8+ Ka7 12. Qb6+ Kb8 13. e3 Kc8 14. Qc5+ Kb8 15. Qe5+ Kc8 16. Qd5 Kc7 17. Qd7+ Kb8 18. Qd8+ Ka7 19. Qb6+ Kb8 20. g3 Kc8 21. Qc5+ Kb8 22. Qe5+ Kc8 23. Qd5 Kc7 24. Qd7+ Kb8 25. Qd8+ Ka7 26. Qb6+ Kb8 27. Ka3 Kc8 28. Qc5+ Kb8 29. Qe5+ Kc8 30. Qd5 Kc7 31. Qd7+ Kb8 32. Qd8+ Ka7 33. Qb6+ Kb8 34. Kb2 Kc8 35. Qc5+ Kb8 36. Qe5+ Kc8 37. Qd5 Kc7 38. Qd7+ Kb8 39. Qd8+ Ka7 40. Qb6+ Kb8 41. Kc2 Kc8 42. Qc5+ Kb8 43. Qe5+ Kc8 44. Qd5 Kc7 45. Qd7+ Kb8 46. Qd8+ Ka7 47. Qb6+ Kb8 48. Kd2 Kc8 49. Qc5+ Kb8 50. Qe5+ Kc8 51. Qd5 Kc7 52. Qd7+ Kb8 53. Qd8+ Ka7 54. Qb6+ Kb8 55. Ke2 Kc8 56. Qc5+ Kb8 57. Qe5+ Kc8 58. Qd5 Kc7 59. Qd7+ Kb8 60. Qd8+ Ka7 61. Qb6+ Kb8 62. Kf2 Kc8 63. Qc5+ Kb8 64. Qe5+ Kc8 65. Qd5 Kc7 66. Qd7+ Kb8 67. Qd8+ Ka7 68. Qb6+ Kb8 69. Kg2 Kc8 70. Qc5+ Kb8 71. Qe5+ Kc8 72. Qd5 Kc7 73. Qd7+ Kb8 74. Qd8+ Ka7 75. Qb6+ Kb8 76. h3 gxh3+ 77. Kxh3 Kc8 78. Qc5+ Kb8 79. Qe5+ Kc8 80. Qd5 Kc7 81. Qd7+ Kb8 82. Qd8+ Ka7 83. Qb6+ Kb8 84. Kg2 Kc8 85. Qc5+ Kb8 86. Qe5+ Kc8 87. Qd5 Kc7 88. Qd7+ Kb8 89. Qd8+ Ka7 90. Qb6+ Kb8 91. Kf2 Kc8 92. Qc5+ Kb8 93. Qe5+ Kc8 94. Qd5 Kc7 95. Qd7+ Kb8 96. Qd8+ Ka7 97. Qb6+ Kb8 98. Ke2 Kc8 99. Qc5+ Kb8 100. Qe5+ Kc8 101. Qd5 Kc7 102. Qd7+ Kb8 103. Qd8+ Ka7 104. Qb6+ Kb8 105. Kd2 Kc8 106. Qc5+ Kb8 107. Qe5+ Kc8 108. Qd5 Kc7 109. Qd7+ Kb8 110. Qd8+ Ka7 111. Qb6+ Kb8 112. Kc2 Kc8 113. Qc5+ Kb8 114. Qe5+ Kc8 115. Qd5 Kc7 116. Qd7+ Kb8 117. Qd8+ Ka7 118. Qb6+ Kb8 119. Kb2 Kc8 120. Qc5+ Kb8 121. Qe5+ Kc8 122. Qd5 Kc7 123. Qd7+ Kb8 124. Qd8+ Ka7 125. Qb6+ Kb8 126. Ka3 Kc8 127. Qc5+ Kb8 128. Qe5+ Kc8 129. Qd5 Kc7 130. Qd7+ Kb8 131. Qd8+ Ka7 132. Qb6+ Kb8 133. Kb4 Kc8 134. Qc5+ Kb8 135. Qe5+ Ka7 136. Qd4+ Kb8 137. Qxh8 Kc7 138. Qe5+ Kc8 139. Qd5 Kb8 140. Qd8+ Ka7 141. Qb6+ Kb8 142. Ka3 Kc8 143. Qc5+ Kb8 144. Qe5+ Kc8 145. Qd5 Kc7 146. Qd7+ Kb8 147. Qd8+ Ka7 148. Qb6+ Kb8 149. Kb2 Kc8 150. Qc5+ Kb8 151. Qe5+ Kc8 152. Qd5 Kc7 153. Qd7+ Kb8 154. Qd8+ Ka7 155. Qb6+ Kb8 156. Kc2 Kc8 157. Qc5+ Kb8 158. Qe5+ Kc8 159. Qd5 Kc7 160. Qd7+ Kb8 161. Qd8+ Ka7 162. Qb6+ Kb8 163. Kd2 Kc8 164. Qc5+ Kb8 165. Qe5+ Kc8 166. Qd5 Kc7 167. Qd7+ Kb8 168. Qd8+ Ka7 169. Qb6+ Kb8 170. Ke2 Kc8 171. Qc5+ Kb8 172. Qe5+ Kc8 173. Qd5 Kc7 174. Qd7+ Kb8 175. Qd8+ Ka7 176. Qb6+ Kb8 177. Kf2 Kc8 178. Qc5+ Kb8 179. Qe5+ Kc8 180. Qd5 Kc7 181. Qd7+ Kb8 182. Qd8+ Ka7 183. Qb6+ Kb8 184. Kg2 Kc8 185. Qc5+ Kb8 186. Qe5+ Kc8 187. Qd5 Kc7 188. Qd7+ Kb8 189. Qd8+ Ka7 190. Qb6+ Kb8 191. Kh3 Kc8 192. Qc5+ Kb8 193. Qe5+ Kc8 194. Qd5 Kc7 195. Qd7+ Kb8 196. Qd8+ Ka7 197. Qb6+ Kb8 198. g4 Kc8 199. Qc5+ Kb8 200. Qe5+ Kc8 201. Qd5 Kc7 202. Qd7+ Kb8 203. Qd8+ Ka7 204. Qb6+ Kb8 205. gxh5 gxh5 206. Kg2 Kc8 207. Qc5+ Kb8 208. Qe5+ Kc8 209. Qd5 Kc7 210. Qd7+ Kb8 211. Qd8+ Ka7 212. Qb6+ Kb8 213. Kf2 Kc8 214. Qc5+ Kb8 215. Qe5+ Kc8 216. Qd5 Kc7 217. Qd7+ Kb8 218. Qd8+ Ka7 219. Qb6+ Kb8 220. Ke2 Kc8 221. Qc5+ Kb8 222. Qe5+ Kc8 223. Qd5 Kc7 224. Qd7+ Kb8 225. Qd8+ Ka7 226. Qb6+ Kb8 227. Kd2 Kc8 228. Qc5+ Kb8 229. Qe5+ Kc8 230. Qd5 Kc7 231. Qd7+ Kb8 232. Qd8+ Ka7 233. Qb6+ Kb8 234. Kc2 Kc8 235. Qc5+ Kb8 236. Qe5+ Kc8 237. Qd5 Kc7 238. Qd7+ Kb8 239. Qd8+ Ka7 240. Qb6+ Kb8 241. Kb2 Kc8 242. Qc5+ Kb8 243. Qe5+ Kc8 244. Qd5 Kc7 245. Qd7+ Kb8 246. Qd8+ Ka7 247. Qb6+ Kb8 248. Ka3 Kc8 249. Qc5+ Kb8 250. Qe5+ Kc8 251. Qd5 Kc7 252. Qd7+ Kb8 253. Qd8+ Ka7 254. Qb6+ Kb8 255. Kb4 Kc8 256. Qc5+ Kb8 257. Kxc4 Qa7 258. Qxa7+ Kxa7 259. Kc5 b6+ 260. axb6+ Kb7 261. c4 a5 262. Kb5 a4 263. Kxa4 Kxb6 264. Kb4 Kc6 265. c5 Kd5 266. Kb5 Kxe6 267. Kc6 Kf7 268. Kd7 e5 269. c6 Ne7 270. c7 Nd5 271. c8=Q Nb6+ 272. Kd8 Nxc8 273. Kxc8 Ke8 274. Kc7 Ke7 275. Kc6 Ke6 276. Kc5 Ke7 277. Kd5 Kf7 278. Kxe5 Kg7 279. Kxe4 Kg6 280. Kf4 Kf7 281. Kf5 Kg7 282. e4 Kf7 283. g6+ Ke7 284. e5 Kf8 285. e6 Ke7 286. g7 Kd6 287. g8=Q Kc5 288. e7 Kd4 289. e8=Q Kc5 290. Qe5+ Kb4 291. Qgb8+ Kc4 292. Qbb5#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3831" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-29T18:19:33.677" LastActivityDate="2020-04-29T18:19:33.677" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="8633" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-02-22T15:18:11.950" Score="9" ViewCount="1208" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recently edited the Wikipedia article &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifty-move_rule&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;50 Move Rule&lt;/a&gt; as follows:    &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The rationale for this rule is that pawn moves and captures are the&#xA;  only '''irreversible''' types of moves.  That is, after each pawn move&#xA;  or capture, it is impossible for any previous position in the game to&#xA;  be repeated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately, my edit was quickly removed with the comment: &lt;code&gt;This is unreferenced. Come up with a reference if you can.&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think this is pretty clear just by thinking about it, but is there any &quot;formal proof&quot; published anywhere that what I tried to add to the article is true?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT:&lt;/strong&gt; The words &quot;the only&quot; should be deleted.  In addition to captures and pawn moves, losing the right to castle on either or both sides (by moving a rook or king), or failing to capture a certain pawn &quot;en passant&quot; (thus giving up the right to do so later) are also irreversible.  These logically should also reset the 50-move count but are omitted from the rules for reasons of simplicity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6917" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2018-11-01T07:10:42.273" LastActivityDate="2018-11-01T09:55:39.643" Title="Proof of irreversibility of 50 move rule" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;50-move-rule&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="8634" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8633" CreationDate="2015-02-22T17:04:32.077" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The only 'formal proof' you need is a reference to the rule book of the appropriate governing body. In the US, this could be the USCF.  For international events, it would be FIDE.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2015-02-22T17:04:32.077" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8635" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8630" CreationDate="2015-02-22T17:05:37.800" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The maximum ELO (computer or otherwise) is 400 points above its highest rated opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2015-02-22T17:05:37.800" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8636" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8633" CreationDate="2015-02-22T17:39:10.870" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Whoever gave the reason they did for removing your edit was being kind. Your supposed  rationale for the rule is not correct. The 50 move rule and the 3 fold repetition rule are there to cut short games which are going nowhere. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If there are captures or pawn moves then the nature of the position is changing and there is the possibility of one side or the other winning or losing via these moves. In blocked positions where such moves are either impossible for either side or suicidal it makes no sense to just go on pushing wood. Irreversibility has nothing whatsoever to do with it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2015-02-23T06:54:27.030" LastActivityDate="2015-02-23T06:54:27.030" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8637" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8630" CreationDate="2015-02-23T08:01:47.790" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;My experience is with the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ecfgrading.org.uk/new/help.php#top&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;ECF system&lt;/a&gt;, which is probably not technically elo but I understand it approximates it. With that understanding, Tony gave the correct answer, but I want to elaborate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A simple explanation of how the ECF rating works, using elo units: when you beat your opponent, you get his rating + 400 points for that game, if you draw you get his rating and if you lose, his rating - 400. Your rating for a period is calculated by averaging out all the ratings points so obtained over that period.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you can see, your rating is normally expressed as a function of &lt;em&gt;your opponents'&lt;/em&gt; rating. (There may be exceptions like when your opponent has no rating, or a rating very far away from your rating, but that can be safely ignored for this discussion). That means that no matter how good you are &lt;em&gt;actually&lt;/em&gt;, you can only be measured in terms of how good you are relative to your opponents.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The implication of this is that if all your opponents' ratings remain static (as it would be between rating set points), your maximum possible rating is the highest opponent's rating plus 400. This can only be obtained if you keep on playing the next best rated player and win every game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's say someone with Magnus Carlsen's ability appears out of nowhere and enters a junior tournament where all his opponents have ratings of +-1400. Low and behold, he wins all his games - but his rating for the tournament will still only be +-1800, because it is calculated based on the strength of his opponents.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hence, as you can see, there is no &lt;em&gt;absolute&lt;/em&gt; maximum theoretical rating, but there is a &lt;em&gt;relative&lt;/em&gt; theoretical limit. As your opponents' ratings increase, your theoretical maximum rating also increases, but never above the highest opponent rating + 400.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;** Note to technically minded: ECF rating is convertible to elo using a formula established by the ECF as described &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ecfgrading.org.uk/new/help.php#top&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;. How accurate this is is probably disputable, but according to the latest formula, I should have used 375 points instead of 400 as described above. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1816" LastEditorUserId="1816" LastEditDate="2015-02-24T08:33:06.760" LastActivityDate="2015-02-24T08:33:06.760" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8638" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-02-23T13:28:52.817" Score="3" ViewCount="1610" Body="&lt;p&gt;What are some openings that normally a player with less or no understanding of opening theory would suffer agonizingly? Or perhaps, openings that are extremely confusing to play against?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To me, the Latvian Gambit/French Defense is one of the most confusing openings. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5791" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-07-28T13:11:17.330" LastActivityDate="2016-07-28T13:16:26.377" Title="Very Confusing Openings" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8639" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8638" CreationDate="2015-02-23T15:12:02.610" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Depends if you have the white pieces or the black pieces;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;white: 1. Nf3 - Versatile, deceptive, unassuming. Typically, blacks first move dictates the style and nature of the game. However, with 1. Nf3, white has countless systems at his disposal depending on how black responds. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;b3 (Nimzovich-Larsen attack)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;g3 (King's Indian attack)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;c4 (English opening)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;black: &#xA;against e4: 1... Nf6 - Alekhine's defense. From move number one, black is directly attacking white's center. Many novice players will over-extend themselves and start pushing their pieces hastily. Alekhine's defense is a tricky, formidable response to 1. e4, as Bobby Fischer showed us in 1972 against Boris Spassky.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;against d4: 1...f5 - Dutch defense. The Dutch defense, whose famous practitioners include  Aleksander Alekhine, Mikhail Botvinnik, and Hikaru Nakamura, is a dangerous response to 1. d4. Black is taking dead aim at white's kingside and, specifically, the e4 square. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6922" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-07-28T13:16:26.377" LastActivityDate="2016-07-28T13:16:26.377" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8640" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-02-23T17:45:55.217" Score="1" ViewCount="371" Body="&lt;p&gt;I still search an executable file of the chess program wilhelm. It is not only a chess&#xA; endgame database, you can fix pieces to be on concrete squares and check all such position&#xA; to get a statistic how many positions are won/draw/lost. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I downloaded a version long ago, but it did not work. I could not find any results.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does anyone know if there is an executable file ? And if yes, does it also consider&#xA; DTC or DTZ - metrics ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5784" LastActivityDate="2015-12-03T15:11:14.360" Title="chess program wilhelm" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;tablebases&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8642" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8638" CreationDate="2015-02-24T01:25:41.147" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;If one has no understanding of opening theory then performance will suffer dramatically no matter what opening is played.&#xA;There are very sharp openings out there such as &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_Knights_Defense&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Two Knights Defense&lt;/a&gt; where one has to know exact sequence of moves for both sides:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  [StartPly &quot;19&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;  [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;  1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Nf6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;here white can play 4. Ng5, 4. Nc3, 4. d3 and 4. d4 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruy_Lopez#Schliemann_Defence_Deferred:_4.Ba4_f5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Ruy Lopez, Schliemann Defense&lt;/a&gt; is very sharp for black. Black has to know it with the tips of the fingers or lose very quickly&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  [StartPly &quot;19&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;  [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;  1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 f5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ultra-sharp &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sicilian_Defence,_Najdorf_Variation&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Polugaevsky variation&lt;/a&gt; is yet another example of how important the tempo is in the opening:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  [StartPly &quot;19&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;  [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;  1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 a6 6. Bg5 b5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Closed opening are known to be slow but there are also very sharp lines like &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semi-Slav_Defense&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Botvinnik Variation&lt;/a&gt;. It is known (on GM level!) when seeing one move further in this line was enough to secure a win. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  [StartPly &quot;19&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;  [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;  1. d4 d5 2. c4 c6 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. Nc3 e6 5. Bg5 dxc4 6. e4 b5 7. e5 h6 8. Bh4 g5 9. Ng5 hxg5 10. Bg5 Nbd7 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4196" LastEditorUserId="4196" LastEditDate="2015-02-24T11:19:16.437" LastActivityDate="2015-02-24T11:19:16.437" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8643" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8638" CreationDate="2015-02-24T04:19:24.890" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Openings that involve opening up the f-file can turn dangerous very quickly.  The King's Gambit may cause the inexperienced player some regret after a check on h4 or after ...g4 drives away a knight on f3, perhaps leaving the d-pawn unprotected.  For Black, the Latvian Gambit (or Greco Counter Gambit; in no way to be confused with the French Defense) can similarly lead to dangerous checks on h5, or to forking checks following Qe2 - b5, attacking the King as well as squares on b7 (pawn) and f5 (Bishop?).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2967" LastActivityDate="2015-02-24T04:19:24.890" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8644" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8531" CreationDate="2015-02-24T04:44:24.970" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;To some good answers I'll add this minor &quot;psychological&quot; point.  Faced with rapid Queen development, one may feel pressured to strike back in a big way--to counterattack, or to trap the Queen.  These attempts at dramatic &quot;payback&quot; usually end in giant frustration.  The key against early Queen deployment is to be satisfied with small gains.  Protect that weak f-square or central pawn.  Defend against any bishop pins that the opponent may use in conjunction with the Queen's moves.  Anticipate forks (checks with attacks on weak squares such as b-pawns), and resolutely hold everything together.  Weather the storm, bide your time, and before too long your superior development of minor pieces and better control of space will mean that either you can trap the Queen or, more likely, cause her to turn tail and flee, leaving you with a better position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2967" LastActivityDate="2015-02-24T04:44:24.970" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8645" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8531" CreationDate="2015-02-24T09:21:47.307" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;As what has already been said, early Queen development can be exploited by gaining time in development through threats to the Queen. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A small thing to add from my side is that from the Queen mover's perspective, the Queen cannot really do much at such an early stage since any piece out there is &quot;cheaper&quot; than her and as such, it's simply wasting precious tempi to orchestrate anything concrete against the opponent. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6925" LastActivityDate="2015-02-24T09:21:47.307" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8646" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8638" CreationDate="2015-02-24T09:39:25.020" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;From my point of view, hypermodern openings are good to catch the unaware players as most such players tend to overextend themselves and in the process, opening whole lot of weaknesses in their position for you to strike. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some examples of such openings that I found useful in my practice for the purpose you are asking:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Openings for White: Reti, Larsen&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Openings for Black: Pirc, King's Indian, Queen's Indian&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6925" LastActivityDate="2015-02-24T09:39:25.020" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8647" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-02-24T10:45:23.097" Score="1" ViewCount="210" Body="&lt;p&gt;In different ocasions I find my self in a very dificult situation (for me). The only pieces on the board are: Mine - King an Rook ; Oponnent - King.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is very dificult for me to check mate... Can somebody give me the main lines to do so, or where can I find this information? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4527" LastActivityDate="2015-02-24T13:08:05.530" Title="End game King an Rook - Beginners" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;beginner&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2015-02-24T23:09:07.793" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8648" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8647" CreationDate="2015-02-24T11:38:53.230" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Actually, this is a very fundamental ending and once you grasp the concept, it is quite simple. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Essentially, you need to get your King close to your opponent's King and then coordinate with your Rook to close (or force) his/her King to a corner. A bit of care is needed (e.g., using the concept of opposition) to give the final mate. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The following should help you:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Chess/The_Endgame/King_and_Rook_vs._King&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Chess/The_Endgame/King_and_Rook_vs._King&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6925" LastActivityDate="2015-02-24T11:38:53.230" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8649" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8647" CreationDate="2015-02-24T12:23:47.650" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here's one way:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Use the Rook to restrict the opponent's King to one part of the board.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Use your King to gain the opposition (Kings facing with one space between them, and it being your move)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Use the Rook to take a rank (or file, as appropriate) from the opponent's King.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Repeat until checkmate.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[Title &quot;Checkmate with K+R vs K&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;8/8/8/3k4/8/8/6K1/R7 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Ra4 {Now the king can't access half of the board.} Kc5 {He chases the Rook. Don't get fixated and let him take it! #guilty} 2. Rh4 {Keep the Rook away from the enemy King} Kd5 {The opponent will not want to leave the the 5th rank.} 3. Kg3 {This move is actually a little tricky, but the concept is key to quickly winning this ending. We must not allow the opponent to gain the 'opposition'. Whenever there is one space between the two Kings and they are lined up (even diagonally), that is, when they _oppose_ one another, the player on move has the advantage. Thus if we played Kf3, Black would have the opposition and we'd waste moves.} Ke5 {Keeping in the center, the best defense.} 4. Kf3 {Note this position - your King between your Rook and the enemy King. Now the enemy has 2 choices, charge or run. Might as well charge...} Kf5 5. Rh5+ {Absolutely fundamental here is that you gained the opposition (the Kings had one space between them and it was your move). In this position, you take the row away from the opponent's King.  This is what this checkmate technique is all about.}  Kg6 {Never give up. Maybe White will make a careless error...} 6. Ra5 {Nope. The Rook runs.} Kf6 {chases!}&#xA;7.Ke4 {Now if the enemy King chases, White gains the opposition again...} Ke6 (7...Ke7? {when defending, do not surrender space} 8. Ra6! {Gobble that rank!}) 8. Ra6+ Kf7 {Black knows he's doomed.} 9. Ke5 {Other moves allow Black to get the opposition. Do not allow it.} Kg7 {He runs because he knows what happens if he goes the other way.} 10. Kf5 Kh7 11. Kg5 {almost there...} Kg7 {what else??} 12.Ra7+ {Forces the King back} Kh8 {Kf8 is better but I have to go to work!} 13. Kg6 {will gain the opposition next turn. Not Kh6? which allows the king to escape to g8. Then you'd have to chase him to the other side of the rank. Go ahead and try it, it's annoying.} Kg8 14. Ra8#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One thing about your Rook when checkmating like this - never give up a row once you take it. Never loosen your grasp.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another thing is that your King should be between the opponent's King and your Rook. If he chases your Rook anyway, you'll get him in opposition and force him back. If he does not chase your Rook, then he'll run out of room to run and you'll gain the opposition. Sometimes, you'll need to move your Rook one square to 'waste' a move. If you do, don't surrender the rank! Keep the king contained. See the 2nd diagram.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can use the &lt;em&gt;opposition&lt;/em&gt; in lots of endgame positions to force your opponent to make a move he does not like. Learn it, love it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Per the note above. In this case it is White's move. But the natural &lt;code&gt;Kh5&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;Kf5&lt;/code&gt; give Black the opposition which means the game will be extended. The horrid &lt;code&gt;Kg6&lt;/code&gt; allows the King to slip the noose. So White needs to put black in Zugswang (which means to make him make a bad move.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[TITLE &quot;It Happens.&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;8/7k/R7/6K1/8/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Rb6 {Now Black has no good moves.} Kg7 2. Rb7+ {There we go, we're back on track.} &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2015-02-24T13:08:05.530" LastActivityDate="2015-02-24T13:08:05.530" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8650" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8651" CreationDate="2015-02-24T21:47:41.037" Score="0" ViewCount="99" Body="&lt;p&gt;Currently I aking me about How many games by day or week, need a beginner to improve their game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I asking that because I read a beginner player need to play 80% and study 20%, but How much is this 80%?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2615" LastActivityDate="2015-02-24T23:11:48.973" Title="Game played by day or week" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8651" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8650" CreationDate="2015-02-24T23:11:48.973" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's no magic number, especially since your definition of &quot;improve&quot; could be different from anyone else's. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I play about 5-10 rapid games per day, and have a few ongoing correspondence games at any time. Then again, I'm not a beginner, and if you're truly a beginner I'd say keep playing games as long as you're enjoying it. No need to keep grinding out more games if you're not having fun. For one, you'll not learn as much, and what's the point of playing a game if you're not enjoying it? Also there's no reason to stop if you've hit the day's &quot;magic number&quot; of games. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most important is analyzing your games after the fact. If you're reading a chess book (i.e. How to Reassess Your Chess, etc), after you're done with a game go back through the moves and see if you're following the guidelines the author laid down. See what you could've done better. See what you did well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Saying you'll play 100 games a day to get better won't likely make you better if you're not enjoying it, and aren't following a study plan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5854" LastActivityDate="2015-02-24T23:11:48.973" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8652" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-02-25T07:14:32.257" Score="10" ViewCount="2714" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are there any high-level players who are either known for playing games out until the bitter end or have done so in famous circumstances? Is this considered poor etiquette (I'd imagine it would be rude to force a master to play out a simple king+queen vs. king checkmate)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4263" LastActivityDate="2020-07-04T00:59:07.300" Title="Are there any grandmasters who always play until checkmate?" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;etiquette&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8653" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8652" CreationDate="2015-02-25T15:05:31.733" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Only in exceptional cases, a grandmaster plays until the mate. If the mate is beautiful,&#xA; or if he is very angry about himself, or just as a joke. But normally, they rather&#xA; resign one move before mate than being checkmated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In many cases, grandmasters resign too early, with only a pawn down at a full board&#xA; or with a bad piece. Nakamura often plays games out, but he resigns in totally&#xA; hopeless positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In short, a grandmaster is rarely checkmated. And I am pretty sure, that there is no&#xA; master ALWAYS playing to the mate, unless perhaps in a blitz or lightning game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5784" LastActivityDate="2015-02-25T15:05:31.733" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8654" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8661" CreationDate="2015-02-25T16:39:47.443" Score="2" ViewCount="171" Body="&lt;p&gt;As far as chess training applications go the Chess Heroz application is excellent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question though is can anyone explain the mathematics behind the ratings system?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am new to chess ratings and believe that there are a number of systems used?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6936" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2015-02-26T01:06:24.353" LastActivityDate="2015-02-26T16:29:50.290" Title="Chess Heroz (Android)" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;rating&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8655" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8652" CreationDate="2015-02-25T16:58:16.877" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is an example of a master playing on 2 queens down in the British Championship&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://streathambrixtonchess.blogspot.co.uk/2010/01/ray-could-play-iv.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://streathambrixtonchess.blogspot.co.uk/2010/01/ray-could-play-iv.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4543" LastActivityDate="2015-02-25T16:58:16.877" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8656" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8652" CreationDate="2015-02-25T19:43:35.273" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;To become Grandmaster, you must win many tournament games. They take many hours, sometimes multiple games per day, or many days in a row. Tournaments are exhausting. If you are tired then you make mistakes, and making mistakes means you don't play at the required level to become Grandmaster.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Players who always waste a lot of time by playing on until checkmate instead of resting aren't very likely to become Grandmaster.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2015-02-25T19:43:35.273" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8657" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8652" CreationDate="2015-02-25T19:45:39.450" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sometimes the grandmasters will play out the K+B+N vs K endgame, so as to have their opponent 'prove' they are capable of carrying out the somewhat tricky mate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As it turns out, it may be worth playing to the bitter end in this case. There are some examples of even grandmasters failing to deliver the checkmate! Here's a recently semi-famous one from a game played during womens FIDE Grand Prix tournament in Geneva, 2013. Showing only the relevant part; whole game can be replayed here: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1716505&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1716505&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Note: At the time of the game, Anna Ushenina was Women's World Champion!&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[White &quot;Anna Ushenina&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Olga Girya&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;8/8/8/8/B7/2NK4/8/k7 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Nd1 Ka2 2. Bc2 Ka1 3. Kc3 Ka2 4. Bb3+ Ka1 5. Ne3 Kb1 6. Nc2 Kc1 7. Ba2 Kd1 8. Nd4 Ke1 9. Kd3 Kf2 10. Bd5 Kg3 11. Ke3 Kg4 12. Be4 Kg5 13. Kf3 Kf6 14. Kf4 Kg7 15. Kg5 Kf7 16. Kf5 Kg7 17. Bd5 Kh6 18. Ne6 Kh7 19. Kf6 Kg8 20. Nf4+ Kh8 21. Be4 Kg8 22. Nh3 Kh8 23. Ng5 Kg8 24. Nf7 Kf8 25. Bh7 Ke8 26. Bf5 Kf8 27. Nh6 Ke8 28. Nf7 Kf8 29. Ne5 Kg8 30. Ng6 Kh7 31. Be6 Kh6 32. Bg8 Kh5 33. Ne5 Kh4 34. Kf5 Kg3 35. Bc4 Kf2 36. Kf4 Ke1 37. Ke3 Kd1 38. Bd3 Kc1 39. Nc4 Kd1 40. Nb6 Kc1 41. Na4 Kd1 42. Be4 Kc1 43. Bd3 Kd1 44. Nb2+ Kc1 45. Nc4 Kd1 46. Bg6 Kc1 47. Bf5 Kd1 48. Nb6 Kc1 49. Na4 Kd1 50. Nb2+ Kc1 51. Nc4 Kd1 52. Kd3 Kc1 53. Kc3 Kd1 54. Bd3 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3831" LastEditorUserId="3831" LastEditDate="2015-02-25T20:13:56.190" LastActivityDate="2015-02-25T20:13:56.190" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8658" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-02-25T20:35:00.980" Score="4" ViewCount="538" Body="&lt;p&gt;using PVS Algorithm with Quiet search and zero window search what should the range of the score be (-infinity, infinity ) could it be as small as (-16000,16000) and what should the search return if it's a stalemate or checkmate for me or for the other side ?&#xA;I tried reading the source code of different engines but there is too much addition(heuristics and such) that make it too difficult for me to understand anything.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the question in another for given this PVS algorithm how and where should I place checking for chaeck/stale mate and what score should I return ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;int PVS(alfa,beta,depthleft) {&#xA;   if( depthleft &amp;lt;= 0 ) return qsearch(alpha, beta);&#xA;&#xA;// using fail soft with negamax:&#xA;make first move&#xA;bestscore = -PVS(-beta, -alpha, depthleft-1);&#xA;unmake first move&#xA;if( bestscore &amp;gt; alpha ) {&#xA;   if( bestscore &amp;gt;= beta )&#xA;      return bestscore;&#xA;  alpha = bestscore;&#xA;}&#xA;&#xA;for( all remaining moves ) {&#xA;  make move&#xA;  score = -PVS(-alpha-1, -alpha, depthleft-1); // alphaBeta or zwSearch&#xA;  if( score &amp;gt; alpha &amp;amp;&amp;amp; score &amp;lt; beta ) {&#xA;     // research with window [alpha;beta]&#xA;     score = -PVS(-beta, -alpha, depthleft-1);&#xA;     if( score &amp;gt; alpha )&#xA;       alpha = score;&#xA;  }&#xA;  unmake move&#xA;  if( score &amp;gt; bestscore ) {&#xA;     if( score &amp;gt;= beta )&#xA;        return score;&#xA;     bestscore = score;&#xA;  }&#xA;}&#xA;return bestscore;&#xA;}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wasn't sure where to post this question here or on stack overflow so please migrate it as you see fit &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6937" LastActivityDate="2015-08-25T09:20:21.633" Title="how to evaluate the position inside the search function" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;evaluation&gt;&lt;programming&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8659" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8658" CreationDate="2015-02-26T00:38:43.870" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;where should I place checking for chaeck/stale mate&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Right before &lt;code&gt;make first move&lt;/code&gt;: there is no first move!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3774" LastActivityDate="2015-02-26T00:38:43.870" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8660" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-02-26T11:25:59.380" Score="-8" ViewCount="263" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am from India,passionate about chess.What is the actual procedure to become a professional player.Recently my parents are planning to send me to USA for graduation,If that happens will I able to represent my country?Or that doesn't happen(seen Nakamura Japanese Origin representing USA!!!!)Also heard that 1200 points will  be given as default like chess.com to a player who registerd for professional chess.Is that true??Friends help me out!!!! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6942" LastActivityDate="2015-02-26T16:44:28.460" Title="Million dollar Question for me!" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ClosedDate="2016-12-25T06:28:53.587" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8661" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8654" CreationDate="2015-02-26T16:29:50.290" Score="0" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I am new to chess ratings and believe that there are a number of&#xA;  systems used?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Every chess federation (doesn't quite equal every country because some countries, like the UK, have several federations) has its own rating system. In addition FIDE, the international chess federation, has its rating system.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Can anyone explain the mathematics behind the ratings system?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The basic mathematical principle behind rating systems is that every time you play a game, or group of games, against already graded opposition, your results and their respective ratings are used to adjust your rating or give you a rating for the first time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because players' ratings can change with different speed depending on their strength and age there is usually not a single constant factor which is used for all rating adjustments. Instead the factor will give bigger corrections / adjustments for young players, who are likely to be improving rapidly, and smaller corrections / adjustments for players who have been playing for a long time or who already have a high rating because these players are less likely to change in strength very much. Rather for these players the variability they show in playing strength likely just reflects the fact that they are human beings who have good days and bad days.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For details of how FIDE ratings are calculated you can read &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fide.com/component/handbook/?id=172&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;FIDE's Rating Regulations&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Section 8 - &lt;strong&gt;The working of the FIDE Rating System&lt;/strong&gt; - gives the mathematical rules and tables used in calculating FIDE ratings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2015-02-26T16:29:50.290" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8662" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8660" CreationDate="2015-02-26T16:44:28.460" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What is the actual procedure to become a professional player&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First you need to be born with the necessary talent. Very few are. Then you need to spend years studying and playing chess until you are so much better than most other players that you can actually earn enough money to live.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Recently my parents are planning to send me to USA for graduation,If&#xA;  that happens will I able to represent my country?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Almost certainly not. Both India and the US have very many excellent chess players. It is extremely unlikely that you will get into either country's top 10 any time soon, if ever.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Also heard that 1200 points will be given as default like chess.com to&#xA;  a player who registerd for professional chess.Is that true??&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You will not be &lt;em&gt;given&lt;/em&gt; anything, as a default or otherwise. What will happen if you play in rated tournaments is that a default value of 1200 will be used as your estimated rating for ratings calculations until such time as you actually manage to at least draw a game against a rated player. At that time you can be given a real rating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2015-02-26T16:44:28.460" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8663" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8638" CreationDate="2015-02-26T17:32:40.990" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I quite like the polish 1.b4 opening. The oddness catches some newer players off guard and it's not unusual for players to leave their rook wide open after going for your exposed b4 pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's actually quite a fun opening to use generally. You're sacrificing the middle for early development on the flank, I think its weakness is it gives away your intentions early on in the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then there's always the fried liver attack, I think someone mentioned it above; It's straight on the attack and if you've never played against it the pressure is agonizing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokolsky_Opening&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokolsky_Opening&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_Knights_Defense,_Fried_Liver_Attack&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_Knights_Defense,_Fried_Liver_Attack&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6945" LastActivityDate="2015-02-26T17:32:40.990" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8664" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8665" CreationDate="2015-02-26T19:35:36.833" Score="3" ViewCount="436" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the longest DTM in the endgame queen and two pawns versus a queen (KQPPKQ? This position is a mate in 167 moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;8/k7/6K1/1Q6/8/P6q/7P/8 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are the DTC and/or DTZ records also known for this endgame? Please do not only submit the number of moves, but also the position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5784" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-06-26T15:15:21.233" LastActivityDate="2020-06-26T15:15:21.233" Title="Longest DTM in the endgame KQPPKQ" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;tablebases&gt;&lt;queen-endgame&gt;&lt;records&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="8665" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8664" CreationDate="2015-02-26T20:00:18.147" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://kirill-kryukov.com/chess/longest-checkmates/longest-checkmates-sorted-by-length.shtml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;This page&lt;/a&gt; claims that the longest DTM in this type of endgame is 182 moves. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;8/4k3/8/Q7/8/7P/P7/q1K5 w - - 0 1&#xA;&#xA;1. Kc2 Qd4 2. Qe1+ Kf7 3. Qf1+ Kg7 4. Qg2+ Kh8 5. Qa8+ Kh7 6. Qb7+ Kh6 7. Qc6+ Kh5 8. Qe8+ Kg5 9. Qg8+ Kh6 10. Qe6+ Kh7 11. Kb3 Qd3+ 12. Kb4 Qd2+ 13. Kb5 Qd3+ 14. Qc4 Qf5+ 15. Kb6 Qf2+ 16. Kb7 Qf3+ 17. Kc7 Qa3 18. Kb6 Kh8 19. Qd4+ Kh7 20. Qd7+ Kg6 21. Qe6+ Kh5 22. Qd5+ Kg6 23. Kb5 Qb2+ 24. Kc6 Qc3+ 25. Kd7 Qg7+ 26. Kd6 Qf8+ 27. Kc7 Qf2 28. Kc6 Qe2 29. Kd7 Qf2 30. Qe6+ Kg7 31. Kc6 Qf3+ 32. Kb6 Qa3 33. Qb3 Qd6+ 34. Ka7 Qc5+ 35. Kb7 Qe7+ 36. Ka8 Qd8+ 37. Qb8 Qh4 38. Qb7+ Kf8 39. Qc8+ Ke7 40. Kb8 Qa4 41. Qc5+ Kd8 42. Qg5+ Ke8 43. Qe3+ Kf8 44. Qf3+ Ke7 45. a3 Qc4 46. Ka7 Qd4+ 47. Kb7 Qd7+ 48. Kb6 Qd4+ 49. Kb5 Qb2+ 50. Kc5 Qc2+ 51. Kd5 Qd2+ 52. Ke4 Qc2+ 53. Kf4 Qc7+ 54. Ke3 Qa7+ 55. Ke2 Qa6+ 56. Kf2 Qd6 57. Kf1 Qd4 58. Ke2 Qa4 59. Qc3 Ke8 60. Kf3 Qh4 61. Qc8+ Ke7 62. Qg4 Qf6+ 63. Qf4 Qa1 64. Qe3+ Kf8 65. Kg2 Qb1 66. Qf4+ Kg8 67. Qc4+ Kh8 68. Qd4+ Kg8 69. a4 Qg6+ 70. Kf2 Qf5+ 71. Kg3 Qg6+ 72. Kf4 Qf7+ 73. Kg5 Qe7+ 74. Qf6 Qd7 75. Qg6+ Kh8 76. Qh5+ Kg7 77. Qg4 Qd5+ 78. Qf5 Qd8+ 79. Kf4 Qd2+ 80. Kg3 Qe3+ 81. Qf3 Qg1+ 82. Kf4 Qc1+ 83. Kg4 Qc4+ 84. Qf4 Qe6+ 85. Kf3 Qb3+ 86. Kf2 Qb6+ 87. Kg3 Qg6+ 88. Kh4 Qh7+ 89. Kg4 Qg6+ 90. Qg5 Kh8 91. Kf4 Qf7+ 92. Qf5 Qc4+ 93. Qe4 Qc1+ 94. Kf5 Qc8+ 95. Qe6 Qc2+ 96. Kf6 Qf2+ 97. Ke7 Qc5+ 98. Qd6 Qa7+ 99. Qd7 Qc5+ 100. Ke6 Qc4+ 101. Ke5 Qc5+ 102. Ke4 Qc2+ 103. Kd5 Qd1+ 104. Ke6 Qe1+ 105. Kd6 Qb4+ 106. Kc7 Qf4+ 107. Kb6 Qb8+ 108. Kc5 Qe5+ 109. Qd5 Qe7+ 110. Kb6 Qb4+ 111. Qb5 Qd4+ 112. Kb7 Qe4+ 113. Kc8 Qe6+ 114. Kb8 Qg8+ 115. Ka7 Qg7+ 116. Ka8 Qg2+ 117. Qb7 Qxh3 118. a5 Qc3 119. a6 Qc4 120. Qb2+ Kh7 121. Qb6 Qc8+ 122. Ka7 Qc4 123. Kb7 Qe4+ 124. Qc6 Qb4+ 125. Ka7 Qf4 126. Qc8 Qg3 127. Ka8 Qd6 128. Qc2+ Kh6 129. Kb7 Qb4+ 130. Kc6 Qa3 131. Kb5 Kg7 132. Qc7+ Kh8 133. Qc8+ Kh7 134. Qd7+ Kg8 135. a7 Qb3+ 136. Ka6 Qa3+ 137. Kb7 Qb4+ 138. Kc7 Qc4+ 139. Kd8 Qh4+ 140. Qe7 Qd4+ 141. Kc8 Qc4+ 142. Kb8 Qb5+ 143. Qb7 Qe5+ 144. Ka8 Qc5 145. Qb3+ Kf8 146. Kb7 Qe7+ 147. Ka6 Qd6+ 148. Qb6 Qd3+ 149. Kb7 Qd7+ 150. Ka8 Qd5+ 151. Kb8 Qe5+ 152. Kb7 Qe4+ 153. Qc6 Qe7+ 154. Kb8 Qe5+ 155. Ka8 Kg8 156. Qc4+ Kh7 157. Qd3+ Kh8 158. Qd8+ Kh7 159. Kb7 Qb5+ 160. Qb6 Qd5+ 161. Qc6 Qb3+ 162. Kc7 Qg3+ 163. Qd6 Qc3+ 164. Kd7 Qf3 165. Kc8 Qe4 166. Kb8 Qb1+ 167 Kc7 Qc1+ 168. Kd7 Qh1 169. Qc6 Qh3+ 170. Kd8 Qh4+ 171. Kc8 Qb4 172. Qb7+ Qxb7+ 173. Kxb7 Kg7 174. a8=Q Kg6 175. Kc7 Kf5 176. Qa4 Ke5 177. Qg4 Kd5 178. Qf4 Kc5 179. Qe4 Kb5 180. Qd4 Ka5 181. Kc6 Ka6 182. Qb6#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to the &lt;a href=&quot;https://syzygy-tables.info/?fen=8/K6k/8/8/P7/Q6P/8/1q6_b_-_-_0_1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Sygyzy tablebases&lt;/a&gt;, the longest DTZ is 171 moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;8/K6k/8/8/P7/Q6P/8/1q6 b - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Records for DTC are not provided and I was not able to find any. DTC in this case occurs at 173, which is pretty high and a good estimate for a possible record holder (given the maximum DTM is at 182).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3831" LastEditorUserId="3831" LastEditDate="2020-04-01T07:01:30.563" LastActivityDate="2020-04-01T07:01:30.563" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="8666" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-02-27T02:27:45.660" Score="5" ViewCount="946" Body="&lt;p&gt;This may well be too broad of a question.  I'm currently in the process of programming a chess engine, but this is difficult for me as I'm not actually that good of a chess player.  I'm having trouble coming up with 'rules' that can analyze a board and give a positive/negative score.  Currently I have the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;penalty for knights on edge&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;bonus for further developed pieces&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;bonus for farther advanced pawns (closer to promotions)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;different score for kings in the endgame&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;bonus if the player has the bishop pair&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;bonus if castled&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;assess layout as per &lt;a href=&quot;http://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Simplified+evaluation+function&quot;&gt;these tables&lt;/a&gt; (some scrolling required)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have access to all the information about a game; and functioning move validation.  The part I'm getting stuck on is coming up with more of these 'rules' that make the analysis engine better.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6947" LastActivityDate="2015-04-17T21:12:16.773" Title="Static position analysis" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;engines&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8667" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8668" CreationDate="2015-02-27T03:50:07.290" Score="5" ViewCount="3025" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is it possible for white to do a queen-side castle in this situation and capture black's bishop? Assuming both rook and king haven't moved, of course. The rook would be capturing the bishop in this case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/8/8/8/8/8/8/R1b1K3 w - - 0 1 &quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've been trying to find examples or rules one way or the other, but I could not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6950" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2015-02-27T04:00:17.860" LastActivityDate="2015-02-27T04:00:17.860" Title="Is capturing a piece while castling legal?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;castling&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8668" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8667" CreationDate="2015-02-27T03:59:13.583" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, such a move is illegal, because one requirement of castling is that there be no pieces (of either color) standing between the king and the rook. From the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fide.com/component/handbook/?id=171&amp;amp;view=article&quot;&gt;FIDE Rules of Chess&lt;/a&gt;, 3.8(b):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Castling is prevented temporarily:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;a. if the square on which the king stands, or the square which it must cross, or the square which it is to occupy, is attacked by one or more of the opponent's pieces, or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;b. if there is &lt;strong&gt;any piece&lt;/strong&gt; between the king and the rook with which castling is to be effected.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2015-02-27T03:59:13.583" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8669" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8569" CreationDate="2015-02-27T08:35:40.317" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;We can find several website giving 6-piece endgame tablebase, the tricky part is probably the way you want the information back.&#xA;Here is 2 examples of endgame tablebase :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.shredderchess.com/online-chess/online-databases/endgame-database.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.shredderchess.com/online-chess/online-databases/endgame-database.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chessok.com/?page_id=361&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://chessok.com/?page_id=361&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In both of this example you can ask a position by putting FEN code, so there is probably a way to use it as a webservice. (Perhaps you'll have to use a script)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also another suggestion, on the link section of &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endgame_tablebase&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endgame_tablebase&lt;/a&gt; you can find Nalimove database and try to make it communicate with your software.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3480" LastActivityDate="2015-02-27T08:35:40.317" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8670" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8546" CreationDate="2015-02-27T08:41:32.540" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;There exists a 7-men-endgames tablebase available online, the &quot;Lomonosov endgame tablebase&quot;.&#xA;see : &lt;a href=&quot;http://chessok.com/?page_id=27966&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://chessok.com/?page_id=27966&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately, it is not free yet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3480" LastActivityDate="2015-02-27T08:41:32.540" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8671" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8640" CreationDate="2015-02-27T08:47:08.070" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is a link with informations you can get on chess program Wilhelm.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://web.archive.org/web/20081208015339/http://www.geocities.com/rba_schach2000/overview_english.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://web.archive.org/web/20081208015339/http://www.geocities.com/rba_schach2000/overview_english.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately, this chess program by Rafael B. Andrist stopped being developped in 2006.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3480" LastActivityDate="2015-02-27T08:47:08.070" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8672" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8674" CreationDate="2015-02-27T09:50:51.427" Score="4" ViewCount="671" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am planning to participate in a tournament, and I was thinking about using energy drinks or caffeinated drinks to enhance my performance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this a good idea? I normally don't take any energy drinks. Will it be counterproductive if I suddenly take up energy drinks, or is it better since I won't develop reliance on energy drinks?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it is good, how much energy drinks should I take (in milligrams of caffeine), and when is the best time to do so?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or does energy drink has no effect on chess performance whatsoever?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only side effect I know about energy drinks is that it is diuretic, but it won't be much of a concern as the time control for the tournament is long.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3381" LastActivityDate="2015-03-03T12:06:36.353" Title="Energy drinks for chess tournament" Tags="&lt;performance&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8673" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8666" CreationDate="2015-02-27T10:13:24.653" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The basic problem with your evaluations is that they make very little allowance for the dynamic features of the position like where are the opponent's pieces, especially king, and what stage of the game - opening, middle game, end game - although you do mention this briefly it is much more important.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are some additional factors, although these are generalizations which are not 100% strict rules:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) In the opening the queen and rooks should rarely venture out into the middle of the board. In the middle game they are best operating from behind their lines but on open files and diagonals or ones which will soon be opened, by pushing and / or exchanging a pawn for instance. In the endgame they are better attacking enemy pieces and pawns and especially the king rather than defending their own.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) Rooks are much stronger if they are connected (true in all phases of the game) and can be deadly if they are connected close to the opponent's king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) Established / supported knights and bishops close to the enemy king are very strong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4) Doubled pawns are weak&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5) Isolated pawns are weak&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;6) Two pawns standing side by side are generally stronger / more of a threat than where one pawn is supporting the other.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;7) Pawns, in the middle game, which are close to the enemy king are much stronger than just the extra you give them for being advanced.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;8) Knights are stronger than bishops if they have access to good center squares from which they can not be easily evicted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;9) Bishops are weak if the center is badly blocked and they have little freedom of movement (not many squares they can go to)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;10) Weaker pieces, like bishops and rooks, are stronger if they point at stronger enemy pieces like king or queen even though there are pieces in the way. It makes it more dangerous for the enemy to move any of his pieces and you may be able to create threats to move your pieces out of the way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm sure there are many more such general rules / guidelines which could be given, but you get the idea.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One crude way you could implement some of these ideas would be to have flags for these features which apply to the different pieces to which you give values if they are true.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2015-02-27T10:13:24.653" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8674" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8672" CreationDate="2015-02-27T10:22:54.087" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;From a guy that drinks for too many energy drinks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Don't.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They give a rush for 40 minutes tops and then a crash.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anxiety is also massively induced/increased.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6936" LastActivityDate="2015-02-27T10:22:54.087" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8675" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8672" CreationDate="2015-02-27T12:49:18.800" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Caffeine increases 'manual productivity' while decreasing creativity commensurately.  That is, if you're packing groceries or stocking shelves, tank up. If you need to think, ease up. YMMV of course.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is no silver bullet.  Eat right, sleep plenty, and exercise.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2015-02-27T12:49:18.800" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8677" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8666" CreationDate="2015-02-27T20:23:37.730" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Have you considered the fundamental advantages such as force, time, space (material is the other but you have that covered)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Force=&lt;/strong&gt; more pieces in an area of the board (usually an attacking force on a weak king)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Time=&lt;/strong&gt; measured in tempo (or tempi plural)  think wasted moves i.e.: a poorly placed piece being kicked by pawns. etc. a loss of time which often in early stages means poor development.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Space=&lt;/strong&gt; number of squares beyond the frontier line (the invisible line dividing your opponents side of the board from yours) that your pieces control.  compare and contrast space count.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;misc extra&lt;/strong&gt;  chess is a game of balance, a mismatch in control of a color of squares leads to a &quot;complex&quot; or weakness.  i.e.: all of your pieces are attacking light squares, or your king is castled with the g pawn pushed but no fianchettoed bishop to cover the squares leaving a weakness.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;also, open vs closed vs dynamic positions and the type of minor piece a side has...knights tend to prefer closed positions, bishops need open diagonals, just like rooks are happy on open files.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6956" LastEditorUserId="6956" LastEditDate="2015-02-27T20:45:47.653" LastActivityDate="2015-02-27T20:45:47.653" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8678" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8672" CreationDate="2015-02-27T20:56:53.677" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It probably depends on the person and how often you drink energy drinks to begin with. If you don't ordinarily drink them, I would advise against it. I made the mistake of taking an energy drink before a tournament even though i ordinarily didn't drink them. It increased my energy at the expense of focus. My mind was racing and i couldn't concentrate. Instead of an energy drink, i would recommend plenty of rest, and good breakfast is instead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6956" LastActivityDate="2015-02-27T20:56:53.677" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8679" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6460" CreationDate="2015-02-28T13:45:17.320" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There exists several books presenting quickly various variant of chess, here is one example :&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/fairy-chess-books-llc/1103593111?ean=9781157372424&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/fairy-chess-books-llc/1103593111?ean=9781157372424&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;About learning strategy or opening theory, both of this concept require a lot of experience and games to be played. For instance in classical chess we had to wait centuries before such thing become available. A first step is to watch games played by the best players. A world championship and tournaments are organized by The Circular Chess Society :&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.circularchess.co.uk/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.circularchess.co.uk/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, it should be decent training to practice with exercises, many studies has been created with this variant of chess, here is one example :&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mayhematics.com/v/cylin.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.mayhematics.com/v/cylin.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3480" LastActivityDate="2015-02-28T13:45:17.320" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8680" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6516" CreationDate="2015-02-28T14:07:27.880" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There exists &quot;Yafi&quot;, which use FICS chess server, where you can play bughouse :&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=pl.mg6.yafi&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=pl.mg6.yafi&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3480" LastActivityDate="2015-02-28T14:07:27.880" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8681" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6384" CreationDate="2015-02-28T14:13:04.697" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is an example of what you are looking for :&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chess960jungle.blogspot.fr/2014/02/chess960-database-complete-games-2001.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://chess960jungle.blogspot.fr/2014/02/chess960-database-complete-games-2001.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3480" LastActivityDate="2015-02-28T14:13:04.697" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8682" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8553" CreationDate="2015-02-28T14:21:21.623" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In general a &quot;coach&quot; is someone, which has some more experience and will help you to improve your chess.&#xA;So at first, he will teach you all the basis concept, show you the most important games played in the history, make you practice and help you improving your analysing process.&#xA;Finally, when you become a grandmaster (or even stronger in the examples you give) will help you in the &quot;every day training&quot; and in a specific part which is very important in modern chess &quot;the openings&quot;.&#xA;When playing opening you need to be always up-to-date and always have news ideas. Having a coach which can focus to this part is a big help as players must focus and opening AND training there abilities.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;About players sharing a coach, some players are training as a team, for instance chinese top players are for most of them training together. Then if people become rival, as in the fight for the world championship. This guys are preparing always new stuff to surprise your opponent, so even if the coach is sharing with his new student it won't be so big problem.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3480" LastActivityDate="2015-02-28T14:21:21.623" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8684" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-02-28T17:57:30.817" Score="8" ViewCount="549" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't mean disagreeing on which move should be played, but why the chosen move was played.  The reason why I ask is because if I study a game and read the annotater's explanation, I tend to ask myself if other grandmasters annotating the game would say the same thing or not, or perhaps agree partly but add more important explanations that were not mentioned.  Has anyone encountered this before?  The only reason why I haven't is because I've always only had one annotater to read from regarding a specific move when studying a game (I mean verbal commentary), so I don't get a chance to compare.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, one grandmaster says &quot;Played to protect the weak square on e5&quot;, and then another says &quot;The piece moves out of the way so that a2-a4 can be played and launch a minority attack.&quot;, so they are really saying different things on what the primary purpose on the move was.  Perhaps the first annotater said what he said because the minority attack (or a2-a4 even) was never actually played due to change in circumstances, while the second annotater saw that the minority attack was the original plan but it was changed shortly.  Or perhaps the second annotator was wrong about the move's primary intention (perhaps the minority attack was just a secondary possibility) and it really was meant to protect the e5-square, and that is why a2-a4 was never played.  I just made up that hypothetical example of course.  You can imagine similar &quot;arguments&quot; between grandmasters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6960" LastEditorUserId="6960" LastEditDate="2015-02-28T21:24:13.920" LastActivityDate="2019-12-13T23:05:06.463" Title="Do grandmasters ever disagree on what the main purpose of a move was?" Tags="&lt;grandmaster&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8685" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8689" CreationDate="2015-02-28T18:40:06.927" Score="0" ViewCount="143" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am very new to forum and formal chess play.  Please bear with me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would like to be able to search for an opening that is being used.  How would I search for that on Google or another search engine?  I do not know many opening names, only a few.  Would I use E3 white...etc.?  Any guidance on this will be appreciated.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5726" LastActivityDate="2015-03-03T20:27:45.277" Title="How to search for a particular opening on the Internet" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8686" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8685" CreationDate="2015-02-28T18:53:55.947" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can Google something like &quot;1. e3 e5 2. d4&quot; etc. Or, Chess.com has a pretty good Game explorer: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/explorer/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;This link&lt;/a&gt;. It lets you make the moves, shows how often people reply with other moves, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5854" LastActivityDate="2015-02-28T18:53:55.947" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8687" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8693" CreationDate="2015-02-28T22:31:09.150" Score="2" ViewCount="204" Body="&lt;p&gt;In earlier years, Michail Tal would be a candidate for this topic. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which player could be a candidate today for regularly playing complicated positions ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5784" LastEditorUserId="5784" LastEditDate="2015-02-28T22:39:35.823" LastActivityDate="2017-05-10T06:34:34.333" Title="Which currently active chess player tends to play complicated positions?" Tags="&lt;famous-players&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8688" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8729" CreationDate="2015-02-28T22:35:45.220" Score="1" ViewCount="360" Body="&lt;p&gt;Which classical top player chess game is the most complex since 2014 you know ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A good candidate for such games are games with few pawns but many figures.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This year, Timman played a rather complicated game in Tata Steel. It was his only win&#xA; in the B-group in this tournament.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other examples ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5784" LastActivityDate="2015-03-06T12:46:43.403" Title="What is the most complex game you know since 2014?" Tags="&lt;famous-players&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8689" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8685" CreationDate="2015-03-01T01:14:57.860" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you're using a chess program such as &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessdb.sourceforge.net&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot; title=&quot;The program I particularly like&quot;&gt;ChessDB&lt;/a&gt; you can see something with the phrase &quot;ECO:  B00a [King's Pawn]&quot; and you can go to &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.google.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Google&lt;/a&gt; and search for 'eco B00a' or something along those lines until you come across an answer that works for you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6947" LastActivityDate="2015-03-01T01:14:57.860" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8690" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="347" CreationDate="2015-03-01T03:17:29.000" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have a feeling I'm a little late on this answer but - I'm also in the process of making an engine.  The source code is in Python (which is fairly easy to read, even if you don't know it) and is available &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.github.com/671620616/PhantomChess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; if you wish to read it.  The list of currently active 'heuristics' (at the time of posting):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Farther developed (closer to the opposite side) pieces are better&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Pawns closer to promotion are good &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Kings are scored separately based on what phase the game is in (opening, middlegame, endgame)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If the player has both bishops, that receives a bonus&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If the player has castled, receive a bonus&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Isolated pawns (pawns with nothing around them) are not good&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Doubled pawns (two pawns on the same file with no gap between) are not good&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Having all 8 pawns is not necessary a good thing and is penalized (they clutter the board and get in the way)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Have a look at &lt;a href=&quot;http://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Simplified+evaluation+function&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this great evaluation function&lt;/a&gt; which is also used&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Bishops with more pawns on the same color square as the bishop are penalized (they aren't as good in crowded situations)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Not yet implemented, but planned: Knights get a bonus in more crowded situations&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In one of those points, I mentioned the 'phase' of the game (e.g. opening, middlegame, endgame), and if you wish to include that in your engine, you'll probably run into the same problem as I did: there's no clear line separating those.  My function that decides what phase the game is in uses a few things:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Amount of material on the board (as soon as any piece is killed, it marks the game as not in the opening)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Number of moves (less than 6 full moves is the opening, no matter what)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;movement of the queens (if both queens have been moved, mark the game as middlegame)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This answer may have been long, late and off-topic, but I hope it was helpful anyways.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6947" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T17:02:11.260" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T17:02:11.260" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="8691" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8687" CreationDate="2015-03-01T04:00:24.573" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Richard Rapport plays a lot of novelties in the opening. You can search for it. The positions are not necessarily tactically complicated, but the novelties are interesting.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3381" LastEditorUserId="11202" LastEditDate="2017-05-10T06:34:34.333" LastActivityDate="2017-05-10T06:34:34.333" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8692" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8684" CreationDate="2015-03-01T14:35:39.357" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;The short answer is &quot;Yes, they most certainly do&quot;. Not only that but they often disagree on whether the move is a good move or a bad move! This kind of thing comes from players and annotators having preconceived ideas about the players whose games they are annotating rather than because they are trying to deceive possible future opponents or keep important analysis secret. Players who still have such secrets to keep rarely if ever annotate games and if they do will be mostly bland and just follow the kind of analysis you would get from a computer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is a concrete example of some very explicit disagreement from John Nunn's latest book &quot;John Nunn's Chess Course&quot;. It's worth quickly saying that it's not really a chess course. Rather it is an excuse for John Nunn to publish very detailed analyses of some of Lasker's games disguised as a chess course ;-).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The second example is from much later in Lasker's career ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;It shows how once a narrative is accepted, the analysis is then&#xA;  shoehorned into being consistent with it and objectivity is thrown out&#xA;  of the window. The numerous spurious improvements for Black bear&#xA;  witness to the power of the consensus and only serve to obscure the&#xA;  real point that Lasker skillfully led the game into a deceptive&#xA;  position that appeared much better for Black but was not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;This time the references are to &lt;em&gt;Why Lasker Matters&lt;/em&gt; by Soltis&#xA;  (Batsford, 2005) and &lt;em&gt;Emanuel Lasker Games 1904 - 1940&lt;/em&gt; by Soloviov&#xA;  (Chess Stars, 1998). ... This is another game which has been&#xA;  considered little more than a swindle, and it's interesting to see how&#xA;  Soltis and Soloviov jump through all sorts of analytical hoops in&#xA;  order to keep the narrative intact.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There then follows a detailed analysis of the game interspersed with criticism for Soltis and Soloviov for just getting the analysis wrong. Nunn clearly has a very high opinion of the longest reigning world champion and believes that critics have often done Lasker an injustice which he puts right.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that the analysis that Nunn takes issue with is relatively modern. It is not that computers weren't available in 1998 and 2005 for Soloviov and Soltis to use to check their analyses rather that they neglected to use them because they had already made up their minds!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2015-03-01T14:35:39.357" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8693" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8687" CreationDate="2015-03-01T17:53:13.587" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Alexander Morozevich probably obtains the most consistently complicated positions of any &gt;2700 player, although he has fallen off some since the mid-2000s.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Baadur Jobava is probably his rightful successor, but a recent string of horrible tournaments pushed him under 2700 and he is now sitting at 2699.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3270" LastActivityDate="2015-03-01T17:53:13.587" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8694" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1003" CreationDate="2015-03-01T23:10:29.247" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Whatever you try in this area, be sure to read first Turry's story here: &lt;a href=&quot;http://waitbutwhy.com/2015/01/artificial-intelligence-revolution-2.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://waitbutwhy.com/2015/01/artificial-intelligence-revolution-2.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;TL; DR; &lt;em&gt;spoiler version&lt;/em&gt; per request:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt; In Turry's story Turry's self-training AI has to write nice handwritten notes and end ups getting rid of humans because they are not needed to achieve the apparently innocuous goal of writing nice handwritten notes.  The analogy is that a self-trained chess engine with AI most likely will also get rid of humans because they are not needed to improve the apparently innocuous goal of improving chess skills. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="159" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2015-05-27T00:40:58.813" LastActivityDate="2015-05-27T00:40:58.813" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8695" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2017" CreationDate="2015-03-02T04:53:34.550" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have analyzed the statistics of the top players in history, and the top chess engines of the last few years, and found that white has a distinct winning and scoring advantage except for one player (Lasker, who was about 1% better with black!). The stats are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Top players of history: &#xA;     white wins 7.5% more than black, &#xA;     white scores (wins plus draws x .5) 2.5 % more than black&#xA;Top chess engines to date:&#xA;     white wins 37% more than black&#xA;     white score 34% more points than black&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For comparison, the stats for:&#xA;All players (several million games in public databases):&#xA;     white wins 13% more, and scores 8.5% more&#xA;Hundreds of 1000's of games from available chess engine games for last 8 years (over 1500 engines):&#xA;     white wins 15% more than black, and scores 14% more than black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The higher caliber of human player, or higher rating of the chess engine, the higher the advantage for white (ranged from 1 to about 40%). &#xA;For me, this is pretty good evidence that white has a big advantage, since both the top players and basically ALL the engines achieve more wins and points as white. The best engines rarely, if ever, lose as white, but lose more often as black. &#xA;Yes, engines draw more than top humans (about 50% compared to 20-30% for humans) but the remaining games are won most often by white. &#xA;The top human players ranged from 1-22% more wins with white, while the top computers ranged from 6.5-44% more wins by white. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, since chess isn't 'solved' then we can't be sure, but the top players, who look ahead 20-30 play, and the top computers, who look ahead 30-50 ply easily now, are a good indication that white has a definite advantage. Perfect play by both sides is still a mystery, though! :)&#xA;John&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6962" LastActivityDate="2015-03-02T04:53:34.550" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8696" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8698" CreationDate="2015-03-02T09:05:32.007" Score="10" ViewCount="1416" Body="&lt;p&gt;This other question asks about why white resigns at the end (&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/q/7867/6963&quot;&gt;Why did Polgar resign?&lt;/a&gt;), but running through the game, I am confused at move 49 where the board looks like this, white to move:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Polgar-Kasparov:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;8/8/1k6/p6p/3n3r/PNR5/6K1/8 w KQ - 49 50&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The next move is white to take the pawn with her knight, and have the knight taken by the king.  Since the knight would be lost, why not take the black knight instead?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6963" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2015-03-06T11:44:09.223" Title="Why does white exchange knight for a pawn here?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8698" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8696" CreationDate="2015-03-02T11:00:32.793" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;After taking:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;8/8/1k6/p6p/3r4/P1R5/6K1/8 w KQ - 49 50&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Judith Polgar must have assessed this position to be easily winning for black. I assume black would just win the white pawn and proceed to promote the a-pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, while a knight is generally worth much more than a pawn, the endgame King,Rook,Knight vs King,Rook is usually a draw. So Polgar must have hoped to win or blockade the h-pawn and reach a drawn endgame of the K,R,N vs K,R-variety. I guess she knew this wouldn't work out, but the rationale was to set a more difficult technical task to Kasparov than the above rook endgame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: I looked up the game in her autobiographical best games collection and it turns out, I was half right:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Following the text move, the rook ending after 50.Nxd4 Rxd4 would be lost for me. Black would advance his pawns to my fourth rank and then activate his king using the rook as shield.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;She then proceeds to give 50.Nxa5 an exclamation mark, explaining that it is a study-like way to a draw, because apparently she wins the black pawn by force (which I didn't see).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, she did assume the rook ending to be lost (erroneously, according to Stephen's comment), but she actually saw that she would win the h-pawn as well, leading to a drawn endgame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastEditorUserId="4362" LastEditDate="2015-03-06T11:44:09.223" LastActivityDate="2015-03-06T11:44:09.223" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8699" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8685" CreationDate="2015-03-02T17:38:58.933" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;My advice to you would be to start off by learning 2 openings in chess. Italian Game (white)and French Defense(black), those will help you learn chess in many types of positions, both closed and open games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chesstempo.com/game-database.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://chesstempo.com/game-database.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This will provide you with many more openings, and their statistics. Although don't focus too much on the statistics, as those won't win you a game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6966" LastEditorUserId="6966" LastEditDate="2015-03-02T17:52:55.527" LastActivityDate="2015-03-02T17:52:55.527" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8700" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8672" CreationDate="2015-03-02T17:49:58.183" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is best not to drink them before a tournament. At best you can drink coffee however do not buy energy drinks as those really won't help you win at all. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should always go refreshed and have a good meal (2 hours or so) before heading off to a tournament. I have been on many tournaments and from personal experience, I can tell you this will work best in the future.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6966" LastActivityDate="2015-03-02T17:49:58.183" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8701" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8684" CreationDate="2015-03-02T18:00:41.203" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Indeed there are! You can find the most of these cases in Mikhail Tal's games... Many people considered his sacrifices as a wrong move on more than 1 occasion. In fact there's even a funny quote from one of Tal's games: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;&quot;&quot;When I asked Fischer why he had not played a certain move in our game, he replied: 'Well, you laughed when I wrote it down'.&quot;&quot;&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess is more opinion based than you think. There are different styles and methods of approach. So yes, even today grandmasters disagree on moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6966" LastActivityDate="2015-03-02T18:00:41.203" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8702" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8703" CreationDate="2015-03-03T01:05:57.550" Score="7" ViewCount="740" Body="&lt;p&gt;I vaguely remember it being from a game played in the USSR ca. 1960.  I'm certain it was from before 1985. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;2k1r2r/ppn3pq/b7/5p2/5Qn1/2N1B1P1/1P3PB1/2RR2K1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2967" LastEditorUserId="14079" LastEditDate="2020-08-25T08:57:58.163" LastActivityDate="2020-11-29T17:02:36.107" Title="Can you identify this game with a mate in 12?" Tags="&lt;history&gt;&lt;sacrifice&gt;&lt;identify-this&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="8703" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8702" CreationDate="2015-03-03T02:04:46.080" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can't find the actual game neither in my database nor at, say, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chessgames.com&lt;/a&gt;. However, the position &lt;a href=&quot;https://books.google.com/books?id=_ZekAgAAQBAJ&amp;amp;pg=SL6-PA47&amp;amp;lpg=SL6-PA47&amp;amp;dq=aleksandrov%20zaitsev%201974&amp;amp;source=bl&amp;amp;ots=p3_rNbjwmN&amp;amp;sig=25rzaRIVsENM2oSHR67qdP4I-Vc&amp;amp;hl=en&amp;amp;sa=X&amp;amp;ei=aBf1VPCTMIqlNtXNg9gI&amp;amp;ved=0CCEQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&amp;amp;q=aleksandrov%20zaitsev%201974&amp;amp;f=false&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;appears as puzzle 210&lt;/a&gt; -- with the apt description &amp;quot;Running around like a squirrel in a cage&amp;quot; -- in the book &lt;em&gt;1000 Checkmate Combinations&lt;/em&gt; by Victor Henkin, and there it is attributed to a game Aleksandrov-Zaitsev 1974.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-11-29T17:02:36.107" LastActivityDate="2020-11-29T17:02:36.107" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="8704" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8672" CreationDate="2015-03-03T12:06:36.353" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is the abstract of the paper 'Effect of caffeine upon chess problem solving', authored by Harold Holck and published in the Journal of Comparative Psychology, Vol 15(2), Apr 1933:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;There was a slight but insignificant increase in efficiency after injections of 0.4 ml. containing 200 mgm. of caffeine sodium benzoate. Injections of saline solution were used for control purposes. The author, who served as the subject, did not know when he was injected with saline solution and when he was injected with caffeine. The improvement following caffeine was 7 to 9%.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Link: &lt;a href=&quot;http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/com/15/2/301/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/com/15/2/301/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2015-03-03T12:06:36.353" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8705" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8481" CreationDate="2015-03-03T13:26:05.757" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.chessbase.com/post/the-london-system-an-opening-for-you&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://en.chessbase.com/post/the-london-system-an-opening-for-you&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is the best I can offer at the moment. The second game that is portrayed in this article shows a &quot;copying&quot; move, just like the one you have. And there are annotations that will explain to you why and what is going on with every move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I do advise you to read the stuff at the start of the article. Openings in chess also define your style of playing. Queen's Gambit or most Queen pawn opening players are usually more tactical, while King pawn opening players are more aggressive. Of course there are many exceptions, however this is common knowledge about the 2 basic styles.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So think about that on the way too, hope I helped :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6966" LastActivityDate="2015-03-03T13:26:05.757" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8706" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8553" CreationDate="2015-03-03T13:40:44.917" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well first lets start with the most simple answer... Chess is not such a simple sport that if taught to multiple people will result in the same thing. Even if what you learned was exactly the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are interested in getting into more detail then please read on :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess coaching in a sense is just you sharing what you know... That's all there is to it, you tell your students how to think as chess players but that does not necessarily mean they WILL think like that. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess coaches simply hone, and help their students master their skills, they give them the knowledge needed (and of course more) but that doesn't mean it will always result in the same thing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I were to give a real life example, this would be the most simple and true to chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can have a machine that takes metal as a material and it constructs a bike, however if you go to another machine and give it the exact same material that doesn't mean it will also produce a bike, it might give you a car! Who knows...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;-----------------------------------------&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;^ That was the answer&lt;/strong&gt;, here is some extra stuff if you are interested in more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Over time in the history of chess, many players like Mikhail Tal, Boby Fischer, Alekhine and so on... All of them had their own unique play style that is remembered until today. However no one can deny the fact that ALL of them had a lot of shared knowledge, they knew the same things yet even so, they played differently. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess is simply a beautiful war on a small 64 square battlefield... Even if you both know the same things and same tactics, you still have your own unique plans.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And now I am done :P Sorry for the long post, but hopefully I helped.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6966" LastEditorUserId="6966" LastEditDate="2015-03-03T17:53:44.710" LastActivityDate="2015-03-03T17:53:44.710" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8707" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7675" CreationDate="2015-03-03T18:07:40.420" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Many people think that chess is a sport of memorizing moves and tactics, because they see people do the same moves over and over and over in many games, from openings to even end game tactics.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However it's not because we memorized the games, not by any means. For example until today I have not memorized even one single game in my life, yet I have beaten masters before. But if you showed me a game where a certain tactic is played I would still know it even if I didn't memorize the game itself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In short, memorizing is something that happens to a chess player when he plays a lot, you will intuitively know moves without having to think, you will know what will lead to where in many scenarios (as long as you don't hit the 2000+ bracket)... And the main reason is because you had trial and error and learned these same tactics they are using by heart.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;^^^^ That was the main answer, if you wish for more in depth, please read further :)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In essence, memorizing a chess game does not make you better, nor does it NOT make you better. if you memorize a chess game it is not because you want to use it in an actual game, rather it should be memorized so you can learn from it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Memorizing anything besides openings in chess will mostly end up in failure... In tournaments you will not be thinking about what you last memorized or whether or not that certain tactic (whatever it may be) will work according to the piece placement that was in the game... That will never help you in a real chess match.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, they &lt;strong&gt;will&lt;/strong&gt; help you when you reach a high level of chess and already know a good amount of tactics, strategies, sacrifices and of course end games. They will truly serve you well then, however until you reach that level I advise you to focus on learning the heart of the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By that I mean start off by learning some basic openings that will help you learn chess in all kinds of positions (usually I advise people with the Italian Game and French Defense) and learn the basic tactics and value of pieces and when to trade a good piece for a bad piece etc... There are many things for you to learn even until today Masters learn the game. So don't be surprised if there's a lot out there :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6966" LastActivityDate="2015-03-03T18:07:40.420" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8709" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8685" CreationDate="2015-03-03T20:27:45.277" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you can find out the name of the opening via ECO at a list of ECO codes eg &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.365chess.com/eco.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.365chess.com/eco.php&lt;/a&gt; you can then search eg '&quot;French Defense&quot; + chess' for 1.e4 e6 on google, youtube etc to find articles, videos on the opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4543" LastActivityDate="2015-03-03T20:27:45.277" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8710" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8036" CreationDate="2015-03-03T21:27:52.290" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I´m in a similar matter.&#xA;But what I tried to have is a fen list, not just a single fen line.&#xA;That is: having a PGN file, have the complete list of fen, one line per position. &#xA;If for example the game had 40 moves, I need the 40 positions that ocured during the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In fact I found one program that do it: pgn2fen: &#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://pgn2fen.downv.com/Windows-software-download/pgn2fen&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://pgn2fen.downv.com/Windows-software-download/pgn2fen&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;It has a bug, it does not make the fen for the last position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6972" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2020-03-18T16:10:41.400" LastActivityDate="2020-03-18T16:10:41.400" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="8711" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-03-03T21:44:24.213" Score="14" ViewCount="3486" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been playing chess for quite a while now, but I still consider myself a beginner. I play with friends most of the time. Now I want to get better so I bougth a tactics book (Yusupov: Build up your chess - The fundamentals). But I'm wondering how to study the book efficiently.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the book itself, Yusupov recommends to set up every position and play them through on a chessboard. I imagine I could also use a software for that. Is there any software, that is particularly suitable? That let's me set up the position (maybe even save it) and then play through all the variations given?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And generally speaking: what is your approach, to studying a chess tactics book? How do you work with a book like &quot;Yusupov - Build up your chess&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any help is appreciated :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6973" LastActivityDate="2020-09-30T20:07:26.953" Title="How to study a chess tactics book?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;books&gt;&lt;training&gt;&lt;beginner&gt;&lt;study&gt;" AnswerCount="10" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8712" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8711" CreationDate="2015-03-03T22:08:38.207" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well for starters I advise you to try out Daniel King's Power Play series, it helped me take my chess to the next level at the time. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, rule number 1 when learning anything about chess. &lt;strong&gt;Never&lt;/strong&gt; do it on a PC or something that's not physical... Always, always, always have a real chess board when practicing tactics and end game... Openings are more about memorizing so it &lt;strong&gt;can&lt;/strong&gt; be done without a real chess board, but even then I still prefer a real board. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's of course a reason for this... Having physical contact with the pieces has a bigger impact on your mind, it helps learn and even memorize certain aspects of the tactic. This is of course also scientific, having an actual physical contact with things has a much bigger impact than something that isn't. If you ever download the Daniel King series (he's an english GM) he will also advise the same thing :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, it would obviously be a waste if you didn't learn something from the book you have! So first off, don't expect this to end fast, this will take time... unlike learning from a teacher or someone who speaks... Learning chess from a book takes time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First off you will need to take your time and understand every single move, one of the hardest things to learn from chess books are tactics... Those have a lot of annotations and many variations (especially if you look at some rook lifting tactics, f4 pawn push, h4 push etc...). After you are done with the first chapter in the book, if you completely understand what's going on, you will most likely handle the rest fine if you take it at a good pace. Rushing things won't get you anywhere so take your time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you have any further questions feel free to ask, I'll answer to the best of my abilities.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;A good endgame book to learn from is Domination in 2,545 Endgame Studies By Kasparyan... I bought the book and I can tell you, it's a piece of gold.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6966" LastEditorUserId="6966" LastEditDate="2015-03-03T22:14:27.857" LastActivityDate="2015-03-03T22:14:27.857" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8713" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8711" CreationDate="2015-03-03T22:09:17.330" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you can solve straight from the diagram then do that. Otherwise it's more effective for over the board play to set up the positions on a real chess board. By moving the pieces you train your unconscious mind to recognise the patterns. Of course if you play online only then using software to do it will be better. And play through the variations too, sometimes the most important ideas will be in the variations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4543" LastActivityDate="2015-03-03T22:09:17.330" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8714" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8716" CreationDate="2015-03-04T11:28:23.280" Score="9" ViewCount="1983" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm only a beginner, and I've found that sometimes a piece of mine (esp Queen) will just get chased around relentlessly causing problems, so I've started trying to do the same, but I seem to sometimes overextend and it feels like I am &quot;following&quot; not chasing.  Any advice on when to stop chasing?  What should I be looking for when deciding to chase or not?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Particularly bad example (playing Black)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. f4 d5 2. d4 c5 3. Nf3 cxd4 4. Qxd4 Nc6 5. Qe3 d4 6. Qb3 Be6 7. Qxb7 Na5 8. Qb5+&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6963" LastActivityDate="2020-05-01T01:01:49.910" Title="When should you stop chasing a piece?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;beginner&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8715" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8714" CreationDate="2015-03-04T11:44:04.390" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;This issue arises when you don't know the openings well enough.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First off your objective in the opening is to occupy the center and gain an advantage using that. Chasing after pieces will most likely end up getting you in trouble especially if you're the type of player who prefers not to give away the queen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So for starters you need to actually check out some openings and how they go, preferably don't start with complicated openings that have a lot of lines and have a certain objective... Rather take simple openings (and by simple that doesn't mean they are bad, in fact they are very good). I usually advise beginners with the Italian Game opening for white and French Defense for black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, no one can really tell you when to stop going after a piece... It is completely situational, you have to know whether or not you will get cornered if you go after the piece or if you will win it... And in the end, the most important question, is it even worth it? There might be other moves that make your position better and that don't involve taking a piece.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;^^That was the main answer, if you're interested in more, please do keep reading :)&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;f4 (Bird's Opening) is definitely not an opening a beginner should play. There are main disadvantages to pushing an early f4 in the game that literally make holes in your defense but at the same time improves your offense. So try to avoid Bird's Opening for now if you can.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now for the most important part, try not to be a materialist... There are many type of players and Materialist is one of them. It's the type of player that values pieces and doesn't want to let them go (like Queens Knights etc...) Being a materialist will hinder your development later on. Ignore the queen, and see the beauty of the other pieces. The queen alone will never win you the game, there's a reason you have knights, bishops and rooks on the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the most part you will most likely have trouble knowing when to exchange a good piece for a bad piece and vise versa... But you'll learn that as you play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, sacrificing pieces in chess is one of the classical ways of attacking an opponent... Never overlook a sacrifice, don't limit your imagination and keep thinking ahead! That's how you improve in chess... Don't even ignore a stupid sacrifice, you might see it as a stupid one, but it might actually be a good one... And the only way you will know whether or not it &lt;strong&gt;is&lt;/strong&gt;, is to actually try it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope I helped and if you have anymore questions feel free to ask I'll answer to the best of my abilities :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6966" LastEditorUserId="6966" LastEditDate="2015-03-04T11:49:50.227" LastActivityDate="2015-03-04T11:49:50.227" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8716" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8714" CreationDate="2015-03-04T12:41:29.120" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you chase an enemy piece, you should probably consider three aspects:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Basic tactical considerations.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Do you improve the position of the piece you use to chase the enemy piece?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Do you force the enemy piece on a worse or a better square?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your example this means if you don't see that you are blundering pawns and pieces, all considerations of chasing or not chasing are pretty moot i.e. you have to think about whether you blunder something (like your b-pawn), whether your opponent blundered something (i.e. maybe you can already use his disorganised pieces for a tactical blow).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4…Nc6 was good, because you improve your knight and you chase the white queen away from a central square. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5…d4 is already somewhat more ambiguous because the queen is pretty bad on e3 (blocks the e-pawn) and probably better on b3 (attacks b7).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;6…Be6 blunders the b7 pawn, but maybe you could have continued Bd5 to set up even more attacks on the queen, like Rb8 or a knight move. This starts to look dangerous for white, because you are building up a big development lead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;7…Na5 puts your knight on a worse square (knights on the rim...), so you'd need a good reason to do so and apparently you didn't have one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-03-04T12:41:29.120" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8717" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4763" CreationDate="2015-03-04T14:20:48.853" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I do not necessarily endorse this opinion, but I once heard an IM say, that for amateurs, excessively analysing lost games can be counterproductive. Amateurs make so many mistakes even in won games, that they will learn just as much from analysing won or drawn games. The difference is that this will be much more enjoyable. And wallowing in misery is probably not the ideal mindset to learn and improve. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My take on this is, that you should definitely analyse lost games, if the way you lost, or the opening or type of position you lost in, is typical for you. Otherwise it might often be better to just let it go. If you made a bad blunder, beating yourself up about it, will not make you a better player. On the contrary, it might just wreck the necessary confidence to play well. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-03-04T14:20:48.853" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8718" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8553" CreationDate="2015-03-04T14:52:02.397" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;At the top, coaching usually means opening preparation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the case of Chuchelov, who trains rather young players, there also some kind of positional assessment course at the beginning of a collaboration and regular calculation training. (According to a chessbase interview.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is also very common for players to work with each other on certain openings. So for Chuchelov's trainees to play each other won't be much different from training  partners playing each other, which really happens all the time. (For example Svidler/Grischuk)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And apparently it is not unusual that seconds also participate in the training of  physical fitness as well. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Peter H. Nielsen didn't coach Carlsen in his first match against Anand, although he had already stopped working for Anand. To me this implies that opening theory moves quickly enough and specific match preparation is sufficiently different from match to match, that after one, two years there aren't that many &quot;deadly&quot; secrets left to reveal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-03-04T14:52:02.397" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8719" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-03-05T02:29:36.923" Score="2" ViewCount="2307" Body="&lt;p&gt;Magnus Carlsen against 10 blindfolded. Timur Gareev plays 30 players blindfolded. I was wondering if these super grandmasters all can at least play 7 masters blindfolded and beat them. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3872" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2016-01-05T02:09:13.920" LastActivityDate="2016-01-05T02:09:13.920" Title="Is it common for super grandmasters to have the ability to play simultaneous blindfold chess?" Tags="&lt;blindfold-chess&gt;&lt;super-grandmaster&gt;&lt;simultaneous&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8720" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8719" CreationDate="2015-03-05T05:20:52.967" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is more a comment than an answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The attached &lt;a href=&quot;http://vk.com/video1483103_161622526&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;fragment&lt;/a&gt; is Mikhail Tal commenting  his blindfold simul against 10 &lt;em&gt;first category&lt;/em&gt; (approximately 1800-2000 Elo) players - as the match goes, board by board. The fragment is a part of 1968 documentary on limits of human mental abilities.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The movie is in Russian; if there is an interest, I may try to translate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3774" LastActivityDate="2015-03-05T05:20:52.967" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8721" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8711" CreationDate="2015-03-05T09:52:43.527" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, I would like to say that the book you got is actually not really a tactics book.  It is much more than that.  It has chapters on opening play, on positional topics, on endgames and, yes, also many on tactics.  I really like the book and I feel that working through it has helped me a lot.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Essentially, Yusupov gives you all the advice you're asking for: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) play through all the variations on a board and try to understand all the ideas in them.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The book is very well structured so in many cases there are really not too many things going on simultaneously, at least in the earlier chapters.  It is certainly a good idea to try and see whether you can even solve the examples that are used to explain the concepts.  At least spending a couple of minutes on each before looking at the proposed solution and the variations may help you to pick up the main points more quickly.  On the other hand, if you are not at all familiar with the concepts that are taught in a chapter, this may not make too much sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) solve the exercises without moving the pieces and write down all necessary variations, only then check and compare with the solutions.  If you cannot make progress without moving pieces, then try with moving pieces for a couple more minutes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I feel that this writing-down process has really helped me to find more defensive option of my opponent.  Also, whenever I got really stuck on one of the exercises, it was because I had either missed an important idea or I had stopped calculation of a variation too early without being able to assess it properly.  Both give you a more or less direct push into a direction for improvement.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am not sure it really has to be a real board.  When I am traveling, I often use an ipad for this as it is simply more flexible.  I feel that I have not too much trouble moving back and forth between this and a real board.  In particular, if you use functionality for saving and replaying variations you need to be careful to really look at each move and understand its purpose.  It can be rather tempting to simply play the animation and look at the fireworks on the board without understanding what happens.  While this will consume valuable chess training time, it will likely not lead to a substantial chess improvement.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A final, suggestion from myself would be not to rush it.  Take your time really working through the book.  I actually went over it a couple of times, redoing the exercises.  Since there are 12 per chapter I have not fully memorized them, so in many cases I still have to find the solutions.  Sometimes it then happens that I remember that the move I just found is actually correct.  I then force myself to really check all different variations as I would have to in a real game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3529" LastActivityDate="2015-03-05T09:52:43.527" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8722" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="822" CreationDate="2015-03-05T12:03:35.267" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are 40 traps from wikipedia in an expandable chess openings tree at &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesstree.net&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.chesstree.net&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5787" LastActivityDate="2015-03-05T12:03:35.267" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8723" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8714" CreationDate="2015-03-05T13:50:40.577" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Opening theory is NOT the answer to this.  Beginner and novice players should NOT be studying opening theory for any reason whatsoever.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is just simple chess strategy.  There is no reason to chase a piece unless you get something out of it, either improving the position of your own pieces or degrading the position of the opponent's pieces.  Just chasing a piece for no reason is pointless.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6980" LastActivityDate="2015-03-05T13:50:40.577" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8724" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8726" CreationDate="2015-03-05T16:22:15.340" Score="5" ViewCount="820" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there a site or document which shows what the winning chances are of every &quot;Specific Pieces vs. Specific Pieces&quot; endgame?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g. What are the winning chances of Rook &amp;amp; Bishop vs 2 Knights?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5649" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2015-03-05T23:43:50.340" LastActivityDate="2018-09-25T15:08:45.233" Title="What are the winning chances of every pieces? (6men egtb)" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;statistics&gt;&lt;tablebases&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8725" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8724" CreationDate="2015-03-05T21:21:41.370" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is end game theory... Usually this comparison is not done in middle game tactics or openings (obviously).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, my best advice for you is to read about end game books, which completely cover scenarios of rook &amp;amp;bishop vs 2 Knights and MANY MANY other scenarios.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want a suggestion, read &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;Domination in 2,545 end game studies&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;. You won't be disappointed and you will find what you want, that I assure you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6966" LastActivityDate="2015-03-05T21:21:41.370" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8726" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8724" CreationDate="2015-03-05T23:42:19.370" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't know a single source tabulating the winning percentages for all 6-piece endings, but at least some amount of summarizing information can probably be found scattered throughout Nunn's &lt;em&gt;Secrets of ... Endings&lt;/em&gt; series of books, which are essentially translations from tablebase to human-usable information. But there is a spreadsheet &lt;a href=&quot;http://chess.jaet.org/endings/docs/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;available from Tamplin's chess endgame site&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;em&gt;3-5 Man Results and Maximals&lt;/em&gt;, that contains the percentage winning statistics across all &amp;lt; 6-man endgames. A sample of the data:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Endgame     wtm(=)  btm(=)      wtm(1-0)    btm(1-0)        wtm(0-1)    btm(0-1)&#xA;&#xA;KK          100.00  100.00      0.00        0.00            0.00        0.00&#xA;KBK         100.00  100.00      0.00        0.00            0.00        0.00&#xA;KNK         100.00  100.00      0.00        0.00            0.00        0.00&#xA;KPK         23.49   41.91       76.51       58.09           0.00        0.00&#xA;KQK         0.00    10.32       100.00      89.68           0.00        0.00&#xA;KRK         0.00    9.97        100.00      90.03           0.00        0.00&#xA;&#xA;...&#xA;&#xA;KRNKP       1.53    17.10       98.45       78.39           0.01        4.51&#xA;KRNKQ       41.12   19.71       35.44       2.10            23.43       78.19&#xA;KRNKR       63.29   93.60       36.63       3.24            0.07        3.16&#xA;&#xA;...&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first, third and fifth numerical columns give the percentage of white-to-move positions that are, respecitively, draws, white wins or black wins. And the other columns give similar information for the black-to-move positions. I'd think it unlikely that a similar table for 6-man positions doesn't already exist out there in the ether somewhere, but I don't know where such is located.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT:&lt;/strong&gt; Sure enough, the second edition of Nunn's &lt;em&gt;Secrets of Pawnless Endings&lt;/em&gt; (and &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; the first edition which predated available 6-man tablebases) does go at least partly toward what you're after. There is a summary table (pp. 325-329) that, while not providing the numerical detail of the table above, does include for each 6-man piece combination at least an indication of whether it is generally won or drawn (presumably based on whether a majority of positions are theoretically won or not, as above), along with information about the longest win and longest reciprocal zugzwang for each ending.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To use your example, Nunn notes that KRBKNN is generally a win for White, while the longest win is 223 moves from the following position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;1K6/5BR1/2n5/2n2k2/8/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some of the endings also get discussed in the text. For instance, Nunn gives an optimal line from the above position and attempts to give annotations that make the very complex play involved understandable. (Partial spoiler: &lt;code&gt;1.Kc8!&lt;/code&gt; is the only winning move at the start.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2015-03-06T00:02:45.093" LastActivityDate="2015-03-06T00:02:45.093" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8727" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6297" CreationDate="2015-03-06T06:42:53.003" Score="3" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1Q2r1k1/P6p/8/8/4q3/7P/6PK/8 w - - 2 6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White to move. 1.a8=Q Qxa8 2.Qg3+ may be a perpetual check that is hard to analyze. See the comments in the discussion of this tactics problem at &lt;a href=&quot;http://chesstempo.com/chess-problems/103006&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://chesstempo.com/chess-problems/103006&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3456" LastActivityDate="2015-03-06T06:42:53.003" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8728" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8719" CreationDate="2015-03-06T12:02:06.000" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The answer to the headline is definitely &quot;yes&quot;. I would be very surprised if there is a top player who is unable to play 10 blindfold games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Playing seven masters and beating (all of) them is a different issue. Remember that Kasparov limits the rating of his opponents at simultaneous exhibitions to under 2000 Elo. Of course he can beat much stronger players simultaneously, but it increasingly becomes a question of energy and concentration, not so much pure chess class. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is even more of an issue in blindfold chess. If we talk about US master titles (I think they roughly start at 2000+ Elo aka 2100 USCF rating), I think it already becomes quite hard to get a 100% score in seven simultaneous blindfold games. But I still believe a top grandmaster would score highly. If we talk about real masters, i.e. IMs, GMs, I think even top grandmasters would struggle to score more than 50%. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Paul Morphy once played a blindfold simultaneous against the 8 strongest players of Paris and score 7/8. Maybe that's comparable to top player against lower masters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-03-06T12:02:06.000" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8729" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8688" CreationDate="2015-03-06T12:46:43.403" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Played a few days ago and commented upon on chess24, this game is quickly a real tactical mess:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&#xA;[Event &quot;European Individual Championship&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Jerusalem ISR&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2015.03.03&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;2015.02.24&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;7.6&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Liviu Dieter Nisipeanu&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Ivan Bukavshin&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;B48&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;2654&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;2622&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;137&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 e6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nc6 5. Nc3 Qc7 6. Be3 a6&#xA;7. Qd2 Be7 8. O-O-O Nf6 9. f3 b5 10. Kb1 Ne5 11. g4 h6 12. Qg2&#xA;b4 13. Na4 d5 14. f4 Nexg4 15. Bc1 e5 16. fxe5 Nxe4 17. e6&#xA;Ngf2 18. Qxg7 Bf6 19. Nb5 Qxc2+ 20. Kxc2 Bxg7 21. Nc7+ Ke7&#xA;22. Nxd5+ Kxe6 23. Bg2 Be5 24. Rhe1 f5 25. Nc5+ Kf7 26. Nxe4&#xA;Nxe4 27. Bxe4 fxe4 28. Rxe4 Re8 29. Rf1+ Kg6 30. Nf4+ Bxf4&#xA;31. Rexf4 Bh3 32. Rg1+ Kh5 33. Rxb4 Re2+ 34. Kb3 Rf8 35. Rg3&#xA;Rxh2 36. Rb6 Rh8 37. Rxa6 Bg4 38. Rc3 Bf5 39. a4 Kg4 40. Rb6&#xA;Be4 41. Rf6 Re2 42. Ka3 Rd8 43. Bxh6 Rd1 44. Bc1 Bc2 45. Rf4+&#xA;Kh5 46. Rh3+ Kg6 47. Rg3+ Kh5 48. Rf8 Kh4 49. Rg7 Rd3+ 50. Ka2&#xA;Bb3+ 51. Ka1 Rd5 52. Rf1 Rd1 53. Rxd1 Bxd1 54. a5 Re4 55. Kb1&#xA;Ra4 56. Bd2 Bb3 57. Be1+ Kh5 58. Rb7 Be6 59. b4 Kg4 60. b5 Kf5&#xA;61. b6 Ra3 62. Kc2 Ra2+ 63. Kd3 Ke5 64. Re7 Ra3+ 65. Bc3+ Kd5&#xA;66. Rxe6 Kxe6 67. b7 Rb3 68. a6 Kd7 69. a7 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-03-06T12:46:43.403" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8730" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-03-06T17:22:29.420" Score="3" ViewCount="1580" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have my rook on the 8th rank.  My pawn is directly behind it.  I want to move diagonal with my pawn to promote it to a queen.  Can I move diagonal to reach the 8th rank and promote my pawn?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6984" LastEditorDisplayName="user1108" LastEditDate="2015-03-10T13:34:26.053" LastActivityDate="2015-03-10T13:34:26.053" Title="Pawn Promotion to Queen" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;pawns&gt;&lt;pawn-promotion&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8731" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8730" CreationDate="2015-03-06T18:05:59.097" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;You may do so only if the pawn is capturing one of the opponent's pieces; that is the only way a pawn ever moves diagonally. So here you can do what you describe:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;3Rn3/k2P4/8/8/8/K7/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.dxe8=Q&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But if you're talking about a situation like the following, then no, the pawn cannot move as you described:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;3R4/k2P4/8/8/8/K7/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2015-03-06T18:05:59.097" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8732" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8735" CreationDate="2015-03-06T19:43:47.070" Score="6" ViewCount="376" Body="&lt;p&gt;So, I was playing this line of the exchange variation of the Grunfeld: 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 d5 4. cxd5 Nxd5 5. e4 Nxc3 6. bxc3 Bg7 7. Bc4 c5 8. Ne2 O-O 9. Be3 Nc6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Fen &quot;r1bq1rk1/pp2ppbp/2n3p1/2p5/2BPP3/2P1B3/P3NPPP/R2QK2R w KQ - 0 10&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my computer's opening book, the only recommended move for White is 10. O-O.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I want to know whether 10. dxc5 is playable?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2015-03-07T11:11:42.487" Title="Is this line of the Grunfeld playable for White?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;grunfeld-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8733" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8732" CreationDate="2015-03-06T20:13:30.400" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;http://chessok.com/?page_id=352&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://chessok.com/?page_id=352&lt;/a&gt; this has been played five times (by weaker players) and gives black a very slight advantage (-0.11) after 10…Qc7.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, depending on you level this is certainly playable. If you analyse it a bit you might even have practical chances to achieve an opening advantage. But probably black will just win back the pawn and you'll have to be careful not to just be left with your worse structure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-03-06T20:13:30.400" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8734" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8739" CreationDate="2015-03-06T20:15:04.797" Score="4" ViewCount="4094" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have some ChessBase-format database files, and I would like to convert them to PGN so that&lt;br&gt;linux-compatible programs (like scid, chessdb, etc.) could read it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since I am running on linux and not windows, I can't use that workaround that involves downloading ChessBase Light then converting from there. However, I really need to use those files.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How can I convert them painlessly ? Is there an free online service that can do so ? Is there a&lt;br&gt; linux-compatible program that can do so ? Is there an opensource program that can do so (regardless of platform), so that I can port the conversion source to linux ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6985" LastActivityDate="2016-01-09T17:23:56.310" Title="Convert ChessBase format to PGN on Linux" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;pgn&gt;&lt;database&gt;&lt;chessbase&gt;&lt;linux&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ClosedDate="2021-04-30T17:03:22.873" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8735" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8732" CreationDate="2015-03-07T11:11:42.487" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The problem with this line is that this is exactly what Black is hoping for.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You give the center to &quot;win a pawn&quot;, but Black has several compensation : first of all the black bishop on ...Bg7 is now very strong. Also with ...Qc7 follow by ...Rd8 black will win the d-file. If Black want then they can easily win back the pawn by the following plan : ...e5, ...Bf8 and ...Bxc5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3480" LastActivityDate="2015-03-07T11:11:42.487" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8736" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8737" CreationDate="2015-03-07T14:56:47.603" Score="6" ViewCount="483" Body="&lt;p&gt;What exactly is the logic behind the concept of “overprotection of a piece”?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossary_of_chess#Overprotection&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt; says that it &quot;...provides greater freedom of movement for the pieces protecting that square.&quot;  If the protected pieces moves, then one of the protecting pieces leaves and that seems like it goes against the concept. What is the actual logic?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6987" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-05-22T13:22:49.983" LastActivityDate="2020-05-22T13:22:49.983" Title="Overprotection Of A Piece" Tags="&lt;theory&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="8737" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8736" CreationDate="2015-03-07T15:35:41.330" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;From the cited Wikipedia article:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The strategy of protecting a pawn or specific square of the chessboard more than is immediately necessary. This serves to dissuade the opponent from attacking that specific point and provides greater freedom of movement for the pieces protecting that square.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The sense in which overprotection provides &quot;greater freedom of movement for the pieces protecting that square&quot; is that, with multiple defenders already in place, no &lt;em&gt;one&lt;/em&gt; of them is necessarily tied down to defense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What follows isn't the greatest example, but I think it illustrates the concept fairly well. (I'm not claiming any of these moves are the best or are necessary; I've chosen them specifically to illustrate overprotection.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;r1bq1rk1/ppp1npbp/3p1np1/4p3/2P5/2NPP1PP/PP2NPB1/R1BQ1RK1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Kh2 &#xA;    {Overprotecting h3, and thus creating a genuine threat against b7 by &#xA;    the Bg2. That makes it so that the Bc8 can't develop immediately.}&#xA;    ( 1.Rb1 {In this variation White leaves the Bg2 as the only defender &#xA;    of h3, and so Black can immediately develop the Bc8 if she likes.} &#xA;    1...Be6 2.Bxb7 Bxh3 3.Bxa8 Qxa8 4.e4 Bxf1 5.Qxf1 )&#xA;1...Rb8 &#xA;    {Black responds by overprotecting b7 herself. Again, having this &#xA;    second defender frees the Bc8 to develop.}&#xA;    ( 1...Be6 $2 2.Bxb7 )&#xA;2.Rb1 Be6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Wikipedia entry continues:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[Overprotection] can cause an opponent to pursue a faulty plan or no plan at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure about that wording, but I think the intended meaning is this: the opponent might press on against the overprotected piece/square in what will be a futile attempt thanks to the overprotection (faulty plan) or will be forced to abandon that endeavor and look for something else to do (no plan at all).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, in the basic structure of my position above, it is very common for Black to line up a Be6 and Qd7 to harass the h3 pawn (or just try to trade off the light-square bishops if the pawn is still on h2); but once White has played h3 and Kh2 as above, Black won't really be able to effect that plan. She might press on and ultimately be unsuccessful (faulty plan), or instead need to figure out something else to do in the position (no plan).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2015-03-07T17:23:23.820" LastActivityDate="2015-03-07T17:23:23.820" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8738" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8741" CreationDate="2015-03-08T00:39:14.480" Score="6" ViewCount="1114" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm White, and I lost this game because the time was over. What move do I need to do the mate combination?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/6pp/p3R3/5rk1/3B2N1/5P1P/PP3P2/5K2 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2615" LastEditorUserId="2615" LastEditDate="2015-03-08T20:15:47.107" LastActivityDate="2015-03-08T20:15:47.107" Title="How do I mate here?" Tags="&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;checkmate&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8739" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8734" CreationDate="2015-03-08T01:04:13.880" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe scidb can do it. You can get it here: &lt;a href=&quot;http://scidb.sourceforge.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://scidb.sourceforge.net/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6991" LastActivityDate="2015-03-08T01:04:13.880" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8740" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8738" CreationDate="2015-03-08T03:37:18.840" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't see a mate.  The way forward is to remove his Rook by &lt;code&gt;1. Re5&lt;/code&gt;.  Since this pins his Rook against his King he can't move it away. The Rook is coming off the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once his rook is off the board, you have 2 extra pieces and an extra pawn on each side of the board. You really can't lose. Mating with a Knight and Bishop is not easy, so push your Queenside's &lt;em&gt;unopposed&lt;/em&gt; pawn - the &lt;code&gt;b&lt;/code&gt; pawn.  If you push the &lt;code&gt;a&lt;/code&gt; pawn you allow him to exploit a backward pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's one possibility. There are better moves, but this is sure and simple.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[FEN &quot;8/6pp/p3R3/5rk1/3B2N1/5P1P/PP3P2/5K2 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Re5 Rxe5 2. Bxe5 g6 3. b4 h5 4. Ne3 Kh4 5.Kg2 Kg5 6. a4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;...and it's pretty clear White is going to Queen a pawn.  White must be careful not to stalemate black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2015-03-08T03:37:18.840" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8741" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8738" CreationDate="2015-03-08T03:49:46.320" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;You have so much material and positional advantage that in time trouble you just need to make moves that consolidate and defend, and trade your pieces. For instance, moving &lt;code&gt;Kg2&lt;/code&gt; to protect f3. You don't need to do anything fantastic to win, just gradually close in.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tony's answer is a solid way to win without taking much time to think. If you're up in material, &lt;strong&gt;the more you trade, the better&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;code&gt;1. Re5&lt;/code&gt; will help you out the most, since the fewer pieces Black has, the less likely you are to stumble into a blunder.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That said, &lt;code&gt;1. Bxg7&lt;/code&gt; stands out to me as a good move. It does allow &lt;code&gt;...Rxf3&lt;/code&gt; but the f-pawns were doubled anyway, so it's a great trade for you. After playing around with the position and toying with &lt;code&gt;2. Bh6+&lt;/code&gt; (not a great idea), I decided the simple &lt;code&gt;2 Kg2&lt;/code&gt; is the move I would play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At this point, I used an engine (Stockfish) which tells me that the original position is mate in 11 beginning with &lt;code&gt;1. Bxg7 Rxf3 2. Kg2&lt;/code&gt;. The full mate it gives is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/6pp/p3R3/5rk1/3B2N1/5P1P/PP3P2/5K2 w - - 4 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Bxg7 Rxf3 2. Kg2 Kf5 3. Rf6+ Ke4 4. Rxf3 Kd5 5. Rf6 a5 6. Ne3+ Kc5 7. Bf8+ Kd4 8. Kf3 Ke5 9. Bg7 Kd4 10. Rf5+ Kd3 11. Rd5# 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But that's far too complicated to figure out in actual play if you're a beginner under time pressure. You would win faster by simply picking off Black pawns and promoting one of yours.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically, you did not have a mating net quite yet, if Black played smart. But you had at least the rook. You're probably wondering &quot;what if Black didn't play the moves shown above?&quot; Let's try &lt;code&gt;1. Bxg7 a5&lt;/code&gt;: Stockfish calls this position a mate in 6:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/6pp/p3R3/5rk1/3B2N1/5P1P/PP3P2/5K2 w - - 4 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Bxg7 a5 2. Kg2 a4 3. Rh6 a3 4. Kg3 Rxf3+ 5. Kxf3 axb2 6. h4+ Kf5 7. Ne3#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black's useless pawn moves go to show that he is completely helpless. Anything else he tries results in a quicker mate. For instance, &lt;code&gt;4... axb2&lt;/code&gt; allows &lt;code&gt;5. h4#&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And trying to escape with his rook is futile too. True, he doesn't have to play &lt;code&gt;1... Rxf3&lt;/code&gt;, but you saw what happens if he leaves his rook on f5. How about &lt;code&gt;1... Rb5&lt;/code&gt;? &lt;code&gt;2. Rh6&lt;/code&gt; leaves Black helpless. Notice how the Black king is completely boxed in by the white rook along e6, f6 and g6, and h5 and h4, and the knight takes care of h6 and e5, and the f3 pawn snags e4. The Black king now only has three squares in his box (the f3 pawn is guarded by the White king on White's next move), and Black's rook is helpless because of White's extra bishop and a2 and b2 pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But always, which line you take depends on how much time you have on your clock.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The latter lines might be more advanced of a process than you're used to, but it is always good to study a little deeper than you're comfortable playing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/6Bp/p6R/1r4k1/6N1/5P1P/PP3P2/5K2 w - - 2 2&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="86" LastActivityDate="2015-03-08T03:49:46.320" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8742" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8743" CreationDate="2015-03-08T07:03:24.810" Score="5" ViewCount="378" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a begginer and I have a rating of about 1000 Elo. I played a game against stockfish 5 but I lost the game. I know that stockfish is a very strong engine but I played against it to learn more. This is the game:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Computer chess game&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Kartikay&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2015.03.08&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Kumar Kartikay&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Stockfish_14053109_x64_modern&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;2200&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;C01&quot;]&#xA;[Opening &quot;French&quot;]&#xA;[Time &quot;11:59:28&quot;]&#xA;[Variation &quot;Exchange, 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.exd5 exd5&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;880&quot;]&#xA;[TimeControl &quot;900&quot;]&#xA;[Termination &quot;normal&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;44&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteType &quot;human&quot;]&#xA;[BlackType &quot;program&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e6 {(e6 Nc3 d5 d4 Bb4 exd5 exd5 Bd3 Nf6 a3 Bxc3+ bxc3 0-0 Ne2 Nc6 0-0&#xA;Re8 Bf4 h6 c4 g5 Be3 Qe7 Nc3 Be6) -0.26/21 21} 2. d4 d5 {(d5 Nc3 Bb4 exd5&#xA;exd5 Bd3 c5 dxc5 Nf6 Nf3 0-0 0-0 Bxc5 a3 Nc6 Bf4 Re8 Re1 Rxe1+ Qxe1 Ng4&#xA;Bg3) -0.17/21 8} 3. exd5 exd5 {(exd5 Nf3 Nf6 Bd3 Bd6 0-0 0-0 c3 Re8 Bg5&#xA;Nbd7 Nbd2 c6 Qb3 h6 Bxf6 Nxf6) -0.09/20 13} 4. Qe2+ Be7 {(Be7 Bg5 Nd7 Nc3&#xA;Ngf6 Qd2 h6 Bf4 Ne4 Nxe4 dxe4 0-0-0 Nf6 Kb1 0-0 Bc4 Nd5 Ne2 Be6 Bb3 c6 Rhe1&#xA;Nxf4 Nxf4) +0.34/22 12} 5. Bg5 Nd7 {(Nd7 Nc3 Ngf6 Qd2 h6 Bf4 0-0 Bd3 c5&#xA;Nge2 c4 Bf5 Nc5 Bxc8 Nce4 Nxe4 Nxe4 Qe3 Rxc8 0-0 Re8 f3 Nf6 c3 Bd6 Be5)&#xA;+0.31/22 18} 6. Bxe7 Nxe7 {(Nxe7 Nc3 0-0 0-0-0 Re8 Qd2 Nf6 Kb1 Nf5 h3 Ne4&#xA;Nxe4 dxe4 g4 Nd6 Qf4 b6 Ne2 a5 Bg2 Ba6 Nc3 Bb7 h4 f6 g5) +0.20/23 14} 7.&#xA;Nc3 O-O {(0-0 0-0-0 Re8 Qd2 Nf6 Bd3 Bf5 Kb1 Qd7 Nge2 Bxd3 Qxd3 Nf5 Rhe1 c6)&#xA;+0.26/23 8} 8. O-O-O Nf6 {(Nf6 Qd2 c6 Re1 b5 f3 Nf5 g4 Nd6 Kb1 a5 h4 Re8&#xA;Rxe8+ Qxe8 Bd3 b4 Na4 Ba6 Bxa6 Rxa6 Ne2 Ra8) +0.29/22 14} 9. Nf3 Re8 {(Re8&#xA;h3 c6 Qd2 Ne4 Nxe4 dxe4 Ne5 Nd5 Bc4 Be6 Kb1 a5 Bxd5 Qxd5 c4 Qd6 Qc2 a4 a3&#xA;f6 Ng4 b5 Ne3 bxc4 Nxc4) +0.51/21 16} 10. Qd2 Ne4 {(Ne4 Nxe4 dxe4 Ne5 Be6&#xA;Kb1 c6 Bc4 Nd5 Bxd5 cxd5 h3 a5 f3 a4 fxe4 f6 Ng4 Bxg4 hxg4 Rxe4 Rde1 Rxg4&#xA;c3 Re4) +0.39/22 24} 11. Nxe4 dxe4 {(dxe4 Ne5 Be6 Kb1 c6 Bc4 Nd5 Bxd5 cxd5&#xA;h3 a5 Rhe1 f6 Ng4 b5 f3 exf3 gxf3 Rc8 Rg1 b4 Rde1 Rc7 Qd3 Qe7 f4) +0.39/24&#xA;8} 12. Ne5 Be6 {(Be6 Kb1 c6 Bc4 Nd5 Bxd5 cxd5 h3 a5 Rhe1 Qd6 Ng4 b5 f3 Bxg4&#xA;hxg4 b4 fxe4 dxe4 Qe3 Rac8 d5) +0.41/22 19} 13. c3 Bxa2 {(Bxa2 Re1 Nd5 g3&#xA;c6 Qc2 f6 Nc4 b5 Ne3 Qa5 h4 Rad8 Nxd5 Bxd5 Bg2 f5 b4 Qa3+ Qb2 Qa4 Qc2 Qa6&#xA;Qb2 h6 Bh3 e3 Rhf1) +1.43/21 20} 14. Qe3 f6 {(f6 Bc4+ Bxc4 Nxc4 b5 Na5 Qd5&#xA;Qe2 Rab8 b4 Qe6 Qd2 Nd5 Rde1 Rb6 Kb2 e3 fxe3 Nxe3 h4 f5) +1.60/21 22} 15.&#xA;Nc4 b5 {(b5 Na5 Bd5 b4 a6 Kb2 Qd6 Qg3 Qd7 Be2 Bf7 Ra1 Nf5 Bg4 Nxg3 Bxd7&#xA;Nxh1 Bxe8 Rxe8 Rxh1 e3 fxe3 Rxe3) +1.85/21 26} 16. Nd2 Nd5 {(Nd5 Qh3 b4 c4&#xA;e3 fxe3 Nxe3 Bd3 g6 Qh4 Nxd1 Rxd1 f5 Qxd8 Rexd8 d5 a5 Nf3 a4 Nd4 a3 Re1 Re8&#xA;Rxe8+ Rxe8 bxa3 bxa3 Nb5 Bb3 Nxa3) +2.64/24 14} 17. Qg3 e3 {(e3 fxe3 Rxe3&#xA;Qf2 Qe7 Nf3 c5 dxc5 Qxc5 Qc2 Nxc3 Bd3 Ne2+ Bxe2 Qxc2+ Kxc2 Rxe2+ Rd2 Rc8+&#xA;Kd3 Bc4+ Kd4 Rd8+ Kc3 Rdxd2 Nxd2 Bd5 Ra1 Rxg2 h4) +2.94/23 36} 18. fxe3&#xA;Rxe3 {(Rxe3 Qf2 Qe7 Nf3 c5 dxc5 Qxc5 Rd3 b4 Rxe3 Nxe3 Bd3 Rd8 Nd4 Nd5 Qf5&#xA;g6 Qe6+ Kh8 Qf7 bxc3 Qg7+ Kxg7 Ne6+ Kf7 Nxc5 Nf4 Rd1 Rd5 g3 Nxd3+ Nxd3 Bb3)&#xA;+2.72/24 20} 19. Qf2 Qe7 {(Qe7 Nf3 c5 dxc5 Qxc5 h3 Rc8) +2.94/24 7} 20.&#xA;Bxb5 Rxc3+ {(Rxc3+ bxc3 Qa3+ Kc2 Qxc3+) +M3/120 0} 21. bxc3 Qa3+ {(Qa3+ Kc2&#xA;Qxc3+) +M2/120 0} 22. Kc2 Qxc3# {(Qxc3+) +M1/120 0} 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I want to learn from my mistakes so please tell me how can I improve my game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4409" LastActivityDate="2016-03-09T09:06:36.357" Title="What are the mistakes that I have done in the following game?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;beginner&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8743" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8742" CreationDate="2015-03-08T08:04:43.597" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Main errorrs : &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;4.Qe2?   This prevents you to develop your bishop and eventually you had to move your Qeueen out of the way in move 10.Qd2  &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;13.c3?   The pawn on d4 was under no immediate attack , you lost your a2 pawn of your castle (weakening your queenside and eventually getting attacked).   &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;20.Bb5  Do not get greedy for pawns when your king is coming under attack due to weak queenside pawn structure .    &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Overall , the weak Queen move in the start over the developing 4.Be3 made the difference . Eventually the queen had to be moved away and out of the gameplay .  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Good luck ! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6987" LastActivityDate="2015-03-08T08:04:43.597" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8744" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8742" CreationDate="2015-03-08T12:25:46.857" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The first mistake you made was playing against Stockfish. Modern engines are so strong (and have been ever since at least Fritz 5!) that you learn &lt;em&gt;nothing&lt;/em&gt; from playing them. They'll punish all your tactical mistakes (and at 1000 Elo you make plenty), but you'd get much more useful tactics training out of just doing exercises. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to improve your game you should seek out human opponents somewhat above your level (100-200 Elo points) instead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2253" LastActivityDate="2015-03-08T12:25:46.857" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8745" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8747" CreationDate="2015-03-08T15:02:16.540" Score="7" ViewCount="312" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm sorry if this position has been asked before, but can someone explain how it works?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;????.??.??&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;*&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;8/4k3/3p4/3P4/2P5/8/8/5K2 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Kg2 Kf8 2.Kf2 Ke7 3.Kg3 Kf7 4.Kf3 Ke8 5.Kg4 Kf8 6.Kf4 Kg8 7.Ke4 Kf8 8.Kd4 Ke7 9.Kc3 Kd8 10.Kb4 Kc7 11.Ka5 Kb7 12.Kb5 Kc7 13.Ka6 Kd8 14.Kb6 Kd7 15.Kb7 Kd8 16.Kc6 Ke7 17.Kc7 Kf8 18.Kxd6 Kg7 19.Kc7 Kf8 20.d6 Kg7 21.d7 Kf8 22.d8=Q+ *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is perfect play, but I don't understand it; can someone explain it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5649" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2015-03-08T16:44:29.363" LastActivityDate="2015-03-08T16:53:40.040" Title="Can someone explain how this pawn endgame works?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;pawn-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8746" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8745" CreationDate="2015-03-08T15:15:49.787" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is about maintaining &quot;the opposition.&quot;  This is a technique where by placing one's King carefully, the opposing King can be forced onto bad squares.  Fast forward to move &lt;code&gt;17. Kc7&lt;/code&gt;. That is the entire goal of the game.  Now Black's choices are all bad and the defending pawn will fall.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A player is said to have the opposition when, after his move, there is one space between the Kings horizontally or vertically. That is, when they are facing each other. And that's what we see on move 17.  See how the opponent's King is limited and pushed back.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then there is the 'distant opposition' where the Kings are separated by more squares but one side has the ability to maneuver into the opposition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is not easy to choose the correct first few moves in the diagram above. I would have chosen &lt;code&gt;Ke1&lt;/code&gt; incorrectly and suffered a draw against best play.  Your best bet is to read the link below, and play through the possibilities.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opposition_%28chess%29&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Here's the wiki entry, for more info&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2015-03-08T15:15:49.787" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8747" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8745" CreationDate="2015-03-08T16:41:34.593" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think considering an intermediate position first helps clarify what is going on. Consider the following position with Black to move. The white king is on d4, poised to head for infiltration on either the queenside or the kingside. The only drawing move for Black is to play &lt;code&gt;1...Kd8!&lt;/code&gt;, not committing to one side or the other. (For instance, &lt;code&gt;1...Ke7?&lt;/code&gt; reaches a position from the OP's main line, where White wins by heading to the other side via c3.) Playing through the variations and annotations below from this position will (hopefully) show how the opposition and distant opposition come into play rather immediately from this point.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[White &quot;Intermediate&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Position&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;8/3k4/3p4/3P4/2PK4/8/8/8 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1...Kd8 $1 &#xA;    {This is the only drawing move. When the white king comes to d4, so &#xA;    long as the black king can play to d7 or d8, the game is still drawn. &#xA;    But if the black king has to commit to one side or the other (to the &#xA;    c-file or e-file) then the white king will be able to infiltrate on &#xA;    the other side.}&#xA;    ( 1...Ke7 $2 {This reaches a position from the OP's main line, where &#xA;    now White can infiltrate from the queenside.} 2.Kc3 $1 Kd7 3.Kb4 Kc7 &#xA;    4.Ka5 $1 {Not giving Black the chance to steal back the opposition.} &#xA;        ( 4.Kb5 $2 Kb7 )&#xA;    )&#xA;    ( 1...Kc7 $2 {Going this direction lets White invade on the kingside.}&#xA;    2.Ke4 Kd8 &#xA;        ( 2...Kb6 $5 {White must keep in mind this counterattacking idea, &#xA;        but it doesn't work out.} 3.Kf5 Kc5 4.Ke6 {White wins via the &#xA;        classic trebuchet.} )&#xA;    3.Kf5 Ke7 4.Kg6 Ke8 5.Kf6 Kd7 6.Kf7 Kd8 7.Ke6 Kc7 8.Ke7 )&#xA;2.Kc3 &#xA;    ( 2.Ke4 Ke7 3.Kf5 &#xA;        ( 3.Kf4 Kf6 )&#xA;    3...Kf7 {Black maintains the peace.} )&#xA;2...Kc7 3.Kb4 &#xA;    ( 3.Kb3 Kb7 $1 {Again the only drawing move. Without maintaining the &#xA;    distant opposition, White can infiltrate.} )&#xA;3...Kb6 &#xA;    {Black maintains the peace.}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Returning to the starting position, then, if White can maneuver his king to d4 in such a way that Black cannot play her king to the d-file in response, he will have a won game. What needs to be done to achieve that? &lt;em&gt;White needs to force matters such that Black must either (1) allow the intermediate position where she can't get to the d-file, or (2) get outflanked and allow infiltration anyway.&lt;/em&gt; Use of the distant opposition is the only way for White to force such a decision onto Black; what complicates matters is that the mass of central pawns take squares away from each king, and that affects when one &quot;really&quot; has the (distant) opposition or not. The following variations and annotations attempt to show how this plays out, and to give a sense as to what considerations come into play. Certainly not every possible variation is given, but hopefully just enough wrong turns are explained to show what is going on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[White &quot;Starting&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Position&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;8/4k3/3p4/3P4/2P5/8/8/5K2 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Kg2 $1 &#xA;    {This, and only this, gives Black no way to grab the distant &#xA;    opposition. Whatever move is made now, White will be able to force an &#xA;    untenable decision onto Black.}&#xA;    ( 1.Kf2 $2 Kf6 $1 {Maintaining the distant opposition keeps the &#xA;    balance.} &#xA;        ( 1...Kf7 $2 2.Kf3 $1 {Stealing away the distant opposition, the &#xA;        only winning move.} 2...Kf6 3.Kf4 $1 {Keeping the opposition. Now &#xA;        Black has a choice. Either allow the White king to infiltrate &#xA;        along the outside of the kingside, or try to force the white king &#xA;        toward the center. The latter is more stubborn, but we end up in &#xA;        the intermediate position from above where the black king is &#xA;        overcommitted and cannot get to the d-file after Kd4.} 3...Ke7 &#xA;            ( 3...Kg6 {Now on the g-file, there is no time to get back to &#xA;            the d-file when the white king heads to d4.} 4.Ke4 Kf6 5.Kd4 &#xA;            Ke7 {Now we are in the OP's main line, and also the &#xA;            intermediate position where black has had to commit to the &#xA;            kingside and allow infiltration on the queenside.} )&#xA;        4.Kg5 Kf7 5.Kf5 Ke7 6.Kg6 Ke8 7.Kf6 Kd7 8.Kf7 Kd8 9.Ke6 Kc7 10.Ke7&#xA;        )&#xA;    2.Ke3 Ke7 $1 {Keeping the distant opposition, and not falling for an &#xA;    appealing alternative.} &#xA;        ( 2...Ke5 $2 {This looks like taking the opposition, but because &#xA;        d5 is unavailable, this is just a mistake.} 3.Kd3 $1 Kf6 4.Kc3 {&#xA;        Black won't be in time to keep White out of the queenside.} )&#xA;    3.Kd4 Kd7 $1 {Kd8 works as well. This is our intermediate position &#xA;    where Black just needs to be on the d-file.} )&#xA;    ( 1.Ke2 $2 {This also lets Black get the distant opposition.} 1...Ke8 &#xA;    $1 {The only drawing move, taking the distant opposition.} 2.Kf3 &#xA;        ( 2.Ke3 Ke7 $1 3.Kf3 &#xA;            ( 3.Kf4 Kf6 )&#xA;            ( 3.Kd4 Kd7 {Safely on the d-file.} )&#xA;        3...Kf7 $1 )&#xA;    2...Kf7 $1 3.Ke4 Ke8 4.Kd4 Kd7 {Safely on the d-file.} )&#xA;1...Kf6 2.Kf2 $1 &#xA;    {Only this, taking the distant opposition.}&#xA;2...Ke7 &#xA;    ( 2...Ke5 3.Ke3 $1 Kf6 4.Kd4 Ke7 {The intermediate position, where &#xA;    Black hasn't stayed on the d-file.} )&#xA;    ( 2...Kf5 3.Kf3 Kf6 4.Kf4 {This is the same position as after 1.Kf2? &#xA;    Kf7? 2.Kf3! Kf6 3.Kf4 given in another variation. Either Black gets &#xA;    outflanked on the kingside, or allows the intermediate position &#xA;    unfavorable.} )&#xA;3.Kg3 $1 &#xA;    {Starting to outflank, and doing so in such a way that Black cannot &#xA;    grab the distant opposition. Only this wins.}&#xA;    ( 3.Ke3 $2 {This looks like grabbing the distant opposition, but it &#xA;    cannot be maintained because of squares made unavailable by pawns. Now&#xA;    the game is drawn.} 3...Ke8 $1 {Only this. It prevents an unfavorable &#xA;    instance of the intermediate position, and allows Black to grab the &#xA;    distant opposition should White head toward the kingside.} 4.Kd4 &#xA;        ( 4.Kf4 &#xA;            ( 4.Kf3 Kf7 $1 )&#xA;        4...Kf8 $1 )&#xA;    4...Kd7 {Safely on the d-file.} )&#xA;3...Ke8 &#xA;    ( 3...Kf6 &#xA;        ( 3...Kf7 4.Kf3 $1 )&#xA;    4.Kf4 $1 )&#xA;4.Kg4 $1 &#xA;    {Again not allowing Black to grab the distant opposition, and only &#xA;    this wins.}&#xA;4...Kf8 5.Kf4 $1 &#xA;    {Only this.}&#xA;5...Kg8 &#xA;    {Now that the black king is on the g-file, White can head for Kd4 and &#xA;    the intermediate position where the black king can't get back to the &#xA;    d-file.}&#xA;    ( 5...Ke7 6.Kg5 {Infiltrating as in other variations given.} 6...Kf7 &#xA;    7.Kf5 Ke7 8.Kg6 Ke8 9.Kf6 Kd7 10.Kf7 Kd8 11.Ke6 Kc7 12.Ke7 )&#xA;6.Ke4 Kf7 7.Kd4 Ke7 &#xA;    {White wins as in the OP's main line.}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2015-03-08T16:53:40.040" LastActivityDate="2015-03-08T16:53:40.040" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8748" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4588" CreationDate="2015-03-08T17:57:00.417" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a confirmed 1.e4 fan and have also found playing against 1.d4 as black somewhat of a challenge, probably because I so rarely ever play 1,d4 myself (though I do plan to learn the Colle at least and try and play more with 1.d4. I firmly believe it helps in your chess play if you can play openings with both colours!).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyway as I usually play 1....e6 against 1.e4 and play the French as Black, I usually play 1.....e6 against 1.d4. If I get lucky white may transpose to a French with 2.d4 but more likely he will play something else and most commonly 2.c4 and head to a Queeen's Gambit of some such! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So after 1.d4 e6 2.c4 I have been playing the English defence with 2...b6. This is quite rare I think and the English defence more usually occurs after 1.c4 (English opening), yet there is scope for transpositions here. I would recommend you try 1.....e6 against 1.d4 and try the English defence. There are lines you need to know in the English defence ie it can be played with or without f5 and you need to be aware of the English defence gambit (this can arise by transposition:1 d4 e6 2 c4 b6 3 e4 Bb7 4 Nc3 Bb4 5 f3 f5 6 ef Nh6!?).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Again after 1.d4 e6 2.c4 Black can play 2...f5 and go for a Dutch opening (I'd recommend the Stonewall Dutch which I've recently looked at but not yet played a game with!). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another interesting try after 1.d4 e6 2.c4 is the Keres defence with 2....Bb4+. I have dabbled with this and it is eminently playable as black (drawback maybe losing your good bishop as black early on).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However you go after 1.d4 e6 2.c4, you should be aware of the classic black defences against 1.d4 especially the Nimzo and BogoIndians (these positions can arise very easily from the Keres defence).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Really I doubt there is one &quot;cure&quot; for black playing against 1.d4. Classically the Kings Indian defence or the NimzoIndian defence have done well for black and you should at least be aware of them. My son (used to be a very strong as a junior player) played the Benko gambit when allowed to and I'd really like to try this myself as it leads to exciting games. I have also played the vonHennigSchara gambit and that is a great way to try bamboozle your opponents. I have also played the Budapest gambit and that is another fun way to play against 1.d4 but maybe these gambits are best in blitz play!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So to summarise: Playing against 1.d4 there are many choices but if you like playing the French defence as black, I'd recommend you play 1.d4 e6 and if the opponent 2.c4 then play 2...b6 and try the English defence but be prepared to be very flexible with it! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I hope that helps a little..and wish you good results against 1.d4. Enjoy :-)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="426" LastActivityDate="2015-03-08T17:57:00.417" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8751" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8752" CreationDate="2015-03-09T07:11:09.820" Score="2" ViewCount="337" Body="&lt;p&gt;I played a game on &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.lichess.org&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;lichess&lt;/a&gt;. (Link: &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.lichess.org/n2hfBGYy#18&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://en.lichess.org/n2hfBGYy#18&lt;/a&gt;) After the game I did a stockfish analysis of the game. This is the position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Rated game&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;http://lichess.org/n2hfBGYy&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2015.03.09&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Kartikay&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;superca&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;1044&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;1698&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;56&quot;]&#xA;[Variant &quot;Standard&quot;]&#xA;[TimeControl &quot;300+6&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;A42&quot;]&#xA;[Opening &quot;Sicilian Defense, Hyperaccelerated Fianchetto&quot;]&#xA;[Annotator &quot;lichess.org&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 g6 3. d4 { Sicilian Defense, Hyperaccelerated Fianchetto } cxd4 4. Nxd4 Bg7 5. Nc3 Nc6 6. Nxc6 bxc6 7. Bc4 e6 8. O-O d5?! { (0.44 → 0.96) Inaccuracy. The best move was Qc7. } (8... Qc7 9. Bg5 Ne7 10. Re1 Rb8 11. Bb3 d6 12. Qd2 O-O 13. a3 Rd8 14. Rad1 Ba6 15. Bf4 Be5 16. Bxe5 dxe5) 9. exd5 cxd5 10. Bb5+? { (0.99 → -0.29) Mistake. The best move was Nxd5. } (10. Nxd5 Bb7 11. Bb5+ Kf8 12. Nf4 a6 13. Qxd8+ Rxd8 14. Be2 Bf6 15. Nd3 Kg7 16. Nc5 Bc6 17. Nxa6 Ne7 18. c3 Nd5 19. Bd2 Nc7) * {The rest of the game is not shown here}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I played &lt;code&gt;10. Bb5+&lt;/code&gt; an stockfish labeled it as a mistake. Stockfish said that the best move was &lt;code&gt;Nxd5&lt;/code&gt;. I was surprised by this, why should black not capture the knight in this position?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;r1bqk1nr/p4pbp/4p1p1/3N4/2B5/8/PPP2PPP/R1BQ1RK1 b kq - 0 10&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Stockfish gives the evaluation +1.48 if black captures the knight.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4409" LastEditorUserId="3819" LastEditDate="2017-02-06T17:53:01.153" LastActivityDate="2017-02-06T17:53:01.153" Title="Why should black not capture the knight here?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;beginner&gt;&lt;captures&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8752" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8751" CreationDate="2015-03-09T08:17:48.843" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;What comes to my mind (maybe someone can check with a computer):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After 10.Nxd5 ed 11.Bxd5 the rook is attacked and you have the motif of playing Bxf7+. The bishop cannot be taken because the king has to keep defending the queen. So after 11…Rb8 12.Bxf7 Ke7 you already have three pawns for the piece, i.e. material is equal and the black king has lost the right to castle and will come under attack. Possibly giving the exchange with 11…Be6 is better, but even then the intermediate check 12.Bb5 looks very nasty (After Bd7 there is always Re1+ as well and the maybe Bg5 ...). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-03-09T08:17:48.843" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8753" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8761" CreationDate="2015-03-09T10:34:17.077" Score="3" ViewCount="138" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the European Individual Championship, the game Draskovic-Sutovsky is exhibited as&#xA; a win for white although the end position is totally drawn. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is also hard to imagine that black lost on time in such an easy position getting&#xA; 30 seconds at each move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So what happened in this game? Is the result correct or should it be a draw?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;16th European Individual Championship&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2015.03.08&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Draskovic, Luka&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Sutovsky, Emil&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;*&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;2432&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;2626&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;B17&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 dxe4 4.Nxe4 Nd7 5.Bc4 Ngf6 6.Ng5 e6 7.Qe2 Nb6 8.Bd3 &#xA;h6 9.N5f3 c5 10.dxc5 Bxc5 11.Ne5 Nbd7 12.Ngf3 Qc7 13.Bf4 Bb4+ 14.Kf1 Bd6 &#xA;15.Ng6 Bxf4 16.Nxh8 Nc5 17.Bb5+ Kf8 18.g3 Bd6 19.Kg2 b6 20.Rhe1 Bb7 21.a4 &#xA;Nce4 22.Ba6 Rc8 23.Bxb7 Qxb7 24.Rad1 Bc5 25.Nxf7 Kxf7 26.Ne5+ Kg8 27.f3 &#xA;Nf2 28.Rd2 Re8 29.Qc4 Nd5 30.Rxf2 Bxf2 31.Kxf2 Rc8 32.Qe4 b5 33.a5 Qc7 34.&#xA;Nd3 Re8 35.c3 Qxa5 36.Qd4 Rd8 37.Rxe6 Nf6 38.Rd6 Re8 39.g4 Qa1 40.Rd8 Rxd8&#xA;41.Qxd8+ Kh7 42.Qd4 a5 43.h4 Qd1 44.g5 Qd2+ 45.Kf1 hxg5 46.hxg5 Qxg5 47.&#xA;Nf4 Kh6 48.Qd2 a4 49.Qe3 Kh7 50.Kf2 Qh4+ 51.Kg2 Qg5+ 52.Kf2 Kh8 53.Qd4 Qf5&#xA;54.Qd8+ Ng8 55.Qh4+ Nh6 56.Qd8+ Kh7 57.Qd3 g5 58.Qxf5+ Nxf5 59.Ne6 Kg6 60.&#xA;Nf8+ Kh5 61.Ne6 Kh4 62.Ke2 Nd6 63.Nd4 Kg3 64.Ne6 Kh4 65.Nd4 Nc4 66.Nxb5 &#xA;Kg3 67.Na3 Ne5 68.c4 Nxf3 69.c5 g4 70.Nb5 Ne5 71.Na7 Ng6 72.c6 Nf4+ 73.Kd2&#xA;Nd5 74.Nb5 Kh2 75.c7 Nxc7 76.Nxc7 g3 77.Ne6 g2 78.Nd4 Kg3 79.Ne2+ Kf3 80.&#xA;Kd3 Kf2 81.Nf4 g1=N 82.Kc3 Ke3 83.Nd5+ Ke4 84.Nb6 Nf3 85.Nxa4 Kd5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5784" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2015-03-09T22:59:42.787" LastActivityDate="2015-03-09T22:59:42.787" Title="What happened in the game Draskovic - Sutovsky (EICC 2015)?" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8754" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-03-09T10:37:39.880" Score="0" ViewCount="68" Body="&lt;p&gt;The female players, I found out in the european individual championship, are&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;WGM Aleksandra Goryachkina&#xA; WGM Maria Manakova&#xA; WIM Olga Vasiliev&#xA; WIM Camelia-Adriana Ciobanu&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Did any other female players participate ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5784" LastActivityDate="2015-03-09T14:15:54.080" Title="How many female players participated in the european indivdual championship?" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8755" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-03-09T11:04:34.253" Score="14" ViewCount="587" Body="&lt;p&gt;I do not know, if &amp;quot;mini-chess&amp;quot; is the official name of the game I am talking about.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In mini-chess, the players only start with the pawns (In particular, there are no kings!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The players play the moves alternate, as in the usual chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If a player manages to get a pawn to the opponent's back rank, he immediately wins.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If a player cannot move, he loses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;En passant is like in the usual chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it known which player wins with perfect play ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5784" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-17T02:58:13.230" LastActivityDate="2020-08-17T02:58:13.230" Title="Is the result in mini-chess known with perfect play?" Tags="&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;solving&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="7" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8757" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5194" CreationDate="2015-03-09T14:09:12.297" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is this site chesscube.com which has their own currency called Crowns which can be redeemed for cash or merch .&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Earning Crowns requires you to participate in their online rapid tournaments .&lt;br&gt;&#xA;If you use engines then they will be able to catch you.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But its very tough if you are not a professional :/ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6987" LastActivityDate="2015-03-09T14:09:12.297" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8758" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8754" CreationDate="2015-03-09T14:15:54.080" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can find the &lt;a href=&quot;http://chess-results.com/tnr157274.aspx?lan=1&amp;amp;art=1&amp;amp;rd=11&amp;amp;fed=ENG&amp;amp;turdet=YES&amp;amp;flag=30&amp;amp;wi=984&amp;amp;zeilen=99999&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;final rankings here&lt;/a&gt; to get a list of all participants. You could then check the names against &lt;a href=&quot;http://ratings.fide.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;the FIDE ratings website&lt;/a&gt; which would tell you the gender of the player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A quick glance through the list shows these additional female players (probably not exhaustive)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Shlomit Vardi&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Limor Altshul&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sophia Toporkova&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Michal Lahav&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2015-03-09T14:15:54.080" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8759" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-03-09T17:04:41.343" Score="4" ViewCount="759" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is this touch-move rule which doesn't apply when the player says &amp;quot;Adjust&amp;quot; .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossary_of_chess#A&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt; says :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To adjust the position of a piece on its square without being required to move it. A player may only do this on his turn to move , and he must first say &amp;quot;I adjust&amp;quot;, or the French equivalent &amp;quot;J'adoube&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Is &amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;only on his turn to move&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;quot; a very strict and binding rule ?&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Since I see that this is done many times during the opponent's turn and no one complains about it .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Is this there so that the opponent doesn't get disturbed while calculating ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If a scenario comes up where a piece is out of its square and is disturbing me, can I say adjust during his turn? (Maybe he may get irritated once in a blue moon.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Is this rule required in all OTB events as it hardly gets followed ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;What is the historical background behind the &amp;quot;J'adoube&amp;quot;? Why is French the lingua franca in this case?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6987" LastEditorUserId="10867" LastEditDate="2020-11-05T19:16:44.647" LastActivityDate="2020-11-05T19:16:44.647" Title="Adjusting in one's turn only" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;history&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="8760" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8759" CreationDate="2015-03-09T17:20:09.683" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;From the FIDE Laws of chess:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;4.2 Provided that he first expresses his intention (for example by saying “j’adoube” or “I adjust”), only the player having the move may&#xA;  adjust one or more pieces on their squares.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;6.2.d Only the player whose clock is running is allowed to adjust the pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The USCF rules are similar.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you surmised, the rule is there to avoid distracting the opponent. In my experience in USCF tournaments, the rule is generally followed. If my opponent were to adjust a piece during my move, I probably would let it go if it only happened once, but if he continued, I would inform him that he can only do it on his own move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2015-03-09T17:20:09.683" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8761" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8753" CreationDate="2015-03-09T17:25:23.600" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess-results.com/tnr157274.aspx?lan=1&amp;amp;art=9&amp;amp;fed=ISR&amp;amp;turdet=YES&amp;amp;flag=30&amp;amp;wi=984&amp;amp;snr=45&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;chess-results.com&lt;/a&gt; says the result was a draw. I wonder if it was one of those DGT errors where an incorrect result is reported due to the position of the kings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2015-03-09T17:25:23.600" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8762" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8759" CreationDate="2015-03-09T19:49:11.787" Score="4" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If a scenario comes up where a piece is out of its square and is disturbing me , can I say adjust during his turn ? ( maybe he may get irritated once in a blue moon ) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it's your opponent's move, you were the last person to modify the board and had the opportunity to adjust then. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it's bothering you that much then get up, get a drink of water, look at the other games, and wait until your opponent has moved and you can make the world right again.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3270" LastActivityDate="2015-03-09T19:49:11.787" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8763" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8764" CreationDate="2015-03-09T22:12:35.307" Score="8" ViewCount="8025" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recently started to learn chess, but I play mid to advanced Chinese chess. So to get the most out of transferable skills, I would like to avoid positional/pawn play, but prefer aggressive openings to bring non-pawns into contact very early.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I tried a bit with King's Gambit and Smith-Morra for playing white. What are the aggressive (gambit?) defense lines for black against 1.e4 and 1.d4? Are there early gambits that are easy to reach but hard to decline, even if in theory white's better?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7002" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2015-03-09T22:25:03.867" LastActivityDate="2021-02-16T08:52:06.017" Title="Gambit openings for black recommendation?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;gambits&gt;&lt;aggressive-play&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8764" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8763" CreationDate="2015-03-09T22:24:42.877" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;Two gambits that your opponents would likely play into a fair amount, and are defined by move two, are the Latvian Gambit (&lt;code&gt;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 f5&lt;/code&gt;, like a reversed King's Gambit) and the Albin Counter-gambit (&lt;code&gt;1.d4 d5 2.c4 e5&lt;/code&gt;). Between the two, the Albin is considered more sound, and even sees top-level games from the likes of Morozevich and Nakamura. The Latvian is generally seen as much shakier. In any case, these two bring the fight to White without delay, and might be the sort of flavor you're looking for.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[White &quot;Latvian&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Gambit&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 f5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[White &quot;Albin&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Counter-Gambit&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 d5 2.c4 e5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2015-03-09T22:24:42.877" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8765" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9552" CreationDate="2015-03-10T00:01:29.323" Score="7" ViewCount="1347" Body="&lt;p&gt;To specify the question a bit:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I consider a &lt;strong&gt;blunder&lt;/strong&gt; a move which worsens the position by &lt;strong&gt;3 pawns&lt;/strong&gt; (300 centipawns) or more. I think this is a pretty good base mark, since a strong computer will generally judge sacrificial moves accurately.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Lets only consider &lt;strong&gt;amateur&lt;/strong&gt; (&amp;lt;2100 rating) games, since beyond this, such blunders are very rare&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A breakdown by rating would be very nice&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: In consideration of the numerous comments I've decided to tighten the bolts some more on this question. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Addendum 1&lt;/em&gt;: The question is asking how many &lt;strong&gt;games&lt;/strong&gt; out of a pool of games will contain a blunder. Not how many moves &lt;strong&gt;within&lt;/strong&gt; a game &lt;em&gt;are&lt;/em&gt; blunders. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Addendum 2&lt;/em&gt;: It seems 100 centipawn shifts are common even in master level games, so I have upped the ante to 300 centipawns, these would be blunders that outright lose the game. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Addendum 3&lt;/em&gt;: I am not asking for how many games are won or lost through a blunder (this is basically impossible to determine), but just how many contain at least one. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4445" LastEditorUserId="4445" LastEditDate="2015-03-10T16:36:00.580" LastActivityDate="2015-06-22T10:43:15.717" Title="What percent of chess games contain a blunder?" Tags="&lt;blunder&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8766" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1251" CreationDate="2015-03-10T13:44:06.040" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;A book series to buy is Mastering the Chess Openings Volumes 1-3 by John Watson. Anything written by John Watson is worth reading.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4543" LastActivityDate="2015-03-10T13:44:06.040" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8767" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-03-10T17:39:28.840" Score="7" ViewCount="6928" Body="&lt;p&gt;I hope that some stronger players have some insight or that their are some quotations from notable chess players that relate to the question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3872" LastActivityDate="2019-07-03T04:59:26.223" Title="Can almost anyone become a grandmaster if they devoted their life from age 6?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;grandmaster&gt;" AnswerCount="8" CommentCount="13" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8769" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24501" CreationDate="2015-03-10T20:19:16.547" Score="4" ViewCount="601" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are there any surveys on mutual zugzwang positions and the longest checkmates (split into categories of DTM, DTC, and DTZ) in the endgame KRPP vs. KRP (King+Rook+2 Pawns vs. King+Rook+Pawn)? In particular, I would be interested in the full-point-mutual-zugzwangs in this endgame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately, the 7 men tablebases are not available for free online, and I do not know how I can download the required files (including all needed additional files due to the possibility of (under)promotions).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5784" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-10-20T13:12:14.640" LastActivityDate="2021-05-02T04:06:10.973" Title="Mutual Zugzwangs &amp; Longest Checkmates (DTM, DTC and DTZ) in the endgame KRPP vs. KRP" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;tablebases&gt;&lt;rook-endgame&gt;&lt;zugzwang&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="8770" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8759" CreationDate="2015-03-10T20:36:22.573" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;OK, so it's your turn and you're in the middle of a deep long think in a complicated position when this big hairy arm reaches all the way across the board obscuring your view of a large part of the board and adjusts your castled king and rook. It's not just a quick tap of the piece. It's a lengthy, thumb and 2 fingers adjusting of the pieces. That's a good thing in your view? It doesn't matter, by the way, whether your opponent says &quot;j'adoube&quot; or anything else in that situation. It's not his turn and so he can have no intention of moving the pieces touched.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do that to me and I'll immediately call the arbiter and I'll expect him to penalize you by giving me an extra 2 minutes on the clock. If an arbiter is actually watching and sees it happen I don't expect to have to complain and tell him. I expect him to intervene immediately and penalize you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand we have in our club a couple of players with the following bad habit. They make a move, press the clock and then instinctively touch the piece further on its square whether it needs it or not before writing the move down. At standard time controls where I'm also writing the moves down I'd probably let this go but at rapid or blitz when time is more critical I'd complain to the arbiter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that when I'm arbiter in a competition with these two players I warn them after the game if they do it and their opponent doesn't complain. If an opponent complains then I give an automatic 2 minute penalty. One player is pushing 70 and I don't really expect him to change. It's only thanks to the increment that he no longer hits the clock in Zeitnot, but the other player is in his mid 20's and quite strong (2100+). He needs to fix this bad habit before he starts getting penalized in stronger competitions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2015-03-10T20:36:22.573" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8771" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-03-10T21:06:00.640" Score="3" ViewCount="570" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the longest way to checkmate with 1 queen against 4 queens, with no other pieces on the board?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since there are 13 moves long games with a queen vs two queens, I conjecture this should be possible also for this certain endgame, but I am not sure. The maximum position I know has the disadvantage that the first move is a capture. It would be nice if the first move is not a capture.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5784" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-03-14T06:04:34.983" LastActivityDate="2020-03-14T06:04:34.983" Title="Longest way to mate with 1 queen against 4 queens" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;tablebases&gt;&lt;records&gt;&lt;queen-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="8772" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-03-10T22:34:00.237" Score="5" ViewCount="1008" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is said that given enough time even an average player can play the &quot;best&quot; move in any given position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus the real question in chess is that of &lt;strong&gt;time control&lt;/strong&gt;. It has been argued by several chess tutors/authors (e.g Dan Heisman) that differences in a player's &quot;thinking system&quot; is what differentiates a patzer from a master. Because both players have the same amount of time in which to make moves, the one with superior time management (which, in this sense, is used to mean &quot;how long it takes to make a good move/the best move&quot;) will win. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If we give the patzer unlimited time, but the master normal time controls, in theory the patzer should win (or at the very least draw).  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, how does one create an algorithm (aka a thinking system) that allows the player to make good moves (but not necessarily the &quot;best&quot; moves, since that would be impossible) while still being time-conscious? How do the masters do it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Things to consider:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How would such a system operate?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Would it be hierarchical or web-like?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Would it consider each position a separate case with its own algorithm or be totally universal?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How much should memory (of openings and games) be involved?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4445" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2015-03-10T23:17:12.810" LastActivityDate="2019-12-16T16:17:19.793" Title="How to make a time-efficient thinking system?" Tags="&lt;time-management&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8773" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="442" CreationDate="2015-03-10T22:45:03.297" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;As with anything, its most important to make the game a &lt;strong&gt;positive&lt;/strong&gt; experience. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also recommend taking her to a chess club where she might be able to play people around her age (though not necessarily at her level), if she does get hooked I really recommend getting a tutor of some sort and having her play competitively (obviously you should not force this on her, but you should let her try it at least once).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It really is best to start playing young not only because of the developmental factors (neuro-plasticity etc etc) but also because you will never have as much &lt;strong&gt;time&lt;/strong&gt; as you do when you are a child, to enjoy chess (unless you play professionally). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4445" LastActivityDate="2015-03-10T22:45:03.297" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8775" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8772" CreationDate="2015-03-11T07:11:45.993" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is some truth in what you say, time management obviously plays a role. I often feel that I can compete with IMs if I have twice the time. (Incidentally in my last game against an IM this theory was put to the test, he spent half of his time smoking and I managed to win the game).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But, if the difference in playing strength between you and your opponent is too big, no amount of thinking time will help you overcome it. Chess is first and foremost a game of understanding and intuition. If you haven't acquired this understanding before the game, no amount of thinking will lead you to conclusions that might just be obvious for a GM.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In that sense playing a game of chess is similar to writing a poem. Say, you and Shakespeare have a sonnet competition going on. He will have ten minutes, you will get ten hours. No amount of thinking will give you his vocabulary and feel for the english language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are super GMs who have an atrocious time management (Grischuk comes to mind). So it isn't a factor that totally cripples your chess strength. But, to finally come up with some actual advice:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Be confident.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Avoid perfectionism.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Everything else is experience and common sense. There is no mechanical &quot;algorithm&quot; that is applicable for a human being.&#xA;Recommended reading: The seven deadly chess sins, by Jonathan Rowson.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-03-11T07:11:45.993" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8776" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4719" CreationDate="2015-03-11T08:58:13.663" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This program has a generator chess problems but the quality of these tasks is low... &lt;a href=&quot;http://chessexplorer.republika.pl/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://chessexplorer.republika.pl/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5809" LastActivityDate="2015-03-11T08:58:13.663" CommentCount="0" CommunityOwnedDate="2015-03-11T08:58:13.663" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8777" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4719" CreationDate="2015-03-11T12:38:45.263" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;yes! check out this chessbase article&#xA; &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.chessbase.com/post/computer-generated-chess-problems-for-everyone&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://en.chessbase.com/post/computer-generated-chess-problems-for-everyone&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4543" LastActivityDate="2015-03-11T12:38:45.263" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8778" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-03-11T12:50:09.620" Score="1" ViewCount="488" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have started to study the Sicilian defense (at a beginners level), and I came across a situation where I don't know how to proceed...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;e4 c5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Nf3 d6&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;d3&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know that it is probably not the best thing for white to do, but nevertheless, how does black continue?&#xA;My fear is the white Knight coming to f7...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4527" LastEditorUserId="11202" LastEditDate="2017-05-03T21:18:31.707" LastActivityDate="2017-05-04T06:47:30.397" Title="Sicilian defense - beginner" Tags="&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;&lt;beginner&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8779" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8778" CreationDate="2015-03-11T14:55:43.753" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.caissa.com/chess-openings/sicilian-defense.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.caissa.com/chess-openings/sicilian-defense.php&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You will find lines for the Sicilian including explanations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However I advise you to stick with the main line (which is the Classical Sicilian line, the Open Sicilian line is also one of the &quot;main&quot; lines. Use whichever you like since you're still learning)... The Sicilian might get too hard to play at a beginner stage if you play one of the other lines. But you have them right there if you are interested :) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope I helped&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However as far as I know, there are no actual lines of the sicilian with d3 in such an early stage. It blocks the development of the white bishop and overall is played too early. (I could be wrong however, since I haven't finished my study of the sicilian, if there IS a line for it the others might have an answer)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As to HOW to continue in THAT particular line that you just said Nc6 for black is most likely the best move. It keeps control of vital squares in the center and your pawn structure is good.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6966" LastEditorUserId="6966" LastEditDate="2015-03-11T15:01:56.313" LastActivityDate="2015-03-11T15:01:56.313" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8780" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8778" CreationDate="2015-03-11T15:42:48.053" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Put in the most simple way, white's classical goal with 1.e4 is to continue 2.d4, occupying the center.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black plays the Sicilian so that he can, if white continues expanding in the center with d2-d4, exchange his c-pawn for white's d-pawn and gain a 2 vs 1 pawns in the center advantage. In the meantime he doesn't develop his pieces, so there's a disadvantage to that approach, but that's a basic idea of the Sicilian.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White has three fundamental ways to deal with the Sicilian: if he believes black's disadvantage in development is more important than the center pawns, he can go for d2-d4 (usually with Nf3 first), fast development and attack. This leads to exciting games and is the traditional most popular way to deal with the Sicilian.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Two, he can take the Sicilian seriously and still continue with his original idea by playing 2.c3. This 'cancels' 1...c5 because white will just take back on d4 if the pawns are exchanged.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Three, white can decide against d2-d4 for now and look for other ways. Usually this involves putting the pawn on d3 (because leaving it on d2 is awkward). Usually play is slow and both sides' pieces don't immediately touch each other in the opening moves, so a great variety of ways to continue are possible. Your line belongs here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Combining 2.Nf3 and 3.d3 is a bit odd, in that white has already made some slight concessions -- he can't play with an early f2-f4, and the bishop is locked in -- while black hasn't had to do anything to achieve that. By itself that doesn't mean much, as there are still good ways to continue available, but he's made himself a bit predictable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most likely, white will put the bishop on g2 and castle short; this is called the &lt;strong&gt;King's Indian Attack&lt;/strong&gt;, because it mirrors black's setup in the King's Indian Defence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's hard to give concrete lines (because so much is possible), but I'd place a pawn on e5 (3...e5 or 3...Nc6 and 4...e5) because it shuts down white's d3-d4 for the foreseeable future, f2-f4 is not possible, and an important plan for white is usually to play e4-e5, but you prevent that. Keep the option of playing your white squared bishop to g4 open.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The so-called 'Botvinnik setup' with pawns c5-d6-e5, Nc6, Ne7, and a bishop on g7 seems like an idea.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2015-03-11T15:42:48.053" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8781" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-03-11T19:03:41.977" Score="1" ViewCount="232" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the longest known sequence of moves with upto 6 pieces where each move of&#xA; both sides is the only move drawing the game (any other move would lose the game) ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There should not occur any repitition of a position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I experimented with the endgame rook vs two (three) pawns and got some&#xA; sequences I unfortunately do not remember.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5784" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-05-22T13:46:45.040" LastActivityDate="2021-05-02T05:09:36.177" Title="Longest sequence with only moves to draw without a repetition" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;draw&gt;&lt;tablebases&gt;&lt;records&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="8782" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8781" CreationDate="2015-03-11T19:32:56.920" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;do you mean this position? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;2Q5/8/8/8/3n4/8/1b6/k2K4 b - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5649" LastEditorUserId="3831" LastEditDate="2015-03-11T21:57:45.300" LastActivityDate="2015-03-11T21:57:45.300" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8784" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8785" CreationDate="2015-03-11T19:49:14.067" Score="0" ViewCount="36" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is it correct that the reykjavik open 2015 is a KO tournament ?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If the game is a draw, does black achieve the next round ?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5784" LastActivityDate="2015-03-11T20:12:34.823" Title="Modus in the reykjavik open 2015" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8785" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8784" CreationDate="2015-03-11T20:12:34.823" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, according to the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.reykjavikopen.com/info/tournament-rules/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;tournament page&lt;/a&gt;; it is a Swiss.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2015-03-11T20:12:34.823" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8787" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8781" CreationDate="2015-03-11T22:35:28.197" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;To get the ball rolling, from the following position the first 6 moves for each side are forced in order not to lose. (If &lt;code&gt;7.h8=B&lt;/code&gt; weren't available and &lt;code&gt;7.h8=Q&lt;/code&gt; needed to be played, then the forced follow-ups &lt;code&gt;7...h1=Q+ 8.Qxa1+ Kxa1&lt;/code&gt; would extend it to 8, but no cigar.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;K5R1/8/p7/8/8/7P/8/1q1k4 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Rg1+ $1 Kc2 $1 2.Rxb1 $1 Kxb1 $1 3.h4 $1 a5 $1 4.h5 $1 a4 $1 5.h6 $1 a3 &#xA;$1 6.h7 $1 a2 $1 7.h8=Q &#xA;    ( 7.h8=B )&#xA;7...a1=Q+ $1 8.Qxa1+ $1 Kxa1 $1 *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2015-03-11T22:35:28.197" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8788" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6516" CreationDate="2015-03-11T22:55:11.443" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;We working on it. See doublechess server project in czech open bics article.&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://bughousechess.wz.cz/BICS/CzechOpen/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://bughousechess.wz.cz/BICS/CzechOpen/&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;or in &lt;a href=&quot;http://bughousechess.wz.cz/BICS/index.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://bughousechess.wz.cz/BICS/index.html&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;there is link.&#xA;Its based on nodejs + chat + javascript. So far working ok from mobile or PC, any time for game and move clockssettings first beta. It is possible to run it over win or linux.&#xA;There is now all time server running more or less. You welcome help us test,u can play on both boards also vs your friend or anybody. Now in test phase.&#xA;PS. in yafi u cannot see and use pieces in hand easy. Dont mention u cannot play slower bughouse, only fast one. in bics and also in this dcb u can play delay=bronstein time for move control ie slower bughouse chess from any web browser even smartphone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7012" LastEditorUserId="7012" LastEditDate="2015-03-11T23:04:22.397" LastActivityDate="2015-03-11T23:04:22.397" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8789" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16768" CreationDate="2015-03-11T23:44:52.927" Score="19" ViewCount="3405" Body="&lt;p&gt;By forced move, it is meant that the player has only one legal move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;7k/q5Q1/p4PPK/6PP/8/5P2/8/8 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Qxg7+ 2. fxg7+ Kg8 3. f4 a5 4. f5 a4 5. f6 a3 6. f7#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Above is an example with 10 half-moves. Each half-move is the only legal one and the end is a checkmate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5784" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-04T22:35:56.417" LastActivityDate="2021-02-06T08:19:24.923" Title="What is the longest known sequence of forced moves leading to a checkmate for one side?" Tags="&lt;problems&gt;&lt;records&gt;&lt;forced-move&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="8791" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-03-12T10:06:31.317" Score="1" ViewCount="73" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am confused about the bye-rule in the reykjavic tournament. If I understand it&#xA; right, a player can take a half point for free under some conditions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Does anyone know the exact rules ?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What is the sense of this rule ?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5784" LastActivityDate="2015-03-12T12:24:05.373" Title="Bye-rule in the reykjavic open" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8792" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-03-12T10:53:29.430" Score="2" ViewCount="219" Body="&lt;p&gt;The only online endgame database supporting DTC (Depth To Conversion) that I know of is &lt;a href=&quot;http://chess.jaet.org/cgi-bin/mzugs&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;jaet&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately for me, the positions can only be entered by FEN. It is not possible to drag pieces, as I would prefer. Being able to drag the pieces around would be comfortable for me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Does anyone know a comfortable online endgame database supporting DTC, i.e. you can drag the pieces around?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Does anyone know where I can download DTC-supporting files ? &#xA;(I only have downloaded the Nalimov files, which only support DTM)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5784" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-06-17T16:50:18.897" LastActivityDate="2019-07-17T17:00:50.413" Title="Looking for a comfortable DTC endgame database" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;tablebases&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="8793" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8791" CreationDate="2015-03-12T12:24:05.373" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The exact rules are on the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.reykjavikopen.com/info/tournament-rules/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;tournament rules&lt;/a&gt; page. If your schedule does not permit you to play every game or you just need some rest, you can can take a half-point bye instead, getting 1/2 point instead of playing. This is pretty much the same bye rule used in every Swiss System tournament.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2015-03-12T12:24:05.373" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8794" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-03-12T14:16:46.267" Score="1" ViewCount="886" Body="&lt;p&gt;How do I convert the game into KQK easily, or simply mate? I've already learned the Philidor position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5649" LastActivityDate="2015-03-12T14:52:51.047" Title="Is there a full tutorial for Queen vs Rook endgame?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;queen-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ClosedDate="2015-03-12T14:52:34.243" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8795" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8794" CreationDate="2015-03-12T14:41:10.420" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately, no &quot;easy&quot; fool-proof method is known. It can take 31 moves until the&#xA; checkmate or capture the rook with best blay from both side in the worst possible &#xA; initial position. Nevertheless, the queen can always win if the player with the rook&#xA; has no perpetual check or a fast win of the queen or a stalemate trap.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In particular, you have to avoid stalemate traps. Human defence tends to lose faster&#xA; because of the fear of putting the rook far away.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A difficult position is, for example W : Kd5, Qf7 S : Kd8, Rb6&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;where white has to find the counterintuitive move Qf4! which is not the only winning&#xA; move but soon or later white must come to this idea to win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5784" LastEditorUserId="5784" LastEditDate="2015-03-12T14:52:51.047" LastActivityDate="2015-03-12T14:52:51.047" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8796" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8789" CreationDate="2015-03-13T03:27:21.787" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This answer is only the longest forced checkmate, because I missed your condition that each half move be &lt;em&gt;the only legal move&lt;/em&gt; for both sides.&#xA;The following is a forced checkmate in 262 moves (if both sides play perfectly).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;6k1/5n2/8/8/8/5n2/1RK5/1N6 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Kd3 N3g5 2. Kd4 Ne6+ 3. Kd5 Nc7+ 4. Kc6 Ne6 5. Kd7 Nfg5 6. Kd6 Kg7 7. Ke5 Nc5 8. Kf5 Nge4 9. Ra2 Nd6+ 10. Ke5 Nf7+ 11. Kd5 Nd3 12. Kd4 Nb4 13. Ra4 Nd8 14. Kc4 Nbc6 15. Kd5 Ne7+ 16. Kd6 Ng6 17. Ra8 Nf7+ 18. Ke6 Nf8+ 19. Kd5 Ng6 20. Ra6 Nf4+ 21. Kd4 Nd8 22. Nc3 Nde6+ 23. Ke3 Ng2+ 24. Kf2 Ngf4 25. Kf3 Kf7 26. Ra7+ Kg6 27. Ke4 Kg5 28. Ra5+ Kg4 29. Ke5  Nc5 30. Nd1 (30. Rxc5??... Nd3+ 31. Kf6 Nxc5 32. Ne2 Ne4+ =) Ng6+ 31. Kd5 Nb3 32. Ra2 Nf4+ 33. Ke5 Nc5 34. Ne3+ Kf3 35. Ra3 Ng6+ 36. Kd5 Nd3 (37.Rxd3??... Nf4+ = 38.Kc4 Nxd3 39.Kxd3) 37. Kd4 Nde5 38. Ra6 Nf4 39. Nf1 Nf7 40. Rf6 Ng5 41. Ke5 Ngh3 42. Rf7 Ke2 43. Ng3+ Ke3 44. Nf5+ Kf3 45. Nd6 Ke3 46. Nc4+ Kd3 47. Nb2+ Kc2 48. Na4 Nd3+ 49. Kd4 Ng5 50. Rd7 Ne6+ 51. Kd5 Ng5 52. Rg7 Kb3 53. Nb6 Nb4+ 54. Ke5 Nd3+ 55. Kf5 Nh3 56. Rc7 Nb4 57. Rc8 Nf2 58. Nd7 Nc2 59. Nc5+ Kb4 60. Ke5 Ng4+ 61. Kf4 Nge3 62. Nd3+ Kb3 63. Nc1+ Kb4 64. Ke4 Nc4 65. Rg8 Nb6 66. Rg2 Na3 67. Rb2+ Kc5 68. Nd3+ Kc6 69. Rg2 Na4 70. Rg5 Nc3+ 71. Ke5 Na4 72. Ke6 Nb5 73. Nb4+ Kb6 74. Nd5+ Ka5 75. Rh5 Nc5+ 76. Ke5 Nd3+ 77. Ke4 Nc5+ 78. Ke3 Na6 79. Rh1 Nbc7 80. Nf4 Kb4 81. Kd4 Nb5+ 82. Ke5 Nc5 83. Nd5+ Kb3 84. Rh3+ Kc4 85. Rh4+ Kd3 86. Nf4+ Kd2 87. Rh2+ Kc3 88. Kd5 Kb4 89. Rh4 Na4 90. Nd3+ Kb3 91. Rg4 Kc2 92. Nf4 Kd2 93. Rg7 Ke3 94. Ng2+ Kd2 95. Rh7 Nb2 96. Rd7 Ke2 97. Rb7 Nd1 98. Kc5 Nbc3 99. Kd4 Kd2 100. Rd7 Ke2 101. Nh4 Nb5+ 102. Kc4 Na3+ 103. Kb3 Nb1 104. Nf5 Nf2 105. Kc2 Na3+ 106. Kc3 Nb1+ 107. Kd4 Nd2 108. Re7+ Kf3 109. Rf7 Nh3 110. Nd6+ Ke2 111. Re7+ Kf3 112. Re3+ Kg4 113. Ra3 Nf1 114. Ra4 Ng5 115. Ke5+ Kf3 116. Nf5 Nd2 117. Ra3+ Kf2 118. Ra2 Ke2 119. Kd4 Nge4 120. Ne7 Kf3 121. Nd5 Nb3+ 122. Kc4 Nc1 123. Ra3+ Kf2 124. Ra8 Ne2 125. Rg8 Ng1 126. Kd4 Nd6 127. Ke5 Nc4+ 128. Ke4 Nd6+ 129. Kf4 Ne2+ 130. Ke5 Nb5 131. Rf8+ Ke1 132. Rd8 Nbc3 133. Nb4 Kf2 134. Nc2 Nc1 135. Rc8 Nb5 136. Rb8 Nc3 137. Rd8 Ke2 138. Kd4 Nd1 139. Na1 Kd2 140. Ke4+ Ke2 141. Rc8 Nf2+ 142. Kd4 Ncd3 143. Nb3 Nf4 144. Rg8 Kf3 145. Nd2+ Ke2 146. Nc4 Kf3 147. Ne5+ Ke2 148. Re8 N2h3 149. Nc4+ Kf3 150. Ra8 Ng5 151. Ra3+ Ke2 152. Ke5 Nd3+ 153. Kf5 Nh3 154. Ra2+ Kf3 155. Ra8 Nhf2 156. Re8 Nd1 157. Nd2+ Kf2 158. Ke4 Nc1 159. Nb1 Ke2 160. Kf4+ Kd3 161. Rd8+ Ke2 162. Rd2+ Ke1 163. Rh2 Ne2+ 164. Kf3 Nd4+ 165. Ke4 Nb3 166. Ra2 Nf2+ 167. Kf3 Nd4+ 168. Ke3 Nf5+ 169. Kf4 Nd4 170. Ra4 Nc2 171. Kf3 Nd3 172. Rh4 Kd1 173. Nc3+ Kd2 174. Ne4+ Kc1 175. Ke2 Ne5 176. Nc5 Na3 177. Re4 Nec4 178. Kd3 Nb2+ 179. Kc3 Nb1+ 180. Kd4 Na3 181. Rh4 Nb5+ 182. Ke5 Kc2 183. Rh2+ Kc3 184. Kd5 Nd1 185. Rh3+ Kb2 186. Nb7 Na3 187. Nd6 Nc3+ 188. Kc5 Kc2 189. Nf5 Nab1 190. Kd4 Nb5+ 191. Kc4 N5a3+ 192. Kc5 Kb2 193. Rh2+ Kb3 194. Nd4+ Kc3 195. Ne2+ Kb2 196. Ng3+ Kc3 197. Rh3 Kd3 198. Nf5+ Kc2 199. Rg3 Kb2 200. Ne3 Nd2 201. Rg2 Kc1 202. Kd4 Nf3+ 203. Kc3 Nb1+ 204. Kb4 Nbd2 205. Rg8 Ne4 206. Rd8 Nf2 207. Kc3 Ne4+ 208. Kd3 Nc5+ 209. Kc4 Ne4 210. Rd1+ Kb2 211. Rd5 Ne1 212. Rd8 Nf3 213. Rf8 Ne1 214. Rb8+ Kc1 215. Kd4 Nd2 216. Nd5 Kd1 217. Re8 Ng2 218. Kd3 Nb1 219. Re7 Ne1+ 220. Kc4 Ng2 221. Kb3 Nd2+ 222. Kb2 Nc4+ 223. Kc3 Nd2 224. Nf6 Nf4 225. Rd7 Ne2+ 226. Kd3 Nb1 227. Ke3+ Ke1 228. Re7 Kd1 229. Rh7 Nc1 230. Ne4 Na3 231. Nf2+ Kc2 232. Rc7+ Kb2 233. Nd1+ Kb1 234. Rc8 Nc2+ 235. Kd2 Nb3+ 236. Kd3 Ne1+ 237. Kc3 Kc1 238. Rd8 Nc5 239. Nf2 Na4+ 240. Kb3 Nb2 241. Rc8+ Kd2 242. Kxb2 Ke3 243. Ng4+ Kf4 244. Ne5 Ng2 245. Ng6+ Kg5 246. Rc3 Kg4 247. Rd3 Ne1 248. Rd4+ Kh5 249. Nh4 Nd3+ 250. Rxd3 [*]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://kirill-kryukov.com/chess/longest-checkmates/longest-checkmates-sorted-by-length.shtml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://kirill-kryukov.com/chess/longest-checkmates/longest-checkmates-sorted-by-length.shtml&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7017" LastEditorUserId="7017" LastEditDate="2020-02-19T21:52:51.140" LastActivityDate="2020-02-19T21:52:51.140" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="8797" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8878" CreationDate="2015-03-13T05:12:34.203" Score="1" ViewCount="769" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'v just installed &lt;a href=&quot;http://scidb.sourceforge.net&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;the scidb chess database&lt;/a&gt;, and I can't figure how to play against an engine from there.&lt;br&gt;Is this feature even supported ? If it is, how to use it ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6985" LastEditorUserId="20949" LastEditDate="2020-04-19T18:20:58.017" LastActivityDate="2020-04-19T18:20:58.017" Title="How to play against an engine using scidb?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;database&gt;&lt;scidb&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8798" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8952" CreationDate="2015-03-13T05:20:05.197" Score="3" ViewCount="562" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've just installed &lt;a href=&quot;http://scidb.sourceforge.net&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;scidb&lt;/a&gt;, hoping that it would read my ChessBase Fritz Trainer collection.&lt;br&gt;It was able to read the .CBH files but no video appears. I don't know if that is even supported.&lt;br&gt;If it is, how can I use it ? If it isn't, how can I mimic this behavior ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6985" LastEditorUserId="20949" LastEditDate="2020-04-19T18:21:05.650" LastActivityDate="2020-04-19T18:21:05.650" Title="How to configure scidb to use ChessBase files like ChessBase?" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;chessbase&gt;&lt;scidb&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8799" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8801" CreationDate="2015-03-13T08:33:43.520" Score="5" ViewCount="873" Body="&lt;p&gt;Okay so, I'm rated around 1950 on the FIDE rating list, and I struggle finding a good opening with black so basically my game with white is more or less perfected (3 different openings where I learned tons of variations through practice and books) and with black I just keep improvising: whatever I do in serious games against 2100+ players gets me into a really passive position. So far I've tried out Robatsch (1. ... g6) or Pirc but both get me in really passive positions. 1. e4 bothers me most, because when it comes to d4 d5 is a decent response. Anyways I planned on playing the Scandinavian but it doesn't seem like grandmasters play it so it must have tons of flaws.French and Caro-Kann both seem passive so.. any suggestions? :/&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: With white I like playing the slightly modified London system (d4 without c4, g3 + lg2 etc) or english opening :)&#xA;Also, I studied 1. ...g6 quite some time and most times against stronger players i get pretty passive, but c5 and then e6 sounds kind of good. I'm naturally a positional player, i like strangling my opponents by small attacking, changing my weak bishop/knight and earning a pawn then taking it to the end, that's at least how most of my victories are, yet I have studied tactics excessively to improve on that as well :D thanks for you answers though!!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7020" LastEditorUserId="7020" LastEditDate="2015-03-13T20:14:20.150" LastActivityDate="2019-10-11T01:51:09.820" Title="Struggling to find a good opening with black? (Fide Elo 1950)" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;theory&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8800" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8799" CreationDate="2015-03-13T10:57:08.467" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've studied Pterodactyl (1...g6 &amp;amp; Bg7 &amp;amp; c5) and it seems to be rather active, especially when it transposes to accelerated Sicilian Dragon. Default Sicilian can be very active too. For example, when you allow white to play English attack or something as aggressive as that you will definitely have fun during the GAME.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For more information about Pterodactyl look for Charlie's Storey bok in the Everyman Chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also there is possibility that you have some theoretical issues with 1...g6. Maybe you get passive position because you do wrong move order. Nobody can be sure about that without viewing your games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2173" LastActivityDate="2015-03-13T10:57:08.467" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8801" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8799" CreationDate="2015-03-13T13:46:31.937" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;You say you've looked at most of the major defenses to 1. e4 except the two best, 1... e5 and 1... c5. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It sounds like what you're looking for is just about any Sicilian variation. Most of them require a lot of theory to not get killed on a regular basis but it sounds like you're fine with that. The Taimanov or Paulsen would be a good starting point because 2... e6 avoids White's 3. Bb5 tries that can be so annoying after 2... d6 or 2... Nc6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you have an aversion to the Sicilian for some reason, I wouldn't be so quick to reject the French or Caro-Kann. There is plenty of active play in each of them if you choose the right variations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3270" LastEditorUserId="3270" LastEditDate="2015-03-13T13:52:13.847" LastActivityDate="2015-03-13T13:52:13.847" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8802" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8763" CreationDate="2015-03-13T20:18:09.373" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have a very good gambit for you, with black against 1. d4. it's called &lt;strong&gt;Benko gambit&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[White &quot;Benko&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Gambit&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 Nf6 2.c4 c5 3.d5 b5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It later gives you some ultra strong attack from the queen side, if white takes cxb5 your next move is a6 and then the opening branches out :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7020" LastEditorUserId="7043" LastEditDate="2015-03-18T14:49:32.660" LastActivityDate="2015-03-18T14:49:32.660" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8803" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8767" CreationDate="2015-03-13T20:22:36.963" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, that's a rather tough question. My answer is probably no, not everyone can become a grandmaster. Devoting yourself to chess to that extent requires tremendous amounts of time and money, which most don't have. If you really aim that high you'd have to neglect education and finally you would never be so sure you'll become a grandmaster. I think only those with true love and devotion for chess can go that far, because people aren't robots, you can't just make everyone love chess and force them to go as far as becoming grandmasters, I believe it depends on the person. However, if you have the 3 factors, deep love for chess, money and time, I do believe that such people can and will reach grandmaster level if they try hard enough. :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7020" LastActivityDate="2015-03-13T20:22:36.963" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8804" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8978" CreationDate="2015-03-13T20:52:08.797" Score="5" ViewCount="2576" Body="&lt;p&gt;So anyways, I decided to take up learning Taimanov and Kan Sicillian so I was wondering if someone could just tell me what are the basic plans of this opening, what I've seen from my brief analysis is that black's black squares are going to get exposed since his attack on the c3 square seems inevitable, b5 and Bb7 looks quite tempting as a plan, and how afraid should I be of white's attack on the queenside? &#xA;Also what are some good books to study for these variations? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7020" LastActivityDate="2017-11-15T10:33:13.423" Title="Black plans in Taimanov/Kan Sicillian?" Tags="&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;&lt;planning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8805" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-03-14T00:07:13.253" Score="3" ViewCount="158" Body="&lt;p&gt;Suppose, in the endgame queen + pawn vs queen (KQPKQ) , the stronger side has a bishop-pawn (c-pawn or f-pawn). The weaker side cannot win the pawn, nor has a perpetual check,&#xA; nor can play on stalemate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there any drawing position left with all these conditions?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5784" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2015-03-14T16:43:31.033" LastActivityDate="2015-05-13T17:18:52.517" Title="Normal draw positions in the endgame KQPKQ with a bishop-pawn?" Tags="&lt;theory&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;tablebases&gt;&lt;queen-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8806" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-03-14T00:08:57.720" Score="3" ViewCount="206" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there any possibility to check, without the use of the tablebases, if a position in the endgame queen+pawn vs queen (KQPKQ) allows a perpetual check for the weaker side?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5784" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-03-17T22:34:01.467" LastActivityDate="2020-03-17T22:34:01.467" Title="Is there any method to determine if the weaker side in KQPKQ has a perpetual check?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;tablebases&gt;&lt;queen-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="8807" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-03-14T14:14:40.227" Score="5" ViewCount="768" Body="&lt;p&gt;W : Kg2 , Pa2, b2, c2&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;S : Kb7 , Pf7, g7, h7&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White to move&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;8/1k3ppp/8/8/8/8/PPP3K1/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Houdini's shootout ended in a black win with depth 23 Ply and a white win with depth&#xA; 25 Ply.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5784" LastEditorUserId="4182" LastEditDate="2015-03-14T18:41:11.873" LastActivityDate="2016-03-10T08:06:49.083" Title="What is the result of this pawn-endgame with perfect play by both sides?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;pawn-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8808" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-03-14T14:18:32.487" Score="7" ViewCount="814" Body="&lt;p&gt;I heard that two bishops and two knights have good winning chances against the queen according to the 7-man tablebases. Unfortunately, even the pawnless 7-man tablebases are not available online. So, I am wondering if this special position is won for white.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[FEN &quot;3qk3/8/8/8/8/8/8/1NB1KBN1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;[TITLE &quot;White to move and win?&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Houdini's Shootout at Level 21 Ply :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;Stellung ausspielen (Houdini15aw32, 21p)&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Neue Partie&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Houdini 1.5a w32&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;3qk3/8/8/8/8/8/8/1NB1KBN1 w - - 0 0&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Nf3 Qa5+ 2. Nbd2 Qb4 3. Ne5 Qc3 4. Nd3 Qf6 5. Bb2 Qh4+ 6. Ke2 Qh2+ 7. Nf2&#xA;&#xA;Qc7 8. Bd4 Kf8 9. Nfe4 Ke7 10. Ke3 Kd7 11. Bc4 Ke7 12. Bd5 Qd7 13. Nf6 Qc7 14.&#xA;&#xA;Nf3 Qc1+ 15. Ke4 Qc8 16. Ng5 Qc2+ 17. Ke5 Qc7+ 18. Kf5 Qc2+ 19. Nge4 Qd1 20.&#xA;&#xA;Bc5+ Kd8 21. Ke6 Qe1 22. Bb6+ Kc8 23. Ke7 Qe2 24. Kf7 Qf1 25. Nc5 Qf4 26. Bb7+&#xA;&#xA;Kb8 27. Bc6 Qf5 28. Na6+ Kc8 29. Bd7+ Qxd7+ 30. Nxd7 Kxd7 31. Nb4 Kc8 32. Ke6&#xA;&#xA;Kb7 33. Nd5 Ka6 34. Be3 Kb7 35. Kd6 Kb8 36. Kc6 Ka8 37. Nc7+ Kb8 38. Bb6 Kc8&#xA;&#xA;39. Ba7 Kd8 40. Nd5 Ke8 41. Kd6 Kf7 42. Ne7 Kg7 43. Be3 Kf6 44. Bf4 Kf7 45. Bg5&#xA;&#xA;Ke8 46. Nc6 Kf7 47. Ne5+ Ke8 48. Kc6 Kf8 49. Kd7 Kg7 50. Ke7 Kg8 51. Bh6 Kh7&#xA;&#xA;52. Bf8 Kg8 53. Ng4 Kh7 54. Kf7 Kh8 55. Bg7+ Kh7 56. Nf6# 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5784" LastEditorUserId="11202" LastEditDate="2017-04-17T19:09:39.863" LastActivityDate="2017-04-17T19:09:39.863" Title="Can the bishops and knights triumph over the queen?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;tablebases&gt;&lt;queen-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8809" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8805" CreationDate="2015-03-14T14:19:22.817" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to the tablebase &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.k4it.de/?topic=egtb&amp;amp;lang=en&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;, this position is a draw. Of course, with the open position, Black threatens perpetual check with any free move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[FEN &quot;3k1q2/8/8/8/8/8/5P2/3KQ3 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2015-03-14T14:19:22.817" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8810" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8807" CreationDate="2015-03-14T14:37:31.173" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It would be astonishing if White were in zugzwang in the initial position and it were a win for Black. It would be mildly surprising if it were a draw, because pawn endgames are so volatile.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stockfish 5 at depth 40 evaluates it as +19 for White, which is convincing enough for me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2015-03-14T14:37:31.173" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8812" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8813" CreationDate="2015-03-14T14:44:15.157" Score="0" ViewCount="508" Body="&lt;p&gt;Suppose, white has 5 connected pawns, black only a rook. Under normal circumstances&#xA; (black cannot immediately win a pawn, the white pawns are not too far advanced, say&#xA; on the rows 2 to 4, black's king is standing in front of the white pawns)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can the pawns triumph in such a situation ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5784" LastActivityDate="2015-03-14T14:51:19.010" Title="Do 5 connected pawns usually win against a rook?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;rook-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8813" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8812" CreationDate="2015-03-14T14:51:19.010" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes of course, there are more chances for white who has 5 connected pawns to wins instead of black who has a rook. A rook can't check the king all the time and the pawns are always helping each others to get to the final state to get a queen. This problem is usually won by the 5 pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7026" LastActivityDate="2015-03-14T14:51:19.010" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8814" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8808" CreationDate="2015-03-14T15:18:18.987" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Theoretically yes, as a practical matter (for humans), no.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is known is that a pawnless position cannot be won (barring unusual positional circumstances) if one side has an advantage of a bishop or knight, but it can be won if one side has the advantage of a rook (or a queen versus a rook).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &quot;old&quot; wisdom is that three minor pieces are worth about a queen, so white has the advantage of one minor piece. As a matter of fact, three minor pieces may be worth more than a queen, pushing white's advantage closer to, say, queen versus rook.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The other thing is that with so many pieces and moving parts, White has &quot;coordination&quot; problems. That's why as a practical matter, human beings won't win with this kind of advantage. The advantage of a computer is that it can calculate its way around coordination problems. If the minor piece synergies indeed give the computer an advantage greater than a minor piece, the computer will find a way to bring this extra power to bear; a human being (other than a world champion caliber player), will not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2015-03-14T15:18:18.987" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8815" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8805" CreationDate="2015-03-14T16:32:18.630" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The weaker side cannot win the pawn, nor has a perpetual check nor can play on stalemate.&#xA;  Is there any drawing position left with all these conditions?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I will answer this with a &lt;strong&gt;no&lt;/strong&gt;, and for a reason that's more general than the KQPKQ scenario you're specifically interested in. But ultimately, whether the answer to your question is yes or no comes technically down to definitions. First, consider this KQPKQ position, with White to move:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/5k2/5Pq1/4K3/8/8/8/5Q2 w - - 0 32&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a drawn position, and perhaps one might be tempted to say it meets your criteria: White never needs to lose the pawn, nor allow a perpetual check from Black, nor play into a stalemate. So why don't I think this gives a &quot;yes&quot; answer to your question? &lt;em&gt;Because even so, the only &lt;strong&gt;reason&lt;/strong&gt; it's a draw is because White can only avoid those fates by playing into a different repetition himself.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My more general point is this: there are really only two essential reasons a game is ever drawn (ignoring mutual agreement, since we're talking theory).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Stalemate&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Repetition&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Perpetual check is a particular case where one side forces a repetition directly, and the 50-move rule is theoretically redundant: if mate can't be forced, players will unavoidably fall into a repetition once there are no more captures or pawn moves available (as there are only finitely many chess positions in total). The 50-move rule is merely a convenience for practice. Even insufficient mating material as a reason is theoretically redundant, as again, if a mate can't be forced and stalemate doesn't arise, eventually repetition will crop up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What I'm getting at is, even beyond your KQPKQ endgame, the only base reason a position is ever theoretically drawn is because either stalemate or repetition is ultimately unavoidable; that's it. You could take my example position as giving your question a &quot;yes&quot; answer, since White can choose to enter a repetition that isn't Black perpetually checking the white king; my preference is to say the answer is still &quot;no&quot; as I consider that functionally equivalent to allowing a perpetual from Black, but it's all semantics at that point.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;A preemptive point of clarification.&lt;/em&gt; It is of course the case that the set of positions which are drawn with the 50-move rule in effect is different than the set of positions which are drawn without it in effect. So the 50-move rule has a definite impact on &quot;practical endgame theory.&quot; The sense in which I'm calling it &quot;theoretically redundant&quot; above is only that, in an ideal setting chess never needed such a rule in the first place, as draw by repetition would eventually arise for any position in which progress can't be made.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2015-03-14T16:32:18.630" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8816" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8799" CreationDate="2015-03-15T21:46:13.733" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's not so much wrong with the Scandivanian, but I agree with the answers recommending the Sicilian for your level. If you're still interested in researching the Scandinavian then try Jovanka Houska's book - Starting Out: The Scadinavian which is very detailed. Sometimes in this opening you will get a bad pawn structure and White gets quite active but no immediate winning chances. It's for this reason that the Caro is sometimes called an improved Scandinavian.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4543" LastActivityDate="2015-03-15T21:46:13.733" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8817" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9493" CreationDate="2015-03-16T11:34:04.227" Score="2" ViewCount="89" Body="&lt;p&gt;Does anyone know a game since 2014 with both players at least ELO 2000, where both&#xA; kings are about to be checkmated and the game ends because one side cannot avoid&#xA; checkmate ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5784" LastActivityDate="2015-06-16T09:02:43.643" Title="Game since 2014 with both kings under fire" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;attack&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8818" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-03-16T11:37:28.970" Score="1" ViewCount="1442" Body="&lt;p&gt;Which current top player (at least ELO 2600) is the most aggressive and most&#xA; compromiseless player (of course only on the chess board :) ) ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Beliavsky is a candidate for this topic, but I do not know, if he still has this&#xA; style.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5784" LastActivityDate="2015-03-16T13:43:10.377" Title="Current top player with most aggressive style?" Tags="&lt;famous-players&gt;&lt;aggressive-play&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8819" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-03-16T11:39:55.050" Score="3" ViewCount="276" Body="&lt;p&gt;Which current top player (at least 2600 ELO) does not avoid complicated positions&#xA; in important classic tournament games, even if they are risky ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is closely related to the question which player is most aggressive and&#xA; compromiseless.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5784" LastActivityDate="2015-03-17T14:12:11.580" Title="Which top player risks complicated positions?" Tags="&lt;famous-players&gt;&lt;aggressive-play&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ClosedDate="2015-03-20T13:21:42.707" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8820" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8941" CreationDate="2015-03-16T12:47:54.410" Score="2" ViewCount="168" Body="&lt;p&gt;Does anyone know a game since 2014 with both players at least ELO 2400 containing&#xA; at least one move losing a full point in a pawn endgame ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the encyclpopedia for chess endgames, I remember only two examples :&#xA; Eduard Lasker - Moll , Berlin 1904 and Stahlberg - Tartakower , Paris 1934&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5784" LastActivityDate="2015-03-26T19:13:24.627" Title="Recent full-point-blunder in a pawn-endgame?" Tags="&lt;blunder&gt;&lt;pawn-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8821" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8818" CreationDate="2015-03-16T13:36:46.097" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Baadur Jobava is probably the most aggressive top player right now. If you go even further up the ranking, Mamedyarov is very aggressive as well. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And although he is not one for wild and dubious attacks, Caruana is actually quite uncompromising, his draw rate is very low.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Topalov and Morozevich are two names that stand for aggressive chess. But I think they both slowed down in recent years. The same could be said for Nakamura.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastEditorUserId="4362" LastEditDate="2015-03-16T13:43:10.377" LastActivityDate="2015-03-16T13:43:10.377" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8822" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8819" CreationDate="2015-03-16T13:40:54.083" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;As wrote in my answer to your other question: Jobava and Mamedyarov play very aggressively. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ding Liren and Arkadij Naiditsch are another two top players who regularly risk absolute chaos on the board. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-03-16T13:40:54.083" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8823" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-03-16T21:18:32.923" Score="2" ViewCount="1187" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just downloaded Stockfish, input a couple games, and saved them. They look like generic documents when I save and try to open. I just used the default Save function in Stockfish. Finder tells me they are .pgn documents. The problem is when I try to open I get this message: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The document “example” could not be opened. Stockfish cannot open files of this type.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So what are the steps to save a game so that it can be opened later? &#xA;(This question is so basic that I couldn't find any forum help on it so I guess I'm the only one dumb enough.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7035" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T18:08:06.600" Title="How to save/open games on Stockfish for Mac" Tags="&lt;stockfish&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8824" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8890" CreationDate="2015-03-16T22:37:39.253" Score="6" ViewCount="399" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is kind of like magic to me. Once they show you it becomes obvious :) :(&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can someone point out a good/easy strategy that a player can mentally train/use to decide what is the best move here for black?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Note:&lt;/strong&gt; Guys, there is a best move for black there can lead to a checkmate later. The goal is not to find it, but to come up with a procedure to find it so it can be applied to other positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/kDJBJ.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7036" LastEditorUserId="7036" LastEditDate="2015-03-17T03:49:39.137" LastActivityDate="2015-03-21T21:55:26.747" Title="Can someone describe a good/easy mental procedure to choose the best move here?" Tags="&lt;theory&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;puzzles&gt;&lt;middlegame&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="13" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8825" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8827" CreationDate="2015-03-17T09:00:37.263" Score="26" ViewCount="9502" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a beginner I'm not spending much time studying openings (there are so many!) but trying to work on opening principles.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One principle I've read is not to move too many pawns in your opening moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, when an opponent opens with a long sequence of pawn moves, I feel like there should be some weakness that I should be exploiting.  Instead I ended up feeling extremely cramped.  What should you be thinking about if your opponent is only moving pawns?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[White &quot;Me&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 f5 2. Nf3 e6 3. Bf4 d6 4. e3 h6 5. Bc4 g5 6. Bg3 c6 7. Nc3 a5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6963" LastEditorUserId="17" LastEditDate="2016-08-10T20:58:03.033" LastActivityDate="2017-02-26T15:59:58.073" Title="What should you do when opponent opens with excessive pawn moves?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;beginner&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8826" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8824" CreationDate="2015-03-17T11:30:07.290" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would say there are two tactical possibilities for black here:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;1…Bxd3 2.Rxd3 Rxa4 3.Qxa4 Nxb2 wins the pawn back with a better position (the a3 pawn is now weak).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;1…Rxe3 2.fe Nxe3 3.Qe2/d2 Bxd4 and the a4 Knight is hanging and the d1 rook is hanging with check … it still isn't over, in a game you should probably calculate further, but I'm to lazy to do that now.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There actually is an easy rule to find both of these tactical strikes:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Consider all captures!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Usually this rule is even broader: Consider all forcing moves! This includes captures, checks and attacks on stronger pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Disclaimer: As with all rules this maxim has to be tempered by experience.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-03-17T11:30:07.290" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8827" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8825" CreationDate="2015-03-17T12:04:26.423" Score="20" Body="&lt;p&gt;The thing is, in this example you opponent didn't play all that badly. h6 and g5 looks too risky to me, but blunting your bishop (with d6) and gaining space on the queenside makes some sense. Right now b5 is a threat and you might want to prevent it by playing a4. This would be the positional treatment of the position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are two problems with pushing too many pawns in the opening:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The creation of weaknesses: In your example the diagonal h5-e8 is weakened and you should always consider possibilities of bringing a queen to h5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Neglect of development: But to punish lack of development you have to open the position. This can be done by pawn levers or by piece sacrifices. Or possibly by a combination of both. Now, if you had a pawn on c4 you could play 8.d5 and answer 8…e5 with 9.Nxe5 de 10.Qh5+ and 11.Bxe5.&#xA;Unfortunately you don't have a pawn on c4 and you only promising pawn lever e4 would lose the Bg3. So you have to go more slowly. Possibly Nd2,f3,e4 is a plan. Maybe after a4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, to sum up:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If you develop your bishops early, your opponent might get some pawn play against them. (In your example, against both!)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;You can stop expansion with your own pawns (a4 or h4) and thereby also protect your pieces from a pawnstorm.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If your lead in development gets big, search for a way to open the position. Make sure you have a pawn lever (i.e. put enough pawns in the center), consider piece sacrifices.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-03-17T12:04:26.423" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8828" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8825" CreationDate="2015-03-17T12:11:23.997" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, you have a cramped position and your game will be difficult if you don't find a solution.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Advanced pawns are generally harder to hold on to. Your opponent has given you many targets and now he'll have to use his minor pieces to protect them. So, task #1 is to attack those pawns. Due to the situation, I am not seeing too many ways to do it right now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, and this is key, look how exposed his King is. As long as your Queen is on the board, he'll never be safe. Be sure to castle to make your king secure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He's threatening to evict your white-square bishop with &lt;code&gt;b5&lt;/code&gt;, gobbling up more space and further compressing you. So your next move needs to do something about it. &lt;code&gt;a4&lt;/code&gt; fights for the &lt;code&gt;b5&lt;/code&gt; square and is attractive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe it's me, but I don't care too much for your &lt;code&gt;Bf4&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;e3&lt;/code&gt; moves. &lt;code&gt;e3&lt;/code&gt; surrendered space for no reason. And you lost a tempo when you had to retreat with &lt;code&gt;Bg3&lt;/code&gt;. Your game is fine if you can play &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; to get more space. However, he has &lt;code&gt;Nf6&lt;/code&gt; which defends &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt;.  if you play &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt; now, you lose your Bishop after Black plays &lt;code&gt;f4&lt;/code&gt;. Further, you have to watch the pawn fork on &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt; a few moves in the future. I think &lt;code&gt;e3&lt;/code&gt; is going to haunt you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT 8/12/2016 This post came back up. I'd already seen that Stockfish didn't rate the initial position as dire as I expected; in fact, Stockfish gave White a small advantage.  On a whim, I let Stockfish play the game out at 5 minutes per move. Perhaps it will be instructive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 f5 2. Nf3 e6 3. Bf4 d6 4. e3 h6 5. Bc4 g5 6. Bg3 c6 7. Nc3 a5 {and now Stockfish takes over}  8.Nd2 Nf6 9.Bd3 Be7 10.h4 g4 11.Ne2 Nh5 12.Bh2 {Suddenly White's Bishops and Knights don't look so bad given the cramped position.} a4 13.c3 d5 14.Qc2 O-O {Black's King's house sure looks drafty...} 15.Nf4 Nxf4 16.Bxf4 h5 17.Nf1 Nd7 18.Ng3 {The thing about advanced pawns is that they have to be defended. This is one of the tenets of Hypermodern philosophy. } Nf6 19.a3 b6 20.O-O-O {When Kings castle on opposite sides the result is rarely a draw. } Qe8 21.f3 c5 22.Bh6 c4 23.Be2 Bd6 (23... Rf7 24.e4 {White's response to this natural-seeming move is to merely tear the center open. Surprise!} dxe4 25.fxe4 b5 26.Rdf1 Ra7 27.exf5 exf5 28.Bd1 Qc6 29.Nxf5 Ne4 30.Nxe7+ Raxe7 31.Bg5 Rb7 32.Rhg1 Bf5 33.Rxf5 Rxf5 34.Re1 Ng3 35.Re3 Qd6 36.Rxg3 Rxg5 37.hxg5 Qxg3 38.Qg6+ Kf8 {This looks dangerous for White to my eye, but Black's exposed King will guarantee he gets no peace, ever, as long as the White Queen is on the board. In fact I think Stockfish takes the draw here.}) 24.Bxf8 Kxf8 25.Nf1 Qg6 26.Kb1 gxf3 27.Bxf3 Bd7 28.g3 b5 29.Rg1 Re8 30.Re1 Ke7 31.Bd1 Kd8 32.Re2 Qh7 33.Ka2 Rg8 34.Reg2 Be8 35.Qf2 Ne4 36.Qe1 Kc7 37.Nd2 Kb6 38.Nf3 Qc7 39.Bc2 Be7 40.Rh1 Bf7 41.Bxe4 dxe4 42.Ng1 Qd7 43.Rd2 Rd8 44.Ne2 Bf8 45.Qf2 Bh6 46.Rhd1 Rg8 47.d5 e5 48.Rf1 Bg6 49.d6 Rd8 50.Ng1 Qc6 51.Rfd1 Rd7 52.Nh3 Qc8 53.Ng5 Qe8 54.g4 hxg4 55.Rd5 Kc6 56.h5 g3 57.Qxg3 Bxh5 58.Rxe5 Qxe5 59.Qxe5 Bxd1 60.Ne6 Bxe3 61.Kb1 Rxd6 62.Nd4+ Bxd4 63.cxd4 Bb3 64.Qc5+ Kd7 65.Qxf5+ Ke7 66.Qh7+ Kd8 67.Qxe4 c3 68.Qa8+ Kc7 69.Qa7+ Kd8 70.Qb8+ Ke7 71.Qc7+ Ke6 72.Qc8+ Ke7 73.bxc3 Bc4 74.Kc2 Rd5 75.Kd1 Rh5 76.Kd2 Be6 77.Qc7+ Kf6 78.Qd6 Kf7 79.Kd3 Rh3+ 80.Kc2 Rh5 81.Qc7+ Kf6 82.Qc6 Ke7 83.Kd2 Bc4 84.Qf3 Bf7 85.Ke3 Kf8 86.Qf4 Ke7 87.Qc7+ Ke8 88.Qc6+ Kd8 89.Qd6+ Ke8 90.Ke4 Rh4+ 91.Kf3 Rh5 92.Kg4 Rd5 93.Qf6 Rh5 94.Qc6+ Ke7 95.c4 bxc4 96.Qxa4 Rd5 97.Qa7+ Kf6 98.Qb6+ Be6+ 99.Kf3 c3 100.Ke2 Ke7 101.Kd3 Rd6 102.Qb7+ Kd8 103.Kxc3 Bc8 104.Qb8 Rd7 105.Qb6+ Ke7 106.a4 Rd6 107.Qc5 Bb7 108.a5 Kd7 109.Qf5+ Kc7 110.Qf4 Kc6 111.Qf7 Rd7 112.Qe6+ Rd6 113.Qe7 Ba6 114.Qa7 Kd5 115.Kb4 Rf6 116.Qe7 Re6 117.Qd7+ Rd6 118.Qf5+ Kc6 119.Qe4+ Kd7 120.Kc5 Re6 121.Qf5 Bd3 122.Qxd3 Rc6+ 123.Kb5 Re6 124.a6 Re8 125.a7 Ke7 126.Qe4+ Kf7 127.Qxe8+ Kxe8 128.a8=Q+ Kf7 129.d5 Kg7 130.d6 Kf6 131.d7 Kg5 132.d8=Q+ Kf4 133.Qh4+ Ke3 134.Qae4+ Kd2 135.Qhe1# *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2016-08-13T00:57:31.407" LastActivityDate="2016-08-13T00:57:31.407" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8829" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8825" CreationDate="2015-03-17T12:38:31.990" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sometimes, the opponent can obtain quite a nice position if you let them push you around with pawns, which is what happened here. h6-g5 is an idea in the Dutch, but usually it happens when the white bishop is on g5 instead of f4, when h6 comes without loss of tempo because the bishop has to retreat immediately. You could have punished Black for this by playing 5. h4, stopping g5, and following up with 6. h5 if anything other than 5... g6. Then if Black later 0-0, your kingside attack will be very fast with ideas like g4-g5. You can also think about disrupting Black's development immediately by 7. Nh4 and 8. Ng6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3270" LastEditorUserId="3270" LastEditDate="2015-03-17T13:19:53.617" LastActivityDate="2015-03-17T13:19:53.617" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8830" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8819" CreationDate="2015-03-17T13:36:29.723" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Topalov definitely. See his games at Gibraltar especially against lower rated opposition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4543" LastActivityDate="2015-03-17T13:36:29.723" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8831" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8819" CreationDate="2015-03-17T14:12:11.580" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have to tell you honestly, Michael Adams is the top in that. Lots of his 2700-level games are absolute craziness.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7020" LastActivityDate="2015-03-17T14:12:11.580" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8832" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8742" CreationDate="2015-03-17T19:27:29.457" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;All the big errors have been mentioned already, but I'd add that 5. Bxe7 is questionable. Why exchange? In general, it's good to keep up tension until you can resolve it favorably or can force your opponent to resolve it unfavorably.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7035" LastActivityDate="2015-03-17T19:27:29.457" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8834" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-03-17T22:37:24.543" Score="5" ViewCount="1836" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm currently working on ubuntu, and installed wine with chessbase reader. I wanted to watch a few videos of GM Daniel King that I had. I open the folder through chessbase, but when I click on the videos, they won't work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Have any of you experienced something similar? Could you help me out? I appreciate your help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4127" LastEditorUserId="4127" LastEditDate="2015-03-18T14:07:26.570" LastActivityDate="2019-10-27T22:32:43.070" Title="Running chessbase Reader on ubuntu" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;chessbase&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8835" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-03-17T23:25:30.807" Score="6" ViewCount="1230" Body="&lt;p&gt;In an Alpha Beta search in that utilizes a Negamax framework, how does one collect principal variations to use in move ordering, and how does one use them, without using a transposition table? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Additionally, would it be different in a principal variation search, and do we collect and store important moves for quiescence search too? Please provide a code example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6937" LastEditorUserId="9025" LastEditDate="2019-07-05T20:41:09.263" LastActivityDate="2019-07-06T22:47:58.463" Title="Collecting principal variations during search and using them in ordering?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;programming&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="7" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="8836" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9481" CreationDate="2015-03-18T04:46:25.817" Score="4" ViewCount="2372" Body="&lt;p&gt;I remember that a year ago or two, Magnus Carlsen said that one of the response against 1.e4 was bad. I don't remember exactly which of them he was calling bad, but I think it was the French (or the Caro-Kann perhaps)... I'm not saying that I think the French is bad (I actually like it!), I'm just saying that I believe Carlsen said it was bad.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would like to know which response to 1.e4 he was calling bad. And also I would like to know what was Magnus Carlsen's exact quote.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3237" LastActivityDate="2015-06-14T09:42:18.093" Title="Which common response against 1.e4 did Magnus Carlsen say is a bad opening? And what was Carlsen's exact quote?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;carlsen&gt;&lt;1.e4&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8837" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1832" CreationDate="2015-03-18T08:56:55.650" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just to expand Ram's point a little bit, and speculate as to why there is such a craze now as opposed to the past.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I suspect the modern craze is in part a result of Elo ratings, and pseudo Elo ratings online.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Modern computer game design is very carefully constructed to ensure that:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;At any point the game is challenging, but not too hard&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The player gets instant feedback on their success and progress&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Such ideas are now spreading into other areas, and it is often referred to as &quot;gamification&quot;, such as on stack exchange getting immediate feedback from votes etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess is already a game, but the Elo system makes learning chess a game in itself.  You can always play someone very close to you in ability, and you can always see the tiny steps of progress towards grand master.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I suspect many who make GM did not set out to become GM, but simply to become better chess players, to reach the next rung and see how good they can get...  If a learning curve is pitched just right it can be extremely addictive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6963" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2015-03-18T17:27:12.783" LastActivityDate="2015-03-18T17:27:12.783" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8838" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-03-18T10:35:46.720" Score="0" ViewCount="60" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;FIDE Women's World Chess Championship&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Sochi RUS&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2015.03.17&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;2015.03.17&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;1.1&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1/2-1/2&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Tatiana Kosintseva&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Mary Ann Gomes&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;B47&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;159&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 e6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nc6 5. Nc3 Qc7 6. Be2 a6&#xA;7. O-O Nf6 8. Be3 Be7 9. f4 d6 10. Qe1 Nxd4 11. Bxd4 O-O&#xA;12. Qg3 b5 13. a3 Bb7 14. Bd3 Rad8 15. Kh1 Nh5 16. Qh3 Nxf4&#xA;17. Rxf4 e5 18. Nd5 Bxd5 19. exd5 g6 20. Raf1 f5 21. Bxf5 gxf5&#xA;22. Rxf5 Rxf5 23. Rxf5 Rf8 24. Qg4+ Kh8 25. Bc3 Qc8 26. Rxf8+&#xA;Qxf8 27. Qf3 Qh6 28. h3 Qc1+ 29. Kh2 h6 30. Bb4 Bg5 31. Bxd6&#xA;Bf4+ 32. g3 Qxc2+ 33. Qg2 Bxg3+ 34. Kxg3 Qg6+ 35. Kf2 Qxd6&#xA;36. Ke2 Qc5 37. Qe4 Qc7 38. Kd2 Qd6 39. h4 Kg7 40. h5 Qf6&#xA;41. Qg4+ Kf8 42. Ke3 Ke7 43. Ke4 a5 44. Qg3 Kd7 45. Qxe5 Qh4+&#xA;46. Kd3 Qg4 47. Kc2 Qc4+ 48. Kd2 Qg4 49. Kc2 Qc4+ 50. Kd2 Qg4&#xA;51. d6 Qg2+ 52. Ke3 Qg1+ 53. Ke4 Qg2+ 54. Kd3 Qf1+ 55. Kd4&#xA;Qc4+ 56. Ke3 Qc1+ 57. Kd3 Qd1+ 58. Ke3 Qe1+ 59. Kd4 Qg1+&#xA;60. Ke4 Qg2+ 61. Kd3 Qf1+ 62. Kc2 Qc4+ 63. Kd2 Kc6 64. Qe8+&#xA;Kxd6 65. Qf8+ Ke5 66. Qxh6 Qd5+ 67. Kc1 Qc4+ 68. Kd1 Qf1+&#xA;69. Kd2 Qg2+ 70. Kd3 Qf1+ 71. Kc2 Qf5+ 72. Kc1 Qf1+ 73. Kc2&#xA;Qf5+ 74. Kc1 Qf1+ 75. Kd2 Qc4 76. Kd1 Qf1+ 77. Kd2 Qg2+&#xA;78. Kd3 Qf1+ 79. Kc2 Qc1+ 80. Kxc1 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First of all, how can I avoid the automatical numbering installed here,&#xA;which is not useful for the purpose of entering games ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wonder about the quality of entering chess games in databases. The&#xA;most recent entry I found in chessgames.com was the one above, but not the only one.&#xA;In a game of the reykjavic open there was also a game where the last&#xA;move was absurd. It was a rook end game and the last move shown was&#xA;Rh8, which would simply give away the rook ( I do not remember the game).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why do regularly appear such errors ? Are the games entered manually or&#xA;is there an electronic devise which produces such annyoing errors ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5784" LastEditorUserId="4182" LastEditDate="2015-03-18T11:24:02.963" LastActivityDate="2015-03-18T11:24:02.963" Title="Quality of inputs in chess game databases?" Tags="&lt;database&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8839" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8881" CreationDate="2015-03-18T11:00:17.143" Score="2" ViewCount="163" Body="&lt;p&gt;Does anyone know a game, where a full-point-losing move was made in an endgame&#xA; where each side had only one rook and pawns ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5784" LastActivityDate="2015-03-23T16:32:21.967" Title="Full-point-losing move in an endgame rook vs rook?" Tags="&lt;blunder&gt;&lt;rook-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="7" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8840" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8838" CreationDate="2015-03-18T11:10:41.530" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I guess the answer is &quot;both&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Usually (in lower leagues and opens) games are entered manually, which obviously can lead to all kind of errors. But top level games are recorded by electronic boards, which can lead to trouble if the players are moving too fast or are positioning the pieces imprecisely. And there is the constant annoyance of arbiters placing the king on the central squares to input the result, which is quite often interpreted as an actual game move by the electronic board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-03-18T11:10:41.530" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8842" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-03-18T15:11:24.903" Score="-2" ViewCount="604" Body="&lt;p&gt;Anyone can say me what is the gnuchess 5.60 &quot;real&quot; rating with a Atom 1.2GHZ and 2GB RAM 32Bits? or something approximate...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to CCRL, gnuchess 5.60 elo is 2822 ! this website inflate the elo rating&#xA;of chess engines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7046" LastEditorUserId="7046" LastEditDate="2015-03-29T01:11:01.160" LastActivityDate="2015-03-29T01:45:11.337" Title="What is the gnuchess 5.60 &quot;real&quot; rating?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8843" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8834" CreationDate="2015-03-18T17:08:11.087" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I converted the 2014 ChessBase Database to PGN format, and finally to SCID format, I used VirtualBox (x86 and AMD64/Intel64 virtualization,  for which you need to install Windows and ChessBase) because I sure what Windows programs run perfectly with it.  However, I don't know if your hardware is powerful enough for a virtualization&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7046" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-10-27T22:32:43.070" LastActivityDate="2019-10-27T22:32:43.070" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="8844" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8755" CreationDate="2015-03-18T17:39:08.893" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I suspect that Black should win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A strategy for Black is to repeat moves and keep symmetry. Since W has no breakthrough idea, W's best bet is to keep sacrificing pawns. Black could grab the first W pawn and then when W sacs a second one, offer B's fifth rank pawn as a counter-sac - using the idea that this pawn can reach W's back-rank faster. B recaptures W's second pawn only when W captures this pawn. After W sacs enough pawns, B can queen first.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2258" LastActivityDate="2015-03-18T17:39:08.893" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8845" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8734" CreationDate="2015-03-18T17:55:18.000" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want explain my procedure to convert the ChessBase MegaDatabase 2014 in to&#xA;scid format...Normally it's quick if you have a little database.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) I have used Virtualbox to install Windows7 and the ChessBase&#xA;MegaDatabase 2014 in my Ubuntu.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) After from Chessbase under Virtualbox with Windows7 installed.&#xA;I have created a new database with PGN format and copy the files from database 2014 into the new PGN database.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) ChessBase MegaDatabase 2014 have up 5.700.000 games, and need to be converted&#xA;in 2 or 3 parts and this procedure take a lot of time !!!...When you have your parts run on a terminal:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;cat mypart1.pgn mypart2.pgn mypart3.pgn &gt;&gt;  mypartsregrouped.pgn&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4) And finally with scid (you need scid installed), in a terminal run: (to convert the pgn file in to scid format):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;pgnscid mypartsregrouped.pgn&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and the scid database (consisting of myfile.si3, myfile.sg3 and myfile.sn3) will be created...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's not difficult...but your computer to convert chessbase format to pgn format take a lot of time (with 5.700.000 games of course!!!).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have make and put my aMule (emule) in share with the ChessBase MegaDatabase 2015 in &lt;strong&gt;SCID&#xA;FORMAT&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;strong&gt;591.72MB&lt;/strong&gt;...you can now directly download.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;ed2k://|file|Chessbase%20Megadatabase%202015%20%20scid%20format%20by%20Don_Dario.tar.bz2|620460834|8D23336F3466D29F43EB3DAC1A95F493|/&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I hope that I helped you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7046" LastEditorUserId="7046" LastEditDate="2015-03-29T00:46:09.833" LastActivityDate="2015-03-29T00:46:09.833" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8846" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8883" CreationDate="2015-03-18T19:47:00.477" Score="7" ViewCount="1312" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just for fun and curiosity. Has any GM ever tried to cheat during a game? Maybe even making (on purpose or not) an illegal move that was not caught by his opponent?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;NOTE: Of course when you are playing on the computer there is no cheating, because the computer won't allow it. I am talking about face-to-face real-life games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7036" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2015-03-19T02:32:47.393" LastActivityDate="2020-08-31T08:31:25.930" Title="Just for fun and curiosity: is there cheating on professional chess tournaments/games?" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;grandmaster&gt;&lt;cheating&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8847" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8846" CreationDate="2015-03-18T21:30:50.060" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;There have been cheating scandals in top level chess, most notably in 2010 involving French top 100 player Sebastien Feller and in 2012 involving German GM Falko Bindrich.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These two scandals involved computer assistance. There are other forms of cheating, like throwing games, which are harder to prove. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Illegal moves aren't an issue, but Kasparov allegedly violated the touch-move rule in a game against Judith Polgar. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2019-07-30T05:53:36.987" LastActivityDate="2019-07-30T05:53:36.987" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="8848" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8859" CreationDate="2015-03-18T22:09:24.473" Score="4" ViewCount="2578" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have no clue how to do this, I want to change its Contempt to -100.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5649" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2015-03-19T02:32:11.943" LastActivityDate="2020-02-25T03:09:38.270" Title="How do I change Stockfish's Engine Parameters?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8849" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8846" CreationDate="2015-03-19T05:00:04.927" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Arkadij Naiditsch has accepted that he's cheated on playchess.com server.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3535" LastActivityDate="2015-03-19T05:00:04.927" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8850" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-03-19T07:00:56.533" Score="5" ViewCount="778" Body="&lt;p&gt;Going to play my first international tournament next week.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As this is my first I do not have a FIDE ELO (I have national rating however). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How will my games be rated and how is my expected score for each game calculated?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7051" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-01-18T15:41:14.583" LastActivityDate="2019-01-18T15:41:14.583" Title="Expected score in my first FIDE tournament" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;elo&gt;&lt;fide&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="8851" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8903" CreationDate="2015-03-19T08:35:44.753" Score="20" ViewCount="9427" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been working on my tactics using on-line resources like Chess Tempo. I found my improvement (as measured by my CT rating) over the last few months to be encouraging, but I struggle to translate this into significant OTB results. I &lt;em&gt;do&lt;/em&gt; find that I make far less obvious tactical errors when not in time pressure, but when the clock starts going low (as it usually does by the end of the middle game stage for me) I still tend to make mistakes that I can only describe as shocking. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm in a stage where I can more or less understand the tactical motifs presented to me &lt;em&gt;eventually&lt;/em&gt;, but not in the time frames that are typically useful for real OTB play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there proven or known methods for speeding up tactical evaluations and calculations? Things like&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Do blitz-style puzzles. The way blitz mode seems to work on sites like CT is that you have a limited amount of time to solve the puzzle - but my fear is that this will simply cause me to fall back on intuition rather than actually improve calculation speed.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Do the same puzzles over and over? I'm worried that once I've memorised a puzzle, then I'm not doing so much calculation as memory retrieval.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Just continue doing normal puzzles and calculation speed will improve by itself? Seems like this could take some time ...&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any other/novel ideas that I need to consider?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1816" LastActivityDate="2016-03-31T14:25:15.360" Title="Proven ways to improve calculation speed" Tags="&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;training&gt;&lt;calculation&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="11" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8852" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8851" CreationDate="2015-03-19T17:21:53.830" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Intuition is what makes you good at calculation. Intuition tells you what to think first. The best way to decrease blunders and mistakes in time trouble would to play blitz. This way you get to experience a lot of time pressure scenarios in a relatively short amount of time. Also, playing blitz really helps with spotting simple tactics quickly. It trains your intuition. &#xA;Bullet chess is also useful in helping chess players familiarize with how the pieces move and train the chess player to avoid hanging pieces. Of course bullet chess is not the primary means of improvement but in that area it may be helpful. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3872" LastActivityDate="2015-03-19T17:21:53.830" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8853" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-03-19T17:43:33.080" Score="6" ViewCount="431" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have heard that you are allowed to pause to clock to find your queen. Is this true?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3872" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2015-03-19T21:23:57.087" LastActivityDate="2015-03-19T21:23:57.087" Title="According to official FIDE rules, when queening a pawn, can you pause the clock?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;pawn-promotion&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8854" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8853" CreationDate="2015-03-19T18:28:19.200" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;You may stop the clock if the piece that you wish to promote to is not at hand:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;6.12.b. A player may stop the chessclock only in order to seek the arbiter’s assistance, for example when promotion has taken place and&#xA;  the piece required is not available.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2015-03-19T18:28:19.200" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8855" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8734" CreationDate="2015-03-19T19:52:18.080" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://scidb.sourceforge.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Scidb&lt;/a&gt; can do it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is how&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Open the CBH database.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When it is opened, go to the Database tab.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Right-click on the rectangle of the CBH database and click on Export.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Choose PGN or any other format.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Enter the filename and click on Save.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only drawback of Scidb for now is that it cannot unarchive &lt;code&gt;.cbv&lt;/code&gt; file by now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I made to &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/antoyo/uncbv&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;tool to unarchive &lt;code&gt;.cbv&lt;/code&gt; files&lt;/a&gt;. I believe it will be integrated into scidb in the future.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7056" LastEditorUserId="7056" LastEditDate="2016-01-09T17:23:56.310" LastActivityDate="2016-01-09T17:23:56.310" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8856" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-03-19T20:28:01.600" Score="2" ViewCount="460" Body="&lt;p&gt;Suppose, you play a normal chess game, with the only exception that the opponent&#xA; is not allowed to castle, but you are.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do you have a decisive advantage ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5784" LastActivityDate="2017-07-23T14:31:04.770" Title="Would it be a decisive advantage, if the opponent would not be allowed to castle?" Tags="&lt;castling&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="8" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8857" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-03-19T20:35:00.057" Score="4" ViewCount="1154" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you are strong at endgames, which openings are favorouble for you &#xA; because they tend to lead quickly to an endgame ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5784" LastActivityDate="2015-03-20T11:27:37.643" Title="Which openings offer the best chances to reach an endgame quickly?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8858" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8857" CreationDate="2015-03-19T22:06:52.153" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Berlin comes to mind. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White can avoid this famous endgame, but only at the cost of relinquishing any prospects for an opening advantage. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Generally I have a hard time coming up with &lt;em&gt;openings&lt;/em&gt; leading to endgames. There are rather &lt;em&gt;variations&lt;/em&gt; within openings that are endgame prone. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To find variations like the Berlin I advice you to look at the games of Ulf Andersson. He is famous for going into the endgame as quickly as possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-03-19T22:06:52.153" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8859" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8848" CreationDate="2015-03-19T22:44:51.297" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;As shown in the screenshot below. Goto Tools -&gt; Analysis Engines -&gt; Edit. You'll see a UCI configure dialog. In this example, I had another engine but the idea remains the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/4BNOh.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2015-03-19T22:44:51.297" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8860" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-03-19T23:53:49.087" Score="8" ViewCount="1262" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are some defensive ideas to get one's own king stalemated in order to not lose the game (mostly in the endgame, but sometimes also in the middle game).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Have (master) games been played where the only idea not to lose was to stalemate the &lt;em&gt;opponent&lt;/em&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;What about any legal position (which need not have occurred in a real game)?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What if you forget about the &quot;only idea&quot; requirement?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit:&lt;/strong&gt; Although there is already a totally fine answer, I would not mind more answers using another patterns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4050" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-04T22:10:44.607" LastActivityDate="2020-04-08T16:42:34.853" Title="Stalemating the opponent in order to not lose" Tags="&lt;problems&gt;&lt;stalemate&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="8861" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8860" CreationDate="2015-03-20T00:21:08.363" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is an example of such a position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;4k2K/7P/8/8/8/8/8/8 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;[startflipped &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only ways to draw are Kf8 and Kf7, since both stop Kg8 and stalemate the opponent. This has surely been played in master games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For a slightly more complicated pawn endgame see, here is a &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1472881&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Anand - Kramnik&lt;/a&gt; game. Black has to stalemate White at the end of this game, or else they lose.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-08T16:42:34.853" LastActivityDate="2020-04-08T16:42:34.853" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="8862" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8860" CreationDate="2015-03-20T00:52:52.870" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's possible to build a bit on magd's answer. Consider the following position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [Title &quot;White to move&quot;] &#xA; [SetUp &quot;1&quot;]&#xA; [FEN &quot;8/8/8/8/8/1N6/pk1K4/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. Na1! Kxa1 2. Kc1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only way to draw is &lt;code&gt;1. Na1! Kxa1 2.Kc1&lt;/code&gt; (or &lt;code&gt;2. Kc2&lt;/code&gt;) stalemate. I think there are some nice studies with this theme, but I can't find them right now. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1485" LastActivityDate="2015-03-20T00:52:52.870" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8864" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-03-20T07:14:41.510" Score="3" ViewCount="394" Body="&lt;p&gt;Consider &lt;em&gt;the classical representation&lt;/em&gt; of the state of a chess game. I'll draw the board:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;R BK BNR&#xA;PPPP  PP&#xA;  N Q&#xA;    PP&#xA;    p&#xA;  np p&#xA;ppp   pp&#xA;r bkqbnr    &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is its move list:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;d5 d5&#xA;c4 c6&#xA;Nf3 e6&#xA;Qd3 Nf6&#xA;...        &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is its FEN notation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;rnbqkb1r/pp3ppp/2p1pn2/3p4/2PP4/3Q1N2/PP2PPPP/RNB1KB1R w KQkq -&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These three ways to describe the game state are isomorphic and contain exactly the same information represented differently. A computer would have no problem converting from one representation to the other (kind of, the castling flag isn't available in the first representation and the second one encodes all the game states). Computers uses even stranger representations like bit boards which I won't go into here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In fact, there is an almost endless amount of ways to represent the state of a chess game. For example, here is one I just came up with:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;R.BK.BNRPPPP. PP..N.Q.......PP......p.....np.p..ppp...ppr.bkqbnr    &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But if I asked you to &quot;find the best move for white&quot; the first representation would be much easier for you than the others. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why? Is it just because the classical representation is what most players are used to or does it have some inherent advantage? Could you train your skill at playing chess using only FEN notation and over time come to prefer that? Has any research been done into this area? Maybe there is a better way to represent a chess game than the classical one which gives you a huge advantage when calculating lines deeply but just no one has found it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7059" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2015-03-20T11:24:32.150" LastActivityDate="2015-03-20T12:29:00.563" Title="Do better board representations than the standard one exist?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;psychology&gt;&lt;fen&gt;&lt;computer-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8865" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-03-20T08:39:54.327" Score="3" ViewCount="276" Body="&lt;p&gt;The rules of &quot;knight&quot; : Player 1 puts a knight on some square. Then the players,&#xA; beginning with Player 2, alternately move the knight. The knight cannot be&#xA; moved to a square already visited, including the starting square. The player,&#xA; who cannot move the knight anymore, loses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which player has a winning strategy ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5784" LastActivityDate="2016-03-12T07:59:21.737" Title="Who wins in the game &quot;knight&quot; if both players play optimal?" Tags="&lt;chess-variants&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8866" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-03-20T09:24:52.650" Score="1" ViewCount="177" Body="&lt;p&gt;I often heard the claim that top grand masters can assure a draw, if they&#xA; do not risk anything. I disagree with this claim.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are the reasons that so many people think that very strong players cannot&#xA; lose a game, if they do not play risky moves ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5784" LastActivityDate="2015-03-20T14:05:48.777" Title="Why do many people think that top grand masters can always reach a draw?" Tags="&lt;draw&gt;&lt;famous-players&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8867" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8857" CreationDate="2015-03-20T11:27:37.643" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;My answer is: none. Even if some variants allow some quick piece exchanging, the other part has always a chance to complicate things.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also you don't have to fall for the false idea that once the Queens are exchanged the game has reached, or is about to reach shortly, the endgame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="446" LastActivityDate="2015-03-20T11:27:37.643" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8868" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8864" CreationDate="2015-03-20T11:48:41.883" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess is a game in two dimensions. The game is made to be played in two dimensions. Pieces move horizontally, vertically, and diagonally very naturally on a chess board. It's purely visual and the sort of thing our brain does very well. Other depictions of the position sacrifice the two dimensional nature of the game. When this information is lost, we have to calculate to reconstruct the spacial relationships in the game. Consider the difficulty of spotting a pin or discovered check when using FEN.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the other notations other than the standard diagram, you'll spend a lot of time doing mechanical sorts of math.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The different representations (diagram, moves, and FEN) exist because they fill different needs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2015-03-20T12:29:00.563" LastActivityDate="2015-03-20T12:29:00.563" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8869" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8866" CreationDate="2015-03-20T13:29:00.440" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The basic dynamic in modern top-level chess is that White wants to find a way to get some edge, often quite small, out of the opening. Black wants to find a way to equalize or otherwise draw. This means that a lot of what has been rejected by White are lines that lead to equality. So, I would agree that a top-10 player wanting a draw with White will basically never lose because he will simply select one of those ways that has drawn in the past. With Black, though, I disagree because making a draw is the essence of the challenge and often eludes even Carlsen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3270" LastActivityDate="2015-03-20T13:29:00.440" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8872" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8851" CreationDate="2015-03-20T15:54:15.470" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You may find the combination quicker by looking for these moves (in this order):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Checks&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Captures&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Attacks&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Other move&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You may also need to improve your &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.thechessworld.com/learn/articles/17-chess-how-tos/131-how-to-manage-time-in-chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;time management&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7056" LastEditorUserId="7056" LastEditDate="2015-03-20T16:06:11.207" LastActivityDate="2015-03-20T16:06:11.207" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8873" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8850" CreationDate="2015-03-20T16:33:20.990" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fide.com/component/handbook/?id=172&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;FIDE Rating Regulations&lt;/a&gt; give details of how the system works. You should scroll down to section &lt;strong&gt;8. The working of the FIDE Rating System&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;which describes the mathematical tables and formulae used for calculating ratings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that a fudge factor called the &quot;Development Coefficient&quot; is used in calculating ratings which determines by how much new results affect your existing rating once you have one. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;K = 40 for a player new to the rating list until he has completed&#xA;  events with at least 30 games&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;K = 20 as long as a player's rating remains under 2400.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;K = 10 once a player's published rating has reached 2400 and remains&#xA;  at that level subsequently, even if the rating drops below 2400.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;K = 40 for all players until their 18th birthday, as long as their&#xA;  rating remains under 2300.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a new player you will have a high K which will mean that your rating will change rapidly if you have results which vary widely from your previous results.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2015-03-20T16:33:20.990" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8874" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8851" CreationDate="2015-03-20T22:18:53.263" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I strongly believe that doing tactical exercises is exactly the way to go.  In my experience you will realize the improvements very soon.  I think that is really a good idea to also redo puzzles you already solved.  Of course you will memorize parts of the puzzles.  However, if you have sufficiently many puzzles available, this is not such a big issue and you will actually absorb the underlying patterns, which is a good thing as it will allow you to spot critical ideas more quickly.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For me it is often the case with puzzles I have solved before that I remember the puzzle after I have found the correct first move.  I think it is then a good idea to actually go through all the variations again to really hone your calculation skills.  If you stop after finding the right move without verifying it, you will likely not train much more than your memory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would argue against using Blitz puzzles or games for improvement.  After all, if you have trouble finding the right tactical shots under time pressure, then why should it help to constantly put yourself under time pressure?  In particular, when playing Blitz games, it is quite likely that you will continue to miss tactical opportunities and thus not learn as much as you would from slower games or tactics puzzles.  Of course you can gain the same from Blitz games if you are willing to analyze them afterwards... but who does that seriously?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3529" LastActivityDate="2015-03-20T22:18:53.263" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8876" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18894" CreationDate="2015-03-20T23:59:13.370" Score="4" ViewCount="235" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm looking for the complete game Szabo-Groszpeter, Kecskemet 1984. The following knight endgame was reached and White won eventually with the paradoxal move Kb8!! blocking his b-pawn on b7.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;8/K5p1/1p5k/1P5p/P1n5/5N2/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Nd2 Nxd2 2.a5 bxa5 3.b6 Nf3 4.b7 Ne5 5.Kb8&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I searched the complete game in various databases without success: chessgames.com, chess365 and chesstempo.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5784" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-05-31T09:12:10.030" LastActivityDate="2017-10-20T01:42:20.340" Title="Complete game Szabo-Groszpeter, Kecskemet 1984" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;history&gt;&lt;famous-players&gt;&lt;knight-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8877" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8880" CreationDate="2015-03-21T00:34:19.657" Score="5" ViewCount="1070" Body="&lt;p&gt;What are the ideas for white in closed Sicilian?&#xA;I am talking about 1 e4 c5 2 Nc3 Nc6&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Where do I place my pieces?&#xA;At which side should I play?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are the ideas for black and how can I prevent it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3381" LastEditorUserId="4182" LastEditDate="2015-03-21T12:45:17.603" LastActivityDate="2015-03-21T12:45:17.603" Title="Ideas for white in closed sicilian?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8878" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8797" CreationDate="2015-03-21T03:23:05.637" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;On this &lt;a href=&quot;http://scidb.sourceforge.net/wanted.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;page&lt;/a&gt;, you can see that Scidb is not intended to be used to play against an engine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can use &lt;code&gt;scidb&lt;/code&gt; for game analysis (click on the train button in the board tab), &lt;code&gt;chessx&lt;/code&gt; to play against the computer (and game analysis too) and &lt;code&gt;raptor chess interface&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;Jin&lt;/code&gt; to play on FICS (Free Internet Chess Server). These softwares all work on Linux. Other softwares are availble on Windows and OS X.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7056" LastActivityDate="2015-03-21T03:23:05.637" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8879" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8865" CreationDate="2015-03-21T04:09:20.247" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my answer to &lt;a href=&quot;https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/897092/who-has-a-winning-strategy-in-knight-and-why&quot;&gt;the same question&lt;/a&gt; over on math.stackexchange, I discussed general m by n boards. Here I will just give a winning strategy for Player 2 on the ordinary 8 by 8 chessboard. It's based on the following pairing of squares:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a1c2, b1d2, c1a2, d1b2, e1g2, f1h2, g1e2, h1f2,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;a3c4, b3d4, c3a4, d3b4, e3g4, f3h4, g3e4, h3f4,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;a5c6, b5d6, c5a6, d5b6, e5g6, f5h6, g5e6, h5f6,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;a7c8, b7d8, c7a8, d7b8, e7g8, f7h8, g7e8, h7f8.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That is, square a1 is paired with square c2, b1 is paired with d2, and so on. Note that the 64 squares are partitioned into nonoverlapping pairs, and each set of paired squares are a knight's move apart. The winning strategy for Player 2 is: WHEREVER PLAYER 1 PUTS THE KNIGHT, MOVE IT TO THE OTHER SQUARE IN THE SAME PAIR. For instance, if Player 1 starts the game by dropping the knight on e8, Player 2 replies by playing Ng7. If Player 1 now plays Ne6, Player 2 plays Ng5, and so on. Here is a sample game, with Player 1 making random moves, and Player 2 following the winning strategy described above:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Ne8 Ng7 2. Ne6 Ng5 3. Nf3 Nh4 4. Nf5 Nh6 5. Nf7 Nh8 6. Ng6 Ne5 7. Nc6 Na5 8. Nb3 Nd4 9. Ne2 Ng1 10. Nh3 Nf4 11. Nh5 Nf6 12. Ng4 Ne3 13. Nc5 Na3 14. Nb1 Nd2 15. Nf1 Nh2 and Player 2 wins.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;P.S.&lt;/strong&gt; Of course the strategy still works if White is allowed to move the knight to &lt;strong&gt;any&lt;/strong&gt; square not already visited, and only Black is limited to making knight moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2299" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:19:24.717" LastActivityDate="2016-03-12T06:05:20.027" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8880" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8877" CreationDate="2015-03-21T07:26:25.660" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Generally white tries to develop a kingside attack by pushing the kingside pawns. Blacks strategy is less fixed. I always try to get counterplay on the queenside and I usually do get some play, but the white attack always stays dangerous.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this game by Magnus Carlsen you can see some typical ideas:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The Qd2-Be3 setup.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Bg2 and going for f4.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;0-0! Contrary to the open sicilian, castling long would be suicide here. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Bringing the Nc3 to the kingside and kicking out the d4 knight with c3.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Nh3 is a bit unusual, but it speeds up f4. Completely normal would be Nf3-h4.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Carlsen-Wojtaczek:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nc3 d6 3. g3 Nc6 4. Bg2 g6 5. d3 Bg7 6. Be3 e5&#xA;7. Nh3 Nge7 8. f4 Nd4 9. O-O O-O 10. Qd2 Bd7 11. Nd1 Qc8&#xA;12. Ndf2 Ndc6 13. c3 b5 14. fxe5 Nxe5 15. Bh6 N7c6 16. Bxg7&#xA;Kxg7 17. Nf4 Qd8 18. Rad1 Rc8 19. Qe2 h5 20. d4 cxd4 21. cxd4&#xA;Ng4 22. h3 Nxf2 23. Qxf2 Ne7 24. Rd3 b4 25. Rf3 Qe8 26. g4&#xA;hxg4 27. hxg4 Bb5 28. Re1 Qd8 29. g5 Qb6 30. Bh3 Rcd8 31. Be6&#xA;Be8 32. Nd5 Nxd5 33. Bxd5 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-03-21T07:26:25.660" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8881" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8839" CreationDate="2015-03-21T11:35:17.717" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here's an example between two super grandmasters:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[White &quot;Laurent Fressinet&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Vladimir Malakhov&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;FIDE World Cup 2013&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Tromso&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2013.08.16&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;8/2r5/8/6R1/3k1Pp1/6P1/2K5/8 w - - 4 59&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Kb3 $4 ( 1.Kb2 $1 { The only winning move. } Rb7+ 2.Ka3 Kc4 ( 2...Ra7+ { Continuing to check like this isn't useful, as the king just walks towards the rook. } 3.Kb4 Rb7+ 4.Ka5 Ra7+ 5.Kb6 ) 3.Rxg4 { The win with the connected passed pawns is still a bit tricky, as White's king is badly placed. What follows is a sample line. } Rb5 4.Rg6 Rf5 5.Ka4 Kd4 6.Kb4 Ke4 7.Kc4 Ra5 8.Re6+ Kf3 9.Re5 Ra1 10.Rg5 Ke4 11.Kb5 Rc1 12.Rc5 Rg1 13.Re5+ Kf3 14.Rg5 Ke4 15.Kc6 Rd1 16.Re5+ Kf3 17.Rd5 Rf1 18.Rg5 Rd1 19.f5 Ke4 20.g4 Ke5 21.Rg6 Rd2 22.Re6+ Kf4 23.Rd6 Rf2 24.Rg6 Rd2 25.f6 Ke5 26.g5 Ke6 27.Rg7 Rc2+ 28.Kb7 Rf2 29.Kc8 Rf1 30.Re7+ Kf5 31.Kd8 Ra1 32.Rd7 Kg6 33.f7 Kg7 34.Ke8 Ra8+ 35.Ke7 Rb8 36.g6 Kxg6 37.f8=Q Rxf8 38.Kxf8 ) 1...Rc3+ 2.Kb4 Rxg3 3.Rg8 Ke4 4.Kc4 Rg2 5.Re8+ Kxf4 6.Kd3 Ra2 7.Rf8+ Kg3 8.Ke3 Kg2 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White has a won position here, but must play Kb2.  Instead he played Kb3, which loses to Rc3+. (I have generated a FinalGen tablebase to confirm the status of the positions. The Lomonosov tablebases could be used instead, but I don't have access to them.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4182" LastEditorUserId="4182" LastEditDate="2015-03-23T16:32:21.967" LastActivityDate="2015-03-23T16:32:21.967" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8882" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8920" CreationDate="2015-03-21T12:31:02.437" Score="6" ViewCount="3876" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Sicilian Wing Gambit is never popular with good players, thus, it is only played as a surprise. But, how to deal with this unexpected surprise? It seems to me that all responses would just worsen Black's position. What to do if I face it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[White &quot;Wing&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Gambit&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 c5 2.b4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6985" LastEditorUserId="2299" LastEditDate="2016-03-21T12:41:10.837" LastActivityDate="2017-01-07T15:23:36.170" Title="How to deal with the Sicilian Wing Gambit?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;&lt;gambits&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8883" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8846" CreationDate="2015-03-21T14:22:06.983" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Borislav Ivanov! WOW. That's pretty crazy. Of course he was using some kind of wireless communication. It should be common sense to do a deep screening on the person body and clothes before playing, otherwise someone can be passing the moves to the player. This is a very common magic trick nowadays. Unfortunately a lot of scam bags use magic to pretend they are talking to god and fool the idiots.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the naive people out there: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7BQKu0YP8Y&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7BQKu0YP8Y&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7036" LastActivityDate="2015-03-21T14:22:06.983" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8884" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-03-21T14:25:29.417" Score="5" ViewCount="10157" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some things in life you learn by simply doing, not just doing it, but doing it a lot. Practice makes perfection. I don't believe no-one is born a GM. Even Kasparov had to practice a lot.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So has anyone have experience with just playing many, many games to practice? Did it help you improve or it just cannot work that way?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7036" LastActivityDate="2015-03-22T21:32:55.780" Title="Can I become a GM by playing 100 games per day without studying books, strategy, etc?" Tags="&lt;grandmaster&gt;&lt;best-practice&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8885" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8884" CreationDate="2015-03-21T14:57:42.380" Score="3" Body="&lt;h1&gt;You &lt;em&gt;can&lt;/em&gt;, but you probably won‘t.&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First of all, becoming a master or getting even a 2000+ (ELO-) rating, is a very hard task and most chess players never achieve that – and some of them play and study a lot, so at least playing a lot of games cannot be a recipe to become a GM. Well, but maybe you are kind of a genius and are able to master lots of skills to become a master only by playing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are most certainly better methods of getting better, at the very least you should analyse your games and find your mistakes – if able do that with a better player, not with a machine. I would also recommend playing less games which a larger time control. Doing lots of tactics, studying pawn formations and attacking schemes, typical positions arising from the openings you play, endgame positions etc. could also pay off. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Furthermore, by only playing I doubt you will master opening and endgame skills very well. The theory there is totally complicated and it should be vary hard to learn it just by playing (without even analysing the games!). (While tactics and typical play in &quot;your openings&quot; can be – to some extent – learnt by &quot;just playing&quot;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4050" LastActivityDate="2015-03-21T14:57:42.380" CommentCount="12" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8886" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8884" CreationDate="2015-03-21T14:59:49.903" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Of course you will improve from just playing, however getting to GM level without studying 1 book is almost unheard of, maybe some world geniuses but otherwise not possible. There are things in chess you can not learn or realize they exist without getting taught about them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However... You can get to Master level with a lot of playing, I played chess for 2 years straight and all I did was play it 8 hours a day... Achieved master level with minimum learning from books (mainly openings only and some tactics explained by Daniel King). However, I had to research a lot more to achieve a higher (which I haven't yet, got college :( )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Overall, you can get to Master level, anything like IM and GM level require some legit learning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6966" LastActivityDate="2015-03-21T14:59:49.903" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8887" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8567" CreationDate="2015-03-21T17:52:58.323" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;For me it was very helpful to pick one opening (continuation) from moves available in big chess database like here&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.365chess.com/opening.php?m=3&amp;amp;n=3&amp;amp;ms=e4.c5&amp;amp;ns=3.3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.365chess.com/opening.php?m=3&amp;amp;n=3&amp;amp;ms=e4.c5&amp;amp;ns=3.3&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wouldn't recommend going with most common move  2.Nf3: that is what your opponent (a Sicilian player) is most used to, prepared and comfortable with.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example Sicilian player played Smith Mora Gambit in less than one percent of all his games against 1.e4. But I played Smith Mora Gambit in 100% games against c5. Which can be considered an advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Best thing is that you don't have to spend many hours studying all Sicilian dragons and other variations. But if your opponent wants to be ready for you he will have to study all variations of Smith Mora on top of all his previous studies of usual Sicilian theory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Don't forget to check sanity of variation with the best engine available.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7065" LastActivityDate="2015-03-21T17:52:58.323" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8888" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8983" CreationDate="2015-03-21T18:31:04.940" Score="8" ViewCount="1347" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was playing a game against a FIDE master which started with the Polish defence, Spassky gambit: 1. d4 b5 2. e4 Bb7 3. Bxb5 f5&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[White &quot;Bad_Bishop&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. d4 b5 2. e4 Bb7 3. Bxb5 f5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are the main plans and variations?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2015-03-21T19:40:41.793" LastActivityDate="2020-10-05T01:18:29.590" Title="Beat the Polish defence" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;gambits&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8889" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8846" CreationDate="2015-03-21T19:20:14.527" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Tech mate? Top grandmaster claims chess is riddled with cheats using smartphones. &#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/11487515/Tech-mate-Top-grandmaster-claims-chess-is-riddled-with-cheats-using-smartphones.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/11487515/Tech-mate-Top-grandmaster-claims-chess-is-riddled-with-cheats-using-smartphones.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4543" LastActivityDate="2015-03-21T19:20:14.527" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8890" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8824" CreationDate="2015-03-21T21:55:26.747" Score="-6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I guess there is none logical strategy to follow. You just need to try to calculate in your head somehow and use intuition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7036" LastActivityDate="2015-03-21T21:55:26.747" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8891" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8395" CreationDate="2015-03-22T19:21:12.630" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is another example of how to win against the London, using the Queen's Indian defense. I played the following game on line a couple of weeks ago. His rating was 1342 but I think he was better than that. I saw no blunders on his part. I will be using Deep Fritz 12 in full analysis mode, 30 seconds/move. This was a Game 30. Deep Fritz 12 did call my 22nd move a blunder, and I agree, but in my defense I was simply buying time. I wanted to stay a few minutes ahead of him on time and then begin my attack when he had less than five minutes to play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[Event &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;????.??.??&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;New game&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;[Annotator &quot;Deep Fritz 12 (30s)&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;74&quot;]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;{A46: 1 d4 Nf6 2 Nf3 e6: Torre, London and Colle Systems} 1. Nf3 Nf6 2. Nc3 e6&#xA;3. d4 {last book move} b6 (3... d5 4. g3 $11) 4. h3 {Covers g4} (4. e4 $5 $16)&#xA;4... Bb7 $11 5. a3 {Controls b4} Be7 6. Bf4 d5 7. e3 O-O 8. Bd3 c5 9. dxc5 (9.&#xA;O-O Ne4 $11) 9... Bxc5 (9... bxc5 10. O-O $11) 10. b4 Bd6 11. Bxd6 (11. Nb5&#xA;Bxf4 12. exf4 Nc6 $11) 11... Qxd6 $15 12. Nb5 Qd7 (12... Qe7 13. Ne5 $15) 13.&#xA;Ne5 {White threatens to win material: Ne5xd7} Qe7 14. O-O Nc6 15. Nxc6 Bxc6 16.&#xA;Nc3 (16. c4 dxc4 17. Bxc4 Rfd8 $11) 16... Rac8 17. Rc1 Rfd8 18. Bb5 $4 {&#xA;further deteriorates the position} (18. Qe1 e5 $17) 18... Bb7 (18... Ne4 $142 {&#xA;and Black has prevailed} 19. Nxe4 Bxb5 $19 (19... dxe4 $6 20. Qe2 $15)) 19. Ne2&#xA;$17 a6 20. Bd3 b5 (20... e5 21. c3 $17) 21. f3 {Prevents intrusion on e4+g4} (&#xA;21. c3 e5 $15) 21... Qc7 (21... e5 22. Bf5 Rc7 23. h4 $19) 22. c3 (22. f4 $5&#xA;$15) 22... Qb6 $17 23. Qd2 (23. Nd4 $17) 23... Qd6 $4 {releasing the pressure&#xA;on the opponent} (23... Ne4 $142 {a shame that Black overlooked this excellent&#xA;chance} 24. fxe4 dxe4 $19) 24. Qe1 Qb6 {Black threatens to win material: Qb6xe3&#xA;} 25. Qf2 (25. Qd2 Ne4 26. fxe4 dxe4 $19) 25... Qc6 (25... Rc7 26. Bc2 $15) 26.&#xA;Rfd1 (26. Nd4 Qd6 $11) 26... Rd7 27. Nd4 {White threatens to win material:&#xA;Nd4xc6} Qb6 28. Re1 Rdc7 29. Qd2 e5 {Black threatens to win material: e5xd4}&#xA;30. Ne2 (30. Nb3 $5 $15) 30... e4 31. fxe4 dxe4 32. Bb1 Rd7 33. Qc2 $4 {solves&#xA;nothing} (33. Nd4 $142 $17) 33... Qxe3+ $19 34. Kh1 Qg5 (34... Rd2 $142 {makes&#xA;it even easier for Black} 35. Nd4 Rxc2 36. Bxc2 $19 (36. Rxe3 $4 {White will&#xA;choke on his greed} Rxc1+ 37. Kh2 Rxb1 $19)) 35. g3 (35. Rcd1 {otherwise it's&#xA;curtains at once} Rd3 $1 {a fitting end to a beautiful game} 36. Ng1 $19) 35...&#xA;e3+ 36. Kg1 Qd5 37. Nf4 (37. Qe4 {cannot change what is in store for ?} Nxe4&#xA;38. Nf4 Qd2 39. Rf1 e2 40. Nd5 exf1=Q+ 41. Rxf1 Bxd5 42. Rf3 Qe1+ 43. Kg2 Ng5&#xA;44. Bxh7+ Kxh7 45. h4 Bxf3+ 46. Kh2 Rd2#) 37... Qh1# 0-1&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5696" LastEditorUserId="5696" LastEditDate="2015-03-22T21:45:27.860" LastActivityDate="2015-03-22T21:45:27.860" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8892" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-03-22T20:15:29.820" Score="6" ViewCount="796" Body="&lt;p&gt;Almost 20 years ago there was a game called Power Chess 98 from Sierra. After every game you played, this sensual voice would analyze move by move telling you what you should have done, etc. It was the best way to learn chess in my opinion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So my question is: Is there a software/game that has this feature, in other words, a post-game analysis &lt;strong&gt;through voice not text&lt;/strong&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't want to read the analyses, I want to hear it as the pieces are moved in the board, after the game is over of course.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7036" LastActivityDate="2020-08-02T09:42:11.500" Title="Is there a software that analyses games through voice, telling you about moves and what you should have done, like Power Chess 98?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;software&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8893" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8884" CreationDate="2015-03-22T21:32:55.780" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let me play devil's advocate here (since everyone seems to take the negative position) and say &lt;strong&gt;yes, you absolutely can.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But, and this is a big but (no pun intended) the games you play have to be &quot;good&quot; games, and it will not be enough to simply play them, but rigorous analysis must also be done on each game that is played.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The absolute truth of the matter is that any student, with enough motivation, a cheap computer with a decent processor, some (free) chess software and either a lot of talent or a lot of time, can become an IM or even GM. This is something not many players will admit, because it seems to subvert all the chess-related purchases they might have made. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the past, it was necessary to hire a tutor, or read books and other chess literature, to keep up-to-date on opening theory and to learn chess. Today, with the advent of powerful chess engines and game databases, much of this is obsolete. Furthermore, I would argue that chess books are not only outdated, but outright inefficient when compared to the alternatives. These are bold claims, so let me try and support them with a plan of action which is bereft of any chess literature and focuses only on games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The Plan&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Don't play 100 short games a day&lt;/strong&gt;, this is a waste of time. &lt;strong&gt;Play 1 long game (90 minutes or more)&lt;/strong&gt; against a moderately strong computer engine and spend the rest of the time doing analysis  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You will lose pretty much every game you play (if the computer is set to its highest level) but &lt;strong&gt;you must not get discouraged&lt;/strong&gt; or change your style of play to beat the computer (i.e don't play closed positions solely for the reason that computers are bad with them). This is where motivation and discipline will determine whether you really benefit from this method.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In every game, &lt;strong&gt;focus on a single thing and try to improve it&lt;/strong&gt;. Initially the biggest problem might be gross blunders, hence you should do a blunder check on every move you play to prevent such blunders from occurring.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You should &lt;strong&gt;try to create a thinking algorithm&lt;/strong&gt;, a step-by-step process or checklist which helps you to make decisions over-the-board and then use this algorithm for every move (until it becomes habitual and automatic). Steps might include things like the blunder-check above, or deciding whether the position is tactical (requires intensive calculation) or positional (requires sound planning and positional understanding). This is the only thing where it might be faster (not necessarily better) to read up on, instead of building it yourself, since efficient thinking systems already exist that were created by very successful players (Capablanca, Nimzovitch, Tal etc.).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Analysis of your games should be done to &lt;strong&gt;figure out weaknesses or lapses in understanding&lt;/strong&gt;. The easiest way to do this is to look at positions &lt;strong&gt;where you spent the most amount of time&lt;/strong&gt;. A computer must be used to keep yourself objective and grounded in the concrete, but is used only to &lt;em&gt;check&lt;/em&gt; your analysis, not to &lt;strong&gt;replace&lt;/strong&gt; it. (Most computer engines have the option to analyze your annotations and almost all give a point score for every move, take advantage of these options).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Play in tournaments and OTB games&lt;/strong&gt;, record them, and analyze them the same as your other games. These games are more valuable, because you can actually win them once in a while and because they are games outside of a controlled environment (i.e not in the comfort of your home).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You will undoubtedly improve the most by &lt;strong&gt;focusing on your own games&lt;/strong&gt;, but for a change of pace you might want to &lt;strong&gt;analyze a collection of games by a strong GM or favorite player&lt;/strong&gt;. You should do this by playing guess-the-move from the winning side, making annotations for moves you guess (correctly or incorrectly). Then check the game with a computer engine (you'd be surprised with how many mistakes you find, both in your own analysis and in the moves of the GM's). You can also use these games to figure out the thinking algorithms of the masters. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you actually stick to the above recommendations, I really think you'd make significant progress. Much more so than if you spend an equivalent amount of time reading a book. The reason is because passively reading something is very inefficient, compared to actively learning through difficult training games. Why is reading/chess literature still popular? Mostly because it gives a false sense of accomplishment and because its enjoyable. Ask yourself if the last chess book you read gave you a significant boost to your rating or chess understanding. Ask yourself how much you actually &lt;em&gt;remember&lt;/em&gt; from the book, whether the concepts or games or annotations, and how much of it has actually influenced your OTB play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The method above is not merely my own conjecture but is inspired by the training system developed by Botvinnik (there is a portion I left out, concerning physical exercise, but I think that's self-evident), who emphasized long-time-control training games and thorough analysis for chess improvement. The emphasis on thinking algorithims comes from the research done by de Groot. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ultimately the final verdict, is yes, you can improve in chess through just games. But few have the dedication, discipline and motivation to do so. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4445" LastActivityDate="2015-03-22T21:32:55.780" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8894" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-03-23T08:44:35.253" Score="3" ViewCount="298" Body="&lt;p&gt;An engine which, in a given position, finds all the possible legal moves, and then selects one of them randomly (each move has the same probability of being chosen) and plays it on the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Its rating would very probably be negative. My guess is: around -1500 Elo.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe someone can program such an engine and then make it play against another engine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We would need to find an engine that would be weak (but it would still be much stronger than our random-engine) and that would already have a known rating. We would then make them play thousands of bullet games, with an increment so that neither engine can lose on time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The rating of our random-engine can then be quickly calculated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/swpWI.png&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/EZKDx.png&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;R is the rating of the other engine which served as its opponent.&#xA;W is the winning probability of the random-engine. L is the losing probability of the random-engine. D is the draw probability. S is the score of the random-engine: S = W + D/2&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Notes:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;There is a time increment, and we must assume that both our random-engine and its opponent will never lose on time.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;No player can resign or offer a draw. The game must be played until checkmate, stalemate, 50-move without capture and Pawn movement, or repetition.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;No player can be disqualified by making an illegal move or something like that.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I am only looking for a very rough approximation, so even if the rating is off by 300 points it would still be good enough.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Am I talking about FIDE rating, USCF rating, chess.com rating, ICC rating, or some other Elo rating? It doesn’t matter since we’re only looking for an approximation anyway.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;We must assume that the opponent of our random-engine does not know that it is playing against an engine which always plays random moves. Otherwise it would probably constantly threaten checkmate and harass the Queen, or just play ultra-safe waiting for our random-engine to blunder some pieces, which would increase its winning chances even more.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3237" LastActivityDate="2015-03-23T08:44:35.253" Title="What is approximately the Elo rating of an engine which selects its moves randomly?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;rating&gt;&lt;elo&gt;&lt;computer-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="6" ClosedDate="2015-03-23T15:10:44.743" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8895" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-03-23T13:53:04.580" Score="0" ViewCount="68" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am from Pondicherry and I want to become a world class player. I have the following background:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Tech (electrical &amp;amp; electronics eng) graduate.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Have won in chess with friends but have not contested in any tournaments.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Good at maths &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do I need to go for coaching? What is the progression of a chess player from beginner to world champion? How long does it take? Where can I find more information about tournaments and how to enter them?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7074" LastEditorUserId="1816" LastEditDate="2015-03-23T15:32:37.123" LastActivityDate="2015-03-23T16:21:25.607" Title="Eligibity prediction" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ClosedDate="2015-03-23T22:12:32.470" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8896" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8895" CreationDate="2015-03-23T16:21:25.607" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The current world champion Magnus Carlsen needed around 15 years to go from beginner to world champion. He was probably one of the fastest ever because he started to play quite late (at the age of eight) and was the second youngest classical world champion (if I remember correctly).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He received professional training from a strong GM almost from the beginning. He played tournaments almost constantly. His parents took a year off work, to accompany him to tournaments. Due to his tight tournament schedule he didn't finish school, although it was a special sports school, where he received more chess training.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, if you are 8 years old or younger, and you can afford to concentrate on chess for the next 10 years, you do have a shot at being world class some day.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Otherwise, not so much …&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyway, I would advise you to go to a local chess club. Google tells me that there are chess clubs in Pondicherry. There you will find out, whether playing tournament chess is actually enjoyable for you. I believe that was a necessary step for every chess world champion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-03-23T16:21:25.607" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8897" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8898" CreationDate="2015-03-23T16:44:39.500" Score="2" ViewCount="548" Body="&lt;p&gt;Take the best player from the 19th century, at his prime, and imagine he started playing tournaments today. He can't learn new stuff.&#xA;What Elo would he achieve?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3423" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2015-03-23T22:28:19.343" LastActivityDate="2015-03-23T22:28:19.343" Title="Elo rating of the best player from the 19th century, if he played today?" Tags="&lt;history&gt;&lt;rating&gt;&lt;elo&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8898" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8897" CreationDate="2015-03-23T16:53:06.130" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Ken Regan's research (e.g., &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~regan/papers/pdf/RMH11.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Understanding Distributions of Chess Performances&lt;/a&gt; - PDF link) suggests that the best players of the 19th century were playing at a level in the 2400-2500 range (see the table on page 9 of that paper).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2015-03-23T16:53:06.130" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8899" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="188" CreationDate="2015-03-23T17:32:30.053" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;All analysis (as Gaul) is divided into three parts:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;During and immediately after the game&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Annotation after the game&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Computer engine checking&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Step one has been covered fairly well by the above posters, but to reiterate:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;As you write the moves, mark moves which took you a long time to make&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If you have space/time write down any variations you are considering&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Write down any moves of your opponent which you feared (especially if they weren't played)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Always do a post-mortem (preferably with your opponent, or even better, a stronger player) and do it ASAP; write down any new ideas/variations&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Step two was also fairly covered but for the sake of being thorough, involves going over your variations and all the work you did during the game, looking for mistakes. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Look at positions where you took a long time and see if you can justify the time taken for the move made.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If you spot tactical combinations which you missed in the game, save the position as FEN (explained below). &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Look up the opening and if possible, look at middlegame plans for that opening (if you can't find it in a book, look at GM games and try to extrapolate).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Focus on the things that caused you to lose and then learn the info necessary to cure that weakness (e.g you lost a drawn R vs P endgame, learn that endgame; you fell into an opening trap, learn that opening etc.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Step three is where I think some of the advice falls short. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Computers should not be used to analyze the game, they should be used to analyze your &lt;strong&gt;annotations&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Essentially the computer is a purely objective machine, if you use it to analyze games it may give you crazy variations which are objectively good but which have you sweating buckets. Instead, you use the computer make sure your analysis is objective (i.e, free of calculation errors, bias, etc.). When the computer analyzes the game you should only use that information to supplement your existing analyses (not replace it). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;One other thing that can be done with computers that hasn't been mentioned is &lt;strong&gt;playing &quot;won&quot; positions (from your games) against the engine&lt;/strong&gt;. Do it from increasingly smaller margins of victory (up a whole piece, the exchange, two pawns, 1 pawn, 1/2 pawn) and watch as your ability to the convert the point becomes GM-level&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: Forgot to add a few things:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The reason you save the missed tactics as a FEN string is to create an Anki flashcard of that position for subsequent review and memorization. Anki is an extremely powerful tool for drilling those tactics and positions you want to completely memorize&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Don't forget the &lt;strong&gt;point&lt;/strong&gt; of analysis which is to &lt;strong&gt;improve your understanding of the game&lt;/strong&gt;. Make sure that you have a list of conclusions/&quot;things learned&quot; from every game that you analyze. It seems kind of trivial, but having such things in writing makes them that much more concrete&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4445" LastEditorUserId="4445" LastEditDate="2015-03-23T21:19:13.390" LastActivityDate="2015-03-23T21:19:13.390" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8900" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2409" CreationDate="2015-03-23T20:31:09.657" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Pawn = 1&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Knight = 3+-1/3&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Bishop = 3+-1/2&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Rook = 5&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Queen = 9&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;King = Infinite&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Back when my brother and I played chess in the early-middle 70's (when Fischer &amp;amp; Spasky were all the rage), this is the point system I remember reading about in a book on chess (I can't remember the book).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7076" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-08-17T02:13:26.497" LastActivityDate="2020-08-17T02:13:26.497" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="8901" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2409" CreationDate="2015-03-23T22:36:05.457" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd say in general bishops get 3.5 knights 3, queen 9, rooks 5 and the king doesn't get evaluated because, as everyone said he doesn't have a definite value, but you could say he's quite important in the endgame(around practical value 4).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now the values &lt;strong&gt;change.&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;So in a closed position knights are stronger than bishops, often stronger than rooks even.&#xA;In half open-open positions bishops are stronger than knights but &lt;strong&gt;2 bishops&lt;/strong&gt; basically increase each others strength.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another example, in positions with a small number of pawns and light pieces, 2 rooks are often better than a queen, whereas in positions with a lot of other pieces a queen is (most often) better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So it all really depends on the position. And my words are true only if you can actually use your pieces as good as possible, or something close to that. :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7020" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-08-17T02:13:45.360" LastActivityDate="2020-08-17T02:13:45.360" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="8902" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2409" CreationDate="2015-03-24T02:28:43.280" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;The standard is usually to compare pieces to each other (i.e how many pawns is a knight worth, a bishop, a queen etc.?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another way is to determine piece value dynamically using the idea of &lt;strong&gt;&quot;absolute/potential activity&quot;&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;&quot;nominal activity&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;. This idea is based on the number of squares any given piece controls (and I believe is partly how computer engines determine piece values). I believe it is also called &lt;strong&gt;mobility&lt;/strong&gt; by some chess players. Let me explain:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First a few definitions (these are my own, created for the sake of the explanation):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Activity&lt;/strong&gt; = The number of squares any piece controls&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Control&lt;/strong&gt; = (referring to squares) when a square(s) cannot be occupied by an opponent piece or pawn due the danger of it being captured&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Center&lt;/strong&gt; = The squares e4, d4, e5 and d5 &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Each piece (lets ignore pawns for the moment) has an &lt;strong&gt;absolute activity&lt;/strong&gt; value and a &lt;strong&gt;nominal activity&lt;/strong&gt; value. The Reinfeld system given above is essentially the former, and it describes the value of the piece in its best condition (i.e where it controls the greatest number of squares). For the sake of convenience we can say that this condition is when the piece is in the center, as all pieces control the maximal number of squares when placed there (try it out with a few pieces and see). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We can quickly formulate some absolute activity values for the pieces by counting the number of squares each piece controls when placed in the center (of an empty board):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Queen&lt;/strong&gt;: Controls &lt;strong&gt;27&lt;/strong&gt; squares&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Rook&lt;/strong&gt;: Controls &lt;strong&gt;14&lt;/strong&gt; squares&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Bishop&lt;/strong&gt;: Controls &lt;strong&gt;13&lt;/strong&gt; squares&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Knight&lt;/strong&gt;: Controls &lt;strong&gt;8&lt;/strong&gt; squares&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*Note that I've omitted the pawn and the king, this is because they are special, and I will deal with them a bit later. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now looking at the above we see that the Reinfeld scores were more or less based on this derivation, with the apparent exception of the bishop which seems to be closer to a rook than a knight (the thing which is omitted here, is the fact that a bishop can only control squares of one color; hence its low Reinfeld value). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other common ideas also become clear with this formulation, e.g the idea of the &quot;two bishops&quot; advantage, which, according to this, would be close to a queen in strength! (13*2 = 26). However, this formulation is only half-complete, because in a real game things are rarely so perfect and ideal as an empty board with your pieces huddled in the center. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus we introduce the idea of &quot;nominal activity&quot;, which is simply the activity of a piece in a given position. Remember that activity = the number of squares a piece controls. Nominal activity can be constantly in flux (since the position is inevitability bound to change) but is a useful concept when compared against the &quot;absolute activity&quot;, for three reasons:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It helps you determine whether to trade pieces (and also &lt;em&gt;which&lt;/em&gt; pieces to trade)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It helps you decide what kinds of positions to create (this is where common chess principles like &quot;knights favor closed positions, bishops favor open ones&quot; come from)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It helps you figure out which piece's position you need to improve first (&quot;Knights before bishops&quot; comes from this)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many, many common ideas can be elucidated from this formulation (mostly because it is so fundamental to the game). Consider the idea of a positional sacrifice, it is simply a move which gives up material in exchange for one's piece(s) to get closer to its(their) absolute activity. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This brings me to the pawns. The pawns don't really have activity in the same way pieces do, instead they are used to determine &lt;strong&gt;terrain&lt;/strong&gt;, i.e the &quot;positional factors&quot; on the board which determine nominal activity. In that sense, they are used to limit or increase the nominal activity of &lt;em&gt;other&lt;/em&gt; pieces (this why you move the pieces first, then the pawns, because its usually faster to move a piece to a better square than to improve a piece by making a pawn move). Pawns serve other purposes as well, of course, but in the context of this question I think this will suffice.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So to summarize:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Absolute activity: the greatest number of squares a piece can potentially control&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Nominal activity: the number of squares a piece controls in a given position&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Piece Value: a dynamic measurement based upon how close a piece's nominal activity is to its absolute activity&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Notice how easy (and accurate, and logical) piece combination values become when using this system. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;2 Rooks (28) &gt; 1 Queen (27)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;2 Knights + 1 Bishop (29) &gt; 1 Queen&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;2 Bishops + 1 Knight (34) &gt;&gt; 1 Queen&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;2 Bishops (26) &gt;&gt; 2 Knights (16)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Bishop + Knight (21) &gt;&gt; Rook + pawn (~16)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;etc.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also notice how nominal activity can help determine which pieces are better in the endgame (the pieces whose nominal activity is greatly affected by pawns will improve in the endgame)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Bishop (eg ~13) &gt; Knight (eg ~8) &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Rook (eg ~14) &amp;lt; Bishop + pawn(eg ~15) &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;etc.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4445" LastEditorUserId="4445" LastEditDate="2015-03-24T02:40:52.397" LastActivityDate="2015-03-24T02:40:52.397" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8903" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8851" CreationDate="2015-03-24T03:27:10.883" Score="16" Body="&lt;p&gt;You say: &lt;em&gt;&quot;Do the same puzzles over and over? I'm worried that once I've memorised a puzzle, then I'm not doing so much calculation as memory retrieval.&quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Memory retrieval is &lt;strong&gt;exactly what you should be doing&lt;/strong&gt;! The brain improves recall not by repeated input, but by repeated output. This is why reviewing notes is a terrible way to study for a test, and why memorizing and recreating your notes from scratch is what top performers do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The concept that should be driving your improvement is &lt;strong&gt;chunking&lt;/strong&gt;. Chunking is the process whereby you are able to immediately recognize more complicated concepts &lt;strong&gt;without thinking&lt;/strong&gt;. You still calculate during a live game, but instead of spending 60 seconds working out a tactic, you should learn to see that tactic immediately so that you can spend that 60 seconds on something important. If you cram tactical patterns into your brain, and learn to see them in less than 1 second, while your opponent is spending 30-60 seconds reinventing the wheel, you are going to crush your opponent. On the flip side, if you are trying to calculate everything at the board, you are going to lose. You improve when you are away from the board. Once you are at the board, you only play. You only have the skills you developed away from the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An example of chunking is when you learned to read. First you learned letters, then small words, then bigger words, then phrases, and sentences. Now when you read, you do not look at some writing and say, &quot;there is an H, there is an I&quot;, nor do you even look at it and say, &quot;there is the word Hi&quot;. You see the word &quot;Hi&quot; and you immediately understand the meaning without thinking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Learning to walk is another example. As an adult, you do not think, &quot;move the left foot, catch your balance, now move your right foot&quot;. No, you walk down the street without thinking. If a car is going to hit you, you run as fast as you can without thinking. Your body and mind learned how to handle these more complex situations and they know what to do without thinking. The same happens with chess improvement.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For chess, you want to reach the point where a simple tactic presents itself on the board, and it pops off the board at you without thinking. Once you can do this, you can move on to more complex tactics and combinations that require deeper calculation, but until you can recognize simple tactics without thinking, your mind is moving far too slow to attempt deeper calculation during a live game. As long as you are trying to do difficult tactics problems involving 5-move combinations, before you can see simple tactics instantly, you are never going to improve.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The approach I have seen recommended by masters (NM Dan Hesiman, GM Rashid Ziatdinov, among many others), is to get a simple set of tactics problems such as John Bain's &lt;em&gt;Chess Tactics For Students&lt;/em&gt;, and you do the same tactics problems over and over. Your goal is not to figure out the tactic on your own. The goal is to get as many patterns into your brain as you can, so that when you see a similar pattern during a live game, it is immediately clear to you without thinking. Doing tactics problems is not about achievement and getting a good percentage correct. It is only about cramming patterns into your brain. That means, if you do not see the answer quickly, look at the answer and move on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The plan is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Do simple tactics problems over and over, until you can fly through all of them without making a mistake.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If you don't see the answer after 30-60 seconds, look at the answer and move on. Come back to the problems you missed later.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Stick to one tactical theme at a time. Once you have mastered one tactical idea, only then start another.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;GM Ziatdinov recommended this approach: Number your list of tactics problems. Start doing problems 1-10 until you can do them all perfectly. Then do problems 11-20 to perfection. Then repeat problems 1-20 to perfection. Now do problems 21-30, then repeat 1-30. Repeat this until you can do all problems perfectly. He had a list of over 3000 tactics problems on his website, and he said if you followed this approach you would have the tactical ability of a grandmaster.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7010" LastEditorUserId="7010" LastEditDate="2015-03-24T04:15:31.113" LastActivityDate="2015-03-24T04:15:31.113" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8904" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1832" CreationDate="2015-03-24T03:58:34.020" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;The answer has to do with our human psychology. There is a book written by Daniel Pink, titled &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;&quot;Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us&quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;, where he finds that people are &lt;strong&gt;NOT&lt;/strong&gt; motivated by these things:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Rewards&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Avoiding punishments&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And he concludes that people &lt;strong&gt;ARE&lt;/strong&gt; motivated by these things:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Autonomy&lt;/strong&gt; - Being able to do what you want&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Mastery&lt;/strong&gt; - Getting better at stuff, it's satisfying!&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Purpose&lt;/strong&gt; - Making a difference in the world&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He says the research shows that for physical tasks, rewards and punishments can be effective. However, for tasks that require even a small amount of mental effort, &lt;strong&gt;bigger rewards actually lead to worse results&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason people spend huge amounts of time studying chess, and huge amounts of money on chess, with no hope of ever making any money from chess, is the same reason that people play musical instruments for fun: Because &lt;strong&gt;mastery is satisfying&lt;/strong&gt;. That's it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is a 10-minute video of the author's explanation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7010" LastActivityDate="2015-03-24T03:58:34.020" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8905" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2771" CreationDate="2015-03-24T04:52:27.767" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;YES YOU CAN!&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is a guy, an adult in his 30's, with a full time job, who gained 700 rating points in 1 year, and will very likely go from a rating of 1000 to 2000 within 18 months. He is not anyone exceptionally talented, and he is not doing anything that anyone else cannot do at home with a few books and cheap computer software. He outlines his training methods in more than enough detail for you to replicate his success. Start with his old blog posts and read them in order if you are interested in replicating his method.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pawn to Rook 4 Blog:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://p-r4.blogspot.com/2015/01/year-1-recap-700-points-in-365-days.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://p-r4.blogspot.com/2015/01/year-1-recap-700-points-in-365-days.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is another guy, a chess master, who outlines the training plan he used to become a master, in 12 videos for free. He says that anyone can do what he did, and after watching his videos, I agree.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDghkp2J0_kr3zoHS3ZNIFzcrAtAhmAfk&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDghkp2J0_kr3zoHS3ZNIFzcrAtAhmAfk&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hiring a good coach can accelerate your success if you use him the right way. If your goal is rapid improvement, use the coach in ways that accelerate your training plan. For instance, have the coach analyze your games and provide feedback and recommendations of tasks that will directly result in you eliminating mistakes from your game. If the coach is interested in imposing his own study plan, it's probably too slow for your goal. Find the people who have done this and repeat what they did. Use a coach to accelerate your success, but do not rely on a coach. You have to do the work. You will need to be highly motivated and disciplined. There will be many days when you do not feel like studying or do not have time. Do it anyway.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And don't forget &lt;strong&gt;The Plan&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Decide what it is you want&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Write that down&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Make a plan&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;And...&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Work on it.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Every.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Single.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Day.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can do it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7010" LastActivityDate="2015-03-24T04:52:27.767" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8906" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2771" CreationDate="2015-03-24T07:30:58.113" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well first off, if you have a lot of money to invest in a GM instructor you can surely go above 1600, but if you don't: don't let rating and score interfere. Starting a game and thinking about victory is not smart at all. Focus on your game-play instead.My friend (IM 2470) always says chess is 50% skill and 50% psychology. I see people here saying tactics, I'm going to tell you right away that is incorrect. For a decent 2000+ player you should work on all of your components:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-&lt;strong&gt;Have 2 openings with white and two with black&lt;/strong&gt; - why? Because when you reach a certain level it's great to have a backup opening because your opponents will obviously prepare against you, and it's quite bad if you don't use the fact that you're white, just because your opponent has prepared for your always-the-same repertoire.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-&lt;strong&gt;Tactics&lt;/strong&gt;-obviously an extremely important component, but, the point of working on your tactics is to &lt;strong&gt;remember different motives&lt;/strong&gt;: you obviously won't have exact copies of the problems in your games, so motives are the ones who can help you greatly. That's why you need to use good tactics books with realistic problems, the ones that actually came from games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-Work on what you're &lt;strong&gt;good&lt;/strong&gt; at: many people say analyzing your games and looking for mistakes is smart, but, my short timed chess instructor taught me that you have to excel at a point in chess. E.g. if you're a positional player work on that! Make it even stronger!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-&lt;strong&gt;Discipline&lt;/strong&gt; - every.single.day. if you just once say &quot;I will skip today, but tomorrow I'll do double&quot; it's all over, cause you're going to keep saying that again and again.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-&lt;strong&gt;Don't be picky with books&lt;/strong&gt;- essentially any good recommended books will work, don't be like &quot;I don't like this one so I won't do it.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-&lt;strong&gt;Work on all points of chess&lt;/strong&gt;- for openings learn the plans and the &lt;strong&gt;moves&lt;/strong&gt; (you won't figure them out by playing a lot, you have to learn them and then see if you can remember in-game), for endgames get a good books (I'd recommend Reuben Fine) and for middlegame- find a grandmaster who plays similarly to you(same openings, same style of play)- and &lt;strong&gt;analyze&lt;/strong&gt; his/her games, I don't mean as in just go through them, but analyze them, figure out what each and every move is there for. :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7020" LastActivityDate="2015-03-24T07:30:58.113" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8907" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-03-24T18:42:04.843" Score="10" ViewCount="2721" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have a student who is in the 1600-1700 range, who has lost his last few games due to improper handling of endgame positions. Some were drawn, which he lost; some winning which he drew; and some where he could have forced a winning endgame (by simplification) and painlessly won, but instead created further complications (to his credit he won most of those games, but lost the ones thereafter, due to being mentally exhausted) leading to unbalanced, and often uncertain positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The cure is obviously to focus on endgame theory, but the problem is, he finds endgame theory boring (as I think many chess players do; in fact, I have this problem myself!). I've been teaching him from Panchenko's &lt;code&gt;&quot;Theory and Practice of Chess Endgames&quot;&lt;/code&gt; which I've found is a superb guide to endgame theory, but he doesn't seem to be enjoying it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I queried him regarding his disinterest he gave me the following reasons:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;He claims he has a poor memory and that endgame theory contains too much memorization (he's partially right, he has a superb ability to remember positions, but not so much move order, which is essential in most theoretical positions)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;He cites the old &quot;Before the endgame, the gods have placed the middlegame&quot; addage, saying he can make up for this weakness with better middlegame play (but even &lt;em&gt;he&lt;/em&gt; knows he is pushing it, since he's lost several games despite good middlegame play)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;He claims endgame study takes too long and does not have immediate results OTB (citing that most of the theoretical positions are ones he has never encountered; this, while true, is ignoring the fact that he avoids the endgame like the plague to begin with)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;He just doesn't find endgame study to be exciting (though he has admitted that it is necessary)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've tried to address these concerns with brute force but I'd like to use a little more finesse in my method.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4445" LastEditorUserId="4182" LastEditDate="2015-03-24T22:19:13.820" LastActivityDate="2017-06-26T17:46:09.123" Title="How can I teach the endgame to someone who feels it is &quot;boring&quot;?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;teaching&gt;" AnswerCount="11" CommentCount="7" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8908" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8907" CreationDate="2015-03-24T19:33:46.957" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think you're just going to have to explain to him that his game won't improve beyond a certain point if he doesn't do endgames. Simply put, if you're that bad at them your openings and strategy won't do you much, because you won't know in what kind of endgame you're trying to transpose to, which pieces you should keep in certain positions etc. I'd recommend you to try with Reuben Fine's book about endgames, I had a colleague just like that who hated studying endgames but then we found some books that he loved, and Fine's was one of them. Anyhow, if you love something you'll love the bad&quot; parts of it too. :) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because chess isn't all fun and games. :D&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7020" LastActivityDate="2015-03-24T19:33:46.957" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8909" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8907" CreationDate="2015-03-24T19:49:00.467" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Maybe starting with endgame &lt;em&gt;theory&lt;/em&gt; is the wrong approach. Learning stuff by heart and then reproducing it isn't much fun for most people. To productively study theoretical positions you ideally already have the interest and motivation to do so.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I would recommend to start with two other aspects of endgames:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Endgame tactics: If he likes the middle game, he probably likes tactics and solving tactical problems. He might learn a lot of typical maneuvers if they are part of a combination or even a study.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Practical Endgames: Take interesting endgame positions and play them out. Maybe several times. The important difference to studying theoretical positions is that he is actually playing and finding ideas on his own. No memorisation.  &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-03-24T19:49:00.467" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8910" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8907" CreationDate="2015-03-24T21:40:30.457" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;Many old endgame books are like encyclopedias, they have sections about one type of endgame and then a lot of analysis about all the various situations one might encounter in that endgame. I find those boring and very hard to remember. Let's forget about those.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can think of three things to mention that might be helpful:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Jeremy Silman's endgame book is organized with &lt;em&gt;chapters based on rating level&lt;/em&gt;. His point is that a 1600 player doesn't need to know all the intricacies of the endgame in the way a 2200+ player does. He also has a fun writing style. Maybe concentrating on the first chapters of that book helps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, &lt;em&gt;exercises&lt;/em&gt;. Both the Steps Method workbooks and Yusupov's series of books are full of exercises on chess in general, including chapters on various endgames. Challenging exercises are fun to solve and when you finally see how the solution works (usually there's only one way that works), that's memorable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thirdly, and probably the most work for the trainer, is to find a good, hard &lt;em&gt;endgame study&lt;/em&gt;, and turn that into a whole lesson. I remember a training session I once had with GM Yge Visser (alas, I can't remember the position), where he showed a complicated endgame position. We, the students, could propose some lines but really had no clue.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He then wiped the board and started talking about various &lt;em&gt;building blocks&lt;/em&gt;: the K+Q v K+pawn endgame (how it's usually a win, how the a and c pawns can draw, a few exceptions, then lines in which the white king is close enough that he can let black's pawn promote but threaten unpreventable mate on the next move, et cetera). He made this interesting by constantly asking the students, some of them knew some things already, nobody knew everything. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There were other building blocks like this, like the Reti study with the two passed pawns where it seems the black king has no chance to catch the white pawn or help his own promote, but then does it by cleverly keeping both options open.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After two hours or so of this sort of thing, he put the original position back -- and we recognized the main theme, and could suggest relevant moves. As we got a few moves in, it turned out that all those blocks were relevant, and eventually it was a mate in 8 or so, and we found it! &quot;And if you manage to see all this during a game, then you're about GM level.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although I can't remember the position anymore, I still learned everything I know about K+Q v K+pawn in that session, and it was great fun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But to find such positions and to turn them into lessons that good takes quite a lot of experience as a trainer, I guess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In short: &lt;strong&gt;don't teach him theory, challenge him with exercises and puzzles.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2015-03-24T21:40:30.457" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8912" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8066" CreationDate="2015-03-25T00:03:10.833" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are some computer accounts that are on the site, so if you see one ending in (C), abort the game or resign. Another website is chess.com, which is really good.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7086" LastActivityDate="2015-03-25T00:03:10.833" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8913" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8888" CreationDate="2015-03-25T08:01:11.623" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your best bet here is 4.Nh3 so your opponent doesn't get a tempo with 4. ...fxe4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If he takes with his pawn 4. ...fxe4 You can simply continue 5.Nc3 followed by 0-0 and you're clearly better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If he takes with his bishop 4. ... Bxe4 you can with no fear proceed with 0-0 and your knight will always pose a threat such as Ng5 attacking his bishop and with pressure on f7 and even e6 if he moves his d pawn, or Nf4 where your knight gets a secure,strong position but in that case you should be careful about his g pawn advancing. All things considered white is better in this position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7020" LastActivityDate="2015-03-25T08:01:11.623" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8914" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-03-25T08:32:19.333" Score="6" ViewCount="74408" Body="&lt;p&gt;I played with my friend yesterday, and we reached a point when I cornered him from everywhere. I had a queen and a king, and he had only his king left, but he could not do any move because any move would be considered checkmate. So he told me it's a draw because it's a stalling position. Is that true?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7091" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2016-02-26T12:41:53.467" LastActivityDate="2016-02-26T13:37:05.473" Title="Only the king remains, but he is stuck, can't move" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;stalemate&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2016-03-02T15:38:17.320" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8916" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8914" CreationDate="2015-03-25T08:48:52.823" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you mean he can't move his king anywhere because if he does his king will be in check, but none of your pieces are attacking him at the moment, and it's his turn, then yes, it's called a &lt;strong&gt;stalemate&lt;/strong&gt; because he has nothing to play but his king isn't attacked by any one of your pieces, and this is a draw. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S. that is if none of his pieces are able to move, if he has another piece which he can play with it's not a stalemate. xD&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7020" LastActivityDate="2015-03-25T08:48:52.823" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8917" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8914" CreationDate="2015-03-25T10:08:45.267" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The answer given by Captain_Shepard is correct. In Chess, stalemate is a draw. However, the OP's confusion might well be justified as Chess is unusual in this regard. Many games have stalemate as a loss for the player who cannot move. For example, Chinese Chess or Xiangqi (which is based on the same precursor game as Chess and is therefore very similar) has stalemate as a loss.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks to jnkappen's answer, I did a Google search and found this interesting Wikipedia article:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalemate#History_of_the_stalemate_rule&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalemate#History_of_the_stalemate_rule&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Like GM Larry Kaufman mentioned in that article, I am of the opinion that stalemate being a draw is illogical and should be a win for the player administering stalemate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7093" LastEditorUserId="7093" LastEditDate="2015-03-25T12:39:26.973" LastActivityDate="2015-03-25T12:39:26.973" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8918" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8914" CreationDate="2015-03-25T10:45:24.203" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In addition to AlainD's answer: Stalemate was treated a win for the player left with no moves in chess history, too. This rule was used in the British islands until the mid of 19th century.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3819" LastActivityDate="2015-03-25T10:45:24.203" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8919" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4570" CreationDate="2015-03-25T15:02:39.643" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have a couple of suggestions, some tried and true, others more experimental using modern technology.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1. Start from the endgame&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Pros&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Starting backwards will allow the player to understand chess at a deep, fundamental level&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If you learn the endgame first, you are constantly moving toward a place &lt;em&gt;you are comfortable with&lt;/em&gt; when you play the game (as opposed to a middlegame player, who is constantly moving &lt;em&gt;away&lt;/em&gt; from his comfort zone)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The endgame is grounded on the concrete, but requires sound positional understanding to play well, thus learning it allows you to learn all aspects of the game &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Cons&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It can sometimes be tedious to teach and learn the endgame (I'm having this problem myself)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It requires a lot of initial investment from the student, for what seems to be little return (they may get caught by tactics, or opening traps in OTB games, making them discouraged)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;2. Teach a thinking algorithm&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically, create a simple step-by-step process (allow the student to come up with their own and then help them tweak it) which aids in making decisions OTB (i.e moves). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Pros&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Very easy to do and has almost immediate results (an anti-blunder check at the end of every move goes a long way to improve one's game)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A fundamental skill which is necessary for every phase of the chess game&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Can be built upon as more knowledge about the game is garnered&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Cons&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;None, except for the fact that you aren't focusing on any one thing in particular&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;3. Tactics, tactics, tactics!&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is more experimental and involves drilling tactical puzzles (I recommend &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/5946930060&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; book, the puzzles are beautifully arranged so that they build on one another) until they can be done &quot;by hand&quot; (i.e directly from memory). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Pros&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;All the benefits that tactical training provides, including:&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Able to handle complex positions with little difficulty&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Increase in visualization abilities&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Confidence in one's own moves (i.e that they won't be subverted by a missed tactic)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;General decrease in blunders and increase in noticing opponents blunders&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Memorization of the positions, allows the creation of &quot;building blocks&quot;. These are useful because you can often simplify complex positions in these basic blocks&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Its just more fun to explore tactical fireworks&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Cons&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Focusing on just tactics, does not give a true &lt;em&gt;understanding&lt;/em&gt; of the game, which is really more important for future success&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;There is a diminishing return, after which no amount of drilling will help&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It can be tedious  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4445" LastActivityDate="2015-03-25T15:02:39.643" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8920" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8882" CreationDate="2015-03-25T16:06:53.270" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;The easy way out is to just play 2…b6. This move certainly doesn't &quot;just worsen&quot; blacks position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Now both players can fiancetto the bishop, but a black bishop on b7 actually has a target, the e4-pawn.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If white plays 3.bc bc the b-line is open. This makes the option of 0-0-0 quite unattractive, an option that is much more often utilised by white, especially in the sicilian.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If white doesn't take on c5, he will sooner or later have to deal with the threat against b4. Actually, he will have to evaluate the threat against b4 every move!&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-03-25T16:06:53.270" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8921" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8888" CreationDate="2015-03-26T01:15:41.767" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have the book &quot;1.d4 Volume 2&quot; by Grandmaster Boris Avrukh in front of me. Not the line you're looking at but Avrukh says 3.Bxb5 Bxe4 4.Nf3 Nf6 5.0-0 e6 6. c4 Be7 7.Nc3 Bb7 is perfectly playable for Black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Avrukh's mainline vs the Polish defence is 1. d4 b5 2. e4 Bb7 3. Bd3 (solidifying the centre and aiming to prove the centre pawns are better than the wing pawns.) Nf6 (3...a6 4.Nf3 transposes to the St. George defense) 4. Nd2 e6 5. Ngf3 a6 6. 0-0 c5 7.dc Bxc5 8. e5 Nd5 9. Ne4 Be7 10. a4 b4 11.Nfd2! (heading for c4 and and freeing the Queen on the d1-h5 diagonal) ... and eventually += on move 18. The main plan for White is to play with pieces in the free space in the centre and possibly aim to attack on the Kingside or fill the holes left behind in Black's pawn structure. For more details buy the book.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4543" LastActivityDate="2015-03-26T01:15:41.767" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8922" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-03-26T01:41:02.533" Score="3" ViewCount="388" Body="&lt;p&gt;The fascinating miniature chess  or mini-chess ' that is chess on a 6 by 6 board. I know there are tons of decent chess programs but has anyone written a decent chess program for mini-chess. Is there a free downloadable mini-chess program or 'chess engine'?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5633" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2015-03-26T08:13:12.863" LastActivityDate="2018-08-23T13:59:58.173" Title="Is there a free downloadable mini-chess program or 'chess engine'?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;programming&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8923" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-03-26T06:42:31.020" Score="7" ViewCount="3225" Body="&lt;p&gt;My rating is around 1200 and I want to improve my chess.  Will playing correspondence chess improve my game?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4049" LastActivityDate="2020-06-08T19:45:09.793" Title="Does playing correspondence chess improve your game?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;correspondence-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8924" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8923" CreationDate="2015-03-26T08:02:21.547" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, it will help you certainly. Try to analyze the position when your opponent play his move. Take your time and see if you can find out his plans and ideas that stand behind his moves. &lt;strong&gt;However&lt;/strong&gt;don't expect your game to improve much if you're only playing correspondence, and not working on your game. The best way to improve on your own is to work on all parts of your game, from opening to endgame. :) But all things considered, correspondence will help you out more than e.g. blitz or bullet will.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7020" LastActivityDate="2015-03-26T08:02:21.547" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8925" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-03-26T09:42:14.620" Score="3" ViewCount="18348" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am confused about the starting elo rating of new members at chess.com.&#xA;Most of them start at 1200 but some of them have 800, 1000, 1400, 1600 or even 1800. How is it decided what is the initial value of the elo rating of a new member?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7101" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-12-02T14:17:15.073" LastActivityDate="2021-04-29T00:09:05.803" Title="Starting elo rating at chess.com" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;elo&gt;&lt;chess.com&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8926" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-03-26T10:39:26.740" Score="6" ViewCount="216" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;FIDE Women's World Chess Championship&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Sochi RUS&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2015.03.24&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;3.2&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Natalia Pogonina&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Marie Sebag&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;D46&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;134&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;2015.03.17&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. c4 c6 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. Nc3 e6 5. e3 Nbd7 6. Qc2 Bd6 7. Bd3 O-O 8. O-O&#xA;e5 9. cxd5 cxd5 10. e4 exd4 11. Nxd5 Nxd5 12. exd5 h6 13. Rd1 Nf6 14. h3 Nxd5&#xA;15. Bh7+ Kh8 16. Rxd4 Nf6 17. Bf4 Nxh7 18. Bxd6 Re8 19. Qb3 Kg8 20. Ne5 Qf6 21.&#xA;Rad1 Ng5 22. h4 Ne6 23. Re4 Nf4 24. Qa4 b5 25. Qxb5 Be6 26. Qa4 Ng6 27. Nxg6&#xA;Qxg6 28. Rde1 Red8 29. Be5 Rac8 30. a3 Kh7 31. Bc3 Bd7 32. Qxa7 Bc6 33. h5 Qg5&#xA;34. Qxf7 Bxe4 35. Rxe4 Rd1+ 36. Kh2 Rc5 37. Qg6+ Qxg6 38. hxg6+ Kxg6 39. Re7&#xA;Rh5+ 40. Kg3 Rg5+ 41. Kf3 Rd3+ 42. Ke2 Rxc3 43. bxc3 Rxg2 44. Re3 Rh2 45. c4&#xA;Rh4 46. Kd3 Rf4 47. c5 Kf7 48. Re2 Ra4 49. c6 Rxa3+ 50. Kd4 Ra1 51. Rc2 Rd1+&#xA;52. Ke5 Re1+ 53. Kd6 Rd1+ 54. Kc7 Re1 55. Kc8 h5 56. c7 Re7 57. Kd8 Rxc7 58.&#xA;Kxc7 Kf6 59. Kd6 Kf5 60. Rc5+ Kg4 61. f3+ Kxf3 62. Rxh5 Kf4 63. Rh4+ Kf5 64.&#xA;Kd5 g5 65. Rh8 Kf4 66. Kd4 g4 67. Rf8+ Kg3 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The position after 58.Kc7 is won for white and white did not allow a draw&#xA;position afterwards. Could Black have saved the rook ending somewhere ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5784" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2015-04-04T12:45:45.007" LastActivityDate="2015-04-04T23:49:55.133" Title="Did black have a chance to save the rook endgame?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;rook-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8927" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-03-26T10:47:36.703" Score="3" ViewCount="303" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;FIDE Women's World Chess Championship&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Sochi RUS&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2015.03.23&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;3.1&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Marie Sebag&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Natalia Pogonina&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;C65&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;2482&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;2456&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;177&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;2015.03.17&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 Nf6 4. d3 Bc5 5. O-O Nd4 6. Nxd4 Bxd4 7. c3 Bb6 8.&#xA;Na3 c6 9. Ba4 O-O 10. Bg5 h6 11. Bh4 Bc7 12. Bc2 b5 13. d4 d6 14. Bd3 g5 15.&#xA;Bg3 Qe7 16. Re1 Bb6 17. Nc2 Bd7 18. h3 Rfd8 19. Qf3 Ne8 20. Rad1 Ng7 21. Bf1&#xA;Bc7 22. c4 a6 23. Ne3 Re8 24. b4 Rad8 25. d5 Rf8 26. dxc6 Bxc6 27. cxb5 axb5&#xA;28. Bxb5 Ba8 29. Bc4 Bb6 30. Ng4 Kh7 31. Nf6+ Kg6 32. Nd5 Bxd5 33. Rxd5 Ne6 34.&#xA;Qf5+ Kg7 35. h4 Nd4 36. Qg4 Rc8 37. Bd3 Rc3 38. Rd1 Ra8 39. Bb1 Rc4 40. Kh2&#xA;Rxb4 41. f4 exf4 42. Bxf4 Qe6 43. Qxe6 fxe6 44. Bxd6 exd5 45. Bxb4 dxe4 46. Bc3&#xA;Ra4 47. Bxe4 gxh4 48. Rb1 Bc7+ 49. Kh3 Be5 50. Bd5 Kf6 51. Rb4 Ra3 52. Bb3 Nxb3&#xA;53. Bxe5+ Kxe5 54. axb3 Ra2 55. Rxh4 Rb2 56. Rb4 Kf5 57. g4+ Kg6 58. Kg3 Rb1&#xA;59. Kf4 Rf1+ 60. Ke5 Rb1 61. Kf4 Rf1+ 62. Kg3 Rg1+ 63. Kf3 Rf1+ 64. Kg2 Rd1 65.&#xA;Rb5 Rd3 66. b4 Rb3 67. Kf2 Kf6 68. Rf5+ Kg6 69. b5 Kg7 70. Rc5 Kg6 71. Rd5 Kf6&#xA;72. Rc5 Kg6 73. Ke2 Kf6 74. Rf5+ Kg6 75. Kd2 Rb4 76. Kc3 Rxg4 77. Rc5 Rg1 78.&#xA;Kb4 Rb1+ 79. Ka5 Ra1+ 80. Kb6 h5 81. Kc7 h4 82. b6 h3 83. b7 h2 84. b8=Q h1=Q&#xA;85. Qg8+ Kh6 86. Rc6+ Kh5 87. Qg6+ Kh4 88. Rc4+ Kh3 89. Qg4+ 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With 56. Rh6 , white could transfer in a won endgame. And black slips in move&#xA;81 (instead of 81... h4? the move 81 ... Ra5 would have drawn). Could white&#xA;win the rook-endgame before move 77 without the slip 55 ...Rb2 ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5784" LastEditorUserId="5649" LastEditDate="2015-03-26T13:54:07.517" LastActivityDate="2016-09-18T08:53:32.833" Title="Could White win this rook-endgame?" Tags="&lt;rook-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8928" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8923" CreationDate="2015-03-26T11:56:48.647" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;Whether or not playing correspondence chess will help you to improve depends a lot on how you play.  If you move after a quick look at the position and use it more like a Blitz game with the possibility of pausing, then I do not think you will improve much.  If on the other hand, you use it to study the relevant openings, pawn structures, endgames, etc. then they can provide a real asset for improvement.  In particular if you combine them with some theoretical inputs from books etc. as you can then immediately try to turn the things you learn into praxis (which means you really learn them).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another thing that may be worthwhile is to keep notes during the games of what moves you were considering and how you evaluated them.  In the post mortem you can then check your analysis and evaluation of the game and spot areas for further study and improvement (e.g., good moves you did not consider, or moves where your evaluation deviates strongly from that of, say, a chess engine or a coach).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course not everything improves by correspondence chess.  For example, if in OTB games you often hang your pieces or fall for simple tactics, then you really need to work on this separately.  The fact that you can try the moves in correspondence chess should help to eliminate these simple mistakes from your correspondence games but they will likely be back in OTB games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3529" LastActivityDate="2015-03-26T11:56:48.647" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8930" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1981" CreationDate="2015-03-26T13:44:42.650" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recommend the following :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;CHESS FOR CHILDREN by Murray Chandler &amp;amp; Helen Milligan&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;WINNING CHESS STRATEGY FOR KIDS by Jeff Coakley&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;THE CHESS KID'S BOOK OF TACTICS by David MacEnulty&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;CHESS OPENING FOR KIDS by John Watson &amp;amp; Graham Burgess&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;THE STEPS METHOD (Learning Chess Step 1 to 6) by Rob Brunia and Cor van Wijgerden&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;read more &lt;a href=&quot;http://newchessbasics.blogspot.com/2015/03/5-great-chess-books-for-kids.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;click&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://newchessbasics.blogspot.com/2015/03/5-great-chess-books-for-kids.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://newchessbasics.blogspot.com/2015/03/5-great-chess-books-for-kids.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7102" LastActivityDate="2015-03-26T13:44:42.650" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8931" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8932" CreationDate="2015-03-26T14:01:05.377" Score="4" ViewCount="84" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there a list of mzugs from KQKR?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5649" LastActivityDate="2015-03-26T14:16:24.253" Title="Where can I find a list of mutual zugzwangs from Queen vs Rook?" Tags="&lt;rook-endgame&gt;&lt;queen-endgame&gt;&lt;zugzwang&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8932" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8931" CreationDate="2015-03-26T14:16:24.253" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this particular endgame, there are no mutual-zugzwang-positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An overview over the positions is at &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chess.jaet.org/cgi-bin/mzugs&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://chess.jaet.org/cgi-bin/mzugs&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5784" LastActivityDate="2015-03-26T14:16:24.253" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8933" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-03-26T14:47:59.237" Score="15" ViewCount="2251" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are there positions in chess which every engines is unable to analyze&#xA; properly ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe calm positions with a positional advantage the engines do not&#xA; recognize ? Or positions won in the long term but with no concrete &#xA; winning moves ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5784" LastActivityDate="2020-04-20T13:54:15.390" Title="Are there positions which cannot be properly analyzed by any computer?" Tags="&lt;software&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8934" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8935" CreationDate="2015-03-26T14:50:05.453" Score="2" ViewCount="290" Body="&lt;p&gt;The most terrible blunder is to resign in a won position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How can I systematically search for such games ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How often does this happen if both opponents have, lets say, at least ELO 2400 ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5784" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2015-09-20T14:22:57.830" LastActivityDate="2015-09-20T14:22:57.830" Title="Frequency of resigning in won positions" Tags="&lt;blunder&gt;&lt;resigning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8935" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8934" CreationDate="2015-03-26T15:25:34.350" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a comprehensive list on Tim Krabbé's page &lt;a href=&quot;http://timkr.home.xs4all.nl/chess2/resigntxt.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;The Ultimate Blunder&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2015-03-26T15:25:34.350" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8936" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8938" CreationDate="2015-03-26T15:28:39.257" Score="2" ViewCount="205" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are there examples of games between notable players where &quot;dead-draw&quot; endgames&#xA; were lost ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For examples : Both players had three connected pawns on the f-g-h-file (or &#xA; a-b-c file) without free pawns and the king were near the pawns and material&#xA; was level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Such positions are generally considered to be &quot;dead-draw&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5784" LastActivityDate="2015-03-26T16:57:48.373" Title="&quot;Dead-draw&quot; endgame lost?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;blunder&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8938" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8936" CreationDate="2015-03-26T16:57:48.373" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;This game between Ponomariov and Carlsen was quite a sensation in 2010. Especially because there is no single outrageous blunder - Ponomariov is just outplayed very systematically. Alas, one has to keep in mind that it was a rapid game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&#xA;1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 d5 4. cxd5 Nxd5 5. e4 Nxc3 6. bxc3&#xA;Bg7 7. Bc4 c5 8. Ne2 Nc6 9. Be3 O-O 10. O-O Qc7 11. Rb1 Rd8&#xA;12. Bf4 Be5 13. Bxe5 Nxe5 14. Bb3 Ng4 15. Ng3 Qf4 16. h3 Nf6&#xA;17. e5 Nd5 18. Ne2 Qe4 19. Ng3 Qf4 20. dxc5 Be6 21. Qd4 b6&#xA;22. Ne2 Qf5 23. cxb6 Nxb6 24. Qf4 Rac8 25. Qxf5 Bxf5 26. Rbd1&#xA;Bd3 27. Rfe1 a5 28. Nf4 Bc4 29. Rxd8 Rxd8 30. Re4 Bxb3 31. axb3 Rd1 &#xA;32. Kh2 Rb1 33. c4 Rxb3 34. c5 Nd7 35. c6 Nb6 36. Rd4 Rc3 &#xA;37. Nd5 Nxd5 38. Rxd5 Rxc6 39. Rxa5 Rc4 40. Kg3 e6 41. f4 h6 &#xA;42. Kf3 Rc3 43. Kf2 g5 44. fxg5 hxg5&#xA;45. Ra4 Kg7 46. Rg4 Kh6 47. g3 Kh5 48. Ra4 Kg6 49. Ra5 Rd3&#xA;50. h4 gxh4 51. gxh4 Rd7 52. Ke3 Rb7 53. Kf4 Rb4 54. Kg3 Kf5&#xA;55. Ra7 Rg4 56. Kf3 Rg7 57. Ra5 Rg1 58. Rb5 Ra1 59. Rc5 Ra3&#xA;60. Kf2 Ke4 61. h5 Ra8 62. Kg3 Kf5 63. Kh4 Ra4 64. Kg3 Rg4&#xA;65. Kf3 Rf4 66. Kg3 Kg5 67. h6 Rg4 68. Kf3 Rh4 69. Rc7 Kg6&#xA;70. Rc8 Rxh6 71. Kg4 Rh1 72. Rg8 Kh7 73. Ra8 Rf1 74. Ra2 Kg6&#xA;75. Rg2 Rf5 76. Re2 Kg7 77. Kg3 Kf8 78. Re4 Ke7 79. Kg4 Kd7&#xA;80. Rd4 Kc6 81. Rd6 Kc7 82. Rd1 Rxe5 83. Rf1 f5 84. Kg5 Kd6&#xA;85. Kf6 Re4 86. Rd1 Kc5 87. Rd8 f4 88. Kg5 e5 89. Kg4 Re3&#xA;90. Rd1 Kc4 91. Rd2 f3 92. Kg3 e4 93. Kf2 Rd3 94. Ra2 Kd4&#xA;95. Ra4 Ke5 96. Kg3 Rd2 97. Ra5 Kd4 98. Ra4 Ke3 99. Ra3 Ke2&#xA;100. Kf4 f2 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-03-26T16:57:48.373" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8940" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8914" CreationDate="2015-03-26T18:31:56.237" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;When a player has no legal moves available and his/her King is  not in check the game is a draw (stalemate).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some think that this is illogical or even unjust.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They do have a point, but let me observe that if stalemate were considered a loss for the moveless player, all K+P/K endgames would be won by the stronger side. This may result in overcautious play in the opening and middlegame as a material advantage of one pawn would be much more sensible than it is now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sacrificing a pawn for the initiative would be a way riskier business.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Overall, declaring stalemate a win could result in a slower and less dynamic (less fun?) game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="446" LastActivityDate="2015-03-26T18:31:56.237" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8941" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8820" CreationDate="2015-03-26T19:06:05.940" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here's an example between players rated 2565 and 2498.  I haven't checked this against a tablebase due to the number of pawns, but the move Kb5 changes the Stockfish 6 evaluation from below -100 (at depth 60) to above +11 (at depth 43), which is pretty convincing. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black has a straightforward win here by first pushing his a-pawn to distract the White king, then capturing White's queenside pawns, then driving his own b-pawn forward to push the White king back, and finally capturing White's kingside pawns and queening one of his own.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But instead Black played Kb5, and White responded by sacrificing a pawn to get his king to d5 to help queen a pawn.  At first sight White's sacrifice may not look too promising, as Black queens first and still has an extra pawn.  But in fact Black is lost due to the advanced position of White's pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Site &quot;Prague&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2014.11.29&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;3.3&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;B. Heberla&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Z. Pakleza&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;8/1p3p2/pPk1pPp1/2P3P1/3K1P2/8/8/8 b - - 4 54&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1...Kb5 2.f5 exf5 3.Kd5 f4 4.Kd6 f3 5.c6 f2 6.c7 f1=Q 7.c8=Q Qd3+ 8.Ke7 Qd5 9.Qe8+ Kxb6 10.Kf8 Qxg5 11.Kxf7 Qh6 12.Kg8 g5 13.Qe3+ Kc6 14.Qe4+ 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4182" LastEditorUserId="4182" LastEditDate="2015-03-26T19:13:24.627" LastActivityDate="2015-03-26T19:13:24.627" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8943" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-03-27T06:43:34.377" Score="4" ViewCount="373" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the Caro-Kann Panov-Botvinnik Attack 5... e6 6. Nf3, I am hesitating between 6... Be7 and 6... Bb4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  [StartPly &quot;11&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;  [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;  1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. exd5 cxd5 4. c4 Nf6 5. Nc3 e6 6. Nf3 Be7 (6... Bb4)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would like to know all the differences between these two moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which one of these two moves tends to lead on average to the most solid, positional, boring, strategic, slow and quiet positions?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3237" LastActivityDate="2015-04-28T03:52:13.587" Title="In the Caro-Kann Panov-Botvinnik Attack 5... e6 6. Nf3, what are the differences between 6... Be7 and 6... Bb4 ? Which one is more solid and quiet?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;&lt;caro-kann&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8944" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8933" CreationDate="2015-03-27T09:29:55.897" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a trivial looking answer to your question: &lt;strong&gt;The starting position&lt;/strong&gt; cannot be properly analysed by any chess engine. To play decently, all extant chess engines rely on opening books prepared from games among human players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3819" LastActivityDate="2015-03-27T09:29:55.897" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8945" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8755" CreationDate="2015-03-27T10:47:04.550" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The game you describe reminds me of &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.di.fc.ul.pt/~jpn/gv/dawsonchess.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Dawson's chess&lt;/a&gt; where the pawns are just one step apart and no en passant is allowed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This game is instensively analysed and the winner depends in a non-trivial way on the length of the pawn chain!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3819" LastEditorUserId="3819" LastEditDate="2018-12-18T09:41:05.433" LastActivityDate="2018-12-18T09:41:05.433" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="8946" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-03-27T13:42:21.023" Score="2" ViewCount="22469" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just returned to chess after 40 years (yes I know).  I have a memory of being taught that the kings could not face each other on the same line or column. Chess Titans computer game doesn't seem to recognise this or have I got it wrong.  I understand the rule of Kings not being next to each other but I'm talking about the along a whole column for example&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7110" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2015-03-27T21:34:12.340" LastActivityDate="2015-07-14T13:57:04.653" Title="King facing king on same line or column" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;kings&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8947" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8946" CreationDate="2015-03-27T13:52:48.717" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, this rule does not exist in chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2015-03-27T13:52:48.717" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8948" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8946" CreationDate="2015-03-27T19:23:15.263" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's no such rule in chess, king only attacks fields adjacent to him, so there is no valid reason for that situation to be impossible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7020" LastActivityDate="2015-03-27T19:23:15.263" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8949" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-03-28T00:28:23.230" Score="1" ViewCount="951" Body="&lt;p&gt;Looking into a source code of a &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ltn.lv/~gv/BlenderChess/c0_python_chess.py&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;chess engine&lt;/a&gt;, I noticed matrices that represent position of some pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;knightPos = [&#xA;   -200, -100, -50, -50, -50, -50, -100, -200,&#xA;   -100, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, -100,&#xA;   -50, 0, 60, 60, 60, 60, 0, -50,&#xA;   -50, 0, 30, 60, 60, 30, 0, -50,&#xA;   -50, 0, 30, 60, 60, 30, 0, -50,&#xA;   -50, 0, 30, 30, 30, 30, 0, -50,&#xA;   -100, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, -100,&#xA;   -200, -50, -25, -25, -25, -25, -50, -200&#xA;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are more matrices like this there (also I found the same matrices in other chess engine). It looks like they decode the quality of the piece based on it's position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there any place, where I can read about it, how it is used and how people came up with these numbers?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="703" LastActivityDate="2015-03-28T06:03:51.523" Title="Matrix representation of piece position for a chess engine" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;evaluation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8950" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8658" CreationDate="2015-03-28T05:55:59.010" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You're supposed to return a negative value based on the ply to the mate. You should place it after the loop for scanning moves. If there's no move, it must be a stalemate or checkmate. Refer to the code in Stockfish as listed below:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;   // Step 20. Check for mate and stalemate&#xA;    // All legal moves have been searched and if there are no legal moves, it&#xA;    // must be mate or stalemate. If we are in a singular extension search then&#xA;    // return a fail low score.&#xA;    if (!moveCount)&#xA;        bestValue = excludedMove ? alpha&#xA;                   :     inCheck ? mated_in(ss-&amp;gt;ply) : DrawValue[pos.side_to_move()];&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;inline Value mated_in(int ply) {&#xA;  return -VALUE_MATE + ply;&#xA;}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2015-03-28T05:55:59.010" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8951" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8949" CreationDate="2015-03-28T06:03:51.523" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a very common data-structure in chess engine - Piece-Square-Tables.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Refer to &#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Piece-Square+Tables&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Piece-Square+Tables&lt;/a&gt; for more details.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically, it gives a score for a piece on a particular score and it's almost always symmetry (white and black have the same score but flipped).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, if I modified the score for knight in the table on d4 to positive infinity. The engine will believe placing a knight is very important, it'll sacrifice it's queen, rooks, bishops just to permanently position a knight on the d4 square.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The values are usually determined by trials-and-errors. Stronger engines such as Stockfish learn the values by playing hundreds or thousands of games, this is known as parameter calibration or automatic tuning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Refer to &lt;a href=&quot;https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Automated+Tuning&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Automated+Tuning&lt;/a&gt; for more details.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;CLOP and Texel are two common tuning methods.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2015-03-28T06:03:51.523" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8952" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8798" CreationDate="2015-03-28T10:41:28.760" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Scidb does not support videos, and I don't think that videos will be supported before the second alpha version is released. Currently Scidb is still a beta (test) version. Whether it is really possible to read the ChessBase videos - this includes also the associated timing data - is still an open question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7114" LastActivityDate="2015-03-28T10:41:28.760" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8953" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-03-28T18:06:07.393" Score="5" ViewCount="613" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;FIDE Women's World Chess Championship&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Sochi RUS&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2015.03.27&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;4.2&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Dronavalli Harika&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Meri Arabidze&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;D03&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;2492&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;2374&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;189&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;2015.03.17&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[StartPly &quot;46&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 Nf6 2. Nf3 e6 3. Bg5 c5 4. e3 d5 5. Nbd2 Be7 6. c3 Nbd7 7. Bd3 b6 8. O-O&#xA;Bb7 9. Ne5 Nxe5 10. dxe5 Nd7 11. Bxe7 Qxe7 12. f4 O-O 13. Qh5 f5 14. exf6 Nxf6&#xA;15. Qg5 Rae8 16. Nf3 Nd7 17. Bb5 Qxg5 18. Nxg5 Bc8 19. Rad1 Re7 20. Bxd7 Bxd7&#xA;21. Nf3 Be8 22. Ne5 Bg6 23. Nxg6 hxg6 24. g3 Rd8 25. Rd2 e5 26. Rfd1 exf4 27.&#xA;exf4 Red7 28. Kf2 Kf7 29. Kf3 Kf6 30. h4 Rd6 31. Rd3 R8d7 32. Kg4 Rd8 33. Re1&#xA;d4 34. cxd4 cxd4 35. Kf3 Kf7 36. Re5 Rc8 37. Re4 Rcd8 38. b3 R8d7 39. a4 Rd5&#xA;40. b4 a6 41. g4 Rd8 42. Re5 R5d6 43. Ke4 R8d7 44. f5 gxf5+ 45. Rxf5+ Kg8 46.&#xA;h5 Kh7 47. Rg5 Kh6 48. Kf4 Kh7 49. Re5 g6 50. Ke4 Kg7 51. Rg5 Re7+ 52. Kf4 a5&#xA;53. bxa5 bxa5 54. Rxg6+ Rxg6 55. hxg6 Rd7 56. Ke5 Kxg6 57. Rxd4 Rb7 58. Kd5 Kg5&#xA;59. Kc5 Kh4 60. Rc4 Rb8 61. Kd5 Rb7 62. Rc5 Rb4 63. Rc4 Rb8 64. Ke5 Kg5 65. Rc5&#xA;Rb4 66. Rxa5 Rxg4 67. Ra6 Kh5 68. a5 Rg5+ 69. Kd4 Rg4+ 70. Kc5 Rg5+ 71. Kb6&#xA;Rg6+ 72. Kb7 Rg7+ 73. Kc8 Rg5 74. Kd7 Rg7+ 75. Ke8 Rg5 76. Kf7 Rc5 77. Kg7 Rc7+&#xA;78. Kf6 Rc5 79. Ra8 Kh4 80. a6 Rc6+ 81. Kf5 Rc5+ 82. Kf4 Rc4+ 83. Ke3 Rc7 84.&#xA;Rb8 Kg5 85. Rb7 Rc4 86. Kd3 Ra4 87. Rb6 Kf5 88. Kc3 Ke5 89. Kb3 Ra1 90. Kc4 Ra2&#xA;91. Rh6 Ra1 92. Kc5 Ra2 93. Kb6 Rb2+ 94. Kc7 Ra2 95. Kb7 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;62...Kg4 was not enough to draw and white could win with 63.Ra5. After 66.Ra5,&#xA;the position was theoretically drawn. Black slipped with 73 ...Rg5 ? and White&#xA;slipped with 74.Kd7 ? (Correct moves were 73...Rg8 and 74.Ra8) . Finally,&#xA;black slipped with 77...Rc7 and white did not allow a drawn position anymore.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Beginning with the double-rook ending, could black hold the position, or where did Black make the decisive error?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5784" LastEditorUserId="11202" LastEditDate="2017-04-17T22:20:39.410" LastActivityDate="2017-04-18T04:17:38.970" Title="Could black have saved the rook-endgame?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;blunder&gt;&lt;rook-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8954" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8842" CreationDate="2015-03-29T01:45:11.337" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Computer rating is relative and has no relation to the Human FIDE. It's over 2800 in CCRL, it could be something else on the FIDE scale. The rating reported is only valid for the specific conditions used by CCRL. Nobody knows for sure the &quot;real&quot; rating on your machine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2015-03-29T01:45:11.337" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8955" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8943" CreationDate="2015-03-29T03:11:11.563" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;As surprising as it sounds, &lt;code&gt;6...Bb4&lt;/code&gt; is probably going to lead to the quieter game.  The reason is that with the bishop on b4, pieces will get traded off on c3. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As an example, the game Najdorf-Portisch 1-0, from 1962 shows some of these ideas.  Although the game begins as a &lt;code&gt;1. d4&lt;/code&gt; game, the position transposes directly to the Panov Botvinnik.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Varna&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Varna&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;1962&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;3&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Miguel Najdorf&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Lajos Portisch&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;B14&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;43&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Nf3 c5 5.cxd5 Nxd5 6.e3 cxd4&#xA;7.exd4 Bb4 8.Qc2 Nc6 9.Bd3 Nxc3 10.bxc3 Nxd4 11.Nxd4 Qxd4&#xA;12.Bb5+ Ke7 13.O-O Qxc3 14.Qe2 Bd6 15.Bb2 Qa5 16.Rfd1 Rd8&#xA;17.Qh5 f6 18.Qxh7 Kf7 19.Be2 Qg5 20.Bc1 Bxh2+ 21.Kxh2 Qe5+&#xA;22.f4 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12" LastActivityDate="2015-03-29T03:11:11.563" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8956" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6565" CreationDate="2015-03-30T13:24:08.370" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a paper, which examines this relationship for Houdini 1.5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://web.ist.utl.pt/diogo.ferreira/papers/ferreira13impact.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://web.ist.utl.pt/diogo.ferreira/papers/ferreira13impact.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On page 77 you get the relevant table:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;depth: elo:&#xA;&#xA;20    2894&#xA;&#xA;19    2828&#xA;&#xA;18    2761&#xA;&#xA;17    2695&#xA;&#xA;16    2629&#xA;&#xA;15    2563&#xA;&#xA;…&#xA;&#xA;8     2099&#xA;&#xA;7     2033&#xA;&#xA;6     1966&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-03-30T13:24:08.370" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8957" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8967" CreationDate="2015-03-30T20:21:05.077" Score="3" ViewCount="874" Body="&lt;p&gt;I wonder, is there any book or article on what openings are good and appropriate for different levels, as it's done in the 4th volume of John Watson's &lt;code&gt;Mastering the Chess Openings&lt;/code&gt; and in this link &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.uschess.org/content/view/11634/675&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.uschess.org/content/view/11634/675&lt;/a&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And what are your recommendations for this question?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7123" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-05-19T06:24:13.697" LastActivityDate="2017-05-19T06:47:57.867" Title="Opening repertoire for different levels" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8958" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8957" CreationDate="2015-03-30T20:47:09.257" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I wouldn't agree with the stuff in that link you just posted. I mean &quot;I think Scandinavian sucks&quot; and &quot;still playing c3 in Sicilian&quot; as if the Alapin variation isn't good ,are arguments that make no sense whatsoever. My coach used to say that until 2100-2200 FIDE rating you should play the openings you're comfortable with and are compatible  with your playing style. Probably if you're under 1600 let's say, you should avoid some too crazy openings. But all in all if they fit your playing style and you know the variations and plans your skill level hardly effects your opening choice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7020" LastActivityDate="2015-03-30T20:47:09.257" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8959" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6006" CreationDate="2015-03-30T21:04:54.047" Score="-11" Body="&lt;p&gt;It means &lt;em&gt;checkmate&lt;/em&gt;. For example, if black was to checkmate the king with his Queen, it would be written: &lt;em&gt;Q__+&lt;/em&gt; , the &lt;em&gt;_&lt;/em&gt; indicating which move black played with the queen in order to checkmate the opponent's (in this case white) king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7124" LastActivityDate="2015-03-30T21:04:54.047" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8960" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8961" CreationDate="2015-03-30T23:10:58.353" Score="1" ViewCount="281" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was just playing the computer, and it always starts with the knight on b1, moves out his other knight, and then plays his pawn. At this point, should I take his knight with my pawn, or do something else?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;rnbqkbnr/ppp1pppp/8/8/3pP3/2N2N2/PPPP1PPP/R1BQKB1R b KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2697" LastEditorUserId="18475" LastEditDate="2020-01-07T13:54:28.227" LastActivityDate="2020-01-07T13:54:28.227" Title="With a pawn rush, should I take the knight?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;captures&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="8961" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8960" CreationDate="2015-03-30T23:29:20.670" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Take the c3 knight. Since white has developed only one piece, he can't punish you.  If he takes back with the d pawn, trade queens. Now he can't castle.  Then you develop, move your rooks to the center, and push him off the back of the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2015-03-30T23:29:20.670" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8962" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-03-31T00:14:27.140" Score="4" ViewCount="265" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the maximum DTC and the maximum DTZ in the endgame KRPKRP (rook+pawn&#xA; against rook+pawn) ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5784" LastActivityDate="2020-12-16T06:29:04.800" Title="Maximum DTC and maximum DTZ in the endgame KRPKRP" Tags="&lt;tablebases&gt;&lt;rook-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8965" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-03-31T08:29:35.470" Score="4" ViewCount="466" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the longest period in a real game with a position in which all pieces were &amp;quot;hanging&amp;quot;? The game can also be rapid, blitz&#xA;or blindfold, but both players should have at least a 2000 ELO.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To clarify, all of the pieces, except the pawns, must be still on the board and be takeable by the opponent, if the opponent has the move. Of course, the kings are not considered. A check is allowed but not necessary. It is not necessary that this capture would make sense (it is enough that a covered knight is &amp;quot;attacked&amp;quot; by a queen).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I do not think that such a position, if existent, &amp;quot;survives&amp;quot; very long, but perhaps someone will find a nice example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5784" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-03-21T05:36:19.000" LastActivityDate="2021-05-02T15:27:50.463" Title="Longest period with each piece &quot;hanging&quot;" Tags="&lt;middlegame&gt;&lt;records&gt;&lt;captures&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="8966" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-03-31T08:47:30.183" Score="8" ViewCount="450" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is any game known where all the pieces (except the pawns) are still on the board, and where a piece (not a pawn!) is captured at each half-move, leading to a pawn endgame?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In other words, is there a game where a &quot;full&quot; board is transferred to a pawn endgame in only 14 half-moves?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here a game where the tranformation is made in 16 half-moves:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;URS-ch26&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Tbilisi&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;1959.??.??&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;15&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Kortschnoj, Viktor&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Geller, Efim P&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;E69&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;83&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;1959.??.??&quot;]&#xA;[EventType &quot;tourn&quot;]&#xA;[EventRounds &quot;19&quot;]&#xA;[EventCountry &quot;URS&quot;]&#xA;[Source &quot;ChessBase&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. g3 Bg7 4. Bg2 O-O 5. Nc3 c6 6. e4 d6 7. Nge2 e5 8. O-O&#xA;Nbd7 9. b3 exd4 10. Nxd4 Nc5 11. h3 Re8 12. Re1 a5 13. Rb1 Nfd7 14. Be3 h5 15.&#xA;Qd2 Ne5 16. Red1 Qe7 17. Kh1 Bf8 18. Re1 Bg7 19. Re2 Qc7 20. f4 Ned7 21. Bg1&#xA;Nf6 22. Nc2 b6 23. Ree1 Bb7 24. Nd4 Re7 25. Re2 Rae8 26. Rbe1 Ncxe4 27. Nxe4&#xA;Nxe4 28. Rxe4 Rxe4 29. Rxe4 Rxe4 30. Bxe4 c5 31. Bxb7 Qxb7+ 32. Qg2 Qxg2+ 33.&#xA;Kxg2 Bxd4 34. Bxd4 cxd4 35. Kf3 Kg7 36. Ke4 Kf6 37. Kxd4 Kf5 38. Ke3 Ke6 39.&#xA;Ke4 Kd7 40. f5 g5 41. Kd5 Kc7 42. g4 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5784" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-10-09T14:40:13.180" LastActivityDate="2021-05-02T16:33:15.230" Title="From a full board to a pawn endgame in the shortest possible number of half-moves" Tags="&lt;pawn-endgame&gt;&lt;captures&gt;&lt;records&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="8967" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8957" CreationDate="2015-03-31T13:29:42.027" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is something to be said for choosing mainlines from the get-go. I heard several strong players (for example Jan Gustafsson, Judith Polgar) say, that they wasted time by playing sidelines in their youth or that they had problems to master certain openings they had avoided for too long. (Gustafsson played 1…g6 and Polgar King's Gambit).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So if you are young and very ambitious it makes a lot of sense to go for openings you will never have to discard. If you look at the absolute top, even Carlsen's experiments with sidelines quite often completely backfire (Northsea Defense vs Adams, Pirc vs Naiditsch, Leningrad Dutch vs Wojtacek, weird gambit vs Saric, etc.).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But most of us never reach these heights and under Elo 2400 you can get away with all kinds of openings. So my choice is to play what I feel comfortable playing and from time to time mix in some completely new stuff so I don't get bored. I play some very shaky and borderline incorrect stuff, but I can't remember ever losing because my opponent just played &quot;the refutation&quot;. There are always chances.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-03-31T13:29:42.027" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8968" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18399" CreationDate="2015-03-31T13:46:35.077" Score="8" ViewCount="2842" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm reading the book &lt;a href=&quot;http://shop.nekomado.com/products/detail.php?product_id=85&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Sabaki at a glance&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt; by Madoka Kitao. It's a very nice book with many good examples one can learn from.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The problem I have is that I am left with only an intuitive understanding of the word itself. There is a note by the translator:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;Sabaku&quot; or &quot;sabaki&quot; as an act in shogi has a nuance with the mixture of the following points. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;To resolve an awkward or problematic position of the own pieces into&#xA;  an acceptable outcome.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;To give the piece an opportunity to efficiently participate in the game or fulfill its task in a way even by sacrificing it.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;It usually involves light footwork, or a skillful and dynamic piece maneuver.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;It usually happens in the middlegame.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I find this a bit too general to make immediate sense. What is &quot;sabaki&quot;, and what would be the corresponding concept in western chess?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1485" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2015-03-31T15:15:40.233" LastActivityDate="2021-05-16T13:29:14.983" Title="In the game of shogi, what is the meaning of &quot;sabaki&quot;?" Tags="&lt;theory&gt;&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;shogi&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8969" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8968" CreationDate="2015-03-31T14:36:56.733" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know the term Sabaki from the game of Go where it means to make life in an endangered position or to repair a thin position. Maybe this helps to understand the concept in Shogi, too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In an English language Go book I found the the term &lt;em&gt;resilience&lt;/em&gt; as a circumscription of &lt;em&gt;sabaki&lt;/em&gt;, and I find it perfectly cromulent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3819" LastEditorUserId="3819" LastEditDate="2017-09-06T13:46:49.360" LastActivityDate="2017-09-06T13:46:49.360" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8970" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="778" CreationDate="2015-03-31T14:56:18.323" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;As World Champ Magnus Carlsen often says &quot;Having preferences means having weaknesses&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In reality there is no such thing as &quot;positional&quot; or &quot;tactical&quot; style. Objectively, it's simply the degree to which the position calls for calculation. This gradation is only necessary because, unlike computers, humans can tire and cannot look 20 moves ahead in an instant. Thus in quiet positions, we use positional understanding (try to improve our position). In sharp positions we focus on calculation because a single misslip usually costs the game. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4445" LastActivityDate="2015-03-31T14:56:18.323" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8971" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-03-31T16:46:38.403" Score="7" ViewCount="2806" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess books written by Aagaard, Dvoretsky and Kasparov are suitable books for master level players. I have recently discovered the book &lt;em&gt;Perfect Your Chess&lt;/em&gt; by Volokitin &amp;amp; Grabinsky which is similar in vein. What other chess books are suitable for master level players?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I use the term &lt;em&gt;master level players&lt;/em&gt; to refer to players who are at a level equivalent to 2200+ FIDE rating. Books suggested should:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;be suitable for a general master level player.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;contain sufficient material that will stimulate a master level player.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;be useful in the training of a master level player.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user7131" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditorDisplayName="user7131" LastEditDate="2016-07-28T13:11:03.407" LastActivityDate="2016-08-02T13:39:00.413" Title="Chess books for master level players" Tags="&lt;books&gt;&lt;training&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="1" CommunityOwnedDate="2015-03-31T17:23:55.683" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8973" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8992" CreationDate="2015-03-31T17:42:12.873" Score="2" ViewCount="869" Body="&lt;p&gt;After &lt;code&gt;1.Nf3&lt;/code&gt; I can gain space with either of &lt;code&gt;1...d5&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;1...b5&lt;/code&gt;. Which of these two is better?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I presume it's &lt;code&gt;1...d5&lt;/code&gt;, but I just want to make sure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2697" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2015-04-02T03:40:54.593" LastActivityDate="2019-10-22T03:09:03.210" Title="Is it better to reply to 1.Nf3 with ...d5 or ...b5?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8974" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8971" CreationDate="2015-03-31T18:04:49.470" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Openings:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1906552037&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Questions of Modern Chess Theory&lt;/a&gt; by Isaac Lipnitsky - a Soviet classic. Gets into the ideas behind opening theory in general.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For specific opening lines - the Grandmaster Repertoire series tends to be quite good.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Middlegame:&lt;/strong&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1936490749&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Dvoretksy's Analytical Manual&lt;/a&gt; - I didn't get too far through it but it is an incredible workout.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Endgame:&lt;/strong&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1941270042&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Dvoretsky's Endgame Manual&lt;/a&gt;, of course. If you learn everything in this book you will have endgame knowledge that far surpasses most masters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/3283004013&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Practical Rook Endings&lt;/a&gt; - Korchnoi. Quite expensive in this listing but I found one for $15 a few years ago.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most books by John Nunn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;General:&lt;/strong&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any well-regarded selection of annotated games from a GM is immensely helpful. Keres, Tal and Shirov's collections are great, to name a few.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3270" LastActivityDate="2015-03-31T18:04:49.470" CommentCount="1" CommunityOwnedDate="2015-03-31T18:04:49.470" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8975" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-04-01T03:16:11.960" Score="13" ViewCount="2747" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know it is never good to memorize opening lines and play them without understanding the plans and ideas, but still, I see so many grandmasters play moves from #5 to around #10 so slowly as if they've never seen the position before.  But we know that they have, and furthermore the positions has been played in literally thousands of games by others.  Are they trying to decide which of the moves that are in their repertoire to play?  Or are they trying to fully absorb the plans, even though they've already studied the plans at home?  Or are they trying to recall the variations that they studied at home but might have forgotten?  What's going on in their heads during their slow play in the first 10 moves?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6960" LastActivityDate="2020-07-04T00:47:21.183" Title="Why do some (many!) grandmasters play the opening so slowly?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;grandmaster&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8976" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8975" CreationDate="2015-04-01T07:16:16.500" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Thinking long in the early phase can have psychological reasons. The grandmaster&#xA; thinks how he can play against a particular player to exploit the opponents&#xA; weaknesses, or tries to surprise the opponent somehow.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But in some cases, the opponent plays rare variants. Not all playable openings&#xA; occur at grandmaster level and perhaps the opponent tried to come up with a &#xA; surprise.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even a grandmaster does not know EVERY sensible position possible after about&#xA; 5 moves, only the most common ones, or those they play regular.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5784" LastActivityDate="2015-04-01T07:16:16.500" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8977" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8980" CreationDate="2015-04-01T07:27:18.627" Score="1" ViewCount="136" Body="&lt;p&gt;What happened in this shoouout from Houdini ? Why did the program take so long&#xA;to mate with the queen and why did it make such unlogical moves. Considering&#xA;the valuations, I conjecture that the program used precalculated variations,&#xA;but I am not sure. Beginning with a position king + queen against king,&#xA;Houdini mates fast even at a very low level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;Stellung ausspielen (Houdini15aw32, 15p&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;????.??.??&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Neue Partie&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Houdini 1.5a w32&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;[SetUp &quot;1&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;8/8/8/3ppk2/8/3K1P1P/8/8 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;135&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Kg6 {[%eval -160,15] [%emt 0:00:04]} 2. Kd2 {&#xA;[%eval -175,15] [%emt 0:00:00]} d4 {[%eval -227,15] [%emt 0:00:00]} 3. Kd3 {&#xA;[%eval -271,15] [%emt 0:00:00]} Kh5 {[%eval -78,15] [%emt 0:00:06]} 4. Ke4 {&#xA;[%eval -91,15] [%emt 0:00:00]} Kg5 {[%eval -111,15] [%emt 0:00:00]} 5. f4+ {&#xA;[%eval -115,15] [%emt 0:00:07]} exf4 {[%eval -115,15] [%emt 0:00:00]} 6.   h4+ {&#xA;[%eval -115,15] [%emt 0:00:06]} Kg4 {[%eval -109,15] [%emt 0:00:01]} 7. h5 {&#xA;[%eval -109,15] [%emt 0:00:00]} f3 {[%eval -109,15] [%emt 0:00:00]} 8. h6 {&#xA;[%eval -109,15] [%emt 0:00:00]} f2 {[%eval -109,15] [%emt 0:00:00]} 9. h7 {&#xA;[%eval -109,15] [%emt 0:00:00]} f1=Q {[%eval -109,15] [%emt 0:00:00]} 10. h8=Q&#xA;{[%eval -120,15] [%emt 0:00:00]} Qe2+ {[%eval -130,15] [%emt 0:00:00]} 11. Kd5&#xA;{[%eval -130,15] [%emt 0:00:00]} d3 {[%eval -130,15] [%emt 0:00:00]} 12. Qg7+ {&#xA;[%eval -130,15] [%emt 0:00:00]} Kf3 {(Kh4) [%eval -141,15] [%emt 0:00:00]} 13.&#xA;Qf7+ {(Df6+) [%eval -141,15] [%emt 0:00:00]} Kg2 {&#xA;[%eval -141,15] [%emt 0:00:00]} 14. Qg7+ {[%eval -141,15] [%emt 0:00:00]} Kf2 {&#xA;[%eval -141,15] [%emt 0:00:00]} 15. Qh6 {[%eval -141,15] [%emt 0:00:00]} Qe3 {&#xA;[%eval -142,15] [%emt 0:00:00]} 16. Qh2+ {[%eval -142,15] [%emt 0:00:00]} Ke1 {&#xA;[%eval -225,15] [%emt 0:00:01]} 17. Kc4 {(Dh1+) [%eval -244,15] [%emt 0:00:00]}&#xA;d2 {[%eval -448,15] [%emt 0:00:01]} 18. Qh1+ {[%eval -448,15] [%emt 0:00:00]}&#xA;Kf2 {[%eval -448,15] [%emt 0:00:00]} 19. Qh2+ {[%eval -436,15] [%emt 0:00:00]}&#xA;Kf1 {[%eval -440,15] [%emt 0:00:00]} 20. Qh1+ {[%eval -440,15] [%emt 0:00:00]}&#xA;Kf2 {(Ke2) [%eval -436,15] [%emt 0:00:00]} 21. Qh2+ {&#xA;[%eval -434,15] [%emt 0:00:00]} Kf1 {[%eval -420,15] [%emt 0:00:00]} 22. Qh1+ {&#xA;[%eval -434,15] [%emt 0:00:00]} Ke2 {[%eval -434,15] [%emt 0:00:00]} 23. Qg2+ {&#xA;[%eval -414,15] [%emt 0:00:00]} Kd1 {[%eval -414,15] [%emt 0:00:00]} 24. Qc6 {&#xA;[%eval -414,15] [%emt 0:00:00]} Qg3 {[%eval -414,15] [%emt 0:00:00]} 25. Kb4 {&#xA;(Da8) [%eval -425,15] [%emt 0:00:00]} Qd3 {[%eval -420,15] [%emt 0:00:00]} 26.&#xA;Ka5 {[%eval -420,15] [%emt 0:00:00]} Qd4 {(Db3) [%eval -998,15] [%emt 0:00:21]}&#xA;27. Ka6 {[%eval -1117,15] [%emt 0:00:24]} Ke2 {[%eval -1103,15] [%emt 0:00:03]}&#xA;28. Qe6+ {[%eval -1130,15] [%emt 0:00:11]} Qe3 {[%eval -1095,15] [%emt 0:00:01]&#xA;} 29. Qa2 {[%eval -1125,15] [%emt 0:00:03]} Kf2 {&#xA;(Ke1) [%eval -1163,15] [%emt 0:00:10]} 30. Kb7 {[%eval -2104,15] [%emt   0:00:30]&#xA;} Qe2 {[%eval -32695,15] [%emt 0:00:02]} 31. Qa7+ {&#xA;[%eval -32685,15] [%emt 0:00:02]} Kf1 {[%eval -32680,15] [%emt 0:00:00]} 32.&#xA;Qa3 {[%eval -32678,15] [%emt 0:00:00]} d1=Q {[%eval -32678,15] [%emt 0:00:00]}&#xA;33. Qh3+ {[%eval -32678,15] [%emt 0:00:00]} Qg2+ {&#xA;[%eval -32678,15] [%emt 0:00:00]} 34. Qxg2+ {[%eval -32676,15] [%emt 0:00:00]}&#xA;Kxg2 {[%eval -32672,15] [%emt 0:00:00]} 35. Kc6 {&#xA;[%eval -32670,15] [%emt 0:00:00]} Qd4 {(Kf2) [%eval -32671,15] [%emt 0:00:00]}&#xA;36. Kb5 {[%eval -32674,15] [%emt 0:00:00]} Kf2 {&#xA;[%eval -32674,15] [%emt 0:00:00]} 37. Kc6 {&#xA;(Ka5) [%eval -32674,15] [%emt 0:00:00]} Kf3 {&#xA;(Ke2) [%eval -32667,15] [%emt 0:00:00]} 38. Kb5 {&#xA;[%eval -32683,15] [%emt 0:00:00]} Kg3 {[%eval -32684,15] [%emt 0:00:00]} 39.&#xA;Kc6 {[%eval -32686,15] [%emt 0:00:00]} Kf2 {[%eval -32686,15] [%emt 0:00:00]}&#xA;40. Kc7 {[%eval -32688,15] [%emt 0:00:00]} Qd5 {&#xA;[%eval -32688,15] [%emt 0:00:00]} 41. Kb6 {[%eval -32688,15] [%emt 0:00:00]}&#xA;Qc4 {[%eval -32687,15] [%emt 0:00:00]} 42. Ka5 {&#xA;[%eval -32687,15] [%emt 0:00:00]} Qb3 {[%eval -32687,15] [%emt 0:00:00]} 43.&#xA;Ka6 {[%eval -32688,15] [%emt 0:00:00]} Qb4 {[%eval -32684,15] [%emt 0:00:00]}&#xA;44. Ka7 {[%eval -32684,15] [%emt 0:00:00]} Qd4+ {&#xA;(Db5) [%eval -32680,15] [%emt 0:00:00]} 45. Kb8 {&#xA;(Ka8) [%eval -32679,15] [%emt 0:00:00]} Qc3 {&#xA;(Dc5) [%eval -32677,15] [%emt 0:00:00]} 46. Ka7 {&#xA;[%eval -32678,15] [%emt 0:00:00]} Qb2 {(Dd4+) [%eval -32679,15] [%emt 0:00:00]}&#xA;47. Ka8 {[%eval -32677,15] [%emt 0:00:00]} Qc3 {&#xA;[%eval -32677,15] [%emt 0:00:00]} 48. Kb7 {&#xA;(Ka7) [%eval -32677,15] [%emt 0:00:00]} Qc5 {[%eval -32676,15] [%emt 0:00:00]}&#xA;49. Ka6 {(Kb8) [%eval -32677,15] [%emt 0:00:00]} Qb4 {&#xA;[%eval -32678,15] [%emt 0:00:00]} 50. Ka7 {[%eval -32675,15] [%emt 0:00:00]}&#xA;Kg1 {(Db2) [%eval -32675,15] [%emt 0:00:00]} 51. Ka6 {&#xA;[%eval -32677,15] [%emt 0:00:00]} Kf1 {[%eval -32677,15] [%emt 0:00:00]} 52.&#xA;Ka7 {[%eval -32678,15] [%emt 0:00:00]} Qb5 {[%eval -32679,15] [%emt 0:00:00]}&#xA;53. Ka8 {[%eval -32680,15] [%emt 0:00:00]} Kg2 {&#xA;(Kf2) [%eval -32672,15] [%emt 0:00:01]} 54. Ka7 {&#xA;[%eval -32673,15] [%emt 0:00:00]} Kf2 {[%eval -32672,15] [%emt 0:00:00]} 55.&#xA;Ka8 {[%eval -32672,15] [%emt 0:00:00]} Qd3 {&#xA;(Dd5+) [%eval -32672,15] [%emt 0:00:00]} 56. Kb7 {&#xA;(Ka7) [%eval -32672,15] [%emt 0:00:00]} Qf3+ {[%eval -32671,15] [%emt 0:00:00]}&#xA;57. Ka7 {[%eval -32672,15] [%emt 0:00:00]} Qc6 {&#xA;(Db3) [%eval -32672,15] [%emt 0:00:00]} 58. Kb8 {&#xA;[%eval -32672,15] [%emt 0:00:00]} Qc4 {(Dc5) [%eval -32672,15] [%emt 0:00:00]}&#xA;59. Ka8 {[%eval -32672,15] [%emt 0:00:00]} Qc3 {&#xA;(Db3) [%eval -32672,15] [%emt 0:00:00]} 60. Kb7 {&#xA;(Ka7) [%eval -32672,15] [%emt 0:00:00]} Qc5 {[%eval -32672,15] [%emt 0:00:00]}&#xA;61. Ka6 {[%eval -32659,15] [%emt 0:00:00]} Ke2 {&#xA;(Ke1) [%eval -32650,15] [%emt 0:00:00]} 62. Kb7 {&#xA;[%eval -32654,15] [%emt 0:00:00]} Kf3 {[%eval -32650,15] [%emt 0:00:00]} 63.&#xA;Ka6 {[%eval -32661,15] [%emt 0:00:00]} Qb4 {[%eval -32761,15] [%emt 0:00:00]}&#xA;64. Ka7 {[%eval -32762,15] [%emt 0:00:00]} Qb5 {&#xA;[%eval -32762,15] [%emt 0:00:00]} 65. Ka8 {[%eval -32763,15] [%emt 0:00:00]}&#xA;Ke4 {[%eval -32763,15] [%emt 0:00:00]} 66. Ka7 {&#xA;[%eval -32764,15] [%emt 0:00:00]} Kd5 {[%eval -32764,15] [%emt 0:00:00]} 67.&#xA;Ka8 {[%eval -32765,15] [%emt 0:00:00]} Kc6 {[%eval -32765,15] [%emt 0:00:00]}&#xA;68. Ka7 {[%eval -32766,15] [%emt 0:00:00]} Qb7# {&#xA;[%eval -32766,15] [%emt 0:00:00]} 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5784" LastEditorUserId="5784" LastEditDate="2015-04-01T12:08:38.007" LastActivityDate="2015-04-01T12:08:38.007" Title="What happened in this shootout from Houdini?" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;houdini&gt;&lt;queen-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8978" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8804" CreationDate="2015-04-01T09:25:57.810" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The book &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/9548782979&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;The Most Flexible Sicilian&lt;/a&gt; by Delchev &amp;amp; Semkov covers both the Kan and Taimanov. Each part contains a section that presents the main ideas before going into detailed theory. A more interactive and better introduction to the Taimanov is given by &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1857446828&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Sicilian Taimanov&lt;/a&gt; by Emms. It is part of Everyman's Move by Move series which presents a Q&amp;amp;A style.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Kan and Taimanov are not as theoretical as the other Sicilians but is still very flexible and discussing plans in different variations will be cumbersome. I have found that looking at annotated games of well known practitioners is useful in learning plans in the opening. Some practitioners of the Taimanov are Ulf Andersson, Anatoly Karpov and Mark Taimanov.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user7131" LastActivityDate="2015-04-01T09:25:57.810" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8979" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8981" CreationDate="2015-04-01T09:49:56.567" Score="1" ViewCount="135" Body="&lt;p&gt;Tim Krabbe shows this game on his &lt;a href=&quot;http://timkr.home.xs4all.nl/records/records.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;record site&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Sibilio-Mariotti, Ravenna 1982&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;5k2/1p4pp/4p3/3pP1q1/3P4/7K/7P/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The game has a stalemate after only 27 moves. I would like to know the complete game. I did not find in chessgames.com, chess365, or my database. Does anybody know the full game?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5784" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-05-28T16:00:47.247" LastActivityDate="2020-05-28T16:00:47.247" Title="Looking for the complete game Sibilio-Mariotti, Ravenna 1982" Tags="&lt;draw&gt;&lt;stalemate&gt;&lt;famous-games&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="8980" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8977" CreationDate="2015-04-01T10:11:43.710" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;How did you run the game? Did you run it by a fixed-depth? How much time did you give to the engine? I assume that you gave the engine either too little time or a fixed depth. In this case, the engine might not know the shortest way for a mate, because to the engine any move that doesn't lose the queen is the same. It only starts moving the king, when it sees a mate in its search horizon.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2015-04-01T10:11:43.710" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8981" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8979" CreationDate="2015-04-01T10:14:53.147" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;All games from Tim Krabbe's website are available in the little player on the right side of the page (there is a chessboard, game navigation bar and a box from which the games can be chosen).&#xA;For the sake of the question and since it is quite an entertaining game, though:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[White &quot;Sibilio&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Mariotti&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Ravenna 1982&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e6 2. Nf3 d5 3. e5 c5 4. b4 cxb4 5. d4 Nh6 6. a3 bxa3 7. c3 Nf5 8. Nxa3 Nc6 9. Nb5 a6 10. g4 Bd7 11. Bg5 Be7 12. gxf5 axb5 13. fxe6 fxe6 14. Rxa8 Qxa8 15. Rg1 Qa3 16. Bxb5 Bxg5 17. Rxg5 Qxc3+ 18. Kf1 O-O 19. Bxc6 Bxc6 20. Kg2 Ba4 21. Qe2 Bc2 22. Ne1 Bxe4+ 23. f3 Rxf3 24. Nxf3 Bxf3 25. Qxf3 Qd2+ 26. Kh3 Qxg5 27. Qf8+ Kxf8 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3831" LastActivityDate="2015-04-01T10:14:53.147" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8982" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24132" CreationDate="2015-04-01T10:54:12.823" Score="19" ViewCount="3249" Body="&lt;p&gt;The known record for the longest sequence of consecutive checks (i.e. white checks, then black checks on the next move, white checks next, and so on) in a legal position without promoted pieces, is 37. See &lt;a href=&quot;http://timkr.home.xs4all.nl/chess/check.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this article&lt;/a&gt; on Tim Krabbe's site entitled &amp;quot;Check!&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a theoretical limit for the length of such a sequence, or is a repetition possible, allowing checks forever?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5784" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-05-02T03:47:30.663" LastActivityDate="2021-05-02T16:47:15.627" Title="What is the theoretical limit for the number of consecutive checks?" Tags="&lt;problems&gt;&lt;check&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="8983" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8888" CreationDate="2015-04-01T11:10:40.227" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I tried the line 1.d4 b5 2.e4 Bb7 3.Bxb5 f5 4.exf5 Bxg2 5.Qh5+ g6 6.fxg6 Bg7 7.gxh7+ Kf8 8.hxg8=Q+ Kxg8 9.Qg6 Bxh1 from the comments &amp;amp; gained dynamic equality.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The line from &lt;em&gt;1. d4 Volume 2&lt;/em&gt; given by @magd gives a game more in my style &amp;amp; less in my opponent's, but only with a slight edge.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2015-04-01T11:10:40.227" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8984" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8985" CreationDate="2015-04-01T11:11:47.427" Score="8" ViewCount="1231" Body="&lt;p&gt;I like to play blitz games online (mostly 3, occasionally 5 minutes per player). When I play those, it is usually for enjoyment and getting into wild games - &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romantic_chess&quot;&gt;romantic chess&lt;/a&gt;, if you will.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This naturally means I play many, often questionable/unsound, gambits. (Un?)surprisingly, I fare quite well with this style, even against higher ranked players. I'm a decent player myself - around 2000 ELO when I was active (not anymore, though). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One of the gambits I particularly enjoy is the King's Gambit. I have a good understanding of how to play both the accepted and declined variations of it; however, the Falkbeer Countergambit always perplexed me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Falkbeer Countergambit&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. f4 d5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I tend to play 3. exd5 (main line). Now, after 3. .. c6 or 3. .. exf4 I tend to get at very least playable positions. After 3. .. e4, however, I tend to run into problems. Usually, black is able to castle faster than I, thus creating some nasty pressure on the e-file for my exposed king in the center and also later on on the now somewhat misplaced f4 pawn and exposed g1-a7 diagonal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, I guess the questions for the 3. exd5 e4 variation are: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What are some playable continuations for white here?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What are white's long term plans?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Some notable/instructive games would be nice.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please note, that this question is mostly applicable to blitz games. I probably would not play King's Gambit in a game with longer time controls anyway.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3831" LastActivityDate="2020-02-25T06:29:36.260" Title="King's Gambit - Falkbeer Countergambit" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;gambits&gt;&lt;blitz&gt;&lt;kings-gambit&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8985" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8984" CreationDate="2015-04-01T11:52:53.580" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;4…e4 should actually be the least attractive option for black. But you should probably know a bit about it: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Falkbeer Countergambit&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. f4 d5 3. exd5 e4 4. d3 Nf6 5. dxe4 Nxe4 6. Nf3 Bc5 7.Qe2! Bf2  &#xA;8. Kd1 Qxd5 9.Nfd2!&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The checks 7…Bf2 and 8…Qd5 look threatening, but now white is going to win material because of the threat Nc3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Falkbeer Countergambit&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. f4 d5 3. exd5 e4 4. d3 Nf6 5. dxe4 Nxe4 6. Nf3 Bc5 7.Qe2! O-O&#xA;8. Qxe4 Re8 9.Ne5 f6 10.d6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;10.d6 is actually not the strongest continuation, but the threat to pick up the bishop with Qc4+ or to play Bc4+ is quite tricky to meet in a blitz game. Lots of ways to win quickly with white (for example 10…cd is already losing).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The general idea of 7.Qe2 is to neutralise the Bc5 with Be3 (i.e. 7…Bf5 8.Nc3 Qe7 9.Be3 or 7…Qe7 8.Be3), which usually leads to a better endgame for white.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And if you play somebody who knows his theory: The offbeat way to play against the Falkbeer would be 6.Be3 with a nice exchange sac as mainline: 6.Be3 Qh4 7.g3 Nxg3 8.Nf3 Qh5 9.hxg3 Qxh1&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastEditorUserId="4362" LastEditDate="2015-04-01T13:32:32.280" LastActivityDate="2015-04-01T13:32:32.280" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8986" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8982" CreationDate="2015-04-01T14:49:44.650" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Because of the fifty move rule, the limit is 50. If you ignore the 50 move rule, then there still is a limit because there is a finite number of chess positions.  The fifty-move rule allows a player to claim a draw if no capture or no pawn occurred in the last fifty moves. For this purpose. a &amp;quot;move&amp;quot; consists of a player completing his turn followed by their opponent completing his turn. Threefold repetition is also an option, wherein if the position on the board repeats three times, a player can claim a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3872" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-02-05T20:34:24.150" LastActivityDate="2021-02-05T20:34:24.150" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="8987" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1981" CreationDate="2015-04-01T16:24:24.257" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;My 60 Memorable Games&lt;/em&gt; is a great book on so many levels.  There's something in it for everyone, from beginner to grandmaster.  If you want to learn the Ruy Lopez, go over the Ruy Lopez games.  (While Fischer was known for the Sicilan, Sicilian opening theory has changed more than Ruy Lopez since the 70's.)  It's especially fun to go over Fischer's analyses with an engine, to see if his opinions about his games where really correct or not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While it isn't the only book on chess to read, it is one of the great classics.  If it is the only one you read, you'll still find that it improves your game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've seen recommendations for Chernev's &lt;em&gt;Logical Chess&lt;/em&gt;.  That is indeed a good book, one of the few that explains every move.  When I was a beginner, I often found it frustrating to go through books and have no idea why a particular move was chosen.  If you can get past his gushy style, there's a lot of good insight in there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7138" LastEditorUserId="10867" LastEditDate="2017-01-07T00:41:25.203" LastActivityDate="2017-01-07T00:41:25.203" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8990" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8975" CreationDate="2015-04-02T03:52:19.907" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Knowing the plays -- and knowing the player, are not the same.  On any given day a player might play differently, and you must control the tempo of a game to see how the player responds; meaning it's not just about playing slow, but about controlling the pace of the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="38" LastActivityDate="2015-04-02T03:52:19.907" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8991" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-04-02T08:47:55.517" Score="7" ViewCount="907" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a beginner I've found that it is psychologically really nice playing QGA as white simply because I have a clear task at hand in the early game - namely recapture that pawn.  Similarly, hedgehog for black is satisfying because you are aiming for a layout rather than a sequence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I often find it quite hard to stumble through the early game when there is no clear objective - many openings the objective is simply to &quot;develop pieces onto good squares&quot;.  I'm not yet good enough to visualise that task so play pretty aimlessly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What other openings should I look at that have clear, understandable, short term objectives to get you to the mid-game?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6963" LastActivityDate="2020-08-16T04:53:54.243" Title="What openings provide &quot;mini-objectives&quot; in the early game?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;beginner&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8992" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8973" CreationDate="2015-04-02T09:08:41.527" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;After 1.Nf3 the most popular answer is 1…Nf6, which is a hundred times more common than 1…b5. 1…d5 is the second most popular choice, still fifty times more likely to appear on the board than 1…b5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now the difference between 1…Nf6 and 1…d5 is mostly one of compatibility with the rest of your opening repertoire. 1…Nf6 is more common because the indian defences are more popular than the 1…d5 against 1.d4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But 1…b5 is decidedly &lt;strong&gt;offbeat&lt;/strong&gt;. The reason is that it doesn't immediately fight for control of the central squares. The importance of the central squares is explained in the answers to this question: &#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/5142/why-is-the-centre-of-the-board-considered-important-in-chess&quot;&gt;Why is the centre of the board considered important in chess?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Still, 1…b5 isn't a mistake. It has the ideas of developing the bishop to b7, making c4 impossible and maybe annoy a Nc3 in the future. If black can consolidate, the additional space on the queenside might make a difference.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The main problem from a theoretical standpoint is probably that it is rather slow: 1.Nf3 b5 2.e4 Bb7 3.Bxb5 Bxe4 4.Nc3 Bb7 5.O-O and white has quite a significant development lead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2015-04-02T09:08:41.527" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8993" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8991" CreationDate="2015-04-02T09:48:29.557" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think this question divides into two parts:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Openings with &quot;mini objectives&quot; early in the game.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Openings that go for a layout instead of a sequence.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The second part is easier to tackle: There are a lot of openings, usually called &quot;systems&quot;, that go for a certain structure without bothering too much with what the opponent is doing. Some examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The London System&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The Colle-Zukertort&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The Stonewall-Dutch&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The Stonewall with white&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also in many sicilian lines (most notably the dragon) white just castles long and starts to march his kingside pawns --&gt; sac,sac,mate as Bobby Fischer famously said. But these are much more dependent on move order issues and concrete tactics.&#xA;You could interpret &quot;long castles&quot; as a mini-objective for white in the English attack, which is almost always achieved by playing f3, Be3, Qd2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mini-objective vary from variation to variation, but I think there is one mini-objective that is almost always relevant, especially when playing black: pawn levers. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example if you play the black side of a QGA, you might go for the pawn lever c5. In a King's Indian black prepares the pawn lever f5, and sometimes c6 (whereas white goes for c5). In a Benoni he goes for b5 and sometimes f5. In a Meran you will always play c5 or e5 at some point, while white usually plays e4, in a Italian or Spanish game white prepares e4, in a French black goes c5 and white hopes for f5 … they are all over the place!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So my advice would be to look out for pawn levers in the openings you play. They should very often provide the mini-objective that gets you from the opening into the middlegame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-04-02T09:48:29.557" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8994" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8973" CreationDate="2015-04-02T09:50:05.407" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is hopefully the answer you're looking for, Nf3 is part of 2 Openings (as far as I know).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First is the &quot;Zukertort Opening&quot; 1.Nf3 d5 (so d5 is the response) however there is also a c5 response for black attempting to make it a Sicilian (I do not know much about this opening except for this you'll have to do some research on it)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now there is the more famous Reti Opening, where it's actually 1.Nf3 d5 (just like the last one) and now 2.c4... You'll most likely find a lot more information on this opening than the Zukertort.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the overall conclusion 1. Nf3 d5 is the answer for your question, however as you can see there is the c5 answer as well. So it depends on your play style afterwards. You might want to play the c5 from the Zukort to transcend into the Sicilian (which might be up your alley depending on how you play as black)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope I helped. If you have any further questions feel free to comment and I will answer to the best of my abilities.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also just to make sure, those are the only 2 openings I know of that start with Nf3 there might be others :) I will research around and see if I can find any with other answers then post a comment on this post :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6966" LastActivityDate="2015-04-02T09:50:05.407" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8995" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6034" CreationDate="2015-04-02T09:59:19.733" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is an engine called Delfi made by &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.msbsoftware.it/delfi/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot; title=&quot;msb software&quot;&gt;msb software&lt;/a&gt;. It is designed to play at lower ratings but also to play more like a human amateur. It is commercial, not free but I think there is a free version with some limitations. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1036" LastActivityDate="2015-04-02T09:59:19.733" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8996" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8991" CreationDate="2015-04-02T10:36:10.483" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Technically speaking ALL openings have an objective other than developing your pieces. For example&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Italian Game/Italian Opening goes like so:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From this position you would think it's simply development of pieces however that's not the case. In the Italian game, the opening itself for white is pin pointed on the f7 weakness in black's structure, when black played e5 in response to white's e4 it opened up a weakness in the structure which is the f7 pawn.&#xA;That f7 pawn ends up being a pinned pawn in many cases if the player castles on the king side normally, or even sometimes turns in to a bishop sacrifice if you have a good rook lift and an attack going on (however that's too complicated for a beginner in chess). In short Italian Opening's objective is simple, attack the king side's weaknesses and is an aggressive opening most of the time when it goes into the mid game phase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You also have the Ruy Lopez one of the most famous openings in the history of chess.&#xA;The opening focuses on ruining the pawn structure for Black and gaining a potential advantage with the pin on Knight on c6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You also have the French Defense which is also a famous opening&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The entire purpose and reputation of the French Defense is based on defense and counter play. Usually players of the french prefer a closed game, however that's a conversation for another thread. In the french black's objective is usually counter attack on the queen side while white usually focuses his attack on the king side. French defense also a solid pawn structure which upholds its reputation for defense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I truly can't give you a list since almost every single opening out there has an objective or a reason for every move. Posting more openings and their objectives + explanation would definitely take too long. However I will leave you with these 3 openings that I was able to mention in this long post and hopefully I helped. If you have any further questions feel free to ask and I will attempt to answer as best I can&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edited part to answer the questions in the comments section :)&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;King's Gambit (Polerio/Villemson Gambit line is shown below, not the classic line)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.f4 exf4 3. d4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This opening focuses more on offense, with white's move of 2.f4 he is hoping to accomplish mostly 2 things, 1.) ruin the pawn structure (doubled pawns on the f file) and 2. Clear the way to push down the middle. However King's Gambit has 2 variations, Accepted and Denied gambit (accepted is when black takes the f pawn and accepts the sacrifice, Denied is when black continues and ignores the pawn).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If black takes the pawn (which is mostly what white wants) white will in most cases sieze the opportunity and push down the middle with d4 hoping to occupy space and make space for his pieces to enter the game. However in response black usually focuses on the f2 spot weakness where the pawn was sitting before it was sacrificed. Black's objective after the sacrifice is usually have his black bishop hitting that diagonal and unless white can somehow defend it will become a problem (that's why it's called a gambit). From white's point of view however that open f column is also a weapon, it is basically a semi opened column (unless black's f pawn was taken back which would make it a completely open column) for the king side rook. And since King's gambit is usually an open game with bishops this is a dangerous combination.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is also the Queen'g Gambit, however instead of me typing the explanation here, you might have a more enjoyable time reading and listening to this&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.thechesswebsite.com/queens-gambit/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.thechesswebsite.com/queens-gambit/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope I helped :) If you have even more questions feel free to ask :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6966" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-08-16T04:53:54.243" LastActivityDate="2020-08-16T04:53:54.243" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="8997" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8975" CreationDate="2015-04-02T12:09:28.787" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Remember that they've usually spent a few hours before the game to prepare against this particular opponent: reviewed which openings the opponent plays and what his weaknesses are, chose what kind of opening to play today, made a guess which variations are likely to occur and made a plan based on that, et cetera. He always plays the same against 1.e4 and I have a nice idea against that line, maybe play that today even though it's not my main move? In that other line, he recently won spectacularly against a strong opponent but I have an improvement early on, he probably hasn't looked at it too closely...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, the opponent has done the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If everything goes exactly as expected, the moves go very fast. But usually at least one side goes for a surprise, and then the exact preparation is out of the window, and they have to rely on the general preparation. He suddenly goes 1.e4, maybe I should go for a secondary defense? But I know my main one so well... Or: he suddenly goes for the French! What have I played against this recently, should I avoid those lines? What other lines are there that he probably isn't that good at? &lt;em&gt;Why&lt;/em&gt; is he playing this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The moves and variations themselves are very familiar at that point, but there's still the metagame of choosing the right opening against this opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2015-04-02T12:09:28.787" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8998" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="8999" CreationDate="2015-04-02T12:21:03.893" Score="2" ViewCount="432" Body="&lt;p&gt;Before I get into the details of my questions, I already know the f, g and h pawn attack tactics, bishops sacrifices such as the greek gift and Lasker's double bishop sacrifice among a few others and of course things such as the isolated queen pawn positions(which is usually something that ends up in the end game part).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So what I am looking for are some advanced middle game tactics, be it from books, online teachers or anything of the sort. I do not have the money to buy the rest of Daniel King's power play series and I already exhausted the few books I have. Any help would be appreciated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6966" LastActivityDate="2015-04-02T12:43:48.203" Title="Advanced Middle Game Attacking Tactics" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;middlegame&gt;&lt;sacrifice&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="8999" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8998" CreationDate="2015-04-02T12:43:48.203" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.qualitychess.co.uk/products/2/23/the_attacking_manual_1_2nd_edition_-_by_jacob_aagaard/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;The attacking manual&lt;/a&gt; by Jacob Aagaard might be just what you are looking for. I enjoyed it a lot. It contains instructive games and exercises.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other good books on attacking: &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/0486284492&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Spielmann, The Art of Sacrifice&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1857444000&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Vukovic, The Art of Attack&lt;/a&gt;,  &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1901983250&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Christiansen, Storming the barricades&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-04-02T12:43:48.203" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9000" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2015-04-02T14:12:38.430" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2015-04-02T14:12:38.430" LastActivityDate="2015-04-02T14:12:38.430" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9001" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2015-04-02T14:12:38.430" Score="0" Body="Endgames where each side has a king, a queen, and possibly some pawns" OwnerUserId="1485" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2015-04-02T22:19:44.490" LastActivityDate="2015-04-02T22:19:44.490" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9002" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-04-02T15:04:31.790" Score="5" ViewCount="345" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalemate#Troitzky_versus_Vogt&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt; on stalemate shows a position where Vogt became victim of a diabolic stalemate trap set by Troitzky.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Troitzky-Vogt&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;2kr4/1ppb1pp1/1b4r1/pP2p3/P3P3/5qN1/2Q2P1P/2R1B1KR w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Rd1! Bh3? 2. Rxd8+ Kxd8 3. Qd1+ Qxd1 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would like to have the full game. Can anyone help?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5784" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-05-28T15:59:50.173" LastActivityDate="2020-05-28T18:21:58.883" Title="Complete game Troitzky-Vogt?" Tags="&lt;draw&gt;&lt;famous-players&gt;&lt;stalemate&gt;&lt;famous-games&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="9003" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-04-02T16:04:29.613" Score="9" ViewCount="790" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/1p5k/1P1p4/3p4/3Pp2p/2K1P2p/7P/8 w - - 0 0&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;21&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Kb2 Kg8 2. Ka1 Kf8 3. Ka2 Ke7 4. Kb3 Kd7 5. Kb4 Kc6 6. Ka5&#xA;Kd7 7. Kb4 Ke6 8. Kc3 Kf6 9. Kc2 Kg5 10. Kd1 Kg4 11. Ke2 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this great study from Ebersz, white can reach a draw, but only with&#xA;extreme accurate play. The given variation is one possible. All white &#xA;moves are forced, any other king move would lose. Suppose, white is&#xA;in such a position in a practical game, of course without access to&#xA;electronic topics. Can the correct squares be found out manually ?&#xA;I know the theory of countersquares, but it seems to be extremely&#xA;difficult.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How can white save this game without too much efforts ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5784" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2015-06-28T23:13:37.243" LastActivityDate="2015-06-28T23:13:37.243" Title="How can the moves from this pawn endgame study be found without a computer?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;pawn-endgame&gt;&lt;studies&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9004" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9003" CreationDate="2015-04-02T16:39:42.840" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some of the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corresponding_squares&quot;&gt;corresponding squares&lt;/a&gt; are quite easy to work out, especially if you write things down (not allowed in a real game).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First of all, it is clear that&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;a5&lt;/code&gt; corresponds to &lt;code&gt;c6&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black can move from &lt;code&gt;c6&lt;/code&gt; to &lt;code&gt;g4&lt;/code&gt; in 4 moves. The only square that stops black's invasion and is 4 moves away from &lt;code&gt;a5&lt;/code&gt; is &lt;code&gt;e2&lt;/code&gt;, so &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;e2&lt;/code&gt; corresponds to &lt;code&gt;g4&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The squares on the paths in between need to correspond, so&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;b4&lt;/code&gt; corresponds to &lt;code&gt;d7&lt;/code&gt;,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;c3&lt;/code&gt; corresponds to &lt;code&gt;e6&lt;/code&gt;,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;d2&lt;/code&gt; corresponds to &lt;code&gt;f5&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It then follows that&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;b3&lt;/code&gt; corresponds to &lt;code&gt;e7&lt;/code&gt;,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;c2&lt;/code&gt; corresponds to &lt;code&gt;f6&lt;/code&gt;,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;d1&lt;/code&gt; corresponds to &lt;code&gt;g5&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hence,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;b2&lt;/code&gt; corresponds to &lt;code&gt;f7&lt;/code&gt;,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;c1&lt;/code&gt; corresponds to &lt;code&gt;g6&lt;/code&gt;,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;b1&lt;/code&gt; corresponds to &lt;code&gt;g7&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The trickiest part is to show that &lt;code&gt;a3&lt;/code&gt; corresponds to &lt;code&gt;e8&lt;/code&gt;. When the black king is on &lt;code&gt;e8&lt;/code&gt;, it threatens to go to &lt;code&gt;d7&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;e7&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;f7&lt;/code&gt;, corresponding to &lt;code&gt;b4&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;b3&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;b2&lt;/code&gt; for white. Therefore the white king needs to be on &lt;code&gt;a3&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;c3&lt;/code&gt;, but &lt;code&gt;c3&lt;/code&gt; is the wrong square. Why? Because after a subsequent &lt;code&gt;Kd8&lt;/code&gt; move form black, white would be in zugzwang. Black can still go to &lt;code&gt;d7&lt;/code&gt;or &lt;code&gt;e7&lt;/code&gt;, so white needs to go to a square adjacent to &lt;code&gt;b4&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;b3&lt;/code&gt;. Such a square is not available from &lt;code&gt;c3&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;a3&lt;/code&gt; corresponds to &lt;code&gt;e8&lt;/code&gt;,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and therefore&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;a4&lt;/code&gt; corresponds to &lt;code&gt;d8&lt;/code&gt;,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;a2&lt;/code&gt; corresponds to &lt;code&gt;f8&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;a1&lt;/code&gt; corresponds to &lt;code&gt;g8&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now the solution can be explained. In the diagram position Black can go to &lt;code&gt;g6&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;g7&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;g8&lt;/code&gt;, so white needs to have &lt;code&gt;c1&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;b1&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;a1&lt;/code&gt; available. Therefore &lt;code&gt;1. Kb2!&lt;/code&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1485" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2015-04-02T19:01:50.647" LastActivityDate="2015-04-02T19:01:50.647" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9005" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9006" CreationDate="2015-04-03T03:10:28.813" Score="5" ViewCount="949" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm thinking of dedicating some of my free time to learn and play chess in a systematic and serious way and try to participate in a non-Internet tournament in a few months. I will take this activity as a hobby, but still want to keep it serious, cos I know that my progress will determine how much fun the thing will be.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know that there are many websites that allow you play chess online, but I'm interested in what experienced users have to say about them taking in care my goals. I'm looking for a place that allows me learn, play and test myself giving me a kind of rating from which I could infer with more or less accurateness my FIDE ELO and then decide when I'm ready to spend time participating in a non-Internet tournament.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user2378" LastEditorUserId="10867" LastEditDate="2016-07-26T15:16:44.800" LastActivityDate="2016-07-26T15:16:44.800" Title="What are the differences between the major online chess sites that allow to play?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;elo&gt;&lt;training&gt;&lt;online-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9006" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9005" CreationDate="2015-04-03T07:00:23.507" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Nowadays there is really a abundance of good chess servers. And they are all relatively similar. I think you need a site where you can:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Play blitz chess&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Play correspondence chess&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Do tactics training&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Learn via articles and/or videos&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want everything on one site, www.chess.com is probably your best bet. As far as I know ICC, chess24, playchess and FICS don't have correspondence games. For beginners it is often hard to play blitz, and even later you might learn more from longer games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The downside of chess.com is that the players are relatively weak. But if you are just starting out, this is not going to bug you for a few years.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-04-03T07:00:23.507" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9007" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9009" CreationDate="2015-04-03T08:51:26.097" Score="3" ViewCount="2406" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is rarely seen at top level nowadays, but in the times of Fischer and Kasparov vs. Karpov matches, it was a very popular opening for Black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I heard that Kramnik made Kasparov stop playing KID and that the Bayonet attack is one of the main reasons that KID is not played so often anymore. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is the KID considered to be unsound at the top level today? What are the key games that caused this shift in popularity of the KID?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2792" LastActivityDate="2019-05-24T10:50:13.047" Title="Soundness of the King's Indian Defence" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;kings-indian&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9008" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9007" CreationDate="2015-04-03T09:31:13.573" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The King's Indian is very non-symmetric agressiv opening. It was popularized by player like Kasparov or Fischer always looking for big complication even with Black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In today's chess, players with black are more looking for very solid opening play and try to win a long run game. But still many top level grandmaster are playing it like Nakamura, Giri, Ding Liren, Bacrot, Vachier-Lagrave ...&#xA;Of course most of the time to avoid preparation they have other weapons than King's Indian like Grunfeld, Benoni or Dutch.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also the KID doesn't seem unsound as &quot;Quality Chess&quot;, which is an editor reknowned for the quality of the books they publish, is publishing a series by GM Vassilios Kotronias on the King's Indian.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3480" LastActivityDate="2015-04-03T09:31:13.573" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9009" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9007" CreationDate="2015-04-03T09:36:51.860" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Actually the King's Indian has seen a recent rise in popularity. For a few years now, players like Nakamura and Radjabov have revitalised the opening. And if you take a look at the very recent top level games it is striking how many top players gave it a try: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1788930&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Nakamura&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1784517&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Jobava&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1784773&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Grischuk&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1784811&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Giri&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1785402&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Radjabov&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1785401&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Kasimdzhanov&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1784265&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Bacrot&lt;/a&gt; and quite consistently &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1782678&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Ding Liren&lt;/a&gt;, just to name a few.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Those are all games from 2015 and the list reads like a who's who in top level chess. So there certainly is no big theoretical issue, that would dissuade black from playing the King's Indian. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One of the hottest lines right now is the 6.h3 line (white's choice in most of the games I linked), apparently Aronian introduced some tricky ideas for white in this variation (according to Seirawan). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have heard this Kramnik-Bayonet-story before, but I'm not sure how close it is to the truth. Kasparov himself said, that he stopped playing the King's Indian because it became too much work to keep up with two ultra-sharp black defences (The other being the Najdorf). A few years ago the Bayonet-variation was still widely played (Nakamura scored &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1554908&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;some&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1567841&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;impressive&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1649582&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;wins&lt;/a&gt; against it), but for now the focus seems to have shifted to 6.h3. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-04-03T09:36:51.860" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9010" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-04-03T10:08:28.140" Score="1" ViewCount="2902" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is it the right choice to lose the queen for two rooks for this situation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/k9W4k.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7136" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2015-04-03T10:48:49.657" LastActivityDate="2015-04-03T15:13:10.557" Title="Is it the right choice to lose the queen for two rooks?" Tags="&lt;queens&gt;&lt;rooks&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9011" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9010" CreationDate="2015-04-03T10:28:00.857" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The answer is IN THIS position NO (if you're black) However it's a forced win anyways &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.lichess.org/jEK9MC3O#10&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://en.lichess.org/jEK9MC3O#10&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is the game's result against a lvl 6 stockfish (I played against it) which is just over 2000 rating. It's a won game due to the pawn structures. Keep in mind stockfish rating goes up and down depending on people's wins and loses so it might not be 2000 it may be more like 2100 or even lower like 1900.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course you can ignore the latter part of the game since the AI on the site doesn't resign :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, for the most part trading 2 rooks for a Queen is considered as material loss instead of gain. Mathematically speaking, a Queen is worth 9 points, a rook is worth 5, meaning both rooks are worth a total of 10. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And you have a lot of proof for this, a very simple example is King + 2 rooks vs King + Queen... This is a draw, and I am talking about a fully empty board just these pieces on, it's a forced draw...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However just like in this position, sometimes the location of rooks and pawn structure of the game makes this sacrifice a game winner... Black can't really defend against anything white throws at him, unless white blunders heavily.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And as you can see from the game link you have the explanation of the advantage of each move played after the sacrifice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope I helped.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6966" LastEditorUserId="6966" LastEditDate="2015-04-03T15:13:10.557" LastActivityDate="2015-04-03T15:13:10.557" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9012" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9010" CreationDate="2015-04-03T10:40:16.390" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;If it is white to move, he should probably play c3, Qb2 and only then Rxb7, not even allowing black the choice to trade the queen for two rooks. I don't see how black can defend against this and the resulting position should be winning for white. Maybe a computer will tell you that immediately taking on b7 is even stronger, but for a human this entails a certain amount of risk, whereas c3,Qb2,Rxb7 keeps complete control.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it is black to move, he should probably play Kb8 with idea of playing Ka7 and Rb8, defending against c3, Qb2, Rxb7. In that case Rxb7 might be whites best choice and it looks indeed like a strong continuation. Something like 2.Rxb7 Qxb7 3.Rxb7 Kxb7 4.Qb4 Ka7 5.c6 Rb8 6.Qc5+ Ka8 7.Qxc4 Ka7 8.Qc5+ Ka8 9.Qe7 Rc8 would also result in a position where white is in complete control and can push his extra pawns with c4, d5 and maybe intrude with the king h4, Kh2,Kg3,Kf4,Kg5,Kf6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not taking the rook after Rxb7 is not really a choice for black. In that case he would just be lost without any counterchances.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-04-03T10:40:16.390" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9013" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5749" CreationDate="2015-04-03T11:01:51.737" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Im fairly new to caro kann myself, and am searching for the exact same answer as the original poster.... looking for a quiet continuation. I think, Nc6 is the best option. After that white can play Nf3 or the sharp Bg5. The main blunting move for black here is Be6, played quite commonly these days at the top level, and kind of unusual at the club/amateur level... so I doubt your opponent would know the best continuations for white thereafter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7150" LastActivityDate="2015-04-03T11:01:51.737" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9014" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9005" CreationDate="2015-04-03T13:01:17.523" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recommend &lt;a href=&quot;http://chesstempo.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://chesstempo.com&lt;/a&gt; with all my heart. It is free with no advertisements. The interface allows a large choice of board sizes and figurine fonts. You can play online against other people or against computers of various strengths even when people are not available. You can also do tactics training - the best site for this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3456" LastActivityDate="2015-04-03T13:01:17.523" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9015" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-04-03T19:50:12.207" Score="-1" ViewCount="933" Body="&lt;p&gt;How many possible positions are there in chess? Please be exact.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5649" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2015-04-03T20:23:07.487" LastActivityDate="2015-04-03T20:23:07.487" Title="How many possible positions are there in chess?" Tags="&lt;theory&gt;&lt;game-complexity&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2015-04-03T20:35:04.857" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9016" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9015" CreationDate="2015-04-03T20:14:14.213" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Shannon estimated the number of possible positions roughly 10^43. This includes some illegal positions (e.g., pawns on the first rank, both kings in check) and excludes legal positions following captures and promotions. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Taking these into account, Victor Allis calculated an upper bound of 5×10^52 for the number of positions, and estimated the true number to be about 10^50.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Recent results improve that estimate, by proving an upper bound of only 2^155, which is less than 10^46.7 and showing an upper bound 2×10^40 in the absence of promotions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6966" LastActivityDate="2015-04-03T20:14:14.213" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9017" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-04-04T09:15:26.540" Score="3" ViewCount="293" Body="&lt;p&gt;What are some openings that are extremely difficult to obtain a draw in? I have been recently playing openings like the Ruy Lopez and facing a lot of draws. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5791" LastEditorUserId="17" LastEditDate="2016-07-14T18:30:40.523" LastActivityDate="2016-07-14T18:30:40.523" Title="Undrawable Openings?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9018" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9017" CreationDate="2015-04-04T09:53:17.793" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you play more aggressively and choose sharper lines, your draw rate will go down - though not necessarily the way you want it to.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Generally gambit lines are sharp, whether you are giving or taking the pawn. So you could play the King's Gambit instead of the Ruy Lopez.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another possibility is to play the Italian Game and choose the Evans Gambit against 3…Bc5 and 4.Ng5 against 3.Nf6. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But although the Ruy Lopez is a rather strategic opening, a high draw rate in your games is more likely connected to your style of play. If you keep the tension, i.e. not going for exchanges, and try to build a strong kingside attack, you should get a lot of decisive games even in the Ruy. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-04-04T09:53:17.793" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9019" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8926" CreationDate="2015-04-04T10:33:48.007" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, Black had a chance to save the game on moves 45, 46,  and 48. Her entire plan from 45 to 49 is wrong. She needed to bring her king and leave the rook uncommitted (in various positions) for as long as possible. See &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.viewchess.com/cbreader/2015/4/4/Game362695015.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;the analysis below&lt;/a&gt; (thanks to Stockfish 6 x64 in Deep Fritz GUI).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;FIDE Women's World Chess Championship&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Sochi RUS&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2015.03.24&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;3.2&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Natalia Pogonina&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Marie Sebag&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;D46&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;134&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;2015.03.17&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. c4 c6 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. Nc3 e6 5. e3 Nbd7 6. Qc2 Bd6 7. Bd3 O-O &#xA;8. O-O e5 9. cxd5 cxd5 10. e4 exd4 11. Nxd5 Nxd5 12. exd5 h6 13. Rd1 Nf6 &#xA;14. h3 Nxd5 15. Bh7+ Kh8 16. Rxd4 Nf6 17. Bf4 Nxh7 18. Bxd6 Re8 19. Qb3 &#xA;Kg8 20. Ne5 Qf6 21. Rad1 Ng5 22. h4 Ne6 23. Re4 Nf4 24. Qa4 b5 25. Qxb5 &#xA;Be6 26. Qa4 Ng6 27. Nxg6 Qxg6 28. Rde1 Red8 29. Be5 Rac8 30. a3 Kh7 31. &#xA;Bc3 Bd7 32. Qxa7 Bc6 33. h5 Qg5 34. Qxf7 Bxe4 35. Rxe4 Rd1+ 36. Kh2 Rc5 &#xA;37. Qg6+ Qxg6 38. hxg6+ Kxg6 39. Re7 Rh5+ 40. Kg3 Rg5+ 41. Kf3 Rd3+ 42. &#xA;Ke2 Rxc3 43. bxc3 Rxg2 44. Re3 Rh2 45. c4 Rh4 (45... Kf7 46. Rf3+ (46. &#xA;c5 Rh4 (46... Rh5) 47. Kd3 (47. Kd2 Ra4 48. c6 ( 48. Kc2 Ra5 49. c6 Ra8 &#xA;50. Kb3 Rc8 51. a4 Rxc6 52. a5 Rf6 53. Re4 Rxf2 54. a6 Rd2 55. a7 Rd8 &#xA;56. Rg4 Ra8 57. Ra4 Ke6 {0.00/19}) 48... Ra8 49. Rd3 Ke6 50. Rd7 g5 &#xA;51. Rh7 Kd6 52. Rxh6+ Kc7 53. Rh3 Kxc6 54. Rd3 Ra4 55. Ke3 Kc5 56. Ke2 &#xA;Re4+ 57. Kf1 Ra4 {0.60/19}) (47. Rc3 Ke7 48. c6 (48. Rg3 g5 49. Rd3 &#xA;Ra4 50. Rd6 Rxa3 51. Rxh6 g4 52. f3 Rxf3 53. Rg6 Rc3 54. Rxg4 Rxc5 55. &#xA;Rg6 Rc3 56. Rb6 Ra3 57. Rc6 Rg3 {0.00/0}) 48... Kd8 49. Rd3+ Kc8 50. &#xA;Rd6 Rg4 51. Rd7 g5 52. Rh7 Re4+ 53. Kd1 Re6 54. f3 Rxc6 55. a4 Rf6 56. &#xA;a5 Rxf3 57. Rxh6 Ra3 {0.00/ 19}) 47... Rf4 (47... Ra4 48. Kc2 (48. &#xA;Re5 Rxa3+ 49. Kc4 Kf6 50. Re8 Kf7 51. Re2 h5 52. c6 Ra1 53. Kc5 h4 54. &#xA;f3 h3 55. f4 Rc1+ 56. Kd5 Kf6 57. Rh2 Rc3 {0. 00/19}) 48... h5 49. Kb3 &#xA;Ra6 50. Kb4 Re6 51. Rh3 g6 52. a4 Ke7 53. Kb5 Kd7 54. Rd3+ Kc8 55. a5 &#xA;Re2 56. Rd6 g5 57. f3 Kc7 {1.56/19}) 48. Re2 (48. Re1 Rf3+ 49. Kc4 Rxf2 &#xA;50. a4 h5 51. Kb3 Rf5 52. Kb4 Rf2 53. a5 Rb2+ 54. Kc4 Rc2+ 55. Kb5 Rb2+ &#xA;56. Kc6 Ra2 57. Kb6 Rb2+ {0.67/19}) (48. a4 Rxa4 49. Re2 h5 50. f3 &#xA;h4 51. c6 h3 52. f4 Ra6 53. Rc2 Ra8 54. f5 Kf6 55. c7 Rc8 56. Ke4 h2 57. &#xA;Rxh2 Rxc7 {0.00/19}) 48... h5 49. c6 Ra4 50. c7 Ra8 51. Rc2 Rc8 52. &#xA;Ke4 Ke6 53. Kf4 g6 54. Kg5 Kd7 55. Kxg6 h4 56. Kg5 h3 57. Rc3 Rh8 &#xA;{1.37/19}) (46. a4 Rh5 47. Ra3 (47. Kd2 Rf5 48. Kc3 (48. Ra3 Ke7 49. f3 &#xA;Kd6 50. a5 Rf7 51. Rd3+ Kc5 52. Kc3 Rf5 53. a6 Rf7 54. f4 Rxf4 55. a7 &#xA;Rf8 56. Rd1 Ra8 57. Rd7 g6 {0.00/ 19}) 48... Rxf2 49. c5 g5 50. Kb3 &#xA;Rf6 51. Kc4 g4 52. a5 h5 53. Kb5 h4 54. c6 Rh6 55. c7 Rh8 56. Rd3 Rc8 &#xA;57. Rd4 Rxc7 {0.00/19}) (47. Rf3+ Ke6 48. Rg3 ( 48. Rb3 Ra5 49. Rb6+ &#xA;Kf7 50. Rb4 h5 51. Kd3 h4 52. Ke4 g5 53. Rb7+ Ke6 54. Rb6+ Ke7 55. Rb7+ &#xA;Ke6 56. Rb6+ Ke7 57. Rh6 Rxa4 {0.00/19}) 48... Kf6 49. Ra3 Ra5 50. &#xA;Kd3 Ke7 51. Kc3 Rf5 52. Ra2 Kd6 53. Kb4 Rf7 54. Rd2+ Kc6 55. a5 Rb7+ 56. &#xA;Kc3 Ra7 57. Ra2 Kc5 {0.34/19}) 47... Ra5 48. Kd2 (48. Kd3 Ke7 49. Kc3 &#xA;Rf5 50. Ra2 Kd6 51. Kb4 Rf7 52. a5 Rb7+ 53. Kc3 Kc5 54. a6 Ra7 55. f4 &#xA;Kb6 56. Kd4 Rxa6 57. Rg2 Ra7 {0.29/19}) 48... Ke6 {0.50/29} 49. &#xA;Kc3 Kd6 50. Kb4 Ra8 51. c5+ Kc6 52. Re3 h5 53. Re6+ Kd5 54. Rd6+ Ke5 55. &#xA;Rd1 h4 56. c6 h3 57. Kb5 Rb8+ {2.55/19}) (46. Rb3 Rh4 47. Rb4 (47. &#xA;Rc3 Rh1 48. Ke3 (48. Kd3 g5 49. Ke4 Ke6 50. a4 Kd6 51. a5 Kc5 52. Rf3 &#xA;Ra1 53. Rf6 Ra2 54. f3 Kxc4 55. Rxh6 Rxa5 56. f4 gxf4 57. Kxf4 Ra8 &#xA;{0.00/0}) 48... Ke7 49. Kd4 Kd6 50. Rf3 Rd1+ 51. Rd3 Ra1 52. Rg3 Rd1+ &#xA;53. Kc3 Rc1+ 54. Kd3 Rd1+ 55. Kc2 Rd4 56. Kc3 Kc5 57. Rxg7 Rxc4+ &#xA;{0.24/19}) (47. Rf3+) 47... Rh3 48. f3 (48. Rb7+ Kf6 49. f3 Rh1 50. Ke3 &#xA;Ra1 51. Ra7 h5 52. Ra6+ Ke7 53. Kf4 Rc1 54. Rc6 Kd7 55. Rc5 Kd6 56. Rxh5 &#xA;Rxc4+ 57. Ke3 Rc3+ {0.00/19}) 48... h5 49. a4 Rh2+ 50. Kd3 Ra2 51. &#xA;c5 Ke6 52. Kc4 g5 53. Kb5 h4 54. c6 Rc2 55. Rb1 Kd6 56. Rd1+ Kc7 57. &#xA;Rd7+ Kc8 {0. 93/19}) (46. Re5 Rh3 47. f3 (47. a4 Rc3 48. Rc5 (48. c5 &#xA;Ra3 49. f3 Rxa4 50. Kd3 Ra1 51. Kc4 Kf6 52. Re8 Rc1+ 53. Kd4 h5 &#xA;{0.00/19} 54. Rf8+ Ke6 55. Re8+ Kf6 56. Rf8+ Ke6 57. Re8+ Kf6 {0.00/19}) &#xA;48... Ke6 49. a5 Kd6 50. Kd2 Rf3 51. Rd5+ Ke6 52. Rd8 Rf5 53. a6 Rxf2+ &#xA;54. Kc3 Ra2 55. Ra8 Kd6 56. Kd3 Kc6 57. a7 h5 {0. 00/19}) (47. Ra5 &#xA;Rc3 48. Ra7+ (48. a4 Rxc4 49. Ra7+ Kf6 50. a5 Ra4 51. a6 Ke5 52. Ra8 Kd5 &#xA;53. a7 Kc6 54. Rc8+ Kb7 55. Rg8 Kxa7 56. Rxg7+ Kb6 57. f3 Kc6 { &#xA;0.00/19}) 48... Kf6 49. a4 Rxc4 50. a5 Ra4 51. a6 Ke5 52. Ra8 Kd5 53. a7 &#xA;Kc6 54. Rc8+ Kb7 55. Rg8 Kxa7 56. Rxg7+ Kb6 57. f3 Kc6 {0.00/19}) &#xA;47... Kf6 48. Re3 (48. Re8 Rh1 49. a4 Ra1 50. Ra8 h5 51. f4 Ra3 52. c5 &#xA;Ke6 53. Re8+ Kd5 54. Re5+ Kc6 55. Rxh5 Rxa4 56. Kf3 Rc4 57. Kg4 Rxc5 &#xA;{0.04/19}) 48... h5 49. c5 Rh2+ 50. Kd1 Rb2 51. c6 Rb8 52. a4 Rc8 53. &#xA;Rc3 Ke6 54. Rc5 g6 55. a5 Kd6 56. Rg5 Rg8 57. Ke2 Re8+ {0.18/19}) &#xA;(46. Rc3 Rh1 47. c5 (47. Ke3 g5 48. Kd4 ( 48. c5) 48... h5 49. Ke5 g4 &#xA;50. c5 Ke7 51. Kf4 Kd7 52. f3 Rh3 53. a4 Kc6 54. a5 Rxf3+ 55. Rxf3 gxf3 &#xA;56. Kxf3 Kb5 57. a6 Kxa6 {0.00/1}) (47. f4 Ke6 48. Re3+ (48. Kf2 Kd6 &#xA;49. a4 Ra1 50. Rg3 g5 51. fxg5 hxg5 52. Rxg5 Rxa4 53. c5+ Kc6 54. Ke3 &#xA;Rc4 55. Rg1 Kxc5 56. Ra1 Kd6 57. Kd3 Rg4 {0.00/0}) 48... Kf5 49. Rc3 &#xA;Ke6 50. Kf2 Kd6 51. Rg3 g5 52. Rd3+ Ke6 53. a4 Ra1 54. fxg5 hxg5 55. c5 &#xA;Rxa4 56. Rg3 g4 57. Re3+ Kd5 {0.00/19}) 47... Ke7 48. Rg3 (48. Rb3) &#xA;48... g5 49. a4 Ra1 50. Rh3 Rxa4 51. Rxh6 g4 52. Kf1 Rc4 53. Rh7+ Kd8 &#xA;54. f3 gxf3 55. Rh2 Rxc5 56. Rh7 Rd5 57. Kf2 Rf5 {0.00/0}) 46... Ke6 &#xA;47. Rg3 (47. a4 Rh5 48. Re3+ (48. Rg3 Ra5 49. Rxg7 Rxa4 50. Rg4 Kf5 51. &#xA;Rh4 Kg5 52. Re4 h5 53. Kf3 Kf5 54. Rd4 Ra3+ 55. Ke2 Rc3 56. f3 Kg5 57. &#xA;Kd2 Rxf3 {0.00/19}) 48... Kd6 49. Rg3 Ra5 50. Rxg7 Rxa4 51. Kd3 Ra3+ &#xA;52. Ke4 Rc3 53. Rg6+ Kd7 54. Kd5 Rf3 55. Rg7+ Kc8 56. Rg2 Kd7 57. Ke4 &#xA;Rc3 {0.06/19}) (47. Rf8 Rh3 48. f3 (48. a4 Ra3 49. Ra8 Kd6 50. a5 &#xA;Kc5 51. a6 Kb6 52. Rb8+ Kc5 53. Rc8+ Kb6 54. Rg8 Rxa6 55. Rxg7 Kc5 56. &#xA;f4 Kxc4 57. f5 Kd5 {0.00/19}) 48... Rh2+ 49. Ke3 Ra2 50. Ra8 h5 51. &#xA;a4 Ra3+ 52. Kf2 Ke5 53. a5 Kf4 54. c5 Ra2+ 55. Ke1 h4 56. c6 h3 57. c7 &#xA;h2 {0.00/19}) 47... Kf6 48. Ke3 (48. a4 Rh5 49. Ra3 Ra5 50. Kd3 Ke7 51. &#xA;Ra1 Kd6 52. Kd4 Rf5 53. Rd1 Kc7 54. Rd2 h5 55. Re2 h4 56. Ke4 Rc5 57. &#xA;Rc2 Kc6 {0.10/19} ) 48... Rh1 49. Ke4 h5 50. c5 Rc1 51. Kd5 h4 52. Rf3+ &#xA;Ke7 53. Rh3 g5 54. f4 Kf6 55. c6 gxf4 56. Rxh4 Kg5 57. Rh2 f3 {2.56/19}) &#xA;(45... Kf6 46. a4 (46. c5 Rh4 47. Kd3 Ra4 48. Re8 Rxa3+) 46... Rh5 47. &#xA;Ra3 Ra5 48. Kd3 Ke6 {0.63/29}) (45... Rh1 46. Kd2 Rb1 (46... Kf6 47. c5 &#xA;Rb1 (47... Rh5 48. c6 Ra5 {2.01/29}) 48. Kc3 h5 {1.07/29}) (46... Kf7 &#xA;47. c5 Rb1 (47... Rh5 48. c6 Ra5 {1.75/29}) 48. a4 h5 {1.40/29}) 47. c5 &#xA;Kf7 (47... Kf6 48. Kc3 h5 {1.11/29}) 48. Kc3 g5 {0.60/29}) 46. Kd3 Rf4 &#xA;({Stockfish 6 64:} 46... Kf7 47. Kc3 (47. Rf3+ Ke7 (47... Ke6 48. a4 &#xA;(48. Kc3 Rh1 49. a4 g5 50. a5 h5 51. Kb4 g4 52. Ra3 Kd6 53. a6 Rb1+ 54. &#xA;Kc3 Rb8 55. Ra5 h4 56. Rg5 h3 57. Rxg4 Rh8 58. Rg1 h2 59. Rh1 Kc6 60. &#xA;Kd4 Kb6 61. f4 Kxa6 62. f5 Kb7 63. f6 Kc6 64. Ke4 Kc5 65. f7 Kxc4 &#xA;{0.57/37}) 48... Rh1 {0. 68/29}) 48. a4 Rh1 {0.56/29}) (47. c5 Rf4 48. &#xA;a4) 47... Rf4 (47... Rh2 48. Rf3+ Ke6 {1.17/29}) 48. c5 g5 {0.69/29}) &#xA;(46... Kf6 47. a4 Rf4 (47... h5 48. Kc3 Rh1 {2.19/29}) 48. Kc3 Rxf2 &#xA;{1.61/29}) (46... h5 47. c5 Kf7 (47... Ra4 48. c6 Kf7 { 1.26/29}) 48. c6 &#xA;Ra4 {1.25/29}) 47. c5 Kf7 (47... h5 48. c6 Rf8 {7.31/29}) 48. Re2 Ra4 &#xA;(48... Rf6 {2.98/29}) 49. c6 Rxa3+ (49... Ra6 50. Rc2 Ra8 $18) 50. Kd4 &#xA;Ra1 51. Rc2 {0} Rd1+ 52. Ke5 Re1+ 53. Kd6 Rd1+ 54. Kc7 Re1 (54... Rb1 &#xA;55. Kd7 Rd1+ 56. Kc8 Rb1 57. c7 Ke7 58. Ra2 g5 59. Ra7 Kf6 60. Rb7 Rc1 &#xA;61. Kb8 Kf5 62. c8=Q+ Rxc8+ 63. Kxc8 h5 64. Rb5+ Kf4 65. Kd7 h4 66. Ke6 &#xA;g4 67. Rh5 h3 68. Rf5+ Ke4 69. Rf6 Kd3 70. Kf5 h2) (54... h5 55. Rb2 &#xA;(55. Kc8 h4 56. c7 h3 57. f4 (57. f3 g6 58. Kb7 h2 59. Rxh2 Rb1+ 60. Kc6 &#xA;Rc1+ 61. Kd7 Rd1+ 62. Kc8 Rb1 63. f4 Rb4 64. Rd2 Ke7 65. Rd7+ Ke8 66. &#xA;Rd6 {123.44/19}) 57... g6 (57... Kf6 58. Kb8 Rb1+ 59. Ka8 (59. Ka7 Ra1+ &#xA;(59... h2 60. Rc6+ Kf7 61. c8=Q Ra1+ 62. Kb6 Rb1+ 63. Ka5 Ra1+ 64. Kb4 &#xA;Rb1+ 65. Ka3 Ra1+ 66. Kb2 {123.47/19}) 60. Kb7 Rb1+ (60... h2 61. Rxh2 &#xA;Rb1+ 62. Kc8 g6 63. Rc2 Ke7 64. Re2+ Kf6 65. Re5 Kg7 66. Kd7 &#xA;{123.44/19}) 61. Kc6 h2 62. Rxh2 Rc1+ 63. Kb7 Rb1+ 64. Kc8 Ke7 (64... &#xA;Kf5 65. Rg2 Rd1 66. Rxg7 {123.45/19}) 65. Rg2 (65. Re2+ Kf7 66. Re5 &#xA;{123.44/19}) 65... Kf7 66. Rg5 {123.44/19} (66. Rd2 Ke8 67. Rd8+ Kf7 68. &#xA;Rd7+ Ke8 69. Rxg7 Rd1 70. Rg6 Rb1 71. Re6+ Kf7 72. Re5 Kg7 73. Kd7 Rd1+ &#xA;74. Kc6 Rc1+ 75. Rc5 Rh1 76. c8=Q Rh6+ 77. Kb7 Rf6 78. Rc7+ Rf7 79. &#xA;Rxf7+)) 59... Ra1+ 60. Kb7 h2 61. Rxh2 Rb1+ 62. Kc8 Rc1 63. Rh5 g6 64. &#xA;Re5 Rc4 65. Kb7 Rb4+ 66. Kc6 {123.48/19}) 58. Kb7 Rb1+ 59. Kc6 h2 60. &#xA;Rxh2 Rc1+ 61. Kd7 Rd1+ 62. Kc8 Rb1 63. Rc2 Ke7 64. Rc5 Ke8 65. Re5+ Kf8 &#xA;66. Kd7 {123.45/19 White checkmates Black in nine moves}) 55... h4 56. &#xA;Kb8 (56. Kb7 h3 57. f3 Rc1 58. c7 Kf6 59. Rh2 Rb1+ 60. Kc8 g6 61. Rxh3 &#xA;Kg7 62. Rh4 Kf6 63. Rd4 Ke7 64. Rd7+ Ke8 65. Rd6 Ke7 66. Rxg6 {123.44/19 &#xA;White checkmates Black in fifteen moves}) 56... h3 57. Rb7+ Kf6 58. c7 &#xA;Rc1 59. c8=Q Rxc8+ 60. Kxc8 g5 61. Rb3 g4 62. Rb5 Kg6 63. Kd7 Kh6 64. &#xA;Kd6 Kg6 65. Ke6 Kh6 66. Kf6 { 123.50/19 White checkmates Black in eleven &#xA;moves}) 55. Kc8 h5 56. c7 Re7 57. Kd8 Rxc7 58. Kxc7 Kf6 59. Kd6 Kf5 60. &#xA;Rc5+ Kg4 61. f3+ {deflection} Kxf3 62. Rxh5 Kf4 63. Rh4+ Kf5 64. Kd5 &#xA;g5 65. Rh8 Kf4 66. Kd4 g4 67. Rf8+ Kg3 1-0 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Probably GM Sebag calculated that she could win the outside a-pawn, but did not consider that this plan would lead to a lost rook and pawn endgame. Or, she got to that point, saw that 49...Rxa3+ was losing either way, so she opted to go for tactical chances.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7017" LastEditorUserId="7017" LastEditDate="2015-04-04T23:49:55.133" LastActivityDate="2015-04-04T23:49:55.133" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9020" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-04-04T19:53:34.923" Score="4" ViewCount="312" Body="&lt;p&gt;When a pawn promotes, does the new piece go to the promotion square, or the home square of piece type it promoted to? In other words, if a pawn promotes to a queen, does the queen go back to the square where the queen starts?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7154" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-10-25T04:11:47.027" LastActivityDate="2019-10-25T04:11:47.027" Title="When a pawn promotes, does the new piece go to the promotion square, or the home square of piece type it promoted to?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;pawn-promotion&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="9021" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9020" CreationDate="2015-04-04T19:59:06.607" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The promoted piece replaces the pawn on the square that the pawn moved to (the 8th rank for White, the 1st rank for Black).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From the FIDE Laws of Chess, (emphasis mine):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;3.7.e. When a player, having the move, plays a pawn to the rank furthest from&#xA;  its starting position, he must exchange that pawn as part of the same&#xA;  move for a new queen, rook, bishop or knight of the same colour &lt;strong&gt;on the&#xA;  intended square of arrival.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2015-04-04T19:59:06.607" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9024" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9025" CreationDate="2015-04-05T08:04:09.107" Score="1" ViewCount="339" Body="&lt;p&gt;In a &lt;a href=&quot;http://it.lichess.org/xTbJYOfO/black#13&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;game&lt;/a&gt; of mine, the below position emerged.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;r1bqkb1r/2pp1ppp/p1p2n2/4N3/4P3/2N5/PPPP1PPP/R1BQK2R b KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is Black to move. The computer suggests the move 6... Bd4, and then it suggests 7. O-O for White. Why doesn't the black bishop just take the white knight on e5?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7155" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-10-25T04:46:45.980" LastActivityDate="2019-10-25T04:46:45.980" Title="Why doesn't the black bishop just capture the white knight?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="9025" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9024" CreationDate="2015-04-05T08:31:40.700" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Black could take the knight on e5, but then after d4 the bishop doesn't have any good squares. If he tries to retreat to d6, knight and bishop will be forked with e5. In the end white will have better development and better central control, it definitely looks like a ready-made attacking position for white.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Bxc6 bxc6 5.Nxe5 Nf6 6.Nc3 Bc5 7.a3 Bd4 &#xA;8.O-O Bxe5 9.d4 Bd6 10.e5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastEditorUserId="4362" LastEditDate="2015-04-05T08:40:12.300" LastActivityDate="2015-04-05T08:40:12.300" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9026" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9017" CreationDate="2015-04-06T03:24:49.020" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;To avoid draws, pick openings that offer a lot of imbalances. Most striking is any gambit. Of course most openings are ultimately refuted but playing the kings gambit, evans gambit, smith morra, and etc will work for a while. Plus, a lot of gambits are refuted in a way where the opposing side simply equalises in a drawish game. &#xA;If it is desired to play openings that are sound or close to sound, then playing openings such as the scotch, sicilian, King's Indian, Dutch (leningrad), french, caro kann, grunfeld, queens gambit, etc. What ever you do, avoid symmetrical openings like the exchange slav or the exchange french. &#xA;It is important to note that the opening may not be to blame, it may very well be your playing style. Perhaps you play too safe. Put in some exchange sacrifices, attack, gambit a pawn for lines or initiative, and fight. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3872" LastActivityDate="2015-04-06T03:24:49.020" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9028" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-04-06T08:44:16.790" Score="4" ViewCount="2234" Body="&lt;p&gt;I downloaded Stockfish 6 (a binary file for Windows). It works, but I miss two things:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The depth seems to be rather low. How can I increase the selectivity?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;How can I achieve that the engine uses the tablebases in advance? The program only seems to use them if 5 or less pieces are on the board.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I found the overview of the parameters, but I do not know the meaning of the topics.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can anyone help?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5784" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-10-04T16:56:54.007" LastActivityDate="2019-01-02T18:01:20.277" Title="Adjusting parameters in the engine stockfish 6" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="9029" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9030" CreationDate="2015-04-06T09:07:00.910" Score="8" ViewCount="5014" Body="&lt;p&gt;Does anyone know a chess engine that is not programmed to be as strong as&#xA; possible, but to play &quot;attractive&quot; chess ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The program should have an aggressive style and play for mate attacks, even&#xA; if the attacking moves are not quite optimal. Or at least, the program&#xA; should trade some panws early to avoid very closed positions which tend&#xA; to take an eternity between engines to be finished.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, the program should not play too weak. The rating should&#xA; at least be about 2000 Elo.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does anyone know such an engine ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5784" LastEditorUserId="5784" LastEditDate="2015-04-06T10:27:12.393" LastActivityDate="2019-06-05T18:45:00.913" Title="Engine not necessarily playing strong but &quot;attractive&quot;" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;aggressive-play&gt;&lt;attack&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9030" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9029" CreationDate="2015-04-06T10:41:31.773" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Many engines have adjustable parameters, which allow to alter their playing style. If you mess around it a bit, you can create whole 'engine personalities'... &#xA;Here, for example, someone though it interesting to create a personality called, the &lt;a href=&quot;http://rybkaforum.net/cgi-bin/rybkaforum/topic_show.pl?tid=18970&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Komodo Kinghunter&lt;/a&gt;. Apparently, it does exactly what you are looking for - plays aggressively and not necessarily optimally. Note that I have not tested it myself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's different for different engines (I remember most of these at least used to be configurable in stockfish) and graphical interfaces, but &#xA;some typical factors one can usually twiddle with (at worst by going to source code and recompiling) are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Contempt Factor&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The Contempt Factor reflects the estimated superiority/inferiority of the program over its opponent. The Contempt factor is assigned as draw score to avoid (early) draws against apparently weaker opponents, or to prefer draws versus stronger opponents otherwise.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Additionally, if the engine has high contempt for its opponent, it might engage in more attacking style.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Pawn structure&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Pawn structure is a term used to describe the positions of all the pawns on the board, ignoring all other pieces. Pawn structure encompasses a broad range of ideas, from the general shape of the pawns (such as closed or open) to specific characteristics of individual pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So here there's a wide range of things to change engines evaluations for - double pawns, passed pawns, general structure, exchanges etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Mobility&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;A factor for how much the engine will value the piece mobility - I suppose more mobility leads to more attacking and unpredictable positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Aggressiveness&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;Self-explanatory; allows to make the engine more or less aggressive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Cowardice&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;Self-explanatory; allows to define how defensive towards its own king the program should be.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Source for quotes&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT: I was made aware (per Student T's comment), that the engine I initially posted below is not attractive at all and in fact a clone of Rybka. I guess it was too good to be true!&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are reluctant to do all this fiddling yourself, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.vitruviuschess.com/index.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here's&lt;/a&gt; an engine which (again, I have not tried it myself, so cannot substantiate these claims in any way):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Thanks to its finely tuned positional vision, Vitruvius shows a readiness to sacrifice a pawn or two, the exchange and sometimes even a whole piece, for purely positional compensation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And named among its strengths:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Playing strength above the 3100ELOmark; Detects and exploits zugzwang positions; Very human and speculative approach to the game&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also of interest: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.vitruviuschess.com/article/Human-Test.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this Vitruvius article&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately, it is not free.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3831" LastEditorUserId="18168" LastEditDate="2019-06-05T18:45:00.913" LastActivityDate="2019-06-05T18:45:00.913" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="9032" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9028" CreationDate="2015-04-06T23:35:20.130" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't have Shredder so I can't tell you how to use it to adjust parameters for Stockfish. However, it should be similar to ScidvsPC which I have posted &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/8848/how-do-i-change-stockfishs-engine-parameters/8859#8859&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;What do you mean by depth seems rather low? What depth would you consider be normal? We need a position to continue the discussion.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I don't think Shredder uses syzygy tablebase at all, that is you aren't using any tablebase. You'll need to set it up yourself.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Which parameters you're unsure? There're not many in SF6. The most important is &lt;strong&gt;contempt factor&lt;/strong&gt;, which means how likely the engine takes a draw. By default, a draw is zero. If you give the contempt factor like a negative value, the engine will prefer another line that is closer to zero. Thus, the engine will take extra risks than necessary.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2017-02-20T07:38:23.783" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9033" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9035" CreationDate="2015-04-07T11:18:47.670" Score="2" ViewCount="3172" Body="&lt;p&gt;You play against yourself, using your own opening repertoire.  Thus by playing both White and Black, you reach positions that should be fairly equal, and then you continue to play both sides, obviously knowing each sides' plans.  Should the game always end in a draw?  How often is White expected to win?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6960" LastEditorUserId="1816" LastEditDate="2015-04-07T13:34:12.143" LastActivityDate="2015-04-09T22:40:08.743" Title="Should playing chess against yourself always end up in a draw?" Tags="&lt;draw&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9034" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9033" CreationDate="2015-04-07T12:08:49.760" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It depends on how good you are. (The worse you are, the more likely that you could make a mistake as one side and then later see how to exploit it as the other.) Almost all skilled players believe that the game of chess is a draw given best play by both sides.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2015-04-07T12:08:49.760" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9035" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9033" CreationDate="2015-04-07T15:36:05.320" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;No.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you are playing seriously against yourself, you still have to commit to moves. After making the move you start analysing again and see things you previously have not seen, and you may discover an error in the moves you have already made and the game becomes a win for one of the sides you play. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or you may find a winning way without really catching an error in the previous moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that there are no secret plans in chess, the full truth is always on the board. It is up to you to read the board and draw the best consequences of that reading.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3819" LastActivityDate="2015-04-07T15:36:05.320" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9036" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9041" CreationDate="2015-04-07T16:57:39.230" Score="5" ViewCount="1438" Body="&lt;p&gt;I always play the King's Indian Attack against the French Defense. Most of the time, I get the position below and I couldn't think of good plans. What are the best ways for White to continue? I don't know where to put my Queen, the d2 Knight, and the Dark-squared Bishop. I am also afraid of the a- and b-pawns of Black when Black starts to move them forward.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I play the KIA because I like closed or semi-closed positions. I don't really like open games. But my opponent has started to open the game by playing this position always.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&#xA;1. e4 e6 2. d3 d5 3. Nd2 c5 4. g3 Nc6 5. Bg2 Nf6 6. Ngf3 Be7 7. O-O O-O 8. Re1 dxe4 9. dxe4 e5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7174" LastActivityDate="2017-04-18T05:38:38.543" Title="King's Indian Attack plans for White after Black plays ..dxe4 and ..e5" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9038" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8946" CreationDate="2015-04-08T02:55:18.897" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The reason your game doesn't honor this rule is because it is not a rule.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is some confusion over &quot;facing each other&quot;  If you mean two Kings directly facing each other (where one could theoretically attack the other) then yes, it is an illegal move because one cannot move their King to where it can be attacked; however, if you are talking about &quot;facing across the entire board&quot; in a manner where if a King was a Rook it would be able to attack, then perhaps you have confused chess with one of the older games attributed to it's lineage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chinese chess has this rule, and it is part of the common strategy within that game to limit the opposing King's position by placement of your King.  In Chinese Chess, however, the kings cannot leave the palace and the if the opposition is blocked by a piece the other King has more leeway in movement.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7177" LastActivityDate="2015-04-08T02:55:18.897" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9039" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-04-08T06:53:41.297" Score="2" ViewCount="192" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am interested in compiling endgame tablebases for a few miniature chess variants, such as &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_Attack&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chess Attack&lt;/a&gt; (5x6) and &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Alamos_chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Los Alamos Chess&lt;/a&gt; (6x6). Have these ever been created before, and if so, are they publicly accessible?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7178" LastActivityDate="2015-08-07T21:37:19.597" Title="Have endgame tablebases ever been compiled for smaller variants of chess?" Tags="&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;tablebases&gt;&lt;computer-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9040" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-04-08T19:52:16.210" Score="6" ViewCount="211" Body="&lt;p&gt;Entry 117 in &lt;a href=&quot;http://timkr.home.xs4all.nl/chess2/diary_6.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Tim Krabbe’s Diary&lt;/a&gt; shows a case of fatal automatism. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Ojanen - Ridala, Helsinki 1959 &quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;R7/P4k2/8/8/7K/8/r7/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Rh8 Rh2+&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the game Ojanen-Ridala, Helsinki 1959, White saw a routine win, which was a loss in the concrete case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does anyone know of the complete game?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5784" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditorDisplayName="user1108" LastEditDate="2019-10-23T21:24:42.007" LastActivityDate="2019-10-23T21:24:42.007" Title="Complete game Ojanen - Ridala , Helsinki 1959" Tags="&lt;blunder&gt;&lt;rook-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="9041" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9036" CreationDate="2015-04-08T23:17:15.160" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is my first time answering a question, so i hope that will be all right :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First of all, the position appearing on the board is also reached via this move order: &lt;strong&gt;1. Nf3 d5 2. g3 c5 3. Bg2 nc6 4. O-O e5 5. d3 Nf6 6. Nbd2 Be7 7. e4 dxe4 8.dxe4&lt;/strong&gt; and it's a tempo up for black, and the extra move might be important. And secondly we might reach this position with colors reversed: &lt;strong&gt;1. d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3. Nc3 Bg7 4.e4 d6 5. Nf3 O-O 6. Be2 Nbd7 7. O-O e5 8. dxe5 dxe5&lt;/strong&gt; etc. And it's very important to notice that the examination of similar positions provides complete understanding of ideas.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bypassing the move order and transposition issues, I would like to mention the related article named &quot;The King's Indian Attack (from White's Viewpoint)&quot; (page 142) on the excellent book &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/0713475099&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Opening Preparation by Dvoretsky (1996)&lt;/a&gt;, Dvoretsky came to the conclusion that this exchange (&lt;strong&gt;...dxe4&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;...e5&lt;/strong&gt; by Black) is dubious. The reasoning behind Dvoretsky's assessment is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&quot;Not a good exchange. White now has a clear plan for playing on the weaknesses c4, d5 and f5.&quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the game (which cannot be found in databases) &lt;strong&gt;Dvoretsky - Rogozhnikov, Moscow 1965&lt;/strong&gt; White executes his plan by playing, &lt;strong&gt;c3&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;Qc2&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;Nf1&lt;/strong&gt; and exchanging the defender of d5 square by &lt;strong&gt;Bg5-Bxf6&lt;/strong&gt; and after &lt;strong&gt;Ne3&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;Bf1&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;Bc4&lt;/strong&gt;, and exchanging the best defender, the light-squared bishop on e6. It should be noted that Dvoretsky's opponent defended weakly and lost after a beautiful positional squeeze. But it's not clear how White will react after the correct a timely &lt;strong&gt;...h6&lt;/strong&gt; and countering the White's plan by trying to push &lt;strong&gt;...c4&lt;/strong&gt; by &lt;strong&gt;...b5&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;strong&gt;...Na5&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;Maybe the answer is the mixture of the whole ideas given, let's say, &lt;strong&gt;Nc4(Nf1)-Ne3&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;Nf5&lt;/strong&gt; and after an exchange on f5 to take with exf5 and play with the strong bishop g2 and full control on the light squares. There are many typical master games with both colors. You might want to search the other transpositional options in order to achieve complete understanding of the ideas, because there are hundreds of master games beginning from those positions with both colors. I hope I might be able to help you.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7180" LastEditorUserId="11202" LastEditDate="2017-04-18T05:38:38.543" LastActivityDate="2017-04-18T05:38:38.543" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9042" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9044" CreationDate="2015-04-09T04:54:47.820" Score="8" ViewCount="1142" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is &quot;Mate Prevails&quot; not an FIDE rule? I couldn't see it in the FIDE website but I heard about it from many players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;UPDATE:&lt;/b&gt;&#xA;&quot;Mate Prevails&quot; is a claim some players make that they win the game after 'flag fall' if they can force a checkmate in one move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7174" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2015-04-23T20:12:38.053" LastActivityDate="2015-04-23T20:12:38.053" Title="Mate Prevails - Chess Rule" Tags="&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;correspondence-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9043" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9042" CreationDate="2015-04-09T12:27:24.360" Score="-3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's not a real rule in FIDE rules. Seems like an anachronism.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4543" LastActivityDate="2015-04-09T12:27:24.360" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9044" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9042" CreationDate="2015-04-09T16:02:34.730" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you make a checkmating move &lt;em&gt;before your flag falls&lt;/em&gt;, but then your flag falls before you press the clock, you win. The relevant FIDE rules (emphasis mine) are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5.1.a. The game is won by the player who has checkmated his opponent’s king. &lt;strong&gt;This immediately ends the game&lt;/strong&gt;, provided that the move producing the checkmate position was in accordance with Article 3 and Articles 4.2 – 4.7.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;6.2.a. During the game each player, having made his move on the chessboard, shall stop his own clock and start his opponent’s clock (that is to say, he shall press his clock). This “completes” the move. &lt;strong&gt;A move is also completed if the move ends the game&lt;/strong&gt; (see Articles 5.1.a, 5.2.a, 5.2.b, 5.2.c, 9.6a, 9.6b and 9.7).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;6.3.a. When using a chessclock, each player must &lt;strong&gt;complete&lt;/strong&gt; a minimum number of moves or all moves in an allotted period of time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;6.9 Except where one of &lt;strong&gt;Articles 5.1.a&lt;/strong&gt;, 5.1.b, 5.2.a, 5.2.b, 5.2.c applies, if a player does not complete the prescribed number of moves in the allotted time, the game is lost by that player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2015-04-09T16:02:34.730" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9046" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8982" CreationDate="2015-04-09T22:31:02.710" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;A player could be checked much more than 50 times in a row. The 50-move rule counter resets to zero after a pawn move or capture. If White was checking Black, then a pawn move could be used to deliver a check every 50th move. The other 49 checks would be delivered by some other piece.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since each of White's 9 pawns can move 6 times, that's a potential of 6x8 50x8=2400 checks in a row. Similarly, Black could escape checks with pawn moves, leading to another 2400 potential checks. 30 pieces are capturable, you need one left to check, so maybe another 29x 50=1450 checks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So how about 6,250 checks in a row being possible? I think I could contrive a very boring game with that number of checks in a row. As mentioned in a previous answer, you'd have to guard against threefold repetition as well, but I think that it would be possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Infinity is definitely possible because of the fifty move rule, which can only be wound back to zero by finite material leaving the board or finite pawn moves. Chess itself has a longest possible game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7185" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-02-05T20:31:19.880" LastActivityDate="2021-02-05T20:31:19.880" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="9047" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9033" CreationDate="2015-04-09T22:40:08.743" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I could probably beat myself because sooner or later I'd make a blunder that I'd spot the second I'd played it.  That would allow me to exploit the blunder with the other pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7185" LastActivityDate="2015-04-09T22:40:08.743" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9048" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4927" CreationDate="2015-04-10T02:30:18.683" Score="-3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sorry to state the obvious but you do realise human engineers designed the computers and human programmers and chess experts wrote the programs.when a computer writes and designs a chess program that it cannot itself defeat then the machine awakes!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7187" LastActivityDate="2015-04-10T02:30:18.683" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9049" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4927" CreationDate="2015-04-10T05:13:05.180" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;With sufficient hardware and parallel processing, it would be possible to process the positions from all of the human's possible replies, in his time, then use the results immediately for his chosen move.  So through programming and hardware, it would be possible to overcome virtually any time odds.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7185" LastActivityDate="2015-04-10T05:13:05.180" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9050" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4927" CreationDate="2015-04-10T07:27:18.453" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd like to address a slightly different question: would a grandmaster be &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;favored&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; to win over a computer given time odds?  I say this because even a weak player has some statistically significant probability of beating a world champion eventually, even if it took the rest of time.  The answer to my modified question, I believe the &lt;strong&gt;answer is no&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Programs and people evaluate their opponents moves in different fashion.  People can be surprised by their opponents moves, and need time to rethink the consequences.  However, a computer, if left to ponder a position during its opponent's move, has already considered all meaningful replies up to its search horizon.  In the limit, you essentially cut its ponder time in half, if it immediately makes its move, and only thinks on its opponents time.  Now the difference in time to calculate one ply (one half move) deeper means about a 40 fold increase in processing time (the search tree grows exponentially by the branching factor, which is ~40 new moves).  The additional lost time wouldn't even be able to search a single move deeper!  You essentially gain &lt;strong&gt;1 ply&lt;/strong&gt; because the computer must search all your possible replies rather than the one you eventually make.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So how much is that one ply of additional search worth to the computer?  In the 1980s, when search depth was small, experiments showed a program searching at a depth of 6 was 159 elo points better than one searching at a depth of 5.  &lt;a href=&quot;http://publications.csail.mit.edu/lcs/pubs/pdf/MIT-LCS-TM-608.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Later research in self play experiments&lt;/a&gt; went on to show that as seach depth increased, there was a diminishing return in elo gain... a single ply increase from a depth of 11 to 12 resulted in an elo gain of 84 points.  Note this research is about 16 years old.  Note the ratings gap between &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.computerchess.org.uk/ccrl/4040/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Stockfish&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.2700chess.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Magnus Carlsen&lt;/a&gt; is already around 450 points.  Almost counter intuitively, it would seem reducing the time control could give humans the best advantage (unfortunately, assuming a human's rating doesn't also drastically decrease with less time).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I could see two possible factors that would make me change my mind.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If diminishing returns were only a property of computers, and not humans (or the rate of change was significantly different).  Suppose you matched a computer against a postal player.  Perhaps the strategic decisions a human is capable, given enough time, outweigh the computer's tactical abilities.  Then, with enough time, a human could potentially be favored.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If the time odds exponentially changed per move. Give the human 1 second on the first move, one minute on the next, one hour on the following... etc etc, we could effectively force a computer to be at a perpetually greater disadvantage than 50% time odds.  If the human capacity for discovering improvements truely could scale to those limits, then a computer would eventually be overwhelmed by the time advantage.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, my final analysis puts my two caviots as unlikely scenarios, and I believe that with any time odds, &lt;strong&gt;a computer would likely be the favorite&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="606" LastActivityDate="2015-04-10T07:27:18.453" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9051" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9053" CreationDate="2015-04-10T08:47:20.963" Score="1" ViewCount="227" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the best opening  that i should learn  , And how much time should be spent on learning an opening?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7188" LastActivityDate="2015-04-10T13:15:52.697" Title="What is the best opening that i should learn" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ClosedDate="2015-04-11T02:16:34.870" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9052" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1515" CreationDate="2015-04-10T08:48:43.000" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;To answer the subquestion: &quot;Does anyone know if this is some kind of known chess variant?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, it is a known chess variant. It goes under several names including PMDNC (Pinned Men Do Not Check), Pin chess, Superpin, or Stevens Principle. Its written history dates back at least to a publication by SJ Stevens in Westminster Papers in 1875.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3819" LastActivityDate="2015-04-10T08:48:43.000" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9053" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9051" CreationDate="2015-04-10T13:15:52.697" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you're a beginner in chess I advise you to start off with opening that help develop your chess as they can evolve into multiple type of positions (90% of the time I advise beginners to start off with the Italian Game/Italian Opening).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you're playing as black however, something like the French Defense would be advised... The Sicilian is too advanced for a beginner to learn cause most likely you won't be able to understand everything that is going on even if you know the lines of the Sicilian.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to your comment, you like Queen's Gambit and the Ruy Lopez... Surprisingly enough both have very different play styles, Ruy Lopez being extremely offensive type of opening while the Queen's Gambit more tactical. However if you truly want to stick with either of those openings I suggest you stick to Ruy Lopez as it is not as complex as Queen's Gambit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are other openings you might want to check out: Ponziani Opening, Scandinavian Defense(although I don't advise it since it breaks one of chess' principles, which is : don't bring the queen too early in the game).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However if you're more advanced you can go ahead and explore the Sicilian, King's Gambit, Queen's Gambit and King's Indian.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How much time you should spend on studying openings? &lt;strong&gt;Minimal&lt;/strong&gt;... Openings are mostly a memorized sequence of moves which you understand better as you reach higher levels in chess, with somewhat solid knowledge of some openings you will won't have issues starting a game... But the moment you go into the middle game or if your opponent doesn't play according to the book (basically doesn't follow the normal lines of an opening) then your opening knowledge will help you very little in here, if not at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most of your time in chess should be devoted to middle game and end game (the latter requiring most of your time as it is the hardest to master).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you have any questions feel free to comment and I'll answer to the best of my abilities.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6966" LastActivityDate="2015-04-10T13:15:52.697" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9054" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-04-11T00:35:34.160" Score="7" ViewCount="1474" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Round 9 in the US Chess Championship 2015 Men, Wesley So (2794) was forfeited by the arbiter in his game against Akobian (2622) since So took notes that were not chess-related but contained &lt;a href=&quot;http://blog.chessbomb.com/2015/04/wesley-so-forfeited-in-round-9.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&quot;general encouragement and advice to himself&quot;.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The game be seen &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessbomb.com/arena/2015-usch-m&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think that is absurd. I think a chess player can write whatever they want as long as it does not offend anyone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7192" LastEditorUserId="4399" LastEditDate="2021-01-20T14:27:16.420" LastActivityDate="2021-01-20T14:27:16.420" Title="Why is taking notes that encourage oneself illegal in chess?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;wesley-so&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="9055" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9054" CreationDate="2015-04-11T02:17:25.453" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The FIDE Laws of Chess, in section 11.3.a, say, &quot;During play the players are forbidden to use any notes&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for why they forbid notes entirely, as opposed to, say, allowing motivational statements while disallowing the writing down of variations, we can only guess, but I can see two reasons not to allow some notes but disallow others:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;There's always going to be some point in the middle of the spectrum where it's ambiguous whether it should be okay or not; and&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If your opponent is writing things down, you'd have to either take his word that everything he was writing was legal, or summon an arbiter and demand to see it. Neither alternative is that appetizing.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, So's notes were arguably chess-related in that they addressed things like time usage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2015-04-11T02:17:25.453" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9056" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9054" CreationDate="2015-04-11T02:22:09.533" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can't claim to know for sure what was going through the minds of the authors of the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=171&amp;amp;view=article&quot;&gt;FIDE Laws of Chess&lt;/a&gt;, but I think the intent is to ensure that the players use only their unaided intellect to play the game.  Players aren't allowed to make/use written notes during the game.  At all.  About anything (chess-related or not).  If they're allowed to make notes about things other than chess, or the game in progress, you then put an arbiter in the position of having to determine if such notes are chess-related or not.  It would certainly be possible for a player determined to cheat to come up with a system in advance to disguise the nature of what they're writing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's worth pointing out that So wasn't forfeited for making the notes - he was forfeited because of rule 11.7 - &quot;Persistent refusal by a player to comply with the Laws of Chess shall be penalised by loss of the game&quot;.  He had been warned twice before during the tournament that he wasn't permitted to make written notes, and the second time was warned that a third infraction would result in a forfeit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7147" LastActivityDate="2015-04-11T02:22:09.533" CommentCount="12" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9059" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-04-12T15:09:08.497" Score="8" ViewCount="5518" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the best chess technique?&#xA;I mean, how do World Champions think in a game? What happens in their minds?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do they think of their moves in advance or they just know what to move because they have practiced a lot?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I ask this because I've seen some videos with really fast players and it is hard to imagine that somebody can think so fast.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7014" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2015-04-12T15:16:33.753" LastActivityDate="2018-05-25T14:37:42.287" Title="How do strong players think during a game?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9060" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9059" CreationDate="2015-04-12T15:22:09.800" Score="18" Body="&lt;p&gt;When chess players play very fast, they think in much the same way that you think when you talk really fast. You don't think about nouns and verbs and grammar and dictionary definitions of words, although language is incredibly complicated; you have that all internalized. Good chess players have internalized the standard patterns of chess the way that you have internalized the standard patterns of speech.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, if you're writing a formal essay, with lots of time in which to write it, you'll spend lots of time thinking about how to construct your argument, exact word choice, possible objections of the reader that you want to address in advance, etc. Similarly, chess players think very carefully and deliberately when they have a long time to think.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2015-04-12T15:22:09.800" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9061" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9059" CreationDate="2015-04-12T16:57:26.653" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is not that strong chess players think faster but rather that they think better. With the arsenal of a variety of patterns, they do not have to think faster because of their knowledge of patterns. Instead of calculating 2-3 moves ahead, patterns allow the person to know the result of combination instantly. It is in this way, an accumulation of patterns, that ultimately creates a strong player. &#xA;It is important to note that even with their accumulation of chess patterns, chess players still rely heavily on calculation. Their is a reason that professional chess games can last up to 6 hours at times, and of course this implies that they do not know what move to play. Chess players play fast only when low on time or if the game has a fast time control in which the reverse happens and they rely heavily on patterns and &quot;intuition.&quot;&#xA;In regards to how chess player decide what move to play, they go through the lines of various candidate moves and assess the position that arises from them. These actions would be quite impossible for normal humans to do because of our inability to effectively assess positions and the fact that every position has about 40 possible moves and just calculating 1 move ahead would take 160 continuations. That is where the patterns are very effective and allows players to intuitively know what possible continuations are worth considering and what should be disregarded.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3872" LastActivityDate="2015-04-12T16:57:26.653" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9062" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-04-12T18:35:41.497" Score="7" ViewCount="1196" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have two questions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) Is there a position with all pieces on board such that the side to move loses?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) Is there a position with all pieces on board such that the side to move is checkmated in 1?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Regarding question two, here is one example position that I’ve made where the side to move is checkmated immediately, but the knights are still missing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[startply &quot;54&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Nc3 Nf6 2. Na4 Nh5 3. Nc5 Nf4 4. d4 e5 5. h4 a5 6. Bxf4 Bxc5 7. a4 h5 8.Ra3 Rh6 9. Nf3 Nc6 10. Ng5 Nb4 11. Qd2 Qxg5 12. Qxb4 Qf6 13. Qc3 Qa6 14. Qh3 Rb8 15. Rg1 Qa8 16. Qh1 Ba7 17. Rh3 c5 18. Bh2 Ra6 19. f4 Kd8  20.Kf2 Kc7 21. g3 b6 22. d5 Kb7 23. Kg2 f5 24. b4 e4 25. b5 g5 26. c4 e3 27. d6 g4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe, someone can improve this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5784" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-05-30T19:14:03.827" LastActivityDate="2021-01-30T17:12:49.757" Title="Full board with full point mutual zugzwang" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;problems&gt;&lt;zugzwang&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="9063" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9059" CreationDate="2015-04-12T19:15:05.927" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Strong chess players are not as fast thinkers as they are efficient. A better chess player is more efficient, he eliminated the bad moves faster allowing him to focus more on coming up with better moves and strategies.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Whether or not they think in advance completely depends on their style of playing. Some players are instinctive, who prefer to go with sacrifices even though unsound still have potential (Ex. Mikhail Tal), other prefer to be 100% sure of their strategy and tend to calculate multiple lines to ensure something is correct. &lt;strong&gt;However&lt;/strong&gt; both still do calculations, even Mikhail Tal wouldn't simply just blunder into a bad sacrifice, the only difference is, one relies on calculations to make his next move, the other more about how he feels about the positions. Of course there are other type of players in chess so it truly depends on the person!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When it comes to fast games, otherwise known as bullet games, usually lasting from 1 min to 3 minutes(anymore than that and you enter the 5 minute mode which is considered blitz) strong players tend to have better experience on how to &quot;run the clock&quot; and because of that their moves are mostly focused on confusing their opponent rather than go for a long run win, since there isn't much time to think that far ahead. That is also why you see more blunders in a bullet game, as blunders tend to draw the attention of the opponent and make him lose time. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It goes without saying that you shouldn't watch a bullet game in order to learn something from it, bullet games are a &quot;must experience&quot; type of thing in order to learn from them, they help make you think faster on less time and more efficient.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope I helped :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6966" LastActivityDate="2015-04-12T19:15:05.927" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9065" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-04-12T20:15:53.777" Score="5" ViewCount="381" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the maximum DTM in the endgame king + janus vs king on a 10x8-board ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The janus can move like a bishop or like a knight. Since both sides have two&#xA; additional pieces, the board has 10 columns and (like the chess board), 8&#xA; rows.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5784" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-11-16T22:59:14.127" LastActivityDate="2019-11-16T22:59:14.127" Title="What is the maximum DTM with K+J vs K?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;tablebases&gt;&lt;unorthodox-pieces&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9066" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9065" CreationDate="2015-04-12T22:36:59.937" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't know the exact answer for the 10x8 board (used e.g. in Capablanca Chess, where your Janus is called the Archbishop), but I have something that could get you well along toward an exact answer, though with some effort on your part (see further below). On the 8x8 board the max DTM is 17 moves (as you may already know). My conjecture is that the 10x8 answer won't be far off from that, and I'd bet a small sum that it's no more than 19 moves. (After all, if the defending king starts in the center of the 10x8 board and you start corralling it, you're almost immediately into a situation in which, as you start pushing to an edge/corner, the rest of the mating sequence will be indistinguishable from how it would play out on the 8x8 board, as the rest of the board's real estate becomes simply irrelevant.) But as for getting an exact 10x8 answer ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A few years ago, I was toying around with generating tablebases for Seirawan Chess, which is played on the standard 8x8 board, but features the same extra pieces as Capablanca Chess. In the Seirawan variant, the Janus/Archbishop piece goes by the name Hawk. I just now placed into &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/edean/KHK_tablebase&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;a github repository&lt;/a&gt; my old C++ source code for generating a complete KHK (or, KJK in your terminology) tablebase on the 8x8 board, along with the output files, where e.g. &lt;code&gt;KHK.0&lt;/code&gt; is the set of all mate positions, and &lt;code&gt;KHK.34&lt;/code&gt; is the set of all positions where it is 34 ply until black is mated. It hasn't undergone tons of testing, but this and similar ones for e.g. KEK (king-and-elephant/chancellor vs. king) appeared to function correctly and agree with known results. For instance, the max DTM of 17 moves on the 8x8 board indicated by my KHK stuff is the same value given at the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princess_%28chess%29&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;wikipedia page for the Princess piece&lt;/a&gt; (yet another name for this particular fairy chess piece).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My code would need to changed a bit in order to adapt to your 10x8 board question. In particular, my code makes full use of the symmetries of the 8x8 board in order to reduce the number of positions needing to be examined, and of course the 10x8 board is less symmetric; so that would need an alteration. Additionally, my somewhat crude representation/storage of positions in this simple program would need to be changed and accounted for (in terms of some hard-coded arithmetic that's performed, for instance) in order to adapt to the 10x8 board. You can see the sort of thing I mean in the following snippets:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;// Constants to name the symmetries of the board.&#xA;const int sym_id = 1;&#xA;const int sym_x = 2; // reflect across x axis&#xA;const int sym_y = 3;&#xA;const int sym_d1 = 4; // reflect across a1-h8 diagonal&#xA;const int sym_d2 = 5;&#xA;const int sym_r90 = 6; // rotate 90 degrees clockwise&#xA;const int sym_r180 = 7;&#xA;const int sym_r270 = 8;&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;int Apply_Symmetry (int sym, int square)&#xA;{&#xA;    // Applies the specified symmetry of the board to the specified square&#xA;    //     (in 0x88 terms).&#xA;&#xA;    if (sym == sym_d1) {&#xA;        return (square / 16) + ((square % 16) * 16);&#xA;    }&#xA;&#xA;    else if (sym == sym_y) {&#xA;        return ((square / 16) * 16) + (7 - (square % 16));&#xA;    }&#xA;&#xA;    else if (sym == sym_d2) {&#xA;        return (7 - (square / 16)) + ((7 - (square % 16)) * 16);&#xA;    }&#xA;&#xA;    else if (sym == sym_x) {&#xA;        return (square % 16) + ((7 - (square / 16)) * 16);&#xA;    }&#xA;&#xA;    else&#xA;        return 0;&#xA;}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But anyway, the structure and the functionality is there if you wanted to modify the code to produce an answer for the max DTM on the 10x8 board, and all told there's only a few hundred lines of code.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2015-04-12T22:46:08.220" LastActivityDate="2015-04-12T22:46:08.220" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9067" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8291" CreationDate="2015-04-13T18:22:26.597" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;At first I thought it could be the typical &quot;board is not oriented as you are asuming&quot; trick, but it doesn't seem to work;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Option 1: The white pawn is actually in the g2 square. But it isn't enough, because after, for example, g4+, then Kg1 saves the king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Option 2: The white pawn is in the g7 square; but after, for example, Qf8+, Kh7 saves the king again. Besides, in this case the board would be misplaced (white square on the left-down corner of the players).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because of the pawn placement there aren't any en pasant tricks etiher. So, all in all, I agree with the suggestions that the only solution is false, based on promoting to a black piece.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Option 3; white pawn is in b2. But again, after Qe4+, then Ka2 saves the black king again. And in this case, again, we have the problem of the white square on the right side.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2013" LastActivityDate="2015-04-13T18:22:26.597" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9068" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9062" CreationDate="2015-04-14T07:13:09.537" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you literally mean &lt;em&gt;all pieces&lt;/em&gt;, the simple answer would be &lt;strong&gt;no&lt;/strong&gt;, there are simply too many free pieces to move that you cannot enforce a real zugzwang scenario there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that, if all pieces are still on the board, it means there hasn't been any promotion yet either. Without capturing, the pawns cannot change their files, and continuing on the same file they'll toss on the opponent's pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;The side to move is checkmated in 1&lt;/em&gt; is legitimate, but if you add the zugzwang condition that (let's assume the side to move is not under check to make it a legal scenario) without moving that same player would have survived the position, but only because of the necessity to move, they will get checkmated in 1; then we end up in the same disclaimer above: there are simply too many (16!) pieces around to enforce a full zugzwang.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Actually, if being realistic is not a requirement, you can reach a zugzwang scenario with all pieces on board with the real meaning: if not moving were an option, that would be the best move. With mate in 1, that's pretty much impossible to achieve. Also without being realistic, I don't see the point of setting up a zugzwang position, because the idea of such a position is that things were more or less equal up to now, but the next move will cause damage. Whereas in a scenario like this, the opponent already had many trivial chances to win material advantage. Anyway, for the sake of completeness, I'm posting such a position. Anything that doesn't resemble this will mean that one side has too many free pieces, hence that won't work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;[startply &amp;quot;40&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;1. b3 a5 2. d3 a4 3. f3 a3 4. h3 g5 5. Nc3 g4 6. Nb1 g3 7. Nc3 e5 8. Nb1 e4 9. Nc3 e3 10. Nb1 h5 11. Nc3 h4 12. Nb1 f5 13. Nc3 f4 14. Nb1 d5 15. Nc3 b5 16. Nb1 c5 17. Nc3 c4 18. Nb1 b4 19. Nc3 d4 20. Nb1 c3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7096" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-01-30T02:16:23.170" LastActivityDate="2021-01-30T02:16:23.170" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="9070" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9059" CreationDate="2015-04-14T17:33:38.670" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I highly recommend &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Kotov&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Kotov's&lt;/a&gt; trilogy (Think like a grandmaster, Play like a grandmaster and Train like a grandmaster). The first one answers your question precisely.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3774" LastActivityDate="2015-04-14T17:33:38.670" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9071" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-04-14T19:33:55.547" Score="2" ViewCount="231" Body="&lt;p&gt;I downloaded the lastest version of &lt;a href=&quot;http://chessdb.sourceforge.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;chessdb&lt;/a&gt; but while trying to download the large database (about 3.5M games), I have got errors and the download does not start.&#xA;I deactivated my firewall and my antivirus but the problem is still there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The errors are shown in these 2 screenshots:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://i59.tinypic.com/2whl6k6.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://i59.tinypic.com/2whl6k6.png&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://i62.tinypic.com/oji0lj.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://i62.tinypic.com/oji0lj.png&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Has anyone else experienced the same problem?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1855" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-10-08T08:23:38.683" LastActivityDate="2016-10-08T08:23:38.683" Title="Issues downloading the latest version of chess database on chessdb!" Tags="&lt;database&gt;&lt;pgn&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2019-05-27T06:26:38.917" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9073" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9059" CreationDate="2015-04-15T15:08:12.823" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would like to add to other answers that, as well as experience and pattern recognition, there are also some simple enough principles that can help quickly assess the merits of a move/position without having to analyse it in depth. They don't always give the true value but usually will.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;- Gain and maintain the initiative&#xA;- Principle of two weaknesses and increasing pressure&#xA;- Control the centre&#xA;- Take towards the centre (partly as a result of the previous principle)&#xA;- Control open files&#xA;- Good and bad bishops&#xA;- Knights good in closed games, bishops good in open&#xA;- Revealed attacks, forks, skewers, pins etc.&#xA;- Passed pawns strong, doubled and isolated pawns weak&#xA;- Push weaknesses&#xA;- Protect your king (until it's safe to use it as an attacker)&#xA;- etc.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These allow an experienced player to assess a move in a crude but quite effective way without having to calculate it or remember that pattern from another game. Given time, the player will want to assess it more thoroughly than that and the masters will be doing more from specific experience of similar positions as they have so much but I think these principles and others are used by grandmasters in their assessments to quickly look at a move and think &quot;that's almost certainly going to be bad&quot; and not waste time thinking about it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Equally, they can apply the same principles to their opponents positions and moves to spot weaknesses that they can then devise plans to exploit. A good player could spot a likely weakness from these principles and see a piece/move that might be able to exploit it in a second or two's thought.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7214" LastActivityDate="2015-04-15T15:08:12.823" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9074" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9083" CreationDate="2015-04-15T18:14:59.563" Score="4" ViewCount="295" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've seen some of my colleagues (2100-2200 Elo) who after shaking hands just think about 3-4 minutes on the first move, even though they know what they're going to play. When I asked one of them he said he's &quot;building up focus and concentration&quot; so I was wondering if someone could clarify that, and I want to know what you people think if that even makes sense &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7020" LastActivityDate="2015-04-18T18:40:01.010" Title="how do some players focus better by thinking on the first move?" Tags="&lt;calculation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9076" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-04-15T20:04:43.163" Score="6" ViewCount="357" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;Fritz, 19Ply / 19Ply&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2015.04.15&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;1&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Stockfish 6&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Houdini 1.5a w32&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1/2-1/2&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;B42&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;292&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 e6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 a6 5. Bd3 Nc6 6. Be3 Nge7 7. c4 Nxd4  8.&#xA;Bxd4 Nc6 9. Be3 b6 10. O-O Bc5 11. Re1 d6 12. Nc3 O-O 13. Qd2 Bb7 14. Red1 Qc7&#xA;15. b3 h6 16. Be2 Rab8 17. a3 Na5 18. Rab1 Bxa3 19. Bxh6 gxh6 20. Qxh6 f5 21.&#xA;Rd3 f4 22. b4 Nc6 23. Bg4 Nd8 24. Ne2 e5 25. f3 Qh7 26. Qxh7+ Kxh7 27. Rxa3 Nc6&#xA;28. Bd7 a5 29. Bxc6 Bxc6 30. Rd3 Rfd8 31. bxa5 bxa5 32. Rxb8 Rxb8 33. Rxd6 Be8&#xA;34. Nc3 a4 35. Ra6 Rc8 36. Nd5 Kg7 37. Ra7+ Kf8 38. g3 fxg3 39. h4 Rxc4 40. Kg2&#xA;Rc6 41. Ne3 Bh5 42. Rxa4 Rc3 43. Ng4 Bxg4 44. fxg4 Rc2+ 45. Kxg3 Rc3+ 46. Kf2&#xA;Rc2+ 47. Kf1 Rc1+ 48. Ke2 Rc2+ 49. Kd3 Rg2 50. g5 Rg4 51. Ra8+ Kg7 52. Ra7+ Kg8&#xA;53. Ra5 Rxh4 54. Rxe5 Kf7 55. Rf5+ Kg6 56. Rf8 Rh1 57. Kd4 Rd1+ 58. Ke5 Re1 59.&#xA;Kd5 Ra1 60. Rg8+ Kf7 61. Rc8 Kg6 62. Ke5 Re1 63. Rg8+ Kf7 64. Ra8 Kg6 65. Ra7&#xA;Rb1 66. Ra2 Re1 67. Ra8 Rb1 68. Ra7 Re1 69. Rc7 Re2 70. Rc1 Ra2 71. Rb1 Rg2 72.&#xA;Ra1 Rb2 73. Kd6 Rb6+ 74. Kc5 Rb8 75. Rg1 Rd8 76. Kc6 Re8 77. Kd5 Rd8+ 78. Ke5&#xA;Re8+ 79. Kd4 Rd8+ 80. Ke3 Rb8 81. Rg2 Rd8 82. Rg3 Re8 83. Rg4 Rc8 84. Kd4 Rd8+&#xA;85. Kc5 Re8 86. Kd6 Rd8+ 87. Ke7 Rd4 88. Ke6 Rb4 89. Ke5 Rb5+ 90. Kf4 Rb1 91.&#xA;Rg2 Rf1+ 92. Ke5 Rb1 93. Rc2 Ra1 94. Rb2 Re1 95. Ra2 Rb1 96. Ra3 Rg1 97. Ke6&#xA;Kxg5 98. Ra5+ Kg6 99. Ra2 Kg7 100. e5 Re1 101. Rf2 Ra1 102. Rd2 Re1 103. Rg2+&#xA;Kf8 104. Rb2 Ra1 105. Rb6 Ra2 106. Rb8+ Kg7 107. Rd8 Re2 108. Rd7+ Kf8 109.&#xA;Rf7+ Ke8 110. Rh7 Kf8 111. Rh8+ Kg7 112. Rh3 Rb2 113. Rc3 Re2 114. Rf3 Ra2 115.&#xA;Rd3 Re2 116. Rd8 Re1 117. Rd7+ Kf8 118. Rf7+ Ke8 119. Rb7 Kf8 120. Rb8+ Kg7&#xA;121. Rb2 Kf8 122. Rc2 Re3 123. Rc8+ Kg7 124. Rc1 Kf8 125. Rf1+ Ke8 126. Rh1 Kf8&#xA;127. Rh8+ Kg7 128. Ra8 Re1 129. Ra7+ Kf8 130. Ra3 Rb1 131. Ra8+ Kg7 132. Rc8&#xA;Re1 133. Rc4 Kf8 134. Rc7 Re3 135. Rc2 Re1 136. Rc4 Kg7 137. Rf4 Ra1 138. Rd4&#xA;Re1 139. Rd6 Re2 140. Rd1 Kf8 141. Rf1+ Ke8 142. Ra1 Kd8 143. Rg1 Re4 144. Rg8+&#xA;Kc7 145. Re8 Rh4 146. Rf8 Kc6 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This fascinating game was played today between Stockfish and Houdini. White&#xA;(Stockfish) could not realize his two-pawn-advantage. After 54. Te5, the &#xA;position is theoretically draw and it kept being draw until the last move&#xA;146... Kc6 which allows a winning position, but the 50-move-rule ensures&#xA;the draw because it takes some more moves to move the pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could white have won, and if so, how?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5784" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-28T19:42:50.357" LastActivityDate="2020-12-27T21:43:20.250" Title="Could white have won this game?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;draw&gt;&lt;rook-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="9077" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-04-16T07:22:31.297" Score="6" ViewCount="3011" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am searching for a big chess games database, in PGN or CBH or SCID format.&#xA;ICOfY Base is no longer available, I think. I found nothing in torrent sites (I am searching for something that is legal).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1855" LastEditorUserId="291" LastEditDate="2015-04-17T11:50:34.070" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T18:24:10.440" Title="Where can I find a big chess database?" Tags="&lt;database&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9079" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9076" CreationDate="2015-04-16T16:51:50.913" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you ask only about the R+2p vs R endgame then no, it was drawn. In serious engine tournaments the stronger engines usually have access to 6-men tablebases, so they play these endgames perfectly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you ask about the whole rook endgame, then 45.Kh3 looks like a good winning attempt, as black has no easy way to transpose to the game, e.g. 45...g2 46.Ra1 Rc3+ 47.Kxg2 Rc2+ 48.Kg1 and there is no counterplay which was possible in the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7219" LastActivityDate="2015-04-16T16:51:50.913" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9080" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9074" CreationDate="2015-04-16T16:58:32.777" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It doesn't seem like a great way to concentrate, as you don't really have anything to consider yet. Thinking on the first move when you are out of your book makes more sense to me, especially for people who struggle with time pressure. Famously, Bronstein thought for an hour on his first move once, his explanation being &quot;It is a very difficult position!&quot;, but he wasn't the most practical player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I found that more common reason for thinking on the first move is psychological: strong players sometimes try to guess their opponent's attitude and choose most unpleasant opening. For example, if they feel that their opponent is tired/discouraged, they choose a slow line to make him struggle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7219" LastActivityDate="2015-04-16T16:58:32.777" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9083" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9074" CreationDate="2015-04-17T17:12:05.573" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Two big reasons:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;At higher levels, a lot of preparation may be done for a game, especially if you know in advance whom you'll be playing. You'll want to prepare responses to all of their most common or strongest lines. You might also have novelties or uncommon ideas in certain lines to throw your opponent off-book. There is a &lt;em&gt;lot&lt;/em&gt; to remember, and using five to ten minutes at the start of the game, when you're not under any pressure, to recall all your preparations can be very helpful.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Somewhat related, when you sit down for a game, you're often coming from some very different activity: eating, chatting, or kibitzing other games, for instance. You don't want to start playing while you're still distracted or thinking somewhat of other things, so you can take some time--again, while not under pressure--to get into a &quot;chess mindset&quot;. This sounds to me like what your colleague was referring to. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think there's a decent analogy to more typical &quot;physical&quot; sports, here. Before a basketball game, the teams take several minutes in their locker rooms, stretching out, going over the game plan, and &quot;getting in the zone&quot;. They need to make sure they're properly warmed up and ready to hit the floor at full speed when the game starts. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first move of a Chess game can be used in the same way. Just as basketball players need to warm up their muscles, Chess players may benefit from &quot;warming up&quot; their visualizations and calculations, by reviewing lines and tactics and so on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As with any pregame routine, the exact techniques will vary widely from person to person, but the goals are always the same: get warmed up, get in the zone, and get ready (mentally) for some fierce competition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1201" LastEditorUserId="1201" LastEditDate="2015-04-17T19:27:33.573" LastActivityDate="2015-04-17T19:27:33.573" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9084" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8666" CreationDate="2015-04-17T21:06:57.510" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the best way to get yourself acquainted with chess evaluation schemes, is just by looking up the documentations of some of open source (or GNU) chess engines out there, after all such questions have been asked/tackled for many years now, and there are many good answers out there that you need to explore before coming up with your own (hence all the variety of good engines today). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course as things stand today, most of chess engines rely on evaluation systems that are (for the most part) heuristics-based. What is important before getting into some of the possibilities is to note that, there's no &lt;em&gt;one single evaluation function&lt;/em&gt; that would solve chess, so what we really need (all we can hope for really) is a well weighted combination of many different evaluations, some of the main (usually mentioned) ones:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Pawn structure: if your engine is capable of noticing connected pawns, doubled pawns, blocked pawns, isolated pawns etc, then you're already doing pretty good.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Material: Probably the easiest part to implement, just get a total piece count for both sides and compare. Then compare by piece-type (how many bishops vs. how many knights etc)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;King safety: Again pretty easy to implement evaluators such as: open lines/diagonals heading towards the king, likelihood of checks (within next 2-3 moves for simplicity), rights to castle, and so on. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Individual piece evaluation: For each piece type, you should have a different evaluator, that measures its activity, e.g. by counting different possible moves the piece can make (total of 8 for the most active knight as example), openness of diagonals for bishops (also whether own-piece is blocking it or opponent piece, should be weighted differently), available squares for queen etc.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Mobility: A simpler version of the above if you will, i.e. just count the number possible moves each piece can make, and try to maximize it, i.e. the evaluator should add positively to the total evaluation function if from one move to next one (or more) of your pieces is gaining additional move possibilities.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Piece exposure: Just count how many of your pieces can be captured within a well defined ply (within next 2 moves e.g.). Such evaluators bring dynamics into your whole evaluation scheme, as based on them, you will then re-prioritize each of the previously mentioned evaluators (by re-distributing the weights initially assigned), you see it's a lot of fun implementing a chess engine ;)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Central control: Can be simple or very complex, the simple approach would be: defining a set squares that define what you call &quot;center&quot;, then count how many pieces can potentially jump to those squares within next 1-2 moves, such approach should give you an estimate for central control.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;More advanced features would be: Tempo considerations, to define such concepts in your engine, you need to have already covered all the basic evaluators. Connectivity or coordination of pieces come next, and so on.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope the few mentioned elements give you some rope already, of course there's a long way to go, but it's really important to first &lt;em&gt;find out what's already been done and tried&lt;/em&gt; before you stumble on your own ideas. There's a must-check website for programming chess engines, have a look, you'll find tons of ideas and implementation suggestions: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Evaluation&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;chessprogramming on wikispaces&lt;/a&gt;. If you need further clarifications, don't hesitate! Have fun implementing!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3594" LastEditorUserId="3594" LastEditDate="2015-04-17T21:12:16.773" LastActivityDate="2015-04-17T21:12:16.773" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9085" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9086" CreationDate="2015-04-18T02:38:02.867" Score="6" ViewCount="1162" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is a chess program without the ability to promote to knight unacceptably incomplete?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have a chess program that implements most basic chess rules, such as en passant and castling. However, promotion automatically chooses a queen, as introducing a decision point there would complicate everything from the AI to the replay system to keybindings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is a chess program without promotion to knight just no good, or is the average chess player not likely to ever notice that it's missing? And if they do, would it be similar to &quot;oh, no promotion to knight I guess&quot; or more like &quot;how in the world did someone think this was okay? I bet this wasn't even developed by a chess player!&quot; (a safe bet)? I'm hoping that it's trivial enough to be overlooked, but if it really is important then I'll just have to figure it out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7229" LastActivityDate="2015-04-20T18:51:35.163" Title="How common/important is promotion to knight?" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;pawn-promotion&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9086" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9085" CreationDate="2015-04-18T03:23:35.000" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well I definitely wouldn't put it as &lt;em&gt;unacceptably incomplete&lt;/em&gt;, after all it is a very rare event that you're forced to underpromote into a knight, unless you're fooling around.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That said, there are cases in real games, where you actually have to promote knights (again very rarely, but still every now and then you see one of those), because e.g. you have to promote with a check (otherwise you may get checkmated), so if in such scenarios it's only with knight that you can check, then you really need the knight-promotion option. A random example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;1.e8=N+ Forced knight promotion&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;3K4/4P3/2qk4/8/8/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e8=N+ (1.e8=Q Qc7#)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's another one: (match between &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1287069&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Tomic vs. Winzbeck&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Forced N or B promotion else stalemate&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;3rb2k/2P4p/6pP/p2B1pP1/Pp2pP2/1P2K3/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. cxd8=N (1. cxd8=B) (1. cxd8=Q)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, it may also happen that if you promote into anything else than knight, you stalemate the position, so again knight-promotion needed. You'll find tons of examples from &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/730/why-would-one-promote-a-pawn-to-a-knight&quot;&gt;this chess SE&lt;/a&gt; post and links therein.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Whereas if you take online blitz games as example, then most often (for time controls &amp;lt; 5 mins at least) players set their automatic promotion to queen so that in case they're in time trouble and have to promote, they can premove it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All in all, I would say that you should &lt;em&gt;try&lt;/em&gt; to implement it for completeness, and if it turns out difficult for you, then don't worry too much about it, no big deal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I actually do recall a very fun game between Hikaru Nakamura and Boris Savchenko in the previous world blitz championship, where Nakamura had to underpromote into knight with check in order to avoid a mate in 1, &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-vcBlRNlbQ&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here's the clip&lt;/a&gt;, it's only 2 minutes, watch it from the start, but if you just want to see the promotion moment, &lt;a href=&quot;https://youtu.be/1-vcBlRNlbQ?t=2m4s&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here it is&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3594" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2015-04-18T06:20:36.897" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9087" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9074" CreationDate="2015-04-18T18:40:01.010" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;A good question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I tried to understand this strategy and use it in my own games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Today, I don't use it at all. Because I find it completely useless.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well, I know what I will play, because I have prepared it in advance. I don't need to focus because I know my first moves and I make them on the board and press the clock. Also, I find little interest in the psychological games of pretending to think or similar tricks. Since time is a resource to be cherished, I prefer to save these minutes to a situation when I actually need them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastActivityDate="2015-04-18T18:40:01.010" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9088" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9115" CreationDate="2015-04-18T20:13:50.850" Score="18" ViewCount="2085" Body="&lt;p&gt;Situation: a standard game, 1 hour 40 minutes for the game with 10 seconds increment per move. FIDE rules. White has two minutes left and has stopped writing down his moves, as he is allowed to because he has less than five minutes. Black has an hour left, but is blitzing along with white and has also stopped writing down the moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately, I (the arbiter) was only made aware of this when the game was over (white resigned); I was there, watching the board and the clock, but couldn't see the player playing black because of other spectators and hadn't realized he wasn't writing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I had noticed during the game, I'm not sure what I should have done.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Is this something an arbiter can step in for by himself, or should I have waited for a complaint by white? (I &lt;em&gt;think&lt;/em&gt; I could have just told black he should be writing down his moves)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;More importantly, I think the only remedy in the rules is that the player has to repair his notation on his own time. This would probably have been impossible, and certainly nobody had written anything down. How could he do this? How could I check that he had done it, and not written down some random moves? Reconstructing on a second board would be so disastrous to white's concentration that it would not be in his favor.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Is there anything else I should have done, had I noticed during the game?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-01-05T21:18:01.683" LastActivityDate="2021-01-05T21:18:01.683" Title="What should an arbiter do if a player has illegally stopped notating?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;annotation&gt;&lt;arbiters&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9089" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9077" CreationDate="2015-04-18T21:53:49.080" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think there is no such database with several millions games in PGN file public on the Internet (and free). You can download it from some sources such as &lt;a href=&quot;http://katalogbazszachowych.pl/gigabaza.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; and combine them, or use online database such as &lt;a href=&quot;http://chesspack.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;chesspack.com&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7233" LastActivityDate="2015-04-18T21:53:49.080" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9090" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-04-18T23:29:09.667" Score="3" ViewCount="3738" Body="&lt;p&gt;When playing chess online, when your opponent says 1-1, what does 1-1 mean?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7234" LastEditorUserId="3831" LastEditDate="2015-04-19T11:32:43.383" LastActivityDate="2015-04-21T10:57:05.893" Title="When playing chess online, what does 1-1 mean?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;online-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9091" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9085" CreationDate="2015-04-19T07:56:06.253" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Underpromotion may be uncommon but it is important in the sense that, on the rare occasions you need it, you really do &lt;strong&gt;NEED&lt;/strong&gt; it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The two basic scenarios, covered in the other answer, are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Underpromotion to non-queen to avoid stalemating the opponent&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Underpromotion to knight because your next move absolutely needs to be a check&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Neither of these situations warrants an &quot;oh, no promotion to knight I guess&quot; response, as if they're being over fussy and should just choose the queen like everyone always does because its the best. The queen &lt;em&gt;isn't&lt;/em&gt; the best here and being forced to choose it is likely to cost them the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4573" LastActivityDate="2015-04-19T07:56:06.253" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9095" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="75" CreationDate="2015-04-20T14:34:16.573" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would recommend the Schara-Hennig-Gambit for black:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Schara-Hennig-Gambit&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 c5 4. cxd5 cxd4 5. Qa4 Bd7 6. Qxd4 exd5 &#xA;7. Qxd5 Nf6 8. Qd1 Nc6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is pretty rare (the Tarrasch is 10 times more common after 3…c5), according to the computer it is sound and if white doesn't know what he is doing he can go down very quickly. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here one of my own games, where my strong opponent started burning time after move 5 and couldn't find a way to quell the black initiative. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;2325 Elo vs BlindKungFuMaster&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 c5 4. cxd5 cxd4 5. Qa4+ Bd7 6. Qxd4 exd5&#xA;7. Qxd5 Nf6 8. Qb3 Na6 9. Nf3 Nc5 10. Qd1 Nce4 11. e3 Bb4 12. Qd4 Qe7 &#xA;13. Bd3 Rd8 14. Bxe4 Bb5 15. Qxa7 Nxe4 16. Bd2 Bxc3 17. Bxc3 O-O &#xA;18. Qa5 Nxc3 19. bxc3 Bc4 20. Rd1 Ra8 21. Qb4 Qxb4 22. cxb4 Rxa2 &#xA;23. Nd4 Rfa8 24. h4 Rb2 25. Rh3 h5 26. b5 Bd5 27. Rg3 Raa2 &#xA;28. f3 Bc4 29. Rc1 g6 30. f4 Bd3 31. Rg5 Rf2 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One word of warning: White doesn't have any structural weaknesses, so black has to come up with something before his initiative evaporates. If you are confident that you will be able to do that, the Schara-Hennig-gambit is the perfect weapon for you. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-04-20T14:34:16.573" CommentCount="0" CommunityOwnedDate="2015-04-20T14:34:16.573" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9096" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9085" CreationDate="2015-04-20T14:37:55.747" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;While under promoting to a knight is relatively rare, under promoting to a rook is not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's not uncommon to promote to a rook in a king vs king and pawn endgames to avoid stalemating the king.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7243" LastActivityDate="2015-04-20T14:37:55.747" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9097" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9076" CreationDate="2015-04-20T15:23:54.467" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you take Nalimov's endgame tables (from &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.k4it.de/?topic=egtb&amp;amp;lang=en&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Knowledge4IT&lt;/a&gt;) and put the position after 54.Rxe5, when the material is down to 6 pieces, you can see that it is a draw, and you can check for the different variations. If it was White to play, then Rf5 would have been the only winning move, and the table gives a win in 45.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One would need to check with the new 7-pieces tables to check for an earlier win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this helps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4424" LastEditorUserId="10867" LastEditDate="2020-12-27T21:43:20.250" LastActivityDate="2020-12-27T21:43:20.250" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="9098" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9085" CreationDate="2015-04-20T18:51:35.163" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Maybe it's a bit obscure, but how will you check your move generation with promotions? I mean, for testing your move generator, as soon as a promotion happens, you won't have a way to check whether your promotion code is working properly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just in case somebody has no idea what I'm tlaking about;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Perft+Results&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Perft+Results&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2013" LastActivityDate="2015-04-20T18:51:35.163" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9100" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9090" CreationDate="2015-04-21T10:57:05.893" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;As your question isn't very clear, but by what you have mentioned about your opponent saying 1-1, i can say there are 2 possibilities. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He either means it as the score between you 2 such as, you guys have played 2 games and both ended in draw, considering half point to each player per draw, it's 1-1, or both player has lost 1 and won another so 1-1 again.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or he might be saying it regarding time control of a game. 1-1 meaning 1 minute per player and 1 second increment per move for the whole game. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More examples for time controls are such as : 2-1, 5-2, 10-0, 15-10, etc. Where the first number indicates the time in minutes per player for the whole game and the second digit indicates the increment time in seconds per move per player till the end of the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4354" LastActivityDate="2015-04-21T10:57:05.893" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9101" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-04-21T11:58:47.433" Score="6" ViewCount="1287" Body="&lt;p&gt;As of July 2014 FIDE states&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;7.14c&#xA;The condition of a minimum of 5 games need not be met in one tournament. Results from other tournaments played within consecutive rating periods totalling not more than 26 months, are pooled to obtain the initial rating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Before July 2014, 12 months period of play for minimum of 9 games was pooled together to calculate the rating, and if minimum of 9 games are not played within 12 months then you are supposed to play 9 more games again starting as a new unrated player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well i had played 8 rated games before June 2014 (in April and I'm still unrated because i did not play the the 9th one) and now as 12 months has passed as per the old rule but not 26 months as per new one, if i play a FIDE rated tournament now, will the performance of my last tournament be considered for my rating performance or do i have to play freshly at least 5 games and get 0.5 points to get a new rating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4354" LastEditorUserId="4354" LastEditDate="2015-04-24T15:06:03.203" LastActivityDate="2015-11-28T08:43:59.077" Title="Clarification on changed rules of getting rating from FIDE" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;rating&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9103" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8933" CreationDate="2015-04-21T18:59:03.343" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a general rule, unbalanced position where common sense tells you that it's a draw, are hard for chess engines:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;3b4/1k6/8/p1p1p1p1/P1P1P1P1/8/6K1/8 w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any engine will probably give a huge advantage to black in this position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2013" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2015-04-22T23:30:18.727" LastActivityDate="2015-04-22T23:30:18.727" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9104" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-04-21T21:34:34.293" Score="4" ViewCount="231" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 b6 { I wasnt familiar with theory here, but I vaguely remembered seeing a kingside fianchetto somewhere and it seemed reasonable. } 4.g3 Bb7 5.Bg2 c5 6.O-O Be7 7.Nc3 cxd4 8.Nxd4 Bxg2 9.Kxg2 { Maybe not ideal, but I think white is better due to my lead in development, my strong c-pawn and in particular the weakness on d6. } 9...O-O 10.e4 Qc7 11.b3 Nc6 12.Ndb5 { The point is to take control of d6. The attack on the queen allows me to do it with tempo. } 12...Qb7 13.Nd6 Bxd6 14.Qxd6 { I might lose time if black finds a way to attack the queen. As long as I prevent d7-d5 and can coordinate in reasonable time I think I have a clear edge. Tell me if I'm wrong. } 14...h6 { ? I think this move warrants a ? because it does nothing to fight for d6 or counter attack. } 15.Rd1 { I wasnt sure if the bishop was going to f5 or a3 so I moved the rook first. } 15...e5 { Whether this move is good or not depends on whether my sacrifice is sound or not, which is beyond my skill to say anything definite about. } 16.Bxh6 Nd4 { I expected Ne8, but here I am not sure of anything. } 17.Rxd4 { Is this sound? My knight will be beautiful on d5, blacks rooks will both remain very passive. I intuitively felt like this gave a clear advantage. } 17...exd4 18.Qxd4 gxh6 19.Qxf6 Kh7 20.Rd1 Rae8 21.Rd6 Re6 22.Qf5 Kg8 23.Qg4 Kh8 24.Rd5 Rg8 25.Qh4 Kh7 26.Rf5 d6 27.Nd5 Kh8 { I couldnt find a way to proceed with the attack, though maybe I should have kept looking. Instead I decided to simplify a bit and hope that my extra pawns and strong knight will be enough. Intuitively I was sure that it was, but objectively I might have been wrong. } 28.Rf6 Rxf6 29.Qxf6 Kh7 30.Qxd6 Rg6 31.Qc7 Qxc7 32.Nxc7 Rd6 33.Nd5 Kg6 34.f4 Kh5 35.Kf3 f6 36.f5 Rc6 { ? This allows mate. Was white winning here if black had avoided the mate? I see no counterplay and white will soon create several protected passed pawns. } 37.Nf4 Kg5 38.h4&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7249" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2015-04-21T21:56:43.003" LastActivityDate="2020-10-05T09:08:40.460" Title="Were my sacrifices sound in this game?" Tags="&lt;sacrifice&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9105" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8933" CreationDate="2015-04-22T03:31:53.063" Score="15" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;8/3k4/2p5/p2p2p1/P2P2P1/2KB4/8/8 w - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this position the engine gives advantage of around +2.5, but as you can see, this position is a draw as there is no way for white king to enter into Black's side of the board to penetrate any of the black pawns as the black pawns control all the accessible squares which are b4, c4, e4, f4 and h4. Even though white has an extra bishop it can only attack 2 of black pawns which are on c6 and d5. Taking the d5 pawn is recaptured by c6 pawn or taking the c6 first can be defended by the black king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is just an example of a position where an engine can give unfair advantage to a particular side though it isn't such. Here I'm not supposed to say the engine is making a mistake because it is programmed in such a way that it sees an extra bishop and with limited depth which is below 50 it says white has the advantage of extra bishop with no strings attached, hence gives you +2.5, but if you let it think up to the depth of 50 from this particular position (for which engine might take long time), it then shows it's a draw (0.00) because of the 50 move rule which is programmed into the engines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With many examples as such, a simple concept of long term strategy can differentiate human brains from engines. As said by @jknappan in the first answer- openings are very hard for engines to evaluate, because the engines are purely based on mathematical calculations and it does not have it's own opening repertoire and humans do have because of the long term strategy.&#xA;A queens gambit or Sicilian is studied for a long time by great chess players and they understand what kind of middlegame it will turn into and how then it can turn into a playable advantage in the endgame ( unlike the above position though by having an advantage of 2.5 and yet not able to achieve a win in the endgame). These kind of long term strategies is not thinkable by chess engines.&#xA;One more concept of bishop pair can be taken into consideration to explain the difference between human thinking and chess engines. A good chess player would not wanna give up his bishop pair in the opening unless it gives him a very good advantage. But a computer would suggest you to play and give up the bishop pair even when it's calculations gives the slightest of 0.01 worth more of marginal advantage from its second line!&#xA;These are some of the positional strategies chess engines might miss to analyze but human studies do not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4354" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-20T13:54:15.390" LastActivityDate="2020-04-20T13:54:15.390" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="9106" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-04-22T04:03:59.690" Score="3" ViewCount="126" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can someone please just tell me how all of the pieces move? I always get the castles and the priests mixed up, but I know one of them makes an &quot;L&quot; or a backwards &quot;L&quot;. Thank you for your underatanding.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7251" LastEditorUserId="3831" LastEditDate="2015-04-22T16:04:00.750" LastActivityDate="2015-04-22T16:04:00.750" Title="How can I play?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;rules&gt;&lt;beginner&gt;&lt;pieces&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9107" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9106" CreationDate="2015-04-22T05:00:38.517" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just look into this link and you will understand how all the pieces move and also how moves such as castling, en passant and pawn promotion work. Also it is a great website to learn chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/learn-how-to-play-chess#howtomove&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.chess.com/learn-how-to-play-chess#howtomove&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4354" LastActivityDate="2015-04-22T05:00:38.517" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9108" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8933" CreationDate="2015-04-22T08:15:52.977" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the following position, most engines give the move 1... Rxc4? an evaluation of +2 or more. But a human analysis shows that this move results in a &lt;strong&gt;draw&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Black to move&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;6k1/5p2/1Pp3pb/2q4p/1rNpPP2/3Q2PP/8/5RK1 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The correct move is 1...Qxc4! and it is typically given a lower evaluation by engines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Human Analysis&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;1... Rxc4? &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/650/chess-tempo-97369-is-the-problems-solution-wrong&quot;&gt;analysis here&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;1... Qxc4! &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/576/chess-tempo-97369-theoretical-win-or-draw&quot;&gt;analysis here&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;What went wrong?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The problem with 1... Rxc4 is that it gets an immediate material gain, but white can force a draw due to the dangerous passed pawn. The correct solution gains less material but results in a won end-game position. Engines can easily see short term won material, but it is difficult (time-consuming) for them to calculate a long sequence of moves that lead to a won-end game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Could engines ever solve this position?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sure, engines are improving all the time. But there are trillions of positions that engines get wrong, and this is just one example. Every year computers and chess engines get better. Each year they can solve a few more positions correctly that previously they got wrong. But until chess engines are perfect (i.e. never), it will always be possible to find some positions where the engines get it wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="45" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.193" LastActivityDate="2015-04-22T10:52:24.973" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9109" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9104" CreationDate="2015-04-22T12:55:55.300" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I did analyze the game and it's just time consuming to annotate the whole game about all the inaccuracies and blunders made by black or white as there are many of them. Instead i wanna be more straight forward and answer your actual question about whether your sacrifices were good enough.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the main sacrifices which i assume you are talking about are 16.Bxh6 and 17.Rxd4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After 16.Bxh6 with perfect play, white can only achieve a draw, obviously your opponent made a blunder by playing 16...Nd4 (this loses him right away, I'll tell which is the best continuation after this move in my next explanation about 17.Rxd4)&#xA;Why 16.Bxh6 is not the best?, because of&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;16...Ne8 (gets away from the queen attack of Qxf6 if after gxh6, also attacks your queen and threatens gxh6) 17.Qd2 (getting away from the knights attack and defending the h6 square, so now you are sacrificing your bishop for g and h pawn) 17...gxh6 18.Qxh6 (after this you are a piece down for 2 kingside pawns, which usually is good when you can complete the attack on kingside to gain an advantage, but here there is no other piece supporting the queen to attack the King to threaten a mate or gain any material or positional advantage, infact after this white has to settle for a draw with perpetual checking which is...) 18...d6 19.Qg5+ Kh7 20. Qh4+ kg8 21.Qg5+&#xA;1/2-1/2. (If white wants to continue playing the position instead of perpetual, Black will have a slight advantage of around -0.4 and you can still play on with) 18...d6 19.Nb5( attacking pawn on d6) 19...f6 20.Nxd6 Nxd6 21.Rxd6 ( and the game goes on, though you have 3 pawns for his knight, after the exchange of queens and the other pieces at the right time, black with an extra knight will fight for the win, and white should play for a draw and achieving it shouldn't be hard. So instead of Bxh6, you could have just continued to play the position with 16.Be3 or 16.f3, white will have a good positional advantage)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;16...Nd4?? (I don't know why your opponent played this, it just weakens his e5 pawn and does nothing else to defend white's Bxh6., black has totally worsen his position after this)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;17.Rxd4 ( this is not a bad sacrifice, white still has the advantage of space, open king, isolated black pawns, 2 extra pawns for the exchange down, after this the way you carried on to play is fine because the endgame results you in a win, &lt;em&gt;yes even if black hadn't given you the opportunity to mate him&lt;/em&gt; as you are 3 pawns up for the exchange, you can create passed pawns and black can do nothing to prevent the loss. But the best continuation than 17.Rxd4 which helps you to see the win right away was...) 17.Bxg7 (Completely opening the kingside, also gets back the sacrificing bishop which you will see in couple of moves) 17...Kxg7 (the best black can do, but still hopeless) 18.Qxe5 ( attacking the d4 knight and also threatening Qg5+. White gains the sacrifice back with a huge advantage even if black plays 18...Nc6 by playing 19.Qg5+ and then 20.Qxf6) 18...Qxc6 ( has to give up the d4 knight to defend the f6 knight which is the only defender around his king) 19.Qg5+ Kh8 20.Rxd4 ( White has huge advantage of two extra pawns, open black king, active rooks, space advantage, and can go on to achieve the win easily)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4354" LastEditorUserId="14079" LastEditDate="2020-10-05T09:08:40.460" LastActivityDate="2020-10-05T09:08:40.460" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="9110" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9104" CreationDate="2015-04-22T13:15:07.980" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;To get a definitive answer, you should run your game through an engine. &#xA;I'll give you my (human) assessment:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Before 16.Bh6 your position is already clearly better. You could just have played Be3 and there will never be a black knight on d4. The d-pawn is an eternal weakness, your position is just very comfortable. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;After 16.Bh6 black had to grab the material with 16…Ne8 otherwise he is just lost. You would probably have to play 17.Qd2 gxh6 18.Qxh6 and unfortunately you don't have any immediate attack. My first impression was that you might just have enough compensation, because the black queen is far away from the defence, but now I would probably prefer black after 18…f5. Maybe 19.Qg6 Ng7 20.Nd5 is enough for white to stay in the game. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 b6 4.g3 Bb7 5.Bg2 c5 6.O-O Be7 7.Nc3 cxd4 8.Nxd4 Bxg2 9.Kxg2  O-O 10.e4 Qc7 11.b3 Nc6 12.Ndb5 Qb7 13.Nd6 Bxd6 14.Qxd6 h6  15.Rd1 e5  16.Bxh6 Ne8 17.Qd2 gxh6 18.Qxh6 f5 19.Qg6 Ng7 20.Nd5 Rae8 21.Nf6 Rxf6 22.Qxf6 Nd4 {&quot;And e4 is falling.&quot;}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;After 17.Rxd4 you are clearly better, but you could just have taken on e5, right? Two pawns up, no trouble. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS: I see that Pavan Nadig posted some computer analysis, but maybe a human look at things is nonetheless interesting.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-04-22T13:15:07.980" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9113" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9101" CreationDate="2015-04-22T20:47:00.527" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;If at least 4 of your opponents in that April 2014 FIDE rated tournament had FIDE ratings before the tournament and if you play another FIDE rated player in another FIDE rated tournament within 26 months of the April 2014 tournament and if you scored at least half a point out of all the games you played against FIDE rated opponents (so minimum of 0.5 / 5) then you should get a FIDE rating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The key points are that you have to play at least 5 FIDE rated opponents (some of your opponents in April 2014 may have been unrated like you) and you have to get at least one draw against your FIDE rated opponents. They can't calculate a rating if you lose all your games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2015-04-22T20:47:00.527" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9114" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-04-22T20:54:12.877" Score="2" ViewCount="102" Body="&lt;p&gt;Recently I played a game against an international master, which I won, with a variation I prepared by having Deep Fritz 14 analyze each move individually, and now I'm wondering is there a specific name for this: (I play with white)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. g3 g6 4. Bg2 Bg7 5. Nc3 0-0 6. Bf4&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And to continue, I never actually played e3 in the game, but proceeded to set up e4 and eventually succeeded... &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It doesn't have to be exactly this one, but I found that it doesn't fit in the description of the Barry attack or London system?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7020" LastEditorUserId="7020" LastEditDate="2015-04-22T21:30:13.763" LastActivityDate="2015-04-22T21:30:13.763" Title="Is there a name for this variation ? (or just this setup in general)" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9115" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9088" CreationDate="2015-04-22T21:00:48.263" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;The first time you see a player doing this you should warn him and make him catch up on his time. If you are watching the game closely it is likely that there will only be 2 or 3 moves to make up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that he need not write after every move but must not make a move if he has not written his previous move. In that case, particularly with a blitz finish you should immediately stop the clocks and only then issue the warning. If you feel that you have delayed significantly in stopping the clocks to the second player's detriment then you may adjust the second player's clock accordingly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If he repeats the offence you should give him a final warning, make him catch up again and give his opponent an additional 2 minutes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If he repeats the offence after your final warning then default him. Award him 0 and his opponent 1 unless it is impossible for his opponent to deliver mate by any sequence of legal moves. In that case (mate not possible) then award each player 0.5&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Under the old rules stepping in without a complaint was at your discretion.&#xA;Under the new rules you are obliged to intervene regardless of whether or not there has been a complaint.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: As Remco points out I have only answered the easy parts of his question above ;-). I've had a long think about the difficult part and this is what I came up with.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This situation is not covered explicitly in the rules. Instead, as the introduction to the rules state, you are left to make your own judgment based on analogous situations in the rules and by fairness, logic and special factors.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I will give two possible solutions which might help you if the situation arise again.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) 8.1e states the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If a player is unable to keep score, an assistant, who must be&#xA;  acceptable to the arbiter, may be provided by the player to write the&#xA;  moves. His clock shall be adjusted by the arbiter in an equitable way.&#xA;  This adjustment of the clock shall not apply to a player with a&#xA;  disability&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I have played in competitions where a player has been &quot;unable to keep score&quot; (the opponent of a teammate in a league match) the solution was that the player had 10 minutes deducted from his time before the start of the game. This was with a time control of 90 minutes for the game plus 30 second increment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Using this as an analogous situation one possibility in the situation you describe would be to deduct 10 minutes (or such time as you deem appropriate) from the offender's remaining time. Of course this runs into the problem of what to do if the offender has less than 10 minutes left or even if he has only 11 or 12 minutes left. In those situations this may be an unjust solution.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) Another possible solution would be to take the two players to a separate room (so as not to disturb the other players) after first stopping the clocks and noting the times and position on the board. There you could set up the position on one board and play through the game on another board up to the end of the recording of the moves. Set the offending player's clock going and invite him to try and reconstruct the missing moves. He is invited to do this until he has 5 minutes remaining at which point he is no longer required to record the moves. It may be that this added pressure will spur him on to succeed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A variation of this solution would be to just reset his clock to 5 minutes and resume with neither player recording.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Whichever solution you decide on at the time I would advise you to have a copy of the rules with you and to explain your decisions with reference to the rules so that the players can understand your reasoning process. This should help reduce arguments and misunderstandings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2015-04-23T09:07:37.700" LastActivityDate="2015-04-23T09:07:37.700" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9116" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9114" CreationDate="2015-04-22T21:20:07.567" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You are right that it doesn't fit the description for the Barry Attack or London system. In neither system does white fianchetto his kingside bishop like that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The black side looks characteristic of the Gruenfeld Defence. There are many ways for white to respond to the Gruenfeld. I haven't seen this one but that doesn't mean much since I rarely play the Gruenfeld as black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2015-04-22T21:20:07.567" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9118" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9119" CreationDate="2015-04-22T22:38:13.647" Score="2" ViewCount="282" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would like to have a survey of the decided games with 1.b4 since 2010,&#xA; where both players had at least 2600 Elo. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;chessgames.com allows to search games with given moves (with tight limits), but &#xA; does not allow to search for Elo.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can anyone help ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5784" LastActivityDate="2020-02-19T14:57:34.280" Title="Are there decided recent games with 1. b4 at top level?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;famous-players&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9119" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9118" CreationDate="2015-04-23T00:05:41.817" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The only games I could find meeting your criteria are&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Ivanchuk - Giri, Leon Masters (rapid) 2013&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Short - Caruana, London Classic (rapid) 2013&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2015-04-23T00:05:41.817" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9121" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="75" CreationDate="2015-04-23T15:28:02.173" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the second diagram in &lt;a href=&quot;//chess.stackexchange.com/a/8319&quot;&gt;this answer&lt;/a&gt; is a position called Mat de Legal.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;This variation of the Scottish gambit is quite aggressive too:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Title &quot;Scottish gambit / Mat de Legal&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 exd4 4.Bc4 Bb4+ 5.c3 dxc3 6.O-O *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7266" LastEditorUserId="4186" LastEditDate="2020-03-10T06:57:45.920" LastActivityDate="2020-03-10T06:57:45.920" CommentCount="0" CommunityOwnedDate="2015-04-23T15:28:02.173" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="9124" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8233" CreationDate="2015-04-24T16:06:36.643" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Chess24 rating has undergone some changes over the last year, resulting on it being slightly inflated compared both ICC and Playchess ratings at the moment. This is a perception of my opponents' playing strength on my part (opinion) and my own ratings on the sites (N=1), so take it for what it's worth.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess 24 ratings started off at 1500, while the players who were drawn to it were relatively strong (for whatever reason), meaning people were relatively underrated in the beginning. They upped the rating at that point, and as far as I could tell and remember increased everyone's rating by 200 points on two occasions since launch.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2768" LastEditorUserId="2768" LastEditDate="2015-04-24T19:04:53.437" LastActivityDate="2015-04-24T19:04:53.437" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9125" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-04-24T22:43:01.913" Score="5" ViewCount="239" Body="&lt;p&gt;White moves. Is there a systematic approach to tackling such crowded formations?  I don't see an efficient way to progress, aside from charging to trade figures in order to thin the population.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[FEN &quot;r1q2rk1/1p2pp2/2p2npb/p2pNb1p/Pn1P1P2/1PN1PBP1/2PB3P/2RQ1RK1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7276" LastActivityDate="2015-07-04T20:27:13.470" Title="&quot;Breaking&quot; crowded positions" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;theory&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9126" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9125" CreationDate="2015-04-24T23:07:17.667" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a tricky case because White has allowed the horrific structural weakness on &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; That backward e-pawn has to go.  But Black has 3 defenders on &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd consider &lt;code&gt;1. Re1&lt;/code&gt; preparing for &lt;code&gt;2. e4&lt;/code&gt;.  Another option is to play &lt;code&gt;1. Ne2&lt;/code&gt; in preparation for &lt;code&gt;2. c4&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In general, locked up pawns aren't bad as long as you don't give yourself weaknesses. Avoid the weaknesses if you can. If you can't, then find a way to break the position open.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2015-04-24T23:07:17.667" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9127" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9129" CreationDate="2015-04-25T02:44:42.693" Score="6" ViewCount="252" Body="&lt;p&gt;Engines evaluate a position based on a number of factors - material imbalance, king safety, control of the center, pawn structure etc.&#xA;My understanding is that they then combine these separate evaluations using a weighting for each (which can be adjusted), to produce a final score for the position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there an engine which can display a breakdown of the separate evaluations?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Material: 0.00&#xA;King safety: -1.21&#xA;Center control: +0.87&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which means that material is equal, but black's king is less safe than whites, and white has better control of the center.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7277" LastActivityDate="2019-03-14T16:26:07.347" Title="Is there an engine which can give a breakdown of its evaluations" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9128" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8233" CreationDate="2015-04-25T07:27:50.497" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;From my own experience chess24 ratings are quite inflated. I can get a 2200 rating easy on chess24 but struggle to maintain a 1900+ rating on chess.com.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3357" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T19:08:17.947" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T19:08:17.947" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="9129" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9127" CreationDate="2015-04-25T07:34:45.063" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes. Look at Stockfish 6. You can try it yourself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDITED&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;MG -&gt; Middle Game&#xA;EG -&gt; End Game&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most chess engines have a different set of evaluation or algorithm for an endgame. They could use it to model phase transition (e.g.: middle-game to end-game).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/bcReP.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2015-04-25T08:31:32.663" LastActivityDate="2015-04-25T08:31:32.663" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9130" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8856" CreationDate="2015-04-25T14:38:59.950" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Castling is an important move that allows a player to put his king into the corner's safety. The rearrangement that occurs when a player castles is beneficial because the king usually finds increased safety, away from the dangerous centre files while the rook boosts its attacking potential by moving out of the corner. To explain how much of an advantage it gives to have your opponent not being able to castle, I will talk about some positional strategies that we can adopt to exploit the disadvantage of it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Every player likes to control the centre, the strategy of central control is why you want your d and e pawns to come up to d3, e3, d4 and e4 squares and try and control d4 d5 e4 and e5 centre squares. This opens up the centre and if the king is unable to castle and go behind g or c pawn, this leaves him right behind the open pawn structure in the centre, while his opponent's king looks very safe behind the f g and h pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So assume white is the one who is not allowed to castle, and black already has. White needs to think about counter attack on f, g and h files and wants to open the black king to create an attack, meanwhile his own king is already open while trying to control the centre by pushing his centre pawns. So here black gains the advantage of having more opportunities to create threats on the open white king and white now has to defend his own king and also think about creating access to black's king, so obviously white is in a much more difficult situation than Black. This is a great advantage that black gets off his opponent not being able to castle (and the reason why most openings include castling in it's book moves).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This can also be related to opposite side castling, where both sides are pushing their opposite pawns forward hoping to be the first to launch an attack (the Sicilian defence is one of the best example where this usually happens). After opposite side castling, both sides can also have their pawns in centre and fight for centre control. While the most important thing is that both can achieve equality in the center, they still don't have to worry about their king because if one player tries to start an attack on his opponent's king side, the other can start a counter attack. Consider the same situation in a position where white's king can not castle and is in e1, say whites pawns are on c2 d2 e3 and f2 protecting the king while the g and h pawns are marching forward to attack black's king. To achieve a successful attack white needs his major pieces to also support the g and h pawns, so not only most of white's pieces have to leave one corner of the board and come to the other, but white also has to give up the centre squares while supporting the corner. Meanwhile, black's minor and major pieces, which have access to the centre, help not only to attack white's King which is in e1, but can also defend his own king since the pieces which are in centre have more mobility and control many more squares than the ones that are in corner!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With proper play from the opening, a side which can castle will have the decisive advantage of an &lt;strong&gt;early attack on the opponents king.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, there are a few instances where castling should be avoided. Some common reasons include:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If castling will expose your king to greater danger.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If your opponent’s most threatening pieces (especially the queen) have already left the board.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If your rook is supporting an important advance of a flank pawn.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If you have powerful tactics available immediately and castling will cost you the initiative.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4354" LastEditorUserId="3890" LastEditDate="2017-07-23T14:31:04.770" LastActivityDate="2017-07-23T14:31:04.770" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9131" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6442" CreationDate="2015-04-25T15:42:47.067" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is now a CBH to PGN app for Android (only handles CBH files, not cbv) - &lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.chess.cb&amp;amp;hl=en&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.chess.cb&amp;amp;hl=en&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I personally would like to see this available as a command line utility on windows.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="618" LastActivityDate="2015-04-25T15:42:47.067" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9132" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9133" CreationDate="2015-04-25T17:10:29.133" Score="2" ViewCount="69" Body="&lt;p&gt;In a book from J.Silman, I found this position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;r1qr2k1/p2bppbp/3p2p1/1p1P4/3B1P2/1B3Q1P/PPP3P1/3RR1K1 b - - 0 17&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1... Re8 2. c3 h5 *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It deals with the rooks, white managed to semi-open the &lt;code&gt;e&lt;/code&gt; column and will deploy a massive attack on it. My question is : why black does not play &lt;code&gt;e7-e5&lt;/code&gt;? After &lt;code&gt;dxe6&lt;/code&gt; the white pawn is sufficiently attacked by black's forces, and if there is a global exchange on &lt;code&gt;e6&lt;/code&gt;, the weakening of the black's castle does not seem to be dangerous.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1855" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2015-04-25T17:39:23.750" LastActivityDate="2015-04-25T17:45:07.473" Title="in silman's book, question about open files and global exchange" Tags="&lt;pawns&gt;&lt;rooks&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9133" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9132" CreationDate="2015-04-25T17:45:07.473" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It seems to me that after e5 and exchanges on e6 and g7 the d6-pawn is hanging ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;r1qr2k1/p2bppbp/3p2p1/1p1P4/3B1P2/1B3Q1P/PPP3P1/3RR1K1 b - - 0 17&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1... Re8 2. c3 e5 3.dxe6 Bxe6 4.Bxg7 Kxg7 5.Bxe6 Rxe6 6.Rxe6 fxe6 7.Rxd6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-04-25T17:45:07.473" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9134" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-04-26T01:42:56.977" Score="2" ViewCount="818" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd like to automatically generate move by move analysis (based on my past games) like they have on lichess for imported games.  My guess is that I need to run a full stockfish analysis for each move (via UCI) and then glue those outputs together.   I was just wondering if I was missing an easier way?  Is there a &quot;full&quot; analysis option that let's you get all of the scoring/annotation in one go?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7279" LastActivityDate="2018-06-26T09:06:03.800" Title="Duplicating the game analysis output on lichess" Tags="&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;programming&gt;&lt;uci&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9135" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8953" CreationDate="2015-04-26T17:17:33.490" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Black's 34 ...cxd4 is probably a bad choice. Taking with the rook seems good if also they could have exchanged a pair of rooks, because the pawn is blocked by the white rook. Also Black's doubled pawns on the g-file from move 24 to 43 gives an advantage to white. So i think black couldn't have saved the game unless White blundered.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7283" LastEditorUserId="11202" LastEditDate="2017-04-18T04:17:38.970" LastActivityDate="2017-04-18T04:17:38.970" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9139" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-04-27T07:00:16.440" Score="1" ViewCount="704" Body="&lt;p&gt;Playing 1 minute bullet games with no increment on the Internet is hard enough, but what about over the board, in real life with an actual wooden board?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Would it be possible, or would 90% of the games end in total chaos with many illegal moves and pieces getting knocked over everywhere?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Would it be possible to have &quot;serious&quot; over the board tournaments played at this time control?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the answer to the question is no, what about 2 minutes bullet with no increment? Would serious over the board tournaments be possible at this time control?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3237" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-11-15T03:44:22.360" LastActivityDate="2019-11-15T03:44:22.360" Title="Is it possible to play 1 minute bullet with no increment over the board?" Tags="&lt;time-control&gt;&lt;illegal-move&gt;&lt;bullet-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="9140" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9139" CreationDate="2015-04-27T08:54:27.647" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well I,myself, have played quite a lot of both 1-minute and 2-minute bullet chess games on a real board. I'd recommend a vinyl board rather than a wooden one, and I have to say it won't end up in total chaos if you have two players who are used to playing 3 minute bullet chess or something alike, so they get used to playing with under a minute on their clocks, and of course who are good enough to be able to think of decent moves with such little time available. (with no increment) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7020" LastActivityDate="2015-04-27T08:54:27.647" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9141" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9065" CreationDate="2015-04-27T09:38:16.220" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I make it 21 moves, but it's quite likely that my home-made Python code (too long and messy to post here!) has mistakes, so please take this with a grain of salt.  I get 112 positions which require 21 (white) moves to mate.  The first one on the list is the following board, with black to play:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ZSuel.png&quot; alt=&quot;White king on A1, black king on C2, white janus on h1&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Janus shown as a bishop because I couldn't easily find a suitable graphic.  Image created using &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.apronus.com/chess/wbeditor.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.apronus.com/chess/wbeditor.php&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5781" LastActivityDate="2015-04-27T09:38:16.220" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9142" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9150" CreationDate="2015-04-27T13:56:43.217" Score="3" ViewCount="198" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are there any programs that can generate a huge amount of different interesting chess problems? Are there any programs that can make a lot of retrograde analysis problems?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5633" LastEditorUserId="7726" LastEditDate="2020-09-15T06:46:12.200" LastActivityDate="2020-09-15T06:46:12.200" Title="Concerning a chess problem generating program" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;problems&gt;&lt;composing&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="9143" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9139" CreationDate="2015-04-27T16:37:41.990" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've played one minute, no increment, over-the-board chess, it definitely can be done.  My experience (at least with the opponents I've played with...) has been that it's almost always turned into a huge time scramble with lots of knocked-over pieces, and I can tell you that a substantial fraction of the games I've played at this time control (maybe 20% or so - just a guess off the top of my head) have ended with one player or another making an illegal move - often because they didn't notice that they were in check, or because they tried to move a pinned piece or something and ended up putting themselves in check.  Depending on who you are playing with (and your own habits in this regard), I'd personally recommend playing like this only with a clock that you don't really care much about - many of the opponents I've played at this time control have been really rough on the clock...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7147" LastActivityDate="2015-04-27T16:37:41.990" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9144" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9145" CreationDate="2015-04-27T18:03:12.470" Score="4" ViewCount="10919" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here's my scenario, White has pawns on c2 and a2, and a king on c1, while Black has a queen on b4 and a king on d1.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;4k3/8/8/8/1q6/8/P1P5/2K5 b - - 0 1 &quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1...Qe1+ 2.Kb2 Qb4+ 3.Ka1 Qe1+ 4.Kb2 Qb4+.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why isn't this threefold repetition? I'm the player with Black, we've been going back and forth for 30 moves. I've offered a draw and the guy won't accept. I have the weaker position on the board, which is why I want a draw. Is this just bad chess ethics on my part?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3104" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-09-16T21:28:42.913" LastActivityDate="2021-02-20T11:41:22.230" Title="Why isn't this threefold repetition, forcing a draw?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;draw&gt;&lt;threefold-repetition&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="9145" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9144" CreationDate="2015-04-27T18:11:22.837" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is no such thing as &quot;3 move repetition&quot;. To claim a draw, the &lt;em&gt;position&lt;/em&gt; must be repeated three times (although it does not have to be in a row). In your example, the position with a Black queen and b4 and a White king on b2 has only occurred twice so far. You can claim a draw by repetition of position the next time that you can cause that position to appear.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you make such a valid claim and your opponent refuses to honor it, he or she is not playing by the rules of chess. If you are playing on some computer service that does not recognize a valid claim of threefold repetition, the service does not implement the full rules of chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2015-04-27T18:11:22.837" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9146" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9144" CreationDate="2015-04-27T18:59:16.620" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;For a draw in chess any one of the following rules should satisfy : &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;stalemate&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;threefold repetition of a position (with the same player to move)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;if there has been no capture or a pawn being moved in the last fifty moves&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;if checkmate is impossible&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;or if the players agree to a draw.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;strong&gt;threefold repetition rule&lt;/strong&gt; (also known as repetition of position) states that a player can claim a draw if the &lt;strong&gt;same position&lt;/strong&gt; occurs three times, or will occur after their next move, with the same player to move and the same possible moves. The last means that the first time and the third time have both the same castling and en passant moves possible. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The repeated positions do not need to occur in succession.&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The rule applies to positions, not moves.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Now, analyze the moves on a board once again and see if it really was a draw.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7288" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-09-21T14:09:52.953" LastActivityDate="2019-09-21T14:09:52.953" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="9147" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9160" CreationDate="2015-04-28T00:29:27.307" Score="6" ViewCount="1207" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am novice with average of 1000 -1500 elo.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I start learning games played by grandmasters by heart, as in memorizing them, does it help me improve my chess skill, or it is a useless waste of time?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, I’m not talking about just random grandmaster games, but games from grandmasters with style that I like for a particular reason, such as their attacking style for example&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This doesn’t mean learning games with a deep analysis as to why this move was made (because of my low rating), but learning with a possible chance to learn typical/mini combinations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any suggestions?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7289" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-05-19T00:45:43.793" LastActivityDate="2019-05-19T00:45:43.793" Title="Learning my favorite grandmaster games by heart" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;grandmaster&gt;&lt;memorization&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="9148" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9147" CreationDate="2015-04-28T00:33:47.580" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;It won't help much. You won't understand why they are choosing the moves they are making. The easiest and fastest way to improve is to go to your local chess club. They will pair you with opponents of your skill level. The better players will help you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2015-04-28T00:33:47.580" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9149" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4719" CreationDate="2015-04-28T07:36:17.580" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chesstempo.com/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;ChessTempo&lt;/a&gt; uses a chess engine to analyze positions from a large database of master games. It looks for interesting positions that can be presented as chess problems. Specifically it looks for positions in which one side has a way to win material within a few moves, but where alternative moves do not. These positions are then offered to users of the site who try to find the computer's selected best move. The users can also comment on the problems, tag them and rate how they liked the problem. Each problem is also given an ELO-like rating based on which users solved or failed to solve the problem.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many of the problems turn out to be uninteresting (e.g. simple captures with no strategy involved) or flawed in some way (due to the chess engine not seeing some detail of the position). The easy problems are quickly given a low difficulty rating and are not shown to high rated players. Flawed problems are identified in comments and are disabled by the site administrator.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The result is a large body of interesting chess problems found by a computer, moderated by humans, and arranged by difficult level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="45" LastActivityDate="2015-04-28T07:36:17.580" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9150" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9142" CreationDate="2015-04-28T08:18:31.997" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;AFAIK, there aren't programs that generate chess problems On the other hand, there are several well known programs to verify chess problems (even with fairy chess conditions).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The main reason is that composing a good problem is kind of an art, the problem should not only be valid (in the sense that it is solvable etc.) but also esthetically pleasing. It also should be original, showing something new or fresh. These aspects are badly handled by computer programs upto now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3819" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-09-15T03:34:51.827" LastActivityDate="2020-09-15T03:34:51.827" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="9151" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8569" CreationDate="2015-04-28T12:48:17.643" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Nalimov tablebases allow up to 6 pieces including the Kings,&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.k4it.de/?topic=egtb&amp;amp;lang=en&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.k4it.de/?topic=egtb&amp;amp;lang=en&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3357" LastActivityDate="2015-04-28T12:48:17.643" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9152" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-04-28T19:20:13.843" Score="1" ViewCount="131" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there a video archive of the (rapid and blitz) match between Kasparov and Karpov that took place in Valencia in 2009? I assume there was a live video coverage with commentary, and I would very much like to watch it. Is there a website where one can (re)watch this match? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2792" LastActivityDate="2015-05-04T13:03:51.933" Title="Video of the Kasparov vs. Kaprov 2009 match in Valencia" Tags="&lt;blitz&gt;&lt;kasparov&gt;&lt;karpov&gt;&lt;rapid&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9153" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2015-04-29T17:10:48.593" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2015-04-29T17:10:48.593" LastActivityDate="2015-04-29T17:10:48.593" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9154" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2015-04-29T17:10:48.593" Score="0" Body="Questions related to dedicated computer hardware for playing chess" OwnerUserId="7147" LastEditorUserId="7147" LastEditDate="2015-04-30T21:31:09.437" LastActivityDate="2015-04-30T21:31:09.437" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9155" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9163" CreationDate="2015-04-29T17:24:20.897" Score="3" ViewCount="551" Body="&lt;p&gt;With Novag being gone for a while now, I'm wondering who ended up with their intellectual property - in particular, the software that ran their computers.  I'm aware that there are some ROM images of...  ummm...  &quot;questionable legitimacy&quot;... that exist on emulator sites for a few older Novag systems.  I'm just wondering if there's any way to contact whoever currently owns Novag's IP to see if they have any plans for further product development - and if not, if they could be convinced to make ROM images from their hardware available to the chess community...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yeah, I know modern (and free) engines like Stockfish play a much better game than most of the old Novag gear - I just always enjoyed playing against these systems, I found their play (with the right settings) to be more &quot;human&quot; than an absolutely relentless modern engine.  I think it would be a lot of fun if the old Novag software could be used as the basis of a UCI engine that could plug into a modern chess GUI, sort of like has been done with some of the old Mephisto software.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7147" LastActivityDate="2017-03-06T18:21:52.307" Title="Does anyone know who currently owns Novag's intellectual property?" Tags="&lt;hardware&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9156" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9158" CreationDate="2015-04-29T18:16:57.813" Score="5" ViewCount="979" Body="&lt;p&gt;The entirety of my current chess knowledge consists solely of the valid moves which the pieces can make. I've played a few matches, but my moves tend to be aimless, by this I mean they lack any purpose. What books and video series would you recommend so that I can bring some structure to my chess game? I'm looking for something of an absolute beginner's difficulty that goes on to an intermediate level. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1183" LastEditorUserId="10905" LastEditDate="2016-11-21T20:09:33.487" LastActivityDate="2016-11-21T20:09:33.487" Title="What books and videos would you recommend to an absolute beginner of Chess?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;books&gt;&lt;beginner&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9157" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9156" CreationDate="2015-04-29T19:58:04.850" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Regarding videos, there are some very instructive channels on YouTube. For an absolute beginner I would highly recommend &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/user/Majnu2006&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Majnu2006&lt;/a&gt;. In particular, the playlists &quot;Practical chess endgames&quot; and &quot;Chess middlegame training&quot; are really good for getting a feel for positions where you normally get stuck and do not know what to do. Of course, other playlists are also very good, but for a start, the two mentioned above should do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Secondly, I would also recommend the YouTube channel of the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/user/STLChessClub&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis&lt;/a&gt;. There you have grandmasters like Yasser Seirawan (a living legend of the game), Var Akobian etc. giving lectures for different levels (beginner, intermediate, advanced). There are lectures on basic concepts, and there are lectures on some famous games, all varying in difficulty level, style and topics, so there is a lot of helpful material to choose from. In my view, Yasser Seirawan is especially gifted in conveying chess knowledge---his ideas are easy to follow and to remember. On top of that, he often tells chess anecdotes, which serve as a nice spice to an already good lecture. In short, he is a very good choice for people who are starting to play chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are several other very good channels, mentioned in my answer &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/7886/a-really-good-site/7893#7893&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Regarding books, it is usually a good idea to learn from the masters. Therefore, my suggestion would be Capablanca's little gem &quot;Chess Fundamentals&quot;. As the name says, the book is an introduction to the basic concepts in chess. How suited is the book to your needs depends, of course,  on how seriously you are planning to study chess. As a general advice, though, I cannot think of a better introduction to the magic world of 64 squares.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Enjoy!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2792" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2015-04-29T20:26:18.377" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9158" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9156" CreationDate="2015-04-29T20:32:18.283" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Absolute beginner? My best advice to you would be getting/buying Chess Master Grand Master Edition game. Install the Josh Waitzkin Academy (it will ask you while you're installing it's easy to notice) and go through his tutorial.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's an interactive tutorial that teaches you how to start thinking as a chess player, it's completely voiced and will have puzzles and questions as it goes from one level to another forcing you to put what you just learned into practice. When you finish the entire tutorial, you should have at the end at least basic knowledge about openings (including some traps and how to avoid them!) middle game tactics and some sacrifices and last but definitely not least basic understanding of end game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At the start it will even have you slightly practice memorizing the chess board annotations (like where b4 is or any other square) which &lt;strong&gt;definitely&lt;/strong&gt; helps in the long run when you go into higher levels of chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After you're completely done with this tutorial and master it (you will most likely watch it more than once throughout your chess career to understand everything completely 100%) there is another course, which is less of a tutorial and more of a high level analysis between a GM and a ferocious Chess machine. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I advise you to not just watch and finish these tutorials but to also go out and play with other people... If there's a chess club out there near you or at least you can reach by bus or something, &lt;strong&gt;definitely&lt;/strong&gt; go there and play against stronger players and you'll improve even faster.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope I helped :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6966" LastActivityDate="2015-04-29T20:32:18.283" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9159" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-04-30T11:58:21.507" Score="5" ViewCount="294" Body="&lt;p&gt;where I can download positions for visualisation training? I am not looking for diagrams, I would like to have only position record saved in standard chess notation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or are there such a book?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7305" LastActivityDate="2016-10-11T23:09:43.803" Title="Positions for visualisations" Tags="&lt;training&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9160" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9147" CreationDate="2015-04-30T12:05:06.867" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm going to be a bit contrarian and say that it may be more beneficial than the other answers here seem to imply. The reasoning is simple - what is the easiest way to remember a series of moves? Not by simply remembering which piece moved where, but by understanding what the &lt;em&gt;purpose&lt;/em&gt; of each move is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And if you know the purpose of each move, your mind may start to associate the remembered patterns with the purposes. This seems to me that it could be quite beneficial.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now I'm not saying this is better than other forms of training, but if you particularly enjoy this activity, then it may be more productive than doing another form of training which you don't. Personally, I can't imagine why anyone would &lt;em&gt;enjoy&lt;/em&gt; remembering details like this, but to each his own.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In addition, given a historical chess position, many GM's can easily recall which game the position is from (I saw a documentary where Carlsen was given a position from a random historical game and he got most of the information about the game right; he remembered who the players were, but I think he got the exact year slightly wrong). This indicates to me that GM's spend a non-trivial amount of time studying and remembering other games - it would be strange to dismiss this form of training out of hand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1816" LastEditorUserId="1816" LastEditDate="2015-05-01T07:16:37.160" LastActivityDate="2015-05-01T07:16:37.160" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9161" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9147" CreationDate="2015-04-30T19:40:33.463" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is actually the main idea behind &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Royal_Game&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;The Royal Game&lt;/a&gt;, a short story by Stefan Zweig. Very well written and very recognisable for anyone who plays chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7310" LastActivityDate="2015-04-30T19:40:33.463" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9162" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9169" CreationDate="2015-05-01T14:38:17.577" Score="2" ViewCount="614" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a weak player and I always will be. After completing the opening I have no idea what to do and, since a bad plan is better than no plan, I decided to do this from now on in every game:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;wait for my opponent to castle;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;castle in the opposite side;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;start a pawn storm.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My usual opponents are even weaker than me, so I really think it can work, and I expect it to be more enjoyable than just wait for a tactical mistake.&#xA;My question is... what kind of opening repertoire is most suited to implement my plan?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3423" LastEditorDisplayName="user669" LastEditDate="2015-05-02T18:19:02.297" LastActivityDate="2015-05-02T18:19:02.297" Title="Openings for pawn storms" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;planning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9163" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9155" CreationDate="2015-05-01T18:48:08.730" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Novag was sold in 2009 to Solar Wide Industrial Ltd. They have continued to manufacture chess computers until 2014. Perhaps you should try to contact Solar Wide Industrial Ltd for more information. Their website is &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.solarwide.com.hk&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.solarwide.com.hk&lt;/a&gt; but seems to be off line.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4509" LastEditorUserId="4509" LastEditDate="2015-05-01T18:59:26.683" LastActivityDate="2015-05-01T18:59:26.683" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9164" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-05-01T19:12:28.733" Score="3" ViewCount="962" Body="&lt;p&gt;From the feedback received I updated the main line (from pos 39). I post an update of this endgame. Now it is more clear that f7 is a weak point, and it is tricky for black to try to stop the two menaces: f7 and play on the c file ... It is not clear whether to try to take e5 pawn or play on the queenside without stopping rook menaces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit 1: From your suggestions I tried to improve the game ... but somehow I think that white can improve the game ... I arrive at this position that seems nice for black (with idea of b3 and promote ...)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Side to move: Black&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;8/5p2/4p2p/3pP1pP/1p1n4/k7/P2R1KP1/8 b - - 5 45&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here I post the update the rest of analysis :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;Android 2.3.5&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;GT-I9001&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2015.04.20&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;-&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Stockfish 4&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Mandor&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;*&quot;]&#xA;[Startply &quot;75&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.e5 Nfd7 5.Nce2 c5 6.c3 Nc6 7.f4 Qb6 8.Nf3 cxd4 9.cxd4 Be7 10.Nc3 O-O 11.Be2 a6 12.O-O Qa7 13.Be3 b5 14.Qc2 Nb6 15.b3 b4 16.Nb5 Qd7 17.Nd6 Bxd6 18.exd6 Qxd6 19.Ne5 Ne7 20.Bd3 g6 21.Rac1 a5 22.Qc5 Qxc5 23.dxc5 Nd7 24.c6 Nxe5 25.fxe5 Ba6 26.Bxa6 Rxa6 27.Bc5 Nxc6 28.Bxf8 Kxf8 29.Rfe1 Ke7 30.Rc2 Kd7 31.Rf2 Nd8 32.Kf1 Rc6 33.Ke2 Rc2+ 34.Kf1 Rxf2+ 35.Kxf2 Nc6 36.h3 Kc7 37.h4 Kb6 38.Kf3 h6 39.Kg4 Kb5 40.Kg3 a4 41.bxa4+ Kxa4 42.h5 g5 43.Re2 Ka3 44.Kf2 Nd4 45.Rd2 b3 46.axb3 Nc6 47.Ke3 Kb4 48. Rc2 Kb5 49.Rc1 Nxe5 50.Rc7 Kb6 51.Re7 Kc6 52.b4 Kd6 53.Rb7 Ng4+ 54.Kd4 e5+ 55.Kc3 d4+ 56.Kc4 Ne3+ 57.Kd3 Nxg2 *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All suggestions are welcome! Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit 2:&#xA;From this position : 8/5p1p/1kn1p1p1/p2pP3/1p5P/1P3K2/P5P1/4R3 b - - 2 38&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Summarizing until now from the core position. Is it possible to win with black? How? :)&#xA;1) Plan put Knight on f6 seems to fail due to: 38. Kf3 (for example) .. Nd4+ 39. Kf4 Nb5 40. Rf1! (and ok Knight, you can occupy f6 and I will let rook take f7 for example with Ke3 )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) Plan to change e5 pawn for f7 pawn I did not manage to have anything. Usually the white rook could counter attack on the back rank, and somehow the king and rook will take the kingside pawns. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) Plan to put king on b5 for me seems the most promising... but I did not manage to make it work : 38. Kf3 (to be coherent) h6 39. Kg4 (yes seems strange) Kb5 40. Kf4 a4 (with initial idea but ..) 41. bxa4+ Kxa4 42. Rc1! .. and what to do? Kb5 ?¿ And how to progress ? :(  (I though something like 42. Rc1 42. g5 43. hxg5 hxg5 44. Kxg5 Nxe5 45. Kf6 ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other ideas?¿&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1610" OwnerDisplayName="Mandor" LastEditorUserId="11202" LastEditDate="2017-04-18T02:11:17.953" LastActivityDate="2017-04-18T02:11:17.953" Title="Interesting Ending Knight + pawn vs Rook - main plans (white and black)" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;exchange&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9165" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9164" CreationDate="2015-05-02T08:18:55.610" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;First of all, I think white can only play to hold. The question is whether black can really create winning chances. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All the h3-h4-Kf3-Kg4-Kg3 stuff in the game and your line, is pretty much just white doing nothing. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Personally I would put the king on f4 straight away to free up the rook. And then put the rook on the c-file. This should limit blacks options by attacking the knight, cutting off the king and threatening a backrank invasion should the knight ever move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this scenario even playing a4 cannot easily be engineered because the black king wouldn't be able to take back on a4 and keep protecting the knight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are some other motifs in this position. When the white king reaches f4, black pretty much has to play h6 to prevent the invasion. And if black plays h6 white has to play h4, otherwise g5+ will always threaten to win the e5 pawn. If white starts with h4, I would seriously consider h6 with black because white might play h5 the next move, and suddenly the black kingside becomes pretty morose. (So, in the line you give 37.h4 Kb6 38. h5 might be an idea for white. 38…g5 39.h6 and the g5 pawn will fall, 38…h6 39.hxg6 fxg6 and at least there is another open file, although that one isn't so clear to me, but still, why give white the option?)  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Startply &quot;75&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Android 2.3.5&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;GT-I9001&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2015.04.20&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;-&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Stockfish 4&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Mandor&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;*&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.e5 Nfd7 5.Nce2 c5 6.c3 Nc6 7.f4 Qb6 8.Nf3 cxd4&#xA;9.cxd4 Be7 10.Nc3 O-O 11.Be2 a6 12.O-O Qa7 13.Be3 b5 14.Qc2 Nb6 15.b3 b4 &#xA;16.Nb5 Qd7 17.Nd6 Bxd6 18.exd6 Qxd6 19.Ne5 Ne7 20.Bd3 g6 21.Rac1 a5 22.Qc5&#xA;Qxc5 23.dxc5 Nd7 24.c6 Nxe5 25.fxe5 Ba6 26.Bxa6 Rxa6 27.Bc5 Nxc6 28.Bxf8 &#xA;Kxf8 29.Rfe1 Ke7 30.Rc2 Kd7 31.Rf2 Nd8 32.Kf1 Rc6 33.Ke2 Rc2+ &#xA;34.Kf1 Rxf2+ 35.Kxf2 Nc6 36.h4 Kc7 37.Kf3 Kb6 38.Kf4 h6 39.Rc1 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, black can still play for a win, by bringing the knight to c3. For example 39…Nd4 40.Rc8 Ne2+ 41.Ke3 Nc3 42.Rf8 this is extremely sharp and there are many options. White could go 39.Re2 first and the Rc2 and try to defend passively. Or maybe after 41…Nc3 he could just check the black king from behind and only go to f8 after the white kind went to the seven's …&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-05-02T08:18:55.610" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9166" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9168" CreationDate="2015-05-02T14:37:36.563" Score="8" ViewCount="912" Body="&lt;p&gt;So I was wondering where is it located, in the fide handbook, the rule that you have to shake hands with your opponent. I know it exists, especially since the Cheparinov-Short case some time ago, I was just wondering if anyone knew the exact place of it in the Handbook?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7020" LastEditorUserId="7020" LastEditDate="2015-05-02T21:57:31.127" LastActivityDate="2016-03-02T10:28:06.210" Title="Where exactly in the Fide handbook can you find the hand shaking rule?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;fide&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9167" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9164" CreationDate="2015-05-02T15:15:09.797" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Do not forget that the open c-file cannot be closed by the black king alone. What I mean is that if white gets his king on f4 he can move his rook to c1. As soon as the knight does not 'close' the c-file white can put his rook on either c5 or c8 after which it can attack the black pawns. Do not know if this will be good for white in the end but it gives possibilities. On f4 the white king is also still capable to stop the black d-pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4509" LastActivityDate="2015-05-02T15:15:09.797" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9168" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9166" CreationDate="2015-05-02T15:16:57.360" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure there was ever more than &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/component/content/article/3-news/1746-237-behavioural-norms-of-players-in-chess-events-pb-decision.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this press release&lt;/a&gt;. &#xA;It should have been expounded upon and turned into some rules of conduct, but it seems to me this never happened.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They do put the following rule in tournament regulations from time to time:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;13.3 The players shall shake hands (or shall greet each other in a normal social manner in accordance with the conventional rules of their society) before the start and after the end of each game. If a player fails to meet these requirements and after being asked to do so by the Chief Arbiter, then the player will lose the game immediately.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which they really wouldn't have to do, if this rule was a part of the official laws of chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-05-02T15:16:57.360" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9169" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9162" CreationDate="2015-05-02T15:48:55.020" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Since your opponent is most likely to castle short, you have to choose lines where long castling (for you) is reasonable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With white I would suggest &lt;code&gt;1. e4&lt;/code&gt;, and against &lt;code&gt;1... e5&lt;/code&gt; the Center Game &lt;code&gt;1. e4 e5 2. d4 exd4 3. Qxd4 Nc6 4. Qe3&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Center Game&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. d4 exd4 3. Qxd4 Nc6 4. Qe3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Against &lt;code&gt;1... c5&lt;/code&gt; you can play the Open Sicilian (&lt;code&gt;2. Nf3&lt;/code&gt; followed by &lt;code&gt;3. d4&lt;/code&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Against other black defenses you can find lines with long castling as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With black it's more difficult. You could try the French Winawer&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;French Winawer&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 Bb4 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;against &lt;code&gt;1. e4&lt;/code&gt; and the Albin Countergambit&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Albin Countergambit&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. c4 e5 3. dxe5 d4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;against &lt;code&gt;1. d4&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1485" LastActivityDate="2015-05-02T15:48:55.020" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9170" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-05-03T08:52:07.327" Score="6" ViewCount="332" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I go to &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chessgames.com/&lt;/a&gt;, I can search for matches that end in draws. However, I can not figure out how to filter those draws to specifically threefold repetition. How can I find these types of draws while filtering out the rest?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2697" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-10-27T13:09:57.713" LastActivityDate="2020-10-27T21:21:09.843" Title="How can I find games from grandmasters that end in threefold repetition?" Tags="&lt;draw&gt;&lt;threefold-repetition&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="9171" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-05-03T13:41:40.680" Score="2" ViewCount="4241" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have 5 pieces left and my opponent only has his king. It is my opponent's turn and his king is not in check but everywhere his king moves is checkmate. Who wins?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7320" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2015-05-04T00:07:25.760" LastActivityDate="2020-02-24T10:22:27.683" Title="It's not check but the next move is checkmate" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;check&gt;&lt;stalemate&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="0" ClosedDate="2020-02-24T10:30:20.907" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9172" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9171" CreationDate="2015-05-03T14:00:40.983" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is a draw by stalemate.....&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2015-05-03T14:00:40.983" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9173" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9175" CreationDate="2015-05-03T22:04:32.020" Score="2" ViewCount="1620" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;3r3k/1rp2p1p/4b2B/p3P1Q1/3q4/1P1P2P1/P4PBP/1R4K1 b - - 0 28&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They both give Qxf2 as the best move. I used &lt;a href=&quot;http://analysis.cpuchess.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://analysis.cpuchess.com/&lt;/a&gt; with search time 10 seconds. It's black to move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7321" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2015-05-03T22:33:59.490" LastActivityDate="2017-01-30T22:38:35.287" Title="Why do houdini and stockfish give this seemingly stupid move?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9174" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9171" CreationDate="2015-05-03T22:23:00.260" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;If it is your opponent's turn to move and none of your opponent's pieces can move other than his king, and the king would be in check on any square it could move to, we would call that stalemate.&#xA;In case of stalemate, neither player wins – the game is drawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are a few examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A simple one with just 3 pieces on the board with Black to move:&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/C9GVV.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here, the black king has nowhere to go, the squares h8, h7, g7 and f8 are controlled by the white queen and f7 is controlled by the white king. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Another position of stalemate with a few more pieces on the board, again with Black to move:&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/0rjoB.gif&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black has 2 pawns and his king. His pawns can’t move forward or capture any pieces and his King can’t move anywhere as its surrounding is controlled by the pieces as shown in the image.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A little more complicated one with even more pieces on the board (white to move):&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/rHMov.gif&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Positions like this one occur only very rarely! I believe it is a composition by someone and hasn't occurred in a real game.&#xA;Here all the pieces are on the board and yet White has no moves to make. All his pawns are fixed, most of his other pieces are blocked by his own pieces and the only 3 pieces which have space to move are the rook on g3, the knight on d2 and the king on e1. None of these three pieces can move since that would leave the king in check! Unfortunately this is a &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;draw&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;, because it is a &lt;strong&gt;stalemate&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4354" LastEditorUserId="674" LastEditDate="2020-02-24T10:22:27.683" LastActivityDate="2020-02-24T10:22:27.683" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="9175" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9173" CreationDate="2015-05-03T22:44:20.320" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the given position, Black ultimately has no way to avoid an impending checkmate, hence is lost no matter what. The engines you're consulting are just trying to push that unavoidable mate as far into the future as possible. &lt;code&gt;1...Qxf2+&lt;/code&gt; does that the best; any other defensive tries lead to a quicker checkmate. For instance:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;????.??.??&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;*&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;3r3k/1rp2p1p/4b2B/p3P1Q1/3q4/1P1P2P1/P4PBP/1R4K1 b - - 0 28&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1...Qxf2+ &#xA;    ( 1...Rg8 2.Qf6+ Rg7 3.Qxg7# )&#xA;    ( 1...Qxe5 2.Qxd8# )&#xA;2.Kxf2 Rg8 3.Qf6+ Rg7 4.Qxg7# *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2015-05-03T22:44:20.320" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9176" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9173" CreationDate="2015-05-03T23:38:42.473" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let me explain what Black can do in this position first, eventually you will understand why Qxf2 isn't the stupidest move which engines are saying.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I want you to see this as a real war and you are the black King here (*not at all being racist! :p )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So anyway, in the battle your opponent's Queen and Bishop's combined force is about to kill you in 2 days, 1st day the Queen invades your g7 kingdom and threatens to kill you on h8 on the 2nd day. As you can not escape your death, you wish to live longer at least! Hence the Engines you possess to help you survive are suggesting the best ways for you to live longer, the engines, as they are robots, they are not sensitive for your feelings of love and lust towards your Black Queen(*again! not being racist or hurting your feelings) and hence says you to send your queen to f2 on the first day so that your opponent's King has to deal with your Queen first before killing you and so you can live longer. I hope you have understood by now, but if not;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In pure chess language:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You are getting mated on g7, you can defend the g7 square by playing 1..Rg8, but 2.Qf6+ will be a forced mate. If 1...Qxe5, then 2.Qxg7 Mate. Hence only 1...Qxf2 will help you prolong the mate by 1 additional move, and that's why computer suggests that as better than anything else.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;3r3k/1rp2p1p/4b2B/p3P1Q1/3q4/1P1P2P1/P4PBP/1R4K1 b - - 0 28&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1...Qxf2+ &#xA;    ( 1...Rg8 2.Qf6+ Rg7 3.Qxg7# )&#xA;    ( 1...Qxe5 2.Qxd8# )&#xA;2.Kxf2 Rg8 3.Qf6+ Rg7 4.Qxg7#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, sensibly, you can resign in this position if you want to even before Qxf2.&#xA;But technically,&#xA;Engines are programmed in such a way that it goes as deep as possible in search of finding the best moves, and here it found Qxf2 that took it the farthest.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4354" LastEditorUserId="4354" LastEditDate="2015-05-04T08:38:33.340" LastActivityDate="2015-05-04T08:38:33.340" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9178" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9179" CreationDate="2015-05-04T02:30:38.003" Score="6" ViewCount="2635" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was recently told you may not move a piece out of the way of a second piece to allow the second piece to put the other player in check.  For example, I have my queen and rook lined up on a diagonal with my opponent's king.  I move my rook, opening the path for my queen to their king putting it in check.  According to my opponent, you aren't allowed to do this. You have to actively move the queen into a check position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this a standard rule?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7322" LastEditorUserId="7322" LastEditDate="2019-10-02T07:15:25.413" LastActivityDate="2019-10-02T07:15:25.413" Title="Moving a piece out of the way for check" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;check&gt;&lt;discovered-check&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="9179" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9178" CreationDate="2015-05-04T08:51:33.717" Score="17" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can move your other piece to make your queen attack the king in a normal position such as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;4r3/8/8/2QB1k2/p5q1/3K4/8/8 w - - 0 1&#xA;&#xA;1.Bf3+**[Discovered-Check]&#xA;(1.Be4+**[Double-check])&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But you are forbidden to do so if the piece you move will put your own king in check, such as: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;3r4/8/8/2QB1k2/p5q1/3K4/8/8 w - - 0 1&#xA;&#xA;1.Bf3**[illegal-move] &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here both Be4 and Bf3 are illegal because the rook on d8 will be attacking your King.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So to conclude, there is no standard rule avoiding you to play discovered check except when the move puts your own king in check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4354" LastEditorUserId="7096" LastEditDate="2015-05-04T10:58:28.703" LastActivityDate="2015-05-04T10:58:28.703" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9180" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9166" CreationDate="2015-05-04T11:00:24.503" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Also the fact that Kramnik and Topalov don't shake hands before and after the games (since the incident in the world championship game in 2006) shows that it's not compulsory even in the very high level. &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess24.com/en/read/news/kramnik-i-just-don-t-respect-him-as-a-person&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Here&lt;/a&gt; you can find an interview with Kramnik about this issue.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7096" LastEditorUserId="7096" LastEditDate="2016-03-02T10:28:06.210" LastActivityDate="2016-03-02T10:28:06.210" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9182" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9152" CreationDate="2015-05-04T13:03:51.933" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I could find replay of live videos, but the commentary wasn't available..! :/&#xA;here you can stream those videos&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/user/mecaweb/search?query=kasparov%20vs%20karpov%202009%20valencia&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Kasparov vs Karpov - Valencia, 2009&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4354" LastActivityDate="2015-05-04T13:03:51.933" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9184" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9190" CreationDate="2015-05-04T23:30:04.987" Score="6" ViewCount="192" Body="&lt;p&gt;I played a game against my mobile AI, me playing white. At this point in the game I had to get off my train, and when I picked it up again I was a bit quick on the trigger, moving my e-pawn, which cost me my rook and the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;8/pk3rpp/2R5/8/P7/4P3/6PP/6K1 w - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've been scratching my head for half a day trying to figure out whether it was really a won game. My question here is, what is worth more: my pawn, or his king being more free to move around?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An additional pawn (and a passed one at that) is a strong piece in the end game, but so is a king, and my pawn is far from promotion. If I could somehow protect my a-pawn while simultaneously guide the e-pawn forwards I would probably win. Is that doable?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7327" LastActivityDate="2015-05-05T22:38:55.387" Title="Is there a path to victory?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;rook-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9185" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9189" CreationDate="2015-05-05T04:40:17.927" Score="2" ViewCount="157" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm getting back into chess after a hiatus of 8+ years, so I'm a bit rusty. This position is from a game I just played online.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm white and it's my move. I threaten black's rook and knight with &lt;code&gt;Qd5&lt;/code&gt;, and this is how it played out. I'm amazed it worked in my favor, because as far as I can tell, instead of &lt;code&gt;3. - a6&lt;/code&gt;, he could have moved &lt;code&gt;3. - Qf6&lt;/code&gt;, which would save him after a few exchanges. Am I missing something, or did he just make the wrong move?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: Removed irrelevant sentence about Kf7.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;r1b1kbnr/p1pp4/1p6/4nP1p/6pq/2N5/PPP1BPPP/R1BQ1RK1 w - - 0 1&#xA;&#xA;1. Qd5 Nc6&#xA;2. Bb5 Nge7&#xA;3. Re1 a6&#xA;4. Bxc6 dxc6&#xA;5. Qxc6+ Bd7&#xA;6. Qxa8+ Kf7&#xA;7. Qxa6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7328" LastEditorUserId="3594" LastEditDate="2015-05-05T22:52:47.720" LastActivityDate="2015-05-05T22:52:47.720" Title="Did black misplay here or did I miss something?" Tags="&lt;combinations&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9186" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-05-05T05:26:11.617" Score="9" ViewCount="2286" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm a 1800 Elo player that likes positional, quiet, drawish, slow, boring and strategic openings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As Black against 1. e4 I play the Caro-Kann. But there is one variation of the Caro-Kann that I slightly dislike: the Advance Shirov (4. Nc3).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  [StartPly &quot;7&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;  [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;  1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. e5 Bf5 4. Nc3 e6 (4... Qb6) (4... h5) (4... a6) 5. g4 Bg6 6. Nge2 (6... f6) (6...h6) (6... Ne7) (6... Bb4) (6... Nd7) (6... Be7) c5 7. h4 h5 (7... h6) (7...cxd4) 8. Nf4 Bh7 (8... Nc6) 9. Nxh5 cxd4 (9...Nc6)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems to be much more sharp, aggressive, chaotic, wild and tactical than every other variation of the Caro-Kann. And so I don't know what to play against it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I could go for the main line with 4... e6 5. g4 Bg6 6. Nge2, but then I don't even know which variation to choose next among all the available options.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or I could choose to stop 5. g4 with 4... Qb6, 4... h5 or 4... a6, but I don't even know if any of these three moves are objectively good.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've included everything in the FEN diagram.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And so my question is: which variation tends to lead on average to the most positional, solid, safe, quiet, drawish, slow, boring and strategic positions? (i.e. the least sharp and tactical positions)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But note that the variation also needs to be objectively good and reliable. And if possible it needs to be played reasonably often by Grandmasters. I don't want to play something bad just for the sake of not entering into complications. (i.e. I would still prefer something that is both tactical and good over something that is both positional and bad.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3237" LastEditorUserId="3237" LastEditDate="2015-06-16T08:56:36.400" LastActivityDate="2019-08-08T15:37:17.300" Title="For Black, against the Caro-Kann Advance Shirov variation 4. Nc3 which move tends to lead to the most positional, slow, solid and strategic positions?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;&lt;caro-kann&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9187" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9185" CreationDate="2015-05-05T07:08:36.080" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the initial position I would chose White. Black is slightly ahead in material, but most of it is a dead wood.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;... Qf6 loses to 4. Ne4, e.g. 4. ... Nd5 5. Nf6++ K~ 6. Nd5 recovering material.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3774" LastActivityDate="2015-05-05T07:08:36.080" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9188" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-05-05T13:40:46.967" Score="8" ViewCount="323" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was thinking about the way that chess has taken to being streamed recently and it got me wondering how far back one could go if they were to watch WCC matches instead of playing through them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So which match was the first to be completely (not just one game or the awards ceremony, etc.) recorded as it was being played?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="550" LastActivityDate="2020-12-09T14:50:27.193" Title="Which was the first televised/video-recorded WCC match?" Tags="&lt;history&gt;&lt;world-championship&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9189" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9185" CreationDate="2015-05-05T19:31:45.153" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;As you saw in your game &lt;code&gt;a6&lt;/code&gt; failed terribly as it's simply inviting white to take on &lt;code&gt;c6&lt;/code&gt; and win the rook. Black had a better way of avoiding all of this a move earlier, i.e. &lt;code&gt;2. Bb5 Nf6&lt;/code&gt; instead of &lt;code&gt;Nge7&lt;/code&gt;. See illustration:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;r1b1kbnr/p1pp4/1p6/4nP1p/6pq/2N5/PPP1BPPP/R1BQ1RK1 w - - 0 1&#xA;&#xA;1. Qd5 Nc6&#xA;2. Bb5 Nf6&#xA;3. Re1+ Kd8&#xA;4. Qd2 (4. Qd3 Bc5) (4. Qc4 Bc5)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally as for &lt;code&gt;Qf6&lt;/code&gt;, as has been suggested in comments by others, it simply loses to &lt;code&gt;Ne4&lt;/code&gt; (or the engine move which is &lt;code&gt;Bf4&lt;/code&gt;, but it doesn't matter as &lt;code&gt;Ne4&lt;/code&gt; is good enough):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;r1b1kbnr/p1pp4/1p6/4nP1p/6pq/2N5/PPP1BPPP/R1BQ1RK1 w - - 0 1&#xA;&#xA;1. Qd5 Nc6&#xA;2. Bb5 Nge7&#xA;3. Re1 Qf6&#xA;4. Ne4 Qf7&#xA;5. Bxc6 dxc6&#xA;6. Qe5 Bg7&#xA;7. f6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So both &lt;code&gt;a6&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;Qf6&lt;/code&gt; blunder the game away, the former bit more horribly so.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3594" LastActivityDate="2015-05-05T19:31:45.153" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9190" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9184" CreationDate="2015-05-05T22:38:55.387" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, this is a winnable endgame for white. Though you have to work hard for it, precise thinking would lead you to definite win. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's hard to explain all moves that could lead to win or draw because then there would be lots of ifs and then, so I will try to explain you the plan where you can have the most possible opportunity for a forced win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you said king is a very important piece to be in play in endgame, and here, not only is your king cut off from the rook on f file but black's king is also cut off by your rook on 6th rank. To start with you can play 1.Re6 not allowing black's king to come forward beyond the 7th rank and now planning to march the e pawn. But there is no urgency to march it right away as the e pawn is completely safe on e3 as white can defend it by playing g3 first and put your king on g2 so if any time black plays Rook to e file attacking the pawn then white king can come to f3 and defend it. Also there is no good way Black can attack your pawn on a4. The Blacks King can not come forward and the rook on f7 is stuck because if he moves it down the board then white is going to take control of the 7th rank and cause problems for g and h pawns and black king is far away from defending it (g and h pawns can not be pushed up because of Rook coming behind those pawns and capturing it and if the black rook comes to defend it, then your e pawn is free to move up the board), if the rook moves sideways then white king can just come into play by playing Kf3. At some point you can even give up your e3 and a4 pawns for attacking black pawns on g and h files, the basic idea here is to allow black's 'a' pawn to march forward while getting the advantage of your own 2 connected passed pawns to march forward to queen, and here White wins as 2 pawns down the lane is going to be much more effective than Blacks a pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I believe I have given you a rough plan to understand how you can win this endgame, if you have any idea of defence or any doubts, please comment and let me know. If you want to have precise moves and deep analysis of each move, I suggest you to put this position into a chess engine and see what happens when you play different moves, but again there, you will understand the basic idea and the plan to look forward to from the initial position, is the same as I have mentioned.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4354" LastActivityDate="2015-05-05T22:38:55.387" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9191" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9195" CreationDate="2015-05-06T07:20:17.163" Score="4" ViewCount="346" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want know which plus elements need to have in general positions for a correct piece sacrifice! Or how do you know that a sacrifice is correct in complicated position?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7218" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-03-29T01:45:04.063" LastActivityDate="2020-03-29T01:45:04.063" Title="What are strategic elements for a correct piece sacrifice?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;sacrifice&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9192" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-05-06T08:34:18.037" Score="8" ViewCount="1687" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm particularly thinking of Stockfish here, since that is the one I use most, but it seems to happen with other engines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes you have a position and the recommended move for white might be +1.7 say.  So you make the move and then for black the best move is suggested as being +0.6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this because:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A)&#xA;The engine is not perfect, so if it can search 19 moves ahead, then after the move it can search one ply further into the game, and that reveals something that dramatically changes the score.  If so, what does this tell us about the position?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Or&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B)&#xA;Does the engine take into account the possibility that the opponent won't play optimally.  E.g. does the engine assign any value to traps that are avoidable.  For example, Given a choice between going directly to a position, or transposing to that position via offering a trap you should clearly try the trap first.  Would the engine agree?  Is the score only reflecting the &quot;best&quot; line, or some average of possible lines?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6963" LastActivityDate="2019-02-14T09:00:54.633" Title="What does it mean when engine position scores change when following the &quot;best&quot; move" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;engines&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9193" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9192" CreationDate="2015-05-06T10:03:03.300" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I assume you used Stockfish with a GUI because the sign of the score would have been different if you didn't.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First of all, Stockfish is well known for its instability. The strongest chess engine isn't the best engine for analysis. This is like your local chess instructor might be a better coach than Kasparov for you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A is obviously correct. Furthermore, the search algorithm could change as the hash-table gets filled up. The more that the engine &quot;knows&quot; about a particular position, the better it can analyse for the next position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2015-05-06T10:03:03.300" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9194" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9191" CreationDate="2015-05-06T10:58:30.477" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;For your run-of-the-mill middle game piece sacrifice, the critical ingredient is a lead in development. Or to have a similar effect by the opponent's pieces being on the wrong side of the board or otherwise cut off from the action.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Only by calculating can you know a position contains a workable sacrifice. Experience helps one recognize the situations where you should start looking harder.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2015-05-06T10:58:30.477" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9195" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9191" CreationDate="2015-05-06T11:16:13.833" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is no general rule for a correct sacrifice, however sacrifices are made with different ideas and strategies, such as, to get a huge space advantage, to initiate attack, to cause trouble to the king by opening up it's surrounding pawns, etc. But at the end you have to make sure that your compensation for the sacrifice is pretty good before you actually give up material, and that can only be done by precise thinking in the game. Some of the things you have to keep in mind before sacrificing your material are; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You have good compensation for your sacrifice; i.e. you are gaining something back such as attack, space, gain back opponents material of same value or higher, or mate at some point.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You are defending loss of higher material, avoiding opponent's dangerous attack, defending mate.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Making sure of not going into a neutral position or causing no trouble to your opponent after giving up a sacrifice. This would just make you have less material for nothing.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are few examples of famous sacrifices, going through these kind of games will help you understand patterns of sacrifices and ideas behind it. (Make sure to read comments which will appear in the lower box of the game for most moves&#xA;) :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The strategical Exchange Sacrifice in Sicilian:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the Sicilian Defense the exchange sacrifice on c3 is quite typical. In Dragon lines it is almost mandatory to sacrifice a rook for the knight on c3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What advantages does black usually get? First of all, black gets a ruined pawn structure for white. Secondly, Nc3 was a defender of the central squares d5 and e4, and by eliminating it black can take over the center. Lastly and most importantly, black can launch a dangerous attack on the weak squares around white’s king, since Nc3 was the main defender of the queenside. All of these are major advantages that black gets in return for a material loss. The disadvantage of such an exchange is that if white successfully defends, white might just win because he is up on material. There is also a curious phenomena in such positions: sometimes endgames down an exchange favor black. This is because black’s pawn structure is compact and he usually has no weaknesses. There are no open files for white’s rooks to penetrate, making them not that active.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The following first example shows the attack that black gets for the sacrifice, while the next example shows the endgame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;WchT 4th&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Luzern&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;1997.10.27&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;3&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Arencibia Rodriguez, Walter&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Ivanchuk, Vassily&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;B95&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;2550&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;2725&quot;]&#xA;[Annotator &quot;Tyomkin,D&quot;]&#xA;[Setup &quot;1&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;2rqk2r/1b1nbppp/p2ppn2/1p4B1/3NPP2/P1NB3Q/1PP3PP/2KR3R b k - 0 12&quot;]&#xA;[Plycount &quot;19&quot;]&#xA;[Eventdate &quot;1997.10.??&quot;]&#xA;[Eventtype &quot;team&quot;]&#xA;[Eventrounds &quot;9&quot;]&#xA;[Eventcountry &quot;SUI&quot;]&#xA;[Source &quot;ChessBase&quot;]&#xA;[Sourcedate &quot;1998.01.31&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1...Rxc3 { Black destroys the main defender of white's king and sets&#xA;the targets of c3 and a3 for attack. } 2.bxc3 Nc5 { Black decides to bring his&#xA;knight to attack instead of taking on e4, even though taking on e4 gave black a&#xA;slight edge. } ( 2...Nxe4 3.Bxe7 Qxe7 4.Bxe4 Bxe4 ) 3.Bxf6 ( 3.e5 dxe5 4.fxe5 Nfe4 5.Bxe7 Qxe7 { leaving white with a weakened pawn&#xA;structure (a3,c3,e5) } ) ( 3.Rhe1 Qa5 4.Qf3 Qxa3+ 5.Kd2 b4 ) 3...Bxf6 4.Rhe1?? { Now black proceeds with his attack. White had to&#xA;be very creative to find the right defense. } ( 4.e5! dxe5 5.Nxb5! { the&#xA;point of e5, now Qd8 feels very uncomfortable under X-Ray from Rd1 } 5...Ke7! 6.fxe5 Bg5+ 7.Kb1 axb5 ( 7...Qb6? 8.Qg3 Bh6 9.Qh4+ ) 8.Qg4 Kf8 9.Bxb5 Qe7 { Tyomkin,D } ) 4...Qa5 { There is no way white can&#xA;hold this position together. } 5.e5 dxe5 6.fxe5 Bg5+ 7.Kb1 ( 7.Kb2 Na4+ ) 7...Bd5 { Black has a wide selection of ways to win. } ( 7...Qxa3 { Ftacnik } 8.Bxb5+! ( 8.Nxb5 axb5 9.Bxb5+ Kf8 10.Qg4 ) 8...axb5 9.Nxb5 Qa5 10.Nd6+ Ke7 ) 8.Nb3 ( 8.Qh5 { Ftacnik } 8...Qxa3 9.Qxg5 Na4 10.Bxb5+ axb5 ) 8...Qxa3 9.Bxb5+ axb5 10.Rxd5 Na4! ( 10...Nxb3 11.cxb3 Qxb3+ 12.Ka1 O-O ) &#xA;0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    [Event &quot;Sochi FIDE GP&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Sochi&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2008.08.14&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;13&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Karjakin, Sergey&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Radjabov, Teimour&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;B78&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;2727&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;2744&quot;]&#xA;[Annotator &quot;,User&quot;]&#xA;[Setup &quot;1&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;2r2k2/1p2pp2/p2p1bp1/q3n2n/3NP1b1/1BN1Q3/PPP5/1K4RR b - - 0 20&quot;]&#xA;[Plycount &quot;65&quot;]&#xA;[Eventdate &quot;2008.07.31&quot;]&#xA;[Eventtype &quot;tourn&quot;]&#xA;[Eventrounds &quot;13&quot;]&#xA;[Eventcountry &quot;RUS&quot;]&#xA;[Eventcategory &quot;19&quot;]&#xA;[Source &quot;ChessBase&quot;]&#xA;[Sourcedate &quot;2008.10.01&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1...Rxc3!? 2.Qxc3 ( 2.bxc3 { staying in the middlegame might have been a&#xA;better option for white } 2...Qc5 3.Rh2 a5 4.Rhg2 Bd7 ) 2...Qxc3 3.bxc3 { at&#xA;this stage black would try to improve his pieces, bring his king up and start&#xA;pushing his pawn majority on the kingside to create a passed pawn there } 3...e6 4.Bc4 ( 4.Rh2 Ke7 5.Rhg2 Bh3 6.Rd2 g5 { doesn't give much to white } ) 4...Nxc4 5.Rxg4 { this trade does not improve white's position because now&#xA;black gets the c4 square for his knight } 5...Be5 6.Rg2 b5 7.Rf2 Kg8 8.a4 ( 8.Rhf1 Ng3 9.Re1 b4! ) 8...bxa4 9.Ka2 Nf6 10.Re2 d5 11.exd5 Nxd5 { now black&#xA;has perfectly placed pieces and three passed pawns on the kingside. While&#xA;before it was not clear who is better, now it is obvious that black is better,&#xA;since white has no counterplay. } 12.Rh3 Bxd4 13.cxd4 Nf4 { winning back one&#xA;of the exchanges } 14.Reh2 Nxh3 15.Rxh3 g5 16.Rg3 f6 17.Rc3 Nd2 18.Rd3 Ne4 { now the passed pawns decide the game } 19.c4 Kf7 20.c5 g4 21.c6 Ke7 22.d5 exd5 23.c7 Kd7 24.Rxd5+ Kxc7 25.Rf5 g3 26.Rf4 Kd7 27.Kb2 Ke6 28.Rxe4+ Kf5 29.Re1 Kg4 30.Kc2 g2 31.Kd2 Kg3 32.Ke2 a3 33.Ra1 a2 &#xA;0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;EXAMPLES OF TACTICAL SACRIFICES&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1- This game was played between Lasker, Emanuel vs. Bauer, Johann Hermann in 1889.&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;White sacrifices his double bishop to get a whooping attack on Kingside, and also sacrifices rook later in the game but to regain it and also win the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;International Tournament&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Amsterdam&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;1889.08.26&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;1&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Lasker, Emanuel&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Bauer, Johann Hermann&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;r4rk1/1b2bppp/ppq1pn2/2ppB3/5P2/1P1BP1N1/P1PPQ1PP/R4RK1 w - - 0 14&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Nh5! { White threatens to&#xA;eliminate the king's only defender, and Black can do little to stop him. Bauer,&#xA;however, was still unperturbed: he figured that 1...Nxh5 followed by 15...f5&#xA;would nip White's shenanigans once and for all. } 1...Nxh5?! { Bauer must have&#xA;already written 15.Qxh5 on his score sheet, and contentedly leaned back in his&#xA;chair. As you probably already know, Lasker had very different plans. } ( 1...Rfc8 { This move would have been a real spoiler, as White must content himself&#xA;with an extra pawn and long-lasting attack after } 2.Nxf6+ Bxf6 3.Bxh7+! Kf8 ( 3...Kxh7 4.Qh5+ Kg8 5.Bxf6 gxf6 6.Qh6! d4 7.Rf3 ) 4.Qg4 { Of&#xA;course, Lasker would have had no trouble winning this position as well, but at&#xA;least Black could have avoided the double-bishop sacrifice. } ) 2.Bxh7+!! { A&#xA;devastating intermezzo. White gives up the pride of his position in order to&#xA;damage Black's kingside pawn shell and  -  more importantly  -  mobilize his&#xA;queen with check. } ( 2.Qxh5? f5! ) 2...Kxh7 3.Qxh5+ Kg8 { But what now?&#xA;The tempting 4.Rf3 is dreadfully slow, and after 4...f6 Black's king will&#xA;have a permanent escape route. Of course, Lasker has everything under perfect&#xA;control. } 4.Bxg7! { Snap! Crackle! Pop! Amazingly, White gives up another&#xA;bishop to destroy the pawn shell. Black has no choice but to recapture, but&#xA;his king is sent from the frying pan right into the fire. } 4...Kxg7 ( 4...f6 5.Bh6 Qe8 6.Qg4+ Kh7 7.Qg7# ) 5.Qg4+ { It is crucial to drive the king to&#xA;the h-file before mobilizing the rook. The immediate } ( 5.Rf3?? { let Black&#xA;off the hook: } 5...Rh8 6.Rg3+ { and now the amazing } 6...Bg5! 7.Qxg5+ ( 7.Rxg5+ Kf6 8.Qg4 d4! ) 7...Kf8 { turns the tables. } ) 5...Kh7 ( 5...Kf6 6.Qg5# ) 6.Rf3 { White threatens Rh3, and it appears that Black is defenseless. To&#xA;Bauer's credit, he is able to find an incredibly way to save his monarch from&#xA;instant death. } 6...e5! { A miraculous defense: Black's queen will give itself up&#xA;to stave off checkmate and eliminate the pernicious rook. As it turns out,&#xA;this merely prolongs the agony. } 7.Rh3+ Qh6 8.Rxh6+ Kxh6 9.Qd7! { If&#xA;not for this devastating fork, Black would have been very much alive. As it&#xA;stands, Black will lose one of his bishops, and White will then have a huge&#xA;material advantage in addition to a decisive attack. The rest is fairly clear&#xA;without comments. } ( 9.Rf1?! { would have complicated things after } 9...f5! ) 9...Bf6 10.Qxb7 Kg7 11.Rf1 Rab8 12.Qd7 Rfd8 13.Qg4+ Kf8 14.fxe5 Bg7 15.e6 Rb7 16.Qg6 f6 17.Rxf6+! { The last finesse. White crashes through and&#xA;wins even more material. It appears that Bauer was simply too shocked to&#xA;resign. } 17...Bxf6 18.Qxf6+ Ke8 19.Qh8+ Ke7 20.Qg7+ Kxe6 21.Qxb7 Rd6 22.Qxa6 d4 23.exd4 cxd4 24.h4 d3 25.Qxd3!? { This is some real chessboard sass!&#xA;Payback for not resigning, Mr. Bauer. } &#xA;1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;2- Here we will see a rare but important tactic:&lt;/strong&gt; Interfering with the opponent's pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White has two passed pawns which are close to queening. One is stopped by the black bishop, the other by the rook. White needs to sacrifice a bishop at the intersection of those two lines, forcing Black to decide which pawn to stop - and essentially &quot;pick his poison&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Date &quot;????.??.??&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;*&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;8/3P4/4k2P/1B2B3/5K2/8/2b5/3r4 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Bd3!! { Tadhaa! Sacrificing the bishop but intercepting both blacks Bishop and Rook. Black must capture this bishop one way or another - but either way, one of the pieces' lines will be closed, allowing one of the pawns to queen. } 1...Rxd3 { If the bishop captures the white bishop then the d-pawn will queen. Black could take the d7 pawn with his king, but then White will take the bishop on c2, and win with his passed h-pawn. } 2.h7 { If White played this before, the bishop could just take it. But now the pawns cannot be stopped since the bishop on c2 is blocked } 2...Rh3 { Black stops one pawn... but it's not enough to hold the position. Black had no way to open the bishop on c2, and stop both pawns from promoting at the same time. A truly amazing position! } 3.d8=Q { The rook could not handle both pawns on its own. In this lesson we have learned how to interfere with the opponent's pieces. In endgames, queening a pawn is crucial, and often it is worth it to sacrifice a piece for that end. } &#xA;*&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: Chess.com&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4354" LastEditorUserId="4354" LastEditDate="2015-05-06T12:18:19.143" LastActivityDate="2015-05-06T12:18:19.143" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9196" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9202" CreationDate="2015-05-06T13:18:52.460" Score="5" ViewCount="760" Body="&lt;p&gt;As I understand it chess engines mostly share the basic pattern of having a simple score for the board position and then searching forward with some sort of alpha-beta pruning or similar.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Presumably in the early days people tried to program in the thinking algorithms of a human, before finding that was very weak in a computer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now that we have vast computer power, are their any engines that try to do this?  They will no doubt still be weak, but could be interesting nonetheless - not least in what it can teach us about how to improve our heuristics.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By &quot;human thinking&quot; I'm meaning things like&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Deliberately making and breaking pawn structures&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Having a plan&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Using heuristics (&quot;knights on the rim...&quot;, &quot;castle quickly&quot;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To be clear, the question is about writing an engine to emulate human &lt;strong&gt;thinking&lt;/strong&gt; not human &lt;strong&gt;play&lt;/strong&gt;.  It may (or may not) be possible to tweak alpha-beta engines to produce game play that looks human, but you could never interrogate the algorithm and ask it &quot;why did you play that?&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6963" LastActivityDate="2015-09-23T11:55:34.007" Title="Are there any chess engines which try to emulate human thinking?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9197" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9200" CreationDate="2015-05-06T13:35:47.967" Score="3" ViewCount="346" Body="&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I had a game on &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/livechess/game?id=1143623258&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chess.com&lt;/a&gt; that ended in a draw by agreement. Is this a real draw? If not, what are my best moves as Black? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Computer analysis on chess.com suggested this continuation, “39. Qe2 Rf7 40. Nf3 Qc7 41. Ra2 Bf8 42. Qc2 Rd8,” saying that &quot;Black has a moderate advantage&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Live Chess&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Chess.com&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2015.05.06&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;fianwhatto&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;bigother&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1/2-1/2&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;1432&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;1400&quot;]&#xA;[TimeControl &quot;10|0&quot;]&#xA;[Termination &quot;Game drawn by agreement&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteToggles &quot;0%&quot;]&#xA;[BlackToggles &quot;0%&quot;]&#xA;[startply &quot;77&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.c4 d6 2.Nc3 e5 3.Nf3 g6 4.e3 Bg7 5.Be2 b6 6.O-O Bb7 7.d3 Nf6 8.e4 Nc6 9.h3 O-O 10.a3 Nd4&#xA; 11.Bg5 Qd7 12.Nxd4 exd4 13.Nb5 c5 14.a4 a6 15.Na3 h6 16.Bh4 g5 17.Bg3 Rfe8 18.f4 Nh7 19.f5 f6 20.Bh5 Re7&#xA; 21.Bf3 Bc6 22.b3 b5 23.a5 b4 24.Nb1 Qd8 25.Nd2 Qd7 26.Bg4 Qd8 27.Bh2 Qc7 28.g3 Nf8 29.h4 Nd7 30.h5 Ne5&#xA; 31.Be2 Qb7 32.g4 Rd7 33.Bxe5 dxe5 34.Bf3 Re7 35.Qe2 Qc7 36.Qf2 Qb7 37.Rfe1 Qc7 38.Bg2 Qb7 39.Qe2 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7334" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-03-12T19:12:05.187" LastActivityDate="2020-03-15T14:48:54.633" Title="Is this blocked situation a draw? If not, how can I win as Black?" Tags="&lt;draw&gt;&lt;pawns&gt;&lt;pawn-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="9198" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9197" CreationDate="2015-05-06T13:53:06.293" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this situation a draw is preferable for black in my opinion, for a few reasons.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Black has a bad black bishop&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Black's second bishop is not as useful as it is also blocked, and most likely will never get a chance to move&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;White has a Knight, which in this position if black ever thought of sacrificing a piece would make that knight an overwhelmingly powerful piece in a closed position game.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If black)you) ever wanted to break this stand, you would have to sacrifice a piece in a position where white has more pawns pushed up your side than his.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As White however, a risky play is possible, which of course against correct play would normally result in a loss. But white is the only one with the option to actually sacrifice a piece for a potential attack (even though I would recommend against it).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So long story short, leave it at a draw, in this game black has a less favorable position than white, so a draw is a good conclusion. And in chess a draw for black is considered much better than a draw for white... Since white usually has the advantage at the start of the game, so a draw as black is not a disaster. It is as white however :P&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6966" LastActivityDate="2015-05-06T13:53:06.293" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9199" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9196" CreationDate="2015-05-06T14:03:56.323" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Originally the Fritz-engines tried to incorporate a lot of human knowledge, which seems to be what you mean by &quot;human thinking&quot;. The idea was to not only get the tactical strength of computers, but also the strategic depth of human experts. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then slowly but surely engines took over that were speed optimised from a search tree point of view and it became obvious that &quot;strategic&quot; decisions turn up if you calculate far enough. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Human thinking&quot; on the other hand can also be understood as pattern recognition. This kind of thinking is emulated by neural networks and in this field a lot of progress has been made recently. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most of the research focuses on image categorisation, but there was a &lt;a href=&quot;http://arxiv.org/abs/1412.6564&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;very strong Go-program&lt;/a&gt; developed based on Neural Networks. Chess, being much more tactical, doesn't lend itself easily to this technique. There have been a &lt;a href=&quot;http://satirist.org/learn-game/systems/neurochess.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;very weak program&lt;/a&gt; and a more &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.researchgate.net/publication/4376830_A_Neural_Network_Classifier_of_Chess_Moves&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;interesting move ordering tool&lt;/a&gt; based on NNs. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I recently visited a talk by Stephen Wolfram and I thought a chess answering machine would be pretty cool (&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.wolframalpha.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;The Wolfram answering machine&lt;/a&gt; doesn't know anything about chess). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-05-06T14:03:56.323" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9200" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9197" CreationDate="2015-05-06T14:20:47.960" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a dead draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are no sensible piece sacrifices for either side. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is no plan that isn't easily parried (Black could gang up on the a5-pawn with Qd8 and Bc7, but white just doubles the rooks on a1 and a2. White could try to invade with the knight to b6 and d5, but black would just go Bxa4 when the knight turns up on a4.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black isn't better here and black isn't worse. There is just nothing any side can do. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: I think I'll expand on this a bit, because for some reason the concept of a dead draw seems to be hard to grasp. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Positions are usually evaluated based on best play by both sides. That can be tricky because there are positions that should be equal or even favourable for one side, but in practice are more promising for the other side. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But in the given position the level of play needed to hold a draw against best play, is very, very low. To put it differently: A 1500 player would have no trouble holding this position with white against Magnus Carlsen. The fact that a computer engine gives a small plus for black doesn't mean black has any advantage whatsoever. It just means that engines aren't yet able to understand completely blocked positions and other kinds of fortresses very well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's go back to our fictional 1500 player. The only thing he has to do is keep e4 and a5 well protected and there is nothing Magnus Carlsen will ever be able to do. Now e4 is already over-over-overprotected. Let's say Carlsen comes up with the cunning plan to attack a5 via Qd8 and Bc7 and our 1500 player isn't sharp enough to double the rooks quickly. Now the a5 pawn falls …&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;r2q2k1/r7/p1b2p1p/b1p1pPpP/1pPpP1P1/1P1P4/R2NB3/1R1Q2K1 w - - 0 1&#xA;&#xA;1.Rba1 Bc7 2.Ra4 Bxa4 3.Rxa4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black is a pawn and the exchange up. Possibly the computer will give a even better score for black, but the facts haven't changed: This is still A DEAD DRAW.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastEditorUserId="4362" LastEditDate="2015-05-07T10:00:08.343" LastActivityDate="2015-05-07T10:00:08.343" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9201" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9197" CreationDate="2015-05-06T14:49:00.723" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In reference to Chessbrain's answer. I guess this will also answer your Question. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Black's Bishop is not bad as it is the only minor piece that can attack the only vulnerable white pawn on a5, where as white can not defend it with any of its minor pieces. Knight has no square to defend it, And the other minor piece is white bishop. (Although, The rooks are sufficient enough to defend it with proper play)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Black's White Bishop is the most favourable minor Black piece that can sacrifice itself to capture pawns and gain a breakthrough.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Here you are quite right. Usually in closed positions knights are stronger than bishops. But also in this position what is to be taken into consideration is, if white ever plans to create a breakthrough, then his first sacrifice has to be his knight, and if he does so then the knight is off the board. Note that White Bishop can not sacrifice itself as all the Black pawns are on black square except a6 but obviously there is no way white bishop can attack that. If white wants to breakthrough without giving his knight, then sacrificing a rook is too costly to gain any compensation.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Taking all this into consideration, its black who has more chances of creating a breakthrough if White messes up something for ex: his vulnerable a pawn, or gives 2 of his centre pawns for our bishop. But overall with perfect play its just a draw though Black has an advantage of around half a pawn (-0.6 : computer checked)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Related Info:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;em&gt;This videos might help you understand similar positions and how to create a breakthrough.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMAwR-4sIW8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chess strategy: Breakthrough - Part 1&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vu1xr-ykkY&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chess strategy: Breakthrough - Part 2&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4354" LastActivityDate="2015-05-06T14:49:00.723" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9202" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9196" CreationDate="2015-05-06T22:28:19.560" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;In a sense, an attempt to &quot;emulate human thinking&quot; has been done since Atkin and Slate's Chess 4.0 in the 1970's, by tuning the evaluation function based on feeding masses of Grandmaster games through and tuning the parameters to closely mirror the players' choices.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think you're contemplating approaches fundamentally different from the standard Alpha-Beta search paradigm though.  That has proven remarkably difficult, and probably some of the best work was done with very early chess engines.  Unfortunately, such approaches tend to be &quot;brittle&quot;, because there are so many exceptions to every rule, and tactics (which searching essentially everything excels at) tends to fall down hard without it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think, though, you are fundamentally on the right track, in that the distinction between very strong players and weak ones is fundamentally pattern-recognition of positions based on long experience, and being able to &quot;prune the tree&quot; of plausible moves to look at from the start.  It would seem there should be a way to store in a database knows &quot;clusters of pieces&quot; for which the game tree has already been partially calculated, such that if you could define the exceptions--i.e. &quot;those pieces were there rather than here in the position I previously calculated and stored&quot;, and write a &quot;possible move differences tree&quot; algorithm, you could vastly increase efficiency in a manner very parallel to the way humans do it.  I've given some broad design thought to this, but alas, other practical income-earning coding has always taken precedence...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3318" LastActivityDate="2015-05-06T22:28:19.560" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9203" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9139" CreationDate="2015-05-06T22:34:07.837" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Definitely.  To name one, Grandmaster Ben Finegold was astonishingly good at this from a very young age.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3318" LastActivityDate="2015-05-06T22:34:07.837" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9204" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9139" CreationDate="2015-05-07T15:14:23.710" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Definitely possible. The current world champion Magnus Carlsen does this all the time and with ease - &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nYwTWycVSM&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Hans Bohm vs Magnus Carlsen&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1O0xYkYXMu8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Magnus Carlsen vs Lars Monsen&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2429" LastActivityDate="2015-05-07T15:14:23.710" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9205" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9206" CreationDate="2015-05-07T21:19:06.057" Score="10" ViewCount="1907" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am writing a C++ chess &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/RomainGoussault/Deepov&quot;&gt;engine&lt;/a&gt; and I am looking for magic numbers for &lt;a href=&quot;https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Square+Mapping+Considerations#LittleEndianRankFileMapping&quot;&gt;Little-Endian Rank-File Mapping&lt;/a&gt; bitboards to generate moves for sliding pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The rival chess &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.rivalchess.com/magic-bitboards/&quot;&gt;website&lt;/a&gt; gives magic numbers but not for the same board mapping.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The chess programming wiki gives &lt;a href=&quot;https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Best+Magics+so+far&quot;&gt;some of the best magic numbers so far&lt;/a&gt; but is not exhaustive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At the end I am looking for four things:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;occupancy mask for each square&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;magic number for each square&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;magic shifts for each square&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;moves database array for each square&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I can use the following &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.rivalchess.com/magic-bitboards/&quot;&gt;code&lt;/a&gt; to find the moves of the Rook on C3 (for instance):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;bbBlockers = bbAllPieces &amp;amp; occupancyMaskRook[C3]&#xA;&#xA;databaseIndex = (int)((bbBlockers * magicNumberRook[C3]) &amp;gt;&amp;gt; rookMagicShifts[C3])&#xA;&#xA;bbMoveSquares = magicMovesRook[C3][databaseIndex] &amp;amp; ~bbFriendlyPieces&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3468" LastEditorUserId="3468" LastEditDate="2015-05-08T16:57:42.863" LastActivityDate="2015-05-08T16:57:42.863" Title="Find magic numbers for bitboards" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;programming&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9206" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9205" CreationDate="2015-05-07T23:49:38.090" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a very well known problem in chess programming. You should consider use the numbers generated by Pradyumna Kannan. Dr Kannan had kindly produced open-source the magic numbers. It is being used by Crafty and a few other chess engines including my own.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can read more by google &quot;Crafty magic number&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've prepared a zipped file for you &lt;a href=&quot;http://smallchess.com/MagicMoves.zip&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;. This is the same files being used in the SmallChess chess engine app. Please read the documentation. Basically, you'll need to call &lt;em&gt;Rmagic(square, occupancy)&lt;/em&gt; for rooks and &lt;em&gt;Bmagic(square, occupancy)&lt;/em&gt; for bishops. You can XOR those into a queen mask.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2015-05-07T23:49:38.090" CommentCount="11" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9207" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2882" CreationDate="2015-05-08T01:15:57.763" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recently purchased Houdini 4 Pro Aquarium and given the praise it had received&#xA;was quite disappointed with it's performance. I set up a number of complex positions for it to solve and it was unable to find a solution whereas the Rybka 4 engine managed to do so. &#xA;Allan&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7341" LastActivityDate="2015-05-08T01:15:57.763" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9208" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-05-08T01:53:14.373" Score="4" ViewCount="346" Body="&lt;p&gt;I see that there is code for an Android app available at &lt;a href=&quot;https://code.google.com/p/cb2pgn/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://code.google.com/p/cb2pgn/&lt;/a&gt;, but I wonder if anyone has taken the time to make a standalone .exe that does the job?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="618" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-04-06T16:58:39.197" LastActivityDate="2017-04-06T16:58:39.197" Title="Is there a Windows based command line tool to convert cbh to pgn?" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;database&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9209" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9210" CreationDate="2015-05-09T02:26:04.350" Score="6" ViewCount="295" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here's what I do when someone tries to copy my moves:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Date &quot;????.??.??&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;*&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.Nxe5 Nxe4 4.Qe2 Qe7 5.Qxe4 d6 &#xA;*&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But then my opponent plays &lt;code&gt;d6&lt;/code&gt;, and I don't know what should I do. What's the best continuation for white after &lt;code&gt;d6&lt;/code&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7347" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2015-05-11T11:35:39.033" LastActivityDate="2015-05-11T11:35:39.033" Title="What's the best continuation for white here?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;learning&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;petroff-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9210" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9209" CreationDate="2015-05-09T03:15:46.993" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;You're not down material, so just develop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;6.d4&lt;/code&gt; allows both your bishops to get in the game while keeping strength in the center. After that, you can develop your minor pieces and castle very efficiently. You're going to have a swell game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wouldn't worry too much about &lt;code&gt;7... f6&lt;/code&gt;. That move weakens his Kingside. And since you're up a pawn, the best he can do is retake on &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt; and give himself an isolated pawn. &lt;code&gt;8. Bf4&lt;/code&gt; develops a piece and puts an eye on the under-defended &lt;code&gt;c7&lt;/code&gt; square.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Furthermore, after &lt;code&gt;Bf4&lt;/code&gt;, you can plan for &lt;code&gt;Nc3&lt;/code&gt; followed by &lt;code&gt;O-O-O&lt;/code&gt; (castling on the queenside) where your rook will thunder on the &lt;code&gt;d&lt;/code&gt; file.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2015-05-09T13:59:37.457" LastActivityDate="2015-05-09T13:59:37.457" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9212" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9304" CreationDate="2015-05-09T22:29:45.923" Score="7" ViewCount="1821" Body="&lt;p&gt;My style favors aggressive, complicated openings. I have constructed a suitable repertoire with White beginning with 1. d4 with one exception. I have so far been unable to find a satisfactory response to &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 Nf6. &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would prefer not to play the Exchange Variation because it is extremely popular among my regular opponents, but if it is the only option I would consider it. However, this would mean also finding something against the Alatortsev (3... Be7). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can anyone give me a good suggestion? I'm willing to go into less popular lines if they have been tested by a 2700+ at least once.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: To be clear, I'm already set vs. the Slav/Semi-Slav. I'm purely concerned with situations where Black does not play c6 at some point.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3270" LastEditorUserId="7385" LastEditDate="2015-05-14T19:20:42.037" LastActivityDate="2020-07-15T02:12:28.833" Title="Aggressive variation against Queen's Gambit Declined?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;queens-gambit&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9213" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9186" CreationDate="2015-05-10T13:33:56.490" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Perhaps you could try &lt;strong&gt;3..c5&lt;/strong&gt; followed by &lt;strong&gt;4..Nc6&lt;/strong&gt; and a delayed &lt;strong&gt;Bf5&lt;/strong&gt;.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4531" LastActivityDate="2015-05-10T13:33:56.490" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9215" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-05-11T01:28:15.193" Score="2" ViewCount="209" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would like to ask your help regarding this position. I played as Black in this game in a tournament and it has ended in a draw by repetition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now I fear that I may encounter this position again, so I would like to ask help about what are the plans for Black in this position and what should I do if White decides to put his Queen to h3?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Caro-Kann continuation and plans for Black&quot;]&#xA;[StartPly &quot;36&quot;]&#xA;[SetUp &quot;1&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c6&#xA;2. d4 d5&#xA;3. Nc3 dxe4&#xA;4. Nxe4 Bf5&#xA;5. Ng3 Bg6&#xA;6. h4 h6&#xA;7. Nh3 Nf6&#xA;8. Nf4 Bh7&#xA;9. Bc4 e6&#xA;10. O-O Be7&#xA;11. c3 O-O&#xA;12. Re1 Nd5&#xA;13. Qh5 Qd6&#xA;14. Qg4 Nf6&#xA;15. Qf3 Nd5&#xA;16. Qg4 Nf6&#xA;17. Qd1 Nd5&#xA;18. Qg4 Nf6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;UPDATE&lt;/b&gt;&#xA;Regarding the issue with move 13, I actually couldn't remember if it was a blunder or just a move order issue. But my point is after move 18, what plans should be followed by Black in order to play actively?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7174" LastEditorUserId="7174" LastEditDate="2015-05-15T17:06:11.887" LastActivityDate="2015-05-15T17:06:11.887" Title="Caro-Kann continuation for Black in this position" Tags="&lt;caro-kann&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9216" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-05-11T04:09:48.940" Score="12" ViewCount="1289" Body="&lt;p&gt;We often read or hear in books or video tutorials the following: &quot;With this move, Black can equalize!&quot;. Some authors give 15-move or 20-move variations of some openings (e.g. Caro-Kann, Slav, Semi-Slav), then suddenly stop the explanation saying &quot;...and Black managed to equalize&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, does &quot;equalize&quot; mean that Black should aim for &quot;draw&quot; at the start of the game? Should Black keep trying to &quot;equalize&quot; or &quot;playing for draw&quot; and wait for White to blunder then only star to think about how to win?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does &quot;equalize&quot; mean that Black should try to exchange queens as early as possible?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7174" LastActivityDate="2015-05-19T11:44:41.880" Title="Equalize - What does it really mean?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9217" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9216" CreationDate="2015-05-11T07:47:49.910" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a good question, because equality in chess is a tricky concept. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From a theoretical point of view there are only three evaluations of position: &quot;White is winning&quot;, &quot;black is winning&quot; and &quot;it's a draw&quot;. So, when we talk about white being better or black having a &quot;slight pull&quot;, these evaluations are heuristics that mirror our experience of who is having the better practical chances and by what degree. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This also means that evaluations of the same position by different players can be quite different and often it is difficult to decide who is &quot;more right&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, when an author declares, that black has equalised, he means that he considers black's chances to not be worse any more. This doesn't say anything about the nature of the position. For example some GMs would argue that in the king's gambit, after 1.e4 e5 2.f4 ef black has already equalised. But obviously the position isn't drawish in the least, there is still a big fight ahead. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The idea that &quot;trying to equalise first&quot; is the same as &quot;playing for a draw&quot;, comes from the fact, that it is often easiest to equalise by careful simplification. So there is a slightly artificial dichotomy between &quot;trying to equalise first&quot; and &quot;going for a sharp fight&quot;. I call it slightly artificial because nowadays, especially among top players, the easiest way to equalise is often to go for the sharpest, most forcing lines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for what you should do: In my experience you should always try to develop counterplay, even if you are completely happy with a draw. If you can create even a slight initiative it is usually not difficult to exchange into a completely equal and drawish position. Whether exchanging queens should be your goal, depends entirely on the position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the end, how much risk you take is completely your decision. Some players try to go for the win straight away, even with black. Others want to play with the draw in hand, especially with white. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-05-11T07:47:49.910" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9218" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9216" CreationDate="2015-05-11T11:00:58.500" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;At the professional level, White has an advantage caused by moving first. Professionals are adept at squeezing every efficiency from every move. Equalizing means that Black has managed to neutralize White's opening advantage and any gained benefit. Thus, it means both players have the same chance of winning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2015-05-11T11:00:58.500" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9219" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-05-11T11:12:07.657" Score="4" ViewCount="1442" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the London system, white wants to keep their dark squared bishop,&#xA;Therefore after say &lt;code&gt;1. d4 d5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. Bf4&lt;/code&gt;, black can play &lt;code&gt;3...Nh5&lt;/code&gt;, doesn't it break white's position?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. Bf4 Nh5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7355" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2015-05-11T11:33:13.520" LastActivityDate="2019-02-01T18:48:44.983" Title="Knight to h5 in the london system" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;london-system&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9220" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9216" CreationDate="2015-05-11T11:18:04.253" Score="8" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Some authors give 15-move or 20-move variations of some openings (e.g. Caro-Kann, Slav, Semi-Slav), then suddenly stop the explanation saying &quot;...and Black managed to equalize&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Black managed to equalize&quot; means that, at least in the opinion of the speaker, that particular variation failed to preserve White's advantage. So, as White, don't use it! As Black, try to lull White into it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The concept has nothing to do with draw vs. win or exchanging queens, though exchanging queens can be a way to equalize.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7354" LastActivityDate="2015-05-11T11:18:04.253" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9221" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9224" CreationDate="2015-05-11T11:36:30.690" Score="21" ViewCount="12220" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a rookie in chess. I can't understand why castling is needed. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In what scenarios is castling useful?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7356" LastEditorUserId="7356" LastEditDate="2015-07-30T08:48:08.023" LastActivityDate="2020-08-04T23:47:21.113" Title="When is castling needed?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;castling&gt;&lt;defense&gt;&lt;kings&gt;&lt;attack&gt;" AnswerCount="9" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9222" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9219" CreationDate="2015-05-11T12:36:03.130" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;The bishop is pretty decent on g5 as well. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So after 1. d4 d5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. Bf4 Nh5 4.Bg5 and now black would have to create serious weaknesses on the kingside to hunt down the bishop. But if he just returns the knight, he has lost a tempo.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. Bf4 Nh5 4.Bg5 h6 5.Bh4 g5 6.Bg3 Nxg3 7.hxg3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-05-11T12:36:03.130" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9223" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9221" CreationDate="2015-05-11T12:36:54.003" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Castling is good for protecting your king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's good to castle your king early in the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Castling is good for getting your king out of the center.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Castling isn't mandatory, but it is ideal to castle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also Castling helps to get one of your rooks activated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I hope this helped you!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5852" LastEditorUserId="5852" LastEditDate="2015-05-12T11:50:27.780" LastActivityDate="2015-05-12T11:50:27.780" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9224" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9221" CreationDate="2015-05-11T12:40:31.327" Score="32" Body="&lt;p&gt;Castling is extremely useful in almost all games.  It lets you do two things at once.  First, it moves your king from the center to the side of the board, where it is much more difficult to attack for the opponent.  Second, it brings one of your rooks towards the center of the board, and it crucial in bringing both of your rook into the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There may be a number of potential reasons why these points might not make sense to you. Here is an (incomplete) list:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a) you do not feel that the king is in danger in the center&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;b) you feel that the danger on the side of the board is the same&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;c) you feel that activating the rook is not too useful&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For a) you should probably have a look at how to attack if the king stays in the center; develop, try to rip open the center e.g., by advancing (even at the cost of sacrificing) some pawns in the center.  Once you find out how to do this and also experience how it feels being torn apart by such an attack, you will appreciate being able to quickly move the king out of the center.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For b) it is important to understand that, generally, the initial pawn positions on the 2nd/7th rank are the most resistant.  It might be that you unnecessarily weaken the protection of your king by pawn moves here.  Also you should have a look at some standard motifs, such as the classic bishop sacrifice (google the keyword).  Avoid such configurations and do not push the pawns in front of your king too much and you will soon realize that the side of the board is a much safer place to be.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, concerning c), it is a sad truth that many players do not use all or even most of their pieces.  Having a rook stuck in a corner essentially amounts to having a piece less; for attack and for defense.  You should strive to activate all your pieces and also to connect the rooks, possibly even double them on an open file.  For this, castling is the single most effective means.  All other ways to activating and connecting the rooks likely take both more moves and require additional, potentially weakening, pawn moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3529" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2015-05-14T00:23:25.880" LastActivityDate="2015-05-14T00:23:25.880" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9225" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9221" CreationDate="2015-05-11T15:27:39.663" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Castling is a way of strengthening your King for its' defensive position and Rook's position for its' attacking position(Coming to the game)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Types of Castling&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;King Side&lt;/em&gt; denoted by &lt;code&gt;O-O&lt;/code&gt; since the King is moving two squares towards the King-side Rook.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Queen Side&lt;/em&gt; denoted by &lt;code&gt;O-O-O&lt;/code&gt; since the King is moving two squares towards the Queen-side Rook.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;When not to castle&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;Legal Check&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When your King or Rook has moved earlier&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When the King is under check&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When the square the king will move to or move over is attacked by an enemy piece&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Why to castle&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;Strategy Check&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If you want to go with &lt;code&gt;attacking mindset&lt;/code&gt;, wait for the enemy's end to castle and do the castling on the alternative end of your side. Push the pieces and target his weak squares protecting the King i.e. The three pawns protecting the king.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If you want to play with a &lt;code&gt;defensive mindset&lt;/code&gt;, cover all your pawn structure ahead of king with Knights and Bishop.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;General tip: Move the a-file or h-file pawn in case of a &lt;code&gt;waiting move&lt;/code&gt; for the King to escape back rank mate at the later stage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7245" LastEditorUserId="2789" LastEditDate="2015-05-12T12:38:20.537" LastActivityDate="2015-05-12T12:38:20.537" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9226" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9228" CreationDate="2015-05-11T18:29:55.587" Score="5" ViewCount="241" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was reading thenarticle at &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/benjamin-franklin-on-the-morals-of-chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/benjamin-franklin-on-the-morals-of-chess&lt;/a&gt;, and in the last paragraph, Ben Franklin says &amp;quot;Snatch not eagerly at every advantage offered by his unskilfulness or inattention; but point out to him kindly, that by such a move he places or leaves a piece in danger and unsupported; that by another he will put his king in a perilous situation, etc.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But he also says &amp;quot;If you touch a piece, you must move it somewhere; if you set it down, you must let it stand.&amp;quot; So if my opponent moves their queen to a spot where I could capture her, what would be the advantage of pointing out that his queen is in danger, since he cannot move his queen back to a safe spot (because once they set it down, and therefore must let it stand)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7358" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-12-18T13:18:32.627" LastActivityDate="2020-12-18T13:18:32.627" Title="What did Benjamin Franklin mean in this quote?" Tags="&lt;history&gt;&lt;psychology&gt;&lt;queens&gt;&lt;chessboards&gt;&lt;advantage&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="9227" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9215" CreationDate="2015-05-11T21:02:26.370" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;draw because you are black and a draw as black is equal to a win. Depends on your rating. If by a hundred and less no problem. But more than that you have to play for that win by playing Nd7, not Nd5&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7361" LastActivityDate="2015-05-11T21:02:26.370" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9228" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9226" CreationDate="2015-05-11T21:05:51.290" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;You hold yourself to a higher standard than your opponent, for politeness' sake.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So you let &lt;em&gt;him&lt;/em&gt; play an alternative move after you kindly point out that it was perhaps not the best available, but &lt;em&gt;you&lt;/em&gt; are acquiring a habit of caution by adhering strictly to the laws of the game for your own moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The point is to be moral, polite and extremely smug at the same time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2015-05-11T21:05:51.290" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9229" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-05-12T10:42:04.480" Score="1" ViewCount="104" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a beginner when it comes to handling &lt;code&gt;King, Bishop and Knight&lt;/code&gt; vs &lt;code&gt;King&lt;/code&gt;for a checkmate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can I know what is the strategy to follow in the steps that ultimately leads to the checkmate?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is something even the Woman Grand Master Anna Ushenina failed to make it through unfortunately. Maybe she was not able to concentrate. &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFF5ibgB6eA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Bishop and Knight drawn match&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7245" LastActivityDate="2015-05-12T10:42:04.480" Title="Strategy of Bishop and Knight Checkmate" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;checkmate&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2015-05-13T09:15:04.913" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9232" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7956" CreationDate="2015-05-12T23:14:34.127" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have a game on my phone and I play face to face a few times a month. When playing against an AI keep in mind that the AI runs through every possible move that can be made then choose the best in its favor. The options it generates is limited to the level it's on. IE level 1 usually means it thinks for 1 second versus thinking for 12 seconds on level 12. Unlike a human this could cause it to capture a pawn that's in front of a rook on its third play. Not a joke this happens rarely but on low levels it will happen. I also have it set to offer to resign to let me know when it sees defeat but I don't except so I can get in the practice of taking all of its pieces before checkmate or draw. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit &#xA;Playing on the highest level means every move the AI makes has been calculated through to checkmate. Lower it to a level you can't dominate then increase as you become able to dominate it. Don't back up a single play. Play until you see losing is unavoidable then back up to where you think you made your worst mistake. Also play face to face as often as possible, being able to see an opponent's reaction to taking a piece can tell you if it was a key to his attack or defense while the AI probably will only think less than half of a second longer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7369" LastEditorUserId="7369" LastEditDate="2015-05-13T03:20:08.007" LastActivityDate="2015-05-13T03:20:08.007" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9233" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7657" CreationDate="2015-05-12T23:34:58.340" Score="-3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the key word is elbow. Unless you were previously moving pieces with your elbow then the touch rule wouldn't apply. Disputes of this kind without a judge can easily be avoided by what we call in my area &quot;you break it you bought it&quot;. You can touch a piece as long as you don't lift it from the board. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7369" LastActivityDate="2015-05-12T23:34:58.340" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9234" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-05-13T10:27:28.933" Score="2" ViewCount="2587" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm looking for a Scid port (or alternative software) to run on an iPad. Currently I use SCID + Stockfish in my Ubuntu Linux, but I'd like to use my iPad for the same functionality.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;AFAIK there's a SCID port for Mac, but I've found nothing for the iPad. Any suggerence?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Update:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I ask for the &quot;same functionality&quot; what I'd like most would be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Games database (of course).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Database search.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Openings explorer (aka tree view).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Analyze games.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Annotate games.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Others like playing on FICS/ICC or playing the computer are not needed as I can use other clients for that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2311" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T17:29:24.450" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T17:29:24.450" Title="SCID (or any alternative) on iPad" Tags="&lt;scid&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="9235" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9221" CreationDate="2015-05-14T02:03:11.323" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Castling is good and very effective tool.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Use it at proper time. Don't go by default (starting point). You have to plan your game accordingly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It will close the door and put king in very secure place. But remember most secure place is also most dangerous, as now king moving block is less.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And you should keep it in habit of playing with castling. And you'll soon learn its advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3182" LastActivityDate="2015-05-14T02:03:11.323" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9236" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9239" CreationDate="2015-05-14T07:24:01.743" Score="16" ViewCount="2955" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was playing ChessEndGames and ran into this position (white to move):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;5k2/8/4PK2/8/8/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can't get my pawn to promote. As soon as I do &lt;code&gt;e7&lt;/code&gt;, black follows with &lt;code&gt;Ke8&lt;/code&gt;. If I do &lt;code&gt;Ke5&lt;/code&gt;, black does &lt;code&gt;Ke7&lt;/code&gt;. If I do &lt;code&gt;Kf5&lt;/code&gt;, black does &lt;code&gt;Ke8&lt;/code&gt;, and if I follow it with &lt;code&gt;Ke5&lt;/code&gt;, black does &lt;code&gt;Ke7&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am in deep trouble. I don't get it how to promote my pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7347" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2015-05-15T22:01:40.367" LastActivityDate="2020-05-14T15:17:40.053" Title="How do I promote my pawn when the king blocks it?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;pawn-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9237" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9254" CreationDate="2015-05-14T07:34:00.047" Score="18" ViewCount="8797" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm finding annotated chess games very handy to increase my level of chess knowledge.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there any recommendations on good online resources for annotated games?&#xA;I've found a few, but the annotations are either not very good, or the ratings of the players are very low.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7376" LastEditorUserId="4354" LastEditDate="2015-05-15T02:43:26.593" LastActivityDate="2019-08-22T15:15:20.743" Title="Good resource for annotated games" Tags="&lt;annotation&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9238" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9236" CreationDate="2015-05-14T09:22:33.587" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is no way to promote the pawn here. The position is drawn if it is white to move.  With black to move it would be won.  You may want to read up on key squares and the opposition to get a better understanding of such situations in general.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3529" LastActivityDate="2015-05-14T09:22:33.587" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9239" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9236" CreationDate="2015-05-14T11:22:47.917" Score="22" Body="&lt;p&gt;This position is a draw with White to move. However, the same position would lead you to win if it was black to move (Zugzwang).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The basic theory for you to promote the pawn when the opponent king is having the opposition is you need to have your king in front of your pawn 2 ranks ahead of the pawn, (i.e. if pawn's on e3 King needs to be on e5) (opposition means - being right in front of the king when its his opponent's turn to move, for example- in your position black has gained the opposition with white to move), lets say in the same case, its black to move, that means white has the opposition and after black moves to lets say Ke8, e7 wins you the games as the king now has only 1 square to move that is Kd7, now as it is your turn to move, you play Kf7 and gain the opposition again in front of black king Kd7(sideways), so now black can't play Ke8 and you can promote the pawn and win the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this game it's White to move and he gains opposition and put Black King in Zugzwang. (Make sure to read comments for the moves appearing in the box below each game)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Date &quot;????.??.??&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;*&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;8/8/8/4k3/8/8/3KP3/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Ke3 { Gaining opposition and putting Black king in zugzwang, so black king has to move and give up one of the key squares which is d4, e4 or f4. } ( 1.Kd3 {This is a blunder as now it will just be a draw } Kd5 2.e3 ( 2.e4+ Ke6 3.Kd4 Kd6 4.e5+ Ke7 ) 2...Ke5 3.e4 Ke6 4.Kd4 Kd6 5.e5+ Ke7 6.Kd5 Kd7 7.e6+ Ke8 8.Kd6 ( 8.Ke5 Ke7 9.Kf5 Ke8 10.Kf6 Kf8 11.Ke5 ( 11.Kf5 Ke8 12.Ke5 Ke7 ) 11...Ke7 ) 8...Kd8 9.e7+ Ke8 10.Ke6 ) 1...Kd5 { If Ke6, then white plays Ke4 and gains opposition again. } 2.Kf4 Ke6 ( 2...Kd6 3.Kf5 Kd5 4.e4+ Kd6 5.Kf6 Kd7 6.e5 Ke8 7.Ke6 ) 3.Ke4 Kf6 4.Kd5 Ke7 5.Ke5 Kd7 6.Kf6 Ke8 7.e4 Kf8 ( 7...Kd7 8.e5 Ke8 9.Ke6 Kf8 10.Kd7 ) 8.e5 Ke8 9.Ke6 Kd8 10.Kf7 Kd7 11.e6+ Kd8 12.e7+ Kd7 &#xA;*&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here White King is only 1 rank ahead of the pawn and if black can gain the opposition, game will be a draw. It is Black To move and Black gains the opposition and draws.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Date &quot;????.??.??&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;*&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;8/8/8/3k4/8/4K3/4P3/8 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1...Ke5! { Now White has no way to gain back the opposition while being ahead of the pawn. } 2.Kf3 Kf5 3.e4+ Ke5 4.Ke3 Ke6 5.Kf4 Kf6 6.e5+ Ke7 ( 6...Ke6 { Also Playable } 7.Ke4 Ke7 { Both the same. } ) 7.Kf5 Kf7 8.e6+ Ke8 9.Kf6 Kf8 10.e7+ ( 10.Ke5 Ke7 ) 10...Ke8 11.Ke6 &#xA;*&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But if White is 2 ranks ahead of the pawn, then he can win the game even if black has the opposition as he has to give up the opposition soon as shown below.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Date &quot;????.??.??&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;*&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;8/8/4k3/8/4K3/8/4P3/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e3 { Now Black has to give up one of the key squares which is d5, e5 or f5. } 1...Kd6 2.Kf5 { And after this White wins as shown in above example. } &#xA;*&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4354" LastEditorUserId="4354" LastEditDate="2015-05-14T13:39:15.183" LastActivityDate="2015-05-14T13:39:15.183" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9240" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9236" CreationDate="2015-05-14T13:34:00.547" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;In your diagram, White wins if the Black king is on e8, with White to move. Then the winning move is e7, and the king has to move &quot;out of the way&quot; to d7, you play Kf7, and the pawn queens.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But if it is your move in the diagram, it's only a draw, because Black has what is called the &quot;opposition,&quot; meaning that you have to move out of the way when the kings are facing each other on f file. If it were Black to move, you'd have the opposition, and win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In king and pawn endings, it's often true that &quot;The opposition is worth a pawn.&quot; This is a case in point.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2015-05-14T13:34:00.547" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9241" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8767" CreationDate="2015-05-14T13:39:07.527" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;I knew a guy from high school, whom I would characterize as a &quot;genius,&quot; who is (now in his 50s), barely a master, that is, about 2200. He was a &quot;teen prodigy&quot; that won our league in our city in those days, for his age bracket. He was also a chess &quot;hobbyist,&quot; who devoted most of his non-study/non-professional time to chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mark could probably have become a grandmaster if he had devoted his life to it. But most less-gifted people cannot do this, even if they &quot;try.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastEditorUserId="17" LastEditDate="2018-04-18T06:02:41.113" LastActivityDate="2018-04-18T06:02:41.113" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9242" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9216" CreationDate="2015-05-14T13:50:40.567" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why has an advantage by virtue of having the first move. Not enough to win, but enough to be a &quot;favorite.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If and and when Black &quot;equalizes,&quot; the chances of winning are more or less equal; White is no longer a clear favorite.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Exchanging queens may or may not be the solution. In many cases, White may have the better endgame after queens are traded. In others, exchanging queens is enough for equality if White's advantage consisted solely of better queen mobility.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2015-05-14T13:50:40.567" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9243" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9221" CreationDate="2015-05-14T16:23:45.350" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I castle in most games, but I'll be a contrarian and mention when/why I don't like to castle...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;When/why not to castle:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;to use the tempo for something else&lt;/strong&gt; I think a lot of people castle too early, often using it as a &amp;quot;well I don't know what to do next&amp;quot; move. Think about what you'll want to do after you castle, and see if there might be a tactic that might benefit from having a move earlier. Alternatively, think about what your opponent wants to do next, and thwart their development/tactic.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;to make your opponent commit to an attack&lt;/strong&gt; By waiting to castle, you can sometimes force your opponent to commit to attacking either king side or queen side before they know where your king will be. I find this especially useful in games where I've dominated the center, since then the opponent needs to take more time to move pieces to the opposite side (when I castle away from their development). Note that it's easier to get that domination with the extra tempo you get from not castling.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;to make your opponent more aggressive&lt;/strong&gt; Often, seeing you not castle, an opponent will try to &amp;quot;punish&amp;quot; you for your indiscretion. If you get experience with people trying to punish you for not castling, you'll have an advantage and might find some fun tactics to use to punish them for punishing you&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;when the game is simplifying fast&lt;/strong&gt; If, for whatever reason, pieces are leaving the board in a hurry, having your king in the center of the board can give you an advantage in the endgame--your king is only a few moves away from most of the action.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;for a variation on your opening&lt;/strong&gt; If you want to mix things up in an opening, try not castling and see what sort of attacks that gives you.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;if you want to use your rooks in the corners of the board to attack&lt;/strong&gt; h4 is a common move to attack a castled black king, but obviously it's much weaker if you castle king side. a4 can also start an interesting queen side attack, and sometimes the options of both of these attacks can outweigh the extra flak your king may get in the center&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To answer the actual question...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Why castle:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;the side of the board is the best defense for your King&lt;/strong&gt; If your king is in the corner, there are only two directions attacks can come from. In the center, there are three directions. This simplification can make defense easier.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;it's easier to see attacks coming&lt;/strong&gt; This is closely related to the above; a knight in the middle of the board might be one move away from check while also controlling the center and threatening an exchange or two. If your king is still in the center, it's harder to know what your opponent is thinking. If your king has castled, they have to commit their pieces to a side to attack it, so you can identify your opponent's intentions more easily.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;connecting and activating your rooks&lt;/strong&gt; Activating your rooks is good; connecting your rooks is better. With connected rooks (rooks that defend eachother), you can start putting rooks on contested open files and get to worry a bit less about the exchange.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;to throw your opponent off&lt;/strong&gt; Castling is the only move where two piece move at once. Additionally, your most important piece is moving at double its normal speed. If your opponent is attacking your defenses based on where your pieces currently are, castling can instantly drastically change your configuration. It can neutralize a double-attack to f2 while also removing a c3 pin (perhaps your knight with a black bishop behind it). Used well, you can waste a few of your opponent's moves in one fell swoop.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Some games to look at:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1008361&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;The Game of the Century&lt;/a&gt; I certainly didn't see Fischer's attack coming&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1012683&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Under the Cannon&lt;/a&gt; This is often considered one of the best examples of &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alekhine%27s_gun&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Alekhine's gun&lt;/a&gt;--notice how late white castled, and how black tried to get his king back into the action quite a bit later. And notice how castling made black's queen misplaced. Also, of course, it's known as an example of an impressive use of activated rooks.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1044390&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Fischer v Spassky&lt;/a&gt; Look at how Spassky started a strong attack before castling, and also how Fischer punished him for it. I think Spassky's attack was brilliant, and a good example of why one might wait a bit to castle, but Fischer is obviously brilliant too and great at pursuing even the smallest of weaknesses in his opponents.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;I'll add inline games when I figure out how to do so&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7380" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2015-05-14T16:23:45.350" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9244" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9236" CreationDate="2015-05-14T16:26:28.927" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Black has forced an opposition against white. There is no way to win from here unless the opponent lacks the end game skills of attaining opposition. You can test his endgame skills by moving the king and check if he moves to the current position i.e. &lt;code&gt;Kf8&lt;/code&gt; when you are one square way from &lt;code&gt;Kf6&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7245" LastActivityDate="2015-05-14T16:26:28.927" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9246" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8767" CreationDate="2015-05-14T18:35:01.160" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;What I have seen mostly is that people with 2400+ ratings had a very good genetics i.e. atleast one of their parents played Chess before or intelligent in their field. This absolutely boosts their children's Chess skills.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is also dependent on your memorizing skills and having a clear mind. That's why Chess players indulge in physical activities boosting their body which ultimately leads to healthy mind. Vishwanath Anand likes to go to Gym in between Chess rounds. They cannot just devote their life for Chess and succeed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7245" LastActivityDate="2015-05-14T18:35:01.160" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9247" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1335" CreationDate="2015-05-14T19:33:29.303" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessstrategyonline.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chess Strategy Online&lt;/a&gt; - A new site with free tutorials for beginners and novices.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7386" LastActivityDate="2015-05-14T19:33:29.303" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9248" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9178" CreationDate="2015-05-15T03:04:07.047" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;For USCF rules, there is no such rule as long as the piece you are moving does not expose your king to check in the process.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1454" LastActivityDate="2015-05-15T03:04:07.047" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9249" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9159" CreationDate="2015-05-15T03:27:39.497" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Practice technique.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One of the things that you can do is to have your opponents king in the center of the board, your king doesn't have to even be on the board. The going thru each possible position with a single major or minor piece for your opponent and the same for you, with your single major or minor piece attempt to fork, double attack or skewer the opponents king to his other piece in one move. Obviously it will not be possible with every position or actually fewer than more often. It will then help you automatically visualize where are good squares to move your minor and major piece and create a visual habit for immediate tactical positions for you pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1454" LastActivityDate="2015-05-15T03:27:39.497" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9250" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9252" CreationDate="2015-05-15T04:57:57.840" Score="3" ViewCount="2530" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm looking for a way to create PGN files visually - so I don't want to type in the position and the moves manually, but I want to set up an initial position on a board, play some moves and then export that as a PGN file. Actually, I'm ok even if I can't play moves, but I do want to be able to setup the board and then export it either as a FEN or PGN string or file. &#xA;I've seen the online tool &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/analysis-board-editor&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.chess.com/analysis-board-editor&lt;/a&gt;, but is there anything I can use offline?&#xA;I'm on windows. And I would prefer free/open source.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7343" LastActivityDate="2015-05-18T16:01:25.443" Title="How do I create pgn files visually?" Tags="&lt;pgn&gt;&lt;fen&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9251" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9250" CreationDate="2015-05-15T05:40:28.873" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been using fritz and that serves your purpose.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After you have installed fritz go to little arrow below the 'new game' and click on 'position setup'. After you finish setting your position, there is an option called 'copy FEN' on the same window and you can use that. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And if you want PGN, after setting up the position click OK, make moves you want to and click on 'copy game'and the pgn will be copied to the clip board and you can paste anywhere you want to.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4354" LastActivityDate="2015-05-15T05:40:28.873" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9252" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9250" CreationDate="2015-05-15T07:32:10.980" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;What you are looking for is a chess GUI.&#xA;These are some decent, free alternatives:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.triplehappy.com/Home.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;The Tarrasch Chess Gui&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xchess.sourceforge.net&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;XChess&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-05-15T07:32:10.980" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9253" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5326" CreationDate="2015-05-15T07:45:28.183" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Theoretically, yes very much so, if Carlsen organised a 100 game match between himself and a 2100 rated player(who he theoretically has a 99.99% chance of beating in each game) and for each win he'd get a rating gain of one elo (by Fide calculations), then that'd be a 100 elo gain putting him at say 2977 or thereabout...so all he's got to do is organise a 150 game match.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7391" LastActivityDate="2015-05-15T07:45:28.183" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9254" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9237" CreationDate="2015-05-15T07:57:33.213" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.thechessmind.net&quot;&gt;blogs&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.chessbase.com&quot;&gt;news&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess24.com&quot;&gt;sites&lt;/a&gt; that regularly publish analysis of recent games. Chess24 also provides a lot of &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/user/chess24media&quot;&gt;videos&lt;/a&gt; with analysis of games, competing in that regard with &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/user/PowerPlayChess&quot;&gt;various&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/user/kingscrusher&quot;&gt;youtube&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/user/Chessexplained&quot;&gt;channels&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also find annotated games on Chessgames.com, most easily in the form of &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chesscollection?cid=1004072&quot;&gt;game&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chesscollection?cid=1013362&quot;&gt;collections&lt;/a&gt; via google &quot;site:chessgames.com annotated&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-05-15T07:57:33.213" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9255" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9237" CreationDate="2015-05-15T12:14:09.067" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here are some of Annotated game archives I found:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://gameknot.com/best-annotated-games.pl&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;GameKnot Annotated Games&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/ezsearch.pl?search=annotated&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;ChessGames.com Annotated Archive&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.pgnmentor.com/files.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;PGN Mentor&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Use this method to search for annotated games: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjJmqiO-xBY&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Search for annotated games&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Will add more when I find them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7245" LastEditorUserId="7245" LastEditDate="2017-11-14T19:01:03.043" LastActivityDate="2017-11-14T19:01:03.043" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9256" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-05-15T15:42:07.297" Score="5" ViewCount="1802" Body="&lt;p&gt;What do you say about it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I find that if you're in a sequence that you're realizing is a trap, and the pressure on you is building. Or you've blundered, or worse, you deservedly are about to get crushed—its a traumatic experience where the ideational nature or principles of the position are more readily gleaned.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7152" LastEditorUserId="7245" LastEditDate="2015-05-15T15:47:32.933" LastActivityDate="2020-12-01T03:59:43.323" Title="Do longer games better your chances of honing chess skills?" Tags="&lt;time-control&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9257" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9256" CreationDate="2015-05-15T15:57:07.723" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, more longer the game you can play, it can test your &lt;code&gt;concentration&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;visualization&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;memory power&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I initially started playing Chess, I was always excited to play blitz Chess. I kept playing and finally I couldn't improve my Chess as I didn't improve what was needed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Recently I played with a time control of 1 hour in my debut FIDE tournament, I took the most time for my moves against my opponent. All 9 players I met in the field were having Class C rating but then they had the basics right. I could win against 6 and drew with one while losing the remaining two because of minor blunders. Luckily, I could open my FIDE rating in my very first tournament, though the rating is not much to be proud of. It set a platform for me to concentrate more on longer games and less on blitz.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7245" LastEditorUserId="7245" LastEditDate="2015-07-14T11:32:45.710" LastActivityDate="2015-07-14T11:32:45.710" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9258" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9215" CreationDate="2015-05-15T16:02:27.807" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm wondering about the purpose of 13... Qd6. Seems a waste of time to me. What's wrong with grabbing the pawn? White's 13. Qh5 is a simple mistake.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And about the point that &quot;draw with Black is as good as a win&quot; - it is &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt;. You should aim for a win with both sides and also ignore rating gaps. I've given up the habit of looking at my opponent's rating before the game. Just play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2871" LastActivityDate="2015-05-15T16:02:27.807" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9259" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1811" CreationDate="2015-05-15T16:15:28.533" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;It comes down to pure taste. I've been playing the Caro for over 20 years now and would never even consider the French, exactly because of this bishop - and because I've played a lot of very nice attacking games against the French with White.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The other reason why I personally dislike the French is White's boring option of 1.e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3.exd5 exd5 4.Bd3 followed by 5.Nf3. (I have to admit I employed this in a few tournament games myself, because a draw was all I needed for my desired overall outcome.) This takes the fun out of any game, at least if Black is a somewhat serious player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Having said all this, on top I'd like to quote my old coach: &quot;French is an opening for World Champions.&quot; What he meant by this is that you must really watch out, because you have to defend against big onrushes in a lot of variations - with a blocked center, the hidden bishop and without &quot;the Black king's best friend&quot; (the knight on f6). It's often a long battle until you can look for advantage on the queenside, because you have to fight for survival on the kingside. Not to my liking, but others feel differently.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2871" LastActivityDate="2015-05-15T16:15:28.533" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9260" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9250" CreationDate="2015-05-15T16:35:41.040" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can try the online chess editor&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.apronus.com/chess/wbeditor.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.apronus.com/chess/wbeditor.php&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3456" LastActivityDate="2015-05-15T16:35:41.040" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9261" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2017" CreationDate="2015-05-15T19:31:24.433" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;One solution for equalizing a first-move advantage is the &lt;strong&gt;Pie Rule&lt;/strong&gt;, AKA &quot;I cut, you choose&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Under this rule, immediately after the &lt;em&gt;n&lt;/em&gt;th move by White, the player that started as Black would have the option of either switching sides or proceeding with game as is. The number &lt;em&gt;n&lt;/em&gt; is fixed in advance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This rule is used in other boardgames, like Twixt, Havannah, or Hex, that have a more significant first-move advantage.  With the Pie Rule, the first player must quickly give up the advantage lest it be seized by the second player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The more common solution, since draws are acceptable in Chess, is to play multiple games, with players alternating sides.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7403" LastActivityDate="2015-05-15T19:31:24.433" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9262" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9221" CreationDate="2015-05-15T20:16:07.937" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just for practice my brother and I would take turns opening with a castling as soon as possible. While the other practiced attacking the position. This was an effective challenge to developing both of our skills in defending and defeating the move. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I do think too often many players use castling as an escape from attack. IMHO this is only a prolonging of the inevitable. It may prolong the game and a good player can easily continue an attack when castling is used to escape. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Castling should be planned as an element of defense in the overall game. The most obvious factor is to which side to castle. Often based on the attack approach of the opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just FYI, for some damn reason I prefer the King's side. Would be nice to see a vote on this. And tie it to right handed and left handed persons. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7397" LastEditorUserId="7397" LastEditDate="2015-06-01T18:43:02.867" LastActivityDate="2015-06-01T18:43:02.867" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9263" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-05-15T21:01:22.883" Score="5" ViewCount="317" Body="&lt;p&gt;In lightning chess. must pieces be moved so they are completely within a square? If not then how much overlap is allowed? If my opponent breaks this rule do I stop the clock and call the DOP?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7404" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-01-05T21:19:08.577" LastActivityDate="2021-01-05T21:19:08.577" Title="Must chess pieces be within a square?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;blitz&gt;&lt;pieces&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="9264" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-05-15T21:09:43.550" Score="2" ViewCount="328" Body="&lt;p&gt;In blitz (lightning) chess: If my opponent knocks over a piece when moving then presses his clock before replacing the piece is this illegal? If so do I stop the clock and call the DOP?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7404" LastActivityDate="2015-07-14T23:08:00.537" Title="Pieces knocked over in blitz chess" Tags="&lt;blitz&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9265" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9264" CreationDate="2015-05-15T21:47:19.287" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to FIDE Handbook:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Article 7: Irregularities&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;7.4 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If a player displaces one or more pieces, he shall re-establish the&#xA;  correct position in his own time. If necessary, either the player or&#xA;  his opponent shall stop the chessclock and ask for the arbiter’s&#xA;  assistance. The arbiter may penalise the player who displaced the&#xA;  pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That means, yes, you can stop the clock and call the arbiter for your assistance if he did not adjust the pieces in his own time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4354" LastActivityDate="2015-05-15T21:47:19.287" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9266" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6325" CreationDate="2015-05-16T13:11:21.847" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Refer to page 145 of The Life and Games of Mikhail Tal&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7405" LastActivityDate="2015-05-16T13:11:21.847" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9267" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1872" CreationDate="2015-05-16T16:43:39.900" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Answering the original question:&#xA;after 4...Nb4&#xA; 5.Ne5 (threatens 6.Nf7 or Bf7+)&#xA;     if 5...Nh6 6.d4? Bd6? 7.Bh6 Be5 &#xA;           then things go wild with 8.Bf7+ Kf7 9.Qh5+ &amp;amp; then 10.Qe5 &#xA;            but Black has a fork with check in hand ...Nc2+ but White has&#xA;            the attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    However instead of 6...Bd6?, Black has 6...Bd4! as 7.Qd4 fails to &#xA;    7...Nc2+ &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So White needs 6.c3 before 7.d4.&#xA;  Basically instead of the original 4...Nb4 5.c3 ... ,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;   try 4...Nb4 5.Ne5 Nh6 6.c3  and the position looks good for White.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7406" LastEditorUserId="7406" LastEditDate="2015-05-16T17:06:02.210" LastActivityDate="2015-05-16T17:06:02.210" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9268" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-05-16T20:00:04.463" Score="4" ViewCount="588" Body="&lt;p&gt;Any good references (books/videos/tutorials) for this variation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 dxe4 4.Nxe4 Nf6 5.Nxf6+ gxf6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7174" LastEditorUserId="7174" LastEditDate="2015-05-22T01:49:02.940" LastActivityDate="2015-05-22T01:49:02.940" Title="Caro-Kann Bronstein-Larsen Variation For Black" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;caro-kann&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9269" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9268" CreationDate="2015-05-16T21:08:45.687" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you read Danish there's Bent Larsen's &lt;em&gt;Solide åbninger&lt;/em&gt; (Solid openings) from 1980.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/6jLen.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is a repertoire book for beginners (white and black) and suggests the line you inquire about as the defense against &lt;code&gt;1. e4&lt;/code&gt;.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1485" LastActivityDate="2015-05-16T21:08:45.687" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9270" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-05-17T08:00:45.083" Score="3" ViewCount="1159" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm currently learning the Ruy Lopez opening and typical defences. But every single example I've seen, it is played as white.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there any reason why you cannot or shouldn't play Ruy Lopez as black, moving the bishop to b4?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If so, what initial moves by white would preclude or make opening with Ruy Lopez inadvisable when playing as black?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7411" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2020-04-16T12:10:39.100" LastActivityDate="2020-04-16T12:10:39.100" Title="Yes or no: should a 'reverse' Ruy Lopez be played as black?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;ruy-lopez&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="9271" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9270" CreationDate="2015-05-17T08:28:37.543" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The opening known as Ruy Lopez is characterized by white playing 3.Bb5 after 1. e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6. There are lines where black plays Bb4, but these aren't called Ruy Lopez.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For Bb4/Bb5 to make much sense, there has to be a Knight on c3/c6. Consequently one possibility of Bb4 for black occurs in the Four-Knights-Game, where this is actually the mainline and considered to be equalizing for black:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;] &#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Bb5 Bb4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastEditorUserId="3884" LastEditDate="2015-09-03T06:58:49.460" LastActivityDate="2015-09-03T06:58:49.460" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9272" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9274" CreationDate="2015-05-17T11:33:47.847" Score="2" ViewCount="1723" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Canada, there is a variation of chess in which king and queen are swapped from the normal starting position. However, some argue this makes no difference. Canadians are split. So the question is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Does swapping king/queen from the onset affect the game?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7205" LastEditorUserId="7205" LastEditDate="2015-05-17T11:47:28.717" LastActivityDate="2020-08-05T01:27:37.267" Title="King/Queen chess variation" Tags="&lt;chess-variants&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9273" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9272" CreationDate="2015-05-17T12:20:23.760" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If both sides swap queen and king at the beginning, it is obviously still the same game, only mirrored in the middle. All theory would still be valid. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Practically, it would be incredibly annoying to anybody intimately familiar with the normal setup. Even more so than the common quarter turn of the board, where all the squares have the wrong colour. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If only one side swaps king and queen this would probably benefit white. White is usually the one who can open up lines first and in this chess version the black king would already be on the same line as the white queen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-05-17T12:20:23.760" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9274" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9272" CreationDate="2015-05-17T12:22:53.480" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;This does not make any difference.  Exchanging the positions of king and queen on both sides just corresponds to mirroring the whole game horizontally.  Thus they are equivalent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3529" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2015-05-17T16:14:53.097" LastActivityDate="2015-05-17T16:14:53.097" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9275" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9272" CreationDate="2015-05-17T13:48:34.543" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Clearly there are trivial differences.  Instead of playing &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; for a sharp game, White would play &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt;. (See Ignaz' answer)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It would also be no different than allowing Black to move first with a normal setup. So no, it would make no difference.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2015-05-17T13:48:34.543" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9276" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9270" CreationDate="2015-05-17T17:55:34.070" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think that this question comes from a fundamental misunderstanding that many beginners have but more experienced players don't even notice, which I wrote about &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/4219/do-i-have-to-follow-the-openings-moves-when-the-response-is-different/4259#4259&quot;&gt;in this answer&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The short version is that openings describe moves made by both players, not by one player. The Ruy Lopez is 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5, not &quot;1.e4, then 2.Nf3, then 3.Bb5&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Given this, there is no real way to &quot;play the Ruy Lopez as Black&quot;, since you're a move behind. The only theoretical way you could get to that position is something like 1.e3 e5 2.e4 Nf6 3.Nc3 Bb4, which would never happen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;...Bb4 mostly makes sense when 1) there is a knight on c3 and you want to undermine its support of e4 and d5, or 2) by checking you can force White to interpose a piece or pawn in an awkward way. These situations do come up but none of them are a &quot;Ruy Lopez as Black&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.193" LastActivityDate="2015-05-17T17:55:34.070" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9277" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17615" CreationDate="2015-05-17T18:01:07.560" Score="14" ViewCount="21063" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am experiencing Antichess and it's more forcing than normal chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are the best openings for white ?&#xA;Is there any winning opening whatever the black does respond?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Antichess, according to &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Losing_chess&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Losing chess (also known as Antichess, the&#xA;Losing Game, Giveaway chess, Suicide chess, Killer chess, or Take-all&#xA;chess) is a chess variant in which the objective of each player is to&#xA;lose all of his pieces or be stalemated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;The rules are the same as those for standard chess, except for the following special rules:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Capturing is compulsory.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When more than one capture is available, the player may choose.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The king has no royal power and accordingly: it may be captured like any other piece there is no check or checkmate there is no castling&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In addition to its normal promotion options, a pawn may promote to a king.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Stalemate is a win for the stalemated player.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A player wins by losing all his pieces, or being stalemated. Apart&#xA;from move repetition, draw by agreement, and the fifty-move rule, the&#xA;game is also drawn when a win is impossible (such as if a dark-squared&#xA;bishop and a light-squared bishop are the only pieces remaining).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It can be played online through &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.lichess.org/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;lichess&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7334" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-17T02:26:29.297" LastActivityDate="2020-08-17T07:22:53.730" Title="What are the best openings in Antichess?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;losing-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9278" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9277" CreationDate="2015-05-17T18:51:59.497" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;I cannot really speak from my own experience, but there seems to be some very &lt;a href=&quot;http://poincare.matf.bg.ac.rs/~andrew/suicide/StanGold/theory.htm&quot;&gt;decent sites about Antichess&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is what this one has to say about the opening:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Just like in chess, the main goal in the Losing Chess opening is development of the pieces. One has to be careful, as the starting position is quite volatile, and some first moves even lose directly (1.e4, 1.d4, and 1.d3). However, one should not be too passive, guided by the motto 'just not capture anything'. Remember that material advantage is important to win, not the opposite! So, always be open to try those novelties which allow the opponent to give-away some of his pieces, just carefully check if you cannot be forced to capture them all. Only bishops seem to be an exception here, they are often too dangerous for the opening and middle-game, so in most cases you should try to get rid of your bishops in the opening and avoid capturing those of the opponent. (However, see this game for an example of how strong a bishop can sometimes be!) Regarding this, the most preferable first moves might be 1.e3 e6 - allowing both sides to 'ditch' the bishops directly. Indeed, these moves have become by far most popular among the strongest Losing Chess players.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chess.about.com/od/chessvariants/a/Suicide-Chess.htm&quot;&gt;Another site give&lt;/a&gt; even more faux-pas on the first move:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;For example, known losing first moves for white include 1.d4, 1.e4, 1.Nf3, 1.Nc3, 1.d3, 1.f4, 1.b4, 1.h4 and 1.h3.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both sites agree that the objective is often to gain a material advantage, to be able to ditch your pieces more easily later in the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Concerning the best opening moves, look at &lt;a href=&quot;http://suicidechess.ca/newopeningBrowzer.php&quot;&gt;this pearl&lt;/a&gt;:&#xA;Apparently 1.e3, 1.Nh3, 1.c4, 1.g3 and 1.g4 are the acceptable moves for white.&#xA;And after 1.e3 chances seem to be good that this is just winning for white. Only c5 and b6 haven't been solved towards a white win yet. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-05-17T18:51:59.497" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9279" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-05-17T21:16:34.053" Score="4" ViewCount="1212" Body="&lt;p&gt;In theory, rook (5) + knight (3) = 8 points. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And bishop (3.25) + bishop (3.25) + pawn (1) = 7.5 points.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, do you think black is better in the following scenario or do you believe white can hold with good play?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;1n2k2r/ppp1pppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/2B1KB2 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7415" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2015-05-17T22:10:38.887" LastActivityDate="2020-06-20T08:46:51.163" Title="Is the bishop pair and a pawn equivalent to knight and a rook?" Tags="&lt;knights&gt;&lt;rooks&gt;&lt;bishops&gt;&lt;point-value&gt;&lt;exchange&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9280" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9279" CreationDate="2015-05-17T21:29:34.227" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is very situational. Generally, the side with the bishop pair is simply down the exchange.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2015-05-17T21:29:34.227" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9281" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9279" CreationDate="2015-05-17T21:47:59.720" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It depends on the situation. Sometimes players lose 3 points, but have an advantage in position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;  1. e4 e5 2. b3 Bc5 3. f4 Nf6 4. fxe5 Nxe4 5. Qg4 Nf2 6. Qxg7 Rf8 7. d4 Nxh1 8. Nf3 Bb4+ 9. c3 Be7 10. Bh6 d5 11. Qxh7 Qd7 12. Bxf8 Bxf8  *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or for example this game: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUr_gdKQ8j4&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUr_gdKQ8j4&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7416" LastEditorUserId="7416" LastEditDate="2015-05-18T21:39:22.577" LastActivityDate="2015-05-18T21:39:22.577" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9283" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5853" CreationDate="2015-05-17T22:20:22.403" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found this called Czyzewski Opening. (I do not know how, in this case black should react.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;  1. e4 e5 2. b3 *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;http://maciejczyzewski.me/2015/05/05/czyzewski-opening-a-hypermodern-chess-variation.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://maciejczyzewski.me/2015/05/05/czyzewski-opening-a-hypermodern-chess-variation.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7416" LastEditorUserId="7416" LastEditDate="2015-05-18T15:52:07.053" LastActivityDate="2015-05-18T15:52:07.053" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9284" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9287" CreationDate="2015-05-17T22:25:49.140" Score="6" ViewCount="241" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was exploring &lt;em&gt;hypermodern&lt;/em&gt; openings and had found &lt;strong&gt;Czyzewski Opening&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.b3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How I should react to this type of situation on the board. Is this some kind of trap?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7416" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2015-05-17T23:25:24.577" LastActivityDate="2015-05-18T02:12:33.080" Title="What is the strongest reply to Czyzewski Opening?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9286" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-05-18T01:36:18.307" Score="3" ViewCount="377" Body="&lt;p&gt;I played this game in a tournament and lost.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.c4 e5 {Starting the reversed sicilian} 2.Nc3 Nc6 3.g3 g6 4.Bg2 Bg7 5.d3 d6 6. Nf3 Nge7 7. O-O O-O 8. Rb1 h6 {Finished the Closed Sicilian setup that I want: h6, Nc6, Ne7, O-O, Bg7, g6, and the d6-e5 pawn chain. This is the exact reverse of Karpov's Closed Sicilian when he is white} 9. b4 {I always want this move by my opponent when playing the Closed Sicilian because his Knight can be a target, but I also needed to oppose his queenside plan, though I was not really sure how to do that. I was thinking that I should try to close the queenside so that I can focus on my attack on the kingside} a6 {I couldn't think of any good way to frustrate his queenside attack, so I played this move because I have seen this in some Karpov's games, but I don't really know its purpose, I just &quot;hope&quot; that I can close the queenside in the future with this move} 10. a4 f5 {Started to attack his unsupported Knight} 11. b5 axb5 12. axb5 Nb8 {I did not know where to put my Knight, but I was thinking that the c5 square will be a good outpost for my Knight, so I retreated to b8} 13. Qb3 Be6 {The purpose of this move is to prevent a possible discovered check} 14. Nd2 Nd7 {Preparing to post my knight to the c5 square, so my b-pawn can't be taken because of the fork threat} 15. Ba3 Rb8 16. Na4 b6 {Closing the queenside at last} 17. Nc3 f4 {Starting my attack on the kingside. My plan is to post a Knight to d4 via the f5 square, then after posting the Knight to the d4 square, I was thinking of attacking the f3 and the e2 squares} 18. Nde4 Nf5 19. Qc2 Nd4 20. Qd1 Nf6 {Vacating the d7 square for my Queen, I was also thinking about removing my opponent's light-squared Bishop to help my attack on the f3 and the e2 squares} 21. Nxf6 Qxf6 22. Nd5 Bxd5 {Now my time trouble has started. I was thinking about putting my queen to Qf7, but after that, there was nothing that I could do to remove his Knight. Then I thought that by simplifying things, I can win a pawn by playing Nc2 at move 27, yes I calculated that, but unfortunately it was a blunder.} 23. Bxd5+ Kh7 24. e3 fxe3 25. fxe3 Qxf1 26. Qxf1 Rxf1 27. Kxf1 Nc2??? {I thought I could win a pawn here that's why I started simplifying things starting from move 22, so I played this move very quick, and immediately after playing this move I realized that I already lost the game} 28. Bc1 e4 29. Bxe4 d5 30. cxd5 h5 31. Ke2 Bf8 32. Bb2 Na3 33. Rf1 Nxb5 34. Rf7+ Kg8 35. Bxg6 Ra8 36. Be5 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have added comments at the following moves:&#xA;1, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, 16, 17, 20, 22, and 27&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I don't really understand how to handle the pawn structures at the queenside.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Is there something wrong with my plans, my thinking process?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;My opponent claimed that he was winning the middle game, but I think he was wrong, I think I was winning the middle game here. Am I wrong?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7174" LastEditorUserId="4182" LastEditDate="2015-05-18T10:55:24.923" LastActivityDate="2015-05-19T05:34:12.493" Title="Reversed Sicilian - What's wrong with my plan?" Tags="&lt;closed-position&gt;&lt;english-opening&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9287" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9284" CreationDate="2015-05-18T02:12:33.080" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;2.b3 is so vanishingly rare after 1.e4 e5 that you really should not bother preparing anything against it unless you have a friend who plays it all the time or something. Emms in &lt;em&gt;Play the Open Games as Black&lt;/em&gt;, a repertoire book for Black after 1.e4 e5, does not even mention it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;How I should react to this type of situation on the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Bologan's Black Weapons in the Open Games&lt;/em&gt; suggests starting with 2...Nf6 3.Nc3 Bb4, which seems as good as anything.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is this some kind of trap?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2015-05-18T02:12:33.080" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9288" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9286" CreationDate="2015-05-18T05:32:39.983" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;A few pointers, it wasnt a reversed sicilian per se, fianchettoing your dark square bishop gave you a kings indian vs English opening type position, and in such structures your knight on c6 is always going to get hit by b5, its best retreat being to the e7 square since your play is on the kingside and your likely to go g5 at some point then get in Ne7-g6 etc, in this regard, your knight on g8 should go to f6(keeping the e7 square free for the c6 knight) then later (yes you'd have to spend some tempi going Nf6-e8 or d7) play f5-f4 n g5 etc, this is one of afew ways to play that position&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7391" LastActivityDate="2015-05-18T05:32:39.983" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9289" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5774" CreationDate="2015-05-18T06:01:03.550" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, however, this has less to do with exploiting a penalty and more with exploiting the rules: a loss by forfeit. This includes receiving a phone call during a tournament game (for which, according to FIDE, the offending player is forfeited).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now loss by forfeit technically doesn't lead to loss of rating points. One only loses rating points when the game has been played out and one loses....so should you ever find yourself in a most unfortunate situation from which you have no hope of extraction, and you're going to lose a bunch of rating points (if you've got a rating), then suddenly it won't seem like a bad idea to get a friend of yours to call your cell phone (be sure to turn up your ringtone so the arbiter can hear it). You only get one shot.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7391" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-06-29T11:08:47.903" LastActivityDate="2017-06-29T11:08:47.903" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9290" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9279" CreationDate="2015-05-18T08:31:14.367" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's an oversimplification to think of the bishop pair to be worth 0.5 points on average. There are cramped positions where a bishop is barely better than a pawn. It's very difficult to generalize based on your question, it will vary greatly from position to position. But in case you're only interested in an &quot;on average&quot; answer, then the side with the rook has a slight edge.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7096" LastActivityDate="2015-05-18T08:31:14.367" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9291" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9272" CreationDate="2015-05-18T09:39:50.440" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It &lt;em&gt;can&lt;/em&gt; make a difference with respect to castling. As others have said, we just have a mirror of the regular startup, so a regular e4 becomes d4 and so on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That leaves the question what happens with castling? If this is just mirrored as well, then indeed there is no theoretical difference. So in this setup, what are the rules for castling?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There may still be a &lt;em&gt;practical&lt;/em&gt; difference, because one has to mirror their usual opening setups or and/or middlegame plans. Apart from that, it will be the exact same game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2871" LastActivityDate="2015-05-18T09:39:50.440" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9292" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9250" CreationDate="2015-05-18T16:01:25.443" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I also found that &lt;a href=&quot;http://scid.sourceforge.net/download.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;SCID&lt;/a&gt;, the chess GUI I was already using has this feature as well. Ctl+Sh+S allows me to set up a position. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7343" LastActivityDate="2015-05-18T16:01:25.443" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9293" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9286" CreationDate="2015-05-19T05:34:12.493" Score="3" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;8. ... h6&lt;/code&gt; was unprovoked. Until White threatens to double Q+B on a c1-h6 diagonal, or places the piece ag &lt;code&gt;g5&lt;/code&gt;, there is no reason to weaken the Kingside. The plan calls for immediate &lt;code&gt;8. ... f5&lt;/code&gt;, e.g. &lt;code&gt;8... f5 9. Bg5 h6 10. Bh4&lt;/code&gt;, and it is up to Black to decide between &lt;code&gt;10. ... g5&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;10. ... Bf6&lt;/code&gt;, whichever suites your style.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Along the same lines &lt;code&gt;9. ... a6&lt;/code&gt; seems off. Black shouldn't help White in opening Queenside files. If you want to secure Queenside, &lt;code&gt;8. ... a5&lt;/code&gt; is in order of the day.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Did you consider &lt;code&gt;12. ... e4&lt;/code&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3774" LastActivityDate="2015-05-19T05:34:12.493" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9294" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9300" CreationDate="2015-05-19T07:08:17.177" Score="7" ViewCount="1618" Body="&lt;p&gt;Lets consider you have &lt;code&gt;e4 d4&lt;/code&gt; pawns with white or &lt;code&gt;e5,d5&lt;/code&gt; with black. When your opponent challenge your center with e5 or d5 with black, or with e4 or d4 with white of course his pawns are protected. How do you know if you have to push your pawn or simply capture the challenger pawn?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7218" LastEditorUserId="7245" LastEditDate="2015-05-19T07:30:08.867" LastActivityDate="2015-05-25T01:50:00.023" Title="When to push centrals pawns?" Tags="&lt;theory&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;pawn-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9295" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9358" CreationDate="2015-05-19T08:22:29.813" Score="2" ViewCount="561" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been running an old version Chessmaster: Grandmaster edition on my windows 8.1 laptop when I found a bug (Chessmaster recommended an illegal move), and I thought it was time to change my software.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm rated around 2000 elo and would like a program that has tutorials (tactics exercises, annotated games, endgame courses etc.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any recommendations?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS. I've checked that my Chessmaster program has all the latest updates from Ubisoft.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2015-05-26T01:54:11.737" Title="Recommend chess software for windows 8.1" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;software&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9296" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9216" CreationDate="2015-05-19T11:44:41.880" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my opinion, &quot;equalize&quot; means the same number of piece developed, equal control in the center and equal initiative.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(For example, you have a piece which play a double role {attack and defence}, a piece which play one role{attack}, and a piece with {defence} role, and the opponent have 3 pieces with same roles as yours).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7218" LastActivityDate="2015-05-19T11:44:41.880" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9298" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9212" CreationDate="2015-05-19T13:06:59.430" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;For your style my suggestion is e4 followed by f3 if he capture with the pawn, if he capture with the knight,take knight and then f3!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7218" LastActivityDate="2015-05-19T13:06:59.430" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9299" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9186" CreationDate="2015-05-19T13:39:40.267" Score="-3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Most positional move here is Nc6 after c5 which bring a new piece and attack the pawn chain base and the center. This lead to a unpleasant things after bishop b5, Knight e7, but after moving the queen and castle queenside the position is pretty quiet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7218" LastEditorUserId="7218" LastEditDate="2015-10-02T08:47:00.237" LastActivityDate="2015-10-02T08:47:00.237" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9300" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9294" CreationDate="2015-05-19T14:46:31.960" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are basically three possibilities:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Keeping the tension is often the best one: If your opponent resolves the tension by taking your pawn you can retake and centralise a piece and your remaining pawn often gives you a space advantage. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Taking is usually the least attractive option, but it can be good, if you are the first (or only one) to take advantage of vulnerable squares. So you might take on e5 if you can bring a knight to d5, possibly because the black c-pawn is already on c5, whereas your c-pawn can still control d4. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Pushing the pawn gives you a space advantage, but there is a big difference on which side of the board you get this space advantage! Pushing e5 gives you a space advantage on the king side. This can lead to an (piece-) attack against the king and is therefore a generally attractive option. It is not by random chance that against the French and against the Caro-Kann the e-pawn is often pushed to e5.&#xA;Pushing d5 gives you an advantage on the queenside and this is only attractive if you can follow it up with play on this side of the board. Therefore it is generally more often played if you already have a pawn on c4, which is ready to be pushed to c5. If you need too much time to get your queenside play going, there will be the counter lever f5, which gives black play on the kingside. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-05-19T14:46:31.960" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9301" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9186" CreationDate="2015-05-19T15:50:55.460" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I'm a 1800 Elo player that likes positional, quiet, drawish, slow, boring and strategic openings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Good luck with never being able to advance. ;) OK, seriously, you &lt;em&gt;must&lt;/em&gt; embrace the &quot;other&quot;, &quot;meaty&quot; part of chess as well. If you want to make progress, don't work on the parts where you feel comfortable, work on your weaknesses!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This question is a perfect example of the limitation of only following the &quot;strategic, drawish (etc.)&quot; route. Let's put it simple: &lt;em&gt;There is no boring response to this variation&lt;/em&gt;, which is probably why Shirov likes it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, you're missing an interesting option here, probably because it's marked as dubious in all the old books (if mentioned at all):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. e5 Bf5 4. Nc3 e6 5. g4 Bg6 6. Nge2 Qh4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, this is indeed a possible move which can throw White off guard - it obviously attacks that naughty pawn on g4, prevents a further h4 and puts some immediate pressure on f2. Combine it with a quick Bb4 and suddenly White must display some imagination in coming up with an attack plan. If this is not to your taste, follow up with c5 and Nc6, maybe even h5, and suddenly White must have some fear that his beloved d4 pawn may lose its balance. Most White players will try trapping the queen, which is generally speaking impossible and gives Black quite some time to come up with pressure against the center. I have this variation in my repertoire, and I like it - the results are also within the acceptable range.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2871" LastActivityDate="2015-05-19T15:50:55.460" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9302" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9295" CreationDate="2015-05-19T15:59:37.373" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Lucas is a good software but in my opinion I would say that Chessmaster is better than Lucas. Well you can try Lucas and see...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3458" LastActivityDate="2015-05-19T15:59:37.373" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9303" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9294" CreationDate="2015-05-19T16:07:13.223" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;For your general chess education it's important to know the textbook example Tarrasch-Marco, Dresden 1892.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;1892.07.18&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Siegbert Tarrasch&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Georg Marco&quot;]&#xA;[StartPly &quot;8&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 d6 4.d4 Bd7 5.Nc3 Nf6 6.O-O Be7 7.Re1&#xA;O-O (7... exd4)8.Bxc6 Bxc6 9.dxe5 dxe5 10.Qxd8 Raxd8 11.Nxe5 Bxe4 12.Nxe4&#xA;Nxe4 13.Nd3 f5 14.f3 Bc5+ 15.Nxc5 Nxc5 16.Bg5 Rd5 17.Be7 Re8&#xA;18.c4 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White could have pushed the pawn &lt;code&gt;5. d5&lt;/code&gt; with a small advantage, due to more space. Instead he kept the tension until black made a mistake with &lt;code&gt;7... 0-0?&lt;/code&gt;, when the correct move for black was to surrender the center with &lt;code&gt;7... exd4&lt;/code&gt;. After the mistake &lt;code&gt;7... 0-0?&lt;/code&gt;, white started a series of exchanges on move &lt;code&gt;8&lt;/code&gt; that eventually wins a pawn. The moral: Don't take on &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt; before it's actually good. Also notice how white's moves &lt;code&gt;5-7&lt;/code&gt;support his center.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1485" LastActivityDate="2015-05-19T16:07:13.223" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9304" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9212" CreationDate="2015-05-19T20:25:54.870" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Maybe the 5.Bf4 lines are a good fit. In the 5.Bg5 lines, black can often exchange bishops with the Lasker/Capablance maneuver, involving an early ...Ne4 or ...Nd5 forcing the bishop exchange, and it is hard to get aggressive play against that. 5.Bf4 avoids that, with the drawback that there is less pressure on d5, allowing ...c5 by black. Usually white takes the pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's an all star list of top players who have used it -- Kasparov, Topalov, Ivanchuk, Kramnik, Gelfand, Korchnoi, et cetera.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I should probably add an example game here but I don't know one from the top of my head and I don't have much time...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A recent book that advocates this line is Burgess' &quot;A Cunning Repertoire for White&quot;, which is a generic 1.d4 opening repertoire book.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2015-05-19T20:25:54.870" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9306" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-05-20T15:41:22.357" Score="4" ViewCount="1128" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been searching (for a long time) for some sound files to a chess program from way, way back (early 90's).  There was an online version of Chessmaster called Chessmaster Live.  I'm sure it is a long shot, but does anyone have a copy of this program or know where I might find it so that I can get the sound files?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The sound files are basically the sounds that are made as one moved a piece, captured, castled etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7424" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-05-21T16:39:57.703" LastActivityDate="2019-05-21T16:39:57.703" Title="Looking for sound files from a VERY old version of Chessmaster Live" Tags="&lt;online-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="9307" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12268" CreationDate="2015-05-20T18:52:36.763" Score="5" ViewCount="1000" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have many old chess games saved from Chessmaster 7000, 8000, and maybe even 9000. They are all saved in the Chessmaster .CMG file format.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How can I access these games today?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would like to either open them or convert them to .PGN format.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3950" LastEditorUserId="229" LastEditDate="2015-05-21T23:07:45.773" LastActivityDate="2018-04-06T11:51:35.633" Title="How can I open (or convert into .PGN) old Chessmaster .CMG files, without Chessmaster?" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;pgn&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9308" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9306" CreationDate="2015-05-20T23:09:59.107" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Looks like it might be Chessmaster 5500 according to this article -&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.gamespot.com/reviews/chessmaster-6000-review/1900-2538403/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.gamespot.com/reviews/chessmaster-6000-review/1900-2538403/&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;. This might be available to buy online or as abandonware, though no guarantees about the legality of this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4543" LastActivityDate="2015-05-20T23:09:59.107" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9309" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9311" CreationDate="2015-05-21T13:18:59.863" Score="11" ViewCount="5891" Body="&lt;p&gt;I read in a book written by Fischer about piece values, and he said that a knight is worth 3 pawns, and a bishop is worth 3,25 pawns. I know that in closed positions knights are better, and I have also read in a Nimzovich book that a centralized knight and bishop have equal value. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, while evaluating a position, how can I recognize when a bishop is better, or when a knight is better? I also saw that grandmasters like bishop pairs very much. What about knight pairs? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do engines make this difference?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does it depend on the number of the pawns in the center, or something like that? What factors establish which are better? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7218" LastEditorUserId="15989" LastEditDate="2019-12-12T04:07:53.303" LastActivityDate="2019-12-12T04:07:53.303" Title="Bishop vs Knight" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;learning&gt;&lt;engines&gt;&lt;statistics&gt;&lt;evaluation&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="9310" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9294" CreationDate="2015-05-21T13:53:39.683" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is actually a stylistic situation: &#xA;&lt;strong&gt;Space lovers&lt;/strong&gt; enjoy cramping the opponent and denying his pieces room to move freely. By advancing the central pawn, oftentimes a knight is deprived of its most natural development square and may have to compete with its companion Bishop for use of a square. In the French Defense, Advance Variation, for instance, the Black King's Knight and Bishop can find mutual need for the 'e7' square. &#xA;&lt;strong&gt;Tactical Players&lt;/strong&gt; like keeping the tension by prolonging the attacking central formation which requires defense by the opponent. &#xA;&lt;strong&gt;Simplification addicts&lt;/strong&gt; may play for central exchanges hoping to keep strategy and tactics under control while they look for gradual improvement of their &#xA;overall position and prospects over time. &#xA;As previously pointed out by others here, there is no one &lt;strong&gt;right&lt;/strong&gt; answer to the question. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7436" LastActivityDate="2015-05-21T13:53:39.683" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9311" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9309" CreationDate="2015-05-21T14:05:58.527" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Basically, what it comes down to is mobility.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In closed positions bishops are often hemmed in by pawn chains everywhere, whereas knights can slowly maneuver to a good outpost. But it isn't the closedness of the position that makes knights better in this case. Some closed positions are so cramped that even knights cannot jump anywhere useful. It is only that knights usually are more mobile than bishops in closed positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;USSR Championship&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Leningrad (RUS)&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;1956&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;1956&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1/2-1/2&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Yuri Averbakh&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Boris Spassky&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;E75&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;145&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. c4 Nf6 2. Nc3 g6 3. e4 d6 4. d4 Bg7 5. Be2 O-O 6. Bg5 c5&#xA;7. d5 Qa5 8. Bd2 a6 9. a4 e5 10. g4 Ne8 11. h4 f5 12. h5 f4&#xA;13. g5 Qd8 14. Bg4 Nc7 15. Bxc8 Qxc8 16. Nf3 Nc6 17. dxc6 bxc6&#xA;18. Nh4 Qe8 19. hxg6 hxg6 20. Qg4 Rb8 21. Nd1 Ne6 22. Ra3 Nd4&#xA;23. Rah3 Qf7 24. Bc3 Rfe8 25. R3h2 Qxc4 26. Nxg6 Re6 27. Bxd4&#xA;Rxg6 28. Qf5 Qe6 29. Qxe6+ Rxe6 30. Bc3 d5 31. f3 Rb3 32. Rh3&#xA;c4 33. Kd2 Rg6 34. Rg1 d4 35. Ba5 Bf8 36. Rg4 Rd6 37. Kc2 Rd7&#xA;38. g6 Rdb7 39. Be1 c5 40. Rgh4 Bg7 41. Ba5 c3 42. bxc3 Ra3&#xA;43. cxd4 exd4 44. Rxf4 Ra2+ 45. Kd3 Rb1 46. Rh1 Rxa4 47. Kc2&#xA;Rb5 48. e5 d3+ 49. Kxd3 Rxf4 50. Bc3 Rxf3+ 51. Ke4 Rg3 52. Kf4&#xA;Rxg6 53. Ne3 Rb8 54. Nf5 Rf8 55. Rh5 Re8 56. Ke4 Rg1 57. Rh3&#xA;Bf8 58. Kd5 Rd1+ 59. Ke4 Rc1 60. Kd5 Rd1+ 61. Ke4 Rd7 62. Nh6+&#xA;Bxh6 63. Rxh6 Rh7 64. Rg6+ Kf7 65. Rf6+ Ke7 66. Rc6 Kd7&#xA;67. Rxc5 Rh6 68. Kd5 Rb6 69. Ba5 Rb5 70. Rxb5 axb5 71. e6+&#xA;Rxe6 72. Kc5 Re5+ 73. Kb6 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Take this famous game. At move 16 the position is quite closed, but the black knights are pretty unhappy anyway. White is about to build a strong attack on the kingside and the black knights just don't have the space to create some counterplay. So Spassky take the rather shocking practical decision to ditch one of his immobile knights for more space and a chance of counterplay. Notice how a few moves later the remaining black knight lands on the perfect outpost on d4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To be mobile knights have to be positioned close to the centre. But in the centre pieces are vulnerable to (pawn-) attacks. Therefore it is very important for knights to have save, central outposts. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the endgame the bishops often get a lot stronger than knights, if there are pawns on both sides of the board. The knights on the other hand love local weaknesses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bishop pairs are strong because together they can control a lot of squares. Knights don't complement each other as well. Often they are even rivals for the same outpost. That's why the knight pair isn't a factor.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastEditorUserId="4362" LastEditDate="2015-05-23T13:33:20.843" LastActivityDate="2015-05-23T13:33:20.843" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9312" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9326" CreationDate="2015-05-21T14:15:43.383" Score="9" ViewCount="2205" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, obviously if my opponent has only a King, I cannot lose...either a win or a draw. Suppose I also have a Queen(Forced win).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However suppose I want to lose (maybe I am winning and want to grant some points to my opponent or whatever), so can I resign under such a circumstance ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(I understand that my opponent would have resigned before reaching such a position, but anyways is it legal to resign if opponent has only king? )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3458" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2015-09-20T14:25:19.803" LastActivityDate="2018-12-09T12:26:07.970" Title="Can I resign if my opponent only has his King?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;resigning&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9313" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9312" CreationDate="2015-05-21T14:42:52.477" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=171&amp;amp;view=article&quot;&gt;FIDE laws of chess&lt;/a&gt; contain two parts: Basic rules of play (Sections 1-5) and Competition rules (Sections 6-12).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first part is what defines how the pieces move, when the game ends, and so on. These rules indeed allow players to resign at any point before the end of the game, so you can resign right before you would give a checkmate, but not after you have released the piece after the final move. The second part explains things such as the chess clock, scoresheets, the role of the arbiter etc. Curiously this part seems to have nothing to say about deliberately losing. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So technically, one could say that resigning in a won position on purpose &lt;strong&gt;&quot;is allowed&quot; by the &lt;em&gt;rules of chess&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=20&amp;amp;view=category&quot;&gt;FIDE tournament rules&lt;/a&gt;, which are used in international tournaments, say that&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;8.(f) Where it is clear games have been pre-arranged, the CA shall impose suitable penalties.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't have a good credible source, but I think that deliberately losing games (which has happened) are usually considered in a similar way. In addition, deliberately losing games is generally considered unacceptable behaviour in sports &lt;sup&gt;&lt;em&gt;[citation needed]&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/sup&gt;. So in my opinion, it is clear that deliberately losing a game &lt;strong&gt;is against the &lt;em&gt;rules of a tournament&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; (unless explicitly specified if the tournament organizers want to allow such tactical manoeuvres). You can always ask the tournament organizer if you want confirmation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1761" LastActivityDate="2015-05-21T14:42:52.477" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9314" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-05-21T15:59:28.570" Score="2" ViewCount="269" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why is it that some chess engines have the word deep in their names? It does seem to be a common trend, but not one that is universal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="229" LastEditorUserId="10905" LastEditDate="2016-11-22T20:29:18.840" LastActivityDate="2016-11-22T20:29:18.840" Title="Chess Engines that have &quot;Deep&quot; in their names?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9315" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9314" CreationDate="2015-05-21T16:12:51.540" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;It used to be the case that the &quot;Deep&quot; specified the multiprocessor version. At least for Fritz, Shredder and so on, the &quot;old&quot; engines. But I guess nowadays every engine is a multi processor engine …&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This naming trend was surely started by &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Thought_(chess_computer)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Deep Thought&lt;/a&gt;, the first seriously strong IBM chess machine. And of course Deep Thought was named after the famous computer from the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-05-21T16:12:51.540" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9316" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9314" CreationDate="2015-05-21T17:06:51.340" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It has to do with the way the chess engine calculates the its moves. It constructs a partial &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_tree&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Game Tree&lt;/a&gt; and then runs a search algorithm to calculate the best move. The deeper the search algorithm goes (that is, the deeper are the &quot;roots&quot; of the partial tree), the better the move will be.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7438" LastActivityDate="2015-05-21T17:06:51.340" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9317" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9320" CreationDate="2015-05-21T17:26:20.143" Score="8" ViewCount="2301" Body="&lt;p&gt;Ever since I was a kid this has felt kind of odd to me. Victory in chess is achieved by &lt;em&gt;&quot;cornering&quot;&lt;/em&gt; the king, and not by &lt;em&gt;taking&lt;/em&gt; him outright, like what you do to all the other pieces. I always wondered why that is. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course the distinction between taking the king and &quot;cornering&quot; him is very minute, and upon achieving checkmate you can confidently assume that a capture will occur next turn, but somehow it feels odd that this next step is forbidden by the official rules. What if the player who achieved check-mate is inexperienced or distracted and doesn't realize that he did so? What if he's really experienced and wants to continue taking material for sadistic purposes? Why do the rules of chess disallow such moments? These moments probably wouldn't end up happening in tournament games (since most seem to end up in resignation anyway), but nevertheless they could, and I think chess would be more fun like that. So why was the checkmate created?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7438" LastEditorUserId="7438" LastEditDate="2015-05-21T17:36:21.373" LastActivityDate="2015-05-21T20:04:56.063" Title="Why does the game end at checkmate and not upon taking the king?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;history&gt;&lt;checkmate&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="2" ClosedDate="2015-05-22T16:55:15.890" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9318" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12495" CreationDate="2015-05-21T18:00:56.983" Score="1" ViewCount="2808" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have the latest version of Chessbase 13, I have bought a license and activated it online.  For some reason, when I open a new board and go to the &lt;code&gt;Home&lt;/code&gt; tab I do not have the menu item &lt;code&gt;Create UIC Engine&lt;/code&gt; button.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/TcB3c.png&quot; alt=&quot;Home menu&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you see I have the choices &lt;code&gt;Default Kibitzer&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;Add Kibitzer&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;Remove Kibitzer&lt;/code&gt;, but no additional choices while the image in the manual shows there is a small button below &lt;code&gt;Remove Kibitzer&lt;/code&gt; that opens additional choices.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Have anyone else experienced this?  I have emailed Chessbase support, but they have not seen this before.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1493" LastActivityDate="2015-09-29T22:17:42.147" Title="Chessbase 13 How to install UCI Engine when menu item is missing?" Tags="&lt;chessbase&gt;&lt;uci&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9320" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9317" CreationDate="2015-05-21T20:04:56.063" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;Per &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Checkmate#History&quot;&gt;wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;, citing Henry Davidson's &lt;em&gt;A Short History of Chess&lt;/em&gt; (1949):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In early Sanskrit chess (c. 500–700) the king could be captured and&#xA;  this ended the game. The Persians (c. 700–800) introduced the idea of&#xA;  warning that the king was under attack (announcing check in modern&#xA;  terminology). This was done to avoid the early and accidental end of a&#xA;  game. Later the Persians added the additional rule that a king could&#xA;  not be moved into check or left in check. As a result, the king could&#xA;  not be captured, and checkmate was the only decisive way of ending a&#xA;  game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7423" LastActivityDate="2015-05-21T20:04:56.063" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9321" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-05-21T20:10:02.213" Score="6" ViewCount="787" Body="&lt;p&gt;Fairy-Max (which ships with the XBoard package) can play variant chess. Is there any other XBoard-compatible engine that also plays variant chess (and runs on Linux or *BSD)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7441" LastEditorUserId="9926" LastEditDate="2016-07-02T09:28:16.183" LastActivityDate="2016-07-02T09:28:16.183" Title="Other than Fairy-Max, is there a variant [fairy] chess engine that is compatible with XBoard?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;linux&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9322" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9314" CreationDate="2015-05-21T23:59:50.873" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;Deep&quot; is simply just a marketing technique. It's a tactic to sell you more, and sell you at a higher price.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Consider this, &quot;Fritz&quot; and &quot;Deep Fritz&quot;. What does that mean to an average user? &quot;Fritz&quot; might sell for $50, &quot;Deep Fritz&quot; might sell for $100. What would an average user with little chess engine knowledge think?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They might think like this: &quot;Oh, it's a DEEP version of the software, so it must be GOOD because DEEP Blue has beaten the World Champion. This software must be DEEP. Why not pay $50 more for a world-champion-level product?&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chessbase is trying to paint a mental picture on you:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;DEEP&quot; Fritz == &quot;DEEP&quot; Blue &gt; Kasparov == World Champion &gt; the $50 difference.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Technically, Chessbase explains the difference is due to multi-threading. But this is just an excuse. They simply make the &quot;normal&quot; version single-threaded. It's a 10s work. Everyone can do it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is really a very standard marketing technique. What do you think when someone says &quot;I have a new porsche car&quot;? Probably something like, &quot;rich&quot;, &quot;successful&quot; etc. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then, why they're also selling the &quot;normal version if they want to make more money? That's because a consumer needs a reference, they need something to compare to justify that they should buy the more expensive version. Say, a small coke at McDonald was $3.5 and a large coke costed you $4.0. Only a 50 cents gap, lots of people would get the large coke because it's relatively cheap to smaller version of the same product.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's all about marketing. Chessbase (and also Shredder) is here to make profits. They're trying to relate their product to something that you're familiar with, to make more money.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2015-05-22T00:22:24.717" LastActivityDate="2015-05-22T00:22:24.717" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9323" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9324" CreationDate="2015-05-22T09:17:30.430" Score="9" ViewCount="430" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm one of those sad geeks that, instead of watching football of some sort or another, prefer to watch the super GM's battle it out whenever my schedule allows. This weekend I was looking forward to following the FIDE Grand Prix Series, just to find out to my dismay that they are having a rest day on Saturday.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now I understand that chess is a demanding game and that GM's need their rest, but why do they schedule rest days over the weekend, when spectator interest is at its highest?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why not have rest days on Mondays and Thursdays, for example? Or alternatively, have a system where players have various rest days, but there is at least one game going on every day for the duration of the tournament.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Surely it is in the interest of the game to maximise the spectator value, which in turn improves the commercial value of the game?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1816" LastEditorUserId="18475" LastEditDate="2019-12-03T17:37:46.790" LastActivityDate="2019-12-03T17:37:46.790" Title="Why do FIDE tournaments have rest days on weekends?" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;fide&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9324" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9323" CreationDate="2015-05-22T10:36:17.843" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would say the problem is that the Grand Prix is a Fide organised tournament. If you see how often those tournaments are played in almost completely empty halls, it is obvious that Fide doesn't much care about spectator value.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some other tournaments conveniently have an uneven number of players, which leads to an extra rest day for each player, &quot;unnoticeable&quot; to the spectator. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Generally non-Fide tournaments try to maximise the income from visitors, which means the weekends have to be played (From the top level tournaments I visited, I would estimate that weekend days draw double to triple the number of visitors compared to workdays.). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastEditorUserId="4362" LastEditDate="2015-05-23T07:26:11.480" LastActivityDate="2015-05-23T07:26:11.480" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9325" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-05-22T13:02:13.297" Score="8" ViewCount="346" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am looking for a certain chess variant played on a circular board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The variant is played with the usual chess pieces (no fairies involved) on a peculiar circular board. The central part of the board is filled with triangles (alternating black and white) and is part of the playing field. The outer rings are made of only slightly deformed squares. The board was checkered (alternating black and white fields).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A particular feature of the Chess Variant I'm looking for is the movements of the bishop: It changes colour when moving across the centre of the board (a diagonal step is analysed as one step forward followed by one step orthogonally sidewards). Also the Knight has very peculiar moves in the centre of the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I remember to have seen a description of this Chess Variant in a German student's newspaper in the 1980s (probably issued by Fachschaft Physik at Ruhr-Universität Bochum). I was not able to retrieve this variant anywhere, it is AFAIK not in the &quot;circular board&quot; category at &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessvariants.org&quot;&gt;http://www.chessvariants.org&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: it is a two-player variant (I thought of this as a default and didn't mention it explicitly). The rooks moved either radially or orbiting around the circles.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd like to know: Name of the variant, name of the inventor and date of first publication, full ruleset (initial position, exact board and rules).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT2: The number of the triangles in the central disk must be divisible by 4 (it's probably 16) because triangles of the same colour face each other. Another feature of the bishop's movement I remember again now: A bishop crossing the centre can actually choose two different continuations because the diagonal movement can be achieved following two different &quot;staircases&quot; of alternating orthogonal moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3819" LastEditorUserId="3819" LastEditDate="2015-06-09T08:39:11.383" LastActivityDate="2018-01-15T06:51:55.113" Title="Looking for a chess variant with a circular board" Tags="&lt;chess-variants&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9326" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9312" CreationDate="2015-05-22T14:12:19.103" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Consider the following scenario:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The round is scheduled to start at 6:30pm and normally I would expect my game to finish comfortable before 11pm when I need to leave to catch the last bus home at 11:05pm. There is no zero tolerance. Instead players have one hour to arrive before they are defaulted. Normally I start my opponent's clock at 6:30pm on the dot if he hasn't arrived so that I have no problem with the last bus.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At 6:25pm the arbiter announces that he has had news of an accident on the motorway which is delaying some of the players. Consequently he rules that we may not start a player's clock until 7pm if they are not in the club. The default time of 7:30 is unchanged.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I complain bitterly to the arbiter but he is unmoved and won't change his decision.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My opponent eventually arrives with the other late players at 7:05pm. I started his clock on the dot of 7:00pm. The game drags on and on. Eventually at 11pm I queen my last pawn against my opponent's bare king. I offer a draw but he refuses. I knock my king over in disgust and head for the door and the last bus.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The next week the arbiter tells me that knocking my king over constitutes resigning. He also tells me that if I had walked out without resigning I would have &quot;lost on time&quot; but been awarded a draw because my opponent didn't have mating material.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is perfectly legitimate. I have resigned against a bare king and this is legal. The only sanction I am likely to suffer is for not shaking hands after the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: This subject actually came up at the recent FIDE meeting in early September! Alex Holowczak (amongst others) was representing England at these meetings and his report appears here - &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.englishchess.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/C23.9.5.1-FIDE-Delegate-report.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.englishchess.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/C23.9.5.1-FIDE-Delegate-report.pdf&lt;/a&gt; .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note, in particular this excerpt from Alex's report from the meeting of the Rules Commission:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A proposal noted that you could run out of time but not lose if your&#xA;  opponent had a bare King, and asked why you should lose if you resign&#xA;  but your opponent had a bare King. I commented that this situation was&#xA;  so unlikely/unreasonable that it shouldn’t be legislated for.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2015-10-08T14:24:28.310" LastActivityDate="2015-10-08T14:24:28.310" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9327" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-05-22T17:03:01.463" Score="1" ViewCount="480" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the most popular chess app for android that is used for playing against other Human opponents? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7447" LastActivityDate="2015-10-24T17:59:16.833" Title="What is the most popular chess app for android?" Tags="&lt;android&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9328" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9327" CreationDate="2015-05-22T19:34:00.013" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Every good chess website has its own app. Such as chess.com, lichess, chess24, ...&#xA;Just lunch play store and enter your favorite chess site name, you will find its app. They usually have human mode or computer mode with various time controls. With chess.com app you are also able to challenge particular opponent by his user ID and in lichess it's even easier, create a challenge and send a link of challenge to your opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It turns out some people here cannot get what is the most popular app to play against other humans in android even w.r.t my answer that I put some of those apps in order. It's clear that app is chess.com app, as the number of members of chess.com is way more than any other website and if someone still says this is not related to app, then 1M+ downloads of this app on play store compare to 10K+ downloads of other apps clear's everything.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="269" LastEditorUserId="269" LastEditDate="2015-05-23T10:57:43.547" LastActivityDate="2015-05-23T10:57:43.547" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9329" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9323" CreationDate="2015-05-22T21:42:35.177" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;(the following is my speculation based on following chess for a few decades, I might be wrong)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most top level chess tournaments do not make money from spectators or from commercials shown to spectators. They make money from &lt;em&gt;sponsors&lt;/em&gt;. Sponsors don't usually care all that much about spectators either.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sponsors care about &lt;em&gt;prestige&lt;/em&gt;, about showing business relations around and having them meet some of the grandmasters. About speeches in which they can talk about being smart and looking many moves ahead, and then having their name attached to a tournament.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Having a lot of internet spectators probably helps in attracting sponsors, because you can show that a lot of people are interested and it has global appeal; but that's indirect and not usually considered when choosing rest days. Having good facilities for business networking (weekdays?) probably counts more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The entire tournament has to last some logical period of time (e.g., they rent a venue for two weeks, from weekend to weekend, because venues are available to rent per week) and then if you want to have a rest day, it's logical to have it in the middle. The more rest days you have the more expensive it is, because the venue probably won't be useable for anything else on the rest days.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2015-05-22T21:42:35.177" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9330" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9309" CreationDate="2015-05-22T22:14:19.793" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Kasparov once said something like: &quot;The number of positions in which a bishop is better a than knight is greater than the number of positions in which a knight is better than a bishop. That's why bishops are better than knights, in general&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As mentioned in other answers, general principle is that knights are usually superior in closed positions, where the advantage of being able to jump over pieces becomes more important than the long range bishops have. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, I am not a &lt;em&gt;very&lt;/em&gt; good chess player, but I will give you &lt;em&gt;my&lt;/em&gt; view on advantages and disadvantages of knights and bishops, and I will try to make it as concrete as possible. However &quot;wrong&quot; my views may seem to you (or objectively are), at least I hope it will be something for you to think about.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;What I like about bishops&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;they can &lt;em&gt;simultaneously&lt;/em&gt; play a defensive role and an attacking role;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;in an endgame (especially when there are only few pawns left, and not all on the same side of the board), bishop can be sacrificed &quot;at the very last moment&quot; meaning: you let your opponent spend a lot of moves to get her/his pawn(s) to the promotion square and then it disappears, all the while you use your bishop to nurse your pawn up the board; since knights are rather clumsy at stopping pawns alone, this is a significant factor around which one can make plans in an endgame; one of my favorite endgames ever is &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1044361&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Fischer vs. Taimanov&lt;/a&gt; (excellently video-annotated &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAW16O4fLIQ&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;); the B vs N endgame appears on move 45; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Fischer - Taimanov Candidates Quarterfinal&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Vancouver, Canada&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;1971.05.25&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;1971.05.16&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;4&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Robert James Fischer&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Mark Taimanov&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;B47&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;141&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Qc7 5. Nc3 e6 6. g3 a6&#xA;7. Bg2 Nf6 8. O-O Nxd4 9. Qxd4 Bc5 10. Bf4 d6 11. Qd2 h6&#xA;12. Rad1 e5 13. Be3 Bg4 14. Bxc5 dxc5 15. f3 Be6 16. f4 Rd8&#xA;17. Nd5 Bxd5 18. exd5 e4 19. Rfe1 Rxd5 20. Rxe4+ Kd8 21. Qe2&#xA;Rxd1+ 22. Qxd1+ Qd7 23. Qxd7+ Kxd7 24. Re5 b6 25. Bf1 a5&#xA;26. Bc4 Rf8 27. Kg2 Kd6 28. Kf3 Nd7 29. Re3 Nb8 30. Rd3+ Kc7&#xA;31. c3 Nc6 32. Re3 Kd6 33. a4 Ne7 34. h3 Nc6 35. h4 h5&#xA;36. Rd3+ Kc7 37. Rd5 f5 38. Rd2 Rf6 39. Re2 Kd7 40. Re3 g6&#xA;41. Bb5 Rd6 42. Ke2 Kd8 43. Rd3 Kc7 44. Rxd6 Kxd6 45. Kd3 Ne7&#xA;46. Be8 Kd5 47. Bf7+ Kd6 48. Kc4 Kc6 49. Be8+ Kb7 50. Kb5 Nc8&#xA;51. Bc6+ Kc7 52. Bd5 Ne7 53. Bf7 Kb7 54. Bb3 Ka7 55. Bd1 Kb7&#xA;56. Bf3+ Kc7 57. Ka6 Nc8 58. Bd5 Ne7 59. Bc4 Nc6 60. Bf7 Ne7&#xA;61. Be8 Kd8 62. Bxg6 Nxg6 63. Kxb6 Kd7 64. Kxc5 Ne7 65. b4&#xA;axb4 66. cxb4 Nc8 67. a5 Nd6 68. b5 Ne4+ 69. Kb6 Kc8 70. Kc6&#xA;Kb8 71. b6 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;in general one could say that bishops are more useful in endgame pawn races; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the movement of the bishop is more natural (straight diagonal lines), and therefore easier to use and to visualize; this makes them also better team players; you may heard people saying &quot;a rook and a bishop is better than a rook and a knight&quot;; it is easier to coordinate rooks and bishops, bishops and bishops, and especially queens and bishops, than knights,&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;bishops can dominate knights more easily than vice versa.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;What I do not like about bishops&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;when not paired, they are limited to one color of the squares (obviously, this is not optimal)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;you cannot win an endgame with an a- or h- pawn, if you have the wrong-colored bishop. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;What I like about knights&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;each square on the board can be controlled by a knight;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;they can be &quot;eternal&quot; (there is a notion of an &quot;eternal knight&quot;, i.e. in a situation knight vs. bishop, there is often a possibility of establishing an outpost for the knight, where it is untouchable and this is often the beginning of a long positional domination of the side with the eternal knight); one of my favorite games demonstrating this is &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1031289&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Fischer vs. Bolbochan&lt;/a&gt; (excellently commented &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8KVFXLM7Yo&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;); the &quot;eternal knight vs. bad bishop&quot; situation appears after move 20;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Stockholm Interzonal&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Stockholm, SWE&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;1962.03.03&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;1962.??.??&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;21&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Robert James Fischer&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Julio Bolbochan&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;B90&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;74&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 {Notes by Bobby Fischer} c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6&#xA;5.Nc3 a6 6.h3 Nc6 7.g4 Nxd4 8.Qxd4 e5 9.Qd3 Be7 {More accurate&#xA;is 9...B-K3 immediately.--Fischer} 10.g5 Nd7 11.Be3 Nc5 12.Qd2&#xA;Be6 13.O-O-O O-O 14.f3 Rc8 15.Kb1 {Amateurs are often puzzled&#xA;by this apparent loss of time. Actually it is a handy&#xA;defensive move, getting out of the pin on the QB-file which&#xA;could become annoying after ...P-QN4-5. One never knows when&#xA;lightning will strike! -- Fischer} Nd7 16.h4 b5 17.Bh3 Bxh3&#xA;18.Rxh3 Nb6 19.Bxb6 Qxb6 20.Nd5 {White has a strategically won&#xA;game; his Knight cannot be dislodged. -- Fischer} Qd8 21.f4&#xA;exf4 22.Qxf4 Qd7 23.Qf5 Rcd8 24.Ra3 Qa7 25.Rc3 g6 26.Qg4 Qd7&#xA;27.Qf3 Qe6 28.Rc7 Rde8 29.Nf4 Qe5 30.Rd5 Qh8 31.a3 h6 32.gxh6&#xA;Qxh6 33.h5 Bg5 34.hxg6 fxg6 35.Qb3 {The coup de&#xA;grace.--Fischer} Rxf4 36.Re5+ Kf8 37.Rxe8+ {Black&#xA;resigns. After 37...KxR; 38 Q-K6+, K-B1; 39 Q-B8+&#xA;mates.--Fischer} 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;they are more forcing pieces than bishops in the sense that you cannot block knights; if your king is in check from a knight, either you have to move your king, or take the knight, which reduces the number of resources for the defending king; you can see this theme especially in the games of the great champion Mikhail Tal; &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;their unusual movement generally offers more room for creativity; it often helps in creating unusual and visually spectacular attacks (again, see Tal's games---I am no expert, but he sacrificed knights maybe more often than any other piece);&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;white knights on the 6th rank (or black ones on the 3rd) are incredibly powerful; I assume you saw &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1067175&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;the 16th game of the 1985 WCC&lt;/a&gt; (Kasparov himself explains this game in his documentary---there is a portion of it on &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6z4ZNcZmJ-8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Youtube&lt;/a&gt;); while mere mortals can only dream of ever playing such a beautiful game, this is still good to have in mind as a potential threat; the mentioned situation appears after Black's 16th move; there the knight cuts off all of White's heavy pieces (such knight is popularly called an &quot;octopus knight&quot;);&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Wch Moscow i 40/202; YB 4/91&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;16&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;1985.10.15&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;16&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Anatoly Karpov&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Garry Kasparov&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;B44&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;80&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 e6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nc6 5.Nb5 d6 6.c4 Nf6 7.N1c3&#xA;a6 8.Na3 d5 9.cxd5 exd5 10.exd5 Nb4 11.Be2 Bc5 12.O-O O-O&#xA;13.Bf3 Bf5 14.Bg5 Re8 15.Qd2 b5 16.Rad1 Nd3 17.Nab1 h6 18.Bh4&#xA;b4 19.Na4 Bd6 20.Bg3 Rc8 21.b3 g5 22.Bxd6 Qxd6 23.g3 Nd7&#xA;24.Bg2 Qf6 25.a3 a5 26.axb4 axb4 27.Qa2 Bg6 28.d6 g4 29.Qd2&#xA;Kg7 30.f3 Qxd6 31.fxg4 Qd4+ 32.Kh1 Nf6 33.Rf4 Ne4 34.Qxd3 Nf2+&#xA;35.Rxf2 Bxd3 36.Rfd2 Qe3 37.Rxd3 Rc1 38.Nb2 Qf2 39.Nd2 Rxd1+&#xA;40.Nxd1 Re1+ 0-1&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;from White's point of view, getting a knight on f5 is a pretty good accomplishment; this is a good square because the knight is difficult to evict without creating serious weaknesses, and it is ready to sacrifice itself at any moment, so your opponent has to worry about it constantly (a &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIcqwvZs4jk&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;good lecture&lt;/a&gt; about this can be found at the YouTube channel of Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;What I do not like about knights&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I guess they are in general worse pieces than bishops; they are more difficult to manoeuvre, as they are slower than bishops, they also get stuck more easily than bishops (there are no &quot;bishop on a rim...&quot; sayings in chess)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;pinning a knight is usually easier than pinning a bishop, and one has to look after knight pins, especially in certain openings, so you have to be more careful with knights, than with bishops in that respect.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's it for now. I hope it will help. I just listed things as they came to my mind. It's neither meant to be comprehensive, not objectively correct. It's a list of subjective views. The question itself is quite general, so it's hard to give a concrete and objective answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I do want to say that while it is good to have basic guidelines in chess for bishops, knights, and everything else, it is also important to think about them and try to evaluate them for yourself before accepting (or rejecting) them. Good luck!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2792" LastEditorUserId="2792" LastEditDate="2015-05-25T20:33:25.020" LastActivityDate="2015-05-25T20:33:25.020" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9331" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-05-23T04:50:00.043" Score="10" ViewCount="1006" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the Slav, after 1. d4 d5 2. c4 c6 3. Nf3 Nf6 :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are all the differences between 4. Qc2 and 4. Qb3 ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which one of them is better to reach some Catalan type positions?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which one of them tends to lead (on average) to the most solid, quiet, positional, slow, safe and strategic positions (i.e. the least sharp and tactical positions) ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is one of the two objectively stronger than the other?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have made some research and here is what I've found:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If Black plays 4...dxc4 then they transpose (except if White is crazy enough to try the rare gambit 4. Qc2 dxc4 5. e4 but I'm never going to play this anyway).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Against 4. Qc2 Black often plays 4...g6, while against 4. Qb3 the move 4...g6 seems to be less popular.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If Black plays 4...e6, maybe it makes a difference if the Queen is on c2 or on b3. Not sure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3237" LastActivityDate="2017-05-03T10:26:13.797" Title="In the Slav, after 1. d4 d5 2. c4 c6 3. Nf3 Nf6, what are all the differences between 4. Qc2 and 4. Qb3?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;1.d4&gt;&lt;slav-defense&gt;&lt;catalan&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9333" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9279" CreationDate="2015-05-23T10:19:31.363" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot; Adding the better cooperation of the rook with the bishops, many Soviet theoreticians believed that, in active positions,&#xA;rook and two bishops outperform two rooks and a knight. &quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Vc0rL.png&quot; alt=&quot;≤ means that BBP is less than or equal to&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7415" LastActivityDate="2015-05-23T10:19:31.363" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9334" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9325" CreationDate="2015-05-23T12:33:36.840" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;A few suggestions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://hyperchess.nl&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;This&lt;/a&gt; looks sufficiently circular and weird, though I didn't find the rules.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://uncrate.com/stuff/three-man-chess/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;For three people&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And there is apparently a &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circular_chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;circular citadel chess&lt;/a&gt;, with triangles in the middle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-05-23T12:33:36.840" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9335" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-05-23T17:59:38.297" Score="14" ViewCount="8652" Body="&lt;p&gt;I enjoy reading about chess and there is a number of blogs that I follow. And I do toy with the idea of starting a chess blog myself in a distant and uncertain future. So I want to tap your combined knowledge:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What are the best chess blogs you know?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What makes them so interesting?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(I know this is the kind of subjective question, stackexchange usually doesn't go for, but I think this could be a very worthwhile collection, possibly as community wiki.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2019-10-09T10:23:40.330" Title="What are the best chess blogs?" Tags="&lt;chess-blog&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="9" CommunityOwnedDate="2015-05-23T23:52:15.073" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9336" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-05-23T20:30:23.570" Score="1" ViewCount="589" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is permanent brain any beneficial if they share same core?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;In chess games between two computers, pondering makes sense only if the competing chess engines use separate processors or cores. If they share the same core, the pondering program steals half of the time from the program thinking in the normal way and uses the stolen time less effectively. &quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pondering is less effective than normal thinking. For example, if the program guesses 25% of the opponent's moves correctly, the use of pondering is on average equivalent to increasing the normal calculating time by a factor of 1.25.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In chess games between two computers, pondering makes sense only if the competing chess engines use separate processors or cores. If they share the same core, the pondering program steals half of the time from the program thinking in the normal way and uses the stolen time less effectively. For this reason, chess GUIs have an option to turn the permanent brain off.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can someone explain the last couple of sentenced for me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7415" LastActivityDate="2015-06-17T21:25:58.210" Title="Permanent brain" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9339" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9335" CreationDate="2015-05-24T10:33:16.207" Score="1" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.thechessmind.net&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;TheChessMind&lt;/a&gt; by Dennis Monokroussos. Pretty much the best alternative to the major chess news sites. Often a bit faster, commented games, interesting tidbits. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://streathambrixtonchess.blogspot.de&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;The Streatham Brixton Chess Blog&lt;/a&gt;. Different writers from one club, write about vastly different topics. You'll get deeply researched articles about chess in art, chess politics, endgames, openings and and and …&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.danamackenzie.com/blog/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Dana blogs chess&lt;/a&gt;. A comparatively narrow view into the chess life of one enthusiastic amateur player. Often quite instructive.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.davidsmerdon.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;GM Smerdons blog&lt;/a&gt;. Not that much chess and not particularly frequently updated, but a very strong player and good writer giving his opinion and writing about his experiences.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: I'll add some discontinued blogs, because there is still great stuff to discover:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessninja.com/dailydirt/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;The Chessninja&lt;/a&gt;. Mig Greengard, journalist and Kasparov devotee, probably the most entertaining writer about chess, gives his take on current affairs.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://kenilworthian.blogspot.de&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;The Kenilworthian&lt;/a&gt;. Chess blog by Michael Goeller. A lot of stuff about tricky openings.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastEditorUserId="4362" LastEditDate="2015-06-02T11:01:32.170" LastActivityDate="2015-06-02T11:01:32.170" CommentCount="0" CommunityOwnedDate="2015-05-24T10:33:16.207" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9340" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9335" CreationDate="2015-05-24T21:19:39.007" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would recommend &lt;a href=&quot;http://timkr.home.xs4all.nl/chess/chess.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Tim Krabbé's CHESS CURIOSITIES&lt;/a&gt;. It contains all sorts of interesting facts and stories related to chess. There are also many puzzles and interesting games, with comments, historical notes and curious details related to the games/problems/players. It is highly entertaining, instructive and well-written.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Majnu's blog is a great site for learning, especially for a beginner. In my opinion, Majnu is very talented in relating chess ideas in a clear, precise and easy-to-follow way. An excellent player and an excellent teacher, so his blog can hardly be anything else but excellent, as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2792" LastEditorUserId="9179" LastEditDate="2019-10-09T10:23:40.330" LastActivityDate="2019-10-09T10:23:40.330" CommentCount="0" CommunityOwnedDate="2015-05-24T21:19:39.007" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="9341" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9331" CreationDate="2015-05-24T21:28:48.880" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;After quickly looking at the differences, I think Qb3 is more suited if you want to fianchetto. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The queen puts pressure on b7 and d5 and combines nicely with a fianchettoed king bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the queen is on c2 black often plays g6, planning to fianchetto and also play Bf5 with tempo. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both moves are equaly popular. The choice is yours!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7465" LastEditorUserId="11202" LastEditDate="2017-05-03T10:26:13.797" LastActivityDate="2017-05-03T10:26:13.797" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9342" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9212" CreationDate="2015-05-24T21:35:41.573" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm pretty sure I have seen strong grandmasters play a setup with Nf3, e3 and g4!?. You may want to look closer at this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7465" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2020-07-14T07:01:24.650" LastActivityDate="2020-07-14T07:01:24.650" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="9343" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1844" CreationDate="2015-05-24T22:00:00.620" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Me myself switched from being an 1.e4 player to a 1.d4 player. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Usually with 1.d4 you will get more space and it is very many interesting setups against most black responses.&#xA;I haven`t learned much theory yet, but I know some plans, and I have better success with 1.d4 than 1.e4 already. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Actually, today GM Jon Ludvig Hammer said he recommended queen`s gambit for ANY player. He backed up his comment with claiming it is very logical and follows the traditional principels (Control the center, develop pieces, get you king in safety).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can recommend you to look at chessexplained`s videoes about 1.d4. In fact, he has made a almost complete repertoire for you!&#xA;Search for &quot;chessexplained d4 repertoire&quot; on youtube, and there you go.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7465" LastActivityDate="2015-05-24T22:00:00.620" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9344" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9312" CreationDate="2015-05-25T01:41:10.157" Score="-3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can resign if you have enough material to checkmate. If you do not have enough material left to checkmate, you cannot resign because the game has already ended in a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7467" LastActivityDate="2015-05-25T01:41:10.157" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9345" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9309" CreationDate="2015-05-25T01:47:22.117" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the endgame a Knight is usually better than a bishop. Two bishops are almost always better than a bishop and a knight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, you need to play at Master level for this to become important. There are many more factors more important in the position, including material. If you have a good bishop against a bad knight but you are the Queen down, it is not going to help you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7467" LastActivityDate="2015-05-25T01:47:22.117" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9346" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9294" CreationDate="2015-05-25T01:50:00.023" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The best position is usually two pawns on the same row. Once you push one of them, you create a hole that may be exploited. For example the hole can be used as an outpost for a Knight or a Bishop can block the pawns from moving forward. Like everything else, it depends on the position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7467" LastActivityDate="2015-05-25T01:50:00.023" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9347" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9221" CreationDate="2015-05-25T01:52:19.070" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is a simple rule: Always castle until you are sufficiently strong to understand when not to castle. When you are castled, do not move the pawns in front of your king unless you have a very good reason do do so. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7467" LastActivityDate="2015-05-25T01:52:19.070" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9348" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9295" CreationDate="2015-05-25T01:54:20.120" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Join chess.com and play against humans. Training against computer will not help your positional judgement which is what you need to improve to get you from 2000 to 2200.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7467" LastActivityDate="2015-05-25T01:54:20.120" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9349" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9331" CreationDate="2015-05-25T01:56:52.883" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The difference is that Qc2 will allow you to later push the b pawn at the expense of you pressuring the black b7 pawn. With the Queen on c2 you also gain the option of combining the Qc2 and Bd3 against the h7 pawn later when the black King is castle. I recommend delaying the Queen move until later. Develop your pieces and castle first. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7467" LastActivityDate="2015-05-25T01:56:52.883" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9351" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9125" CreationDate="2015-05-25T02:04:35.847" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Take the position step by step... Can you bring your pieces to good squares and/or force your opponent to move his pieces from strong outposts?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, could you (after lengthy preparation) somehow play c3 to force the Nb4 to retreat? White in in a bad position here because there is a risk that black will open up the game with b5 at some stage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The way to deal with such situation is imagine where your pieces should go and then find a way to get them there. You have a weakness on c2, how about transferring the B to d1 to free the rook and then play c3? There is no magic bullet. It takes a lot of grinding.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7467" LastActivityDate="2015-05-25T02:04:35.847" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9352" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2142" CreationDate="2015-05-25T02:15:55.570" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The reason why strong players try to improve the position of their pieces is to have them placed in an optimum square when tactics start. Games are not just build up. Eventually they will break into tactics. Pieces that are near the king or wherever the action is will pose a danger for your opponents. But optimizing the piece position for the sake of it is not a good idea. There must be a purpose and it usually is to checkmate your opponent. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Study the game Kasparov Vs Karpov From the 1990 World Championship. &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKrk5_QjgUw&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKrk5_QjgUw&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7467" LastActivityDate="2015-05-25T02:15:55.570" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9353" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-05-25T02:51:05.640" Score="1" ViewCount="437" Body="&lt;p&gt;Does solving chess puzzles help in overcoming laziness? I lost many games in a tournament because I am too lazy to calculate variations, e.g.: calculating 4-5 moves deep when defending to be sure that I will not be down in material. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7174" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-06-14T17:26:15.970" LastActivityDate="2020-06-14T17:26:15.970" Title="Chess Puzzles vs Laziness" Tags="&lt;puzzles&gt;&lt;calculation&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9354" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9367" CreationDate="2015-05-25T06:23:32.173" Score="2" ViewCount="853" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recently came across a wonderful article on Chess.com about under promotion of pawns. One of the situations is here:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/8/1KP5/3r4/8/8/8/k7 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;1895.??.??&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Saavedra, Fernando&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[Setup &quot;1&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;8/8/1KP5/3r4/8/8/8/k7 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;[Plycount &quot;13&quot;]&#xA;[Sourcedate &quot;2014.05.08&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.c7 Rd6+ 2. Kb5 Rd5+ 3. Kb4 Rd4+ 4. Kb3 Rd3+ 5. Kc2 Rd4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the above game using Rook instead of Queen for promotion seems to win it for white. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;If white is promoted to Queen, then 6.. Rc4+ and Qxc4 is forced which will be a stalemate.&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How many other situations can we consider for the under promotion?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7245" LastEditorUserId="7245" LastEditDate="2015-05-25T17:44:51.053" LastActivityDate="2021-03-01T09:18:45.127" Title="Situations of underpromoting the pawn" Tags="&lt;pawn-promotion&gt;&lt;stalemate&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9355" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9353" CreationDate="2015-05-25T11:55:23.890" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;For people who think or play strategically, there is a process that helps to overcome being lazy. However, people who have no idea about their moves will normally stay lazy. The 4-5 moves deep thinking is actually quite effective and also leads to a greater chance of victory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7470" LastActivityDate="2015-05-25T11:55:23.890" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9357" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9665" CreationDate="2015-05-25T14:11:58.270" Score="3" ViewCount="164" Body="&lt;p&gt;As far as I know, here are the first 12.5 moves are as below. Does anyone have the rest of the game? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 Nc6 3. Nc3 e5 4. d5 Ne7 5. h4 Neg8 6. a3 a6 7. Nf3 Ng4 8.&#xA;Ng5 f5 9. Qc2 Bc5 10. e3 Ne7 11. Be2 Nf6 12. b4 Ba7 13. Bb2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-01-21T17:34:44.443" LastActivityDate="2020-01-21T17:34:44.443" Title="Does anyone have the 1996 correspondence game between De Groot-Simmelink?" Tags="&lt;correspondence-chess&gt;&lt;master-games&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="9358" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9295" CreationDate="2015-05-26T01:54:11.737" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;A very good piece of software would be ChessBase. Two good engines to run would be Houdini or Fritz (they are essentially indistinguishable to anyone below a super grandmaster standard, although Houdini is reputedly stronger). Besides playing against the engine, you could also store and analyse your games on them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ChessBase is also the name of the company that produces it, i.e. it's a company that specialises in the development of chess programs, unlike Ubisoft, so you can expect a lot from them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7473" LastActivityDate="2015-05-26T01:54:11.737" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9359" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9353" CreationDate="2015-05-26T02:01:00.480" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Doing puzzles makes you more alert to tactics, and usually this allows you to calculate more quickly. But you need to think about how you have phrased your question: Consider the outside-chess question, &quot;does increasing your intelligence make you less lazy?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It does help to offset some of the potential problems you face in being lazy, but at the end of the day you need to be willing to work. In reality, doing puzzles gives you ideas and increases your tactical awareness over the board, but you still need to check that these ideas work over the board when some things have changed slightly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is also a mindset issue: when you spend hours in preparation for a tournament, studying opening theory, middlegame strategies/tactics and endgame theory, why are you willing to cast it all aside to save yourself from the pain of spending a few minutes to just think over the board? It's much like a student who studies exceptionally hard for a math exam, learning little calculation tricks left and right but is unwilling to double check his answers on the day of the test.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7473" LastEditorUserId="7473" LastEditDate="2015-05-26T03:27:39.683" LastActivityDate="2015-05-26T03:27:39.683" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9361" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9125" CreationDate="2015-05-26T03:52:23.990" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;White is in a positional bind on the queenside. When cramped, a general strategy is to exchange pieces, but you must be careful not to allow all of your best pieces to be exchanged, e.g. if all the minor pieces in this position are traded off except for white's dark squared bishop, he will be in trouble.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Re1 with the idea of e4, to free white's position, is a standard idea that seems unstoppable in this position (black can try putting a piece on e4, but the exchanges that follow are favorable for white). An important point about closed positions is that you tend to be able to get away with slow maneuvers. So for this game, you could alternatively try Be1, Qe2, play Bxb4 if you can, and try to play e4 when the time is right. You may want to include Nd1-f2, and then c4 becomes an option.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7473" LastEditorUserId="7473" LastEditDate="2015-05-26T04:05:46.350" LastActivityDate="2015-05-26T04:05:46.350" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9362" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-05-26T04:12:15.487" Score="0" ViewCount="114" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is another question that asks &quot;Has anyone ever written a chess program that does have insights of its own&quot; I am asking having to learn the rules of the game, pieces, board size, etc. The program should be able to learn any board game, checkers, go, etc. Computers &lt;em&gt;programmed by humans&lt;/em&gt; are better at chess than humans. &lt;em&gt;Any computer programmed by itself&lt;/em&gt; (via some self learning algorithm, where even the rules have to be learned, i.e. number of pieces, board dimensions, piece move rules, game objective, etc) playing any good at all? Let's ignore that the self learning algorithm would have been devised by a human... &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7474" LastEditorUserId="7474" LastEditDate="2015-05-30T16:08:30.843" LastActivityDate="2015-05-30T16:08:30.843" Title="Any self learning computers playing chess? How good are they?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="3" ClosedDate="2015-05-29T14:09:34.073" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9363" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4596" CreationDate="2015-05-26T07:14:18.280" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Moving your king next to another player's king is illegal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.uschess.org/docs/gov/reports/BlitzRuleChanges.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;USCF rules for blitz chess&lt;/a&gt; state &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;3b) If an illegal position is created or an illegal move made without the opponent making a claim, the position stands and a claim not allowed when the opponent has determined a next move.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While this provision is obscure, it is sometimes amusing.  I remember seeing someone in a clearly won endgame position about to queen a pawn under severe time pressure, while his opponent simply moved his king back and forth.  Just before the queening pawn move, the ordinarily losing opponent checked the guy with his king.  The person who queened did not claim a win before pressing his clock, and he was startled to lose to KxK!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I see that the USCF has added explicit mention of this procedure to the rule book: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;16.) Moving the King next to another King is an illegal move. Intentionally playing a king next to the opponent’s in order to take the opponent’s king on the next move (if not caught) is a cheap shot and will not be tolerated! Stop the clock and claim a win because of an illegal move.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The rule book does not define the precise meaning of &quot;will not be tolerated!&quot;, nor does it mention whether additional sanctions will be made for laughing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7476" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T16:03:55.383" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T16:03:55.383" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="9364" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9353" CreationDate="2015-05-26T08:37:08.850" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Puzzles are the best way to get better at tactics which involves lot of calculations and when you are calculating you can't be lazy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I think puzzles may help in overcoming laziness but on a little scale.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7396" LastActivityDate="2015-05-26T08:37:08.850" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9365" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-05-26T15:24:19.643" Score="0" ViewCount="202" Body="&lt;p&gt;I played around with &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/cutechess/cutechess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;cutechess&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://stockfishchess.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;stockfish&lt;/a&gt; to simulate a specific situation in chess. But I ended up playing complete games against a human or cpu. Is it even possible to set up a chess situation by hand and let the chess engine compute solutions?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7479" LastActivityDate="2015-05-28T20:56:25.050" Title="Possible to simulate specific chess situations?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9366" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9365" CreationDate="2015-05-26T15:50:05.313" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You could use Fritz (or any other engine under the ChessBase GUI) to do this, using the &quot;Infinite Analysis&quot; function, so it's definitely possible, though I have no experience with other chess software and therefore don't know how to do this with other GUIs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for simulations, it is possible to have the engine play many games against itself, available in the ChessBase GUI again, called Monte Carlo analysis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7473" LastActivityDate="2015-05-26T15:50:05.313" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9367" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9354" CreationDate="2015-05-27T07:23:01.837" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here's my take on this question, since I find the other two answers lacking actual examples.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Knight promotion&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the situation below black has been trying to prevent white from promoting the pawn (white has earlier given up his rook for a black pawn). White manages to promote, but only one of the promotions secures a (tablebase) draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[white &amp;quot;Alexander Evdokimov&amp;quot;]&#xA;[black &amp;quot;Evgeni Ellinovich Sveshnikov&amp;quot;]&#xA;[event &amp;quot;56th Russian Championships, 2003&amp;quot;]&#xA;[fen &amp;quot;8/r3KP2/8/4k3/8/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Ke8 Ke6 2. f8=N+! {2. ... Ra8+ otherwise} 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here, white underpromotes to avoid stalemate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[white &amp;quot;Iroda Khamrakulova&amp;quot;]&#xA;[black &amp;quot;Ekaterina Ubiennykh&amp;quot;]&#xA;[event &amp;quot;WJun Women, 2001&amp;quot;]&#xA;[fen &amp;quot;6r1/k1P5/P7/1K1R4/8/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Rd8 {according to tablebases, Rd7 wins faster} Rxd8 {again, there are slower ways for black to lose} 2. cxd8=N! {stalemate if rook or queen is promoted, a draw if a bishop (wrong corner)} 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the situation below, white has just played Qg3. Black underpromotes to gain a tempo, as white threatens checkmate and fork rival king and queen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[white &amp;quot;Zvonimir Mestrovic&amp;quot;]&#xA;[black &amp;quot;Svetozar Gligoric&amp;quot;]&#xA;[event &amp;quot;Hastings, 1971/72&amp;quot;]&#xA;[fen &amp;quot;7k/1p2Npbp/8/2P5/1P1r4/3b2QP/3q1pPK/2RB4 b - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. f1=N+! 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the position below, white underpromotes to deliver a checkmate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[white &amp;quot;William Strum&amp;quot;]&#xA;[black &amp;quot;John McManus&amp;quot;]&#xA;[event &amp;quot;Eastern Open, 1997&amp;quot;]&#xA;[fen &amp;quot;8/p3R2P/1p4k1/6p1/2rB2KR/P1r5/8/8 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. h8=N+ 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Last, but not least, a very neat opening trap. Black undepromotes to gain a tempo and subsequently win the white queen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &amp;quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. c4 e5 3. dxe5 d4 4. e3 Bb4+ 5. Bd2 dxe3 6. Bxb4 exf2+ 7. Ke2 fxg1=N+ 8. Rxg1 Bg4+ 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Rook promotion&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Arguably, less spectacular than knight underpromotions. One would promote to a rook in order to avoid a stalemate (otherwise, anything a rook can do, a queen also can). Two examples from endgames below.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &amp;quot;6k1/6P1/5K2/8/8/6P1/8/8 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. g4 Kh7 2. Kf7 Kh6 3. g8=R! {stalemate in case of queen promotion. Knight promotion would also win, but would take longer} 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &amp;quot;4r3/5RPk/5K2/8/8/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Rf8 Rxf8 2. gxf8=R {stalemate in case of queen promotion, unable to win if promoting to a minor piece} 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Bishop promotion&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;These are the rarest of the bunch. Usually would be to avoid a stalemate, or some other extraordinary situations, since otherwise, anything a bishop can do, a queen also can. First, a classic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &amp;quot;4Q3/Pq4pk/5p1p/5P1K/6PP/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. a8=B! {promoting to rook or queen runs into Qf7+ and stalemate} 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another endgame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &amp;quot;8/8/5b2/8/K7/4N3/kp6/8 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Nd1 b1=B! {Nc3+ if promoting to rook or queen - draw} 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lastly, this amazing position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &amp;quot;1r5K/6PP/8/8/8/1k4q1/6P1/8 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. g8=B+! {black must move the king and it is a stalemate} Kb4 (1... Rxg8+ 2. hxg8=Q+ Qxg8+ 3. Kxg8 {and the g2 pawn will inevitably promote - white wins}) 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Sources for these and many more examples&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://timkr.home.xs4all.nl/chess2/minor.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://timkr.home.xs4all.nl/chess2/minor.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chesscollection?cid=1000028&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chesscollection?cid=1000028&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3831" LastEditorUserId="3831" LastEditDate="2021-03-01T09:18:45.127" LastActivityDate="2021-03-01T09:18:45.127" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="9368" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9353" CreationDate="2015-05-27T07:35:11.063" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;From personal experience doing puzzles has no effect on my level of laziness. What it does, which is more important for me, is widen my thinking. I become less narrow in the possibilities I will consider simply because I have seen unlikely moves work in the puzzles I've tried.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Overcoming laziness is more a problem of motivation, will and energy. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tony Miles used to tell the story of when his doctor prescribed beta blockers for him for a medical problem. In his next tournament he lost the first three games. Although this was bad enough it was not what really worried Miles when he tried to work out what was going on. The problem for him was that he was losing and he just didn't care. He blamed the beta blockers for this and stopped taking them with the result that he started caring more during the game about his position and so started winning again.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2015-05-27T07:35:11.063" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9369" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9323" CreationDate="2015-05-27T10:31:09.273" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Also many of these huge tournaments usually have side excursions/simultaneous exhibits/autograph sessions/kids meeting grandmaters/ etc that are best put over the weekend when spectators, chess enthusiasts and parents can make time to attend/take their kids over as opposed to weekdays that are majorly working days and school time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7391" LastActivityDate="2015-05-27T10:31:09.273" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9370" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9353" CreationDate="2015-05-27T10:56:49.200" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's similar to @Brian Towers how solving puzzles improved my play: in regular looking positions I started coming up with a target at least, how I can modify the position and with a bit of luck turn it into one where I can make a non-straightforward move, possibly a sacrifice, and gain advantage. It widens your perspective and gives you additional goals to aim at during the game. Even if you're not a tournament player, this all makes your games more fun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7096" LastActivityDate="2015-05-27T10:56:49.200" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9371" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9372" CreationDate="2015-05-27T12:06:30.583" Score="2" ViewCount="635" Body="&lt;p&gt;A master 2250 said to me that i should put my pieces so all &#xA;my central pawns to be pushed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example if I have e4 d5 with white, a valid plan is advancing c4 and f4. Or with black if I have for example d6, e5, I should prepare f5, d5, and c5. Is this a plan for general middle game positions? Advancing e4,d4,c4,f4 for white and e5,d5,c5,f5?(Order doesn't matter).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7218" LastActivityDate="2019-12-10T15:55:35.033" Title="It's true that a middle game plan is to push the rest of central pawns?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;middlegame&gt;&lt;planning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9372" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9371" CreationDate="2015-05-27T12:38:36.420" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This might be a valid plan, if you opponent doesn't fight for the centre at all. But in almost all games such a plan is either impossible or carries the risk of overextending. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is true that pawn levers are important. Such a pawn lever might be the advance f4-f5 or c4-c5. But usually you only play a pawn lever at the side of the board where you are stronger and ready to exploit the opening of the position. Not just everywhere …&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my view it would be much more correct to state the building of an ideal pawn centre as a standard plan. But the &quot;ideal pawn centre&quot; consists only out of the e and d-pawn, both advanced two squares. And even the building of this modest 2-pawn centre is usually fought tooth and nail by your opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Nanjing Pearl Spring Tournament&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Nanjing CHN&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2010.10.24&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;2010.10.20&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;5&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Magnus Carlsen&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Veselin Topalov&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;C78&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;2826&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;2805&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;63&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.O-O Be7 6.d3 b5 7.Bb3&#xA;d6 8.a4 Rb8 9.axb5 axb5 10.Nbd2 O-O 11.Re1 Bd7 12.c3 Ra8&#xA;13.Rxa8 Qxa8 14.d4 h6 15.Nf1 Re8 16.Ng3 Qc8 17.Nh4 Bf8 18.Ng6&#xA;Na5 19.Nxf8 Rxf8 20.Bc2 Re8 21.f4 Bg4 22.Qd3 exf4 23.Bxf4 Nc4&#xA;24.Bc1 c5 25.Rf1 cxd4 26.cxd4 Qd8 27.h3 Be6 28.b3 Qa5 29.Kh2&#xA;Nh7 30.e5 g6 31.d5 Nxe5 32.dxe6 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Take this brilliant game as an example: On move 14 Carlsen creates the &quot;ideal pawn centre&quot;, it persists until move 30, where is proves its power by advancing and initiating a deadly attack. There is even a pawn lever thrown in at move 14, which opens up the f-line for the rook. But Carlsen didn't try to just move his c,d,e and f-pawn forward. He created the ideal pawn centre, which controls a lot of squares and can at times advance with deadly effect. He used a pawn lever to open up lines for the attack. Every move had a purpose.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastEditorUserId="4362" LastEditDate="2015-05-27T18:34:41.407" LastActivityDate="2015-05-27T18:34:41.407" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9373" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-05-28T13:12:18.127" Score="2" ViewCount="236" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would like to know if the following three variations can transpose into each other?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The Nc3+e3 Chebanenko Slav: 1. d4 d5 2. c4 c6 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. e3 a6&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The Exchange Slav: 1. d4 d5 2. c4 c6 3. cxd5 cxd5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The 4...Bg4 Slow Slav: 1. d4 d5 2. c4 c6 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. e3 Bg4&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm asking because:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;d4 d5 2. c4 c6 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. e3 a6 5. Nf3 b5 6. cxd5 cxd5 looks like an Exchange Slav&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;d4 d5 2. c4 c6 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. e3 a6 5. Nf3 b5 6. b3 Bg4 looks like a 4...Bg4 Slow Slav.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;d4 d5 2. c4 c6 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. e3 Bg4 5. cxd5 looks like an Exchange Slav.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3237" LastEditorUserId="3237" LastEditDate="2015-05-28T14:19:29.760" LastActivityDate="2015-05-28T14:43:42.163" Title="Can the Nc3+e3 Chebanenko Slav, the Exchange Slav and the 4...Bg4 Slow Slav transpose into each other?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;1.d4&gt;&lt;slav-defense&gt;&lt;transpositions&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9374" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9373" CreationDate="2015-05-28T14:43:42.163" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, they don't transpose to Exchange Slavs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the Slow Slav and the Chebanenko, white plays e3 to prevent trouble with the c4 pawn. The bishop stays inside the pawn chain which is somewhat passive, but the plus is that c4 is defended, so that black can't stir up trouble by taking it and defending it with ...b5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the Exchange, white has dealt with that issue drastically by just exchanging the pawn away, so there's no need to make further concessions because of threats to it. I've never seen an Exchange Slav where white chose to keep Bc1 inside the chain, it goes to f4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2015-05-28T14:43:42.163" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9375" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-05-28T19:09:06.657" Score="1" ViewCount="147" Body="&lt;p&gt;(i) Is there any Chess engine that can accept a partial game? E.g. &lt;code&gt;1. d4 d5 1. c4 Nf6 etc.&lt;/code&gt; and then start either as White or Black. I want to analyze some of my moves and want to use the Chess engine to understand what a computer would do?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(ii) I can do coding in Python. I haven't used PyChess before. I noticed that PyChess supports multiple Chess engines. Can I use/modify PyChess to accept partial games, i.e. I was wondering if there any functions / modules in PyChess that can help me with creating a function / module which I can use to analyze moves after a partial game? I have no need for GUI per se, a simple output, showing what the computer is likely to do, is what I am interested in? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;p.s. I am a total newbie to UCI interface (nothing new about Wiki) as well as newbie on how engines like Stockfish work and newbie to PyChess as well. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7487" LastActivityDate="2015-05-28T19:09:06.657" Title="Any chess engine that can start from the middle of a game" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;uci&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2015-05-29T13:57:01.250" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9376" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9381" CreationDate="2015-05-28T19:54:36.610" Score="2" ViewCount="2185" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm really confused about the differences between the products that ChessBase offers. For example, on the website, Deep Fritz is said to be an engine. But after a bit of research, it turned out that it holds a database, a multimedia directory, a playchess.com client, and a tactics trainer! ChessBase is only said to be a database although it also features training courses. Also, ChessBase markets Houdini which is said to be &quot;the world's strongest engine&quot;. So, if it is, doesn't that make Deep Fritz rubbish ? Please clear my confusions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6985" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T20:34:02.897" Title="Confused about ChessBase" Tags="&lt;chessbase&gt;&lt;houdini&gt;&lt;fritz&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9377" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9365" CreationDate="2015-05-28T20:33:49.873" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Okay I ended up using &lt;a href=&quot;http://asdfjkl.github.io/jerry/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;jerry&lt;/a&gt; which is very easy to use, platform independent and also supportes various engines. Recommend it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7479" LastActivityDate="2015-05-28T20:33:49.873" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9379" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9335" CreationDate="2015-05-28T21:51:58.427" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/blog/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;chess.com blog&lt;/a&gt;  It is great blog with good few good articles written by chess masters (I read one for GM Hikaru &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/blog/Hikaru/us-champs&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this one&lt;/a&gt;) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3762" LastActivityDate="2015-05-28T21:51:58.427" CommentCount="0" CommunityOwnedDate="2015-05-28T21:51:58.427" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9381" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9376" CreationDate="2015-05-28T23:21:27.207" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Houdini is a chess engine written by an external developer. It is not a user interface that you can visually interact. This is where the confusion: when ChessBase mentions Houdini, they actually mean &lt;em&gt;running&lt;/em&gt; the Houdini chess engine on their ChessBase user-interface. If you search on Wikipedia, Houdini is simply a chess engine and has nothing to do with ChessBase. ChessBase does that because they want to sell their user-interface bundled with a strong chess engine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similarly, Deep Fritz is a chess engine just like what Houdini is. Again, what they really mean is &lt;em&gt;running&lt;/em&gt; the Deep Fritz chess engine on their ChessBase graphical user interface.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;ChessBase = user-interface written by the ChessBase company&#xA;Deep Fritz = the ChessBase user-interface bundled with the Deep-Fritz chess engine&#xA;Houdini = the ChessBase user-interface bundled with the Houdini chess engine&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T20:33:32.393" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T20:33:32.393" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="9382" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-05-29T06:54:36.323" Score="0" ViewCount="375" Body="&lt;p&gt;Has anyone tried vitamins for improving memory? How about Memo Plus Gold, has anyone tried it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do you think it will improve memorizing theories and variations?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7174" LastActivityDate="2015-06-05T05:28:29.773" Title="Vitamins to improve memorizing of variations in chess" Tags="&lt;memorization&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9383" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9318" CreationDate="2015-05-29T12:12:25.783" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is the size of the window that matters.  Make it smaller and they will become available (I assume the same is tru for making it larger, but I can't verify as this was my max screen size).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1493" LastActivityDate="2015-05-29T12:12:25.783" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9384" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9386" CreationDate="2015-05-29T19:35:15.650" Score="1" ViewCount="3388" Body="&lt;p&gt;My old PC died, so I bought a new PC.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I tried to re-install my chess softwares on the new PC.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I successfully re-installed Komodo 8 as well as Houdini 3 and activated them with my serial numbers. They work perfectly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But there is a problem for ChessBase 12. I re-installed it successfully, but when I try to activate it with my serial number (File &gt; Activation &gt; Activate) it doesn't work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is a screenshot of the problem:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/kBkhk.png&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So apparently &quot;ChessProgram 13/14&quot;, &quot;Engine: Houdini 3 Pro&quot; and &quot;Engine: Invalid&quot; (no idea what &quot;invalid&quot; means) have been activated successfully.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But &quot;CBase 12&quot; (ChessBase 12) was not activated successfully.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have re-tried to activate it many times, but each time the message says &quot;SerialNumber already used&quot;, and then it also says &quot;You can now open database files by double-clicking them in Windows&quot;. And &quot;CBase 12&quot; stays at &quot;No&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So how do I solve this problem?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And don't answer me &quot;buy another ChessBase serial number&quot;... I have already bought ChessBase a few months ago, it costed a lot of money (around €370 I think), and I don't want to lose even more money...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3237" LastEditorUserId="3237" LastEditDate="2015-06-01T15:55:50.050" LastActivityDate="2015-06-01T15:55:50.050" Title="How do I activate ChessBase 12 with a serial number? It keeps saying &quot;SerialNumber already used&quot;" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;chessbase&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9386" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9384" CreationDate="2015-05-30T12:26:38.157" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've had serial number issues in the past whe moving to new computer and after upgrading to a new version of windows without deactivating the serial number on the old computer. When that happens, I've contacted ChessBase support through the support form on their site.  &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.chessbase.com/support&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://en.chessbase.com/support&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They have always responded within 24 hours and resolved the problem. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm pretty sure they have to resolve it on their end since they have to update it on their licensing server. Just explain that you are moving to a new computer and the issue you are having. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1036" LastActivityDate="2015-05-30T12:26:38.157" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9387" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9382" CreationDate="2015-05-30T12:52:38.927" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is unlikely to work for adults.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For children it has been shown that giving vitamin supplements produces an overall average increase in IQ over a large population. If this experiment is repeated over a population which is restricted to only include those who are already getting their daily requirement then no increase is seen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, if you are a child and you have an inadequate diet then yes, taking vitamin supplements will help your cognitive development and this will likely help you memorize variations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you already have an adequate diet then overdosing on vitamins will not help you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2015-05-30T12:52:38.927" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9388" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-05-30T16:15:40.107" Score="3" ViewCount="501" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is another question that asks &quot;Has anyone ever written a chess program that does have insights of its own&quot; that question is about a chess only game AI. I am asking having to learn the rules of the game, pieces, board size, etc. The program should be able to learn any board game, checkers, go, etc. Computers programmed by humans are better at chess than humans. Any computer programmed by itself (via some self learning algorithm, where even the rules have to be learned, i.e. number of pieces, board dimensions, piece move rules, game objective, etc) playing any good at all? Let's ignore that the self learning algorithm would have been devised by a human...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you know of any such generic game AI engines, please post references to them, at least their name. Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7474" LastActivityDate="2015-09-29T15:09:46.233" Title="Non chess specific game AI that learns any game and can play chess?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9389" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9396" CreationDate="2015-05-30T16:30:13.823" Score="6" ViewCount="264" Body="&lt;p&gt;Consider the following line&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 b6 4.g3 Ba6 5.b3 Bb4+ (5... Be7) 6.Bd2 Be7 (6... Bxd2+)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black hardly ever plays 5... Be7 directly (I could only find one such game), but rather plays the above sequence (this sequence happens 1573 times).  The variation 6... Bxd2+ happens 54 times.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This suggests that it is better for black if white has the Bishop on d2.  But I cannot see why this is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4594" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2015-05-30T20:07:28.390" LastActivityDate="2015-05-31T00:03:28.420" Title="In Queen's Indian - Classical Line, why is ... Bb4+, Bd2 Be7 preferred over Be7 directly" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;queens-indian&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9391" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9389" CreationDate="2015-05-30T17:05:56.497" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to Wikipedia: &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen%27s_Indian_Defense&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen%27s_Indian_Defense&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;The effect of Black's check has been to lure White's bishop to c3 where it blocks the c-file. &#xA;  This, the current main line of the Queen's Indian, is considered equal by theory and became a frequent guest in grandmaster praxis in the 1980s.&quot;&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should be able to get some understanding from this page. Then look at  those games you found.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7497" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2015-05-30T20:06:42.943" LastActivityDate="2015-05-30T20:06:42.943" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9392" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2653" CreationDate="2015-05-30T17:44:22.140" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;In chess, memory is related to learning. The deeper you study, the easier it is to remember the most important points. Its about quality not quantity. You can &quot;cram&quot; openings, but unless you understand the position you'll start making mistakes. You'll play better if you focus on the types of positions that interest you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7497" LastActivityDate="2015-05-30T17:44:22.140" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9393" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2668" CreationDate="2015-05-30T19:35:22.093" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't have an answer, but I can't make comments.  Neither of these two answers work for me.  I don't have an &quot;edit&quot; or &quot;move&quot; option on my toolbar, and when I when I do the &quot;close engine&quot; option, it only works for that one turn--i.e., the engine comes back on as soon as I make a move, so I would have to do it after every single move.  Like the original question, I can't find a way to do something that should be incredibly simple--just turn off the engine so I can play a 2-player game.  I have Arena 3.5&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Update:  I didn't find an answer how to do this in Arena, but in another thread I found a user recommended &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/asdfjkl/jerry/releases/tag/v.102&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Jerry&lt;/a&gt; for this purpose, and it seems to work great.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7499" LastEditorUserId="7499" LastEditDate="2015-05-30T19:57:04.577" LastActivityDate="2015-05-30T19:57:04.577" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9394" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9382" CreationDate="2015-05-30T19:51:13.270" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is no credible evidence that supplements benefit cognitive functioning in people who don't have clinical disorders.  The only people making those claims are people trying to sell you something.  As mentioned above, the only indicated rationale for such treatment is with a nutritional disorder, or some other type of clinical problem.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3311304/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3311304/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Dietary supplements are one of the most common forms of complementary and alternative medicine that patients use and although limited, evidence for their potential interactions with other treatments has been documented. Considering the insufficient evidence for their efficacy, potential for interaction with other therapies and costs to patients, physicians should be aware of the use of dietary supplements among their patients so that they can advise their patients on the potential benefits and harms.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7499" LastActivityDate="2015-05-30T19:51:13.270" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9395" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9309" CreationDate="2015-05-30T20:26:23.210" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are many good positional books that cover this topic in depth, such as Silman's &quot;Reassess Your Chess.&quot; For a lighter answer, there are several good guidelines (many of which are well-known):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Middlegame guidelines&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is the position open or closed?&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Open positions favor bishops; closed positions favor knights.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Does the knight have advanced outposts on which it can do something?&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Powerful knights that cannot be driven away are valuable.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Does the bishop have an active function?&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Bad bishops (blocked by own pawns) and ghost bishops (the battle is being fought on the opposite color) can be useless.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Does one side have the bishop-pair?&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;GM Larry Kaufman, with the aid of non-subjective silicon, says &lt;a href=&quot;http://home.comcast.net/~danheisman/Articles/evaluation_of_material_imbalance.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;the bishop-pair is worth 1/2 pawn&lt;/a&gt;. However, if the position is closed, this 1/2 pawn can be more than offset by the ineffectiveness of bishops in the position.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is there a weak square complex, especially around the king?&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If so, a bishop of that color is more valuable for both sides, unless the bishop is trapped.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Bishops of opposite colors favors the attacker in the middlegame.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Endgame guidelines&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Are all pawns on one side, or are there pawns on both flanks?&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;One side favors knight due to its ability to cover both colors&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Both flanks favors bishop due to its long-distance range&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is there a rook-pawn?&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Rook-pawn + bishop of wrong color is a draw if the opposing king is well placed.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Rook-pawn + knight is a win even if the opposing king is well placed, unless the pawn is (or is forced to go to) the 7th rank.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Are there no pawns?&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;2 bishops mate is easy, bishop + knight mate is hard, and 2 knights mate cannot be forced&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is one side up in pawns?&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Bishops of opposite colors tends to be drawish when there are no other pieces (excl. pawns).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The endgame tends to be open, so keep that in mind.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The article by GM Larry Kaufman also somewhat addresses this topic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that bishop pairs are not redundant, and knight &quot;pairs&quot; are, so the bishop pair is better than 2 knights.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mobility is important for bishops (beware of ghost bishops). Knights, if they are well placed and invulnerable, bypass the mobility consideration because the very purpose of mobility is activity, and well placed knights do not need to be mobile in order to be active (think knight blockade, or an attacking outposted knight).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7500" LastActivityDate="2015-05-30T20:26:23.210" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9396" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9389" CreationDate="2015-05-30T23:49:40.790" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;White's intended setup involves fianchettoing his dark-squared bishop on b2. The &quot;free move&quot; 6. Bd2 brings more harm than good:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Transferring the bishop onto the long diagonal, if white wishes to, will still take another move (i.e. Bd2-c3), but more importantly, if he does, the bishop on c3 takes away the square for the knight, which is preferred in many lines.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;In many lines, white wants to play d5, aiming for a Benoni-like structure (which is bad for black in these cases); the bishop on d2 blocks the queen's defence of the d5 square, making this push harder to achieve.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For case 1: consider the &quot;old&quot; line, and compare this to a possible variation that arises after giving the check on move 5 instead:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nf3 b6 4. g3 (4... Ba6 5. b3 Bb4+ 6. Bd2 Be7 7. Bg2 Bb7 8. O-O O-O 9. Nc3) Bb7 5. Bg2 Be7 6. O-O O-O 7. Nc3 Ne4 8. Qc2 Nxc3 9. Qxc3 f5 10. b3 Bf6 11. Bb2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Clearly, in this case, having the bishop on d2 is worse than having it on c1!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Long story short: the check disrupts white's set-up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7473" LastEditorUserId="7473" LastEditDate="2015-05-31T00:03:28.420" LastActivityDate="2015-05-31T00:03:28.420" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9397" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9335" CreationDate="2015-05-31T22:13:09.373" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;For players under 1800 USCF/FIDE, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/blog/danheisman&quot;&gt;Dan Heisman's blog&lt;/a&gt; is an extremely helpful source. He has lots of information on:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Thought process: how Hope Chess can cause losses&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Time Management: how to manage your time in order to be able to think as much as possible when the game gets complicated.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Practical tips for different situations: when you're way ahead, it's a different game; when you're losing, complicate the position to try to get your opponent to make a mistake; when your opponent is in time pressure, don't blitz him, etc.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Correcting misconceptions: player not recapturing because then he would get doubled pawns (safety is a 100, pawn structure is a 1), players loses because he didn't &quot;see&quot; something when in fact he didn't look out for it (thought process), player making a quick move in a critical position (hand-waving), Player playing a quick move because all moves look bad (acquiescing), Player rejecting move based on shallow or superficial analysis (quiescence error) . . . The list goes on, check out his blog!&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7500" LastActivityDate="2015-05-31T22:13:09.373" CommentCount="1" CommunityOwnedDate="2015-05-31T22:13:09.373" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9398" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7969" CreationDate="2015-06-01T10:27:09.457" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;IMHO best place to buy chess sets is cnchess.com factory in China.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Pretty reasonable prices, and you avoid the middle man.  Shipping is OK but not great.  The basic vinyl boards and tournament sets are decent, but they have a better selection.  They also have a clock section.     &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The best clock for the price is the &quot;leap pq 9903&quot; - you can find them in a lot of places.  They are cheap and way more durable than the others mentioned above.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as what you need I highly recommend that you buy 30-40 extra sets to sell to your customers.  Your sales should cover the cost of your boards and your shipping, with extra in your pocket.  It might take a year to sell them off, but if you don't have them you can't sell them! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7509" LastEditorDisplayName="user4378" LastEditDate="2015-06-02T12:30:31.400" LastActivityDate="2015-06-02T12:30:31.400" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9399" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7970" CreationDate="2015-06-01T10:39:36.483" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately JiK is just plain wrong!  FIDE accredited clubs (called FIDE academies) are all over the world.  According to FIDE representatives in the FIDE Trainers' Commission they are looking to rapidly expand to 500 approved FIDE Clubs worldwide by 2017.  Currently there are 33.  You need to pay for this AND have approval from your National Chess Federation.  Some details with this will be changing as it seems that most national chess federations don't like some of the power that these academies have.  For more information you can visit : &lt;a href=&quot;http://trainers.fide.com/fide-academies.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://trainers.fide.com/fide-academies.html&lt;/a&gt; for more.  The serious question is it worth the fee!  When I inquired in October 2014 it was 500 euro for the first year and 200 (or 300??) every year after.  This is not ideal for a small club, but it seems you wouldn't want it right away!  Hope that helps!&#xA;I should also mention that your club name stays the same, but you get to add FIDE academy to your logos, letterhead and advertisments...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7509" LastActivityDate="2015-06-01T10:39:36.483" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9400" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9388" CreationDate="2015-06-01T13:43:45.730" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://rebelscience.blogspot.de/2011/02/intelligent-computer-chess-part-i.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://rebelscience.blogspot.de/2011/02/intelligent-computer-chess-part-i.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is the blog of a guy who tries to do what you describe: Create an artificial intelligence that learns to play chess purely by trial and error. I don't think he ever got very far. He also believes that the old testament contains coded information on how to create an AI …&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is surely &lt;a href=&quot;http://cgi.cse.unsw.edu.au/~mit/Papers/KI11.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;possible to create an AI&lt;/a&gt; that learns to play chess from scratch, but I doubt it would ever be any good (Though this General Game Playing stuff doesn't learn the rules, the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.cs.toronto.edu/~vmnih/docs/dqn.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;deepmind company atari AI&lt;/a&gt; does.). The reason is that chess is a tactical game and calculating tactics requires extremely optimised code. That's nothing you just stumble into after playing a few million games. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-06-01T13:43:45.730" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9401" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-06-01T21:04:18.333" Score="1" ViewCount="633" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have realised that Opening theory usually contains the highest quality chess, they have been pruned and honed. However sometimes when I am going through an opening with say Stockfish, I find that at times Stockfish has different recommendations than the opening has.  So I have been wondering how does the quality of play in an opening compare with the abilities of a 3300 elo chess program?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4594" LastActivityDate="2015-06-03T18:51:11.010" Title="Opening theory versus strong AI suggestions" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;engines&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9402" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9401" CreationDate="2015-06-01T21:54:04.487" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;First off, we should understand how opening theory is developed, and a short answer is that it comes about through publications, either through analysis in books/articles/magazines, or tournament games (that are published).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, some openings are dubbed &quot;non-theoretical&quot;, but in reality, all openings contain a body of opening theory, and what &quot;non-theoretical&quot; usually means is that the analysis in publications usually ends early (say by move 10). These openings, especially the obscure ones, are seldom played at GM level, and lack recent GM-level proponents, so the existing literature is either scarce or leaves much to be desired. In these cases, there are points of improvement certainly discoverable with engines. (Some of these do get played, but fail to impact theory because they are at a lower level and receive little attention, or are not published.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, the sharp, theoretical, and top-choice-for-GMs such as the Sicilian/KID/Gruenfeld are heavily studied and &quot;analysed to death&quot; in certain lines. It's difficult to find improvements through the analysis of a program that have not already been considered by the theorists. The biggest problem with engines in general is that they fail to understand long-term positional advantages, and this happens particularly often, for example, in exchange sacrifices in more quiet positions of the Sicilian (where black plays Rxc3, forcing white to recapture by bxc3) after which black plays against white's structural weaknesses (and the c4 square) are often underrated by engines as it takes looking at the position several dozen moves later (for a computer) to realise that these sacrifices may potentially be the best option. On another note, the analysis of sacrifices in open positions such as the Poisoned Pawn variation of the Najdorf (1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf3 5. Nc3 a6 6. Bg5 e6 7. f4 Qb6 8. Qd2 Qxb2 9. Rb1 Qa3) do well to be assisted by an engine, but it is noteworthy that it takes some time before the computer agrees with existing theory in many positions!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another time when engines may be inferior to theory is the placement of pieces in closed positions, which computers are notoriously poor at playing. In these cases, the computer has difficulty differentiating on whether to put that bishop on e2 or d3, but it is often strategically clear to humans, and such positions can arise in the opening as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nevertheless, it should be stressed that improvements in heavily theoretical positions do exist, and are often found with the assistance of computers (which is how modern theory advances in today's age), but don't expect these to come by easily!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7473" LastEditorUserId="7473" LastEditDate="2015-06-01T22:14:49.033" LastActivityDate="2015-06-01T22:14:49.033" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9403" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9401" CreationDate="2015-06-01T21:55:46.593" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are at least four possibilities, all of which are pretty normal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One, the opening theory is from a good, recent book. The author will have used the strongest engines himself, and also applied his own chess knowledge, and spent enough time to find better moves than the engine did.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Two, the author did see the computer move, but thought it was not practical for a human to play like that, and that his move was almost as good but much easier to understand, explain and play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Three, the position is drawn (as most opening theory positions are) and in the final analysis both moves will turn out to be good enough.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Four, you've found a mistake in the book.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All of those happen all the time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you have a concrete example, you'll get much more concrete responses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2015-06-01T21:55:46.593" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9405" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-06-03T17:55:10.637" Score="5" ViewCount="710" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am very interested in the Lowenthal Sicilian, specifically the 5. Nb5 a6 line:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;e4 c5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Nf3 Nc6&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;d4 cxd4&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Nxd4 e5 (signalling the Lowenthal)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Nb5 a6 (5 ... d6 is the Kalashnikov variation or what Silman refers to as the Neo-Sveshnikov)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Nd6+ Bxd6&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Qxd6 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 e5 5. Nb5 a6 6. Nd6+ Bxd6 7. Qxd6 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So variations begin here with ...Qe7 or ...Qf6&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now here is where my problem starts, I can not find a book on this line of the Sicilian for the life of me. It's a fairly popular line among GM's and strong players at my club. I really want to become well versed in it. I have studied a dozen or so GM games from the Lowenthal PGN file I downloaded from chess mentor but I learn much quicker from books where they explain white and black's long-term goals and strategies.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can anybody recommend resources that will allow me to study this line?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7525" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2015-06-03T18:32:24.543" LastActivityDate="2020-08-02T08:34:37.117" Title="Sicilian Lowenthal-Labourdonnais" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;&lt;books&gt;&lt;study&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9406" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-06-03T18:09:55.220" Score="5" ViewCount="1082" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have been studying the Kalashnikov Sicilian:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;e4 c5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Nf3 Nc6&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;d4 cxd4&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Nxd4 e5 (signaling the Lowenthal variation)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Nb5 d6 (d6 signals the Kalashnikov variation)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have two books I have been studying that cover variations from this point forward. However, I spend a lot of time analyzing my openings and a line that comes up over and over again is &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;6&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Bg5!?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The book Neo-Sveshnikov by Silman &quot;covers&quot; this line with one brief note about it on the last two pages of the book. The other book I am studying &quot;Sicilian Kalashnikov&quot; by Jan Pinski, Jacob Aagaard which I really like does not cover this move AT ALL.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can anyone recommend a resource for me to read about the Bg5 continuation of this line? I find it hard to believe that it can be used somewhat commonly in GM level games and not discussed in any opening books. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7525" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2015-06-03T21:29:38.917" LastActivityDate="2019-10-16T21:05:32.530" Title="Lowenthal-LabourdonnaisSicilian Kalashnikov Variation" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;&lt;books&gt;&lt;study&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9407" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9401" CreationDate="2015-06-03T18:51:11.010" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;What I've noticed with Stockfish is that a lot of the recommended moves they suggest depend on the options you have selected. For instance if you have selected Stockfish's play style as aggressive or suicidal vs. passive or solid it is going to recommend different different openings. Also selecting the book variety as low medium or high will change what Stockfish recommends.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7525" LastActivityDate="2015-06-03T18:51:11.010" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9408" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9405" CreationDate="2015-06-03T19:16:05.137" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Any book covering the Open Sicilian from White's point of view should have a line against it. From memory White has a queen exchange, Qc7 or Qd1 in one of those variations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: For starters try Dismantling the Sicilian by De La Villa. As stated above I recommend any complete repertoire book for White with the open Sicilian.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4543" LastEditorUserId="4543" LastEditDate="2015-08-03T12:55:17.730" LastActivityDate="2015-08-03T12:55:17.730" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9409" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-06-03T23:59:25.230" Score="4" ViewCount="283" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've seen people saying things like &quot;from now on this is just autopilot&quot; or &quot;autopilot from move 20&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5649" LastActivityDate="2015-06-04T13:23:33.573" Title="What does autopilot mean in chess?" Tags="&lt;evaluation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9410" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9409" CreationDate="2015-06-04T00:24:38.090" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It probably means that the moves from this point forth are &lt;em&gt;forced, obvious, or not easily wrong&lt;/em&gt;. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A promotion race (forced)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Basic checkmate with a king and queen (obvious)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;An easy win, e.g. up a large amount of material (the moves from this point on are very unlikely to blow the win).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not a common term in chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7500" LastActivityDate="2015-06-04T00:24:38.090" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9411" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9406" CreationDate="2015-06-04T00:39:14.017" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;While it's a somewhat dated source by this point, I'm certain that &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/0805039074&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Neil McDonald's 1995 book &lt;em&gt;Winning with the Kalashnikov&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt; covers this &lt;code&gt;6.Bg5&lt;/code&gt; variation to some extent, and I'm nearly certain that he recommends taking it head on with&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 e5 5.Nb5 d6 6.Bg5 Qxg5 7.Nc7+ Kd8 8.Nxa8&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't recall how much concrete analysis followed (it's been many years since I owned/saw the book). Moreover, I don't know if there's more or less coverage than what you mention from Silman's book; even though I've played the Kalashnikov with considerable frequency since the days of McDonald's book, for my purposes I've never needed to consult a newer source.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To that point, I'll say that my experience has differed from yours, in that I &lt;em&gt;almost never&lt;/em&gt; face this &lt;code&gt;6.Bg5&lt;/code&gt; line, despite plenty of personal Kalashnikov tournament games and countless blitz games, and indeed I've never faced it in tournament play. I think one reason for that might be that Black can sidestep any messiness if she so chooses, so that it's not that testing a try from White. In particular, my own (potentially flawed) sense is that Black could even comfortably go for the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 e5 5.Nb5 d6 6.Bg5 Be7!? {This might look strange, as White can now force the black king to lose castling rights, but this comes along with an exchange of the dark-squared bishops that Black generally welcomes in this opening, and all things considered I think the black king can live comfortably.} 7.Bxe7 Kxe7  {This wouldn't be every black player's cup of tea, but if I'm right that this position is alright for Black, then the fact that this simple defusing of White's play is available would be a reason for 6.Bg5 to be infrequently played.} (7...Ngxe7? 8.Nxd6+)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2015-06-04T00:39:14.017" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9412" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-06-04T05:47:29.863" Score="4" ViewCount="2604" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have read a lot of messages on different Forums about the merits of beginning with 1.Nf3 or beginning with 1.d4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And a very big number of people said essentially this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One of the advantages of starting with 1.Nf3 2. c4 is that it avoids the Benoni while starting with 1. d4 2. c4 does not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I just don't understand why that is the case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After 1. Nf3 2. c4, if White wants to try to avoid the Benoni he should delay d4. At some point Black will play ...c5. But White will play d4 anyway sooner or later, and when White does play d4 Black will answer with ...cxd4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, from a Symmetrical English move order:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Nf3 c5 2. c4 Nf6 3. g3 (3. Nc3 Nc6 4. g3 will transpose; while 3. Nc3 Nc6 4. d4 cxd4 5. Nxd4 instantly gets into roughly the same position) g6 4. Bg2 Bg7 5. O-O O-O 6. Nc3 Nc6 7. d4 (7. d3 is inferior and scores very poorly for White) cxd4 8. Nxd4&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or from a King's Indian Defense move order:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Nf3 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. g3 Bg7 4. Bg2 O-O 5. O-O (5. d4 c5 transposes) c5 6. Nc3 (6. d4 cxd4 transposes) Nc6 7. d4 cxd4 8. Nxd4&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9iI8k.png&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These seem to be White's best tries to try avoid the Benoni (or I should probably say &quot;to delay entering in a Benoni&quot;) by beginning with 1. Nf3 2. c4. White has many other possibilities, but they end up reaching roughly the same position as above even quicker than in 8 moves (and the only moves that White can play to get a different position are rare and weaker).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure if this position is considered as a Benoni or not (one database calls this an &quot;English Benoni formation&quot;, another source calls this an &quot;Anti Benoni&quot;), but it doesn't matter if it's really a Benoni or not, the only important question is: does it make a difference if White begins with 1. d4 2. c4 instead?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;d4 Nf6 2. c4 c5 3. Nf3 cxd4 4. Nxd4&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Play can continue:  4... Nc6 5. Nc3 g6 6. g3 Bg7 7. Bg2 O-O 8. O-O&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And we reach the exact same position!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since I don't know if this position is considered as a Benoni or not, I don't know if White can or cannot avoid the Benoni by starting with 1. Nf3 2. c4, and I don't know if White can or cannot avoid the Benoni by starting with 1. d4 2. c4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But this doesn't matter, because the point is: beginning with 1. Nf3 2. c4 or with 1. d4 2. c4 does not seem to make a difference if White wants to avoid the Benoni, since White ends up in the exact same position regardless of if he starts with 1. Nf3 2. c4 or with 1. d4 2. d4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the statement &quot;one of the advantages of starting with 1.Nf3 2. c4 is that it avoids the Benoni while starting with 1. d4 2. c4 does not&quot; should be false.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But obviously I must be wrong, I must be missing something, because I've seen dozens of people (some were very high rated) say that 1. Nf3 2. c4 avoids the Benoni while 1. d4 2. c4 does not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3237" LastEditorUserId="3237" LastEditDate="2015-06-04T15:11:53.867" LastActivityDate="2017-04-17T22:21:00.813" Title="Why is it said that beginning with 1. Nf3 2. c4 avoids the Benoni but beginning with 1. d4 2. c4 does not?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;1.d4&gt;&lt;transpositions&gt;&lt;modern-benoni&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9413" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9412" CreationDate="2015-06-04T07:55:45.760" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not an expert on these lines and I don't see a difference in that respect between Nf3+c4 and d4+c4. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I do, however, see a difference between 1.d4 and 1.Nf3/1.c4. 1.d4 can be met by 1…c5 which leads to a &quot;real&quot; Benoni structure, because you cannot really answer it with Nf3: 1.d4 c5 2.Nf3 cxd4 3.Nxd4 d5!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So if you don't want to be passive with 2.e3 or 2.c3 you would have to play 2.d5, when 2…e5 leads to the Czech-Benoni and a later e6 might still lead to a modern Benoni, although white is probably better off playing e4 instead of c4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastEditorUserId="4362" LastEditDate="2015-06-04T14:08:44.887" LastActivityDate="2015-06-04T14:08:44.887" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9414" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9409" CreationDate="2015-06-04T08:12:09.187" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think overtheboard is mostly right, especially because your quotes seem to have this gist, but there is another aspect to playing on autopilot in chess, more often referred to as &quot;playing by hand&quot;, i.e. without using you head. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you reach a certain level in chess, in almost all positions a &quot;typical&quot; move represents itself to you, not necessarily the best move, but with high probability a decent move. This phenomenon is closely connected to the term &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priyome&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;priyome&lt;/a&gt;, which refers to standard positional responses and methods, that somebody with a certain amount of chess culture just knows. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So if somebody talks about playing on autopilot or playing by hand, he might just mean choosing natural strong moves without looking deeply into the position. Often this is enough to beat weaker players and it can be done in all kinds of positions, not just in easily winning ones or in forcing lines. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-06-04T08:12:09.187" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9415" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9412" CreationDate="2015-06-04T12:14:22.097" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The first thing that sprung to mind you said people say 1. Nf3 avoids the Benoni was that are talking about responding to 1...c5 with 2. e4, which leads to the Sicilian. However, the openings you have shown in your post are actually all members of the Symmetrical English, not the Benoni proper. The typical starting position for the Benoni occurs after 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 c5 3. d5. This is why 1. Nf3 avoids the Benoni.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7516" LastActivityDate="2015-06-04T12:14:22.097" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9416" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9412" CreationDate="2015-06-04T13:06:46.093" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;One of the main ideas of hypermodern defenses such as the Benoni is to chisel away at white's 'big' centre with moves like 2...c5 after 1.d4 Nf6, and 2.c4 (chewing away at the d4 pawn). A move order such as 1.Nf3 Nf6 2.c4 does not give black any target at d4 and black must be prepared for English-opening structures with white's pawn on d3(not d4). Additionally, even if white eventually plays d4(after about 5 moves), the Czech Benoni, Snake Benoni as well as a few other Benoni variants and gambits will have been sidestepped.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7391" LastEditorUserId="11202" LastEditDate="2017-04-17T22:21:00.813" LastActivityDate="2017-04-17T22:21:00.813" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9417" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9409" CreationDate="2015-06-04T13:23:33.573" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Playing a position in which the moves are fairly obvious even to a player of average strength,or the plan to follow is a time-honored strategy that ought to be known as part of any player's basic knowledge i.e playing your rook to the only open file and proceeding to advance it to the 7th rank etc(such maneuvers require little to no thought to make) hence &quot;auto-pilot&quot;, You'll also often hear phrases like &quot;at this point, the position plays itself&quot;. In the opening,tonnes of theoretical positions can be played on auto-pilot as they too do not require any novel approach. Most plans have already been established.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7391" LastActivityDate="2015-06-04T13:23:33.573" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9418" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9412" CreationDate="2015-06-04T18:12:42.097" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;With both move orders white can avoid the Benoni. The difference is all about which sidelines you allow and which ones you don't.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;1. Nf3 c5 2. c4&lt;/code&gt; is generally considered the most flexible move order for white since they can wait and play &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt; at the moment of their choosing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 c5 3. Nf3 cxd4 4. Nxd4&lt;/code&gt; on the other hand gives black extra options, for instance the interesting gambit &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;    1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 c5 3. Nf3 cxd4 4. Nxd4 e5 5. Nb5 d5 6. cxd5 Bc5 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Have a look at the following game where I was the victim: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1104602&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Madsen-Hodgson&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another option black has after &lt;code&gt;1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 c5 3. Nf3 cxd4 4. Nxd4&lt;/code&gt; is to play like Kramnik did against Kasparov.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;   [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;   [Event &quot;Braingames World Chess Championship&quot;]&#xA;   [Site &quot;London&quot;]&#xA;   [Date &quot;2000.10.19&quot;]&#xA;   [Round &quot;7&quot;]&#xA;   [Result &quot;1/2-1/2&quot;]&#xA;   [White &quot;Garry Kasparov&quot;]&#xA;   [Black &quot;Vladimir Kramnik&quot;]&#xA;   [ECO &quot;A31&quot;]&#xA;   [WhiteElo &quot;2849&quot;]&#xA;   [BlackElo &quot;2770&quot;]&#xA;   [PlyCount &quot;21&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;   1. c4 c5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 a6 5. Nc3 e6 6. g3 Qc7&#xA;   7. Qd3 (7.Bg2) Nc6 8. Nxc6 dxc6 9. Bg2 e5 10. O-O Be6 11. Na4 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To get an advantage in this variation, white might have to sacrifice the &lt;code&gt;c4&lt;/code&gt; pawn instead of covering it with &lt;code&gt;7. Qd3&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A third option black has is to enter the Hedgehog with&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;    1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 c5 3. Nf3 cxd4 4. Nxd4 b6 (4... b6 5.g3?)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this move order white should not fianchetto the bishop with &lt;code&gt;5.g3&lt;/code&gt; since black's bishop is first on the long diagonal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1485" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2015-06-06T12:56:24.963" LastActivityDate="2015-06-06T12:56:24.963" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9419" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9376" CreationDate="2015-06-04T18:16:07.280" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just adding a few details to Student T's answer:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Fritz&lt;/strong&gt; denotes a &lt;em&gt;chess engine&lt;/em&gt; as well as an &lt;em&gt;(graphical user) interface&lt;/em&gt;. The reason for this is a historical one. Back in the times, almost all commercial chess engines would bring their own interfaces (Fritz, ChessAssistant, Shredder, Rebel, ...) - and a lot more stuff like databases. The hegemony of those commercial programs in the mass market was largely unbroken until maybe three or four years ago. After this, everything goes blurry and messy (Rybka, Stockfish, xfce, EGTBs, Online Chess, scidb, ...). But back to the point.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The distinction between engine and interface only emerged after the terms &quot;Fritz&quot; and &quot;Shredder&quot; were coined. There is a third term which is the &lt;em&gt;database application&lt;/em&gt;. It can organise collections (databases) of games efficiently. To add to the confusion, &lt;strong&gt;ChessBase&lt;/strong&gt; the company named their database product - you guessed it - &lt;em&gt;ChessBase&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If you buy Deep Fritz today, you get the engine and the interface&#xA;and some extra stuff (but only a rudimentary database interface).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If you buy ChessBase, you get the database interface (and probably databases and a player base), but no engines.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;All sorts of free strong UCI engines have emerged on the internet (some outperforming Fritz). You could use a free &lt;em&gt;interface&lt;/em&gt; like Arena and a free &lt;em&gt;engine&lt;/em&gt; like Stockfish and you probably wouldn't fare noticeably worse than with a $100 software bundle.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2715" LastActivityDate="2015-06-04T18:16:07.280" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9420" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9412" CreationDate="2015-06-04T22:00:01.783" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The simple version, with no variations: With 1 Nf3 2 c4 White is basically declaring the desire not to play Benoni. And if Black decides to go for it willy-nilly, Black knows they will quite likely end up in various variations of the Queen's Indian, the QGD (probably Tarrasch) or the Sicilian, including many Maroczy Bind possibilities. So Black chooses another line. more suited to the temperament of a Benoni player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, it's possible for White to steer for many of those same positions starting with 1 d4 (1 d4 Nf6 2 c4 c5 3 e3 being one approach). But playing 1 d4 just encourages Black to try and play Benoni, and in this case, the avoidance lines all are required to have the pawn on d4, not always the optimum choice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are some lines available in the 1 Nf3 / 2 c4 beginning that work better with the d-pawn on d3 (or even d2, letting White use a timely d4 to attack &lt;em&gt;Black's&lt;/em&gt; center). Playing Nf3 and c4 first leaves those options open for White, and tells Black up front that White isn't going to put up with any of that Benoni nonsense, hence Black typically doesn't try to play it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And so, White avoids it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="657" LastActivityDate="2015-06-04T22:00:01.783" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9421" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9156" CreationDate="2015-06-04T22:24:53.883" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Guide to Good Chess by CJS Purdy&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In order of recommendation. The Purdy book is an easy read, once you get past some of the slang (he's an Aussie and it shows) and covers all phases of the game from a very basic level. The Fischer book is a programmed instruction book, meaning every page asks a question or poses a problem for you to solve, and when you turn the page, the answer is revealed and explained.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Modern Chess Self-Tutor by David Bronstein&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This book is for when you get past either of the first ones. It will demand work from you, but you'll benefit from it for a long time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Somewhere in between those levels are&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Comprehensive Chess Course by Alburt and Palatnik&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Secrets of the Russian Chess Masters Alburt and Parr&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first was originally a two-volume set, occasionally the two are bundled together in one volume. Albert wrote 3-4 more books in the series, but don't worry about them for now. The Alburt/Parr two-volume set resembles the first, but is written more for adult self-study (the other was written more for teaching children in a classroom).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="657" LastActivityDate="2015-06-04T22:24:53.883" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9422" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8711" CreationDate="2015-06-04T22:40:10.653" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yusupov's book (series) while excellent, is not a tactics book (series). When I hear &quot;Tactics Book&quot; I think of books like Maxim Blokh's utterly fantastic &quot;The Art Of Combination&quot; or any of the series from Russian Chess House &quot;Manual Of Chess Combinations,&quot; where you have a position and a side to move and an expected result (Black to play and draw, for example).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the case of Yusupov, yes. Set up a board and play over all the moves. An old book of Nimzovich's taught me to use &lt;em&gt;2&lt;/em&gt; boards, in fact. Use one tournament-sized board for the actual continuation, and a smaller magnetic pocket set for the variations. That way if I get distracted by something I see I can follow it out on the pocket set without losing my place in the actual continuation on the &quot;main&quot; board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(And I'd recommend a real board, at least for the main one, unless you only play on a  computer screen in online games. Using a tournament quality board helps accustom your eyes to finding lines like you're studying over the board during a game. Of course if your eyes are already good at spotting them on a real board, feel free to just use a computer screen. But if that's the case, I doubt you'd be asking this question.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the case of the tactical books like I was talking about, the whole idea there is to solve the problem in your head, just as you would have to do in a game. For that, working from the diagram alone is acceptable, though if you're just starting to do this, you might want to set up the position on a board so it &quot;feels&quot; to you like you're playing a &quot;real&quot; game. In any case, even if you set up the position on a real board, don't touch a piece until you have either solved the problem, or run past your imposed time limit (ten minutes is usually a good limit to set).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="657" LastActivityDate="2015-06-04T22:40:10.653" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9423" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8548" CreationDate="2015-06-04T22:45:28.563" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The snarky side of my mind says the reason there are x editions of the book is Silman wants to make money. This is not evil, but really you only need one of the editions. The other editions are pretty much Silman saying the same things using different words and different examples. If you go by the principle &quot;more material means better book&quot; grab the most recent one, whatever it is. It gets longer every time he releases it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="657" LastActivityDate="2015-06-04T22:45:28.563" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9424" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5228" CreationDate="2015-06-04T22:59:09.733" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Going back in time, there's always &quot;The Ideas Behind The Chess Openings&quot; by Reuben Fine. Move sequences change over time, true, but the ideas not so much.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;IIRC, Gary Lane tried resurrecting this formula, but I don't remember the book. Ideas Behind The Modern Chess Openings, perhaps?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, Bellin and Ponzetto did a &quot;Mastering the ... with the Read and Play Method&quot; series that did that. (In fact, the book &quot;Mastering the Spanish&quot; has no variation names in the chapter titles. Instead the chapters are named for the pawn structures they cover and multiple variations appear in a chapter.) I think Batsford was the original publisher of that line.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course the undisputed king and undefeated champion of that approach is &quot;Bronstein On The King's Indian&quot; (David Bronstein) which contains little in the way of variations, instead dealing with things like White's b-knight typically goes to one of these squares, and when it gets there it has one of these intentions. When White plays this move, these are the typical plans and one of these moves is how you counter them. It was always Bronstein's contention that you could not hope to play the King's Indian well by rote; you had to play by understanding.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="657" LastActivityDate="2015-06-04T22:59:09.733" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9426" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1648" CreationDate="2015-06-04T23:20:04.650" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the US, you can date public domain for the most part by the date of &quot;Steamboat Willie,&quot; the first Mickey Mouse cartoon. Any time it gets close to falling into public domain, Disney opens up Scrooge McDuck's vault and buys enough votes in Congress to prevent it. There's a small loophole that was closed in the 70's which says works which didn't have their term renewed (28 years) fall into the public domain, but it's dicey to figure out whether it applies.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Google is no authority for this. They basically announced with the opening of their Google Books site that they didn't care whether the book was copyrighted, they'd only take it down if the author reached for a lawyer. So if it's on Google, that means pretty much nothing at all about whether the book is still under copyright.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The most reliable date is 1928. Books before that are probably Public Domain. But no guarantees.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="657" LastActivityDate="2015-06-04T23:20:04.650" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9430" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9382" CreationDate="2015-06-05T05:28:29.773" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am not aware about the impact that vitamins would have in terms of improving memory but I am sure that it would not affect your chess skills all that much. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Chess is not about memory&lt;/strong&gt;. Sure there are some things that you need to remember but you remember them through experience or through understanding the reason behind it, and this is not something that vitamins will help with. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If your goal at the end is to improve your tactics, strategies and skill in using various variations of different openings, I suggest that you play a lot of games using the same opening against live opponents or a chess engine and analyze those games. This will help you keep track of the various variations because speaking from expierence, nothing helps like understanding it and actually analyzing and playing it a few times.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7537" LastActivityDate="2015-06-05T05:28:29.773" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9431" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9353" CreationDate="2015-06-05T05:37:35.080" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Laziness is not a problem that can be solved by solving more puzzles. Solving more puzzles will help you widen your thinking and solving the right puzzles for you (puzzles which require in depth analysis) might help you improve your chess but it would not help with laziness. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The real question to ask yourself is whether you are too lazy to think and can do it in extreme situations, or you are unable to think through all the situations and assume it is laziness. If it is the latter case, then puzzles will help but if it is the former, then puzzles will not help much. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7537" LastActivityDate="2015-06-05T05:37:35.080" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9432" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9263" CreationDate="2015-06-05T06:01:49.143" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, pieces need to be properly placed. You can either tap the clock back and ask him/her to adjust his/her piece (which is what happens in many local level tournaments). It is generally better to check with the arbiter before the start of the game on what is the rule for handling such a scenario in their tournament since calling the arbiter mid-game can get you penalised. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The official FIDE site says that pieces can be adjusted only in each player's time. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would suggest use your judgement and good sportsmanship sense and not call for the adjust for a small overlap but that is my opinion. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7537" LastActivityDate="2015-06-05T06:01:49.143" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9433" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-06-05T06:58:35.907" Score="0" ViewCount="119" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; I want to improve my chess defensive abilities. &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you have any recommendation, any suggestion, learning technique, study plans would be appreciated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7218" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2015-06-05T14:56:34.807" LastActivityDate="2015-06-05T20:39:34.267" Title="Defensive Skils" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;defense&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2015-06-06T18:56:01.467" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9434" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9263" CreationDate="2015-06-05T10:21:50.520" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;FIDE rules are silent on this subject. In standard chess players would typically say &quot;j'adoube&quot; and adjust the piece accordingly if there was a slight overlap and a player putting a piece half on one square and half on another would either immediately readjust or his opponent would challenge him to put it on the right square.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All of this becomes a bit more fraught at blitz. If the piece is touching a line or marginally over the line then I would suggest you either adjust its position on your time if it disturbs you (you may not touch the pieces during your opponent's turn) or ignore it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it is well over the line, close to half and half then you could on your turn adjust the piece to the square which is better for you but obviously you need to be prepared for reaction from your opponent. A better approach would be to call the arbiter and claim the game on the grounds of an illegal move. e3 and e4 are both legal moves. e3.5 is not. Note, for comparison, that e8=&quot;upside down rook&quot; is an illegal move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: I had this happen to me in a rapid competition a week ago. My opponent played Rb6 - g7+ which was a devastating game changer. Rb6 - g6+ would have been a boring move which wouldn't have changed much. I immediately stopped the clocks, called the arbiter and claimed the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2015-06-28T17:37:28.890" LastActivityDate="2015-06-28T17:37:28.890" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9435" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12398" CreationDate="2015-06-05T10:39:19.523" Score="5" ViewCount="620" Body="&lt;p&gt;The latest ChessCafe.com article - &lt;a href=&quot;https://chesscafe.com/the-skittles-room/on-hiatus/&quot;&gt;https://chesscafe.com/the-skittles-room/on-hiatus/&lt;/a&gt; - has this to say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;We would like to thank those who have supported ChessCafe with a&#xA;  purchase of product and subsequent membership. However, subscriptions&#xA;  have fallen just shy of what is needed to maintain our stable of great&#xA;  columnists. Therefore, we are taking a three-month hiatus from posting&#xA;  new content&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I suspect &quot;just shy&quot; is a euphemism.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does anybody have better information on when / whether ChessCafe.com is going to come back to life?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2015-09-22T11:38:09.887" Title="ChessCafe.com RIP?" Tags="&lt;websites&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9437" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9433" CreationDate="2015-06-05T20:39:34.267" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;A reader of NM Dan Heisman's column Novice Nook asked:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt; What books do you recommend for defense in chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Answer&lt;/strong&gt; It depends on what you mean by defense. &lt;strong&gt;The most important&#xA;defense (see The Most Common and Important Use of Tactics) is just making&#xA;sure your moves are safe.&lt;/strong&gt; So that means any good book covering basic tactics&#xA;are also the best books about defense. They work if you ask &quot;Is my candidate&#xA;move safe?&quot; and look to see if that move would result in a position that gives&#xA;your opponent one of those safety patterns to win material or checkmate you.&#xA;If so, then you likely reject that candidate move, and prevention is the best&#xA;defense.&#xA;If you are talking about advanced defensive ideas then Soltis's book The Art&#xA;of Defense and GM Aagaard's Practical Chess Defence come to mind. &lt;strong&gt;But&#xA;unless your rating is 1900+, the type of defense I mention in my article above&#xA;is way more important.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7500" LastActivityDate="2015-06-05T20:39:34.267" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9438" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-06-06T10:53:08.240" Score="1" ViewCount="1079" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been trying to use Arena to analyze a position, but the engine is not making any moves. I'm using Stockfish, and I click &quot;analyze&quot; to let the engine do the work, however there are no results on the board. What should I do to make it move pawns?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7543" LastActivityDate="2015-11-14T21:01:03.627" Title="How do I make a chess engine make moves in Arena?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;arena&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9440" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1239" CreationDate="2015-06-06T23:40:06.067" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is POSSIBLE to checkmate a lone king with a king and 2 knights but it cannot be FORCED.  There is always an escape square for the lone king.  If the player with the lone king is drunk or reckless he would possibly move his king to the corner square in which case he would be checkmated.  If the player with the king and 2 knights fails to checkmate the lone king within 50 moves then the player with the lone king can claim a draw. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Checkmate with either 1 bishop or 1 knight and a king against a lone king is IMPOSSIBLE.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What CAN be forced is checkmate with a king and a knight and a bishop against a lone king. There is an exact pattern for this though.  Consult a chess book.  My favorite is &quot;Chess for Beginners&quot; by Horowitz....&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7546" LastEditorUserId="2042" LastEditDate="2015-06-07T23:49:22.203" LastActivityDate="2015-06-07T23:49:22.203" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9443" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4353" CreationDate="2015-06-08T16:19:16.307" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I suggest you simply use this command in your Terminal: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;sudo apt-get install stockfish&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7555" LastActivityDate="2015-06-08T16:19:16.307" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9444" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5070" CreationDate="2015-06-08T16:56:46.023" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Mobialia is very good. My only quibble with it is that there are a fixed set of themes without a color chooser. The predefined colors look washed out and blurry on my tablet. Yafi is pretty good, but has the critical annoyance of having to go back to the console for most game management tasks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7556" LastActivityDate="2015-06-08T16:56:46.023" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9445" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-06-08T22:35:07.723" Score="2" ViewCount="10348" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have downloaded Stockfish 6 and also I have ChessBase 13 64-bit.  I have unzipped to Stockfish how do I combine the two so I can use Stockfish?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7558" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T20:45:11.507" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T20:45:11.507" Title="How to use stockfish for ChessBase?" Tags="&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;chessbase&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ClosedDate="2015-10-07T09:39:08.697" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="9446" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-06-09T07:59:37.950" Score="5" ViewCount="2188" Body="&lt;p&gt;The only thing that deters me from playing 1. c4 followed by a Kingside Fianchetto is 1...e5 the Reversed Sicilian (also called the King's English).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I like quiet, positional, strategic and maneuvering games (not wild tactical games with direct attacks on the Kings), but I'm not so sure if 1...e5 will lead to that kind of games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know that any opening can be tactical or positional: some Sicilian Najdorf are very boring, and some Slav Exchange are extremely wild...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I would like to know &lt;strong&gt;on average&lt;/strong&gt; if 1. c4 e5 tends to lead to positions which are closer to being 'quiet, solid, positional, strategic' or closer to being 'sharp, wild, tactical, chaotic'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3237" LastActivityDate="2020-01-05T10:22:04.310" Title="Is the Reversed Sicilian / King's English 1. c4 e5 more of a positional and quiet opening or a wild and tactical opening?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;english-opening&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9447" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9446" CreationDate="2015-06-09T08:55:16.830" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would definitely classify these positions as rather quiet. Black is lacking the tempo to build up an attacking position, like white does in the sicilian:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example in this line the knight usually goes back to b6, something white (i.e. Nb3) would never play against the dragon. And of course d4 is much easier to achieve for white here, than d5 is for black in the sicilian. That'll lead to some exchanges with white banking on his strong g3-bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. c4 e5 2.Nc3 Nf6 3.g3 d5 4.cxd5 Nxd5 5.Bg2 Nb6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course you still have to pick the right subvariations to avoid sharp lines, but that should be an achievable task. If I knew a variation that forces a sharp tactical fight onto white, I would play it with black. But I don't.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-06-09T08:55:16.830" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9448" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12950" CreationDate="2015-06-09T12:48:39.223" Score="4" ViewCount="147" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd like to train a sort of &quot;chess vision&quot;. For a given position, I should find all the figures under attack, something very similar to schach-schlägerei: &lt;a href=&quot;https://itunes.apple.com/de/app/id428235830&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://itunes.apple.com/de/app/id428235830&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately, this application is iOS-only. Suggestions for alternatives are welcome.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7560" LastActivityDate="2015-11-30T09:29:05.163" Title="Software to train attacks-vision" Tags="&lt;software&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9450" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-06-09T21:44:06.570" Score="11" ViewCount="1601" Body="&lt;p&gt;One of my opponents keep playing &lt;code&gt;1. d4 d5 2. c4 e6 3. Nf3 h6!?&lt;/code&gt; against me. Thus avoiding the main lines of the Queen's Gambit Declined that start after the normal &lt;code&gt;3) ..Nf6 4. Bg5 Be7 5. Nc3&lt;/code&gt; etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there any disadvantage of the move &lt;code&gt;3) ..h6&lt;/code&gt; that White may try to exploit? And if &lt;code&gt;3) ..h6&lt;/code&gt; was a playable move for Black then why it is so seldom played?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I had a look at my database and I found a meager 32 games starting with &lt;code&gt;1. d4 d5 2. c4 e6 3. Nf3 h6&lt;/code&gt;, those are played by the lower rated players only. For the part of comparison, the Albin-Counter Gambit I have found are 100x games. Surely there must be a reason why it is so seldom played?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I understand that Black should try to develop the pieces in the opening firstly and &lt;code&gt;3) ..h6&lt;/code&gt; doesn't look so terrible active, but on the other hand, the position is quite closed and after e.g. &lt;code&gt;4. Nc3 Nf6 5. Bf4 (I do not want to shut the Bishop with 5. e3) 5 .. Bd6!?&lt;/code&gt;, now the Black catches up in development and has a very solid position. What would you play instead?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. c4 e6 3. Nf3 h6!?&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3855" LastEditorDisplayName="user10872" LastEditDate="2017-07-02T16:26:21.973" LastActivityDate="2017-07-02T16:26:21.973" Title="What is the disadvantage of the move 3. ..h6 in the Queen's Gambit Declined?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;queens-gambit&gt;&lt;queens-gambit-declined&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9451" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9450" CreationDate="2015-06-10T00:58:45.470" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is no instant refutation to 3...h6?!. Your PV with 5...Bd6 gives white his usual opening advantage, as the &quot;bad&quot; c1-bishop has traded for black's &quot;good&quot; one, so there is no reason to reject that line - 1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 h6 4.Nc3 Nf6 5.Bf4 Bd6 6.Bxd6 Qxd6 +/=. If you are intent on proving ...h6 to be a waste, however, you might try 4.g3, where ...h6 is worthless in the Catalan. But then 4...Bd6 and the c1-bishop is looking cramped in.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for the positional disadvantages of ...h6, it weakens black's kingside and does not develop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, just because a move is not a book move does not mean it is bad. It could be playable, but just inaccurate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7500" LastActivityDate="2015-06-10T00:58:45.470" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9452" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-06-10T05:54:11.183" Score="12" ViewCount="47724" Body="&lt;p&gt;A lot of times my sibling and I have played chess and have ended up with just two kings. We have never known what would happen next. Two kings on the board would somehow result in an infinite game, as each can move forever wheresoever they like Hence, in such situations, is the game cancelled, tied, or withdrawn?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7521" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-02-15T03:14:19.860" LastActivityDate="2021-02-15T03:14:19.860" Title="What happens after two kings stay on the board?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;draw&gt;&lt;kings&gt;&lt;dead-position&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="9453" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9452" CreationDate="2015-06-10T07:06:19.467" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is a draw (tie) because of &quot;insufficient mating material&quot;. The game ends in this state.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The condition also arises when both sides are down to King+Bishop or King+Knight with no pawns on the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3819" LastActivityDate="2015-06-10T07:06:19.467" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9454" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9452" CreationDate="2015-06-10T10:47:33.740" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is covered in FIDE's Laws of Chess 5.2b)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The game is drawn when a position has arisen in which neither player can checkmate the opponent’s king with any series of legal moves. The game is said to end in a ‘dead position’. This immediately ends the game, provided that the move producing the position was in accordance with Article 3 and Articles 4.2 – 4.7.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The term &quot;insufficient mating material&quot; describes this situation informally. However, the term &quot;dead position&quot; also applies to e.g. this kind of position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;8/6k1/8/p2p2p1/P2P2P1/8/1K6/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even with worst opposition, neither side can make any advances here, because the kings cannot cross the line set by the pawns. Therefore, this is an immediate draw by the same rule.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2871" LastActivityDate="2015-06-10T10:47:33.740" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9455" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5689" CreationDate="2015-06-11T07:41:34.830" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I understand you want a book recommendation however having been in said situation before(quiet, positional player myself that loves the french), i chanced upon a chessbase dvd by Nick Pert,the variations he provides are as solid as it gets in the french  link...&lt;a href=&quot;http://shop.chessbase.com/en/products/pert_french_defence_for_the_tournament_player&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://shop.chessbase.com/en/products/pert_french_defence_for_the_tournament_player&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7391" LastActivityDate="2015-06-11T07:41:34.830" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9456" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9450" CreationDate="2015-06-11T10:38:47.250" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I suspect that a good try for white here is to go into Colle-Zukertort system: &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colle_System#Colle.E2.80.93Zukertort_System&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colle_System#Colle.E2.80.93Zukertort_System&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then 3...h6 is not only a tempo loss, but also a unpleasant weakness of the king side.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7560" LastActivityDate="2015-06-11T10:38:47.250" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9458" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-06-11T23:55:26.167" Score="1" ViewCount="695" Body="&lt;p&gt;This happens sometimes when you're playing a person, more often when playing the computer it seems. The lichess Android app for e.g., on the easiest setting, &lt;em&gt;always&lt;/em&gt; follows Nc3 this way (usually following on the first variation below).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nc3 Bb4 3. a3 ( 3... Bxc3 4. bxc3 Nf6 5. Rb1) (3... Ba5 4. b4 Bb6)  &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Every time I see this played I wonder what black is trying to gain here. He either ends exchanging the bishop for my knight (and giving my rook a good open file) or locking his bishop in one corner, neither seems particularly useful.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Am I missing something? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="780" LastActivityDate="2015-06-12T00:37:19.827" Title="What is black trying to accomplish when playing Bb4 after Nc3 in the opening?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9459" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9458" CreationDate="2015-06-12T00:10:33.007" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is indeed a little silly to play ...Bb4 on move 2 here. That said, it often gets played a little later, and the main idea is to pin the knight on c3 (after the d-pawn has moved), so that it no longer protects the pawn on e4, which can now be attacked by a knight on f6, say.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the particular line you gave, by the way, the bishop is doing just fine on b6. You spent time kicking it to a place where it's aiming right at the weak pawn on f2 and beyond to your king on g1 once you castle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2015-06-12T00:10:33.007" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9460" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9458" CreationDate="2015-06-12T00:10:42.760" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is an opening reminiscent of the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruy_Lopez&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Ruy Lopez&lt;/a&gt;. Black has several goals when playing 2... Bb4:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Move the bishop out of the way in order to prepare to castle.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Set up a potential knight-to-king pin, preventing white from advancing the important central d-pawn, which white will usually want to do in order to gain better control of the center.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Attack the knight that is defending the e-pawn—this isn't as immediately productive as it is when played by white, as black has no way to subsequently capture it; however, it's still a threat.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If black does trade the bishop for the knight, recapturing it will ruin white's pawn structure. Recapturing with the b-pawn is a bad idea (allowing 2... Bb4 3. a3 Bxc3 4. bxc3? d5 5. exd5 Qxd5 giving black better control of the center), and hence white is forced to move the important d-pawn aside.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4145" LastEditorUserId="4145" LastEditDate="2015-06-12T00:37:19.827" LastActivityDate="2015-06-12T00:37:19.827" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9461" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-06-12T02:29:17.097" Score="6" ViewCount="706" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would like to know what are all the most frequent transpositions between the two following openings:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Caro-Kann Panov–Botvinnik Attack with 5...e6 6. Nf3 Bb4:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  [StartPly &quot;12&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;  [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;  1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. exd5 cxd5 4. c4 Nf6 5. Nc3 e6 6. Nf3 Bb4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Nimzo-Indian Defence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  [StartPly &quot;6&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;  [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;  1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 Bb4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please try if possible to provide the list of all the transpositions sorted from the most common to the rarest.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: I found two transpositions which seem to be very common ones.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both of these two lines:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 Bb4 4. e3 O-O 5. Bd3 d5 6. Nf3 c5 7. O-O cxd4 8. exd4 dxc4 9. Bxc4&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 Bb4 4. e3 O-O 5. Bd3 d5 6. Nf3 c5 7. O-O dxc4 8. Bxc4 cxd4 9. exd4 &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Transpose into this line:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. exd5 cxd5 4. c4 Nf6 5. Nc3 e6 6. Nf3 Bb4 7. Bd3 dxc4 8. Bxc4 O-O 9. O-O&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But there are maybe more transpositions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3237" LastEditorUserId="3237" LastEditDate="2015-06-14T04:20:05.597" LastActivityDate="2016-04-09T14:24:34.540" Title="What are all the most common transpositions between the Caro-Kann Panov–Botvinnik Attack with 5...e6 6. Nf3 Bb4 and the Nimzo-Indian Defence?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;caro-kann&gt;&lt;transpositions&gt;&lt;nimzo-indian&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9462" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9463" CreationDate="2015-06-12T12:37:13.480" Score="5" ViewCount="359" Body="&lt;p&gt;Upon reviewing a game I played. I started to feel bad about exchanging my attacking bishop for my opponent’s useless one. But I believe that I had no other choices. I want your opinion about what I should have done in this situation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am a 1200 rated player on chess.com&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 f6 3.d4 d6 4.dxe5 dxe5 5.Qxd8+ Kxd8 6.Bc4 Nh6 7.O-O a6 8.a4 Nd7 9.Nc3 c6 10.b4 Bxb4 11.Na2 Bf8 12.Bd2 Nf7 13.Bxf7 Nc5 14.Ba5+ Kd7 15.Rfd1+ Ke7 16.Bb3 Nxe4 17.Rd8 b6 18.Bxb6 Rb8 19.Rad1 Rxb6 20.Rxc8&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the end I won by checkmate because he blundered. What I want to know is how should I handle positions where my opponent is just attacking my attacking pieces. Additionally, please try to find where my weak points are in the game. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3762" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-04-28T18:55:31.120" LastActivityDate="2019-04-28T18:55:31.120" Title="Was this sacrifice a good one?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;middlegame&gt;&lt;sacrifice&gt;&lt;advantage&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="9463" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9462" CreationDate="2015-06-12T15:17:54.647" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Given that you are a piece up with a dominating position, exchanging the bishops isn't a problem at all. Note, that it is just an exchange, not a sacrifice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You could have played 19.Bc7 instead, in that case black has to react 19…Ra8 or he will lose even more material (for example 19…Rb7 20.Rxc8 Kd7 21. Rxf8 with three pieces for a rook, which is a bit much …). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Concerning your weaknesses: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Only 10.b4 strikes me as truly bad, blundering a pawn and misplacing your knight. And 15.Nc3 would have prevented your second pawn blunder. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So you won this game because your opponent blunders pieces whereas you only blunder pawns. Stop blundering pawns and you'll start beating those players that blunder pawns. And then we'll talk about why 2…f6 is a bad move and how to punish it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-06-12T15:17:54.647" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9464" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9471" CreationDate="2015-06-12T15:46:06.880" Score="1" ViewCount="265" Body="&lt;p&gt;Hi i love playing chess and i am software engineer.I want to create a chess web application for the sake of learning , so i need one chess engine,UI and one protocol as far as my knowledge.&lt;br&gt;For chess engine i have chosen Stockfish, but i am not sure for UI and protocol.The below are my questions&lt;br&gt;1.Already we are having quite protocols like ws(websocket) or XMPP why can't we use them as protocol?&lt;br&gt;2.For UI why can't we use simple html to design the page and we will use the images for corresponding pieces?&lt;br&gt;If this question is wrong in this forum please spare me.&lt;br&gt;Provide me any resources related to this topic &lt;br&gt;Thanks &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2509" LastActivityDate="2015-06-13T08:11:34.227" Title="getting started to develop entire chess application" Tags="&lt;stockfish&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9465" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1377" CreationDate="2015-06-12T15:49:23.943" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;It seems that &lt;a href=&quot;https://rankade.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;rankade&lt;/a&gt;, our ranking system for sports, games, and more, fits your needs. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's free to use and it's designed to manage &lt;strong&gt;rankings&lt;/strong&gt; (and &lt;strong&gt;stats&lt;/strong&gt;, including matchup stats, and more) for small to large groups of players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Rankade doesn't use &lt;strong&gt;Elo&lt;/strong&gt;, but its algorithm (called &lt;em&gt;ree&lt;/em&gt; algorithm), although more complex (here's a &lt;a href=&quot;https://rankade.com/ree#ranking-system-comparison&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;comparison&lt;/a&gt; between most known rating system, including &lt;em&gt;Elo&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;Glicko&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;TrueSkill&lt;/em&gt;), is similar to Elo if you play 1-on-1 matches only.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7575" LastEditorUserId="7575" LastEditDate="2016-05-17T18:31:42.543" LastActivityDate="2016-05-17T18:31:42.543" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9466" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9487" CreationDate="2015-06-12T16:45:22.837" Score="4" ViewCount="2394" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm a beginner and I really like openings that end up in a fianchetto, I mostly like playing on Black side because of Sicilian Dragon and King's Indian Defence. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On White I play London System and King's Indian Attack.(For which I don't like London system that much.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I have 2 questions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.- Is there a list of openings where a fianchetto is involved for both black and white openings? And which are most effective?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.- I like to think of myself as a positional player, what are the most popular white openings that have this kind of &quot;passive&quot; play?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7576" LastActivityDate="2015-06-18T12:49:47.563" Title="Openings that fianchetto on the king side" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;fianchetto&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9468" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-06-12T17:57:25.153" Score="1" ViewCount="290" Body="&lt;p&gt;Do you have to tell someone that they set them selves up for a check mate? For example if the queen is guarding the king on both ends and one person moves there queen to the left. Does the opposite person have to tell the opponent that they set them selves up?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7578" LastEditorUserId="18475" LastEditDate="2019-03-08T14:50:37.703" LastActivityDate="2019-03-11T09:22:15.063" Title="Acknowledging a check mate" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;checkmate&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9469" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9468" CreationDate="2015-06-12T19:52:46.380" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;If your question is &quot;Do I have to tell my opponent that he just made a move from where checkmate is forced?&quot;, the answer is &quot;No&quot;, you don't have to tell your opponent he is setting himself up for checkmate. In fact, that is rather the point of the game!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only times you &lt;em&gt;have&lt;/em&gt; to tell anything to your opponent is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When offering a draw&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When you want to adjust a piece.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If your question is &quot;Do I have to tell my opponent that he is in checkmate?&quot;, the answer is still &lt;em&gt;technically&lt;/em&gt; &quot;No&quot;. Even the customary &quot;Check&quot; and &quot;Checkmate&quot; are optional. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Practically, if your opponent does not grasp that he is in checkmate it may be useful to point that out to him one way or another, and the traditional &quot;Checkmate!&quot; should do the trick.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1816" LastEditorUserId="1816" LastEditDate="2015-06-12T20:05:07.513" LastActivityDate="2015-06-12T20:05:07.513" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9470" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9473" CreationDate="2015-06-13T00:33:57.083" Score="3" ViewCount="2279" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure if this is the right place to put this question, but it requires a fair amount of chess background so I decided to post it here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Square notation describes moves by simply noting the square the piece moved from to the square the piece moved to. For example, e4 is e2-e4 and Nf3 is g1-f3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Algebraic notation is far more common and is well-handled by most chess libraries.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does anyone have any background working with the conversion between the two?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1382" LastActivityDate="2015-06-13T12:31:15.507" Title="Converting square notation to algebraic notation programmatically" Tags="&lt;notation&gt;&lt;programming&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9471" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9464" CreationDate="2015-06-13T08:11:34.227" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;When you want to write a chess application such as playing against a chess engine, you'll definitely need to learn the UCI protocol. You won't go anywhere unless you master it. Stockfish, Houdini, Komodo and a dozen of other chess engines use it. Please google &quot;UCI chess protocol&quot; for more details.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;This is probably out of scope. Anyway, there is no reason why you can't use an XML format. You might want to look up ajax, because this is how most of the web sites use to create an asynchronous behaviour.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;It's not a good idea to use a simple HTML page, because you'll force the user to reload the entire page everytime you want to update the board. You'll need something asynchronous, such as an ajax call.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please check and talk with lichess. They have a chat channel that you can use to talk with the programmers. Those guys know everything.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2015-06-13T08:11:34.227" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9473" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9470" CreationDate="2015-06-13T12:25:44.260" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;To do what you want, you'll need a move validator. To make things clear, let's take a look at the Stockfish iOS chess playing app. The app uses the Stockfish chess engine. The outputs from the engine would be something like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;e2e4 e7e5 ...&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But that's not what we want to see. We'd need to convert the outputs to something like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1. e4 e5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How do we do it? The open-source Stockfish app has a function called move_to_san defined. Please download the full source code from the Stockfish web site. Here, we'll briefly go through the implementation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;const std::string move_to_san(Position &amp;amp;pos, Move m)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is the header of the function. It takes a position object and a move. That's why I asked you whether you have a move validator implemented. You'll need a validator for this position object as we will see.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;from = move_from(m);&#xA;to = move_to(m);&#xA;pc = pos.piece_on(move_from(m));&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here, we grab the source and destination square. We also need the moving piece.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;else if(move_is_long_castle(m)&#xA;      || (int(to - from) == -2 &amp;amp;&amp;amp; type_of_piece(pc) == KING))&#xA;    str = &quot;O-O-O&quot;;&#xA;else if(move_is_short_castle(m)&#xA;      || (int(to - from) == 2 &amp;amp;&amp;amp; type_of_piece(pc) == KING))&#xA;str = &quot;O-O&quot;;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Next, we check if the move is a castle move. Note that it's a good idea to store the move as &quot;e1 to h1&quot;. This is not what we normally expect, we always do move the e1 king to the g1 square then the h1 rook to the f1 square. The conditions in the code take care of that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;str = &quot;&quot;;&#xA;&#xA;if(type_of_piece(pc) == PAWN) {&#xA;  if(pos.move_is_capture(m))&#xA;    str += file_to_char(square_file(move_from(m)));&#xA;}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is starting to get interesting. We build an empty buffer. Once we've done it, we'd need to ask if this is a pawn move. If it's a pawn move, convert it to an ASCI character. If our move is e2e4, the buffer would have been &quot;e&quot; by now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  str += piece_type_to_char(type_of_piece(pc), true);&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If this is not a pawn move, we convert the piece to a character. This can be done by a dictionary if you prefer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;if(pos.move_is_capture(m))&#xA;  str += &quot;x&quot;;&#xA;&#xA;str += square_to_string(move_to(m));&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Next, if it's a capture, we add an &quot;x&quot; to it. Then, we'll need to add the destination square.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;if(move_promotion(m)) {&#xA;  str += &quot;=&quot;;&#xA;  str += piece_type_to_char(move_promotion(m), true);&#xA;}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Promotion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;pos.do_move(m, u);&#xA;if(pos.is_check())&#xA;    str += pos.is_mate()? &quot;#&quot; : &quot;+&quot;;&#xA;pos.undo_move(m, u);&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this a check?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What have we learnt so far?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;We need an &lt;strong&gt;internal board&lt;/strong&gt; representation. For example, the code &lt;strong&gt;pos.do_move(m, u)&lt;/strong&gt; needs a mechanism to save the board. You can implement a bitboard, a mailbox or an object-oriented design.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;We need a way to tell where the move comes from, where it goes to etc. This can be done by simple logical operations.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please download the Stockfish iOS source code. Study the code. You can post a new question if you're not sure what to do with the code and I'll help you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Everything here is in C++. You might need to port the code to Ruby.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2015-06-13T12:31:15.507" LastActivityDate="2015-06-13T12:31:15.507" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9474" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9466" CreationDate="2015-06-13T13:23:16.397" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;A kingside fianchetto is basically always an option. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can start to  build one with your very first move:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;For black that would lead to the Modern Defence: 1…g6&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;With white this is sometimes called the Benko(-Larsen)-Opening: 1.g3&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also develop your kingside knight first (with black after 1.d4), which prevents e4/e5 and may lead to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The Reti: 1.Nf3 d5 2.c4 and a fianchetto to follow.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The King's Indian or the Grunfeld: 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 d5/Bg7&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With white you have additional options of kingside fianchettos, like the English with g3, 1.c4 e5 2.Nc3 Nf6 3.g3 or the Catalan 1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.g3. or to just fianchetto your bishop &lt;em&gt;against&lt;/em&gt; the King's Indian or Grunfeld.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Generally, white prefers to fianchetto the bishop after 1.d4/c4, because after 1.e4 it would be blocked by the e4-pawn. The King's Indian Attack is the exception, and for what it's worth, it isn't often seen in top level chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You are right that the kingside fianchetto is generally a very safe way to play with white (but not a passive one!). But the opposite is true for the black side! The Modern, the King's Indian, the Grunfeld and especially the Dragon are all regarded as very sharp and tactical openings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-06-13T13:23:16.397" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9476" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9461" CreationDate="2015-06-13T18:09:15.450" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are indeed a couple of transpositions from the Nimzo-Indian to the Panov variation of the Caro-Kann and they occur sometimes in practical games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Using a database of chess games, they can be filtered by searching simultaneously on:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The position after 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Bb4&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;B10-B19&quot;, i.e. the ECO-code of the Caro-Kann.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After finding the games where an actual transposition occured, they can be put in a tree-like structure to count the transpositions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Using ChessBase Mega Database 2015, 91 games are found, for which both players have a FIDE rating of 2200 or more. Then, the found games were put in a ChessBase tree-file (.ctg).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The most common transpositions found this way are: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;4.e3 0-0 5.Bd3 c5 6.Nf3 d5 7.0-0 cxd4 8.exd4&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;4.e3 0-0 5.Bd3 d5 6.Nf3 c5 (see 1)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;4.e3 c5 5.Nf3 0-0 6.Bd3 (see 1)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;4.e3 c5 5.Bd3 0-0 (see 1)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4588" LastEditorUserId="4588" LastEditDate="2015-06-14T08:53:21.543" LastActivityDate="2015-06-14T08:53:21.543" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9478" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-06-14T03:11:40.030" Score="3" ViewCount="3367" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just download the arena chess program which is a chess playing GUI.  Frankly, I'm kind of lost.  I am trying to play chess games with the engines that come with it.  How can I set it so that the computer has a time limit for moves, but I don't?  It seems to default to &quot;tournament&quot; play mode.  I've tried just setting the time limit high, but then the software also takes a long time to move, which I don't want.  I would assume that many people would want to do this, but I cannot find the answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7592" LastActivityDate="2015-10-02T08:32:27.903" Title="Arena Question - How Do I Set it So Arena Has a Time Limit But I Don't?" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;arena&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9479" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9480" CreationDate="2015-06-14T05:14:56.713" Score="6" ViewCount="1767" Body="&lt;p&gt;The upcoming Norway chess tournament will implement something called a confession box. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/news/grand-chess-tour-kicks-off-monday-with-norway-chess-7194&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chess.com/news/grand-chess-tour-kicks-off-monday-with-norway-chess-7194&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What's that really? What is that supposed to do? What's the point of it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="307" LastEditDate="2015-06-14T16:15:24.737" LastActivityDate="2015-06-14T18:32:56.487" Title="What's a Confession Box?" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;carlsen&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9480" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9479" CreationDate="2015-06-14T06:55:59.860" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Apparently, it is supposed to make the live broadcasts more entertaining.&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Up until now, the live broadcasts (e.g. on chess24), although increasingly popular, only featured a video of the players, chessboards with constantly updating moves and engine evaluations, as well as live commentary from GMs/IMs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as I understood, the players will be allowed (and encouraged) to, during the games, go into the &quot;box&quot; and speak about their games - so the live audience and commentators (but not their opponents) can hear their thoughts and considerations about the games, what their plans are, which moves they looked into etc.. A &quot;Big Brother&quot; sort of thing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Apparently, it has already been used in EnterCard Chess Qualifier, the qualification tournament for Norway Chess 2015: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/news/hammer-qualifies-for-norway-chess-6703&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chess.com/news/hammer-qualifies-for-norway-chess-6703&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Right after the game Hammer went to the “confession box,” a room next to the playing hall where the players were encouraged to give some thoughts about their ongoing game. Co-organizer and webmaster Tarjei J. Svensen explained:&#xA;  “They could do this whenever they wanted and it was a completely voluntary thing, but all the players had used the opportunity to do it, sometimes even more than once per game. The idea was suggested by Team Carlsen for TV2. It has been rather well received by the players and the viewers.”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3831" LastEditorUserId="4588" LastEditDate="2015-06-14T18:32:56.487" LastActivityDate="2015-06-14T18:32:56.487" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9481" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8836" CreationDate="2015-06-14T09:35:03.210" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the answer is the French Defence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A quote of Carlsen can be found here: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/1do05q/annotated_chess_game_in_french_defence_by_carlsen/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/1do05q/annotated_chess_game_in_french_defence_by_carlsen/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I copied the quote: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The French Defence. In my younger years I used to consider it at best a second-rate opening, and I once even lost a bet with one of my friends, and as a result had to play 1... e6 in all my games with Black in a Super-GM tournament. Fortunately my friend was greedy, and took money instead. I believe that both 1...c5 and 1...e5! are better choices, but since I desperately wanted to win this game (I was trailing the leaders Kramnik and Shirov by 1 point at this stage) I decided to try something new.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Carlsen wrote this quote in his comments of the game Karjakin-Carlsen, Wijk Aan Zee 2010. See annotations of the game Ivanchuk-Carlsen in following report: &#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessvibes.com/?q=reports/masters-final-r5-leader-ivanchuk-loses-to-carlsen-nakamura-beats-vallejo&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.chessvibes.com/?q=reports/masters-final-r5-leader-ivanchuk-loses-to-carlsen-nakamura-beats-vallejo&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4588" LastEditorUserId="4588" LastEditDate="2015-06-14T09:42:18.093" LastActivityDate="2015-06-14T09:42:18.093" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9482" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9486" CreationDate="2015-06-14T09:40:47.470" Score="4" ViewCount="714" Body="&lt;p&gt;Hi and thanks in advance for any help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically, I've been playing chess on and off for a long time, but only casually. Im not a beginner as such, but I only play against friends and occasional online games and never really studied chess seriously. According to Shredder im around 1200-1300 rating so nothing special.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've never really studied openings seriously, and I've got to the stage where I'd like to try and learn a little more seriously to improve my game. The problem I have is, whilst I can play reasonably against the very common openings, I've really no idea how to play against more unusual openings. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a rough idea of my play at the moment, I generally play Giuoco Piano, Evans Gambit, Scotch etc type games as white, almost always 1 e4 games. As black I play the same against 1 e4 or I try and play a KID type game against 1 d4 but again when my opponent plays other types of openings I'm pretty much guessing how to respond.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can anyone suggest how I might go about getting better at openings. Should I choose a handful of particular openings and try to find out more, or should I try and learn more about opening theory in general? Any recommended books or websites you can recommend? Any tips from when you were in my position and wanted to become better with openings?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks! :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7594" LastActivityDate="2015-06-20T03:56:03.850" Title="Help for beginning player to start learning openings" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;beginner&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9483" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9482" CreationDate="2015-06-14T18:17:11.090" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The real question is not &quot;which&quot; openings you should study, but &quot;how&quot; you should study the openings. As such, there are several options available to you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;You can try and view the Openings Explorer that comes built in, in all reputable chess engines (chessmaster, fritz etc). This will help you cram up the lines, but I don't think you will get the idea of &quot;why&quot; these lines are declared as standard by the masters.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;You can set up a board with the opening you want to learn playing against. Now instead of sitting on your side, rotate the board and see things from your opponent's point of view. See what you can do if you had this position. What would be your strategy? What are your strengths and weaknesses? Only after you get the first hand experience of an opening, you would be able to counter it properly.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my opinion, if you have never faced a Ponziani (also known as English Knights Game 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.c3 ) as black, it can quickly turn into your worst nightmare. Grandmasters rarely (if ever) play that opening as it puts white's piece activity at a slow speed, but it's one of the most dreadful weapons in white's hands, if it's black's first time facing it. It comes with a whole plethora of surprise attacks, poisoned pawns and tactical opportunities. I suggest you learn this opening (as white). I have devastated many better rated players within the first 15 moves with this opening. Very strongly recommended. However if black has an in-depth understanding of all Ponziani lines, then you will end up either one pawn down or lacking development by move 10. So it's sort of a gamble. Keep that in mind.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7596" LastActivityDate="2015-06-14T18:17:11.090" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9484" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9462" CreationDate="2015-06-14T18:52:10.827" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;18... Rb8 19.Bc7&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He cannot continue with 19... Rb7 (you will simply capture his bishop for free).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now if you play 20.Rad1 and follow with 21.R1d7+, he will be forced to capture your rook with his light bishop (otherwise you are going to soon capture both his queenside pawns for free), you would reply by taking his rook with your d8 rook and then destroy his two queen-side pawns. Your victory is then guaranteed!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7596" LastActivityDate="2015-06-14T18:52:10.827" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9485" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9488" CreationDate="2015-06-14T19:29:55.490" Score="9" ViewCount="3839" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can anyone provide lists of seconds of famous players? They can contain the names of people that work/worked with top players for a long period or for a particular match/tournament. Besides the names of the seconds, I'm also curious about the typical strength of seconds and whether there are seconds that worked for different top players.&#xA;Thanks in advance!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4588" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-01-20T15:03:02.477" LastActivityDate="2021-03-07T18:11:04.627" Title="Who are the seconds of famous players?" Tags="&lt;history&gt;&lt;famous-players&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9486" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9482" CreationDate="2015-06-14T20:15:42.990" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's important to know the main openings and their &lt;em&gt;ideas&lt;/em&gt;, but there are some don'ts here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Don't study obscure or excessive lines under the impression that not knowing these rare lines will result in poor play (it doesn't).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Don't study opening &lt;em&gt;moves&lt;/em&gt; without understanding &lt;em&gt;the ideas behind the moves&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Don't fall into the trap of learning hundreds of opening lines in order to gain an advantage of 0.2 pawns, only to drop a piece to a simple tactic in the middlegame. One of the best coaches in the world for beginners, National Master Dan Heisman, said:&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;It does not matter who gets the advantage out of the opening if one of the players is likely to lose a piece to a simple tactic in the middlegame. Losing a piece from an advantageous position will almost always result in a lost position. &lt;strong&gt;So study tactics, not openings, until you almost never lose pieces to simple tactical motifs.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7500" LastActivityDate="2015-06-14T20:15:42.990" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9487" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9466" CreationDate="2015-06-14T22:36:21.197" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Beside very famous openings such as kings indian or dragon ... there is also a less known opening, Leningrad-Dutch (for black), which uses fianchentto king side bishop. For white in addition to what you mentioned very famous closed sicilian opening also goes for fianchentto kingside bishop. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way IMHO, openings with fianchentto bishops (particularly for black side) in many cases are quite sharp (such as kings indian, dragon) and not passive at all, if you are positional player and you want to avoid a race condition and many tactical patterns, it's maybe better to avoid it and play more relaxed openings. e.g in dragon or kings indian slowing down the race and sometimes even defending against opponent attack may result to a lost.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S: it's  clear that almost every opening that we can play with black we could also play it with white just a move ahead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="269" LastActivityDate="2015-06-14T22:36:21.197" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9488" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9485" CreationDate="2015-06-15T08:04:52.093" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just to get started, of the top of my head:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Magnus Calsen worked with Jon Ludvig Hammer,  Laurent Fressinet, Ian Nepomniachi, Peter Heine Nielsen, Michael Adams, Simen Agdestein, Garri Kasparov. He also had training sessions with Ding Liren and Wesley So. &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/16010/seconds-of-magnus-carlsen/16020&quot;&gt;Also, this were his seconds for WCC 2016.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Vishy Anand worked with Peter Heine Nielsen, Rustam Kasimdzhanov,Radoslaw  Wojtaszek, Grzegorz Gazewski, Krishnan Sasikiran, Peter Leko, Surya Ganguly and Sandipan Chanda. He also had at least one training session with Magnus Carlsen.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Kramnik worked with Peter Svidler, Miguel Illescas, Evgeny Bareev, Peter Leko, Sergey Rublevsky, Alexander Motylev, Efimenko.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Veselin Topalov worked with Cheparinov, Paco Vallejo, Dominguez Perez, Romain Edouard.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you can see the rating of these seconds is generally in the 2650-2750 range. (A notable exception would be Kris Littlejohn, a 2100 player who used to assist Hikaru Nakamura). It is quite common for seconds to work for different top players, at different points in time. (Leko, Motylev, Nielsen, Kasimdzanov … from the list above.)&#xA;As for the strength of a second, they are typically very strong theoreticians. And often a new second is hired because he is a specialist in a particular opening.This is the main reason why his name might be kept a secret. For example Dominguez is an expert in the Grunfeld and the Najdorf. Michael Adams was clearly hired because of his expertise in the Berlin Defence. Gajewsky introduced a strong counter gambit in a line of the Ruy Lopez …&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastEditorUserId="10601" LastEditDate="2017-12-13T17:26:36.927" LastActivityDate="2017-12-13T17:26:36.927" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9489" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9485" CreationDate="2015-06-15T08:34:37.643" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Surprised this doesn't exist somewhere. A few:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'51 WC: Ragozin and Flohr for Botvinnik, and Alexander Konstantinopolsky for Bronstein.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'72 WC: Lombardy for Fischer, Geller, Krogius and Nei for Spassky&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'13/'14 WC's: Carlsen has rotated many people through the position, Hammer seems to be a constant, also had Fressinet and Adams in the '14 match. Anand  used Sasikiran, Wojtaszek and Gajewski in '14 match, Leko and Chandra '13.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;WC match narratives often seem to mention seconds, but no time to dive them all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also surprised how often they were unknowns--GMs, but not top-50 types. I guess you don't want to give away your prep to someone you're genuinely worried about facing in the future.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7514" LastActivityDate="2015-06-15T08:34:37.643" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9490" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5112" CreationDate="2015-06-15T09:28:30.857" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Kamsky has drawn with a reverse Leningrad a few times (g3/Bg2/f4/Nf3/O-O)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Topalov drew a Cochrane against Kramnik.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But Nakamura's really the person I think of for odd openings. He's played e4/Qh5 a few times, a Zukertort, some King's Gambits, some Vienna Gambits, some Hungarian. Trompowsky, Alekhine's, Grand Prix Sicilian—not entirely dubious, but a least unusual.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And, while nowhere near the strength constraint of your question, Sam Sloan is infamous for his love of Damiano's.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7514" LastActivityDate="2015-06-15T09:28:30.857" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9491" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4695" CreationDate="2015-06-15T11:55:37.523" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I wrote this software. It contains webcam AI for move recognition, connected to Arena GUI.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APkoE1UDKj0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APkoE1UDKj0&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7598" LastActivityDate="2015-06-15T11:55:37.523" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9492" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9256" CreationDate="2015-06-16T07:24:34.843" Score="-4" Body="&lt;p&gt;No. It's the opposite. The QUICKER games improve your chess skills. It's somewhat like the principle &quot;if you are going for a 300 meter race, train like you are going for three times 100 meters sprints&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In quick games you will initially make a lot of mistakes. You will get frustrated, commit blunders, miss tactics etc. The quick realization that you made a mistake will be ingrained in your  memory and next time you will immediately recall what you did last time in similar position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I play on chess.com and the titled players the longest games titled players play there are 3 mins matches. It enhances your thinking and decision making potential so that you can assess the situation more deeply when you get longer time controls.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7596" LastActivityDate="2015-06-16T07:24:34.843" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9493" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8817" CreationDate="2015-06-16T09:02:43.643" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Probably you are looking for a game where both players attack the king castled on opposite sides. This is not the case in following game, but it does feature mate attacks from both sides and it is decided by one tempo. With 35....Be4 black threatens mate, but instead he gets mated himself with a nice tactic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Tata Steel (Group B)&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Wijk aan Zee NED&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2015.01.18&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;2015.01.10&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;8&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;David Navara&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Bart Michiels&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;C06&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;2729&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;2563&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;75&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Nd2 Nf6 4. e5 Nfd7 5. Bd3 c5 6. c3 Nc6&#xA;7. Ne2 cxd4 8. cxd4 f6 9. exf6 Nxf6 10. O-O Bd6 11. Nf3 Qc7&#xA;12. h3 O-O 13. Be3 Bd7 14. Re1 Be8 15. Ng5 Bf7 16. Rc1 Kh8&#xA;17. a3 Bg8 18. b4 a6 19. g3 h6 20. Nf4 Bxf4 21. Bxf4 Qd7&#xA;22. Nf3 Bh7 23. b5 axb5 24. Bxb5 Qe7 25. Bxc6 bxc6 26. Rxc6&#xA;Ne4 27. Re3 Ra7 28. Rb3 Qf6 29. Qc1 Qf5 30. Rc8 Ra8 31. Rc7&#xA;Qxh3 32. Rbb7 Ng5 33. Nxg5 hxg5 34. Rxg7 gxf4 35. Qc7 Be4&#xA;36. Rg8+ Rxg8 37. Qe5+ Rg7 38. Qxg7+ 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4588" LastActivityDate="2015-06-16T09:02:43.643" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9494" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-06-16T14:00:37.457" Score="2" ViewCount="49" Body="&lt;p&gt;They have many of top 10 players of the world, two teams of commentators on two different continents, but it seems impossible to (easily) find the archived broadcast on any official websites...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="618" LastActivityDate="2015-06-16T14:48:44.183" Title="Is there an archived video with commentary of Norway 2015 blitz tournament available on the official or other websites?" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9495" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9494" CreationDate="2015-06-16T14:48:44.183" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Blitz video now seems available at &lt;a href=&quot;http://livestream.com/chess24/norwaychess2015&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://livestream.com/chess24/norwaychess2015&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="618" LastActivityDate="2015-06-16T14:48:44.183" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9496" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-06-16T18:19:48.787" Score="3" ViewCount="3074" Body="&lt;p&gt;I’m 15 years old, and my FIDE rating is 1674. I’ve been playing chess since I was one and half years old. If I train, say, something like 15 hours a day and play in 20 tournaments, is it possbile for me to become a 2100+ rated player in 2 years?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7607" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-11-16T01:23:38.870" LastActivityDate="2019-11-16T01:23:38.870" Title="Can I become a 2100+ rated player in 2 years if I train for 15 hours a day?" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;training&gt;&lt;elo&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="9497" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9496" CreationDate="2015-06-16T19:01:09.263" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;To predict someone's progress is very difficult. It depends on so many things: &quot;chess talent&quot;, how you practice and train, opportunities to play tournaments (not too weak, not too strong), etc...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A couple of years ago, the author of following blog tried to become a grandmaster: &lt;a href=&quot;http://roadtograndmaster.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://roadtograndmaster.com/&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://roadtograndmaster.com/?p=11&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://roadtograndmaster.com/?p=11&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe this blog can give you some information, ideas and tips. Of course, your situation is different, for instance, you are 10 years younger than the author of the blog.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4588" LastEditorUserId="4588" LastEditDate="2015-06-16T19:08:00.373" LastActivityDate="2015-06-16T19:08:00.373" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9498" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6385" CreationDate="2015-06-17T06:47:57.103" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you want an aggressive opening which constantly attacks at the white king I would recommend Latvian Gambit. p.s. In the Scandinavian it is not necessary to capture on d5 with the queen; you can play the Icelandic Gambit and many other cool gambits after 1.e4 d5 2.exd5 Nf6?! which leads to many interesting lines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7611" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2015-06-17T20:28:24.360" LastActivityDate="2015-06-17T20:28:24.360" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9499" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-06-17T09:36:03.007" Score="0" ViewCount="349" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to give check to black and is it necessary to say check to other player? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2903" LastActivityDate="2015-06-17T09:44:14.087" Title="Need to say check if we are giving" Tags="&lt;check&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2015-06-17T12:39:21.207" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9500" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9499" CreationDate="2015-06-17T09:44:14.087" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, it's not necessary. If the opponent doesn't notice it, it's their fault. Reasoning behind this is (probably) what happens if your opponent is not at the board when you make the move? You don't have to sit and wait for them (and stay away from the toilet...) just in order to inform them that you have just checked the king - which is something that any player should notice themselves anyway.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the opponent doesn't notice and makes a move that doesn't prevent the check, there are procedures to correct this (and you should generally involve the arbiter in these).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2871" LastActivityDate="2015-06-17T09:44:14.087" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9501" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9478" CreationDate="2015-06-17T17:38:07.917" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I could not find that feature in Arena 3.0.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For 3.0, your only option seems to let the engine play in infinite mode, and you take your time to respond.  Once you have given it enought time to think, you can force the engine to move by hitting the space bar, or the &quot;force move&quot; icon on the top menu of the GUI.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7242" LastActivityDate="2015-06-17T17:38:07.917" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9502" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9438" CreationDate="2015-06-17T17:48:03.623" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Arena 3.0, the &quot;analyze&quot; button does not make moves, it just tells the engine to analyze. (it should present you the analysis in the GUI itself).  if you press the &quot;edit&quot; button the engine will responde to your move.  the third relevant button is the &quot;demo&quot;: it will tell the engine to play both sides until the end of the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7242" LastActivityDate="2015-06-17T17:48:03.623" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9503" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-06-17T18:03:14.373" Score="2" ViewCount="1047" Body="&lt;p&gt;I need some players who play at the ICCF (International Correspondence Chess Federation) to answer this question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What would approximately be the ICCF Elo rating of the two following players?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Player A is a Grandmaster with an OTB rating of 2500 Elo FIDE. He will not use any engine, nor will he use any opening database, nor will he use any opening book, nor will he use any endgame tablebase, nor will he use any form of outside assistance. He will play using only his brain. He will use on average about 5 minutes per move, which also happens to be the average time per move of humans in OTB chess at classical time control. Player A is 100% human.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Player B is in reality a patzer, with an OTB rating of 1200 Elo FIDE. For the opening he will use an opening database and in each position he will just pick one of the popular moves which score well. For the rest of the game, he will use one (and only one) of the top 3 best engines: Komodo 9, Stockfish 6 or Houdini 4 (64-bit version). His engine will have 7-men endgame tablebases. At each position he will let his engine run for one hour (using 4 CPUs) and then he will blindly pick his engine’s first suggestion. He will not offer draws or accept draws early, he will continue his games until it is very clear that the position is a draw. He won’t resign early either, he will wait until he gets checkmated. Player B is 100% computer.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that I only need an approximation. But still, try to make your approximation as accurate as possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3237" LastActivityDate="2015-09-29T10:59:14.333" Title="What would approximately be the ICCF rating of a GM with no external help and of a computer with no human judgment?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;rating&gt;&lt;elo&gt;&lt;correspondence-chess&gt;&lt;computer-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="7" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9504" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="132" CreationDate="2015-06-17T18:10:17.143" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;1.Nh3 and 1.Na3 (Ammonia attack, Sodium attack) are REALLY bad. It breaks the &quot;move one piece one time&quot; rule, and 1.Nh3 blocks h3, a good move to prevent back-rank mate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7615" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2018-12-28T10:54:23.633" LastActivityDate="2018-12-28T10:54:23.633" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="9505" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="132" CreationDate="2015-06-17T19:22:36.760" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;The worst move is 1. resigns. It goes from equal to lost in one move, much worse than moves like 1. f3 which go from equal to slightly worse.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7500" LastActivityDate="2015-06-17T19:22:36.760" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9506" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6385" CreationDate="2015-06-17T19:26:33.710" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Alekhine's Defense (1. e4 Nf6) is a very agressive way to play for the win. It's not uncommon to see a line that draws less than 5-10% of the time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7500" LastActivityDate="2015-06-17T19:26:33.710" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9507" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9186" CreationDate="2015-06-17T19:48:48.467" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;At this point, it's very hard to keep the game quiet. You have two choices: keep the center closed (then a flank attack will be justified and advantageous), or open things up. The good news is that if you open up the position according to modern theory, or at least play accurately, you will be objectively better, and White's flank attack will be turned into a weakness.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7500" LastActivityDate="2015-06-17T19:48:48.467" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9508" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9336" CreationDate="2015-06-17T21:15:49.827" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Consider a game in which each move must be made within 8 ns of real time. Two identical engines will play, sharing a single core. With pondering disabled, engine A gets 8 ns of CPU time and makes a move, engine B gets 8 ns of CPU time and makes a move, etc. Each move is the result of 8 ns of computation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With pondering enabled, on the very first move engine A has only had access to the CPU for 4 ns before 8 ns of real time expires. During this time, engine B has had 4 ns of pondering. When engine A makes its move, engine B realizes that most of its pondering was based on an incorrect guess of the move that engine A would make. Suppose that only 25% of engine B's pondering was applicable. Of the 4 ns that engine B spent pondering, only 1 ns was actually useful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now it's engine B's turn. Like engine A, engine B only gets access to the CPU for 4 ns before 8 ns of real time expires. Counting the 1 ns of useful pondering, engine B has applied 5 ns of CPU time to its move. During this time engine A has had 4 ns of pondering, but again, only 25% (1 ns) is useful. On engine A's next turn it will also have applied 5 ns of CPU time to its move. With pondering, each move is the result of 5 ns of computation, except for the very first move, which is the result of only 4 ns of computation. You will get a better game (both engines performing more calculations per move) if you disable pondering.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the engines are &lt;em&gt;different&lt;/em&gt; the results will depend on engine implementation. In the extreme case, imagine that engine A can compute the absolutely best move with exactly 8 ns of computation, but after 4 ns it has only a wild guess. Engine B's performance scales much smoother with the amount of time it has to think. In this silly example, with pondering disabled engine A will win every game, but with pondering enabled engine B will win every game. I suspect that in real life, between two real engines, pondering will decrease the quality of the game fairly evenly, without giving either engine an advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the per-move time restriction is replaced with a total time restriction I &lt;em&gt;think&lt;/em&gt; the results would be similar, except that the way in which engines decide how much time to commit to a move would have a greater effect. That is, I think that pondering would amplify the importance of deciding whether a move requires additional thinking time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Taking all that together: if you want a battle between engines performing at their peak but you only have one core, disable pondering.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7616" LastActivityDate="2015-06-17T21:15:49.827" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9509" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9336" CreationDate="2015-06-17T21:25:58.210" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;A simpler way to think about it might be to consider the engine's &quot;strength&quot; as a percentage of its maximum strength. Without pondering, each engine plays at 100% strength. With pondering, each engine plays at 100% strength during its turn &lt;strong&gt;and&lt;/strong&gt; 25% strength during the other player's turn (assuming 25% accuracy in pondering guesses), but each turn is half as long (because only half the CPU time is available). So with pondering, the overall engine strength is only 62.5% of its maximum.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7616" LastActivityDate="2015-06-17T21:25:58.210" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9510" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9496" CreationDate="2015-06-17T21:59:12.777" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Yes, it is possible.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, you will see from the comments that no one thinks you should bother trying. Why do you think that is? What does your FIDE Candidate Master rating get you? Clearly, everyone should have hobbies and goals, but they should be realistic and well balanced. If you spent all your time playing chess instead of going to school, you will have a great chess rating, but be virtually unemployable. There is little money in the chess industry, either from tournaments or from tutoring.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;I stand behind your goal of attaining a Master rating, as probably most users do.&lt;/strong&gt; Just don't sacrifice your social life, your education, or your health to make it happen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.convekta.com/softscho/l1/lesson_3.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;a great article on chess progress&lt;/a&gt;. The higher your rating, the more difficult it is to progress.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7612" LastActivityDate="2015-06-17T21:59:12.777" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9511" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9516" CreationDate="2015-06-18T07:26:58.883" Score="8" ViewCount="2524" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://lichess.org/I9pp1BLC&quot;&gt;Here&lt;/a&gt;'s a game of Atomic chess I played with &lt;a href=&quot;http://chat.stackexchange.com/users/31465/seth&quot;&gt;a friend&lt;/a&gt;. As you may see, neither of us are very good at Atomic chess and the game ended in under twenty moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Casual game&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;http://lichess.org/I9pp1BLC&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2015.06.17&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;sethdj&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Unihedron&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;1368&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;1632&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;32&quot;]&#xA;[Variant &quot;Atomic&quot;]&#xA;[Annotator &quot;lichess.org&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Nf3 f6 2. Nd4 e6 3. e3 g6 4. Bc4 d5 5. Bb5+ c6 6. Qg4 Na6 7. c3 Nc5 8. Bxc6 {C6 capture removes itself and C5 knight.} Qb6 9. Qxe6 {E6 capture removes the queen herself.} Qa6! {Mate threat at Qf2# / Qg1#.} 10. Ne6! {Nuke threat at Nxf8#.} Bxe6 {E6 capture removes the bishop.} 11. d3 Qa4! {Mate threat at Qd1#.} 12. b3 Qg4! {Mate threat at Qd1#.} 13. f3 Qh4+ {Checkmate is now inevitable.} 14. g3 Qh3 15. Kd1 Qg2 16. Ke1 Qe2# { White is checkmated } 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But that's not really the point here. The opening of &lt;code&gt;1. Nf3 f6 2. Nd4&lt;/code&gt; is a very tricky knight attack, and when playing against a tricky player they may respond with &lt;code&gt;Nb5&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;Nf5&lt;/code&gt; after &lt;code&gt;e6&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;c6&lt;/code&gt; respectively, where &lt;code&gt;e6&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;c6&lt;/code&gt; aims to protect those two grids. What is a good response here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3823" LastEditorUserId="12" LastEditDate="2015-06-18T14:43:20.273" LastActivityDate="2015-06-18T14:43:20.273" Title="How to defend from the crazy knight attack opening at Nf3 ..., Nd4 in Atomic chess?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;atomic-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9512" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9511" CreationDate="2015-06-18T07:26:58.883" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;2... c6&lt;/code&gt; Should be played. You shouldn't let your opponent play &lt;code&gt;3. Nb5&lt;/code&gt; safely unless you're welcome of losing your queen. Here's the line that shows the guaranteed queen casualty:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Attacker&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Defender&quot;]&#xA;[Variant &quot;Atomic&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Nf3 f6 2. Nd4 e6 3. Nb5 (2... c6 3. Nf5! {Nuke threat at Nxe7#.} e6~ {Or e5, there's no real difference.}) Bb4! {Nuke threat at Bxd2#.} (3... Qe7~ {A way to reduce material loss. As the queen is guaranteed to be lost, this move saves the minor pieces. Unless your opponent decides to remove them with Nxc7 anyway and let your queen live, which is questionable.} 4. Nd6+ Qxd6 {This capture removes the queen herself from the explosion. The pawn can be used instead, but it wastes a pawn.}) 4. c3 Bc5! {Nuke threat at Bxf2#. The threat is kind of redundant but the idea here is to live longer.} 5. e3 c6~ {The idea here is to save a pawn.} 6.Nc7+ Qxc7 {C3 capture removes the queen herself, as well as the light bishop and B8 knight. The only possible move, as Ke5 / Ke6 leads to checkmate, and Kf8 is simply an inevitable checkmate. See additional line.} (6... Kf8 7. Ne8! {Either of Nxf6# or Nxg7# wins for white with a king explosion. Also, Qxe8 is illegal because the king would blow up.})&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the &lt;code&gt;2... c6 (2... c5) 3. Nf5 e6&lt;/code&gt; line, on &lt;code&gt;Nd6+&lt;/code&gt; you can capture the knight with your dark bishop, and on &lt;code&gt;Ne7&lt;/code&gt; you can save your queen and launch an attack with &lt;code&gt;Qa5&lt;/code&gt; threatening &lt;code&gt;Qxd2#&lt;/code&gt;, and then force the &lt;code&gt;d&lt;/code&gt;-&lt;code&gt;e&lt;/code&gt;-&lt;code&gt;f&lt;/code&gt; pawns to be moved, which makes it harder for your opponent to launch an attack with a stuck diagonals department. Therefore the knight wouldn't be able to create much of an impact and may finish off with an explosion at &lt;code&gt;4. Nxg7&lt;/code&gt; that removes the rook (and two minor pieces), but with a queen ready to set off in a diagonal, you can try for a surprise attack and build defenses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3823" LastActivityDate="2015-06-18T07:26:58.883" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9513" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9466" CreationDate="2015-06-18T12:49:47.563" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;With black against 1.e4: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_Defense&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Modern defence&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirc_Defence&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Pirc&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sicilian_Defence,_Dragon_Variation&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Sicilian defence: dragon&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sicilian_Defence,_Accelerated_Dragon&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Sicilian defence: accelerated dragon&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With black against 1.d4: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_Defense&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Modern defence&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King&amp;#39;s_Indian_Defence&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;King's Indian defence&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gr%C3%BCnfeld_Defence&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Grünfeld&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_Defence&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Leningrad Dutch&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benoni_Defense&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Benoni&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most of these openings have a fixed or typical setup, so with white you can play the same setup with an extra tempo.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hard to say whether an opening is tactical or positional, active or passive. All the openings in the list have the reputation of being &quot;fighting&quot;. This is not surprising. As you spend time playing g6 and Bg7, your opponent has the opportunity to occupy the center. Therefore, it is often important to create counterplay, which leads to an interesting battle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In order to choose one of these openings, you can take a look at some games of strong players to see which kind of position arises and to learn the main ideas.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4588" LastActivityDate="2015-06-18T12:49:47.563" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9514" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9515" CreationDate="2015-06-18T14:11:46.887" Score="12" ViewCount="1922" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why does Fritz prefer underpromotion in this position? How can underpromotion to bishop evaluate so much higher than normal queen promotion?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can this be a bug in the Fritz 14 chess engine?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/0O8db.png&quot; alt=&quot;Strange evaluation&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7051" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-10-27T01:52:32.477" LastActivityDate="2019-10-27T01:52:32.477" Title="Why does Fritz prefer underpromotion in this position?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;evaluation&gt;&lt;pawn-promotion&gt;&lt;fritz&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="9515" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9514" CreationDate="2015-06-18T14:22:00.320" Score="23" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's because &lt;code&gt;1. exf8=Q+ Kxh7 2. Rxd7??&lt;/code&gt; would be stalemate. I think it is a even a theoretical draw after &lt;code&gt;1. exf8=Q+ Kxh7 2. Qg7+&lt;/code&gt;. Therefore &lt;code&gt;1. exf8=B+!&lt;/code&gt; (with check!) is better, since white then can keep an extra piece and win easily.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;5r2/3qPbkB/8/7P/8/8/8/1K1R4 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. exf8=Q+ (1. exf8=B+!) Kxh7 2. Rxd7? (2. Qg7+)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1485" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2015-06-18T18:47:02.890" LastActivityDate="2015-06-18T18:47:02.890" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9516" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9511" CreationDate="2015-06-18T14:36:57.423" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;Black, who defends, should move its Knight to h6. There it protects f5 so if white moves its knight there, black can capture it. Additionally, if white does Kb5 with the intention to attack Black's Queen (and potentially king, if black attempts to defend the queen), Black can go forward (Ng4) and then Black wins: Black can either capture a pawn next to the king, or the queen if White moves this pawn, and white can capture the queen with some other pieces when black does Ng4, but black's king is still safe.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;White&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Black&quot;]&#xA;[Variant &quot;Atomic&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Nf3 f6 2. Nd4 Nh6 3. Nb5 Ng4 (3. Nf5 Nxf5) 4. f3 Nf2 5. Nxc7 Nxd1# 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It can happen that white does h3 after Nh6 to block a potential Ng4 from black, and then black has to move a pawn to protect his pieces if white would move Nb5:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;White&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Black&quot;]&#xA;[Variant &quot;Atomic&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Nf3 f6 2. Nd4 Nh6 3. h3 c6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7061" LastActivityDate="2015-06-18T14:36:57.423" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9517" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2015-06-18T15:33:26.330" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Atomic chess is a chess variant where victory is claimed by nuking your opponents' king. Like standard chess, the king is so important that if a move in check forces the king to be blown up in the next move, it is a checkmate. In addition to standard rules, all captures causes an &quot;explosion&quot; of which all surrounding pieces (Not pawns!) and the capturing piece is removed from the board. Therefore, it is illegal to capture a piece that results in your king blowing up, nor can a king take any piece (this gives up himself).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Special notes for Atomic chess games is that kings can be connected by moving one into the adjacent squares of the other sided king (and in most cases leads to a draw). As it is illegal for a capture to blow up your own king, it is not possible to capture the other king directly. Knights, Rooks, Queens, Bishops and Pawns also develop respective tactics in Atomic chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Resources:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Wikipedia &amp;mdash; Atomic chess&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.nicklong.net/chess/atomic/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Atomic Chess by Nick Long&lt;/a&gt;, an online e-book you can read and learn from.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3823" LastEditorUserId="3823" LastEditDate="2015-06-18T16:35:56.000" LastActivityDate="2015-06-18T16:35:56.000" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9518" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2015-06-18T15:33:26.330" Score="0" Body="Atomic chess is one of the [chess-variants]. In addition to standard [rules], all [captures] causes an &quot;explosion&quot; of which all surrounding pieces (Not pawns!) and the capturing piece is removed from the board. The goal is to blow up your opponents' king while protecting your own." OwnerUserId="3823" LastEditorUserId="3823" LastEditDate="2015-06-18T16:35:35.310" LastActivityDate="2015-06-18T16:35:35.310" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9519" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9219" CreationDate="2015-06-18T19:23:16.433" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;An alternative is to play the move order 1.d4 d5 2.Bf4 Nf6 3.e3, preventing Nh5. Next, you can play 4.Nf3 or 4.c4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4588" LastActivityDate="2015-06-18T19:23:16.433" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9520" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9522" CreationDate="2015-06-18T21:33:58.523" Score="5" ViewCount="256" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are there any professional matches from serious players where neither player castles during the course of the game?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7526" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2015-06-18T23:34:28.913" LastActivityDate="2021-05-02T16:03:50.027" Title="Professional match where neither player castles?" Tags="&lt;history&gt;&lt;castling&gt;&lt;master-games&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9521" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-06-18T22:39:58.383" Score="2" ViewCount="140" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm playing as white against a cpu. Black has a knight on A7, which he moved to D4 to capture my queen. How is this possible? I've been playing chess for almost 20 years and I have never seen ir heard of this move. Is this a special knight move? What is it called?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7623" LastActivityDate="2015-06-20T17:34:25.850" Title="Unknown Knight move" Tags="&lt;online-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9522" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9520" CreationDate="2015-06-18T23:34:03.010" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;It won't be terribly common, but it's not unheard of either. Here are a few examples involving well-known grandmasters:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1060109&quot;&gt;Ivanchuk-Csom (1989)&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Yerevan&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Yerevan&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;1989.??.??&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Vassily Ivanchuk&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Istvan Csom&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;E20&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;49&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.f3 c5 5.d5 Bxc3+ 6.bxc3 Nh5 7.g3&#xA;f5 8.e4 f4 9.dxe6 fxg3 10.Qd5 g2 11.Qxh5+ g6 12.Qe5 Qh4+&#xA;13.Ke2 gxh1=Q 14.Qxh8+ Ke7 15.Qg7+ Kxe6 16.Bh3+ Kd6 17.Qf8+&#xA;Kc7 18.Bf4+ Qxf4 19.Qxf4+ d6 20.Rd1 Nc6 21.Qxd6+ Kb6 22.Qg3 h5&#xA;23.Bxc8 Rxc8 24.Nh3 h4 25.Qf2 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1408089&quot;&gt;Sutovsky-Morozevich (1998)&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Pamplona International&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Pamplona ESP&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;1998.12.31&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;05&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Emil Sutovsky&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Alexander Morozevich&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;C11&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;2575&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;2625&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;52&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. Bg5 dxe4 5. Nxe4 Be7 6. Bxf6&#xA;gxf6 7. Nf3 a6 8. Qd2 b5 9. Qh6 Bb7 10. Bd3 Nd7 11. Ng3 f5&#xA;12. Nh5 Bf8 13. Qe3 Nf6 14. Qe5 Nxh5 15. Qxh8 Bxf3 16. gxf3&#xA;Nf6 17. Rg1 Qxd4 18. Rg8 Ke7 19. Kf1 Bg7 20. Qxg7 Rxg8 21. Qh6&#xA;Qxb2 22. Re1 Qc3 23. Qh4 c5 24. Rd1 c4 25. Bxf5 Qxf3 26. Qd4&#xA;Nd5 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1563053&quot;&gt;Andreikin-Jumabayev (2009)&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;48th World Junior Championship&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Puerto Madryn ARG&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2009.10.31&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;2009.10.22&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;10&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Dmitry Andreikin&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Rinat Jumabayev&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;E38&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;2659&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;2548&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;41&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 Bb4 4. Qc2 c5 5. dxc5 Bxc5 6. Nf3&#xA;Qb6 7. e3 Qc7 8. g4 h6 9. Rg1 b6 10. g5 hxg5 11. Nb5 Qd8&#xA;12. Nxg5 Bf8 13. c5 Rh5 14. Nd6+ Bxd6 15. cxd6 Bb7 16. Nxf7&#xA;Be4 17. Qxe4 Nxe4 18. Nxd8 Kxd8 19. Bg2 Rg5 20. Kf1 Rxg2&#xA;21. Kxg2 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2015-06-18T23:45:07.357" LastActivityDate="2015-06-18T23:45:07.357" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9523" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9524" CreationDate="2015-06-18T23:40:06.477" Score="2" ViewCount="175" Body="&lt;p&gt;Tournament players can &quot;have a good tournament&quot; because of the psychology involved, so their playing strength will vary from game to game. Do computers play at a constant strength all the time, or do they have the occasional bad tournament?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7500" LastActivityDate="2015-06-19T01:30:27.863" Title="Can a computer have a good tournament?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;computer-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9524" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9523" CreationDate="2015-06-19T01:30:27.863" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;We're going to assume there is no hardware issue, as pointed by Tonny Ennis in his comment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's possible that a computer engine experiences a &quot;bad&quot; tournament, but it's extremely rare. When we say &quot;bad&quot;, we don't mean collapsing like blundering pieces, it's more like not getting a good position suitable for the engine. Computer engine always play at a constant strength, dictated by the algorithm. They won't do anything other than what the algorithm tells it to do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's give an example, it's well known Komodo is a better engine than Stockfish in a strategic position. If we randomly choose the openings in a match of four. We might see a closed position in three of those games. As expected, Komodo outplayed Stockfish in those three games. The final score would be 3-1 in favour of Komodo.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does that mean Komodo is a much stronger engine than Stockfish? Probably not. Can we conclude Stockfish had a &quot;bad day&quot;? Maybe. But please remember the sample size is &lt;strong&gt;too small&lt;/strong&gt;, what if we let them play more games? A typical computer chess tournament can have a match with over 1000 games. If we do it, we might see a very different result.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Conclusion: if we see a chess engine has a &quot;bad day&quot;, usually it's because the sample size is &lt;strong&gt;too small&lt;/strong&gt; or the testing condition is &lt;strong&gt;biased&lt;/strong&gt;. The law of large number will erase unsystematic variation given enough sample size. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2015-06-19T01:30:27.863" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9525" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9527" CreationDate="2015-06-19T04:04:39.543" Score="3" ViewCount="2258" Body="&lt;p&gt;How can someone become the &lt;strong&gt;greatest chess player&lt;/strong&gt; like &lt;strong&gt;Magnus Carlsen&lt;/strong&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have been playing chess since I was 12 years old, but still I am an average chess player. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does it take genetics to become a Super GM like Magnus Carlsen, Garry Kasparov, or Vishy Anand? Or have they all followed some path towards their greatness?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What steps could I take or attributes should I possess in order to become the number 1 rated player in the world?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5730" LastEditorUserId="3884" LastEditDate="2017-02-28T06:30:25.993" LastActivityDate="2017-02-28T06:30:25.993" Title="How can someone become the greatest chess player like Magnus Carlsen?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;grandmaster&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ClosedDate="2017-03-02T10:18:28.650" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9526" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1050" CreationDate="2015-06-19T06:21:52.277" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I agree you need to react to the opponent. But doing an entirely pre done game will get you killed. You need to think about moving your pieces and out of the other players attack and protecting your king. This is just the basics.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7626" LastActivityDate="2015-06-19T06:21:52.277" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9527" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9525" CreationDate="2015-06-19T07:17:06.157" Score="12" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Talent: Generally the role of talent in chess is vastly overrated, but for those at the very top anecdotes of impressive memory feats are quite common. (Like Carlsen learning hundred of statistics about norwegian municipalities as a four year old, or Fischer repeating a phone call in islandic verbatim, although he didn't understand a word, etc.)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Early exposure: The vast majority of the top hundred GMs nowadays learned to play chess before they turned ten. Often even before they turned six. Early exposure is important for chess moves and concepts to become completely ingrained in your brain, just like the grammar and vocabulary of your mothertongue is. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Hard work: Even those players that are allegedly lazy spend an incredible amount of time on chess. Becoming a strong chess players requires a huge amount of knowledge and abilities. The earlier you start, the harder you work and the more directed this work is, the younger you will still be when you have acquired the knowledge necessary to be a Super-GM. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Drive: If you have the abilities and the knowledge to play on a 2800 Elo level, it still doesn't mean that you actually play on that level. Additionally you need the energy and will to win, that allows you to put every ounce of your ability into every game you play. Some people claim that motivation is the main reason the playing level generally drops after you hit 40. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the steps to become a Super-GM are actually quite simple: Start at age 4, train chess every day for 6-8 hours under the direction of an experienced trainer, compete regularly against slightly stronger opposition and be born with an exceptional memory and a killer instinct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-06-19T07:17:06.157" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9528" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9542" CreationDate="2015-06-19T10:07:21.333" Score="11" ViewCount="699" Body="&lt;p&gt;So, I was having this game with my opponent (and losing), but anyways, here is the final position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/fNS6m.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/fNS6m.png&quot; alt=&quot;&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I checked the king with my knight on move 47 (i playing black). All of a sudden, the game was drawn by insufficient material rule. However, there was indeed a queen with my opponent there on the board. So, what exactly happened here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also take note that my opponent had no time on the clock, so practically, I should have won the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7347" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2019-02-23T04:01:24.280" Title="Why was this game drawn?" Tags="&lt;draw&gt;&lt;online-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="9529" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9528" CreationDate="2015-06-19T10:13:23.477" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;You're right, with the flag fallen, the game should have been awarded to you, because it is possible to create a mate starting at the given position (e.g. if the pawn is promoted to a bishop). Seems like this particular online chess doesn't implement the rules correctly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2871" LastActivityDate="2015-06-19T10:13:23.477" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9530" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9528" CreationDate="2015-06-19T10:15:09.957" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;As your opponent overstepped the time limit, it is &lt;strong&gt;you&lt;/strong&gt; who has to have sufficient material to mate him, to claim a win. His material is irrelevant, but your knight isn't enough.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately for you this decision might be dependent on the chess server you are using. With queen and c-pawn there clearly still is a &quot;series of legal moves that leads to checkmate&quot;, so I'm not sure this would be a draw under Fide rules.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-06-19T10:15:09.957" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9532" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9482" CreationDate="2015-06-20T03:56:03.850" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Hah! When I was at a lower level, I used to play 1. Nf3 2. b3 just so my opponent's memorized opening would be useless.  When I started to get better, my opening study would basically consist of making moves that made sense to me, and then looking into books or playing against the computer to find out what I missed.  These days, I do tend to know a bit more about my Black openings against 1.e4 because they are the most tactical, and I do have some books on them, but I didn't learn the opening from the book, I learned it from trying it myself, and then bought books that talked about common themes in the opening (moves that work, traps to watch out for, games that demonstrate good ideas), and less about memorization of some wierd move order.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Middlegame positional books will probably help a lot more than a dictionary of opening moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3009" LastActivityDate="2015-06-20T03:56:03.850" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9533" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4570" CreationDate="2015-06-20T04:09:36.797" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a coach to kids, I usually start with how to win games, figuring that, if they can't win a won game, they won't get anything else I try to teach.  I'll give them a queen and king versus my king and see if they can checkmate me.  Then we do it with a rook.  Also, checkmates.  I love &quot;How to Beat Your Dad at Chess&quot;.  If you just try to get your pieces in similar locations to the winners in those problems (and avoid the locations of the one being checkmated), you'll probably do quite fine for quite a while.  &quot;Tactics for Kids&quot; is a good second book.  When you get good enough that the game comes down to promoting a pawn, you will need to find an endgame book (but that's another question).  Opening theory is last.  There are plenty of good opening moves available, so there is no need to learn a particular sequence until you have the rest of the game figured out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Good luck and have fun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3009" LastActivityDate="2015-06-20T04:09:36.797" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9534" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4708" CreationDate="2015-06-20T04:30:36.960" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.gambitbooks.com/books/How_to_Beat_Your_Dad_at_Chess.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;How to Beat Your Dad at Chess&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Covers checkmates.  If kids can't win a won game, they won't get good feedback even if they do everything else correctly.  If they try to checkmate each other, everything else follows naturally (until they start to fall into endings, when it is time to pick up a good ending book).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3009" LastEditorUserId="224" LastEditDate="2020-04-13T19:44:48.320" LastActivityDate="2020-04-13T19:44:48.320" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="9535" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1207" CreationDate="2015-06-20T04:43:08.880" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Late to answer, but I do find it useful when trying to teach/learn about positional play.  By allowing players to take back blunders, they learn to outplay their opponents positionally as opposed to just attacking and waiting for their opponent to make a mistake.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3009" LastActivityDate="2015-06-20T04:43:08.880" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9536" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9539" CreationDate="2015-06-20T11:32:16.513" Score="14" ViewCount="3000" Body="&lt;p&gt;I built an &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/RomainGoussault/Deepov&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;uci compatible chess engine&lt;/a&gt;, and I would like to know its Elo rating. What is the easiest way to get it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would like something that works both on Linux and Windows.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3468" LastEditorUserId="3468" LastEditDate="2015-08-31T11:23:56.043" LastActivityDate="2021-02-26T08:58:18.840" Title="How can I know the Elo rating of my chess engine?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;programming&gt;&lt;uci&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9537" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8455" CreationDate="2015-06-20T12:00:34.633" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have played the Ponziani a lot. There are indeed a lot of ways in which black can hurt himself and fall a victim to tactics.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The line 3...Nf6 4.d4 exd4 5.e5 Nd5 can lead to many complications for white. There are little opportunities here for white and he must proceed very carefully. I have lost several games (as white) on this line. Most other lines lead to a lot of open space and pressure building by white.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7596" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2015-06-20T15:22:28.453" LastActivityDate="2015-06-20T15:22:28.453" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9538" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-06-20T12:09:53.397" Score="8" ViewCount="5027" Body="&lt;p&gt;My question is, why not 36, 49, 81 or some other square number? Do any historical sources point to how and why chess came to be played on 64 squares in particular? Has it always been so?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7635" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2015-06-20T15:42:23.660" LastActivityDate="2020-01-13T14:23:34.873" Title="Why are there 64 squares on a chessboard?" Tags="&lt;history&gt;&lt;chessboards&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9539" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9536" CreationDate="2015-06-20T12:39:10.983" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;Easy question. Announce your engine on the chess programming forum (&lt;a href=&quot;http://talkchess.com/forum/index.php&quot;&gt;http://talkchess.com/forum/index.php&lt;/a&gt;). There'll be engine testers adding your engine to their rating list, such as CCRL. But please and please provide a working compiled binary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Announce your engine, upload a compiled binary to somewhere like Dropbox. You'll hear feedback.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;cutechess is a popular tool for automating computer engine-to-engine matches. The only and only way to test your changes is to make your engine to play games. You can make it to play with an older version or another engine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Cutechess-cli&quot;&gt;https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Cutechess-cli&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2015-06-20T12:47:00.293" LastActivityDate="2015-06-20T12:47:00.293" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9540" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5188" CreationDate="2015-06-20T14:06:25.217" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The question can never be answered in a general fashion. Every move has its own perks and advantages. The major variables are these:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is the same piece allowed to move twice or can black move two pieces once?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are captures allowed? With just one move of the king's pawn already made, it is possible for any party to capture the opponent's queen within two moves. (Or put them in a position where it cannot escape capture in the next few moves). Here the price for two moves is AT LEAST a queen (since the two moves party would not only have captured the queen, but also invaded inside the enemy ranks).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Starting from midgame, two moves can easily put the opponent in a mate-in-x position where they cannot avoid mate. For example, if one has several mating combinations available, there can be no possible compensation to that!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All in all, I think the option of two moves can/should be made available only in the opening and the price is the queen. It is disastrous and potentially game-losing to allow the opponent double moves in the middlegame or endgame and there can be no compensation to that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7596" LastActivityDate="2015-06-20T14:06:25.217" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9541" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9538" CreationDate="2015-06-20T14:14:16.620" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;64 is a whole square, so that it is as wide as it is long.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It happens that it is also THE MOST suitable option for a chess game, because:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;It is big enough to allow multiple maneuvers and strategical possibilities.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;It is small enough to let general guidelines be formed.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The back-rank pieces (2 rooks, 2 knights, 2 bishops, 1 queen, 1 king) also necessitates a 8-row board. If you wanted to make it 81 (9x9) pieces board, you will have to add another piece (an extra queen?). But on such a big board, each game would at least require 30 minutes to finish, if not more. Blitz and bullet chess would not be an option.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;IF there were 128 or 32 squares, you would be asking &quot;Why this number of squares? Why not its double or half?&quot; It is like asking, why does a right angle contain 90°?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7596" LastActivityDate="2015-06-20T14:14:16.620" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9542" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9528" CreationDate="2015-06-20T16:27:35.227" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess.com, along with FIDE, awards the full point to your opponent if you run out of time, &lt;em&gt;unless&lt;/em&gt; your opponent has insufficient material: not enough resources to feasibly carry out a win. This effectually concedes victory to both players, which is sensible since on the one hand, your opponent rendered you incapable, but on the other, you held him off until he had no time to finish you off.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, Chess.com's definition of &quot;insufficient material&quot; differs from FIDE's Laws. Chess.com simply looks at your material. If you have lone K, KN, KB, or KNN, you have insufficient material. So in your case, your opponent ran out of time, but since they determine that you could not have checkmated him anyway, Chess.com split the point.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Whereas FIDE calculates all possible futures; if one legal series of moves results in checkmate against the player whose flag fell, flag-fall is a loss for that player:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;6.9&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Except where one of Articles 5.1.a, 5.1.b, 5.2.a, 5.2.b, 5.2.c applies, if a player does not complete the prescribed number of moves in the allotted time, the game is lost by that player. However, the game is drawn if the position is such that the opponent cannot checkmate the player’s king &lt;strong&gt;by any possible series of legal moves.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just for kicks, let's see one of these legal series of moves wherein you checkmate your opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;5Q2/8/8/8/2k2P2/6K1/4n3/8 w - - 0 0&quot;]&#xA;[startflipped &quot;1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Kg4 Kd4 2. Kg5 Ke4 3. f5 Nf4 4. f6 Kf3 5. Kh6 Kg4 6. Kh7 Kh5 7. Kg8 Kg6 8. Qe8+ Kh6 9. Kf8 Kh7 10. f7 Ng6#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's why FIDE would count flag-fall to be a win for you. Chess.com does not. To be fair, that or any line resulting in victory for you is so far-fetched that in this case, it's hard to complain that you could feasibly have won.*&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sources: FIDE Laws of Chess, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fide.com/component/handbook/?id=171&amp;amp;view=article&quot;&gt;Article 6.9&lt;/a&gt;; Chess.com forums - &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/search?q=insufficient&quot;&gt;list of threads with &quot;insufficient&quot; in the title&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*There are a couple positions, however, in which King and Knight can force a checkmate vs. King and Pawn. For example, there would be ample cause of complaint if Black purposely runs out of time in the following position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/8/8/8/N7/p7/k2K4/8 w - - 0 0&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Kc2 Ka1 2. Nc5 Ka2 3. Nd3 Ka1 4. Nc1 a2 5. Nb3#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="86" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2015-06-20T17:26:27.707" LastActivityDate="2015-06-20T17:26:27.707" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9543" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9521" CreationDate="2015-06-20T17:34:25.850" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Without further context, I can simply say that the move you described is not a legal knight move in any position or circumstance. It is, however, a legal move for a bishop. Perhaps you mistook the bishop for a knight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you could supply the PGN of the game, it would clear up some confusion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="86" LastActivityDate="2015-06-20T17:34:25.850" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9544" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9549" CreationDate="2015-06-21T12:23:42.073" Score="4" ViewCount="129" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just played this game with white. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am wondering, if any of the sides have gone terribly wrong/blundered anywhere? (except for both sides playing a dubious gambit - let's begin considerations from, say, move 10)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am also interested to know about correctness of play in the endgame (from move 23) and general feedback about the game as a whole.&#xA;A comment about final position - black probably should not have resigned. Although it is a tablebase win, it is very tough one and takes 48 moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. f4 Nc6 3. Nf3 exf4 4. Bc4 Be7 5. d4 Bh4+ 6. g3 fxg3 7. O-O gxh2+ 8. Kh1 d6 9. Bxf7+ Kf8 10. e5 Bh3 11. Nxh4 Bxf1 12. Qxf1 Qxh4 13. Bd5+ Nf6 (13... Ke8 14. Qf7+ Kd8 15. Qf8+ Kd7 16. e6+#) 14. exf6 gxf6 (14... Qxf6 15. Qxf6+ gxf6 16. Bh6+ Ke7 {unclear?}) 15. Nc3 Nxd4 16. Ne4 f5 (16... Nxc2 17. Nxf6 {white is better?}) 17. Bg5 Qh5 18. Bf6 Nxc2 (18... fxe4 19. Bxh8+ Ke8 20. Bxd4 Qxd5 {white is better?}) 19. Bxh8 Nxa1 20. Nf6 Qg6 (20... Qh4 21. Qxf5 (21. Qe2 {seems to win even faster, threatening Nd7+# or Qe6 with mate to follow}) {white is winning - there is a mating net around the black king and the white king will eventually escape checks from the black queen (starting with 21... Qe1+)})  21. Qxa1 Qg1+ {is this black's only option?} 22. Qxg1 hxg1=Q+ 23. Kxg1 Ke7 24. Bg7 c6 25. Bb3 d5 26. Nh5 Rg8 27. Kf2 b6 28. Kf3 Kd6 29. Kf4 Ke6 30. Bc2 Kf7 31. Be5 Rg2 32. Bxf5 c5 33. Bxh7 d4 34. b4 Rh2 35. Kg5 Rxa2 36. Nf4 Rf2 37. Be4 Ke7 38. Bd3 a5 39. bxc5 bxc5 40. Bb5 Rb2 41. Bc6 Rb1 42. Kf5 Rf1 43. Ke4 Rg1 44. Kd5 Rg5 45. Ne6 Rg8 46. Nxc5 d3 47. Nxd3 Rd8+ 48. Kc4 Rc8 49. Kb5 a4 50. Bb2 Kd6 51. Ba3+ Ke6 52. Nb4 Ke5 53. Kxa4 Ke6 54. Kb5 Rd8 55. Kc5 Kf5 56. Nd5 Ke6 57. Bb2 Rf8 58. Bd4 Rc8 59. Nf4+ 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3831" LastEditorUserId="3831" LastEditDate="2015-06-21T13:48:28.437" LastActivityDate="2015-06-22T08:40:25.317" Title="Feedback on a game" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;gambits&gt;&lt;kings-gambit&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9545" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="686" CreationDate="2015-06-21T16:46:07.543" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not exactly an answer, but comments on the question and following post.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(a) It &lt;em&gt;is&lt;/em&gt; possible in certain cases with the pawn on the verge of queening. See the positions shown in the section &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Two_knights_endgame#Role_of_the_pawn_in_two_knights_v_pawn_ending.&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;&quot;Role of the pawn in two knights v pawn ending&quot; here&lt;/a&gt; (there are others).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(b) There are exceptions to the Troitzky line rule  as stated. See &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Chess#Proposed_changes_to_the_Troitzky_line_article.&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;&quot;Proposed changes to the Troitzky line article&quot; here&lt;/a&gt; The positions shown also answer in the negative your question regarding pawns on their starting squares.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(c) The second Troitzky line rule tells you nothing about the win within the 50 move rule if some moves are needed to effect the blockade. E.g. the pawn can be securely blockaded on c5 in the position below, but I don't &lt;em&gt;think&lt;/em&gt; white can win under the 50 move rule (I don't have a DTM50 database to check that).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;K1k5/8/8/2p5/4N3/8/8/N7 w - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(d) Further to (c), it is stated that Helmut Conrady solved the problem using the Nalimov databases. I'm not saying he didn't, but this would have been extremely difficult using the Nalimov databases at the time because the databases took no account of the 50 move rule and the play they suggest can be incorrect for either side if the 50 move rule &lt;em&gt;is&lt;/em&gt; taken into account. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(e) All of the exceptions to the Troitzky line noted in (b) are, of course, also exceptions to the &quot;second Troitzky line&quot; rule. Though one is shown on the knight's file it can be relocated two files to the Queen's side and remain an exception. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7641" LastEditorUserId="7641" LastEditDate="2015-06-22T17:55:12.650" LastActivityDate="2015-06-22T17:55:12.650" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9546" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-06-21T18:05:02.803" Score="6" ViewCount="1045" Body="&lt;p&gt;One well known very good combo is the Caro-Kann + the Slav:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The main objective of both of these openings is to develop the light-squared Bishop to f5 before it gets locked inside the Pawn chain.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;They tend to lead to roughly similar Pawn structures.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;On average they both tend to lead to positional, quiet and strategic games.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;And most importantly, if you choose both of these openings, against 1. c4 you can play 1...c6 which can transpose into either a Slav (2. d4) or a Caro-Kann Panov/Pseudo-Panov (2. e4).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would like to know what are all the other possible combinations of openings which work well together.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Enumerate as many combos as you can. But I am only interested in combos where both openings are sound.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And if possible also explain why exactly the openings work well together.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3237" LastActivityDate="2020-01-01T23:49:34.027" Title="What are all the possible combinations of openings which work well together? (like the Slav+Caro-Kann combo)" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;theory&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9547" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9550" CreationDate="2015-06-21T19:32:54.737" Score="7" ViewCount="356" Body="&lt;p&gt;My daughter and I have devised a chess variant which we feel works very well: it &lt;strong&gt;preserves the basic moves and strategies of chess&lt;/strong&gt;, yet adds new strategies and considerations. It is a form of &quot;3-D chess&quot;, yet not gimicky as the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Three-dimensional_chess&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;current forms&lt;/a&gt; are, possibly because this variant did not start off with the intention to do another &quot;3-D&quot; idea. In fact, the 'stacking' of boards is a late addition to the game and not necessary for the rules to hold. It does help spatially-oriented human minds to relate to the game, though!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In our variant, a transparent (glass) chess board is suspended about 30 cm above another board. &lt;strong&gt;Standard gameplay occurs on the top board, with the bottom board initially empty.&lt;/strong&gt; Whenever a piece is captured on the top board, it is moved to the same position on the bottom board. When the capturing piece later moves off the square, the piece below it (if still there) returns 'up' to the top board. Thus, pieces are 'buried' instead of 'captured'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If a piece already exists in the relevant position on the bottom board, then that piece is then removed from the bottom board and considered 'captured' in the traditional sense. Thus, each position can have only a single 'buried' piece. Furthermore, all pieces on the bottom board &lt;em&gt;must&lt;/em&gt; have an associated piece above them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The twist is that a player can take his turn on the bottom board instead of the top board &lt;strong&gt;only if that move results in a capture&lt;/strong&gt;. This is a traditional capture: the piece never returns to gameplay. Additionally, the rule that all bottom-board pieces have associated pieces above them is preserved.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The fact that each position (square) can have only a single buried piece makes gameplay very interesting. It becomes strategy to &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; defend pieces as taking an opponent's piece which just took your own piece will mean that your piece is forever captured. Other interesting strategy aspects emerge, such as 'wormholing' through the bottom board or tricking your opponent into capturing pieces that you prefer to have on the bottom board. Gameplay is much longer, but mistakes are more forgiving. To make it easier to find relative positions on the top and bottom board, the following squares have a small dot in the center of the square:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/LpSyD.png&quot; alt=&quot;Chess board with dots&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;How might we present this variant for others to consider and enjoy?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3854" LastActivityDate="2018-12-18T10:22:37.453" Title="How to propose a new game variant?" Tags="&lt;chess-variants&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9548" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6119" CreationDate="2015-06-22T00:01:21.673" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The second Troitzky line rule as stated in the link given in the first answer &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesscafe.com/text/mueller36.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;(Dr. Müller's article)&lt;/a&gt; is in need of clarification.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unless the phrase &amp;quot;securely blockaded&amp;quot; is taken to mean blockaded by a knight which is protected &lt;em&gt;by the other knight&lt;/em&gt; then the rule must be wrong (see &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Chess#Proposed_changes_to_the_Troitzky_line_article.&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&amp;quot;Proposed changes to the Troitzky line article&amp;quot; section&lt;/a&gt; here).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The diagrams in the link appear to be just the second half of Dr. Müller's exposition on the ending, &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; illustrating the rule.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If &amp;quot;blockaded&amp;quot; is defined as in &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossary_of_chess#Blockade&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt; and as assumed in the second answer, then moves leading up to the blockade (or positions with a gap between pawn and blockading knight) are not taken into account by the rule, so the rule gives no answer in any of the positions shown. What is needed is the number of moves to mate on the squares rather than a dot (the moves being calculated on a DTM50 basis). This seems to invalidate both previous answers if they are based solely on the rule.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The rule &lt;em&gt;doesn't&lt;/em&gt; say that White cannot win if the pawn passes the line, only not always. This also seems to invalidate both previous answers if they are based solely on the rule.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I believe there are now Syzygy DTM50 EGTBs which will give the answer in any given position. The first position (either side to play) is a win for white because it's under 50 moves with DTM play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Play in this ending becomes horribly complicated when the 50 move rule is taken into account. A good exposition can be found &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ericpalmersmith.webspace.virginmedia.com/content/Computer%20chess%20and%20the%2050-move%20rule.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7641" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2015-06-22T10:02:39.813" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9549" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9544" CreationDate="2015-06-22T01:08:39.107" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I ran the game through Stockfish at 5 minutes per move. Here are a few key moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;15...Nxd4?? +- &#xA;+3.34 / +0.00&#xA;( 15...Re8 16.Bf4 Nxd4 17.Bg3 Qg5 18.Bf4 Qg1+ 19.Qxg1 hxg1=Q+ 20.Rxg1 = )&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What we see here is that with this move, Black goes from an even game to being down a piece. Black maintains parity with Stockfish's suggested move (in parentheses above...)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The issue with the move is that exposes all of Black's sins:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The Knight is trapped.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The Black Queen is unprotected and doesn't coordinate with any other piece.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Black's King is flapping in the breeze.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black in on the edge of death now. Your &lt;code&gt;f5&lt;/code&gt; is the best response to a bad situation. It was far better than my choices - they all lost instantly to some variation of &lt;code&gt;Bg5&lt;/code&gt;. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;r4k1r/ppp4p/3p1p2/3B4/3n3q/2N5/PPP4p/R1B2Q1K w - - 0 16&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Ne4 c6?? 2.Bg5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And you can see that White's going to smash f6 and the Black King like a freight train.  Instead, if Black takes the &lt;code&gt;e&lt;/code&gt; file with the Rook, White can't develop an attack on the weak &lt;code&gt;f&lt;/code&gt; pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's Stockfish's suggested continuation wherein Black maintains parity:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[title &quot;After 15. Nc3&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;r4k1r/ppp4p/2np1p2/3B4/3P3q/2N5/PPP4p/R1B2Q1K b - - 1 15&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1...Re8 2.Bf4 Nxd4 3.Bg3 Qg5 4.Bf4 Qg1+ 5.Qxg1 hxg1=Q+ 6.Rxg1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, I goofed up and lost most of the Stockfish analysis. It is fiddly indeed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, on White's 17th, White is basking in the mess Black made for himself with the premature capture on &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt;.    Stockfish recommends:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[title &quot;After 17.Bg5??&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;r4k1r/ppp4p/3p4/3B1pB1/3nN2q/8/PPP4p/R4Q1K b - - 1 17&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Qg4 2.Bh6+ Ke7 3.Bg5+ Kf8&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and Black escapes with a three-fold repetition because White's about to lose the Knight on &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; for a pawn. It's protecting the Bishop on &lt;code&gt;g5&lt;/code&gt; and can't move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A nice game, full of chances.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2015-06-22T01:16:47.133" LastActivityDate="2015-06-22T01:16:47.133" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9550" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9547" CreationDate="2015-06-22T08:24:37.587" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The canonical site for publishing a new chess variant is &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessvariants.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.chessvariants.com&lt;/a&gt;. Read some of the descriptions there to get a feeling of the format of presentation, register (it's free) and submit your chess variant. They have an intuitive form that helps you in the write-up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3819" LastEditorUserId="3819" LastEditDate="2018-12-18T10:22:37.453" LastActivityDate="2018-12-18T10:22:37.453" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="9551" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9544" CreationDate="2015-06-22T08:40:25.317" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a king's gambit player myself, I just want to note a few things about the very first moves:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Combining Nc6 and exf4 is actually playable though very much a sideline. Reacting with 4.Bc4 however, is a mistake and I think the reasoning behind this is instructive:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4.Bc4 allows black to play 4…g5 without allowing white's standard responses. Nc6 takes e5 away from the Nf3, just like d6 would, so the Kieseritzky isn't possible anymore for white. But after 3…d6 4…g5 would be a well known mistake, because 1.e4 e5 2.f4 exf4 3.Nf3 d6 4.Bc4 g5 5.h4 g4 allows 6.Ng5 with a tremendous attacking position. Nc6 on the other hand doesn't just control e5, it also allows black to defend f7 with tempo in this variation, so 1.e4 e5 2.f4 exf4 3.Nf3 Nc6 4.Bc4 g5 5.h4 g4 6.Ng5 Ne5! and black is in time to rebuff the white attack 7.Bb3 h6 8.d4 hxg5 9.dxe5 and black is much better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Better, and quite logical, would be 4.d4, when a quick d5 is in the air, possibly followed by Qd4. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;About the endgame: A tablebase win in 46 moves might sound quite long and complicated, but it probably just means that black has to give his rook for a bishop in a couple of moves, transposing to the well known NBK vs K, which is often still 30+ moves until mate, but rather straightforward (if you know it). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-06-22T08:40:25.317" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9552" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8765" CreationDate="2015-06-22T10:43:15.717" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;I happen to have a dataset with 25000 games with stockfish evaluations after every move. I just did a little blunder search and these are my findings: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Blunders from an equal position (-1.00 &amp;lt; eval &amp;lt; 1.00) are very rare, even among weaker players. That is not particularly surprising, because we tend to leave the equality region in little steps during the opening and the blunders come when we are under real pressure and low on time. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Elo: 1500: 100cp Blunder every 45 moves.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Elo: 1600: 100cp Blunder every 46 moves.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Elo: 1700: 100cp Blunder every 50 moves.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Elo: 1800: 100cp Blunder every 52 moves.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Elo: 1900: 100cp Blunder every 55 moves.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Elo: 2000: 100cp Blunder every 59 moves.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Elo: 2100: 100cp Blunder every 64 moves.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Elo: 2200: 100cp Blunder every 69 moves.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Elo: 2300: 100cp Blunder every 74 moves.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Elo: 2400: 100cp Blunder every 78 moves.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Elo: 2500: 100cp Blunder every 82 moves.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Elo: 2600: 100cp Blunder every 85 moves.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Elo: 2700: 100cp Blunder every 85 moves.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Really big blunders &gt;300cp from an equal position are even more rare. Which also isn't particularly surprising, after all even if you blunder a full piece you usually get a little something in return.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Elo: 1500: 300cp Blunder every 223 moves.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Elo: 1600: 300cp Blunder every 241 moves.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Elo: 1700: 300cp Blunder every 274 moves.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Elo: 1800: 300cp Blunder every 299 moves.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Elo: 1900: 300cp Blunder every 335 moves.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Elo: 2000: 300cp Blunder every 352 moves.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Elo: 2100: 300cp Blunder every 381 moves.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Elo: 2200: 300cp Blunder every 421 moves.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Elo: 2300: 300cp Blunder every 446 moves.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Elo: 2400: 300cp Blunder every 479 moves.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Elo: 2500: 300cp Blunder every 509 moves.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Elo: 2600: 300cp Blunder every 525 moves.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Elo: 2700: 300cp Blunder every 530 moves.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you leave out the requirement of an equal position, the numbers go way up. As opposed to the relevancy ….&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Elo: 1500: 100cp Blunder every 9 moves.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Elo: 1600: 100cp Blunder every 9 moves.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Elo: 1700: 100cp Blunder every 10 moves.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Elo: 1800: 100cp Blunder every 10 moves.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Elo: 1900: 100cp Blunder every 11 moves.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Elo: 2000: 100cp Blunder every 12 moves.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Elo: 2100: 100cp Blunder every 13 moves.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Elo: 2200: 100cp Blunder every 14 moves.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Elo: 2300: 100cp Blunder every 14 moves.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Elo: 2400: 100cp Blunder every 15 moves.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Elo: 2500: 100cp Blunder every 16 moves.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Elo: 2600: 100cp Blunder every 16 moves.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Elo: 2700: 100cp Blunder every 17 moves.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And the bigger blunders:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Elo: 1500: 300cp Blunder every 23 moves.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Elo: 1600: 300cp Blunder every 25 moves.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Elo: 1700: 300cp Blunder every 27 moves.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Elo: 1800: 300cp Blunder every 29 moves.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Elo: 1900: 300cp Blunder every 32 moves.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Elo: 2000: 300cp Blunder every 34 moves.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Elo: 2100: 300cp Blunder every 37 moves.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Elo: 2200: 300cp Blunder every 40 moves.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Elo: 2300: 300cp Blunder every 43 moves.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Elo: 2400: 300cp Blunder every 46 moves.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Elo: 2500: 300cp Blunder every 48 moves.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Elo: 2600: 300cp Blunder every 49 moves.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Elo: 2700: 300cp Blunder every 50 moves.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Those numbers are a little higher than in the linked blog, that's probably because stockfish likes to throw out big numbers compared to other engines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To confer to the addendum and the final phrasing of the question (i.e. percentage of games with a 300cp blunder.):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Elo: 1500: 62 percent of the games contain a blunder.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Elo: 1600: 58 percent of the games contain a blunder.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Elo: 1700: 53 percent of the games contain a blunder.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Elo: 1800: 50 percent of the games contain a blunder.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Elo: 1900: 47 percent of the games contain a blunder.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Elo: 2000: 45 percent of the games contain a blunder.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Elo: 2100: 41 percent of the games contain a blunder.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Elo: 2200: 37 percent of the games contain a blunder.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Elo: 2300: 33 percent of the games contain a blunder.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Elo: 2400: 29 percent of the games contain a blunder.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Elo: 2500: 25 percent of the games contain a blunder.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Elo: 2600: 24 percent of the games contain a blunder.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Elo: 2700: 24 percent of the games contain a blunder.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With the requirement of an equal position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Elo: 1500: 13 percent of the games contain a blunder.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Elo: 1600: 12 percent of the games contain a blunder.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Elo: 1700: 10 percent of the games contain a blunder.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Elo: 1800: 10 percent of the games contain a blunder.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Elo: 1900: 8 percent of the games contain a blunder.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Elo: 2000: 8 percent of the games contain a blunder.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Elo: 2100: 7 percent of the games contain a blunder.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Elo: 2200: 5 percent of the games contain a blunder.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Elo: 2300: 6 percent of the games contain a blunder.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Elo: 2400: 4 percent of the games contain a blunder.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Elo: 2500: 3 percent of the games contain a blunder.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Elo: 2600: 3 percent of the games contain a blunder.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Elo: 2700: 3 percent of the games contain a blunder.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-06-22T10:43:15.717" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9553" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9538" CreationDate="2015-06-22T13:03:09.147" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Nothing is stopping you from playing chess in a 4x4, 6x6 or 9x9 board. In ancient times people have tried such approaches.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To answer why 64 squares, I have to answer a bit mathematically. Let me start with &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_chess#Origin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[Chess, in] its early form in the 6th century was known as chaturaṅga, which translates as &quot;four divisions (of the military)&quot;: infantry, cavalry, elephantry, and chariotry.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It says that chaturanga means 'game of squares' and it also mentions 4 divisions of military, where 1 division = 8 pieces (4 pawns + 4 main pieces). So 4x4 = 16 pieces each side. This also means, all in all, a total of 32 pieces in the board (8 in each row).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For 32 pieces to be fully mobile on the board, 36 squares would be too congested and not possible; 49 squares would be still too congested; 64 sure makes sense, and is also the perfect square of 8.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7644" LastEditorUserId="7736" LastEditDate="2015-07-05T13:58:47.183" LastActivityDate="2015-07-05T13:58:47.183" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9554" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9555" CreationDate="2015-06-22T13:15:45.830" Score="7" ViewCount="4848" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have been playing with chess engines for over a year now at extreme difficulty levels. I never played a single game with a human player. I am worried that when i face humans in a tournament, my chess thinking must be completely different and i might not survive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does playing against chess engines improve your ability better than against human players? What do you think? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7644" LastActivityDate="2017-05-29T14:40:43.960" Title="What is the difference playing against human vs chess engine?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;psychology&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9555" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9554" CreationDate="2015-06-22T13:51:59.567" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are two separate problems with your trainingspartner: Strength and style.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Generally you improve the most if you play against opponents slightly stronger than you. You have to adapt by upping your game, but you are still able to adapt! If you are always crushed you only learn to be solid at all costs. You can see this a lot if teenage prodigies play too early against world class opposition: Their game dries out. They systematically unlearn all creative impulses, because every risk taking is punished. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If you play against engines that always beat you, their style doesn't really matter. But if you would play against an engine only slightly stronger than you (which would be a better choice), you would experience the problem, that you adapt to their particular style. Which usually means you get very good at sniffing out tactical pitfalls, but your positional understanding will stay underdeveloped. I know this very well because I played for two years almost daily against a &lt;a href=&quot;http://tluif.home.xs4all.nl/chescom/EngMephEurA.html&quot;&gt;Mephisto board computer&lt;/a&gt; before I joined a chess club and it took me many years to stop losing against human opponents who were far weaker tactically. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-06-22T13:51:59.567" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9556" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1103" CreationDate="2015-06-22T14:46:56.287" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recently read an unrelated book (I think it's &lt;em&gt;Thinking, fast and slow&lt;/em&gt;, which is an excellent book), but one part of the book cited some studies done on chess players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example: to detect supposed superior intellect, there was only a slightly elevated level of intelligence associated with the players in general and the single most important factor in determining the success of a player was &lt;em&gt;experience&lt;/em&gt; rather than &lt;em&gt;innate cognitive abilities&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Essentially, because the player accumulates a largely subconscious appreciation of common openings, positions and mistakes etc., this reduces the amount of time they need to spend looking at the &quot;common&quot; moves in any situation and allow them to start calculating at a deeper level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On average, the raw ability to calculate moves is not particularly lacking or abundant in poor or good players, so in a way this is good as you might be able to make it to grandmaster but the bad news is you may need to set aside 23 hours a day to practice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On a side note, the main thrust of the story was about determining the sex of chickens; it takes 3 years to learn how to determine the sex of a chick which once qualified they do in a fraction of a second but are unable to say how they can do it other than that it &quot;feels right&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7646" LastEditorUserId="8300" LastEditDate="2017-06-09T13:16:34.487" LastActivityDate="2017-06-09T13:16:34.487" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9557" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9571" CreationDate="2015-06-22T15:20:16.100" Score="3" ViewCount="2453" Body="&lt;p&gt;In chess, most people argue that the first to attack wins the game.&#xA;What is the best approach &lt;strong&gt;early&lt;/strong&gt; in a game? Attack or defend? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are tons of chess materials online, talking about attacking, but I could find only a few lessons on how to defend in chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For those who say attacking is the best, I vehemently deny it, as a player who can't defend can be a best chess player. Some say both attack and defence is the best, whilst some say winning is all about in the end game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What do you think?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7644" LastEditorUserId="4145" LastEditDate="2015-06-24T14:26:25.713" LastActivityDate="2015-06-24T14:26:25.713" Title="Attack or defend? Which is best approach to win?" Tags="&lt;psychology&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9558" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-06-22T17:38:04.360" Score="3" ViewCount="543" Body="&lt;p&gt;The current Wikipedia article on the two knights endgame states:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;For the position with White to move, Troitsky established that if a black pawn is securely blockaded (by one of the white knights) on a square no further forward than the line a4–b6–c5–d4–e4–f5–g6–h4, then White can win the resulting endgame (and similarly in reverse for Black), no matter where the other pieces are placed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think the wording needs to be changed because various positions seem to me to be exceptions to the rule as stated. I'm having difficulty persuading the author of this, so perhaps it's me misunderstanding it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I thought, out of interest, that I might take a straw poll of how many people think that the draws below are adequately covered by the wording as it is and how many people think they area valid exceptions. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please leave a comment saying &quot;covered&quot; or &quot;exception&quot; if you read this. (If you think &quot;covered&quot; it would be helpful to me if you could say why, but you don't need to add any explanation if you don't want to.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I should mention here that, since this is a poll and I'm hoping for as many responses as possible, I won't actually accept any answers even if they are perfect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(I removed my first diagram because it was &quot;cooked&quot; as pointed out by GloriaVictis. The diagram was as shown in his answer.) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;N6k/2p5/2N2K2/8/8/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;] &#xA;[White &quot;Either&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;to Move&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;2N5/4p3/4N3/1k2K3/8/8/8/8 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Black&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;to Move&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;7N/2p5/2N5/3K2k1/8/8/8/8 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Black&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;to Move&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7641" LastEditorUserId="7641" LastEditDate="2015-06-24T06:17:23.663" LastActivityDate="2015-07-07T15:57:40.237" Title="Wording of Troitsky line rule" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;knights&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9559" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9558" CreationDate="2015-06-22T17:52:21.110" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The key word in the rule is &quot;securely&quot;.&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Meaning, that there is nothing the opponent can do to lift the blockade. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the posted position, white has to play 1. Ng6  - otherwise black will play 1. .. g5 and be beyond the Troitzky line - achieving draw immediately.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Subsequently, the black king will march toward the pawn, starting with 1. .. Kc5 and force the g6 knight away, as white is not in time to defend it, neither with the king nor the other knight. Then, g5 will and draw will follow.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus, the position appears to be covered by the rule in its current wording, as the pawn is &lt;strong&gt;not securely blockaded&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT - answering to the comment.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;4N3/6p1/8/8/1k5N/8/8/7K w - - 0 1&#xA;&#xA;1. Ng6 Kc5 2. Kg2 (2. Nc7 Kd6 3. Nb5+ (3. Ne8+ {pointless}) Ke6 {white is one move short of getting the other knight to e5} 4. Nd4+ Kf6 {white must move the knight away and g5 follows}) Kd5 Kg3 Ke6 4. Kg4 (4. Nf4+ Ke7 {white has to move the knight away and g5 follows}) (4. Nc7+ Kf7 {white is not in time to defend the knight, g5 will inevitably follow after a couple checks}) Kf7 {white cannot defend both knights}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT 2&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for the later added positions, I believe they are all covered by ETD's answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3831" LastEditorUserId="3831" LastEditDate="2015-06-22T19:28:32.537" LastActivityDate="2015-06-22T19:28:32.537" CommentCount="11" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9560" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9558" CreationDate="2015-06-22T18:58:59.333" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe that GloriaVictis' answer addresses your first position very well, in that the pawn is not actually &lt;em&gt;securely&lt;/em&gt; blockaded in that case; Black can force the further advance of the pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your other positions are also susceptible to an insecure blockade, or are special in that, say, one of the knights is doomed to be lost, or else cannot participate in the play without capturing the pawn, yielding a draw in either case. For instance, position (4):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;7N/2p5/2N5/3K2k1/8/8/8/8 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1...Kf6 {The knight cannot be saved except by allowing the pawn to advance.} 2.Ne5 (2.Ke4 Kg7) c5 3.Nhf7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, one could insist that the wording cited in your question be strengthened to say something like, &quot;the pawn is securely blockaded &lt;em&gt;and neither of the knights faces imminent capture, or is forced to capture the pawn in order to participate, etc.&lt;/em&gt;.&quot; Ultimately, that is perhaps a matter of taste; I think most would instead say that these are clearly recognizable as special cases which the wording you cite need not attempt to address. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2015-06-22T19:04:11.253" LastActivityDate="2015-06-22T19:04:11.253" CommentCount="19" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9561" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-06-22T19:30:07.190" Score="2" ViewCount="58" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am looking for information on W/D/L results for specific endgame configurations based on perfect play, not based on databases of actual games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, in the endgame King plus Rook vs King plus Pawn (KRKP) this website (&lt;a href=&quot;http://kirill-kryukov.com/chess/nulp/results.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://kirill-kryukov.com/chess/nulp/results.html&lt;/a&gt;) says there over 9 million unique legal positions (9,041,298 to be exact).  However, there is no information on how many of those positions are w/d/l with white to move or black to move, and based on perfect play.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The closest I have found is this website (&lt;a href=&quot;http://chess.jaet.org/endings/docs/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://chess.jaet.org/endings/docs/&lt;/a&gt;) however these results are based on analyzing a database of actual games, which therefore means imperfect play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does anyone know if this has already been done and wehre I might find the results?  If not, does anyone know how to go about generating these results on your own?  I assume an EGTB can do this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks!!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7647" LastActivityDate="2015-06-22T19:30:07.190" Title="Endgame statistics" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="6" ClosedDate="2015-06-22T20:05:15.753" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9562" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9557" CreationDate="2015-06-22T19:49:33.813" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;That's a tricky question.  I'd say that beginners should attack whenever they see the opportunity, since they will learn alot about attack, defense, and initiative in chess.  That means playing open games and gambits to get a good sense of what it means to have active pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However attacking is much harder to do than defending.  To find attacking moves you have to be familiar with a variety of tactical themes, know how to see weakensses, etc.  To defend against a specific threat you only need to know five basic ideas (capture, block, move, defend, counterattack).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7647" LastActivityDate="2015-06-22T19:49:33.813" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9563" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9557" CreationDate="2015-06-22T20:15:56.147" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It depends on the position. For example, in a rook endgame, you should be trying to keep your rook active. But in some positions, any counterattack is tactically defeated (unsafe) and the best plan is to defend. In other situations, you should do neither (e.g. if you have two pieces out and your opponent has none, you should play to keep your lead in development before creating threats).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Attacking/Defending guidelines:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Meet a flank attack with a counterattack in the center.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A flank attack is justified if the center is closed and cannot be opened or if you control the center and that is not going to change.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A premature attack is doomed to failure.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In some positions, it pays to use attack as a method of defense. Attacking pieces are usually ill placed to meet a counterattack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7500" LastActivityDate="2015-06-22T20:15:56.147" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9564" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8724" CreationDate="2015-06-22T20:19:34.347" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;On ETD's encouragement, an addendum to his excellent answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://kirill-kryukov.com/chess/discussion-board/viewtopic.php?f=6&amp;amp;t=6941#p76732&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://kirill-kryukov.com/chess/discussion-board/viewtopic.php?f=6&amp;amp;t=6941#p76732&lt;/a&gt; provides a spreadsheet with w/d/l statistics for most common piece combinations from 6-men nalimov tablebases. Screenshot of a part of the spreadsheet below (might have to zoom in..).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT 2018:&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;For up to 7 men, Syzygy tables (also with win percentages) are available: &lt;a href=&quot;https://syzygy-tables.info/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://syzygy-tables.info/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/MUhlL.png&quot; alt=&quot;Screenshot of a part of the spreadsheet&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3831" LastEditorUserId="3831" LastEditDate="2018-09-25T15:08:45.233" LastActivityDate="2018-09-25T15:08:45.233" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="9565" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-06-22T20:26:09.497" Score="10" ViewCount="1544" Body="&lt;p&gt;is it possible to generate FEN strings for endgames based on specific criteria:  n-pieces, w/d/l, and side to move?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So say I wanted all FEN strings for King plus Rook vs King plus Pawn (KPKR) endgames, where it is white to move, and white draws with perfect play.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know there would be an extremly large number of results, and the next step would be to then categorize those results further by other criteria, like say white king is in front of the pawn, or the black pawn has passed the 6th rank.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I assume an endgame tablebase (egtb) has this information stored in it already, but how to get this information out of them?  Or is there some other way of generating this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks!!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7647" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2016-01-04T19:37:35.393" LastActivityDate="2016-06-09T15:33:18.090" Title="Endgame FEN generator" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;fen&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9566" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1702" CreationDate="2015-06-22T20:57:10.893" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Regarding the endgame, there are a few ways you could approach it.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to systematically shore up your endgame knowledge, you could start by studying the piece-only endings, then pawn-only, then mixed piece-pawn.  Piece-only endings you can get through rather quickly, say, 2-3 months of deliberate study/practice and would include up to, but not beyond, BBvK, BNvK, and Philidor positions for RBvR and QvR.  Pawn-only are more complicated but you can do it in a year.  Mixed piece and pawn can take you from simple rook vs pawn, all the way up to middlegame-type positions, and I'd do that last.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another approach would be study the endgames based on their statistical likelihood of occurring OTB, and there are plenty of resources around to determine that (Mueller's fundamental endings, or De La Villa's book both have lists).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The most practical approach would be to study adjourned endgames from the openings you actually play the most, so you'll get to identify the most common themes you're likely to encounter (eg, pawn majorities, major/minor piece combinations). Play the positions out against your computer where you take the losing side, and see how it should be played.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7647" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-08-01T14:08:44.953" LastActivityDate="2019-08-01T14:08:44.953" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="9567" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8851" CreationDate="2015-06-22T22:01:29.297" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd just note that pattern recoginition is only one element of calculation.  Yes, drilling lots of simple tactics repeatedly is useful and I'm not disputing the importance of that (I've done 7 circles myself).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But that's not the entirety of calculation, and there is a problem with believing that it is.  For one, most tactical exercises have a very clear conclusion -- you use some tactical device to win a piece, deliver checkmate, or say promote a pawn.  But often in real positions you won't know when to stop calculating a forced line, and you have to develop your intution a bit to know if you have calculated enough.  Also, those clear conclusions (winning material or delivering mate) don't help you learn how to evaluate positions -- you win a piece, and move on to the next puzzle.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Calculation is a broader more difficult process with its own logic, like which candidate to calculate first, how to 'trim' branches, how to choose from several good evaluations (or the opposite problem -- the least bad), and learning your calculation blind-spots like residual images, or geometric motifs like backwards piece moves.  The patterns that you learn through drilling tactics will help you immensely with calculation, since you'll be able to see things quickly like (&quot;If I play move A, he can't play move B because of [insert tactical theme here]&quot;).  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Learning the basics of calculation is rather simple, but implementing it is really hard.  Try writing out your analysis of complicated positions, and then comparing your lines against the author's.  Do this with/without a time limit, and with/without moving the pieces.  If you actually attempt this you will find at first that you are very bad at calculating, and will become disheartened...well, at least I did!  But over time you will get better and better, and you'll learn lots of calculation shortcuts.  Most importantly you'll learn what your true weaknesses are and can focus on them.  I kept a running list of my mistakes, and over time have reduced the number of mistakes I make.  For example I learned that I had problems calculating accurately when there were captures for both sides in different parts of the board, so I focused on them until I felt I totally understood them...now I actually get excited when I see these positions!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To make it easy on yourself, you can try writing out your analysis of mate-in-2 problems.  The evaluation at 4-ply (not 3-ply!) must always be checkmate, and you get to focus on finding lots of good candidate moves (a common calculation pitfall is not searching for enough candidates).  Then move on to more and more complicated positions, like king hunts!  Eventually you will be able to calculate complicated positions fast.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So please do keep drilling those patterns, but also try learning and practicing real calculation!!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7647" LastActivityDate="2015-06-22T22:01:29.297" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9569" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9575" CreationDate="2015-06-23T00:01:27.063" Score="11" ViewCount="3337" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been playing on lichess.org for my online games, and is the primary way I enjoy chess. One of the big reasons why I started playing on lichess.org was that they offer a simple way to export your games from their database into pgn format.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So far playing casually I have logged over 250 games at this point and downloaded the pgn files. I'm interested in getting some statistics out of this data. Is there a chess database application that I could use? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The primary goal of analyzing these games en mass is that I want to identify my strengths and weaknesses with my game openings. For example I enjoy playing the queens gambit, but I'd like to know my win percentages with it. Which ECO codes I am currently struggling with, which variants am I coming against most often? Am I truly a tactical player? or a positional player?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I believe that the data can help me identify trends in my game that I am currently unaware of.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I already use engines like crafty and stockfish to help me analyze individual games, but I'm having difficulty finding tools to help me analyze my entire collection.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any suggestions?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5830" LastEditorUserId="5830" LastEditDate="2015-06-23T02:08:37.470" LastActivityDate="2018-11-26T05:35:45.403" Title="software to analyze my own database of games with statistics" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;database&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9570" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9569" CreationDate="2015-06-23T05:56:19.217" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The most popular chess database software is ChessBase. You can open the pgn of your games with ChessBase, and there are functions that produce opening statistics, e.g. the number of times you have faced the Semi-slav/Meran/Moscow-Botvinnik as white, as well as your percentage score against these variations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ChessBase can also be seen as a GUI for engines, so you can also use your favourite engine (Stockfish/Crafty/Houdini/Komodo) to analyse your games within the program. There is also the &quot;LiveBook&quot;, which is essentially a giant opening book stored on the ChessBase servers, as well as computer opening books which tell you which moves are objectively the strongest (but not necessarily most practical --- this is actually for the reference of the engine).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7473" LastActivityDate="2015-06-23T05:56:19.217" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9571" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9557" CreationDate="2015-06-23T06:51:04.923" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;A lot depends on your opponent. Finding the right moves in defence is generally much easier than finding the right moves in attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are playing a much stronger player your best chance will be if he attacks you and you can survive the attack. If he doesn't attack then part of the reason will be that he doesn't think he has built up the kind of position that warrants him launching an attack. If you try and attack in that situation then you will likely get beaten quickly. So, the best advice is to try and play openings and positions you are familiar with and concentrate on prophylaxis. Strengthen and reinforce your position. Make sure you don't have any weaknesses and always be alert to your opponents threats and the areas of the board he is building up in. Don't waste too much time looking for chances to attack him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Conversely when you are playing a much weaker opponent your best chance will be to launch a &lt;em&gt;sound&lt;/em&gt; attack. If both of you just try and defend there is a much greater chance of the game petering out in a long draw. But the emphasis really is on &lt;em&gt;sound&lt;/em&gt;. Use your superior positional knowledge and experience to build up a better position with your pieces working together in the area of the board you want to launch your attack from. Don't launch it prematurely or your opponent may be able to defend correctly and successfully and either get the draw or even win on the counterattack!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you and your opponent are evenly matched again strengthen your position first and build up before any attack. Be on the lookout for chances to attack more than you would against a much stronger player but make sure you do so from a position of strength.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In all 3 cases it is clear that early in the game you should be developing your pieces to good squares and strengthening your position. Sometimes these good squares will be in attacking positions because it makes developing other pieces easier for you and more difficult for your opponent. For example, pinning knights in openings like the Ruy Lopez. But the emphasis should be on building a sound position first and not trying to make a string of attacking moves before your position warrants it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2015-06-23T06:51:04.923" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9572" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-06-23T10:00:41.730" Score="4" ViewCount="309" Body="&lt;p&gt;Probably a stupid question, but I use XBoard with Fairy-Max or GNU Chess. In the edit game mode, or in analysis mode, it is not possible to castle under any circumstances. Is there some setting I am missing?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: Here is an example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the position:&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 Nf6 4.Nc3 Nc6 5.Bc4 Be7&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would like to play 6.O-O. Typing the move in returns &amp;quot;{White mates} 1-0&amp;quot;. Dragging the king over two spaces returns &amp;quot;illegal move&amp;quot;. Doesn't matter which engine is selected. I can castle while playing against the computer, however.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/MDpvk.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7645" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2020-05-28T22:16:43.517" Title="Castling in XBoard's edit mode" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;castling&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9573" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9576" CreationDate="2015-06-23T10:58:18.027" Score="3" ViewCount="568" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm looking for a website where we can find annotated games for beginners. I mean games with basic comments and lenght of the game is short.&#xA;The best would be that we can see the pieces moving but kind of optional.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3480" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2015-10-03T18:23:17.200" LastActivityDate="2015-10-03T18:23:17.200" Title="Commented games for beginners" Tags="&lt;beginner&gt;&lt;annotation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9574" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1702" CreationDate="2015-06-23T12:10:02.107" Score="2" Body="&lt;h1&gt;What is the main idea of the opening I am playing?&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In many chess openings there is a main idea of the opening which should guide you to the middlegame. And for every chess opening you should know what white/black tries to achieve. Once you know it for the openings you play often, you should learn what other plans are available. I give you a few examples here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;King's Gambit&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;White&lt;/strong&gt;: they want to mate the black king as soon as possible. White does not care about material (they sacrifice the f-pawn to open the f-file, in some variants they sacrifice knight in f3, bishop on f7, etc.), the primary goal is a fast checkmate.&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;Black&lt;/strong&gt;: you grab white material and try to avoid to be checkmated. You hope to survive the opening/middlegame, and win in the endgame, because you will have material advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Alekhine's Defence&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Black&lt;/strong&gt;: you give up the idea to control the center, and start to attack it immediately. White will control the center, but your play is to attack it and white figures which support the center.&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;White&lt;/strong&gt;: you will have space advantage, you try to use it for fast development, you try to control the center and prevent black from finishing the development.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7650" LastActivityDate="2015-06-23T12:10:02.107" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9575" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9569" CreationDate="2015-06-23T12:39:40.460" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are quite a few programs - commercial (Chessbase, Hiarcs) or free (ChessX, Scid, Scidb, ChessDB, Arena). More or less, all will provide what you need.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I personally prefer ChessX (under MacOS and Windows) using the following steps:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Open your database&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Select Menu View-&gt;Players which enables the player explorer  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Filter the games for your own name&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You will get a statistics for each ECO code played with White or Black.&#xA;Now you can tell, which ECOs provide good or poor results. If you need further details or statistics, you can create a ticket on ChessX homepage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7651" LastActivityDate="2015-06-23T12:39:40.460" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9576" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9573" CreationDate="2015-06-23T14:10:10.747" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;YouTube is a good resource to consider.  There is one user in particular that annotates miniatures rather well for beginners, and as a bonus, he sounds like Dracula.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/user/MatoJelic&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/user/MatoJelic&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7647" LastActivityDate="2015-06-23T14:10:10.747" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9577" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9309" CreationDate="2015-06-23T16:48:45.660" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;These answers are very comprehensive.  As food for thought I would only add three points that I haven't seen mentioned about the transitory (changing) value of the pieces during a game, and a caution against relying on the number values.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, some have already noted how &lt;strong&gt;bishops become more powerful in the ending&lt;/strong&gt; when their better mobility really gets to shine, but in the opening, Andrew Soltis notes in Rethinking the Chess Pieces that:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;a &lt;strong&gt;knight is frequently more active, more threatening, in short, more significant than a bishop in the first ten or so moves of a game&lt;/strong&gt;. That may sound trivial but it is more than a quarter of a 40-move game.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a few paragraphs later he added:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;GM Gennady Timoshchenko studied a database of 150,000 games and came to the conclusion that &lt;strong&gt;BxN often makes sense in the opening because a knight is simply the more useful piece then&lt;/strong&gt;. &quot;A well-written chess program should be aware of the fact that at the beginning of the game the knight is at the peak' of its strength relative to the bishop and its relative strength decreases&quot; from then on, he wrote in the [CCA Journal, December 1993.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Conversely, and as alluded to in other replies, &lt;strong&gt;bishops increase in relative value as the game goes on&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Second, the value of minor pieces changes depending on captures, and on the presence of major pieces (and on pawn structure, as noted by others).  Jose Capablanca wrote in A Primer of Chess that &lt;strong&gt;a knight becomes weaker as pieces are traded off&lt;/strong&gt; (while rooks become stronger).  Larry Kaufman added to this that the same holds true after pawn exchanges.  GM Timoshchenko said a knight increases in value after a trade of rooks, and decreases in value after a trade of queens.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another way of saying this is that the combination of Q+N and R+B are generally stronger in the endgame than Q+B and R+N.  So in general in the ending having R+B &gt; R+N, while Q+B &amp;lt; Q+N.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, I would also caution against relying on the numbers too much in deciding which pieces are better.  Expand your understanding of the position (and of chess) by using a more sophisticated approach endorsed by many chess teachers.  Yusupov suggests using &lt;strong&gt;the following five factors to determine the relative value of pieces&lt;/strong&gt; (relative to other pieces in an actual position):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Mobility&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Activity&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Coordination&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Central location&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Safety&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7647" LastActivityDate="2015-06-23T16:48:45.660" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9579" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9554" CreationDate="2015-06-23T21:07:30.467" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The online computer programs I play against are all very aggressive and tactically perfect, which can be disheartening if they are on the higher settings.  But they do make you look for tactics, which can't but help against a human opponent.  The old saying is that chess is 99% tactics, so I doubt if you will have much trouble against human opponents, who aren't as tactically astute as the computers,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastActivityDate="2015-06-23T21:07:30.467" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9580" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6550" CreationDate="2015-06-23T22:05:27.230" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would say yes.  You can take any tactical theme, reduce it to its core elements and stare at it, and then you would be more likely to spot it in an actual position with more &quot;noise&quot;.  I know some tactics books and tactics trainers do the first part of this, where they will show the key theme of the tactic in isolation, and then give a variety of real game examples where this is more noise.  Vukovic did that, and CT-ART did that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't know how practical the 'staring' part would be though, and I haven't heard of anyone attempting this before.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Instead of passively staring, another approach to consider is to figure out which specific types of problems you're getting wrong, and then drilling hundreds/thousands of those positions.  For example in your question you state you're missing skewers and pins.  Well, those are both one type of visual theme having to do with pieces in a line -- could be a pin, skewer, discovered attack, or a fork.  I'd setup a training regime to where your task is to find a bunch (say a hundred-ish) very simple positions with pieces in a line.  You are essentially overtraining your ability to spot pieces in a line, and you'll get to the point where you're seeing all sorts of things in a line (most of which won't matter, but some of it will).  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you're just starting at chess and are missing them all, then you could take one visual/tactical theme at a time and overtrain each one until you always spot the theme on a board with lots of noise.  I'd also try training yourself to always spot undefended positions and exposed/stalemated kings.  Those are almost always a major clue that a tactic is hiding somewhere.  Knights depend on proximity, color, and certain geometrical patterns you can drill.  Bishops obviously depend on color, as well as pieces being in a line, but can also use some geomtrical shapes for certain forks.  Pawns really onlly have one tactic (a fork) which clearly depends on proximity (targets one square away...sometimes two) and geometry (targets one square apart).  The website chesstactics.org does a good job of breaking down some of the visual elements of tactics in the explanations, and someone else already mentioned the book 'tactical antennae'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Calculating what to do once you spot something is another matter, but you'll never get to that point if you're not spotting themes in the first place!!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7647" LastActivityDate="2015-06-23T22:05:27.230" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9581" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9586" CreationDate="2015-06-23T22:35:29.497" Score="14" ViewCount="1026" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is it possible for a white piece to deliver check to the black king, but for black's counter move to result in white getting checkmated?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Has this happened in games between top players?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7658" LastEditorUserId="9263" LastEditDate="2016-03-09T01:25:00.503" LastActivityDate="2016-03-09T01:25:00.503" Title="Is it possible for a white piece to deliver check to the black king, but for black's counter move to result in white getting checkmated?" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;check&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9582" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9581" CreationDate="2015-06-23T22:42:45.547" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, it can happen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;rk2K3/1q5r/8/8/4Q3/8/8/8 w - - 1 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Qxb7+ Kxb7#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It probably won't happen in games between strong players because they'll resign when checkmate is inevitable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7500" LastEditorUserId="7500" LastEditDate="2015-06-23T23:09:02.190" LastActivityDate="2015-06-23T23:09:02.190" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9583" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9581" CreationDate="2015-06-23T22:44:39.330" Score="2" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;????.??.??&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;*&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;8/8/8/8/8/2k5/2q5/K1B5 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Bb2+ Qxb2# *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7650" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2015-06-24T18:42:44.187" LastActivityDate="2015-06-24T18:42:44.187" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9584" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9581" CreationDate="2015-06-24T07:14:01.023" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Could there be another example here? &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.futilitycloset.com/2010/06/09/intercepted/&quot;&gt;http://www.futilitycloset.com/2010/06/09/intercepted/&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;or is it checkmate followed by checkmate?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7641" LastEditorUserId="7641" LastEditDate="2015-06-24T07:44:12.367" LastActivityDate="2015-06-24T07:44:12.367" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9585" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9538" CreationDate="2015-06-24T14:09:55.957" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;We should ask the inventors :) I think that they were playing another game on a 8x8 board (chaturanga?) and were lacking one or 2 players. Could also have been 10x10 (draughts), 19x19 (Go), 9x10 (Chinese chess with 18 pieces each), or any other number of fields.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4509" LastActivityDate="2015-06-24T14:09:55.957" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9586" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9581" CreationDate="2015-06-24T14:18:22.237" Score="20" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can find some examples in the following game collection: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chesscollection?cid=1009425&quot;&gt;Games where check is answered with checkmate&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Among those games, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1254278&quot;&gt;Nigel Short vs Alexander Morozevich&lt;/a&gt;, Russia - The Rest of the World (2002) is the only one that meets the qualification &lt;em&gt;top players&lt;/em&gt;. This was a rapid game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The most entertaining example is the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Philadelphia (m/7)&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Philadelphia (m/7)&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;1945.??.??&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;NN&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Winkelman&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;C29&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nc3 Nf6 3.f4 d5 4.fxe5 Nxe4 5.Qf3 Nc6 6.Bb5 Bc5&#xA;7.Nxe4 dxe4 8.Qxe4 O-O 9.Ne2 Re8 10.Bxc6 bxc6 11.Qxc6 Rxe5&#xA;12.Qxa8 Rxe2+ 13.Kd1 Bg4 14.Qxd8+ Re8# 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are also some additional examples in Edward Winter's Chess Notes: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/winter18.html#4130._Check_and_mate&quot;&gt;4130&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/winter18.html#4135._Check_and_mate_C.N._4130&quot;&gt;4135&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1485" LastActivityDate="2015-06-24T14:18:22.237" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9588" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9611" CreationDate="2015-06-24T16:12:55.623" Score="7" ViewCount="3079" Body="&lt;p&gt;How do you decide to castle on king side or on queen side? i know king side is castling is the quicker than queen side with just 4 steps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does queen side castling favours more on attack, than compared to king side (defense)??&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7644" LastEditorUserId="7644" LastEditDate="2015-06-25T19:10:14.883" LastActivityDate="2015-06-27T12:18:51.877" Title="When to decide King or Queen side castling?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;castling&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9589" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9588" CreationDate="2015-06-24T23:34:27.057" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;If pawns are more advanced on one side, or there is a material inequality to one side of your opponents pieces, castle opposite the majority of attack.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Typically, king side becomes favored, probably in part because of the property of castling you noted:  that it's quicker to king side castle.  Well, that and the King isn't as close to the center with King&#xA; side castling.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Queen side castling is a bit easier to attack from however due to the imabalance of position (ie typically the other king is castled on its' king side).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2765" LastEditorUserId="2765" LastEditDate="2015-06-26T22:49:25.760" LastActivityDate="2015-06-26T22:49:25.760" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9590" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9588" CreationDate="2015-06-25T01:43:01.003" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If a file has been opened on the Kingside, say for example by trading your QB for the opponent's KN, then castling on that side might be dangerous.  The same would be true on the Queenside.  That's pretty simplistic of course.  A feature of opposite side castling is that each side will mount an all-out attack on the King position using everything at his disposal, including the pawns.  Generally the outcome will depend on &quot;who gets there first with the most&quot;, so if you intentionally castle on the opposite side from your opponent, you must be prepared to attack aggressively.  And as the other party answering this question has pointed out, castling Queenside leaves a broader pawn expanse in front of the King to defend. Typically an additional K move toward the corner is characteristic of castling Queenside, utilizing an additional tempo.  If you haven't been playing that long, I would rely more on Kingside castling for a while as being quicker and safer.  Then as you become more experienced you can begin to experiment with Queenside castling.  x &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastActivityDate="2015-06-25T01:43:01.003" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9591" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9588" CreationDate="2015-06-25T02:20:42.830" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Castling opposite sides often results in a race. All attack, no defense, fastest wins. The more time your opponent has wasted the more appealing starting this race gets.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7514" LastActivityDate="2015-06-25T02:20:42.830" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9592" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9593" CreationDate="2015-06-25T10:42:40.743" Score="13" ViewCount="4686" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a relative beginner to chess but have noticed particularly playing online a lot of players will resign if they lose a strong piece, for example, their queen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this sportsman like? I wouldn't have thought so, but I read a thread on here that stated stronger players will resign if a checkmate is inevitable. I can only assume resigning has less of an impact on rating. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6936" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2015-09-20T14:22:18.923" LastActivityDate="2015-09-20T14:22:18.923" Title="Resigning (Inevitable Checkmate)" Tags="&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;sportsmanship&gt;&lt;resigning&gt;" AnswerCount="10" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9593" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9592" CreationDate="2015-06-25T11:20:27.760" Score="21" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, resigning a clearly lost game is indeed considered good behaviour. Sometimes &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; resigning is considered unsportsmanlike!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It makes no difference on the result of the game whether you resign, are checkmated, or lose on time - a loss is a loss. In any rating system I've ever heard of, the method of losing doesn't make a difference.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's just that people don't like wasting time when they're 100 % sure that their opponent will win the game almost effortlessly with no danger of making a serious blunder.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1761" LastActivityDate="2015-06-25T11:20:27.760" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9594" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9588" CreationDate="2015-06-25T12:07:09.257" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It strongly depends on the opening and the typical ideas related to that opening. (This is not surprising, as castling can actually be seen as a part of developing the pieces.) A typical example is the Yugoslav attack in the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sicilian_Defence,_Dragon_Variation&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Sicilian Dragon&lt;/a&gt;, where the idea of the whole setup of white is to start an attack on the king side. Therefore, white castles on the queen side.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yet, short castling is much more popular than long castling.&#xA;The two main reasons are: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Castling is often used to put the king on a safer place. The side,&#xA;where the pawns have already left the second rank, is typically the&#xA;unsafer side for the king. In 1.d4 openings one often plays 2.c4,&#xA;which makes the king side a safer place than the queen side.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Long castling takes more time. One extra tempo to move the queen out&#xA;of the way and (often) another tempo to play Kb1/Kb8 to protect the&#xA;a2/a7 pawn.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4588" LastActivityDate="2015-06-25T12:07:09.257" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9595" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5809" CreationDate="2015-06-25T13:21:27.960" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is useful for making gifs that shows some variations from the game.&#xA;I use those to explore endgames. (They're good because I don't need any chess viewer to use them, just smth to view gif.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sadly animated gifs doesn't work if &lt;del&gt;one of the board sizes is bigger than 8&lt;/del&gt; dimensions are 16*16. :( It's kinda important because of FICGS chess variations Big Chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7434" LastEditorUserId="7434" LastEditDate="2015-06-25T14:52:07.723" LastActivityDate="2015-06-25T14:52:07.723" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9596" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9592" CreationDate="2015-06-25T13:27:55.807" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's more sportsman-like to resign than to play on. When you play on in the face of an inevitable loss, in effect you are saying to your opponent &quot;I don't think you're good enough to be able to beat me, even with an extra queen.&quot; Think about it for a while, wouldn't you find that sort of arrogance offensive?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By resigning, you signify your respect for the way your opponent has conducted the game, as well as enough respect for your opponent's time that you decline to waste it. In effect you're saying to your opponent, &quot;OK, this time you outplayed me, and I won't waste your time making you prove you know how to finish this.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When to resign is always a tricky, highly individual question. My personal threshold is when my opponent has convinced me by their conduct of the game that they know how to win the position currently on the board. This means I may play on against some opponents in a position where I would resign against someone else. The decision is also affected by my position in the tournament; I'm more reluctant to resign a position when I need a draw or a win to finish in the prize list; I'll still do it, but not quite as early.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="657" LastActivityDate="2015-06-25T13:27:55.807" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9597" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9538" CreationDate="2015-06-25T13:42:31.267" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Capablanca advocated for a 10x10 chess board. He was concerned that chess was getting played out, that there were far too many draws, so his response to that problem was to create two new pieces and play the game on a 10x10 board with ten pawns and ten pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Eight, being a power of two, makes for an easily drawn board:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) Start with a big square.&#xA;2) Divide that square in half, both vertically and horizontally. (result: 4 squares.)&#xA;3) Divide each of the resulting squares in half similarly. (Result: 16 squares.)&#xA;4) Divide each of those squares in half similarly. (Result: 64 squares.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Successively dividing larger squares in half is fairly easy for the eye to do, without the aid of any sort of measuring device. If you want more precision, you can use a string tied around a marker (pencil, chalk, whatever) and a straightedge and make a 64-square chess board with almost as much precision as someone using a high-precision ruler. You couldn't do that for any size of board that isn't a power of two.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="657" LastActivityDate="2015-06-25T13:42:31.267" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9598" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9546" CreationDate="2015-06-25T14:20:29.543" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think there is a single other opening combo that shares as many features as the Caro-Kann and the Slav. All the other defences against e4 lead to unique pawn structures and piece constellations that aren't easily reached from d4/c4-openings. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just playing the same move against e4 and d4 either leads to completely different openings (Indian Defences/Alekhine, Sicilian/OldBenoni, French/Whatever) or exactly the same defence (The Modern). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That being said, there are some popular opening-combos, but they usually own their popularity to a similar attitude or character of play. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One such combo would be the King's Indian and the Dragon. The obvious similarity is the fianchettoed bishop and the aggressive attitude. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another might be the French and the Nimzo-Indian. Both are rather strategic setups with counterplay on the queenside. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Queen's Gambit declined and 1…e5 would be another sensible combination. The attitude is classical: Equalise first, play for a win later.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-06-25T14:20:29.543" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9599" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9592" CreationDate="2015-06-25T18:12:33.563" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;Resigning is considered polite in an obvious losing position among advanced players i.e. players that won't make an error, with a significant material/positional advantage and will almost positively win the game so there is no real point in playing it out. However, among beginners and less talented players, I would personally advocate never resigning as there is a considerable chance that a less experienced player will make a mistake that you can capitalize on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7667" LastActivityDate="2015-06-25T18:12:33.563" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9600" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9592" CreationDate="2015-06-25T19:05:35.567" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;If playing a blitz game (say 5 min or under), part of the game is that it is against the clock, so if mate looks inevitable, but there are 2 seconds to go, I see no reason to resign. I don't consider this unsportsman-like whatsoever, and apparently, neither do my opponents!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2202" LastActivityDate="2015-06-25T19:05:35.567" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9603" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="693" CreationDate="2015-06-25T23:35:37.370" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;For Android check out &lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.completethink.chessendgames&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chess Endgames&lt;/a&gt;.  It's free and has a number of different positions to work through.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7648" LastEditorDisplayName="user4378" LastEditDate="2016-01-20T17:07:06.233" LastActivityDate="2016-01-20T17:07:06.233" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9604" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9592" CreationDate="2015-06-26T02:30:12.080" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Resigning, as mentioned by Arlen, is a respectful act.  It states that you believe it is no longer worth your time and their time to play out the game.  It is recommended that newcomers not resign as often as the experts appear to do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would like to add to that answer with more of an explanation why.  Often the reason is &quot;the other person might make a mistake that you can capitalize on.&quot;  It is true that this is a natural reason why beginners would choose not to resign, while experts resign quicker.  However, there is a deeper logic which may help you identify when to resign: Chess is a game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;People play games for many reasons.  Some simply play to win, but in the early levels, everybody plays to learn something.  Both players enter a game with some reason to play it.  If the game is no longer satisfying those reasons, there's no reason to continue it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At the lower skill levels, it is worth playing every game to its fullest, simply to learn.  Chess is a complicated game which takes time to learn completely.  For instance, you may know that you are 3 moves away from entering a Queen+King vs King endgame (which is known to be completely lost for the person with just a King), but there's still some value for both of you to play it out.  Your opponent gets an opportunity to practice a key mating pattern, and you get to practice trying to capitalize on any mistakes they may make.  One of those mistakes may help you in a later game: you may realize that a particular Queen+King vs. King endgame is &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; lost because the particular position happens to cause a forced stalemate.  You might never realize this if you hadn't taken the time to play out the earlier game to its fullest.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you get to the higher ranks, you will become more aware of which positions are interesting to play out and which ones are simply dumb.  An expert will understand the difference between a position where they are simply &quot;behind by a Queen&quot; and a position where they sacrificed a Queen to gain some tactical advantage.  They will understand where &quot;gains from winning the game&quot; multiplied by &quot;probability of my opponent messing up and letting me win&quot; is less than the psychological stress of playing the game out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6885" LastActivityDate="2015-06-26T02:30:12.080" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9605" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="132" CreationDate="2015-06-26T08:05:30.533" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;For an objective take on this question, one might take a look at the &lt;a href=&quot;http://chessok.com/?page_id=352&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chessok Opening Tree&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;1.f3 -0.33&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;1.g4 -0.29&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;1.Nh3 -0.22&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;1.b4 -0.18&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;1.h4 -0.18&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Given that white should be able to achieve a plus of 0.11 (according to the Tree) these are the only moves that not only lose the first move advantage but more than reverse it.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Of course these computer evaluations have to be taken with a grain of salt, but they do bear out the intuition of experienced players and provide some food for thought (especially to adherents of the Sokolski …).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2015-06-26T08:05:30.533" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9606" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9592" CreationDate="2015-06-26T11:45:51.697" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the answer to this question is bound to be subjective. You cannot expect someone to resign just because you think it is a sportsman-like act to resign a clearly worse position. Especially in online blitz games, there is no point to resign, because the time on the clock is such a decisive factor. In my opinion, not resigning is your full right and nobody can force you to resign or tell you that it was unsportsman-like of you not to resign.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastActivityDate="2015-06-26T11:45:51.697" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9608" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9592" CreationDate="2015-06-26T18:06:29.403" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Among other things, this strongly depends on the time control. While at slower paces resigning in lost positions is considered a good practice (although it also depends on the proficiency of the players, the time your opponent has left and other factors), it is almost never seen in online blitz chess as the time on the clock is as important as the pieces remaining on the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3890" LastActivityDate="2015-06-26T18:06:29.403" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9611" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9588" CreationDate="2015-06-27T12:18:51.877" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;For beginners there are some basic guidelines to castling. In general, choosing the right moment is as important as choosing the right side. Now, the guidelines I know of:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) If you are playing white, it really depends on the position. Nevertheless, 99% of beginner-friendly opening lines work very well with white castling king-side. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) If you are playing black, try not to castle before white does. If you do, white, which usually has the initiative in the opening, could attack your king and you will have no definite counter-attack point since white could decide to castle either side. Wait until white castles, and then go for the same side if you can.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) If you gain some space or development advantage in the opening and your opponent castles before you do, think about castling on the opposite side (if center is open) or not castling at all (if center si closed). To this regard, become familiar with the technique of &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1008373&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;pawn-storm.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5651" LastActivityDate="2015-06-27T12:18:51.877" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9614" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9639" CreationDate="2015-06-28T08:06:21.307" Score="3" ViewCount="447" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm a typical player who enjoys the &lt;code&gt;1. Nf3&lt;/code&gt; opening as white in Atomic chess games. Today in an online Atomic chess tournament, I come across a player who played the &lt;code&gt;1... e5&lt;/code&gt; response. As &lt;code&gt;1... f6&lt;/code&gt; is the typical response here, and &lt;code&gt;1... e5&lt;/code&gt; doesn't protect the &lt;code&gt;G5&lt;/code&gt; square, &lt;code&gt;2. Ng5&lt;/code&gt; could be played. But since &lt;code&gt;3. Ng7&lt;/code&gt; allows the black queen to escape to &lt;code&gt;E7&lt;/code&gt;, or even worse to &lt;code&gt;H4&lt;/code&gt; and threaten an explosion at &lt;code&gt;F2&lt;/code&gt; on &lt;code&gt;2... f5&lt;/code&gt; &lt;code&gt;2. Ng5&lt;/code&gt; doesn't seem to lead to anything effective. What should be played next?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Attacker&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Defender&quot;]&#xA;[Variant &quot;Atomic&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Nf3 e5?!&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3823" LastEditorUserId="3823" LastEditDate="2015-06-28T08:19:24.670" LastActivityDate="2015-07-01T16:02:31.607" Title="Is there an effective attack as white after Nf3 with e5 response in Atomic chess?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;atomic-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9617" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9618" CreationDate="2015-06-28T16:12:05.657" Score="1" ViewCount="1549" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why do people fianchetto the bishop? I know that fianchettoing two bishops (black and white) in b2 and g2 protects the entire black and white diagonals but honestly i never understood these reasons&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;What are the fianchettoing advantages and will it improve the position? &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;When to fianchetto the bishop?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my personal experience, I try to fianchetto the bishop when i castle kings side. This greatly sets up a great defense wall.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7644" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2015-06-28T17:52:42.447" LastActivityDate="2015-06-28T17:52:42.447" Title="Why fianchetto the bishop?" Tags="&lt;fianchetto&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9618" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9617" CreationDate="2015-06-28T17:30:34.810" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The answers to your two questions are related.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Fianchettoing a bishop allows the bishop to attack the center from the sidelines, from the second rank. Normally the bishops would have to go to the fourth rank (c4, f4 for white) or the fifth rank (b5 or g5 for white) pinning an enemy knight to have an influence on the center.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are going to play a classical opening with d4 or e4 (as white) then you probably want to develop your bishops classically as well to the 4th or 5th ranks, although you can still fianchetto them if you want.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are going to play a hyper-modern opening (Reti, Kings Indian, Pirc, etc.) where you cede the center to your opponent (don't challenge your opponent's central pawn moves with your own central pawn moves) then fianchettoing becomes much more important in the fight for control of the center. Not only will the bishop help you fight for the center but the pawn on b3 or g3 (for white) will help you with a further pawn break like c4 or f4 to undermine the opponent's center.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a defensive move, fianchettoing the bishop on the side where you castle is not so straightforward. It creates weaknesses as well as strengths. If your opponent can force an exchange of the bishop you will be left with weak holes on f3 and h3 (for white kingside castling and fianchetto) and your pawn on g3 can be a target for an aggressive opponent to rapidly push his h pawn to try and embarrass you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2015-06-28T17:30:34.810" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9619" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9622" CreationDate="2015-06-28T21:34:17.937" Score="4" ViewCount="383" Body="&lt;p&gt;I’m only asking this question out of curiosity. The answers I’ll get won’t make me change my opening repertoire.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;OTB which type of openings generally lead their users not to waste too much time on the clock and not to get into time trouble often:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;sharp, aggressive and tactical openings: Sicilian, French, KID, Grünfeld, Semi-Slav, Benoni, Reversed Sicilian&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;or positional, solid and quiet openings: Caro-Kann, Petrov, QGD, Catalan, Slav, Nimzo, QID, English Symmetrical&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course you must also justify your answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please only answer this question if you have played many many OTB games against many different opponents with different styles of play. If you have only played 30 OTB games you probably can’t answer this question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3237" LastActivityDate="2015-07-01T13:04:21.730" Title="Which type of openings generally lead their users not to waste much time on the clock: sharp/aggressive/tactical or positional/solid/quiet openings?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9620" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13257" CreationDate="2015-06-28T23:45:05.033" Score="2" ViewCount="336" Body="&lt;p&gt;The USCF rating system &lt;a href=&quot;http://math.bu.edu/people/mg/ratings/rs/rs2.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;as described by Professor Glickman&lt;/a&gt; includes a factor called &lt;code&gt;K&lt;/code&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If m &amp;lt; 3, or if the player competes against any opponent more than twice, the &quot;standard&quot; rating formula that results in R&lt;sub&gt;s&lt;/sub&gt; is given by&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;R&lt;sub&gt;s&lt;/sub&gt; = R&lt;sub&gt;0&lt;/sub&gt; + &lt;strong&gt;K&lt;/strong&gt;(S - E)  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(&lt;a href=&quot;http://math.bu.edu/people/mg/ratings/rs/node5.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;source&lt;/a&gt;, emphasis mine)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Though at one point the &lt;code&gt;K&lt;/code&gt; value was calculated for each player from the pre-event rating, it is now defined by one of two expressions depending on whether the tournament is &quot;half-K&quot; or &quot;full-K:&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The value of K, which used to take on the values 32, 24 or 16, depending only on a player's pre-event rating, is now defined as...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(source: same page as above)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What does it mean if a tournament is half-K (besides that it changes the value of K)? Why would the tournament director choose to make an event half-K?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also see that the USCF &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.glicko.net/ratings/report05.txt&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;considered removing the half-K option&lt;/a&gt;, then &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.glicko.net/ratings/report06.txt&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;did remove it&lt;/a&gt;, then &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.glicko.net/ratings/report09.txt&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;considered using it for quick games&lt;/a&gt; in some way. However, none of those reports explain what being half-K actually does to a tournament.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7312" LastActivityDate="2015-12-31T23:36:10.837" Title="What does &quot;half-K&quot; mean in the USCF tournament rating system?" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;uscf&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9622" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9619" CreationDate="2015-06-29T04:45:12.007" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;First I would like to preface that both the positional/solid/quiet openings and sharp/aggressive openings can be played quickly without using much clock time by simply being very knowledgeable about your opening. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Quiet openings, particularly systems, tend to require less time. This is because sharp openings are dynamic, that is to say that every move makes a big difference, something big is on the line. Take the kings gambit for example. The opening could quickly become complex white may have a strong attack; black would be advised to use his time because one misstep will cost the game. White also should take his time to make sure that he/she executes the attack effectively. &#xA;Quiet openings, even when played incorrectly, will usually only result in a positional disadvantage, which of course is much less devastating than material advantage that often is in the air when we talk about sharp aggressive lines.&#xA;In conclusion, sharp aggressive openings, by definitions, require precise calculation in a forest of complexity and tactics. Positional openings require analysis of positional motifs in the position; this usually requires less time than long strings of calculations that sharp positions such as the sicilian often get.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I draw attention to systems, which almost by definition are openings that the user is able to use in almost any situation. Take the london system, for example. This opening can be played practically against all black openings and quickly as well. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3872" LastActivityDate="2015-06-29T04:45:12.007" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9623" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9619" CreationDate="2015-06-29T09:08:41.310" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have just upvoted the &quot;postional openings take less time&quot;-answer, so let me now argue the opposite:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think generally people take more time in tactical positions, but there is a pretty common flip side to this. Players who regularly get into time trouble often have more trouble with quiet positions. For these people taking decisions is the problem and no amount of extra time is going to cure them. And taking decisions is actually easier if the differences between moves are big, like they usually are in very sharp positions. Also calculation is a pretty clear cut way to take a decision. If you have to assess minute positional differences in a quiet position, you can really take a lot of time without getting anywhere. This is a difference not really limited to the opening. In acute time trouble forcing lines are the easiest to find. If you really want to trip somebody up, change the character of the position, so he'll have to make positional assessments from scratch.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-06-29T09:08:41.310" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9624" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5327" CreationDate="2015-06-29T09:20:26.697" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am trying to teach my 2 years and 4 months  to play chess. I am following the book &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/193627731X&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chess is Child's Play&lt;/a&gt;. But for the moment he knows the names of the pieces and he like to take all the piece and put them (semi-randomly) on the board, but he doesn't understand correctly the rock movement. I will wait some weeks and see if the develops more. In any case, I think that the approach of the book is very nice. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2872" LastActivityDate="2015-06-29T09:20:26.697" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9625" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9626" CreationDate="2015-06-29T10:53:03.703" Score="2" ViewCount="613" Body="&lt;p&gt;is their any facility in babas chess (4.0) to facilitate multi pv mode. babas chess that i have only shows single pv. if it doesn't then which GUI (free) has facility for the multi pv mode running for pc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7693" LastActivityDate="2016-07-17T15:52:54.637" Title="multi pv mode in GUI" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;software&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9626" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9625" CreationDate="2015-06-29T12:25:05.620" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;While I don't use Babas chess, I'm sure Chessbase and Arena support multi-pv.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2015-06-29T12:25:05.620" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9627" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="701" CreationDate="2015-06-29T13:59:56.440" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.computerchess.org.uk/ccrl/4040/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this source&lt;/a&gt;, Computer Chess Champion Komodo has a rating of 3344 in 40/40.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7500" LastActivityDate="2015-06-29T13:59:56.440" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9629" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7810" CreationDate="2015-06-30T09:06:35.693" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The above problem is computer generated. The most complex man made chess puzzle is by David Zimbeck at www.zimbeckchess.com  the main lines are always at least 30 or so moves with endings that take another 50 or so(so about 80-100 moves in total). Its starts with almost a full set of pieces and finishes with 3 knights and a pawn vs a queen and reduces to 3 knights vs a king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I should add the link with the &quot;longest&quot; man made puzzles are not necessarily the most complex. The 271 length record by Petrovic is not actually complex because the moves repeat. Similar puzzles of length can be found in &quot;Jeremy Morse Tasks and Records&quot;. The Zimbeck study has its complexity because there is many complicated sidelines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it doesnt have to be purely man made then yes, as the op said the 549 move tablebase currently is obviously the most complex.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zimbeckchess.com/1.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.zimbeckchess.com/1.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/N5TIA.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7698" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-10T13:25:47.343" LastActivityDate="2020-04-10T13:25:47.343" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="9630" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="778" CreationDate="2015-06-30T13:36:10.390" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a lot of confusion concerning the terms &quot;tactical&quot;, &quot;positional&quot; and &quot;strategic&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First of all, &quot;strategic&quot; and &quot;positional&quot; are not the same!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Positional thinking consists of static short-term considerations concerning the health of your position. I.e. mostly pawn structure and piece placement. &#xA;Strategy on the other hand means long-term planning. For example you might play an anti-positional move because it is part of a long-term strategy. Positional play requires a feeling for the position, whereas strategic play requires knowledge, logic and systematic considerations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now this &quot;feeling for a position&quot;-thingy makes a lot of people open up a dichotomy between the tactical and the positional player, where the tactical player does concrete calculation and the positional player just feels where to put his pieces. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is enough truth in this dichotomy to make it a very persistent myth. Unfortunately it breaks down if you look at the reality. Being a strong calculator doesn't mean you are a tactical player and a very intuitive approach doesn't turn you into a positional player.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the contrary, strong positional play is often based on very accurate calculation and strong dynamic play is often based on an intuitive grasp of the position. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Two examples: Positional genius Tigran Petrosian was well known for his exceptional calculation ability. Attacking wizard Mikhail Tal was able to play crazy positions better than anybody because of an incredible feeling for the dynamics of a position (he was regularly outcalculated by players like Kortchnoi). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From my point of view you need intuition for positional and dynamic play and you need systematic thinking for calculation and strategic planning. The most interesting battles often occur if an intuitive player is matched up with a &quot;logician&quot;. Sometimes the intuitive player will be an attacking player and the logician will be the strategist (for example Tal-Botvinnik), sometimes it will be the other way round (Karpov-Kasparov). Two players of the same type are more likely to have a very lopsided score (Shirov-Kasparov comes to mind).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This also answers the question (finally…), no style has an advantage over the other. If you really want to dominate somebody, you best have the same style and do everything just a little bit better. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-07-26T16:24:12.443" LastActivityDate="2019-07-26T16:24:12.443" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="9631" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7810" CreationDate="2015-06-30T15:00:12.190" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;Most complex problem I know of:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White to move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7616" LastActivityDate="2015-06-30T15:00:12.190" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9632" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9633" CreationDate="2015-06-30T17:25:53.487" Score="4" ViewCount="3258" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am writing a C# 3D chess game in Unity. I am looking for a chess engine that can&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Take in an FEN string &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Return the best move to make given this FEN&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Check if the board given this FEN is in checkmate&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does anyone know of a chess engine that can do this, preferably in C#? I have tried Stockfish and other chess engines, but they all work from the command line. If anyone knows how I can program the game using an engine that works from the command line, that would also work. Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7699" LastActivityDate="2015-06-30T23:20:54.047" Title="Chess Engine API" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;fen&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9633" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9632" CreationDate="2015-06-30T23:14:36.217" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately, chess engine doesn't work like what you expect. In particular, there is no such thing as API in the chess engine world. That's because calculating a chess move takes time, and it'll be insane to block your function call until you can get the move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess engine almost always do the works in its own thread or process. You might need to learn how to interact with a thread/process. You'll also need to learn UCI chess protocol. I don't think there is a wrapper for you, but maybe there is just that I don't know.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stockfish is a C++ engine, so you might need to wrap it with a managed C++ layer for C#. There is a &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/bpfliegel/Portfish&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Stockfish port&lt;/a&gt; on C#, but it's not as good as the original. However, you don't even need a source code to do your works. You could also take a closed engine such as Houdini.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;General steps:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Download a compiled binary (*.exe). It can be anything like Houdini, Komodo or Stockfish. You don't have to compile the source code yourself.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Use Process.Start in C# to start a process of the chess engine&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Talk with the child process like &lt;a href=&quot;https://stackoverflow.com/questions/528652/what-is-the-simplest-method-of-inter-process-communication-between-2-c-sharp-pro&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Try to send a UCI message like this:&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;isready&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The isready UCI command is like pinging the chess engine. You should hear something back if your implementation works. Please take a look at the UCI documentation, you'll find it on Google. Once you know your code works. Try this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ucinewgame&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;go move time 1000&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This gives the engine one second to make a move. You will get something like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;bestmove e2e4 ponder e7e5&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2015-06-30T23:20:54.047" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9635" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9619" CreationDate="2015-07-01T13:04:21.730" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The previous answers are pretty complete.  I was going to indicate much the same, particularly about system openings like the King's Indian Attack, where you're just aiming for a particular setup and the opponent's responses initially are almost irrelevant. Of course, you can't turn off your brain entirely in any position, but deep analysis shouldn't be required for quite a few opening moves.  The Colle System and Stonewall System are some others that come to mind in this regard.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastActivityDate="2015-07-01T13:04:21.730" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9636" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8825" CreationDate="2015-07-01T13:32:40.817" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Again I'm late with my answer, which has already been given by others, for example about the 5.h4 idea to stop 5..., g5.  In general too many opening pawns moves waste tempi that could be used for development as well as opening lines for enemy attack into your position, as for example a potential White Qh5 move on the kingside in your example.  Also, removing the pawn cover in front of a potential castled King position could be dangerous.  In your example castling on either side by your opponent would now be risky for him. As someone else has suggested, even piece sacrifices by you now become something to consider when the time appears propitious to capitalize on your opponent's weaknesses that the excessive pawn moves have created.  The following brevity that I played many years ago in which my opponent made only initial pawn moves will illustrate some of these ideas &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;C.Conero vs. Phil Short, 1959&lt;br&gt;&#xA;1.e4        e5&#xA;2.Nf3       d6&#xA;3.Bc4       h6&#xA;4.Nc3           c6&#xA;5.d3        a5&#xA;6.Be3           b5&#xA;7.Bxf7+         Kxf7&#xA;8.d4        Be7&#xA;9.dxe5          dxe5&#xA;10.Nxe5+    Ke6&#xA;11.Qg4+!    Kxe5&#xA;12.Qf4+         Ke6&#xA;13.Qf5+         Kd6&#xA;14.Bf4#&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastEditorUserId="7657" LastEditDate="2015-07-01T13:39:15.723" LastActivityDate="2015-07-01T13:39:15.723" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9637" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9642" CreationDate="2015-07-01T15:30:09.273" Score="2" ViewCount="864" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have played against various chess engines at extreme difficulty levels. From what i have learned, any moves other than d4, e4 results in quick defeat (fewer than 25 moves).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How important are the first few moves in a game at expert levels? Does the first 3 moves determine the outcome of the game?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7644" LastEditorUserId="291" LastEditDate="2015-07-01T15:38:04.643" LastActivityDate="2020-01-20T03:35:59.380" Title="How important is the opening first move?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9638" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9643" CreationDate="2015-07-01T15:36:33.510" Score="17" ViewCount="15701" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have played chess so many times, understood tactics (pins, discovered check, overloading, deflection, skewer), but I never understood clearly the positional play.  I have noticed not many tutorials available that explains positional play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What exactly is positional play? Why is it important? &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Please can you show some nice examples to understand the concept?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sorry for being so naive, but very curious on this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7644" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2019-01-07T12:42:22.853" LastActivityDate="2019-01-07T14:24:52.623" Title="What is positional play in chess?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;" AnswerCount="9" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="9639" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9614" CreationDate="2015-07-01T16:02:31.607" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a very interesting website with opening theory from the very first moves of atomic chess :&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.unix-ag.uni-kl.de/~chess/atomic/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://www.unix-ag.uni-kl.de/~chess/atomic/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To answer your question, after :&#xA;1.Nf3 e5 ? 2.Cg5 f5 ! ( Qxg5 lose the queen and ...f6 3.Nf7 Qe7 4.Nd6+) 3.h4! (cover h4 square from the black queen) and then 3...c6 4.Nxh7! or 3....Bc5 4.d4 Bb6 5.Nf7 Qe7 6.Nd6 Kf8 7.Nxb7 both leads to massive destruction of Black camp.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3480" LastActivityDate="2015-07-01T16:02:31.607" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9640" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9638" CreationDate="2015-07-01T16:37:01.727" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Positional play is when you gradually outplay your opponent. For example, if you manage to win a pawn and manage to realize that small advantage into a win. Usually players who like positional play (opposite to tactical players) are very patient players who prefer positional openings. It needs to be said that the openings are the very important indicator whether this game is going to a positional game or tactical. For example, Queens Gambit is a positional opening. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1943" LastActivityDate="2015-07-01T16:37:01.727" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9641" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9637" CreationDate="2015-07-01T16:44:04.883" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some people say that the opening move is the most important move because it can allow a player to gain control of the center and strengthen his/her position. However, games can still be won with &quot;bad&quot; first moves. I would say that the second and third moves are quite important because it allows players to respond to the first moves and really compete for control of center.&#xA;I do not think that d4 and e4 are the only valid moves... I have won many games bringing out my knights first. Each player has their own style. Players often use d4 and e4 because, like I have been saying, control of center generally means an advantageous game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7710" LastActivityDate="2015-07-01T16:44:04.883" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9642" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9637" CreationDate="2015-07-01T17:28:08.437" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Statistically speaking, there's little difference between the most popular opening moves, i.e. 1.e4, 1.d4, 1.Nf3, 1.c4.&#xA;For instance, in the &lt;a href=&quot;http://chesstempo.com/game-database.html&quot;&gt;Game Database of ChessTempo&lt;/a&gt; on sees the average rating of the players and their average performance: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;1.e4: average 2417, performance 2455&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;1.d4: average 2436, performance 2474&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;1.Nf3: average 2431, performance 2465&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;1.c4: average 2435, performance 2467&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although these four opening moves are approximately equally good, they can lead to different kind of positions (tactical vs. positional, lots of theory vs. little theory, etc...). Therefore, the opening move (and the opening in general) does have a big influence on the outcome of the game, depending on the players and their playing styles.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When playing against engines, it is probably a good idea to go for closed positions. In these type of positions, the tactical power of engines is less dominant, while strategical insight becomes more important.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4588" LastActivityDate="2015-07-01T17:28:08.437" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9643" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9638" CreationDate="2015-07-01T19:24:42.080" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;Classically positional play is what is described in part 2 of Nimzowitsch's &quot;My System&quot;. Part 1, The Elements, is more tactical in nature. It describes play in open files, using the 7th and 8th ranks, passed pawns, pins, discovered checks and a few other features.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Part 2, Position Play, deals with stuff like &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Fighting for the center, which you do by moving pawns and pieces (firstly knights and bishops, later rooks) so that they occupy, support or attack the center. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Over protection of important points or squares, in the first instance central ones later they may be points important for attack or defence, is important because it strengthens those points. This in turn gives more freedom and flexibility to the pieces involved. They are not firmly tied down because other pieces are sharing the burden. And it gives prophylaxis. Because these points are over protected you are not going to get caught by a sudden attack from your opponent. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Certain static features are described and discussed which have positional characteristics. Doubled and isolated pawns are usually positional weaknesses. Very occasionally they may have good features but mostly they are bad. The IQP (isolated queen's pawn) is covered in great depth. Depending on how the two sides play the IQP can be a dynamic attacking tool or it can be a static weakness which will eventually fall. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The two bishops (when you have two bishops and your opponent has either two knights or one bishop and one knight) is positional plus because of the way they can work together. They can cut an impassable diagonal line across the board in the same way that a rook can cut such lines orthogonally.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why are these concepts important? Well, when you first start playing you don't really know what to do with your pieces. As Nimzowitsch says you probably think you should get your pieces out, castle on the opposite to your opponent and then each of you should launch a pawn storm attack against your opponent's castled king. First one to break through wins. It can certainly be a lot of fun but it's just not going to work against somebody who has mastered a more positional way of playing. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These positional concepts give you guidelines of how to play when the position doesn't call for a tactical solution. In some respects it gives you guidance of how to build up your position so that you can either start your own tactical attack or frustrate your opponent's tactical attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mastering tactical and positional play will likely take you to somewhere round about the 2000 level, which is no mean feat. To make progress much beyond this level you will have to start to learn and understand when to break these positional guidelines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My System has many examples and games which Nimzowitsch uses to illustrate his points. He also wrote a follow on book of more examples and games called Chess Praxis which is highly recommended for further study of positional play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2019-01-07T12:42:54.293" LastActivityDate="2019-01-07T12:42:54.293" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="9644" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9638" CreationDate="2015-07-01T20:03:54.923" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Tactics is the science of piece safety. Positional play is play involving 'piece activity' and 'pawn structure'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are rated under 1300, positional play is not important because tactical advantages (material) are much greater than positional advantages (slightly better pawn structure). Once you reach 1500, however, positional play becomes every important because it is how games are won and lost, once players stop giving free pieces and pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7500" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2019-01-07T12:43:17.653" LastActivityDate="2019-01-07T12:43:17.653" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="9645" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="690" CreationDate="2015-07-02T01:52:50.077" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was able to install ChessBase on in OSX Yosemite using crossover.  It is working well for me, and this way i don't have to boot a separate virtual machine just to launch it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7711" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T19:21:47.387" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T19:21:47.387" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="9648" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8233" CreationDate="2015-07-02T23:50:53.427" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;My rating on chess24 for blitz is comfortably over 2200 whereas on chess.com it is only around 1700. I think the main issue on chess24 lies with the randomness of the players in terms of their strength unlike on chess.com which seems 'comparatively' consistent. This may very likely have something to do with them increasing the default rating from 1500 to 1800.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7720" LastEditorUserId="7723" LastEditDate="2015-07-03T16:41:28.997" LastActivityDate="2015-07-03T16:41:28.997" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9649" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9637" CreationDate="2015-07-03T04:30:53.837" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you consider that when you were 1 year old, a month was 1/12th of your life...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And when you're 12 years old, a month is just 1/144th of your life..&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe you can see that early moves carry more weight/significance in deciding the route and course the game will take.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At the master level, openings are second-nature.  For beginners like me, it is still easy to make a simple mistake in the first few moves, but if keep a sharp eye and look at all the commonly defined move motifs, it can be very helpful in your path to victory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think all the possible openings have a shorthand notation as well.  Something like C44 means &quot;king's pawn game&quot; &#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessopening?eco=C44&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessopening?eco=C44&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can just change the last part of that url to be a letter and two numbers, and you can see many different openings (even not-so-skillful ones) that way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessopening?eco=A11&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessopening?eco=A11&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7722" LastActivityDate="2015-07-03T04:30:53.837" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9650" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9651" CreationDate="2015-07-03T15:18:54.327" Score="7" ViewCount="1492" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Cozio defense to the Ruy Lopez:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5&#xA;2. Nf3 Nc6&#xA;3. Bb5 Nge7&#xA;4. O-O&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Cozio defense deferred:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5&#xA;2. Nf3 Nc6&#xA;3. Bb5 a6&#xA;4. Ba4 Nge7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The deferred variation speaks more to me because I typically play a6. From the Opening Explorer, I think the best continuation for white is d4 followed by bringing the queen out to the center:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5&#xA;2. Nf3 Nc6&#xA;3. Bb5 a6&#xA;4. Ba4 Nge7&#xA;5. d4 exd4&#xA;6. Nxd4 Nxd4&#xA;7. Qxd4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd like to know more about these defenses. What types of games do they produce? Is anyone known for playing them? Are they prone to traps or other tactical considerations?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7616" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2015-07-03T15:23:01.043" LastActivityDate="2015-08-16T13:13:08.550" Title="Should I play the Cozio defense deferred?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;defense&gt;&lt;ruy-lopez&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9651" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9650" CreationDate="2015-07-03T20:47:09.237" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Cozio defenses, both with 3....Nge7 (1) and 3....a6 4.Ba4 Nge7 (2), have been played by top grandmasters like &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1715488&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Nakamura&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1737202&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Aronian&lt;/a&gt;. According to the &lt;a href=&quot;http://chesstempo.com/game-database.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Game Database of ChessTempo&lt;/a&gt; both variations are quite regularly played and equally popular: 1160 games for (1) and 703 games for (2).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unsurprisingly, both variants are very similar. After (1) white usually plays 4.0-0 g6 5.c3 or 4.c3 immediately and after (2) white also often chooses the plan with c3: 5.c3 or 5.0-0 g6 6.c3. In this case, the variations of (1) and (2) usually transpose into each other.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, it seems that there are some subtile differences between (1) and (2).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;After (1), white has an extra option that is regularly played: 4.Nc3 g6 5.d4 exd4 6.Nd5 Bg7 7.Bg5. After (2), this idea is less common, as black answers 5.Nc3 with 5....d6. Now 6.d4 does not really work: 6....b5 7.Bb3 Nxd4 8.Nxd4 exd4 9.Qxd4? c5! and black wins the bishop after 10....c4.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In (2), white also has an extra option: after 3....a6 white can play 4.Bxc6.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;      [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;      [StartPly &quot;5&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;      1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 (3...Nge7 4.Nc3 (4.O-O g6 5.c3) 4...g6 5.d4 exd4 6.Nd5 Bg7 7.Bg5) 4.Ba4 (4.Bxc6) Nge7  5.Nc3 (5.O-O g6 6.c3) d6 6.d4 b5 7.Bb3 Nxd4 8.Nxd4 exd4 9.Qxd4 c5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4588" LastEditorUserId="4588" LastEditDate="2015-08-16T13:13:08.550" LastActivityDate="2015-08-16T13:13:08.550" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9652" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9653" CreationDate="2015-07-04T11:06:46.297" Score="1" ViewCount="405" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am looking for a database of chess games for a research purpose. I found that chessgames.com is one such site where the data for games of strong players would be available (I don't expect it to be free of course!). However, I am not at all interested in the actual moves made in a particular game; I simply want a list of two players and a result of the game. Does anybody know how and where such data would be available? It would be great if the data spans over several centuriesa as chessgames.com has.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3209" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-09-04T23:31:29.450" LastActivityDate="2020-09-04T23:31:29.450" Title="A list of all authentic games that have happened so far" Tags="&lt;database&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="9653" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9652" CreationDate="2015-07-04T11:42:54.807" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think there is any such database that only gives your names and results. But there are some mega databases you can download and script to anything that you want.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://shop.chessbase.com/en/products/mega_database_2015&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://shop.chessbase.com/en/products/mega_database_2015&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.top-5000.nl/pgn.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.top-5000.nl/pgn.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;365chess.com&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://ficsgames.org&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://ficsgames.org&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;net-chess.com (where you can download correspondence games)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and others.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All you have to do is simply take a PGN file and script off the names of the players&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Date &quot;1992.11.04&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;29&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Fischer, Robert J.&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Spassky, Boris V.&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1/2-1/2&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this example, you'll just need to look for &quot;White&quot;, &quot;Black&quot; and &quot;Result&quot;. This is not a very hard scripting problem, you can even do it with unix commands. If you don't know how to write a script, please consult online documentation or post a question to stackoverflow.com.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2015-07-04T11:42:54.807" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9654" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8825" CreationDate="2015-07-04T20:18:58.540" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The problem with your opponent's multi pawn moves is that he has no piece developed, while you have four. If you next play O-O, that makes five. Then you can bring your Q to e2 on move 9, your a-rook to d1 on move 10, and maybe your castled king rook to e1 on move 11, complete your development, and start the middle game with operations on the king side.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One problem with your opponent's pawn moves is that he has weakened his king side by advancing pawns (without putting pieces behind them). With your advantage in development, you welcome this. Once there are some pawn exchanges that create breaches, your pieces will be able to pour through them, and his won't be in a position to defend.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another possibility is to play 8.Qe2, followed by castles queenside (O-O-O), then play for a kingside break with h4, which also &quot;develops&quot; your h rook. In fact, 8.Qe2 preserves both castling options.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2015-07-04T20:18:58.540" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9655" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9125" CreationDate="2015-07-04T20:27:13.470" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You want to trade pieces after you've maximized the value of your own. (You have a space advantage, so Black's &quot;maximum&quot; is less than yours.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Specifically, you want to concentrate your queen and rooks on the king side, and maybe redeploy some pieces. Once you've done that, you can use a king side pawn storm to open up lines for your pieces that Black can't counter with equal force.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2015-07-04T20:27:13.470" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9656" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9503" CreationDate="2015-07-04T21:30:48.460" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Player A will have difficulties to achieve 2000-2100. Player B has something like 2400 guaranteed, but he will need to play many games to achieve that rating. Player A can start with his FIDE rating, but he will go down without any computer help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7734" LastActivityDate="2015-07-04T21:30:48.460" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9657" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-07-04T22:17:06.480" Score="3" ViewCount="335" Body="&lt;p&gt;As the title says. When playing blitz (3 to 5-minute games), I experience eyestrain after 10 or more games. After that, I start to blunder. I get tired too fast.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In our area, it seems to be only me who has this issue because my opponents can play a whole day without signs of exhaustion. Their plays don't change while my play changes after few blitz games. It is like starting from Elo 1850 then after few games it seems that I am playing like in Elo 1500-1600 while my opponent's strength and any other players' strengths in our area are the same the whole day.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Btw, I work online for at least 10 hours each day Monday to Friday. I play only on weekends. I have computer eyestrain too (a different case, not OTB chess eyestrain). But on weekends I still get eyestrain even when playing OTB only and not using a computer. I get enough sleep on Saturday, so I should not get eyestrain on Sunday when playing OTB, but it still happens.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If anyone here experiences the same issue, I would appreciate your suggestions on how to solve this issue.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks for your ideas.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7174" LastEditorUserId="7174" LastEditDate="2015-07-05T01:55:17.630" LastActivityDate="2019-01-22T16:35:00.770" Title="Eyestrain - Anyone experiencing eyestrain when playing OTB?" Tags="&lt;otb-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9658" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9666" CreationDate="2015-07-04T22:26:59.140" Score="6" ViewCount="615" Body="&lt;p&gt;What are the good strategic and tactical plans for White in this position?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&#xA;1. e4 e6 2. d3 d5 3. Nd2 c5 4. g3 Nc6 5. Bg2 Nf6 6. Ngf3 Be7 7. O-O O-O 8. Re1 Qc7 9. e5 Nd7 10. Qe2 f5 11. exf6 Nxf6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wonder what should I do with the Black's c, d, and e pawns. How to prevent them from pushing forward and after preventing them from pushing forward, what should be the next plan for White?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7174" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2015-07-04T22:31:11.613" LastActivityDate="2015-07-10T15:02:13.713" Title="Strategic and tactical ideas for White in this KIA game" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;kings-indian-attack&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9659" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-07-04T22:37:36.730" Score="11" ViewCount="2060" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am always afraid of the Samisch variation of the King's Indian. It's the main reason why I switched to Chebanenko Slav (or ..a6 Slav, or Kamsky's Slav). But my opponents seem to be always prepared against the Slav. So after few months of unsuccessful Slav, I am going back to King's Indian Defense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.e4 d6 5.f3 O-O 6. Be3 Nc6 7.Qd2 e5 8. d5 Ne7 9. Bd3 Nh5 10. O-O-O f5 11. exf5 gxf5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After &lt;code&gt;gxf5&lt;/code&gt;, Black's position is scary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7174" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2015-07-05T10:21:40.980" LastActivityDate="2015-08-17T00:57:39.183" Title="What are the latest ideas for Black against the Samisch King's Indian Defense?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;kings-indian&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9660" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9657" CreationDate="2015-07-05T07:10:23.407" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you are genuinely getting tired &quot;after 10 or more games&quot; because of eyestrain and not just because you are getting old or you play in a stuffy, crowded room where there isn't enough oxygen then I would suggest you have a problem with the lighting. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In some playing areas I have problems when there is not enough light (maybe I'm in a darker corner of the room) or there is not enough contrast between the colours on the board and / or the colours of the pieces. This can give me eyestrain and make me feel tired but it would happen to me much quicker than after 10 games of blitz. If anything for me it would get a bit better after a while as my eyes and brain adjust a bit to the bad lighting conditions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that some people have a problem the other way with over bright fluorescent lighting so I guess for tournament organizers it can be tricky to get it just right.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I were you I would try and work out which lighting conditions give you the most problems and either sit somewhere where these problems are minimized and maybe if necessary ask the tournament organizer for help on this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2015-07-05T07:10:23.407" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9661" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9657" CreationDate="2015-07-05T07:22:09.083" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Possibly your eyestrain and performance drop are symptoms of a dropping blood pressure and physical tiredness. I used to have very lopsided scores in the two halves of rapid tournaments as well. Nowadays I try:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Keeping the blood sugar level up.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Washing my face with cold water.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Some coffeine intake: Better a cold coke than a coffee. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-07-05T07:22:09.083" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9662" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9659" CreationDate="2015-07-05T10:02:18.333" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I agree with magd that &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1713489&quot;&gt;6.Be3 c5&lt;/a&gt; is a hot line right now. And if you are scared to sacrifice a pawn, maybe the king's indian is not for you. And of course: The king's indian is a very complex opening. There are no easy solutions. Only working through books and GM-games will equip you with the ability to play these positions well and with confidence. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That being said, maybe you should investigate the possibility of playing Nd4 after 8.d5. This seems to score better and set more problems then retreating. Taking that knight immediately is definitely very bad for white and you may be able to follow up with c5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.e4 d6 5.f3 O-O 6. Be3 Nc6 7.Qd2 e5 8. d5 Nd4 9. Bxd4 exd4 10. Qxd4 Nxe4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-07-05T10:02:18.333" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9663" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-07-05T10:46:16.370" Score="2" ViewCount="5925" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am looking for a file containing several (&gt;50 let's say) popular openings in PGN format.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The aim is to use it with &lt;a href=&quot;http://cutechess.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;cutechess&lt;/a&gt; to do engine testing on different opening scenarios.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3468" LastActivityDate="2017-12-30T07:04:56.010" Title="Looking for pgn openings file" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;engines&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9664" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9659" CreationDate="2015-07-05T18:22:01.690" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to the &lt;a href=&quot;http://chesstempo.com/game-database.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Game Database of ChessTempo&lt;/a&gt;, after 6.Be3, there are 3 main variations: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;6....e5: 1970 games&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;6....Nc6: 1651 games&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;6....c5: 1335 games&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After 6....e5 white's main moves are 7.d5 and 7.Nge2. After 7.d5 black has two options: 7....c6 (counterplay on the queen side) or 7....Nh5 8.Qd2 f5 (counterplay on the king side). After 7.Nge2 black's most common move is 7....c6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After 6....Nc6 the most popular move is 7.Nge2. After 7.Qd2 black often plays 7....a6 (the very best move in my opinion), and black seems to have excellent results after 8.0-0-0 (simply too dangerous in my opinion) with 8....b5 or 8....Rb8. The main line 8.Nge2 Rb8 actually transposes to 7.Nge2 a6 8.Qd2 Rb8, leading to a complicated position, where black has 2 plans: b5 or e5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After 6....c5 black should be ready to play&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the pawn sacrifice after 7.dxc5. The statistics in the database suggest that black has enough compensation for the pawn.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the Benoni positions that arise after 7.d5 or 7.Nge2 Nc6 8.d5.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In order to make a choice between these 3 options, you can search some games of strong players to see which type of positions suits your playing style the most.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;      [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;      [StartPly &quot;11&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;      1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.e4 d6 5.f3 O-O 6.Be3 Nc6 (6...c5 (7.dxc5)(7.d5) 7.Nge2 Nc6 8.d5) (6...e5 7.d5 (7.Nge2 c6) 7...Nh5 (7...c6) 8.Qd2 f5) 7.Qd2 (7.Nge2 a6 8.Qd2 Rb8) 7...a6 8.O-O-O (8.Nge2 Rb8) 8...b5 (8...Rb8)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4588" LastEditorUserId="4588" LastEditDate="2015-08-16T20:27:41.060" LastActivityDate="2015-08-16T20:27:41.060" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9665" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9357" CreationDate="2015-07-05T23:24:51.480" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;This question seems to have been answered by TD in &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesspub.com/cgi-bin/chess/YaBB.pl?num=1435326430/2&quot;&gt;ChessPub Forum&lt;/a&gt;. I post the answer below:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;1996&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;De Groot, Adrianus Dingeman&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Simmelink, Joop Theo&quot;]&#xA;[Source &quot;ChessBase&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 Nc6 3. Nc3 e5 4. d5 Ne7 5. h4 Neg8 6. a3 a6 7. Nf3 Ng4 8. Ng5 f5 9. Qc2 Bc5 10. e3 Ne7 11. Be2 Nf6 12. b4 Ba7 13. Bb2 h6 14. Nf3 d6 15. c5 e4 16. cxd6 Qxd6 17. Nd2 O-O 18. Rd1 b5 19. Bxb5 axb5 20. Nxb5 Qd7 21. Nxc7 Rb8 22. d6 Nc6 23. Nc4 f4 24. Bxf6 fxe3 25. fxe3 Qg4 26. Nd5 Be6 27. Ne7+ Nxe7 28. dxe7 Qg3+ 29. Qf2 Qxf2+ 30. Kxf2 Rxf6+ 31. Ke1 Kf7 32. Ne5+ Ke8 33. Nc6 Bd7 34. Nxb8 Bxb8 35. Rd4 Ra6 36. Rf1 Bg3+ 37. Kd2 Bc6 38. Rc1 Bb7 39. Rc5 Kxe7 40. Ra5 Rxa5 41. bxa5 Bc7 42. a6 Bxa6 43. Rxe4+ Kf6 44. Rd4 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3757" LastActivityDate="2015-07-05T23:24:51.480" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9666" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9658" CreationDate="2015-07-06T15:35:54.623" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I had studied the KIA for a time in the early'90's, although with mixed results, so I don't claim to be an expert on the subject.  In this position 12.c3 would constrain the Black &quot;d&quot; pawn, but I think I would initially play 12.Bh3 to restrain the more important &quot;e&quot; pawn, which is currently backward on the open file.  Then if 12..., e5; 13.Bxc8 &amp;amp; 14.Nxe5 would win it. Or if Black decided to reinforce it by 12..., Nd8, then 13.Ne5 could occupy the hole and then support this N with subsequent 14. Ndf3 and 15.Bf4 moves.  And since the purpose of the KIA is a kingside attack, you would probably subsequently want to mobilize your kingside pawns once you had this center control.  I hope these suggestions are of some value.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastActivityDate="2015-07-06T15:35:54.623" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9667" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9658" CreationDate="2015-07-06T15:51:21.853" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is it necessary/good to play 9.e5? The centre gets liquidated quite quickly after that. What about 9.c3 with the typical KIA ideas -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) e5 (which can now be supported by d4) followed by h4, Nf1-h2-g4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) a4 preparing Nc4 if c4 ever becomes available eg 9... de 10. de e5 11.a4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) Qc2&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT having checked on 365chess.com 9.c3 is indeed a good alternative but in the diagram position 12.Bh3 is often played as the bishop is better on that diagonal whereas Black is not really threatening ...e5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4543" LastEditorUserId="4543" LastEditDate="2015-07-06T15:56:38.920" LastActivityDate="2015-07-06T15:56:38.920" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9668" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8291" CreationDate="2015-07-06T17:29:03.733" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As the first answer above indicates, this is a trick question and can be found on youtube.  The question is so posed that the pawn can promote to ANY piece, not restricted to color, so 1..., b8(Black N) is mate.  But this is illegal, so the problem is meaningless.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastActivityDate="2015-07-06T17:29:03.733" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9669" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8767" CreationDate="2015-07-06T19:37:46.670" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are a number of factors that would impact this, not the least of which is a strong desire to excel.  A good memory is very important nowadays with the mass of opening variations and computer analysis having solved all the various types of endgames which you'd have to learn. The willingness to fight and nerves of steel are also important as well as a mortal fear of losing.  And even with desire, talent is still significant.  I know that some people will say that it is mainly hard work that will get you to the top. I worked all my life at chess but could never even get to Expert, peaking at a rating of 1891 over a decade ago.  There are obviously some people with greater aptitude for the game who will excel at it, all other things being equal.  How else do you account for prodigies like Morphy and Capablanca?  Chess was their &quot;native tongue&quot;.  Not everyone can be an Einstein no matter how hard he works.  How about Fischer's supposed reincarnation, Josh Waitzkin?  He never made it even with all his advantages.  The short answer is that hardly anyone can become a Grandmaster no matter how hard he works without inherent ability, a photographic memory, the willingness to spend a large proportion of his waking hours studying and practicing chess, plus a fanatical desire to win.  And even those are no guarantee.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastEditorUserId="7657" LastEditDate="2015-07-06T21:17:22.907" LastActivityDate="2015-07-06T21:17:22.907" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9670" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9674" CreationDate="2015-07-06T20:12:27.497" Score="16" ViewCount="3744" Body="&lt;p&gt;I had this position playing as Black, with Black to move:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/5pk1/6p1/2pQ1b2/1p1b1P2/5K2/8/8 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I had both bishops + 4 pawns =  6.5 points + 4 points = 10.5 points. The opponent has a queen + 1 pawn = 10 points. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know how to challenge a queen with 2 rooks but not with 2 bishops supported with pawns. That's why I played to get the draw and I got it by claiming repetition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;My Questions:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Do black or white have a way to force a win, or is it a draw?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Does comparing with points matter here, with the “score” being 10.5 vs 10?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The whole game is here:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Live Chess&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Chess.com&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2015.07.06&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;IRINA777&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;bigother&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1/2-1/2&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;1396&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;1427&quot;]&#xA;[TimeControl &quot;5|0&quot;]&#xA;[Termination &quot;Game drawn by repetition&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 d6 2.d4 g6 3.Nf3 Bg7 4.c3 Nf6 5.Bd3 O-O 6.O-O b6 7.Be3 Bb7 8.Qd2 Nbd7 9.Na3 c5 10.d5 Re8&#xA; 11.Nc4 Qc7 12.a4 e6 13.e5 dxe5 14.Ncxe5 Nxe5 15.Nxe5 Qxe5 16.dxe6 Qxe6 17.Rae1 Qc6 18.f3 Nd5 19.Bh6 Rxe1 20.Rxe1 Re8&#xA; 21.Bb5 Rxe1+ 22.Qxe1 Bxh6 23.Bxc6 Bxc6 24.c4 Be3+ 25.Kh1 Bd4 26.cxd5 Bxd5 27.a5 Bxb2 28.axb6 axb6 29.Qd2 Bd4 30.Qd3 Bc6&#xA; 31.h4 b5 32.h5 b4 33.hxg6 hxg6 34.f4 Bd7 35.Kh2 Bf5 36.Qc4 Kg7 37.g3 Kg8 38.Kg2 Kg7 39.Kf3 Kg8 40.g4 Be6&#xA; 41.Qa6 Kg7 42.Ke4 Bxg4 43.Qb7 Bh3 44.Qb5 Bf5+ 45.Kf3 Kg8 46.Qe8+ Kg7 47.Qb8 Kh7 48.Qb7 Kg7 49.Qb5 Kg8 50.Qc4 Kg7&#xA; 51.Qb3 Kg8 52.Qc4 Kg7 53.Qd5 Kg8 54.Qd8+ Kg7 55.Qd5 Kg8 56.Qa8+ Kg7 57.Qd5 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7334" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-06T15:14:09.283" LastActivityDate="2020-04-06T15:14:09.283" Title="Is this endgame a draw? 2 Bishops + 4 Pawns vs Queen + 1 Pawn" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;draw&gt;&lt;bishop-pair&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="9671" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9676" CreationDate="2015-07-06T20:39:27.193" Score="9" ViewCount="3199" Body="&lt;p&gt;Any hints how to survive or win having a bishop pair against a Queen in endgames. What you should do? how to cooperate between them? what's the opponent best strategies?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/uffkx.png&quot; alt=&quot;bishop pair vs queen&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7334" LastActivityDate="2015-07-07T12:32:31.600" Title="How to challenge a queen with a bishop pair in endgame?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;queen-endgame&gt;&lt;bishop-endgame&gt;&lt;bishop-pair&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9672" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9671" CreationDate="2015-07-06T20:41:01.303" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This looks like a very simple draw. Shuffle the bishop from g7 to f8 to g7 and if that is illegal shuffle the king one square back and forth while protecting both of the bishops.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4543" LastActivityDate="2015-07-06T20:41:01.303" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9673" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9670" CreationDate="2015-07-06T20:46:24.610" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;Actually, looks to me like black is winning. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;8/5pk1/6p1/2pQ1b2/1p1b1P2/5K2/8/8 b - - 0 1&#xA;&#xA;1... Be6 2. Qb7 b3 3. f5 {only move - opening black's position up} gxf5 (3... Bxf5?!) Kf4 b2 {now black has to escape queen's checks...}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From here, white can go on with some checking sequence, but it looks to me that black will be able to escape a draw by perpetual check eventually and promote.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The piece point scoring systems are &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_piece_relative_value&quot;&gt;subjective by default&lt;/a&gt; and also often heavily dependent on the position and number of pieces left. I do not think exact point comparison is useful in this particular case, however. The position is roughly equal, yes - black just happens to have his king safeguarded from checks and two well supported, passed pawns and thereby excellent winning chances. Suppose though, that both black and white f-pawns were gone. Point-difference-wise nothing has changed - 9.5 to 9 now, but it would be much more difficult, if not impossible, for black to force a win, since his king is now much more exposed to checks. What I mean, is that with this same material imbalance (Q+P vs B+B+4P), one could easily set up positions with any possible end result as an outcome - all depending on how the pieces are positioned and coordinated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are also many &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortress_%28chess%29&quot;&gt;fortress&lt;/a&gt; scenarios in queen vs rook/minor piece(s) endings, where the point system can be misleading. Suppose, for example, the c and b pawns were to be removed - now, in theory, white is ahead - 10 to 8.5 points. I haven't checked, but black should be able to set up a fortress and hold a draw despite the material disadvantage. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3831" LastActivityDate="2015-07-06T20:46:24.610" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9674" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9670" CreationDate="2015-07-06T20:46:35.577" Score="20" Body="&lt;p&gt;Black is winning handily from the diagram position, and has a fairly straightforward strategy going forward: force the b-pawn's advance to b2 with the support of the bishops (starting with &lt;code&gt;1...Be6&lt;/code&gt; to gain control of the b3 square), and then slowly push for a new queen, making use of the facts that (1) White must always keep guard over b1, and (2) Black has plenty of material to shield from a potential perpetual.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The following is lightly annotated over the first few moves, and from move 5 on is just one line illustrating how Black can make steady progress with nothing to fear from the White queen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;????.??.??&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;*&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;8/5pk1/6p1/2pQ1b2/1p1b1P2/5K2/8/8 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1...Be6 &#xA;    {Taking control of the b3 square with tempo, preparing to advance the &#xA;    b-pawn.}&#xA;2.Qb7 b3 3.f5 &#xA;    {White needs to try this, as otherwise Black can simply follow with &#xA;    ...b2, ...Bf5 and queening. Playing this immediately forces Black to &#xA;    occupy f5 with the pawn, since ...Bxf5 drops the b3 pawn.}&#xA;    ( 3.Ke2 $2 b2 4.Kd2 Bf5 )&#xA;3...gxf5 &#xA;    {Still, Black will be able to get in ...b2 from here, which will tie &#xA;    White to guarding against promotion on b1. The only hope for White &#xA;    would be a perpetual, but Black has plenty of material with which to &#xA;    shelter the king.}&#xA;4.Kf4 b2 &#xA;    {What follows is just one illustrative line showing how Black can keep&#xA;    the king safe while pushing toward a new queen.}&#xA;5.Qg2+ Kf8 6.Qa8+ Ke7 7.Qb8 c4 8.Qc7+ Bd7 9.Qb7 f6 10.Qb4+ Ke8 11.Qb8+ Kf7&#xA;12.Qb7 Be5+ 13.Ke3 f4+ 14.Kd2 Kg6 15.Qg2+ Kh5 16.Qh1+ Kg5 17.Qg2+ Bg4 18.&#xA;Qb7 c3+ 19.Ke1 f3 20.Qg7+ Kf4 21.Qh6+ Kg3 22.Qg6 f2+ 23.Kf1 b1=Q+ 24.Qxb1 &#xA;Bh3+ 25.Ke2 f1=Q+ 26.Qxf1 Bxf1+ 27.Kxf1 c2 *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2015-07-06T20:46:35.577" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9675" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1274" CreationDate="2015-07-06T21:04:00.920" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, blitz will not help your serious game.   You do not have time to analyze in depth, which is the basic necessity to play serious games well.  It may be good for trying different opening ideas and sharpening your tactical vision, but not for much else.  Most strong players will agree on this.  Botvinnik said he played a blitz game once, on a train, and Fischer said blitz kills ideas.  Good players can play blitz well, but only after they've spent years honing their skills on slow chess.  It does not work in reverse.  And yes, analyzing your slow games is the best way to progress.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastActivityDate="2015-07-06T21:04:00.920" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9676" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9671" CreationDate="2015-07-06T21:11:57.090" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is one of the well known endgames and the side with the queen almost always (&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pawnless_chess_endgame#Tables&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;92% positions&lt;/a&gt;) wins, although some wins take more than 50 moves with perfect play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See the solution for your position &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.k4it.de/?topic=egtb&amp;amp;lang=en&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; by entering your position into the diagram.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I must point out that &lt;strong&gt;every&lt;/strong&gt; move has been taken into account and &lt;strong&gt;every&lt;/strong&gt; possible continuation has been explored.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I forgot to answer part of your question about challenging the queen: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;with best play side with the bishop loses most of the time, as stated above;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;side with the bishops can &lt;strong&gt;never&lt;/strong&gt; win, due to reasons user &lt;em&gt;ETD&lt;/em&gt; pointed out in his comment;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;in order to defend vs queen, use bishops to create barrier for the enemy king; keep them close to your king in order to be safe from double attacks queen can make.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is worth noting, that the position shifted down by one row is a fortress setup and black draws. The setup is known as the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortress_%28chess%29#Two_bishops&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Lolli position&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;8/6k1/5bb1/8/2Q5/8/3K4/8 w - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastEditorUserId="3831" LastEditDate="2015-07-07T12:32:31.600" LastActivityDate="2015-07-07T12:32:31.600" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9677" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1832" CreationDate="2015-07-07T02:11:54.717" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Isn't there a lot of ego involved in this, the desire for prestige and to show others that you're their superior?  It can't be for the money, since even now with the big reward tournaments only a small percentage can live well on their earnings.  The others will also have to teach or publish, and for the time, effort and expense one has to put into reaching that level, assuming they have sufficient talent to do so, the tangible rewards hardly seem worth the effort.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I had the desire to become really good when I started playing, but it became hard work and took all of the joy out of it. I ultimately decided it wasn't worth it, so now I just play for fun with less stress and probably just as good results.  But I no longer agonize over possibly losing.  It is after all just a game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2015-07-09T01:27:26.410" LastActivityDate="2015-07-09T01:27:26.410" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9679" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9682" CreationDate="2015-07-07T13:11:56.603" Score="3" ViewCount="731" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is the case on &lt;a href=&quot;http://chesstempo.com/game-database.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;the Chesstempo database&lt;/a&gt;, and &lt;a href=&quot;http://database.chessbase.com/js/apps/database/?lang=en&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;the Chessbase database&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't understand why. Wouldn't people who favour Nimzo-type setups play 2...e6 against both moves, and people who favour King's Indian setups play 2...g6 against both? If so, why is 2...g6 more popular than 2...e6 in the position 1 d4 Nf6 2 Nf3?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1752" LastEditorUserId="1752" LastEditDate="2015-07-07T14:39:55.347" LastActivityDate="2015-07-07T19:19:44.067" Title="Why is 2...e6 the most common move after 1 d4 Nf6 2 c4, but not after 1 d4 Nf6 2 Nf3?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;1.d4&gt;&lt;kings-indian&gt;&lt;nimzo-indian&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9680" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9558" CreationDate="2015-07-07T15:57:40.237" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;For information I think the correct rule should be&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If a black pawn is  blockaded (by one of the white knights) on a square no further forward than the line a4–b6–c5–d4–e4–f5–g6–h4 and the blockading knight is protected by the other knight, then White can win the resulting endgame (and similarly in reverse for Black), no matter where the other pieces are placed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Müller and Lamprecht imply this version in Fundamental Chess Endings but unfortunately don't make it explicit, which means that if the rules governing Wikipedia content are strictly adhered to, this also can't be made explicit on the Wikipedia page (failing an alternative source).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7641" LastActivityDate="2015-07-07T15:57:40.237" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9681" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9679" CreationDate="2015-07-07T17:33:23.740" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to the &lt;a href=&quot;http://chesstempo.com/game-database.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Game Database of ChessTempo&lt;/a&gt;, after 1.d4 Nf6 2.Nf3, the statistics are: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;2....d5: 33177 games&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;2....g6: 33147 games&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;2....e6: 30533 games&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While, after 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4, the Nimzo-style setup is more popular than the Kings-Indian setup: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;2....e6: 121346 games&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;2....g6: 86232 games&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This indeed seems not very logical at first sight. However, after 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3, the most popular moves are: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;3....d5: 39228 games&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;3....b6: 31877 games&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, when having a repertoire based on 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 d5, it makes sense to play 1.d4 Nf6 2.Nf3 d5.&#xA;Similarly, when having a repertoire based on 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 b6, one can answer 1.d4 Nf6 2.Nf3 with 2....e6 (or 2....b6).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4588" LastActivityDate="2015-07-07T17:33:23.740" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9682" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9679" CreationDate="2015-07-07T19:19:44.067" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe the reason is that from a theoretical point of view it makes a lot of sense to go for the Queen's Gambit declined, only after white has played Nf3. The most aggressive tries for white in the QGD involve Nge2 and f3, aiming for e4, a plan that was &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1032264&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;introduced by Botvinnik&lt;/a&gt; and is still very dangerous. Obviously this isn't possible if white has already played Nf3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also if white goes for d4/c4/Nc3 it makes sense to go for the Nimzo-Indian because the Nimzo is theoretically in excellent shape. Whereas the Queen's Indian at least right now is apparently under some pressure. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would further argue that the Queen's Indian or the Bogo-Indian aren't closer in terms of &quot;set up&quot; to the Nimzo then the QGD. There is actually a very trendy line right now, that can be reached from both the Nimzo and the QGD: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1794960&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;The Ragozin variation&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So this isn't a case of Nimzo-setup against King's Indian-setup, it is just the case that the theoretically soundest repertoire for black against d4 is a combination of Nimzo and QGD. With that in mind the statistics make sense: Basically you go for the QGD whenever Nf3 happens, otherwise you keep the Nimzo option open.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-07-07T19:19:44.067" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9683" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8631" CreationDate="2015-07-07T20:13:54.797" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Thanks to GloriaVictis's indications I have been able to find the answer to my question. In 1976 &lt;a href=&quot;http://chesscomposers.blogspot.fr/2012/10/october-3rd.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Walther Jorgersen&lt;/a&gt;, a Danish composer, published a mate in 200 in the magazine &quot;Schwalbe&quot;. However, &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andr%C3%A9_Ch%C3%A9ron&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;André Chéron&lt;/a&gt; extended the problem to 203 moves that same year by adding a small change. But unlike Blathy's mate (see GloriaVictis answer), this one is completely forced.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;6n1/p1BN3b/p1p3np/p1p2rpq/6kr/K1P4p/2PP4/7Q w - - 0 1&#xA;&#xA;1.Qg1+ Kf3 2.Qf1+ Kg4 3.Qe2+ Rf3 4.Qe6+ Rf5 5.Bh2 Kf3 6.Qe3+ Kg2 7.Qg1+ Kf3 8.Qf1+ Kg4 9.Qe2+ Rf3 10.Qe6+ Rf5 11.Kb2 Kf3 12.Qe3+ Kg2 13.Qg1+ Kf3 14.Qf1+ Kg4 15.Qe2+ Rf3 16.Qe6+ Rf5 17.Kc1 Kf3 18.Qe3+ Kg2 19.Qg1+ Kf3 20.Qf1+ Kg4 21.Qe2+ Rf3 22.Qe6+ Rf5 23.Kd1 a4 24.Kc1 Kf3 25.Qe3+ Kg2 26.Qg1+ Kf3 27.Qf1+ Kg4 28.Qe2+ Rf3 29.Qe6+ Rf5 30.Kd1 a5 31.Kc1 Kf3 32.Qe3+ Kg2 33.Qg1+ Kf3 34.Qf1+ Kg4 35.Qe2+ Rf3 36.Qe6+ Rf5 37.Kd1 a6 38.Kc1 Kf3 39.Qe3+ Kg2 40.Qg1+ Kf3 41.Qf1+ Kg4 42.Qe2+ Rf3 43.Qe6+ Rf5 44.Kd1 a3 45.Kc1 Kf3 46.Qe3+ Kg2 47.Qg1+ Kf3 48.Qf1+ Kg4 49.Qe2+ Rf3 50.Qe6+ Rf5 51.Kb1 Kf3 52.Qe3+ Kg2 53.Qg1+ Kf3 54.Qf1+ Kg4 55.Qe2+ Rf3 56.Qe6+ Rf5 57.Ka2 Kf3 58.Qe3+ Kg2 59.Qg1+ Kf3 60.Qf1+ Kg4 61.Qe2+ Rf3 62.Qe6+ Rf5 63.Kxa3 Kf3 64.Qe3+ Kg2 65.Qg1+ Kf3 66.Qf1+ Kg4 67.Qe2+ Rf3 68.Qe6+ Rf5 69.Kb2 Kf3 70.Qe3+ Kg2 71.Qg1+ Kf3 72.Qf1+ Kg4 73.Qe2+ Rf3 74.Qe6+ Rf5 75.Kc1 Kf3 76.Qe3+ Kg2 77.Qg1+ Kf3 78.Qf1+ Kg4 79.Qe2+ Rf3 80.Qe6+ Rf5 81.Kd1 a4 82.Kc1 Kf3 83.Qe3+ Kg2 84.Qg1+ Kf3 85.Qf1+ Kg4 86.Qe2+ Rf3 87.Qe6+ Rf5 88.Kd1 a5 89.Kc1 Kf3 90.Qe3+ Kg2 91.Qg1+ Kf3 92.Qf1+ Kg4 93.Qe2+ Rf3 94.Qe6+ Rf5 95.Kd1 c4 96.Kc1 Kf3 97.Qe3+ Kg2 98.Qg1+ Kf3 99.Qf1+ Kg4 100.Qe2+ Rf3 101.Qe6+ Rf5 102.Kd1 c5 103.Kc1 Kf3 104.Qe3+ Kg2 105.Qg1+ Kf3 106.Qf1+ Kg4 107.Qe2+ Rf3 108.Qe6+ Rf5 109.Kd1 a3 110.Kc1 Kf3 111.Qe3+ Kg2 112.Qg1+ Kf3 113.Qf1+ Kg4 114.Qe2+ Rf3 115.Qe6+ Rf5 116.Kb1 Kf3 117.Qe3+ Kg2 118.Qg1+ Kf3 119.Qf1+ Ke4 120.Qxc4+ Kf3 121.Qf1+ Kg4 122.Qe2+ Rf3 123.Qe6+ Rf5 124.Ka2 Kf3 125.Qe3+ Kg2 126.Qg1+ Kf3 127.Qf1+ Kg4 128.Qe2+ Rf3 129.Qe6+ Rf5 130.Kxa3 Kf3 131.Qe3+ Kg2 132.Qg1+ Kf3 133.Qf1+ Kg4 134.Qe2+ Rf3 135.Qe6+ Rf5 136.Kb2 Kf3 137.Qe3+ Kg2 138.Qg1+ Kf3 139.Qf1+ Kg4 140.Qe2+ Rf3 141.Qe6+ Rf5 142.Kc1 Kf3 143.Qe3+ Kg2 144.Qg1+ Kf3 145.Qf1+ Kg4 146.Qe2+ Rf3 147.Qe6+ Rf5 148.Kd1 a4 149.Kc1 Kf3 150.Qe3+ Kg2 151.Qg1+ Kf3 152.Qf1+ Kg4 153.Qe2+ Rf3 154.Qe6+ Rf5 155.Kd1 c4 156.Kc1 Kf3 157.Qe3+ Kg2 158.Qg1+ Kf3 159.Qf1+ Kg4 160.Qe2+ Rf3 161.Qe6+ Rf5 162.Kd1 a3 163.Kc1 Kf3 164.Qe3+ Kg2 165.Qg1+ Kf3 166.Qf1+ Kg4 167.Qe2+ Rf3 168.Qe6+ Rf5 169.Kb1 Kf3 170.Qe3+ Kg2 171.Qg1+ Kf3 172.Qf1+ Kg4 173.Qe2+ Rf3 174.Qe6+ Rf5 175.Ka2 Kf3 176.Qe3+ Kg2 177.Qg1+ Kf3 178.Qf1+ Kg4 179.Qe2+ Rf3 180.Qe6+ Rf5 181.Kxa3 Kf3 182.Qe3+ Kg2 183.Qg1+ Kf3 184.Qf1+ Kg4 185.Qe2+ Rf3 186.Qe6+ Rf5 187.Kb2 Kf3 188.Qe3+ Kg2 189.Qg1+ Kf3 190.Qf1+ Ke4 191.Qxc4+ Kf3 192.Qf1+ Kg4 193.Qe2+ Rf3 194.Qe6+ Rf5 195.Kc1 Kf3 196.Qe3+ Kg2 197.Qg1+ Kf3 198.Qf1+ Kg4 199.Qe2+ Rf3 200.Qe6+ Rf5 201.Kd1 N8e7 202.Nf6+ Kf3 203.Qe2# 1-0 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The solution commented by John Nunn can be found &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.chessbase.com/post/longest-dual-free-direct-mate-problem&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3757" LastActivityDate="2015-07-07T20:13:54.797" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9684" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9686" CreationDate="2015-07-08T08:03:51.117" Score="4" ViewCount="2497" Body="&lt;p&gt;After I set a board up in Scid, how can I get the computer to play as White? I cannot for the life of me figure it out!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7765" LastActivityDate="2015-07-08T15:06:14.207" Title="Scid: Play Against Computer" Tags="&lt;scid&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9685" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5587" CreationDate="2015-07-08T14:48:43.687" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;A very comprehensive answer to this has already been given, but I'll add that in my experience over a number of years (my rating is the same as yours) the White first move 1.d4 has generally lead to the most solid, positional, slow, closed, strategic and quiet positions as opposed to 1.Nf3.  The normal lines in the former closed, positional opening have been well explored for some time and are difficult to subvert into an open game save with some type of counter-gambit gambit such as the Albin, Englund or Budapest, while the latter opening move is less definitive and can lead to many different opening structures, not all of which can be kept under strict positional control and can have tactical elements.  I know this is somewhat ambiguous without concrete examples, but in general hypermodern openings such as 1.Nf3 give up the center and have not proven as strong as classical beginnings like 1.d4. The 1.Nf3 move can lead to Reti, KIA or Catalan structures as well as transposing back into QP openings and will require a broader opening knowledge than just of the responses to 1.d4. But if you want to experiment and broaden your understanding of chess, it would be a viable option while still not opening up the game like 1.e4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastActivityDate="2015-07-08T14:48:43.687" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9686" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9684" CreationDate="2015-07-08T15:06:14.207" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Assuming you mean Scid vs Pc what I do is click on the &quot;flip board&quot; icon - second from right - and then choose the engine from the &quot;Play&quot; menu. It automatically starts playing for white.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2015-07-08T15:06:14.207" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9687" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2572" CreationDate="2015-07-08T18:12:28.530" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Openings are generally categorized as Open (double K pawn), Semi-Open (1.e4 followed by a Black move other than 1..., e5, such as Sicilian (1..., c5) or Caro-Kann (1..., c6) or French Defenses (1...., e6) or Closed (Double Q pawn). I wouldn't necessarily say that these bring about a draw more often.  If you are adept at them, you can strangle you opponent slowly rather than dispatching him quickly.  The result is the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The double &quot;e&quot; pawn openings are called open since the pieces come into contact with each other sooner and tactics abound.  Conversely, in the closed openings early positional maneuvering takes precedence and tactics are delayed.  The semi-open games lead to unbalanced positions with both sides having chances.  These will be fighting games as a result.  As the other respondent has indicated, it's normally suggested that you start out with open games to gain tactical experience.  When you say being careful of counterattack, I assume that that's what you're referring to, and it's always a good idea to examine those for both sides.  Tactics are not absent from closed games, but the opportunities for same usually take longer to arise.  You'll still need to be adept in them regardless of the type of opening though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd suggest that you look at an opening manual to get a better idea of the different types of opening.  I don't advocate memorizing long lines of play though. Just try to get a basic understanding of each.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastEditorUserId="4362" LastEditDate="2015-07-08T19:59:38.843" LastActivityDate="2015-07-08T19:59:38.843" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9688" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9663" CreationDate="2015-07-08T21:19:28.147" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can download a pgn of ECO openings from &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessvisor.com/v-aperturas.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;ChessVisor&lt;/a&gt;. It contains 2014 variations of different openings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The answers to the question &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/4055/is-it-possible-to-download-a-big-txt-file-containing-many-openings?rq=1&quot;&gt;Is it possible to download a big txt file containing many openings&lt;/a&gt; may also be helpful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3757" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2015-07-08T21:19:28.147" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9689" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-07-08T23:48:39.177" Score="7" ViewCount="859" Body="&lt;p&gt;Someone told me that:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Against the move order 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. Nc3 or 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. Nf3, the move 4...a6 is averagely effective.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Against the move order 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. e3, the move 4...a6 is extremely effective, since White has already committed to playing e3, so White has lost many of his options (White now only has two options: 5. Nf3 or 5. Qc2).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Against the move order 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. e3, the move 4...a6 is not very effective (it's still 'playable' but it doesn't make as much sense as in the usual Chebanenko), because White has not committed his b1 Knight to c3, so the ...b5 push is not as strong since White can manoeuvre his Knight to the c5 square more easily and ...b4 wouldn't gain a tempo on a White Knight.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this really true?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've looked into many games databases (openings explorers), but they don't seem to help in answering this question. Against 1. d4 d5 2. c4 c6 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. e3 the move 4...a6 is still played very often, though Black scores very slightly worse than average against 5. Bd3, 5. b3, 5. Nbd2 and 5. Qc2.&lt;br&gt;&#xA; But the fact that it is played often doesn't necessarily reflect if it's good or not, it might simply be due to the fact that many Chebanenko players play 4...a6 against this move order anyways, hoping that White kindly transposes into a usual Chebanenko with 5. Nc3.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;And the fact that it scores slightly worse than usual for Black might simply be a statistical fluctuation, or it might just be caused by the fact that Chebanenko players are maybe less prepared against these White options (5. Bd3, 5. b3, 5. Nbd2 and 5. Qc2) because they are rarer than the usual Chebanenko lines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would like to know if 4... a6 against the Slow Slav is objectively good or not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3237" LastActivityDate="2016-01-13T00:21:40.700" Title="Against the Slow Slav, after 1. d4 d5 2. c4 c6 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. e3, is the 4... a6 Chebanenko still good for Black?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;slav-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9690" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-07-09T13:38:31.520" Score="5" ViewCount="440" Body="&lt;p&gt;Considering the great depth to which most opening lines have been analyzed by computers now, requiring a voluminous memory to compete successfully at the highest levels, is substituting the variant Chess 960(Fischerandom) for classical chess a desirable option to revitalize the game and restore the creativity that was once its hallmark?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2015-07-13T15:50:41.720" LastActivityDate="2016-06-30T09:13:16.827" Title="Is Chess960 a desirable alternative to classical chess?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;chess960&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="6" ClosedDate="2016-07-02T00:24:19.947" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9692" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9637" CreationDate="2015-07-09T14:26:52.220" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Classical chess that tries to control the center directly normally starts with e4 or d4 moves.  Hypermodern chess tries a less direct approach,  to control the center from the wings, utilizing B fianchettos and off-center pawn moves like 1.c4, 1.g3 or 1.b3, with 1.Nf3 being another common hypermodern opening move. Hypermodernism doesn't deny the importance of the center but just goes about taking it over with a different approach, after breaking down the opponent's control if possible.  In other words, the particular opening system that is being used is what is important, not just individual moves.  Hypermodernism has not proven as strong as classical chess though, as means of counteracting it have been found.  It is after all more difficult to take something away from someone after he has obtained it than to contest it from the start. As a novice player I would concentrate on classical openings with a few center pawn moves (e4 to be followed by d4 when safe to do so, or vice versa) to contest the center as well as for quick development of the minor pieces and then castling, which should let you pursue the balance of the game satisfactorily. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastActivityDate="2015-07-09T14:26:52.220" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9695" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9186" CreationDate="2015-07-09T19:12:06.553" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Arguably, 4.Nc3 is one of the most aggressive variations against the Caro-Kann. For black, it is not easy to steer the position into quiet waters, but here are some ideas: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;4....Qb6. The idea is to play 5.g4 Bd7 and to continue with e6 and c5. The most popular reply is 5.Nf3 and after 5....e6, we have a position is similar to the main line 4.Nf3 e6. A recent example is &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1723741&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Yu Yangyi - Margvelashvili&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;4....e6 5.g4 Bg6 6.Nge2 f6. After 7.Nf4 black can play 7....Bf7 or 7....fxe5. The reply 7.h4 is more popular, after which black can continue with 7....Nd7, finish his development and counterplay with c5. A recent game is &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1660989&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Onishuk-Matlakov&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In order to make a choice (not necessarily from these two ideas, but in general), you can look for some grandmaster games to see which variations lead to which type of positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;      [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;      [StartPly &quot;7&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;      1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.e5 Bf5 4.Nc3 e6 (4...Qb6 5.Nf3 (5.g4 Bd7) 5...e6) 5.g4 Bg6 6.Nge2 f6 7.Nf4 (7.h4 Nd7) 7...Bf7 (7...fxe5)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4588" LastEditorUserId="4588" LastEditDate="2015-08-17T11:44:58.597" LastActivityDate="2015-08-17T11:44:58.597" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9697" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1236" CreationDate="2015-07-10T01:15:43.707" Score="-3" Body="&lt;p&gt;What you all fail to understand is that no computer in the world in 2000 and 2001  would castle its king and queen, double castle, or make 10 bad unorthodox moves in a row.  So this was a person. A fact that I know is that there is more than one guest71, and the ICC knows this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7785" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-05-25T19:48:35.607" LastActivityDate="2021-05-25T19:48:35.607" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="9698" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9703" CreationDate="2015-07-10T01:20:09.947" Score="7" ViewCount="448" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just noticed a special style of playing chess in some of the top games in &lt;a href=&quot;http://chess.com&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;chess.com&lt;/a&gt;; A chess without taking pieces:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/FaADC.png&quot; alt=&quot;Chess no eating&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The whole game here:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Live Chess&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Chess.com&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2015.07.09&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;adypady02&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Thunder_Penguin&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1/2-1/2&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;2240&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;2019&quot;]&#xA;[TimeControl &quot;3|0&quot;]&#xA;[Termination &quot;Game drawn by agreement&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 Nf6 2.Nh3 Nc6 3.Nf4 Nh5 4.Ne6 g5 5.Ba6 Nf4 6.Qe2 Ne5 7.f3 Nh3 8.g4 Ng6 9.d4 Bg7 10.Bf4 f5&#xA; 11.Qf2 Nh4 12.Nc3 Kf7 13.Nd5 Bf6 14.Rd1 Re8 15.Rd2 Kg8 16.Kd1 Kh8 17.Kc1 b5 18.Kb1 Bb7 19.Ka1 Kg8 20.Bd6 Kf7&#xA; 21.c4 Rg8 22.c5 Qf8 23.c6 Qh6 24.a4 Raf8 25.a5 Ke8 26.b4 Rf7 27.Kb2 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is this a chess variant? &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What is its name? &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is it quite well known?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What's the objective of the game, still checkmating?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Any hints for a winning strategy?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Another games :&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/livechess/game?id=1210749077&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;game 2&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/livechess/game?id=1210746895&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;game 3&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7334" LastActivityDate="2015-07-11T13:11:06.960" Title="Is this a chess variant? Chess without taking pieces!" Tags="&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;winning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9700" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1986" CreationDate="2015-07-10T12:05:52.170" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Smith Morra gambit is even more aggressive than Grand Prix (It's a gambit!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You'll have more decisive wins (lots of sacrifices) and more tragic losses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7002" LastActivityDate="2015-07-10T12:05:52.170" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9701" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9658" CreationDate="2015-07-10T15:02:13.713" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The e6 pawn is weak, protected by white bishop. Attack and sacrifice your white bishop with check from Bh3. Finally position is Qe6, with 1 pawn advantage. Notice the black bishop is stuck and must be developed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7644" LastActivityDate="2015-07-10T15:02:13.713" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9702" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9698" CreationDate="2015-07-10T20:35:03.657" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Looks to me like a game of &quot;When two sandbaggers meet&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The aim, of course, is not to win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2015-07-10T20:35:03.657" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9703" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9698" CreationDate="2015-07-11T13:11:06.960" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;I followed the profile of &lt;code&gt;Thunder_Penguin&lt;/code&gt; in chess.com and found a blog post about this: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/some-variation&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;some  variation&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ady and I made this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Rules:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To win, get your king to your two corners (a1 and h1 for White,&#xA;h8 and a8 for Black)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You can't capture pieces*&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You can't put pieces on the last rank (1st or 8th)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You can't castle*&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You can capture if it's mate in 1&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You can't control the enemy squares (ie, white can't put a knight on b6)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let the analysis begin!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So according to this, answers to questions would be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Is this a chess variant? What is its name? Is it quite well known?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's a recent attempt to create a variation , made up by the 2 players. not named, not known.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;What's the objective of the game, still checkmating?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The objective is not checkmating but escorting the king to one of your side corners following the rules cited.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Any hints for a winning strategy?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can't answer that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7334" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2015-07-11T13:11:06.960" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9704" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4565" CreationDate="2015-07-11T15:51:22.400" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is possible not only for a pinned piece to block a king's motions, but also for a pinned piece to actively give check or even checkmate.  For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;r/6bb/8/n/1k/2N/P3QB/K6r w - - 0 0&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Be1 Bxc3+ 2. Qb2+ Nb3++&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White's bishop blocks the check, pinning itself.  Black's bishop pins itself when taking the knight, but simultaneously checks White.  Note that White's bishop is pinned, so it can't take Black's bishop.  White's Queen blocks check from the bishop, pinning itself, but also checking Black.  Because Black's bishop is pinned, Black cannot take White's queen (and although White's queen is pinned, it could take Black's bishop next turn and Black would not be able to re-take).  Black's knight, however, can deliver checkmate while blocking check and pinning itself in line with White's queen.  Note that White's pawn cannot take Black's knight because the knight's last move pinned it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2698" LastActivityDate="2015-07-11T15:51:22.400" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9705" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9709" CreationDate="2015-07-11T19:19:47.540" Score="3" ViewCount="7592" Body="&lt;p&gt;So I am a decent player, rated by my estimate at around 1000, even though my actual rating is 5 years and thousands of games out of date. In playing the chess engine in chess free on android, I quickly stopped playing 1. e4 because the center counter/scandinavian became very annoying. I switched to d4, and later to nf3 so that people playing against me wouldn't know how to react (most are sub 1000). I, however, don't know myself what the best response is. The two main lines are 1. Nf3 d5 and 1. Nf3 Nf6. I think that I prefer Nf6 for black, but how should I continue from there? Of course, it depends on what my opponent does, but what should be a position I aim for with black?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7797" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2015-07-11T19:28:17.983" LastActivityDate="2018-06-01T11:54:52.940" Title="good responses to 1. Nf3" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9706" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19537" CreationDate="2015-07-11T19:48:12.633" Score="6" ViewCount="4449" Body="&lt;p&gt;I understand how to find all valid moves for all pieces on the board. For example I know that a certain knight can hit all of the 1's in this board&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;01000000&#xA;00100000&#xA;N0000000&#xA;00100000&#xA;01000000&#xA;00000000&#xA;00000000&#xA;00000000&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How do I store these as individual moves, how do I apply them to my BitBoards, how do I take back the move?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've already written an engine before, but I did not use bitboards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8443" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-09-29T09:50:05.873" LastActivityDate="2019-09-21T17:46:23.250" Title="Representing Moves found via BitBoards, applying them, and removing them" Tags="&lt;programming&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9707" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-07-12T01:03:56.413" Score="6" ViewCount="827" Body="&lt;p&gt;Doesn't the extra tempo not make up for the lack of king safety?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;r2q1rk1/1pp1ppbp/p1n2np1/5b2/P1BP4/2N1PN1P/1P3PP1/R1BQ1RK1 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7804" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-12-17T13:42:46.803" LastActivityDate="2020-12-17T13:42:46.803" Title="Why is g4 the best move in this Queens Gambit accepted line?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;queens-gambit-accepted&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="9708" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="75" CreationDate="2015-07-12T02:35:59.340" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think anyone has mentioned the Staunton Gambit:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 f5 2.e4 fxe4 3.Nc3 Nf6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which I had the opportunity to play successfully against the computer earlier this week when it played the Dutch Defense.  It can be seen as a sounder relative of the Blackmar-Diemer Gambit (1.d4 d5 2.e4) since 1...f5 does not contribute to Black's development and leaves the black king slightly exposed, which 2.e4 aims to take advantage of. It's sufficient for dynamic equality and can provide White with a very dangerous attack if Black is not adequately prepared for it.&#xA;And the From Gambit is a strong, albeit double-edged, response to Bird's opening (1. f4 e5 2. fxe5 [2. e4 transposes to the King's Gambit] d6 3. exd6 Bxd6).  If White is careless, Black can generate some quick Fool's Mate variation kingside mating attacks based on the absence of the f2 pawn and the weakness on the e1-h4 diagonal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2019-05-20T13:02:30.640" LastActivityDate="2019-05-20T13:02:30.640" CommentCount="0" CommunityOwnedDate="2015-07-12T02:35:59.340" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="9709" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9705" CreationDate="2015-07-12T03:54:47.680" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Until you reach 14-1500 strength, opening theory is not very important. &#xA;One of the best coaches in the world for beginners, National Master Dan Heisman, said:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;It does not matter who gets the advantage out of the opening if one of&#xA;  the players is likely to lose a piece to a simple tactic in the&#xA;  middlegame. Losing a piece from an advantageous position will almost&#xA;  always result in a lost position. &lt;strong&gt;So study tactics, not openings,&#xA;  until you almost never lose pieces to simple tactical motifs.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However it is good to know the &lt;em&gt;ideas&lt;/em&gt; behind opening moves, such as controlling the center, developing, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So 1...Nf6 and 1...d5 are both good moves. They both control the &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; squares and aid development.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7500" LastActivityDate="2015-07-12T03:54:47.680" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9710" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9707" CreationDate="2015-07-12T04:41:03.163" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;I suppose you have some source that claims &lt;code&gt;1.g4&lt;/code&gt; is the best move from the diagram position, but which doesn't give any reason for it. I won't try to weigh in on whether it is in fact the best move here, but I will try to articulate a reason or two to play it. First I'll say that I don't think it's the tempo against the bishop that offsets the decreased king safety, but rather other tangible results instead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To my eye, the primary point in its favor is that White gets one of two potentially desirable outcomes immediately: either (1) Black moves her bishop away from controlling e4, so White gets in the move &lt;code&gt;2.e4&lt;/code&gt; next, building a nice central pawn duo, or (2) Black responds with &lt;code&gt;1...Be4&lt;/code&gt;, and allows a forcing line that lets White obtain two minor pieces for rook and pawn. (I'll note that my first thought in responding to &lt;code&gt;1...Be4&lt;/code&gt; was simply to win the bishop pair for White, but that ultimately doesn't look that great, and it was some nudging from Stockfish that revealed this other idea to me.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The annotations that follow look at these two resulting possibilities in a little bit of detail, offering my scant takes on matters. But I'll note that there are a lot of concrete, tactical ideas in the air here, and the overall situation is more chaotic than I initially thought when first looking at the position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;????.??.??&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;*&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;r2q1rk1/1pp1ppbp/p1n2np1/5b2/P1BP4/2N1PN1P/1P3PP1/R1BQ1RK1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.g4 &#xA;    {Lessening Black's control of the e4 square by putting the question to&#xA;    the bishop.}&#xA;1...Bd7 &#xA;    ( 1...Be4 {Trying to stop White's central expansion, but it allows &#xA;    White to force the obtaining of two pieces for a rook and pawn if he &#xA;    so chooses.} 2.Nd2 $1 Bd5 {Forced.} 3.g5 $1 Bxc4 {Forced,} 4.gxf6 Bxf1&#xA;    {Forced.} 5.fxg7 Kxg7 6.Kxf1 {White's larger piece army offers the &#xA;    better prospects, and the airy castle around his king isn't an &#xA;    immediate concern, and with proper play shouldn't be an issue.} )&#xA;2.e4 &#xA;    {Establishing an ideal pawn center, though yes at the expense of &#xA;    having created a good deal of space around the white king. In fact, &#xA;    Black can (and perhaps should) now sacrifice a piece for pawns and &#xA;    greater exposure of the white king.}&#xA;2...Nxg4 &#xA;    ( 2...h5 {Another attempt to further expose the white king.} 3.e5 {&#xA;    This basically forces Black to go in for the same sort of piece &#xA;    sacrifice as in the 2.e4 Nxg4 line given here.} &#xA;        ( 3.Nh4 $5 {Another interesting possibility, exploiting the fact &#xA;        that the only non-pinned pawn defending g6 has now advanced.} 3...&#xA;        hxg4 $2 4.Nxg6 )&#xA;    3...hxg4 &#xA;        ( 3...Nh7 $2 4.gxh5 gxh5 5.Kh2 {Now the white king is no more &#xA;        exposed than the black king, and White will be the one with the &#xA;        better attack.} )&#xA;    4.exf6 Bxf6 5.hxg4 Bxg4 6.Qd3 {Threatening Qxg6. Again I'd wager that &#xA;    White's extra piece outweighs the deficit in pawns and the exposed &#xA;    king.} )&#xA;3.hxg4 Bxg4 4.Be2 Bxf3 5.Bxf3 Nxd4 6.Bg2 &#xA;    {Black has three pawns for the piece, and has removed much of the &#xA;    white king's pawn cover. Nevertheless, Black does not have an &#xA;    attacking force at the ready immediately, and I think the long term &#xA;    chances should favor White's extra piece.}&#xA;*&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2015-07-12T04:41:03.163" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9711" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9712" CreationDate="2015-07-12T11:33:25.870" Score="5" ViewCount="930" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am planning to build an open source web based client for &lt;a href=&quot;http://freechess.org/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;FICS&lt;/a&gt;. I enjoy playing at &lt;a href=&quot;http://chess.com&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://chess.com&lt;/a&gt;, but don't like the fact that it is a closed service. So, I need something similar, but for FICS.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What I am wondering about is, if something already exists for this. Wouldn't want to end up with duplicated effort.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, is it something that the chess community would use? What is the most popular way that people connect to FICS?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7433" LastActivityDate="2018-03-14T14:35:55.133" Title="Browser based FICS client: exists or may I build one?" Tags="&lt;software&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9712" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9711" CreationDate="2015-07-12T13:43:12.507" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are already open-source clients for FICS. The default web client that you see when you open the FICS website is the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jinchess.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Jin Chess Client&lt;/a&gt;. Jin is an open source Java implementation, so you can use it via Java Applet. There might be other open-source web platforms that I'm not aware of, but Jin is enough for you to get started.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not so sure what you want to do with Jin. It's working and it's fully functional. However, it's not a web application and feel a bit old-school. If you're committed, you should consider creating a JavaScript/CSS/HTML5 FICS web application. It'll be more beautiful and modern. Look at lichess.org, it's absolutely stunning. It would've been better if it connects to the FICS server. Maybe you can do the job?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While I don't have statistics for FICS client usage, I believe web application is the way to go.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2015-07-12T13:43:12.507" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9713" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9715" CreationDate="2015-07-12T13:49:35.943" Score="21" ViewCount="12913" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm stuck at 1600-1800 in chess.com. My rating fluctuates within that range. There must be something that I still don't understand that is already understood by a 1900-2000 player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I am asking for tips. How can I reach elo 2000? Should I focus on opening?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;UPDATE&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Thank you so much for the contributors. All answers are great and I really appreciate your efforts for sharing your ideas.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7174" LastEditorUserId="7174" LastEditDate="2015-07-14T07:34:09.103" LastActivityDate="2018-10-20T21:45:53.323" Title="What are the things that a 2000 player knows that a 1800 player doesn't know?" Tags="&lt;theory&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;" AnswerCount="10" CommentCount="11" FavoriteCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9714" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9713" CreationDate="2015-07-12T14:48:52.677" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well I believe that surpassing the 2000 rating would be commitment and dedication, analysing all your games and study your weaknesses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When the clock ticks, rating will be a distraction, rating will not matter after that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my opinion, stretch more time in chess, analyse, play, and read more.  The ratings will take care of itself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7794" LastActivityDate="2015-07-12T14:48:52.677" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9715" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9713" CreationDate="2015-07-12T15:18:17.713" Score="20" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Should I focus on opening?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do you regularly fail to get out of the opening? Regularly get beaten whilst still in the opening? If yes then you definitely need to work on your openings. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do you usually come out of the opening with a playable position? If yes then you are wasting your time spending more time working on openings if your goal is to improve.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do you get a lot of pleasure working on openings? I know I do and that's why I still waste time on them even though I know my time would be better spent on other things. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once you get to something like 2300 then openings start to become a lot more important. At that level and above games are much more often won and lost on superior opening preparation, often geared towards a particular opponent and his known opening repertoire.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Twice in the last 15 years I've prepared a specific opening for a specific opponent and they've gone along and played what I wanted / prepared. In both cases the resulting position was what the book told me was a much better position for me. In one game it certainly looked that way because even though I was playing somebody about 100 points stronger than me I went on to win. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the second case I again reached a position which was supposed to be better for me but I couldn't really see what to do and went on and lost. When I put the second game through the computer it didn't think much of the &quot;much better position for me&quot;. So, you can't always trust the opening books. The top players, of course, are writing those books. Are they still playing? Are they really going to give away their best moves? Or save them for the next time they play Kramnik or Carlsen?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bottom line: the effort v reward equation isn't very good. What I've been doing recently on openings is just making sure I have a repertoire which gets me safely to the middle game where the real fight at my / our level begins.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's another question for you. Can you mate with KNB v K? If not then I would strongly recommend that you study this endgame until you can win 100% of the time against the computer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now I know what you are going to say. &quot;But I've never, ever had that endgame and I'll probably die without ever seeing it in real life&quot; That's true. But the point of learning that particular endgame is that rounding up, corralling and then mating the opponent's king with just a bishop and knight requires remarkable co-ordination between your three pieces. The important thing you gain from mastering this endgame is not the ability to mate with KBN v K but the ability to co-ordinate king, bishops and knights in the endgame and this &lt;em&gt;will&lt;/em&gt; come up a lot. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I remember years ago being very pleased to reach what looked like an even endgame where we each had king, knight, bishop and several pawns against a much stronger player. I offered a draw, as you do. He was very polite and didn't burst out laughing. After he'd beaten me he explained. &quot;Look&quot;, he said, &quot;No disrespect, but you are a much weaker player. This kind of position is actually quite difficult. Of course it should be a draw but I know how to play it and you probably don't. So, of course I played on.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, I could have just given you the standard reply of &quot;Study endgames&quot; but that wouldn't have really helped because it is too general. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, go away and learn how to mate with KBN v K. Practice until you can beat the computer 100% of the time and you will get a lot more points. Not only will you start drawing games you would previously have lost and winning games you would have let slip away to a draw but you will also recognize earlier in the game how you can steer the game to the kinds of positions you know how to play well in the ending and avoid ones which are not so good.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2015-07-12T15:18:17.713" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9716" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9713" CreationDate="2015-07-12T16:19:34.000" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;At that level, games are often decided (or could be decided) by tactical means. If you analyze your current games with the computer, there will be quite a few opportunities to win a pawn (which can be almost decisive) or more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So my suggestion would be to try and solve lots of tactical puzzles. There are numerous books and (free) websites on this topic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2015-07-12T16:19:34.000" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9717" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8285" CreationDate="2015-07-12T18:46:52.263" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Computers play very tactically and aggressively, with no tactical errors at whatever setting they are assigned.  I prefer playing them at the lower settings, say 4 ply (two moves), when if you can make a 3-move combination you have a chance to beat them.  So playing against them can increase your tactical skill, which is supposedly 99% of chess.  But they don't play that well positionally as stronger humans do, so it won't improve your results against higher rated humans. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastActivityDate="2015-07-12T18:46:52.263" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9718" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1086" CreationDate="2015-07-12T22:22:29.703" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Another set you could use is the Omega Chess set.  This variation introduces two Wizards and two Champions, but you could use one each on just the 10x10 board, or a smaller 10x8 board.  I would use the Wizard piece for the Archbishop and the Champion piece for the Chancellor.  I think Omega Chess is still available commercially.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7812" LastActivityDate="2015-07-12T22:22:29.703" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9720" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9713" CreationDate="2015-07-13T08:18:01.873" Score="8" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I am always confused whether I should fix/keep or change the current&#xA;  pawn structure&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That is a very difficult question, one which much stronger players, grandmasters even, often struggle with. So, it's not possible to give you a concrete answer which you can take away and always make the right decision. The best I can do is give some general guidelines which will get you thinking in the right direction. At the end of the day there is no real substitute for the vastly greater experience and hard work which top players have put in.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The key thing about changing or keeping the pawn structure is that it is a dynamic thing. If you change the pawn structure in some way, either by advancing a pawn or capturing a pawn (needn't be with one of your pawns) how does it change the dynamism of the pawns for each side and, often more important, how does it change the dynamism of the pieces for each side?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm going to give some examples but it can't be comprehensive because it is really the subject for a whole book which I am not good enough to write.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) Passed Pawns&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We all know the rule &quot;passed pawns must be pushed&quot;. The dynamics of the position for me as white are very different if I have a passed pawn on a7 than on a2. In the first case my opponent will be sweating, in the second case he will be calm. Of course, make sure the opponent can't just take it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) Opening the position / giving my pieces more freedom&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The two most common opening moves are e4 and d4. These moves release a bishop and allow it to move but this principle occurs many times in different guises throughout the game. If I can open a file which I can control with my rooks, if I can open a diagonal for one of my bishops, particularly if these are pointing towards the enemy king, then this is usually good.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) Opening the position / giving my opponents pieces more freedom&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I have a pawn on a half open file or diagonal controlled by my opponent then I should try and avoid capturing with this pawn if at all possible. Conversely you may have a position where your opponent has a blocked pawn in the middle of the board which also blocks one of his bishops and so drastically reduces the effectiveness of that bishop. In that case it could be a big mistake for you to take that pawn with a piece even if the pawn is a free pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4) Strengthening squares&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I mentioned earlier that e4 and d4 are the most common opening moves. Apart from releasing a bishop these are good moves because they strengthen important squares in the center of the board. e4 strengthens d5 and f5, for instance. Later in the game you may get the chance to move a pawn to strengthen or take control of an important square. For instance your opponent (black) has castled kingside and pushed g6. If you get the chance to play g5 you will be exercising a lot of control over the weak squares f6 and h6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5) Weakening squares&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Say you (white) have castled kingside. Your white squared bishop has been exchanged. You want to move a pawn in front of your king to give it some air. g3 would often be a bad idea because of the way it weakens f3 and h3. h3 would usually be a better option.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;6) To block or keep open&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You have pawns on g6 and h6 opposite pawns on g7 and h7. Your opponent plays g6. Should you play hg or h6 or do something else and leave the position tense (unresolved)? It all depends on the what other pieces are on the board and where they are. It depends on the dynamism of the position.&#xA;If you have your rooks already doubled on the h file or can get them there very quickly then you are going to chop off hg very quickly and crash on through.&#xA;If there aren't many pieces left, queens and rooks are off, just the odd knight and or bishop along with the kings and a few pawns then you will probably favour h6 fixing the position. You then have the possibility of later trying to arrange to play Nxg6 or Bxg6 so that if he retakes with the h pawn then your h pawn is going to queen.&#xA;If you have your queen and bishop lined up on the a1-h8 diagonal then you will probably want to leave the tension unresolved so that if he takes gh then you can take the h7 pawn. You would try and build up more pressure with your other pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What you should take away from this is a bunch of questions to ask yourself when considering some pawn structure move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) Does this get me closer to queening a pawn?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) How does this affect the mobility and possibilities for my pieces?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) How does this affect the mobility and possibilities for my opponent's pieces?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4) Does this strengthen some important squares?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5) Does this weaken some important squares?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Quite often only one of these questions will be really important but sometimes several of them can be important and trade-offs are required. For instance, this move reduces the mobility and attacking possibilities for my opponent but it also reduces my mobility and maybe weakens an important square while also strengthening another important square. Balancing all these things up is tricky.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2015-07-13T08:18:01.873" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9722" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9713" CreationDate="2015-07-13T10:31:23.727" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;My feeling when playing players under 2000 is, that they usually lack a certain sense of urgency. They often play decent chess, when there is something to do, like attacking the king, but they don't understand that if they allow a certain setup, they will always be slightly worse. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When they do realise that they shouldn't have allowed a certain move, they often overreact and conclude that they are much worse or even losing. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the pragmatic skill of realising who is slightly worse and why as early as possible seems to be quite important if you want to cross the 2000 mark. To me it was helpful to just read opening books, without really learning the opening, to know which positions are &quot;normal&quot; and therefore balanced positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-07-13T10:31:23.727" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9723" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9690" CreationDate="2015-07-13T12:33:36.963" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to put forth a few arguments, why I don't consider it desirable to substitute classical chess with Chess960:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The rumours of a draw death of chess have been greatly exaggerated. The idea that chess will one day be played out, is more than a hundred years old, but the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.chessbase.com/post/sonas-what-exactly-is-the-problem-&quot;&gt;draw rate in top level chess&lt;/a&gt; is actually growing very slowly. And the rate of short draws has decreased a lot in the last decade because of &lt;a href=&quot;http://rules.chessdom.com/sofia-rule&quot;&gt;Sofia rules&lt;/a&gt; and similar measures. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The idea of the draw death and of Chess960 is that opening theory will become the dominating factor in top level games, but in recent years it has been pretty obvious that the opposite is actually happening. Nowadays you cannot really regularly outprepare your opponents anymore. Players like Carlsen don't even try to get opening advantages, they just go for an unknown position and play chess. In the end, when everything is known about openings, preparation will probably play less of a role, not more! &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Openings are an integral part of how chess is played. Openings are rather like genres in literature, they have their own character and this adds depth to the games. Many players like &quot;their&quot; openings. I wouldn't be any happier about never playing or replaying a king's gambit game anymore than I would be about never reading an epic fantasy novel again. If you throw opening theory out of the window, you also get rid of a lot of knowledge and history. In the end you have games that are played on a lower level and aren't part of an intricate and well understood history of games in a particular variation.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Conclusion: Chess960 is a fun alternative, but substituting classical chess with Chess960 would probably be more of a loss than a gain. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-07-13T12:33:36.963" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9724" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4749" CreationDate="2015-07-13T15:16:45.910" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Irving Chernev's &lt;em&gt;Logical Chess&lt;/em&gt; annotates 33 games in a really accessible way, including the openings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Each move gets a detailed explanation of its pros &amp;amp; cons in an accessible way (i.e. more engaging text, less variations), e.g. explaining how to exploit a lead in development or control of the centre.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The openings that feature the &lt;em&gt;most&lt;/em&gt; are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Queen's gambit declined (there is a whole chapter dedicated to queen's pawn openings)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Nimzo-Indian defence, mainline&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The Italian Game&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The Ruy Lopez&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But there are a few others as well (I'm guessing from your question that you're not after any specific opening)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The chapters cover:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Attacking the King&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Queen's pawn opening&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Master games, with an emphasis of those played by Capablanca&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, you asked for books but the YouTube videos by National Master Dereque Kelley where he runs through the mainlines of many common openings are very good to!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2015-07-13T15:16:45.910" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9725" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9706" CreationDate="2015-07-13T19:58:48.600" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a very deep subject, but here's a few basic thoughts that might get you going.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A bitboard consists of 64 bits. If you designate one corner of the board as the most-significant bit and the opposite corner as the least-significant bit, you can store a bitboard in a single 64-bit integer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, suppose A1 is the LSB and H8 is the MSB. We will fill up the 64-bit integer moving left-to-right (A-to-H) and then down-to-up (1-to-8). Your sample turns into:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;0000000000000000000000000100000000100000000000000010000001000000&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and this 64-bit integer represents the possible &quot;landing&quot; locations of a knight located at A6. In C this could be stored like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;long long knight_a6 = 0x4020002040;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We can do this for &lt;em&gt;every&lt;/em&gt; possible location of the knight, in the same order that we filled out the bitboard (left-to-right, down-to-up). In other words:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;A1: 0000000000100000010000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000&#xA;A2: &amp;lt;bitboard for a knight at A2&amp;gt;&#xA;...&#xA;B1: &amp;lt;bitboard for a knight at B1&amp;gt;&#xA;...&#xA;H8: &amp;lt;bitboard for a knight at H8&amp;gt;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This will take up 64 entries * 64 bits each = 512 bytes of space. Now we can determine the possible landing locations of a knight at &lt;em&gt;any&lt;/em&gt; location, just by looking at the corresponding entry in the table. In C it could look something like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;long long knight[64] = { 0x0020400000000000,&#xA;                         &amp;lt;bitboard for a knight at A2&amp;gt;,&#xA;                         ... };&#xA;long long knight_a6 = knight[40]; /* A6 = index 40 */&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These are all static bitboards: they're just there for your convenience when programming. But you'll probably also want some active bitboards that represent the state of the game. For example, you'll probably want a bitboard that represents where all the pieces are. At the start of the game ranks 1, 2, 7, and 8 are full, so the bitboard looks like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1111111111111111000000000000000000000000000000001111111111111111&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or in C:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;long long game = 0xFFFF00000000FFFF;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So what can you &lt;em&gt;do&lt;/em&gt; with bitboards? Well, for starters you can determine if a piece (say, a knight at A6) is attacking another piece. To do this you perform a logical AND between the game bitboard and the static bitboard for the attacking piece. Let's say the game looks like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;00000000&#xA;00k00000&#xA;N0000000&#xA;00000000&#xA;00000000&#xA;00000000&#xA;00000000&#xA;000000K0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The white king is on G1, the white knight is on A6, and the black king is on C7. The game bitboard would look like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;0000001000000000000000000000000000000000100000000010000000000000&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's see if the white knight is putting the black king in check. First, we look up the white knight's &quot;landing&quot; bitboard as described earlier.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;0000000000000000000000000100000000100000000000000010000001000000&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now we AND that bitboard together with our game bitboard.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    0000001000000000000000000000000000000000100000000010000000000000&#xA;AND 0000000000000000000000000100000000100000000000000010000001000000&#xA;    ----------------------------------------------------------------&#xA;    0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000010000000000000&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The result is &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; all-zeroes, so the selected piece is attacking &lt;em&gt;something&lt;/em&gt;. Here's it is in C:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;long long game = 0x200000000802000;&#xA;long long attacker = knight[40]; /* A6 = index 40 */&#xA;if (game &amp;amp; attacker != 0)&#xA;{&#xA;  /* The knight at A6 is attacking something! */&#xA;}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The next step is to see what he's attacking. There are multiple ways to do this: you could see where the 1 appeared in the ANDed bitboard and find the corresponding square, or you could keep a bitboard for every different type of piece. Let's leave it at that for now though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Next let's see how pieces can be moved. We'll remove the black king from the board for simplicity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;00000000&#xA;00000000&#xA;N0000000&#xA;00000000&#xA;00000000&#xA;00000000&#xA;00000000&#xA;000000K0&#xA;&#xA;Bitboard: 0000001000000000000000000000000000000000100000000000000000000000&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Looking at the knight's landing bitboard we can see there are four one's, so four possible moves. Let's take the first one - so we'll erase all the other zeroes in the bitboard for now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;0000000000000000000000000100000000000000000000000000000000000000&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To move the knight, we erase him from the game bitboard, and then AND the game bitboard with the knight's move bitboard.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;       0000001000000000000000000000000000000000100000000000000000000000&#xA;ERASE  0000000000000000000000000000000000000000100000000000000000000000&#xA;       ----------------------------------------------------------------&#xA;       0000001000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000&#xA;OR     0000000000000000000000000100000000000000000000000000000000000000&#xA;       ----------------------------------------------------------------&#xA;       0000001000000000000000000100000000000000000000000000000000000000&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The new gameboard looks like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;00000000&#xA;00000000&#xA;00000000&#xA;00000000&#xA;0N000000&#xA;00000000&#xA;00000000&#xA;000000K0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, there are a &lt;strong&gt;lot&lt;/strong&gt; of things brushed over in this answer:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&lt;li&gt;How do you track what kind of piece is at each location?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;How do you distinguish between white and black?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;How do you distinguish between captures and normal moves?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;How do you determine which squares are &quot;shielded&quot; behind another piece?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;How do you handle pawns, which move in a different way than they capture?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;How do you handle the initial pawn move and capture en passant?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not all bitboards are the same, either. What if we filled out the bitboard in a fancier order than just going left-to-right, bottom-to-top? Maybe there's some other way to assign squares to bits that makes certain checks or moves faster. The way we've written it is just the simplest to picture.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Again, this is a very deep subject, but hopefully this at least explained some of the basics about how bitboards are used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7616" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-09-21T17:46:23.250" LastActivityDate="2019-09-21T17:46:23.250" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="9726" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9713" CreationDate="2015-07-13T23:10:57.840" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recently progressed from 1800 to 2000 in my USCF tournament rating. I don't know how that compares to chess.com ratings. Here are some differences I think I can perceive between my play now and then (I'm not sure what the relative importances are):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I memorized a lot of opening lines using spaced repetition (I know, you're not supposed to do this at such a low rating). As a result I am often ahead on the clock after the opening stage and also am often more familiar with the relevant tactics and strategy of the positions I end up in. Of course sometimes it gets me in trouble too.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I also used spaced repetition to memorize solutions to a lot of exercises, particularly Ivashchenko's &lt;em&gt;Manual of Chess Combinations&lt;/em&gt;, Yusupov's &lt;em&gt;Build Up Your Chess&lt;/em&gt; et al, and Hellsten's &lt;em&gt;Mastering Chess Strategy&lt;/em&gt;. The intent was to become much better at pattern recognition in both tactics and strategy. I do feel like I recognize tactical and strategic patterns more than I used to, and am less often at sea in the middlegame.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I feel like I am much better about putting my pieces on good squares and not rushing into tempting tactics than I was at 1800. When I look at my games from back then I often see myself lashing out with some tactic instead of taking time to set up all my pieces well. When your pieces are all on good squares and working together, it is much easier to find tactics, it's easier for the tactics to actually work, it's harder for your opponent to find good tactics against you, and when you miscalculate something it's easier to accidentally be lucky and have some saving move. When I play a bad game these days it's often because I didn't remember this!&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Related to #2, I feel like I am just better at telling what is important in a position and discarding what is unimportant than I used to be. I feel like I am making better decisions faster and wasting less time considering bad moves.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't honestly feel like my calculation is much better than it was when I was 1800, though maybe I'm able to prune my tree of variations better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2015-07-13T23:10:57.840" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9727" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9592" CreationDate="2015-07-14T02:59:20.963" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The subject has already been pretty well exhausted, but I'll just add that in my club I tell the novices to play out their games for practice when they are behind and also since a mistake by their opponent is quite possible.  When stronger opponents are playing, not resigning in a clearly lost position is insulting to the player with the advantage.  Why subject them to that unnecessary aggravation when the result is inevitable? Of course, if your opponent is a sadist like Alekhine was, he might enjoy tormenting you when  you're losing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastActivityDate="2015-07-14T02:59:20.963" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9728" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1218" CreationDate="2015-07-14T07:04:45.757" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;A famous game is Timman - Velimirovic. According to the endgame theory of that time, the ending was indeed winning, but the shortest win would exceed the 50-moves rule, so it seemed that the game would end in a draw. After the third(!) adjournment of the game, Timman and his seconds found a shorter win than the textbook, within 50 moves, and Timman went on to win the game.&#xA;There is an &lt;a href=&quot;http://russell-enterprises.com/hans19.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;interesting article&lt;/a&gt;, written by GM Ree, which describes the atmosphere of the time in which this game was played.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, for the endgame theory of today, this game might be less important, as we have tablebases and no more adjourned games. According to the tablebase, black's move 68....Kf8 was a mistake.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Rio de Janeiro Interzonal&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Rio de Janeiro BRA&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;1979.10.02&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;1979.09.23&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;8&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Jan Timman&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Dragoljub Velimirovic&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;D30&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;205&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 c5 4.cxd5 exd5 5.g3 Nc6 6.Bg2 cxd4&#xA;7.Nxd4 Bc5 8.Nxc6 bxc6 9.Qc2 Qe7 10.O-O Bd7 11.Nc3 Nf6 12.Bg5&#xA;O-O 13.Bxf6 gxf6 14.Rac1 Bb6 15.e3 h5 16.h4 Kh8 17.Ne2 Bg4&#xA;18.Nf4 Rac8 19.Bh3 Bxh3 20.Nxh3 Qe5 21.Nf4 Rg8 22.Qe2 Rxg3+&#xA;23.fxg3 Bxe3+ 24.Kg2 Bxf4 25.Qxe5 Bxe5 26.b3 Kg7 27.Rfd1 Rc7&#xA;28.Rc2 Bd6 29.b4 Bxb4 30.Rxd5 Kg6 31.Rd4 a5 32.g4 c5 33.gxh5+&#xA;Kxh5 34.Rd5+ Kh6 35.Rc4 a4 36.Kf3 a3 37.Rd6 Re7 38.Rxf6+ Kg7&#xA;39.Rf5 Rd7 40.Rg5+ Kf8 41.Rg2 Rd5 42.Ke4 Rh5 43.Kf3 Ke7 44.Kg4&#xA;Rh7 45.Rf2 Rg7+ 46.Kf5 Rh7 47.Rf3 Kf8 48.Rh3 Rh5+ 49.Ke4 Ke7&#xA;50.Kf4 Kf6 51.Kg4 Kg6 52.Rf4 f5 53.Kf3 Kf7 54.Ke2 Ke6 55.Rc4&#xA;Kd5 56.Rf4 Ke5 57.Rc4 Kd5 58.Kd3 Ba5 59.Rh1 Bd8 60.Rf1 Be7&#xA;61.Rcf4 Bxh4 62.Rxf5+ Rxf5 63.Rxf5+ Ke6 64.Rxc5 Bf6 65.Rc6+&#xA;Ke7 66.Ke4 Bb2 67.Kd5 Kf7 68.Re6 Kf8 69.Ke4 Kf7 70.Kf5 Kf8&#xA;71.Kg6 Bc3 72.Ra6 Bb2 73.Ra7 Ke8 74.Kf5 Kf8 75.Ke6 Kg8 76.Rf7&#xA;Bc3 77.Rf3 Bb2 78.Ke7 Kh7 79.Rg3 Kh6 80.Kd6 Kh5 81.Kc5 Kh4&#xA;82.Rg8 Be5 83.Kd5 Bb2 84.Kc4 Bf6 85.Rg6 Bg5 86.Kd5 Bc1 87.Ke4&#xA;Bb2 88.Kf5 Kh5 89.Rd6 Kh4 90.Rd3 Bc1 91.Rc3 Bb2 92.Re3 Bc1&#xA;93.Re1 Bd2 94.Rh1+ Kg3 95.Rd1 Bb4 96.Rd3+ Kf2 97.Ke4 Ke2&#xA;98.Kd4 Bc5+ 99.Kc4 Be7 100.Rh3 Bd6 101.Kb3 Bf8 102.Rh8 Bd6&#xA;103.Ra8 1-0&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another game that comes to mind is Fischer - Taimanov, where white exploited the advantage of bishop vs. knight. I'm not sure whether this game is the very first one in this kind of endgame to actually advance the endgame theory, but it definetely is a textbook example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Fischer - Taimanov Candidates Quarterfinal&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Vancouver, Canada&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;1971.05.25&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;1971.05.16&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;4&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Robert James Fischer&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Mark Taimanov&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;B47&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;141&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Qc7 5. Nc3 e6 6. g3 a6&#xA;7. Bg2 Nf6 8. O-O Nxd4 9. Qxd4 Bc5 10. Bf4 d6 11. Qd2 h6&#xA;12. Rad1 e5 13. Be3 Bg4 14. Bxc5 dxc5 15. f3 Be6 16. f4 Rd8&#xA;17. Nd5 Bxd5 18. exd5 e4 19. Rfe1 Rxd5 20. Rxe4+ Kd8 21. Qe2&#xA;Rxd1+ 22. Qxd1+ Qd7 23. Qxd7+ Kxd7 24. Re5 b6 25. Bf1 a5&#xA;26. Bc4 Rf8 27. Kg2 Kd6 28. Kf3 Nd7 29. Re3 Nb8 30. Rd3+ Kc7&#xA;31. c3 Nc6 32. Re3 Kd6 33. a4 Ne7 34. h3 Nc6 35. h4 h5&#xA;36. Rd3+ Kc7 37. Rd5 f5 38. Rd2 Rf6 39. Re2 Kd7 40. Re3 g6&#xA;41. Bb5 Rd6 42. Ke2 Kd8 43. Rd3 Kc7 44. Rxd6 Kxd6 45. Kd3 Ne7&#xA;46. Be8 Kd5 47. Bf7+ Kd6 48. Kc4 Kc6 49. Be8+ Kb7 50. Kb5 Nc8&#xA;51. Bc6+ Kc7 52. Bd5 Ne7 53. Bf7 Kb7 54. Bb3 Ka7 55. Bd1 Kb7&#xA;56. Bf3+ Kc7 57. Ka6 Nc8 58. Bd5 Ne7 59. Bc4 Nc6 60. Bf7 Ne7&#xA;61. Be8 Kd8 62. Bxg6 Nxg6 63. Kxb6 Kd7 64. Kxc5 Ne7 65. b4&#xA;axb4 66. cxb4 Nc8 67. a5 Nd6 68. b5 Ne4+ 69. Kb6 Kc8 70. Kc6&#xA;Kb8 71. b6 1-0&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: I found a very nice &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chesscollection?cid=1024701&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;collection of famous endgames&lt;/a&gt;, subdivided in categories. It comes as no surprise that this collection also contains some of the examples that were given in several answers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4588" LastEditorUserId="4588" LastEditDate="2015-07-25T10:11:32.187" LastActivityDate="2015-07-25T10:11:32.187" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9729" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-07-14T12:14:39.937" Score="3" ViewCount="164" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know the rule of thumb about trading pieces when you have a lead (and pawns when you're behind), but how does one decide an advantage is sufficient enough to transition into an ending by trading queens?  I've found that a small lead of a pawn or even a piece often isn't enough to win in that case.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastActivityDate="2015-07-14T12:49:16.167" Title="When to transition into an ending" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9730" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9729" CreationDate="2015-07-14T12:49:16.167" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is no easy answer to that question. You need to be able to accurately assess your winning chances in the possible endgame and to do that you need some knowledge and a lot of experience. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can acquire the knowledge by looking at the basic theoretical endgames. That will tell you that two knights aren't enough for mate, that bishop and pawn might still be a draw, that rook and bishop vs rook or knight vs rook is tricky but a draw and many other things. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the experience you'll have to play. Then you will also notice that apart from winning chances, there is another factor to the decision of going into an endgame: Minimising the risk of losing. Often simplification decreases both: The chances of winning and the chances of losing. So if winning is more important to you: When in doubt, keep the queens.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-07-14T12:49:16.167" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9731" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8946" CreationDate="2015-07-14T13:57:04.653" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Kings cannot legally be on adjacent squares, but otherwise opposition (being one square away from the other king on a rank or file, or even diagonally) is one of the most important principles in the endgame, since the king taking the opposition can force the other king to give way, gaining space.  Being any odd number of squares away from the opposing king with the move in any of these configurations is having the distant opposition, which is just as significant as close opposition. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastActivityDate="2015-07-14T13:57:04.653" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9732" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-07-14T14:21:20.823" Score="2" ViewCount="657" Body="&lt;p&gt;I heard that some of the best players in the world like Alekhine have the best photographic chess memory and they can play blindfolded?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How to develop such memory? What are the ways to learn it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am just a beginner, and i struggle to recognise notations like Bxh8, CxD4 and takes me long time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, if you are born with a photographic memory, does that mean it will help you to WIN in chess?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7644" LastEditorUserId="7644" LastEditDate="2015-07-15T15:40:48.370" LastActivityDate="2015-07-15T17:55:57.270" Title="Photographic memory in chess?" Tags="&lt;psychology&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9733" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9705" CreationDate="2015-07-14T18:16:45.253" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Try to answer 1. Nf3 with the King's Indian Defense setup.  This involves a move order such as 1... Nf6, 2... g6, 3... Bg7, 4... 0-0, 5... d6, etc., aiming for the pawn thrust e5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4068" LastActivityDate="2015-07-14T18:16:45.253" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9734" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9732" CreationDate="2015-07-14T18:37:18.020" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think you can develop a photographic memory, but this article might be of interest to you: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-there-such-a-thing-as/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-there-such-a-thing-as/&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as algebraic chess notation is concerned, here are a few basics:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;'N' = kNight, 'B' = Bishop, 'K' = King, 'Q' = Queen, 'R' = Rook.  Pawns are represented by the file they are on.  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When a piece moves, the piece abbreviation followed by the destination square is used.  For example, 'Qd2'.  It doesn't take into account where the piece moved from (there's an exception to this rule that will be explained later).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The 'x' in notation such as 'cxd4 signifies that the c-pawn is capturing on the d4 square.  'Bxf2' signifies that the bishop is capturing on the f2 square.  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Pawn moves are represented by the square they are going to.  For example, on white's first move, 'e4' means that the pawn on e2 moved to the square e4.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Kingside castling = '0-0', queenside castling = '0-0-0'.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Checks are represented by a '+'.  So, if the bishop moves to f4 and checks the enemy king, then the move would be 'Bf4+'.  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Checkmates are represented by a '#'.  If the above move delivered checkmate instead of check, then it would be 'Bf4#'.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;There is a slightly more complex rule for Rooks when either rook can move to the same square.  For example, 'Rad1' means that the rook from the a-file moved to the square d1.  This is only needed when it was also possible for the other rook (let's say the rook on f1), to move to the same square.  The same rule applies to knights.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4068" LastEditorUserId="4068" LastEditDate="2015-07-14T19:20:37.777" LastActivityDate="2015-07-14T19:20:37.777" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9735" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9732" CreationDate="2015-07-14T19:26:13.280" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Photographic memory is closely related to board vision in Chess, where in you instinctively and instantly know something is wrong with the position ( yours or your opponent's) or it clicks to you that you've seen this or a similar position before.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Though memory capacity might seem like an &quot;in-born&quot; talent, I would argue it can be developed to some degree with practice. Play as many professional games as possible. By professional, I mean tournament games with real humans face-to-face. Tournament games build the seriousness that is necessary for forming long term memories. I've seen in my experience that when I am playing a lot of serious chess, I can easily detect board patterns and tricky positions than when I am out of touch with chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One more technique to improve board vision and memory is to try NOT to write down the moves while playing but replay the whole game from memory after the game. I've seen that over a period of time, you are better at remembering your own games. Even though you will not be able to remember every game you play, it will improve your memory in general.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Regarding the notations, start speaking in terms of them whenever you describe a game to a friend or whenever you self-analyze a game. It is tricky. Especially the 4th and 5th ranks. I always say &lt;code&gt;Bg4&lt;/code&gt; from White when its supposed to be &lt;code&gt;Bg5&lt;/code&gt; and vice versa. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Keep practising and I am sure you will get good at both board vision and notations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;To answer your edited question,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Finally, if you are born with a photographic memory, does that mean it&#xA;  will help you to WIN in chess?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Winning in chess has to do with many more things than just photographic memory. Tactics, Strategies, Staying calm under time pressure are just a few things that are vital to success but hardly have anything to do with memory. Having a good memory helps in chess but there are still a lot of other aspects to master to become a master!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3111" LastEditorUserId="3111" LastEditDate="2015-07-15T17:55:57.270" LastActivityDate="2015-07-15T17:55:57.270" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9736" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9159" CreationDate="2015-07-14T20:39:33.767" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessclub.com/videos/improve-your-chess-the-3-types-of-chess-vision&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;This ICC video&lt;/a&gt; contains visualization exercises. It also covers tactical vision and board vision.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7500" LastActivityDate="2015-07-14T20:39:33.767" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9737" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-07-14T21:35:50.250" Score="10" ViewCount="2250" Body="&lt;p&gt;To give some context, I just started playing OTB and am only 1225 USCF.  My online chess rating isn't much stronger though, it's about 1650 with standard time controls.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess engines are a great tool, but can they be detrimental to the growth of lower-rated players?  Sure, it's true that lower-rated players can use engines to spot an overlooked tactic, or to find a not-so-obvious blunder, but what about the subtle moves that chess engines suggest in positional games?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After using Stockfish to analyze a few of my games, I noticed that from time-to-time the engine would suggest moves that didn't make much sense to me.  It's hard to give a concrete example from off the top of my head, but I think a lot of lower-rated players can relate.  Engines are obviously very strong and it's easy for any player to follow along with an engine's analysis, observe it's suggestions, and think, &quot;oh yeah, I can implement that in my own games.&quot;  But then when it comes down to crunch time, the player didn't really learn anything at all, and just deceived themselves into thinking they learned something from the engine.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What do you think?  Are engines great learning tools for lower-rated players, or does it require a higher level of chess knowledge to truly take advantage of an engine's power?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4068" LastActivityDate="2019-10-30T04:43:24.830" Title="Are chess engines detrimental for lower-rated players?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;" AnswerCount="9" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9738" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9737" CreationDate="2015-07-14T23:34:50.490" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think they are detrimental if they are used properly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;There is nothing you're going to learn from Stockfish that's going to make an immediate difference. By studying the analysis you'll start to learn, however.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Stockfish plays at GM strength. It's going to suggest moves you'll never find until you're a 2200+ player.  Unfortunately I am unaware of a chess engine that plays like a sensible USCF 1650, which is what you need.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Stockfish will show you where you could have made better moves. Something that is important to note is that winning moves are there, if you are clever enough to find them.  Until the game is hopeless, Stockfish can beat a USCF 1250 regardless of which side of the board it is playing.  The moves are there.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, while I am a fan of engines, if you want to improve, get an instructor. You don't need a GM - an &quot;A&quot; or &quot;B&quot; player will do. Also, after playing with &quot;A&quot; and &quot;B&quot; players, ask them to help you analyze the game. This gives you reasons, not just answers. And further it will help you learn how to analyze.  This is what you'll miss if you rely upon the engine too much - it will give you the answers without helping you understand the answers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2015-07-14T23:34:50.490" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9739" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9737" CreationDate="2015-07-14T23:41:15.833" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a mid-1500's rated player, I find tactics trainers (chess problems) more rewarding that playing against engines.  I've played at a variety of time controls -- usually with a time bonus for the human -- but every game seems to be a war of attrition: tight positional play fighting for tiny advantages.  Then I play other humans who overlook a tactic, or try something risky that doesn't pan out, or any number of &quot;human errors&quot;.  It's a different kind of game, and one that I find a lot more fun.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I try to play slow games (G/30 or longer) against people, then use engines to analyze them. When a better move is uncovered, it becomes a game of introspection: &quot;Why didn't I choose THAT move? Did I see it? Did I calculate it properly? Was I so set on another plan that I wasn't willing to change?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A major hurdle I faced was a natural aversion to playing on-line: there are thousands of players on-line at any given time, and the mainstream servers (ICCS, FICS, PlayChess, etc.) are very good at matching skill levels.  It may not be as personal as OTB, but (hopefully) you're still playing another human.  I still don't play rated games on-line, but for practice purposes its hard to beat.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7827" LastActivityDate="2015-07-14T23:41:15.833" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9740" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9256" CreationDate="2015-07-14T23:55:03.557" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Like sprinting vs. a marathon, both styles of game are valid but build different skills.  Blitz chess is all about &quot;board vision&quot;: the ability to quickly recognize tactical patterns, identify threats, or just create an innate sense of where the pieces should go.  Longer time controls exercise computational skills: the ability to &quot;go deep&quot; on exchanges or set up a tactic.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Playing only one style may help you win sooner, but I would argue that playing both will help you win more often.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7827" LastActivityDate="2015-07-14T23:55:03.557" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9741" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9663" CreationDate="2015-07-15T00:05:21.543" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would recommend that you take a look at the &lt;strong&gt;Silver Openings Suite&lt;/strong&gt; by &lt;a href=&quot;https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Albert+Silver&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Albert Silver&lt;/a&gt;. It's a hand-crafted set of 50 opening positions designed for balanced play, based on some non-trivial statistical analysis using &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.chessbase.com/post/test-your-engines-the-silver-openings-suite&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot; title=&quot;ChessBase&quot;&gt;ChessBase&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Cheers!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7827" LastActivityDate="2015-07-15T00:05:21.543" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9742" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5000" CreationDate="2015-07-15T02:46:23.113" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd say play like the computers do, i.e. just look for the best move in the ensuing positions and continue to play tough.  A little aggression wouldn't hurt either, as another respondent has indicated. Put the pressure on and give your opponent the chance to blunder in turn.  It's happened.  Don't by any means just trade away pieces into a losing ending, which I've also seen happen. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastActivityDate="2015-07-15T02:46:23.113" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9743" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8638" CreationDate="2015-07-15T13:17:36.963" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Latvian Gambit (or King's Gambit in reverse) may be confusing, but it's also somewhat unsound on principle since White already has the initiative and you're giving up the pawn from a position of weakness.  The French Defense is a lot sounder and can be very strong in the hands of someone who knows what they are doing. As someone else has mentioned, hypermodern openings can be confusing if you are not familiar with chess theory concerning controlling the center, but they are still not as strong as classical openings immediately contesting  center control.  If you know what you are doing, you can reach favorable positions through transposition with hypermodern openings.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastActivityDate="2015-07-15T13:17:36.963" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9744" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9737" CreationDate="2015-07-15T13:34:08.153" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think computer programs are detrimental as long as you realize they are relying mainly on tactics.  I don't think the on-line computer programs are skilled at subtle moves.  But they can be helpful specifically for tactics training for lower rated players, helping you to become adept at seeing tactical moves.  I don't think that playing them at the higher levels is of as much benefit as using lower levels though since they don't make any mistakes in the former whereas in the latter you can get a more human-like game with the possibility of outplaying the program on occasion. At least that's been my experience. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastActivityDate="2015-07-15T13:34:08.153" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9745" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2381" CreationDate="2015-07-15T13:55:35.237" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The dividing lines between the various stages of the game are somewhat fluid, but a good rule of thumb is that the opening ends when all your pieces are developed to their best squares and you have castled.  Of course you are considering middle games strategies while you are making some of these moves, which accounts for the ambiguity.  The same is true of the demarcation between middle and endgames, although that's often classified as when the queens leave the board.  I guess the bottom line is to view the entire game as an integrated unit with subtle transitional stages along the way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastActivityDate="2015-07-15T13:55:35.237" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9746" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-07-15T15:36:05.480" Score="3" ViewCount="201" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know that creativity and calculating skill are the paramount characteristics for chess success, with luck basically non-existent, but just how important is memory?  I suppose that pattern recognition, an important ability, is just a subliminal form of memory, but I'm talking about opening line and end game principles.   Even when I think I know them I find that I'm often compromised by forgetting significant elements of same during a game.   Would that necessarily doom one to mediocrity?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastActivityDate="2015-07-15T18:04:09.210" Title="Importance of memory in chess" Tags="&lt;theory&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9747" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9746" CreationDate="2015-07-15T18:04:09.210" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Even after mugging up infinite opening lines and countless endgame positions, we can still be mediocre chess players, if we don't understand the underlying principles and strategies. Human memory is limited. You are bound to forget opening lines. Trying to play by memory alone beyond move 5-10 can lead to disastrous consequences.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess has so many combinations that even if you know 100 variations of a particular opening, the opponent will play the 101st one. Now, the best line of defence is to think something like - &quot;I haven't seen this variation before. But I have seen similar ones. In those, the motivation was to gain a powerful pawn center. Here, my opponent is trying to dismantle my pawn centre. What should I do? He is doing so by compromising his own pawn structure. So should I go for the pawn exchange? By the way, his last pawn move leaves his knight unguarded. Shall I attack it?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3111" LastActivityDate="2015-07-15T18:04:09.210" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9748" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4412" CreationDate="2015-07-15T18:15:35.050" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As the first responder indicated, K &amp;amp; R vs K is a basic checkmate for the stronger force.  All he must do is drive the Rook to the edge using the coordinated K &amp;amp; R and administer the checkmate there.  Having additional material, while redundant, can only simplify matters for you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastActivityDate="2015-07-15T18:15:35.050" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9749" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4412" CreationDate="2015-07-15T19:33:15.453" Score="0" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;7k/7R/5N2/8/8/8/8/4K3 b - - 1 0&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The knight and rook need no help to deliver checkmate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7500" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2015-07-15T21:17:30.380" LastActivityDate="2015-07-15T21:17:30.380" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9750" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9754" CreationDate="2015-07-15T20:30:59.587" Score="8" ViewCount="2330" Body="&lt;p&gt;I play the Exchange variation as White when Black plays 2...e6 against the Queen's Gambit. Should I play 3. cxd5 to avoid the transpoition to the Slav 3. Nc3 (hoping for 3...Nf6 4. cxd5) c6!?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. c4 e6 3. cxd5!? (3. Nc3 c6!?)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7500" LastEditorUserId="4588" LastEditDate="2015-08-04T12:40:42.133" LastActivityDate="2017-02-23T14:00:59.577" Title="After 1. d4 d5 2. c4 e6, should White play 3. cxd5?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;queens-gambit&gt;&lt;1.d4&gt;&lt;slav-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9751" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-07-15T22:09:13.047" Score="4" ViewCount="1195" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to set up the five-men syzygy tablebases for use in xboard 4.8. Stockfish 6 and Komodo 9 are both supposed to support Syzygy, but in Xboard, their SyzygyPath option is missing from the UCI options.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've tried setting up the tablebase through the GUI options but there's no documentation on how to do this with Syzygy rather than Nalimov that I can find. Anyone have a clue how this is done?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7836" LastActivityDate="2018-07-19T13:50:53.347" Title="Syzygy tablebases in xboard" Tags="&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;tablebases&gt;&lt;uci&gt;&lt;winboard&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9752" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9750" CreationDate="2015-07-15T23:14:45.277" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The move 3 cd5 is certainly not good as it does  nothing to improve White's position, and in fact helps Black's development opening the c8-h3 diagonal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="446" LastActivityDate="2015-07-15T23:14:45.277" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9753" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9750" CreationDate="2015-07-16T06:11:34.167" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is basically a trade-off: are you so afraid of the Slav that you're willing to play a slightly inferior Exchange line?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The main line of the QGD Exchange is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. cxd5 exd5 5. Bg5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you have a clever opponent, they can play Be7 instead of Nf6 if you exchange too early:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. c4 e6 3. cxd5 exd5 4. Nc3 Be7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In that case, you can only play variations with Bf4, which promise less chances of advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2015-07-16T06:11:34.167" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9754" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9750" CreationDate="2015-07-16T07:21:14.543" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;After 3.cxd5 exd5 4.Nc3, if black plays 4....Nf6 or 4....Be7, then white indeed succesfully transposed to the mainlines of the QGD and avoided any transpositions to the Slav.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black's best reply is probably 4....c6, after which white has 3 good options: 5.Nf3, 5.Bf4 and 5.Qc2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;After 5.Nf3 black can play 5....Bd6 or 5....Bf5.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;After 5.Bf4 black's best moves also are 5....Bd6 or 5....Bf5. (Black has an extra tempo compared to 3.Nc3 Be7 4.cxd5 exd5 5.Bf4 c6 6.e3 Bd6, as in &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1602147&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wojtaszek - Kraemer&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;After 5.Qc2, both 5....Bd6 and 5....g6 (with idea Bf5) seem good moves for black.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In all variations, black has a good version of the QGD, as white cannot prevent him from developing his bishop to f5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems that after 3.cxd5 black equalizes rather easily and that 3.Nc3 or 3.Nf3 are much more principle moves.&#xA;However, 3.cxd5 cannot be called a mistake. If the Carlsbad structure suits your playing style, then it is worth a try.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  [StartPly &quot;4&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;  [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;  1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.cxd5 (3.Nc3 Be7 4.cxd5 exd5 5.Bf4 c6 6.e3 Bd6) exd5 4.Nc3 c6 (4...Nf6)(4...Be7) 5.Qc2 (5.Nf3 Bd6 (5...Bf5)) (5.Bf4 Bd6 (5...Bf5)) 5...Bd6 (5...g6)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4588" LastEditorUserId="4588" LastEditDate="2015-08-15T07:29:49.507" LastActivityDate="2015-08-15T07:29:49.507" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9755" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="372" CreationDate="2015-07-16T14:43:58.123" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;One can have a natural talent for the skills inherent in chess, such as spatial relations and pattern recognition, but without knowing some of the basic principles of chess, most easily obtained through study, it's difficult to see how one could become truly great.  Capablanca was supposedly such a natural talent, particularly in endings, but even he found it necessary to study openings when he reached the higher echelons of chess in order to continue to compete successfully. Other natural talents such as Reshevsky found the same to be true.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastActivityDate="2015-07-16T14:43:58.123" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9756" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9737" CreationDate="2015-07-16T15:29:22.657" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Being a 1500 player myself, I use chess engines to point out tactical shots I missed in my games, so I know what tactics I should be concentrating on. I also like to work on openings with them, in which case I may restart the game in 5 or 10 moves.  They have often helped me see holes in my (rather limited) opening knowledge. I don't worry about moves where the evaluation changes only a little bit. I do find it useful for helping me develop a sense of danger, but I don't play many games out because I get depressed losing all the time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3009" LastActivityDate="2015-07-16T15:29:22.657" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9757" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9705" CreationDate="2015-07-16T15:51:19.990" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;1.Nf3 Nc6 is also playable depending if you like 1.d4 d5 2.c4 Nc6 3.Nf3 which it can transpose into and 1.e4 Nc6 2.Nf3 Nf6 which it can also transpose into.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4543" LastActivityDate="2015-07-16T15:51:19.990" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9758" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-07-16T18:40:57.900" Score="6" ViewCount="3409" Body="&lt;p&gt;My last opening of choice as White was the King's Indian Attack to avoid having to learn a lot of opening lines, it being a system opening.  I've read Eric Schiller's and Ken Smith's books on the KIA.  I get the planned control of e5 and the desired strong piece and pawn presence on the kingside for an attack but rarely seem to be able to bring home the point.  The sample games I look at always seem to find strong continuations.  Am I just seeing the successful games?  Does this suggest basically a tactical shortcoming on my part, or could I be missing something else critically important that I need to know about the opening for complete understanding? I seem fairly tactically astute in open games. I might add that I haven't been particularly successful with the companion King's Indian Defense either.  Maybe positional play just isn't my forte.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The following game is the most recent KIA from several days ago against the computer, which although flawed by the blunder on move #30 yet will illustrate what I'm talking about.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Conero&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;SparkChess&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Nf3 g6 2.d3 d5 3.Nbd2 Bg4 4.g3 Bxf3 5.Nxf3 e6 6.Bg2 Nf6 7.O-O Bg7 8.c3 O-O 9.Qc2 Nc6 10. Bf4 b5 11.e4 Ng4 12.Rad1 f5 13.Rfe1 fxe4 14.dxe4 Nf6 15.e5 Nd7 16.h4 a5 17.a3 a4 18.Bh3 Nc5 19.Ng5 Qe7 20.Qe2 Rab8 21.h5 h6 22.Nf3 gxh5 23.Nd4 Qe8 24.Nxc6 Qxc6 25.Qxh5 Qe8 26.Qg4 h5 27.Qg5 Ne4 28.Qh4 c6 29. f3 Nc5 30.g4? Rxf4 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2015-07-17T19:46:39.777" LastActivityDate="2021-04-04T13:52:47.550" Title="Why don't I have more success with the King's Indian Attack?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;kings-indian-attack&gt;" AnswerCount="10" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9759" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9758" CreationDate="2015-07-16T18:50:04.660" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If your rating is up to 1400 at least, you probably need to develop planning skills.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Silman's &quot;How to Reassess your Chess&quot; is a highly recommended book by many chess players. It covers planning based on imbalances.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you have a strong player look over some of your games, they will likely be able to point out something you are misunderstanding.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7500" LastActivityDate="2015-07-16T18:50:04.660" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9760" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7596" CreationDate="2015-07-16T18:54:47.253" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Combinations involving sacrifices have been considered beautiful since they transcend the logical order of things and make one marvel at the human brain's ingenuity.  Anderssen's &quot;Immortal Game&quot; is considered beautiful since he sacrificed so many pieces to bring about a forced checkmate. I much prefer to see chess as an art and play a game which has these characteristics and can be so classified rather than a mundane one which merely brings home the point. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastActivityDate="2015-07-16T18:54:47.253" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9761" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4968" CreationDate="2015-07-16T19:49:13.527" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Openings which don't contest the center directly are called hypermodern and generally attack the center from the flanks with &quot;c&quot; and &quot;f&quot; pawns and fianchettoed bishops.  Most black players will respond classically by taking over the center immediately and trying to hold it. They would be as familiar with hypermodern openings as you and would not be at any disadvantage.  In fact controlling the center would give them an immediate advantage, since it would have been easier for white to contest the center right away than to give it away and then try to get it back. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastActivityDate="2015-07-16T19:49:13.527" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9762" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9758" CreationDate="2015-07-16T21:14:00.817" Score="8" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Am I just seeing the successful games?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course! If you were writing a book trying to sell / promote a particular opening you wouldn't call it something like &quot;How to Lose with the KIA&quot;. Nor would you fill it full of games where white played the KIA and lost. You'd fill it full of games where white won.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I get the planned control of e5 and the desired strong piece and pawn&#xA;  presence on the kingside for an attack but rarely seem to be able to&#xA;  bring home the point.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hey! You know what? That's chess. It's a pretty even game. The thing is, every time you move your opponent gets a move too. There is no forced win for white from move one and nor is there a forced win for either white or black at the end of the &quot;book&quot; part of almost all openings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your realistic aim should be to get a good playable position out of your chosen opening with white, a position you feel comfortable in, one where you know and understand the plans that follow from that particular opening. Then it's an even game. If your opponent understands the position and plays it better than you then he will likely win. If not and you both play it with equal understanding and ability it will be a draw. Only if you play the resulting positions better than your opponents will you win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2015-07-16T21:14:00.817" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9763" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-07-16T23:28:29.587" Score="2" ViewCount="304" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have already read the section here on the Evans Gambit but I still don't understand the value of sacrificing the b pawn unnecessarily, in the likely case that black's Bishop returns to the c5. White could have simply proceeded with c3, d4, gaining center control and attacking B. Why interpose losing a pawn? If it is to open the c1-a3 axis for B, then b3 should be played. Can someone explain why giving away the pawn, while black can simply take it and resume where it was, is a good move? Unless there is a need at that time that can be filled by giving away a pawn, I fail to see the value of this move. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7531" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2015-07-16T23:42:15.307" LastActivityDate="2015-07-23T02:37:02.690" Title="Evans Gambit b4 loss" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;beginner&gt;&lt;evans-gambit&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9764" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9763" CreationDate="2015-07-16T23:36:15.000" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;White gains time to gain control of the centre after Bxb4 by c3 which can be followed by d4 at some point. Black's bishop will be kicked back from c5 then White can develop an initiative. Also after c3, Qd1-b3 is a possibility attacking both b7 and f7. This gain of time for development can put Black in an uncomfortable defensive position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4543" LastActivityDate="2015-07-16T23:36:15.000" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9765" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9758" CreationDate="2015-07-17T00:04:50.240" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Learning openings at below 1800 makes absolutely no sense. And even above -&gt; I'd up to 2100 it makes no sense to seriously study openings, as you do not have the proper skills to convert what ever achieved (either make a draw from an equal position or win from a better position). Of course, you need to know some stuff to not lose immediately or fall for any traps. But with ratings &amp;lt;2100 your aim should be to first learn to play decent chess!! -&gt; Hence I totally agree with over-the-board and also his recommendations!! So work hard and play hard -&gt; and if there's a chance also hit hard ;-D (btw: its always hard to come up with some rating bounds -&gt; those I mentioned are just a rough direction ...) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7845" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-06T16:00:24.077" LastActivityDate="2020-03-06T16:00:24.077" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="9766" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9763" CreationDate="2015-07-17T00:24:22.963" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Compare the position after &lt;code&gt;3...Bc5&lt;/code&gt; to that after &lt;code&gt;4.b4 Bxb4 5.c3 Bc5 6.d4&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.b4 Bxb4 5.c3 Bc5 6.d4`&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's true that the Black bishop has simply returned to c5 and can retreat safely again, but note that that is &lt;em&gt;all&lt;/em&gt; Black has gotten to do while White got in the central c3/d4 push. In simplest terms, the point of the Evans Gambit is that gain of time, getting in those moves to expand in the center (and open lines for potential development/attack) without Black continuing her development in the meantime. Such things usually aren't free of course, and here it has cost White the b-pawn. White has traded in a bit of material in attempt to have greater dynamic potential and the initiative.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2015-07-17T00:24:22.963" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9767" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-07-17T14:44:57.340" Score="2" ViewCount="334" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the reason that table base files are so large?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can't think of any other way to phrase that question - but the question alone is rejected by stackoverflow's gateway bot, hence this paragraph added to placate it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7851" LastActivityDate="2015-07-17T20:28:45.027" Title="Why are tablebase files so large?" Tags="&lt;tablebases&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9768" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9767" CreationDate="2015-07-17T15:17:53.247" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;A tablebase contains information about every possible position with a certain material balance. The number of possible positions grows exponentially with the number of pieces. So while a tablebase covering King and Pawn vs King will &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; be large, if you add enough pieces the file size will grow out of bound for any storage medium you want to use. The number of &lt;em&gt;all&lt;/em&gt; possible chess positions is something like the number of atoms of the sun, so storing everything does not seem to be workable with any concievable technology. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1485" LastActivityDate="2015-07-17T15:17:53.247" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9769" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9767" CreationDate="2015-07-17T16:25:42.590" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;For a simple numerical example, take the endgame of King + Rook + Pawn vs. King + Rook. The number of possible positions is 64 x 63 x 62 x 61 x 60. Of those, 25% is not valid because the pawn is at the first or last row, and because of the symmetry around the d/e file, we only need to store the positions where the pawn is on the a, b, c or d file. This leaves us with 64 x 63 x 62 x 61 x 60 x 0.75 x 0.5 = 343,103,040 positions*.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For every position, you need to know how many moves to mate or conversion, both with White to move and Black to move. You need 2 bytes for each position, so we get a total of 686,206,080 bytes which is about 654 MB. With ZIP-like algorithms, we can compress the size of the files by about 80%, which leaves us with around 150 MB. You can download the files &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesskit.com/download/nalimov/&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; - note that the tablebases are split between White-to-move and Black-to-move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For 6- and 7-man endgames, typical sizes are 60 resp. 3600 times as large, so 9 GB resp. 540 GB. Sometimes, symmetry can be exploited further (especially if there are no pawns involved), but this will result in a maximum reduction to 25% of sizes when pawns are involved.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*: actually, some positions are not valid because e.g. both kings attack each other. This number is rather small and if you would filter these, it would take much more time to lookup a certain position in the database.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2015-07-17T16:25:42.590" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9770" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9758" CreationDate="2015-07-17T19:35:53.020" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I took a liberty to embed your game into the answer. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Nf3 g6 2.d3 d5 3.Nbd2 Bg4 4.g3 Bxf3 5.Nxf3 e6 6.Bg2 Nf6 7.O-O Bg7 8.c3 O-O 9.Qc2 Nc6 10. Bf4 b5 11.e4 Ng4 12.Rad1 f5 13.Rfe1 fxe4 14.dxe4 Nf6 15.e5 Nd7 16.h4 a5 17.a3 a4 18.Bh3 Nc5 19.Ng5 Qe7 20.Qe2 Rab8 21.h5 h6 22.Nf3 gxh5 23.Nd4 Qe8 24.Nxc6 Qxc6 25.Qxh5 Qe8 26.Qg4 h5 27.Qg5 Ne4 28.Qh4 c6 29. f3 Nc5 30.g4? Rxf4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is a pretty decent game until &lt;code&gt;15. e5&lt;/code&gt;, which strikes me as anti-positional. It releases a tension in the center (mostly rendering your Rooks passive); it blocks your dark-square Bishop; it creates a target for Black Bishop. Having played it nevertheless, I would consider an entirely different plan involving a Knight sacrifice at &lt;code&gt;e6&lt;/code&gt;, starting with &lt;code&gt;16. Ng5&lt;/code&gt; threatening the fork, and &lt;code&gt;17. Ne6&lt;/code&gt; followed by &lt;code&gt;18. Bd5&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3774" LastActivityDate="2015-07-17T19:35:53.020" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9771" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9767" CreationDate="2015-07-17T20:28:45.027" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In addition to the other fine answers, it is worth pointing out that tablebases contain every conceivable collection of pieces, even ones that don't make any sense. For example, I just asked about a position with king and three knights vs king and bishop, and was told that it was a mate in 30. And there are a lot of conceivable collections of six pieces, even if you know what two of those pieces are. (Not to mention that there are really two kinds of bishop.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2015-07-17T20:28:45.027" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9772" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-07-18T20:16:08.337" Score="17" ViewCount="11137" Body="&lt;p&gt;GPUs are better at certain types of calculations, e.g. generating bitcoins and performing climate simulations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Would chess engines benefit if they calculated with GPUs instead of CPUs?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe some knowledgeable person can highlight the differences between the two and enlighten us as to whether GPUs are (un)suitable for the type of calculations that chess engines execute.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7857" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-11-22T14:02:54.027" LastActivityDate="2018-05-04T20:00:35.617" Title="CPU v. GPU for chess engines" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9774" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7596" CreationDate="2015-07-18T21:07:19.950" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think that chess is considered beautiful in the same way that certain theories in physics and maths can be considered &quot;elegant&quot;, in that both celebrate the elimination of uncertainty and chance, often by means of an approach that runs counter to what seems like an obvious solution.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7858" LastActivityDate="2015-07-18T21:07:19.950" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9775" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9713" CreationDate="2015-07-18T21:18:04.717" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Basically, they know how to finish: they know the kind of endgame positions they require, and they know how to use the middlegame to get there.  At least, while playing against 1600s.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2300s are good at exactly the same thing, only more so.&#xA;:)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Rinse and repeat&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: besides, chess is WAY to complex a game for there to ever be a Magic Bullet solution to beating the next guy.  There are 64 squares, a bunch of pieces, and an quantity of moves - each one is important.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7858" LastActivityDate="2015-07-18T21:18:04.717" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9776" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9450" CreationDate="2015-07-18T21:22:36.330" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;3...h6 is a waste of time. At most it threatens g5, which if it were important, could be circumvented by h4. In this case the best move might be 4.Nc3. It continues your development and already threatens e4. Do not worry about 5.e3. After moves like Bd3, Kg1, and Re1, e4 will be unstoppable. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7859" LastActivityDate="2015-07-18T21:22:36.330" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9777" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9592" CreationDate="2015-07-18T21:25:34.387" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Resignation is totally acceptable, even though people tend to resign games that they shouldn't.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Frankly, there are occasions when I feel that &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; retiring from an obviously hopeless position is unsportsmanlike - we've all got places to go, I've put in the work to beat you, everybody who spends ten seconds looking at the board can see that, would you please stop looking for that &quot;magic move&quot; that &lt;em&gt;does not exist&lt;/em&gt;, man up, and concede?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7858" LastActivityDate="2015-07-18T21:25:34.387" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9778" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4565" CreationDate="2015-07-18T21:38:46.920" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Kd2 is illegal not so much because the Knight &lt;em&gt;will&lt;/em&gt; attack, but because the King &lt;em&gt;is&lt;/em&gt; moving into check, which is illegal in and of itself, never mind the legality of the knight's move: Kd2 is just as illegal as Nxd2, because both mean that somebody put &lt;em&gt;themselves&lt;/em&gt; in check, which you can't do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Besides, you will never have an occasion when a piece &lt;em&gt;moves&lt;/em&gt; to capture the king, as you propose with ... Nxd2, because there &lt;em&gt;is&lt;/em&gt; no legal set of moves that gives a player the move while the opposing king is in check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7858" LastActivityDate="2015-07-18T21:38:46.920" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9779" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9800" CreationDate="2015-07-19T01:41:38.440" Score="4" ViewCount="244" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm curious to get a rough sense for when chess could be solved if Moore's law, and algorithm improvements continue, and I thought a good way to get a rough idea would be to extrapolate based on when the endgame tablebases for 2 to 7 pieces was completed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7861" LastEditorUserId="9025" LastEditDate="2020-08-25T16:47:56.897" LastActivityDate="2020-08-25T16:47:56.897" Title="What are the dates each of the endgame tablebases were completed?" Tags="&lt;history&gt;&lt;tablebases&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="9780" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2642" CreationDate="2015-07-19T03:00:36.463" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I teach the beginners in my local chess club not to make too many opening pawn moves, since they lose time that you should be using to develop your pieces.  Just move enough pawns, preferably in the center, to let out your minor pieces and prepare to castle.  If you fall too far behind in development while your opponent is getting his pieces out, he will soon have an overwhelming position where even the prospect of sacrifices may present themselves for him to finish the game quickly.  Read any beginner's chess manual, even old ones that you can find online, to get a better understanding of these chess basics. This miniature game will demonstrate what I'm talking about.  C.Conero vs. P. Short, 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 d6 3.Bc4 h6 4.Nc3 c6 5.d3 a5 6.Be3 b5 7.Bxf7 Kxf7 8.d4 Be7 9.dxe5 dxe5 10.Nxe5+ Ke6 11.Qg4+ Kxe5 12.Qf4+ Ke6 13.Qf5+ Kd6 14.Bf4#&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastActivityDate="2015-07-19T03:00:36.463" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9781" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9772" CreationDate="2015-07-19T09:15:01.700" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have no experience with GPU programming, but, typically, GPUs are very efficient in executing simple commands in a parallel way. Apparently, this is not the case for the search tree that is used for chess engines. Therefore, the GPU loses its computational advantage over a CPU.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, this is the current state of GPU programming for chess engines, but GPU programming is relatively new, so maybe they'll find solutions for the current problems in the future.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are a couple of interesting links, especially the blog about implementing a chess engine for GPU is quite insightful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://web.archive.org/web/20150821105749/http://zeta-chess.blogspot.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://web.archive.org/web/20150821105749/http://zeta-chess.blogspot.com/&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/GPU&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/GPU&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chessgpgpu.blogspot.be/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://chessgpgpu.blogspot.be/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chessgpgpu.blogspot.be/2013/01/what-is-goal.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://chessgpgpu.blogspot.be/2013/01/what-is-goal.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chessgpgpu.blogspot.be/2013/01/existing-parallel-search-algorithms.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://chessgpgpu.blogspot.be/2013/01/existing-parallel-search-algorithms.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4588" LastEditorUserId="1703" LastEditDate="2016-06-10T16:53:16.213" LastActivityDate="2016-06-10T16:53:16.213" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9782" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-07-19T10:49:26.410" Score="17" ViewCount="4730" Body="&lt;p&gt;While looking for and comparing suggestions that will help me to improve in chess, I have noticed that some people and some chess book authors suggest that you should study the endgame first.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some people say that by studying endgame first, you will find out the correct middlegame plan to achieve the endgame that will be on your favor.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it effective? Could someone please confirm that he became a stronger player by using that method of studying? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7174" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2017-02-05T00:37:55.807" LastActivityDate="2020-11-25T11:40:13.783" Title="Study endgame first before studying opening? Is it true?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;&lt;training&gt;" AnswerCount="10" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9783" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9784" CreationDate="2015-07-19T11:40:27.497" Score="2" ViewCount="247" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm looking for a PGN viewer that works with the Atomic chess variant, in that captures removes adjacent pieces. However, PGN viewers I've found so far have little to no support for chess variants, less to Atomic chess specifically. It doesn't matter if it works online as a web service or a separate program; what options are there?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3823" LastActivityDate="2015-07-19T13:10:55.190" Title="PGN viewer / replayer for Atomic Chess" Tags="&lt;pgn&gt;&lt;atomic-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9784" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9783" CreationDate="2015-07-19T13:10:55.190" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Winboard/XBoard should do the job.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.tim-mann.org/xboard.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.tim-mann.org/xboard.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4543" LastActivityDate="2015-07-19T13:10:55.190" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9785" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9782" CreationDate="2015-07-19T16:16:39.710" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I like to think of chess as a journey.  You have to know your destination before you can decide how to proceed.  Unless you know how to win a simple endgame, you'll have no idea how to set the course of the game.  Of course games can end earlier, but usually that's due to some tactical mistake.  If you can achieve a  small advantage and transition into an endgame with that, you'll know how to convert it into a win.  Study the basic piece endings first (K &amp;amp; R vs K;  K, B &amp;amp; B vs K, etc.) and then study the K &amp;amp; P vs K endings (learn the &quot;opposition&quot; and &quot;triangulation&quot;) as well as K, R and P endings and you'll be in good shape when you reach the endgame. It has made a big difference in my game, for example allowing me to win a tournament game where I had a K, B &amp;amp; N opposed to the lone K as well as recently a K &amp;amp; R vs K &amp;amp; N ending. And when I reach K and P endings, I no longer feel unsure of myself as I once did.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastActivityDate="2015-07-19T16:16:39.710" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9786" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9779" CreationDate="2015-07-19T16:52:18.823" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Endgame tables require enormous amounts of storage. According to &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/351/what-is-the-status-for-seven-man-end-game-table-bases&quot;&gt;this post&lt;/a&gt;, the 7-man tables are 140 terabytes.  The 8-man tables will be many petabytes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Each iteration of the tablebases grows exponentially in size. Moore's Law says that transistor density doubles every 18 months.  Moore's Law is starting to falter now. But assuming it is not, the question becomes:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;140 terabytes for 7 man = 20 terabytes per man 'of density units', aka 20 DU&#xA;Assume X terabytes for a 32 man.&#xA;X/20 -&amp;gt; number of currently available units needed&#xA;2^Y = X/20 -&amp;gt; Y is how many times the current density would have to double&#xA;Y * 18 = months for the doubling to occur if Moore's Law holds.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The trick, obviously, is knowing how large the final table would be.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;5-man 7 Gb&#xA;(&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cruxis.com/chess/manual/index.html?end_game_table_base_support.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.cruxis.com/chess/manual/index.html?end_game_table_base_support.htm&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;6-man 1.2 Tb&#xA;(&lt;a href=&quot;http://rybkaforum.net/cgi-bin/rybkaforum/topic_show.pl?tid=9380&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://rybkaforum.net/cgi-bin/rybkaforum/topic_show.pl?tid=9380&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;7-man (140 Tb)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Soooo... using no math except simple division, I decided each iteration is 100x bigger than the previous. This is conservative according to simple division from the above. This also assumes that the rate of growth is linear. That is, each iteration is 100x, and that this rate doesn't change.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The result is that the 32 man table base would consume 6.6 x 10^53 terabytes of storage. That is, X = 6.6E53 Tb&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;6.6E53/20 = 3.3E52 DU&#xA;2^Y = 3.3E52, Y = 179&#xA;months = 18 * 179 = 3218 months&#xA;years = 153&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, my best guess is the 153 years, lol.  I can only imagine what the error on that is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What this really is, however, is the estimate on when the storage density will be possible according to Moore's Law. It says nothing about our ability to actually calculate the tables. But it seems logical that we'd have to be able to store the result first, so 153 years it is.  At a minimum.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is very silly as it turns out.  So going back to the X number, 6.6E53... converting it to bytes gives 6.6E65. Converting this to bits gives 8.25E64&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So to store this table requires 8E64 bits, give or take (heh)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/1998-05/892502124.Ph.r.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this web site&lt;/a&gt;, the solar system is made up of 1.2E57 atoms (assuming it is all hydrogen!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So if we store each bit as an atom, we'd require about &lt;strong&gt;69 million&lt;/strong&gt; of our solar systems, in atoms, to store the 32-man table.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm a computer programmer by trade. I'll get right on this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(I assumed Moore's Law holds. This is optimistic. I assumed each iteration of the table base was 100x larger then the previous. I actually don't know. However, I am confident that the result is actually... &lt;strong&gt;never&lt;/strong&gt;. We will never 'solve' chess exhaustively. &lt;strong&gt;Because of a lack of atoms.&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2015-07-19T17:03:07.527" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9787" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2642" CreationDate="2015-07-19T19:57:32.167" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here's what National Master Dan Heisman has to say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If you put all your pawns on the same color it makes the squares of&#xA;  the opposite color terribly weak. (A weak square is one that is&#xA;  unoccupied and can no longer be guarded by a pawn. It is not a square&#xA;  where there is a vulnerable pawn or piece.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The pawns on the third rank are guarded but the light squares are very&#xA;  weak &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;8/8/8/8/8/P1P1P1P1/1P1P1P1P/8 w - - 1 0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;When I see this diagram today, instead of seeing “safety” I see “ugly,&#xA;  weak squares” in-between!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;It is good to have your pawns connected, but it is often better to&#xA;  have at least a pawn duo (two pawns side by side) at the lead, rather&#xA;  than have a diagonal chain where the pawns just guard each other. In&#xA;  the following diagram White has three pawns in the lead on the same&#xA;  rank, even better:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A smoother pawn structure with more space:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; 8/8/8/8/2PPP3/1P5P/P4PP1/8 w - - 1 0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Notice in the above diagram the only squares that can be thought of as&#xA;  possibly weak are c3 and d3, and these are both behind the pawns, so&#xA;  they are relatively inaccessible and therefore not as weak or&#xA;  vulnerable. For example, these two squares are easily guarded by rooks&#xA;  but not easily attacked by the opponent’s rooks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7500" LastActivityDate="2015-07-19T19:57:32.167" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9788" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9782" CreationDate="2015-07-19T20:32:36.843" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;You learn them at the same time. Endgames and Openings are not subjects that you can learn overnight. It can take a strong Grandmaster years to master the endgame phase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's the same way with openings; simple guidelines and principles should be learned at the beginner, but strong players &gt; 2000-2200 should know heavy opening theory. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So when you &lt;strong&gt;first start&lt;/strong&gt; playing chess, openings and endgames will not be the decisive factor in your games. You should learn the opening principles and guidelines: &lt;code&gt;don't move the same piece twice unless there is a tactic&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;control the central squares&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;don't block your c-pawn on c2 in d4 d5 openings&lt;/code&gt;, and so on. It even helps to know some simple opening lines, e.g. 1 e4 e5 is the King's pawn game. 1. d4 d5 2.c4 is the Queen's Gambit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similarly, start with the simple endgames. Checkmate with King and Rook, checkmate with King and Queen. Also you learn simple pawn endgames, King and Pawn versus King. How do you promote a pawn, if you can? How do you stop the pawn and get a draw, if you can?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then when you get to about &lt;strong&gt;1500&lt;/strong&gt;, when you don't make a lot of material blunders, it makes sense to increase your opening knowledge. Learn lines to about 10 moves deep in a few openings that you play, especially the main lines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At 1500 learn the simple King and Rook and Pawn versus King and Rook endgames, like the Lucena and Philidor positions. It also helps to have some familiarity with Knight, Bishop, and Queen endgames. However &lt;em&gt;theoretical&lt;/em&gt; endgames and openings still will not decide your games. Strategy and positional skills, as well as your technique (ability to convert a positional advantage into a point) will.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you get to a high level, say &lt;strong&gt;1900-2200&lt;/strong&gt;, your games will be impacted more and more by opening knowledge and endgame skill. Then it makes sense to be an opening and endgame expert.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7500" LastActivityDate="2015-07-19T20:32:36.843" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9789" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9772" CreationDate="2015-07-20T01:40:16.583" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Few other points raised in &lt;a href=&quot;http://rybkaforum.net/cgi-bin/rybkaforum/topic_show.pl?tid=32317&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://rybkaforum.net/cgi-bin/rybkaforum/topic_show.pl?tid=32317&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;GPU not so good for recursion&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;GPU not so good for floating&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;GPU might work better for new machine-learning approach, but not the traditional engine algorithms&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Original&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;@Maxwell86 has already given excellent links and resources. Pay attention to the zeta-chess engine. It's a GPU chess engine. Unfortunately, GPU has not proven its usefulness in chess programming. In fact, the zeta chess engine project went absolutely nowhere.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;GPU works very well on floating calculations and algorithms that can be paralleled. This requires independence. But if we look at a typical min-max (or alpha-beta) tree (used by every chess engine )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/b1H5V.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The right branch depends on the left branch. In particular, if we can get a cutoff (fail-high), we wouldn't even need to search the remaining nodes. Unfortunately, this is not something that a GPU can do efficiently. It's possible to write a GPU program for alpha-beta, but the GPU threads (known as kernels) will need to be paused to wait. Unlike a CPU, a GPU kennel can't just switch to something else ( a process known as thread-switch or even process-switch).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Our existing algorithm and engine knowledge was derived for the CPU world. The entire algorithm would need to be reinvestigated for the GPU. Unfortunately, there is not much interest and research on it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2017-10-12T00:00:38.763" LastActivityDate="2017-10-12T00:00:38.763" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9790" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9751" CreationDate="2015-07-20T01:47:13.797" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;xboard is not a UCI user interface, so you'll need to install the Polyglot adapter to make it work. Once you have the Polyglot installed, you'll need to edit the polyglot.ini file. Read &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.open-aurec.com/wbforum/viewtopic.php?t=49621&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; for instructions on how to do it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please note Polyglot is not a very professionally made software. You'll only be able to find some old documentation. The whole process is quite technical. If you don't want to spend the time, you might as well consider other user-interfaces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2015-07-20T01:47:13.797" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9791" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-07-20T03:20:16.960" Score="4" ViewCount="703" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Would anyone know how to set up training in a &quot;random position&quot; with Chess Position Trainer (ver 5.04)?  I know and use its option to train &quot;the variation&quot;, but was hoping there would be sort of - &quot;make a move from a randomly chosen position&quot; type of training.  &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Is there a way to set up a position (middlegame, or an endgame) with Chess Position Trainer without having to go over the whole game?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7867" LastActivityDate="2016-06-14T12:12:59.713" Title="Chess Position Trainer" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9792" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9782" CreationDate="2015-07-20T03:38:22.990" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here's my take on it. Listed according to priority:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a) Simplest end-games (RK vs K, QK vs K, BBK vs K, KP vs K)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;b) Opening that you are interested (at-least one as white and at-least two as black). Find out first five moves in the opening and what are the general strategies and plans in that specific opening. Guidelines on where pieces are generally placed in the opening and typical pawn formations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why I place this as the second important step is that you will never enter an end game with equal chances, if you don't know the opening even this much.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;c) Complicated end-games (KPP vs K, KPR vs KPR etc., the whole load of it)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;d) Deep opening prep - if you reached this step that is :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3158" LastActivityDate="2015-07-20T03:38:22.990" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9794" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9795" CreationDate="2015-07-20T06:14:44.893" Score="1" ViewCount="145" Body="&lt;p&gt;You are playing 4 players at the same, you are black, white, black, white.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Player 1 makes his move, you switch to player 2 and make the same move as player 1, and so on, with player 3's first move becoming your move to player 4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;you then go back to player 1 and respond with player 2's response to your move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;if you sense a mistake, you 'go for gold' and 'play your hunch'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;does this have a name?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7205" LastEditorUserId="7205" LastEditDate="2015-07-20T16:36:36.487" LastActivityDate="2015-07-20T16:36:36.487" Title="What happens in this multiboard scenario?" Tags="&lt;simultaneous&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9795" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9794" CreationDate="2015-07-20T08:00:32.110" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;That's a trick once performed by &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evZmpsl3jI0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Derren Brown&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://ct208.blogspot.de/2009/07/derren-brown-chess-explained.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;This article&lt;/a&gt; calls it &quot;mirroring technique&quot; and claims it is more than 25 years old, but I don't think this is a very well known term.  If you are interested in more information about this trick you should probably google &quot;Derren Brown Chess&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-07-20T08:00:32.110" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9796" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9791" CreationDate="2015-07-20T08:02:04.283" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have not used Chess Position Trainer, but &lt;a href=&quot;http://innokuo.altervista.org/chesshero.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chesshero&lt;/a&gt; has these capabilities you are looking for. You can do the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a) Define the pgns from which to pick the random positions&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;b) Define the start and end move numbers to pick from (this can be useful for generating middle-game or end-game or opening positions specifically)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;c) You can define a blunder threshold, which will be used to give you scores when the move you made is evaluated against an engine&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;d) You can make it timed as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3158" LastActivityDate="2015-07-20T08:02:04.283" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9797" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9782" CreationDate="2015-07-20T10:27:46.693" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I agree pretty much with Keshav with some minor additions. When I  taught my kids I started out alternating between the basic endings and playing a game with just the pawns where first person to queen wins.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This brings up another very important point. You will get best value with an opponent sitting opposite you when you are doing much of this learning / studying, even if it is the computer. Moving pieces on a board rather than doing it in your head is important. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After basic endings and playing with pawns I'd follow Keshav with the first few moves of several basic openings coupled with some basic opening principles like get out a center pawn, move the knights and bishops towards the center, castle, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Before more complicated endings I would put tactics. Pins, forks, skewers, removing the defender, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Assuming you have already mastered the basics, basic endings, pawn play, basic openings, simple tactics, then I would suggest the biggest bang per buck will come from heavy tactical work. Get some of those tactical puzzle books and just work through a dozen or so problems a day. If you can't see the answer on the page then set the position up on a board and move the pieces if you have to.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Longer term keep those daily tactical puzzles going and add work on more difficult endings like KPvK, KRPvKR, KBNvK. Learn the theory, practice both the attack and the defence with a real board against an opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As your play improves and your standard of opponent improves you will need to work on your opening repertoire to make sure you get out of the opening with a good game and plenty of time left on the clock.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2015-07-20T10:27:46.693" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9798" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9782" CreationDate="2015-07-20T11:44:20.343" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;because a won endgame is ending in a checkmate, and you have to learn how to checkmate first.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Fischer's famous chess teaching book does not even start with an endgame but with mate-in-1 positions. Polgar (the father of the three chess sisters) also uses this method. I think it is superior to endgame training.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3819" LastActivityDate="2015-07-20T11:44:20.343" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9799" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9782" CreationDate="2015-07-20T16:21:07.780" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm only a 1600 so take my advice at face value&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I hear a lot of people saying all the time not to waste their time on openings, just focus on tactics and endgame. That advice is nice and everything but if you never make it out of the opening the endgame is worthless. I had a game in a tournament where I fell for Lasker's trap in the Albin-Counter Gambit. If I had spent just 5 minutes studying that line I could have avoided that and survived to use the lessons I have studied in the endgame. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I guess what I am trying to say is that instead of thinking of it as &quot;should I do one or the other&quot; you are going to have to do both. If you want to get good you can't avoid any one area you are going to have to give them all attention. Studying openings leads to a strong positional understanding and leads to understandings in similar openings. For instance understanding the sveshnikov sicilian  helps with understanding the themes in the kalashnikov. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Study a lot of tactics because every 2000+ I have heard has said tactics are what you need to know. Hope this helps&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7525" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T15:56:59.313" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T15:56:59.313" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="9800" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9779" CreationDate="2015-07-20T18:54:38.587" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you don't mind approximate dates, 3-piece computer tablebase was solved in the 70's, 4-piece in the 80's and 5-piece in the late 80's. 6-piece took, I believe, until around 2005. 7-piece has been relatively faster (in terms of positions per year) mainly because it's been discovered people will pay for them, so more and faster computers have been dedicated to the task.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for 'solving' chess, as some posters have pointed out, it's the storage that will be the issue. With more pieces on the board, it will approach something on the order of 150 bits per position for storage, so a rough guess at legal positions with 32 pieces on the board would come in at around 10^13 or so bits. (1TB or thereabouts, and this doesn't include the bits necessary to indicate which two positions are linked and what the result would be.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's funny, but for a short time as you decrease pieces you allow more combinations. Consider: with a the full complement of 32 pieces on the board, you can have no promoted pawns. (A pawn would have to capture in order to pass by the opposing pawn.) Allow one side to make captures, and suddenly you have to allow for positions with 7 queens, or 8 Bishops, etc. If you allow simply one capture (a 31-piece table -- for example a g-pawn capturing an f-pawn) you now can have both the g and f pawns of the majority side promoting, so the resulting 31-piece set must include provisions for as many as 4 minors or rooks or three queens on the 16-piece side.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I suspect at some point the number of atoms in the universe may become a limiting factor. ;{&gt;}&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="657" LastActivityDate="2015-07-20T18:54:38.587" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9801" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9802" CreationDate="2015-07-21T14:44:31.317" Score="4" ViewCount="1637" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there a software/app/website to train chess tactics (forking, pins, deflections, decoys, overloading)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please help!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7644" LastActivityDate="2018-03-09T12:02:00.650" Title="Chess tactics training software" Tags="&lt;software&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9802" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9801" CreationDate="2015-07-21T16:21:19.637" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are many websites that offer tactical problems. A few allow an unlimited number of tactics without having to pay.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chesstempo.com/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://chesstempo.com/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chess.emrald.net/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://chess.emrald.net/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7500" LastActivityDate="2015-07-21T16:21:19.637" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9803" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="693" CreationDate="2015-07-21T17:21:17.127" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;this is my suggestion 1. chess.com 2. Follow chess 3. Chess Book Study 4. Droidfish chess 5. ChessOcr &lt;a href=&quot;http://newchessbasics.blogspot.com/2015/07/best-5-chess-android-apps.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://newchessbasics.blogspot.com/2015/07/best-5-chess-android-apps.html&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7876" LastActivityDate="2015-07-21T17:21:17.127" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9804" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-07-21T18:40:17.807" Score="4" ViewCount="461" Body="&lt;p&gt;I play this kid that does strange things in the game. I thought in this following game that he was using the Pirc defense as Black, when it opened &lt;code&gt;1.d4 d6 2.e4 Nf6 3.Nc3&lt;/code&gt;. Then he goes off with &lt;code&gt;3...d5&lt;/code&gt;. It seems that I get trapped by this kind of (to me) irrational thing. Any advice on how best to proceed?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. d4 d6 2. e4 Nf6 3. Nc3 d5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7878" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2015-07-21T22:23:32.713" LastActivityDate="2015-12-20T15:10:30.643" Title="Trapped by this strange opening line, how to proceed?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9805" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9804" CreationDate="2015-07-22T02:49:54.677" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;He just lost a tempo, taking two moves to get his pawn to d5 when he could have done it in one move.  Losing time is particularly bad in the opening when you could be using it to develop pieces.  You can use your &quot;free&quot; move to give your &quot;e&quot; pawn additional support or advance it to e5 gaining additional space as well as a tempo on his N, which will be forced to move again. Even taking the pawn isn't out of the question, since you're still left with a center pawn and lots of open lines for development.  Don't panic and just make sound moves. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastActivityDate="2015-07-22T02:49:54.677" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9806" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9804" CreationDate="2015-07-22T09:56:56.043" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have never seen this idea before, but it is not as stupid as it looks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are basically three options for white:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Play the Veresov, i.e. 4.f3. In that case black will argue that he has the black side of a &lt;a href=&quot;http://kenilworthian.blogspot.de/2010/03/caro-kann-defense-fantasy-variation.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Caro-Kann-Fantasy variation&lt;/a&gt; and that he will at one point play c5 in one move, regaining the tempo lost with d6-d5. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Play exd5. In that case black will say that he has a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scandinavian_Defense&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Scandinavian defense&lt;/a&gt; and that compared to the line 1.e4 d5 2.ed Nf6 3.Nf3 Nxd5 there is no 4.c4 kicking the knight from d5 and establishing a nice space advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Play e5. In that case black will probably play 4...Ne4 and you can try to be tricky with 5.Nce2, trying to catch the knight with f3. Taking the knight directly with 5.Nxe4 is also possible, but there is probably no way to quickly assault the weak pawn on e4. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think 4.e5 is the most principled option, but it is no refutation. You'll get a very complicated fight were the most you can hope for is that your opponent has to be more careful than you. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-07-22T09:56:56.043" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9807" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1340" CreationDate="2015-07-22T18:26:09.453" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You've given the basic opening principles.  Another you might add is early castling to safeguard your king.  Also connecting your rooks (by getting the queen out of the way, to c2, d2 or e2 as conditions dictate) ) and moving them to files that are or are about to be open, generally the &quot;d&quot; and &quot;e&quot; or possibly &quot;c&quot; files. Knights before bishops is a good rule, since as you indicate it's sometimes hard to know right away the best square for the bishop.  As far as pawns are concerned, if you open with e4, your goal is to ultimately play d4 safely and vice versa.  I'd complete my development first before worrying about additional pawn moves though.  Hard to give a general answer about pieces getting in each other's way, but I'd say you just have to anticipate your opponent's replies before you move to avoid those.  Additional experience should help with that situation.   Part of the charm of chess is that there's always more to learn. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastActivityDate="2015-07-22T18:26:09.453" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9808" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9804" CreationDate="2015-07-22T18:31:02.297" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;My first thought was &quot;Black has elected to play against the Blackmar-Diemer a move down?&quot; I'm firing off the top of my head here, with little time for deep analysis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's an interesting position, but I can't help but think it's already lost for Black, somehow. White can throw away a move in the opening, Black shouldn't be able to. With Black throwing away a move like that my instincts are to go for rapid development and open lines, when the lack of a move will be the most painful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My first thought would be Be3, electing to actually play the gambit if Black finally accepts the pawn. But that may not be to your taste (if you don't know the typical positions and tactics, it can be dangerous). I'm not fond of Bd3 here, for some reason. If I just wanted to get out of this into normal, basically equal waters I might try capturing the d-pawn and playing out the exchanges.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bg5 on the surface looks interesting. You'll need to beware of the possible check-and-fork (Qa5) but your threat to win the pawn outright should net you a very weak Black pawn on e4 that White can play against at leisure, probably eventually winning it (Nge2-g3 comes quickly to mind as one way to play for it -- your opponent has thrown away a move, so you shouldn't feel too badly about taking two to place your Knight on a useful square). One advantage of Bg5 on this is it clears the way quickly to castle long, when you'll either be able to also bring Queen and Rook to bear on the weak e-pawn (if your opponent chooses that path) or have your king in safety as you rip open the center and go hunting for the enemy king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Some wild lines are dancing through my head about this; you might end up in positions similar to the wilder side of the semi-slav but with having played Nc3 instead of c4.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="657" LastActivityDate="2015-07-22T18:31:02.297" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9809" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9801" CreationDate="2015-07-22T18:33:54.870" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Best software I've ever seen for this purpose: CT-Art from Convekta. It's amazing. It's based on Blokh's tactical manuals, gives you positions to solve, and hints when you fail to solve them. And it's cheap (I've seen it new for $20 or so).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Best. Tactics. Software. Evar.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="657" LastActivityDate="2015-07-22T18:33:54.870" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9810" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9763" CreationDate="2015-07-23T02:37:02.690" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The purpose of any gambit is to sacrifice material for time.  Since time is an ephemeral advantage, naturally you must capitalize on it quickly or you will most likely lose in the long run due to your material disadvantage.  Methods of neutralizing all the gambits have been discovered, generally by returning the pawn at the earliest opportunity, but in the heat of battle it isn't always possible for your opponent to find the correct move, and it's worth trying them for that reason, particularly if you are strong at tactics.  If you like to have the initiative and attack, playing a gambit isn't the worst thing you can do.  Of all the gambits, the Evans has proven particularly potent, i.e. when you are given the opportunity to play it. Some of the most brilliant games on record are Evan's Gambits, such as Anderssen's &quot;Evergreen Game&quot;.  The previous answer here addresses your specific question about the Evan's.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastActivityDate="2015-07-23T02:37:02.690" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9811" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-07-23T03:26:41.303" Score="3" ViewCount="276" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have followed the Chess Cafe website for years, but it appears that the website hasn't updated since late May, and clicking on some of the links sometimes leads to a 404 error message. Does anyone know what happened to the Chess Cafe website?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7887" LastEditorUserId="1761" LastEditDate="2015-07-23T12:45:29.037" LastActivityDate="2015-09-23T20:20:43.440" Title="What happened to the Chess Cafe website?" Tags="&lt;online&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9812" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9811" CreationDate="2015-07-23T07:27:56.283" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chesscafe.com/the-skittles-room/on-hiatus/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chesscafe announced&lt;/a&gt; on June 2 that the number of subscribers was too low to sustain the site and that they would go on a three month hiatus. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Whether they will ever come out of it again is anybody's guess. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-07-23T07:27:56.283" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9813" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2096" CreationDate="2015-07-23T13:56:07.170" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd say that you need to know the basics of the various openings and their general purpose as well as the general opening principles, but in-depth memorization is not a good idea.  If your opponent varies at some point, which is most likely,  and you don't really know the opening's purpose, you'll be lost. I'm from an older generation when Fine's &quot;Ideas Behind The Chess Openings&quot; would have been the source for this understanding, although I assume this has been updated by other sources now.  Even some of the strongest players now, like Carlsen,  don't rely on learning variations in depth but just try to reach a playable position out of the opening and then rely on other skills such as tactics and endgame knowledge to succeed. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastActivityDate="2015-07-23T13:56:07.170" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9814" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9816" CreationDate="2015-07-23T18:06:38.997" Score="4" ViewCount="434" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am doing a study that focuses on endgames which involve well-timed king marches, namely endgames in which the winning idea lies mainly in king positioning rather than the coordination of minor pieces for example (although this is a key idea in almost every endgame). As soon as I started stumbling upon this very specific type of endgames, I remembered a famous game from Magnus Carlsen, in which he marches with the king for a consecutive series of move (about 5-7 moves), diagonally to the other side of the board, establishing a key position for his king as soon as possible and winning the endgame. Unfortunately I cannot recall which game it was, nor the time/opposition, if I'm not mistaken there were no rooks left on the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I admit this is very little information given to find the game, but that's all I could remember for now. Although he tends to play a lot of endgames because of his style, I do recall that game getting famous because of its fearless long king march. Here I am asking about it, in the hope that someone else may remember this game, or provide any additional information about it.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;In any case, if you know of similar endgame plays, please do feel free to post about them here, as a comment or answer, as they are relevant to the study at hand anyway.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3594" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-02-04T03:05:27.797" LastActivityDate="2021-02-04T03:05:27.797" Title="Endgames with long king marches" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;kings&gt;&lt;famous-games&gt;&lt;carlsen&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9815" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-07-23T19:53:29.903" Score="7" ViewCount="1125" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have watched many of GM Daniel King's videos where he analyzes games. He is always saying &quot;the position is complicated&quot; or &quot;the position is fantastically complicated&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But what does this mean?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I, eg, put such positions into a chess engine (such as Stockfish) how do I see the complexity factor?  Normally all I see is a simple +.nn number that completely characterizes the best next move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7892" LastActivityDate="2020-01-27T20:00:10.743" Title="What does it mean when a position is &quot;complicated&quot;?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9816" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9814" CreationDate="2015-07-23T20:10:10.547" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here are a couple of games I found (although they do not really feature a diagonal king march): &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1753845&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Carlsen - Hracek&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1499298&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Carlsen - Pelletier&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1524906&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Adly - Carlsen&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1577135&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Carlsen - Aronian&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1604585&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Kramnik - Carlsen&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1628209&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Pelletier - Carlsen&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I cannot resist adding following king marches: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1124533&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Short - Timman&lt;/a&gt;, the most elegant king march I have ever seen.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1567830&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Gashimov - Grischuk&lt;/a&gt;, the most chaotic king march I have ever seen.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1795647&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Navara - Wojtaszek&lt;/a&gt;, the bravest king march I have ever seen. It should be added that it was part of Navara's &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/news/biel-r4-navara-marches-to-sole-lead-6091&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;preparation&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4588" LastEditorUserId="4588" LastEditDate="2015-07-24T17:11:48.430" LastActivityDate="2015-07-24T17:11:48.430" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9817" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9815" CreationDate="2015-07-23T20:15:25.597" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, according to &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/complicated&quot;&gt;Merriam Webster&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;difficult to analyze, understand, or explain &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately, you have to trust the GM on this (unless you are a strong player yourself). There is no way of using a chess engine to determine this. What is complicated for a human (positions with a lot of tactics, with a lot of possible capture sequences) might be very easy for a computer, and complicated positions for a computer (strategic battles) might be a lot easier for humans to judge.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2015-07-23T20:15:25.597" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9819" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9815" CreationDate="2015-07-24T09:52:32.477" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Assessing the complexity of a position without relying on human expertise is a difficult problem. It is also a relevant problem if one wants to assess the playing level of a human player automatically, which is often used today in the detection of computer cheating. Accuracy of play is easily determined, but only accuracy relative to complexity gives an idea of playing strength. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are some ideas to do this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The bigger the difference between the scores of the best moves, the more complex the position. (There are exceptions, like retaking a piece etc.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Material imbalances with a score that doesn't reflect those imbalances makes for a complex position.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If a zero move is heavily punished, the position might be complex.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If the engine changes its mind, i.e the best move and especially the score changes a lot, the position is obviously complex. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-07-24T09:52:32.477" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9820" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-07-24T10:24:35.710" Score="6" ViewCount="1671" Body="&lt;p&gt;I wonder if there is a possibility to calculate/estimate the Elo rating Napoleon would have today by analysing his known games? Is it possible at all to calculate an Elo rating only with some documented games, if so, how many games would you need to give a good estimation? Is there a list of Elo estiminations for historic persons which are known as good Chess Players before Elo rating was used?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wonder if it is somehow possible to estimate the strength Napoleon would have even it is not an Elo value. If you could theoretically play a game against him today, with all the chess-knowledge and strategies discovered after his death, how good would you need to be to have a chance?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7894" LastEditorUserId="4588" LastEditDate="2015-07-24T16:49:06.780" LastActivityDate="2015-09-09T18:46:21.477" Title="Could you estimate Napoleon's (or other historic persons) Elo on the base of his known games?" Tags="&lt;history&gt;&lt;rating&gt;&lt;elo&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9821" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9820" CreationDate="2015-07-24T10:46:53.303" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are efforts to calculate the playing strength of pre-Elo players on the basis of their games. See for example &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~regan/papers/pdf/Reg12IPRs.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this paper&lt;/a&gt; by Kenneth Regan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But if you look at the &quot;intrinsic performance rating&quot; of historic players on page 5, you will find that they vary quite a bit even for the same player at different points in time.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Personally I find it quite unlikely that the performance of Zukertort or Steinitz varied by over 300 points against different players. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To estimate the playing strength of a player who left only very few (and selected at that!) games, these methods seem to be nowhere precise enough.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: I found &lt;a href=&quot;http://web.tecnico.ulisboa.pt/diogo.ferreira/papers/ferreira12strength.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;another paper&lt;/a&gt; but this method seems to end up with a rating between 2700 and 2800 no matter what, which doesn't inspire much confidence. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastEditorUserId="4362" LastEditDate="2015-07-27T12:26:20.507" LastActivityDate="2015-07-27T12:26:20.507" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9822" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9824" CreationDate="2015-07-24T11:17:41.803" Score="3" ViewCount="2669" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is spaced repetition?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How can I apply it to studying and improving my chess?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it just for tactics or can I also use it for openings and endgames?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What experience do people have with it and with what results?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2016-07-28T20:23:23.177" Title="What is &quot;spaced repetition&quot; and how can I use it to improve my chess?" Tags="&lt;training&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9823" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9822" CreationDate="2015-07-24T11:42:28.200" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaced_repetition&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Spaced repetition&lt;/a&gt; is a learning technique that repeats content after increasing time spans according to learning success, i.e. faster for stuff you haven't grasped yet, longer if you do well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In chess this is either used to learn a certain set of (easy) tactical exercises basically by heart (&quot;woodpecker method&quot; according to &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.qualitychess.co.uk/products/2/203/pump_up_your_rating_by_axel_smith/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Axel Smith&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1857442695&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Michael de la Maza&lt;/a&gt;, …), which is supposed to improve your tactical pattern recognition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or it is used to learn your opening repertoire by heart. For example by using the software &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesspositiontrainer.com/index.php/en/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chess Position Trainer&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my experience both are probably beneficial, but I cannot offer more than anecdotal evidence. Also you should complement it with exercises that tax more than your memory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastEditorUserId="7236" LastEditDate="2016-07-28T20:23:23.177" LastActivityDate="2016-07-28T20:23:23.177" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9824" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9822" CreationDate="2015-07-24T12:22:47.613" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.gwern.net/Spaced%20repetition&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Gwern Branwen's page on spaced repetition&lt;/a&gt; has more than you ever wanted to know about the subject.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have used it to memorize opening lines, tactical and strategic problems, and theoretical endgame positions. My personal experience was that after over a decade at 1800 USCF I quickly improved to 2000 USCF (and have stayed there). I do not know how much of this was due to spaced repetition or whether it would work as well for anyone else. I have &lt;a href=&quot;http://dfan.org/blog/2013/07/07/mnemosyne-part-3/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;written about my experience&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2015-07-24T12:22:47.613" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9825" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-07-24T13:05:49.337" Score="4" ViewCount="1072" Body="&lt;p&gt;Based on documented evidence, at what age would someone normally expect to see his chess results start to decline?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-07-28T14:09:31.383" LastActivityDate="2016-07-28T14:09:31.383" Title="What is the effect of aging on chess ability?" Tags="&lt;performance&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9826" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9827" CreationDate="2015-07-24T18:44:42.500" Score="5" ViewCount="351" Body="&lt;p&gt;Move 13 (54 in actual game) is when I blundered my last pawn due to pressure of the Blitz game (probably). Even with seemingly equal material, the position is dreaded as the Black's pawns are more than pawns, and the only possible way to prevent defeat is to find a perpetual or keep checking for fifty moves. Is that possible in this position?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(The replayer PGN is only excerpt. If you're interested to see the full action of how I lost in the KQ v KR ending, the game was played &lt;a href=&quot;http://ja.lichess.org/001aNUct&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/5ppp/4p3/2k1P2P/2pp1nP1/8/3K4/2R5 w - - 0 42&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2015.07.23&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Unihedron&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Xyuzhg&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;[Variant &quot;Standard&quot;]&#xA;[TimeControl &quot;300+3&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Rf1 c3+ 2. Kc2 Ng2 3. Rxf7 Ne3+ 4. Kc1 Nxg4 5. Rxg7 Nxe5 6. Rxh7 d3 7. Rc7+ Kd4 8. h6 Ng6 9. Rc6 c2 10. Rxe6 Ne5 11. h7 Kc3 12. Rd6 Nf7 13. h8=Q+ Nxh8 14. Rd8 Ng6 15. Rd6 Nf4 16. Rc6+ Kb3 17. Rc8 Ne6 18. Rc6 Nd4 19. Rc7 Kb4 20. Rd7 Kc3 21. Rc7+ Kb4 22. Rd7 Kc5 23. Rc7+ Kd6 24. Rc8 Ke5 25. Re8+ Kf4 26. Rf8+ Ke3 27. Re8+ Kf2 28. Rf8+ Nf3 29. Rd8 Ne5 30. Rf8+ Ke2 31. Rd8 Nc4 32. Re8+ Ne3 33. Rd8 Nf5 34. Re8+ Kf3 35. Re5 Nd4 36. Rd5 Ke3 37. Re5+ Kf4 38. Rd5 Ke4 39. Rd8 Ke3 40. Re8+ Kf4 41. Rf8+ Ke5 42. Rd8 Nb3+ 43. Kb2 c1=Q+&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3823" LastActivityDate="2015-07-25T08:27:32.433" Title="Is it possible to draw this endgame where I blundered my queening pawn?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9827" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9826" CreationDate="2015-07-24T19:04:40.737" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a third way to draw this endgame - sacrifice your rook for two pawns. With only a knight, Black will not be able to checkmate you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So from move 14 on, you should keep checking the king, or, if the king doesn't protect c2, attack c2. Black will never be able to escape.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A possible sequences of moves:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;7n/8/3R4/8/8/2kp4/2p5/2K5 w - - 0 42&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Rc6+ Kb3 2. Rb6+ Ka4 3. Rc6 Kb3 4. Rb6+ Kc4 5. Rc6+ Kd5 6. Rxc2 dxc2 7. Kxc2 draw&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2015-07-24T20:26:02.517" LastActivityDate="2015-07-24T20:26:02.517" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9828" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-07-25T02:47:51.037" Score="6" ViewCount="7818" Body="&lt;p&gt;In short, I am looking for an online free chess engine that has either:&#xA;a.)  multiple engines with multiple ratings, some as low as 1500-1600, and some as high as 2200 or better,&#xA;or&#xA;b.)  is a single engine with adjustable difficulty ratings from about 1500-1600 and up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To clarify, someone once recommended that when playing alone against the computer, I should find a difficulty setting that I can beat roughly 2/3 of the time, and another that I can beat only about 1/4 of the time.  Of course I'd rather play OTB (the best practice) but life/job/family commitments don't allow for too much of that these days.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can readily beat Microsoft's Chess Titans at all levels, including level 10 (or I should say I can beat it at least 3 out of 4 times). Thus, Chess Titans doesn't fit the bill of being able to beat me somewhat more often.  I realize that most purchasable standard chess software has adjustable ratings, but I don't feel like buying any right now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lastly, I am aware that Elo ratings for chess engines are a fuzzy subject -- given that they don't make the same kinds of blunders that real humans do, don't give up, play at different levels in different situations, etc.  I am not demanding a highly specific rating.  I merely would like to vaguely know the general level of my computer opponent while I play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At any rate, any recommendations for a free online chess engine with adjustable difficulty levels, whose elo ratings are roughly known?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7899" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2017-03-10T03:36:32.610" LastActivityDate="2017-10-23T22:52:08.727" Title="Looking for free online chess engines that have (roughly) known ratings" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9829" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9828" CreationDate="2015-07-25T05:28:46.530" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.computerchess.org.uk/ccrl/4040&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.computerchess.org.uk/ccrl/4040&lt;/a&gt; gives you a huge list of engines with their CCRL rating. Please note CCRL rating is not directly related to the human FIDE rating, but it's a reasonable estimate in any case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I recommend you my engine apps. They're free and very popular. Please visit my site to try my chess apps:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://http:://www.smallchess.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.smallchess.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You'll find a Stockfish app with adjustable playing strength. You'll also find my own chess engine in the SmallChess app. There is also a Chess Mini app, that plays interesting chess at around FIDE 1800 to 1900. Apart from simply just playing, you'll also receive useful feedback, for example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/F917O.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/F917O.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's obvious the great Nimzowitch had been winning most of the game. The graph will tell when and how you blunder.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, back to the rating. While the SmallFish app (Stockfish engine integrated) allows adjustable playing strength, the rating reported in the app isn't very accurate. The confidence interval is roughly about +-200 Elo. The rating range given in the SmallChess app is much more accurate, because I'd paired it against human players on the FICS server.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm sure you'll learn and improve your chess by playing my apps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2015-07-27T05:11:02.323" LastActivityDate="2015-07-27T05:11:02.323" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9830" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9826" CreationDate="2015-07-25T07:47:38.013" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to the computer analysis, I could had drawn the game already on move 17 by threatening stalemate and fork a pawn, effectively forcing the knight to capture my rook in check, forcing the king to move up and capture the other pawn:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;8/8/2R5/8/5n2/1k1p4/2p5/2K5 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Rc3+ Kb4 2. Rxd3 Nxd3+ 3. Kxc2 {Draw!}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3823" LastEditorUserId="2042" LastEditDate="2015-07-25T08:27:32.433" LastActivityDate="2015-07-25T08:27:32.433" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9831" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9828" CreationDate="2015-07-25T08:28:10.520" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You could use &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.lichess.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;lichess&lt;/a&gt; which uses stockfish chess engine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The difficulty AI levels varies from 1350 to 2400.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3131" LastActivityDate="2015-07-25T08:28:10.520" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9832" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9825" CreationDate="2015-07-25T09:09:48.770" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11357-011-9274-9/fulltext.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this study&lt;/a&gt; chess grandmasters peak at age 31.4. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://virgo.unive.it/seminari_economia/Brunello.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;This study&lt;/a&gt; confuses the hell out of me, but there is one sensible chart at page 20, that seems to indicate that you can still improve a little bit in your thirties and generally hold your playing level into your mid-forties. After that the decline becomes noticable. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The slight discrepancy between these two studies is easily explained by the fact that the first only looks at grandmasters, whereas the second examines more than 40,000 players. In fact I would assume that the very top players peak even earlier these days. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I found a very good &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/blog/LionChessLtd/age-vs-elo---your-battle-against-time&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;chess.com article&lt;/a&gt; about this topic. This guy analysed more than 71,000 players and found a rating peak in the late twenties. Until you are eighty you'll lose 200 Elo points on average, which really isn't all that much. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastEditorUserId="4362" LastEditDate="2015-07-27T12:08:31.927" LastActivityDate="2015-07-27T12:08:31.927" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9833" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-07-25T09:19:05.000" Score="7" ViewCount="1277" Body="&lt;p&gt;How does one assign a specific engine to a specific color in Arena?  I load a PGN file and move to a specific point in the game.  At that time I want to assign Engine A to play black and Engine B to play white.  Then when I hit the calculate or demo buttons the game proceeds (after selecting &quot;New Variation&quot;).  I've spent half the day searching for the answer with no luck.  Any guidance would be greatly appreciate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user7900" LastActivityDate="2017-01-12T12:34:55.883" Title="Assigning Engines in Arena" Tags="&lt;arena&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9834" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-07-25T13:47:53.750" Score="3" ViewCount="224" Body="&lt;p&gt;I started chess some time ago. I was studying opening theory and it seems most opening moves characterize the style of play.&#xA;I want to ask how can a couple of moves determine the whole game play? For example, the french defense is known to be solid and offers counter-attacking chances. How can two moves i.e. e4 e6 d4 d5 say so much about the game?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With my limited experience, I can only think of the following reason:-&#xA;1) Pawn structure: Since pawns cannot be moved backwards, so depending on your first moves, the best moves that you can play usually depend on your opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any more reasons? If possible, please explain in general and also the particular case of french defense. Thanks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7902" LastActivityDate="2015-07-28T00:56:42.660" Title="How opening moves determine the whole game play?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9835" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9834" CreationDate="2015-07-25T14:37:21.210" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your intuition is right; it's all about the pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;As you note, they can't move backwards.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;They can't capture straight ahead, so two opposing pawns facing each other (say on e4 and e5) can't move.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;They are the least valuable piece, so no one (generally) will capture one with a piece if their piece can be recaptured in turn. So (generally) the only thing that gets exchanged for a pawn is another pawn, which can be hard to make happen because of the way they move.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a result of all of this, your pawn structure is (generally) the least dynamic part of your position, and all your other piece movement is in relation to it. These pawn structures are often set pretty early in the opening, so they recur a lot and people have studied them very deeply.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2015-07-25T14:37:21.210" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9836" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9857" CreationDate="2015-07-25T17:06:48.070" Score="5" ViewCount="767" Body="&lt;p&gt;Many beautiful and celebrated master games feature heavy sacrifices of material that result in checkmate, or at least the regaining of more material than was sacrificed. In most cases, the original sacrifices were soundly based on positional considerations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How well do these tactics work for amateurs? Do many make &amp;quot;correct&amp;quot; sacrifices (from the master point of view) and then lose because of incorrect follow upsS? Do amateurs sacrifice at the &amp;quot;wrong&amp;quot; times (when positional considerations don't warrant it)? Or is it usually to be the case that if &amp;quot;someone is good enough to sacrifice (correctly), they're good enough to win?&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-10-28T21:31:49.320" LastActivityDate="2020-10-28T23:48:24.477" Title="Do sacrifices work mostly for masters?" Tags="&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;master-games&gt;&lt;sacrifice&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="9838" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-07-25T23:12:26.003" Score="0" ViewCount="233" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's my move.  All I have is a king.  The opponent has a rook and a queen.  I can't move without going into check.  Is this a draw?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7905" LastEditorUserId="4588" LastEditDate="2015-07-27T20:25:32.930" LastActivityDate="2017-11-02T09:07:31.347" Title="Draw, or discovered check" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9840" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9836" CreationDate="2015-07-26T02:05:11.380" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;A sacrifice will work equally well for any chess-player provided he sees it, which a master is much more likely to do based on his skill level and previous experience.  Of course, you wouldn't want to make a sacrifice if you couldn't see an immediately winning follow-up.  Maybe the master could make such a &quot;speculative&quot; sacrifice if his judgment felt the position warranted it, relying on his skill to find a winning continuation amidst the ensuing complications, but a weaker player is much less likely to accomplish that.  You have to train yourself you look at all the possible moves in a position, even ones that immediately seem unsound or foolish, to find potential sacrificial lines and develop this skill.  I can tell you from personal experience that it can be done.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastActivityDate="2015-07-26T02:05:11.380" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9841" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9838" CreationDate="2015-07-26T02:20:09.067" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;That's the definition of a &quot;stalemate&quot;, which is a draw, i.e. if it's your turn to move and your lone king has no legal move.  It can also happen in other situations, such as for example if you also have blocked pawns on the board in addition to the king, since you will still have no legal move. This is often the last resort of the novice, the hope that his opponent will let him obtain such a position. If you are the player with the rook and queen, or even just a queen, in such a situation, you must be careful to always leave your opponent's king a space to move to if you don't have an immediate mate to avoid this occurring.  Of course, it's much less likely that you can get a stalemate against a more skilled opponent, although some strong players have &quot;swindled&quot; their equally strong opponents out of a win thereby, one famous case being a long-ago game between Grandmasters Larry Evans and Samuel Reshevsky.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastEditorUserId="7657" LastEditDate="2015-07-26T02:33:26.490" LastActivityDate="2015-07-26T02:33:26.490" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9842" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9833" CreationDate="2015-07-26T03:50:23.567" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are you looking for setting up two engines playing against each other? In that case you can use the following in Arena 3.5: Engines &gt; Tournament.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3158" LastActivityDate="2015-07-26T03:50:23.567" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9844" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9592" CreationDate="2015-07-26T15:02:36.697" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;To all that has been told already I may add that sometimes, especially when playing a much stronger opponent, resigning at the right moment when the position is objectively lost may be the only chance to make your opponent know that you actually understand something of the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a strong International Master told me once when I was a kid learning the game, &quot;Everybody can have a bad game, but the strong player always knows when is the right time to resign&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="446" LastActivityDate="2015-07-26T15:02:36.697" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9845" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9836" CreationDate="2015-07-26T15:32:25.217" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are three types of sacrifices:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The move leads to a clear win such as checkmate.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The move gains a more abstract advantage such as space or&#xA;initiative.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The move 'feels' right though the player cannot plumb&#xA;the depths.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While the first point's 'clear win' may differ depending on the skill of the players, this is not actually a sacrifice. Sometimes it is called a 'sham sacrifice'. This is a combination that yields a happy result and is good stuff indeed. Amateurs can successfully sacrifice this way. In one of my earliest games I missed a mate-in-2 where the first move was a sham rook sacrifice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The second point is more interesting. This is where amateurs begin to fall down. Your better amateurs (USCF Masters, for example) navigate these waters pretty well.  They have a good understanding of the related abstractions. I don't think the GMs would always agree with the sacrifices made by the USCF masters, but they'd agree with the ideas. As we move down the skill tree to Experts, A-class, and B-class players, the sacrifices would get more and more dubious and any benefits squandered quicker. These players choose inefficient moves, losing time and allowing a defenders to negate the value of the sacrifice. Before long the amateur is generally down material without compensation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The third point is called a &quot;speculative sacrifice&quot; when made by a GM and a &quot;guess&quot; or a &quot;blunder&quot; when made by anyone else. The point of this sacrifice is to complicate the position to such a degree that the superior player will be able to wring value from the position as the lesser player falters. That is, the Master sees good outcomes but cannot be sure any of them will come to pass. Michael Tal was the king of speculative sacrifices. Unless you're Mikhail Tal*, you probably shouldn't be doing this if you care about winning. If the post-mortem of such a game causes spirited debate among chess players it was likely a &lt;em&gt;successful&lt;/em&gt; move regardless of the game's outcome. When the amateur plays this move, he generally has a resignable position within a few moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You aren't.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2015-07-26T15:32:25.217" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9846" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9836" CreationDate="2015-07-26T15:57:39.870" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Tom, you seem to be confused.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Many beautiful and celebrated master games feature heavy sacrifices of&#xA;  material that result in check mate, or at least the re-gaining of more&#xA;  material than was sacrificed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and this&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In most cases, the original sacrifices were soundly based on&#xA;  positional considerations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;are unconnected except physically in your first paragraph.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;heavy sacrifices of material that result in check mate, or at least the re-gaining of more material than was sacrificed&quot; are based on &lt;em&gt;tactical&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;psychological&lt;/em&gt; considerations not &lt;em&gt;positional&lt;/em&gt; ones. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As CConero points out, these work equally well regardless of your ability. The only difference which difference of ability makes is your ability to see them in the first place. Stronger players are better than weaker players at spotting these and marginally better at calculating them. Usually spotting them in the first place is harder than making the necessary calculations to verify that they work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I said that this type of sacrifice is often also based on psychological considerations. Some players, even or especially world class ones like Alekhine or Tal, make sacrifices where it is not possible to calculate the complications in a reasonable amount of time. Chess is mostly played between human beings and human beings are psychological beings. Their performance can be affected by fear and doubt. Such sacrifices depend for their success (or otherwise) on the two players' ability to see through the calculations &lt;em&gt;and&lt;/em&gt; their mental toughness. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is particularly true for the second player who faces the unexpected shock to the system that the sacrifice brings in a position which he thought was relatively safe and solid. If he is mentally fragile then an unsound sacrifice can still lead to mental disintegration and an undeserved loss.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are, however, sacrifices which are &quot;soundly based on positional considerations&quot;. There are many examples in master play which have their own, more subtle, beauty. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sacrificing a pawn to gain a purely positional advantage or to negate a big positional disadvantage are very common in top level play as are exchange sacrifices (sacrificing a rook for a knight or bishop often with a pawn as an additional sweetener). These are much rarer in amateur play, requiring a level of positional judgment and knowledge which requires a great deal of experience and training to develop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2015-07-26T15:57:39.870" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9847" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-07-26T16:46:50.893" Score="8" ViewCount="202" Body="&lt;p&gt;In his recent &quot;Immortal Game&quot; against Lazaro Bruzon Batista, Wei Yi initiated his king hunt with the move 22.Rxf7!! from this position&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;3qr1k1/1b1rbp2/p2p2p1/1p1np3/4P3/P2BB2Q/1PP3PP/4RR1K w - - 0 22&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The annotation to this move said that the next four moves were forced.  My question is why the king recapture of the rook 22..., Kxf7 is considered forced, since 22..., Nf6 seems to be a viable alternative, defending against the threatened mate by the queen at h7, saving the knight and trapping the rook?   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2015-07-26T17:43:40.593" LastActivityDate="2015-07-26T17:43:40.593" Title="Is 22..., Nf6 a good alternative move to accepting the rook sacrifice by 22..., Kxf7 in Yi's recent &quot;Immortal Game&quot;?" Tags="&lt;defense&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9848" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9847" CreationDate="2015-07-26T17:01:59.633" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;After 22. ... Nf6, white will reply 23. Qe6!, threatening a nasty discovered check. 23. ... Bf8 won't work because it is mate after 24. Re7+ Kh8 25. Qxf6+ Kg8 26. Qxg6+ Kh8 27. Qxh7#, and 23. ... Kh8 loses to 24. Bg5! and Black's position will collapse.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2015-07-26T17:01:59.633" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9849" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-07-26T22:36:56.830" Score="6" ViewCount="273" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am improving my chess. What is the best move here and why? (black moves)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks in advance:) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;rnb2rk1/pp2qpp1/3p1b1p/2pBp2Q/4P2P/3P1N2/PPP2PP1/2KR3R b - h3 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7908" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2015-07-26T22:43:02.150" LastActivityDate="2015-07-30T07:43:35.183" Title="Analyze this game" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;beginner&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9850" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9849" CreationDate="2015-07-26T22:50:42.173" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Black is up a piece, so I would just play ...Be6 to force a bishop trade, which is generally a good idea when you're up material (you'd rather be up 1 piece to 0 than 6 pieces to 5).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2015-07-26T22:50:42.173" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9851" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9849" CreationDate="2015-07-26T23:56:02.140" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Black has saddled himself with a ghastly pawn chain weakness - the hole on d5.  Since the White Bishop that's sitting there is powerful, and its Black counterpart is undeveloped, &lt;code&gt;1... Be6&lt;/code&gt; seems to be a good move. I'd be intend on capturing it the next move. I don't think White wants to capture the Black Bishop with &lt;code&gt;2. Bxe6&lt;/code&gt; since this will allow Black to defend d5 with &lt;code&gt;2... fxe6&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once White's Bishop is gone, g5 and h5 start looking entertaining for Black as White has no defenders on that side of the board. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black needs to connect his rooks (before pushing h5 and g5) and be ready for White to hammer on that backward d pawn with his rooks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2015-07-27T20:14:05.763" LastActivityDate="2015-07-27T20:14:05.763" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9852" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-07-27T08:41:34.180" Score="2" ViewCount="720" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recently finished Neil McDonald's &quot;Starting Out: 1.e4!&quot;. Now I would like to learn some Black responses. Could someone recommend a book at similar level to Neil's, but focus on Black? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure whether to read several specific books or find one general book (eg with 4 chapters on play against e4, d4, c4, Nf3). One general book to start with would be my preference (so I can pick my favourites), if there is a good one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, I don't quite like Neil's recommendation on the Scoth game (trade queens, play an endgame where the opponent has a weak pawn). I tried the Scotch gambit a bit. Is there any good resource to go deeper on the Scotch gambit?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7002" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-12-14T17:34:52.453" LastActivityDate="2019-12-14T19:00:30.067" Title="Book on Black openings" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;books&gt;&lt;gambits&gt;&lt;scotch-game&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="9853" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9852" CreationDate="2015-07-27T09:02:07.017" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;One very popular beginners book about openings from the black side is &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1889323187&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this one&lt;/a&gt;. The focus isn't on grandmaster level opening theory, but on keeping everything understandable and manageable. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-07-27T09:02:07.017" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9854" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9852" CreationDate="2015-07-27T09:22:47.893" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are many responses to 1.e4 for black, in order of popularity according to the &lt;a href=&quot;http://chesstempo.com/game-database.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Game Database of ChessTempo&lt;/a&gt;: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;1....c5 (Sicilian)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;1....e5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;1....e6 (French)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;1....c6 (Caro-Kann)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;etc...&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Each of these openings also have many variations. Futhermore, there are also many books on each of these openings. It is not easy to advise you one, as it depends on many things: your playing strength, your playing style, etc...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A good idea might be to play an opening with black that you don't like to encounter when playing white. This way,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You have an opening for black (your initial goal)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You can also find good continuations to play as white&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After you made your opening choice, you can search for a book about that specific opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: That being said, if you want to broaden your view, here are a couple of books that cover a wide range of openings: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1857442210&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Nunn's Chess Openings&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1906454132&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Fundamental Chess Openings&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1857443497&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Winning Chess Openings&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4588" LastEditorUserId="4588" LastEditDate="2015-07-28T12:03:52.393" LastActivityDate="2015-07-28T12:03:52.393" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9855" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9849" CreationDate="2015-07-27T10:59:40.667" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think an answer to this question should stress the fact that white has a very dangerous and ready made attack in this position. If black does nothing, g4-g5 will rip his kingside apart, extra piece notwithstanding. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Be6 is a good move because it exchanges one attacking piece and regains control of an important square, g6. For example after 1…Be6 2.g4 Bxd5 3.exd5 Qd7 4.g5 g6 5.Qxh6 Bg7, black has managed to defend and trap the queen. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: I want to add that this is one of the positions where a computer will not show you what it's all about. An engine will calculate that g4-g5 doesn't work so it might not even show the idea. With black it might not defend against it directly, because it sees that due to some random tactical details (king on c1 instead of b1, Rh3 impossible, etc.) it can defend against g4-g5 even a move later. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But for a human player g4-g5 is the whole point of the position. This is the problem you have to solve as black, if you do, you will win. This is the plan you have to make work as white, otherwise you might as well resign. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastEditorUserId="4362" LastEditDate="2015-07-30T07:43:35.183" LastActivityDate="2015-07-30T07:43:35.183" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9856" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9852" CreationDate="2015-07-27T18:12:30.510" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Generally repertoire books from the Black point of view are more detailed than those from White's viewpoint, as the author really should cover all reasonable tries by White against a certain opening. For reasons of space this standard is not always met for White repertoire books. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I were you I'd wait for Smerdon's Scandivanian which covers the Portugeuse and Icelandic gambits against 1.e4 and comes out in September and will be brilliant if you like attacking chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.everymanchess.com/smerdons-scandinavian&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://www.everymanchess.com/smerdons-scandinavian&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4543" LastActivityDate="2015-07-27T18:12:30.510" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9857" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9836" CreationDate="2015-07-27T20:58:36.843" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;This happened once, I was white and had misplayed the opening:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;r1bq1rk1/ppp2p1p/3p2p1/2nPp2n/1PP1P3/2N1bP2/P2NB1PP/R1BQ1RK1 w - - 1 12&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I thought that Kh1 would lead to a deadly black attack, so I sighed and played 12.Rf2. There followed 12...Qh4 13.Qe1 Qxf2+ 14.Qxf2 Bxf2+ 15.Kxf2, I had lost an exchange, the queens were off and I assumed I would be lost.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I then proceeded to blow black off the board -- black's rooks turned out to be completely useless, my pieces found great squares, and I won in 32. Of course there were also many more mistakes, according to the computer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So if a completely unintentional sacrifice can work, then so can intentional sacrifices, right?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I believe that &lt;em&gt;a good move is a good move&lt;/em&gt;. If a sacrifice gives compensation (in terms of great squares for pieces, or an attack, etc), then it does, regardless of the level of the players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, weaker players are more likely to make mistakes and lose the compensation. But guess what, they are also more likely to make mistakes without playing the sacrifice! Maybe the sacrifice is the best move, and not playing it is already a mistake.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;How well do these tactics work for amateurs? Do many make &quot;correct&quot; sacrifices (from the master point of view) and then lose because of incorrect follow up? Do amateurs sacrifice at the &quot;wrong&quot; times (when positional considerations don't warrant it)? Or is it usually to be the case that if &quot;someone is good enough to sacrifice (correctly), they're good enough to win?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is hard to answer because at one hand, &lt;em&gt;yes, of course weaker players are much more likely to screw it up&lt;/em&gt;, because that's what weaker players do, that's not really related to the move being a sacrifice. Weaker players will also play a conscious sacrifice less often, because it's easy to understand that you'll lose a piece, and less easy to understand that you get positional features in return that make up for it, or that the tactic actually does lead to a forced mate in 6. So most amateurs play it safe (but not all).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But if we assume the &lt;em&gt;opponent&lt;/em&gt; is at the same level, so also an amateur, then I think sacrifices can be very effective at amateur because the opponent is also less likely to see them coming, and more likely to be confused by them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I don't think a general answer can be given, and think what matters is that &lt;em&gt;a good move is a good move&lt;/em&gt;. Many moves gives up some type of advantage in return for another type, and sacrifices are just one example of that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think amateurs don't play them as often as they should, because of unnecessary fear.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: I guess I need to add the whole game&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2010.09.05&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;1927&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;2040&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.e4 O-O 5.Nf3 d6 6.Be2 Na6 7.O-O e5 8.d5 Nc5 9.Nd2 Bh6 10.f3 Nh5 11.b4 Be3+ 12.Rf2 Qh4 13.Qe1 Qxf2+ 14.Qxf2 Bxf2+ 15.Kxf2 Na6 16.Ba3 Nf4 17.Bf1 c5 18.dxc6 bxc6 19.Nb3 Rd8 20.Rd1 Bb7 21.Na5 Rab8 22.c5 Nc7 23.cxd6 Nb5 24.Bxb5 cxb5 25.Nxb5 Bxe4 26.Nxa7 Ra8 27.N7c6 Bxc6 28.Nxc6 Rxd6 29.Rxd6 Rxa3 30.Rd2 Nd3+ 31.Kf1 Nc1 32.b5 1-0 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2015-07-27T20:58:36.843" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9858" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-07-28T00:11:22.983" Score="5" ViewCount="384" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sirs,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After considerable endgame study (i.e. Jeremy Silman's complete endgame course), I am finding that there is a wealth of information about how to win endgames.  However, I am noticing that there isn't as much information about knowing/judging when it is time to &quot;trade down&quot; to an endgame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not at all confused by the most basic principles such as &quot;trade down to an endgame when you are a knight-ahead or better&quot;.  However, I would love to see an outline (or a link to some kind of equivalent knowledge) addressing more detailed situations such as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;--a.)  trading down to an endgame when white has two passed pawns on opposite sides of the board vs. black's poorly guarded pawn on the 7th rank.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;--b.)  win/lose/draw analysis of bishop only endgames when bishop are of same color, or Knight vs. bishop endgame success?&#xA;etc, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does anyone know of a website, book, or resource addressing this niche subject of judging whether or not to trade down to an endgame?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Regards,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Brent&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7915" LastActivityDate="2015-07-28T09:28:57.170" Title="How to know when it is time to trade down to an endgame?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2015-07-28T18:05:42.963" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9859" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9834" CreationDate="2015-07-28T00:56:42.660" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Although the responses above seem to address the original question well, there is another angle to the question that I feel should be addressed.  Built in to the original question is the question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;How in the world can anyone look at the first two moves of the game and say so much about how the rest of the game will proceed?  Can't anyone play any move they want?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My response goes like this:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the broadest sense, NO - nobody can say anything about how the rest of the game will proceed.  For all we know, white will respond to the French with 3. a3 ... 4. a4 ... 5. a5 ... followed by 6. Ra2 .. 7. Ra3 and so forth.  After which I'm sure black could really open up the position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Discussions about opening theory don't consider absurdity like this - they assume that if you are even interested in the topic you are already beyond making pointless moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When opening theorists state things like &quot;the French defense leads to imbalanced positions, strong pawn structures for black, etc.  what they really should be saying is &quot;assuming &lt;em&gt;competent play&lt;/em&gt; by both sides, the French leads to (insert whatever here).  Similar to dfan above, authors grow tired of writing &quot;assuming competent moves on both sides&quot; in front of every sentence they write.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the case of the French defense, white really only has two or three viable options, after which black only has two or three competent responses, and so on (check any opening table or discussion of the French defense to see what they are).  Besides, many of these responses ultimately lead to the same position anyway.  The fact that for the first ten or so moves, most opening moves only have two or three legitimate responses, two or three counter-responses, and so forth leads us to make statements like &quot;the French leads to closed positions and strong pawn structures.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just thought I'd clear this up for the original question and any future readers of this post.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;neutron2000&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7915" LastActivityDate="2015-07-28T00:56:42.660" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9860" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9858" CreationDate="2015-07-28T09:23:06.740" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The reason there isn't much information on when to trade down when there isn't a large material advantage is because it is obvious.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you have a small advantage but you calculate that trading down will leave you with &lt;strong&gt;an endgame which you know how to win&lt;/strong&gt; then trade down. Note that even if you are bishop and knight up (say something like KQBN v KQ) and can trade down to a KBN v K endgame and you know that theoretically it is winning for you &lt;strong&gt;but you don't know how to win&lt;/strong&gt; then there is no point in trading down because it is very easy for the defender to last 50 moves and claim the draw against someone who lacks the knowledge. Try and win some other way while there is more material on the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similarly if you are a pawn or two down but have the chance to trade down to an opposite coloured bishop endgame where you know because of your endgame knowledge that your opponent's extra pawn(s) are not going to be enough for him because you know how to draw that position then trade down.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The difficult part is having the endgame knowledge in the first place&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you reach a position where you are trying to decide whether to trade down or not but don't know, it is not because nobody has given you the magic answer. It is because &lt;strong&gt;you lack the endgame knowledge to judge the final position&lt;/strong&gt; after the trade down.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2015-07-28T09:28:57.170" LastActivityDate="2015-07-28T09:28:57.170" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9861" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-07-28T13:29:38.007" Score="5" ViewCount="610" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm thinking about playing the Maroczy Bind with White in the Symmetrical English (1. Nf3 c5 2. c4 - notice that I start with 1. Nf3).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I don't know exactly in what cases I should play it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I would like to know if these four sentences are true or not:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The Maroczy Bind is good for White if White places his King's Bishop&#xA;on e2.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The Maroczy Bind is not good for White if White fianchettoes his King's Bishop on g2.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The Maroczy Bind is not good for White if Black places his King's Bishop on e7.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The Maroczy Bind is good for White if Black fianchettoes his King's Bishop on g7.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3237" LastActivityDate="2015-07-28T21:58:42.493" Title="In what cases is it good to play the Maroczy Bind in the Symmetrical English?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;fianchetto&gt;&lt;english-opening&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9862" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9861" CreationDate="2015-07-28T14:38:45.473" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have only ever played the Maroczy Bind against the sicilian and in the light of this limited knowledge all your propositions make some sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1./2. Be2 is where you normally place your bishop in the sicilian binds and it makes sense to refrain from e4 (at least for a time) if you fianchettoed the bishop. I have also read that after the fianchetto the square e4 is kept free for some possible piece maneuvers (Only Ne4 after d6 and e6 have been played comes to my mind). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3./4. The Maroczy is the main line against the acc. dragon, but not against the Paulsen/Kan. So one could deduce that the black bishop is better off on e7. But it is very playable against both and there is also the matter of move orders and the strength of alternative lines, so this probably doesn't make much of a difference. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the end this is very much a question of concrete lines. There probably isn't an easy recipe for when to whip out the Maroczy Bind.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-07-28T14:38:45.473" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9863" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-07-28T17:07:37.183" Score="-2" ViewCount="857" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am looking for some authenticated books , tutorials ,reference sites for quickest algorithms implementation for chess engine creation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you.&#xA;regards&#xA;Keshav&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7917" LastActivityDate="2015-07-29T00:25:06.813" Title="fastest AI algorithms for quick chess engine?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9864" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9865" CreationDate="2015-07-28T18:48:38.033" Score="1" ViewCount="117" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is it possible or common practice to omit piece letters (other than P) in PGN as long as the move is unambiguous? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;E.g. h1xBh8&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From what I understand from &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.saremba.de/chessgml/standards/pgn/pgn-complete.htm#c8.2.3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.saremba.de/chessgml/standards/pgn/pgn-complete.htm#c8.2.3&lt;/a&gt; it is not allowed. But then again, it's unambiguous. Has anybody ever seen a PGN game doing that? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7918" LastActivityDate="2015-07-28T21:04:25.047" Title="Omitting piece letters in pgn" Tags="&lt;pgn&gt;&lt;notation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9865" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9864" CreationDate="2015-07-28T21:04:25.047" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is not allowed by computer programs or by FIDE.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PGN is designed to be parsable by computer programs. Those computer programs depend on PGN files actually adhering to the specification. It would be similarly unambiguous if you numbered the ranks 9-16 instead of 1-8, but computer programs would not be able to read your game scores.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are not concerned about computers reading your moves and just want to save time writing on your scoresheet, you are still out of luck. The FIDE rules of chess say&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;C. FIDE recognises for its own tournaments and matches only one system of notation, the Algebraic System, and recommends the use of this uniform chess notation also for chess literature and periodicals. Scoresheets using a notation system other than algebraic may not be used as evidence in cases where normally the scoresheet of a player is used for that purpose. An arbiter who observes that a player is using a notation system other than the algebraic should warn the player of this requirement.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;C.8 Each move of a piece is indicated by a) &lt;strong&gt;the abbreviation of the name of the piece in question&lt;/strong&gt; and b) the square of arrival. There is no hyphen between a) and b). Examples: Be5, Nf3, Rd1.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2015-07-28T21:04:25.047" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9866" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9861" CreationDate="2015-07-28T21:58:42.493" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You need to buy a book on the English opening covering these structures.  Chess Explained: The English Opening by Zenon Franco (ISBN: 9781904600596) is a decent start.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4543" LastActivityDate="2015-07-28T21:58:42.493" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9868" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9863" CreationDate="2015-07-29T00:25:06.813" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If I read your question correctly, you're looking for the quickest way to code your own chess engine, not the &quot;fastest&quot; algorithm. This is important, because there is no such thing as the &quot;fastest&quot; algorithm; your algorithm might evaluate positions very quickly, but if it doesn't understanding that a queen is mort valued than a pawn, your &quot;fastest&quot; algorithm is useless.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The quickest way to code your own chess engine is to start with something that works.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.tckerrigan.com/Chess/TSCP/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.tckerrigan.com/Chess/TSCP/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The TSCP chess engine is simple enough for you to get started.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;PS&lt;/strong&gt;: In case you're really looking for the &quot;fastest&quot; algorithm. You'll simply need to code a board generator. Simply take the first move off from the generator. No need to do an alpha-beta search.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2015-07-29T00:25:06.813" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9870" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-07-29T20:12:29.510" Score="2" ViewCount="2516" Body="&lt;p&gt;How can I use ChessBase 13 for automatic game analysis? I am new to ChessBase 13 and I don't understand its functions completely.&#xA;I have more than 1 chess engines installed manually&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is related to &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/27/is-there-any-free-software-to-automatically-analyze-and-annotate-games/1099#1099&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; question where the answer given is ChessBase but not described how to use it.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qURfz.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qURfz.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/VTUXA.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/VTUXA.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7693" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T20:36:35.043" LastActivityDate="2021-02-23T17:04:37.483" Title="Chessbase 13 for automatic game analysis" Tags="&lt;chessbase&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="9872" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9880" CreationDate="2015-07-30T08:50:12.847" Score="3" ViewCount="881" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a game I played against my phone. I think I have an attacking chance with pawn storm. But staring at the situation for a bit, I can't find a plan to bring down black's defense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When attacking with g and h pawns against a flat f7/g7/h7 structure, where do my pawns usually go (g5/h6 or g6/h5?)? How to coordinate my other pieces?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any general suggestion or illustrative games I can follow to see how this is done?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/VKg4F.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/VKg4F.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7002" LastActivityDate="2015-07-30T20:28:50.090" Title="how to break through using pawn storm" Tags="&lt;pawns&gt;&lt;attack&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9873" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9872" CreationDate="2015-07-30T11:52:29.997" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are many plans for White here.&#xA;One is h5 and then g6 depending on whether the Knight on f5 hangs after fxg6. If instead black plays ...h6 you sack a piece on h6. Otherwise you can consider gxh7 check and attacking on the g file. Another plan is h6 and opening lines on the kingside. It seems that your pieces are not that well co-ordinated for these plans though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All of this depends on concrete analysis. I would suggest the first move as 1.h5, with the idea h6, Qd4 and Qxg7 checkmate. If Black plays 1...f6 thwarting this idea then g6 and transposes to the ideas above. If Black plays 2...f6 then 3.fxg7. If 1...g6 then you have the option of hxg6 at any point in the future. edit eg after Rh1.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4543" LastEditorUserId="4543" LastEditDate="2015-07-30T11:58:29.577" LastActivityDate="2015-07-30T11:58:29.577" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9874" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9872" CreationDate="2015-07-30T12:22:51.073" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The thing is that pawn storms work best if the centre is closed. Otherwise piece activity in the centre of the board usually easily out weights the benefits of a pawn storm. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The dictum goes: Counter a flank attack with a strike in the centre!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here the closest thing to a counter strike in the centre is 1…f6. This opens the g-file for you, but it also activates the Bd8 and the Rf8. Especially the Rf8 is nasty, because you have two pieces and a pawn lined up on the f-file and they all lack protection. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now if you had a rook on g1, you could answer 1…f6 with 2.g6. That would be pretty sweet because 2…h6 runs into Bxh6 and 2...hxg6 opens the g-file without opening the f-file. This leads me to the conclusion that h4 may have been a mistake. Still, 1…f6 2.g6 hg 3.Nd4 might still give you real attacking chances.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If for some reason black doesn't play f6, advancing your pawns is not very convincing, because you have a hard time opening the g-file without opening the f-file for black. Better you regroup with Rg1-g3, possibly f3 if Re8 comes. Later Be3-d4 is a strong idea. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-07-30T12:22:51.073" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9875" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9221" CreationDate="2015-07-30T15:29:05.443" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's also important to note that castling is not always required. Once you reach about 1800-2000 level, you'll start to see that in certain (closed) positions, like in some variations of the French, moving the king up and manually connecting your rooks may be required/favored. However, even in those positions, castling is generally a good idea.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only reason you wouldn't castle is if the position is very closed and you have a specific role for the king that wouldn't cause it unnecessary danger and/or if your pieces are on the other side of the board and you can defend your king better if it manually shifted over by a square or two.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, this requires deep positional understanding and tactical sacrificial understanding (your opponents potential sacs), so as a general rule, I'd advise for castling. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, develop your pieces to take key squares away from your opponent first, then castle. Don't castle just because you can, but because you should. However, in the opening, sometimes other priorities are more important, like a crucial square, winning a piece, forcing your opponent to play other moves to gain tempo, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3540" LastActivityDate="2015-07-30T15:29:05.443" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9876" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9879" CreationDate="2015-07-30T15:31:09.007" Score="3" ViewCount="4219" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the difference?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I mildly understand that Candidate Master is a 2000-2100 FIDE Title, but I've seen several USCF players with that under their &quot;Norms&quot; section, in conjunction with 1st Category, 2nd Category, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3540" LastActivityDate="2016-01-03T01:46:16.167" Title="Expert vs. Candidate Master?" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;fide&gt;&lt;uscf&gt;&lt;titles&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9877" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9870" CreationDate="2015-07-30T15:33:41.030" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;When you enter a game into ChessBase and you save the game, right click the game slot (in the database in which you saved it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Under &quot;Edit&quot; ==&gt; &quot;More&quot; ==&gt; Editorial Annotation (RR). This will allow ChessBase to go through its database and give you an annotated game, according to past players, lines, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I believe you will need a &quot;Big Games&quot; database for this to work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3540" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T20:36:52.797" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T20:36:52.797" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="9878" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9876" CreationDate="2015-07-30T16:29:55.097" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;To obtain the FIDE title of Candidate Master (CM), it is required to have a FIDE rating of 2200 or more. See the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=174&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;FIDE handbook&lt;/a&gt; or &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIDE_titles#Candidate_Master_.28CM.29&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;. The title is for life.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_title#Expert&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;, the USCF title of Expert is awarded to players rated from 2000 to 2199 (USCF rating!). The title is not for life.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, the two titles depend on two different ratings. The question that now arises is: how can we compare the FIDE rating with the USCF rating?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to the graph of this &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/article/view/chesscom-rating-comparisons&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;article&lt;/a&gt;, a 2100 USCF rating roughly corresponds to a 2000 FIDE rating.&#xA;So it seems that, usually, a FIDE-CM is a stronger player than a USCF-Expert.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4588" LastActivityDate="2015-07-30T16:29:55.097" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9879" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9876" CreationDate="2015-07-30T18:20:53.493" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;The USCF has two independent systems for naming players' levels:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) Rating-based: Senior Master (2400+), National Master (2200-2399), Expert (2000-2199), Class A (1800-1999), Class B (1600-1799), etc. This describes your current rating; you can be Class A today and Class B next week. The one exception is that once your rating gets to 2200, you are a master forever. These names and rules have been around for decades and are what most players are familiar with.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) Norm-based: Life Senior Master (2400+), Life Master (2200+), Candidate Master (2000+), 1st Category (1800+), 2nd Category (1600+), etc. You are granted one of these titles by achieving five norms of that level and getting to the minimum required rating (at least once). Generally speaking, a title norm is a tournament performance that would be impressive for someone who had the minimum rating for that tile. These norms are what you see when you look at a USCF player's rating page. The full rules for norm-based titles are &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.glicko.net/ratings/titles.pdf&quot;&gt;available online&lt;/a&gt;. One intent of norm-based titles is to provide an incentive for people to play in which they can't &quot;lose ground&quot;, like they can with their rating. These have been introduced more recently and many players are not even aware of them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2015-07-30T18:20:53.493" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9880" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9872" CreationDate="2015-07-30T20:18:38.273" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The idea of a pawn storm is to exchange pawns and open files; so the 'usual' defence against a pawn storm is to keep the files closed, which often entails responding to an offer to swap pawns by advancing your own, e.g. if white plays h6, black will want to play ...g6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So from the attacker's viewpoint, you will want to make use of the weaknesses created by any change in your attacker's pawn structure, or force a pawn exchange. In the position you have given, your pieces are not too well placed; only your knight plays a role in the attack on the king, and the queen is ready. The bishop on f4 is a liability in lines where the f-file is opened, and you would much rather have a rook on g1.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Personally, I would prefer to start with Rg1 because in almost all cases, you will need to put a rook on the g-file. &lt;s&gt;In fact, after this move you are threatening 2. Qd4, forcing 2 ...f6 where black's position collapses after 3. Nxg7.&lt;/s&gt; You are threatening 2. h5 and 3. g6, after which your position will be crushing, because of the piece sacrifices you have available.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You usual concern as the attacker (especially when material is equal) is the counterattack of the opponent, as the success of your attack is only a matter of time. In the case of this position, black's a4-a3 advance is too slow (you can even ignore it and allow ...axb2 and your position is not immediately busted yet), so you can even ave the luxury of making another prepatory move like Be3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For any attack against the king, the attacker generally wants to force the advance of the pawns covering the king, so pawns on f7-g7-h7 are usually the most resistant to an attack. Often he does this by tempting the move ...h6 by placing a piece on g5. This position looks much like the Petroff after 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. Nxe5 d6 4. Nf3 Nxe4 5. Nc3 Nxc3 6. dxc3, and is probably what you played if I had to guess. I recall Morozevich winning a game in this line as white, which you could probably look up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7473" LastEditorUserId="7473" LastEditDate="2015-07-30T20:28:50.090" LastActivityDate="2015-07-30T20:28:50.090" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9881" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9882" CreationDate="2015-07-30T20:56:41.803" Score="7" ViewCount="535" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just started playing the Caro-Kann recently and have seen a variety of moves on white's third move.  Are there any good &quot;all-in-one&quot; resources to examine the different variations?  I consider the opening to be the weakest part of my game and want to strengthen is as much as I can.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7840" LastActivityDate="2015-08-26T01:41:01.363" Title="Books/Videos for the Caro-Kann" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;caro-kann&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9882" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9881" CreationDate="2015-07-30T21:02:53.870" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1857446879&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;The Caro-Kann: Move by Move&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt; is a good resource for the Caro-Kann. The repertoire covered has winning chances but is very solid. (Just make sure your rating is at least 1500; below that, learning opening is not ideal.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7500" LastEditorUserId="7500" LastEditDate="2015-07-31T20:00:17.637" LastActivityDate="2015-07-31T20:00:17.637" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9883" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9884" CreationDate="2015-07-30T21:35:13.507" Score="3" ViewCount="824" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to play and learn the Najdorf Sicilian.  I know that white has three main options:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;6.Bg5&#xA;6.Be3&#xA;6.Bc4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I don't know much more than that.  Furthermore, I want to play the Open Sicilian as white and against the Najdorf play 6.Bg5, so I think for me it's worth learning these variations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Should I get Starting Out: Najdorf Sicilian?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7933" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2015-07-30T22:15:16.730" LastActivityDate="2015-07-30T22:15:16.730" Title="How do I go about learning the Najdorf Sicilian?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;&lt;najdorf&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9884" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9883" CreationDate="2015-07-30T21:43:15.420" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Probably(I haven't read it) , other options are a video series eg&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess24.com/en/learn/advanced/video/a-complete-najdorf-repertoire/najdorf-introduction&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://chess24.com/en/learn/advanced/video/a-complete-najdorf-repertoire/najdorf-introduction&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or a more detailed book eg &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.qualitychess.co.uk/products/1/49/grandmaster_repertoire_6_-_the_sicilian_defence_by_lubomir_ftacnik/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.qualitychess.co.uk/products/1/49/grandmaster_repertoire_6_-_the_sicilian_defence_by_lubomir_ftacnik/&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.newinchess.com/The_Sharpest_Sicilian_2012-p-1523.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://www.newinchess.com/The_Sharpest_Sicilian_2012-p-1523.html&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In general I would recommend the Starting Out repertoires for anyone under 2000 FIDE.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4543" LastActivityDate="2015-07-30T21:43:15.420" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9885" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-07-30T21:44:46.893" Score="4" ViewCount="328" Body="&lt;p&gt;My opening repertoire is currently consisting of:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.e4 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Open Sicilian (5.Bg5 versus Najdorf, Yugoslav Attack versus Dragon)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Versus 1...e5, Scotch Gambit&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Versus 1...e6, Tarrasch Variation: Korchnoi Gambit&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Versus 1...c6, Panov-Botvinik Attack (don't know much here)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As Black:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Versus 1.e4, Sicilian Defence&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Versus Anything Else, King's Indian Defence Setup&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have &quot;Playing the King's Indian Defence&quot; by Everyman Chess which I am currently studying back-to-back, and am planning to do the same with some book (not sure which one to get) on the Najdorf just because obviously, these openings are just so complex and have so many critical lines.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the rest of the openings (Scotch Gambit, Korchnoi Gambit, Panov-Botvinik Attack, various Open Sicilian Lines), can I get by without a book and just research and learn thes line I want to play?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am in the 1400's USCF.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7933" LastEditorUserId="4182" LastEditDate="2015-07-31T15:09:59.967" LastActivityDate="2019-12-14T12:10:14.947" Title="Can I get by without a book for learning my opening repertoire (aside from the Sicilian Najdorf and KID)?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9886" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9885" CreationDate="2015-07-31T01:19:37.353" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;At the USCF 1400-1500 level, the amount of reading you are planning on doing is already far too much. When you play people at your level they'll leave book pretty early; when you play people 400 points higher they'll beat you whether or not you have 12 moves memorized. The theory simply isn't going to matter for the vast majority of your games. Save the detailed reading and memorization until you get closer to 1800 at least. For now just play what you like, and after your game look things up in a database or a nice survey book like &lt;em&gt;Fundamental Chess Openings&lt;/em&gt; (and if you want to know the ideas behind various openings, FCO is a fine place to start). Take the time you would have spent studying openings and use it to study tactics and endgames.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, if you get lots of enjoyment from reading opening manuals cover to cover, I don't want to stop you. But it's not an efficient way to improve your results (especially at your current level), and you certainly don't need to do it for every opening you think you might encounter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2015-07-31T01:19:37.353" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9887" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9881" CreationDate="2015-07-31T07:00:39.433" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you are looking for a high-level book, then the &quot;Grandmaster Repertoire&quot; series can be recommended. There is one about the Caro-Kann, written by GM &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1906552568&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Schandorff&lt;/a&gt; in 2010.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It should added that, for the same series, in 2014 GM &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1906552061&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Negi&lt;/a&gt; wrote a book on a 1.e4 repertoire for white, covering the Caro-Kann.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4588" LastActivityDate="2015-07-31T07:00:39.433" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9888" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-07-31T11:23:38.517" Score="2" ViewCount="182" Body="&lt;p&gt;What are the key squares to control? What are ultra aggressive moves white can play at the advance level (expert or higher class)? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3149" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2015-07-31T13:32:22.780" LastActivityDate="2015-10-22T10:46:06.053" Title="What positional play strategy should white adopt when fighting against the Philidor exchange variation?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;&lt;philidor-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9890" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8772" CreationDate="2015-07-31T15:30:10.433" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The three main things that better players have over worse players in terms of thinking process are&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Conscious memory. You get to a theoretical endgame (or see that you could reach it) and search your memory to remember whether it is won, and how the win is achieved. Or you recall memorized opening moves.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Unconscious pattern recognition. Something about the position on the board leads you to look at particular ways of continuing. At the very lowest level this consists of things like noticing hanging pieces; at higher levels it might be things like knowing the most useful plans for a given pawn structure, or realizing that a certain type of sacrifice might be promising.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Better calculation. Often aspect 2 comes into play here as well as it lets you automatically &quot;prune your tree of variations&quot;, checking out promising moves for you and your opponent and discarding ones that are unlikely to work.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although the end result of these three aspects is that the master arrives at good moves faster than a novice player, I would say that the differences are qualitative and not merely quantitative. The master is not simply thinking the same things as the novice but faster; he is thinking different things.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What I am trying to get at is that creating a &quot;time-efficient thinking system&quot; by itself is not sufficient to cross that gap. You will have to get better at the three things above, which in turn will make your chess thinking more efficient.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2015-07-31T15:30:10.433" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9891" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9893" CreationDate="2015-07-31T17:30:33.970" Score="15" ViewCount="7215" Body="&lt;p&gt;On average, what is the age of people when they obtain the title of international master or grandmaster? I also wonder how the age distribution looks like.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4588" LastEditorUserId="4588" LastEditDate="2017-09-29T11:47:36.187" LastActivityDate="2017-09-29T11:47:36.187" Title="What is the average age to become a grandmaster?" Tags="&lt;statistics&gt;&lt;grandmaster&gt;&lt;titles&gt;&lt;international-master&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9893" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9891" CreationDate="2015-07-31T20:42:01.253" Score="27" Body="&lt;p&gt;Brilliant little data mining project!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I used the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_chess_grandmasters&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;wiki list of GMs&lt;/a&gt; and wrote a quick and dirty &lt;a href=&quot;https://gist.github.com/GloriaVictis/15299e893f281e143d3a&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;script&lt;/a&gt; to extract the data. Feel free to use and expand/alter it, if you are interested.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As it turns out, the average age for reaching GM is just above 28. It is, however, skewed by &quot;old&quot; generation players and players from time before GM title was a thing. It was officially introduced in 1950 and some (old) players were awarded it at the time. It is intriguing to look at average age in different generations of players. And so:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;For players born after 1945, the average is slightly above 26 years old. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;For players born after 1970, the average is slightly above 23 years old. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;For players born after 1975, the average is slightly above 22 years old. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;For players born after 1980, the average is 21 years old. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;For players born after 1985, the average is just shy of 20 years old. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;For players born after 1990, the average is 18.5 years old.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Clearly, on average, people are becoming a GM faster nowadays! The age distribution (for players born after 1945) is as follows:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/1E0tS.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/1E0tS.png&quot; alt=&quot;chess GM title reached by age&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In case it is of interest, the two countries &quot;producing&quot; GMs on average at lowest age are India and China - both at 21 years old. Countries with most GMs (all time) are Russia (by huge margin), Ukraine, Germany, USA and Hungary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3831" LastEditorUserId="3831" LastEditDate="2015-07-31T21:14:01.690" LastActivityDate="2015-07-31T21:14:01.690" CommentCount="11" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9894" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9825" CreationDate="2015-07-31T20:44:45.833" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are many exceptions of people performing on a high (and sometimes higher level than before) when they get older. The most obvious are: Boris Gelfand who reached a World Championship match in his forties, Vishy Anand who is currently World No 2 and in his forties, Victor Korchnoi, who reached two World Championship matches in his forties, and many others on the amateur scale. Even at 80 depending on the level you play at there may be room for improvement. It might be worth looking up a coach.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4543" LastActivityDate="2015-07-31T20:44:45.833" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9895" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-07-31T21:06:07.960" Score="5" ViewCount="433" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've recently learned about gnu chess, but it's poorly documented, and I'm having difficulties:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Setting a reasonable difficulty level;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Saving an entire game to a pgn: it's only saving the last move;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How can I do this?&#xA;Is there an e-book or a good tutorial I can follow?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks in advance&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Update (2/8/15):  Actually,  it's the version of gnuchess that's packaged with Debian 7 (6.0.2) that has a bug; after compiling 6.2.1 pgnsave worked normally.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7942" LastEditorUserId="9263" LastEditDate="2016-02-29T23:35:21.263" LastActivityDate="2016-02-29T23:35:21.263" Title="What is the best way to play chess via terminal?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;pgn&gt;&lt;beginner&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9896" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9554" CreationDate="2015-07-31T21:11:35.807" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;A Strong Chess Engine will make less mistakes than a human. Humans are tempted to play the moves that feel like winning or attacking moves. Engine plays solely on calculation.&#xA;Intuition is one of the main difference between Engine and Human. A lot of times Humans play moves trusting their instincts and may not calculate to the very end. Engines are bound with depth levels and there are chances that moves that are winning after depth levels are not found by Engine but can be found by human on intuition. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Playing under time pressure is also a major difference. Engine as an opponent would hardly come under time pressure. So putting more pressure on opponent when he/she is in time trouble is one to be experienced. Playing same moves repeating for 2 times to gain time on the clock is what a computer may not do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In a long game, as the game progresses, chances of Blunders/mistakes increase in case of Human players. On other hand Engine will perform same after any amount of time. So playing with humans can be helpful to increase stamina.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One obvious factor is managing the time along with writing the game on score-sheet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So yes, for accuracy purpose engine is great opponent. But along with that for some small factors human touch is must!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7943" LastActivityDate="2015-07-31T21:11:35.807" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9897" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10982" CreationDate="2015-08-01T04:55:28.063" Score="8" ViewCount="2871" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recently found a neat feature of Apple's Chess program that allows the player to speak moves, and the computer to speak back moves which makes blind chess very simple and comfortable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are a few quirks with the program though. I sometimes stutter when I speak and the Chess program too often interprets what I say as &quot;Undo&quot; with no auditory indication that it undoed. This leads to desyncs between the game the computer's playing and the game in my head.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a program with similar speech-to-move functionality except more refined? I'm okay with the limited commands I can give but I can't deal with my games taking back moves with no indication I can observe. Note: Speaking my moves is very important because I'd like to lie down and relax without keeping my hands on the keyboard to type in moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7946" LastEditorUserId="7946" LastEditDate="2015-08-05T17:10:51.690" LastActivityDate="2015-08-10T07:42:14.230" Title="Software for blind chess?" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;blindfold-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9898" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9897" CreationDate="2015-08-01T10:07:29.200" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Nimzo Guernica 2.2.1, an old DOS program published in 1993, had extensions for physically blind people including voice output. But I have no idea if it is operable on today's hardware and I assume it lacked speech recognition. But as you can train keyboard commands to a speech recognition program, you can run every chess program that allows for them with it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5756" LastActivityDate="2015-08-01T10:07:29.200" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9899" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9881" CreationDate="2015-08-01T10:45:47.843" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is another high-level book - &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.amazon.co.uk/Play-Caro-Kann-Complete-Repertoire-Everyman/dp/1857444345&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.amazon.co.uk/Play-Caro-Kann-Complete-Repertoire-Everyman/dp/1857444345&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4543" LastActivityDate="2015-08-01T10:45:47.843" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9900" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1143" CreationDate="2015-08-01T10:53:32.880" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Possibly the most pertinent question I have seen on here so far. For me the answer is simple, get a book on attacking. The classic &quot;Art of Attack in Chess&quot; by V. Vukovic is highly regarded, and a for a modern classic the &quot;Attacking Manuals&quot; by Jacob Aagaard is also good. Both of these books focus on how to get an attacking position where combinations are much more often seen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4543" LastActivityDate="2015-08-01T10:53:32.880" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9901" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9902" CreationDate="2015-08-02T07:28:09.980" Score="2" ViewCount="4381" Body="&lt;p&gt;Where can I find databases of correspondence games? I prefer freely available ones, but commercial products can also be suggested.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4588" LastEditorUserId="4588" LastEditDate="2015-08-03T11:25:35.307" LastActivityDate="2016-09-14T12:30:48.453" Title="Database of correspondence games?" Tags="&lt;database&gt;&lt;correspondence-chess&gt;&lt;download-games&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9902" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9901" CreationDate="2015-08-02T13:25:12.410" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Maxwell,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Congrats on your request for finding correspondence games.  These are pure gems as today you can expect these games to be examples of almost perfect chess (yes, all correspondence players let the computer do 99% of the work).  You can also get databases of computer games at longer time controls to get the same 'perfect games'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The go to database for correspondence is probably the disk that ChessBase sells and they just updated it.  &lt;a href=&quot;http://shop.chessbase.com/en/products/corr_2015?Ref=RF70-5OH0EFN840&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://shop.chessbase.com/en/products/corr_2015?Ref=RF70-5OH0EFN840&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A while ago, Tim Harding put out a disk as well, and it may not have current games, but you never know until you check.  UltraCorr CD-ROM (Chess Mail Ltd., 2006). Followed by Ultracorr2 (2008), UltraCorr3 (2009), and UltraCorr3a (2010). No longer available.   I am not sure about the no longer available part, but google Tim Harding and ask him!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also download games from the ICCF (the granddaddy of all &quot;correspondence chess&quot;) which as you may know runs the REAL World Championship. ( www dot iccf dot com) and have a look around.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sorry I am only able to post 2 links per answer at this time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lastly there are probably tens of thousands of places to download games if you google it.  Here is a really good one!  &lt;a href=&quot;http://chessgameslinks.lars-balzer.info/#correspondence-chess_worldwide&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://chessgameslinks.lars-balzer.info/#correspondence-chess_worldwide&lt;/a&gt;    Now if you drop off the part after .info i.e. chessgameslinks dot lars-balzer dot info/  you will have enough to keep you busy even in the afterlife!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7938" LastActivityDate="2015-08-02T13:25:12.410" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9903" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9904" CreationDate="2015-08-03T00:13:32.440" Score="2" ViewCount="924" Body="&lt;p&gt;How deep should I memorize lines of the Sicilian Dragon?&#xA;1400s USCF&#xA;The Dragon seems to resonate with me the most, after looking at all the variations. Do I need to get a book on it, or can I get by by just watching YouTube videos, looking at games, and experience?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's a guy on Youtube, that has like 20-25 minute videos on each of the four main variations of the Sicilian Dragon?  Example video: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDRoBnL1gRg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDRoBnL1gRg&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can I get by on just watching his videos, just playing it (and checking where I deviated afterwards), and playing through master games of the opening?  First memorize the main variations like 10-15 moves in, and then as I gain experience, learn the sidelines?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7933" LastActivityDate="2015-08-10T17:48:52.337" Title="How deep should I memorize lines of the Sicilian Dragon?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;&lt;defense&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9904" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9903" CreationDate="2015-08-03T00:50:37.600" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your rating is in the 1400s, so you don't need much opening knowledge, although some is helpful. Try memorizing moves to move 7-10 (more if the line is sharp and must be memorized). Make sure you understand the moves and the ideas.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7500" LastActivityDate="2015-08-03T00:50:37.600" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9905" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9903" CreationDate="2015-08-03T02:16:40.460" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;At the 1400s level, 10-15 moves is already too much. The other 1400s that you play aren't going to play book moves anyway. I glanced at the video you linked to and it looks like too much information (plus I couldn't handle the aspect ratio). If you enjoy watching 90 minutes of opening theory, I don't want to stop you, but I wouldn't expect to retain any of it. The one thing that might be useful is to see common themes (e.g., White's pawn storm, Black's exchange sac on c3), so you know what sort of things to look for, rather than memorizing moves. I see there are some other videos on YouTube on the Dragon that are shorter; I can't speak to their quality, but you might want to check them out first.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2015-08-03T02:16:40.460" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9906" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9911" CreationDate="2015-08-03T06:10:30.297" Score="6" ViewCount="1737" Body="&lt;p&gt;Assume that the phone is one of today's high-end phones, e.g. the Samsung Galaxy S6. Also, assume that the match is a classical time limit match.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1752" LastEditorUserId="4588" LastEditDate="2015-08-04T01:00:28.337" LastActivityDate="2015-08-04T01:00:28.337" Title="Would the best mobile phone chess app be a favorite in a match against Carlsen?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;carlsen&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9907" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-08-03T07:23:03.303" Score="3" ViewCount="430" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would like to become better and stronger at spotting combinations. I can't buy any chess books at the moment. What's a good website for learning combinations? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3149" LastEditorUserId="4588" LastEditDate="2015-08-03T14:35:10.633" LastActivityDate="2016-09-19T05:49:45.140" Title="How can I learn combinations without a chess book?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;middlegame&gt;&lt;combinations&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9908" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2668" CreationDate="2015-08-03T07:36:35.180" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Version 3.5: Under the &quot;List of Moves&quot; Panel/TabControl there is a toolbar. The last component on the toolbar is the &quot;Edit&quot; button. The tooltip tells you when this button is down, the engines do not respond and you can enter your moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/gj9zK.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/gj9zK.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7954" LastEditorUserId="7954" LastEditDate="2015-08-03T07:43:12.490" LastActivityDate="2015-08-03T07:43:12.490" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9909" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9907" CreationDate="2015-08-03T07:38:15.803" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chesstempo.com&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chesstempo&lt;/a&gt; has a tactics trainer with solving against the clock and a tactics rating. I think there are a bunch of other sites out there with similar features.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are rather old school &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.wtharvey.com&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;WTHarvey&lt;/a&gt; has 10,000 chess puzzles, just as a collection of diagrams with mouse over solutions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgym.net&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chessgym&lt;/a&gt; also has tactics against the clock and some other features like playing endgame positions against tablebases.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-08-03T07:38:15.803" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9910" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9478" CreationDate="2015-08-03T07:52:05.363" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Version 3.5: I simply use from the menu: Levels/Adjust and from the dialog box select &quot;Time per move&quot;. Whatever time you put in limits the computer's analysis time but of course you take as much time as you need to respond. :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course same goes for &quot;Fixed search depth&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/7WLAS.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/7WLAS.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7954" LastActivityDate="2015-08-03T07:52:05.363" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9911" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9906" CreationDate="2015-08-03T07:56:36.720" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Magnus Carlsen was beaten by his own chess app, but it wasn't a serious game and he did it for a presentation. I don't think that game meant anything. While I don't have data for the World Champion, I'm quite certain one of the former world women chess champions was overwhelmed by my iPhone mobile chess app. I also got similar reports for grandmaster over FIDE 2600.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To appreciate the power of a mobile chess app, we should review the match between Deep Fritz and Kramnik in 2006. According to the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Kramnik#Deep_Fritz_match&quot;&gt;wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;, the machine had two Intel Core 2 Duo CPUs. Wikipedia &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Core_2&quot;&gt;states&lt;/a&gt; the CPUs have clock speed of 1.06 GHz to 3.33 GHz. The wikipedia also &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_A8&quot;&gt;states&lt;/a&gt; the latest Apple A8 chip has clock speed of 1.1 GHz to 1.4 GHz. Please keep in mind clock speed is a very rough guide to performance. Anyway, the Apple iPhone is &lt;em&gt;at least&lt;/em&gt; competitive to an Intel Core 2 Duo in terms of raw clock speed. It has been &lt;a href=&quot;http://appleinsider.com/articles/14/03/31/analysis-affirms-apples-a7-processor-closer-to-a-desktop-cpu-than-regular-mobile-chip&quot;&gt;reported&lt;/a&gt; the older Apple A7 chip has performance close to desktop. You should be assured the latest Apple A8 chip can give any grandmaster a challenge. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's take a look at the &lt;a href=&quot;http://chesstroid.blogspot.be/2015/06/rapidroid-reloaded-june-2015-komodo-9.html&quot;&gt;unofficial rating list&lt;/a&gt; for Android chess engines. While the rating scale is not related to the FIDE rating, it's hard to believe Carlsen will have an easy time against Komodo 9 on Galaxy 6, which has a rating of 3239 in the list.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Apart from the hardware, the engine algorithm has improved dramatically since Kramnik's match. We now have access to everything that a super chess engine should do; just look at the source code of Stockfish. Back in 2006 when the match was played, all of the strongest engines were closed source.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The version that Kramnik played was a 32 bits engine. This is a bit embarrassing in today's standard. The stronger mobile chess apps (including my own) are now 64 bits.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We don't have any concrete data because no grandmaster has played a serious match against a mobile phone (because there is no money involved). What we can do is infer from historical data, software improvement and rating list. &lt;strong&gt;I am confident Carlsen will be beaten by the strongest mobile chess app on the app store.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, while Carlsen is the best player &lt;em&gt;against human players&lt;/em&gt;, he's probably not the best player &lt;em&gt;against computers&lt;/em&gt;. For example, Carlsen's usually trick; pushing hard in a drawn endgame would not work against a computer. Computer engine will never blunder and will never crack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2015-08-03T07:56:36.720" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9912" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27" CreationDate="2015-08-03T08:12:09.673" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Arena Chess 3.5: Play/load your game then use menu option &quot;Engines/Automatic Analysis&quot;. You can set time, depth of analysis, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/kuFgC.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/kuFgC.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7954" LastActivityDate="2015-08-03T08:12:09.673" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9913" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9885" CreationDate="2015-08-03T13:14:09.303" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Another way to learn about openings is to study annotated master games using the opening you're interested in. That will give you an idea of the typical middlegame positions and plans associated with the opening. A good annotation will stop and point out possible tactical pitfalls, and will even cover the endgame. So that approach has multiple benefits. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When the positions in the games start to look familiar to you, you'll be ready to try the opening yourself. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4532" LastActivityDate="2015-08-03T13:14:09.303" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9914" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9907" CreationDate="2015-08-03T16:52:31.403" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You certainly do not need a book in order to learn combinations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chess.com&lt;/a&gt; has in my opinion the best tactics online. Unfortunately, you only get 5/day if you have a free account, so it's not the best. Personally, I work on other websites with free tactics for a while, and then finish up by trying my best on these 5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chesstempo.com/chess-tactics.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chesstempo&lt;/a&gt; has a lot of good tactics too. And they're all free.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://lichess.org&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Lichess.org&lt;/a&gt; also has a lot of tactics under their Training section. It has good puzzles related to the coordinates of the board and/or opening theory as well. Currently their tactics seem to be more checkmate-focused than other websites, but I've seen this site improve constantly for a year now and every aspect of it (including the tactics section) has truly been getting better and better every week.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3884" LastActivityDate="2015-08-03T16:52:31.403" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9915" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9903" CreationDate="2015-08-03T18:36:18.210" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;As someone who recently got out of the 1400s, I think it's much more important that you figure out where you want to be developing your pieces and why certain pieces are good in certain places. When I went about memorizing a bunch of moves, I very often (then and now) played people who would do something I'd never read up on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If instead, you learn some of the reasons and/or general plan for a given opening, I think you'll be better off in the long term.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3884" LastActivityDate="2015-08-03T18:36:18.210" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9917" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2015-08-04T06:57:47.460" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2015-08-04T06:57:47.460" LastActivityDate="2015-08-04T06:57:47.460" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9918" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2015-08-04T06:57:47.460" Score="0" Body="a free graphical user interface for chess." OwnerUserId="4588" LastEditorUserId="4588" LastEditDate="2015-08-06T11:22:56.913" LastActivityDate="2015-08-06T11:22:56.913" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9919" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9921" CreationDate="2015-08-04T12:07:47.007" Score="10" ViewCount="2723" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm about 1700 ELO, and I've recently started playing regularly in tournaments. I love playing, and I love the competition. My main goal is to be a 2000+ player. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I got to 1700 by simply doing tactics problems and playing as carefully as I can to not make dumb tactical mistakes in my games. I can beat weaker players this way, but I usually get outplayed against stronger players who just don't make obviously bad moves. I must study stuff other than tactics if I want to get better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thing is, I feel there is just too much to study. I can spare 3-4 hours a day on chess, but I cannot do anything constructive because I'm trying to learn everything: books on my most frequently played opening lines, books on pawn structures, books on planning, books on endgame studies, books on instructive master games, books everywhere! And then there is practicing my calculation and analysis by playing solitaire chess, and analyzing my own games to figure out my weaknesses, and improving my board vision. I can go on, but you get the idea.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I was focusing on any one of those things I would be fine, but doing all of them is overwhelming. So the best way to figure out what to do is to ask people who are already at the point I want to be. 2000+ ELO players, how was your daily training (when you were not playing at some tournament)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Obviously there are different ways to train, but I'd like to hear about these different ways so that I can have an idea about how to get started on making my own custom program that I can stick to.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7957" LastActivityDate="2015-08-05T09:25:48.363" Title="Studying Chess for the Ambitious Intermediate" Tags="&lt;books&gt;&lt;training&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9920" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9919" CreationDate="2015-08-04T12:33:49.533" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;From 1700 to 2000 I &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Changed around my openings a lot. 1.e4 -&gt; Trompowksy and Pseudo-Trompowsky -&gt; different 1.e4 lines. Sicilian Sveshnikov -&gt; Nimzowitch Defence. Nimzo Indian-&gt; Chigorin. The tactical ability should stay and moving openings around should improve your positional understanding. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Studied basic endings - Essential Chess Endings by James Howell. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Played blitz online to keep in shape and regular league and tournament chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4543" LastActivityDate="2015-08-04T12:33:49.533" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9921" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9919" CreationDate="2015-08-04T12:49:17.197" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;First of all, there is no method that will just make you half an Elo point stronger each and every day. Chess improvement usually happens in leaps and bounds with long phases of seeming stagnation in between. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason you feel overwhelmed is that you focus on the result instead of the process. And you realise that between the desired result and your current state there is still so much work to do. And where to start?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The answer is that it doesn't really matter where you start. If you immerse yourself in chess for several hours a day, you &lt;em&gt;will&lt;/em&gt; get better. It is not so much what exactly you do that is important, it is the attitude of mental activity and joyful exploration. Otherwise you will just lose motivation or never really get started. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Personally I played through lots and lots of books, basically what ever chess book I could get my hands on. But I know other people who got over 2000 Elo just by playing many tournaments (like rapid tournaments basically every weekend).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also always solved a lot of puzzles. Played against myself (trying to find nice combinations), played against a board computer, probably didn't play enough tournaments.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My personal advice would be: Play as many tournament games as possible. Playing chess is a practical skill. In between tournaments do tactics and stuff that is fun for you. Go and get just one book at a time. If you need something really structured, do the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.qualitychess.co.uk/docs/14/artur_yusupovs_awardwinning_training_course/&quot;&gt;Yusupov books&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-08-04T12:49:17.197" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9922" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27" CreationDate="2015-08-04T13:14:01.040" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.lichess.org/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://en.lichess.org/&lt;/a&gt; allows to import a game in pgn and automatically generates computer analysis for it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="618" LastActivityDate="2015-08-04T13:14:01.040" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9923" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9924" CreationDate="2015-08-04T13:41:01.797" Score="4" ViewCount="237" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;White to move&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;8/6p1/7p/2k5/8/p5P1/B5P1/6K1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can White win this endgame?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastEditorUserId="4588" LastEditDate="2015-08-04T19:54:43.250" LastActivityDate="2015-08-07T15:28:46.590" Title="Can White win the endgame from game Kramnik-Carlsen, London 2010?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;carlsen&gt;&lt;kramnik&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9924" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9923" CreationDate="2015-08-04T14:07:04.423" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.chessbase.com/portals/4/files/news/2010/london/games/lcc08.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;analysis of GM Mueller&lt;/a&gt;, white is winning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The game went: 65.Kf2 Kd4 66.Kf3 Kd3 67.g4 Kd2 68.Be6 Kd3.&#xA;And now 69.g5! wins in all the lines, while Kramnik played 69.Kg3?, after which the ending is drawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The entire game, with the analysis of GM Mueller: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;2nd London Chess Classic&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;London ENG&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2010.12.14&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;6&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Kramnik, Vladimir&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Carlsen, Magnus&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1/2-1/2&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;D07&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;2791&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;2802&quot;]&#xA;[Annotator &quot;Müller,Karsten&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;171&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;2010.12.06&quot;]&#xA;[EventType &quot;tourn&quot;]&#xA;[EventRounds &quot;7&quot;]&#xA;[EventCountry &quot;ENG&quot;]&#xA;[EventCategory &quot;19&quot;]&#xA;[StartPly &quot;128&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. c4 Nc6 3. Nf3 Bg4 4. Nc3 e6 5. Bf4 Bd6 6. Bg3 Nf6 7. e3 O-O 8. a3&#xA;Ne7 9. Qb3 b6 10. Ne5 c5 11. Nxg4 Nxg4 12. Rd1 Bxg3 13. hxg3 Nf6 14. cxd5 exd5&#xA;15. Be2 Qd6 16. Qc2 h6 17. O-O c4 18. b3 Qxa3 19. bxc4 dxc4 20. Bf3 Rab8 21.&#xA;Ra1 Qd6 22. Nb5 Qd7 23. Qxc4 a5 24. e4 Rfc8 25. Qe2 Rc6 26. Rab1 Rd8 27. Rfd1&#xA;Rdc8 28. d5 Rc2 29. Qe3 R2c5 30. Nd4 Re8 31. Qd3 Qd6 32. Qa6 Rb8 33. Nb3 Rc2&#xA;34. Nd4 Rc5 35. Nb3 Rc2 36. Qd3 Rcc8 37. Nd2 Ng6 38. Be2 Qc5 39. Rb5 Qc3 40. f4&#xA;a4 41. e5 Nd7 42. Qxc3 Rxc3 43. Ne4 Rc7 44. Ra1 Ra7 45. d6 Ngf8 46. Nc3 Nc5 47.&#xA;Nd5 Ra5 48. Rxb6 Rxb6 49. Nxb6 Nfe6 50. Bc4 Kf8 51. f5 Nd8 52. Rf1 Ncb7 53. Re1&#xA;a3 54. e6 fxe6 55. fxe6 Nxd6 56. e7+ Ke8 57. exd8=R+ Kxd8 58. Rd1 Kc7 59. Ba2&#xA;Rg5 60. Nd5+ Kc6 61. Nc3 {#} Rc5 62. Rxd6+ Kxd6 63. Ne4+ Kc6 64. Nxc5 Kxc5 {#}&#xA;65. Kf2 Kd4 66. Kf3 Kd3 67. g4 Kd2 68. Be6 Kd3 {#} {A miraculous escape. It is&#xA;hard to believe that Magnus Carlsen got away with a draw despite being down a&#xA;piece.} 69. Kg3 $2 {Kramnik allows the king to penetrate too deeply.} (69. g5 $1 {Hiarcs 13, running on a 12-core machine and providing added information to the live commentary, calmly spat out a mate score with an irreductible winning line.&#xA;Here it is with some added analysis to clarify.} hxg5 (69... h5 70.&#xA;Kf4 Kd4 71. g3 Kc5 72. Kf5 Kd6 73. Ba2 Ke7 74. Kg6 Kf8 75. Kh7 $18) 70. g3 {&#xA;opening the gates to the deadly endgame weapon: the Zugzwang, which takes the&#xA;day once more.} Kd4 71. Kg4 Ke3 72. Kxg5 {#and here all attempts to defeat the&#xA;triangulation with the bishop will fail.} Kf3 (72... Kf2 73. Kf4 Kg2 74. g4 Kh3&#xA;75. g5+ Kh4 76. Kf5 Kh3 (76... Kh5 77. Bf7+ Kh4 78. Ba2 Kh5 79. Be6 Kh4 80. Kg6&#xA;) 77. Bb3 Kh4 78. Ba2 Kh5 79. Be6 Kh4 80. Kg6) 73. Kh4 g6 74. Bf7 g5+ 75. Kh3&#xA;Kf2 76. Kg4 Kg2 {and now a triangulation with the bishop wins it.} 77. Ba2 Kf2&#xA;78. Bd5 $18) 69... Ke3 70. Kh4 (70. g5 {is no longer good enough. Ex:} Ke4 (&#xA;70... Kd4 $2 71. Kf4 hxg5+ 72. Kxg5 Ke3 73. Kf5 Kf2 74. g4 Kg3 75. g5 Kh4 76.&#xA;Kg6 $18) (70... h5 $2 71. Kh4 g6 72. g4 hxg4 73. Kxg4 Ke4 74. Ba2 Ke5 75. Bf7&#xA;$18) (70... hxg5 $2 71. Kg4 Kf2 72. g3 Kg2 73. Ba2 Kf2 74. Bd5 Ke3 75. Kxg5 Kd4&#xA;76. Ba2 Ke4 77. Kg4 Ke3 78. Bb1 Kf2 79. Kf4 Kg2 80. Ba2 Kf2 81. g4 Kg2 82. g5&#xA;Kh3 83. Kf5 Kh4 84. Bb3 Kh5 85. Be6 Kh4 86. Kg6 $18) 71. Kg4 Ke5 72. Ba2 Ke4&#xA;73. g3 Ke3 74. Bb1 Kf2 75. g6 h5+ 76. Kxh5 Ke3 77. Kg5 Kd4 78. Kf5 Kd5 79. Ba2+&#xA;Kd6 {and Black has succeeded in securing the draw.}) 70... Kf2 71. Bd5 (71. Kh5&#xA;{fails because the white bishop is overwhelmed after} Kxg2 72. Kg6 Kg3 73. Kxg7&#xA;a2 74. Bxa2 Kxg4 75. Kxh6 $11) 71... g6 72. Kh3 g5 $1 $11 {White cannot leave&#xA;the kingside without losing the g4 pawn.} 73. Kh2 Kf1 74. Be6 Kf2 75. Bc4 Ke3&#xA;76. Kg3 Kd4 77. Be6 Ke3 78. Kh2 Kf2 79. Bc4 Ke3 80. Kg1 Kf4 81. Be6 Ke5 82. Bb3&#xA;Kf4 83. Be6 Ke5 84. Bb3 Kf4 85. Be6 Ke5 86. Bb3 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4588" LastEditorUserId="4588" LastEditDate="2015-08-07T15:28:46.590" LastActivityDate="2015-08-07T15:28:46.590" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9925" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-08-04T19:54:16.677" Score="4" ViewCount="2216" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am currently teaching a kid (~6 years) chess and we started with the pieces.  While she had no trouble picking up the rules for the rook, the bishop, the queen and the king, the knight seems more difficult.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I explained that the knight takes two steps horizontal or vertical and then it makes a turn and one more step.  While with the other pieces she immediately &quot;sees&quot; which moves are possible, for the knight she is now counting, counting and counting.  I think she already got better and sometimes just &quot;sees&quot; where she can move, but often she does not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now I have the following questions:&#xA;Will this problem just vanish with increasing practice?  Or is the way I introduced the knight move not suitable?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Should I try and explain the knight move differently, e.g., more visually? In this case I would be thankful for any suggestions.  So far I have refrained from giving alternative explanation to avoid confusion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3529" LastActivityDate="2019-03-02T12:22:08.723" Title="Explaining knight move to kids" Tags="&lt;knights&gt;&lt;teaching&gt;" AnswerCount="8" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9926" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9925" CreationDate="2015-08-04T21:26:17.353" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The rule I teach kids which seems to work is that the knight can go to the closest squares the queen can't go to.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2018-09-05T21:47:15.763" LastActivityDate="2018-09-05T21:47:15.763" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9927" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-08-04T23:08:39.647" Score="3" ViewCount="317" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm new here, so I just like chess and I don’t study too deeply. I could not understand the move Qxe5. Can someone explain to me?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/3cHcT.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;I can&amp;#39;t see&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7958" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-03-02T19:53:40.033" LastActivityDate="2020-03-02T19:53:40.033" Title="Why this is the best move?" Tags="&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;&lt;beginner&gt;&lt;queen-sacrifice&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="9928" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9930" CreationDate="2015-08-04T23:26:23.480" Score="2" ViewCount="310" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am very new to chess, and I fear that this question is very stupid.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I played this game in &quot;easy&quot; mode, and I destroyed a lot of pieces of the counter party.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, I wanted to destroy their king. But the game says &quot;Patt - undecided&quot;. What does &quot;undecided&quot; mean? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Every move which his king will do, will make him lose the game. But why didn't I win then?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/TyUg3.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/TyUg3.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7960" LastEditorUserId="4182" LastEditDate="2015-08-05T08:05:52.840" LastActivityDate="2015-08-13T06:50:01.657" Title="Patt undecided?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;stalemate&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9929" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9927" CreationDate="2015-08-04T23:31:24.577" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is the best move because if the pawn on D6 were to take the Queen, the following move would be to checkmate with the D2 rook.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2556" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2015-08-05T07:39:46.107" LastActivityDate="2015-08-05T07:39:46.107" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9930" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9928" CreationDate="2015-08-04T23:47:28.417" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;It means the position is stalemate. By chess rules if one side is to move and is unable to move and is not in check then the game ends in a draw. That is what happened here to you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4543" LastActivityDate="2015-08-04T23:47:28.417" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9932" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9927" CreationDate="2015-08-05T03:07:18.953" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;The move exploits three things:&#xA;1. The black knight on &lt;code&gt;f4&lt;/code&gt; is trapped and will fall.&#xA;2. The black pawn on &lt;code&gt;d6&lt;/code&gt; is pinned.&#xA;3. The black King is trapped behind its own pawns allowing the threat of a back-rank mate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Qxe5 dxe5 2. Rxd8+ Qf8 3. Rxf8+ Kxf8 and White has stolen a pawn&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Qxe5 Qxb3 2. Rxd6 and White has a lovely game&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2015-08-05T11:51:58.513" LastActivityDate="2015-08-05T11:51:58.513" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9933" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9919" CreationDate="2015-08-05T03:34:36.403" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would advise the following: try not to not spend too much time studying openings, but find some solid openings that suit you, and stick with them rather than moving around.  Play as many tournament games (or at least serious games) as possible; work hard at the board, and analyze your tournament games afterwards.  Play more than you study, and don't try to study too much (either time-wise or material-wise): emphasize quality of study time (focusing and putting in some effort) over quantity of study time (studying on autopilot doesn't help much, no matter how much you study).  And try to remember during the entire process that chess is supposed to be fun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I just want to emphasize that playing in tournaments and playing against stronger players is the most important thing.  No one gets strong from studying alone.  Most of my actual studying time involved only a handful of books (The original Encyclopedia of Chess Middlegame Combinations, a collection of Paul Keres' games, Keres' Practical Chess Endings, and a single volume of games from Informant).  However, the correlation between the amount of time I spend studying and my rate of improvement was not very high.  Instead, my rate of improvement was greatest during the time periods I was most active as a tournament player: that is, the last three years of high school, and the two years immediately following my graduation from college.  In fact, my only two periods of substantial improvement corresponded rather precisely with the periods in which I played the most tournament chess.  Although I sometimes studied chess in periods when I was not an active tournament player, this studying did not seem to have a very significant impact on my overall chess strength.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7961" LastActivityDate="2015-08-05T03:34:36.403" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9934" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8971" CreationDate="2015-08-05T03:59:37.020" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;A few other good books targeting stronger players: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(1)  &lt;em&gt;Imagination in Chess&lt;/em&gt; by Paata Gaprindashvili (master-level tactics problems)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(2)  &lt;em&gt;How to Play Chess Endgames&lt;/em&gt; by Karsten Muller and Wolfgan Pajeken (a book about endgame technique, as opposed to endgame theory)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(3) &lt;em&gt;Learn from the Legends&lt;/em&gt; by Mihail Marin (a study of world champions' play in position-types in which they were particularly strong);&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(4) &lt;em&gt;A Practical Guide to Rook Endgames&lt;/em&gt; by Nikolay Minev (lots of instructive material).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, unless you are a rook endgame specialist and have mastered all the rook endgame material in Dvoretsky and the Minev book you should probably avoid Korchnoi's rook endgame book mentioned above, because Korchnoi's book is aimed at a really high level (more like 2400+ rather than 2200+).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7961" LastEditorUserId="10867" LastEditDate="2016-08-02T13:39:00.413" LastActivityDate="2016-08-02T13:39:00.413" CommentCount="0" CommunityOwnedDate="2015-08-05T03:59:37.020" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9936" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9925" CreationDate="2015-08-05T09:16:06.983" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;This problem does vanish with time, but it takes longer depending on the person... Personally when I teach others about the knight movement I explain it with the &quot;L&quot; letter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If they draw the letter L horizontally and vertically they will get all the squares he can go to. This is in my opinion simpler to understand as they will be using a letter they already know, it's not something they will need to learn in order to use it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This would obviously not work if she does not know English letters, but hopefully this gives you an idea on how to make it easier.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6966" LastActivityDate="2015-08-05T09:16:06.983" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9937" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9919" CreationDate="2015-08-05T09:25:48.363" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;My advice is 2 fold:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Work on the middle game and endgame principles you struggle with the most&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;To identify your weaknesses, either analyse your games or work with a coach for a few hours a week (preferably both)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Explanation for point 1:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From your post you sound like you've hit a wall with tactics, and now you need to learn positional play. Say that you find that you allow your opponent too many chances for counterplay. Use your existing books to study &lt;em&gt;prophylaxis&lt;/em&gt;, the art of stopping your opponent's plan. This increases the likelihood of them making a tactical mistake, which you already know how to win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Explanation for point 2:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is quite self explanatory - working on your weaknesses improves your game most effectively. Having a stronger player direct you and help explain the concepts, then direct your self study will help you become really strong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S.1: It's tempting to spend a lot of time studying openings, but this would be a waste of effort. I'm rated almost 2058 elo and my opponents come out of book at move 5 more often than not. The problem is is that these are not sufficiently large errors to win straight away. There is still a lot of chess (middlegame and endgame) before you win&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S.2: Don't buy more books or resources. Switching between lots of different resources can be quite confusing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S.3: I'd be remiss to not mention the openings at all. My advice is to keep your repertoire simple. For example, I always open with 1. d4, because I like it and I feel I understand it quite well for my level. I have one response to 1. e4 (the Caro-Kann), and one against 1. d4 (the Slav). Again, they're in my style, and that's all that really matters for openings, as long as they don't lose on the spot!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2015-08-05T09:25:48.363" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9938" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9945" CreationDate="2015-08-05T12:06:11.863" Score="3" ViewCount="382" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would like to know if there are any general guidelines which help determine, at what moment to occupy a center square or to just control it? Are there any books or articles that anyone know of which deal with the differences with example?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also I am trying to understand what is the difference between controlling the center with pawns versus pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3158" LastActivityDate="2015-08-19T22:29:33.793" Title="Controlling the center versus occupying the center - What is the difference?" Tags="&lt;pawns&gt;&lt;pieces&gt;&lt;center&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9939" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-08-05T15:01:29.597" Score="3" ViewCount="232" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to search a database of games for generic interesting tactics combinations. What are my software options for this (SCID/CB/CA)? Is there a published algorithm/script that determines that a move is a sacrifice/combination? I see that Chessbase allows this: as per &lt;a href=&quot;http://help.chessbase.com/Reader/12/Eng/index.html?search_sacrifices.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://help.chessbase.com/Reader/12/Eng/index.html?search_sacrifices.htm&lt;/a&gt;, but I would be curious to see if other software does something similar, and also want to know more details behind these algorithms: &quot;The ChessBase sacrifice search does a look-ahead in all tactical situations and for this reason takes somewhat longer than the other searches. The algorithms were written by Dr. Christian Donninger, the author of Nimzo.&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="618" LastActivityDate="2016-01-08T08:57:08.500" Title="What chess software allows to search for sacrifices and combinations?" Tags="&lt;software&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9940" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6501" CreationDate="2015-08-05T23:53:07.143" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;For question 3, just as GloriaVictis said, losing chess is almost solved. Only 1.e3 b6 is still &lt;a href=&quot;http://magma.maths.usyd.edu.au/~watkins/LOSING_CHESS/e3b6.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;being solved&lt;/a&gt; now. All others have already been proven to be a black loss. Based on how fast each response to 1.e3 (generally at most several months) is solved I believe we will see the solution of losing chess this year.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also the solution is likely to be a white victory. For your first two questions they will be known after losing chess is actually solved.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S.: I'm following Prof. Watkins' research almost daily so when losing chess is finally solved I will post an answer here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7965" LastEditorUserId="7965" LastEditDate="2015-08-20T01:29:48.977" LastActivityDate="2015-08-20T01:29:48.977" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9941" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9948" CreationDate="2015-08-06T00:19:08.343" Score="7" ViewCount="1296" Body="&lt;p&gt;Since losing chess is &lt;a href=&quot;http://magma.maths.usyd.edu.au/~watkins/LOSING_CHESS/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;almost solved&lt;/a&gt;, I believe that the next step towards solving chess should be atomic chess, which has less forced moves than losing chess but still a lot more than regular chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are the practical steps we should take towards the solution of atomic chess? I seriously want to help solving it in my leisure time as well as learn more about game solving during this process..&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7965" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-05T13:50:25.977" LastActivityDate="2020-08-06T08:30:59.873" Title="How to solve atomic chess?" Tags="&lt;atomic-chess&gt;&lt;solving&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="7" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9942" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-08-06T09:47:47.857" Score="3" ViewCount="3215" Body="&lt;p&gt;Do computers play in ordinary human grandmaster chess tournaments with time limits at 40 moves in two hours etc? If so how do they fare?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7967" LastEditorUserId="4588" LastEditDate="2015-08-07T11:12:07.530" LastActivityDate="2015-08-07T11:12:07.530" Title="Chess computers in human tournaments" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;computer-chess&gt;&lt;human-versus-machine&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9943" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9942" CreationDate="2015-08-06T10:58:41.927" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, they don't, because it wouldn't be fair. According to &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_chess#Computers_versus_humans&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A recent top chess engine, Rybka, has an estimated Elo rating of about 3200 (when running on an up-to-date PC, as computed by SSDF).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is about 500-600 points higher than an average grandmaster (rating 2600-2700). This would be the same rating difference as between a grandmaster and a top club player (2000-2200) - it is a totally different playing category.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to how the ELO rating is set up, the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elo_rating_system#Mathematical_details&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;expected score&lt;/a&gt; of a 2600 grandmaster vs. a 3200 computer is 3% - i.e. when they play 100 games, the grandmaster is expected to draw only 6 games. This is way too low to be interesting.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2015-08-06T10:58:41.927" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9944" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9942" CreationDate="2015-08-06T11:13:04.427" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;This used to be the case from the sixties, when the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_Hack&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;first chess computers&lt;/a&gt; entered the scene, with the playing strength of a beginner, until the nineties, when &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Thought_(chess_computer)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;computers&lt;/a&gt; became too strong for the normal grandmasters. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then followed a phase of man-machine matches until maybe 10 years ago when results like &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydra_(chess)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Hydra-Adams&lt;/a&gt;, 5.5-0.5, made it abundantly clear that even the strongest human chess players cannot compete with chess computers. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nowadays even engines on unspecialised and relatively modest hardware (like a smartphone) are playing beyond human capabilities. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-08-06T11:13:04.427" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9945" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9938" CreationDate="2015-08-06T12:27:34.033" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Hypermodern theory , or controlling the center from a distance rather than occupying it immediately, came about in the early part of the 20th century as a new way of addressing the old problem of center control.  However, as many knowledgeable people have pointed out, it's easier to try to get something from the start rather than giving it away first and then trying to get it back, and hypermodern openings are not seen that often at higher levels of play now.  In other words, they don't feel that it's as good as the classical approach of contesting the center immediately, and I would certainly suggest that you first become proficient with those openings before attempting to specialize in hypermodern openings. But books from the early hypermodern period by Reti or Nimzowitsch for example will go into detail about that type of play.  I haven't kept pace with what the more modern books on this subject might be. Distant center control is done by fianchettoing the B's on the &quot;b&quot; and &quot;g&quot;  files. Attacking the enemy center pawns is done with the &quot;c&quot; and &quot;f&quot; pawns supported generally by the B's. Or you can control the center before your opponent has occupied it with initial prophylactic &quot;c&quot; pawn (Sicilian Defense) or &quot;f&quot; pawn (Dutch Defense) moves.  Attacking the center this way would have to be done fairly early before development has been completed and it has been too solidly defended.  The rationale is that by diverting/removing the enemy center pawns, you will then be left with the more important center pawns of your own with which to subsequently occupy that area.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastActivityDate="2015-08-06T12:27:34.033" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9946" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9925" CreationDate="2015-08-06T12:44:22.210" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I also use the &quot;L shaped method (facing either frontwards or backwards) to explain the move to my students and show them all 8 squares that it could move to in one step on an open board, emphasizing that it is the only piece that can jump over another.  I think this visual method is easier to understand than counting.  Any problem with this will vanish with time and experience, even though old timers like myself will still occasionally miss a knight fork in a complicated position.  :) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastActivityDate="2015-08-06T12:44:22.210" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9947" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9942" CreationDate="2015-08-06T12:48:26.270" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Nowadays, human vs. computer matches or tournaments where a computer participates among human players don't exist because the difference in strength became too big.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the past, the situation was different and a couple of matches were organized. The match Kasparov - Deep Blue in 1997 is of course the most famous one. On this &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human%E2%80%93computer_chess_matches&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;wikipedia page&lt;/a&gt; you can find a nice overview of the human vs. computer matches.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Mixed tournaments&quot; (humans and computers) were a lot rarer. The only one I can remember is the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.365chess.com/tournaments/NED-ch_2000/5890&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Dutch championship in 2000&lt;/a&gt;, where Fritz participated. It shared the 3rd place with 7/11 and a performance around 2600.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, it should be added that GM Van der Sterren and IM Bosboom resigned after move 1 and 4 respectively, as a sign of protest against the participation of the machine. So, discarding these games, Fritz scored 5/9, with a performance of 2500+ (my estimation, I didn't check it).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4588" LastEditorUserId="4588" LastEditDate="2015-08-06T13:15:04.893" LastActivityDate="2015-08-06T13:15:04.893" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9948" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9941" CreationDate="2015-08-06T13:02:57.590" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Solving atomic chess is probably only feasible if it is a white win, like loser chess is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To try to solve atomic chess I would probably write/acquire a strong atomic engine first.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then you build a tree starting from the starting position. If it's white to move you chose only one move, if it is black to move you try all possible moves. The engine evalution will guide you in which white move to chose and which black moves should be investigated deepest.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically I would try to build a tree that has leaves with a certain minimum positive evaluation. This way you always have a form of very weak solution of atomic chess, i.e. a tree that tells you how to play with white to get an advantage of at least +x.yz.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You'll try to improve x.yz by analysing those parts of the tree where the leaves have the lowest evaluation. If x.yz gets high enough you can try to work positions out until mate (probably you'll need some tablebases at that point).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you start this kind of project you probably quickly get an impression, whether getting a significant white advantage is generally easy or difficult, which might be a pointer to whether it is ultimately solvable or not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is pretty similar to building a repertoire, so I would probably quick start the tree with an &lt;a href=&quot;https://chronatog.com/2019/02/atomic-openings/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;existing atomic chess repertoire&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course odds are that your tree will never converge towards a strong solution, but in that case at least you've created a really nice atomic repertoire.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastEditorUserId="15989" LastEditDate="2020-08-06T08:30:59.873" LastActivityDate="2020-08-06T08:30:59.873" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="9949" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9954" CreationDate="2015-08-06T13:42:58.830" Score="4" ViewCount="611" Body="&lt;p&gt;Could someone recommend a book on mid-game strategy please? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Things I am especially interested in are &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Make plans (and foresee opponents plan and stop it)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Evaluate current position&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Evaluate positions at the end of calculation&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I guess 2 is somewhat blended in 1 and 3. My problem is that even though I may be able to do some evaluation for the current position, it's very hard to do the same at the end of each variation I calculated. So I'm looking for both a more involved way to analyse current position and also a quick way to roughly evaluate positions down the line. (Or maybe practice is the only way?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Not really interested in tactics as this is not my bottleneck)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7002" LastActivityDate="2015-08-10T17:43:29.677" Title="recommend a book on mid-game plan and board evaluation" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;books&gt;&lt;evaluation&gt;&lt;planning&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9950" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9897" CreationDate="2015-08-06T14:21:54.727" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Based on your title your question is not clear with regard to voice command for the blind. But Braille chess has been available for years. There are a number of groups specifically for this. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.iol.ie/~vics/bcai/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;The Braille Chess Association of Ireland&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am sure there are many US based as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The chess.com web site has a good article about the history of Blind Chess...&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/blog/batgirl/blind-ambition&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;history of blind chess playing&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am sure there is further info on their site about software.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7397" LastEditorUserId="7397" LastEditDate="2015-08-06T15:35:01.383" LastActivityDate="2015-08-06T15:35:01.383" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9951" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9949" CreationDate="2015-08-06T14:40:42.487" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Two interesting books have been published recently that might be helpful to you:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.newinchess.com/Winning_Chess_Manoeuvres-p-9015.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Winning Chess Manoeuvres&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.qualitychess.co.uk/products/2/235/chess_structures_-_a_grandmaster_guide_by_mauricio_flores_rios/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chess Structures - A Grandmaster Guide&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both concentrate on conveying &quot;chess culture&quot; - the knowledge how to handle certain typical positions and situations. This should be a good way to tackle your point 1.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Precise evaluation only comes with experience, practice and knowledge. Possibly you will have to train calculation instead of tactics. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-08-06T14:40:42.487" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9952" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9949" CreationDate="2015-08-06T18:58:20.173" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;The Art of The Middle Game&quot; by Keres and Kotov comes to mind.  And an older book,&quot;Strategy and Tactics in Chess&quot; by Max Euwe, was long considered a classic in this area. Of course study always has to be combined with practice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastActivityDate="2015-08-06T18:58:20.173" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9953" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9949" CreationDate="2015-08-06T19:42:20.887" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess Strategy for Club Players, The Road to Positional Advantage by Herman Grooten is worth looking at.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4543" LastActivityDate="2015-08-06T19:42:20.887" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9954" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9949" CreationDate="2015-08-06T20:41:04.277" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1890085138&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;&quot;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;Reassess Your Chess&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;&lt;/a&gt; by Jeremy Silman is a modern classic on planning and imbalances.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7500" LastActivityDate="2015-08-06T20:41:04.277" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9955" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4422" CreationDate="2015-08-06T21:25:01.923" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The rule, as it exists, offers an advantage to the player moving a pawn that is equivalent to two moves in a single turn whenever a piece is denied a capture available under the old rules. Until one of your games is affected, the significance of this rule is seldom noticed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7970" LastActivityDate="2015-08-06T21:25:01.923" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9956" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4422" CreationDate="2015-08-07T00:42:39.317" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Long ago, pawns were only allowed to move 1 square at a time (side note: fianchettoing was therefore very common then, as playing e3 or d3 opens the diagonal for one bishop, only to block the other!) ; the rules were modified to allow pawns to move two squares ahead on its first move in order to speed up the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, this had some major impact strategically because then players could move their pawns 'past' their opponents' and avoid capture, which would have resulted in the need for a major re-think of chess strategy, therefore the en passant rule was implemented to maintain a good level of similarity to the 'old' game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One possible reason why this rule wasn't expanded and implemented for pieces is due to the static nature of pawns (which can't move backwards), which is not the case for pieces; having a pawn move past a square defended by an enemy pawn to evade capture was deemed unacceptable, whereas it is alright to evade capture by a piece. The strategic implications of the former is extremely severe and would lead to a completely different game, but in the case of the latter it's lighter and the nature of the game remains somewhat unchanged (perhaps because the piece can still relocate to 'chase' the pawn?).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But in any case, &quot;rules are rules&quot;, however arbitrary they may seem (don't hope to change them, especially on the basis of &quot;it doesn't make sense!&quot;); to digress: why is the queen the most powerful piece? (Further digression: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_AhNHrfu4Q&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_AhNHrfu4Q&lt;/a&gt;). Having said so, questioning the motivation of these strange rules is certainly not unreasonable, and hopefully the above gives an idea over the rationale of not allowing pieces to capture en passant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On a trivial note: it was actually suggested at a FIDE conference relatively recently (clearly by someone who didn't know chess very well!) that pieces be allowed the capture en passant. Needless to say, the suggestion was not taken seriously!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7473" LastEditorUserId="7473" LastEditDate="2015-08-07T00:51:23.087" LastActivityDate="2015-08-07T00:51:23.087" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9957" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10977" CreationDate="2015-08-07T03:26:56.793" Score="2" ViewCount="783" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am looking for software that has chess engine analysis but also allows me to take notes and save games. I have used Scid in the past for this and liked it, but I just want to see if there is something better out there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7507" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2019-05-18T17:03:27.043" LastActivityDate="2019-05-18T17:03:43.503" Title="Chess Software for analysis and notes" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;annotation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="9958" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9925" CreationDate="2015-08-07T04:58:28.883" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Most probably &quot;L&quot; Should be simple to remember.But if she fails to remember that method you could try with this &lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;Rook1 and Bishop1 Method&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;First Consider knight as Rook and move 1 step.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Then consider knight as Bishop and move 1 step in same direction(in which rook was moved). &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;And just ask them to remember knight can not reach same color as current knight's square and at most knight have 8 possibilities to move on .&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/1pxlb.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/1pxlb.png&quot; alt=&quot;Knight Moves&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black lines - Rook moves&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Green lines - Bishop moves&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3131" LastActivityDate="2015-08-07T04:58:28.883" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9959" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="10972" CreationDate="2015-08-07T07:46:30.247" Score="5" ViewCount="715" Body="&lt;p&gt;Kasparov said, in &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0379296/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Game Over: Kasparov and the Machine&lt;/a&gt;, that Deep Blue &quot;sank into deep thinking&quot; and took like 15 minutes to make a move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The movie tells the story of their match, in 1997.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At a certain position, in the second game, Deep Blue could have taken two pawns, but did not, aiming for a win in the long run.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do modern computers agree with Deep Blue on that, and, if they do, how long does it take them to find the correct winning move?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That part of the movie can be watched &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDe-uHsEMn8&amp;amp;feature=youtu.be&amp;amp;t=34m&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7973" LastEditorUserId="7973" LastEditDate="2015-08-07T13:31:49.083" LastActivityDate="2015-08-08T17:20:03.923" Title="Did Deep Blue play like a human?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;computer-chess&gt;&lt;kasparov&gt;&lt;human-versus-machine&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9960" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="9961" CreationDate="2015-08-07T11:17:49.667" Score="14" ViewCount="9691" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just want to know in simple language exactly, What the Syzygy tablebases are, Why they are used, What are their advantages, disadvantages?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7693" LastActivityDate="2015-08-08T03:30:19.790" Title="What is Syzygy tablebases?" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;database&gt;&lt;tablebases&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9961" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9960" CreationDate="2015-08-07T11:43:54.240" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;Tablebases are databases of endgame positions, with few pieces left on the board (say a 5-man tablebase, which consists of &lt;em&gt;all&lt;/em&gt; legal positions with 5 pieces on the board in total, including kings, say K+Q vs. K+R+B). These databases have the positions 'connected', i.e. they also contain the moves to get from one legal position to another (in particular, moves that eventually lead to mate). This allows a chess program, in such positions, to look straight into the tablebase, rather than to calculate via the engine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tablebases are perfect, in the sense that it can tell you number of moves to mate, and playing a position against a program using tablebases (in positions with very few pieces left) is akin to &quot;playing with god&quot;. So as an advantage, they save computational time and allow your machine to play certain endgame positions perfectly. The disadvantage is that they take up a large amount of memory space.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Owing to the memory issue, compression techniques help to reduce the space taken up by the tablebases. Syzygy tablebases are relatively new (introduced about 2 years ago), compared to the Nalimov tablebases which have been around for quite a while (itself being a compression improvement over previous tablebases). The Nalimov 6-man tablebases take up over 1TB of memory space, whereas the Syzygy bases use less than 200GB.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The different names in front of 'tablebases', e.g. Syzygy and Nalimov, refer to nothing more than compression methods. For all practical purposes, there is absolutely no difference between the content of Syzygy and Nalimov tablebases; a computer that uses either one will play at the same strength (perfect!). Their only difference is the memory space they occupy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(The possible difference in content, if any, is subtle: first off, every legal position in the tablebase has an evaluation attached to it (draw/win/loss in X moves). However, some positions may contain a sequence of moves to mate that require breaking the 50-move rule; the evaluations of these positions in the tablebases may be changed to accommodate for this, e.g. W/L/D/&quot;win but break 50-move rule&quot;, but in any practical game, you are pretty much guaranteed that you will never see this difference.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7473" LastEditorUserId="7473" LastEditDate="2015-08-08T03:30:19.790" LastActivityDate="2015-08-08T03:30:19.790" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9962" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9039" CreationDate="2015-08-07T21:37:19.597" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Please see &lt;a href=&quot;http://membres-lig.imag.fr/prost/MiniChessResolution/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://membres-lig.imag.fr/prost/MiniChessResolution/&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;Perhaps you should ask contact these people since they have solved Gardner and Mallet Chess and are trying to solve Los Alamos Chess which Prost believed to be a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7965" LastActivityDate="2015-08-07T21:37:19.597" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9964" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-08-08T07:51:07.380" Score="4" ViewCount="979" Body="&lt;p&gt;The FIDE rating of very active chess players can vary a lot: rating fluctuations of 50 rating points are not unusual.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a way to distinguish whether a rating rise/drop can be explained by random factors, e.g. &quot;(bad) luck&quot;, being &quot;in/out form&quot;, etc..., or an actual increase/decrease in playing strength?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does it make sense to say &quot;a rating increase of X over minimum Y games is statistically significant&quot;? If yes, what is the value of X and Y?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4588" LastActivityDate="2019-12-28T23:38:16.333" Title="Rating rise: luck or actual increase in playing strength?" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;statistics&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9965" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9964" CreationDate="2015-08-08T09:43:13.163" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If such a method exists, it is either very difficult, very subjective or very unreliable. If it was easy, objective and reliable, FIDE would incorporate it in their rating system.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More pointedly, your question makes the assumption that a player has a &quot;true objective actual&quot; strength and that his Elo is a (possibly fallible) approximation of that strength. This assumption is debatable in itself: does every player have a true &quot;real&quot; rating? Or is it more nuanced than that? I am of the opinion that our playing ability on any given day is influenced by a large number of psychological and environmental factors, which means that you can never say &quot;my REAL rating is x even if my official rating is y&quot;. As philosophers sometimes like to say, there is no &quot;fact of the matter&quot; of what your actual rating is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Update: to everybody who thinks this is just a matter of statistics, here is a challenge. Last year at the Sinquefield Cup, Caruana won 7 games in a row and increased his &quot;live&quot; rating to over 2850. Show how statistics can be used to prove that it was just a random streak, or whether he actually had an improved playing strength over that period. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The problem with using elo as a statistical measure is that it forces you to make assumptions that are difficult to justify. Can you model a player's strength as a constant probability distribution? Or do players' strength change over time? Is this change frequent, stuttery or smooth? Do elo's expected results match up with history (empirical studies shows that elo becomes less reliable when rating difference is large). There are many others: &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elo_rating_system#Mathematical_issues&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elo_rating_system#Mathematical_issues&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Elo is a useful agreed upon number that is easy to calculate, and we think it approximates playing strength well enough to organize our tournaments around it. But be careful when making grand claims about what it can tell us about the state of our mental abilities without adding a big disclaimer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1816" LastEditorUserId="1816" LastEditDate="2015-08-09T11:11:45.517" LastActivityDate="2015-08-09T11:11:45.517" CommentCount="11" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9966" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-08-08T14:28:43.683" Score="6" ViewCount="1963" Body="&lt;p&gt;As hard as I try to not &quot;give away&quot; pieces in a game by checking the square that I am moving to first, paying special attention to the &quot;long range&quot; pieces of my opponent, and calculating exchanges, I can't seem to stop blowing a won game by hanging a piece or two. Bishops seem to give me the most trouble as they just seem to blend in the background late in the game for me, and then just snap off a piece of mine as I think I'm close to giving checkmate. Especially late in the game I just seem to get &quot;tunnel vision&quot; with what I'm doing and the lapse in concentration costs me a piece and the game. Will power doesn't seem to be doing it for me, so what else can I do to stop hanging pieces??&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7982" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2015-12-20T01:56:09.457" LastActivityDate="2015-12-20T14:11:53.113" Title="How can I STOP hanging pieces?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;blunder&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="9967" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9966" CreationDate="2015-08-08T14:47:33.063" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;You speak the language of my people.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's nothing magical, unfortunately.  You must avoid 'target fixation'.  That is, even if you're close to delivering mate, you have to stop before every move, and look at every piece your opponent has. Every time.  And you must remember that your opponent is choosing moves for a &lt;em&gt;reason&lt;/em&gt;. One of those reasons is to snap your pieces off the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the other thing you can do is to be cognizant of basic tactics such as pins, forks, x-rays, etc.  &lt;a href=&quot;http://chesstempo.com/chess-tactics.html&quot;&gt;You can work on these by running a tactics trainer&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2015-08-08T14:47:33.063" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10967" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9966" CreationDate="2015-08-08T15:36:17.300" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have the same problem with the bishops, probably because they are long range pieces and also because they tend to blend in with the pawns.  The old advice was to sit on your hands and not move too quickly.  Examine all your opponent's potential attacks first.  Another suggestion was to write your move down before making it and then check the board again one more time.  This problem should diminish with experience, but unfortunately it never seems to go away completely and all you can do is try to keep it to a minimum.  Even GM's have occasionally overlooked a simple attack.    &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastActivityDate="2015-08-08T15:36:17.300" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10968" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8152" CreationDate="2015-08-08T15:53:04.017" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The basic difference between Chess 960 and Classical Chess is that by switching the pieces around at the start, you've in essence removed the computer's opening book. That would eliminate the potential initial advantage that had afforded, since most humans wouldn't have matched that. However, during the &quot;960&quot; opening and subsequently, the machine would go about business as usual, developing quickly and then searching for all possible tactics. Depending on the depth of search, it should prove superior to the vast majority of humans in that respect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastActivityDate="2015-08-08T15:53:04.017" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10969" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9964" CreationDate="2015-08-08T16:24:11.073" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is there a way to distinguish whether a rating rise/drop can be&#xA;  explained by random factors, e.g. &quot;(bad) luck&quot;, being &quot;in/out form&quot;,&#xA;  etc..., or an actual increase/decrease in playing strength?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No, would be my answer, at least there is no easy way to distinguish.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The problem is that there are very many factors affecting ratings. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance, about 5 years ago FIDE changed the system. I'm not sure if it was lowering the minimum rating, changing the k factors or a combination of these but the net effect was a rating deflation. Talking to a range of players it seems that there was an influx of very underrated juniors into the system. One disgruntled player complained of losing or drawing to juniors who were, in his opinion, as much as 400 points underrated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Over the following 2 years I noticed a 150 point drop in my rating and anecdotal evidence is that many other older players who have had stable ratings for many years noticed the same kind of drop. Over the last year these same players have reported that their ratings are rising back towards their old averages and attribute this to the system regarding rating of junior players (perhaps with their higher k value) as &quot;settling down&quot;. I have to admit I haven't noticed this effect yet ;-), but then I played very few games in the last year. I hope this means I have something to look forward to if I go back to playing a lot more games!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also have anomalies due to the average strength of the players you play against. If you play a lot of players who are much, much weaker or much, much stronger than you then this can also distort your rating due to the way they are calculated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, I would just add that FIDE only attempts to measure my rating &quot;sitting down&quot;. My rating &quot;standing up&quot; is at least 300 points higher ;-).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2015-08-08T16:24:11.073" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10970" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9964" CreationDate="2015-08-08T16:25:30.090" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This can be a very difficult problem in practice, depending on your expectations. You would firstly need to assume that in no games were there blunders, and already you can see problems begin to crop up as it is difficult to define what constitutes a blunder (Win to loss? Win to draw? Queen blunder? Positional blunder? Touch-move?).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you make the further assumption that all of a player's opponents are 'fairly' rated (although this is something fairly dubious to say), then it may be somewhat possible to come up with statistical tests. But first off, it is better to rephrase the question from &quot;X rating points in Y games&quot; to &quot;X &lt;em&gt;game&lt;/em&gt; points from Y games&quot;, because rating changes depend on the K-value.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Consider the following: you have n games, and are expected to win &quot;rating change&quot;/&quot;K-value&quot; of them. You can also compute the expected score for each game (which depends on rating difference), and use these as your probabilities in a sequence of multinomial trials. For example, say you have 5 opponents, with rating difference relative to you and &quot;win expected&quot; as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;+43, WE=0.44&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-12, WE=0.52&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;+135, WE=0.32&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;+22, WE=0.47&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-50, WE=0.57&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then your total wins expected is 2.32. Constructing a statistical test here is tricky, because you can't use the binomial distribution properly (as it assumes that only two results are possible, whereas in practice, a third result, a draw, is also possible), and the Elo rating system only gives you the expected score, and not the win/draw/loss probabilities, which depends on the absolute value of the players' rating (i.e. a draw is much more likely between 2700 vs. 2800 than 1700 vs. 1800) as well as colours (whose significance, again, depends on absolute rating)!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You could, of course, go for a naive test and ignore the final factors, but if your total score contains a half point, you won't even be able to use this test!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyway, supposing you have the easy case of a sequence of wins/losses without draws, say you scored 3/5 in the above example. Then for your p-value, you would need to compute the probability of scoring 3 points or more, which you get by summing over the probabilities of all possible ways to score 3 points or more (wins vs. players 123, 124, ..., 345, 1234,..., 2345, 12345) which would take quite some time to be done by hand (you need to calculate and sum 5C3+5C4+5C5=16 products of 5 numbers), and if this sum is less than some critical value, say 0.05, then according to this very naive test, your actual performance is indeed better than your rating suggests.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Actually, the test would not be too bad if you knew the drawing probabilities: you can do the above again, though there will be much more work; the assistance of a computer is definitely necessary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At the end of the day, the best test is time and exposure. Play in international tournaments, and if you maintain your rating change over time, then your playing strength has certainly changed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Technically, the tests I described are one-tailed, and you might need to consider two-tailed tests, but deciding on which to use and their impact is relatively trivial and unimportant compared with the other problems you need to address!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7473" LastEditorUserId="7473" LastEditDate="2015-08-08T16:33:04.077" LastActivityDate="2015-08-08T16:33:04.077" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10971" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9371" CreationDate="2015-08-08T17:01:11.883" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;That seems to be an overgeneralization.  Controlling the center is of supreme importance for a number of reasons, such as for example giving your pieces more freedom while conversely limiting your opponent's mobility, and letting you ultimately generate a kingside attack. A standard rule of thumb is that when you have played e4, you should aim for d4 safely, and vice versa.  Moving the c and particularly f pawns might entail more risk.  If you have castled kingside, disturbing the pawn structure in front of the king (hence f4) must be given long and careful consideration. Moving ALL your central pawns might be ideal if your opponent permitted it and it didn't entail any risk, but that's unlikely to be the case against any opponent of substance. Getting your e and d pawns out and all your pieces mobilized would seem to be sufficient to allow you to pursue sound and productive middle game plans.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastActivityDate="2015-08-08T17:01:11.883" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10972" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9959" CreationDate="2015-08-08T17:14:42.883" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;This &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.chessbase.com/post/deep-blue-s-cheating-move&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;article from Chessbase&lt;/a&gt; answers most of your questions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This was the position in which Kasparov had set a &quot;computer chess&quot; trap.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [fen &quot;r1r1q1k1/6p1/p2b1p1p/1p1PpP2/PPp5/2P4P/R1B2QP1/R5K1 w - - 0 35&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Deep Blue&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Gary Kasparov&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He was expecting &#xA;36. Qb6 Rd8&#xA;37. ab Rab8&#xA;38. Qxa6 e4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [fen &quot;1r1rq1k1/6p1/Q2b1p1p/1P1P1P2/1Pp1p3/2P4P/R1B3P1/R5K1 w - - 0 35&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Deep Blue&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Gary Kasparov&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;when, for the cost of 2 pawns he has generated dangerous counterplay based on the idea of Qe5 possibly followed by e3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Instead Deep Blue played the immediate ab followed by Be4 thereby nipping in the bud any chances of counterplay via ... e4 and ... Qe5 for black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to the article -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In fact, if you consult any of the top engines of today, whether it be&#xA;  Houdini 4, Stockfish 6, or Komodo 8, they all choose Deep Blue's move&#xA;  36.axb5. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Komodo 8: 36.axb5 axb5 37.Be4 Qd8 38.Kh2 Rcb8 39.Ra6 Kf8 40.R6a5 Kg8&#xA;  41.R1a2 Rxa5 42.Rxa5 Bc7 43.Ra1 Bb6&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;+/- (0.84) Depth: 29 00:02:15 686MN, tb=57&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, nothing to see here (2 min 15 sec for the computer) ;-) Move on!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2015-08-08T17:20:03.923" LastActivityDate="2015-08-08T17:20:03.923" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10975" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12433" CreationDate="2015-08-08T19:11:49.570" Score="4" ViewCount="363" Body="&lt;p&gt;I noticed that FIDE ID (unique ID used on FIDE rating lists) changes for some players. E.g. &lt;a href=&quot;http://ratings.fide.com/card.phtml?event=4659600&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Igor Khenkin&lt;/a&gt; had 3 different IDs (4659600, 4135814 and 2802350).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes (like for Khenkin) ID changes when player switches federations, but most players change federation and their FIDE ID stays the same.&#xA;Also, some players (e.g. Yimam Abera) have their ID changed while everything else stays unchanged.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Worse, it seems old ID can be used by different player (e.g. Shirov's 11600012 was later reused by Olegs Marutkins).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there any rules here? Is there a way to decide which FIDE IDs belong to the same person?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7219" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-10-18T08:42:08.457" LastActivityDate="2019-10-18T08:42:08.457" Title="Why does the FIDE ID change sometimes?" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;fide&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="10977" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9957" CreationDate="2015-08-08T19:46:51.970" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The old Fritz 5.32 (last free version) does this. Of course it is not as powerful as the latest version (big understatement). It is available here &lt;a href=&quot;http://freechess.50webs.com/fritz.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://freechess.50webs.com/fritz.html&lt;/a&gt; but note that it will need some work (described on the website) to get it to run on modern versions of Windows.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I alternate between Fritz 8, which is not quite as old as the free version and runs on modern operating systems, and &lt;a href=&quot;http://scidvspc.sourceforge.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Scid vs PC&lt;/a&gt; which is a much more modern fork of Scid and could also be worth trying especially if you are still stuck on original Scid.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2019-05-18T17:00:02.200" LastActivityDate="2019-05-18T17:00:02.200" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="10978" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13025" CreationDate="2015-08-09T20:17:50.377" Score="14" ViewCount="845" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessvariants.com/unequal.dir/tigerhnt.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Tiger Hunt&lt;/a&gt; is a chess variant where an entire army without a queen fight against a royal amazon (tiger, queen+knight). I believe it is certainly a win for the army just like Marahaja and Sepoys. I also believe this can easily be solved. Perhaps we can modify stockfish code to do so..&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessvariants.org/boardrules.dir/atlantis.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Atlantis Chess&lt;/a&gt; is a variant where one can sink an empty space on the edge of the board (which changes as more spaces are sunk) as a legitimate move which is intuitively a draw simply because both sides can sink the board to protect their own king since nothing moves across sunk spaces. Putting the king in absolute safety requires at least 14 steps. I believe it is easily solvable. If we can generate all moves up to depth 40 or 50, I believe it can be solved since most attempts to disrupt the 14 steps involve bad piece trades or sacrifices.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have also been looking at a variant called &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessvariants.org/large.dir/peasantrevolt.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Peasants' Revolt Chess&lt;/a&gt; for a while. I strongly believe that the original four knights form is a black victory based on results of Stockfish, even as the author of the variant believes it to be biased towards black. A search depth of 80 may be required based on what I have done, also a tablebase of K3N against K+several pawns will be very helpful and can reduce search depths by at least 20.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In addition, I believe the three knights form might also be a black victory based on what Stockfish tells me. But this time search depth may have to be 110 or more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So how do we weakly solve these chess variants? Any strategy?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7965" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-10-27T03:39:39.930" LastActivityDate="2020-10-27T03:39:39.930" Title="How to weakly solve Tiger Hunt, Atlantis Chess and Peasants' Revolt" Tags="&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;solving&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="10979" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-08-10T01:45:14.530" Score="3" ViewCount="227" Body="&lt;p&gt;Wells (2007) p165 asserts that 5...Nf6 was traditionally preferred over 5...e6 because &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;...&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 c6 2. Nf3 d5 3. Nc3 Bg4 4. h3 Bxf3 5. Qxf3 Nf6 6. d4 dxe4 7. Nxe4 Qxd4 8. Bd3 Nbd7! &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;is an unsound pawn sacrifice&quot; whereas &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;...&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 c6 2. Nf3 d5 3. Nc3 Bg4 4. h3 Bxf3 5. Qxf3 e6 6. d4 dxe4 7. Nxe4 Qxd4 8. Bd3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;is much more dangerous&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He goes on to state that in the latter line 8...Nd7! may overturn the old assessment, but the implication is that 6 d4 is still more dangerous against 5...e6 than against 5...Nf6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Regardless of the current status of this line, what was the traditional explanation for why 8 Bd3 is more dangerous in the 5...e6 line than the 5...Nf6 line? Wells does not explain this. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Wells, Peter (2007). &lt;em&gt;Grandmaster Secrets: The Caro-Kann&lt;/em&gt;. Gambit Books.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1752" LastEditorUserId="3884" LastEditDate="2015-08-18T20:49:20.170" LastActivityDate="2015-08-18T20:49:20.170" Title="Why was 5...Nf6 traditionally preferred to 5...e6 in the Two Knights Caro-Kann?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;caro-kann&gt;&lt;sacrifice&gt;&lt;1.e4&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10980" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9638" CreationDate="2015-08-10T02:26:55.670" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Positional play is maneuvering for small advantages, like controlling the center with pieces and pawns, gradually improving your position and encroaching into enemy territory to gain a space advantage while at the same time minimizing your opponent's space and opportunities until you can utilize tactics for some kind of decisive result.  I like to use Nimzovitsch's term  prophylaxis for this, limiting your opponent's moves.  The closed openings, like the Queens's Gambit, are generally considered positional openings since the pieces don't come into contact with each other so soon as opposed to double king pawn openings, or open games, when early tactics can predominate. If you want concrete examples, in addition to looking at Nimzovitch's games, the orthodox advice is to &quot;study the games of Capablanca, Smyslov and Karpov&quot;. You can find these on chessgames.com.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastActivityDate="2015-08-10T02:26:55.670" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10981" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10978" CreationDate="2015-08-10T05:39:31.003" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In tiger hunt you could try to find setups for white in which the tiger can attack nothing and has no possibility to cross the pawn phalanx. Then you only have to show that you can always transform one of these setups into another, with further progressed pawns, without allowing captures or escapes. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These transformations should be calculable by brute force. And if you can actually find these setups and transformations, the tiger will be forced back until it is captured.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The point is of course that you don't really have a complete search tree. You only use a search tree to get from one stable position to another more advanced stable position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: At first I had proposed a simple solution that unfortunately hinged on pawn promotions, which aren't allowed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastEditorUserId="4362" LastEditDate="2015-08-10T11:04:19.437" LastActivityDate="2015-08-10T11:04:19.437" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10982" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9897" CreationDate="2015-08-10T07:42:14.230" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a website dedicated to playing chess by voice command:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://sites.google.com/site/chesswithvoice/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://sites.google.com/site/chesswithvoice/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I didn't check it but apparently it gives instructions on using the Interfaces Arena or Fritz using voice command. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe you'll find some interesting possibilities there. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-08-10T07:42:14.230" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10983" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="274" CreationDate="2015-08-10T15:50:48.153" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;After reading a few of the answers on here, it does seem to me that the Colle is a little misunderstood. &#xA;Despite the outward, superficial appearance of e3 being a quiet move, the Colle Zukertort or Zuke is actually a pretty attacking weapon. &#xA;It doesn't perhaps involve the double edged attacks of say the Yugoslav Dragon with Bc4 or Traxler in the 2 Knights, kill or be killed but it is a principled opening. The centre tends to be fixed or semi fixed and this helps facilitate attacks on the wing and white is better equipped to attack the black kingside with ideas based around Ne5, f4, Rf3 - Rh3, Qh5, dxc5 - Bxf6, Bxh7, Nd2 - Nf3 - Ng5... black does not, certainly in the early-ish phase of the game have the same counter chances against white. If black can weather the storm then his chances on the queenside are quite promising but not overwhelming as white has a solid pawn structure and good piece coordination. White actually has chances earlier in the game, usually vs a Qc7 to play c4 and Rc1 also so it perhaps isn't as simple a system as people seem to think. I guess quite a few here are confusing the the Colle Zuke with the Colle K which is a more solid system in someways but again White can often generate strong chances on the kingside with a well timed e4 and the mainline has been resurged to an extent by the Phoenix attack. In my opinion the Colle is a good choice for players who have experimented with a few openings first, looked at some on the classics and want to settle on a sensible repertoire that will give them good chances of an attack at little risk. It must also be said that getting into the Colle itself help vary the play as you will also experience other positions to the standard &quot;mainline&quot; set up to help your chess development, also, you will need something else vs Kings Indian, Grunfeld, Dutch set ups as the Colle is ineffective vs those openings. I recommend Killer Chess Opening Repertoire by Summerscale and Starting out d pawn attacks by Richard Palliser. Hope that's of use to you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8002" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T17:23:20.870" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T17:23:20.870" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="10984" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10979" CreationDate="2015-08-10T17:06:00.953" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;After 5....Nf6 6.d4 dxe4 7.Nxe4 Qxd4 (1), 8.Bd3 seems the only move for white to prove he has enough compensation for the pawn. Now black has two good options: 8....Nbd7 or 8....Nxe4 9.Bxe4 Nd7.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After 5....e6 6.d4 dxe4 7.Nxe4 Qxd4 (2), white has more options. He can play 8.Bd3, but also 8.c3! is a popular option.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In terms of objective evaluation, both variants probably don't differ much, but black should have less problems in (1) compared to (2).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Should black play 5....Nf6 or 5....e6? Difficult to say.&#xA;According to the &lt;a href=&quot;http://chesstempo.com/game-database.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Game Database of ChessTempo&lt;/a&gt;, the latter is more popular, but, after white's most popular answer 6.d3, both moves often transpose. On the other hand, after 5....e6, black keeps the option to develop with g6, Bg7, Ne7.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;      [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;      [StartPly &quot;9&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;      1.e4 c6 2.Nf3 d5 3.Nc3 Bg4 4.h3 Bxf3 5.Qxf3 Nf6 (5...e6 6.d4 (6.d3) dxe4 7.Nxe4 Qxd4 8.c3 (8.Bd3)) 6.d4 (6.d3) dxe4 7.Nxe4 Qxd4 8.Bd3 Nxe4 (8...Nbd7) 9.Bxe4 Nd7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4588" LastEditorUserId="4588" LastEditDate="2015-08-17T18:28:39.430" LastActivityDate="2015-08-17T18:28:39.430" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10985" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9966" CreationDate="2015-08-10T17:28:46.537" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;To be honest it is a little like spacial awareness. When I started playing I like most others left pieces hanging but over time I kind got used to &quot;knowing&quot; if something was en prise or not, most of my thinking is now strategic only doing concrete calculation when it feels necessary. I know I am being slightly vague but I would suggest honing your spacial skills by playing as much as possible, reading through annotated games by strong players and solving chess puzzles. &#xA;Hope that is of use&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Rich&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8002" LastActivityDate="2015-08-10T17:28:46.537" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10987" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9903" CreationDate="2015-08-10T17:48:52.337" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Learn Anti Sicilians, c3, Closed, Grand Prix Attack etc and the classical, Levenfish and a little yugoslav dragon. One of the problems facing new players looking at something as complex as the dragon is that not so many people actually play the mainlines vs them as white tends to run away also. &#xA;The Schiller and Gufeld book Secrets of the Sicilian Dragon is useful as it discusses plans and ideas more than others although I am sure the new Move by Move book due out in a month or 2 will be a gem also. &#xA;Good luck! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8002" LastActivityDate="2015-08-10T17:48:52.337" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10988" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="274" CreationDate="2015-08-10T18:02:38.100" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;Aggressive&quot; is a vague word that's usually meaningless when applied to an opening. It's quite possible to be either aggressive or passive in the Colle, or in pretty much any other opening. Aggression lies in how you play the opening, not the opening itself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the Colle, yes, you can bank everything on the attack on h7 (beginners with the system generally do) but if that's all you do, you'll miss out on a lot. The basic idea of the Colle, stripped of frills, is to break open the center to create free play for your pieces. Sometimes that results in the h7-assault, sometimes it's a central breakthrough, and sometimes it's simply trading down to a won endgame (this typically happens after swapping the white e- and d-pawns for the black c- and d- pawns -- the offside pawn majority this creates for white can quite often win all by itself). The point is you  pay attention and take the course that best suits you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The main strength of the Colle for beginners lies in the almost granite move order; white makes pretty much the same moves, builds pretty much the same tabiya, the same starting formation, no matter what Black does. That means a beginner has less to think about when the game starts, just bring out your pieces and then start looking for targets. But what makes it more useful for a beginner than a Stonewall, for example, is in how easily the beginner can use it to learn other types of positions. It's easy to start out in a Colle, and switch into a Queen's Gambit variation when it's advantageous to do so -- until you play c3, you're typically no more than two moves away from a queen's gambit at any point in the Colle. And, in fact, a lot of the &quot;anti-colle&quot; systems out there prove quite vulnerable to those transitions. When you see the defender starting to fortify against an attack you haven't committed to, it's quite profitable to pick other targets.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Colle is only a one-trick pony if you play it that way. It's up to you. It does make an interesting &quot;home ground&quot; for players just learning how to handle middle game positions -- it's a place to stand while working on other ideas. For example, you start out playing for the rapid king-side attack. As you gain knowledge about those positions, which ones are favorable and which aren't, you add in playing for the isolated d-pawn positions (they usually come when Black trades d-pawn for white's e-pawn, then forces both c-pawns to capture on d4) learning which ones of those work well for you and which don't. Once those positions become familiar, try making the transition to the offside majority endgame positions and learn them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="657" LastActivityDate="2015-08-10T18:02:38.100" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10989" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9964" CreationDate="2015-08-10T18:18:42.200" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The man who invented the rating system (Arpad Elo) likened it to measuring the depth of a stream using a yardstick that was hanging from a tree branch being blown in the wind. Elo himself didn't think differences of less than 100 points were even worth trying to measure. The only reason the system was worked out as a four-digit number in the first place was because the USCF rating system he was trying to fix was a four-digit system; he would have been just as happy with two-digit numbers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Too many things affect the outcome of a chess game, including slight variations in health and the current physical condition of both players (one may be tired, didn't sleep well, etc.) for anyone to be able to characterize the strength of &lt;em&gt;any&lt;/em&gt; chess player with any sort of precision. A rise in rating may mean your opponents have been playing below par, or it may mean they were playing above par and your skill actually improved far better than the rise indicates. The pertinent question is, does chess make more sense to you now than it did? Ae you seeing more, and understanding more? Ratings can't answer those questions. Only you can.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="657" LastActivityDate="2015-08-10T18:18:42.200" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10990" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="531" CreationDate="2015-08-10T19:08:37.437" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Supposedly chess improvement comes in plateaus.  This is most likely because as you continue to play, you are accumulating chess knowledge.  At some point this knowledge will begin to exceed that of your less experienced opponents, and you will reach the next plateau.  This is probably akin to what happened to Bobby Fischer when he said that &quot;he just got good&quot; when he was asked as a teenager how he had improved.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastActivityDate="2015-08-10T19:08:37.437" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10991" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-08-10T19:09:31.873" Score="6" ViewCount="1698" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is the opening in question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. Nxe5 Nxe4? 4. Qe2! Qe7 5. Qxe4 d6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White has the advantage no matter which pawn is moved next, &lt;code&gt;6. d4&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;6. f4&lt;/code&gt; (there is no way to keep the knight, but after the exchange white is up a pawn). However, in the interest of knowledge, which pawn is better to push?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If white plays &lt;code&gt;6. f4&lt;/code&gt;, the line continues &lt;code&gt;6... dxe5 7. fxe5&lt;/code&gt; and now white has two powerful central pawns while black has none. This also allows white to play the strong &lt;code&gt;8. e4&lt;/code&gt; potentially creating a pawn duo in the center, although black can prevent this with &lt;code&gt;7... c5&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, this also ditches the f-pawn, severely weakening the kingside position and violating the &quot;rule of thumb&quot; to avoid pushing the f-pawn (and losing it to boot). This makes castling kingside a lot less attractive and could allow black to mount an effective attack if white does so. (It also provides black with a weakness to take advantage of before the king has castled, the e1-h4 diagonal and the king's lack of protection in general, if white decides to castle queenside.)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If white plays &lt;code&gt;6. d4&lt;/code&gt;, castling kingside becomes more feasible again. Black has to move the queen out of the way before castling (or black can just fianchetto, but this still wastes a turn moving the g-pawn), losing a tempo (black will probably want to castle soon to avoid having the king attacked down the nice and open d file).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This move has its disadvantages too, though. The pawn on e5 is, for all practical purposes, an isolated pawn (moving the f-pawn would negate any possible advantage of playing &lt;code&gt;6. d4&lt;/code&gt; instead of &lt;code&gt;6. f4&lt;/code&gt;). This makes it very vulnerable to attack (ex. &lt;code&gt;7... Nc5&lt;/code&gt; practically forces &lt;code&gt;8. Bf4&lt;/code&gt;). And just as &lt;code&gt;6. f4&lt;/code&gt; violates the common &quot;rule of thumb&quot; to avoid pushing the f-pawn, &lt;code&gt;6. d4&lt;/code&gt; violates the guideline to capture towards the center with pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I ended up playing &lt;code&gt;6. f4&lt;/code&gt;. Black subsequently blundered away the queen and resigned soon after... but I'm still curious about this position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Am I missing anything in my analysis? Which move is better overall for white? Could white have played better in any previous moves?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4145" LastEditorUserId="9025" LastEditDate="2020-06-07T02:51:09.307" LastActivityDate="2020-06-07T02:51:09.307" Title="In the Damiano Variation of Petrov's Defense, should white play d4 or f4?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;learning&gt;&lt;petroff-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10992" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9713" CreationDate="2015-08-10T21:26:37.777" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;If anything, the part of the game that is likely to lead to lasting improvement in your game is the &lt;strong&gt;endgame.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At the very &quot;top&quot; levels, masters are very nearly alike in strength and capability, and what usually distinguishes one from the other is endgame ability. That is, a top master may come into an endgame with a slight positional disadvantage, and &quot;pull out&quot; a draw, or even a win, from another player who is inferior at this part of the game. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More to the point, an understanding of endings will better enable you to &quot;steer&quot; your middle games, and even your openings, because you will know what &quot;end&quot; positions to play for.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Jose Raul Capablanca, a former world champion was not know for his knowledge of the openings, but was the best endgame player of his time. Unless you could beat him in the early middle game, you were unlikely to win an ending, and hence a game, from him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2015-08-10T21:26:37.777" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10993" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-08-11T01:50:48.640" Score="3" ViewCount="279" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been learning chess for a while, and I’ve tested my skills in online chess. I make lots of blunders in my games, but people who I ask can't seem to see them, including myself. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is a recent game of mine that I wish for analysis on so I may improve my skills.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;4444 vs Anonymous&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;multiplayerchess.com&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2015.08.10&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;1&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;4444&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Anonymous&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. d3 Bc5 3. Ne2 d6 4. Nbc3 f5 5. d4 exd4 6. Nxd4 fxe4 7. Bb5+ c6 8. Ba4 Bxd4 9. Qxd4 Nf6 10. Bg5 O-O 11. O-O h6 12. Bb3+ d5 13. Bh4 Be6 14. Qb4 b6 15. Rad1 c5 16. Qb5 Qd7 17. Qxd7 Bxd7 18. Nxd5 Kh8 19. Nxf6 gxf6 20. Rd6 Bc6 21. Bd5 Bxd5 22. Rxd5 f5 23. Rfd1 Nc6 24. Rd7 Nd4 25. Be7 Rfe8 26. Bf6+ Kg8 27. Rg7+ Kf8 28. Rh7 Kg8 29. Rg7+ Kf8 30. c3 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black lost on time, ending the match.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8005" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2019-04-24T05:09:14.550" LastActivityDate="2019-04-24T05:09:14.550" Title="Can anyone analyze my game and mistakes?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;blunder&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="10994" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-08-11T02:47:12.397" Score="-10" ViewCount="742" Body="&lt;p&gt;I saw on youtube little Carlsen played against Kasparov, and I see that Kasparov really focused to the game, but finally Carlsen (draw) won the game. How a little kid like that can win against the great Kasparov ?. I almost believe that game has been &quot;arranged&quot;, has Carlsen ever won played against kasparov ? (seriously)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8006" LastEditorUserId="8006" LastEditDate="2015-08-11T03:08:38.270" LastActivityDate="2015-08-11T04:42:47.810" Title="Did Carlsen really defeat Kasparov?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2016-12-06T19:19:32.247" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10995" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="11005" CreationDate="2015-08-11T03:48:34.287" Score="6" ViewCount="690" Body="&lt;p&gt;Playing Online Chess seems to get rid of my bad blunders but after playing with little kids on a real match, I've made a very stupid blunder that decided the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can't post the game, not recorded since It's a game played with kids.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8005" LastActivityDate="2015-09-10T21:27:49.370" Title="How do i prevent blunders?" Tags="&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;psychology&gt;&lt;blunder&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10996" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10994" CreationDate="2015-08-11T04:42:47.810" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think you meant the article: &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.chessbase.com/post/boy-meets-beast-in-reykjavik&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Boy meets Beast in Reykjavik&lt;/a&gt;. No, Carlsen didn't win the match - he lost the match by 0.5-1.5. Read the article for the game. It is important to note while Carlsen had a better position, it was not absolutely winning, especially in a rapid game (it was a rapid match).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Carlsen has never beaten Kasparov in the database, in fact, they have never played a standard game. This is not surprising, Carlsen raised in ranks when Kasparov was finishing his career. However, it's almost certain that Carlsen has beaten Kasparov at least in blitz while they were training. We don't have the games so we don't know who was a better blitz player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2015-08-11T04:42:47.810" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10997" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10995" CreationDate="2015-08-11T07:11:54.800" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Of course everyone blunders from time to time.  It is, however, possible to strongly reduce the frequency of this happening.  The best strategy is an additional safety check once you have decided upon a move.  So, once you have picked a move, take a couple more seconds to check whether it does not hang a piece allow checkmate etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While this will take time and you have to force yourself to do it, initially, after a while you will see that you subconsciously do the blunder check without the need to actually force yourself to do it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Oh, and of course another reason might be that you just play too quickly. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3529" LastActivityDate="2015-08-11T07:11:54.800" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="10998" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="274" CreationDate="2015-08-11T07:45:45.477" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Having read &lt;em&gt;The Colle Move by Move&lt;/em&gt; by Cyrus Lakdawala, &lt;em&gt;Zuke 'Em-The Colle Zukertort Revolutionized&lt;/em&gt; &amp;amp; &lt;em&gt;The Moment of Zuke&lt;/em&gt; by David I. Rudel, &lt;em&gt;Killer Chess Opening Repertoire&lt;/em&gt; by Aaron Summerscale, &lt;em&gt;Starting out: d-pawn attacks&lt;/em&gt; by Richard Palliser, &lt;em&gt;Starting out: The Colle&lt;/em&gt; by Richard Palliser, played countless blitz and OTB games vs strong players 1800+, I can categorically say that the Colle is far from a one trick pony bud. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Zuke is not designed to open up the centre, as I have said. Sometimes it happens when the Queen is on c7 and a rook on c1, but the idea is to fix the centre with Ne5 and then attack on the kingside. That is the basic plan of the &quot;mainline&quot;. However, in meeting moves like Bf5/Bg4, Nc6, g6, b6, you will encounter quite mainline Slav, Chigorin and Queens Indian Defences. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think the stereotype people have towards the Colle is based on the simple old main lines of the Colle-Koltanowski variation, which is pretty much a different beast despite starting the move e3 and the Ne5 plan. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the write up to the excellent book &lt;em&gt;Colle Move by Move&lt;/em&gt; by Cyrus Lakdawala, the promo blurb says, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;White typically builds on solid foundations before unleashing an attack on the enemy king. This straightforward plan makes it particularly popular at club level, but the Colle is played successfully by Grandmasters too. Lakdawala covers both the main lines and the more aggressive Colle-Zukertort Attack. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wouldn't suggest that the Colle Zuke or K are the greatest thing since sliced bread but they are perfectly sound, lead to some interesting attacking positions and are benefited practically by the stereotypes expressed on here. I recently played a 1900+ FIDE-rated player and they explained that since I would be looking to open the centre with e4 they played c x d when the fact is, it is almost never played in the Zuke! Just goes to show! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8002" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T17:23:57.233" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T17:23:57.233" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="10999" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="274" CreationDate="2015-08-11T07:49:41.130" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In addition, I believe that if you play the Colle passively you will simply let Black equalise, or better. The whole system is based on a kingside attack from solid foundations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8002" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T17:24:25.243" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T17:24:25.243" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="11000" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10991" CreationDate="2015-08-11T09:06:16.513" Score="7" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;White has the advantage no matter which pawn is moved next, 6. d4 or&#xA;  6. f4 (there is no way to keep the knight, but after the exchange white is up a pawn).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My initial reaction is pretty much the same as yours. You'd have to be a very poor player to even think of playing this as black. However, we are both wrong! Much stronger players than me play it as black and even win sometimes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One of these is Austrian IM Friedrich Volkmann.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are 3 of his wins.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First against a stronger opponent&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;EU-ch 4th&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Istanbul&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2003.06.05&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;6&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Nedev, Trajko 2518&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Volkmann, Friedrich Karl 2435&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. Nxe5 Nxe4 4. Qe2 Qe7 5. Qxe4 d6 6. d4 dxe5 &#xA;7. dxe5 Nc6  8. Bb5 Bd7 9. Nc3 Qb4 10. Bc4 O-O-O 11. a3 Qa5 12. Bf4 Bb4 &#xA;13. O-O Bxc3 14.  bxc3 Be6 15. Bd3 Qxc3 16. Rab1 Ba2 17. Rbd1 Kb8 &#xA;18. Rfe1 h6 19. Bg3 Rd4 20. Qe2  Rhd8 21. f4 g6 22. Rc1 Bc4 23. Bf2 Rxf4&#xA;24. Be3 Nd4 25. Qd1 Rh4 26. Bf2 Rh5 27.  Re4 Be6 28. Rb1 Nc6 29. Qf3 b6 &#xA;30. Rc4 Bxc4 31. Qxc6 Rxd3 32. cxd3 Qxd3 33. Rc1  Rh4 34. h3 Rf4 &#xA;35. Re1 Rxf2 36. Kxf2 Qd2+ 37. Kf3 Bd5+ 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Against a much weaker opponent&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;ICS Anniversary op&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Fics Internet&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2002.01.15&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;7&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Alaimo, Riccardo 2158&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Volkmann, Friedrich Karl 2414&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. Nxe5 Nxe4 4. Qe2 Qe7 5. Qxe4 d6 6. d4 dxe5 &#xA;7. Qxe5 Qxe5+  8. dxe5 Bf5 9. Bd3 Bxd3 10. cxd3 Nc6 11. O-O O-O-O &#xA;12. f4 Nb4 13. Nc3 Bc5+ 14.  Kh1 Nxd3 15. Ne4 Bd4 16. Rb1 f6 &#xA;17. exf6 gxf6 18. Bd2 Rhe8 19. Nc3 Nf2+ 20.  Rxf2 Bxf2 21. Rd1 Rxd2 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Against a slightly weaker opponent&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;EU-chT (Men)&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Leon&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2001.11.14&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;8.2&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Haznedaroglu, Kivanc 2328&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Volkmann, Friedrich Karl 2414&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. Nxe5 Nxe4 4. Qe2 Qe7 5. Qxe4 d6 6. f4 dxe5 &#xA;7. fxe5 f6 8.  Bc4 Qxe5 9. Qxe5+ fxe5 10. d3 Nc6 11. Be3 Nd4 &#xA;12. Kd2 Nf5 13. Bf2 Bd7 14. Nc3  O-O-O 15. Rae1 Re8 16. Bf7 Re7 &#xA;17. Bd5 c6 18. Be4 b6 19. Rhf1 g6 20. Kc1 Bh6+  21. Kb1 Rf8 &#xA;22. Bf3 Ref7 23. Ne4 Kc7 24. c3 Nd6 25. Ng3 Bh3 26. Bg1 Nf5 &#xA;27. Be4  Nxg3 28. Rxf7+ Rxf7 29. hxg3 Bf5 30. Rf1 Kd6 31. Kc2 Ke6 &#xA;32. Rf3 Bxe4 33. dxe4  Rxf3 34. gxf3 Bf8 35. b4 h5 36. Kd3 g5 &#xA;37. Bf2 Be7 38. a4 h4 39. g4 c5 40. Kc4  cxb4 41. cxb4 h3 &#xA;42. Bg3 a6 43. b5 a5 44. Kd3 Bc5 45. Ke2 Kd6 46. Kf1 Be3 &#xA;47. Ke2 Bf4 48. Bxf4 exf4 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After those games I'm not so sure that it is a blunder. The statistics still favor white by something like 40% white wins to about 20% black wins, so it looks like a better opening for white but psychologically I can see how it would be good for black. Black gets the kind of position he knows and is comfortable with while white thinks he is playing an idiot and so is maybe more likely to play badly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2015-08-11T09:06:16.513" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11001" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10993" CreationDate="2015-08-11T12:28:38.377" Score="2" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Game analysis&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. d3 Bc5 3. Ne2 { I prefer Nf3 here, it is more active} d6 4. Nbc3 f5 5. d4 exd4 6. Nxd4 fxe4 7. Bb5+? {Waste of time, Black easily defends while consolidating extra pawn} c6 8. Ba4 Bxd4? {Relinquishing bishop pair, playing twice with the developed piece, improves opponent's development} 9. Qxd4 Nf6 10. Bg5 O-O 11. O-O (11.O-O-O!? $40) 11...h6? (11...d5 $15) 12. Bb3+ d5 13. Bh4 (13.Bxf6!? Qxf6 14.Qxf6 Rxf6 15.Nxe4 Rf8 16.Nd6 $14) 13...Be6 14. Qb4? (14.Nxe4! dxe4 (14...Nxe4?? 15.Bxd8 +-) 15.Bxe6+ $16) 14... b6 15. Rad1?! (15.Nxe4!) 15...c5 16. Qb5 Qd7 17. Qxd7 Bxd7 18. Nxd5 Kh8 19. Nxf6?! (19.Nc7+- ) 19...gxf6 20. Rd6 Bc6 21. Bd5?! (21.Bxf6+) 21...Bxd5 22. Rxd5 f5 23. Rfd1 Nc6 24. Rd7 Nd4 25. Be7 (25.c3) 25...Rfe8 26. Bf6+ Kg8 27. Rg7+ Kf8 28. Rh7 Kg8 29. Rg7+ Kf8 30. c3+- {White has decisive advantage. He will penetrate with the rooks on the 7th rank and eventually mate Black.} 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you do not understand symbols behind moves, go to &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessinformant.org/system-of-signs/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; link.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some advices:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Improve your opening repertoire, what I saw is very risky -&gt; it might cost you in the future if you continue to open this way;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Work on tactics, that &lt;code&gt;Nxe4&lt;/code&gt; blow was obvious;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Find a book/online tutorial/... on basics of opening play -&gt; you wasted tempo several times without any good reason to do so;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Generally speaking, you played well for your level of skill -&gt; keep improving, you have good prospects in becoming good player.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you need further help leave a comment. Best regards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastEditorUserId="2042" LastEditDate="2015-08-11T15:36:42.780" LastActivityDate="2015-08-11T15:36:42.780" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11002" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10995" CreationDate="2015-08-11T13:15:33.850" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Playing a lot should reduce that problem.  Of course, even then you must take time to look at your opponent's potential replies before you move.  Even the least skilled opponent is making plans. The first thing to do is to make sure you haven't left any attacked unprotected pieces hanging.  You must next also look for simple tactics against your pieces such as forks, pins and discovered attacks. That sounds like a lot of work but is necessary and becomes second nature with time.  Be sure not to move too quickly.  An old rule of thumb was to literally sit on your hands before moving to be sure you didn't move too hastily and superficially.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastActivityDate="2015-08-11T13:15:33.850" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11003" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1498" CreationDate="2015-08-11T15:39:41.683" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Players who enter prize tournaments may purposely try to lower their rating to have a better chance at a prize in a lower section subsequently.  This is known as &quot;sandbagging&quot; and is not condoned.  Throwing a game in an online game where there are no tangible rewards wouldn't make much sense to me.  But I don't agree that in the game in question your opponent was trying to throw the game.  As has already been mentioned, he was playing a gambit, where you give up material for time to gain quicker development with the hope of eventually winning thereby. And as also stated, I wouldn't put too much faith in an online rating either.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastActivityDate="2015-08-11T15:39:41.683" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11004" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9689" CreationDate="2015-08-11T16:02:34.420" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am by no means an openings expert, but I have played the Slow Slav as White for a long time so I will just make some comments.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In general, lines with an early b7-b5 in Chebanenko positions tend to work better with a Nc3 than a Nd2.  As you have already noted, a Nd2 makes it much more likely that White will be able to find some way to exploit the holes on Black's queenside (particularly c5, a5, and c6, often exploited by a well-timed a2-a4) created by an early b7-b5.  Positions with b7-b5 and Nb1-d2 are not necessarily very good for White, but they do seem to give a better chance of White gaining a small advantage than the main lines, and a small advantage is usually the best that White can hope for against the Chebanenko these days.  Positions with a Nc3 make it much more difficult for White to exploit the holes Black makes on the queenside with b7-b5, and give Black more dynamic compensation for such holes due to the possibility in many lines of a well-timed b5-b4, forcing the Nc3 to an awkward square.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since an eventual b7-b5 is the general idea behind a7-a6, I always respond to 4...a6 by playing Nb1-d2 (either right away, or more commonly a little later after Bf1-d3). This is probably White's best try for an advantage in these lines. If Black goes ahead and plays b7-b5 anyways, I generally get the kind of position I want, which I would describe as lightly +=.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, if Black refrains from playing a quick b7-b5 and plays something like an immediate Bc8-g4 (say, after 4...a6 5.Bd3), he still has a very solid Slav position in which the &quot;wasted&quot; move a7-a6 is compensated for by the fact that d2 is not an ideal square for the White N in lines where Black does not play b7-b5 (that is, because it removes some of the pressure from d5 and because in some variations the Nd2 can also get in the way of the Nf3).  Typically, in positions with a strong center like this (pawns at c4/d4/e3), White would prefer his Ns on the most active squares, c3 and f3, where they simultaneously pressure Black's center and support possible pawn advances by White.  So the move Nbd2 after a7-a6 may also be viewed as a kind concession.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I like to look at the exchange as a kind of exercise in prophylaxis: Black plays a7-a6 as prophylaxis against White's ideal set-up in the center with Nc3; White then plays Nb1-d2 (or just refrains for committing the N to c3 for a while) as prophylaxis against Black's idea of b7-b5.  Black, having now discouraged White from playing his ideal set-up with the N on c3 (I use the word &quot;discouraged&quot; very loosely here because positions with Nc3 and b7-b5 are fully playable for White), then plays Bc8-g4 with the idea that this set-up is even better after the exchange of a7-a6 and Nb1-d2, because a7-a6 does not hurt Black and the Nd2 is slightly misplaced.  White is not entirely convinced of this last point, because Nd2 is at least a developing move, while a7-a6 is not.  And so the discussion continues, with White trying to find lines in which his Nbd2 is actually useful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as I know, there is no clear way to an advantage for White in lines with the Nbd2/Bd3 set-up against a7-a6, but the play is different and less forcing that the positions with a Nc3.  Having played many games with this set-up and a number of games with the main line Slow Slav positions (that is, with an immediate Bc8-f5 or Bc8-g4 instead of a7-a6), I would evaluate both set-ups as roughly the same: +=/=.  They are very slightly easier to play for White, but White has no significant advantage if Black knows what he/she is doing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The upshot of all this is that 4...a7-a6 appears to be fine against the Slow Slav set-up as long as Black refrains from an early b7-b5 before White commits his N to c3.  In such positions, the move a7-a6 once again proves to be a high-class waiting move, with a dollop of added prophylaxis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7961" LastEditorUserId="7961" LastEditDate="2015-08-11T16:08:23.267" LastActivityDate="2015-08-11T16:08:23.267" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11005" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10995" CreationDate="2015-08-11T16:38:26.060" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;You need to stop playing &quot;Hope Chess&quot; and start playing &quot;Real Chess.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Dan Heisman gives the definition of Hope Chess as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;HOPE&quot; Chess - This is NOT when you make a move and hope your opponent&#xA;  doesn't see your threat. Instead, Hope chess is when you make a move&#xA;  and don't look at what your opponent might threaten on his next move,&#xA;  and whether you can meet that threat on your next move. &lt;em&gt;Instead, you&#xA;  just wait until next move and see what he does, and then &lt;strong&gt;hope&lt;/strong&gt; you can&#xA;  meet any threats&lt;/em&gt;. In my first 3 tournaments I played Hope chess and&#xA;  never won more than 1 game in any of the three. The speed at which you&#xA;  can play Hope chess also explains why I usually took only about half&#xA;  an hour for each game in these tournaments, even though the time&#xA;  control was 50 moves in 2 hours. Most high school level players play&#xA;  hope chess, but almost always lose when they run into a serious player&#xA;  who plays &quot;Real Chess.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;NM Heisman gives his simplified &quot;Real Chess&quot; thought process:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) How the opponent's move changed the position and if threaten to do something positive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) What the goal/plan is for the position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) What the candidate moves are. A candidate move is a move that might do something positive, so you should at least look at it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4) &lt;strong&gt;Which of the moves are safe. Omitting this step is Hope Chess.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5) Which of the safe candidates moves is best. At the end of this step, do a blunder check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you wait until the blunder check to make sure all responses to your move do not cause you to lose the game, this will limit your results. I used to play this way and could not get over 1300.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7500" LastActivityDate="2015-08-11T16:38:26.060" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11006" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="11012" CreationDate="2015-08-11T21:59:18.117" Score="5" ViewCount="1623" Body="&lt;p&gt;The following is suggested by my computer (Stockfish) as an improvement to a line in the Fried Liver played in Shirov v Sulskis 2014 and suggested as a definite refutation in some places - Shirov's key move was 9. a3. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As an improvement, instead of the Sulskis move 11... Kd6, play 11... Qh4 as follows, with suggested follow-up (I have tested at some depth, but the positions are not straightforward and there are alternative moves).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5&#xA;2. Nf3 Nc6&#xA;3. Bc4 Nf6&#xA;4. Ng5 d5&#xA;5. exd5 Nxd5&#xA;6. Nxf7 Kxf7&#xA;7. Qf3+ Ke6&#xA;8. Nc3  Ncb4&#xA;9. a3   Nc2+&#xA;10. Kd1  Nxa1&#xA;11. Nxd5 Qh4&#xA;12. d3  Kd6&#xA;13. h3  Be6&#xA;14. Ne3  e4&#xA;15. Nf5+ Kc6&#xA;16. Nxh4 exf3&#xA;17. Bxe6 fxg2&#xA;18. Nxg2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With advantage to black. 11... Qh4 is an extraordinary move so I'd appreciate any commentary on that. Is it really advantage black? Can anyone find an improvement in this line (from move 11) for white?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My computer (at significant depth) would play 9 Bb3 as an improvement for white, instead of Shirov's move (I'm taking the position after move 8 as basic) - but this secures only a modest advantage for white and it looks as though the position can be defended. Is there any deep published analysis of these lines?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2716" LastActivityDate="2020-03-04T17:22:43.223" Title="What is the best line in the Fried Liver" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;fried-liver-attack&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11007" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="11032" CreationDate="2015-08-11T22:13:51.510" Score="6" ViewCount="1001" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 d5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 d5, which variation of the Grunfeld Defense leads to the most solid and strategic position? If possible, I prefer a variation with possibilities for a minority attack. The Exchange Variation (4. cxd5) is too sharp and contains too much theory. If possible, there should not be loads of theory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7500" LastActivityDate="2015-08-15T12:48:31.630" Title="Which variation of the Grunfeld Defense for White will lead to the most strategic and least sharp position?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;1.d4&gt;&lt;grunfeld-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11008" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-08-11T22:34:02.897" Score="14" ViewCount="15273" Body="&lt;p&gt;The highest Elo rating to date is 2882, which belongs to Carlsen, while the last Elo rating of Kasparov is 2851. Could I have an Elo rating of 2950 or maybe 3000? Does the Elo rating have a limit?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8011" LastEditorUserId="7500" LastEditDate="2015-08-11T22:52:52.430" LastActivityDate="2020-05-10T03:11:43.420" Title="Does elo rating have a limit?" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;elo&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11009" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10991" CreationDate="2015-08-12T00:38:04.513" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;At 14 ply Fritz 6 prefers 6. d4 (+0.59) to 6. f4 (+0.50), so they are nearly the same good.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7500" LastActivityDate="2015-08-12T00:38:04.513" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11010" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11008" CreationDate="2015-08-12T02:01:17.320" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, Elo ratings have no theoretical limit. If Alice scored 76% against Carlsen (rating 2853) consistently, she would stabilize at a rating of 3053*, and if Bob scored 76% against Alice, he would stabilize at a rating of 3253**, etc. There is no theoretical end to this sequence. However, consensus seems to be that in practice a perfect player would have a rating somewhere in the 3000s.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*Assuming Carlsen performed well enough against other people that his rating stayed at 2853&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;**Assuming Alice performed well enough against other people that her rating stayed at 3053&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2015-08-12T02:01:17.320" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11011" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11006" CreationDate="2015-08-12T07:03:00.417" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Instead of d5 try Bc5 variation.  There are lots of videos on this.  This would be good attacking for Black.  If your opponent does not know how to defend correctly, he might lose his major pieces or mated after few moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8013" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-04T17:22:43.223" LastActivityDate="2020-03-04T17:22:43.223" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="11012" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11006" CreationDate="2015-08-12T07:59:55.973" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Recently, &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.chessbase.com/post/erwin-l-ami-the-modern-two-knights&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;GM L'Ami&lt;/a&gt; made a DVD covering the Two Knights and the Fried Liver attack. According to the article, he suggests ideas for both white and black, so maybe he discusses 9.Bb3 (instead of 9.a3) and 11....Qh4 (instead of 11....Kd6).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Furthermore I'd like to add that, although it has been played by a couple of grandmasters, 5....Nxd5 is considered to be very risky for black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The main line of the variation is 5....Na5. According to the &lt;a href=&quot;http://chesstempo.com/game-database.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Game Database of ChessTempo&lt;/a&gt;, it is by far the most popular response to 4.Ng5. After 6.Bb5+ c6 7.dxc6 bxc6, black is a pawn down, but is ahead in development. This position is one of the &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/2097/what-is-a-tabiya-and-what-is-their-importance&quot;&gt;tabiyas&lt;/a&gt; of 1.e4 e5: has black sufficient compensation for the pawn or not?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4588" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2015-08-12T10:00:48.480" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11013" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-08-12T13:33:31.323" Score="-1" ViewCount="110" Body="&lt;p&gt;I personally find there are more negatives than positives in playing rated games and in fact have stopped playing them for that reason.  I feel they detract from the enjoyment of the game, making the pursuit of the almighty point its main purpose rather than trying to create something esthetically pleasing at the possible risk of losing. When I played rated games, my sole purpose became to avoid losing and having my rating drop, changing the way I played. Why was it decided to have such a system in the first place?  Wasn't playing the game for it's own enjoyment and mental challenge sufficient motivation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastActivityDate="2015-08-12T18:49:29.613" Title="Why was a rating system instituted?" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11015" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11013" CreationDate="2015-08-12T13:55:03.610" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why do runners take the time when they run a Marathon?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tournament chess is a sport. It is about competition and improvement. Both is furthered by a way to compare results. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nobody is forced to play chess competitively, but for those who like to, the rating system is definitely very useful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-08-12T13:55:03.610" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11016" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9966" CreationDate="2015-08-12T14:35:15.457" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Hanging a piece sometimes is a matter of attention rather than concentration. Fixating on a &quot;plan&quot; can drive a type of &quot;blindness&quot; to what's going on outside of it. Another factor is fatigue. The biggest one of all is blitz. No time to scan the whole board means mistakes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8017" LastActivityDate="2015-08-12T14:35:15.457" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11017" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11013" CreationDate="2015-08-12T15:39:07.603" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;A rating system has many advantages:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Ensure that you play against opponents of similar ability, especially in tournaments and/or leagues. Most people enjoy a challenge most when it is hard but not impossible.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When you do happen to play against someone of far stronger ability, most rating systems make provision by not penalising you too much when you lose (and similarly not benefiting you too much when you beat a much weaker opponent). I find this encourages me to enter tournaments in a higher category when I'm up for a challenge, because I know that mediocre results won't necessarily destroy my rating.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Provides an objective measure of improvement. I find it interesting to see how my rating changes over time, and obviously I feel very satisfied if it increases after hard work.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for negatives, I can't think of many: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;no rating system is perfect, and there is always a bit of dispute about how much they reflect actual playing ability. This is not really a problem as most players know that their rating is really just an approximation rather than the absolute indisputable measure of their strength.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I know some players &quot;manage&quot; their rating, often losing games to prevent it from going too high, so that they can play in lower-graded sections of tournaments. I don't care much for these people, and fortunately there are not many of them. As an interesting note here, the opposite also happens - strong players sometimes refuse to play in tournaments if there are not many players of similar strength. For example, Nakamura stopped playing in the US Championship for a number of years because he believed playing against weaker opponents would have a detrimental affect on his rating (he wants to stay in the 2800 club you see). Luckily for us chess fans he seems to have gotten over this particular affliction because he played this year and won.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Try not to take ratings &lt;em&gt;too&lt;/em&gt; seriously - it serves its purpose well enough.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1816" LastEditorUserId="1816" LastEditDate="2015-08-12T15:56:06.917" LastActivityDate="2015-08-12T15:56:06.917" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11018" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-08-12T17:04:48.313" Score="3" ViewCount="3543" Body="&lt;p&gt;When using Stockfish to annotate some of my games, I will often get the symbols D and +--,  which I can't find definitions for. I think that +- means “decisive advantage” for White, and that +-- might mean “very decisive.” As for D next to a move I am at a loss.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7507" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-09-15T13:50:57.187" LastActivityDate="2020-01-27T04:23:52.997" Title="What do D and +-- mean in chess annotation?" Tags="&lt;notation&gt;&lt;annotation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="11019" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11013" CreationDate="2015-08-12T18:49:29.613" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The rating system is a means of ranking players. The question you are asking therefore is really about the motivation behind ranking players; apart from the usual reasons (which country has the best players, who is the best player, etc.), national federations need some criteria to decide which players to send to international tournaments (say the olympiad).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While it is possible to select players that win the national championship (and this is common practice for many countries), it is unfair to have an entire national team composed of players selected from a single tournament (where attendance may not have been possible for some who have been performing well throughout the year, and when there is a large pool of players and not enough rounds, the rankings of runners-up are not very convincing); a ranking system is needed as another decision criteria, at least for the playoffs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Rankings are an integral part of any competitive game or sport; the big question now is how effective the current rating system is, in the sense of how it reflects on players strength.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for playing in tournaments, if whether a game is rated or not affects your approach to the current game, resulting in you trying harder &quot;not to lose&quot;, perhaps it shows that indeed rating systems encourage you to play better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7473" LastActivityDate="2015-08-12T18:49:29.613" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11020" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11018" CreationDate="2015-08-12T19:08:09.113" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;D&quot; means see diagram. &quot;+/-&quot; means white is better, but not much better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7500" LastActivityDate="2015-08-12T19:08:09.113" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11021" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11006" CreationDate="2015-08-12T19:28:45.453" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This does not actually answer your question, but if you are asking about this from the perspective of the white player, you are probably better off playing the modern move 6.d4 and studying the lines that follow from that. The reason for this is that most black players don't play 5...Nxd5, so it would not be very good use of your time to look into a line like this. GMs play like this because they prepared beforehand, and such lines are not an actual part of their main repertoire.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyway, to attempt to answer your question: 9.Bb3 was the old main move and is a well-known line; in fact, it would be the first line anyone would learn about if they somehow decide to incorporate 5...Nxd5 into their opening repertoire as black. After 11... Qh4, if GM analysis tells you that the position is advantageous for black, you should probably believe it. In the final position, white's pawn structure is shattered; the d- and f-pawns are on open files which makes them easy targets for the black rooks. More importantly, white's pieces are poorly coordinated, and he needs to spend time to pick up the knight on a1.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the line you have, most of white's moves are almost forced (in today's age, you can simply check this with your engine) after 11... Qh4. Nevertheless, it is indeed an incredible move that your opponent is unlikely to find over the board, which makes this line a good surprise weapon for an unprepared opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for improvements, you are not likely to find them published until an actual game has been played in that line, especially if the move is something that the computer has evaluated wrongly (but this is very unlikely to happen in sharp positions like this one).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(The last time I checked, which was about 5 years ago, the evaluation of the immediate Fried Liver with 6.Nxf7 is &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; favourable for white; however, the position after 6.d4 exd4 7.O-O is indeed better for white. The evaluation may have changed recently, but it's quite unlikely, again because this is an open position, and most genuine improvements were probably found by computers already.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7473" LastEditorUserId="7473" LastEditDate="2015-08-12T20:42:06.267" LastActivityDate="2015-08-12T20:42:06.267" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11023" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10991" CreationDate="2015-08-12T20:28:26.623" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;As white, you first need to acknowledge that black has some compensation for the pawn: he will get a minute lead in development, the extra pawn on e5 can become weak, and the queen's placement on e4 is suspect. So if you hold on to the pawn too strongly (or wrongly), you can be overrun quickly. On the other extreme, if you give it back too easily, black would come out ahead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This line has been employed by Volkmann and Afromeev rather frequently, as well as Ipatov, all of whom are highly rated, and they have obtained good results with black, albeit usually against relatively weaker opponents (which means players in the 2400-2500 range...). In almost all of these games, white played 6.d4 except for Romain-Ipatov, where white played 6.f4, and queens were exchanged.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Strange-looking, rarely played sidelines like these are usually not worth overstudying, because your opponent will know a lot about it if you choose to enter a complicated variation. One sub-optimal idea (but incredibly simple) can be found in Yu-Ipatov from the 2014 World Blitz Championship: white's solution was to play 6.d4 dxe5 7.dxe5 Nc6 8.Nc3 Qxe5 9.Qxe5+ Nxe5 10.Bf4 Bd6 11. Bd3 Bd7 12.Ne4 O-O-O 13. Nxd6 cxd6. White has the bishop pair and black's d6 pawn is isolated (but not immediately weak). It's probably not enough to win if black doesn't make any mistakes, but then again, you can't really win a game without them. The beauty of this simple idea is that black can't throw you off with his preparation while you get a small edge, but of course, if you are faced with a must-win scenario, then perhaps not this line.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This variation does demand some respect; 3...Nxe4 is &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; a blunder; perhaps it is inferior and gives up a pawn for insufficient compensation (which is the point you have to prove as white), but it is certainly no more of a mistake than playing the King's Gambit as white!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Summary and final point: white can easily get an edge in this line; black's only task is to demonstrate that it's not sufficient for a win, which can be difficult in practice. As white, the easiest way to lose in this line is to believe that you have a big advantage, or worse, to think that you are simply a pawn up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7473" LastEditorUserId="7473" LastEditDate="2015-08-12T20:40:53.303" LastActivityDate="2015-08-12T20:40:53.303" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11024" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="11133" CreationDate="2015-08-13T00:31:56.950" Score="1" ViewCount="996" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is their a way to install stockfish 6 in Chessmaster Grandmaster Edition ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7693" LastActivityDate="2015-08-26T22:22:16.560" Title="Stockfish 6 in Chessmaster Grandmaster Edition" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;software&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11025" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-08-13T03:11:54.390" Score="2" ViewCount="427" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;4444 vs AI&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;multiplayerchess.com&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2015.08.12&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;1&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;4444&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;AI&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. d3 d5 3. Ne2 g5 4. Nbc3 d4 5. Nb5 c6 6. Na3 Bxa3 7. bxa3 b5 8. Rb1 Be6 9. Rb4 Bxa2 10. f4 gxf4 11. Nxf4 exf4 12. Bxf4 a5 13. Rb2 Qh4+ 14. g3 Qe7 15. Rxa2 Nd7 16. Bh3 Nc5 17. Qg4 Nf6 18. Qg7 Rg8 19. Qh6 Rd8 20. O-O Ne6 21. e5 Rg6 22. exf6 Rxh6 23. fxe7 Rxh3 24. exd8=Q+ Kxd8 25. Kh1 f5 26. Bb8 Kc8 27. Ba7 Kb7 28. Bxd4 Nxd4 29. c3 Ne6 30. Rxf5 h5 31. Rf7+ Kc8 32. Rg2 c5 33. Rgf2 c4 34. Rf8+ Nxf8 35. Rxf8+ Kc7 36. Rf7+ Kb8 37. dxc4 bxc4 38. Rf4 a4 39. Rxc4 Kb7 40. Rb4+ Kc6 41. Rxa4 Kb7 42. Rb4+ Kc6 43. a4 Kc7 44. a5 Kc6 45. a6 Kc5 46. a7 Rxh2+ 47. Kxh2 h4 48. gxh4 Kd6 49. h5 Kc5 50. h6 Kd6 51. h7 Kc5 52. h8=Q Kd6 53. Qf6+ Kd7 54. Rd4+ Kc7 55. Qd6+ Kb7 56. a8=Q+ Kxa8 57. Rb4 Ka7 58. Qb6+ Ka8 59. Ra4# &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Against AI of multiplayerchess.com&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I had fun with this one, I never knew AI will make blunders :3&#xA;Also, if you can analyze my game for me will be appreciated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8005" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2015-08-13T03:22:12.957" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T16:20:42.923" Title="My game against AI, please analyze" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;engines&gt;&lt;online-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11026" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9928" CreationDate="2015-08-13T06:50:01.657" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;These are the very basic rules of chess.  You should check a chess manual to be sure you know them.  A direct attack on the king is a check.  If you cannot get out of check somehow - by capture of the attacking piece, interposition or flight, then your king is checkmated and the game is over.  If it is your turn to move and you cannot legally move the king or anything else without going into check, then the game is a draw by stalemate, one of the numerous ways a game can be drawn,  The manual will explain all of these as well (triple repetition of position, perpetual check, insufficient mating material, exceeding the 50 move rule when no piece has been captured or pawn moved for 50 moves, and draw by agreement).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastActivityDate="2015-08-13T06:50:01.657" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11028" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-08-13T15:48:35.733" Score="10" ViewCount="1486" Body="&lt;p&gt;I use this line a lot, as it tends to lead to interesting games, and I was wondering whether any advances in theory have been made here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 g6 6. Be3 Bg7 7. f3 O-O 8. Qd2 Nc6 9. Bc4 Bd7 10. O-O-O Rb8&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sicilian_Defence,_Dragon_Variation,_Yugoslav_Attack,_9.Bc4#Chinese_Dragon&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8001" LastEditorUserId="4588" LastEditDate="2016-02-04T12:27:05.860" LastActivityDate="2017-08-24T16:57:32.863" Title="What is the current theoretical state for the Chinese Dragon?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;&lt;1.e4&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11029" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1354" CreationDate="2015-08-13T18:18:54.673" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I blunder lots as well. So I exchange queens at every opportunity so that I cannot blunder it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8025" LastActivityDate="2015-08-13T18:18:54.673" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11030" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11025" CreationDate="2015-08-14T08:52:38.690" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;2...d5 risky but playable, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3.Ne2 not that good either Nf3 o exd5&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3...g5? positionally bad, better dxe4 and later QxQ taking away castle to white or better develop a piece&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4.Nc3 provocative but later N is uncomfortable in b5 and ends badly in a3&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;6...Bxa3 fine now white has some holes too in the pawn structure&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;7...b5? again positionally unsound &lt;strong&gt;it appears black does not know how to develop pieces&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;8.Rb1 what for? better Ng3 and later Be2 to complete development and control the white squares that are weak for black&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;10.f4?? till 12.Bxf4 why? this is not correct, simply loses material white is close to lost: as above you had to develop with Ng3, Be2 and 0-0&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;13...Qe4 a useless check that forgets the B in a2 under attack and returns the material advantage&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;till 21.e5 relatively normal play (no huge blunders) but 21...Rg6?? loses material in 3 moves sequence (white takes Q R and N vs Q and B) 21...Nd5 was better: after 24...Kxd8 white is totally winning&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;26.Bb8 till 28.Bxd4 this again was a useless material sacrifice why go in b8 in the firs place? You had to rearrange pieces bringing the rook from a2 to e1 and start attacking: white is still winning but it is harder&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;30... h5?? is a huge blunder and black is again totally lost now: the rook is trapped and can be captured with Kg2, a move you never played&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;32.Rg2?? white had to play Kg2 attacking the Rh3 now black could free it with 32...h4, but this remains valid for just a move&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;from now on white wins by taking all the black pawns which was fine still the rook hanging in h3 was to be taken with Kg2 attacking it-&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;as suggested you should learn the basics of material counting&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2180" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T16:20:42.923" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T16:20:42.923" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="11031" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="11099" CreationDate="2015-08-14T10:38:16.850" Score="4" ViewCount="349" Body="&lt;p&gt;So I'm what I would call a half-good to OK player, and I have the app chess free on my phone. I play against that AI all the time, and on level 6, I have a pretty bad win record (18%). I decided to try and teach myself how to perform sound sacrifices, and in the process played this game. Where the heck did I go wrong?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;...&quot;]&#xA;1. e3 e5 2. Qh5 Nc6 3. Bc4 d5 4. Bb5 Bd6 5. d4 Nf6 &#xA;6. Qe2 e4 7. Nh3 Bd7 8. Nc3 a6 9. Bxc6 Bxc6 10. a3 Qd7 &#xA;11. f3 O-O-O 12. b3 Nh5 13. fxe4 dxe4 14. Qxh5 f5 15. Qe2 h6 &#xA;16. O-O g5 17. a4 g4 18. Nf4 h5 19. Qf2 h4 20. Ng6 g3 &#xA;21. hxg3 hxg3 22. Qxf5 Qxf5 23. Rxf5 Rh8g8 24. Ne5 Rd8f8 25. Rxf8+ Rxf8 &#xA;26. Nxc6 bxc6 27. Nxe4 Rg8 28. Bb2 Rg6 29. Rf1 Kb7 30. Nc5+ Kb6 &#xA;31. Nd7+ Ka5 32. Bc3+ Bb4 33. Rf5+ c5 34. Rxc5#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have the black pieces in the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7797" LastEditorUserId="4362" LastEditDate="2015-08-20T12:28:25.527" LastActivityDate="2019-12-25T21:25:42.360" Title="Where did I go wrong this game?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11032" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11007" CreationDate="2015-08-14T18:27:24.343" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Maybe 4.e3 is an interesting idea against the Grünfeld. Usually, black answers with 4....Bg7, but it should be noted that black can transpose to the Slav defence with 4....c6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After 4....Bg7, white has two interesting options: 5.Qb3 and 5.cxd5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;5.Qb3 is probably the most popular continuation, attacking the pawn on d5. If black plays 5....dxc4, then white should be slightly better after 6.Bxc4. After 5....c6, a Slav defence-like position arises, which black players probably want to avoid. Therefore, 5....e6 is the most common response. Then, white can (temporarily) stop black from castling with the interesting move 6.Qa3!?, which has been played by several strong grandmaster like Nakamura (against &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1718718&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Caruana&lt;/a&gt;), Ivanchuk and Dreev. After 6....Qe7?!, white obtains a clear advantage after 7.Qxe7+ Kxe7 8.b3.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The idea behind 5.cxd5 is to answer 5....Nxd5 6.Nxd5 Qxd5 with 7.Ne2 and 8.Nc3. This line has been played by several grandmasters, including Kramnik (in a &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1578557&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;rapid game&lt;/a&gt; against Svidler) and Andreikin.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although my suggestion has some ideas and has been played by many grandmasters, it is far from the most principled continuation against the Grünfeld. Nevertheless, I believe it has some venom and could be a good try to surprise your opponents.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  [StartPly &quot;7&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;  [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;  1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 d5 4.e3 Bg7 (4...c6) 5.Qb3 (5.cxd5 Nxd5 6.Nxd5 Qxd5 7.Ne2) e6 (5...dxc4 6.Bxc4) (5...c6) 6.Qa3 Qe7 7.Qxe7+ Kxe7 8.b3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4588" LastEditorUserId="4588" LastEditDate="2015-08-14T18:39:03.960" LastActivityDate="2015-08-14T18:39:03.960" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11033" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="519" CreationDate="2015-08-14T19:27:54.307" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I like to add, that recently Magnus Carlsen visited Bill Gates and Mark Zukerberg and I think it came into the discussion to formalize the interconnect of a heart pulse sensor (they used wristband) during a chess match. Indeed, they had an actual simultaneous match with Magnus and many participants where all the players including Magnus wore a heart pulse sensor wrist band. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I believe that the inclusion of a &quot;time in-between moves&quot; and a heart pulse sensor data can signature a player by by then. The DGT Corporation are the official manufacturers of DGT boards + clock thru USB interconnect and in the best position to integrate all these needed sensory peripherals. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7281" LastActivityDate="2015-08-14T19:27:54.307" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11035" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11007" CreationDate="2015-08-15T10:26:14.170" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Bg5 on move 4 is a strategic move, prioritising a minority attack in some lines. The line 6.cxd5 with this plan is covered in Richard Palliser's Play 1.d4! Also 6.Bf4 is possible, see the game below played between Shogi legend Yoshiharu Habu and super GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (Annotations by Maxime Vachier-Lagrave).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  [StartPly &quot;7&quot;]&#xA;  [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;  1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 d5 4. Bg5 Bg7 5. Nf3 Ne4 &#xA;    6. Bf4 {A very rare but very solid variation.} c6 7. e3 O-O 8. Qb3             Qa5 9. cxd5 &#xA;    $1 Nxc3 10. bxc3 $1 (10. Qxc3 Qxc3+ 11. bxc3 cxd5 12. c4 dxc4 13.       Bxc4 Bf5 $11) &#xA;    10... cxd5 11. Bd3 { This position is somewhat unpleasant for       Black.} b6 (11... &#xA;    Nd7 12. O-O Nb6 { was interesting but seemed dangerous to me.} 13.       Rfc1 (13. &#xA;    Bc7 Bg4 14. Rab1 $6 Rfc8 15. Bxb6 axb6 16. Rfc1 Rc7 $15) 13... Bd7       14. h4 $5 &#xA;    {with a certain initiative but the position remains about equal.})       12. O-O Ba6 &#xA;    13. Bxa6 (13. c4 $5 dxc4 (13... Nd7 $5 14. cxd5 Bxd3 15. Qxd3 Qxd5       16. Rfc1 &#xA;    Rfc8 17. Qa6 Rxc1+ 18. Rxc1 e5 19. Rc8+ $5 Rxc8 20. Qxc8+ Bf8 21.       Nxe5 Nxe5 &#xA;    22. Bxe5 Qxa2 $13) 14. Bxc4 Bxc4 15. Qxc4 Nd7 16. Rac1 e5 $11)       13... Nxa6 14. &#xA;    Rac1 Rac8 15. c4 dxc4 16. Rxc4 b5 (16... Rxc4 $5 17. Qxc4 b5 18.       Qb3 Rc8 {transposes.}) &#xA;    17. Rxc8 Rxc8 18. h3 $6 {not enough dynamic here.} (18. Qd5 $5 Nb4       $1 19. Qd7 &#xA;    (19. Qb7 Qa6 $1 20. Qxe7 Nd5 21. Qd7 Nf6 $13) 19... Rd8 20. Bc7 $5             (20. Qxe7 &#xA;    Nd5 21. Qc5 Nxf4 22. exf4 Qxa2 23. Qxb5 $11) 20... Rxd7 21. Bxa5       {and this ending &#xA;    is unpleasant, due to the pawn on b5 instead of b7 for example.}       Nc6 22. Bd2 &#xA;    f5 23. Rc1 Rd6 24. Be1 $1 $146 {prophylactique} e5 $6 25. dxe5       Nxe5 26. Rc8+ &#xA;    Kf7 27. Ng5+ Ke7 28. Rc7+ Rd7 29. Bb4+ $16) 18... e6 (18... b4 $5 19. Ne5 Bxe5 {again, this move works thanks to the not very dangerous white attack. It is more important to prevent the knight from sitting on the c4 square.} (19...e6 20. Nc4 Qd5 21. Rc1 $14) 20. Bxe5 Rc3 21. Qb1 f6 22. Bg3 Qd5 $13) 19. Qb1 (19. Rb1 b4 20. e4 $5 {this idea was interesting to take advantage of the out of play Na6.}) 19... Qb4 (19... Bf8 $1 20. Rc1 Qb4 {During the game, I realized that this line was stronger, first inviting the opponent's rook to come on the c column.}) 20. Qe4 Qe7 21. Ne5 $6 (21. a3 $1 {Habu was very impressed by this idea, saying with his usual modesty and humour that he doubted he would have found it even with an additional one hour to his clock.} b4 22. Qd3 $14) 21...Nb4 22. Qb1 a6 { now, it is obvious that Black is aiming to win: all black pieces are well grouped together and the queen side majority will work when the major pieces will be exchanged.} 23. e4 $5 (23. Rc1 Rxc1+ 24. Qxc1 Qb7 $15 25. e4 $2 Nxa2 26. Qd2 Qxe4 $17) 23... Bxe5 $1 {this move is really the strongest but here white is mistaken.} 24. Bxe5 $6 {the bishop is in fact misplaced here. White should play} (24. dxe5 $1 Rc4 $1 {a difficult idea to play because it seems that we let some counterplay against our king and apparently, Black's pieces are perfectly placed to prevent it.} (24... Rd8 25. Rd1 $1 Rxd1+ 26.Qxd1 Nc6 $13) 25. Rd1 Qh4 26. g3 Qh5 $15 27. Kg2 (27. Rd8+ Kg7 28. Qb2 Nc6 29.Rd6 Rxe4 $1 30. Rxc6 $6 Qd1+ 31. Kg2 (31. Kh2 Re2 32. Rc1 Qd3 $1 $19) 31...Rxf4 $1 32. gxf4 Qd5+ $19) 27... g5 28. Be3 Nc2 $15) 24... Rc4 25. Rc1 Nc6 26.Rxc4 $2 (26. Bg3 $1 {This was the last chance but was far from obvious.} Nxd4 (26... Qb4 $5 27. d5 Qxb1 28. Rxb1 Nd4 $15) 27. Rxc4 bxc4 28. Qb8+ Qf8 29. Qc7 Ne2+ 30. Kh2 Nxg3 31. fxg3 {gives good practical chances, a priori I would have given back the pawn here.} a5 $1 (31... Qb4 32. Qd8+ Kg7 33. Qd4+ Kh6 34. h4 $44) 32. Qxc4 Qb8 $15) 26... bxc4 $17 27. Qb6 (27. Bg3 Qb4 $1 $17) 27... Nxe5 28. Qb8+ Qf8 29. Qxe5 Qc8 $19 {the c-pawn is running too fast now, the game is over.} 30. d5 (30. Qc5 Qxc5 31. dxc5 c3 $19) (30. Qf4 c3 31. Qc1 Qc4 $19) 30... c3 31. Qf4 c2 32. Qc1 Qc3 33. d6 Qd3 34. d7 Qd1+ 35. Kh2 Qxc1 36. d8=Q+ Kg7 37. Qd4+ Kh6 38. Qf6 (38. Qd6 g5 $1 $19) 38... Qd2 39. Qxf7 Qd6+ 40. e5 Qxe5+ 41. f4 Qc5 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The game below shows the minority attack (Seirawan - Smejkal 1998)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  [StartPly &quot;7&quot;]&#xA;  [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;  1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 d5 4.Nf3 Bg7 5.Bg5 Ne4 6.cxd5 Nxg5 7.Nxg5 e6 8.Nf3 exd5 9.b4 O-O 10.e3 c6 11.Bd3 Bg4 12.O-O Nd7 13.h3 Bxf3 14.Qxf3 a5 15.a3 axb4 16.axb4 Qe7 17.Rab1 Ra3 18.Rfc1 b5 19.Bxb5 cxb5 20.Nxb5 Ra4 21.Nc3 Raa8 22.Nxd5 Qd8 23.b5 Rb8 24.Rc6 Nb6 25.Nc7 Qe7 26.Na6 Rb7 27.Rbc1 Rd8 28.Rc7 Rxc7 29.Rxc7 Rd7 30.Qc6 Rxc7 31.Nxc7 Qf6 32.Kf1 Qxc6 33.bxc6 Kf8 34.Nb5 f5 35.f3 Ke7 36.Ke2 Nc8 37.Kd3 Nd6 38.Nc3 Kd8 39.Nd5 Nb5 40.g4 Nc7 41.Nf4 fxg4 42.fxg4 Ke7 43.e4 Kd6 44.d5 Be5 45.Ne2 Nxd5 46.exd5 Kxd5 47.h4 Kxc6 48.Ke4 Bf6 49.g5 Bd8 50.Ke5 Kd7 51.Nd4 Bc7+ 52.Kf6 Bg3 53.Nf3 Ke8 54.Kg7 Ke7 55.Kxh7 Kf7 56.h5 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4543" LastEditorUserId="4543" LastEditDate="2015-08-15T12:48:31.630" LastActivityDate="2015-08-15T12:48:31.630" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11036" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-08-15T14:10:05.677" Score="9" ViewCount="22986" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am confused about pawn promotion. If I promote two different pawns, can I promote them both to a queen?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8034" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2015-08-16T02:29:37.173" LastActivityDate="2021-01-03T20:43:02.177" Title="Can I promote to a queen twice?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;pawn-promotion&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11037" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11036" CreationDate="2015-08-15T16:42:35.370" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes you can. When your pawn reaches the other side of the board then you can have it replaced by any piece that you want except for another pawn or king. There is no limit on the number of pieces of the same kind. So in theory you can have 9 queens or 10 rooks :-)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4509" LastEditorUserId="4509" LastEditDate="2015-08-15T18:00:30.563" LastActivityDate="2015-08-15T18:00:30.563" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11038" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="11039" CreationDate="2015-08-15T19:38:07.733" Score="1" ViewCount="126" Body="&lt;p&gt;Which give me more advantage two Knights or two Bishops ?. And what should I choose two Rooks or a Queen ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8037" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2015-08-15T22:30:08.020" LastActivityDate="2015-08-16T15:28:30.250" Title="Which are better of these two pairs" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;material-balance&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11039" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11038" CreationDate="2015-08-15T19:45:31.360" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;On average&lt;/em&gt;, two bishops are better than two knights, but there are plenty of exceptions (e.g., a closed position where the bishops don't have room to operate).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;On average&lt;/em&gt;, two rooks are better than a queen, but there are plenty of exceptions (e.g., when the player with the rooks has a bunch of weak pawns that are easy for the queen to attack).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2015-08-15T19:45:31.360" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11040" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-08-15T20:05:11.147" Score="1" ViewCount="1668" Body="&lt;p&gt;I decided that I want to learn classical chess.  Although I'm rated in the 1400's, I want to really gain a strong understanding of basic ideas and principles in chess and improve my tactical ability.  Thus, I want to generally go for open games.  I also don't want anything theory-heavy or complex.  Just nice, simple, classical/traditional openings and/or openings that involve playing with the innitiative or defending against the innitiative that will are good for learning and also viable at the top level.  So the opening repertoire I'm going with now is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As white:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.e4 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Versus Sicilian Defence: Alapin Variation&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Versus 1...e5, Four Knights Game (regardless of 2...Nc6 or Petroff)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Versus French Defence: Tarrasch Variation which will either lead to the Rubinstein Variation or 3...Nf6, after which I'll try to get into the Nunn-Korchnoi Gambit&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Versus Pirc/Scandinavian/Caro-Kann/Alekhine/Modern: I'll just play relatively main lines and/or develop by opening principles.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As Black:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1...e5&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Versus King's Gambit: Decline with 2...Bc5&#xA;Versus Danish Gambit: Accept and defend the best I can (after I get destroyed, I'll probably look up how to do it)&#xA;Versus Italian Game: Giuoco Piano&#xA;Versus Scotch Game: Main Line with 2...Bc5&#xA;Versus Spanish Game/Ruy Lopez: Classical/Cordel Variation with 3...Bc5 &#xA;Versus Ponziani: Dish out that relatively brief line I learned yesterday from the FCO so I don't get destroyed again &#xA;Versus Four Knights Game: Play symmetrically and/or develop with opening principles&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Versus 1.d4, TRADITIONAL QUEEN'S GAMBIT DECLINED - not the Lasker Variation, but the one where you fianchetto the light-square bishop.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this a good learning repertoire?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7933" LastActivityDate="2019-05-09T10:14:51.630" Title="Classical Chess Opening Repertoire" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2019-05-09T15:20:53.300" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11041" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11038" CreationDate="2015-08-15T20:38:28.463" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Read the article &quot;Evaluation of Material Imbalances&quot; by GM Larry Kaufman:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://home.comcast.net/~danheisman/Articles/evaluation_of_material_imbalance.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;The Evaluation of Material Imbalances&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He says about the bishop pair:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The bishop pair has an average value of half a pawn (more when the&#xA;  opponent has no minor pieces to exchange for one of the bishops),&#xA;  enough to regard it as part of the material evaluation of the&#xA;  position, and enough to overwhelm most positional considerations.&#xA;  Moreover, this substantial bishop pair value holds up in all&#xA;  situations tested, regardless of what else is on the board. This large&#xA;  a bishop pair value is surprising because in the opening grandmasters&#xA;  will often give up the bishop pair to double the opponent's pawns or&#xA;  to gain a mild lead in development, factors which are generally not&#xA;  worth half a pawn [DH: Since at the very start of the game a tempo is&#xA;  worth roughly a third of a pawn - and more later! - it is worth losing&#xA;  a tempo to save the bishop pair, but if you can gain two tempo by&#xA;  giving up the bishop pair that may be worth it in the short run!]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Later, queen vs. two rooks:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Although many authors talk about queen and pawn equaling two rooks,&#xA;  this is only close to true with no minor pieces on the board; with two&#xA;  or more minors each, the queen needs no pawns to equal the rooks. I&#xA;  recall a famous Portisch-Fischer game in which Portisch &quot;won&quot; two&#xA;  rooks for Fischer's queen right out of the opening, but Fischer soon&#xA;  won a weak pawn and went on to win rather easily, despite the nominal&#xA;  point equality. In fact Fischer's annotations severely criticized&#xA;  Portisch for making the trade; Fischer understood very well that with&#xA;  lots of material on the board, the queen is every bit as good as the&#xA;  rooks, so once he won a pawn he was effectively a full pawn ahead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;His basic tables of values is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Pawn = 1&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Bishop pair = +½&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Rook =  5&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Bishop = 3¼&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Knight =  3¼&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Queen =  9¾&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7500" LastEditorUserId="7500" LastEditDate="2015-08-16T15:28:30.250" LastActivityDate="2015-08-16T15:28:30.250" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11042" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4416" CreationDate="2015-08-16T22:19:34.943" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You may try chess wizard in ipad. This app provides exactly the same kind of support. &lt;a href=&quot;https://itunes.apple.com/app/chess-wizard/id916537412?mt=8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://itunes.apple.com/app/chess-wizard/id916537412?mt=8&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8045" LastActivityDate="2015-08-16T22:19:34.943" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11043" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9659" CreationDate="2015-08-17T00:57:39.183" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;6...a6 turning it into a sort of Benko Gambit like structure.  Look up Superchessguru on youtube.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7933" LastActivityDate="2015-08-17T00:57:39.183" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11044" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11036" CreationDate="2015-08-17T10:56:13.180" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Even all 8 of them, if you manage to get them to the opposite back rank. Let's look at the relevant part in the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=171&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Laws of Chess&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;3.7e When a player, having the move, plays a pawn to the rank furthest from its starting position, he must exchange that pawn as part of the same move for a new queen, rook, bishop or knight of the same colour on the intended square of arrival.&#xA;  This is called the square of ‘promotion’. &lt;strong&gt;The player's choice is not restricted to pieces that have been captured previously.&lt;/strong&gt; This exchange of a pawn for another piece is called promotion, and the effect of the new piece is immediate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The bold emphasis is my own and probably the important part for resolving your confusion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2871" LastActivityDate="2015-08-17T10:56:13.180" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11045" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-08-17T14:40:52.973" Score="2" ViewCount="1462" Body="&lt;p&gt;A user of our community with solid experience in the game wants to teach others. There is a video broadcast in our site. I need to attach a shareable chessboard to the broadcast. Where a coach can manipulate with figures and students can see the changes simultaneously.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there any online service which allow to share a board in real time (I suppose to show it in a frame)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="30" LastEditorUserId="3270" LastEditDate="2015-08-17T14:50:26.113" LastActivityDate="2016-11-03T09:42:26.923" Title="Share a board in realtime to teach chess" Tags="&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;chessboards&gt;&lt;online&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11046" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11045" CreationDate="2015-08-17T15:35:42.187" Score="4" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is there any online service which allow to share a board in real time&#xA;  (I suppose to show it in a frame)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Have you tried sharing your desktop in a Skype conference call?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another alternative might be Google+.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2015-08-17T15:35:42.187" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11048" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="11049" CreationDate="2015-08-17T19:05:24.280" Score="1" ViewCount="924" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is part of a Lichess &lt;a href=&quot;http://ru.lichess.org/FLfYEpKd&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;game&lt;/a&gt; where I tried make to make an en passant capture-but it's impossible. &lt;strong&gt;The question is this-Why?&lt;/strong&gt; I am new to chess. I searched for the chess of rules on Wikipedia, but there was nothing specific about this case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 a6 2.d4 d6 3.Nf3 g6 4.Nc3 Bg7 5.Bd3 Nc6 6.Be3 Na5 7.O-O h6 8.Re1 Bf6 9.Qe2&#xA;b5 10.Rad1 b4 11.Nd5 Nc6 12.e5 Bxe5 13.dxe5 Bb7 14.e6 f5 *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7289" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-05-19T00:33:23.150" LastActivityDate="2019-05-19T00:33:23.150" Title="Why can I not make an en passant capture?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;en-passant&gt;&lt;captures&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="0" ClosedDate="2020-06-01T19:41:25.597" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="11049" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11048" CreationDate="2015-08-17T19:16:10.377" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;From &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess#En_passant&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt; (is this what you read?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;When a pawn advances two squares from its starting position &lt;strong&gt;and there is an opponent's pawn on an adjacent file next to its destination square&lt;/strong&gt;, then the opponent's pawn can capture it en passant (in passing), and move to the square the pawn passed over. However, this can only be done on the very next move, otherwise the right to do so is forfeit. For example, if the black pawn has just advanced two squares from g7 (initial starting position) to g5, then the white pawn on f5 may take it via en passant on g6 (but only on white's next move).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The opponent moved 14...f7-f5. There is no White pawn on e5 or g5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1761" LastActivityDate="2015-08-17T19:16:10.377" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11050" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11048" CreationDate="2015-08-17T19:23:18.663" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;If your e pawn was still on e5 then ef en passant would be a legal move but you cannot take en passant from e6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The idea behind the en passant move is that originally pawns could only move one square at a time even on the first move. Then, with the white pawn on e5 black would have to first move f6 when white could capture the pawn normally. Then, in order to speed up the game, the rules were changed to allow a pawn to move 2 squares on the first move. The trouble with this was that it was unfair on the e5 pawn in the situation where black moves f7-f5. White has lost the chance to take e5xf6 because the f pawn has gone straight to f5. To fix this unfairness the en passant (in passing) rule was introduced to allow white to take the f pawn as if it had only moved one square. Because black could have moved f6-f5 next move this en passant possibility only lasts for one move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you can see, with your pawn already on e6 if black had played f7-f6 you would not be able to take. Therefore you also cannot take with your pawn already on e6 if he plays f7-f5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2015-08-17T19:23:18.663" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11051" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-08-17T20:22:10.553" Score="5" ViewCount="741" Body="&lt;p&gt;Suppose both players have 0 seconds left on the clock, but the clock indicates that the flag of player B has fallen first, which is claimed by Player A. Player A has enough material to mate his opponent (but also no time left, that is the point!) – has he just won the game?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=171&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;The rules&lt;/a&gt; tell us (emphasisis by me):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(6.11) If both flags have fallen and &lt;strong&gt;it is impossible to establish which flag fell first&lt;/strong&gt; then:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;The game shall continue if this occurs in any period of the game except the last period.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;the game is drawn if this occurs in the period of a game in which all remaining moves must be completed.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore I &lt;em&gt;think&lt;/em&gt; Player A has won. Sadly enough the rules do not explicitly tell what happens if is possible to establish which flag fell first (or at least I was unable to find that paragraph).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4050" LastActivityDate="2015-08-20T02:00:03.813" Title="Both flags fallen: Draw?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11052" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="11055" CreationDate="2015-08-17T20:40:56.223" Score="3" ViewCount="140" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;r4rk1/pp1q1p1p/2p1b1p1/3pPp2/1P1Q1P2/P7/2PB1P1P/2KR2R1 w - - 3 14&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hey all, I've used SE for other things and I just played a Chess game and I figured this might be a good place to turn for answers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am fairly novice at chess and I was playing a timed game and this is the state of the board at the end of the online game.  Obviously White wants to force the game on dark squares and black is pushing for light squares, but given the board state I cannot see what either player can hope to accomplish without sacrificing many pieces to break down the pawn structure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What should white's objective be to try and win this game?  Can he even win if Black doesn't make any horrendous mistakes?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8053" LastActivityDate="2015-08-17T22:37:30.510" Title="What is White's objective from this state?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;pawn-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11053" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11051" CreationDate="2015-08-17T22:00:53.260" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;If your question is under standard time controls, then player A wins, because it is not the sole responsibility of player A to claim the win; in fact it is the duty of the arbiter to immediately declare the win (so in some sense, it would be unfair not to award player A a win simply because the arbiter was not around when player B's flag fell first), which is the main reason why the clock will indicate which flag fell first.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(If I recall correctly, when Carlsen lost on time against Topalov recently at the Norway 2015 event, it was the arbiter that pointed out the flag fall, without any claim by Topalov.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, in a rapidplay or quicker setting, you need to have at least one second on your own clock to claim a win on time, otherwise either player may claim a draw if both flags have fallen; the arbiter (and certainly any outside observer) will refrain from pointing out a loss on time for either player--even if both flags fall and one player gets mated (or resigns), the win result will stand if neither player notices the other's loss on time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7473" LastEditorUserId="7473" LastEditDate="2015-08-20T02:00:03.813" LastActivityDate="2015-08-20T02:00:03.813" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11055" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11052" CreationDate="2015-08-17T22:37:30.510" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;White needs to put his bishop on f6 in order to create winning chances, so a good way to start is by playing f3, planning Be1-h4-f6, followed by Qf2, with two ideas: either Qh4, Rg5-h5 (possibly with Rdg1 first if necessary), or Rg3-h3, then Rxh7, with mate in either case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first question is whether black can defend against this by moving his king to the queenside, and playing h5 at the right moment. But a more important question (as the former is a best case scenario in which white cannot lose) is whether black's counterattack on the queenside with b6 and a5 or c5 may end with white getting mated (as white's plan is slow, whereas black's counterattack is quick, though mate is not obvious).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But in any case, with the white pieces, you must realise that lines will be opened on the queenside, so black can also play for a win. The only reason why white may claim an advantage in this position is because his bishop may potentially have a future over black's, but this isn't necessarily true if black can find a good square for his bishop if and when he plays c5 and d4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So f3 and manoeuvring the bishop to f6 is white's only way to win; black has the option of defending or counterattacking. Conversely, white can attempt to establish a grip on the dark squares by playing Be3 and c3, and try to hold the position to a draw, but this seems unlikely as black will be able to crash through.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Long story short: white's plan as described is practically forced, but whether he will win or not is a different story.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7473" LastActivityDate="2015-08-17T22:37:30.510" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11057" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12502" CreationDate="2015-08-18T05:50:05.563" Score="6" ViewCount="3098" Body="&lt;p&gt;They say Botvinnik had 'scientific' approach to chess and Fischer's style was crystal-clear. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What does it mean?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could you please enunciate about the styles of these masters in a more lucid way?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4618" LastActivityDate="2018-08-31T22:26:26.273" Title="Playing Styles of Fischer and Botvinnik" Tags="&lt;fischer&gt;&lt;style&gt;&lt;botvinnik&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11058" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11057" CreationDate="2015-08-18T07:10:04.763" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I wouldn't read too much into these descriptions. We like to make up adjectives to describe great people all the time - these are not always rooted in any kind of quantifiable fact. It is not likely that you would become as good as Botvinnik by &quot;copying his style&quot;, if that even means something more than &quot;play the same openings&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Having said that, I believe that Botvinnik was, in addition to a great chess player, also a great computer scientist. He was one of the pioneers in using computers to analyze chess positions - hence a possible clue as to where the &quot;scientific&quot; angle comes from. I doubt that his chess ability was somehow contingent on this work - I think he would have been a great chess player even if he was an accountant or historian.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for &quot;crystal-clear&quot;, that sounds to me like the typical thing you would say if you are looking to praise a man of great skill without committing yourself to what you are actually saying. I mean, it's not like you can somehow &lt;em&gt;disprove&lt;/em&gt; it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1816" LastEditorUserId="1816" LastEditDate="2015-08-18T07:16:01.110" LastActivityDate="2015-08-18T07:16:01.110" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11059" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="519" CreationDate="2015-08-18T11:50:29.460" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, probably.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course a single game isn't going to be enough. But if you have several dozen serious tournament games by a top player (for example top 30) the identification should be relatively straightforward. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The opening repertoire will provide the strongest clue. If you allow players from different eras, specific variations will allow you to place games in time. Not only because fashion changes, but also because variations drop in and out of usage if certain discoveries are made. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Several dozen games might also give you are pretty accurate intrinsic performance rating. Or at least a guideline which strength is most realistic to assume. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Middle- and endgame play will only provide moderate information. Players who play those very differently probably have very different repertoires as well. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-08-18T11:50:29.460" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11060" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="11063" CreationDate="2015-08-18T11:56:09.267" Score="4" ViewCount="274" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am not asking for analysis, just want to know what are the plans that white should go for (long term / short term) given that black pawn structure is not so great. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Black to move&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;2r1k2r/p4p2/p1pqbp1p/3p4/3P4/P3P3/1PQ2PPP/2R1K1NR b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7693" LastEditorUserId="2042" LastEditDate="2015-08-18T13:10:19.863" LastActivityDate="2015-09-06T00:14:50.587" Title="White's plans from this position" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;&lt;pawn-structure&gt;&lt;planning&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11061" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7807" CreationDate="2015-08-18T12:02:05.487" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Actually FIDE publish a new chess platform named FIDE Online Area (&lt;a href=&quot;http://arena.myfide.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://arena.myfide.net/&lt;/a&gt;) . Furthermore there are several tournaments to encourage chess players to use this arena such as ; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The 1st FIDE World Online Amateur Blitz Championship 2015 &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The 1st FIDE World Online Junior Blitz Championship 2015&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The 1st FIDE World Online Women Blitz Championship 2015.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Instead, ICC(Internet Chess Club) is the most visited online chess area among professional chess players. (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessclub.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.chessclub.com/&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8056" LastActivityDate="2015-08-18T12:02:05.487" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11062" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11060" CreationDate="2015-08-18T12:05:55.383" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Putting a knight on f4 seems very strong for white. If he achieves this, black will be unable to create any counterplay.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Next, white can castle and bring his rooks into play. For instance, with Qa4, Rc5 and Rfc1. In the long run, black's weak pawns will fall quite easily.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4588" LastActivityDate="2015-08-18T12:05:55.383" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11063" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11060" CreationDate="2015-08-18T12:36:25.407" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Strategically speaking, white stands well for several reasons.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Black pawn structure is bad( 2 double pawns(isolated), d6 is&#xA;backward)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Black has bad bishop(his bishop  and pawns stands light squares mostly)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Black has less control on dark squares.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For that reason white should do these following steps;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Change the most active Black piece (Queen)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Put the knight a dark square to control light squares(most probably&#xA;f4 or c5)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Put his king a center square,&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Pressure on c or b file.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;White also can exchange 1 or 2 rooks, because black has many&#xA;weaknesses staticly.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If white will manage to pass endgame stage, he has strong initiave.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8056" LastActivityDate="2015-08-18T12:36:25.407" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11064" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="11066" CreationDate="2015-08-18T13:51:13.743" Score="2" ViewCount="925" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to know whether I understood these concepts correctly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Complication&lt;/strong&gt;:&#xA;I think, in a given position, usually the side that is slightly inferior tries to make moves that somehow put considerable strain on the better side about which action to choose. Thus it tests one's ability to clearly calculate the labyrinth of all possible variations. Generally the lesser mortal fails and hence passes on the edge to the side that created such complication. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Simplification&lt;/strong&gt;:&#xA;I presume simplification is the reverse of it. By simplification I mean reducing number of pieces while maintaining the winning edge. I suspect the general idea behind simplification is to prevent any counter-play by the opponent. I guess the side with winning advantage always tries to simplify matters while the other side indulges in complicating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it correct?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4618" LastActivityDate="2015-08-18T19:46:52.750" Title="What are Complication and Simplification in Chess?" Tags="&lt;terminology&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11065" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11060" CreationDate="2015-08-18T16:06:09.300" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Finish developing, plonk the Queen on c5 swop queens, control c5 don't get checkmated and play knight against bishop and 1-0.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4543" LastActivityDate="2015-08-18T16:06:09.300" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11066" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11064" CreationDate="2015-08-18T16:32:18.363" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think its easy to answer your question since both of these concepts can have multiple definitions depending on who you ask, but I'll give it a shot.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Generally, in the case where one side is winning, your conceptual understanding is correct. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When the position is equal, creating complications or simplifications are a matter of player preference.  For example, if Player A is rated lower than Player B, then Player A may be more apt to trade down (simplification) in order to get a drawish position.  In that case it is assumed that Player A would be content with a draw. Thus, reinforcing the statement that complications and simplifications are a matter of player preference.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7840" LastActivityDate="2015-08-18T16:32:18.363" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11067" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11040" CreationDate="2015-08-18T16:53:01.513" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;That opening repertoire looks good to me. However, I must warn you about over-focusing on opening theory at your rating level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Right now I am going through a phase where I am focusing on other areas besides opening theory.  Some of the old masters, such as Lasker, didn't even bother with it.  Although I'm not sure if he would get away with that today.  I do think that a lot of lower-rated players focus too much on opening theory.  In most of your games, opponents aren't going to be playing the books moves, so it may actually be a waste of time to learn a bunch of opening theory. Instead it may be more beneficial to REALLY learn a solid set of chess principles, and even more importantly &lt;strong&gt;patterns&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7840" LastActivityDate="2015-08-18T16:53:01.513" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11068" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11064" CreationDate="2015-08-18T19:46:52.750" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your simplification is mostly correct, in a sense... It is almost always better to exchange pieces if you have the advantage, the less pieces your opponent has the less likely he is to successfully plot a counter attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for your complication, it is slightly more complicated than that ( :P ). For starters there are multiple types of players in the world, even though chess player might seem similar they vary greatly! For example, the 8th world champion Mikhail Tal was called the Magician of Riga, he wasn't the calculator-y type, in fact he was instinctive... Which begs the question... Are calculations all there is to a position in chess? Unfortunately on this specific topic opinions vary, one side says no, the other says yes. Personally I think there's more to it than just pure calculation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When complications arise in a chess match, the players usually think about more than just the moves themselves! In fact they think about their opponent, and not just in terms of what they are planning to do, but what they thinking and feel! In many games players have failed and lost position they were superior in due to their psychological state (anxiety, stress, excitement, the list goes on).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So to answer you question... Your Simplification is mostly correct, but the complication part will make more sense as you play in real tournaments and things expand beyond the board you play your match on. Hope I helped :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6966" LastActivityDate="2015-08-18T19:46:52.750" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11069" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="11077" CreationDate="2015-08-18T20:14:31.317" Score="2" ViewCount="397" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am new here, and I am doing research for academic purposes. I am looking for examples of positions where I can distinguish a strategic move from a tactical move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can somebody give me examples of positions and next moves where the next move is &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a) a strategic move&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;b) a tactical move&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8060" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2015-08-19T08:51:21.247" LastActivityDate="2015-08-19T14:52:51.770" Title="How to distinct a strategical move from a tactical move?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11071" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="11073" CreationDate="2015-08-19T11:52:17.203" Score="5" ViewCount="553" Body="&lt;p&gt;From the given position, &lt;strong&gt;is it better to take with rook or the a-pawn and why ?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Black to move&lt;/em&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The engine suggested the move &lt;code&gt;axb4&lt;/code&gt;, why?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There must be some strategical or tactical point (ignore the arrows in the diagram).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ArHF8.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ArHF8.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7693" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-05-03T21:19:15.853" LastActivityDate="2017-05-03T21:19:15.853" Title="Choosing one move from the two moves" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;middlegame&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11072" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="11082" CreationDate="2015-08-19T12:03:51.703" Score="2" ViewCount="183" Body="&lt;p&gt;The endgame is shown in diagram, and I have also submitted the moves from the actual game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I want to know if any side can win, or is it really a draw. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Support your claims with illustrative lines, please. Thank you.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Black to move&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;8/6p1/1pBnk1p1/pPp2pP1/P2P1P1P/2K5/8/8 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1...c4 2.Bf3 Ke7 3.Be2 Ke6 4.Bxc4+ Nxc4+ 5.Kxc4 Kd6 6.d5 Ke7 7.Kd4 Kd6 8.Kc4 Ke7 9.Kd3 Kd7 10.Kd4 Kd6=&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;EDIT:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I must publicly apologize to user &lt;em&gt;Ken Wei&lt;/em&gt; for unaccepting his answer. This is never a polite thing to do, and I will understand if there will be hard feelings. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I thought that he checked the lines with the computer, but it doesn't seem so. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;User &lt;em&gt;Matt&lt;/em&gt; pointed out refutation of user &lt;em&gt;Ken Wei&lt;/em&gt;'s answer. That is why I have unaccepted the answer, because I want to know the truth -&gt; can any side win or is it a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore I urge future posters to prove their claims &lt;strong&gt;with concrete lines&lt;/strong&gt; so we can avoid unpleasant scenarios.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastEditorUserId="2042" LastEditDate="2015-08-19T21:54:56.070" LastActivityDate="2015-08-19T22:00:15.450" Title="Can not determine the result of this endgame" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11073" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11071" CreationDate="2015-08-19T12:04:36.853" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;After axb4 the a2-pawn is a fixed weakness that can easily be further attacked with Ra8. Defending this pawn will force whites heavy pieces into passive positions. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Taking with the queen or the rook on b4 will allow Rb1 with a rook exchange. Even if this rook exchange happens on b4 and therefore creates the same pawn structure as after an immediate axb4, the defence of a weak a-pawn will be much easier without the rooks. In fact white might be able to exchange the a-pawn for the b-pawn relatively quickly. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-08-19T12:04:36.853" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11074" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11071" CreationDate="2015-08-19T12:14:52.217" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my opinion, capturing with the pawn is the correct move, and the logic behind the move is twofold and more of a strategic one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, you remove a weakness of your own. Black's &lt;code&gt;a&lt;/code&gt; pawn is an isolated one and it creates a pawn island of its own. Therefore, after capturing with the pawn, you no longer have any isolated pawns and you've only got just one pawn island, instead of two (typically a pawn structure with less pawn islands is superior to a pawn structure one with more pawn islands).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, capturing with the pawn exposes a weakness in the White camp, namely the &lt;code&gt;a&lt;/code&gt; pawn. It is also an isolated pawn and by capturing with the &lt;code&gt;b&lt;/code&gt; pawn Black opens a file against it (creates a target) and can later in the game exploit the weakness by adding pressure along the opened &lt;code&gt;a&lt;/code&gt; file.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2329" LastActivityDate="2015-08-19T12:14:52.217" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11075" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11072" CreationDate="2015-08-19T12:28:06.010" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In order to have a chance of winning, the white king has to be able to move to e5. By moving Kd6 if and only if white Kd4, black keeps the game a clear draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5835" LastActivityDate="2015-08-19T12:28:06.010" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11077" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11069" CreationDate="2015-08-19T13:43:11.643" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The difference between a tactical or a strategic/positional move lies in its justification. Almost all good moves have a positional and a tactical justification, otherwise they may be tactical or positional mistakes. The exception, of course, are moves that lead to mate or a big material advantage, those could probably be called purely tactical moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which justification is more important to you depends on your abilities and your style. If the tactical justification of a move is obvious to you, it might seem like a purely positional move. On the other hand if a move has a deep strategic idea, but requires complicated calculation, you may regard it as a tactical move. I'll give you an example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;White to move&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;rnb1kb1r/pp3ppp/2p1q3/4P2n/4Np2/5N2/PPP1Q1PP/R1B1KB1R w KQkq - 1 10&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.g4 Qxg4 2.Rg1 Qe6 3.Rg5 g6 4.Rxh5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;g4 may strike you as a very tactical move: It is a pawn sacrifice and its justification involves a lot of calculation including an exchange sacrifice. But the final goal is really very strategic: Conquering the dark squares, especially f6 and f4. White is winning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Incidentally this is the big difference between computer chess and human chess: For a computer every move is a tactical move. Every move is justified by the calculation of variations. For humans this is a gradual thing and if you are looking for purely tactical moves you should focus on combinations with a very clear result.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want only a crude distinction I would propose to let an engine calculate a few moves: If a move is only viable after a certain search depth, you can call it tactical. Every move viable even at very low ply would be strategic/positional.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-08-19T13:43:11.643" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11078" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11072" CreationDate="2015-08-19T13:43:32.217" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The final position is a draw, and is a case of opposition/corresponding squares. Black simply waits along c7-d7-e7, and plays Kd6 whenever white plays Kd4. (Although for future reference, you may notice that white can gain the opposition by sacrificing his pawn with d6, and meeting Kxd6 with Kd4, but in this case it doesn't win as the b6 pawn covers the entry point on c5; it would work if all the queenside pawns were shifted one rank towards the white side.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is crucial to recognise this idea from black's perspective, because it means that once the pawn on c4 is taken and the pieces are exchanged, white cannot win, so you need not calculate specific lines once you realise this: in particular, playing 3.Bd5 or 3.d5 for white makes no difference.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hence white cannot win after 1...c4. To be specific for black: play c4, leave the knight on d6 and wait with your king. You need not worry about losing in lines where white plays h5, because after gxh5 Bxh5, the f5 pawn is protected by the knight (so Bg6 is not a threat), and e5 can be covered by the king in the pawn ending (so g6 does not win for white either, and in fact might even lose, but that argument is completely irrelevant).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black certainly cannot win at any point: his knight is almost completely dominated by the white bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7473" LastEditorUserId="7473" LastEditDate="2015-08-19T14:00:26.403" LastActivityDate="2015-08-19T14:00:26.403" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11079" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11069" CreationDate="2015-08-19T14:44:22.787" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think there is a definitive answer to your question. I've heard the argument that all moves are ultimately tactical - chess engines, which today play better chess than any human, mainly rely on tactical considerations via hard calculation for evaluating moves. (Yes I know they also have positional characteristics built in but these are typically rather primitive).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Humans play chess differently from modern computers though - we rely more on pattern recognition than raw calculation power. Perhaps one workable definition of a strategic move is one where we apply a move based on a memorized pattern without having a clear material pay-off. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, I tend to have good results if I manage to get a knight on protected outpost in my enemy's territory, especially behind the flanking pawns. By no means is this a hard rule, but whenever my opponent advances his pawns aggressively I try to look for these kind of squares. Similarly it always seems like tactical opportunities present themselves whenever I have a rook (or even better, a double rook) on an open file.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm sure many would disagree - perhaps getting your knight on a good square is but a tactical consideration after all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1816" LastEditorUserId="1816" LastEditDate="2015-08-19T14:52:51.770" LastActivityDate="2015-08-19T14:52:51.770" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11080" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="11081" CreationDate="2015-08-19T18:18:00.307" Score="2" ViewCount="223" Body="&lt;p&gt;I read from &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess-insights.com/rook-vs-single-pawn.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this website&lt;/a&gt; (example 2) that you can win the game in the following situation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Black to move - Black's POV&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;8/8/8/5PK1/1r1k4/8/8/8 b - - 0 59&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I play as black. I want to keep the rook and king to win the game, and prevent him from queening. I can't let my rook be captured.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But he doesn't finish the game. He just says &quot;And in this position you'll always be able to win the pawn and the game.&quot; But I don't see how I can intrude with my king to the queening square.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How can this game play out?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7387" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2015-08-19T19:39:57.160" LastActivityDate="2015-08-19T19:39:57.160" Title="How to Win King vs Pawn in this Situation" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;rook-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11081" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11080" CreationDate="2015-08-19T18:57:09.313" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You don't necessarily have to intrude with your king to the queening square. &#xA;You really need 3 things - &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Get the king close to the pawn&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Control the pawn's advancing square with both pieces &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Capture the pawn&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, in this case, &#xA;Ke5 followed by Rf4 will achieve steps 1 and 2. Then you can capture the pawn and win. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, for e.g. &#xA;1... Ke5&#xA;2. f6 Rf4&#xA;3. Kg6 Rxf6+&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2429" LastActivityDate="2015-08-19T18:57:09.313" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11082" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11072" CreationDate="2015-08-19T20:46:38.217" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;OK:&#xA;1... c4 2. Bf3 Ke7 3. Bd5 Kd7 4. Bg8 Ke7 5.Bh7(!!) seems to win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5... Kf7 6.d5 N somewhere and the King penetrates.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Black to move&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;8/6p1/1pBnk1p1/pPp2pP1/P2P1P1P/2K5/8/8 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... c4 2. Bg2! (2.Bf3 Ne4+! 3.Kxc4 (3.Kc2 Kd5-+) 3...Nd2+ 4.Kd3 Nxf3-+) 2... Ke7 3. Bd5 Kd7 4. Bg8 Ke7 5.Bh7! Kf7 6.d5+-&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8066" LastEditorUserId="2042" LastEditDate="2015-08-19T22:00:15.450" LastActivityDate="2015-08-19T22:00:15.450" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11083" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11051" CreationDate="2015-08-19T21:19:01.513" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;For USCF, in general Rule 14G applies. &quot;The game is drawn if both flags are down in sudden death time control and either player points this out.&quot;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3183" LastActivityDate="2015-08-19T21:19:01.513" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11086" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11071" CreationDate="2015-08-19T22:31:07.420" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would take the rook with the pawn, because it allows you to move the rook to the corner and then pressure the white queen with your queen, in other words&#xA;Ra8&#xA;(black does whatever)&#xA;Qa2&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8067" LastActivityDate="2015-08-19T22:31:07.420" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11088" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2015-08-19T22:37:33.913" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2015-08-19T22:37:33.913" LastActivityDate="2015-08-19T22:37:33.913" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11089" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2015-08-19T22:37:33.913" Score="0" Body="Questions relating to developing a strategy while in a game" OwnerUserId="8067" LastEditorUserId="8067" LastEditDate="2015-08-20T23:50:06.437" LastActivityDate="2015-08-20T23:50:06.437" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11090" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9881" CreationDate="2015-08-19T22:45:18.840" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm rated about 2000 USCF and have been a Caro Kann player for 10ish years.  I really loved both Peter Wells 'Grandmaster Secrets: The Caro Kann' and Joe Gallagher's 'Starting Out: The Caro Kann'.  Both provide really superior explanation along with the moves.  I don't think that you want to dive into Schandorff as a first time Caro Kann player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8066" LastEditorUserId="8066" LastEditDate="2015-08-24T21:00:19.373" LastActivityDate="2015-08-24T21:00:19.373" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11091" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-08-20T16:54:53.410" Score="1" ViewCount="178" Body="&lt;p&gt;I always gave up when I have exactly a king, one knight, and one bishop, while my opponent had a king, one rook, one/two knights, and two/one bishops (respectively). Is my decision correct, because I felt I cannot do anything with those 3 pieces, while my opponent had those 5 pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8074" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2015-08-21T21:17:38.817" LastActivityDate="2015-08-24T21:07:36.227" Title="Is my decision correct?" Tags="&lt;material-balance&gt;&lt;resigning&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11092" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="11097" CreationDate="2015-08-20T19:13:58.803" Score="2" ViewCount="463" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm developing a chess game and for the Elo system I want to know recommendations for the starting Elo level for the users.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8075" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2015-08-20T23:49:30.587" LastActivityDate="2015-08-21T08:09:51.563" Title="Starting Elo in FIDE system for new chess game" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;elo&gt;&lt;fide&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11093" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11091" CreationDate="2015-08-20T19:18:31.563" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you feel that if you could change seats with your opponent and play his side and win then your decision was correct. He was good enough to get such a big advantage. If you could win from his position then, likely, so can he.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If, on the other hand, you don't know how you would win if you could swap positions, then don't resign. It could be that he doesn't know how to win either. Instead try and work out how to make his task as difficult as possible. It may be that you can get a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2015-08-20T19:18:31.563" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11094" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11091" CreationDate="2015-08-21T00:10:49.257" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recommend that you keep playing until you see an inevitable loss. There is always a possibility that your opponent could make a mistake that could win you the game or at least draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8078" LastActivityDate="2015-08-21T00:10:49.257" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11095" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="11108" CreationDate="2015-08-21T08:03:00.177" Score="2" ViewCount="1189" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't play club chess or tournaments, how can I determine my ELO strength? &#xA;I often play on chess.com how well does it compare to the FIDE system? (I am aware that one cannot account for people cheating online)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="853" LastActivityDate="2019-12-28T23:40:21.713" Title="Determine ELO strength without playing in FIDE tournaments" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;elo&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11096" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11060" CreationDate="2015-08-21T08:03:12.287" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's not so clear cut. White is behind in development and has weak pawns, which can be attacked immediately, on b2 and g2. I think the game is still finely balanced with everything still to play for.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Given a free hand black is going to play moves like Rg8, attacking the g pawn, Kd7, connecting the rooks and overprotecting c6 and at some stage Rb8 attacking the weak b pawn. If white reacts to the threat to the g pawn with g3 then this simply improves black's bishop leaving many white squared weaknesses in white's position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure an immediate Qc5 is the answer either. Black will look to moves like Qc7 (keeping queens on), Kd7 (protecting the weak c6 pawn and covering the white queen's entrance squares), Qb6 (pressuring the weak b pawn and offering an exchange of queens which improves his pawn structure).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can white afford to play Qa4 going for the a6 pawn? It can't be defended but white is behind in development and black is going to take advantage with moves like Bf5 (bringing his bishop to life on the much better b1-h7 diagonal), Rc7, connecting the rooks with either O-O or Kd7 and then Rb8. I'm not sure the a6 pawn is worth all that extra coordination that black's pieces get in exchange.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe white needs a more conservative approach with moves like f3, Kf2, Ne2 completing his development, protecting the weak g2 and eyeing up f4 for his knight. Black's long term weaknesses aren't going away.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2015-08-21T08:03:12.287" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11097" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11092" CreationDate="2015-08-21T08:09:51.563" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your starting Elo will influence how well your Elo compares to Fide Elo, USCF Elo, or the rating of other sites. The internal functioning as rating isn't affected at all. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to stay close to Fide Elo you could perhaps ask the user to rank himself (and then subtract 100 points … ;-)). Otherwise you'll have to guess what the average Fide Elo of a user might be. So that depends on whether you cater to beginners or to experienced club players and is probably the reason why starting Elo varies between 1200 and 1800 on different sites.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-08-21T08:09:51.563" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11098" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11095" CreationDate="2015-08-21T10:58:29.740" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The only way to get an accurate estimate of your Elo strength is to actually get an Elo rating. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you accuracy isn't that important you could take &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.elometer.net&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;a test like this&lt;/a&gt;. There are surely others somewhere. For example in some books (unfortunately I only know &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.amazon.de/Lehr--%C3%9Cbungs--Testbuch-Schachkombinationen-Colditz/dp/3283003025/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;a non-English example&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Concerning the chess.com rating: In my experience your Elo should be a bit higher than your chess.com rating, but tournament games and internet blitz can be very different.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-08-21T10:58:29.740" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11099" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11031" CreationDate="2015-08-21T10:59:14.430" Score="4" Body="&lt;ol start=&quot;12&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;b3 Nh5 following &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;fxe4 leading to losing your knight (did not see the discovered attack)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Qxh5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To save the knight you would have needed to play pawn g6 on 13. instead of playing dxe4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Playing back to Nf6 will get you forked with white moving pawn to e5 on move 14.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is all down the hill from then on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also on 31.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Moving the King out into the wild is also problematic as you saw with the pinned bishop and the checkmate with the rook!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="853" LastEditorUserId="853" LastEditDate="2015-08-21T11:19:39.383" LastActivityDate="2015-08-21T11:19:39.383" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11100" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="11101" CreationDate="2015-08-21T15:16:44.390" Score="3" ViewCount="266" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have two questions related to defining distances in chess. On &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxicab_geometry#Measures_of_distances_in_chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this wiki page&lt;/a&gt;, this subject is briefly touched, by saying that the taxicab (also called Manhattan) distance is used for rooks, which as &lt;a href=&quot;https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Manhattan-Distance&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;shown here&lt;/a&gt;, is given by: |a_2-_a_1|+|b_2-b_1| where (a1,b1) is the coordinate of first square, and (a2,b2) that of the second. Now this is easy to see because the chessboard can be mapped to xy coordinate system, with square a1 being (1,1), etc. But for the bishops, it says, that the taxicab distance is again used with the difference of only counting squares of same color and by rotating the chessboard 45 degrees, while using the diagonals as axes now. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Is there a simple formula giving the taxicab distance for bishops similar to that of rooks, using coordinates? &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Lastly, the same article mentions the Chebyshev distance (minimum number of moves for the king to go from one square to another), being used for both the kings and queens on board. But knowing the queen moves both like the bishops and rooks, wouldn't a variant of the taxicab distance be more meaningful here? &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Any links, or literature suggestions on such ideas (defining distances etc) in chess, would be much appreciated.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8082" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2015-08-21T15:58:26.573" LastActivityDate="2015-08-21T15:58:26.573" Title="Taxicab distance for bishops" Tags="&lt;pieces&gt;&lt;mathematics&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11101" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11100" CreationDate="2015-08-21T15:24:50.007" Score="4" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;It would seem to be max( |a_2-a_1|, |b_2-b_1| ). Whichever of the horizontal or vertical distances is greater, the bishop will always travel over at least that many squares and does not need to travel over any more than that many squares.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;This article seems to use distance to mean &quot;number of squares passed over while moving the piece from the source to the destination&quot;. In that sense the distance from a1 to c3 for a queen is 2 (Chebyshev distance), not 4 (Manhattan distance); it goes to b2 and then c3, not through b1, c1, and c2.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2015-08-21T15:24:50.007" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11102" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11091" CreationDate="2015-08-21T16:52:45.330" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Imagine the position  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;5K1k/8/8/3BN3/8/6n1/6nb/5b1r b - - 0 59&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and you (=white) to move. There is a simple win for white in two moves..... &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But of course in 99.9% of all such positions you are lost...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So never give up using generic principles but on the result of analysis of the concrete position...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8083" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2015-08-21T18:03:17.293" LastActivityDate="2015-08-21T18:03:17.293" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11103" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2806" CreationDate="2015-08-21T17:39:53.187" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;To force the knight into a corner a piece must be sacrificed. 3 knight tours, 4 corners per tour, so that's 12 White pieces that must be lost. And none of the lost pieces can be knights (from where did it get there to give check?).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8084" LastActivityDate="2015-08-21T17:39:53.187" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11104" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-08-21T19:25:31.987" Score="2" ViewCount="296" Body="&lt;p&gt;So each day I practice a different tactic.  So my tactics training regimen is like this (Chess Tempo)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Day 1:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5 problems - (standard) specific tactical motif (i.e. discovered attack, sacrifice, fork/double attack, etc) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5 problems - blitz&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5 problems - mixed&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Day 2:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5 problems - (standard) specific mate type&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5 problems - &quot;problems I've gotten wrong at least once&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5 problems - standard&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And I alternate everyday doing that.  I keep a log to record how well I am doing.  If over three consecutive runs of the same tactic, I end up scoring a 13 (out of 15) or better, I will up the difficulty by 200 points (right now I have all the specific tactic-type sets limited to 1400-1700).  My Chess Tempo standard tactics rating is around 1600.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Right now, I am not even done with one round, but so far I have this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Advanced Pawn   5&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Attraction  3&#xA;Avoiding Perpetual  2&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Avoiding Stalemate  3&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Back Rank Mate  3&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Blocking    4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Capturing Defender  2&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Clearance   2&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Coercion    3&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Counting    3&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Defensive Move  1&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Desperado   3&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Discovered Attack   3&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Distraction 4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Double Check    2&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Exposed King    4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mate - Anastasia's  3&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mate - Balestra's   1&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mate - Arabian  5&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mate - Backburne's  5&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mate - Boden's  4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mate - Damiano's    5&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mate - Damiano's Bishop 4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mate - Double Bishop    5&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mate - Dovetail 4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mate - Dovetail - Bishop    4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mate - Epaulette    3&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mate - Escalator    3&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mate - Greco's  3&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What can you deduce from my performance in various tactics types, in terms of my strengths and weaknesses as a player (tactically)?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7933" LastActivityDate="2020-01-18T03:58:35.020" Title="What can you deduce from my performance in different types of chess tactics?" Tags="&lt;tactics&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11105" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6315" CreationDate="2015-08-21T21:17:38.373" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Maybe you won't belive this but I have started chess at age of 25, just like you. I was playing in online in the chess.com, my rating at the begining was not more than 800!!! I was very weak. When I reached a rating like 900 to 950 I was feeling great and I was thinking that I have accived an increadible succes. But now Im 26 and a half, and now my rating at blitz chess is 1500 to 1550!!! That means I have earned 700 points in 1 year 5 mounts. But I dont think that I can become a GM. Because Its too late for doing that. But I know If I will play the game like 10 more years I can become a player who is rated more than 1800! So ofcourse you can become a very good chess player if you play as much as I did(I have played more than 5.000 games). 25 is never too late for becoming a serious player. Or maybe you can become a GM if you are talented who knows.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8086" LastActivityDate="2015-08-21T21:17:38.373" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11106" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-08-22T03:11:12.040" Score="5" ViewCount="726" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've made a small program that takes a list of moves in ICCF notation and translates them to the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;SAN&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;FAN&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;LAN&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;MAN&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;RAN&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;CRAN&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Smith&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Descriptive&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Coordinate&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;ICCF&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, a starting move of &lt;code&gt;2133&lt;/code&gt; (&lt;code&gt;Nc3&lt;/code&gt; in SAN):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;SAN  FAN  LAN     MAN  RAN     CRAN  Smith  Descriptive  Coord  ICCF  Comments&#xA;Nc3  ♘c3  Nb1-c3  Nc3  Nb1-c3  Nc3   b1c3   QN1N-QB3     B1-C3  2133&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately, I'm having some difficulty understanding a few of the rules of the various notation formats (especially Descriptive - as you can see, it doesn't currently omit the unambiguous ranks/files because I haven't implemented the check for unambiguous &lt;em&gt;destination&lt;/em&gt; ranks/files yet... so it's possibly a bit too descriptive). For example, checks (e.g. &lt;code&gt;+&lt;/code&gt;) are added to the end of a move, but promotions (e.g. &lt;code&gt;Q&lt;/code&gt;) are also added to the end of a move. What if both happen at the same time? For that particular situation, I'm pretty sure the check is listed after the promotion indicator, but I'm even more sure that there are other situations I'm not even thinking of.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What I'm hoping for (and haven't been able to find with a few Google searches, as I don't even know what search terms would produce it if it existed) is a sample game with moves that create these uncommon notations, so that I can input them into my program as a kind of test suite, see what it produces, and check the results. Alternatively, a simple list of these situations (e.g. &quot;a pawn that captures a piece into a promotion, for a check&quot;) would be good too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If, once I've done that, I can't tell if the program's output is even correct, I'll ask a separate question about it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7229" LastActivityDate="2016-03-20T16:56:04.647" Title="Moves to test a notation generator" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;notation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11107" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11091" CreationDate="2015-08-22T21:36:45.553" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Don't think like you just have knight and bishop only. You still have knight and bishop.  There are many possibilities that you can make a pin using bishop or make a fork using knight. Fork is the best thing to find in this situations. There are many chances to win the match. Also as always there are chances that your opponent make blunder. The key is to be alert for blunders and find pins and fork. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8089" LastActivityDate="2015-08-22T21:36:45.553" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11108" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11095" CreationDate="2015-08-22T22:44:56.853" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is going to sound tautological, but Elo is inherently a measure of how you do in tournaments. Your question is sort of like asking &quot;I don't run, how can I determine how fast I can run a mile?&quot; We could guess from how generally fit you look, but in reality you just have to go run a mile to find out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are correlations between various online ratings and a FIDE rating, but they're just correlations; the context of how you play online is very different from playing live (for one thing, online games are usually much faster).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can tell you that the first time you play in a live tournament you will likely perform 100-200 points worse than you might expect from such a correlation, just because you're not used to the environment of a face-to-face tournament (moving real pieces, using a clock, writing down your moves, having your opponent right there in front of you, being distracted by other games). Luckily it does not take long to settle in.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2015-08-22T22:44:56.853" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11109" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="11110" CreationDate="2015-08-23T02:21:29.957" Score="7" ViewCount="629" Body="&lt;p&gt;Suppose Black has only one king in its initial place and White has all 16 pieces in their initial places. How many steps does it take to ensure a checkmate? And what are all solutions?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now that White changes his position with Black. White has only one king. Then How many steps does it take to ensure a checkmate? And what are all solutions?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8093" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-03-08T17:12:51.790" LastActivityDate="2021-03-08T17:12:51.790" Title="How many steps to mate the only king with all pieces?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;problems&gt;&lt;checkmate&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11110" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11109" CreationDate="2015-08-23T08:43:10.267" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your first question: It takes &lt;strong&gt;6 moves&lt;/strong&gt; to mate the black king. &#xA;The only move is &lt;strong&gt;1.e2-e4&lt;/strong&gt;. All other white moves would take more than 6 moves... Also after 1.e2-e4 there are a lot of variations to long to post it right here. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The simplest way is to get the details and answer the second question yourself is using the program &lt;strong&gt;popeye&lt;/strong&gt;, see &lt;a href=&quot;http://sourceforge.net/projects/popeye-chess/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://sourceforge.net/projects/popeye-chess/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Final remark: There is a well known chess problem with white initial position and black king on h4. How to mate in 3 (white to move...)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8083" LastEditorUserId="8083" LastEditDate="2015-08-23T09:19:24.707" LastActivityDate="2015-08-23T09:19:24.707" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11112" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="11122" CreationDate="2015-08-23T18:30:00.290" Score="4" ViewCount="15696" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am looking for a relatively large PGN-formatted database (with at least 500k+ games), that is downloadable, with possibly the following properties:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Simple formatted (no time indication after moves, etc), i.e. game info headers on top, followed by the moves, an example: &lt;em&gt;(it doesn't have to contain all the headers of this example)&lt;/em&gt;  &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/v0WsW.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/v0WsW.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Few such, but very small (2-3 thousand games) databases can be found &lt;a href=&quot;http://chessproblem.my-free-games.com/chess/games/Download-PGN.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;It would be preferential if the database was diverse, for example not being only composed of man vs. machine games or somesuch. No real constraint on the ratings, whether the levels (amateur to super grandmaster) are fairly balanced or whether it's a 2000+ rating database.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Although a single-file database would be easiest to work with, say for parsing purposes, one that is divided onto multiple PGN files would also be perfectly fine, as long as they were formatted similarly and did not contain too many duplicates.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In other posts, one mentioned database with similar properties to the above is the ICOFY database, but unfortunately it does not seem to be maintained any longer, nor can a trustworthy download link for it be found. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3594" LastActivityDate="2019-08-20T10:19:51.937" Title="Freely available PGN databases" Tags="&lt;pgn&gt;&lt;database&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11113" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11112" CreationDate="2015-08-23T18:58:46.087" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here! Indexed by openings ECO code. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.logicalchess.com/learn/lessons/openings/pgndb/index.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.logicalchess.com/learn/lessons/openings/pgndb/index.html&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4543" LastActivityDate="2015-08-23T18:58:46.087" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11114" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-08-24T00:41:10.950" Score="1" ViewCount="191" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why would black move their knight (b8) to d7 vs taking the bishop (f5) with the queen? Click the link to see an interactive version, can someone explain this to me, I see no reason for black to lose their queen?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/h13c5.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/h13c5.png&quot; alt=&quot;board&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chesscademy.com/tactics/10326&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Source&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8097" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-09-29T09:50:21.233" LastActivityDate="2017-09-29T09:50:21.233" Title="Chesscademy Tactic" Tags="&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;puzzles&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11115" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11114" CreationDate="2015-08-24T01:12:13.560" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If Black takes the bishop on &lt;code&gt;f5&lt;/code&gt; then White plays &lt;code&gt;Qd8&lt;/code&gt; with checkmate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black plays &lt;code&gt;Nd7&lt;/code&gt; in order to prevent checkmate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastActivityDate="2015-08-24T01:12:13.560" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11116" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-08-24T03:20:49.617" Score="5" ViewCount="560" Body="&lt;p&gt;How suitable would these variants for beginning players?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;First to check wins&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-check_chess&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Three-Check Chess&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;First to take king wins&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All other rules being equal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8098" LastActivityDate="2019-11-25T23:08:45.303" Title="Simple chess variants for beginners" Tags="&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;beginner&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11117" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11116" CreationDate="2015-08-24T08:16:26.790" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;First of all, I think the question is largely opinion based. However, I'll try to answer from my own experience about the X-check variants, as some matters about the chess variants can be described and judged objectively. If you are asking whether the variants are suitable to be taught to beginners (in terms of rule simplicity), then sure, they are. If you are asking whether or not they would benefit the beginners by improving their normal chess play, then I'd say no - they would only give them wrong ideas and confuse them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My reasoning for the statement above is, that the &quot;first to X checks&quot; variants employ opening theory and tactics completely different from normal chess; very few ideas from these variants can be taken over to normal chess. For instance, one of normal opening play ideas (dominate the center with pawns) seems to perform very poorly in the X-check games, as it puts the king in danger of checks. There are many situations where a single bad move very early on in the opening leads to a forced loss (see for example the wiki article you linked; this is also akin to losers chess). Thus, in order to survive, one must employ strange pawn structures, completely unsuitable for normal chess. Additionally, one often sacrifices piece(s) just to get that check in - again, not really applicable to normal chess. In normal chess, such sacrifices are useless, unless they lead to a forced win/advantage, whereas in X-check chess, you have to defend against them, as each one brings the rival closer to victory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The third variant, as BlindKungFuMaster noted, is basically normal chess. I'd recommend to keep it simple in the beginning, just do normal chess. Try chess variants only after learning the basic concepts and good practices of normal chess - then it is interesting to compare how they do or do not work in the variants.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3831" LastEditorUserId="3831" LastEditDate="2015-08-24T09:03:43.443" LastActivityDate="2015-08-24T09:03:43.443" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11118" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-08-24T08:54:43.273" Score="12" ViewCount="1556" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to know what a grandmaster does to earn a living, because if he has a 2600 rating then he is not able to win many tournaments.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8101" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-10-04T01:47:55.803" LastActivityDate="2020-10-04T01:47:55.803" Title="What do 2600 level grandmasters do to earn a living?" Tags="&lt;grandmaster&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="11119" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11118" CreationDate="2015-08-24T09:32:54.737" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe you meant a rating of 2600 not 1600, the most common way is Coaching. Coaching rates can be as high as 100 usd per session(1.5-2hrs) with a grandmaster of that level or as low as about 35-40 usd(each session). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7391" LastActivityDate="2015-08-24T09:32:54.737" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11120" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8933" CreationDate="2015-08-24T13:17:41.033" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just saw this example composed by Jim Plaskett:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/3P3k/n2K3p/2p3n1/1b4N1/2p1p1P1/8/3B4 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's a famous endgame problem.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I left Stockfish running for a few minutes and so far the best move it has found is 1.d8Q with an evaluation of -1.5. However this is not the best move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The best move is 1.Nf6, which after a few minutes has an evaluation of -4.5, but is actually winning for white.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUk_zWrbcsM&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; for a full analysis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="45" LastActivityDate="2015-08-24T13:17:41.033" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11121" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11118" CreationDate="2015-08-24T15:17:10.533" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Adding to Rickka's answer: Coaching, books, articles/reviews/analysis for chess magazines/web sites, commentary, participation in smaller tournaments (both for the prize money and appearance fee) and simuls are common avenues of income for GM's.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Acting as a second for a super GM is also quite common. Super GM's can afford to &quot;outsource&quot; some brunt work like studying opponent openings/styles and providing a practice board for novel ideas. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some 2600+ GM's also have normal non-chess related jobs. &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Sadler&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Matthew Sadler&lt;/a&gt; works in IT, for example, and considers chess as a hobby. I also saw a brief inset on a woman IM (unfortunately I can't remember her name now) who works in marketing for a company that likes the prestige of being associated with chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1816" LastEditorUserId="1816" LastEditDate="2015-08-25T06:34:08.560" LastActivityDate="2015-08-25T06:34:08.560" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11122" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11112" CreationDate="2015-08-24T19:30:44.640" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Do not know if it really suits you but on &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.theweekinchess.com/twic&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.theweekinchess.com/twic&lt;/a&gt; you can download a lot of PGN files. I once saw an explanation how somebody used this to create an opening book out of it. I could not find one big file with all games but there are quite a lot of files that date back to 25/06/2012. You can always make 1 big file out of it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4509" LastActivityDate="2015-08-24T19:30:44.640" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11123" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11091" CreationDate="2015-08-24T21:07:36.227" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Accepting that you don't have a trick that saves you they should be 'technically' lost, but in my experience even master-level players can (rarely) make mistakes in these kind of positions because as mentioned these positions without pawns don't arise often. Maybe you will lose 95% of 'regular' positions like this, probably even more, but that small percentage of saves seems worth a fight in my opinion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8066" LastActivityDate="2015-08-24T21:07:36.227" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11125" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9357" CreationDate="2015-08-25T17:09:05.087" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Usually when games cannot be found on free databases, Chessbase is the only way forward. I found this game on Megabase 2014.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8109" LastActivityDate="2015-08-25T17:09:05.087" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11126" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11118" CreationDate="2015-08-25T17:12:49.343" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Usually not playing chess, stock market traders/hedge funds eg McShane, IT eg Sadler, secretary for millionaire eg Jeron Piket, business eg Lautier.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8109" LastActivityDate="2015-08-25T17:12:49.343" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11127" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11118" CreationDate="2015-08-26T01:18:56.990" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just want to add that in many countries, chess is considered as a sport and those grandmasters are paid by the government. For example, the top Chinese players receives stable income from the government. The money they receive is definitely not impressive, but it's better than nothing. Not every country does that, at least as know the US doesn't believe a chess player should be paid by the taxpayers' money.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2015-08-26T01:18:56.990" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11128" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9881" CreationDate="2015-08-26T01:41:01.363" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Jovanka Houska's new book &quot;Opening Repertoire: the Caro-Kann&quot; is also very good, but like Schandorff's book, Houska's book is mainly aimed at a fairly high level (2000+ elo).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For an introduction to the Caro-Kann, it's hard to beat Lakdawala book recommended above, &quot;The Caro-Kann Move by Move.&quot;  It's got enough theory to get up and running, and it's in a complete game format which is a very good way to start learning an opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7961" LastActivityDate="2015-08-26T01:41:01.363" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11129" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="11138" CreationDate="2015-08-26T01:56:10.990" Score="5" ViewCount="1647" Body="&lt;p&gt;What are the key ideas behind each mainline open Sicilian as black? I am normally an e4 player as white, so I am fairly well acquainted with the types of positions that come out of the Sicilian. I am looking to change my black opening repertoire to include the Sicilian but want to better understand black's ideas for each.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know that as a (very) rough summary, the main ideas are a Queenside counter attack, looking to find the right opportunity to create a d5 pawn break, and to utilise a minority attack on the Queenside. However, I'm struggling to understand more specific ideas.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are the main ideas after&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here, I know it often leads into a Najdorf and occasionally a Dragon, but don't fully understand the ideas as Black. I am ignoring 3. Bb5+, as play is fairly straight forward with less tactical ideas.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For me, 9 times out of 10 it leads to a Sveshnikov. Again, apart from wanting to create a d5 pawn break, I don't see the main goal as Black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 e6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately, there are very few people at my level who play this version of the sicilian (relative to the other more popular ones), so I have very little idea of what do. As white, I generally just go by general principles that are present in 2...d6 and 2...Nc6. However, as Black I have very little idea of the goal in this line. It seems to be similar to a Najdorf, without black having the option of e6, or e5 as their e-pawn move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;LEVEL: I am looking for a scientific/objective answer as to Black's ideas in the sicilian, but if there is a personal/playstyle reason for not learning it, I was about 1800-1900 rated. I stopped playing for a while and am now about 1600-1700. I never really looked at openings in the past, winning most of my games in an endgame battle, but I am bored and looking to try something new and exciting :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks to any replies.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7966" LastActivityDate="2015-08-27T17:33:48.120" Title="Ideas behind each sicilian?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11130" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="11131" CreationDate="2015-08-26T14:13:13.277" Score="10" ViewCount="1391" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm very beginner in chess. I was just going through some of the opening moves like &lt;strong&gt;King's gambit,Budapest gambit,Queen's gambit&lt;/strong&gt;. I encountered things like Queen's gambit Accepted or Declined kind of moves. Can somebody please explain me briefly about the logic? I know this very basic question but i googled and couldn't find appropriate answer. It might be useful for all beginners&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8113" LastActivityDate="2015-08-26T19:37:31.430" Title="What is accepted and declined in chess moves?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11131" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11130" CreationDate="2015-08-26T14:38:42.357" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;A &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gambit&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;gambit&lt;/a&gt; is an opening where one player sacrifices a pawn (or more) to gain some other advantage. The opponent 'accepts' by taking the pawn, or 'declines' by not taking the pawn. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, in the Queen's gambit after 1.d4 d5 2.c4, black has at least these two options, 2...dxc4 or 2...e6. These variations are then called &quot;Queen's Gambit Accepted&quot; and &quot;Queen's Gambit Declined&quot; based on Black's choice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that another common move, 2...c6, also declines the offer, but because the name &quot;Queen's Gambit Declined&quot; just happens to be the name of the variation 2...e6, this has a different name (&quot;Slav Defense&quot;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.d4 d5 2.c4 {White offers the undefended pawn on c4.} e6 {Black declines the offer.} (2...dxc4 {Black accepts the offer.})&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1761" LastEditorUserId="3831" LastEditDate="2015-08-26T19:37:31.430" LastActivityDate="2015-08-26T19:37:31.430" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11132" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1832" CreationDate="2015-08-26T20:43:10.030" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's the cachet of a title, and what it represents. You see it in many different ways, each with their own implications and desires. In every case, it gives an implication of elitism and exclusivity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have a black belt rank, and it is much the same, in that people see it as a pinnacle of achievement, only attained by a select few. Most of the time if it comes up, I hear &quot;Oh, I took {insert art here} when I was a kid&quot;. This is designed to imply that they too, belong to &quot;the club&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For every person that makes to a desired position, there are 1000 or more that started and gave up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="394" LastActivityDate="2015-08-26T20:43:10.030" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11133" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11024" CreationDate="2015-08-26T22:22:16.560" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;To use stockfish, you need GUI that supports UCI. I can suggest &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.playwitharena.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Arena&lt;/a&gt; or &lt;a href=&quot;http://scidvspc.sourceforge.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Scid vs. PC&lt;/a&gt; as good free GUIs. &#xA;Chessmaster isn't capable of that. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2213" LastActivityDate="2015-08-26T22:22:16.560" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11134" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11045" CreationDate="2015-08-26T22:26:27.750" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess.com live chess last this feature. However, I think you should be premium member for that. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2213" LastActivityDate="2015-08-26T22:26:27.750" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11135" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-08-27T08:11:18.980" Score="0" ViewCount="323" Body="&lt;p&gt;Does white always have a very strong central attack against black in Philidor defence?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I need some resource suggestions on Philidor defence theory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8124" LastEditorUserId="550" LastEditDate="2015-08-27T13:13:47.113" LastActivityDate="2015-08-29T15:05:26.110" Title="Philidor Defence - White's attack on the center" Tags="&lt;philidor-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11136" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11135" CreationDate="2015-08-27T15:39:59.797" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The most popular (and arguably the most precise) move order for black to play the Philidor defence is 1.e4 d6 2.d4 Nf6 3.Nc3 e5. Alternative move orders are, for example, 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 d6 or 1.e4 d6 2.d4 Nf6 3.Nc3 Nbd7 followed by 4....e5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to the &lt;a href=&quot;http://chesstempo.com/game-database.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Game Database of ChessTempo&lt;/a&gt;, the most popular continuation is 4.Nf3 Nbd7 5.Bc4 Be7 6.0-0 0-0. However, 3.f3, 4.dxe5, 4.Nge2 and 5.g4 are also interesting alternatives for white.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are a couple of repertoire books on the Philidor, for instance by GM &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1857444361&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Bauer&lt;/a&gt; (2007) and IM &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/9548782774&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Barksy&lt;/a&gt; (2010).&#xA;If you are interested in the Philidor from white's perspective, the book by GM &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1906552061&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Negi&lt;/a&gt; (2014) can be recommended.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;      [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;      [StartPly &quot;1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;      1.e4 d6 (1...e5 2.Nf3 d6) 2.d4 Nf6 3.Nc3 (3.f3) e5 (3...Nbd7) 4.Nf3 (4.dxe5)(4.Nge2) Nbd7 5.Bc4 (5.g4) Be7 6.O-O O-O&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4588" LastEditorUserId="4588" LastEditDate="2015-08-27T20:11:51.630" LastActivityDate="2015-08-27T20:11:51.630" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11137" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1832" CreationDate="2015-08-27T16:15:01.557" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Ram Narasimhan wrote correctly: &quot;A GM title (...) serves to inform your peers (and often yourself) that a certain level of expertise was attained.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd like to add that this reputation also entails some &quot;hard&quot; benefits. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;In most Opens titled players pay no entry fees. I think I've also seen free accomodation for titled players (or only GMs) advertised. So a GM title at least reduces the cost of purusing your hobby.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;A GM title surely increases your chances of being invited to invitational tournaments with an attractive prize fund. This also creates the opportunity of playing against stronger opponents, thereby improving yourself.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Maybe most grandmasters can't make a living from playing chess alone. But many can from other chess-related activities such as giving lessons or assisting a stronger player. A GM title translates into higher rates and opens up opportunities.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user332" LastActivityDate="2015-08-27T16:15:01.557" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11138" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11129" CreationDate="2015-08-27T17:33:48.120" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I suggest you first look at the ideas behind the systems you mentioned (e.g. Dragon, Najdorf, Sveshnikov), because in the Sicilian, black's second moves cannot be judged without looking at the intended setup, i.e. black's 4th, 5th and 6th move. These moves are often interchangeable, since white cannot play any forcing moves (apart from &lt;code&gt;3.d4&lt;/code&gt;, of course).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A few stray remarks:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;A very common setup is putting pawns on &lt;code&gt;d6&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;e6&lt;/code&gt;. 30 years ago, this was called the Scheveningen and played by&#xA;&lt;code&gt;1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 (or e6) 3.d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 e6 (or d6)&lt;/code&gt;. Nowadays it is played by &lt;code&gt;1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;6....e6&lt;/code&gt; in order to avoid &lt;code&gt;6.g4&lt;/code&gt;, and is called &quot;the Najdorf&quot;. This is (in my opinion) unfortunate because the &quot;real&quot; Najdorf is defined by putting your pawn to &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt;, and this is a much greater difference than if &lt;code&gt;e6&lt;/code&gt; is played on move 5 or 6. The Scheveningen can also be reached via &lt;code&gt;1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 (or d6) 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 d6 (or Nc6)&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;6....e6&lt;/code&gt;, which is called the &quot;Classical Sicilian&quot;. Of course there are Scheveningen variations where you put your knight to &lt;code&gt;d7&lt;/code&gt; instead of &lt;code&gt;c6&lt;/code&gt;. You see, if you intend to play a Scheveningen style setup, you can play &lt;code&gt;2....Nc6&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;2....d6&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;2....e6&lt;/code&gt; and maybe even &lt;code&gt;2....a6&lt;/code&gt;. The differences are nuances depending on which system white chooses.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If you want to play a Dragon, you can play &lt;code&gt;2....d6&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;2....Nc6&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;2....g6&lt;/code&gt;. The move order &lt;code&gt;1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 (or g6) 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 g6 (or Nc6)&lt;/code&gt;is called the &quot;accelerated dragon&quot;, and is particularly interesting because you retain the possibility to play &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt; in one move, which (for non-obvious reasons) discourages the (very dangerous) systems in which white castles long. The downside is that white can play &lt;code&gt;5.c4&lt;/code&gt;, which leads to a positional game with little attacking chances for black. (&lt;code&gt;4....Nf6 5.Nc3 g6&lt;/code&gt; is problematic because of &lt;code&gt;6.Nxc6 bxc6 7.e5&lt;/code&gt;.)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Variations with &lt;code&gt;2....e6&lt;/code&gt; and without &lt;code&gt;d6&lt;/code&gt; can have independent value if the bishop is played to &lt;code&gt;c5&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;b4&lt;/code&gt;. Otherwise it's mostly a move order thing.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Finally, at almost any moment between move 4 and 6 (except if &lt;code&gt;e6&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;g6&lt;/code&gt; have been played), it is possible to play &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt;. Examples are the world famous Najdorf, the Sveshnikov, the Kalashnikov, but also the (older) Boleslavsky variation.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Besides move order aspects in the open sicilian, an important factor for the third move is which Anti-Sicilians you'd rather not play against. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;2....d6 3.Bb5+&lt;/code&gt; is different from &lt;code&gt;2....Nc6 3.Bb5&lt;/code&gt;. You can rule out &lt;code&gt;3.Bb5&lt;/code&gt; on move 3 by playing &lt;code&gt;2...e6&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;2....g6&lt;/code&gt;, and forever by &lt;code&gt;2...a6&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Whatever you favourite setup against &lt;code&gt;2.c3&lt;/code&gt; is, if your second move after &lt;code&gt;2.Nf3&lt;/code&gt; doesn't fit, you might be forced to learn another one, since white can play &lt;code&gt;3.c3&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user332" LastActivityDate="2015-08-27T17:33:48.120" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11139" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1377" CreationDate="2015-08-28T06:44:12.907" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://elorankings.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://elorankings.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Allows you to create custom elo rankings and control certain parameters. Mostly used by video game communities but can be done to create rankings and manage elo ratings for anything. Very easy to use. Keeps complete match history and allows you to individually see a players history, W-L, and how their score changed per match. I use it for a smash tournament I run every week: &lt;a href=&quot;http://elorankings.com/rankings.aspx?id=1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://elorankings.com/rankings.aspx?id=1&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8129" LastActivityDate="2015-08-28T06:44:12.907" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11140" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2174" CreationDate="2015-08-28T08:52:12.517" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The books of Victor Korchnoi the archetypal counterpuncher himself - &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess is my life (1977)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My best games : with Black (2002)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Korchnoi's 400 best games (1978)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And what IGM_AA said.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4543" LastActivityDate="2015-08-28T08:52:12.517" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11141" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11040" CreationDate="2015-08-28T14:16:13.707" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yassir Seirawan's Winning Chess series (starting with Play Winning Chess) is ridiculously good. I first read the series when I was 12. Every time I re-read it (aged 15, 17, 20, 22, and so on), I got noticeably better. To this day, I don't know much opening theory (beyond Alekhine's) and I can hold my own against 1600+ even after going without playing for a couple years. It's all about knowing the patterns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8132" LastActivityDate="2015-08-28T14:16:13.707" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11142" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="11143" CreationDate="2015-08-29T12:12:13.880" Score="5" ViewCount="2486" Body="&lt;p&gt;From what I have read coding a &quot;vanilla chess engine&quot; (c++ code for alpha-beta search over bitboard representation with simple hand-crafted evaluation function), will get you to 1500~1700 ELO on &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.computerchess.org.uk/ccrl/404/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;CCRL 40/4&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Q1: What is the minimal set of ingredients needed to reach 2000 ELO ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Q2: What is the minimal set of ingredient needed, if no opening or closing book is allowed ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have found &lt;a href=&quot;http://home.hccnet.nl/h.g.muller/max-src2.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;micro-max&lt;/a&gt; and the development log of &lt;a href=&quot;https://bitbucket.org/zurichess/zurichess/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;zurichess&lt;/a&gt; as initial hints on how to reach ~2000 ELO. And I found &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.eglebbk.dds.nl/program/chess-index.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;jazz engine&lt;/a&gt; as proof that 2000+ ELO can be reach without opening/ending books. However I would like to heard the opinion of others on the matter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks a lot for your suggestions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(ps: here &quot;simplest&quot; is in &quot;how long it takes to describe the algorithm&quot;, not necessarily in lines of codes)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8112" LastActivityDate="2015-09-15T06:49:07.837" Title="Simplest chess engine to reach 2000 ELO?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;elo&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11143" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11142" CreationDate="2015-08-29T14:22:51.343" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think the CCRL rating list has anything to do with the FIDE rating list, so Micro-Max most likely performs weaker than a FIDE 2000 human-chess player. I have an iOS chess app for MicroMax - &lt;a href=&quot;https://itunes.apple.com/au/app/chess-mini/id616424231?mt=8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chess Mini&lt;/a&gt;, it uses the MicroMax chess engine. That's my description: &lt;em&gt;&quot;The engine has a rating of Elo 2000 on the Computer Chess Rating Lists.&quot;&lt;/em&gt; While this is certainly true, I've received complains that the app is too easy for a human FIDE 2000 player. In fact, I can consistently beat the app myself and I'm a 1900-2000 rated player. I don't recall that the app has ever positionally outplayed me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why is that important? It implies that the CCRL rating list most likely &lt;strong&gt;over-estimates&lt;/strong&gt; the performance for MicroMax (for a human player). Therefore, I don't think a vanilla chess engine such as MicroMax should be your benchmark on what a 2000 chess engine should do. Evaluation in a plain engine (e.g.: MicroMax)  is too simple and too much time spent on evaluating useless branches.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's take a look at &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.computerchess.org.uk/ccrl/404/cgi/engine_details.cgi?print=Details&amp;amp;each_game=1&amp;amp;eng=BikJump%202.01%2064-bit#BikJump_2_01_64-bit&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;BikJump&lt;/a&gt;, it's available on Android. Despite being rated 2100 on the CCRL list, I was still able to defeat it (more than once) after a complicated struggle. I think (but not 100% sure) the FIDE 2000 line should be drawn around CCRL 2100-2200. While I don't have the source code for BikJump, I'm pretty sure it's not a pure alpha-beta engine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From memory, I could beat my engine quite convincinly when it was only counting materials and a plain alpha-beta. As soon as I added knowledge for &lt;strong&gt;pawn-structure&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;spacing&lt;/strong&gt; and more aggressive cutoff strategy (e.g.: &lt;strong&gt;null-move pruning&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;hashing&lt;/strong&gt;), it was equal to me. Next, I added king safety and things like SSE, the machine was starting to beat me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS: We don't call &quot;closing book&quot;, we call &quot;tablebase&quot;. They are not needed to reach 2000.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2015-08-29T15:58:06.017" LastActivityDate="2015-08-29T15:58:06.017" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11144" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11135" CreationDate="2015-08-29T15:05:26.110" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;A big question :-) There are variations that are better for black or a GM would never play it. There is for example the Hanman Variation (ECO C41t) that has potential for black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 d6 3.d4 Nf6 4. Nc3 Nbd7 5. Bc4 Be7 6. O-O&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4509" LastActivityDate="2015-08-29T15:05:26.110" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11145" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11142" CreationDate="2015-08-29T15:40:02.147" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well concurrency can give you some 80-100 ELO on 4 cores. Lazy SMP is eazy both for explain and write. Other features are harder to measure, it depends on engine too. Null-move is very simple feature, so add Adaptive Null-move pruning. Add endgame tablebases - that was measured to be about 30 ELO. PVS search is a bit more complicated, but is very important.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Add transposition tables - hash should give a decent speedup.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tune evaluation: piece-square tables, backward, isolated, passed, doubled pawns, bishop pair, rook on open file.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That are easiest concepts I can recall, not sure what ELO it will give in result.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2213" LastActivityDate="2015-08-29T15:40:02.147" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11146" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8494" CreationDate="2015-08-30T12:14:41.853" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The answer is NO. The stockfish engine does not have a concept of a chessboard state. Each position should be completely described through FEN notation. If you want to make a move, you then again describe the complete position and append your moves all in one command string then press ENTER on the keyboard. The engine does not remember the current position for you. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7281" LastActivityDate="2015-08-30T12:14:41.853" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11147" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-08-30T14:52:54.230" Score="-1" ViewCount="427" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why is the king never captured?  Please can anyone tell me? I have been asked this by a chess master who will not work with me until I answer correctly. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8146" LastActivityDate="2015-08-30T20:47:48.523" Title="why is the king never captured?" Tags="&lt;kings&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2015-09-01T15:28:14.543" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11148" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-08-30T17:24:32.537" Score="1" ViewCount="179" Body="&lt;p&gt;How would IBM’s Deep Blue fair against modern day champions like Carlsen? Was it decommissioned after Kasparov's game? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8148" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-12-14T18:10:41.220" LastActivityDate="2019-12-14T18:10:41.220" Title="The exsistence of IBM’s Deep Blue" Tags="&lt;theory&gt;&lt;history&gt;&lt;computer-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="11149" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="11156" CreationDate="2015-08-30T17:37:14.300" Score="12" ViewCount="3719" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why is &lt;a href=&quot;http://chesstempo.com/gamedb/opening/712&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; particular iteration of the &quot;French Defense, Winawer Variation&quot; called the &quot;Fingerslip Variation&quot;? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 Bb4 4. Bd2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5689" LastEditorUserId="3831" LastEditDate="2015-08-30T17:59:35.890" LastActivityDate="2020-10-12T00:40:09.980" Title="How does the &quot;French Defense, Winawer Variation, Fingerslip Variation&quot; get its name?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;french-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11151" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11147" CreationDate="2015-08-30T20:47:48.523" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess is a man-made game, so there is no obligation to adhere to any &quot;natural&quot; reasons. So the answer to your question is: the king cannot be captured because that is the rules of the game. And that rule exists because it makes the game more interesting.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Castling, en passant and stalemate are also chess rules that are often considered &quot;strange&quot; or somehow incontiguous from the basic principles of the game. But these rules all exist to make the game more challenging and fun to play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1816" LastActivityDate="2015-08-30T20:47:48.523" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11152" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11148" CreationDate="2015-08-31T03:42:50.167" Score="-3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It will fail miserably against Carlsen since it was designed specially for playing against Kasparov.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It was decommissioned since it was a single purpose machine and had achieved the designated goal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The hardware was sold to a Sheikh in Middle East.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8152" LastActivityDate="2015-08-31T03:42:50.167" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11153" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-08-31T03:47:43.847" Score="4" ViewCount="1952" Body="&lt;p&gt;Technically it is possible for a game to last more than 24 hours, since after 40 or 60 moves each player generally gets a 30-second increment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In an endgame, the player with the advantage will just need to be careful of the fifty-move rule and the threefold repetition rule, and he would be able to keep pressing for many many hours hoping that his opponent will crack and make a mistake.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But the problem is: 24 hours after the game has started, the next round would need to start!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So what would happen?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Would the entire round be delayed for everyone participating in the event?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Would the next round start normally on time for everyone, except for 4 players (including the 2 players playing the problematic game) who would need to wait for the problematic game to end?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Would the next round start normally on time for everyone, and the two players who are still playing the problematic game would need to play their next round games while simultaneously continuing the problematic game?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Would the arbiters simply decide to end the problematic game, considering it as a draw?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Would the FIDE President need to add a new rule to prevent this kind of situation from happening again?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3237" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T15:54:05.150" Title="What would happen if a game lasted for more than 24 hours?" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;time-control&gt;&lt;time-management&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11154" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11153" CreationDate="2015-08-31T08:08:50.737" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Technically it is possible for a game to last more than 24 hours&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not true in a game where both players are trying to win or draw. You haven't done your sums.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In an endgame, the player with the advantage will just need to be&#xA;  careful of the fifty-move rule&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In 20 hours of 30 second increment play at least 1200 moves have to be played. That is at least 24 times when there is a flurry of captures or pawn moves. I say &quot;flurry&quot; because generally speaking when there is a capture there is also a recapture. There are only 16 pieces and 16 pawns on the board when the game starts and after the first 4 hours of play a lot of them will be gone. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2015-08-31T22:09:44.243" LastActivityDate="2015-08-31T22:09:44.243" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11155" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11148" CreationDate="2015-08-31T08:23:37.080" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The match with Kasparov was very close - 3.5 - 2.5 and it is arguable that Kasparov's loss was due to psychological factors. Until Carlsen's recent disastrous tournament where he went to pieces psychologically after over stepping the time control in round one I would have said that Carlsen is psychologically stronger than Kasparov but now I'm not so sure. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Modern day players like Carlsen have closed the gap that existed between Kasparov and the rest without opening up a big gap. I want to say that Carlsen would beat Deep Blue but I suspect the truth is that it would be a close match again.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Deep Blue was dismantled and parts of it can now be seen in two different US museums - &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Blue_(chess_computer)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Blue_(chess_computer)&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2015-08-31T08:23:37.080" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11156" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11149" CreationDate="2015-08-31T09:28:21.133" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to &quot;The Batsford Guide to Chess Openings&quot; by Leonard Barden and Tim Harding:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;This move had its introduction into master play as the result of a fingerslip by Alekhine against Flohr, at Nottingham in 1936. He had intended 4 P-K5 P-QB4 5 B-Q2, but played the moves in the wrong order&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The game is at&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1008345&quot;&gt;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1008345&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7726" LastActivityDate="2015-08-31T09:28:21.133" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11157" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="11158" CreationDate="2015-08-31T13:22:59.230" Score="5" ViewCount="666" Body="&lt;p&gt;Since &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_symbols_in_Unicode&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Chess&lt;/strong&gt; symbols are part of Unicode&lt;/a&gt;, I would like to know if &lt;strong&gt;Xiangqi&lt;/strong&gt; symbols would be too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If they are, where can we find them?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;If they are not, is there a way to find some... in Unicode for instance?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8156" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-11-27T17:53:20.803" LastActivityDate="2018-06-05T23:18:49.947" Title="Xiangqi symbols in Unicode" Tags="&lt;xiangqi&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11158" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11157" CreationDate="2015-08-31T13:53:44.617" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Since XiangQi symbols are Chinese characters and Chinese characters are part of Unicode, you can certainly identify and use these characters to specify XiangQi symbols.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example by copying the characters from the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xiangqi#Pieces&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;XiangQi wiki page&lt;/a&gt; into this &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chinese-tools.com/tools/converter-unicode.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;translation tool.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-08-31T13:53:44.617" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11159" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11153" CreationDate="2015-08-31T17:24:18.680" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Would the entire round be delayed for everyone participating in the event?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No, if the game duration may exceed a reasonable amount of time (I am not talking about 24 hours, but lets say 12 hours or so) then the game is adjourned and any tournament director would plan a special day for adjourned games. This works perfectly in case of so called Round-robin system tournament. In case if the tournament is played by Swiss system rules then it is simply reasonable to have shorter time limits per game, so all games will end by the end of the next round.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Would the arbiters simply decide to end the problematic game, considering it as a draw?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No, this could never happen! The game can be considered a draw in case, for example one side loses on time while the other side doesn't have sufficient material to mate, i.e. two knights only, etc)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Would the FIDE President need to add a new rule to prevent this kind of situation from happening again?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is no way to regulate all possible outcomes of bad tournament planning. It's not FIDE responsibility. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8160" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T15:53:01.250" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T15:53:01.250" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="11160" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2262" CreationDate="2015-08-31T17:51:37.210" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;After 1.e4 c5 2.d4 cxd4 3.c3 Qa5, 4.Bd2 seems to be a strong reply. There is only one game in the &lt;a href=&quot;http://chesstempo.com/game-database.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Game Database of ChessTempo&lt;/a&gt; (Cotonnec-Dourerassou), however, with 4.Bd2, white immediately tries to take advantage of the (too) early sortie of the black queen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After both 4....dxc3 5.Nxc3 and 4....d3 5.Bxd3, it is clear that white has a good version of 3....dxc3 and 3....d3 respectively, as the inclusion of Qa5 and Bd2 can only help white.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If black plays 4....Nf6, white continues with 5.cxd4 Qb6 6.Nc3, ignoring the threats Qxb2 and Qxd4. Accepting any of these pawn sacrfices is too dangerous for black, so the opening was a success for white: control over the center and a lead in development.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The game Cotonnec-Dourerassou went 4....Qb6 5.cxd4. Also in this position white shouldn't be afraid of losing a pawn. After 5....Qxb2 6.Nc3 Qb6 7.Nf3 or 5....Qxd4 6.Nc3 Nc6 7.Nf3 Qb6 8.Bc4, white has huge lead in development.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Dourerassou continued with 5....e6 and after 6.Nc3 Nf6 7.Nf3 Nc6 8.e5, and white obtained a nice advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;      [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;      [StartPly &quot;7&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;      1.e4 c5 2.d4 cxd4 3.c3 Qa5 4.Bd2 Qb6 (4...dxc3 5.Nxc3)(4...d3 5.Bxd3)(4...Nf6 5.cxd4 Qb6 6.Nc3) 5.cxd4 (5...Qxb2 6.Nc3 Qb6 7.Nf3)(5...Qxd4 6.Nc3 Nc6 7.Nf3 Qb6 8.Bc4) e6 6.Nc3 Nf6 7.Nf3 Nc6 8.e5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4588" LastEditorUserId="4588" LastEditDate="2015-08-31T18:02:06.437" LastActivityDate="2015-08-31T18:02:06.437" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11161" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11153" CreationDate="2015-08-31T19:22:28.767" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, a game that lasts more than 8 hours would make everyone involved in the tournament tired and angry. Under the assumption of today's normal time controls with 90 minutes for 40 moves followed by 30 additional minutes for the rest of the game and 30 seconds increment per move starting from move one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is an impressive effort to reach 24 hours of gameplay. The 50-move rule will be crucial. Most probably, 49 moves would be made with the pieces, followed by pushing one pawn one step forward and thereafter repeating the cycle. Both players would have to be in agreement and collaborate to reach this epic achievement. A slight complication is that you have to write down your move, which decreases your increment to perhaps 25 seconds and also makes your hand(s) more tired.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My guess is that the arbiter would declare a draw, 1-0, 0-1 or perhaps even 0-0 if possible, after about 8 hours of play. The grumpy arbiter would thereafter most probably try to disqualify both players from the tournament.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since such situations are so rare, FIDE will probably make a decision based on the particular situation in question, without creating new rules or changing the existing ones.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T15:53:14.390" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T15:53:14.390" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="11162" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2262" CreationDate="2015-08-31T19:48:29.967" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Marc Esserman in &quot;Mayhem in the Morra&quot; gives 3 ... Qa5 a ?! and recommends 4 Bd2 followed by 5 Nxc3 giving &quot;An enhanced Morra Accepted&quot;. If you play the Morra I can strongly recommend this book. In fact if you don't play the Morra, and don't even play e4 or the Sicilian I can still recommend it, it's one of the most enjoyable chess books out there! If nothing else you'll learn a lot about tactics from Esserman's games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7726" LastActivityDate="2015-08-31T19:48:29.967" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11163" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="11166" CreationDate="2015-09-01T03:31:30.093" Score="6" ViewCount="1872" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to write a Linux command line UCI interface for Stockfish. My program writes a bunch of commands to a text file and then tries to pipe them to Stockfish via the command line. My problem is, whenever I try to analyse a position, the program exits almost immediately:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;sf.txt:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;position startpos moves e2e4&#xA;go movetime 5000&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;output:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;~$ stockfish &amp;lt; sf.txt&#xA;Stockfish 261014 64 by Tord Romstad, Marco Costalba and Joona Kiiski&#xA;info nodes 0 time 2&#xA;bestmove a7a6 ponder (none)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you can see, the program exits in 2 ms instead of waiting for the analysis to finish. Has anyone delt with this issue before? Is there a preferred way of interfacing with Stockfish?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8164" LastActivityDate="2017-03-22T03:19:09.880" Title="Piping Stockfish input" Tags="&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;programming&gt;&lt;uci&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11164" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-09-01T04:37:19.587" Score="5" ViewCount="399" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recently met a club player who had been playing chess for 23 years, but couldn't improve his ELO more that 1800. When I played with him, I found his tactical skills are good, moderate endgame knowledge (excels in rook endgames) and poor opening knowledge. Afterwards we had a chat and I could uncover several myths in his mind such as knights are superior to bishops, two rooks will never beat a queen etc.&#xA;If I am tutoring a student like him, how would I go about teaching him. &#xA;My first impression is to make him unlearn the 'myths' in his mind, teach a few opening lines helping him to understand basic principles like developing pieces quickly, controlling the center etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4183" LastActivityDate="2015-09-02T12:21:14.840" Title="Unlearning myths from the mind of an experienced club player" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;clubs&gt;&lt;teaching&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11165" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11164" CreationDate="2015-09-01T08:04:36.943" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Teach him by showing example positions that you can play out against each other. There is a big difference between being told that two rooks are often stronger than a queen and really experiencing the power of the two rooks. You could maybe play out a position from the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1306138&quot;&gt;Kramnik-Leko match 2004.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-09-01T08:04:36.943" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11166" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11163" CreationDate="2015-09-01T10:49:50.710" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Edit: I think the main problem is that the uci protocol is a dialog. You have to wait for the &quot;readyok&quot; output from the engine before you can issue another command. Probably you just cannot forcefeed all commands in one go.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To quote the uci protocol:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;* all command strings the engine receives will end with '\n', …&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Possibly you just forgot about that in your second line. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastEditorUserId="4362" LastEditDate="2015-09-01T13:47:55.463" LastActivityDate="2015-09-01T13:47:55.463" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11167" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="11168" CreationDate="2015-09-01T13:03:31.987" Score="8" ViewCount="823" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to watch live matches between GMs. In India here are no TV channels that provide me these matches.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8102" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2019-08-14T19:13:38.327" LastActivityDate="2019-08-14T19:13:38.327" Title="Where can I watch live commentary and live matches between Grandmasters?" Tags="&lt;grandmaster&gt;&lt;online&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11168" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11167" CreationDate="2015-09-01T13:25:15.540" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess24.com/en/watch/live-tournaments&quot;&gt;Chess24&lt;/a&gt; has a lot of live transmissions of tournaments. Often even with live commentary and always with computer evaluations (though those can be turned off).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-09-01T13:25:15.540" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11169" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11148" CreationDate="2015-09-01T13:31:37.603" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;New generation always break the records of previous generation, It happens in every game, for example if I talk about soccer New generation has better training and strong emphasis on psychology factor. In addition Garry Kasparov doesn't have that kind of concentration  Carlson have , as he has to take care Russian Politics and his Professional Chess academy &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professional_Chess_Association&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professional_Chess_Association&lt;/a&gt;. 3rd factor I think is age with age function of brain deteriorate at-least I have learn it from my brain. These factor may have played have some role. But I don't want to take away brilliance of Magnus Carlson. He is simply awesome and can beat even faster computers than Deep Blue. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="403" LastActivityDate="2015-09-01T13:31:37.603" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11170" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-09-01T13:44:25.823" Score="3" ViewCount="2075" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have seen many players with black prefers Sicilian defense, what are the advantage of the opening?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="403" LastActivityDate="2015-09-03T14:21:42.877" Title="What are the advantage of sicilian defense for black?" Tags="&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11171" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11170" CreationDate="2015-09-01T14:00:27.163" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The sicilian defence is not just one opening, it is a whole family of variations, that are quite different from each other. So this breadth of possible choices surely contributes to the popularity of the sicilian.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The sicilian variations are also usually quite sharp. This makes it easier for black to create winning chances. In the open sicilian (which is usually the main line) black gets the longterm advantage of two centre pawns against one centre pawn and the open c-line. The other defences against e4 don't have quite such a big disbalance. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-09-01T14:00:27.163" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11172" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11167" CreationDate="2015-09-01T15:12:26.407" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sometimes &lt;a href=&quot;http://lichess.org&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Lichess&lt;/a&gt; hosts events. They also usually have links on the homepage to Twitch streamers varying in rating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7236" LastActivityDate="2015-09-01T15:12:26.407" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11173" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11167" CreationDate="2015-09-01T15:17:20.800" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sometimes &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.twitch.tv/directory/game/Chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;twitch.tv&lt;/a&gt; hosts the live games for some tournaments. Depending on which tourney is streaming, the commentary can be particularly good. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3884" LastActivityDate="2015-09-01T15:17:20.800" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11174" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-09-01T18:31:10.993" Score="3" ViewCount="375" Body="&lt;p&gt;It seems that after 9. h3 or 9. Nc3, black usually plays Ke8, Bd7, h6, and sometimes Ne7. My question is: why isn't 9... Ne7 played more often, with the plan of putting the Knight on g6?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Situation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 Nf6 4. O-O Nxe4 5. d4 Nd6 6. Bxc6 dxc6 7. dxe5 Nf5 8. Qxd8+ Kxd8&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3872" LastEditorUserId="3884" LastEditDate="2015-09-03T06:57:38.347" LastActivityDate="2015-12-02T09:01:02.883" Title="In the Berlin Defense(ruy lopez), why has the Ne7 Ng6 plan gone out of fashion?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;ruy-lopez&gt;&lt;1.e4&gt;&lt;berlin&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11175" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11174" CreationDate="2015-09-01T19:23:54.347" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;One of the reasons could be that the knight on f5 is already developed. Probably it doesn't appeal to many players to spend 2 tempi to reposition the knight, while black is already slightly behind in development.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Futhermore, many alternative setups are possible and perfectly playable: Ke8, Bd7 and Kc8, etc...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, it seems that an early Ne7 recently regained some of its popularity: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1795269&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;So - Kramnik&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1794293&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Maze - Smith&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1791972&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Caruana - Dominguez&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1784261&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Caruana - Carlsen&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1772851&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Nakamura - Topalov&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4588" LastActivityDate="2015-09-01T19:23:54.347" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11176" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11142" CreationDate="2015-09-01T20:42:25.043" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm the author of zurichess, the engine mentioned in your post. Here are, what I think, the most important things to get your engine to play +2000ELO. If it the terminology is not clear check &lt;a href=&quot;https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/&lt;/a&gt; which is one of the best resources available.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Write a move generator. Make sure it's correct and passes all perft tests. Don't worry about the speed.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Start with an alpha beta and a basic eval such as piece counting.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Add aspiration window.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Improve move ordering: add killer move heuristic and order moves by mvv/lva. Alpha-beta works best when best moves are searched first.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Add quiescence search which solves the captures at the end of the search. This stabilizes the evaluation quiet a bit and removes much of the horizon effect issues.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Add null-move pruning (i.e. if I don't do anything can my opponent improve?). This effectively gives you +100ELO because you now cut huge parts of the tree.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Begin to add basic evaluation features such as: mobility, pawn position, king position, passed pawns. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Add transposition tables. Don't generate the moves if you already have a hash move (but the score was not accepted due to low depth of the hash entry). With this, move generation speed becomes a non-issue.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Extend search on check to avoid cases when the danger is pushed over the horizon. Don't extend everything, test several conditions.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By now your new engine should be over 2000. However, if you look at top engines such as crafty/stockfish/komodo, they all have something in common which most weaker engines do not: cluster testing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once your engine passes the 1500 ELO mark chances are that your changes are  losing on average more ELO than they are gaining. You need to build a serious testing framework with a good stopping criteria (LOS 99% works until 2000ELO, after that you need SPRT). I invested about 700$ and bought 6 ODROID U3 (each with 4 32bit cores) and build a cluster to test all of my patches that could affect search. If you look into the commit log of zurichess you'll see the gains for each patch. A month ago hardkernel released ODROID XU4, which is slightly more expensive than U3 but has 8 64bit cores.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4118" LastEditorUserId="4118" LastEditDate="2015-09-15T06:49:07.837" LastActivityDate="2015-09-15T06:49:07.837" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11177" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-09-01T23:55:07.637" Score="4" ViewCount="1198" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have decided to study chess after playing it leisurely for a while. I looked at some online chess courses like the ones offered by Igor Smirnov at the Remote Chess Academy, but these options seem to be quite expensive ($700+). I looked at one of these courses that my friend purchased and it contained some openings that were annotated and showed variations of an opening:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ZHNqv.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ZHNqv.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;This image is a snippet from one of the PGN files offered in the course covering the French Defence&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;I was wondering whether there are freely available resources like the one in the picture below that have detailed annotations of openings, middle games, endgames, tactics, etc. If so, where would I be able to download them?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Alternatively, is there is any free/inexpensive software that acts as a trainer of some sort where one can practice openings, middle game strategy, end games, tactics, etc?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5759" LastActivityDate="2015-09-02T03:07:16.017" Title="Where can I find free training tools like detailed annotated chess openings, middle games and endgames in the PGN format?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;learning&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;pgn&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11178" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11177" CreationDate="2015-09-02T03:07:16.017" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can have a look a &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;chess.com&lt;/a&gt; forums where people share a lot of PGN games.&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.pgnmentor.com/files.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;pgnmentor.com&lt;/a&gt; offers PGN sorted with openings, middle game themes and endgame themes. If you are looking for an all in one platform, chessbase is the best so far, a bit expensive but will serve you well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4183" LastActivityDate="2015-09-02T03:07:16.017" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11179" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11167" CreationDate="2015-09-02T06:47:27.610" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I sometimes watch on &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessbomb.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;ChessBomb&lt;/a&gt;. It is only the games, no video. The games are analysed with stockfish (or other engine) and sometimes by a GM. Also there is commentary by members.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4509" LastActivityDate="2015-09-02T06:47:27.610" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11180" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-09-02T10:44:29.677" Score="1" ViewCount="163" Body="&lt;p&gt;I play a good deal of online correspondence chess. On the website I use I sometimes see users being accused of using computers in correspondence chess, but without any evidence being presented.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the basis for such accusations? How can one find out whether a correspondence chess player uses a computer?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="153" LastActivityDate="2015-09-02T11:14:05.573" Title="Why would a correspondence chess player be accused of using a computer?" Tags="&lt;computer-chess&gt;&lt;correspondence-chess&gt;&lt;cheating&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11181" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11180" CreationDate="2015-09-02T11:14:05.573" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The basis for such accusations is usually hurt pride.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That being said, if a player consistently plays moves proposed by a particular engine, you can be pretty sure that the engine is the source of these moves. But for such an assessment one game usually isn't enough and it is definitely possible to use an engine without leaving these tell-tale signs. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-09-02T11:14:05.573" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11182" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-09-02T11:26:41.907" Score="1" ViewCount="99" Body="&lt;p&gt;When playing rated online correspondence chess, it's quite possible that the players' ratings change during the game. When the game is over, which rating will be used for rating adjustments? The ratings they had before the game began, or the rating at the end of the game?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="153" LastEditorUserId="7500" LastEditDate="2015-09-03T03:06:50.113" LastActivityDate="2015-09-03T03:06:50.113" Title="In online correspondence chess, are the ratings adjustments based on the pre- or post-game ratings?" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;elo&gt;&lt;correspondence-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11183" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11164" CreationDate="2015-09-02T12:21:14.840" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can try and show him the games played by legendary players like Bobby Fischer, Paul Murphy, Emmanuel Lasker, Jose Capablanca, Alexander Alekhine, Garry Kasparov, Anatoly Karpov etc. Moreover, for any chess player , reading the following book is a &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;must&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;. It is the &lt;strong&gt;BIBLE&lt;/strong&gt; of Chess. The book is named &lt;strong&gt;MY 60 MEMORABLE GAMES&lt;/strong&gt; by &lt;strong&gt;Bobby Fischer&lt;/strong&gt;. Watching these games and reading the annotations not only increases the  chess knowledge but is also great fun. For such a senior player I think this is a good way to teach him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8168" LastActivityDate="2015-09-02T12:21:14.840" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11184" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11170" CreationDate="2015-09-02T12:52:05.480" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are several advantages of playing &lt;strong&gt;sicilian defense&lt;/strong&gt; with black:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Here, you get to exchange a side c-pawn for a centralised d-pawn of white and get to have an extra pawn in the center which may prove to be important in the middlegame and perhaps very useful in the endgame for getting a passed pawn.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Against e4, this is the only defense where black can try to claim the center from the word &quot;go&quot;. White may have a centralised Knight at d4 but black has suitable compensation with moves like d5 or Ne5 or a fianchetto at g7 eyeing the a1-g8 diagonal.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Black has a lot of options going into the middlegame. He can choose to keep it safe and play for a draw by piece exchanges followed by a normal endgame or he can choose to attack with the Dragon Variation or go for the Andersen's Pin Variation.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Another major plus point of this opening is that it provides an advantageous endgame for black even when both have equal pieces and pawns after a barren middlegame.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So white has to keep on his toes all through the game to avoid any losses.&#xA;I think this is black's best defense against e4 at least for beginners and players for average level.One can opt for Pirc defense, Phillidor and Caro-Kann but a lot of practice is required for successful employment. However Sicilian can be easily mastered.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And I quote:&#xA; In 1965, in the tenth edition of his book, grandmaster Larry Evans observed that, &quot;The Sicilian is Black's most dynamic, asymmetrical reply to 1.P-K4. It produces the psychological and tension factors which denote the best in modern play and gives notice of a fierce fight on the very first move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and perhaps this link will also help :&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sicilian_Defence&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sicilian_Defence&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8168" LastEditorUserId="8168" LastEditDate="2015-09-03T14:21:42.877" LastActivityDate="2015-09-03T14:21:42.877" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11185" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="11187" CreationDate="2015-09-02T15:51:33.023" Score="6" ViewCount="594" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some openings often lead to &quot;unbalanced&quot; endgames, where both white and black have their advantages and disadvantages.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance, in the Berlin endgame, white has a lead in development and a better pawn structure, while black has the bishop pair.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there other openings in which one of the (main) lines results in an unbalanced endgame?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4588" LastActivityDate="2017-04-18T02:11:10.087" Title="Which openings lead to unbalanced endgames?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11187" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11185" CreationDate="2015-09-02T21:11:57.443" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;First note that it is impossible to force your opponent into an endgame - chess doesn't work like that. Second, strategically the endgame may be one of the better choices for the opponent eg in the Berlin Defence the consensus on White best option is between the Berlin endgame and the Anti Berlin 4.d3, or equally it may not be, which doesn't mean you can't play it anyway if you like endgames. For examples of opening ideas that lead to unbalanced endgames see the games of Kramnik for example &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Kramnik-Timman Wijk aan Zee 1999.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  [StartPly &quot;7&quot;]&#xA;  [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;  [Event &quot;Wijk aan Zee&quot;]&#xA;  [White &quot;Vladimir Kramnik&quot;]&#xA;  [Black &quot;Jan Timman&quot;]   &#xA;&#xA;1.Nf3 c5 2.c4 Nf6 3. Nc3 Nc6 4.g3 d5 5.d4 cxd4 6.Nxd4 dxc4 7.Nxc6  Qxd1+ 8.Nxd1 bxc6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Kramnik-Van Wely Wijk aan Zee 2001&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  [StartPly &quot;7&quot;]&#xA;  [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;  [Event &quot;Wijk aan Zee&quot;]&#xA;  [White &quot;Vladimir Kramnik&quot;]&#xA;  [Black &quot;Loek Van Wely&quot;]   &#xA;&#xA;1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 d5 4.Nf3 Bg7 5.cxd5 Nxd5 6.e4 Nxc3&#xA;7.bxc3 c5 8.Be3 Qa5 9.Qd2 Nc6 10.Rc1 cxd4 11.cxd4 Qxd2+&#xA;12.Kxd2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Kramnik-Tomashevsky Tal Memorial 2012&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  [StartPly &quot;7&quot;]&#xA;  [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;  [Event &quot;Tal Memorial&quot;]&#xA;  [White &quot;Vladimir Kramnik&quot;]&#xA;  [Black &quot;Evgeny Tomashevsky&quot;]    &#xA;&#xA;1.Nf3 d5 2. d4 Nf6 3. c4 c6 4. Nc3 a6 5. e3 e6 6. Bd3 dxc4 7. Bxc4 c5 8. O-O b5 9. Be2 Bb7 10. dxc5 Qxd1 11. Rxd1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All of which won by White. These games are main lines - at least the last two are. I'm not too sure about the English opening in the first game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4543" LastEditorUserId="4543" LastEditDate="2015-09-02T21:18:47.013" LastActivityDate="2015-09-02T21:18:47.013" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11188" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11182" CreationDate="2015-09-02T23:31:04.120" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Every site that I have seen uses the rating at the end of the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3270" LastActivityDate="2015-09-02T23:31:04.120" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11189" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11185" CreationDate="2015-09-03T07:52:27.290" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;One of the Scottish main lines leads to an unbalanced endgame. Ok, every mainline leads to a balanced position, but at least the material is unbalanced. ;-)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here an example from the '13 Candidates between Svidler and Ivanchuk:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;2013 Candidates&quot;] &#xA;[White &quot;Svidler&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Ivanchuk&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 exd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nxc6 bxc6 6. e5&#xA;Qe7 7. Qe2 Nd5 8. c4 Ba6 9. g3 g6 10. b3 Bg7 11. Bb2 O-O-O&#xA;12. Bg2 Rhe8 13. O-O Bxe5 14. Qxe5 Qxe5 15. Bxe5 Rxe5 16. cxd5&#xA;Bxf1 17. Kxf1 cxd5 18. Nc3 c6 19. Rc1 Kb7 20. Na4 a5 21. Bf3&#xA;Kc7 22. Nc5 Ree8 23. Rc2 Ra8 24. Rd2 Re7 25. Rd4 Rae8 26. Nd3&#xA;g5 27. Ra4 Kb6 28. Rd4 Kc7 29. Ra4 Kb6 30. Rd4 Kc7 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastEditorUserId="11202" LastEditDate="2017-04-18T02:11:10.087" LastActivityDate="2017-04-18T02:11:10.087" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11190" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-09-03T15:37:10.890" Score="1" ViewCount="64" Body="&lt;p&gt;How can I classify openings or endings of several games?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a program that takes Portable Game Notation (PGN) files as input and outputs that type of opening or type of end game (if any)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can a program go further and for example, pin-point who made a mistake where in the openings/endgame? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8180" LastActivityDate="2015-09-03T20:10:49.137" Title="Program for determining the type of opening / endgame" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11191" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-09-03T17:46:35.650" Score="3" ViewCount="428" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have heard many people saying that Lasker used psychology to win. But I have also read a Wikipedia page mentioning recent researches refuting this belief and justifying Lasker's tactics to be quite ahead of his time and something laden with a hidden master plan. I need to know if there exists any such analysis which is available online so that we can know the truth ? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8181" LastEditorUserId="13055" LastEditDate="2017-05-07T18:31:09.483" LastActivityDate="2017-05-07T18:31:09.483" Title="Emanuel Lasker and Psychology" Tags="&lt;psychology&gt;&lt;famous-players&gt;&lt;lasker&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11192" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11191" CreationDate="2015-09-03T19:30:54.000" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;We can't know the truth. Lasker is dead and he's the only one who knows if he really played like that intentionally. We can create an absolutely perfect analysis of his games and still never know if he intentionally played a bad move that happened to work out in a particular game or whether he just made a mistake and didn't get punished for it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Good moves will beat psychology every time, but even so there exists ample evidence to support the idea that sometimes moves that are less than perfect will win games because they fit in with the psychological moment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My own opinion? I think Reti invented that as an excuse to cover the fact Lasker was making moves he (Reti) couldn't fathom. Not that Lasker never played the man instead of the board, but that he didn't do it as often as Reti would like us to think he did.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="657" LastActivityDate="2015-09-03T19:30:54.000" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11193" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11148" CreationDate="2015-09-03T19:50:33.013" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you're going to let chess players improve (substituting Carlsen of today for Kasparov of two decades ago) before this theoretical match, you'll have to let the computer's hardware and software improve, as well. Given the overall rate of improvement in top Grandmaster skill vs that of computer hardware and software over the last twenty years (hardware improvements alone would allow DB a calculation speed gain of roughly 1000 times, for example -- remember in 1996 the typical desktop CPU was a single-core 75Mhz Pentium) I suspect a modern version of Deep Blue could probably give Carlsen pawn odds and still not lose a game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="657" LastActivityDate="2015-09-03T19:50:33.013" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11194" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11190" CreationDate="2015-09-03T20:10:49.137" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://scid.sourceforge.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Scid&lt;/a&gt; using stockfish will do this. And on iOS I use the Stockfish app to do this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7507" LastActivityDate="2015-09-03T20:10:49.137" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11195" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="11196" CreationDate="2015-09-03T20:16:06.817" Score="10" ViewCount="8579" Body="&lt;p&gt;As far as I can tell the main sites I use like chess.com, lichess.com, and chess24.com do not support bughouse. Is there a popular place to play online somewhere? It would also like to have the ability to play on iOS. Thanks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7507" LastActivityDate="2019-12-02T11:20:14.003" Title="Where to play online Bughouse Chess" Tags="&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;bughouse&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11196" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11195" CreationDate="2015-09-03T20:27:27.937" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;use one of the fics interfaces. Freechess.org&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3872" LastActivityDate="2015-09-03T20:27:27.937" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11197" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-09-03T20:29:12.663" Score="4" ViewCount="168" Body="&lt;p&gt;When you go to a chess tournament, why is your rating calculated by your tournament performance instead of how most internet chess servers do it? Why don't they adjust the rating by game? What is the advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3872" LastEditorUserId="8201" LastEditDate="2019-12-27T12:25:26.513" LastActivityDate="2019-12-27T14:07:08.157" Title="Why are ratings calculated by tournament instead of by game?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;elo&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="11198" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11191" CreationDate="2015-09-03T20:46:38.433" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know that there has been some analysis done which compares computer moves to historical games.  Here is a wikipedia article including that comparison and also some other measurements for comparing players throughout history: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_top_chess_players_throughout_history&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_top_chess_players_throughout_history&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Perhaps the Lasker wikipedia page refers to one of these kind of measurements.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8066" LastEditorUserId="8066" LastEditDate="2015-09-03T20:54:12.733" LastActivityDate="2015-09-03T20:54:12.733" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11199" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11197" CreationDate="2015-09-03T21:02:16.107" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;The way that rating systems work, your most recent results have a greater influence on your rating than your earlier results. So if your rating was adjusted after each game in a tournament, then the games in later rounds would affect your final rating more than the games in the earlier rounds. Most of the time this wouldn't make much sense, as a tournament usually takes place over a fairly short period of time. It makes more sense to adjust the rating just once, after the tournament has finished, with all games counting equally.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4182" LastActivityDate="2015-09-03T21:02:16.107" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11200" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11167" CreationDate="2015-09-03T22:52:20.160" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The youtube channel for the Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis had some pretty enjoyable, interesting, and informative coverage of the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVWaFpMwtaGiAfweILM7b7IQtIc0L8UHc&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Grand Chess Tour - 2015 Sinquefield Cup&lt;/a&gt;  last week. They also have some similar coverage posted from a few previous tournaments, but I mostly go there for the lectures. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7739" LastEditorUserId="7739" LastEditDate="2015-09-03T23:00:59.197" LastActivityDate="2015-09-03T23:00:59.197" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="11201" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-09-04T00:04:00.387" Score="5" ViewCount="245" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have already found some numbers thanks to this website: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ferimex.com/icc/frl.php?list=0&amp;amp;country=0&amp;amp;title=0&amp;amp;sex=0&amp;amp;year=0&amp;amp;old=0&amp;amp;cat=0&amp;amp;size=9&amp;amp;update=yes&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.ferimex.com/icc/frl.php?list=0&amp;amp;country=0&amp;amp;title=0&amp;amp;sex=0&amp;amp;year=0&amp;amp;old=0&amp;amp;cat=0&amp;amp;size=9&amp;amp;update=yes&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Top 50: 0 = 0%&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Top 100: 2 = 2% &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Top 200: 2 = 1%&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Top 300: 3 = 1%&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Top 400: 4 = 1%&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Top 500: 6 = 1.2%&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Top 600: 12 = 2%&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Top 700: 15 = 2.14%&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Top 800: 16 = 2%&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Top 900: 19 = 2.11%&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Top 1000: 29 = 2.9%&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Top 1100: 33 = 3% &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Top 1200: 36 = 3%&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Top 1300: 43 = 3.31%&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Top 1400: 45 = 3.21%&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Top 1500: 45 = 3%&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Top 1600: 49 = 3.06%&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Top 1700: 54 = 3.18%&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Top 1800: 57 = 3.17%&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Top 1900: 61 = 3.21%&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Top 2000: 65 = 3.25%&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And I plotted the graph:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/iNxuR.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/iNxuR.png&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's clearly increasing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I couldn't go higher than top 2000. I hope that someone will be able to extend the graph for higher values (for higher values the graph should be smoother because there will be less statistical fluctuations).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3237" LastActivityDate="2015-09-22T22:25:58.080" Title="What is the percent of players in the top X that are women for different values of X?" Tags="&lt;statistics&gt;&lt;women&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12201" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11191" CreationDate="2015-09-04T09:12:03.330" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I need to know if there exists any such analysis which are available&#xA;  online so that we can know the truth ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't believe any such analysis exists online. The closest you will come is the excellent book by GM John Nunn confusingly called &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1906454825&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;John Nunn's Chess Course&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is actually a book in which Nunn dissects in great detail a number of Lasker's games including a lot of high quality new analysis. Nunn looks particularly critically at previous analyses by other writers which suggest that Lasker made doubtful moves against some opponents which caused his opponents to go astray and lose the game when with best play they should have won from those positions. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nunn shows that these analyses are wrong and that the so-called &quot;bad&quot; moves were actually very good moves not only in terms of computer analysis, in that they addressed the tactical and strategic needs of the position, but also in terms of making life difficult for the opponent by giving him lots of plausible possible continuations and therefore lots more chances to go wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2015-09-04T09:12:03.330" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12202" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11201" CreationDate="2015-09-04T09:27:35.033" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;What I would suggest you do which will allow you to get these statistics for yourself is to go to the &lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/advseek.phtml&quot;&gt;FIDE ratings advanced search&lt;/a&gt; page. There you can choose options like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;rating 2400 - 3000&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;sex: both&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;exclude inactive: tick&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and you will get the answer &quot;2184&quot; followed by a list of players and their details. Repeat this with &quot;sex: female&quot; and you will get 66 followed by the list.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Repeat this for 2300 and you get total: 5073, female: 185, so percentage is 3.65%.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For 2000 you get 1473 / 31866 = 4.62%&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For 1500 you get 7167 / 100730 = 7.12% and so on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This way you can go as far as you want and in whatever detail you want.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2015-09-04T09:34:50.537" LastActivityDate="2015-09-04T09:34:50.537" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12203" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12209" CreationDate="2015-09-05T12:58:32.750" Score="3" ViewCount="600" Body="&lt;p&gt;A recent thread used this term. Which notable GMs are known to have 'played the man'?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is interesting because hindsight and computers are wonderful things. They should allow us to pick out &quot;blunders&quot; that didn't lead to losses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is chess a game against a person? If so, why do we look down our noses when we hear &quot;playing the man&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2019-12-27T15:00:28.707" Title="Playing the man, not the board" Tags="&lt;psychology&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12204" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12208" CreationDate="2015-09-05T14:13:36.590" Score="3" ViewCount="521" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there a study that tries to show that chess helps academic performance? How does chess help our academic performance? If any? Does playing chess make us smarter at school?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2015-09-05T14:43:29.940" LastActivityDate="2016-03-10T16:35:34.797" Title="Chess helps academic performance?" Tags="&lt;psychology&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12205" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12204" CreationDate="2015-09-05T17:50:15.160" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The utility of chess in helping academic performance has been well documented. A google search will provide you with a lot of studies. Several studies, particularly for children in elementary schools, show that supplementary time spent in chess improves academic performance overall. I've even read an article that cites a study which replaced supplementary math lectures with chess instead. The surprising result was that the young students with the chess did better at math than those with the math. Though I would imagine that this could only be true for children. I'm would guess that for high school or college students, an extra hour of calculus will help much more than an hour of playing chess. Chess helps improve children's analytical, critical thinking, and visualization skills. It also may improve focus. My opinion is that chess(which is just speculation),  improves the above listed skills, but to a certain extent. By adulthood, I believe that those skills have already been developed by other means and therefore chess is not dramatically useful for adults. Something else may be said of for elders.  So I would say that chess is a useful tool for elementary school, middle school, and maybe highschool. but I am skeptical of its usefulness the higher we go in education. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3872" LastActivityDate="2015-09-05T17:50:15.160" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12206" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-09-05T21:12:41.573" Score="1" ViewCount="1406" Body="&lt;p&gt;It seems that when one loses a game against a compatibly rated opponent, the (USCF) rating point decrease is more significant than when one scores a win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, between two 'C' players, losing an over-the-board game may cost a player 12 points, whereas wining, the increase in rating is 7 points.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is an odd phenomenon in the Elo system. Is there an explanation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8194" LastActivityDate="2018-08-23T16:12:45.980" Title="Why does it seem that one drops more rating points when losing than gaining when winning?" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;elo&gt;&lt;uscf&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12207" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12206" CreationDate="2015-09-05T23:05:26.330" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I suspect it's a result of you not really knowing the rating of the player you're playing. Posted rating for a player in a tournament is typically already out of date. You can see it in more detail by checking the actual rating report of the event you played in (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.uschess.org/datapage/event-search.php&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.uschess.org/datapage/event-search.php&lt;/a&gt;) and you can see what the &lt;em&gt;real&lt;/em&gt; rating of the player you played was at the start of the event. Keep in mind it changes with every round.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="657" LastActivityDate="2015-09-05T23:05:26.330" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12208" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12204" CreationDate="2015-09-05T23:14:06.747" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Start here: &lt;a href=&quot;http://psmcd.net/otherfiles/BenefitsOfChessInEdScreen2.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://psmcd.net/otherfiles/BenefitsOfChessInEdScreen2.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are a number of reasons. Probably the most prosaic is that the brain is like every other muscle in your body, the more you use it the stronger it gets. Add to that the fact that chess gives you practice at breaking down a large goal into achievable steps (going from &quot;Checkmate my opponent&quot; to &quot;First I need to get my pieces in position to attack, then I ...&quot;) and spatial reasoning (&quot;A Bishop there will prevent his knight from attacking me here&quot;). Add in teaching just a bit of empathy (&quot;what move would I make if I were in my opponent's position&quot;) and it's a solid win all the way around.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The evidence shows that chess definitely improves performance in school. And recent research in Neuroplasticity indicates that learning chess can help an old brain stay limber longer, so there's even proven benefits for us Old Pharts(tm).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="657" LastActivityDate="2015-09-05T23:14:06.747" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12209" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12203" CreationDate="2015-09-05T23:37:51.820" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Being the one who said that, it's probably fitting I answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It all depends on your definition of 'playing the man and not the board.' If by that you mean ignoring your opponent's moves and the demands of the position, gambling on an unsound attack, no good player does that, certainly no Grandmaster.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;OTOH, every player has preferences for typical positions, and in preparing for a game against a known opponent, most top players will 'slant' their work a little, aiming to get positions they're comfortable playing that might be uncomfortable for their opponents.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The classic case of this has got to be Kramnik's revival of the Berlin Defense against Kasparov in their world title match. Kramnik knew Kasparov well, knew he didn't like queenless middlegames with lots of maneuvering. So he added the Berlin to his arsenal for that match, and he won.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note the subtlety, though. Kramnik didn't play bad moves; the Berlin is a perfectly playable defense that only fell out of favor because it tended to draw far more than other lines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my coaching I've run into too many youths who use 'playing the player, not the board' as an excuse to play &quot;hope chess,&quot; making bad moves to generate a silly attack that in reality has no hope of succeeding against anyone with more than two synapses firing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My advice to them has always been: &quot;Learn how to play the board, first. Then, when you're good enough to understand what positions you're comfortable in and how to tell when someone else isn't, and only then, start to consider playing the player. Because only then will you be able to do so with any real hope of success.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="657" LastActivityDate="2015-09-05T23:37:51.820" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12210" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11185" CreationDate="2015-09-05T23:43:45.413" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Another possibility is the &quot;Colle Endgame&quot; that most Colle players keep in their back pocket. The idea behind it is when Black plays actively in the center, often White can exchange the d &amp;amp; e pawns for Black's c &amp;amp; d pawns. The resulting offside majority (abc vs ab) can be quite strong, since typically both kings are on the kingside.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="657" LastActivityDate="2015-09-05T23:43:45.413" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12211" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11118" CreationDate="2015-09-05T23:54:38.557" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;2500- and 2600-rated grandmasters win tournaments every year. They're just not the high-profile events like Wijk wan Zee or the like. For example, The top three at the recent British Championship were all under 2700, 2 under 2600. Also the French championships.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Run through the events listed in theweekinchess.com sometime...you might be surprised at how many tournaments are won by players under 2700.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="657" LastActivityDate="2015-09-05T23:54:38.557" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12212" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11060" CreationDate="2015-09-06T00:14:50.587" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Thinking schematically:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White wants the Knight on either f4 or c5 (I might prefer c5, but a lot of that will depend on what the board looks like when it gets there. Hence the route the Knight takes should probably go through d3 (after all b4 might end up being useful, too).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Swap the queens and at least one rook. I know it looks tempting because the Black c-pawn is very vulnerable to a vertical attack, but the Rook's mobility could help Black hold the four pawn islands, so my gut feeling would be to swap everything down to a N vs B endgame, with all White's pawns on dark squares, but I'm not so sure I could force all of that, so I might have to keep one set of rooks on the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An alternative plan might be to plant the knight on b3 behind a b4-pawn. Plan on using the c5 and f4 squares as 'transit points' to move the knight through.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But my first priority would be to send the heavy pieces packing; their job is done, from White's point of view.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="657" LastActivityDate="2015-09-06T00:14:50.587" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12213" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-09-06T02:54:26.587" Score="3" ViewCount="204" Body="&lt;p&gt;I wrote a program that converts moves in ICCF notation into a total of ten notations:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;SAN&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;FAN&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;LAN&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;MAN&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;RAN&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;CRAN&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Smith&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Descriptive&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Coordinate&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;ICCF&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I previously posted &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/11106/moves-to-test-a-notation-generator&quot;&gt;a question asking for suggestions of unusual circumstances&lt;/a&gt; (like a pawn that captures into a promotion) so that I could make sure my program was assembling the notations correctly, but perhaps &quot;raise your hand if you aren't here&quot; wasn't the best approach.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What I've done now is converted the Byrne-Fischer Game of the Century into ICCF and run it through the program. Since this game is available in SAN on &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Game_of_the_Century_(chess)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;its Wikipedia page&lt;/a&gt;, I was at least able to make sure my program's output matched those moves. After cleaning up the code for disambiguation and castling, it is now a correct match.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My current hope is to get some reviews of the full output. I realize this match doesn't have some basic stuff like promotions, but maybe there are errors in the other notations (especially descriptive - I can't make head or tail of that stuff), and maybe seeing this output will help prompt some ideas for other situations I can test.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;SAN    FAN    LAN      MAN   RAN       CRAN    Smith  Descriptive  Coord  ICCF  Comments&#xA;Nf3    ♘f3    Ng1-f3   Nf3   Ng1-f3    Nf3     g1f3   KN1N-KB3     G1-F3  7163&#xA;Nf6    ♞f6    Ng8-f6   Nf6   Ng8-f6    Nf6     g8f6   KN1N-KB3     G8-F6  7866&#xA;c4     c4     c2-c4    c4    c2-c4     c4      c2c4   QB2P-QB4     C2-C4  3234&#xA;g6     g6     g7-g6    g6    g7-g6     g6      g7g6   KN2P-KN3     G7-G6  7776&#xA;Nc3    ♘c3    Nb1-c3   Nc3   Nb1-c3    Nc3     b1c3   QN1N-QB3     B1-C3  2133&#xA;Bg7    ♝g7    Bf8-g7   Bg7   Bf8-g7    Bg7     f8g7   KB1B-KN2     F8-G7  6877&#xA;d4     d4     d2-d4    d4    d2-d4     d4      d2d4   Q2P-Q4       D2-D4  4244&#xA;0-0    0-0    0-0      0-0   0-0       0-0     e8g8c  O-O          E8-G8  5878&#xA;Bf4    ♗f4    Bc1-f4   Bf4   Bc1-f4    Bf4     c1f4   QB1B-KB4     C1-F4  3164&#xA;d5     d5     d7-d5    d5    d7-d5     d5      d7d5   Q2P-Q4       D7-D5  4745&#xA;Qb3    ♛b3    Qd1-b3   Qb3   Qd1-b3    Qb3     d1b3   Q1Q-QN3      D1-B3  4123&#xA;dxc4   dxc4   d5xc4    dc4   d5xPc4    d:Pc4   d5c4p  Q4PxQB5P     D5-C4  4534&#xA;Qxc4   ♛xc4   Qb3xc4   Qc4   Qb3xPc4   Q:Pc4   b3c4p  QN3QxQB4P    B3-C4  2334&#xA;c6     c6     c7-c6    c6    c7-c6     c6      c7c6   QB2P-QB3     C7-C6  3736&#xA;e4     e4     e2-e4    e4    e2-e4     e4      e2e4   K2P-K4       E2-E4  5254&#xA;Nd7    ♞d7    Nb8-d7   Nd7   Nb8-d7    Nd7     b8d7   QN1N-Q2      B8-D7  2847&#xA;Rd1    ♖d1    Ra1-d1   Rd1   Ra1-d1    Rd1     a1d1   QR1R-Q1      A1-D1  1141&#xA;Nb6    ♞b6    Nd7-b6   Nb6   Nd7-b6    Nb6     d7b6   Q2N-QN3      D7-B6  4726&#xA;Qc5    ♛c5    Qc4-c5   Qc5   Qc4-c5    Qc5     c4c5   QB4Q-QB5     C4-C5  3435&#xA;Bg4    ♝g4    Bc8-g4   Bg4   Bc8-g4    Bg4     c8g4   QB1B-KN5     C8-G4  3874&#xA;Bg5    ♗g5    Bf4-g5   Bg5   Bf4-g5    Bg5     f4g5   KB4B-KN5     F4-G5  6475  ?&#xA;Na4    ♞a4    Nb6-a4   Na4   Nb6-a4    Na4     b6a4   QN3N-QR5     B6-A4  2614  !!&#xA;Qa3    ♛a3    Qc5-a3   Qa3   Qc5-a3    Qa3     c5a3   QB5Q-QR3     C5-A3  3513&#xA;Nxc3   ♞xc3   Na4xc3   Nc3   Na4xNc3   N:Nc3   a4c3n  QR5NxQB6N    A4-C3  1433&#xA;bxc3   bxc3   b2xc3    bc3   b2xNc3    b:Nc3   b2c3n  QN2PxQB3N    B2-C3  2233&#xA;Nxe4   ♞xe4   Nf6xe4   Ne4   Nf6xPe4   N:Pe4   f6e4p  KB3NxK5P     F6-E4  6654  !&#xA;Bxe7   ♗xe7   Bg5xe7   Be7   Bg5xPe7   B:Pe7   g5e7p  KN5BxK7P     G5-E7  7557&#xA;Qb6    ♕b6    Qd8-b6   Qb6   Qd8-b6    Qb6     d8b6   Q1Q-QN3      D8-B6  4826&#xA;Bc4    ♗c4    Bf1-c4   Bc4   Bf1-c4    Bc4     f1c4   KB1B-QB4     F1-C4  6134&#xA;Nxc3   ♞xc3   Ne4xc3   Nc3   Ne4xPc3   N:Pc3   e4c3p  K5NxQB6P     E4-C3  5433  !&#xA;Bc5    ♗c5    Be7-c5   Bc5   Be7-c5    Bc5     e7c5   K7B-QB5      E7-C5  5735&#xA;Rfe8+  ♜fe8+  Rf8-e8+  Rfe8  Rf8-e8+   Rfe8+   f8e8   KB1R-K1+     F8-E8  6858&#xA;Kf1    ♔f1    Ke1-f1   Kf1   Ke1-f1    Kf1     e1f1   K1K-KB1      E1-F1  5161&#xA;Be6    ♝e6    Bg4-e6   Be6   Bg4-e6    Be6     g4e6   KN5B-K3      G4-E6  7456  !!&#xA;Bxb6   ♗xb6   Bc5xb6   Bb6   Bc5xQb6   B:Qb6   c5b6q  QB5BxQN6Q    C5-B6  3526  ?&#xA;Bxc4+  ♝xc4+  Be6xc4+  Bc4   Be6xBc4+  B:Bc4+  e6c4b  K3BxQB5B+    E6-C4  5634&#xA;Kg1    ♔g1    Kf1-g1   Kg1   Kf1-g1    Kg1     f1g1   KB1K-KN1     F1-G1  6171&#xA;Ne2+   ♞e2+   Nc3-e2+  Ne2   Nc3-e2+   Ne2+    c3e2   QB6N-K7+     C3-E2  3352&#xA;Kf1    ♔f1    Kg1-f1   Kf1   Kg1-f1    Kf1     g1f1   KN1K-KB1     G1-F1  7161&#xA;Nxd4+  ♞xd4+  Ne2xd4+  Nd4   Ne2xPd4+  N:Pd4+  e2d4p  K7NxQ5P+     E2-D4  5244&#xA;Kg1    ♔g1    Kf1-g1   Kg1   Kf1-g1    Kg1     f1g1   KB1K-KN1     F1-G1  6171&#xA;Ne2+   ♞e2+   Nd4-e2+  Ne2   Nd4-e2+   Ne2+    d4e2   Q5N-K7+      D4-E2  4452&#xA;Kf1    ♔f1    Kg1-f1   Kf1   Kg1-f1    Kf1     g1f1   KN1K-KB1     G1-F1  7161&#xA;Nc3+   ♞c3+   Ne2-c3+  Nc3   Ne2-c3+   Nc3+    e2c3   K7N-QB6+     E2-C3  5233&#xA;Kg1    ♔g1    Kf1-g1   Kg1   Kf1-g1    Kg1     f1g1   KB1K-KN1     F1-G1  6171&#xA;axb6   axb6   a7xb6    ab6   a7xBb6    a:Bb6   a7b6b  QR2PxQN3B    A7-B6  1726&#xA;Qb4    ♛b4    Qa3-b4   Qb4   Qa3-b4    Qb4     a3b4   QR3Q-QN4     A3-B4  1324&#xA;Ra4    ♜a4    Ra8-a4   Ra4   Ra8-a4    Ra4     a8a4   QR1R-QR5     A8-A4  1814  !&#xA;Qxb6   ♛xb6   Qb4xb6   Qb6   Qb4xPb6   Q:Pb6   b4b6p  QN4QxQN6P    B4-B6  2426&#xA;Nxd1   ♞xd1   Nc3xd1   Nd1   Nc3xRd1   N:Rd1   c3d1r  QB6NxQ8R     C3-D1  3341&#xA;h3     h3     h2-h3    h3    h2-h3     h3      h2h3   KR2P-KR3     H2-H3  8283&#xA;Rxa2   ♜xa2   Ra4xa2   Ra2   Ra4xPa2   R:Pa2   a4a2p  QR5RxQR7P    A4-A2  1412&#xA;Kh2    ♔h2    Kg1-h2   Kh2   Kg1-h2    Kh2     g1h2   KN1K-KR2     G1-H2  7182&#xA;Nxf2   ♞xf2   Nd1xf2   Nf2   Nd1xPf2   N:Pf2   d1f2p  Q8NxKB7P     D1-F2  4162&#xA;Re1    ♖e1    Rh1-e1   Re1   Rh1-e1    Re1     h1e1   KR1R-K1      H1-E1  8151&#xA;Rxe1   ♜xe1   Re8xe1   Re1   Re8xRe1   R:Re1   e8e1r  K1RxK8R      E8-E1  5851&#xA;Qd8+   ♛d8+   Qb6-d8+  Qd8   Qb6-d8+   Qd8+    b6d8   QN6Q-Q8+     B6-D8  2648&#xA;Bf8    ♝f8    Bg7-f8   Bf8   Bg7-f8    Bf8     g7f8   KN2B-KB1     G7-F8  7768&#xA;Nxe1   ♘xe1   Nf3xe1   Ne1   Nf3xRe1   N:Re1   f3e1r  KB3NxK1R     F3-E1  6351&#xA;Bd5    ♝d5    Bc4-d5   Bd5   Bc4-d5    Bd5     c4d5   QB5B-Q4      C4-D5  3445&#xA;Nf3    ♘f3    Ne1-f3   Nf3   Ne1-f3    Nf3     e1f3   K1N-KB3      E1-F3  5163&#xA;Ne4    ♞e4    Nf2-e4   Ne4   Nf2-e4    Ne4     f2e4   KB7N-K5      F2-E4  6254&#xA;Qb8    ♛b8    Qd8-b8   Qb8   Qd8-b8    Qb8     d8b8   Q8Q-QN8      D8-B8  4828&#xA;b5     b5     b7-b5    b5    b7-b5     b5      b7b5   QN2P-QN4     B7-B5  2725&#xA;h4     h4     h3-h4    h4    h3-h4     h4      h3h4   KR3P-KR4     H3-H4  8384&#xA;h5     h5     h7-h5    h5    h7-h5     h5      h7h5   KR2P-KR4     H7-H5  8785&#xA;Ne5    ♘e5    Nf3-e5   Ne5   Nf3-e5    Ne5     f3e5   KB3N-K5      F3-E5  6355&#xA;Kg7    ♚g7    Kg8-g7   Kg7   Kg8-g7    Kg7     g8g7   KN1K-KN2     G8-G7  7877&#xA;Kg1    ♔g1    Kh2-g1   Kg1   Kh2-g1    Kg1     h2g1   KR2K-KN1     H2-G1  8271&#xA;Bc5+   ♝c5+   Bf8-c5+  Bc5   Bf8-c5+   Bc5+    f8c5   KB1B-QB4+    F8-C5  6835&#xA;Kf1    ♔f1    Kg1-f1   Kf1   Kg1-f1    Kf1     g1f1   KN1K-KB1     G1-F1  7161&#xA;Ng3+   ♞g3+   Ne4-g3+  Ng3   Ne4-g3+   Ng3+    e4g3   K5N-KN6+     E4-G3  5473&#xA;Ke1    ♔e1    Kf1-e1   Ke1   Kf1-e1    Ke1     f1e1   KB1K-K1      F1-E1  6151&#xA;Bb4+   ♝b4+   Bc5-b4+  Bb4   Bc5-b4+   Bb4+    c5b4   QB4B-QN5+    C5-B4  3524&#xA;Kd1    ♔d1    Ke1-d1   Kd1   Ke1-d1    Kd1     e1d1   K1K-Q1       E1-D1  5141&#xA;Bb3+   ♝b3+   Bd5-b3+  Bb3   Bd5-b3+   Bb3+    d5b3   Q4B-QN6+     D5-B3  4523&#xA;Kc1    ♔c1    Kd1-c1   Kc1   Kd1-c1    Kc1     d1c1   Q1K-QB1      D1-C1  4131&#xA;Ne2+   ♞e2+   Ng3-e2+  Ne2   Ng3-e2+   Ne2+    g3e2   KN6N-K7+     G3-E2  7352&#xA;Kb1    ♔b1    Kc1-b1   Kb1   Kc1-b1    Kb1     c1b1   QB1K-QN1     C1-B1  3121&#xA;Nc3+   ♞c3+   Ne2-c3+  Nc3   Ne2-c3+   Nc3+    e2c3   K7N-QB6+     E2-C3  5233&#xA;Kc1    ♔c1    Kb1-c1   Kc1   Kb1-c1    Kc1     b1c1   QN1K-QB1     B1-C1  2131&#xA;Rc2    ♜c2    Ra2-c2   Rc2   Ra2-c2    Rc2     a2c2   QR7R-QB7     A2-C2  1232  # 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I got the ICCF notations by running through this match in my chess program and then converting its internal move notation to ICCF. I added the check indicators, annotation, etc. to the ICCF moves manually. You can see that I currently consider the check indicator to be part of a move, but anything else (e.g. &lt;code&gt;!&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;#&lt;/code&gt;) is considered a comment. I don't know if that's correct, either.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7229" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.193" LastActivityDate="2015-09-09T02:05:04.667" Title="Automatically-generated notations in ten varieties... are they correct?" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;notation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12214" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12213" CreationDate="2015-09-06T07:25:06.530" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;You can see that I currently consider the check indicator to be part&#xA;  of a move, but anything else (e.g. !, #) is considered a comment. I&#xA;  don't know if that's correct, either&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No, it's not correct. The final move is Rc2#. The &quot;#&quot; means &quot;checkmate&quot; and is part of the move in the same way as &quot;+&quot; for &quot;check&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That obviously only applies if it occurs immediately after the move and not as part of a comment. The same would apply to a symbol like &quot;+=&quot; which means something like &quot;white stands a little bit better&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2015-09-06T07:25:06.530" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12218" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5971" CreationDate="2015-09-06T12:59:37.953" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess engines such as stockfish cannot be used to validates legal chess moves. It will crash or if you get lucky sometimes it won't. But go ahead whatever it is you are doing and good luck&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7281" LastActivityDate="2015-09-06T12:59:37.953" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12219" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5579" CreationDate="2015-09-06T13:13:37.077" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Before starting diving into stockfish why don't you checkout the smallest chess program in C called nanochess by Oscar Toledo. It has only one file main.c  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7281" LastActivityDate="2015-09-06T13:13:37.077" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12220" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-09-07T06:14:55.903" Score="7" ViewCount="581" Body="&lt;p&gt;In an instructional video, I have found this position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/B7GK5.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/B7GK5.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The instructor (Dr Muller) says about key squares that are marked with green. I am unable to get the idea behind how Dr Muller determined these squares as Key Squares. I have practiced it many times in Fritz but fail to understand the exact technique that I should employ. The instruction goes rather fast and not helpful for beginners.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please help me to proceed as white from here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4618" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2015-09-07T08:15:08.353" LastActivityDate="2016-05-14T13:31:54.030" Title="Key-Squares in Pawn Endgames" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;pawn-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12221" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12220" CreationDate="2015-09-07T08:35:43.450" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;If the white king reaches one of the green key squares, then white will win. There is no rule determining those squares, just concrete analysis. However, once we have the key squares in place, we can systematically search for pairs of &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corresponding_squares&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;corresponding squares&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If the white king is on &lt;code&gt;d8&lt;/code&gt;, then the black king must move to &lt;code&gt;f8&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If the white king is on &lt;code&gt;d7&lt;/code&gt;, then the black king must move to &lt;code&gt;f7&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If the white king is on &lt;code&gt;d6&lt;/code&gt;, then the black king must move to &lt;code&gt;f6&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If the white king is on &lt;code&gt;c8&lt;/code&gt;, then the black king must move to &lt;code&gt;e8&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If the white king is on &lt;code&gt;c7&lt;/code&gt;, then the black king must move to &lt;code&gt;e7&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If the white king is on &lt;code&gt;c6&lt;/code&gt;, then the black king must move to &lt;code&gt;e6&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If at any stage black to move has the king already placed on the square corresponding to the square of the white king, black is in zugzwang and will lose.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This example turns out to be a quite simple case of (distant) opposition and &lt;code&gt;1. Kb7!&lt;/code&gt; wins for white. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1485" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2015-09-07T15:30:19.517" LastActivityDate="2015-09-07T15:30:19.517" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12223" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-09-07T16:23:00.887" Score="5" ViewCount="214" Body="&lt;p&gt;Do any of you know if there is any book that is written about the theme &quot;How to deal with time troubles&quot;? It does not need to be only about time management, but at least if it has something on that topic it would be great to have the title of it. If there are any examples from real games it would be excellent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8200" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2015-09-07T19:27:30.653" LastActivityDate="2020-11-21T16:53:34.523" Title="Chess books about how to deal with time troubles" Tags="&lt;books&gt;&lt;time-management&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12224" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4071" CreationDate="2015-09-07T17:38:18.540" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;This puzzle was by Tibor Orban in 1976, and is a great introductory puzzle for those who have never come across a proof game before. In its miniature form, it still shows two elementary technical features: Tempo Loss and Switchback. Tempo is already discussed: there are shorter (non-unique) solutions in 3.0 &amp;amp; 3.5 moves. Switchback is where the Black King leaves his starting square and returns to it. Apart from their artistic effect, these two features also serve to conceal the solution better. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess problems are a bit like high diving: you are trying to harmoniously combine a sequence of challenging effects before you hit the water. (See &lt;a href=&quot;http://whdf.com/Information/WHDF%20formula%20and%20components%20for%20dd%20calculation%20EC%20090724.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;. One difference is that in chess problems there is not the same rigorous point counting: appreciation is more subjective.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8201" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2015-09-07T19:27:57.200" LastActivityDate="2015-09-07T19:27:57.200" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12225" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12206" CreationDate="2015-09-07T19:51:25.603" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;ELO ratings is all about statistics. When you win against a weaker player you gain less points then you lose when you lose against that player. You can also lose points when you draw against a weaker player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4509" LastActivityDate="2015-09-07T19:51:25.603" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12226" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12223" CreationDate="2015-09-08T07:15:36.877" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are a lot of books that tackle the problem of time trouble at least somewhat. I would recommend &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1901983366&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;The Seven Deadly Chess Sins&lt;/a&gt; by Jonathan Rowson. It's not solely about time trouble but touches upon time trouble often enough to be definitely useful in that regard. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-09-08T07:15:36.877" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12227" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2796" CreationDate="2015-09-08T08:05:42.860" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Thanks for the great links above. Here are some more: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ozproblems.com/problem-world&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Great intro tutorials&lt;/a&gt; from a fine composer, Peter Wong.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Incomplete but still very useful &lt;a href=&quot;http://pdb.dieschwalbe.de/keywords.jsp?s=all&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;multilingual glossary&lt;/a&gt; of the keywords underpinning &quot;Die Schwalbe&quot; online database of 350,000+ problems.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.janko.at/Retros/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Thousands of retro problems&lt;/a&gt; with full solutions, and many articles. Minor cavil: there is a little disorganization in article structure following the announcement around 2009 of some technical changes around in castling and e.p. conventions.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;A popular &lt;a href=&quot;http://juliasfairies.com/fairy-terms/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;forum for fairy chess&lt;/a&gt; with very good technical articles by top composers.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8201" LastActivityDate="2015-09-08T08:05:42.860" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12228" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-09-08T09:01:12.173" Score="0" ViewCount="49" Body="&lt;p&gt;How do I practice counter play when I'm down material? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3149" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2015-09-08T18:06:52.463" LastActivityDate="2015-09-08T18:06:52.463" Title="How do I become better at counter play when I'm down in material?" Tags="&lt;best-practice&gt;&lt;counterplay&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12229" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12570" CreationDate="2015-09-08T09:06:39.910" Score="12" ViewCount="2129" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is it possible to draw in such an endgame? Are there exceptions? If so, what are they? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3149" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2015-09-08T19:31:00.773" LastActivityDate="2015-10-10T21:32:51.700" Title="How do you draw in an opposite color bishops endgame with two pawns down?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;bishop-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12230" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12229" CreationDate="2015-09-08T09:29:49.733" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, if the pawns can be blockaded it's often an easy draw. One example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;8/4k3/4P3/3P4/2B1K3/b7/8/8 w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As long as the black bishop controls d6, the pawns aren't going anywhere. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But two pawns are two pawns. If they are farther apart and far progressed often one pawn wins the bishop and the other pawn wins the game, or one pawn sacrifices itself so the other one cannot be blocked by the bishop anymore. But this depends heavily on the specifics of the position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-09-08T09:29:49.733" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12231" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12229" CreationDate="2015-09-08T09:36:36.537" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are a lot of cases where two pawns is not enough to win an opposite bishops ending, but generally it depends on the position. If the defending side manages to block the pawns on the color of the attacking bishop (like @BlindKungFuMaster's position), it is usually a draw. Especially when they are on the same diagonal, as then &lt;em&gt;zugzwang&lt;/em&gt; is less likely. The defending player usually needs &lt;strong&gt;both&lt;/strong&gt; the king and the bishop for the blockade.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An very fine example of a winning position is this one:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;      [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;      [Event &quot;Linares&quot;]&#xA;      [Site &quot;Linares ESP&quot;]&#xA;      [Date &quot;1998.03.04&quot;]&#xA;      [EventDate &quot;1998.02.22&quot;]&#xA;      [Round &quot;10&quot;]&#xA;      [Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;      [White &quot;Veselin Topalov&quot;]&#xA;      [Black &quot;Alexey Shirov&quot;]&#xA;      [ECO &quot;D85&quot;]&#xA;      [WhiteElo &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;      [BlackElo &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;      [PlyCount &quot;106&quot;]&#xA;      [StartPly &quot;93&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;      1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 d5 4.cxd5 Nxd5 5.e4 Nxc3 6.bxc3 Bg7&#xA;7.Bb5+ c6 8.Ba4 O-O 9.Ne2 Nd7 10.O-O e5 11.f3 Qe7 12.Be3 Rd8&#xA;13.Qc2 Nb6 14.Bb3 Be6 15.Rad1 Nc4 16.Bc1 b5 17.f4 exd4 18.Nxd4&#xA;Bg4 19.Rde1 Qc5 20.Kh1 a5 21.h3 Bd7 22.a4 bxa4 23.Ba2 Be8&#xA;24.e5 Nb6 25.f5 Nd5 26.Bd2 Nb4 27.Qxa4 Nxa2 28.Qxa2 Bxe5&#xA;29.fxg6 hxg6 30.Bg5 Rd5 31.Re3 Qd6 32.Qe2 Bd7 33.c4 Bxd4&#xA;34.cxd5 Bxe3 35.Qxe3 Re8 36.Qc3 Qxd5 37.Bh6 Re5 38.Rf3 Qc5&#xA;39.Qa1 Bf5 40.Re3 f6 41.Rxe5 Qxe5 42.Qa2+ Qd5 43.Qxd5+ cxd5&#xA;44.Bd2 a4 45.Bc3 Kf7 46.h4 Ke6 47.Kg1 Bh3 48.gxh3 Kf5 49.Kf2&#xA;Ke4 50.Bxf6 d4 51.Be7 Kd3 52.Bc5 Kc4 53.Be7 Kb3 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black played the fantastic move 47 ... Bh3!!, sacrificing the bishop to gain a critical tempo with the king. White's king could not join the bishop in time for the blockade.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2015-09-08T14:50:27.820" LastActivityDate="2015-09-08T14:50:27.820" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12232" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12228" CreationDate="2015-09-08T09:52:39.143" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Counter play, especially when down material, is often about creating dynamic chances. So you should probably work in that area:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Study the games of some attacking geniuses like &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1139582&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Tal&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1085871&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Shirov&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1238130&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Morphy&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1019162&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Anderssen&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Work through some &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/0486284492&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;good&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1857444000&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;books&lt;/a&gt; on &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/9197600407&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;attacking&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1901983250&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;chess&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Play some gambits in training games. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Train tactics, but thats a given anyway. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastEditorUserId="4362" LastEditDate="2015-09-08T11:37:04.940" LastActivityDate="2015-09-08T11:37:04.940" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12233" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="178" CreationDate="2015-09-08T09:53:53.860" Score="1" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[TITLE &quot;chess position from The Flanders Panel book&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;1nb5/pp1p4/PRP5/pR6/k1K1P3/2P5/2qP1P2/1NrnQB2 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the retro logic in the &quot;The Flanders Panel&quot; to work, there are two assumptions required: (1) there were no promotions (2) the black queen was royal, i.e. could not have been left exposed to attack. The solvers also assume that it was Black who moved last: perhaps there is some clue mentioned in the painting (e.g. Ferdinand of Ostenburg pushing the chess clock :D). If you accept those conditions, then the retro logic works out OK, in what is a well-written &amp;amp; atmospheric historical thriller.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is &lt;strong&gt;so much better&lt;/strong&gt; than the corresponding composition in the movie of the book, renamed &quot;Uncovered&quot;, and starring Kate Beckinsale. The diagram is:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[TITLE &quot;chess position from Uncovered movie&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;2n1r1k1/bQ2p1r1/p4p1q/6pp/1P5P/R5PK/2BR4/4N3 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The retroanalysis is simply bonkers, but most of the analysis concerns the forward play, in what is initially a balanced position, but which is thrown away by the &quot;expert&quot; player representing White in a series of moves not much better than those in &quot;Alice Through the Looking Glass&quot;.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The total blunder 1.Ra5? is played in the movie (Stockfish prefers 1.Qd7!) 1...g4+! 2.Kh2! Qxd2+! 3.Qg2? (3.Ng2!) 3...Qxb4? (3...Qxe1!) 4.Qc6? (4.Ra1!) and Stockfish rates the position -9.9.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In one of the chess scenes (in the park) the diagram position is actually wrong, with bKa8 instead of g8, and wQ missing!  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Amazing that in a movie which is ostensibly about a chess position, that no-one bothered to invest $50 in a competent chess player to sort the thing out properly!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8201" LastEditorUserId="8201" LastEditDate="2017-10-14T03:11:34.507" LastActivityDate="2017-10-14T03:11:34.507" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12234" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12206" CreationDate="2015-09-08T11:33:17.337" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;How much rating you lose or gain depend (besides your and your opponents rating) on the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elo_rating_system#The_K-factor_used_by_the_USCF&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;K-factor&lt;/a&gt;. If your opponent has a different K-factor than you do, the gain/loss of rating can be asymmetrical. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the Fide Elo system the K-factor depends on rating and age. Apparently the USCF has a K-factor that is dependent on the number of games played overall and in the current tournament.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, that is probably the reason for the discrepancies you noticed. But it has nothing to do with asymmetry between winning and losing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-09-08T11:33:17.337" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12235" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-09-08T15:18:29.223" Score="0" ViewCount="779" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is chess tournament nearing and I am one of the participants. I have been participating in it in the last few years. And once I was fooled by one of my opponents at the start of the game. He acted such as if he was a very bad player and asked me silly questions at the start of the game. And I got fooled and underestimated the opponent. We also played a practice match first and I won it easily (I guess he didn't play that match seriously). And finally in the real match, he won over me. He was not better than me. (Actually, after analyzing the game, I understood that I had done lot silly mistakes in the game probably because I underestimated him).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So finally, I liked that tactic of my opponent and I want to use it. So, I am in search of some things I can say to the opponent before the match due to which he will underestimate me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2986" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2015-09-08T16:27:41.070" LastActivityDate="2015-09-09T16:24:46.707" Title="Chess tricks to fool opponents before game" Tags="&lt;psychology&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" ClosedDate="2015-09-10T05:22:06.743" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12236" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2015-09-08T18:10:37.030" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2015-09-08T18:10:37.030" LastActivityDate="2015-09-08T18:10:37.030" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12237" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2015-09-08T18:10:37.030" Score="0" Body="&quot;Active maneuvering by the player in an inferior or defensive position&quot; (from Wikipedia)" OwnerUserId="1485" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2015-09-09T02:18:53.023" LastActivityDate="2015-09-09T02:18:53.023" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12238" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-09-08T18:24:11.960" Score="1" ViewCount="1297" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/uF1lD.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/uF1lD.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why can the white king not take the queen here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8208" LastEditorUserId="3831" LastEditDate="2015-09-08T18:41:59.770" LastActivityDate="2015-12-20T01:29:31.950" Title="King taking pieces when check" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;learning&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12239" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12238" CreationDate="2015-09-08T18:40:53.523" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Because that would move the king into check - the queen is defended by the bishop on c5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More generally there is &lt;strong&gt;no&lt;/strong&gt; problem with a king taking a piece that is checking it, &lt;strong&gt;provided&lt;/strong&gt; the capture does not move the king into check or break any of the other laws of chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7726" LastActivityDate="2015-09-08T18:40:53.523" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12240" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12235" CreationDate="2015-09-08T20:01:25.710" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Approach you opponent and ask him if he is good. He'll probably respond by saying that he is okay or pretty good. Then tell him how once you played someone who was really good and how you lost in ten moves. Also, it is preferable if you pretend to be 8 years old or younger. As you set up the board, make sure to set the board wrong. Place the knight where the bishop should go, and of course the queen should be misplaced as well. He'll correct you and you will pretend you didn't know. The most important thing is during the game. Make sure you seem undecided. Hover your hand around a random pawn and pretend like your thinking. Then hover around another pawn and do the same. Forget to press the clock a couple times. Do a couple illegal moves. I once had a person do exactly this. He pretend to be a child and oblivious to the rules of chess and I just played really fast and careless and lost. I lost because I didn't take my opponent seriously. Things are not always what they seem, so always keep your eyes open and don't underestimate your opponent. I'm assuming that the tournament you speak of isn't an official uscf because you didn't know how strong your opponents are(rating).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3872" LastActivityDate="2015-09-08T20:01:25.710" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12241" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12235" CreationDate="2015-09-08T21:21:48.630" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Truth be told... Those are underhanded tactics that won't get you far, in fact they won't get you 2 steps ahead in chess let alone more than that. At higher levels people rarely even speak to each other until they play their matches(afterwards however they do meet up and speak normally).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One crucial mistake you did however, one you should avoid next time is &lt;strong&gt;never&lt;/strong&gt; play a game before the tournament, warm up or otherwise. It gives away your pattern of thought, your opening knowledge (at least some of it) and overall exposes some of your tactics, and no one likes to be easily read like an open book in chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for what you want to do... The only place I advise you should use psychology is in the actual chess game itself, nothing prior to that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Usually when people play and become frustrated or under pressure, their bodies react in different ways... Some sweat, others scratch their heads, some keep ticking on the floor with their feet and the list goes on really. Your job is to be able to read those moments and use them to open up their defense (or break their offense). You should also play on the clock! Something many beginners miss at the start is the pressure of the clock!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The clock has the second most pressure on players after the moves done in the game... Every second passing adds to an invisible pressure that is already unpleasant! If you are able to make your opponent lose time that's the biggest advantage you'll get.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And last but not least... If you want to use some tactics to throw off your opponent, I highly recommend against talking in the tournament as you might get banned or lose the match if the opponent chooses to report you to the judges. So you should instead use facial expressions... While he's making a move (one you actually consider dangerous) you smile in a sarcastic way as if you think that move is bad etc... Same thing goes when you're the one making the move, sometimes the move is not perfect (it rarely is) but with the right influence exerted throughout the match your opponent might end up even getting hesitant about taking a free piece you just tried sacrificing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But keep in mind, almost none of these will work on higher levels, especially the body language one as older and experienced players tend to have habits when playing, some move their bodies in different ways which you can interpret in an incorrect manner resulting in the loss of your match.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And of course! I highly recommend you instead focus on leveling your game instead of trying these tactics... In fact most of these will come by themselves when you gain enough experience, rarely do any of the players that use underhanded tactics advance into the high levels of chess (at least without abandoning those tactics)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I apologize if I have some mistakes in the text, I am quite sleepy... But I hope I helped a bit&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6966" LastActivityDate="2015-09-08T21:21:48.630" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12242" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12245" CreationDate="2015-09-09T01:08:21.653" Score="4" ViewCount="331" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;  [Date &quot;1997&quot;]&#xA;  [White &quot;GM Kogan&quot;]&#xA;  [Black &quot;IM Watzkin&quot;]&#xA;  [StartPly &quot;8&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;  1. Nf3 d5 2. c4 dxc4 3. Na3 a6 4. Nxc4 b5 5. Na5 c5 6. b4 cxb4 7. Qc2 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first four moves are common, but then ... 5. Na5 c5 6. b4 cxb4 7. Qc2 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why would a strong GM purposely go in to an opening that is so bad that it is already lost? After move 7 Stockfish evaluates the position as -1 or something like that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user8213" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2015-09-09T07:19:08.223" LastActivityDate="2017-09-07T18:00:06.187" Title="Why did GM Kogan play such a bad opening in this 1997 game?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12243" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12213" CreationDate="2015-09-09T02:05:04.667" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your descriptive notation is much more verbose than anyone would write in reality. For example, the first two moves would normally be written &lt;code&gt;1.N-KB3 N-KB3 2.P-B4 P-KN3&lt;/code&gt;. Note that the prefix denoting which exact piece is moving is not supplied unless it is necessary to disambiguate the move, and that &lt;code&gt;P-B4&lt;/code&gt; is sufficient to describe White's second move because there's only one bishop pawn he can move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In general writing idiomatic descriptive notation is a bit of an art, which is one reason that everyone switched to algebraic (I grew up with descriptive and don't miss it). The general rule is to be as terse as possible unless the extra information (which piece is moving, which side of the board is being moved to, where is the piece being captured) is necessary. If only one pawn can capture one other pawn, write &lt;code&gt;PxP&lt;/code&gt;; if you write &lt;code&gt;PxQP&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;KPxP&lt;/code&gt; or god forbid &lt;code&gt;KPxQP&lt;/code&gt;, it should be because you have to.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2015-09-09T02:05:04.667" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12244" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2199" CreationDate="2015-09-09T02:51:12.607" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Carlsen is famous for playing on in quiet mid-games and &quot;dead drawn&quot; endings and actually winning them. He sees very deeply into positions, and as a result plays very accurately but also sets questions for his opponents that they must answer correctly or lose. So his acquiescence to a &quot;drawish&quot; opening, particularly as Black, can be regarded as playing to his own strength.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8201" LastEditorUserId="8201" LastEditDate="2015-09-09T02:57:32.610" LastActivityDate="2015-09-09T02:57:32.610" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12245" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12242" CreationDate="2015-09-09T07:36:33.590" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;The reason is probably that GM Kogan didn't have the opportunity to consult Stockfish during this game …&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you play unorthodox moves to pose unorthodox problems, sometimes you stumble yourself. And it's not like he played completely stupid moves. He sacrificed a flank pawn and has now a majority in the centre and b2 for his bishop. The knight on a5 at least hinders the normal development Bb7.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Humans don't play like computers. Of course he played risky and aggressive chess, but whether his opponent can punish him for it, is still entirely unclear at this point in the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you take a look at Tal's games you might find that ideas don't have to be sound to be dangerous.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-09-09T07:36:33.590" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12246" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12248" CreationDate="2015-09-09T16:17:06.250" Score="9" ViewCount="5315" Body="&lt;p&gt;I like to play 4...e5 in the Open Sicilian in my games, usually facing something like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[StartPly &quot;8&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 e5 5. Nb3 Nc6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I do this to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Chase the knight so that it doesn't block advancing my pieces.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Regain control of the center after 3...cxd4.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Gain a tempo.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there any disadvantage in doing this ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6985" LastEditorUserId="4588" LastEditDate="2015-09-09T16:19:37.130" LastActivityDate="2021-01-02T06:34:53.137" Title="What's wrong with 4...e5 in the Open Sicilian?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;&lt;1.e4&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12247" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12235" CreationDate="2015-09-09T16:24:46.707" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &quot;tactic&quot; he used doesn't work on experienced players. You were easily fooled by some talk and an off-hand game. OK, it happens; learn from it and don't let it happen again. Experienced tournament players don't fall for that. As a general rule, for example, I never even look at my opponent's rating before the game, and I always assume my opponent is at least as good as I am, and quite probably better, or they wouldn't be playing against me in this tournament.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chalk your mistake up to experience and remember not to be fooled by it again, and realize that if your opponent is inexperienced enough to fall for that kind of thing, you should probably be able to beat them anyway, simply by playing your best, so there's no purpose served in expending the energy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="657" LastActivityDate="2015-09-09T16:24:46.707" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12248" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12246" CreationDate="2015-09-09T16:41:15.607" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;After 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 e5 5.Nb3 Nc6, the position is probably fine for black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, after 4....e5, white seems to have a stronger reply: 5.Bb5+. According to the &lt;a href=&quot;http://chesstempo.com/game-database.html&quot;&gt;Game Database of ChessTempo&lt;/a&gt;, this is also the most popular move. Now, black has two options: 4....Bd7 or 4....Nd7. After both moves, white can put his knight on f5 and obtain a slightly better position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, I would say that 4....e5 is a small inaccuracy. However, the &lt;em&gt;ideas&lt;/em&gt; behind the move (occupying the center, gaining a tempo) are perfectly fine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe it is interesting to take a look at: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the Sveshnikov variation: 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 e5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the Kalashnikov variation: 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 e5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the Classical variation: 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 Nc6, and after 6.Be2, 6....e5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the Najdorf variation: 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6, and after 6.Be2, 6....e5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;      [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;      [StartPly &quot;3&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;      1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 (2...Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 (4...e5) 5.Nc3 e5) 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 e5 (4...Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 (5...Nc6 6.Be2 e5) 6.Be2 e5) 5.Bb5+ (5.Nb3 Nc6) 5...Nd7 (5...Bd7 6.Bxd7+ Qxd7 7.Nf5) 6.Nf5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4588" LastEditorUserId="4588" LastEditDate="2015-09-09T16:46:45.913" LastActivityDate="2015-09-09T16:46:45.913" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12249" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11197" CreationDate="2015-09-09T18:35:04.697" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Several reasons. First of all, it's necessary to assign some sort of rating to any unrated players in the event, so that their opponent's rating can be calculated properly. So a quick &quot;pre-calculation&quot; of the performance rating of the unrateds gives us an approximation we can use to calculate their effect on their opponents' ratings. That can't be done well without a tournament's worth of games. So if the chess servers aren't making modifications to everyone's rating in every previous round as well as the current one, they're doing it wrong, and are getting bad results (GIGO). And, once you start doing that, you upset the pairings that were made based on those ratings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, not every tournament can spare the time to calculate ratings and re-order the entire tournament table every round. (You do realize that the rating order of players affects every round's pairing, right?) Quite often there's already a scramble between rounds to get everything ready to go for the next without doubling the work. (Yes, I've organized and run tournaments, how could you tell?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And no tournament software exists to do that outside of the chess servers. None of the packages TDs normally used can do that. (And the chess server software isn't approved for use in an OTB tournament, AFAIK.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only reasonable way around those are round-robin pairings, but they are not an option for large events.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's lots of new and interesting ways to apply technology to events, but remember, once you require a certain level of technology, you lock out everyone who doesn't have it (or doesn't have the money or inclination to get it). There's still some players who refuse to play in events with a delay clock -- &quot;30 minutes should MEAN 30 minutes, not some unknowable/incalculable time between 30 and 40 minutes!&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've worked with folks who could set up the last round of a 100-player swiss using index cards in mere (as in 5 or less) minutes. Forcing folks like that to buy a computer and software just to run an event would &lt;em&gt;never&lt;/em&gt; fly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And that, in the final analysis is why it's not done that way. We can have time controls with and without delay, and let the people select the events they participate in. But every player participates in the rating system, so we can't have some events rated one way while others, played under identical conditions, get rated a different way. I guarantee hard feelings will result.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="657" LastActivityDate="2015-09-09T18:35:04.697" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12250" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9820" CreationDate="2015-09-09T18:46:21.477" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Ratings of Chessplayers Past And Present by Arpad Elo tackles that question. It can be done, Elo does a little of it (before harping about his methodolgy, though, remember when he wrote that he had only an HP calculator to do all the calculations). Others have done it using different methods.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But the exercise itself is rather pointless. An ELO of 2495 today does not mean the same strength as an ELO of 2495 from decades ago (unless you are seriously going to try and make the point that any of the top 100 or so grandmasters of today could easily beat the Booby Fischer from 1963 that went 11-0 in the US championship, or that Wesley So or Fabiano Caruana today could beat a Fischer at the peak of his abilities).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ratings are useful for comparisons of contemporaries, but the farther apart in time the players get the more meaningless the comparisons are. A rating is a measurement of strength relative to the whole, and even among players of the same year, a reduction in the player pool will change the numbers (though probably not the relative order).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="657" LastActivityDate="2015-09-09T18:46:21.477" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12251" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12260" CreationDate="2015-09-09T19:40:40.163" Score="7" ViewCount="1411" Body="&lt;p&gt;The famous &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shannon_number&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Shannon number&lt;/a&gt;, 10^120, an estimated lower bound on the number of possible chess games, is based on the assumption that a typical game lasts 40 moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In games between skilled human players, this average game length seems to be about right (see &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/2506/what-is-the-average-length-of-a-game-of-chess&quot;&gt;this question&lt;/a&gt;), but if we want to count &lt;em&gt;all&lt;/em&gt; possible chess games, then we also have to include the vast majority of games where the moves don't have any purpose or sense whatsoever. Such a game with random moves would surely be likely to last more than 40 moves?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So what is the average game length of a random game? This should be easy enough to simulate on a computer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1485" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2017-07-25T08:32:04.163" LastActivityDate="2017-07-25T08:32:04.163" Title="What is the average length of a game of chess with only random moves?" Tags="&lt;statistics&gt;&lt;game-complexity&gt;&lt;game-length&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12252" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9804" CreationDate="2015-09-10T00:08:41.947" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;4.e5 looks like the move here, because d6-d5 makes this move possible and because the Nf6 has no good squares.  A few possible lines after 4. e5:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(1) 4...Ne4 5.Nxe4 (other moves like 5.Bd3 or 5.Nce2 should also give White an edge, but 5.Nxe4 looks most principled because Black will struggle to save the pawn on e4) 5...dxe4 6.c3 Bf5 7.Ne2 e6 8.Ng3 Bg6 9.h4 h6 10.h5 Bh7 11.Bc4, and even if Black can somehow hold the pawn on e4 (unlikely), he has a miserable position with a huge space disadvantage and a bad Bishop on h7.  This position is somewhere between very bad to losing for Black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(2) 4...Nd7 5.Nxd5 and White wins a pawn &quot;with compensation&quot; (i.e., White also has a positional advantage due to his strong center).  Black can play on, but he is already completely lost in a theoretical sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(3) 4...Ng8 is obviously miserable, as White has gotten two strong pawn moves (e2-e4-e5) for free, and Black will struggle to develop his Kingside sensibly because both his Be7 and Ng8 want the e7 square.  This position is bad for Black, although it's perhaps not possible to say Black is losing: as someone mentioned above, Black cannot afford to waste so much time in the opening and stands much worse here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7961" LastActivityDate="2015-09-10T00:08:41.947" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12253" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-09-10T01:15:22.123" Score="5" ViewCount="2411" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm currently a 1600 chess player. I have managed to increase my rating this year by 200 points. I have trouble winning against Class A chess players. I have really good and close games, yet I still lose. What can I do this year to improve and become stronger. I have read chess books like Amateur's Mind and Silman's Complete Endgame book. These books have helped me increase my rating by 200 points. What other books or training do you recommend? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3149" LastActivityDate="2016-05-09T05:07:35.217" Title="How does a Class B chess player become Class A?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;training&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12254" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12255" CreationDate="2015-09-10T01:44:22.627" Score="4" ViewCount="561" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to start studying chess but one thing I'm having trouble with is the openings. I don't know what openings to use. Should I learn a bunch, then choose one randomly before a game, or should I choose a couple of openings and get good with those? Is there really a better thing to do or is it mostly based on personal preference?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8220" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2015-12-20T10:28:36.210" LastActivityDate="2015-12-22T20:05:49.213" Title="How to choose a chess opening?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12255" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12254" CreationDate="2015-09-10T01:50:42.027" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Take the following factors into account:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;roughly how many moves you can memorize (if you can't memorize 5 moves or so, at least avoid stuff like the Ruy Lopez)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;style (don't play the King's Gambit if you are a positional player)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;your ability to gauge whether an opening fits or doesn't fit any of the above (this is kind of an abstract concept)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user8213" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2015-12-20T10:26:53.587" LastActivityDate="2015-12-20T10:26:53.587" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12256" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-09-10T02:29:04.057" Score="5" ViewCount="265" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are there any examples of positions where usage of the endgame tablebase gives an incorrect evaluation, due to the ignoring of the 50-move rule? At the moment I am not sure if endgame tablebases return the information specifically regarding the 50-move rule.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3950" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-03-16T15:39:47.267" LastActivityDate="2020-03-16T15:39:47.267" Title="Chess endgame database+50-move rule=potential error?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;tablebases&gt;&lt;50-move-rule&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="12257" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12253" CreationDate="2015-09-10T03:53:50.850" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recommend simply playing rapid games, or longer, and a post mortem analysis with computers and self analysis. Playing games against stronger players is desired if possible. I recommend starting to learn some opening theory and form a good repertoire. Whatever your opponents play, you should have a response that you enjoy. You say that you are good at playing closed games. I would rub against your wound here and advice you to play open games. Open games also helps on your tactics, which everyone will tell you is important. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3872" LastActivityDate="2015-09-10T03:53:50.850" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12259" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12273" CreationDate="2015-09-10T07:55:11.570" Score="13" ViewCount="2991" Body="&lt;p&gt;Today, when I was playing end game I had a queen, a rook and a king (no pawns). My opponent had just a queen. It was his turn (the board was pretty blank) and he started giving continuous checks. I tried to bring my pieces to defend the king but couldn't stop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After sometime he claimed for a draw and argued that otherwise this would continue for ever (positions were not repeating, but still). I agreed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, is there any way to defend in such cases or is the match just over?&#xA;Even, is it fair that though we have a good lead the opponent is forcing a tie?&#xA;What would be the result if such thing happens in GM game?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks, in advance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8221" LastActivityDate="2015-09-11T06:42:27.283" Title="End Game - Queen + Rook vs Queen" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;draw&gt;&lt;queen-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12260" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12251" CreationDate="2015-09-10T08:04:11.517" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I reran &lt;a href=&quot;https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/845424/the-expected-outcome-of-a-random-game-of-chess&quot;&gt;the script&lt;/a&gt; from the answer GloriaVictis linked.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For a twenty-five thousand games the average length was 357 ply. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:19:24.717" LastActivityDate="2015-09-10T08:46:51.400" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12261" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12259" CreationDate="2015-09-10T08:38:43.980" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to theory, this endgame is won for the Q+R side. Note that you can afford a queen exchange, since K+R still wins against a lone K.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should manage winning it (or reducing it by Q exchange) in less than 50 full moves which gives your oppenent the opportunity to claim a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3819" LastActivityDate="2015-09-10T08:38:43.980" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12262" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12259" CreationDate="2015-09-10T09:02:38.763" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is called perpetual check and it is a draw. There is no extra rule for perpetual check because the draw can be claimed by invoking the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threefold_repetition&quot;&gt;three-fold repetition rule&lt;/a&gt;. (You said positions were not repeating, but if you cannot escape from a perpetual check, they will repeat sooner or later).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you carefully go through the game, you will probably spot a possibility to prevent him from giving perpetual check. In that case you missed a win. Often you can manoeuvre in such a way, that at one point you can block a check by giving check yourself. But if you cannot find a way to escape from the checks a draw is a fair result and this is a common occurrence even in grandmaster games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-09-10T09:02:38.763" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12263" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12259" CreationDate="2015-09-10T09:12:57.127" Score="16" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the vast majority of the cases, an ending of Q+R vs. Q should be winning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, some exceptions exist, for instance: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[FEN &quot;6RK/7Q/5q2/8/8/8/8/3k4 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;      1.Qg7 Qh4+ 2.Qh7 Qf6+ 3.Rg7 Qd8+ 4.Qg8 Qh4+ 5.Rh7 Qf6+&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In case you want to check whether your game was winning or not and how to win it, you can consult a tablebase, for example the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.shredderchess.com/online-chess/online-databases/endgame-database.html&quot;&gt;free online tablebase of Shredder&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4588" LastActivityDate="2015-09-10T09:12:57.127" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12264" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-09-10T09:51:57.623" Score="2" ViewCount="691" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm a Class B chess player. I would like to reach Expert Class one day. What are must read chess books. Please provide a list of books.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3149" LastEditorUserId="3149" LastEditDate="2015-09-11T03:56:38.110" LastActivityDate="2015-09-11T03:56:38.110" Title="What are must read chess books every chess player has to read to become an Expert Class?" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;books&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ClosedDate="2015-09-11T03:54:06.123" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12265" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12264" CreationDate="2015-09-10T12:12:07.370" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some favorites:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1901983072&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Secrets of Modern Chess Strategy&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/190638830X&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;My 60 Memorable Games&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1857442024&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;The Life and Games of Mikhail Tal&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1880673851&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;My System&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1857441508&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Fire on Board&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These books are all famous &lt;strong&gt;and&lt;/strong&gt; very good. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Books by Nunn, Aagaard, Dvoretzky or &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.qualitychess.co.uk/products/13/195/yusupov_complete_series_in_hardcover/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Yusupov&lt;/a&gt; are recommended, though you have to be careful to find those suitable for your level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.qualitychess.co.uk/products/13/238/judit_polgar_trilogy_in_hardcover/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Polgar trilogy&lt;/a&gt; is very good and there is an upcoming series by &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.qualitychess.co.uk/products/2/247/positional_decision_making_in_chess_hardcover_by_boris_gelfand/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Boris Gelfand&lt;/a&gt;. Two absolute top players, but nevertheless very accessible books.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Metachess: I really liked &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1901983366&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;The Seven Deadly Chess Sins&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/9056913980&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Move First, Think Later&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Still, although I always read a lot of books, I would maintain that playing a lot of tournament games against stronger players is far more important.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-09-10T12:12:07.370" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12266" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12256" CreationDate="2015-09-10T14:21:31.063" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;You are right that tablebases do not automatically contain information pertaining the fifty move rule. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To use tablebases accurately currently engines use the &lt;a href=&quot;https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Endgame+Tablebases&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;DTZ50 metric&lt;/a&gt; (distance to zeroing with fifty move rule) which tells you the number of winning moves until the 50-move count is reset. If this number is too big, the position is evaluated as a draw. Apparently this metric can give results that are one ply off. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To get perfectly accurate results &lt;a href=&quot;http://kirill-kryukov.com/chess/discussion-board/viewtopic.php?f=6&amp;amp;t=6724&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;these guys&lt;/a&gt; recompute tablebases with the fifty-move rule in mind. The resulting metric would be called DTM50 (distance to mate with fifty move rule). One of the differences between DTM50 and normal tablebases is that the winning line depends on the ply count and not only on the position on the board. Generally the higher the ply count, the longer the winning line, because a zeroing move has to be found within the next few moves, which restricts the possibilities. &lt;a href=&quot;http://galen.metapath.org/egtb50/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Here&lt;/a&gt;, you'll find an article about DTM50.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-09-10T14:21:31.063" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12267" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11071" CreationDate="2015-09-10T14:39:03.550" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;1...axb4 does two things:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Firstly, you can place pressure open file with an eventual Ra8. He can never defend the pawn actively because you would have the pin using move b3. The only defense would be to cram his Rook into a corner with the ugly Qb2 followed by Ra1 (by white)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Secondly, you are saving a pawn island (which was the a pawn) and moving it into the rest of the group. It can now be much better supported by a move like c5 sometime&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user8213" LastActivityDate="2015-09-10T14:39:03.550" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12268" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9307" CreationDate="2015-09-10T15:25:24.477" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;To access them today, you either need to &lt;a href=&quot;https://reverseengineering.stackexchange.com/a/264&quot;&gt;reverse engineer the format&lt;/a&gt; (hard) or &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessdryad.com/education/henry/chessmaster/pg_01.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;export them to PGN&lt;/a&gt; inside Chessmaster (moderate):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;HOW TO CONVERT CHESSMASTER GAME FILES (*.CMG) TO *.PGN FILES&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(*.CMG files or Chessmaster game files are typically for use with the&#xA;  Chessmaster programs and may contain various enhancements, such as&#xA;  annotations, illustrated voice analyses, etc. Cf. page 25 of the&#xA;  Chessmaster 9000 user manual.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Log in (on Chessmaster 9000) and go to Game Room.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Click on &quot;File&quot; in upper menu bar and then on &quot;Load&quot; in pull- down menu, to get &quot;File Open&quot; window.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;By default, the &quot;Look in&quot; box will show a folder that is named the same as the name you log in with. Let's say it is &quot;Loginame.&quot; If the&#xA;  file you wish to convert is not in the list in the big box below, then&#xA;  you will have to find it by scrolling to other folders. In front of&#xA;  the file the little icon will contain the number 9000. (The icons for&#xA;  *.PGN files contain the initials PGN.)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Click on the name of the *.CMG file that you wish to convert. The name will show in the &quot;File name&quot; box below. The &quot;File of type&quot; box&#xA;  should mention Chessmaster files. Leave &quot;Auto&quot; in the last (&quot;Open as&quot;)&#xA;  box. Click the &quot;Load&quot; button and get the game on the board.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Click on &quot;File&quot; and then on &quot;Save&quot; in the pull-down menu.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&quot;File Save&quot; window comes up next. Check that the &quot;Save in&quot; folder is acceptable. (Your &quot;Loginame&quot; folder is OK, but you could even&#xA;  scroll to save the file on the floppy in drive a:) In the &quot;File name&quot;&#xA;  box below you can fill in a shorter (8-character) name of your choice,&#xA;  rather than accepting the long name created by Windows. In the &quot;Save&#xA;  as type&quot; box at the bottom,scroll and pick &quot;PGN Game Files (*.PGN).&#xA;  Click on the &quot;Save&quot; button. In the &quot;Annotation Type&quot; window that comes&#xA;  up next, accept &quot;None&quot; by clicking &quot;OK.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The *.CMG file has been stripped to the plain *.PGN format and saved in the folder that you have chosen. If you wish to add this file&#xA;  to a database of your choice, see our earlier instructions under the&#xA;  appropriate heading.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Obviously, if you don't have Chessmaster installed, you will need to do that.  Easiest way might be to &lt;a href=&quot;http://dev.modern.ie/tools/vms/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;install a Windows VM&lt;/a&gt;, then install a legacy copy of Chessmaster.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8224" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:49:38.677" LastActivityDate="2015-09-10T15:25:24.477" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12269" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11185" CreationDate="2015-09-10T17:00:42.657" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's a line in the Alapin variation that leads to an unbalanced endgame: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;      [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;      [StartPly &quot;1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;      1.e4 c5 2.c3 d5 3.exd5 Qxd5 4.d4 Nf6 5.Nf3 Bg4 6.dxc5 Qxd1+ 7.Kxd1 e5 8.b4 e4 9.h3 Bh5 10.g4 Nxg4 11.hxg4 Bxg4 12.Nbd2 exf3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4588" LastActivityDate="2015-09-10T17:00:42.657" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12271" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10995" CreationDate="2015-09-10T21:27:49.370" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;On every move you need to twice check for threats:&#xA;1) Once before you consider your candidate move. Imagine the opponent gets a second move. What threats would he launch: check? capture? better position?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) Again after you have selected one or more candidate moves. Ask yourself, &quot;Does my candidate move enable my opponent to check, capture or improve his position?&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4104" LastActivityDate="2015-09-10T21:27:49.370" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12272" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12275" CreationDate="2015-09-10T23:27:04.250" Score="5" ViewCount="807" Body="&lt;p&gt;I watched &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M624T3PTggU&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this video - Game of the Century - Bobby Fischer vs Donald Byrne&lt;/a&gt; in which the 13-year-old Bobby Fischer defeated Donald Byrne in an epic match.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I didn't really understand what happened at 12:40. The narrator says &lt;em&gt;&quot;now Bryne can capture the Knight with (1) the queen or (2) the pawn.&quot;&lt;/em&gt; Then he gives a sort of brief explanation on why Bryne chose to capture with the pawn, but I didn't understand. Here is an image of the position (White to move - Fischer was Black):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/POOjT.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/POOjT.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;What would be a more in-depth explanation of why recapturing with the queen is a bad idea?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8235" LastEditorUserId="2299" LastEditDate="2020-06-25T16:57:15.550" LastActivityDate="2020-06-25T16:57:15.550" Title="Why didn't Donald Byrne capture with the queen instead of pawn (against 13-year-old Bobby Fischer in the Game of the Century)?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;fischer&gt;&lt;captures&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="12273" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12259" CreationDate="2015-09-11T01:07:30.943" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;If the opposing king is in the center, and your king isn't in the corner, your goal is to pin his queen to his king as means of blocking a check (diagonal opposition). Move your king to force that bad check on his part. You should be able to win with KR v K. (Your goal is not to checkmate with two queens on the board, but to trade) It is a win with the queen, but to defend, check the opposite way from your king (If that makes sense).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user8213" LastEditorDisplayName="user8213" LastEditDate="2015-09-11T01:13:05.067" LastActivityDate="2015-09-11T01:13:05.067" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12275" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12272" CreationDate="2015-09-11T01:58:20.847" Score="12" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What would be a more in-depth explanation of why capturing with the queen is a bad idea?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If White retakes with the Queen he loses a piece, and stays in horrible position that is 100% lost. Below is the illustration:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Capturing with the queen loses a piece in all lines&amp;quot;]&#xA;[fen &amp;quot;r2q1rk1/pp2ppbp/2p2np1/6B1/3PP1b1/Q1n2N2/PP3PPP/3RKB1R w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Qxc3 Nxe4 2.Qe3 (2.Qd3? Bxf3 3.gxf3 (3.Qxf3 Nxg5-+) 3...Nxg5-+) 2...Bxf3 3.gxf3 (3.Qxf3? Nxg5-+) 3...Qa5+! 4.Rd2 {Or any other move, it really doesn't matter, Black stays with extra piece with Nxg5} Nxg5 5.b4 Qd5-+&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To conclude:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In order to defend the bishop on &lt;code&gt;g5&lt;/code&gt; from the knight fork (after retaking black knight on &lt;code&gt;c3&lt;/code&gt; with the queen), White must keep the queen on the &lt;code&gt;c1-h6&lt;/code&gt; diagonal. This is sufficiently well demonstrated in the above diagram.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black wins by exchanging the bishop on &lt;code&gt;g4&lt;/code&gt; for white knight on &lt;code&gt;f3&lt;/code&gt; to loosen the defense of the white bishop on &lt;code&gt;g5&lt;/code&gt; after which he wins that piece with the queen's double attack via &lt;code&gt;Qa5+&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The resulting position is just plain horrible for White, and practically 100% lost. Only drunk person would be able to squander such advantage with Black ( and they must be really really drunk). Even though at that time White was renowned GM, I think that a solid candidate master would win as Black easily in that position. That is why White decided to take with the pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-23T23:09:24.523" LastActivityDate="2020-06-23T23:09:24.523" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="12276" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13117" CreationDate="2015-09-11T07:22:37.343" Score="4" ViewCount="587" Body="&lt;p&gt;I’ve been in a big time slump lately. I play a lot of chess on the chess.com platform. I am sure that you all know the platform. My question is this: How does someone get out of a slump? I am losing to players I shouldn't be losing to. Do I just need to get my mind right? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7352" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-10-03T23:59:16.443" LastActivityDate="2019-10-03T23:59:16.443" Title="Can't seem to get back to winning consistently" Tags="&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;psychology&gt;&lt;losing&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="12278" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12276" CreationDate="2015-09-11T08:19:04.850" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think you have hit the nail on the head with &quot;Do I just need to get my mind Right?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For many years I had very inconsistent form, I would try very hard and work on my game frequently, I saw gradual improvement but yet I would still find myself losing to players I really shouldn't...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is my last two years of form &lt;a href=&quot;http://webb.digital/#/chess&quot;&gt;click here&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess is a game which will never be played perfectly (not by any human), every game is riddled with mistakes from World Champion to absolute beginner, as players we tend to focus only on the bad things we do, &quot;I just blundered a piece stupidly&quot; or &quot;I missed a simple tactic&quot; rather than thinking about the deeper reasons for our mistake, oversights and tactical errors almost always occur when you don't understand the type of position you're playing or spending enough time to appreciate the finer points in the structure!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To play yourself into form, (or get out of bad form), you should spend a little more time getting to the bottom of why you've made the mistakes in the games you truly believe you should be winning!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is an article I wrote on my own improvement a year or so ago: &lt;a href=&quot;http://yorkshirechess.org/looks-interesting-play/&quot;&gt;If it looks interesting, play it!&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7189" LastActivityDate="2015-09-11T08:19:04.850" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12279" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-09-11T08:45:16.947" Score="6" ViewCount="885" Body="&lt;p&gt;Except for a famous match between Tigran Petrosian and Bobby fischer, I don't know of any famous chess match between top notch players which had some climactic pawn promotions . Could anyone here suggest a few more of matches of that kind?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8240" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-03-13T16:40:23.017" LastActivityDate="2020-03-13T16:40:23.017" Title="Famous pawn promotion matches" Tags="&lt;pawn-promotion&gt;&lt;pawn-endgame&gt;&lt;famous-games&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="12280" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12279" CreationDate="2015-09-11T09:12:23.567" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;A game between McDonnell and De La Bourdonnais is very famous. Although no promotion was executed on the board, it is definitely the theme of the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;      [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;      [Event &quot;London m4 ;HCL 18&quot;]&#xA;      [Site &quot;16&quot;]&#xA;      [Date &quot;1834.??.??&quot;]&#xA;      [EventDate &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;      [Round &quot;62&quot;]&#xA;      [Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;      [White &quot;Alexander McDonnell&quot;]&#xA;      [Black &quot;Louis Charles Mahe De La Bourdonnais&quot;]&#xA;      [ECO &quot;B32&quot;]&#xA;      [WhiteElo &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;      [BlackElo &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;      [PlyCount &quot;74&quot;]&#xA;      [StartPly &quot;74&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 e5 5.Nxc6 bxc6 6.Bc4 Nf6&#xA;7.Bg5 Be7 8.Qe2 d5 9.Bxf6 Bxf6 10.Bb3 O-O 11.O-O a5 12.exd5&#xA;cxd5 13.Rd1 d4 14.c4 Qb6 15.Bc2 Bb7 16.Nd2 Rae8 17.Ne4 Bd8&#xA;18.c5 Qc6 19.f3 Be7 20.Rac1 f5 21.Qc4+ Kh8 22.Ba4 Qh6 23.Bxe8&#xA;fxe4 24.c6 exf3 25.Rc2 Qe3+ 26.Kh1 Bc8 27.Bd7 f2 28.Rf1 d3&#xA;29.Rc3 Bxd7 30.cxd7 e4 31.Qc8 Bd8 32.Qc4 Qe1 33.Rc1 d2 34.Qc5&#xA;Rg8 35.Rd1 e3 36.Qc3 Qxd1 37.Rxd1 e2 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4588" LastActivityDate="2015-09-11T09:12:23.567" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12282" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-09-11T18:09:36.223" Score="4" ViewCount="219" Body="&lt;p&gt;What are the features of hypermodernism? I know that one feature is controlling the center indirectly (f.ex. fianchetto), and letting the opponent control it with pawns. But I am not sure if there are other features. Nimzowitsch, who was the inventer of the hypermodernism style, wrote several new ideas in his book , such as overprotection, prophylaxis, rook on the seventh rank, knight outposts an so on. Are these ideas also considered as a part of the hypermodern style or is there a clear definition on this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8200" LastEditorUserId="3757" LastEditDate="2015-09-24T18:54:44.737" LastActivityDate="2016-01-08T08:18:32.680" Title="Hypermodernism definition" Tags="&lt;terminology&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12283" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-09-11T20:06:43.253" Score="3" ViewCount="477" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm an amateur player and want to learn a couple openings for black. I want to have a response for d4 and e4. I want one for each and hopefully one that is relatively straight forward (unlike Indian defense as I understand). It would be great if they were slightly obscure and therefore unknown to my opponents. &#xA;As white I'm basically going to try and play Scotch opening (and maybe later some other e4 openings) every time. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8246" LastActivityDate="2019-10-03T23:18:39.730" Title="What are basic openings I need for black?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12284" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12279" CreationDate="2015-09-11T20:26:56.197" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is also a famous miniature between Spassky and Larsen, that ends with a pawn promotion:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;      [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;USSR vs. Rest of the World&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Belgrade SRB&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;1970.03.31&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;1970.03.29&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;2.1&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Bent Larsen&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Boris Spassky&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;A01&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;34&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. b3 e5 2. Bb2 Nc6 3. c4 Nf6 4. Nf3 e4 5. Nd4 Bc5 6. Nxc6&#xA;dxc6 7. e3 Bf5 8. Qc2 Qe7 9. Be2 O-O-O 10. f4 Ng4 11. g3 h5&#xA;12. h3 h4 13. hxg4 hxg3 14. Rg1 Rh1 15. Rxh1 g2 16. Rf1 Qh4+&#xA;17. Kd1 gxf1=Q+ 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-09-11T20:26:56.197" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12286" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12283" CreationDate="2015-09-12T01:01:05.417" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Since you want obscure openings, I would advise the Dutch defense against 1.d4 and the French defense for 1.e4. The Dutch is played less than Indians, queen pawn, Nimzo, Gruenfield, Slav..., thus your opponents won't know anything about it but you will. The Leningrad Dutch and Stonewall defense are played time to time. Nakamura has played the Leningrad Dutch numerous times, Magnus, Levon, Anand, etc have used the Dutch from time to time. I recommend the French because I think it is much easier to learn than 1.e5, which falls to a lot of traps and 1.c5, which is of course not obscure and has a lot of theory. Unfortunately, people can go into a very drawish line in the exchange French. You might want to consider Owen's defense 1... b6. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3872" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-10-03T23:18:39.730" LastActivityDate="2019-10-03T23:18:39.730" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="12287" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16266" CreationDate="2015-09-12T03:52:27.203" Score="20" ViewCount="1754" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Update: ​ ​ ​ ​ I emailed Tim Krabbé, and he agrees that ​ 41. b4 bxa4 ​ draws.&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;He has posted a PS about this just under his old analysis.&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;With respect to &lt;a href=&quot;http://timkr.home.xs4all.nl/chess2/diary.htm&quot;&gt;&quot;Skawinski - Tomczak, European ch rapid, Warsaw 2011&quot;&lt;/a&gt;,&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Tim Krabbé says that &quot;White could have won with 41.b4!&quot;.&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;After ​ 41. b4 bxa4 , ​ they would have reached the position&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;The Position I'm Actually Interested In&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;8/8/2p5/p2k1ppp/pP1P5/3K1PPP/8/8 w - - 0 42&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;with white to move. ​ Stockfish believes that from the above position,&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;everything other than bxa5 loses outright for white, and that after bxa5, a3 probably&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;holds for black due to the counter-breakthrough on the kingside. ​ ​ ​ Tim Krabbé does&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;address that counter-breakthrough, but only for ​ 41. ... axb4 , ​ rather than ​ 41. ... bxa4 .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's what I currently believe to be optimal play from the above diagram:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;What I Currently Believe is Optimal Play From That Position&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;8/8/2p5/p2k1ppp/pP1P5/3K1PPP/8/8 w - - 0 42&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.bxa5 a3 2.Kc2 a2 3.Kb2 a1=Q+ 4.Kxa1 g4 5.hxg4 f4 6.gxf4 h4 7.a6 h3 8.a7 h2 9.a8=Q&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Proof that white does not have a forced win after that line:&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The main line continues &lt;code&gt;9. ... h1=Q+ 10.Kb2 Qg2+ 11.Kb3 Qxf3+ 12.Kb4 Qxf4 13.Qd8+ Ke4&lt;/code&gt;. ​ Playing Ka2 instead of Kb2 doesn't change anything.&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;If white's king goes back to rank 1 instead of to rank 3 or back to rank 2 instead of to&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;rank 4, then black checks horizontally from the f-file until white's king goes to rank 4.&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Otherwise, black doesn't care &lt;em&gt;how&lt;/em&gt; white's king goes from a1 to rank 4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let &quot;6ptbd&quot; be short for &quot;6-piece tablebase draw-or-win-for-black&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If white's king goes to a4 instead of b4 then:&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Black plays Qd1+. ​ If white plays Ka3 then black plays Qa1+.&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;If white doesn't play that or doesn't follow it up with Kb3 then Qxd4 followed by Qxf4&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;yields a 6ptbd, so for the next sentence, assume &lt;code&gt;12.Ka4 Qa1+ 13.Kb3 Qxa8&lt;/code&gt;.&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;If Kc3 then Qa1+ followed by Qxd4 yields a 6ptbd, else Kxd4 yields a 6ptbd.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stephen comments that after Qxf4, the position is a finalgen table base draw. ​ Since I already&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;had a majority of the relevant analysis together before I read that, I'll give analysis which, without relying on finalgen (but still relying on 5&amp;amp;6-piece tablebases being correct about certain positions&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; being forced wins for white), shows that white doesn't have a forced win after Qxf4.&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;After Qxf4, Qd8+ is the only move which doesn't let black immediately&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;capture on d4 for a 6ptbw. ​ ​ ​ After Ke4, the only moves for white which&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;don't let black immediately capture for a 6ptbd are ​ Kc3,Qd7,g5 .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After Ke4, if Kc3 then black gets at least a draw as follows:&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Black starts with Qc1+, and then black's queen moves as far up as doesn't let white capture&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;it immediately while still checking from below unless white's king goes to c5 or rank 6.&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;If Kc5 then Qa3+. ​ Since b5 and and d3 and d5 are covered by black's pawn and king,&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;the only way out of those checks is going to rank 6, and the only ways for&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;white's king to get there are a5 and c5, which mean black's queen will be on a3.&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;In that case, Kxc6 is a 6ptbd, and if Kb6 then Qb4+ followed by Qxd4 is a tablebase draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After Ke4, if Qd7 then black gets at least a draw as follows:&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Black starts with Qd2+. ​ If Kc4 or Kc5 then black mostly follows the procedure described in the previous paragraph, but if Qb4+ Ka6 then Qa4+ followed by Qxd4 rather than an immediate Qxd4, and if Qb4+ Kxc6 then it's already a 6ptbd which Qxd4 would lose.&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Otherwise, Qxd4 gives a 6ptbd.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After Ke4, if g5 then black gets at least a draw as follows:&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Until black can check from below in a way that's not Qb1 checking Kb4, black moves so that [white_king's_square,black_queen's_square] is an element of {[a1,d1],[b1,d1],[a2,d2],[b2,d2],[a3,c1],[b3,d1],[b4,d2]}.&#xA;Once black can check from below in a way that's not Qb1 checking Kb4, black then does so as close to white's king as doesn't let white capture it immediately, and continues that until white's king reaches rank 6. ​ If Kd6 then Qxd4+ is a 6ptbd. ​ The only other way out of the part of this paragraph that came before this sentence is Kb6. ​ Once white has played that, until white captures c6 or blocks a check or the rest of this sentence calls for Qxg5, black moves so that [white_king's_square,black_queen's_square] is an element of&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;{[a6,a4],[a7,a4],[a8,a4],[b6,b4],[b7,b5],[b8,b5],[c7,a5],[c8,f5],[d6,d5],[d7,d5],[e7,g5],[e8,g8]}.&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;White capturing c6 is a 6ptbd, and if white blocks a check then queen-takes-pawn is a 6ptbd.&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The sentence two ago only calls for Qxg5 after Ke7, and in that case it's a 6ptbd.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, none of Kc3,Qd7,g5 keep a forced win for white. ​ QED&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus, any forced win for white must deviate from that line before h1=Q+.&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user2668" LastEditorDisplayName="user2668" LastEditDate="2015-10-24T20:51:33.623" LastActivityDate="2019-10-22T04:24:08.007" Title="Does white really have a win in this pawn ending, as claimed by Tim Krabbé?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;pawn-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="7" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12289" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12282" CreationDate="2015-09-12T05:10:12.990" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It seems to me you have the idea spot on already. Traditionally, chess theory was that the best way to control the center was to occupy it. Some players (like Nimzowitsch and others) showed that this was not necessarily true and that there is merit in letting your opponent occupy it while you undermine it from a distance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure if the idea was really novel at the time, but it became popular and as we do whenever we see a pattern we have to name it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Beyond that I doubt there is much to learn from &quot;hypermodernism&quot; (which is not to say that there is not much to learn from the various rich and deep ideas behind each of the so labelled openings themselves).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1816" LastActivityDate="2015-09-12T05:10:12.990" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12290" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12253" CreationDate="2015-09-12T07:03:56.690" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I had a very similar problem actually:&#xA;I picked up (from 1635) 135 points in one tournament and after that tournament I had a hard time playing at that level. Here was how I maintained that rating-&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) start focusing your attention to openings and which is most COMFORTABLE for you to play. This will help suit your style best and allow you to play better games (in many cases)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) Study tactics; the less stupid mistakes the better&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) Analyse all mistakes in the games that you lose, and look for patterns. If a specific idea is what is ruining your games, focus on that EXACT concept.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That is the strategy for maintaining my rating after that 'fantastic' tournament.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user8213" LastEditorDisplayName="user8213" LastEditDate="2015-10-13T01:27:38.093" LastActivityDate="2015-10-13T01:27:38.093" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12291" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12293" CreationDate="2015-09-12T08:16:02.007" Score="2" ViewCount="805" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm a Class B chess player. I'm afraid of playing low rated players because if I lose my rating goes drastically down. Sometimes low rated chess players are underrated or they play really good one game against a stronger player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3149" LastActivityDate="2019-10-03T23:07:47.913" Title="How do I avoid losing to lower rated players?" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12292" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21202" CreationDate="2015-09-12T12:28:20.267" Score="13" ViewCount="494" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;N7/P3pk1p/3p2p1/r4p2/8/4b2B/4P1KP/1R6 w - - 0 34&quot;]&#xA;[white &quot;Max Illingworth&quot;]&#xA;[black &quot;Pentala Harikrishna&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White to move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1800934&quot;&gt;World Cup game&lt;/a&gt;, Black demonstrated the power of pawns and won the game despite being a piece down. I think White's defense in the game was very weak (possibly due to time pressure). I think this is the critical position,  White needs to decide what to do with the extra piece. Despite a piece down, I think this is close to winning for Black, but the computer thinks it's only slightly better for Black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a defense for White? Is there a better line than the continuation played in the game?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2018-03-22T14:29:50.247" Title="World Cup: passed pawns vs extra piece" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;pawns&gt;&lt;sacrifice&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12293" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12291" CreationDate="2015-09-12T15:23:29.733" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, losing is part of chess. If losing didn't suck, then winning wouldn't rock.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ratings are approximations. Don't let your rating define you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The way to prevent lower rated players from defeating you is to not allow them to do so. Improve your play such that you can adequately punish the superficial hope-chess moves that &quot;C&quot; players play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;edit - There's no magic wand wand we can wave to help you. There is only working harder so you can play better moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-10-03T23:07:47.913" LastActivityDate="2019-10-03T23:07:47.913" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="12294" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12291" CreationDate="2015-09-12T17:29:24.877" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Try not to be overconfident. That is almost always the case for which you are describing. I would recommend avoiding looking at the opponents rating until after the game. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user8213" LastActivityDate="2015-09-12T17:29:24.877" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12295" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8331" CreationDate="2015-09-12T21:22:26.490" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;50-move rule includes 'upon a correct claim': No claim, no implementation of the rule. Same applies to repetition. Ergo, infinite.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Without a mandatory maximum number of moves, of course.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8250" LastActivityDate="2015-09-12T21:22:26.490" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12296" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-09-13T07:44:05.567" Score="4" ViewCount="1534" Body="&lt;p&gt;I play a fair amount of chess online, on a chess site that updates my chess rating based on my performance using, I believe, the ELO system.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I do not play in rated, &quot;real&quot; tournaments that often, and so I do not have an official ELO rating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is my online chess rating a good estimate of my &quot;real&quot; rating? I've heard that one's online rating is systematically biased upwards compared with one's &quot;real&quot; rating, is there any truth to this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="153" LastEditorUserId="18475" LastEditDate="2020-01-18T17:48:13.840" LastActivityDate="2020-03-04T18:21:30.373" Title="Does my online chess rating reflect my ELO rating?" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;elo&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12297" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12299" CreationDate="2015-09-13T07:47:05.030" Score="3" ViewCount="238" Body="&lt;p&gt;When playing online chess, it is often possible to influence the order in which games are finished, either by choosing when to resign, or by intentionally playing as slowly as possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once the outcome of a game is pretty clear, is it possible to &quot;game&quot; the rating system by manipulating the order in which games are finished? For example, if I'm currently losing against a low-rated player and winning against a high-rated one, will it make a difference if I first resign against the low-rated player, or wait until I win against the high-rated one?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="153" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-10-03T22:55:21.207" LastActivityDate="2020-09-09T08:09:08.290" Title="Is it possible to game my online chess rating?" Tags="&lt;elo&gt;&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;cheating&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="12298" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-09-13T07:58:00.137" Score="4" ViewCount="299" Body="&lt;p&gt;When reading annotated games from GMs, I sometimes find annotations such as &quot;This was tried by XXX in 1975 vs YYY&quot;. Such annotations are sometimes found very deeply in the game, sometimes past move 20.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Depending on the move number, what is the probability that my position has been previously played by someone, somewhere?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="153" LastEditorUserId="3757" LastEditDate="2015-09-17T18:24:41.920" LastActivityDate="2019-10-03T23:01:15.503" Title="What is the probability that a position has been played before?" Tags="&lt;statistics&gt;&lt;game-complexity&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12299" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12297" CreationDate="2015-09-13T08:17:53.180" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;A while ago you asked a &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/11182/in-online-correspondence-chess-are-the-ratings-adjustments-based-on-the-pre-or?rq=1&quot;&gt;related question&lt;/a&gt;. According to the answer you should probably resign games sorted by rating loss. If your rating drops quickly at the beginning, the subsequent losses should be smaller and the gains bigger.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At Gameknot this effect might be weaker because in that case they not always use the rating from the end of the game. But the safe bet is to always resign in sorted order. And there is another conclusion: You should start your new games at the moment, when you rating is lowest.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastEditorUserId="4362" LastEditDate="2020-09-09T08:09:08.290" LastActivityDate="2020-09-09T08:09:08.290" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="12300" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12296" CreationDate="2015-09-13T08:26:19.230" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;That depends a lot on the platform. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My different online ratings differ by more than 500 points. And there is the additional factor that online chess is &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; tournament chess. The time control is either faster or looser and you don't have to play at set times. Also your opponents tend to be less serious about it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess24 has high ratings, ICC has low ratings, your Elo is probably somewhere in between, but to speak of a good estimate would be an exaggeration. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-09-13T08:26:19.230" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12302" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-09-13T12:41:54.727" Score="2" ViewCount="397" Body="&lt;p&gt;I played the below recently in a U145 ECF (~U1800 FIDE) rapidplay, and would appreciate your thoughts. There are obviously lots of tactical errors, and please be kind on the last few moves which were played in a desperate time scramble by both sides, made worse by prize money almost certainly hanging on the game, but any constructive comments would be appreciated. The 1-0 result is because black tried Nxa3+ at the end missing the check from the white queen, and so losing on the illegal move rule,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ian&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2015.09.12&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Somebody&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Somebody Else&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;B08&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;79&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 Nf6 2. Nf3 g6 3. Nc3 d6 4. e4 Bg7 5. Be3 O-O 6. Qd2 Ng4 7. Bg5 h6 8. Bh4&#xA;c5 9. h3 Nf6 10. O-O-O cxd4 11. Nxd4 g5 12. Bg3 Nh5 13. Bh2 a6 14. Be2 Nf6 15.&#xA;h4 g4 16. Bf4 e5 17. Bxh6 exd4 18. Qg5 Nh5 19. Qxh5 dxc3 20. e5 Qb6 21. b3 dxe5&#xA;22. Bxg7 Kxg7 23. Qg5+ Qg6 24. Qxe5+ Qf6 25. Qg3 Nc6 26. Rd5 Rg8 27. Bxg4 Kf8&#xA;28. Rg5 Rxg5 29. hxg5 Qxg5+ 30. Kb1 Qg7 31. f3 Bxg4 32. fxg4 Rd8 33. a3 Rd2 34.&#xA;Qc7 Qg6 35. Qc8+ Kg7 36. Rc1 Qe4 37. Qxb7 Qxg2 38. Qxa6 Nd4 39. Qc4 Nxc2 40.&#xA;Qxc3+ {Black now played Nxa3+ and lost on the illegal move rule} 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7726" LastActivityDate="2015-11-28T13:21:29.657" Title="Thoughts on this game, please" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12303" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12296" CreationDate="2015-09-13T12:44:29.567" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;A rating only has value in the 'group' where you get it. If you play in a local chess club in which you are the strongest then your rating will be higher then when you are the weakest of the group.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Online my ELO is a bit over 1000 whereas over-the-board I am valued around 1600. Which is correct?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4509" LastActivityDate="2015-09-13T12:44:29.567" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12304" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12302" CreationDate="2015-09-13T15:02:49.250" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;All that I have analysed from the above game are enlisted below. I don't know which side @Ian Bush was on, so I am making suggestions for both sides. Hope it helps. Here it goes:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;FOR WHITE&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;White had a slight positional disadvantage in the game as early as move no.7 since by this time, Black had castled, king is in safety, king-side pieces well developed, but White had a centred exposed king, queen-side pieces developed before king-side pieces (against golden rule), center pawns e4,d4 not supported by any pawn.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;White should have played 3. c4 which is more mainstream and allows White an early control of the centre which can add to his advantage in the middlegame.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;ol start=&quot;10&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;o-o-o is not a good move because of the fianchetto bishop on g7 and also the centre is very dynamic. So white loses the opportunity to attack on the kingside early as Black has the option to blow up the center and rupture the attack.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;ol start=&quot;16&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Bf4 is dubious. Better is 16. Nf5 which attacks the g7 bishop and occupies much space on the king-side and if it is captured by the bishop, pawn recaptures and the kingside attack is easier for White now. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;ol start=&quot;26&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Bg4 is better and is followed with the idea of Rd5..h5..h6 which tries to mend the position.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;ol start=&quot;31&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;f3 might have been replaced by 31. Qd6 followed by 31. .. Kg8 32. Bf3 going for a fightback.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;ol start=&quot;36&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Qh8# could have sealed the game however.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;FOR BLACK&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;ol start=&quot;6&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;.. Ng4 seems premature. Developing Queenside pieces might have been better.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;ol start=&quot;30&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;.. Qf6 would have been better, aiming for 31. .. Bg4 and 32. .. Rd8.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;ol start=&quot;35&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;.. Kg7 is a blunder. 35. .. Rd8 is quite stable.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;ol start=&quot;41&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;.. Nd4 was the best move.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Otherwise Black had a good game and the final position was almost equal , a little in favour of Black. However the game could go anyway because of White's passed pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8168" LastEditorUserId="8168" LastEditDate="2015-10-29T12:58:55.500" LastActivityDate="2015-10-29T12:58:55.500" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12305" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="693" CreationDate="2015-09-13T19:58:09.190" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know there are already a lot of answers here, but one that isn't mentioned is the Chess24 app. I really like the tactics trainer from the app and find that for the money it is a better value than others I've seen. (Should still be $20 for 1yr of unlimited tactics.) There are also great apps for iOS at least that allow you to read chess books and follow along with a chessboard like Forward Chess or e+books Chess. I have found this to be incredibly helpful in studying.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7507" LastEditorUserId="7507" LastEditDate="2015-09-30T19:53:24.003" LastActivityDate="2015-09-30T19:53:24.003" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12306" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="693" CreationDate="2015-09-13T22:24:59.393" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;My suggestions are ChessAcademy, and Shredder in Android.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8256" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T19:16:50.743" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T19:16:50.743" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="12307" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12310" CreationDate="2015-09-14T01:24:30.093" Score="3" ViewCount="282" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recently played in a chess tournament and the only game I lost was an extremely tricky battle between myself (USCF 1770ish) and this other guy (USCF 2000ish): &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;Bernardo Smith Amateur&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Mechanics Institute Chess Club&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2015.08.15&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;2&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Aaron T (1765)&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Other Guy (2031)&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;106&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Nf3 d5 2. d4 Nf6 3. Bf4 g6 4. Nbd2 Bg7 5. e3 a6 6. c4 O-O 7. Rc1 Re8 8. Bd3 Nc6 9. O-O Nh5 10. cxd5 Nxf4 exf4 Qxd5 Be4 Qd6 Bxc6 bxc6 Nb3 Be6 Nc5 Bd5 Ne5 f6 Ned3 Reb8 b3 a5 a4 Rb6 Re1 Rab8 Rb1 Bf7 Qf3 Bxb3 Qe3 Bd5 Rbc1 Kf7 Qd2 Ra8 Re2 Rbb8 Rce1 Re8 Rb1 Bh6 Rbe1 e6 g3 Bg7 Qc3 h5 Re3 h4 R1e2 Bh6 Qe1 hxg3 fxg3 Bc4 Qc3 Bd5 Qe1 Ra7 Rf2 Bg7 Ne5+ Kg8 Nxg6 Raa8 Nh4 Kf7 Qe2 Rh8 Nf3 Rab8 Ne5+ Kg8 Ned3 Rb1+ Rf1 Rxf1 Qxf1 Bc4 Qa1 Rh5 Qc3 Bxd3 Qxd3 Rd5 Rxe6 Qxc5 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A few things to note about the game:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) All pawn sacrifices I believed had compensation with different positional moves. I won't state the exact positional counterplay because I want to see what type of moves you come up with. &#xA;2) I missed Bxc7 early on&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) Around move 40 I was down to 6 minutes, explaining my blunder on move 51.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So my question is this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have been wanting a strong player to analyse my game for quite some time now, but all do not have the time to look over it with me. So I would like a SE member &gt;2000 FIDE to analyse it for me. Many thanks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user8213" LastActivityDate="2016-01-28T14:18:32.917" Title="Could I have some analysis by a player &gt;2000 FIDE on this game?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12308" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8201" CreationDate="2015-09-14T01:28:59.510" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not Fischer. But there is the infamous Tim Krabbe vertical castling problem:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.futilitycloset.com/2009/12/11/outside-the-box/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.futilitycloset.com/2009/12/11/outside-the-box/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although it appears this was already illegal as of the problem's publication in 1972.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7514" LastActivityDate="2015-09-14T01:28:59.510" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12309" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12298" CreationDate="2015-09-14T02:23:00.430" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can't calculate a percentage. But there are some interesting points to make on that topic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) The possibility of a position being played before goes down the more moves you make (obviously)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) However, positions in openings with more book moves (ex. Ruy Lopez and Sicilian) come up more. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) If an opening was played long ago but with a terrible loss, you might be surprised how few games there are with that opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user8213" LastEditorDisplayName="user8213" LastEditDate="2015-09-15T01:55:08.323" LastActivityDate="2015-09-15T01:55:08.323" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12310" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12307" CreationDate="2015-09-14T04:07:59.303" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm FIDE rated 2125.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So for your game, yes 10.Bxc7 would have been good for white.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as the opening goes, usually Nd2 happens with pawn c3 instead pawn c4.  If you want to do pawn c4 then the knight goes to c3 to put more pressure on d5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, I would not play pawn to a4 like you did in the game.  It only causes b3 to be weak in my opinion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But even though you eventually lose the pawn on b3, the position is tough to crack for black since there are no good pawn breaks to open the position for the bishops and the white knights have good outpost squares.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Overall, good effort!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8258" LastActivityDate="2015-09-14T04:07:59.303" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12311" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12296" CreationDate="2015-09-14T05:50:28.240" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Like others said, it is definitely dependent on the pool of players. My online Elo is around 1800+, but in OTB tournaments (FIDE), my estimated Elo is around 1300. It looks like most players in my OTB pool, have chess progress similar to each other. So when we end up playing each other, we just end up stealing rating points from one another. Typically these tournaments also have rating cut-offs - for example Under 1500 only. This causes kind of a problem. Lower rated players never get to play rated players above 1500 ever (unless they go to open tournaments). It has a domino effect- Players rated 1500 and below think, if we don't even stand a chance against players in our own pool, what is the point of attending open tournaments?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, a player rated Elo 1300 in one FIDE pool (country / federation), maybe of Elo 1600 when compared with players of another federation!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3158" LastActivityDate="2015-09-14T05:50:28.240" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12314" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4539" CreationDate="2015-09-14T23:32:23.727" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The d4/e4 openings are definetly not overused. They are used because they are the best openings. You should learn the stonewall attack and there is a great video on youtube about how to defend d4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8262" LastActivityDate="2015-09-14T23:32:23.727" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12316" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12340" CreationDate="2015-09-15T00:00:24.897" Score="5" ViewCount="1308" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Question:&lt;/em&gt; Are there rules of thumb that every chess player should know about the double pawns?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8264" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2021-02-06T22:29:45.623" LastActivityDate="2021-02-06T22:29:45.623" Title="Beginners question: The double pawn" Tags="&lt;theory&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;beginner&gt;&lt;doubled-pawn&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="12317" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12302" CreationDate="2015-09-15T00:11:59.743" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;After Black accepted the sacrifice with 19. dc3, White has some chances. An immediate 20. Rd5 aiming for g5 is interesting. For example, &lt;code&gt;20. ... f6 21. Rg5! fg 22. Bc4&lt;/code&gt;. Black counterattack with &lt;code&gt;20. ... Qb6 21. bc&lt;/code&gt; doesn't seem to lead anywhere (unless I am missing something obvious).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3774" LastActivityDate="2015-09-15T00:11:59.743" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12318" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12316" CreationDate="2015-09-15T00:46:48.153" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Bad: They can't defend each other like adjacent pawns can.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Good: They give you an extra open file for your rooks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Usually the bad outweighs the good, but there are a zillion exceptions. Most beginners are overly afraid of having doubled pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2015-09-15T00:46:48.153" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12319" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-09-15T17:46:30.833" Score="0" ViewCount="105" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just bought ChessBase 13 and downloaded Stockfish, but when I am analyzing my games there is no continuous evaluation of the moves. So say I make 3 extra moves, the engine is still calculating the position 3 moves before. How can I change so that the engine automatically calculates the position on the board, so that it will go along with the moves?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope you can help!!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8266" LastEditorUserId="291" LastEditDate="2015-09-17T13:50:16.603" LastActivityDate="2015-09-17T13:50:16.603" Title="Continuous evaluation of engine in ChessBase" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;evaluation&gt;&lt;chessbase&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12320" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1436" CreationDate="2015-09-15T18:34:03.513" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Exchange Caro-Kann isn't considered critical because of one equalizing line:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.exd5 cxd5 4.Bd3 Nf6 5.Bf4 Nc6 6.c3 Bg4 7.Qb3 Qd7 8.Nd2 e6 9.Ngf3 Bxf3 10.Nxf3 Bd6!&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and if&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;11.Bxd6 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;r3k2r/pp1q1ppp/2nbpn2/3p4/3P1B2/1QPB1N2/PP3PPP/R3K2R w - - 0 11&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Bxd6 Qxd6 2.Qxb7 Rb8 3.Qa6 O-O 4.O-O Rb6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And the queen doesn't have a good square as 14.Qa3 Qxa3 leads to an equal game.  If white doesn't take on b7 on move 12 (which is usual) then white has the kingside attack but black is left without a bad piece and chances are equal.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't play the Queen's Gambit exchange lines (there's a line that is pretty slow where white plays Nf3 and a minority attack, and also an aggressive like where white plays Ne2, f3, and eventually e4 which was considered pretty dangerous last I knew) but there black often struggles because he has a difficult time finding a good square for that light square bishop.  See John Nunn's 'Understanding Chess Move by Move' for a fantastic discussion on this - I'm remembering this vaguely ten years after reading the book.  These might not be considered the 'most critical' but I think that Grand Masters still play this opening looking for good results, though perhaps not as often as the most mainline openings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Fischer played that Exchange vs the Caro a few times but this was before someone - I don't remember who - found that Bd6 move.  White has a perfectly good general plan in that line but it doesn't give any pressure based on a single clever reply.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think the main point is that it's hard to know what will really happen in an opening until you see specific moves and plans and play over many games.  'Critical' openings are based on specifics which have been found during the last 150 years of competition between top players, and can be hard to predict based on the third move position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8066" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-08-03T19:35:10.433" LastActivityDate="2019-08-03T19:35:10.433" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="12321" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1015" CreationDate="2015-09-15T18:38:14.527" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think that playing slower, more 'positional' defenses like the Caro Kann and Tartakower System of the QGD absolutely do help develop positional skills, but of course those are two openings out of many.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8066" LastActivityDate="2015-09-15T18:38:14.527" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12322" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-09-16T05:27:20.883" Score="-1" ViewCount="153" Body="&lt;p&gt;Last 2 hours was one of my most embarrassing games ever.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yesterday I played against a chess club member and won 3-0, however the last 2 hours is so sad I lost for 3-0, all surrenders and no end-game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then another guy came up and challenged, he played 1. e4 c5 I know they don't have any knowledge of Sicilian nevertheless dragon, so I played with the variation of accelerated dragon and while being so unaware I lost with scholar's mate 4.Qxd7#.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Don't know what just happened to me back then, however one of my excuses was &quot;My stomach is empty&quot; I don't know if I'm making an excuse or not, but certainly I know there's some reason since a similar problem occurred to me when I'm learning chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Am i re-entering a slump, or just my bad luck?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8005" LastEditorUserId="8005" LastEditDate="2015-09-17T00:50:48.447" LastActivityDate="2016-03-11T08:24:32.047" Title="Am i re-entering a slump, or just my bad luck?" Tags="&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;&lt;psychology&gt;&lt;losing&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="6" ClosedDate="2016-03-11T22:17:09.020" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12323" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4385" CreationDate="2015-09-16T06:07:21.083" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://analysis.cpuchess.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://analysis.cpuchess.com/&lt;/a&gt; analyses your game with an option of a variety of engines like houdini and stockfish&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user8269" LastActivityDate="2015-09-16T06:07:21.083" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12324" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12325" CreationDate="2015-09-16T15:49:11.700" Score="2" ViewCount="298" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I am watching chess lessons, the mentor mostly uses the phrase: 'lets look at the board and find some ideas'.&#xA;As a beginner, I can't get passed the: 'look at what pieces you can grab.'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question:&lt;/strong&gt; What &lt;em&gt;keywords&lt;/em&gt; or ideas should a beginner teach his/her chessmind to evaluate a chessboard better?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8264" LastEditorUserId="8229" LastEditDate="2015-09-18T20:20:28.857" LastActivityDate="2015-09-18T20:20:28.857" Title="Beginners question: Strategic ideas" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;learning&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;beginner&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12325" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12324" CreationDate="2015-09-16T18:27:05.983" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are two main categories for motifs in chess. Those are strategic and tactical motifs. Beginners should should focus on tactical motifs because strategic advantages are much smaller and negligible compared to material advantage, which tactics are usually the cause of.&#xA;chesstempo has a good list of these.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chesstempo.com/tactical-motifs.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://chesstempo.com/tactical-motifs.html&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3872" LastActivityDate="2015-09-16T18:27:05.983" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12326" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-09-17T02:35:18.520" Score="3" ViewCount="251" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why is it hard for me to find tactics?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example,  I want to take their queen, but I don't know how can I get to specific back steps, unless I play normally (it would take time).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8005" LastEditorUserId="8201" LastEditDate="2019-12-27T17:47:56.550" LastActivityDate="2020-09-14T04:24:22.040" Title="I can't figure out how to find tactics" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;retrograde-analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="12327" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12328" CreationDate="2015-09-17T03:19:52.273" Score="8" ViewCount="603" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sometimes I bring my queen out early, however GMs say &quot;Queen is vulnerable to attack and hinders development&quot; I agree with that but most of the time I only bring it to f3 or around the 3rd-rank ex. b3/g3 threatening to take b7 pawn and forking rook and the knight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Question:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Does it hinder my development if I try to bring it out to the 3rd row. I know it's vulnerable to Knight and Bishop attacks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8005" LastEditorUserId="18475" LastEditDate="2019-11-04T22:32:14.667" LastActivityDate="2019-11-05T00:09:04.573" Title="Beginner Chess Question: Bringing out my queen early?" Tags="&lt;beginner&gt;&lt;queens&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="12328" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12327" CreationDate="2015-09-17T03:36:50.110" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Common wisdom is that bringing your Queen out early invites attack and eventually costs you time. And losing time is like giving your opponent free moves. So for players of a certain level, it is true that bringing out the Queen early is not helpful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That being said, chess is a game between 2 people. It is not between &quot;olde GM lore&quot; and a person.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you're having fun bring your Queen out early, or if you're winning games by doing it, then keep doing it. If you're playing tournaments, your rating will rise accordingly. By the last rounds you'll be playing the better players in your bracket.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At some point, your opponents will get stronger. You'll notice that an early Queen sortie is a detriment. At that point you'll need to up your game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Consider not moving your Queen until you have at least 2 other piece off the back row. Getting those pieces 'out of the box' will go a long way towards giving you some good games. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2015-09-17T03:36:50.110" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12329" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12327" CreationDate="2015-09-17T03:39:58.723" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, it hinders your development to bring your queen out to f3. Not only does the queen occupation of f3 take away the most natural square for your knight, but your queen is vulnerable to attack in the opening and middle game. Your castling is delayed. c2 is no longer defended, look out for your opponents Ng4. The whole shuffle of your queen at various third rank squares not only wastes time which you could use to develop other pieces, but the attack often only helps your opponent develop because when you attack a pawn, for example, your opponent may be able to develop a piece and defend the pawn at the same time. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3872" LastActivityDate="2015-09-17T03:39:58.723" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12330" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-09-17T06:05:15.323" Score="2" ViewCount="312" Body="&lt;p&gt;Help! Please.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After Bb7, I often play f4, followed by g4-g5 and h5. But the Bishop at b7 always gives me problems because it seems that my position after playing f4 will be too open after Black exchanges some pawns in the center and my kingside can be attacked easily.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've been searching for several books but all books that I have seen so far on Amazon or chessbase.com only cover the variation where Black either fianchettoes at the kingside only or the variation where Black fianchettoes both Bishops. I am only interested in the variation where Black doesn't fianchetto in the kingside but fianchettoes in the queenside.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After the last move by Black. I am often confused where to put my a-Rook. When I push d4-d5 after few moves, my opponent often maneuver his Knight to c4 via a5, attacking my Queen and Bishop. Or in some cases, after playing f5, my opponent puts his Knight to e5 since it cannot be attacked by the f-pawn anymore. What is the common plan for White in this position? What should I do with Black's b7-Bishop?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nc3 Nc6 3. g3 e6 4. Nge2 d6 5. Bg2 a6 6. O-O Qc7 7. d3 Be7 8. Be3 Nf6 9. h3 {Preventing Black from harrassing my Bishop} O-O 10. Qd2 b5 11. a3 Bb7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7174" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2015-11-10T07:22:28.833" LastActivityDate="2015-11-10T07:22:28.833" Title="Closed Sicilian Problem if Black Fianchettoes His Light-Squared Bishop" Tags="&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;&lt;pawn-structure&gt;&lt;center&gt;&lt;closed-position&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12331" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12326" CreationDate="2015-09-17T06:14:52.857" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Do you mean the the retrograde analysis as a part of problem chess? In this case, I think the main thing in retrograde analysis is to ask the right questions. What kind of pieces should arise in the past? Where should the pawns come from? Also, experience with chess itself is very helpful..&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is simple classic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;4k3/8/8/7K/8/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stipulation: White and Black retract a move and then helpmate in 1 move&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is obvious White needs material to mate (what piece and where) and it is remarkable to see the black king on its initial position e8, so castling could have been possible in the last position. (experience). But where is the black rook?! It seems helpful for the kings to come nearer (experience).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All this together gives the solution. Retract these moves: 1. Kg6xRh5 Rh8xQh5, and the helpmate happens: 1...0-0 2. Qh5-h7#.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Retrograde Analysis&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;4k2r/8/6K1/7Q/8/8/8/8 b - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... O-O Qh7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I hope this helps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8083" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-09-14T04:24:22.040" LastActivityDate="2020-09-14T04:24:22.040" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="12332" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12324" CreationDate="2015-09-17T12:15:31.347" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Every chess player should focus on strategic ideas. Chess is a strategic game. However, tactics are important so you can ensure the implementation of your strategy will be successful and you will not blunder all your piece on the way.&#xA;As a beginner you should still focus on strategic ideas but simple ones e.g. develop all your pieces on the best possible squares( rooks in open files, knights need posts,bishop on long diagonals etc), castle, play on the centre and try to spot opponent's weaknesses. These are the basic strategic ideas that all beginners should try to implement in every single chess game and follow blindly. That requires a lot of practice and even GMs fail to follow these strategic principles from time to time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8278" LastActivityDate="2015-09-17T12:15:31.347" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12333" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12327" CreationDate="2015-09-17T12:19:34.720" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Never ever do that unless the are tactics or exploiting opponent's inaccuracy in development. F3 is the natural square for your knight. If your opponent follows a normal development and you bring your Queen on the 3rd Rank for no particular reason(see above the only two reasons) that strategically losing. Simple as that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8278" LastActivityDate="2015-09-17T12:19:34.720" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12334" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12316" CreationDate="2015-09-17T12:26:08.597" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Isolated double pawns are considered as weakness in general except rare occasions where they play a crucial role in defending important squares. There is no general rule of pawn islands with double pawns close to the centre and each case should be analyzed separately. These pawns are not considered as a weakness since they can either establish a strong centre or can be un-doubled easily.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8278" LastActivityDate="2015-09-17T12:26:08.597" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12335" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-09-17T12:26:20.690" Score="1" ViewCount="81" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am looking for any online tools that can recalculate the the FEN values based on the current FEN and a given step. Are there any such tools or should I write one on my own.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8279" LastEditorUserId="291" LastEditDate="2015-09-21T12:02:43.987" LastActivityDate="2016-02-04T17:30:42.690" Title="Online program for FEN recalculation" Tags="&lt;online&gt;&lt;fen&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12336" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12319" CreationDate="2015-09-17T13:49:12.947" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I bet you turned on the &quot;Lock engine&quot; toggle, which tells the engine to keep analyzing the position it's on even when the board changes. There's a padlock icon in the engine window. Try clicking it so the padlock is open.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2015-09-17T13:49:12.947" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12337" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12322" CreationDate="2015-09-17T14:25:47.797" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I doubt it was luck OR a slump. I think that you were simply too exhausted from your previous games and might have been playing too fast or not being as careful with your pieces&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user8213" LastActivityDate="2015-09-17T14:25:47.797" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12338" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12298" CreationDate="2015-09-17T18:04:25.107" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think you cannot accurately calculate the probability a given position has been previously played by someone, somewhere. But you can make a rough estimation with a big game database.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To calculate this probability you need a really big database -I'd say it should contain some million games-. And you should have a good representation of games played by players of different levels and historical periods. Then using a database manager (like Scid), and search how many games in your database contain that position. Dividing the number of games containing the position by the total number of games, you have a rough estimation of the probability it has been previously played.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a rough estimation because low-level players are not very well represented in the databases, because there is less information of games played in the past and because non-annotated games (blitz, friendly games) do not appear in the database.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3757" LastActivityDate="2015-09-17T18:04:25.107" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12339" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9188" CreationDate="2015-09-17T21:28:09.420" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I doubt that anything was redcorded before 1972 since all matches after 1950 were played in Moscow between Soviet players.  In 1972 ChesterFox had purchased rights to televise the Fischer-Spassky match.  Fischer kept protesting and insisting that the cameras be removed, so little of the match was recorded.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8283" LastActivityDate="2015-09-17T21:28:09.420" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12340" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12316" CreationDate="2015-09-18T01:34:45.697" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Since it hasn't been mentioned yet, I will also put that double pawns loses control of the squares infront of them. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3872" LastActivityDate="2015-09-18T01:34:45.697" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12341" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12349" CreationDate="2015-09-19T04:50:55.640" Score="3" ViewCount="144" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was just guessing the best move  in the given position(black to move) .&#xA;I thought it would be 'Be6' , But the engine gave 'c5' , which weakens the 'd5' square .&#xA;I want to know the plan behind the move 'c5' if it is the best move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/O5tER.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/O5tER.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7693" LastActivityDate="2019-11-04T13:05:34.680" Title="Purpose behind the move" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12342" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12341" CreationDate="2015-09-19T08:31:24.747" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The move c5 is obviously anti-positional. So the purpose must be tactical.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Anti-positional c5&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;1rb2rk1/5pb1/p1pp1np1/q6p/2PBP2P/2N2P2/PP1Q2P1/3RKB1R b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... c5 2. Be3 Rxb2 3. Qxb2 Nxe4 4. Bd2 Nxd2 (4... Bxc3 5. fxe4) (4... Nxc3) 5. Kxd2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1…c5 2.Be3 Rxb2 3.Qxb2 Nxe4 is the obvious try. But after 4.Bd2 the position is pretty tricky because 4…Nd2 fails to 5.Kxd2, Bxc3 fails to fxe4 and Nxc3 steps into a selfpin. But the selfpin cannot be exploited by white because black has Re8+/Qe5+ coming up. This looks like a pretty crushing attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If white prefers to exchange the Bd4 for the Nf6, then the weak d5 square is more than balanced by the weak black squares in whites position. Bd4 is a much bigger threat than Nd5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-11-04T13:05:34.680" LastActivityDate="2019-11-04T13:05:34.680" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="12343" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-09-19T13:37:01.273" Score="4" ViewCount="257" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why isn't &lt;code&gt;6.Be3&lt;/code&gt;, with the &quot;English Attack&quot; idea, really popular against &lt;code&gt;1. e4, c5 2. Nf3, Nc6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4, Nf6 5. Nc3, d6&lt;/code&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[StartPly &quot;10&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 d6 6. Be3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although it's very popular against the Najdorf and Scheveningen variations? Is &lt;code&gt;...Nc6&lt;/code&gt; that strong, compared to &lt;code&gt;...e6&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;...a6&lt;/code&gt;?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2015-09-19T15:47:34.410" LastActivityDate="2015-09-19T19:02:32.467" Title="Why isn't 6. Be3 popular in this Sicilian Defense line?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12344" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-09-19T13:42:57.497" Score="5" ViewCount="501" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why is 5. Bd3 considered a strong move against the Kan variation of the Sicilian Defense:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 e6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 a6 5. Bd3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You very rarely see the Bd3 move played against any other variation of the Sicilian... &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastEditorUserId="4588" LastEditDate="2015-09-19T16:28:48.927" LastActivityDate="2015-09-19T19:55:56.713" Title="Why is 5. Bd3 considered a strong move against the Kan variation?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;&lt;defense&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12345" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-09-19T13:52:44.553" Score="3" ViewCount="1021" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why do most beginners play this line against the Caro-Kann? &lt;strong&gt;1. e4 c6 2. Nf3 d5 3. exd5 cxd5 4. d4&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;5. Nc3?&lt;/strong&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 c6 2. Nf3 d5 3. exd5 cxd5 4. d4 AnyMove 5. Nc3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastEditorUserId="3884" LastEditDate="2015-09-22T00:20:43.340" LastActivityDate="2015-09-23T12:17:08.710" Title="Why do most beginners play this line agains the Caro-Kann?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;beginner&gt;&lt;caro-kann&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12346" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-09-19T14:02:10.383" Score="5" ViewCount="290" Body="&lt;p&gt;What's the best Knight move for White against this variation (loved by beginners) in the Philidor Defense?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 exd4 4. Nxd4 c5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-09-29T09:50:47.603" LastActivityDate="2020-06-04T10:22:55.343" Title="What's the best move against this variation in the Philidor Defense?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;1.e4&gt;&lt;philidor-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12347" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-09-19T14:13:07.547" Score="11" ViewCount="2852" Body="&lt;p&gt;What's the best strategy against the so-called Hippopotamus opening or defense, in which White or Black pushes almost all of her pawns on the 3rd or 6th rank, except perhaps the a and h pawns, and then possibly moves her Knights and Bishops on the 2nd or 7th rank? Would you try a breakthrough with the d or the e Pawns, or something else? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-11-03T20:36:41.023" LastActivityDate="2020-08-12T23:09:19.857" Title="What's the best strategy against the Hippo?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="12348" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-09-19T14:22:40.590" Score="9" ViewCount="2450" Body="&lt;p&gt;What are the main strategic and tactical ideas behind the so-called Short variation in Advance Caro-Kann? I mean this line: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. e5 Bf5 4. Nf3 e6 5. Be2 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Isn't White's position a bit passive, and furthermore with Black's Bishop already developed in f5? Why do GMs play this line?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2015-09-19T16:53:02.133" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T16:30:37.270" Title="What are the ideas behind the Short variation in Advance Caro-Kann?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;caro-kann&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12349" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12341" CreationDate="2015-09-19T14:33:14.383" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I play a move and the engine says some other move is better (which is to say, all the time), I play my move to see what the punishment is going to be. Once I understand why my move isn't good, I back the game up and play the engine's suggestion.  Usually it's pretty clear.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this case it isn't.  This is one of those cases where the engine is selection a wholly inhuman move in order to shave a few fractions of a pawn from the position's evaluation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This variation, Black holds on to his material and thus his chances. One Bishop is superb, the other is better than White's bad white-squared bishop. His Rooks are on the open files. His Knight is prepared to leap onto &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt;, a move made possible by the anti-positional &lt;code&gt;1... c5&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;    [White &quot;Stockfish 5&quot;]&#xA;    [Black &quot;R K&quot;]&#xA;    [Title &quot;1... c5 variant&quot;]&#xA;    [FEN &quot;1rb2rk1/5pb1/p1pp1np1/q6p/2PBP2P/2N2P2/PP1Q2P1/3RKB1R b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... c5 2.Be3 Nd7 3.Be2 Re8 4.Kf2 Nf8 5.Rc1 Ne6 6.b3 Qd8 7.Nd5 a5 8.Nc3 Bb7 9.Nb5 Be5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stockfish rates White's advantage at .7; that is, about 70% of a pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With &lt;code&gt;1... Be6&lt;/code&gt;, the engine falls into a more human-looking mode of play.  Be6 does little and gives Black's pieces no synergy. He presents White with few challenges. In many lines, Black exchanges Queens on d2 because he's got nothing else. When Black is down a pawn and White's King is exposed, to exchange Queens is to beg for a draw. In this line, Black's constricted position leaves him no dynamic moves and he settles for trading off most of his pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[White &quot;Stockfish 5&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;R K&quot;]&#xA;[Title &quot;1... Be6&quot;]&#xA;    [FEN &quot;1rb2rk1/5pb1/p1pp1np1/q6p/2PBP2P/2N2P2/PP1Q2P1/3RKB1R b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;    1... Be6 2.b3 Rfd8 3.Na4 Qc7 4.Qf4 Qe7 5.Kf2 c5 6.Ba1 Bd7 7.Nc3 Bc6 8.Be2 Ne8 9.Nd5 Bxd5 10.exd5 Bxa1 11.Rxa1 Nf6 12.Rae1 Nd7 13.Qg5 Re8 14.Qxe7 Rxe7 15.f4 Rbe8 16.Bf3 Kg7 17.Rxe7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;...with a score of +1, if you believe such things.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All that being said, Black is going to have to work awfully hard to win back the fraction of a pawn. I am sure the way is fraught with peril. Perhaps this is the price of dropping a pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2015-09-19T14:33:14.383" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12350" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5632" CreationDate="2015-09-19T14:58:34.337" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;To try to minimize tactical complications early in your games against 1. d4 I would recommend you the Classical Slav, (but not the Semi-Slav), although very sharp and tactical positions may arise in every chess game! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastActivityDate="2015-09-19T14:58:34.337" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12352" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12346" CreationDate="2015-09-19T16:28:10.300" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;As Ian Bush already mentioned in a comment, 5.Bb5+ is arguably the strongest reply. After 5....Nd7 6.Nf5 or 5....Bd7 6.Bxd7+ Qxd7 7.Nf5, black has some serious problems with the weak pawn on d6 and square d5.&#xA;Note that there are some similarities with a &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/12246/whats-wrong-with-4-e5-in-the-open-sicilian/12248#12248&quot;&gt;line in the Sicilian&lt;/a&gt;: 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 e5 5.Bb5+.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other moves are less convincing. After 5.Nf5 Nf6 or 5.Nb5 a6 6.N5c3 Nf6, black is probably fine. 5.Nf3 is not a bad move, but it doesn't take advantage of black's weaknesses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;      [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;      [StartPly &quot;1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;      1.e4 (1...c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 e5 5.Bb5+) e5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 exd4 4.Nxd4 c5 5.Bb5+ (5.Nf5 Nf6) (5.Nb5 a6 6.N5c3 Nf6) (5.Nf3) Bd7 (5...Nd7 6.Nf5) 6.Bxd7+ Qxd7 7.Nf5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4588" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2015-09-19T16:28:10.300" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12353" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-09-19T18:38:34.390" Score="9" ViewCount="3037" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why did Bobby Fischer play the Queen's Gambit as White in many games in the 1972 World Championship match vs. Spassky, although he almost never played it in any other tournament or match game? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastActivityDate="2020-10-03T12:24:19.043" Title="Why did Bobby Fischer play the Queen's Gambit as White vs. Spassky?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;queens-gambit&gt;&lt;fischer&gt;&lt;spassky&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12354" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12343" CreationDate="2015-09-19T19:02:32.467" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is the following line, similar to what happens if black reacts the same way in the Najdorf:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 d6 6.Be3 Ng4 7.Bg5 h6 8.Bh4 g5&#xA;9.Bg3 Bg7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a mess, but Yermolinsky argues that the extra developing move (...Nc6 instead of ...a6) black has compared to the Najdorf version should make this relatively better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So if white wants to play the English Attack here, it is more usual to play &lt;strong&gt;6.f3&lt;/strong&gt; first and only then Be3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But there is another reason that is at least as important: &lt;strong&gt;6.Bg5&lt;/strong&gt; (the Richter-Rauzer attack) is really good, and there is no good road to equality known for black, as far as I know.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2015-09-19T19:02:32.467" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12355" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12344" CreationDate="2015-09-19T19:55:56.713" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The difference is that in the Kan white exchanges the knight on c6. In other sicilians this would be a concession, but here black has already played a6, which will not be particular useful after Nxc6 bxc6. In the other sicilians, if white doesn't exchange the Nc6, it will often go to e5 and threaten to exchange a Bd3, that's why the bishop often isn't well placed there. The plan connected to Bd3 is of course to play e5 sooner or later. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-09-19T19:55:56.713" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12356" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12353" CreationDate="2015-09-19T20:08:53.783" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;Spassky had an entire squad of Soviet grandmasters trying to find holes in Fischer's repertoire. So it made a lot of sense to surprise them. He also avoided the sharp King's Indian and went for the Nimzo instead. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are other examples for this strategy. Peter Leko, a 1.e4 player, switched to 1.d4 for his match against Kramnik. Changing the black repertoire is even more common: Gelfands Gruenfeld and Sveshnikov against Anand, Kramniks Berlin against Kasparov ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-09-19T20:08:53.783" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12357" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-09-19T21:07:05.340" Score="9" ViewCount="1035" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there an accepted refutation of the Blackmar-Diemer Gambit, &lt;strong&gt;1. d4 d5 2. e4&lt;/strong&gt; or what is the strongest line for Black to prove that the gambit is unsound?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastActivityDate="2021-03-04T17:07:52.617" Title="Refutation of the Blackmar-Diemer gambit?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12358" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12347" CreationDate="2015-09-19T23:37:19.223" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Make a pawn break on a flank and bring a minor piece into the now weakened square. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user8213" LastActivityDate="2015-09-19T23:37:19.223" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12359" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-09-20T01:15:03.687" Score="3" ViewCount="1108" Body="&lt;p&gt;What aspects are 1700 generally stronger than 1600 chess player?s&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm a 1600 chess player. I can defeat 1600 chess players, but I lose to 1700. I was wondering what makes a 1700 stronger than a 1600? What can I do as a 1600 to start winning against 1700 chess players? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3149" LastActivityDate="2015-09-20T09:38:12.343" Title="What's the difference between a USCF 1600 and 1700" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;tournament&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12360" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12359" CreationDate="2015-09-20T02:23:27.707" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is difficult to answer. They are generally stronger in some or all of the following areas:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Tactics &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Endgames &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Planning &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Recognition of positional features&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Openings&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, they may be weaker in some of those areas than a 1600. My point is that there is no well-defined set of knowledge that makes someone a 1700-level player. They have just enough of a hodge-podge of experience and maybe some studying that they can stumble into wins against those with less experience. In fact, when you get to 1700 from 1600, you probably won't feel a tangible difference in the way you think about the game or make moves. Your results will simply be just a little better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for how to win against them: play better chess than they do. Study the things that I mentioned above (although I would avoid openings). One piece of advice that I've heard before for generating upsets is to make the game as complicated as possible, to maximize the likelihood that your opponent misses something major.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3270" LastEditorUserId="3270" LastEditDate="2015-09-20T03:37:30.857" LastActivityDate="2015-09-20T03:37:30.857" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12361" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12359" CreationDate="2015-09-20T07:43:27.340" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I agree with the answer from Cleveland, but as somebody who has gone 126 to 139 ECF (1645 to 1742 FIDE according to the official translation) over the last year I thought I'd add just a few words on what I found. I have a very direct, tactical style, and for me the main things were &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Working &lt;strong&gt;HARD&lt;/strong&gt; on my tactics (I try to do at least a problem or two each day&#xA;on &lt;a href=&quot;http://Chess%20Tempo&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://chesstempo.com/&lt;/a&gt;)  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Looking more carefully at my openings, especially the more critical&#xA;variations (e.g. The Austrian Attack in the Pirc, The Flick Knife&#xA;Attack in the Modern Benoni)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Playing more and reviewing my games more carefully&#xA;afterwards&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A bit on endings - I find endings hard (they're much too complicated&#xA;for my little mind, give me a nice 150 attack to face any day) so&#xA;this was mostly trying to firm up on what I already thought I knew,&#xA;not learning a whole lot more&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But as Cleveland says it will depend on the player. If you are a schemer who declines the Morra or faces e4 with the Caro Kann I suspect your priorities might be different. But good tactics never hurts anybody except your opponent!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7726" LastEditorUserId="7726" LastEditDate="2015-09-20T09:38:12.343" LastActivityDate="2015-09-20T09:38:12.343" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12362" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5599" CreationDate="2015-09-20T07:56:52.687" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to current chess opening strategy &lt;strong&gt;1... c6&lt;/strong&gt; is not considered very useful if White continues with the London, Torre or Colle Systems, unless you want to follow with some sort of King's Indian or Modern Defense setup, which does not seem to be your case from your question and opening preferences, so as a Slav player I'd rather play &lt;strong&gt;1... d5&lt;/strong&gt; vs &lt;strong&gt;1. d4.&lt;/strong&gt; On the other side, the London, Torre and Colle aren't considered particularly challenging for Black from a theoretical point of view, so at the end of the day it is a matter of personal choice and tastes. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastActivityDate="2015-09-20T07:56:52.687" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12363" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-09-20T09:23:58.593" Score="3" ViewCount="510" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just installed Deep Fritz 14 with ChessBase. By default the notation in deep position analysis looks like this (only letters, no chess figures):&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Kq1av.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Kq1av.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would like to make it look like this:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/dScQ6.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/dScQ6.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How do I do this? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8297" LastEditorUserId="8297" LastEditDate="2015-09-20T09:53:57.923" LastActivityDate="2015-11-19T10:30:33.237" Title="How to display figures instead of letters in position analysis notation in ChessBase?" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;chessbase&gt;&lt;fritz&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12364" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-09-20T09:48:12.677" Score="4" ViewCount="163" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I first created this account I posted about how I am in a slump and kept blundering important games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As of today, I think I have gotten out of that slump and I understand CHESS much better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's my game, and I think I have no blunders here:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;Unbalance Chess&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;windows&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2015.09.20&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Level 19&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;4444&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;[SetUp &quot;1&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/4P3/8/PPPP1PPP/RNBQKBNR b KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... c5 2. Qf3 d6 3. Bb5+ Bd7 4. Bc4 Nf6 5. e5 d5 6. exf6 dxc4 7. Qxb7 Nc6 8.&#xA;Ne2 exf6 9. Nbc3 Rb8 10. Qa6 Qe7 11. O-O Nd4 12. Qxc4 Be6 13. Qd3 Rd8 14. f3 c4&#xA;15. Qe4 f5 16. Qe5 f6 17. Qa5 g6 18. Re1 Nc6 19. Qb5 Bd7 20. Nb1 Ne5 21. Qa5&#xA;Bh6 22. f4 Nc6 23. Qc3 g5 24. Qxc4 gxf4 25. a3 f3 26. gxf3 Ne5 27. Qb3 Be6 28.&#xA;Qc3 Rg8+ 29. Ng3 f4 30. Kh1 fxg3 31. hxg3 Rxg3 32. b3 Qg7 33. Re2 Rg1+ 34. Kh2&#xA;Bf4# 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If there are any blunders please analyze and help me improve my practical play (tactics).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8005" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-11-03T00:00:19.423" LastActivityDate="2019-11-03T00:00:19.423" Title="Analyze, improvement - My game without blunders?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="12365" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12363" CreationDate="2015-09-20T09:59:38.653" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Nevermind, figured it out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;File &gt; options &gt; Clocks+Notations &gt; Figurines radio button&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8297" LastActivityDate="2015-09-20T09:59:38.653" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12366" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12357" CreationDate="2015-09-20T15:49:53.453" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The simplest refutation is 2...e6, the french defense, one of the most stable openings for black. &#xA;It is also fine to accept  the gambit  2... dxe4, but you have to know some specific traps....&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8083" LastActivityDate="2015-09-20T15:49:53.453" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12367" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="548" CreationDate="2015-09-20T19:12:30.623" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;All the above answers refer to individual tournaments, but in a team what has happened or is happening on other boards might affect your decision. Admittedly it's more likely to affect what happens when a draw is offered, but you could play on if a draw, however unlikely, rather than a loss was of major benefit to the team as a whole.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7726" LastActivityDate="2015-09-20T19:12:30.623" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12368" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-09-20T20:44:55.353" Score="10" ViewCount="3052" Body="&lt;p&gt;Before I begin, I'm not asking about people playing &quot;Blindfold chess&quot;, but those who are actually blind.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Reading through the FIDE rules of chess like any good player should, I've previously noticed the section containing rules for players who are visually handicapped. I never really paid this any attention before other than to note how difficult it must be to both learn the game (containing as it does complex spatial movements and a large amount of information to be kept in the head if it cannot be seen) and to study it (most learning resources being books that are probably nowhere near popular enough to be made 'accessible'). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just recently I started thinking about this, and I'd like to know a bit more about this aspect of the game, but information is rather hard to find. To begin with, &lt;strong&gt;How strong are the strongest blind chess players in comparison to those without disability?&lt;/strong&gt; Ideally we'd be talking about people using the same scale (i.e. theoretically entering the same 'ordinary' tournament with perhaps minor allowances for the games of the disabled person, and needing to have comparable Elo ratings, etc.), though if there's a separate rating system that information would be useful too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On a related note, &lt;strong&gt;Have there been any blind players notable for their strength or players they have faced?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="550" LastActivityDate="2019-11-02T23:54:31.023" Title="The strength of blind chess players" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12369" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12357" CreationDate="2015-09-20T20:52:13.280" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not an expert, but I'd say the onus is on the gambiteer (White) to prove anything. W is delaying development and must waste time to capture the pawn later. Black has natural moves like Nf6 and Bf5 which both develop and delay W's capture of the pawn (and can possibly even hold on to it). W is just giving away some of the opening advantage. I don't think Black can expect more than this. W can also choose to give up a pawn altogether with f3, exf3, Nxf3 with in-adequate compensation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2258" LastActivityDate="2015-09-20T20:52:13.280" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12370" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12368" CreationDate="2015-09-20T21:08:00.227" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.uschess.org/content/view/12608/760&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this link&lt;/a&gt;, the World Blind chess championship includes IM-strength players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A separate rating system isn't used but one cannot accurately compare ratings from two different player pools.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/who-is-the-highest-rated-blind-chess-player&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this link&lt;/a&gt;, the 2009 Blind US champion was a USCF Expert.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Roughly, I'd say being blind costs 600 rating points. Why? An USCF Expert is around 2100, the USCF National champion is about 2800, so subtraction gives 700. Similarly, a super-GM has about 450 more ELO points than an IM (2400 vs 2850)  700... 450... call it 600...)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2015-09-21T00:05:00.883" LastActivityDate="2015-09-21T00:05:00.883" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12371" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12368" CreationDate="2015-09-20T21:17:00.057" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe Stanislav Babarykin is the current (or former) world champion among blind chess players and his rating is around 2350.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my country India, arguably the strongest (blind) player is Darpan Inani (rated 2041).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So while the current strongest blind chess players are not in the GM category, it is also the case that there are very few such players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2258" LastActivityDate="2015-09-20T21:17:00.057" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12372" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12364" CreationDate="2015-09-20T21:58:11.180" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;As noted in the comments, after 7.Qxb7??, the reply ...Bc6! simply traps the queen, leaving White completely busted. This may be the most obvious thing both players failed to notice in this game, and one of the few concrete ones I will bring up in this answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To me, it looks like this game is not an elite game, and it would be interesting to know your overall strength. I can assure you(without even analysing deeply), that black made more &quot;mistakes&quot; in this game than just missing 7...Bc6, but they may be more or less relevant depending on your level of self critisism, and ambition. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's take for example the position after 10.Qa6 by White: Did you consider playing ...Nb4, threatening both the queen on a6 AND a nice fork on c2? To me, not considering the move could be considered as a mistake, but at that point you already had quite a nice position, so most reasonable moves by black should be enough to win by then.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But there are other considerations to be made in the game. I think, that in this game, you did not develop your f8 bishop efficiently. This I view as a mistake, but it's not a tactical mistake, rather a positional one. But White never capitalised on this in any way, so you weren't punished for it. And this is the important point I wanted to make with this answer:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this game, you outplayed your opponent, and the reason for it was that your opponent didn't play well enough to stop you from bullying his queen around the board. Therefore, your opponent will have a much easier time to learn from this game than you will. Your opponent got the &quot;You play badly, and here's why&quot;-treatment from you this game, but you didn't get the same treatment from anybody! Therefore you think you played great, no matter what the reality of your play is like.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is the reason why it's easier to learn from your losses than from your victories in general. I would advise you to go through this game yourself with a bit more self-critisism, if you really want to take anything from it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8300" LastActivityDate="2015-09-20T21:58:11.180" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12373" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12353" CreationDate="2015-09-21T04:32:51.030" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;Another idea is that it was strategy at it's deepest.  He waited until the most important match of his career to use this part of his opening repertoire.  In &quot;Fischer-Spassky, Reyjavik 1972&quot; C.H.O'D Alexander writes of game six.  &quot;This game was notable for two things.  First, Fischer played the Queen's Gambit for the first time in his life in a serious game; second, he played it to perfection, the game indeed casting doubt on Black's whole opening system.&quot;  In the game notes he describes it as a 'sensation'.  Talk about catching your opponent unawares.  And is there any better strategy than that?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8305" LastActivityDate="2015-09-21T04:32:51.030" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12374" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12375" CreationDate="2015-09-21T08:10:55.090" Score="4" ViewCount="1953" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am just an OK player and I wish for my eight-year old kid to learn chess and be interested in it too. Can you please give tips/ideas as to how can I make my child interested in it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8308" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-06-01T17:17:16.130" LastActivityDate="2020-06-01T17:17:16.130" Title="How can I make my child interested in playing chess?" Tags="&lt;psychology&gt;&lt;study&gt;&lt;teaching&gt;&lt;children&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="12375" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12374" CreationDate="2015-09-21T08:35:50.433" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my experience it is likely that kids get interested in whatever you are interested in.  So, play a couple of chess games with a friend or set up some chess problems and work on them yourself at a time where your kid can see what you are doing.  It is quite likely that your kid will start asking questions what you are doing and wants to play as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Whenever my sons sees me setting up the chess board he wants to play... unfortunately he is not even three years old, so besides learning the names of the pieces there is not much he can do yet. ;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3529" LastActivityDate="2015-09-21T08:35:50.433" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12376" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6110" CreationDate="2015-09-21T09:54:26.827" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think it's possible to create a GUI or engine as separate apps in iOS. iOS prevents one app from invoking another as part of its security setup. An engine author has to write the GUI, and integrate it with the engine before he can apply to Apple for approval for release on the App Store.  This may be true of Windows RT as well.  Android has GUIs and engines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also apart from UCI and CECP (Chess Engine Communication Protocol, i.e. winboard/xboard), Chessbase has its own proprietary protocol. Many of the strongest engines use UCI, while beginning programmers quite commonly use CECP.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8309" LastEditorUserId="8309" LastEditDate="2015-09-21T10:08:44.233" LastActivityDate="2015-09-21T10:08:44.233" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12377" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12348" CreationDate="2015-09-21T10:14:46.320" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here are a few observations regarding the line:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Replacing the 5th move with 5. Bd3 is a bad move. Black trades bad bishop for good with 5...Bxd3&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Unlike the Nunn-Shirov attack (1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. e5 Bf5 4. Nc3 e6 5. g4), White aims to get his King to safety by castling before any fireworks begin. To facilitate this the Bishop has to make way. We've already ruled out moving to d3, a fianchetto would be terribly slow and highlight the weakness of the bishop being restricted by its own pawns, and lastly there are no other safe squares&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;White knows that Black's pawn break ...c5 will use an extra tempo, and if it comes too soon then White's safe King and lead in development will favour the first player. Often Black will play an ...f6 break instead&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Regarding a ...c5 break, White has the option to reinforce the pawn with ...c3, compared to the Nunn-Shirov attack where a knight restricts that advance&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Again to restrict the ...c5 break, White will often develop the dark square bishop to e3 to overprotect d4. Black's minor pieces often settle on the following squares: ...Nb8-d7, ...Bf8-g7, ...Ng8-h6(!?)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Black does not fear the bishop taking the h6 knight. The Bishop pair and semi open g-file provide ample compensation for the doubled h-pawns, which are not easy to attack. Often White will have to un-double these pawns for defensive purposes&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;White often tries to gun down the light square bishop with the f3 knight, to win the 2 bishops. Black often plays ...h5 to gain king side space and give the light square bishop a flight square&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Extra: White also plays for the c4 break to dissolve the centre. Black often gives White an isolated Queen's pawn with ...dxc4, which often results in White losing time with the recapture Bxc4. Thus ensues the dynamic contest of White's semi-open files and potential piece play in the middle game compared to Black's solid structure that will favour the second player in the endgame&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to know (a lot) more, then check out &lt;em&gt;The Caro-Kann: Move by Move&lt;/em&gt; by Cyrus Lakdawala. Also, this chess.com link has a discussion on the line: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/forum/view/chess-openings/advance-shirov-vs-advance-short-in-the-caro-kann&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chess.com/forum/view/chess-openings/advance-shirov-vs-advance-short-in-the-caro-kann&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditorDisplayName="user1108" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T16:30:37.270" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T16:30:37.270" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="12378" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8922" CreationDate="2015-09-21T10:39:01.410" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Zillions of Games isn't free, but it plays Los Alamos chess. ChessV plays 50 chess variants.  I believe Sjaak plays microchess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ChessV&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://samiam.org/chessv/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://samiam.org/chessv/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sjaak&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.eglebbk.dds.nl/program/chess-index.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.eglebbk.dds.nl/program/chess-index.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8309" LastActivityDate="2015-09-21T10:39:01.410" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12379" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12380" CreationDate="2015-09-21T12:28:09.177" Score="5" ViewCount="1595" Body="&lt;p&gt;I tried my local chess club but they don't have any good recommendations. Could someone recommend a good website to find coaches? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It would be even better if it has sections to match local coaches as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7002" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-05-25T20:30:20.707" LastActivityDate="2020-02-01T19:44:23.490" Title="Where to find chess coaches?" Tags="&lt;coach&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="12380" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12379" CreationDate="2015-09-21T12:41:59.970" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/coaches&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess.com&lt;/a&gt; has a list of chess coaches, searchable by location, rating and other stuff.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessclub.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;ICC&lt;/a&gt; store you can also hire chess coaches. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastEditorUserId="4362" LastEditDate="2019-11-04T10:07:41.530" LastActivityDate="2019-11-04T10:07:41.530" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="12381" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12384" CreationDate="2015-09-21T13:28:39.813" Score="3" ViewCount="565" Body="&lt;p&gt;Since the modern defence is a hypermodern opening, it focuses on controlling the center through pieces not pawns. Therefore, I find it an advantage to block these pieces by pawns. So, I defend against the modern defence like this ..&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 g6 2. e5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The idea is to block the bishop that is coming to g7 with 2...Bg7, and to prevent the knight from going to f6 and thus prevents castling kingside.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, if Black tries to attack the pawn, this happens ..&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 g6 2. e5 f6 3. d4 fxe5 4. dxe5 d6 5. Nf3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If Black takes the pawn, then white is clearly ahead in development. If he doesn't, then he can't deploy his pieces effectively.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anything wrong with this plan ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6985" LastActivityDate="2020-11-12T18:49:00.873" Title="2. e5 in the Robatsch (Modern) Defence" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;modern-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="11" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12382" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12414" CreationDate="2015-09-21T17:33:02.613" Score="4" ViewCount="9369" Body="&lt;p&gt;In a game with a friend, he made a really unexpected move, e3:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/4P3/PPPP1PPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Afterwards, when analysing the game I found its name is Van't Kruijs Opening and I was wondering which are the ideas to play it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For white, this seems a passive move, giving advantage in the centre to black. But on the other side, like e4, it opens the way to the King's Bishop and Queen. It can also lead to aggressive variations like the Keoni-Hiva Gambit, where white sacrifices a pawn for development, which seems dangerous.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e3 d5 2. Nc3 e5 3. f4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could you confirm/refute this analysis? Could you discuss other ideas?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3757" LastEditorUserId="3757" LastEditDate="2015-09-21T17:38:31.487" LastActivityDate="2019-11-02T23:37:45.427" Title="Which are the ideas in the Van't Kruijs Opening?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;theory&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12383" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12382" CreationDate="2015-09-21T18:02:34.560" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;White can transpose to the Stonewall or the Colle systems after 1...d5 or if 1...e5 attempt a reverse French.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Otherwise 1. e3 is a move which needs no attention or search for ideas, because there can be none.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2258" LastActivityDate="2015-09-21T18:02:34.560" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12384" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12381" CreationDate="2015-09-21T18:25:46.107" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;OK, not really an answer as it's looking entirely at what I, a complete Pirc addict, would play, there may well be better lines. But unfortunately you can't stick a pgn in a comment, so here's a few minutes work with Fritz to see what it thinks - after all it's a much better player than I. Numbers are in units of pawns, negative numbers mean advantage to black. Note the numbers appear in the box below the board once the last move of the line is played. Lines quoted are from the top 4 selected by Fritz, biased where appropriate by the comments above, and in each case I left it a few minutes for the evaluation to settle down.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2015.09.21&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;????&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;????&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;*&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;B06&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;13&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 g6 2. e5 Bg7 3. d4 d6 4. f4 c5 5. Nf3 (5. dxc5 Qa5+ 6. Qd2 {-0.21}) (5.&#xA;c3 dxe5 6. fxe5 cxd4 7. cxd4 {-0.32}) (5. d5 dxe5 6. fxe5 Bxe5 {-0.48}) 5...&#xA;cxd4 6. Qxd4 Nh6 (6... Nc6 7. Qd2 {-0.70}) 7. Bb5+ {-0.77} *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So not disastrous for white but according to Fritz at least he has thrown away his first move advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Oh, and the point about the tempo is that by playing e5 &lt;strong&gt;before&lt;/strong&gt; black has played Nf6 is that the knight can wait snuggly at home, thinking about where to go. If you wait until after Nf6 has happened black has to &quot;waste&quot; a move, after which you can further your evil plan. Compare the above with&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2015.09.21&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;????&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;????&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;*&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;B09&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;14&quot;]&#xA;[TimeControl &quot;1&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. e4 g6 2. d4 Bg7 3. Nc3&#xA;d6 4. f4 Nf6 5. Nf3 c5 6. Bb5+ Bd7 7. e5 {+0.07} Ng4 *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7726" LastActivityDate="2015-09-21T18:25:46.107" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12385" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12390" CreationDate="2015-09-21T18:42:57.657" Score="5" ViewCount="590" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the game: Von Popiel - Marco, Monte Carlo 1902:&#xA;why would Black win with Bg1?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://timkr.home.xs4all.nl/chess2/resigntxt.htm#01&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Ultimate Blunder&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessworld.net/chessclubs/PGNViewer/problemboard.asp?alldetails=1&amp;amp;PuzzleID=223&amp;amp;sh=1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Puzzle&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The white player is about to lose the Queen. Does that alone immediately constitute as a loss in that level of Chess play?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8312" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-04T21:51:30.787" LastActivityDate="2020-04-04T21:51:30.787" Title="Von Popiel - Marco, Monte Carlo 1902, how to win as black?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;master-games&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12386" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12385" CreationDate="2015-09-21T19:31:16.610" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes - loss of the queen for insufficient compensation at most levels of chess will result in the resignation of the player who has lost the queen. The difficulty lies in judging what amounts to sufficient compensation, but given the queen is such an important piece more often than not it is fairly obvious.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7726" LastActivityDate="2015-09-21T19:31:16.610" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12387" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12388" CreationDate="2015-09-21T20:58:11.673" Score="9" ViewCount="432" Body="&lt;p&gt;Taken from:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chesscademy.com/exercises/a-subtle-blunder&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess Academy: A subtle blunder&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;White to move&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;r1bqr1k1/pp1nbpp1/4pn1p/2pp4/2PP1B2/P1NBPN2/1P3PPP/R2Q1RK1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White can play Nb5 followed by Nc7 but wouldn't Black play Rf8 beforehand?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8312" LastEditorUserId="7147" LastEditDate="2019-11-03T00:12:47.423" LastActivityDate="2019-11-03T00:12:47.423" Title="Why is Nb5 a strong move here? Why is there a guaranteed material gain?" Tags="&lt;puzzles&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="12388" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12387" CreationDate="2015-09-21T21:19:18.920" Score="17" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a familiar tactic I often get to use myself in another opening line. If black plays &lt;code&gt;1... Rf8&lt;/code&gt;, then comes &lt;code&gt;2. Bc7! Qe8 3. Nd6 Bxd6 4. Bxd6&lt;/code&gt; and black loses the exchange anyway.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;White to move&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;r1bqr1k1/pp1nbpp1/4pn1p/2pp4/2PP1B2/P1NBPN2/1P3PPP/R2Q1RK1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Nb5 Rf8 2. Bc7! Qe8 3. Nd6 Bxd6 4. Bxd6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess is about patterns. Since I was familiar with the pattern, I spotted this tactic immediately.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1485" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2015-09-22T17:16:10.380" LastActivityDate="2015-09-22T17:16:10.380" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12389" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12374" CreationDate="2015-09-21T21:33:48.947" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well when I was younger I had this program called Chessmaster 9000. The program itself was extremely oriented in making the concepts obvious. I realize that this isn't really a decent answer, but that is what REALLY got me originally interested. It was much too long for a comment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user8213" LastActivityDate="2015-09-21T21:33:48.947" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12390" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12385" CreationDate="2015-09-21T21:44:48.713" Score="10" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The white player is about to lose the Queen. Does that alone immediately constitute as a loss in that level of Chess play?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well, no. The problem with White position is that he lacks any real counterplay. He has weaknesses he can not defend in the long run, especially pawn at &lt;code&gt;a2&lt;/code&gt;, and his piece coordination is not good enough to defend against the might of the queen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Below illustrative lines prove that:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Von Popiel - Marco, Monte Carlo 1902&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;7k/1b1r2p1/p6p/1p2qN2/3bP3/3Q4/P5PP/1B1R3K b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1...Bg1 2.Kxg1 Rxd3 3.Bxd3 (3.Rxd3 Bxe4 4.Re3 Qa1 5.Re1 (5.Rxe4 Qxb1+ 6.Kf2 (6.Re1?? Qxe1#) 6...Qxe4-+) 5...Bxf5! 6.Re8+ Kh7-+) 3...Bxe4 4.Bxe4 (4.Re1?? Qc5+ 5.Ne3 (5.Re3 Bxf5!-+) 5...Bxd3-+) 4...Qxe4 5.Ng3 Qc2 6.Rd8+ Kh7 7.h3 (7.a3 Qc5+ 8.Kh1 Qc1+) 7...Qxa2-+&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black will simply take the &lt;code&gt;a2&lt;/code&gt; pawn and win by marching his extra 2 queenside pawns, and there is nothing White can do to stop it. Meanwhile, Queen easily defends any mating attack Rook + Knight conjure up by simply going to the &lt;code&gt;a1-h8&lt;/code&gt; diagonal with the move like &lt;code&gt;...Qb2&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;...Qc3&lt;/code&gt;...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastActivityDate="2015-09-21T21:44:48.713" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12391" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12385" CreationDate="2015-09-21T23:10:35.020" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Bg1 wins for Black, because if White takes the Black rook with his Queen, the Black Queen captures at h2 checkmate.  If White takes the Black Bishop, it ends up being a a trade of the White Queen for a Black Bishop and a Black Rook, because Black's bishop move uncovers an attack on the white queen.  Queen is traditionally scored as 9 points and the rook 5 while the bishop is three.  Therefore Black is one point to the good in position he thought he had lost.  Typically a one point advantage is not sufficient to FORCE victory, but because it is so late in the game and the Black Queen has great mobility and threatens mate on the back rank if the white rook leaves...my quick analysis is that this is a win for Black as he will likely pick off the white bishop or the white rook in a few moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8315" LastActivityDate="2015-09-21T23:10:35.020" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12392" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12345" CreationDate="2015-09-22T02:12:06.327" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my experience playing chess exd5, beginners play exd5 because they usually think that taking d5 will help them. But that's my opinion. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8318" LastActivityDate="2015-09-22T02:12:06.327" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12393" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12379" CreationDate="2015-09-22T02:17:20.720" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is a list of sites with available chess coaches:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/coaches&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chess.com/coaches&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesstrainer.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chesstrainer.com&lt;/a&gt; (I actually trained with the coach here)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://store.chessclub.com/teachers/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://store.chessclub.com/teachers/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.uschess.org/content/view/10002/131/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.uschess.org/content/view/10002/131/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8318" LastEditorUserId="224" LastEditDate="2018-05-31T19:18:53.660" LastActivityDate="2018-05-31T19:18:53.660" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="12394" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-09-22T02:50:22.623" Score="7" ViewCount="333" Body="&lt;p&gt;Occasionally in a tournament game I will find myself with a material imbalance of BvN or BBvBN in a situation where I know the extra bishop should be superior (center cleared of pawns, pawns on both sides of the board, etc). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I don't think that I'm very good at turning this advantage into any other advantage before my opponent manages to swap their knight off for my bishop. What are some guidelines for playing in this situation, or top player games that give a clear demonstration of possible plans?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3270" LastActivityDate="2020-08-25T10:07:20.243" Title="How to exploit the advantage of a bishop over a knight?" Tags="&lt;knights&gt;&lt;bishops&gt;&lt;material-balance&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12395" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12394" CreationDate="2015-09-22T03:19:12.230" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Usually you want to open the center up for the bishops so that you can attack on both sides of the board.  Or you can try to exchange bishop for knight in order to obtain a more permanent pawn structure weakness like doubled pawns or isolated pawns to attack later in the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8258" LastActivityDate="2015-09-22T03:19:12.230" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12396" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12374" CreationDate="2015-09-22T04:53:11.923" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't like the idea of forcing your child to be interested in it. Neither of my parents knew how to play, and I developed interest when mom bought me Chessmaster on PS2. I played quite regularly for a year until my parents decided to find a junior chess club for me to play in. My dad did teach himself how to play with me, but I had more free time and progressed far more quickly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I like the idea of letting children explore the game themselves, which helps to develop a lifelong interest. I feel that forcing your child to play chess is like forcing them to learn a musical instrument. If they don't have fun with it, they will most likely quit when they become teenagers and have little to show for it as an adult.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I should mention that I never had a structured study plan when I was younger, just simply playing game after game. Because of the amount of free time I had then, I wish I devoted more of that time to proper chess study, although I never had the resources to know how to do this properly. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I recommend once your child develops an interest themselves, then you can start to guide and help them progress as much as possible. Explaining why they are doing something (and ensuring they understand) is better than forcing it upon them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If one of the parents plays chess, then the child might naturally become interested in what the parent is doing. However, a key thing for kids is to make it fun. It is crucial to remember that &lt;strong&gt;they are kids&lt;/strong&gt;, and you cannot teach them something the same way in which you would teach a beginner adult. In most mammals, the children learn by playing and having fun, while the adults supervise from the side. The same concept applies for most things taught to children.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7966" LastActivityDate="2015-09-22T04:53:11.923" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12398" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9435" CreationDate="2015-09-22T11:38:09.887" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Tim Harding, one of the writers for ChessCafe.com, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ecforum.org.uk/viewtopic.php?f=2&amp;amp;t=6245&amp;amp;sid=16a86ce9a01d69bf680a253b15091d54&amp;amp;start=30#p164200&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;reports that he hasn't been paid for the last two articles he wrote&lt;/a&gt;. The conclusion has to be that it isn't coming back. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The internet is free and people are very reluctant to pay for content, even content as good as that which was provided by ChessCafe.com.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2015-09-22T11:38:09.887" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12399" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2015-09-22T13:21:09.403" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In FIDE's Laws of Chess, resigning is covered by article 5.1.b.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;5.1.b.&lt;/strong&gt; The game is won by the player whose opponent declares he resigns. This immediately ends the game. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1485" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2015-09-22T15:46:40.757" LastActivityDate="2015-09-22T15:46:40.757" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12400" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2015-09-22T13:21:09.403" Score="0" Body="Questions related to resigning a game of chess" OwnerUserId="1485" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2015-09-22T15:46:57.323" LastActivityDate="2015-09-22T15:46:57.323" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12401" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12345" CreationDate="2015-09-22T18:36:37.593" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's not the best way to play against the Caro-Kann, but it's good enough for beginners. It follows basic opening principles: develop your pieces, fight for the center, knights before bishops, though it does violate the rule about moving a piece (or pawn?) more than once. It's true that the Knight on c3 blocks the natural c4 advance, but beginners can't be expected to know that (see below).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you're seeing this a lot from opponents, don't worry. It will go away (but not completely) as your rating improves and you start playing stronger players. Beginners are commonly told not to study openings, which they interpret to mean don't even learn the first 3 or 4 moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4532" LastEditorUserId="4532" LastEditDate="2015-09-23T12:17:08.710" LastActivityDate="2015-09-23T12:17:08.710" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12402" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11201" CreationDate="2015-09-22T22:25:58.080" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Like @Brian Towers, I suggest using FIDE data. However, I suggest you to download instead the &lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/download.phtml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;full rating lists&lt;/a&gt; and analyse them using some kind of statistical software (like R).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to the FIDE rating list of September 2015 there are 128196 active players, 12320 of which are women, almost 10%. As you can see in the graph below, the proportion of women players increases in the lower categories. And it decreases dramatically near the elite.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/gKvy9.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/gKvy9.png&quot; alt=&quot;Percentage of women in the top X players&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3757" LastActivityDate="2015-09-22T22:25:58.080" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12403" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12410" CreationDate="2015-09-22T23:01:52.880" Score="16" ViewCount="4562" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the range of possible results of a chess game?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am asking this question, because I am developing an XML schema for recording chess games; sort of like an XML version of PGN, and I need a way to classify and record the game result.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The list of possible results that I came up with:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Win for white, by virtue of checkmate.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Win for white because black resigns.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Win for white by arbiter declaration.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Same as 1, 2 and 3, but for black.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Draw by reason of stalemate.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Draw by agreement of players.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Draw by declaration of arbiter.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Draw by claim of Three-fold repetition by white&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Draw by claim of score-sheet written intention of Three-fold repetition by white&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Draw by claim of 50 move rule by white&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Draw by claim of score-sheet written intention of 50 move rule by white&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Same as reasons 9 .. 11, but claim made by black&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Game abandoned&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Game adjourned&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there any thing wrong with my list? Is it exhaustive? Are there other ways a game can end?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8324" LastActivityDate="2015-09-27T20:29:57.543" Title="What are the possible results of a game?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12404" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12403" CreationDate="2015-09-22T23:31:16.250" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;First thing that comes to mind is &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Draw by mutual insufficient mating material&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as I'm aware, that doesn't fall under any of your categories. I'll add more if I think of them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White wins because black runs out of time, and the converse&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Draw because black ran out of time and white has insufficient material to deliver mate, and the converse&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Draw because both clocks read 0:00 and no claim was made before they reached that state&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3270" LastEditorUserId="3270" LastEditDate="2015-09-22T23:43:37.880" LastActivityDate="2015-09-22T23:43:37.880" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12405" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12421" CreationDate="2015-09-23T02:21:26.693" Score="3" ViewCount="915" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been reading &lt;em&gt;Endgame Strategy&lt;/em&gt;. I've seen, in a lot of the games, trading one of the rook pairs can help. There is a chapter in the book called the 'Problem with Exchanging.' I don't know how to determine when trading one of the rooks is beneficial for me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3149" LastEditorUserId="11202" LastEditDate="2017-04-17T22:19:04.853" LastActivityDate="2017-04-17T22:19:04.853" Title="How do you know whether to trade one of the rook pairs in an endgame?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;rook-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12406" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12427" CreationDate="2015-09-23T02:25:26.733" Score="2" ViewCount="477" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can never figure out how to come out with many micro plans in an endgame. I'm not sure in which order they should be applied as well. How do you apply schematic thinking to one's own endgames? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3149" LastActivityDate="2015-09-24T08:09:07.923" Title="How do you apply schematic thinking to one's own chess games?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12407" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12403" CreationDate="2015-09-23T03:38:00.470" Score="1" Body="&lt;ol start=&quot;15&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;White wins on time&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Black wins on time&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In progress (often seen in PGN)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7500" LastActivityDate="2015-09-23T03:38:00.470" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12408" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8472" CreationDate="2015-09-23T09:07:40.643" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Garbochess-JS is written in javascript.  It's about 75KB, 2400 or so lines of code I believe.  The version written in C++ was rated around 2575 on CCRL.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/glinscott/Garbochess-JS&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://github.com/glinscott/Garbochess-JS&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lozza-js is rated around 2300, and is about twice the size of Garbochess-JS.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Toledo Nanochess and P4wn are probably less than 2000 elo, and Stockfish-js is considerably larger than Garbochess and Lozza.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8309" LastEditorUserId="8309" LastEditDate="2015-09-23T09:13:27.813" LastActivityDate="2015-09-23T09:13:27.813" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12409" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1477" CreationDate="2015-09-23T09:47:35.640" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess engines all work in a similar way, but Graphical User Interfaces(GUIs) report this info in different ways.  Chessbase produces GUIs based on Fritz which show a little engine window with a number, plus if white is winning or minus if black is winning.  Chessbase GUIs also have a little light that flashes red when one side's move was a blunder.  This Chessbase line of GUI/engine combos includes Komodo 9, Houdini 4, Rybka 4 and Deep Fritz 14.  The GUI part in each case is the same.  You can buy just the engine, or download a free engine like Stockfish, and plug it into a GUI that you have.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A lot of GUIs do full game analysis, both commercial - Aquarium, Chessmaster, Chess Assistant, Shredder(in its own or a Chessbase GUI) and Hiarcs Chess Explorer - as well as free alternatives, Arena, SCID and SCID vs. PC.  Automatic game analysis does highlight certain turning points in each game, but you probably learn more by going through the game yourself with the engine running, and exploring different lines to see what happens.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Individual engines have their own quirks.  Rybka had an excellent feel for material imbalances and sacrifices, but it has problems with certain endgames seeing an advantage in theoretically drawn positions.  Komodo 9, Stockfish 6 and Houdini 4 all benefited from Rybka's ideas, and their latest versions are stronger than Rybka 4.  Komodo and Houdini are perhaps a bit more conservative than Rybka, while Stockfish has a different style from the others.  For a regular player just trying to improve his game, all these engines are going to seem pretty similar though, and a lot of the time they recommend the same moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Engines in general have trouble with long term planning and evaluating endgame positions.  They often pursue short term material gain, while ignoring long term weaknesses like king safety, weak colour complexes and pawn structure.  Engines are very strong at tactics though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8309" LastEditorUserId="8309" LastEditDate="2015-09-23T09:59:57.583" LastActivityDate="2015-09-23T09:59:57.583" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12410" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12403" CreationDate="2015-09-23T09:56:01.037" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;In addition to the things mentioned, at least two categories are missing in my opinion. The first one is &quot;A oversteps time when B does not have enough mating material&quot; and the second one is &quot;A didn't arrive at the chessboard in time and B won&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's structure it a bit better so we make sure we don't miss anything. I have marked some of them with an asterisk to indicate that the cases exist but may well be handled by other categories.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Game scheduled to start.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;(*) &lt;strong&gt;Game postponed.&lt;/strong&gt; (If we have &lt;em&gt;game in progress&lt;/em&gt;, we should have this one as well. Otherwise, put it under 1.)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Game finished without any moves played.&lt;/strong&gt; This is important because whether a game will be rated or not depends on &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=172&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;whether every player has played at least one move&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a) White arrived at the chessboard after default time. (&lt;code&gt;-:+&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/component/handbook/?id=171&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;§ 6.7&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;b) Both players arrived at the chessboard after default time. (&lt;code&gt;-:-&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;0:0&lt;/code&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Game in progress.&lt;/strong&gt; (As mentioned in the other answer.)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;(*) &lt;strong&gt;Game adjourned.&lt;/strong&gt; (&lt;em&gt;Appendix E.&lt;/em&gt; I think there are still events in the world where this happens, but none of these are actually serious enough to warrant this category. I guess FIDE will remove it over the course of the next ten years. However, it is possible on some internet servers (e. g. FICS), so don't put it too far away if you want to cater for that as well. If not, it should be 4.)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Game finished according to the Basic Rules of Play.&lt;/strong&gt; (The &quot;basic rules of play&quot; are the first five articles of the Laws of Chess; the other articles are called &quot;Competition rules&quot;.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a) White wins by checkmate. (&lt;code&gt;1:0&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;em&gt;§ 5.1a&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;b) Black resigns. (&lt;code&gt;1:0&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;em&gt;§ 5.1b&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;c) (*) Game drawn by stalemate. (&lt;code&gt;½:½&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;em&gt;§ 5.2a&lt;/em&gt;) This is a special case of d), but, undoubtedly, it is a &lt;em&gt;very&lt;/em&gt; special case and deserves its own category.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;d) Game drawn by dead position. (&lt;code&gt;½:½&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;em&gt;§ 5.2b&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e) Game drawn by mutual agreement. (&lt;code&gt;½:½&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;em&gt;§ 5.2c&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Game finished by the clock.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a) (*) Black's flag falls during the n-th time control and the player has not completed the required number of moves. (&lt;em&gt;§ 6.4&lt;/em&gt; in conjunction with &lt;em&gt;§ 6.3a&lt;/em&gt;) You may merge a) and b), but then, unless you add time indicators, the two cases are indistinguishable. (&lt;code&gt;1:0&lt;/code&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;b) Black's flag falls during the last time control. (&lt;code&gt;1:0&lt;/code&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;c) (standard) Both flags have fallen and it is not clear which one fell first. (&lt;em&gt;§ 6.11&lt;/em&gt;) (&lt;code&gt;½:½&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;em&gt;§ 6.11b&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;d) (*) (standard) In the last time period, both flags have fallen but Black's flag fell first. (Can be put under a) or b)) (&lt;code&gt;1:0&lt;/code&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e) (rapid and blitz) Both flags have fallen. (&lt;code&gt;½:½&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;em&gt;Appendix A, § 4c&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;f) White's flag falls, but Black has not enough mating material. Draw. Note that this is not necessarily 6d. (e. g. KB v KQ is always at least drawn for black). (You actually need this for a), b), and d) separately. See note below the list.) (&lt;code&gt;0:½&lt;/code&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Game finished according to article nine of the laws of chess.&lt;/strong&gt; (The drawn game.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a) Drawn by claim of three-fold repetition by white. (&lt;code&gt;½:½&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;em&gt;§ 9.2b&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;b) Drawn by claim of score-sheet written intention of three-fold repetition by white. (&lt;code&gt;½:½&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;em&gt;§ 9.2a&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;c) (*) Drawn because X claimed draw by three-fold repetition and implicit draw offer was accepted by Y. Could be regarded as a normal draw offer. (&lt;code&gt;½:½&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;em&gt;§ 9.2&lt;/em&gt; in conjunction with &lt;em&gt;§ 9.1.b.3&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;d) Drawn by claim of 50 move rule by white. (&lt;code&gt;½:½&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;em&gt;§ 9.3b&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e) Drawn by claim of score-sheet written intention of 50 move rule by white.  (&lt;code&gt;½:½&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;em&gt;§ 9.3a&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;f) (*) Drawn because X claimed draw by 50 move rule and implicit draw offer was accepted by Y. Could be regarded as a normal draw offer. (&lt;code&gt;½:½&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;em&gt;§ 9.2&lt;/em&gt; in conjunction with &lt;em&gt;§ 9.1.b.3&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;g) Drawn by article &lt;em&gt;9.6a&lt;/em&gt; (the same position has appeared, as in 9.2b, for at least five consecutive alternate moves by each player, new rules!) (&lt;code&gt;½:½&lt;/code&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;h) Drawn by article &lt;em&gt;9.6b&lt;/em&gt; (any consecutive series of 75 moves have been completed by each player without the movement of any pawn and without any capture, new rules!) (&lt;code&gt;½:½&lt;/code&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Game results in a quickplay finish.&lt;/strong&gt; (&lt;em&gt;appendix G&lt;/em&gt;, only in standard and rapidplay without increment) Maybe add an indicator where the increment time mode starts if appendix G4 is applied. In those two minutes, all other things mentioned here may well happen (checkmate, illegal moves, whatever).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a) Arbiter declares game drawn immediately. (&lt;code&gt;½:½&lt;/code&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;b) Arbiter awards extra two minutes and declares game drawn afterwards. (&lt;code&gt;½:½&lt;/code&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;d) (in games without the supervision of an arbiter) An external arbiter decides according to G6.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Game finished by decision of an arbiter because of a breach of rules of one player.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a) (standard games) Game lost because of two irregular moves by Black. (&lt;code&gt;1:0&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;em&gt;§ 7.5b&lt;/em&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;b) (standard games) Like a), but White does not have enough winning material (&lt;code&gt;½:0&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;em&gt;§ 7.5b&lt;/em&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;c) (*) (old rules, standard and rapidplay) Game lost because of three irregular moves by Black. (&lt;code&gt;1:0&lt;/code&gt;) (It is very unlikely these cases have been recorded for past tournaments.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;d) (*) (old rules, standard and rapidplay) Like c), but White does not have enough winning material. (&lt;code&gt;½:0&lt;/code&gt;) (It is very unlikely these cases have been recorded for past tournaments.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e) (rapidplay and blitz) An incorrect move by Black is oberserved by the arbiter or correctly claimed by White. (&lt;code&gt;1:0&lt;/code&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;f) (rapidplay and blitz) Like e), but White does not have enough winning material. (&lt;code&gt;½:0&lt;/code&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;g) (blitz) The arbiter observes both kings being in check or an unfinished pawn promotion and the position is still on the board after one move. (&lt;code&gt;½:½&lt;/code&gt;, Appendix A, §4a.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;h) Black brings a mobile phone and/or other electronic means of communication in the playing venue (&lt;code&gt;1:0&lt;/code&gt;, note that White wins &lt;em&gt;even with insufficient material&lt;/em&gt;!).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i) Game finished by decision of an arbiter because of misconduct by Black. (&lt;code&gt;1:0&lt;/code&gt;, § 12.9 decision)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Game finished by decision of an arbiter because both players persistently refuse to comply with the laws of chess.&lt;/strong&gt; Note that both players lose in this case. (&lt;code&gt;0:0&lt;/code&gt;, Maybe this should be 10l))&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;(*) &lt;strong&gt;Game finished because of an irregularity at the start of the game.&lt;/strong&gt; Now, I hope a game at a level worth recording will never be replayed according to &lt;em&gt;§ 7.2&lt;/em&gt; (wrong initial placement of pieces). Additionally, semantically, there will still only be one game, so this should not be an end-of-game marker.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;(*) &lt;strong&gt;Result to be decided.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;(*) &lt;strong&gt;Game abandoned.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;(*) &lt;strong&gt;Result unknown.&lt;/strong&gt; (e. g. notation incomplete)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another note: maybe one should have an &lt;em&gt;insufficient material&lt;/em&gt; marker. Then you can simplify a couple of the above cases.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the case of a team event, for example, you need two different results to represent the game properly: For example, here in Germany, if two players sit in the wrong places, one of the games will be declared lost even after the game has finished. &lt;s&gt;All the cases where this can happen are in a team context, though, so it should be possible to implement this in a different way.&lt;/s&gt; Recent development of electronic cheating means this is very much a possibility: the game where the player has been found to be cheating will certainly be declared lost for him. However, it might be decided that for the competition, all games will be declared lost, but they still count towards the rating (although even this is a corner case).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, tournament chess can be complicated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2715" LastEditorUserId="2715" LastEditDate="2015-09-27T20:29:57.543" LastActivityDate="2015-09-27T20:29:57.543" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12411" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6184" CreationDate="2015-09-23T10:16:21.583" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the PAL/CSS Freestyle chess tournaments, the teams of human/engine combos pretty consistently beat the engines which were playing alone, so humans can contribute to the process.  If a human tried to play alone in one of those tournaments, he'd probably end up at the bottom of the table though.  Human players even world champions tend to make small tactical errors which engines exploit, but if the human has access to an engine to blundercheck, his superior knowledge of strategy/endgames should held him overcome an engine by itself.   The PAL/CSS games were at a time control of an hour per game.  In blitz, it's hard for a human to take advantage of their positional knowledge though, so slower time controls would probably be better.  Correspondence GM Arno Nickel beat Hydra in correspondence games in 2005, and I think the top correspondence GMs could probably still do that today.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From what I saw, Nakamura was pursuing a very specific strategy in those games, trying to clog up the centre with pawns, and then playing waiting moves to try to lure Stockfish into blundering.  He did indeed have a draw in the second game, but kind of went overboard with all that maneuvering in the hopes of scoring a win, and it backfired.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8309" LastEditorUserId="8309" LastEditDate="2015-09-23T10:23:06.397" LastActivityDate="2015-09-23T10:23:06.397" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12412" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2204" CreationDate="2015-09-23T11:20:31.317" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Alpha-beta pruning simply means that if you find a line that turns out badly for you, you stop looking at that candidate move, and instead try others.  It is a type of backward pruning meaning that you'll never miss a good move as a result.  Forward pruning, by contrast, is based more on guesswork.  Futility pruning, late move reductions and razoring are types of forward pruning, and all rely on the programmer's feeling for what type of moves should be considered.  A program that does a lot of forward pruning may miss out on startling sacrifices that lead to mate, but on the other hand, it eliminates a lot of really bad moves, and so can go deeper in looking at the moves it does favour.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most engines search the first few moves at full depth examining all the possibilities.  If no move fails high (i.e. seems clearly worse than a move you've already considered), you extend the search just a bit more.   In general, you continue exploring each line until you reach a quiescent position (with no checks, captures, mate threats, etc.), and then do your evaluation.  Quiet moves may not be considered when they are deep in the search tree, but once you get to that actual position in the game, the engine looks at all moves, quiet and sharp alike.  You can actually see this in the engine output sometimes, when an engine suddenly favours a move that it hadn't been considering a few moves back.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Engines calculate so quickly that it's not so important for them to consider which move to look at first, but for humans this is a key question.  Jonathan Tisdall takes a stab at answering this in his book, Improve Your Chess Now.  When you are on the attack, he suggests you look at the most violent moves first.  When you are defending, you look at the most difficult lines first.  He also cites positional rules of thumb (eg. centralization, coordination) when deciding which moves to look at first.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other books that may be relevant are Emmanuel Neimann's Invisible Chess Moves and Charles Hertan's Forcing Chess Moves, both of whom argue for the importance of considering unlikely or surprising moves in sharp positions.  Hertan even talks about developing 'computer eyes' for such tactics.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8309" LastEditorUserId="8309" LastEditDate="2015-09-23T11:33:25.847" LastActivityDate="2015-09-23T11:33:25.847" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12413" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="347" CreationDate="2015-09-23T11:46:38.790" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think chess programmers tend not to rely on the knowledge of strong chess players when designing their evaluation functions, but instead try out different elements, and then test them in games against other engines, and decide what to keep.  Larry Kaufman talks a fair bit about his views on what a human's understanding is, but it sounds like both Rajlich and Dailey were very results oriented, and did not adopt Kaufman's ideas wholesale.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One article I found interesting was Zach Wegner comparing the evaluation functions of Rybka and Fruit.  One of the areas where Rybka may have represented a step forward was in its incorporation of material imbalance tables based on specific combinations of pieces.  Kaufman wrote an article on this as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.top-5000.nl/ZW_Rybka_Fruit.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.top-5000.nl/ZW_Rybka_Fruit.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://danheisman.home.comcast.net/~danheisman/Articles/evaluation_of_material_imbalance.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://danheisman.home.comcast.net/~danheisman/Articles/evaluation_of_material_imbalance.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8309" LastActivityDate="2015-09-23T11:46:38.790" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12414" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12382" CreationDate="2015-09-23T11:52:17.957" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've come across 1. e3 from one of my regular opponents quite often. These are my observations for why White might like this line:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Psychological: White plays a non-theoretical, flexible opening that White is likely to have played far more than Black. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Familiarity with an opening uses clock time more efficiently. Black may have to spend more time on the opening moves to check that there are no tactical deficiencies&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;As you rightly state, the move liberates the Queen &amp;amp; Bishop&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Transposition tricks: White has the opportunity to transpose to the English, reversed French, reversed Dutch &amp;amp; Queen pawn openings, e.g. the Colle&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Solidity: White has a solid structure which facilitates safe development &amp;amp; early castling&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Van't Krujis leads to many opening lines, the named ones from Wikipedia are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[title &quot;Keoni-Hiva Gambit&quot;]    &#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e3 d5 2.Nc3 Nf6 3.a3 e5 4.f4 exf4 5.Nf3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;White gambits the pawn to castle kingside &amp;amp; target f7&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;White often plays b5 to either fianchetto the queen side bishop to attack the king side&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Black sometimes jettisons the d5 pawn to the c3 knight with Nxd5 to reduce White's initiative&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Also, 3. a3 prevents a disruptive Bb4, threatening to remove the knight &amp;amp; simplifying when Black will soon be up a pawn&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[title &quot;Amsterdam Attack&quot;]    &#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e3 e5 2.c4 d6 3.Nc3 Nc6 4.b3 Nf6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;This is a transposition to the English opening, Bremen line&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[title &quot;Ekolu Variation&quot;]    &#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e3 e5 2.Nc3 d5 3.f4 exf4 4.Nf3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Similar analysis to the Keoni-Hiva Gambit&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[title &quot;Alua Variation&quot;]    &#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e3 e5 2.Nc3 Nc6 3.f4 exf4 4.Nf3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Similar analysis to the Keoni-Hiva Gambit&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[title &quot;Akahi Variation&quot;]    &#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e3 e5 2.Nc3 Nf6 3.f4 exf4 4.Nf3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Similar analysis to the Keoni-Hiva Gambit&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[title &quot;Bouncing Bishop Variation&quot;]    &#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1.e3 e5 2.Bc4 d5 3.Bb3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;White aims to pressure the centre &amp;amp; Black's kingside with the Bishop on b3, similar to lines of the Ruy Lopez where White plays Bf1-b5-a4-b3&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-11-02T23:30:39.837" LastActivityDate="2019-11-02T23:30:39.837" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="12415" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9196" CreationDate="2015-09-23T11:55:34.007" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chris Wittington, the author of Chess System Tal, was known for arguing for a knowledge based approach to programming chess engines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.thorstenczub.de/complcss2.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.thorstenczub.de/complcss2.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://adamsccpages.blogspot.com/2012/07/chess-system-programs-of-chris.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://adamsccpages.blogspot.com/2012/07/chess-system-programs-of-chris.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8309" LastActivityDate="2015-09-23T11:55:34.007" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12416" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9554" CreationDate="2015-09-23T12:21:48.153" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think there is some benefit to playing against players (human or machine) who are stronger than you are.  You can emulate their openings, pick up tactical tricks, or go back and analyze the games to try to figure out where you went wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One of the keys to improving though is to put yourself into situations where you have to raise your game to a new level in order to win.  Clubs or web sites with ratings systems can give you a better idea of whether you are improving or not, and you may make friends with people who can give you tips.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are anti-computer strategies (blocking the centre, simplifying, steering for the endgame) which may work well against computers, but not against strong human masters.  Conversely if you are strong at tactics, it will be a lot easier to play against humans.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8309" LastActivityDate="2015-09-23T12:21:48.153" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12417" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9828" CreationDate="2015-09-23T12:51:26.863" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Lucas Chess is a free program for Windows which includes 36 engines with ratings ranging from 600 to 3000.  It also has a bunch of tactical puzzles and training features.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www-lucaschess.rhcloud.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://www-lucaschess.rhcloud.com/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nagaskaki is also free and for Windows, and has ten or so levels ranging from 1472-2300.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For iOS or Android, there is also Remi Coulon's The Chess Crazy Bishop which is free and has 100 levels ranging from 258-2300.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I should note that Stockfish (Smallchess), Lucas Chess and Chessmaster even when set at low levels will mix in stretches of extremely strong moves, and then throw in the occasional blunder which you have to spot. This is very different from playing against a human at that rating level. Humans play slightly weaker moves generally instead of alternating ultrastrong with ultraweak.  An engine with a low base rating on CCRL won't be able to throw GM level moves at you although it will still likely be stronger tactically than a human with a similar rating. Shredder is perhaps better at maintaining a consistent level when you lower its Elo than some programs. Crazy Bishop seems pretty good at this too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8309" LastEditorUserId="8309" LastEditDate="2015-09-29T09:53:56.567" LastActivityDate="2015-09-29T09:53:56.567" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12418" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-09-23T14:48:31.950" Score="2" ViewCount="922" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am not a experienced player, just a beginner, I want a easier computer opponent that I can beat.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Through search engin I found below two game titles that emphasize the suitability for beginner, which is&quot;chessmaster the art of learning&quot; and &quot;learn chess&quot;. Of these two games which one is better for a beginner? Or does any one has other recommendation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8328" LastEditorUserId="18" LastEditDate="2015-09-25T07:03:01.673" LastActivityDate="2015-09-25T07:03:01.673" Title="I am looking for a chess game on nintendo ds that is suitable for beginners" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;beginner&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12419" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12382" CreationDate="2015-09-23T17:48:26.640" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I post this answer for completeness and in response to @Dag Oskar Madsen's comment. According to the ICCF games database, after 1. e3 d5 2. Nc3 e5 3. Qh5!? the main line is the following one:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e3 d5 2.Nc3 e5 3.Qh5 Nc6 4.Bb5 Qd6 5.d4 exd4 6.exd4 Nf6 ( 6...a6 )&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3757" LastActivityDate="2015-09-23T17:48:26.640" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12420" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9811" CreationDate="2015-09-23T20:20:43.440" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think Chesscafe has bitten the dust.  It's been over three months now and they are still &quot;on hiatus.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8332" LastActivityDate="2015-09-23T20:20:43.440" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12421" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12405" CreationDate="2015-09-23T21:49:37.357" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;One question to ask is &quot;am I behind or ahead?&quot;  If I have some winning edge, it's best to simplify.  If I'm behind, it's better to complicate the position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After that, the question has both tactical and positional elements.  If my rook is less active then my opponent's, it's better to exchange.  If my rook is more active, then it's better to keep it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8305" LastActivityDate="2015-09-23T21:49:37.357" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12422" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5975" CreationDate="2015-09-23T21:53:37.120" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to the source provided by @Lynob, Kirsan Ilyumzhinov had a rating of 2300 and was local champion of Kalmykia at the age of 14 (see also &lt;a href=&quot;http://russiapedia.rt.com/prominent-russians/politics-and-society/kirsan-ilyumzhinov/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;). The game you mention against Alexander Zakharov took place in 1978, when Ilyumzhinov was about 16 years old.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, and as you say, Kirsan Ilyumzhinov is unrated at the moment according to FIDE. But according to the same &lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/chess_statistics.phtml?event=34123811&amp;amp;details=1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;source&lt;/a&gt; he has played 9 rated games (not enough to get a rating). Making some research I found he played these games in the &lt;a href=&quot;http://chess-db.com/public/tournament.jsp?id=68859&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Members Appreciation Blitz&lt;/a&gt; Tournament in Skokie (USA) in 2012 with a result of +4 =1 -4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Appart from that, I think he mostly plays friendly games. If you search &quot;Kirsan Ilyumzhinov plays chess&quot; in Google you'll find some images of him playing with different people, such as Gaddafi, Steven Seagal, the Minister of Sports Affairs of Oman or a Paraguayan student.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3757" LastActivityDate="2015-09-23T21:53:37.120" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12424" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9957" CreationDate="2015-09-24T03:44:56.970" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chessbase is top of the line, but there are a lot of alternatives: Hiarcs Chess Explorer, the Shredder GUIs, Aquarium, Chess Assistant and Chesspartner.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Arena is free, but has a few of the menu items in German, and is perhaps more for playing engines than analysis.  Other free ones are Chesspad, Kvetka, Penguin and Tarrasch.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;SCID is pretty good for a free program, but the commercial ones have a lot of interesting features.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8309" LastEditorUserId="8309" LastEditDate="2015-09-27T03:16:00.807" LastActivityDate="2015-09-27T03:16:00.807" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12425" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12418" CreationDate="2015-09-24T06:29:42.667" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I had a look at the various options a long time ago, and the two I would suggest would be Chessmaster and Fritz DS. Both of these allow you to set the strength of the opponent and don't distract you with &quot;fun&quot; graphics jumping all over the screen. If you don't have the means to test them out and just want a purchase recommendation, I found Chessmaster to be a more complete package.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, both of these share the problem that is present in &lt;strong&gt;all&lt;/strong&gt; chess programs, which is that at a lower strength level they play in a very un-human-like manner. They'll occasionally make really good moves and occasionally make terrible ones, only the scale is tipped towards the latter as you set the rating lower and lower. As a result, if you are planning to use this as a way of learning the game to play against other humans be away that a real person will play &lt;strong&gt;very&lt;/strong&gt; differently.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="550" LastActivityDate="2015-09-24T06:29:42.667" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12426" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9234" CreationDate="2015-09-24T07:59:07.797" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Giordano Vicoli's Chess_Studio (not to be confused with a similarly named e-reader app from Gambit Publications) seems to have many of the features you are looking for.  I've only tried Chess Studio Light, but it is able to import a much wider range of PGN files than any of the PGN viewer apps.  Within a PGN archive, you can view lists of games sorted by Event, Opening, Player or Year. The game window in the Lite version allows you to add nested variations and text and some NAGs (!, ?, only move, and novelty), but you may need the paid version to analyze with Stockfish as kibitzer, or add long lines of moves to a game.  You can save games, or send them by email.  It registers itself as a PGN program, so you can use the &quot;Open in...&quot; menu item to add PGN files to it from programs which have &quot;Open in...&quot;  You can download and upload from Dropbox and iCloud.  You can download from TWIC or PGN Mentor.  It also has Nalimov tablebases for 6 men endings.  In the paid version, it looks like you can play against Stockfish, and set its rating from 500-2500 elo with a choice of aggressive, active or solid styles.  You can set up a position, and play the engine from there.  There isn't a tree view or keys.  The openings index is sorted by ECO codes with no diagrams or names.  Even so, it's the most complete PGN editor/database I've seen for iOS.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Smallfish, Smallchess and Stockfish, when you try to add a new variation, the app deletes the moves that were there before, so nesting is impossible.  They don't seem to allow you to add text comments or NAGs either.  Smallfish can display text comments from PGN files you import, but the moves in these comments are not clickable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Re. Android, Chess PGN Master Pro, Droidfish and Chessbase Online all seem to allow you to annotate games, and add subvariations and some NAGs.  The Chessbase app for iOS seems to be more about just accessing their website.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Re. opening repertoires, I haven't tried the iOS version of Arnel Domingo's Chess Opening Trainer, just the Windows demo, but it lets you input your own repertoire, test it, and has trees.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I should also probably mention that there are a number of PGN Editors that you might be able to access online using Safari: Chess.com's Analysis Board Editor, Lichess.org's Board Editor, Apronus and Caissa's Web.  A lot of sites also have opening trees, eg. 365chess.com, Chessbase and ChessOK.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8309" LastEditorUserId="8309" LastEditDate="2015-09-30T10:20:59.873" LastActivityDate="2015-09-30T10:20:59.873" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12427" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12406" CreationDate="2015-09-24T08:09:07.923" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is an excellent book by GM Jonathan Hawkins called &quot;Amateur to IM&quot; which deals with this. There are a number of stages you need to go through.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First of all when looking at a mini plan you need to consider a) will it work, or can my opponent easily stop it and b) if it does work will it actually do what I want it to do - give me a winning position, say.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, for instance, if you can force an exchange into a BPKvK endgame you might think you have an easy win, but if the pawn is a rook's pawn on the wrong side of the board then you will be disappointed. You can only know the mini plan was a bad one if you can properly evaluate the final position. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hawkins aims to do two things in the book. First to help you to think the right way about endgame positions so that you evaluate mini plans and quickly eliminate those that aren't going to do the job &lt;em&gt;and not waste any more time on them&lt;/em&gt;. Second to help you build the knowledge of endgame structures that will enable you to correctly evaluate the final positions of your mini plans.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hawkins points out that the big advantage that stronger players have in the endgame is not their ability to calculate much longer variations much quicker (generally speaking they don't have this!) but their ability to quickly and correctly evaluate candidate positions that they are aiming for. They are not high speed calculators. They are very good evaluators who don't waste time calculating mini plans which they know in advance are not going to work, so saving time and making it look like they are high speed calculators!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2015-09-24T08:09:07.923" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12428" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-09-24T10:05:21.253" Score="3" ViewCount="367" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a chess beginner but I have been playing the game for many years without being very serious about it. I would like to improve a bit now though but I am having difficulty with many of the sites....I like the sites that provide problems to be solved but the main issue I have with them is when you make a wrong move it says...wrong move!! I would like it to be a bit more specific than that and tell me why it was a wrong move as sometimes it looks like the right move to me!!! (That's why I'm still a beginner of course....) But I think it would be extremely helpful to know this. Is there any sites out there that provide that sort of service? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8344" LastEditorUserId="3757" LastEditDate="2015-09-24T18:55:02.863" LastActivityDate="2015-09-24T22:59:49.377" Title="Chess Tutorials for Beginners" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;beginner&gt;&lt;training&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12429" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12431" CreationDate="2015-09-24T10:26:53.537" Score="4" ViewCount="718" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was just guessing the best move in the position.(white to move).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I thought Rc1 would be the best move forcing white to exchange the white's dark square bishop and preserving the white's light squared bishop to neutralize the black's light squared bishop . But the engine gives Bxc2 which doesn't makes as sense as the former.I want to know the idea behind engine's move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;r3kb1r/pp1q1pp1/2p1p3/3nPb2/3P1N1p/PBN1BQ1P/1Pn2PP1/R2R2K1 w - - 1 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7693" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-11-18T11:25:30.647" LastActivityDate="2019-11-18T11:32:11.203" Title="Choosing the best move in the given position" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;middlegame&gt;&lt;planning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="12430" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12428" CreationDate="2015-09-24T10:39:56.473" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's hard to find resources like that. Beyond the basics or how to move, you can look at&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/article/view/study-plan-beyond-the-basics&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Beginner Study Plan&lt;/a&gt; - I'd recommend having a look at this guide so you know what to study. Then I would advise you look at Yasser Seirawan's &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1857443314&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Winning Chess Series&lt;/a&gt;. For beginners, look at&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Play Winning Chess&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then when you progress, you can look at&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Winning Chess Tactics&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and later you can look at&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Winning Chess Endgames&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Winning Chess Openings&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These books are easy to read and provide lots of examples with very clear explanations from one of the best chess authors out there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should definitely learn all the tactical motifs that exist. By knowing what they are, you can try to find them in real games, and over time they will start to become second nature. I recommend Attacking Chess by Josh Waitzkin, which is a really good book for beginners learning tactical puzzles. You can probably find a PDF of the book online if you want, but I'd advise buying it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chesstempo.com/tactical-motifs.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Tactical Motifs&lt;/a&gt; - This website has tens of thousands of tactical puzzles and will show you the solution if you get the puzzle wrong. Each puzzle has a tag which lets you know what tactical motif was used. For a beginner, you should know forks, pins, skewers, double check, back-rank mate and x-rays. There are plenty more tactical ideas, but these will help most.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7966" LastActivityDate="2015-09-24T10:39:56.473" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12431" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12429" CreationDate="2015-09-24T13:22:28.063" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;After 1. Rac1, Black has the intermediate move 1...Nxc3, attacking the rook on d1, which forces White to play 2. bxc3, and then the pawn on a3 is hanging. So Black would likely go 2...Nxe3 followed by 3...Bxa3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;r3kb1r/pp1q1pp1/2p1p3/3nPb2/3P1N1p/PBN1BQ1P/1Pn2PP1/R2R2K1 w - - 1 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Rac1 Nxc3 2. bxc3 Nxe3 3. null Bxa3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2429" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-11-18T11:27:28.997" LastActivityDate="2019-11-18T11:27:28.997" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="12432" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12428" CreationDate="2015-09-24T19:20:08.857" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I read your question as asking for sites, and I don't know any.  But I do have a book recommendation.  I started playing chess in the 1960s and had many books, but it was only when I found &quot;Winning Chess: How To See Three Moves Ahead by Chernev and Reinfeld&quot; that I really thought my middle-game tactics improved.  It's old, but truly excellent. The contrast to many other books is profound.  They actually did a study of tactics, and focus on the most important ones in order.  Pins, forks, double attacks, skewers, discovered check and a number of others.  Highly recommended.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8305" LastActivityDate="2015-09-24T19:20:08.857" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12433" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10975" CreationDate="2015-09-24T21:36:56.020" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can find the relevant rules in the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=180&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Regulations for Registration &amp;amp; Licensing of Players&lt;/a&gt;. The article 1.3 of the new regulations, effective since the 1st July 2015, states the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;FIN is a unique number for each player. It is not possible that two players have the same FIN and no player is allowed to have two different FIDE ID numbers. FIN remains the same throughout a player’s chess career on over the board and online chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And the article 1.4 states that players having two FINs after the 1st January 2015 will be fined.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=12&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;old regulations&lt;/a&gt; didn't state anything on the number of FINs a player could have.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3757" LastActivityDate="2015-09-24T21:36:56.020" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12434" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12428" CreationDate="2015-09-24T22:59:49.377" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm in a somewhat similar situation and have found a few excellent resources. Mainly, I am in a club, in which the teachers/higher-level players can be quite useful for suggestion. However, if such is not an option, I have heard from other players that apps can be a useful resource. If you have an app with a AI that can consistently beat you, I would recommend copying down the situation and putting it in the game later, but with roles swapped. I've personally tried this with a basic engine and have had good success. For a free such engine, I would recommend &lt;a href=&quot;https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/2737104/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/2737104/&lt;/a&gt; for a lower level player, which has the disadvantage of not easily setting up games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8078" LastActivityDate="2015-09-24T22:59:49.377" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12435" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12429" CreationDate="2015-09-25T01:26:03.770" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Rac1 for the following reasons:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) Bxc2 leaves you with a really good Black bishop vs really bad White bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) Rac1 has an Xray defense of the Knight on c3, so tactics like Nxa3 (removal of the guard) never come up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) Ra2 is soooooo passive. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4) Cute tactics like Nfxd5 never work because black can simply recapture with exd5 (Black shouldn't get jumpy and grab the White Rook due to stuff like Nb5 or something IDK.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just a few ideas for you. :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user8213" LastActivityDate="2015-09-25T01:26:03.770" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12436" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12815" CreationDate="2015-09-25T03:05:51.720" Score="3" ViewCount="141" Body="&lt;p&gt;Would somebody mind taking a look at my game that I annotated below. I am having difficulty understanding a few of my mistakes. (Namely on moves 5,7,12,17). Thanks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;      [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;    1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.Nf3 O-O {This is the Nimzo-Indian Three Knights Variation.} 5.Bg5 {My goal with Bg5 was to pin the knight to the queen in order to prepare for e4. Supposedly it is better to just defend d4 with e3 but I don't see why that is.} &#xA;        ( 5.e3 b6 6.Be2 )&#xA;    5...c5 6.e4 d5 {...d5 is a bit of a blunder because it then allows e5 to attack the knight.} 7.e5 h6 {Bh4 may have been better here. I was imagining that after Bh4 black could then play ...g5 to chase my bishop away and then give him time to move the black knight.} 8.Bxf6 &#xA;        ( 8.Bh4 cxd4 &#xA;            ( 8...g5 9.Nxg5 hxg5 10.Bxg5 )&#xA;        9.a3 dxc3 10.axb4 cxb2 11.Rb1 dxc4 12.exf6 Qxd1+ 13.Kxd1 &#xA;            ( 13.Rxd1 c3 14.Bd3 Nc6 )&#xA;        )&#xA;    8...gxf6 9.Bd3 {This is a blunder if black would have seen it.} 9...h5 {This is a nice blunder by black that allows me access to the kingside. Though for now castling is the right move.} &#xA;        ( 9...cxd4 10.Nxd4 fxe5 11.Nc2 Bxc3+ 12.bxc3 dxc4 {It is difficult for me to see why this line makes Bd3 such a blunder, but it could just be because it makes a mess of my queenside pawn structure. But to me this does not look like losing because I can still castle safely, and black's kingside is a mess. Perhaps there is a tactic black has that I am not seeing. It could also be just that I am down two pawns.} 13.Bxc4 Qxd1+ 14.Rxd1 Bd7 15.O-O )&#xA;    10.O-O cxd4 11.Nxd4 dxc4 {This is a blunder that allows me to get into the kingside.} 12.Bc2 &#xA;        ( 12.Qxh5 {Getting the queen into the kingside early is quite advantageous. I did even feel that I was just holding the queen back for too long while worrying more about other moves.} 12...cxd3 13.Qg4+ Kh8 14.Rad1 Rg8 15.Qh4+ Kg7 16.Rxd3 Ba5 17.Rfd1 Qd5 18.Rg3+ Kf8 19.Qh6+ Ke7 20.Nxd5+ Kd7 21.Qxf6 Re8 22.Qxf7+ Kd8 23.Qf6+ Kd7 24.Rg7+ Re7 25.Qxe7# )&#xA;    12...b6 {Be4 if a good alternative to Qxh5 because it exploits black's blunder exposing the rook, but still moving the queen into the kingside is far better.} 13.Be4 Be7 14.Bxa8 fxe5 15.Nc6 {Nc6 is actually the right move, because it forces an exchange with my knight. I was unsure if this is right because black has the option (which is the best option it has) of exchanging the knights when its knight was not even developed in the first place, and therefore slightly weaker than mine.} 15...Qd6 16.Nxe7+ Qxe7 17.Qxh5 {Here I finally capture the h5 pawn, but I should have done this a few moves earlier. Though there is still a blockade into black's kingside which is advantageous to me.} 17...Na6 {Here I was thinking that it would now be best to get a rook into the black kingside, but was trying to figure which rook was better to move. I was thinking that if I keep my f1 rook where it was it could provide some defense if black's f-pawn could ever capture away from its file and then the queen and rook could double up and attack my f-pawn. But I decided that it was best to have the a1 rook on the queenside to defend my two pawns instead. (Apparently the right move but not sure of the logic.)} 18.Rfe1 f5 19.Re3 Rf7 20.Nd5 {This is the right move, I was figuring that I could try and push the queen away from the kingside fight if I put pressure on it. If black captures, I can then pin the rook to the king with my bishop.} 20...exd5 21.Bxd5 Be6 {Here I was having difficulty. I was thinking there had to be some checkmate (which there is in 17 moves) but I just couldn't see it, so I figured simplifying would help.} 22.Qg6+ Kf8 23.Bxe6 Qe8 {Miss a M8 here which I almost saw. I was thinking through about 4-5 moves in the mating line, but just couldn't quite see it.} 24.Rg3 &#xA;        ( 24.Rh3 Ke7 25.Rd1 Nb4 26.Rh8 Nd5 27.Rxe8+ Kd6 28.Bxf7+ Kc7 29.Bxd5 c3 30.Qc6# )&#xA;    24...Nc7 {Just figure trade off some pieces and gain material and figure out the checkmate later.} 25.Bxf7 Qxf7 26.Qxf7+ Kxf7 27.Rd1 Ke6 28.Rg6+ Kf7 29.Rc6 Nb5 30.Rd7+ Ke8 31.Rh7 Nd6 32.Rxd6 e4 33.Rc6 a6 34.Rc8# 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7507" LastEditorUserId="4362" LastEditDate="2015-09-25T07:34:06.180" LastActivityDate="2015-11-14T00:47:45.257" Title="Understand some of my positional mistakes" Tags="&lt;annotation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12437" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12418" CreationDate="2015-09-25T03:27:08.717" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a Chessmaster DS game from 2000 ish. Very aimed at beginners like yourself and offer good tutorials. (DS game by Josh Watzkin)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user8263" LastActivityDate="2015-09-25T03:27:08.717" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12438" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9957" CreationDate="2015-09-25T03:31:32.500" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I prefer list form, so allow a decent list that I came up with:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;CBO or ChessBase&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Fritz&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Houdini&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Komodo&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;are my top four picks. Although this really isn't an answer, it was too long for a comment so I posted it here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user8263" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2019-05-18T17:03:43.503" LastActivityDate="2019-05-18T17:03:43.503" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="12439" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12441" CreationDate="2015-09-25T17:31:56.090" Score="18" ViewCount="3675" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have a chess book which I find great in terms of tone, formatting, etc., but the computer does not agree with some variations I gave it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How much has chess changed since 1977? I imagine the rise of the computers (and computer chess) the last couple of decades had quite some impact. Is my book (published in 1977) still worth reading?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd like to know before I buy the other books of the series.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Addendum&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The series in question is &quot;praktische schaaklessen&quot; (practical chess lessons) by Euwe. The book I have is on opening theory, but the other parts are on the other aspects and stages of the game (it's a six book series).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="674" LastEditorUserId="674" LastEditDate="2015-09-26T08:49:33.567" LastActivityDate="2020-01-01T19:20:19.283" Title="How useful is a 40-year-old chess book?" Tags="&lt;books&gt;&lt;computer-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12440" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12439" CreationDate="2015-09-25T17:45:03.057" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, Aaron Nimzowitsch wrote a book called &quot;My System&quot; in the late 1920's, and it's still worth reading today, so just because a book is old doesn't mean it's bad.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's hard to say whether a book has stood the test of time just knowing what year it was published, but one thing is for sure: many lines can be faulty, as computers were not used to verify lines as they are today back in 1977.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you find the book enjoyable, I would say it's worth reading. The given variations may contain some errors, but ultimately there might be some things to gain from reading it. The only exception is if it's a book on specific opening theory. Opening theory has changed quite a lot, and many main lines played in 1977 are not main lines anymore. In that case it's better to look for more up-to-date sources of information.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8300" LastActivityDate="2015-09-25T17:45:03.057" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12441" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12439" CreationDate="2015-09-25T17:45:09.350" Score="17" Body="&lt;p&gt;This depends on a lot of things, but most importantly: your playing level and the topic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, if it is an opening book, it heavily depends on the opening. Some opening variations which are main stream today, didn't even exist in the seventies, or were rarely used (like the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruy_Lopez#Berlin_Defence&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Berlin Wall&lt;/a&gt; in Ruy Lopez). Others haven't seen that much development (QGD, and offbeat openings like the King's Gambit).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Middlegame &amp;amp; strategy books usually last longer; Nimzowitsch' &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_System&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Mein System&lt;/a&gt; is 90 years old but still a useful read.&#xA;The same is true for endgame books, with one notable exception (which doesn't appear that often in practice): endgame tablebases have completely changed the view on certain endgames like K+Q vs. K+B+B (thought to be a draw, now known to be a win for the Q) and K+Q vs. K+N+N (the other way around).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are a &amp;lt;2200 player (like me), you shouldn't worry too much about computer evaluations. Though it is a very good practice to analyse the lines given by the books, so kudos for that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2020-01-01T16:45:08.647" LastActivityDate="2020-01-01T16:45:08.647" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="12442" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12443" CreationDate="2015-09-25T22:47:45.047" Score="3" ViewCount="265" Body="&lt;p&gt;If white plays ne6+, why shouldn't black play kh7?&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/gzgFU.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/gzgFU.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8312" LastActivityDate="2015-09-26T01:20:19.403" Title="Why shouldn't the black king move to h7?" Tags="&lt;puzzles&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12443" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12442" CreationDate="2015-09-25T22:52:23.250" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;1...Kh7 leads to 2. Qxh6+! Kxh6 3. Rh3+ with mate in 2. If 2...Kg8, Black is mated with 3. Qxg6 Kh8 4. Rh1 with mate in 2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user8213" LastEditorDisplayName="user8213" LastEditDate="2015-09-26T01:20:19.403" LastActivityDate="2015-09-26T01:20:19.403" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12444" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12439" CreationDate="2015-09-25T23:57:51.853" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Which book? Assuming a Grandmaster wrote it... Well, here are the names of some Grandmasters from the 1970s:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobby_Fischer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Bobby Fischer&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Spassky&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Boris Spassky&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikhail_Tal&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Mikhail Tal&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasily_Smyslov&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Vasily Smyslov&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Korchnoi&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Viktor Korchnoi&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Efim_Geller&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Efim Geller&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bent_Larsen&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Bent Larsen&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tigran_Petrosian&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Tigran Petrosian&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikhail_Botvinnik&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Mikhail Botvinnik&lt;/a&gt;...&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think those men, and men like those men, still have the ability to impart lessons. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you can stand descriptive notation, books from the 1970s can still teach. And chances are, there are addenda on the web that call out faulty variations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So it depends on the price. If these are US$30 each, and you are interested only in chess value (not the look/feel of the old tome) then perhaps a modern book is more cost effective.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="3444" LastEditDate="2015-09-26T15:35:58.273" LastActivityDate="2015-09-26T15:35:58.273" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12445" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12794" CreationDate="2015-09-26T09:33:10.970" Score="2" ViewCount="372" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm using Arena 3.5 on Windows. When playing, I want to see a list of the captured pieces beside the board in Arena. How do I do that?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8364" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2015-11-06T19:35:38.810" LastActivityDate="2015-11-11T16:18:54.350" Title="How to show captured pieces in Arena?" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;arena&gt;&lt;windows&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12446" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3971" CreationDate="2015-09-26T09:56:25.963" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess Opening Trainer for iOS by Arnel Domingo looks a bit like what you are describing.  In the video, he inputs new variations, and points to a train mode which keeps track of your hits, and retests positions you had trouble with.  The interface looks a bit like Bookup/Chess Openings Wizard with its openings tree.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://youtu.be/UsQscB_P6XM&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://youtu.be/UsQscB_P6XM&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've had problems saving games in SCID on the Go for Android.  It says &quot;experimental&quot; on the Save menu item, but I wasn't even able to save a few inputted moves.  iChess might be useful, but I think you'd have to create separate games for each line in your repertoire.  Chess PGN Master Pro (Android) also has a 'guess the move' feature, and allows you to edit and save games on the fly.  Both iChess and PGN Master seem to follow the main line, and ignore sidelines when testing.  The good thing about Bookup, Chess Openings Wizard and Chess Position Trainer is that they can randomly choose lines to test you on I believe.  I'm not sure about Chess Opening Trainer, but it looks promising.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On Windows, I understand the free program Lucas chess now has an opening training mode.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8309" LastEditorUserId="8309" LastEditDate="2015-09-29T09:13:49.803" LastActivityDate="2015-09-29T09:13:49.803" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12447" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5969" CreationDate="2015-09-26T10:02:16.197" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess.com has a puzzle mode in its chess diagram editor.  Perhaps you could create puzzles for each line in your repertoire, and save them to a group forum.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8309" LastActivityDate="2015-09-26T10:02:16.197" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12448" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12282" CreationDate="2015-09-26T12:35:00.483" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;From Wikipedia:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Hypermodernism is a school of chess that emerged after World War I. It featured challenges on the chess ideologies presented by central&#xA;  European masters, such as on Wilhelm Steinitz's approach to the&#xA;  centre. It also challenged in particular the dogmatic rules set down&#xA;  by Siegbert Tarrasch. The Hypermoderns challenged the guidelines of&#xA;  the previous generation and demonstrated with concrete games and&#xA;  victories that these challenges could be done successfully. Aron&#xA;  Nimzowitsch for example showed how games could be won through indirect&#xA;  control of the center, challenging Tarrasch's dogmatic view that the&#xA;  center must be occupied by pawns. Nimzowitsch advocated controlling&#xA;  the center of the board with distant pieces rather than with pawns,&#xA;  thus inviting the opponent to occupy the center with pawns, which can&#xA;  then become targets of attack. However, this was only part of the&#xA;  hypermodern framework, which Nimzowitsch encapsulated in the seminal&#xA;  chess book My System, which greatly influenced many chess players. It&#xA;  introduced and formalized concepts of the pawn chain, overprotection,&#xA;  undermining, prophylaxis, restraint, rook on the seventh rank, knight&#xA;  outposts, the dynamics of the isolated queen's pawn, and other areas&#xA;  of chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Hypermodern openings include the Réti Opening, King's Indian Defence,&#xA;  Queen's Indian Defence, Nimzo-Indian Defence, Grünfeld Defence,&#xA;  Bogo-Indian Defence, Old Indian Defence, Catalan Opening, King's&#xA;  Indian Attack, Alekhine's Defence, Modern Defence, Pirc Defence,&#xA;  Larsen's opening, Sokolsky Opening, and to a lesser degree the English&#xA;  Opening. Openings such as 1.a3 do not constitute hypermodern openings&#xA;  since, although they delay the occupation of the centre with pawns,&#xA;  they also delay piece development.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2015-09-26T12:35:00.483" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12449" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-09-26T12:38:07.547" Score="6" ViewCount="248" Body="&lt;p&gt;For the moment, I have a hard time finding time for chess due to studies, so for the time being, chess has to be a purely recreational activity for me. What I'm looking for are examples of beutiful games that may or may not be very well known.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, I like the following game played between Yuri S. Gusev (white) and Yuri Averbakh(or E. Auerbach, depending on the source) in 1946. In the game, White's winning idea could be described as(just slightly bending the truth):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Give your opponent a rook&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Afterwards, give your opponent a queen, to balance things out&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;After that, dominate your opponent, and win&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The game:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Date &quot;1946&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Gusev, Yuri&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Averbakh, Yuri or Auerbach, E.&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;[FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 g6 6. Be2 Nc6 7. Nb3 Bg7 8. O-O Be6 9. f4 Rc8 10. f5 Bd7 11. g4 Ne5 12. g5 Ng8 13. Nd5 f6 14. Be3 b6 15. Nd4 Kf7 16. c3 Qe8 17. Ne6 Bxe6 18. fxe6 Kf8 19. Nxf6 Nxf6 20. gxf6 Bxf6 21. Bh6 Kg8 22. Rxf6 exf6 23. Qxd6 Rc6 24. Qxe5 fxe5 25. Rf1 Rc8 26. Bd1 Rc4 27. Bb3 b5 28. Bxc4 bxc4 29. b3 a5 30. bxc4 Qe7 31. Kg2 Qa3 32. Rf2 Qe7 33. Rf1 g5 34. Rf5 g4 35. c5 Qd8 36. c6 Qe7 37. c7 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The purpose behind this post is that I would like to generate a collection of nice and inspiring games on this site, which I haven't really found yet. I know that it's quite subjective to determine whether a game is beautiful or not, but I feel like stuff like this might bring something valuable to this community. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8300" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-03-12T19:40:41.093" LastActivityDate="2020-03-12T19:40:41.093" Title="Examples of hidden gems" Tags="&lt;history&gt;&lt;master-games&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12450" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12439" CreationDate="2015-09-26T18:33:38.250" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The computer finding a better line does NOT mean the given line is bad. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it was good enough for Euwe it's good enough for you :-)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For a kid whose realistic goal is to be a GM someday this might be bad advice. But I suspect that isn't you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7514" LastActivityDate="2015-09-26T18:33:38.250" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12451" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12461" CreationDate="2015-09-26T21:03:39.200" Score="4" ViewCount="1387" Body="&lt;p&gt;I used lichess to analyse some of my games (lichess.org -&gt; tools -&gt; import game). It puts my bad moves (and those of my opponent) in one of three categories; &quot;inaccuracy&quot;, &quot;mistake&quot; and &quot;blunder&quot;. I guessed from the names (and the positions) that an inaccuracy is better than a blunder, but I wondered what the definitions were.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="674" LastActivityDate="2015-09-27T10:44:28.510" Title="What is the difference between an inaccuracy, a mistake and a blunder on lichess?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;engines&gt;&lt;blunder&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12452" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2357" CreationDate="2015-09-27T02:56:43.530" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are a couple of angles that haven't been mentioned.  Chessbase's keys allows you to add comments to individual moves, and easily sort new games into the appropriate key by adding them to the archive.  A key serves as a handy index to the complete games, and also gives you the option of generating statistics for any leaf in the key.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bookup/Chess Openings Wizard stores lines in a tree, and can test you on your knowledge by feeding you random positions from your repertoire to see if you know the next move.  It can also backsolve, telling you which lines are good or bad based on the evaluation of the line with best play for both sides.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think the reason that some players store their repertoire as sets of games with one line per game is so they can test themselves on how well they know it using the testing features of Chessbase, SCID, iChess, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Opening books (CTG) allow you to specify the moves an engine plays, so you can train by playing test games.  This is also the format that lets you see the statistics most readily.  In Chessbase, you can add games to a CTG, but have to specify how deep you want to go since it takes a lot of time to add full games to a book.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An opening key is probably preferable if you just want to index all the games that have been played in a certain line.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8309" LastEditorUserId="8309" LastEditDate="2015-10-07T21:15:38.353" LastActivityDate="2015-10-07T21:15:38.353" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12453" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7818" CreationDate="2015-09-27T03:33:36.717" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Bookup/Chess Openings Wizard, Chess Opening Trainer (which had a PC version too) and Chess Position Trainer are some of the main options, but just for completeness sake:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chessbase lets you add 'training annotation' to moves in a game, so when you switch on training, it will hide the continuation, and quiz you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lucas Chess now lets you set up a Personal Opening Guide, and then test it via Learn Tactics by repetition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;SCID has a 'find best move' feature.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Heuristic Opening Repertoire Specialist &amp;amp; Trainer (H.O.R.S.T.) allows you to &quot;train variations by using a training assistant.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Jan Kaan's Bookbuilder has a &quot;book training module.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8309" LastActivityDate="2015-09-27T03:33:36.717" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12454" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6543" CreationDate="2015-09-27T04:43:46.217" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Each engine has its own time management scheme.  Some engines and GUIs let you set the pace at which the engine will play.  Engines always calculate/evaluate/minimax as much as they can given the constraints imposed by the time management subroutines or the user settings.  If an engine thinks for a long time, it is likely because the time control for the game is a slow one, or the user has set it to play slowly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Positions and evaluations that the engine has calculated are stored in a hash table.  The user can set the size of the available hash in the settings of most UCI engines.  The engine itself uses a certain amount of RAM, and if you set your hash table size too high, the computer will start storing hash on your hard-drive in the form of virtual RAM.  Hard drive memory is accessed slower than RAM, and you will usually be able to hear the hard drive churning away.  A lot of users set the hash table size so that it will fit within the available RAM.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A large proportion of any hash table becomes useless after the engine and its opponent have made their moves as the other positions considered are no longer relevant.  The engine will re-use the evaluations stored in hash, but some of the evaluations prove incorrect due to horizon effects once the engine goes deeper down the same line, so it often has to re-order its candidate moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since the amount of hash is finite, an engine also has to make decisions as to what information to delete from its hash as it adds new information.  The engine does not know in advance what moves will be played, so it may inadvertently delete information that would have been useful as it adds new data.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Engines in general do not examine all legal moves to a certain depth.  They eliminate certain branches of the tree from consideration based on forward and backward pruning.  Also, if a leaf-node position has captures or checks yet to be made, the engine will continue down that line until it reaches a quiet (quiescent) position.  The actual tree is probably quite deep in some places, while other lines may have been truncated after a small number of moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8309" LastEditorUserId="8309" LastEditDate="2015-09-27T04:49:46.303" LastActivityDate="2015-09-27T04:49:46.303" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12455" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1348" CreationDate="2015-09-27T05:20:35.993" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Chessbase 12 and 13 manuals say that they can export games in epub or mobi format, but you would need to go through the game, and insert the diagram symbols first.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can read pgn files as is on iOS/Android.  For iOS, Giordano Vicoli's Chess Studio Light and Chess_Studio can read, and play through annotated pgn files.  On Android, Chess PGN Master Pro can read and play through annotated pgn files.  Everyman chess sells pgn versions of its books through its iOS/Android Chess Viewer apps.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8309" LastEditorUserId="8309" LastEditDate="2015-09-27T05:33:34.303" LastActivityDate="2015-09-27T05:33:34.303" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12456" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5811" CreationDate="2015-09-27T07:00:41.803" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you leave an engine running, and step through a game, you can see what happens to the evaluation.  The Fritz interface flashes a red signal light when one side has made a mistake.  Most GUI's allow you to run an engine in Infinite Analysis or Kibitzer mode, eg. Arena, SCID, Winboard, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There have been a few programs that generate move by move engine numbers for full games for Windows: Gerd Hübner's ChessAnalyse and Jack Welbourne's Chess Game Report. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wasn't able to get Analyze Your Games to work on my Samsung Galaxy phone. The board was unresponsive to touch, and it just gave me an error message when I imported pgn from Chess PGN Master Pro or Droidfish.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A lot of programs have a full game analysis feature where they attach question marks to bad moves, and suggest alternatives, eg. Fritz, Hiarcs Chess Explorer, Shredder, Aquarium, Arena, SCID.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8309" LastEditorUserId="8309" LastEditDate="2015-09-29T01:23:51.530" LastActivityDate="2015-09-29T01:23:51.530" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12457" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1315" CreationDate="2015-09-27T07:49:11.760" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Lucas Chess is free, and gives you a choice of playing for a &quot;Lucas Elo&quot; starting at 0 or a &quot;Tourney Elo&quot; starting at 1600.  The program tracks your progress based on your games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The full Shredder versions that run on Windows, iOS and Android all give you an Elo rating based on your performance against the engine in the last 10 games.  The engine starts playing at a fairly low level, and if you have auto-strength adjustment switched on, it will raise the engine's level until you are each winning about half the games.  (Apart from the Shredder version on the shredderchess web site, there is a version by Chessbase, but that one doesn't track Elo ratings).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The full versions of Remi Coulon's The Chess Crazy Bishop for iOS and Android also keep track of a rating for you I believe.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Shredder's ratings seem a bit high, and Lucaschess' and Crazy Bishop's a bit low, but anyway, they have that feature.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8309" LastEditorUserId="8309" LastEditDate="2015-09-28T15:07:46.723" LastActivityDate="2015-09-28T15:07:46.723" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12458" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="397" CreationDate="2015-09-27T08:14:53.763" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Lucas Chess gives you a choice between playing for a &quot;Lucas Elo&quot; starting at 0 or a &quot;Tourney Elo&quot; starting at 1600.  It includes 40 odd engines which have been handicapped or are rated between 600-3000, so you can find opponents near your level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You could download the Shredder Classic 4 demo from the Shredderchess web site, and use it for free for one month.  The Shredder Classic engine is weaker than the real Shredder, but the interface tracks your rating I believe.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8309" LastEditorUserId="8309" LastEditDate="2015-09-27T09:50:54.103" LastActivityDate="2015-09-27T09:50:54.103" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12459" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5656" CreationDate="2015-09-27T09:59:37.543" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Jack Welbourne created a program like this called Chess Game Report.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://rybkaforum.net/cgi-bin/rybkaforum/topic_show.pl?tid=16085&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://rybkaforum.net/cgi-bin/rybkaforum/topic_show.pl?tid=16085&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8309" LastActivityDate="2015-09-27T09:59:37.543" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12460" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12449" CreationDate="2015-09-27T10:39:46.360" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Gusev - Averbach is a good start; it reminds me of the following game, where less material is sacrificed (only a knight) but more pieces are dominated:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;The immortal Zugzwang game&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(taken from &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1102400&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Date &quot;1923&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Saemisch, Friedrich&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Nimzowitsch, Aron&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;[FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 {Notes by Nimzowitsch's &quot;My System&quot;} Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nf3 b6 4. g3 Bb7 5. Bg2 Be7 6. Nc3 O-O 7. O-O d5 8. Ne5 c6 {Safeguards the position} 9. cxd5 cxd5 10. Bf4 a6 {Protects the oupost station c4, i.e., by ...a6 and ...b5.} 11. Rc1 b5 12. Qb3 Nc6 {The ghost! With noiseless steps he presses on towards c4.} 13. Nxc6 {Samisch sacrifices two tempi (exchange of the tempo-eating Knight on e5 for the Knight which is almost undeveloped) merely to be rid of the ghost.} Bxc6 14. h3 Qd7 15. Kh2 Nh5 {I could have supplied him with as yet a second ghost by ...Qb7 and ...Knight-d7-b6-c4, but I wished to turn my attention to the King's side.} 16. Bd2 f5 {!} 17. Qd1 b4 {!} 18. Nb1 Bb5 19. Rg1 Bd6 20. e4 fxe4 {! This sacrifice, which has a quite surprising affect, is based upon the following sober calculation: two Pawns and the 7th rank and an enemy Queen's wing which cannot be disentangled - all this for only one piece!} 21. Qxh5 Rxf2 22. Qg5 Raf8 23. Kh1 R8f5 24. Qe3 Bd3 25. Rce1 h6 {!! A brilliant move which announces the Zugzwang. White has not a move left. If, e.g., Kh2 or g4, then R5f3. Black can now make waiting moves with his King, and White must, willy-nilly, eventually throw himself upon the sword.} 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2015-09-27T12:27:53.033" LastActivityDate="2015-09-27T12:27:53.033" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12461" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12451" CreationDate="2015-09-27T10:44:28.510" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Blunder: 300 centipawns&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mistake: 100 centipawns&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Inaccuracy: 50 centipawns&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is sourced from &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.lichess.org/qa/75/how-are-these-determined-blunder-mistake-and-inaccuracy&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://en.lichess.org/qa/75/how-are-these-determined-blunder-mistake-and-inaccuracy&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is the first thing that appears when you google &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.google.com.au/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&amp;amp;rlz=1C1CHWA_enAU604AU604&amp;amp;ion=1&amp;amp;espv=2&amp;amp;ie=UTF-8#q=lichess+inaccuracy+mistake+blunder&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&quot;lichess inaccuracy mistake blunder&quot;&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7966" LastActivityDate="2015-09-27T10:44:28.510" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12462" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-09-27T12:19:59.577" Score="4" ViewCount="313" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have heard somewhere that Queen's Gambit is favored by those who like quiet positional play and King's Gambit by those who like lively game studded with tactical traps. Is this true? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7066" LastActivityDate="2015-09-27T12:36:41.247" Title="Is it true that Queen's Gambit tends to have positional play and King's Gambit A tactical one?" Tags="&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;&lt;queens-gambit&gt;&lt;kings-gambit&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12463" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8229" CreationDate="2015-09-27T12:27:12.713" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well I think copying should not be a matter of &quot;cheating&quot;, because there are huge amount of opening variations and even if you copy some moves the opponent isn't likely to play the same move sequence. And even the opening lines are copied, aren't they? Some grandmaster or master plays the opening sequence (be it long time ago), you like it and play it. It is also a kind of copying but definitely far from cheating. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7066" LastActivityDate="2015-09-27T12:27:12.713" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12464" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12462" CreationDate="2015-09-27T12:36:41.247" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;It depends a little. The Queen's Gambit can lead to very lively play, if both parties are willing, but it's easier to turn it positional, as the Queen's Gambit is more of a &quot;pseudo-gambit&quot; than the King's Gambit; White will almost always be able to regain his pawn if it's taken, even without going all out for blood.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The King's Gambit is different. White opens up lines in front of his own king, and in order not to get into a worse position, White will have to play very energetically, as it's more difficult to regain the lost pawn. If White loses his initiative without regaining his sacrificed pawn, things can turn very ugly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So it's more a matter of White being forced to be prepared to play that way in the King's Gambit, as opposed to the Queen's gambit, as White in the latter opening doesn't need to worry as much about being worse if his attack doesn't go through. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8300" LastActivityDate="2015-09-27T12:36:41.247" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12465" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8953" CreationDate="2015-09-27T13:27:53.923" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;On my analysis, with Stockfish 6, yes the losing misstep was failing to use the forcing move 52...Rf6+ to keep the white king back. Active kings are decisive in otherwise equal endgames. Once that white king got to e5, the game was (technically) decided, and 52...Rf6+ was the best chance to prevent that. The only other way was to try 55...Kxg6 56.Rxd4, which just barely possibly might be a technical draw; my opinion is not, but we'll have to wait for 7-piece tablebases to prove it one way or the other.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Up until 52...a5 black was completely holding the draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7314" LastActivityDate="2015-09-27T13:27:53.923" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12466" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-09-27T15:33:37.540" Score="3" ViewCount="473" Body="&lt;p&gt;More or less what is asked in the title. I am familiar with how the system itself works, but I am wondering if there would be any issues if most chess tournaments didn't follow the Swiss format and to a lesser extent, round-robin and match formats which all have each player play a similar number of games. However, consider a single-or double-elimination tournament bracket, which would mean that when a system was &lt;strong&gt;first implemented&lt;/strong&gt;, stronger players would be playing more games in those tournaments than the weaker players who would be eliminated sooner.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also the question is not limited to issues in relation to the accuracy of the ratings in a statistical sense, though that would of course be the main consideration.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="550" LastActivityDate="2016-02-12T16:29:32.707" Title="Would the Elo rating system remain useful if different tournament formats were used?" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;elo&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12467" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-09-27T17:28:48.243" Score="2" ViewCount="1172" Body="&lt;p&gt;I accidentally touched my bishop and opponent's &quot;Knight&quot;, while reaching for my queen during a game, almost simultaneously. Am I forced to take the opponent's piece?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8374" LastEditorUserId="7066" LastEditDate="2015-09-28T07:28:15.077" LastActivityDate="2016-06-11T09:30:29.257" Title="Confusion about Touch and move rule" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;tournament&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12468" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12467" CreationDate="2015-09-27T20:32:18.973" Score="-3" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, as long as you say adjust your fine. It has to be deliberate movement in order for touch move to be called upon&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user8213" LastActivityDate="2015-09-27T20:32:18.973" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12469" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12467" CreationDate="2015-09-27T22:11:08.670" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;FIDE Article 4.3:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Except as provided in Article 4.2, if the player having the move&#xA;  touches on the chessboard, with the &lt;strong&gt;intention of moving or capturing&lt;/strong&gt;: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;a. one or more of his own pieces, he must move the first piece touched&#xA;  that can be moved &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;b. one or more of his opponent’s pieces, he must capture the first&#xA;  piece touched that can be captured &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;c. one piece of each colour, he must capture the opponent’s piece with&#xA;  his piece or, if this is illegal, move or capture the first piece&#xA;  touched that can be moved or captured. If it is unclear whether the&#xA;  player’s own piece or his opponent’s was touched first, the player’s&#xA;  own piece shall be considered to have been touched before his&#xA;  opponent’s.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If a player touches a piece without the intention of moving or capturing (e.g. fingerslip), there is no touch move restriction.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7500" LastActivityDate="2015-09-27T22:11:08.670" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12470" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-09-28T05:48:16.123" Score="5" ViewCount="5599" Body="&lt;p&gt;If there was perfect play from both the colors, will white win because of the first move advantage or will it be a draw?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7066" LastActivityDate="2020-03-04T20:30:18.847" Title="If there was perfect play from both sides, will it be draw or win for one?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;theory&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12471" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12475" CreationDate="2015-09-28T05:54:05.090" Score="3" ViewCount="98" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there a program that can tell your rating based off &lt;em&gt;how well&lt;/em&gt; you play in the game? (NOT based on result). Thanks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user8213" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2015-09-28T11:37:11.570" LastActivityDate="2015-09-28T11:37:11.570" Title="Rating based off play level?" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;rating&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12472" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12470" CreationDate="2015-09-28T06:19:17.467" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Almost all experts during the last 150 years share the opinion that the game should be a draw with perfect play &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-move_advantage_in_chess#Drawn_with_best_play&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;(link)&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The view that a game of chess should end in a draw given best play prevails.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2015-09-28T06:19:17.467" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12473" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12470" CreationDate="2015-09-28T07:32:23.063" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Most Grandmasters will argue that chess is a draw with perfect play from both sides. However, in practice it is shown that white has higher win rates than black, but this is due to the first-move advantage. This is because white technically gains a small advantage from having the first move, and black will equalize with their move. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is possible that a first-move could cause a disadvantage with perfect play, because despite having perfect information, the black player could potentially be able to counter any strategy white attempts to play. It is more likely however that if one side were to have a forced win, it would be for white.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The answer to this question will not be known for a long time because only in 2012 were &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endgame_tablebase&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;endgame tablebases&lt;/a&gt; able to solve any position with 7 pieces perfectly (including the 2 kings). For comparison of how impressive this feat is, 6 pieces was only solved in 2005. Obviously, this problem is exponential because with more and more pieces, the complexity increases further and further, until eventually the game is solved for 32 pieces. One could argue that the starting position is static so we don't have to consider every combination of 32 pieces on the 64 squares, but the number of possibilities is still enormous and will take a long time to know for certain.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7966" LastActivityDate="2015-09-28T07:32:23.063" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12474" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12449" CreationDate="2015-09-28T09:12:48.763" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;Positional&quot; Queen Sacs? Hidden Gems? Surely we must mention Mr Nezhmetdinov here!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;Rostov&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Rostov&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;1962.??.??&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Rashid Gibiatovich Nezhmetdinov&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Oleg L Chernikov&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;B35&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;65&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 g6 5. Nc3 Bg7 6. Be3&#xA;Nf6 7. Bc4 O-O 8. Bb3 Ng4 9. Qxg4 Nxd4 10. Qh4 Qa5 11. O-O Bf6&#xA;12. Qxf6 Ne2+ 13. Nxe2 exf6 14. Nc3 Re8 15. Nd5 Re6 16. Bd4&#xA;Kg7 17. Rad1 d6 18. Rd3 Bd7 19. Rf3 Bb5 20. Bc3 Qd8 21. Nxf6&#xA;Be2 22. Nxh7+ Kg8 23. Rh3 Re5 24. f4 Bxf1 25. Kxf1 Rc8 26. Bd4&#xA;b5 27. Ng5 Rc7 28. Bxf7+ Rxf7 29. Rh8+ Kxh8 30. Nxf7+ Kh7&#xA;31. Nxd8 Rxe4 32. Nc6 Rxf4+ 33. Ke2 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7726" LastActivityDate="2015-09-28T09:12:48.763" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12475" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12471" CreationDate="2015-09-28T09:26:45.977" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is called &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~regan/papers/pdf/Reg12IPRs.pdf&quot;&gt;Intrinsic Performance Rating&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There has been a &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.kaggle.com/c/finding-elo/forums/t/13008/congrats-to-the-winner&quot;&gt;Kaggle Competition&lt;/a&gt; in which the winner predicted the Elo on the basis of a single game with an average error of 150 points. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as I know there is no single piece of software that gives you these predictions, but the Kaggle Competition provides links to the code used by the participants.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-09-28T09:26:45.977" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12476" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12470" CreationDate="2015-09-28T11:25:08.520" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Of course, with best play, it is a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However for a humourous contrary view, Jonathan Rowson, in his book &quot;Chess for Zebra&quot;, quotes English GM Jon Speelman:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The initial position is a decisive reciprocal zugzwang and white is&#xA;  losing ;-)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2015-09-28T11:25:08.520" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12477" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6034" CreationDate="2015-09-28T14:49:24.493" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Adam Hair has a rating list for weaker engines:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://adamsccpages.blogspot.com/p/also-rans-rating-list.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://adamsccpages.blogspot.com/p/also-rans-rating-list.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Grizzly and Chenard are UCI, but a lot of the weaker engines tend to be CECP.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8309" LastActivityDate="2015-09-28T14:49:24.493" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12478" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5064" CreationDate="2015-09-28T15:02:26.393" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Stockfish has been ported to Javascript:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/exoticorn/stockfish-js&quot;&gt;https://github.com/exoticorn/stockfish-js&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8309" LastActivityDate="2015-09-28T15:02:26.393" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12479" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6213" CreationDate="2015-09-28T15:29:45.823" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Internet Archive is probably the largest repository of free ebooks. Project Gutenberg has old classics by Staunton, Bird, Ed Lasker and Capablanca.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8309" LastEditorUserId="8309" LastEditDate="2015-10-03T10:52:53.997" LastActivityDate="2015-10-03T10:52:53.997" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12480" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-09-28T15:41:47.200" Score="2" ViewCount="388" Body="&lt;p&gt;How do I get a random position in chessbase 13 software from megadatabase to guess the best move , is this facility available in chessbase software which is availabe is softwares like Chess Hero, Or is there any other software provides such facility?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7693" LastActivityDate="2018-02-09T19:08:16.780" Title="Random position from database" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;database&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12481" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1989" CreationDate="2015-09-28T16:30:25.673" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Giordano Vicoli's Chess Studio Light allows you to add variations, text comments and some NAGs (!, ?) to the game notation window. Stockfish deletes the main line when you enter an alternate move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8309" LastActivityDate="2015-09-28T16:30:25.673" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12482" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9870" CreationDate="2015-09-28T16:45:04.087" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The company ChessBase sells a series of engine GUIs (Fritz, Houdini, Komodo, Rybka) that blundercheck or do full game annotation. The ChessBase program lets you run an engine while you go through a game, or can add games with a similar opening, but it won't do an automatic full game analysis the way that the engine GUIs do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8309" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T20:37:11.103" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T20:37:11.103" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="12483" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27" CreationDate="2015-09-28T17:17:03.880" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Most chess programs allow you to run an engine while you go through the moves of a game, and see the engine's evaluations.  This is sometimes called a Kibitzer, Infinite Analysis or just Analyze.  The program Chessbase and Tarrasch are examples of programs which do this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some programs can be set up to annotate, blundercheck or do a full game analysis.  In this, you set how long the engine will look at each move, and what degree of error it should comment on.  When it finishes its analysis, it shows you game notation marked with question marks and alternate lines.  The programs that do this are Aquarium, Arena, Babaschess, Chess Assistant, the engine GUIs sold by the company Chessbase (Fritz, Hiarcs, Houdini, Komodo, Rybka, Shredder), Chessmaster, Chesspartner, Hiarcs Chess Explorer, SCID, SCID vs PC and the Shredder GUI sold by shredderchess.com.  The engines Crafty and Yace also have an &quot;annotate&quot; feature.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On Windows, I use Chessbase, but I don't print anything out.  On my Android phone, I use Chess PGN Master Pro, and on my iPad, I'll probably end up going with Giordano Vicoli's Chess_Studio, for analyzing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8309" LastEditorUserId="8309" LastEditDate="2015-09-28T17:48:41.403" LastActivityDate="2015-09-28T17:48:41.403" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12485" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6234" CreationDate="2015-09-29T05:31:36.597" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The material imabalance is BAD, like so bad that the only hope is a fortress.&#xA;And a fortress is impossible due to some 1...g5 stuff followed by 2...Rxe3 3. Bxe3 Qxe3+ among onther things.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user8213" LastActivityDate="2015-09-29T05:31:36.597" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12486" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9503" CreationDate="2015-09-29T10:32:55.417" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I play on ICCF. My guess is that the engineless GM might be able to maintain a 2000 rating by beating other engineless players or players who are bad at engine use.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't think the second player would do that well actually. Players in the 2300+ range are all using anti-engine strategies, following GM opening theory, have their novelties, so they can lure him into opening traps or positions his engine has trouble evaluating. I would guess he'd wouldn't go much beyond 2100.  I've played against 2200 players who are pure engine once out of book, but they put more effort into their openings than your player B does.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is another breed of player you haven't mentioned: the engine monkey master.  These are players with 2000+ ratings over the board. They could potentially try to carry out strategic plans in the middlegame, but they get so caught up in the engine analysis they end up play positionally suspect moves. They do contribute a lot to the openings and endings though, so you see them in the 2300-2400 range.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8309" LastEditorUserId="8309" LastEditDate="2015-09-29T10:59:14.333" LastActivityDate="2015-09-29T10:59:14.333" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12488" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6171" CreationDate="2015-09-29T12:25:39.920" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;When someone like Nakamura plays Advanced chess, he might try out different lines letting the engine play the other side, and then see whether he likes the resulting positions or not. There are some sacrifices that an engine won't initially see the point of, but he can try these out, and generate a line quickly to see if he can get the engine to change its mind once he shows it the payoff. Also in the Stockfish games, Nakamura was trying to use anti-engine strategies, but he doesn't want to get caught in some cheapo tactic while he is maneuvering for position, so the engine can alert him to things like that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As engines became stronger, the openings played in over-the-board games have become much more tactical and precise.  Players prepare novelties in their opponent's pet lines, generate huge trees of analysis, and then try to memorize all the different lines.  Fischer did a lot of analysis too, but it took players a long time to analyze, and they might miss a key refutation that a modern engine spots right away.  Some openings today have been analyzed almost to the endgame with the players leaving book move 35 or later. In the old days, this kind of deep analysis was impossible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because some lines have been analyzed out, players have to find new ideas, and try to get the opponent out of book.  This has become much more important especially when playing against an opponent known for his thorough preparation.  Thanks to databases and the Internet, players are much more aware of what lines have already been played. Fischer was good at catching oldtimers in known traps, but it would be hard to catch recent superGMs this way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The opening is the main area where things have changed, but there have been some changes in the middlegame and endgame as well.  Certain sacrifices have become standardized, and even though all the nuances haven't been worked out, GMs are more aware of some of these recurring themes thanks to databases.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When he talks about all positions being okay, this has to do with the fact that engines are willing to take on positional weaknesses if there is some tactical payoff.  Some players were willing to take on holes and weak pawns even in the old days, but now more players are willing to play like this since the engine seems to think it's alright.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Endgame tablebases have also enlarged the number of positions known to be theoretically won or drawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Top players spend a fair amount of time preparing openings and working on their weak areas, and they use computers in a wide range of ways, eg. to draw up a repertoire, to test their memory of their repertoire, to go through tactical puzzles, or positional exercises, to review and analyze games, to compile statistics on their own performance in various openings say, to research their opponent's openings and weak spots.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8309" LastEditorUserId="8309" LastEditDate="2015-09-29T16:43:55.683" LastActivityDate="2015-09-29T16:43:55.683" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12489" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9388" CreationDate="2015-09-29T14:47:20.233" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Zillions of Games is a General Game Playing system that plays chess.  It was perhaps designed with chess specifically in mind, but in order for the program to play a game, you must first load a zdf file which specifies how the pieces move and what the goal is.  It can also play checkers, go, shogi, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The engine Nebiyu running in the GUI Winboard Alien Edition can play checkers, chess, go, reversi, Amazons and a few other games.  On Android, there is a program called XO Demo which plays many board games.  On iOS, there is an app called Social Games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Association for Advancement of Artificial Intelligence holds a General Game Playing competition every year at its conference.  The programs are designed to play almost any game, and are not told in advance which games will be played.  Each of the programs could play chess if someone wrote up a rule set.  I don't think the GGP competitions have ever included chess as one of the games however. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the context of chess engines, the word &quot;learning&quot; refers to the engine adapting its opening book (book leaning) or evaluation (automated tuning) based on its results.  Many engines learn in this sense, eg. Crafty, Deep Thought, Exchess, Gaviota, Junior, MChess, Neurochess, Romichess and Tao.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8309" LastEditorUserId="8309" LastEditDate="2015-09-29T15:09:46.233" LastActivityDate="2015-09-29T15:09:46.233" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12490" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9815" CreationDate="2015-09-29T16:20:02.210" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think strong human players find positions complicated where a lot of pieces are en prise, or one side's king is exposed, or there are a lot of possible captures.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess engines don't provide information on complexity directly.  They do report &quot;depth&quot;, i.e. how many moves into the future they are calculating each line before they evaluate it.  In positions where many lines lead into positions with a lot of possible checks or captures, an engine will often take longer to move to the next depth as they have to extend each line beyond the reported depth in order to reach a quiet (quiescent) position.  You can use the speed at which the depth goes up as a rough gauge to what positions an engine finds calculation-heavy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is worth noting that sometimes an engine will move through the depths quickly in positions that a human player would consider complicated, for example if the captures/checks peter out after a few moves or if there are tactics where quiet moves are key. Alternately, an engine may do a lot of calculation in positions where a GM sees a clear strategic goal that takes priority.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8309" LastEditorUserId="8309" LastEditDate="2015-09-29T16:29:27.257" LastActivityDate="2015-09-29T16:29:27.257" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12492" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-09-29T18:37:58.923" Score="5" ViewCount="560" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recently discovered that on January 2016 the ICCF will start a &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.iccf.com/EventAnnouncement.aspx?id=55704&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;thematic tournament&lt;/a&gt; on the Frankenstein-Dracula variation of the Vienna game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;...&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nc3 Nf6 3.Bc4 Nxe4 4.Qh5 Nd6 5.Bb3 Nc6 6.Nb5 g6 7.Qf3 f5 8.Qd5 Qe7 9.Nxc7+ Kd8 10.Nxa8&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesscafe.com/text/kibitz21.txt&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Tim Harding&lt;/a&gt; gave it this name&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;because of its hair-raising and bloodthirsty nature.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now I am wondering: are there other variations with funny names?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3757" LastActivityDate="2015-10-03T17:42:53.297" Title="Frankenstein-Dracula variation and other variations with funny names" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;minor-variations&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12493" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8258" CreationDate="2015-09-29T21:29:57.873" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can also create an opening key for the games, and arrange it the way you like.  If you highlight a node in the key, and press 'S', you can see the statistics.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8309" LastActivityDate="2015-09-29T21:29:57.873" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12494" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8536" CreationDate="2015-09-29T22:09:13.793" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;ChessBase products Fritz 5.32 and 6 and Junior 6 and 7 had support for Winboard engines, but not UCI.  In February 2002, ChessBase announced that they were switching and would only support UCI and not Winboard.  Stefan Meyer-Kahlan released the UCI protocols in 2000, and ChessBase decided to add Shredder to their roster of engines, so that's probably why they went with UCI.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Odd Gunnar Malin made a WB2UCI adapter that probably still works.  You can download it here:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.mediafire.com/?1laijk2jhpod1g8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.mediafire.com/?1laijk2jhpod1g8&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You change the name of the wb2uci.exe to whatever the winboard engine is, open the wb2uci.eng file and point to the actual winboard engine, and add any parameters you want.  Then install the renamed wb2uci.exe file in Fritz or ChessBase as if it were a UCI engine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8309" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T20:43:59.080" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T20:43:59.080" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="12495" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9318" CreationDate="2015-09-29T22:17:42.147" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;At the end of the line Remove Kibitzer, there is &quot;UCI&quot; written in red.  Click on that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8309" LastActivityDate="2015-09-29T22:17:42.147" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12496" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9445" CreationDate="2015-09-29T22:22:46.170" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Open a game window.  On the File ribbon, look for a little UCI written in red just after where it says Remove Kibitzer.  Click on that, then in the dialog that pops up click on the button with three dots, and navigate to wherever you have Stockfish on your system.  The Author and Name will get filled in automatically.  Click on OK, and now Stockfish will appear in the dialog that appears when you click Add Kibitzer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8309" LastActivityDate="2015-09-29T22:22:46.170" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12497" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9376" CreationDate="2015-09-29T22:55:26.967" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Deep Fritz 14, Houdini 4, Komodo 9 and Rybka 4 all use the same Graphic User Interface (GUI).  It allows you to blundercheck, do full game analysis, calculate elo ratings for sets of games.  It has a Handicap and Fun mode for dumbing down these engines, so you have a chance.  You can also play timed games, and adjust the engine's style.  There is also a hotness meter that shows you how sharp or dynamic the position is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ChessBase 13 cannot do timed games or full game analysis, but it can do infinite analysis.  It can create opening and endgame theme keys, and has a search mask for locating games with certain traits quickly.  Lists of games can be sorted by player name, year, result, elo rating, tournament just by clicking on the header.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Komodo 9 is probably stronger than Houdini 4 which is stronger than Rybka 4 which is stronger than Deep Fritz 14.  Some people like the slightly weaker engines because they believe they have special characteristics, for example a sharp or solid style, more human feel, or the like.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both ChessBase and the engine GUIs allow you to annotate games, add variations, draw arrows on the board, watch videos, do infinite analysis, play on Playchess.  The Engine GUIs have some basic database functions.  The Engine GUIs are mainly for playing against, and ChessBase is for building an opening repertoire, and preparing to play specific opponents.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8309" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T20:34:02.897" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T20:34:02.897" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="12498" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1898" CreationDate="2015-09-29T23:09:53.643" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chessbase opening trees (ctg) detect white/black transpositions.  My database has 59 games starting 1.e3, 9 games where black answered 1...e5, but then 28000+ games for 2.e4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8309" LastActivityDate="2015-09-29T23:09:53.643" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12499" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6059" CreationDate="2015-09-30T10:42:25.427" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Someone on Talkchess did a test getting the top engines to play against each other in an opening which required an understanding of pawn breaks, such as the King's Indian or Stonewall. Houdini, Komodo, Rybka and Stockfish all struggled in these positions refusing to advance their pawns, and pursuing ephemeral tactical gains instead. At blitz time controls, engines overestimate the value of space and refuse to play obvious freeing moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another area where engines fall down is planning for the endgame.  Human grandmasters aim for certain positions which are known to be theoretically won or drawn, but engines are always caught up in short term goals, and quite willingly enter positions that are lost strategically.  I think that it was Larry Kaufman who said that top engines' evaluation functions at around a 2300 or 2400 Elo level, but they never makes tactical mistakes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both Kasparov and Anand have commented on Hiarcs' positional understanding being more notable than other engines.  Tord Romstad, one of the authors of Stockfish, acknowledged this in a fairly recent comment when he noted that on slow hardware, Hiarcs plays surprisingly well suggesting its strength lies more in its evaluation.  Hiarcs has an elaborate evaluation schema, but the top engines tend to rely on a fast search.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some engines are noted for playing in a sharp style: Tao, TheKing Tribute, Thinker and Zappa Mexico Dissident Aggressor.  Some engines have parameters for sacrifices or king attack or their contempt works this way: Amyan, Fritz 10, Gambit Tiger, Junior 7 and Rybka Dynamic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8309" LastEditorUserId="8309" LastEditDate="2015-09-30T11:11:52.020" LastActivityDate="2015-09-30T11:11:52.020" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12500" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5056" CreationDate="2015-09-30T11:40:54.700" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Claude Shannon proposed two types of algorithms for creating chess engines.  A &quot;type A&quot; engine examines all possible moves to some finite depth, minimaxes the tree, and then plays the move with the highest evaluation from the minimaxed tree (a.k.a. brute force).  Type B engines limit their search to only a subset of possible moves based on some criteria.  I believed he favoured Type B as more promising.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The engines that were created in the 1970's (eg. Hitech, Kaissa) tended to be pure brute force with no pruning or just alpha-beta, but people soon saw the value of pruning the tree of moves and lines that were unlikely to prove strong.  Almost all recent engines prune the tree of lines that are clearly weaker (alpha-beta), and most engines use various types of forward pruning as well (futility, late move reduction, null move, razoring).  In that sense, there aren't many engines that use pure brute force anymore.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the 1970's, Botvinnik was working on an engine called Pioneer conceived around the notion of attack paths which would have been evaluation guided.  It never reached the point where it could play a full game of chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the 1990's, Chris Wittington spoke out in favour of using incorporating more chess knowledge, and created a program called Chess System Tal which was fairly strong for its time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Kasparov, Anand and Tord Romstad have all noted that Hiarcs seems to have a more detailed evaluation than many of the top engines whose strength comes from a fast search.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8309" LastEditorUserId="8309" LastEditDate="2015-10-03T11:23:05.133" LastActivityDate="2015-10-03T11:23:05.133" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12501" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5056" CreationDate="2015-09-30T12:57:50.350" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;You might take a look at Giraffe which was recently in the news:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://thestack.com/iot/2015/09/14/neural-network-chess-computer-abandons-brute-force-for-selective-human-approach/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://thestack.com/iot/2015/09/14/neural-network-chess-computer-abandons-brute-force-for-selective-human-approach/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The hype is that in 3 days it taught itself the game and reached IM level. On the other hand the research is at&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://arxiv.org/abs/1509.01549&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://arxiv.org/abs/1509.01549&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7726" LastActivityDate="2015-09-30T12:57:50.350" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12502" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11057" CreationDate="2015-09-30T13:26:39.963" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Botvinnik believed in peer review.  He would write up annotations for his games, and publish them hoping for feedback from other players.  He also recommended to his students that they annotate their losses, and also look for mistakes in the games they won.  These elements are all part of his 'scientific' approach.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Fischer always kept the endgame in mind, preferred bishops over knights, grabbed pawns if he thought he could get away with it.  Mikhail Tal would wait until the time control drew near, and then suddenly start to complicate the position, trying to induce his opponent into blundering.  Fischer was much more straightforward, playing the board more than the man, not indulging in psychological ploys as much (at the board anyway).  After the game was over, his opponent would look at Fischer's moves, and think they looked obvious in retrospect.  These are the factors that make his style 'crystal clear.'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8309" LastActivityDate="2015-09-30T13:26:39.963" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12503" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1600" CreationDate="2015-09-30T17:18:11.517" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/thomasahle/sunfish&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot; title=&quot;Sunfish&quot;&gt;Sunfish&lt;/a&gt; has a simple terminal interface, if you just want to play a bit for fun:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;$ git clone https://github.com/thomasahle/sunfish.git&#xA;...&#xA;$ python sunfish/sunfish.py&#xA;&#xA;  8 ♖ ♘ ♗ ♕ ♔ ♗ ♘ ♖&#xA;  7 ♙ ♙ ♙ ♙ ♙ ♙ ♙ ♙&#xA;  6 . . . . . . . .&#xA;  5 . . . . . . . .&#xA;  4 . . . . . . . .&#xA;  3 . . . . . . . .&#xA;  2 ♟ ♟ ♟ ♟ ♟ ♟ ♟ ♟&#xA;  1 ♜ ♞ ♝ ♛ ♚ ♝ ♞ ♜&#xA;    a b c d e f g h&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;Your move: e2e4&#xA;&#xA;  8 ♖ ♘ ♗ ♕ ♔ ♗ ♘ ♖&#xA;  7 ♙ ♙ ♙ ♙ ♙ ♙ ♙ ♙&#xA;  6 . . . . . . . .&#xA;  5 . . . . . . . .&#xA;  4 . . . . ♟ . . .&#xA;  3 . . . . . . . .&#xA;  2 ♟ ♟ ♟ ♟ . ♟ ♟ ♟&#xA;  1 ♜ ♞ ♝ ♛ ♚ ♝ ♞ ♜&#xA;    a b c d e f g h&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;My move: g8f6&#xA;&#xA;  8 ♖ ♘ ♗ ♕ ♔ ♗ . ♖&#xA;  7 ♙ ♙ ♙ ♙ ♙ ♙ ♙ ♙&#xA;  6 . . . . . ♘ . .&#xA;  5 . . . . . . . .&#xA;  4 . . . . ♟ . . .&#xA;  3 . . . . . . . .&#xA;  2 ♟ ♟ ♟ ♟ . ♟ ♟ ♟&#xA;  1 ♜ ♞ ♝ ♛ ♚ ♝ ♞ ♜&#xA;    a b c d e f g h&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;Your move: &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1025" LastEditorUserId="1025" LastEditDate="2016-10-06T10:21:39.167" LastActivityDate="2016-10-06T10:21:39.167" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12504" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="583" CreationDate="2015-09-30T17:43:39.290" Score="11" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;nbqnbrkr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/NBQNBRKR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;[StartPly &quot;3&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d3 {Pyt Honisten eröffnet mit seinem Lieblingsbauern} g5 {Retho Riker antwortet mit seiner Standard-Antwort} 2. Qxg5# {Pyt Honisten ging zum nächsten Brett, während sich Retho Riker tränenreich vom Schach verabschiedete.}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With Chess960, also known as Fisher Random Chess, you can achieve it, too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8393" LastEditorUserId="19465" LastEditDate="2019-07-05T15:27:47.577" LastActivityDate="2019-07-05T15:27:47.577" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="12505" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1382" CreationDate="2015-09-30T19:49:43.120" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are also good examples of electronic chess books like Forward Chess for iOS that has books already converted to interactive format.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7507" LastActivityDate="2015-09-30T19:49:43.120" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12506" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12507" CreationDate="2015-09-30T20:02:00.443" Score="3" ViewCount="360" Body="&lt;p&gt;When in a bad position, is it more honourable to resign or to face defeat? And if it is to face defeat then is there a time when resigning is considered an honourable thing to do, or is it always considered the cowards way out?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user5722" LastActivityDate="2015-09-30T22:19:17.843" Title="The most honourable way to lose?" Tags="&lt;losing&gt;&lt;resigning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12507" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12506" CreationDate="2015-09-30T21:33:25.747" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Playing on in a hopeless position when it is clear to you that your opponent has the knowledge, skill and time to finish you off is never honourable. It shows a lack of respect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you have played your moves much faster than your opponent so that he is in serious time trouble and you aren't, then it is perfectly reasonable to play on. With just a few seconds left playing without increment he may not have enough time to deliver the coup de grace.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the reverse situation where you are the one with very little time on the clock it is excusable but perhaps not particularly honourable to play on as you can always claim that with so little time to think the hopelessness of your position hadn't sunk in.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that positions where you have very few moves and so stalemate is a possibility are not hopeless. Nor are positions where, although material down and so expected to lose with best play, you have some prospects of counterplay in a double-edged position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2015-09-30T21:33:25.747" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12508" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12506" CreationDate="2015-09-30T22:19:17.843" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It depends. When you are completely lost, and there is nothing interesting, you should resign. I say &quot;nothing interesting&quot; because it is etiquette to let your opponent mate you if he has a pretty force mate against you. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3872" LastActivityDate="2015-09-30T22:19:17.843" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12509" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8258" CreationDate="2015-09-30T22:38:48.910" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;One solution that I have developed for this issue is that you can go to the first node. Now you take the game list and separate it. Then you use a tree on this to go to the second node. Etc. In the end you will end up with a list of games with the exact move order you are interested in.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know it is cumbersome and that an automatic solution would be great, (like a switch you could flip in the tree to have it either way) but just thought I would throw this out there as a possibility if it's only a few lines you need exact move orders for.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8394" LastActivityDate="2015-09-30T22:38:48.910" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12510" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9234" CreationDate="2015-10-01T01:18:52.557" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd want to add details to @A_passerby's answer. &lt;b&gt;SmallChess&lt;/b&gt; does support multi-variations. It also supports game annotation. It's a very advanced software. See the screenshots below.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS: I'm the author of the app.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/EoTdj.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/EoTdj.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/y4Rb8.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/y4Rb8.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/vsELX.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/vsELX.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/mBN1l.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/mBN1l.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2015-10-01T01:18:52.557" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12511" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5056" CreationDate="2015-10-01T01:28:37.173" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd like add details to @Ian_Bush's answer on Giraffe.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In @Ian_Bush's answer, it's noted that Giraffe doesn't use brute-force computation. This is &lt;b&gt;not right&lt;/b&gt;, because Giraffe is still an alpha-beta (nega-max) engine. The &lt;b&gt;only&lt;/b&gt; difference to a standard engine is that the evaluation function is tuned automatically by deep-learning. Therefore, the engine learns how to play by itself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Traditionally, engine programmer self-tunes parameters in an engine. I've done a lot myself. For example, how much weight should you give to a bishop and a knight? 3.0? 3.1? 3.2? It's hard to tell.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Giraffe approaches the problem in a much smarter way. It starts off with some initial values. The engine uses the gradient ascent algorithm to tune those values. We don't have to explicitly code how much weight a queen should be in the code. This is what we mean &quot;learning&quot;. It doesn't mean that the engine can play chess &lt;i&gt;without&lt;/i&gt; searching.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT&lt;/strong&gt;: Giraffe models the tree nodes as probability that they fall into the principal variatation. Check the paper for details. I personally don't believe this approach, and the paper shows little evidence how useful it would be.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2016-07-23T07:29:53.720" LastActivityDate="2016-07-23T07:29:53.720" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12512" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1600" CreationDate="2015-10-01T01:35:45.967" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Follow my commands. Play Stockfish on the terminal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;wget https://stockfish.s3.amazonaws.com/stockfish-6-linux.zip&#xA;unzip stockfish-6-linux.zip&#xA;cd stockfish-6-linux/Linux&#xA;./stockfish_6_x64&#xA;&#xA;Stockfish 6 64 by Tord Romstad, Marco Costalba and Joona Kiiski&#xA;d&#xA;&#xA; +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+&#xA; | r | n | b | q | k | b | n | r |&#xA; +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+&#xA; | p | p | p | p | p | p | p | p |&#xA; +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+&#xA; |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |&#xA; +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+&#xA; |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |&#xA; +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+&#xA; |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |&#xA; +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+&#xA; |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |&#xA; +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+&#xA; | P | P | P | P | P | P | P | P |&#xA; +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+&#xA; | R | N | B | Q | K | B | N | R |&#xA; +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+&#xA;&#xA;Fen: rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&#xA;Key: B4D30CD15A43432D&#xA;Checkers: &#xA;e2e4&#xA;Unknown command: e2e4&#xA;go movetime 1000&#xA;info depth 1 seldepth 1 multipv 1 score cp 84 nodes 21 nps 90 tbhits 0 time 232 pv e2e4&#xA;info depth 2 seldepth 2 multipv 1 score cp 82 nodes 62 nps 266 tbhits 0 time 233 pv e2e4 b7b6&#xA;info depth 3 seldepth 3 multipv 1 score cp 75 nodes 162 nps 695 tbhits 0 time 233 pv b1c3 d7d6 e2e3&#xA;info depth 4 seldepth 4 multipv 1 score cp 60 nodes 417 nps 1789 tbhits 0 time 233 pv g1f3 e7e6 e2e3 d7d6&#xA;info depth 5 seldepth 5 multipv 1 score cp 136 nodes 1546 nps 6578 tbhits 0 time 235 pv g1f3 c7c5 e2e4 d7d6 d2d4&#xA;info depth 6 seldepth 6 multipv 1 score cp 21 nodes 4562 nps 19087 tbhits 0 time 239 pv g1f3 g8f6 d2d4 d7d5 b1c3 e7e6&#xA;info depth 7 seldepth 7 multipv 1 score cp 51 nodes 5949 nps 24787 tbhits 0 time 240 pv g1f3 g8f6 d2d4 d7d5 b1c3 e7e6 e2e3&#xA;info depth 8 seldepth 8 multipv 1 score cp 39 nodes 9124 nps 37547 tbhits 0 time 243 pv g1f3 e7e6 b1c3 d7d5 d2d4 g8f6 e2e3 a7a6&#xA;info depth 9 seldepth 9 multipv 1 score cp 39 nodes 13735 nps 55607 tbhits 0 time 247 pv g1f3 d7d5 d2d4 b8c6 b1c3 g8f6 c1f4 e7e6 e2e3&#xA;info depth 10 seldepth 13 multipv 1 score cp 28 nodes 25801 nps 101180 tbhits 0 time 255 pv g1f3 d7d5 d2d4 b8c6 b1c3 g8f6 e2e3 a8b8 h2h3 e7e6&#xA;info depth 11 seldepth 13 multipv 1 score cp 26 nodes 56118 nps 206316 tbhits 0 time 272 pv e2e4 d7d5 e4d5 g8f6 b1c3 f6d5 g1f3 e7e6 a2a3 b8c6 d2d4 h7h6&#xA;info depth 12 seldepth 16 multipv 1 score cp 25 nodes 194110 nps 549886 tbhits 0 time 353 pv e2e4 e7e5 b1c3 g8f6 g1f3 b8c6 f1b5 f8b4 e1g1 b4c3 d2c3 e8g8 d1e2 d7d5&#xA;info depth 13 seldepth 19 multipv 1 score cp 28 nodes 336964 nps 764090 tbhits 0 time 441 pv e2e4 e7e5 b1c3 g8f6 g1f3 b8c6 f1b5 f8b4 e1g1 e8g8 c3d5 f6d5 e4d5&#xA;info depth 14 seldepth 19 multipv 1 score cp 31 nodes 457658 nps 886934 tbhits 0 time 516 pv g1f3 g8f6 b1c3 d7d5 e2e3 e7e6 d2d4 b8c6 f1d3 f8d6 e1g1 e8g8 c1d2 e6e5 a2a3&#xA;info depth 15 seldepth 19 multipv 1 score cp 29 nodes 638239 nps 1022818 tbhits 0 time 624 pv g1f3 g8f6 b1c3 d7d5 d2d4 e7e6 e2e3 b8c6 f1e2 f6e4 e1g1 f8b4 c3e4 d5e4 f3e5 e8g8&#xA;info nodes 1246584 time 1003&#xA;bestmove g1f3 ponder g8f6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2015-10-01T01:35:45.967" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12513" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1989" CreationDate="2015-10-01T01:39:40.767" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;My app, SmallChess allows the most advanced chess analytic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Qxeu3.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Qxeu3.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/dC9Sr.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/dC9Sr.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/JGQYW.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/JGQYW.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/gRSjf.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/gRSjf.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2015-10-01T01:39:40.767" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12516" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12492" CreationDate="2015-10-01T14:51:34.103" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can just browse through this list:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.webcitation.org/query?url=http://www.geocities.com/siliconvalley/lab/7378/eco.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.webcitation.org/query?url=http://www.geocities.com/siliconvalley/lab/7378/eco.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I suspect a lot of the names out there aren't official like the Reversed Rat (1. d3 e5) and Double Duck (1. f4 f5 2. d4 d5), while the Pterdoactyl variation appears to be recognized.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some other funny or interesting names: Creepy Crawly Formation, Bayonet attack (recognized), Pork Chop, Nescafe Frappe attack in the Budapest Gambit, the Apocalypse attack in the Caro-Kann. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2258" LastActivityDate="2015-10-01T14:51:34.103" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12517" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12429" CreationDate="2015-10-01T15:29:14.760" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;First look at the position of black's king -- it's still in the middle of the board; most of the time this leaves opportunity for an attack or, at the very least, the initiative. White's attacking area would be on the queen side, so black should not go there with the King and the kingside is weakened due to the pawn being on h4. Also black is underdeveloped due to lack of castling, so the rooks are having a hard time communicating. This gives you the forcing sequence to take advantage of these temporary advantages starting with Bxc2. It should follow something like 1...Bxc2; 2. Rdc1 and wherever the bishop moves you could try something like 3. Ncxd5 and once he takes back with either pawn push 4. b4. Now you are restricting his dark square bishop and preparing to open up a front on the queen side of the board. This should be to white's advantage&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;r3kb1r/pp1q1pp1/2p1p3/3nPb2/3P1N1p/PBN1BQ1P/1Pn2PP1/R2R2K1 w - - 1 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Bxc2 Bxc2 2. Rdc1 null 3. Ncxd5 null 4. b4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8400" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-11-18T11:32:11.203" LastActivityDate="2019-11-18T11:32:11.203" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="12518" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-10-01T20:10:49.863" Score="9" ViewCount="3375" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would like to find a Java library that will allow me to read a PGN file that could contain several chess games, probably with comments inserted also. But, it won't be used to generate moves or play the moves in a board. I just want to read the pgn and get the header section and move section, and dump everything into a database.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any light that will direct me to the right path is really appreciated. I just need the parser and segment the information from the pgn and then I will do the dumping into the database.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks in advance for any help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8401" LastEditorUserId="3757" LastEditDate="2015-10-02T06:58:33.120" LastActivityDate="2018-06-16T12:29:33.760" Title="Java Library for PGN parser" Tags="&lt;database&gt;&lt;master-games&gt;&lt;annotation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12519" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4896" CreationDate="2015-10-01T23:20:37.233" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;He didn't play a bad move, as Topalov could have declined the sacrifice, as Kasparov said himself and maybe the game would have ended up a draw.&#xA;Topalov spent over an hour on the move and reasoned he would be well up on material, so basically he bought it. To borrow from Football Kasparov dropped his shoulder, sold a dummy....&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8403" LastEditorUserId="3757" LastEditDate="2015-10-02T06:58:27.060" LastActivityDate="2015-10-02T06:58:27.060" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12520" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-10-02T10:55:23.953" Score="0" ViewCount="130" Body="&lt;p&gt;Does anyone know if an application exists where you can import multiple PGN files and layer them on top of one another?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It would be interesting to upload say 1,000 games and somehow visualise the most common moves for winning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was wondering if something like this exists?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8405" LastActivityDate="2015-10-02T20:16:18.130" Title="Layering multiple chess games" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;pgn&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12522" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12523" CreationDate="2015-10-02T13:00:27.253" Score="5" ViewCount="5804" Body="&lt;p&gt;How to set number of thread parameter for Stockfish?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I read about Stockfish parameters but there is not description how to set it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://support.stockfishchess.org/kb/advanced-topics/engine-parameters&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://support.stockfishchess.org/kb/advanced-topics/engine-parameters&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8406" LastActivityDate="2016-08-28T10:31:26.383" Title="How to set threads number for Stockfish?" Tags="&lt;stockfish&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12523" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12522" CreationDate="2015-10-02T13:12:13.140" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Read &lt;a href=&quot;http://support.stockfishchess.org/kb/advanced-topics/uci-protocol&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://support.stockfishchess.org/kb/advanced-topics/uci-protocol&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;setoption name Threads value 4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2015-10-02T13:12:13.140" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12524" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12520" CreationDate="2015-10-02T16:37:46.937" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If I understood well what you are asking, you are looking for a chess database application. Yes, they exist, and there many examples. Among non-commercial ones you can find Scid and among commercial ones you have for example ChessBase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3757" LastActivityDate="2015-10-02T16:37:46.937" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12525" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12520" CreationDate="2015-10-02T20:16:18.130" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chessbase can display piece probabilities for sets of games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://help.chessbase.com/Reader/12/Eng/index.html?000144.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://help.chessbase.com/Reader/12/Eng/index.html?000144.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8309" LastActivityDate="2015-10-02T20:16:18.130" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12526" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9485" CreationDate="2015-10-02T20:44:36.883" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Botvinnik advised Kasparov for quite a few years.  Mikhail Tal advised Karpov during his matches with Korchnoi.  Spassky got a whole slew of advice in 1972 from Botvinnik, Korchnoi et al, and this was even translated into English and published as a book, Plisetsky and Voronkov's Russians versus Fischer.  Botvinnik also gave some advice to Taimanov just before the latter faced Fischer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Fischer and Benko fought over who Bisguier would help when the two of them played in Curacao Candidates in 1962.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When Kramnik was quite young, he acted as a second for Kasparov briefly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When the Botvinnik-Fischer game was adjourned at Varna Olympiad 1962, Tal, Spassky, Keres, Geller, Boleslavsky and Furman all helped Botvinnik while the Byrne brothers worked on the position for Fischer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8309" LastEditorUserId="8309" LastEditDate="2015-10-02T20:59:43.377" LastActivityDate="2015-10-02T20:59:43.377" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12527" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1382" CreationDate="2015-10-03T11:03:38.337" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm unaware of any special epub books.  The problem with epub is that you can't move the pieces on the boards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most chess book publishers seem to be going with separate apps: Everyman's Chess Viewer reads their pgn books, and the rest use proprietary formats that display a chess board where you can play through the game by clicking on the notation or arrows: e+chess/New In Chess Books and Files (iOS only?), Gambit Publications' Chess Studio, Forward Chess (Quality Chess, New In Chess, Informant, Chess Stars), Chessapps, MChess and Smartchess.  Chessapps and Smartchess give you access to an engine for analyzing the positions.  Chessapps also lets you save your notes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I haven't tried it, but there is an app called 'Cbh to pgn' for converting on Android.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8309" LastEditorUserId="8309" LastEditDate="2015-10-03T11:18:59.220" LastActivityDate="2015-10-03T11:18:59.220" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12528" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12529" CreationDate="2015-10-03T11:19:18.413" Score="8" ViewCount="1772" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess has more than 1000 years of existence and the pieces got their modern day movements in 15th century Spain. But which is the oldest chess game of which we know the moves?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3757" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-25T14:28:22.040" LastActivityDate="2020-08-25T14:28:22.040" Title="Which is the oldest chess game?" Tags="&lt;history&gt;&lt;famous-games&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="12529" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12528" CreationDate="2015-10-03T12:11:24.440" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;The oldest recorded game with the modern rules for moves is this game played in 1475. Although it's not clear if castling and en passant were in force.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Valencia &quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;1475&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Francesco di Castellvi&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Narciso Vinyoles&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 d5 2.exd5 Qxd5 3.Nc3 Qd8 4.Bc4 Nf6 5.Nf3 Bg4 6.h3 Bxf3 7.Qxf3 e6 8.Qxb7 Nbd7 9.Nb5 Rc8 10.Nxa7 Nb6 11.Nxc8 Nxc8 12.d4 Nd6 13.Bb5+ Nxb5 14.Qxb5+ Nd7 15.d5 exd5 16.Be3 Bd6 17.Rd1 Qf6 18.Rxd5 Qg6 19.Bf4 Bxf4 20.Qxd7+ Kf8 21.Qd8#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is also this - &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess2u.com/t8826-oldest-recorded-chess-game&quot;&gt;http://www.chess2u.com/t8826-oldest-recorded-chess-game&lt;/a&gt; - game which is supposed to have been played some time in the 10th century with old move rules. So, no double first move for pawns, bishops moving like a knight (2 squares diagonally but jumping over the intervening square) and possibly other rules for queens for example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2015-10-03T12:11:24.440" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12530" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9029" CreationDate="2015-10-03T13:38:07.270" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you increase Rybka 3 Dynamic's contempt setting, it sacrifices more and more material in attractive style.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Fritz GUI (sold with Rybka, Komodo, Houdini, Junior, Shredder et al) includes a King's Attack slider in its Handicap and Fun dialog.  The Fritz 10 engine in particular avoided closed positions like the plague, and often played for mate.  It had an 'aggressive' parameter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess Tiger and Gambit Tiger (Chessbase or Lokasoft) had a &quot;Suicidal&quot; option under their Gambit Level parameter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Junior 7 had a 'sacrifices' parameter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Deep Sjeng 1.6 comes with gambitkitten, redshift and Tal personalities.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Someone created a Dissident Aggressor personality for Zappa Mexico which is apparently quite wild.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;TheKing (a.k.a. Chessmaster) plays for mate even on its default settings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Amyan has a kinghunting parameter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tao 5.6 tends to go for very complex positions with multiple pieces en prise.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The old DOS program Chess System Tal had an attractive style with lots of sacs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Spark 1.0 and Fruit 2.3.1 had a King Attack parameter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Kinghunter personality for Komodo only worked for version 1.0, and they changed the parameters after that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think in general the programmers tried to make these engines both strong and aggressive.  All of these (with the exception of Chess System Tal) are at the level of an International Master or higher.  Engines below that designed to have a somewhat attractive style would include: Der Bringer, HeavyChess, Homer, Monarch and Trappy Beowulf.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another thing you could try is loading some of Chessbase's weaker engines, and increasing the King's Attack slider in Handicap and Fun.  Inmichess, Exchess, Comet and Capture R01 were all in the 2000-2400 range, and were sold by Chessbase in their Young Talents package.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8309" LastEditorUserId="8309" LastEditDate="2015-10-04T21:50:08.920" LastActivityDate="2015-10-04T21:50:08.920" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12531" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1989" CreationDate="2015-10-03T16:40:18.063" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://appsto.re/gb/R1paV.i&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chess-wise&lt;/a&gt; is the only iOS app that I'm aware of that has an annotation function and an import function.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user2137" LastActivityDate="2015-10-03T16:40:18.063" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12532" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12492" CreationDate="2015-10-03T17:42:53.297" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;My favourite, which is good for blitz games, is the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halloween_Gambit&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Halloween Gambit or Halloween Attack&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;...&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Nxe5 Nxe5 5. d4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tim Krabbe wrote this up for ChessCafe.com and his own website - &lt;a href=&quot;http://timkr.home.xs4all.nl/tour/breeze.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;A BREEZE IN THE SLEEPY 4-KNIGHT'S GAME&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Steffen Jacob did a lot of work on the opening playing it many times with success on ICC. He wrote them up on his website - &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jakob.at/steffen/halloween/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;The Halloween-Attack in the Four Knight Game&lt;/a&gt; - where you will also find links to his &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jakob.at/steffen/halloween/database.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;database of Halloween Attack games&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2015-10-03T17:42:53.297" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12533" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2015-10-03T18:18:28.710" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2015-10-03T18:18:28.710" LastActivityDate="2015-10-03T18:18:28.710" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12534" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2015-10-03T18:18:28.710" Score="0" Body="For questions about annotated chess games and the symbols used when annotating chess games." OwnerUserId="1485" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2015-10-04T11:47:26.860" LastActivityDate="2015-10-04T11:47:26.860" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12535" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-10-04T03:20:52.707" Score="2" ViewCount="342" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have played 1.a4, h4, f4 in an engine and it gave me the opening line's name. I mean, how could it be considered a line as it, at least IMO, don't do anything that defines a good opening. (fight for center, develop your pieces etc.) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7066" LastActivityDate="2019-12-10T17:19:16.433" Title="Is there any opening line which is downright catastrophic?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12536" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12535" CreationDate="2015-10-04T10:35:45.533" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you mean &quot;Is there any first move for white which is catastrophic?&quot; then the answer is &quot;No&quot;. There are first moves for white which look bad. Na3, Nh3 and f3 would be my candidates but they are not catastrophic. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Na3 could be followed up by moves like b3, c4, Nc2, Bb2, for example, to get a playable position. Perhaps not the best use of first move advantage but certainly not catastrophic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The problem for black when white makes a &quot;bad&quot; first move is to try and steer the opening into one where the &quot;bad&quot; move is really a bad move in the context of that opening or at least irrelevant so that white's first move advantage has gone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White's contrasting problem is to try and steer the opening towards one where the &quot;bad&quot; move becomes good. For instance, after 1.h4 if white can steer black into fianchettoing his king's bishop and castling kingside then 1.h4 could become a strong threatening move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If by &quot;opening line&quot; you mean a sequence of moves then, yes, there are catastrophic lines and yes, they do often have names. The most famous is  probably &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scholar%27s_mate&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Scholar's Mate&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Scholar's Mate&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Qh5 Nc6 3. Bc4 Nf6?? 4. Qxf7#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The shortest possible mate and so the most catastrophic is &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fool%27s_mate&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Fool's Mate&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Fool's Mate&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. f3 e5 2. g4?? Qh4#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2015-10-04T10:35:45.533" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12537" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12535" CreationDate="2015-10-04T10:37:32.897" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would say the value of an opening is conditional on your opponent:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;You against a computer with almost perfect play&lt;/strong&gt;: all openings are bad. You'll lose anyway (unless you are a super GM), but some openings are worse than others.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;You with the help of a computer against another computer or player with a computer&lt;/strong&gt;: some openings lines are bad, some are ok, and some are good. A computer will not forgive your choosing an opening line that leaves you in an inferior position. With most openings you'll end up in draw. And if you want to win you have to choose some anti-computer opening.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;You against a human player&lt;/strong&gt;: to estimate the value of an opening line against a human player you have to evaluate which is their opening repertoire and their playing level relative to yours and which is the type of competition. Against a player with a similar rating, you might try to surprise them with an uncommon opening (that you have studied well) to get them out of book. This strategy can be more useful in rapid and blitz games, since it is more probable the opponent will make an error you can use in your advantage. For example, Carlsen played 1.a4 against Radjabov in the World Blitz Final in 2012 (and won). But with a player with much more experience than you, it might not work anyway.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3757" LastActivityDate="2015-10-04T10:37:32.897" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12539" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2711" CreationDate="2015-10-04T17:14:10.477" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In order to answer your question, I put together a database archive of 30000+ games played in over-the-board tournaments where both players were rated less than 2000.  Only one game had the Halloween, and there were few Traxlers.  Black died quickly in a handful of Fried Liver Attacks.  There were no Parhams 1.e4 e5 2.Qh5 nor Fool's mates.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Triangle/Noteboom complex scored very well for Black as did the Benko Gambit.  1.d4 d5 2.Nc3?! looked to be a bust, and the Sicilian Grand Prix Attack 1.e4 c5 2.f4?! didn't fare well for White.  In the Ruy Lopez, the Steinitz defence 3...d6?! and Cozio 3...Nge7?! led to a lot of Black losses.  Rubinstein's line in the French 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Bg5 dxe4?! didn't do well either.  A lot of patzers fell for 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 d5?! 3.cxd5! and ended up getting overrun.  1.e4 c6 2.c4! did well against the Caro-Kann.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8309" LastEditorUserId="8309" LastEditDate="2015-10-04T21:08:36.607" LastActivityDate="2015-10-04T21:08:36.607" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12540" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2708" CreationDate="2015-10-04T21:35:50.943" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Question: &quot;is there an online database that keeps track of all the games ever played and gives you the overall rating of an opening by calculating the average score, or do you take for granted what other players told you?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Straight win draw loss statistics probably don't help you much.  Say Anand and Carlsen play ten games with exactly the same opening line.  In the first nine games, white wins each time, and then in the tenth game, Carlsen as Black discovers a move that busts the whole opening.  The stats for this line would be great +9 -1 for white.  However, no GM would play the line knowing of Carlsen's bust.  GMs try to get around this by building up their analysis based on best play by both sides rather than the raw stats.  It's probably a good idea to take a close look at recent games to see how a given line seems to be faring.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Question: &quot;how much can you memorize? How many variations?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Practice makes perfect, and I agree with Tony Ennis that understanding the ideas behind an opening might be more important than just memorizing moves.  That being said Anand apparently asked Asim Perreira if he could use the latter's app to test his knowledge of his own opening repertoire.  Even former world champions need to practice their openings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Question: &quot;Don't good openings become bad opening when they become well known?   I mean lets use the Najdorf again as an example, because everyone wants to learn it, it is so well known, doesn't that make it a bad opening?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In general, it is a good idea to play openings you are familiar with, but if they don't seem to be working, you might want to try to learn something new.  I believe at San Luis world championship, everyone stopped playing the Najdorf for once, and they all played the Ruy Lopez Anti-Marshall.  That being said, the Najdorf still has a good reputation at the top level (and the best stats for Black), so I don't think it will go out of fashion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Question: &quot;is it better to play openings/defenses that score good (french defense. indian etc..) or is it better to play an opening that is not well known and that your opponent didn't learn?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think this depends.  If you are doing well with your current openings, by all means continue.  If you lose, analyze your game, and find that your problems started in the opening, you might want to consider learning a new line.  Also if you are playing against an opponent you know, you can guess which kind of opening he won't like.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8309" LastActivityDate="2015-10-04T21:35:50.943" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12541" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8201" CreationDate="2015-10-04T22:09:44.317" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I ran a search on the games in GM Robert Huebner's World Champion Fischer CD looking for a game where one side promoted a pawn to a rook.  Chessbase reports 'no games found.'  There were 47 games where someone promoted to a queen, but no games where someone promoted to a bishop or knight.  This CD has close to 1000 of Fischer's games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the 8th game of Mikhail Tal's match with Bent Larsen at Eersel in 1969, Tal as White checked Black's king, sending it to d8.  Later in the game he could have won by advancing his a-pawn, but became worried that Black could develop an attack by castling(!), and so focused his play on preventing this from happening.  After the game, a fan asked Tal why he hadn't pushed the a-pawn, and it was only then that Tal realized his mistake.  You can't castle once your king or rook have moved.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8309" LastEditorUserId="8309" LastEditDate="2015-10-07T21:23:41.477" LastActivityDate="2015-10-07T21:23:41.477" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12542" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12544" CreationDate="2015-10-05T10:00:25.820" Score="2" ViewCount="155" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there a solo computer chess program where you can play against imaginary/fictional/historical characters (and maybe win once in a while)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7205" LastActivityDate="2015-10-05T12:13:30.243" Title="Playing against imaginary oponents" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;human-versus-machine&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12543" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1195" CreationDate="2015-10-05T11:13:43.390" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just recently was published my book &quot;José Raúl Capablanca, A Chess Biography&quot;, McFarland, 2015. One of the chapter, number 13, is dedicated to the match Capablanca-Alekhine, 1927. Games 1, 3, 5, 7, 11, 12, 17, 20, 22, 27, 29, 31 and 34 are fully annotated. The chapter includes several interviews and daily information from the Buenos Aires newspapers. One of the pieces, while Capablanca is writing his resignation letter, was until now an unknown part of the chess history.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8421" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2015-10-05T12:18:56.253" LastActivityDate="2015-10-05T12:18:56.253" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12544" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12542" CreationDate="2015-10-05T12:13:30.243" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chessmaster.uk.ubi.com/xi/index.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chessmaster&lt;/a&gt; is such a program. It is a bit outdated now, but still very usable for the majority of people. The skill cap for the game is well beyond what most club players will ever reach in their lifetime. Some examples of opponents you can play&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Imaginary - You can play in a Human vs Orc arena, against a commander of the opposing army. There are limited difficulties in this level, so you may have problems playing against the harder opponents. It is also not explicit about which opponents are hard, and which ones are easy, so you will have to test this yourself.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Fictional - There are hundreds of fictional people to play against. Each of them have a biography (if you care to immerse yourself) and a picture of a person to help you believe you are playing against an actual person. There are a wide variety of playing styles to help simulate the different kinds of human players you might play against.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Historical - There are many famous players who have been simulated into the game, including various versions of Josh Waitzkin at the age of 6 and beyond. Most of the historical players however will be playing at the maximum skill level of the game, since it will be trying to simulate the strength of Grandmasters.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd recommend playing against the fictional players, as they are entirely beatable once you learn the rules. You will start out with a rating (around 800 if you are new) and your rating will adjust as you play a few games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Don't be disheartened if you lose your first few games, this happens to everybody. If you are serious about improving, you will learn something from each loss and eventually your rating will improve, and you can play against stronger opponents.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7966" LastActivityDate="2015-10-05T12:13:30.243" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12545" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12546" CreationDate="2015-10-05T12:22:39.917" Score="4" ViewCount="1054" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was recently playing a game as black against the Ponziani when this position came up. (I recommend you flip all the boards to show from black's perspective)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's the beginning of the game:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.c3 d5 4.Qa4 Bd7 5.exd5 Nd4 6.Qd1 Nxf3+ 7.Qxf3 Nf6 8.h3 e4 9.Qe3 Bd6 10.d3 O-O 11.dxe4 Nxe4 12.Bd3 f5 13.Bxe4 fxe4 14.O-O Bf5 15.c4 Qf6 16.Nc3 Rae8 17.Bd2 Be5 18.Qg5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the starting position, both sides are apparently equal (0.0)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;4rrk1/ppp3pp/5q2/3PbbQ1/2P1p3/2N4P/PP1B1PP1/R4RK1 b - - 6 18&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Qb6 2. Bf4 Bxf4 3. Qxf4 Bxh3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After 2.Bf4 black has apparently made a blunder, putting me 90 centipawns ahead. In the game, I spent 5 minutes debating between Qxb2, h6, and Bxf4 finally choosing the last, seeing it as the simplest most effective option. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Apparently, Bxh3 was a blunder on my part, putting white ahead 90 centipawns. (So this move helped white by 1.8) Only, I cannot understand why? I ended up winning the game with the following moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;4rrk1/ppp3pp/1q6/3P4/2P1pQ2/2N4b/PP3PP1/R4RK1 w - - 0 21&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Qg3 Bd7 2. b3 e3 3. fxe3 Rxf1 4. Rxf1 Rxe3 5. Qf2 Rxc3 6. Qxb6 axb6 7.Rf2 g6 8. Kh2 Bf5 9. Re2 Kf7 10. Rb2 Rc2 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I feel like the decision to play Bxh3 was justified and what helped me win the game. Yet the engine disagrees. Could somebody tell me what the problem with Bxh3 was?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8422" LastActivityDate="2015-10-05T12:45:14.623" Title="What I thought was winning tactic, apparently was mistake" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;engines&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;blunder&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12546" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12545" CreationDate="2015-10-05T12:42:59.390" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;First of all, I don't think it is productive to call moves &quot;blunders&quot; when they're just not the best moves according to the computer. Chess is a game between humans. I like to reserve &quot;blunder&quot; for moves that are really terrible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That said, after 20...Bxh3, Komodo 9.02 recommends 21.Qe3 for White, forcing Black to exchange queens, after which material is equal (remember that you were down a pawn to start with) and it likes White's position better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It prefers to delay the discovered attack on the queen by playing 20...e3, threatening 21...Bd3 (winning an exchange), which is really hard for White to deal with. Komodo's line is 20...e3 21.fxe3 Bd3 22.Qxd4 Bxf1 23.Qxb6 axb6 24.Rxf1 Rxe3 and Black is up an exchange for a pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2015-10-05T12:42:59.390" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12551" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12552" CreationDate="2015-10-06T20:18:05.220" Score="7" ViewCount="272" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recently started to teach the game to my wife, yay for me :) So now she's somewhat comfortable with how the pieces move and the basic opening principles but as soon as she gets to the middle game she never knows what to do next so I started showing her tactical puzzles, we are doing the book by Fred Reinfeld &quot;1001 Winning Chess Sacrifices and Combinations&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since she is not experienced once I've set up the position I see the solution and explain to her the tactical weaknesses in order to point her in the direction of the solution. She still needs some time to find it but eventually she gets it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is, since I am not finding the solution by myself it would seem that I am not benefitting from these exercises but since I explain to her in detail that in a particular position there is a weak pawn, or an overload piece or a way to force a pin could this be helping me as well or the only way to improve tactical knowledge is by solving the puzzles, period?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4327" LastActivityDate="2019-10-30T05:37:38.163" Title="Am I improving my tactical knowledge by explaining solutons to my wife?" Tags="&lt;tactics&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12552" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12551" CreationDate="2015-10-07T06:01:40.357" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Since you are teaching your wife, who's new at chess, these tactics are perhaps a bit too easy for you. They probably won't do much for your standard game. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That said, by explaining the patterns to her and doing a lot of 'easier' tactics, you are definitely helping your blitz/bullet games. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically you'll be able to see tactics faster in your games, but your ability to see more complicated tactics is remaining more or less unchanged. To really hone your tactics, you're going to need to improve your ability to calculate deep, and consider several different lines when perhaps the solution isn't as obvious.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Teaching is great for reminding yourself of the basics, but if you want to improve, you're going to need to do more than teach. Find some more difficult tactics for yourself, play some challenging games, study more opening lines, and analyze your shortcomings. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this answers your question. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8422" LastActivityDate="2015-10-07T06:01:40.357" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12553" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12551" CreationDate="2015-10-07T07:51:45.193" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In general. speaking aloud about tactics indeed improves your tactical knowledge. This phenomenon is also known from other areas of learning, it helps with memorisation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As Kabir Peshawarla already noted, you will not learn anything new by this method. For that purpose you will have to read books, do excercises or take chess lessons with a teacher.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3819" LastActivityDate="2015-10-07T07:51:45.193" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12554" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12555" CreationDate="2015-10-07T09:01:34.483" Score="15" ViewCount="2725" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am not playing a bad game, but my endgame is not so good. How can I improve my endgame? Please suggest me some good books for that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8102" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2015-10-07T10:02:00.840" LastActivityDate="2021-05-14T12:32:54.750" Title="Endgame improvement books" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12555" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12554" CreationDate="2015-10-07T09:38:00.120" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yasser Seirawan's &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.bookdepository.com/book/9781857443486?redirected=true&amp;amp;selectCurrency=AUD&amp;amp;w=AF45AU963XJ37BA8ZRTR&amp;amp;gclid=CK6Pp6SFsMgCFdd6vQodCBsG9Q&quot;&gt;Winning Chess Endings&lt;/a&gt; - Very good book, especially for beginners. Written by one of the best instructional authors out there. This book is written for beginner-intermediate level so it is very easy to understand, but has many lessons that can carry through to advanced levels.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1936490137&quot;&gt;Dvoretsky's Endgame Manual&lt;/a&gt; - Very indepth guide. Has just about anything that most players would need until professional level, and even there it has strong value. Can be fairly complicated at times, and assumes at least intermediate level skill from the reader. It can be a good reference manual however, as each topic is clearly outlined. Just be warned that there are many complicated situations that almost never arise in anyone's game, so you should focus your study on more important endgame techniques before conquering specific situations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Silman's &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1890085103&quot;&gt;Complete Endgame Course&lt;/a&gt; - More like a guide than Dvoretsky's Endgame manual, allowing beginners to pick up the book, and progress through until master level endgame technique (as suggested by the front cover). This is the one I most recommend as it is much simpler for most players with less clutter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, there are loads more out there! &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/best-endgame-book-out-there3&quot;&gt;Chess.com&lt;/a&gt; has asked this question before, and produced fairly consistent answers from players on the website. In the end, it will largely come down to your skill level, dedication to study and personal preference.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7966" LastActivityDate="2015-10-07T09:38:00.120" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12556" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12554" CreationDate="2015-10-07T11:44:19.513" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you want to learn more than just endgame theory, but also some strategy, then I can recommend the book &lt;em&gt;Endgame Strategy&lt;/em&gt; by Mikhail Shereshevsky. I learned a lot from this book.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is a nice review: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/article/view/quotendgame-strategyquot-by-mikhail-shereshevsky&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;&quot;Endgame Strategy&quot; by Mikhail Shereshevsky&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1485" LastActivityDate="2015-10-07T11:44:19.513" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12557" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12518" CreationDate="2015-10-07T12:07:45.343" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a general hint: Look at Open Source Android chess games. Like DroidFish (&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/peterosterlund2/droidfish&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://github.com/peterosterlund2/droidfish&lt;/a&gt;) Maybe you can find there what you are looking for or at least use it as a starting point.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8437" LastActivityDate="2015-10-07T12:07:45.343" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12558" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5070" CreationDate="2015-10-07T13:34:23.720" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Also yafi is a great app for FICS. It supports the console, different game-types, observation ... most of the features you might need in a chess program.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;free: &lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=pl.mg6.yafi&amp;amp;hl=de&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=pl.mg6.yafi&amp;amp;hl=de&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;to buy: &lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=pl.mg6.yafi.plus&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=pl.mg6.yafi.plus&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8438" LastActivityDate="2015-10-07T13:34:23.720" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12559" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12554" CreationDate="2015-10-07T14:06:29.133" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;If your playing strength is at amateur level (say, 1400-1800 FICS rating) I'd recommend to start with this small brochure:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1857440226&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Yuri Averbakh -- Chess Endings: Essential Knowledge&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8439" LastActivityDate="2015-10-07T14:06:29.133" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12560" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12554" CreationDate="2015-10-07T17:40:35.867" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You might want to check (pun intended) the internet first:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Queen + King vs. King:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Checkmate#King_and_queen&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/article/view/basic-checkmates-the-queen-dance&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Explanation on chess.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Rook + King vs. King:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Checkmate#King_and_rook&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessvideos.tv/endgame-training/king-and-rook-checkmate.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Practice&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Two bishops + King vs. King&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Checkmate#King_and_two_bishops&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Bishop + Knight vs. King&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bishop_and_knight_checkmate&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;King + Pawn vs. King&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_and_pawn_versus_king_endgame&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/blog/ValeRock/endgame---the-pawn-square-rule&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Pawn square rule on chess.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;King + Rook + Pawn vs. King + Rook&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rook_and_pawn_versus_rook_endgame&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucena_position&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Lucena position&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philidor_position&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Philidor position&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In general, you may want to look at &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_endgame#Basic_checkmates&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; page on Wikipedia. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8229" LastEditorUserId="8229" LastEditDate="2016-08-18T15:59:44.833" LastActivityDate="2016-08-18T15:59:44.833" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12561" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12562" CreationDate="2015-10-07T20:11:59.250" Score="3" ViewCount="862" Body="&lt;p&gt;So for the most part I understand what I am looking at, but i have two questions about the first piece of data. Here is an example that I am looking at.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/cx0gz.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/cx0gz.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Firstly, the first column has values 1/4, 1/8, 2/17, 3/17. I'm pretty sure the numerator of those fractions indicates the depth of the search, but I am confused about the second number, my only guess being that it is the search depth of all non-quiet positions? IDK&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Secondly, When I see a depth of 3, i expect to see a move order of length 3, but in the 3/17 search I am given a 6 move long line of play. Is this due to non-quiet nodes? The captures in the line make me believe so. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks, any help, insight, and resources are appreciated. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8443" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2015-10-07T23:54:06.393" LastActivityDate="2015-10-08T00:29:06.177" Title="Reading UCI Engine output in Arena Chess" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;programming&gt;&lt;uci&gt;&lt;arena&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12562" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12561" CreationDate="2015-10-08T00:29:06.177" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessforums.org/general-chess-discussion/9079-chess-engine-output.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.chessforums.org/general-chess-discussion/9079-chess-engine-output.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;It’s the “search depth.” It tells you how deep the search has gone.&#xA;  The value is in “ply” or half-moves. The first number gives you the&#xA;  “brute force” depth, the second is the depth to which certain critical&#xA;  lines have been investigated. For instance a display of “depth =&#xA;  12/30” means that the program has looked at every continuation to a&#xA;  depth of 12 ply (six moves), while some promising or dangerous&#xA;  continuations are being examined up to a depth of 30 ply (15 moves).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please note chess engine always report in &quot;ply&quot;, half-move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2015-10-08T00:29:06.177" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12563" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-10-08T08:14:22.517" Score="2" ViewCount="177" Body="&lt;p&gt;In what situations is it impossible to win for a player?&#xA;For example due to not enough material or the composition of the material is not useful.&#xA;I guess for example when you only have a king and a knight left or so and the opponent has far more pieces?&#xA;I'm looking for the (few) hard cases where &quot;you can't win&quot;. For example when you only have a king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7803" LastEditorUserId="291" LastEditDate="2015-10-08T14:33:36.060" LastActivityDate="2015-10-08T17:36:09.123" Title="When to give up on winning a game e.g. due to material" Tags="&lt;draw&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ClosedDate="2015-10-11T21:06:27.810" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12566" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12563" CreationDate="2015-10-08T17:36:09.123" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are very few positions in which it is actually impossible to win although you are up material. Basically only KN vs K or KB vs K.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then there are positions which can be won, but this would require such egregious errors by your opponent, that in practice a draw will inevitably be agreed. Examples are KNN vs K, KBB vs KB, KR vs KB.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And then there are theoretically drawn positions which give you very real winning chances even against strong players. KR vs KN, KRB vs KR, KQ vs KNN. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are also known &quot;fortresses&quot; where the stronger side cannot break through once the weaker side has achieved a certain setup. Here is one famous (and relevant) example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;   [White &quot;The wrong&quot;]&#xA;   [Black &quot;bishop&quot;]&#xA;   [FEN &quot;k7/8/8/PK2B3/8/8/8/8 w kq - 0 13&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-10-08T17:36:09.123" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12567" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12535" CreationDate="2015-10-09T18:39:26.110" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;My favorite catastrophe is probably the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_Game,_Blackburne_Shilling_Gambit&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Blackburne Shilling Gambit&lt;/a&gt;, probably because I fell for it once :-S.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Blackburne Shilling Gambit&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e5&#xA;2.Nf3 Nc6&#xA;3.Bc4 Nd4?!&#xA;4.Nxe5 Qg5&#xA;5.Nxf7? Qxg2 6.Rf1 Qxe4+ 7.Be2 Nf3#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Gotta be good for White, right? Grabbing the f7 pawn AND forking the black queen and rook! While White's rook is easily saved from the Qxg2 threat via Rf1. Heh.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7314" LastEditorUserId="10380" LastEditDate="2019-12-10T17:19:16.433" LastActivityDate="2019-12-10T17:19:16.433" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="12568" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12569" CreationDate="2015-10-09T20:41:48.750" Score="7" ViewCount="762" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am trying to understand this position a bit better and would appreciate some help in doing so. I am black and it's my turn... &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I played the move &lt;code&gt;..c5&lt;/code&gt;. I don't have a deep understanding of this specific position, hence my question (I'm ELO 1700) but my thoughts were along the lines of preventing white to get &lt;code&gt;Bb4&lt;/code&gt; in and at the same time gaining a tempo by kicking the knight. This then also allows me to bring my knight back into the game without obstructing any of my rooks. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For some reason this move was extremely bad (listed as the 10th best move with a relative score of 2.0 points lower than the best move)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can someone please explain to me why this move is so bad? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[title &quot;Black to play&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;1n1qr1k1/pr3ppp/2p2b2/8/2PN1Q2/2BP2P1/PP2PP1P/3R1RK1 b - - 0 20&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... c5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4277" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-12-18T17:19:41.163" LastActivityDate="2019-12-18T20:48:22.050" Title="Analysis of a position-Why is my move so bad?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="12569" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12568" CreationDate="2015-10-09T21:53:06.257" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;The reasons for not playing &lt;code&gt;20...c5&lt;/code&gt; are mainly tactical. &lt;code&gt;20...g5 21. Qg4 h5 22. Qxh5 Bxd4 23. Bxd4 Qxd4 24. Qxg5+ Qg7&lt;/code&gt; wins a piece for two pawns. Since you are already down three pawns for nothing, it won't do to just sit around and wait.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;1n1qr1k1/pr3ppp/2p2b2/8/2PN1Q2/2BP2P1/PP2PP1P/3R1RK1 b - - 0 20&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... g5 2. Qg4 h5 3. Qxh5 Bxd4 4. Bxd4 Qxd4 5. Qxg5+ Qg7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7500" LastEditorUserId="7500" LastEditDate="2015-10-09T21:58:43.277" LastActivityDate="2015-10-09T21:58:43.277" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12570" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12229" CreationDate="2015-10-10T03:56:04.603" Score="8" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;How do you draw in an opposite color bishops endgame with two pawns down?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortress_(chess)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Fortress&lt;/a&gt; is your only chance in such a position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You &lt;strong&gt;must&lt;/strong&gt; base your defense on the color of your bishop. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Make your bishop a &quot;bad bishop&quot;, so he can defend your pawns, if you have any.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You will stop opposing passed pawns by controlling the diagonal that is the same color as your bishop.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Exchange as many pawns as you can.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Force stronger side to put his pawns on the color of &lt;strong&gt;their&lt;/strong&gt; bishop.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Put your pawns on the color of &lt;strong&gt;your&lt;/strong&gt; bishop.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Your king must fight the enemy one, by &quot;cutting him off&quot; from helping his passed pawns promote. You achieve this by posting your king on the square that has the same color as your bishop, when blockading opposing passers.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Below diagram shows what a fortress is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Weaker side builds a fortress&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;8/2k5/4Bp2/2b1p1p1/4K2p/7P/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White will move the bishop along the &lt;code&gt;c8-h3&lt;/code&gt; diagonal, and there is nothing Black can do to set his pawn majority into motion. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is no way for him to break the fortress, since White's defense is organized on the light squares, which is the color of his bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another example that illustrates the points listed above:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Another fortress&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;5k2/p2K1P2/P3P3/2b5/2B5/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Again, we can see that defense is based on the squares of the same color as the bishop is. In this case, Black defends on the dark squares.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As stated above, Black has &quot;bad bishop&quot; but this is good thing here, since White can not win the &lt;code&gt;a7&lt;/code&gt; pawn. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, this example demonstrates how weaker side uses bishop and king to &quot;cut off&quot; enemy king from crucial promotion squares. White can not break the blockade, nor can he create &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zugzwang#Zugzwang_in_chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;zugzwang&lt;/a&gt; so the position is a draw. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since you have asked specifically about endgame with 2 pawns down, there are some tips that can further help you. Read on...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Battling 2 connected passers:&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Weaker side positions the bishop so it attacks one, and controls the other pawn; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Passers on sixth rank usually win, otherwise high probability of a draw.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Again, simple illustration:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Illustration of a drawing concept&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;8/2b1k3/8/1B1PP3/3K4/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black attacks &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt; pawn, and controls &lt;code&gt;d6&lt;/code&gt; square. That way, if &lt;code&gt;d6&lt;/code&gt; is played, Black sacrifices bishop for 2 pawns and draws.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Remember this rule, as it is the only way to draw in such positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Battling 2 widely separated passers:&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This one is very hard, as stronger side has great winning chances. You must apply the &quot;one diagonal&quot; defense -&gt; control both passers on the same diagonal. That is your best bet. Use king and bishop to push away enemy king from key promotional squares. Below is an example of what I was talking about:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;The one diagonal&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;8/2bB4/2P5/6k1/4K3/5P2/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Kd5 Kf6! {The white king will not get to e6} 2. Kc5 Ke7 3. Kb5 Bf4 4. Kb6 Kd8 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This example also demonstrates how to deploy the principle of pushing away ( or blocking ) the enemy king, by using bishop and king synergy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Remember, you must keep your pieces mobile, and it is absolutely mandatory that you can reach both passers with your king as fast as the opposing one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should be able to establish diagonal control easily, however, reaching with king on time is not so simple. If you manage to be there on time to establish blockade or push away the enemy king, then you will draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Are there exceptions? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes! Chess would be poor and dull game if there were no exceptions to its &quot;rules&quot;!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If so, what are they?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;OK, so far we looked at the principles for the defender, now it is time to see what options stronger side has.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First off, stronger side fights to prevent the creation of the fortress. This is done by taking over control of the squares your bishop controls. Thus the stronger side wants to have &quot;good bishop&quot;, so it can &quot;push away&quot; weaker side's bishop. This plan is very risky, but it is the only way to win ( generally speaking, of course; it all depends on the actual position). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes you will have to sacrifice a pawn or two in order to break the fortress, this is not unusual!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your best bet to win is to create separated passers, that are separated at least by 2 files or more -&gt; the more the better!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Below is the famous example of how stronger side breaks the blockade and wins with the separated passers:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Kotov vs. Botvinnik, 1955&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;8/8/4b1p1/2Bp3p/5P1P/1pK1Pk2/8/8 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... g5!! 2. fxg5 (2. hxg5 h4 3. Bd6 Bf5 4. g6 Bxg6 5. f5 Bxf5 6. Kxb3 Kg2 -+)  2...d4+! 3. exd4 (3. Bxd4, Kg3 4. g6 Kxh4 5. Kd2 Kh3!! 6. Bf6 h4 7. Ke2 Kg2!) 3...Kg3! (3...Kg4? 4. d5! Bxd5 5. Bf2 {White draws}) 4. Ba3 (4. g6 Kxh4 5. g7 Kg4 -+) (4. Be7 Kxh4 5.g6+ Kg4 -+) 4...Kxh4 5. Kd3 Kxg5 6. Ke4 h4 7. Kf3 ( 7.d5 Bxd5+ -+ ) 7...Bd5+ 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black wins because he will win the bishop for a pawn. His own bishop can defend the remaining pawn and keep the opposing one in check. Therefore, White can not exchange pawns and save a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From the above game, we can derive the following rule: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Stronger side moves king towards the pawn opposing bishop is holding back&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Stronger side tries to create separated passers, and the more distant form each other they are the better!&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for connected passers, your only chance is to get them to the sixth rank. Then there is a chance to win by creating zugzwang. Below diagram is great illustration of this principle:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Stronger side wins with connected pawns&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;3k1b2/8/3PP3/1B1K4/8/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you remember from before, weaker side must attack one pawn, and control the other. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here, &lt;strong&gt;at the moment&lt;/strong&gt; Black does exactly that. His defense holds since White can not advance any further. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Still, White can play a waiting move &lt;code&gt;1.Kc6&lt;/code&gt;, and force Black to abandon the control.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This type of positions is the only way for you to win with connected passers, otherwise weaker side holds as explained before.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;OUTRO:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have tried to minimize the amount of posted content, so you don't get overwhelmed. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In case you need further info start &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opposite-colored_bishops_endgame&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you have follow up questions, leave a comment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Best regards and god luck!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastEditorUserId="2042" LastEditDate="2015-10-10T21:32:51.700" LastActivityDate="2015-10-10T21:32:51.700" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12571" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12568" CreationDate="2015-10-10T12:15:42.010" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;To add some information to @overtheboard's answer, after c5 you are inducing Nf5, and you end up with three white pieces (Bishop, Knight and Queen) attacking you kingside. Also, since then white is menacing Nd6, forking both your rooks, you're not gaining a tempo, but giving a tempo to white and you do not have the time to activate your own knight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3757" LastActivityDate="2015-10-10T12:15:42.010" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12572" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8058" CreationDate="2015-10-10T17:39:07.427" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Indian theme appeared in a game between Rudolf Spielmann and Siegbert Tarrasch (San Sebastián, 1912):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;...&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;San Sebastian&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;San Sebastian ESP&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;1912.03.12&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;1912.02.19&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;17&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Rudolf Spielmann&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Siegbert Tarrasch&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;C80&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;82&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Ba4 Nf6 5. O-O Nxe4 6. d4 b5&#xA;7. Bb3 d5 8. a4 Nxd4 9. Nxd4 exd4 10. Nc3 Nxc3 11. bxc3 c5&#xA;12. axb5 Be7 13. Qf3 Be6 14. Rxa6 O-O 15. cxd4 c4 16. Ba2 Rxa6&#xA;17. bxa6 Qa5 18. Bb1 c3 19. Qg3 Rc8 20. f4 Bf5 21. Re1 Bf6&#xA;22. Kh1 h6 23. h3 Rb8 24. Be3 Qxa6 25. Rd1 Qa1 26. Qe1 Be4&#xA;27. Kh2 Be7 28. Qf1 f5 29. Re1 Bh4 30. g3 Be7 31. Bf2 Bd6&#xA;32. Rc1 Kh7 33. Re1 Rb6 34. Rc1 Ba3 35. Re1 Qb2 36. Qe2 Rb4&#xA;37. Rg1 Rb6 38. Re1 Qb5 39. Qh5 Qxb1 40. Rxb1 Rxb1 41. g4 Bc1&#xA;0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I copy Tarrasch's comments to move &lt;code&gt;41...Bc1&lt;/code&gt; from &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1130764&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; and the original source is Tarrasch's book &lt;a href=&quot;https://books.google.com/books?id=5XmN60ps1L0C&amp;amp;redir_esc=y&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;The Game of Chess&lt;/a&gt; (London, 1935), p. 422-423.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;The move Bc1 is analogous to the blocking move of the 'Indian Problem'; intrinsically it is an extraordinarily unlikely, even ugly move, since the Rook which is to give mate is masked. The 'Indian' character of the move is seen in the following variation: &lt;code&gt;42. Kg1 Be3+! 43. Kh2 Bxf4+ 44. Bg3 Th1#&lt;/code&gt;. Another possibility is &lt;code&gt;42. Be1 Bxf4+ 43. Kg1 Bg3!&lt;/code&gt; followed by mate or the gain of the Queen. The main variation is &lt;code&gt;42. Kg3 g6 43. Qh4 Bxf4+! 44. Kxf4 g5+&lt;/code&gt;, and Black wins.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3757" LastActivityDate="2015-10-10T17:39:07.427" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12573" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-10-11T00:55:03.247" Score="1" ViewCount="2256" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.webster.edu/spice/chess-team/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Webster University&lt;/a&gt; undeniably takes first place.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I would like to know more American universities and colleges which have a big chess club.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3237" LastActivityDate="2015-10-11T15:11:57.850" Title="In the United States, what are the universities and colleges with the best chess club?" Tags="&lt;uscf&gt;&lt;clubs&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12574" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12573" CreationDate="2015-10-11T15:11:57.850" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The top four US college chess schools participate in the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessdom.com/final-four-of-college-chess/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Final Four of College Chess&lt;/a&gt;. This year's (2015) participants were &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.webster.edu/spice/chess-team/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Webster University&lt;/a&gt;, the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.utdallas.edu/chess/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;University of Texas at Dallas&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.depts.ttu.edu/ttuchess/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Texas Tech University&lt;/a&gt;, and the &lt;a href=&quot;http://chess.umbc.edu/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;University of Maryland, Baltimore County&lt;/a&gt;. Especially, the University of Texas at Dallas and the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, have consistently had very good results in the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan_American_Intercollegiate_Team_Chess_Championship&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Pan American Intercollegiate Team Chess Championship&lt;/a&gt; in the last ten to fifteen years.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can find other college chess clubs at the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.uschess.org/content/view/8317/131/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;site of the USCF&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3757" LastActivityDate="2015-10-11T15:11:57.850" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12575" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-10-11T15:54:55.657" Score="4" ViewCount="705" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can the fifty move counter be increased after white's move?&#xA;I thought that it could only be increased if both white and then black had not moved a pawn nor captured a piece that qualified for a whole move. The reason I ask is that the other day while playing against a chess engine, after white moved, the engine sent the 50 move violation message, where as my count was 49 until black's move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8465" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2015-10-11T23:46:55.773" LastActivityDate="2015-10-11T23:46:55.773" Title="The 50 Move Rule" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;draw&gt;&lt;50-move-rule&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12576" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12575" CreationDate="2015-10-11T16:03:55.503" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=171&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Fide Laws of Chess&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5.2 e. The game may be drawn if each player has made at least the last 50 moves without the movement of any pawn and without any capture (see Article 9.3).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;9.3 The game is drawn, upon a correct claim by a player having the move, if: [...]&#xA;b. the last 50 moves by each player have been completed without the movement of any pawn and without any capture.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So it doesn't matter who is black and who is white. If the last pawn move or capture was made by white, the rule comes into effect after white's move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1761" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2015-10-11T16:03:55.503" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12577" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5013" CreationDate="2015-10-11T18:47:15.780" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The book mentioned in a comment by @Rauan Sagit has been translated to English:&#xA;Endgame Strategy by Mikhail Shereshevsky (Everyman Chess) (1st First Edition) [Paperback] and can be found on Amazon.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8467" LastEditorUserId="3757" LastEditDate="2015-10-11T20:19:39.880" LastActivityDate="2015-10-11T20:19:39.880" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12578" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12579" CreationDate="2015-10-11T20:08:47.350" Score="5" ViewCount="459" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to Merriam Webster's Dictionary, a gambit is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;a chess opening in which a player risks one or more pawns or a minor piece to gain an advantage in position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I was wondering, why do we use the word 'gambit'? Where does it come from? How we came to use it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3757" LastActivityDate="2015-10-12T06:04:08.377" Title="Where does the word 'gambit' come from?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;history&gt;&lt;terminology&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12579" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12578" CreationDate="2015-10-11T20:16:44.910" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;The name &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gambit&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;'gambit'&lt;/a&gt; was coined in the &lt;em&gt;16th century&lt;/em&gt; already by &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruy_L%C3%B3pez_de_Segura&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Ruy López&lt;/a&gt;. He derived it from the old Italian expression&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;dare il gambetto&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(literally: 'to give the leg'). It means 'to trip (someone) over' - gambits were often used in attempt to win a game quickly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2015-10-12T06:04:08.377" LastActivityDate="2015-10-12T06:04:08.377" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12580" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12581" CreationDate="2015-10-11T23:26:06.657" Score="6" ViewCount="8556" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm currently writing small application for a chess interested friend. The application is supposed to automatically annotate his chess games. When giving the engine a position to analyze, and a depth (or time) for doing it, I'm looking to get the following info in return:&#xA;1. The best three (or any other given number) moves and their scores in centipawns.&#xA;2. An evaluation of a given move (ie his move). &#xA;I would really appreciate if someone could tell me how to accomplish this. I guess my lack of knowledge about chess and chess engines makes it harder for me than it actually is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;/Tom&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8468" LastActivityDate="2015-10-12T00:12:06.720" Title="Working with UCI protocol (coding)" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;programming&gt;&lt;uci&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12581" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12580" CreationDate="2015-10-12T00:12:06.720" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let's use Stockfish to find out the moves for this position&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;N7/P3pk1p/3p2p1/r4p2/8/4b2B/4P1KP/1R6 w - - 0 34&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The FEN string is: &quot;N7/P3pk1p/3p2p1/r4p2/8/4b2B/4P1KP/1R6 w - - 0 34&quot;. You should copy-and-paste my commands to experience yourself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Load the position by &quot;position fen ...&quot; and then use &quot;d&quot; to print the position. Please note that &quot;d&quot; is a Stockfish-only command.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;tedwong@:~$ stockfish&#xA;Stockfish 6 64 by Tord Romstad, Marco Costalba and Joona Kiiski&#xA;position fen N7/P3pk1p/3p2p1/r4p2/8/4b2B/4P1KP/1R6 w - - 0 34        &#xA;d&#xA;&#xA; +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+&#xA; | N |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |&#xA; +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+&#xA; | P |   |   |   | p | k |   | p |&#xA; +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+&#xA; |   |   |   | p |   |   | p |   |&#xA; +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+&#xA; | r |   |   |   |   | p |   |   |&#xA; +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+&#xA; |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |&#xA; +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+&#xA; |   |   |   |   | b |   |   | B |&#xA; +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+&#xA; |   |   |   |   | P |   | K | P |&#xA; +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+&#xA; |   | R |   |   |   |   |   |   |&#xA; +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+&#xA;&#xA;Fen: N7/P3pk1p/3p2p1/r4p2/8/4b2B/4P1KP/1R6 w - - 0 34&#xA;Key: 4E025494EA4A7523&#xA;Checkers: &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ask the engine to think for 30s and set the number of principal variations to 3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;setoption name MultiPV value 3&#xA;go movetime 30000&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You'll see a bunch of engine outputs. In particular, you should something like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;info depth 5 seldepth 5 multipv 1 score cp -5 nodes 1540 nps 54 tbhits 0 time 28098 pv a8b6 e3b6 b1b6 a5a7 e2e3&#xA;info depth 5 seldepth 5 multipv 2 score cp -8 nodes 1540 nps 54 tbhits 0 time 28098 pv a8c7 e3a7 c7b5 h7h6 b5a7&#xA;info depth 4 seldepth 5 multipv 3 score cp -10 nodes 1540 nps 54 tbhits 0 time 28098 pv g2f3 a5a7 a8b6 a7a3&#xA;info depth 5 currmove g2f3 currmovenumber 3&#xA;info nodes 1618 time 30049&#xA;bestmove a8b6 ponder e3b6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here, Stockfish gives three possible lines: Nb6, Nc7 and Kf3. The lines are sorted in terms of the advantage for the side to move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's check what if your friend blunders a rook by Ra1... We expect Stockfish to report ...Rxa1 with a winning advantage for Black. I use &lt;a href=&quot;http://analysis.cpuchess.com&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://analysis.cpuchess.com&lt;/a&gt; to make the move and get a new FEN.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;N7/P3pk1p/3p2p1/r4p2/8/4b2B/4P1KP/R7 b - - 1 34&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The new FEN is: &quot;N7/P3pk1p/3p2p1/r4p2/8/4b2B/4P1KP/R7 b - - 1 34&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;position fen &quot;N7/P3pk1p/3p2p1/r4p2/8/4b2B/4P1KP/R7 b - - 1 34&quot;&#xA;go move time 30000&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should see something like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;info depth 25 seldepth 38 multipv 1 score cp 692 nodes 34732679 nps 1391812 tbhits 0 time 24955 pv a5a1 a8c7 e3a7 g2g3 a1a3 g3g2 a3a5 e2e4 a7b8 c7d5 f5e4 d5c3 d6d5 h3c8 b8e5 c3d1 a5a2 g2f1 e5h2 c8b7 e7e6 d1e3 a2b2 b7a8 b2b5 f1f2 h2f4 e3d1 b5c5 a8b7 c5c2 f2e1 f7f6&#xA;info depth 25 seldepth 38 multipv 2 score cp 62 nodes 34732679 nps 1391812 tbhits 0 time 24955 pv a5a7 a1a7 e3a7 g2f1 d6d5 h3g2 e7e6 h2h3 f7e7 a8c7 a7b6 c7a6 e7d6 a6b4 b6d4 b4c2 d4c5 f1e1 g6g5 g2f3 d6e5 e2e3 f5f4 e1e2 f4e3 c2e3&#xA;info depth 24 seldepth 38 multipv 3 score cp -480 nodes 34732679 nps 1391812 tbhits 0 time 24955 pv e3a7 a1a5 a7d4 a5a4 d4e3 a8c7 e3b6 c7d5 b6c5 e2e4 e7e6 d5c7 f7f6 a4a6 f6e5 e4f5 e6f5 g2g3 c5d4 h3f1 h7h6 c7e8 d4c5 a6a5 e5e6 e8c7 e6d7 c7d5 c5d4 g3f3 d4e5 f1b5 d7e6 d5f4 e6f7 a5a8&#xA;bestmove a5a1 ponder a8c7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As can you can see the evaluation drops to &quot;cp 692&quot;. It was &quot;cp -5&quot; before our move. Therefore the move Ra1 must have been a gross blunder.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please read the UCI specification for more details.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Your job will be:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Connect an engine to your favourite programming language. You can do it by inter-process communication. There are lots of examples on Google.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Issue UCI commands like how I did.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Parse the commands. You might want to use like a string tokeniser.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Make a move (like how I did with Ra1) to get an evaluation of the move.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2015-10-12T00:12:06.720" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12582" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12583" CreationDate="2015-10-12T07:07:24.613" Score="17" ViewCount="3119" Body="&lt;p&gt;From &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/4427/what-is-the-correct-resignation-procedure&quot;&gt;What is the correct resignation procedure?&lt;/a&gt; it is clear that, although FIDE has no special rules governing on &lt;em&gt;how&lt;/em&gt; you resign, it is common to either offer your hand or make some sort of exclamation (i.e. &quot;I resign!&quot;). What is important is that your intention to resign is unambiguous.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, the rivalry between Kramnik and Topalov has gone to such an extend that each player refuses to shake the other's hand or engage in any kind of pleasantries. Which raises the question - how do they go about resigning when playing each other without creating confusion about their intention?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1816" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-09-01T23:43:14.343" LastActivityDate="2019-09-01T23:43:14.343" Title="How do Kramnik and Topalov indicate a resignation when they play together?" Tags="&lt;resigning&gt;&lt;kramnik&gt;&lt;topalov&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="12583" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12582" CreationDate="2015-10-12T08:11:41.817" Score="18" Body="&lt;p&gt;If I remember correctly, they either just sign the scoresheet or stop the clock first and then sign the scoresheet to indicate that they resigned. There is no handshake, and they do not speak to each other since the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Chess_Championship_2006#Bathroom_controversy&quot;&gt;WCC2006 controversy&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are two examples:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://youtu.be/Ab2trGXekwc?t=4h57m48s&quot;&gt;Candidates Tournament 2014, Rd. 13&lt;/a&gt; (Kramnik-Topalov 1-0),&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://youtu.be/DWsQT2iovY0?t=57m22s&quot;&gt;Norway Chess 2014, Rd. 6&lt;/a&gt; (Topalov-Kramnik 1-0).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Addendum.&lt;/strong&gt; Not asked in the original post, but one interesting (and related) question is also: How do Kramnik and Topalov agree to a draw? Signing the scoresheet or stopping the clock is not appropriate in this case, since the opponent might want to continue playing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One obvious way is to repeat the position three times. If there is no threefold repetition on the horizon, the players can offer a draw through the arbiter (like in Sofia rules, used, for example, during the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Chess_Championship_2010#Match_conditions&quot;&gt;WCC 2010&lt;/a&gt;). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2792" LastEditorUserId="2792" LastEditDate="2015-10-12T15:05:06.920" LastActivityDate="2015-10-12T15:05:06.920" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12584" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12582" CreationDate="2015-10-12T08:48:15.993" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Knocking over your king has always been a perfectly acceptable way of resigning. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With the king being the tallest piece on the board it can often happen that somebody wearing a long sleeved shirt can accidentally knock over their king when moving a piece near the king. I often, as a joke, hold out my hand before they've had a chance to pick the king up as if accepting their resignation. If they look puzzled rather than amused I point to their horizontal king. Hopefully at that stage they'll smile.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2015-10-12T08:48:15.993" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12585" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12518" CreationDate="2015-10-12T14:02:46.397" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;After reading a bunch of open source code, I just found out that most of them are relying on &lt;em&gt;Chesspresso&lt;/em&gt; which is a solid Java Chess library that can handle move validation, PGN parser (what I was looking for), chessboard renderering, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The code is well-documented and easy to understand. It took me around 30 minutes to read the code and start testing. Pretty happy with this library.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can download the source code from sourceforge: &lt;a href=&quot;http://sourceforge.net/projects/chesspresso/files/?source=navbar&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chesspresso Source Code&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Sample code:&lt;/strong&gt; (This is a fragment from Game class, I just need to add more detail for the header section and I will be ready to dump each pgn game into my database).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    public String getHeaderString(int line)&#xA;{&#xA;    if (line == 0) {&#xA;        StringBuffer sb = new StringBuffer();&#xA;        sb.append(getWhite());&#xA;        if (getWhiteElo() != 0) sb.append(&quot; [&quot;).append(getWhiteElo()).append(&quot;]&quot;);&#xA;        sb.append(&quot; - &quot;).append(getBlack());&#xA;        if (getBlackElo() != 0) sb.append(&quot; [&quot;).append(getBlackElo()).append(&quot;]&quot;);&#xA;        sb.append(&quot;  &quot;).append(getResultStr()).append(&quot;  (&quot;).append(getNumOfMoves()).append(&quot;)&quot;);&#xA;        return sb.toString();&#xA;    } else if (line == 1) {&#xA;        StringBuffer sb = new StringBuffer();&#xA;        sb.append(getEvent()).append(&quot;, &quot;).append(getSite()).append(&quot;, &quot;).append(getDate());&#xA;        sb.append(&quot;  [&quot;).append(getRound()).append(&quot;]&quot;);&#xA;        return sb.toString();&#xA;    } else if (line == 2) {&#xA;        return getECO();&#xA;    } else {&#xA;        throw new RuntimeException(&quot;Only 3 header lines supported&quot;);&#xA;    }&#xA;}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8401" LastActivityDate="2015-10-12T14:02:46.397" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12586" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12588" CreationDate="2015-10-13T01:17:08.580" Score="6" ViewCount="282" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have invented (to the best of my knowledge) a really decent opening. I would like to note that over the ICC I have actually beaten a few masters with this opening, with one master having an ICC rating of 2400 (45 45). I would like to popularize my opening without somebody else stealing it from me, but I really don't know how. Is there a way to do this type of thing?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user8213" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-09-15T03:31:44.127" LastActivityDate="2020-09-15T03:31:44.127" Title="Opening creation-is it ever possible?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="11" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="12587" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12590" CreationDate="2015-10-13T08:01:32.513" Score="6" ViewCount="6378" Body="&lt;p&gt;Friend right now is trying to en passant me with a king. I'm saying that its not legal. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He won't believe me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He is saying that any opposing piece can capture the en passant pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2697" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2016-09-08T15:51:42.870" LastActivityDate="2018-11-29T19:02:40.757" Title="Can you capture a pawn en passant with a king?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;en-passant&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ClosedDate="2020-03-03T21:32:36.897" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12588" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12586" CreationDate="2015-10-13T08:09:49.487" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Openings cannot be copyrighted, but analysis and comments can be. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The best you can do is probably to publish an extensive analysis of the variation online (or in a magazine, but you should make sure it is available online as well). In that article you should explicitly name the variation. You might also want to throw in some engine-engine games, instead of just concentrating on your own games. Real tournament games would probably be more convincing than online games as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you do that you can always prove precedence by pointing out your article if somebody tries to reinvent and rename the variation. If the article is well written and contains high-level games, it is also quite likely that other people interested in the variation will quote/link you, i.e. accept and cement your precedence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-10-13T08:09:49.487" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12590" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12587" CreationDate="2015-10-13T08:13:59.433" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;An en passant capture is a move that involves pawns, exclusively. In particular, the king is not allowed to capture en passant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From Wikipedia (&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/En_passant&quot;&gt;link&lt;/a&gt;):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;It is a special pawn capture, that can only occur immediately after a pawn moves two ranks forward from its starting position, and an enemy &lt;strong&gt;pawn&lt;/strong&gt; could have captured it had the pawn moved only one square forward. The opponent captures the just-moved pawn &quot;as it passes&quot; through the first square. The resulting position is the same as if the pawn had moved only one square forward and the enemy pawn had captured it normally.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2792" LastEditorUserId="2297" LastEditDate="2015-10-13T14:10:47.220" LastActivityDate="2015-10-13T14:10:47.220" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12591" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12593" CreationDate="2015-10-13T10:26:38.953" Score="3" ViewCount="388" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am watching an annotated chess game, and the narration goes like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The game I am about to show you was played in the last round of an open tournament in Bad Weise, Germany. My score was 6 and 2 going.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What does the last sentence mean?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="106" OwnerDisplayName="Armen Tsirunyan" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2016-01-09T15:33:24.063" LastActivityDate="2020-02-18T21:55:22.973" Title="What does 6 and 2 going mean?" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;terminology&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12592" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12591" CreationDate="2015-10-13T11:25:53.267" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.schach-bad-wiessee.de&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Bad Wiessee&lt;/a&gt; hosts a strong chess tournament every year. It generally has nine rounds. So although I'm not familiar with this exact expression, it is pretty clear that the speaker means that he scored 6 points out of 8 rounds before the final (and ninth) round. I have seen this kind of score being written as 6:2, possibly &quot;six and two going&quot; is the correct way to read this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: To clarify, the &quot;2&quot; is the number of points missing from a perfect score, not the number of games still to be played. In other sports it might be the number of losses. In chess it can also contain draws i.e. half points.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-10-13T11:25:53.267" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12593" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12591" CreationDate="2015-10-13T12:20:01.473" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;6 and 2 going&quot; is not idiomatic English or chess-speak.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My first assumption is that there are words missing and the speaker actually said or meant &quot;My score was 6 and 2 going into this round.&quot; This means that s/he earned 6 points out of the possible 8 in the previous 8 rounds (you get 1 point for a win, 1/2 point for a draw, and 0 points for a loss) before the game being annotated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2015-10-13T12:20:01.473" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12594" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12595" CreationDate="2015-10-13T13:42:14.893" Score="4" ViewCount="1084" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;strong&gt;Franco-Benoni defense&lt;/strong&gt; is characterized by the black moves:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;[startply &amp;quot;4&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e6 2. d4 c5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The books I've read on the French defense contain none or very little information about this opening. Are there any &amp;quot;authoritative&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;main line&amp;quot; references or books that investigate this opening? Are any of you using this opening in your games? Where do you get your information from?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4215" LastEditorUserId="27142" LastEditDate="2021-05-14T09:44:49.900" LastActivityDate="2021-05-14T09:44:49.900" Title="Any reference material on the Franco-Benoni defense?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;franco-benoni&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="12595" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12594" CreationDate="2015-10-13T14:23:56.393" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is &lt;a href=&quot;https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/0945470177&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;a book on the Franco-Benoni&lt;/a&gt;. (Using the alternative name &amp;quot;Barcza-Larsen&amp;quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's rather old (1991) but I would guess theory doesn't move that quickly in the Franco-Benoni. It's probably a good way to get started, but you might want to check the lines with an engine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: There is also &lt;a href=&quot;https://web.archive.org/web/20011019080242/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/kibitz13.txt&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;a short article by Harding&lt;/a&gt; on chesscafe.com.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2021-05-13T22:23:04.223" LastActivityDate="2021-05-13T22:23:04.223" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="12596" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12600" CreationDate="2015-10-13T16:00:21.350" Score="2" ViewCount="330" Body="&lt;p&gt;So i am implementing an intelligent chess agent with the use of reinforcement learning.I intend to use Java.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After reading the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.phil.uu.nl/preprints/ckiscripties/SCRIPTIES/029_mannen.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;master thesis of H.Mannen&lt;/a&gt; i decided to use some of the features listed on Appendix B of his master that can be found on page 67.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Edit- Description of the features:&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-&lt;strong&gt;Board control&lt;/strong&gt; : amount of empty squares controlled by a side&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-&lt;strong&gt;Connectivity&lt;/strong&gt; : amount of connectedness between the pieces of a side&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-&lt;strong&gt;King’s distance to center&lt;/strong&gt; amount of squares a king is separated from one of the center squares e4, d4, e5, d5&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-&lt;strong&gt;Total mobility&lt;/strong&gt; : total sum of squares reachable by a side&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-&lt;strong&gt;Center control&lt;/strong&gt; : amount of pawns occupying the squares e4, d4, e5, d5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-&lt;strong&gt;Isolated pawns&lt;/strong&gt; : amount of pawns without a pawn of its own side on an adjacent line.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-&lt;strong&gt;Doubled pawns&lt;/strong&gt; : amount of pawns, greater than 1, on 1 line. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-&lt;strong&gt;Passed pawns&lt;/strong&gt; : amount of pawns without an enemy pawn ahead of it on the same or an adjacent line.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-&lt;strong&gt;Pawn forks&lt;/strong&gt; : amount of pawns which attack two superior pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Due to the fact that my project is focused on the AI part of the chess agent i would like to use some preexisting open source Java libraries or functions that automate the proccess of extracting these features from the chessboard.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After searching, the only thing i found was &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesspresso.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chesspresso&lt;/a&gt; but it comes with no tutorial and i was unable to find one. So i have two questions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-Do you know any good tutorials for Chesspresso?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-Are aware of any Java open source library that will help me extract the features i want from the chessboard so i can reduce the programming cost of the project?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks in advance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8485" LastEditorUserId="8485" LastEditDate="2015-10-13T19:55:39.323" LastActivityDate="2015-10-17T06:33:16.430" Title="Extracting features from chessboard" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;pgn&gt;&lt;evaluation&gt;&lt;chessbase&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12597" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12598" CreationDate="2015-10-13T16:22:42.467" Score="2" ViewCount="45" Body="&lt;p&gt;Do they flip a coin to determine white player? Does the person in that round who has higher points choose? Do they rotate (and if so, how is the first round white player determined)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8486" LastActivityDate="2015-10-13T16:42:17.110" Title="in Sinquefield Cup how is white player determined?" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12598" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12597" CreationDate="2015-10-13T16:37:02.147" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;In &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Round-robin_tournament&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;round-robin tournaments&lt;/a&gt;, the schedule is known in advance. A very common schedule for 10 players starts with the following games in the first rounds:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Round 1: 1-10 2-9 3-8 4-7 5-6&#xA;Round 2: 10-6 7-5 8-4 9-3 1-2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(see &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Round-robin_tournament#Scheduling_algorithm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this Wikipedia article&lt;/a&gt; for more details)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which player corresponds with which &lt;em&gt;pairing number&lt;/em&gt; is determined before the tournament. Traditionally, this is just some kind of lottery, where each player is assigned a random number. It seems this was also the case for &lt;a href=&quot;http://grandchesstour.com/content/rules-regulations&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Sinquefield 2015&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Pairing numbers will be drawn randomly at the Sinquefield Cup&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For another Grand Chess Tour tournament, Norway Chess 2015, they had a blitz tournament the day before. The winner of that tournament could pick a number first. Because with an even number of players, you play an odd number of games,  the winner could pick a number, say 1, that would give him white in 5 games and black in only 4. The runner-up of the blitz tournament could pick next, and so on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2015-10-13T16:42:17.110" LastActivityDate="2015-10-13T16:42:17.110" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12599" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12586" CreationDate="2015-10-13T16:49:00.163" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I suggest you to read the story of the invention of the &lt;a href=&quot;https://gavinwilson.wordpress.com/2008/03/16/the-kingston-defence-revisited/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Kingston Defence&lt;/a&gt; by Gavin Wilson. Based on this story I would advise you the following actions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Be sure to triple check your opening hasn't got a name yet. See &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.webcitation.org/query?url=http://www.geocities.com/siliconvalley/lab/7378/eco.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;. You never know, it could appear in some obscure publication you don't know about...&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Work on your opening until you are sure you have analysed all the main responses for white and for black. Better testing it with your computer than against real players at this stage, to diminish the probability of it being &quot;stolen&quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Find a good name for your opening.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Publish your opening, as suggested by BlindKungFuMaster. A book, an article in a chess magazine, an online video... that's up to you.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Get some publicity for your opening/publication. See if you can find someone to make a review/comment on your publication. And be sure to play it.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3757" LastActivityDate="2015-10-13T16:49:00.163" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12600" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12596" CreationDate="2015-10-13T23:38:51.393" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;While I certainly don't know every Java library for chess, I'd be surprised to see a library designed to extract features like what you describe. There shouldn't be one because nobody else needs it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Fortunately, everything you said is implemented and more or less there, but you'll have to do some works. You should consider to use an open-source project that has bitboard implemented (such as Droidfish or any Java engine uses bitboards). You'll need to learn how to use bitboards, but you'll find it useful to do what you want to do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, you can get total mobility by masking the attacking pieces with the opponent pieces, something like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;(squares attacked by my pieces on an empty board) &amp;amp; (their pieces)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As another example, we can get board control by:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;(squares attacked by my pieces on an empty board) &amp;amp; !(squares attacked by their pieces on an empty board)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the documentation on Chesspresso, I doubt there is anything better than it's &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesspresso.org/javadoc/index.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Java docs&lt;/a&gt;. You'll need to learn to read their documentation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2015-10-13T23:38:51.393" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12601" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8327" CreationDate="2015-10-14T16:29:13.200" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;IMO, Lichess ratings are a little bit inflated. My rating at lichess topped at ~1750 while my FIDE rating is ~1500. In comparison , chess.com is a little bit less inflated. My Standard (30 min) there is ~1600 which is about the same for the top player I could beat at my level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7066" LastActivityDate="2015-10-14T16:29:13.200" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12602" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4561" CreationDate="2015-10-15T02:56:51.847" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Initialy I posted that only 8 promotions for both sides are posible because pawns are oposed in the same file and to promote one have to be taken.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edited:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think that for each promotion one pawn or a piece shoud be taken. Because pawns are in front of each other ,blacks and whites ,to promote one of both have to move to the side(take another piece or pawn) or be taken. then I recalculated the final result to &lt;strong&gt;80094&lt;/strong&gt; diferent legal piece combinations. I created this script to show all (i modified thanks to the comments of lodebari)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;(function (pieceset) {&#xA;    'use strict';&#xA;    var n = 0,&#xA;        cc = function cc(arr) {&#xA;            var temparr=arr.slice(0);&#xA;            while (temparr[0]&amp;gt;=0) {&#xA;                while (temparr[1]&amp;gt;=0) {&#xA;                    while (temparr[2]&amp;gt;=0) {&#xA;                        while (temparr[3]&amp;gt;=0) {&#xA;                            while (temparr[4]&amp;gt;=0) {&#xA;                                var maxp = 0;&#xA;                                var nump = temparr[1]+temparr[2]+temparr[3]+temparr[4]; &#xA;                                if (temparr[1]&amp;gt;4) maxp+=(temparr[1]-4);&#xA;                                if (temparr[2]&amp;gt;4) maxp+=(temparr[2]-4);&#xA;                                if (temparr[3]&amp;gt;4) maxp+=(temparr[3]-4);&#xA;                                if (temparr[4]&amp;gt;2) maxp+=(temparr[4]-2);&#xA;                                nump = nump - maxp;&#xA;                                if ((maxp+temparr[0]&amp;lt;=16)&amp;amp;&amp;amp;((nump+temparr[0]+(maxp*2))&amp;lt;=30)) {&#xA;                                    n++;&#xA;                                    console.log(n,&quot;-&amp;gt;&quot;,temparr);&#xA;                                }&#xA;                                temparr[4]=temparr[4]-1;&#xA;                            }&#xA;                            temparr[4]=arr[4];&#xA;                            temparr[3]=temparr[3]-1;&#xA;                        }&#xA;                        temparr[3]=arr[3];&#xA;                        temparr[2]=temparr[2]-1;&#xA;                    }&#xA;                    temparr[2]=arr[2];&#xA;                    temparr[1]=temparr[1]-1;&#xA;                }&#xA;                temparr[1]=arr[1];&#xA;                temparr[0]=temparr[0]-1;&#xA;            }&#xA;            return 0;&#xA;        };&#xA;    cc(pieceset);&#xA;}([16,20,20,20,18,2]));&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you run it it print lines like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1 '-&amp;gt;' [ 16, 4, 4, 4, 2, 2 ]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the fist number its the combination number followed by Pawns,Rooks,Knights,Bishops,Queens,Kings. The fist line corresponds the fist position with full board, and the last with the two kings alone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can try here : &lt;a href=&quot;https://repl.it/xlO/4&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://repl.it/xlO/4&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8495" LastEditorUserId="8495" LastEditDate="2015-10-15T20:03:29.863" LastActivityDate="2015-10-15T20:03:29.863" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12603" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-10-15T10:12:01.140" Score="1" ViewCount="135" Body="&lt;p&gt;Suppose one want to have a strategy so one can win over a &quot;normal/average&quot; chess-player. I was thinking that there was a set of strategies which could be combined so that  one could memorize it? Say the opening and the middle game. Then one could always win over a &quot;non experienced&quot; chess-player. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8499" LastActivityDate="2020-01-16T19:19:47.457" Title="How to combine Basic Strategies to a winning-system" Tags="&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;online-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12604" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12603" CreationDate="2015-10-15T10:43:32.640" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;That's not how chess works.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess has &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shannon_number&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;too many possibilities&lt;/a&gt; for a &quot;one size fits all&quot;-strategy or set of strategies that you could learn by heart. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At the risk of repeating myself: Learning chess is like learning a language. It's kind of hard to learn a set of sentences that allow you to win any debate against an average debater.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Instead, &quot;understanding&quot; is the key. Languages and chess have to be learnt the hard way: Maybe some rote learning can be beneficial, but mostly you'll need lots of practice and exposure to &quot;good chess&quot;/correct language until you have developed an intuition about sentence structures/connotations/positions/tactics etc. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-10-15T10:43:32.640" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12605" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12603" CreationDate="2015-10-15T11:34:22.957" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is a knockout strategy that works, if you do all these things:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Move your pieces off the back row as soon as practical. Try to move at least one knight and one bishop before moving the queen, however.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Per #1, don't move the same piece twice in the beginning of the game without a good reason.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Castle as soon as you can.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Occupy the center of the board with your pawns and pieces. The center of the board allows you to attack either side, and constricts your opponent.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If you can take your opponent's pieces, do so. Material superiority is helpful. Be careful about traps, however.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;After you choose your move, use your mind to visualize the board as it will be in the next move or two.  If you don't like what you &quot;see&quot;, choose a different move.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2015-10-15T11:34:22.957" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12606" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12608" CreationDate="2015-10-15T18:04:41.150" Score="4" ViewCount="224" Body="&lt;p&gt;This may seem like a silly thing to want to do, but I have been thinking lately that some kind of training software that does the following might be helpful to me:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Show me a board position, and let me study it for a bit.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I click a button or something, and the position is no longer displayed.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;After some (hopefully configurable) period of time, it displays the next position in the move sequence.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I have to identify the move that was made that got from the first position to the second.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason this is something I'm interested in doing is in the interest of time management during tournaments.  If I want to get up and leave the board during a game (to use the restroom, get something to drink, just stretch my legs and walk around a bit - whatever), I never do it on my opponent's time - because if I return to the board and they've made a move, I can never tell what move they actually made without trying to peek at their scoresheet, or asking (which seems rude...).  So I end up only ever getting up and leaving the board when I'm on move, with my own clock running, and this seems sub-optimal.  This is something I've never been good at (being able to identify what move has been made if I don't actually see it happen), and I'd like to be better at it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there anything available that's intended for building this skill?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7147" LastActivityDate="2015-10-16T06:24:41.020" Title="Is this a kind of training software that actually exists?" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;training&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12607" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-10-16T06:15:39.830" Score="2" ViewCount="922" Body="&lt;p&gt;what are the top parallel search algorithms used by top engines ,and which one is the best ?&#xA;And is there a reference implementation of them in any programming language ? I know most of  the top engines are open source but they tend to be extremely complex and unsuitable for learning .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8501" LastActivityDate="2015-10-19T19:07:31.067" Title="Search Algorithms used by top engines?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;chess-algorithms&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12608" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12606" CreationDate="2015-10-16T06:17:13.907" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not going to answer your question directly, but will attempt to address the root cause of your problem. The skill of seeing which move your opponent played in your absence is something that you should acquire naturally over time. In the beginning I also struggled with this, but after a few months I found that I can easily pick up which move my opponent played. This is probably due to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Becoming familiar with popular moves in your opening choices.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Anticipating opponent responses. It goes without saying that you should have an expectation of how your opponent will respond whenever you make a move, which cuts down on the number of potential moves you need to actively remember.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;An improved ability to keep track of all the pieces on the board - in the beginning, 32 pieces feel like a lot, but over time your mind start to keep track of the individual pieces.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Improvement over time at spotting common tactical themes/motifs/patterns. Doing chess puzzles will probably help in this department.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In normal playing conditions you should never ask your opponent for anything, but you have a right to look at his scoresheet at any time, so don't feel uncomfortable when taking a peek if you are unsure about which move he played. When it is your move (as it would be in this situation) it is OK to even take his scoresheet physically and study it. I see this happening all the time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A quick note on your habit of leaving the table when it's your move - I believe it is now against FIDE rules to leave the board while it is your turn - you may want to make sure about whether that rule applies to your local competition to avoid any unpleasantness.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1816" LastEditorUserId="1816" LastEditDate="2015-10-16T06:24:41.020" LastActivityDate="2015-10-16T06:24:41.020" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12609" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12610" CreationDate="2015-10-16T11:05:48.103" Score="10" ViewCount="7491" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am searching for a broad and extensive games database (i.e. games played between real players.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can hardly seem to find any (even paid ones.) - However all sorts of chess software has these built in.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Where can I get my hands on one?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I will use it for a lot of analyses on different players, openings etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope someone can help me out!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8488" LastActivityDate="2019-10-28T23:12:45.497" Title="Are there any (free) games databases out there?" Tags="&lt;database&gt;" AnswerCount="9" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12610" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12609" CreationDate="2015-10-16T11:46:32.193" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.openingmaster.com/index.php/subscribe/membership&quot;&gt;pretty big one&lt;/a&gt; if you are willing to spend some 40 euro.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.top-5000.nl/pgn.htm&quot;&gt;This (Million Base 2.2)&lt;/a&gt; is the biggest free database I know of.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-10-16T11:46:32.193" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12611" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12609" CreationDate="2015-10-16T11:54:26.777" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;These databases could be interesting for you: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The Week In Chess (=&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.theweekinchess.com/twic&quot;&gt;TWIC&lt;/a&gt;) (free): updated every week, PGN format&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Mega Database of &lt;a href=&quot;https://shop.chessbase.com/en/cat_root&quot;&gt;ChessBase&lt;/a&gt; (commercial): requires the ChessBase gui&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Huge Database of &lt;a href=&quot;http://chessok.com/shop/&quot;&gt;ChessOK&lt;/a&gt; (commercial): requires the ChessAssistant gui&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4588" LastActivityDate="2015-10-16T11:54:26.777" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12612" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12609" CreationDate="2015-10-16T12:48:03.287" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;In addition to very good suggestions in the previous answers, you might also be interested in &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.pgnmentor.com/files.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Pgnmentor's site&lt;/a&gt; (free).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There you already have free databases sorted according to players and openings, as well as events (tournament, matches etc.). Of course, you can easily produce such thematic games collections from big databases mentioned in other answers, but still, I find separated databases pretty convenient (e.g. for themed research).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2792" LastEditorUserId="2792" LastEditDate="2015-10-16T13:45:05.170" LastActivityDate="2015-10-16T13:45:05.170" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12613" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-10-16T13:08:45.820" Score="8" ViewCount="1028" Body="&lt;p&gt;If a move reaches the 50-move rule and gives checkmate at the same time, does the checkmate take priority over the draw?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8465" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-01-05T21:20:23.357" LastActivityDate="2021-01-05T21:20:23.357" Title="Does checkmate over ride 50-move rule?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;draw&gt;&lt;50-move-rule&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="12614" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12613" CreationDate="2015-10-16T13:16:57.407" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You are allowed to make 50 moves to achieve mate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you make 51 moves, your opponent can claim a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You do not make a move to create the move violation, if you have not mated or otherwise ended the game before 50 moves have been made, the player on move may claim a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4093" LastEditorUserId="7500" LastEditDate="2015-10-16T20:50:05.207" LastActivityDate="2015-10-16T20:50:05.207" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12616" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12617" CreationDate="2015-10-16T13:41:54.077" Score="1" ViewCount="129" Body="&lt;p&gt;The official website for the WCC2010 is supposed to be (and previously was) located at (&lt;strong&gt;please do not visit the page until you read the whole post&lt;/strong&gt;): &lt;code&gt;http://www.anand-topalov.com/&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, unless I am very mistaken, the persons appearing on the above web address at this particular moment, do not look much like Anand or Topalov (protagonists of the WCC 2010). Nor does the content look to be related to chess (well, at least not to how I see chess).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I do not understand the language or the script, but from the pictures it seems that the new main topic of the site is breast enlargement. This leads me to believe that the site has been hacked. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does anybody know where to report this sort of thing? Is there another copy of the website, on some other location?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2792" LastActivityDate="2015-10-16T13:49:07.823" Title="What happened to the official website for the World Chess Championship 2010?" Tags="&lt;world-championship&gt;&lt;anand&gt;&lt;websites&gt;&lt;topalov&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12617" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12616" CreationDate="2015-10-16T13:49:07.823" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Apparently, FIDE didn't renew the site, so somebody purchased it. You can check the old contents at &lt;a href=&quot;http://web.archive.org/web/20100701000000*/http://www.anand-topalov.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://web.archive.org/web/20100701000000*/http://www.anand-topalov.com&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2015-10-16T13:49:07.823" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12618" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12613" CreationDate="2015-10-16T17:03:52.080" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;Checkmate overrides the 50 move rule.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=171&amp;amp;view=article&quot;&gt;Fide Handbook Article 9.3&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The game is drawn, upon a correct claim by a player having the move, if: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;a. he writes his move, which cannot be changed, on his scoresheet and declares to the arbiter his intention to make this move which will result in the last 50 moves by each player having been made without the movement of any pawn and without any capture, or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;b. the last 50 moves by each playerhave been completed without the movement of any pawn and without any capture.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The player making the move that mates could claim a, but he of course won't do it because he is about to win. The player losing &lt;em&gt;does not have the move&lt;/em&gt; after the checkmate, so he cannot claim the draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This interpretation is also confirmed by Geurt Gijssen, in his column &lt;a href=&quot;http://arbitri.lombardiascacchi.com/Chesscafe/2006_05.pdf&quot;&gt;An Arbiter's Notebook from 2006&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Regarding your remark about the 50-move rule: only the player on move is &#xA;  entitled to claim a draw, but he is not forced to claim it. So if the 50th move produces checkmate – the checkmate stands.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1761" LastActivityDate="2015-10-16T17:03:52.080" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12620" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-10-17T13:19:14.913" Score="2" ViewCount="73" Body="&lt;p&gt;A pawn can be promoted to a &lt;strong&gt;queen&lt;/strong&gt;, a &lt;strong&gt;knight&lt;/strong&gt;, a &lt;strong&gt;rook&lt;/strong&gt; or a &lt;strong&gt;bishop&lt;/strong&gt;. My question is why would someone want their pawn to be promoted to anything other than a queen? I can understand the knight promotion since their unconventional movement can lead to a sophisticated check mate, but other than that why would anyone promote their pawn to a rook or a bishop, since a queen can be both? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there any known occurrences where a player has promoted his/her pawn not to a queen?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8133" LastActivityDate="2015-10-17T13:19:14.913" Title="Why is there an option for the pawn to be promoted in any chess piece?" Tags="&lt;pawns&gt;&lt;pawn-promotion&gt;&lt;pawn-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2015-10-17T13:52:48.827" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12621" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12623" CreationDate="2015-10-17T14:43:58.393" Score="5" ViewCount="169" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have read a number of chess books by now, which either contained a number of analyzed games, or some tactics. But I am a little underwhelmed with completeness. What I am hoping exists is a really complete book that contains a bit of everything. I am reading silmans A-Z, which gets kind of close. But coming from academia I'm thinking of something more similar to a 2000pg textbook format, which after reading will have provided a relatively complete understanding many chess concepts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7507" LastActivityDate="2015-11-21T14:42:23.273" Title="Complete book of chess search" Tags="&lt;books&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12622" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-10-17T14:50:29.143" Score="9" ViewCount="1461" Body="&lt;p&gt;About a year ago I stumbled on &lt;a href=&quot;http://arena.myfide.net&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;arena.myfide.net&lt;/a&gt; which looked promising , and unique in the ability to get an actual Fide rating. But in that year no progress has been made with the site, and mobile support continues to say &quot;coming soon&quot;. Is this site dead? Or are they just really taking their time with it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7507" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-10-17T19:23:16.430" LastActivityDate="2019-10-17T19:23:16.430" Title="What happened with the Fide online areana?" Tags="&lt;online-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="12623" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12621" CreationDate="2015-10-17T14:53:10.600" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess-steps.com/&quot;&gt;Steps Method&lt;/a&gt; is a graduated series of books that attempts to provide all material necessary to take a player from complete beginner to expert. I have not used it but it has a strong reputation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To proceed past that, the best thing I can think of is Yusupov's 9-book course (&lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1906552010&quot;&gt;Build Up Your Chess&lt;/a&gt; et al), which is around 2700 pages in total and attempts to take a player from about 1500 FIDE to master. I am a bit more than halfway through and give it a great deal of credit for my rise from 1800 to 2000 USCF.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, either (or both) of these series must be supplemented by actually playing games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2015-10-17T14:53:10.600" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12624" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12302" CreationDate="2015-10-17T15:08:22.020" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;My rating when I was playing is around 2000-2100 ELO so hopefully some of this analysis is helpful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Early strategy&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Trying not to be too overly critical and from a basic perspective I think White had a big upper hand early on with a classic Sicilian style setup. Castling on the alternate queen-side in particular suggests that you're going to be attempting a kingside pawnstorm&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From the perspective on Black early on I think it's clear he was suffering from severe under-development. White had only one minor piece under-developed (by move 13) whereas Black still had his Queen underdeveloped plus two minor pieces hemming in his Rook. Also I'd argue Black was applying next to no pressure on the centre at all. I'd argue for a intermediate players it's not okay to concede the centre too early on. Some study of openings would be advantageous here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A rule of thumb is not to move a piece more than twice in the opening unless it's either a) part of a repertoire or b) required because a piece or there is a severe threat. Either way it's a good rule of thumb to follow.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Early mistakes&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would argue that White is in an excellent position by move 14. Both 7... h6?, 11... g5?, 12... Nh5? and 13... a6? are all early mistakes putting Black in a very bad position. Generally it's not advisable to weaken the pawn structure in front of your king (again without good cause) and here there's too much time for White to capitalise and punish Black's weak pawn structure. White missed 14.g4! Nf6 15. f4! gxf4 followed by 16. Bxf4. Threatening to win the pawn on h6 which either forces black to open his Kingside which is obviously not advisable or making a lot of concessions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Having observed the whole game the fact that Black was allowed to blockup White breaking open the Kingside (with g4) meant that he could buy himself sufficient time to generate counterplay. For me everything after that is a formality since a player who capitalises early on mistakes and follows through with conviction is often the player that ends up winning at the level you're talking about.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would recommend you check out books by Isaac Lipnitsky if you'd like to understand a bit more about positional play and the likes of Capablance or Nimzowitsch, who are positional masters, to understand what makes a good or bad positional move. This should improve your natural intuition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Best of luck - I hope that's helpful!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Two books I highly recommend: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.amazon.co.uk/System-Chess-Classics-Aron-Nimzowitsch/dp/9197600539/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;amp;qid=1445094664&amp;amp;sr=8-1&amp;amp;keywords=nimzowitsch%20my%20system&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot; title=&quot;Aron Nimzowitsch - My System&quot;&gt;Aron Nimzowitsch - My System&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.amazon.co.uk/Questions-Modern-Chess-Theory-Classics/dp/1906552037/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?ie=UTF8&amp;amp;qid=1445094725&amp;amp;sr=8-1-fkmr0&amp;amp;keywords=isaac%20lipnitsky&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot; title=&quot;Isaac Lipnitsky - Questions of Modern Chess Theory&quot;&gt;Isaac Lipnitsky - Questions of Modern Chess Theory&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5766" LastEditorUserId="5766" LastEditDate="2015-10-17T15:14:17.913" LastActivityDate="2015-10-17T15:14:17.913" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12625" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-10-18T05:42:34.163" Score="6" ViewCount="2950" Body="&lt;p&gt;I aways thought that the king and passed pawn vs. king and rook endgame was always drawn. But I had two passed pawns in the below game,with Black to move, I was unable to draw the game. Why is that?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/1R6/8/5pp1/3K1k2/8/8/8 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3149" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-06-16T21:30:33.333" LastActivityDate="2020-06-16T21:48:52.570" Title="Why is this king and two passed pawns vs. king and rook endgame not drawable?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;rooks&gt;&lt;passed-pawn&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="12626" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12625" CreationDate="2015-10-18T06:54:56.240" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is no absolute result for this type of endgame-it all depends on the position of the pieces. In fact, any result is possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Objectively, this particular position with black to move is a loss-you didn't make a mistake.I suggest you consult &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.shredderchess.com/online-chess/online-databases/endgame-database.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;endgame tablebase&lt;/a&gt;, which announce a loss in 24 moves with best play by Black. Here is an example line.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/1R6/8/5pp1/3K1k2/8/8/8 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... g4 2. Kd3 Kf3 3. Kd2 g3 4. Ke1 Ke3 5. Rb3+ Kf4 6. Kf1 Kg4 7. Kg2 f4 8. Rb4 Kf5 9. Kf3 Ke5 10. Rxf4 Kd5 11. Kxg3 Ke5 12. Kf3 Kd5 13. Re4 Kc5 14. Re5+ Kd4 15. Rf5 Kc3 16. Rf4 Kd2 17. Rd4+ Kc2 18. Ke2 Kc3 19. Re4 Kb2 20. Kd2 Kb3 21. Rd4 Kb2 22. Rd3 Ka1 23. Rb3 Ka2 24. Kc2 Ka1 25. Ra3#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the game, the White king is able to get and front of the Black pawns after Black tries to push them for promotion. White is then able to scoop them up as Black attempts to defend them with their king. Once Black is down to their king, it is a simple king and rook endgame for White. Win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some nice online resources about this endgame type:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess-insights.com/rook-vs-two-connected-pawns-part-four.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;General ideas and examples&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://likesforests.blogspot.dk/2007/08/rook-vs-2-pawns.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;More general ideas, examples and statistics&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chesscollection?cid=1003156&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Real games collection&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3831" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-06-16T21:48:52.570" LastActivityDate="2020-06-16T21:48:52.570" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="12628" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12621" CreationDate="2015-10-18T13:25:13.527" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mammoth-Book-Chess-Graham-Burgess/dp/1845299310&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot; title=&quot;The Mammoth Book of Chess&quot;&gt;The Mammoth Book of Chess&lt;/a&gt; to be a good all round book, if you're going to only buy one, it pretty much covers everything. It has a Tactics section with easy/hard/medium, endgames tactics section, openings overviews with example games separated into open/semiopen/closed openings, mid game and end game strategies sections, and I think a history section and a computing section. You can get a second hand one quite easily.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8517" LastActivityDate="2015-10-18T13:25:13.527" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12629" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12632" CreationDate="2015-10-18T18:32:38.460" Score="3" ViewCount="329" Body="&lt;p&gt;Today at the local tournament I noticed something strange. It was my turn, and my opponent's clock was running.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My opponent had pulled the time control of his neighbor, accidentally. We were playing two on each table, sitting four people on each table in a room. Some time had gone while our dear neighbor had lost time on the clock. Naturally, we did like this, pulling his clock. How much extra time would our neighbor get, the one whose clock had been pulled?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I called the judge and we tried to correct the mistake in a very improvised manner.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We did not know how long it had been this way. What to do?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7773" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-11-14T22:30:35.933" LastActivityDate="2020-11-15T02:19:43.373" Title="If an opponent's clock is pulled, how much extra time is given?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;time-control&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="12630" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12607" CreationDate="2015-10-18T20:00:32.903" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;For most engines, this is proprietary information. However, Stockfish is quite good and is open source; its search algorithm is found &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/blob/master/src/search.cpp&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8517" LastActivityDate="2015-10-18T20:00:32.903" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12631" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12607" CreationDate="2015-10-18T20:23:55.073" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can read all about chess programming &lt;a href=&quot;http://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In general, chess engines start with some form of minimax algorithm with alpha-beta pruning, then add in refinements.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2297" LastActivityDate="2015-10-18T20:23:55.073" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12632" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12629" CreationDate="2015-10-18T21:49:52.220" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;First of all: unbiased sources might be available. A spectator might have noticed it or a player might have recorded clock readings on the scoresheet. DGT boards record the exact time, too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Naturally, the player who lost time &lt;em&gt;should&lt;/em&gt; get back exactly the time he lost.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now three unreliable sources of information are available to the arbiter: the person who accidentally pressed the wrong clock and the two players on the other board. They should be able to agree on a rough estimate of the time elapsed. (Has it been five minutes or ten? You should be able to tell.) The arbiter should adjust &lt;em&gt;both&lt;/em&gt; clocks accordingly, maybe adding a minute for the disturbance caused.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is governed by article 6.13 in the FIDE laws of chess:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If an irregularity occurs and/or the pieces have to be restored to a previous position, the arbiter shall use his best judgement to determine the times to be shown on the clocks. He shall also, if necessary, adjust the clock’s move counter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2715" LastEditorUserId="2715" LastEditDate="2020-11-15T02:19:43.373" LastActivityDate="2020-11-15T02:19:43.373" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="12634" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12637" CreationDate="2015-10-19T13:44:22.950" Score="4" ViewCount="3335" Body="&lt;p&gt;A quote from Wikipedia:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The objective is to 'checkmate' the opponent's king by placing it under an inescapable threat of capture.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Suppose two players (A and B) play the game using the old fashioned way (no computer involved). If player A has player B's king checked from two positions.  Player B only knows how to block one of those two attacked positions. But there is a way for Player B to make a single move and block both attackers. What would be the proceeding of the game next? Should player A show player B how to do it? Or does the game end with player A winning even through this is not a checkmate?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8527" LastEditorUserId="291" LastEditDate="2015-10-19T16:48:32.377" LastActivityDate="2015-10-19T23:31:54.517" Title="What happens if a player mistakenly thinks they have been checkmated?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;rules&gt;&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;check&gt;&lt;winning&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12636" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12634" CreationDate="2015-10-19T15:21:40.173" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I guess the question is what to do if one player doesn't find a legal move, but it is not checkmate. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In a tournament game he would lose on time, lose because of repeated illegal moves or possibly resign. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In a friendly game between amateurs you can handle the situation any way you like. It depends on whether you value the competitive or the social side of playing chess more. I would say if you allow takebacks, you might as well show player B the defence, otherwise a loss is the sensible result.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-10-19T15:21:40.173" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12637" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12634" CreationDate="2015-10-19T15:56:58.813" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;If player B is checked in two different ways, then there is by definition no way for player B to block both attackers &lt;em&gt;with a single move&lt;/em&gt;. The only way to get out of double check is to move the king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If there's a square for player B's king to move to that is safe, then he can get out of the check. If player B simply doesn't see it, then in a friendly game player A can certainly show player B where to move his king. In a competitive game player A should probably just let player B lose on time or forfeit by making an illegal move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If there's no square for player B's king to move to that is safe, then it is in fact checkmate. Player A wins.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3884" LastActivityDate="2015-10-19T15:56:58.813" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12638" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-10-19T18:24:27.297" Score="4" ViewCount="649" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would like to have Stockfish (or another strong engine) automatically analyze a very large database of games (&gt;1M games), so that the analysis is as strong as possible while making the best use of my computational resources. A naive approach would be to run Stockfish on every position in every game to a certain depth, and then report the evaluation. But this would waste CPU cycles on calculating trivial positions for way too long, for example positions in which a simple recapture is obviously the only not-losing move. How should I determine how long I should let the engine think in each position?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8530" LastActivityDate="2015-12-19T01:06:21.673" Title="How to use Stockfish to automatically analyze big DB of games" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;programming&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="11" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12640" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12607" CreationDate="2015-10-19T19:07:31.067" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Best performing algorithms are YBWC and DTS. Lazy SMP is probably giving best performance/complexity ratio. You can read more about parallel search algorithms &lt;a href=&quot;http://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Parallel+Search&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; (make sure to check referencies and links. &#xA;As for reference realization, I haven't seen any, so I just used simpler engines with parallel search,  and, mostly, algorithms descriptions. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2213" LastActivityDate="2015-10-19T19:07:31.067" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12641" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12634" CreationDate="2015-10-19T20:19:53.353" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Each tournament has its rules, but what I was taught as a child when I played was that the agreement of the players was the end of the game; if you weren't checkmated, it was treated as though you resigned because you thought the position was a lost position.  Shake on it, and the game is decided.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As the winning player, it was considered unsportsmanlike to not point out the available move, but not obligatory.  The winner may not notice the move itself!  I remember one game where castling was the difference between being mated and winning the game, but it never occurred to either player that, that late in the game, someone might not have moved either their king or rook.  I also heard of one game which would have been won by an en-passent (but I never did confirm that it occurred).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the end, it really depends on the situation.  &lt;strong&gt;If there's more important things than winning (like having fun and learning), not pointing it out is bad form.&lt;/strong&gt;  If winning is all there is (which might happen in some master level play for large money), then... well... hopefully you don't make a mistake like this.  Usually the mistake at the masters level is resigning from a winning position, and they usually don't need their opponent to tell them about the mistake later -- all of their friends and their chess computers will make sure they know afterwards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6885" LastActivityDate="2015-10-19T20:19:53.353" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12642" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12634" CreationDate="2015-10-19T23:31:54.517" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Once the players agree that the game is over and agree who has won, it's over. If later the player who lost realizes they had a saving resource, it is too late. The game is over.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2015-10-19T23:31:54.517" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12643" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12638" CreationDate="2015-10-19T23:50:53.707" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Run a shallow search (you might want to add multi-pv). Check the magnuitude of the lines if you want to re-run a proper search. Although this sounds weird, but this is a very common strategy in Stockfish (eg: move reductions). Your won't waste your previous search because the hash-table should speed up your next search. You can read more &lt;a href=&quot;https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Hash+Table&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, you wouldn't want to waste CPU cycles in a position where white is a rook ahead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Otherwise, I don't see a non-trivial way to detect if a position is &quot;interesting&quot; to search.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2015-10-19T23:50:53.707" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12644" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8215" CreationDate="2015-10-20T02:35:14.953" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You will have to use one of ChessBase's chess playing programs like &quot;Fritz&quot; to display additional statistical information. In this example the column &quot;Prob&quot; gives the general probability for each move of a specific position while the column &quot;[%]&quot; shows the actual preference of a chess engine to play the move from the openings book. The engine preference can be tweaked based on variety of play and influence of learning value.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/QON8r.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/QON8r.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8532" LastActivityDate="2015-10-20T02:35:14.953" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12645" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5657" CreationDate="2015-10-20T05:26:25.327" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can try the Exchange Variation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 Bg7 4. e4 d6 5. Nf3 O-O 6. Be2 e5 7. dxe5 dxe5 8. Qxd8 Rxd8&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;GM Gregory Serper has an article covering the opening &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/article/view/find-your-own-quotmiraclequot-opening&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7500" LastActivityDate="2015-10-20T05:26:25.327" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12646" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12647" CreationDate="2015-10-21T00:10:19.827" Score="6" ViewCount="616" Body="&lt;p&gt;A quote from Wikipedia for castling rule:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;the squares between the king and the rook involved are unoccupied&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What if the squares are not occupied at this instance but an opponent piece was there before?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I tried on a computer chess game, it would not allow a castling move.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8527" LastActivityDate="2015-10-21T00:18:58.717" Title="Castling rule clarification" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;castling&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12647" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12646" CreationDate="2015-10-21T00:18:58.717" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;FIDE Article 3.8:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(1) The right to castle has been lost:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;if the king has already moved, or&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;with a rook that has already moved.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(2) Castling is prevented temporarily: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;if the square on which the king stands, or the square which it must&#xA;  cross, or the square which it is to occupy, is attacked by one or more&#xA;  of the opponent's pieces, or&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;if there is any piece between the king and the rook with which&#xA;  castling is to be effected.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The fact that a enemy piece previously occupied a square between the king and rook does not make castling illegal. Instead, there is probably some other reason why castling is not permitted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7500" LastActivityDate="2015-10-21T00:18:58.717" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12648" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8500" CreationDate="2015-10-21T15:37:53.920" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is possible to fit the board and all info (except 50 move rule) into an easy manageable 256 bits. I would suggest the following. 64 squares and 4 bits per square allows for 16 possible states. 0 would represent the empty square. Then we have 6 pieces, but I would reserve a 7th for the 'moved rook' so castling possibility can be determined. One bit to indicate white or black. We are using 15 states and are left with 1 more state: value 8 (1000 binary).&#xA;It also represent an emoty square, but we can use that on the 3rd or 6th rank to indicate the pawn ahead of it moved 2 squares and is subject to being captured 'en passant'.&#xA;Finally, we also use this value to indicate the side to move. Find the first empy square on the lower half of the board to indicate it's white to move. On the upper half for black. Better stay clear from the 3rd and 6th rows for easyness.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8545" LastActivityDate="2015-10-21T15:37:53.920" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12649" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12253" CreationDate="2015-10-21T16:18:42.290" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You have &quot;really good and close games, and yet you still lose.&quot; These are the games to focus on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Get a &quot;better&quot; player, at least &quot;A,&quot; probably expert or master to comment on your close games, point out where you went wrong and lost, and point out missed opportunities that you may have had to win. Turning a bunch of &quot;close games&quot; from losses to wins will probably do more for you rating than anything else.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2015-10-21T16:18:42.290" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12650" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12625" CreationDate="2015-10-21T16:25:54.913" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;What I was taught was that a king and two connected passed pawns was &quot;drawable&quot; if the pawns were both on the SIXTH rank, with the pawnholder to move. Assuming that the two kings and rook were all in a position to support/oppose the pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the pawn are both on the seventh rank, you might be able to win by &quot;queening&quot; one of them. Unless the opponent can sacrifice the rook for BOTH pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your case, your pawns were on the fourth rank, not far advanced enough to be &quot;threatening,&quot; giving the rook too much time (and space to maneuver).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pawns gain value the further advanced they are. A protected passed pawn on the sixth rank is worth TWO points (not one) and two connected passed pawns are worth more than four points because of the &quot;synergy,&quot; that is, about a rook.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A protected passed pawn on the seventh rank is worth about three points, because the opponent will have to give up at least a minor piece to prevent it from queening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastEditorUserId="17" LastEditDate="2017-04-27T01:11:03.157" LastActivityDate="2017-04-27T01:11:03.157" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12651" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12662" CreationDate="2015-10-22T00:16:44.513" Score="8" ViewCount="544" Body="&lt;p&gt;The generally very useful and interesting book &lt;em&gt;Bologan's Black Weapons&lt;/em&gt; suggests the following line as a practical way to meet the Evans Gambit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Title &quot;Evans Gambit&quot;]&#xA;[Startply &quot;12&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Bc5 4. b4 Bxb4 5. c3 Ba5 6. d4 b5!? 7. Bxb5 Nxd4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The line continues &lt;code&gt;7. Bxb5 Nxd4 8. Nxd4&lt;/code&gt; (&lt;code&gt;8. Nxe5&lt;/code&gt; is less good, see analysis in the book) &lt;code&gt;exd4 9. Qxd4 Qf6&lt;/code&gt; with reasonable play for black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, the book doesn't mention the move &lt;code&gt;9. O-O !?&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Title &quot;Evans Gambit&quot;]&#xA;[Startply &quot;17&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Bc5 4. b4 Bxb4 5. c3 Ba5 6. d4 b5!? 7. Bxb5 Nxd4 8. Nxd4 exd4 9. O-O!? (9. Qxd4 Qf6) dxc3 10. Bc4!&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In a blitz game I played as black, I thought I should prevent white from building a big center with &lt;code&gt;cxd4&lt;/code&gt;, so I played &lt;code&gt;9... dxc3&lt;/code&gt;. But then after &lt;code&gt;10. Bc4!&lt;/code&gt; I had a very bad position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So my question is, what should black play after &lt;code&gt;9. O-O !?&lt;/code&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1485" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2015-10-22T01:03:03.197" LastActivityDate="2015-10-25T08:31:08.680" Title="Evans Gambit variation" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;evans-gambit&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12652" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4353" CreationDate="2015-10-22T00:41:12.733" Score="26" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just for completeness, I would like to add more explicit instructions for using stockfish in Scid, because sometimes it is a little confusing how to get stockfish to function in an actual chess program.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;sudo apt-get install scid&#xA;sudo apt-get install stockfish&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Load Scid&#xA;In Scid Click:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Tools -&amp;gt; Analysis Engine (click twice) -&amp;gt; New&#xA;    Set Name to ‘stockfish’&#xA;    Command is /usr/games/stockfish (use ‘which stockfish’ if not)&#xA;    Directory : Click the ~/.scid button&#xA;    Hit OK and select the stockfish engine&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hopefully this is straightforward enough that anybody could replicate it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7507" LastEditorUserId="15205" LastEditDate="2017-12-17T15:22:59.870" LastActivityDate="2017-12-17T15:22:59.870" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12653" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12658" CreationDate="2015-10-22T01:42:50.677" Score="10" ViewCount="839" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am trying to understand this position a bit better and would appreciate some help in doing so. I am black and it's my turn... (the board is flipped .. ie. black plays up and white plays down)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/4Kp2/4p3/4k1p1/8/8/5PP1/8 b - - 0 48&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1...f5??  {This is what I played, although it's marked as a bad move: -0.5} (1... f6! {ok move -8}) (1... Kf5!! {best move -17}) * &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I played 48...f5, which dropped my score from -17 to -0.6, basically throwing a winning situation away.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have been reviewing this position for quite some time now but can't figure out exactly why this move was wrong. There are only 2 winning moves from here: Kf5 or f6. So what wrong with f5? (I assume something like opposition, but this is too complex for me to see)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can someone please shed some light for me on the strategy involved? (thanks) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4277" LastEditorUserId="4277" LastEditDate="2015-10-23T10:01:31.843" LastActivityDate="2015-10-23T10:01:31.843" Title="Analysis of a very complicated end position - why is this move leading to a draw?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;pawn-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12654" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12653" CreationDate="2015-10-22T03:58:44.423" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;So I ran through this and it is certainly difficult to see. But with the moves Kf5 or f6, it looks like the goal is to turn your e-pawn into a passed pawn while keeping it protected with your king. When you play f5 you can no longer protect your e-pawn with your king while simultaneously removing the white f-pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe there is some general theory that would quickly lead you to this conclusion without using an engine, but I am not aware of this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7507" LastActivityDate="2015-10-22T03:58:44.423" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12656" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12292" CreationDate="2015-10-22T10:30:14.403" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Its clearly very difficult for White, surely if the computer thinks otherwise it can show you why.&lt;br&gt; &#xA;To me the position after 23..Nd5 was more critical. White then allowed Nxe3 grabbing a good bishop and smashing his pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7497" LastActivityDate="2015-10-22T10:30:14.403" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12657" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9888" CreationDate="2015-10-22T10:46:06.053" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why not follow that game? - he got a nice centralised position with pressure on d6.&lt;br&gt; No need to take risks with &quot;Ultra-aggressive&quot; moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7497" LastActivityDate="2015-10-22T10:46:06.053" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12658" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12653" CreationDate="2015-10-22T11:10:14.037" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am not sure I can give a simple reason why this leads to a draw (though I try below), but I think there are at least clear reasons that f6 is much better; for practical purposes this should be good enough, though it is certainly also interesting to clearly understand why the position after f5 is drawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The specifics that make this position winning is that&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;you have an active king and a pawn majority&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the opposing king is off-side; it should be in front of your pawns, not behind them in order to block their advance and enter a drawn K+P vs K endgame&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course the main plan for winning such a position is the creation of a passed pawn.  At the same time, you must strive to keep the opposing king out of the game as much as possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, the prime candidate for becoming a passed pawn is the e-pawn, since it is the only pawn that is not opposed by a pawn.  To achieve this you have to push the candidate to the front since it is the only pawn that cannot be blocked by the opposing pawns.  Unfortunately, in this case your king blocks that pawn, thus you have to move the king out of the way. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It certainly requires some good calculation or a solid understanding of such situations to play Kf5, which parts with the f-pawn.  However, f6 is a clear candidate; afterwards you can easily move your king to f5 without dropping a pawn and continue to advance the e-pawn.  At the same time Black will have trouble to return into the game; all he can do is to advance along-side with the e-pawn (after Kf5 and taking the g-pawn Black takes even longer to return to the came).  Though it may not be easy to see that f6 is indeed winning, I think it rather easy to see that it is clearly one of the best tries.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After f5, however, it is not easy anymore to move your king away.  If you move to the d-file, White's king advances to f6, forcing the advance of your g-pawn and thus White's king returns back to the game with tempo.  On the other hand, moving to other squares drops the e-pawn, and thus certainly draws.  These options are clearly inferior, though again it may again not be obvious that it is enough for the Black king to actually take up some serious defensive tasks in the first line.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3529" LastActivityDate="2015-10-22T11:10:14.037" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12659" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12663" CreationDate="2015-10-22T13:47:38.907" Score="0" ViewCount="1295" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am using a UCI chess engine (stockfish 6) to evaluate the score of specific positions from different games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On &lt;a href=&quot;http://support.stockfishchess.org/discussions/questions/54-search-by-time-and-hash-size&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; stockfish help forum thread it states: &lt;code&gt;Hash size is the amount of memory you want to designate for Stockfish to store positions (a temporary hash). You don't want your hash size to exceed your physical memory, but you don't want it to be too small either.&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my case I am not using the engine to go through subsequent moves in the same game, but different positions entirely. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;after 4th move of Aldrovandi vs. Cocozza (2003):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;position fen rnbqkbnr/pppp2pp/8/4pp2/8/5P2/PPPPPKPP/RNBQ1BNR w kq f6 0 3&#xA;go movetime 10000&#xA;info depth 16 seldepth 25 multipv 1 score cp -71 nodes 2171367 nps 879095 tbhits 0 time 2470 pv b1c3 b8c6 e2e3 f5f4 g2g3 d7d5 d2d4 g8e7 f2g2 f4e3 c1e3 e7f5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;after 2nd move of Hirneise vs. Hirneise (2010):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;position fen r1bqkbnr/pppppppp/n7/8/8/7N/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKB1R w KQkq - 2 2&#xA;go movetime 10000&#xA;info depth 19 seldepth 24 multipv 1 score cp 16 nodes 7228257 nps 723259 tbhits 0 time 9994 pv d2d4 g8f6 e2e3 e7e6 c2c4 d7d5 b1c3 f8e7 f1e2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In these consecutive uses of the engine, I am solely interested in &lt;strong&gt;score cp -71&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;score cp 16&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems that the Hash is not used at all and thus I can set it to zero. Is that correct? Is there a way to disable the Hash entirely in the UCI specification? The reason I ask is I am using a mobile device so conserving memory is more relevant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4545" LastActivityDate="2015-10-22T23:54:55.347" Title="When evaluating score of new position with UCI chess engine is the Hash used at all?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;evaluation&gt;&lt;uci&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12660" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8400" CreationDate="2015-10-22T15:03:18.843" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is no mate in the next move but very good move is Qd1!&#xA;You always may use online tools to calculate next move.&#xA;For example &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessnextmove.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.chessnextmove.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8556" LastActivityDate="2015-10-22T15:03:18.843" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12661" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12653" CreationDate="2015-10-22T18:20:14.267" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The reason why you lose the winning edge is, as it almost always is, because of tempi:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;8/4Kp2/4p3/4k1p1/8/8/5PP1/8 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;1...f5? 2.Kf7, g4 3.g3!, Kd6 4. Kg6! (4.Kf6?, Kd5 5. Kg6, Ke4! 6.Kf6,  e5 7.Kg5, Kf3 {and black picks up the f2 pawn.})&#xA;4...Kd5 5. Kf6 {and black cannot advance without giving up a vital pawn.}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's look at what happens when playing ...f6 first:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;8/4Kp2/4p3/4k1p1/8/8/5PP1/8 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;1...f6 2.Kf7, g4 3.g3 (3. Kg6, f5! 4. Kf7, {For 4. g3, see the variations above; it's a transposition.} 4...f4 {and white is helpless against the black pawns.})&#xA;3...Kf5 4.Ke7, e5 5.Kf7 (5.Kd6, Ke4! 6. Ke6, f5 {and white is toast.})&#xA;&#xA;5...e4 6.Ke7 (6.Kg7, Kg5!) 6...Ke5! {denying the white king access to the action.} 7.Kf7, f5 8. Kg6, f4 {and black breaks through.}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So basically what happens is that ...f6 loses a tempo on purpose, to deny white the blockading idea available after ...f5. It's not easy to see immediately, but it's worth noting, as ideas like manipulating tempi in pawn endgames is the key to playing them successfully. Remember this in your next pawn endgame, as it could gain you an extra half point.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, what about ...Kf5? It also wins:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;8/4Kp2/4p3/4k1p1/8/8/5PP1/8 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;1...Kf5 2. Kxf7 (2.f3, g4!? 3. Kxf7, e5 4. Kg7 (4.Ke7, g3! 5. Kd6, e4 {and black breaks through.}) 4...Kf4! 5.Kf6, g3! 6. Kg6, Ke3! {and black picks up g2 and the victory.}) 2...e5 3.Ke7, e4! (3...g4? 4.g3!, e4 5.Kf7!, e3 6.fxe3, Ke4 7.Kf6, Kxe3? 8.Kg5, Kf3 9.Kh4 {and white wins. Oops!})&#xA;4.Kd6, g4 5.Kd5, g3 {and black wins.}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These lines aren't exhaustive, but I think that I've outlined the most important variations. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With this I hope that I've been able to show that in pawn endgames, general principles only serve to guide you. You must calculate precisely!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8300" LastActivityDate="2015-10-22T18:20:14.267" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12662" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12651" CreationDate="2015-10-22T20:25:14.320" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;After 9.0-0, 9....dxc3 is indeed too dangerous. After 10.Bc4! black cannot finish his development as white's threats Qd5/Qh5/Bxf7+ are too strong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, 9....c6 seems to be a good move. White's strongest reply is probably 10.Bc4, as both 10.Ba4 Ba6 and 10.Be2 dxc3 are fine for black.&#xA;After 10.Bc4, black can play 10....Ne7 and continue his development with 0-0 and d5. For instance, 11.cxd4 0-0 and black shouldn't be afraid to sacrifice a pawn after 12.Ba3 d5! 13.exd5 cxd5 14.Bxe7?! Qxe7 15.Bxd5 Rb8 because black's bishop pair and development are more important than the weak pawn on d4. Instead, white should play 14.Bd3 and after 14....Re8, the position is more or less equal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  [StartPly &quot;17&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;  [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;  1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.b4 Bxb4 5.c3 Ba5 6.d4 b5 7.Bxb5 Nxd4 8.Nxd4 exd4 9.O-O c6 (9...dxc3 10.Bc4!) 10.Bc4 (10.Ba4 Ba6) (10.Be2 dxc3) 10...Ne7 11.cxd4 O-O 12.Ba3 d5! 13.exd5 cxd5 14.Bd3 (14.Bxe7?! Qxe7 15.Bxd5 Rb8) 14...Re8&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4588" LastEditorUserId="4588" LastEditDate="2015-10-25T08:31:08.680" LastActivityDate="2015-10-25T08:31:08.680" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12663" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12659" CreationDate="2015-10-22T23:54:55.347" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Short answer&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No, don't set it to zero, in fact the more the better. Stockfish &lt;em&gt;is&lt;/em&gt; using the hash table &lt;em&gt;very&lt;/em&gt; heavily, just that you can't see it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Long answer&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's briefly cover hashing in a non-technical way&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Q: What is hash table?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hash table is an internal data structure in chess engines to &quot;memorize&quot; previously searched positions. It's like the black-hole; you can't see it but it's part of the galaxy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Q: Why hash table?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because we don't want to the engine search the same position again and again. There're lots of repetitions in chess, hash table is a simple but very effective strategy to deal with them. Hash table also helps move reductions and pruncing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's look at the quote:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Hash size is the amount of memory you want to designate for Stockfish&#xA;  to store positions (a temporary hash). You don't want your hash size&#xA;  to exceed your physical memory, but you don't want it to be too small&#xA;  either.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If your computer has 4GB of RAM, you wouldn't set it over 4GB (google virtual memory if you are interested to learn more). But at the same time, making it too small would be a waste of resources. You would have to pay for the electricity to power up the computer anyway, so we want to maximise the size of the hash table as much as possible without affecting the overall performance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's pretend we are using Stockfish to analyze the starting position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You were confused because you thought hashing is like just storing the initial position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hash Table :  { default position }&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is not correct, because the table is actually being used in the engine search. The hash table would look something like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hash Table : { default position, 1.e4, 1.d4, 1.e4 e5, 1.a4, 1.a4 h5 .....}&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although you can't see it, hashing is very important because it memories positions that you will need in the current search and next search. Let's say we play 1.a4, immediately from the hash-table we have an evaluation of 1.a4 h5 from the previous search.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2015-10-22T23:54:55.347" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12664" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-10-23T13:46:37.753" Score="21" ViewCount="4639" Body="&lt;p&gt;What are good YouTube channels that help to improve our chess? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Channels which are analyzing their own games (Blitz, standard, OTB) or discussing tactics, strategies, etc. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I list some of these channels in the following. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please share your favorites. Note that here we are interested in channels with learning material not channels with plenty amount of advertisements or fun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Channels here are ordered arbitrarily with no preferences:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/user/YMChessMaster&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;IM Andrew Martin Chess Videos&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6hOVYvNn79Sl1Fc1vx2mYA&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;John Bartholomew&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCDOQrpqLqKVcTCKzqarxLg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess Network&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClV9nqHHcsrm2krkFDPPr-g&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Simon Williams&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCM-ONC2bCHytG2mYtKDmIeA&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDUDDmslypVXYoUsZafHSUQ&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;kingscrusher&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCji6ITCdOOmxUzd6R2TonZQ&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;GJ_Chess&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are some other channels such as OnlineChessLessons, which are good but they are more introduction to openings. If one wants to go deep into something then have to pay for their videos but a simple blitz game analysis by IM or GM or even a normal good player can give more insight than an introduction to an opening X.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;sub&gt; P.S0: Notice that I'm not looking for good online resources like this question: &#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/1335/free-learning-material&quot;&gt;Free learning material&lt;/a&gt;, also not only for the beginner rather for advanced players. &#xA;I want to be strict only on YouTube channels, as the other question does not cover even the channels that I've already subscribed.&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="269" LastEditorUserId="269" LastEditDate="2019-12-28T17:11:29.113" LastActivityDate="2020-07-30T06:19:11.410" Title="What are good YouTube channels for improving chess?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="12" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="12665" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12664" CreationDate="2015-10-23T15:20:02.333" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;I like these 3:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/user/KebuChess&quot; title=&quot;Dereque Kelley&amp;#39;s&quot;&gt;Dereque Kelley's&lt;/a&gt; channel on the openings goes through the key strategic ideas, for both sides, of many of the most popular mainlines&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/user/clausjensencom&quot; title=&quot;Claus Jensen&amp;#39;s&quot;&gt;Claus Jensen's&lt;/a&gt; channel. I particularly liked his series on the exchange sacrifice&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/user/wwwChesscom&quot; title=&quot;Chess.com&amp;#39;s&quot;&gt;Chess.com's&lt;/a&gt; channel, covering a wide range of chess topics from learning the rules to taking the initiative&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2015-10-23T15:20:02.333" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12666" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12664" CreationDate="2015-10-23T16:00:22.347" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/user/Chessexplained&quot;&gt;ChessExplained&lt;/a&gt; is the channel of IM Cristof Sielecki. Most of the videos are him thinking aloud while playing blitz, and they provide excellent insight into the mind of an IM.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/user/GregShahadechess&quot;&gt;IM Greg Shahade&lt;/a&gt; has a similar channel as well. He is a bit more entertaining and less instructional than ChessExplained.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2015-10-23T16:00:22.347" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12667" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-10-23T17:13:07.327" Score="1" ViewCount="435" Body="&lt;p&gt;I checked the UCI specification &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.shredderchess.com/chess-info/features/uci-universal-chess-interface.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; and I don't see a way to undo a move. I'm using stockfish, is there a way to do this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, how would I accomplish the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;position startpos moves e4c5&#xA;undo&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With the intent of the above &quot;undo&quot; to result in a position of &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4545" LastActivityDate="2015-10-23T21:10:24.307" Title="UCI undo move command?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;uci&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12668" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-10-23T17:49:04.747" Score="8" ViewCount="1336" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm starting to play against stronger competition who know how to play their openings, so I'm trying to figure out my repertoire. I have recently decided to stick to playing the Grunfeld against 1.d4, and prepared some responses against those who avoid playing an early c4 and go for the Tromp/London/Barry etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However I'm a bit stuck when it comes to playing against openings where White avoids an early d4, and goes for a Nf3/g3/Bg2/0-0 and c4 setup before going d4, maybe even avoiding d4 altogether and going for a b3 hypermodern approach.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since Grunfeld is all about letting White achieve a broad center and attacking it from afar, it feels awkward when White refuses to take the center immediately. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can look up some specific responses, such as going 1.c4 e5 and aiming for a Reversed Dragon, but I'd rather have a more consistent repertoire that at least involves a Kingside fianchetto, so that at least there is a chance that the game might transpose back into a Grunfeld.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course if this means that I might get move-ordered into a bad position then I'll play something else, but I find it hard to believe a Kingside fianchetto can ever really be bad against the kind of hypermodern White opening I described.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any experienced Grunfeld players want to chime in on this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7957" LastActivityDate="2016-04-21T12:42:28.187" Title="A Consistent Grunfeld Repertoire" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;grunfeld-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12669" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12664" CreationDate="2015-10-23T20:26:55.770" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;From one of my &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/7893/2792&quot;&gt;previous answers&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(1) &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/user/Majnu2006/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Majnu&lt;/a&gt;. Especially check out the &quot;Chess middlegame training&quot; and &quot;Practical chess endgames&quot; playlists. I like Majnu's videos because, not only is he a good player, but he also manages to explain ideas and plans in chess in a very simple manner. The concepts really stick in your mind, and you get to actually use them in your games. And from the way he explains things, you can see that he loves the game, which is also inspiring. I recommend Majnu highly (especially to beginners).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(2) &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/user/SeanGGodley/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;SeanGGodley&lt;/a&gt;. Excellent analysis of famous games and players. The book &quot;My system&quot; by A. Nimzowitsch is considered to be one of the most important books in chess history, and Sean has a playlist dedicated to this book. Excellent and (pretty) detailed analysis make him one of my favourite YouTube channels for improving my game. Also, Sean is a great narrator in my opinion, and that makes it easier to follow his thoughts. However, Sean's videos are maybe too much for beginners.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(3) &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/user/thechesswebsite/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;thechesswebsite&lt;/a&gt;. Many instructional videos on openings and traps, as well as other topics (like tournaments, players etc.). All in all, a very good channel to improve your game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2792" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.193" LastActivityDate="2015-10-23T20:26:55.770" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12670" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12667" CreationDate="2015-10-23T21:10:24.307" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately the UCI protocol is stateless, there is no way to ask the engine to undo a move. The protocol is designed for communication between GUI and engine, you are supposed to have your own board representation such that you can update the engine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, you would need to do:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;position startpos moves e4c5&#xA;position startpos&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2015-10-23T21:10:24.307" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12671" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-10-24T00:33:55.923" Score="2" ViewCount="594" Body="&lt;p&gt;Which opening traps do the Spanish Game (ruy lopez) offer - and are there experimental/alternate variations (apart from non 3. ...a6 variations) to the opening that could be forced on either side of the board?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8488" LastEditorUserId="4588" LastEditDate="2015-10-24T07:03:21.673" LastActivityDate="2016-04-24T10:31:26.403" Title="Traps and alternate variations in the Spanish Game" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;ruy-lopez&gt;&lt;1.e4&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12672" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1735" CreationDate="2015-10-24T07:15:16.220" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Books on tactics generally cover a number of standard devices that are in the toolkit of every strong player - checkmate, discovered attack, discovered check, double attack, double check, forks, interference, overloading, pins, removing the defender, skewers, stalemate, x-rays and the like. The tactic itself may only be one move long, and both players may have foreseen the move in advance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Combinations require somewhat deeper calculation, and there is an element of surprise usually brought about by a sacrifice followed by a series of forced moves after which the position changes in the attacker's favour. Combinations have an artistic element.  One player seems to conjure up magic from what seemed like a straightforward position.  Games with beautiful combinations often win brilliancy prizes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8309" LastEditorUserId="8309" LastEditDate="2015-10-24T07:22:02.473" LastActivityDate="2015-10-24T07:22:02.473" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12673" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12674" CreationDate="2015-10-24T13:54:59.717" Score="3" ViewCount="1058" Body="&lt;p&gt;After&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 g6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nc6&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why is the Rossolimo line impossible for white?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 g6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nc6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8573" LastEditorUserId="7500" LastEditDate="2015-10-24T16:57:54.640" LastActivityDate="2015-10-24T16:57:54.640" Title="Why does the Hyper Accelerated Dragon avoid the Rossolimo?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12674" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12673" CreationDate="2015-10-24T14:49:07.117" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the Rossolimo proper,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Title &quot;Rossolimo variation&quot;]&#xA;[Startply &quot;5&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 g6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;white usually holds back pawn to &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt; and doubles black pawns with &lt;code&gt;Bxc6&lt;/code&gt;, or later builds a center with an eventual &lt;code&gt;c3&lt;/code&gt; followed by &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the Open Sicilian,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Title &quot;Open Sicilian&quot;]&#xA;[Startply &quot;9&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 g6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nc6 5. Bb5?!&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;none of these plans are available, and &lt;code&gt;5. Bb5&lt;/code&gt; doesn't make much sense. Besides, the bishop on &lt;code&gt;b5&lt;/code&gt; is tactically vulnerable to a later black &lt;code&gt;Qa5+&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;Qb6&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1485" LastActivityDate="2015-10-24T14:49:07.117" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12676" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8321" CreationDate="2015-10-24T18:24:04.643" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sacrificing queen depends on things&#xA;sacrifice when-&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;If there is a forced mate&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Pieces are connected&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i.e. even after sacrificing Queen your position will not collapse.In this case you can go for pieces which will help you to grab the position. Which piece to sacrifice is completely dependent on the position.&#xA;while sacrifice of queen completely depends on position of game i.e. is your opponent down on time or may be he may able to manage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;if you say Handicap CHESS 2 Rooks are fine and rest depends on your Skill   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8576" LastActivityDate="2015-10-24T18:24:04.643" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12677" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2409" CreationDate="2015-10-24T22:38:55.260" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Don't use the system, it hurts chess players into thinking that one bishop is &lt;strong&gt;always&lt;/strong&gt; better than a knight or a rook is &lt;strong&gt;always&lt;/strong&gt; better than a bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user8213" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-08-17T02:14:08.063" LastActivityDate="2020-08-17T02:14:08.063" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="12678" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12717" CreationDate="2015-10-24T23:48:30.390" Score="10" ViewCount="1476" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm a decent player and am pretty good at tactics and visualizing series of moves with a board in front of me. However I have an extremely difficult time visualizing positions and moves purely in my head. Are there any tricks that make mentally visualizing easier, or is it just something that comes with lots of practice? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7246" LastActivityDate="2017-04-15T04:53:39.553" Title="How to visualize a position" Tags="&lt;board-vision&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12679" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-10-25T07:38:57.287" Score="-5" ViewCount="265" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT&lt;/strong&gt; - Tony adds this interpretation, which hopefully the OP will accept by removing this line.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If one of my pawns captures a Rook (which is on the 8th rank) can I promote that pawn to a Queen in the same move? In other words, can I capture-and-promote? What if I already have a queen?  What if I capture a Knight, instead of a Rook? Can I do it then?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8584" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2015-10-25T13:43:37.860" LastActivityDate="2015-10-26T09:16:46.963" Title="Alright so if you a pawn makes it to the other side can that player grab a castle and say its a queen?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;chessboards&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2015-10-25T15:02:08.933" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12680" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12679" CreationDate="2015-10-25T12:06:14.160" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit&lt;/strong&gt;: The question has been clarified. I interpreted the original question to be &quot;&lt;strong&gt;can a pawn promoted to a queen be represented using a rook piece?&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One explanation for this is that your opponent may have a Queen already and wants to promote to have 2 Queens. One way to represent this is to take a Rook and place it &lt;strong&gt;upside down&lt;/strong&gt; to represent the second Queen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You are not limited to which piece you can promote to based on what pieces are off the board, as long as both players understand what it represents.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastEditorDisplayName="user1108" LastEditDate="2015-10-26T09:16:46.963" LastActivityDate="2015-10-26T09:16:46.963" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12682" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-10-27T21:26:13.767" Score="1" ViewCount="194" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[startply &quot;25&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Bc4 Nc6 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. Nc3 d6 5. h3 Be7 6. d4 exd4 7. Nxd4 Bd7 8. O-O O-O 9. Bg5 h6 10. Bxf6 Bxf6 11. Nxc6 Bxc6 12. Re1 Re8 13. Qf3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the best move for Black here, and why?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8601" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-03-28T17:58:09.723" LastActivityDate="2020-03-28T17:58:09.723" Title="What is the best move for Black?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;middlegame&gt;&lt;italian-game&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="12683" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12682" CreationDate="2015-10-27T23:11:33.383" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;As stated in my comment, I don't think this is a puzzle because there is no clear decisive tactical sequences.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A good move would be 13...Qe7, putting pressure on the e4 pawn and prepare for ...Bxc3. If White did nothing, Black could then continue with ...Be5 and ...Qf6. Note that it's unlikely a bishop pair can be retained in this position, as White can start the exchange by 14.Nd5 Bxd5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2015-10-27T23:18:32.550" LastActivityDate="2015-10-27T23:18:32.550" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12684" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-10-27T23:39:37.930" Score="3" ViewCount="668" Body="&lt;p&gt;Learning chess &amp;amp; I thought Fritz Powerbook 2015 was THE chess-playing engine with GUI only to learn that it requires Fritz12, 13, 14 or 15 to use it. I had read that it had a lot of useful info on chess openings. I'm considering purchasing the new Fritz15 both to have it as well as make use of Powerbook 2015, but I'm wondering if anyone can clarify how and why one uses a &quot;powerbook&quot; in Fritz.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8602" LastActivityDate="2016-02-26T17:22:05.770" Title="What is Fritz Powerbook 2015?" Tags="&lt;fritz&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12685" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-10-28T01:47:29.200" Score="1" ViewCount="312" Body="&lt;p&gt;What are some good sources about exploiting wrong deviations from standard chess theory during the opening? That is, given the fact that the opponent steps out of the canonical openings, and is not innovating a variant with style and making it stronger.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8604" LastEditorUserId="8604" LastEditDate="2015-10-28T03:28:10.810" LastActivityDate="2015-10-29T07:19:34.997" Title="Exploiting wrong deviations from theory in chess openings" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12686" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12687" CreationDate="2015-10-28T07:08:44.163" Score="21" ViewCount="2526" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/BiwLX.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/BiwLX.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What could be the answer to it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8605" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-04T21:52:05.367" LastActivityDate="2020-04-04T21:52:05.367" Title="What is the solution to this mate in 2 puzzle?" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;problems&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12687" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12686" CreationDate="2015-10-28T07:23:13.733" Score="26" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is a nice little puzzle:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;3k4/3P4/3Q4/8/8/8/8/4K3 w - - 3 13&#xA;&#xA;1. Qd5 Kc7/Ke7 2. d8=Q# 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2015-10-28T07:34:49.150" LastActivityDate="2015-10-28T07:34:49.150" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12688" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12685" CreationDate="2015-10-28T10:02:22.497" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would recommend the &lt;a href=&quot;http://chessok.com/?page_id=352&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chessok Opening Tree&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can browse the lines you are interested in and see which moves have already been played (which at the beginning of an opening is almost every halfway sensible move). And most importantly you'll get an engine evaluation for each move, which immediately tells you which of these halfway sensible moves is a blunder. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are further down the rabbit hole and the line has never been played before, of course you have to rely on your own chess understanding to come up with the most likely human moves and can then use an engine to find out how to punish them. Online, this would be possible on &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess24.com/en/analysis&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chess24&lt;/a&gt;, though as non premium member you might have to wait a while for the engine evaluation to come up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-10-28T10:02:22.497" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12689" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12684" CreationDate="2015-10-28T12:46:13.303" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The powerbook contains 1.5 million games of grandmasters (including the most recent ones).  For the power book, these games have been processed so you can see their openings, and for each opening position you can see all the moves that have been played as well as the associated winning/drawing/losing rates.  So basically, it is an up-to-date overview of opening theory at the top level so far.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3529" LastActivityDate="2015-10-28T12:46:13.303" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12690" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12692" CreationDate="2015-10-28T12:58:10.080" Score="3" ViewCount="420" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've always loved chess, but never was really serieus about it. Lately I've picked up trying to get better and bringing up my game to a new level. I started playing online a lot and currently watching videos on chess on daily base.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess.com is providing the needed lessons on all the basic things but as a beginner there is so much stuff to learn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What should a beginner focus on (think about openings, end games, ways to mate, etc.) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also I was wondering if anyone an easy way to learn the chess notations, I get how the squares are lined up and everything but I need practice (maybe software or a paper method anyone knows of).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8606" LastEditorUserId="8229" LastEditDate="2016-02-14T14:12:40.827" LastActivityDate="2016-03-09T08:33:20.020" Title="What are quick and easy ways to learn, and what should i focus on" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;beginner&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12691" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12682" CreationDate="2015-10-28T14:02:25.560" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I could be wrong but b5 seems interesting to me sacrificing a pawn&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If he takes with 14.Nxb5 you can follow up with Bxb2 threatening a rook and taking your pawn back, the turn he takes to moves his rook can be used to play a6 kicking the knight back setting up to play Bb5&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If he takes with 14.Bxb5 you can exchange with Bxc2, he takes with with pawn then d5, if he starts exchanging hes down a piece because his rook and bishop are misplaced, if he plays 15.Rd1 Qe7 is a perfect move he shouldn't have an answer to&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8606" LastEditorUserId="8606" LastEditDate="2015-10-28T14:08:09.610" LastActivityDate="2015-10-28T14:08:09.610" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12692" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12690" CreationDate="2015-10-28T14:55:23.830" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;A beginner should focus on playing games, solving tactic puzzles and playing through annotated master games. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you play through master games with a real board instead of at the computer, you will quickly learn the notation as well. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-10-28T14:55:23.830" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12693" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12690" CreationDate="2015-10-28T14:58:44.997" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You are already playing online and watching chess videos, so you know how the pieces move, probably have a good idea about their relative strengths and values and are beginning to get an idea of how to co-ordinate your moves to try and achieve mini-plans.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What should a beginner focus on (Think about openings, end games, ways&#xA;  to mate ETC.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Definitely the first thing to learn is ways to mate. If you don't know how to finish your opponent off then you can only win if your opponent resigns or by luck. Start with Queen and King versus King, then 2 Rooks + King versus King, then one Rook + King versus King, then 2 Bishops + King versus King.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Next I would spend some time learning a couple of King Pawn openings, something like Ruy Lopez or 4 Knights for the first one just to learn about developing the pieces and then the Kings Gambit to learn about the fun of just attacking your opponent!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The third thing I would do is study tactics and combinations. Learn about forks, pins, skewers, overloading defenders, stuff like that. The best way to do that is to work from a book with lots of combinations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Also I was wondering if anyone an easy way to learn the chess&#xA;  notations, i get how the squares are lined up and everything but i&#xA;  need practice(maybe software or a paper method anyone knows of).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You are definitely going to need this at an early stage because the other learning stuff is going to come from reading books. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One possible way to start is to find questions and answers in this forum where extracts from games, whole games, example moves and solutions are given. These are given in diagrams which play out the moves which are written written alongside. Here is one recent example - &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/12673/why-does-the-hyper-accelerated-dragon-avoid-the-rossolimo&quot;&gt;Why does the Hyper Accelerated Dragon avoid the Rossolimo?&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By all means use the autoplay features to scroll through the moves but then set up the position on your board with your pieces and physically play through the moves. The position on your board when you have finished should match the position on the screen board after you have scrolled through the moves. If it doesn't you can scroll back through the moves and undo the moves on your board to see where you went wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2015-10-28T14:58:44.997" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12694" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-10-28T15:41:17.807" Score="4" ViewCount="1652" Body="&lt;p&gt;I only know, from the fastest time controls, which chess sites to play 1+0 and 0+1 on. But is there a possibility to play 30 second games?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8608" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-04-12T14:09:01.000" LastActivityDate="2021-04-12T14:09:01.000" Title="Is there a site where I can play 30 seconds games?" Tags="&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;time-control&gt;&lt;websites&gt;&lt;bullet-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="12697" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12690" CreationDate="2015-10-29T05:43:46.697" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Pretty much what has already been said. At this stage games are pretty much &#xA;always decided by blunders. Work on thinking 3-ply (half-moves) ahead when &#xA;considering a move (so you move, opponent moves, you move - what is your &#xA;evaluation of the resulting position). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tactics, learn the different motifs and spend time on puzzles. I'd focus on a site like &lt;a href=&quot;http://chesstempo.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://chesstempo.com&lt;/a&gt; that has the ability to work on problems in a non-timed mode. There are lots of good books that introduce people to tactics:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;Learn Chess Tactics&lt;/em&gt; by John Nunn&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;Chess Tactics for Kids&lt;/em&gt; by Murray Chandler&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Learn mating patterns:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;The Art of the Checkmate&lt;/em&gt; by Renaud and Kahn&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;How to Beat Your Dad at Chess&lt;/em&gt; by Murray Chandler&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A good book that teaches endgames based on the reader's playing strength&#xA;is &lt;em&gt;Silman's Complete Endgame Course&lt;/em&gt; by Jeremy Silman. It starts out with&#xA;the basics and works it way up through different sections until it is &#xA;teaching you what IM Silman thinks a national master needs to know.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A good starting collection of master games to play through is &lt;em&gt;Logical Chess: Move by Move&lt;/em&gt; by Irving Chernev. In addition to playing through annotated master games, trying to play guess-the-move with master games is useful as well. Pick a player (winning side typically), play through the 1st 10 moves or so, then cover it up and start trying to figure out the move to play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Look up Dan Heisman and possibly read some of his articles on improvement.&#xA;I'm not sure if they are freely available online any longer at &lt;a href=&quot;http://chesscafe.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://chesscafe.com&lt;/a&gt;, but there is a collection of them in the book &lt;em&gt;A Guide to Chess Improvement: The Best Of Novice Nook&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most important of all play slow time control games, record your moves, and&#xA;afterwards analyze your games without the assistance of a chess engine. Try&#xA;to figure out where you made mistakes, where you could have made a better move, and do the same for your opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Don't try to learn everything at once. Just focus on improving a certain aspect of your game, then move on to another area.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4324" LastActivityDate="2015-10-29T05:43:46.697" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12698" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9156" CreationDate="2015-10-29T05:48:49.710" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Good Beginner Books:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;Winning Chess...&lt;/em&gt; series by Yasser Seirawan&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;The Soviet Chess Primer&lt;/em&gt; by Ilya Maizelis&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If you can find it: &lt;em&gt;Journey to the Chess Kingdom&lt;/em&gt; by Averbakh and Beilin&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The last two are considered classics and were the 1st chess books for many great Soviet and Russian grandmasters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4324" LastEditorUserId="4324" LastEditDate="2015-10-31T21:53:23.580" LastActivityDate="2015-10-31T21:53:23.580" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12699" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8711" CreationDate="2015-10-29T05:55:07.883" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It somewhat depends on what your end goal is. If your desire is to play&#xA;over the board, then setting up the pieces like Yusupov recommends is a good&#xA;idea at least initially. If you only play online, then it might be better to solve them directly from the book, or in a program.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For software you can use a chess database program to enter a position&#xA;and look at it:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Chessbase  (commercial product) is the gold standard but very expensive&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Scid (free. Scid vs. PC is a fork of this that seems nice)  &lt;a href=&quot;http://scidvspc.sourceforge.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://scidvspc.sourceforge.net/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4324" LastActivityDate="2015-10-29T05:55:07.883" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12700" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12684" CreationDate="2015-10-29T07:03:35.087" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Fritz Powerbook is an opening book for the Fritz chess engine based on the latest grandmaster games. For a chess engine you want Deep Fritz, Komodo, or one of the other programs listed under the chess programs category (houdini, junior?).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4324" LastActivityDate="2015-10-29T07:03:35.087" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12701" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12685" CreationDate="2015-10-29T07:19:34.997" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chessok sells a software product called the encyclopedia of chess opening blunders. Also game collection books about miniatures will likely have some games where someone made a mistake in opening and proceeds to get punished for it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4324" LastActivityDate="2015-10-29T07:19:34.997" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12702" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5969" CreationDate="2015-10-29T19:24:22.100" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yeah I’ve wanted something like this for quite some time… SO I made one as a side project located here:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessply.com&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chessply.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It’s basically an online repertoire manager that lets you organize and train against your rep.&#xA;No downloads, just use a modern web browser or mobile device and you should be good to go.  It's very much beta'ish so let me know if anything weird happens :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3194" LastActivityDate="2015-10-29T19:24:22.100" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12703" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12694" CreationDate="2015-10-29T19:38:08.690" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you play on a tournament in &lt;a href=&quot;http://lichess.org&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://lichess.org&lt;/a&gt;, you have the option to go into Berserk mode. This effectively halves your time (NOTE: not your opponent's), for the possibility of winning more points. If you're playing a 1 minute tournament, then berserking every game will allow you to effectively be playing 30 second games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That being said, you won't learn much by playing 30 second games because the game will almost always come down to who's faster with the mouse as opposed to who's a faster thinker... but I'm assuming you already knew that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT&lt;/strong&gt;: Since I originally wrote this, Lichess has implemented a stand-a-lone 30 second tournament mode. That is, both players are automatically forced to use 30 seconds for the whole game without having to berserk.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3884" LastEditorUserId="3884" LastEditDate="2015-11-20T19:55:36.810" LastActivityDate="2015-11-20T19:55:36.810" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12704" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-10-29T19:45:41.317" Score="8" ViewCount="2177" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are quite a few grandmaster games with 3 queens or 4 queens, but what is the highest number of queens on the board in a game between two GMs?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd be interested in both the most on the board at the same time and the most total during the game. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8620" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-11-28T14:28:02.230" LastActivityDate="2019-11-28T14:28:02.230" Title="What is the most queens that have been on the board in a grandmaster game?" Tags="&lt;pawn-promotion&gt;&lt;queens&gt;&lt;records&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12705" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12704" CreationDate="2015-10-29T20:09:18.477" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;This sounds like a job for &lt;a href=&quot;http://timkr.home.xs4all.nl/records/records.htm#Most%20queens&quot;&gt;Tim Krabbé&lt;/a&gt;, who presents two games with six queens: Szalanczy - Nguyen, Budapest 2009 and Anton - Franco, XXI Elgoibar Magistral 2011. I don't know how many of the participants were grandmasters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are some other games with 5+ queens at &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessib.com/five-six-queens-chess-games.html&quot;&gt;Chess Siberia&lt;/a&gt;. Of these, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1667656&quot;&gt;Miton - Benjamin&lt;/a&gt;, World Open Philadelphia 2005 definitely features two grandmasters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2015-10-29T20:09:18.477" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12706" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12283" CreationDate="2015-10-29T20:30:33.627" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;As Black, I typically play the hedgehog but with both bishops fianchettoed. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8620" LastActivityDate="2015-10-29T20:30:33.627" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12707" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12694" CreationDate="2015-10-29T20:50:28.140" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The website &lt;a href=&quot;http://chesstempo.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://chesstempo.com&lt;/a&gt; allows 10 seconds bullet games as the shortest possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3456" LastActivityDate="2015-10-29T20:50:28.140" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12708" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12690" CreationDate="2015-10-30T07:00:49.190" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I liked learning and playing in &lt;a href=&quot;http://chess24.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;chess24.com&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;It is a place to see others games also. One way to learn is to see others games and tactics which they have applied.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8624" LastActivityDate="2015-10-30T07:00:49.190" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12709" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12694" CreationDate="2015-10-30T09:34:01.443" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;chesscube.com allows you to play with any time you want even 10+1sec.&#xA;A fine bullet game with quality players can be played on chess.com but you have 1min option there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8576" LastEditorUserId="29" LastEditDate="2015-10-31T02:16:45.817" LastActivityDate="2015-10-31T02:16:45.817" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12711" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12283" CreationDate="2015-10-30T14:41:40.397" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I agree with @CognisMantis regarding meeting 1. d4 with the Dutch defence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would advise playing the Scandinavian against 1. e4 (1. e4 d5), as it is 'obscure' in the sense that Black brings the Queen out early (1. e4 d5 2. exd5 Qxd5), but it is quite playable due to Black's pawn structure tends to be quite solid (similar to the Caro-Kann) making sure White is unable to exploit the slight lead in development.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Before trying the line out, check out the opening video by &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fcCi0lApk8c&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Dereque Kelley&lt;/a&gt; first.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(As a piece of advice in general, if you are new to an opening, see a YouTube video discussing the major themes. This way you can get a feel for the opening)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2015-10-30T14:41:40.397" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12712" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12283" CreationDate="2015-10-30T14:50:30.897" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;As noted in another answer here, the Leningrad Dutch may be an interesting option to look for as black against 1.d4. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Against 1.e4, you may want to try Alekhine's defense. It's actually quite dangerous for any white player who doesn't know how to reply to it properly. As far as I know, it's not a common opening, but I have noticed that I'm facing way more Alekhine players nowadays than I did in the past.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It all depends on your playing style if the Alekhine's defense suits you or not though. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8300" LastActivityDate="2015-10-30T14:50:30.897" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12713" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12704" CreationDate="2015-10-30T19:56:02.923" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you have a pgn file of chess games you can use the chess query language cql to search it &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.rbnn.com/cql/&quot;&gt;http://www.rbnn.com/cql/&lt;/a&gt;. Something like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(match&#xA;  :pgn src.pgn&#xA;  :output queens.pgn&#xA;  (position&#xA;    :piececount [Qq] 3 8))&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Should return all games with positions containing 3 to 8 Queens on the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit:&lt;/strong&gt; The Aquarium interface from chessok has a CQL search capability, and can read chessbase databases, so I was able to search my reference database (5M+ games) to games with 5 or more queens. There were no GM games with more than 5 queens on the board. The Anton Guijarro - Franco game mentioned by dfan, is a GM (Anton) vs an IM (Franco). In addition to the Miton - Benjamin game mentioned by dfan, I found a game played about a month later, Hickl - Sokolov that had 5 queens.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Miton - Benjamin:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;World op 33rd Philadelphia  6/??/2005&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2005.07.03&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;7&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Miton Kamil&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Benjamin Joel&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[Annotator &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;2563&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;E33&quot;]&#xA;[GameNo &quot;3367517&quot;]&#xA;[Source &quot;ChessBase 11/10/1998&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;2592&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 Nf6 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. c4 e6 4. Nc3 Bb4 5. Qd3 d6 6. a3 Bxc3+ 7. Qxc3 O-O 8.&#xA;e3 a5 9. Be2 Re8 10. b3 e5 11. d5 Ne7 12. Nd2 Bf5 13. O-O c6 14. dxc6 Nxc6 15.&#xA;Rd1 Rc8 16. Qb2 Qe7 17. Nb1 b5 18. Nc3 bxc4 19. bxc4 Ne4 20. Nb5 Red8 21. f3&#xA;Nc5 22. e4 Be6 23. Be3 Rb8 24. Qc3 a4 25. Rac1 Nb3 26. Rc2 h6 27. f4 f6 28.&#xA;Qe1 Bf7 29. Qf2 exf4 30. Qxf4 Ne5 31. Nc3 Nc5 32. Nd5 Bxd5 33. cxd5 Rb3 34.&#xA;Bxc5 dxc5 35. Bc4 Nxc4 36. Rxc4 Rxa3 37. d6 Qe6 38. Rxc5 Rb3 39. Ra5 a3 40.&#xA;Ra7 Rd7 41. Rxd7 Qxd7 42. e5 Rb2 43. Qc4+ Kh7 44. e6 Qa7+ 45. Qd4 Qb7 46. Qd3+&#xA;g6 47. Qf1 a2 48. e7 Rb1 49. e8=Q a1=Q 50. d7 Qb6+ 51. Kh1 Rxd1 52. Qe7+ Kg8&#xA;53. d8=Q+ Qxd8 54. Qxd8+ Rxd8 55. Qxa1 Rc8 56. h4 Rd8 57. Qa2+ Kg7 58. Kg1 Rd7&#xA;59. Kf2 Re7 60. Kf3 Rf7 61. Qa8 Re7 62. Qd8 Re5 63. Qd7+ Kf8 64. Qh7 Re6 65.&#xA;Qh8+ Kf7 66. Qc8 Ke7 67. Qh8 g5 68. Qh7+ Kd6 69. Qg7 Ke5 70. Qxh6 Rd6 71. Qh7&#xA;Re6 72. Qh5 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hickl - Sokolov:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;Mainz Ordix op Mainz  8/13/2005&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2005.08.14&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;7&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Hickl Joerg&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Sokolov Ivan&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[Annotator &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;2691&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;A07&quot;]&#xA;[GameNo &quot;3404712&quot;]&#xA;[Source &quot;ChessBase 11/10/1998&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;2537&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. g3 d5 2. Nf3 c6 3. Bg2 Bg4 4. b3 Nd7 5. Bb2 Bxf3 6. Bxf3 e5 7. d3 Ngf6 8.&#xA;O-O h5 9. c4 d4 10. Re1 Bc5 11. Na3 Bb4 12. Rf1 Nf8 13. Nc2 Be7 14. e3 Ne6 15.&#xA;exd4 exd4 16. Re1 Qd7 17. Qd2 h4 18. Rad1 Rd8 19. b4 Kf8 20. Re2 c5 21. bxc5&#xA;Bxc5 22. Nb4 hxg3 23. hxg3 Nc7 24. Rde1 a5 25. Nc2 b6 26. Ba3 Ne6 27. Re5 g6&#xA;28. Rxe6 fxe6 29. Bxc5+ bxc5 30. Qxa5 Rc8 31. Na3 Kg7 32. Re5 Qe7 33. Nb5 Nd7&#xA;34. Re2 Qg5 35. Qe1 e5 36. Nd6 Rb8 37. Bg2 Rb6 38. Nb5 Ra6 39. Rb2 Rb8 40. Bh3&#xA;Nf6 41. Re2 e4 42. dxe4 Nh5 43. Bg2 Rab6 44. e5 d3 45. Rd2 Rxb5 46. cxb5 c4&#xA;47. e6 Rd8 48. Rd1 d2 49. Qe4 c3 50. b6 Qf5 51. e7 c2 52. Rf1 d1=Q 53. exd8=Q&#xA;Qxd8 54. Qb4 Qd1 55. b7 c1=Q 56. b8=Q Qxf1+ 57. Bxf1 Nf6 58. Q4f8+ 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anton Guijarro - Franco:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;XXI Elgoibar Magistral Elgoibar ESP 12/14/2011&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2011.12.18&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;6.4&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Anton Guijarro D&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Franco Alonso A&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[Annotator &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;2454&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;A17&quot;]&#xA;[GameNo &quot;4719077&quot;]&#xA;[Source &quot;ChessBase 11/10/1998&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;2469&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Nf3 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 b6 4. g3 Bb7 5. Bg2 Be7 6. O-O O-O 7. Re1 Ne4 8.&#xA;Nxe4 Bxe4 9. d3 Bb7 10. e4 c5 11. d4 cxd4 12. Nxd4 Nc6 13. Bf4 Nxd4 14. Qxd4&#xA;Bc5 15. Qd2 Qe7 16. a3 e5 17. Be3 a5 18. Rad1 Bc6 19. Bh3 Ra7 20. Bg5 f6 21.&#xA;Be3 a4 22. Bf1 Qe6 23. Qd3 Rc8 24. h4 Rac7 25. Kh2 Qe7 26. Rd2 Bxe3 27. Qxe3&#xA;Qc5 28. Qf3 Rf8 29. Qg4 Rcc8 30. h5 Rce8 31. Re3 Re6 32. Qd1 Re7 33. Bh3 Rff7&#xA;34. Bf5 Qxc4 35. Rc3 Qb5 36. Kg2 Rf8 37. Qg4 Kh8 38. Rcd3 Qc4 39. Rd6 Bb5 40.&#xA;Bxd7 Qf1+ 41. Kh2 Bxd7 42. Rxd7 Rxd7 43. Qxd7 h6 44. Qe7 Rg8 45. Qd6 Qe1 46.&#xA;Qb4 b5 47. Kg2 Kh7 48. Rd5 Qe2 49. Rd7 Rc8 50. Rxg7+ Kxg7 51. Qe7+ Kg8 52.&#xA;Qe6+ Kg7 53. Qd7+ Kf8 54. Qxc8+ Ke7 55. Qf5 Qxb2 56. Qh7+ Ke6 57. Qxh6 b4 58.&#xA;Qg6 bxa3 59. h6 a2 60. h7 a1=Q 61. Qf5+ Kd6 62. h8=Q Kc5 63. Qf8+ Kc4 64. Qe6+&#xA;Kd3 65. Qfxf6 Qd4 66. Qf3+ Kd2 67. Qh6+ Kc2 68. Qc6+ Kb1 69. g4 Qab2 70. g5 a3&#xA;71. g6 a2 72. g7 a1=Q 73. g8=Q Qaa3 74. Qgg3 Qxf3+ 75. Qxf3 Qc2 76. Qb5+ Qcb2&#xA;77. Qfd3+ Qxd3 78. Qxd3+ Kc1 79. Kf3 Qd4 80. Qe2 Qd6 81. Qc4+ Kd2 82. Qd5+ 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4324" LastEditorUserId="4324" LastEditDate="2015-11-01T06:12:57.147" LastActivityDate="2015-11-01T06:12:57.147" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12715" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12718" CreationDate="2015-10-31T11:33:23.813" Score="1" ViewCount="127" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm analyzing a situation that happened to me in a game ... is when I move my black queen to this position. Finally I won, but ... is there any chance to stop the attack for White?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;6k1/2p2pp1/2b4p/1p2b2r/8/1BNQ3P/1PP2qP1/4R2K w - - 2 28&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is the png till this position &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1. e4 e5&#xA;2. Bc4 Nc6&#xA;3. Nf3 Nf6&#xA;4. Nc3 d6&#xA;5. h3 Be7&#xA;6. d4 exd4&#xA;7. Nxd4 Bd7&#xA;8. O-O O-O&#xA;9. Bg5 h6&#xA;10. Bxf6 Bxf6&#xA;11. Nxc6 Bxc6&#xA;12. Re1 Re8&#xA;13. Qf3 Qd7&#xA;14. Ra1d1 Re7&#xA;15. Rd2 Ra8e8&#xA;16. Rd2e2 a6&#xA;17. a4 b5&#xA;18. axb5 axb5&#xA;19. Bb3 Qc8&#xA;20. Qd3 Qb7&#xA;21. f3 Qb6+&#xA;22. Kh2 Re5&#xA;23. f4 Rh5&#xA;24. e5 dxe5&#xA;25. fxe5 Re8xe5&#xA;26. Rxe5 Bxe5+&#xA;27. Kh1 Qf2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8601" LastActivityDate="2015-10-31T12:27:27.463" Title="No ways for whites" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12716" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12715" CreationDate="2015-10-31T12:02:28.260" Score="0" Body="&lt;ol start=&quot;25&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Qg6 is killing blow (attack on both f7 and Rh5). I think it was white's last chance.&#xA;Also 26.Qg6 can stop black's attack but black still has upper hand. For example:&#xA;26.Qg6 Be8 27.Ne4 Rhf5 28. Nxf6+ Rxf6 29.Qd3 and black is better.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8632" LastEditorUserId="8632" LastEditDate="2015-10-31T12:11:57.290" LastActivityDate="2015-10-31T12:11:57.290" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12717" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12678" CreationDate="2015-10-31T12:10:04.937" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Improving board vision&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When studying on your own, use a book with many diagrams so that you can check your visualisation regularly, e.g. &lt;em&gt;Logical Chess: Move by Move&lt;/em&gt; by Irving Chernev&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When studying with a partner, ask them to call out the moves of a variation then test your accuracy with questions like &quot;what colour square is white's knight on?&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: Adapted from &lt;em&gt;Studying Chess Made Easy&lt;/em&gt; by Andrew Soltis&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Notes on board vision&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I like to put a small (often 2 or 3 whole moves) variation into words as a mini-plan. E.g. &quot;Moves 4-6: White gambits a pawn to develop the bishop&quot;. It doesn't have to be a deep analysis at all, just a narration to the moves to convert algebraic notation into English&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;Long variation, wrong variation&quot; - attributed to Bent Larsen in &lt;em&gt;The Wisest Things Ever Said About Chess&lt;/em&gt;, by Andrew Soltis. In other words, visualising a variation 20 moves deep is unlikely to be beneficial&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Don't get side tracked by sub variations&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;To make the visualisations easier, study endgames (i.e. fewer pieces to visualise)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;You can't see 64 squares at the same time&quot; - attributed to Alfred Binet in &lt;em&gt;The Wisest Things Ever Said About Chess&lt;/em&gt;, by Andrew Soltis. This is a natural limitation to human perception. Even looking at a board, you can only really see 12-16 squares at a time. Try to 'chunk' information together to reduce the strain. E.g. you can condense information into words like &quot;White has a castled king behind a fianchetto&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Example with an opening that you want to learn using White&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Suppose you want to visualise the opening 1. d4 d5 2. c4 dxc4 3. e4 e5 4. Nf3 Bb4+ 5. Bd2 Bxd2+ 6. Nbxd2 exd4 7. Bxc4 Nc6 8. O-O Qf6 9. e5 Qg6 10. Re1 Nge7 11. Nb3 O-O 12. Nfxd4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's visualise this step-by-step, checking your visualisation against the board in the spoiler tags below:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;d4 d5 2. c4 dxc4 3. e4&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/7GUUZ.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/7GUUZ.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt; How close was your visualisation? The way I remember this is in words to remember the mini-plan: White gambits a pawn to get an ideal centre&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS. I've used a screenshot of the position from Ubisoft's &lt;em&gt;Chessmaster&lt;/em&gt;, as the replayer can't be hidden in a spoiler tag: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/398/how-to-hide-chessboard-in-a-spoiler-tag&quot;&gt;How to hide chessboard in a spoiler tag?&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3... e5 4. Nf3&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/41BDy.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/41BDy.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt; Black tries to demolish White's centre with the thematic ...e5 and White aims to protect the centre&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4...Bb4+ 5. Bd2 Bxd2+ 6. Nbxd2&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/0NtJg.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/0NtJg.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt; Black develops a piece with tempo. White offers a trade to develop another piece that will end up on b3 to regain the gambit pawn&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;6...exd4 7. Bxc4 Nc6&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9Pvpk.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9Pvpk.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt; Black keeps hold of their extra pawn for the time being as White will have to spend a tempo to regain it&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;8&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;O-O Qf6 9. e5 Qg6 10. Re1&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;  &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/yR2dk.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/yR2dk.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt; White castles to safety whereas Black posts the Queen to the Kingside&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;10...Nge7 11. Nb3 O-O 12. Nfxd4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/IeMPV.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/IeMPV.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt; Black castles away. White regains the pawn. Let the middlegame begin!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source of variation and abridged analysis: &lt;em&gt;Starting Out: Queen's Gambit Accepted&lt;/em&gt; by A. Raetsky and M. Chetverik&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Example with an opening that you want to learn using Black&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is slightly harder as the board is now rotated both for practical play and in the spolier tags. Suppose you want to visualise the opening 1. d4 d5 2. c4 c6 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. Nc3 dxc4 5. a4 Bf5 6. e3 e6 7. Bxc4 Bb4 8. O-O Nbd7 9. Qe2 Bg6 10. e4 O-O 11. Bd3 Bh5 12. e5 Nd5 13. Nxd5 cxd5 14. Qe3 Bg6&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;d4 d5 2. c4 c6 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. Nc3&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Oci9g.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Oci9g.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt; White's most popular try in the Slav is to develop both knights early&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4...dxc4 5. a4 Bf5 6. e3 e6 7. Bxc4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/PpNiK.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/PpNiK.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt; Black develops the light square bishop and locks it outside the pawn chain&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;7...Bb4 8. O-O&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/BnBdu.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/BnBdu.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt; Black develops a piece. White breaks the pin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;8...Nbd7 9. Qe2 Bg6 10. e4 O-O&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/oDxX3.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/oDxX3.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt; White expands in the centre&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;11&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Bd3 Bh5 12. e5 Nd5 13. Nxd5 cxd5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/t812h.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/t812h.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt; The centre is closed&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;14&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Qe3 Bg6&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/11SKF.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/11SKF.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt; Black offers to trade bad bishop for good. Let the middlegame begin!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source of variation and abridged analysis: &lt;em&gt;The Slav: Move by Move&lt;/em&gt; by Cyrus Lakdawala&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastEditorDisplayName="user1108" LastEditDate="2017-03-17T10:54:42.343" LastActivityDate="2017-03-17T10:54:42.343" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12718" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12715" CreationDate="2015-10-31T12:27:27.463" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;White looks doomed, but &lt;code&gt;Rg1&lt;/code&gt; seems to be the best line of defense though Black is merely gifted with the under-1800 brilliancy prize.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[FEN &quot;6k1/2p2pp1/2b4p/1p2b2r/8/1BNQ3P/1PP2qP1/4R2K w - - 2 28&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Rg1 Bxg2+ 2. Rxg2 Rxh3+ 3. Qxh3 Qf1+ 4. Rg1 Qxh3#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other moves lose immediately.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2015-10-31T12:27:27.463" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12720" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-10-31T16:59:23.610" Score="1" ViewCount="220" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've bought first tome of 'Build up Your chess' but it is too difficult for me. I am looking for the comprehensive self-study book exactly like 'Build up...' but for a little weaker player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8636" LastActivityDate="2015-10-31T21:58:52.303" Title="'Build up Your chess' but a level lower" Tags="&lt;books&gt;&lt;training&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12721" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12720" CreationDate="2015-10-31T19:40:36.847" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't know of any books that follow the format that Yusupov uses in his series.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;The Soviet Chess Primer&lt;/em&gt; by Ilya Maizelis, and &lt;em&gt;Journey to the Chess Kingdom&lt;/em&gt; by Averbakh and Beilin are both good initial books. &lt;em&gt;The Complete Idiot's Guide to Chess&lt;/em&gt; by Patrick Wolff is also a nice book.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are also series of books, such as Yasser Seirawan's &lt;em&gt;Winning Chess ...&lt;/em&gt; series, and Lev Alburt's books.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4324" LastEditorUserId="4324" LastEditDate="2015-10-31T21:58:52.303" LastActivityDate="2015-10-31T21:58:52.303" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12722" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12704" CreationDate="2015-11-01T14:43:56.483" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Recent game(2015) of GM Boruchovsky and GM Williams had 6 queens.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1803665&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1803665&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="269" LastActivityDate="2015-11-01T14:43:56.483" CommentCount="14" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12724" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5327" CreationDate="2015-11-02T18:48:07.307" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;My two girls (2 1/2 and 4) are very interested in chess, since they see their dad play every single day. They both learned the names of the pieces at about 18 mo, learned the starting positions around 2, and started to grasp how some pieces move a little before 3,  but it wasn't until the eldest turned 4 that she had the desire to learn, and the cognitive capacity and stamina to actually play a game. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One way we have the youngest share the pleasure of the game is to have her play alongside her dad. He'll ask her which piece she would like to move, offer two choices of positions, and let her actually move the pieces. And once she gets bored, she's allowed to play with the captured pieces. This lets her share in the social aspect of the game and associate chess with fun. The rest will be up to her once her brain reaches the necessary maturity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8647" LastActivityDate="2015-11-02T18:48:07.307" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12725" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-11-03T00:44:34.493" Score="8" ViewCount="373" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;6k1/1R5p/6p1/p7/8/7P/r5P1/6K1 w - a6 0 33&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it possible for White to hold a draw in this position? If so, what is the strategy?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Typically I lose these ones and draw when it's me with the extra pawn...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4223" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2015-11-03T06:56:41.033" LastActivityDate="2015-11-06T20:18:02.940" Title="Rook ending with single distant passed pawn" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;rook-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12726" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12725" CreationDate="2015-11-03T07:51:42.717" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;This should be a draw as far as I know and the first step is to get behind the pawn with your rook. Now if black pushes the pawn to the second rank it is an easy draw, because he can never move the rook without you taking the a-pawn and if he tries to protect the a-pawn with the king you will just give checks from behind.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;8/R6p/6p1/8/8/1k5P/p5PK/r52 w - a6 0 33&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this position you just check with Rb8+ and go on checking until his king leaves the a-pawn. Then you go straight back to attacking the a-pawn otherwise Rh1+ wins for black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So what he might try is pushing the pawn only to a3. Then he has a place on a2, to hide his kings from the checks. But now the problem for black is that he doesn't threaten to move his rook away and queen the pawn, therefore your rook isn't shackled to the a-pawn. That means as soon as his king leaves the kingside pawns, you just snatch them off with your rook. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;8/8/R5p1/5k1p/7P/p5K1/6P1/r52 w - a6 0 33&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Something like …Ke4 Rxg6 Kd4 Rg5 Kc3 Rxh5 Kb2 Ra5 ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Given that his king has to run all the way to the a-line, then move the rook and make two pawn moves to queen the pawn, this should give you enough time to push your own kingside pawns. When you finally have to give your rook for the a-pawn, ideally your kingside pawns (supported by your king) are so far advanced that his rook cannot deal with them. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastEditorUserId="4362" LastEditDate="2015-11-03T07:56:53.547" LastActivityDate="2015-11-03T07:56:53.547" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12728" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12729" CreationDate="2015-11-04T11:16:00.160" Score="5" ViewCount="1398" Body="&lt;p&gt;I learned international chess using the tutorials in Ubisoft's Chessmaster, alongside doing tactical and strategical exercises from books, studying master games, and from playing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I want to learn how to play Xiangqi or Shogi. What resources would you recommend? I am particularly interested in software like Ubisoft's Chessmaster, i.e. interactive tutorials with the ability to play against a range of computer players at different levels.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S. I'm based in the UK, where there aren't any relevant clubs nearby, and English language resources are a must&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-11-18T05:00:53.903" LastActivityDate="2020-11-18T05:00:53.903" Title="On how to learn Xiangqi (Chinese Chess) or Shogi (Japanese Chess)" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;xiangqi&gt;&lt;shogi&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="12729" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12728" CreationDate="2015-11-04T12:04:27.057" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I learned shogi from this book. &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/4871872017&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.amazon.com/Shogi-Beginners-John-Fairbairn/dp/4871872017/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;amp;ie=UTF8&amp;amp;qid=1446638715&amp;amp;sr=1-1&amp;amp;keywords=shogi+for+beginners&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;snippet:  &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.bromsgrove-abstract-games.org.uk/shogi.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.bromsgrove-abstract-games.org.uk/shogi.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I bought a shogi set from The Shogi Association (A UK group). The fellow running it at the time (George Hodges) has since passed, I believe.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also was fortunate to have a friend in Japan. He brought me back a Japanese language puzzle book. I don't recall the exact name, but they are mate-in-x puzzles where one must use all the pieces in hand.  Maybe they are called tsume puzzles? I saw the name referenced on that Amazon link.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's a great game!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2015-11-04T12:04:27.057" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12730" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-11-04T13:47:31.527" Score="4" ViewCount="257" Body="&lt;p&gt;My ELO is 2050. I had not played chess for 4 years until I moved to Amsterdam. In Amsterdam I joined a chess club which has many strong players. Every Tuesday we play 90min + 15sec incremental games each other.(I played 6 games)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I noticed that I could not calculate well enough for the last 3 games which I lost. Also I do not have solid opening knowledge. I started to study tactics from &lt;a href=&quot;http://chesstempo.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;chesstempo&lt;/a&gt;. Am I on the right track? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8653" LastEditorUserId="8655" LastEditDate="2015-11-04T15:39:37.867" LastActivityDate="2015-11-06T20:05:06.013" Title="What should I study?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;middlegame&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12731" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12730" CreationDate="2015-11-04T14:29:08.377" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are numerous books that might help you but the best way to get better is to practice, practice, practice. Play as much as you can and try to keep track of the moves in games which you play so you can go back and review what you did wrong if you won a game or what you did right if you won. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8655" LastActivityDate="2015-11-04T14:29:08.377" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12732" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12730" CreationDate="2015-11-04T14:56:24.393" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Whenever I haven't played for a while I go through a book with 200 mate in two exercises. Easy stuff, but quite a lot, just to get into gear again. &lt;a href=&quot;http://chesstempo.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chesstempo&lt;/a&gt; will serve a similar function for you. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But that is just to shake off the rust and not blunder too much. To get back to the playing strength from four years ago or to become even stronger, you should rather train calculation instead of tactics. I.e. not just combinatorial vision but the systematic calculation of long lines. The &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1936490749&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Dvoretzky books&lt;/a&gt; have exercises for that, but those are pretty difficult.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The main point is that in my experience servers on which you solve timed problems aren't really suited to improve calculation. Even just picking random positions from &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.wtharvey.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;these 10000 puzzles&lt;/a&gt; and calculating them like you would in a game is a better way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should also reacquaint yourself with your openings, by looking up your old repertoire lines and then play some internet blitz to get a feel for the variations again.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You are in the enviable position of living in Amsterdam so you don't really have to spend money on books yet. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.maxeuwe.nl/index.php/bibliotheek&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;The Max Euwe Centrum&lt;/a&gt; has a library of chess books in many languages, entry is free and you'll find the newest books on every possible opening and avenue of chess improvement.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastEditorUserId="8655" LastEditDate="2015-11-04T15:50:53.340" LastActivityDate="2015-11-04T15:50:53.340" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12733" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12734" CreationDate="2015-11-04T22:58:25.643" Score="4" ViewCount="447" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have been looking at corresponding squares recently. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It can be pretty hard to visually calculate and imagine them in your mind. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What I was wondering, would you ever be allowed to draw your plans on paper? &#xA;I know in tournaments you are allowed pen &amp;amp; paper for your moves, could you scribble on that or under what circumstances would this not be allowed? I would have assumed in world championships you would not be allowed to do this. Is my assumption correct and what about club level / school players etc?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Example of what I mean by calculation:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;br&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/forum/view/chess-mentor/tricky-chess-problem-elo1700---corresponding-squares?ncc=3&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chess.com/forum/view/chess-mentor/tricky-chess-problem-elo1700---corresponding-squares?ncc=3&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4277" LastEditorUserId="4277" LastEditDate="2015-11-04T23:01:10.883" LastActivityDate="2015-11-05T00:02:15.003" Title="Are you allowed to calculate on paper? e.g. corresponding squares? (FIDE/Club level etc)" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12734" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12733" CreationDate="2015-11-05T00:02:15.003" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is never allowed in an actual, over-the-board tournament.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;National chess federations ban analysis notes, and local chess organization follow their national rules for rating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7500" LastActivityDate="2015-11-05T00:02:15.003" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12735" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-11-05T07:08:29.543" Score="0" ViewCount="471" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would like to study some opening theory on the Grand Prix Attack. What is a good website to study recent grandmaster games?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3149" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2015-11-05T09:12:34.407" LastActivityDate="2015-11-08T20:12:34.170" Title="What's a good website to study recent grandmaster games?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;learning&gt;&lt;training&gt;&lt;grandmaster&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12736" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12735" CreationDate="2015-11-05T08:23:34.733" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chessgames&lt;/a&gt; has all the games from recent top GM tournaments.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess24.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chess24&lt;/a&gt; has live transmissions of the top tournaments.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And the &lt;a href=&quot;http://chessok.com/?page_id=352&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Opening Tree at Chessok&lt;/a&gt; has opening variations with statistics and engine evaluations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also find a lot of opening material on &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chess.com&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesspub.com/cgi-bin/chess/YaBB.pl&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;ChessPub&lt;/a&gt; or blogs like &lt;a href=&quot;http://kenilworthian.blogspot.de/2014/04/grand-prix-attack-b23-bibliography-2006.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;the Kenilworthian&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-11-05T08:23:34.733" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12737" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12735" CreationDate="2015-11-05T12:45:57.587" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I suggest &lt;a href=&quot;http://chesstempo.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chess Tempo&lt;/a&gt; too. Here you can play a against ches GMs (Find Move training), searching games and openings. I recommend this site for chess training.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8662" LastActivityDate="2015-11-05T12:45:57.587" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12738" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-11-05T12:52:40.727" Score="2" ViewCount="84" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm looking this informations for new app to calculating ELO (FIDE) rank after games (live tournament etc.). So you can predict your future rank before it is pbulished on FIDE site. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8662" LastActivityDate="2015-11-05T13:07:31.057" Title="I'm looking for informations about calculating ELO (FIDE) rank" Tags="&lt;elo&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12739" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12738" CreationDate="2015-11-05T13:07:31.057" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://metinmediamath.wordpress.com/2013/11/27/how-to-calculate-the-elo-rating-including-example/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Here is a blog post&lt;/a&gt; about elo calculation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can find the rules for determining the correct K-factor &lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/calculator_rtd.phtml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;on this site&lt;/a&gt;, which also contains an official Fide rating calculator to check your results against.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=172&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Here is the official description&lt;/a&gt; of the rating calculation (based on tables instead of formulas).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-11-05T13:07:31.057" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12740" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-11-05T16:20:07.617" Score="2" ViewCount="858" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm a beginner in chess and I want to get better at this game. I was wondering if there are some programs that help you to practice your game. For example: practicing the openings, that contains checkmate puzzles, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8553" LastActivityDate="2021-01-04T11:07:20.787" Title="Programs to help beginners to practice Chess" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;beginner&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12741" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12740" CreationDate="2015-11-05T16:26:07.843" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chesstempo.com/chess-openings.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chess Tempo&lt;/a&gt; has a great section on openings used by real players as well as statistics regarding the openings(player win %, draw %, opponent win %, etc.) and also an interactive board which lets you step through each move of the opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8655" LastActivityDate="2015-11-05T16:26:07.843" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12742" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12740" CreationDate="2015-11-05T18:27:05.693" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are some great resources available both online and for download (programs or apps). Some worth checking out:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chess.com&lt;/a&gt; - free (for a basic account, paid for additional features like videos and &amp;quot;chess mentor&amp;quot;, which have been well worth the money for me).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chesstempo.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chesstempo.com&lt;/a&gt; - free - mostly tactics problems, also endgames, database, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www-lucaschess.rhcloud.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Lucas Chess&lt;/a&gt; - a free chess program with various engines included. Has tons of features, including tactics, openings, various types of &amp;quot;competition&amp;quot; against the computer, mate practice, etc...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That should definitely get you started, and some additional future resources include the &amp;quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.shredderchess.com/chess-software/chess-tutor.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chess tutor&lt;/a&gt;&amp;quot; programs from Shredder Chess and the Peshka software which has various training modules (lots of interesting and useful stuff, but a bit of a clunky interface).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are also lots of IOS/android apps available. Stockfish is a free chess engine, and if you don't mind paying a few bucks, Shredder or Hiarcs are both excellent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Good luck!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8658" LastEditorUserId="3757" LastEditDate="2021-01-04T11:05:38.703" LastActivityDate="2021-01-04T11:05:38.703" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="12743" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26755" CreationDate="2015-11-05T18:41:42.513" Score="5" ViewCount="743" Body="&lt;p&gt;A group of local friends and I have become fairly engrossed in playing a certain chess variant over the last few years. We play on a regular basis; we've coded a program that allows us to play online, and we play over a board in person.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, there is one situation in which we cannot play, and it is unfortunately the most common one: when we are together in person, but not in front of a board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In these situations, we have our phones (which are all Android, as it happens). We could use an app that simulates a chess board (letting us put pieces on the board and moving them around without restriction), or an app that just lets you edit the board position (we could &quot;edit&quot; it to make each move as necessary).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We have found an app that allows you to edit a chess board (it is unwieldy and not the intended use of the app), but this is where the &quot;chess variant&quot; part really comes into play: like many variants, not every piece is a standard chess piece.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this variant, every standard chess piece is used, in addition to one additional piece (one of the rooks is replaced). This piece could be represented by &lt;strong&gt;anything&lt;/strong&gt;, as long as it isn't one of the other pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I feel like the most likely solution would be an app that lets you place chess pieces and checker pieces (like a &quot;tabletop simulator&quot; of sorts, where you just place your own pieces and play as you want).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And just to clarify, the app does not need online functionality (although that would be amazing), and it needs to &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; restrict your moves (like most people, we all know the rules and can referee our own games).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the question is: Do you know of any Android apps which could be used as an impromptu chess board in order to play a variant of chess that includes a nonstandard piece in addition to all standard pieces?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Disclaimer: If you're interested in the chess variant, details can be included in a comment reply, but I don't want to include this information in the question itself because it is not relevant. For the purposes of answering the question, it should be assumed the chess variant in question is something of our own creation.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2298" LastActivityDate="2019-10-28T19:33:11.677" Title="Phone apps for playing chess variants" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;android&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12744" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12740" CreationDate="2015-11-05T23:01:09.833" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think a new version has been made in a while, but there used to be Chessmaster. Chessok offers a number of programs, and some of them have been converted to Android apps. This includes some tactics programs, and a guide that is supposed to take a player from beginner to club player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chesstempo.com, as mentioned, is a great site to work on tactics and they have been adding other features. lichess.org has a training feature where it gives you an opening position and you have to pick a certain number of good moves in the position. I'm not sure if there is a site that actually drills you on openings though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4324" LastEditorUserId="4324" LastEditDate="2015-11-06T00:07:14.567" LastActivityDate="2015-11-06T00:07:14.567" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12745" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-11-06T01:05:01.403" Score="1" ViewCount="111" Body="&lt;p&gt;For example, I would like to play a class championship tournament. I'm a class B, but I registered for the Expert class section. If I don't score enough points to play anyone in my section for the rest of the tournament, will I get moved down the class A section? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could someone explain what would happen? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Master&#xA;U2200 &#xA;U2000&#xA;U1800&#xA;U1600&#xA;U1400&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3149" LastEditorUserId="3149" LastEditDate="2015-11-06T01:10:20.847" LastActivityDate="2015-11-06T13:08:50.920" Title="Do you get moved down a section on a USCF chess tournament if your score is low?" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;uscf&gt;&lt;tournament-directors&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12746" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-11-06T01:19:06.523" Score="0" ViewCount="290" Body="&lt;p&gt;I try searching the release date, but I couldn't find it. How much later do the deep version of a chess software come out?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3149" LastActivityDate="2015-11-09T22:14:37.027" Title="When is Deep Fritz 15 release date?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;fritz&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12747" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12745" CreationDate="2015-11-06T02:51:51.720" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;You do not get moved out of your bracket.  If you're a B-player in the Expert section, expect to finish at the bottom.  I'm not even sure if you're allowed to 'play up' unless you play in the open section.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2015-11-06T02:51:51.720" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12748" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-11-06T05:05:24.877" Score="0" ViewCount="69" Body="&lt;p&gt;Although I love chess, I don't understand how to describe the positions on the board and moves of the chess pieces using numbers and letters. I tried to understand it by myself in hopes to answer an unanswered question (and apparently complex). I couldn't be of any help because I got lost when the question involved chess notation. Can someone explain it to me?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8666" LastEditorUserId="8666" LastEditDate="2015-11-06T20:55:42.533" LastActivityDate="2015-11-06T20:55:42.533" Title="Please explain chess Notation?" Tags="&lt;notation&gt;&lt;game-complexity&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="3" ClosedDate="2015-11-06T08:57:05.900" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12749" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12740" CreationDate="2015-11-06T09:53:38.500" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can find a lot of apps on &lt;a href=&quot;http://chessok.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chessok.com&lt;/a&gt;: training apps (for PC) for training openings, middle games, ending and more for any chess player from beginner to advanced player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8662" LastEditorUserId="3757" LastEditDate="2021-01-04T11:07:20.787" LastActivityDate="2021-01-04T11:07:20.787" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="12750" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12751" CreationDate="2015-11-06T11:07:26.803" Score="9" ViewCount="4618" Body="&lt;p&gt;A simple question: Assuming that I'm playing as White, how can I castle twice in a game?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've asked myself this question after seeing the following game from Tim Krabbe's chess records &lt;a href=&quot;https://timkr.home.xs4all.nl/records/recordstxt.htm#greatest%20number%20of%20castlings&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&quot;&lt;strong&gt;Greatest number of castlings&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;&lt;/a&gt;, in which White castles twice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Heidenfeld - Kerins, Dublin 1973&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Be3 Nf6 4. e5 Nfd7 5. f4 c5 6. c3 Nc6 7. Nf3 Qb6 8. Qd2 c4 9. Be2 Na5 10. O-O f5 11. Ng5 Be7 12. g4 Bxg5 13. fxg5 Nf8 14. gxf5 exf5 15. Bf3 Be6 16. Qg2 O-O-O 17. Na3 Ng6 18. Qd2 f4 19. Bf2 Bh3 20. Rfb1 Bf5 21. Nc2 h6 22. gxh6 Rxh6 23. Nb4 Qe6 24. Qe2 Ne7 25. b3 Qg6+ 26. Kf1 Bxb1 27. bxc4 dxc4 28. Qb2 Bd3+ 29. Ke1 Be4 30. Qe2 Bxf3 31. Qxf3 Rxh2 32. d5 Qf5 33.O-O-O Rh3 34.Qe2 Rxc3+ 35.Kb2 Rh3 36.d6 Nec6 37.Nxc6 Nxc6 38.e6 Qe5+ 39.Qxe5 Nxe5 40.d7+ Nxd7 0-1 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8661" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-08-27T21:14:08.117" LastActivityDate="2019-08-27T21:14:08.117" Title="How to castle two times in a game" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;castling&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="12751" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12750" CreationDate="2015-11-06T11:19:10.313" Score="19" Body="&lt;p&gt;The answer is plain and simple: You &lt;strong&gt;cannot&lt;/strong&gt; castle twice without breaking the rules. The only chance for this thing to happen is that the illegal move (the second castling) stays unnoticed until the game is ended with an accepted outcome.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3819" LastActivityDate="2015-11-06T11:19:10.313" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12753" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12755" CreationDate="2015-11-06T15:37:44.333" Score="2" ViewCount="504" Body="&lt;p&gt;For example, I touch my king with the left hand and my queen with the right hand at the same time. Regarding the rules, I must move a touched piece, so what would happen in this case? Could I choose which piece to move? Would I lose the game automatically when doing such an action?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is using both hands allowed at all? (e.g.: moving one piece with both hands).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as I know, at least in blitz, you must use the clock and move the pieces with the same hand, so what would happen there if you use both hands when moving a piece or touching two different pieces with each hand?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7894" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2015-11-06T16:52:02.337" LastActivityDate="2015-11-06T16:52:02.337" Title="What would happen if I touch two different pieces with each hand at same time?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12754" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12756" CreationDate="2015-11-06T16:23:46.740" Score="1" ViewCount="3604" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have noticed that the new Windows 8 and 10 do not have my favorite games, specifically Chess Titans. I really want it so, how can I get Chess Titans on my Windows 8/10 PC without getting a Windows 7 or earlier?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8666" LastActivityDate="2018-03-18T12:05:33.263" Title="How To Get Chess Titans on Windows 8/10" Tags="&lt;download-games&gt;&lt;windows&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12755" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12753" CreationDate="2015-11-06T16:29:40.647" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;From the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fide.com/component/handbook/?id=171&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;FIDE Laws of Chess&lt;/a&gt;, article §4.1:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Each move must be made with one hand only.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So you are not allowed to make a move with both hands (this includes castling) and the arbiter can give you a penalty (§12.9) for this behaviour. IMHO, this should be a warning the first time you do it. In any case, because you touched the king and queen, you must make a move with either piece (§4.3):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If the player having the move touches (...) one or more of his own pieces, he must move the first piece touched that can be moved.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2015-11-06T16:29:40.647" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12756" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12754" CreationDate="2015-11-06T16:31:06.397" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Go to &lt;a href=&quot;http://winaero.com/blog/get-windows-7-games-for-windows-10/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://winaero.com/blog/get-windows-7-games-for-windows-10/&lt;/a&gt; and follow the instructions there. One thing I do not believe they mentioned is that once you get Mega, and download the file, go to the Mega file in files explorer. From there open the .exe file and continue with the rest of the steps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8666" LastActivityDate="2015-11-06T16:31:06.397" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12757" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12760" CreationDate="2015-11-06T18:52:15.883" Score="5" ViewCount="315" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have recently hit the FM title, and this year I plan to try and make IM norms and potentially IM title. Last year I struggled around 2300 USCF because I was usually getting killed by lower rated players. It always takes me a long time to warm up, so I usually destroy my tournament in the first few rounds.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What books should I read? What preparation should I do?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8672" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2015-11-06T18:54:06.857" LastActivityDate="2015-11-06T20:15:04.863" Title="Books for IM Norm" Tags="&lt;books&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12758" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12757" CreationDate="2015-11-06T19:50:11.220" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Far be it from me to make recommendations to an FM, but in my contact with a top Soviet trainer who has trained many grandmasters, he has expressed the belief that a good trainer can make a huge difference in developing skill and helping the candidate focus their study efforts appropriately. A trainer can assess your personal weaknesses objectively and recommend ways to overcome them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For players of all levels, including masters, it is often a good idea to study the endgame because usually that part of their skill is the weakest, so you stand to get the most by studying it. In other words, it is low-hanging fruit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Personally I have benefitted a lot from endgame study, even though I just an average endgame player, just because other players are so bad at it. Once I beat a candidate master who was 2 pawns up against me in a simple position just because his endgame play was so incredibly bad. The one draw I got against a grandmaster was because I began to outplay him in the endgame (where he had the advantage) and he became frightened so he offered me a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would recommend Nunn's books, especially &quot;Secrets of Rook Endings&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, &quot;Secrets of Pawn Endings&quot; by Karsten Muller.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Learn just those two books solid and you will be amazed how you can beat the crap out of anybody in an endgame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One final comment about the endgame: often in modern swisses with short time limits you have to play the endgame really fast, somethings blitz sudden death. In those situations the guy who knows the endgame ahead of time will CRUSH the other guy. Even with time on the clock it can be really hard to find the right move in an endgame. You have to know it ahead of time. In a blitz situation, people will play just incredibly bad moves one after the other in an endgame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8673" LastActivityDate="2015-11-06T19:50:11.220" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12759" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12730" CreationDate="2015-11-06T20:05:06.013" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would recommend the book by Polgar &quot;5334 Problems, Combinations and Games.&quot; It is good way to get into the habit of calculation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I recommend studying openings with a computer. This will help you identify why many moves are bad, something opening books don't tell you. It is a lot more important to know why a move in the opening is bad, than why a move is good.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For players of all levels, including masters, it is often a good idea to study the endgame because usually that part of their skill is the weakest, so you stand to get the most by studying it. In other words, it is low-hanging fruit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would recommend Nunn's books, especially &quot;Secrets of Rook Endings&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, &quot;Secrets of Pawn Endings&quot; by Karsten Muller.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Learn just those two books solid and you will be amazed how you can beat the crap out of anybody in an endgame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One final comment about the endgame: often in modern swisses with short time limits you have to play the endgame really fast, somethings blitz sudden death. In those situations the guy who knows the endgame ahead of time will CRUSH the other guy. Even with time on the clock it can be really hard to find the right move in an endgame. You have to know it ahead of time. In a blitz situation, people will play just incredibly bad moves one after the other in an endgame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8673" LastActivityDate="2015-11-06T20:05:06.013" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12760" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12757" CreationDate="2015-11-06T20:15:04.863" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just out of curiosity: Do you know more precisely why you lost against lower rated opponents? Did you lose in the opening, middlegame or endgame? Did you lose because of time management issues? Also, what do you mean by long time to warm up? What changes for you from &quot;not warmed up&quot; to &quot;warmed up&quot;? Is it level of focus, some mental block dissapearing, or something else?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you answer questions such as this you may find some things you can improve upon, which may be more important than anything you can read in a book. It may not even be directly related to chess, but it could still affect your chess in an unexpected way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you're already an FM, I have a feeling that you already have a good idea of areas of your games that are weak, so I would suggest reflecting about that and then add some details about your specific chess strengths and weaknesses. You may, for example, be an opening expert who isn't really as consistent in endgames as is expected of an FM. Then you may want to study some endgame litterature. Or it may be the other way around; nobody here can know that better than you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A general advice though, is to try to contact an experienced chess coach, and also, if you have the possibility, talk to strong players(FM+) about ideas for improvements. One other thing you should probably do regardless of your specific situation is to write down and analyze your thoughts during a game as soon as possible after a game. Then it might get easier to pinpoint precise answers to questions like the ones I asked in the beginning, which may hold the key for your improvement plan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, if you're physically unfit, but able to exercise, I suggest you build up some basic fitness. This would most definitely affect your chess in a positive way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Good luck with your IM ambition. I hope you find a way to get there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8300" LastActivityDate="2015-11-06T20:15:04.863" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12761" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12725" CreationDate="2015-11-06T20:18:02.940" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would recommend reading Nunn's &quot;Secrets of Rook and Pawn Endgames.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is no simple answer to your question, because some positions are draws, others are wins. Also, skill makes a huge difference. A player who knows the right techniques will always outplay someone else in this kind of position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, BlindKungFuMaster is pretty typical in making a lot of incorrect assumptions. Even though I am the same strength as him, I bet I would easily beat him as Black in this position even though we have the same rating. First of all, Black will not move his pawn and box in his rook as shown in that answer, but will fight with his rook in front of the pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are a lot of subtleties in these positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your best move: study Nunn's book cover to cover.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8673" LastActivityDate="2015-11-06T20:18:02.940" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12762" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12763" CreationDate="2015-11-07T17:02:52.803" Score="2" ViewCount="629" Body="&lt;p&gt;I downloaded Scid vs PC to analyse my games and I want to check what version of Stockfish is included - how can I check if it is Stockfish 6?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8406" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2015-11-08T11:02:27.663" LastActivityDate="2015-11-08T11:02:27.663" Title="How can I check the Stockfish version?" Tags="&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;scid&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12763" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12762" CreationDate="2015-11-07T19:02:20.550" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Double-click on the Stockfish executable, type &quot;uci&quot; (without the quotes) and hit Enter. You should get some output, near the top of which should be a line beginning with &quot;id name&quot;, and this line gives the name of the engine, including the version number. (You may need to scroll up to see the &quot;id name&quot; line, if there's a lot of output.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The same method works with any UCI engine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that the Stockfish executable supplied with Scid vs PC is in the bin\engines\stockfish subdirectory of the Scid vs PC installation directory. The version of Stockfish included in my (recent) copy of Scid vs PC identifies itself as Stockfish 240813 64, which is a bit odd (perhaps it's a version compiled from source by the developers of Scid vs PC), but the file date suggests that it's roughly the same as Stockfish 4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4182" LastEditorUserId="4182" LastEditDate="2015-11-07T19:33:42.250" LastActivityDate="2015-11-07T19:33:42.250" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12764" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12767" CreationDate="2015-11-08T06:26:07.810" Score="2" ViewCount="11500" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can only afford one. Would Fritz 15 be better to get than Deep Fritz 14? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would like to use Fritz to study opening theory.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3149" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2015-11-08T11:03:23.567" LastActivityDate="2020-03-05T19:36:48.563" Title="Is Fritz 15 a better chess software than Deep Fritz 14?" Tags="&lt;software&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12765" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12766" CreationDate="2015-11-08T06:51:40.827" Score="1" ViewCount="112" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm looking for a good chess program with the following features. The game should&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Randomly select whether I take white/black&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Allow me to have a handicap against the computer&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Have different difficulty levels&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any suggestions?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8683" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2015-11-08T18:03:58.630" LastActivityDate="2015-11-08T18:03:58.630" Title="Looking for a good chess program with a couple of features" Tags="&lt;software&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12766" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12765" CreationDate="2015-11-08T10:46:39.323" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Ubisoft's &lt;em&gt;Chessmaster:  Grandmaster&lt;/em&gt; Edition fits the bill:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) Randomisation&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is available as an option in ranked play:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/kVTKS.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/kVTKS.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) Handicaps&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are dealt with in the setup position mode (but unfortunately there isn't a randomised colour option in this part of the software. I would suggest rolling a dice)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/k0BIV.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/k0BIV.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) Difficulty levels&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Elo ranges from 0 to 2928 with a range of personalities (attackers, defenders etc.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/RgaIE.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/RgaIE.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2015-11-08T10:46:39.323" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12767" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12764" CreationDate="2015-11-08T12:22:27.270" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;While I'm not sure what exactly Fritz 15 will offer (because it hasn't been released), but it's almost certain that there will be a &quot;deep&quot; version. Look at this ChessBase online &lt;a href=&quot;http://shop.chessbase.com/en/search?query=fritz%2014&amp;amp;cat=0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;search&lt;/a&gt;, so it's pretty safe to assume there will be Deep Fritz 15. My suggestion: wait for the upcoming version.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I don't think Deep Fritz 15 will offer you anything that Deep Fritz 14 doesn't. If we're talking about the user-interface experience, there shouldn't be much because ChessBase always ship an almost-identical software every year.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The most obvious change is the engine, unfortunately, this is not very interesting because Fritz is quite far behind Stockfish and Komodo. If you're looking for the strongest possible engine to study opening theory, you might as well download Stockfish and use it with any compatible client. It's free and plays better chess than Fritz.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You'll need to decide what exactly you want: an easy but expensive bundle from ChessBase or the strongest free chess engine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT (after product release)&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's nice ChessBase finally drops the &quot;deep&quot; term and it makes perfect sense, who is still using 32 bits in 2015? There is no Deep Fritz 15, just Fritz 15.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-04T17:41:59.547" LastActivityDate="2020-03-04T17:41:59.547" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="12768" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-11-08T13:35:07.007" Score="1" ViewCount="3374" Body="&lt;p&gt;Any tips to be up to date with recent opening theory?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3149" LastActivityDate="2015-11-09T20:55:31.917" Title="How do you study opening theory using Stockfish?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;engines&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;theory&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12769" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12768" CreationDate="2015-11-08T18:34:26.277" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Usually, computers are not very accurate in the openings. I'd suggest using a good database of grandmaster games like Chessbase or Chess365. If you're trying to prepare against somebody or against a variation I'd recommend using Chessbase while running an engine. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 a6 5. Nc3 Nf6 6. Be3 e5 7. Nb3 Be6 8. f3 h5 9. Nd5 Bxd5 10. exd5 Nbd7 11. Qd2 11... g6 12. O-O-O 12... Nb6 was the position I was preparing against. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The main line goes 13. Qa5 Bh6 14. Bxh6 Rxh6 but in many games White just gets a worse position. This is unsatisfactory, and Stockfish 6 found an improvement. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;13&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Kb1!&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you're curious, go check out how white gets a forced advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8672" LastEditorUserId="8672" LastEditDate="2015-11-08T23:29:26.467" LastActivityDate="2015-11-08T23:29:26.467" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12770" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12735" CreationDate="2015-11-08T20:12:34.170" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.theweekinchess.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Week in Chess&lt;/a&gt; website is the best place to find recent GM games. It is updated weekly, and the games are usually available for download in ChessBase format or PGN format by Monday evening every week. The usually gather the most important GM events and some minor events throughout the chess world.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8687" LastActivityDate="2015-11-08T20:12:34.170" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12771" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12772" CreationDate="2015-11-08T20:13:40.797" Score="1" ViewCount="213" Body="&lt;p&gt;Given this board setup:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;6k1/1p3rpp/1q1p4/p2Pp3/P5Q1/1P3PP1/2R3KP/8 w - - 3 13&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Puzzle states: White to move, find the best move. The puzzle solution says Qg4-e6 and the rationale is that Rc2-c8+ cannot be stopped.  It seems to me, and some computer programs agree, that going directly for Rc2-c8+ is better because it forces a response of Qb6-d8 followed by Rc8xd8+ Rf7-f8, Qg4-e6+ Kg8-h8, Rd8xf8#. I am no master, I barely can call myself novice. So why is the solution saying that Qg4-e6 is better?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8231" LastEditorUserId="8231" LastEditDate="2015-11-09T14:55:30.717" LastActivityDate="2015-11-09T14:55:30.717" Title="Why is Qg4-Qe6 the correct move here?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12772" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12771" CreationDate="2015-11-08T21:21:50.173" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You're absolutely right. Qe6 only seems to draw:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;6k1/1p3rpp/1q1p4/p2Pp3/P5Q1/1P3PP1/2R3KP/8 w - - 3 13&#xA;&#xA;1. Qe6 g6 2. Rc8 Kg7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's no forced win for white here as far as I can see.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2015-11-08T21:21:50.173" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12773" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12771" CreationDate="2015-11-08T21:22:50.353" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Often there are several strong moves and the puzzle solution lists just one of them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this case however, it seems to be a mistake. Possibly the second move was given instead of the first, with the intended solution being 1.Rc8 Rf8 2.Qe6+.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-11-08T21:22:50.353" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12774" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12768" CreationDate="2015-11-08T23:40:12.713" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;As noted by Penguin chess engines aren't really a good tool to use to learn opening theory. You could create an opening book based on the opening you want using chessbase, or polyglot and practice the opening against the engine. The Fritz interface does have some training capabilities for learning openings, but that isn't tied to the engine so any uci engine, such as stockfish, could be used for that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More common would be to use a chess database and filter it for games within an opening line, and play through the games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another possibility is to use software specifically made for learning openings, such as Chess Position Trainer, and Chess Openings Wizard.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4324" LastActivityDate="2015-11-08T23:40:12.713" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12775" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12778" CreationDate="2015-11-09T01:11:15.853" Score="0" ViewCount="6031" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have heard of different types of checkmates, but don't know how to do them. What kinds are there and how can I perform them? I recently found out that there are names for different types of checkmates from &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/1103/how-do-i-learn-to-understand-the-middlegame/1104#1104&quot;&gt;How do I learn to understand the middlegame?&lt;/a&gt;. It mentions: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Back Rank checkmate&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Lolli’s checkmate&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Epaulettes checkmate&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Shepherd’s checkmate&lt;br&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Fool’s checkmate (fool’s mate or 2-move checkmate)&lt;br&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Scholar’s checkmate ( or 4-move checkmate)&lt;br&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Two Rooks checkmate&lt;br&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Mayet’s checkmate&lt;br&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Smothered checkmate&lt;br&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Anderssen’s checkmate&lt;br&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Pillsbury’s checkmate&lt;br&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The Arabian checkmate&lt;br&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Legal’s checkmate&lt;br&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Anastacia’s checkmate&lt;br&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Greco’s checkmate&lt;br&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Gueridon’s checkmate&lt;br&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Blackburne’s checkmate&lt;br&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Boden’s checkmate&lt;br&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Damiano’s checkmate  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Out of all of those, I think I only know of the Scholar's Checkmate, which is a four-move checkmate (I will still want to know more about that one). The answer on that question in the link only mentioned them, but didn't explain them at all. Could someone explain these checkmates to me?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8666" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2015-11-09T11:13:34.863" Title="Types of Checkmates" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ClosedDate="2015-11-10T19:45:36.537" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12776" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6093" CreationDate="2015-11-09T06:23:52.633" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Check this out !&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://cpuchess.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://cpuchess.com/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's extremely simple. Just paste in you PGN text in the web interface and click for it to analyze the game. It will plot an evaluation chart which helps you to easily find blunders. Blunders are spikes in this chart, which will be highlighted in red. I'm not sure if this engine is strong or not, but it has many engines and it your machine's full processing power to analyze.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8689" LastActivityDate="2015-11-09T06:23:52.633" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12777" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7897" CreationDate="2015-11-09T09:25:44.840" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I maintain a large chess games database, you can download it (and even contribute) here:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://sourceforge.net/projects/codekiddy-chess/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://sourceforge.net/projects/codekiddy-chess/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8690" LastActivityDate="2015-11-09T09:25:44.840" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12778" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12775" CreationDate="2015-11-09T09:50:44.617" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;There aren't really different &quot;types&quot; of checkmates, the things you have listed are different patterns that are used to achieve checkmate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Checkmate occurs when one player cannot play a move that can prevent their king from being captured. This signifies the end of the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A list of these different patterns can be found on &lt;a href=&quot;http://chesstempo.com/tactical-motifs.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chess Tempo&lt;/a&gt; or &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Checkmate_pattern&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;. Each pattern has very good description on both websites, so you should take the time to understand exactly how they work if you are new.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In regards to how to do them, many of them are fairly complicated for new players. I'd recommend learning &quot;basic&quot; checkmates as white against a lone black king. Learn how to checkmate with 2 rooks, then queen+king, then rook+king, then bishop+queen. Overtime, your pattern recognition abilities will improve, and you will be able to understand the other more complicated checkmates.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7966" LastActivityDate="2015-11-09T09:50:44.617" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12779" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12775" CreationDate="2015-11-09T11:13:34.863" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are 3 books that might interest you:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;How to Beat Your Dad at Chess&lt;/em&gt; by Murray Chandler. Don't be put off by the title! It covers 50 checkmating patterns with a quiz at the back&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;1001 Deadly Checkmates&lt;/em&gt; by John Nunn is in a similar vein to the &lt;em&gt;Dad&lt;/em&gt; book, with a forward by Murray Chandler, but a lot more emphasis on exercises&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;The Art of Checkmate&lt;/em&gt; by Renaud and Kahn. Similar to the &lt;em&gt;Dad&lt;/em&gt; book in naming the mates, showing examples and giving quizzes. This has been updated into algebraic notation and republished in February 2015&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2015-11-09T11:13:34.863" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12780" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12768" CreationDate="2015-11-09T20:55:31.917" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would disagree with the other two answers here. Computers are an excellent way to study openings. I think Kasparov would agree with me because he did all of opening preparation with computers once they got strong enough.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Computers can quickly show you all the viable lines of play in an opening. An opening book will usually only focus on two or three key variations. Thus, you can get a much more thorough understanding of an opening with a computer. More importantly, the computer will show you why particular moves are bad, which opening books often do not do. The books assume everybody plays perfectly all the time. In reality players will often make serious mistakes, but unless you know how to punish those mistakes, the book is not very useful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I find computers very good for giving the &quot;feel&quot; of an opening. Some openings are so sharp you die if you make any little deviation from perfection, but others are very tolerant, and you might have a choice of 15 different moves, all OK. A computer will quickly identify the plausible moves so you can tell if a line is sharp or relaxed. Often what you want is an opening that is relaxed for you (easy to play), but sharp for your opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8673" LastActivityDate="2015-11-09T20:55:31.917" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12781" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12746" CreationDate="2015-11-09T22:08:54.063" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to the website for This Week In Chess, the release date for Fritz 15 is November 27, 2015. Also note that now they only sell one version of the product. There no longer is a separate Deep version.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4324" LastEditorUserId="4324" LastEditDate="2015-11-09T22:14:37.027" LastActivityDate="2015-11-09T22:14:37.027" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12782" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12764" CreationDate="2015-11-09T22:13:06.463" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Actually it will be interesting to see, because the Fritz 15 engine is brand new, and written by Vasik Rajlich, the programmer that previously wrote the Rybka chess engine. The London chess shop's webpage for Fritz 15 lists some features, but doesn't speak to anything specific about the engine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://shop.chess.co.uk/Fritz-15-64-bit-multiprocessor-version-PC-DVD-p/pre-order-151187.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://shop.chess.co.uk/Fritz-15-64-bit-multiprocessor-version-PC-DVD-p/pre-order-151187.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4324" LastActivityDate="2015-11-09T22:13:06.463" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12783" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12330" CreationDate="2015-11-10T05:08:01.093" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think one of the biggest issues with the Closed Sicilian is that many players of the white pieces often feel that they should somehow be able to roll Black off of the board. However, if Black seeks active counterplay, such as the expansion on the Q-side with ...a6 and ...b5, then he is usually equal, if not slightly better. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once the stereotypical moves of the closed Sicilian are made by white, the position is usually equal, and it's up to white to either outplay his opponent, or get dominated on the Q-side. Your line isn't a bad line, it's just that with the majority of your pieces located on the K-side, Black will usually have more than sufficient Q-side counterplay. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One of the reasons why many people play Open Sicilians is because it allows more variety on how you want to play the position, and often, which side of the board you want to play on. The closed Sicilian, in the manner that you played it, for the most part, only leaves you with one option. A K-side attack that can be negated with a few adjustments. Once Black counters that strategy, you are simply left with an even position where you may even have to relocate your pieces to the Q-side. Even more difficult to have to find a strategy for...at any given moment, Black will get in the move ...d5, followed by a possible ...f6 at some point as well. This position doesn't really hold any dangers for Black unless he grossly misplays it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8687" LastActivityDate="2015-11-10T05:08:01.093" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12785" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5064" CreationDate="2015-11-10T14:24:28.027" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Depends what your definition of strong is, but my basic Javascript engine is probably about 2400 now (v1.16) and is still in development. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;UI: &lt;a href=&quot;http://op12no2.me/toys/lozza&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://op12no2.me/toys/lozza&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;http://op12no2.me/toys/lozza/lozza.js&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://op12no2.me/toys/lozza/lozza.js&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Typed arrays can be used for the hash table.  It's client side browser based.  The UI fires up a web worker which then uses UCI for comms, meaning the same code can also run offline in node.js (or jxCore), which in turn means it can be used in Arena and Winboard etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While Lozza is hand-written, another route (licence permitting) is to use Emscripten and asm.js etc to automate trans-compilation from C/C++.  Some people have done this for Stockfish.  I'm unsure the resulting ELO (probably better than Lozza) but the code is of course unreadable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/kripken/emscripten&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://github.com/kripken/emscripten&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://asmjs.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://asmjs.org/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From a coding perspective one of the biggest drawbacks of Javascript is the lack of native 64bit unsigned integers. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8702" LastEditorUserId="8702" LastEditDate="2015-11-13T11:09:40.367" LastActivityDate="2015-11-13T11:09:40.367" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12786" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-11-10T22:05:11.337" Score="0" ViewCount="54" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to teach children basic rules of openings and show them some critical point in formation with some kind of visualization.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How can I show attack, defends, weak points or other statistics on board?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8406" LastActivityDate="2015-11-11T08:15:10.240" Title="Is there some method to show attacks and defends and other statistics on board?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12787" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12788" CreationDate="2015-11-11T05:01:44.740" Score="2" ViewCount="134" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am not asking for analysis, just want to know what are the plans to continue for black .(white to move)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/noxh7.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/noxh7.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7693" LastActivityDate="2015-11-17T23:57:36.743" Title="Plan from the position" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;&lt;planning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12788" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12787" CreationDate="2015-11-11T08:08:35.540" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;A plan without (extensive) analysis can only be given in very stable structures. Here, the position is pretty tactical and volatile. White might be able to round up the e3-pawn with Nd1 and h3. Then black has to calculate hard to not wind up in a very bad endgame. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So here my &quot;plan&quot; during a game would look like this: Use any tactical trick you can find to not lose the e3-pawn, and if you cannot avoid losing it, grab as much material for it as you can. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Concretely, after 1.Nd1 Bf4 looks like a decent move. Then one &quot;tricky&quot; line would be: 1.Nd1 Bf4 2.g3 {2.h3 Bg3} Bb8 3.Kg2 {3.Nxe3 Ba7} Ba7 4.h3 Nf2 5.Nxe3 Nd3 6.Rd2 Nc1 hitting both rooks. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All this depends on white playing the most obvious move, Nd1, but she might try to strengthen her position in any other way and then you have to come up with different tricks. What you might want to keep in mind is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The bishop is happier on the a7-g1 diagonal.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The rook might want to invade the second rank or hit the a4-pawn.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The knight wants to jump around and fork things up. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;All considered: Active play is necessary. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-11-11T08:08:35.540" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12789" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12786" CreationDate="2015-11-11T08:15:10.240" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You could use Chessbase on a laptop to show games and positions. That would allow you to highlight critical squares and show possible moves with colourful arrows. &lt;a href=&quot;https://uscfsales.wordpress.com/2011/04/19/using-graphic-commentary-in-chessbase-11/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Here is a description&lt;/a&gt; how to do this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Li6Nh.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Li6Nh.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-11-11T08:15:10.240" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12790" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-11-11T13:14:00.343" Score="2" ViewCount="3633" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm wondering how can I estimate ELO ranking of my own written engine. I figure out that I have to connect my engine with some well known engine (via UCI protocol?) to be able to play automatically many games. My first thought was to adjust ELO ranking of well known engine to finally have draw, eg. If I the result of 1000 games match between my program and other is about 500 - 500 then I'll know that my program has the same strength. The problem is that, as far as I know, we are not able to set any engine to play on particular ELO level. Do you have any other idea how to measure own engine ELO rating?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8707" LastActivityDate="2015-11-13T11:20:54.450" Title="How to measure strength of my own chess engine?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;elo&gt;&lt;programming&gt;&lt;uci&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ClosedDate="2015-11-11T18:03:10.650" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12791" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12787" CreationDate="2015-11-11T13:26:40.870" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's hard to ask for plan when opponent is on the move. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is my understanding without help of engine. White is now exchange up but 2 pawns down. However, Black's 3 isolated pawns look worrying. White needs to keep his knight in contact with e2 to stop the pawn advancing. My plan for white would be to put knight on e2, activate both rooks to attack the isolated pawns and counter-advance his king side pawn majority. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black has the initiative here because of his close-to-king knight and white's backrank problem. So black should try attack and put pressure on white. If white makes a mistake, he might be able to checkmate/win material/advance pawn to e2. Be very careful when white put two rooks/king in the same colour, that's when your bishop and knight can fork them&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7002" LastActivityDate="2015-11-11T13:26:40.870" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12792" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12790" CreationDate="2015-11-11T15:14:06.783" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Implement UCI or Winboard protocol (just enough to play games).  Download some engines (e.g. via CCRL) stronger than your estimate and run a Gauntlet tournament in Arena/Winboard/Cutechess etc.  Hundreds of games at least.  Feed the resulting PGN output file into Ordo and it'll give you an ELO (for the time control you used).  Try different time controls etc if needed - depends on your target competitors.    &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/UCI&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/UCI&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.computerchess.org.uk/ccrl/4040/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.computerchess.org.uk/ccrl/4040/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.playwitharena.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.playwitharena.com/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://hgm.nubati.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://hgm.nubati.net/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/cutechess/cutechess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://github.com/cutechess/cutechess&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://sites.google.com/site/gaviotachessengine/ordo&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://sites.google.com/site/gaviotachessengine/ordo&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For an initial quick ELO you could use Ferdinand Mosca's tool that makes an estimate based on your engine's performance with the Strategic Test Suite EPDs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.talkchess.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=56653&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.talkchess.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=56653&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Strategic+Test+Suite&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Strategic+Test+Suite&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8702" LastEditorUserId="8702" LastEditDate="2015-11-13T11:20:54.450" LastActivityDate="2015-11-13T11:20:54.450" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12793" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12740" CreationDate="2015-11-11T15:17:53.220" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have started adding training UIs into my online Javascript engine.  Currently just a mate-in-one trainer:-&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://op12no2.me/toys/lozza&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://op12no2.me/toys/lozza&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please do feel free to say how it can be improved.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS: I find it harder than it sounds!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8702" LastActivityDate="2015-11-11T15:17:53.220" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12794" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12445" CreationDate="2015-11-11T16:18:54.350" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a checkbox for it:-&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Options | Appearance | View &lt;em&gt;tab&lt;/em&gt; | Material difference&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You may need to make the opening classification panel taller and then use the splitter on its left to see the material difference panel.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/JQIza.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/JQIza.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8702" LastActivityDate="2015-11-11T16:18:54.350" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12795" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12790" CreationDate="2015-11-11T17:50:53.703" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can do a test on&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.elometer.net&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.elometer.net&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a test based on problems &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8152" LastActivityDate="2015-11-11T17:50:53.703" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12796" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9536" CreationDate="2015-11-11T17:53:35.300" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Test it at&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.elometer.net&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.elometer.net&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a scientific test based on problem solving and statistical computation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8152" LastActivityDate="2015-11-11T17:53:35.300" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12797" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12798" CreationDate="2015-11-12T08:45:21.300" Score="9" ViewCount="7754" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm a 1800 chess player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know pretty much all the basics in every fields of the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know the main lines of openings, I know tactics, I know end game. Average in all of it (=1800 player). I would say I'm a little bit more of a tactic player though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know that I need to study to get to 2000 which is the dream for me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;My question is:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;What would be the best things to train to really get to 2000 ELO without too much work?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Should I become a tactical beast and just learn easy openings?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Should I dig deeper in all openings (which is a pretty big work)?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Should focus on finals?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know all of this important, but it's a lot of studying for these 200 points I'm missing. I really wonder if there's a shortcut to reach just 2000, I don't plan to become a master with all the knowledge needed for that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8661" LastEditorUserId="18475" LastEditDate="2019-11-09T16:44:24.450" LastActivityDate="2019-11-09T16:44:24.450" Title="How to get to 2000 ELO rating" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;rating&gt;&lt;elo&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="12798" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12797" CreationDate="2015-11-12T10:00:17.440" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;The best thing to train is (almost) always calculation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Get a set of maybe 1000 3-5 move combinations and go through those problems until you basically know them by heart. That's to enable pattern recognition.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Apart from that set, concentrate on calculating long variations in your training instead of just seeing tactical shots. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.qualitychess.co.uk/products/13/195/yusupov_complete_series_in_hardcover/&quot;&gt;The Yusupov books&lt;/a&gt; are a good source. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Maybe try to learn to play blindfold. That demands a lot of concentration and improves your visualisation&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The next best thing to train is positional understanding: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Play tournament games against strong players.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Analyse these games with strong players.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A big part of positional play is connected to typical opening setups. So if you spend time on the opening, spend it by learning about typical ideas.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/185744325X&quot;&gt;This Aagaard book&lt;/a&gt; I liked.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wouldn't worry too much about the endgame or the opening. Good endgame play builds on strong calculation, good opening play builds on positional understanding. Just learning stuff by heart without having this foundation is not going to benefit you much. And the essentials you'll probably pick up anyway.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-11-12T10:00:17.440" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12799" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-11-12T13:05:00.120" Score="6" ViewCount="1012" Body="&lt;p&gt;Would you say this is a good website for someone learning how to play chess?&#xA;Hello again, I'm trying to teach myself how to play chess, Im a mature adult, I caught on quickly.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8717" LastEditorUserId="3399" LastEditDate="2015-11-13T07:35:08.550" LastActivityDate="2015-11-13T07:35:08.550" Title="Is chess.stackexchange.com a good site for someone learning how to play chess?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12800" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12799" CreationDate="2015-11-12T13:29:06.147" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;No, it's not,&lt;/strong&gt; but it might still be very beneficial to you. (Chess) Stack Exchange is a question and answer site, so:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;You should only ask practical, answerable questions based on actual problems that you face.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(taken from &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/help/dont-ask&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So &lt;em&gt;don't&lt;/em&gt; expect any tutorials here, or the possibility to play an actual game against someone. However, browsing through the site you will find a lot of resources which might help you - &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/6228/what-book-should-i-refer-to-to-begin-learning-chess?rq=1&quot;&gt;this question&lt;/a&gt; for example. If you need a resource on a specific topic, and nobody has asked it before, please go ahead and ask for it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2015-11-12T13:29:06.147" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12802" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="487" CreationDate="2015-11-12T22:23:46.533" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I suggest you get a spare set for the child to mess around with, let them see you playing a proper game, and wait for their questions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would expect that you just tell them rules (legal moves and aim of game) to start with.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are a couple of books, Chess for Children  and  More Chess for Children that introduce simple strategies such as pinning and forking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think, overall, I'm saying &quot;let the child dictate the pace&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[This is my opinion, based on how I and my siblings were taught.  None of us turned into prodigies, but we all picked up the basics easily and painlessly.   If we had been given &quot;Even More Chess for Children&quot;, we might have gone further with it.]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8722" LastActivityDate="2015-11-12T22:23:46.533" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12805" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12826" CreationDate="2015-11-13T12:40:19.877" Score="6" ViewCount="451" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm never quite sure what squares I'm suppose to control, especially in positions that aren't official openings or unconventional openings?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3149" LastActivityDate="2019-12-07T12:19:28.640" Title="How do I know what squares I need to control in a given position?" Tags="&lt;positional-play&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12806" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12805" CreationDate="2015-11-13T13:02:35.033" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Usually you try to control squares to prevent your opponent from putting a piece or a pawn there. Or, the other way round, because you want to put a piece or a pawn there. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To me that is the way to think about this problem. &quot;Controlling squares&quot; is a very abstract concept. &quot;I really don't want his knight to come to c4, so I play b3.&quot;, that's a very concrete idea. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Often this means controlling central squares, because if your opponent puts pawns there, he will get a strong centre. Or you control the square in front of an backward pawn, to avoid it being pushed and exchanged. And of course you try to control the squares close to your king, otherwise you'll fall under an attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Try to find out which moves of your opponent you want to prevent. Don't worry about controlling squares.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-11-13T13:02:35.033" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12807" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="487" CreationDate="2015-11-13T15:38:32.200" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a kid's chess teacher I would say keep things fun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1)&lt;strong&gt;Talk in pictures&lt;/strong&gt;. Make them dream : chess is war, with a king, soldier, knights, fighting on a battlefield, call a fork a special secret weapon and so on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) &lt;strong&gt;Use games&lt;/strong&gt;. For example when I wanna teach them the value of the pieces I play a market game where they would trade pieces and after 10 minutes we would see who's the richest.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) &lt;strong&gt;Compliment them a lot&lt;/strong&gt;. I like to go all like &quot;wow you're a world champion&quot; when they find something out. Carot works much better than the stick imo.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4) &lt;strong&gt;Make them compete and earn prices&lt;/strong&gt;. Kids like rewards and competition for some of them. That way they'll do their hardest to get better and learn new chess tricks. Make sure though everyone is rewarded and congratulated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8661" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T16:08:54.970" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T16:08:54.970" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="12808" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12809" CreationDate="2015-11-13T16:18:41.790" Score="3" ViewCount="323" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have been teaching my wife tactics, we are doing the book by Fred Reinfeld &quot;1001 Winning Chess Sacrifices and Combinations&quot;. We are still in the first chapter which discusses pins and  I can tell that she is improving rapidly because she is finding the pinned piece with less effort.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My problems with this book are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You can tell a lot of the positions are composed.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;There is no difficulty progression, simple and hard puzzles are mixed together.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand I came upon the book &quot;Tactics Time&quot; by Tim Brennan and Anthea Carson. This book has the advantage that all the puzzles come from games people have played on the internet so no composed ones and are much simpler for a beginner. The problem with this one is that there is no separation by motifs so she might not find the knight fork or the back rank weakness and there will not be constant repetition of a single motif to ensure she assimilates it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So my question would be, which book approach do you think would be more beneficial for a beginner to follow and why?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4327" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-12-07T14:41:25.523" LastActivityDate="2019-12-07T14:41:25.523" Title="Which approach is better to teach tactics?" Tags="&lt;tactics&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="12809" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12808" CreationDate="2015-11-13T16:25:13.167" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would use the second approach, almost entirely just because the problems are much easier, but also because those sorts of simple two-move tactics are more likely to come up in games between beginners and just spotting them at all will give her a big advantage at that level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would actually suggest a few other sources of tactics which might be even better:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Chess Tactics for Students&lt;/em&gt; by John Bain has quite simple puzzles and is grouped by theme.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;The Manual of Chess Combinations&lt;/em&gt;, vols. 1a and 1b, also starts with very simple puzzles and is grouped as well, although it's by goal (e.g., &quot;win a rook&quot;), not by theme (e.g., &quot;fork&quot;).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The online site &lt;a href=&quot;http://chesstempo.com/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess Tempo&lt;/a&gt; will feed you tactical problems from real games that are matched to your ability, so there's no worry about getting a book that is too easy or too hard.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2015-11-13T16:25:13.167" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12810" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12816" CreationDate="2015-11-13T17:59:51.093" Score="1" ViewCount="2915" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm participating in some engines-on correspondence games at ficgs.com.  To assist in my analysis of my games, I'd like to set up a chess engine (probably Komodo9 which I own) to play moves against itself after a certain time interval.  Do any of the UI's like SCID or Arena support this? (Droidfish on my phone does but that won't do)  And if so, what are the steps to achieve this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8731" LastActivityDate="2015-11-14T22:27:19.277" Title="How to setup a chess engine to play itself?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;uci&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12811" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-11-13T23:04:06.813" Score="5" ViewCount="5664" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have a chess board made of frosted and clear glass pieces. The board is also comprised of alternating clear and frosted glass squares. I'm never sure how to orient the board. Which is the official &quot;light colour&quot; to put in the lower right corner?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8733" LastActivityDate="2021-02-11T21:26:16.903" Title="On a glass board, which is &quot;white&quot;?" Tags="&lt;beginner&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12812" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1251" CreationDate="2015-11-13T23:29:05.340" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I agree with the last answer above - the trick openings are deviations from the &quot;book&quot; responses, which are the top responses to each move in an opening. A chess engine like Stockfish (open source) will give you the &quot;Book&quot; openings, by percentage, for example after 1. e4 e5 2 f4 (Kings Gambit) the black responses are exf4(47%) d5 (23%) Bc5(6%) Nc6 (5%) Qh4+(5%) and a few others. You can download an app on your smartphone with Stockfish and set it to show the book moves. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another cool way, using a chess engine is to put it on Analysis mode and just see what the engine would recommend to each move by White. Going over your losses in the KGA (King's Gambit Accepted) you can see what &quot;tricks&quot; your opponent used and what is the Engine response. The Engine response will always see these &quot;tricks&quot; because computers are tactical monsters that can see the combinations being set up several moves down the line. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In any case, it is invaluable to save the history of your games (so easy to do these days with much play being online) and then go over the games. I believe, but it hasn't been proven, that although it is good to play many games, at an early level it may be more worthwhile to play ten games and then spend some time analyzing them afterwards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Cheers. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8734" LastActivityDate="2015-11-13T23:29:05.340" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12813" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12811" CreationDate="2015-11-14T00:04:38.600" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;At the lower right corner, the square's color should be White.  I have seen some glass chess boards and most of the times the frosted pieces/squares represent the Black side, and the clear pieces/squares the White side.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8735" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-09-18T02:23:19.323" LastActivityDate="2020-09-18T02:23:19.323" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="12814" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12810" CreationDate="2015-11-14T00:14:54.500" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you use Arena 3.5, you can set an engine to play a game by itself or even two different engines to play a game between them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just go to &lt;strong&gt;Engines-&gt;Manage...&lt;/strong&gt; and there add any engines you want on the &lt;strong&gt;Loaded Engines&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8735" LastActivityDate="2015-11-14T00:14:54.500" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12815" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12436" CreationDate="2015-11-14T00:47:45.257" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;From a positional perspective for your fifth move the following is quite a good explanation. Your 5.Bg5 move doesn't quite tackle with the following implications:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The most positionally significant of these is that the pin nullifies White's control of the e4 square. White would like to play e4 at some point, but Black's knight on f6 dominates the square for now, since the c3 knight cannot recapture when pinned. Consequently, Black may be able to install his knight on e4 or otherwise use the square for his own purposes if White does not fight for it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A second implication of the pin is that Black is threatening to exchange bishop for knight and double White's pawns. The resulting position would be unbalanced, with White trying to open the position to utilize the power of his two bishops, and Black working to keep the position closed and exploit White's pawn weaknesses. White must decide how he feels about this prospect when choosing his next moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8735" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2015-11-14T00:47:45.257" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12816" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12810" CreationDate="2015-11-14T02:27:29.160" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, Arena can do what you want.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Download Arena 3.5&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.playwitharena.com/?Download&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.playwitharena.com/?Download&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Adding Komodo (or any other engine) to Arena:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the menu select Engines -&gt; Manage&#xA;Open the Details tab&#xA;Click the new button&#xA;Point it at the executable&#xA;Select Ok&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If you want it to play itself from a certain position you can set up an &#xA;engine tournament using an epd file to set the position&#xA;you want the engine to play from, and then in the settings for the tournament&#xA;if you hit the level button you can set a fixed time intveral, or fixed depth&#xA;for the engine to play. To create an epd file, you can copy the position from&#xA;Scid using Edit-&gt;Copy to FEN, and then in Arena using Position-&gt;Get FEN from&#xA;Clipboard, and then EPD-&gt;Save Position in EPD Format. This file would then&#xA;passed to the engine tournament dialog.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There might be a way to get it to play itself from a position without using&#xA;the engine tournament, but I'm not that familiar with the interface.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If you want to have it analyze a game that has already been played, or what&#xA;has been played so far can use automatic analysis under the Engines menu.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Arena seems to have a pretty thorough help file, so most of your questions will&#xA;probably have answers in there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: It was pointed out in another question that the demo button in Arena will&#xA;      have the engine play itself. So you can just set up the position, make&#xA;      sure komodo is loaded, Go into Level-&gt;Adjust to set the time interval you&#xA;      want for moves, and then hit the demo button.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4324" LastEditorUserId="4324" LastEditDate="2015-11-14T22:27:19.277" LastActivityDate="2015-11-14T22:27:19.277" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12817" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12825" CreationDate="2015-11-14T09:54:30.760" Score="0" ViewCount="202" Body="&lt;p&gt;i'm wondering why black doesn't play c4 and b4 after b5 and c6 in &lt;a href=&quot;https://youtu.be/8q28BudG2eU?t=117&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; game. Wouldn't that be a tempo, i.e. the bishop on d3 had to move? Additionally it would gain black central and on the queens site room advantage, right? So why doesn't black play that?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8737" LastActivityDate="2015-11-15T06:29:43.327" Title="Colle System - Stonewall. Why not c4 and b4 after b5 and c6 for black in this game?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;pawn-structure&gt;&lt;colle-system&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12818" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12817" CreationDate="2015-11-14T14:08:46.060" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;From a positional viewpoint it is okay to keep the tension at the centre and instead of playing c4, Bb7 is preferable. The reason is that Black develops his bishop and lets White to wonder his/her next move. The position is quite equal and the loss of a tempo at this position doesn't give much&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After Bb7, Black could play immediately a5 and try for an attack on the queenside.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The plan you propose doesn't seem to do anything since after&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;9... c4 10.Bc2 b5 11.e4 dxe4 12.Nxe4&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black doesn't have an attack in the queenside and instead white has a strong centre. As for the space &quot;advantage&quot; you say, Black has most of his pieces at kingside so there is not way to capitulate the &quot;advantage&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8735" LastActivityDate="2015-11-14T14:08:46.060" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12821" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12824" CreationDate="2015-11-14T19:30:29.920" Score="0" ViewCount="402" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was recently in a situation in which my bishop was pinned with my queen behind it and my only options were &#xA;- losing the bishop. &#xA;- defending with the rook which would allow an exchange of my rook for his bishop.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know both cases are bad but, which one would be worse, or should I say less bad? It could maybe depend on the position as well but I'm looking for an &quot;in general&quot; kind of answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4327" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-04T16:57:20.050" LastActivityDate="2020-03-04T16:57:20.050" Title="Piece down vs rook for bishop exchange" Tags="&lt;exchange&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="12822" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12821" CreationDate="2015-11-14T23:19:35.680" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In general, it is better to be an exchange (rook vs. minor piece) down than a minor piece. If you look at the &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/2409/how-many-points-is-each-chess-piece-worth&quot;&gt;standard table for piece value&lt;/a&gt;, you see that being an exchange down is only 5-3 = 2 points, while being a minor piece down is 3 points.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2015-11-14T23:19:35.680" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12823" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12821" CreationDate="2015-11-15T04:03:22.920" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;An Exchange (rook for minor piece) is probably worth less than 2 pawns, while a piece averages over 3 pawns. Petrosian once said that the exchange is worth only one pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are interested, you could read more about this (and other material imbalances) at &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/article/view/the-evaluation-of-material-imbalances-by-im-larry-kaufman&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this page&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, Andrew Soltis' book &quot;Rethinking the chess pieces&quot; is definitely worth a read.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7500" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-04T16:56:41.117" LastActivityDate="2020-03-04T16:56:41.117" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="12824" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12821" CreationDate="2015-11-15T04:15:52.440" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's more than just a pawn difference (as stated in other answers). Being an exchange down, you'd still have a minor piece playing against the rook. This is not always a disadvantage, as a knight with a good outpost or a bishop with good diagonals actually value as much as a rook. Your knight could still potentially fork your opponent's queen and king, your bishop could also potentially pin your opponent's queen. Your opponent would still need to prove the exchange advantage to win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, being a piece down you would have less chance to come back in the game. Generally, you should not hesitate to give up your exchange to save a piece.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2015-11-15T04:15:52.440" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12825" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12817" CreationDate="2015-11-15T06:21:18.060" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If white plays &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; with out black having played &lt;code&gt;...c4&lt;/code&gt;, then black can trade the central pawns with &lt;code&gt;cxd4&lt;/code&gt; to reduce white's central control.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;r1bq1rk1/p2nbppp/1p2pn2/2pp4/3P1B2/2PBPN1P/PP1N1PP1/R2Q1RK1 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Bb7 2. Re1 Rc8 3. e4 cxd4 4.cxd4 dxe4 5.Nxe4 Nxe4 6.Bxe4 Bxe4 7.Rxe4 Nf6 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Black can play 2...Ne4, which is stronger, but that's a different story.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, when black has played &lt;code&gt;...c4&lt;/code&gt;, then &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; is especially strong because when black takes with &lt;code&gt;dxe4&lt;/code&gt;, white's increased control of the center is difficult to challenge, as black lost the option of &lt;code&gt;cxd4&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;r1bq1rk1/p2nbppp/1p2pn2/2pp4/3P1B2/2PBPN1P/PP1N1PP1/R2Q1RK1 b - - 1 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... c4 2. Bc2 b5 3. e4 dxe4 4. Nxe4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If black does not trade with &lt;code&gt;...dxe4&lt;/code&gt; then white will play &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt; and gain an easy attack on the black king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;r1bq1rk1/p2nbppp/1p2pn2/2pp4/3P1B2/2PBPN1P/PP1N1PP1/R2Q1RK1 b - - 1 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... c4 2. Bc2 b5 3. e4 Bb7 4. e5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black can try to use his queenside space advantage and play for &lt;code&gt;b5-b4xc3&lt;/code&gt; to target &lt;code&gt;c3&lt;/code&gt;, but this plan is slow and black is likely to get mated if he tries this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7500" LastEditorUserId="7500" LastEditDate="2015-11-15T06:29:43.327" LastActivityDate="2015-11-15T06:29:43.327" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12826" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12805" CreationDate="2015-11-15T06:56:48.653" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The best way to know what needs to be done is  to grasp how the pawn structure in the center affects the course of the game.  Read &quot;&lt;em&gt;The Art of The Middle Gam&lt;/em&gt;e&quot; by &lt;em&gt;Alexander Kotov&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;Paul Keres&lt;/em&gt;.  Kotov's chapter explaining the five possible pawn centers and how to proceed is the finest source ever written on this topic.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Those possible centers are: open, closed, fixed, mobile, and dynamic. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;An open center&lt;/strong&gt; is where only one or no K or Q pawns are still on the board. Fast attacks on the K and Q files are required and&#xA;immediate castling for safety.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;A closed center&lt;/strong&gt; is where pawns lock in mutual pawn chains such that neither side can advance a central pawn.  Wing attacks become necessary and castling can be delayed.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;A fixed center&lt;/strong&gt; is where the two K pawns face each other so neither can advance and the Q pawns are off the board.  Or, the Q pawns exist in the same manner and the K pawns are gone.  Play will result where each side tries to place a piece(usually a Knight) on the strong point protected by the central pawn such that the piece cannot be attacked by an enemy pawn advance. This is called an advanced outpost and when it occurs, victory for that player is likely.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;A mobile center&lt;/strong&gt; is when one side has both central pawns and the opponent has none.  The constant threat of these pawns advancing keeps the enemy too busy defending and lacking time to mount a counter-attack.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;A dynamic center&lt;/strong&gt; exists when the other four possibilities have not yet been decided. You should try to play for the type of center that will be stronger for your side.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, look at your central pawns. If the K pawn is further advanced, look to attack on that side or in the center.  When the Q pawn is further out, attack on the queen side.  Kotov can provide much more detail.  Read the book!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8745" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-12-07T12:19:28.640" LastActivityDate="2019-12-07T12:19:28.640" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="12829" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-11-15T13:16:06.783" Score="1" ViewCount="464" Body="&lt;p&gt;I heard in most chess forums this book is for 2400+. Can this book also be useful for Class B players? I'm looking for a book to improve my calculation and planning. If so, in what ways? What would be the best way to self-study this book as a Class B?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3149" LastEditorUserId="3149" LastEditDate="2015-11-15T14:23:04.457" LastActivityDate="2019-02-25T15:57:31.517" Title="Can the book 'Grand master Preparation: Calulation' by Aagard be useful for a Class B chess players?" Tags="&lt;books&gt;&lt;training&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12830" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12829" CreationDate="2015-11-15T15:41:48.490" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm rated around 2150 Elo and I used the book two years ago, to solve exercises on the way to work. I could solve approximately 50%, which felt somewhat disheartening, though objectively, I guess, it's pretty ok for my level. I definitely profited from the training.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wouldn't recommend the book for players significantly weaker than me. Mostly because it's demotivating if you are always struggling to even think in the right direction. I have found that the final instalment of &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.qualitychess.co.uk/products/13/195/yusupov_complete_series_in_hardcover/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;the Yusupov series&lt;/a&gt; fits my own level better (i.e. tough but solvable). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But if you can keep your motivation up, even without much positive feedback, of course you can profit from thinking deeply about just about any position. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-11-15T15:41:48.490" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12831" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12832" CreationDate="2015-11-15T19:38:12.143" Score="7" ViewCount="317" Body="&lt;p&gt;Does PGN have any annotation for draw offer? Just adding &lt;code&gt;=&lt;/code&gt; after a move doesn't seem to work everywhere.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Among the standard NAGs there's &lt;code&gt;$10&lt;/code&gt; (drawish position or even) which translate as &lt;code&gt;=&lt;/code&gt; or I can use comment, but wondering whether there's a specific way of adding a draw offer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7067" LastActivityDate="2015-11-16T05:35:12.793" Title="How to add draw offer to PGN?" Tags="&lt;pgn&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12832" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12831" CreationDate="2015-11-16T05:35:12.793" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is no symbol for a draw offer. Just add a comment {draw offered} &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4324" LastActivityDate="2015-11-16T05:35:12.793" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12833" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12837" CreationDate="2015-11-16T08:37:18.133" Score="29" ViewCount="21346" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a French defence player and I enjoy playing almost all the lines (Tarrasch, Winawer, advance variation, ...) because I think the play that follows the opening suits my style and I feel very comfortable. I am a club player (~1800).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have realized lately that at the very top level the French is not played. Most of the games that start with &lt;strong&gt;1. e4&lt;/strong&gt; end up being Sicilian defences, Berlin Walls (or some other lines of the Ruy Lopez) or even some Caro-Kahn (I recall at least a game or two of Giri playing this).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If we don't consider just the very top level (which I consider to be the top 20 players in the world more or less) we can find some 2700 rated players who have played the French (I recall some game from Vallejo now).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I wonder why is the French not played more often. &lt;strong&gt;Which is the line for white that gives the greatest advantage?&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;strong&gt;Could anyone point me to a reference explaining how to &quot;refute&quot; the French with white?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8751" LastActivityDate="2020-07-24T05:54:01.177" Title="Why is the French defence not played at the highest level?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;french-defense&gt;&lt;refuted&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12834" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-11-16T08:44:39.013" Score="4" ViewCount="817" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am looking for a book to help me with strategic concepts, how to exploit small advantages in the long term and long term plans in general. I would like it to have as much exercises as possible. What would be a good book for this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am rated around 1800.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8751" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2015-11-16T09:51:07.263" LastActivityDate="2015-11-16T15:02:52.957" Title="Recommendation of a book for learning strategic concepts" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;books&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12835" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12836" CreationDate="2015-11-16T09:53:21.297" Score="4" ViewCount="307" Body="&lt;p&gt;I started reading the book &quot;From Amateur to IM&quot;.  In one of the first chapters an analysis is given of Casablanca's Pawn Endgame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;6k1/7p/8/8/8/8/6PP/6K1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, the book starts by describing several building blocks for going about to win this position.  One of them (if black pushes his pawn to h6) is to reach the following position with Black to move and an then do an outflanking maneuver.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;8/8/5k1p/8/5KPP/8/8/8 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1...Ke6 2.Ke4 Kf6 3.Kd5 Ke7 4.Ke5 Kf7 5.Kf5 Kg7 6.Ke6 Kg6 ( 6...h5!? 7.g5 Kg6 ) 7.h5+ Kg7 8.Ke7 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The line given in the book is printed in bold, but in move 6 the pawn h5 push seems to really kill any winning possibilities.  Am I overlooking something?  Is the analysis in the book flawed?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If indeed the analysis in the book turns out to be flawed, I would appreciate an alternative strategy to win Casablanca's pawn endgame when h7 is played.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3529" LastActivityDate="2015-11-17T22:53:49.983" Title="Analysis of Pawn Endgame from Amateur to IM" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;pawn-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12836" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12835" CreationDate="2015-11-16T10:30:52.743" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;White will be able to force the black King away and make progress.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Something like 8.Kd6 Kf7 9.Ke5 Kg6 10.Ke6 Kg7 11.Kf5 Kf7 12.g6+ Kg8 13.Kg5 Kg7 14.Kxh5&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4324" LastActivityDate="2015-11-16T10:30:52.743" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12837" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12833" CreationDate="2015-11-16T11:53:17.433" Score="23" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Why is the French defence not played at the highest level?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you consider any statistically small (~20) sample of chess players, regardless of standard, then you will get clustering of openings chosen. This has very little to do with soundness or otherwise and much to do with fashion and temperament. Just look at someone like Nakamura.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;So I wonder why is the French not played more often.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Normally when black chooses to play the French he wants an unbalanced position with double edged play. However white does not have to agree with this. If white just wants a draw then he can always play the exchange variation when the whole nature of the position changes and a draw becomes much more likely. This is usually not what black wants.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Which is the line for white that gives the greatest advantage?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is the line where black makes the worst mistake ;-). Seriously, no line gives white a big advantage with best play on both sides. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Tarrasch is more popular at higher levels but this has nothing to do with size of advantage. I think it has much more to do with flexibility. Other lines commit white earlier to a particular route while the Tarrasch generally lets white keep more options open for longer. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Interestingly the Advance variation is more popular at lower levels because it reduces the flexibility ;-). After this black can no longer play the Rubinstein with ed4 and nor can he put a knight on f6. Of course he can put a pawn on f6 attacking the front of the pawn chain and perhaps this is part of the reason it is less popular at higher levels.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Could anyone point me to a reference explaining how to &quot;refute&quot; the&#xA;  French with white?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No, they won't be able to because there is no way to refute the French with white. There can be some scary lines for black, for instance in the Winawer where white plays Qg4, but if black knows the theory he should be fine (unless white has a novelty!).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, if you were asking about the Benoni ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2015-11-16T11:53:17.433" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12838" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12834" CreationDate="2015-11-16T12:13:00.163" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are two new and well received books in that direction:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.bookdepository.com/Winning-Chess-Manoeuvres-Sarhan-Guliev/9789056915681&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Winning Chess Manoeuvres&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.newinchess.com/Chess_Structures__A_Grandmaster_Guide-p-7495.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chess Structures&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At least the latter contains 50 exercises as well. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.qualitychess.co.uk/products/2/156/grandmaster_preparation_-_strategic_play_by_jacob_aagaard/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Strategic Play by Aagaard&lt;/a&gt; is very close to your specifications, it contains a lot of exercises and is pretty much about 'the long plan'. Unfortunately it's extremely difficult. (I gave my book away to a friend, who is close to his last GM-norm).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.qualitychess.co.uk/products/2/155/grandmaster_preparation_-_positional_play_by_jacob_aagaard/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Positional Play&lt;/a&gt; is much easier, but still tough for an 1800 player. And of course the focus is more on correct piece placement and the like.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.newinchess.com/Techniques_of_Positional_Play-p-983.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Techniques of Positional Play&lt;/a&gt; is supposed to be quite good as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-11-16T12:13:00.163" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12839" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12847" CreationDate="2015-11-16T12:49:47.857" Score="7" ViewCount="3851" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a programmer and a chess player who knows the moves and the basic rules but never played professionally. I am a complete novice. I tried in &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.freechess.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FICS&lt;/a&gt; and failed to win a single match. I was playing regularly around 15 years back and want to start again.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was searching here and there to make a plan to become a pro. I am interested more in self study. So the books these sites are referring are a little confusing for me. As some claiming book X to read first and have their reason while some claiming to read book X after other 5 books and showing there own reason.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I want to know how I can make a solid one-year self-study plan that can polish my skills to start playing well in any rated tournaments. How can I make a reading list for chess? Yes I want to improve my chess to a particular level before entitling myself for clubs or rated tournaments and want to do it myself.&#xA;Below are some of the questions that are coming in my mind, please let me know the points that I missed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;How to make a daily plan for opening, middle game and end games?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;How to make a reading list that can be suitable for me.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;How to select a chess engine?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What other things I need like a notebook to write my chess moves?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;How to make a plan to practice tactics.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What else I need to do to train myself without a coach? (I can use internet and books instead of coach)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks in advance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7871" LastEditorUserId="10867" LastEditDate="2016-12-29T13:01:19.413" LastActivityDate="2019-12-02T11:08:48.620" Title="How to make a self study plan to become a good chess player to play rated tournaments?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;beginner&gt;&lt;study&gt;&lt;coach&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12840" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="487" CreationDate="2015-11-16T12:56:40.447" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Start by playing with only pawns on the board. First person to the opposite side of the board wins the game. This was Magnus Carlsen's training method used by his father when he started to learn chess. It's much simpler for a child to understand this, and it's a highly effective method to learn about sacrifices, pawn structures and zugzwang.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My experience is that young children find it hard to grasp the movement of the knight. I would suggest to make a chess board out of a whiteboard or a similar material, as long as it's easy to draw and erase on it it's good enough. Challenge the child to find the shortest routes for the knight from A to B. Increase the difficulty when he/she has grasped n-ply solutions. To further increase difficulty you may add pawns as obstacles. Let the child draw possible solutions on the board. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is just an idea, but I think it might be pretty effective for learning simple calculation and visualization.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8753" LastActivityDate="2015-11-16T12:56:40.447" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12841" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12834" CreationDate="2015-11-16T13:22:51.757" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I strongly recommend you to buy a copy of &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Judgement and Planning in Chess by Max Euwe&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It was recommended by my coach while I was an intermediate. It is definitely a classic work on middle game. The author provide analysis on frequent endgame positions that one must aim at achieving while he is still in the middle game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Second book would be &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Attack and Defence by Mark Dvoretsky.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am sure a player at your level must have heard of him, the star Russian Coach, many of his students are among the cream. This book, if you study seriously will equip you with various tools on how to &lt;strong&gt;think efficiently&lt;/strong&gt; during a game (which is very important). There are numerous exercises which the author used to train his students. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some chess trainers advocates studying as many positions as possible for a particular theme in the middle game. I recommend you to study these two books, going through each theme one at a time, carefully absorbing the ways to carry out a plan.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4183" LastActivityDate="2015-11-16T13:22:51.757" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12842" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12834" CreationDate="2015-11-16T15:02:52.957" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I give &lt;em&gt;Mastering Chess Strategy&lt;/em&gt; by Johan Hellsten my highest recommendation. He breaks up middlegame strategy into about 30 topics and surveys each with some well-chosen examples and lots of exercises (382 in total). He also tends to annotate all the way from the example position to the end of the game (or until the situation has clarified) so you get a sense of how the strategic plan worked in practice. I think 1800 is certainly in the target range of the book, though if anyone else is reading this I would recommend it all the way up to 2200 (I learned a lot as a 2000).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2015-11-16T15:02:52.957" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12843" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12833" CreationDate="2015-11-16T16:58:42.297" Score="39" Body="&lt;p&gt;Peter Svidler answered this in a &lt;a href=&quot;https://youtu.be/8jfV9RQrE9Y?t=59m&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;recent video for Chess24&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Why do the majority of GMs and almost all super-GMs play 1…e5 or 1…c5&#xA;  in answer to 1.e4 rather than the French Defence (1…e6)?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Peter: I think the answer is twofold. Firstly, both the Spanish and&#xA;  the Sicilian offer you a much broader scope to choose from. If you&#xA;  play 1…e5 you’re not really limited to one structure, let alone one&#xA;  line. That’s not necessarily to say the French is one structure and&#xA;  one line, but it does limit Black’s opportunities more than the&#xA;  Spanish or the Sicilian. But I think the bigger issue with the French&#xA;  is, at least for me, that it was always a very, very difficult opening&#xA;  to understand. I didn’t do that badly in terms of practical results,&#xA;  but actually understanding what’s going on in the opening is another&#xA;  matter – even from the white side, and it’s generally accepted that&#xA;  the white side is the more comfortable side of the French Defence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;That&#xA;  brings me to my second point. This was mainly to do with the fact that&#xA;  I played French games almost exclusively with Alexander Morozevich,&#xA;  who put a tremendous amount of work and imagination into building his&#xA;  French repertoire. If you do that it becomes a very attractive option&#xA;  against 1.e4, because people don’t encounter it that often these days.&#xA;  People are no longer very convinced with their choices and I think&#xA;  it’s very playable and also a very sharp opening that you could argue&#xA;  definitely gives you more counterchances than the Spanish. If the&#xA;  white player would prefer a quiet life he will find it harder to find&#xA;  a quiet life in the French than in the Spanish.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8756" LastEditorUserId="12446" LastEditDate="2017-02-06T07:29:45.287" LastActivityDate="2017-02-06T07:29:45.287" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12844" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8331" CreationDate="2015-11-17T08:59:21.863" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;On understanding FIDE laws-First they are for use with tournament play- so given that information do you understand how FIDE laws doesn't relate to two friends who decide to play? For two friends, who whittle down to two kings only, they can chase each other around the board an infinite amount if they wished. (Plausible-not really, possible-yes)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On FIDE law 9.2 - 50 consecutive moves must be made where there is no pawn moved and no capture made.  This obviously wouldn't be a &quot;50-move game&quot; (e.g. 1.e4 would mean another 50 consecutive moves without a pawn moved or capture made) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On FIDE law 9.6 - 75 consecutive moves... Same reasoning that this is not a 75 move game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One of the first evidence of a recorded game went 14 consecutive moves (1. e4 b6 2. d4 Bb7 3. Bd3 f5 4. ef5 Bg2 5. Qh5 g6 6. fg6 Nf6 7. gh7 Nh5) Even though the 15th was checkmate- if the winner decided not to checkmate he would have still needed 75 more moves to declare the draw in FIDE law 9.6 (with 12 pawns left on the board -I doubt it would have happened in 75 moves) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Respectfully,&#xA;CFC&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8763" LastActivityDate="2015-11-17T08:59:21.863" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12845" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-11-17T12:26:03.100" Score="2" ViewCount="208" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/RuHty.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/RuHty.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any ideas for this interesting problem?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8605" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-12-13T20:03:18.410" LastActivityDate="2020-12-13T20:03:18.410" Title="Any ideas for this interesting problem?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;problems&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="12846" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12845" CreationDate="2015-11-17T12:35:41.640" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The black king threatens to escape via e4, so&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;8/2Q5/8/3k2K1/8/8/4NP2/8 w - - 3 13&#xA;&#xA;1. f3 Ke6 {(forced)}&#xA;2. Nf4#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(sidenote: I'm really divided into putting the solution in a 'spoiler' block with &lt;code&gt;&amp;gt;!&lt;/code&gt; (as is customary on Puzzles.SE)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt; like this&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and the current way, with a diagram to allow playback. It would be very nice if we could put the diagram &lt;em&gt;inside&lt;/em&gt; the spoiler.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2015-11-17T12:41:33.387" LastActivityDate="2015-11-17T12:41:33.387" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12847" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12839" CreationDate="2015-11-17T13:53:43.557" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1) How to make a daily plan for opening, middle game and end games?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Make the balance proportional. Many novice players come out of book opening before move 5, so don't go overboard on learning openings by rote. Picking up on this, analysing whole, annotated games is of benefit, as you see all phases of the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Potential sources:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;Logical Chess: Move by Move: Every Move Explained&lt;/em&gt; by Irving Chernev&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;The World's Most Instructive Amateur Game Book&lt;/em&gt; by Dan Heisman&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;The Mammoth Book of the World's Greatest Chess Games&lt;/em&gt; by Graham Burgess and John Emms&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;2) How to make a reading list that can be suitable for me.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Throughout this answer, I give potential sources to look up. Remember that you only get out of chess what you put in, so get the resources that appeal to you the most and study them. This is what you should look for:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Plenty of diagrams&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Not many variations, but ideas expressed in words mostly. If there are variations, they should be short (3 moves or less would be a good rule of thumb)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Written in a way that engages you. Read a preview and review online of the book before you buy&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Remember that books are one thing, but YouTube videos are useful too. Check out the channels by Dereque Kelly for openings and the Chess.com channel.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;3) How to select a chess engine?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any software with lots of tutorials and player personalities of various strengths and temperaments will be fine. Don't move on from a tutorial section until you really understand it - moving onto the advance content too soon will only confuse you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would recommend Ubisoft's &lt;em&gt;Chessmaster&lt;/em&gt; (as I always do, if you read any of my other answers)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;4) What other things I need like a notebook to write my chess moves?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For tournament play you should take:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A pen&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Back up notebook (they are usually provided)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Something to eat and drink between rounds. Chocolate is good - its the closest equivalent to steroids in chess&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Suitable clothing. If you live in the UK like I do, a spare jumper is a must&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For training with a book, I would recommend a:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Chessboard and pieces similar to the ones you will be playing with in the tournament, as moving the pieces helps recall and learning. Most tournament chessboards I've come across are vinyl with white and green squares. Chess pieces are Staunton style, King size at about 2.5 inches&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A document stand, so that you don't need to use one hand to hold the book all the time&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A piece of card to cover up answers with. As a general hint, whenever you are working with a book and you see a new diagram, try to work out the best move for the player, then compare your answer to what was played&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Notepad and pen. Learn to play the move, then write the move down, as chess etiquette is highly ritualised and is written in the rule book. You don't want a picky opponent to cause trouble this way&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I would advise getting a chess clock unless you know what type is being used, as it will not be used much if you are studying mostly solo. But some people advocate getting one to get used to the controls and the background ticking&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;5) How to make a plan to practice tactics.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Get any beginner tactic book and solve the problems in dead time (on the train, whilst you are waiting dinner to cook, during your lunch break etc.) and solve the problems. Resource suggestions are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;Back to Basics: Tactics&lt;/em&gt; by Dan Heisman&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;Winning Chess Tactics&lt;/em&gt; by Yasser Seirawan&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;Chess Tactics for Kids&lt;/em&gt; by Murray Chandler (don't be put off by the title! In general, chess books written for a younger audience are written in a more engaging way than they are for adults, and with just as good content too)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;ChessTempo.com&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;6) What else I need to do to train myself without a coach? (I can use internet and books instead of coach)&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nothing else, but conduct a post-mortem after the tournament game if your opponent is willing. this is where you discuss the game and understand which moves made your opponent uncomfortable and where you erred. Also, you can post the game on Chess.SE and ask for feedback.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This answer is also based on what I've learnt from &lt;em&gt;Studying Chess Made Easy&lt;/em&gt; by Andy Soltis. At the end of the day, you will only take the material in if it is fun and relevant. There is nothing more frustrating than learning a lot of chess material at the end of a hard day's work, then getting beaten in tournament play over and over again. If this happens, try entering tournaments that are more at your level, or joining a friendly chess club.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastEditorDisplayName="user1108" LastEditDate="2015-11-17T14:01:00.223" LastActivityDate="2015-11-17T14:01:00.223" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12848" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="487" CreationDate="2015-11-17T14:01:58.653" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I originally learned to play chess using a product called &quot;No Stress Chess&quot;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/B0007Q1IO4&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.amazon.com/Winning-Moves-1091-Stress-Chess/dp/B0007Q1IO4&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This game has cards that the players can draw and then you are required to move that piece.  This allows the player to focus on learning the moves and makes the strategy simpler as they are only concerned about what a single piece can do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As the player increases in skill, they can hold multiple cards in their hand and then must pick one to play and then draw a new card.  As the number of cards in the hand of the player increase they learn more about which piece they should move.  Finally they are able to go and forget the cards and play chess for real.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8765" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T16:09:12.140" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T16:09:12.140" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="12849" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12850" CreationDate="2015-11-17T14:06:36.107" Score="10" ViewCount="7794" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am an amateur, 33 years old, never took chess lessons, never played in a tournament. Last year I rediscovered chess and I am trying to improve as much as possible by reading books, watching videos and playing correspondence chess online. There is a small possibility for me to play over the board or join a club at this moment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So my question is: what's the best time control to play online in order to improve better? I feel that 15-30min is too fast and there are very few players who want to play bigger times online. I like correspondence but sometimes I forget (over night) a bit the feeling of the game, lose the ideas or other stuff..&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am reading a lot of books but I want to practice more...&#xA;Thanks a lot!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8764" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2016-09-15T15:37:41.273" LastActivityDate="2020-12-01T03:49:35.010" Title="What's the best time control to play online in order to improve?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;training&gt;&lt;time-control&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12850" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12849" CreationDate="2015-11-17T14:44:33.440" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;This question will receive more opinionated answers regarding the time control, I will answer in perspective of an &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreyfus_model_of_skill_acquisition&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;advanced beginner&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt; Chess player. Since you have said you are a beginner and never played in a tournament before, I would suggest you to have &lt;strong&gt;1 hour&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;strong&gt;45mins + 45sec&lt;/strong&gt; increment time control. This is because of my previous answer here: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/9257/7245&quot;&gt;Do longer games better your chances of honing chess skills?&lt;/a&gt;. Additionally:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;When you engage yourself in a 1 hour time control chess game, you&#xA;are not under any pressure to make moves without calculation and&#xA;thus avoiding &lt;em&gt;big blunders&lt;/em&gt;, this happens almost for everyone who&#xA;has not played against opponents much. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;You are also open to various variations for a move, thus allowing to&#xA;think at least 3-4 moves ahead of the next move(visualizing).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I like correspondence but sometimes I forget (over night) a bit the&#xA;  feeling of the game, lose the ideas or other stuff.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, Correspondence games will tend you to lose track of your positions, tempo, tactics etc since it may take 1 or more than 1 day to make a move. Almost 20-30% of the time either me or my opponent will lose because of this, even though having an advantageous position. But my guess is Correspondence game is relative to your memory power.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But remember that you also need to concentrate on the skills by reading books, solving puzzles etc. Playing with opponents alone will not improve your game because online games are just application of your skills not development.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7245" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.193" LastActivityDate="2015-11-19T16:18:47.373" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12851" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12861" CreationDate="2015-11-17T20:19:49.617" Score="8" ViewCount="1172" Body="&lt;p&gt;A serious threat to human chess competition seems to be &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/04/14/chess-grandmaster-caught-using-iphone-to-cheat-during-international-tournament/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;phone-in-the-bathroom cheating&lt;/a&gt;. Is anything being done to address this problem?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8673" LastActivityDate="2017-08-30T20:34:07.137" Title="Bathroom cheating" Tags="&lt;cheating&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12852" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12797" CreationDate="2015-11-17T20:30:32.383" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;One important thing is to identify possible weaknesses in your play. It depends a lot on you. A coach can sometimes identify serious weaknesses, which, if corrected, can result in a bumb up in results.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would disagree with BlindKungFuMaster about ignoring the opening and endgame. Endgame study has a high time invested-to-wins ratio. Your chance of getting an endgame you have studied over the board is low, but if it happens your chance of winning will be way, way higher. Most endgames cannot be calculated, you have to know ahead of time what to do. Opening study pays off too, especially if you play sharp openings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Soviet Russia players studied opening motifs, meaning standard patterns, a lot as part of their training.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just solving a lot of problems or practicing will not help you improve if you have plateaued. If you can discipline yourself to analyze in a more structured way, it can help, but most people find it mentally exhausting to do this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8673" LastActivityDate="2015-11-17T20:30:32.383" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12853" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12854" CreationDate="2015-11-17T20:43:35.647" Score="4" ViewCount="904" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to thank you beforehand for taking your time to read and (hopefully) answer this. My question is a bit ambiguous, so I'll give an example. Let's say I'm playing white, the enemy has castled king-side so his king is on g8, with his rook on f8, and his knight is on f6. Also, he's got his three castle pawns at their original positions. My dark-square bishop is fianchettoed and I can thus trade it for his f6 knight. If he can only take the bishop with the g7 pawn, opening up his king, when is it a good idea to trade (i. e. what other factors affect if it is a good idea or not)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;5rk1/5ppp/5n2/8/8/8/1B3PPP/5RK1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8768" LastEditorUserId="11202" LastEditDate="2017-04-18T04:17:50.717" LastActivityDate="2017-04-18T07:35:18.773" Title="Is it always a good idea to trade a bishop for a knight if the enemy has castled and is forced to disrupt his castle's pawn structure?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12854" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12853" CreationDate="2015-11-17T21:18:20.740" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;As always with such questions, the correct answer is &quot;It depends on the position!&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example if your opponent doesn't have an e-pawn, you will create isolated doubled pawns, which are generally quite weak. But in a 4 vs 3 rook endgame, with all pawns on the kingside this structure is actually better for black than f7-g7-h7 because it is harder for white to create a passed pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Taking gxf6 will often weaken the black king, but only if you are actually able to attack him. If you have all your pieces on the queenside he might just play Kh8, Rg8 and start an attack on your king!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, this is a weakening of his structure, but you have to be able to take advantage of it. Otherwise a bishop might just be more useful than a knight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-11-17T21:18:20.740" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12855" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12849" CreationDate="2015-11-17T22:04:24.373" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Playing is not how you improve. Playing is how you demonstrate your skill. From a training point of view, playing a lot of games is more a less a waste of time compared to other training and study activities. Playing is fun, but if you want to improve you need to train. You need to decide: do I want to play and have fun, or do I want to work and improve?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8673" LastEditorUserId="8673" LastEditDate="2015-11-18T05:42:29.830" LastActivityDate="2015-11-18T05:42:29.830" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12856" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12835" CreationDate="2015-11-17T22:53:49.983" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;White can take the opposition by playing Kd6. To keep the opposition after 8. Kd6 Black would need to play 8...Kf6 or 8...Kh6, but both those squares are controlled by White's g-pawn, so Black will lose the opposition: 8. Kd6 Kf7 9. Kd7 (White now has the opposition) Kg6 10. Ke6 Kg7 11. Kf5 Kf7 12. g6+ Kg7 13. Kg5 winning the h-pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If Black plays Kf5, Kg4 then the White g-pawn will queen long before Black's pawn will reach h2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8673" LastActivityDate="2015-11-17T22:53:49.983" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12857" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12829" CreationDate="2015-11-17T23:02:25.533" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;For a B-player, or any non-master for that matter, the problem with this book is that the examples and study positions are complex and will be difficult for an amateur to understand and analyze. Nevertheless, the concepts in the book and techniques are completely valid and useful for a B-player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To make best use of a book like this, I would recommend learning the ideas and concepts in the book and then applying them to easier examples which you can find in intermediate-level books. So, look at Aagard's examples, but when you actually go to train use easier positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8673" LastActivityDate="2015-11-17T23:02:25.533" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12858" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12808" CreationDate="2015-11-17T23:06:22.270" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would recommend using the second book. When you know what tactical motif you are looking for, it makes the problem artificially simple. Once you understand the basic motifs, it is better to solve problems for which you do not have a partial answer already.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8673" LastActivityDate="2015-11-17T23:06:22.270" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12859" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12787" CreationDate="2015-11-17T23:57:36.743" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;One way to approach the strategy in this position is to just play one side. So, starting with Black and starting with most powerful piece first, the rook:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(A) Rd4 would put pressure on the a-pawn&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(B) Rd2 and Nd6 would put pressure on the b-pawn&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's about it for the rook. Trading the rook does not help, because Black's rook is more active than either of White's rooks. Next most powerful piece, the Bishop:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(C) Bf4 pressures the h-pawn and improves the bishop&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(D) Bg7, Bd5 would improve the bishop&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(E) Bb4 would make the bishop more active, but would put less pressure on White because the e-pawn would be less defended; in other words the pin on the knight does not appear to be worth much&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Next, the knight:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(F) Nd6 would win if White played Re2 (because of Nc1), but if White plays Rf1, nothing has been accomplished&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(G) Nd5 would win the exchange and the game, but it takes 4 moves to reach that square (eg Bf4, Nh6-f5-d5); note that Nd5-c2 might force a draw by repetition&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(H) Nc4 would be a big improvement for the knight because it paralyzes White's Rb3 and makes the knight immune from attack; also the knight pressures the pawn on b2 from c4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally consider the pawns. Moving the e-pawn would not be useful, except to support a knight on d4. Moving the b-pawn would be counter productive because it would activate White's rook on b3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Considering (C) and (G) let's look at one line: 1...Bf4 2. h3 Nh6 3. g4 stops the knight from reaching d5. Hmm...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Okay, now consider White's strategies. White would like to trade a pair of rooks, since both of his rooks are passive. Giving back the exchange for a pawn would lead to a roughly equal game. White can use his king to defend potentially, but Kf1-e2 is problematic because of ...Rd2 or ...Rf2. Improving the knight to c5 would increase the scope of the Rb3. In fact, Ne4-c5 followed by Rd3 would be a big improvement to both pieces, but if the knight leaves the protection of e2 then, e2 followed by Rd1 could be a threat.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, Black's main strategy should be to prevent Ne4 either by Rd4 or Nf6 and to try to get his own knight to c4. Black should also avoid exchanging rooks. If White plays 1. Ne4?? e2 wins because 2...Rd1 cannot be prevented (2. Nc3 Bd2 wins).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8673" LastActivityDate="2015-11-17T23:57:36.743" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12860" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12851" CreationDate="2015-11-18T01:23:43.610" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;FIDE has proposed an Internet-based Game Screening Tool (see &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.chessbase.com/post/fide-on-anti-cheating-plans-and-proposals-3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; for more information) in order to identify possible cases of cheating by assessing how much computer-like a player has played.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3757" LastActivityDate="2015-11-18T01:23:43.610" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12861" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12851" CreationDate="2015-11-18T10:48:10.503" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;Yes&quot; is the answer according to FIDE.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They have published their &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/FIDE/handbook/Anti%20Cheating%20Guidelines.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Anti Cheating Guidelines&lt;/a&gt; which highlight the section of the new laws regarding this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;11.3.b. During play, a player is forbidden to have a mobile phone and/or other device capable of processing or transmitting chess&#xA;  analysis in the playing venue. If it is evident that a player brought&#xA;  such a device into the playing venue, he shall lose the game. The&#xA;  opponent shall win. The rules of a  competition may specify a&#xA;  different, less severe, penalty.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They also highlight the powers the arbiters and organizers have to enforce this rule:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The arbiter may require the player to allow his clothes, bags or other&#xA;  items to be inspected, in private. The arbiter or a person authorized&#xA;  by the arbiter shall inspect the player and shall be of the same&#xA;  gender as the player. If a player refuses to cooperate with these&#xA;  obligations, the arbiter shall take measures in accordance with&#xA;  Article 12.9.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since amateur players often need their mobile phone on the way to the playing venue or on the way back to arrange lifts, etc, the commission amended the rules for amateur players as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;“In tournaments open to amateur players, the prohibition to introduce&#xA;  electronic devices in the playing venue may, and indeed should be&#xA;  waived. However, under no circumstances a player shall be allowed to&#xA;  carry a mobile phone or other device capable of processing or&#xA;  transmitting chess analysis, whether switched on or off, working or&#xA;  not, on his body during play. This includes, but is not limited to,&#xA;  carrying a device in a bag or in the pocket of a jacket. Any player&#xA;  found carrying such a device shall immediately be forfeited his game,&#xA;  with rating points calculated. A second offense during the same&#xA;  tournament shall imply an immediate ban from the tournament, with the&#xA;  player’s name forwarded to the ACC for further investigation.”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The net effect of this is that at our level we may take our mobile phones with us to the competition. They must be left switched off in a bag which may be by our feet when we are playing or alternatively left with the arbiter / organizer if they have made arrangements for this (some do, some don't). We may not take the mobile phone with us whether it is in a bag or not when we leave the board. If it is suspected that we have then the arbiter can request a search or pat down. Refusal results in the loss of the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2015-11-18T10:48:10.503" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12862" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12863" CreationDate="2015-11-18T13:30:30.590" Score="6" ViewCount="653" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm a poor opening player, I enjoy more tactical positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would like to know a list of openings that :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Leads to tactical positions&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Don't require too much work on learning (typically not a sicilian opening)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Allow a quick &quot;out of the theory&quot; position, that would advantage a thinking player over a monster of opening theory.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you can guess, it doesn't need to be openings that have bests ratio. It just has to meet previous requirements.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I asked the question to myself, I would go with :&#xA;- Evans Gambit&#xA;- Morra gambit&#xA;- East indian defence&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do you agree with me ? Do you know any other opening that would meet this requirements?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8661" LastActivityDate="2019-10-30T02:58:37.747" Title="List of openings for poor openings player" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12863" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12862" CreationDate="2015-11-18T14:02:50.897" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;The openings I teach the kids at my club are typically the Kali and the London System, depending on what they answer when I ask whether they favor more the knight or the bishop, respectively. Both are structurally sound, from my experience, and typically do not require much book work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you're going for unsound openings that lead to tactical shots, hoping to get out of your opponent's opening knowledge, you might consider the Blackmar-Diemer Gambit (the opening I play most often - 1.d4 d5 2.e4?! dxe4 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.f3 often leads to a half-open f-file after O-O and a Ne5 post) or the Trompowsky Attack (the opening preferred by the leader of our chess club - 1.d4 Nf6 2.Bg5 and 3.Bxf6 with the idea being to double the f-pawns).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Take suggestions with a grain of salt. It's best to come to your own conclusions about which openings you prefer based on how comfortable you are in the middle-game of those openings. Take a look at each opening you find, try it out, and if it makes you smile unconsciously when you play it, you probably have the answer you're looking for.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8773" LastActivityDate="2015-11-18T14:02:50.897" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12864" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12865" CreationDate="2015-11-18T14:28:16.243" Score="2" ViewCount="372" Body="&lt;p&gt;So we know that the right computer can beat the best human.   And computer players are rated as well as human players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there any rating information available for hybrid players?  (Humans moving the pieces, augmented by software doing analysis in the background)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there support for the claim that human/computer hybrids are ranked the highest in the world?  (Higher than either humans or computers alone)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8774" LastActivityDate="2015-11-18T15:15:35.083" Title="Is any rating information available for human/computer hybrid players?" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;computer-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12865" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12864" CreationDate="2015-11-18T15:15:35.083" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Computer-human hybrid chess is known as &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Advanced Chess or Freestyle Chess&lt;/a&gt;. &#xA;There used to be Advanced Chess tournaments in Leon (now it's normal rapid chess, I think), and Chessbase reported on some &quot;anything goes&quot; online Freestyle tournaments, that were generally won by &quot;Centaurs&quot;, i.e. computer-human-hybrid players, not by sole engines. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In recent years there hasn't been much coverage of these kind of events, but apparently Freestyle chess is going strong as ever. Based on &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.chessbase.com/post/dark-horse-zacks-wins-freestyle-che-tournament&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;PAL/CSS&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.infinitychess.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Infinity Chess&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ficgs.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;FICGS&lt;/a&gt; tournaments there even exists a &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.infinitychess.com/Page/Public/Article/DefaultArticle.aspx?id=83&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;rating list&lt;/a&gt;. (Keep in mind that you cannot compare the absolute values of the ratings on this list with the Fide rating list or the engine ratings.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-11-18T15:15:35.083" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12866" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6327" CreationDate="2015-11-18T18:13:07.270" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chessbase already performs this function in &quot;Opening Report&quot; feature. Telling avg # of moves of the games occurring in the database. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8778" LastActivityDate="2015-11-18T18:13:07.270" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12867" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-11-19T02:42:15.210" Score="13" ViewCount="1913" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why is, according to Stockfish (depth = 28), Kh8 the best move here for black?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Xgazw.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Xgazw.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Position from a game between Emanuel Lasker and Wilhelm Steinitz, 1896&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a position from a game between Emanuel Lasker and Wilhelm Steinitz, 1896.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nb6 seems to be the natural move in this position. At least to me (an intermediate player).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, there is a check at Qb3 or Bc4. But what's the big deal? The b7 pawn is protected if Nb6 is played. Bc4 is also not an option then.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's not a machine-like move. Steinitz played this, not in this move, but in the next move. Kh8 is not even among my [an intermediate player :-( ] candidate moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is the first time I am posting in stack exchange. Please excuse the bad formatting of the question. I don't know how to add PGN here so that you guys can go through the game move by move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8390" LastActivityDate="2016-07-12T20:09:57.313" Title="Why is Kh8 the best move in this position for black?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12868" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12867" CreationDate="2015-11-19T03:47:04.220" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you don't play ...Kh8, then for every move you consider making, you're going to have to worry about what happens if White responds Qb3+ or Bc4+. If you're analyzing variations, you always have to take into account that White might play Qb3+ on the fourth move of the sequence or something. This means that&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;You're going to have to spend extra time on the clock every move checking those checks.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;You might mess up and miss one of those times when one of the checks works, and get a disastrous result.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Even if you don't mess up, natural moves that you might want to play might fail due to one of the checks, and you'll have to play a less nice move instead.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;When White looks for tactics, he has built-in &quot;hooks&quot; to try to build combinations around. If there's some other weakness in your position at some point, there's a decent chance some double-attack tactics will become possible, for example.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, Stockfish only really cares about the last two, but even that's enough. If you can afford the tempo, it's a really good idea to just get the king out of the way and completely quash all four problems for the whole future of the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2015-11-19T03:47:04.220" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12869" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="693" CreationDate="2015-11-19T07:43:23.803" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;We have new chess applications for education - &lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/dev?id=8196632901699712832&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess King Learn&lt;/a&gt;.&#xA;They are developed by our team and can help all chess lovers to study chess interesting and simply, I hope.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are 12 applications now and more are coming soon:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.chessking.android.learn.beginnerstoclub&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess: From Beginners To Club&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.chessking.android.learn.guideforclub&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess Guide Vol. 1 (1600 - 2000)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.chessking.android.learn.guideforintermediates&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess Guide Vol. 2 (1800 - 2200)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.chessking.android.learn.chessstrategy&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess Strategy (1800 - 2400)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.chessking.android.learn.ctartforbeginners&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess Tactics Art (1400 - 1600)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.chessking.android.learn.ctartforclub&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess Tactics Art (1600 - 1800)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.chessking.android.learn.ctartmating&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess Tactics Art: Mating&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.chessking.android.learn.ctforbeginners&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess Tactics for Beginners&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.chessking.android.learn.chesscombinations1&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess Combinations Vol. 1&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.chessking.android.learn.chesscombinations2&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess Combinations Vol. 2&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.chessking.android.learn.totalchessending&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Total Chess Ending (1600 - 2400)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.chessking.android.learn.advanceddefense&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess Puzzles Advanced Defense&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8782" LastEditorUserId="8782" LastEditDate="2015-11-19T09:41:16.507" LastActivityDate="2015-11-19T09:41:16.507" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12870" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-11-19T08:23:36.300" Score="1" ViewCount="973" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am looking for a database with many various chess positions with a corresponding engine score. Something like (position, score):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;6r1/3k4/4b1rB/p2p1R2/1pp5/8/PP5Q/7K w - - 1 39&lt;/code&gt;   &lt;strong&gt;1.25&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;rn2nrk1/1b2qppp/p3p3/1p2P3/3N4/2NB2Q1/PPP3PP/2KR3R w - - 1 15&lt;/code&gt;   &lt;strong&gt;0.49&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;4nr2/r4p1k/4p1p1/p2qP2P/1p6/3B1P2/PPP5/2K3RR w - - 0 25&lt;/code&gt; &lt;strong&gt;6.91&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;2kr2nr/1bq2p1p/ppp1p1p1/2b5/N3P3/4BP2/PPP2QPP/1K1R1B1R b - - 1 13&lt;/code&gt; &lt;strong&gt;-10&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am hoping to have a database with significant amount of positions (~1 million), where positions are evaluated with at least 3 seconds of thinking of a strong engine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;bigger the number of positions&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the longer the thinking time of an engine (or the ply lookahead)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the stronger the engine&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the more different score of positions (+0.1, +4.2, + 9.1, -8.7)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the better. I know that I can write a program that gives stockfish tasks to calculate the score of various positions, but it will take a couple of months to calculate scores for 1 million positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="703" LastActivityDate="2015-11-19T09:24:38.107" Title="Database of analysed positions with corresponding scores" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;database&gt;&lt;evaluation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12871" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12870" CreationDate="2015-11-19T09:24:38.107" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.kaggle.com/c/finding-elo/data&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Here you can find&lt;/a&gt; a database with 50,000 games and engine scores after every move. That should translate to 80*50,000 = 4 million positions. Unfortunately the engine evaluations are by stockfish with only one second per position, which isn't very much.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You might also try to parse the &lt;a href=&quot;http://chessok.com/?page_id=352&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chessok Opening Tree&lt;/a&gt;, or to get the commercial version of it. Those evaluations are possibly better. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-11-19T09:24:38.107" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12872" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12867" CreationDate="2015-11-19T10:59:22.670" Score="7" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Kh8 is not even among my ... candidate moves&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Oh dear!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Kh8 and Kh1 (for white) are automatic moves when the f pawn has moved, sometimes even just before moving the f pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason is that often moving the f pawn, apart from creating a weakness, is the precursor to some kind of king side attack. Even if you are not immediately intending a king side attack the weakness on f2/f7 leaves you vulnerable to an annoying Zwischenzug or tactic along the vulnerable diagonal. Moving the king into the corner is going to be needed sooner or later. Therefore it is a useful waiting move before making a more committal move which reveals your intentions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2015-11-19T10:59:22.670" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12873" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12874" CreationDate="2015-11-19T10:59:56.017" Score="5" ViewCount="898" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is the first of a series of challenges I'll be posting regularly. In this case it is just a &lt;em&gt;simple&lt;/em&gt; mate in one. This is the position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [Title &amp;quot;White to mate in one&amp;quot;]&#xA; [FEN &amp;quot;1Bb3BN/R2Pk1pr/1Q5B/4q2R/2bN/4Q1BK/1p/1bq1R1rb w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White plays and gives mate. It seems very easy but there are a lot of pieces in the board. I'll be increasing or reducing the level of the challenges based on the answers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8751" LastEditorUserId="12031" LastEditDate="2020-11-09T10:31:05.427" LastActivityDate="2020-11-09T10:31:05.427" Title="Chess challenge #1: Mate in one" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;problems&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="12874" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12873" CreationDate="2015-11-19T11:15:06.030" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;It seems that&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt; Qa3&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;is mate in one. It is indeed harder than it looks at first sight, because there are so many pins.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2015-11-19T11:15:06.030" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12876" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12867" CreationDate="2015-11-19T16:54:35.613" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well there's a threat of Qb3+ winning a pawn. As Black has no counterplay he can't really let that go. Nb6 is possible of course but the knight has no real influence on the c4/d5 squares and a later a4 by White would be awkward. Black's position is already difficult. He needs to get his light-squared bishop onto the h5-e8 diagonal and find a square for his other bishop (f8?) so he can stick the c8 knight on e7 and play for f5 or d5 to free his game. Kh8 is just so he can implement that plan without being hit by an annoying check. I don't know the game, I'm going to look up what actually happened now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: Hehe, Steinitz played Nb6 and c5 and drew (although lucky to survive on the K-side IMO)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2415" LastEditorUserId="2415" LastEditDate="2016-07-12T10:48:10.433" LastActivityDate="2016-07-12T10:48:10.433" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12877" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12867" CreationDate="2015-11-19T17:02:42.843" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The reason why the move Kh8 is valuable is because it reduces White's tactical potential.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black only wants to defend b7 &lt;em&gt;if he has to&lt;/em&gt;. So, if White commits to Qb3, then Black will defend the pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another way to look at it is that Black needs to defend the b-pawn and he has two basic ways to do that: move the king or use a piece to defend the pawn. Moving a piece to defend the pawn is not necessarily useful, but the move Kh8 will always be useful, therefore it is the preferable move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8673" LastActivityDate="2015-11-19T17:02:42.843" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12879" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12881" CreationDate="2015-11-19T20:47:17.797" Score="5" ViewCount="811" Body="&lt;p&gt;This sounds like a powerful technique. The problem is that I don't know how to give my opponent two weaknesses when they have none. Any advice?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ideas I've seen are pushing the rook pawns and weakening the opponent's king or queen side. That's about all I've seen and know in giving weaknesses. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3149" LastEditorUserId="11202" LastEditDate="2017-04-26T03:28:40.440" LastActivityDate="2017-04-26T08:48:24.957" Title="How does one apply the Principle of Two Weaknesses into their own game?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12881" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12879" CreationDate="2015-11-19T23:41:08.547" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Pushing the rook pawns can be a powerful idea at the right time. But the reason you really need maturity is for big decisions like whether you should do a pawn storm, attack with pieces, or just choose quiet moves to improve and consolidate your position. The &quot;principle of two weaknesses&quot; is just a term for the concept that you shouldn't be so preoccupied with playing for a certain advantage (and perhaps even playing well for it) that you lose sight of a better strategical idea in the position. I like the example of Vladimir Kramnik vs Ernesto Inarkiev. Kramnik played the opening like Kramnik, starting out by isolating and weakening his opponent's queenside pawns, creating the first weakness. He was able to play a timely 16. b4, which made the problem worse, since the black c4 pawn couldn't watch over the b-pawn anymore. After forcing the knight trade on d4, he recaptured with the rook, and after the 24th move white is clearly better. But what I love about this game was Kramnik's move 26. Rg4! You rarely put your rook there. Kramnik was able to realize in the middle of a good position that the best way to finish Inarkiev would be to launch a tactically correct kingside attack, and he finished it off with a nice flourish. Inarkiev was a strong GM, what what sets Kramnik apart was that he was able to change his vision from the queenside to the kingside at a moment's notice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Petrosian Memorial&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Moscow RUS&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2014.11.05&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;2014.11.03&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;2&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Vladimir Kramnik&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Ernesto Inarkiev&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;D53&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;2760&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;2688&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;79&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nf3 d5 4. Nc3 Be7 5. Qc2 O-O 6. Bg5 c5&#xA;7. dxc5 dxc4 8. e4 Nfd7 9. Bf4 b5 10. cxb6 Nxb6 11. Rd1 Qe8&#xA;12. Be2 Na6 13. Ne5 Nb4 14. Qc1 Ba6 15. a3 Nc6 16. b4 Bf6&#xA;17. Nf3 Bxc3+ 18. Qxc3 Qc8 19. O-O Bb5 20. Bd6 Rd8 21. e5 h6&#xA;22. Nd4 a6 23. Bf3 Nxd4 24. Rxd4 Bc6 25. Be2 Bb5 26. Rg4 Kh8&#xA;27. Qg3 Rg8 28. Rh4 Qd8 29. Qf4 Re8 30. Rxh6+ gxh6 31. Qxh6+&#xA;Kg8 32. f4 Bc6 33. Bf3 Qc8 34. f5 exf5 35. Qg5+ Kh8 36. Bxc6&#xA;Re6 37. Rxf5 Ra7 38. Qh4+ Kg7 39. Rh5 Qg8 40. Be4 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8790" LastEditorUserId="8790" LastEditDate="2015-11-20T16:11:42.093" LastActivityDate="2015-11-20T16:11:42.093" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12882" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12887" CreationDate="2015-11-20T00:33:09.127" Score="5" ViewCount="154" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is the first of a series of strategic challenges. The answers are supposed to provide a move (or sequence of moves) and the right plan for the corresponding player. In this occasion we have the following diagram:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;r3kb1r/1p2qp1p/p1p1npp1/2P5/3P4/4BN2/PP3PPP/R2Q1RK1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I took this position from &lt;em&gt;Mastering Chess Strategy&lt;/em&gt; by Johan Hellsten. This position arose in a game between Curt Hansen and the author in 1996. The author says about the position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Black just need a few moves like Rd8, Bg7 and 0-0 to achieve safety. However, it is White to move ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;What is the right move and plan for White in this position?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8751" LastActivityDate="2015-11-20T09:37:46.397" Title="Strategic challenge #1 - C.Hansen - J.Hellsten" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;pawns&gt;&lt;pawn-structure&gt;&lt;problems&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12883" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12886" CreationDate="2015-11-20T00:46:57.947" Score="6" ViewCount="128" Body="&lt;p&gt;The previous challenge was solved very quickly so here I am with a new one. Still a very easy one but hopefully a bit more challenging that the previous one. Black has just played Qb6 and it is White's turn. &lt;strong&gt;What move should White do to win the game?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;r3brk1/pp3pp1/1qn4p/3B4/8/P1R2N2/1PQ2PPP/3R2K1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I saw this puzzle from Chess24 Tactics Trainer and I liked it, so I decided to post it here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8751" LastActivityDate="2015-11-20T03:36:16.787" Title="Tactical challenge #2 - Attacking the kingside" Tags="&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;problems&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12884" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12885" CreationDate="2015-11-20T00:59:37.673" Score="3" ViewCount="835" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is it possible to perform analysis with stockfish for a given depth, but stop in case it is taking longer than a specified time?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Something like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;go depth 17 max movetime 10000&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;setoption name MaxMovetime value 10000&lt;/code&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;...&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;go depth 17&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4545" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2015-11-20T02:56:54.067" LastActivityDate="2015-11-20T02:56:54.067" Title="UCI go with depth and movetime" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;uci&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12885" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12884" CreationDate="2015-11-20T02:56:42.683" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think it's possible to do it in the UCI protocol. Fortunately, it's really easy to do it yourself. For example, in my SmallFish app (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.smallchess.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.smallchess.com&lt;/a&gt;), to save the phone's battery the app would send the &quot;stop&quot; signal to the engine after a minute of analysis. The command is very simple:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;stop&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You will just need to create a timer yourself and send the stop signal to terminate the search immediately.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2015-11-20T02:56:42.683" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12886" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12883" CreationDate="2015-11-20T03:29:04.840" Score="7" Body="&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt; &lt;code&gt;1. Ng5&lt;/code&gt; threatening &lt;code&gt;Qh7#&lt;/code&gt;&#xA; &lt;code&gt;1... hxg5 2.Rh3&lt;/code&gt;&#xA; &lt;code&gt;1... g6 2. Qxg6&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2015-11-20T03:36:16.787" LastActivityDate="2015-11-20T03:36:16.787" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12887" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12882" CreationDate="2015-11-20T09:10:17.923" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;To me d5 would be pretty much an automatic move. There might be a better idea in the position, but I don't see it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reasoning is as follows: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Longterm black is more than ok, with Bg7, 0-0, Rd8, f5 …&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;d4 is a weakness which also limits the Be3 and the Nf3.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I don't have to worry about losing c5, because black is way too underdeveloped to grab a pawn like that. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Based on that I would be inclined to just play it without calculating anything. Then I would force myself to at least calculate one or two lines:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;1.d5 cxd5 2.Qxd5 Nxc5 3.Bxc5 Qxc5 4.Re1+ and black loses her queen.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;1.d5 cxd5 2.Qxd5 Rd8 3.Qc4 (black still can't take on c5 and I'm ready for c6, when blacks queenside falls apart.) 3…Qc7 4.Rac1 and I don't know how much this is, but black has to solve some problems (c6 is a threat. Qc6 Nd4 doesn't look good).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically, given that black needs at least two more tempi to get his king into safety, if you open the position with white nice things will happen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: Then I would make the move, write it down, get up from the board and look at the positions of my friends and then suddenly realise that black can also immediately take on c5, without taking on d5 first. That would give me a little jolt, but wouldn't worry me too much, because after all &quot;black is way too underdeveloped to grab a pawn like that&quot;. But I would still hurry back to my board and calculate stuff like 1.d5 Nxc5 2.dxc6 bxc6 3.Bxc5 Qxc5 4.Re1 Be7 5.Rc1 Rd8 6.Qe2 Qb4 7.a3 Qb7 8.Rxc6 and relax. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastEditorUserId="4362" LastEditDate="2015-11-20T09:37:46.397" LastActivityDate="2015-11-20T09:37:46.397" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12888" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12694" CreationDate="2015-11-20T12:39:57.293" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not only does lichess.org has the option to berserk in 1m bullet-games, but after a recent update you are able to to start a 30sec game. You will learn nothing though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8753" LastActivityDate="2015-11-20T12:39:57.293" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12889" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12873" CreationDate="2015-11-20T19:19:22.270" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Moving&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt; D7 to D8 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ending up with 3 Queens              &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8796" LastEditorUserId="23056" LastEditDate="2020-04-30T22:48:58.317" LastActivityDate="2020-04-30T22:48:58.317" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="12890" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9870" CreationDate="2015-11-20T19:54:30.807" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;New board, paste your game in, click analysis tab, click &quot;Let's Check Analysis&quot; (third button from left at the top).  Choose the options (try each one if you don't know what they do), and start.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8797" LastActivityDate="2015-11-20T19:54:30.807" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12895" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-11-20T21:30:41.297" Score="4" ViewCount="104" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm researching deep blue, but I want more info. Can anyone give good primary resources on Deep Blue?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8799" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2015-11-20T21:33:00.383" LastActivityDate="2015-12-21T21:39:29.297" Title="Can anyone give good primary resources on Deep Blue?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12896" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12895" CreationDate="2015-11-21T00:03:12.103" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;One place to look is the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.computerhistory.org&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Computer History Museum&lt;/a&gt; in Mountain View, California. Some of the hardware is there (but it's not very interesting). More important, though, is that you can do a site search that gives a fairly long list of articles.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2297" LastActivityDate="2015-11-21T00:03:12.103" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12897" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12935" CreationDate="2015-11-21T11:11:38.347" Score="4" ViewCount="278" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here it is a new chess problem much more difficult than the previous one. The diagram position is the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;3rr2k/6pp/p2q1p2/5P2/3Nb3/1P1RQ1NP/6P1/7K w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black has just played Bxe4 but that is not a good choice. &lt;strong&gt;How should White continue in this position?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I took this problem from the &lt;a href=&quot;http://chess.emrald.net/index.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chess Tactics Server.&lt;/a&gt; I hope this takes more time to be solved than the previous one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;After Nxe4 Black plays Qd4 instead of Qe4, giving White the choice of playing a powerful movement.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8751" LastEditorUserId="8751" LastEditDate="2015-11-23T16:26:48.870" LastActivityDate="2015-11-29T22:52:44.570" Title="Chess challenge #3: Pinned knights" Tags="&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;problems&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12898" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12897" CreationDate="2015-11-21T11:52:58.713" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is what I would play:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt; 1. Nxe4 (removes the threat to the Rook) Qe5 (pins the knight) 2. Ne6 (discovered attack to weaken the back rank) Rxd3 3. Qxd3 Qxf5 4. N6c5 (note the e4 knight cannot be taken by the Rook due to the weak back rank). It is nominally even material (2 knights vs. Rook and Pawn), but White has much more active pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2015-11-21T11:52:58.713" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12900" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12621" CreationDate="2015-11-21T14:42:23.273" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess has had more books written about it than any other topic except the Bible.  It is a highly complex game and volumes have been written on just a single topic, so I think expecting one book to provide a complete examination of all concepts is probably unrealistic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Having said that I can also tell you that you are on the right track reading Jeremy Silman's books because he is superb at explaining ideas with clarity. Few authors have this ability.  Check out his endgame manual.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, Bruce Pandolfini is also known as a good teacher.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, I have read many books and can recommend a few.  Aron Nimzovich's &quot;My System&quot; offers many useful ideas.  Nimzovich invented many of the terms still used today to describe various important principles.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Next, V. Vucovic's &quot; The Art of Attack in Chess&quot; is a unique guide to learning how to spot and exploit weaknesses on the board so that you may understand why a move is good or bad.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Alexander Kotov and Paul Keres have a  definitive book  with &quot; The Art of the Middle Game&quot;. It is one of a kind!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8745" LastActivityDate="2015-11-21T14:42:23.273" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12901" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12903" CreationDate="2015-11-21T16:13:07.447" Score="5" ViewCount="243" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;r4r1k/pbq2p1p/1p1ppPp1/8/2P3P1/PP6/R2Q2P1/1B3R1K w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Qh6 Rg8 2. Rf4 e5 3. Rf3 Bxf3 4. gxf3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is what I got from &quot;ChessCademy -&gt; Attack and Defence -&gt; Attacking Castled King -&gt; Combining Focal points&quot; lesson. &#xA;After this small play, I got :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Excellent! After attacking the g7 square, black is forced to close off&#xA;  g8 as an escape square for his king. From there, you opened up the&#xA;  h-file, resulting in a decisive attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't understand how White got an advantage and there why Black did the moves he did.  Sadly, I didn't find a way to get the more in depth analysis on the website, or have variations of games that I could play. &#xA;It would be wonderful if someone could explain to me, or show, why White is winning and was this the best course of action? &#xA;Is there anything else Black could have done to better himself? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3365" LastActivityDate="2015-11-21T17:32:10.403" Title="How is this a winning position for white?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12902" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-11-21T16:23:17.400" Score="7" ViewCount="1005" Body="&lt;p&gt;The goal here, albeit heterodox, is to bring the game into a position with few pieces on the board, where yourself as a player has forced the other to trade all your major pieces, leaving both in a position that is likely to draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which chess openings illustrate this strategy best? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2697" LastEditorUserId="2258" LastEditDate="2015-11-23T18:33:05.373" LastActivityDate="2016-07-13T00:24:14.023" Title="Which chess openings trade the most pieces?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12903" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12901" CreationDate="2015-11-21T17:32:10.403" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Qh6 threatens Qg7 mate, so Rg8 was the only way to defend.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now if white finds a way for a rook to get to the h-line, Qxh7 Kxh7 Rh+ would be mate. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One idea would be 2.Rf3 Bxf3 3.gxf3 and then execute this idea with 4.Qxh7 and Ra2-h2. Unfortunately in this line 3…d5 attacks the h2 square and 4.Qxh7 Kxh7 5.Rh2 is foiled by 5…Qxh2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So white plays 2.Rf4 first, this threatens g5 and then the execution. Therefore black forces the rook away with 2…e5. But now the Rf3-idea works because d5 no longer allows the queen to attack h2. No more way to prevent Qh7 and mate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;r4r1k/pbq2p1p/1p1ppPp1/8/2P3P1/PP6/R2Q2P1/1B3R1K w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Qh6 Rg8 2. Rf4 e5 3. Rf3 Bxf3 4. gxf3 d5 5.Qxh7 Kxh7 6.Rh2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-11-21T17:32:10.403" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12904" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-11-21T18:12:49.187" Score="7" ViewCount="337" Body="&lt;p&gt;Seems that many chess books are out of print. For example I have been trying to get a copy of Grandmaster Repertoire 1.d4 Volume 2 (&lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1906552339&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Amazon&lt;/a&gt;) but many sites (Barnes &amp;amp; Noble, Quality Chess, ChessHouse, etc.) list the book as Out of Print, Sold out, etc. Most individual sellers (e.g. on Amazon or Ebay) sell the book for ridiculous amounts (100 dollars or so). What is the best way to get out-of-print chess books like this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7500" LastActivityDate="2019-10-16T21:16:10.033" Title="How to get out-of-print chess books?" Tags="&lt;books&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12905" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12862" CreationDate="2015-11-22T03:28:24.630" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;King pawn openings with early pawn exchanges will rapidly open the center and lead to quick tactical play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As Black, you may accept any gambit and prepare for immediate sharp play.  WARNING--Don't try to hang on to the extra material gain.  Give it back and seek equality or White's gambit will pay off.  Look to exploit the time gained when White recaptures to sieze the initiative.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Avoid Queen pawn openings as they tend to more positional games and fewer tactical battles.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Kings Gambit is probably the fastest line to achieve major battles.  Evans' Gambit is safer for White and also leads to fast play.  More unorthodox choices would be the Goring Gambit for White or the Center Counter Game for Black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of these, only the Evans' Gambit is truly theoretically sound though still dangerous for White.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can always try for Scholars Mate but it's boring against a strong opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8745" LastActivityDate="2015-11-22T03:28:24.630" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12906" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8331" CreationDate="2015-11-22T03:51:31.247" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Since other answers here point to repetition or similar I wish to modify your question to, &quot;Are the number of possible chess POSITIONS infinite.  The answer is &quot;No.&quot;  The total is very large though and estimated to be about 10 to the 120th power.  The total number of atoms in the universe is thought to be only 10 to the 80th power. Wow!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The number 10 to the 134th power given by a previous responder may be correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Chinese game &quot;Go&quot; is even more varied than chess(but boring by comparison since chess has pieces with different abilities, while in Go all the pieces are the same).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8745" LastEditorUserId="8745" LastEditDate="2015-11-22T04:04:44.503" LastActivityDate="2015-11-22T04:04:44.503" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12907" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12942" CreationDate="2015-11-22T13:07:56.727" Score="2" ViewCount="132" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are a set of good chess piece graphics at: &lt;a href=&quot;https://code.google.com/p/raptor-chess-interface/wiki/AdditionalChessSets&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://code.google.com/p/raptor-chess-interface/wiki/AdditionalChessSets&lt;/a&gt;. In particular, I'm interested in the graphics used by the Jin Chess client, e.g.: JinAlpha.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/5uAwM.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/5uAwM.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/6I8HA.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/6I8HA.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately, the highest resolution is at 132x132, which is too little in the 2015 standards. I'm looking for something like 256x256, or even SVG (resolution independent).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anybody has any idea where to get the source for the graphics (e.g.: Adobe files)? Who created those graphics? Is there any way to increase the resolution without image loss? Who would have the skills to enhance the graphics?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Free or paid solutions are welcome.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-07-28T13:09:41.820" LastActivityDate="2016-07-28T13:09:41.820" Title="Jin chess pieces, how to obtain higher resolution?" Tags="&lt;pieces&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12909" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-11-23T04:10:53.530" Score="4" ViewCount="183" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm a beginner learning about chess engines and would like to find a chess engine written in C (like TSCP) that doesn't use bitboards for board representation because I want to test the engine on a 32 bit processor. Though I can tell TSCP doesn't use bitboard, I'd really appreciate it if anyone can clarify for me if TSCP requires a 32 or 64 bit processor to run. Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8816" LastActivityDate="2017-04-01T10:56:53.533" Title="Is the TSCP chess engine able to run on a 32 bit processor?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;programming&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12910" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12909" CreationDate="2015-11-23T04:34:16.617" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Although pretty much everything even a mobile phone runs on the 64 bits, there is no reason why TSCP can't be run on a 32 bits architecture. In fact, it was written before 64 bits became common. TSCP can be run on any architecture as long as you can compile it, there is no platform-dependent code.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bitboard is simply a 64-bits integer, that doesn't mean you can't use it on a 32-bits machine. Your machine would need at least an extra instruction cycle to transfer a 64-bit integer on a 32 bit machine, but everything still works.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2016-01-22T13:36:15.717" LastActivityDate="2016-01-22T13:36:15.717" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12911" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12914" CreationDate="2015-11-23T16:29:25.270" Score="5" ViewCount="109" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have been taking various training tests and the answer almost always involves some sort of forcing move.  Clearly attacking a king will always force a response but when another piece is involved (whether it be major or minor) an attack does not need to be forcing.  Are there rules of thumb to help identify forces in these cases?  I tend to look for mates, royal forks followed by forks and then winning exchanges.  Where I stumble is if a test involves a forcing attack that leads to mate.  I always just assume I would sacrifice the piece to stay alive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8231" LastActivityDate="2015-11-23T19:50:19.613" Title="What defines a forcing move with major/minor pieces?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;forced-move&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12913" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12902" CreationDate="2015-11-23T19:01:44.790" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;For black, I would recommend the Queen's Gambit accepted against d4 and the Scandinavian Defense against e4. Sure, it may only be one pawn, but you'll immediately notice how much your position opens up with just that trade. For white, you can play e4, and openings you might like may include the Ruy Lopez exchange, which is drawish from the outset. However, when many people say they are trying to play for a draw, they lack aggression and make defensive mistakes, which can make it quite easy to lose in the end. One one hand, you will learn something with whatever opening repertoire you happen to choose. On the other hand, this most likely isn't going to be where you'll spend the rest of your chess career.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8790" LastActivityDate="2015-11-23T19:01:44.790" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12914" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12911" CreationDate="2015-11-23T19:50:19.613" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Forcing move is a term for a move that leaves an opponent with a few options, only one of which does not lead to an immediate loss. This could refer to a variety of circumstances. For example, you might see a mate in 3 puzzle in which the first move is a forcing move because the opponent's only other legal move falls to a mate in 1. The term can also be used in opening theory, like in Ruy Lopez situations where black's b5 forces Bb3, or the loss of the bishop. The term may also be used for situations like 1.e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6, after which white is left with one good option, 4. Bxc6, and several bad options, such as 4. Ba4, which just loses the bishop, 4. Bc4, which allows black queenside expansion while losing another move, 4. Bd3, which blocks the d-pawn, 4. Be2 which is probably the best alternative but yields the b5 square without a fight, and 4. Bf1, which severely hampers development. While white has other options, they are strategically weak, and it could be said that black's a6 is a forcing move. So there is a wide spectrum between checkmate situations and less dramatic situations in which there is only one reasonable move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8790" LastActivityDate="2015-11-23T19:50:19.613" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12916" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12292" CreationDate="2015-11-24T14:13:47.333" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;For white, it's hard. At any cost, white should try to keep the king on white (as the bishop is on black). King to F3 could be a decent move. Also moving the pawn to E3 when the Bishop moved away to prevent being taken by the king. White should be focusing on making space for the king to move away. But black has many pawns which kind of makes it obvious that he will win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, trying to take as many pawns as possible without losing an own piece could help a lot, but this is also hard.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Don't hate me but I think king to F3 is a good move, since the bishop has to move away and the pawn can move&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8827" LastActivityDate="2015-11-24T14:13:47.333" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12918" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-11-25T13:47:46.797" Score="8" ViewCount="370" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;6r1/1p3k2/2rb1p1p/3NpP1P/PpPp2pR/1P1K2P1/4RP2/8 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If Black holds his bishop on c5, rook on a8/a5 (if a5 is a threat), rook on g8 (protect g4) or the 8th rank, is there any way for White to break through?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If so, what would be the best defense for Black?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black to move. He will play Rg5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8672" LastEditorUserId="8672" LastEditDate="2015-11-25T14:19:06.907" LastActivityDate="2016-03-02T18:02:52.350" Title="Endgame Fortresses" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12919" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12923" CreationDate="2015-11-26T13:45:19.793" Score="5" ViewCount="859" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've read about &amp;quot;mate prevails&amp;quot; &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/9042/mate-prevails-chess-rule&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; on this site, but I couldn't get a clear view on one odd point. I get that the mating move prevails, but if you couldn't do it before your flag falls, you lose.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's say it's my opponent's turn. I'm about to mate in 1. They hit the clock, and I run out of time. Then he notices it and claims it while I'm performing checkmate, &lt;strong&gt;at the exact same time&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Under FIDE rules, what happens?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8661" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-01-05T21:01:09.170" LastActivityDate="2021-01-05T21:01:09.170" Title="Mate vs timeout" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;fide&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="12920" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12922" CreationDate="2015-11-26T20:04:42.813" Score="3" ViewCount="131" Body="&lt;p&gt;After the last problem which was very hard I'm bringing you another one which is easier than the previous one. The position is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;K4R2/RQ4B1/2n5/3q2p1/4PP1p/3p4/pp6/1kr5 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White has just played Qg2 and it's going to lose very quickly. &lt;strong&gt;What is the winning move for Black in this position?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This problem is taken again from the &lt;a href=&quot;http://chess.emrald.net/index.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chess Tactics Server&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8751" LastActivityDate="2015-11-26T22:19:15.670" Title="Chess tactics #4: Black to play and win" Tags="&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;problems&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12921" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12931" CreationDate="2015-11-26T21:57:21.863" Score="2" ViewCount="123" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm a big fan of lichess's tactics training, because puzzles include both winning material and checkmate sequences, and the puzzles are taken from actual games. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately this feature isn't available on the lichess android app. Is there some other app that meets most of these requirements?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;is free&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;has no limit on number of puzzles&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;has both checkmate tactics and material-winning tactics&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;has sufficient variety in puzzle difficulty&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;has a puzzle rating / gives you a tactics rating&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any recommendations are appreciated, thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4263" LastActivityDate="2021-01-03T20:08:19.870" Title="What are some puzzle apps for android?" Tags="&lt;training&gt;&lt;websites&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12922" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12920" CreationDate="2015-11-26T22:19:15.670" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;White threatens mate on g7, but&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt; 1. ... Ne1 pins the queen (and threatens Rf1#; Qxe4 won't stop that) 2. Rxe1 Qxe1+ 3. Qg1 Rf1 wins the queen&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and the remaining endgame is easily won for Black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2015-11-26T22:19:15.670" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12923" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12919" CreationDate="2015-11-27T00:44:13.043" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Theoretically the situation is very simple, whichever happens first stands. In practice it is often difficult to determine what happened first though. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you insist that both the flag falls and the mating move is made at exactly the same time (the same nanosecond say) then my answer would be that this can never happen. It is as in statistics - the probability of a single point is zero, i.e. two events cannot happen at the same time. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As an arbiter you need to decide according to what you believe happened first. How to determine that is an old question (with no clear answer obviously) but that is not what your question is about if I understand it correctly . &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8844" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-04T18:31:29.267" LastActivityDate="2020-03-04T18:31:29.267" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="12924" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-11-27T06:43:56.447" Score="1" ViewCount="293" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have an old Chessbase Light with Fritz 4. Fritz displays the best 5 moves. Is there any way to make Arena 3.5 display the 5 best moves, instead of the single move output. Thanks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8846" LastActivityDate="2016-09-29T06:45:32.043" Title="How do I create multiple move output" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12925" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12927" CreationDate="2015-11-27T08:51:03.540" Score="4" ViewCount="1033" Body="&lt;p&gt;We all had this situation where our opponent have this fide master friend and just happen to stand next to him, whisper him things while pointing your chessboard.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've never had the guts to call it out (that would make a mess out of no proof accusations) but that usually mess up my game as my anger take over my concentration.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd like to know if you've met this situation and how you dealt with it, or what would be the official way to deal with it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please consider that calling out referee might not be the best solution : as I said, there's no proof, and it's easier said than done to call a cheat when there's no evidences.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8661" LastActivityDate="2020-02-05T18:53:00.513" Title="How to deal with people getting help on board" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;cheating&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12926" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12925" CreationDate="2015-11-27T09:57:52.847" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;The official way is of course to tell the arbiter.  Though you may have no proof, the arbiter can just tell your opponent he should not be whispering with the other person.  If it happens again, the arbiter may impose fines for violating this.  Also the arbiter may just keep a closer look, so while this does not lead to a loss for cheating, it certainly takes your opponents help out for the rest of the game.  Of course you might also just warn them yourself that you will call the arbiter if they continue befir first calling the arbiter.  On the other hand, the only one who can really impose some rules is the arbiter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3529" LastActivityDate="2015-11-27T09:57:52.847" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12927" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12925" CreationDate="2015-11-27T10:19:00.817" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;What you describe has never happened to me personally, but I would have no qualms of making a complaint in this situation - either by calling the arbiter (in the case of a tournament) or my captain (in the case of a league match). What you describe is clearly unacceptable conduct in any rated game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To illustrate how little is needed for an issue to be taken seriously: I once played a kid of about 6 years old - he was a good player (on my level at least), but he struggled to write down the moves properly. His dad came over and started to correct some of his notation. My team captain immediately complained to his team captain, and the dad was asked to leave the playing area. The question of proof was not on the table - just the fact that one person may be uncomfortable about something is enough for a referee to impose strict playing conditions even if no misconduct actually occurred.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1816" LastActivityDate="2015-11-27T10:19:00.817" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12928" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="99" CreationDate="2015-11-27T10:47:38.480" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Take a look at &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.chessbase.com/post/chessbase-s-free-tactics-training&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt;.This chessbase site is pretty useful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8727" LastActivityDate="2015-11-27T10:47:38.480" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12929" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7995" CreationDate="2015-11-27T14:38:51.317" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;As far as I know it is consensus that the two variations you gave starting with 5.cxd5 are indeed the best possible way to play as White.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now 4. ...Bf5 is a bad move, as Black is either forced to give up a pawn( in the first variation) or give up the center(as in the second variation), but despite these tactical flaws it is still a sensible developing move, so you really should not expect to gain more than you do in the given variations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That being said, White does have different options available, but none of them is actually objectively stronger. In fact, if White is careless this variation can easily result in an equal or even slightly favorable position for Black. There is a famous game Yanovsky - Capablanca, that beautifully illustrates this danger. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8851" LastActivityDate="2015-11-27T14:38:51.317" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12930" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12919" CreationDate="2015-11-27T15:35:18.370" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If no arbiter saw this happening and there is a dispute, then the player who claims the flag fall can't prove that it happened before the move. The player who checkmated the opponent can show that he did (the position is on the board). So the checkmate will win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If an arbiter saw what happened, a solution is probably possible, after all the claim of a win on time (or the arbiter announcing same) &lt;em&gt;will happen slightly after the flag fall&lt;/em&gt;. If the claim and the checkmate occur at the same time, then the flag fell first and he lost on time. If the flag fall and the checkmate occur at the same time, then the claim was late and the checkmate stands (the game is already over, so claims are irrelevant).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2015-11-27T15:35:18.370" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12931" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12921" CreationDate="2015-11-27T23:08:22.160" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The lichess app for Android just added the training feature, so this question isn't relevant any more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4263" LastActivityDate="2015-11-27T23:08:22.160" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12933" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12921" CreationDate="2015-11-28T14:40:14.157" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Mobialia chess free have some tactical puzzles.It is mainly used for connecting to icc and fics. The tactical puzzles are taken from real games. So although, there's only a limited no of puzzles(a few hundreds), doing them over and over can help one perfect the basics.It is mainly intended for players below 2100 fide rating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8856" LastActivityDate="2015-11-28T14:40:14.157" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12934" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="99" CreationDate="2015-11-28T21:48:42.983" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://lichess.org/training/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Lichess.org&lt;/a&gt; has both tactics and opening training.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8402" LastActivityDate="2015-11-28T21:48:42.983" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12935" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12897" CreationDate="2015-11-29T03:58:43.173" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Attempting to answer the revised puzzle:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt; 1.Nxe4 Qd5 2.Qg3 with the threat of 3 Ne6 winning due to double threat (4 Qxg7 and discovered attack from the Rd3).  White still carries out this threat if Black answers 2.Qg3 with either Qxe4 or Rxe4.  Presumably this is strong enough that the engines didn't even let Black answer 1.Nxe4 with Qd5.  Note that this tactic also depends on Qg3's access to d3 (after Qxe4 3 Ne6 Qxe6 4 fxe6 Rxd3) and the 8th rank (for Qxe4 3 Ne6 Rxe6 4 Rxd8+ Re8 5 Qb8!).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8860" LastEditorUserId="8860" LastEditDate="2015-11-29T22:52:44.570" LastActivityDate="2015-11-29T22:52:44.570" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12936" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="730" CreationDate="2015-11-29T04:08:50.653" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are even positions where one promotes R or B to save a draw by &lt;em&gt;getting&lt;/em&gt; stalemated (rather than win by &lt;em&gt;avoiding&lt;/em&gt; stalemate).  One example is the Traxler-Dedrle setup:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;4rN1K/5qP1/8/8/8/8/k7/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. g8=B!! (1. g8=Q Rxf8 2. Qxf8 Qxf8) Rxf8&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;WTM loses with 1 g8Q? Rxf8 2 Qxf8 Qxf8+ but draws with 1 g8B!! when Rxf8 is stalemate (NB the g8B pins Qf7).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's a famous study by Rusinek where White must promotes &lt;em&gt;both&lt;/em&gt; R and B (as well as N) to guarantee a draw; see the position shown in Rusinek's Wikipedia page &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Rusinek&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Rusinek&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8860" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-07-30T11:10:18.013" LastActivityDate="2019-07-30T11:10:18.013" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="12937" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12941" CreationDate="2015-11-29T15:35:59.617" Score="3" ViewCount="314" Body="&lt;p&gt;I took this position from a game that has been played today at the Yugra Governor's Cup between GM Aleksej Aleksandrov from Belarus and GM Ivan Bukavshin from Russia. White (Aleksandrov) has just played 27. Rc2 and that's a huge blunder. &lt;strong&gt;How did Bukavshin win the game?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;1r6/5kpp/3qpb2/1Bpb4/8/5N1P/1PR1QPP1/6K1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8751" LastActivityDate="2015-11-29T17:34:06.173" Title="Chess tactics #5: Yugra Governor's cup" Tags="&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;problems&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12938" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12945" CreationDate="2015-11-29T15:47:12.700" Score="3" ViewCount="207" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have played a game this morning where I reached the following position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;r1bq1rk1/1p1nppbp/p2p1np1/2pP4/2P1P3/2N1BN2/PP2BPPP/R2Q1RK1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was playing with White. In this position my opponent played e5 which is a very bad move because I can take the pawn &lt;em&gt;en passant&lt;/em&gt; and then take the d6 pawn which is unprotected.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I went on to win the game and afterwards I was talking to him and he told me that he thinks that it is an usual move and that taking on d6 is not supposed to be good. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I checked the position with my computer and it gives White an advantage of +2 after taking the d6 pawn. I assume that he forgot his analysis and mixed different lines. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't usually play the King's Indian so I'm wondering, are there any lines where Black can play e5 in a position similar to this one and then is bad to take on d6?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm just interested in positions which arose from the King's Indian where Black has already played c5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8751" LastActivityDate="2015-11-29T23:20:42.360" Title="Is e5 an usual move in positions like this in the King's Indian?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;kings-indian&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12939" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12937" CreationDate="2015-11-29T16:29:59.653" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is my gut feeling:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt; 1... Rxb5 2. Qxb5 Bxf3 3. gxf3 Qd1+ 4. K moves Qxc2. Black ends up a piece ahead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2015-11-29T16:29:59.653" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12940" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12938" CreationDate="2015-11-29T17:13:01.413" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In KID positions like this with pawns on c5 and d6, knight on d7 I have never seen e5 without either Re8 or Qe8 first. e5 in this position is just a blunder,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2015-11-29T17:13:01.413" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12941" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12937" CreationDate="2015-11-29T17:34:06.173" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;@Bad_Bishop is almost correct, and this illustrates a general pattern in chess tactics: if a sequence of moves almost works, try changing the move order:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt; 1 ... Bxf3! 2. gxf3 Rxb5 3. Qxb5 Qd1+ winning the rook, or 2. Qxf3 Rxb5 winning a piece.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2015-11-29T17:34:06.173" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12942" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12907" CreationDate="2015-11-29T22:45:54.433" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found this link to Github which could be useful: &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/lukasmonk/lucaschess/tree/master/Pieces/JinAlpha&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://github.com/lukasmonk/lucaschess/tree/master/Pieces/JinAlpha&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They seem to have the pieces in SVG format.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8751" LastActivityDate="2015-11-29T22:45:54.433" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12943" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="725" CreationDate="2015-11-29T23:03:43.097" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;Tim Krabbé has an extensive page on B- and R-promotions&#xA;in his Chess Curiosities site, including many examples&#xA;from actual play:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://timkr.home.xs4all.nl/chess2/minor.htm&quot;&gt;http://timkr.home.xs4all.nl/chess2/minor.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8860" LastActivityDate="2015-11-29T23:03:43.097" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12944" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4963" CreationDate="2015-11-29T23:18:03.243" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;A simpler infinite-loop setting:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;1kb5/1p1p4/1P1P4/8/8/4p1p1/4P1P1/5BK1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8860" LastActivityDate="2015-11-29T23:18:03.243" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12945" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12938" CreationDate="2015-11-29T23:20:42.360" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;...e5 is indeed a typical move in King's Indian, but it's usually done when:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The white pawn is on d4&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The white pawn is on d5 but there is something defending the d6 pawn, usually the Black queen.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think your opponent simply confused the position and blundered.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2015-11-29T23:20:42.360" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12946" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12948" CreationDate="2015-11-30T08:44:56.467" Score="2" ViewCount="58" Body="&lt;p&gt;The one that I posted yesterday &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/12937/chess-tactics-5-yugra-governors-cup&quot;&gt;Chess tactics #5: Yugra Governor&amp;#39;s cup&lt;/a&gt; wasn't the only blunder that happened yesterday in this tournament. In the game between Alexey Sarana (2426) and GM Pavel Ponkratov (2604) the following position was reached:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;5rk1/1bn1q1bp/p2p4/2pP1P2/1rB5/2NQ2BP/RP3PK1/5R2 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White has just played 25. exf5. &lt;strong&gt;How did Ponkratov win the game?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8751" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2015-11-30T10:47:53.183" Title="Chess tactics #6: Yugra Governor's cup again" Tags="&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;problems&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12947" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12949" CreationDate="2015-11-30T08:58:10.660" Score="1" ViewCount="219" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am looking to practice endgames against a computer by having a decent number (lets say 500+) of positions loaded into a database. Currently I am taking positions from various endgame books as well as positions found online and inputting them one by one. I am wondering if such a database already exists online. I want to be able to load a random endgame position from this database, and be able to quickly play against the computer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If there are good, free online resources to do this I would be happy to hear them as well. I know &lt;a href=&quot;http://chesstempo.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chess Tempo&lt;/a&gt; has endgame practice but I don't like that I can only do 2 positions a day.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7966" LastActivityDate="2015-11-30T09:17:27.750" Title="Endgame Databases" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;database&gt;&lt;study&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12948" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12946" CreationDate="2015-11-30T09:15:11.710" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;It seems like &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt; 1. ... Bxc3 2. Qxc3 Rxc4 picks up a piece, because Qxc4 loses the queen to Bxd5+.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2015-11-30T10:47:53.183" LastActivityDate="2015-11-30T10:47:53.183" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12949" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12947" CreationDate="2015-11-30T09:17:27.750" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgym.net&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chessgym&lt;/a&gt; allows you to train a number of positions, without registration or a daily limit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-11-30T09:17:27.750" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12950" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9448" CreationDate="2015-11-30T09:29:05.163" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgym.net/index.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chess Gym&lt;/a&gt; allows you to do that and much more (you can also try to find all the defended pieces in a given position). It's free and you can play without having to register.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8751" LastActivityDate="2015-11-30T09:29:05.163" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12951" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-11-30T13:22:47.677" Score="4" ViewCount="1778" Body="&lt;p&gt;I find the &quot;Guess the move&quot; training program in chesstempo website very helpful. But this is not free and also the number of games is not much (compared to tactics training program which is in the order of hundreds of thousands; while &quot;Guess the move&quot; program contains around 100 games).&#xA;Is there any other website or software that is like &quot;Guess the move&quot; training program?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8390" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T18:28:04.580" Title="Is there any website or software that are like &quot;Guess the move&quot; training program in chesstempo?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;training&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12952" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="730" CreationDate="2015-11-30T13:46:10.023" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here, 29. ... Ba3+!! and promoting to knight could've save the game!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Date &quot;2012.05.12&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Ni Hua&quot;]&#xA;[StartPly &quot;57&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;2673&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Le Quang Liem&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;2703&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Asian Continental Open Championship&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Ho Chi Minh City&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;8&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;B84&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.Be3 e6 7.Be2 Qc7 8.g4 b5 9.g5 Nfd7 10.a3 Bb7 11.Qd2 Nc6 12.Nxc6 Bxc6 13.f4 Nc5 14.Bf3 Qb7 15.Qd4 e5 16.fxe5 Ne6 17.Qd2 dxe5 18.Nd5 Bd6 19.O-O-O O-O 20.h4 a5 21.h5 b4 22.h6 bxa3 23.b3 Rfc8 24.Nb6 Bb4 25.Qh2 Bxe4 26.hxg7 a2 27.Kb2 a4 28.c4 axb3 29.g6 Ba3+!! 30.Kxb3 a1=N+!! 31.Rxa1 ( 31.Kc3 Rxc4+!! ( 31...Bb4+! 32.Kxb4 Ra4+!! 33.Kc3 ( 33.Kxa4 Nc5+ 34.Bxc5 Qc6+ 35.Ka3 Qxc5+ 36.Ka2 Qa5+ 37.Kb2 Qxb6+ 38.Kxa1 Qa5+ 39.Qa2 Qc3+ 40.Qb2 Ra8# ) 33...Rcxc4+!! 34.Kd2 ( 34.Nxc4 Qb4# ) 34...Ra2+ 35.Ke1 Rxh2 ) 32.Kd2 ( 32.Nxc4 Qb4# ) ( 32.Kxc4 Qc6+ 33.Bc5 Qxc5# ) 32...Rc2+ 33.Ke1 Rxh2 ) 31...Qxb6+!! 32.Bxb6 Nd4+!! 33.Kc3 ( 33.Bxd4 Rcb8+ 34.Kc3 ( 34.Ka2 Bc5# ) 34...Bb4+ 35.Kb2 Bd2+ 36.Bb6 Rxb6# ) 33...Rxc4+!! 34.Kxc4 ( 34.Kd2 Nxf3+ 35.Kd1 Nxh2 36.Rxh2 fxg6 ) 34...Rc8+ 35.Bc5 Rxc5# &#xA;0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8865" LastEditorUserId="8860" LastEditDate="2017-10-23T02:38:09.887" LastActivityDate="2017-10-23T02:38:09.887" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12953" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12951" CreationDate="2015-11-30T14:02:04.433" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;What about the iOS SmallChess app written by myself?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/wUNyN.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/wUNyN.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;sub&gt;(source: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.smallchess.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/W3_2.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;smallchess.com&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/PQzet.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/PQzet.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;sub&gt;(source: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.smallchess.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/W4_2.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;smallchess.com&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/zAnsP.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/zAnsP.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;sub&gt;(source: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.smallchess.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/W5_2.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;smallchess.com&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/cvOSd.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/cvOSd.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;sub&gt;(source: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.smallchess.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/W6_2.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;smallchess.com&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/sub&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2019-02-16T13:07:04.547" LastActivityDate="2019-02-16T13:07:04.547" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="12954" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9895" CreationDate="2015-11-30T23:11:09.560" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can save games with:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;pgnsave FILENAME&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This saves the game played so far from memory to a file. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can find some documentation here: &lt;a href=&quot;http://savannah.gnu.org/projects/chess/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://savannah.gnu.org/projects/chess/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1879" LastActivityDate="2015-11-30T23:11:09.560" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12955" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12956" CreationDate="2015-12-01T15:18:51.107" Score="4" ViewCount="549" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was wondering what are the main ideas for white in the exchange variation, Ruy Lopez opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;r1bqkbnr/1pp2ppp/p1p5/4p3/4P3/5N2/PPPP1PPP/RNBQK2R w KQkq - 0 5&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8735" LastEditorUserId="17" LastEditDate="2016-08-10T21:05:43.250" LastActivityDate="2016-08-10T21:05:43.250" Title="What are White's main ideas in the exchange variation of the Ruy Lopez?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;ruy-lopez&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12956" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12955" CreationDate="2015-12-01T20:42:48.047" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Of course there are many ideas in this variation, but the single biggest one is to play d4 and trade the d-pawn for Black's e-pawn, then take advantage of the fact that it is much easier for you to make a passed pawn with your 4-to-3 advantage on the kingside than it is for Black to make a passed pawn with her 4-3 advantage on the queenside (because of her doubled pawns). If all the pieces get traded off and you end up in a pawn endgame, it is going to be very tough for Black. Naturally she will try not to let that happen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2015-12-01T20:42:48.047" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12957" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12958" CreationDate="2015-12-01T23:18:06.110" Score="3" ViewCount="320" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the recent Women's European Team Championship Anna Muzychuk won a quick game against Almira Skripchenko.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;r3qrk1/1b3ppp/ppp5/2nBp1N1/P3P3/7P/1PP1QPP1/R2R2K1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Skripchenko has just played 15 ... c6 and resigned a few moves later because of a beautiful tactical sequence played by Muzychuk. &lt;strong&gt;How did White win the game?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8751" LastActivityDate="2015-12-02T00:03:17.377" Title="Chess challenge #7: Women's European Team Championship" Tags="&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;problems&gt;&lt;women&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12958" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12957" CreationDate="2015-12-02T00:03:17.377" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the winning tactical combination is the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt; 1.Qh5! h6 2.Bxf7+ Rxf7 3.Qxf7+ Qxf7 4.Nxf7 Kxf7 5.b4 Nxe4 6.Rd7+&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8735" LastActivityDate="2015-12-02T00:03:17.377" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12959" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12960" CreationDate="2015-12-02T05:27:05.970" Score="5" ViewCount="987" Body="&lt;p&gt;Recently I found the game &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1140304&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Tal vs. Byrne (1976)&lt;/a&gt;, that opens with &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sicilian_Defence,_Chekhover_Variation&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chekhover Variation of the Sicilian Defense&lt;/a&gt;. What got my attention in this variation was move &lt;strong&gt;7&lt;/strong&gt;, for, just like Tal did, every engine says that the best move is &lt;strong&gt;7. Nc3&lt;/strong&gt;, but for some reason I like how &lt;strong&gt;7. Ng5&lt;/strong&gt; looks:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Qxd4 Nc6 5. Bb5 Bd7 6. Bxc6 Bxc6 7. Ng5!? (7. Ng5 e5 8. Qc4 Qd7)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stockfish 6 says it is slightly better for black (-0.8 at depth=22 to be precise), but the main idea is simply to explore the weakness of the f7 pawn. The main line I was thinking was &lt;strong&gt;7... e5 8. Qc4&lt;/strong&gt;, the natural urge to punish the white queen at the center creates the threat of mate on f7, so black is somewhat obligated to lift the queen to the 7th rank. Anyway, if this &quot;trick&quot; fails, for example after &lt;strong&gt;8... Qd7&lt;/strong&gt;, there is no immediate advantage for white, and it seems that the only difference from Tal's 1976 variation is that here white is behind in development (and ready to be punished!).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I couldn't find any game with the move &lt;strong&gt;7. Ng5&lt;/strong&gt; in chessgames.com, but I still think that it is a natural looking move that seems to have a possible tactic behind it, even if I wasn't able to find. So my question is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is &lt;strong&gt;7. Ng5&lt;/strong&gt; really &lt;em&gt;only&lt;/em&gt; a bad move? The downside is that obvious? Or there is a possible tactic behind it? (besides the threat of mate on f7 after &lt;strong&gt;7... e5 8. Qc4&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8265" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2015-12-02T08:28:48.803" LastActivityDate="2015-12-02T08:28:48.803" Title="A tactic on the Chekhover variation of the Sicilian?" Tags="&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;&lt;minor-variations&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12960" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12959" CreationDate="2015-12-02T07:11:31.103" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Strategically the knight is misplaced on g5.  When black plays e5 in the Sicilian, the ideas revolve around white trying to control the d5 square, and black trying to play d6-d5.  Simply put, if black can play d5 damaging his position (i.e. sometimes if the king is still in the center d5 opens up the black king) black will have a clear advantage due to the central pawn majority.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In order to control the d5 square, white usually plays Nc3 and Bg5.  Bg5 is important because it will either pin black's knight to the queen or allow white to trade off black's knight that controls d5.  With the white knight on g5, black will eventually gain a tempo by playing h6 which will also prevent access to g5 by the dark square bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Additionally, with the queen out of the way on d7, black can quickly play Ra8-d8 in order to take better control of the d file and help support the eventual d5 push.  All of this would be pretty comfortable for black anyways, but in the Chekhover, black also has the bishop pair which will benefit from the opening of the center when black plays d5.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Long story short, white is ceding a fairly large positional edge to black in exchange for some very short term tricks.  That's not to say that white is losing, but after Ng5, black can easily claim equality straight out of the opening, and black has very good prospects to consolidate an advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12" LastActivityDate="2015-12-02T07:11:31.103" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12961" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12959" CreationDate="2015-12-02T07:59:31.090" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The move 7. Ng5 is bad because Black can defend f7 easily with e5 and Qd7, which is an improvement of the queens position and then chase away the knight with h6. White has played two moves Nf3-Ng5-Nf3 and ended up in the same configuration, but Black has played only one move, h6, and thus White has lost a move. For example, imagine White played 7. Bd2, then 7...e5 8. Qc4 Qd7. We have basically the same position, except White has his bishop on d2 instead of c1. By playing Ng5 you are just losing a move, what is called a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tempo_%28chess%29#Losing_a_tempo&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;loss of tempo&lt;/a&gt; in chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, the Queen is exposed on c4. Black can get a big advantage by putting pressure on White's e-pawn. For example, one line is 9. Nc3 Nf6 10. Bd2 h6! 11. Nf3 b5! 11. Qe2 Qb7 with a big advantage for Black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only possible point I can see for 7. Ng5 is to play f4, but Black can answer in the same way: 10. f4 b5! 11. Qd3 Qb7 once again with an advantage for Black due to the uncomfortable pressure on the e-pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This outcome only occurs because White has lost a move. If White plays Nc3 and 0-0 he can easily defend the e-pawn and the same maneuver by Black will not work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8673" LastActivityDate="2015-12-02T07:59:31.090" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12962" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-12-02T10:38:15.693" Score="4" ViewCount="412" Body="&lt;p&gt;I been playing bunch of tournaments where I have solely played against Class A. I keep losing or drawing against Class A players. I draw when I'm winning. Sometimes I don't understand A players moves in the middle game. I struggle understanding what plan a given position needs or what plan my opponent has in mind. Even if I figure out their plan, I play the wrong move to stop them. Sometimes I'm winning, but A players have really strong counter-play and I lose to their counter-play. My endgame is my strongest feature, but I usually get to a losing endgame. Any advice? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3149" LastActivityDate="2015-12-21T20:35:31.183" Title="As a Class B, how do I improve my chess against A level or higher?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12963" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12962" CreationDate="2015-12-02T11:49:43.820" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Silman's How to reassess your chess book is invaluable. Give it a thorough reading if you haven't yet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My advice would be&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Replay your game with an engine. Find out the moves you did wrong.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;if most are tactical, then train yourself on that&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;if most are positional, then find out what imbalances are there at your move. Read relevant chapter in the book (could be just the summary section) and see if you can find a better move.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7002" LastActivityDate="2015-12-02T11:49:43.820" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12964" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12965" CreationDate="2015-12-02T16:02:16.333" Score="5" ViewCount="182" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this game, I made an early exchange of my queen for his rook and bishop.  At the time, I was ahead, though he managed to bring it back to roughly even with an effective threat on the queen side.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is the position now.  I traded a knight for his pawn on c7.  White to move; who has the advantage now?  My feeling is this is a draw position, but I'm unsure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;6k1/Q6p/2P1n1p1/5p2/4r3/8/6K1/8 w - - 1 57&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.c7 Nxc7 2.Qxc7 h5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8878" LastEditorUserId="8878" LastEditDate="2015-12-02T16:12:02.733" LastActivityDate="2015-12-02T17:59:11.607" Title="Which side has the advantage?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12965" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12964" CreationDate="2015-12-02T17:59:11.607" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is a draw. The only way to avoid perpetual check is to place the rook on f7/g7 and the king on h7. When Black does this, White will put his queen on f6, preventing the pawns from advancing and this is a draw, because Black can only sit in his fortress and repeat moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that even if Black succeeded in advancing his pawns further it would still be a draw, because that would only make it easier for White to check Black using the squares g8 and h8.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8673" LastActivityDate="2015-12-02T17:59:11.607" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12966" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-12-02T19:23:35.987" Score="3" ViewCount="678" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am NOT asking for the percentage of chess players that are women.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am asking for the percentage of players who are women in the sections where both men and women can play in.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;That percentage is obviously lower than the percentage of chess players that are women because many women prefer to play in women-only sections.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In other words the question could be rephrased as: if I'm a man and tomorrow I'll play a game in a tournament, what's the probability that my opponent is a woman?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can answer for either USCF or FIDE, it doesn't matter which one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3237" LastActivityDate="2016-06-06T15:58:39.293" Title="What is the percentage of players who are women in the sections where both men and women can play in?" Tags="&lt;statistics&gt;&lt;women&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12967" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-12-02T22:38:01.683" Score="2" ViewCount="99" Body="&lt;p&gt;I understand there is 3 man and 4 man chess but is there anything higher?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8881" LastActivityDate="2015-12-03T00:27:02.337" Title="What is the largest amount of players at once that can play during a single chess game?" Tags="&lt;chess-variants&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12968" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12967" CreationDate="2015-12-03T00:27:02.337" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've played 3- and 4-board &quot;bughouse&quot; with 6 or 8 people total, and can imagine higher counts though the logistics must soon become unmanageable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In another direction, you can have a consultation game on a single board.  Such games used to be 2-on-1 (handicap) or 2-on-2 affairs, but in the Internet age the number of players on a side is virtually unlimited, as was already seen in &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kasparov_versus_the_World&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this famous game&lt;/a&gt; back in 1999.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8860" LastActivityDate="2015-12-03T00:27:02.337" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12969" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12962" CreationDate="2015-12-03T03:50:19.587" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is no magic bullet to suddenly make you a better player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Playing A-players is not (or rather should not) be any different than playing C-players in most cases. In general you should try to play the best moves no matter what the level of your opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do not worry about mysterious moves. When I watch C-players play they make mysterious moves. Usually mysterious moves are bad moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8673" LastActivityDate="2015-12-03T03:50:19.587" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12970" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-12-03T06:20:18.837" Score="3" ViewCount="276" Body="&lt;p&gt;I came across a puzzle on lichess.org, &lt;em&gt;(Black to move)&lt;/em&gt; , I was unable to solve it. But I know the solution now,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't wasn't the  solution or analysis. I just want to know how should one think while looking at this position to find the correct path since there are so many options to choose.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/k5rrm.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;]&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/k5rrm.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;1&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Spoiler: solution below&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt; &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/tGuCn.png&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7693" LastEditorUserId="7693" LastEditDate="2015-12-03T06:41:02.027" LastActivityDate="2015-12-03T09:18:53.053" Title="Thinking to solve the puzzle" Tags="&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;puzzles&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12971" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12764" CreationDate="2015-12-03T07:11:39.773" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;There will be no Deep Fritz 15, because Fritz 15 offers Multi-Core.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8884" LastActivityDate="2015-12-03T07:11:39.773" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12972" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12970" CreationDate="2015-12-03T07:31:59.500" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You should always think how the last move played by your opponent has weakened his position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this game, f5 limits the mobility of the White king forcing it to stay confined in the g and h files.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That gives black a chance to checkmate using the rook and the queen. If the queen is moved the king can get to the f file and then it would be much more difficult to deliver checkmate. So you move the rook, and the solution is clearly the best choice because it forces white to exchange the queen to not get mated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8751" LastActivityDate="2015-12-03T07:31:59.500" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12973" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12970" CreationDate="2015-12-03T08:29:18.950" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The essential thing is that sooner or later you have to come up with the move Re8. You only need the mental flexibility to take a step back after you have failed to find a solution via a series of checks, and look for additional motives. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Personally I saw Re8 immediately, but discarded it because it didn't seem to inconvenience the white queen too much. Then I tried to find a mate with forced checks. When this didn't seem to work, I remembered Re8 and found the solution.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my experience solving tactical positions often come down to finding the necessary motives and putting them in the right order. If you don't find the right order, maybe you are still missing a motive. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2015-12-03T09:18:53.053" LastActivityDate="2015-12-03T09:18:53.053" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12974" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-12-03T10:22:29.627" Score="30" ViewCount="6820" Body="&lt;p&gt;For example, take a Class A (a player with a USCF rating of between 1800 and 1999 inclusive) today and Class A from the 90's. Would the contemporary Class A be stronger because of the updates of opening theory or contemporary changes in chess play?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3149" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2021-02-08T14:07:33.333" LastActivityDate="2021-02-08T14:09:52.057" Title="Are contemporary chess players now stronger than players in the 90's or 80's?" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;history&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="12975" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12974" CreationDate="2015-12-03T10:45:06.207" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think that there is a significant difference at that level. The main difference with chess 20 years ago is the use of computers and they are not extensively used by club players. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also the advances in opening theory have been profited mostly by the top players (a club player normally doesn't know a lot of theory and doesn't memorize a lot of moves in depth of each variation). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Furthermore you can consider rating inflation and now the new K factors which make easy for a young player to improve his rating very rapidly in a good tournament.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In conclusion, I don't think that 1800-2000 players are stronger now than 20 years ago but I do think that top players are stronger now because of the facts mentioned above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8751" LastActivityDate="2015-12-03T10:45:06.207" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12976" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12974" CreationDate="2015-12-03T12:08:46.223" Score="41" Body="&lt;p&gt;No. The vast majority of club level players still play like the vast majority of club level players always did. Changes in knowledge about chess mostly apply to high levels of play; the kind of mistakes class A players make were already known to be mistakes for ages, and opening theory doesn't help much if your opponent deviates from theory at move 5 anyway.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As evidence of this, see the paper &quot;Intrinsic Chess Ratings&quot; by Regan and Haworth, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~regan/papers/pdf/ReHa11c.pdf&quot;&gt;PDF&lt;/a&gt;. They analyzed the games of players of various rating ranges from various time periods with an engine, and found no significant difference in the mistake rate between games from the 70s and from the 2000s.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastEditorUserId="924" LastEditDate="2015-12-03T13:09:43.320" LastActivityDate="2015-12-03T13:09:43.320" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12977" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-12-03T12:41:27.540" Score="7" ViewCount="1402" Body="&lt;p&gt;What are some major differences of doing tactics training using chesstempo or CT-Art? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3149" LastActivityDate="2016-04-22T14:22:53.867" Title="Is CT-Art better for tactic training than chesstempo tactics?" Tags="&lt;training&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12978" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12977" CreationDate="2015-12-03T13:08:21.657" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;The answer to the title question is &quot;No, they're both excellent for tactics training and are good at different things.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess Tempo:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;problems are a random selection of positions taken from actual games (chosen by computer to be good chess problems)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;over 100,000 problems and growing&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;problems are served to you based on your rating&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;no extra didactic material, but you can read other users' comments and discussions on the problems, and look at computer-evaluated variations&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;free for basic usage, costs money for some extra features&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;online only (it's a website)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;CT-ART:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;a specifically designed course with many composed problems (and some based on real games), so it is explicitly trying to teach you certain subjects&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;a fixed number of problems (thousands)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;you just go through the courses in order&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;occasional didactic feedback asking you to demonstrate simpler patterns that can be put together to form the desired combinations, but no English discussion&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;costs money&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;can be used offline (it's an app)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2015-12-03T13:08:21.657" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12979" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-12-03T14:07:38.257" Score="1" ViewCount="145" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are there any other endgame analysis tool than &lt;a href=&quot;http://chess-database.com/Tablebase-DVDs/Wilhelm-Readme_en.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Wilhelm&lt;/a&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8886" LastEditorUserId="9030" LastEditDate="2015-12-28T16:45:16.720" LastActivityDate="2015-12-29T01:01:06.510" Title="Are there any other endgame analysis tool than Wilhelm?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;tablebases&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12980" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12962" CreationDate="2015-12-03T14:10:22.030" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You should just keep on playing, improving and learning from other people.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm playing a lot of chess lately, and I had problems in the beginning (and still have with better people). But somebody who was worse than me in the beginning is now as good as me. Just keep playing and take your time in your moves. What the other does, think of a good move and think: &quot;If I do this, what can he do and how can I react?&quot;. It's the same against every opponent. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only thing that makes it harder is because those 'A-level players' have learnt how to react to certain moves and to think a million moves ahead. That's chess. So I suggest, just keep on playing, maybe go on a chess club and learn from others. Practice online against a AI, and take back moves if you make a mistake, going through what you did and see how this could be prevented. If you know people who are really good, ask them to 'teach' you, but of course he/she can't help you win. Every opponent plays different and it's just up to you to think those million steps ahead. That's what helps you winning games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Good luck!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8827" LastActivityDate="2015-12-03T14:10:22.030" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12982" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12764" CreationDate="2015-12-03T17:48:33.573" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is no Deep Fritz 15... it is already multi-cores.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8890" LastActivityDate="2015-12-03T17:48:33.573" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12983" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12984" CreationDate="2015-12-03T18:34:49.893" Score="8" ViewCount="19647" Body="&lt;p&gt;On &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/article/view/ratings&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this website&lt;/a&gt;, the following ratings are given:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;1200-1399 = &lt;strong&gt;'D'&lt;/strong&gt; player - usually a beginner&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;1400-1599 = &lt;strong&gt;'C'&lt;/strong&gt; player - average club or tournament player, most people can achieve this level if they work at it&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;1600-1799 = &lt;strong&gt;'B'&lt;/strong&gt; player - consistently above average&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;1800-1999 = &lt;strong&gt;'A'&lt;/strong&gt; player - strong club player, takes the game far too seriously!, has lots of opening knowledge&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;2000-2199 = &lt;strong&gt;'Expert'&lt;/strong&gt; - extremely strong, consistent player with the possibility of achieving Master rating, may have real talent.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;2200-2399 = &lt;strong&gt;'Master'&lt;/strong&gt; - strongest amateur rank, hasn't quite got the hang of things yet but maybe on day he/she will wake up.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;International professional players have two ranks:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;2400-2499 = &lt;strong&gt;'International Master'&lt;/strong&gt; - weakest professional rank; strong, experienced international player, eats Masters for breakfast&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;2500+ = &lt;strong&gt;'Grandmaster'&lt;/strong&gt; - eats IMs for breakfast, lunch &lt;em&gt;and&lt;/em&gt; dinner, a star in the firmament of Caissa, a chess genius who thinks nothing of playing 20 and 30 board simuls against Experts and Masters &lt;em&gt;and is disappointed if he/she doesn't win every game&lt;/em&gt;, capable of playing 10-20 blindfold games at the same time, &lt;em&gt;and winning&lt;/em&gt;, etc. etc, in short, an all around bricks and mortar, brass bound b*st*rd of a player, &lt;em&gt;but&lt;/em&gt; they do lose on occasion, sometimes to players with a much lower rating &lt;em&gt;and&lt;/em&gt; computers are better than that these days.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that these ratings are for &quot;USCF&quot;. When I see these kinds of &quot;levels&quot; of player on this site, is this the common and correct definition of what they refer too? If not, what is the correct definition?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8891" LastEditorUserId="8891" LastEditDate="2015-12-03T18:45:00.507" LastActivityDate="2019-12-16T16:36:22.383" Title="How are the &quot;Classes&quot; - A, B, or C, players defined?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;rating&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12984" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12983" CreationDate="2015-12-03T19:06:35.920" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;The definitions you post are more of less correct though some levity has been inserted. The descriptions for the under-2400 ratings are consistent with the USCF.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;IM and GM titles are not awarded by the USCF. They are awarded by FIDE and are based not upon rating but on achieving certain results at recognized tournaments.  That is, if one scores well enough at a FIDE tournament (based upon the competition), one earns an IM or GM &quot;norm&quot;.  When one earns three norms, one is awarded the title.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2015-12-03T19:06:35.920" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12985" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12988" CreationDate="2015-12-04T00:31:14.110" Score="3" ViewCount="157" Body="&lt;p&gt;The British Knockout championship is taking place now as a warm-up to the London Chess Classic that starts this Friday. There have been very interesting games (especially the ones played by Nicholas Pert) like this one between Jonathan Rowson and Gawain Jones.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;5rk1/4R3/1pQp4/3Pp3/4B1pp/4q1P1/PP3rPK/3R4 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Gawain had a huge advantage but has just played ...h4 letting it slip away. Rowson has one chance to avoid losing the game. &lt;strong&gt;What should he play?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8751" LastActivityDate="2015-12-04T08:56:15.463" Title="Chess challenge #8: British knockout championship" Tags="&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;problems&gt;&lt;check&gt;&lt;perpetual&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12986" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2015-12-04T00:31:47.753" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2015-12-04T00:31:47.753" LastActivityDate="2015-12-04T00:31:47.753" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12987" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2015-12-04T00:31:47.753" Score="0" Body="For questions related to perpetual check, especially as a way of drawing a game." OwnerUserId="8751" LastEditorUserId="8751" LastEditDate="2015-12-04T01:35:56.970" LastActivityDate="2015-12-04T01:35:56.970" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12988" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12985" CreationDate="2015-12-04T04:07:05.840" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The tags seem to give a big hint . . .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt; 1 Rg7+! Kxg7 (Kh8 can't be better, since White can at least repeat with 2 Rh7+ Kg8 3 Rg7+)&#xA; 2 Qd7+ Rf1-f7 (Rf8-f7 3 Qxg4+ and perpetual check since White has access also to c8; K-moves get mated: Kf6? 3 Qe6+ and 4 Qg6, or Kh6/g8/h8? 3 Qh7+)&#xA; 3 Qxg4+ Kh8 4 Qxh4+ Kg8 and White can either take the perpetual starting 5 Qg4+ (checks from h3/g4/e6/c8) or go for more with 5 Rf1!?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8860" LastActivityDate="2015-12-04T04:07:05.840" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12989" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12985" CreationDate="2015-12-04T08:45:06.203" Score="4" Body="&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;1. Rg7+!!&lt;/code&gt;&#xA; if &lt;code&gt;1 .. Kh8 2. Rh7+ Kg8 3. Rg7+  etc&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;if &lt;code&gt;1 .. Kxg7 2. Qd7+&lt;/code&gt; followed by perpetual check from the white queen on the white squares (&lt;code&gt;e6&lt;/code&gt; &amp;amp; &lt;code&gt;g4&lt;/code&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7189" LastEditorUserId="8751" LastEditDate="2015-12-04T08:56:15.463" LastActivityDate="2015-12-04T08:56:15.463" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12990" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="12991" CreationDate="2015-12-04T10:42:38.573" Score="2" ViewCount="369" Body="&lt;p&gt;I give chess lessons to children and I've been told by my boss that the most important ability at this age is the capacity of delivering checkmate to the opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've taught them the back rank mate, the smothered mate, pillsbury's mate, mate with a rook, ... Among many others.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was wondering what checkmate patterns would also be appropriate for children this age. I know that, for example, it would be too difficult for them to learn the 2 bishops checkmate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S. The children are not going to engage in any kind of competition, the most important objective of the class is that they have fun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8751" LastEditorUserId="8751" LastEditDate="2015-12-06T10:58:19.013" LastActivityDate="2017-05-28T20:41:32.063" Title="What checkmates are appropriate for 7 year old kids?" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;teaching&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12991" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12990" CreationDate="2015-12-04T11:14:23.087" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The approach I use (also with older kids) is that the process of mating involves putting the king in jail and making the walls smaller and smaller ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For something like smothered mate it is the pieces on the king's own side which build the walls! But when there is not much material left on the board you have to build the walls with your pieces. You can then show them the kind of walls the queen, one rook and then two rooks make. I would also show the wall that one king makes for the other, even though this is only 3 squares long. It comes in handy for KRvK. Of course every wall (apart from the queen wall because the king can't approach the queen) has at least one hole in it where the piece stands.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once you have this principle established it is easier to teach them the KQvK, KRRvK, KRvK endgame mates. With the ideas behind the &quot;build a prison wall and make it smaller&quot; I believe you can even introduce the KBBvK endgame to young kids although they likely won't succeed most of the time. However it introduces some more interesting ways of handling the two bishops which may help them in the middlegame and I think is still well worth while.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2015-12-04T11:14:23.087" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12992" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12974" CreationDate="2015-12-04T17:40:32.730" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;What do you mean by 'strength'?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do you mean talent (IQ, natural ability, genius, w/e; Re IQ, see &lt;a href=&quot;https://medium.com/incerto/iq-is-largely-a-pseudoscientific-swindle-f131c101ba39&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;1&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.creativitypost.com/article/joshua_waitzkin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;2 ft Josh Waitzkin&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.khanacademy.org/college-careers-more/talks-and-interviews/talks-and-interviews-unit/conversations-with-sal/a/the-learning-myth-why-ill-never-tell-my-son-hes-smart&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;3&lt;/a&gt;) adjusted for time, resources, opening theory? That's probably a statistics, biology or cognitive science question. If the answer is yes, I don't see why that wouldn't hold true for math, basketball or singing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you mean talent unadjusted for such, then obviously today's top players are 'stronger'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you're talking about chess enthusiasts, probably not, but who's to say for sure? If you're talking about GM-level play eg Anand vs Morphy, &lt;strong&gt;definitely&lt;/strong&gt;. If you're talking about NMs/IMs of today versus NMs/IMs (or their equivalents) of before, probably.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An analogy would be saying that Andrew Wiles is a 'stronger' mathematician than &lt;a href=&quot;http://mathworld.wolfram.com/Taniyama-ShimuraConjecture.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Taniyama&lt;/a&gt;, Leibniz or Euler. Of course e is, but that's mainly because of the works of the ones who came before him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As Isaac Newton said:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standing_on_the_shoulders_of_giants&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyway, going back to chess&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Additionally, Bobby Fischer said (emphasis mine):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In chess &lt;strong&gt;so much depends on opening theory, so the champions before the last century did not know as much as I do and other players do about opening theory. So if you just brought them back from the dead they wouldn’t do well. They’d get bad openings&lt;/strong&gt;. You cannot compare the playing strength, you can only talk about natural ability. Memorization is enormously powerful. &lt;strong&gt;Some kid of fourteen today, or even younger, could get an opening advantage against Capablanca, and especially against the players of the previous century, like Morphy and Steinitz&lt;/strong&gt;. Maybe they would still be able to outplay the young kid of today. Or maybe not, because &lt;strong&gt;nowadays when you get the opening advantage not only do you get the opening advantage, you know how to play&lt;/strong&gt;, they have so many examples of what to do from this position. It is really deadly, and that is why I don’t like chess any more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/news/carlsen-i-would-beat-tal-and-fischer-4554&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Magnus Carlsen&lt;/a&gt; seems to think he could defeat Fischer or Tal, and why wouldn't he? He knows their games, has the Internet and is granted opening theory that Fischer, Tal and others had to discover themselves (eg &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veniamin_Sozin#Sicilian.2C_Sozin_Attack&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;1&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King%27s_Gambit#Fischer_Defense:_3...d6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;2&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As chess.com user &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/news/view/carlsen-i-would-beat-tal-and-fischer-4554&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;fabelhaft put it&lt;/a&gt; (emphasis mine):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the main thing is that there is very little difference in talent between the best players of any time. The big difference is in the opportunisties the players had. Without &lt;strong&gt;professional coaching since childhood, modern opening theory, engine assistance, game databases, tournament circuits, Internet&lt;/strong&gt;, etc, it was just impossible to play on the same level as those with all these advantages that were similarly talented.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4399" LastEditorUserId="4399" LastEditDate="2021-02-08T14:09:52.057" LastActivityDate="2021-02-08T14:09:52.057" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="12993" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12904" CreationDate="2015-12-05T16:30:45.853" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You would need to look into other sources such as newinchess.com (&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.newinchess.com/Grandmaster_Repertoire_2____1_d4_Volume_2-p-1974.html?&amp;amp;Currency=Euro&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://www.newinchess.com/Grandmaster_Repertoire_2____1_d4_Volume_2-p-1974.html?&amp;amp;Currency=Euro&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, that is something that happens with all other niches. Like comic books, once it is out of print, it becomes very expensive to get. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2250" LastActivityDate="2015-12-05T16:30:45.853" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12994" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9565" CreationDate="2015-12-05T16:37:06.183" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Firstly, FEN notation is used to describe a board state or permutation, not a family of board states or permutations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What you are talking about, is a way to index board positions based on your criteria. i.e. Rook vs Knight end games or such&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This can be done by most database software (Fritz, Chessbase). This is done by searching games in the database, and pulling them out based on the board positions. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, if I want to get a bunch of rook vs knight end games, I can search for all FEN strings that contain only K,k,p,P,r,R,n,N. Basically, positions that contain pawns, knights, rooks and kings. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for egtb, the format are stored using bit bases and the positions are assigned to a unique index. I would assume this is how Chess Position Trainer stores its FEN strings in order to determine transpositions. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2250" LastActivityDate="2015-12-05T16:37:06.183" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12996" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8925" CreationDate="2015-12-05T22:40:48.107" Score="3" Body="&lt;h1&gt;Summary of the glicko system:&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You have a score, like you start at 1200, but you also have a RD (rating deviation). When you first play games, you have a large RD, meaning your actual skill could be 1200 + or - a large number, but it can't tell what that skill is until you play a lot of games, decreasing your RD. Hope this helps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Further Information:&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Look at this link: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/article/view/chess-ratings---how-they-work&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.chess.com/article/view/chess-ratings---how-they-work&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It talks about the Glicko System. Ctr + F then search to find it or scroll down. Shouldn't be hard to find.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="422" LastActivityDate="2015-12-05T22:40:48.107" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12997" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-12-05T23:17:09.237" Score="1" ViewCount="169" Body="&lt;p&gt;this is a simple question, thanks in advance for your answers!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am looking for a free software which allows me to &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) play chess against a computer&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) analyze the game I had (did i screw up at any point, did i miss something obvious) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) is free!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8906" LastActivityDate="2015-12-17T09:16:24.063" Title="play against a computer, then analyze it software." Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;software&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12998" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12764" CreationDate="2015-12-06T09:21:01.340" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Considering the change in programmer I would think fritz 15 would be stronger than Fritz 14. I can be almost positive without actually testing it that it will be.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To learn opening theory you probably would need an opening database rather than just the chess engine, however to find innovation in the opening and get better move choices then a better chess engine is required.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;What is a core?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;A multi-core processor is a single computing component with two or more independent actual processing units (called &quot;cores&quot;), which are the units that read and execute program instructions.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus a core is a processing unit (a cpu or just the pu). Multi-core means more work can be done by the computing device simultaneously. This enables Fritz to analyze quicker and therefore deeper.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Better objective choice would be Fritz 15.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Better subjective choice would probably be Fritz 14. The reasoning behind this is due to who you are aiming to beat with this opening knowledge. If its not FM/IM/GMs then it hardly matters. Of course the price paid must be less than the cost of Fritz 15.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8910" LastEditorUserId="8910" LastEditDate="2015-12-06T10:18:22.503" LastActivityDate="2015-12-06T10:18:22.503" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="12999" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12997" CreationDate="2015-12-06T11:01:40.223" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;As Tony Ennis points out in his comment you can download &lt;a href=&quot;http://scid.sourceforge.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;SCID&lt;/a&gt; and Stockfish 6 for free and use them to play and analyse your games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are also websites that allow you do it, for instance &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess24.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chess24&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8751" LastActivityDate="2015-12-06T11:01:40.223" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13000" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13012" CreationDate="2015-12-06T11:02:28.570" Score="4" ViewCount="864" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm currently a Class B (1600). I rarely play at chess tournaments, but this year I have been playing at a lot of tourneys. Will going to more chess tournaments help me gain experience and make me a stronger chess player, especially if I play stronger people? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3149" LastActivityDate="2015-12-09T13:13:33.327" Title="Will going to more chess tournaments and playing the Open section make me stronger and more experienced chess player?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13001" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1709" CreationDate="2015-12-06T12:01:31.290" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I like this system:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 Nf6 2.Bf4 d6 3.e3 g6 4.Nf3 Bg7 5.Be2 O-O 6.O-O Nfd7! 7.c4 e5! &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8912" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-08-19T18:00:59.810" LastActivityDate="2019-08-19T18:00:59.810" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="13002" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13000" CreationDate="2015-12-06T14:14:47.073" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;No. Playing against those who can easily defeat you will not make you stronger. And it will hose the Open section, too, as you are effectively a &quot;bye&quot;. If am referring to tournaments where there is a vigorous Open section, of course. When I played in the NY State championship, the Open section was all 2200+ and included IMs and GMs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are a few threads here on how players can improve. Search for them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In a nut shell:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Work tactical exercises&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Attend your local chess club and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a. play in your section&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;b. ask better players (+400 rating over yours, if possible) for help with analysis, and&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Find an instructor to help you with specific weak points.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Once you are established at the chess club, you and an opponent can play a rated match. That is, you and your opponent can play a rated best-of-5 match or whatever. Choose an opponent who is 100 or maybe 200 points over you for a real challenge. You'll need your club's TD's approval.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2015-12-07T13:03:00.083" LastActivityDate="2015-12-07T13:03:00.083" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13003" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12990" CreationDate="2015-12-06T22:49:12.100" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Even before the KR/K mate you could teach the RR/K mate which is simpler (and also fits into &lt;strong&gt;Brian Towers&lt;/strong&gt;' &quot;shrinking prison&quot; paradigm) and also works with QR/K (and QQ/K if it comes to that).  Of course it depends on the 7-year-old kid in question: Kasparov at that age could probably handle the KBN/K mate too . . .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8860" LastActivityDate="2015-12-06T22:49:12.100" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13004" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13008" CreationDate="2015-12-06T22:58:05.930" Score="3" ViewCount="412" Body="&lt;p&gt;Today I remembered this position that I saw a few months ago in &lt;a href=&quot;https://twitter.com/SergeyKaryakin/status/608180812949950464&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;a tweet by Sergey Karjakin&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;2k5/8/8/BQ6/4K3/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seemed very easy to me because there are just 4 pieces left but it was much more difficult than I expected. Sergey was asked to solve it in less than five minutes as part of a bet (which he won).  White to play and mate in 3. &lt;strong&gt;Can you also solve it in less than 5 minutes? :)&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8751" LastEditorUserId="8751" LastEditDate="2015-12-06T23:35:31.620" LastActivityDate="2015-12-10T19:07:42.967" Title="Chess challenge #9: Can you solve it in less than 5 minutes?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;problems&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13005" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13013" CreationDate="2015-12-06T23:06:45.757" Score="3" ViewCount="367" Body="&lt;p&gt;The London Chess Classic is being held at the moment, just three months away from the Candidates, with some of the best players of the world and 6 of the participants of the candidates (Giri, Nakamura, Topalov, Anand, Caruana and Aronian).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So far the openings have been a bit &quot;dull&quot; in &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chess.pl?tid=86700&amp;amp;crosstable=1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;the majority of the games&lt;/a&gt; without any really sharp line or theoretical novelty. I feel that in the previous stages of the Grand Chess Tour the openings were much more sharper and fun to watch as an spectator.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Might this be caused because the Candidates is really close and the players don't want to show their preparation or is it just a coincidence? Is it usual for the players to play &quot;boring&quot; and well known lines before a big tournament?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8751" LastActivityDate="2015-12-07T13:12:11.617" Title="Do players play &quot;boring&quot; openings before an important tournament?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;novelties&gt;&lt;candidates&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13006" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2015-12-06T23:07:26.893" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2015-12-06T23:07:26.893" LastActivityDate="2015-12-06T23:07:26.893" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13007" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2015-12-06T23:07:26.893" Score="0" Body="For questions related to the Candidates tournament to choose the next World Championship contender." OwnerUserId="8751" LastEditorUserId="8751" LastEditDate="2015-12-08T18:12:34.910" LastActivityDate="2015-12-08T18:12:34.910" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13008" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13004" CreationDate="2015-12-07T04:01:36.053" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Got it barely under the mark.  Not sure if it helped or hurt that I knew the mate-in-2 with a similar position (move the Ke4 to f5).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt; 1 Qb2!! Kd7 2 Qe5! Kc8/Kc6 3 Qc7/Qd5#!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Spoiler for mate in 2&lt;/em&gt; (Kf5 Qb5 Ba5 / Kc8):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt; 1 Qb3! Kd7 2 Qe6#!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8860" LastEditorUserId="8860" LastEditDate="2015-12-07T04:43:39.773" LastActivityDate="2015-12-07T04:43:39.773" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13009" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-12-07T05:00:21.400" Score="1" ViewCount="405" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm looking for a good European chess tournament to play that would be good for my age and playing strength. Perhaps even meet more chess player close to my age group. Any suggestions? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3149" LastActivityDate="2015-12-11T21:35:38.937" Title="What are good chess tournaments to play in Europe as a USCF Class A + age 21+?" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;fide&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13010" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13009" CreationDate="2015-12-07T11:07:18.170" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I played in &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.reykjavikopen.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Reykjavik&lt;/a&gt; two years ago and it was fantastic!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course that's not quite Italy … &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Closer to your specification is probably the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.skpula.hr/Pula%20Open%202015/en/engleski%20raspis%20%202015.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Open in Pula&lt;/a&gt;. I have never been there, but from what I've heard, if you want to combine beach holiday and chess, that's a good opportunity. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I did play &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.4salentochessopen2015.it/?lang=en&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;an open in Italy&lt;/a&gt; as well, quite nice, but also quite small.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-12-07T11:07:18.170" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13012" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13000" CreationDate="2015-12-07T12:08:36.620" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Playing a lot of tournament games against slightly stronger opposition is one of the best ways to improve your chess. It is very hard to match the intensity of a tournament game in a training session. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Additionally, the experience from actually playing is necessary to learn how to bring all your knowledge and your abilities onto the board. In my experience, if you don't have at least 200-300 tournament games under your belt, you won't be able to play at your best in a tournament setting. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So in the beginning you will improve just from being able to handle the situation better, something that is very hard to learn in training sessions. (Handling the situation includes not just on-the-board play, also the circumstances of the tournament, physical reaction to the stress/bad air/low blood sugar ..., mastering psychological setbacks, how to react to draw offers, time trouble and a thousand other things.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That being said, playing players more than 300 points stronger than you (or weaker than you) won't help you much, because there probably won't be much of fight. If you can get these players to analyse the game with you afterwards, it would still be worthwhile, but generally you should choose your tournament in such a way that you don't get completely crushed in every other game. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also analysing your games afterwards and studying the opening before and after the game can increase your learning experience a lot. (Actually, preparing an opening for a specific game against a specific opponent is in my view one of the best and most motivating ways of learning openings. Unfortunately in the US that often doesn't seem to be possible, from what I've heard.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-12-07T12:08:36.620" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13013" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13005" CreationDate="2015-12-07T13:12:11.617" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;Hiding prep'&quot; is a well known cliche in the chess world. When Anand had a slump in form a few years back, it was joked that he has been hiding his preparation for several years now. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I believe there are two sides to this phenomenon:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Especially going into world championship matches, players sometimes revamp complete parts of their opening repertoire. For example Leko going for 1.d4 against Kramnik, or Gelfand taking up the Sveshnikov and Grunfeld against Anand, or Kramnik playing the Berlin against Kasparov … Obviously in these cases the whole purpose of the preparation would have been defeated if they had tried the lines in some preliminary tournament. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, if a top player doesn't plan to spring such a big surprise, arguably it doesn't make too much sense to hide single novelties or variations from your opponents. After all in every single game only the tiniest part of the preparation of a top GM is revealed. Showing one tricky line doesn't rip a big hole into your repertoire and you never know whether anybody will walk into your trap again. GM Gustafsson has repeatedly argued that even right before very important tournaments, top GMs are happy to spring a trap before a different player grabs that opportunity, after all they are all using the same engines ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-12-07T13:12:11.617" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13017" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13024" CreationDate="2015-12-07T16:34:20.113" Score="3" ViewCount="625" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm programming a chess engine from scratch in C++, and I have it playing games on UCI against others already. I spent about four days trying to weed out bugs in my move generator, and finally did manage to make a bug-free movegen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A few days ago, I implemented quiescence search, for which I lazily copy-pasted my movegen code to get a captures-only movegen function by simply removing all quiet move generations. I presumed it was working which was a bad idea.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I just did a perft on the captures-only function and it already failed at depth 5 on 'Kiwipete'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the movegen, I used Sharper for divide perft to weed out bugs. Unfortunately, Sharper does not have a divide perft command for generating only captures and I don't think the source code is available either.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a reliable engine that can do divide perft on just captures?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;Update 1&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;: In light of jknappen's comment, I'd like to add more information. 'Perft' refers to performance test, which in chess programming usually refers to an operation which counts the number of leaf nodes (at the end of the tree) of possible &lt;em&gt;legal&lt;/em&gt; moves at a certain depth from a starting position. For example, the starting position in chess has 20 leaf nodes at depth 1, while it has 400 leaf nodes at depth 2.It's used for testing whether move generators are working correctly. Refer to &lt;em&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Perft+Results&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;Update 2:&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; I used my own engine to test my capture generator (because I know that my regular movegen definitely has no bugs), and I don't see a problem. Although, I used &lt;em&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://bluefever.net/Downloads/ViceReadMe.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Vice&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt; to test my capture movegen (my engine is heavily based off of this one, and I know that it has way of &lt;em&gt;measuring&lt;/em&gt; perft), which results is number that's are off exponentially after depth 3. But when I look at the captures themselves, they work correctly. I had to change Vice's code to do the capture perft, which introduces ambiguity, and so it would be nice to have an engine that already has capture perft.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If there isn't any, I'd have to create something new that uses my already existing movegen to verify the integrity of the capture movegen. I have a hunch something is wrong, because in some games as it is about to win, it gives away a major piece (such as a queen), and ends up losing, which makes me think that it's generating captures incorrectly during &lt;em&gt;quiescence&lt;/em&gt; (search only captures to make sure nothing is being attacked) search.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;Update 3&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;: I ended up using my own movegen to test it. Turns out, I was wrong. Tested 'Kiwipete' to depth 11 and found nothing wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5674" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-09-25T00:20:55.313" LastActivityDate="2019-09-25T00:20:55.313" Title="Is there a chess engine with divide perft for captures only?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;perft&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13018" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-12-07T20:49:32.430" Score="3" ViewCount="536" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are there any photos of young Bobby Fischer in his NY apartment?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastActivityDate="2017-04-04T07:26:36.603" Title="Bobby Fischer photos in his NY apartment?" Tags="&lt;fischer&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13019" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13023" CreationDate="2015-12-07T21:01:01.387" Score="6" ViewCount="1690" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why did Valery Salov stop playing in chess tournaments in the last 15 years?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2016-07-28T13:21:21.647" LastActivityDate="2016-07-28T13:21:21.647" Title="Why did Valery Salov quit competitive chess?" Tags="&lt;grandmaster&gt;&lt;famous-players&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13020" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-12-07T21:16:50.750" Score="1" ViewCount="143" Body="&lt;p&gt;How would you try to refute the Sénéchaud Countergambit in King's Gambit? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.f4 Bc5 3.Nf3 g5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2016-03-01T22:46:23.650" LastActivityDate="2016-03-01T22:46:23.650" Title="Dealing with Sénéchaud Countergambit in King’s Gambit" Tags="&lt;gambits&gt;&lt;kings-gambit&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="8" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13021" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-12-07T22:35:29.173" Score="1" ViewCount="98" Body="&lt;p&gt;For example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1r1q2k1/1p3rpp/b1pn4/P5N1/1B1P4/1Q6/1P3PPP/2R3K1 w - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here, the best move is not 1.Bxd6 but White plays it anyway in a swindle attempt to win, since Black is forced to take on g5 (and not d6) to keep the advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8930" LastActivityDate="2015-12-07T23:12:26.557" Title="Is there an engine which tries to find moves that forces the opponent to find the best move?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13022" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13021" CreationDate="2015-12-07T23:12:26.557" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The short answer is no (as far as I know). You're adding together two concepts, so let me try to address them both:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Moves that have responses that are &lt;strong&gt;hard to find&lt;/strong&gt;. This is a tough problem because it basically means running a regular computer engine and a more human-like engine at the same time, and seeing what moves are found by the first but not the second. People gave up on human-like engines a while ago because the more brute-force was so much more effective. So this is a tough research problem (one that people worked on for decades in the 20th century) without a big payoff.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Moves that are &lt;strong&gt;forcing&lt;/strong&gt;. If the opponent has only one good response, that increases the chance that she'll play a bad move, right? Well, not really; if I play a capturing move and the only good move is a recapture, chances are my opponent will find it. So just using the number of good responses as a measure of how tricky a move is problematic. (Forcing moves are usually good to consider because they limit the search tree and increase the chance that all leaves in it are good for you, but that's a different reason from trying to induce a mistake.)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It would be nice to have an engine whose evaluations were &quot;How likely would I be to win from this position against another 2000 player?&quot; rather than &quot;How likely would a computer be to win from this position against another computer?&quot; but people have overwhelmingly concentrated on the later. (I would be delighted to be wrong about this.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2015-12-07T23:12:26.557" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13023" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13019" CreationDate="2015-12-08T00:10:31.923" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://kevinspraggettonchess.wordpress.com/2010/07/03/what-ever-happened-to-valeri-salov/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;According to this article&lt;/a&gt;, it was because he was a pain in the ass and offended too many of chess' elite players. In fact, he seems unstable, not merely eccentric.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/rec.games.chess.misc/vM4HQ5d0YDk/ELZhs36uaRIJ&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;And more here&lt;/a&gt;. Looks like he decided he wasn't going to get along with people.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2015-12-08T00:10:31.923" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13024" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13017" CreationDate="2015-12-08T00:50:07.510" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not aware of any engine that gives you only capture moves. But you can easily do it yourself, for example, you can easily modify the move generation code in Stockfish such that it only generates capture moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's probably not a good idea to test your implementation with Kiwipete. You should try positions with en-passpant capture, capture with promotion, capture with under-promotion. Once you're comfortable, then move on to the Kiwipete position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2015-12-08T00:50:07.510" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13025" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10978" CreationDate="2015-12-08T05:08:31.380" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Even without a computer one can prove that&#xA;&quot;&lt;strong&gt;Tiger Hunt&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; (a.k.a. Maharajah Chess) is a forced win.&#xA;Certainly the &quot;tiger&quot; can't hope for more than a draw&#xA;if White starts with 1 Na3 and then repeats with say&#xA;Nf3-g1-f3-... ad infinitum.  But in fact the &quot;tiger&quot;&#xA;can be gradually corralled as &lt;strong&gt;BlindKungFuMaster&lt;/strong&gt; suggests;&#xA;for instance:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Tiger Hunt&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;4q3/8/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNB1KBNR w - - 0 0&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Na3 null&#xA;2.c3 null&#xA;3.d3 null&#xA;4.Nf3 null&#xA;5.g3 null&#xA;6.Bg2 null&#xA;7.h3 null&#xA;8.Rh2 null&#xA;9.Nd2 null&#xA;10.Ndc4 null&#xA;11.Be3 null&#xA;12.Bd4 null&#xA;13.b3 null&#xA;14.Nc2 null&#xA;15.Nb4 null&#xA;16.Nd5 null&#xA;17.Nf4 null&#xA;18.Bd5 null&#xA;19.Rg2 null&#xA;20.f3 null&#xA;21.h4 null&#xA;22.Kd2 null&#xA;23.Kc2 null&#xA;24.a3 null&#xA;25.a4 null&#xA;26.e3 null&#xA;27.e4 null&#xA;28.Re1 null&#xA;29.Re3 null&#xA;30.Be5 null&#xA;31.Ne6 null&#xA;32.Rge2 null&#xA;33.d4 null&#xA;34.Nd6 null&#xA;35.Kd2 null&#xA;36.Re1 null&#xA;37.Rh1 null&#xA;38.g4 null&#xA;39.h5 null&#xA;40.g5 null&#xA;41.f4 null&#xA;42.h6 null&#xA;43.f5 null&#xA;44.g6 null&#xA;45.h7 null&#xA;46.Ree1 null&#xA;47.Ra1 null&#xA;48.b4 null&#xA;49.a5 null&#xA;50.b5 null&#xA;51.c4 null&#xA;52.a6 null&#xA;53.c5 null&#xA;54.b6 null&#xA;55.a7 Qe7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The tiger is now limited to the squares d7 and e7.  White can now finish&#xA;immediately by Zugzwang (56 f6 or 56 c6 respectively) or continue in&#xA;the same fashion:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Tiger suffocates&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;8/P3q2P/1P1NN1P1/2PBBP2/3PP3/8/3K4/R6R w - - 0 55&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Ra6 null&#xA;2.c6 null&#xA;3.Rh6 null&#xA;4.f6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and the tiger is completely out of squares (NB there are no legal moves from&#xA;d7/e7 to a8 or h8), &lt;strong&gt;QEF&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8860" LastActivityDate="2015-12-08T05:08:31.380" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13026" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-12-08T08:06:28.273" Score="3" ViewCount="258" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there such a thing as a chess program that at random times can vary it's strength of play between say a beginner and an expert? Or maybe a program that a certain random times makes subtle or obvious mistakes?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5633" LastActivityDate="2015-12-08T09:08:24.260" Title="Chess programs that mimic some amateurs" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;beginner&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13027" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13026" CreationDate="2015-12-08T09:08:24.260" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Of course, and in fact it's very common.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Stockfish&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The code for the implementation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;int weakness = 120 - 2 * level;&#xA;&#xA;// Choose best move. For each move score we add two terms, both dependent on&#xA;// weakness. One deterministic and bigger for weaker levels, and one random,&#xA;// then we choose the move with the resulting highest score.&#xA;for (size_t i = 0; i &amp;lt; multiPV; ++i)&#xA;{&#xA;    // This is our magic formula&#xA;    int push = (  weakness * int(topScore - rootMoves[i].score)&#xA;                + delta * (rng.rand&amp;lt;unsigned&amp;gt;() % weakness)) / 128;&#xA;&#xA;    if (rootMoves[i].score + push &amp;gt; maxScore)&#xA;    {&#xA;        maxScore = rootMoves[i].score + push;&#xA;        best = rootMoves[i].pv[0];&#xA;    }&#xA;}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you ask Stockfish to play weaker chess, it'd randomly choose a weaker move. It does that by drawing from a uniform distribution and linearly relate the level you choose with the random noise (&lt;em&gt;weakness&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;push&lt;/em&gt; in the code).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;SmallChess&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other engines adopt other implementations. For example, I prefer a model where I draw a sudden large jump to simulate a gross blunder. The probability depends on the level, and it is related to the number of pieces on the board. When my engine feels it needs to make a blunder, it'd do a quick shallow search. My intention is try to simulate simple tactic errors.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2015-12-08T09:08:24.260" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13028" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13365" CreationDate="2015-12-08T10:31:48.983" Score="6" ViewCount="421" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm a 2000 Fide player and I played an interesting opening game last sunday.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It was a King's Indian Samisch (I was playing white) and my opponent played the &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/9659/what-are-the-latest-ideas-for-black-against-the-samisch-kings-indian-defense&quot;&gt;c5 gambit&lt;/a&gt;. That was the first time I saw this move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;      [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;      [StartPly &quot;11&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;      1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.e4 d6 5.f3 O-O 6.Be3 c5 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I accepted the gambit and was not happy with my position. Both sides played not so accurate moves and I ended up winning a piece.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But analyzing the game, either Stockfish and I seems to not like the position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is what happened&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;      [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;      [StartPly &quot;11&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;      1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.e4 d6 5.f3 O-O 6.Be3 c5 7. dxc5 dxc5 8. Qxd8 Rxd8 9. Bxc5 Nc6 10.Be2 Nd7 11.Be3 Nde5 (11... Bxc3!? 12. bxc3 Nb6 13. c5 Na4) 12.Rd1?! (12. Nd5! e6 13.Nc7 Rb8 14.Rd1) Rxd1 13. Kxd1 Na5 14.Nd5 e6?? (14... Nexc4) 15.Nc7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does white have better lines when accepting the gambit? How do you play against c5 (d5 for Benoni like positions or let the status quo hoping for sort of maroczy bind, or something else?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8923" LastActivityDate="2016-01-08T08:41:50.080" Title="King's Indian c5 against Samisch" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;kings-indian&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13030" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13031" CreationDate="2015-12-08T11:09:30.937" Score="5" ViewCount="370" Body="&lt;p&gt;This time I bring you a beautiful composition. White is down material but is about to queen the d7 pawn. The only problem is the knight fork on f7 and if he doesn't act very quickly Black is going to put his bishop on a5. &lt;strong&gt;How does White win the game?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;8/3P3k/n2K3p/2p3n1/1b4N1/2p1p1P1/8/3B4 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;[Title &quot;White to play and win (Gijs van Breukelen, 1997)&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I stumbled upon this composition in &lt;a href=&quot;http://2010chessodyssey.blogspot.com.es/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this blog&lt;/a&gt; and I found it extremely beautiful. The composer is Gijs van Breukelen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8751" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2015-12-13T03:08:24.740" LastActivityDate="2015-12-13T03:08:24.740" Title="Chess challenge #10: A beautiful knightmare" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;problems&gt;&lt;studies&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13031" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13030" CreationDate="2015-12-08T12:09:51.440" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;My semi-educated guess at a solution:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt; 1.Nf6 Kg7 2.Nh5 Kg6 3.Bc2+ Kxh5 4.d8Q Nf7 5.Ke6 Nxd8 6.Kf5 e2 7.Be4 e1N 8.Bd5 c2 9.Bc4 c1N 10.Bb5 Nc7 11.Ba4 and Bd1 should lead to mate. It's all pretty forcing, at the beginning black has to avoid blockading f7 or stepping into d8Q+ and then the bishop starts threatening mate all over the place until black runs out of knights ... &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-12-08T12:09:51.440" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13033" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13036" CreationDate="2015-12-09T01:14:50.503" Score="8" ViewCount="674" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have been furiously solving tactical puzzles for 6 weeks now and about three weeks ago I reactivated my account on chess.com.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Long story short I have seen my &quot;rating&quot; go from 1280 to 1590 during this time and for the first time ever I qualified for the second round, not in one but two tournaments on the site so I am definitely seeing improvement.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After asking for the computer analysis for the games that I have lost, I decided to also analyze the ones that I won so I got the last one, which I was feeling particularly good about it, and it turns out that the only reason I won is because my opponent did far worse blunders than I did. If he had been just a little bit stronger he would have crushed me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have followed the recommended variants and I just cannot understand why the position I ended up with is far worse than the one the computer recommends. I have zero understanding of positional play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I feel that I still need A LOT of tactical practice, I still miss quite a few solutions from rather simple puzzles, but I am wondering if by not knowing strategy all this tactical knowledge might go to waste because of mistakes and blunders during the games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the questions would be:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;- When is it a &quot;right&quot; time to start easing off on the tactical training to start balancing it with strategy/positional one?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;- If I focus on these two, is there some kind of heuristic as to how to balance that training (20% - 80%, 30% - 70%, 50% - 50%)?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;- As a bonus, if you could recommend some basic literature for someone who has absolutely zero understanding of positional play it would be appreciated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4327" LastActivityDate="2020-10-06T03:04:25.193" Title="When is it right to start learning strategy after tactics" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;&lt;training&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13035" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13045" CreationDate="2015-12-09T08:17:08.370" Score="1" ViewCount="57" Body="&lt;p&gt;The final stage of the Grand Chess Tour is being held these days at London and I was wondering who's going to win the general prize of the series.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the &lt;a href=&quot;http://grandchesstour.com/tour-standings&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;official website&lt;/a&gt; I could just find the standings after the Sinquefield cup, but I couldn't find the live standings updated after each game. I know that I can calculate them by hand, but I'd like to find a website with them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Where can I find the live standings of the Grand Chess Tour?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8751" LastActivityDate="2015-12-09T15:32:36.700" Title="Where can I find the live standings of the Grand Chess Tour?" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;websites&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13036" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13033" CreationDate="2015-12-09T09:34:48.637" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;Improving positional understanding is a longterm project. You do it by playing, by analysing, by going through well annotated master games and by working through books on the subject. But contrary to tactical exercises these things often don't have an immediate effect. Personally I also misapplied a lot of positional concepts that I had read about. Positional understanding will only help you if it is &lt;em&gt;complete&lt;/em&gt; on some level. As soon as that happens there often is a sudden rise in strength. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Given that successfully applying positional concept depends a lot on accurate calculation, the right time to get really serious about training positional understanding is probably when you start getting diminishing returns from your tactical training. It's unlikely that you are at that point yet. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But if you have fun doing the things I mentioned at the beginning, there is no reason not to do them. Just remember that you will probably misapply ideas and not necessarily see immediate benefits. And try to not be too dogmatic about the things some authors tell you. The main thing is the discovery of amazing ideas and possibilities in chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/9197600539&quot;&gt;Nimzowitsch: My System&lt;/a&gt;, a classic, it was definitely revelatory to me and also a lot of fun to read because of the evocative prose. (I don't know about the english translations though.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.qualitychess.co.uk/products/13/195/yusupov_complete_series_in_hardcover/&quot;&gt;The Yusupov-Series&lt;/a&gt;: Very systematic training of all aspects of the game. If you hit a wall in pure tactics training, the orange books might take you to the next level.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1904600344&quot;&gt;John Nunn's Move by Move&lt;/a&gt;: Just one example of many well commented game collections. This one literally explains every move, making it more suitable for relative beginners. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-12-09T09:34:48.637" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13038" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12974" CreationDate="2015-12-09T13:10:37.690" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;They are more equipped with chess technology and have a bigger circle of experts around to hire/train with. &#xA;This means that contemporary players have better opportunities than players before their time. &#xA;Hope this helps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5653" LastActivityDate="2015-12-09T13:10:37.690" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13039" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13000" CreationDate="2015-12-09T13:13:33.327" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes because it will give you exposure to high class competitive chess. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No, because playing alone cannot help you get better at Chess. What you learn from a game is more important than the result. Just playing so many tournaments alone doesn't make you a strong player. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, the best advice is a balance of strong games followed by analyzing them and improving your game before playing more strong tournaments. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5653" LastActivityDate="2015-12-09T13:13:33.327" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13040" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12997" CreationDate="2015-12-09T13:26:06.707" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I use Playchess, Stock Fish and Chessbase. &#xA;However, I would recommend analyzing manually yourself before letting the computer analyze the game. That way you can improve so much!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5653" LastActivityDate="2015-12-09T13:26:06.707" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13041" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-12-09T13:58:22.000" Score="1" ViewCount="31" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't now if here is a right place to ask this question. I think &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.londonchessclassic.com/gct/gct_schedule.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;London Chess Classic&lt;/a&gt; has at least two different pools but I find only one of the pools in their website, is there any page which shows standings and games in the other pool(s)? Or it has only one pool? The main pool (or the only one) is the pool of super grandmasters. I'm also interested to watch weaker pool games and events. I know I can access the games from other websites like chessgames etc but it's strange if they do not associate any page to the other pool (or it's strange if there is no other pool then what is &lt;a href=&quot;http://chess-results.com/tnr197807.aspx&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt;?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="269" LastActivityDate="2015-12-09T14:05:21.433" Title="Where is London Chess Classic Pool B's webpage?" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;famous-events&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13042" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13041" CreationDate="2015-12-09T14:05:21.433" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Here's how you can find the tournament results:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Link&lt;/em&gt; = &lt;a href=&quot;http://chess-results.com/tnr197807.aspx?lan=-1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chess Results page&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Use &lt;em&gt;ctrl + F&lt;/em&gt; to locate &lt;strong&gt;Tournament selection&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You'll then notice all the sections: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Super Rapidplay&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;FIDE Open&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Weekend Open&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Weekend U2000&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Weekend U1800&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Weekend U120&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Weekday U2000&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Weekday U135&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;English Junior Rapidplay&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this helps. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5653" LastActivityDate="2015-12-09T14:05:21.433" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13043" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12966" CreationDate="2015-12-09T14:20:34.237" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It depends. Also it differs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can do it by&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Find the open tournament you want to analyze. You can use &lt;a href=&quot;http://chess-results.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chess results website&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Find out the list of players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Filter out the women players and make two list.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Now you have A - All players, B - Men players and C - Women players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Now use the following calculation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;% women (%C)  = (C/A ) * 100&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;% men (%B) = (B/A)*100&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;6&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If you are a techy person, write a script and do it for all the tournaments of a particular country and create beautiful graphs for the world to admire.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this helps :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5653" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2015-12-09T14:20:34.237" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13044" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12966" CreationDate="2015-12-09T15:02:56.110" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In France, there are women only team championships but not all women chess players supports them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is the point of view of Mathilde Choisy (WFM, FIDE 2181), in French &lt;a href=&quot;http://echecsetmixte.fr/?p=665&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://echecsetmixte.fr/?p=665&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The main points are : &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If you want to make progress, don't think about women competitions, think bigger and aim for results in &quot;general&quot; competitions. A top 20 in French mixed youngster championship is a better result than a top 3 in European Girl championship.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;France has only a few active women players rated 2000+ so they always play against each other in these competitions&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If you stay too long in girl competitions, you won't realize the gap in level with the boys until it's too late&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Women championships promotes &quot;amateur chess&quot; but are no use for professionnal competitions.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's clearly not an answer to the question but I think it's worth sharing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Btw I met my wife in an French mixed open, so there are some chances that you'll played against some. I checked the data for this open and here are the rates :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Open A , Elo &gt;1700 : 5-10% women&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Open B, Elo &amp;lt;1800 : 12-15% women&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8923" LastActivityDate="2015-12-09T15:02:56.110" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13045" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13035" CreationDate="2015-12-09T15:32:36.700" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;On the London Chess Classics website, there is a link to the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.londonchessclassic.com/downloads/gct/GrandChessTourEstimatedStandings.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;GCT Estimated Standings&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An estimate is the best you can get though:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;... The points actually allocated will be determined by tiebreaks which cannot be calculated until the end of the tournament...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8943" LastActivityDate="2015-12-09T15:32:36.700" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13046" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13051" CreationDate="2015-12-10T07:43:51.770" Score="1" ViewCount="142" Body="&lt;p&gt;My openings textbook gives this line (Closed Variation of the Reversed Sicilian):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.c4 e5 2.Nc3 Nc6 3.g3 g6 4.Bg2 Bg7 5.Nf3 d6 6.d3 Nf6 7.Rb1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;with the note that the plan for white here would be to push 8. b4 and crush black on the queenside.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I want to stop that with black, so the first move I looked at was 7. ... a5, but I can't see how this doesn't fail to 8. a3. Still, this move is proposed in &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/9293/674&quot;&gt;this answer&lt;/a&gt; and in &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/9286/reversed-sicilian-whats-wrong-with-my-plan#comment13385_9293&quot;&gt;this comment&lt;/a&gt; my question was asked, but it sadly went unanswered.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How do I stop b4?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="674" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2015-12-10T13:52:35.960" Title="How do you stop white's queenside advance in the Reversed Sicilian?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;english-opening&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13047" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13050" CreationDate="2015-12-10T11:50:14.103" Score="3" ViewCount="570" Body="&lt;p&gt;Today I was playing chess against somebody at my internship company. He went all-out attack in the begin and I was only defending. He actually made some mistakes and lost his queen, rook and bishop. I won in the end fairly easy. We had a discussion afterwards about the 'all-out attack strategy'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it a good thing to go all out attack or should you attack slowly? What is the best way or is it different each player? I'm not really good and the other is just as 'good' as I am.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8827" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2015-12-20T02:00:14.907" LastActivityDate="2020-08-04T07:32:50.637" Title="All-out attack or slow attack" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;attack&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13048" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-12-10T11:56:57.890" Score="3" ViewCount="191" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are there strong chess engines that can beat most of the good chess engines without using databases (like opening databases), solely using brute force?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8950" LastEditorUserId="10905" LastEditDate="2016-11-22T16:33:04.827" LastActivityDate="2016-11-22T16:33:04.827" Title="Can computer software that doesn't use databases still beat best in world?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13049" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13048" CreationDate="2015-12-10T13:08:01.650" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the recent &lt;a href=&quot;http://schach.chess.com/news/stockfish-outlasts-nakamura-3634&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Nakamura - Stockfish match&lt;/a&gt;, Stockfish played with a one pawn handicap. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Additionally &quot;&lt;strong&gt;According to match conditions, Stockfish was not allowed to access either an opening book or an endgame tablebase.&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Without opening database and with a one pawn handicap, Stockfish still beat Nakamura quite handily 3-1.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-12-10T13:08:01.650" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13050" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13047" CreationDate="2015-12-10T13:32:26.460" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;To me, the game you described was an absolute beginner game. It wasn't important how the attack was conducted, all-out or slow, you opponent was just blundering pieces and even the queen! It didn't matter whether you were defending or attacking or doing nothing, you'd have won easily in any case. Your opponent had absolutely no idea what he was talking about.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At this level, it'd be better to focus on avoid giving away pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But to answer your question, if I was to play your game, I'd go for the Scholar's Mate or launch a quick but dirty pawn-storm. I'd also move my queen out early and hope for some free pieces to capture. It'd be a diseaster against anyone experienced, but highly effective against a beginner.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2015-12-10T13:32:26.460" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13051" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13046" CreationDate="2015-12-10T13:52:35.960" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;You don't.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is no way at this point to stop white from advancing on the queenside. Playing a5 still makes sense, because short term this will give you the open a-file and longterm this will eliminate a potential weakness that white might take advantage of once he breaks through. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Instead of stoping white on the queenside you have to develop play on the kingside or potentially even in the centre to compensate for white's attack. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is a nice and recent example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;World Cup&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Khanty-Mansiysk RUS&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2011.08.29&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;2011.08.28&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;1.2&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Arman Pashikian&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Radoslaw Wojtaszek&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;A24&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;2616&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;2683&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;64&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. c4 Nf6 2. Nc3 e5 3. g3 g6 4. Bg2 Bg7 5. Nf3 Nc6 6. d3 O-O&#xA;7. O-O d6 8. Rb1 a5 9. a3 h6 10. b4 axb4 11. axb4 Be6 12. Nd2&#xA;Qd7 13. b5 Nd8 14. Nd5 Nxd5 15. cxd5 Bh3 16. Nc4 Bxg2 17. Kxg2&#xA;b6 18. f4 exf4 19. gxf4 Qg4+ 20. Kh1 Ra2 21. Bd2 Nb7 22. f5&#xA;Qd4 23. Qb3 Rfa8 24. e3 Qh4 25. Qd1 Nc5 26. Qe2 Ra1 27. Rxa1&#xA;Rxa1 28. Be1 Qh3 29. Nd2 Bc3 30. Nf3 Ra2 31. Nd2 Bxd2 32. fxg6&#xA;Bxe1 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-12-10T13:52:35.960" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13052" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13004" CreationDate="2015-12-10T19:07:42.967" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Favourite task of V. Lenin ))&#xA;1. Qb2 2.Qe5&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8955" LastActivityDate="2015-12-10T19:07:42.967" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13054" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="663" CreationDate="2015-12-11T05:44:38.227" Score="-3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Situations where mate is available but obviously cannot be forced are uncommon. E.g. KBvKB where bishops are opposite colours.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Under USCF rules, the game would most likely be declared a draw if time ran out for either side.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8960" LastEditorUserId="8201" LastEditDate="2017-10-11T15:04:38.257" LastActivityDate="2017-10-11T15:04:38.257" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13055" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13057" CreationDate="2015-12-11T07:27:44.863" Score="1" ViewCount="1265" Body="&lt;p&gt;Visualization (seeing a chessboard, where the pieces are and how they can move moves ahead in your mind) is an important part of tactics and calculation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the best way (or a good way) to improve it, I mean for beginners?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8961" LastActivityDate="2015-12-11T12:18:37.063" Title="What is the best way to improve visualization?" Tags="&lt;board-vision&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2015-12-11T14:02:45.283" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13056" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13055" CreationDate="2015-12-11T10:42:52.540" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I guess it's vital to become comfortable with chessboard coordinates.&#xA;You might train &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.lichess.org/training/coordinate&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4209" LastActivityDate="2015-12-11T10:42:52.540" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13057" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13055" CreationDate="2015-12-11T12:18:37.063" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my experience at first you should just work on chess as much as you can, especially on combinations. If you get comfortable with visualizing positions that result from the combinations you will notice to be able to also follow positions in chess books. &#xA;Then it's time to read endgame books. At first you will not be able to follow the moves too deep, but since the positions are simple you will be able to follow it for a while, that's useful for your endgame, and soon you will notice that it's getting easier to follow even deep lines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8944" LastActivityDate="2015-12-11T12:18:37.063" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13060" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8274" CreationDate="2015-12-11T20:20:16.500" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Image recognition is easily to the point where a person &lt;em&gt;could&lt;/em&gt; set up an AI to automatically play for him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;screen capture the board&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;allow the computer to find the move made compared to previous screen capture (&lt;em&gt;AI Neural Networks could accomplish this with the correct training&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;AI inputs the move to some other engine&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Engine displays best move&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Point 5 could be the human actually makes that move that is displayed by the engine, or the AI once again reads from the screen and translates that into how it would make the move in the online game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It would take a decent amount of work to get such a setup going - it would not be worth it for &lt;em&gt;most&lt;/em&gt; people. Even those that know how.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More likely, someone would have two monitors set up. (or two windows on their one monitor). They would need to be able to know the shorthand chess notation well, (&lt;em&gt;I don't but many people do&lt;/em&gt;), as soon as you make your move they just type it in. Engine shows next move, they type that in and make the move. I think this could be fairly quick.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You would probably have to report someone if you suspect them of cheating. &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/8282/8891&quot;&gt;Eve's answer&lt;/a&gt; has a link to chess.com's cheating policy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8891" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.193" LastActivityDate="2015-12-11T20:27:18.920" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13062" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13009" CreationDate="2015-12-11T21:35:38.937" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can give a try to the monthly &quot;First Saturday&quot; round-robin tournaments in Budapest. (You probably have heard of it, it has been in existence for like 22 years.)&#xA;The city is nice, the venue is downtown, the local girls are beautiful, the majority of the players speak/understand English, maybe the only issue can be that your rating qualifies you for group &quot;FM-A&quot;, where the opponents are rated between FIDE 1850 and 2100. But 9-11 games are guaranteed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8791" LastActivityDate="2015-12-11T21:35:38.937" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13063" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8274" CreationDate="2015-12-12T05:30:30.440" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's definitely possible. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this video: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zi47GBArpPE&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zi47GBArpPE&lt;/a&gt; the user has set up a program that screen captures the board, determines the best move and then plays out that move. It's fast enough that he can play bullet (1 minute each) with it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8971" LastActivityDate="2015-12-12T05:30:30.440" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13066" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13047" CreationDate="2015-12-12T13:56:39.873" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Summary:&lt;/strong&gt; It depends on the position. If the king is vulnerable, you have the initiative, there are many open lines or you have made material or positional concessions, then an all-out attack &lt;em&gt;may&lt;/em&gt; be possible, but you have to be sure of your calculations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Based on this, there is no decisively better way to approach the question of slow vs. all out attack. Players have preferences and this is reflected in their opening repertoires. E.g. if a player prefers all out attacks, they may play gambit openings or openings that accept structural deficits to gain open lines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The speed of the attack depends on the position, specifically:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The size of the &lt;em&gt;initiative&lt;/em&gt;. Because the initiative is short term, if you have a large initiative then you need to use it e.g. to checkmate, gain material or threaten to checkmate/gain material. If you have a milder initiative, you need to maintain that edge, or convert it into something more tangible, e.g. material, space, better pawn structure etc.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The quality of &lt;em&gt;development&lt;/em&gt;. Development relates to how many pieces are off their starting squares and in active, well placed positions. This is important because if you have developed more pieces, then you have more in play, so it is like playing with a bigger army. But development is like the initiative: it is short term (your opponent isn't going to leave their forces at home for long) and varies in size (having 3 more pieces out than your opponent is a significant advantage. One more is less significant)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;Material (1)&lt;/em&gt;. A player may sacrifice material to gain the initiatve, increase development, control open lines, restrict the opponent's pieces etc. The amount of material that is sacrificed influences the speed of the attack. If I sacrifice a pawn and the attack does not succeed, then I might be able to defend an inferior endgame and draw. If I sacrifice the Queen and the attack does not succeed, then I should probably resign the game!&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;Material (2)&lt;/em&gt;. I mentioned the amount of material there is on the board, but that does not account for the quality of the material. For example, bishop of opposite colour middlegame situations favour the player with the initiative, and the amount of material often takes a back seat. Why? Because if I am attacking using dark square weaknesses, and my opponent doesn't have a dark square bishop to defend those weaknesses (say they have a light square bishop), then it is like I am attacking up a whole piece. The converse is true: if my opponent gets the iniative and attacks me on the light squares, then I have a problem. Lastly, bishop of opposite colour games are very interesting, because they tend to be exceptions to bullet point 3, i.e. bishop of opposite colour endgames are notoriously drawish due to the opportunity for one side to build a fortress, meaning material deficits are less important in these games&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;Open lines&lt;/em&gt;. Lines (ranks, files, diagonals) that are open lead to quicker attacks, as there are more targets, e.g. pawns sat on open lines to be attacked by the rooks. Closed games lead to slow, building attacks instead. As an aside, one player may take a structural deficit to gain open lines, hence an attack. One famous example of this is the &lt;em&gt;isolated Queen pawn&lt;/em&gt;. The c and e files are open, but there is a long term structural concession in the form of the pawn being potentially weak.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;King position&lt;/em&gt;. A king that is still in the centre may warrant opening lines to it to drum up a mating attack&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;A specific target&lt;/em&gt;. This is very broad, but examples of specific targets to aim for are: queen developed too early (you can develop quickly by kicking the queen around), backwards pawn (you can build a slow attack by piling up on it and maybe winning the pawn eventually), defense too far away (e.g. all of the opponent's pieces are separated from the king) etc.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2015-12-12T13:56:39.873" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13067" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13069" CreationDate="2015-12-12T13:58:58.177" Score="0" ViewCount="175" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am developing a computer based game.  I am aware some of different official timer expiration rules.  But I want to make the following simple rule when the timer expired.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;After player one has made a move.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Player two has 5 minutes (or whatever time agreed upon).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If player two has not made a move when time expired, player two lost turn. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It is now player one's turn to move, etc.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does this sound playable?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8527" LastActivityDate="2017-09-24T23:38:09.840" Title="Timer expired suggestions" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;chess-clocks&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13068" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13067" CreationDate="2015-12-12T14:20:16.857" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It sounds fun, especially for lower time control (like 30 seconds), but it will not really be chess, since this way all the Zugzwang positions lose sense, and in the mutual Zugzwang positions actually it's not obvious how the game will end (neither side will move, so after a while the game should force draw or something).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8944" LastActivityDate="2015-12-12T14:20:16.857" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13069" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13067" CreationDate="2015-12-12T14:25:12.383" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well that depends, if your talking about a game as in chess then no. If your opponent is in zugzwang he may deliberately allow his time to expire so that his opponent may move and likewise the opponent would let their time expire to put his opponent back in zugzwang. Basically the game would go on and on... With no one making any moves. &#xA;However if you are talking about another computer based game, you must make sure that zugzwang does not exist, then this system of time control would work.( zugzwang is when any move you make only worsens your position. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8974" LastActivityDate="2015-12-12T14:25:12.383" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13072" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13074" CreationDate="2015-12-13T02:12:27.123" Score="2" ViewCount="942" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let's say we have a few situations. White has all their pieces (hypothetically) and black has only:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;N+K&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;B+K&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;N+N+K&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If white were to run out of time, would each of these situations be a draw due to insufficient material? I'm wondering because let's say black were to have a forced checkmate with one of the above situations, could white deliberately lose on time and claim a draw?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7966" LastActivityDate="2020-10-29T03:28:30.783" Title="Drawing rules for time loss" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;draw&gt;&lt;time-control&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13074" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13072" CreationDate="2015-12-13T09:53:36.567" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;lichess gets it wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As it happens, White would lose all three games. With all white pieces still on the board, black has still &quot;enough mating material&quot; - it would actually help if White had no pieces at all!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I guess we all agree in the following position black is checkmate:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;5k1K/5n1P/8/8/8/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But this position can be reached from the examples shown. Even without pawns, it is still possible to checkmate for black:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;2RKR3/5n2/3k4/8/8/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Obviously, these cases are rather theoretical. But there are real-world situations (you need something like KRR vs KN, note that KQ vs KN is in fact drawn under that circumstances!) where this may apply. That is why the 10.2 rule (claiming draw with less than two minutes, now annex G) was established and why any higher-rated modern tournament will play with time increments.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There aren't many examples of asymmetric insufficient material. Most of the time, either both players or neither can win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Edit:&lt;/em&gt; The relevant section of the rules is Article 6.9:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Except where one of Articles 5.1.a, 5.1.b, 5.2.a, 5.2.b, 5.2.c&#xA;  applies, if a player does not complete the prescribed number of moves&#xA;  in the allotted time, the game is lost by that player. However, the&#xA;  game is drawn if the position is such that the opponent &lt;em&gt;cannot&#xA;  checkmate the player’s king by any possible series of legal moves&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The common simplification &quot;has not enough winning material&quot; is not always a good one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2715" LastEditorUserId="2715" LastEditDate="2015-12-13T10:20:43.443" LastActivityDate="2015-12-13T10:20:43.443" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13075" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13078" CreationDate="2015-12-13T14:34:37.850" Score="3" ViewCount="212" Body="&lt;p&gt;I played a game today where I feel that I had a nice positional advantage (the computer supports my opinion) but I only managed to draw it in the end. This is the position that I consider to be critical:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;2bq1r2/1r1np1kp/pp4p1/2pP1pP1/2P1NQ2/3B3P/PP3P2/R3R1K1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am playing White. Here Black played has just played ...f5 and my following moves were Ng3 and h4 (after Rf7). I still had some advantage at that point according to the computer but I lost it a couple of moves later after some inaccuracies. &lt;strong&gt;What plan should I have followed? What are White ideas to win in this position?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8751" LastActivityDate="2016-07-11T08:01:56.577" Title="What plan should I have followed in this particular position?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;&lt;middlegame&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13076" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13077" CreationDate="2015-12-13T14:42:34.113" Score="2" ViewCount="364" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I'm playing against a computer, it moves virtually instantly. Automatically, I'm speeding up as if trying to match it. Obviously, I'm not a computer, so I make horrible blunders if I move so quickly. When playing OTB against a live player, I take considerably longer for my moves (I'm fine with playing a three hour game) and consequently I play &lt;em&gt;a lot&lt;/em&gt; better OTB. By the way, I virtually always play without a clock.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this common? Are there any tips besides &quot;just don't do this&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="674" LastActivityDate="2015-12-15T23:19:39.973" Title="How do I not play too fast when playing the computer?" Tags="&lt;computer-chess&gt;&lt;time-management&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13077" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13076" CreationDate="2015-12-13T15:09:29.917" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a very bad habit you are getting in to. Of course it doesn't really matter if you lose to the computer in this situation but you will face something similar in OTB play with clocks. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you have 10 minutes left to finish the game and your opponent has less than 2 minutes then this is a very big advantage for you. If you are not playing with increments then your opponent will have to start blitzing his moves out to try and avoid losing on time. He is much more likely to make a mistake. If you copy him and start blitzing too then your advantage disappears.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should try and have a set routine which you go through regardless of the opponent's speed of move, some questions you automatically ask yourself. Why did my opponent play his last move? What is he threatening? How does it stop my plans? Does it give me some new possibilities?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you consider these kind of questions it will slow down your play and help you to stop blitzing unnecessarily.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2015-12-13T15:09:29.917" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13078" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13075" CreationDate="2015-12-13T15:31:02.690" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Black is very weak on the black squares, on the e file, his e pawn is very weak and his knight and bishop are short of good squares because of his cramped position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should try and get your knight to f4 and double your rooks on the e file. I would start with Nc3. This also helps against Black's obvious plan to undermine your center and give himself more space with b5. You may need to play a4 at some stage to control b5 but your immediate priority should be to double on the e file. Once you control the e file you want to either win his e pawn or invade on the e file.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At the same time your queen can exert more control over black squares in his position, either from h6 or maybe along the long diagonal from b2 or c3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2015-12-13T15:31:02.690" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13079" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-12-13T18:52:53.733" Score="4" ViewCount="4058" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm about 1800 FIDE and I wanted to incorporate e4 e5 to my repertoire as black, however, as soon as i started studying it, it became clear to me that its one of the most complex openings to prepare.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So can you guide me to the right approach in learning this opening? What are the best resources? Where can i learn the ideas instead of just memorizing lines? Do you have an tips regarding this opening? And who are the best practitioners or e4 e5? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;much appreciated!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8982" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2015-12-13T20:00:11.763" LastActivityDate="2016-07-12T00:35:00.170" Title="How to learn e4 e5 as black?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;1.e4&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13080" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13079" CreationDate="2015-12-13T20:28:50.723" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;One useful strategy of learning any opening, be it 1.e4 e5 or any other system, is to read books, study games and play games. Having said this, I would say that up until Elo 2300, opening theory is less important compared to skills in endgame and middlegame. If you want to get a good return on investment of your time, I would recommend studying Queen endgames, Rook endgames and all other endgames. As for openings, 1.e4 e5 is a massive opening system. There are other opening systems you could consider that will be easier to learn and use in practice. Since it seems that you do not have a routine in learning new opening systems, starting with 1.e4 e5 seems to be a risky choice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastActivityDate="2015-12-13T20:28:50.723" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13081" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-12-13T20:36:28.573" Score="7" ViewCount="215" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm at about 1600 level, roughly speaking, and I need a good software with lots of options to keep me interested in learning chess and improving myself.  I've heard of different ones, including SCID, Lucas, Arena, and recently someone recommended Jose.  Do you know of any other programs or what do you think of these?  I'm not computer literate so please dumb down the explanation for me.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance, someone said that Arena is closed source but SCID is not, and that SCID is more of a database program.  I don't know what those things mean or if that makes one better than the other.  Jose was someone's solution on a website to someone wanting to combine the best of SCID and Arena, for instance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8983" LastActivityDate="2015-12-17T15:21:47.910" Title="Free software for intermediate learner?" Tags="&lt;software&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13082" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13079" CreationDate="2015-12-14T03:31:01.123" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are a lot of good resources on 1. e4 e5 lines.  I would recommend you combine some study of an up-to-date theoretical work (Bologan's two books, Black Weapons, and Bologan's Ruy Lopez are very good, and all you would need for a long time) with going through some games.  For example, if you want to get a good feel for where your pieces belong and typical maneuvering in closed Ruy Lopez positions, going through Karpov's games as Black in these lines can teach you a lot.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ultimately, you are going to have to memorize some sharp lines.  Many of the gambits played in the Romantic era in chess come after 1.e4 e5, and it is simply not possible to play these positions correctly without learning some theory.  The good news is that Black usually has a number of sound options against White's sharper tries.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The big advantage of 1.e4 e5 over all other defenses to 1.e4 is that once you learn the various gambits and deviations (Scotch, Vienna, Ponziani, etc.), you have a choice among a large number of completely sound Ruy Lopez systems with Black, all of which are eminently playable, many of which are quite different from each other, and all of which give you chances to play for a win.  This is why many of the top players use 1...e5 as their main defense to 1.e4.  It is a great opening to choose for the long term, because if you get bored with one Ruy Lopez system you can just learn another.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7961" LastActivityDate="2015-12-14T03:31:01.123" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13083" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-12-14T12:09:26.553" Score="1" ViewCount="1794" Body="&lt;p&gt;What are some book recommendations, tips, and ideas for a Class A to reach Expert Class? What knowledge do most Class A lack compare to Experts?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3149" LastActivityDate="2015-12-22T00:08:49.157" Title="What chess books should a Class A player read to reach Expert Class?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="9" ClosedDate="2019-02-12T15:22:05.120" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13084" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13079" CreationDate="2015-12-14T13:35:31.047" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The move 1 ..., e5 is the most popular answer to 1 e4 together with the Sicilian defence 1 ..., c5 and leads to as many different variations. If you decide to use it, you need to be prepared to meet:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;the moves 2. d4 or 2. Bc4 (actually rare occurrences),&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;the King's gambit 2. f4,&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;the Vienna game 2. Nc3,&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;the natural 2. Nf3 that leads after 2 ..., Nc6 either to the Spanish 3. Bb5 or the Italian 3. Bc4 or the Scottish 3. d4 (not to mention some less popular continuations), all of them rich of different continuations and ideas.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In order to cut on the number of continuations that need to be &quot;understood&quot; (I don't like to use the term &quot;memorized&quot; as a mechanical memorization of moves is never useful in chess) you may choose variations that limit the number of white choices. E.g. after the King's gambit 1. e4 e5 2. f4 you may opt for 2. ..., d5 (which has also the advantage of likely annoying white) or 1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 d6 (Philidor) or Nf6 (Russian) to avoid the vastness of the Spanish/Italian systems.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is true that up to about master level the opening preparation is not so relevant as mastering middle- and endgames techniques, but moving in a known land is always better than navigating randomly, I think. Also remember that &quot;it is always better to know well a not-so-good opening then to know not-so-well a good opening&quot; (as a grandmaster once told me).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyway, in order to learn a vast and complex system of openings like those arising from 1 e4, e5 (or any other) one should&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;read books which care more about explaining plans and ideas than listing variations and analysis,&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;replay (grand)master games where the continuations of choice were employed, better if the games are commented by the player themselves or other valid GMs,&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;play, play, play. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="446" LastActivityDate="2015-12-14T13:35:31.047" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13085" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5829" CreationDate="2015-12-14T13:53:08.157" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's a decent way. But there are some problems with it. Sometimes the puzzle's AI moves their piece even though another piece could be moved better. But this way you can practice how in some situations you can win a piece (like winning a Queen) or check-mate the opponent. But to really become good in playing chess, you have to play normal matches as situations you come across in normal matches are not always in puzzles and you need to know how to win / prevent losing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Good luck and I suggest you keep on training, but not only training this way, but also play normal chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I suggest playing normal chess against the same rating, but not AI's. AI's can be a little 'dumb' sometimes. I noticed it a few times on lichess. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8827" LastActivityDate="2015-12-14T13:53:08.157" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13091" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-12-14T20:26:21.713" Score="7" ViewCount="2102" Body="&lt;p&gt;Decades ago, there was a young man who joined the Rochester chess club where he had the frequent opportunity to play against USCF Life Master &lt;a href=&quot;http://tartajubow.blogspot.ca/2015/02/dr-erich-w-marchand.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Dr. Eric W. Marchand&lt;/a&gt; if my memory is correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Who was that late starter?  He became a GM in a relatively short time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many chess players who go on to become GM's have started out in the first few years of their lives.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which late starters have been able to become grandmasters?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please note that this question is the opposite of the more general &quot;how young...&quot; category of questions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;edit&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Dr. Marchand was not a GM, my error, he was a USCF Life Master.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;My point is having strong competition can help one's chess development.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, it's fair to consider a late starter as someone who is perhaps age 20 and up.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;end edit&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8985" LastEditorUserId="8985" LastEditDate="2015-12-15T09:06:18.607" LastActivityDate="2015-12-15T09:06:18.607" Title="Which late starters have been able to become grandmasters?" Tags="&lt;grandmaster&gt;&lt;titles&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13092" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13097" CreationDate="2015-12-14T23:26:37.967" Score="0" ViewCount="243" Body="&lt;p&gt;From what I understand, the difficulty of most chess engines is determined by how long they are allowed to 'think' about the moves. From what I understand, the performance of software based chess applications has increased massively over the years, but I'm not sure if hardware limited engines have increased performance in a similar fashion. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason I ask is because my father owns a fairly old electronic chess set, but finds that the advanced levels take too long to compute their moves. I'm wondering if I buy a more modern board, can I assume that a similar level of difficulty can be achieved with less waiting time? For specifics, he already owns a systema Jupiter board, and I'm currently thinking about the Lexibook chessman elite, which is on the cheaper side of things. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Apologies if this doesn't fit the site's remit, it seems an appropriate place to ask. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8989" LastActivityDate="2015-12-15T09:00:03.923" Title="Has the performance of physical electronic chess sets increased similarly to the performance of software based implementations over the years?" Tags="&lt;computer-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13093" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13091" CreationDate="2015-12-14T23:48:31.877" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not aware of the person you're referring to, but GM Ye Jiangchuan of China started playing at around 17, as far as I remember from what I read about him. That's relatively quite late for Chess GMs. You can find more about him here: &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ye_Jiangchuan&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Ye Jiangchuan (Wikipedia)&lt;/a&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7604" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2015-12-14T23:56:00.363" LastActivityDate="2015-12-14T23:56:00.363" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13094" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="71" CreationDate="2015-12-14T23:54:00.597" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;chess.com is definitely one of the contenders. If you're a member, you'd know that GM Carlsen, GM Caruana, GM Nakamura; to name a few, are quite active there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7604" LastActivityDate="2015-12-14T23:54:00.597" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13095" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13091" CreationDate="2015-12-15T06:39:48.077" Score="7" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Oscar Shapiro was the oldest player to become a master. He did it at the age of 74.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Wilhelm Steinitz was the oldest world chess champion. He won the title from Zuckertort in 1886 at the age of 50 and held it until he was defeated by Lasker in 1894 at the age of 58 years and 10 days.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.chessbase.com/post/some-thoughts-on-aging&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Source&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5653" LastActivityDate="2015-12-15T06:39:48.077" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13096" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13081" CreationDate="2015-12-15T06:45:16.843" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why not solve more Chess puzzles? That will definitely help you. &#xA;There are many freemium model chess sites out there.. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My favorite is &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessity.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chessity&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;Others in this list are: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://Chess.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chess.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chesstempo.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chess Tempo&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[This list is endless. Other may have suggestions too.]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm afraid that playing against computers might defeat your motivation, because they are very good and beat humans without mercy. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would also recommend playing online with other human folks. &#xA;I use &lt;a href=&quot;http://Playchess.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Playchess&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5653" LastActivityDate="2015-12-15T06:45:16.843" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13097" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13092" CreationDate="2015-12-15T09:00:03.923" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is are basically two features you can look at to decide whether a board computer will be faster: Elo (i.e. playing strength) and processor speed. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The stronger the maximal playing strength the faster it should be (on comparable levels). &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.spacious-mind.com/html/chessman_elite.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Lexibook Chessman Elite&lt;/a&gt; should be around 1800, whereas &lt;a href=&quot;https://sites.google.com/site/michaelquigleyswebsite/chess-computers&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Systema Jupiter Deluxe&lt;/a&gt; plays at appr. 1400 Elo. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I couldn't find the chip speed for Systema Jupiter, but Lexibook has a 2 MHz chip. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.schach-computer.info/wiki/index.php/Wiki-Elo-Liste_En&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;On this list&lt;/a&gt; you can look for something maybe a little faster and a little stronger, though at some point you may have to worry whether the weaker levels are still weak enough. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would say that Lexibook, being 400 points stronger, should be comfortably faster than Systema Jupiter. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-12-15T09:00:03.923" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13098" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9870" CreationDate="2015-12-15T16:24:24.140" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Actually there is a way (but imperfect) to analyse full games in ChessBase, using the Let's Check feature.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Open your game&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Click on the analysis tab and enable Let's Check.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Click on Let's Check analysis, and choose for example Standard Analysis (in advanced settings, you can set the analysis time per move). If a given move has already been analyzed by other users, ChessBase will just retrieve the analysis and no calculations are made. If not, it will use your own engine.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See &lt;a href=&quot;https://uscfsales.wordpress.com/2011/11/08/chess-game-analysis-using-fritz13s-%E2%80%9Clets-check%E2%80%9D/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://uscfsales.wordpress.com/2011/11/08/chess-game-analysis-using-fritz13s-%E2%80%9Clets-check%E2%80%9D/&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;for other details.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8880" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-02-23T17:04:37.483" LastActivityDate="2021-02-23T17:04:37.483" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="13099" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13100" CreationDate="2015-12-15T18:18:09.140" Score="3" ViewCount="129" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was just looking for the best move in the position (White to move).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And I thought that capturing the bishop in green square would be the best as it controls &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the open a8-h1 diagonal ,but the engine preferred the bishop in red square with an advantage over 2 points in its evaluation,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am unable to see the reason (tactical or strategic)&#xA; for this behavior.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/viRrw.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/viRrw.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7693" LastActivityDate="2015-12-15T18:21:46.423" Title="Capturing one bishop" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;bishops&gt;&lt;bad-bishop&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13100" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13099" CreationDate="2015-12-15T18:21:46.423" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;1.Bxb2 and you're up a rook for a pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.Qxd1 Bxe5 and you're only up the exchange (rook vs bishop) for a pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2015-12-15T18:21:46.423" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13101" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-12-15T23:00:54.410" Score="5" ViewCount="538" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a game I played recently. After 12. Be2 ..., I really didn't know how to proceed. Eventually, after thinking for a very long time (&gt;30 minutes, it's a correspondence game by the way), I moved 12. Be2 Be7, a simple move that was one the first moves I considered.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;????.??.??&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Him&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Me&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteELO &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[BlackELO &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. c4 e6 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. e3 b6 5. Nc3 Bb7 6. Qa4+ Nc6 7. Ne5 Qd6 8.&#xA;Bd2 a6 9. a3 Nd7 10. f4 f6 11. Nxd7 Qxd7 12. Be2 Be7 13. cxd5 exd5 14. Bf3&#xA;Na5 15. Qxd7+ Kxd7 16. O-O Nc4 17. Bc1 c6 18. b3 Nd6 19. Bb2 h5 20. Rae1 Rag8&#xA;21. e4 dxe4 22. Nxe4 g5 23. d5 gxf4 24. Bxf6 Rh6 25. Bxe7 Kxe7 26. Nc5+ Kd8&#xA;27. Nxb7+ Nxb7 28. dxc6 Nc5 29. Rd1+ Kc8 30. b4 Ne6 31. Rd7 Rd8 32. Rfd1 Rhh8&#xA;33. Ra7 Rxd1+ 34. Bxd1 Nd4?? 35. Ra8+ 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These are my considerations:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;0. I don't really like my position, it feels cramped. Where did I go wrong..?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;1. My plan: Break open with ... e5. Prepare for this by positioning a rook on e8, and the other one on d8, e7, or f8 (but which of the three?).&lt;br&gt;&#xA;2. But I don't really want to move the rook on a8, because after c4 ..., my pawn on a7 hangs and the White Queen will be near my King if I O-O-O'ed.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;3. ... c4 feels very annoying to me anyway, but especially if I plan to O-O-O, because my Pawn structure that is supposed to protect my King will be weak.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;4. I guess I should plan on O-O'ing. But how? If I make way with ... Be7, it will be in the when I try to maneuver the rooks as in point 1.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;5. But ... g6 followed by ... Bg7 feels like I weaken the Pawn structure behind which I want to O-O.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;6. I have spent enough time on this, 12 ... Be7, YOLO!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, what do you guys think about my thought process? What should be my plan be in this situation? Where did I go wrong before this that led to this position that feels not so good to me? Is this position actually not so good?&#xA;Et cetera. :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(By the way, I feel that this is in general my weakness. Usually I tend to make solid moves while sniffing for a weakness. However, if a weakness doesn't 'spontaneously emerge from the noise', I don't really know how to make one, and I end up drawing or winning/losing due to a random emerging tactic. How can I learn this?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks a lot in advance for taking the time to think about this and help me get a better understanding. :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: Thanks Dag Oskar Madsen, for fixing the diagram for me so fast.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8995" LastEditorUserId="8995" LastEditDate="2015-12-15T23:11:36.650" LastActivityDate="2019-12-18T04:11:44.810" Title="What should be my plan?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;&lt;middlegame&gt;&lt;planning&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13102" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13076" CreationDate="2015-12-15T23:19:39.973" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Did you try literally sitting on your hands, and only taking them out when you are sure you found the right move? Having an additional action and consideration to perform might be enough for you change your behaviour.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8995" LastActivityDate="2015-12-15T23:19:39.973" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13104" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13101" CreationDate="2015-12-16T09:36:26.447" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;The only opening move I really didn't like is 6…Nc6. Usually you don't want to put something in front of your c-pawn in these d-pawn openings. And incidentally it also seems to lose a piece (because of 8.cxd5 with Bb5 to follow). It also leads to all your positional problems: The pressure on d5, the slightly weakening move f6, the inability to free yourself with c5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your thought process is ok, Be7 and castling short is a decent conclusion. But you probably should have looked for a tactical solution as well: 12…dxc4 looks quite interesting for you. 13.Bxc4 is not possible, due to 13…b5 and Qxc4 can be answered by Na5 and Bxg2. Ok, it's not exactly risk free, but it's a pawn. Also, the bishop on b7 is really waiting for the diagonal to be opened sooner or later, so it should always be on your radar.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Generally to improve your strategic understanding you can do the usual stuff: Go through well annotated games, play and analyse tournament games, work through some instructive books. But on the other hand, putting your pieces on nice squares and waiting for something to come up, is an entirely valid strategy. Also, finding some creative tactical ideas can often substitute for a deep strategic plan and without decent calculation you can forget about implementing even the best plan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-12-16T09:36:26.447" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13105" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13101" CreationDate="2015-12-16T10:33:06.883" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your game plan and actual moves don't really align. You place a bishop on b7 but never make any effort to activate that bishop&#xA;by opening the a8-h1 diagonal. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You also spend a significant amount of time without developing your black square bishop and thus not castling. This means &#xA;you are exposing yourself to threats to your king which is how you got into this mess in the first place.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pushing the f pawn is also a no-no. When your king is not safe and the best course of action is working towards a&#xA;king-side castle you do not want to push one of the most vital pawns that will keep your king safe in that position in the future.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Try playing the next thousand or so games with the basics in mind. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Develop pawns early which allow for piece development and contesting the center however avoid making too many because you need to develop pieces.(NEVER TOUCH THE F PAWN)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Develop pieces, usually knights before bishops since the best bishop squares aren't always as clear as the ones for the knights&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Secure the king. There aren't many opening lines that don't involve castling(of which most are king-side castles!). So make sure you castle!&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Coordinate the queen in a position where it won't get harassed easily to avoid burning moves on constantly repositioning her&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;with the pieces off the back rank coordinate your rooks.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When developing pieces try to justify to yourself why you should put them there. a bishop on b7 is great! But is it really when my own pawns&#xA;are blocking it and making it a useless piece? What about his bishop? Maybe I should offer or force to trade my bad pieces for his good ones!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;When you look at this game taking the basics into account you'll see that you made a substantial amount of pawn moves of which&#xA;a6 didn't really achieve anything besides weaking your pawn structure. Meanwhile your opponent also made a lot of pawn moves but&#xA;they did a better job at occupying the center. Also you touched the f pawn(naughty!)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;You failed to properly develop pieces, your white-square bishop is miserable and your black square bishop(a key piece in many black openings) wasn't ever freed to do anything. &#xA;You also wasted a significant amount of time making knight moves, make up your mind on what you want to do with your pieces! Make your own plan, don't make everything about reacting to the opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Your king is as insecure as he can be. He's stuck in the middle of the board and you apparently wanted this. The only time you want&#xA;your king in the center is in an end game with relatively few pieces on the board!&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Your queen did get developed but got placed in a rather unfortunate position of defending a knight that shouldn't even be in danger(king safety caused that problem!)&#xA;in the end you traded her and permanently disabled your ability to castle.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;on 32. Rfd1 you can see a perfect example of white having good rook coordination and black having poor coordination.&#xA;You should take a note from how your opponent doubled his rooks on the d file and thus completely took control over it.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Good play comes with practice, but every player has games where following the basics is the best thing to do&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4093" LastActivityDate="2015-12-16T10:33:06.883" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13106" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13107" CreationDate="2015-12-16T12:02:15.487" Score="1" ViewCount="2631" Body="&lt;p&gt;What are the minimum sets of pieces required for checkmate when the opponent has no other piece that the king?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9002" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2015-12-16T12:29:13.473" LastActivityDate="2016-03-08T13:50:05.523" Title="Minimum sets of pieces required for checkmate?" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;check&gt;&lt;pieces&gt;&lt;minor-pieces&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13107" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13106" CreationDate="2015-12-16T12:16:20.940" Score="6" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;King + Bishop + Knight&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;King + Bishop + Bishop &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;King + Rook&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;King + Queen&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;and don't forget the unlikely King + Knight + Knight + Knight&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Assuming the lone King is attempting to avoid checkmate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2015-12-17T23:41:23.860" LastActivityDate="2015-12-17T23:41:23.860" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13108" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13106" CreationDate="2015-12-16T14:17:03.413" Score="1" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;There are many answers to your question, &#xA;&#xA;1) A rook &#xA;2) Any 2 minor pieces (Minor pieces:  Bishop, Night)&#xA;3) A Queen&#xA;4) 1 pawn :)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9003" LastActivityDate="2015-12-16T14:17:03.413" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13109" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13101" CreationDate="2015-12-16T14:50:57.030" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;How about 14....  b5 ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I dont see a problem playing 12........Be7&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9003" LastEditorUserId="9003" LastEditDate="2016-02-02T12:06:37.647" LastActivityDate="2016-02-02T12:06:37.647" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13110" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-12-16T15:25:07.003" Score="1" ViewCount="313" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there any FIDE rule to say when is the right time to offer a draw?&#xA;To be more clear, shall I offer a draw when my clock is going or I should offer if my opponent's clock is running? In this situation if I offer a draw in my opponent move and he play a bad move, can he claim anything?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;sub&gt;P.S: This happened to me, my opponent offered me a draw few seconds after he pressed the clock. Both position and time situation was in such a way that draw offer was already ridiculous, so to humiliate him, instantly after his offer I played a stupid move to say even if I do nonsense you will lose, but just after I moved I saw that this was one of the most stupid moves possible to play which cost me a rook and the game. Even that this was my mistake to get upset but my opponent in some sense played the man not the game and I think it was not fair. &lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="269" LastActivityDate="2015-12-16T15:31:09.630" Title="When is the right time to offer a draw according to the FIDE OTB rules" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;draw&gt;&lt;claim-draw&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13111" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13110" CreationDate="2015-12-16T15:29:01.523" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;9.1.b.1 A player wishing to offer a draw shall do so after having made a move on the chessboard and before pressing his clock. An offer at&#xA;  any other time during play is still valid but Article 11.5 must be&#xA;  considered. No conditions can be attached to the offer. In both cases&#xA;  the offer cannot be withdrawn and remains valid until the opponent&#xA;  accepts it, rejects it orally, rejects it by touching a piece with the&#xA;  intention of moving or capturing it, or the game is concluded in some&#xA;  other way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;11.5 It is forbidden to distract or annoy the opponent in any manner whatsoever. This includes unreasonable claims, unreasonable offers of&#xA;  a draw or the introduction of a source of noise into the playing area.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2015-12-16T15:29:01.523" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13112" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13110" CreationDate="2015-12-16T15:31:09.630" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The rule is, that you can only offer a draw in your own time (you shouldn't do nothing that can disturb your opponent when he thinks, and a draw offer is like that), you should offer a draw, then make a move, and handle your clock. Both players are supposed to signal that there was a draw offer, and it cannot be taken back.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then the other player considers the offer, he can accept, he can refuse, or he can just make a move which means that he refused (but it's considered polite to also say something like let's play on a little).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8944" LastActivityDate="2015-12-16T15:31:09.630" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13113" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13106" CreationDate="2015-12-16T19:26:01.490" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;As simple as a Knight or even a pawn, if you consider the fact that your opponent's pieces can block the escape squares too. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;W: Kf1, Nf2&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B: Kh1, h2. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Assume that white played Nf2# in the last move. So, white has just used one knight to checkmate black king. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5653" LastActivityDate="2015-12-16T19:26:01.490" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13114" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6315" CreationDate="2015-12-17T06:50:23.123" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm 26 years old. Just like you, I always liked chess but only recently started playing &quot;seriously&quot;. 18 months ago my rating on online (turn based) chess was ~1100 and on live chess (blitz) ~850. So I was definetely a very poor player. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now my rating is 1450+ on online chess and 1100+ on live (blitz). While nothing extraordinary it shows improvement. Just like you I aim to reach 1800+. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The thing is, I didn't improve by just playing. I actually read a lot and solved a lot of puzzles. So, my advice is: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Solve puzzles (Try the Tactics mode on Chess.com).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Read openings/defenses and through trial and error pick the ones that suit your style. Learn them by heart and build your strategy on them.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Play different modes. I found out that playing live chess helped me greatly on online chess as it made it easier for me to notice patterns. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Most Important&lt;/strong&gt;: Set realistic goals. You can't expect reaching a high rating fast. I've said to myself that I'll be a 1800+ player in ten years. This might sound a long time but it's not. We have a lot to learn. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8133" LastEditorUserId="8133" LastEditDate="2015-12-17T08:45:26.867" LastActivityDate="2015-12-17T08:45:26.867" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13115" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12997" CreationDate="2015-12-17T09:16:24.063" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I suggest using &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.lichess.org/paste&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://en.lichess.org/paste&lt;/a&gt; for analysis, it is very fast and helpful and gives you a human like analysis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9011" LastActivityDate="2015-12-17T09:16:24.063" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13116" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13118" CreationDate="2015-12-17T09:57:16.473" Score="4" ViewCount="2345" Body="&lt;p&gt;So I got a big scid database and ScidvsMac. I would like to convert the complete database into a pgn database. So far I have only found out how to convert single games into pgn, something I'm not keen on doing a million times. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So how do you do this with scid? And if scid doesn't have this functionality, is it possible to maybe do it game by game via command line?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-12-17T13:32:55.783" Title="How do you convert a scid database into a pgn database?" Tags="&lt;database&gt;&lt;pgn&gt;&lt;scid&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13117" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12276" CreationDate="2015-12-17T11:53:04.250" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;How's it going? Any improvement yet? A slump could be as a result of a lack of concentration amongst other things. Maybe this post can help you out - &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessfiles.com/chessfiles-blog/oh-man-am-i-in-a-slump-again&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.chessfiles.com/chessfiles-blog/oh-man-am-i-in-a-slump-again&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9012" LastActivityDate="2015-12-17T11:53:04.250" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13118" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13116" CreationDate="2015-12-17T13:32:55.783" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Go to the &lt;code&gt;Tools&lt;/code&gt; menu and somewhere down you will find under the option &lt;code&gt;Export Current Game&lt;/code&gt; the option &lt;code&gt;Export All Filter Games&lt;/code&gt;. In this sub-menu there is the option to export them as PGN.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4509" LastActivityDate="2015-12-17T13:32:55.783" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13119" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13081" CreationDate="2015-12-17T15:21:47.910" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Adding to Arun's list&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessply.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;ChessPly&lt;/a&gt; for simple online repertoire management and training&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3194" LastActivityDate="2015-12-17T15:21:47.910" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13120" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13465" CreationDate="2015-12-17T19:27:06.473" Score="15" ViewCount="2047" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe that a King and two Knights are able to force stalemate against a lone King (though obviously not checkmate)... but what about a King and one Knight against a lone King?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I first thought that forcing stalemate would be impossible. So I set up a random position with King+Knight vs King where the lone King was at the edge of the board, and I tried to analyze it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The result: White can force a stalemate! The trick is the move 3. Kd2!!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]  &#xA;[White &quot;Stalemate in 9&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;-&quot;]&#xA;[SetUp &quot;1&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;8/8/8/8/8/k1KN4/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;17&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Nb2 Ka2 2. Nc4 Ka1 (2... Kb1 3. Kd2 Ka1 (3... Ka2 4. Kc2 Ka1 5. Na3 Ka2 6. Nb1 Ka1 7. Nc3) 4. Kc1 Ka2 5. Kc2 Ka1 6. Na3 Ka2 7. Nb1 Ka1 8. Nc3) 3. Kd2 Kb1 (3... Ka2 4. Kc2 Ka1 5. Na3 Ka2 6. Nb1 Ka1 7. Nc3) 4. Kd1 Ka1 (4... Ka2 5. Kc2 Ka1 6. Na3 Ka2 7. Nb1 Ka1 8. Nc3) 5. Kc1 Ka2 6. Kc2 Ka1 7. Na3 Ka2 8. Nb1 Ka1 9. Nc3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This doesn't prove that a King and a Knight can always force stalemate against a lone King, but it at least shows that it's not completely inconceivable that King+Knight could force the stalemate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I obviously don't want a &quot;yes/no&quot; answer without any evidence to back it up. I would like either an irrefutable proof or at least some very strong evidence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One idea is to build an endgame tablebase which takes into account stalemate as a win, which is equivalent to say that White wins when he captures Black's King. There would only need to be 64x63x62 = 249984 positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A second idea would be to get a basic engine and modify its code so that it takes into account stalemate as a win, and you can probably also throw away most of the code of the engine to make it calculate faster. Then make it calculate King+Knight vs King in a few positions where the lone King begins at an edge of the board (but not too close to a corner). But this idea would be less convincing than the tablebase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3237" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-03-12T17:33:08.497" LastActivityDate="2020-03-12T17:33:08.497" Title="Can a King and a Knight force stalemate against a lone King?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;knights&gt;&lt;stalemate&gt;&lt;knight-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13121" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13120" CreationDate="2015-12-17T20:03:41.633" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The question if king and knight against king alone can force stalemate is rather theoretic. In practice it is always a draw since the king and knight are unable to mate the king alone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stalemate cannot be forced. It can only be achieved when the king alone is in one of the corners so the king alone must help:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;6k1/8/7K/8/4N3/8/8/8 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Kh8 Nf6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4509" LastActivityDate="2015-12-17T20:03:41.633" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13122" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-12-18T11:53:32.723" Score="0" ViewCount="309" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's an Expert Class that I specifically want to have a good game with or defeat. Though I always get destroyed badly in blitz. What can a Class B do in year to become strong enough to have a really good game or even defeat an Expert Class? Any advice? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3149" LastActivityDate="2015-12-18T15:13:30.287" Title="What kind of training should a Class B do for a year, if he or she wants to defeat a 2100 player?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2015-12-19T09:17:58.500" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13123" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13122" CreationDate="2015-12-18T12:44:20.027" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you want to defeat specifically one opponent the easiest way would be to check his games, try to find his weaknesses, and try to prepare and then reach positions which he doesn't feel comfortable with. Maybe this will be simple positions maybe closed games with manovering, maybe sharp tactical games. See what type of positions he tries to reach, and drag him to completely different ones. Obviously you should invest most of the time to get better in this kind of positions. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If in general you want to have a fighting chance against an expert player, without investing the time and energy to get good enough, than you should do lot's and lot's of combinations, prepare an opening repertoire with gambit openings, and try to catch him in a dobious, but complicated position. You will lose more than win, but every now and then you will nail him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And then there is the hard but revarding way of generally perfecting your game :).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8944" LastActivityDate="2015-12-18T12:44:20.027" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13124" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13122" CreationDate="2015-12-18T15:13:30.287" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;If both players are adults and have truly established 1700-ish and 2100 ratings, there is no plausible way the B-player will reliably defeat a 2100 player after one year of study. None.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's the fact of the matter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The ratings are not arbitrary and are well grounded in math; the 400 point difference means the lower rated player has no chance of winning at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Flukes happen, of course. I am a B-player and have drawn a 2100 twice in slow-time-control games.  It was the same guy both times. &lt;em&gt;He was bored with my play and started trying stuff&lt;/em&gt;. When he got in trouble, he turned on the juice and I could not secure the win in either game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2015-12-18T15:13:30.287" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13125" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-12-19T11:10:05.207" Score="7" ViewCount="817" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm a Class B, but I would like to reach Master Class one day. I been playing a lot of OTB games recently, and I would like to spend time studying my weaknesses. My coach noted some major weaknesses of my play. Unfortunately, I currently can't afford any more chess lessons or tournaments, for a two month period. I would like to uncover more weaknesses on my play and become significantly stronger. How do I seriously analyze my games?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it helps, my chess engine is Fritz 15. I'm not sure how do use the engine. Any advice on that would be greatly appreciated.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3149" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2015-12-19T15:20:55.510" LastActivityDate="2015-12-25T04:44:25.140" Title="How do I seriously analyze my tournament games and become stronger doing so?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13126" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5829" CreationDate="2015-12-19T11:25:41.670" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;On Sep 2, 2013 I wrote a blog post explaining how the improvement shown on the image below came from almost a month of doing tactics daily. So indeed it works at the lower levels, the proof is in the image ;-)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/HL7HW.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/HL7HW.png&quot; alt=&quot;Progress&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9027" LastActivityDate="2015-12-19T11:25:41.670" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13127" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13125" CreationDate="2015-12-19T14:45:11.960" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I used to think that computer analysis was very useful for lower level players; now I am not so sure.  It isn't helpful if you don't know why some move was made or if to reap the benefit you have to be able to see 8 or 10 moves ahead.  We B-players can't do that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That being said, when I analyze a game, I first let the machine analyze the entire game. I do this at 3 or 5 minutes per move (both sides) while I am at work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I then examine the results, focusing on the most significant score deviations. These will be where one side missed a shot, or where one side blundered.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now the hard part. Look at the machine's variation against what really happened. See how the machine punishes the bad move. There is no shortcut here - keep at it until you understand why Fritz chose the move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Fritz is going to make moves worthy of a savant grandmaster. Some of them will be inscrutable. Don't worry about it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is psychologically comforting is that you'll probably find that you had real chances to win every game, even when the game was &quot;lost&quot;. The moves are there if you can find them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2015-12-19T14:45:11.960" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13128" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13125" CreationDate="2015-12-20T01:02:44.373" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think engines only help for tactical improvements, not strategical. I saw a lot of moments where engine suggestions was far from perfect, strategically.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, in endgames, you can't depend on engines even tactically.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I used to use Fritz GUI with strongest engine(for that day) for blunder checks and tactical misses, in Fritz GUI you can do it easily with one click, give the game, leave the computer for 30 mins and when you return you get an tactically annotated game. With this, you can improve your tactics ability.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But remember, use engine suggestions only for finding answers for tactics, if you can't understand why the answer is correct, then you can't benefit of using engine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For strategy, best way is to find someone who is at least 300 elo higher than you, and analyze games together. Also read every strategy classic, if you didn't read yet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And for endgames, you need to be a real geek in reading endgame books. Best way is to read quality endgame books, and try to solve endgame studies.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Studying endgame is really beneficial for elo improvement, because people under 2000 elo don't care much about endgame. If you get a good endgame knowledge, then you can go for exchanges happily and solve your problems in endgame. Also, it's said that a good endgame knowledge requires an excellent grasp of pieces and their abilities, which also naturally boost your tactical ability.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My favorite endgame book: &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1904600883&quot;&gt;http://www.amazon.com/Secrets-Pawn-Endings-Karsten-Muller/dp/1904600883&lt;/a&gt; which is an excellent and complete source for pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lastly, about openings, don't memorize, but understand. Don't memorize and use popular strong lines just because they are popular and strong, if you don't understand the harmony in the moves, then the opening won't be strong in your hands.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you use an opening which you understand the strategy within, deeply, you almost always arrive a better middlegame/endgame comparing your opponent, which makes you win the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I won a lot of matches against strong players with openings which are quite unpopular, but I understand very well. And I saw these strong players fail to find correct continuations :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To give an example, I used to play Dutch Defense with blacks successfully, later I wanted to play it with whites, which found silly by others from time to time. But because I knew Dutch very well, it went good with whites too, and I got quite good results.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A bit long but, these are my advices. Hope it helps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9030" LastEditorUserId="9030" LastEditDate="2015-12-20T01:34:45.083" LastActivityDate="2015-12-20T01:34:45.083" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13129" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13101" CreationDate="2015-12-20T01:09:49.503" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Playing d pawn games requires a lot of patience and a certain subtlety because of the advantage of White's first move. You need to learn the first quality and improve the second before you can get stronger.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For starters, you should learn why playing ...4 b6 before c6 was a bad move. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this game (and many others before yours), it involved serious complications from which you were unable to extricate yourself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In answer to your question about the sixth move, and how you went wrong, you ought to know that the b knight is &quot;better&quot; (more defensively placed on d7 where it 1) connects to the knight on f6, and 2) can be shield from pins by c6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastEditorUserId="17" LastEditDate="2016-08-08T05:25:07.153" LastActivityDate="2016-08-08T05:25:07.153" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13130" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12962" CreationDate="2015-12-20T01:19:53.953" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Two important things:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) &quot;I draw when I'm winning.&quot; That happens a lot to B (and lower) players. An A player, almost by definition, will win once he has the advantage. Get a teacher to teach you how to win your won games!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) &quot;I struggle understanding what plan a given position needs or what plan my opponent has in mind. Even if I figure out their plan, I play the wrong move to stop them.&quot; Learn to &quot;read&quot; and understand your opponent's plans. Once you've gotten to a point where you can explain them to your teacher, have him teach you the right countermoves. The second thing you must do to improve is to draw (or win) games that you have been losing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastEditorUserId="17" LastEditDate="2015-12-21T20:35:31.183" LastActivityDate="2015-12-21T20:35:31.183" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13131" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12238" CreationDate="2015-12-20T01:29:31.950" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;A king can only capture &lt;em&gt;unprotected&lt;/em&gt; pieces. In this case, the Black queen is protected by the black-squared bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If a king moves into a square where an enemy piece (the bishop) can recapture him, he is &quot;moving into check,&quot; which he can't do. If a player can't move out of check with his king, either by moving away, capturing the checking piece or &quot;interposing&quot; (which doesn't work when the checking piece is adjacent) he loses the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But here, the king can move out of check by going to c3. Put the Black knight on b5 or d5, and White is check mated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2015-12-20T01:29:31.950" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13132" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13047" CreationDate="2015-12-20T01:32:40.047" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Attack or defense should be an outcome&lt;/strong&gt;, not a decision. You better don't go for all-out attack or slow attack or attack in any way &lt;strong&gt;without a vulnerability in opponents position&lt;/strong&gt;, as it will end like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/u59cf.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/u59cf.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;all-out attack example&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;&lt;sub&gt;(source: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.virginmedia.com/images/Weird-car-crash-1-431x300.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;virginmedia.com&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Normally, you should evaluate the position, if opponents position is vulnerable you have to go for an attack, if your position is vulnerable you have to go for a defense. If you ignore the facts and decide with emotions, you lose a lot.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9030" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2019-02-18T08:16:21.290" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="13133" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9966" CreationDate="2015-12-20T01:36:27.610" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You seem to be fixated on giving checkmate when you have the advantage, at the expense of other goals, including protecting your own pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you have an advantage, you should (usually) be chasing your opponent's pieces, not his king, and trying to force exchanges. Once you get into that mindset, you will do a better job of realizing whose pieces are attacked.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your goal should be to get all your opponent's pieces off the the board so they won't be a(n unexpected) threat to you. Then your advantage, of a piece, pawn or &quot;position&quot; should win for you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2015-12-20T01:36:27.610" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13134" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12353" CreationDate="2015-12-20T03:45:28.003" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Fischer was noted for his attacking play derived from Kingside openings. He had to figure that Spassky (and other Soviet masters) would analyze this play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, he played variations, particularly queenside games, where he didn't have much of a &quot;footprint,&quot; where people couldn't prepare as well. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In essence, he was &quot;starting from scratch, and relying on pure skill.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2015-12-20T03:45:28.003" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13135" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11185" CreationDate="2015-12-20T03:48:55.143" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Games that lead to unbalanced endgames are usually unbalanced &lt;em&gt;early&lt;/em&gt; in the game. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance, in the &quot;exchange&quot; variation of the Ruy Lopez (an early Bxc6), Black gets a bishop pair at the expense of doubled pawns on the fourth move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastEditorUserId="17" LastEditDate="2016-08-10T20:55:38.850" LastActivityDate="2016-08-10T20:55:38.850" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13136" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12254" CreationDate="2015-12-20T03:52:13.270" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Most people have their &quot;favorite&quot; openings. That's only natural, because people need to learn fewer openings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One important thing to do is avoid your &quot;unfavorite&quot; openings. For instance, if you dislike playing Ruy Lopez as Black (as I do), learn non e5 openings such as the French and Sicilian defenses. And if you play e5, learn the Petroff Defense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you dislike Queen's Gambit Declined, play Queen's Gambit Accepted. Or learn the &quot;Indian&quot; openings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2015-12-20T10:27:44.330" LastActivityDate="2015-12-20T10:27:44.330" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13137" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13138" CreationDate="2015-12-20T08:28:15.540" Score="2" ViewCount="571" Body="&lt;p&gt;In a position, the piece density is equal to the total number of pieces on the board (Whites pieces + Black pieces) divided by the total number of squares (64).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At the beginning of every game, the piece density is equal to 32/64=0.5, and at any point of the game the piece density is always smaller or equal to 0.5&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The piece density can only decrease during a game. It decreases by 1/64=0.015625 at each capture.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would like to know what's the average piece density.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd need a decent precision on the result, so you can't just use a small sample of 5 games. You'll need to take a large sample of at least 500 games, the more the better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It should be fairly easy. To make the program that will calculate this average piece density, use the facts that at the beginning of each game the piece density is equal to 0.5, then at each capture it decreases by 0.015625, and the program will be able to detect each capture easily since captures are indicated by a &quot;x&quot; symbol in the PGN. So the program won't have to represent every positions of every games, it will be able to quickly calculate the average piece density just by scanning the PGN.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But take only OTB games, played at a classical (long) time control of at least 2 hours per player, and where both players were at least 2000 Elo. No correspondence games, no engines games, no internet games, no rapid games, no blitz games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3237" LastActivityDate="2015-12-20T21:09:09.140" Title="What's the average piece density?" Tags="&lt;statistics&gt;&lt;programming&gt;&lt;pieces&gt;&lt;mathematics&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13138" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13137" CreationDate="2015-12-20T11:24:29.323" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;First of all, I think this is a bad question (similar to StackOverflow &quot;Give me the code&quot; questions).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That being said, the subject itself seemed interesting, so I threw a quick and dirty (and inefficient - feel free to optimise) script together to do this. I ran it on PGN file of world championship games between 1895 and 1985 from &lt;a href=&quot;http://chessproblem.my-free-games.com/chess/games/Download-PGN.php&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; page (this should fit OPs requirements). The results:&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/SMUmz.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/SMUmz.png&quot; alt=&quot;Average piece densities by halfmove&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The overall average value for the data points in the World Championships PGN is roughly 0.35 (0.349341653669).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT:&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;Results on much bigger PGN sample (~275.000 games) - &lt;a href=&quot;http://chess-db.com/public/downloads/gamesfordownload.jsp&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;chess db grandmaster collection&lt;/a&gt; (although most likely includes games with non-classical time control).&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/5K55J.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/5K55J.png&quot; alt=&quot;Average piece densities by halfmove&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am making the script &lt;a href=&quot;https://gist.github.com/GloriaVictis/bc792523fc8145092c25&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;available&lt;/a&gt;, so that you can run it on PGN of your choice. It depends on the &lt;a href=&quot;https://pypi.python.org/pypi/pgnparser/1.0&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;python pgn parsing package&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3831" LastEditorUserId="3831" LastEditDate="2015-12-20T21:09:09.140" LastActivityDate="2015-12-20T21:09:09.140" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13139" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9966" CreationDate="2015-12-20T14:11:53.113" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;One simple technique is a &quot;checklist&quot;. At minimum for the &quot;hung piece&quot; problem, your checklist needs to contain: 1) Check all my pieces on the board for whether they are currently under attack; and for those that are, whether they are sufficiently protected. 2) For the move I am considering, am I moving my piece to an attacked square, and if so, will it be sufficiently protected there also? 3) For the move I am considering, am I removing protection from any other piece, either directly or by discovery?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another very common way to drop pieces is via forks, so 4) inventory all of my pieces which have no protection (are loose) after my candidate move; does opponent have any move which can fork two of those?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7314" LastActivityDate="2015-12-20T14:11:53.113" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13140" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12254" CreationDate="2015-12-20T14:51:19.300" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would say it's personal preference largely, yes. One thing I didn't see in the other answers though: consider the openings you're most likely to face from an opponent first, especially as black. It won't do a lot of good to &quot;learn a bunch&quot; and then find that you never end up facing most of them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7314" LastActivityDate="2015-12-20T14:51:19.300" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13141" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9804" CreationDate="2015-12-20T15:04:50.877" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the example you cited, it was not a &quot;strange&quot; opening but an inferior opening.&#xA;The &quot;kid&quot; (beginner, actually), started with a &quot;Pirc&quot; defense (fortify the dark squares), and changed his mind by &quot;transposing&quot; into a &quot;French&quot; defense (fortify the light squares). Except that he wasted a move by moving the d pawn twice, instead of using one of those moves to play e6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should understand what he's done, that is, he's gotten an inferior French defense. You might play 4. e4xd5, Nxd5; 5.Nxd5 Qxd5 6. c4 Q moves, and Nf3 to get a superior opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;His other opening moves may follow the same (bad) principles, and if they do, you should learn to take advantage of them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastEditorUserId="17" LastEditDate="2015-12-20T15:10:30.643" LastActivityDate="2015-12-20T15:10:30.643" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13142" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8561" CreationDate="2015-12-20T15:52:45.870" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;Looks like I am late to the party. Anyway:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Free PGNs of many top players are available &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.pgnmentor.com/files.html#players&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;. Almost all &lt;a href=&quot;http://2700chess.com/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;2700+ players&lt;/a&gt; are there. As for women, only a few from very top are there. These PGN files have anywhere from few hundred to couple thousand games available for each player. Although this does not fully comply with OPs request, it seems like an improvement over the current only answer. If you have some better/more PGNs available, you can post a download link in a comment or run them through &lt;a href=&quot;https://gist.github.com/GloriaVictis/18e069d9492f143646c7&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this script&lt;/a&gt; and suggest an edit to this answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;The results&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/kaqZK.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/kaqZK.png&quot; alt=&quot;draw rates men&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/KBmqp.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/KBmqp.png&quot; alt=&quot;draw rates women&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;EDIT&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bonus - &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Chess_Championship#World_champions&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;world champions&lt;/a&gt;.&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/xyjbz.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/xyjbz.png&quot; alt=&quot;draw rates world champions&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also of interest - Morphy and Anderssen have amazing draw rates of 0.085 and 0.1, respectively.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3831" LastEditorUserId="3831" LastEditDate="2015-12-20T21:50:42.397" LastActivityDate="2015-12-20T21:50:42.397" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13143" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1050" CreationDate="2015-12-21T16:10:27.147" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some very helpful and knowledgeable answers here but I thought I could contribute a very basic one that might help when explaining to a novice. As a near-novice myself it seems to me that there are two basic reasons that the first few moves often follow familiar patterns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The first few moves in a game of chess have been played more often than later moves – the longer a game goes on, the more likely it is to be unique - so &lt;strong&gt;more is known&lt;/strong&gt; about which moves do and don't work, and about how to exploit the weaknesses of those that don't. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;As a game progresses it very quickly gets extremely difficult to memorize all the likely continuations and their strengths and weaknesses. But this is possible for the first few moves of the most commonly-played openings.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For a novice player this means I am using my limited memory to effectively &lt;strong&gt;play above my real strength&lt;/strong&gt; by using the amassed knowledge of players throughout history. I can play the opening 4 moves of the Ruy Lopez Exchange variation as well as Kasparov!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8453" LastActivityDate="2015-12-21T16:10:27.147" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13144" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12895" CreationDate="2015-12-21T21:39:29.297" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The book &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/0691118183&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Behind Deep Blue, &lt;/a&gt;written by &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feng-hsiung_Hsu&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Feng-hsiung Hsu&lt;/a&gt;, the system architect and principal designer of Deep Blue, has an appendix called &lt;em&gt;further reading&lt;/em&gt;, which might be a good place to start.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1485" LastActivityDate="2015-12-21T21:39:29.297" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13145" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13149" CreationDate="2015-12-21T23:29:10.990" Score="2" ViewCount="240" Body="&lt;p&gt;What White moves give away the first-move advantage?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9038" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2015-12-22T20:44:38.220" LastActivityDate="2015-12-26T18:17:19.130" Title="What first moves would be advantageous for black?" Tags="&lt;chess-variants&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13146" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13083" CreationDate="2015-12-21T23:37:18.107" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'll start with a few tips and ideas.  None of them are original, but all of them have some value and bear repeating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(1)  If you have the opportunity to play in tournaments where there are stronger players, this is the best way to improve.  The hard lessons you learn from your tournament games are ones you remember best. Moreover, every mistake you make in a tournament game is showing you a gap (a poker player might say a &quot;leak&quot;) in your play. It is no coincidence that all really strong players played hundreds (if not thousands) of serious games before they got really good.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(2)  Learn to sit on your hands.  Not literally, of course, although you could try it if you are really impulsive.  Many players make mistakes they could avoid if they just slowed down a bit, sat on their hands, and thought a little instead of moving quickly.  When I started slowing down and making myself take a little time and think about every move, even the obvious ones, I made a big step forward.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(3)  Learn to fight hard through the entire game.  Don't relax until the game is over.  When you have a won position or an almost-won position, this is when your opponent is often at his most desperate and dangerous, and you should be very careful.  Chess is a game where you can spoil everything with a moment's inattention.  Learning to win won positions in an absolutely relentless fashion without giving your opponent the slightest chance is a very important skill.  Learning to create as many practical difficulties as possible for your opponent when you have a bad or lost position is also very important.  Never stop fighting until the game is over.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(4)  Do lots of puzzles.  Tactics puzzles, positional puzzles, endgame puzzles, it doesn't matter much which. They will develop your ability to solve problems over the board.  People often read through game collections, middlegame manuals, and the like on autopilot without doing a lot of thinking for themselves, and then expect to improve.  But abstract ideas are practically useless in chess. Knowing that the bishop pair is usually an advantage is nice, but does you no good at all unless you have some concrete idea about how to exploit this advantage, and can apply this idea in practice.  You need concrete understanding, and to get it you must be thinking and calculating for yourself all the time.  The more you think for yourself, the better you get at it.  Puzzles are one way of forcing you to think for yourself.  Solitaire chess is another.  I am a big fan of solitaire chess (any at least lightly annotated game collection will do), as it presents you with problems to solve which cover all aspects of the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(5)  My last idea is rather murky, but nonetheless very real.  The single characteristic shared by all strong chess players I have known is that they have a strong desire to win: they are highly invested psychologically in the outcome of every game.  They really hate to lose, and they really love to win.  As a result, when they sit down at the board they are highly motivated, they have a lot of fighting spirit, and they are hard to kill.  Anything you can do to increase your motivation (find a rival, set a serious goal, play on a chess team, etc.) is a plus.  In my experience, people who are not highly motivated usually don't get very strong, no matter how talented.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am a little hesitant to recommend specific books: different people react well to different types of material, and honestly I am not sure what &quot;Class A&quot; means.  There is quite a big difference between an 1800 elo player and a 1999 elo player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I would primarily recommend puzzle books for anyone below about 2100 elo.  Any one of the modern &quot;1001 tactical problems&quot; type books would be good (e.g., Zenon Franco's &quot;The Giant Chess Puzzle Book,&quot; Richard Palliser's &quot;The Complete Chess Workout,&quot; Igor Sukhin's &quot;Chess Gems,&quot; etc.).  An endgame puzzle book rather than an endgame manual (e.g., John Hall's &quot;Endgame Challenge,&quot; Bernd Rosen's &quot;Chess Endgame Training,&quot; or the like).  Maybe a book with some positional/strategical puzzles as well (something like Johan Hellsten's &quot;Mastering Chess Strategy&quot; would be good, there are probably others).  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe add an annotated game collection from one of your favorite players (like Tal or Fischer or Karpov or Kasparov or Anand), or an instructive game collection (like John Nunn's &quot;Understanding Chess Move by Move,&quot; or &quot;The Mammoth Book of the World's Greatest Chess Games&quot;).  Actually, it doesn't matter so much which book you choose as how you use it.  If you really grapple with the material and try to master it, if you constantly set yourself problems and try to solve them, any decent book can take you a step forward.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am not going to address openings, as most players below 2200 elo study openings way more than they should.  Just find some solid openings that you like and stick with them, so that you build up some experience in the lines that you play. If you have a problem with a particular line, look up the position in the database and find out what stronger players are playing in that position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But mostly, a serious approach, motivating yourself to fight hard through the entire game, and a lot of tournament games are the main things.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7961" LastActivityDate="2015-12-21T23:37:18.107" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13147" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13083" CreationDate="2015-12-22T00:08:49.157" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As someone rated 2200 USCF, one specific tip that I can offer you is the following... Try to maximize the coordination potential of your forces on every move. There's the idea of &quot;useful&quot; moves and it's generally a bad thing to run out of them because that means your position is no longer getting stronger even though you're making moves and spending tempi.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's the main problem with solid, yet passive moves. You are limiting the potential activity of your other pieces.  Instead, you have to fight for the initiative on every move and that means playing as aggressively while soundly as possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's one of the main ways I beat class A players consistently.  By playing passively, they run out of useful moves and have trouble coming up with a good plan in the middlegame.  They give up the initiative too easily and once they have a worse position, tactics naturally favor the stronger position.  Then it's just a matter of technique.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I hope this helps you reflect on your game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8258" LastActivityDate="2015-12-22T00:08:49.157" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13148" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13101" CreationDate="2015-12-22T01:38:13.467" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just briefly, 4...b6 looks like the wrong idea to me, it makes the queenside light squares too weak.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;6...Nc6 was a blunder that should have lost a piece for a pawn after 7.Ne5 Qd6 8.c5 bxc5 9.Bb5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After 15...Qxd7, there doesn't appear to be anything wrong with White just taking the pawn on d5, which is a pawn-up endgame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7961" LastActivityDate="2015-12-22T01:38:13.467" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13149" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13145" CreationDate="2015-12-22T17:42:47.213" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'll let Stockfish decide it. :-)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Analysis by Stockfish 6:&#xA;&#xA;1. +/=  (0.33): 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 Nf6 4.0-0 a6 5.Bxc6 dxc6 6.Nxe5 Nxe4 7.d3 Nf6 8.Re1 Be7 9.Bg5 0-0 10.Nc3 Bf5 11.h3 Bb4 &#xA;2. =  (0.18): 1.Nf3 d5 2.d4 e6 3.Bf4 Nf6 4.e3 Be7 5.Nbd2 0-0 6.Bd3 Nh5 7.c3 Nxf4 8.exf4 Nc6 9.0-0 Bd7 10.a3 h6 &#xA;3. =  (0.17): 1.d4 Nf6 2.Nf3 e6 3.c4 d5 4.e3 Be7 5.Nc3 0-0 6.Bd3 c5 7.cxd5 cxd4 8.Nxd4 Nxd5 9.0-0 Nc6 10.Nxc6 bxc6 11.Bd2 &#xA;4. =  (0.16): 1.e3 e6 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.c4 Be7 4.Nc3 0-0 5.Be2 d5 6.0-0 c5 7.d4 Nc6 8.Bd2 dxc4 9.dxc5 Qa5 10.Bxc4 Qxc5 &#xA;5. =  (0.15): 1.Nc3 d5 2.d4 Nf6 3.Nf3 Nc6 4.e3 e6 5.Bd3 Be7 6.0-0 0-0 7.Bd2 a6 8.Re1 Bd7 9.a3 h6 10.e4 dxe4 11.Nxe4 Nxe4 12.Rxe4 &#xA;6. =  (0.00): 1.a3 e5 2.c4 Nc6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Nf3 Be7 5.e4 d6 6.Be2 Nd4 7.0-0 0-0 8.d3 Bd7 9.Be3 Nxe2+ 10.Qxe2 Ng4 11.Nd5 f5 12.h3 Nxe3 13.Qxe3 &#xA;7. =  (-0.01): 1.c3 d5 2.d4 Bf5 3.Bf4 e6 4.e3 Bd6 5.Bxd6 cxd6 6.Nd2 Nf6 7.Ngf3 0-0 8.Be2 Nbd7 9.0-0 Qb6 10.Qb3 h6 11.Qxb6 &#xA;8. =  (-0.03): 1.c4 e5 2.Nc3 Nf6 3.Nf3 Nc6 4.e3 Bb4 5.Be2 0-0 6.0-0 d6 7.d4 Bf5 8.Bd2 Bxc3 9.Bxc3 Ne4 10.Nd2 Nxc3 11.bxc3 h6 &#xA;9. =  (-0.06): 1.h3 e5 2.e4 Nf6 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.Nf3 0-0 5.Bc4 Nc6 6.0-0 Bxc3 7.dxc3 Nxe4 8.Bd5 Nf6 9.Bxc6 dxc6 10.Nxe5 Bf5 11.Be3 Qxd1 &#xA;10. =  (-0.10): 1.d3 d5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 Nf6 4.e3 a6 5.Nc3 Bf5 6.Bd3 e6 7.Bd2 Bd6 8.Bxf5 exf5 9.0-0 0-0 10.a3 h6 11.h3 &#xA;11. =  (-0.17): 1.f4 d5 2.Nf3 e6 3.e3 Nf6 4.Be2 Be7 5.d4 0-0 6.0-0 Bd7 7.c4 dxc4 8.Bxc4 c5 9.Nc3 cxd4 10.Nxd4 Nc6 &#xA;12. =  (-0.12): 1.g3 e5 2.Nf3 e4 3.Nh4 d5 4.d3 exd3 5.cxd3 Nc6 6.Bg2 Bc5 7.Qc2 Be7 8.0-0 Nf6 9.Bf4 0-0 10.Nc3 d4 &#xA;13. =  (-0.18): 1.b3 e5 2.e4 Nf6 3.Nc3 Bc5 4.Bd3 d6 5.Nf3 0-0 6.0-0 a6 7.Bb2 Nc6 8.Na4 Ba7 9.Nc3 Bd7 10.Nd5 b5 11.c3 &#xA;14. =  (-0.19): 1.h4 d5 2.d4 c5 3.e3 Nf6 4.Nf3 e6 5.Nc3 Nc6 6.a3 c4 7.Qe2 Be7 8.e4 dxe4 9.Nxe4 0-0 10.Nxf6+ Bxf6 &#xA;15. =  (-0.22): 1.a4 e5 2.e4 Nf6 3.Nf3 Nxe4 4.d3 Nf6 5.Nxe5 Qe7 6.Qe2 d6 7.Nf3 Nc6 8.Nc3 Bd7 9.Bf4 h6 10.h3 0-0-0 11.0-0-0 Kb8 &#xA;16. =/+  (-0.32): 1.Nh3 e5 2.e3 d5 3.d4 Nc6 4.Bb5 exd4 5.Nf4 Bb4+ 6.c3 dxc3 7.Nxc3 Nge7 8.0-0 Bxc3 9.bxc3 0-0 10.Ba3 Bf5 11.Qa4 &#xA;17. =/+  (-0.37): 1.Na3 e5 2.e4 Nf6 3.d3 d5 4.exd5 Nxd5 5.Nf3 Nc6 6.Be2 Bc5 7.0-0 0-0 8.Bd2 Bf5 9.Nc4 f6 10.a3 b5 11.Ne3 Nxe3 12.fxe3 &#xA;18. =/+  (-0.47): 1.b4 Nf6 2.Nf3 e5 3.Nxe5 Bxb4 4.c3 Be7 5.d4 d6 6.Nd3 0-0 7.Nd2 Nc6 8.e3 d5 9.Be2 Ne4 10.Qb3 &#xA;19. =/+  (-0.42): 1.f3 e5 2.e4 Nc6 3.Ne2 d5 4.exd5 Qxd5 5.Nbc3 Qd8 6.Ng3 a6 7.Bc4 Nf6 8.d3 b5 9.Bb3 Bb4 10.0-0 0-0 11.Nge4 Nxe4 12.Nxe4 Qd4+ 13.Kh1 &#xA;20. =/+  (-0.69): 1.g4 d5 2.e3 e5 3.Nc3 Nc6 4.Bg2 Be6 5.d4 e4 6.h4 Be7 7.g5 h6 8.f3 exf3 9.Qxf3 hxg5 10.hxg5 Rxh1 11.Bxh1 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7314" LastActivityDate="2015-12-22T17:42:47.213" CommentCount="12" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13150" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-12-22T19:19:30.053" Score="1" ViewCount="301" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would  like to learn more tricks and ideas behind these complicated endgames. For example, here is a game I played where I got into one (I was playing white).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Startply &quot;83&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4  e6 2. d4  d5 3. Nd2  Nc6 4. Ngf3  Bb4 5. c3  Ba5 6. exd5  exd5 7. Bd3  Nf6 8. O-O  O-O 9. Nb3  Bb6 10. Bg5  Qd6 11. Re1  h6 12. Bh4  Bd7 13. Bc2  Bg4 14. Qd3  Bxf3 15. Qxf3  Rae8 16. Qf5  Ne4 17. f3  g6 18. Qh3  Nf6 19. Bg3  Qd7 20. Qxh6  Ne7 21. Qg5  Nh7 22. Qd2  c6 23. Bf4  Nf5 24. a4  Ng7 25. a5  Bc7 26. Bxc7  Qxc7 27. Nc5  Ne6 28. Nxe6  Rxe6 29. Rxe6  fxe6 30. Bxg6  Qg7 31. Bxh7+  Kxh7 32. Re1  Qg6 33. Re2  Rxf3 34. Qc2  Qxc2 35. Rxc2  Re3 36. Kf2  Re4 37. Re2  Rf4+ 38. Kg3  Rf6 39. b4  b6 40. axb6  axb6 41. Rf2  Rxf2 42. Kxf2  Kg6 43. Kf3  Kf5 44. h4  e5 45. g4+  Kf6 46. Ke3  e4 47. Kf4  Kg6 48. Ke3  Kf6 49. Kd2  Kg6 50. c4  Kf6 51. b5  cxb5 52. g5+  Ke6 53. c5  bxc5 54. dxc5  d4 55. g6  e3+ 56. Kd1  b4 57. c6  b3 58. c7  Kd7 59. c8=Q+  Kxc8 60. g7  Kc7 61. g8=Q  b2 62. Qc4+  Kb6 63. Kc2   1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Was this king and pawn truly won for white or did my opponent miss something? How could I have played better in the endgame? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3149" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2015-12-22T20:06:51.353" LastActivityDate="2015-12-29T09:46:21.303" Title="How would you evaluate this king and pawn endgame for white, and what's the best book to study King and pawn endgames?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;learning&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;pawn-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13151" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12254" CreationDate="2015-12-22T20:05:49.213" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Try playing a couple of games with different openings. Learn their variations so you don't get bored playing a particular line continuously, failing to maximise the exploration process. With time, you will probably get comfortable playing certain openings and go on to build your opening repertoire. But try a lot of openings first, don't restrict yourself. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you need help, you can go through openings and their variations on &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessfiles.com/openings.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.chessfiles.com/openings.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9012" LastActivityDate="2015-12-22T20:05:49.213" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13152" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13150" CreationDate="2015-12-22T20:08:58.947" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;There were a lot of inaccuracies by both players, I don't think you were ever losing, but you certainly threw away the win occasionally. I think three concepts might be helpful to you:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;A protected passed pawn is very strong in a pawn endgame because it forces the enemy king to keep an eye on it at all times. Therefore allowing 46…e4 was a big mistake that turned an easy win into a draw. Instead take on e5, play h5 and h6 and then round up the black pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Two connected passers are even stronger, because basically that's a dynamic duo of protected passers: The enemy king can never take the more backward one, because the other one will queen. And whenever possible, they will advance. See again move 46. If you take on e5 and black retakes with his king, you can fearlessly advance because as soon as the black king returns to g6 to attack the h6-pawn, you just protect it with g5.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The king is often curiously helpless against two pawns that aren't even connected and just one square apart: That's why 50.c4 was another big mistake. If black takes this pawn, there is no way for you to get at either the e- or the c-pawn. So 50…dxc4 51.Ke3 c3 and you cannot take on e4 because the c-pawn will queen. (Edit: Dag points out that after dxc4 b5 might still win for white, so maybe it wasn't a mistake, but the concept is still useful. Instead of dxc4, b5 should draw for black.)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastEditorUserId="4362" LastEditDate="2015-12-22T20:27:20.783" LastActivityDate="2015-12-22T20:27:20.783" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13153" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5829" CreationDate="2015-12-22T20:15:54.000" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Definitely not a bad approach but one thing you should know is the importance of strategic/positonal play cannot be emphasised enough. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tactics can only get you so far. If you're tactically sound but your positional play is wanting, that will pose trouble. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Against other beginners, sure you will win a couple games but as you move up the ladder, things are bound to get &quot;interesting&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9012" LastActivityDate="2015-12-22T20:15:54.000" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13154" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1377" CreationDate="2015-12-22T20:20:24.713" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yeah sure, you can take a look at &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessfiles.com/chess-software.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.chessfiles.com/chess-software.html&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9012" LastActivityDate="2015-12-22T20:20:24.713" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13155" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13150" CreationDate="2015-12-23T00:10:37.403" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You made this endgame too exiting, when it should have been a simple win for white. The simple way to win was &lt;code&gt;46. dxe5&lt;/code&gt;, as have already been mentioned. After &lt;code&gt;50. c4?!&lt;/code&gt; chaos started, and I think you were even lost for a moment after the bad move &lt;code&gt;53. c5??&lt;/code&gt;, when the alternative &lt;code&gt;53. cxd5+!&lt;/code&gt; seems to be winning! Black returned the favor with the time-wasting move &lt;code&gt;54... d4?&lt;/code&gt;, when instead &lt;code&gt;54... b4!&lt;/code&gt; would have lead to big trouble for you. (Or maybe not. Perhaps you can run with the &lt;code&gt;h&lt;/code&gt;-pawn and secure a draw.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The move &lt;code&gt;46. dxe5&lt;/code&gt; has already been covered, so I will instead focus on the position after &lt;code&gt;47... Kg6&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Startply &quot;94&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4  e6 2. d4  d5 3. Nd2  Nc6 4. Ngf3  Bb4 5. c3  Ba5 6. exd5  exd5 7. Bd3  Nf6 8. O-O  O-O 9. Nb3  Bb6 10. Bg5  Qd6 11. Re1  h6 12. Bh4  Bd7 13. Bc2  Bg4 14. Qd3  Bxf3 15. Qxf3  Rae8 16. Qf5  Ne4 17. f3  g6 18. Qh3  Nf6 19. Bg3  Qd7 20. Qxh6  Ne7 21. Qg5  Nh7 22. Qd2  c6 23. Bf4  Nf5 24. a4  Ng7 25. a5  Bc7 26. Bxc7  Qxc7 27. Nc5  Ne6 28. Nxe6  Rxe6 29. Rxe6  fxe6 30. Bxg6  Qg7 31. Bxh7+  Kxh7 32. Re1  Qg6 33. Re2  Rxf3 34. Qc2  Qxc2 35. Rxc2  Re3 36. Kf2  Re4 37. Re2  Rf4+ 38. Kg3  Rf6 39. b4  b6 40. axb6  axb6 41. Rf2  Rxf2 42. Kxf2  Kg6 43. Kf3  Kf5 44. h4  e5 45. g4+  Kf6 46. Ke3  e4 47. Kf4  Kg6 48. Ke3 (48. g5 Kh5 49. Kg3 (49... b5 50. Kf4 Kg6 51. Kg4) Kg6 50. Kg4 b5 51. h5+ Kg7 52. g6 Kh6 53. Kh4 (52... Kf6 53. Kf4) Kg7 54. Kg5! e3 55. h6+ Kg8 56. Kf6! e2 57. h7+ Kh8 58. Kf7 e1=Q 59. g7+ Kxh7 60. g8=Q+ Kh6 61. Qg6#) Kf6 49. Kd2  Kg6 50. c4  Kf6 51. b5  cxb5 52. g5+  Ke6 53. c5  bxc5 54. dxc5  d4 55. g6  e3+ 56. Kd1  b4 57. c6  b3 58. c7  Kd7 59. c8=Q+  Kxc8 60. g7  Kc7 61. g8=Q  b2 62. Qc4+  Kb6 63. Kc2   1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this position there is nothing going on, which means you can improve the position of your pieces before doing anything drastic. So why not start with &lt;code&gt;48. g5 Kh5 49. Kg3 Kg6 50. Kg4 b5 51. h5+&lt;/code&gt; bringing the pawns one step closer to the goal line. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After &lt;code&gt;51... Kg7&lt;/code&gt; it's perhaps not immediately clear how white can make further progress, but at least you can play &lt;code&gt;52. g6 Kh6 53. Kh4&lt;/code&gt; without risking anything. (Except you have ruined the perfect pawn formation with the connected passed pawns standing side by side.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The big decision comes after &lt;code&gt;53... Kg7&lt;/code&gt;. Can white play &lt;code&gt;54. Kg5&lt;/code&gt; and let the black pawn run? It turns out they can, see the variation in the player window, where &lt;code&gt;56. Kf6!&lt;/code&gt; is another key move. White wins.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This by the way is often the outcome in the battle between two connected passed pawns and a single protected passed pawn of the opponent. There's nothing particular about the position we are analyzing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1485" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2015-12-23T00:18:11.500" LastActivityDate="2015-12-23T00:18:11.500" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13156" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-12-23T10:57:27.173" Score="5" ViewCount="2510" Body="&lt;p&gt;My Chesscube is 1800. I would like to have the strength of 2100 or 1900 USCF and FIDE. What Chesscube rating do I need? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3149" LastEditorUserId="12" LastEditDate="2015-12-24T17:49:54.833" LastActivityDate="2016-06-12T06:45:46.177" Title="How does Chesscube.com rating compare to USCF and FIDE ratings?" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;fide&gt;&lt;uscf&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13157" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9335" CreationDate="2015-12-23T15:11:57.473" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Also check out Greg Shahade's &lt;a href=&quot;https://gregshahade.wordpress.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;blog&lt;/a&gt; .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9047" LastActivityDate="2015-12-23T15:11:57.473" CommentCount="2" CommunityOwnedDate="2015-12-23T15:11:57.473" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13158" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13159" CreationDate="2015-12-23T23:52:28.083" Score="4" ViewCount="876" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm working with my kid on playing KID (he's about 1300 USCF, I was peak 2000 years ago). I'm not too interested in learning exact lines (and I think that's beyond him right now anyway). I think we get the basic idea of the classical K-side pawn storm by black. However, here are my opening issues:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) When white doesn't push d5 but rather keeps the tension in the center, what are some tips about when to take ..exd4? What are the followup plans? My vague understanding is to play ..Re8, ..Nc5 to pressure the e4 pawn. Then the idea is to play ..c6 and ..d5. Then with the g7 Bishop unleashed, it's just a game. Are there more basics to know?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) When white takes dxe5 often I have pawns on c6 and d6 and Nd7. Is it better to take d6 x e5 or Nxe5? Now what?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's embarrassing to say, but I personally find either 1) or 2) more frustrating than when white pushes d5. At our level, I sometimes wonder why white allows the pawn storms at all since even if white has Q-side play, black has a simple plan. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hoping you'll clarify. With thanks --- &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9049" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2015-12-24T00:39:07.480" LastActivityDate="2015-12-24T01:16:15.537" Title="King's indian defense plans" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;kings-indian&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13159" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13158" CreationDate="2015-12-24T01:16:15.537" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's definitely a different game when white doesn't close the center and go for the &quot;classical&quot; pawn storming lines.  While those lines are often the easiest to play (black can play f5, f4, g5, g4, g3 without thinking too much), those are also the lines that are arguably the most challenging for black to face.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When white keeps the tension in the center, black has to decide when to break that tension.  Generally speaking, black should do everything possible to develop before playing exd4, as this move nearly always cedes white the entire center.  If black is going to turn over the center to white, it's vitally important to be able to immediately counter attack.  This means that moves like c6, Qc7, and Nbd7 should be played before committing with exd4.  The plan with Nc5 pressuring e4 is often best, but make sure that you can support the Nc5 with a move like a5, preventing b4 chasing the knight away.  The queen on c7 is often useful because it allows the rooks to come to e8 and d8 where they defend the backwards d6 pawn and pressure e4.  Black's plan in these structures is almost always to push d5.  The light square bishop can support this push from e6, but if the white knight stays on f3 then &lt;code&gt;...Be6&lt;/code&gt; can be well met by &lt;code&gt;Ng5&lt;/code&gt;.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In conclusion, these structures are very double edged and black must be precise in order to maintain equality.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When white takes on e5, black usually can achieve a very good game with some precision.  The trick here is to notice that black can use the d4 square, but white can rarely use the d5 square because black can always post the c pawn on c6 and keep pieces out forever.  A common plan is to rearrange the black pieces with Qc7, Rd8, Bf8, and some lengthy maneuver with the f6 knight.  This is often &lt;code&gt;...Nf6-d7-f8-e6-d4&lt;/code&gt;.  The black bishop is frequently left on g7 until the knight has reached d4, and only then is it transferred to the queenside with &lt;code&gt;...Bg7-f8-c5&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These plans are very common, but they're also topical.  If white is trying to prevent one or more of these re-positioning efforts, then black will have to use tactics in order to justify the moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's very hard to explain quickly, but these plans are usually much easier to play in a long game when you can dedicate dozens of minutes to planning the maneuvers and then carefully execute them.  It's well worth the time investment to play long games with these structures, even if you don't want to make the KID your primary black weapon against &lt;code&gt;1.d4&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12" LastActivityDate="2015-12-24T01:16:15.537" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13160" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-12-24T02:10:37.607" Score="6" ViewCount="788" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm working with my 1300 USCF kid on his opening repertoire. In the French defense, I have a few questions/problems I'm trying to resolve:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) In many of the closed lines (after e5) we go after placing a knight on f5. Usually we go at it with ..h5, ..Nh6, ...Nf5. &#xA;a) Sometimes people take the knight once it reaches h6 and we recapture with the rook. I struggle for a good plan after that, especially since the rooks are disconnected.&#xA;b) When the knight does get to f5 it sometimes gets challenged by the white (light squared) bishop. The question is whether to reinforce this f5 knight with g6 and allow the capture, recapturing with gxf5. We try to play on the open g-file. I haven't been getting good practical results and wonder if I've got this wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) This question pertains to the advance variation. I've suggested using a quick ..c5, ..Qb6, ..Bd7, ..Bb5 to swap off the bad bishop. In this line we don't have the french Qside pawn storm at first. Moreover, &#xA;I've been telling my son that if white breaks the tension with dxc5 we can recapture with ..Bxc5 which I thought was a &quot;French dream&quot;.&#xA;But recently in this &quot;dream position&quot;, I've been hit with b4 and a queenside&#xA;pawn storm initiative. Connected with 1a) above I've been getting bad games&#xA;(no black queenside pawnstorm, and no Nf5 post). I'm wondering if there's&#xA;a simple thing to do to create some black queen side space when the Queen&#xA;is out front (perhaps ..a5)? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9049" LastEditorUserId="4588" LastEditDate="2015-12-24T08:03:23.900" LastActivityDate="2020-08-05T22:12:31.383" Title="French defense plans" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;french-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13161" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-12-24T06:26:11.687" Score="3" ViewCount="348" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was playing as Black. Was there something I could of done to win in this position? Or was the game truly drawn? What are some endgame ideas for this position as Black? &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/DKYR7.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/DKYR7.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Black to move&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3149" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2015-12-24T12:11:39.423" LastActivityDate="2015-12-26T17:53:44.243" Title="Is this same colored-Bishop ending really drawn for Black?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;bishop-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13162" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-12-24T09:57:29.260" Score="1" ViewCount="61" Body="&lt;p&gt;White's last move was Ra2. I was to curious &#xA;to know the plan behind or any strategical / tactical significance &#xA;behind that move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/L2RQM.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/L2RQM.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7693" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2015-12-24T10:02:24.140" LastActivityDate="2015-12-25T16:06:02.597" Title="Significance / Plan behind the move" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13163" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13169" CreationDate="2015-12-24T10:01:31.840" Score="8" ViewCount="1297" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am looking to patch up a lot of my holes in my opening repertoire.&#xA;One of them is the Alekhine's Defence.&#xA;Do any of you know a good, aggressive line against the Alekhine's Defence?&#xA;(If there is no good aggressive lines, any line that doesn't give black the advantage right away is fine, too)&#xA;Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9048" LastEditorUserId="4588" LastEditDate="2015-12-24T12:29:47.417" LastActivityDate="2015-12-26T15:59:39.753" Title="Aggressive Line against Alekhine's Defence?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;alekhines-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13164" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13162" CreationDate="2015-12-24T10:12:12.873" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Ra2 moves the rook off the diagonal of the g7 bishop thereby preempting any tactical tricks that might occur later. It is better than Rb1 since then Qa5 would embarrass the bishop on a3. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It also leaves b1 free for the queen later when white wants to exert more pressure down the h1-a8 diagonal of his g2 bishop against b7 and c6. Black has a passed a pawn and white must generate pressure in this area in the medium term if the pawn is not to win the game for black in the long term.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2015-12-24T10:12:12.873" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13165" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13163" CreationDate="2015-12-24T12:54:08.420" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Maybe it is a good idea to take a look at books that discuss Alekhine's defence from &lt;em&gt;black's&lt;/em&gt; perspective? These books (should) cover all possible (main)lines for white. You can pick the line that you like the most.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Recently, a opening book has been published by father (GM) and son (IM) Sveshnikov, in which they propose Alekhine's defence as a repertoire for black: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.newinchess.com/A_Chess_Opening_Repertoire_for_Blitz_and_Rapid-p-9020.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;A Chess Opening Repertoire for Rapid and Blitz&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That being said, according to the &lt;a href=&quot;http://chesstempo.com/game-database.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Game Database of ChessTempo&lt;/a&gt;, the most popular replies for white are: 1.e4 Nf6 2.e5 Nd5 3.d4 d6&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;4.Nf3 (the mainline)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;4.c4 Nb6 5.f4 (the Four Pawns Attack) and 5.exd6&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;      [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;      [StartPly &quot;6&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;      1.e4 Nf6 2.e5 Nd5 3.d4 d6 4.Nf3 (4.c4 Nb6 5.f4 (5.exd6)) 4...Bg4 (4...dxe5 5.Nxe5) (4...g6 5.Bc4) 5.Be2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4588" LastEditorUserId="4588" LastEditDate="2015-12-24T17:48:25.117" LastActivityDate="2015-12-24T17:48:25.117" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13166" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13161" CreationDate="2015-12-24T18:57:46.980" Score="3" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;4B3/8/7p/p1p1k1p1/P7/1bP1KP2/7P/8 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;1... Be6 2. Bb5 h5 3. Be8 h4 4. Bc6 Kd6 5. Bb5 Kd5 (5...Bd7?? {White has an attack now} 6. Bxd7 Kxd7 7. Kd3 { Targeting both e4 and c4} Kd6 8. Kc4 {Threathening with Kb5} Ke5 {Only thing to do is counter attack} 9. Kb5 Kf4 10. Kxa5 Kxf3 11. Kb5 g4 12. a5 g3 13. hxg3 hxg3 14. a6 g2 15. a7 g1=Q 16. a8=Q {With tempo, white will capture the last pawn of blacks, and keep his last pawn, mates in 42 according to Lomonosov tablebase}(8...Kc6?? 9. h3 { Black in zugzwang, White mates in less than 55 moves}) )6. Kd3 Ke5 7. Ke3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black has fortress: All black pawns are in black squares, also the king in the center in a black square. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Potential White attacks: White has white bishop but there is no target. White king can try to sneak into blacks position via white squares but black can avoid this with his white-square bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Verdict: White cannot progress.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White has a weaker fortress: White king occupies center with opposition, that's nice, but there are white-squared pawns which can be target for Black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Potential Black attack: Black can target white-squared pawns by bishop, but these can be easily defended by bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;King can try to sneak but again, opponent bishop can successfully block it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also for any side, trying to sneak would result losing center and enemy can successfully counter-attack instead of preventing wing sneaks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus we can say, any side who tries to sneak on wings using king, will lose center and will face a strong(probably winning) counter-attack from center.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore the position is drawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Notes about edits: Edited the diagram to cover Dag Oskar Madsen's attacking idea.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9030" LastEditorUserId="9030" LastEditDate="2015-12-26T17:53:44.243" LastActivityDate="2015-12-26T17:53:44.243" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13167" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13160" CreationDate="2015-12-25T00:34:27.733" Score="0" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1) In many of the closed lines (after e5) we go after placing a knight&#xA;  on f5. Usually we go at it with ..h5, ..Nh6, ...Nf5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is not a good plan. I'm curious as to where you got it from. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The problem is that by the nature of the pawn structure (white pawns on d4, e5, black pawns on e6, d5 and maybe c5) white has a natural attack on the king side and black more on the queen side. These king side moves of yours are if anything helping white. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should be trying to attack the white pawn chain, either with c5 to attack d4 or f6 to attack e5. If you play f6 at some stage then you will have much better chances of king side activity than your Nh6-f5 plan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;2) This question pertains to the advance variation. I've suggested&#xA;  using a quick ..c5, ..Qb6, ..Bd7, ..Bb5 to swap off the bad bishop&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Qb6 and Bd7 are usually two different plans. Qb6 aims to put pressure on the pawns at d4 and b2. It is used in conjunction with c5 and Nc6. Bd7 is usually used in conjunction with Qc7 where the queen is pressuring the pawn on e5 and maybe lining up to control the c file after the exchange cd by black or dc by white in conjunction with Rc8 and maybe Nb4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The more normal way of trying to swap off the bad bishop is via b6 and Ba6 while the knight is still on b8. It's not a great plan and not one which I've ever tried because the knight is misplaced on a6 (should be on c6) from where it can exert no pressure whatsoever on white's pawns on d4 and e5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2015-12-25T00:34:27.733" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13168" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13145" CreationDate="2015-12-25T00:44:16.853" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Firstly, I find it quite silly to copy paste engine evaluation tree as an answer. Engines are not strategists, actually, engines are silly when it comes to strategy, comparing to humans. Therefore, it's wrong to use engine evaluation tree, and it is not a contribution, anybody can copy paste engine output.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As it's a total-beginner question, I would recommend you to go 1.e4 for an open and tactically rich play to improve your game, instead of searching for best opening move(s), because it's not a simple question, actually extremely hard one. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But if you really want an answer, all top-level playable first moves are secure enough to play(so you won't lose your first move advantage). If top level players(black side) can't refute them, your opponents can't refute them too. Including but not limited to these: 1.c4, 1.d4, 1.e4, Nf3, 1.Nc3, 1.g3 etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are two moves I'm quite certain that loses advantage, 1.a4 and 1.h4, which achieves nothing useful, and weakens pawn structure. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lastly, an opening is strong when the practitioner understands the underlying strategy. So, try to understand the opening(which opening you decide to play), memorizing variations is not enough. Even if you memorize all variations in 10 moves, if you don't get the idea of the opening, you can't put the resulting position to good use.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9030" LastEditorUserId="9030" LastEditDate="2015-12-26T18:17:19.130" LastActivityDate="2015-12-26T18:17:19.130" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13169" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13163" CreationDate="2015-12-25T01:11:05.733" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Spielmann Gambit&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;B02&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/ b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;[Setup &quot;1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 Nf6 2. Nc3 d5 3. e5 Nfd7 ( 3... d4 {Black dodges the gambit, resulting and open, even game with even material, which is quite satifying anyway, if you want to dodge Alekhine Defense theory} 4. exf6 dxc3 5. fxg7 cxd2+ ) 4. e6 {Spielmann Gambit! White gives up a pawn to disorganize Blacks pieces, and will try to keep Black disorganized as long as possible. White has also good attacking possibilities on king side.} fxe6&#xA;5. d4 g6 (5... e5? { Trying to free up immediately, but... } 6.dxe5 e6 (6... Nxe5? 7. Qxd5 {Black has no material advantage and white has better position}) { Black gave up his extra pawn for reaching this defensive position. Worthy? I don't think so. White has a good play without giving up material.} ) {I think this is the best move for Black here. Fianchettoing bishop would give black a nice control over black squares in the center. Also ...g6 move closes e8-h5 diagonal, which will be used by white queen in some variations}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is my favorite and totally awesome for a white player who wants to get initiative and attack. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After 5.d4, white plays to maintain control of central black squares, avoiding blacks freeing move ...e5, not letting black to develop, and attack from king-side using f7. I won a lot of games with whites in this variation, most importantly I had great fun avoiding Alekhine opening and gaining an attacking position instantly :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bonus: You can reach the same position in Scandinavian Defense too! 1.e4 d5 2.Nc3 Nf6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For all this reasons, this is a  very nice variation to put into repertoire as white.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, black can dodge White's gambit by 3... d4, which results with even, open game. But anyway, Alekhine is avoided.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Notes about edits: I'm trying to add more analysis and more variations as you ask in comments, but it's really hard to cover all the analysis details in here. I also know there is not much material out there to study this gambit, so I'll do my best to cover as much as I can in my spare time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Less preferable alternative&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[ECO &quot;B02&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/ b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;[Setup &quot;1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 Nf6 2. Bc4 Nxe4 3. Bxf7+ Kxf7 4. Qh5+ Kg8 ( 4... g6 5. Qd5+ e6 6. Qxe4 )&#xA;5. Qd5+ e6 6. Qxe4  *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you opponent is greedy enough, you can go for this, but I don't like resulting position as white, I would prefer black side, so I didn't ever play this. Anyway, this is an option.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9030" LastEditorUserId="9030" LastEditDate="2015-12-26T15:59:39.753" LastActivityDate="2015-12-26T15:59:39.753" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13170" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13162" CreationDate="2015-12-25T04:34:50.517" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think white's plan is to play Ra2-Qa1, followed by 0-0 Rb1, and maybe Rab2 in the future if necessary. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The idea, I think is the apply pressure on black's queen side, and preventing the development of black's queen side pieces. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The attack can become deadly if another piece follows the attack after the Rooks double. Example: Bc5 - attacking d4 and a7. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5653" LastActivityDate="2015-12-25T04:34:50.517" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13171" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13125" CreationDate="2015-12-25T04:44:25.140" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1. Start small, be consistent. Keep analyzing.&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Imagine analysis like a muscle you can develop. You only have to start, and keep improving it your analysis skill through exercise. Make it a habit to analyze at least two of your game everyday -- one win and one loss. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;2. Analysis style.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At first you can analyse games using text and a few variations here and there. By text, I mean -- adding your thoughts about the move, your plans, the back story about the game, your opponent, etc. &#xA;I'll give you an example -- Observe the style of analysis in &lt;em&gt;Zurich international chess tournament, 1953&lt;/em&gt; by David Bronstein. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The book is famous for its easy to understand style of analysis. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also check out how others are analyzing their games. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;3. Feedback:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So far you're only supposed to use your mind to analyze the game, NO COMPUTER. &#xA;In step 3, get feedback of your analysis from stronger players, friends or online communities -- like &lt;a href=&quot;http://reddit.com/r/chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Reddit's Chess community&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This will give you a lot of ideas and insight about how you can improve the process of analysis and about your moves. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;4. Computer analysis:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Use computers to assess the accuracy of your analysis and what you have missed. Run full analysis using any chess playing software to see what you have missed, and what the computer thinks about your variation. This will help you improve the depth and accuracy of analysis. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Hope you find this useful. All the best.&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5653" LastActivityDate="2015-12-25T04:44:25.140" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13172" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13150" CreationDate="2015-12-25T04:47:31.700" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;My favorite book for studying endgame = &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;Dvoretsky's endgame manual.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5653" LastActivityDate="2015-12-25T04:47:31.700" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13173" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-12-25T14:52:08.363" Score="10" ViewCount="3993" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't have a lot of opportunity to play serious OTB games, so I'd like to play chess online. On chess.com, though, the longest standard time control is 30 min per person, presumably there are not many players wanting to play at longer time controls there. I prefer to have more time, though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a website where there are enough people willing to play 1 to 1.5 hour (per person) games, so that you are paired within a reasonable amount of time (say, 15 minutes)? (Preferably based on online rating, of course.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="674" LastActivityDate="2020-10-05T02:48:57.613" Title="Where do I play online games with a long time control?" Tags="&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;time-control&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13174" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13162" CreationDate="2015-12-25T16:06:02.597" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;He's clearing the Rook off the &lt;code&gt;a1&lt;/code&gt;-&lt;code&gt;h8&lt;/code&gt; diagonal. White signals that he intends to remove the pawn on &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt; or fears Black will do the same.  The point is to remove Black's ability to fabricate a double-attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That being said, I'm not sure it was the time to play the move.  Castling looks like a better move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2015-12-25T16:06:02.597" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13175" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13173" CreationDate="2015-12-25T16:39:00.797" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;In &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess24.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chess24&lt;/a&gt; you can choose 90'+30&quot; games and they have a lot of users. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I haven't played a game that long so far but I believe that the matching time can suit you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: I have just tried to play a 60'+30&quot; game and I got paired in less than two minutes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8751" LastActivityDate="2015-12-25T16:39:00.797" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13176" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13173" CreationDate="2015-12-25T18:23:43.670" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;On chess.com, there are at least two groups of people interested in games with long time controls (e.g. 90'+30'' and 45'+45''): the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/groups/home/slow-chess-league&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Slow Chess League&lt;/a&gt; and the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/groups/home/slow-live-chess-association&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Slow LIVE Chess Association&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They have regular Swiss style tournaments where you have to agree on a date with your opponent under pretty elaborate rules (including penalties for not showing up). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is not exactly what you asked (random, instantaneous pairing), but probably the better way. The problem with long time controls online is not only finding people who want to play, but discouraging people from losing interest and quitting.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as I know, these were founded on ICC when chess.com didn't exist yet. So maybe there is something similar on ICC.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user332" LastActivityDate="2015-12-25T18:23:43.670" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13177" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="75" CreationDate="2015-12-26T00:55:40.033" Score="27" Body="&lt;p&gt;Probably &lt;strong&gt;the most aggressive opening without being unplayable&lt;/strong&gt; in chess is &lt;strong&gt;Double Muzio Gambit&lt;/strong&gt; in King's Gambit, which &lt;strong&gt;suicide-bombs two minor pieces at f7 for a wildest possible opening attack&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Title &quot;Double Muzio Gambit&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. f4 exf4 3. Nf3 g5 4. Bc4 g4 5. O-O! {Strongest continuation, Muzio gambit! White sacrifices a piece for better development and attack(a very wild one)} gxf3 6. Qxf3 Qf6 7. e5 {after Qxe5, white can play d4 with tempo, increasing deveolpment advantage} Qxe5 8.Bxf7+!!? {Double Muzio Gambit, doubles the fun, now its kill or to be killed. White has two big pieces in f-file, and also black king is on the same file, white has a clear development advantage, shortly white has the wildest possible attack in 8 moves}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I invite you to see this nice analysis about &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.millican.org/chess/muzio.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Double Muzio Gambit&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I played this variation succesfully in OTB games. If you think that this can't be playable, then check this master game:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Kuznetsov, Sergei (2396) vs. Korjakin, Boris (2274) - 2007&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. f4 exf4 3. Nf3 g5 4. Bc4 g4 5. O-O gxf3 6. Qxf3 Qf6 7. e5 Qxe5&#xA;8. Bxf7+ Kxf7 9. d4 Qxd4+ 10. Be3 Qf6 11. Nc3 fxe3 12. Qh5+ Kg7 13. Rxf6 Nxf6&#xA;14. Qg5+ Kf7 15. Rf1 Bg7 16. Nd5 e2 17. Rxf6+  1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not satified? Another master game:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Lanzani, Mario (2371) vs. Sheskin, Matan (2207) - 2010&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. f4 exf4 3. Nf3 g5 4. Bc4 g4 5. O-O gxf3 6. Qxf3 Qf6 7. e5 Qxe5&#xA;8. Bxf7+ Kxf7 9. d4 Qxd4+ 10. Be3 Qf6 11. Bxf4 Ne7 12. Nc3 Qf5 13. Qe3 d6&#xA;14. Bg5 Nbc6 15. g4 Bg7 16. Nb5 Qxf1+ 17. Rxf1+ Ke8 18. Bxe7 Nxe7&#xA;19. Nxc7+ Kd7 20. Nxa8 b6 21. Rf7 Be5 22. Qg5 Re8 23. Nc7 h6 24. Qh4  1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you think that the line is unplayable and white is winning just because of being stronger about 130 Elo, then check this evaluation of Komodo-9.3. A GM-slayer chess engine can't find a winning advantage too:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;After 10...Qf6 | Komodo-9.3 Depth:31 -0.30&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;rnb2bnr/pppp1k1p/5q2/8/5p2/4BQ2/PPP3PP/RN3RK1 w - - 2 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Nc3 Nc6 2. Bxf4 d6 3. Nd5 Qf5 4. Be5 Qxf3 5. Rxf3+ Bf5 6. Bxh8 Nge7&#xA;7. Nxc7 Rc8 8. Nb5 Ke6 9. g4 Bxg4 10. Rf6+ Kd7 11. Rxd6+ Ke8 12. h3 Be2&#xA;13. Nc3 Bh5 14. Ne4 Nf5 15. Nf6+ Kf7 16. Rd7+ Kg6 17. Nxh5 Bc5+ 18. Kh1 Kxh5&#xA;19. Bc3 h6 20. Re1 Bf2 21. Re6 Rf8 22. b3 Ncd4 23. Bxd4 Bxd4 24. Rxb7 Kh4&#xA;25. Kh2 Rg8 26. Rb4 {-0.30}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it can't find, we can say that our opponents can't find over the board too. Therefore, we can say that this line is definitely not a cheap opening trap, and absolutely playable. Black seems to have only a little advantage in this very uncomfortable extremely sharp defensive position, while White is enjoying the attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9030" LastEditorUserId="4186" LastEditDate="2020-03-10T06:34:50.303" LastActivityDate="2020-03-10T06:34:50.303" CommentCount="0" CommunityOwnedDate="2015-12-26T00:55:40.033" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="13178" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13183" CreationDate="2015-12-26T06:33:04.550" Score="8" ViewCount="13269" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am wondering, what endgame, with 3 to 6 pieces, has the longest checkmate with optimal play? Right now, the longest I'm aware of is the two knights versus one pawn endgame, which in certain positions can take up to 115 moves for the knights to serve checkmate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The 50 move-rule &amp;amp; 75 move-rule are to be ignored.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8509" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-02-03T14:10:32.510" LastActivityDate="2021-02-03T14:10:32.510" Title="What is the longest forced win with 3 to 6 pieces (ignoring 50 &amp; 75 move rules)?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;computer-chess&gt;&lt;records&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="13179" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13185" CreationDate="2015-12-26T07:57:25.857" Score="1" ViewCount="2388" Body="&lt;p&gt;If the only pieces left on the board are the two kings and a knight, is it ever possible to force check mate? I mean, if the bare king avoids the edges and stays close to the opponent's knight, I don't see how the game can ever end. I was in this situation for more than half an hour yesterday and we were forced to draw. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9058" LastActivityDate="2015-12-27T00:39:53.397" Title="Is it ever posible to win if the only pieces left are two kings and a knight?" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2015-12-27T14:51:09.423" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13181" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13179" CreationDate="2015-12-26T09:29:09.377" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, it is not possible to checkmate with a lone knight (K+N vs K). &#xA;However, Add another Bishop and you'll be able to Checkmate (K+N+B vs K)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a rule in Chess which goes like this &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;&quot;No Mating material = Draw&quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;K vs K = &lt;strong&gt;Draw&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;K+N Vs K = &lt;strong&gt;Draw&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;K+B Vs K = &lt;strong&gt;Draw&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5653" LastActivityDate="2015-12-26T09:29:09.377" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13183" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13178" CreationDate="2015-12-26T10:55:18.693" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;For the specified details (ignoring the 50-move rule, max. 6 pieces, max. 3 pieces per side), &lt;a href=&quot;http://kirill-kryukov.com/chess/longest-checkmates/longest-checkmates-sorted-by-length.shtml&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this endgame tablebase page&lt;/a&gt;, gives the following position, with checkmate in 262 moves:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;6k1/5n2/8/8/8/5n2/1RK5/1N6 w - - 0 1&#xA;&#xA;1. Kd3 N3g5 2. Kd4 Ne6+ 3. Kd5 Nc7+ 4. Kc6 Ne6 5. Kd7 Nfg5 6. Kd6 Kg7 7. Ke5 Nc5 8. Kf5 Nge4 9. Ra2 Nd6+ 10. Ke5 Nf7+ 11. Kd5 Nd3 12. Kd4 Nb4 13. Ra4 Nd8 14. Kc4 Nbc6 15. Kd5 Ne7+ 16. Kd6 Ng6 17. Ra8 Nf7+ 18. Ke6 Nf8+ 19. Kd5 Ng6 20. Ra6 Nf4+ 21. Kd4 Nd8 22. Nc3 Nde6+ 23. Ke3 Ng2+ 24. Kf2 Ngf4 25. Kf3 Kf7 26. Ra7+ Kg6 27. Ke4 Kg5 28. Ra5+ Kg4 29. Ke5  Nc5 30. Nd1 Ng6+ 31. Kd5 Nb3 32. Ra2 Nf4+ 33. Ke5 Nc5 34. Ne3+ Kf3 35. Ra3 Ng6+ 36. Kd5 Nd3 37. Kd4 Nde5 38. Ra6 Nf4 39. Nf1 Nf7 40. Rf6 Ng5 41. Ke5 Ngh3 42. Rf7 Ke2 43. Ng3+ Ke3 44. Nf5+ Kf3 45. Nd6 Ke3 46. Nc4+ Kd3 47. Nb2+ Kc2 48. Na4 Nd3+ 49. Kd4 Ng5 50. Rd7 Ne6+ 51. Kd5 Ng5 52. Rg7 Kb3 53. Nb6 Nb4+ 54. Ke5 Nd3+ 55. Kf5 Nh3 56. Rc7 Nb4 57. Rc8 Nf2 58. Nd7 Nc2 59. Nc5+ Kb4 60. Ke5 Ng4+ 61. Kf4 Nge3 62. Nd3+ Kb3 63. Nc1+ Kb4 64. Ke4 Nc4 65. Rg8 Nb6 66. Rg2 Na3 67. Rb2+ Kc5 68. Nd3+ Kc6 69. Rg2 Na4 70. Rg5 Nc3+ 71. Ke5 Na4 72. Ke6 Nb5 73. Nb4+ Kb6 74. Nd5+ Ka5 75. Rh5 Nc5+ 76. Ke5 Nd3+ 77. Ke4 Nc5+ 78. Ke3 Na6 79. Rh1 Nbc7 80. Nf4 Kb4 81. Kd4 Nb5+ 82. Ke5 Nc5 83. Nd5+ Kb3 84. Rh3+ Kc4 85. Rh4+ Kd3 86. Nf4+ Kd2 87. Rh2+ Kc3 88. Kd5 Kb4 89. Rh4 Na4 90. Nd3+ Kb3 91. Rg4 Kc2 92. Nf4 Kd2 93. Rg7 Ke3 94. Ng2+ Kd2 95. Rh7 Nb2 96. Rd7 Ke2 97. Rb7 Nd1 98. Kc5 Nbc3 99. Kd4 Kd2 100. Rd7 Ke2 101. Nh4 Nb5+ 102. Kc4 Na3+ 103. Kb3 Nb1 104. Nf5 Nf2 105. Kc2 Na3+ 106. Kc3 Nb1+ 107. Kd4 Nd2 108. Re7+ Kf3 109. Rf7 Nh3 110. Nd6+ Ke2 111. Re7+ Kf3 112. Re3+ Kg4 113. Ra3 Nf1 114. Ra4 Ng5 115. Ke5+ Kf3 116. Nf5 Nd2 117. Ra3+ Kf2 118. Ra2 Ke2 119. Kd4 Nge4 120. Ne7 Kf3 121. Nd5 Nb3+ 122. Kc4 Nc1 123. Ra3+ Kf2 124. Ra8 Ne2 125. Rg8 Ng1 126. Kd4 Nd6 127. Ke5 Nc4+ 128. Ke4 Nd6+ 129. Kf4 Ne2+ 130. Ke5 Nb5 131. Rf8+ Ke1 132. Rd8 Nbc3 133. Nb4 Kf2 134. Nc2 Nc1 135. Rc8 Nb5 136. Rb8 Nc3 137. Rd8 Ke2 138. Kd4 Nd1 139. Na1 Kd2 140. Ke4+ Ke2 141. Rc8 Nf2+ 142. Kd4 Ncd3 143. Nb3 Nf4 144. Rg8 Kf3 145. Nd2+ Ke2 146. Nc4 Kf3 147. Ne5+ Ke2 148. Re8 N2h3 149. Nc4+ Kf3 150. Ra8 Ng5 151. Ra3+ Ke2 152. Ke5 Nd3+ 153. Kf5 Nh3 154. Ra2+ Kf3 155. Ra8 Nhf2 156. Re8 Nd1 157. Nd2+ Kf2 158. Ke4 Nc1 159. Nb1 Ke2 160. Kf4+ Kd3 161. Rd8+ Ke2 162. Rd2+ Ke1 163. Rh2 Ne2+ 164. Kf3 Nd4+ 165. Ke4 Nb3 166. Ra2 Nf2+ 167. Kf3 Nd4+ 168. Ke3 Nf5+ 169. Kf4 Nd4 170. Ra4 Nc2 171. Kf3 Nd3 172. Rh4 Kd1 173. Nc3+ Kd2 174. Ne4+ Kc1 175. Ke2 Ne5 176. Nc5 Na3 177. Re4 Nec4 178. Kd3 Nb2+ 179. Kc3 Nb1+ 180. Kd4 Na3 181. Rh4 Nb5+ 182. Ke5 Kc2 183. Rh2+ Kc3 184. Kd5 Nd1 185. Rh3+ Kb2 186. Nb7 Na3 187. Nd6 Nc3+ 188. Kc5 Kc2 189. Nf5 Nab1 190. Kd4 Nb5+ 191. Kc4 N5a3+ 192. Kc5 Kb2 193. Rh2+ Kb3 194. Nd4+ Kc3 195. Ne2+ Kb2 196. Ng3+ Kc3 197. Rh3 Kd3 198. Nf5+ Kc2 199. Rg3 Kb2 200. Ne3 Nd2 201. Rg2 Kc1 202. Kd4 Nf3+ 203. Kc3 Nb1+ 204. Kb4 Nbd2 205. Rg8 Ne4 206. Rd8 Nf2 207. Kc3 Ne4+ 208. Kd3 Nc5+ 209. Kc4 Ne4 210. Rd1+ Kb2 211. Rd5 Ne1 212. Rd8 Nf3 213. Rf8 Ne1 214. Rb8+ Kc1 215. Kd4 Nd2 216. Nd5 Kd1 217. Re8 Ng2 218. Kd3 Nb1 219. Re7 Ne1+ 220. Kc4 Ng2 221. Kb3 Nd2+ 222. Kb2 Nc4+ 223. Kc3 Nd2 224. Nf6 Nf4 225. Rd7 Ne2+ 226. Kd3 Nb1 227. Ke3+ Ke1 228. Re7 Kd1 229. Rh7 Nc1 230. Ne4 Na3 231. Nf2+ Kc2 232. Rc7+ Kb2 233. Nd1+ Kb1 234. Rc8 Nc2+ 235. Kd2 Nb3+ 236. Kd3 Ne1+ 237. Kc3 Kc1 238. Rd8 Nc5 239. Nf2 Na4+ 240. Kb3 Nb2 241. Rc8+ Kd2 (241... Kb1 242. Rc3 Na4 (242... Ng2 243. Ne4 Nd3 244. Nd2+ Ka1 245. Rc4 Nc5+ 246. Rxc5 Ne3 247. Rc1#) 243. Kxa4 Nc2 244. Nd3 Nd4 245. Rc1+ Ka2 246. Kb4 Nb5 247. Kxb5 Kb3 248. Kc5 Ka3 249. Kc4 Ka2 250. Rd1 Ka3 251. Ra1#) 242. Kxb2 Ke3 243. Ng4+ Kf4 244. Ne5 Ng2 245. Ng6+ Kg5 246. Rc3 Kg4 247. Rd3 Ne1 248. Rd4+ Kh5 249. Nh4 Nd3+ 250. Rxd3 Kxh4 251. Rd5 Kg3 252. Rd4 Kf3 253. Kc2 Ke3 254. Rc4 Kf2 255. Rc3 Ke1 256. Kd3 Kf2 257. Kd2 Kg1 258. Ke3 Kg2 259. Ke2 Kh1 260. Rg3 Kh2 261. Kf2 Kh1 262. Rh3# &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3831" LastEditorUserId="3831" LastEditDate="2015-12-26T11:15:26.680" LastActivityDate="2015-12-26T11:15:26.680" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13185" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13179" CreationDate="2015-12-26T11:32:19.893" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;No, it is not possible.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The knight simply does not cover enough space to checkmate the black king.&#xA;When a position with insufficient material to checkmate occurs, &lt;strong&gt;a draw by insufficient material&lt;/strong&gt; is declared.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Draw by insufficient material is declared when, and only when:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;K vs K&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;K + N vs K&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;K + B vs K&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Technically, a king and 2 knights versus a lone king can still result in checkmate. However, here the black king has to be dumb enough to cooperate and go into a corner and be checkmated. And so it is usually declared a draw by insufficient material.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9048" LastEditorUserId="9048" LastEditDate="2015-12-27T00:39:53.397" LastActivityDate="2015-12-27T00:39:53.397" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13186" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13156" CreationDate="2015-12-26T11:50:59.580" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would say it is very dependable.&#xA;Firstly, chesscube only has one rating (except if you are a premium), so I would say online ratings are quite unreliable to compare with real life chess ratings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, chesscube and other chess sites ratings often start with 1500, and adjusts from there; whilst in real life, you start from 700 rating points, and then adjust from there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In addition, there are many players in chess.com who have over 2300 rating points, but nearly none of them have a title.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Online gameplay depends more on who you are matched up against than that of real life. In real games, you often don't get to choose your opponents, and have to play with either someone significantly easier or quite harder. Online, you can adjust rating ranges and time limit, therefore it is easier to be matched up against one of similar strengths and etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, there are some on the internet that are not really honest about their ratings (ie. cheaters, sandbaggers and boosters), and they can severely affect your rating points, while in real life, there are hardly any cheaters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I would say it is very challenging to compare the two scales, and to compare the two, you should really find someone who has a fide rating as well as their online ones, play them and then gauge your skill.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Good luck!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9048" LastActivityDate="2015-12-26T11:50:59.580" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13187" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13243" CreationDate="2015-12-26T12:06:15.550" Score="5" ViewCount="104" Body="&lt;p&gt;On FICS, I remember there was a command to see your mutual game history with a given user. But I can't find it now. Can you name it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9063" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-01-31T01:39:26.310" LastActivityDate="2021-01-31T01:39:26.310" Title="What is the history of the FICS mutual game history command&gt;" Tags="&lt;history&gt;&lt;online-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="13188" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="82" CreationDate="2015-12-26T19:51:19.487" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm posting this because this year some very interesting games have been played showing new ideas just discovered for White which can give an idea of how difficult it is to prepare especially at the very top level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first game that I want to mention is the game between Ivanchuk and Wesley So played this year in Wijk aan Zee. So played a new line (well known to the top players thanks to an article published by Anish Giri in New in Chess). Ivanchuk didn't know the line and got crushed. You can see an analysis of the game by the GM Jan Gustafsson &lt;a href=&quot;https://youtu.be/3oaCNTk2YDk&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The second one is one played in the final of the World Cup in Baku between Peter Svidler and Sergey Karjakin which also displayed a very interesting line. It was a blitz game where Svidler got a huge advantage thanks to his better preparation but finally lost due to blundering a rook.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To sum up, if you're interested I recommend you the series of videos made by Jan Gustafsson for Chess 24 called &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess24.com/en/learn/advanced/video/marshall/intro-marshall-2015&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Latest Trends on the Marshall&lt;/a&gt; where you can find some very interesting ideas for both Black and White like the two mentioned above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8751" LastActivityDate="2015-12-26T19:51:19.487" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13189" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13156" CreationDate="2015-12-26T20:19:38.500" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;There is no way to directly compare ratings from distinct populations&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;However, it's not true that online chess and OTB populations are really distinct&lt;/strong&gt;. There are players who have ratings in both OTB and online chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;So, you can compare your rating this way:&lt;/strong&gt; Find players in Chesscube who has also OTB ratings, select two of them, both have ratings close to your rating, one of them is higher than you, one of them is lower than you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your expected rating is between their OTB rating. If you pick more player from Chesscube, and pick more closer players, you will get smaller interval, thus more accurate estimate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;            Online    |    OTB&#xA;--------------------------------------------------------------------&#xA;Player A     1750     |    1630&#xA;--------------------------------------------------------------------&#xA;Player B     1850     |    1730&#xA;--------------------------------------------------------------------&#xA;You          1800     | Expected: ~1680, Probably between 1630-1730&#xA;--------------------------------------------------------------------&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9030" LastEditorUserId="9030" LastEditDate="2015-12-26T20:27:11.320" LastActivityDate="2015-12-26T20:27:11.320" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13191" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5739" CreationDate="2015-12-27T02:18:07.547" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;It's terribly wrong to dump an engine output as an opening analysis!&lt;/strong&gt; Engines are weaker in strategy comparing to humans. An opening analysis should be done by a computer-aided human, not by an engine itself. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9030" LastEditorUserId="9030" LastEditDate="2019-04-23T12:16:38.020" LastActivityDate="2019-04-23T12:16:38.020" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="13192" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13193" CreationDate="2015-12-27T08:11:09.533" Score="13" ViewCount="2206" Body="&lt;p&gt;How not to use a chess engine? What are the bad practices when using a chess engine, and the good ones? How trustworthy are their suggestions and evaluations?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9030" LastEditorUserId="9030" LastEditDate="2016-01-03T00:26:32.197" LastActivityDate="2018-09-15T11:38:04.440" Title="How not to use a chess engine?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;engines&gt;&lt;best-practice&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13193" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13192" CreationDate="2015-12-27T08:11:41.397" Score="20" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;What's the purpose of this question &amp;amp; answer?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I see a lot of misuse of engines in this community. I see topics where people do opening &quot;analysis&quot; by copy pasting engine outputs. Even worse, I saw opening &quot;analysis&quot; by copy pasting in first move!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lots of beginner in this community believe that engines give best possible move in every position, because they beat human players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I tried to explain why this is wrong under several topics shortly, but I see short explanations are not enough, people don't want to believe some stranger saying that using the engine in such ways is wrong without explaining with every detail. So I, as a computer science student and hobby player(used to play OTB but quit it) wrote this very long, tiring answer, in hope of changing wrong beliefs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Notes: This is a very long answer. I have probably a lot of grammar mistake and typo. Also it may be possible to explain these in a more fluent or in a shorter way. So, if you think you can improve this answer, please suggest edits, I would highly appreciate it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;How does an engine work? What are these numbers in analysis window?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Engines evaluate all positions using different metrics(which is very closely related to engines playing strength) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example: Engines has predefined values for materials, like 1 points for a pawn, and 3 points for a bishop etc. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But that's not all of course, they use more advanced metrics too. For example: A passed pawn 0.2 points, bishop pair 0.1 points etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, it evaluates all positions like this, and inserts into a tree(if you want to learn about tree's more, please take a look at &lt;a href=&quot;http://courses.cs.vt.edu/cs2604/spring02/Notes/C08.GeneralTrees.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this paper&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But, as the memory is not infinite, if computer runs out of memory, engine stops right? So engine has to use memory carefully. How? It deletes some nodes (positions) from tree which are not promising (has &lt;em&gt;bad&lt;/em&gt; (it may not be easy to decide which is bad) evaluation score).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Longest possible path in the tree is the depth of the analysis. As every node represents a position, depth of 2 equals 1 move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;What are the strengths and weaknesses of engines comparing to humans?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Engines are absolutely better at tactics comparing to humans. Because tactics are&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;convertible to concrete (material, including checkmate) advantages in short-term (generally in less than 10 moves)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;computers have overwhelmingly more memory comparing to humans (Can any chess player memorize and evaluate 10^3 different continuations in any position in 1 minute? No. But computers today can do it for more than 10^12)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;computers don't make calculation mistakes(practically), but humans do. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Humans are absolutely better at strategy and positional evaluations. Because:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;after all, engines are using metrics to evaluate which are absolutely open to question, for example there is no &lt;em&gt;correct&lt;/em&gt; metric for bishop pair, or pawn. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;a master chess player is far more better when assessing metrics(machines are stupid)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;humans are overwhelmingly stronger at pruning, &lt;em&gt;our search tree&lt;/em&gt; is far more smaller(we can eliminate a lot of unnecessary positions, computers fall short in this)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let me demonstrate these in this position, which a 1200 Elo player can assess a draw(rightfully) in 3 seconds.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [Title &quot;Komodo-9.3 depth=48, -17.61&quot;]&#xA; [FEN &quot;rr2k3/6b1/8/p1p1p1p1/PpPpPpPp/1P1P1P1P/8/4K3 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Engine says it's -17.61, after &lt;em&gt;seeing&lt;/em&gt; 24 moves ahead. Why? Is it that stupid? Can't it understand black can't progress?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes! It is that stupid! And you are the one who needs to understand it's draw, not the engine, it's a tool for you!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-17.61 is result of the evaluation metrics. Is the evaluation wrong then? No, evaluation is correct, if you &lt;em&gt;interpret&lt;/em&gt; it correctly. The engine sums up metrics, which results -17.61, because black has a lot of material advantage. Interesting thing is that much material advantage isn't enough in this position and that's the part you should assist the engine with your intelligence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Evaluation scores are not position assessments!!!&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are only two things can be considered as an assessment in an engine's output:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Mate in x&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Draw by 0.00&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other than these two all evaluation score outputs are opinion-based. Like in the position above -17 evaluation can be assessed as a draw, it's very unlikely but possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, engines are really far from perfect, that's why we have &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endgame_tablebase&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;tablebases&lt;/a&gt;. Tablebases are sources of the absolute truth of a given position. A tablebase gives an output which tells the position is either mate (in x moves) or draw. State of the art tablebases has covered all positions having at most &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/5253/is-there-a-freely-available-online-7-piece-endgame-tablebase&quot;&gt;seven pieces&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;How to interpret evaluation scores?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As I mentioned earlier, engines do their best to use limited memory and computational power. Because these are limited, engines tell users that how deep they went. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Imagine that you are a commander (engine) of an army, and you are in an open terrain. Your army has 10k soldiers. You have 10km (depth of search) line of sight, and you see enemy forces 9km ahead, you guess (evaluate) their count as roughly 100 soldiers, and you decide to attack. You and your army starts to run towards enemy. But after getting 3kms closer to enemy forces (gaining 3km more line of sight), you suddenly see 100k more enemy, and you suddenly decide that this battle is lost.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This was an analogy of &lt;a href=&quot;https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Horizon+Effect&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;horizon effect&lt;/a&gt; problem. There are times, in which the key move happens out of the horizon of the engine, and engine evaluates the position falsely. This problem happens lot more in endgame, because in endgame, comparing to middlegame and opening, positions evolve slowly, more moves needed to get same amount of progress. Remember the long manoeuvres of endgames. That's why engines are using tablebases (precalculated, sure as death assessments of positions which have less than 8 piece on board), to fight with horizon effect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's return to position above and clarify why we can so easily assess it as draw, but computer don't give 0.00?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Engine has calculated 24 moves deep, nice. But we are calculating all possible continuations, until the end! We are not faster than computers, but we are quicker than them. Because we understand, after checking several moves, all continuations are trivial, and prune them all. We only calculate few positions, and assess it as draw. But engine calculates tons of, because its not clever enough to understand its trivial to calculate all these positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Now, how not to use chess engines?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;As an endgame god, like it knows it all&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;As an opening god, like it knows it all&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;As a strategy god, like it knows it all&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;As a tactical god, like it knows it all(it generally knows it all, but there are exceptions, because of the horizon effect)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;But to use as:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A foolproof mate searcher&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The best tactician in the world&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A questionable advisor in strategical/positional evaluations &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Don't forget that analysis and match are different tasks. Humans can't beat engines on matches doesn't mean it's the same in analysis. Actually these are very distinct tasks, because analysis aims to find the best move with infinite resources, but match aims to win with finite resources, and for winning, it's enough to play better than opponent. All competitive engines are tuned for matches, to get highest possible success in engine tournaments.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Read also&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;A nice &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.chessbase.com/post/hartmann-choosing-a-chess-engine&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;article&lt;/a&gt; about chess engines, relevant to this topic.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;A very instructive &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/blog/ChessMN16/how-to-read-engine-evaluations&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;article&lt;/a&gt; about interpreting engine evaluations.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;A related topic: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/1970/why-do-chess-engines-sometimes-miss-good-moves-or-take-forever-to-spot&quot;&gt;Why do chess engines sometimes miss good moves (or take forever to spot)?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Another related topic: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/1720/computer-evaluations-how-trustworthy-are-they&quot;&gt;Computer evaluations: How trustworthy are they?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Examples of Engine Fails, for Unsatisfied Readers&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More examples of positions, which state-of-the-art engines can't find the correct move, which was found by human-beings&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;Linares &quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Topalov, Veselin&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Shirov, Alexei&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;8/8/4kpp1/3p1b2/p6P/2B5/6P1/6K1 b - - 0 47&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1...Bh3!!-+ {Shirov played this} ( 1...a3? {Komodo-9.3 with 50 ply, 5GB Hashtable, evaluates -2.58} )&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/4840/what-was-the-point-of-shirovs-47-bh3&quot;&gt;Analysis of Shirov's game&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9030" LastEditorUserId="9030" LastEditDate="2018-09-15T11:38:04.440" LastActivityDate="2018-09-15T11:38:04.440" CommentCount="25" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="13194" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13196" CreationDate="2015-12-27T08:57:29.323" Score="3" ViewCount="549" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've recently started to play the triangle system against the Queen's gambit, and so far it is okay. I've extensive knowledge in the Noteboom variation, but the problem with it is that the variation can be easily be avoided by White (since it is such a sharp line).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I decided to search for a fall back plan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I mean, I've just been doing the automatic c5 counters when Noteboom was turned down, but I've stumbled across this system called the Meran system.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Can you tell me the theory behind this system?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the surface it looks like Black is supposed to advance on the Queenside, but I'm fuzzy on the details, nor this &quot;Anti-Meran&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9048" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2015-12-27T12:41:16.643" LastActivityDate="2015-12-27T18:50:15.370" Title="The Meran System plan of attack" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;queens-gambit&gt;&lt;slav-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13195" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-12-27T09:01:51.377" Score="3" ViewCount="304" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have a position which the engine gives as favorable for black &lt;em&gt;(black to move)&lt;/em&gt;, but I am confused on what plan should black adopt, as white has a dangerous passed pawn and black doesn't; also exchanging the queens doesn't look good as the black knight is too slow to catch the white pawn.&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/4A05K.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/4A05K.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7693" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2015-12-27T18:48:16.383" LastActivityDate="2015-12-28T18:20:14.983" Title="Plan to proceed in this position" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;planning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13196" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13194" CreationDate="2015-12-27T10:49:26.453" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;If black plays the triangle system againts the Queen's Gambit, white can (try to) transpose to the Semi-Slav defence: 1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 c6 4.e3 Nf6 5.Nf3 Nbd7.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The line 6.Bd3 dxc4 7.Bxc4 b5 is called the Meran. White can avoid this, by playing the Anti-Meran: 6.Qc2. A good summary can be found on &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semi-Slav_Defense&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to the &lt;a href=&quot;http://chesstempo.com/game-database.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Game Database of ChessTempo&lt;/a&gt;, 4....Nf6 and 5....Nbd7 are by far the most popular replies for black. The Semi-Slav is known to be a good and solid defence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An alternative for black is 5....a6, which was played many times by Anand in his &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chess.pl?tid=77342&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;WCC-match&lt;/a&gt; against Gelfand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An other idea is to transpose to the Stonewall. You can play 4....f5 immediately or wait a couple of moves like in the game &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1775842&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Kasimdzhanov-Grischuk&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;      [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;      [StartPly &quot;7&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;      1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 c6 4.e3 Nf6 (4...f5)(4...Nd7 5.Qc2 Nh6 6.Bd2 f5) 5.Nf3 Nbd7 (5...a6) 6.Bd3 (6.Qc2) dxc4 7.Bxc4 b5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4588" LastEditorUserId="4588" LastEditDate="2015-12-27T18:50:15.370" LastActivityDate="2015-12-27T18:50:15.370" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13197" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1246" CreationDate="2015-12-27T15:15:02.293" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;All top level chess engines&lt;/strong&gt; like Komodo, Houdini, Rybka, Stockfish etc. are following &lt;strong&gt;UCI&lt;/strong&gt; standards, which is &lt;strong&gt;platform-independent&lt;/strong&gt;. It doesn't matter Linux, Windows, OSX or whatever. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;What you need&lt;/strong&gt;(and what you probably ask) is a &lt;strong&gt;GUI&lt;/strong&gt; for running engine. For this, I can suggest &lt;strong&gt;ChessX on Linux&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, Chessmaster's engine &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.computerchess.org.uk/ccrl/4040/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;is pretty bad comparing the engines&lt;/a&gt; above, I would never suggest to use it, if you are serious in chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9030" LastEditorUserId="9030" LastEditDate="2015-12-27T18:22:12.380" LastActivityDate="2015-12-27T18:22:12.380" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13199" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13201" CreationDate="2015-12-27T23:43:46.010" Score="2" ViewCount="1221" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was playing a blitz game which was not part of a tournament or something but there was some bets, which were not significant at all, just to add some more spice to the game. However at some point I promote a second queen and since we didn't have spare pieces I took a rook which was already out of the game, turned it upside down so it differs from a real rook and me and my opponent agreed to use it as a queen. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However when the time pressure came and due to the fact that when the rook is turned upside down it's not so stable in my attempt to play fast moves I accidentally knocked the rook down. When this happened I lift the rook and put it correctly on the board but this time instead of turning it upside down I put it as an ordinary rook. I think it worth to mention that I didn't press the clock until I thought everything was fixed. However my opponent claimed that because of the fact that I knocked down a piece and also that I put it incorrectly afterwards the game should not count (he was losing at this point) and refused to accept defeat.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From my perspective the things that I would like to know are - is there such a rule that said :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If you knock down a piece the opponent has the right to invalidate the game&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If you put a piece incorrectly (as mentioned above the rook was used upside down, but after I knocked it down I pick it up and put it as an ordinary rook) the opponent has the right to invalidate the game&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Based on the facts that I described is there something that can justify invalidating the game?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4296" LastEditorUserId="18475" LastEditDate="2019-12-26T20:14:50.930" LastActivityDate="2019-12-26T21:15:18.717" Title="A piece was knocked down during a blitz game" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;blitz&gt;&lt;pieces&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13200" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13195" CreationDate="2015-12-27T23:45:47.470" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Black's best hope is for a perpetual by something like&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/8/8/2p1p3/2Pp2P1/1knP4/3q1QK1/5B2 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;1... Qg5 2. Qf5 Qd2+ 3. Qf2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The question is can White's king escape the checks, maybe via g3 and h4, and then get in g5 when only white can win? I think the key is for black to try and keep his queen on the c1-h6 diagonal, be able to drive white's king back from h4 and prevent g5. If he can do this then he can hold the draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2015-12-27T23:45:47.470" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13201" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13199" CreationDate="2015-12-27T23:54:46.420" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;When you placed an upside down rook on the board instead of a queen you made an illegal move. In blitz the first illegal move losses the game. You lost. What happened afterwards is irrelevant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are differences between blitz and standard chess (longer time control). In standard chess you are allowed one illegal move but the punishment is your opponent gets an extra 2 minutes on the clock. The second illegal move loses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Actually the position in blitz is more complicated than I said above. If an arbiter sees your illegal move he will stop the game and forfeit you. If the arbiter doesn't see then it depends what your opponent does. If he claims the game then you lost. If he plays on then he accepts the illegal move and the game continues. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The problem is that your upside down rook is not a queen, it is an upside down rook. Every time you move it like a bishop (which the queen is allowed to do) you make an illegal move. If an arbiter sees you move an upside down rook like a bishop he will forfeit you the game. Your opponent can also claim the game for an illegal move every time you do this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your opponent cannot claim the game because you knocked pieces over. If you correct the position on your own time that is OK. If you already pressed the clock your opponent would be entitled to start your clock while you pick up and replace the pieces. If you continually do this the arbiter can give you a time penalty by giving your opponent an extra minute on the clock and then if you do it again after that he may forfeit you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2015-12-28T00:22:41.623" LastActivityDate="2015-12-28T00:22:41.623" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13202" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4836" CreationDate="2015-12-28T00:49:42.600" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here's a simpler mutual smothered stalemate&#xA;(9 men on a side, no promoted pieces):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Mutual smothered stalemate&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;5brk/4p1pb/4P1p1/6P1/1p6/1P1p4/BP1P4/KRB5 w - - 0 1&quot;] &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8860" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-06-22T02:39:18.190" LastActivityDate="2019-06-22T02:39:18.190" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="13203" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13195" CreationDate="2015-12-28T01:38:46.490" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let's check forcing moves first.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1... Qxf2 is definitely draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/8/8/2p1p3/2Pp2P1/1knP4/3q1QK2/5B2 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Qxf2 2. Kxf2 e4 (2...Kc2 { transposes to main line}) {Nd1, or Na4 too slow, so e4 is the only option. Kc2 transposes to this line.} 3. Kg3! (3. g5? Kc2 {Both sides queen, but black remains with extra pawns, winning for black}) (3. dxe4? Nxe4+ {Threatening with fork, if Black exchanges minor pieces, it's a winning pawn endgame for Black} 4. Ke1 Kc3-+ {White has to give up bishop for d pawn, and White's pawn is going nowhere} (4. Kg1 Kc3-+ {White has to give up bishop for d pawn, and White's pawn is going nowhere}) (4.Kg2 Kc3-+ {White has to give up bishop for d pawn, and White's pawn is going nowhere}) {White has to give up bishop for d pawn, and White's pawn is going nowhere}){Not letting Black to get tempo while marching to queen} Kc2 4. dxe4 d3 5. Bxd3+ Kxd3 6. Kf4 Nxe4 7. Ke5=/= {Lomonosov}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So we know that Black at least has draw. But I feel Black should win in this position. Bishop is not active, but knight is doing very good, especially when it lands to e3. Also Black's king is very active, can easily eliminate White's remaining pawns if both sides queen. So, Black probably has a winning continuation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some ideas:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/8/8/2p1p3/2Pp2P1/1knP4/3q1QK2/5B2 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Qc1 {This move feels best for me. It puts the queen to h6-c1 diagonal to block white pawn which I think important. Qg5 is an alternative} (1...Qg5) 2. Qg3 {Attacking e-pawn, supporting b-pawn} Nd1 {Knight is heading to e3} 3.Be2 {Activating bishop, not much alternative though} Ne3+ 4. Kf2 Kc3 { Attacking d3} 5. Qxe5 Kd2 { Threatening Qe1, taking bishop} 6. Qh2 { Defends bishop } Qe1 7. Kf3 Nxg4 {Wins a pawn} 8.Qf4 Ne3 {Bishop is hanging again} 9. Qh2 Qb1 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Resulting position looks very promising for Black. But of course, the line is not forced, so, this continuation may not be the best. Anyway, it should give an idea to decide how to proceed in starting position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Conclusion&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I believe, Black should not play 1...Qxf2, instead should look for a win. Black should centralize the knight to e3 square, put the king into c3, where it attacks d3, should try to force White to give up g-pawn by pressing on g-pawn and bishop same time, knowing that bishop is blocked by allied pawns, and pretty much stands as a target to attack in White's crampy king-side.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Testing my Findings with Monte Carlo Simulation&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I run a 10 game Manto Carlo simulation where each side has 10 minutes to finish the game. In all games, black went for the line above, starting with ...Qc1, and won all games. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2015.12.28&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;1&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Stockfish 261014 64&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Stockfish 261014 64&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;8/8/8/2p1p3/2Pp2P1/1knP4/3q1QK1/5B2 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;67&quot;]&#xA;[SetUp &quot;1&quot;]&#xA;[TimeControl &quot;100/600&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Qc1 { +1.68/24 11s}  2. Qg3 { -1.63/25 12s}  2... Nd1 { +2.40/25 7.4s}  3.&#xA;Be2 { -2.36/25 15s}  3... Ne3+ { +2.57/24 7.4s}  4. Kf2 { -2.68/25 12s}  4...&#xA;Kc3 { +2.71/25 11s}  5. Qxe5 { -2.85/26 14s}  5... Kd2 { +3.28/27 11s}  6. Qh2&#xA;{ -3.47/27 17s}  6... Qe1+ { +3.34/26 7.4s}  7. Kf3 { -3.47/1 0.001s}  7...&#xA;Nxg4 { +3.58/27 15s}  8. Qf4+ { -3.47/25 7.2s}  8... Ne3 { +3.58/28 7.3s}  9.&#xA;Qh2 { -3.75/25 17s}  9... Qb1 { +3.87/26 40s}  10. Kf2 { -3.05/25 7.1s}  ( 10.&#xA;Bf1+ { -3.72/27 30s}  10... Kc3 { +3.72/26 5.7s}  11. Be2 { -3.40/27 6.9s} &#xA;11... Qb6 { +3.96/26 17s}  12. Kf2 { -3.80/22 23s}  12... Qf6+ { +5.22/27 17s} &#xA;13. Kg1 { -4.60/25 14s}  13... Qg5+ { +5.67/28 12s}  14. Kf2 { -4.97/25 33s} &#xA;14... Nf5 { +5.88/29 5.3s}  15. Qh3 { -4.93/23 8.4s}  15... Qf4+ { +6.20/25&#xA;7.2s}  16. Qf3 { -4.55/26 9.6s}  16... Qh4+ { +10.93/36 49s}  17. Kg1 {&#xA;-4.42/26 6.2s}  17... Ne3 { +28.79/28 7.8s}  18. Qf2 { -52.13/37 17s}  18...&#xA;Qxf2+ { +52.11/36 7.1s}  19. Kxf2 { -62.24/39 13s}  19... Kd2 { +54.84/37 4.6s}&#xA; 20. Bf3 { -89.07/39 19s}  20... Kxd3 { +58.23/38 32s}  21. Bh5 { -123.53/38&#xA;9.0s}  21... Nxc4 { +62.79/41 5.9s}  22. Bd1 { -123.53/37 5.7s}  22... Kc3 {&#xA;+M73/35 8.8s}  23. Bg4 { -298.86/37 19s}  23... d3 { +M69/35 8.1s}  24. Ke1 {&#xA;-M42/36 44s}  24... d2+ { +M47/35 8.8s}  25. Kf2 { -M36/37 17s}  25... Nb2 {&#xA;+M35/36 3.9s}  26. Ke3 { -M34/37 14s}  26... d1=Q { +M31/36 7.0s}  27. Bxd1 {&#xA;-M32/36 4.4s}  27... Nxd1+ { +M29/36 3.9s}  28. Ke2 { -M26/36 9.0s}  28... Kc2&#xA;{ +M27/35 3.8s}  29. Ke1 { -M24/35 9.8s}  29... c4 { +M25/34 3.8s}  30. Ke2 {&#xA;-M22/35 4.1s}  30... c3 { +M21/34 3.8s}  31. Ke1 { -M20/33 7.8s}  31... Kb2 {&#xA;+M19/33 3.8s}  32. Kxd1 { -M18/42 5.4s}  32... c2+ { +M17/40 3.7s}  33. Ke2 {&#xA;-M16/51 3.9s}  33... c1=Q { +M15/48 3.7s}  34. Kf2 { -M14/66 5.4s}  34... Qf4+&#xA;{ +M13/71 3.7s}  35. Kg2 { -M12/120 4.0s}  35... Kc3 { +M11/120 3.0s}  36. Kh3&#xA;{ -M10/120 0.31s}  36... Kd2 { +M9/120 0.079s}  37. Kg2 { -49.17/1 0.001s} &#xA;37... Ke2 { +M7/120 0.015s}  38. Kh3 { -M6/120 0.039s}  38... Qg5 { +M5/120&#xA;0.012s}  39. Kh2 { -M4/1 0s}  39... Kf2 { +M3/120 0.005s}  40. Kh3 { -M2/120&#xA;0.001s}  40... Qg3# { Stockfish 261014 64-Stockfish 261014 64 2015.12.28}  ) (&#xA;10. Bf1+ { -3.74/26 29s}  10... Kc3 { +3.81/25 47s}  11. Be2 { -3.25/26 6.9s} &#xA;11... Qb7+ { +3.87/26 32s}  12. Kf2 { -3.57/27 11s}  12... Qb6 { +3.93/26 40s} &#xA;13. Ke1 { -3.57/25 22s}  13... Qf6 { +8.13/28 7.3s}  14. Qf2 { -6.34/27 13s} &#xA;14... Qg6 { +13.22/29 11s}  15. Qh2 { -14.05/28 14s}  15... Qg2 { +21.86/33&#xA;7.4s}  16. Qxg2 { -39.84/32 10s}  16... Nxg2+ { +52.18/37 6.6s}  17. Kf2 {&#xA;-57.87/37 13s}  17... Nf4 { +54.92/37 4.5s}  18. Bf3 { -64.66/38 40s}  18...&#xA;Nxd3+ { +61.64/38 13s}  19. Kg3 { -73.95/38 16s}  19... Nb2 { +123.52/38 6.1s} &#xA;20. Kf4 { -123.13/37 52s}  20... d3 { +123.55/37 9.1s}  21. Bg4 { -123.19/36&#xA;13s}  21... d2 { +123.56/36 6.3s}  22. Ke3 { -74.63/34 44s}  22... d1=Q {&#xA;+298.95/34 4.3s}  23. Bxd1 { -M40/33 5.8s}  23... Nxd1+ { +M33/35 8.1s}  24.&#xA;Ke2 { -M32/36 6.5s}  24... Nb2 { +M31/35 4.2s}  25. Ke3 { -M30/35 7.3s}  25...&#xA;Kxc4 { +M27/35 4.5s}  26. Kd2 { -M26/35 8.2s}  26... Kb3 { +M25/34 4.2s}  27.&#xA;Ke2 { -M24/33 5.3s}  27... c4 { +M23/31 4.2s}  28. Ke3 { -M22/31 7.2s}  28...&#xA;c3 { +M21/32 4.2s}  29. Kf3 { -M20/30 5.2s}  29... c2 { +M17/29 4.2s}  30. Ke4&#xA;{ -M16/30 6.5s}  30... c1=Q { +M15/30 4.8s}  31. Kf5 { -M14/32 6.6s}  31... Qh6&#xA;{ +M13/33 4.7s}  32. Kg4 { -M12/42 4.8s}  32... Qg6+ { +M11/41 4.3s}  33. Kf4 {&#xA;-M10/112 4.8s}  33... Nd3+ { +M9/106 4.1s}  34. Ke3 { -M8/120 0.047s}  34...&#xA;Qf5 { +M7/120 0.10s}  35. Ke2 { -M6/120 0.013s}  35... Kc2 { +M5/120 0.014s} &#xA;36. Ke3 { -M4/1 0s}  36... Qf4+ { +M3/120 0.003s}  37. Ke2 { -M2/1 0.001s} &#xA;37... Qf2# { Stockfish 261014 64-Stockfish 261014 64 2015.12.28}  ) ( 10. Bf1+&#xA;{ -3.65/24 17s}  10... Kc3 { +3.73/26 12s}  11. Be2 { -3.80/25 11s}  11... Qb7+&#xA;{ +3.73/28 7.1s}  12. Kf2 { -4.55/26 18s}  12... Qg7 { +3.73/28 7.2s}  13. Qg3&#xA;{ -3.92/24 19s}  13... Qf6+ { +4.37/23 12s}  14. Kg1 { -4.20/26 23s}  14... Kd2&#xA;{ +5.05/25 37s}  15. Bf3 { -4.20/26 6.6s}  15... Kxd3 { +5.05/26 14s}  16. Qf2&#xA;{ -4.76/22 37s}  16... Qf5 { +5.11/26 6.6s}  17. Qe2+ { -4.76/22 6.1s}  17...&#xA;Kc3 { 0.00/1 0.001s}  18. Qe1+ { -5.27/22 17s}  18... Kxc4 { +5.82/23 15s}  19.&#xA;Kf2 { -6.03/21 13s}  19... Kb3 { +6.00/23 9.7s}  20. Qa1 { -6.72/23 22s}  20...&#xA;Qc2+ { +6.13/23 22s}  21. Kg3 { -6.40/25 51s}  21... c4 { +6.74/22 14s}  22.&#xA;Qa8 { -7.67/22 19s}  22... Qg6+ { +9.13/21 10s}  23. Kh3 { -8.36/23 7.0s} &#xA;23... Qh6+ { +12.94/23 14s}  24. Kg3 { -11.10/25 24s}  24... Qg5+ { +13.89/24&#xA;9.6s}  25. Kh3 { -7.31/25 4.2s}  25... d3 { +14.70/25 19s}  26. Qa1 { -11.77/21&#xA;17s}  26... Kc2 { +33.72/23 10s}  27. Qa2+ { -17.01/20 7.4s}  27... Kc1 {&#xA;+49.10/26 19s}  28. Qf2 { -26.58/22 11s}  28... d2 { +62.82/27 5.4s}  29. Be2 {&#xA;-M38/25 17s}  29... c3 { +M33/25 7.6s}  30. Qf8 { -49.06/24 11s}  30... d1=Q {&#xA;+M31/27 9.2s}  31. Bxd1 { -M36/25 4.6s}  31... Kxd1 { +M27/29 5.2s}  32. Qf1+ {&#xA;-M24/32 7.0s}  32... Kd2 { +M23/32 10s}  33. Qf2+ { -M22/31 7.5s}  33... Kd3 {&#xA;+M21/35 4.9s}  34. Qf1+ { -M20/28 5.3s}  34... Ke4 { +M19/36 4.9s}  35. Qh1+ {&#xA;-M18/31 2.9s}  35... Qg2+ { +M17/39 4.8s}  36. Qxg2+ { -M16/44 2.8s}  36...&#xA;Nxg2 { +M15/56 4.7s}  37. Kg4 { -M14/58 3.8s}  37... c2 { +M13/71 4.7s}  38.&#xA;Kg5 { -M12/46 3.8s}  38... c1=Q+ { +M11/92 4.6s}  39. Kf6 { -M10/80 3.6s} &#xA;39... Qc6+ { +M9/120 1.9s}  40. Kg7 { -M8/120 0.58s}  40... Kf5 { +M7/120&#xA;0.20s}  41. Kh7 { -M6/120 0.013s}  41... Qc7+ { +M5/120 0.008s}  42. Kh6 {&#xA;-M4/120 0.003s}  42... Qb7 { +M3/120 0.003s}  43. Kh5 { -M2/1 0s}  43... Qh7# {&#xA;Stockfish 261014 64-Stockfish 261014 64 2015.12.28}  ) ( 10. Bf1+ { -3.84/28&#xA;67s}  10... Kc3 { +3.69/26 18s}  11. Be2 { -3.87/24 9.6s}  11... Qb7+ {&#xA;+3.97/25 14s}  12. Kf2 { -4.03/25 9.0s}  12... Qf7+ { +4.16/27 12s}  13. Kg1 {&#xA;-4.14/25 15s}  13... Qg7+ { +4.16/27 6.4s}  14. Kh1 { -4.62/26 37s}  14... Qb7+&#xA;{ +4.16/26 18s}  15. Kg1 { -3.02/22 8.3s}  15... Qb1+ { +4.46/27 56s}  16. Kf2&#xA;{ -3.52/23 14s}  16... Kd2 { +4.46/28 5.6s}  17. Kf3 { -3.80/24 12s}  17...&#xA;Qb7+ { +5.02/27 9.0s}  18. Kf2 { -3.94/25 12s}  18... Qf7+ { +5.02/27 5.6s} &#xA;19. Kg1 { -5.23/28 7.7s}  19... Qg6+ { +5.29/26 15s}  20. Kf2 { -5.35/29 11s} &#xA;20... Qf5+ { +5.94/26 25s}  21. Kg1 { -5.35/31 5.4s}  21... Qg5+ { +5.94/26&#xA;5.1s}  22. Kf2 { -5.99/30 49s}  22... Nf5 { +6.08/27 5.1s}  23. Bf3 { -6.03/23&#xA;7.5s}  23... Kxd3 { +6.43/26 13s}  24. Qh3 { -5.35/23 11s}  24... Kc3 {&#xA;+10.82/26 23s}  25. Qg4 { -4.73/21 8.8s}  25... Qxg4 { +60.25/35 7.2s}  26.&#xA;Bxg4 { -54.79/32 6.8s}  26... Ne3 { +M57/34 4.6s}  27. Bf3 { -123.56/34 9.2s} &#xA;27... Nxc4 { +298.91/34 7.5s}  28. Kg3 { -102.45/34 4.5s}  28... d3 {&#xA;+298.93/33 4.5s}  29. Kf4 { -298.98/31 6.1s}  29... d2 { +M71/34 18s}  30. Ke4&#xA;{ -122.62/33 37s}  30... Nb2 { +M43/34 9.4s}  31. Ke3 { -M36/34 10s}  31...&#xA;d1=Q { +M37/34 4.1s}  32. Bxd1 { -M32/35 3.8s}  32... Nxd1+ { +M29/35 4.0s} &#xA;33. Ke2 { -M26/36 4.5s}  33... Kc2 { +M27/35 4.0s}  34. Ke1 { -M28/33 3.2s} &#xA;34... Nc3 { +M25/35 4.1s}  35. Kf2 { -M26/33 3.1s}  35... Kd3 { +M23/34 3.9s} &#xA;36. Kf3 { -M22/32 4.8s}  36... c4 { +M21/32 3.9s}  37. Kg4 { -M20/32 4.0s} &#xA;37... Ne4 { +M19/32 5.4s}  38. Kf4 { -M18/34 4.1s}  38... c3 { +M17/34 3.7s} &#xA;39. Kf5 { -M16/35 4.4s}  39... c2 { +M15/35 3.6s}  40. Ke6 { -M14/36 2.7s} &#xA;40... c1=Q { +M13/36 4.3s}  41. Kd7 { -M12/39 2.7s}  41... Qf4 { +M11/42 3.7s} &#xA;42. Ke7 { -M10/63 3.5s}  42... Qc7+ { +M9/74 3.4s}  43. Ke6 { -M8/120 0.37s} &#xA;43... Qh7 { +M7/120 0.31s}  44. Ke5 { -M6/120 0.049s}  44... Qg6 { +M5/120&#xA;0.032s}  45. Kf4 { -M4/120 0.005s}  45... Qg5+ { +M3/120 0.005s}  46. Kf3 {&#xA;-M2/1 0.001s}  46... Qg3# { Stockfish 261014 64-Stockfish 261014 64 2015.12.28}&#xA; ) ( 10. Bf1+ { -3.77/25 23s}  10... Kc3 { +3.96/28 8.4s}  11. Be2 { -2.77/25&#xA;7.0s}  11... Qb7+ { +4.11/27 21s}  12. Kf2 { -3.58/25 15s}  12... Qf7+ {&#xA;+4.58/27 57s}  13. Kg1 { -3.65/28 17s}  13... Qg7+ { +4.81/25 10s}  14. Kf2 {&#xA;-4.29/28 63s}  14... Qf6+ { +4.81/26 8.1s}  15. Kg1 { -5.62/27 8.2s}  15...&#xA;Qg5+ { +4.81/26 5.3s}  16. Kf2 { -7.01/28 19s}  16... Kd2 { +4.59/25 31s}  17.&#xA;Qh1 { -4.68/22 15s}  17... Qf4+ { +4.59/25 4.9s}  18. Bf3 { -5.41/23 13s} &#xA;18... Kxd3 { +4.65/25 4.9s}  19. Qb1+ { -4.70/23 5.6s}  19... Nc2 { +5.29/23&#xA;6.8s}  20. Qb6 { -5.13/22 18s}  20... Kc3 { +10.06/23 5.0s}  21. Qa5+ {&#xA;-11.58/23 15s}  21... Kb2 { +23.63/21 9.5s}  22. Qb6+ { -16.12/25 16s}  22...&#xA;Kc1 { +49.17/29 11s}  23. Qb3 { -17.10/27 25s}  23... Qh2+ { +52.34/34 4.8s} &#xA;24. Bg2 { -52.38/34 7.3s}  24... d3 { +52.34/34 4.8s}  25. Qxd3 { -59.72/34&#xA;9.6s}  25... Qxg2+ { +M43/38 4.8s}  26. Kxg2 { -59.72/1 0.001s}  26... Ne1+ {&#xA;+M37/38 4.8s}  27. Kf2 { -M36/39 12s}  27... Nxd3+ { +M35/37 4.8s}  28. Kg3 {&#xA;-M34/37 11s}  28... Ne5 { +M33/36 8.7s}  29. Kf4 { -M32/36 9.0s}  29... Nxc4 {&#xA;+M31/35 4.7s}  30. Ke4 { -M30/35 7.2s}  30... Nb2 { +M29/34 7.0s}  31. Ke3 {&#xA;-M24/34 9.7s}  31... c4 { +M25/34 7.3s}  32. Kf4 { -M22/33 6.4s}  32... Kd2 {&#xA;+M23/32 4.5s}  33. Kg5 { -M20/33 5.6s}  33... c3 { +M19/32 8.6s}  34. Kf4 {&#xA;-M18/31 3.8s}  34... c2 { +M17/31 4.3s}  35. Ke5 { -M16/31 6.3s}  35... Nd3+ {&#xA;+M15/30 6.5s}  36. Ke6 { -M14/34 5.8s}  36... c1=Q { +M13/33 4.1s}  37. Ke7 {&#xA;-M12/39 3.6s}  37... Qc6 { +M11/39 4.6s}  38. Kf7 { -M10/72 3.5s}  38... Ne5+ {&#xA;+M9/78 4.1s}  39. Ke7 { -M8/120 0.36s}  39... Qb6 { +M7/120 0.39s}  40. Kf8 {&#xA;-M6/120 0.034s}  40... Qd6+ { +M5/120 0.018s}  41. Kg8 { -M4/120 0.007s}  41...&#xA;Qg6+ { +M3/120 0.007s}  42. Kh8 { -M2/120 0.003s}  42... Nf7# { Stockfish&#xA;261014 64-Stockfish 261014 64 2015.12.28}  ) ( 10. Bf1+ { -3.70/24 11s}  10...&#xA;Kc3 { +3.65/29 7.6s}  11. Be2 { -3.21/24 7.2s}  11... Qb7+ { +3.93/28 20s}  12.&#xA;Kf2 { -3.54/24 20s}  12... Qf7+ { +4.26/28 26s}  13. Kg1 { -3.81/26 12s}  13...&#xA;Qg7+ { +4.26/28 6.9s}  14. Kf2 { -3.68/26 7.1s}  14... Qf6+ { +4.51/24 12s} &#xA;15. Kg1 { -3.93/22 12s}  15... Qg5+ { +4.89/26 12s}  16. Kf2 { -4.41/23 20s} &#xA;16... Nf5 { +5.10/26 6.8s}  17. Qh3 { -5.61/24 15s}  17... Kd2 { +6.68/24 16s} &#xA;18. Bg4 { -6.68/25 18s}  18... Qf4+ { +6.01/23 13s}  19. Kg1 { -5.68/25 6.6s} &#xA;19... Ne3 { +5.99/24 8.9s}  20. Bf3 { -6.95/25 12s}  20... Kxd3 { +6.86/23&#xA;9.7s}  21. Bc6 { -8.54/27 43s}  21... Kxc4 { +7.84/24 9.1s}  22. Qc8 { -8.22/24&#xA;15s}  22... Kd3 { +9.20/25 10s}  23. Qb7 { -8.96/25 12s}  23... Qg3+ { +9.26/24&#xA;9.0s}  24. Kh1 { -8.54/27 5.7s}  24... Qe1+ { +9.51/24 10s}  25. Kh2 { -8.54/1&#xA;0.001s}  25... c4 { +11.72/25 30s}  26. Bf3 { -8.05/27 5.8s}  26... Qh4+ {&#xA;+13.43/24 8.1s}  27. Kg1 { -7.84/1 0.002s}  27... c3 { +17.34/25 14s}  28. Qb1+&#xA;{ -14.91/23 11s}  28... Kd2 { +32.61/27 28s}  29. Qa2+ { -20.49/25 11s}  29...&#xA;Nc2 { +22.64/27 14s}  30. Bc6 { -49.10/27 25s}  30... Qg5+ { +48.89/28 11s} &#xA;31. Kf2 { -52.38/29 31s}  31... Qf6+ { +49.06/30 4.9s}  32. Bf3 { -52.25/31&#xA;4.6s}  32... Qh4+ { +M47/29 41s}  33. Kg2 { -52.30/30 21s}  33... d3 {&#xA;+29.63/29 35s}  34. Bd5 { -39.71/21 6.0s}  34... Kc1 { +M57/28 3.3s}  35. Bb3 {&#xA;-52.34/27 8.8s}  35... Ne1+ { +M59/27 11s}  36. Kf1 { -M58/27 8.3s}  36... Qh1+&#xA;{ +M61/29 3.3s}  37. Kf2 { -M56/1 0.002s}  37... Qg2+ { +M27/28 18s}  38. Ke3 {&#xA;-M48/31 3.8s}  38... Qxa2 { +M25/28 2.6s}  39. Bxa2 { -M26/29 6.5s}  39... d2 {&#xA;+M25/27 2.6s}  40. Bb3 { -M24/29 5.5s}  40... c2 { +M21/27 2.5s}  41. Bxc2 {&#xA;-M20/27 6.8s}  41... Kxc2 { +M19/28 2.7s}  42. Kd4 { -M16/28 6.7s}  42... d1=Q+&#xA;{ +M17/25 2.4s}  43. Ke5 { -M14/33 7.2s}  43... Qd7 { +M13/30 2.7s}  44. Kf6 {&#xA;-M12/41 4.2s}  44... Nf3 { +M11/36 2.3s}  45. Kg6 { -M10/1 0.001s}  45... Qe6+&#xA;{ +M9/61 2.3s}  46. Kh7 { -M8/120 0.57s}  46... Ne5 { +M7/120 0.36s}  47. Kh8 {&#xA;-M6/120 0.012s}  47... Qf6+ { +M5/120 0.008s}  48. Kh7 { -M4/120 0.002s}  48...&#xA;Qg6+ { +M3/120 0.003s}  49. Kh8 { -M2/1 0s}  49... Nf7# { Stockfish 261014&#xA;64-Stockfish 261014 64 2015.12.28}  ) ( 10. Qf2 { -3.63/25 22s}  10... Qb7+ {&#xA;+13.97/28 11s}  11. Kg3 { -8.02/29 18s}  11... Qg7+ { +10.42/31 63s}  12. Kh3 {&#xA;-39.78/35 27s}  12... Qg2+ { +44.66/33 8.2s}  13. Qxg2 { -48.94/38 9.3s}  13...&#xA;Nxg2 { +52.34/37 8.5s}  14. Bf3 { -57.12/38 14s}  14... Ne1 { +58.68/40 17s} &#xA;15. Be4 { -58.81/39 34s}  15... Nxd3 { +63.24/39 17s}  16. Kg3 { -33.37/38 57s}&#xA; 16... Ke3 { +73.47/39 19s}  17. Bf5 { -59.58/32 7.7s}  17... Ne5 { +73.33/38&#xA;50s}  18. Kh4 { -M44/36 19s}  18... d3 { +M45/33 7.7s}  19. Kg5 { -M38/36 8.9s}&#xA; 19... d2 { +M43/35 4.7s}  20. Bc2 { -M36/35 6.9s}  20... Nxc4 { +M35/36 4.7s} &#xA;21. Kf5 { -M34/35 7.2s}  21... Kd4 { +M31/36 5.0s}  22. Kf4 { -M30/36 8.8s} &#xA;22... Ne3 { +M29/37 7.2s}  23. Ba4 { -M28/36 5.1s}  23... d1=Q { +M27/37 4.7s} &#xA;24. Bxd1 { -M26/36 5.0s}  24... Nxd1 { +M25/35 4.7s}  25. Kf3 { -M22/37 8.0s} &#xA;25... Kd3 { +M23/35 5.4s}  26. Kg2 { -M20/38 7.6s}  26... c4 { +M19/36 4.7s} &#xA;27. Kh2 { -M18/40 6.6s}  27... c3 { +M17/39 4.7s}  28. Kg3 { -M16/42 4.9s} &#xA;28... c2 { +M15/39 4.7s}  29. Kg4 { -M14/42 7.1s}  29... Ne3+ { +M13/43 4.9s} &#xA;30. Kg5 { -M12/55 6.6s}  30... c1=Q { +M11/55 4.8s}  31. Kg6 { -M10/84 4.7s} &#xA;31... Qc6+ { +M9/111 4.7s}  32. Kg7 { -M8/120 0.87s}  32... Nf5+ { +M7/120&#xA;0.070s}  33. Kf7 { -M6/120 0.004s}  33... Kd4 { +M5/120 0.009s}  34. Kg8 {&#xA;-M4/120 0.005s}  34... Qf6 { +M3/120 0.004s}  35. Kh7 { -M2/1 0.001s}  35...&#xA;Qg7# { Stockfish 261014 64-Stockfish 261014 64 2015.12.28}  ) 10... Qb6 {&#xA;+3.62/23 11s}  11. Qh8 { -3.81/24 39s}  ( 11. Bf3 { -4.08/25 59s}  11... Kxd3 {&#xA;+3.94/21 8.7s}  12. Qg1 { -4.12/21 23s}  12... Qb2+ { +4.08/20 11s}  13. Kg3 {&#xA;-4.43/21 14s}  13... Nxc4 { +4.41/21 26s}  14. Bh5 { -4.24/21 29s}  14... Ne3 {&#xA;+4.63/21 12s}  15. Bg6+ { -4.65/20 14s}  15... Kc3 { +4.75/22 30s}  16. Kf3 {&#xA;-4.94/23 44s}  16... c4 { +5.45/22 7.8s}  17. Qe1+ { -4.99/21 13s}  17... Kb3 {&#xA;+6.49/23 5.6s}  18. Ke4 { -5.93/23 16s}  18... c3 { +6.97/23 5.6s}  19. Kd3 {&#xA;-7.31/22 12s}  19... Ka3 { +7.49/24 9.0s}  20. Qh1 { -8.99/22 20s}  20... Qd2+&#xA;{ +11.19/20 7.8s}  21. Ke4 { -8.99/1 0s}  21... c2 { +11.39/22 13s}  22. Qa1+ {&#xA;-13.00/18 5.3s}  22... Kb4 { +12.91/23 23s}  23. Qb2+ { -8.88/18 6.0s}  23...&#xA;Kc5 { +13.14/24 30s}  24. Qa3+ { -10.71/20 9.4s}  24... Qb4 { +14.12/25 40s} &#xA;25. Qc1 { -11.76/22 13s}  25... Qc3 { +14.09/25 6.1s}  26. Kf3 { -17.11/23 19s}&#xA; 26... Nf5+ { +14.15/25 35s}  27. Kg4 { -19.91/23 26s}  27... Qd3 { +18.03/21&#xA;7.0s}  28. Qf4 { -19.98/19 5.5s}  28... Qd1+ { +10.94/20 5.0s}  29. Kxf5 {&#xA;-20.46/19 8.4s}  29... c1=Q { +11.15/21 3.2s}  30. Qc7+ { -16.23/20 13s}  30...&#xA;Kb4 { +18.18/18 4.9s}  31. Qb7+ { -16.35/21 18s}  31... Kc3 { +23.17/20 10s} &#xA;32. Qc7+ { -13.56/15 2.3s}  32... Kb2 { +39.71/21 4.3s}  33. Qb6+ { -11.17/15&#xA;4.9s}  33... Ka3 { +28.70/22 9.8s}  34. Qd6+ { -21.64/18 9.3s}  34... Ka2 {&#xA;+18.53/22 8.0s}  35. Bf7+ { -20.06/20 1.4s}  35... Kb1 { +49.10/25 2.5s}  36.&#xA;Qb8+ { -49.02/21 3.4s}  36... Qb2 { +M67/25 8.9s}  37. Qf4 { -49.10/23 2.0s} &#xA;37... Qdc2+ { +M65/24 2.3s}  38. Kg4 { -49.62/25 6.1s}  38... Qb7 { +M21/24&#xA;11s}  39. Kh4 { -M22/19 1.7s}  39... Qh7+ { +M19/25 2.1s}  40. Bh5 { -M18/24&#xA;1.1s}  40... Qhe7+ { +M17/28 2.3s}  41. Kg3 { -M16/27 1.5s}  41... Qe1+ {&#xA;+M15/31 2.0s}  42. Qf2 { -M14/31 1.0s}  42... Qg7+ { +M13/34 2.2s}  43. Bg4 {&#xA;-M12/37 0.99s}  43... Qxf2+ { +M11/43 2.1s}  44. Kxf2 { -M10/81 0.97s}  44...&#xA;Qxg4 { +M9/100 1.9s}  45. Kf1 { -M8/120 0.11s}  45... d3 { +M7/120 0.065s}  46.&#xA;Kf2 { -M6/120 0.003s}  46... d2 { +M5/120 0.005s}  47. Ke3 { -M4/120 0.005s} &#xA;47... d1=Q { +M3/120 0.005s}  48. Kf2 { -M2/1 0s}  48... Qgg1# { Stockfish&#xA;261014 64-Stockfish 261014 64 2015.12.28}  ) ( 11. Qf4 { -3.84/25 32s}  11...&#xA;Qg6 { +4.39/25 34s}  12. Qf3 { -4.06/24 11s}  12... Qg5 { +4.56/25 24s}  13.&#xA;Qh1 { -4.46/24 24s}  13... Qf4+ { +4.89/22 5.7s}  14. Bf3 { -4.46/24 6.3s} &#xA;14... Kxd3 { +5.50/22 11s}  15. Qb1+ { -6.26/23 38s}  15... Nc2 { +5.89/23&#xA;8.6s}  16. Qb2 { -6.49/25 22s}  16... Qh4+ { +8.75/24 5.6s}  17. Kg1 { -8.89/25&#xA;13s}  17... Qg3+ { +10.73/25 7.8s}  18. Bg2 { -10.51/27 12s}  18... Kd2 {&#xA;+10.39/26 10s}  19. Kh1 { -7.77/26 5.5s}  19... Qh4+ { +12.27/25 15s}  20. Kg1&#xA;{ -11.33/23 8.0s}  20... d3 { +12.24/26 16s}  21. Bb7 { -16.35/28 50s}  21...&#xA;Qxc4 { +17.62/26 11s}  22. Kg2 { -16.58/25 13s}  22... Qd4 { +52.18/28 7.3s} &#xA;23. Qb1 { -31.53/27 31s}  23... Ne3+ { +M25/28 7.1s}  24. Kh1 { -M24/27 7.9s} &#xA;24... Qh4+ { +M21/31 6.2s}  25. Kg1 { -M22/1 0.001s}  25... Qg3+ { +M19/36&#xA;5.4s}  26. Kh1 { -M18/36 5.8s}  26... Ke2 { +M17/38 5.1s}  27. Qc1 { -M16/38&#xA;4.0s}  27... Qh4+ { +M15/41 5.5s}  28. Kg1 { -M16/1 0.001s}  28... Qf2+ {&#xA;+M13/49 6.0s}  29. Kh1 { -M14/1 0s}  29... d2 { +M11/70 5.2s}  30. Ba6+ {&#xA;-M10/81 5.7s}  30... Kf3 { +M9/120 0.47s}  31. Be2+ { -M8/120 0.40s}  31...&#xA;Qxe2 { +M7/120 0.007s}  32. Qg1 { -M6/120 0.005s}  32... d1=Q { +M5/120 0.005s}&#xA; 33. Qxd1 { -M4/120 0.002s}  33... Nxd1 { +M3/120 0.003s}  34. Kg1 { -M2/1 0s} &#xA;34... Qg2# { Stockfish 261014 64-Stockfish 261014 64 2015.12.28}  ) 11... Qd6 {&#xA;+3.95/24 20s}  12. Qh4 { -4.12/23 28s}  12... Qg6 { +4.53/24 61s}  13. Bf3 {&#xA;-4.00/23 6.4s}  13... Qxd3 { +4.83/24 54s}  14. Qh1 { -3.97/19 8.7s}  14... Nc2&#xA;{ +5.34/22 8.3s}  15. Qd1+ { -5.43/23 37s}  15... Kc3 { +5.34/1 0.001s}  16.&#xA;Qb1 { -10.45/27 29s}  16... Qxc4 { +5.94/21 7.7s}  17. Bg4 { -7.25/23 40s} &#xA;17... d3 { +6.90/21 5.2s}  18. Kg3 { -6.25/23 5.1s}  18... Qd4 { +7.42/22 10s} &#xA;19. Qa2 { -8.84/22 27s}  19... c4 { +8.15/24 17s}  20. Qa6 { -12.20/23 39s} &#xA;20... d2 { +15.03/23 33s}  21. Qa8 { -12.86/24 20s}  21... Kb2 { +11.22/20&#xA;7.5s}  22. Qb7+ { -14.57/23 12s}  22... Kc1 { +13.31/22 10s}  23. Qa8 {&#xA;-14.50/24 6.0s}  23... c3 { +15.70/24 18s}  24. Bf3 { -13.50/24 5.2s}  24...&#xA;Kb2 { +52.18/18 5.8s}  25. Kh3 { -52.11/19 6.0s}  25... Nb4 { +M47/22 13s}  26.&#xA;Qa4 { -M30/21 11s}  26... c2 { +M17/23 5.3s}  27. Qxc2+ { -M16/23 4.2s}  27...&#xA;Kxc2 { +M15/33 3.9s}  28. Bg4 { -M14/33 4.9s}  28... d1=Q { +M13/33 4.3s}  29.&#xA;Bxd1+ { -M12/53 3.6s}  29... Kxd1 { +M11/57 4.0s}  30. Kg2 { -M10/113 3.5s} &#xA;30... Qg4+ { +M9/120 3.7s}  31. Kf1 { -M8/120 0.12s}  31... Qh3+ { +M7/120&#xA;0.013s}  32. Kg1 { -M6/120 0.021s}  32... Nc2 { +M5/120 0.005s}  33. Kf2 {&#xA;-52.38/1 0s}  33... Ne3 { +M3/120 0.002s}  34. Kg1 { -M2/1 0s}  34... Qg2# {&#xA;+M1/120 0.002s, Black mates}   0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We can strongly(but not absolutely) believe that Black wins in this position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9030" LastEditorUserId="9030" LastEditDate="2015-12-28T15:26:37.017" LastActivityDate="2015-12-28T15:26:37.017" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13204" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13178" CreationDate="2015-12-28T03:04:27.360" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;Longest known checkmate is in &lt;strong&gt;549 moves&lt;/strong&gt;, revealed by Lomonosov Tablebases.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can see the game &lt;a href=&quot;http://tb7.chessok.com/probe/3/61&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Plus, you don't need to say &quot;endgame&quot; explicitly. Longest checkmates come from endgame tablebases already. And it's not possible to build a middlegame tablebase practically, because of the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ESPACE&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;exponential space complexity&lt;/a&gt;. Let's say there is a middlegame position which is in 12-men tablebase:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;---------------------------------------------&#xA;5-Men  |  ~7GB&#xA;---------------------------------------------&#xA;6-Men  |  ~1200GB&#xA;---------------------------------------------&#xA;7-Men  |  ~140000GB    &#xA;---------------------------------------------&#xA;8-Men  |  ~10000000GB Estimated&#xA;---------------------------------------------&#xA;12-Men |   Do the math :-)&#xA;---------------------------------------------&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9030" LastEditorUserId="9030" LastEditDate="2015-12-28T13:29:35.953" LastActivityDate="2015-12-28T13:29:35.953" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13205" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13206" CreationDate="2015-12-28T12:48:58.370" Score="4" ViewCount="223" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is quiz 24 from &lt;em&gt;The Art of the Checkmate&lt;/em&gt; by Renaud &amp;amp; Kahn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Black to play and win&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;rn3rk1/pp3ppp/3b1n2/2pPq3/2B1P3/1NN2bP1/PPPQ1P1P/R1B2RK1 b - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The authors give this as the winning line:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt; 1... Qh5 2. Be2 (as Black was threatening Qh3-g2#) Ng4 (threatening mate on h2) 3. h4 Qxh4 4. gxh4 Bh2#&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I think White has a simple refutation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt; 2. Re1 prepares Bf1, stopping the Qh3-g2 threat, and Ng4 threats can be nullified with h4, as the Queen sacrifice doesn't work now as the King has a flight square&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, my questions are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is there a forced win (mate or material)?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If so, what is it?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If not, what's the best move?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2015-12-28T13:14:11.500" LastActivityDate="2017-05-13T06:59:53.577" Title="The Art of the Checkmate, Quiz 24: Is there a win?" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13206" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13205" CreationDate="2015-12-28T13:05:52.877" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, you're right, there is no forced win. With correct play, White avoids the mate, and Black can only win one of the two pawns he is currently behind. White will have a healthy pawn more with best play from both sides:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;rn3rk1/pp3ppp/3b1n2/2pPq3/2B1P3/1NN2bP1/PPPQ1P1P/R1B2RK1 b - - 0 1&#xA;&#xA;1... Qh5 2. Re1 Ng4 3. h4 Ne5 4. Bf1 Bxe4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-05-13T06:59:53.577" LastActivityDate="2017-05-13T06:59:53.577" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13207" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2865" CreationDate="2015-12-28T14:24:03.740" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can suggest you from my experience of playing the Sicilian for 8 years now, to avoid it for the first year of your 'starting chess life' and slowly begin to read and assimilate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am a practitioner of e4 - c5. I'm finding it still hard to deal with the own weakness of d6. I am fide elo 1140 only. So take up this arsenal sooner.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9080" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2015-12-28T14:59:53.887" LastActivityDate="2015-12-28T14:59:53.887" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13208" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13209" CreationDate="2015-12-28T15:47:59.257" Score="2" ViewCount="544" Body="&lt;p&gt;We select an engine to use, and stick with it. But I heard that all engines have different characteristics, and can be better or worse comparing to each other, in different positions. For example: The champion engine can be beaten by another engine in some specific position. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So my question is, which engine to use in which positions? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks in advance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9081" LastActivityDate="2015-12-28T16:18:44.983" Title="Which top engine is strong on what?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13209" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13208" CreationDate="2015-12-28T15:51:14.027" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.chessbase.com/post/hartmann-choosing-a-chess-engine&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Hartmann's findings&lt;/a&gt; in an article in ChessBase: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Houdini is a tactical juggernaut. It tends to do best on the various&#xA;  tactical test sets that some engine experts have put together, and it&#xA;  is fairly quick to see those tactics, making it useful for a quick&#xA;  analysis of most positions. Its numerical evaluations also differ from&#xA;  other engines in that they are calibrated to specific predicted&#xA;  outcomes:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A +1.00 pawn advantage gives a 80% chance of winning the game against&#xA;  an equal opponent at blitz time control. At +2.00 the engine will win&#xA;  95% of the time, and at +3.00 about 99% of the time. If the advantage&#xA;  is +0.50, expect to win nearly 50% of the time. (from the Houdini&#xA;  website)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Larry Kaufman, who works on Komodo, said in an interview on the Quality Chess blog that:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Komodo is best at evaluating middlegame positions accurately once the&#xA;  tactics are resolved. Stockfish seems to be best in the endgame and in&#xA;  seeing very deep tactics. Houdini is the best at blitz and at seeing&#xA;  tactics quickly. Rybka is just obsolete; I like to think of Komodo as&#xA;  its spiritual desceendant, since I worked on the evaluation for both,&#xA;  although the rest of the engines are not similar. Komodo’s assessment&#xA;  of positions is its strong point relative to the other top two, which&#xA;  overvalue the queen. Komodo has the best sense for relative piece&#xA;  values I think. Komodo is also best at playing the opening when out of&#xA;  book very early.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the article, they conduct some tests using very complex positions, to see if engines can find the solution.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9030" LastActivityDate="2015-12-28T15:51:14.027" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13210" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12684" CreationDate="2015-12-28T15:59:06.257" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;A Powerbook is an engine aided opening book simply. They collect games of strong players, collect strong engines matches, build a tree, go through the tree using the engine, optimize the book with engine again. Result is a refined opening book.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9030" LastActivityDate="2015-12-28T15:59:06.257" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13211" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12979" CreationDate="2015-12-28T16:14:35.783" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.freezerchess.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Freezer&lt;/a&gt; is an awesome endgame analysis tool which supports Nalimov tablebases up to 6-men.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9030" LastEditorUserId="9030" LastEditDate="2015-12-29T01:01:06.510" LastActivityDate="2015-12-29T01:01:06.510" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13212" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13208" CreationDate="2015-12-28T16:18:44.983" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is just my opinion and I can't really support it scientifically, but from the games played at the last TCEC I had the feeling Komodo plays really great in KID and similiar structure positions. I think it was mainly outplaying Stockfish in this type of positions. It feels very well the positions for knights.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stockfish is not really great positionally in my opinion, but it is the one calculating the deepest, so it's great at finding Zugzwang positions, and breaking fortresses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Gull is very strong at simple, almost endgame positions, and drawing little worse endgames.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Actually I always felt houdini is the strongest positionally, it just can't calculate so deep like the other ones, but it's just personal opinion. It is the best to evaluate positional pawn and exchange sacrifices.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8944" LastActivityDate="2015-12-28T16:18:44.983" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13214" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12979" CreationDate="2015-12-28T16:52:20.967" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Finalgen (&lt;a href=&quot;http://finalgenchess.ovh/home_ing.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://finalgenchess.ovh/home_ing.php&lt;/a&gt;) generates database for positions with kings, one piece each, and any number of pawns. It has it's disadvantages, but it's free.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8944" LastActivityDate="2015-12-28T16:52:20.967" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13215" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13195" CreationDate="2015-12-28T18:20:14.983" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Boiling down a lot of the previous detail:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) As you realized, the passed pawn on g4 is the central problem for Black. At the moment it is halted by the white queen covering the nice g5 square. So the first plan is to &lt;strong&gt;keep that queen on the c1-h6 diagonal&lt;/strong&gt;. That also means not allowing black to exchange it off, so the second plan has to be &lt;strong&gt;move the queen now to a square not covered by White's queen&lt;/strong&gt;. That leaves Qc1, Qg5, Qh6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) Once Black's queen is managing the passed pawn as above, the knight is not all that slow. It can get to d1 if White doesn't play Be2, otherwise to e4 after Black forces the d3 pawn off the board by playing e4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7314" LastActivityDate="2015-12-28T18:20:14.983" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13216" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13266" CreationDate="2015-12-29T00:55:42.153" Score="0" ViewCount="1178" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/DhPiJ.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/DhPiJ.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is the famous Behting study, first published in the magazine Bohemia in 1906, which is often used as a demonstration that computers can’t solve all positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White to move and draw with a very elegant move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Spoiler:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt; 1. Kc6!! g1=Q 2. Nxh4 Qh1+ 3. Nhf3&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Question is, is this study still beating engines?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Clarification:&lt;/strong&gt; Suggesting best move, doesn't mean engine understands(or finds) the solution. Without evaluating it 0.00 or =/=, it doesn't mean it's solved. Actually, best move with -4.** means engine believes that best possible continuation for White is this move, with winning advantage for Black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Imagine you ask a question to someone about a chess position in which White has a move which is the best and draws. You ask, which move is the best and why, and you get an answer like this: &amp;quot;Best chance is this move, but even if it's White's best chance, it looks losing&amp;quot;. And you know that move draws. Would you accept this answer as correct answer? Definitely no.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;I recommend to read:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A very instructive article about interpreting evaluations of chess engines: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/blog/ChessMN16/how-to-read-engine-evaluations&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;How to Read Engine Evaluations?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;This post: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/1720/computer-evaluations-how-trustworthy-are-they?rq=1&quot;&gt;Computer evaluations: How trustworthy are they?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Notes about edits&lt;/strong&gt;: As the question turned into a discussion about whether the position solved by engines or not, I revised the question accordingly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This question is totally about facts, and not opinion based. Some of the answers are opinion-based, but it's not the problem of the question. &lt;strong&gt;It's terribly wrong to close this question, instead of letting people discuss it.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9030" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2020-04-04T21:54:14.583" Title="Is Behting Study Still Beating Computers?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;problems&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ClosedDate="2016-01-01T17:50:17.207" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13217" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5253" CreationDate="2015-12-29T01:03:45.537" Score="14" Body="&lt;h3&gt;Original Answer:&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;7-men Lomonosov is &lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.convekta.android.lomonosovtb&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;free as an Android application&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Update - September 2018:&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;7-men Syzygy is &lt;a href=&quot;https://syzygy-tables.info/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;available for free&lt;/a&gt;. Also &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/blog/W3WeMyQAACQAdfAL/7-piece-syzygy-tablebases-are-complete&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;available from Lichess&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9030" LastEditorUserId="9030" LastEditDate="2018-09-15T11:25:20.700" LastActivityDate="2018-09-15T11:25:20.700" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="13218" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13173" CreationDate="2015-12-29T01:47:15.367" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is an online chess league, &lt;a href=&quot;http://anclchess.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;All Nations Chess League&lt;/a&gt;, pretty much the same as a regular chess league, but online. I used to play there 7 years ago, at the time they were playing league matches on playchess.com, probably the same today too. ANCL community was quite respected in playchess.com. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They build teams from several Elo ranges(like 1200-1400, 1400-1600, ... 2000-2200 etc), so no matter which team you are in, you will have some very strong friends in your team, which greatly contributes your self improvement.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I recommend you to play there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9030" LastActivityDate="2015-12-29T01:47:15.367" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13220" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-12-29T02:07:24.820" Score="1" ViewCount="298" Body="&lt;p&gt;I saw the DVD Killer Grand Prix Attack from GM Gawain Jones. This helped a lot. However, I have some trouble with some concepts against 2 ...e6 lines. According to the DVD the second plan of the Grand Prix Attack is to play Bb5 and capture the Nc6 to give Black double c pawns then attack the double pawns in a positional way. However, I sometimes heard you have to transition to Closed Sicilian or Open. Here is an example were I'm unsure. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;e4 c5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Nc3 e6&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;f4 Nc6&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Nf3 d6&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Bb5 Nge7 &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;o-o g6&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;d3&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Would it better to play Bb5 earlier to go for the double pawn plan or 5. Bb5 here is better such as this game was played? Would 7. d4 be better than 7. d3?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are further resources to study the Grand Prix Attack seriously?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3149" LastEditorUserId="8940" LastEditDate="2015-12-31T14:00:43.400" LastActivityDate="2017-02-14T02:51:20.640" Title="How do I make my opening reportorie stronger, specifically my Grand Prix Attack against high level competition?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;learning&gt;&lt;theory&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13221" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13220" CreationDate="2015-12-29T02:17:14.663" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;As resource: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please check &lt;a href=&quot;https://shop.chessbase.com/en/products/trent_the_modern_grand_prix_attack&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Lawrence Trent's&lt;/a&gt; analysis from White's perspective and &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.chessbase.com/post/andrew-martin-refuting-the-grand-prix-attack&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Andrew Martin's&lt;/a&gt;'s from Black's perspective.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;About line:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't find it correct to say anything about this line without studying state-of-the-art. So, you better check experts analyses for suggestions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9030" LastActivityDate="2015-12-29T02:17:14.663" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13222" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-12-29T04:04:25.543" Score="5" ViewCount="504" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/GB1Qr.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/GB1Qr.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a position from a game between Fischer and Ibrahimglu, 1970.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black's last move was 11. ... Qc7 from d8. According to Stockfish (depth = 28), 12. a4 is the best move for White. The other recommended moves are Nb3 and Rd1. But a4 seems to be better than Nb3 by more than 0.1 point.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems to be a very logical move as Fischer played it too. Only the logic behind it is out of my (an intermediate player) reach. :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The game continued with 12. ... Rad8 13. Nb3 b6 14. Be3 c5... Fischer went on winning this game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8390" LastActivityDate="2020-01-11T23:00:42.533" Title="Why is, according to Stockfish (depth = 28), a4 the best move here for White?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13223" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-12-29T04:21:34.933" Score="4" ViewCount="1068" Body="&lt;p&gt;What are some of the open source Chess engines under the MIT license?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The purpose of the search is to find a suitable strong engine to be used in our chess hardware/software product. Thanks. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5653" LastEditorUserId="5653" LastEditDate="2015-12-29T08:30:30.117" LastActivityDate="2020-08-09T21:32:19.720" Title="Open source Chess engines under MIT license?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13224" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13223" CreationDate="2015-12-29T05:10:50.910" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some searching yielded:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.arasanchess.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Arasan&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Pulse&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Pulse&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://users.otenet.gr/~yggeorgo/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;NG-Play&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9030" LastEditorUserId="9030" LastEditDate="2015-12-29T05:38:24.483" LastActivityDate="2015-12-29T05:38:24.483" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13225" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13223" CreationDate="2015-12-29T08:13:41.330" Score="2" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Crafty&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Arasan&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't recommend Pulse or NG-Play in the other answer as they're no longer maintained. The three engines I cited are still very active.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2015-12-29T09:06:02.810" LastActivityDate="2015-12-29T09:06:02.810" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13226" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13227" CreationDate="2015-12-29T08:14:57.230" Score="0" ViewCount="398" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is it legal to modify and redistribute a GPL engine, under a more restrictive license (for example closing the source code)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9030" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-07-28T16:31:36.173" LastActivityDate="2016-07-28T17:43:07.930" Title="Do GPL-licensed engines permit modifying and closing the source code?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13227" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13226" CreationDate="2015-12-29T08:43:51.533" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;GPL-licensed software cannot become closed software. If you 'fork' it, then the rights on this fork remain the same (see &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_General_Public_License&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;GNU General Public License&lt;/a&gt; on Wikipedia).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4509" LastEditorUserId="10867" LastEditDate="2016-07-28T17:43:07.930" LastActivityDate="2016-07-28T17:43:07.930" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13228" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13226" CreationDate="2015-12-29T08:57:23.013" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Short answer: No. But for chess, &lt;strong&gt;the answer: Yes&lt;/strong&gt;. Read on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;GPL is quite complicated. Essentially, it requires the application be open-source.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#GPLCommercially&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Can I sell a GPL project?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;You are allowed to sell copies of the modified program commercially, but only under the terms of the GNU GPL. Thus, for instance, you must&#xA;  make the source code available to the users of the program as&#xA;  described in the GPL, and they must be allowed to redistribute and&#xA;  modify it as described in the GPL.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus, it's ok to sell the Stockfish chess engine which is licensed as GPL. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Why open my source?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A crucial aspect of free software is that users are free to cooperate. It is absolutely essential to permit users who wish to help&#xA;  each other to share their bug fixes and improvements with other&#xA;  users.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In theory, whoever gets the source code could improve the engine and therefore benefit the whole community. However, in practice this has never worked well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Can I change the license to something more restrictive?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;No. The GPL says that your modified versions must carry all the&#xA;  freedoms stated in the GPL. Thus, anyone who receives a copy of your&#xA;  version from you has the right to redistribute copies (modified or&#xA;  not) of that version. You may not distribute any version of the work&#xA;  on a more restrictive basis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But... &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessclub.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;ICC Chess Club&lt;/a&gt; bundles their software with the Stockfish engine and I don't have their source code. Is that illegal? No.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;CHESS IS DIFFERENT&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess engine almost always runs as a separate process from the application itself, connected to the application through pipes. This is very different to traditional programming where you bundles the GPL source code within the application.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Technically, there is no need to &lt;em&gt;link&lt;/em&gt; (statically or dynamically) the GPL engine while compiling the GUI application. The engine itself is an executable that can run &lt;em&gt;independently&lt;/em&gt;. Everything in the FAQ is only valid if the application &lt;strong&gt;links&lt;/strong&gt; with the engine, if that isn't the case, there is &lt;strong&gt;no such thing&lt;/strong&gt; as GPL license restriction.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Try to download Stockfish, do you see something like Stockfish_64bits.exe? This is a working executable that is independent to whatever chess GUI you'd like to use. You can even run it directly in the terminal. The engine is not linked to any chess GUI, thus it's always legal to bundle it with a commercial non-GPL chess GUI.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can read more &lt;a href=&quot;https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/110380/call-gpl-software-from-non-gpl-software&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;What does that mean?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's perfectly legal to bundle a chess engine with a closed-source application if the engine is an independent executable. The GPL license simply don't apply here. But if you compile the engine with the application, you &lt;strong&gt;must&lt;/strong&gt; provide the source code for your entire application. For example, ICC Chess Club is allowed to distribute the Stockfish engine without providing you their source code.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-12T07:32:02.393" LastActivityDate="2015-12-29T09:03:57.730" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13229" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13150" CreationDate="2015-12-29T09:46:21.303" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Another good book on the subject is &quot;&lt;strong&gt;Comprehensive Chess Endings: Pawn Endings&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;  (original title: &quot;Шахматные окончания: Пешечные&quot;) by Yuri Averbakh and Ilia Maizelis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This book contains (among other things) thorough analyses of the following endings: pawn vs bare King, 2 pawns vs bare King,  pawn vs pawn, two pawns vs one, 3 connected pawns (unsupported) vs King.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9082" LastActivityDate="2015-12-29T09:46:21.303" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13230" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12924" CreationDate="2015-12-29T11:17:08.417" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't have Chessbase 2009 software, which is what I think you're showing, but your answer did inspire me to look deeper into the issue.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I did find that with Arena 3.5:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) right click with the mouse in the engine analysis box area.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;2) left click the first option, Configure Rybka (or whatever engine you are using).&lt;br&gt;&#xA;3) set MultiPV to 5. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9094" LastEditorUserId="9094" LastEditDate="2016-01-02T21:43:47.557" LastActivityDate="2016-01-02T21:43:47.557" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13231" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13222" CreationDate="2015-12-29T17:58:04.820" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;1. a4&lt;/code&gt; allows White to place his knight on the c4-square without having to worry about &lt;code&gt;...b5&lt;/code&gt; kicking it away because that would be too weakening for Black, because it would make the a-pawn backwards on an open file.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;1. a4&lt;/code&gt; also gains space and opens the possibility of &lt;code&gt;a5-a6&lt;/code&gt; to soften the Black queenside for the g2-bishop. If black stops this with &lt;code&gt;...a6&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;...a5&lt;/code&gt;, then Black will have a hole on b6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A knight on c4 would allow white to move his bishop to f4 to attack the black queen. If Black responds &lt;code&gt;...e5&lt;/code&gt;, this creates a permanent weakness on d6, and White can put his knight there. &lt;code&gt;...e5&lt;/code&gt; also blocks Black's bishop. The knight on c4 also takes away many squares from the black queen, so if Black does not want to weaken with ...e5, the black queen will have to go to an inactive square.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7500" LastActivityDate="2015-12-29T17:58:04.820" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13232" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13244" CreationDate="2015-12-29T18:44:51.107" Score="5" ViewCount="880" Body="&lt;p&gt;Does anyone know the difference between the 3rd and 4th edition of &quot;100 Endgames You Must Know&quot;?  I just looked at the Table Of Contents and they are identical and random pages on Amazon look the same too. I would imagine there must be some new use of the new tablebases that were completed since 2012?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9096" LastActivityDate="2017-09-28T08:48:39.140" Title="100 Endgames You Must Know - What's the difference between 3rd &amp; 4th Eds?" Tags="&lt;books&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13233" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13232" CreationDate="2015-12-29T19:49:49.643" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;More often than not, edition differences are often just edits and re-phrasings. If you have the 3rd edition, then I would not fret about getting the 4th.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9099" LastActivityDate="2015-12-29T19:49:49.643" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13234" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13232" CreationDate="2015-12-29T22:38:02.680" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Endgame books always &lt;strong&gt;contain analysis mistakes&lt;/strong&gt;, and newer editions always &lt;strong&gt;correct these mistakes&lt;/strong&gt;. So I would recommend to get up-to-date by buying the last one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you said, 7-men Lomonosov built since last edition, and probably 7-men tablebase revealed that some analyses wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.newinchess.com/support/?PageID=600&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;erreta page&lt;/a&gt;: &quot;On this Errata page we provide our readers with corrections in our books of analytical mistakes, or mistakes which might lead to misunderstandings ...&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9030" LastEditorUserId="9030" LastEditDate="2015-12-31T01:15:42.020" LastActivityDate="2015-12-31T01:15:42.020" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13237" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13238" CreationDate="2015-12-30T13:05:00.970" Score="1" ViewCount="152" Body="&lt;p&gt;Please list the differences between the game of Chess and the game of Go for engine programming in a similar format as this one:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Go:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Item 1&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Item 2&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;...&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Item 1&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Item 2&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;...&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9111" LastActivityDate="2015-12-30T22:47:41.743" Title="What are the differences between Chess and Go from the perspective of computers?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;chess-variants&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2015-12-31T10:21:17.183" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13238" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13237" CreationDate="2015-12-30T14:26:01.573" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Go:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;3 type of piece on a square (black, white, none)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;huge board (19x19)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;pieces appearing on board&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;close to 3^400 possible positions&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;13 type of pieces on a square (6 black, 6 white, none)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;smaller board (8x8)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;pieces are changing&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;less than 13^64 possible positions&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8944" LastActivityDate="2015-12-30T14:26:01.573" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13239" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13240" CreationDate="2015-12-30T14:59:52.010" Score="26" ViewCount="10918" Body="&lt;p&gt;Consider the following position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;8/7p/5K1k/8/7p/7P/5PP1/8 w - - 0 1&#xA;&#xA;1. g4 hxg3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the above postion, White plays g2-g4. The only legal move is hxg3, en passant. I heard someone say that since the en passant capture is optional, Black can refuse to play it and have the game declared a draw by stalemate. I think this is nonsense and believe that as long as there are legal moves available there's no stalemate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Who is right?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="446" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-11-10T04:27:57.170" LastActivityDate="2020-11-10T04:27:57.170" Title="When en passant is the only legal move" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;stalemate&gt;&lt;en-passant&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="13240" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13239" CreationDate="2015-12-30T15:20:01.180" Score="45" Body="&lt;p&gt;You are right, this is nonsense. From the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fide.com/fide/handbook?id=124&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE laws of chess, article 5&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The game is drawn when the player to move has no legal move and his king is not in check. The game is said to end in ‘stalemate’.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If capturing en passant is possible, it is a legal move so if it is the only option, Black is required to play the move. (Or not to move at all and lose through the clock.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-09-21T17:51:21.580" LastActivityDate="2019-09-21T17:51:21.580" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="13241" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13187" CreationDate="2015-12-30T17:18:17.483" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not a regular FICS user. I just google this up. See if it helps. &#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.freechess.org/Help/ficsfaq.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;FAQ&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Type history to see your last 10 games. The letters l, b, s indicate lightning, &#xA;  blitz, standard and the letters u and r indicate unrated and rated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If nothing helps, this should: &#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.freechess.org/contact.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;FICS support/contact page&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5653" LastActivityDate="2015-12-30T17:18:17.483" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13242" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13246" CreationDate="2015-12-30T19:15:13.593" Score="1" ViewCount="415" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was surprised to learn that you can download and use Shredder for free. I was also surprised to learn that a GUI is required and needs to be downloaded separately. I was happy to learn that you can find some decent-looking chessboard GUIs for free on the internet. My question is: once I download Shredder and the appropriate GUI, what do I need to do to get them to work together?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8134" LastActivityDate="2016-01-02T02:06:11.410" Title="Free chess engine" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="7" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13243" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13187" CreationDate="2015-12-30T21:28:38.383" Score="3" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;hstat /o &amp;lt;opponent&amp;gt;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please see &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.freechess.org/Help/HelpFiles/hstat.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this page&lt;/a&gt; for detailed explanation&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9030" LastActivityDate="2015-12-30T21:28:38.383" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13244" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13232" CreationDate="2015-12-30T22:21:37.023" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;De la Villa's &quot;100 Endgames you must know&quot;, though apparently a good book seems to have been plagued by an abundance of typos and mistakes as &lt;a href=&quot;http://streathambrixtonchess.blogspot.com.es/2012/08/sixty-memorable-annotations.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;detailed in this blogpost.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So although the culprit in this case has been the 2nd edition, maybe it does make sense to go for the latest edition. Here you can look at &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.newinchess.com/support/?PageID=600&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;the errata page&lt;/a&gt; which presumably contains errors that have now been corrected, although as I mentioned some of these corrections probably already happened in the third edition. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-12-30T22:21:37.023" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13245" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13237" CreationDate="2015-12-30T22:47:41.743" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Chess programming pretty much consists of optimising the tree search. All attempts at introducing &quot;human like knowledge&quot; into the engines have been dropped for more and more sophisticated search heuristics. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The ultimate goal in chess programming has been reached. In fact one could argue that chess programming overshot it's goal by a mile or two. Since the mid-2000s no human player stands a chance against the top engines. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Go:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Apart from searching a search tree of possible variations the latest advances in go programming have included such divers techniques as &lt;a href=&quot;http://www0.cs.ucl.ac.uk/staff/D.Silver/web/Applications_files/grand-challenge.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Monte Carlo simulations&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://arxiv.org/abs/1412.3409&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;neural networks&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The best human players are still stronger than the engines, so arguably there is still more to accomplish. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2015-12-30T22:47:41.743" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13246" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13242" CreationDate="2015-12-31T00:40:47.493" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Using GUI menu, you have to show engine filepath. Thats all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Every GUI is different but there should be something like &quot;add engine&quot; where you can browse and select engine binary file.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9081" LastEditorUserId="9081" LastEditDate="2015-12-31T00:54:39.843" LastActivityDate="2015-12-31T00:54:39.843" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13247" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13216" CreationDate="2015-12-31T05:11:41.070" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am running SCID on the front and Stockfish 6 on the back. Stockfish is running on 4 cores with a gigabyte of RAM. The computer is an Intel quad-core 3.2GHz i5, 16Gb of RAM, 64-bit OS.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am not using a tablebase. I am not sure it matters; the first move or two are the hard ones.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[title &quot;Behting study and Stockfish 6&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;8/8/7p/3KNN1k/2p4p/8/3P2p1/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Kc6 g1=Q 2.Nxh4 Qa1 3.Nhf3 Qa5 4.Kd6 Qa2 5.Kc5 Qb3 6.Kd4 Qb4 7.Kd5 c3 8.dxc3 Qxc3 9.Ke4 Qc5 10.Kd3 Qd5+ 11.Ke3 Qd1 12.Ke4 Qb1+ 13.Ke3 Qc1+ 14.Kd4 Qf4+ 15.Kd3 Qa4 16.Ke3 Qc2 17.Kd4 Qe2 18.Kd5 Qb5+ 19.Ke4 Qb7+ 20.Kd4 Qc7 21.Ke4 Qb6 22.Kd3 Qa6+ 23.Ke3 Qa3+ 24.Ke4 Qf8 25.Ke3 Qb4 26.Kd3 Qf4 27.Ke2 Qf5 28.Ke3 Qf8 29.Ke4 Qc8 30.Kd5 Qa8+ 31.Kd4 Qb7 32.Ke3 Qd5 33.Kf4 Qb7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think the &quot;no computer can solve this&quot; comment is very dated... the person who said it mentioned Anatoly Karpov...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And as requested (rudely), here's a screen shot.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/CVOhR.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/CVOhR.png&quot; alt=&quot;Behting study; screencap of Stockfish 6&amp;#39;s analysis&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2015-12-31T05:18:48.070" LastActivityDate="2015-12-31T05:18:48.070" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13249" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13242" CreationDate="2015-12-31T09:59:40.233" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Out of topic, but if you want free chess engine with ready UI and very powerful engine, I would reccommend you to use &lt;a href=&quot;https://stockfishchess.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Stockfish&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1943" LastActivityDate="2015-12-31T09:59:40.233" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13250" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2015-12-31T12:37:13.740" Score="3" ViewCount="1285" Body="&lt;p&gt;We a friend and I play chess we usually don't write down our moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It would be great if there would be chess boards which detects our moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We could play using a tablet computer, but we prefer to play with a real world chess board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there chess boards which detects the moves we do?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The board does not need to be smart.  For me it would be enough if it could act detect the moves and output the moves like a usb keyboard.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8940" LastActivityDate="2016-11-03T09:38:40.463" Title="Real Chess Board which detects the moves we do" Tags="&lt;chessboards&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13251" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13250" CreationDate="2015-12-31T13:38:28.453" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, there are boards that record moves made automatically. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.digitalgametechnology.com/index.php/products/electronic-boards?mavikthumbnails_display_ratio=2&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;This link&lt;/a&gt; should give you ample information about so called DGT-boards. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because DGT-boards are pretty expensive, maybe you want to take a look at &lt;a href=&quot;http://chesstempo.com/chess-forum/general_chess_discussion/dgt_eboards_cheap_alternatives-t2885.0.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this discussion&lt;/a&gt;, in which the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.schach-computer.info/wiki/index.php/Novag_Citrine&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Novag Citrine board computer&lt;/a&gt; is proposed as a slightly cheaper alternative.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the Novag is still too expensive, I would look further into the board computers/&lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/B000WX1FA4&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;usb-boards&lt;/a&gt;, but those probably don't recognise the pieces automatically, which means they have to pressed on the starting and ending square of each move. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastEditorUserId="4362" LastEditDate="2015-12-31T13:52:49.833" LastActivityDate="2015-12-31T13:52:49.833" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13252" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15371" CreationDate="2015-12-31T14:10:00.517" Score="10" ViewCount="1464" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm currently using chesstempo to get better at tactics, reading books on strategy, analyzing grandmasters' games, etc. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My current rating is around 1800 and I am planning to gain 200-300 points within the next couple of years. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm considering investing in a chess software either ChessBase or ChessAssistant and would very much welcome some use cases of how you use them to improve your practical skills? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15" LastEditorUserId="11202" LastEditDate="2017-04-18T04:17:57.410" LastActivityDate="2017-04-18T07:21:02.640" Title="How do people use chess software to improve their practical skills?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;learning&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;database&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13253" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13252" CreationDate="2015-12-31T15:00:55.160" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know that I, for one, have used them to tell me why a line not mentioned in the books is bad. Most books show you all viable lines of play and maybe a few dubious ones, but a book can't mention all possible variations. More often than not, my opponent will play something very early on in an opening that isn't mentioned in any of the books I have on hand and so I assume it's incorrect play but struggle to know why it's an inaccuracy and how I can punish the inaccuracy. This is where, in the absence of a seasoned pro, a computer can be useful. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let me illustrate with an example. I am a Trompowsky player and I learned most of my lines from a book by Peter Wells and a video from Andrew Martin. Together they cover a lot of material and I feel reasonably prepared to play at least passed move 8 or so. In many blitz games, however, I was frequently encountering the line:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;d4, Nf6 &lt;br&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Bg5, Ne4 &lt;br&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Bf4, g5?!&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now this &lt;i&gt;g5&lt;/i&gt; move is not listed in any material I've come across. I can probably assume it's bad or it would be mentioned as a viable line, but I couldn't come up with why it was bad over the board. Maybe with careful analysis, I could, but if you are like me, time is in short supply. I am a husband and father to 4 so I need to make good use of my time. Or, in this case, good use of the computer's time. Finally getting tired of seeing this line in view of &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol start=&quot;4&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Be5, f6&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Bg3, h5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and I'm not sure where the bishop is going to go after &lt;i&gt;h4&lt;/i&gt;. So I put the position into the computer after &lt;i&gt;4. Be5, f6&lt;/i&gt; and let it run for awhile. After some time it came up with the surprising&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol start=&quot;5&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;e3!, ...&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;threatening &lt;i&gt;Qh5#&lt;/i&gt;. I had completely missed this and always assumed that the bishop must keep on moving or retreat all the way back to &lt;i&gt;c1&lt;/i&gt; after &lt;i&gt;3. ..., g5&lt;/i&gt;. You can argue that I should have been able to find this without a computer, but the fact remains that I didn't and there are plenty of situations out there where my opponent may play something dubious but I may struggle to find out why it's dubious and what the correct response is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In sum, I think you'll find it useful to use a computer to refute variations that appear strong on the surface, but aren't mentioned in your reading material so it's not likely that they are as strong as you fear. Computers can easily find those counterintuitive moves that will shock your opponent who isn't as prepared.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8134" LastActivityDate="2015-12-31T15:00:55.160" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13254" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1003" CreationDate="2015-12-31T15:00:58.310" Score="0" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The use of anthropomorphic terminology when dealing with computing&#xA;  systems is a symptom of professional immaturity&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~evans/cs655/readings/ewd498.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;How do we tell truths that might hurt?&lt;/a&gt; by Edsger W.Dijkstra pretty much sums up the mistaken assumption underlying your question. Artificial Intelligence may be artificial but it is not intelligence in the human sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00gq1fk/episodes/guide&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;1984 Reith Lectures for the BBC the American philosopher John Searle&lt;/a&gt; explains exactly what is wrong with hard AI. The &quot;too long, didn't listen&quot; summary of his argument is &quot;Syntax is not semantics&quot; but I would nevertheless encourage you to at least listen to &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00h2clw&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;lecture 2 &quot;Beer Cans &amp;amp; Meat Machines&lt;/a&gt;&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once you've grasped what Dijkstra and Searle were saying more than 30 years ago you will recognize what is wrong with your questions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Has anyone ever written a chess program that does have insights of its&#xA;  own? That learns the game on its own?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Human beings have &quot;insights&quot; and can learn. Computers can not. Your village of primitive humans could over the centuries reproduce chess opening theory but computers not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2015-12-31T15:00:58.310" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13255" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13256" CreationDate="2015-12-31T20:58:05.167" Score="5" ViewCount="475" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have always wanted to start coding a simple chess engine. I do have basic understanding about the general architecture of such a program, but I would love to see some examples first. &#xA;Anyone have tried his hand in coding a chess engine? &#xA;can you guys suggest good online resource that is clear and organized about how to start such a project?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9126" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2016-01-01T00:34:17.020" LastActivityDate="2019-08-25T17:30:16.010" Title="Coding chess engine" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;programming&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13256" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13255" CreationDate="2015-12-31T21:29:12.033" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are some very basic chess engines which are very instructive for a beginner chess programmer. The list can be found &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessprogramming.org/Category:Open_Source&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;. This page is also has a lot of useful resources about chess programming, I recommend you to take your time reading articles on this site.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9030" LastEditorUserId="10075" LastEditDate="2019-08-25T17:30:16.010" LastActivityDate="2019-08-25T17:30:16.010" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="13257" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9620" CreationDate="2015-12-31T23:00:08.470" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As dfan mentioned in his comment, K factor, is a factor for changing convergence speed of ratings. When you win against a strong player, your rating converges to your opponents rating, after some consecutive wins, you will have the same rating with your opponent. K factor simply changes how many games you need to converge we can say. Situations where it is used:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;High K used, in first few matches of a player, to let the player reach actual Elo quickly&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Low K used, in some tournaments which has non-standard time controls&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Low K used, in matches between masters, to stabilize Elo changes.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;etc. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is no absolutely correct K value, it's really open to question how fast it should converge. But when it converges slower, Elo points are more stable. When it converges faster, people can reach their actual ratings faster. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I caused a lot of trouble to people just because of this dilemma. I had an initial rating of 1100(for some riddicilous reason, long story). And at the time my actual strength was about 1500. In time, my strength went up to 1900 but my rating was about 1400. Just because of this, my opponents lost lots of points(unfairly). I remember a game when I was 1300 something, and I won against a 2000 player. He lost a lot of points, and was very sad. If I were 1900, penalty would be much more less.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9030" LastEditorUserId="9030" LastEditDate="2015-12-31T23:36:10.837" LastActivityDate="2015-12-31T23:36:10.837" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13258" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13260" CreationDate="2015-12-31T23:25:41.373" Score="2" ViewCount="842" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have an android phone, and I have the Chess Free app. It is nice in that you can set the computer difficulty level and record games, and even play against another human, but it severely lacks analysis features. I've been having problems finding a good chess analysis program with analysis features on android. Does anyone have any good suggestions? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7797" LastActivityDate="2016-01-30T19:27:44.610" Title="What is a good chess engine to play against on an android phone?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;engines&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13260" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13258" CreationDate="2015-12-31T23:37:36.277" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.petero.droidfish&amp;amp;hl=en&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Droidfish&lt;/a&gt; app on Android is what you need. It has professional level GUI(with sophisticated analysis functions) with Stockfish engine pre-installed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9030" LastActivityDate="2015-12-31T23:37:36.277" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13262" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13216" CreationDate="2016-01-01T14:55:01.953" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This has turned into a hot discussion... I take it positively because we need more traffic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm confident all the well written engines will give Kc6 with sufficient thinking time. That's because all other alternatives are even worse. The line starting with Kc6 is the only line that the computer finds with 2 knights vs queen. Everything else results in further material loss and therefore discarded.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since the engine is able to see Kc6 would be the only move not losing instantly, the puzzle should be considered solved.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's insane for the Stockfish engine to give a 0.00 score in this kind of position because it is simply not designed for something like this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2016-01-01T14:55:01.953" CommentCount="16" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13263" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13255" CreationDate="2016-01-01T14:58:34.950" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recommend the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.tckerrigan.com/Chess/TSCP/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;TSCP&lt;/a&gt; chess engine. The implementation is a plain alpha-beta with no optimisation, thus it'll be easy for you to study. Furthermore, the board representation is array-based (stronger engines usually use bitboard), so it shouldn't be a very challenging task for you to go through the move generation code.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2016-01-01T14:58:34.950" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13264" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-01-01T16:14:26.450" Score="1" ViewCount="370" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was watching a &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQofyVG4ZYY&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;YouTube video&lt;/a&gt; which explains the &lt;code&gt;1. e4 Nc6 2. Nf3&lt;/code&gt; line of the Nimzowitsch Defence. In that video, the presenter was talking as if after &lt;code&gt;9... Nd4&lt;/code&gt;, white did not have any good move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;[StartPly &quot;18&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 Nc6 2. Nf3 f5 3. exf5 d5 4. Nh4 e5 5. Qh5+ g6 6. fxg6 Nf6 7. g7+ Nxh5 8. gxh8=Q Qxh4 9. Qxh7 Nd4 10. Na3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I find that &lt;code&gt;10.Na3&lt;/code&gt; is a better move for white than &lt;code&gt;10. Qxc7&lt;/code&gt;  which was presented in the video. It prevents both &lt;code&gt;10... Qe4+&lt;/code&gt; and also &lt;code&gt;10... Nc2+&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please share your opinions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2002" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2016-01-01T19:49:55.080" LastActivityDate="2016-01-01T19:49:55.080" Title="Nimzowitsch Defence - 1. e4 Nc6 2. Nf3 variation" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13265" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13264" CreationDate="2016-01-01T17:38:01.940" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;White loses if plays Na3, because Black is threatening with mate via Qe4. Black gains access to e4 with Bf5 move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;r1b1kb2/ppp4Q/8/3pp2n/3n3q/8/PPPP1PPP/RNB1KB1R w KQq - 1 10&#xA;&#xA;1. Na3 Bf5 $19 {Black is threatening with Qe4, which leads to mate or tons of material gain} 2. Bb5+ {To clear escaping square f1 for King, with tempo} (2. Qxc7?? Qe4+ 3. Kd1 Bg4 4. f3 Bxf3 5. gxf3 Qxf3 6. Ke1 Qe4 7. Kd1 Be7 {White is defenseless, Bh4 coming}) c6 3. Qxb7 Qe4+ 4. Kf1 cxb5&#xA;5. Qxa8+ Kf7 6. Qxa7+ Be7 {White has no defense}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9030" LastActivityDate="2016-01-01T17:38:01.940" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13266" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13216" CreationDate="2016-01-01T17:45:40.133" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;For the record, the soundness of the Behting study has been under a cloud for some time because it is not easy to refute 1 Ng7+ Kg5 2 Nf3+ Kg4 3 Kf5 h3 4 Ke4 g1Q 5 Nxh6+ Kh5 6 Nxg1 h2 7 Nf3 h1Q 8 Nf5 &quot;etc.&quot;, but according to &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.chessbase.com/post/john-nunn-the-behting-study-is-sound&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;recent analysis by GM John Nunn&lt;/a&gt; (2012) the study is sound after all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It should be feasible for a chess engine to reach a 0.00 evaluation because there are only a few thousand drawing positions that need to be evaluated (depending on wK/bQ position, with or without the c/d pawns), and once the search has exhausted that space they'll all evaluate to a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's a similar challenge:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;NDE 1986 (2nd Prize, Israel Ring 1986)&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;5k2/1n6/1p3K2/P7/1P2N3/p1P2B2/8/2b5 w - - 0 0&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;White to move and draw.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Solution:&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt; 1 a6 a2 2 axb7 Bf4 3 Ng5! Bb8! (a1Q 4 Ne6+ Kg8! 5 Nxf4 Qxc3+ 6 Kf5 and Black can't win; 3 . . . Bd6 4 Ne6+ Kg8 5 Nc7! Bxc7 6 Bc4+ draws.  So the Bishop crosses the critical square c7, which however White can exploit too:) 4 Nh7+! Ke8 5 Bc6+ Kd8 6 Ng5 Kc7 7 b5! a1Q (Kd6!? 8 Ne4+ Kc7 9 Ng5 repeating) 8 Nf7! positional draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8860" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-01-01T18:36:16.423" LastActivityDate="2016-01-01T18:36:16.423" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13267" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13285" CreationDate="2016-01-01T19:35:53.193" Score="0" ViewCount="455" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just started using Tarrasch so I am learning how it works.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I usually play on chess.com and after the game I ask for the computer analysis which usually when an annotation is added it first adds the variation that should have been played and then the best variation after the actual move something like the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;12.Ng5 Ng4??  ( 12... Qe7 13. Nb1 h6 14. Nf3 b6 15. Nc3 Ba6 16. Nb5 )  ( 12... Ng4 13. Nxe6 Qe7 14. Nxf8 Kxf8 15. Bxd5 Ndf6 16. Bc4 )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I am adding it exactly like this on Tarrasch but when I select only the first variation and do a &quot;Promote comment to moves&quot; it seems to change all the comment but only the first variation is playable, the second one remains as just text and is not considered as moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I tried to select the second variation and do a &quot;Promote variation&quot; but it changed all of the rest of the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just to make sure I am being clear I want to add at least two variations for a specific move in my annotations and I haven't been able to figure out how to do it with Tarrasch.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4327" LastActivityDate="2016-01-03T15:12:34.617" Title="Using Tarrasch Chess GUI to annotate" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;annotation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13268" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4188" CreationDate="2016-01-01T23:46:14.100" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;An easy solution in C++:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    #include &amp;lt;urlmon.h&amp;gt;&#xA;&#xA;    #pragma comment(lib, &quot;urlmon.lib&quot;)&#xA;&#xA;    const int firstnumber = 920, lastnumber = 1104;&#xA;    const char * const Spath = &quot;http://www.theweekinchess.com/zips/twic&quot;; // source path&#xA;    const char * const Dpath = &quot;C:\\Users\\&amp;lt;username&amp;gt;\\Downloads\\twic\\&quot;; // destination path&#xA;&#xA;    void main()&#xA;    {&#xA;        int x;&#xA;&#xA;        for (x = firstnumber; x &amp;lt;= lastnumber; ++x)&#xA;            URLDownloadToFile(nullptr, (Spath + std::to_string(x) \&#xA;    + &quot;g.zip&quot;).c_str(), (Dpath + std::to_string(x) + &quot;.zip&quot;).c_str(), 0, nullptr);&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;    }&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A powershell unzip script:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;$shell = new-object -com shell.application&#xA;&#xA;for ($x = 920; $x -le 1103; $x+=1) {&#xA;&#xA;    $zip = $shell.NameSpace(“C:\Users\&amp;lt;username&amp;gt;\Downloads\twic\$x.zip”)&#xA;&#xA;    foreach($item in $zip.items())&#xA;    {&#xA;        $shell.Namespace(“C:\Users\&amp;lt;username&amp;gt;\Downloads\twic”).copyhere($item)&#xA;    }&#xA;&#xA;}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A simple command line pgn file merge: &lt;code&gt;copy *.pgn twic.pgn&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7500" LastEditorUserId="7500" LastEditDate="2016-01-02T00:03:40.247" LastActivityDate="2016-01-02T00:03:40.247" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13269" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13242" CreationDate="2016-01-02T02:06:11.410" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You have to use &lt;a href=&quot;http://es.lichess.org/analysis&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://es.lichess.org/analysis&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;It´s free and good.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5691" LastActivityDate="2016-01-02T02:06:11.410" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13270" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12609" CreationDate="2016-01-02T04:33:15.017" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a combination of PGN Mentor and TWIC files: &lt;a href=&quot;http://gorgonian.weebly.com/pgn.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://gorgonian.weebly.com/pgn.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7500" LastActivityDate="2016-01-02T04:33:15.017" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13271" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12609" CreationDate="2016-01-02T11:56:11.453" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have some special prepared PGN files for my chess apps. You can download those files:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://smallchess.com/Games/World%20Championship.pgn&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;World Chess Championship&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://smallchess.com/Games/Magnus%20Carlsen.pgn&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Magnus Carlsen&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://smallchess.com/Games/Jose%20Raul%20Capablanca.pgn&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;J.R Capablanca&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The download site is &lt;a href=&quot;http://smallchess.com/Games/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;, please note the purpose of the site is to provide easy-to-download games for my iOS app users.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2016-01-02T11:56:11.453" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13273" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13274" CreationDate="2016-01-02T23:54:33.257" Score="2" ViewCount="585" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you want to determine whether a player is in check I think you would:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.1) determine every legal move of the opposition;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.2.) determine whether such a move threatens our king (i.e. could 'take' the king)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To determine 1.1) above you need to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.1.) consider every active piece of the opposition and its possible moves;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.2.) see whether that move conforms to a valid type of move (i.e. moves likes a castle,knight etc)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.3.) confirm that such a move doesn't place the opposition in check (otherwise it's not a valid move)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yet 2.3 requires us to go back to 1.1-in order to determine whether the opposition's move is not check (and thus valid) we need to consider all the possible moves of our side (the side which we wanted to determine if it was in check originally).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems that this leads to some horrible circular dependency. Obviously, it doesn't as otherwise chess wouldn't be a game!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Where am I going wrong?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9139" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-12-06T16:14:44.743" LastActivityDate="2020-12-06T16:14:44.743" Title="Why is the definition of check not circular?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;terminology&gt;&lt;check&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="13274" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13273" CreationDate="2016-01-02T23:59:42.137" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;A move can be illegal because the opponent could &quot;take&quot; the king. This &quot;taking the king&quot; move does not need to be &quot;legal&quot;. See &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/2348/can-a-piece-pinned-to-my-king-put-the-opponents-king-in-check?rq=1&quot;&gt;Can a piece pinned to my king put the opponent&amp;#39;s king in check?&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/3966/is-the-king-actually-in-check-if-the-attacking-piece-cannot-be-moved?rq=1&quot;&gt;Is the king actually in check if the attacking piece cannot be moved?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7500" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.193" LastActivityDate="2016-01-02T23:59:42.137" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13275" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13273" CreationDate="2016-01-03T00:45:31.970" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think you are taking it too hard.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why not simply think like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Simulate all possible next moves by same side&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If, in any resulting position in simulation, king is missing(captured) go to 4&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;King is not in check, go to 5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;King is in check&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;End&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why this works? Because if king is in check, it means if the same side plays again(plays double times) it can capture the king. So if it can capture the king by playing double moves, then it means opponent was in check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, assume it's Black to move again(plays double move):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;rnb1kbnr/pppp1ppp/8/4p3/6Pq/5P2/PPPPP2P/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 1 3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Enumerate all possible moves. Now check all resulting positions, is White king missing in any position? Then it means White king was in check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9030" LastEditorUserId="9030" LastEditDate="2016-01-03T04:43:01.393" LastActivityDate="2016-01-03T04:43:01.393" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13277" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13273" CreationDate="2016-01-03T07:20:59.750" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Generally speaking, the most &quot;expensive&quot; part of chess programs is generating all legal moves from a certain position.  Anything that can be done to avoid that is usually done because it speeds everything up significantly.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In order to find out whether a move is check or not, you can do several relatively simple checks (all of these are simple addition in most board coordinate systems).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;See if the king is a rook's move away from enemy rooks or queens&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;See if the king is a bishop's move away from enemy bishops or queens&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;See if the king is a knight's move away from enemy knights&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;See if the king is diagonally adjacent to enemy pawns&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By changing the thinking to start with the king's position, it makes some of these determinations far more simple.  Another note is that most programs have an explicit variable set for the king's position because it's used quite frequently and there is always a single king for each side.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a note, this same routine is called to see if a piece is pinned when generating legal moves.  After the move is &quot;made&quot;, if the friendly king is attacked then the move was illegal.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12" LastActivityDate="2016-01-03T07:20:59.750" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13278" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13279" CreationDate="2016-01-03T07:41:59.967" Score="2" ViewCount="1525" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the first piece I should move as a novice chess player when beginning the game on the white side as a defensive strategy?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user9143" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2016-01-03T10:43:14.177" LastActivityDate="2016-07-12T05:58:29.113" Title="Which piece should I move and where should I move it when playing against black in chess when I have the first move of the game?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;beginner&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13279" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13278" CreationDate="2016-01-03T08:03:41.590" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is no magical move that will solve your opening problems. But if you learn &lt;strong&gt;opening principles&lt;/strong&gt; you can find the correct moves for solving your problems your own. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I recommend you to read this: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/article/view/the-principles-of-the-opening&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.chess.com/article/view/the-principles-of-the-opening&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also found this video quite entertaining: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNO9KCloLRE&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNO9KCloLRE&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also check these &lt;strong&gt;opening traps&lt;/strong&gt;: &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_chess_traps&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_chess_traps&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9030" LastEditorUserId="9030" LastEditDate="2016-01-03T10:12:20.300" LastActivityDate="2016-01-03T10:12:20.300" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13280" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13286" CreationDate="2016-01-03T11:41:18.330" Score="1" ViewCount="795" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is it possible that world's most famous and most popular chess server &lt;strong&gt;Playchess&lt;/strong&gt; is not available in any desktop application for &lt;code&gt;Mac OSX&lt;/code&gt;? It is possible to reach it through &lt;code&gt;Deep Fritz&lt;/code&gt; for &lt;code&gt;Windows&lt;/code&gt;, but what about the &lt;code&gt;Mac&lt;/code&gt; users? I know there is a &lt;a href=&quot;http://play.chessbase.com/js/apps/playchess/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;web-client&lt;/a&gt;, but frankly, it soo suxx it hurts to even see it, let alone try and use it. Also, I have tried e-mailing them at &lt;a href=&quot;http://support@playchess.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;support@playchess.com&lt;/a&gt; regarding this issue, but the e-mail is broken! They can't even receive an e-mail. So much from a customer support. Is anyone else confronted with this problem, and what is the right way to fight it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9145" LastActivityDate="2016-01-04T14:49:39.827" Title="Playchess client for Mac" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;macos&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13281" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13282" CreationDate="2016-01-03T14:02:03.873" Score="1" ViewCount="6576" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am learning to play chess on my computer. I have learned approximately all the rules but one rule stays vague for me thus far.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My questions are clear, though. I am putting them separated below with some little additions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;This is simple. &lt;strong&gt;How often can I castle?&lt;/strong&gt; One time, two times, x&#xA;times or till the end? I know that it can be executed if a rook and&#xA;king are at their original places. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If I am allowed to castle one time, does that imply that I can make it two times because number of rooks for each player is 2?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9148" OwnerDisplayName="Sufyan Naeem" LastEditorUserId="10867" LastEditDate="2016-08-01T15:41:33.220" LastActivityDate="2016-08-01T15:41:33.220" Title="How often can I castle?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;castling&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" ClosedDate="2016-01-03T18:07:30.737" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13282" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13281" CreationDate="2016-01-03T14:10:49.633" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can only castle once ever.  Part of the rule for castling is that you can only castle if your king has not moved.  So obviously you can never castle again, because castling entails moving your king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8731" LastActivityDate="2016-01-03T14:10:49.633" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13284" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13281" CreationDate="2016-01-03T14:40:50.623" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;FIDE Laws of Chess:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;3.8.b.1. The right to castle has been lost: a) &lt;strong&gt;if the king has already moved&lt;/strong&gt;, or b) with a rook that has already moved.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Emphasis mine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2016-01-03T14:40:50.623" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13285" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13267" CreationDate="2016-01-03T15:12:34.617" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I got in touch with Bill Forster, the developer who created the software, and this is what he replied. It worked for me so I hope it will be useful for somebody else:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I did some experiments with your use case and I admit it is hardly&#xA;  obvious how Tarrasch is handling your quite reasonable attempts - in&#xA;  fact what you are doing should really work, so sadly I must admit a&#xA;  bug.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;However there is a workaround - Start with the second variation first.&#xA;  Position the cursor just before the open parenthesis that introduces&#xA;  the second variation [so before &quot;( 12...Ng4 etc&quot;]. Then promote that&#xA;  with &quot;Promote rest of comment to moves&quot;. Hopefully that will work.&#xA;  Then promote the 12...Qe7 variation. I think this method can be&#xA;  extended to any number of these kind of &quot;peer&quot; variations (by this I&#xA;  mean variations that are not subvariations). Promote the last one&#xA;  first and work backwards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I tried this with more than two variations and going from the last to the first now as I go through the moves in all the variations the board gets updated accordingly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4327" LastActivityDate="2016-01-03T15:12:34.617" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13286" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13280" CreationDate="2016-01-03T18:16:31.360" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sadly, yes. There were times I installed Windows just because of playchess.com doesn't support other operation systems. Your options are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Installing Windows&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;with &lt;em&gt;boot camp&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;in a &lt;em&gt;virtual machine&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Installing a compability layer&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;Wine&lt;/em&gt; (free)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;Crossover&lt;/em&gt; (commercial)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Helpful links&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.howtogeek.com/187359/5-ways-to-run-windows-software-on-a-mac/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.howtogeek.com/187359/5-ways-to-run-windows-software-on-a-mac/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.davidbaumgold.com/tutorials/wine-mac/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.davidbaumgold.com/tutorials/wine-mac/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9030" LastActivityDate="2016-01-03T18:16:31.360" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13287" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2016-01-03T18:55:26.507" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2016-01-03T18:55:26.507" LastActivityDate="2016-01-03T18:55:26.507" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13288" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2016-01-03T18:55:26.507" Score="0" Body="The Modern Benoni is a chess opening that can arise from different move orders, a typical one being `1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 c5 3.d5 e6 4.Nc3 exd5 5.cxd5 d6 6.e4 g6`." OwnerUserId="1485" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2016-01-03T20:36:06.927" LastActivityDate="2016-01-03T20:36:06.927" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13289" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13297" CreationDate="2016-01-03T21:09:09.987" Score="3" ViewCount="369" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was using a phone-app called &lt;strong&gt;Chessrating&lt;/strong&gt; to get an estimation of my ELO rating. It gives me 16 chess positions and I have four attempts to find the best move. There were some positions that I did not understand the app's move choice. &lt;strong&gt;Why are those the best moves in the given positions? Is the app correct on all of them?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These are the 7 positions that I didn't understand, out of about 50 positions I played. They are all about sacrifices, except positions 4 and 7.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I realize that if the sacrifice is accepted, some attacking chances show up, but I can't find a winning follow-up, and in the end, to me it looks like the player is just down the sacrifice.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Of course, it is not obligatory to accept the sacrifice, and for that reason I don't see some of those sacrifices as winning. For the moves to be really winning, they must be winning in both cases (if either the sac is accepted or declined).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Position 1 - Black to play, why Rh2?&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1r2k2r/p4pp1/2n1p3/q2pP1N1/3P1PB1/1Pb5/P1Q5/1K1R2R1 b - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My thoughts: after Qxh2, maybe black could play Rxb3+, but I don't see a checkmate follow-up, so it looks like black will be down a Rook.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Position 2 - White to play, why Re8?&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;r1bq4/1p4kp/3p1n2/p4pB1/2pQ4/8/1P4PP/4RRK1 w - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My thoughts: I think there is no problem with black accepting the rook sacrifice, by Qxe8. Of course black can then take the Knight on f6 with check, but I don't see a checkmate follow-up, so it seems to me that white would be down an exchange.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Position 3 - White to play, why Nd7?&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;2rq1rk1/1b2bppp/p1n5/1p1BN3/5B2/P7/1P3PPP/R2Q1RK1 w - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My thoughts: This time, I realize that if black accepts the knight sacrifice, they will lose their Queen in a follow-up tactic. But black could just decline the sacrifice with Re8, and I don't see a winning follow-up for white.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Position 4 - White to play, why Bf6+?&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;r4rk1/p6p/2q5/1p2pnB1/3p2Q1/P2P4/1P5P/R4RK1 w - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My thoughts: after black plays Kf7, I don't see any special follow-up for white, and this check doesn't seem to have anything special.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Position 5 - Black to play, why e5?&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1nr5/2rbkppp/p3p3/Np6/2PRPP2/8/PKP1B1PP/3R4 b - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My thoughts: to me it looks like white can just take with the pawn (fxe5) and I don't see nothing special going on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Position 6 - White to play, why Qh6?&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;2r2rk1/pp2pp1p/2np2p1/q4P2/2PBP1b1/2N5/PP1Q2PP/R4RK1 w - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My thoughts: after the queen goes to h6, if I was playing black I would immediately capture the bishop with the Knight, that is, Nxd4. Now I don't see any compensation for white.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Position 7 - Black to play, why Bxf3?&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;2rr2k1/p4p1p/2n3pb/2Ppp3/3Pb3/P1R1PNqP/4Q1P1/B3RB1K b - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My thoughts: to me it just looks like a simple exchange, exchanging the bishop for the knight. Of course white should take back with the pawn, because taking back with the queen leads to losing the rook. Why is this exchange considered good/useful?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;So why are those considered the best moves on those positions? Do you see a better move in each position?&lt;/strong&gt; In my opinion, a sacrifice can only be considered good if independently of the opponent accepting or declining the sacrifice, there is a good outcome. I don't want to hope that my opponent will play poorly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;(I know this is a long question, should I split it in several (seven) questions instead?)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8235" LastActivityDate="2016-03-29T05:42:49.827" Title="Why are these sacrifices good moves? What are the winning follow-ups?" Tags="&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;middlegame&gt;&lt;sacrifice&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13290" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13300" CreationDate="2016-01-03T21:49:50.637" Score="10" ViewCount="2607" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know solving tactics puzzles is one of the recommended ways to improve in chess. I spend around 30 min solving puzzles. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How much time I should spend on one puzzle? &#xA;During games we don't think 15-20 min on one move (of course depends on a stage of the game) So I though same should apply for solving puzzles. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Would it be better for growth to spend max 5 min or better to to try to solve puzzle even if it takes say 20 min?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9151" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2016-01-03T22:32:30.117" LastActivityDate="2016-01-04T08:29:04.880" Title="How much time you spend on one puzzle?" Tags="&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;puzzles&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13291" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13289" CreationDate="2016-01-03T22:06:52.183" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe that I can answer about position two, but I don't have time to analyze the others at the moment. After the rook goes in as a sacrifice, do QxF6 instead or BxF6. The only move the king has is to retreat to G8. White plays BH6 to set up for QG7 mate. To survive, Black must play either QF7 or QG6 in order to capture something. If QG6, white can play QF8 mate. If QG6, then white plays QD8 and it is not great for black. He must block with the queen, and will lose her either of the two squares she can block at (E8 or F8). E8, white captures for mate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: Position four doesn't look like much, perhaps it just wants you to win the knight?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9152" LastEditorUserId="9152" LastEditDate="2016-01-03T22:25:23.657" LastActivityDate="2016-01-03T22:25:23.657" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13292" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13290" CreationDate="2016-01-03T22:20:30.567" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's like learning in school. Some people can just learn things by having people saying it to them. Others are more hands on. If you can learn from someone giving you the answer, then give up whenever you want and just look at the computer solution. If you learn better by hands on things and finding the solution, don't quit too early.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, the computer's solution may not be the only good move. Sometimes, it's beneficial to have backup moves in case you run out of time and need to play the move (in a real game).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9152" LastActivityDate="2016-01-03T22:20:30.567" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13293" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13290" CreationDate="2016-01-03T22:25:56.603" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think you should spend as much time as it takes for you to believe you have the answer.... hours if need be.  True, you don't spend that long on deciding moves in a real game, but over time you will get faster until you can solve the same difficulty problem in less time.  Also, calculating and looks at variations via visualization (instead of moving the pieces) is useful to your OTB play and is never a waste of time.  The more you do it, the better you will get at it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course if you're getting frustrated, and if you're spending an hour on one problem, you may want to downshift to easier problems for a while.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I will sometimes work on chesstempo problems where a single problem might take an hour, but I feel this is better than making a move in 10 mins and getting it wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="373" LastActivityDate="2016-01-03T22:25:56.603" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13294" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13290" CreationDate="2016-01-03T22:27:02.100" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;You should try to solve until you find the solution&lt;/strong&gt;. If the puzzle is hard and has concepts new to you, it will take lots of time. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I remember that I tried to solve tactical puzzles for days, and eventually solved them. &lt;strong&gt;If you solve yourself, you can be sure that you understand the concept&lt;/strong&gt;, that's very important. &lt;strong&gt;That is the thing what makes you progress&lt;/strong&gt;. If you try to solve for a few minutes and then give up and check the answer, your time and the puzzle will be probably wasted. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you think its too hard to solve in mind, you can set up a board and move the pieces. As long as you discover the solution yourself, your efforts will be rewarded.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9030" LastEditorUserId="9030" LastEditDate="2016-01-04T08:29:04.880" LastActivityDate="2016-01-04T08:29:04.880" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13295" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13289" CreationDate="2016-01-03T22:43:00.693" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I will answer for position 1 and let you do the rest yourself.  The quickest way to figure these out is with an engine... there are several free engines you can find online that will answer all of your questions for you.  That said, I'm going to try and answer your questions on Position 1 without an engine. :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well, 1. ... Rh2 looks really powerful.  The white Q is hit and white has no checks against the Black K, so white needs to address the threat.  The only ways to address the attack on the white Q are (a) move the Q or (b) block via Rg2, Be2, or Rd2.  Any Q move other than Qxh2 is bad since Black will take Qxa2+ and will soon mate.  So let's consider 2. Qxh2.  The only reasonable followup is 2. ... Rxb3+ as you noted.  If 3. axb3 Qa1+ 4. Kf2 we notice Qb2+ wins the white Q, but it cost us 2 rooks, which isn't great. So look for a better move... 4. ... Nb4 mate!  Ok, so after 2. ... Rxb3+ white cannot take the R.  But he's still up a R, so maybe he can run?  Both c2 and c1 are available after Rxb3+.  Both options look horrible though since the Black Q comes in with check and white's Q on h2 cannot get back to help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Specifically, 1. ... Rh2! 2. Qxh2 Rxb3+! 3. Kc1 Qa3+ 4. Kc2 Nb4#.  Or 3. Kc2 Qxa2+  4. Kc1 Rb1#.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ok, so after 1. ... Rh2! the rook cannot be taken, so white can try to block with 2. Rg2 or 2. Be2 or the horrible 2. Rd2.  But in every case, black just takes with the rook since the whole point is to distract the Q from guarding b3.  So white is just toast.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note: you want to try and visualize all of this without moving pieces.  Feel free to set up on a real board, but don't move anything.  This will make you stronger much faster.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="373" LastActivityDate="2016-01-03T22:43:00.693" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13296" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13289" CreationDate="2016-01-03T22:43:21.850" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Position #1 - Black has a strong attack starting with Rxb3+, except the White Queen spoils the fun with Qxb3. However 1... Rh2! decoys the White Q to &lt;code&gt;h2&lt;/code&gt;, leaving &lt;code&gt;b3&lt;/code&gt; insufficiently defended. ex: &lt;code&gt;2... Rxb3+ 3. axb3 Qa1+ 4. Kc2 Nb4#&lt;/code&gt;.  Or, if White refuses the Rook sacrifice and plays &lt;code&gt;2. Qd3&lt;/code&gt;, black exploits the double attack on &lt;code&gt;a2&lt;/code&gt; to force mate in 2: Qxa2+ followed by Qb2#.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If White defends by interposing a Bishop or Rook, black just takes it, and White has the same dilemma but with fewer pieces. Once the Queen is decoyed from the defense of &lt;code&gt;b3&lt;/code&gt;, Rxb3+ carries the day.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2016-01-03T22:43:21.850" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13297" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13289" CreationDate="2016-01-03T22:44:46.590" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a very long question. And you can use Stockfish to check tactical solutions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Solutions of all positions except the 5th ends with mate or huge material gain. In position 5, Black plays a positional sacrifice, to turn that cramped position into a nice attacking one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Position 1 - Black to play, why Rh2?&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;1r2k2r/p4pp1/2n1p3/q2pP1N1/3P1PB1/1Pb5/P1Q5/1K1R2R1 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Rh2 2. Qxh2 Rxb3 3. Kc2 (3.Kc1 Qa3 4. Kc2 Nb4#) (3. axb3 Qa1 4. Kc2 Nb4#) Qxa2 4. Kc1 Qb1#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Position 2 - White to play, why Re8?&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;r1bq4/1p4kp/3p1n2/p4pB1/2pQ4/8/1P4PP/4RRK1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Re8 Qe8 2. Qf6 Kg8 3. Bh6 Qf7 4. Qd8 Qf8 5. Qf8#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Position 3 - White to play, why Nd7?&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;2rq1rk1/1b2bppp/p1n5/1p1BN3/5B2/P7/1P3PPP/R2Q1RK1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;1. Nd7 Re8 2. Bxf7+ Kxf7 3. Qd5+ Kg6 4. g4 Bg5 ( 4... h6 5. Qf5# ) 5. Qf5+ Kh6&#xA;6. h4 g6 7. Bxg5+ Kg7 8. Bf6+ Kf7 9. Qd5+ Re6 10. Bxd8  &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Position 4 - Black to play, why Bf6?&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;r4rk1/p6p/2q5/1p2pnB1/3p2Q1/P2P4/1P5P/R4RK1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;1. Bf6+ Kf7 2. Rxf5 Ke6 3. Rxe5+ Kd6 4. Re6+ Kc7 5. Qg7+ Kb6 6. Rxc6+ Kxc6 7.&#xA;Rc1+ Kb6 8. Qc7+ Ka6 9. Rc6#  &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Position 5 - Black to play, why e5?&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;1nr5/2rbkppp/p3p3/Np6/2PRPP2/8/PKP1B1PP/3R4 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;1... e5 $1 { Black has a cramped position. White rooks are dominating d-file,&#xA;bishop and knight pressing hard on queenside. Black can't move.&#xA;&#xA;With ...e5,&#xA;sacrificing pawn, Black vacates e6 square for bishop and doubles  and isolates&#xA;White's pawns in the center. After fxe5, White's pawns are not threatening any&#xA;more.}  2. fxe5 Be6 { Now it's the Black is attacking the c4 pawn, and c2 pawn&#xA;with doubled rooks. Black turned a cramped position into attacking one with a&#xA;very clever pawn sacrifice, which ruined White's pawn formation.}  &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Position 6 - Black to play, why Qh6?&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;2r2rk1/pp2pp1p/2np2p1/q4P2/2PBP1b1/2N5/PP1Q2PP/R4RK1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;1. Qh6 Nxd4 2. Nd5 Qd8 ( 2... Rfe8 3. f6 Ne6 4. fxe7 Qc5+ 5. Kh1 Qd4 6. Nf6+&#xA;Qxf6 7. Rxf6 ) 3. Nxe7+ Qxe7 4. f6 Qxf6 5. Rxf6  &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Position 7 - Black to play, why Bxf3?&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;2rr2k1/p4p1p/2n3pb/2Ppp3/3Pb3/P1R1PNqP/4Q1P1/B3RB1K b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;1... Bxf3 2. gxf3 exd4 3. exd4 ( 3. Rcc1 Bxe3 4. Qg2 Qxg2+ 5. Kxg2 Bxc1 6. Rxc1&#xA;) 3... Nxd4 4. Qe7 ( 4. Qd1 Bf4 5. Re2 Nxe2 6. Qxe2 Re8 7. Qg2 Re1 8. Qxg3 Bxg3&#xA;9. Kg2 Rxa1 10. Kxg3 Rxf1 ) 4... Bf4 5. Re2 Nxe2 6. Qxe2 Rb8 7. Rc2 Rb1 8. Qg2&#xA;Qxg2+ 9. Kxg2 Rxa1  &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9030" LastEditorUserId="9030" LastEditDate="2016-03-29T05:42:49.827" LastActivityDate="2016-03-29T05:42:49.827" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13298" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-01-04T00:26:18.217" Score="2" ViewCount="174" Body="&lt;p&gt;My coach wants me to play 100 slow games per year (slow: G/60 or slower) against USCF 2000-2100 opposition (roughly 1930-2030 FIDE).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I just played in the U2100 North American Open last week, which was good for 7 games, but traveling and paying high entry fees is a tough way to get games.  Playing slow games online is difficult because no one wants to sit for 5 hours online, not to mention the chances of running into cheaters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, I live in Boulder CO which is a pretty dead chess scene, so finding live opposition is quite difficult.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the &quot;best&quot; way to find training partners, either live or via video Skype (to forestall cheating and give a &quot;live&quot; feeling) in the proper rating range?  It doesn't seem USCF publishes email lists of players, so it's difficult to reach out to their members.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="373" LastActivityDate="2016-01-04T00:53:23.343" Title="How to find training games?" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;training&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13299" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13298" CreationDate="2016-01-04T00:46:38.900" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is an online chess league, &lt;a href=&quot;http://anclchess.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;All Nations Chess League&lt;/a&gt;, pretty much the same as a regular chess league, but online. I used to play there 7 years ago, at the time they were playing league matches on playchess.com, probably the same today too. ANCL community was quite respected in playchess.com. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And about cheat: They are investigating games upon complaint, there are statistical techniques to reveal cheaters. But it rarely happens in ANCL. All the players there are real chess fans, they simply don't play for cheating. After all, who would like to spend tons of time playing chess to cheat? It's not like cheating in a blitz game, a cheater wouldn't devote that much time to chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I recommend you to play there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9030" LastEditorUserId="9030" LastEditDate="2016-01-04T00:53:23.343" LastActivityDate="2016-01-04T00:53:23.343" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13300" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13290" CreationDate="2016-01-04T06:54:52.713" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;For me, I'll at least start by bashing on it until I think I've solved it. If I get totally stuck, like &quot;I just don't see anything useful to do in this position at all...&quot;), I will put it down and come back to it later - sometimes after a few hours, sometimes the next day or a couple days later.  Sometimes in that situation, even if I spend 20 or 30 minutes searching for a solution but not finding anything, I will occasionally see it right away the next time I look at it.  If I go through a couple of cycles of this and still can't find a solution, I will assume I'm just not going to find it in any finite amount of time, and will abandon the search and look at the solution.  This is actually very instructive for me most of the time, it usually shows me something I just wasn't considering at all, and next time I see a position like that I remember because of all the time I spent staring at the problem that I couldn't solve.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The more common problem for me is when I look at a problem and think I solved it, then I look at it more to make sure I solved it and can't find a better move, and then I look at the solution - and I'm wrong...  Often because I missed something totally obvious, like I've hung a piece, or missed a mate threat, or didn't notice from the position that I was actually in check to start with...  Unfortunately, with problems in a book, in that situation all you can do is read the solution, try to understand why your proposed solution was wrong, and learn from that.  If you're working on a problem using some kind of software, at least it will usually tell you, no that's not the answer, try again - without revealing what the answer actually is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the end, I guess it really does depend on how you learn best, and to some extent how much time you can devote to study.  In my case, my study time is limited, and I just can't afford to get stuck indefinitely on one problem, I need to be able to use the time I have to look at as many problems as I can, and learn what I can from them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7147" LastActivityDate="2016-01-04T06:54:52.713" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13301" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13280" CreationDate="2016-01-04T14:49:39.827" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's annoying, Chessbase abandoned the Mac sometime ago.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However their web based client works reasonably well as long as you're not playing bullet games:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://play.chessbase.com/js/apps/playchess/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://play.chessbase.com/js/apps/playchess/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm guessing they're hedging their bets on migrating to web based services so I doubt we'll ever see a Mac client.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The other alternative is using the Windows client through something like Parallels.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3417" LastActivityDate="2016-01-04T14:49:39.827" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13302" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-01-04T15:03:57.813" Score="13" ViewCount="2059" Body="&lt;p&gt;Interesting puzzle that is quite hard to stop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9162" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-05T01:13:22.923" LastActivityDate="2020-04-05T01:13:22.923" Title="What is the shortest number of moves from the starting position required for Black to mate White with a pawn?" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;problems&gt;&lt;pawns&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13303" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13302" CreationDate="2016-01-04T15:14:56.153" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think it is 5 moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. a3 e5 &#xA;2. a4 e4&#xA;3. a5 e3&#xA;4. a6 Bc5&#xA;5. axb7 exf2#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can't do it any shorter as you need at least 4 moves to get your pawn to the 2nd line where it can checkmate the white's king and one more move to bring a supporting piece (queen or bishop), so the white king wouldn't be able to capture your pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15" LastEditorUserId="15" LastEditDate="2016-01-04T18:09:15.437" LastActivityDate="2016-01-04T18:09:15.437" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13304" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13302" CreationDate="2016-01-04T18:40:26.433" Score="22" Body="&lt;p&gt;4 moves, as far as I can tell.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e3 e5 2. Ke2 Qh4 3. Kf3 d6 4. Qe2 e4#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another one:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. d3 d5 2. Kd2 e5 3. Kc3 Be6 4. Qd2 d4#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And one more:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e3 e5 2. Ke2 d5 3. Kd3 Qf6 4. Qe2 e4#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Same theme for all of them, really.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3831" LastEditorUserId="3831" LastEditDate="2016-01-04T19:06:57.527" LastActivityDate="2016-01-04T19:06:57.527" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13305" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4170" CreationDate="2016-01-04T18:51:39.547" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I switched to OSX I noticed that Babaschess would not run. Since I am a developer I started creating my own client.. Please, have a look and let me know what you think. It doesn't support chess engines to analyze positions, but saves your games as pgn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.macbeth-ficsclient.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.macbeth-ficsclient.com/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9164" LastActivityDate="2016-01-04T18:51:39.547" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13307" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4223" CreationDate="2016-01-04T20:47:40.080" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is one exception to the wrong-colored bishop draw:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;8/7B/5k1P/8/8/5K2/8/8 w - - 0 0&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Kf4 Kf7 2. Kf5 Kf8 3. Kg6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However if it's Black's move, he draws by attacking the pawn:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;8/7B/5k1P/8/8/5K2/8/8 b - - 0 0&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Kg5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7500" LastActivityDate="2016-01-04T20:47:40.080" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13308" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15383" CreationDate="2016-01-04T22:23:02.873" Score="6" ViewCount="2642" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can my chess &quot;thinking&quot; (positional, tactical, strategic thinking, etc.) improve by watching grandmasters' games regularly? Of course, this is in addition to regular games/tactics solving etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As an example, when learning any foreign language, it's a good practice to watch movies and listen to language as much as possible. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm interested in pattern matching, as my brain is very good at it. I think that by constantly watching high-quality games one can develop knowledge of the best moves/strategies/tactics. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Has anyone applied this technique or has an opinion on this? Cheers&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9151" LastEditorUserId="7500" LastEditDate="2016-01-04T22:52:12.407" LastActivityDate="2020-02-22T15:01:17.043" Title="Can watching grandmasters' games improve my chess 'thinking'?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;training&gt;&lt;master-games&gt;&lt;preparation&gt;&lt;famous-games&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13309" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8751" CreationDate="2016-01-04T22:47:02.940" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If Black captures the knight, and you recapture with the B on d5, you &quot;fork&quot; the rook on a8 and the pawn on f7. Taking the latter leads to a strong attack (more on this in the next paragraph), so Black's best move is probably 11. ... Be6, protecting the f pawn and indirectly the rook, but allowing you to capture the rook. After Black recaptures with the Q, you have a rook and two pawns (one of them passed on the c file) for a Bishop and Knight. You also have superior development, and moves like 12. R e1 or 12. Qd6 or 12. c3 give Black a hard time. With your advantage in development, you should be able to transition into a favorable endgame with a dominant queenside, where the passed c pawn will win for you. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If Black rescues the rook with b8, you play B xf7+. Black can't capture without losing the queen so he plays Ke7. You play Re1+, Black is forced to play Be6. You play BxBe6+, with three extra pawns and a strong attack against an exposed king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastEditorUserId="17" LastEditDate="2016-01-04T22:52:55.720" LastActivityDate="2016-01-04T22:52:55.720" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13310" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13308" CreationDate="2016-01-04T23:05:46.070" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Depends on your strength.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are able to understand what's going on in the game, then yes. But if you feel like watching a mystery thriller, then no. To learn and improve yourself, first you should understand what's going on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, I would advice 1800+ FIDE players to watch and analyze GM games. And I would advice 1600- players to not to lose time with it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9030" LastActivityDate="2016-01-04T23:05:46.070" CommentCount="13" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13311" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-01-04T23:15:03.150" Score="2" ViewCount="115" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was wondering if this beautiful situation has ever happened in a real-life game, especially in a competition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Has anyone ever escaped check with checkmate? That is: has anyone ever, after being checked, decided to checkmate instead of running with the king?&lt;/strong&gt; If yes, who, when, in what tournament, in what position?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are thinking this is impossible, you are wrong! I created this beautiful example (that relies on a blunder by Black, but is still the most beautiful move sequence I've ever seen):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;3rkr2/4q3/7Q/8/8/1B5K/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Ba4+ Qd7+?? 2. Qe6#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I had never seen check-check-checkmate like this before.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, in this example, black is winning, and has better options than Qd7+, but I am sure a more complicated position can be arranged in which black is in a lost position anyway.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8235" LastActivityDate="2016-01-04T23:15:03.150" Title="Has anyone ever (beautifully!) escaped check with checkmate?" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;check&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="0" ClosedDate="2016-01-04T23:21:56.713" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13313" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-01-05T09:23:39.643" Score="-5" ViewCount="1423" Body="&lt;p&gt;Checkmate means king is in trap and there is no way out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it is my turn and opponent's king has a way out from trap, am I said to win the game? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: Suppose my rook is in the adjacent column w.r.t opponent's king and I move my rook so that it is in the same column with free space by the position of King. Opponent somehow doesn't observe the check and make a move that can't break my check. Now, it's my turn and Let king has all 6 ways out from the check. But after alll it's my turn so is King checkmated or not?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9148" LastEditorUserId="9148" LastEditDate="2016-01-05T09:43:45.317" LastActivityDate="2017-11-01T00:22:52.537" Title="What does checkmate actually mean?" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;kings&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="10" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13314" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13313" CreationDate="2016-01-05T10:02:37.907" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Checkmate means &lt;em&gt;shāh māt&lt;/em&gt; in Persian, i.e. &lt;em&gt;the King is helpless&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This means 2 conditions must be met:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The enemy king is in check&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;There are no legal moves to get the king out of check, e.g. there are no moves to capture the checking piece(s), or to move the king away or to block the check&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;N.B. When considering whether the king can get out of check, note that castling is not a legal move, as a king cannot castle into, out of, or through check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The situation you describe seems to have been a mistake, made through a combination of illegal moves. In this case, there are 2 options:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Restore the last legal position, which is what I would recommend for friendly games&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In a tournament setting, illegal moves may result in a loss for the player making the illegal moves. Check with the arbiter in this case&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2016-01-05T10:02:37.907" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13315" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13316" CreationDate="2016-01-05T11:05:59.063" Score="3" ViewCount="1087" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to Wikipedia, when a pawn advances to the eighth rank, the pawn is promoted as a part of the move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, this doesn't make it clear whether I am obliged to promote the pawn if it gets to the eighth rank.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9174" LastEditorUserId="20620" LastEditDate="2020-03-14T21:01:51.400" LastActivityDate="2020-03-14T21:01:51.400" Title="Is pawn promotion obligatory?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;pawns&gt;&lt;pawn-promotion&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="13316" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13315" CreationDate="2016-01-05T11:19:17.517" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, it is obligatory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From FIDE's Laws of Chess §3.7e (&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=171&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Link&lt;/a&gt;):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;e. When a player, having the move, plays a pawn to the rank furthest from its starting position, he must exchange that pawn as part of the same move for a new queen, rook, bishop or knight of the same colour on the intended square of arrival.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1485" LastActivityDate="2016-01-05T11:19:17.517" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13317" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13308" CreationDate="2016-01-05T19:37:08.407" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess &quot;thinking&quot; is first and foremost a skill. As such it has to be practiced actively. Passively acquired knowledge will only flesh out what you already can do, it will not improve your chess all that much. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course if you try to follow all the variations of the commentators and constantly come up with variations on your own, you will benefit from watching games, thought the level of these games probably doesn't have much of an influence on the training effect. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Generally improvement happens outside your comfort zone. If it doesn't feel like you put something into it, you probably wont get anything out of it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2016-01-05T19:37:08.407" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13319" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="902" CreationDate="2016-01-05T19:56:34.867" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;For many years, nearly all professional chess programmers have tested code changes &lt;a href=&quot;https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Texel%27s+Tuning+Method&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;by running many blitz games&lt;/a&gt; to see whether their changes have improved engine performance.  &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.genetic-programming.org/hc2014/David-Paper.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Here's a paper&lt;/a&gt; describing a genetic programming technique across many blitz games.  Stockfish programmers follow this same method in conjunction with &lt;a href=&quot;http://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Fishtest&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stockfish programmers typically test proposed changes by running many fast games with tight time controls.  If the proposed changes show a benefit, then the change is submitted for testing at tournament time controls.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stockfish is not unique in this regard.  Nearly all professional or semi-professional engines were tuned at blitz time controls first, and then at tournament controls.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, in short, because of the way that most chess engines are tuned, I personally feel your supposition is incorrect -- I feel it is more likely that the &quot;most efficient&quot; chess engine will be the best performing engine at any time control.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;tl:dr; &lt;a href=&quot;https://stockfishchess.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;use Stockfish&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: Not sure why my answer is getting downvoted here.  As further evidence that what I'm saying is correct, please check out the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.computerchess.org.uk/ccrl/404/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;CCRL 40/4&lt;/a&gt; and the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.computerchess.org.uk/ccrl/4040/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;CCRL 40/40&lt;/a&gt; automated ratings lists.  If you compare the two lists you will see that the strongest performers in the 40/40 list are almost exactly the same strongest performers in the 40/4 list.  And there is no engine that has an incredible performance jump at tournament vs. blitz controls -- they all typically remain within about 50 ELO of their blitz ratings at long time controls.  To me, that is clear evidence of a critical connection between blitz engine &quot;efficiency&quot; and tournament engine &quot;efficiency&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want a toy engine to hack on, here is my &lt;a href=&quot;http://chess.johnbyrd.org&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Superpawn&lt;/a&gt; engine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5702" LastEditorUserId="5702" LastEditDate="2016-02-10T00:36:13.580" LastActivityDate="2016-02-10T00:36:13.580" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13320" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-01-05T21:02:28.997" Score="1" ViewCount="455" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you have two queens (original and one promoted) on board and the original queen is captured....can you promote your next pawn at the eight rank to queen again?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9181" LastEditorUserId="3831" LastEditDate="2016-01-06T07:22:00.780" LastActivityDate="2016-01-06T07:22:00.780" Title="Question on promoting pawns to queens" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;pawn-promotion&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13321" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13320" CreationDate="2016-01-05T21:18:57.653" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, you can.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=171&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Fide rules of chess&lt;/a&gt; 3.7.e):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When a player, having the move, plays a pawn to the rank furthest from its starting position, he must exchange that pawn as part of the same move for a new queen, rook, bishop or knight of the same colour on the intended square of arrival.&#xA;This is called the square of ‘promotion’. &lt;strong&gt;The player's choice is not restricted to pieces that have been captured previously.&lt;/strong&gt; This exchange of a pawn for another piece is called promotion, and the effect of the new piece is immediate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(bold by me)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2016-01-05T21:18:57.653" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13322" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14500" CreationDate="2016-01-05T22:04:50.733" Score="21" ViewCount="3466" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there any position, where moving a pawn to last rank but not promoting it to any piece would be the best move?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, I know this is an illegal move. Assume it is legal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit:&lt;/strong&gt; Now we have a nice answer from Dag Oskar which ends with stalemate. That's good. But I wonder, if there is winning position, winning by not promoting, and the only winning move is not promoting.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit #2:&lt;/strong&gt; I think a winning position is impossible, as this seems to be occurable when opponent stalemates with promotion. If opponent is not stalemating, then there is no point of not promoting anyway. But if opponent stalemates with a knight, then bishop or rook doesn't stalemate, and etc. It's impossible to have a position where knight, bishop and rook stalemates. So, in every such position, there will be a correct promotion. Not promoting won't be the best move anyway. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, I'm accepting the answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit #3:&lt;/strong&gt; Rosie F's answer demonstrates that it's possible to win with a 'not promoting move'. It's very entertaining to see it's possible. Thanks for the effort.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9030" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-05T01:13:37.843" LastActivityDate="2021-05-02T16:41:55.797" Title="Is there any position where not promoting(illegally) would be the best move?" Tags="&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;problems&gt;&lt;pawn-promotion&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="13323" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13322" CreationDate="2016-01-05T22:21:32.140" Score="28" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is an example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;8/4P3/8/4p1p1/2p3Pp/p4p1K/k1p2P1P/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;1. e8&lt;/code&gt; leads to stalemate next move, while all legal promotions lose to &lt;code&gt;1... c1=Q&lt;/code&gt; followed by &lt;code&gt;2... Qf1#&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1485" LastActivityDate="2016-01-05T22:21:32.140" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13324" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13325" CreationDate="2016-01-06T01:14:50.147" Score="7" ViewCount="3446" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recently switched from chess.com to&#xA;lichess.org. This was because I enjoy live chess more and it seems like can find more live chess on Lichess while it chess.com keeps you waiting. Chess.com searches for who they think is your perfect opponent whereas Lichess lets you play whoever you want.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I’ve noticed that Lichess gives more points to the winner and takes away more points from the losers, and I mean much more. I don't know if I'm correct though, but I think I am. Lichess also gives youn a higher starting rating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I'm right, then which online chess website gives the most realistic chess rating to its users?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1105" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-09-11T00:52:39.433" LastActivityDate="2020-09-11T00:52:39.433" Title="Which chess website with the most correct online rating?" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;online&gt;&lt;online-blitz&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="13325" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13324" CreationDate="2016-01-06T03:03:34.953" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;How do you define &lt;em&gt;realistic&lt;/em&gt; for chess ratings? Actually, they are all realistic. Ratings should be considered inside their own population because your rating in server X is your performance relative to other players in the same server. As it depends the population you shouldn't compare one rating to another rating in another server. But if you really want to compare your rating to another population &lt;strong&gt;approximately&lt;/strong&gt;, please see this method: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/13156/how-does-chesscube-com-rating-compare-to-uscf-and-fide-ratings/13189#13189&quot;&gt;How does Chesscube.com rating compare to USCF and FIDE ratings?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All chess rating systems follow almost same rules, but they have different &lt;em&gt;converging speeds&lt;/em&gt;. This is what you explained in your question, one server gives less on win and takes less on loss, another one gives/takes more etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a thing, K-factor, in USCF rating system for example, to tweak this converging speed from game to game. Please see this topic: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/9620/what-does-half-k-mean-in-the-uscf-tournament-rating-system/13257#13257&quot;&gt;What does &amp;quot;half-K&amp;quot; mean in the USCF tournament rating system?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you enter a rating population as a new player, you start with average rating of that population(generally). But it doesn't matter which rating you start with, even if you start from 3000, you will converge to your real rating as you play games. So, it's not about being realistic again.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And generally for all rating systems, your first 8 to 20 games will have super high converging speeds, to approximate your rating faster. After that, converging speeds drops to normal and ratings get stabilized.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, shortly, your ratings will be different in different populations, and it's totally normal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9030" LastEditorUserId="9030" LastEditDate="2017-07-21T05:54:43.813" LastActivityDate="2017-07-21T05:54:43.813" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13326" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="902" CreationDate="2016-01-06T07:49:53.703" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, the definition in the question doesn't make much sense. @johnwbyrd is correct, the 'most efficient' chess engine chess engine should be the best performing engine at any time control.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In general, the stronger the engine is the more efficient the computing resources are utilised. This is expected because a chess engine is really a fast calculator of chess moves. The more (and accurate) moves it can think, the better it becomes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A strong chess engine such as Stockfish is a brilliant example of applying computer optimisation. For example, let's take a look at how the hash table is implemented in Stockfish: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;class TranspositionTable&#xA;&#xA;  static const int CacheLineSize = 64;&#xA;  static const int ClusterSize = 3;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This definition is telling us the size of a cluster in the hash table should be evenly divided by the size of a cache line. It is a very clever optimization because it ensures no extra CPU cycle would be needed as each data transfer can only be done for each line block.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There're many other optimisation examples, such as lazy evaluation in a loop, making sure the threads have work to do etc etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, you see, a popular engine like Stockfish is highly optimised. The source code has been studied thoughtfully. I have every reason to believe Stockfish is the most optimised and efficient chess engine. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-07-20T18:24:18.570" LastActivityDate="2019-07-20T18:24:18.570" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="13327" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-01-06T12:42:22.857" Score="9" ViewCount="4674" Body="&lt;p&gt;Queen, in a sense, is equivalent to Bishop and Rook. What is the logic behind &quot;putting Rook and Bishop&quot; in the promotion move's options? Why doesn't it (Promotion move) provide the choice between Queen and Knight only? Why would one promote his Pawn to Rook or Bishop other than Queen? Promoting to Rook/Bishop instead of Queen may provide smaller advantage than promoting to Queen, and it may even provide a disadvantage to the mover. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9148" LastEditorUserId="18475" LastEditDate="2019-03-08T14:40:47.240" LastActivityDate="2019-04-19T16:19:02.040" Title="Why doesn't Promotion restrict choices to Queen and Knight only?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;pawn-promotion&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13328" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13327" CreationDate="2016-01-06T12:54:59.457" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are situations where promotion to a knight leads to draw and promotion to a queen leads to stalemate.  In these cases rook or bishop may be necessary to cash in the full point.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3529" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-04-19T16:19:02.040" LastActivityDate="2019-04-19T16:19:02.040" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="13330" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13327" CreationDate="2016-01-06T13:42:00.807" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are 3 types of piece moves in chess:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Straight&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Diagonal&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Knight-move&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are positions, where promoted piece takes away the last square that enemy king can move, and stalemates. This happens because of one of these move types.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To avoid stalemate and win eventually, you have to select a promotion which doesn't have stalemating move, which is called underpromotion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, if diagonal move stalemates, you can't select queen as it has diagonal move ability. But you can select a rook, and go for a win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example from famous Saavedra position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/8/1KP5/3r4/8/8/8/k7 w - - 1 1&quot;]&#xA;[Title &quot;Saavedra&quot;]    &#xA;&#xA;1. c7 Rd6+ 2. Kb5 Rd5+ 3. Kb4 Rd4+ 4. Kb3 Rd3+ 5. Kc2 Rd4 6. c8=Q ( 6. c8=R Rc4+&#xA;&#xA;7. Rxc4 Ka2 8. Ra4# ) (6.Kc3 Rd1 7. Kc2 Rd4) Rc4+ 7. Qxc4=/=&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9030" LastEditorUserId="9030" LastEditDate="2016-01-06T13:57:50.187" LastActivityDate="2016-01-06T13:57:50.187" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13331" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13327" CreationDate="2016-01-06T13:45:28.993" Score="26" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sometimes, choosing a bishop or a rook is the best move, because of stalemate possibilities. This happens most often with rooks, and very rarely with bishops.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance, in this famous position from the Saavedra problem:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/2P5/8/8/3r4/8/2K5/k7 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If white plays &lt;strong&gt;1.c8Q&lt;/strong&gt;, then black plays &lt;strong&gt;1...Rc4+&lt;/strong&gt;. White needs to take it or lose his queen but after &lt;strong&gt;2.Qxc4&lt;/strong&gt; it is stalemate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If instead white plays &lt;strong&gt;1.c8R&lt;/strong&gt;, the stalemate trick doesn't work and 2.Ra8+ with checkmate next move is threatened. So black must play &lt;strong&gt;2...Ra4&lt;/strong&gt;, but white plays &lt;strong&gt;3.Kb3&lt;/strong&gt; attacking the rook and also threatening 4.Rc1 checkmate; black can't deal with both threats.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On &lt;a href=&quot;http://timkr.home.xs4all.nl/chess2/minor.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Tim Krabbe's page on practical minor promotions&lt;/a&gt; I found this example from Kholmov-Ehlvest 1983:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;2k5/2P5/1K2p3/7r/8/8/7p/R7 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(black to move)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White threatens to play Ra8+ and c8Q+. If black promotes to a queen with &lt;strong&gt;1...h1Q&lt;/strong&gt;, then that isn't enough for black to win: 2.Ra8+ Qxa8 is stalemate.&#xA;Promoting to a rook or knight clearly doesn't help black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But after &lt;strong&gt;1...h1B&lt;/strong&gt;, the check doesn't work, black is simply a piece up and has a winning position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastEditorUserId="10380" LastEditDate="2019-04-19T07:45:25.837" LastActivityDate="2019-04-19T07:45:25.837" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="13332" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13334" CreationDate="2016-01-06T14:20:58.313" Score="11" ViewCount="1219" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found this hilarious problem and hope people will have fun solving it:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Niels Hoeg, Skakbladet 1907&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/8/6p1/5pP1/5P1K/5PpP/4p2p/2Q2Bkr w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White to end the game in two moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this case, that means that white plays moves so that, no matter what black moves, the game is finished after &lt;em&gt;black's&lt;/em&gt; second move at the latest.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-04T21:54:56.980" LastActivityDate="2020-04-04T21:54:56.980" Title="White to force the end of the game in two moves" Tags="&lt;problems&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13334" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13332" CreationDate="2016-01-06T15:47:56.410" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;Very nice puzzle! Looks like the solution is as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/8/6p1/5pP1/5P1K/5PpP/4p2p/2Q2Bkr w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Qe1 g2 (1... exf1=Q 2. Kxg3 Qxe1#) (1... exf1=R 2. Qxg3#) (1... exf1=N 2. Qf2+ Kxf2 (2... gxf2)) (1... exf1=B 2. Kxg3) 2. Bxe2# 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Interestingly, in the different lines, following results are achieved:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;White gives a checkmate&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Black gives a checkmate  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;White is stalemated&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Black is stalemated&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3831" LastActivityDate="2016-01-06T15:47:56.410" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13336" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13337" CreationDate="2016-01-06T18:16:29.280" Score="1" ViewCount="110" Body="&lt;p&gt;Wikipedia mentions prophylaxis in the article of hypermodernism in chess. But is it really a feature of the hypermodern school? I have not seen prophylaxis in any other book or article about hypermodernism in chess. One exeption is the chapter about prophylaxis in the book My Shstem, which is also describing hypermodern chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9193" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-25T14:27:48.613" LastActivityDate="2020-08-25T14:27:48.613" Title="Is prophylaxis a feature of the hypermodern school?" Tags="&lt;history&gt;&lt;books&gt;&lt;terminology&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="13337" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13336" CreationDate="2016-01-06T19:08:37.317" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's because Nimzowitch  was the foremost figure amongst the hypermoderns, you can't mention hypermodern school without Nimzowitch. And the prophylaxis idea first introduced by him, in his famous book Mein System. If we would call him the father of modern chess, it wouldn't be wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;His ideas was challenging the dogmatic rules set by Tarrasch, which widely considered as the &lt;em&gt;best&lt;/em&gt; strategy at the time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is an excellent book named Secrets of Modern Chess Strategy: Advances since Nimzowitch, which covers prophylaxis and lot more. I recommend you to read it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9030" LastEditorUserId="9030" LastEditDate="2016-01-06T23:18:33.757" LastActivityDate="2016-01-06T23:18:33.757" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13339" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13347" CreationDate="2016-01-06T20:00:36.327" Score="4" ViewCount="10528" Body="&lt;p&gt;I played chess 30 years ago an now I am back in the arena. I have some spare time to train and play online. Could you please recommend me a good place to do so. A web interface without the need of any special clients would be great. Even greater would be the possibility to earn an official FIDE Elo ranking to see my progress.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9195" LastEditorDisplayName="user4378" LastEditDate="2016-01-07T14:05:00.083" LastActivityDate="2019-01-22T16:30:54.783" Title="Play chess online and get an offical Elo rank" Tags="&lt;elo&gt;&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;fide&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13340" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13339" CreationDate="2016-01-06T21:00:17.787" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recommend lichess.org you to play. But it's not possible to get official FIDE rating from any internet servers. Only way is to play in FIDE. And for training, I recommend Daniel King's Power Play DVD series, excellent quality training and easy to study with a DVD, better than books. lichess.org also has tactical training feature, where you can solve tactical problems.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm really surprised to see FIDE launching an online server, it's something very new. But again any rating you get on their internet servers won't be the same official rating with OTB. It will be &lt;em&gt;official online FIDE rating&lt;/em&gt; actually.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9030" LastEditorDisplayName="user7637" LastEditDate="2019-01-22T16:30:54.783" LastActivityDate="2019-01-22T16:30:54.783" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="13341" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11195" CreationDate="2016-01-06T21:25:37.377" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can play on online1.eu where is possible to play slower bughouse also. There You play using web browser, so You can play from any PC, notebook, tablet, iPod etc. with any operating system like windows, linux, android, or   iOS.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9198" LastActivityDate="2016-01-06T21:25:37.377" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13342" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13339" CreationDate="2016-01-07T05:23:54.277" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;To have an official FIDE rating you need to play in a FIDE rated tournament. National events or some of the larger local tournaments run by your country's chess federation are likely to have FIDE rated tournament sections.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7500" LastActivityDate="2016-01-07T05:23:54.277" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13343" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12609" CreationDate="2016-01-07T05:40:13.933" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are tons of databases out there. &lt;a href=&quot;http://chessgames.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://chessgames.com&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://pgnmentor.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://pgnmentor.com&lt;/a&gt;, etc. Check &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessfiles.com/chess-database.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.chessfiles.com/chess-database.html&lt;/a&gt; for other databases&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8933" LastActivityDate="2016-01-07T05:40:13.933" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13344" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13278" CreationDate="2016-01-07T05:47:16.847" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It depends.There are tons of openings and tons of variations that arise from them. So you may want to learn openings first to know what and what you might be comfortable with. Check out &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessfiles.com/openings.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.chessfiles.com/openings.html&lt;/a&gt; for openings and variations. They are available in PGN format as well if you want to use it with a GUI. Have fun&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8933" LastActivityDate="2016-01-07T05:47:16.847" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13345" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13430" CreationDate="2016-01-07T07:01:42.070" Score="5" ViewCount="313" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are certain chess principles that generally should be accepted and followed. I was wondering If anyone knew of any game or games that have gone against these principles and still resulted in a win from the player who violated the principles?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7236" LastEditorUserId="7500" LastEditDate="2016-01-13T23:29:31.510" LastActivityDate="2016-01-14T01:20:12.210" Title="What chess games have violated commonly accepted principles?" Tags="&lt;best-practice&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13346" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13345" CreationDate="2016-01-07T07:30:14.870" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;GM Miles's 1...a6 2...b5 against the World Chess Champion, Karpov.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Karpovs vs Miles, 0-1, St George Defense&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/abkEE.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/abkEE.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1068157&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Full Game&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2016-01-07T07:30:14.870" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13347" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13339" CreationDate="2016-01-07T08:04:19.620" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is one (and so far only one) place where you can get the official FIDE rating - the FIDE Online Arena. It however needs a client. A quick introduction is &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fide.com/component/content/article/1-fide-news/9298-fide-online-arena-presents-its-new-interface.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; and the arena is at &lt;a href=&quot;http://arena.fide.com&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://arena.fide.com&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have not tried it so I cannot comment on how good the interface is but I assume it is good. The killer feature is that it calculates official FIDE rating, which is calculated the same way as the official rating for over the board play thus they are directly comparable. Even better they are linked - every time a new FIDE rating list for over the board play is published this rating is incorporated in the online rating (in other words games played over the boards count to the online rating too). It does not work the other way around. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A very little known fact so far is that FIDE has introduced new players titles, so called &lt;em&gt;FIDE Titles for the Lower Rating Band&lt;/em&gt;. Official info &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=179&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; and some basic info &lt;a href=&quot;https://arena.myfide.net/ratings-and-titles/titles&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;. You earn these titles for online play but the cool thing is that they are valid for life and you can use them in over the board play as well. As an example if you consistently keep your online rating above 2000 you will become an Arena Grand Master (AGM). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is very likely, and I would bet on it, that in future all most popular online servers will offer calculating the official rating too. This may take some time though. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8844" LastActivityDate="2016-01-07T08:04:19.620" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13348" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13345" CreationDate="2016-01-07T09:51:22.230" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are you talking about Tarrasch's old school as commonly accepted principles? Then every game with flank openings and fianchetto setup violates this. Check hypermodern school and Nimzowitch.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9030" LastActivityDate="2016-01-07T09:51:22.230" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13349" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13350" CreationDate="2016-01-07T10:22:43.817" Score="17" ViewCount="1291" Body="&lt;p&gt;What are the different career options in Chess? The obvious and famous one is being a professional player, and the next best one is that of a chess coach. &#xA;What are the other careers that involve chess? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5653" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2019-05-09T08:48:24.977" LastActivityDate="2019-05-09T08:48:24.977" Title="Careers in Chess" Tags="&lt;careers&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="13350" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13349" CreationDate="2016-01-07T10:25:17.747" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;My list of answers after much thinking.. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess careers: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Professional players&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Coaches &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Preparation and playing partners&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Arbiters&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Chess writers&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Chess photographers&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Chess officials for federations &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Chess programmers&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Chess commentators &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Chess journalist&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Managers - for players&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Columists&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Chess artists - people who make wooden art work ?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;chess contractors (or freelancers) - like for chess based movie or startup projects. example: Marketing for a chess startup, research for a movie, etc. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;UPDATES based on suggestions: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Chess composer&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Tournament director&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Staffs for chess related organization, federation, etc. -- which can actually be a career, than a mere stream of income. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Interesting observations: &#xA;Most of the suggestions in this list can't stand out alone as a career, but would need the support of other projects to make a decent living. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Comments are welcome. I'll update this thread based on your feedback/suggestion&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5653" LastEditorUserId="5653" LastEditDate="2016-01-10T17:29:40.550" LastActivityDate="2016-01-10T17:29:40.550" CommentCount="15" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13351" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-01-07T13:17:54.903" Score="2" ViewCount="2272" Body="&lt;p&gt;Statistically, what opening has white won with the most?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Such as, 1.e4 e5 2?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the move that white makes that has won the most games?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9124" LastActivityDate="2016-01-07T17:54:54.430" Title="Statistically, what is the best opening?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;statistics&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13352" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13351" CreationDate="2016-01-07T13:34:59.203" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is a tongue-in-cheek answer. The &lt;strong&gt;4 move checkmate&lt;/strong&gt; (1. e4 e5 2.Qf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5?? 4.Qxf7#) is an opening where White has won 100% of the time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason why I post this answer is to highlight a few flaws in the question you asked:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Maybe if you find an opening with a high win ratio, you will build your reportaire around it? This is flawed logic as Black can sidestep your preparation, which may lead you into a bad line. Instead, play the openings that feel right for your playing style&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What is an opening? Ultimately the opening are just the first few moves in the game. Crucially for a statistical question, you didn't say how many moves you are looking at. The first? The first 10? Assuming best play with Black? In most chess games, there are many moves other than those in the opening stage that determine the outcome of the game. I'd suggest you concentrate more on the middle and endgame than the opening&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2016-01-07T13:34:59.203" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13353" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13351" CreationDate="2016-01-07T14:19:10.063" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Hard to say, as opening trees are biased as number of games played and player strengths are different. And the score difference between best scoring openings is very little, we can say &lt;em&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statistical_significance&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;statistically insignificant&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt;. So it's really hard to say.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, if you ask this for building an opening repertoire, don't do it. But if ask this just for curiosity, then you have the answer. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9030" LastActivityDate="2016-01-07T14:19:10.063" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13354" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13351" CreationDate="2016-01-07T14:30:30.027" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/chessopedia/view/mathematics-and-chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;This article&lt;/a&gt; says there are 5,362 possible positions after White's second move, so are you asking which of those positions ends in the highest percentage of won games for White? Choosing that move seems a little arbitrary as the cut-off point for the &quot;opening&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand if you were to look just at the first move, you should be able to find that out quite easily for any given database of games, but you quickly run into problems with sample size. For example, in the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/explorer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chessgames.com database&lt;/a&gt; (over 750,000 games) you can see that the most successful first move by this definition is 1.Na3, with which White wins 78.3% of the time! Unfortunately this is from a sample of 23 games...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8453" LastActivityDate="2016-01-07T14:30:30.027" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13355" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13351" CreationDate="2016-01-07T15:05:45.727" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Due to the fact that opponents are not all consistent in the moves, it is impossible for there to be a 'best' move, but there can be the most appropriate move for a set circumstance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although simple, I generally like to open my getting my knights and bishops out first, and then going on to force the game in order to bring about victory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9205" LastEditorUserId="3819" LastEditDate="2016-01-07T17:54:54.430" LastActivityDate="2016-01-07T17:54:54.430" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13357" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13339" CreationDate="2016-01-07T17:40:25.313" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you need a rating that is sactioned by FIDE, then FIDE Arena is the only way. But you need to install special software and pay to register under your real name. Your rating will be publicly displayed on your FIDE ID page available through: &lt;a href=&quot;http://ratings.fide.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://ratings.fide.com/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Otherwise, I recommend &lt;a href=&quot;http://chesstempo.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://chesstempo.com&lt;/a&gt; and as a second choice &lt;a href=&quot;http://chess.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://chess.com&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3456" LastActivityDate="2016-01-07T17:40:25.313" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13358" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2321" CreationDate="2016-01-07T18:03:39.250" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;A bit late on the answer, but I recent built &lt;a href=&quot;https://sortmatch.ca/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://sortmatch.ca/&lt;/a&gt; that's effectively Swiss-style tournaments using Glicko2 ratings instead of integer tallies.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9207" LastActivityDate="2016-01-07T18:03:39.250" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13359" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13366" CreationDate="2016-01-07T23:45:52.187" Score="3" ViewCount="2174" Body="&lt;p&gt;Running out of time is a loss. Two players are both very low on time and quite far from a checkmate. What if one player makes some 'pointless' defensive moves to keep his clock running so that the other player, still trying to win, runs out of time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am new and I am asking because I have had opponents moving their king back around while I was there trying to do something and had no time left.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there some sort of rule that prevents my opponent from making useless moves while I try to win and run out of time?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9209" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2016-01-07T23:59:57.443" LastActivityDate="2016-01-08T08:53:37.580" Title="Running down the opponent's clock on purpose" Tags="&lt;beginner&gt;&lt;time-control&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13360" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13359" CreationDate="2016-01-07T23:50:17.017" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;That's how it goes. Time management is an important part of tournament chess play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2016-01-07T23:50:17.017" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13361" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13359" CreationDate="2016-01-08T03:04:15.440" Score="-3" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a rule called &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.e4ec.org/immr.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;draw by insufficient material&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt; in FIDE, which prevents the situations you described.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's draw automatically if any following situation happens:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;King vs king&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;King vs king + knight&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;King + zero or more bishops vs king + zero or more bishops, where all bishops stands on same colored squares&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Any combination of pieces in a position where stalemate is unavoidable.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Any combination of pieces in a position where checkmate is impossible.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Any combination of pieces in a position where it's inevitable to transpose to a position described above.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So you can't lose on time, in these kinds of positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9030" LastEditorUserId="9030" LastEditDate="2016-01-08T05:11:47.203" LastActivityDate="2016-01-08T05:11:47.203" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13362" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13345" CreationDate="2016-01-08T08:09:24.013" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Look up John Watson's books on chess strategy. He writes about the concept of general rules from a historical perspective. Each rule is discussed and examples are shown to violate it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3456" LastEditorUserId="3456" LastEditDate="2016-01-13T20:59:42.420" LastActivityDate="2016-01-13T20:59:42.420" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13363" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12609" CreationDate="2016-01-08T08:14:29.490" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;ChessTempo.com has recently added a new functionality - a database. All the options are described in the user guide at &lt;a href=&quot;http://chesstempo.com/user-guide/en/chessDatabase.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://chesstempo.com/user-guide/en/chessDatabase.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3456" LastActivityDate="2016-01-08T08:14:29.490" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13364" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12282" CreationDate="2016-01-08T08:18:32.680" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Consult John Watson's books on strategy. He writes about this subject from a historical perspective. (Secrets of Modern Chess Strategy: Advances since Nimzowitsch, and there is also a newer one.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3456" LastActivityDate="2016-01-08T08:18:32.680" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13365" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13028" CreationDate="2016-01-08T08:41:50.080" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I remember reading somewhere in an opening book that the c5 line against the Saemisch is the primary reason why the Saemisch has stopped being popular among the elite. Moreover, it is recommended for black in two repertoire books on the King's Indian Defense: one by Bologan and one by Dejan Bojkov.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3456" LastActivityDate="2016-01-08T08:41:50.080" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13366" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13359" CreationDate="2016-01-08T08:53:37.580" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is an &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/component/handbook/?id=124&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;official Fide rule&lt;/a&gt; to prevent this kind of behavior (&quot;flagging&quot;). This rule however only holds in quickplay finishes of normal tournament games. In blitz managing the time better than your opponent is an integral part of the game. In online games (which mostly are blitz anyway) I have never seen this rule implemented (it's kind of tough without an arbiter).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also note that this rule only allows you to claim a draw, to win you'll have to checkmate with the time still left to you. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Article 10: Quickplay Finish&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;10.1&#xA;A ‘quickplay finish’ is the phase of a game when all the (remaining) moves must be made in a limited time.&#xA;10.2&#xA;If the player, having the move, has less than two minutes left on his clock, he may claim a draw before his flag falls. He shall summon the arbiter and may stop the clocks. (See Article 6.12.b)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a.&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;If the arbiter agrees the opponent is making no effort to win the game by normal means, or that it is not possible to win by normal means, then he shall declare the game drawn.&lt;/strong&gt; Otherwise he shall postpone his decision or reject the claim.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(bold by me)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2016-01-08T08:53:37.580" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13367" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9939" CreationDate="2016-01-08T08:57:08.500" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;http://ChessTempo.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://ChessTempo.com&lt;/a&gt; tactis trainer is based on tactical problems extracted from a large database scanned with an engine and the problems have been tagged with tactical motifs by users. Perhaps it is sufficient for your purpose if you learn to create custom problem sets based on these tags. There is a discussion forum there where you can ask your question in detail.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3456" LastActivityDate="2016-01-08T08:57:08.500" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13369" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-01-08T18:28:18.153" Score="3" ViewCount="147" Body="&lt;p&gt;In JUly, 2015 I got 1.5 points against rated player and faced 6 players  and again in January, 2016 I faced three more fide rated players . Totally, I faced 9 fide rated players, Shall I eligible for fide rating?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9213" LastActivityDate="2016-01-09T00:48:08.277" Title="Fide Rating result" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;fide&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13372" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-01-08T21:05:48.937" Score="8" ViewCount="1545" Body="&lt;p&gt;Suppose that, in an amateur rapid play tournament (where supervision is inappropriate), the following position appears:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &amp;quot;5K2/8/1q6/1N1k4/8/8/8/2R1R3 w - - 1 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Re5+? Qc5+? {illegal} 2. Rxc5#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The players do not agree on the result of the game. White claims he won in virtue of the rule:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5.1.a.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The game is won by the player who has checkmated his opponent’s king. This immediately ends the game, provided that the move producing the checkmate position was in accordance with Article 3 and Articles 4.2 – 4.7.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black claims the game is a draw in virtue of the rule:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Appendix A.4.d.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the arbiter observes both kings are in check, or a pawn on the rank furthest from its starting position, he shall wait until the next move is completed. Then, if the illegal position is still on the board, he shall declare the game drawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Remark that the position after 2.Rxc5# is indeed illegal in virtue of the rule:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3.10.c.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A position is illegal when it cannot have been reached by any series of legal moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The referee remarks that there is a discussion about a game, moves to this table and listens to both claims. What is the correct decision?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A related question: suppose that the referee remarks the illegal position after 1.... Qc5+, and stays near this table, and assists to the move 2.Rxc5#  What is the correct decision in this case?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9082" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-08-17T01:58:02.723" LastActivityDate="2020-08-17T01:58:28.037" Title="Outcome of a game in case of an illegal checkmate" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;illegal-move&gt;&lt;rapid&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="13373" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9335" CreationDate="2016-01-08T22:39:53.737" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;My top two choices would be&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chessdailynews.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chess Daily News&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.beginchess.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Begin Chess&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9216" LastEditorUserId="9216" LastEditDate="2016-01-08T23:59:15.367" LastActivityDate="2016-01-08T23:59:15.367" CommentCount="2" CommunityOwnedDate="2016-01-08T22:39:53.737" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13375" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13372" CreationDate="2016-01-09T00:43:11.270" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=171&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Laws of Chess: For competitions starting on or after 1 July 2014&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Article 7: Irregularities&#xA;  7.1   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If an irregularity occurs and the pieces have to be restored to a&#xA;  previous position, the arbiter shall use his best judgement to&#xA;  determine the times to be shown on the chessclock. This includes the&#xA;  right not to change the clock times. He shall also, if necessary,&#xA;  adjust the clock’s move-counter.&#xA;  7.2   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If during agame it is found that the initial position of the pieces was incorrect, the game shall be cancelled and a new game shall&#xA;  be played.&#xA;     If during a game it is found that the chessboard has been placed contrary to Article 2.1, the game shall continue but the position&#xA;  reached must be transferred to a correctly placed chessboard.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;7.3   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If a game has begun with colours reversed then it shall continue,&#xA;  unless the arbiter rules otherwise.&#xA;  7.4   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If a player displaces one or more pieces, he shall re-establish the&#xA;  correct position in his own time. If necessary, either the player or&#xA;  his opponent shall stop the chessclock and ask for the arbiter’s&#xA;  assistance. The arbiter may penalise the player who displaced the&#xA;  pieces.&#xA;  7.5   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;If during a game it is found that an illegal move has been completed, the position immediately before the irregularity shall be&#xA;  reinstated. If the position immediately before the irregularity cannot&#xA;  be determined, the game shall continue from the last identifiable&#xA;  position prior to the irregularity.&lt;/strong&gt; Articles 4.3 and 4.7 apply to the&#xA;  move replacing the illegal move. The game shall then continue from&#xA;  this reinstated position.&#xA;     If the player has moved a pawn to the furthest distant rank, pressed the clock, but not replaced the pawn with a new piece, the&#xA;  move is illegal. The pawn shall be replaced by a queen of the same&#xA;  colour as the pawn.&#xA;      After the action taken under Article 7.5.a, for the first completed illegal move by a player the arbiter shall give two minutes&#xA;  extra time to his opponent; for the second completed illegal move by&#xA;  the same player the arbiter shall declare the game lost by this&#xA;  player. However, the game is drawn if the position is such that the&#xA;  opponent cannot checkmate the player’s king by any possible series of&#xA;  legal moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;7.6   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If, during a game, it is found that any piece has been displaced from&#xA;  its correct square the position before the irregularity shall be&#xA;  reinstated. If the position immediately before the irregularity cannot&#xA;  be determined, the game shall continue from the last identifiable&#xA;  position prior to the irregularity. The game shall then continue from&#xA;  this reinstated position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I think, game returns to last position where no illegal move committed.&#xA;5.1.a is not applicable here, because 3.10.c violated, and satisfying Article 3 is a prerequisite for 5.1.a.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3.10.c&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A position is illegal when it cannot have been reached by any series of legal moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9030" LastEditorUserId="9030" LastEditDate="2016-01-09T01:00:47.997" LastActivityDate="2016-01-09T01:00:47.997" CommentCount="13" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13376" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13369" CreationDate="2016-01-09T00:48:08.277" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=172&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;FIDE Rating Regulations effective from 1 July 2014&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;7.1   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;On the first day of each month, the QC shall prepare a list which&#xA;  incorporates the rated play during the rating period into the previous&#xA;  list. This shall be done using the rating system formula.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;7.11  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The rating period (for new players, see 7.14) is the period where a&#xA;  certain rating list is valid.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;7.12  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The following data will be kept concerning each player whose rating is&#xA;  at least 1000 as of the current list: FIDE title, Federation, Current&#xA;  Rating, FIDE ID Number, Number of Games rated in the rating period,&#xA;  Date of Birth, Gender and the current value of K for the player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;7.13  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The closing date for tournaments for a list is 3 days before the date&#xA;  of the list; tournaments ending before or on that day may be rated on&#xA;  the list. Official FIDE events may be rated on the list even if they&#xA;  end on the last day before the list date.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;7.14  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A rating for a player new to the list shall be published only if it&#xA;  meets the following criteria:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;7.14a     &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If based on results obtained under 6.2, a minimum of 5 games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;7.14b     &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If based on results obtained under 6.3, a minimum of 5 games played&#xA;  against rated opponents.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;7.14c     &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The condition of a minimum of 5 games need not be met in one&#xA;  tournament. Results from other tournaments played within consecutive&#xA;  rating periods totalling not more than 26 months, are pooled to obtain&#xA;  the initial rating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;7.14d     &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The rating is at least 1000.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;7.14e     &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The rating is calculated using all his results as if they were played&#xA;  in one tournament (it is not published until he has played at least 5&#xA;  games) by using all the rating data available.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes you are eligible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9030" LastActivityDate="2016-01-09T00:48:08.277" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13377" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8807" CreationDate="2016-01-09T01:11:04.330" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It seems all symmetric positions like this, where both sides have 3 connected passed pawns are winning for first moving side, because, it's not possible to blockade(it is possible for a moment, but then zugzwang happens) and racing favors first moving side.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9030" LastActivityDate="2016-01-09T01:11:04.330" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13379" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1494" CreationDate="2016-01-09T01:39:11.493" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think, unless Black is ambitious to get the upper hand, White doesn't have a winning advantage, with perfect play. Because, Black can close the game with suitable pawn formations, so slow the game down, and can catch up with White. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason White is winning more often statistically is Black's over ambition I think. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Me? Even believing that Black should not be over ambitious, I play for a win too with Black pieces, as an amateur.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, if I would be a top GM, I would never be over ambitious with Black. Because when you are an amateur, you know that a lot of inaccuracies will happen, so White's advantage is very insignificant. But in a top GM game, trying to win a position where you don't have an advantage would often end with disaster.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9030" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-08-01T11:32:50.963" LastActivityDate="2019-08-01T11:32:50.963" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="13381" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12668" CreationDate="2016-01-09T19:00:16.567" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Have you checked out Mikahil Marin's book on the Grunfeld:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://amzn.to/1MZsizp&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Grandmaster Repertoire 8: The Grunfeld Defence&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9216" LastActivityDate="2016-01-09T19:00:16.567" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13382" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12668" CreationDate="2016-01-09T19:53:36.803" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a d4/c4 player and I do love &quot;disappointing&quot; my opponents who play grunfeld. I go for d4-e3 pawn structure and mess up the order of moves. This should theoretically be inferior to grabbing the centre but it just throws opponents off prep. Anyways, all I can advice you to do is to play the way I find the most annoying and it consists of throwing c5 in some lines. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4516" LastActivityDate="2016-01-09T19:53:36.803" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13383" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2017" CreationDate="2016-01-09T20:37:31.587" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Though taking it from a suggested article, there is a great need to point it out literally as it is the best argument. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;&lt;em&gt;The first-move advantage is founded more in psychology than in reality.&lt;/em&gt;&quot; - Andras Adorjan&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Explanation of above conjecture:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First-move advantage doesn't just exist in Chess but approximately in all games &lt;strong&gt;but theoritically&lt;/strong&gt; (pychologically). This is often neat. Come, play football! Let team A (say) start the game then, if, both teams A and B play perfect games (equal play), A is going to have first Goal. But this is certainly all theoretic. This has very small to do with Reality (as it happens nearly never) since, one team is always going to play different from other. This either results in a Draw (before penalty shootout) or a win/lose. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The point is, &quot;theoretically, things seem much different as they look practically&quot;. This is why the problem is a chess theorists' problem and not of chess players!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9148" LastActivityDate="2016-01-09T20:37:31.587" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13384" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8807" CreationDate="2016-01-10T06:48:42.993" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Analysis of this general endgame appears in &lt;a href=&quot;https://archive.org/details/chessplayershan00staugoog&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Staunton's &lt;em&gt;Handbook&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt;, in the section &quot;King and Three Passed Pawns against King and Three Passed Pawns.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the preceding section of the book, &quot;King against Three Passed Pawns,&quot; Staunton provides analysis indicating that a lone king battling the three connected passers in isolation (without assistance from their own king) can stop a promotion by getting to the so-called &lt;em&gt;master square&lt;/em&gt;, which are here g3 for White, b6 for Black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When considering these KPPP vs. KPPP endgames, he asserts a general rule about the kings' starting points for those positions in which one or both kings are within 3 squares of their respective master squares:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Victory will be in the hands of the party who can first play his King into its master square.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Staunton goes into some detail explaining the general logic behind play, and gives some examples. I won't try to elaborate here, but instead refer the reader to Staunton's text if interested. According to the rule, the OP's position would indeed be a win for White.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Among the examples Staunton considers, one is &quot;Greco's position,&quot; which is identical to the OP's but with kings on e1 and e8. According to Staunton, that position was long considered drawn, but analysis given by &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%B3zsef_Sz%C3%A9n&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Szén&lt;/a&gt; revealed it to be a win (in accordance with the rule above). Staunton further considers the position with kings on d1 and e8, calling it &quot;Szén's position,&quot; and presenting analysis he credits to Evans (consistent with &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/8807/what-is-the-result-of-this-pawn-endgame-with-perfect-play-by-both-sides#comment12580_8807&quot;&gt;bof's comment&lt;/a&gt; to the OP) showing this also to be a win for White (again in accordance with the master square rule).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For those interested in more beyond Staunton: there is a &lt;a href=&quot;http://arxiv.org/abs/math/9905198&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;paper by Noam Elkies&lt;/a&gt; applying combinatorial game theory to chess endings, and which in particular considers cases where pawn endgames essentially reduce to distinct subgames wherein mutual Zugzwang might arise. It deals with some of these KPPP vs. KPPP endings near the end, including Szén's position and a nice study by Behting:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;1k6/1P6/2P5/P7/5ppp/8/6K1/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;White&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;to Win&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2016-01-10T06:48:42.993" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13385" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9170" CreationDate="2016-01-10T07:02:46.150" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1106921&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;a really famous one between Petrosian and Fischer&lt;/a&gt;. Fischer had a really tough position and was delighted with Tigran's last move and claimed a threefold repetition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &amp;quot;Fischer - Petrosian Candidates Final&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Site &amp;quot;Buenos Aires ARG&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Date &amp;quot;1971.10.07&amp;quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &amp;quot;1971.09.30&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Round &amp;quot;3&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Result &amp;quot;1/2-1/2&amp;quot;]&#xA;[White &amp;quot;Robert James Fischer&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Black &amp;quot;Tigran Vartanovich Petrosian&amp;quot;]&#xA;[ECO &amp;quot;C11&amp;quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &amp;quot;?&amp;quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &amp;quot;?&amp;quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &amp;quot;67&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. Bg5 dxe4 5. Nxe4 Be7 6. Bxf6&#xA;gxf6 7. g3 f5 8. Nc3 Bf6 9. Nge2 Nc6 10. d5 exd5 11. Nxd5 Bxb2&#xA;12. Bg2 O-O 13. O-O Bh8 14. Nef4 Ne5 15. Qh5 Ng6 16. Rad1 c6&#xA;17. Ne3 Qf6 18. Kh1 Bg7 19. Bh3 Ne7 20. Rd3 Be6 21. Rfd1 Bh6&#xA;22. Rd4 Bxf4 23. Rxf4 Rad8 24. Rxd8 Rxd8 25. Bxf5 Nxf5&#xA;26. Nxf5 Rd5 27. g4 Bxf5 28. gxf5 h6 29. h3 Kh7 30. Qe2 Qe5&#xA;31. Qh5 Qf6 32. Qe2 Re5 33.Qd3 Rd5 34.Qe2 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4516" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2020-10-27T21:21:09.843" LastActivityDate="2020-10-27T21:21:09.843" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="13386" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9170" CreationDate="2016-01-10T07:25:00.323" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you have a collection of games in PGN format, you could probably search for threefold repetitions using the &lt;a href=&quot;https://web-beta.archive.org/web/20160303173407/http://www.rbnn.com/cql/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess Query Language&lt;/a&gt;. In particular, you might look in the &quot;Matching positions: the position list&quot; portion of the manual at the provided link; the &lt;code&gt;:sequence&lt;/code&gt; keyword would likely be instrumental to a CQL solution.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For an example of using CQL to do this sort of thing, see my answer to &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/q/1717/167&quot;&gt;an earlier question&lt;/a&gt; about seeking out exchange sacrifices in games. The method given there uses CQL to scan games for short sequences of successive positions that have a material difference of an exchange. I imagine you'd be able to do something similar to seek out sequences of positions repeating three times.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-28T18:31:45.183" LastActivityDate="2017-04-28T18:31:45.183" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13387" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-01-10T10:20:57.653" Score="7" ViewCount="651" Body="&lt;p&gt;Should white be able to win from the position&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;8/5k2/3p1p2/3PnP2/1KP1r1P1/8/3RB3/8 b - - 0 67&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;with black to move?&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(A game I was playing ended there when black just let&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;black's time run out due to having very little of it left.)&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Black can take the g4 pawn, but Stockfish evaluates that as being much worse than&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;black's alternatives, regardless of whether the capture is immediate or after Ke7 Kb5.&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Thus, play should presumably continue Ke7 Kb5 Nd7, resulting in the position&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;8/3nk3/3p1p2/1K1P1P2/2P1r1P1/8/3RB3/8 b - - 0 69&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;with white to move. ​ From that position, Bd1 is the only way Stockfish sees to make progress.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, after Bd1, Stockfish thinks black should play Ne5, and then the line it gives is&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;4. c5 dxc5 ​ 5. d6+ Kd7 ​ 6. Kxc5 Nf7 ​ 7. Bc2 Re5+ ​ 8. Rd5 Rxd5+ ​ 9. Kxd5 Nxd6 ​ ​ ,&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;which results in a draw since&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;with white's pawn still on g4, Nf7 will establish a fortress because black can play Ke7 and N(x)g5 and even if white gives up the g4 pawn, white's king can't attack more than one of {h3,e4,h7}&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;and the only way for the bishop to do that is from g2, which leaves f7 safe for the knight&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;g5 fxg5 gives a tablebase draw, regardless of whether white plays that immediately&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;or after Ba4+ Ke7, and Ba4+ Ke7 Be8 Nxe8 gives a tablebase win &lt;em&gt;for black&lt;/em&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Reminder: ​ My question was at the top of this post.)&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user2668" LastEditorDisplayName="user2668" LastEditDate="2016-01-10T16:29:47.923" LastActivityDate="2019-12-10T15:45:47.530" Title="Should white be able to win this endgame?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;bad-bishop&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13388" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1003" CreationDate="2016-01-10T17:10:00.443" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;This answer is given by the asker of the original question, four years after the question. It does not substitute for or supersede answers earlier given, for most of the earlier answers are more interesting than this one is. However, this answer might add some additional context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as I can tell, most AI research seems implicitly to grant the premise that thought and reason were solely material phenomena, or at least that results indistinguishable from thought and reason must necessarily be achievable by solely material processes. I do not dispute the premise (nor here promote it, for that matter). I merely observe that it seems &lt;em&gt;to be&lt;/em&gt; a premise.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And, after all, in AI research, how should this not be a premise? AI researchers must work through material processes, whether they will or nill.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The schoolmen of &lt;a href=&quot;http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/realism/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;realist&lt;/a&gt; philosophy, back through Duns Scotus, St. Thomas, Aristotle and Plato, have had much to say regarding the theory of mind. &lt;a href=&quot;http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/consciousness-representational/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Representationalists&lt;/a&gt; like Kant have had rather different things to say. AI research is probably closer to Kant, but this does not make the schoolmen wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Admittedly, there is a &lt;a href=&quot;http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/teleological-arguments/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;God-of-the-gaps&lt;/a&gt; objection which tends to pop up at this point in conversations of the present kind, yet a professional philosopher would tell you that the God-of-the-gaps objection attacks a straw man, that this objection tends to be useful only against persons who have studied no philosophy and thus do not know what they are talking about. Per Aristotle, it is &lt;em&gt;formal&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;final causation&lt;/em&gt; which might be implicated in the question of the self-trained chess AI. Yet in Aristotlean terms, the AI researcher works purely with &lt;em&gt;material&lt;/em&gt; and, especially, &lt;em&gt;efficient causation&lt;/em&gt; (except perhaps obliquely, insofar as human trainers personally bring formal and final elements into the system).  If reason is formal, if thought is final, if &lt;a href=&quot;http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/chinese-room/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Searle's Chinese room&lt;/a&gt; proves to be an ontological impossibility (as it might), then it may be that a purely self-trained chess AI cannot even in theory be achieved.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I suspect that a purely self-trained chess AI can be indeed be achieved, and will be&amp;mdash;that, in Aristotlean terms, &lt;em&gt;this&lt;/em&gt; question will prove to be adequately framable in view of merely efficient causation. I am more skeptical of strong AI generally, but these are to be proved in experience, are they not? No one really yet knows.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The philosophy of &lt;a href=&quot;http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-causality/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;causation&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/mind-identity/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;mind&lt;/a&gt; is subtle, grasped by few (and probably by few, even among AI researchers, who are more practical men). If you wish to learn such philosophy, it is well worth the learning; but be advised that, on the Internet and even often in print, it is extremely easy to find misleading explanations based on untutored misunderstandings. For my money, the best introductory teacher writing today on the subject is Edward Feser, whose books remain in print at reasonable prices. You can learn much more from him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, one doubts that even Dr. Feser would venture an authoritative answer on the present question! The answer remains to be proved in the laboratories of AI.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="315" LastEditorUserId="315" LastEditDate="2016-01-10T17:35:48.030" LastActivityDate="2016-01-10T17:35:48.030" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13389" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-01-10T17:35:33.700" Score="9" ViewCount="1923" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strike&gt;What are some of the creative chess problems that can never be solved by computers?&lt;/strike&gt; Question changed to &lt;strong&gt;Creative chess puzzles!&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are some of the creative chess problems that computers can never solve? I'm attaching two examples below so that you can get an idea. My students seem to love these puzzles. I'm researching and learning about it now. Thank you in advance. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ObQJh.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ObQJh.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Example 1&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/40c4ld/problem_white_to_play_8_consecutive_moves_from/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Example 2&lt;/a&gt;, &#xA;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Thanks @ETD for pointing out that it's possible to create programs to solve, at least by brute force solutions to any chess problems. What I mean though is normal chess computers.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;EDIT 2: I realize that the question is a bit vague. What I really like to know is creative puzzles, which if given to a beginner player should not be solvable by putting it on his computer and running an analysis. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5653" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-05T01:13:59.937" LastActivityDate="2020-04-05T01:13:59.937" Title="Creative chess puzzles!" Tags="&lt;problems&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="7" FavoriteCount="0" ClosedDate="2019-05-14T16:01:35.253" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13390" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11195" CreationDate="2016-01-10T18:02:50.253" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;FICS(freechess.org) and ICC(chessclub.com)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4543" LastActivityDate="2016-01-10T18:02:50.253" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13391" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13398" CreationDate="2016-01-10T20:38:40.780" Score="17" ViewCount="6268" Body="&lt;p&gt;In blitz, I frequently find myself in a position where I'm hopelessly losing on the board but have a good chance of winning on time (and the other way around). Is it generally considered good sportmanship to resign or offer a draw in such positions, or is it fair play to frustrate your opponent until his clock runs out?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Update: I realize this question is very similar to a &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/6309/is-it-poor-form-to-win-a-drawn-position-on-time&quot;&gt;previous&lt;/a&gt; question, although I believe this scenario to be slightly different, which may elicit different answers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1816" LastEditorUserId="1816" LastEditDate="2016-01-11T07:29:56.297" LastActivityDate="2019-11-24T13:21:50.190" Title="When losing in blitz, is it rude to play to win on time?" Tags="&lt;etiquette&gt;&lt;blitz&gt;&lt;sportsmanship&gt;" AnswerCount="12" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13392" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13389" CreationDate="2016-01-10T22:09:03.520" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is a fun puzzle:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Construct a legal chess game where&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;white starts with &lt;code&gt;1. a3&lt;/code&gt;,&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;white delivers checkmate on move 5, and&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the last move is made with the rook that started on &lt;code&gt;a1&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt; Hint: Black takes the pawn on &lt;code&gt;a3&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1485" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2016-01-13T17:52:24.090" LastActivityDate="2016-01-13T17:52:24.090" CommentCount="18" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13393" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13372" CreationDate="2016-01-10T22:51:27.643" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my personal opinion, the answers which follow from rules seem to be: White wins in the first case (by checkmate), draw in the second case (the situation of Appendix A.4.d happened before checkmate).  Although, this seems a bit illogical since the only difference between the two situations is the time when the referee was present near the table.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9082" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-08-17T01:58:28.037" LastActivityDate="2020-08-17T01:58:28.037" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="13394" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13389" CreationDate="2016-01-10T23:32:11.103" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.theproblemist.org/what-are-chess-problems&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;This&lt;/a&gt; is an excellent source for problems from different range of difficulty, where you can find these types of problems:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Selfmate&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Helpmate&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Reflexmate&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Retrograde Analysis&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which regular chess engines can't solve because solutions are not the best moves. (Actually, worst moves in selfmate problems for example)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9030" LastActivityDate="2016-01-10T23:32:11.103" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13395" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13391" CreationDate="2016-01-11T08:02:22.317" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Winning a game sometimes gives a bad feeling when you should have lost but won on time. This is true for blitz as well as for a regular game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Losing on time is part of the blitz game. So playing on is fair in my opinion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This does not mean that you should not resign in a lost position. But you do not win a tournament this way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4509" LastEditorUserId="11202" LastEditDate="2017-05-10T08:48:43.377" LastActivityDate="2017-05-10T08:48:43.377" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13396" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1003" CreationDate="2016-01-11T08:08:21.997" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's possible with machine learning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Opening books of chess engines use machine learning. Engine &lt;em&gt;tests&lt;/em&gt; opening lines in the book by playing them, if a line scores better comparing another, then it promotes that line in the opening tree. In time, engine &lt;em&gt;learns&lt;/em&gt; the better lines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After opening phase ends, engine stops using the book, and starts using evaluation function.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;How to implement a self learning engine using machine learning?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Imagine an engine using a &lt;em&gt;book&lt;/em&gt; without an evaluation function. And the book is empty initially. So engine has no knowledge about chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Engine starts to play with this empty book, and doesn't close the book until the end of the game. We can think it like a regular engine which uses an opening book till the end of the game. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In time, engine would find best continuations statistically, as bad lines will score worse in time. But of course, &lt;em&gt;a lot&lt;/em&gt; of games should be played to obtain a good book. I don't know how many, but as many as we can say impractical.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;December 2017 Update&lt;/strong&gt;: Well, I guess Alpha Zero proved me wrong by training itself strongly enough to beat one of the strongest engines, Stockfish, with a &lt;em&gt;practical&lt;/em&gt; amount of games. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9030" LastEditorUserId="9030" LastEditDate="2017-12-10T12:35:51.207" LastActivityDate="2017-12-10T12:35:51.207" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13397" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-01-11T08:13:17.773" Score="1" ViewCount="733" Body="&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White: Kd6, Rh6&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black: Kd8&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Background story:&lt;/strong&gt; I'm thinking of creating material for developing the visualization skills of my students. If I can convert easy problems to text notations and ask people to solve them without a chess board, I'm thinking it would be a good exercise for visualization in chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5653" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-07-05T20:29:05.557" LastActivityDate="2020-04-11T06:52:51.710" Title="Is there a way (or tool) to convert games in PGN to notations like the one in the description?" Tags="&lt;database&gt;&lt;visualization&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13398" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13391" CreationDate="2016-01-11T08:13:39.080" Score="41" Body="&lt;p&gt;No it's not. Your opponent spent more time to reach a winning position and you spent less time to get time advantage. It's quite fair to use your time advantage over your opponents position advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Time control is a part of chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9030" LastEditorUserId="9030" LastEditDate="2018-07-03T18:23:02.797" LastActivityDate="2018-07-03T18:23:02.797" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="13399" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13391" CreationDate="2016-01-11T09:04:34.487" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would never resign a game where the expected outcome is a win on time for me. Of course offering a draw is a gracious thing to do and could be considered good sportmanship, I usually only do this if I have been playing several games with this opponent and maybe chatted a bit. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would also offer a draw if the position of the game is impossible to ruin, even in blitz, for either side, which is quite different from a &quot;dead draw&quot; in tournament play. I.e. something like KB vs KB, K+a-pawn vs K with the defending king in front of the pawn, etc. It doesn't make much sense to me to find out who can purely physically make irrelevant moves faster. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But in dead drawn positions in which my opponent still has to react to my moves, I would certainly play on. Often you have a situation in which you can instigate a pawn break as soon as your opponent is reduced to making premoves. This pawn break would lose if he were still able to react to it, but, alas, he used up all his time parrying my earlier threats. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's just what blitz is about, you exchange time for quality moves. If you can't stand to be flagged, play with increment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2016-01-11T09:04:34.487" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13400" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12251" CreationDate="2016-01-11T09:45:06.433" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;An interesting question with which I've done significant exploration.  My program &lt;em&gt;Symbolic&lt;/em&gt; can generate random games using the /dev/urandom pseudorandom generator to any length.  For a recent run of ten million random game, the average length was 342.064 ply.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[] rg 10000000&#xA;   Checkmate  1527544 0.152754&#xA;  FiftyMoves  2241451 0.224145&#xA;Insufficient  5358614 0.535861&#xA;  Repetition   258221 0.0258221&#xA;   Stalemate   614170 0.061417&#xA;Average ply length: 342.064&#xA;Maximum ply length: 974&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9230" LastActivityDate="2016-01-11T09:45:06.433" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13401" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13391" CreationDate="2016-01-11T09:58:00.233" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;NO&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;Everything is fair in love and war&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5653" LastActivityDate="2016-01-11T09:58:00.233" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13402" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9565" CreationDate="2016-01-11T10:30:28.927" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The most straightforward way would be to start with a chess program with tablebase capability and add a routine which would generate every possible position of a given endgame class and output those which had tablebase scores matching the selection criteria.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Trivia: An example from KRKP:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Longest mate score (BTM): MateIn43&#xA;Sample BTM longest mating position: 8/8/8/8/5R2/2pk4/5K2/8 b - - 0 1&#xA;&#xA;Optimal move sequence from the above BTM longest mating position:&#xA;&#xA;1... c2 2. Rf3+ Kd4 3. Rf4+ Kd5 4. Rf5+ Kc6 {Kd6} 5. Rf8 Kb7 {Kc7} 6. Rf7+ Kb6&#xA;7. Rf6+ Kb5 8. Rf5+ Kb4 9. Rf4+ Kb3 10. Rf3+ Kb2 11. Ke3 {Rf8} c1=Q+ 12. Kd4&#xA;Qc6 {Qc7 Qc8 Qd2+ Qe1 Qg1+ Qg5 Qh6} 13. Re3 Kc2 {Qb6+ Qd6+ Qf6+} 14. Re2+ Kb3&#xA;15. Re3+ Kb4 16. Ke5 Kc4 17. Re4+ Kd3 18. Rd4+ Ke3 19. Rd6 Qe4+ 20. Kf6 Kf4 21.&#xA;Re6 Qb4 {Qc2} 22. Kf7 Qb7+ {Qc3 Qc4} 23. Ke8 Kf5 {Qc7} 24. Rd6 Ke5 {Qc8+} 25.&#xA;Rd7 {Rh6} Qa8+ {Qb3 Qb5 Qc8+} 26. Kf7 Qc6 27. Re7+ Kf5 28. Kf8 {Kg8} Qd5 29.&#xA;Ke8 {Kg7} Qg8+ 30. Kd7 Kf6 31. Re8 Qf7+ 32. Kd8 Qb7 33. Re1 Qb4 34. Re2 {Re8}&#xA;Kf7 {Qa5+ Qb6+ Qb8+ Qd4+ Qd6+} 35. Kc7 {Kd7 Ra2 Rc2 Rf2+ Rg2} Qc4+ 36. Kd6 Qxe2&#xA;37. Kd5 Ke7 {Qd1+ Qd2+ Qd3+ Qe3 Qg4} 38. Kc5 Kd7 {Ke6 Qd2 Qd3 Qe3+ Qe4} 39. Kb4&#xA;{Kd4 Kd5} Qd3 {Qe3} 40. Ka4 {Kc5} Kc6 {Kc7 Kd6 Qb1} 41. Kb4 Kb6 42. Ka4 Kc5 43.&#xA;Ka5 Qa3# {Qb5#}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9230" LastActivityDate="2016-01-11T10:30:28.927" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13403" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1482" CreationDate="2016-01-11T10:39:52.290" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is nothing in the FEN specification saying that the represented position must be reachable from the initial array.  Proving that a given position is reachable from the initial array is an unsolved problem.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In a valid FEN string, the half move count must be in agreement with the en passant target square; if a target square is present, then the half move count must be zero.  the half move count must also be in agreement with the full move number; e.g., a half move count of ten is incompatible with a full move number of three.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9230" LastActivityDate="2016-01-11T10:39:52.290" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13404" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11106" CreationDate="2016-01-11T10:48:04.027" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;For sample games, just write a program which generates a sequence of games each composed solely of randomly selected moves. A file with a few million random PGN games should be sufficient to cover all cases of interest.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9230" LastActivityDate="2016-01-11T10:48:04.027" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13406" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13391" CreationDate="2016-01-11T20:25:35.857" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've always taken the position that it's possible, maybe even likely, that I wouldn't have been in a losing position if I had taken as much time or more than my opponent. You could equally argue that he should resign for getting a great position by using substantially more time than you did. As someone else pointed out already, the clock is part of the game and necessary to put both players on equal footing. Time management is an important component in chess, even if it's an unfortunate one. If this does not appeal to a player, then I would suggest correspondence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In sum, play for a win by playing within the rules and thereby perhaps you'll both benefit by any lessons gained, whether they be purely chess lessons or lessons about other aspects of the game, like time management.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8134" LastEditorUserId="8134" LastEditDate="2016-01-13T19:13:16.350" LastActivityDate="2016-01-13T19:13:16.350" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13407" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-01-11T21:23:43.837" Score="4" ViewCount="280" Body="&lt;p&gt;If so, do share more insight about the how-tos and other links to read. Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5653" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-05-28T22:05:07.377" LastActivityDate="2020-05-28T22:05:07.377" Title="Does FIDE give titles to chess composers?" Tags="&lt;problems&gt;&lt;fide&gt;&lt;titles&gt;&lt;composing&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13408" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13407" CreationDate="2016-01-12T00:00:36.100" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;They used to, but now the titling process is handled by the World Federation for Chess Composition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's a link to some of the titles:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_grandmasters_for_chess_composition&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_grandmasters_for_chess_composition&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2765" LastActivityDate="2016-01-12T00:00:36.100" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13409" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13407" CreationDate="2016-01-12T00:05:36.557" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The answer used to be Yes, via the Permanent Commission for Chess Compositions; in 2010 the Commission became the independent &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Federation_for_Chess_Composition&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;World Federation for Chess Composition&lt;/a&gt;, but &quot;both organisations are cooperating&quot;.  As was the case before 2010, there are three titles: Master, International Master, and Grandmaster, all based on the counts of problems and studies published in the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIDE_Album&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Albums&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are also titles and ratings for chess problem solving, and a title of &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Judge_of_Chess_Compositions&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;International Judge of Chess Compositions&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8860" LastActivityDate="2016-01-12T00:05:36.557" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13410" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13391" CreationDate="2016-01-12T06:23:42.780" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Suppose you initially had an obviously winning position but your opponent Refused to resign,hoping you'd make an unbelievable blunder(which you eventually do - nature of blitz) and now said opponent has the winning advantage,but you can still win on time...why not go ahead and claim what was yours to begin with.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7391" LastActivityDate="2016-01-12T06:23:42.780" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13411" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-01-12T06:56:01.700" Score="-1" ViewCount="500" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is it ok to put your own king in discovered check as you take the other king? (Does the taking of the other king even count as a move, or is the checkmate the last move?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit:&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;When thinking about it, this isn't possible, at least not involving a checkmate, because if taking the king would result in a discovered check, the piece that is suddenly checking your king could also be used to take the original checker.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Take the following example. Is the last move (pawn) legal?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;8/5P2/6q1/8/8/Q7/8/5k1K w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Qh3 Qg2 f8&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know white is not checkmate here, because the white queen can capture the black queen. The question is: Can white be considered to be in check at all, since taking the white king would expose the black king to the white queen? So, can white choose to move their pawn instead of taking the black queen?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit 2:&lt;/strong&gt; My question is a duplicate of this question: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/2348/can-a-piece-pinned-to-my-king-put-the-opponents-king-in-check?rq=1&quot;&gt;Can a piece pinned to my king put the opponent&amp;#39;s king in check?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9232" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.193" LastActivityDate="2016-01-12T22:03:03.923" Title="Discovered check when winning" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;check&gt;&lt;winning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ClosedDate="2016-01-13T08:06:14.690" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13412" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13411" CreationDate="2016-01-12T07:23:34.470" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The game ends with checkmate but the last move must be a legal move. You cannot checkmate your opponent when you are checked at the same time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4509" LastActivityDate="2016-01-12T07:23:34.470" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13413" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13389" CreationDate="2016-01-12T08:14:43.883" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a branch of Problem Chess called &lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairy_chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Fairy Chess Problems&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; with all kinds of stipulations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, there are specialised programs (e.g. Alybadix or Chloe/WinChloe) to solve fairy chess problems and nowadays problem composers routinely use them to verify the integrity of their creations. For more information, look at &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_for_handling_chess_problems&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_for_handling_chess_problems&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3819" LastEditorUserId="3819" LastEditDate="2019-02-19T12:47:31.050" LastActivityDate="2019-02-19T12:47:31.050" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="13414" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13411" CreationDate="2016-01-12T09:15:14.963" Score="-3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Checkmate is the position, where you can capture opponent king in next turn and opponent can't do anything about it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, if you would play one more move after checkmate, you could capture enemy king while putting your king in discovered check. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;8/8/7r/8/8/R6Q/6q1/5k1K w - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here White is checkmated. But let's assume that White can play one more move and plays Ra1, Black Queen can capture White King leaving Black King in discovered check, and Black would be victorious.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or White Queen could capture Black Queen, to save White King, but then Black Rook would capture White King. That's why White Queen is pinned and can't move, if it moves, then in next move White King can be captured by Black Rook.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In chess, actually, you can capture kings. However, game ends 1 move before capturing the king as the fate is sealed, no need to play one more move. Checkmate means capturing the king is inevitable, actually.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9030" LastEditorUserId="9030" LastEditDate="2016-01-12T09:20:45.703" LastActivityDate="2016-01-12T09:20:45.703" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13415" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13416" CreationDate="2016-01-12T12:22:46.617" Score="1" ViewCount="270" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am an unrated USCF member, ~1800 @ lichess.org. I've been travelling from place to place for years, and was thinking about joining FIDE rated tournaments to adjust to OTB and become rated. But, if I look at the tournament's requirements, I notice that tournaments consistently need players from abroad to have a FIDE ID before entering. i.e. for the Dubrovnik Open; &quot;Svi zainteresirani šahisti iz zemlje i inozemstva s FIDE ID brojem.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there any way around this(such as getting an ID without a rating), or is someone in this situation barred from tournaments until they settle down?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9239" LastEditorUserId="9239" LastEditDate="2016-01-12T12:29:08.697" LastActivityDate="2016-01-12T14:31:31.123" Title="Joining a FIDE tournament abroad without a rating" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;fide&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13416" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13415" CreationDate="2016-01-12T12:53:34.503" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Often tournaments have a B- (or C-) open in which even unrated players can take part. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I have also encountered the regulation that unrated players need to provide an estimate of their playing strength, given by their federation, to take part in an open. Maybe that would be an option for you. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Apart from reading tournament regulations carefully you can always just write to the organisers explaining your situation. They should usually be quite accommodating, and if they aren't maybe this shouldn't be the tournament of your choice anyway.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2016-01-12T12:53:34.503" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13417" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13415" CreationDate="2016-01-12T14:31:31.123" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In France, people who are unknown to chess federations (such as yourself) can subscribe to most OTB tournaments, but they have to subscribe for membership in the club organizing the tournament. This implies an additional expense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other side, membership in a club is valid for a year (from September to August).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Almost all tournaments with long enough time control are FIDE rated. Good luck!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9082" LastActivityDate="2016-01-12T14:31:31.123" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13418" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-01-12T20:57:18.223" Score="2" ViewCount="259" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am interested in developing an online interactive course based on the book Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess. Can anyone advise me on the copyright issues involved?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It makes a difference for beginning chess players whether this material is available online as interactve exercises or remains stuck in a printed book. It is about promoting chess at the lowest levels. It might be adopted by school programs to help increase the level of chess among beginners.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know a chess coach who is creating an online course for beginners for teachers in primary schools because chess is coming to schools nowadays. I wonder why he needs to be coming up with his own exercises rather than use this excellent material.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3456" LastEditorUserId="3456" LastEditDate="2016-01-13T19:42:27.510" LastActivityDate="2016-01-13T19:42:27.510" Title="How to overcome the copyrights for the book Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess in order to make an online interactive course for beginners" Tags="&lt;books&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="8" ClosedDate="2016-01-13T08:06:32.487" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13419" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5858" CreationDate="2016-01-12T21:36:11.850" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;While you cannot save new games with chessbase reader, you can edit and replace existing ones. So what I do is open a .pgn file (I created one and copy and rename it for each tournament) full of empty games and edit these, i.e. double click an empty game, enter the moves and comments, then right click the game in the list and select replace which lets you edit the metadata and writes the game to the .pgn file. &#xA;Only the site tag seems to be unavailable, but if you edit it manually, cb reader will display it if the tournament name is short enough.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6941" LastActivityDate="2016-01-12T21:36:11.850" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13420" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9689" CreationDate="2016-01-13T00:21:40.700" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you want to play the Chebanenko Slav against the Slow Slav, you should play 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. e3 Bf5. Then after 5. Nc3 you play 5...a6. This is because after 4...a6 White can develop his knight to d2 instead of c3, which is advantageous because of the reasons in the other answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7500" LastActivityDate="2016-01-13T00:21:40.700" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13421" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14464" CreationDate="2016-01-13T02:41:33.737" Score="12" ViewCount="385" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/8/8/6pp/6pk/R7/6KP/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Rh3+ gxh3+ 2. Kf3 g4+ 3. Kf4 g3 4. hxg3# 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the source of this simple chess problem (White to mate in four) which somebody showed me at a chess club 50 or 60 years ago?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I suspect it's from the very early days of chess because it's so simple (no variations), and because of the unfashionable checking key, and because it involves only moves which have never changed in the history of chess (no queens or bishops or double-step pawn moves).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I tried searching the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.bstephen.me.uk/index.php/meson&quot;&gt;Meson Chess Problem Database&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.yacpdb.org/#static/home&quot;&gt;Yet Another Chess Problem Database&lt;/a&gt; without success, not sure I did it right.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2299" LastEditorUserId="2299" LastEditDate="2016-01-13T03:03:22.823" LastActivityDate="2016-05-25T21:34:20.720" Title="Source of this chess problem?" Tags="&lt;history&gt;&lt;problems&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13422" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13391" CreationDate="2016-01-13T05:24:28.277" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think it's rude in time controls that include a delay or increment. There you are playing for your opponent to have a heart attack at the board. In a game without added time, I don't think it's unsportsmanlike if your opponent has less than perhaps 45 seconds. (I strongly prefer delay or increment for this very reason.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="921" LastActivityDate="2016-01-13T05:24:28.277" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13425" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13391" CreationDate="2016-01-13T09:35:53.827" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have heard of a Go tournament where one team was up on time, and so they started making fast moves, planning on running down their opponent's clock. I was horrified to read that the referee interceded and declared a victory for the team that was low on time! The ruling was that the moves had been too fast.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm much happier to play a chess game where the time controls are respected. Both players should agree on the clock settings before the game, and they shouldn't cry foul when those rules are enforced. Time control is a real part of chess strategy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9246" LastActivityDate="2016-01-13T09:35:53.827" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13427" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="693" CreationDate="2016-01-13T16:15:25.533" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Rather than installing an app you can use the mobile interface of the tactics trainer at &lt;a href=&quot;http://chesstempo.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://chesstempo.com&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3456" LastActivityDate="2016-01-13T16:15:25.533" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13428" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-01-13T18:36:08.073" Score="0" ViewCount="127" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am new here,  I am trying to find out if anyone knows if Fritz 12 can be installed in Win 8.1 OS,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank your for your help' &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9254" LastActivityDate="2016-01-14T10:10:29.860" Title="Fritz 12 in Win 8.1" Tags="&lt;software&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13429" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13391" CreationDate="2016-01-13T18:51:02.983" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your question could be answered either way, which is why the question is so interesting. I have little directly to add to earlier answers. Personally in your place, I would probably resign, but this is because I am too sportsmanlike a loser for my own good. Probably, the best answer is that one need not resign. It's a close call, though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What earlier answers have not mentioned however is this. The &lt;em&gt;really&lt;/em&gt; poor sportsman is the opponent, the one who complains when his flag falls.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The one player may bear an obligation of courtesy to grant that his position is objectively lost. However, more important is this: In Western culture, the other player has no moral right whatsoever to insist that his opponent make gracious concessions. His only right is to play to win under the rules. The player who does insist is just a bad loser on time&amp;mdash;and if I am TD, I will sternly warn that &lt;em&gt;each is free to do as he likes with the time on his own clock,&lt;/em&gt; without having his conduct called into question thereby.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You may graciously resign, with my thanks. I must not however so much as hint at demanding your resignation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="315" LastEditorUserId="315" LastEditDate="2016-01-14T21:00:22.390" LastActivityDate="2016-01-14T21:00:22.390" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13430" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13345" CreationDate="2016-01-13T19:48:36.463" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here are some principles we teach beginners but grandmasters regularly break.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Don't bring your queen out too early.&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This principle was successfully broken by Korchnoi in an important match.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Candidates Semifinal&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Évian-les-Bains FRA&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;1977.07.16&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;6&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Lev Polugaevsky&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Viktor Korchnoi&quot;]&#xA;[StartPly &quot;8&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 e6 2. c4 b6 3. e4 Bb7 4. Qc2 Qh4 5. Nd2 Bb4 6. Bd3 f5&#xA;7. Nf3 Bxd2+ 8. Kf1 Qh5 9. Bxd2 Nf6 10. exf5 Bxf3 11. gxf3 Nc6&#xA;12. Bc3 O-O 13. Re1 Qh3+ 14. Ke2 Rae8 15. Kd1 e5 16. dxe5 Nxe5&#xA;17. Be2 Nxf3 18. Qd3 Rxe2 19. Rxe2 Qg2 20. Rhe1 Nxe1 21. Kxe1&#xA;Qxh2 22. Re7 Qg1+ 23. Ke2 Qg4+ 24. Ke1 h5 25. Qg3 Qxg3&#xA;26. fxg3 Rf7 27. Bxf6 gxf6 28. Re8+ Kg7 29. Kf2 Kh6 30. b4 Kg5&#xA;31. Ra8 Kxf5 32. Rxa7 d6 33. a4 Ke6 34. a5 bxa5 35. Rxa5 f5&#xA;36. c5 Rh7 37. cxd6 cxd6 38. b5 h4 39. gxh4 Rxh4 40. Ra8 Rb4&#xA;41. Rb8 Kd5 42. Kf3 Rb3+ 43. Kf4 Kc5 44. Rc8+ Kxb5 45. Kxf5&#xA;Re3 46. Kf4 Re1 47. Rd8 Kc5 48. Rc8+ Kd4 49. Kf3 d5 50. Kf2&#xA;Re5 51. Ra8 Kc3 52. Ra3+ Kb4 53. Ra1 d4 54. Rc1 d3 55. Rc8 d2&#xA;56. Rb8+ Kc3 57. Rc8+ Kd3 58. Rd8+ Kc2 59. Rc8+ Kd1 0-1 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Develop your pieces!&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here we see Polugaevsky successfully play his own variation where he uses the queen to grab a pawn, and then start to think about developing the minor pieces around move 15.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;USSR&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;USSR&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;1959.??.??&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Vladimir Zagorovsky&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Lev Polugaevsky&quot;]&#xA;[StartPly &quot;22&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 a6 6. Bg5 e6&#xA;7. f4 b5 8. e5 dxe5 9. fxe5 Qc7 10. exf6 Qe5+ 11. Be2 Qxg5&#xA;12. O-O Ra7 13. Qd3 Rd7 14. Ne4 Qe5 15. c3 Bb7 16. Bf3 Bxe4&#xA;17. Bxe4 Bd6 18. g3 gxf6 19. Kh1 Bc5 20. Rad1 Kf8 21. Rfe1 Qg5&#xA;22. a4 Kg7 23. axb5 Bxd4 24. cxd4 Qxb5 25. Qe3 Rhd8 26. d5 Nc6&#xA;27. Rf1 exd5 28. Bd3 Qxb2 29. Rf5 Qd4 30. Qc1 Ne5 31. Rh5 Nxd3&#xA;32. Qh6+ Kg8 33. Qxh7+ Kf8 34. Rxd3 Qe4+ 35. Kg1 Qxh7 36. Rxh7&#xA;a5 37. Rh4 d4 38. Kf2 f5 39. Ke2 Ke7 40. Kd2 Ke6 41. Ra3 Rd5&#xA;42. Kd3 Ke5 43. Ra2 Ra8 44. Rh6 Rb5 45. Re2+ Kd5 46. Rf2 Rb3+&#xA;47. Kc2 Rab8 48. Rd2 a4 49. Ra6 a3 50. Ra7 R8b7 51. Ra8 Rb2+&#xA;52. Kd3 R2b3+ 53. Ke2 Re3+ 54. Kd1 Rb1+ 55. Kc2 Rb2+ 56. Kd1&#xA;d3 57. Rd8+ Ke4 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Don't move the same piece twice in the opening.&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although Kasparov didn't win this game, he should get an award for moving the same knight 5 times in the 9 first moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;21st Linares&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Linares ESP&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2004.02.20&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;2&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1/2-1/2&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Garry Kasparov&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Teimour Radjabov&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Nc3 e5 4. Bc4 Be7 5. d3 Nf6 6. Nd2 d6&#xA;7. Nf1 Nd7 8. Ne3 Nb6 9. Ned5 O-O 10. O-O Nxd5 11. Nxd5 Rb8&#xA;12. a4 Be6 13. f4 exf4 14. Bxf4 Bg5 15. b3 Bxd5 16. Bxg5 Qxg5&#xA;17. Bxd5 Nb4 18. Bc4 d5 19. exd5 Nxd5 20. Qf3 Qe3+ 21. Rf2&#xA;Qxf3 22. Rxf3 Nb6 23. Bb5 a6 24. a5 axb5 25. axb6 Rfc8 26. Ra5&#xA;c4 27. Rxb5 cxd3 28. c4 Rd8 29. Rd5 Rxd5 30. cxd5 Rd8 31. Rxd3&#xA;Rd6 32. Kf2 Kf8 33. Ke3 Rxb6 34. Kd4 Ke7 35. Kc5 Rh6 36. h3&#xA;Rg6 37. g4 Rg5 38. b4 h5 39. Rd4 hxg4 40. hxg4 f5 41. gxf5&#xA;Rxf5 42. b5 Rf6 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1485" LastActivityDate="2016-01-13T19:48:36.463" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13431" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13345" CreationDate="2016-01-13T20:26:52.480" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Anand beat Ivanchuk in a famous game at Linares in 1992 by:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Voluntarily doubling his pawns with 17... gxf6!.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Exchanging off his &quot;good&quot; bishop and proving his &quot;bad&quot; bishop was better than his opponent's &quot;good&quot; one.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Linares&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Linares ESP&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;1992&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;1&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Vassily Ivanchuk&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Viswanathan Anand&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;B62&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;90&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 Nc6 6.Bg5 e6 7.Qd2&#xA;a6 8.O-O-O h6 9.Be3 Nxd4 10.Bxd4 b5 11.f3 Qa5 12.a3 e5 13.Be3&#xA;Be6 14.Kb1 Be7 15.g4 Rb8 16.Nd5 Qxd2 17.Nxf6+ gxf6 18.Rxd2 h5&#xA;19.Rg1 hxg4 20.fxg4 Bc4 21.b3 Bxf1 22.Rxf1 Rh3 23.Re2 Kd7&#xA;24.g5 Ke6 25.gxf6 Bxf6 26.Bd2 Be7 27.Be1 f6 28.Bg3 d5 29.exd5&#xA;Kxd5 30.Rf5 Kc6 31.Ref2 Rh6 32.Kb2 Kd7 33.Re2 Bd6 34.Rf3 Rc8&#xA;35.Be1 Ke6 36.Rd3 Rh7 37.Rg3 Bc5 38.Ka2 Rd7 39.Rc3 Rcc7 40.h4&#xA;Rd1 41.Bf2 Bd6 42.Rg3 e4 43.Rxe4+ Be5 44.Rxe5+ fxe5 45.Kb2 Rd2&#xA;0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1468" LastActivityDate="2016-01-13T20:26:52.480" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13432" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13436" CreationDate="2016-01-13T21:36:28.923" Score="1" ViewCount="1077" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would like to get suggestions of openings for white that suits a counter-attacking player. As black I really enjoy playing the alekhine and the modern. As white, lately, I started playing 1.g3, but I'm not entirely satisfied with it, especially since I found absolutely no theory on that opening. I'd like to have suggestions of other (decent) openings I could play as white that would suit my counter-attacking style.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9255" LastActivityDate="2019-11-16T22:59:45.107" Title="White openings for counter-attacking players" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13433" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13372" CreationDate="2016-01-13T23:13:27.633" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The mate stands and white wins. Although the position both before and after the mating move is illegal the mating move itself is legal therefore article 5.1.a is satisfied. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If an arbiter observes black playing 1...Qc5 then they declare the game lost for black for playing an illegal move. If they do not see the move but they observe the position after 1...Qc5 they will wait for white's move. Since white played 2.Rxc5 both kings are no longer in check hence article A.4.d does not trigger. In fact the purpose of the arbiter having to wait one move is to give the player a chance to correct the position. As it happens in this example the final position is still illegal but for a reason not covered by article A.4.d.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8844" LastActivityDate="2016-01-13T23:13:27.633" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13434" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13345" CreationDate="2016-01-14T01:20:12.210" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;For every &quot;rule&quot; there must be a standard opening variation that violates it.&#xA;For example, the &quot;Bishop's gambit&quot; invites Black to force White to move the King&#xA;as early as move 4:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Bishop's Gambit&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.f4 exf4 3.Bc4 Qh4+!? 4.Kf1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To be sure Black has violated the rule against moving the Queen early,&#xA;which White expects to exploit soon with Nf3 and claim an initiative&#xA;despite the lost pawn and Castling rights.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8860" LastActivityDate="2016-01-14T01:20:12.210" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13435" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13428" CreationDate="2016-01-14T10:10:29.860" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.amazon.com/forum/-/Tx1X8ZOOB8YBOX/ref=ask_ql_ql_al_hza?asin=B003B2MLDI&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;these guys&lt;/a&gt; say it does.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.newinchess.com/Deep_Fritz_12-p-2462.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;New in Chess&lt;/a&gt; gives the following system requirements.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;System requirements: Minimum: Minimum: Pentium III 1 GHz, 512 MB RAM, Windows Vista, XP (Service Pack 3), DirectX9 graphics card with 256 MB RAM, DVD-ROM drive, Windows-Media Player 9, internet access (playchess.com, updates and activation). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Recommended: PC Intel Core 2 Quad, 2.4 GHz, 3 GB RAM, Windows Vista or Windows 7, DirectX10 graphics card (or compatible) with 512 MB RAM or more, 100% DirectX10 compatible, sound card, Windows Media Player11, DVD ROM drive and internet access (playchess.com, updates and activation). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now I also have a question for you: Doesn't google work on Windows 8.1?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2016-01-14T10:10:29.860" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13436" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13432" CreationDate="2016-01-14T11:45:08.683" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;One might call the Reti a counter attacking opening for white.&#xA;White allows black to grab some space with a big centre and then tries to tear it down.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Nf3 d5 2. c4 d4 3. g3 Nc6 4. Bg2 e5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There also should be quite a lot of theoretical information about it. The main problem might be that black isn't easily goaded into overextending. Most players like to play it safe with black, making a counter attacking game with white less likely.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2016-01-14T11:45:08.683" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13437" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-01-14T16:45:11.623" Score="2" ViewCount="253" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can anyone recommend some type of training schedule that I can use to get better? I'm rated around 1445 and it just seems like I should be much better. If you have a schedule that worked for you maybe I can modify it to work for me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9260" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T16:17:30.147" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T16:17:30.147" Title="Getting better at chess" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;training&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="13438" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13437" CreationDate="2016-01-14T16:53:03.787" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recommend you to study endgame, over opening. It contributes more into your progress. It will teach you how to use every piece in best possible way, so it will increase your performance in middlegame and opening too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a training set by GM Daniel King, which covers almost everything to turn a Class B player into a Class A player, called &lt;a href=&quot;https://shop.chessbase.com/en/categories/trainingpowerplay&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Power Play&lt;/a&gt;. I recommend you to buy it and use it for training.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And I recommend you to solve tactics puzzles regularly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also read these questions, which are related to your question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/13125/how-do-i-seriously-analyze-my-tournament-games-and-become-stronger-doing-so/13128#13128&quot;&gt;How do I seriously analyze my tournament games and become stronger doing so?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/13290/how-much-time-you-spend-on-one-puzzle/13294#13294&quot;&gt;How much time you spend on one puzzle?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/8851/proven-ways-to-improve-calculation-speed&quot;&gt;Proven ways to improve calculation speed&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And more, please search the site properly, you will find answers to your questions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9030" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2016-01-14T16:53:03.787" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13439" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13437" CreationDate="2016-01-14T18:33:18.947" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;A couple of suggestions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Solve chess puzzles daily. Use 'mate in two' puzzles (also called combinations) only. 'Mate in three' is usually more complicated and requires more time/energy and is less emotionally satisfactory (you may lose interest). &#xA;Note: in classical (which you should use) 'mate in two' puzzles a. first move is never a check b. rarely a capture &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Analyze openings as well. I think that ending is a good thing to study. But what is the use of it if you cannot get to ending without proper knowledge of openings? &#xA;I would suggest to especially focus on opening tricks, because at your level many people may try to apply them (use simple logic: it's easier to 'catch' a beginner than an advanced player)&#xA;I would suggest study 1.e4 openings for white (open) &#xA;For black you may choose 1. ... e5 (the 'classic' response) however 1. ... c5 (Sicilian) 1. ... e6 (French) and other 'main-stream' responses are good as well.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Every time analyze games that you played. Try to find either a club with a coach, find a coach on the internet, ask your friend or... simply do it yourself (if no other options available).&#xA;All leading chess players advanced mainly by analysis of their mistakes.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Analyze games of leading chess players: Kasparov, Karpov, Steinitz, Lasker, Capablanca, Alekhine, Botvinnik and etc. etc. This you can do on your own or with a coach. In fact, I would suggest to analyze them on your own by reading comments to the moves (usually comments are made by other leading players)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Play regularly. If you can't play in tournaments, play online. ICC (Internet Chess Club) is a great choice (I play there a lot for many years)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I hope it helps!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8160" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T16:12:36.387" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T16:12:36.387" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="13440" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-01-14T18:33:46.273" Score="8" ViewCount="216" Body="&lt;p&gt;As weird as this question may seem, I am looking for a famous chess position to put in a birthday cake. Ideally the position should involve at least one knight and about 6 pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any idea of a good position matching this constraints?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9262" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-05-28T21:59:04.603" LastActivityDate="2020-05-28T21:59:04.603" Title="Chess position for a cake" Tags="&lt;problems&gt;&lt;knights&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="8" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="13442" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13391" CreationDate="2016-01-15T00:41:07.490" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is not rude to play to win on time in blitz.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Time&quot; is one the key variables of blitz. That's somewhat true even in &quot;regular&quot; chess, but time is the &lt;em&gt;whole point&lt;/em&gt; of blitz.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you have a winning position and run out of time, you've lost.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the reverse is true, that &quot;time&quot; is a legitimate way to win with an otherwise losing position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A &quot;losing position&quot; is one that is lost, all other things being equal. In your case, all other things are &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; equal. Your opponent has a time disadvantage that may outweigh your positional disadvantage, meaning that s/he might not be able to win in the allotted time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastEditorUserId="17" LastEditDate="2017-05-11T11:30:49.700" LastActivityDate="2017-05-11T11:30:49.700" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13443" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13440" CreationDate="2016-01-15T05:46:29.360" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Maybe this very famous puzzle suits your cake :) White mates with knight extremely elegantly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This puzzle was also in &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.chessbase.com/post/fifteen-years-of-chessbase-christmas-puzzles&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chessbase Christmas puzzles&lt;/a&gt; in 2001.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Genrikh Kasparian, Shakhmaty v SSSR 1935&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;2B3K1/8/3N1p1p/6pk/5P1P/6P1/7r/5r2 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Ne8 Kg6 ( 1... f5 2. Bxf5 ) ( 1... Rxf4 2. Ng7+ Kg6 3. Bf5+ Rxf5 4. h5+ Rxh5&#xA;5. g4 ) 2. h5+ Rxh5 3. f5+ Rxf5 4. g4 Rf4 5. Bf5+ Rxf5 6. Ng7 Rf1 7. gxh5#   &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9030" LastEditorUserId="9030" LastEditDate="2016-01-15T05:55:52.550" LastActivityDate="2016-01-15T05:55:52.550" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13444" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13445" CreationDate="2016-01-15T09:27:44.863" Score="7" ViewCount="2317" Body="&lt;p&gt;Among chess players circulate the idea that any gambit should be accepted. It's an old and popular idea; if you don't want trouble, accept the gambit. Should this be consider a valid principle?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7218" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-03-04T20:10:46.147" LastActivityDate="2016-05-10T01:41:13.083" Title="Is it always better to accept gambits?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;gambits&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13445" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13444" CreationDate="2016-01-15T10:06:09.190" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Gambit's are sacrifices which are played hoping to get development advantage and/or initiative in opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So if you accept the gambit, and if the opponent can't consolidate development advantage and/or initiative, you will end up better. But if you decline, opponent will get advantage generally (This is where that principle comes from). Gambits are generally advantageous for sacrificer when they are declined.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, some gambits really loses advantage when declined. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Title &quot;Smith-Morra Declined&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. d4 cxd4 3. c3 (3...dxc3 4.Nxc3 {White has development advantage, and is happy }) d3 4. Bxd3 { c3 is not available for White Knight, if&#xA;White plays c4, then whats that Bishop on d3 doing?}  ( 4. Qxd3 { White Bishop&#xA;is blocked and c3 is not available for White Knight.})  &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black simply expels White's fast development plan by declining the gambit. Now, White has opening problems to solve, not Black. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I play myself Smith-Morra with Whites, and hate it when declined. It's much more harder to play in declined variation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So that principle is not valid. You should really think about the outcomes of accepting and declining before deciding.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9030" LastEditorUserId="9030" LastEditDate="2016-01-22T21:46:27.443" LastActivityDate="2016-01-22T21:46:27.443" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13446" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13444" CreationDate="2016-01-15T10:08:20.083" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is really dependent on&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;which gambit&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the style of play you prefer.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For 1, consider the King's Gambit. The &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/5882/7297&quot;&gt;theoretically preferred line for Black&lt;/a&gt; is 1. e4 e5 2. f4 exf4 3. Nf3 d5! which immediately returns the pawn. On the other hand, in the main lines of the Benkö gambit, White holds a pawn advantage well into the late middlegame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for 2, I'm usually fine with having a material advantage, defending against an attack, simplifying and winning in the endgame. Other people like having the initiative and will usually try to return the gambited pawn in exchange for a (counter)attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.193" LastActivityDate="2016-01-16T05:46:54.813" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13447" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-01-15T10:14:54.280" Score="4" ViewCount="722" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just finished reading My System. What's a good book to study afterwards for Expert Class? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3149" LastActivityDate="2019-03-01T00:10:28.123" Title="What's a good middlegame book like My System for Expert Class?" Tags="&lt;books&gt;&lt;middlegame&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2019-03-01T19:30:52.203" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13448" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13447" CreationDate="2016-01-15T10:19:58.253" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You will find tons of good attacking books for middlegame. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What I want to recommend to you a defense gem. Defense is often a neglected part of chess study. And comparing attack materials, there are very little defense materials out there to study.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is an excellent book for improving your defensive skills in middlegame positions, by GM Mihail Marin: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.gambitbooks.com/books/Secrets_of_Chess_Defence.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.gambitbooks.com/books/Secrets_of_Chess_Defence.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9030" LastActivityDate="2016-01-15T10:19:58.253" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13449" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13447" CreationDate="2016-01-15T16:28:01.077" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would recommend Mark Dvoretsky's book 'Strategic Play' Olms. ISBN 978-3-283-00418-7.&#xA;It's a part of famous 'School Of Chess Excellence' series. (it's easy to find it online). I personally bought all four of them:&#xA;Endgame Analysis, &#xA;Tactical Play, &#xA;Strategic Play,&#xA;Opening Developments.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mark Dvoretsky is considered one of the best chess trainers of all time, he raised a number of leading international grandmasters.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8160" LastActivityDate="2016-01-15T16:28:01.077" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13450" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13455" CreationDate="2016-01-15T16:58:10.313" Score="3" ViewCount="415" Body="&lt;p&gt;Since chess is finite and deterministic, it is theoretically possible to objectively label any position as winning, losing, or drawn. For example, it seems very likely that the starting position is drawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, the current system of &quot;score&quot; that engines use to analyze a position is actually nonsense from an objective point of view. With enough depth, the &quot;score&quot; would always be +100 (or whatever the engine uses for forced checkmate for white), 0 (drawn), or -100 (forced checkmate for black). Are these not the &lt;em&gt;only&lt;/em&gt; possible evaluations of a position?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If so, it follows that moves can be characterized in exactly 9 ways. If W, L, D represent won, lost, and drawn positions, the nine possibilities can simply be written as ordered pairs of game states before and after the move. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, a move that makes a won position into a drawn won could be (W,D).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Our intuition of a range of severity for mistakes is something that a theoretical supercomputer would not share. Is it then meaningless to speak of how bad a mistake is? It seems to me that the only relevant point is whether it changes if the game is objectively won/lost/drawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4263" LastActivityDate="2016-01-18T13:13:07.553" Title="Theoretically, shouldn't analysis of any chess move have exactly nine possibilities?" Tags="&lt;computer-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13451" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13444" CreationDate="2016-01-15T16:59:46.093" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In addition to Glorfindel really good answer (+1) I would like to add that you can also use gambits to fill position with traps. The person who is not familiar with the gambit may get lost in the suddenly created 'minefield' position where a 'single step' from the right line of moves leads to a disaster. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's also important to note that in many of the gambits you need to know how to decline it properly as well! &#xA;Also there are some gambits that you SHOULD accept (to get a better position). For example Latvian, where after 1. e5 e5 2. Nf3 f5 the main line is 3. Ne5!? Even though you may know that it's the main line for white you really gotta be careful with your subsequent moves, because the position gets incredibly sharp, complicated. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8160" LastActivityDate="2016-01-15T16:59:46.093" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13452" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-01-15T18:04:24.507" Score="1" ViewCount="1509" Body="&lt;p&gt;I like chess puzzle apps. But they all focus on the end or middle game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason is clear: In the opening there is no single truth.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But there is some common sense what's good and what's not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there an android app which help me train the best opening moves?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I found some apps for openings, but they work like this: First you need to choose the name of the opening, then you train.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't care for the names. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I want to see a chess board and then it is my turn to do the next move. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't want to choose a particular opening first.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8940" LastEditorUserId="8940" LastEditDate="2016-01-15T18:10:48.077" LastActivityDate="2016-01-30T19:39:33.267" Title="Chess Opening Puzzle App" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;puzzles&gt;&lt;android&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13453" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13450" CreationDate="2016-01-15T18:52:23.780" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is true that there is only three real assessment of a position, win, draw or loss. What you describe here is endgame tablebases. However it is not possible for today to compute these tablebases for 32 pieces(starting position). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Engine evaluation scores are not nonsense, what they do is using some rules(which also used by humans too) to evaluate positions. And these evaluations guide us to find good moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But it is nonsense to interpret engine scores as they are absolute assessments of positions. Or interpret their lines or scores as the &lt;em&gt;best possible&lt;/em&gt;, no they are not. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Only way to find truest assessments is to do full enumeration of all possible continuations from a given position. Tablebases do this, engines do not(they generally can't, because of computational limitations)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Engines are just our silicon friends which use our rules(metrics) and lots of memory to evaluate positions with a statistical approach. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe you can check this question, which is quite related: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/13192/how-not-to-use-a-chess-engine/13193#13193&quot;&gt;How not to use a chess engine?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9030" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.193" LastActivityDate="2016-01-15T18:52:23.780" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13454" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13452" CreationDate="2016-01-15T19:49:52.113" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;GM Nigel Davies has a training DVD on opening tricks&amp;amp;traps, I'm sure you will like it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.chessbase.com/post/nigel-davies-tricks-traps-vol-1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://en.chessbase.com/post/nigel-davies-tricks-traps-vol-1&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, in lichess.org, there are quizzes for finding good development moves in openings, I recommend you to take a look. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, lichess.org can be used by it's &lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.lichess.mobileapp&amp;amp;hl=tr&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Android application&lt;/a&gt;, if you don't want to use it from website.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9030" LastEditorUserId="9030" LastEditDate="2016-01-15T19:56:01.667" LastActivityDate="2016-01-15T19:56:01.667" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13455" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13450" CreationDate="2016-01-15T21:41:26.100" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;You are somewhat correct. In theory, each position can be correctly categorized in one of three ways -- win for the side to move, loss for the side to move, draw, &lt;strong&gt;all presuming &quot;best play&quot; by both sides from that position&lt;/strong&gt;. That last caveat is required to make the ideas of &quot;will win&quot;, &quot;will lose&quot;, and &quot;will draw&quot; well-defined. But that caveat &lt;strong&gt;also&lt;/strong&gt; means that the side to move can never &lt;strong&gt;improve&lt;/strong&gt; on the position categorization, because that categorization already presumes (prices-in) that the side to move will make its &lt;strong&gt;best&lt;/strong&gt; move. So the only possibilities for &lt;strong&gt;move&lt;/strong&gt; categorizations are: &lt;code&gt;(W,W), (W,D), (W,L), (D,D), (D,L), (L,L)&lt;/code&gt;. I.e. six instead of nine. The side to move can only hold or worsen (blunder) its theoretical value, in other words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for severity of error, presumably &lt;code&gt;(W,L)&lt;/code&gt; is worse than &lt;code&gt;(W,D)&lt;/code&gt;, but other than that, blunder is blunder, yes (&lt;code&gt;(W,D), (D,L)&lt;/code&gt;). And any move that maintains value is a theoretical non-blunder, yes (&lt;code&gt;(W,W), (D,D), (L,L)&lt;/code&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As to engine scores, they are in most cases theoretically &quot;meaningless&quot; I suppose, as above, but not objectively so. They could be considered to be trying to estimate the probability that the theoretical value is closer to W, D, or L, on some scale, given the data they have been able to glean so far in their forward position search. And sometimes they do produce theoretical values (forced-mate detections). But I've also got to think that the error-bars on non-theoretical engine values are also pretty large, meaning that we're talking about estimates of estimates of probabilities, which is pretty, well, non-definitive...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, see Saibot's answer regarding so-called Tablebases. Chess has been solved theoretically for all positions with 7 or fewer pieces on the board (two kings plus up to any five pieces). Here is an online resource for most of the 6-piece tablebases: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.k4it.de/?topic=egtb&amp;amp;lang=en&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.k4it.de/?topic=egtb&amp;amp;lang=en&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another wrinkle on theoretical categorizations is &quot;distance to mate&quot; for W and L positions. Presumably a win in fewer moves is theoretically &quot;better&quot;, so a &lt;code&gt;(W,W)&lt;/code&gt; move that doesn't reduce &quot;distance to mate&quot; could be considered a &quot;blunder&quot; as well, as could a &lt;code&gt;(L,L)&lt;/code&gt; move that shortens &quot;distance to mate&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7314" LastEditorUserId="7314" LastEditDate="2016-01-18T13:13:07.553" LastActivityDate="2016-01-18T13:13:07.553" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13456" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13447" CreationDate="2016-01-16T03:26:49.193" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I highly recommend Johan Hellsten's &lt;em&gt;Mastering Chess Strategy&lt;/em&gt;. It surveys pretty much all middlegame strategical considerations, is written very clearly, and has hundreds of exercises with detailed solutions. I definitely feel that a lot of what currently distinguishes me from a class A player are principles and patterns that I learned in this book. (His &lt;em&gt;Mastering Endgame Strategy&lt;/em&gt; is also excellent.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2016-01-16T03:26:49.193" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13457" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13444" CreationDate="2016-01-16T09:03:54.333" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the way you put it this is pretty much just wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are a lot of pawn sacrifices in the opening that should not be accepted, something that is obscured by the fact that sacrifices that shouldn't be accepted are often not even called gambits (Though they still are gambits of course.)! The logic is along the lines &quot;I play this move and now my opponent could win a pawn, but I know that he knows that that's no good, so I didn't actually sacrifice anything.&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mostly sacrifices that are regularly accepted in tournament play are called gambits in the official nomenclature, but even among those, the best way to counter them is often to not take the pawn, or to return it as quickly as possible. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Certainly taking the pawn isn't usually the way to &quot;avoid trouble&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The saying as I know it rather goes: &quot;The best way to refute a gambit is to take the pawn.&quot; And I would interpret as meaning that if there is a refutation it is likely to be in the variations where you take the pawn. It does not mean whenever you take the pawn, there is going to be a refutation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2016-01-16T09:03:54.333" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13458" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13450" CreationDate="2016-01-16T10:07:28.180" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you only know about W,L,D you usually don't have a clue about what the best move is. Or to put it differently: Against a competent player you will never get a move with (D,W) because in all positions you will only randomly choose among (D,D) and that's no way to exert any pressure. Your &quot;theoretical supercomputer&quot; will have trouble beating a 1500. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Knowing the fastest way to mate also only allows you to choose the best move when you are already winning, you need some kind of additional heuristic to get there. You could try to minimise the number of drawing moves that your opponent will have, but that already entails a tree search and is not much different from what engines do today. (And possibly less effective.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You are basically saying that the concept of strong or weak play is meaningless. But that is not true. It can be measured objectively in different ways like Elo or intrinsic performance rating. There is an objective difference in quality between two moves, even if they lead to the same outcome after optimal further play. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your observation that moves can in theory be classified in such a way is correct of course, but also completely useless. Such a rough way to assess positions is not enough to take good decisions. You can use the same empty reasoning on other problems as well, and the result will generally be just as useless. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2016-01-16T10:07:28.180" CommentCount="13" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13459" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13464" CreationDate="2016-01-16T10:12:39.907" Score="2" ViewCount="1238" Body="&lt;p&gt;In developing a computer chess program, would it be reasonable to automatically declare a draw match for these two scenarios:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A.  Player 1 has a king and a knight, player 2 has only a king left.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B.  Player 1 has a king and a bishop, player 2 has only a king left.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8527" LastEditorUserId="8201" LastEditDate="2018-04-06T12:01:19.897" LastActivityDate="2018-04-06T12:06:44.427" Title="Automatic draw rules" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;draw&gt;&lt;dead-position&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13460" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13459" CreationDate="2016-01-16T10:30:08.680" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, since it is not possible to produce a checkmate in these circumstances.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See also the FIDE rules:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.3 If the position is such that neither player can possibly checkmate the opponent’s king, the game is drawn (see Article 5.2 b).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5.2 b The game is drawn when a position has arisen in which neither player can checkmate the opponent’s king with any series of legal moves. The game is said to end in a ‘dead position’. This immediately ends the game, provided that the move producing the position was in accordance with Article 3 and Articles 4.2 – 4.7.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3831" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2016-01-16T10:30:08.680" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13461" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13459" CreationDate="2016-01-16T10:30:22.393" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, in these two cases there is &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.e4ec.org/immr.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;insufficient mating material&lt;/a&gt; and the game will always end in a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2016-01-16T10:30:22.393" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13462" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13463" CreationDate="2016-01-16T10:56:48.077" Score="3" ViewCount="655" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've got a simple question, that I'm having difficulty finding an answer for...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it is possible to castle (I know the conditions for it), and I decide to move the king to the square where it would end up in castling, do I have to &quot;take the castling&quot;, i.e. move the rook too?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9273" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-08-27T21:10:08.137" LastActivityDate="2019-09-17T17:03:45.027" Title="Castling, is it necessary to take it?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;castling&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="13463" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13462" CreationDate="2016-01-16T11:09:20.753" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Otherwise this would be an illegal move because during castling the king moves two squares, but apart from castling it is only allowed to move one square.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2016-01-16T11:09:20.753" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13464" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13459" CreationDate="2016-01-16T13:48:28.243" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It would be absolutely reasonable, because there is only one way to end such positions, draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are other positions like these as well. And for this, there is a rule called &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=208&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;dead position rule&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt; in FIDE. It's a superset of the older concept of &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.e4ec.org/immr.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;draw by insufficient material&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's draw automatically if any following situation happens:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;King vs king&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;King vs king + knight&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;King + zero or more bishops vs king + zero or more bishops, where all bishops stands on same colored squares&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Any combination of pieces in a position where stalemate is unavoidable.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Any combination of pieces in a blocked position where checkmate is impossible.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Any combination of pieces in a position where it's inevitable to end up in a position described above.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9030" LastEditorUserId="8201" LastEditDate="2018-04-06T12:06:44.427" LastActivityDate="2018-04-06T12:06:44.427" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13465" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13120" CreationDate="2016-01-17T04:23:34.330" Score="16" Body="&lt;p&gt;An exhaustive computer search shows that as expected K+N cannot in general&#xA;force stalemate against a lone K.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In fact, the defending King can avoid stalemate as long as it's not on&#xA;one of the six-square triangular neighborhoods of the corners&#xA;shown in the following diagram&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Danger Zone&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;kkK2Kkk/kK4Kk/K6K/8/8/K6K/kK4Kk/kkK2Kkk w - - 0 0&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;even on the long edge of each triangle (the twelve White Kings&#xA;in the diagram) stalemate can only be forced in a few special positions.&#xA;Namely, Kb2 to move can be stalemated by force only from this position&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Mutual Zugzwang&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;8/8/8/2N5/8/8/1k1K4/8 w - - 0 0&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and its reflection about the a1-h8 diagonal; and Ka3 to move is&#xA;stalemated only if facing a Kc3 and a Knight on one of the squares&#xA;b2, c5, b6 that control a4 (the first of these arises at the start of&#xA;the stalemate-in-9 shown by &lt;strong&gt;Petrosian&lt;/strong&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It follows too that each of these four positions is mutual Zugzwang:&#xA;the defender get stalemated by force only if on the move.  There are&#xA;few enough other Zugzwangs (up to board symmetries) to list them all.&#xA;One is the unique losing position of maximal length:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Mutual Zugzwang&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;8/8/8/2N5/8/8/8/1k1K4 w - - 0 0&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Two more are obtained from it by moving the Kings from b1/d1 to&#xA;a1/c1 or a2/c2.  Finally, Ka2 against Kc2 and Nb1(b5) are the&#xA;shortest mutual Zugwangs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As &lt;strong&gt;Glorfindel&lt;/strong&gt; suggested, some of these positions are relevant to&#xA;the Troitzky ending KNN/KP.  For example, this is a mutual Zugzwang&#xA;(in the usual sense of a win BTM and draw WTM), as are each of the &#xA;three BTM positions in the main line 1...Kg7 2 Kg5 Kg8 3 Kg6 Kf8 4 Kf6:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Mutual Zugzwang&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;8/7k/3N4/1p5K/1N6/8/8/8 w - - 0 0&quot;] &#xA;[Title &quot;Mutual Zugzwang&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;8/7k/3N4/1p5K/1N6/8/8/8 w - - 0 0&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8860" LastActivityDate="2016-01-17T04:23:34.330" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13467" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12347" CreationDate="2016-01-17T09:59:23.997" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my opinion, against these openings, the best strategy is to maintain the tension. Move around your pieces building up threats, and prevent the opponent's pawn breaks. Against these positions usually there is no forced win, but it is very hard to play them because of the cramped position, so your opponent will sooner or later make some mistake, and then his/her position will collapse. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8944" LastActivityDate="2016-01-17T09:59:23.997" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13468" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13474" CreationDate="2016-01-17T12:10:42.417" Score="14" ViewCount="2565" Body="&lt;p&gt;I play 1. d4 as White and I have success against almost all Black defences, except the Benko Gambit, where I score about 30%.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My style is that I like solid, closed, positional games if I can, but I can handle myself tactically too. However I find that I lag behind in development, and to make matters worse, even if I reach an endgame, the Benko structure is quite solid, so even here Black has good chances.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can you suggest a variation for White that leads to a solid, positional game against the Benko Gambit?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My elo is 2050.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2016-12-04T21:19:19.887" Title="Let's beat the Benko Gambit!" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;gambits&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13469" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13462" CreationDate="2016-01-17T14:38:56.653" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a very good question indeed but it took me a long time to understand what you wanted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So you are programming an interface and you wonder how the computer can tell if a player wants to play &lt;code&gt;Kg1&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;0-0&lt;/code&gt; taking short castle as an example. The answer is that if both moves are legal then none of them takes precedence and the player can play whichever they desire. You then need a device how the player can make their intention clear to the computer. For instance dragging their king outside the board could do the castling. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As BlindKungFuMaster explains in standard chess you do not have to worry about it since the King has to be on &lt;code&gt;e1&lt;/code&gt; for a castle to be a legal move. Then there is no other legal move that could take the King on &lt;code&gt;g1&lt;/code&gt; thus there is no ambiguity. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In &lt;em&gt;Fisher Chess (chess 960)&lt;/em&gt; however you can have an initial position with the King on &lt;code&gt;f1&lt;/code&gt; and a Rook on &lt;code&gt;h1&lt;/code&gt;. In this case both &lt;code&gt;Kf1-g1&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;0-0&lt;/code&gt; would be legal moves. Even for over the board play the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fide.com/component/handbook/?id=171&amp;amp;view=article0&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Laws&lt;/a&gt; (Appendix F) recommend a special procedure for castling to avoid misunderstanding.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8844" LastActivityDate="2016-01-17T14:38:56.653" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13470" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13440" CreationDate="2016-01-17T15:55:58.573" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;How about Philidor's mate?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://ashbyivanhoechessclub.org.uk/juniors/checkmates/philidors-mate/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://ashbyivanhoechessclub.org.uk/juniors/checkmates/philidors-mate/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Philidor's Mate&quot;]&#xA;    [FEN &quot;1r4k1/3Q2pp/8/6N1/6K1/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;    1. Qe6+ Kh8 2. Nf7+ Kg8 3. Nh6+ Kh8 4. Qg8+ Rxg8 5. Nf7#&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A well known pattern that involves a (sham) Queen sacrifice, a double-check, and a smothered mate delivered by the lowly Knight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-05-28T21:52:28.267" LastActivityDate="2020-05-28T21:52:28.267" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="13471" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13472" CreationDate="2016-01-17T22:01:47.823" Score="2" ViewCount="144" Body="&lt;p&gt;Does anyone know of a chess engine for iOS that calculates and gives multiples lines when analyzing positions? I currently use Stockfish, but it only gives one variation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user2137" LastActivityDate="2016-01-19T13:39:40.783" Title="iOS app that calculates multiple lines" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;software&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13472" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13471" CreationDate="2016-01-17T22:55:24.940" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;My strong SmallChess iOS app. Multi-lines is supported:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/41CLg.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/41CLg.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also try each variation on a variation board:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/YVeAD.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/YVeAD.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2016-01-17T22:55:24.940" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13473" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13468" CreationDate="2016-01-18T11:59:51.193" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I didn't exactly take into account your style, but in your own interest you should be ready to play different position types. This isn't going to be so closed, but it will definitely be solid, positional, and you will need to be tactically astute in the moves that follow.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One of the best lines is the following.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;d4 Nf6&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;c4 c5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;d5 b5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;cxb5 a6&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;bxa6 Bxa6&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Nc3 d6&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Nf3 g6&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;e4 Bxf1&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Kxf1 Bg7&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;g3 0-0&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Kg2 Nbd7&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;a4! &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;there are some move order wrinkles possible during this but you will manage to reach this tabiya 95% of the time. From here you just have a plan to regroup and neutralise the pressure black has on your queenside. knights on b5 and c4 for example are really nice and Qe2 or Qc2 are useful to protect b2, you can also regroup the darksquared bishop to c3. Sometimes you'll move the rook to a2 and then play b3 thought care should be taken. Also developing the hrook somewhere at some point. Subsequent to consolidating you then have good chances to slowly try to make the pawn count. This is vague but you should analyse from here yourself as it's already quite deep. Hope this helps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another option which I frequently use is to simply play 3. Nf3 when you can get some closed English/Maroczy bind position type... or if black insists on playing b5 then a6 you can take all of the pawns (including c5) and black is temporarily down two pawns and will be unlikely to recover them or get sufficient compensation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9288" LastEditorUserId="9288" LastEditDate="2016-01-18T12:17:27.403" LastActivityDate="2016-01-18T12:17:27.403" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13474" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13468" CreationDate="2016-01-18T14:16:00.823" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;I play Benko as black and am a FM. The most trouble I have in quick games is with declined cxb5 a6 b6 line. Without the a line open I just do not have the play that Benko player craves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, I noticed that stronger(IM+) players tend to go for the b6 line, while weaker players either take the pawn on a6 or decline the gambit with something else. For example allowing black to push to b4 has been good for me as black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9289" LastActivityDate="2016-01-18T14:16:00.823" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13476" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13478" CreationDate="2016-01-18T22:21:41.070" Score="1" ViewCount="1081" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know that there is 6 types of draws including mutual agreement, stalemate, insufficient material, 3 move repetition and the fifty move rule, but I do not know what is perpetual check. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9263" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-10-27T13:23:24.170" LastActivityDate="2020-10-27T13:23:24.170" Title="What is perpetual check?" Tags="&lt;draw&gt;&lt;check&gt;&lt;perpetual&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13477" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-01-19T00:23:50.897" Score="1" ViewCount="1334" Body="&lt;p&gt;So I just got Deep Fritz 14. This is my first &quot;real chess program.&quot; I know Deep Fritz probably wasn't the best choice for a first program, but it's what I got. I've been trying to learn how to use it by just poking around and testing things out. By doing this, I found the game database. I thought it might be a great way to study games of famous (or not so famous) players to improve my own skills. However, there seems to be no way to search through the database for a particular player or opening. Can someone tell me how to do this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, probably best for another question, but can someone link some tutorials to Deep Fritz 14?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9293" LastEditorUserId="9030" LastEditDate="2016-01-20T15:38:58.627" LastActivityDate="2017-12-31T22:15:01.860" Title="Searching Deep Fritz 14 Database" Tags="&lt;fritz&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13478" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13476" CreationDate="2016-01-19T01:43:34.150" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Perpetual check isn't a thing any more. But the idea is that one side demonstrates that they can keep putting the opponent's king in check, regardless of what the response is. Sooner or later it will turn into a threefold repetition or run afoul of the fifty move rule.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2297" LastActivityDate="2016-01-19T01:43:34.150" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13479" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13477" CreationDate="2016-01-19T08:11:10.007" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can see help menu for user manual. Or you can see this &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.google.com.tr/url?sa=t&amp;amp;rct=j&amp;amp;q=&amp;amp;esrc=s&amp;amp;source=web&amp;amp;cd=1&amp;amp;cad=rja&amp;amp;uact=8&amp;amp;ved=0ahUKEwiqjLq6tbXKAhVDjCwKHUNnC8cQFggfMAA&amp;amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fshop.chessbase.com%2Fdownload%2FProgramme%2FDeepFritz13%2FDeepFritz13Manual.pdf&amp;amp;usg=AFQjCNEdZnASxKE-GNyX6nfjhXasBXL1Sw&amp;amp;bvm=bv.112064104,d.bGg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;link&lt;/a&gt; for a more detailed manual, written for Fritz 13, but there is no difference at all. Engines are changing but GUIs are almost the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9030" LastActivityDate="2016-01-19T08:11:10.007" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13480" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13483" CreationDate="2016-01-19T12:02:44.297" Score="4" ViewCount="1474" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been trying do some research on the defence against &lt;code&gt;4. Ng5&lt;/code&gt;, since it has been a really big thorn in my side for a bit of time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[StartPly &quot;7&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Nf6 4. Ng5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've firstly taken a look into the Traxler attack, but I'm unsure about it since it's such a 'hack' line and well, it's a bit unreliable in a really big match.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am looking at mainline with &lt;code&gt;Na5&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;c6&lt;/code&gt;, but I am not quite sure how Black keeps up the initiative from there. His queenside looks a bit shattered and White seems to be fine with happily developing his queenside.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can anyone tell me some kind of plan or theory on the classical refutation against &lt;code&gt;4. Ng5&lt;/code&gt;?&#xA;Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9048" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2016-01-24T22:06:12.323" LastActivityDate="2017-05-20T03:58:04.490" Title="Two Knights Defense 4. Ng5 - Strategy?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;two-knights&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13482" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8327" CreationDate="2016-01-19T14:20:47.300" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am 2300-2450 on lichess blitz, while my FIDE rating is 2300-2350.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a correlation but there is a large body of players on lichess that are not FIDE rated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9289" LastActivityDate="2016-01-19T14:20:47.300" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13483" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13480" CreationDate="2016-01-19T17:28:21.683" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;As someone who plays 4.Ng5 as White, I can tell you what I've found to be the hardest Black line against me: 4...d5 5.exd5 Na5 6.Bb5+ c6 7.dxc6 bxc6 8.Be2 h6 9.Nf3 e4 10.Ne5 Bc5!?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Nf6 4. Ng5 d5 5. exd5 Na5 6. Bb5+ c6 7. dxc6 bxc6 8. Be2 (8. Qf3 Be7 9. Bxc6+ Nxc6 10. Qxc6+ Bd7 11. Qf3 O-O) h6 9. Nf3 e4 10. Ne5 Bc5!? (10...Bd6 11. f4 exf3 12. Nxf3) 11. c3 (11. O-O Qd4 12. Ng4 Bxg4 13. Bxg4 e3) O-O 12. b4 (12. O-O Qc7) Qd5!?&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The theory move is 10...Bd6 hitting the knight, but as White I've found that 11.f4 exf3 12.Nxf3 gives White a comfortable enough game a pawn up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;10...Bc5!? takes f4 off the table because of king safety, and Black can attack the near-trapped knight with the queen instead. A main line might be 11.c3 (11.O-O Qd4) O-O 12.b4 (12.O-O Qc7) Qd5!?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7314" LastEditorUserId="7314" LastEditDate="2016-02-02T21:51:04.000" LastActivityDate="2016-02-02T21:51:04.000" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13484" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13480" CreationDate="2016-01-19T20:21:10.497" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I played the &lt;strong&gt;Traxler&lt;/strong&gt; a lot, and it's quite a good option to play after preparation. Your opponents will escape with castling most of the time because they will be scared of your opening prep. And when they accept the sacrifice, there are quite easy draws for Black, if you don't want to play to win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you feel confident in complex tactical positions, the Traxler should be your main option. It instantly turns the tables, Black attacks, White defends.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Plus, it's a very engine friendly opening, as it's mostly tactical. You can analyze the opening with an engine and discover a novelty if you are lucky enough.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a very good start for preparation: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.newinchess.com/Yearbook/pdf/YB63_146.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.newinchess.com/Yearbook/pdf/YB63_146.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9030" LastEditorUserId="11202" LastEditDate="2017-05-19T06:31:07.763" LastActivityDate="2017-05-19T06:31:07.763" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13485" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13488" CreationDate="2016-01-19T21:44:06.123" Score="0" ViewCount="979" Body="&lt;p&gt;I play chess &lt;strong&gt;sometimes&lt;/strong&gt;.&#xA;I don't know any chess strategy. I just know the direction of each piece.&#xA;How can I know my rating?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9298" LastActivityDate="2016-02-05T01:49:23.163" Title="How can I know my rating in chess" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13486" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13485" CreationDate="2016-01-19T22:07:57.847" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;So long as you understand the tules of the game, playing on a chess based website such as Chess.com will give you an approximation of your rating. That would be a good starting point, although in general a beginner would start at around 1200 elo. (In chess, we measure one's rating in elo)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9299" LastActivityDate="2016-01-19T22:07:57.847" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13487" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13476" CreationDate="2016-01-19T22:10:37.943" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well... Yes, it is still a thing, many top level games end in threefold repetition, but that is due to the perpetual check. So in a way, you can't draw a game by perpetual 'per se' but perpetual check can implicate threefold repetition occurring.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9299" LastActivityDate="2016-01-19T22:10:37.943" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13488" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13485" CreationDate="2016-01-20T04:48:38.850" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There isn't &lt;strong&gt;one&lt;/strong&gt; rating. Each site or chess federation would rate you differently. Even if two different organizations use the exact same rating system, the separate pools of players make the numbers incomparable. You can find your rating &lt;em&gt;for a certain organization&lt;/em&gt; by playing enough games for the statistics to become meaningful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What's this about statistics? Ratings are approximations of our playing strength.  Rating systems are based upon opponents' ratings and use statistics to predict the outcome of games. The results of games are used to adjust ratings. The more we play, the more accurate the ratings become.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't know where you're located, but in the USA, you'd likely be rated about 800. An average club player is about 1500. The 700 point difference would mean you'd have virtually no chance of defeating someone who had a poor chance of defeating that average player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2016-01-20T04:48:38.850" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13489" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13490" CreationDate="2016-01-20T12:21:46.077" Score="9" ViewCount="2178" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have a PGN file with the following move in it:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol start=&quot;11&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;fxe5 bxa1=Q&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I understand the equals sign represents a draw offer, but what does &quot;=Q&quot; mean?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="725" LastActivityDate="2016-02-05T01:46:27.407" Title="What does &quot;bxa1=Q&quot; mean?" Tags="&lt;notation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13490" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13489" CreationDate="2016-01-20T12:26:45.087" Score="26" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would read it as &quot;Pawn takes something on &lt;code&gt;a1&lt;/code&gt; and promotes to a Queen&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Strictly according to the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=171&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Laws of Chess&lt;/a&gt; the &lt;code&gt;=&lt;/code&gt; sign should not be there (see article C.11).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;C.11&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  In the case of the promotion of a pawn, the actual pawn move is indicated, followed immediately by the abbreviation of the new piece. Examples: d8Q, exf8N, b1B, g1R.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However this is a PGN file, which has its own rules for game notation and it uses the &lt;code&gt;=&lt;/code&gt; sign for pawn promotion (see paragraph 3 of article 8.2.3.3 in the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www6.chessclub.com/help/PGN-spec&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;PGN standard specification&lt;/a&gt; also available &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.saremba.de/chessgml/standards/pgn/pgn-complete.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;, which should probably be the official reference). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[...]. Pawn promotions are denoted by the equal sign &quot;=&quot; immediately following the destination square with a promoted piece letter (indicating one of knight, bishop, rook, or queen) immediately following the equal sign. As above, the piece letter is in uppercase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Draw data is handled in so-called  &lt;em&gt;EPD records&lt;/em&gt; for describing chess positions, using verbose opcodes like &lt;code&gt;draw_offer&lt;/code&gt;.  Although it isn't included in PGN proper, specifics are included in articles 16.2.5.8 - 16.2.5.11 of the standard.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8844" LastEditorUserId="9315" LastEditDate="2016-01-21T16:54:34.750" LastActivityDate="2016-01-21T16:54:34.750" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13491" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13372" CreationDate="2016-01-20T17:30:14.303" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;IA Petr Harasimovic's opinion notwithstanding the game is drawn. Winning the game in an illegal position is a nonsense (barring serious misconduct or a ringing mobile phone). The problem is that the English (authoratative) version of the rules is ambiguously worded - &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Then, if &lt;em&gt;the&lt;/em&gt; illegal position is still on the board, he shall declare&#xA;  the game drawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you, @AlexandreAksenov, for the link to the authorized French translation of the rules. They remove the ambiguity with a slight mistranslation, which I suspect may be deliberate -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;si la position sur l’échiquier est &lt;em&gt;toujours&lt;/em&gt; illégale, il déclarera la&#xA;  partie nulle&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which translates back into English as &quot;If the position on the board &lt;em&gt;remains&lt;/em&gt; illegal, he shall declare the game drawn.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The British Chess Arbiters' Association has produced a &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessarbitersassociation.co.uk/FIDE_LAWS_OF_CHESS_2014_with_comments.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;version of the rules&lt;/a&gt; consisting of the FIDE rules verbatim with their own added comments to clarify points like these. Here is the relevant part of their clarification for A4.d:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Consider the following situations:  ... (b)  The arbiter arrives at&#xA;  the board.  One king is already in check.  The player completes a move&#xA;  checking the other king.  The arbiter must wait until the next move is&#xA;  completed.  If the position is &lt;em&gt;still&lt;/em&gt; illegal he will declare the game&#xA;  drawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(My italics)&#xA;This is eerily similar to the French. Perhaps no coincidence that &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessarbitersassociation.co.uk/law_comparison.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;the CAA has a French version&lt;/a&gt; (along with German and Russian) which looks like it was taken from the French Chess association website.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For completeness sake it is probably worth noting that the FIDE Arbiters' Association also has &lt;em&gt;its&lt;/em&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;http://arbiters.fide.com/images/stories/downloads/2014/Arbiters-Manual-2014.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;own handbook&lt;/a&gt;! It has no clarifying comments for A4.d. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It also worth stressing that the FAA, CAA handbooks and the various translations by the different federations remain subservient to the original FIDE Laws of Chess as published on the FIDE website. The same applies to my opinions on A4.d expressed here and to the conflicting opinions of IA Petr Harasimovic. Nevertheless I suspect that the vast majority of FIDE arbiters would declare the game in question drawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2016-01-20T17:30:14.303" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13492" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-01-20T19:49:32.287" Score="4" ViewCount="609" Body="&lt;p&gt;Having been inspired by an article on &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.chessbase.com/post/longest-dual-free-direct-mate-problem&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;ChessBase.com&lt;/a&gt;, what is the longest current tablebase mate with a unique optimal line? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By unique, I mean for each of the winning side's plies, there is only one move that gives a shortest forced mate. and for each of the losing side's plies, there is only one move that gives a longest forced mate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user2668" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-02-24T19:28:27.230" LastActivityDate="2020-06-03T15:40:03.623" Title="What is the longest current tablebase mate with a unique optimal line?" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;tablebases&gt;&lt;records&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="13493" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13485" CreationDate="2016-01-20T22:17:59.627" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you do not play in tournaments, then you do not have a rating. You are &lt;strong&gt;unrated&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you play online, then you will have a rating. However, this is &lt;strong&gt;unofficial&lt;/strong&gt; and cannot be used anywhere else.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7500" LastActivityDate="2016-01-20T22:17:59.627" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13494" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13508" CreationDate="2016-01-20T22:48:46.813" Score="10" ViewCount="674" Body="&lt;p&gt;BlindKungFuMaster and I are having a debate (&lt;a href=&quot;http://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/34484/discussion-between-blindkungfumaster-and-jeff-y&quot;&gt;http://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/34484/discussion-between-blindkungfumaster-and-jeff-y&lt;/a&gt;) and it got me wondering: Given any position that can be agreed as &quot;about equal&quot;, what is the probability that a given player would make a game-losing move on any single move, as a function of his or her rating? I am asking &lt;strong&gt;independent of the opponent's strength&lt;/strong&gt;, i.e. whether or not the opponent actually exploits the mistake to win the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Clearly, games are lost, even by Grandmasters, even by the very best. So (presuming Chess is a theoretical draw from the start position) even &lt;strong&gt;they&lt;/strong&gt; make game-losing moves on occasion. So the probability in question is clearly not zero even at Elo 2800. How high would that probability be at, say, 2000, 1800, 1500, 1200 ratings, approximately? At what rating would said probability be approximately 50%? Is this something that can be definitively calculated in some fashion based on the definition of Elo and the average number of moves per game? Or would any answer be pure guesswork?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Update:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've extracted all games from ChessBase's BIG99 database of 1,114,429 games where one player's Elo is 2500 or more and the other player's Elo is 2100 or less. There are 945 such games. After filtering out the upsets (surprisingly there are 79 win upsets and 102 draw upsets), below is the chart of ply-count vs. Elo. The darker series is where the loser played black, the lighter series is where the loser played white. Seems to be a horn-of-plenty type of shape.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/U8e97.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/U8e97.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Plot of ply-count vs. Elo for losses against 2500+&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7314" LastEditorUserId="7314" LastEditDate="2016-01-21T16:34:28.700" LastActivityDate="2016-02-05T01:43:56.087" Title="Probability of making a game-losing move as a function of Elo?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;rating&gt;&lt;blunder&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13495" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13498" CreationDate="2016-01-20T23:18:03.080" Score="4" ViewCount="792" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have signed up to a chess websites and there are very few people who are as bad as I am (rating around 800), so I have to resort to playing against people who are much better (1200+) and end up beating me very quickly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I do analyze the games to see what went wrong but I am wondering if it's even worth going up against players much better than me, since I don't get to even the end game stage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9209" LastEditorUserId="9263" LastEditDate="2016-01-22T03:18:21.990" LastActivityDate="2016-02-05T01:41:49.273" Title="Is playing stronger oppenents useful as a beginner?" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;beginner&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13496" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13495" CreationDate="2016-01-20T23:28:30.117" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't know what a rating of 800 means since you don't mention the website.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you're getting crushed every time, you need to play weaker players - it's no fun getting mauled.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That being said, if 800 is a beginner rating, then you'll likely improve quickly if you work at the basics and you'll have more people around your rating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2016-01-20T23:28:30.117" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13497" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13494" CreationDate="2016-01-20T23:44:05.410" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If we're talking about a pure game-losing move then the percentage is quite high.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bear in mind one could make 20 sub-optimal moves that individually would not be fatal. But together, it's just too much.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only way I know to figure this out is to analyze players' games using a strong engine at tournament controls. If the played move exceeds some threshold (say, 1 point) then the move is counted as a loser.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2016-01-20T23:44:05.410" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13498" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13495" CreationDate="2016-01-21T00:08:35.230" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;As long as you're also playing players of your rating (and lower) along with the higher rated players it's okay. You don't want to be discouraged by losing every single game you play. Ideally you want to play people higher rated than you more than lower rated because it's like getting a free lesson - a higher rated player will be able to take advantage of your mistakes more than a lower rated player. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At a 800 rating, you'll want to focus on basics (basic opening principles, tactics, safety, thinking processes etc.) and review your games for common mistakes to pinpoint weaknesses and then eradicating them. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, you'll also want to play slow time controls more than fast time controls as you want to be able to think about your moves and then be able to go back and correct your thinking. Faster games involve a lot of intuition and at your rating you won't really have a lot of it. So you'll want to develop that by playing slow time controls. Besides, you don't want to mess up games and then excuse yourself by saying that you didn't have enough time on your clock. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, you should begin reviewing some (master) chess games. A decent beginners book is Logical Chess by Irving Chernev. Don't review modern GM games yet as those are generally a lot more difficult to understand. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user2137" LastEditorDisplayName="user2137" LastEditDate="2016-01-21T00:17:25.647" LastActivityDate="2016-01-21T00:17:25.647" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13499" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13495" CreationDate="2016-01-21T01:31:52.067" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is always beneficial to play against stronger opponents, even if it feels frustrating to lose a lot. You learn from them while losing, but they don't learn anything at all winning against you, so actually, you are the one who is winning at the end of the day ;-)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9030" LastActivityDate="2016-01-21T01:31:52.067" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13500" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13495" CreationDate="2016-01-21T09:06:19.853" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Playing somewhat stronger opponents is fine.  If they are too strong it does not make much sense.  However, there are a few things you can do that will likely very quickly improve your rating so that you have more opponents of roughly same strength.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) Make sure you do not hang pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The majority of games at the lowest level is decided by who makes the worst mistakes, blunders a quick mate or just hangs too many pieces.  You have to learn to avoid this at all cost!  So, play slow time controls and before each move make a blunder check to test whether your move actually hangs a piece (or even just a pawn).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) Work on your basic tactics.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, also your opponents will likely hang pieces from time to time.  So before really starting to think deeply see whether there is something you can easily snatch off.  Further, you should become acquainted with basic tactical patterns such as skewers, forks, discovered attacks, double attacks, and also basic mating patterns.  There are plenty of books covering these patterns at a basic level.  Note that it is not sufficient to just know the pattern, but you have to solve sufficiently many tactical exercises so that you really know it by heart.  At some point you will realize that, at least easy ones, you see instantaneously without actually having to look for them.  That is exactly what you want to achieve.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you do a couple of exercises each day (first sorted by tactical topic, later also mixed problems, where the tactic you're looking for is not given), it is likely that you will very quickly see a dramatic improvement in your games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3529" LastActivityDate="2016-01-21T09:06:19.853" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13501" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13547" CreationDate="2016-01-21T12:45:26.720" Score="2" ViewCount="224" Body="&lt;p&gt;Our club runs a handicap tournament where handicaps are based on rating difference. I recently had to play a player rated about 300 lower than me and give him pawn plus two moves. That means I was black, had my f7 pawn removed and he got to make two moves before my first move. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He started with the obvious e4 and d4 and I replied with what looks to me to be the forced e6. The question is is e4 + d4 the best start? Or would something like e4 + Bc4 or e4 + Nf3 be better? How close does white come to having a forced win?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the record I won, on time, a very sweaty-palmed game where only in the last few moves did I manage to reach a winning endgame where I had something like N+4P v 6P. With careful handicapping this kind of format can produce very tight games as long as the handicapped player fights and doesn't just give up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2016-01-29T00:10:59.010" LastActivityDate="2016-01-29T00:10:59.010" Title="What are the best opening moves and plan for a &quot;pawn plus 2 moves&quot; handicap game?" Tags="&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;handicap&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13502" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13506" CreationDate="2016-01-21T14:29:10.410" Score="3" ViewCount="287" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm considering taking up the Breyer defence to the Ruy Lopez as Black and played an internet game which went&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  [StartPly &quot;29&quot;]&#xA;  [White &quot;White&quot;]&#xA;  [Black &quot;Black&quot;]&#xA;  [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Ba4 Nf6 5. O-O Be7 6. Re1 b5 7. Bb3 d6 8. h3 O-O 9. c3 Nb8 10. d3 Bb7 11. Nbd2 Nbd7 12. Nf1 Re8 13. Ng3 Nc5 14. Bc2 Bf8 15. Bg5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This move 15.Bg5 is not in my book on the Ruy Lopez. The computer suggests 15...h6 16.Be3 d5 which doesn't seem right unless Black gets clear compensation for the pawn. All Black's minor pieces seem well placed except the Bishop on f8. What are Black's plans in this position?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4543" LastEditorUserId="4543" LastEditDate="2016-01-21T14:58:34.907" LastActivityDate="2016-01-22T00:08:41.587" Title="What are Black's plans in this position from the Breyer defence?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;ruy-lopez&gt;&lt;planning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13503" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1377" CreationDate="2016-01-21T21:56:50.410" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recently built &lt;a href=&quot;https://sortmatch.ca&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://sortmatch.ca&lt;/a&gt; to do this kind of thing. It uses Glicko2 instead of Elo, but the effect is roughly equivalent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9207" LastActivityDate="2016-01-21T21:56:50.410" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13504" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-01-21T22:53:34.440" Score="7" ViewCount="527" Body="&lt;p&gt;Kasparov apparently said: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;By strictly observing Botvinnik's rule regarding the thorough analysis&#xA;  of one's own games, with the years I have come to realize that this&#xA;  provides the foundation for the continuous development of chess&#xA;  mastery.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does anyone know what this rule is precisely that Kasparov refers to and/or in what source Botvinnik stated the rule?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9319" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2016-01-23T00:43:08.677" LastActivityDate="2016-09-14T20:48:09.773" Title="Kasparov quote reference" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;learning&gt;&lt;history&gt;&lt;kasparov&gt;&lt;botvinnik&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13505" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13495" CreationDate="2016-01-21T22:55:11.493" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;One of the best ways to improve in chess is to play against stronger opponents. I do this and it help me a lot. But I always play against weaker players. But, of course, I study endgames. I know people who only study openings for years and never improve. In a 100 hours of study I suggest 50 hours for endgames, 30 for middle game and 20 for openings. Start with 1. e4 at the beginning and let 1, d4 or 1.Nf3 for later. Tactics are very important for a chess player and open games is better for this learning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And play. Play a lot.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Good luck.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9320" LastEditorUserId="9263" LastEditDate="2016-01-23T07:57:32.543" LastActivityDate="2016-01-23T07:57:32.543" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13506" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13502" CreationDate="2016-01-22T00:08:41.587" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;After 17 Bxc5 Bxc5 18 ed Qxd5 no pawn is lost due to the mate threat at g2.&#xA;Black has two active bishops and threatens Rad8 with pressure on the d pawn. If white does not exchange pawns then black can play Qd7 and Rad8.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9321" LastActivityDate="2016-01-22T00:08:41.587" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13507" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13504" CreationDate="2016-01-22T00:31:18.043" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think in Yermolinski's &quot;The Road to Chess Improvement&quot; he says that he decided to follow &quot;the most common advice one can find in the works of Alekhine and Botvinnik , which can be put into simple words - study your games&quot;. Of course Yermolinski takes it much further saying that &quot;study your games&quot; means to do a thorough analysis of each of your games even going as far as to write full annotations for them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The closest I find in Botvinnik quotes is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I claim that nothing else is so effective in encouraging the growth of&#xA;  chess strength as such independent analysis, both of the games of the&#xA;  great players and your own&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This can be found in several quote sites - &lt;a href=&quot;http://chess-quotes.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/botvinnik.html&quot;&gt;http://chess-quotes.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/botvinnik.html&lt;/a&gt; is one such example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2016-01-22T00:52:08.607" LastActivityDate="2016-01-22T00:52:08.607" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13508" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13494" CreationDate="2016-01-22T08:55:15.327" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;Coincidentally I already answered exactly this question in response to a &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/8765/what-percent-of-chess-games-contain-a-blunder?rq=1&quot;&gt;similar question&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: This similar question was about frequencies of blunders in games, which made the analysis somewhat misleading when directly applied to this question. Originally I looked for blunders from equal positions per &lt;strong&gt;game move&lt;/strong&gt;, which made the results a bit confusing because there was the unknown variable of how many equal positions you actually get per game move. So I redid the analysis for blunders per equal position which is a lot more appropriate in this context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I happen to have a dataset with 25000 games with stockfish evaluations after every move. This allows to actually look for blunders in equal positions, which is what I did. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Blunders from an equal position (-1.00 &amp;lt; eval &amp;lt; 1.00) are relatively rare, even among weaker players. That is not particularly surprising, because we tend to leave the equality region in little steps during the opening and the blunders come when we are under real pressure and low on time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I ran the analysis dependent on the strength of the opponent as well, to show that stronger opponents actually lead to more blunders even in equal positions. The stronger opponents in the analysis are more than 100 Elo points higher rated, the weaker 100 points lower rated. Players of all strength blunder more often against stronger opponents from equal positions than against weaker opponents.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Elo: 1500: 100cp Blunder every 26.4655172414 equal positions.&#xA;Elo: 1500: 100cp Blunder every 26.1266149871 equal positions against stronger players.&#xA;Elo: 1500: 100cp Blunder every 33.3684210526 equal positions against weaker players.&#xA;&#xA;Elo: 1600: 100cp Blunder every 28.8888888889 equal positions.&#xA;Elo: 1600: 100cp Blunder every 28.3083832335 equal positions against stronger players.&#xA;Elo: 1600: 100cp Blunder every 37.12 equal positions against weaker players.&#xA;&#xA;Elo: 1700: 100cp Blunder every 34.7788649706 equal positions.&#xA;Elo: 1700: 100cp Blunder every 34.0448933782 equal positions against stronger players.&#xA;Elo: 1700: 100cp Blunder every 39.7709923664 equal positions against weaker players.&#xA;&#xA;Elo: 1800: 100cp Blunder every 34.9866156788 equal positions.&#xA;Elo: 1800: 100cp Blunder every 33.1406015038 equal positions against stronger players.&#xA;Elo: 1800: 100cp Blunder every 45.3865546218 equal positions against weaker players.&#xA;&#xA;Elo: 1900: 100cp Blunder every 40.1570101725 equal positions.&#xA;Elo: 1900: 100cp Blunder every 38.315761729 equal positions against stronger players.&#xA;Elo: 1900: 100cp Blunder every 49.9418282548 equal positions against weaker players.&#xA;&#xA;Elo: 2000: 100cp Blunder every 44.4308207705 equal positions.&#xA;Elo: 2000: 100cp Blunder every 41.5676238036 equal positions against stronger players.&#xA;Elo: 2000: 100cp Blunder every 56.3524305556 equal positions against weaker players.&#xA;&#xA;Elo: 2100: 100cp Blunder every 52.5946657886 equal positions.&#xA;Elo: 2100: 100cp Blunder every 49.5823737821 equal positions against stronger players.&#xA;Elo: 2100: 100cp Blunder every 61.1668806162 equal positions against weaker players.&#xA;&#xA;Elo: 2200: 100cp Blunder every 61.3163636364 equal positions.&#xA;Elo: 2200: 100cp Blunder every 56.0916284881 equal positions against stronger players.&#xA;Elo: 2200: 100cp Blunder every 75.2474916388 equal positions against weaker players.&#xA;&#xA;Elo: 2300: 100cp Blunder every 69.6490486258 equal positions.&#xA;Elo: 2300: 100cp Blunder every 60.9148185484 equal positions against stronger players.&#xA;Elo: 2300: 100cp Blunder every 90.0941176471 equal positions against weaker players.&#xA;&#xA;Elo: 2400: 100cp Blunder every 78.8800318852 equal positions.&#xA;Elo: 2400: 100cp Blunder every 67.7366828087 equal positions against stronger players.&#xA;Elo: 2400: 100cp Blunder every 100.431924883 equal positions against weaker players.&#xA;&#xA;Elo: 2500: 100cp Blunder every 97.320568252 equal positions.&#xA;Elo: 2500: 100cp Blunder every 84.8542336549 equal positions against stronger players.&#xA;Elo: 2500: 100cp Blunder every 114.45814978 equal positions against weaker players.&#xA;&#xA;Elo: 2600: 100cp Blunder every 110.2421875 equal positions.&#xA;Elo: 2600: 100cp Blunder every 97.9315068493 equal positions against stronger players.&#xA;Elo: 2600: 100cp Blunder every 127.470948012 equal positions against weaker players.&#xA;&#xA;Elo: 2700: 100cp Blunder every 95.7817109145 equal positions.&#xA;Elo: 2700: 100cp Blunder every 78.6981818182 equal positions against stronger players.&#xA;Elo: 2700: 100cp Blunder every 167.296875 equal positions against weaker players.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So for a table of estimated probability of blunder on any given single move:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Elo 1500-1599:  0.0378&#xA;Elo 1600-1699:  0.0346&#xA;Elo 1700-1799:  0.0288&#xA;Elo 1800-1899:  0.0286&#xA;Elo 1900-1999:  0.0249&#xA;Elo 2000-2099:  0.0225&#xA;Elo 2100-2199:  0.0190&#xA;Elo 2200-2299:  0.0163&#xA;Elo 2300-2399:  0.0144&#xA;Elo 2400-2499:  0.0127&#xA;Elo 2500-2599:  0.0103&#xA;Elo 2600-2699:  0.0091&#xA;Elo 2700-2799:  0.0104&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An approximation formula: &lt;code&gt;p = (0.323 - 0.0850 * Elo / 1000) ^ 2&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/w5666.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/w5666.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;chart of probability&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.193" LastActivityDate="2016-02-02T19:30:02.347" CommentCount="17" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13509" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15731" CreationDate="2016-01-22T16:41:32.200" Score="6" ViewCount="7383" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are there any nice strategies for 4 player chess? (Bughouse chess)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How to open, how to win? I have not found anything good on the web.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8561" LastEditorUserId="3831" LastEditDate="2016-10-25T08:05:08.867" LastActivityDate="2016-10-28T11:09:41.547" Title="4 Player chess strategies" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;bughouse&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13510" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13501" CreationDate="2016-01-22T17:31:22.750" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I do feel that in case of this 'game format' the best is probably playing 1.e4, d4 as first two moves. This way white open both diagonals for bishops and form a formidable stronghold in the center (yet unanswered threats due to the fact that you can make a move only later with black). White can 'pack a punch' much faster in this case, also they will need to play either d3 or d4 later to develop the other bishop. So, why wait!?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you consider 2 ... e6 (after: 1. e4 ... 2. d4  e6)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then if 3. Qh5+ g6 4. Qe5 Nf6 5. Nc3 (if 5. Bg5?! then 5. ... Be7 or Bg7 with complications where black may regain initiative due to weak white queen and a quick possibility to use file 'f' in potential counter-attack)  leads to complications where two extra tempos for white can be a really good handicap, however white's queen is a bit exposed and can become a positional weakness.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other than that you got what you got - one pawn down and two tempos behind! Well, try to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;counter center offensive first by blocking white's pawns advances&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;protect the king by castling&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;use file 'f' to counterattack (if you give away f-pawn of course)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8160" LastActivityDate="2016-01-22T17:31:22.750" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13511" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5798" CreationDate="2016-01-22T18:09:38.923" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;It looks like they have arranged the first 4 moves, and they are playing some kind of a thematic opening game. Otherwise, the first 4 moves are nonsense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9030" LastActivityDate="2016-01-22T18:09:38.923" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13512" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2016-01-22T23:35:42.963" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2016-01-22T23:35:42.963" LastActivityDate="2016-01-22T23:35:42.963" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13513" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2016-01-22T23:35:42.963" Score="0" Body="Games with handicap to compensate for difference in playing strength. For instance &quot;pawn and move&quot; odds means the stronger player is black (move) and has f7 pawn removed (pawn) before the start of the game. &quot;Rook&quot; odds usually means the stronger player is white and has his a1 rook removed before the start of the game.These used to be common 100 years ago usually combined with gambling on the result but are much rarer today." OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2016-01-22T23:57:57.507" LastActivityDate="2016-01-22T23:57:57.507" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13514" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13504" CreationDate="2016-01-23T00:41:39.237" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The following passage is from Botvinnik's foreword to his &lt;em&gt;100 Selected Games&lt;/em&gt;. The text here doesn't single out one's &lt;em&gt;own&lt;/em&gt; games as the specific object of analysis, but it leaves no doubt about Botvinnik's belief that improving at analysis in general is crucial to becoming a strong player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I must mention one other possibility of achieving perfection which I myself have always tried to carry out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the essence of a chess master's art? Fundamentally it consists of the ability to analyse chess positions. True, at the board you must be able to analyse very quickly and without touching the men; but in the last resort, whether you are working out the possible variations or estimating the actual position, chess is the art of analysis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Home analysis has specific features of its own: you are not restricted by time, and you can move the men freely. Despite this difference between home analysis and practical play, there is much in common between them. It is a well known fact that almost all the outstanding chess-players have been first-class analysts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The deduction is irresistible: anyone who wishes to become an outstanding chess-player must aim at perfection in the realm of analysis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Botvinnik goes on to suggest that in, order not to let oneself drift away from being objective in one's analysis, one should also publish it, opening it up to the scrutiny of others.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2016-01-23T00:41:39.237" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13515" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1183" CreationDate="2016-01-23T08:51:15.143" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can tell you as an strong player looking to improve (1900), playing a diverse set of openings opens your mind to different themes of the game. If you always play the same lines, it is easy to get into a fixed way of thinking which limits your play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I enjoy experimenting with different openings and having fun with them. Sure I might lose a few rating points, but I learn much more in the long run.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="350" LastActivityDate="2016-01-23T08:51:15.143" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13516" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13452" CreationDate="2016-01-23T08:58:38.513" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found an other way to solve my question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The android app DroidFish can show the recommended opening moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can add a custom button to the GUI to show/hide the recommended opening moves from the book.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is not like a real puzzle, but similar.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8940" LastActivityDate="2016-01-23T08:58:38.513" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13517" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13521" CreationDate="2016-01-23T09:25:58.547" Score="5" ViewCount="159" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well the league restarted after the Christmas break this week and here's much of my latest effort with a couple of questions afterwards - I haven't shown the whole game for reasons that I hope will become clear. For background I'm rated 139 ECF (~1750 ELO) and my opponent is 156 (~1870 ELO) and the time control is 90 minutes each for all moves, though time was not a factor in this game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;League&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;UK&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2016.01.20&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Ian Bush&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;A.N.Other&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;1750&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;1870&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;*&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 c5 2.d4 cxd4 3.c3 Nc6 4.Nf3 d3 5.Bxd3 d6 6.h3 g6 7.Be3 Bg7 8.Qd2 Qc7 &#xA;9.O-O h5 10.c4 Be6 11.Nc3 a6 12.Nd5 Bxd5 13.cxd5 Ne5 14.Nxe5 Bxe5 15.f4 &#xA;Bg7 16.Rac1 Qd7 17.Qc2 Nf6 18.f5 gxf5 19.Rxf5 h4 20.Qf2 Rc8 21.Rf1 Bh6 22.&#xA;Bxh6 Rxh6 23.e5 dxe5 24.Rxe5 Qd6 25.Qf4 Qb6+ 26.Kh1 Qxb2 27.d6 e6 28.Rxe6+&#xA;fxe6 29.Qxh6 Kd7 30.Qxf6 Qxf6 31.Rxf6 Kxd6 *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) What do you think of my play so far? I'm relatively pleased, my only major disappointment is due mainly to blood lust (Rooks don't go backwards!!) I didn't see 28 Re2 which wins, but comments are appreciated&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) End games are my weakness and I ended up drawing this one. How should white go about things from the final position? What principles should I be applying?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7726" LastEditorUserId="7726" LastEditDate="2016-01-23T09:54:15.800" LastActivityDate="2016-01-24T22:17:02.543" Title="Adventures from the ODCL - How To Play The Endgame?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13518" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13509" CreationDate="2016-01-23T13:27:14.917" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think any strategy has to be based on the strengths and weaknesses of the players in a much more pronounced way than in the 2 person game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is an example strategy where one player is a strong tactician and the other a strong positional player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Generally speaking a piece in the hand is worth more than a developed piece particularly to a fine tactical player. If one player is a better tactician and the other better positionally then it might make sense for the positional player to quickly develop pieces with the intention of swapping them off to give the tactician extra pieces to play with and for the tactician to launch a pawn storm to swap off pawns to give to the positional player and to create an open position on his board with more weak squares for his paratroopers. Obviously this has to be co-ordinated so that the right pieces come along at the right time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2016-01-23T13:27:14.917" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13519" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-01-23T13:37:04.400" Score="2" ViewCount="75" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can a Chess Player play on more than one team either as a regular player or as an &quot;alternate&quot; in the USATE 2016? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9336" LastActivityDate="2016-01-23T13:37:04.400" Title="Can a player play on more than one team in the USATE?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;team&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2019-05-18T15:25:28.427" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13520" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13452" CreationDate="2016-01-23T17:05:37.413" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't know about an app for this, but I think you'll love this book: &lt;strong&gt;Modern Chess Self Instructor Book 1&lt;/strong&gt; by &lt;em&gt;Victor Pozharsky&lt;/em&gt;&#xA;It's a puzzle book which is based on opening moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5653" LastActivityDate="2016-01-23T17:05:37.413" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13521" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13517" CreationDate="2016-01-23T22:01:14.553" Score="4" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;End games are my weakness and I ended up drawing this one. How should&#xA;  white go about things from the final position? What principles should&#xA;  I be applying?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The key features in the final position are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) You are a bishop for a pawn up&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) He has more weaknesses than you - 3 pawn islands to your 2&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) His king is much more active. It is ideally placed for action in the centre of the board while yours is stuck in the corner. This plus his passed e pawn are big pluses for him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4) There aren't many pawns left. If they all come off it will be a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your aims should be, going from general to specific:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) Play actively with your pieces to attack his pawns rather than passively defend if you can&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) Activate your king. His pawn on h4 is a big problem. If he can keep it and get his rook to the second rank then your king, your second most powerful piece, will be a spectator.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) Avoid pawn exchanges.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4) Win the h4 pawn (I don't think he can stop you)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5) Blockade or win the e pawn&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;6) Queen either your g or h pawn&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Without putting it through an engine I would suggest something like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;32 ... Rh6 - he isn't going to be able to save the h pawn&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;33&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Rd8 (he wants to push his passed pawn) Rxh4&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;e5 Bd5 (blockading the e pawn and eyeing up the b pawn)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;b6 (b5 would lose the a pawn after Rh6+) Rg4 (releasing the h pawn to run)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Push the h pawn, put your rook behind it on h4, move your king to where it is needed most. Not necessarily all in that order.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2016-01-23T22:01:14.553" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13522" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13525" CreationDate="2016-01-23T23:28:17.973" Score="30" ViewCount="42138" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess is a zero-sum game of limited decisions. The number of possible moves at any given point, and the number of possible states of the board, are all finite.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tic-Tac-Toe, is one of the easiest examples of a solved game. I can't remember how many years it's been since I last lost a Tic-Tac-Toe match. Does any such &quot;optimal strategy&quot; exist for chess?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there any strategy that will guarantee the player would grasp victory or, at worst, a draw?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If there is, please shed some light on it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9339" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-05T13:50:00.667" LastActivityDate="2020-08-05T13:50:00.667" Title="Is chess a solved game?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;solving&gt;" AnswerCount="11" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="13523" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13522" CreationDate="2016-01-23T23:35:46.727" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess games may be finite but the number of possible games is beyond imagining.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is no known sequence of moves that guarantees either side a win or draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2016-01-23T23:35:46.727" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13524" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13522" CreationDate="2016-01-23T23:37:52.973" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess hasn't been solved and it won't be in the next decades (barring ridiculous computing advancement involving quantum computing or such drastic changes).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can calculate in your head for the first move: White has 20 options and black has 20 responses; we already have 400 possible positions. This number grows ridiculously fast, the number of possible positions for an 80 move game is unimaginably huge.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, if chess were solved, chess tournaments and championships would basically be exercises in memorisation, rendering it pointless. (EDIT: this is rather overstated, see comments.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Currently, chess is solved for any position with seven pieces (including kings). The latest estimate I heard for 8-men tablebases was somewhere in the 2020s, and of course the time needed for an additional piece grows exponentially. I don't expect to see chess anywhere &lt;em&gt;near&lt;/em&gt; solved in my lifetime (again, barring truly exceptional computing advancements).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="674" LastEditorUserId="674" LastEditDate="2020-06-13T12:02:46.240" LastActivityDate="2020-06-13T12:02:46.240" CommentCount="14" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="13525" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13522" CreationDate="2016-01-24T00:07:10.180" Score="32" Body="&lt;p&gt;Because of the observation you make, that the tree of possible game paths for chess is finite, chess is indeed solv&lt;strong&gt;able&lt;/strong&gt; in exactly the same sense that tic-tac-toe is. So optimal strategies for chess do exist; however, no one has any idea what they are. Whereas tic-tac-toe is solved thanks to a quite small space of possible games, chess is nowhere near solved because its space of possible games far outstrips what could be dealt with by current computing technology.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As noted in another answer, endgame tablebases exhibit optimal play for all positions with limited numbers of pieces. So in those settings, we have solutions that are as explicit and concrete as are those for tic-tac-toe. But it's important to note that while one can easily teach/remember the optimal strategy for tic-tac-toe and swiftly become a perfect unassisted tic-tac-toe player, the amount of information behind, say, the &lt;a href=&quot;http://chessok.com/?page_id=27966&quot;&gt;7-piece Lomonosov tablebases&lt;/a&gt;, is 140 terabytes. There is no concise description of optimal 7-man strategy that one could learn/remember and then play perfectly without assistance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2016-01-24T00:07:10.180" CommentCount="13" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13526" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13160" CreationDate="2016-01-24T09:44:35.230" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would suggest that you look up some theory in the French defense if you're planning on using it. What we seem to have here is a complete home brew.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, playing ...h5 before playing ...Nh6 is very uncommon. One of the reasons is that playing h5 as black actually makes Nh6 harder to play for black, as Bxh6  cannot really be answered with gxh6, as the h5 pawn becomes very weak. Thus black is encouraged to play Rxh6, which isn't ideal. If you want to play Nh6 in the advance variation, I suggest you play it without playing h5 first. You do not have to worry much about Bxh6 from white, as that makes b2 harder to defend, and gxh6 doesn't really give black many problems.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More importantly, if you are afraid of playing with the light squared bishop as black in the french, then the opening is not worth playing at all. I think that you may be underestimating the potential of that bishop, if all you want to do with it is trading it. A French player has to be able to play with the light square bishop as black to be successful in the long run. In essence, it's not worth the trouble to trade off the &quot;bad&quot; bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8300" LastActivityDate="2016-01-24T09:44:35.230" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13528" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4596" CreationDate="2016-01-24T16:08:05.143" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Two kings must always be separated by at least 1 square because 2 kings cannot check one another.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9345" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2016-01-24T18:36:24.560" LastActivityDate="2016-01-24T18:36:24.560" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13529" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13517" CreationDate="2016-01-24T22:17:02.543" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;1) Good game, a few mistakes but nothing very significant given your elo. I like using lichess to review games, so &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.lichess.org/qB85CDuy&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; is the link.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) You're up a minor piece, and the pawn islands are in the same position. You can queen before he does. Ask the question &quot;how can I queen a pawn before he does,&quot; and to that I reply &quot;pushh... when you can.&quot; Click the menu button below the movelist on lichess and &quot;play with the machine&quot; to follow along and make the moves yourself, it'll make you less nervous over the board. Plus, no one is going to play better than Stockfish.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So you obviously have to queen either the g or h pawn, and your a pawn is simply bait to waste his rook's time. We need to knock out his h pawn, and preferably his e pawn as well so it doesn't cause trouble. We can start by playing Rh6 to scoop one of the two pawns, his Rd3 is met with our Bf5. You can play out some more continuations, but he'll lose a pawn once you kick out his annoying rook that is overloaded. Easiest way to kick out the rook is with our king on f2 and moving our bishop around. If he moves his king anywhere but e5 instead of being annoying with his rook, you can play Re6 and get his e pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Assuming he doesn't make a mistake, most of this endgame is moving the bishop around to good squares that limit his rook. Our rook should always be attacking one of his pawns or defending the bishop. It's pretty simple to play out, try it a few different ways!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You are definitely winning, I hope to see you playing out these positions instead of drawing. You can read up on endgames many different places if you have lots of trouble. Good luck out there!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8064" LastActivityDate="2016-01-24T22:17:02.543" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13530" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-01-25T08:12:21.607" Score="2" ViewCount="876" Body="&lt;p&gt;I like to play with my favourite android chess app on a tablet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand I like the sun in my room.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I the sun is too strong, then up to now I go to a dark area in my room.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a way to solve this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a way to show the chess board on E-Ink (digital paper)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8940" LastActivityDate="2016-02-13T16:21:21.833" Title="E-Ink/Digital Paper for Display" Tags="&lt;android&gt;&lt;hardware&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13531" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13530" CreationDate="2016-01-25T14:39:58.293" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;As of 2016 There are a few Android based e-ink readers, most notably by Onyx and a whole bunch of rebrands ranging in size from 6 inches to 9.7 inches.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I highly recommend checking out mobileread.com for all e-ink reader related information.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Usually they do not run the latest Android (i think 4.4.2 is about as good as it gets).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another minus is that they do not run the most powerful CPUs(to both save on costs and also to preserve power). Still for running Stockfish they should be good enough.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9289" LastActivityDate="2016-01-25T14:39:58.293" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13532" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13530" CreationDate="2016-01-25T17:07:56.947" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is actually a chess app for the Kindle - &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/B004KACWZW&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.amazon.com/Chess/dp/B004KACWZW&lt;/a&gt; . I don't think it is very strong. It will probably give you a good game if your are 1800 or lower. Probably a waste of time if you are much over 2000.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2016-01-25T17:07:56.947" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13533" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13444" CreationDate="2016-01-26T08:54:17.610" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am not sure who may be these chessplayers who think gambits should be accepted. Certainly not the many (including most world top players) who do &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; reply with 2. ..., dc4 after 1. d4, d5 2. c4. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="446" LastActivityDate="2016-01-26T08:54:17.610" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13534" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13544" CreationDate="2016-01-26T11:46:45.470" Score="1" ViewCount="175" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have watched &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMe-hvCwTRo&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; video, where Kasparov explains the variations after his knight sacrifice. However, the position he analyses starting from 3:08, I think I am missing something.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Kasparov vs Karpov, 1990 World Finals&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;r3qb1k/1b4p1/p2pr2p/3n4/Pnp1N1N1/6RP/1B3PP1/1B1QR1K1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Nxh6 Rxh6 2. Nxd6 Qxe1+ 3. Qxe1 Rxd6 4. Qe4 Nd3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What if black plays &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;r4b1k/1b4p1/p2r4/3n4/Pnp1Q3/6RP/1B3PP1/1B4K1 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Nf6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;instead of Nd3? Can't he both attack queen and defend h7 square? His chances of survival is so low, obviously, but I think Nf6 is better than Nd3, and worth analyzing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8209" LastActivityDate="2016-01-27T11:18:48.123" Title="Could Karpov defend against Kasparov in 1990 championship?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;grandmaster&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13535" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13537" CreationDate="2016-01-26T12:02:04.640" Score="1" ViewCount="71" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am wondering what the average ELO of the Tradewise Gibraltar Chess Festival 2016 is? And if it falls to any rating category that elite tournaments usually have?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5653" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-09-23T15:07:57.510" LastActivityDate="2016-09-23T15:07:57.510" Title="Average ELO of Tradewise Gibraltar Chess Festival 2016?" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;tournament&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13536" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13541" CreationDate="2016-01-26T12:03:21.380" Score="1" ViewCount="74" Body="&lt;p&gt;When and what was the last open tournament that Vishy Anand participated in before this 2016 Gibraltar Open? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5653" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-09-23T15:07:50.073" LastActivityDate="2016-09-23T15:07:50.073" Title="What was the last open tournament Anand participated in before this Gibraltar 2016 event?" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;famous-players&gt;&lt;anand&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13537" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13535" CreationDate="2016-01-26T12:17:41.010" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;If I didn't mess up my script the average Elo of the Gibraltar Masters 2016 is 2321.64.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That is category III and nowhere near a super tournament. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But of course if you only look at the top seeds the average is very comparable to super tournaments. (The top nine would be category XXI)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically after the first 4-5 rounds you have a full fledged super tournament going on at first 5 boards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2016-01-26T12:17:41.010" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13538" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13534" CreationDate="2016-01-26T14:00:05.893" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, for one thing, Nf6 leaves the bishop on b7 hanging, and upon taking it, the queen will be attacking both the rook on a8 and the knight on b4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4444" LastActivityDate="2016-01-26T14:00:05.893" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13539" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="86" CreationDate="2016-01-26T17:02:39.973" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chaturanga is the ancient game that gave birth to board games chess, shogi, makruk, xiangqi and janggi. I believe Chaturanga is the same game as Shatranj or got only slightly varied while moved from India to Sassanid Persia. There is another variation of chess Chaturaji which used 2 dices and 4 players (Ludo style) around 11th century or slightly earlier. The game of chess evolved from Shatranj and got most of the current rules around 15th century in Spain. It was only at late 19th century that Chess as we know of has been formalized.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9362" LastActivityDate="2016-01-26T17:02:39.973" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13541" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13536" CreationDate="2016-01-26T20:30:31.740" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The 1993 Biel Interzonal according to &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.thehindu.com/sport/other-sports/viswanathan-anand-back-in-open-tournament-after-23-years/article8154597.ece&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;The Hindu&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1485" LastActivityDate="2016-01-26T20:30:31.740" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13542" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13543" CreationDate="2016-01-27T09:12:17.423" Score="8" ViewCount="10329" Body="&lt;p&gt;How can you predict what your opponent will play in the next 5 turns, 7 turns, 10 turns?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the game is like a tree, then the more the turns the more it will branch out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How can a player accurately predict what their oppoent will play several moves into the future when the number of possible combinations of moves to get ten moves ahead can be ridiculously large?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please give a detailed explanation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How do I learn/acquire this skill?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9339" LastEditorUserId="10515" LastEditDate="2016-11-26T11:57:01.063" LastActivityDate="2016-11-26T11:57:01.063" Title="How do players &quot;see&quot; several moves ahead?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;calculation&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13543" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13542" CreationDate="2016-01-27T09:46:35.083" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;The answer is that you only consider the most sensible and most critical options. This prunes the tree down to manageable proportions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One easy example would be the fact that retreats are usually not threatening and therefore less likely to be critical. (Of course the downside is that actually dangerous retreats are often overlooked.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To learn how to recognise potentially critical moves you have to play through master games, solve puzzles and play games. Over time your brain will store typical moves and manoeuvres in certain position. This ability is called &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/905691538X&quot;&gt;pattern recognition&lt;/a&gt;. The more patterns your brain stores the stronger its intuitive move suggestions will be, you will be able to prune the tree more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another aspect is called &quot;forcing moves&quot;. A forcing move is a move that requires a certain response, i.e. severely restricts the opponent's choices. For example checks, threats of checkmate and other kinds of strong threats. If your moves are very forcing the tree will resemble a path, because every step from this path is either illegal or results quickly in very bad things. If GMs calculate very long variations, these usually contain very forcing moves. In positions without forcing moves even the best players don't look very far ahead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is also a non-intuitve conscious part to &quot;seeing ahead&quot;. Even if your brain provides you with only the most likely good moves, you still have to visualise the outcome of every variation in your head. That requires training as well, for example &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endgame_study&quot;&gt;solving studies&lt;/a&gt; or tactical puzzles with long variations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2016-01-27T09:46:35.083" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13544" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13534" CreationDate="2016-01-27T11:18:48.123" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Nf6 is followed by e.g.:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;r4b1k/1b4p1/p2r1n2/8/Pnp1Q3/6RP/1B3PP1/1B4K1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Qh4+ Kg8 2. Bxf6 Rxf6 3. Qxf6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;with not only huge material advantage for white, but also some very nasty threats that are ultimately not defendable. So in short, there is not much to gain with Nf6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1099" LastActivityDate="2016-01-27T11:18:48.123" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13545" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13542" CreationDate="2016-01-27T17:44:27.100" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would recommend Dan Heisman for detailed explanations of how effective analysis is done in Chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.danheisman.com/main_chess/chess.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.danheisman.com/main_chess/chess.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately, many of his articles have gone behind a membership wall now (at chesscafe.com), but not all:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/article/view/good-tactics-requires-analysis-and-pattern-recognition&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://www.chess.com/article/view/good-tactics-requires-analysis-and-pattern-recognition&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To answer your question in short: you don't (predict 5,7,10 moves ahead); instead you find dangerous moves (of your opponent, then of your own) then look further ahead only on critical moves for stopping/minimizing the opponent's danger while maximizing your own danger.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Note that in both of Dan's examples at the second link, you only need to &quot;look ahead&quot; at most 2 moves.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7314" LastActivityDate="2016-01-27T17:44:27.100" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13546" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13542" CreationDate="2016-01-27T19:54:07.110" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Other answers are also good. But I would explain it simpler.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You just take account of few best moves, you don't care others because you know that they are inferior you can refute them easily. You keep calculating positions which are unclear for you, until you assess them. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, if something lets you win a queen in a middlegame position, you know that is almost always winning for you(you assess it winning), and you stop calculating. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Forcing moves let's you go deeper because if there are forcing moves it means there are less options(generally only one option, think about checks for example). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So to conclude, it's generally easy get 5 moves deep, some positions lets you easily calculate 30 moves ahead, it really depends complexity of the position, and experience you have. Crucial thing is, who is calculating deeper and who is selecting candidate moves more correctly, that's the thing that decides the winner in a game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fellowshipabbey.org/files/Kotov,%20Alexander%20-%20Think%20Like%20a%20Grandmaster.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Think Like a Grandmaster by Kotov&lt;/a&gt; is an excellent book which covers thinking processes in chess. I strongly recommend you to read this book.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9030" LastEditorUserId="9030" LastEditDate="2016-01-27T22:34:46.567" LastActivityDate="2016-01-27T22:34:46.567" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13547" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13501" CreationDate="2016-01-27T23:45:31.613" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can go for the King's Indian kind of lines, such as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;e4 ...&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;d4 g6&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;g6 stops Queens from sneaking in the Qh5+ check, and also prepares for fianchetto-ing bishops. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The general positions will end up a bit cramp for Black, but Black will have a Modern-esque plan of d6-c5 or d6-e5, whichever you prefer. Play can continue with&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Nf6 d6&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Nc6 Bg7&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Bc4 Nf6&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you manage to get in e5 quickly, then you can smoothly transpose into KIA lines&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Good luck!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9048" LastActivityDate="2016-01-27T23:45:31.613" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13548" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13452" CreationDate="2016-01-28T00:08:40.923" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Lichess.com has an excellent application just for finding the best moves on a given opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is kind of like Tactics Training, but with openings.&#xA;You don't even have to register or pay anything either!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although a lot of the openings it gives you are pretty obscure, it helps develop a good 'opening intuition'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Good luck!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9048" LastActivityDate="2016-01-28T00:08:40.923" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13549" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12307" CreationDate="2016-01-28T14:18:32.917" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a FM 2300 a few quick notes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As noted Bxc7 was very strong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Otherwise I really do not like 19. a4?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There was no need to weaken both b3 and b4 as your knight on c5 was doing a splendid job of keeping a4 under control.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Without a4 pawn, you have 4 potential black targets , a5, c6, c7 and e7 (plus potential penetriation via e6) vs your only weak d4 pawn. With a4 you are giving your OP b3 to attack which he does.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Otherwise, you did a reasonable job of playing your 2 knights vs his two bishops. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even at the end it was not so terrible if not for your blunder.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9289" LastActivityDate="2016-01-28T14:18:32.917" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13550" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-01-28T16:04:16.660" Score="1" ViewCount="1968" Body="&lt;p&gt;Which android app can:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Solve chess problems &lt;em&gt;without internet connection as well&lt;/em&gt;. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Support manually edit board according to the problem. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Ideally this app should allow a person to step back on any move and also provide hints on the next move.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This app is for a person who is a novice in chess, so he could try to solve the problems from the book he reads. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9381" LastEditorUserId="10295" LastEditDate="2017-08-16T16:17:07.057" LastActivityDate="2017-08-16T16:17:07.057" Title="Standalone chess problem solver for Android" Tags="&lt;problems&gt;&lt;android&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13551" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13550" CreationDate="2016-01-28T17:27:18.077" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Did you try &lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.petero.droidfish&amp;amp;hl=en&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Droidfish&lt;/a&gt; ? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It runs stock Fish engine + you can edit positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5653" LastActivityDate="2016-01-28T17:27:18.077" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13553" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13554" CreationDate="2016-01-28T20:41:17.943" Score="3" ViewCount="627" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I play the Ruy Lopez opening, I usually get my bishop chased all the way down to the second rank by two pawns. I don't know if this is common at higher levels of play but it seems like a pointless pursuit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Ba4 b5 { Spanish Game, Morphy Defence, Caro Variation } 5. Bb3 a5 6. a3 a4 7. Ba2 *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does doing this give either player an advantage at any point during the game?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9209" LastActivityDate="2016-02-06T10:37:00.887" Title="Is this a legitimate defence to Ruy Lopez openings?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;ruy-lopez&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13554" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13553" CreationDate="2016-01-28T22:01:16.437" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is extremely uncommon for Black to play like this at the higher levels, and that is because, as you stated, it's pointless. Black achieves nothing in particular by this chase, and White ends up with a standard opening advantage. Worth noting, however, is that after 5...a5 by Black, White is in no way forced to play a3. A standard developing move will do, as the bishop can go to d5 if nothing else.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8300" LastActivityDate="2016-01-28T22:01:16.437" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13555" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13522" CreationDate="2016-01-28T22:46:33.973" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The human mind is much more complex than a tic-tac-toe game. So, you can find a good strategy for play such game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess is quite diferent. Chess is a heuristic game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;you can not put a soldier in charge above a general. The mind of a general is much more complex than a soldier mind, in military terms. It is only a analogy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Complexity, that is what matters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You need to be more complex than chess. It is impossible, but you must try, you need to try. You can achieve it in several levels. Many factors are involved. Efforts are important, but many of us make great efforts with poor results. But there are people who made little efforts and achieve excellent results.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nature is unfair.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But if you learn chess at age of five your chances will be better than if you learn the game at age of ten.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, if you used to stay lots of hours in front of TV when you was a child you wasted your intelligence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Last, but not least, sorry about my english.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9320" LastActivityDate="2016-01-28T22:46:33.973" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13556" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-01-29T10:34:36.773" Score="0" ViewCount="1715" Body="&lt;p&gt;On chess.com I have a blitz rating that hovers around 1000, but on lichess my tournament blitz rating is around 1500 and I can go toe-to-toe with 1600 players. Are they using the same rating systems? Which rating system coheres more to standard chess ELO?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9393" LastActivityDate="2016-01-29T23:57:26.690" Title="Lichess vs chess.com blitz ratings" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2016-01-30T20:52:58.117" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13557" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13553" CreationDate="2016-01-29T12:04:57.543" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;After 5...a5 two better moves for white are 6.a4, stopping the black a pawn in its tracks and gaining some space and 6.c3 which prepares d4 and creates space for the bishop on c2 from where it can protect e4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Consequently 5...a5 isn't that great for black. Better would be 5...Nf6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2016-01-29T12:04:57.543" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13559" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13585" CreationDate="2016-01-29T15:58:41.547" Score="5" ViewCount="216" Body="&lt;p&gt;Purely by piece counting, B+N is worth R + 1P. But I've seen lots of time when the exchange favours the side who holds B+N. In one variation of Scotch, white exchanges R+2P for B+N and is still slight in favour.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are the ideas surrounding this type of exchange?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7002" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2016-01-29T16:43:23.980" LastActivityDate="2020-03-04T17:38:22.373" Title="B+N worth R + how many pawns?" Tags="&lt;material-balance&gt;&lt;exchange&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13560" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-01-29T16:09:50.870" Score="4" ViewCount="4206" Body="&lt;p&gt;How does a chess rating at Lichess.org compare against a rating in real life, in classic chess (more than 8 min)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9136" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-01-29T18:25:21.380" LastActivityDate="2016-02-22T00:51:42.327" Title="Lichess.org rating vs rating in real life" Tags="&lt;online-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13561" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13559" CreationDate="2016-01-29T17:33:00.017" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think, in a middle game scenario when there are more number of pieces and pawns on the board, giving up a single Rook for two pieces (Knight and Bishop) is a good trade. This might be because the Rook does not enjoy free movement when there are no open files and too many pieces/pawns on the board in the middle game. As always the statement of cliche in chess &quot;Depends on the context&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3158" LastActivityDate="2016-01-29T17:33:00.017" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13562" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-01-29T17:50:49.150" Score="5" ViewCount="214" Body="&lt;p&gt;At a tournament I was participating in last weekend, there was an interesting situation that happened and the TD did not know how to handle the situation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White said something along the lines of &quot;I think you should resign,&quot; but thought White had said &quot;I think I'll resign&quot;. Black put his hand out and White shook Black's hand. Neither player said anything after this, but packed away the set and only when they went to write their result did they realize that they misunderstood each other.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What should happen here? Is the game drawn because they shook hands?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9399" LastActivityDate="2016-01-29T22:04:23.757" Title="USCF Ruling - Resignation confusion after reaching results sheet" Tags="&lt;draw&gt;&lt;uscf&gt;&lt;resigning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13563" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13560" CreationDate="2016-01-29T18:51:39.033" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I played a 2150 who had a 2190 fide&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's hard to tell though with lower rated players though. Also, 8 minute isn't a normal time control for rated games. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lastly, I wouldn't worry so much about ratings and instead worry about your progress measured against yourself. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7525" LastActivityDate="2016-01-29T18:51:39.033" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13564" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13562" CreationDate="2016-01-29T19:25:15.837" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;If I were a TD at this tournament, here is how I would rule in this situation after speaking with both opponents separately and getting their account of what happened (assuming what both said lines up with what's given in the question), and why I would rule that way:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Telling an opponent during a rated game that they should resign is at best rude, and at worst could be construed as a violation of rule 20G - &quot;It is forbidden to distract or annoy the opponent in any manner whatsoever&quot;.  I would give the benefit of the doubt to White that they were not intentionally trying to violate that rule.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With that in mind, even if the communication was not completely understood, I would rule that anything that White said to Black, in which both players agree that they said/heard the word &quot;resign&quot;, stopped the clock and put away the set, would be reasonably interpreted by Black as a resignation by White, and would adjudicate the game in favor of Black.  0-1.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Disclaimer - I am a certified USCF TD, but only Club level, so I could easily be wrong here.  This wasn't on the exam!  :-)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;[EDIT:  After the later follow-on discussion, I understand now that this isn't the correct ruling, and that a better ruling would involve having the players resume the game.  I appreciate the patience of those with more experience than me in explaining what they'd do, and why.]&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7147" LastEditorUserId="7147" LastEditDate="2016-01-29T22:04:23.757" LastActivityDate="2016-01-29T22:04:23.757" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13565" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13562" CreationDate="2016-01-29T20:18:31.503" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;The correct decision here is to send the players back to finish their game.  There's a very good rule of thumb that TD's use in situations like this - if the two players don't agree on the result of the game (there's no &quot;meeting of the minds&quot; between the players), they should go back to the board and continue the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's up to the TD to set the clock times as reasonably as possible.  For example, if it's an hour into the round of a G/60 tournament and a spectator saw that white was up 10 minutes on the clock, it might be appropriate to set the clocks to 25 minutes for black and 35 minutes for white.  Nothing is going to be perfect, but so long as both players have at least a few minutes, allowing the players to determine the outcome on the board is going to be far better than the TD adjudicating the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a rule, the absolute last resort for TD's should be to adjudicate the result of a game.  Everything possible should be done to allow the result to be determined by the players via play.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, the TD does have some discretion in cases like this.  If the next round is about to start, and there's no time to allow the players to finish the game, the TD can have the players adjourn their game and pair the next round using his or her best guess as to the result.  One trick with adjournments is that the TD can pair the players as if one of them has won the game and the other has drawn the game.  This has the benefit of making sure that neither player gets unduly easy pairings in the next round before the result of the game is actually determined. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12" LastActivityDate="2016-01-29T20:18:31.503" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13566" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13587" CreationDate="2016-01-29T22:52:18.157" Score="3" ViewCount="574" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have come to the realization that studying opening theory is far and away my favorite aspect of chess. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That being said I am looking for a comprehensive theory heavy book on the Slav. I would like one that deals with pawn structure formations, middle game plans, and potentially end games that occur frequently. I would also like one that deals with the subtleties of move order as sometimes that is glossed over in books that are rushed to be published. Any help would be greatly appreciated.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Looking for something aimed at the 2000+ level&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7525" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-09-26T13:11:13.377" LastActivityDate="2018-09-26T13:11:13.377" Title="Slav - Theory Heavy Book" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;books&gt;&lt;slav-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13568" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13556" CreationDate="2016-01-29T23:57:26.690" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The average blitz rating on chess.com is &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/livechess/players?type=Blitz&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;1090&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The average blitz rating on lichess is around &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.lichess.org/stat/rating/distribution/blitz&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;1600&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;So that looks just about right. chess.com is closer to Fide.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9402" LastActivityDate="2016-01-29T23:57:26.690" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13569" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5858" CreationDate="2016-01-30T01:13:28.103" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found an easy way to save pgns in CBReader. File-&gt;Publish to WEB-&gt;One-click publication-&gt; the browser will open with your game and 'Download PGN' option. Really fast and easy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9403" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-06-07T11:17:17.067" LastActivityDate="2017-06-07T11:17:17.067" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13570" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13559" CreationDate="2016-01-30T04:52:35.423" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It totally depends on position. But if we say there is no tactical opportunity immediately, going into &lt;code&gt;B+N vs R+p&lt;/code&gt; strategically would be about even.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9030" LastActivityDate="2016-01-30T04:52:35.423" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13571" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13566" CreationDate="2016-01-30T13:39:02.240" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Encyclopaedia of Chess Openings,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encyclopaedia_of_Chess_Openings&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encyclopaedia_of_Chess_Openings&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;was (is?) one of the earliest comprehensive theory books when I studied chess in my early days. It seems that these books are still published and updated:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessinformant.org/eco-encyclopedia-of-chess-openings&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.chessinformant.org/eco-encyclopedia-of-chess-openings&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However the analyses in the book might not fully cover all the aspects you are asking for. The included analyses might take you in the right direction though..&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7968" LastEditorUserId="7968" LastEditDate="2016-01-30T13:44:21.577" LastActivityDate="2016-01-30T13:44:21.577" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13572" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-01-30T13:47:02.060" Score="-8" ViewCount="259" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am 14 years old. Several months ago, I was introduced to chess. I loved the game, and it quickly became all I think about. I only learned the rules of chess at 11/12 and only played it from 8 months ago, but I taught myself so many things and I am now a 2300 rated player. In only 8 months, I changed from a complete beginner who only played 3 or 4 games in his life, to a relatively okay player(2300). I did this on my own. Is this the beginning of a meteoric rise of my chess strength? Am I destined to be at the top of the world? Or am I living in a dream that will never materialize? I am aware that today's top players learned chess at 6/7, and that as we go into the future, this standard will be inevitably rendered too old, but is it possible that I can do it? I am learning new things everyday, and if I were to look at my games a week ago, I would laugh at how weak I am. Am I going to be a great exception? I know Rubinstein learned chess when he was 16. Please answer me fast.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have no intentions of bragging about myself, but know that:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I did many IQ tests and scored the highest possible score on almost all  of them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I did many memory test that all my family members couldn't finish which I did easily.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also believe I have a big talent for chess and thinking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I played many beautiful games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9406" LastActivityDate="2016-01-31T07:21:40.000" Title="Is it possible to achieve this goal? Asking strong chess players" Tags="&lt;study&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="7" FavoriteCount="0" ClosedDate="2016-02-01T00:51:25.740" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13573" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13572" CreationDate="2016-01-30T14:55:09.893" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you made 2300 FIDE (or even USCF) in 8 months then I'd say you have an excellent chance of becoming a Grand Master. The top 50 players in the world are pretty strong (and motivated) so who can say if you can ever be at the top. You'll have to decide you want it, and go for it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But 2300 with under a year of experience is really &lt;em&gt;really&lt;/em&gt; unusual. Fischer 'got good' at about your age, but he'd been playing seriously for a few years by then, against good players. And he had an instructor.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To continue improving, you'll need an instructor and IM-level competition. Find a local chess club of that strength and play there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2016-01-30T14:55:09.893" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13574" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13589" CreationDate="2016-01-30T17:47:27.413" Score="5" ViewCount="408" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there any name for this pawn structure?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Tfznz.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Tfznzm.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9136" LastEditorUserId="4145" LastEditDate="2016-01-31T20:06:18.373" LastActivityDate="2016-01-31T20:06:18.373" Title="What is the name of this pawn structure for black, with doubled c and f pawns?" Tags="&lt;pawn-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13575" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13574" CreationDate="2016-01-30T17:57:06.000" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is no special name for the structure you show where black has doubled c and f pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2016-01-30T17:57:06.000" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13576" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13559" CreationDate="2016-01-30T18:17:54.500" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess is a dynamic game and so the pieces get their values according to the position on the board at the time and what they are doing. This is fluid and subject to change.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That said, as a general rule the rook side of the equation is worth more in the endgame and vice versa in the late opening or early middlegame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have seen expert players on several occasions win wonderful endgames with RPP v BB or RPP v BN. At the other extreme I have seen games in the middlegame stage where files are pretty much blocked but there one or two great diagonals and one player has sacrificed his rook for just the one bishop leaving him with a comfortable won game because his bishop is now a power piece and his opponent's rook is just a spectator. Similarly you will find many games online where one player sacrifices his rook for his opponent's knight on c3 or f3, doubling the pawns, smashing open the position in front of the castled king and leading to a quick win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2016-01-30T18:17:54.500" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13577" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13258" CreationDate="2016-01-30T19:27:44.610" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Do try 'Analyze This' App, especially for analyzing games with multiple Chess engines. Can even automatically Analyze games with English commentary!&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.pereira.analysis&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.pereira.analysis&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Disclaimer: I am the developer! Happy to help!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1275" LastActivityDate="2016-01-30T19:27:44.610" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13578" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13255" CreationDate="2016-01-30T19:29:38.267" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess programming wiki has good resources. &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessprogramming.org/Recommended_Reading&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.chessprogramming.org/Recommended_Reading&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1275" LastEditorUserId="10075" LastEditDate="2019-08-25T17:28:13.947" LastActivityDate="2019-08-25T17:28:13.947" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="13579" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13452" CreationDate="2016-01-30T19:39:33.267" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;One of the main reasons people learn openings and their names/variations is to build a personal &quot;book&quot; or repertoire. Also as you said, there is no single truth/good move in the opening; the choices are many.&#xA;So you can either settle down on some popular openings and then use opening Apps to learn more or you can just play against the mobile using any popular app and are every turn ask the App for a hint.&#xA;That way you would make the best possible move and even have fun playing a complete game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Asim&#xA;Developer of some Android Chess apps&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1275" LastActivityDate="2016-01-30T19:39:33.267" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13580" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13550" CreationDate="2016-01-30T19:45:39.257" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are several good options:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.pereira.analysis&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;code&gt;iChess&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/a&gt; - which is a Chess puzzles app and works without internet.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.pereira.analysis&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;code&gt;Analyze This&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/a&gt; - which can be used to set up a board position from the book and move back and forth, save and make a collection.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Disclaimer: I am the developer of the aforementioned Apps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.kgroth.chessocr&amp;amp;hl=en&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;code&gt;Chess OCR&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/a&gt; - is the best app which can make task easier of automatically scanning Chess board diagram from a book and transferring to above Chess Apps, &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1275" LastEditorUserId="10295" LastEditDate="2017-08-16T14:32:41.830" LastActivityDate="2017-08-16T14:32:41.830" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13581" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13574" CreationDate="2016-01-30T20:55:13.973" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's a pretty terrible pawn structure so I doubt it has a specific name. Actually, most pawn structures don't have a name.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2789" LastActivityDate="2016-01-30T20:55:13.973" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13582" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13583" CreationDate="2016-01-30T21:33:36.097" Score="2" ViewCount="205" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/2eY2Y.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/2eY2Y.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What's the name of this structure after white castling ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9410" LastActivityDate="2016-02-06T09:29:41.947" Title="What's the name of this opening for white?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13583" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13582" CreationDate="2016-01-30T22:10:46.703" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is generally known as the Glek System. It looks like Nc3 and Nf6 were omitted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One of White's general plans is to play d3 and Be3 hoping for the trade to open the f-file, and also to play Nf3-h4-f5. .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9399" LastActivityDate="2016-01-30T22:10:46.703" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13584" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13574" CreationDate="2016-01-30T22:13:12.740" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is no specific name for this pawn structure, there are just certain &quot;elements&quot; that it has. You have the doubled c and f pawns (arguably weak, but it depends on if they become blockaded or not), as well as the strong pawn center. Black's a and h pawns will become weaker as the game goes on and it is doubtful that they can utilize the half open g and b files to create any real kind of pressure. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9399" LastActivityDate="2016-01-30T22:13:12.740" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13585" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13559" CreationDate="2016-01-30T22:34:33.700" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Only a general answer can be given for this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Generally the exchange of R+P (sometimes an extra pawn) for a Bishop and Knight favors the player who has the Bishop and Knight afterwards due to the simple fact that the Minor Pieces are much stronger during the middlegame than the Rook. You have two attacking pieces vs. one attacking piece. The side with the Bishop and Knight will have better attacking chances as they will have more open lines (diagonals are much more open than files in the middlegame) and good squares for the Knight. The Rooks will be blocked by the pawns and unable to contribute much to the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, it is very position dependent. In various variations of the Sicilian Defense, Black will exchange a Rook for a Knight on c3, sacrificing the exchange. This is extremely important for Black to do as it creates weaknesses and increases the strength of their dark squared Bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In addition to this, there are many attacks that use the Rooks in the middlegame by opening up the h-file. It's very position dependent as to which group of pieces is more important or not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a general rule of thumb though, a Bishop + Knight is considered more important and stronger than a Rook + Pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9399" LastActivityDate="2016-01-30T22:34:33.700" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13586" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13572" CreationDate="2016-01-30T22:48:54.143" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;I feel that this is a troll post due to the language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can say this immediately. The rating system that you are using is not a USCF or FIDE rated system with over the board play and/or you have a provisional rating and have not played a proper amount of game to accurately gauge your strength.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is possible to obtain almost a Class A strength in that time span if you have both a natural talent AND near obsessive study with guidance. However, reaching master strength during that time span is impossible even for the most gifted of students. Carlsen is a perfect example as many other people have noted. It took him 2 years simply to go from Candidate Master to Fide Master strength. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note: I am a professional chess instructor and I've been teaching chess as my primary profession and sole source of income for 10 years. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9399" LastActivityDate="2016-01-30T22:48:54.143" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13587" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13566" CreationDate="2016-01-30T22:55:09.030" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1907982388&quot;&gt;http://www.amazon.com/Grandmaster-Repertoire-17-Classical-Slav/dp/1907982388&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Grandmaster Repertoire 17 by Avrukh is probably what you're looking for. It is extremely dense and detailed. It will require a lot of work to get all the information that you need, but there are a lot of rewards there as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you have not studied that Slav before, I would recommend:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/185744678X&quot;&gt;http://www.amazon.com/Slav-Move-Everyman-Chess/dp/185744678X/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&amp;amp;ie=UTF8&amp;amp;qid=1347014456&amp;amp;sr=1-2&amp;amp;keywords=slav+defence&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Slav: Move by Move by Lakdawala as it gives a great overview of the plans and ideas of the opening and provides puzzles and quizzes throughout the games to test your understanding.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Slav is a great opening and I wish you luck in your studies!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9399" LastActivityDate="2016-01-30T22:55:09.030" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13588" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13560" CreationDate="2016-01-30T22:58:47.157" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The largest problem with sites like LiChess and Chess.com is that the standard pools are not very reflective of Over The Board rating. Most people play chess online for the Blitz and Lightning games. Chess.com recently came out with some statistics that showed that their Blitz rating pool is roughly the same as USCF currently. I do not know how well that would translate for the Standard pools.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I was 1900 playing G/30 games on Chess.com and ICC (Internet Chess Club), I was rating roughly 2100/2200 on both sites. This was years ago though, so again, not entirely sure how accurate they are.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9399" LastActivityDate="2016-01-30T22:58:47.157" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13589" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13574" CreationDate="2016-01-31T03:01:32.980" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In &quot;Chess Fundamentals,&quot; former World Champion J.R. Capablanca would refer to Black's knight pawns as being &quot;doubled toward the center.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2016-01-31T03:01:32.980" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13590" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13599" CreationDate="2016-01-31T03:26:25.133" Score="4" ViewCount="668" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is any chess software specifically for forced mates?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In particular, such software can only prune the search tree when it can &lt;em&gt;prove&lt;/em&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;that the the move doesn't affect the existence of length of a forced mate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user2668" LastActivityDate="2016-02-05T14:18:06.707" Title="Is any chess software specifically for forced mates?" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;checkmate&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13591" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13590" CreationDate="2016-01-31T05:09:20.483" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Joseph Ellis on talkchess has a modified Stockfish for mate solving.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Updates: &#xA;&#xA;1) Sync with latest SF. &#xA;2) Move to full hash key. &#xA;3) Increase max depth to 250. &#xA;4) Improve mate detection. &#xA;&#xA;https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1145468/MateFinder.7z &#xA;&#xA;The archive includes the source and two very basic windows compiles.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://talkchess.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=58597&amp;amp;highlight=mate+solver&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://talkchess.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=58597&amp;amp;highlight=mate+solver&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Github URL: &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/jhellis3/Stockfish/tree/mate_finder&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://github.com/jhellis3/Stockfish/tree/mate_finder&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I never downloaded the archive and have no idea how good it is. I think it might worth a try as Joseph seemed to know what he was doing. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2016-01-31T05:09:20.483" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13592" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13612" CreationDate="2016-01-31T05:51:11.210" Score="-2" ViewCount="711" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think I’ve heard deep fritz estimates elo and shows to user, but I don’t know how.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9413" LastActivityDate="2016-02-05T01:30:46.223" Title="How to measure my elo with using deep fritz 14?" Tags="&lt;elo&gt;&lt;fritz&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13593" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-01-31T06:35:50.823" Score="1" ViewCount="1375" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was playing Queen's Gambit Accepted. How should I continue after 3. e3 c6? I had no idea what to do after that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.d4 d5 2.c4 dxc4 3.e3 c6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9414" LastEditorUserId="2001" LastEditDate="2016-01-31T23:09:12.513" LastActivityDate="2016-02-08T17:05:23.723" Title="Queen's Gambit Accepted, how to continue after 3. e3 c6" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;queens-gambit-accepted&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13594" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13572" CreationDate="2016-01-31T07:21:40.000" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are a lot of information that you refuse to give here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, you explain that you have 'played beautiful games', but do not show any examples of such games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You claim that you have '2300' rating, and yet you again refuse to show what standard of rating it is. It's not hard to type 'FIDE' or 'USCF' and yet you hide that information for some reason.&#xA;On the same grounds, I could tell you that I am 2800, 'higher' than Magnus Calsen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This clandestine manner in which you present your so called merits, coupled with the unrealistic circumstances makes you a very suspicious character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you truly had been able to achieve what you claim, the newspapers would most likely have posted about you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, all in all, change the manner in which you show your specifications, or stop dreaming and realize that reality has boundaries.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9048" LastActivityDate="2016-01-31T07:21:40.000" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13595" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6585" CreationDate="2016-01-31T10:34:24.770" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've built some software that makes it possible to 'scan' your paper scoresheet into electronic .pgn format just by taking a picture of it with your phone after the game (you have to use a particular format for it to understand).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The website, then keeps an electronic copy of the game on your behalf. Let me know if you are interested in trying it out-&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;http://chesschecker.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;www.chesschecker.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="350" LastEditorUserId="350" LastEditDate="2016-05-25T04:27:35.757" LastActivityDate="2016-05-25T04:27:35.757" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13596" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13593" CreationDate="2016-01-31T21:48:35.153" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The simplest reply for white is Bxc4 which gives white exactly what he wants, a central pawn majority with tempo because he got his d4 pawn in the center plus his bishop on C4 while black basically doesn't have any pieces or pawns off their starting squares.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That said, a4 is probably also a good move as it makes b5 difficult for black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that c6 isn't a great move for black because quite often in other lines he wants to move his c pawn straight to c5. If he ends up later playing c6-c5 then he has taken two moves instead of one to get there. Better for black would be e5, aggressively challenging white in the center or Nf6 fighting for the d5 and e4 squares.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="307" LastEditDate="2016-02-02T02:52:05.487" LastActivityDate="2016-02-02T02:52:05.487" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13598" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13559" CreationDate="2016-01-31T23:22:25.417" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a general rule of thumb I would say&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Knight + Bishop = Rook + 2 pawns&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Following factors influence evaluation of this material imbalance&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Static position of King&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Whether Queens are present&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Number of open files&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Strong positions for light pieces thanks to pawn structure&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Rook + passed pawns or non-passed pawns&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Rook + blocked pawns or non-blocked pawns&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Position of Kings in endgame&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastActivityDate="2016-01-31T23:22:25.417" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13599" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13590" CreationDate="2016-02-01T00:06:42.700" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://fhub.jimdo.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chest UCI&lt;/a&gt;, which is Franz Huber's UCI-adapter for Heiner Marxen's problem solver &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.drb.insel.de/~heiner/Chess/chest.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chest&lt;/a&gt;, is the obvious bet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9419" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2016-02-01T00:57:24.337" LastActivityDate="2016-02-01T00:57:24.337" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13600" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13593" CreationDate="2016-02-01T05:39:53.160" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;c6 is one of the most benign looking moves in that position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;black usually plays a6 or some Nf6, e6, a6, c5 setup in the QGA&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9423" LastActivityDate="2016-02-01T05:39:53.160" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13602" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13559" CreationDate="2016-02-01T09:54:03.680" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Using &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessfornovices.com/chesspiecevalues.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Kaufman piece values&lt;/a&gt;, the value of B+N (assuming that you are also sacrificing the bishop pair and lose the pair bonus) is 2*3.25+0.5=7.0. The value of Rook and pawn is 5.0+1.0=6.0.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus, on purely material grounds, the exchange is bad for the side who gives in Bishop and Knight. Positional factors can make the exchange even worse or somewhat better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3819" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-04T17:38:22.373" LastActivityDate="2020-03-04T17:38:22.373" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="13603" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12918" CreationDate="2016-02-01T11:42:57.493" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe if white breaks through, then black has some counter play chances on the queen side. For instance: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;6r1/1p3k2/2rb1p1p/3NpP1P/PpPp2pR/1P1K2P1/4RP2/8 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Rg5 2. Re4 Rxf5 3. Rhxg4 Rf3+ 4. Ke2 Rxb3 5. Rg6 Bf8 6. f4 Bg7 7. fxe5 fxe5 8. Reg4 Bf8&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and white's queen side pawns are gone and black has serious threats.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Otherwise if white try to holds on his pawns, there is no way to make any progress and the game will be draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9400" LastEditorUserId="9363" LastEditDate="2016-02-01T17:47:06.403" LastActivityDate="2016-02-01T17:47:06.403" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13604" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11028" CreationDate="2016-02-01T19:51:17.020" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Going over lines with Stockfish 6, it appears White holds the edge in all lines after the counter-intuitive 11.Kb1. Which is maybe why this &quot;works&quot; for Black -- what player not already prepped is going to move King in line with enemy rook like that?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The main line seems to be 11.Kb1 Nxd4 12.Nxd4 b5 13.Be2 b4 14.Nd5 Nxd5 15.Bxg7 Kxg7 16.exd5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If Black launches b5 right away, sacking it, there is not enough comp: 11.Kb1 b5 12.Ndxb5 Qc8 13.Bb3 (12...Ne5 13.Be2).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7314" LastActivityDate="2016-02-01T19:51:17.020" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13605" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-02-02T02:40:27.717" Score="1" ViewCount="182" Body="&lt;p&gt;Has anyone read the new translation of &lt;em&gt;My System&lt;/em&gt; by Aaron Nimzowitch published by New in Chess? In it, the word flanking seems to be used to describe both the attack of a piece from the side and from the behind.&#xA;Up to this point (page 44) Nimzowitch's use of the word flanking is as the attack from the side. When the queen to the 8th rank check skewers the queen he calls it the flanking maneuver. (Page 34)&#xA;However, here is a case where it means from behind (page 44): &quot;For example, a rook on the 7th rank is attacking the b7 pawn. If now b7-b5 then the move Rb7...the flanking maneuver (this is what Rb7 was) is the strongest form of attack (these are in rising order of importance 1. Frontal, 2. From the side, 3 flanking )...&quot;&#xA;Am I missing something? Or is this just a problem by the translator?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also it would be cool if someone could explain how it's better to attack a pawn from the side Rather than from the front. I believe this evaluation is given by Nimzowitch to be true even if the rook isn't on the 7th rank.&#xA;I mean I would think it's worse to attack from the side since the defense can put a rook behind the pawn and start pushing it. Whereas you can blockade the pawn If you were in front of it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9436" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2016-02-02T03:22:16.637" LastActivityDate="2017-06-10T20:16:03.223" Title="Is there a misuse of the word flanking in My System by Nimzowitch?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;&lt;books&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13606" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-02-02T07:22:50.617" Score="-1" ViewCount="164" Body="&lt;p&gt;What are some of the thriving chess community websites online. Let me start with a few examples: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess community on Reddit&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/forum/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess.com has a huge community&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chessindia.net&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess India Community&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are the other chess related forums and community websites on the internet where Chess related discussions happen everyday?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5653" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-09-29T10:47:44.230" LastActivityDate="2017-09-29T10:47:44.230" Title="Online Chess Communities" Tags="&lt;websites&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13607" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26584" CreationDate="2016-02-02T07:40:18.717" Score="2" ViewCount="205" Body="&lt;p&gt;Another week, another match, and this time as Board 2 for the second team instead of bottom board for the firsts. Background: In the review my rating has gone up slightly to 142 ECF (~1765 Elo). My opponent I've played a couple of times before with one win a piece, but this is my first black against him. I know he doesn't like to mess about and is pretty direct, but then again that's my style as well so no problem there! I'm mildly surprised to see he is now ECF 126 (~1645 Elo), he's been higher than that. The time limit was 75 minutes for all moves (no increment), and time is a bit of a factor as at the end I have ~20 minutes left whereas he is down to his last 2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[White &quot;A.N.Other&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Ian Bush&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;A60&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;86&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 c5 3. d5 e6 4. e3 exd5 5. cxd5 d6 6. Nc3 g6 7. Bd3 Bg7 8. Nge2 O-O 9. O-O Re8 10. Qc2 Na6 11. a3 Nc7 12. e4 b5 13. Nxb5 Nxb5 14. Bxb5 Rxe4 15. Bc6 Rb8 16. Bg5 Bf5 17. Ng3 Re5 18. Nxf5 Rxf5 19. Bxf6 Qxf6 20. b4 cxb4 21. Rab1 a5 22. axb4 Rxb4 23. Rfe1 Rxb1 24. Qxb1 Rxf2 25. Qb6 Rb2 26. Qe3 Qd4 27. Qxd4 Bxd4+ 28. Kf1 Rf2+ 29. Kg1 Re2+ 30. Kf1 Rxe1+ 31. Kxe1 f5 32. Kd1 Kg7 33. Kc2 Kf6 34. Kd3 Ke5 35. g3 Bg1 36. h3 Bf2 37. g4 fxg4 38. hxg4 h5 39. Bd7 Kf4 40. gxh5 gxh5 41. Kc4 Kg3 42. Kb5 Be1 43. Kc6 Bb4 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have four points of interest.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) (Least important) I forgot to ask him afterwards but the body language clearly said his 4. e3 was a finger slip-I assume he got ahead of himself, forgetting Nc3 (and cxd5) came first. My thoughts here were &quot;Great, no nasty flick knife attack, and the bishop isn't getting to f4 quickly so I should have a nice easy opening as d6 won't be under pressure,&quot; so I just played the obvious moves. It went OK, but in the very unlikely event I ever see this again, can anybody see anything better?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) Again I'm pleased with my play, but any constructive comments are appreciated &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) For once I remembered something from Mr. Silman, enough to know that the opposite coloured Bishop ending was winning for black, hence Re2+ as the extra pawns are sufficiently separated. Is this the most practical decision here? Is there any easier way to convert? If it is relevant, time pressure was beginning to tell on my opponent by that point.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4) I have a feeling that my opponent didn't make life as difficult for me as he could in the ending, again possibly time pressure. So did I play the ending OK, did I have the right ideas? And is there anything different I should have done, especially if my opponent had found some stronger moves?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7726" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-10-11T20:06:18.233" LastActivityDate="2019-10-11T20:06:18.233" Title="Adventures in the ODCL Pt. 2 - How about this endgame?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="13608" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13606" CreationDate="2016-02-02T10:19:23.570" Score="1" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chess community on Reddit&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/forum/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chess.com has a huge community&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chessindia.net&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chess India Community&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://talkchess.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;TalkChess community&lt;/a&gt;  Thanks @StudentT&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chessgames.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chessgames.com&lt;/a&gt; Thanks @BlindKungFuMaster&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Updating this list with all the suggestions, and my own findings. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5653" LastEditorUserId="5653" LastEditDate="2016-02-02T12:25:55.740" LastActivityDate="2016-02-02T12:25:55.740" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13609" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-02-02T10:41:09.893" Score="3" ViewCount="1120" Body="&lt;p&gt;I will introduce my request by saying that up until fairly recently I was completely oblivious to chess despite practicing as a kid, I have a clear understanding of the FIDE rules but that's about it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Though being an advanced player in similar disciplines I understand the concepts of opening theory, endgame, evaluation of position, albeit not in a chess context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are the best books of reference on:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(A) General Theory: or ways to think about chess beyond the rules themselves, having heard terms such as scope, dynamics, positional judgement, the importance of the center, pawn structures, etc/?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(B) Calculation in chess: a description of the thought process, methods for improving?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9438" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-06-15T15:16:37.450" LastActivityDate="2020-06-16T04:46:37.183" Title="What are the best books on (A) General Theory, (B) Calculation Process/Improvement?" Tags="&lt;theory&gt;&lt;books&gt;&lt;calculation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="13612" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13592" CreationDate="2016-02-02T14:59:11.357" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure I would recommend trying to gauge your ELO from a computer software alone.  There may be a way to get some estimation, but I'm not confident about that.  Besides, the best way to get an accurate idea of how well you play is by playing people!  Go out there and play some chess!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9442" LastActivityDate="2016-02-02T14:59:11.357" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13613" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13609" CreationDate="2016-02-02T16:39:12.853" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess principles: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Aron Nimzowitsch's My System  [Essential. Good for beginners as well]&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;School of Chess Excellence series 3 - Strategic Play by Mark Dvoretsky. [Intermediate level]&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Grandmaster Preparation - Strategic Play by Jacob Aagaard [Advanced. Aagard's books have tough puzzles which will be very hard for Beginners.]&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pawn Structures: [You can read the theory and games to understand the principles. Not very technical, so should be equally understanable by Beginners. At the same time, intermediate/advanced level player will be better able to &lt;em&gt;participate&lt;/em&gt; with the book using analysis.]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Winning Chess Middlegame by Sokolov &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Winning Pawn Structures by Alexander Baburin &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Calculation: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Think like a Grand Master - Kotov [Good for all levels. But beginners will find the technical parts difficult]&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Secrets of Chess Training by Mark Dvoretsky. [Advanced. dot. A difficult book since it dwells on analysis and getting better at the technical aspects]&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Other authors: Jeremy Silman, Andrew Soltis (The Inner Game of Chess?) &#xA;[I have all the above books in my library, and have read them in parts at least, but I don't have the books of Soltis and Silman. Never read them, But I heard good feedback about them. Worth a try, I guess.]&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5653" LastEditorUserId="5653" LastEditDate="2016-02-03T09:11:42.190" LastActivityDate="2016-02-03T09:11:42.190" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13614" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7995" CreationDate="2016-02-02T18:11:26.273" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;6.Qb3 Nc6! 7.Qxb7 Bd7 is apparently playable for black, lots of theory. The obvious move 8.Bf4, preventing Rb8, requires further investigation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Perhaps something aggresive such as 8..e5 is the idea.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9423" LastActivityDate="2016-02-02T18:11:26.273" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13615" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11028" CreationDate="2016-02-02T19:29:23.733" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;When black plays the Dragon, recently, the top players tend to choose 9.0-0-0 and 9.g4, instead of 9.Bc4. For example, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1801562&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Topalov-Lu Shanglei&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1795277&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wei Yi-Lu Shanglei&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1792824&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Caruana-Nakamura&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1791976&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Karjakin-Nakamura&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to the &lt;a href=&quot;http://chesstempo.com/game-database.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Game Database of ChessTempo&lt;/a&gt;, after 9.Bc4 Bd7 10.0-0-0, 10....Rc8 is the most popular choice. A couple of months ago, two books about the Dragon have been published, written by GM Jones. In &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.qualitychess.co.uk/products/1/259/the_dragon_volume_one_by_gawain_jones/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Volume 1&lt;/a&gt; he recommends 10....Rc8 and a couple of days ago, he used this move to beat &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1814941&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;GM Yu Yangyi&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, according to the &lt;a href=&quot;http://chesstempo.com/game-database.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Game Database of ChessTempo&lt;/a&gt;, 10....Rb8 scores close to 50% with a performance of 2410, for players with an average rating of 2407. This indicates that 10....Rb8 is a good alternative for 10....Rc8.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White usually continues with 11.Bb3. After 11....Na5 12.Bh6 Bxh6 13.Qxh6 b5 14.g4, white does seem to be slightly better. Recent games of strong players are: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1717899&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Mamedov-Can&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1725411&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Ledger-Jones&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://chess-db.com/public/game.jsp?id=14508150.14500086.67984896.28038&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Saric-Cvitan&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://chesstempo.com/gamedb/game/3672548/ply/17&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Demchenko-Kanter&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://chesstempo.com/gamedb/game/3840622&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Georgiadis-Cvitan&lt;/a&gt;.&#xA;The same position can arise after 12.g4 b5 13.Bh6 Bxh6 14.Qxh6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;      [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;      [StartPly &quot;20&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;      1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 g6 6.Be3 Bg7 7.f3 O-O 8.Qd2 Nc6 9.Bc4 (9.O-O-O)(9.g4) Bd7 10.O-O-O Rb8 (10...Rc8) 11.Bb3 Na5 12.Bh6 (12.g4 b5 13.Bh6 Bxh6 14.Qxh6) Bxh6 13.Qxh6 b5 14.g4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4588" LastEditorUserId="4588" LastEditDate="2016-02-05T14:42:56.617" LastActivityDate="2016-02-05T14:42:56.617" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13616" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="274" CreationDate="2016-02-03T13:40:21.857" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the Colle-Zukertort is great as part of a white repertoire, but isn't appropriate against all black responses, especially stuff with ...g6 or a Queen's Indian setup with ...b6 and no ...d5.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I usually open with 1. d4 and 2. Nf3.  If black responds with ...d5 on the first or second move, then I go for the Colle-Zukertort.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After 1. d4 Nf6 2. Nf3 g6, I go 3. c4 and play the KID or Gruenfeld (Makogonov h3 vs KID and e3/Qb3 vs Gruenfeld)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After 1. d4 Nf6 2. Nf3 e6 3. e3, I'll get either a Colle-Zukertort if black plays ...d5, or a classical QID if black plays ...b6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Obviously, you need something against the dutch (1. d4 f5), and stuff like 1. d4 c5, 1. d4 e5, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I prefer this method of mixing a few d4/c4 lines (versus KID, QID and Gruenfeld) with a system opening, to reduce the theoretical workload while still having enough variety of positions to keep improving as a player.  You just have to choose your lines carefully to avoid getting move-ordered into an opening you don't want to play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you don't want to play c4 vs the KID and Gruenfeld, you could always try the Tarzan Attack (1. d4 Nf6 2. Nf3 g6 3. Nc3 d5 4. Bf4 Bg7 5. Qd2) where the idea is to castle queenside and go for a quick kingside attack with h4-h5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9446" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T17:24:42.597" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T17:24:42.597" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="13617" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-02-03T16:48:46.100" Score="14" ViewCount="384" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT: Most of the app is completed. Now all I have to complete is implementation of FIDE arbiters, a dynamic 3d plot (right now it only has 3 variables being plotted, no inputs affect it), adding more FIDE data (based on months) and perhaps including USCF chess data (I have the latest data set for all of the states).&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;I have made 3 adjustments to this post.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1.Include a dynamic time series chart that lets you see more than one player at a time: This was very time consuming to produce!.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;2.Include an overlayed histogram/density curve.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;3.Include 3d scatterplot&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;4.Improve the layout of the app&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;FIDE CHESS APPLICATION&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other than an interactive chess board itself (which would be a different animal in itself), what can I add to this application to improve upon visualizing and summarizing aggregated FIDE chess statistics? I am planning also to add a time series plot and a motion chart for aggregated historical data.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After I have completed it, I will put up the source code onto github/mediafire for those who are interested in the programming aspect of this. I will also eventually find a place to host this application so that you may use at your leisure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is a picture of the application itself. The left side has filters that effect the output on the right side. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/XxBTc.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/XxBTc.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are a few images of features I have put in it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Key for graphs below:&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The first graph is an interactive map that outputs the number of FIDE rated players for each country and plots it onto a map.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The second graph is a normalized histogram, or density curve describing the FIDE ratings distribution.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Similiar to the map, this is a barplot of the number players in each country&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The globe is the map, but a more appealing version of the map.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Ideally, I will be able to include a 2D/3D time series plot, unsure if it will be possible given how the datasets are structured. I would plot aggregated chess statistics of the FIDE chess population or of individual players here.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;A google motion chart, similar to a time series plot, but more interactive and visually appealing. As with the time series plot, I would plot aggregated chess statistics of the FIDE chess population or of individual players here.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Scatterplot of 3 variables&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/JlKI6.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/JlKI6.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Number of players described onto a map&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/vEJAG.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/vEJAG.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/EETVs.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/EETVs.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Bar plot of the number of players&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Q8ebW.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Q8ebW.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Number if players described onto a globe&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/OFXNK.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/OFXNK.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/mtm8Z.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/mtm8Z.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/M46rP.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/M46rP.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Is there anything else I can add to further visual FIDE chess data? Also,  making suggestions to further improve upon what I have would be good too.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9423" LastEditorUserId="9423" LastEditDate="2016-02-25T09:35:45.083" LastActivityDate="2016-02-25T09:35:45.083" Title="What features can I add to this FIDE chess application? (edits made 2/25)" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;statistics&gt;&lt;fide&gt;&lt;programming&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="8" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13618" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13617" CreationDate="2016-02-03T17:36:35.027" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;First of all, good luck! It looks like a really interesting project.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As to suggestions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) What are you thinking of calling the app? From what you have shown here, maybe &quot;FIDE Player Statistics&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) What is the situation regarding ownership and copyright of the data? Maybe you should ask FIDE? There again, as far as I know they don't make the underlying data publicly available so you have to &quot;mine&quot; the data via appropriately constructed web requests. In this case I don't think you would need permission.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) You could add displays for player titles like GM, IM, FM, CM, WGM, WIM, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4) You could include arbiter information - IA, FA&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5) Also trainers and international organizers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;6) For all of your statistics to break out the data in federation terms. This is almost country level but some countries have a privileged situation. For instance the UK actually has separate English, Scottish, Welsh federations, etc. So, allow comparison of titled players per federation, titled players per thousand players per federation. Could be fascinating to see how Russia performs here. Is it still number 1 chess country / federation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;7) Same for arbiters. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;8) Same for organizers. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;9) Same for trainers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I will be very interested in the results of this project. It looks fascinating. Please keep us informed!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2016-02-03T17:36:35.027" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13619" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2724" CreationDate="2016-02-04T10:50:48.500" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Two quick things which I think might help (though I realise your question is old):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) lichess.org has a training tool specifically aimed at improving your knowledge of algebraic notation; coordinates flash on the screen (eg &quot;E7&quot;) and you have to click on the correct square, answering as many as possible in a set period of time. It varies between showing the board in white and black orientations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) I worked out a similar shortcut to quickly give the colour of any given square, also based on &quot;odd&quot; and &quot;even&quot; files. First mentally translate the letters for files into numbers so that the letters a-c-e-g (1-3-5-7) are &quot;odd&quot; and b-d-f-h (2-4-6-8) are &quot;even&quot;. Then the rule is: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;if rank and file are both odd or both even, the square is black (a1, b4, c7)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;if one is odd and the other even, the square is white (h7, e8, d1)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In short, black squares match; white squares don't.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8453" LastActivityDate="2016-02-04T10:50:48.500" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13620" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13621" CreationDate="2016-02-04T12:52:48.360" Score="9" ViewCount="3039" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have the habit of noting the clock time near my moves in tournament. I've been doing this for years now, but today a friend told me it is illegal according to FIDE. I wonderwhat the regulation related to it is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5653" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-10-23T20:34:55.200" LastActivityDate="2019-10-23T20:34:55.200" Title="Is it illegal to write clock time in the score sheet during tournaments?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;fide&gt;&lt;scoresheet&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="13621" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13620" CreationDate="2016-02-04T13:01:54.573" Score="20" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=171&amp;amp;view=article&quot;&gt;FIDE rules&lt;/a&gt;, it is not forbidden; clock times are actually explicitly stated as one of the items that a scoresheet may contain. See the following excerpt (emphasis mine):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Article 8: The recording of the moves&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;8.1 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;a. In the course of play each player is required to record his own moves and those of his opponentin the correct manner, move after move, as clearly and legibly as possible, in the algebraic notation (Appendix C), on the ‘scoresheet’ prescribed for the competition. It is forbidden to write the moves in advance, unless the player is claiming a draw according to Article 9.2, or 9.3 or adjourning a game according to Appendix E.1 a.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;b. The scoresheet shall be used only for recording the moves, &lt;strong&gt;the times of the clocks&lt;/strong&gt;, offers of a draw, matters relating to a claim and other relevant data.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;c. A player may reply to his opponent’s move before recording it, if he so wishes. He must record his previous move before making another.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;d. Both players must record the offer of a draw on the scoresheet with a symbol (=).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;e. If a player is unable to keep score, an assistant, who must be acceptable to the arbiter, may be provided by the player to write the moves. His clock shall be adjusted by the arbiter in an equitable way. This adjustment of the clock shall not apply to a player with a disability.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that the rules above pertain to competitions starting on or after July 1st, 2014. The &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/component/handbook/?id=124&amp;amp;view=article&quot;&gt;older version&lt;/a&gt; has the same rule placed in article 12.4. &lt;strong&gt;(thanks to @chaosflaws)&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3831" LastEditorUserId="3831" LastEditDate="2016-02-04T14:03:02.113" LastActivityDate="2016-02-04T14:03:02.113" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13622" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13480" CreationDate="2016-02-04T15:30:37.513" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think this video is helpful: &#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://youtu.be/MKsNX_c1KTw&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Traxler counterattack&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Nf6 4. Ng5 Bc5 $5 5. Nxf7 Bxf2+ 6. Kxf2 Nxe4+ 7. Kf1&#xA;(7. Kf3 Qf6+ 8. Kxe4 d5+ (8... Qf4+ 9. Kd3) 9. Bxd5 (9. Kxd5 Nb4+ 10. Kc5 (10.&#xA;Ke4 Qf4#) 10... Qb6#) 9... Qf4+ 10. Kd3 Qd4+ 11. Ke2 Qxd5 12. Nxh8 Bg4+) (7.&#xA;Ke2 Nd4+ 8. Ke3 (8. Kd3 Nf2+) 8... Qh4 9. Rf1 (9. Nxh8 Qf4+ 10. Kd3 Nc5+ 11.&#xA;Kc3 Nb5+ 12. Kb4 a5+ 13. Kxb5 c6+ 14. Kb6 Na4+ 15. Kc7 e4#) 9... d5 10. Bxd5 (&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Nxh8 Qg5+) 10... Bg4 11. g3 Qh5 12. Qe1 Nxc2+ 13. Kxe4 Nxe1 14. Rxe1 Qf5+&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Ke3 Rf8) (7. Ke1 Qh4+ 8. g3 Nxg3 9. Nxh8 (9. hxg3 Qxh1+ 10. Bf1 O-O 11. Qe2&#xA;Nd4 12. Qg2 Qxg2 13. Bxg2 Nxc2+ 14. Kd1 Nxa1) 9... Ne4+ 10. Ke2 Qf2+ 11. Kd3&#xA;Nb4+ (11... Nc5+ 12. Kc3 Qd4#) 12. Kxe4 Qf4#) 7... Qh4 8. Qf3 (8. Qe1 Ng3+ 9.&#xA;Qxg3 Qxc4+ 10. d3 Qxf7+ 11. Ke1 O-O) 8... Ng3+ 9. Kg1 (9. Qxg3 Qxc4+) 9... Qd4+&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Qe3 Qxc4 11. hxg3 Qxf7 *&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9456" LastEditorUserId="9456" LastEditDate="2016-02-05T18:27:50.547" LastActivityDate="2016-02-05T18:27:50.547" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13624" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12335" CreationDate="2016-02-04T17:30:42.690" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think this is exactly what you're looking for, but it's at least a start.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/analysis-board-editor&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Analysis Board&lt;/a&gt; at chess.com allows you to paste in a FEN, make a move, then go to the Position Setup tab and copy the FEN.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7897" LastActivityDate="2016-02-04T17:30:42.690" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13625" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-02-04T19:47:53.907" Score="1" ViewCount="753" Body="&lt;p&gt;I read &quot;SCID database&quot; mentioned many times in different chess forums. As a regular chessbase/pgn user, I wonder what difference it makes and where I should begin. Thanks! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5653" LastActivityDate="2016-02-04T21:33:04.540" Title="New to SCID, Where should I begin?" Tags="&lt;database&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13626" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13625" CreationDate="2016-02-04T21:33:04.540" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;http://sourceforge.net/p/scid/wiki/StartHere/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Start here&lt;/a&gt; section of the SCID official webpage provides a lot of different links explaining the functionalities of the program, what can you do with it and what can you do to help back, among many others. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;SCID provides a free alternative to commercial software, compatible with the standard .png format but with an own format .si4 said to be one of the key points when it comes to the speed of SCID analizing and mantaining a huge database.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is compatible with very powerful engines like Rybka or the famous Stockfish used for everyone from an amateur to top GMs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is just an intro to all the info that you can find in the official page. The &lt;a href=&quot;http://sourceforge.net/p/scid/wiki/search/?q=labels_t:%22FAQ%22&amp;amp;parser=standard&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;FAQ&lt;/a&gt; section is also very useful if you're approaching SCID for the first time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8751" LastActivityDate="2016-02-04T21:33:04.540" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13627" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13628" CreationDate="2016-02-05T00:04:40.517" Score="4" ViewCount="2706" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am writing a simple chess game in which I have to determine the end game conditions. My algorithm requires the piece that is putting the opponent king in check, and checks the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;King cannot escape&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Piece cannot be eliminated&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Path cannot be blocked&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If all three conditions satisfy, then it is checkmate. However, I am wondering if there can be more than one piece simultaneously putting a king in check. It doesn't seem to be possible, but I can't come up with a proof for it. For example, is it possible for 2 rooks to put a king in check at the same time? Personally, I don't think that it's possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9461" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-08-04T03:36:14.940" LastActivityDate="2019-10-11T20:44:40.553" Title="Is it true that at any time only one piece can put king in check?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;check&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="13628" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13627" CreationDate="2016-02-05T00:09:11.817" Score="20" Body="&lt;p&gt;Double check is a fine tactic. An example would be a bishop lined up on the same diagonal as the king with a rook or knight in the way blocking the check. The rook or knight moves giving check to the king and also uncovering the check from the bishop. The king must move since there is no way to block two different lines or take two different pieces at the same time. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2016-02-05T00:09:11.817" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13629" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7740" CreationDate="2016-02-05T00:40:41.263" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am having a similar problem planning my strategies against various defenses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know for sure that I wont play a main line&#xA;and never allow the Winawer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Depending on the player, I might go for a King's Indian attack set up with 2)p-q3 and a fianchettoed king bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the alternative, I might switch to something else than 1)p-k4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Again, this depends on what I know about the other player and it would depend on your preferred style/comfort with various set ups.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I might even start with the English or something else.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I am still thinking about exchange variation,&#xA;or 2)p-qb4  and maybe even 2)q-k2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9462" LastEditorUserId="8300" LastEditDate="2017-11-02T18:06:56.037" LastActivityDate="2017-11-02T18:06:56.037" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13631" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13582" CreationDate="2016-02-05T01:35:40.423" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;i played black with this against an expert &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;he started with p-kn3&#xA;shredder says it is the benko opening 1)p-kn3&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so whatever that move is called would be it&#xA;although it may have transposed to something else which would also be a proper name for it&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;that was one of my best wins&#xA;i sacked a rook for knight an a pawn in a semi-closed position and got an advantage in the center while his rooks were not doing much while my extra bishop guarded key squares &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;p-kn3    p-k4&#xA;b-n2     b-b4&#xA;p-k4     p-q3&#xA;0-0&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;not sure which order i played the knights&#xA;but that was essentially our opening position&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9462" LastEditorUserId="9477" LastEditDate="2016-02-06T09:29:41.947" LastActivityDate="2016-02-06T09:29:41.947" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13632" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13495" CreationDate="2016-02-05T01:41:49.273" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;it helps to play stronger players&#xA;so 1000 vs your 800 would help&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but playing much stronger players wont help at all&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;what you need is to play over grandmaster games to get a feel for what good moves are in the openings and see how they do middle games&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;you need to work on solving problems to learn to recognise patterns easily and use them in your games&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a few key books would also help&#xA;start with a book on one openign you like and learn all you can about that&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;you will need end games but that can come later&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a book on positional play and pawn formations woudl be useful&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;playing weak 1000 players wont help nearly as much as focused study &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;playing somewhat stronger players when you hit 1800 or so will help you learn to use what the books taught you &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9462" LastActivityDate="2016-02-05T01:41:49.273" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13633" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13494" CreationDate="2016-02-05T01:43:56.087" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;if they dont punish your bad move then was it really bad at all ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i would say the normal statistics apply&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;what is the chance a player with rating x&#xA;can beat a player of rating y&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;unless you are grandmasters the winner is the one who made the next to last mistake&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so on a given move the chance of making the fatal mistake would seem to be exactly what the ratings would indicate and nothing else &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9462" LastActivityDate="2016-02-05T01:43:56.087" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13634" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13489" CreationDate="2016-02-05T01:46:27.407" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;it meant a pawn on b captured something on a1&#xA;and promoted to a queen&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;this is normal notation&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;why they want =  to be on the end of a score sheet for a tie is ridiculous&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1/2 - 1/2  always worked well to denote a tie &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and =x has been used for promoting to piece x &#xA;for the 67 years i have played chess&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9462" LastActivityDate="2016-02-05T01:46:27.407" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13635" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13485" CreationDate="2016-02-05T01:49:23.163" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;your rating is 100 but only because they dont go lower&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;start reading some books to improve&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;play over grandmaster games to get a feel for what good moves look like in an opening&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;work through tactical problem collections to learn to recognise patterns of winning moves&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;to get a provisional rating play in rated events&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;to get an established rating play in lots of events&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9462" LastActivityDate="2016-02-05T01:49:23.163" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13636" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12466" CreationDate="2016-02-05T01:55:33.530" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;i had stats in grad school and my feeling is that the ratings would vary a little by tournament but not enough to be a problem and not as much as other factors that can influence them eg being sick on a given day or having jet lag or whatevr&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;if they can win a tournament with a draw or several that is more likely to happen and tend to compress the ratings a little&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;if they have to win as in a knockout format they would be forced to win if they could &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i dont know how the current ratings work but they could account for the format differences to eliminate   that little bit of noise &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9462" LastActivityDate="2016-02-05T01:55:33.530" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13637" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12904" CreationDate="2016-02-05T01:59:58.903" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;abe books&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;used bookstores&#xA;but you have to contact them as most have no online web site to order or check inventory &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9462" LastActivityDate="2016-02-05T01:59:58.903" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13638" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13639" CreationDate="2016-02-05T05:45:54.503" Score="2" ViewCount="1450" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's been about 10 years since I played tournament chess regularly. My last rating was 1586 USCF, but it had been as high as 1717. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I recently decided to get back into playing chess, and am looking for some recommendations for a book or two on those openings as white. I've pretty much always played e4, starting the Giucco in high school and later the Bishop's opening/KGD, based on Soltis' Winning with e4. I'd prefer to be able to buy them on Amazon or the USCF site.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would also be willing to buy a dvd or software that covers these openings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9025" LastActivityDate="2020-09-20T02:25:52.807" Title="What are some good books on the Italian game, including the Evans Gambit and Two Knights Defense family of openings?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;books&gt;&lt;italian-game&gt;&lt;two-knights&gt;&lt;evans-gambit&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13639" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13638" CreationDate="2016-02-05T07:40:45.757" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I looked for a similar book, the best I could find is &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/185744373X&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this somewhat dated work by Jan Pinski&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.everymanchess.com/starting-out-open-games&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;This newer book by Glenn Flear&lt;/a&gt; apparently contains 88 pages about the italian, Evan's gambit and two knights.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you have played the Bishop's opening before maybe &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1857446178&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this is the book for you&lt;/a&gt;: It advocates going into the Italian game by 2.Bc4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2016-02-05T07:40:45.757" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13640" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13590" CreationDate="2016-02-05T14:18:06.707" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are some specialised programs for solving all kinds of chess problems (like Chloe or Alybadix). They can also treat a Chess position as a problem and look for mates in there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For more information, see &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_for_handling_chess_problems&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_for_handling_chess_problems&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3819" LastActivityDate="2016-02-05T14:18:06.707" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13641" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-02-05T14:50:53.090" Score="2" ViewCount="147" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 e5?!&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why is ...e5 considered dubious for Black here, although it is considered sort of a refutation after the move 5.f3?! e5!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What's the big difference? If it is strong after 5.f3, it shouldn't be so bad after 5.Nc3, the pawn structure is the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-02-05T16:14:07.710" LastActivityDate="2016-02-06T11:05:15.070" Title="Why is ...e5 dubious here?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13642" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-02-05T14:57:58.080" Score="7" ViewCount="268" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.Bc4 e6 7.Bb3 b5 8.f4?!&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Almost nobody takes the e4 Pawn with 8...b4, and then N or B takes e4. Is there a clear refutation by White, or is it simply considered &quot;risky&quot; play by Black? After all, he is taking a strong central pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-02-05T16:02:48.020" LastActivityDate="2016-02-28T15:40:46.463" Title="Why is taking the e4 Pawn considered risky here?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;&lt;najdorf&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13643" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13656" CreationDate="2016-02-05T15:04:38.810" Score="3" ViewCount="768" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4.Bxc6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a good opening repertoire book for White advocating the Ruy Lopez exchange variation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastEditorUserId="4588" LastEditDate="2016-02-05T16:44:18.227" LastActivityDate="2016-11-24T14:36:05.063" Title="Repertoire book on the Ruy Lopez exchange variation?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;books&gt;&lt;ruy-lopez&gt;&lt;1.e4&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13644" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-02-05T15:11:10.050" Score="3" ViewCount="1218" Body="&lt;p&gt;It seems to me that, although we see lots of Sicilians, especially Najdorfs, Tajmanovs, and Kans, the once popular Scheveningen variation (1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 e6 -- or 2...e6 and 5...d6) recently lost a lot of its popularity at top level chess. Nobody seems to play it any more even at club level chess. Is there a clear reason for that?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]    &#xA;1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 e6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastEditorUserId="3757" LastEditDate="2021-01-15T09:30:45.027" LastActivityDate="2021-01-15T09:30:45.027" Title="Why is the Scheveningen Sicilian almost never seen nowadays at top-level chess?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="13646" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13675" CreationDate="2016-02-05T15:18:55.677" Score="2" ViewCount="623" Body="&lt;p&gt;Did the mature Gata Kamsky ever try to explain the accusations against Kasparov in the early 1990s about Kasparov trying to poison him? I remember at least a couple interviews in New in Chess magazine where the accusations were made.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-02-05T16:05:53.987" LastActivityDate="2016-02-06T14:16:37.920" Title="Kasparov trying to poison Kamsky" Tags="&lt;kasparov&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13647" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-02-05T15:25:02.487" Score="0" ViewCount="337" Body="&lt;p&gt;Although even Masters can play very badly at times, especially against other Masters, and apart from ELO ratings, how to you get the feeling that you are definitely of &quot;Master&quot; strength, and no longer of &quot;Expert&quot; strength? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastEditorUserId="17" LastEditDate="2017-11-05T04:01:45.943" LastActivityDate="2017-11-05T04:01:45.943" Title="What are signs of achieving Master strength?" Tags="&lt;international-master&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13648" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13649" CreationDate="2016-02-05T15:34:07.423" Score="5" ViewCount="570" Body="&lt;p&gt;Apart from Raymond Weinstein, are there any other examples of chess players of at least Master strength who committed murder? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-09-23T15:11:04.040" LastActivityDate="2017-02-14T18:54:02.107" Title="Chess players who committed murder" Tags="&lt;famous-players&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13649" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13648" CreationDate="2016-02-05T16:29:36.443" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_Bloodgood&quot;&gt;Claude Bloodgood&lt;/a&gt;, the popularizer of the Grob (1. g4), must be far and away the most famous. At one stage his USCF rating was second only to Gata Kamsky! It doesn't get much worse than murdering your own mother.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2016-02-05T20:04:48.817" LastActivityDate="2016-02-05T20:04:48.817" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13651" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13655" CreationDate="2016-02-05T17:34:34.003" Score="1" ViewCount="1018" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are there any other vegetarian or vegan chess GM players, apart from Vishy Anand?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-09-23T15:10:46.060" LastActivityDate="2016-09-23T15:10:46.060" Title="Are there any vegetarian or vegan Masters apart from Anand?" Tags="&lt;famous-players&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13652" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13667" CreationDate="2016-02-05T17:41:57.973" Score="11" ViewCount="12100" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am not asking about the 1975 &quot;resignation&quot; to Karpov, but for which reasons did Bobby Fischer gradually lose interest in competitive chess after becoming World Champion? Jews or not Jews, he did not play a single tournament or match game until the 1992 so-called &quot;re-match&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-11-16T10:39:56.750" LastActivityDate="2020-01-19T18:00:56.310" Title="Why did Bobby Fischer quit chess after the match with Spassky?" Tags="&lt;world-championship&gt;&lt;fischer&gt;&lt;spassky&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13653" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13641" CreationDate="2016-02-05T18:28:03.923" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;After Nf5 the d6 pawn will be weak.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9472" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-02-05T18:33:42.207" LastActivityDate="2016-02-05T18:33:42.207" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13654" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13652" CreationDate="2016-02-05T18:41:15.007" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;He had mental problems. But he is still one of the greatest chess players of all time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Joseph Ponterotto has even written a book about Fischer's mental problems - &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/0398087407&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;A Psychobiography of Bobby Fischer&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Ponterotto believes the evidence is strongest for paranoid personality&#xA;  disorder, a psychiatric condition characterized by unrelenting&#xA;  paranoia and suspicion of others, but is not schizophrenia.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9473" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2016-02-08T11:35:08.627" LastActivityDate="2016-02-08T11:35:08.627" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13655" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13651" CreationDate="2016-02-05T21:34:01.080" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;A quick Google search turns up the following two:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Speelman&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Jonathan Speelman&lt;/a&gt;. Three time British champion and at one point #4 on ELO rating list. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Leko&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Peter Leko&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;em&gt;Almost&lt;/em&gt; World Champion at one point.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Sources:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.unleashed.org.au/who_cares/vegetarian_athletes.php?athlete=jonathan-speelman&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.unleashed.org.au/who_cares/vegetarian_athletes.php?athlete=jonathan-speelman&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.veganwolf.com/famous_vegetarians.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.veganwolf.com/famous_vegetarians.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.veggieboards.com/forum/11-vegetarian-support-forum/72707-chess-world-champion-vegetarian.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.veggieboards.com/forum/11-vegetarian-support-forum/72707-chess-world-champion-vegetarian.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chess.jliptrap.us/grandmasterdiet.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://chess.jliptrap.us/grandmasterdiet.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3831" LastEditorUserId="3831" LastEditDate="2016-02-05T21:40:30.220" LastActivityDate="2016-02-05T21:40:30.220" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13656" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13643" CreationDate="2016-02-05T23:47:07.793" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Larry Kaufman's &lt;em&gt;The Chess Advantage in Black and White&lt;/em&gt; is a well-regarded (though old, by opening book standards) repertoire book that uses the Ruy Lopez exchange.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2016-02-05T23:47:07.793" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13657" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-02-06T04:00:59.490" Score="2" ViewCount="96" Body="&lt;p&gt;I naively thought that if I picked the biggest winning move (for example using white) in the database and kept picking moves that white would always win,&#xA; but at some point the advantage for white suddenly will often turn negative or even to 100% losing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems that the move before that must have some bad data if it had a winning edge but one move later loses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the tree bears down to a total loss then how could the move before have had a winning edge?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this whole concept of winning % by move erroneous?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Am I missing something?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What other explanation can you provide?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9477" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-02-06T09:21:47.573" LastActivityDate="2016-03-07T11:16:56.887" Title="Meaning of move stats in opening databases" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;statistics&gt;&lt;database&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13659" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13522" CreationDate="2016-02-06T04:14:24.440" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;no&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;we cannot say who should win or if it should be a draw&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;there are way too many move combinations to even try to compute the answer with current technology by trying all possible moves and seeing the results&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;then we would have to prune backwards to see what the answer would be and if it were unique&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and if we could the game would not be fun any longer &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9477" LastActivityDate="2016-02-06T04:14:24.440" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13660" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13542" CreationDate="2016-02-06T04:17:14.000" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;forced moves and pattern recognition simplify doing combinations&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the risk is that some rare move that was overlooked may be better than the obvious 'forced' one or that the pattern has some tiny difference this time and so fails &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but for a quick move selection it works well however for postal chess you might want to put more effort into ensuring the moves are truly forced (or at least best for the other side)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9477" LastActivityDate="2016-02-06T04:17:14.000" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13661" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13553" CreationDate="2016-02-06T04:19:23.257" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why not play 6)p-b3 (&lt;code&gt;6. c3&lt;/code&gt;) instead of p-qr3 (&lt;code&gt;6. a3&lt;/code&gt;)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That is where the bishop ends up in most main lines, and then black has wasted time and weakened his pawns with that chasing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9477" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2016-02-06T10:37:00.887" LastActivityDate="2016-02-06T10:37:00.887" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13663" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-02-06T04:23:48.510" Score="4" ViewCount="3123" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there a table somewhere that shows how to convert between all the various rating systems?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;US Chess seems to indicate that ratings would be converted from others to play in their tournaments.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9477" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-02-06T09:40:54.387" LastActivityDate="2020-11-27T22:51:16.773" Title="Convert between different rating systems" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;tournament&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13664" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13627" CreationDate="2016-02-06T04:30:27.213" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Double check is possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One piece must move to deliver a check, while simultaneously allowing another piece to give check that had been blocked by the moving piece.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;a rook could move on the rank to check on a file while uncovering a bishop check&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;a knight could move to give check while uncovering a rook check or a bishop check&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9477" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-02-06T09:29:09.463" LastActivityDate="2016-02-06T09:29:09.463" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13665" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13644" CreationDate="2016-02-06T04:33:01.777" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Style and preferences come and go.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Looking at opening databases this is not a bad variation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe some 'experts' feel that they get a slightly larger winning % chance with other variations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9477" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-02-06T09:27:21.863" LastActivityDate="2016-02-06T09:27:21.863" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13666" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13652" CreationDate="2016-02-06T04:34:54.910" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think he also may have just lost interest in chess. He did invent fisherRandom chess later after his resignation to karpov, saying that normal chess had become really bland for him. This and his mental issues combined led to him quitting. I think it's a shame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7797" LastActivityDate="2016-02-06T04:34:54.910" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13667" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13652" CreationDate="2016-02-06T04:36:31.597" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is no real definite answer for this question.  Many people have floated different theories, most of which borrow bits and pieces from each other.  It is quite possible that his mental struggles just got the best of him or that he lost interest after attaining the summit of the game.  Psychologically, it must have been hard to cope when you get the thing you've been working for most of your life.  In &lt;em&gt;My Great Predecessors, Volume IV&lt;/em&gt;, Garry Kasparov offers a few reasons, arguing that Fischer probably would have lost to Karpov and probably knew it (that point is debatable). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Regardless, Fischer forfeiting the title was not without precedent in his career.  He dropped out or quit major competitions or chess itself on more than one occasion.  In fact, despite his spell of dominance in the candidate's and title match, his career had almost always been erratic. The reasons for this are debatable as well--I've seen people argue that it was mental illness, strategy, or just intimidation--but the answer is probably a mix of reasons.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2569" LastActivityDate="2016-02-06T04:36:31.597" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13668" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13644" CreationDate="2016-02-06T04:39:12.710" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I agree with Joe.  A lot of this is style.  It's pretty solid, and is still played, although often by transposition.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My guess is that it's a combination of the fact that people favor other variations of the Sicilian and that the Scheveningen is difficult to handle against something as aggressive and the English Attack.  It's also been worked for a couple of decades and its variations are pretty familiar to GMs.    &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2569" LastActivityDate="2016-02-06T04:39:12.710" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13669" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13684" CreationDate="2016-02-06T09:02:09.820" Score="10" ViewCount="630" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.Bc4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After &lt;code&gt;1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.Bc4&lt;/code&gt; everybody plays &lt;code&gt;6... e6&lt;/code&gt; and then &lt;code&gt;...b5&lt;/code&gt;. Is &lt;code&gt;6...b5&lt;/code&gt; right now a mistake? I don't see &lt;code&gt;7.Bxf7&lt;/code&gt; as a threat. Is the move order just blindly following &quot;theory&quot; or else?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastEditorUserId="3594" LastEditDate="2019-01-21T19:51:19.137" LastActivityDate="2019-01-21T19:51:19.137" Title="Why almost nobody plays ...6...b5 in the Lipnitsky Najdorf?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;&lt;najdorf&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="13670" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13657" CreationDate="2016-02-06T09:26:45.827" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Opening trees are based on large databases with games played by high-level players. If a move has a 100% winning statistic for White, that means that in all games where that move was played, White won in the end. You should also look for a number which indicates how many times that move was actually played. If it is a small number, it is very unreliable. There might be only one game in the database, where Black blundered a piece later on even if the '100% winning move' was giving Black a good position. Or there might be a large rating difference between the players which explains the result.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2016-02-06T09:26:45.827" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13671" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13644" CreationDate="2016-02-06T09:46:28.603" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;As far as I know the theoretical reason for this is the Keres attack. (As stated by Jan Gustafsson in one of many live commentaries.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;Tata Steel&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Wijk aan Zee NED&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2013.01.23&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;2013.01.12&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;10&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Pentala Harikrishna&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Yifan Hou&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;B81&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;2698&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;2603&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 e6 6. g4 h6&#xA;7. h4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In fact this line is even entered by white a tempo down, via the h3-Najdorf, so it seems to be just very comfortable for white. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That being said, Hou Yifan still plays the Scheveningen with black and does so extremely successfully. In fact &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1705380&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;she won the game&lt;/a&gt; from which I took the above opening moves, so white's advantage in the Keres attack is probably nothing that should concern us lesser mortals. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2016-02-06T09:46:28.603" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13672" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13657" CreationDate="2016-02-06T10:42:20.210" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You have to keep in mind that a tree of variations isn't actually a tree. You can reach the same position in many different ways, i.e. the branches can grow back together. So when you go through a variations the number of games doesn't necessarily dwindle until there is just one game left, occasionally games from another move order will join the fray and possibly change the statistics a lot. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So if you are following ten games with 90% for white, but reach a position that was also reached by a different move order, suddenly you might be looking at 50 games. And if for some reason white did much worse in the additional 40 games, the statistics will flip.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is not as unlikely as it seems, because employing a different move order can indicate different overall knowledge of an opening. For example the 40-games move order may have been all the rage in a time when a very good later continuation for white wasn't known. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2016-02-06T10:42:20.210" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13673" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13641" CreationDate="2016-02-06T11:05:15.070" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The problem with e5 is that after 6.Bb5+ white will be able to play the manoeuvre Nf5-Ne3 which will result in an iron control of the d5-square. (Without Bb5 the knight on f5 could be taken by the Bc8). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The difference to the 5.f3 line is, that f3 doesn't control d5, so when the knight lands on f5 the counterstrike d5 will be possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 e5?! 6. Bb5 Bd7 7.Bxd7 Qxd7 8. Nf5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2016-02-06T11:05:15.070" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13674" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13647" CreationDate="2016-02-06T11:25:35.857" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;If a player is truly stronger than you independent of his current form, he is able to outplay you even if you don't overlook a single important tactic. If he is in bad form he will probably overlook tactics himself and let you back into the game, but you will still be outplayed in the stretches between his little blunders. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once you don't have this feeling anymore of drifting into trouble without knowing why when playing against master players, and once you are able to just outplay weaker players by hand, you can be pretty sure that you have reached a master's level of understanding. Your Elo should follow suit. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2016-02-06T11:25:35.857" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13675" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13646" CreationDate="2016-02-06T14:16:37.920" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I do not know for sure, but my guess is that those accusations largely came from Kamsky's father, who was quite belligerent at the time.  In later intereviews, Kamsky tended to avoid discussing his father and that period in his career, so I doubt it has been revisited.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2569" LastActivityDate="2016-02-06T14:16:37.920" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13676" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13687" CreationDate="2016-02-06T16:47:19.437" Score="5" ViewCount="229" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a beginner I've been studying openings for center control.&#xA;I am having a hard time finding the next lessons and steps when I actually have the upper hand in the center. Now I realise I don't actually know what to do when you have the center.&#xA;How do I learn the next steps and what should I learn to improve in this area?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8264" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-02-07T12:10:38.083" LastActivityDate="2016-02-08T12:01:18.250" Title="Beginners question: Controlling the center" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;beginner&gt;&lt;center&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13677" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-02-06T19:17:39.187" Score="3" ViewCount="964" Body="&lt;p&gt;Until recently, I played the London System, which served be well and was very solid, but every game I played was very similar and dull.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I have now started playing &quot;Grob's Attack&quot; as white, which is 1. g4 as well as &quot;The Borg&quot; as black which goes 1. e4 g5. I have found that these openings are a lot more interesting and my chess games are more fun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, now I do not have a response against 1. d4. My question is, if 1. ... g5 is a valid response after 2. bxg5. Keeping in mind I play chess for fun at about the 1500 level, does this line hold any possibilities for black? And if not, do you have any recommendations for an unorthodox aggressive opening against d4?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9479" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-12T03:27:48.627" LastActivityDate="2020-08-12T03:27:48.627" Title="The Borg against d4?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;1.d4&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="13678" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13677" CreationDate="2016-02-06T20:18:57.623" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Accepting the Grob gambit, after 1.g4 d5 2.Bg2 Bxg4 is considered risky, because 3.c4 puts some pressure on Black and there are a lot of tactical tricks to be aware of. But after 1.d4 g5 2.Bxg5 Black has a minus tempo in comparison to the previous line and the gambit in my view is not justified. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyway, why should you give a Pawn right at the first move, when there are plenty of playable defenses for Black vs. 1.d4? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastActivityDate="2016-02-06T20:18:57.623" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13679" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13681" CreationDate="2016-02-06T20:48:12.493" Score="4" ViewCount="553" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have a very inconsistent playing level, which is very strange to me. Sometimes I'd make an almost-brilliant move (usually a tactical sacrifice, which once made an IM stare at me with awe) and other times I'd make a beginner blunder that would shock a 1400 amateur. I'm unrated although my trainer estimated my Elo to be about 1850. I've learnt chess two years ago and studied it seriously several months earlier. I've since been studying chess every free hour I've got. What is the cause of my unusual problem ? Is it inexperience ? A health issue ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6985" LastActivityDate="2016-09-14T20:58:40.050" Title="Highly inconsistent playing level" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;study&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13680" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13677" CreationDate="2016-02-06T20:49:12.583" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The position after 1. d4 g5 is close to the worst Black can possibly have after the first move. If you really want to give up a pawn on the first move, the Englund Gambit (1. d4 e5) is better, relatively, without being popular.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3270" LastActivityDate="2016-02-06T20:49:12.583" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13681" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13679" CreationDate="2016-02-06T22:07:30.793" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;A standard piece of advice that used to be given to inexperienced players was to always write your move down before playing it and in the gap between writing it down and playing it to have one last quick check to make sure it was sound. The new (post July 2014) rules no longer allow this but the thinking behind the advice still applies.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your computer is always consistent, unlike you. The reason is that it is inanimate silicon whereas you are a human being. You are driven by emotion. When you make a bad move you do that because your emotions temporarily take control. You need a routine to reduce the emotional disturbance to your thinking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first step is to try and never make an immediate response to your opponent's move. Try and always write his move down first. Try and have a checklist of questions you go through before making a move. Things like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why did he make that move?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is he threatening?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do my plans have to change to take account of what he just did?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are probably more questions like this that you or your coach can come up with.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You must also try and not be affected by how strong (or weak) your opponent is or how strong you think he is. Once you have calculated what you think is the best move then play it. Don't change your mind and play a tricky but possibly bad move because your opponent isn't so strong and you hope to trick him. If you've calculated that the best move is a difficult, tricky move but your opponent is much stronger don't chicken out and play a weaker &quot;safe&quot; move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know from my own experience how difficult this can be especially when I am playing a much stronger player. The fear can be very strong but always try and play the position on the board not the other player or the other player's rating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This way you will reduce your bad moves and become a better player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2016-02-06T22:07:30.793" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13682" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-02-07T06:11:32.927" Score="2" ViewCount="1309" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is a picture of the starting position. White to move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/8/8/3nk1pp/8/3K2PP/5P2/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. f3 h4 2. f4+ gxf4 3.gxf4+ Kxf4 4. Ke2 Kg3 5. Kf1 Kxh3 6. Kg1 Kg3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1. f3 h4&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;2. f4+ gxf4&lt;/strong&gt; (to make it into king and knight + rook pawn endgame which is drawn)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;3.gxf4+ Kxf4&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;4. Ke2&lt;/strong&gt; (to reach the g1 and h1 squares to draw)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;4... Kg3&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;5. Kf1 Kxh3&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;6. Kg1 Kg3&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I forgot the rest of the moves, but somehow it's losing for white. I thought a king and knight + rook pawn is always drawn if the opponent's king can reach the g1 h1 squares. Why didn't it work this time and when are these endgames drawn? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3149" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-02-07T12:14:36.973" LastActivityDate="2016-02-07T12:14:36.973" Title="How come this king and knight + rook pawn vs king endgame not drawn?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13683" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13682" CreationDate="2016-02-07T07:27:44.800" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;You're confusing this theoretical endgame with K+B+P vs K. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the bishop doesn't match the promotion square of a or h file that the pawn is on, then the pawn can not promote in your scenario.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, the knight can go to any square on the board potentially so the h1 square can be covered by it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/nxog4.gif&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/nxog4.gif&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I suggest going to the link below to understand how to force the king out of the corner. Ideally you should get this position with white to play, and check to force Kg8 and push the pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/3AHw3.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/3AHw3.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesskit.com/training/endgame/KNPk/1/index.php&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chesskit.com/training/endgame/KNPk/1/index.php&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9423" LastActivityDate="2016-02-07T07:27:44.800" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13684" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13669" CreationDate="2016-02-07T13:18:14.990" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a good question, and I'd like to provide you an in-depth analysis but I don't have time right now, so here's a short answer, more to be added later:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Short answer&lt;/strong&gt;: An immediate &lt;code&gt;b5&lt;/code&gt;, before preparing it with &lt;code&gt;e6&lt;/code&gt;, allows maneuvers such as &lt;code&gt;Bd5&lt;/code&gt; to be played, and you noticed correctly that here &lt;code&gt;Bxf7+&lt;/code&gt; is not really a threat.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black should preferably avoid allowing &lt;code&gt;Bd5&lt;/code&gt;, when his bishop's still on &lt;code&gt;c8&lt;/code&gt;, for the sole reason that the consequent lines seem relatively (bit exaggerating here) forced for black, and the resulting positions are usually about equal but with white being up a few tempi. (and black very much delayed with his castling). I showcase one such line: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.Bc4 b5 7.Bd5 Ra7 8.Nc6 Nxc6 9.Bxc6+ Bd7 10.Qd4 Rc7 11.Bxd7+ Qxd7 12.a4 Rc4 13.Qd3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'll try to compile more concrete variations on this, but it should give you an idea as to why one tends to avoid all such undesirable lines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Moral&lt;/strong&gt;: with &lt;code&gt;e6&lt;/code&gt; first, one avoids all possible shenanigans that can result from either &lt;code&gt;Bxf7+&lt;/code&gt; in some lines, or &lt;code&gt;Bd5&lt;/code&gt; type of forcing lines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Addition after comments, in reply to why &lt;code&gt;7...Nxd5&lt;/code&gt; is not really objectively playable for black:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/users/2569/user2569&quot;&gt;user2569&lt;/a&gt; has already given you the gist of it, so I'm not going to repeat the same ideas again. Instead I simply decided to play this line as black, vs Stockfish 6, and tryout few seemingly ok-looking variations against it in 5-minute games (so bear with me, these won't comprise the best of the best moves, but they are illustrative). In neither of the lines I could end up with anything close to playable... take the time to go through them yourself, specially since this line seems to be of importance to your repertoire, and make sure to train yourself similarly against the engine, in order to acquaint yourself with the underlying difficulties of black's position after 7...Nxd5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;8...g6&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;rnbqkb1r/4pppp/p2p4/1p1P4/3N4/2N5/PPP2PPP/R1BQK2R b KQkq - 0 8&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;8...g6 9.O-O Bg7 10.Bg5 O-O 11.Re1 Re8 12.a4 b4 13.Ne4 Bb7 14.c4 h6 15.Bf4 Nd7 16.Qd2 Kh7 17.Re3 Qb6 18.Nb3 Nf6 19.Nxf6+ Bxf6 20.Rf3 h5 21.Bg5 Kg7 22.Bxf6+ exf6 23.a5 Qc7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another attempt, trying to make use of a quick b4 to gain some activity (instead of the slow g6 play):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;8...Nd7&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;rnbqkb1r/4pppp/p2p4/1p1P4/3N4/2N5/PPP2PPP/R1BQK2R b KQkq - 0 8&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;8...Nd7 9.a4 b4 10.Nc6 Qc7 11.Nxb4 Qc4 12.Nc6 Ne5 13.Nxe5 dxe5 14.Qh5 Qc7 15.O-O g6 16.Qf3 Bb7 17.Ra3 Bg7 18.Rb3 Rb8 19.Be3 O-O 20.Rd1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A slight variation of the previous line (without Nd7): &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;8...b4&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;rnbqkb1r/4pppp/p2p4/1p1P4/3N4/2N5/PPP2PPP/R1BQK2R b KQkq - 0 8&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;8...b4 9.Ne4 Bb7 10.c4 bxc3 11.Nxc3 g6 12.O-O Bg7 13.Be3 Nd7 14.Rc1 O-O 15.Nc6 Qe8 16.Qb3 Bxc6 17.dxc6 Nc5 18.Qc4 Rc8 19.b4 Ne6 20.Nd5 Kh8 21.Rfd1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another just for the sake of illustration, I tried a quick e6 out of plain ignorance:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;8...e6&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;rnbqkb1r/4pppp/p2p4/1p1P4/3N4/2N5/PPP2PPP/R1BQK2R b KQkq - 0 8&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;8...e6 9.dxe6 Bxe6 10.O-O Be7 11.Nxe6 fxe6 12.Qg4 O-O 13.Qxe6+ Kh8 14.Nd5 Nc6 15.a4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No words are required for this last line...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I strongly encourage you to pick up these lines and train yourself in them, just like I victimized myself playing out these lines as black vs. Stockfish. Let me know if I can further assist you in your analysis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3594" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2016-02-11T18:01:04.107" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13687" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13676" CreationDate="2016-02-08T12:01:18.250" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Once you control the center attack the enemy king and give checkmate!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However it's much easier said than done.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Normally there are two ways you can win control of the center and how you go about trying to win in each case is different.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) You both fought for the center by moving pawns there but you managed to swap off or divert his pawn or pawns and now you control the center. Classically this could be via a gambit like King's Gambit (you played f4 on your second move to divert his e5 pawn to f4), Scotch Gambit or Goring Gambit (d4 on the second move followed by c3) or Morra Gambit in the Sicilian.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because the center is open for your pieces you can move your pieces quickly towards the enemy king and go for checkmate. A good place to start studying here would be the romantic players of the 19th century like Anderson and Morphy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) Your opponent didn't really try and fight for the center with pawns instead he only moved some pawns to the 3rd rank, developed his pieces behind this pawn shell and aimed one or two of his pieces at the center by, for instance, fianchettoing his bishops. These would be openings like the Reti for white and the Pirc, Hedgehog and Hippopotamus for black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The problem here is that because your opponent didn't weaken his position by fighting for the center with pawns he probably has a very strong defensive position which you need to try and break down. You will need to build up slowly with your pieces before trying to open his position with pushing one or more pawns into his position to break it open. Your opponent is hoping that you will create weaknesses in your own position when you do this and he can launch a counterstrike against your over-extended position. He could be right!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A good place to start here would be the games of the hypermoderns from the early part of the 20th century, players like Reti and Tartakower.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2016-02-08T12:01:18.250" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13688" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-02-08T12:44:56.853" Score="0" ViewCount="96" Body="&lt;p&gt;I started playing chess a year ago, now my chess ELO rating is 750. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How much time it takes for me to reach 2000 ELO rating assuming i play 2 hours of chess everyday?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is working on ELO rating important at all?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7644" LastActivityDate="2016-02-08T12:44:56.853" Title="How to reach ELO Rating 2000?" Tags="&lt;elo&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="3" ClosedDate="2016-02-09T08:45:16.967" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13689" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13663" CreationDate="2016-02-08T16:38:41.353" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I assume that you're interested in conversions involving USCF ratings. &lt;a href=&quot;http://glicko.net/ratings/rating.system.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Here&lt;/a&gt; you can see the algorithm used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As an example the conversion between FIDE and USCF is USCF = 180 + 0.94*FIDE if the FIDE rating is under 2000 and USCF = 20 + 1.02*FIDE if the FIDE rating is over 2000 elo points.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8751" LastActivityDate="2016-02-08T16:38:41.353" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13690" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13593" CreationDate="2016-02-08T16:56:15.187" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why not play the move 3. e4 instead of 3. e3?  that move helps you start staking a claim for the center and you get to recapture on c4, Win-Win. Unless black decides to protect the c4 pawn which is usually not advised&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessfiles.com/chess-openings---queens-gambit-accepted.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.chessfiles.com/chess-openings---queens-gambit-accepted.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8933" LastActivityDate="2016-02-08T16:56:15.187" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13691" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13593" CreationDate="2016-02-08T17:05:23.723" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;A lot of players new to the QGA like to try to hang on to the pawn at c4 or build up a quick and big Queenside pawn storm, but it is an unstable and fairly neglectful strategy.  Here, it looks like Black will follow 4. Bxc4 with ...b5 to kick away the bishop and start moving pawns forward; however, as @overtheboard suggests, if White keeps to solid chess principles (develop, don't overextend right away, castle, etc.), he or she will enjoy the better position.  The QGA is classically played by Black by developing and attempting to undermine the center, not storm across the Queenside without developing pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can play an immediate 3. e4, and this might be a matter of taste, but that leaves you a bit vulnerable after 3...e5.  I play the Classical QGA (1. d4 d5 2.c4 dxc5 3. Nf3 Nf6 4.e3), which uses e3 because it is the safest and more direct route to recapturing the pawn and completing development.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2569" LastActivityDate="2016-02-08T17:05:23.723" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13692" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-02-08T18:55:24.523" Score="3" ViewCount="844" Body="&lt;p&gt;Do you know of any PGN/game viewer for Wordpress, which can be used to generate diagrams, and chess games?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5653" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-09-29T09:55:47.730" LastActivityDate="2017-09-29T09:55:47.730" Title="Chess game viewer plugin for wordpress" Tags="&lt;software&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13693" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13663" CreationDate="2016-02-09T09:03:29.547" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The official conversion rate for ECF to FIDE is FIDE=7.5*ECF+700, see&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.englishchess.org.uk/fide-elo-conversion/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.englishchess.org.uk/fide-elo-conversion/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Again comments about this being approximate are appropriate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't know of a more general table.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7726" LastActivityDate="2016-02-09T09:03:29.547" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13694" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13692" CreationDate="2016-02-09T09:53:05.920" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;See &lt;a href=&quot;http://pgn4web.casaschi.net/demo.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; website here, and also a &lt;a href=&quot;http://pgn4web-test.casaschi.net/wordpress/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;test&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9506" LastActivityDate="2016-02-09T09:53:05.920" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13695" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="595" CreationDate="2016-02-09T19:09:01.497" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;On a personal note, I once found myself facing an 8-year old who was a superior player; I knew he was a superior player before we started, having watched several of his other games at the club downtown.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I intentionally let extra time go off my clock on every move, even when it was something blatantly obvious.  Relatively quickly in the game, I found myself down a minor piece... but it became clear by mid-game that he didn't have the mental stamina to keep it up: he started fidgeting, and his attention started wandering.  Eventually, he made a blunder I was able to capitalize on, and I managed to win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I spoke to his father afterward - and he related that delaying the game until his son's mental fortitude wore off was the only way he could win, too.  With that said, I'm sure that the young man - whom I have since lost touch with - became a MUCH better player once he matured enough to sustain a longer play style.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7897" LastActivityDate="2016-02-09T19:09:01.497" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13696" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13699" CreationDate="2016-02-10T06:36:11.303" Score="2" ViewCount="1703" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm currently a 1600 USCF with a tactic rating on chesstempo.com of high 1600. My chess.com tactic rating is 1600 as well. Though my best tactic rating has been high 1700 on chesstempo.com. The problem is that my tactic rating always oscillates between 1600 and high 1700. I can never reach higher tactical levels than 1700. I practice 30 minutes of tactics every day as my chess coach recommended. However, I haven't seen any improvement. Any advice to raise my tactic rating to 2300+? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3149" LastActivityDate="2019-08-12T18:00:36.680" Title="How do I raise my tactic trainer rating to 2300?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13697" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-02-10T07:17:11.137" Score="5" ViewCount="329" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let's say you have a 2 hour session. What questions would the serious player studying with a chess coach ask? Could you provide some examples?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3149" LastEditorUserId="3149" LastEditDate="2016-02-10T07:26:47.160" LastActivityDate="2016-09-14T19:56:18.887" Title="What's the best way for someone to use their time with a chess coach?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;study&gt;&lt;coach&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13698" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-02-10T10:34:08.630" Score="5" ViewCount="2043" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is my first question in Chess, so I hope my question is simple.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know about chess but I am not a regular player. But my friend told me that everyday play chess is good for your mind and also for improving memory power. Is this correct? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And also I don't know some of the move rules. So, please give me some suggestion to improve my chess knowledge.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8651" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-07-22T10:51:03.813" LastActivityDate="2019-07-23T20:43:41.837" Title="Does chess improve our intelligence?" Tags="&lt;beginner&gt;&lt;iq&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13699" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13696" CreationDate="2016-02-10T11:36:51.323" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;As noted in the comments, 2300+ tactical ability is a ridiculous goal to aim for, if your current level is 1600-1700. This will only lead to disappointment on your part, as improving your tactical level to 2300+ will probably mean that you will have to raise your overall playing strength by maybe 300-400 rating points. This takes years to accomplish, unless you have lots of time, resources and talent, in which case it will probably still take at least a year.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A suitable primary goal is instead to raise your tactical level by roughly 100 points. Depending on your situation, this can be done in a few weeks. However, just doing tactics problems on problem sites will not accomplish this very efficiently. Exercises are good, but not doing anything else will not improve your play by much.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I suggest you read a good book about tactics if you haven't already. One that I enjoyed very much was &quot;Understanding chess tactics&quot; (I think later editions of the book is called &quot;Chess tactics from scratch&quot;) by Martin Weteschnik, containing many good examples and clear explanations of themes. However, it's not the only good tactics book, and if you have a chess coach, that person may have some suggestions on what to read.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You'd probably also want to play against strong opponents (1800+ at your level), as they're very likely to be better than you tactically. This will be good for your overall play and toughness at the board, which goes hand in hand with tactical ability.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8300" LastActivityDate="2016-02-10T11:36:51.323" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13700" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13696" CreationDate="2016-02-10T11:56:46.830" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;My advice is, and it worked for me, prioritizing quality over quantity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For every problem spend as much time as you need. Try to find out one or more tactical motifs in the position to guide you in your guessing. If you haven't, read the tactical motifs help page before.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once you find the tactical motifs, note them down and start thinking in how to get advantage from them; look for intermediate moves (yours and from your opponent), and all possible responses. Exhaustivity is even more important than depth, most times you'll fail a problem because you miss a move than because you didn't think deep enough.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At first it will take you too much time to solve every problem: that is good. As you practice you'll be able to recognize patterns faster AND to solve harder problems.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Doing the opposite (trying to solve the problems the faster the better hoping that you'll learn to do it better by repetition) won't help you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2311" LastEditorUserId="2311" LastEditDate="2016-02-10T13:50:55.220" LastActivityDate="2016-02-10T13:50:55.220" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13701" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-02-10T12:27:41.643" Score="2" ViewCount="182" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am an aspiring chess player and I just discovered this famous opening a few months back. Currently I am using Stockfish as my go-to reference to find the best move, but unfortunately it does not explain why a move is considered good. The question is why the move c5xd4 is vital for black, and how does it benefit white?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9522" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-02-10T12:39:43.183" LastActivityDate="2016-02-10T13:36:05.677" Title="Sicilian, Smith Morra gambit pawn structure" Tags="&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;&lt;smith-morra-gambit&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13702" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13701" CreationDate="2016-02-10T13:31:28.990" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;2...cxd4 is the best move because it challenges White for coming up with something. If White just takes the pawn back with 3.Qxd4, Black can easily gain a tempo with 3...Nc6. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The gambit starts with 3.c3. White is sacrificing a pawn for rapid development (4.Nxc3 recaptures the pawn with a developing piece), open bishop diagonals (b3-f7 diagonal) and slightly better central control. Black is unable to move the central pawns two squares immediately (...d5 loses a pawn, ...e5 weaken the d5 square).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White has some compensation for the pawn but probably not enough against a skilled player. Black is still very solid, if Black can stop White's swift attacks, the extra pawn will pay off.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2016-02-10T13:31:28.990" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13704" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13701" CreationDate="2016-02-10T13:36:05.677" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;2...cxd4 isn't vital for black in the sense that all other moves lose, but more in the sense that there is not really a good reason to avoid taking the d4 pawn. It's hard to think of another move that fights for the center control as well as ...cxd4. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for how it benefits white: the point of the Smith-Morra gambit is that it is a gambit; white will sacrifice a pawn after 2...cxd4 with 3.c3, in exchange for a tempo in the opening, which is intended to give a head start for white to attack the black setup.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8300" LastActivityDate="2016-02-10T13:36:05.677" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13706" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13698" CreationDate="2016-02-10T14:05:12.900" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess does not have that much of a direct correlation to IQ.  There should be no formula.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.psmag.com/books-and-culture/champion-chess-players-smart-yes-question-65735&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Expert Chess Players Are Smart?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9525" LastEditorUserId="9525" LastEditDate="2016-02-10T16:04:07.933" LastActivityDate="2016-02-10T16:04:07.933" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13710" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13711" CreationDate="2016-02-11T02:55:45.583" Score="5" ViewCount="149" Body="&lt;p&gt;Have anyone here experimented the Chess of Facebook Messenger?&#xA;I've heard about this and would like to get the comands/ codes to play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9517" LastActivityDate="2016-02-11T08:21:36.407" Title="Facebook Messenger Chess" Tags="&lt;online-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13711" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13710" CreationDate="2016-02-11T08:21:36.407" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;GM Smerdon &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.davidsmerdon.com/?p=1804&quot;&gt;has written a blogpost&lt;/a&gt; about this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some of the commands:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;@fbchess play  (or @fbchess play white)&#xA;@fbchess help  (will give you a list of commands)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Case sensitive algebraic notation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;@fbchess Bg7&#xA;@fbchess e4&#xA;&#xA;@fbchess undo&#xA;@fbchess resign&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2016-02-11T08:21:36.407" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13712" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13713" CreationDate="2016-02-11T11:43:16.420" Score="3" ViewCount="168" Body="&lt;p&gt;For the upcoming (2016) Zurich Chess Challenge, a new time control will be put in place. According to chess24, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Six players including former World Champions Vladimir Kramnik and Viswanathan Anand compete in a &quot;new classical&quot; and blitz round-robin event with a novel format and time control.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which is later clarified as&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A five round-robin tournament in which players receive 40 minutes plus 10 seconds per move for the entire game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How is this different from a standard rapid time control? And will this section of the tournament affect the players' classical ELO rating?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1816" LastActivityDate="2016-02-11T16:06:24.517" Title="How is the 2016 Zurich Chess Challenge &quot;new classical&quot; format different from rapid chess?" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;time-control&gt;&lt;rapid&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13713" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13712" CreationDate="2016-02-11T11:50:21.107" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is not different from rapid chess and will be rated only for the rapid Elo.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The name &quot;new classical&quot; is part of a push to shorten the classical time controls. Originally the idea was to have a time control with around 60 min per game, but in the end they decided to shorten it a little to make the games eligible for the rapid rating at least. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2016-02-11T11:50:21.107" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13714" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8317" CreationDate="2016-02-11T12:16:58.500" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is a simplification of the rules which mostly does not seem to affect the opening and middle game.  It does affect the end-game and in that case it seems to change the outcomes for the better, giving more wins to the player with material advantage.  One other side-effect is that it eliminates the rationale for underpromotions (to rook or bishop) that only make sense when they avoid stalemate.  In this sense only can it be said to make the game less rich, but this probably affects chess puzzles more than the game itself. Perhaps we'd just get more of a focus on puzzles aiming for a stalemate when that would be a win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other ways of regaining the lost flavor of underpromotions are possible, but require further changes.  A sufficient condition for making underpromotion viable again, is to give both rook and bishop a move that the queen does not have. The mildest possibility might be to restrict the queen to a range of 5 or 6 (instead of the usual 7 on an 8x8 board) or giving both rooks and bishops an additional jump to the second square in their usual path (in addition to their one-square jump).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9531" LastEditorUserId="9531" LastEditDate="2019-10-14T11:01:36.093" LastActivityDate="2019-10-14T11:01:36.093" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="13715" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8266" CreationDate="2016-02-11T13:27:14.847" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://history.chess.free.fr/rollerball.htm#Moves%20and%20Rules&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;The rules on the official (according to Wikipedia) website on rollerball chess&lt;/a&gt; contain this text:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;King: moves and captures exactly as in Orthochess to any adjacent&#xA;square but never to a square where it can be captured. It is the only&#xA;piece to have a symmetric move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But the French rules only say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Roi: avance et capture exactement comme le Roi orthodoxe.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The French version can be interpreted to mean the same thing as the English version, but can also be interpreted to allow the case of moving to the winning square even when that square is threatened.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Interestingly I found another inconsistency between the English and French rules:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;End of the Game: There are 2 ways to win the game:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Checkmate the opposite King, or,&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When the King reaches the starting square of the opposite King, but only if it has turned clockwise.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The second case of which differs from the French version:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;La victoire s’obtient de l’une ou l’autre manière :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;par échec et mat du Roi adverse&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;en étant le premier à accomplir un tour complet avec son Roi, en le ramenant sur sa case de départ&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So in the French version you have to complete an entire circuit with your King and it is not explicitly stated that it be clockwise.  An anticlockwise (semi-)circuit is certainly very difficult anyway, since your opponent's pieces are much stronger in that direction than your own, so there does not seem to be a pressing need to forbid it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In conclusion I find that the French rules, but not the English, leave open the option of winning by moving to the finishing square even when that square is threatened.  I do not see any pressing need within the game to decide one way or the other, so best discuss which house-rule you use at the start of the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9531" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2016-02-11T13:27:14.847" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13716" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8257" CreationDate="2016-02-11T13:34:01.523" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.caissa.com/chess-tools/pgn-editor.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Caissa's PGN Editor&lt;/a&gt; claims to be what you want.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9531" LastActivityDate="2016-02-11T13:34:01.523" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13717" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6379" CreationDate="2016-02-11T13:50:59.683" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is the variant where the first player plays one move with white, then the second player decides which side they want to continue as.  The player who ends up playing black then continues as normal.  This way it is to the advantage of white to make a first move that gives both sides equal chances.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9531" LastEditorUserId="9531" LastEditDate="2016-02-14T16:01:57.997" LastActivityDate="2016-02-14T16:01:57.997" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13718" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13712" CreationDate="2016-02-11T16:06:24.517" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is a bit different from standard rapid chess because it is longer than the usual time controls used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the last World Rapid Championship, held in Berlin, the time control was of &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/FIDE/handbook/WorldRapidBlitzChampionshipsRegulations.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;15 minutes plus 10 second per move&lt;/a&gt; and it is also usual to held tournaments with 25'+5&quot; time controls (like the rapid in the GCT tiebreaks).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The ratings calculations will be done using the rapid rating list.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8751" LastActivityDate="2016-02-11T16:06:24.517" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13719" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13722" CreationDate="2016-02-11T17:43:01.737" Score="0" ViewCount="262" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just wanted to inquire about the biggest mistake or blunder by Boris Spassky In game no. 6 against Bobby Fischer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3570" LastEditorUserId="7500" LastEditDate="2016-02-13T00:53:16.500" LastActivityDate="2016-02-13T00:53:16.500" Title="What was the biggest blunder made by Boris Spassky in Game 6?" Tags="&lt;world-championship&gt;&lt;famous-players&gt;&lt;blunder&gt;&lt;famous-moves&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13720" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13698" CreationDate="2016-02-11T19:36:04.833" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The folks at Lumosity.com got into trouble by claiming that expertise in their brain games would translate to expertise in other related brain experiences. That said, I feel that my experience with chess has helped me understand some core life principles that may or may not be related to general intelligence. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Life lesson 1: arrogance gives birth to mistakes&#xA;Life lesson 2: impulsiveness is your enemy&#xA;Life lesson 3: the more you work at chess (or anything) the better you'll become at that same thing&#xA;Life lesson 4: chess can help with your relationship with your son or daughter&#xA;Life lesson 5: streaks of success and failure are certain and often turn without warning&#xA;Life lesson 6: sleep is directly related to intellectual performance (chess or otherwise)&#xA;Life lesson 7: mood, distractions, and overall health are factors to be considered&#xA;Life lesson 8: you must take risks in order to make significant gains&#xA;Life lesson 9: good sportsmanship is more important than victory&#xA;Life lesson 10: nearly everyone is beatable and nearly everyone could beat you on a given day&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, again, I am not sure that chess intelligence translates to overall intelligence, but some intelligent lessons can be gained from the pursuit of getting better at chess. Try &lt;a href=&quot;http://chess.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;chess.com&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://chessgames.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;chessgames.com&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://chessclub.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;chessclub.com&lt;/a&gt; to learn these life lessons and more all the while improving your game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8134" LastActivityDate="2016-02-11T19:36:04.833" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13721" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13698" CreationDate="2016-02-11T20:52:04.227" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Indeed Chess promotes several skills in you:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Memory, and especially photographical memory. Getting used to calculate and move the pieces several moves ahead can really give your head a boost!&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Creativity, yes the Tactical thinking in chess, finding combinations and showing your art on the board will make you more creative.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Strategical thinking, Chess is a lot relying on strategy and this one helps you to take decisions accurately in your life and organize your daily tasks, and eventually being a really successful person.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And let's not forget that being good at chess will give a quiet great impression to people towards you, you will be that intelligent logical great minded person in their eyes ;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9543" LastActivityDate="2016-02-11T20:52:04.227" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13722" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13719" CreationDate="2016-02-11T20:59:04.540" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am tempted to say &quot;agreeing to continue the match after Fischer's protests!&quot; which some argue was a key psychological defeat.  If you're looking for specific moves that were mistakes, there are a few candidates.  I haven't looked at all annotations, but have Kasparov's &lt;em&gt;My Great Predecessors, vol 4&lt;/em&gt; handy and looking over his notes, it would be either (notations and comments are his):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;20&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;...d4?&#xA;&quot;This move, conceding the important c4-square, was rightly condemned by the commentators.  20. ...Nf6 really was better...but the most accurate solution was the continuation 20. ...c4&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;22&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;...Rb8?!&#xA;&quot;The last critical moment.&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2569" LastActivityDate="2016-02-11T20:59:04.540" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13723" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13719" CreationDate="2016-02-11T20:59:14.183" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The biggest was 36...Qe8. Other than that, 20...d4 and maybe 18...Qf8 could be called &quot;weak&quot; if not outright &quot;blunder&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7314" LastActivityDate="2016-02-11T20:59:14.183" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13724" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-02-11T23:14:41.063" Score="0" ViewCount="119" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some countries like Russia have chess as school matter.&#xA;I was wondering if it could be as important as the other topics of a normal curriculum, considering that the importance of disciplines is the generation of constructive minds of our children.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9517" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-11-21T19:38:15.870" LastActivityDate="2016-11-21T19:38:15.870" Title="Is it important to have chess as part of the education in schools?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ClosedDate="2016-11-23T05:43:39.023" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13725" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13642" CreationDate="2016-02-12T06:48:44.583" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sorry for the lack of a board here, I will learn how to paste boards here soon.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;8.f4 b4 9.Na4 (Nce2 is reasonable too) Nxe4, one might ask, what has white got?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;10&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;O-O and black has serious issues developing as the amazing line given by the comp (I wouldnt have seen this line) : &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;10...Be7 11. f5 e5 12.Bxf7+! Kxf7 13.Ne6 Kg8 ( Qd7 14.Qg4 wins material back, Bxe6 fxe6 Kxe6 Qg4+ is no good, Ke8 Qd5 wins material back with decisive effect.) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;14.Qd5 and Qh5 g6 (h6 Kh7 Qf5- Qxe4 wins) Qf3 win back material.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The safest line that black can go for is 10..Nf6 imo, just retreating, but white has interesting play with 10.O-O Nf6 Qf3 d5 (what else?) 12.f5 (full throttle) e5 (what else?) 13.Re1 or 13.Bg5!? are interesting for white. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The lines go on and on, but white has very direct, brutal play with the pieces working with the f-pawn in some shape or form. Whether it works or not is another matter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After all, f4 isnt the main line, O-O is. Diagrams below are me visualizing my lines stated above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.Bc4 e6 7.Bb3 b5 8.f4?! b4 9.Na4 Nxe4 10. O-O Be7 11. f5 e5 12.Bxf7+! Kxf7 13.Ne6 Bxe6 14.fxe6 Kg8 15.Qd5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.Bc4 e6 7.Bb3 b5 8.f4?! b4 9.Na4 Nxe4 10. O-O Nf6 11.Qf3 d5 12.f5 e5 13.Re1 e4!?&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's probably better it opt for something safe.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9423" LastEditorUserId="9423" LastEditDate="2016-02-12T06:57:23.010" LastActivityDate="2016-02-12T06:57:23.010" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13726" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13724" CreationDate="2016-02-12T11:21:34.933" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/10770373/Chess-should-be-compulsory-in-primary-schools.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Telegraph&lt;/a&gt; ran a story supporting the benefits of learning chess. Here is the summary for the 'for' camp:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Pupils as young as seven should be given compulsory lessons in chess amid claims it boosts concentration levels, numeracy and reading comprehension, according to a teachers’ leader.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From the limited research I've done, articles like this do not highlight the 'against' camp, so I will construct my own argument for why chess may not be included on the syllabus: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Limited class time&lt;/strong&gt;. Class time could be spent on existing subjects (reading, writing, arithmetic), or spent on many other worthy 'new' subjects (computing, citizenship, financial awareness etc.). It becomes a trade off between what we want to teach the next generation with the limited time they have in school&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Uncertainty of transferable skills&lt;/strong&gt;. In the quote above it's claimed that chess improves numeracy skills. But surely studying mathematics would be a more direct way to do this?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Level of popularity&lt;/strong&gt;. In the UK, football/soccer is arguably the national sport. There just wouldn't be many pupils that would want to study chess, nor many teachers of a suitable callibre&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2016-02-12T11:21:34.933" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13727" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12466" CreationDate="2016-02-12T16:29:32.707" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Theoretically there's no problem. But, for example, if 'parking the bus' approach (a player gets a high level in ranking, then he stops playing) is one of the most known practical issues of Elo ranking, the problem should be with weaker players that play just brackets, with one or few games every tournament. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many post-Elo ranking systems, as &lt;strong&gt;Glicko&lt;/strong&gt; (for chess), or &lt;strong&gt;TrueSkill&lt;/strong&gt; (for X-box games), or &lt;strong&gt;rankade&lt;/strong&gt; (our multipurpose ranking system) have some 'activity dynamics feature' to avoid this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://rankade.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Rankade&lt;/a&gt; adds the option for different weights for match, due to different tournament format and/or match duration, and more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While playing one-on-one (as in a chess group) or in symmetrical factions (as in basketball group), the total number of rating points is conserved. as per Dag Oskar Madsen comment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7575" LastActivityDate="2016-02-12T16:29:32.707" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13728" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13729" CreationDate="2016-02-12T17:10:19.073" Score="2" ViewCount="318" Body="&lt;p&gt;What are the best repertoire or opening books, if any, advocating the g3 variation vs the Queen's Indian for White, in terms of analysis and verbal explanations of the main plans / ideas? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-12-17T14:31:08.587" LastActivityDate="2016-12-17T14:31:08.587" Title="Books dealing with the g3 Queen's Indian" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;books&gt;&lt;queens-indian&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13729" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13728" CreationDate="2016-02-12T17:53:38.307" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I will have to explore through some of the new (and older) literature on the Queen's Indian to give you better recommendations, but off the top of my head I recall at least 3:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1857445805&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Play the Queen's Indian by Andrew Greet&lt;/a&gt;: if I remember correctly the fianchetto variations are discussed somewhere at the end of his book. One plus about this book is that it's quite readable.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1857443632&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Starting Out: The Queen's Indian by John Emms&lt;/a&gt;: This is probably what you're looking for, there's an extensive study on the &lt;code&gt;g3&lt;/code&gt; variation (up to 70 pages almost). Also see his post &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesspublishing.com/content/10/apr12.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1857443004&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Queen's Indian Defence by Jacob Aagaard&lt;/a&gt;: I've heard good things about this one, but haven't read it myself, see chapter two. Apparently it contains numerous references to insightful games, for whatever variation that is covered in the book.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, to browse through the known variations and played games, there are many websites that you can look through, but these two should get you started:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.365chess.com/eco/E15_Queen&amp;#39;s_Indian_4.g3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;365chess&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Queen's Indian (E15) page on &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessopening?eco=e15&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;chessgames&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3594" LastActivityDate="2016-02-12T17:53:38.307" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13730" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-02-12T22:55:10.200" Score="4" ViewCount="1313" Body="&lt;p&gt;A Black pawn reached the end of board and Black himself picked it up and placed a White queen on the board. He removed his hand from the piece.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am not concerned with 'the spirit of the game' but want to know &lt;strong&gt;technically&lt;/strong&gt; if this counts as any other break in concentration during a game, and thus a move played to Black's (extreme) disadvantage?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9548" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-07-06T15:19:22.753" LastActivityDate="2020-07-06T15:19:22.753" Title="Pawn promotion to queen of the other color" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;pawn-promotion&gt;&lt;illegal-move&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13731" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13730" CreationDate="2016-02-12T23:01:12.067" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;Promoting to a piece of the opposite color is an illegal move. Because of the touch move rule, Black must make a different legal move with that pawn, such as promoting to a Black queen. As a penalty for making an illegal move, two minutes are added to White's clock.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2016-02-12T23:01:12.067" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13732" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13730" CreationDate="2016-02-13T00:03:59.540" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The FIDE Laws of Chess state:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;3.7 e. When a player, having the move, plays a pawn to the rank furthest from its starting position,he must exchange that pawn as part&#xA;  of the same move for a new queen rook, bishop or knight of the same&#xA;  colour on the intended square of arrival.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus it is not &quot;a move played to black's (extreme) disadvantage&quot;. It is, as dfan says, says an illegal move but only if black has pressed the clock and completed the move. If he has not pressed the clock and the mistake is seen then he must complete a legal move by replacing the white queen with a black piece and pressing the clock. In that case he will suffer no penalty whatsoever and the only disadvantage that perhaps he feels a little foolish for his mistake.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it is Black's first illegal move of the game the white queen will be replaced by a black queen and the only disadvantage black will suffer is that his opponent will get an extra 2 minutes on the clock. If it is his second illegal move he will lose the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2016-02-13T00:03:59.540" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13733" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13768" CreationDate="2016-02-13T15:45:05.980" Score="1" ViewCount="511" Body="&lt;p&gt;My current rating is 1200 and I had stopped chess for some time due to school exam pressure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What steps should I take to increase my rating? I do tactics from chess.com everyday.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please suggest some books which would help me in tactics, endgames, middlegame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9089" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2016-02-13T18:22:42.363" LastActivityDate="2016-02-22T00:36:04.517" Title="Top chess books and online software that would help me increase my rating" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;rating&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;middlegame&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13734" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13530" CreationDate="2016-02-13T16:21:21.833" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can always use online websites on your E-readers like &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.lichess.org/analysis&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;lichess&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;you can play against engine, other players, analysis board, edit board, import pgn, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9400" LastActivityDate="2016-02-13T16:21:21.833" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13735" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13736" CreationDate="2016-02-13T19:07:59.847" Score="1" ViewCount="69" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was looking at the list of uscf players (as anyone can through WinTD) and two columns in a dataset, downloadable through the program, are titled RSUPP_NUM, R_PLR_TYP.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does anyone have any idea what these columns mean? I see that these are short for Rating Supplement Number and Rating Player Type, but am unsure of why this is there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's a screenshot of what the data looks like.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/1d4ow.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/1d4ow.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;USCF chess&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is all of the possible values in both of the columns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For RSUPP_NUM:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/hT7qT.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/hT7qT.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For R_PLR_TYPE:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/TD1R8.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/TD1R8.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does &quot;E&quot; mean experienced, and &quot;P&quot; mean provisional?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does the 1-12 value mean it correspond to months? Does it mean the rating a person has corresponding to that month's value? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9423" LastEditorUserId="9423" LastEditDate="2016-02-13T19:13:18.447" LastActivityDate="2016-02-13T19:29:36.963" Title="USCF player question" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;database&gt;&lt;uscf&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13736" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13735" CreationDate="2016-02-13T19:29:36.963" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;As can be verified by looking at player information on &lt;a href=&quot;http://uschess.org&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://uschess.org&lt;/a&gt;, RSUPP_YR and RSUPP_NUM are the year and month of the latest supplement with a rating for that player (which is in the R_LPB_RAT columns). If you looked up a sample player who has a P in R_PLR_TYP, it wouldn't be hard to confirm whether that means that the rating is provisional.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2016-02-13T19:29:36.963" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13737" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6442" CreationDate="2016-02-13T21:01:14.993" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is a simple way to do exactly what you want: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Open the &lt;em&gt;.cbv&lt;/em&gt; file in &lt;strong&gt;ChessBase Reader&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Select all the files you would like to convert to &lt;em&gt;.pgn&lt;/em&gt; (&lt;strong&gt;Ctrl-A&lt;/strong&gt; to select all files)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Go to &lt;strong&gt;File&lt;/strong&gt; at the top left corner and press &lt;strong&gt;Selection To Text file&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You will receive a popup where you should select &lt;strong&gt;PGN&lt;/strong&gt; under &lt;strong&gt;Format&lt;/strong&gt; and press &lt;strong&gt;OK&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Save the &lt;em&gt;.pgn&lt;/em&gt; in your designated area and that's it! &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You now have a &lt;em&gt;.pgn&lt;/em&gt; database!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9553" LastEditorUserId="9553" LastEditDate="2016-02-13T21:07:59.117" LastActivityDate="2016-02-13T21:07:59.117" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13738" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13739" CreationDate="2016-02-13T22:14:27.507" Score="7" ViewCount="687" Body="&lt;p&gt;Per FIDE rules, I must not write down moves &quot;in advance&quot;.  Does this mean: &lt;strong&gt;in advance of making, or in advance of completing?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Today I have seen a strange ruling as a spectator.  A young player made a move, wrote it down and pressed the clock.  The other player called an arbiter and objected to the order of actions.  The arbiter seemed to be agreeing with the complaint, stating that the mandatory order is making the move, pressing the clock, and only then writing it down.  (It wasn't obvious whether this was meant as advisory or warning.)  This was in Europe.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I prefer answers based on non-US experience if available, because the USCF used to be more lenient toward writing down 1 move even immediately before making it, and that is hopefully irrelevant to my question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9555" LastActivityDate="2016-02-13T22:28:59.957" Title="No writing down moves in advance of making, or in advance of completing" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13739" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13738" CreationDate="2016-02-13T22:28:59.957" Score="16" Body="&lt;p&gt;Once a move has been made (hand has left the piece) the move cannot be changed unless it is an illegal move. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The rule against writing the move down in advance is in relation to &quot;taking notes&quot;. If this were allowed you could write down what you thought was the best move and then stop and think for another 10 minutes considering other possibilities. If you reject the other possibilities you don't have to worry about forgetting your original choice because you wrote it down. If half way through you see a better move than your original you can erase the original move and write the new move and continue thinking. It is this behaviour that the rule is aimed at stopping. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the case you saw the question does not arise because having made the move the player can't change the move. Writing the move down now whether it is before or after pressing the clock is not taking notes and is not against the rule. If the arbiter really thought his behaviour was against the rule and gave a warning then he was wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am a FIDE arbiter for an Asian country, currently living in Europe. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2016-02-13T22:28:59.957" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13740" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8168" CreationDate="2016-02-14T13:47:46.410" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Small kids playing with tournament sized sets on school sized tables topple their kings all the time, because they can hardly reach the middle of the board without touching the tops of the nearest pieces by their elbows.  When repositioning the fallen pieces they do so silently because the situation and their intention is already clear enough.  A silent correction minimizes the disruption to the opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should say &lt;em&gt;J'adoube&lt;/em&gt; when it's not entirely clear whether the piece has to be repositioned, because being explicit about not making a move minimizes the disruption to the opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Minimizing disruption is not only sportsmanlike behavior, but also a good habit to adopt to prevent disputes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(With the post-2018 rules, I wouldn't risk skipping on saying &lt;em&gt;J'adoube&lt;/em&gt;, not even with my king lying on the floor.  But I would also not claim opponent's intent if I'm sure there was none.  Have fun.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9555" LastEditorUserId="9555" LastEditDate="2019-10-22T16:46:29.800" LastActivityDate="2019-10-22T16:46:29.800" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="13742" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8102" CreationDate="2016-02-15T14:46:19.620" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sigh... Niels is absolutely right. You cannot lock yourself away from sharp positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's take a look just at 1. e4 c5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You have 2. Nf3, but then Black can go into a Najdorf, Dragon, or Scheveningen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Closed Sicilian relies on the same thing: whether White can get a kingside attack going before Black proves central and queenside dominance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even after 2. c3 Black can have a little bit of fun. Both 2... d5 and 2... Nf6 create an unbalanced game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've used the Caro-Kann as a side weapon before, and what turned me off is that some of the the positions are too quiet, slow, and closed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At my rating, I simply cannot push the superior pawn structure all the way to the endgame and then win the endgame with it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I keep playing it, precisely for that reason.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9571" LastActivityDate="2016-02-15T14:46:19.620" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13743" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13733" CreationDate="2016-02-15T16:17:58.550" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Since you use chess.com, you can also try out their very good chess mentor. They are adapted for different rating levels.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also found mr. Silman's books (like &quot;The Amateur's Mind&quot; for example) to be invaluable. And of course study the classics.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9572" LastActivityDate="2016-02-15T16:17:58.550" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13744" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-02-15T20:32:34.747" Score="2" ViewCount="1248" Body="&lt;p&gt;Do you know any website for organising online chess tournaments with swiss pairing method ? I know lichess.org but they don't support it anymore :/&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2282" LastActivityDate="2016-12-30T18:59:16.203" Title="Looking for website for organising private tournaments with swiss system?" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;online-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13745" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13744" CreationDate="2016-02-15T20:47:22.167" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The related question &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/468/how-to-organize-a-chess-tournament&quot;&gt;How to organize a chess tournament&lt;/a&gt; appears to have several suggestions; I'm not personally familiar with any of them, but most of the links seem to still be active.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7897" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2016-02-15T20:47:22.167" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13747" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13733" CreationDate="2016-02-16T05:02:45.253" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you have a bias to certain openings, I might get books about those openings. This will help you get better at selected openings but it won't necessarily help your general chess skill.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7236" LastActivityDate="2016-02-16T05:02:45.253" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13748" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13749" CreationDate="2016-02-17T10:02:31.087" Score="2" ViewCount="4261" Body="&lt;p&gt;I completed my first FIDE rated tournament with 0.5/3 points against Elo rated players. This weekend I'm going to another tournament, where I'll probably meet other 2 Elo rated opponents, completing the necessary condition for the first official Elo rating calculation.&#xA;Using the FIDE simulator (&lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/calculator_rp.phtml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://ratings.fide.com/calculator_rp.phtml&lt;/a&gt;) it seems that even if I lose I'll get the initial Elo rating of 1440. Is that correct?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand my national rating will be certainly less than that so what happens at that point: the national rating will be lifted up to the FIDE rating or the other way around?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S. I play in Italy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9595" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2016-02-17T22:59:44.710" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T18:30:49.690" Title="How to calculate initial Elo rating?" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;elo&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13749" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13748" CreationDate="2016-02-17T10:20:17.293" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I cannot answer your question about Italian rating, but I'm nearly sure that your national rating won't go up. They (FIDE and national) are separate rating systems and they shouldn't affect each other.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;About the FIDE rating, it is regulated at &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=172&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=172&amp;amp;view=article&lt;/a&gt; &lt;code&gt;FIDE Rating Regulations effective from 1 July 2014&lt;/code&gt;. At article 8.2 you can check the exact formula.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;8.2 Determining the Rating 'Ru' in a given event of a previously unrated player.&#xA;    8.21 If an unrated player scores zero in his first rated event, his score is disregarded.&#xA;    First determine the average rating of his competition 'Rc'.&#xA;    (a) In a Swiss or Team tournament: this is simply the average rating of his rated opponents.&#xA;    (b) The results of both rated and unrated players in a round-robin tournament are taken into account. For unrated players, the average rating of the competition 'Rc' is also the tournament average 'Ra' determined as follows:&#xA;        (i) Determine the average rating of the rated players 'Rar'.&#xA;        (ii) Determine p for each of the rated players against all their opponents.&#xA;        Then determine dp for each of these players. &#xA;        Then determine the average of these dp = 'dpa'.&#xA;        (iii) 'n' is the number of opponents.&#xA;        Ra = Rar - dpa x n/(n+1)&#xA;    8.22 If he scores 50%, then Ru = Ra&#xA;    8.23 If he scores more than 50%, then Ru = Ra + 20 for each half point scored over 50%&#xA;    8.24 If he scores less than 50% in a Swiss or team tournament:  Ru = Rc + dp&#xA;    8.25 If he scores less than 50% in a round-robin: Ru = Ra + dp x n/(n+1).&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, more or less, your initial rating will be your performance in your first tournament(s).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2311" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T18:30:49.690" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T18:30:49.690" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="13750" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13748" CreationDate="2016-02-17T10:20:27.450" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As you can see from the calculator you linked, the initial rating (and in fact every rating change later) depends on the Elo of your opponents. So if you already know the Elo of your opponents this weekend and you calculated the average rating of all your rated opponents correctly and for 0.5/5 the calculator returns 1440, then that's what you'll get.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The national rating is completely independent of the Elo rating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2016-02-17T10:20:27.450" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13751" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12347" CreationDate="2016-02-17T11:16:23.967" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Check out this extremely useful video: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsMBHySzkC8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;How to Fight the Hippopotamus Defense&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4209" LastActivityDate="2016-02-17T11:16:23.967" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13752" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-02-17T12:31:34.707" Score="11" ViewCount="5694" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why is Chinese chess (xiangqi) harder for computers than international chess?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When one looks at Chinese chess in comparison to international chess, one cannot help but notice how extremely limited several of the pieces are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Kings are confined to 9 positions overall (the palace) and have 4&#xA;possible moves at most (only 1 step orthogonally).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The two advisors are confined to 5 shared positions overall (diagonals of&#xA;the palace), where except for the central palace position they are&#xA;confined to 1 move.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The two elephants are confined to 7 shared positions (two touching diamonds side by side, like an 8 on its side), due to having a move that naturally restricts them to a quarter of the board (only every other square the same color as its starting square (on a checkered board)), but then also being restricted to not move across the central dividing river which cuts it down to an expected 1/8.  In fact the 7 positions out of 90 which the elephants can reach is an even worse ratio than 1/8 which is due to the specific board dimensions penalizing it even further.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there something about the two horses, two chariots (rooks), two cannons, and five chinese pawns that makes this game harder for computers than international chess? Or is it mostly due to the larger board size, 90 vs 64? Or is there some other consideration that I have overlooked?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9531" LastEditorUserId="10905" LastEditDate="2016-11-22T15:48:00.530" LastActivityDate="2017-11-23T18:18:05.277" Title="Why is Chinese chess (xiangqi) harder for computers than international chess?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;game-complexity&gt;&lt;xiangqi&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13753" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13752" CreationDate="2016-02-17T13:19:12.270" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Xiangqi has more theoretical complexity mainly due to larger board. So if you need to do exhaustive search, it has larger search space.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Xiangqi is also more positional. For attacking each side has two rooks, 4 knight-strength pieces, and 5 pawns. So for a crude comparison with western chess, Q+3P are replaced with 4 purely defensive pieces. We know positional chess is difficult for computer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7002" LastActivityDate="2016-02-17T13:19:12.270" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13754" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13752" CreationDate="2016-02-17T13:19:51.163" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;As far as I can see there is no fundamental difference between chess and xiangqi that would make xiangqi more difficult for a computer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The state space &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_complexity&quot;&gt;complexity&lt;/a&gt; of chess is somewhat higher, whereas the game tree complexity of xiangqi is higher. Also the &lt;a href=&quot;http://wxf.org/xq/computer/2004CCC.pdf&quot;&gt;branching factor of xiangqi&lt;/a&gt; is 38 compared to 35 for chess, not much of a difference. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I suspect that while chess has been in the focus of computer research for many decades, there just weren't the same resources devoted to optimising xiangqi engines. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Possibly the slower game (because of the weaker pieces) requires the calculation of longer variations (see game tree complexity), increasing the hardware requirements, but I think that should only be a minor difference compared to demonstrably more complex games like shogi or go.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is a bit difficult to find out precisely how strong xiangqi engines are right now, but any of the two factors would explain if they lagged one or two decades behind. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2016-02-17T13:19:51.163" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13755" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13748" CreationDate="2016-02-17T16:14:26.130" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I play in Italy too. After you gain a FIDE rating you will &lt;strong&gt;always&lt;/strong&gt; play using it. Italian Elo will disappear. Your new Elo will be the FIDE Elo, no adjustments.&#xA;When playing against Italian Elo your FIDE Elo will not change, while when playing against FIDE rated opponents, of course the Elo will change. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9600" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2016-02-17T23:01:17.430" LastActivityDate="2016-02-17T23:01:17.430" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13756" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13758" CreationDate="2016-02-19T01:04:24.640" Score="1" ViewCount="407" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are there any programs out there that take a completely won position and compute the minimum checkmate depth (say if it is around 50 moves)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9611" LastActivityDate="2016-02-19T06:19:41.180" Title="Program to solve positions" Tags="&lt;software&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13757" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13756" CreationDate="2016-02-19T01:59:36.223" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Look up Endgame Tablebases for this kind of thing. These are programs that have SOLVED all chess positions of 7 or less pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Regular chess engines will give you definite evals and mates, but cant calculate 50 moves deep.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9423" LastActivityDate="2016-02-19T01:59:36.223" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13758" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13756" CreationDate="2016-02-19T06:19:41.180" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You need to use &lt;em&gt;mate search&lt;/em&gt; function of a chess engine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some engines have this function, for example, Houdini 4: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cruxis.com/chess/manual/index.html?game_play.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.cruxis.com/chess/manual/index.html?game_play.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can activate it using UCI parameters, or more easily, using a Fritz GUI on Windows as it has a mate search button, which makes life easier.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9030" LastActivityDate="2016-02-19T06:19:41.180" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13759" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-02-19T15:40:02.737" Score="-1" ViewCount="474" Body="&lt;p&gt;When thinking about if you can do some move, you look if your king will be attacked. This would lead to a recursion, but actually dont, since you it doenst matter if this enemy piece would be able to check/mate your king or if it would not be allowed to do the move because of check and mate rules.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The question is, its possible to on my turn put the enemy king into mate if this will put my king into check&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9613" LastActivityDate="2016-02-20T23:35:32.333" Title="It is possible to mate enemy king if this would put your king in check?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;beginner&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2016-02-21T04:37:57.387" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13760" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13759" CreationDate="2016-02-19T16:10:25.023" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;No. You can't give check, nor mate, if your King is then under check. It's an illegal move. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastActivityDate="2016-02-19T16:10:25.023" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13761" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13759" CreationDate="2016-02-19T16:12:32.727" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;No.  Putting your king in check is not a legal move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From this &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/component/handbook/?id=124&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;World Chess Federation handbook&lt;/a&gt;, section 3.9:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The king is said to be 'in check' if it is attacked by one or more of the opponent's pieces, even if such pieces are constrained from moving to that square because they would then leave or place their own king in check. No piece can be moved that will either expose the king of the same colour to check or leave that king in check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that last sentence: no piece - which includes the king - can be moved that will expose your king to check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7897" LastActivityDate="2016-02-19T16:12:32.727" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13762" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-02-19T20:34:47.557" Score="3" ViewCount="156" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am trying to encourage a young friend to learn chess. He is very interested, just like any child would be with a child's play. I am wondering which movie about chess to choose, that could cause more interest and improved learning to him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9517" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-11-21T19:39:18.867" LastActivityDate="2019-06-25T16:11:44.927" Title="Chess movie as educational incentive" Tags="&lt;teaching&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13763" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13762" CreationDate="2016-02-20T17:22:50.350" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Searching for Bobby Fisher maybe.&#xA;Trailer: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8khmNiamBxo&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8khmNiamBxo&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0108065/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0108065/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3665" LastActivityDate="2016-02-20T17:22:50.350" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13764" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13744" CreationDate="2016-02-20T17:46:39.823" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can do it on &lt;a href=&quot;http://playchess.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;playchess.com&lt;/a&gt; in the 'tournaments room'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9030" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-12-30T18:59:16.203" LastActivityDate="2016-12-30T18:59:16.203" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13765" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13759" CreationDate="2016-02-20T23:35:32.333" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;No.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can think about &quot;white mating black&quot; as a position that would inescapably capture black's king on the next move, therefore black has to surrender.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If white is putting their king into check in order to mate black, that means white will lose its king &lt;em&gt;before&lt;/em&gt; it can capture black's king, so white would lose and that's why it's illegal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9622" LastActivityDate="2016-02-20T23:35:32.333" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13766" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13767" CreationDate="2016-02-21T12:08:52.847" Score="5" ViewCount="1060" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can someone explain to me what are the procedures involvd in getting a chess rating? If different countries have different procedures then how one can get an international chess rating in India?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9620" LastEditorUserId="16057" LastEditDate="2018-05-25T05:16:58.983" LastActivityDate="2018-05-25T05:16:58.983" Title="How to become a rated player?" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;fide&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13767" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13766" CreationDate="2016-02-21T13:39:49.317" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You need to play against players who already have a FIDE rating in competitions which are themselves FIDE rated. The numbers keep changing but I think you need at least one draw out of 5 games against FIDE rated opposition. This doesn't have to be achieved in one competition but there is a time limit before your games expire, something like 2 years, but I don't know exactly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I should add that FIDE have standard, rapid and blitz ratings and these don't mix. So, if you play 3 FIDE rated opponents in a standard time control competition and 2 in rapid or blitz that does not count as 5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT:&#xA;I've checked out what the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=172&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;FIDE site says&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;6.1 If an unrated player scores zero in his first tournament, his score and that of his opponents against him are disregarded. &#xA;  Otherwise, if an unrated player has played rated games, then this&#xA;  result is included in computing his overall rating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;6.31 For an unrated player’s first performance to count, he must score at least 1/2 point.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;7.14 A rating for a player new to the list shall be published only if it meets the following criteria:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;7.14a If based on results obtained under 6.2 [round robin with min 4 rated players], a minimum of 5 games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;7.14b If based on results obtained under 6.3 [swiss], a minimum of 5 games played against rated opponents.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;7.14c The condition of a minimum of 5 games need not be met in one tournament. Results from other tournaments played within consecutive&#xA;  rating periods totalling not more than 26 months, are pooled to obtain&#xA;  the initial rating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;7.14d&#xA;The rating is at least 1000.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;7.14e&#xA;The rating is calculated using all his results as if they were played in one tournament (it is not published until he has played at least 5 games) by using all the rating data available.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2016-02-21T19:09:16.210" LastActivityDate="2016-02-21T19:09:16.210" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13768" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13733" CreationDate="2016-02-22T00:36:04.517" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would recommend continuing doing tactics everyday, although at your rating doing tactics that aren't time sensitive would be better. I'd recommend doing the standard tactics on the free site chesstempo.com for unlimited tactics that won't dock you points for taking too long. Also 303 tricky tactics is a nice puzzle book collection of problems that should be right around your level. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for the best books to increase your rating I'd say The Amateurs Mind and Silman's Complete Endgame Course are both books perfect for helping a club level player like yourself improve quite a bit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd also advise finding a favorite youtube IM/GM to follow. Chess 24, the st Louis chess club, and chess.com all have youtube accounts and put out videos that will benefit you and aren't pure book study. There are also masters who put up videos for their blitz games like cubematter, kingscrusher, chessnetwork, among others that are good to follow. You can get a sense of the kind of moves they play and look for just through seeing enough of their blitz games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lastly if you want to talk to a community of chess players give twitch.TV's chess section a look through. You can watch chess streamers and live chat with a decent number of viewers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9627" LastActivityDate="2016-02-22T00:36:04.517" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13769" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13647" CreationDate="2016-02-22T00:42:51.127" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;You get a sense you are master strength when you are playing over GM games and can actually understand the reason behind the majority of their moves as well as being able to predict a large number of them. When playing against master level players you don't feel outclassed and feel like they aren't doing anything you wouldnt expect. Lastly you don't have any huge weaknesses in your game. You might be weaker in some areas but overall your opening, middlegame, and endgame are all mostly strong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9627" LastActivityDate="2016-02-22T00:42:51.127" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13770" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13560" CreationDate="2016-02-22T00:51:42.327" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;My real life rating is higher than all my online ratings. This could be because I'm more serious in real life tournaments and calculate much deeper into positions than I do in online chess. It could also be I'm worse at faster games. I know my highest online ratings tend to be longer time controls. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Fast chess favors opening knowledge, quick solid play while looking for tactical opportunitues, and good endgame knowledge. Otb tournaments favor objectively best moves in general, as well as being able to set up positions that are complex enough your opponent can't accurately evaluate them. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9627" LastActivityDate="2016-02-22T00:51:42.327" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13771" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13762" CreationDate="2016-02-22T17:50:17.063" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In addition to great suggestion by Mark.&#xA;You can also try Brooklyn Castle: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1800266/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1800266/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems quite inspirational, the main message 'it's also cool to play chess'. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8160" LastActivityDate="2016-02-22T17:50:17.063" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13772" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13773" CreationDate="2016-02-22T20:44:49.847" Score="3" ViewCount="880" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a hobby player but I would like to improve my game. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I like to watch annotated games. For instance, I have watched all games of Josh Waitzkin in Chessmaster GM Edition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, I watch games in YouTube as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In some variations, I find so said &quot;hard to find&quot; or &quot;advanced&quot; combinations at a glance. The correct move almost shines on the board.&#xA;In some other variations, on the other hand, I really struggle to find a simple mate-in-one move or a beginner's fork.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What would be the reason behind this behavior of my brain? How can I improve my vision? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8209" LastActivityDate="2016-02-23T18:10:06.273" Title="I sometimes miss very obvious moves. How can I improve my game?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;training&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13773" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13772" CreationDate="2016-02-23T00:28:32.840" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think you should do more Tactics training (&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/tactics/&quot;&gt;https://www.chess.com/tactics/&lt;/a&gt;) (&lt;a href=&quot;http://chesstempo.com/chess-tactics.html&quot;&gt;http://chesstempo.com/chess-tactics.html&lt;/a&gt;). Also You should read &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess-strategies-tactics.com/chess-tactics-training&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's an important segment&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;There are a few common targets that will help you in finding tactical targets in chess:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1-   Hanging (undefended) pieces can be used to gain tempo moves or to win them in tactical combinations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;2-    An exposed (unsafe) king is a permanent target that can easily be combined with other threats.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;3-    The geometrical relation between pieces, in example – pieces on the same diagonal, file or rank.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;4-    A piece with a very important defensive task can become a target for an attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;5-    A piece with more than once defensive task can become overloaded and exploited.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;6-    Pieces in attacking positions versus pieces in defending positions have more flexibility and thus more opportunity for tactical maneuvers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;7-    A majority of forces in a certain part of the board can outnumber the defenders and create opportunities for a tactics.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;8-    A piece with severely limited mobility can sometimes be trapped or kept out of the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8205" LastActivityDate="2016-02-23T00:28:32.840" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13775" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13772" CreationDate="2016-02-23T18:00:15.913" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I developed a &quot;single-move tactics&quot; checklist for myself that, when followed, helps with what you are describing. (Of course, it is easy to &quot;forget&quot; to follow it in the heat of battle or during fast-time-control games, but that doesn't mean it's not worthwhile anyway.) I based it on Dan Heisman's mantra of what to analyze: &quot;checks, captures, threats; in that order&quot;, with simplification down to a single move (two ply). The gory details are on my blog (post &lt;a href=&quot;http://youngjeff2.blogspot.com/2014/08/building-better-chess-thought-process.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;), but the simplified list is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;0.5 Search for all the below, in order, for both you and your opponent.&#xA;1. Mate in one.&#xA;2. Give check from a non-attacked square (checking piece cannot be taken).&#xA;2.5 Identify loose pieces (pieces not protected by any fellow pieces).&#xA;3. Captures of any of opponent's loose pieces.&#xA;4. Capture of any piece by a piece of lesser value (consider knights and bishops equal in this step).&#xA;5. Attack any of opponent's loose pieces from a non-attacked square (attacking piece cannot be captured).&#xA;6. Attack a greater-value piece with a lesser-value piece (knights and bishops equal) from a non-attacked square (attacking piece cannot be captured).&#xA;7. Create a passed pawn on a non-attacked square (cannot be captured).&#xA;8. A move that threatens mate-in-one on the following move.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Good luck!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As noted in &quot;gory details&quot;, but worth mentioning here, is that the &quot;power moves&quot; really come from single moves that combine more than one of the above, such as a move that attacks both a loose piece and a greater-value piece (fork), or a move that captures a loose pawn and also gives check, or a move that threatens mate-in-one and also attacks a loose piece, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7314" LastEditorUserId="7314" LastEditDate="2016-02-23T18:10:06.273" LastActivityDate="2016-02-23T18:10:06.273" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13777" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-02-23T20:31:43.670" Score="1" ViewCount="436" Body="&lt;p&gt;So i have implemented an intelligent chess agent using reinforcement learning.&#xA;For the training part of the agent, i want to play as many games as possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am aware of three options:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Self playing&lt;/strong&gt;, where the agent plays against itself and in the process learns the game of chess.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Play against human&lt;/strong&gt;,where the agent plays against a human player and learns.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Play against other agents&lt;/strong&gt;,where the agent plays against other intelligent agents and learns the game.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I want to try out the third of these options and have my agent play against other agents.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One good way to do this is loading my agent into the Arena chess engine.&#xA;My problem is that Arena requires the agent to support UCI, and my agent doesn't.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there any alternatives that i can use except Arena?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8485" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2016-02-24T00:34:21.000" LastActivityDate="2016-02-24T00:34:21.000" Title="Engines like Arena" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;learning&gt;&lt;training&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13778" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13777" CreationDate="2016-02-24T00:33:21.593" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;We usually say &quot;engine&quot; rather than &quot;agent&quot;. Agent is a term used in academic papers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've used cutechess to train my models. It offers more than Arena and it's faster to run, but it's command line only.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You'll need to implement UCI or Winboard protocol to make it happen. It's really not that hard. Your engine will be given a position or moves to start thinking. You'll do your search then return a move. Very simple. Please google &quot;UCI specification&quot; for details.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2016-02-24T00:33:21.593" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13779" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-02-24T01:59:39.133" Score="5" ViewCount="1066" Body="&lt;p&gt;In online games I sometimes have this happen:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.Nf3 e6 4.Nc3 dxc4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and Black plays the famous &quot;Noteboom variation&quot;.  I checked my database and I have in fact lost every single game as White where this variation happened. Usually Black just arranges his pieces nicely and pushes the a-pawn and b-pawn and I lose material due to pieces getting trapped in the corner, or having to give up pieces to stop the pawns promoting.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is a promising way to meet this system for White?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note: Of course, I could avoid the line with 4.e3 going into a normal Meran. But I often play quickly the first few moves of an internet game and carelessly make a natural developing move with the knight. It would be good to know how to recover from this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4223" LastEditorUserId="4588" LastEditDate="2016-02-25T10:46:25.870" LastActivityDate="2016-03-10T00:44:11.770" Title="How to play against the Noteboom variation?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;1.d4&gt;&lt;semi-slav&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13780" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5022" CreationDate="2016-02-24T08:21:52.300" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Exercises for blindfold chess playing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;IOS/WP app.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://itunes.apple.com/app/blind-chess-train/id802114888&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://itunes.apple.com/app/blind-chess-train/id802114888&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/store/games/blind-chess-train/9wzdncrd2vvn&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/store/games/blind-chess-train/9wzdncrd2vvn&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9650" LastActivityDate="2016-02-24T08:21:52.300" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13781" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13779" CreationDate="2016-02-24T11:03:12.330" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this variation, black is behind development after&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;????.??.??&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;*&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteELO &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[BlackELO &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[SetUp &quot;1&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pp3ppp/2p1p3/8/2pP4/2N2N2/PP2PPPP/R1BQKB1R w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;1. Bf4 Bb4 2. e3 Bxc3+ 3. bxc3 b5 4. a4 Nf6 5. axb5 cxb5 6. Rb1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White has more center control, and black will probably have a backward pawn if he tries to hang onto c4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another variation I like is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;????.??.??&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;*&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteELO &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[BlackELO &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[SetUp &quot;1&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pp3ppp/2p1p3/8/2pP4/2N2N2/PP2PPPP/R1BQKB1R w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e3 b5 2. b3 Bb4 3. Bb2 cxb3 4. Qxb3 Bxc3 5. Qxc3 Nf6 6. Bd3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which creates lots of attacking chances for white. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8209" LastActivityDate="2016-02-24T11:03:12.330" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13782" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13779" CreationDate="2016-02-24T20:42:50.833" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In order to avoid the sharp positions where black has the connected passed a- and b-pawns, white can switch to systems with g3. This is what white opted for in &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1653869&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Nakamura-Ivanchuk&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1705524&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Giri-Caruana&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the first game, Nakamura played 5.g3. If black replies with 5....Nf6, then the game transposes to a theoretical line that arises after 1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.Nc3 e6 5.g3 dxc4.&#xA;Instead, Ivanchuk tried to postpone Nf6 and played 5....b5 6.Bg2 Bb7 7.Ne5 Qc8. However, it seems that Nakamura was able to develop a dangerous initiative.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the second game, Giri first played 5.a4 and after 5....Bb4, he went for 6.g3, probably hoping for a good version of the 5.g3 variation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;      [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;      [StartPly &quot;8&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;      1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.Nf3 e6 (3...Nf6 4.Nc3 e6 5.g3 dxc4) 4.Nc3 dxc4 5.a4 (5.g3 Nf6) Bb4 6.g3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4588" LastActivityDate="2016-02-24T20:42:50.833" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13783" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-02-24T23:41:16.590" Score="2" ViewCount="70" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to speed up analysis of games and disable calulation 4 variants - how can I do in Scid vs PC with Stockfish 7?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8406" LastActivityDate="2016-02-24T23:41:16.590" Title="How to reduce number of variants in annotate in Scid vs PC" Tags="&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;scid&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2019-06-23T09:16:21.433" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13784" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-02-24T23:57:01.137" Score="2" ViewCount="540" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would like to reduce the number of lines calculated by the engine to speed up the analysis but I cannot find the appropriate option for that. Does anybody know how to do this in Scid vs PC?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8406" LastEditorUserId="2792" LastEditDate="2016-02-26T20:42:53.890" LastActivityDate="2016-02-26T20:42:53.890" Title="How to limit lines in scid vs pc in annotate mode?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;scid&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13785" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13788" CreationDate="2016-02-25T03:24:12.423" Score="3" ViewCount="862" Body="&lt;p&gt;This question comes from a lack of understanding of how ratings work.&#xA;What is the lowest rating you can get ( or does it never stop decreasing )? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7236" LastActivityDate="2016-02-25T07:03:39.470" Title="What is the lowest possible rating you can achieve (if any)?" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13786" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13787" CreationDate="2016-02-25T06:10:13.780" Score="1" ViewCount="129" Body="&lt;p&gt;To preface, I've played chess a while but am just beginning to take it seriously in regards to the studying past games and different techniques. Bear with me as my question is a bit conceptual...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The big question I have is how to use these techniques correctly in a real world situation. Whenever you watch or read about certain types of games to play, the person teaches in a way that you just 'assume' the other person is going to make a certain move, then you make this move, etc etc. Obviously this is not realistic so I'm wondering if that means that the best players just absorb all of these different situations and adapt accordingly?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This seems improbable to me because of the near infinite possible ways a game can be played. Do the greats generally play the same way with slightly nuanced differences? How can one 'assume' what the other player is doing?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Knowing a little history, I believe it was game 3 of the Spassky/Fisher matches where Fisher played way outside of the box...did this throw Spassky off because he was so used to seeing certain moves?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know I have a couple questions here but in general I'm just trying to find the best way to use tutorials and past matches in the real world.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9658" LastActivityDate="2016-03-10T02:29:47.360" Title="Applying Techniques in Tutorials" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;theory&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13787" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13786" CreationDate="2016-02-25T06:45:37.143" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It depends on what exactly the tutorial is trying to teach you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it is an opening tutorial, say about the Italian game, then obviously after 1.e4 black has any number of responses and you'll have to find a tutorial for each and every one of them. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the tutorial teaches you about certain strategic situations, then only the sensible responses will be examined, and what is sensible is something you'll learn by being exposed to many different positions and moves. See: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/13542/how-do-players-see-several-moves-ahead/13543#13543&quot;&gt;How do players &amp;quot;see&amp;quot; several moves ahead?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the tutorial touches upon a tactical position, for example a mating attack, then it makes a lot of sense for you to try to find the right way to continue if the opponent had made a different move. It'll probably have some easy refutation and you'll learn a lot by trying to find it by yourself. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.193" LastActivityDate="2016-02-25T06:45:37.143" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13788" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13785" CreationDate="2016-02-25T07:03:39.470" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;If the Elo system is implemented in its purest form, there is no theoretical lower limit for a rating. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Practically though, every chess organisation implements its rating system a bit differently and often there are rating floors that constitute the lowest possible rating. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The USCF for example seems to have a &lt;a href=&quot;http://mdchess.com/index.php?option=com_content&amp;amp;view=article&amp;amp;id=21:how-to-find-a-players-new-uscf-rating-after-an-mca-scholastic-tournament&amp;amp;catid=9&amp;amp;Itemid=7&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;rating floor of 100&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2016-02-25T07:03:39.470" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13789" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-02-25T10:10:23.220" Score="3" ViewCount="2101" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am looking for an open source chess gui library for Android that I can use in an app so that I don't need to take care of the GUI engine, but can focus on the logic behind it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have searched for solutions but not found anything. Does something like this exist?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9621" LastActivityDate="2017-02-07T15:05:48.040" Title="Is there an Android chess GUI library" Tags="&lt;programming&gt;&lt;android&gt;&lt;open-source&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13790" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5969" CreationDate="2016-02-25T10:13:54.380" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessable.com&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;www.chessable.com&lt;/a&gt; just launched. This should be exactly what you are looking for. You can import pgns and can train the opening using space repetition. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9621" LastActivityDate="2016-02-25T10:13:54.380" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13791" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13789" CreationDate="2016-02-25T12:47:07.053" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't see anything better than the active &lt;a href=&quot;http://web.comhem.se/petero2home/droidfish/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Droidfish&lt;/a&gt; app.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2016-02-25T12:47:07.053" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13793" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13810" CreationDate="2016-02-25T19:46:17.183" Score="3" ViewCount="1076" Body="&lt;p&gt;I play chess a lot against Arena (the GUI thing),&lt;br&gt;&#xA;but I can't seem to castle.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The requirements for castling are met, just the castling itself doesn't work.&#xA;I'm on windows.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9664" LastEditorUserId="8860" LastEditDate="2016-02-27T19:03:10.270" LastActivityDate="2016-02-27T19:03:10.270" Title="Why can't I castle on Arena chess?" Tags="&lt;castling&gt;&lt;arena&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ClosedDate="2016-02-28T03:39:50.243" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13797" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-02-26T02:36:08.577" Score="-3" ViewCount="604" Body="&lt;p&gt;If the king is alone and it is blocked is it checkmate? And opponent has blocked with the king and pawn and he did not keep check if we move means that it is check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9670" LastEditorUserId="7130" LastEditDate="2016-02-26T12:06:58.493" LastActivityDate="2016-02-26T12:06:58.493" Title="If the king is blocked is it checkmate?" Tags="&lt;stalemate&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2016-02-26T16:30:17.313" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13798" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13797" CreationDate="2016-02-26T03:08:40.057" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;if you are to make a move next, and there is no place for your king to move, then its a stalemate. draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9671" LastActivityDate="2016-02-26T03:08:40.057" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13799" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13800" CreationDate="2016-02-26T06:09:52.647" Score="4" ViewCount="93" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would like to check various positions to see if I have reached them in the past. I play on lichess.org which lets you download your complete game history as a pgn. I was wondering if anyone knew of a program (or maybe site) that runs on Mac OSX that lets you check position history and shows how many times you have reached that position (and maybe shows what moves you played next).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have ChessBase on Windows but was looking for a Mac alternative.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7236" LastEditorUserId="9025" LastEditDate="2020-08-26T16:58:17.410" LastActivityDate="2020-08-26T16:58:17.410" Title="Is there a chess move history app for Mac?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;database&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="13800" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13799" CreationDate="2016-02-26T08:04:20.737" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe the &lt;a href=&quot;http://scidvspc.sourceforge.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Scid vs PC&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.gnu.org/software/xboard/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Xboard&lt;/a&gt; would do the job. They can both run on Mac.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2016-02-26T08:04:20.737" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13801" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8914" CreationDate="2016-02-26T13:37:05.473" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=171&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;The Laws of Chess&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;5.2.a The game is drawn when the player to move has no legal&#xA;move and his king is not in check. The game is said to end in&#xA;‘stalemate’. This immediately ends the game [...]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is the situation you described.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2311" LastActivityDate="2016-02-26T13:37:05.473" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13802" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13786" CreationDate="2016-02-26T14:49:28.903" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I also think it depends a lot of what the tutorial is teaching you. If, for example, it is trying to teach the concept of minority attack a good lesson/tutorial will explain when is reasonable to think of starting a minority attack, will explain how to do it (conceptually) and will give examples. The same stands for preventing your opponent's plan. Then go over many games and try to understand when and how different concepts are applied. It will eventually stick to the brain, maybe subconsciously at the beginning, then you will start to recognize patterns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Applying the concept in real life games is a different matter and I think it starts with correct evaluation of the position. Many times, the evaluation and the lines are guided by the opening you play, the pawn structure resulting in that opening, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Don't worry, you are not the only one struggling to find the correct plan over the board :) I'm also very interested to other answers to this questions. Studying one concept is one thing, knowing when to apply it and having the correct technique to do so is a totally different thing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for tactics, I think is a lot about patterns recognition here. There are many websites that allow you to practice tactics online: chess.com, chess tempo, lichess, chess24, etc &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9572" LastActivityDate="2016-02-26T14:49:28.903" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13803" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13762" CreationDate="2016-02-26T15:10:49.187" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;First movie that came to my mind was &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/life_of_a_king_2013/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Life of a King&lt;/a&gt;, but some scenes are not recommended to young children. You should watch it before and then decide yourself! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe you can also check out &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2616594/?ref_=ttpl_pl_tt&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Algorithms&lt;/a&gt;. I didn't manage to see it, but seems to be quite inspirational.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9572" LastActivityDate="2016-02-26T15:10:49.187" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13804" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13784" CreationDate="2016-02-26T20:03:32.353" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Scid vs PC, after you turn on an engine, a window with analysis opens. In that window you can see icons like &lt;strong&gt;Stop Engine&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;Add Move&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;Add Variation&lt;/strong&gt; etc. (see picture below).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Among them, there is a small box with a number (marked by a red circle in the picture below), namely the number of lines suggested by the engine. Adjust that according to your preference. If I understood your question correctly, that should solve your problem. Just for the sake of completeness, I have the version  4.13 of Scid vs PC.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/T4tAn.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/T4tAn.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2792" LastActivityDate="2016-02-26T20:03:32.353" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13805" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13807" CreationDate="2016-02-27T01:19:51.413" Score="2" ViewCount="131" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are there any chess engines that can adapt and 'learn' how to play better with an opponent? One with certain system parameters that can be adjusted while playing so the computer can 'respond' better to a human player?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5633" LastActivityDate="2016-02-27T08:33:59.260" Title="Chess engines as similar to A.I" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13806" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-02-27T02:56:46.990" Score="1" ViewCount="180" Body="&lt;p&gt;So I've downloaded Stockfish and the Arena GUI, but I'm having trouble getting any tablebase I download to either load into Arena, or be compatible with Stockfish.  Any suggestions?  I'm willing to download a different GUI if it is easy to get a tablebase loaded.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9611" LastActivityDate="2016-02-27T06:37:55.323" Title="Free chess engine with a tablebase" Tags="&lt;software&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13807" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13805" CreationDate="2016-02-27T06:17:42.823" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Learning to play better chess by itself is a part of reinforcement machine learning (temporal difference learning). A simple google will give you some academic papers. My recommended papers (that I've read myself):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/KnightCap&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;KnightCap&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/NeuroChess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;NeuroChess&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://arxiv.org/abs/1509.01549&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Giraffe&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While the programs are different. They share the similar idea:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The idea is like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Come up with an evaluation function that you think appropriate&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Implement a search algorithm (mini-max, nega-max etc)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Initialise the weights in the evaluation function. The weights would be your &lt;code&gt;features&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Play a game against itself&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Record the result of the game and compute the error.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Apply the following TD-Leaf equation to change the weights&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/UPXEl.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/UPXEl.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;7&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Play more games until you believe your values have converged&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The equation updates the weight vector by the gradient, scaled by a constant (learning rate). The errors would be the temporal difference (d(t)) in the equation. They would need to be added for all moves until the end of game, scaled by the distance from &lt;code&gt;t&lt;/code&gt;. Please google &lt;code&gt;TD-Leaf&lt;/code&gt; if you want to know more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While there have been some serious attempts at applying the TD-Leaf algorithm, none of which was strong enough to compete with Komodo and Stockfish. I think that's because:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Lack of determination. The authors wrote their TD-Leaf chess engines for their research. Once that was done, they moved on to something else, something much more &lt;strong&gt;profitable&lt;/strong&gt; for them. For example, the NeuroChess program was written by a very well-known AI export. He works for Google and I think Google has more challenging task for him.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Weak search algorithm&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Not challenging anymore. A human tuning chess engine can easily defeat the best grandmaster. Why would we waste time and resources to further improve it? Why not spend the money on &lt;code&gt;Go&lt;/code&gt;, where the best human player has yet to be beaten?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some remarks:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;While it's possible to train a model from random weights, we don't want to do this because it would lead to extremely long training times. We can give starting values with some human-knowledge, or bootstrapping (read the Giraffe paper for details).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2016-02-27T08:33:59.260" LastActivityDate="2016-02-27T08:33:59.260" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13808" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13806" CreationDate="2016-02-27T06:37:55.323" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;If your GUI allows custom UCI options (I think you can do it in Arena, but check its documentation), you should be able to add a syzygy path yourself. Otherwise, you may try the popular &lt;code&gt;Deep Fritz&lt;/code&gt; GUI. Check this link:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://talkchess.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=50554&amp;amp;highlight=syzygy%20deep%20fritz&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://talkchess.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=50554&amp;amp;highlight=syzygy+deep+fritz&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2016-02-27T06:37:55.323" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13809" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13822" CreationDate="2016-02-27T14:54:35.203" Score="3" ViewCount="653" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shogi&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;On Wikipedia all the rules of Shogi are described&lt;/a&gt;, but as a reference I find that the Japanese characters (kanji) get in the way and the explanation is otherwise very wordy and unconcise.  Is there an online resource that describes Shogi where kanji are not used or are only given as supplemental (instead of essential) information, or can someone give such a description as an answer?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ideally the description would be as concise as possible and have diagrams where appropriate (board setup, piece movement).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9531" LastActivityDate="2020-11-17T10:28:34.533" Title="Shogi without Japanese characters (kanji)" Tags="&lt;shogi&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13810" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13793" CreationDate="2016-02-27T15:09:43.943" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;For the record (adapted from my comment above): as with other such interfaces, if you move the King to its target square, the corresponding Rook will automagically land on the right square to complete the Castling.  (A move like Ke1-g1 or Ke8-c8 can only mean Castling.  Usually the computer will refuse the move if Castling is illegal for some reason.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8860" LastActivityDate="2016-02-27T15:09:43.943" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13811" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-02-27T17:58:41.293" Score="1" ViewCount="217" Body="&lt;p&gt;How to see average game lenght for specific chess opening?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there some chess database which allow me to see specific opening game length?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Sicilian defense (average length is: 80.5)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Caro-Kann defense (average length is: 60.7)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I want to learn which opening lead to short, medium, long game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is easy to find white/black/draw statistics but hard to find length of games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8406" LastEditorUserId="8860" LastEditDate="2016-02-27T19:37:17.263" LastActivityDate="2016-02-28T08:03:18.360" Title="How to see average game length for specific chess opening (number of moves)?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;statistics&gt;&lt;game-length&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13812" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13811" CreationDate="2016-02-28T08:03:18.360" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chessbase has a function &quot;Opening Report&quot; which gives average lenght of White wins/Black wins/draws&#xA;Just setup che base position on the chessboard and right-click it&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9600" LastActivityDate="2016-02-28T08:03:18.360" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13813" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13642" CreationDate="2016-02-28T15:40:46.463" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Instead of 9. Na4, there is the possibility of the counterattack 9. e5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9684" LastActivityDate="2016-02-28T15:40:46.463" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13816" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-02-29T04:54:15.890" Score="-2" ViewCount="170" Body="&lt;p&gt;example: If I were to purchase a lesson video like &lt;a href=&quot;https://shop.chessbase.com/en/products/what_grandmasters_dont_see_vol&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this product&lt;/a&gt; from ChessBase, how do run and learn from it using a Mac ? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5653" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T20:48:23.687" LastActivityDate="2020-05-22T22:29:05.977" Title="How to get a ChessBase learning product (Video + Cbh) to run on a mac?" Tags="&lt;chessbase&gt;&lt;mac&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="13818" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13816" CreationDate="2016-02-29T13:00:03.743" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't know of a way other than to run ChessBase (or ChessBase Reader) inside a Windows virtual machine. I use Parallels and it works fine, although sometimes the video is slightly out of sync with the audio.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2016-02-29T13:00:03.743" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13819" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13836" CreationDate="2016-02-29T15:32:57.333" Score="11" ViewCount="2624" Body="&lt;p&gt;What are the main points, tactical or otherwise, backing up the so-called Apocalypse Attack vs the Caro-Kann? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Caro-Kann Apocalypse Attack&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c6 2. Nf3 d5 3. exd5 cxd5 4. Ne5!? &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it an opening based on a few cheap tricks? And if so, what are these tricks? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a long article here&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.kenilworthchessclub.org/articles/opening/apocalypse/apocalypse.htm&quot;&gt;http://www.kenilworthchessclub.org/articles/opening/apocalypse/apocalypse.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but it is difficult to me to sum up the main ideas or tactical themes in a more concise way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-03-20T21:22:50.370" LastActivityDate="2016-03-20T21:22:50.370" Title="Caro-Kann Apocalypse Attack" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;caro-kann&gt;&lt;1.e4&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13820" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13809" CreationDate="2016-03-01T02:14:08.487" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think a turn-based multi boardgame site called brainking supplies information which is close to what you want. &lt;a href=&quot;http://brainking.com/en/GameRules?tp=69&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://brainking.com/en/GameRules?tp=69&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9698" LastActivityDate="2016-03-01T02:14:08.487" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13822" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13809" CreationDate="2016-03-01T08:30:51.307" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;There was an &lt;a href=&quot;https://web.archive.org/web/20170116214512/https://en.chessbase.com/post/garry-kasparov-taking-up-shogi-&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;old chessbase article&lt;/a&gt; that presents the shogi board with western chess style pieces. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It links to this &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.crockford.com/chess/shogi.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;introduction to shogi for chess players&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt;, which might be exactly what you are looking for.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I would also second what Tony Ennis is commenting: You'll very quickly get used to the Kanji, it probably makes sense just to accept the slightly steeper learning curve the first two, three days. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastEditorUserId="15894" LastEditDate="2018-02-25T20:20:35.490" LastActivityDate="2018-02-25T20:20:35.490" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13825" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12951" CreationDate="2016-03-01T13:27:26.610" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't know exactly the way the &quot;Guess the move&quot; training works in in chesstempo website. &#xA;But chess.com has the &quot;chess mentor&quot;, and as far as I know is offered also to free accounts. I pretty much love that one, you can choose from many lessons and they are grouped by categories. What I like is that, if the given board position is too hard for your level or you simply cannot &quot;read&quot; the correct plan, you can choose to ask for up to three tips to guide your thinking on the right track.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I just verified now with a friend having a free account and at least some time ago the chess mentor WAS also available to free accounts - not sure how it is now. It is limited however to the number of problems one can do, even some paid membership can do up to 5 lessons per day.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9572" LastActivityDate="2016-03-01T13:27:26.610" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13826" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12951" CreationDate="2016-03-01T16:16:00.740" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not free, but I've found that Shredder's tactics training (&quot;Find the best move for White/Black&quot;) seems to have an endless supply of such questions (probably only in the thousands in actuality).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Polgar book &quot;Chess&quot; with 5000+ mating problems is also good, but also not free.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7314" LastActivityDate="2016-03-01T16:16:00.740" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13827" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4565" CreationDate="2016-03-01T20:54:46.053" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, Kd2 is illegal. The check rules, as I understand it, say that the king can not move into check or move another piece such that the king would be in check (thus the basis for forks, pins, skewers). Kd2 would be illegal by the rules stated above. Also, the rules never account for the king being taken, so... Hope this helps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9701" LastActivityDate="2016-03-01T20:54:46.053" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13828" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13020" CreationDate="2016-03-01T21:01:40.907" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Full disclosure: I don't play the King's Gambit.  My first thought (and note that I am NOT a master-level player) was 4. Nxg5 exf4 5. Nf3 (which, in and of itself, isn't sufficient to be an answer).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I decided to just do some Googling to try to learn more about this, and stumbled across &lt;a href=&quot;http://analysis.cpuchess.com/?fen=rnbqk1nr%2Fpppp1p1p%2F8%2F2b1p1p1%2F4PP2%2F5N2%2FPPPP2PP%2FRNBQKB1R%20w%20KQkq%20g6%200%204&amp;amp;lmove=g5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;analysis.cpuchess.com&lt;/a&gt;, which allowed a position to be analysed by various chess engines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's what they gave me:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Houdini&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol start=&quot;4&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Nxg5 h6 5. Qh5 Qf6 6. Nf3 Qxf4 7. Qxe5+ Qxe5 8. Nxe5 d6 9. Nf3 Nc6 10. b3 Nge7 11. Bb2 Rg8 12. d4 Bb4+ 13. c3 Ba5 14. Nbd2 b5 15. g4 Bxg4 16. Bxb5 O-O-O&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;GarboChess JS&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol start=&quot;4&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Nxg5 Qe7 5. Bc4 exf4 6. Qh5 Nf6 7. Qxf7+ Qxf7 8. Bxf7+ Ke7 9. e5 Ng4&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Fruit&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Seemed to be locking up mid-analysis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Stockfish&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol start=&quot;4&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Nxg5 Nc6 5. Qh5 Qf6 6. Bc4 Nh6 7. Nc3 Qg6 8. Qxg6 hxg6 9. Nd5 Bb6 10. Bb3 d6 11. d3 f5 12. Rf1 Bd7 13. fxe5 dxe5 14. exf5 Nxf5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Toga2&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol start=&quot;4&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Nxg5 Qe7 5. Nc3 exf4 6. Nf3 Bb4 7. e5 Bxc3 8. dxc3 d6 9. Qd5 Nc6 10. Bxf4 Nf6&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Critter&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol start=&quot;4&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Nxg5 exf4 5. Qh5 Qe7 6. Bc4 Nf6 7. Qxf7+ Qxf7 8. Bxf7+ Ke7 9. Bb3 h6 10. Nf3 Nxe4 11. d4 Bd6 12. O-O Re8 13. Ne5 Nc6 14. Rxf4 Ng5 15. h4 Nxe5 16. hxg5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Observation&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What I found most amusing about this was that all of them (except Fruit, of course) suggested 4. Nxg5 as the best move... but that most went different directions afterwards; 4. ... Qe7 on GarboChess JS and Toga2 being the only commonality, and even they diverged almost immediately.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;... which leads me to conclude that the answer to &quot;how would you try to refute&quot; is 4. Nxg5 followed by &quot;tactics.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7897" LastActivityDate="2016-03-01T21:01:40.907" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13830" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12951" CreationDate="2016-03-02T08:34:43.563" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can use &lt;a href=&quot;http://scid.sourceforge.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Scid&lt;/a&gt; for that. You'll need a database of games; for example you could download games from &lt;a href=&quot;http://chessok.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chessOK&lt;/a&gt; or &lt;a href=&quot;http://theweekinchess.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;The Week In Chess&lt;/a&gt; and filter them to use only games between 2400+ players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once you have such database you can use the &lt;code&gt;Play|Training|Review game&lt;/code&gt; functionality and you'll get what you're looking for.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2311" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T18:28:04.580" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T18:28:04.580" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="13831" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="599" CreationDate="2016-03-02T12:24:26.837" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The biggest difference for me between OTB and online is that online, the game is recorded automatically, so if it turns out it was interesting, I can analyze it and keep it for posterity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In OTB I don't generally write down the moves, so if it happens to be interesting I end up regretting not having a record of it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other differences:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Naturally, online is purely about the game, while OTB has more of a social aspect to it.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;This also leads me to play a bit more aggressively, because reaching interesting positions gets a higher weight in relation to purely maximizing winning odds.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;OTB it's easier to place handicaps to make games more interesting. I don't know of a Chess Server that allows rated handicap games. Lichess' simul offering is lackluster. OTB there's no problem doing time odds, simul, or even material odds (though I rarely find a player interested in the latter).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8094" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T19:34:22.440" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T19:34:22.440" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="13833" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4416" CreationDate="2016-03-03T07:40:34.463" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am into chess for ages and into online chess for decades.&#xA;Since I like to get better in chess I always searched for software that helps me to improve.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I found a webpage, that does this (at least for me).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://lichess.org&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;lichess&lt;/a&gt; offers&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;positional and tactical training (&quot;Make the best move for white/black&quot; things)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Opening training (choose x strong moves in a position)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Coordinates training (ok, this is mostly for beginners).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They added a opening database you can &quot;walk&quot; through to get games to analyse.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And you can of course PLAY chess there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9700" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-03-03T09:00:14.097" LastActivityDate="2016-03-03T09:00:14.097" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13834" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9077" CreationDate="2016-03-03T08:04:57.027" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know of at least two sources you could use (one is free, the other costs).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;lichess added a &quot;opening tree&quot; with many games categorized by the moves you play (you get a list and games that share the same move list). I am not sure if you can get the info easily out of this tool, though.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;chessclub.com or &quot;ICC&quot; offers their database on their website for download for money. Not sure how costly it is, though.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9700" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T18:24:10.440" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T18:24:10.440" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="13835" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12951" CreationDate="2016-03-03T08:07:30.087" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Try &lt;a href=&quot;http://lichess.org&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;lichess&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is free and offers tactical positions where you need to find the best next move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9700" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-03-03T09:00:34.177" LastActivityDate="2016-03-03T09:00:34.177" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13836" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13819" CreationDate="2016-03-03T10:54:09.690" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Maybe it's about having a Knight on &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt;, which cannot be dislodged easily with pawn moves. I think it's not so significant though, because black can still at least exchange it against the knight on &lt;code&gt;b8&lt;/code&gt;, which could come to &lt;code&gt;d7&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;c6&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;code&gt;d7&lt;/code&gt; might prevent the exchange o black's bishop against the knight on &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt;.&#xA;If white manages to get black to exchange on &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt;, white will have a pawn on &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt; most likely. Maybe a point is to still have a pawn there, although white didn't move &lt;code&gt;e4-e5&lt;/code&gt; earlier?&#xA;I don't really see how &lt;code&gt;Ne5&lt;/code&gt; is really that helpful to be honest. It doesn't even look that interesting to me or much different than other positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9713" LastActivityDate="2016-03-03T10:54:09.690" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13837" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13838" CreationDate="2016-03-04T03:19:21.487" Score="3" ViewCount="186" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am looking for more sophisticated solutions for documenting, archiving and analysing my past games. Right now I have a folder filled with PGN files. What systems have proved to work well?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9717" LastActivityDate="2016-03-04T10:06:28.150" Title="What is the best way to document and archive my past games?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;beginner&gt;&lt;database&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13838" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13837" CreationDate="2016-03-04T10:06:28.150" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would recommend you to use a game database software, as &lt;a href=&quot;http://scid.sourceforge.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Scid&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://scidvspc.sourceforge.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Scid vs PC&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://sourceforge.net/projects/chessx/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;ChessX&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://chessdb.sourceforge.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;ChessDB&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.scid.android&amp;amp;hl=en&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Scid on the Go&lt;/a&gt; (Android), etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I use Scid for all of that (documenting, archiving and analysing) and it works really well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2311" LastActivityDate="2016-03-04T10:06:28.150" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13839" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13840" CreationDate="2016-03-04T14:32:24.080" Score="1" ViewCount="172" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is f4 a good move here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [Title &quot;&quot;] &#xA; [SetUp &quot;1&quot;]&#xA; [FEN &quot;r2qk1nr/pbp3pp/1p2p/4b/4P/2N/PPP2PPP/R1BQ1RK1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. f4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the one hand, many times you would move like this way to attack some pieces - sometimes to &lt;em&gt;f3&lt;/em&gt; or to &lt;em&gt;f4&lt;/em&gt;. On the other hand, I feel that I leave open my king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are the disadvantages/advantages of this move?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7795" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-03-04T20:09:51.253" LastActivityDate="2016-03-05T11:31:14.190" Title="Moving pawns which are defending the king" Tags="&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;defense&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13840" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13839" CreationDate="2016-03-04T20:35:00.283" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are no advantages.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The really big disadvantage is that after:&#xA;1. f4 BxN&#xA;2. bxB QxQ&#xA;3. RxQ Bxe4&#xA;you are completely lost, a clear piece down with no compensation whereas after &#xA;1. Qh5+ Kf8 &#xA;2. QxB&#xA;you would have been a pawn up with a much better position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2016-03-04T20:35:00.283" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13841" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13779" CreationDate="2016-03-05T02:42:56.497" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Without knowing your playing style, answering this question is difficult.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a 2000 who plays this defense, the line I have the most trouble with is the Nd2 line.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1 d4 d5 2 c4 e6 3 Nc3 c6 4 Nf3 dxc4 5 a4 Bb4 6 e3 b5 7, Bd2 a5 8 axb5 Bxc3 &#xA;9 Bc3 cxb5 10 b3 Bb7 11 bxc4 b4 12 Bb2 Nf6 13 Bd3 Nbbd7 14 o-o o-o 15 Nd2 (or Bc2 followed by Nd3.) [&quot;The Triangle System&quot; by Sherbakov is a good reference book.]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A good plan would be to switch to the Catalan after Black weakens the long diagonal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9684" LastEditorUserId="9684" LastEditDate="2016-03-10T00:44:11.770" LastActivityDate="2016-03-10T00:44:11.770" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13842" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13697" CreationDate="2016-03-05T02:51:32.387" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The main advantage of a coach is the feedback.  Neither a book nor software can explain where your weaknesses are.  A coach should be able to review your games and explain where your weaknesses are and provide reference material to help your improve.&#xA;Once you know your weaknesses, you can use books and software to help yourself improve.  However, some chess concepts are too subtle to be explained to all but the most motivated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9684" LastActivityDate="2016-03-05T02:51:32.387" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13843" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13839" CreationDate="2016-03-05T11:31:14.190" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Moving f2-f4 will make your King weaker since it opens g1-a7 diagonal as well as weakening control over squares e3 and g3. Advantage of making f2-f4 is that you increase control in center by controlling e5 square, obtain f4-f5 push and take g5 square into control for your Knights.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [Title &quot;&quot;] &#xA; [SetUp &quot;1&quot;]&#xA; [FEN &quot;r2qk1nr/pbp3pp/1p2p/4b/4P/2N/PPP2PPP/R1BQ1RK1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. Qh5+&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Qd1-h5+ is better, picking up the Bishop on e5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Further, since black's King is weaker than yours due to missing f-pawn, there is no need for you to weaken your King. Instead, you should keep Queens on board and attack using your pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastActivityDate="2016-03-05T11:31:14.190" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13844" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-03-05T22:50:07.743" Score="2" ViewCount="2480" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recently just got The Modern Grand Prix Attack Fritztrainer DVD, and I only have Fritz 15. I put in the activation code and can see the video, but the problem is that the chess board next to the video doesn't move. Hence, I can't see the pieces move when the IM goes over the games and variations. When I remove the DVD and put in the Fritz 15 disc, Fritz 15 works, but the Fritztrainer isn't there anymore. I couldn't find any customer service phone number. How do I get the Fritztrainer to work?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3149" LastEditorUserId="3149" LastEditDate="2016-03-05T23:04:05.407" LastActivityDate="2016-03-11T21:14:36.460" Title="How do you use Fritztrainer DVD with Fritz 15?" Tags="&lt;software&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13846" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13847" CreationDate="2016-03-06T07:48:42.227" Score="6" ViewCount="2218" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm rated around 1582 blitz on lichess. My rating is much higher in classical ( around 1900). I have a USCF rating but it is still provisional and I don't think it really reflects my skill (also I'm aware lichess ratings are not extremely accurate).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What current chess books would you think would be good to review. I have read through My System and played through some of the games in Fischer's &quot;My 50 Memorable Games&quot;. Now I'm looking for modern books that deal directly with variations, not general material.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course I could just google &quot;good chess books on&quot; + opening but this leads to a lot of different options and I was hoping someone here might have more insight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7236" LastActivityDate="2016-09-04T19:40:53.073" Title="What are good chess books of 2016?" Tags="&lt;theory&gt;&lt;books&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13847" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13846" CreationDate="2016-03-06T11:12:49.993" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;One of the very best opening book series is &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.newinchess.com/Grandmaster_Repertoire-pc-181.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Grandmaster Repertoire&lt;/a&gt; of Quality Chess. Also &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess-stars.com/book_list.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chess Stars Publishing&lt;/a&gt; is known for publishing high-level opening books.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a new chess publisher that looks promising: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.thinkerspublishing.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Thinkers Publishing&lt;/a&gt;. Currently, they have an opening book on the Richter-Rauzer and this year they'll publish books discussing the Grünfeld, Taimanov and King's Indian.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also take a look at the &lt;a href=&quot;http://chesspub.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;ChessPub Forum&lt;/a&gt;. They have topics on practically every opening line.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4588" LastEditorUserId="4588" LastEditDate="2016-09-04T19:40:53.073" LastActivityDate="2016-09-04T19:40:53.073" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13848" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13846" CreationDate="2016-03-06T16:10:28.030" Score="5" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I have read through My System and played through some of the games in&#xA;  Fischer's &quot;My 50 Memorable Games&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think you need to ask for your money back! My copy of Fischer's book has 60 memorable games ;-)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Seriously, though, Nimzowitsch's My System is regarded as being out of date. I would strongly recommend John Watson's &quot;Secrets of Modern Chess Strategy&quot; which is subtitled more accurately as &quot;Advances since Nimzowitsch&quot;. Having read My System you will recognize what he is talking about and after reading this book perhaps begin to understand why you lost some games against stronger players who violated Nimzowitsch's principles but still won.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some of your bad games will also be due to interfering emotions, bad psychology and misconceptions. Two books by Jonathan Rowson, &quot;The Seven Deadly Chess Sins&quot; and &quot;Chess for Zebras (thinking differently about Black and White)&quot; will help you enormously here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All 3 of these books are like good films that you can watch several times and get more out of them each time. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2016-03-06T16:10:28.030" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13849" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2865" CreationDate="2016-03-07T01:45:31.733" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a sharp openning with a long well studied variables in &quot;chess theory&quot;, some of them as dragon, pelikan, schveniguen, etc with more than 20 moves known. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So if you are playing with someone with experience in the theory of this opening is better to avoid or going far from the main lines or variables. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The theory says that this is a &quot;two edges sword&quot;, because of the fact that white moves in the king side and black on the queen side, is a unbalance openning, given options to both sides to attack, in the most games the winner is who can reach the rival king first.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White will attack on the king side mean while black do in the queen side, in the most aggresive variables, white castle's in queen side with a bayonet attack or moving h4-h5-h6 or sacrificing this pawn in order to open the &quot;h&quot; column for the rook and black using b5-a6 pawns and using C column for the rook, where in most cases is sacrificed in c3 for knight to attack the whites king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9738" LastActivityDate="2016-03-07T01:45:31.733" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13851" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9077" CreationDate="2016-03-07T09:56:17.980" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Possibly &lt;a href=&quot;http://chess.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;chess.com&lt;/a&gt;. There are millions of games played there, and each one is available for PGN download - for free.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9124" LastActivityDate="2016-03-07T09:56:17.980" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13852" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-03-07T10:23:02.073" Score="0" ViewCount="107" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am interested to know whether money based online chess tournament would succeed if all players are allowed to cheat.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9741" LastActivityDate="2016-03-07T11:06:19.960" Title="Can a tournament allowed to run if all players are allowed to cheat?" Tags="&lt;online-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13853" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13852" CreationDate="2016-03-07T11:06:19.960" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This concept is called &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;advanced chess&lt;/a&gt; or &lt;a href=&quot;http://freestyle-chess.webs.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;freestyle chess&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There used to be an advances chess tournament in Leon already in the late nineties. Nowadays it has reverted to a normal rapid tournament.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And there have been freestyle tournaments online (for money), first organised by chessbase and nowadays apparently continued by &lt;a href=&quot;http://freestyle-chess.webs.com/infinitychess.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Infinity Chess&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2016-03-07T11:06:19.960" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13854" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13697" CreationDate="2016-03-07T12:09:48.350" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I definitely agree with Mike: feed-back is the most important thing you can get. Try to identify flaws in your thinking process. For this, you can also go thru some of your games explaining to the coach how &lt;em&gt;you&lt;/em&gt; were thinking at that moment, not only letting him analyze your games alone. Perhaps if you can select some of your games and put your thinking process &quot;on paper&quot; before meeting the coach would be even more useful. Filling up the gaps should then be your homework.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm sure however that a good coach would know how to make best use of your time together :).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9572" LastActivityDate="2016-03-07T12:09:48.350" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13855" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13868" CreationDate="2016-03-07T15:14:05.753" Score="9" ViewCount="1466" Body="&lt;p&gt;I find it hard to &lt;a href=&quot;//www.chesskid.com/article/view/whats-better-than-a-rook-on-the-7th&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;defend against rooks placed in 7th rank&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;What are the possible defense options?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Please share your knowledge.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;r4rk1/p1pRR1pp/1p6/8/8/P6P/1P3PP1/6K1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Rxg7+ Kh8&#xA;2.Rxh7+ Kg8&#xA;3.Rdg7#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7644" LastEditorUserId="4186" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T15:44:44.620" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T15:44:44.620" Title="How defend against rooks in 7th rank?" Tags="&lt;rooks&gt;&lt;rook-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="13856" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13857" CreationDate="2016-03-07T15:18:13.147" Score="5" ViewCount="2256" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a chess beginner and I find queen sacrifices are the most shocking moves I have ever seen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please, can you provide me with some shocking examples of queen sacrifices. It need not be a big list, a handful would work just fine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7644" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-03-20T21:21:10.657" LastActivityDate="2016-03-20T21:21:10.657" Title="Shocking queen sacrifices?" Tags="&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;queens&gt;&lt;sacrifice&gt;" AnswerCount="8" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13857" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13856" CreationDate="2016-03-07T15:30:58.163" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;My favourite is this one, it has a nice anecdote attached to it, too. &lt;em&gt;Supposedly&lt;/em&gt;, in the situation shown on the board, due to his overwhelming advantage, the white player has kindly asked his rival on which square he would like to receive the checkmate. The black player responded:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt; g1 (as this he thought least likely within the foreseeable future)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[White &quot;Edward Lasker&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;George Alan Thomas&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;rn3rk1/pbppq1pp/1p2pb2/4N2Q/3PN3/3B4/PPP2PPP/R3K2R w KQ - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Qxh7+ Kxh7 2. Nxf6++ Kh6 3. Neg4+ Kg5 4. h4+ Kf4 5. g3+ Kf3 6. Be2+ Kg2 7. Rh2+ Kg1 8. Kd2# {Some sources say 8. 0-0-0#} 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another shocking queen sacrifice comes from this game, which is by some called the most beautiful in the history of chess. The result of the sacrifice is an instant resignation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;18th DSB Kongress&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Breslau GER&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;1912.07.20&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;1912.07.15&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;6&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Stefan Levitsky&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Frank James Marshall&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 e6 2.e4 d5 3.Nc3 c5 4.Nf3 Nc6 5.exd5 exd5 6.Be2 Nf6 7.O-O Be7 8.Bg5 O-O 9.dxc5 Be6 10.Nd4 Bxc5 11.Nxe6 fxe6 12.Bg4 Qd6 13.Bh3 Rae8 14.Qd2 Bb4 15.Bxf6 Rxf6 16.Rad1 Qc5 17.Qe2 Bxc3 18.bxc3 Qxc3 19.Rxd5 Nd4 20.Qh5 Ref8 21.Re5 Rh6 22.Qg5 Rxh3 23.Rc5 Qg3 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Fischer's &quot;Game of Century&quot; - played by him when he was only 13 years old!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;Third Rosenwald Trophy&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;New York, NY USA&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;1956.10.17&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;1956.10.07&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;8&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Donald Byrne&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Robert James Fischer&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Nf3 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 Bg7 4. d4 O-O 5. Bf4 d5 6. Qb3 dxc4 7. Qxc4 c6 8. e4 Nbd7 9. Rd1 Nb6 10. Qc5 Bg4 11. Bg5 Na4 12. Qa3 Nxc3 13. bxc3 Nxe4 14. Bxe7 Qb6 15. Bc4 Nxc3 16. Bc5 Rfe8+ 17. Kf1 Be6 18. Bxb6 Bxc4+ 19. Kg1 Ne2+ 20. Kf1 Nxd4+ 21. Kg1 Ne2+ 22. Kf1 Nc3+ 23. Kg1 axb6 24. Qb4 Ra4 25. Qxb6 Nxd1 26. h3 Rxa2 27. Kh2 Nxf2 28. Re1 Rxe1 29. Qd8+ Bf8 30. Nxe1 Bd5 31. Nf3 Ne4 32. Qb8 b5 33. h4 h5 34. Ne5 Kg7 35. Kg1 Bc5+ 36. Kf1 Ng3+ 37. Ke1 Bb4+ 38. Kd1 Bb3+ 39. Kc1 Ne2+ 40. Kb1 Nc3+ 41. Kc1 Rc2# 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &quot;Swindle of the Century&quot; game. Perhaps not very spectacular, but how shocking it must have been to the black player!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Result &quot;1/2-1/2&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Larry Melvyn Evans&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Samuel Reshevsky&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;2Q5/5Rpk/8/1p2p1qp/1P2Pn2/4rPPP/7K/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. h4 Re2+ 2. Kh1 Qxg3 3. Qg8+ Kxg8 4. Rxg7+ 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &quot;Immortal Draw&quot; game:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;Vienna&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Vienna&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1/2-1/2&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Carl Hamppe&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Philipp Meitner&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nc3 Bc5 3. Na4 Bxf2+ 4. Kxf2 Qh4+ 5. Ke3 Qf4+ 6. Kd3 d5 7. Kc3 Qxe4 8. Kb3 Na6 9. a3 Qxa4+ 10. Kxa4 Nc5+ 11. Kb4 a5+ 12. Kxc5 Ne7 13. Bb5+ Kd8 14. Bc6 b6+ 15. Kb5 Nxc6 16. Kxc6 Bb7+ 17. Kb5 Ba6+ 18. Kc6 Bb7+ 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can find many more in these game collections:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chesscollection?cid=1002707&quot;&gt;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chesscollection?cid=1002707&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chesscollection?cid=1022437&quot;&gt;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chesscollection?cid=1022437&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chesscollection?cid=1000116&quot;&gt;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chesscollection?cid=1000116&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3831" LastEditorUserId="3831" LastEditDate="2016-03-07T19:41:56.257" LastActivityDate="2016-03-07T19:41:56.257" CommentCount="12" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13858" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13856" CreationDate="2016-03-07T15:53:02.720" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here one of the craziest queen sacrifices that I have ever seen:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;Hoogovens&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Wijk aan Zee NED&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;1996.01.16&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;1996.01.13&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;3&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Vassily Ivanchuk&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Alexey Shirov&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;D44&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;69&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Nf3 e6 5.Bg5 dxc4 6.e4 b5 7.e5 h6&#xA;8.Bh4 g5 9.Nxg5 hxg5 10.Bxg5 Nbd7 11.exf6 Bb7 12.g3 c5 13.d5&#xA;Qb6 14.Bg2 O-O-O 15.O-O b4 16.Na4 Qb5 17.a3 exd5 18.axb4 cxb4&#xA;19.Be3 Nc5 20.Qg4+ Rd7 21.Qg7 Bxg7 22.fxg7 Rg8 23.Nxc5 d4&#xA;24.Bxb7+ Rxb7 25.Nxb7 Qb6 26.Bxd4 Qxd4 27.Rfd1 Qxb2 28.Nd6+&#xA;Kb8 29.Rdb1 Qxg7 30.Rxb4+ Kc7 31.Ra6 Rb8 32.Rxa7+ Kxd6 33.Rxb8&#xA;Qg4 34.Rd8+ Kc6 35.Ra1 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2016-03-07T15:53:02.720" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13859" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13860" CreationDate="2016-03-07T15:55:12.450" Score="4" ViewCount="314" Body="&lt;p&gt;In a Daily Puzzle of the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess.com&lt;/a&gt; app, playing as white the solution to the puzzle was as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [Title &quot;&quot;] &#xA; [SetUp &quot;1&quot;]&#xA; [FEN &quot;8/p1Q3bk/P2N2p/5p1p/7P/6q/8/7K w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. Qxg7 Kxg7 2.Nxf5+ gxf5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I'm not wrong this is stalemate and therefore a tie. Isn't there a better solution?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7795" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-05-28T17:48:37.733" LastActivityDate="2020-05-28T17:48:37.733" Title="Why go for stalemate here?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;problems&gt;&lt;stalemate&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="13860" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13859" CreationDate="2016-03-07T17:09:11.940" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, you're right that this is a draw because of stalemate. There is no better solution; White is two pawns behind, his king is exposed, he can't profit from the pin on the bishop and he can't safely win the a7 pawn. Without this tactic, black could just push his f-pawn towards victory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2016-03-07T17:09:11.940" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13861" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13856" CreationDate="2016-03-07T18:24:04.557" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Nakamura in 2007: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1477101&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Michal Krasenkow vs Hikaru Nakamura&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;Casino de Barcelona&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Barcelona ESP&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2007.10.19&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;2007.10.18&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;2&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Michal Krasenkow&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Hikaru Nakamura&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;A14&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;2668&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;2648&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;56&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Nf3 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. g3 d5 4. Bg2 Be7 5. O-O O-O 6. b3 a5&#xA;7. Nc3 c6 8. d4 Nbd7 9. Qc2 b6 10. e4 Ba6 11. Nd2 c5 12. exd5&#xA;cxd4 13. Nb5 exd5 14. Nxd4 Rc8 15. Re1 b5 16. Bb2 Re8 17. Qd1&#xA;bxc4 18. bxc4 Qb6 19. Rb1 dxc4 20. Nc6 Rxc6 21. Bxf6 Qxf2+&#xA;22. Kxf2 Bc5+ 23. Kf3 Rxf6+ 24. Kg4 Ne5+ 25. Kg5 Rg6+ 26. Kh5&#xA;f6 27. Rxe5 Rxe5+ 28. Kh4 Bc8 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7314" LastEditorUserId="4362" LastEditDate="2016-03-08T08:54:57.510" LastActivityDate="2016-03-08T08:54:57.510" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13862" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8327" CreationDate="2016-03-07T18:36:35.927" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;They are roughly the same, but different per type (speed v correspondence). This article from chess.com was really informative. I'm guessing the two sites are relatively comparable: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/fide-ratings-vs-chesscom-ratings-explored&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/fide-ratings-vs-chesscom-ratings-explored&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9231" LastActivityDate="2016-03-07T18:36:35.927" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13863" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2016-03-07T23:07:35.253" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Questions about having or wanting a chess coach.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7795" LastEditorUserId="7795" LastEditDate="2016-03-08T00:07:09.147" LastActivityDate="2016-03-08T00:07:09.147" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13864" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2016-03-07T23:07:35.253" Score="0" Body="Questions about having or wanting a chess coach." OwnerUserId="7795" LastEditorUserId="7795" LastEditDate="2016-03-08T00:07:05.897" LastActivityDate="2016-03-08T00:07:05.897" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13865" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13856" CreationDate="2016-03-07T23:13:36.683" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immortal_Game&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;'immortal game'&lt;/a&gt; has a queen sacrifice, followed by two rook sacrifices. White went on to win, mating with two knights, a bishop and a pawn. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9725" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-03-08T08:18:08.340" LastActivityDate="2016-03-08T08:18:08.340" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13866" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-03-08T09:00:37.417" Score="3" ViewCount="1621" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't know if this question has already been asked. Pardon me if it was.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What is the difference between a human player of approximately 1600 ELO rating and a competent chess engine like Stockfish 7 set to ELO 1600 (in Fritz you have such an option under Training &gt; Rated Game)?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[Don't know if my second question is particularly connected to the first, but here it is:]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is it possible to determine the ratings of players by the PGNs of their games? I'd rather play with a computer and wanted to know what my Elo is. Is it possible through Fritz or any software?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[This is more of a side question]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is there any site that explains what is Elo in lucid terms?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4618" LastEditorUserId="11202" LastEditDate="2017-05-01T05:05:05.367" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T18:27:13.767" Title="Chess Engines and Elo Ratings" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;elo&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13867" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13856" CreationDate="2016-03-08T09:36:06.043" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Lilienthal-Capablanca 1935: See &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1090860&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1090860&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lilienthal said in an interview in New In Chess that Bobby Fischer introduced himself to him with &quot;e takes f6&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9755" LastActivityDate="2016-03-08T09:36:06.043" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13868" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13855" CreationDate="2016-03-08T09:57:19.927" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;In general, &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prophylaxis_(chess)&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;prophylaxis&lt;/a&gt; can be used to prevent the rooks getting on the 7th. This is the preferred defense; common challenging moves are to contest open columns with your own rooks, or to guard the 7th rank squares with your minor pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the case that the rooks are already on the 7th, you should secure the most urgent threats (where your king is or where most of your loose material is), and then trade off rooks or go on the offensive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope that helps!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9756" LastActivityDate="2016-03-08T09:57:19.927" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13869" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13866" CreationDate="2016-03-08T12:29:41.727" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;What is the difference between a human player of approximately 1600&#xA;  ELO rating and a competent chess engine like Stockfish 7 set to ELO&#xA;  1600 ?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The main difference is in the way each chooses their moves. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The human player will predominantly use pattern recognition combined with some form of plan recall. So, I recognize that this position is winning for white and this is the winning plan. This might involve specific moves for a tactical plan and more general aims for a strategic one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The computer will predominantly use brute force calculation with an element of pattern recognition for position evaluation&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Is it possible to determine the ratings of players with the pgns of their games?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In theory, yes. Both FIDE and certain online chess providers have looked at tools for detecting cheating which essentially do this although without producing a rating. They look at moves which are not opening book / standard theory moves and calculate the percentage of moves which are engine 1st, 2nd, 3rd choices etc. In principle this work could be extended to develop a way of rating pgns but it would be a lot of hard work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I'd play with the computer and wanted to know what is my ELO. Is it&#xA;  possible through Fritz or any software?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No. Too much work to develop such a system for too little reward.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Is there any site that explains what is ELO in lucid terms?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since you appear to know what ELO is (an internationally recognized rating system) presumably what you are really asking is whether there exist  explanations for the mathematics and statistics behind ELO. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The killer part of your question is &quot;in &lt;em&gt;lucid&lt;/em&gt; terms&quot;. Of course such explanations exist which are lucid for mathematical and statistical experts but just as clearly if you lack the expertise they will not be lucid for you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2016-03-08T12:29:41.727" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13870" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13866" CreationDate="2016-03-08T12:37:06.437" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think you should ask three questions at chess.stackexchange.com instead of asking three times in a single question&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What is the difference between a human player of approximately 1600&#xA;  ELO rating and a competent chess engine like Stockfish 7 set to ELO&#xA;  1600 (in Fritz you have such an option under Training &gt; Rated Game)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't know about this setting. I think the only way to weaken Stockfish is limiting its search depth, so I guess that's what Fritz does, but I don't know.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/7690/how-does-a-chess-engine-mimic-an-elo-rating?rq=1&quot;&gt;this question&lt;/a&gt; and Student T reply can help you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is it possible to determine the ratings of players with the PGNs of&#xA;  their games? Rather, I'd play with the computer and wanted to know&#xA;  what is my ELO. Is it possible through Fritz or any software?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There have been several attempts to calculate player's ELO from the difference between the played moves and the best moves (as calculated by a chess engine). There's an obvious correlation between both values. You can find some information at &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.chessbase.com/post/computers-choose-who-was-the-strongest-player-&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Computers choose: who was the strongest player?&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.chessbase.com/post/computer-analysis-of-world-champions&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Computer analysis of world champions&lt;/a&gt; or &lt;a href=&quot;http://web.tecnico.ulisboa.pt/diogo.ferreira/papers/ferreira12strength.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Determining the Strength of Chess Players Based on Actual Play&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is there any site that explains what is ELO in lucid terms?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Wikipedia article on &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elo_rating_system&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Elo Rating System&lt;/a&gt; is rather good. There's an interesting statistical studio by Sonas &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.chessbase.com/post/the-sonas-rating-formula-better-than-elo-&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;The Sonas Rating Formula – Better than Elo?&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2311" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T18:27:13.767" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T18:27:13.767" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="13871" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-03-08T12:58:29.187" Score="6" ViewCount="12937" Body="&lt;p&gt;So I am implementing an intelligent chess agent but I can't get the checkmate working.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was wondering if there is a program that takes the chessboard notation and returns a result of yes or no to whether it is a checkmate or not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8485" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-03-20T21:20:02.073" LastActivityDate="2020-09-19T10:27:24.163" Title="Check for checkmate" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;programming&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13872" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13871" CreationDate="2016-03-08T13:16:43.580" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;I imagine any chess engine must have such function. Find an open source one in your programming language of choice and draw inspiration from there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I often use the python-chess package for simple chess programming and data mining tasks, as it offers a good API with many useful functions (available here: &lt;a href=&quot;https://pypi.python.org/pypi/python-chess&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://pypi.python.org/pypi/python-chess&lt;/a&gt;). For your purposes, it has a function:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;is_checkmate()&#xA;  Checks if the current position is a checkmate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The package is open source, so you can see its code, too. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You could also try implementing the function yourself! &#xA;Stockfish, for example, has a simple, efficient implementation - it produces a list of legal moves, and if the list is empty and the king is in check, then it clearly is a checkmate. See the code: &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/mcostalba/Stockfish/blob/master/src/search.cpp&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://github.com/mcostalba/Stockfish/blob/master/src/search.cpp&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3831" LastEditorUserId="3831" LastEditDate="2016-03-08T13:40:55.160" LastActivityDate="2016-03-08T13:40:55.160" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13874" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9178" CreationDate="2016-03-08T13:57:05.680" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's perfectly accurate to say that there is no such rule in the Laws of Chess.  Also, if your queen, your rook and his king are in a row his king is already in check, so his last move must have been illegal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9758" LastActivityDate="2016-03-08T13:57:05.680" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13875" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13871" CreationDate="2016-03-08T18:17:21.543" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's actually quite easy to check for a checkmate: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Can I move out of mate?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Can I block mate?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Can I take the attacker?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The king only has 8 spots to move. You should already have a list of squares under attack from enemy pieces, just check if that square is in that list.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should have a list of squares that are movable. Check if one of those blocks every attacker.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can easily tell who is attacking the king by checking each enemy piece's attacked squares for the king's square. If there's only one attacker, and that piece's squares is in one of your piece's attacked squares, you're all set.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="598" LastActivityDate="2016-03-08T18:17:21.543" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13876" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="474" CreationDate="2016-03-09T04:05:45.643" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;A &quot;rook lift&quot; is the attackers best friend. A rook can only be lifted through a break in the pawn chain.&#xA;Pawns must be exchanged to develop a hole through which rooks can be lifted and this is simply termed: &quot;opening lines&quot;... i.e. pawn exchanges open lines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Cecil J Purdy- an Australian correspondence player&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cecil_Purdy&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;1&lt;/a&gt;-  whom Bobby Fischer called one of the games best teachers, said that you want a plan for both rooks to enter the game by the 12th move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Rooks can also be called, &quot;The Heavy Pieces&quot;, and the simple idea is to get your heavy pieces into the game! Be aware that some people say that when you take one of the rooks, &quot;The back is broken!&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A stricter set of rules says that: place your Rooks on open files or openable files.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It has also been said that you should never start your final attack until until your Queens Rook is in the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You will find by looking through most games that most rooks are connected and centered by the 12th move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Always remember that doubled rooks are more powerful than separated rooks .. separated rooks is better than having only one rook of course: once again- when 'the back is broken' it is a disadvantage under normal circumstances. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9761" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T16:13:23.460" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T16:13:23.460" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="13877" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12690" CreationDate="2016-03-09T08:33:20.020" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Tactics teach position: the answer is to learn tactics.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.sparkchess.com/chess-puzzles.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Try these!&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9761" LastActivityDate="2016-03-09T08:33:20.020" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13878" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8742" CreationDate="2016-03-09T09:01:18.737" Score="1" Body="&lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;exd5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You don't have a lead in development so opening the centre is not advantageous.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you castled Queenside he followed standard procedure and used a pawn storm but of course it was tremendous to see how it was done so thanks for posting!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Being a beginner myself I can't say too much more but I believe move 3 was your first mistake and castling Queenside was your second.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Can I quickly ask how you post games with comments in the player?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9761" LastEditorUserId="9761" LastEditDate="2016-03-09T09:06:36.357" LastActivityDate="2016-03-09T09:06:36.357" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13879" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13786" CreationDate="2016-03-10T02:29:47.360" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The best way to use chess tutorials is to not watch too many of them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to do 500 chess puzzles in 3 hours then do it: but don't try and do it every day as you will forget that it's a game that does not depend on brute   calculative ability. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The ideas are what is important: a combination is a combination of ideas thus watching too many tutorials mean you forget what you learnt at the beginning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's called being selective and being over-enthusiastic is a common amatuers mistake that I'm still making.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The best advice I ever got was not to try and play too perfectly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9761" LastActivityDate="2016-03-10T02:29:47.360" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13880" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-03-10T02:39:44.330" Score="-5" ViewCount="139" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's often said that Judit Polgar can't play with the black pieces. Is this true for any identifiable reason or is it fair to say such commentary is simply jealous sniping.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9761" LastActivityDate="2016-03-10T02:47:32.747" Title="Judit Polgar is too famous perhaps?" Tags="&lt;psychology&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2016-03-10T10:54:06.477" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13881" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13880" CreationDate="2016-03-10T02:47:32.747" Score="9" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;It's often said that Judit Polgar can't play with the black pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have never heard this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I just looked her up on MegaBase and her performance rating as White was 2677 and as Black was 2610, which is a pretty normal difference of 67 points. For comparison, Kasparov's performance rating as White was 2809 and as Black was 2725, a difference of 84 points, and Carlsen's performance rating as White has been 2748 and as Black has been 2684, a difference of 64 points.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is this true for any identifiable reason&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;or is it fair to say such commentary is simply jealous sniping.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I imagine so.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2016-03-10T02:47:32.747" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13882" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13871" CreationDate="2016-03-10T10:10:40.243" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Most engines will read a pgn.  To find if it is checkmate you have to play through the game.  From your comments I think you want the program to do that automatically.  None of the engines that I have looked at have this capability.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My first suggestion is to rewrite your code to remove your bug(s).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The other is to search for the pgn for (#)the mate symbol.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.cs.kent.ac.uk/people/staff/djb/pgn-extract/help.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://www.cs.kent.ac.uk/people/staff/djb/pgn-extract/help.html&lt;/a&gt; pgn extract claims to have a match criteria for checkmate and stalemate and many others.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9684" LastEditorUserId="9684" LastEditDate="2016-03-20T07:23:00.700" LastActivityDate="2016-03-20T07:23:00.700" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13883" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12204" CreationDate="2016-03-10T16:35:34.797" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately most (if not all) of the studies regarding chess and academic achievement are tangled up with a variety of confounds. This means that a conclusion that chess can affect academic achievement cannot be offered. It would be 'unscientific'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One of the biggest problems is self-selection: Do people start playing chess because they are great academic achievers or do people who start playing chess later on become great academic achievers? This is often the biggest criticism of chess studies. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Such a problem is hard to solve in a study due to ethical and practical reasons. Until that can be done, the correct answer to this question is we do not know for sure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, there are plenty of indications that this statement could be true. Popular culture and popular psychology believe it to be true. Common sense is screaming out it is true. Maybe one day, an outstanding study will show us it is true. Until then, while I highly recommend chess as a practice for many reasons, it would be wrong to expect that because you play chess you will automatically perform better in school. Make sure you keep doing the other bits!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;CEO Chessable &amp;amp; very soon MSc Psychology of Education (BPS)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9027" LastActivityDate="2016-03-10T16:35:34.797" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13884" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2273" CreationDate="2016-03-10T19:47:36.723" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;As others have noted, in international correspondence play, conducted under the auspices of ICCF, computers are allowed.  Correspondence chess has been an interesting battleground for this debate because it has been stated above, the primary strength of the computer is brute force calculation and speed.  When Botvinnik was first attempting to design a chess computer program, he was hoping to develop a true AI.  Instead, modern computers win because they simply can calculate many more possibilities and pathways than a human could in a given amount of time.  A human might miss the best continuation simply because he or she doesn't have adequate time to analyze it.  Correspondence chess solves this issue because the human has considerably more time to analyze, whereas the computer doesn't really benefit from being able to examine the same position for several days.  Interestingly, I should point out that there is quite a lot of evidence supporting the argument that humans contribute greatly to overall performance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, back in 2005, Arno Nickel, one of the strongest correspondence chess players in the world, played a four-game match with Hydra, which at the time was arguably the strongest chess-playing supercomputer in the world.  Nickel was allowed to use a PC and chess software that he had bought off the shelf, similar to what he would use in an ICCF tournament.  In a straight-up match between Hydra and the basic PC software, Hydra would have won every game.  In the actual match, the match ended early because Nickel crushed Hydra 2.5-0.5 (two wins and one draw for Nickel).  In other words, the combination of man and weak machine was too much for the best super-computer on the planet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Second, there is a variant of chess called Centaur chess.  Centaur chess involves a human-computer team.  Humans make the move, taking into account analysis by the computer.  At first glance, one would expect that this is simply a matter of who has the best computer software (and many of the players have developed their own chess programs).  However, Centaur tournaments allow participation not just by human-computer teams, but by stand-alone computers without human assistance, and usually about half the participants are such stand-alone computers.  To my knowledge, every one of these tournaments has been won by a centaur, i.e. the human-computer teams always beat the computers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, while it is true that the average human player would have little chance against an equal human playing with a computer, it is also true that computers have little chance playing against an equal computer playing with a human. All of which suggests that humans still contribute to the game, even when computers are involved.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9773" LastActivityDate="2016-03-10T19:47:36.723" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13885" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12322" CreationDate="2016-03-11T08:24:32.047" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You do not mention time controls, psychologically speaking, that would make a big difference. I find that the faster the time control, the more likely something silly like this happens to me. I usually slow down, and play slower time controls in order to re-compose myself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this helps!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9027" LastActivityDate="2016-03-11T08:24:32.047" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13886" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12276" CreationDate="2016-03-11T08:32:38.313" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Slumps such as this happen to me often. &lt;strong&gt;It's extremely frustrating isn't it?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is very similar to tilting in say poker. &lt;strong&gt;When this happens to me in chess, I realise I have started playing for rating&lt;/strong&gt;, akin to when you chase your losses in poker. Rating, not the enjoyment of chess, becomes my main and sole goal. When this happens, it is easy to start letting emotion affect your game. Then your rating goes down and down. Your game is no longer your best game. It is your C game or even your D game!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If this is happening to you, take a step back. Realise that you are playing chess because you enjoy it and not because of your rating. &lt;strong&gt;Paradoxically, this is how your rating will return to you.&lt;/strong&gt; You will start playing your A game again and it will be but a matter of time before you get your rating back.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Good luck!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9027" LastActivityDate="2016-03-11T08:32:38.313" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13888" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-03-11T10:36:33.403" Score="2" ViewCount="174" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the current Women World Championship the games are transmitted with a delay to avoid cheating. Searching if something similar will happen for the Candidates tournament I could just found the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/news/candidates-to-start-friday-agon-blocks-games-transmission-by-chess-sites-5161&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;information&lt;/a&gt; that the games will be only be available in the official webpage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it going to be any delay or any other anti-cheating measure that affects the broadcasting of the games applied in the Candidates?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8751" LastActivityDate="2016-05-10T11:54:35.780" Title="Will there be any anti-cheating measures that affect the broadcast in the Candidates tournament?" Tags="&lt;cheating&gt;&lt;candidates&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13889" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13888" CreationDate="2016-03-11T11:07:58.150" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is it going to be any delay or any other anti-cheating measure that&#xA;  affects the broadcasting of the games applied in the Candidates?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is mostly Agon protecting their commercial rights to the event.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They forbid rebroadcasting and require users / viewers to login and click agreement to a complicated piece of lawyer-speak which is unintelligible to normal people.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Being cynical I expect any delay for other organizations covering the event will come from one of their members subscribing and then playing the moves on a chessboard in front of him so somebody else can broadcast them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is no copyright on chess moves or games, only on commentary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2016-03-11T11:07:58.150" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13891" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13844" CreationDate="2016-03-11T21:14:36.460" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;http://help.chessbase.com/Fritz/15/Eng/index.html?chess_media_system.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot; title=&quot;Fritz 15 Help, Chess Media System&quot;&gt;Chessbase support site describes the process&lt;/a&gt; of viewing chess media files (or, what many call Fritz Trainer videos) as follows: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If you have the lecture on a CD or DVD, [...] then&#xA;  you simply open a file using &quot;File – Open – Chess Media File&quot;. The&#xA;  program will open a chess media window and you can sit back and watch&#xA;  the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is a screencap of my doing this process for the Fritz Trainer, Fit for the French by GM Viktor Bologan:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/t348G.gif&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/t348G.gif&quot; alt=&quot;Fritz 15 opening a Fritz Trainer on my hard drive&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that very often the first video in a Fritz Trainer will be just the GM talking and giving you an overview. Then, you won't see any pieces moving (e.g., GM Garry Kasparov on the Queen's Gambit rapidly discusses lines without showing them on the board).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, if you're opening the video files using these instructions and they don't show pieces moving when they're supposed to, you may have gotten your files from a disreputable source that has stripped them of their proprietary Chessbase metadata. In that case, you'll want to try to get a refund or download the Fritz Trainer from Chessbase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7017" LastActivityDate="2016-03-11T21:14:36.460" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13892" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-03-11T23:53:21.723" Score="4" ViewCount="1113" Body="&lt;p&gt;My friends and I have been playing knightmare chess in a four player variant. We were playing with the stipulation that when a player is checkmated, after his turn he removes his king from the board and his pieces change allegiance to the last player to cause checkmate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I had caused checkmate on a player. An opponent between my turn and the checkmated player moved his bishop to cause check on the same king I had checkmated. He staked a claim to this player's pieces. I refuted his claim on the basis his bishop did not cause checkmate, only check while my pieces actually did cause checkmate. Who would get the pieces?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By definition, check is a move where a peice is threatening on his opponents next turn. According to this, I argued that I caused checkmate and was entitled to his peices.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9783" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-17T03:25:43.887" LastActivityDate="2021-02-04T12:10:10.973" Title="Four way chess -checkmate" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;chess-variants&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="13893" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13892" CreationDate="2016-03-12T03:14:35.020" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Checkmate is when the King is in check and no move would be able to remove him from check.  If the Bishop check is a move that delivered checkmate, even if he was checkmated before, is the last checkmate and the pieces would be his.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9684" LastActivityDate="2016-03-12T03:14:35.020" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13894" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5432" CreationDate="2016-03-12T03:28:27.760" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;ChessHero at &lt;a href=&quot;http://innokuo.altervista.org/chesshero.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://innokuo.altervista.org/chesshero.html&lt;/a&gt; is a free tool, for windows only, which allows you to load a PGN or FEN to test your play.  (So you don't random positions, i suggest a FEN such at Reinfeld 1001.)  ChessTempo is adjusted to your level but is only available online.  There are many free videos online or downloadable.  There are many free chess playing programs you can download.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To be more specific, I would need to know which OS you have, your current level, how much time you want to invect, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9684" LastActivityDate="2016-03-12T03:28:27.760" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13895" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8865" CreationDate="2016-03-12T07:59:21.737" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would assume that the optimal game would follow the knight's tour. The comment be CognisMantis is correct and the game would last 64 half-moves or 32 complete moves. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9684" LastActivityDate="2016-03-12T07:59:21.737" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13896" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13900" CreationDate="2016-03-12T09:04:19.367" Score="3" ViewCount="1079" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm referring to an engine that plays repeated games against itself and human opponents... and uses that data to develop its own opening book.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd think computers would have been used to develop new chess opening theory. Has this actually happened historically? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9786" LastEditorUserId="10905" LastEditDate="2016-11-22T13:29:55.943" LastActivityDate="2016-11-22T13:29:55.943" Title="Has any chess engine developed its own opening book?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;engines&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13897" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-03-12T11:18:51.467" Score="1" ViewCount="41" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Does a software that analyzes your past games and gives you tips exist?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If there exist, is there a way to implement it, so we can play against &quot;ourselves&quot; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If not, how do you review and analyze usually? It seems to me that many games are too specific, to have enough value to remember it, especially if one plays more as a hobby&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9787" LastActivityDate="2016-03-12T11:18:51.467" Title="How to review past games" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;software&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2016-03-15T08:45:00.683" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13898" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13899" CreationDate="2016-03-12T13:45:15.610" Score="3" ViewCount="1136" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a chess beginner, having played over 500 games. However, I never understood gambits, despite the fact that I am very good at openings. I always play the Queen's Opening, King's Opening, or the knight opening Nf3. I haven't cared about gambits. What exactly is a gambit and why should I learn about them?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7644" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-12-03T14:10:20.317" LastActivityDate="2020-12-03T14:10:20.317" Title="What is a gambit?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;gambits&gt;&lt;terminology&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="13899" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13898" CreationDate="2016-03-12T14:19:58.583" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;A gambit is the giving up of a pawn in the opening to gain a lead in development and/or open lines and/or a weakening in the opponent's position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A sacrifice is the giving up of a piece to gain what a gambit does.  It also can be used to close lines, setup a blockade, attract a piece to a square, destroy the pawn shelter around the king, and other gains.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since a sacrifice is more of an investment, it usually involves an attack on the king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Queen's Gambit is normally not a true gambit as White can always regain the pawn.  The Queen's Gambit starts with 1. d4 d5 2. c4.  The pawn is offered to lessen Black's control of the center.  This action is considered good according to chess strategy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sooner or later you will have to face a gambit.  Learning before the game greatly increases you chances of not losing in the first ten moves.  Games in which a gambit is accepted are often full of tactics and a slashing king hunt.  These games are considered to be more exciting.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9684" LastActivityDate="2016-03-12T14:19:58.583" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13900" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13896" CreationDate="2016-03-12T18:12:29.280" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, top level engines' authors generally also prepare an opening book with their engine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But this process does not only involve computer matches. They make use of both computer matches, GM matches, and machine-learning (which you explain in your question)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.rybkachess.com/index.php?auswahl=Rybka%204%20book&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;This&lt;/a&gt; page has an interview about this topic on Rybka 4 book.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A quote from the page:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Q: Your Rybka 4 Aquarium opening book will be released soon. It's clear that you put a huge amount of work into the book.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: Yes, I put a lot of work into it. It helps that I find it really interesting to analyze unknown positions and ideas from chess books, chess practice or computer games and find my own solutions. Today's opening preparation is very deep. In some cases players know their lines from the opening all the way to the endgame. A less prepared opponent will probably lose his way somewhere in the middlegame against such preparation. Things are looking even worse in computer games - long lines, often 50 moves or more, leading to a draw are similar to pre-arranged draws in human games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The technical advances mean that opening analysis is very different from what it used to be a few years ago, not to mention a few decades ago. However, even with today's amazing computer tools, the work of the modern opening book author is still very demanding.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My method of creating a strong opening book consists of several steps. Assuming you already have a good database, the first step is the selection of games. Making a good hand-typed book is impossible. The selected games serve as the &amp;quot;raw material,&amp;quot; and generate the initial version of the book. This step may only require a few hours of work. The next step is to fine-tune the move priorities. This is a very time consuming task, and in the case of the Rybka Aquarium book, it took a few weeks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Testing the book is an independent process. First you run a test and then you look at the results and try to find weak points in the book. After further analysis you may find some improvements, which require updates to the book and another test cycle must be run. This process will take a few days.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Last, but not least is the creative phase of making an opening book. Here you need to find new ideas and get a deeper understanding of the lines in the book. One recurring question in this phase is why engines give a low evaluation, or play badly positions which are very good according to my own understanding of the position. This phase is not only very time consuming, it also needs a lot of creativity and manual interaction and guiding of the engine analysis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9030" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2016-03-12T18:12:29.280" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13901" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14222" CreationDate="2016-03-12T18:38:31.037" Score="9" ViewCount="667" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have just played a thoroughly enjoyable game, where in the middlegame I was forced to give up the queen for two minor pieces and defend. After 30 moves and some trades, the situation got simplified to following position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;8/4k3/2p5/3p4/1P1q4/3N4/2P5/2KN4 w - - 0 0&quot;] &#xA;&#xA; 1. Kd2 Kd6 2. N1b2 Qh4 3. Na4 Qh6+ 4. Kc3 Qf6+ 5. Kb3 Qf7 6. Nac5 d4+ 7. Kb2 Qc4 8. Ne4+ Kc7 9. Kc1 Qd5 10. Nec5 Qg5+ 11. Kb2 Kb6 12. Kb3 Kb5 13. Kb2 Qd5 14. Nb3 Qc4 15. Nbc5 Qc3+ 16. Kc1 Kc4 17. Kb1 Qa3 18. Ne4 Qa8 19. Nd2+ Kc3 20. Ne4+ Kc4 21. Nd2+ Kd5 22. Nb3 Qa3 23. Nbc5 Kc4 24. Ne4 Qa8 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you can see, the game went further on for some 25 moves; I managed to hold the position and the game ended in a threefold repetition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;As far as I can tell, with correct play by white, black should not be able to make any progress. Is that really so? (EDIT: Just to clarify, I seek some conclusive analysis, not merely a yes/no statement)&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3831" LastEditorUserId="3831" LastEditDate="2016-03-13T07:55:39.760" LastActivityDate="2016-04-27T14:26:46.023" Title="Is this a fortress?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;draw&gt;&lt;fortress&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="8" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13902" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2016-03-12T18:40:56.470" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2016-03-12T18:40:56.470" LastActivityDate="2016-03-12T18:40:56.470" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13903" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2016-03-12T18:40:56.470" Score="0" Body="In chess, the fortress is an endgame drawing technique in which the side behind in material sets up a zone of protection around their king that cannot be penetrated by the opponent.&#xD;&#xA;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortress_%28chess%29" OwnerUserId="3831" LastEditorUserId="3831" LastEditDate="2016-03-12T23:04:02.683" LastActivityDate="2016-03-12T23:04:02.683" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13904" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13908" CreationDate="2016-03-12T22:39:13.530" Score="1" ViewCount="462" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am trying to define chess strategy for myself, and I came up with the following explanation which I would like to get feedback on. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Chess strategy can be defined as the creation of long term plans that&#xA;  will dictate your next several moves. In order to achieve these plans,&#xA;  you can argue that the chess player will resort to either positional,&#xA;  tactical or endgame devices.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My questions are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Do you agree on the above?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;How would you define chess strategy?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If you had to choose only 1 game that illustrates chess strategy in&#xA;action what would that game be?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;What methods do you use to evaluate a position to determine your&#xA;strategy?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Update 4/17/16: Blog post about &lt;a href=&quot;http://beginchess.com/2016/03/13/chess-strategy/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chess Strategy&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9216" LastEditorUserId="9216" LastEditDate="2016-04-16T20:07:53.863" LastActivityDate="2016-04-16T20:07:53.863" Title="Chess Strategy Defined" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13907" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13901" CreationDate="2016-03-13T10:43:37.247" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Pawn on b4 and c6 does not contribute to position significantly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I suggest, remove these pawns and check the result of 7-men position from Lomonosov tablebase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, you can conduct a Monte Carlo simulation, in which you use same engine with same hardware, playing against each other starting from this position. 30 seconds time control is enough, enable tablebases if you can, let the simulation play 100 games. If all of them draws, the position is almost certainly draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also from my perspective, in order to progress Black King should get close to capture the c2 pawn. Providing this, Black can push and capture the pawn, otherwise Black Queen can't penetrate alone. And as far as I can see, Black King can't get close to pawn because of the White Knights.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9030" LastActivityDate="2016-03-13T10:43:37.247" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13908" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13904" CreationDate="2016-03-13T12:00:51.673" Score="2" Body="&lt;h2&gt;1. Do you agree on the above? 2. How would you define chess strategy?&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From &lt;em&gt;Chess Strategy: Move by Move&lt;/em&gt; by Adam Hunt, he defines chess strategy in his introduction as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess strategy is concerned with the correct &lt;strong&gt;evaluation&lt;/strong&gt; of a position and the &lt;strong&gt;formulation&#xA;of an effective plan&lt;/strong&gt; based upon its &lt;strong&gt;characteristic features&lt;/strong&gt;. When the word ‘strategy’ is&#xA;mentioned, people tend to jump to the conclusion that we are talking about long-term&#xA;middlegame planning, and that you have to be some sort of psychic who can see the future,&#xA;but that is rarely the case. Many features of a given position which are strategically&#xA;important will evolve out of the &lt;strong&gt;opening&lt;/strong&gt; and finish in the endgame, so it would be foolish&#xA;to completely ignore these phases of the game. Plans can be &lt;strong&gt;short or long term&lt;/strong&gt;, depending&#xA;on how the landscape in front of you is changing as the game progresses. This is why the&#xA;subject is so complex and so much material is available on it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Emphasis is mine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, to contrast to your definition:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Hunt does not restrict himself to long term planning in his definition&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It spans all phases of the game, including the opening&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;There is no explicit mention of tactical/positional devices, but I think it is covered in his &amp;quot;characteristic features&amp;quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;3. If you had to choose only 1 game that illustrates chess strategy in action what would that game be?&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the basis of the complexity of the subject, no one game will highlight all elements of chess strategy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;4. What methods do you use to evaluate a position to determine your strategy?&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is covered in &lt;em&gt;How To Reassess Your Chess&lt;/em&gt; by Jeremy Silman. He calls Hunt's &amp;quot;characteristic features&amp;quot; &lt;em&gt;imbalances&lt;/em&gt;, i.e. differences in the Black and White armies. He considers:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Superior Minor Piece: Bishops vs. Knights&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Pawn Structure—Weak Pawns, Passed Pawns, etc.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Space&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Material&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Control of a Key File (or indeed control of a key line)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Control of a Hole/Weak Square&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Lead in Development&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Initiative&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;King Safety&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2016-03-13T12:00:51.673" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13909" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13910" CreationDate="2016-03-13T12:10:45.490" Score="1" ViewCount="1223" Body="&lt;p&gt;While i was going through the chess piece values, Bishops is worth 3.30 points while Knight has 3.0 points. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Although the 1/3/3/5/9 system of point totals is the most commonly&#xA;  given, many other systems of valuing pieces have been proposed.&#xA;  Several systems give the bishop slightly more value than the knight. A&#xA;  bishop is usually slightly more powerful than a knight, but not always&#xA;  – it depends on the position (Evans 1958:77,80), (Mayer 1997:7). A&#xA;  chess-playing program was given the value of 3 for the knight and 3.4&#xA;  for the bishop (Mayer 1997:5)&#xA;  &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_piece_relative_value&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_piece_relative_value&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please explain why is a bishop slightly better than a knight? I know it depends on the position for like as bishops, a knight can also have high points if it is placed on outpost.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7644" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2016-03-13T12:20:01.020" LastActivityDate="2016-03-13T13:10:20.993" Title="Why is bishop slightly better than a knight?" Tags="&lt;positional-play&gt;&lt;pieces&gt;&lt;point-value&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2016-03-13T19:07:51.777" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13910" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13909" CreationDate="2016-03-13T12:16:14.970" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here are the reasons:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Bishops are stronger than knights in open positions, and open positions are more likely than closed ones. If you think of the endgame in particular, many pawns have been exchanged, i.e. many end games are open, favouring the Bishop&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The Bishop pair is an advantage, as the light square bishop covers the squares the dark square bishop doesn't and vice-versa. So 2 bishops together compliment each other, but the 2 Knights do not. They actually replicate each other, potentially making one of the Knights rather redundant&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In an endgame, a Bishop can cover both the Kingside and Queenside because it is a long distance operator, meaning it can perform offensive and defensive duties at the same time (e.g. help push a friendly passed pawn and stop an enemy passed pawn at the same time in a race). The Knight cannot do the same&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2016-03-13T12:16:14.970" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13911" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-03-13T12:38:36.980" Score="2" ViewCount="257" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the average number of live viewers (online and TV) for top chess events like the world championship match and the candidates tournament? Are there some statistics publicly available?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4588" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-03-20T21:16:50.763" LastActivityDate="2016-03-20T21:16:50.763" Title="Live viewers for top chess events" Tags="&lt;statistics&gt;&lt;world-championship&gt;&lt;online&gt;&lt;candidates&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13912" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13909" CreationDate="2016-03-13T13:10:20.993" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Only reason can be, statistically, there are more situations where bishops are stronger, comparing to positions where knights are stronger.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are a lot of elements which affect piece values. It's not possible to say one piece is stronger than other. But you can say 'most likely' stronger. But for the same reason we can argue about rooks 5 point as well. Why not 4.9 or 5.1?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, more often, Queen+Knight pairs are stronger than Queen+Bishop pairs. Or you can reach a position where there is 1 or 2 open lines but there are a lot of open diagonals, where bishops beat rooks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In extreme cases, a rook and even a bishop can be stronger than a Queen (imagine stalemate themes, Saavedra position, for example)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Engines fine tune these metrics to get a slight improvements in performance. There is no commonly accepted 'true' values for pieces. If we assume that there is a 'true' value set for each piece like (x,y,z,s,t), engines are just trying to approximate to these 'true' values.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9030" LastActivityDate="2016-03-13T13:10:20.993" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13913" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19344" CreationDate="2016-03-13T20:00:58.457" Score="20" ViewCount="1700" Body="&lt;p&gt;One of the more popular questions asked on this site regards the prospect of &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/q/1003/315&quot;&gt;a purely self-trained chess AI.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Today, &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.chessbase.com/post/alphago-vs-lee-sedol-history-in-the-making&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;ChessBase is distracted&lt;/a&gt; from its coverage of the FIDE Candidates tournament to report that a new AI is, for the first time, beating a leading master of the rather different game of go, which had resisted chess-style AIs for many years. An initial reading of the report suggests that the new go AI is unlike chess AIs, but is more nearly &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_game_playing&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;a general-game-playing (GGP) AI.&lt;/a&gt; ChessBase's article does not however use the term GGP, but does seem to say that &lt;em&gt;the go AI can win at simple video games.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there any reason such a winning go AI could not with minor adjustments also win at chess? If so, does such an AI show promise to achieve the pure self-training the several excellent answers to the earlier question have earlier discussed, which at that time was not yet possible? Why or why not?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I suspect that no really complete, fully informed answer to my question is yet available, so even a partial answer based on related expertise would be appreciated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For additional reference, see also &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/q/9388/315&quot;&gt;this related question and answers.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;UPDATE&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When the above question was first posted five days ago and when some of the fine answers below were given, the first news regarding the victory of the go AI had just appeared. Since then, additional information and commentary have emerged.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Particularly interesting since then has been a quite readable, five-sided &lt;a href=&quot;http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/dont-forget-humans-created-the-computer-program-that-can-beat-humans-at-go/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;roundtable discussion&lt;/a&gt; in which one Jonathan Schaeffer remarks:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Learning from human games helps accelerate the program’s learning. AlphaGo could learn to become a strong player on its own, without using the human games. The learning process would just take longer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to the roundtable's host, Schaeffer is &quot;[c]omputer science professor at the University of Alberta and the man who solved checkers&quot;; so, presumably, he might be qualified to comment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For further information, &lt;a href=&quot;https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11257928&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;here is the record of another, open discussion,&lt;/a&gt; many of whose participants seem better informed than usual.  The discussion took place during the match.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Further update, a year and a half later:&lt;/em&gt; commenter @MarkS. writes:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;This is just a comment because it's about Go, not Chess, but AlphaGo Zero achieved &quot;pure self-training&quot; just from being told who won (and not the final score) and is stronger and vastly more efficient than the AI that beat Lee Sedol. For more information, see &lt;a href=&quot;https://deepmind.com/blog/alphago-zero-learning-scratch/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;deepmind.com/blog/alphago-zero-learning-scratch&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="315" LastEditorUserId="315" LastEditDate="2017-11-19T16:09:55.267" LastActivityDate="2018-04-01T05:49:11.123" Title="A new AI wins at go. Can a similar AI win at chess? Can it achieve pure self-training?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;" AnswerCount="8" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13914" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13911" CreationDate="2016-03-13T20:44:36.967" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://web.archive.org/web/20100605121529/http://www.dnevnik.bg/sport/2010/05/31/909514_organizatorite_na_macha_topalov_-_anand_ochakvat_pone/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://web.archive.org/web/20100605121529/http://www.dnevnik.bg/sport/2010/05/31/909514_organizatorite_na_macha_topalov_-_anand_ochakvat_pone/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It says (in Bulgarian):&#xA;&quot;The match Topalov - Anand (2010) made an absolute record on the Internet. For all 12 games together recorded 2 million links to the live broadcast of individual computers, but for just the last party - 300 000. Usually it is assumed that three people on average watched on a computer...&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For Anand - Carlsen 2014: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/news/an-interview-with-ilya-merenzon-organizer-of-anand-carlsen-4530&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://www.chess.com/news/an-interview-with-ilya-merenzon-organizer-of-anand-carlsen-4530&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;The total number of unique visitors was 10.5 million with the highest traffic on the last day of the match: 2 million visitors.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I make no warranty as to the validity of the accounting of these numbers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9419" LastEditorUserId="9419" LastEditDate="2016-03-14T03:34:56.090" LastActivityDate="2016-03-14T03:34:56.090" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13915" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8472" CreationDate="2016-03-14T01:39:07.763" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;t seems like garbo was a little stronger maybe 2670 but anywhoo.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://jtiscione.github.io/chessboard3js/play.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://jtiscione.github.io/chessboard3js/play.html&lt;/a&gt; is a nice online interface for playing p4wn -weak lozzo -strong!! and stockfish -godlike&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://op12no2.me/toys/lozza/play.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://op12no2.me/toys/lozza/play.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9803" LastActivityDate="2016-03-14T01:39:07.763" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13916" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8472" CreationDate="2016-03-14T01:41:29.513" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://forwardcoding.com/projects/ajaxchess/chess.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://forwardcoding.com/projects/ajaxchess/chess.html&lt;/a&gt; &amp;lt;--garbo chess&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://htmlchess.sourceforge.net/demo/example.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://htmlchess.sourceforge.net/demo/example.html&lt;/a&gt; &amp;lt;-- 2d-3d chess&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9803" LastActivityDate="2016-03-14T01:41:29.513" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13917" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13421" CreationDate="2016-03-14T07:23:07.587" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I happened to find the position in an old book: on page 87 of &quot;The Basis of Combination in Chess&quot; by J. du Mont.  The diagram is shown with the names &quot;Rubinstein vs N.&quot;, without date and place. Probably a game in a simultaneous exhibition.  The book was first published in 1938 and Dover reprinted it in 1978.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9805" LastEditorUserId="9805" LastEditDate="2016-03-14T07:34:56.800" LastActivityDate="2016-03-14T07:34:56.800" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13918" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-03-14T08:03:48.110" Score="2" ViewCount="125" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to become better at attacking my opponent king when they castle queenside. What are Grandmaster games where the players who castles queensides gets mated or loses due to a powerful attack on the queenside?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3149" LastActivityDate="2016-03-14T10:13:05.200" Title="What are examples of grandmaster games where both Black and White castle opposite sides and the queenside players loses?" Tags="&lt;middlegame&gt;&lt;grandmaster&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13919" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13913" CreationDate="2016-03-14T09:51:46.680" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;Ok, I have to admit that I was wrong. Though I would maintain that it was due to knowledge of the expert opinion, not general obtuseness: To cite the &lt;a href=&quot;https://arxiv.org/pdf/1712.01815.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;paper&lt;/a&gt;: &quot;However, chess programs using traditional MCTS were much weaker than alpha-beta search programs, (4, 24); while alpha-beta programs based on neural networks have previously been unable to compete with faster, handcrafted evaluation functions.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Apparently, chess is strategically deep enough, that you can out strategise somebody, who would be able to out calculate you. To me that's a big surprise because the development in chess engines had been going in the opposite direction. (Apparently there is still a slight caveat as to whether AlphaZero is really stronger than Stockfish: Stockfish played with just 1gb for the hashtables and 64 cores may not really be a match for four TPUs)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's also a really, really exciting thing to happen, because AlphaZero very likely has very different strengths from traditional engines. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It also means that I update my belief of the significance of AlphaGo as a technological breakthrough by a lot. Basically smashing shogi, Go and chess with one single setup is completely amazing, not to mention dozens of other games that could likely be played on a superhuman level by AlphaZero. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a nice explanation as to why MCTS is actually a decent idea even for chess compared to alpha-beta search (from the paper): &quot;AlphaZero evaluates positions using non-linear function approximation based on a deep neural network, rather than the linear function approximation used in typical chess programs. This provides a much more powerful representation, but may also introduce spurious approximation errors. MCTS averages over these approximation errors, which therefore tend to cancel out when evaluating a large subtree. In contrast, alpha-beta search computes an explicit mini-max, &lt;strong&gt;which propagates the biggest approximation errors to the root&lt;/strong&gt; of the subtree.&quot; (emphasis by me)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is my old answer, still containing some valid points, despite the conclusion being superseded by reality. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First of all Alphago is not a general game playing system. It is a program designed purely to play go and nothing else. It is however build from certain building blocks that have a much wider applicability, such as &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convolutional_neural_network#Image_recognition&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;convolutional neural networks&lt;/a&gt;, which have been used in image recognition and which have immediate application in medical diagnostics, and &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.cs.toronto.edu/~vmnih/docs/dqn.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;reinforcement learning&lt;/a&gt; which was used to master the Atari games mentioned in the article.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, current engines do &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20151201-the-cyborg-chess-players-that-cant-be-beaten&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&quot;learn&quot; by self-playing&lt;/a&gt;: &quot;Overnight, Lefler’s six computers play through over 14,000 games each during an eight-hour period. “Six machines times 14,000 games is a lot of games,” he says. And with every game played, the database gets deeper and richer.&#xA;There is even sporting interest in watching computers play against one another&#xA;The result of Lefler’s busily whirring machines is the ever-increasing prowess of Komodo.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To come to the bulk of your question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is an important difference between chess and go, at least from a programmer's perspective. Chess is more of a tactical game, whereas go is more of a strategic game. This means that in chess calculation depth trumps positional evaluation. That's basically the key insight that distinguishes the &quot;old&quot; engines like Fritz, Shredder, Junior and the newer generation like Fruit, Rybka, Houdini, Stockfish, Komodo. Because at the end of each line you have to evaluate the position and you want to calculate lot's of lines and the quality of the evaluation isn't as important as search depth, chess engines have lean and fast evaluation functions. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In go on the other hand the tactical complexity is too big even for computers. Consequently evaluating positions and moves accurately is key. What Alphago brings new to the game is this evaluation power, which is based on &lt;a href=&quot;http://arxiv.org/abs/1412.3409&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;convolutional neural networks&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To finally get to my point: Whereas chess evaluation functions are lean and fast, neural networks have millions, sometimes billions of parameters. Because &quot;learning&quot; in this context means tweaking parameters, there is much more possible progress for self learning go programs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, yes you could use a setup like Alphago to create a chess engine, but it wouldn't be particularly good. Running the evaluation function would take so much time, that you'd have to utilise a huge cluster of gpus to get to necessary search depths (which is what Alphago does). You could create a &lt;a href=&quot;http://arxiv.org/abs/1509.01549&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;very good evaluation function&lt;/a&gt;, but the speed tradeoff isn't worth it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastEditorUserId="4362" LastEditDate="2017-12-06T20:39:59.913" LastActivityDate="2017-12-06T20:39:59.913" CommentCount="11" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13920" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13918" CreationDate="2016-03-14T10:13:05.200" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;That's a pretty typical scenario, you'll find a lot of examples if you search for games in the sicilian opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;Sarajevo&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Sarajevo BIH&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2000.05.29&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;2000.05.17&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;11&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Sergei Movsesian&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Garry Kasparov&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;B90&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;64&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.Be3 e6 7.f3&#xA;b5 8.Qd2 Nbd7 9.O-O-O Bb7 10.g4 Nb6 11.Qf2 Nfd7 12.Kb1 Rc8&#xA;13.Bd3 Rxc3 14.bxc3 Qc7 15.Ne2 Be7 16.g5 O-O 17.h4 Na4 18.Bc1&#xA;Ne5 19.h5 d5 20.Qh2 Bd6 21.Qh3 Nxd3 22.cxd3 b4 23.cxb4 Rc8&#xA;24.Ka1 dxe4 25.fxe4 Bxe4 26.g6 Bxh1 27.Qxh1 Bxb4 28.gxf7+ Kf8&#xA;29.Qg2 Rb8 30.Bb2 Nxb2 31.Nd4 Nxd1 32.Nxe6+ Kxf7 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2016-03-14T10:13:05.200" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13921" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13913" CreationDate="2016-03-14T10:56:25.963" Score="4" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Can a similar AI win at chess? Can it achieve pure self-training?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The short answer is &quot;No!&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess and go are radically different in their relative simplicity and relative complexity which derives from their geometry and how you win. These combine to make a program which is good at one useless at the other.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In chess you win by checkmating the opponent, points don't count. Of course a sensible opponent will often resign before you deliver checkmate but the principle is the same. In go you win by having more points at the end of the game. If I have a king and queen and you have a king, rook and pawn but you have built a fortress then it doesn't matter that I have 9 points for the queen and you have just 6 points for your rook and pawn. The game is a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This makes a fundamental difference in the complexity between chess and go. In go you can just keep score and you will know who is winning. In chess the only way you can know who is winning is by pure calculation. In this sense chess is much more complex than go.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At the same time, because of the geometry of the two games, there are orders of magnitude more possibilities in go than in chess. In this sense go is much more complex than chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A chess program works by brute force calculation of all the possible moves up to a certain depth which determines its strength. A go program cannot work like this and play anything more advanced than beginner level go.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The basic aim of go is to control more territory than your opponent. At the end of a game it doesn't matter if the difference is 1 stone or 100 stones, both are wins. Every time you place a stone you do two things. You increase your territory, either potential or actual, and you decrease your opponent's. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes, when it is actual increase or decrease in territory, it is easy to calculate the value of the move, but when it is potential it is very difficult to evaluate. As a weak go player I understand the &quot;actual&quot; much better than the &quot;potential&quot; and a stronger player will beat me by building much greater potential territory in the center while I build smaller actual territory on the edges and in the corners. The stronger player will have built up the ability to judge through intuition and feel from playing lots of games and recognizing how to build &quot;potential&quot; territory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Earlier I said that every time I place a stone it increases my territory (actual or potential) and decreases my opponent's (actually if it is a stupid move it will do the opposite!). In any given position not all moves are the same. A stone placed in one position can be worth much more or much less than a stone placed in another. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Typically in a game there will be small &quot;fights&quot; where players place their stones near each other, marking out their territory and limiting their opponent's. Meanwhile there are possibilities to start staking out territory in another part of the board or switch to a fight somewhere else where both players already have stones.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is very important in these situations is knowing when to stop one fight, because the potential gains have diminished, and to either switch to another fight or perhaps strike out into virgin territory. Sometimes this depends on hard calculation but often it is much more nebulous and not subject to calculation. As a weak player this is where a strong payer will crush me every time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What the computer does in these situations is use probabilistic methods to generate an expected score for a particular move. Sometimes the actual value will turn out to be a little bit less, sometimes a little bit more but over the long haul it will even out more or less. It will keep picking the move with the highest expected value with the expectation that over the long haul of a game small errors will cancel out and its strategy will win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is not a strategy which sounds familiar to chess players and is not one which is going to work in chess. It is something which sounds familiar to anybody who follows what goes on in the share markets. It sounds very similar to something called &quot;high frequency trading&quot; where computers will make thousands of small bets or just proposed bets every second to &quot;nickel and dime&quot; the market and perhaps even to move it very marginally in their favor over periods of milliseconds.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Already the financial markets are dominated by these kinds of algorithmic trading which suggests that this kind of program has already triumphed in a far more lucrative area than a board game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2016-03-14T10:56:25.963" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13922" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13913" CreationDate="2016-03-14T23:49:40.937" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a project called &lt;a href=&quot;http://spawk.fish/&quot;&gt;spawkfish&lt;/a&gt; that attempts to do just this. It is a neural network-based engine whose purpose &quot;is to explore how recent advances in computer Go can be applied to the world of computer Chess&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is a young project and the engine is still quite weak. Playing it is interesting, because its positional play is better than its tactics.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8762" LastActivityDate="2016-03-14T23:49:40.937" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13923" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13856" CreationDate="2016-03-15T00:40:08.310" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.lichess.org/ZmQyTtlz/black&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Kramnik v. Kasparov in Munich, 1994&lt;/a&gt;. Kasparov sacrificed his queen on move 12!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;Munich (Germany)&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;http://lichess.org/ZmQyTtlz&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;1994&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Vladimir Kramnik&quot;] &#xA;[Black &quot;Garry Kasparov&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;78&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;E92&quot;]&#xA;[Opening &quot;King's Indian Defense: Petrosian Variation, Stein Defense&quot;]&#xA;[Termination &quot;Normal&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 Bg7 4. e4 d6 5. Nf3 O-O 6. Be2 e5 7. d5 a5 &#xA;8. Bg5 h6 9. Bh4 Na6 10. O-O Bd7 11. Nd2 Nc5 12. b3 Nfxe4 &#xA;13. Bxd8 Nxc3 14. Qe1 Rfxd8 15. Rc1 Nxa2 16. Ra1 Nb4 17. Bd1 e4 &#xA;18. Rb1 Re8 19. Qe3 f5 20. h4 Rf8 21. g3 Rae8 22. Kg2 Nbd3 &#xA;23. Rg1 f4 24. gxf4 Rxf4 25. h5 g5 26. Rf1 Rh4 27. Rh1 Rf4 &#xA;28. Rf1 Ref8 29. f3 Rh4 30. fxe4 Nf4+ 31. Kg1 Ncd3 32. e5 Nxe5 &#xA;33. Rc1 Rh3 34. Nf3 g4 35. Nxe5 Rxe3 36. Nxd7 Nh3+ 37. Kg2 Rxf1 &#xA;38. Kxf1 g3 39. Kg2 Nf4+ 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8762" LastEditorUserId="8762" LastEditDate="2016-03-15T00:47:11.297" LastActivityDate="2016-03-15T00:47:11.297" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13925" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-03-15T12:24:03.350" Score="0" ViewCount="221" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am not a beginner, but I am absolutely not a practicing chess player, although I would like for that to change. I am inquiring about which direction I should take in advancing my abilities and understanding of the game. I am probably a 1300-1500 level player, but it is all free wheeling and personal experience. I haven't studied much and I am starting to realize that I am not going to improve if I don't actively work on my game. Hopefully someone can guide me in the right direction! Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9720" LastActivityDate="2016-03-15T12:38:58.957" Title="Chess knowledge and understanding" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ClosedDate="2016-03-15T22:03:51.640" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13926" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13925" CreationDate="2016-03-15T12:38:58.957" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Generally the first advice is always to train lots of tactics. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That means you should start solving tactical exercises regularly. On your level this will lead to rapid improvement. You can train online on a &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.wtharvey.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;variety&lt;/a&gt; of &lt;a href=&quot;http://chesstempo.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;sites&lt;/a&gt; or get a good beginner's book.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The second important point is just to play. Over time you will get an idea of where your weaknesses are and you can start to look up opening lines, specific endgames or strategic themes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2016-03-15T12:38:58.957" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13927" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-03-15T16:54:44.347" Score="7" ViewCount="773" Body="&lt;p&gt;Has anybody tried to verify the retrograde analysis of a game from the book &amp;quot;The Flanders Panel&amp;quot; by Pérez-Reverte? So far, I have found only a board reconstruction in a post on &lt;a href=&quot;http://bibliophilicnightowl.blogspot.com/2011/02/on-chessboard-ii-flanders-panel-by.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;The Bibliographic Night Owl.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I hope to one day find time to analyze the game with Reverte's book in my hands. I wonder if anybody has analyzed it already. Ff so, what are the findings? Does the description of the game in the book make sense?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[title &amp;quot;The position in Van Huys's painting&amp;quot;]&#xA;[fen &amp;quot;1nb5/pp1p4/PRP5/pR6/k1K1P3/2P5/2qP1P2/1NrnQB2 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is the analysis as described in the book.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;IT'S A REAL GAME,&amp;quot; said Muñoz. &amp;quot;A bit strange, but perfectly logical. Black was the last to move.&amp;quot;&#xA;...&#xA;&amp;quot;The tricky question is: Who took the knight?&amp;quot;&#xA;&amp;quot;You mean the white knight,&amp;quot; said Muñoz. &amp;quot;There's only one left on the board.&amp;quot;&#xA;...&#xA;&amp;quot;Now, we've looked at the pieces actually on the board, but in order to analyse the game, it's essential to know which ones are off the board too, the pieces that have already been taken.&amp;quot; He looked at the picture. &amp;quot;What's the player on the left called?&amp;quot;&#xA;&amp;quot;Ferdinand of Ostenburg.&amp;quot;&#xA;&amp;quot;Well, Ferdinand of Ostenburg, who's playing Black, has taken the following white pieces.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;That is: a bishop, a knight and two pawns. For his part, Roger de Arras has taken the following pieces from his rival.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;That's four pawns, one rook and a bishop.&amp;quot; Muñoz looked thoughtfully at the sketch. &amp;quot;When you look at the game from that point of view, White would seem to have an advantage over his opponent. But, if I've understood correctly, that's not the problem. The question is who took the white knight. Clearly it must have been one of the black pieces, which may seem to be stating the obvious, but we have to go step by step here, right from the beginning.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;This morning I reconstructed the two previous moves,&amp;quot; he said, without a trace of boastfulness. &amp;quot;Then I ran into a problem. Something to do with the unusual position of the pawns.&amp;quot; He pointed to the chess pieces in the picture. &amp;quot;We're not dealing with a conventional game here.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;According to the way the pieces are distributed,&amp;quot; Muñoz went on, &amp;quot;and bearing in mind that Black has just moved, the first thing to find out is which of the black pieces made that last move.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;The easiest way to do that is to discount the black pieces that could not have been moved because they're blocked or because of the particular position they're in. It's clear that none of the three black pawns, on a7, b7 or d7 could have moved, because they're all in the position they occupied at the start of the game. The fourth and last pawn, on a5, couldn't have moved either, because it's between a white pawn and its own black king. We can also discount the black bishop on c8, still in its initial position, because the bishop moves diagonally and both of his two possible diagonal paths are blocked by the black pawns that have not as yet been moved.&#xA;As for the black knight on b8, that wasn't moved either, because it could only have got there from a6, c6 or d7 and those three squares are already occupied by other pieces. Do you understand?&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Perfectly,&amp;quot; said Julia, who was leaning over the board following his explanation. &amp;quot;That means that six out of the ten pieces could not have moved.&amp;quot;&#xA;&amp;quot;More than six. The black rook on cl couldn't move, since it only moves in a straight line and its three surrounding squares are all blocked. So none of those seven black pieces could have made the last move. And we can also discount the black knight on dl.&amp;quot;&#xA;&amp;quot;Why?&amp;quot; asked César. &amp;quot;It could have come from squares b2 or e3.&amp;quot;&#xA;&amp;quot;No, it couldn't. On either of those squares, that knight would have had the white king on c4 in check; in retrograde chess that's what we might call an imaginary check. And no knight, or any other chess piece for that matter, with a king in check is going to abandon that position voluntarily; that's simply impossible. Instead of withdrawing, it would capture the enemy king, thus ending the game. Since such a situation is impossible, we can deduce that the knight on dl could not have moved either.&amp;quot;&#xA;&amp;quot;That,&amp;quot; said Julia, who had kept her eyes glued to the board, &amp;quot;reduces the possibilities to two pieces then, doesn't it?&amp;quot; She put a finger on each of them. &amp;quot;The king and the queen.&amp;quot;&#xA;&amp;quot;Right. That last move could have been made only by the king or the queen.&amp;quot; Muñoz studied the board and gestured in the direction of the black king, without actually touching it. &amp;quot;First, let's analyse the position of the king, which can move one square in any direction. That means he could have arrived at his present position on a4 from b4, b3 or a3 ... in theory.&amp;quot;&#xA;&amp;quot;Even I can see what you mean about b4 and b3,&amp;quot; remarked César. &amp;quot;No king can be on a square next to another king. Isn't that right?&amp;quot;&#xA;&amp;quot;Right. On b4 the black king would have been in check to the white rook, king and pawn. And on b3, he'd have been in check to rook and king. Both of which are impossible positions.&amp;quot;&#xA;&amp;quot;Couldn't he have come from below, from a3?&amp;quot;&#xA;&amp;quot;No, never. It would then be in check to the white knight on bl, which, given its position, is clearly not a recent arrival, but must have got there several moves ago.&amp;quot; Muñoz looked at them both. &amp;quot;So it's another case of imaginary check showing us that it wasn't the king that moved.&amp;quot;&#xA;&amp;quot;Therefore the last move,&amp;quot; said Julia, &amp;quot;was made by the black queen.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9382" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-10-14T18:42:26.647" LastActivityDate="2020-10-14T18:42:26.647" Title="Retrograde analysis of a position in &quot;The Flanders Panel&quot;" Tags="&lt;problems&gt;&lt;retrograde-analysis&gt;&lt;fiction&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="13928" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-03-15T17:31:18.360" Score="6" ViewCount="2308" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are there any tricky, unusual replies by White against the Scandinavian Defense? I mean, avoiding 1. e4 d5 2. exd5, since, especially after 2... Nf6, for what I know, most of the tricks are on Black's side.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How about 1. e4 d5 2. e5!? or other unusual things like this one... a gambit maybe? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am not asking for theoretical soundness but for surprise effect, especially for blitz or rapid games. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there any reasonably detailed analysis of a few of these lines on the Net or in published books, DVDs, etc. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastEditorUserId="18475" LastEditDate="2019-04-06T15:16:32.470" LastActivityDate="2019-04-06T16:08:45.607" Title="Unusual replies to Scandinavian Defense" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;gambits&gt;&lt;blitz&gt;&lt;scandinavian-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13929" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13928" CreationDate="2016-03-15T17:35:33.217" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Spielmann Gambit&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;B02&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/ b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;[Setup &quot;1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 d5 2. Nc3 (2...d4 {Probably the best move} 3. Nce2 {And probably the only reasonable retreat. White is losing the advantage of playing as White side here, that's true. That's why this is an 'unusual' reply. Both sides gonna fight for e5 square in this position. White can go for f2f4 and Ng1-f3.}) Nf6 3. e5 Nfd7 ( 3... d4 {Black dodges the gambit, resulting and open, even game with even material} 4. exf6 dxc3 5. fxg7 cxd2+ ) 4. e6 {Spielmann Gambit! White gives up a pawn to disorganize Blacks pieces, and will try to keep Black disorganized as long as possible. White has also good attacking possibilities on king side.} fxe6&#xA;5. d4 g6 (5... e5? { Trying to free up immediately, but... } 6.dxe5 e6 (6... Nxe5? 7. Qxd5 {Black has no material advantage and white has better position}) { Black gave up his extra pawn for reaching this defensive position. Worthy? I don't think so. White has a good play without giving up material.} ) {I think this is the best move for Black here. Fianchettoing bishop would give black a nice control over black squares in the center. Also ...g6 move closes e8-h5 diagonal, which will be used by white queen in some variations}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is my favorite and totally awesome for a white player who wants to get initiative and attack. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After 5.d4, white plays to maintain control of central black squares, avoiding blacks freeing move ...e5, not letting black to develop, and attack from king-side using f7. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9030" LastEditorUserId="9030" LastEditDate="2016-03-15T19:29:51.717" LastActivityDate="2016-03-15T19:29:51.717" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13930" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13928" CreationDate="2016-03-15T19:34:37.317" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;1.e4 d5 2.d4 tranposes to the Blackmar-Diemer gambit (1.d4 d5 2.e4 dxe4 3.Nc3)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4543" LastEditorUserId="4543" LastEditDate="2016-03-16T12:14:29.257" LastActivityDate="2016-03-16T12:14:29.257" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13932" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13856" CreationDate="2016-03-16T00:18:19.740" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are so many games to choose from! The following queen sacrifice was quite shocking, at least the opponent didn't anticipate it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Zurich Candidates&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;1953.09.23&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;14&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Yuri Averbakh&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Alexander Kotov&quot;]&#xA;[StartPly &quot;59&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 d6 3.Nf3 Nbd7 4.Nc3 e5 5.e4 Be7 6.Be2 O-O 7.O-O&#xA;c6 8.Qc2 Re8 9.Rd1 Bf8 10.Rb1 a5 11.d5 Nc5 12.Be3 Qc7 13.h3&#xA;Bd7 14.Rbc1 g6 15.Nd2 Rab8 16.Nb3 Nxb3 17.Qxb3 c5 18.Kh2 Kh8&#xA;19.Qc2 Ng8 20.Bg4 Nh6 21.Bxd7 Qxd7 22.Qd2 Ng8 23.g4 f5 24.f3&#xA;Be7 25.Rg1 Rf8 26.Rcf1 Rf7 27.gxf5 gxf5 28.Rg2 f4 29.Bf2 Rf6&#xA;30.Ne2 Qxh3+ 31.Kxh3 Rh6+ 32.Kg4 Nf6+ 33.Kf5 Nd7 34.Rg5 Rf8+&#xA;35.Kg4 Nf6+ 36.Kf5 Ng8+ 37.Kg4 Nf6+ 38.Kf5 Nxd5+ 39.Kg4 Nf6+&#xA;40.Kf5 Ng8+ 41.Kg4 Bxg5 42.Kxg5 Rf7 43.Bh4 Rg6+ 44.Kh5 Rfg7&#xA;45.Bg5 Rxg5+ 46.Kh4 Nf6 47.Ng3 Rxg3 48.Qxd6 R3g6 49.Qb8+ Rg8&#xA;0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1485" LastActivityDate="2016-03-16T00:18:19.740" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13933" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13935" CreationDate="2016-03-16T17:04:49.430" Score="6" ViewCount="4913" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was playing &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/echess/game?id=120209308&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; game. I was white. We reached a point where my opponent could checkmate me in one move (by moving Rook to C1) but I forced him to a draw by stating that I would constantly check him to all eternity using my two rooks. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He agreed to a draw but after a while it didn't &lt;em&gt;feel&lt;/em&gt; right to me. I regretted forcing him to draw, I felt it was cheap of me to do so, and I think that he deserved a win. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So my question is: &lt;strong&gt;Is it ethical to force a draw like this one?&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8133" LastEditorUserId="3399" LastEditDate="2016-04-07T06:18:15.580" LastActivityDate="2016-04-07T06:18:15.580" Title="Is it ethical to force a draw via perpetual check?" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;check&gt;&lt;perpetual&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="6" ClosedDate="2017-06-10T08:26:08.490" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13934" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="545" CreationDate="2016-03-16T17:19:40.810" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;To add a further point:   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Doubled rooks are exceptionally powerful as well as flexible, one can reposition them while maintaining the cover for each other which you cannot do with two knights.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Also the single to eventual doubling up rooks on the seventh file is typically a game winning technique which forks the pawn structure while serving as a solid base to assault the enemy king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1081" LastActivityDate="2016-03-16T17:19:40.810" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13935" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13933" CreationDate="2016-03-16T17:42:30.800" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a rules in chess called &lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threefold_repetition&quot;&gt;Threefold repetition rule&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;. This rule states that you can claim a draw if you are about to repeat the the position for a third time. This subsumes a situation called &lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perpetual_check&quot;&gt;perpetual check&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; which also leads to a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So what you did in your game wasn't a case of extortion or abusing a flaw in the game - it was completely by the rules and everyday thousands of games are drawn in exactly that fashion. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS: You also could have stopped the mating threat by playing Rc7, this would have given you a winning position as far as I can see. So by resigning you actually would have turned a winning position into a loss.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2016-03-16T17:42:30.800" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13936" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13928" CreationDate="2016-03-17T05:17:53.677" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;1.e4 d5 2.Nf3 transposes into the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uwqlAvVtdE&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Tenison Ganbit&lt;/a&gt; (1.Nf3 d5 2.e4).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2299" LastActivityDate="2016-03-17T05:17:53.677" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13937" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13927" CreationDate="2016-03-17T06:38:37.593" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately, I can't really speak to making 'chess sense' of the game &amp;mdash; the position is sufficiently artificial that it's implausible for it to have arosen out of a sensible game (for instance, whatever White's move before Black's most recent Qb2-c2, they could simply have captured the Black queen instead).  Instead, I'll speak to the game from a retrograde analysis perspective, and particularly the question of 'what can we necessarily say about the capture of the White Knight?'.  As it turns out, the answer is 'next to nothing without any further information.'  To see this, let's try and get from the position we're given to a position that's more amenable to direct analysis.  First, let’s get the White pieces towards home and untangle some of the Black pieces in the process: retract Qb2-c2 (the only Black move, as noted), then WKd3-c4, BNe3-d1, WKe2-d3, BNf5-e3, WPc2-c3, BQg7-b2, WNa3-b1, BNe7-f5, WRh5-b5, BRb1-c1, WRh1-h5, BRb5-b1, WQd1-e1, BRh5-b5, WKe1-e2, BRh8-h5, WRb1-b6, BKb4-a4 (note that by Black unmoving ‘into’ check, he’s actually moving out of it!), WRa1-b1 (White is now ‘forced’ to undo the check), BKc5-b4, Wnb1-a3, BKd6-c5, WPe3-e4, BNg8-e7, WPe2-e3, BKe7-d6.  This leaves us with this position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;1nb3nr/pp1pk1q1/P1P5/p7/8/8/2PPPP2/RN1QKB1R w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From here, there are a few salient features of the position to notice:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;White is missing two pieces (the knight of mystery and their black-squared bishop) and two pawns; Black is missing two pieces (their black-squared bishop and a rook) and four pawns.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Two of White’s missing units were captured by the pawn presently on a5, with the captures happening on b6 and a5.  (It would appear that either these were the bishop and knight or that one of the pawns must have promoted, but this isn’t necessarily so: Black could have captured White’s b-pawn on b6, and the White pawn currently on c6 could have been the e-pawn, with the White pawn at e4 in the original position coming from g2 &amp;mdash; it would take some effort but I think such a game could be constructed)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Black’s queen’s rook couldn’t have gotten out past the bishop on c8; it was captured either on a8 or b8.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Beyond these constraints, though, there’s very little restriction on the game; it’s straightforward to get to the intermediate position shown above with the missing white knight having been captured by the Black pawn on either b6 or a5, or by any of the other Black pieces (except of course the bishop on c8), including even a capture by the missing rook on either a8 or b8 &amp;mdash;  it’s even possible that &lt;em&gt;both&lt;/em&gt; of the ‘original’ White Knights were captured and that the knight on the board is a promoted Knight!  As an example, here’s a game leading to the intermediate position above with the White Knight having been captured by the missing Black rook:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Proof game&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Nf3 Na6 2.Nd4 h5 3.Nc6 h4 4.Nb8 Rxb8 5.g3 g5 6.gxh4 Bh6 7.hxg5 f6 8.gxf6 Be3 9.fxe7 Bc5 10.b4 Kf7 11.bxc5 Qf8 12.e8=N Qg7 13.Nf6 Ra8 14.Nd5 Rb8 15.Nb6 cxb6 16.Bb2 Nb4 17.Be5 Nd5 18.Bxb8 Ndf6 19.Be5 Ne7 20.Bc3 Nc6 21.a3 Rxh2 22.a4 Rh8 23.a5 Nb8 24.a6 Ng8 25.c6 Nh6 26.Ba5 bxa5 27.Rh5 Ke7 28.Rh3 Ng8 29.Rh1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4270" LastActivityDate="2016-03-17T06:38:37.593" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13938" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13933" CreationDate="2016-03-17T10:40:34.820" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In a game of chess you always try to find the best move(s). If you are threatened to be mated, you are allowed to do whatever is possible to avoid this.&#xA;By forcing eternal chess you make the best move(s) in this situation.&#xA;From an ethical view this is not condemnable, since you haven't used a trick to gain the draw.&#xA;Your opponent should have checked if eternal chess is possible before threatening mate and giving you the chance to eternally check him. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9700" LastActivityDate="2016-03-17T10:40:34.820" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13939" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13933" CreationDate="2016-03-17T13:31:11.070" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;This really is a very interesting question. Chess is a game, a social activity, and like other social activities it has developed conventional manners players are expected to follow.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, the rules of chess have been purposely constructed and refined so that by playing to win&amp;mdash;or, if one cannot win, at least to draw&amp;mdash;you support rather than contradict the conventional manners of the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your case of perpetual check, the &lt;em&gt;implicit&lt;/em&gt; question regards which of the two of you, whether the checker or the checked, has the responsibility to yield. In chess, the long-settled convention is that the checked has the responsibility to yield. Indeed, as another answerer has noted, the very rules of the game have evolved to support the view that the checked must yield. Indeed, the &lt;em&gt;explicit&lt;/em&gt; rules are even better than that, for the checked need not do anything but respond to checks a few times, after which the threefold-repetition rule comes into effect and the game is a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is normal, perfectly conventional play in chess. Actually, like the pin and the fork, the perpetual check is kind of a cool maneuver; you have to be aware that a losing opponent might do it to you, and you have to guard against this if you can. Perpetual check (formally, a threat of threefold repetition) has already been done this very year in the FIDE Candidates tournament, and was also done in recent years during a World Championship match. No one thought anything of it: each perpetual check was just a normal, polite, standard draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="315" LastEditorUserId="315" LastEditDate="2016-03-18T15:39:44.013" LastActivityDate="2016-03-18T15:39:44.013" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13940" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13933" CreationDate="2016-03-17T16:42:00.803" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Perpetual check is a chess tactic, like any other. And there is nothing unethical to apply a tactic obviously.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9030" LastActivityDate="2016-03-17T16:42:00.803" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13942" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13856" CreationDate="2016-03-18T08:43:21.943" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The earliest sound positional sacrifice of the queen is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 d6 2.e4 Nc6 3.Nf3 Bg4 4.d5 Ne5? 5.Nxe5! Bxd1 6.Bb5+ c6 7.dxc6 Qa5+ 8. Nc3 O-O-O 9. Nc4 Qb4 10.a3 Qc5 11.Be3 Qh5 12.Rxd1 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This leads to a position where white has two pieces, a pawn and fantastic positional compensation for the queen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9423" LastEditorUserId="3831" LastEditDate="2016-03-18T09:34:02.860" LastActivityDate="2016-03-18T09:34:02.860" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13943" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9306" CreationDate="2016-03-18T13:21:17.557" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let me suggest another way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You are assuming that the game had sounds in the form of files that are reusable. This may not be the case.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;But why not start searching for files yourself with search terms like &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.google.nl/search?q=mp3+chess+pieces&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;mp3 chess pieces&lt;/a&gt; (or &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.google.nl/search?q=chess+pieces+sounds&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;chess pieces sounds&lt;/a&gt; or &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.google.nl/search?q=sound+effects+chess+moves&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;sound effects chess moves&lt;/a&gt;, or other variations)? These will lead to e.g.:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.soundsnap.com/taxonomy/term/12103/alpha&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Soundsnap board game sounds&lt;/a&gt; (not free)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://audiojungle.net/item/chess-pieces-and-board/11657386&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Sound Hills Chess Pieces and Board sounds&lt;/a&gt; (not free)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.pond5.com/sound-effects/1/chess-piece.html#1/2080/chess,piece&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Pond5 Chess piece sound effects&lt;/a&gt; (not free)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The rest is left &lt;em&gt;as an exercise to the reader&lt;/em&gt; ;-)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I found that chess.com actually has &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/sound-fx-for-moves&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;a question about this&lt;/a&gt; as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any of these may good enough for you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4378" LastActivityDate="2016-03-18T13:21:17.557" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13944" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-03-18T15:15:16.993" Score="2" ViewCount="439" Body="&lt;p&gt;Implementing SEE extensively in my chess AI but can't seem to speed it up. Just using depth and MaxDepth. I'd like to add heuristics similar to negascout, quiescence, lazy eval. Maybe something like alpha beta. Trade off minimal accuracy for performance. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another question is what to return &quot;in check&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;function _see(sq, fen, depth, maxDepth, color, chess) {&#xA;    &quot;use strict&quot;;&#xA;    if (chess.fen() !== fen) {&#xA;        console.error(&quot;s fen/chess sync error&quot;);&#xA;        chess.load(fen);&#xA;    }&#xA;&#xA;    if (chess.in_checkmate() || chess.game_over()) {&#xA;        return MATE;&#xA;    } else if (chess.in_check()) {&#xA;        return 0; // ????&#xA;    }&#xA;&#xA;    var value = 0, moves, index, move_score, tfen, foo, bar;&#xA;&#xA;    if (depth &amp;lt; maxDepth) {&#xA;        moves = chess.moves({&#xA;            square: sq,&#xA;            verbose: true&#xA;        });&#xA;        if (moves.length &amp;gt; 0) {&#xA;            counter.seeNodes = counter.seeNodes + 1;&#xA;            moves = _.chain(moves)&#xA;                //only captures&#xA;                .reject(function (e) {&#xA;                    return !e.hasOwnProperty('captured');&#xA;                })&#xA;                //material MVV&#xA;                .sortBy(function (s) {&#xA;                    return evalPiece(s.piece);&#xA;                })&#xA;                //captures LVA&#xA;                .sortBy(function (s) {&#xA;                    return -evalPiece(s.captured);&#xA;                })&#xA;                .value();&#xA;            //counter.sDepth = Math.max(depth, counter.sDepth);&#xA;            //counter.maxSDepth = Math.max(maxDepth, counter.maxSDepth);        console.error(JSON.stringify(moves));&#xA;&#xA;            for (index = 0; index &amp;lt; moves.length; index += 1) {&#xA;                foo = chess.move(moves[index]);&#xA;                if (foo === null) {&#xA;                    console.error(&quot;see move generated error, aborting loop&quot;);&#xA;                    break;&#xA;                }&#xA;                tfen = chess.fen();&#xA;                value = Math.max(0, evalPiece(foo.captured) - _see(sq, tfen, depth + 1, maxDepth, -color, chess));&#xA;                bar = chess.undo();&#xA;                if (bar === null) {&#xA;                    console.error(&quot;see: bar=null&quot;);&#xA;                }&#xA;            }&#xA;&#xA;        }&#xA;&#xA;    }&#xA;    return value;&#xA;}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9841" LastEditorUserId="9841" LastEditDate="2016-03-18T23:12:43.000" LastActivityDate="2016-08-30T16:22:27.167" Title="Static exchange Evaluation (SEE) optimization" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;programming&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13945" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13950" CreationDate="2016-03-18T16:40:43.803" Score="10" ViewCount="640" Body="&lt;p&gt;I realize that you get rather a lot of questions from lower-rated players who ask, should I try this? should I play that? how can I improve? Many of you have been extraordinarily patient with these questions over the years; but, still, I have never myself thought of such a question worth asking you until today.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Consider a student of chess who plays in the ELO 1400-to-1700 range. Might it be wiser for such a student to study old opening lines from old books, printed during the precomputer era, than to study the new, computer-analyzed lines?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;ARONIAN, CARUANA, AND THE REASON FOR MY QUESTION&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The question occurred to me while reading Chessbase's &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.chessbase.com/post/candidates-r05-fabiano-s-benoni&quot;&gt;recent report&lt;/a&gt; of Aronian's entertaining attack against Caruana during the Candidates tournament. The attack failed; the game was drawn; but, of course, when a titan like Caruana plays black, one does not assume that the draw proved Aronian's strategy bad! On the contrary, both players played this game in a most interesting way, beginning to end; so I am now wondering if Aronian's approach does not conceal an important lesson for a player like me, a lesson I have heretofore overlooked.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The question regards which &lt;em&gt;kinds&lt;/em&gt; of opening lines are profitable, or edifying, to study.  And by &lt;em&gt;kinds,&lt;/em&gt; I do not mean open game, closed game, tactical, positional, symmetric, asymmetric, gambit, with rooks, without rooks, hypermodern, classical, etc. (I like almost all those kinds). I mean what Aronian meant during his recent Candidates game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, if you rate around ELO 1500 as I do, you never really begin to understand a Candidates game without the benefit of master commentary. I should never have discovered any lesson in Aronian's play on my own! Fortunately, Sagar Shah of ChessBase gives us the commentary; and, after Aronian's 8. Be2, this is what Shah writes:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Aronian chooses the classical setup of the good olden days with Be2, Nd2, Qc2 etc. Much more modern and aggressive is Bd3 followed by h3. But once you play something modern, it becomes theoretical, while with Be2 there quite some scope for creativity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does this mean that, by trying to play something modern, the ELO 1400-to-1700 player denies himself the crucial opportunity to develop needed creativity?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If so, I had never thought of this before.  Do today's computer-analyzed lines impose a sterile, insightless, unprincipled quality upon the player who studies them?  Maybe I should instead dust off some hearty old books?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;SOURCES?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, suppose that it were indeed preferable to study mainly old, precomputer-era opening lines. What would be a good, available source from which to learn those?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Admittedly, aged in my late forties, I have no pretensions to master chess.  I just like playing chess occasionally, but if I could boost my play from 1500 to, say, 1600 or 1700, without turning chess from an occasional hobby to a serious avocation, I should like to do so. This is why, if Aronian has a lesson to teach, I should like to learn it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="315" LastEditorUserId="315" LastEditDate="2016-03-18T16:50:21.960" LastActivityDate="2016-03-20T14:18:52.390" Title="Because of the distortion of the computer era, is it preferable to study mainly old opening lines?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;master-games&gt;&lt;study&gt;&lt;candidates&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13946" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-03-18T18:01:10.660" Score="2" ViewCount="78" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've built a standard chess AI and trying to add a knowledge base. A rule based system beyond negascout and eval. It has all the standard parts, and now I want to dabble in novel directions. Tried &lt;a href=&quot;http://chessprograming.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;chessprogramming&lt;/a&gt;.com but not any pseudo code for using a knowledge base, just heuristics. Opening / endgame table spaces are too scripted but inspiring. So are piece-square tables. Both seem too rigid and force a curtain game type. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Komodo is said to have this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Best thing I can think of is a series of &quot;if pattern then else action&quot; similar to Alicebot Chat AI. Any ideas of how to implement a knowledge base that works inside an eval or negascout. Something that adds to selectivity or beyond the normal eval heuristics. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9841" LastEditorUserId="9841" LastEditDate="2016-03-19T00:38:12.620" LastActivityDate="2016-03-19T00:38:12.620" Title="Adding AI knowledge base" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;programming&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2016-03-21T02:29:58.847" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13948" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-03-19T03:33:46.217" Score="2" ViewCount="467" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am learning chess endgames, and I am looking for a software/website, where I can just practice end games with a computer having limited pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, if I want to practice queen mate with a lone king. I should have only my queen and my king along with the opponent lone king, and the computer should play the opponent move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there any software or website which have this functionality?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9849" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T18:26:30.883" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T18:26:30.883" Title="Engame trainer software" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="13949" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13948" CreationDate="2016-03-19T03:39:56.640" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You should be able to set up the position in almost any chess playing program. You would likely get the best competition from programs that have access to the endgame tablebases.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9025" LastActivityDate="2016-03-19T03:39:56.640" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13950" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13945" CreationDate="2016-03-19T04:35:41.490" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I never played Sicilian Defense as Black for this reason. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A quote from Larsen:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Had I not played the Sicilian with Black I could have saved myself the trouble of studying for more than 20 years all the more popular lines of this opening, which comprise probably more than 25 percent of all published opening theory!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Constantly following updates and remembering a modern, popular line has no benefit for a non-professional player (if you are professional, that's different). Instead, a chess player who wants to improve himself/herself should focus on understanding openings (not remembering them).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What improves your chess is to understand an opening, ideas behind, advantages, disadvantages etc. Remembering openings are like remembering opening traps, they can help you win the game without much effort, but they don't improve your chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A quote from Fischer, about memorizing opening theory:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I don't know when, but I think we are approaching that [the end of chess] very rapidly. I think we need a change in the rules of chess. For example, I think it would be a good idea to shuffle the first row of the pieces by computer ... and this way you will get rid of all the theory. One reason that computers are strong in chess is that they have access to enormous theory [...] I think if you can turn off the computer's book, which I've done when I've played the computer, they are still rather weak, at least at the opening part of the game, so I think this would be a good improvement, and also just for humans. It is much better, I think, because chess is becoming more and more simply memorization, because the power of memorization is so tremendous in chess now. Theory is so advanced, it used to be theory to maybe 10 or 15 moves, 18 moves; now, theory is going to 30 moves, 40 moves. I think I saw one game in Informator, the Yugoslav chess publication, where they give an N [theoretical novelty] to a new move, and I recall this new move was around move 50. [...] I think it is true, we are coming to the end of the history of chess with the present rules, but I don't say we have to do away with the present rules. I mean, people can still play, but I think it's time for those who want to start playing on new rules that I think are better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He propose random starting position chess which is widely know as Chess960, because chess is becoming more and more a memory game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My experience tells me, if I play an opening, which is playable but not the best, and &lt;em&gt;out of the book&lt;/em&gt; I get better results comparing to a popular line. Because I know the ideas behind, while my opponents often only memorize the best continuations. This is similar to what Aronian did in his game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, what sources are there? Actually, every good opening book covers the ideas behind, you don't need special sources. Just focus on the ideas next time when you read them, instead of variations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Edit&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I remembered that this FritzTrainer with topic of &lt;strong&gt;creativity in e4&lt;/strong&gt; was really good: &lt;a href=&quot;https://shop.chessbase.com/en/products/e4_for_the_creative&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://shop.chessbase.com/en/products/e4_for_the_creative&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9030" LastEditorUserId="9030" LastEditDate="2016-03-20T14:18:52.390" LastActivityDate="2016-03-20T14:18:52.390" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13951" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13948" CreationDate="2016-03-19T04:40:26.897" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Fritz has a mate training function for this. But you can use any chess engine, with any chess GUI to setup a mate exercise position, and play against the engine. You don't need something special.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://stockfishchess.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Stockfish&lt;/a&gt; is the best free engine at the moment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And depending on your operating system, you can find a GUI to use Stockfish.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9030" LastActivityDate="2016-03-19T04:40:26.897" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13952" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13954" CreationDate="2016-03-19T04:49:03.480" Score="8" ViewCount="608" Body="&lt;p&gt;On his page on &lt;a href=&quot;https://timkr.home.xs4all.nl/tour/horse.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Harry Goldsteen's &amp;quot;Horse Concoction,&amp;quot;&lt;/a&gt;, Tim Krabbé gives this position by &amp;quot;N. Höeg, 1935.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;4k3/1p4pp/p1pQ1p2/1q1pp3/8/8/1K6/8 b - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &amp;quot;0&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With the stipulation &amp;quot;add 10 white rooks; black mates in 1,&amp;quot; he then claims that &amp;quot;Retrograde-analysis will prove that these Rooks can only stand on a1, a2, a7, b4, c1, c2, c5, c7, d7 and f7, allowing Black to mate with Qxb4.&amp;quot; This is the claimed solution,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;4k3/RpRR1Rpp/p1pQ1p2/1qRpp3/1R6/8/RKR5/R1R5 b - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &amp;quot;0&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I don't see how the supposed solution position could be legal. All of White's pawns have promoted, but because all of Black's pawns are present they must all have captured at least once to do so. But Black has only 5 missing pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9850" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-12-15T00:20:01.890" LastActivityDate="2020-12-15T00:20:01.890" Title="How is this retrograde analysis position legal?" Tags="&lt;problems&gt;&lt;retrograde-analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="13954" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13952" CreationDate="2016-03-19T06:48:52.193" Score="16" Body="&lt;p&gt;White has made 6 captures. Clearly the h-pawn made at least 2, and the g-pawn 1. Meanwhile, the b-pawn made at least 1 (a7/c7), and the a-pawn at least 2 (to the b-file, then to either a7/c7). So White's c-d-e-f pawns made no captures, and thus Black's central pawn fence must have at some point had holes to allow them through. This requires 4 pawn captures, which is all that White has lost (knights and bishops).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is a stupid method.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. h4 Nh6 2. e4 f6 3. e5 Kf7 4. e6+ Kg6 5. f4 Ng4 6. f5+ Kh5 7. Nf3 a6 &#xA;8. Ne5 fxe5 9. f6 Ra7 10. f7 Ra8 11. d4 Ra7 12. Bg5 Ra8 13. Bf6 exf6 &#xA;14. Na3 Bb4+ 15. Ke2 Bd2 16. f8=R Bg5 17. hxg5+ Nh2 18. e7 Kh4 19. e8=R Ra7 &#xA;20. Re6 Ra8 21. Rb6 Ra7 22. Rb3 Ra8 23. Re8 Ra7 24. Re6 Ra8 25. Reb6 Ra7 &#xA;26. R6b4 Ra8 27. d5+ Kh5 28. g6 Rf8 29. Rg1 Rf7 30. gxf7 Ng4 31. f8=R Nh6 &#xA;32. Re8 Nf7 33. g4+ Kh4 34. g5+ Kh5 35. Re6 Nc6 36. g6 Nb8 37. gxf7 Nc6 &#xA;38. f8=R Nb8 39. Rc6 Ra7 40. Rcc3 Ra8 41. Re8 Ra7 42. Re6 Ra8 43. Rec6 Ra7 &#xA;44. R6c4 Ra8 45. Rcg4 Ra7 46. R4g2 Ra8 47. Rbg4 Ra7 48. R4g3 Ra8 49. d6 c6 &#xA;50. Nc4 Ra7 51. Ne3 Ra8 52. Nd5 cxd5 53. Rcf3 Kh6 54. c4 Ra7 55. c5 Ra8 &#xA;56. c6 Ra7 57. c7 Ra8 58. Kf2 Ra7 59. Bb5 Ra8 60. Bc6 dxc6 61. Qe2 Bf5 &#xA;62. c8=R Qe7 63. d7 Bd3 64. d8=R Bb5 65. a4 Ra7 66. axb5 Nd7 67. b6 Nc5 &#xA;68. bxa7 Ne6 69. Rbe3 Nc7 70. b4 Qf7 71. a8=R Qg6 72. b5 Qg5 73. b6 Kg6 &#xA;74. bxc7 Kf7 75. Ra7 Qf5 76. Rgc1 Qe6 77. Ke1 Qe7 78. Rd6 Qe6 79. Rcd8 Qe7 &#xA;80. R8d7 Kf8 81. c8=R+ Qe8 82. Rcc7 Qf7 83. Re6 Qe7 84. Kd2 Qd6 85. Ree7 &#xA;Qc5 86. Rf7+ Ke8 87. Rec3 Qb5 88. Qc4 Qb6 89. Qc5 Qb5 90. Qd6 Qb6 91. Kc2 &#xA;Qc5 92. Kb2 Qc4 93. Rca3 Qc5 94. R3a2 Qb6+ 95. Rb3 Qb4 96. Rgc3 Qb5 97. Rc5 &#xA;Qb6 98. Rb4 Qb5 99. Rgc2 Qxb4#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9419" LastEditorUserId="9419" LastEditDate="2016-03-19T07:02:54.133" LastActivityDate="2016-03-19T07:02:54.133" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13955" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13948" CreationDate="2016-03-19T08:33:42.813" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;For Android you have the &lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.convekta.android.lomonosovtb&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;7-piece chess endgame training&lt;/a&gt; App, with sets of exercises against Lomonosov tablebases and classified by remaining material per side.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2311" LastActivityDate="2016-03-19T08:33:42.813" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13956" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13959" CreationDate="2016-03-19T14:28:31.097" Score="8" ViewCount="369" Body="&lt;p&gt;Gambit openings are usually based on sacrificing pieces to have much better piece development. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some gambits, like Queen's gambit, or King's gambit, I can understand the idea. However, I cannot evaluate Danish gambit. White sacrifices two pawns, has two developed bishops, but Black seems to be able to cover up pretty fast.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. d4 exd4 3. c3 dxc3 4. Bc4 cxb2 5. Bxb2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although it is obvious that Black has no piece development, how can White play to take advantage of it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8209" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2016-05-16T13:08:09.553" LastActivityDate="2016-05-16T13:08:09.553" Title="How to take advantage of under-development of opposing pieces?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;gambits&gt;&lt;development&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13957" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8882" CreationDate="2016-03-19T16:41:20.937" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I take the pawn and use it to cramp White's QN.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. b4 cxb4 3. a3 d5! 4. exd5 Qxd5 5. Nf3 e5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black has a pawn, controls the center, and it's difficult for White to develop to effective squares.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9684" LastActivityDate="2016-03-19T16:41:20.937" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13958" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-03-20T02:47:22.567" Score="7" ViewCount="2285" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there an online chess evaluation engine with a REST API? I'd like to be able to send a game or position (with castling ability presumably) to a simple REST API and get back the positional evaluation from a reasonably strong engine. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9856" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-07-04T23:29:00.777" LastActivityDate="2019-07-05T08:24:54.143" Title="Is there an online chess evaluation engine with a REST API?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;programming&gt;&lt;evaluation&gt;&lt;online&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="10" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13959" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13956" CreationDate="2016-03-20T15:24:13.410" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is an example for how it can go wrong for Black side.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;B02&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Jacques Mieses&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Monte Carlo&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Frank James Marshall&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/ b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;[Setup &quot;1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.d4 exd4 3.c3 dxc3 4.Bc4 cxb2 5.Bxb2 d6 6.Ne2 Nc6&#xA;7.O-O Be6 8.Bd5 Nf6 9.Qb3 Qc8 10.Nf4 Nd8 11.Bxf6 gxf6 12.Nh5&#xA;c6 13.Re1 Be7 14.Qf3 Rg8 15.Nxf6+ Bxf6 16.Qxf6 cxd5 17.exd5&#xA;Rg6 18.Qh8+ Kd7 19.Nc3 Bxd5 20.Qe8+ Kc7 21.Nxd5+ Kb8 22.Rac1&#xA;Nc6 23.Rxc6 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9030" LastActivityDate="2016-03-20T15:24:13.410" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13960" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11106" CreationDate="2016-03-20T16:46:27.787" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chessbase 6 light version, free if you can find it, has an option to view the notation in descriptive notation.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://forums.ubi.com/showthread.php/499956-How-to-Convert-Descriptive-to-Algebraic-Forums&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://forums.ubi.com/showthread.php/499956-How-to-Convert-Descriptive-to-Algebraic-Forums&lt;/a&gt; may be a useful link.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The promotion does go before the check. There is no check before the promotion.  Some people put an &quot;=&quot; before the promotion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An interesting game to try to convert would be one with multiply Queens.  This gives a promotion and ambiguity.  You should also get a game with Queenside castling.  When I test my move generator, I setup a semi-random position to test each position.  To test your output, I agree with Tony Ennis, convert it to algebraic and play through the game.  If all else fails, post them online and ask for someone to check the result.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Descriptive notation lesson:&#xA;The first character is the piece being moved, pawns are not considered a pieces except for when they are capturing.  The second character is &quot;-&quot; for a normal move or &quot;x&quot; for captures; if a Pawn captures, use the piece symbol, &quot;PxP.&quot;  The third character is the square where it lands.  The files are named after the piece's home square.  The third character is the rank counting from the side which made the move.  &quot;e4&quot; is written as &quot;P-K4&quot; if White played the move else &quot;P-K5.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note:  The old style did not include a rank if it is the first.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ambiguity is settled by an expanded description.  The first method is to try to expand the destination square.  That is if you move a Bishop to &quot;N5&quot;, if both Bishop can reach &quot;N5&quot;, the square is expanded to either &quot;QN5&quot; or &quot;KN5.&quot;  If two pieces can reach the same square, the piece is expanded by the original side it started on.  That is if both Knights can go to &quot;Q2,&quot; you prefix the piece with its starting side, e.g. &quot;QN-Q2.&quot;  If a promotion occurred, you have to use long notation, &quot;QN5-N6.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Castling was &quot;castles&quot; with the expanded form being &quot;castlesQ.&quot;  In modern times, people adopt the algebraic form.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9684" LastEditorUserId="9684" LastEditDate="2016-03-20T16:56:04.647" LastActivityDate="2016-03-20T16:56:04.647" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13962" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-03-21T01:10:25.547" Score="3" ViewCount="2065" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there a way to ask stockfish from the command line if a position is &quot;quiet&quot;? I am running a script like &lt;a href=&quot;https://gist.github.com/notbanker/3b87146ab0e2a4fd9740&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;stockfish_fen.sh&lt;/a&gt; to return the analysis, but I would like to also know if stockfish considers this position to be of positional or tactical nature. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9856" LastActivityDate="2016-03-24T15:30:54.403" Title="Is there a way to ask stockfish from the command line if a position is &quot;quiet&quot;?" Tags="&lt;positional-play&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13963" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="510" CreationDate="2016-03-21T02:07:45.620" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;How about using live games from lichess? Here is an &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.lichess.org/api/game/JdQW2JbI?with_fens=1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;example&lt;/a&gt; call to the server. See the docs for pulling a list of users currently playing. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9856" LastActivityDate="2016-03-21T02:07:45.620" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13964" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13962" CreationDate="2016-03-21T03:08:12.843" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, there is not. This page describes commands: &lt;a href=&quot;http://support.stockfishchess.org/kb/advanced-topics/uci-protocol&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://support.stockfishchess.org/kb/advanced-topics/uci-protocol&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also you can get information about Stockfish, with these commands, if you are on Linux:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;stockfish --help&#xA;man stockfish&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9030" LastEditorUserId="9030" LastEditDate="2016-03-21T13:53:17.427" LastActivityDate="2016-03-21T13:53:17.427" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13965" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13962" CreationDate="2016-03-21T04:43:11.653" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think there is anything like that, and it'll never be implemented.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you insist, you may want to look at how Stockfish does quiescence search. A &quot;tactical&quot; position would mean a dozen of long series of recursive calls. A &quot;quiet&quot; position would mean otherwise. However, this is a very dirty trick which might not work very well, you'd also need to do some programming.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There're other ideas, such as looking at the average branch factor, number of captures in the principal variation, the distribution of the scores... None of which is absolutely satisfactory. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2016-03-21T04:43:11.653" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13967" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1086" CreationDate="2016-03-21T16:38:36.810" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Ancient Chess site there are Capablanca Chess Set, is a luxury, albeit at a very expensive price.&#xA;However, everything is wooden and very precious, including the board.&#xA;The site:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://ancientchess.com/page/Capablanca-Chess.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://ancientchess.com/page/Capablanca-Chess.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/51FHn.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/51FHn.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The good thing is that the movements of the new pieces (Chancellor and Archbishop) are easy to interpret because the shape of these pieces are a fusion of Knight and Tower and Knight and Bishop. Nobody will confuse.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9871" LastEditorUserId="9871" LastEditDate="2016-03-21T16:47:16.117" LastActivityDate="2016-03-21T16:47:16.117" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13968" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8882" CreationDate="2016-03-22T13:15:16.700" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;What about 2...e6:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. b4 e6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It forces whites to reconsider its agressive behavior while giving good opportunities for blacks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9842" LastEditorDisplayName="user1108" LastEditDate="2016-03-22T17:37:15.847" LastActivityDate="2016-03-22T17:37:15.847" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13969" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2341" CreationDate="2016-03-23T00:36:55.757" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This will do it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.cs.kent.ac.uk/people/staff/djb/pgn-extract/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://www.cs.kent.ac.uk/people/staff/djb/pgn-extract/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I built it on mac--works great.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9881" LastActivityDate="2016-03-23T00:36:55.757" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13970" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8882" CreationDate="2016-03-23T01:12:27.680" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The classic counterattack is 3.... d5. This attacks the White pawn and improves (not worsens) Black's position. If White plays e5, Black plays e6 and transposes into a quasi French defense, or just takes the a pawn, with a pawn up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White's better bet is to exchange the e pawn for the d pawn, but then Black's queen ends up in a dominating position in the center because White can't move Nc3 to chase the queen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2016-03-23T01:12:27.680" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13971" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13933" CreationDate="2016-03-23T01:24:14.947" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are standard draw protocols, and some of them benefit the player with the lesser, sometimes much lesser material.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One of them is stalemate. The weaker player aims for a position where he cannot make any legal move (meaning that he's probably way behind in material), but is not in check. Draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another is perpetual check. Usually, the weaker player has sacrificed one or more pieces, but if he can check the opposing king between the same two or three squares forever, it's a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A third method is just a variation of the second. If a player can force a position to be repeated three times, with the same player to move, it's a draw. This is usually done by threats against an opposing king, sometimes by threatening to gain a material advantage, and usually by the weaker player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As long as these draws are forced within the rules of the game, it's ethical for the weaker player to do so. That's just part of the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastEditorUserId="17" LastEditDate="2016-03-23T13:09:21.103" LastActivityDate="2016-03-23T13:09:21.103" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13972" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13542" CreationDate="2016-03-23T01:57:53.557" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;One way to see a lot of moves ahead is to play postal chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That is a variant that allows both players to work out multiple variations following each move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2016-03-23T01:57:53.557" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13973" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13948" CreationDate="2016-03-23T13:29:01.183" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgym.net&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chessgym&lt;/a&gt; has that option.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can just log in as guest, chose among a number of standard endgames and play it out against tablebases. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2016-03-23T13:29:01.183" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13974" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13542" CreationDate="2016-03-23T13:50:52.110" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Deep chess requires the player to filter out a set of plausible moves given an infinite series of permutations. The filtering, in effect, is dependent on both the player's strength and tactics. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Dependent on both time and position, considering the relative value of a branch down the tree of moves is typically calculated by a human as cumulative &quot;face value&quot; listing each move considered. The best position in a game, however, is most certainly NEVER the sequence of &quot;best moves&quot; looking 2-3 moves deep per turn, for example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Truly strong players will consider most options beyond the obvious, yielding subtle and deep moves that support underlying tactics and combat human psychology. Check out Mikhael Tal's games - &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9502" LastActivityDate="2016-03-23T13:50:52.110" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13976" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9833" CreationDate="2016-03-23T18:06:55.563" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Arena 3.5.1, go to &lt;strong&gt;Engines&lt;/strong&gt;, load the engine that is playing on engine 1 first (by selecting the engine 1 Radio button at the bottom left of the dialogue box) then load the second engine on engine 2.&#xA;To Play The engines against each other,  click the analyse button&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9774" LastEditorUserId="9774" LastEditDate="2017-01-12T12:34:55.883" LastActivityDate="2017-01-12T12:34:55.883" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13977" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13979" CreationDate="2016-03-23T19:35:12.887" Score="3" ViewCount="266" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;8/8/8/5kp1/p7/P4K2/1P6/8 b - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White just played Kf3, thereby gaining the opposition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If there were no queenside pawns, what is on the kingside would be a &quot;book&quot; draw. That's because the White king can maneuver himself into a stalemate position on his first rank.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But in this position, if the White king can't move, White has to move the b pawn to b3, or to b4 via b3. In either event, Black's a pawn takes it, queens, and wins for Black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or does it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastEditorUserId="3831" LastEditDate="2016-03-23T20:02:17.127" LastActivityDate="2016-03-24T00:45:26.623" Title="Is this position lost for White?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;pawn-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13978" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13977" CreationDate="2016-03-23T20:06:04.073" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The position is definitely lost for white.&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can convince yourself about this by checking in an &lt;a href=&quot;http://chessok.com/?page_id=361&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;endgame tablebase&lt;/a&gt;. White either has to allow the g-pawn promotion or let his king be &quot;stalemated&quot;, forcing him to push the b-pawn and be checkmated soon thereafter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Best play according to an endgame tablebase&quot;] &#xA;[fen &quot;8/8/8/5kp1/p7/P4K2/1P6/8 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... g4+ 2. Kg3 Kg5 3. Kf2 Kf4 4. Ke1 g3 5. Ke2 Ke4 6. Kf1 Kf3 7. Ke1 g2 8. Kd2 g1=Q 9. Kc3 Qc5+ 10. Kd3 Qd5+ 11. Kc2 Ke4 12. b3 Qxb3+ 13. Kc1 Qa2 14. Kd1 Kd3 15. Ke1 Qe2# 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Example scenario without g-pawn promotion&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;8/8/8/5kp1/p7/P4K2/1P6/8 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... g4+ 2. Kg3 Kg5 3. Kg2 Kf4 4. Kf2 g3+ 5. Kg2 Kg4 6. Kg1 Kf3 7. Kf1 g2+ 8. Kg1 Kg3 9. b3 {or b4; forced, since the king cannot move} axb3 10. a4 b2 11. a5 b1=Q# 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3831" LastEditorUserId="3831" LastEditDate="2016-03-23T20:19:12.430" LastActivityDate="2016-03-23T20:19:12.430" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13979" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13977" CreationDate="2016-03-23T20:30:35.200" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Black wins.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black has a distant passed pawn and Blacks pawns are more advanced. White is bound to defend against g-pawn, while Black can do anything with a and b pawns. And White cannot win a pawn race, because Black is more advanced.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;Original Position&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;8/8/8/5kp1/p7/P4K2/1P6/8 b - - 1 2&quot;]&#xA;[Setup &quot;1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;2... g4+ 3. Kg3 { Option 1, defending against g-pawn, fails.}  ( 3. Ke3 { Option&#xA;2, counter attack on the other side, which fails also, because Blacks pawns are&#xA;more advanced, Black wins the race.}  3... Ke5 4. Kd3 Kf4 5. b4 axb3 6. a4 g3&#xA;7. a5 g2 8. a6 g1=Q ) 3... Kg5 4. Kg2 Kf4 5. Kf2 g3+ 6. Kg1 Kf3 7. Kf1 g2+ 8.&#xA;Kg1 Kg3 9. b4 axb3  &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, if Black wouldn't have a-pawn that advanced, White could catch Black and avoid promotion after dealing with g-pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;Queenside Pawns Shifted&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1/2-1/2&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;8/8/8/p4kp1/P7/1P3K2/8/8 b - - 1 3&quot;]&#xA;[Setup &quot;1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;3... g4+ 4. Kg3 Kg5 ( 4... Ke5 5. Kxg4 Kd5 6. Kf4 Kc5 7. Ke5 ( 7. b4+ axb4 8.&#xA;Ke3 b3 9. Kd2 Kb4 10. Kc1 Kc4 11. Kb2 Kb4 12. a5 Kxa5 13. Kxb3 ) 7... Kb4 8.&#xA;Kd4 Kxb3 9. Kd3 Kxa4 10. Kc4 { Black king is trapped. Draw.}  ) 5. b4 ( 5. Kg2&#xA;$2 $19 Kf4 6. b4 axb4 7. a5 b3 8. a6 b2 9. a7 b1=Q 10. a8=Q Qc2+ 11. Kg1 Qd1+&#xA;12. Kg2 Qe2+ 13. Kg1 Qe1+ 14. Kg2 Qg3+ 15. Kf1 Qf3+ { And black takes&#xA;opposition, which is necessary to promote g-pawn.}  16. Qxf3+ Kxf3 17. Kg1 Kg3&#xA;18. Kh1 Kf2 19. Kh2 g3+ 20. Kh1 g2+ 21. Kh2 g1=Q+ ) 5... axb4 6. a5 b3 7. a6 b2&#xA;8. a7 b1=Q 9. a8=Q { This is a bit complicated, but according to tablebase,&#xA;this is draw.}   &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9030" LastEditorUserId="9030" LastEditDate="2016-03-24T00:45:26.623" LastActivityDate="2016-03-24T00:45:26.623" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13980" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13981" CreationDate="2016-03-23T22:36:33.783" Score="-1" ViewCount="221" Body="&lt;p&gt;The rule says that the a1 (and consequently the h8) square must be black, in other words, the leftmost square of the first row of each player must be black. With this the kings stay at the right side of the players at the initial position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was wondering if there are any significant changes in the game if we start it by reflecting the official initial position. With this the a1 and h8 squares would be white and the kings would stay at the left side of the players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My thoughts are that there won't be any significant changes, because there is a bijection between all the positions with the two initial positions. In other words, for each position with respect to the official initial position there is an equivalent position with respect to the new initial position (we just have to reflect the board), and &lt;em&gt;vice versa&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What you guys think of it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9891" LastActivityDate="2016-03-23T23:19:03.097" Title="Initial position with board &quot;reflected&quot;" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;chessboards&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13981" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13980" CreationDate="2016-03-23T23:19:03.097" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There would be no changes. It's very easy to prove.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's start with a board with a1 and h8 are black, and play some moves. After that, imagine that white squares turned into red ones. And keep playing. Then imagine black squares turned into white. And then finally red squares turned into black squares. Would there be any difference in the game? No.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Colors are just for our eyes, not about game mechanics.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9030" LastActivityDate="2016-03-23T23:19:03.097" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13982" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13983" CreationDate="2016-03-24T05:17:34.857" Score="2" ViewCount="152" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm wanting to make some binders of different opening lines in a columnar layout like MCO uses. Is there any database program that can produce this type of output, or would I be better off creating it manually in a spreadsheet?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In addition, I'd like to be able to print out annotated games with diagrams.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9025" LastEditorUserId="9025" LastEditDate="2020-02-05T18:28:16.267" LastActivityDate="2020-02-05T18:28:16.267" Title="Looking for a chess database with MCO style reports" Tags="&lt;software&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="13983" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13982" CreationDate="2016-03-24T12:01:49.920" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;My suggestion does not link to a database, but you can use &lt;strong&gt;Tex&lt;/strong&gt; to format chessboards, add your own annotations and put the content into column format.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We even have a &lt;a href=&quot;https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/29603/where-to-start-typesetting-chess-with-tex&quot;&gt;Tex stack exchange&lt;/a&gt;! The link is of a question regarding a new Tex user learning how to use the chess specific packages.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please note Tex is just a text editor though. The times I have used it (for my mathematics dissertation), I've used it to neatly represent content only. As far as I know Tex doesn't have analysis features, databases of master games etc., it just is to display text and text like objects.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:36:12.667" LastActivityDate="2016-03-24T12:01:49.920" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13986" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6261" CreationDate="2016-03-24T19:30:16.250" Score="-5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sorry, no, White -cannot- castle queenside in this position.  Retrograde analysis has nothing to do with it.  The official rules of Chess explicitly state that, in castling (either side), neither the king -nor the moved rook- is allowed to pass over a threatened square.  The Black rook on b2 ruins it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9897" LastActivityDate="2016-03-24T19:30:16.250" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13988" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4301" CreationDate="2016-03-25T00:12:53.083" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Its hard to say how to prepare because you can only play to your strengths and what you really know.Just because Kasparov will find difficulty against the Berlin doesn't mean you should play it against him if you don't understand the subtle nuances yourself.However having said that I've always felt that certain grandmasters are more at home in certain positions than others and it pays to prepare for them as if it was a 1 v 1 game.For e.g When Nigel Short came over to Sydney to give a lecture and play in a simul I did some quick analysis of his games and he doesn't seem to do really well against strong aggressive tactical players like topalov, kasparov, polgar, shirov etc(Relatively speaking of course). He is however a midlegame positional maestro and his feel for shall we say taking care of the pieces (esp the king)in the middlegame are insanely good. So if he had played e4 a sveshnikov would have been played and if he played any other opening other than e4 I would have played a KID set up which in the end was successful but only for a draw.To be honest players at my level only have a good forehand shall we say and any deviation will be inferior for e.g I have played KID and Svesh for the better part of 10years and only 2 years ago have started incorporating e5 berlin/QGD Ragozin setups.It also depends on your own rating (mine at the time was low 2000s)for a 1500 I would recommend just treat it as 1v1 and play to your strengths and incidentally Short did draw to 2! 1500-1600 players in a 30 game simul.He won quite convincingly btw 28.5-1.5(3 draws) and completely routed North Sydney.The point I am trying to make is you have to encapsulate all your experience and knowledge into that one game so really try to play to your strengths as opposed to your opponents weaknesses.I was just lucky that my style matched well to Shorts'. (BTW he is quite the charismatic character)   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9898" LastActivityDate="2016-03-25T00:12:53.083" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13989" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-03-25T00:34:59.957" Score="1" ViewCount="2654" Body="&lt;p&gt;Does someone know or have tested a way of using ARENA software on Mac OS X? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe using Wine or something similar. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9811" LastActivityDate="2016-10-25T04:48:32.833" Title="Arena Software and Mac OS X" Tags="&lt;software&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13990" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="13993" CreationDate="2016-03-25T03:23:56.100" Score="2" ViewCount="886" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have been playing and studying chess for quite some time. I have tons of books but it all seems very haphazard. I was looking for some resource or course where things are lined up as sequence of well structured lessons.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My current USCF rating is 1451 and I am unable to break above 1500.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8705" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T18:24:45.660" Title="What is the best structured resource for self training?" Tags="&lt;training&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13991" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13990" CreationDate="2016-03-25T06:06:46.717" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;GM Daniel King has a &lt;a href=&quot;https://shop.chessbase.com/en/categories/trainingpowerplay&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Power Play&lt;/a&gt; Training set. It's a Fritztrainer, so very easy to study, better than books. And covers pretty much every aspect of chess. And it's very suitable for your level. If you study it well and complete it, I guess you get +300 USCF in 1-2 year. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think this is the best resource. I studied it myself as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9030" LastActivityDate="2016-03-25T06:06:46.717" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13993" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13990" CreationDate="2016-03-25T08:38:32.183" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm reading the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.qualitychess.co.uk/docs/14/artur_yusupovs_awardwinning_training_course/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Artur Yusupov training course&lt;/a&gt; and I can tell you it's really great! But I don't have so many books.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The series is supposed to be a three years training course (but I think it will take a bit longer to me): Fundamentals (1600-1800 FIDE), Beyond the basics (1800-2000 FIDE) and Mastery (2000-2200). Every year is made of three books: Build Up Your Chess, Boost Your Chess and Chess Evolution.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Every book have several lessons (the first one, 24 lessons), each lesson on one topic (Tactics, Strategy, Positional Play, the Endgame, Calculating Variations, Openings, all of them mixed up), and each lesson ends with 12 short exercises (10' each one at most), and it usually takes to me 1:30 to 2:00 hours to finish each lesson with its exercises.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to take a look, at &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.qualitychess.co.uk/docs/14/artur_yusupovs_awardwinning_training_course/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Quality Chess webpage&lt;/a&gt; you can find &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.qualitychess.co.uk/ebooks/Build-up-Your-Chess-1-exceprt.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;an excerpt&lt;/a&gt; with the contents and one complete chapter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2311" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T18:24:45.660" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T18:24:45.660" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="13994" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-03-25T15:23:54.713" Score="4" ViewCount="521" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have a hobby as an amateur chess player to watch top rated games on lichess.org, my personal favorite online chess platform. Usually after some analysis, I can figure out why players do particular things. However, with this game there really seemed to be no reason for the resignation. Did the player give up for non strategic reasons or am I missing something?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Rated game&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;http://lichess.org/cg4yGry4&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2016.03.25&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;LadyBaba&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;BlandPassivity&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;2223&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;2121&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;39&quot;]&#xA;[Variant &quot;Standard&quot;]&#xA;[TimeControl &quot;600+0&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;A02&quot;]&#xA;[Opening &quot;Bird Opening&quot;]&#xA;[Termination &quot;Normal&quot;]&#xA;[Annotator &quot;lichess.org&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. f4 { A02 Bird Opening } d6 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. e3 Nbd7 4. a3 e5 5. fxe5 dxe5 6. Nc3 Be7 7. d4 exd4 8. exd4 O-O 9. Bd3 b6 10. O-O Bb7 11. Qe1 c5 12. Qg3 cxd4 13. Nxd4 Bc5 14. Be3 Re8 15. b4 Bxd4?! { (0.56 → 1.18) Inaccuracy. Best move was Bd6. } (15... Bd6 16. Qxd6 Rxe3 17. Qf4 Re8 18. Rae1 Rxe1 19. Rxe1 Nh5 20. Qe3 g6 21. Ndb5 Ndf6 22. Qe7) 16. Bxd4 Rc8?! { (1.17 → 1.84) Inaccuracy. Best move was Qb8. } (16... Qb8 17. Qh3) 17. Rad1 Qc7 18. Qh4 h6 19. Nb5 Qc6 20. Rf3 { Black resigns } 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9890" LastEditorUserId="9890" LastEditDate="2016-03-25T17:05:16.320" LastActivityDate="2016-09-26T15:18:33.247" Title="Why did this guy resign, was there a strategic reason?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;resigning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13995" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13994" CreationDate="2016-03-25T19:19:30.170" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;White's threats revolve around Nxa7. What can Black do? This is the line given by Ubisoft's Chessmaster:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;2r1r1k1/pb1n1pp1/1pq2n1p/1N6/1P1B3Q/P2B1R2/2P3PP/3R2K1 b - - 0 1&#xA;&#xA;1... Ra8 {Directly defending a7} 2. Rg3 {Threatening to take on h6} Kf8 {Breaking the pin} 3. Qf4 Nh5 {This forces white into the sacrificial line that follows} 4. Bxg7+ Nxg7 5. Nd6 {Threatens 6. Qxf7#} Ne5 6. Qxh6 {Sure, Black has a piece for 2 pawns, but White's attack is too strong}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2016-03-25T19:19:30.170" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13996" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14003" CreationDate="2016-03-26T11:05:49.847" Score="3" ViewCount="478" Body="&lt;p&gt;I played a game against bemeurer, a friend of mine who's learning chess. He's only got me to play against but he's learning quite quick.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of the 8 games we played so far, I won all of them. Most quite easy, but this last one was a tough fight. We play on Chess.com, which has a chatbox.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt; &#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Chess.com&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2016.03.25&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;bemeurer&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Pimgd&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;741&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;1259&quot;]&#xA;[TimeControl &quot;1 in 3 days&quot;]&#xA;[Termination &quot;Pimgd wint door opgave&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Nc3 e5 2. a3 Nc6 3. e4 Nf6 4. Nf3 d6 5. Bb5 a6 6. Bxc6+ bxc6 7. d3 d5 8. Bg5 dxe4 9.dxe4 Qxd1+ 10.Kxd1 Ng4 11.Rf1 h6 12.Bh4 g5 13.Bg3 Be6 14.h3 Nf6 15.Nxe5 c5 16.h4 gxh4 17.Bxh4 Be7 18.b4 cxb4 19.axb4 Nd7 20.Bg3 Bxb4 21.Ne2 Rg8 22.c3 Bd6 23.Rg1 f6 24.Nxd7 Bxd7 25.Bxd6 cxd6 26.Nd4 h5 27.Ke1 h4 28.Kf1 h3 29.gxh3 Bxh3+ 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Upon making 29. ... Bxh3+, I said &quot;haha, now I get a free rook&quot;. My opponent expected that it would have been a rook trade, like 29. ... Rxg1 30. Kxg1.&#xA;With 29. ... Bxh3+, I expected that he'd be forced to play 30. Ke1, leaving me to play 30. ... Rxg1+, 31. Ksomewhere, Rxa1. Seems like I actually get 2 rooks. After that exchange, the game is obviously lost for White.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So upon 29. ... Bxh3+ and my exclamation, he resigned. Whenever a game ends, we talk about it &lt;a href=&quot;http://chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/28522216#28522216&quot;&gt;in a chatroom here on stackexchange&lt;/a&gt;, so that I may explain to him how he played and why I am doing what I am doing. To me, it seems he's growing quite well, but I'd like to be able to hand him a fair victory one day.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;During the analysis, it seemed that we had actually missed 30. Ke2, and as a result, my opponent resigned even although the reason for resignation was not true.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In a competition, I'd happily take the win, but here, it's not useful for me to take wins - right now I am the better player, and me winning doesn't change that. I've been wanting to play a fair endgame against him to train his skills in that area, but this resignation throws that idea out of the window.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With the game resigned, however, I went and tried to take an analytical look at the game. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt; &#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Chess.com&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2016.03.25&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;bemeurer&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Pimgd&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1/2-1/2&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;741&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;1259&quot;]&#xA;[TimeControl &quot;1 in 3 days&quot;]&#xA;[Termination &quot;Pimgd wint door opgave&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Nc3 e5 2. a3 Nc6 3. e4 Nf6 4. Nf3 d6 5. Bb5 a6 6. Bxc6+ bxc6 7. d3 d5 8. Bg5 dxe4 9.dxe4 Qxd1+ 10.Kxd1 Ng4 11.Rf1 h6 12.Bh4 g5 13.Bg3 Be6 14.h3 Nf6 15.Nxe5 c5 16.h4 gxh4 17.Bxh4 Be7 18.b4 cxb4 19.axb4 Nd7 20.Bg3 Bxb4 21.Ne2 Rg8 22.c3 Bd6 23.Rg1 f6 24.Nxd7 Bxd7 25.Bxd6 cxd6 26.Nd4 h5 27.Ke1 h4 28.Kf1 h3 29.gxh3 Bxh3+ 30. Ke2 Rxg1 31. Rxg1 Rc8 32. Kd2 Rc5 33. Rb1 Bc8 34. f4 Ra5 35. Rb6 Kd7 36. Rb1 Kc7 37. Rg1 f5 38. Rg7+ Kb6 39. exf5 Bxf5 40. Re7 Bg4 41. Rf7 Bh3 42. Rg7 Bf5 43. Re7 Bg4 44. Rf7 Bh3 45. Rg7 Bf5 46. Re7 Bg4 47. Rf7 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It gets stuck on positional repetition with an online chess engine called &quot;GamboChess JS 6.0&quot;. Given that the positional repetition is made by white I guess black is playing the stronger position, although it does seem like White is in control, black is just responding to that and white can't break through so they just decided to repeat forever.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now that I have run a chess engine on the game, though, I can't really go back and offer to play from the last position. I already know my moves based on the chess engine's suggestions, and either my opponent will play the chess engine moves leading to a boring draw, they will slip up letting me win, or the chess engine isn't seeing all the moves it should and the analysis is useless.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have three main questions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;How to handle situations like this, where the person you're teaching resigns, and you think it was okay, but afterwards in analysis it turns out it had gone either way?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Was the position after move 29 actually lost for White?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;How to convert a position into a score using chess engines, so that there's a measure we could quickly use to decide who had the advantage?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can split the questions up into several questions if needed (if that's the case, then please answer just question 1).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="857" LastActivityDate="2016-03-27T04:04:27.723" Title="How to handle resignations from unlost positions when learning?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;evaluation&gt;&lt;resigning&gt;&lt;teaching&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13997" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-03-26T15:39:44.717" Score="7" ViewCount="375" Body="&lt;p&gt;I teach chess to children and a colleague of mine told me of this position to show to the kids. Black plays and gives mate in two. It seems an easy position but the children I teach had difficulties with it because they think that the only way to mate is capturing as much pieces of the opponent as possible in the process. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;7r/8/8/5k2/4q3/8/6PR/r5RK b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Black plays and gives mate in two. What should Black do?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8751" LastActivityDate="2016-04-01T15:07:30.413" Title="A quiet mate in two" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;teaching&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="10" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="13999" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14018" CreationDate="2016-03-26T19:38:55.507" Score="2" ViewCount="580" Body="&lt;p&gt;I &lt;a href=&quot;http://mediocrechess.blogspot.ca/2007/03/guide-static-exchange-evaluation-see.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;read&lt;/a&gt; about a &lt;a href=&quot;https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Static+Exchange+Evaluation&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;SEE&lt;/a&gt; without move/undo but they didn't share any simple pseudo code. If the next ply isn't calculated, cant see the recursive nature, Any speculators how this would work without move/undo? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;int see(int square, int side)&#xA;{&#xA;   value = 0;&#xA;   piece = get_smallest_attacker(square, side);&#xA;   /* skip if the square isn't attacked anymore by this side */&#xA;   if ( piece )&#xA;   {&#xA;      make_capture(piece, square);&#xA;      /* Do not consider captures if they lose material, therefor max zero */&#xA;      value = max (0, piece_just_captured() -see(square, other(side)) );&#xA;      undo_capture(piece, square);&#xA;   }&#xA;   return value;&#xA;}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9841" LastActivityDate="2016-03-28T12:52:29.300" Title="Static Exchange Evaluation (SEE) without move undo" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;programming&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14000" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14006" CreationDate="2016-03-26T22:07:39.510" Score="2" ViewCount="242" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1586941&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;game&lt;/a&gt;, White appears to have lost the initiative against the Nimzo Indian defense as early as the fourth move, and certainly by the eighth move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If White's next four moves were 1) e3, 2) Nf3, 3) Bishop moves and 4) O-O, White would get a solid defensive position that is characteristic of Black's play. Under the circumstances, does it make sense for White to &quot;play Black&quot; in this way if he wants to minimize his chances of losing?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(In the actual game, White adopted a more aggressive policy and succumbed to Black's superior development.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One other feature of note. White was rated about 50 points weaker than Black, even though they were both Masters (2400 vs. 2450). Would it make sense for White to &quot;play Black&quot; if he were 50 points weaker, and play more aggressively if he were 50 points stronger?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2019-12-27T18:45:50.333" Title="Does it make sense for White to play as &quot;Black&quot; when he's lost the initiative?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14001" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13997" CreationDate="2016-03-27T02:06:55.750" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;[&lt;em&gt;Corrected&lt;/em&gt;: most of the alternative solutions I suggested fail to g4+]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There must be some mistake in the diagram, because R(either)xR+&#xA;is a non-quiet move that forces mate in 2.  Quiet moves don't work&#xA;because of the defense Rc8+ or Rxh8.  Except that the FEN indicates&#xA;that the wP is on g2, not b7 as it seems, and that makes Qa8! a quiet&#xA;solution (Zugzwang: if RxR(either) then QxR is mate; other Rook moves&#xA;are captured by a Rook for mate; and the pawn is still pinned).&#xA;To make this unique the Queen can be put elsewhere on the diagonal,&#xA;like d5: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;7r/8/8/3q1k2/8/8/6PR/r5RK b - - 0 1&quot;] &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I see that &lt;strong&gt;Dag Oskar Madsen&lt;/strong&gt; already suggested this fix in a comment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Possibly of interest: while trying to Google this position I ran across&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/2k1913/white_to_mate_in_two_moves_by_theodore_adrien/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this mate-in-2 problem&lt;/a&gt;,&#xA;credited to T.A.L.Herlin 1852, which might have been the inspiration&#xA;for the present problem though its solution is not as nice or as quiet:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;kr5R/rp6/8/8/4Q1K1/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;] &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Solution:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt; 1 Qe8! (threat 2 QxR#) Rxe8/Ra4+ 2 Rxe8/Qxa4#!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8860" LastEditorUserId="8860" LastEditDate="2016-03-27T03:14:58.420" LastActivityDate="2016-03-27T03:14:58.420" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14002" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13997" CreationDate="2016-03-27T03:53:10.997" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Black to move and mate in two, right? Is it as simple as&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Rxh2+, Kxh2&#xA;Qh4#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8134" LastActivityDate="2016-03-27T03:53:10.997" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14003" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13996" CreationDate="2016-03-27T04:04:27.723" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;1) Unwarranted resignations happen on occasion even in tournament play, &lt;a href=&quot;http://timkr.home.xs4all.nl/chess2/resigntxt.htm&quot;&gt;sometimes even in a won position&lt;/a&gt;.  If your student does this in an instructional game, it's a teachable moment.  In the present game, you might learn too: saying&#xA;&quot;haha, now I get a free rook&quot; during the game is distracting the opponent,&#xA;which is against the rules whether or not you in fact do win a free rook;&#xA;if you hadn't said that then your student might well have found 30 Ke2 and defended the resulting endgame, rather than resigning out of an abundance of&#xA;trust in the teacher.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) Looks like an inferior endgame for White: material is equal, but Black has a distant passed pawn already supported by the Ra8, and also the Knight, though centralized, may have trouble against the Bishop and the a-pawn.  31...Kf7 seems like a better try than 31...Rc8, but I can't judge whether it's actually winning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8860" LastActivityDate="2016-03-27T04:04:27.723" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14004" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14005" CreationDate="2016-03-27T09:16:58.593" Score="4" ViewCount="342" Body="&lt;p&gt;Look at this puzzle:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;r3q3/1pb1rbk1/2pn1p1p/p1Qp1Bp1/3P4/4P1NP/PP3PPB/3RR1K1 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The aim of the puzzle is: Black to play and attain a good position. But I can't find a good position here. Then I looked at the solution, which was 1... Nc4!! . But I can't understand what happens after this move. I think both sides are equal. Can anyone help me?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8456" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-03-27T09:47:26.920" LastActivityDate="2016-03-28T22:30:53.300" Title="Help me with this puzzle" Tags="&lt;puzzles&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14005" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14004" CreationDate="2016-03-27T09:45:00.877" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Black will trap the queen on the next move, either with Bd6 or b6. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;r3q3/1pb1rbk1/2pn1p1p/p1Qp1Bp1/3P4/4P1NP/PP3PPB/3RR1K1 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Nc4 2. b3 Bd6 3. bxc4 Bxc5 4. dxc5 dxc4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and with a queen and a (passed) pawn for two minor pieces, Black will have no problems to win this game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-03-27T10:08:13.817" LastActivityDate="2016-03-27T10:08:13.817" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14006" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14000" CreationDate="2016-03-27T09:56:14.210" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is actually quite common behaviour in the Nimzo-Indian defense. Black trades the bishop pair for either an advantageous pawn structure (e.g. in the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nimzo-Indian_Defence#4...c5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Hübner variation&lt;/a&gt;) or a lead in development (like this game).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the latter case, a successful strategy for White might be to neutralize Black's lead in development (which corresponds to your &quot;play Black&quot;), exchange some pieces and take advantage of his bishop pair in the late middlegame or the endgame. However, this style of play might not suit everybody.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2016-03-27T09:56:14.210" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14007" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7715" CreationDate="2016-03-27T11:30:36.887" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The board does not verify the moves played at all. It does not even recognize the concept of a &quot;move&quot; - it just tells you where every piece is when you ask for it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2715" LastActivityDate="2016-03-27T11:30:36.887" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14008" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14009" CreationDate="2016-03-27T15:56:41.197" Score="1" ViewCount="171" Body="&lt;p&gt;Consider the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;r3q1k1/p2p1p1p/b1p2QpB/8/8/2r5/P4PPP/R5K1 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why is black's next move Qf8? White just follows with Bf8.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9921" LastActivityDate="2018-01-25T15:47:41.397" Title="What advantage does black gain from this move?" Tags="&lt;tactics&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14009" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14008" CreationDate="2016-03-27T16:18:21.157" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is no good way to stop &lt;code&gt;Qg7&lt;/code&gt; mate. Black has to give up their queen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1485" LastActivityDate="2016-03-27T16:18:21.157" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14010" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13994" CreationDate="2016-03-27T17:13:42.693" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Black has an inferior, and theoretically lost game. On the other hand, it takes a certain level of skill for White to realize his advantage and actually win the game. White's advantage is that his b knight threatens a bunch of forks on the queenside, and that he also has a kingside attack. That's why he is winning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the players are both Grandmasters, Black will realize that he took a &quot;wrong turn&quot; earlier, drifted into a clearly inferior position, and understand that White is strong enough to take advantage of this fact. Therefore, s/he will resign.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, this position is not &lt;em&gt;clearly&lt;/em&gt; won for White if both players' ranks are in the low 2000s. At the level, Black will do well to play it out and see what happens. White may build on, and realize his advantage, in which case Black should resign. Or White might make a &quot;slack&quot; move and give Black a chance to catch up, or even take the lead. In this kind of situation, one move could make all the difference, and Black should force White to make &quot;ten out of ten&quot; correct moves in order to win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastEditorUserId="17" LastEditDate="2016-09-26T15:18:33.247" LastActivityDate="2016-09-26T15:18:33.247" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14011" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4301" CreationDate="2016-03-27T17:21:22.253" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some psychologists hypothesized that grandmasters were better at recognizing chess positions that other people. When they ran the experiments, they were proven &quot;half&quot; right.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That is, grandmasters were better at recognizing &lt;em&gt;standard&lt;/em&gt; chess positions, because of greater practice, and playing them all the time. On the other hand, they were no better than amateurs at recreating random &quot;chess&quot; positions with pieces dumped randomly on the chess board in defiance of chess logic: e.g. White King at e4, Black king at a1, White pawn at h6, Black pawn &quot;behind&quot; it at h4, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So a trick for an amateur is to steer the game into &quot;unconventional&quot; lines that the grandmaster may not be familiar with, and then use the extra time to &quot;think through&quot; these unusual positions, hopefully better than the grandmaster.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To take one example, playing as Black, Queen's gambit accepted is not as well understood as Queen's gambit declined. This is particularly true if the grandmaster is &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; Russian. The Russians have produced a whole set of literature on Slav defenses and other variations of QGA, meaning that if you master the literature better than the grandmaster, you may have a chance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2016-03-27T17:21:22.253" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14012" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-03-27T21:13:33.497" Score="2" ViewCount="303" Body="&lt;p&gt;I like going through open variations and taking notes and saving them in my database.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However I have a problem. When I get to two of the exact same board positions and same color to play, if I got there via two different variations, any future variations I make and comment will be considered separate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, suppose I start a game with 1.e4 e5 2.Nc3 Nf6 and add some variations with, e.g., 3.Nf3 and 3.Bc4 and make some comments.  Then, in the same database, I add a game with 1.Nc3 e5 2.e4 Nf6. This leads to exactly the same position but the variations and comments from the 1.e4 variation are not shown.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How do I merge these variations or get SCID to understand that it's the same so it shows the variations after both move orders?  I don't want to write a whole new tree and branches just because I switched up one move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or if anyone knows a different program I can use for this to save uncompleted games such as opening variations and I can write my notes that would be great.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9923" LastEditorUserId="2789" LastEditDate="2016-03-27T21:52:21.077" LastActivityDate="2021-04-09T16:22:18.240" Title="SCID not recognising transpositions" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;scid&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14013" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14012" CreationDate="2016-03-27T22:56:30.910" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesspositiontrainer.com/index.php/en/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chess Position Trainer&lt;/a&gt; recognizes transpositions in exactly the way that you're after, as it stores its opening books in a way that's designed to address this issue. Whenever two variations (like your &lt;code&gt;1.e4 e5 2.Nc3 Nf6&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;1.Nc3 e5 2.e4 Nf6&lt;/code&gt;) that converge to the same position, it is automatically recognized that they do, so you'll never end up with two &quot;versions&quot; of the same position in the first place. As far as I know there's no good way to get that same functionality in SCID.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2016-03-27T22:56:30.910" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14014" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-03-28T04:07:17.750" Score="3" ViewCount="369" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have reached this same position a number of times, what would be the most sound continuation for white?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 Nf6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Two moves that come to mind are Bg5 or Nf3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are your thoughts and ideas behind the next move?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9924" LastEditorUserId="3831" LastEditDate="2016-03-28T07:46:10.240" LastActivityDate="2016-03-31T15:34:52.733" Title="Queen's gambit continuation" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;queens-gambit&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14015" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14014" CreationDate="2016-03-28T06:06:05.030" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to Hans Berliner, correspondence chess champion, Bg5 is the best.&#xA;From his book &quot;The System. A World Champion's Approach to Chess&quot; he stated, and Fischer agrees, that Bg5 maintain the most amount of pressure.  Nf3 is not as good, because you has three major plans in the QGD exchange variation and only one has the knight on f3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My opinion is that Bf4 is stronger below master level.  I like the idea of Bxb8, not having the question put to the bishop on g5, and it reduces the possibility of Bd6.  There are disadvantages to putting the bishop of f4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The answer depends upon what type of positions you like to play.  For positional games, the knight goes to f3, for center control and kingside attacks, the knight goes to g3 via e2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9684" LastActivityDate="2016-03-28T06:06:05.030" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14016" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6081" CreationDate="2016-03-28T10:47:49.827" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recently looked into that very thing a couple of weeks ago, and found an excellent breakdown on it (&lt;i&gt;just this one, though&lt;/i&gt;):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The short answer is that aside from Kings, h2 &amp;amp; h7 are the least likely to be captured pieces (&lt;i&gt;with survival rates claimed to be 73.92% and 72.29%, respectively&lt;/i&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Regarding individual pieces' survival (&lt;i&gt;from a 2,196,968 game database&lt;/i&gt;), &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.quora.com/What-are-the-chances-of-survival-of-individual-chess-pieces-in-average-games/answer/Oliver-Brennan&quot;&gt;http://www.quora.com/What-are-the-chances-of-survival-of-individual-chess-pieces-in-average-games/answer/Oliver-Brennan&lt;/a&gt; gives a table (&lt;i&gt;and an accompanying graphic&lt;/i&gt;) of each piece's respective chance of survival.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While I was at it, I found some data on square usage. I've included the sources below not because square usage relates to your question directly, but because the nature of the two topics is so close that I figured that they might be of interest to you (&lt;i&gt;or future readers&lt;/i&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Using 509 games selected randomly [and analyzed] out of a 567,000 game database, these two URLs give tables of raw events and normalized through-traffic usage of squares, and heat maps of same:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://sarcasticresonance.wordpress.com/2010/10/05/chess-territorial-2&quot;&gt;http://sarcasticresonance.wordpress.com/2010/10/05/chess-territorial-2&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://sarcasticresonance.wordpress.com/2010/10/13/random-chess-conquests/&quot;&gt;http://sarcasticresonance.wordpress.com/2010/10/13/random-chess-conquests/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This URL analyzes the moves of 12 Grandmasters' entire careers (&lt;i&gt;separated by white and black, all normalized [no raw counts]&lt;/i&gt;), along with some graphs of average-data counts:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.chessbase.com/post/seth-kadish-visualizing-chess&quot;&gt;http://en.chessbase.com/post/seth-kadish-visualizing-chess&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.chessbase.com/post/study-of-square-utilization-and-occupancy&quot;&gt;http://en.chessbase.com/post/study-of-square-utilization-and-occupancy&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are also some excellent analyses (&lt;i&gt;per side&lt;/i&gt;) of each type-of-piece's square usage at &lt;a href=&quot;http://philanalytics.blogspot.com/2014/11/chess-analytics-analyzing-championship.html&quot;&gt;http://philanalytics.blogspot.com/2014/11/chess-analytics-analyzing-championship.html&lt;/a&gt; .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9926" LastEditorUserId="9926" LastEditDate="2016-06-24T09:14:00.600" LastActivityDate="2016-06-24T09:14:00.600" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14017" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-03-28T10:55:36.803" Score="4" ViewCount="1204" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the best way to use Fritztrainer DVDs/videos on Linux? Is there anyone who is using them on Linux now? Is there any free tool to run Fritztrainer DVDs natively?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9030" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-07-28T18:13:07.283" LastActivityDate="2018-11-14T20:13:58.930" Title="Fritztrainer on Linux" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;linux&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14018" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13999" CreationDate="2016-03-28T12:52:29.300" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The pseudocode you copied from the wiki is just the easiest way to make you understand SEE. It is &lt;strong&gt;NOT&lt;/strong&gt; used in a real chess engine, because building a &lt;code&gt;swap list&lt;/code&gt; would be more efficient.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should check Stockfish. I'll give you some hints here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Goto &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/blob/master/src/position.cpp&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;position.cpp&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Find the function &lt;code&gt;Value Position::see(Move m) const&lt;/code&gt;. This is where SEE is implemented&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Check this loop:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;do {&#xA;  assert(slIndex &amp;lt; 32);&#xA;&#xA;  // Add the new entry to the swap list&#xA;  swapList[slIndex] = -swapList[slIndex - 1] + PieceValue[MG][captured];&#xA;&#xA;  // Locate and remove the next least valuable attacker&#xA;  captured = min_attacker&amp;lt;PAWN&amp;gt;(byTypeBB, to, stmAttackers, occupied, attackers);&#xA;  stm = ~stm;&#xA;  stmAttackers = attackers &amp;amp; pieces(stm);&#xA;  ++slIndex;&#xA;&#xA;} while (stmAttackers &amp;amp;&amp;amp; (captured != KING || (--slIndex, false))); // Stop before a king capture&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stockfish doesn't do exactly what your pseudocode does. It loops for all for possible attackers from the least powerful (&lt;code&gt;min_attacker&lt;/code&gt;). For each attacker, the engine checks it's value (&lt;code&gt;PieceValues[MG]&lt;/code&gt;) and add it to the swap list. The swap list will then be looped over for nega-max:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  // Having built the swap list, we negamax through it to find the best&#xA;  // achievable score from the point of view of the side to move.&#xA;  while (--slIndex)&#xA;      swapList[slIndex - 1] = std::min(-swapList[slIndex], swapList[slIndex - 1]);&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Don't be afraid of the while loop, all it does to check if an exchange is good or not. In fact, the wikipedia you stated has the reasoning:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;This uses a trick, equivalent to negamax in tree search, where the loss for the current side is the gain for the opposite side. This can be seen in the expression piece_just_captured() - see(square); which is the value of the piece captured (piece_just_captured()) minus the gain that the opponent might make after the move by recapturing. If that term becomes negative, one would better choose standing pat rather than to capture, which can be done by a conditional assignment, or by a max function with zero as second argument.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2016-03-28T12:52:29.300" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14019" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-03-28T13:44:06.277" Score="1" ViewCount="657" Body="&lt;p&gt;Houdini Chess engine is said to have a calibrated evaluation in which engine scores correlate directly with the win expectancy in the position. A +1.00 pawn advantage gives a 80% chance of winning the game against an equal opponent at blitz time control. At +2.00 the engine will win 95% of the time, and at +3.00 about 99% of the time. If the advantage is +0.50, expect to win nearly 50% of the time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Looked around the net but couldn't find a table? Ideally I'd like to see material difference calculator where I would plug in &quot;1 pawn and 1 knight&quot; down.. what is my win/loss expectancy. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9841" LastActivityDate="2016-03-29T00:53:45.647" Title="chess win expectancy by material difference table or calculator" Tags="&lt;statistics&gt;&lt;database&gt;&lt;evaluation&gt;&lt;psychology&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14020" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14019" CreationDate="2016-03-28T20:48:44.930" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is no such calculator, that's why you couldn't find any.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;About Houdini: It's not a fact. They are saying roughly, Houdini evaluation is correlated with win expectancy against the same engine same hardware, in blitz time control. It doesn't have to be the same for other engines, and it's not the same for humans of course.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9030" LastActivityDate="2016-03-28T20:48:44.930" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14021" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14024" CreationDate="2016-03-28T22:19:51.910" Score="1" ViewCount="1212" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was setup stockfish with:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;uci&#xA;setoption name hash value 128&#xA;setoption name threads value 4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That I try to evaluate my first moves to learn how it works (I am programmer) but I received random results.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;go depth 20&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First result cp = 16&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;info depth 20 seldepth 30 multipv 1 score cp 16 nodes 1327846 nps 1074309 hashfull 585 tbhits 0 time 1236 pv e2e4 e7e6 d2d4 d7d5 e4d5 e6d5 f1d3 g8f6 g1f3 f8d6 e1g1 e8g8 b1c3 c7c6 f3e5 f8e8 c1f4 f6g4 f1e1 d6e5 f4e5 g4e5 e1e5&#xA;bestmove e2e4 ponder e7e6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Second result cp = 20.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;info depth 20 seldepth 29 multipv 1 score cp 20 nodes 4912037 nps 1040685 hashfull 986 tbhits 0 time 4720 pv e2e4 e7e6 d2d4 d7d5 e4d5 e6d5 f1d3 g8f6 g1f3 f8d6 e1g1 e8g8 b1c3 b8c6 c1g5 c6b4 c3b5 h7h6 b5d6 d8d6&#xA;bestmove e2e4 ponder e7e6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why each time Stockfish produce something else for 20 depth - different &lt;strong&gt;scores&lt;/strong&gt; - same move &lt;strong&gt;e2e4&lt;/strong&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8406" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2016-03-28T23:29:03.107" LastActivityDate="2016-03-28T23:40:30.333" Title="How to read score from stockfish - inconsistent response every call?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;uci&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14022" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14004" CreationDate="2016-03-28T22:25:02.827" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Wait it is not over yet :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The queen trap from ..Nc4 can be avoided. White can give a check &lt;code&gt;1. ..Nc4 2. Nh4 ..Bxh4 3. Bxc7.&lt;/code&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also prevent the knight trapping the queen by giving that check beforehand. Thats another way around.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Apologies i am just a beginner, not good with chess notations, but he point is queen can be saved using Whites black bishop. I may be wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7644" LastEditorUserId="7644" LastEditDate="2016-03-28T22:30:53.300" LastActivityDate="2016-03-28T22:30:53.300" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14023" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13997" CreationDate="2016-03-28T22:37:28.303" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;Quiet move means &quot;A move should occur without a capture or a mate&quot;.&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sure there sacrificing a rook lead to mate in 2 moves, but it isnt a solution. You should look for positional play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are looking for a quiet mate without any captures (rook sacrifices), just position the Queen to &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;..Qe1 or ..Qh4 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is a great example of positional play. No captures or mate!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7644" LastEditorUserId="7644" LastEditDate="2016-03-29T07:15:22.433" LastActivityDate="2016-03-29T07:15:22.433" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14024" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14021" CreationDate="2016-03-28T23:40:30.333" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The reason is simple - &lt;code&gt;hashing&lt;/code&gt;. The first time you run the analysis, the engine stored the computed positions in a hash-table. This table was not &lt;strong&gt;clear&lt;/strong&gt; the next time you run the analysis. Next time, when you ran the same analysis, the engine could search further and thus returned a different score for it's principal variation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Evidence? Note the node counts was: &lt;code&gt;1327846&lt;/code&gt; for your first attempt and &lt;code&gt;4912037&lt;/code&gt; for your second attempt. The NPS (nodes per second) was very close (&lt;code&gt;1074309&lt;/code&gt; vs &lt;code&gt;1040685&lt;/code&gt;). Clearly Stockfish used the existing hash-table to skip moves it had already computed in your first attempt. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that this is an expected behaviors, clearing hash-table after each move would dramatically reduce the engine strength.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2016-03-28T23:40:30.333" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14025" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14019" CreationDate="2016-03-29T00:53:45.647" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe that 1 pawn is equivalent to 100 ELO points. So if you are playing a 2000 rated player, and you are rated 1500 rook odds makes the game even.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9927" LastActivityDate="2016-03-29T00:53:45.647" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14026" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-03-29T02:28:37.710" Score="1" ViewCount="401" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm working on my positional play. Exclusively playing correspondence chess at the moment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For white I play D4 and try for C4 after that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For Black I play Caro Kann against E4 but am not sure what's most positional against D4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm thinking of Slav, Semi Slav, QGD&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For solid long term positional play which one is best investing time in learning in depth?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9924" LastActivityDate="2016-03-29T12:36:39.237" Title="Positional play: Slav the way to go?" Tags="&lt;correspondence-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14027" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14026" CreationDate="2016-03-29T03:44:53.240" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recommend to play Stonewall Dutch, quite closed, yet quite active. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;Stonewall Dutch&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 f5 2. c4 Nf6 3. g3 e6 4. Bg2 Be7 5. Nf3 O-O 6. O-O d5 7. Nc3 c6  &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9030" LastActivityDate="2016-03-29T03:44:53.240" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14028" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-03-29T04:12:50.453" Score="4" ViewCount="160" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would like to go to more simuls, but I'm unsure when they're held and at what location. How can I get informed of such information?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3149" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-09-23T15:11:28.013" LastActivityDate="2016-09-23T15:11:28.013" Title="How can I get informed if a titled chess player will be holding a simul?" Tags="&lt;simultaneous&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14029" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14026" CreationDate="2016-03-29T12:09:55.177" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Caro-Kann and Slav share similarities, as discussed in the question: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/9546/what-are-all-the-possible-combinations-of-openings-which-work-well-together-li&quot;&gt;What are all the possible combinations of openings which work well together? (like the Slav+Caro-Kann combo)&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I play the 2 myself and find that the 2 openings appeal to players who:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Prefer endgames with a superior pawn structure, particularly playing against an isolated d-pawn or hanging c- and d- pawns&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Don't mind exchanging the light square bishop, as in both openings this piece tends to be exchanged for a knight&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Want a low maintenance repertoire, as the 2 have solid responses to 1. Nf3 and 1. c4&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Have good defensive abilities, as both have a solid reputation. So, if you play against attacking maniacs or computers often then these 2 openings work well together&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.193" LastActivityDate="2016-03-29T12:36:39.237" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14030" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14031" CreationDate="2016-03-29T17:03:14.573" Score="6" ViewCount="2173" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1.d4 is a statistically more successful opening for white due to the high success rate of the Sicilian defence against 1.e4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I understand it's fun to play different openings, but at the highest level, why risk playing a statistically weaker move?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9209" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2016-03-29T17:59:52.700" LastActivityDate="2018-04-18T10:04:56.520" Title="If the Sicilian is so strong, why do people still play e4 in competitions?" Tags="&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;&lt;statistics&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14031" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14030" CreationDate="2016-03-29T21:50:09.457" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;How much statistical difference is there? Is it really &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statistical_significance&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;statistically significant&lt;/a&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do these statistics take account of only GM games, so are they biased or not?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And do you know that not every player is a Sicilian expert? Actually, it's quite tough to be a Sicilian expert.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Had I not played the Sicilian with Black I could have saved myself the trouble of studying for more than 20 years all the more popular lines of this opening, which comprise probably more than 25 percent of all published opening theory! - Bent Larsen&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After e4, there are a lot of responses you can get; it's not automatically Sicilian. As far as I remember after e4 there is approx. %25 chance you get into the Sicilian.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even if you get into the Sicilian, there are Anti-Sicilian variations and gambits where White is very comfortable. My favourite is the Smith-Morra gambit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And even if you get into standard Sicilian variations, White is absolutely OK.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also if you only care raw statistics, there are some awkward moves which have more than %60 win rates.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Conclusion: the Sicilian Defense is not a ticket to win.&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9030" LastEditorUserId="9030" LastEditDate="2018-04-18T06:40:49.300" LastActivityDate="2018-04-18T06:40:49.300" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14032" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14033" CreationDate="2016-03-29T23:33:21.457" Score="3" ViewCount="310" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/2bXpN.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/2bXpN.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm black. I took the rook and ended up winning the game. Did I make the right choice? Instead of winning a bishop, and after queens are exchanged, i would have got tripled pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Lichess engine says to take the bishop, then Qxc6 Bxf1, but I'm not convinced by that line. I mean, everyone would save the rook, as mentioned above. I think if I were to take the bishop, queens would be exchanged and white would save the rook.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And says if I took the bishop I'd have 3.6 points advantage, whereas taking the rook is 0.4 only. Again I'm not totally convinced by engines so I'm asking humans. I don't like having tripled pawns. Maybe the computer approach is best, but I don't think humans would play what Lichess suggested.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1105" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-04-17T19:34:00.360" LastActivityDate="2017-04-17T19:34:00.360" Title="Win an exchange vs winning a piece" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14033" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14032" CreationDate="2016-03-30T00:07:20.497" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I agree that tripled pawns are not the greatest, but you're getting a piece for those pawns. If you lost them all, you'd more-or-less be even, depending on the position. What a deal!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's the position where the queen trade is avoided. Black ends up with a Rook for three pawns. White's doomed, but as long as he can keep the Queens on the board he has hopes for a swindle. He needs to get those K-side pawns rolling! Stockfish rates this at -4.68. Extremely unpleasant indeed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[FEN &quot;2r4r/1k3p1p/p1p2p2/1q2pQ2/5B2/bP6/P1P2PPP/1KR4R b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... exf4 2.Qxf6 Bxc1 3.Rxc1 Qc5 4.Qxf4 Rhe8 5.Qxf7+ Re7 (-4.68)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's a varation where the Queens come off. White's counter-play simply evaporates. If the first variation is desperate, this one is hopeless.  What's the plan for White? I can't see one. Try this - every time Black moves a Rook, think &quot;nu uh&quot; in your head. White has nothing. Stockfish says Black's up by 5.5&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[FEN &quot;2r4r/1k3p1p/p1p2p2/1q2pQ2/5B2/bP6/P1P2PPP/1KR4R b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... exf4 2. Qxb5 cxb5 3.Rce1 Rhe8 4.c4 bxc4 5.Kc2 Bc5 6.bxc4 Bxf2 7.Rxe8 Rxe8 (-5.5)&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2016-03-30T00:07:20.497" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14034" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14032" CreationDate="2016-03-30T04:18:15.513" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;After 1... Bxf1 2. Bxf1 it seems that White can draw the game because of superiority on white squares (White has white-square bishop and Black has a lot of weaknesses on white squares, king is also exposed) and Black's cramped queenside.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I would go for 1... Bxf1 too in a blitz game, because these lines are too complex for humans, at least for non-masters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;Analysis with Stockfish 6 after Bxf1, depth 30&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;r4r2/p1p3k1/2p2p1p/2Qp2q1/8/6P1/PPP2P1P/R4BK1 b - - 0 2&quot;]&#xA;[Setup &quot;1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;2... Qe5 ( 2... h5 3. Qxc6 Qe5 4. Rd1 Rad8 5. Qc5 h4 6. Qxa7 hxg3 7. hxg3 Rh8 8.&#xA;Qc5 Qh5 9. Qxc7+ Kg6 10. Bd3+ f5 11. Qb6+ Kf7 12. Qc7+ Kf6 13. Qc6+ Kf7 14.&#xA;Qc7+ { 0.00}  ) ( 2... Rad8 3. Qxc6 ( 3. Qe7+ Kh8 4. Qxc7 Qe5 5. Qxc6 Rc8 6.&#xA;Qa4 Qxb2 7. Re1 Qxc2 8. Qxa7 Qf5 9. a4 Rfe8 10. Rxe8+ Rxe8 11. a5 Re1 12. Qf7&#xA;Qe6 13. Qf8+ Kh7 14. Kg2 Qe4+ 15. Kh3 Rxf1 16. Qf7+ Kh8 17. Qf8+ Kh7 { 0.00}  )&#xA;3... Qe5 4. Qc5 Rf7 5. Rb1 h5 6. Qxa7 h4 7. Bg2 hxg3 8. hxg3 Re7 9. a4 d4 10.&#xA;b4 Qf5 11. Rc1 Qg5 12. Rb1 Qf5 { 0.00}  ) ( 2... Rab8 3. Qxc6 Qe5 4. Rd1 Rb6 5.&#xA;Qd7+ Rf7 6. Qg4+ Kf8 7. Qc8+ Kg7 8. Qg4+ { 0.00}  ) 3. Qxc6 d4 4. Bd3 Rab8 5.&#xA;b3 Rbd8 6. f4 Qe7 7. Qb7 Rd7 8. Qxa7 Qe3+ 9. Kg2 Qd2+ 10. Kg1 Qe3+ { 0.00}   &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9030" LastActivityDate="2016-03-30T04:18:15.513" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14035" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14036" CreationDate="2016-03-30T09:12:52.547" Score="9" ViewCount="4588" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have a new chess student who likes risky openings. We conducted an exercise where we played the first 4 or 5 moves to see which openings come naturally to him. He chose the Scandinavian Defence and Queen's Gambit Accepted as Black, and the Blackmar-Diemer gambit as White.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. e4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My problem is that I have only come across this opening once, and it does not appear in any of the books I have. It also is that my style of play is very different from my student's. I have a much more cautious style.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, my question is, &lt;strong&gt;to help my student, I would like to know what are the main ideas and variations in the Blackmar-Diemer gambit&lt;/strong&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastEditorUserId="3819" LastEditDate="2016-03-30T11:48:52.647" LastActivityDate="2020-03-06T23:15:18.750" Title="What are the ideas behind the Blackmar-Diemer gambit?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;gambits&gt;&lt;1.d4&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14036" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14035" CreationDate="2016-03-30T09:43:14.780" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've used BDG countless number of times and won virtually everytime over weaker players. This is a dangerous opening if Black simply plays normal development moves, quite tricky to play in a 5-minute blitz game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White has to attack because he is a pawn down. The most direct and surprisingly effective setup is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Position the light bishop on the d3-h7 diagonal&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Move the white queen d1-e1-h4&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Prepare for an exchange sacrifice on the f-file&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Prepare for bishop sacrifices on the h6 and h7 squares&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why is this effective in a blitz game? An unprepared Black player might just simply make normal development moves, as if there was no gambit. By the time Black sees the checkmate, it'd be too late. If Black plays h7-h6 or g7-g6, White has the the two bishops and f1-rook to do further damage, for example sacrificing by Bxh6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This gambit can be refuted, possible ideas:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Castle to the queen-side&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Delay castling and strike on the weak d-pawn. If white plays c3, Black has ...c5 to challenge the pawn and try to open the weak g1-a7 diagonal.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've personally found very difficult to deal with Black castle queen-side, because it is harder to exploit the space advantage in the king-side while the Black king is on the other side of the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here, I give a sample game that I've used many times.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;1.d4 d5 2.e4 dxe4 3.f3 exf3 4.Nxf3 Nf6 5.Bd3 e6 6.O-O Bd6 7.Bg5 O-O 8.Qe1 Nbd7  9.Qh4 c5 10.Ne5 cxd4 11.Bxf6 Nxf6 12.Rxf6 &#xA;*&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2017-04-18T03:19:48.103" LastActivityDate="2017-04-18T03:19:48.103" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14037" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14043" CreationDate="2016-03-30T11:54:28.843" Score="4" ViewCount="625" Body="&lt;p&gt;[Update:] It's called &quot;Tan gambit&quot; after an &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1013025&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Alekhine game&lt;/a&gt;. Analyzed &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.lichess.org/YHUfBqRM#9&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;below&lt;/a&gt;. White should dicline the pawn, since. It can be played as a drawing line for black (no queens).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;d4 d5 2. c4 c6 3. cxd5 Nf6!? &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This seem to me a good gambit line. I think it's a good way of playing &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.365chess.com/opening.php?m=6&amp;amp;n=43&amp;amp;ms=d4.d5.c4.c6.cxd5&amp;amp;ns=7.8.23.36.43&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;but no one does according to www.365chess.com&lt;/a&gt; Some people find exchange variation boring. What is the reason that no one is playing it? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Take a look at the position after 1. d4 d5 2. c4 c6 3. cxd5 Nf6 4. dxc6 Nxc6 5. Nf3 Bg4 6. e3 e5. Black is very active.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course white can avoid it by 3.Nf3. Meaning that slav players still have to know the exchange variation. A gambit does not need to be 100% correct. But a gambit no one is playing? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(I found it via 1.d4 d5 2. c4 Nf6. With no one I don't mean 0).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. c4 c6 3. cxd5 Nf6!? (3. cxd5 cxd5) (3. cxd5 Nf6 4. dxc6 Nxc6 5. Nf3 Bg4 6. e3 e5)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[Update]: I used lichess (poor) analysis feature to analyze some games. [Between strong players].&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;5&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Nf3 Bg4. [What I would play].&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.lichess.org/vKcI2pji#13&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;7. Be2 [What I would be most afraid of].&lt;/a&gt; ½-½, Reinhold (2139) vs. Stevermueer (2150)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.lichess.org/TEi8oCJz#19&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;7. Bb5 [Messy internet game]&lt;/a&gt; 0-1, Drozdovskij (2509) vs. Dobrov (2515)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;5&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Nf3 e5. [Queens are exchanged].&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.lichess.org/LwHQwqWy#11&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;6. dxe5&lt;/a&gt; 1-0, Sandipan (2637) vs. Elorta (2363)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.lichess.org/omn1OnFv#11&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;6. Nxe5&lt;/a&gt; ½-½, Vorobiov (2577) vs. Zvjaginsev (2646)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;5&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Nf3 Bf5.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.lichess.org/YHUfBqRM#9&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;5. Nf3 Bf5&lt;/a&gt; 1-0, Alekhine vs Tan&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7773" LastEditorUserId="7773" LastEditDate="2016-04-06T19:02:09.117" LastActivityDate="2016-04-06T19:02:09.117" Title="Exchanged Slav defense. Gambit the c6 pawn. Why not?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;slav-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14038" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14037" CreationDate="2016-03-30T12:33:42.343" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the &lt;a href=&quot;http://chessok.com/?page_id=352&quot;&gt;chessok opening tree&lt;/a&gt; there are 28 games with this gambit. Going by the computer evaluation it seems to be playable, but the score is atrocious (&gt;80% for white).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So here you have a gambit that is pretty unknown, scores horribly and can easily be ignored if white is not in a mood for adventures. Also it doesn't seem to lead to dangerous complications as far as I can see. There is no automatic attack on the white king, in the worst case white just returns the pawn. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All in all not very surprising that it is rarely played. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2016-03-30T12:33:42.343" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14039" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14032" CreationDate="2016-03-30T14:25:55.737" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is a typical beginner's mistake to overvalue the importance of having a good pawn structure. A friend of mine once gave a whole piece away to avoid getting doubled pawns, and you argue similarly in this position. That is very understandable if you have just learned about hanging, isolated and doubled pawns and want to adhere to this newfound wisdom. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BUT: It is very, very rare that an advantage in pawn structure is worth a full piece. The disadvantage from having doubled or even tripled pawns usually varies between zero and one pawn. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;General advice: Don't worry too much about structure or pawns in general, having active pieces is much more important. Also: Having more material is more important, if only because a piece that your opponent doesn't have, cannot become active. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2016-03-30T14:25:55.737" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14040" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9546" CreationDate="2016-03-30T14:41:56.793" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Pirc, modern, and KID.  If you attack the center with ... c5, it could turn into a Dragon Sicilian pawn structure, but it is safer because both players have castled, normally kingside, by the time the break has occurred.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9684" LastActivityDate="2016-03-30T14:41:56.793" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14042" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9546" CreationDate="2016-03-30T19:28:05.817" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The open games can all lead to very similar strategic ideas. So you play e4 e5 (and d4 or d5 at the first opportunity) along with the QGA you get open games with lots of tactics. I find this can be a very fun way to play if you don't like positional games (so the very opposite of your example). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This repertoire is a great way to learn a lot of tactics very quickly. It's also a great way to practice your calculation skills as you need to calculate many variations in the early moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="390" LastActivityDate="2016-03-30T19:28:05.817" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14043" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14037" CreationDate="2016-03-31T00:53:09.987" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you want to play this gambit, the best way to get there is by playing 2...Nf6!? 3.cxd5 c6!. White is almost certain to play 3.cxd5 which is both the natural move and the theoretical refutation of Nf6. Of course he can still ignore your pawn on c6 and transpose to the Exchange Slav, but at least with this move order it's not a sure thing that he wanted to play the exchange variation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The gambit 1.d4 d5 2.c4 Nf6 3.cxd5 c6 was played in the game &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.365chess.com/view_game.php?g=2518171&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Udovcic–Canal, Venice 1953&lt;/a&gt;. (Thanks to @r4 for the link.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2299" LastEditorUserId="2299" LastEditDate="2016-03-31T06:26:53.647" LastActivityDate="2016-03-31T06:26:53.647" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14044" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14032" CreationDate="2016-03-31T03:33:46.367" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would take the piece.  As a rule of thumb, it is easier to fight up a piece instead of fighting between two pieces.  That is with a Bishop on d3 versus a Rook on e8, you can see it is harder to penetrate than if White had no pieces to defend the entry points.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The triple pawns do look horrible but are helpful.  Rb8 to try and eliminate one of the pawns is a bad idea as it gives White a half-open files to attack your pawns. A rook will go to d8 then to d6/5.  The pawns will be undoubled(untripled) or you will get total control over the open file.  The king and a rook on d7 will prevent any play on the e file.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Bishop is restricting the King, even if it's only for a couple of moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[fen &quot;r4r2/p1p3k1/2p2p2/6p1/2p5/6Pb/PPP2P1P/R4RK1 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1...Rad8 2. Rad1 Rd6 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I skipped a White move just to illustrate the point.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9684" LastEditorUserId="9684" LastEditDate="2016-03-31T03:48:13.253" LastActivityDate="2016-03-31T03:48:13.253" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14045" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14035" CreationDate="2016-03-31T04:11:28.157" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Student T covered the ideas clearly and RemcoGerlich pointed out the best counterattacks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;IM Martin has a video explaining the finer points. He has this trailer: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srGcegnDqz0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srGcegnDqz0&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I did play this opening during my teen years, and found that even if Black castles queenside, the pressure against f7 will win the pawn back.  Now I occasionally transpose into it, while playing blitz, when my opponent plays  the Scandinavian Defence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://tws27.weebly.com/blackmar-diemer-gambit.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://tws27.weebly.com/blackmar-diemer-gambit.html&lt;/a&gt; has the basic opening lines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Gary Michael Danelishen wrote &quot;The Final Theory of Chess.&quot;  He left Fritz running for days analysing the opening, and it claims the the BDG is the best opening.  He shows the lines suggested by the computer and its evaluation.  Although I would not recommend the book, it does have interesting line for the French.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9684" LastEditorUserId="9684" LastEditDate="2016-03-31T04:22:24.287" LastActivityDate="2016-03-31T04:22:24.287" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14046" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8851" CreationDate="2016-03-31T14:25:15.360" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;A great way to get out of logical mind is: to hold a pencil upside down and draw with it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's like looking from right to left in army cadets: because when you learnt to read from left to right you also learn to skip bits visually as an externality when looking from left to right also.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically, slow down. Be confident and be organised. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Don't play blitz chess if you want to win- but we all play for different reasons.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9761" LastActivityDate="2016-03-31T14:25:15.360" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14048" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14037" CreationDate="2016-03-31T14:32:54.067" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Black is active, but he's hardly &quot;sac-a-pawn&quot; active. Once white finishes his development and places his rooks and pieces on the open files and lines, I see no way for Black to stop white from exchanging pieces to a safe pawn up endgame. If I'm giving up a pawn like this, I want activity and something dynamic, like the ability to keep my opponent's King from castling. I just don't see enough from this pawn sac to see it as any good. Maybe in blitz once or twice. But I would hate to have to sit through a classical time control game with this position. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8687" LastActivityDate="2016-03-31T14:32:54.067" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14051" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14014" CreationDate="2016-03-31T14:56:45.057" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;cxd5 because it's forcing. You can develop the Bishop after e4 which further antagonises the centre and double central pawn moves are classed as tempo!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you don't receive negative feedback on this move I would try it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some might call this swapping a wing pawn for a central pawn... and it half opens the King file!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9761" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-03-31T15:34:52.733" LastActivityDate="2016-03-31T15:34:52.733" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14052" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4800" CreationDate="2016-03-31T19:22:51.283" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT&lt;/strong&gt;: Now that I look closely, I have solved a different variant than what was asked. Probably this is interesting anyway :) The variant's rules are described here: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesscorner.com/tutorial/basic/pawngame/pawngame.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chesscorner.com/tutorial/basic/pawngame/pawngame.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have written a piece of software to solve this. Contrary to my and other people's expectations, and barring bugs, it shows that the game is actually a win for white. Without en passant it was a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only winning opening moves for white are &lt;strong&gt;1. b4&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;1. c4&lt;/strong&gt; (and the symmetric &lt;strong&gt;1. f4&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;1. g4&lt;/strong&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Curiously, all other white opening moves are a win for black. &lt;strong&gt;1. d4&lt;/strong&gt; is refuted by &lt;strong&gt;1. ... b5 0-1&lt;/strong&gt;; all other black responses are wins for white.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I put the code here: &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/sliedes/pawnsonly&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://github.com/sliedes/pawnsonly&lt;/a&gt;. With the default setup it uses 25 gigabytes of memory for the transposition table and I seem to remember it takes a few hours to solve the 8x8 case. I have not tested how slow it is with less memory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are some results of the first two or three moves:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://sliedes.kapsi.fi/pawnsonly/pawnsonly-moves-d4.txt&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;First two full moves (small text file)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://sliedes.kapsi.fi/pawnsonly/pawnsonly-moves-d6.txt.gz&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;First three full moves (5 megabytes gzip compressed, 75 megabytes decompressed)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some of the lines end with &quot;1/2-1/2+&quot; or &quot;1/2-1/2-&quot;. &quot;1/2-1/2+&quot; means that white can force at least a draw, and no further search was done because this information was enough for perfect play from the starting position (so it might also be a white win). Correspondingly, &quot;1/2-1/2-&quot; means that black is able to force at least a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1543" LastActivityDate="2016-03-31T19:22:51.283" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14053" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14054" CreationDate="2016-04-01T07:19:08.313" Score="8" ViewCount="5701" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've got two files installed on my site from SCID &amp;amp; SCID vs PC - Scid vs PC-4.16.x64 &amp;amp; Scid-4.6.2. How are they different ? Or are they just the same ? Which one should I delete if it is a replica?&#xA;Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5653" LastActivityDate="2020-09-04T19:42:44.437" Title="What's the difference between SCID and SCID vs PC?" Tags="&lt;database&gt;&lt;scid&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14054" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14053" CreationDate="2016-04-01T09:23:43.050" Score="9" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Shane's Chess Information Database&lt;/strong&gt; (SCID) is a powerful Chess Toolkit, with which one can create huge databases, run chess engines, and play casual games against the computer or online with the Free Internet Chess Server. It was originally written by Shane Hudson , and has received strong contribution from Pascal Georges and others.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Scid vs. PC&lt;/strong&gt; began with bug-fixes for the computer-versus-player features of Scid (hence the name), but has evolved into a solid alternative with many new features and interfaces. The project is authored by Stevenaaus and numerous contributors. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So they are not the same. &lt;em&gt;Scid vs. PC&lt;/em&gt; is a &lt;em&gt;SCID&lt;/em&gt; variant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9030" LastActivityDate="2016-04-01T09:23:43.050" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14055" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8276" CreationDate="2016-04-01T12:27:03.900" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/9706/representing-moves-found-via-bitboards-applying-them-and-removing-them&quot;&gt;Representing Moves found via BitBoards, applying them, and removing them&lt;/a&gt; provides a good overview of move generation using the fastest method.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I use a different method relying on three arrays.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;key[] = {1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, ...} // bit test aligned to movement.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;movement[] = {1, -1, 8, -8, -9, -7, 9, 7, -17, -15, -10. -6, 6, 10, 15, 17}&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;movementkey[64] = {...} // bit set if move is possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This array is setup in such a way that if the bit is set, the corresponding movement is allowed.  For example, if the third bit is set in the movementkey array, represented easily by key[2], then movement[2] is a legal square.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Loop through the pieces. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P: check based upon color&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;N: loop through last eight indexes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B: call Slider function with index value of 4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;R: call slider function with index value of 0.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Q: call slider function twice, with 0 and 4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;K: simple one square movement.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;check for EP, and castling.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Slider function:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;tosquare = fromsquare &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;loop from index to index + 4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;if bit is set fromsquare += movement&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;if empty addmove and continue&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;else&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;if NotOwnPiece addmove&#xA;break&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9684" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2016-04-01T12:27:03.900" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14057" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13997" CreationDate="2016-04-01T15:07:30.413" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;A quiet move: 1... Qa8, keeping the pawn pinned, and white will be mated next move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When teaching kids is important do show MATE IN ZERO FIRST, so MATE IN ONE and so on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Never give a child a problem she can not solve. Because success is stimulating and a failure is depressing and could be mortal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9840" LastActivityDate="2016-04-01T15:07:30.413" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14058" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5655" CreationDate="2016-04-01T17:54:43.447" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Squeezing yet another mate from &lt;strong&gt;Dag Oskar Madsen&lt;/strong&gt;'s construction,&#xA;for a total of 19: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  [Title &quot;Black to move&quot;]&#xA;  [SetUp &quot;1&quot;]&#xA;  [FEN &quot;R6Q/6B1/2p3K1/8/8/3pN3/rb6/kq5R w - - 0 1&quot;] &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8860" LastActivityDate="2016-04-01T17:54:43.447" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14059" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5655" CreationDate="2016-04-01T18:23:49.093" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;... and yet another mate, for a total of 20, at the cost of a few more&#xA;White units including a second Queen:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  [Title &quot;Black to move (after Dag Oskar Madsen)&quot;]&#xA;  [SetUp &quot;1&quot;]&#xA;  [FEN &quot;Q3Q2B/8/4P1K1/1P4p1/2N5/3pN3/rb6/kq5R w - - 0 1&quot;] &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8860" LastActivityDate="2016-04-01T18:23:49.093" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14060" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14061" CreationDate="2016-04-01T23:57:31.817" Score="9" ViewCount="495" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I was a kid, I remember reading a newspaper article about a chess game. The article was written as if the writer was one of the players. It was a pretty surprising game and it looked as if it was a total domination. The article was like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I was just picking up the free pieces. I was so confident that I was&#xA;  dominating the board. I saw him writing &quot;resign&quot; in the notation&#xA;  paper. To make him more desperate, I took his rook with my bishop. I&#xA;  was waiting for him to flick his king. Then suddenly, he scratched the&#xA;  word &quot;resign&quot; and has written &quot;Re8&quot; instead. Then it hit me. I was&#xA;  losing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The article I have read was a long time ago therefore I might be wrong about Re8.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this a famous game? If you know which game this is, can you help me?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8209" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-12-15T00:20:37.930" LastActivityDate="2020-12-15T00:20:37.930" Title="Could you help me to find which game this is?" Tags="&lt;master-games&gt;&lt;sacrifice&gt;&lt;famous-games&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14061" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14060" CreationDate="2016-04-02T01:17:06.140" Score="16" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/article/view/how-to-avoid-blunders-part-two&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.chess.com/article/view/how-to-avoid-blunders-part-two&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In one of his books GM Alexander Kotov even coined a term &amp;quot;Dizziness due to success&amp;quot; which describes Chigorin's blunder that we just witnessed pretty accurately. Kotov even tells his own story. He was playing a game and achieved a completely winning position. His opponent lost any interest in his game, and mostly watched the games of other players. Moreover, he wrote &amp;quot;White resigned&amp;quot; on his score sheet, folded it and put it in his pocket.  Kotov knew that his opponent was just waiting for a good moment to stop the clock and concede the defeat.  Fortunately, such a moment was very close and Kotov took the White Bishop on f7. Guess what happened after that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When Kotov's opponent executed his winning move, he took his score sheet out of his pocket, crossed out &amp;quot;White resigned&amp;quot; and it was Black who had to resign the game. It doesn't even matter to me if the White player did this little trick (with folding his score sheet) on purpose or he genuinely thought that the game was over.  The point is once you start thinking that the game is over and your opponent is about to resign, blunders are almost unavoidable!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/lmZGm.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/lmZGm.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2016-04-02T01:17:06.140" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14062" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14063" CreationDate="2016-04-02T02:03:41.893" Score="6" ViewCount="516" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recently bought a chess book that had unusual chess notation, such as B x KP;  P X B, Q - R5&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does anyone know what type of notation this is and how to read it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9739" LastActivityDate="2017-08-25T11:03:51.923" Title="Unusual chess notation" Tags="&lt;notation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14063" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14062" CreationDate="2016-04-02T02:47:15.583" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;That's &lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Descriptive_notation&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;descriptive notation&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;. Click that to go to the wiki page.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is an obsolete notation, having been replaced by &lt;em&gt;algebraic&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;figurine algebraic notation&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B x KP means, Bishop (B) takes (x) Kings (K) Pawn (P).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Q-R5 - Queen (Q) Moves To (-) Rook's (R) Fifth square (5)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then there are ways to show castling, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT - doubled pawns.  Descriptive Notation doesn't care how pieces got on the squares where they sit. Just name the piece and where it is going. If you were white and had a pawn on e4 and another on e6 (or K4 and K6, in descriptive) and you moved the pawn on e6, your move would be P-K7.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One thing about descriptive, is that the squares are numbered with respect to the side that is moving.  Say you wanted to move your Queen from her initial square to the opposite edge of the board. Your move, as white, would be Q-Q8 (Queen moves to the Queen's eighth square).  Now suppose you wanted to make the exact same move, but as black. This move would also be Q-Q8. Both moves are notated with respect to the side making the move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-08-25T11:03:51.923" LastActivityDate="2017-08-25T11:03:51.923" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14065" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13913" CreationDate="2016-04-02T11:06:55.387" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;(Anyone how wants a deep technical discussion for AlphaGo can look at my &lt;a href=&quot;https://datascience.stackexchange.com/questions/10932/difference-between-alphagos-policy-network-and-value-network&quot;&gt;post&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Short answer&lt;/strong&gt;: No&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Long answer&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, we need to understand why Google didn't implement alpha-beta into AlphaGo. Stockfish and Komodo (and all chess engines) have alpha-beta, why wouldn't AlphaGo?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Reason&lt;/strong&gt;: there is no easy and cheap way that can accurately evaluates a Go position statically.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chess, we can always count the materials, a very effective way to evaluate a position statically. Although not perfect, it's very fast and a very good proxy for chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Searching the state space with Monte-Carlo is an &lt;strong&gt;inferior&lt;/strong&gt; method to alpha-beta. Google would have implemented alpha-beta if they could, but they couldn't. Thus, they were forced to use something much slower.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess engine would not play better with Monte-Carlo.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:50:40.990" LastActivityDate="2016-04-02T11:06:55.387" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14066" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1923" CreationDate="2016-04-02T15:30:33.173" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;g3 is a good move. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a3 also a good 'prophylactic' move....whatever that means....(what would a Trojan Horse be?) for white,generally speaking, but I prefer not to play it, as it wastes time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But g3 is correct in my very limited estimation!!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9959" LastActivityDate="2016-04-02T15:30:33.173" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14067" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1923" CreationDate="2016-04-02T16:00:34.223" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Nf3 first isn't it? Or not....? For me, Nf3 first&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was just messing about on Stockfish with the variation...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;d4 d5 &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;c4 e5 &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;dxe5 d4 &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Nf3 Nc6 &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;g3 Bg4 &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Bg2 Qd7 &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;O‑O O‑O‑O &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Nbd2 Nge7 &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;c5 Ng6 &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;b4 a6 &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Qb3 Be6 &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Qa3 &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9960" LastEditorUserId="9964" LastEditDate="2016-04-02T21:09:47.760" LastActivityDate="2016-04-02T21:09:47.760" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14069" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-04-02T17:39:00.780" Score="3" ViewCount="674" Body="&lt;p&gt;My question may seem a little odd. But, nevertheless:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Planning to play in the tournament. 15 + 0 Swiss system. There will be players from beginner to CM. &#xA;What do you consider best openings to confuse players, set up traps against beginners and chess masters?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And can you suggest best strategy to play in this kind of tournament?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My rating is something like 1600-1700.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9962" LastActivityDate="2016-10-04T06:19:55.733" Title="Tournament strategy to gain maximum points" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;tournament&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14070" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14069" CreationDate="2016-04-02T17:50:01.880" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;My rating is much lower, so it might not be as helpful for you as it is for me, but I really enjoy playing the English. Most people spend their time studying the more popular openings, but when I start with c4 it throws a lot of their prep out the window and evens the playing field a bit. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7739" LastActivityDate="2016-04-02T17:50:01.880" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14072" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-04-02T22:55:19.430" Score="2" ViewCount="313" Body="&lt;p&gt;The long algebraic notation (lan) for null move is usually 00-00 or simply 0000. Chess engines that support the nullmove: &quot;give up a turn, and let the other side move&quot; typically use this as its part of UCI. What  would the SAN representation be? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9841" LastEditorUserId="3831" LastEditDate="2016-04-03T06:41:08.257" LastActivityDate="2016-06-27T23:39:36.273" Title="SAN for nullmove?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;notation&gt;&lt;uci&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14073" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14080" CreationDate="2016-04-03T19:57:32.693" Score="1" ViewCount="528" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you modify chess so that white gets to make one extra move within the first 10 moves, is it possible to show there is a non-losing strategy for white?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9977" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2016-04-04T08:40:09.873" LastActivityDate="2016-04-04T08:40:09.873" Title="Non-losing strategy for white" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;chess-variants&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14074" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-04-03T20:47:16.060" Score="28" ViewCount="4805" Body="&lt;p&gt;The modern rules of chess, except for the stalemating being a draw, are basically equivalent to a game in which the goal is just to capture the king, not checkmate him. It's plausible that in the oldest versions of chess, this was indeed the goal, but since a rational player would then always move their king when in check, and never leave themselves in check, and would only have their king captured when there was no escaping from it, players may have decided that responding to check may as well just be made a rule.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I haven't been able to find any reliable source either confirming or refuting this hypothesis. Is there any?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="725" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-07-06T15:20:15.717" LastActivityDate="2020-07-06T15:20:15.717" Title="Was there ever a time when the goal in chess was to capture the king?" Tags="&lt;history&gt;&lt;kings&gt;&lt;captures&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14075" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14074" CreationDate="2016-04-03T20:57:06.037" Score="26" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Checkmate#History&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt; claims that&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In early Sanskrit chess (c. 500–700) the king could be captured and this ended the game. The Persians (c. 700–800) introduced the idea of warning that the king was under attack (announcing check in modern terminology). This was done to avoid the early and accidental end of a game. Later the Persians added the additional rule that a king could not be moved into check or left in check. As a result, the king could not be captured,[13] and checkmate was the only decisive way of ending a game.[14]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;References [13] and [14] are to Davidson, Henry (1949), &lt;em&gt;A Short History of Chess&lt;/em&gt;, which can be consulted on Google Books. I couldn't tell immediately what sources Davidson used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2016-04-03T20:57:06.037" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14077" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14073" CreationDate="2016-04-03T23:19:50.237" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes. 1.e4, then move the white Queen out to f3|g4|h5. Prepare for Qxf7+ then Qxe8 or Qxd7+ then Qxe8. Now white wins because the black king is gone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2016-04-04T01:07:37.873" LastActivityDate="2016-04-04T01:07:37.873" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14078" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5655" CreationDate="2016-04-04T02:08:56.470" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;So I looked this up in C. Jeremy Morse's &lt;em&gt;Chess Problems: Tasks and Records&lt;/em&gt;,&#xA;as I should have done before entering this fray.  The specific task posed by&#xA;&lt;em&gt;I.J. Kennedy&lt;/em&gt; is not addressed, but there are several problems that come close&#xA;while pursuing some other goal.  In particular, a problem by Morse himself&#xA;(#34, originally in &lt;em&gt;The Problemist&lt;/em&gt; 1992), using the same three-lines&#xA;scheme that &lt;strong&gt;Dag Oskar Marsden&lt;/strong&gt; found independently, is easily modified to &#xA;attain &lt;strong&gt;21&lt;/strong&gt; Black moves each answered by a different mate: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  [Title &quot;Mate in 2 (C. Jeremy Morse 1992, adapted NDE 2016)&quot;]&#xA;  [SetUp &quot;1&quot;]&#xA;  [FEN &quot;5Q1R/P2p2K1/2bPP1p1/7r/3B1NN1/4p3/8/R5rk w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Again two White Queens, one provided by the key move 1 a8Q! &#xA;One mate appears on each of the 21 squares on the same rank, file, or&#xA;diagonal as the bKh1.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8860" LastActivityDate="2016-04-04T02:08:56.470" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14079" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14060" CreationDate="2016-04-04T02:10:27.033" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sorry it is not an answer to the original question. It is supposed to be a comment to StudetT's answer - definitely correct one - but is too long to fit the comment format. Just a bit of chess history.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Dizziness due to success&lt;/strong&gt; was not coined by Kotov.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is a title a Pravda editorial, signed by Stalin (I have no idea who actually wrote it), &lt;a href=&quot;https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%93%D0%BE%D0%BB%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%BE%D0%BA%D1%80%D1%83%D0%B6%D0%B5%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%B5_%D0%BE%D1%82_%D1%83%D1%81%D0%BF%D0%B5%D1%85%D0%BE%D0%B2&quot;&gt;published&lt;/a&gt; in March 2nd 1930. The phrase marked a beginning of a next phase of Stalin's purges and was probably the first notable example of newspeak.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the time Kotov used it in &lt;em&gt;Thinking Like a Grandmaster&lt;/em&gt; (in 1969 I suppose) it was already deeply rooted in the Russian language, and had mostly ironical (or even Orwellian) connotation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first time it was used in the chess context (again as far as I am aware of) was an article by &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Blumenfeld&quot;&gt;Veniamin Blumenfeld&lt;/a&gt; (1884-1947), see &lt;a href=&quot;http://%D1%88%D0%B0%D1%85%D0%BC%D0%B0%D1%82%D0%B8%D1%81%D1%82%D0%B0%D0%BC.%D1%80%D1%84/Bases/Books/D/Shkola_budushzih_chempionov-Kniga-5-Razvitie_tvorc.pdf&quot;&gt;Dvoretzkij&lt;/a&gt;, from the bottom of page 108. I cannot find when the article was originally published, but it was surely after the editorial: Blumenfeld quotes the game Sergeev-Grigoriev of 1932.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3774" LastEditorUserId="3774" LastEditDate="2016-04-04T02:18:02.260" LastActivityDate="2016-04-04T02:18:02.260" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14080" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14073" CreationDate="2016-04-04T07:57:21.167" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/14077/7297&quot;&gt;Student T&lt;/a&gt; gives an explicit answer, but you can also view it from a game-theoretical perspective.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Suppose normal chess is a draw (or a win for black). Then, white can play 1. Ng1-f3 and Nf3-g1, effectively becoming black and the rest of the game is normal, so it is a draw (or a win for white).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Suppose normal chess is a win for white. This will almost certainly involve moving a pawn two steps from its initial position within the first 10 moves, or moving a bishop, queen, rook or king. You can use your extra move to perform this move in two steps, e.g. e2-e3-e4 or Bf1-d3-e2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In any case, White will not lose the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2016-04-04T08:02:57.490" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14082" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14069" CreationDate="2016-04-04T23:19:43.747" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The best strategy is simply to play as well as possible. There are no effective shortcuts like trick openings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2016-04-04T23:19:43.747" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14083" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14069" CreationDate="2016-04-05T02:27:12.553" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In these fast games, you're going for a knockout. You don't have time for a long, drawn-out game... unless you're able to move fast and your opponent isn't.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So find a sharp offbeat opening for each color and learn the barbs. Then capitalize on the confusion. This can lead to bad moves or slow moves on the part of the opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you play a Ruy Lopez, Queen's Gambit, etc, you're going to play into peoples' books. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2016-04-05T02:27:12.553" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14084" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16090" CreationDate="2016-04-05T13:47:12.703" Score="0" ViewCount="332" Body="&lt;p&gt;ChessBase (the company) has several chess analysis programs available: Fritz, Komodo Chess, Houdini Pro, Deep Junior and Deep Rybka. Do all of these programs use one and the same graphical user interface?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3997" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T20:46:33.770" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T20:46:49.350" Title="Are the GUIs of ChessBase chess programs the same?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;computer-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="14085" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-04-05T17:17:47.190" Score="9" ViewCount="297" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm black, I defeated a 1830 very easily in a 11 + 10 game and I had plenty of time, but I played fast and didn't see mate, he was low on time. Analyzing with lichess engine&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;2k2r2/ppp5/7p/3Pp1p1/3n4/2PPK1B1/Pq4PP/R3R3 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Nc2 (1...Rf4!)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The engine suggested Rf4 and mate in 3, I played Nc2. And here&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;2k2r2/ppp5/7p/3Pp1p1/4K3/2PP2B1/Pqn3PP/R3R3 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Nxa1 (1...Qb6!)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I missed Qb6, mate in 4 and played Nxa1. Again I had plenty of time on the clock, around 10 minutes, the opponent was so easy to beat, but that's not the point, the point is I missed mate twice, I just wasn't looking for it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now that I look at it, I think I would  never play Rf4, Yes the king is trapped but there's so much material on the board to take, I don't think I would have analyzed the Rf4 line, not in this life, nor the next one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When faced with such winning positions, in a blitz match, do you go for materials or do you stop and analyze possible mating lines? I just want to know if I'm being a humain or am I not seeing those lines because I'm weak or careless.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;if I'm in losing position or equal position, I analyze many lines trying to win, but games like these I try to simplify and reach a simple endgame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1105" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-12-26T14:59:29.337" LastActivityDate="2019-12-26T14:59:29.337" Title="Would you look for mate, if tactics to win materials are easier to spot?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;psychology&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="14086" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14085" CreationDate="2016-04-06T10:01:58.380" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;It makes no difference whether you deliver mate in 3, mate in 33 or your opponent resigns. On the score sheet and the tournament results you get the same score: 1-0. If you see a clear win then play it. Don't waste time looking for a &quot;better&quot; win. There is no such thing unless you are in a hurry to catch the last bus home.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Fixating about what the computer says in such positions is just silly. This is not just my opinion it is also shared by top players. I am currently reading Boris Gelfand's &quot;Positional Decision Making in Chess&quot; and he expresses this view in the book in positions where he is pursuing a positional winning plan and the computer analysis points out a quicker tactical win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2016-04-06T10:01:58.380" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14087" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14088" CreationDate="2016-04-07T08:51:18.790" Score="4" ViewCount="1301" Body="&lt;p&gt;I currently have 1500 Elo on chess.com and recently I feel like I reached a bottleneck, it seems that no matter what, it is difficult to go higher.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Considering that I want to reach 1800 which books are recommended?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Probably I am facing strategic problems, for example I can develop the rooks, by connecting them, then double them on a column, but then I don't know anymore what to do. Sometimes I can reach the 7th rank, but other times it seems simply pointless to double them. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similarly, I develop other pieces, I can reach good positions, but still I don't know how to fully utilize them at full extent&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Last, I am still having problems when the enemy launch it pawns at me on my castled side and I have to use my paws to defend.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9787" LastActivityDate="2016-04-23T16:04:11.860" Title="Which books are suited for 1500 elo?" Tags="&lt;books&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14088" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14087" CreationDate="2016-04-07T09:43:36.813" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would recommend the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.qualitychess.co.uk/docs/14/artur_yusupovs_awardwinning_training_course/&quot;&gt;Yusupov-Series&lt;/a&gt;, in your case the first three books (orange), called Fundamentals.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are a lot of books out there that you would profit from reading, but the Yusupov books are more of a trainings course and I believe that you generally get out of a book in (terms of Elo) what you put into it (in terms of effort).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Doing these exercises will give you actual practical abilities instead of just illusions of understanding.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2016-04-07T09:43:36.813" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14089" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14087" CreationDate="2016-04-07T10:16:06.387" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Anything by Chernev is good at 1500 - Logical Chess Move by Move is his most famous book. Has an explanation after each move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Teach yourself better chess by Hartston is also good (and cheap).&#xA;Bridges the gap between beginner and master.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4543" LastEditorUserId="4543" LastEditDate="2016-04-23T16:04:11.860" LastActivityDate="2016-04-23T16:04:11.860" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14090" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14091" CreationDate="2016-04-08T02:55:44.350" Score="5" ViewCount="357" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have been using this opening that I accidentally started using a lot and then got good results in Blitz games. I'm almost sure it won't last a chance in standard games but it made me curious about a bigger question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I can't find an opening variation (and it really is an opening, say it starts after 3-4 moves from the beginning of the game, not after 20!) in databases, does it mean that it hasn't been good enough to become famous? In other words, is the age of opening theory over with all the stronger ones already being developed and analysed? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9980" LastActivityDate="2016-04-08T08:55:46.960" Title="Is it still possible to develop new openings?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;database&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14091" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14090" CreationDate="2016-04-08T08:55:46.960" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, it is still possible to find new openings. The combinatorial space after 3-4 moves is such large, that there are still many uncharted waters in opening theory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many of such openings probably violate learned principles and are pruned by experienced players before going deeper into the game tree, but there may be undiscovered gems among them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3819" LastActivityDate="2016-04-08T08:55:46.960" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14092" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14094" CreationDate="2016-04-08T10:01:38.547" Score="4" ViewCount="782" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have played a lot of chess in my childhood. And I'm quite a decent player as well. However I stopped playing for few years now. Only after I realized that there are lot of opening/middle/closing text book moves like 'kings Indian defense' etc. if I start fresh once again, how should I start learning these text book moves and implement it? There was no one to coach me in childhood so I never knew all this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10010" LastActivityDate="2019-12-02T02:11:41.100" Title="Learning chess theory" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;learning&gt;&lt;theory&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14093" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14092" CreationDate="2016-04-08T14:47:15.430" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Learning by doing. This is how the mind works. Play a lot. Practise tactics about an hour every day at &lt;a href=&quot;http://chesstempo.com/chess-tactics.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://chesstempo.com/chess-tactics.html&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Two extremists which I notice a lot. 1. The beginner plays too causious. 2. The beginner plays too aggressive (kings gambit). As for openings. Forget it until you are more experienced. In your shoes I woul probably play the London system as white and perhaps the Dutch stonewall as black against d4 and classically 1.e4e5. (Futher explanation of openings is beyond the scope of this question). For openings I often use game collections at www.chessgames.com. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Speaking from experiance I find that my play improves from physical exercise.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I want to adress the advice from Scounged in his comment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I myself have been studying the opening a lot from the very beginning. I played the Kings indian and the Najdorf combined with 1.e4 main lines. But my tactics skills where lacking. Also, I walked in to unfamiliar positions all the time. Nothing particular bad with that, but, they were familiar to my opponents, giving me a vey hard time. Then I changed my repetoire. Then I changed my repetoire again. Clearly, what I should have done is to play 1.g3 or similar in all my games and focusing on tactics and ideas.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unless your opponent also knows and are willing to play the main lines the positions you have been studying are not likely to come up in your games. My feeling is that opening books are addictive (to me) and is great for giving motivation (perhaps also memory training). Giving that 3 world champions reached the top without playing main lines I stand firm in the no opening theory section. The world champions are Alekhine, Capablanca and Carlsen. I do think they know the openings ins and outs and the principle behind them howevet. Perhaps a middle road is better for some, but I don't think it's effective at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you have reached a certain level the endgame is of outmost importance. Many coaches with ambitions students teach the endgames first. Endgames are considered the hardest part of chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One suggestion for a rather solid game is to play 1.d4 and the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chesscollection?cid=1019613&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;London system&lt;/a&gt;. When you have mastered tactics (several hundred hours) and are bored of London you go on with 1.d4 2.Nf3 3.c4 and 1.d4 2.c4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7773" LastEditorUserId="7773" LastEditDate="2016-04-14T13:41:05.533" LastActivityDate="2016-04-14T13:41:05.533" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14094" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14092" CreationDate="2016-04-08T14:49:11.787" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;When you state that you are quite a decent player, exactly what do you mean by that? Do you mean that you have been producing relatively good results in actual chess tournaments, or do you mean that you usually win when playing against casual players? If the first description fits you, then studying opening theory may bring some value. In this case, you should try to understand why the moves are played in the opening instead of just memorizing variations, as the latter won't prepare you if your opponent steps out of theory. Look at famous games played in the opening and reflect over the moves that are played.&#xA;(Edit: And as r4 pointed out in his answer: don't be afraid to play the opening a lot!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the other case it will probably be completely pointless to study specific opening theory, as there are other things you need to learn first to become stronger. In this case it's better to review the basic opening principles about development, center control, piece activity and king safety, and follow them. In the vast majority of cases they are sound enough to give you an advantage against weaker tournament players, if you master them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8300" LastActivityDate="2016-04-08T14:49:11.787" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14095" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5973" CreationDate="2016-04-09T06:51:08.420" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a rule of thumb, when down the exchange(or have two pieces for a Rook), you don't exchange Rooks as they are redundant.  On the flip side, if one Rook on the seventh is good, two Rooks on the seventh is crushing.  Even if all the pawns have evacuated the seventh(second) rank, the Rooks still have power by attacking from behind.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A pawnless endgame with this imbalance is a theoretical draw.  One pawn for each side and the Bishop is not on the same colour square as the Pawn, this position is considered a draw.  The more pawns on the board, the less likely it is a draw.  The more pawns left on the board, the more targets for the Rook to attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I believe it was Capablanca who stated that the secret to winning up the exchange was to give it back at a time when you could also win a pawn.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All of this boils down to that everything depends on the position, that is the placement of the Rooks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As an observer of young players, it amazes me that they try to get the Nc7+ fork.  They know the rook is worth 2 points more than the knight, but they don't know how to use the rook.  Assigning static values is meaningless without listing every situation/exception.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Point Count Chess (PCC) was a 1950s-1960s publication, devised by Israel Albert Horowitz and Geoffrey Mott-Smith.  This shows a system of trying to assign a value to a chess position.  But as our knowledge grew, some the the points have changed value, including some going from negative to positive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Every chess rule has an exception, including this one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9684" LastActivityDate="2016-04-09T06:51:08.420" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14096" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14092" CreationDate="2016-04-09T19:05:46.890" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;One doubt is that... If I study one opening ... For eg... Ruy Lopez...&#xA;  But opponent plays something different... Then I can't continue with&#xA;  ruy Lopez system... So is there like a bunch of opening system which&#xA;  you find it useful? Which I can read&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One relatively quick solution would be to select a repertoire where your opponent's choices are restricted and you can follow some kind of formula to get your pieces developed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One example would be to play the King's Indian Attack as white and the King's Indian Defence / Modern as black. That way you drastically limit what you need to learn and over time you will find that you become more and more familiar with the positions and plans that come out of these openings and so you should be able to get good results and avoid unpleasant surprises in the opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not suggesting that this would be a particularly exciting approach just that it would be effective. I believe there have been quite strong players (IM / weak GM standard) in the past who have adopted this kind of strategy. It is not one I would recommend to a junior (school age) player since they have the time to study more widely and become a more rounded player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2016-04-09T19:05:46.890" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14097" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14087" CreationDate="2016-04-09T20:54:08.247" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Getting to 1500 ELO means that you've grasped much about the tactical nature of the game - when you have a strong position you can win. Now you're ready to push on into more abstract territory; how can I make my position stronger despite not seeing how to win right now?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For this there is nothing better than Jeremy Silman's &quot;How to Reassess Your Chess.&quot; He guides you through a series of different &quot;imbalances&quot; that a chess position can have. With this comes the ability to plan, judge whether exchanges are beneficial and find subtle ways just to improve when there is no clear way to win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1500 ELO and improving is an incredibly exciting place to be. I have no doubt that you'll be recommending this book to similarly ranked friends for many years to come!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10019" LastActivityDate="2016-04-09T20:54:08.247" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14098" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14123" CreationDate="2016-04-10T08:52:09.380" Score="4" ViewCount="534" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there any information, apart from the three games, regarding Fischer playing the Greenblatt computer in 1977? Wasn't Fischer living in seclusion at that time? How did someone manage to have Fischer play? Is there any photo of the event? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-04-10T10:09:06.930" LastActivityDate="2018-09-23T02:35:04.717" Title="Fischer playing Greenblatt in 1977" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;fischer&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14100" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14102" CreationDate="2016-04-11T00:51:44.887" Score="0" ViewCount="133" Body="&lt;p&gt;How does a USA player get invited to such a tournament if it were to happen again? If I were to make a goal to play such a tournament what steps would I have to take? Just curious on how the registration process works since tournaments involving more than one nation seem to be closed compared to regular tournaments in the US. It would be really helpful if someone could explain how you register or get invited for either country involved.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3149" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-04-11T11:59:54.417" LastActivityDate="2016-04-11T11:59:54.417" Title="How does a USA chess player get invited to a chess tournament like the China-USA Chess Summit (2013)?" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14102" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14100" CreationDate="2016-04-11T04:56:35.690" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The participants, at least on the US side, were roughly the level of players that are generally expected to play in the US Championship, although the top few players (at the time, Nakamura, Kamsky and Onischuk for the men and Krush, Zatonskih for the women) did not take part. That would imply that if you're male, you would need to be a solid grandmaster, and if you're female, probably 2200 FIDE at least. My hypothesis is that the USCF went down the list of US ratings from the top until they found enough willing players to fill their roster. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Becoming a GM is extremely difficult and you need more motivation than being able to play in a single tournament. If you're female, 2200 FIDE (about) is easier but will still require years of effort depending on your current skill level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3270" LastActivityDate="2016-04-11T04:56:35.690" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14103" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-04-11T05:41:11.880" Score="7" ViewCount="1259" Body="&lt;p&gt;How do you decide which way to castle?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems castling kingside can be dangerous because of white's extra kingside space he often gets in the French Defense. Also most of my pieces are naturally on the queenside making it difficult if they're needed for defense on the kingside.  I'm curious about if castling queenside is good or not, since you use your pawns to expand on the queenside its feels like a lack of a pawn cover for your king?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes I end up not castling at all in the French because of this. I understand that the answer is rather situational but can someone explain the theory on this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10030" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-04-11T11:59:08.287" LastActivityDate="2016-04-14T11:01:38.347" Title="Castling in the French Defense?" Tags="&lt;castling&gt;&lt;french-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14104" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14103" CreationDate="2016-04-11T07:11:42.700" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you can block the pawn structure on the queenside then you can consider castling queenside, for example in this line&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  [StartPly &quot;12&quot;]&#xA;  [White &quot;White&quot;]&#xA;  [Black &quot;Black&quot;]&#xA;  [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;  1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. e5 c5 4. c3 Nc6 5. Nf3 Qb6 6. a3 c4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also in the Winawer poisoned pawn black often castles queenside in the middlegame because kingside castling is not possible and to bring the a8 rook into play eg.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  [StartPly &quot;32&quot;]&#xA;  [White &quot;White&quot;]&#xA;  [Black &quot;Black&quot;]&#xA;  [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;  1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 Bb4 4. e5 c5 5. a3 Bxc3 6. bxc3 Ne7 7. Qg4        Qc7 8. Qxg7 Rg8 9. Qxh7 cxd4 10. Ne2 Nbc6 11. f4 Bd7 12. Qd3 dxc3 13. Nxc3 a6 14. Rb1 Na5 15. h4 Nf5 16. Rh3 O-O-O  &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Otherwise you generally castle kingside. Sometimes Kf8 is played to defend a pawn on g7 eg after Qg4 but that depends on the specifics.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4543" LastEditorUserId="4543" LastEditDate="2016-04-14T11:01:38.347" LastActivityDate="2016-04-14T11:01:38.347" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14105" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-04-11T11:37:52.063" Score="6" ViewCount="663" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've come to the conclusion that I'm at the point where it would be better for me to stick with a handful of openings I can know well as oppose to how I would normally just play quite a large range of openings. My question is how I would find out what openings suit me since I plan to constantly play them because honestly with so many openings it feels difficult to choose. For instance I can't decide whether I prefer e4 or d4? Also I don't really have an &quot;official&quot; repertoire against openings that aren't d4 or e4 such as g3/g6 or b3/b6 openings, is this an issue? I normally just follow opening principles (control the center, develop etc.) to get by those openings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10030" LastActivityDate="2020-10-02T01:37:47.627" Title="How to decide what openings to stick with?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14106" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14105" CreationDate="2016-04-11T11:54:16.283" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, it is better if you concentrate on just a couple of openings. Even though it feels difficult to choose, you should know if you like closed positions (then, generally speaking, play 1. d4 as White, and choose e.g. French and the King's Indian as Black) or open positions (when it makes more sense to play 1. e4, and e.g. Sicilian and the Grünfeld). If you have no preference, check your results - play the openings which you were successful with in the past.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although, to become a better chess player, you need to practice all types of positions. (But not all &lt;em&gt;openings&lt;/em&gt;.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To answer your last question: if your opponent plays an 'odd' opening, you should indeed be fine if you develop along the general principles (but watch out for sudden tactics).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2020-02-03T08:22:09.133" LastActivityDate="2020-02-03T08:22:09.133" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="14107" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-04-11T13:14:01.903" Score="5" ViewCount="590" Body="&lt;p&gt;Learning from your mistakes is the whole point of analyzing your own games is it not? By learning from your mistakes you are able to improve but my question is once I know I played a inaccurate or bad move what can I do about it? Maybe give examples to help me understand?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10030" LastActivityDate="2018-09-17T01:02:26.117" Title="I know my mistakes but how would I learn from them?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14109" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14107" CreationDate="2016-04-11T14:54:32.703" Score="10" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Identify an error - you've done that.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Identify a better move - have you done that?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Find a memorable difference between 1 &amp;amp; 2.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Step 3 most often involves finding some sort of principle that the better move adheres to. &quot;Exchange when ahead in material&quot; for example. But this is an over simplification. There are different types of errors and they require different responses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some errors occur because we are tired or didn't have a good breakfast before the game. Others because we didn't see some tactic and only practicing tactics or chess problems will make significant inroads there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes you make an error in the opening. When that happens; find example games where the correct move occurred. Play few a couple of them, find one you like, then memorise it. The whole thing. It's easier than you think and it really helps with opening study.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Strategic errors do seem to require reducing to principles. &quot;I thought exchanging bishop for knight was ok but later I wasn't able to fight my opponents control on the light squares.&quot; This situation is difficult. Was the error the exchange or was it the way you played afterwards? Only studying strategy will allow you to judge. Once you make a judgement, trust in it, come up with a way to express why the move is better, some sort of principle that it exemplifies &quot;bishops are stronger than knights if the center is open.&quot; And then see how you do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10019" LastActivityDate="2016-04-11T14:54:32.703" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14110" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14107" CreationDate="2016-04-11T15:00:14.833" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, for a start, you can see what not to play in a given position. Instead, you have to figure out what was the best move and what was the idea behind that move (or perhaps there are several good moves with different motives).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's not different from any other aspect of life - once you do something wrong, you should remember why it was wrong when you find yourself in a similar situation, so you don't do it again.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But analyzing your game is not just about pinpointing your mistakes - there are often many possible good moves you can play in some position, so try to find them all and try to understand what impact would they have on the game if you played them. While you analyze, after each move you can ask questions like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Was this move good?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What advantages/weaknesses this move produced?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Perhaps you didn't do a mistake, but was there a better move? &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Or is there some move that is objectively a bit better than what you played, but it doesn't suit your playstyle? &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Or the other way around, perhaps you played a best move and gotten yourself into a problem later on, while instead you could play a move that is a bit worse but it better fits in with your style and you would feel more comfortable with it?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Was the idea behind the move justified, or you managed to pull off your plan only because your opponent made a mistake?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Was there any other correct move you could play and what would be advantages of it?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These are just some examples to give you the idea what to think of during analysis. Of course, use some chess engine to help you evaluate the position. Like I said, it's not just about finding mistakes, it's also about finding some other possible solutions and ideas, and also about exposing yourself to some position that could have occured.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The more you are exposed to different positions and you learn what are good and bad moves/motives in it, the better player you will be. Once you learn a lot of possible motives, a lot of good and bad sides of some position, you can apply that knowledge in some other similar situations that will occur in your future games, because those motives and good/bad sides are often shared between similar positions. Also, many patterns are shared even between completely different positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The main point is, and that includes learning from mistakes, knowing that you played a bad move and knowing which move would be correct, but it also includes all the other mentioned aspects of understanding the position, analyzing games will ultimately lead to using less time to find more in your future matches.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now i did a bit of a blunder here and wrote all this text before checking what answers are already available on this site. I will analyze my mistake and perhaps next time I won't write what has already been written somewhere, but in the meantime I hope you can find at least some useful information in this answer. For some other ideas for analysis, try to find some existing questions like this one: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/188/how-do-i-analyze-my-game-after-playing&quot;&gt;How do I analyze my game after playing?&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1099" LastActivityDate="2016-04-11T15:00:14.833" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14111" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="693" CreationDate="2016-04-11T20:58:21.760" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/chesstutorapp/id1096289047&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/chesstutorapp/id1096289047&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ChessTutor - rates your moves as you play through Master games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS: This is my app.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10037" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2016-04-12T06:22:13.737" LastActivityDate="2016-04-12T06:22:13.737" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14113" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-04-13T05:40:20.777" Score="2" ViewCount="179" Body="&lt;p&gt;It seems clear to me that there must be a statistical bias in the move selection of master level games in relation to the natural &quot;hand&quot; of the move, right or left.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let me explain.  For the sake of argument let's select the population of  master level chess players who are right handed, and consider blitz games played by these players.  In each position, the vector of each legal move has a more-or-less clockwise or counterclockwise orientation with respect to the center of the board.  Yet for purely anatomical and biological reasons, clockwise moves may be easier to execute on the physical board as it is placed before the players.  Given a players hand literally hovering over a board searching for a move, there must be a bias in which more easily executed moves are preferred over less anatomically natural ones. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there any evidence of this sort of geometrical bias in move selection, beyond that expected from the actual theoretical value of the moves themselves?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There might be many statistical imbalances: towards advancing or retreating moves, towards kingside or queenside directed moves, and possibly towards clockwise or counter-clockwise flowing moves, as I mentioned above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: The key phrase here is 'actual theoretical value'.  I wish to compare human play against perfect play and suggest that the discrepancies which arise might indicate more than a deficit of mental chess ability but also because of the way the brain-body system and handedness might favor moves that are quicker to find with the hand. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="69" LastEditorUserId="69" LastEditDate="2016-04-13T08:06:13.583" LastActivityDate="2016-06-22T15:43:16.277" Title="Statistical Right Handedness Bias in Move Selection?" Tags="&lt;statistics&gt;&lt;blitz&gt;&lt;human-versus-machine&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14114" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-04-13T16:22:59.093" Score="6" ViewCount="2913" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am using scid version 4.6.2. How can I flip the board such that I get black's point of view?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There should be a flip button somewhere, but I do not see it:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/as8IA.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/as8IA.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've enabled all toolbar buttons as well:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/LRcZj.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/LRcZj.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10056" LastEditorUserId="3831" LastEditDate="2016-04-13T16:37:36.197" LastActivityDate="2017-02-27T06:06:14.240" Title="How to flip board in scid?" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;scid&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14115" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14114" CreationDate="2016-04-13T16:28:42.783" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;So, for future reference, the option is under: &lt;code&gt;Edit&lt;/code&gt; -&gt; &lt;code&gt;Setup Start Board...&lt;/code&gt;, or by pressing &lt;kbd&gt;S&lt;/kbd&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Update:&lt;/strong&gt; There is another way! Click on the 'menu' icon below the board (three horizontal bars), then on the what I see as a 'crop' icon (on the far right), and then following menu pops up:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/AY3L6.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/AY3L6.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10056" LastEditorUserId="10056" LastEditDate="2016-04-15T12:13:56.693" LastActivityDate="2016-04-15T12:13:56.693" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14116" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-04-13T21:51:58.457" Score="3" ViewCount="937" Body="&lt;p&gt;I play many blitz games on Lichess per day, 5 + 5 and up. When I play my A game, I can beat any 2000+ player with ease, like today. Sometimes 2200, but I don't play them much.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyway sometimes like what happened last week, I lost many back to back matches against various 1500, 1400 and even 1200! My rating dropped just like that to 1600, perhaps less, now I'm at 1850 looking to be back at 1900 maybe 2000 soon as I'm on a winning streak.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's the only reason I'm not 2200 player, coz one day I might win against 2200, next day I might lose against 1200. I'm mostly play queens gambit or sicillian, no crazy oppenings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does that happen to all of you or is it just me? I play too many games per day, is that why this is happening to me?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I noticied that if I play one game or two, every few days I can win more high rated player with ease. I noticed that if I play many games per day I start feeling numb and anxious and stop seeing the board. is it just me or did anyone played totally rubbish after many games? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think I have chess addiction, if there's such thing, where I continue to play until I start losing and then play and lose more and it's so annoying.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1105" LastActivityDate="2016-04-14T06:53:55.023" Title="Losing against lower rated opponents" Tags="&lt;psychology&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14117" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14119" CreationDate="2016-04-13T22:33:38.407" Score="3" ViewCount="280" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the position below, does &lt;code&gt;...Rxe3+&lt;/code&gt; sacrifice work for Black?&#xA;I need concrete lines, that prove your claims, I can not satisfy myself with some rough evaluation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you. Regards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Black to move&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;2krr3/ppp2ppp/3b1n2/8/6P1/2NPB3/PPP1KPq1/R2Q2R1 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1...Rxe3+&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastActivityDate="2016-04-16T23:02:09.917" Title="Does ...Rxe3+ work for Black?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14118" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14745" CreationDate="2016-04-13T22:45:59.233" Score="3" ViewCount="263" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm looking for a GUI that I can control via the terminal.  Something where I can input a series of moves into the terminal, such as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&amp;gt;  e4&#xA;&amp;gt;  e5&#xA;&amp;gt;  Nf3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;...and have the GUI update the board accordingly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does anyone know of any program(s) like this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can't find anything either on Google or by searching previously asked questions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10058" LastEditorUserId="3270" LastEditDate="2016-04-14T03:31:20.033" LastActivityDate="2016-06-29T00:33:14.593" Title="Are there any Linux GUIs that can be controlled via command line?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;linux&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14119" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14117" CreationDate="2016-04-13T23:25:03.690" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;This looks like a 'no engines' question, otherwise ALNS would have just used Stockfish. Be afraid, B-player analysis is happening!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[FEN &quot;2krr3/ppp2ppp/3b1n2/8/6P1/2NPB3/PPP1KPq1/R2Q2R1 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1...Rxe3 2.Kxe3 Re8+ 3.Kd2 Bf4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[FEN &quot;2krr3/ppp2ppp/3b1n2/8/6P1/2NPB3/PPP1KPq1/R2Q2R1 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1...Rxe3 2.Kxe3 Re8+ 3.Ne4 Rxe4+ 4.dxe4 Qxe4+ 5.Kd2 Bf4+ 6.Kc3 Nd5+ 7.Kb3 Qb4#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[FEN &quot;2krr3/ppp2ppp/3b1n2/8/6P1/2NPB3/PPP1KPq1/R2Q2R1 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Rxe3 2.Kxe3 Re8+ 3.Ne4 Rxe4+ 4.Kd2 Bf4+ 5.Kc3 Nd5+ 6.Kb3 Qxf2 7.dxe4 Qb6+ 8.Kc4 Ne3+&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[Title &quot;White survives, sort of&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;2krr3/ppp2ppp/3b1n2/8/6P1/2NPB3/PPP1KPq1/R2Q2R1 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Rxe3 2.Kxe3 Re8+ 3.Ne4 Rxe4+ 4.Kd2 Bf4+ 5.Kc3 Nd5+ 6.Kb3 Qxf2 7.a3 Qb6+ 8.Ka2 Be5 9.c3 Nxc3+ 10.bxc3 Bxc3 11.Rg2 Qe6+ 12.Qb3 Re2+ 13.Rxe2 Qxe2+ 14.Kb1 Qxd3+ {After this Black is able to trade the pieces and have a deadly pawn majority on both sides of the board, and an extra piece. Further play was very computery so I didn't post it.} &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[Title &quot;Stockfish calls it a win&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;2krr3/ppp2ppp/3b1n2/8/6P1/2NPB3/PPP1KPq1/R2Q2R1 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1... Rxe3+ 2.Kxe3 Re8+ 3.Ne4 Rxe4+ 4.Kd2 Nd5 {Here's the killer. The knight closes the luft on c3} 5.dxe4 Qxf2+ 6.Qe2 (6.Kc1 Bf4+ 7.Kb1 Nc3+ 8.bxc3 Qb6#) Bf4+ {Now Black strips the Queen's defender} 7.Kd1 Ne3+ 8.Kd2 Nxg4+ 9.Kc3 Qxe2 10.Rge1 Bd2+ 11.Kd4 Qf2+ 12.Kd5 c6+ 13.Kc4 Ne5+ 14.Kb3 Qb6+ 15.Ka3 Qb4#&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2016-04-16T23:02:09.917" LastActivityDate="2016-04-16T23:02:09.917" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14120" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14116" CreationDate="2016-04-14T06:53:55.023" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess can honestly be a very tiring game since it takes a considerable amount of brain power to play. You simply play worse when you play a lot of games in a row compared to several over the course of a few days because you're just tired, it happens to everyone to a certain degree. The last thing you mentioned is called going on tilt, its a common occurrence in gaming where a lose can be demoralizing and cause you to play worse which may cause you to lose again and continue the cycle. The best way to deal with tilt is just take a break. Also if I understand you correctly you were talking about blitz chess, in my opinion blitz chess is more inconsistent compared to normal timed chess as in the time factor will give you a greater chance to beat a higher rated player compared to if you were playing normal time control chess but also a higher chance for you to lose against a lower rated opponent. I think fatigue and all those other factors I mentioned could play a part of you losing to &quot;weaker&quot; opponents.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10030" LastActivityDate="2016-04-14T06:53:55.023" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14121" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1482" CreationDate="2016-04-14T11:19:29.610" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;For the others, there is a simple function in Stockfish engine, that validates a FEN String.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;bool Position::is_valid_fen(const std::string &amp;amp;fen) {&#xA;   std::istringstream iss(fen);&#xA;   std::string board, side, castleRights, ep;&#xA;&#xA;   if (!iss) return false;&#xA;&#xA;   iss &amp;gt;&amp;gt; board;&#xA;&#xA;   if (!iss) return false;&#xA;&#xA;   iss &amp;gt;&amp;gt; side;&#xA;&#xA;   if (!iss) {&#xA;      castleRights = &quot;-&quot;;&#xA;      ep = &quot;-&quot;;&#xA;   } else {&#xA;      iss &amp;gt;&amp;gt; castleRights;&#xA;      if (iss)&#xA;         iss &amp;gt;&amp;gt; ep;&#xA;      else&#xA;         ep = &quot;-&quot;;&#xA;   }&#xA;&#xA;   // Let's check that all components of the supposed FEN are OK.&#xA;   if (side != &quot;w&quot; &amp;amp;&amp;amp; side != &quot;b&quot;) return false;&#xA;   if (castleRights != &quot;-&quot; &amp;amp;&amp;amp; castleRights != &quot;K&quot; &amp;amp;&amp;amp; castleRights != &quot;Kk&quot;&#xA;       &amp;amp;&amp;amp; castleRights != &quot;Kkq&quot; &amp;amp;&amp;amp; castleRights != &quot;Kq&quot; &amp;amp;&amp;amp; castleRights !=&quot;KQ&quot;&#xA;       &amp;amp;&amp;amp; castleRights != &quot;KQk&quot; &amp;amp;&amp;amp; castleRights != &quot;KQq&quot; &amp;amp;&amp;amp; castleRights != &quot;KQkq&quot;&#xA;       &amp;amp;&amp;amp; castleRights != &quot;k&quot; &amp;amp;&amp;amp; castleRights != &quot;q&quot; &amp;amp;&amp;amp; castleRights != &quot;kq&quot;&#xA;       &amp;amp;&amp;amp; castleRights != &quot;Q&quot; &amp;amp;&amp;amp; castleRights != &quot;Qk&quot; &amp;amp;&amp;amp; castleRights != &quot;Qq&quot;&#xA;       &amp;amp;&amp;amp; castleRights != &quot;Qkq&quot;)&#xA;      return false;&#xA;   if (ep != &quot;-&quot;) {&#xA;      if (ep.length() != 2) return false;&#xA;      if (!(ep[0] &amp;gt;= 'a' &amp;amp;&amp;amp; ep[0] &amp;lt;= 'h')) return false;&#xA;      if (!((side == &quot;w&quot; &amp;amp;&amp;amp; ep[1] == '6') || (side == &quot;b&quot; &amp;amp;&amp;amp; ep[1] == '3')))&#xA;         return false;&#xA;   }&#xA;&#xA;   // The tricky part: The board.&#xA;   // Seven slashes?&#xA;   if (std::count(board.begin(), board.end(), '/') != 7) return false;&#xA;   // Only legal characters?&#xA;   for (int i = 0; i &amp;lt; board.length(); i++)&#xA;      if (!(board[i] == '/' || (board[i] &amp;gt;= '1' &amp;amp;&amp;amp; board[i] &amp;lt;= '8')&#xA;            || piece_type_is_ok(piece_type_from_char(board[i]))))&#xA;         return false;&#xA;   // Exactly one king per side?&#xA;   if (std::count(board.begin(), board.end(), 'K') != 1) return false;&#xA;   if (std::count(board.begin(), board.end(), 'k') != 1) return false;&#xA;   // Other piece counts reasonable?&#xA;   size_t wp = std::count(board.begin(), board.end(), 'P'),&#xA;      bp = std::count(board.begin(), board.end(), 'p'),&#xA;      wn = std::count(board.begin(), board.end(), 'N'),&#xA;      bn = std::count(board.begin(), board.end(), 'n'),&#xA;      wb = std::count(board.begin(), board.end(), 'B'),&#xA;      bb = std::count(board.begin(), board.end(), 'b'),&#xA;      wr = std::count(board.begin(), board.end(), 'R'),&#xA;      br = std::count(board.begin(), board.end(), 'r'),&#xA;      wq = std::count(board.begin(), board.end(), 'Q'),&#xA;      bq = std::count(board.begin(), board.end(), 'q');&#xA;   if (wp &amp;gt; 8 || bp &amp;gt; 8 || wn &amp;gt; 10 || bn &amp;gt; 10 || wb &amp;gt; 10 || bb &amp;gt; 10&#xA;       || wr &amp;gt; 10 || br &amp;gt; 10 || wq &amp;gt; 9 || bq &amp;gt; 10&#xA;       || wp + wn + wb + wr + wq &amp;gt; 15 || bp + bn + bb + br + bq &amp;gt; 15)&#xA;      return false;&#xA;&#xA;   // OK, looks close enough to a legal position. Let's try to parse&#xA;   // the FEN and see!&#xA;   Position p;&#xA;   p.from_fen(board + &quot; &quot; + side + &quot; &quot; + castleRights + &quot; &quot; + ep);&#xA;   return p.is_ok(true);&#xA;}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7608" LastActivityDate="2016-04-14T11:19:29.610" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14123" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14098" CreationDate="2016-04-14T14:45:01.140" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;TL;DR&lt;/strong&gt;: In summary, the sources I've found of the match reference Fischer himself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Fischer sent the game scores himself:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Rumors constantly reappear about the possibility of his playing again or making public appearances, but the only published games that we know of since 1972 were against the Greenblatt program, &lt;strong&gt;and they were submitted by Bobby himself and published in the Computer Chess Newsletter&lt;/strong&gt;. Bobby sent the scores of three games in which he massacred the computer. In his comments on the games, Bobby noted that the computer was very weak and that he could give it great odds and still beat it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.csmonitor.com/1988/0622/lchs22.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;csmonitor.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The match was held in Cambridge, MA:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In 1977, unbeaten chess champion Bobby Fischer played three games in Cambridge, Massachusetts against Greenblatt's computer program, and Fischer won all of them&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Greenblatt_(programmer)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;, referencing Bobby Fischer's biography&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I haven't found contemporary images or information on how the match was arranged.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2016-04-14T14:45:01.140" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14124" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14126" CreationDate="2016-04-14T15:47:09.787" Score="5" ViewCount="214" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm currently studying chess strategy, and I can across an example of backward pawn exploitation that I do not understand. The book I'm reading suggests 1... Rd5 to keep the d4 pawn backward. Doesn't that put the rook into a precarious position to be attacked by 2. Bxd5? Why is it so valuable to keep the d4 pawn backward?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For reference, I'm looking at the example on pg. 236 of Silman's &quot;Reassess Your Chess&quot;, 4th edition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Black to move&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;1&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;3r1rk1/1pb2pp1/p1p1pq1p/2P2b2/3PBP2/PPB5/2Q3PP/4RRK1 b KQkq - 0 0&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1...Rd5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10063" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-04-14T15:58:28.133" LastActivityDate="2016-04-14T16:01:33.963" Title="Extreme effort to keep a pawn backward" Tags="&lt;pawns&gt;&lt;exchange&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14125" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14124" CreationDate="2016-04-14T15:57:01.343" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The move 2. Bxd5 would lose to Bxc2, taking the queen. If the queen moves, Black can always take bishop e4 anyway. But there is nothing wrong with 1... Bxe4 and only then 2... Rd5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In any case, the position is about equal - White has some space advantage to compensate for the backward pawn and bad bishop. A backward pawn is harder to protect, and in this case it severely hampers the mobility of the bishop on c3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2016-04-14T15:57:01.343" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14126" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14124" CreationDate="2016-04-14T16:01:33.963" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this case, the pawn on d4 is not just a target.  It's also restricting white's bishop on c3.  For that reason, it's very important that black not allow white to sacrifice this pawn by playing &lt;code&gt;d4-d5&lt;/code&gt; when white would have very good chances to hold.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black would like to trade off light square bishops and then put a rook on d5.  The immediate &lt;code&gt;1...Bxe4 2.Qxe4 Rd5&lt;/code&gt; fails tactically because white can play &lt;code&gt;3.f5!&lt;/code&gt; with decent counterplay on the kingside.  Additionally, at least one pair of major pieces will be traded off after white plays &lt;code&gt;f5&lt;/code&gt;, and generally speaking the side with the isolated pawn or backwards pawn wants to trade off major pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After &lt;code&gt;1...Rd5!&lt;/code&gt;, white cannot take on d5 because the Be4 is pinned to the white queen.  Black will play &lt;code&gt;2...Bxe4&lt;/code&gt; next move and then a move like g6 in order to stop white's f5 advance.  Black will be much better - nearly winning - because black can slowly bring the dark square bishop around to f6 or g7 where it will attack the d4 pawn.  Black will also double rooks on the d file.  White, in the meantime, has no constructive plans that don't create new weaknesses.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12" LastActivityDate="2016-04-14T16:01:33.963" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14127" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16279" CreationDate="2016-04-15T16:59:37.087" Score="3" ViewCount="1705" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a very beginning player and something I see a lot in response to the Sicilian defense is Bc4, with white intending to play Qf3 next turn. I found that e6 is a good answer but I feel where I take it after that is pretty poor and I want to know a better answer. The following is how the game typically goes&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Bc4 e6 3. Qf3 a6 4. d3 b5 5. Bb3 d5 6. a3 c4 7. dxc4 dxc4 *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10069" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-04-15T18:04:19.520" LastActivityDate="2017-02-02T06:35:51.157" Title="Sicilian defense answer to Bc4 and Qf3" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14129" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-04-15T23:35:02.223" Score="4" ViewCount="313" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm relatively new, so sorry if this is obvious. Recently played a game on my phone chess app where the option popped up that I could claim a threefold repetition draw. I hadn't known about this rule. Researching I found this: &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threefold_repetition#The_rule&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threefold_repetition#The_rule&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I can't figure out the three positions that were exactly the same at any point. Can someone point it out to me? I can find three where I (as black) repeat positions moving around my rook at the end, but the white pieces seem to be in different places when this happens, specifically the white king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks for the help! Below is a link to the game analysis, plus the full pgn notation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Game upload:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.lichess.org/CYvX2RlR&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://en.lichess.org/CYvX2RlR&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Full notes:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. d4 d5&#xA;2. Nc3 Nf6&#xA;3. Bg5 Bf5&#xA;4. Bxf6 exf6&#xA;5. e3 a6&#xA;6. Bd3 Qd7&#xA;7. e4 dxe4&#xA;8. Bxe4 c6&#xA;9. Bxf5 Qxf5&#xA;10. d5 Bc5&#xA;11. Qe2+ Qe5&#xA;12. Qxe5+ fxe5&#xA;13. O-O-O Bxf2&#xA;14. d6 Nd7&#xA;15. Nf3 O-O&#xA;16. Rhf1 Be3+&#xA;17. Kb1 Rad8&#xA;18. Rfe1 Bf4&#xA;19. g3 Bh6&#xA;20. Nxe5 Nxe5&#xA;21. Rxe5 Rd7&#xA;22. Re7 Rfd8&#xA;23. Rxd7 Rxd7&#xA;24. g4 Bf4&#xA;25. Ne4 b6&#xA;26. c4 Bxh2&#xA;27. Re1 Rd8&#xA;28. Rd1 Rd7&#xA;29. g5 Bf4&#xA;30. Kc2 h5&#xA;31. gxh6 Bxh6&#xA;32. b4 Bf4&#xA;33. c5 b5&#xA;34. Rg1 Kf8&#xA;35. Rg4 Be5&#xA;36. Kd3 f5&#xA;37. Rg5 fxe4+&#xA;38. Kxe4 Bf6&#xA;39. Rf5 Rf7&#xA;40. Rf3 Ke8&#xA;41. Rh3 Rf8&#xA;42. Ra3 g5&#xA;43. Rxa6 Bd8&#xA;44. Ke5 Kd7&#xA;45. Ra7+ Kc8&#xA;46. Ke6 Rf6+&#xA;47. Ke5 g4&#xA;48. Ra8+ Kd7&#xA;49. Ra7+ Kc8&#xA;50. Ra8+ Kd7&#xA;51. Ra7+ Ke8&#xA;52. Rg7 Rf2&#xA;53. Rxg4 Rxa2&#xA;54. Ke6 Re2+&#xA;55. Kf5 Kf7&#xA;56. Rg3 Rf2+&#xA;57. Ke4 Rb2&#xA;58. Ke5 Bf6+&#xA;59. Kf5 Rf2+&#xA;60. Ke4 Rh2&#xA;61. Ra3 Ke6&#xA;62. Ra6 Rh4+&#xA;63. Kd3 Kd5&#xA;64. Ra7 Rxb4&#xA;65. Rf7 Rd4+&#xA;66. Ke2 Rf4&#xA;67. d7 Ke6&#xA;68. Rxf6+ Rxf6&#xA;69. d8=Q b4&#xA;70. Qd6+ Kf5&#xA;71. Qb8 Re6+&#xA;72. Kd3 Re4&#xA;73. Qc8+ Re6&#xA;74. Kc4 b3&#xA;75. Kxb3 Ke5&#xA;76. Kc4 Kf6&#xA;77. Kd4 Kf7&#xA;78. Kc4 Re4+&#xA;79. Kb3 Re6&#xA;80. Ka4 Kf6&#xA;81. Ka5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10071" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-10-08T08:22:58.853" LastActivityDate="2016-10-08T08:22:58.853" Title="Why is this a threefold repetition draw?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;threefold-repetition&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14130" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14129" CreationDate="2016-04-16T00:59:55.777" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Upon review, it looks to me as though you had found a bug in the program.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No threefold repetition even seems possible on the &lt;em&gt;next&lt;/em&gt; move, much less during the moves already made.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="315" LastEditorUserId="315" LastEditDate="2016-04-16T01:06:07.410" LastActivityDate="2016-04-16T01:06:07.410" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14131" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-04-16T06:15:14.127" Score="5" ViewCount="1559" Body="&lt;p&gt;I hear some people say certain players only win because they know/memorized a lot of theory? I don't know the &quot;official&quot; term for these types of players but it makes me concerned because hopefully I'm not one of them. It makes it seem these types of players aren't good at chess or don't really use their head to play the game. Can someone clarify what this is all about?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10030" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2016-04-16T16:37:55.117" LastActivityDate="2016-04-16T20:59:30.187" Title="What does chess theory refer to?" Tags="&lt;theory&gt;&lt;terminology&gt;&lt;memorization&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14132" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14131" CreationDate="2016-04-16T06:39:38.237" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess theory in this sense refers to opening variations / opening analysis. Every strong player has a repertoire of opening lines that he likes to play and in which he knows pretty well which moves are the best. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some players analyse the opening exhaustively and try to find tricky lines before they sit down to play. This is helped by the fact that they can look up games of their next opponent in databases. These players occasionally win games just by following their home preparation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But this is not something that should overly concern you. It's more of a grandmaster's problem. On the top level in chess opening preparation plays a big role. In amateur games it is usually easy to dodge any kind of special preparation by the opponent. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is easy to look down on people who spend a lot of time learning opening variations by heart, but in reality spending time on the opening also improves your understanding of typical position, tactics and plans. If somebody wins a lot of games in the opening, this is never just due to reproducing learned lines with no understanding. Chess is too complex and diverse for that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2016-04-16T06:39:38.237" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14133" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14129" CreationDate="2016-04-16T06:47:44.860" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The position after 47.… g4, 49.… Kc8 could have been repeated with 51.… Kc8. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because you have to claim threefold repetition before you make the move 51.…Kc8, producing the same position on the board, this would have been a sensible point for a popup dialog. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2016-04-16T06:47:44.860" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14134" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-04-16T11:41:06.647" Score="6" ViewCount="1301" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm really struggling to understand this move to be honest. Even after carefully reading a &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/5705/why-is-the-f6-pawn-break-in-advanced-french-so-important-for-black&quot;&gt;similar question&lt;/a&gt; posted here, I still just don't get it and, more importantly, when it's good to play the f6 break. I apologize if that seems stupid.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can someone explain it in very clear and simple terms for me please? Is it just for making a semi-open file for the rook? Getting rid of white's e pawn? I'm a little unsure about this topic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10030" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-04T03:10:11.630" LastActivityDate="2020-08-04T03:10:11.630" Title="Please help me understand the f6 break in the French defense" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;french-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="14135" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14134" CreationDate="2016-04-16T11:47:21.790" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It attacks white's pawn centre and cramping e5 pawn and opens up the f6 square if it is taken or opens up the rook's line if black takes on e5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4543" LastActivityDate="2016-04-16T11:47:21.790" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14137" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="693" CreationDate="2016-04-16T15:29:51.280" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;For opening training using GM stats and engine analysis: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessopeningsapp.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.chessopeningsapp.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4545" LastActivityDate="2016-04-16T15:29:51.280" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14138" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14134" CreationDate="2016-04-16T15:39:37.303" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Often when black does not try to get play in the center and/or kingside, he can get slowly crushed. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Nd2 Nf6 4. e5 Nfd7 5. Bd3 c5 6. c3 Nc6 7. Ndf3 Qb6 8. Ne2 Be7 9. O-O cxd4 10. cxd4 Nb4 11. Bb1 O-O 12. a3 Nc6 13. Qc2 g6 14. Bh6 *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7500" LastActivityDate="2016-04-16T15:39:37.303" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14139" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14131" CreationDate="2016-04-16T20:59:30.187" Score="-2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;certain players only win because they know/memorized a lot of theory&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's just nonsense. Anybody who wins regularly does so because they know rather a lot of theory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BlindKungFuMaster's claim that &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Chess theory in this sense refers to opening variations / opening&#xA;  analysis&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;is also nonsense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Theory is a lot more to chess theory than just opening theory. Endgame theory is the most important part of chess theory. If you don't know any endgame theory then most of your games will be a matter of luck.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do you know how to mate with king and queen against king? Yes? Then you know some theory. King and rook versus king? King and two bishops versus king?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How about pawn endings? Do you know when king + pawn versus king is a win and when it is a draw? How about king + rook + pawn versus king + rook?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Already we have touched on a lot of important theory. If you know this theory then when you are playing the middlegame you know what kinds of endgame you can aim for and win. If you don't know how to mate with king, knight and bishop against king then don't aim for this endgame because it is going to be a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you have an extra pawn in an endgame with just kings and several pawns and your opponent lets you swap off into an endgame where you have a king and a rook's pawn against his king and so it ends in a draw is that somehow unfair? Is this &quot;somebody who didn't really use their head to play the game?&quot; No, your opponent earned the draw by virtue of his superior theoretical knowledge. If you had the same knowledge you wouldn't let it happen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Endgame theory is rather concrete. Middlegame theory is much more fluid. When does sacrificing the exchange give you a winning advantage? When are doubled and / or isolated pawns good? When are bishops better than knights? How about knights better than bishops? When is it OK to leave the king in the center? When is it better to castle? Again somebody who has a better understanding of these theoretical ideas will play better than somebody who doesn't.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As regards opening theory, if you don't know any opening theory you will struggle to get out of the opening against a good player. Opening theory isn't just knowing a set pattern of moves to safely develop your pieces it is also about knowing some of the typical plans that come out of the opening. It is all very well playing the first 10 or 15 moves according to &quot;the book&quot; but if you don't have some good ideas what to do next you will struggle to reach move 30 unless your opponent is in the same situation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2016-04-16T20:59:30.187" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14140" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14134" CreationDate="2016-04-16T21:39:07.610" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The ...f6 break can be very useful in advance variations of the French because it saves Black from being completely passive.  In playing the French, Black makes a fundamental trade-off of giving White space in exchange for defensive solidity; however, Black needs to counterattack otherwise White will steamroll.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The main feature of White in the Advance is the pawn chain c3, d4, e5.  That chain gives White space and freedom of movement.  Black's main strategy is to attack the chain and if Black can undermine White' structure, White's position will be fragile.  It is definitely not for use in every game, but it can be really handy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The most essential counterattacking pawn move is ...c5, attacking the pawn chain at d4.  This will also give Black some space to develop other pieces.  ...f6 should happen a bit later, and lets Black attack the chain at two points (d4 and e5).  If White takes, it leaves Black with a structural weakness in the pawn at e6, but Black eliminates a lot of White's early advantage while gaining more piece activity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my experience, the ...f6 break has to be timed right and the c8 bishop still needs to be at c8 or d7 to protect the e6 pawn (b/c that bishop usually doesn't do so much in the opening anyway.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2569" LastActivityDate="2016-04-16T21:39:07.610" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14141" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14134" CreationDate="2016-04-17T00:15:08.330" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The f6 break is a key idea in the French defense, and the point is mainly to add more pressure to White's center. In the French, one basic line of thought is the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Let White occupy the center&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Destroy White's center&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Occupy the center yourself&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Win the game, as White now will be totally helpless!&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If black manages to complete steps 1-3 outlined above, without significant material losses or a serious weakening of the king's position, step 4 will indeed often be possible to accomplish.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let us examine the move f6 in view of the steps above. If White has a pawn on e5 and black plays ...f6, it's possible to&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;a) take on f6&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;b) defend the e5 pawn&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;c) ignore it&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a) If Black hasn't castled, it most likely means that Black will have to respond to this with ...gxf6. Black now typically has pawns on e6 and on f6. It is not hard to see that Black can have plans to push ...e5 in the near future, and if the pawn capture on f6 hasn't left Black's king open to direct attack, it's possible that Black will achieve steps 2-3 outlined above shortly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If Black has castled, on the other hand, more options than ...gxf6 will be available. Often either a knight, bishop or a rook could also take on f6 in this case. In case of rook capture, Black has a semi-open f-file for his/her rook. Taking with a bishop adds more pressure on the a1-h8 diagonal. Taking with a knight adds possibilities to play ...e5 to free the black bishop on c8 in some cases. It is clear that the ...f6 break by Black has given many possibilities for future plans.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One more note: If White takes the pawn on f6, the h2-b8 diagonal will be ripe for the black bishop to occupy, often coupled with a queen on c7. This is sometimes very unpleasant for White.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;b) If White protects the pawn, Black has some other options with ...f6 played. If White has played f4, Black could sometimes take on e5, and if White recaptures with the f-pawn, it can in some cases be possible to play ...Qh4+ for some concrete tactical purpose. Other times Black can be perfectly happy with just trying to take over the f-file and pressure White's position that way. If White recaptures with the d4 pawn instead of the f-pawn, Black has the option to open the diagonal a7-g1 with ...c4, or play ...d4 and just try to break once again in the center, to activate his/her pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If White has played f4, and it's not good for Black to take on e5, Black can wait, and try to maneouver the c8 bishop to g6 via Bc8-d7-e8-g6. This is a standard plan in the French defense to activate that light squared bishop. Or Black can lock the center with ...f5 in some cases, to stop White from attacking the black king. In rare cases, after White has played f4, Black can even try to play ...g5, to again just try to break up White's center. This can be very risky, so it's not often the first idea Black thinks of, but it should never be forgotten, as it can recieve a great pay-off if well executed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If White guards the e5 pawn with Bf4, the g5 break is more natural, and Black can even try to go for a kingside pawn storm in some cases. Again, it has to be well executed, as it can easily expose Black's king. Otherwise it's more typical for black to keep the tension in the center, and let White make the big decision to alter the status quo. However, at every move, White has to be wary of possible alterations of the center. The same is usually true if White defends e5 with another piece.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;c) This option is very rare, and can only be considered if White manages to create an enormous treat elsewhere on the board that black needs to deal with immediately. If this is the case, the ...f6 break may be a bad idea. Otherwise, if White ignores the ...f6 break, Black can usually just take on e5, and normally having a knight on c6 and a queen on c7 (and maybe even a knight on d7 in some cases), this can mean that black simply wins a pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This reply got much longer than I originally had intended it to be, but I feel like most of the reasons why Black may consider playing ...f6 in the French defense are in here. Remember that I have not included any concrete examples here, and that it all depends on the position. If ...f6 is an obvious blunder, for some reason I failed to mention here, it should of course not be played.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;TL;DR: ...f6 is about challenging White's control over the center, and trying to open up the position for Black's pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8300" LastActivityDate="2016-04-17T00:15:08.330" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14142" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-04-17T00:40:00.707" Score="5" ViewCount="369" Body="&lt;p&gt;In light of the recent game Nakamura vs Anand, the second time, in the recent candidate's tournament, Anand fell into Nakamura's opening preparation trap out of the reversed sicilian. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If he [Anand] had realized that he was falling into an opening trap, or opening preparation, is there any possible thing that he could have done to avoid his loss? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I ask this question to better understand how to respond to obvious opening traps out of really obscure lines, and even traps out of reasonable looking lines. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7797" LastActivityDate="2016-04-18T07:28:58.723" Title="What to do in an opening trap" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;super-grandmaster&gt;&lt;losing&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14143" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4170" CreationDate="2016-04-17T10:42:14.240" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you want something very simple to start with, try LightFICS:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://lightfics.brrm.ru/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://lightfics.brrm.ru/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's a native &lt;a href=&quot;http://lightfics.brrm.ru/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Mac OS X FICS client&lt;/a&gt;. It has no dependencies, is extremely easy to install and use.&#xA;It doesn't have any nice-to-haves, but you can save games as PGN and use other tools to analyse openings with engines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10078" LastActivityDate="2016-04-17T10:42:14.240" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14145" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14153" CreationDate="2016-04-17T19:28:11.700" Score="7" ViewCount="1691" Body="&lt;p&gt;In English as far as I know, &lt;em&gt;pawns&lt;/em&gt; were once not &lt;em&gt;pieces.&lt;/em&gt; A player had eight pieces and eight pawns which, together, totaled 16 &lt;em&gt;chessmen.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When did this usage change? Why?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And (if you happen to know) how is it in the other major chess languages, like French, German and Russian?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="315" LastActivityDate="2018-04-28T15:39:12.277" Title="Pieces, pawns and chessmen" Tags="&lt;terminology&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14146" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14148" CreationDate="2016-04-17T23:57:49.197" Score="2" ViewCount="88" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e3 e5 2. Qg4 Qf6 3. Bb5 e4 4. Qxe4+ Qe7 5. Qd5 Qh4 6. g3 c6 7. Qf5 g6 8. Qd5 Qb4 9. Qe5+ Ne7 10. Be2 Rg8 11. b3 d6 12. Qf6 Nd5 13. a3 Qe4 14. f3 Qxc2 15. Qd4 Qxc1+ 16. Kf2 Bg7 17. Qe4+ Kf8 18. Ra2 Be5 19. f4 Bf5 20. Nh3 Qc5 21. b4 Bxe4 22. bxc5 Bxh1 23. Ng5 f6 24. Nxh7+ Kg7 25. fxe5 Kxh7 26. exd6 Nd7 27. Rc2 Be4 28. Rc1 g5 29. Nc3 Nxc3 30. Rxc3 a5 31. Bc4 Bd5 32. e4 Bxc4 33. Rxc4 Rge8 34. g4 Re5 35. Rc1 Rxe4 36. Kf3 Rd4 37. Kf2 Rxd2+ 38. Ke3 Rxh2 39. Rc4 Kg7 40. Rc1 Rh3+ 41. Kd2 Rxa3 42. Ke2 Rh8 43. Kf2 Rd3 44. Rh1 Rd2+ 45. Ke1 Rxh1+ 46. Kxd2 Nxc5 47. Ke2 Ne4 48. d7 Nc5 49. d8=Q Rh2+ 50. Ke3 a4 51. Qc7+ Kf8 52. Qxh2 Ne6 53. Qc2 a3 54. Qf5 Nf4 55. Qc2 Kg7 56. Qc4 Ng2+ 57. Kf3 Ne1+ 58. Ke2 Ng2 59. Qc5 Nf4+ 60. Ke1 Nd3+ 61. Kd2 Nxc5 62. Kc3 a2 63. Kb2 a1=B+ 64. Kxa1 Nd3 65. Ka2 Nf4 66. Kb2 c5 67. Kc3 Kf7 68. Kc4 b6 69. Kb5 Nd5 70. Kc6 Ke6 71. Kb5 Kd7 72. Kc4 Ne3+ 73. Kb5 Kc7 74. Ka6 Nxg4 75. Kb5 Ne3 76. Ka4 Kd7 77. Kb5 Nd5 78. Kc4 Nf4 79. Kb5 g4 80. Kxb6 c4 81. Kb5 c3 82. Kc4 c2 83. Kb3 c1=Q 84. Kb4 Qc2 85. Ka3 g3 86. Kb4 Qe4+ 87. Ka3 Kc7 88. Kb2 Qd5 89. Ka3 g2 90. Kb4 g1=Q 91. Kc3 Qb1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9841" LastEditorUserId="2042" LastEditDate="2016-04-18T05:15:02.600" LastActivityDate="2016-04-18T05:15:02.600" Title="Please Critique my game played by my engine" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;engines&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14147" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-04-18T00:03:00.307" Score="1" ViewCount="101" Body="&lt;p&gt;First of all I am sorry if my English is not very good. I started to play chess some time ago. I want to start to play pretty good to have fun in tournaments but I have no idea how to create a plan of study. &#xA;Can some one explain what the difference is between an occasional player and a tournament player? &#xA;And how to make a plan to study chess?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10083" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-04-18T05:11:23.640" LastActivityDate="2016-04-18T06:17:49.617" Title="Becoming a pretty good chess player" Tags="&lt;beginner&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2016-04-18T13:55:29.447" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14148" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14146" CreationDate="2016-04-18T00:50:12.727" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Nice efforts, you've made a working chess engine, your journey has started. But you have more works to do:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;(respond to your comment) 3...e4 must be a bug because your engine just gave up a pawn for nothing in the next move. Searching for d=3 should be able to see it. Also see the next comment.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Your engine seems to like attacking the most valuable piece (queen), your 3...e4 may have been caused by this blindness. I'm guessing (you'll need to check it yourself) you put too much weight in attack threats.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The engine moves the queen out too early. You will need to check your PST table and make sure your PST evaluation beats the temptation of moving the queen out. A common mistake in early chess engines is that they put too much weight into the number of squares that the queen can control in the opening.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Please check your PST again why your engine would prefer moving 1.e3. You must instruct the engine to move into the centre.  &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Don't use the default position for testing. It's still too early for your engine to handle it. Set yourself some simple positions where there is a direct way to win, for example: back-rank mate in two, pushing the pawn for promotion etc. Your engine blunders too much, even at depth 3 and no understanding of tactical threats. Make sure you can play those easy positions.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I'm guessing you set yourself at d=3 because it's too slow for you to go further. Consider to implement the easy extensions, such as null move and hashing. In particular, your engine won't go anywhere without hashing.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2016-04-18T00:56:33.997" LastActivityDate="2016-04-18T00:56:33.997" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14149" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14155" CreationDate="2016-04-18T05:27:47.317" Score="-1" ViewCount="161" Body="&lt;p&gt;Playing a blitz game, I reached the below position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;White to move&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;1r3rk1/1q1nbpp1/p1n1p2p/P1p1P2P/2Pp1BN1/5BP1/1P2QP2/R3R1K1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At this point both players had less then a minute, so I played &lt;code&gt;b4&lt;/code&gt;. My idea was to slow down Black counterplay on the queenside, in order to get time for my attack ( &lt;code&gt;...cxb4&lt;/code&gt; is the only move ). My opponent blundered and lost on time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I do not have an engine available at the moment, hence this post. I want to know the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does White have winning advantage in the above position, or Black, or is it a draw ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I seek concrete lines and moves. You can use engines if you want.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastActivityDate="2020-02-25T15:51:57.063" Title="Can the outcome of the submitted position be clearly determined?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14150" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14147" CreationDate="2016-04-18T06:17:49.617" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Play. Read. Solve tactics problems, repeat. Solve endgame problems. Solve middle game problems, repeat. Analyze positions in your head. Learn famous chessgames by heart, and why specific moves was played. One of the best players in Russia had learned by heart 'all' games played by Fischer. Most average players could probably replay 50+ memorized chessgames. Find a friend to do these things together with. Or a trainer. Join a chessclub! Analyze your own games. Take help from people better than you. For tactics I like www.chesstempo.com&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7773" LastActivityDate="2016-04-18T06:17:49.617" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14151" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14142" CreationDate="2016-04-18T07:28:58.723" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;As I see it, at that level they have two options, if they suspect their opponent prepared a trap:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;They trust their preparation, and their knowledge, go on as usual, and just make the best moves, and hope for the best. In the Sinquefield cup last year, or the year before, there was a game MVL-Carlsen, when this happened exactly, Carlsen was caught by MVL-s preparation, and after few moves, he found an intresting, very human move, that the engine weren't suggesting, and now MVL was fighting for survival. It was a scotch game I think, it ended in a draw, but worth to watch.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;They decide to not take risk, and just chose a sideline, where maybe the other one has an edge, but they can outplay him. Tal writes in 'The life and games of M.T.' about a lot of situations like that, when he choose a sideline, because he was suspecting for some reason that his opponent prepared a suprise.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8944" LastActivityDate="2016-04-18T07:28:58.723" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14152" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14149" CreationDate="2016-04-18T09:10:47.350" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is what I like to use Lichess for&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.lichess.org/analysis/standard/1r3rk1/1q1nbpp1/p1n1p2p/P1p1P2P/2Pp1BN1/5BP1/1P2QP2/R3R1K1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://en.lichess.org/analysis/standard/1r3rk1/1q1nbpp1/p1n1p2p/P1p1P2P/2Pp1BN1/5BP1/1P2QP2/R3R1K1&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's not nearly as powerful as stockfish or the likes but you can get a general idea whether you had particularly strong tactics available.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to the analysis it sees an opportunity for a draw through perpetuals by sacrificing the bishop on H6 but no particular advantages to either side to play for. It favors Qd4 which does centralize the queen and puts some pressure on the knight on c6 but overal it's very even.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4093" LastEditorUserId="4093" LastEditDate="2016-04-18T10:39:20.337" LastActivityDate="2016-04-18T10:39:20.337" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14153" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14145" CreationDate="2016-04-18T10:01:24.327" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The terms are a bit loose. To quote from Wikipedia:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In chess, the word &quot;piece&quot; has three meanings, depending on the context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1) &lt;strong&gt;It may mean any of the physical pieces of the set, including the pawns. When used this way, &quot;piece&quot; is synonymous with &quot;chessman&quot;&lt;/strong&gt; (Hooper &amp;amp; Whyld 1992:307) or simply &quot;man&quot; (Hooper &amp;amp; Whyld 1987:200).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;2) In play, the term is usually used to exclude pawns, referring only to a queen, rook, bishop, knight, or king. In this context, the pieces can be broken down into three groups: major pieces (queen and rook), minor pieces (bishop and knight), and the king (Brace 1977:220).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;3) In phrases such as &quot;winning a piece&quot;, &quot;losing a piece&quot; or &quot;sacrificing a piece&quot;, it refers only to a bishop or knight. The queen, rook, and pawn are specified by name in these cases, for example, &quot;winning a queen&quot;, &quot;losing a rook&quot;, or &quot;sacrificing a pawn&quot; (Just &amp;amp; Burg 2003:5)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_piece&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;, emphasis is mine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From the same article, the term pieces to include pawns has been noted since the late 1980's. Speculating, it may be that commentators did not see the need to distinguish between the terms pieces and men, hence coming into common use. For example, Josh Waitzkin's tutorials in Chessmaster, first made in the 1990's, use the term pieces instead of men. I've seen terminology become more lax over time, e.g. pieces being 'killed' instead of 'captured'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for other languages, I am unable to say I'm afraid.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastEditorDisplayName="user1108" LastEditDate="2016-04-18T10:13:04.000" LastActivityDate="2016-04-18T10:13:04.000" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14154" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14145" CreationDate="2016-04-18T10:15:11.950" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;As you ask for German, we make the distinction as in your question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Figur chess piece&#xA;Stein chessman&#xA;Bauer pawn&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We also distinguish between&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Leichtfigur light piece (knight or bishop)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Schwerfigur heavy piece (rook or queen)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3819" LastActivityDate="2016-04-18T10:15:11.950" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14155" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14149" CreationDate="2016-04-18T11:59:20.987" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;From the original position, Stockfish doesn't see a whole lot going on. I don't think this means the game is drawn, but simply that there's no knock-out. Stockfish scores the position as slightly in White's favor. This &quot;ideal&quot; continuation doesn't seem suitable for a blitz game; there's too much moving for the time allowed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I then ran the b4 move which yields a small advantage to Black. But holy smokes look at the &quot;final&quot; position. Black has two deadly outside connected passed pawns while While surely has a devastating King attack in there somewhere. I'll let this grind while I go to work...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[FEN &quot;1r3rk1/1q1nbpp1/p1n1p2p/P1p1P2P/2Pp1BN1/5BP1/1P2QP2/R3R1K1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Qe4 (1.b4 cxb4 2.Bxh6 Qc7 3.Bf4 Kh8 4.Bxc6 Qxc6 5.Rad1 Nc5 6.Rxd4 Nb3 7.Rd3 Nxa5 8.h6 g5 9.Bc1 Nxc4 10.Nh2 Rg8 11.Red1 Rbd8 12.Rxd8 Bxd8 13.Rd4 Nb6 14.Bd2 a5 15.Qd3 Nd5 16.Ng4 Qb7 17.Qe4 b3  {-.59}) Nd8 2.Qxb7 Nxb7 3.Bc6 Rfd8 4.Bd2 Nf8 5.Be4 Rd7 6.b3 Nd8 7.Ra3 Rc7 8.f4 Nc6 9.Kg2 Nd7 10.Nf2 Nb4 11.Raa1 Rcc8 12.Reb1 Bf8 13.Ra4 Nc6 14.Nd3 f6 15.exf6 Nxf6 16.Bf3 Bd6 17.Ra3 Kf7 18.Raa1 Kg8 19.Rb2 Kf7 20.g4 Nd7 21.Re1 Nf6 22.Rbb1 {+.34}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ALNS, if you have specific variations, let me know and I'll run them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT - Here's the analysis of &lt;code&gt;1.b4&lt;/code&gt; after something like 10 hours. This is coming down to a draw. I don't think Black can convert this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[FEN &quot;1r3rk1/1q1nbpp1/p1n1p2p/P1p1P2P/2Pp1BN1/5BP1/1P2QP2/R3R1K1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.b4 cxb4 2.Rad1 Qc7 3.Bxc6 Qxc6 4.Rxd4 b3 5.Nxh6+ gxh6 6.Bxh6 f5 7.exf6 Bxf6 8.Rg4+ Kf7 9.Qd3 b2 10.Rb1 Ke7 11.Bxf8+ Rxf8 12.Rf4 Qd6 13.Qxd6+ Kxd6 14.Rxf6 Nxf6 15.Rxb2 Nxh5 16.Rb6+ Ke7 17.Rxa6 Nf6 18.Ra7+ Nd7 19.Kg2 Rc8 20.g4 Rxc4 21.Kg3 Kd6 22.f4 e5 23.fxe5+ Nxe5 24.g5 Rg4+ 25.Kf2 Rxg5 26.a6 Rg4 27.Ra8 Ra4 28.Ke2 Ra3 29.a7 Nc6 30.Kd1 Nxa7 {-.49 after 34541 seconds}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[title &quot;Try Be4 Bb1&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;1r3rk1/1q1nbpp1/p1n1p2p/P1p1P2P/2Pp1BN1/5BP1/1P2QP2/R3R1K1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.b4 cxb4 2.Be4 Nc5 {Stockfish initially tried a few variations on 3.Bxh6 but rejected them. Instead Stockfish goes defensive} 3.Bg2 (3. Bb1 d3 4.Qd1 b3 5.Be3 Rfd8 6.Qf3 Qb4 7.Rd1 b2 8.Ra2 Nd4 9.Bxd4 Rxd4 10.Ne3 Ne4 11.Kg2 Nc3 12.Rxd3 Rxd3 13.Rxb2 Qxb2 14.Bxd3 Bc5 15.Ng4 Rd8 16.Bf1 Qa1 17.Bd3 Qa2 18.Bf1 Qxa5 19.Qc6 Bd4 20.c5 Nd5 21.Qxa6 Qxc5 22.Bd3 {-5.65 White is a rook down.}&#xA;) Rfc8 4.Rad1 Qd7 5.Bxh6 gxh6 6.Qd2 Qe8 7.Nxh6+ Kg7 8.Qf4 b3 9.Bxc6 Rxc6 10.Rxd4 b2 11.Rb1 Nb3 12.Rxb2 Nxd4 13.Rxb8 Ne2+ 14.Kf1 Nxf4 15.Rxe8 Bb4 16.gxf4 Kxh6 17.Rh8+ Kg7 18.Ra8 Bd2 19.Ke2 Bxf4 20.Ra7 Bxe5 21.Kd3 Bf4 22.Ra8 {-2.29}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2016-04-18T23:48:50.007" LastActivityDate="2016-04-18T23:48:50.007" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14157" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-04-18T12:52:34.150" Score="0" ViewCount="376" Body="&lt;p&gt;Which defenses against 1. e4 and 1. d4 should a 2250-2300 FIDE player use to become an International Master, if he is: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Aggressive-minded&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Tactically proficient&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Keen on dynamics&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Original/imaginative/offbeat but still positionally prudent&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I mean, there are so many allegedly &quot;playable&quot;  openings but many of them have minus positional sides (Benoni, Benko, Budapest, Tarrasch etc).  What does Kasparov mean when he says that all reasonable (sound?) openings are playable? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What does his &quot;reasonable&quot; really mean? All over the internet, you find advice for all players except for players above 2200 FIDE ELO. It is assumed these players all know what they should do, but this is not the case I think.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are books on opening selection (Giddins, Yermolinsky, Hans Bo Larsen, Dvoretsky, for instance), but they are too general.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, to summarize, which openings are sound with black against 1.e4 and 1.d4, taking into account my stylistic preferences? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10087" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-12-17T14:29:53.773" LastActivityDate="2016-12-17T14:29:53.773" Title="Which openings are playable at (pre-)FM level - IM level?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" ClosedDate="2016-04-20T02:06:10.130" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14158" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14157" CreationDate="2016-04-18T17:25:32.483" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Opening advantages are fine things. Maybe you can even find an opening that lends itself to your 'style' of play. But what value does any of this have? Really?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Firstly, to become a master you must be able to play all sorts of positions well. Playing a limited set of openings directly contradicts the goal of practicing a wide variety of positions. Or does it? Really? You see, we're not masters yet, so our games are likely to be unpredictable and messy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What this means is that until your middlegame and endgame skill is at the master level your opening choices matter very little. Think of it the other way; if you're playing a master and you've somehow managed an opening advantage the master will just dig in and outplay you in the middlegame or endgame. To become a master, you will also need to acquire these skills - so you'd better find ways to get opening-&lt;em&gt;dis&lt;/em&gt;advantages as much as possible!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I guest the real point is that even heavily unbalanced positions often have excellent drawing chances for the disadvantaged player. A master will be able to make use of these to greatly reduce the chances of a loss. The difference in opening choices in this sense comes down to the master's goals for a particular game. Would they be happy with a draw? How much do they want to risk pushing for a win if complications might also favour their opponent? Perhaps they check a database and find that their opponent only wins 2% of games that feature a Queen-side attack when the dark-square Bishop is exchanged - interesting, maybe it's worth trying a Trompovsky as White and pushing c4 early?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This line of reasoning is just beyond being useful for non-master players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So now we see what Kasparov means when he says that all openings are playable. In almost all cases openings are simply &lt;em&gt;irrelevant&lt;/em&gt;. Masters might try to expose each other's weaknesses with them but even at the highest level, it is middlegame and endgame skills that decide games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10019" LastActivityDate="2016-04-18T17:25:32.483" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14160" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14134" CreationDate="2016-04-18T21:07:54.053" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The short answer is: it &lt;b&gt;forces exchange of a center pawn for a non-center pawn&lt;/b&gt;. If White ever captures exf6, Black's gxf6 gets the e pawn for a g pawn, or if Black captures f6 with a piece, gets the e pawn for the f pawn. If White declines exf6 then Black plays fxe5; if White recaptures dxe5 then Black gets a d pawn for the f pawn, or if White recaptures with a piece, the e pawn for the f pawn. In all cases, a slight center advantage toward Black in the pawn exchange.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The force is of course because White cannot push e5 to e6 in the French.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, this assumes that White cannot respond to f6 with f4 -- make sure not to play f6 unless White has that N (or other piece) on f3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7314" LastActivityDate="2016-04-18T21:07:54.053" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14161" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14134" CreationDate="2016-04-19T00:44:21.243" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;f6 is a thematic idea in positions (such as the advanced French) with locked pawns. The theme is the &quot;&lt;strong&gt;pawn break&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pawn breaks are most often done with the c or f pawns because the central d and e pawns are the most likely to become locked after an advance. There are three common motives:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Undermining a pawn chain.&lt;/strong&gt; It is preferable to attack the base of a pawn chain which is why Black so often plays c5 in the advanced French. There is no inherent problem with attacking the head of a pawn chain to achieve a similar result.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Opening lines.&lt;/strong&gt; This will usually offer an advantage to the player with better development. The f6 move may create a semi-open file for a rook. It also opens Black's 2nd rank so that the Queen, for example, may bolster g7.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Gaining space.&lt;/strong&gt; In cramped positions it is usually essential for the player with less space to try to open the position to prevent getting smothered.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So f6 in this context can serve many purposes. In light of options like c5, which has the virtue of not weakening your kingside, it might be worth not rushing into the idea.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10019" LastActivityDate="2016-04-19T00:44:21.243" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14162" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-04-19T07:41:37.220" Score="1" ViewCount="122" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to enter chess tournaments were there are titled players from more than one country and where non-titled players can compete in the same section.  Where can I find such open tournaments and what are the details?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3149" LastEditorUserId="10867" LastEditDate="2016-07-27T11:11:46.107" LastActivityDate="2019-07-10T07:25:44.760" Title="What are some chess tournaments around the world that have both Grandmasters and non-professionals players in the same section?" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ClosedDate="2019-07-10T17:32:07.927" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14163" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14162" CreationDate="2016-04-19T08:20:45.817" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I usually find my tournament in this &lt;a href=&quot;http://chess-calendar.eu&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;online chess tournament calendar&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you visit the homepage of a tournament you can often check who already registered and who is eligible to participate. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another easy way to make sure your conditions are met is just checking the prizes. In Europe a thousand euro first prize usually means there are going to be GMs participating. If there are several thousand euro first prize you can be sure that there will be many GMs and other strong players from all over the world. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastEditorUserId="2299" LastEditDate="2016-04-20T08:06:04.760" LastActivityDate="2016-04-20T08:06:04.760" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14164" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14157" CreationDate="2016-04-19T10:00:27.120" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have a very simple criterium to decide whether an opening is playable:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Every opening that is currently regularly played by at least one grandmaster against other grandmasters, is playable. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The idea is obviously that if there is a clear cut refutation GMs will find it and they will play it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: This answer is written from my perspective (Elo 2150) and still applies for players up to FM. Once you are a GM yourself it makes sense to look at what very strong GMs are playing, Elo 2650+. The point is to look at what is still being played regularly by players &lt;em&gt;significantly stronger than you&lt;/em&gt; against players &lt;em&gt;significantly stronger than you&lt;/em&gt;. That way you should be on the safe side, while still having quite a lot of choices. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastEditorUserId="4362" LastEditDate="2016-04-20T08:14:57.027" LastActivityDate="2016-04-20T08:14:57.027" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14165" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4416" CreationDate="2016-04-19T10:08:58.243" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is also good chess educational apps for Android from Chess King (ChessOK, Convekta)&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/dev?id=8196632901699712832&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://play.google.com/store/apps/dev?id=8196632901699712832&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8782" LastActivityDate="2016-04-19T10:08:58.243" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14166" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8804" CreationDate="2016-04-19T10:28:30.150" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;At present, the Taiminov is used as a transpositional system into the Scheveningen, because it avoids side lines with 3 BB5 via 2...e6 compared to 2...d6 or Nc6 while not allowing the Maroczy Bind via 4...Nc6 compared to 4...a6. This move order is preferable to Grandmasters, because the Scheveningen proper has to deal with the Keres Attack and the Najdorf has to deal with the more aggressive Bishop positioning such as 6 Bg5 or Bc4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White's plan is to develop the Bishops to e3 and e2 in order to castle and expand in the center with f4. Here Black has to make a decision between continuing in the &quot;spirit&quot; of the Taiminov with Bb4 or transposing into the Scheveningen with Be7 - the latter is in vogue. Assumming you transpose into the Scheveningen with Be7, white will continue with his plan of f4, forcing d6, and then eliminate counter play on the queenside with a4 and play kh1 to prepare for a kingside attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The topical line is, 1 e4,c5 2 nf3,e6 3 d4,pxp 4 nxp, nc6 5 nc3, qc7 6 be2, a6 7 be3, nf6 8 0-0, and here is where the taiminov transposes into the scheveningen with be7 9 f4, d6 10 a4, 0-0 11 kh1 and black to play. I believe the current novelty is nxn for black and starting counter play in the center instead of allowing white to steam roll on the kingside.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The advantages of the opening in general is that it's simple, solid and doesn't allow white much room for much deviation or aggressive play earlier in the opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10099" LastActivityDate="2016-04-19T10:28:30.150" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14167" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14174" CreationDate="2016-04-19T22:25:47.223" Score="5" ViewCount="1790" Body="&lt;p&gt;From &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tempo_(chess)?wprov=sfsi1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;: Kings, queens, bishops, and rooks can lose a tempo; a knight cannot (Müller &amp;amp; Pajeken 2008:40,175,189).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there truth to this? Examples please. My context is towards developing an engine eval.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Looking at a fen alone? Can we derive any info about tempo?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it only about minimizing distances?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In an engine, should we penalize moves that return to old squares? For opening or middle game?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is having initiative more important than tempo gains? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If a player sees a possible  future where he will be in zug·zwang can the preempt with some tempo tricks like triangulation? Examples please?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I see tempo gains as more of a tool for teaching. Not really having much use in the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9841" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2016-04-20T15:23:29.613" LastActivityDate="2016-04-21T13:38:57.963" Title="Why can't knights lose tempo?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;knights&gt;&lt;zugzwang&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14168" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14167" CreationDate="2016-04-19T22:34:23.387" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A king can take two moves to go from e1 to d2 - Ke1-d1-d2 and also one move - Ke1-d2. Taking two moves is called triangulation or losing a tempo. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A rook can take two moves to go from e1 to e3  - Re1-e2-e3 or one move - Re1-e3. Taking two moves is called losing a tempo. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A knight cannot take one extra move to go to the same destination square.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4543" LastActivityDate="2016-04-19T22:34:23.387" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14169" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14178" CreationDate="2016-04-20T02:31:37.380" Score="6" ViewCount="4691" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there a way to obtain FIDE ID, also known as FID, without actually participating in FIDE rated events? I don't mean obtaining a FIDE rating, just the ID. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason why I am asking is simple: this summer I am going to Pardubice Czech Open and I would like to invite my father with me. I myself have a FIDE ID, but my father doesn't, and he lives in an area where FIDE rated events don't happen often so it is quite unlikely he can get FIDE id through playing in a tournament before Czech Open.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The issue is that according to the Czech Open rules foreign players must possess a FIDE ID to take part in their rated tournaments, so it might be so that my father won't be able to participate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He has a national rating around 2150. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a way to just get registered by FIDE and get an ID or something like that? Maybe through &lt;a href=&quot;https://arena.myfide.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;FIDE online arena&lt;/a&gt;? I have created an account for him on there and entered all the personal information, but it appears that to have his official online rating calculated we need to pay 25 euros fee. Not a big deal, but I am reluctant to do so without having some assurance that this will result into assigning FIDE ID for him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-09-23T15:09:34.830" LastActivityDate="2018-05-23T11:35:57.317" Title="Is there a way to get a FIDE ID without playing in FIDE rated events?" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;fide&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14170" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-04-20T10:22:00.730" Score="6" ViewCount="1288" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been dealing with this for a while and the game can just sometimes be overwhelming. I really don't know how to calm myself and it might be effecting my play. I've been told maybe its because I don't do enough physical exercise but I'm quite fit so I know its definitely a psychological/mental issue. Maybe its my ego that can't take losing? After all I did put quite a considerable amount of effort and time in this game so it hurts to lose against someone you know who hasn't done the same even if its only once out of lets say a hundred games. Chess I think is probably bad for my health, I honestly start to feel hatred or anger towards my opponent sometimes such as if they play it like blitz chess or something. Maybe Its about time I just quit chess all together, that option has really slowly grown more appealing to be honest. Has anyone experienced something like this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10030" LastActivityDate="2020-03-20T19:30:48.480" Title="Problems with chess anxiety?" Tags="&lt;psychology&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14171" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8927" CreationDate="2016-04-20T11:41:38.923" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;As you said, 56. Rh6 is winning, and 81. ...Ra5 is drawn. I analyzed the last position without 55. ...Rb2 using stockfish 7. At move 77 white has the full two pawn advantage, but that is playing at computer level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10105" LastActivityDate="2016-04-20T11:41:38.923" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14172" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14170" CreationDate="2016-04-20T12:26:40.353" Score="3" Body="&lt;h2&gt;I really don't know how to calm myself and it might be effecting my play&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many people feel this way, e.g. becoming excited after winning material, or becoming upset when we slip from dynamic equality to a losing position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To paraphrase IM Josh Waitzkin, who has a tutorial called &lt;em&gt;The Psychology of Competition&lt;/em&gt; in the Chessmaster program:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Change your biochemistry to bring you back to the moment, e.g. take a break from the game, wash your face, or jog up a flight of stairs&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Don't feel positively or negatively about previous positions. Stay objective and focus on just the position in front of you, rather than the preceding events. This is what a computer does&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Chess I think is probably bad for my health&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not a doctor and I can't advise you on your health. If you feel that it is impacting your health, see your doctor. After all, your health is more important than playing chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Maybe its about time I just quit chess all together&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Before you consider quitting chess, I would advise that you try a different, slower time control. I dislike blitz because I just don't have the time to play at the level that I would like to do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, you may want to consider what it is that motivates you to play chess. Is it:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The competitive element?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The feeling of self improvement?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The artistry of the game?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Social engagement?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Something else?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you don't feel motivated to play, then there is no need to force yourself into it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Summary&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What you feel is very common. Try to train yourself to remain objective when playing chess&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If you feel the game is impacting your health, see a doctor&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Reassess what you want from chess. If it isn't providing what you need, consider trying a different hobby&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2016-04-20T12:26:40.353" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14174" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14167" CreationDate="2016-04-20T13:21:58.837" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;You seem to get the meaning/importance of tempo a bit wrong - it's not about getting back to the old square, it's about losing one move during the process, thus forcing the opponent to make his turn when it puts him in worse situation (this is called &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zugzwang&quot;&gt;Zugzwang&lt;/a&gt;). This is especially important in endgames, and you can see some examples in the same wiki article you are referring to.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also note that the final square doesn't have to be the same as the starting one (e.g. Re1-e2-e3 instead of Re1-e3), although it often is (mainly in Kings' triangulation). Knight cannot do any of that, as mentioned in answer by @magd. Knight can just jump from and back to the same square, but the opponent can e.g. also do some repetitive move and you end up right where you started. Knight just cannot take the route to its' destination which will lose exactly one tempo (or any other odd number).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But all other pieces (even pawns if they are at their starting square) can take an extra move while going to the destination, which in many situations enables you to force the opponent to make a move when it's a bad time for him. &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangulation_(chess)&quot;&gt;Triangulation&lt;/a&gt; is a classic example of this tactic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Generally speaking, losing tempo or just getting back to the previous square is usually bad in openings or even middlegame, although that depends on the situation. But in the endgame, deliberate loss of tempo is often maneuver which wins you the game (of course, if situation requires so).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An example from wiki:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;8/1p1k4/1P6/2PK4/8/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If black would be on the move in this position, it would be clear victory for white, as after black King moves away, white can proceed either with his King or his Pawn (depending on the move). But white is on the move, so he must think of a way how to make it work. The answer is, lose a tempo with triangulation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;8/1p1k4/1P6/2PK4/8/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;] &#xA;&#xA;1. Ke5 Kc6 2. Kd4 Kd7 3. Kd5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And now black is on the move, which enables white to break through.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You are right in saying that loss of tempo is used &quot;only&quot; to put opponent in zugzwang, but the importance of this is greater than it might seem at first. For example, every classic mate endgame uses loss of tempo and zugzwang to get the opponent's King to the edge of the board and to mate him. You often use zugzwang without even realising that you used it. Look at the mate with Rook:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;1k6/7R/2K5/8/8/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Rg7 Ka8 2. Kb6 Kb8 3. Rg8#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You aim to get your King to b6 when black King is on b8, so you can mate with Rook on 8th row. But you can't do that right away, as after 1. Kb6, black would get away with Kc8, and 1. Rh8+ would enable black to get away with Ka7. So in the process of getting to 8th row with your Rook, you deliberately lose a tempo with 1. Rg7 in order to win the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In contrast, to address your original question, Knight is not able to do that:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;8/8/8/8/8/7p/5K2/5N1k w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Ng3+ Kh2 2. Nf1+ Kh1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If white could just get to the starting position with black on the move, it would be a quick victory (1... h2 2. Ng3#), but Knight can't lose a tempo, so it's impossible, which is why this position with white to move is a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1099" LastActivityDate="2016-04-20T13:21:58.837" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14175" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-04-20T14:31:27.223" Score="0" ViewCount="637" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am trying to find a good program to help me perfect my opening play. It needs to be something simple because I am no computer expert. I don't understand the opening trees and all that high tech stuff. I was wondering if there was any program that lets you make moves and it tells you what opening you are using and shows the most popular responses and right and wrong moves. If you could provide in your answer what it is exactly that the program does and how you use it I will greatly appreciate it. If it matters my rating is 1430.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9260" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2016-04-23T22:16:46.120" LastActivityDate="2016-04-24T04:05:12.123" Title="What is a good opening software program?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;software&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14176" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14170" CreationDate="2016-04-20T15:29:40.777" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can certainly feel your pain. I too have &quot;chess anxiety&quot;, and performance anxiety (&quot;stage fright&quot;) generally. For me, on some self-reflection, I saw that some of it came from an &quot;inflated opinion&quot; of my own ability, and there are possible hints of that in your &quot;considerable amount of effort and time&quot; comment too. In many ways it seems that &quot;chess cannot be that hard&quot;, and yet it certainly is. If you can come to terms with these natural psychological-denial- and ego-type issues, it could help. For example, can you envision the next time you drop a piece (and it will happen sometimes right?) just laughing it off as &quot;silly me&quot; and playing on? Your opponent may just as easily drop a piece (later) too -- in a way non-master chess is much like the blind beating the blind with their canes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One time in frustration I played some don't-matter online games with the &lt;em&gt;goal&lt;/em&gt; of losing. And was amazed at how many mates my opponents were missing. That was an eye-opener.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another problem for me with gameplay was the clock vs. my perfectionism. I got much better results, and more satisfaction even when losing, by re-orienting toward faster-but-good/sufficient/reasonable moves over my usual best-move obsession. (One problem with the latter for me was it often blinded me to the fact that I was under an attack and needed a good defensive move rather than an offensive one. I.e. situational blindness.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope some of this helps. Good luck and enjoy the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S. I agree with the suggestion to investigate &quot;sports psychology&quot;, even though I haven't myself. Even if only reading a book on it...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7314" LastActivityDate="2016-04-20T15:29:40.777" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14177" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14175" CreationDate="2016-04-20T19:05:09.117" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Try 365chess.com Chess Opening Explorer. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Gives number of games win/lose/draw statistics and shows what opening was played. You can also click into a game for the moves when the tree gets down to one game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4543" LastActivityDate="2016-04-20T19:05:09.117" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14178" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14169" CreationDate="2016-04-21T03:09:01.527" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;See the licensing regulations from &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=180&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Handbook&lt;/a&gt;, particularly 1.13.3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1.1   Registration is the procedure of entering a player’s personal details into the FIDE players’ database.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1.2   A player registered to FIDE acquires a FIDE ID number (FIN).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1.13  Registration can be made in 4 different ways: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;1.13.1     National Rating Officers can register new players associated with their own National Federation and ‘FIDE flag players’.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;1.13.2     The FIDE Rating Administrator may register new players under special circumstances only, in FIDE events. In this case the&#xA;  Chief Arbiter and the Organiser are responsible for providing correct&#xA;  players' data. FIDE events are all competitions under the aegis of a)&#xA;  the World Championship &amp;amp; Olympiad Commission or Events Commission, b)&#xA;  Continental competitions that provide qualifiers to any of the&#xA;  aforesaid competitions, and c) events listed and described in detail&#xA;  in different parts of the FIDE Handbook.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;1.13.3     New players may register themselves in FIDE Online Arena playing zone (FOA). These players are not associated to any National&#xA;  Federation, but they are assigned the FIDE flag (FID) until they&#xA;  become members of a National Federation.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;1.13.4     When a child registers at sm.fide.com he/she will be allocated a FIDE ID. If such person already had a FIDE ID before that&#xA;  registration, his/her FIDE ID will be retained and a new one will not&#xA;  be given. After upgrading to Premium at psm.fide.com, a child gets a&#xA;  CiS rating.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9419" LastEditorUserId="16057" LastEditDate="2018-05-23T11:35:57.317" LastActivityDate="2018-05-23T11:35:57.317" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="14179" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12668" CreationDate="2016-04-21T12:42:28.187" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Anyway you cannot prevent someone avoiding the Grunfeld by move order. For instance, 1.c4, Nf6; 2. Nc3, g6; 3.e4, and it's done with the Grunfeld. The trick is it is better to play Grunfeld &lt;em&gt;and&lt;/em&gt; KID (Bologan's KID book has a chapter devoted to this, i think) complementarily, even against the fianchetto variation. Quality chess books by Avrukh on the grunfeld are excellent, so are also The safest grunfeld and in a lesser measure Dembo's (but not bad at all). I think there is no other way out. You could also listen to Svidler's lectures on chess24, they are excellent.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10087" LastActivityDate="2016-04-21T12:42:28.187" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14180" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14167" CreationDate="2016-04-21T13:38:57.963" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Losing a tempo and zugzwang are normally endgame terms.  All pieces, except the Knight, can maneuver to obtain the same position, ie lose a tempo(same as playing a NULL move.)  In this position, Black would lose if it's his turn to move, so White loses a tempo with the Bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;&#xA;[FEN &quot;1n6/5p1p/p1p1pP1k/1pP1P1p1/1P1PB1K1/P7/8/8 w - - 0 0&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Bc2 Nd7 2. Bd3 Nb8 3. Be4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are exceptions to retreating being bad.  In certain lines of the Ruy Lopez, the Queen's Knight retreats to allow the c pawn to advance.  In many double King Pawn openings, the King's Bishop returns to f8 to allow the Rook to put pressure on the King's Pawn and maneuver the Bishop to g7.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This retreat is to avoid exchanges as Black is cramped and to maintain two Knights to exploit the e5 hole.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[FEN &quot;r1bq1rk1/pp1nb1pp/2p1p3/3pNp2/2PPn3/1PN1P3/PB2BPPP/R2Q1RK1 w - - 0 0&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Nb1! &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The point of these retreats is to position the pieces on a better square. This is hard to translate into program code.  Some retreating moves are for better attacking positions, Bc4-d3 to aid in the kingside attack, or for better protection of the piece, Bc4-b3 in most Sicilians.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The other answers have provided examples where the tempo loss is the only way to win the game, so this is really important in the game.  Teaching chess is not like school, what you learn is applicable to the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9684" LastActivityDate="2016-04-21T13:38:57.963" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14181" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-04-22T07:25:45.310" Score="4" ViewCount="147" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can one open by moving &lt;strong&gt;two&lt;/strong&gt; pawns at a time, one square forward for each? (I hope you don't think I'm being funny-I was taught this when playing at school and have always played with this option).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10122" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-09-23T21:23:09.093" LastActivityDate="2019-09-23T21:23:09.093" Title="Moving two pieces together" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;pawns&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="14182" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14181" CreationDate="2016-04-22T08:08:17.613" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not in a regular chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are some &quot;homemade&quot; rules at least in some parts of the world that allow you to open with two moves (so only at the start of the game), but those are not used on any serious level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So no, you can't move two pawns in the same move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1099" LastActivityDate="2016-04-22T08:08:17.613" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14183" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14181" CreationDate="2016-04-22T08:09:03.960" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;No. You can either:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Move one pawn forwards 2 squares, provided it is the pawn's first move, or&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Move one pawn forward one square, unless it is blocked by another piece&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Make a capture, either normally or &lt;em&gt;en passant&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to learn more, there is a great &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rules_of_chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;wikipedia&lt;/a&gt; article on the rules.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2016-04-22T08:09:03.960" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14184" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-04-22T08:39:06.937" Score="2" ViewCount="130" Body="&lt;p&gt;Me and one of my colleagues have started playing chess for a while. We are playing one or two matches every weekday, and play tactics over our phones when off work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is one of our latest games. I tried to analyse the game using SCID &amp;amp; Stockfish, but I don't know exactly how to analyse. I think black (my opponent) made 3 major mistakes, and white (me) moved the very first pawn twice (which is bad) and missed an early mate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Apart from those, what can you tell us novice players about this game? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Lunch Break&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Istanbul, TUR&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2016.04.20&quot;]&#xA;[Time &quot;15:45:00&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Sadullah&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Serkan&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 c5 2.e5 e6 3.f4 Ne7 4.Nc3 Nf5 5.Nf3 d5 6.exd6 Qxd6 7.Bb5+ Bd7 8.Ne4 Qxf4 9.d3 Ne3 10.Bxd7+ Nxd7 11.Qe2 Ne5 12.Bxe3 Nxf3+ 13.gxf3 Qh4+ 14.Bf2 Qe7 15.Bxc5 Qh4+ 16.Bf2 Qh5 17.O-O-O Rc8 18.Kb1 b6 19.Bg3 Bc5 20.Bd6 Rc6 21.Bxc5 bxc5 22.d4 O-O 23.dxc5 Qe5 24.Qd3 Rb8 25.c3 g6 26.Qd4 Qf5 27.Ka1 Qxf3 28.Nf6+ Kf8 29.Nd7+ Ke7 30.Nxb8 Rd6 31.cxd6+ Kd8 32.d7 f6 33.Qd6 Qb7 34.Qf8+ Kc7 35.d8=Q# 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9768" LastEditorUserId="2042" LastEditDate="2016-04-22T11:10:51.947" LastActivityDate="2016-04-22T18:56:43.780" Title="Anaylsis of my game" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14185" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13892" CreationDate="2016-04-22T09:54:22.223" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I will need to make an educated guess as to what rules come closest to what you have described, and I think it is that:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You are checkmated whenever your king is attacked and if it were your turn next, you would not have any moves that would result in your king not being attacked.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;An opponent causes checkmate on you, if at the start of their turn you are not checkmated, but at the end of their turn you are.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If at the start of your own turn you are checkmated, then your king is removed from the game and the opponent who last caused checkmate on you will gain control of your pieces.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Under these rules, merely piling on a check while it was already checkmate would not cause checkmate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The rest of this post is background and further analysis of checkmate, that informed my answer and may help to understand it:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Checkmate#History&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;, it was the Persians who abandoned king capture and introduced warning of check in order to not accidentally end the game.  So let's go back in time before the introduction of checkmate and reanalyse.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In two-player chess checkmate is a situation where at the end of your turn all parties are certain that you will (be able to) capture the king on your very next turn (and in two-player chess there exist no reasons not to actually capture the king).  Because of this certainty of how the next two turns will play out (a doomed evasive move and a certain king capture), there is no point in actually playing those moves, so both can be (and have been in FIDE chess) eliminated from the game with no detriment to the game.  (Very much the same thing happens when a player forfeits the game upon realizing that the game is lost and there is no point playing any further.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But if there are three or more players a third party can intervene on behalf of a threatened king and (unless the game ends when the first king is captured) there may be more pressing matters than capturing an opponent's king left in check (like defending your own king).  These differences make it impossible to say with certainty when king capture is actually going to take place before it actually happens, thereby invalidating the reasoning which allowed us to eliminate king capture from the (end of the) game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is of course possible to try and use a definition of checkmate that is equivalent to the full checkmate described above in two-player chess also in chess with three or more players.  Indeed checkmate is usually defined in an operational way that is equivalent to full checkmate in two-player chess: your king is attacked and you have no move that will result in your king not being attacked. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you try to use that definition in multi-player chess you will need to think about on which player's turns one can be checkmated.  If your king is attacked and you have no move that will result in your king not being attacked, because it is not even your turn, are you checkmated?  Apparently that was something you rejected, but then it becomes hard to say who checkmated you.  It is possible for example that the player before you causes your king to be attacked by moving one of their pieces out of the way of a third player's piece, and even causes you to not have any moves that result in your king not being attacked, even though they are not even checking you with any of their own pieces.  Have they checkmated you?  I think most people are inclined to say yes.  But if you want to know if they caused checkmate or not, then you need to be able to say whether or not you were already checkmated before their turn or not.  Thus you need a way to determine checkmate even when it is not your turn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One extreme is to say that every check from a player not immediately before you is checkmate (because as it is not even your turn you have no moves to remove that attack).  Another way is to pretend that it were your turn and see if you could do something.  I have recently even read rules for multi-player chess where it actually becomes your turn if you are checked, and the player whose turn it would have been had you not been checked continues after you (and you may or may not forfeit you actual next turn).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9531" LastActivityDate="2016-04-22T09:54:22.223" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14186" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14169" CreationDate="2016-04-22T10:15:53.457" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;The resolution of my problem turned out to be pretty simple. I emailed to my national federation and asked if they could create FIDE id for my father. They said they could so I emailed his personal information to them and in a few hours they emailed his newly created FIDE id to me. Happy ending :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15" LastEditorUserId="15" LastEditDate="2016-04-22T23:35:20.383" LastActivityDate="2016-04-22T23:35:20.383" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14187" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8161" CreationDate="2016-04-22T13:09:23.770" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is also a book at Chess Stars: Opening for Black according to Karpov (2002) by Alexander Khalifman, quite old but not bad at all, to say the least. And also an &quot;old&quot; but interesting book The Caro-Kann in Black &amp;amp; White Paperback  – 1994 (Karpov, Beliavsky). There are most certainly plenty of books. I don't know about the book quality of Houska's recent book on Caro-Kann at everyman's. Starting out the Caro-Kann by Joe Gallagher is quite good also. But all these books, except Khalifman's (and Schandorff's excellent one), do not propose a deep researched repertoire. The only drawback of Khalifman is its &quot;agedness&quot; and the lack of explanations, it gives many variations and you to have to work out the variations given to understand the points of moves, almost no explanation, but professional. You will have to make a mix of all those books to put up by yourself a convenient (for you) repertoire. &#xA;Furthermore, it is not easy to play against e4 predominantly strategically or positionally. Neither is it on all other first moves, though some are more convenient for that sake. Modern chess has it all very concrete and calculating, there is no escape from concrete tactical chess. No soft positional chess only, sorry to say.&#xA;Have a nice day! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10087" LastActivityDate="2016-04-22T13:09:23.770" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14188" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12977" CreationDate="2016-04-22T14:22:53.867" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.apronus.com/chess/trainingtactics.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.apronus.com/chess/trainingtactics.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This article outlines the various possibilities for training tactics that are offered by the ChessTempo.com website. For all I know, this is unique in the world. The full richness of the features described there requires a paid membership.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3456" LastActivityDate="2016-04-22T14:22:53.867" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14189" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14175" CreationDate="2016-04-22T16:44:08.287" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are excellent iPhone apps for this. A simple to use and personal favorite is &quot;Openings&quot;, although when you search for it type in &quot;Chess Openings&quot;. It may not be exactly what you're looking for but it's definitely worth a look.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10125" LastActivityDate="2016-04-22T16:44:08.287" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14190" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14184" CreationDate="2016-04-22T18:56:43.780" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I will only consider the opening in this rather brief analysis, as after White won a piece, there aren't many noteworthy events left to discuss.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1.e4, c5 2.e5? &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This move is a mistake. It does not develop a piece. I does not really fight for center control in an efficient manner. However, it does make the pawn on e5 weak to attacks, as it's further away from White's side of the board than it was on e4. Black should probably continue with 2...Nc6 to see if White really wants to play f4. However, ...e6 is not a bad move. One may argue about the question-mark, as 2.e5 is objectively speaking fully playable, but I feel that it is appropriate, as it makes White struggle for equality if Black plays for an advantage. This should never be the case for White in the opening - it should be the other way around.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;2...e6 3.f4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A logical continuation after 2.e5. It is reasonable to pre-emptively guard the pawn on e5 before Black decides to attack it. However, f4 is not a move that helps White's piece development.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;3...Ne7?!&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While it aims to develop a knight to f5, the same could have been accomplished by 3...Nh6. However, on h6 the knight wouldn't block the bishop on f8. This would have given Black more flexibility in what move to play next. Normally, when White has played e5 followed by f4, and Black already has a pawn on e6, the play ...Nh6 should be seriously considered, as White's bishop on c1 cannot attack it in these scenarios.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;4.Nc3, Nf5 5.Nf3, d5!&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I like the ...d5 push. It is very logical, as it fights for center control. The exclamation mark may be superfluous, but the move is not bad. Alternatively, Black could have played 4...Nc6! This develops a knight, and it takes control of an important central square (d4). It also forces White to make a decision. What should White play? On 5.Bb5, it's possible to play ...d5! 6.exd6 e.p., Bd7! (the pawn on d6 isn't going anywhere) and Black has a great position, with all the light pieces having something to do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;6.exd6 e.p., Qxd6?&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a fundamental error that beginners seem to make all to often. The queen shouldn't be running around too much in the opening, as it can be easily attacked by the enemy, thus wasting too much time in the opening. What was wrong with the simple reply 6...Bxd6? Nothing was wrong with that move. The bishop &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;does just as much as a queen would on d6,&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;is less vulnerable to attacks by enemy pieces, as it's less valuable&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;paves the way for bringing the king to safety on g8 with castling.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Generally speaking, when you choose between throwing out the queen and developing a light piece in the opening, you should develop the light piece. It's often too early to say where the queen will be useful in the earliest stage of a game. Note that again, 6...Qxd6 is playable technically speaking, but that's besides the point I'm trying to make.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;7.Bb5+&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A strong alternative to this move is 7.Nb5! This move immediately punishes Black for playing out the queen too early, as after 7...Qxf4 8.d3!, and Black cannot defend the c7 square in a good way. White will be able to play Nc7+ shortly, picking up the a8 rook. After this reply, the best Black can do is to pull the queen back to either d7 or d8. None of this would have been the case if Black had taken on d6 with the bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;7...Bd7 8.Ne4? Qxf4 9.d3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While it's nice to attack the enemy queen, a whole pawn is not worth it. At least if White really gains very little as compensation for the pawn. Black can calmly reply with 9...Qc7, and White will be a pawn down for very little compensation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;9...Ne3??&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A game-losing blunder. It simply drops a piece for nothing after 10.Bxd7+! After this there isn't much to be done for Black, if White plays reasonably solid chess, which was what happened in the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If anybody feels like posting analysis of the entire game, then please do. But I will stop here, as the opening stage was where most of the valuable lessons were to be given in this game, at least from an ~1100 Elo perspective.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8300" LastActivityDate="2016-04-22T18:56:43.780" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14191" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="442" CreationDate="2016-04-22T20:41:10.777" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;My daughter started at her Montessori at 3.5. She is 5 now and is happy playing someone on the board by herself (and I coach her from time to time). We have chess play-dates with other 5/6 year olds where they do chess for an hour followed by physical play for 1-3 hours. I teach kids chess as a hobby and I know I once started a very active 3 year old boy and he lost interest very fast. It does vary from child t child but I think 4 would be a safe age based on my experience, provided you let them win some every now and then:)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10127" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T16:21:26.410" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T16:21:26.410" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="14193" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12671" CreationDate="2016-04-23T10:54:04.743" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't play the Lopez, so I can't answer the part relating to experimental variations, but I can list some of the common traps:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Tarrasch Trap in the Open Variation&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Ba4 Nf6 5. 0-0 Nxe4 6. d4 b5 7. Bb3 d5 8. dxe5 Be6 9. c3 Be7 10. Re1 0-0 11. Nd4 Qd7?, White wins a piece:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;r4rk1/2pqbppp/p1n1b3/1p1pP3/3Nn3/1BP5/PP3PPP/RNBQR1K1 w - - 0 12&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt; 12. Nxe6 Qxe6 (or fxe6) 13. Rxe4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Tarrasch Trap in the Steinitz Variation&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 d6 4. d4 Bd7 5. Nc3 Nf6 6. 0-0 Be7 7. Re1 O-O, White wins a pawn:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;r2q1rk1/pppbbppp/2np1n2/1B2p3/3PP3/2N2N2/PPP2PPP/R1BQR1K1 w - - 0 8&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt; 8. Bxc6 Bxc6 9. dxe5 dxe5 10. Qxd8 Raxd8 11. Nxe5&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Mortimer trap&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 Nf6 4. d3 Ne7 5. Nxe5?, Black wins a piece for 2 pawns:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;r1bqkb1r/ppppnppp/5n2/1B2N3/4P3/3P4/PPP2PPP/RNBQK2R b KQkq - 0 5&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt; 5...c6 6. Nc4 d6 7. Ba4 b5 8. Bxb5 cxb5&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Noah's Ark Trap&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Ba4 d6 5. d4 b5 6. Bb3 Nxd4 7. Nxd4 exd4 8. Qxd4?, Black wins a piece:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;r1bqkbnr/2p2ppp/p2p4/1p6/3QP3/1B6/PPP2PPP/RNB1K2R b KQkq - 0 8&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt; 8... c5 9. Qd5 Be6 10. Qc6+ Bd7 11. Qd5 c4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Mate in the Exchange Variation&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Bxc6 dxc6 5. O-O Bg4 6. h3 h5 7. hxg4?, Black has good mating chances:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;r2qkbnr/1pp2pp1/p1p5/4p2p/4P1P1/5N2/PPPP1PP1/RNBQ1RK1 b kq - 0 7&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt; 7... hxg4 8. Nxe5 Qh4 9. f3 g3 lead to mate&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Mate in the mainline&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Ba4 Nf6 5. Nc3 Bc5 6. Nxe5 Nxe5 7. d4 Bb4 8. dxe5 Nxe4 9. Qd4 Nxc3 10. bxc3 Ba5?, White has a mating attack:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;r1bqk2r/1ppp1ppp/p7/b3P3/B2Q4/2P5/P1P2PPP/R1B1K2R w KQkq - 0 11&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt; 11. Ba3 b6 12. e6! Qf6 13. Bxd7+ Kd8 14. Bc6+! Qxd4 15. e7#&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Suggestion for the community: should we turn this answer into a &lt;strong&gt;community wiki&lt;/strong&gt;? I realise I've listed only a handful of traps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastEditorDisplayName="user1108" LastEditDate="2016-04-24T10:31:26.403" LastActivityDate="2016-04-24T10:31:26.403" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14194" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-04-23T11:37:09.770" Score="2" ViewCount="477" Body="&lt;p&gt;What does it mean to be an opening theoretician, and how does one achieve this status? Does it imply that one should not be an active tournament player? Apart from opening theoreticians are there middlegame and endgame theoreticians, too? Why are most theoreticians from eastern europe? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastActivityDate="2017-09-22T14:23:23.870" Title="How does one become a theoretician?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;middlegame&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14195" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14197" CreationDate="2016-04-23T11:40:01.927" Score="0" ViewCount="219" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was playing chess on an app against a computer, and I could make an en passant after a move from me and the computer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;   &lt;code&gt;&#xA;   [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;   1.e4 h5 2.e5 f5 3.a4 a5 4.exf6 exf5 {Ignore the weird Bishop if you go back in the game. The parser is confused.}&#xA;   &lt;/code&gt;&#xA;   &lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this possible?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can the pawn at e5 take the pawn at f5 now after a move each (o more) from the player?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10130" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2016-04-23T12:36:43.330" LastActivityDate="2016-04-23T15:59:12.200" Title="En Passant - Usage after one or more move(s)" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;en-passant&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ClosedDate="2020-06-01T19:41:00.887" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14196" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14194" CreationDate="2016-04-23T11:55:37.243" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;A theoretician is someone who has created a new opening, middlegame and / or endgame variation. You don't have to be a grandmaster to become one, and not all grandmasters are ones.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It may not apply if your variation is not tactical or is useless.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't think it matters where a theoretician comes from, as everyone has different chess experience, and whether you are an active tournament player or not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;People who have written about chess theory in general are chess theoreticians.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10130" LastEditorUserId="10130" LastEditDate="2016-07-26T15:44:43.453" LastActivityDate="2016-07-26T15:44:43.453" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14197" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14195" CreationDate="2016-04-23T12:20:44.310" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;No. You can take a pawn en passant only on the next move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See 3.7d, &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/FIDE/handbook/LawsOfChess.pdf&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A pawn attacking a square crossed by an opponent’s pawn which has&#xA;  advanced two squares in one move from its original square may capture&#xA;  this opponent’s pawn as though the latter had been moved only one&#xA;  square. &lt;strong&gt;This capture is only legal on the move following this advance&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;  and is called an &quot;en passant&quot; capture.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="3831" LastEditDate="2016-04-23T15:59:12.200" LastActivityDate="2016-04-23T15:59:12.200" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14198" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16138" CreationDate="2016-04-23T19:27:41.047" Score="13" ViewCount="1267" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have recently learned that former chess world champion Tigran Petrosian earned a PhD title from Yerevan State University; the title of his dissertation title was &lt;em&gt;Chess Logic&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would like to read what he wrote. I can read Russian. Any idea how to get hold of this text?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: I have just read in a chess history book that between his two matches with Spassky, Petrosian worked on the philosophy of the chess battle, studied the secrets of the process of chess thinking, successfully defended a dissertation on this subject and became a candidate of philosophical sciences - my translation from Russian. This cryptic text does not mention the title of doctor (PhD) but an obscure title of candidate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3456" LastEditorUserId="10867" LastEditDate="2016-07-27T11:12:01.157" LastActivityDate="2017-08-23T14:06:45.363" Title="Chess Logic - Tigran Petrosian's doctoral dissertation" Tags="&lt;theory&gt;&lt;books&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14199" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14175" CreationDate="2016-04-23T21:48:14.943" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://lichess.org&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;lichess&lt;/a&gt; has a new opening explorer feature when you are using an analysis board that will tell you popular responses to moves and tells you the opening you are using.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7507" LastActivityDate="2016-04-23T21:48:14.943" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14200" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-04-24T02:59:40.590" Score="3" ViewCount="314" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is said about chess players in general. For example, Wikipedia says about Ivanchuk:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;His inability to become World Champion despite his immense talent and longevity among the chess elite has been attributed to his admittedly poor nerves, which were exposed during the high-tension atmosphere of World Championship match-format tournaments&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What does this &quot;poor nerves&quot; mean? Does this mean he cannot cope up with the stress?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4618" LastActivityDate="2017-02-19T18:32:29.633" Title="What is meant by &quot;nerves&quot; in chess?" Tags="&lt;psychology&gt;&lt;famous-players&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14201" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14175" CreationDate="2016-04-24T04:05:12.123" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Below 2000, you should not be spending too much time on openings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would suggest that you learn how to navigate opening trees and use chessbase light.  Even better is to get a higher rated player to go over the openings and explain the concepts.  This option gives better feedback.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess Opening Wizard (bookup.com) and Chess Position Trainer (chesspositiontrainer.com) are good.  There was another provided by sourceforge.net, but I can not find it anymore.  COW has a feature which you could load a pgn file and it would make an easy-to-use tree up to the number of moves you entered.  This feature, IMO, is not worth the $67 cost.  CPT does not have this convenient feature and is not worth $40.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since pgns are mostly GM games, I suggest you find a chess club to get the opinion of average people.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9684" LastActivityDate="2016-04-24T04:05:12.123" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14202" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14200" CreationDate="2016-04-24T04:25:21.927" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes to both questions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At the highest level of any sport/game/activity, there is an extreme amount of pressure.  Being in a foreign city, the quest to find the best move, the knowledge that most chess players will be going over you game, annotators criticizing your every move, and the added pressure of a ticking clock.  (Digital clocks don't tick, but most chess players prefer this reference.)  Professional chess players have been known to lose 20 pounds(9 kg) during a normal 2 week tournament, due to the stress of the situation.  Although I don't think they consider this, one misplay and they will be remembered like Bill Buckner.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9684" LastActivityDate="2016-04-24T04:25:21.927" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14203" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="442" CreationDate="2016-04-24T18:32:19.787" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I learned chess as a kid we started with pawns only with all white pawns on 2. row and all black pawns at 8. row). The pawn moved as in a normal game of chess and the winner was the one who first brought a pawn to queen promotion (though no queen was brought into play the game just ended here).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Next step was to bring in the knights. The setup was: Black knights on b8 and g8 and now only 4 white pawns at c2,d2,e2 and f2. The goal for white was again to get a pawn to queen promotion and the goal for black to capture all white pawns before the reach queen promotion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the next steps the black knights was replaced with &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;the bishops at c8 and f8   &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;the rocks at a8 and h8&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;queen at d8&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;all these variants had same goal and white pawn setup as with the knights.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think these games gives a good insight into the movement and the strength of the pieces and how the work together - you can of course make your own variations with more or less pieces also.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1030" LastActivityDate="2016-04-24T18:32:19.787" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14204" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-04-24T18:36:14.510" Score="1" ViewCount="426" Body="&lt;p&gt;I always play on the kingside, but I recently heard from Expert class that White plays on the queenside. I also seen another Expert class play on the queenside. If this is true, then why does White play on the queenside? Also, when does White play on the Kingside? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3149" LastActivityDate="2016-04-25T17:59:06.903" Title="In the Ruy Lopez, does White play on the queenside or King side?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;middlegame&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14205" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-04-24T18:44:35.547" Score="0" ViewCount="173" Body="&lt;p&gt;Could you put the move orders as well as briefly explain the idea of the defenses? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3149" LastEditorUserId="3149" LastEditDate="2016-04-24T22:46:26.757" LastActivityDate="2016-04-26T14:50:28.403" Title="What are the most popular defences White should be prepared to fight against in the Ruy Lopez?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14206" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14204" CreationDate="2016-04-25T00:33:46.770" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can play wherever you want to. The kingisde seems obviously like a better option. Why? Because normally in the main line Black has already gained space with a6 and b5, meaning that it will be easier for him to manouever his pieces on the queenside. As for you, you may want to go h3 g4 and Nf5 if possible, as Fischer did in a game against Wolfgang Unzicker which I think is covered in his book. Also, black can get a passed pawn from his attack, but if you get the king, it is game over. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note: The latter manouver involving h3 and g4 is only good when the center is closed, if it is open I wouldnt suggest to attempt at your king's life like that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9809" LastActivityDate="2016-04-25T00:33:46.770" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14207" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-04-25T00:43:15.090" Score="3" ViewCount="200" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just finished reading Logical Chess Move by Move (should have read it before) and I just started with the Classic &lt;em&gt;My System&lt;/em&gt;. I'm still on the beginners' part that talks about the center (can't wait to get to the positional chapter) and Nimzowitsch posts a game in which he says Qe2 is stronger. Here is the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA; 1.e4 e5 2.f4 d5 3.exd5 Qxd5 4.Nc3 Qe6 5.fxe5 Qxe5 6.Be2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nimzowitsch says that in the arising position Qe2 is stronger, why? Because we would have a development advantage of one piece? That doesn't look too of an advantage to me? (Note that Qe2 is referring to white's 6th move.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9809" LastEditorUserId="11202" LastEditDate="2017-05-03T10:26:21.267" LastActivityDate="2017-05-03T17:50:25.397" Title="Why is Qe2 stronger in this position?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14208" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14207" CreationDate="2016-04-25T02:34:15.967" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;Be2&lt;/code&gt; makes no threat, leaves &lt;code&gt;g2&lt;/code&gt; undefended, and seals in the Queen.  Black has &lt;code&gt;Bg4&lt;/code&gt; which prevents &lt;code&gt;6... Bg4 7.Nf3 Bxf3 8.gxf3&lt;/code&gt; as this leaves White with crummy pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black also has &lt;code&gt;Be7&lt;/code&gt; followed by &lt;code&gt;Bh4&lt;/code&gt;, exploiting White's weak black Kingside squares.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, Black also can move either Knight. Black simply has no problems.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2016-04-25T02:34:15.967" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14209" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-04-25T04:18:54.113" Score="1" ViewCount="327" Body="&lt;p&gt;Most of my learning comes from trial-and-error sort of self-teaching. I cannot say I am completely blind to tactics and combinations, but, while solving puzzles (approx. ~1600+) I tend to miss something critical within the time allotted. Though a longer stare would get me solve it eventually.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My goal is to play comfortably at blitz (3m+2s) for 1800-2000 elo bracket without making tactical blunders and without missing not so difficult t&amp;amp;cs. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this regard I want to delve deeper into tactical and combinational aspect of chess. What resources (books, videos, online material, etc) will you recommend?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4618" LastActivityDate="2016-04-28T01:30:40.837" Title="How to develop tactical and combinational awareness?" Tags="&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;combinations&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14210" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-04-25T08:00:07.563" Score="16" ViewCount="12013" Body="&lt;p&gt;I keep hearing blitz chess is bad for you but the I've only been offered two explanations for why that is. The first reason I've been told is that it ruins your ability to focus since you it forces you to play fast so I suppose they say it makes you less patient as well. The second was that blitz is not a very efficient way of improving chess since you can't put as much thought into it in general. But surely that isn't the only reason people say not to play blitz right? After playing blitz I still maintain my ability to focus and as long as it doesn't make me play chess worse I should be fine with reason 2. I really want to understand what this whole deal is about since with my personality if I play blitz or play around with chess in an absent-minded or quick manner I get paranoid and start thinking &quot;Oh no, am I making myself worse at chess or something like that?&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10030" LastActivityDate="2020-03-20T18:20:34.570" Title="Why do people say blitz chess can be bad for your chess?" Tags="&lt;psychology&gt;&lt;blitz&gt;" AnswerCount="13" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14211" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14210" CreationDate="2016-04-25T08:54:33.357" Score="21" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am answering only as an expert player, so who am I to answer this, but I think that &quot;blitz ruins your chess&quot; was a very popular view some time ago rather than nowadays... Anyway, given the very limited time at your, and your adversary, disposal, in blitz chess a player is not generally searching for the best move(s) but the one that gives you most chances. This may encourage, in the long run, a player to &quot;stay away&quot; from very deep considerations, tactical or strategical, and this is ultimately not good for improving chess strength. When you face strong players with plenty of time at their disposal you have to find the best moves, because they haven't 30 seconds on the clock or so, unless they are in zeitnot, to answer you.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastEditorUserId="8291" LastEditDate="2016-04-25T09:09:23.723" LastActivityDate="2016-04-25T09:09:23.723" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14212" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14204" CreationDate="2016-04-25T14:30:14.413" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Black's moves ...a6 and ...b5 can also be quite weakening so White often plays a4, axb5 axb5 and then Black's b5 pawn is weak and can be attacked. Also after these moves the a-file is open so White can invade with heavy pieces on the a-file as well as having the option of playing on the kingside.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4543" LastEditorUserId="4543" LastEditDate="2016-04-25T17:59:06.903" LastActivityDate="2016-04-25T17:59:06.903" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14213" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14204" CreationDate="2016-04-25T15:04:50.253" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In most variations of the Ruy Lopez, White, with the Bishop on b3, has better chances playing on the kingside.  In the Marshall gambit, White counterattacks on the Queenside.  In the Exchange variation, White normally has better chances in the kingside in the endgame.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Fischer-Spassky&#xA;Ninth Match Game&#xA;Sveti Stefan 1992&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Bxc6 dxc6 5. O-O f6 6. d4 exd4 7. Nd4 c5 8. Nb3 Qd1 9. Rd1 Bg4 10. f3 Be6 11. Nc3 Bd6 12. Be3 b6 13. a4 O-O-O 14. a5 Kb7 15. e5 Be7 16. Rd8 Bd8 17. Ne4 Kc6 18. axb6 cxb6 19. Nbc5 Bc8 20. Na6 fxe5 21. Nb4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this famous game, White did attack on the queenside.  The reason for the exception is the placement of the King.  Opposite side castling throws most chess rules out the window and the only thing that matters is an attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9684" LastEditorUserId="4543" LastEditDate="2016-04-25T17:38:53.777" LastActivityDate="2016-04-25T17:38:53.777" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14214" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14215" CreationDate="2016-04-25T15:09:19.247" Score="4" ViewCount="337" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Black to move&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;6k1/p4p2/1p2pPp1/7p/3Pb2P/1B2P1P1/P7/2K5 b - - 0 33&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm Black. In the game I deliberately allowed White pushing the pawn to f6, I was expecting something like &lt;code&gt;...g5, ...Kh7, ...Kg6&lt;/code&gt; to pick up the pawn. But then I realised after &lt;code&gt;...g5&lt;/code&gt;, White has Bc2 which forces the exchange of the bishop. Once the bishop is exchanged, white should win with the passed d-pawn after e4 &amp;amp; d5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: What's the best continuation for Black here? Can I take advantage of the weak f6 pawn? I don't have a computer with me, so computer analysis is fine. My human evaluation is very danger for Black (thus I'd misevaluated the endgame by allowing it to happen).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2016-04-25T17:48:42.037" LastActivityDate="2019-12-31T19:16:51.333" Title="How to play this bishop &amp; pawn endgame?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;bishop-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14215" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14214" CreationDate="2016-04-25T20:49:05.140" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;If White tries to hinder your plan by exchanging the bishops he loses the pawn endgame. I have provided brief analysis in the below diagram, see the sublines. Then I have tried to play this endgame with both colors versus computer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Computer chose &lt;code&gt;1...Kf8&lt;/code&gt; as strongest but with some &quot;only moves&quot; I managed to save the draw. This is illustrated in the below diagram as the main line.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I played your plan with &lt;code&gt;...g5 + ...Kh7&lt;/code&gt; but computer found good resource in &lt;code&gt;Be8!&lt;/code&gt;, which secures a draw. You will find my play as Black in the below diagram as a subline.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To conclude: you can not exploit your advantage because White generates enough counterplay thanks to your kingside pawns being on the color of your bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[Title &quot;Black to move&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;6k1/p4p2/1p2pPp1/7p/3Pb2P/1B2P1P1/P7/2K5 b - - 0 33&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1...Kf8 (1... g5 2. hxg5 Kh7 3. Ba4! (3.Bc2? Bxc2-+ 4.Kxc2 Kg6 5.e4 Kxg5 6.e5 Kf5 7.Kd3 $8 b5 $22 8.a3 a5 9.Ke3 b4 10.axb4 axb4 11.Kd3 b3 $8 12.Kc3 Ke4!-+) 3...Kg6 4. Be8!= $8 Bf3 5. Kd2 Kxg5 6. Bxf7 Kxf6 7. Be8 Kg5 8. Bd7 Bd5 9. a3 Kg4 10. e4! Bxe4 11. Bxe6+ Kxg3 12. d5 h4 13. d6 Bc6 14. d7 Bxd7 15. Bxd7 h3 16. Bxh3 Kxh3=) 2.Ba4! a6 3. Bd7! Kg8 4. Be8! Kf8 5. Bd7 Kg8 6. Be8 Kf8 7. Bd7 Kg8 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastActivityDate="2016-04-25T20:49:05.140" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14216" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14217" CreationDate="2016-04-26T04:15:40.840" Score="5" ViewCount="3516" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to talk to a UCI engine (right now Stockfish, but more generally to all UCI engines) to write my own computer-vs-computer program (I could use Fritz, but I really want to learn more about UCI and engines in general, so I'm trying to do it on the nuts and bolts level).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've gotten to the point where I can do:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;position fen r1b1kb1r/ppp2ppp/3p1q1n/4p3/3nP3/1PN2N2/PBPPQPPP/R3KB1R w KQkq - 0 7&#xA;go wtime 500000 btime 500000&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And read&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;info nodes 811977 time 4620&#xA;bestmove f3d4 ponder e5d4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I know my engine decided, after it's processing time of 4620 milliseconds, to move f3d4, and it expects the other player to play e5d4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First question:  do I immediately send &lt;code&gt;go ponder&lt;/code&gt; to let the engine think?  Or do I need to use other commands first?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The player plays a move and, hot dog, it's what the engine said it was going to ponder.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Second question:  do I just send it a &lt;code&gt;ponderhit&lt;/code&gt; or do I need to &lt;code&gt;postition fen --new position--&lt;/code&gt; first then send &lt;code&gt;ponderhit&lt;/code&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd personally expect the engine to update it's internal state on a ponderhit, but it looks like the engine is supposed to rely on the GUI to handle all board state for the game, is this correct?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All the examples I've seen just do a single analysis, or run a single move then end, I don't know how to continue the game!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Third question:  When I send a &lt;code&gt;go&lt;/code&gt; command I send along with it the wtime and btime left on my game's clock.  Does the engine actually use this data to decide how long to think on each move, or does it expect the GUI to tell it how to manage it's own time?  It looks like the engine handles this thinking on it's own, but as I've never actually gotten to the NEXT move, I'm not sure if it's actually doing time management.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know these are horribly newbish questions, but all the reading up I've found on the UCI engine seems to just talk about one move, or analyzing a move, and I haven't found any examples of multiple moves in sequence, so I'm not quite sure how to play THROUGH a game on the UCI command line.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10145" LastActivityDate="2016-04-26T06:49:50.100" Title="I'm confused by UCI Pondering and Time Control" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;programming&gt;&lt;uci&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14217" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14216" CreationDate="2016-04-26T04:31:20.130" Score="6" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;First the GUI sends the position string with the ponder move as the last move in this string. Then the GUI sends &quot;go ponder&quot;. This makes little sense to me, but UCI is very much a kludge. Note that the engine can actually ponder whatever move(s) it wants, but UCI tried to make it simple for basic implementations. From the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.shredderchess.com/chess-info/features/uci-universal-chess-interface.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;protocol&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;ponder&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;start searching in pondering mode.      Do not exit the search in ponder mode, even if it's mate!       This means that the last move sent in in the position string is the ponder move.        The engine can do what it wants to do, but after a &quot;ponderhit&quot; command      it should execute the suggested move to ponder on. This means that the ponder&#xA;move sent by the GUI can be interpreted as a recommendation about which move&#xA;to ponder. However, if the engine decides to ponder on a different move, it&#xA;should not display any mainlines as they are likely to be misinterpreted&#xA;by the GUI because the GUI expects the engine to ponder on the suggested move.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I think the GUI simply sends &quot;ponderhit&quot; when it is applicable.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The main reason &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; to resend the position string, but to only send &quot;ponderhit&quot; is to ensure that the engine continues its current search in the pondered position, rather than starting a new one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;ponderhit&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  the user has played the expected move. This will be sent if the engine was&#xA;  told to ponder on the same move the user has played. The engine should&#xA;  continue searching but switch from pondering to normal search.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In general, UCI tries to be &quot;stateless&quot;, which is really it's big error IMO, as it makes everything natty. Pondering is a prime example of when the engine can really do whatever it wants (even the protocol says explicitly). The &quot;ponderhit&quot; command's action is determined by the &quot;position fen ... moves&quot; string that was already sent before the pondering began. So in that sense the GUI still sends the board state (this is completely awkward in my opinion, particularly if you want to ponder more than one move, but that's UCI for you).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Engines can/should use their own time management based on &quot;wtime&quot; (and/or btime/winc/binc). Again it's a bit confusing with UCI, as the GUI is supposed to be in somewhat total control (like with opening books), but then has some leeway when allowing the engine to allocate its own time (you can use &quot;go movetime&quot; if you want the GUI to control time management, assuming the engine complies).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can look at a log of how a GUI communicates with an engine such as Stockfish.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;GUI -&amp;gt; engine1: position startpos&#xA;GUI -&amp;gt; engine1: go wtime 100000 winc 1000 btime 100000 binc 1000&#xA;engine1 -&amp;gt; GUI: bestmove e2e4 ponder e7e6&#xA;GUI -&amp;gt; engine1: position startpos moves e2e4 e7e6&#xA;GUI -&amp;gt; engine1: go ponder wtime 98123 winc 1000 btime 100000 binc 1000&#xA;[user or other engine plays the expected e7e6 move]&#xA;GUI -&amp;gt; engine1: ponderhit&#xA;[engine keeps thinking]&#xA;engine1 -&amp;gt; GUI: bestmove d2d4 ponder d7d5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or if the pondered move wasn't made, then a new &quot;position&quot; string is sent instead of &quot;ponderhit&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9419" LastEditorUserId="9419" LastEditDate="2016-04-26T06:49:50.100" LastActivityDate="2016-04-26T06:49:50.100" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14218" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14216" CreationDate="2016-04-26T05:21:15.563" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Q1:&lt;/strong&gt; You shouldn't send ponder back, because you don't know what the other player would make.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Q2:&lt;/strong&gt; You'll need send back a new position (give a FEN or a move list). You're expected to keep the state of the engine yourself. You can also send ponderhit if the expected ponder move is made, but it's not absolutely necessary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Q3:&lt;/strong&gt; Stockfish has an algorithm to decide when to stop searching based on the time you give to it. Yes, you should give the clock time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;UCI is not a formal and well-documented protocol, it was invented by Shredder for their own GUI and engine. When they released the protocol, there was nothing better, soon after everybody used it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I understand you don't like keeping state yourself, but this is not how UCI works. You can hack by getting a FEN string from Stockfish, make a move, then get a new FEN. This should work but it's very hacky and definitely not how Stockfish is designed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2016-04-26T06:23:12.457" LastActivityDate="2016-04-26T06:23:12.457" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14219" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-04-26T13:49:58.867" Score="0" ViewCount="168" Body="&lt;p&gt;So, I am learning the basics on trading pieces, but can someone please give me tips on the &quot;Art of trading pieces with material gain&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know a concept called overloading, but are there any other tactical concepts?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7644" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-04-27T09:23:48.087" LastActivityDate="2016-04-27T13:31:10.617" Title="How to gain material by trading pieces?" Tags="&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;captures&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14221" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14205" CreationDate="2016-04-26T14:50:28.403" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The mainlines and key ideas are highlighted in &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruy_Lopez&quot;&gt;wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;. The article covers:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Morphy Defence: 3...a6&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Exchange Variation: 4.Bxc6&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Norwegian Defence: 4.Ba4 b5 5.Bb3 Na5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Variations combining 3...a6 and ...Bc5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Steinitz Defence Deferred: 4.Ba4 d6&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Schliemann Defence Deferred: 4.Ba4 f5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Arkhangelsk Defence: 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.0-0 b5 6.Bb3 Bb7&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Mackenzie Variation 4. Ba4 Nf6 5.d4&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Russian Defence: 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.0-0 d6&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Open Defence: 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.0-0 Nxe4&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Closed Defence 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.0-0 Be7&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Delayed Exchange Variation Deferred: 6.Bxc6&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Centre Attack: 6.d4&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Worrall Attack: 6.Qe2&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Averbakh Variation: 6.Re1 d6&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Trajković Variation: 6.Re1 b5 7.Bb3 Bb7&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Marshall Attack: 7...0-0 8.c3 d5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Main line: 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.0-0 Be7 6.Re1 b5 7.Bb3 d6 8.c3 0-0&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Pilnik Variation: 9.d3&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Yates Variation and Bogoljubow Variation: 9.d4&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Chigorin Variation: 9.h3 Na5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Breyer Variation: 9.h3 Nb8&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Zaitsev Variation: 9.h3 Bb7&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Karpov Variation: 9.h3 Nd7&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Kholmov Variation: 9.h3 Be6&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Smyslov Variation: 9.h3 h6&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Smyslov Variation: 9.h3 Qd7&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Black defences other than 3...a6&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Cozio Defence: 3...Nge7&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Smyslov Defence: 3...g6&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Bird's Defence: 3...Nd4&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Steinitz Defence: 3...d6&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Schliemann Defence: 3...f5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Classical Defence: 3...Bc5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Berlin Defence: 3...Nf6&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2016-04-26T14:50:28.403" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14222" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13901" CreationDate="2016-04-26T22:40:27.987" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;White defends, but it is really a pain to hold this position. It took me few minutes to formulate correct plan since Stockfish found some strong ideas for Black. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Below is the image of the fortress we are aiming for:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/11SJE.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/11SJE.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If Black king tries to penetrate through queenside, he must aim for &lt;code&gt;c3&lt;/code&gt; square in order to create double attack on &lt;code&gt;c2&lt;/code&gt; pawn (using king and queen). We stop that plan with timely &lt;code&gt;Na4+&lt;/code&gt;, which pushes the king back.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If Black tries to penetrate to &lt;code&gt;b1&lt;/code&gt; with the king ( through queenside ), hoping to win the &lt;code&gt;c2&lt;/code&gt; pawn ( queen + king create double attack on the pawn) White will be in time to reposition &lt;code&gt;Nc5&lt;/code&gt; to &lt;code&gt;e2&lt;/code&gt;, blocking black queen's attack along the second rank, thus defending by simply moving the king to &lt;code&gt;d2&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;d1&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The last option for Black is to get to &lt;code&gt;d1&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;d2&lt;/code&gt; with the king, but White manages to reposition &lt;code&gt;Nc5&lt;/code&gt; to &lt;code&gt;d2&lt;/code&gt; which creates impenetrable fortress since both knights control so many important squares (&lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;f4&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;f3&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;f2&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;f1&lt;/code&gt;), effectively cutting off the black king. White can also move the king to &lt;code&gt;b1&lt;/code&gt; and push out black king with timely &lt;code&gt;Nb2+&lt;/code&gt;, in case he is late to reposition the knight to &lt;code&gt;d2&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The whole point is that we must reposition &lt;code&gt;Nd1&lt;/code&gt; to &lt;code&gt;c5&lt;/code&gt;, after which White defends. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since analysis is very lengthy, I will post an illustrative game I played against Stockfish. Other important ideas will be shown in sublines. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you need further questions leave a comment and I will update my analysis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;AlwaysLearningNewStuff vs Stockfish&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;8/4k3/2p5/3p4/1P1q4/3N4/2P5/2KN4 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Kd2 Qg1 (1...Ke6 2.Nc3 Kf5 3.Na4 Ke4 4.Nac5+ Kf3 5.Nb3 Qe3+ 6.Kc3! Ke2 7.Kb2 Kd1 8.Kb1! Qe2 9.Nb2+) 2. Nc3! d4 3. Ne2 Qe3+ 4. Kd1 Ke6 5. Nec1 Qg1+ 6. Kd2 Qh2+ (6...Kf5 7.Nb3 Ke4 8.Nbc5+ Kf3 9.Ne5+ Kf2 10.Ned3+ Kf1 11.Kc1! Ke2+ 12.Kb2 Kd2 13.Nb3+ Kd1 14.Kb1! Qg2 15.Nb2+!? Ke2) 7. Kd1 Kd5 8. Nb3! Kc4 (8...Ke4 9.Nd2+ Ke3 ?? 10.Nf1+ Ke4 11.Nxh2+-) 9. Nbc5! $8 Qg1+ 10. Kd2 Qe3+ 11. Kd1 Kc3 12. Na4+ $8 Kc4 13. Nac5 Qg5! 14. Na4 $7 Qg1+ 15. Kd2 Qg5+ 16. Kd1 Kb5 17. Nac5 $8 Qg1+ 18. Kd2 Kc4 19. Na4 $8 Qe3+ 20. Kd1 Kb5 21. Nac5 Kc4 22. Na4 Qg5 23. Nac5 Kb5 24. Nb3 Ka4 25. Nbc5+ Kb5 (25...Ka3 26.Nb3! Qg1+! 27.Ke2! Ka2 28.Nd2! Qe3+ 29.Kd1 Qe6! 30.Kc1! Qh6 31.Kd1 Qh1+ 32.Ke2) 26. Nb3 Qe3 27. Nbc5 Qg1+ 28. Kd2 Qg5+ 29. Kd1 Qh6 30. Nb3 Kc4 31. Nbc5 Qh1+ 32. Kd2 Qf1 33. Na4 Qg1 34. Nac5 Kd5 35. Ke2 Qg2+ 36. Kd1 Qh1+ 37. Kd2 Kc4 38. Na4 Qh6+ 39. Kd1 Kb5 40. Nac5 Kc4 41. Na4 Qg5 42. Nac5 Qh4 43. Kd2 Qh6+ 44. Kd1 Qh1+ 45. Kd2 Qa1 46. Ne4! Qa7 47. Nec5 Qa1 48. Ne4 Qf1 49. Nec5 Kd5 50. Na4 c5 51. bxc5! Qg2+ 52. Kc1! Qg5+ 53. Kb2 Ke4 54. Nb6! Qd2 55. Kb1 Qg5 56. Nc4! Kd5 57. Nd6! Qg1+ 58. Kb2 Qg4 59. Kb1 Qd1+ 60. Kb2 Qg1 61. Ka2 Kc6 62. Kb2 Kd5 63. Ka2 Qh1 64. Kb2 Qd1 65. Nb5 Qg1 66. Nd6 Qd1 67. Nb5 Qf1 68. Nd6 Kc6 69. Nc4 Qd1 70. Nd6 Qd2 71. Kb1 Kd5 72. Kb2 Qh6 73. Kb1 Kc6 74. Kb2 Kd5 75. Kb1 Kc6 76. Kb2 Qh1 77. Ka2 Qg1 78. Kb2 Qg8 79. Kb1 Kd5 80. Kb2 Qh7 81. Kb1 Qh6 82. Kb2 Kc6 83. Kb1 Qg7 84. Kb2 Qh6 85. Kb1 Qh7 86. Kb2 Qh1 87. Ka2 Qh4 88. Kb2 Kd5 89. Ka2 Qh2 90. Kb2 Qh1 91. Ka2 Qd1 92. Kb2 Qf1 93. Ka2 Qf3 94. Kb2 Qh1 95. Ka2 Ke6 96. Kb2 Qd1 97. Nc4 Kd7 98. Nd6 Kc6 99. Nc4 Kc7 100. Nd6 Kb8 101. Nc4 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastActivityDate="2016-04-26T22:40:27.987" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14223" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14219" CreationDate="2016-04-27T09:22:04.473" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesstactics.org/index.php?Type=page&amp;amp;Action=back&amp;amp;From=5,1,1,1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Substitution&lt;/a&gt; would be another. With a trade/capture, you can set up another tactical motive like a skewer or a fork.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the position below (taken from the ChessTactics link above), Black wins an exchange with the following combination:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Black to move&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;1&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;2r2rk1/p1p1qp1p/1p2n1pb/8/n7/1PB1PBN1/P2Q1PPP/R4RK1 b - - 0 33&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Nxc3 2. Qxc3 Bg7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2016-04-27T09:22:04.473" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14224" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14219" CreationDate="2016-04-27T13:31:10.617" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not really an answer but as you can't put pgns in comments:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While labelling tactical ideas helps in learning beware of putting them too much in separate boxes, they tend to blend into each other. For instance take the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;????.??.??&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;*&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;2r1k2r/1pq2pp1/pn2p2p/2b1p3/4P2B/2N5/PP1Q1PPP/2RR2K1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Nb5 axb5 2.Rxc5 Qxc5 3.Qd8+ Rxd8 4.Rxd8# *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is Rxc5 a deflection, exploiting the overloading of the queen or a skewer? I would argue it's a bit of all 3&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7726" LastActivityDate="2016-04-27T13:31:10.617" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14226" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-04-27T18:44:46.260" Score="4" ViewCount="492" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Copied this question from &lt;a href=&quot;https://stackoverflow.com/questions/36826038/why-am-i-getting-different-behaviour-between-using-stockfish-as-a-child-node-pro?noredirect=1#comment61355417_36826038&quot;&gt;stackoverflow&lt;/a&gt;. Not 100% sure it belongs here but we'll see...&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am building a web interface for the &lt;a href=&quot;https://stockfishchess.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot; title=&quot;stockfish&quot;&gt;stockfish&lt;/a&gt; chess engine using Node, and I noticed that the behaviour of the exact same commands behaves differently.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are the UCI commands I use when calling stockfish from the command line:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;position fen rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&#xA;go movetime 15000&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The engine then responds as expected: Does analysis for 15 seconds while outputting every step on stdout, and ends with a suggestion in the following format:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;bestmove e2e4 ponder e7e6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is the code that makes the same call as a node js child process:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;app.get('/next_move/:fen', (req, res) =&amp;gt; {&#xA;    const stockfish = spawn('bin/stockfish');&#xA;    stockfish.stdin.write(`position fen ${req.params.fen}\ngo movetime 15000`);&#xA;    console.info(`Sending UCI command to stockfish: position fen ${req.params.fen}\ngo movetime 15000`);&#xA;    stockfish.stdin.end();&#xA;&#xA;    stockfish.stdout.on('error', (error)=&amp;gt;{&#xA;        console.error(`${error}`);&#xA;        res.status(500).send('Internal server error');&#xA;        stockfish.kill();&#xA;    });&#xA;&#xA;    stockfish.stdout.on('message', (data)=&amp;gt;{&#xA;        console.log(`Message: ${data}`);&#xA;    });&#xA;&#xA;    stockfish.stdout.on('data', (data) =&amp;gt;{&#xA;        let output = data.toString();&#xA;        // Ignore the first line in stdout&#xA;        if (output.substring(0, 9) === 'Stockfish') {&#xA;            return;&#xA;        }&#xA;        console.info(`Stockfish output: ${output}`);&#xA;        if (output.substring(0, 8) === 'bestmove') {&#xA;            res.json({'bestMove': output.substring(8).trim()});&#xA;        } else {&#xA;            res.status(400).send('Bad FEN string');&#xA;        }&#xA;        stockfish.kill();&#xA;    });&#xA;});&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After I make this code run via web, get a result almost instantly, and also get a different output from stockfish:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;bestmove a2a3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why is this happening? Is this related to Nodejs or to Stockfish? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10160" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-05-23T12:37:05.403" LastActivityDate="2016-04-28T00:01:34.167" Title="Why am I getting different behaviour between using stockfish as a child node process and a CLI called process?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;programming&gt;&lt;uci&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14227" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14226" CreationDate="2016-04-27T23:29:55.613" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It was me who suggested you to come here because you'd need to understand what's happening. The guys on Stackoverflow wouldn't have the knolwedge to answer you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Firstly, this is definitely your fault since Stockfish wouldn't give you &lt;code&gt;a2a3&lt;/code&gt; unless you have screwed up something. But why a2a3? That's because Stockfish always try to move a pawn before anything else. The way how the bitboard is encoded, it'd start its search from a1 to h1, then a2 to h2, a3 to h3 etc. The a2 white pawn is the first pawn it sees, so it tries to move it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now we've established it's your fault, however, it's not possible for us to determine the cause because we don't have your source code. But I can give you some hints, you'll need to experiment yourself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;You have killed the standard input too early. I don't quite understand why you would do &lt;code&gt;stockfish.stdin.end();&lt;/code&gt;. Stockfish assumes the standard input/output works, always works.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;You have failed to setup the bitboard. I'm confident you'd get the error unless you let Stockfish to setup it's internal data structure. Have you done it? The code for doing it should be in the main() function, did you run it? You can't just run the UCI loop directly, it wouldn't work.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;How did you host the engine? Did you host it in the same address space as the server? Note that the engine assumes it's in a different address space because this is how a desktop GUI would work.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Print out everything you send to Stockfish and everything you receive from the engine. &lt;strong&gt;Don't&lt;/strong&gt; assume your commands would work, &lt;strong&gt;print&lt;/strong&gt; everything to a text file. Run the commands in a command line. Stockfish could give you nonsense if one of your commands is not right. You'll have to verify it by trying yourself, don't assume anything.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If you still can't figure out what's happening. &lt;strong&gt;Put&lt;/strong&gt; a breakpoint in the UCI loop and follow it. There has to be something, a condition that makes your search terminate immediately. Don't be afraid, you should be able to debug it yourself if you follow the code step-by-step.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Have you done &lt;code&gt;ucinewgame&lt;/code&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most likely it's (2), a common mistake in chess programming. If you don't run the setup code correctly, the engine wouldn't be able to run the nega-max algorithm. No nega-max =&gt; nothing to search =&gt; simply return you the first pawn move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2016-04-28T00:01:34.167" LastActivityDate="2016-04-28T00:01:34.167" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14228" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14209" CreationDate="2016-04-28T01:30:40.837" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The recommended way to improve tactics is to practice looking for them.  &lt;a href=&quot;http://chesstempo.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;ChessTempo&lt;/a&gt; is the best site to practice tactics.  &lt;a href=&quot;http://chess24.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chess24&lt;/a&gt; also has tactics training and has good videos.  &lt;a href=&quot;http://lichess.org&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Lichess&lt;/a&gt; has tactics and one of the best playing sites.  Youtube.com has too many chess videos to list them all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are some clues to look for to find tactics.  An unprotected back rank, pieces which are on the same line, pieces which are a Knight fork away, and pieces which are unprotected.  More advanced themes are overloaded piece, trapped pieces, and zwischenzug et al.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/download/view/300mostimportantpositionsinchess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Alburt's 300 most important positions&lt;/a&gt; and Reinfeld's 1001 best checkmates are PGNs which you can download.  &lt;a href=&quot;http://innokuo.altervista.org/chesshero.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess Hero&lt;/a&gt; is a program which will test you with these files (includes Reinfeld's pgn.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Along with tactics, you will find attacking becomes easier.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;spy-faith(2113) jonesmh(2052) lichess.org 3 0&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Exploiting an overloaded Knight on c3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;   [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. d4 cxd4 3. c3 d3 4. c4 g6 5. Nc3 Bg7 6. Qxd3 Nc6 7. Bf4 d6 8. O-O-O Nf6 9. Bg3 O-O 10. f4 Qa5 11. Kb1 Nb4 12. Qd2 Nxe4 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;jonesmh(2000) mitchell(2000)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unusual attack on the king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[fen &quot;r3rbk1/ppq2pp1/2n2n1p/2pp1P2/5P2/2PBB2P/PPQN2P1/R3R1K1 b - - 0 0&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1...c4 2.Bf1 Rxe3 3. Rxe3 Bc5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With every piece protected, the attack broke through.  A hard example of a weak square complex.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;jonesmh(2080) kavookavala(2133) lichess.org 3 2&#xA;Exploiting uncoordinated pieces&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. f4 d5 2. e4 dxe4 3. Nc3 Bf5 4. Qe2 Nf6 5. Qb5+ Bd7 6. Qxb7 Bc6 7. Bb5 Bxb5 8. Nxb5 Qd5 9. Qc8+ 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;jonesmh(2079) nfc3000(2061) lichess.org 3 2&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Overlooked Knight fork by both player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d3 Nf6 4. g3 g6 5. Bg2 Bg7 6. O-O O-O 7. Nbd2 Nc6 8. a4 Bd7 9. Re1 a6 10. Nc4 Rb8 11. a5 Be6 12. e5 Bxc4 13. exf6 Bxf6 14. dxc4 Nxa5 15. Qd3 Qc7 16. Bd2 Nc6 17. c3 Ra8 18. Bh6 Rfb8 19. Qe2 Na5 20. Bg5 Bxg5 21. Nxg5 Re8 22. Rad1 Rab8 23. Qd3 b5 24. cxb5 axb5 25. b4 Nc4 26. Bd5 Ne5 27. Rxe5 dxe5 28. Bxf7+ Kg7 29. Bxe8 Rxe8 30. Ne6+ 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These examples show that 2000 rated players miss simple tactics in blitz.  The longer you play and/or solve tactical puzzles, the easier you will find the combinations..&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(As I kept going back and forth to input the examples, I lost track of what I was saying many times.  Hopefully I did not stray off topic too much and did provide helpful information.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9684" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2016-04-28T01:30:40.837" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14229" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12808" CreationDate="2016-04-28T02:02:31.430" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recommend finishing Reinfeld's book first.  As Cecil De Vere states, knowing what you are looking for makes the problems too easy, however this is how we are taught math.  The repetition of one tactic at a time should teach pattern recognition.  Once she is familiar with the tactical motifs, the problems should be mixed up to teach independent thinking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After the tactics are learned, &lt;a href=&quot;http://chesstempo.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;ChessTempo&lt;/a&gt; is an free site to practice tactics based upon you skill level.  &lt;a href=&quot;http://lichess.org&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Lichess&lt;/a&gt; offers tactical puzzles, but I don't know if they are level matched.  Lichess offers free play so you can test yourself against others around your skill.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would suggest getting &lt;a href=&quot;http://innokuo.altervista.org/chesshero.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess Hero&lt;/a&gt; (comes with Reinfeld's PGN) and Alburt's 300 Important Positions.  This free program will randomize the positions as playing chess would.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another suggestion is to read Alekhine's Best Games.  He often explains, in simple English, how he sees the position and the tactics he plays.  (Some of the games are really complex and he does alter some games to make games more interesting.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9684" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-12-07T12:08:30.870" LastActivityDate="2019-12-07T12:08:30.870" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="14230" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5730" CreationDate="2016-04-28T04:00:17.147" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://innokuo.altervista.org/chesshero.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chess Hero&lt;/a&gt; is a free program.  It does not select based on strength of puzzle but random choice, but I think it is the best offline trainer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://dejascacchi.altervista.org/exercises.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Here&lt;/a&gt; is a list of pdf files which are separated by difficulty.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to invest the time, you could order a pgn/fen file from easiest to hardest.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9684" LastActivityDate="2016-04-28T04:00:17.147" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14231" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14232" CreationDate="2016-04-28T08:41:34.997" Score="6" ViewCount="1389" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've identified that the weaknesses in my game are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Materialism&lt;/strong&gt;: Most of my wins are where I've won some material and converted the advantage in an endgame. However outside of this plan, e.g. launching a mating attack, my knowledge is not up to scratch&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Missing strong sacrifices&lt;/strong&gt;: I can see pawn sacrifices in exercises, but I know in a game situation I would not make them. After all, my materialism screams &quot;don't make a material concession!&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Undervaluing the initiative&lt;/strong&gt;: I tend to underestimate an initiative advantage based on superior development, both for myself and my opponent. E.g. I might lag behind in development to ensure a superior pawn structure&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is, &lt;strong&gt;can you recommend a training plan to boost my understanding of the initiative and making sacrifices?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Background info:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Rated 2050 Elo&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Playing 1. d4 as White, Slav and Caro-Kann as Black&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2017-03-10T15:22:16.460" Title="How do I become less materialistic?" Tags="&lt;training&gt;&lt;psychology&gt;&lt;sacrifice&gt;&lt;material&gt;" AnswerCount="8" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14232" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14231" CreationDate="2016-04-28T13:09:56.640" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;A suggestion I have is to start playing gambits, and high-risk-high-reward openings. For example, playing the King's Gambit as White forces you to utilize any initiative you are given. Playing the KID as Black will force you to sacrifice pieces now and then to win istead of losing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically what you need to do is to start appreciating initiative by experiencing it for yourself. Otherwise it becomes very difficult to dare making risky decisions based on tempo and piece activity, if you've never done it successfully before.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Based on what you wrote, I guess you tend to play mainly rather slow and positional setups in the opening. Then you have to expect it to be rather difficult to learn about this style of play, as you are probably not very familiar with it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other things you can do is to look for inspiration in games by e.g. Kasparov. He was excellent at utilizing the initiative, and just crushing his opponents with daring attacks. Just look at the notable games at his personal page on chessgames.com, some of them are rather amazing examples of this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8300" LastEditorUserId="8300" LastEditDate="2016-04-28T22:48:41.197" LastActivityDate="2016-04-28T22:48:41.197" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14233" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5070" CreationDate="2016-04-28T13:15:27.060" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.acideapestudios.acidapechess&amp;amp;hl=en&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Acid Ape Chess&lt;/a&gt;. I think it is the best in history of Android chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10165" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-04-28T13:56:16.370" LastActivityDate="2016-04-28T13:56:16.370" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14234" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14231" CreationDate="2016-04-28T13:17:54.990" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would recommend playing training games in which you try to sacrifice a pawn as early as possible. Once you are down material you are forced to look for dynamic chances. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I developed into a dynamic player by playing games against an &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.schach-computer.info/wiki/index.php/Mephisto_Europa_A&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;old board computer&lt;/a&gt; which just grabbed every pawn it could get. I quickly found out that the easiest way to beat it was to sac' a few pawns and then build a winning attack from the development advantage. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A more realistic way is probably to create a blitz repertoire consisting of gambits and to use this repertoire in online blitz. I once compiled such a repertoire for my wife, who plays extremely solid chess appr. on your level, and it did work at least short term while she was practising with it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Such a repertoire might contain the king's gambit, the Chochrane gambit, the French wing gambit, 1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 dxe4 4.f3, the Morra gambit for white and the Portuguese, the English wing gambit and the Schara-Henning gambit for black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course it would require some study but the point is not to learn the theory really deep. You rather try to get the general idea and then just ditch a pawn and attack in every game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2016-04-28T13:17:54.990" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14235" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14231" CreationDate="2016-04-28T20:02:21.170" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The key lever that stands out for me in your self-critique is the &quot;knowledge of mating attacks&quot; deficit. Just do a whole lot (hundreds) of mate-in-two and mate-in-three problems. It might crack the &quot;blind spot&quot; you are reporting in general. (I like the Polgar book (&quot;Chess&quot;) myself for this (5000+ problems), but any reasonable source of -in-2 and/or -in-3 problems should work.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7314" LastActivityDate="2016-04-28T20:02:21.170" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14237" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14231" CreationDate="2016-04-29T10:23:57.113" Score="1" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Study games of attacking players who play d4 e.g. Kasparov. Or just attacking players in general e.g. Morphy.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Read Art of Attack in chess by Vukovic. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Practice tactics especially mating tactics in the middlegame. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Find your weaknesses by analysing your own games and finding out where you could have sacrificed.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4543" LastActivityDate="2016-04-29T10:23:57.113" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14238" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8806" CreationDate="2016-04-29T18:51:16.260" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Whether there is a &lt;em&gt;draw&lt;/em&gt; in hand depends on both the rank and file of the pawn in the following analysis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The following as an analysis quoted in Wikipedia's article, &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_and_pawn_versus_queen_endgame&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;queen and pawn versus queen endgame&lt;/a&gt;. All quotes and diagrams are taken from Wikipedia. Wikipedia cites table base analysis by the chess computer Belle from 1985, alongside John Nunn, Reuben Fine, Pal Benko and others.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Key For Diagrams&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black king on white dots: win with White to move, draw with Black to move; on black dots – win with either to move; other squares – draw&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Rook Pawn&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A rook pawn needs to be on at least the sixth rank to have decent winning chances&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/BDkJi.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/BDkJi.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Knight Pawn&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A knight pawn should be on at least the fifth rank to have good winning chances. A knight pawn on the fifth rank has better winning chances than a rook pawn on the sixth rank. There are two reasons for this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The king has squares on the adjacent rook file to try to avoid perpetual check&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The exchange of queens is less likely to lead to a drawn king and pawn versus king endgame&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9Dqui.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9Dqui.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Bishop Pawn&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A bishop pawn offers the best winning chances. One reason is that there is no drawing zone in the opposite corner for the black king if the pawn is on at least the fourth rank. If the pawn is on the fifth rank the defender's chances are small unless the king is in front of the pawn. A pawn on the sixth rank wins unless the defending king is in front of the pawn&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/4ORF9.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/4ORF9.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Centre Pawn&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A central pawn has better chances to win than a rook pawn or knight pawn, but not as good as a bishop pawn. As with the bishop pawn, there is no drawing zone for the defending king in the opposite corner. It is better for the defending king to be on the &amp;quot;short side&amp;quot; of the pawn rather than the &amp;quot;long side&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/NVw2B.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/NVw2B.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2016-04-29T18:51:16.260" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14239" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5302" CreationDate="2016-04-29T19:26:17.610" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The simplest version of the problem is 'cooked' - there are three distinct solutions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a) &lt;em&gt;setup - White king on B2, White pawn on F5, Black pawn on E7&lt;/em&gt;&#xA;   --&gt; &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;1)&lt;/em&gt; B2-B1+ E7-E5  &lt;em&gt;2)&lt;/em&gt; F5xE5ep&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;b) &lt;em&gt;setup - White king on B2, White pawn on D5, Black pawn on E7&lt;/em&gt;&#xA;   --&gt; &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;1)&lt;/em&gt; B2-B1+ E7-E5  &lt;em&gt;2)&lt;/em&gt; D5xE5ep&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;c) &lt;em&gt;setup - White pawn on D4, Black pawn on E7&lt;/em&gt;&#xA;   --&gt; &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;1)&lt;/em&gt; D4-D5+ E7-E5  &lt;em&gt;2)&lt;/em&gt; D5xE5ep&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10179" LastActivityDate="2016-04-29T19:26:17.610" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14240" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14244" CreationDate="2016-04-29T23:50:46.717" Score="5" ViewCount="470" Body="&lt;p&gt;Does anybody knows how games are rated (FIDE rating) when a new list is published while playing a tournament?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's say I'm playing a tournament starting at April and ending at June. Starting ratings are those listed in April list, but before the tournament ends there will be new lists at May and June, and tournament results will be reported at June.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are several options:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A) All games are rated as players rating were those in April list (the starting ones).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B) All games are rated as players rating were those in June list (when the tournament is reported to FIDE).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;C) April games are rated with April ratings, May ones with May ratings, and June ones with June ratings (it seems strange, but it is how it works for Catalan ratings).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I could find no response to this question at &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=172&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE handbook&lt;/a&gt;. The only clue could be article 8.4:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;8.4&#xA;If an unrated player receives a published rating before a particular&#xA;tournament in which he has played is rated, then he is rated as a&#xA;rated player with his current rating, but in the rating of his&#xA;opponents he is counted as an unrated player.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which makes me think that all games are rated with the starting ratings (option A).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2311" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T17:28:26.163" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T17:28:41.713" Title="FIDE rating: how games are rated if a new list is published while playing a tournament" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;fide&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="14241" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14231" CreationDate="2016-05-01T01:24:24.720" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;One other recommendation alongside some good ones.....&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Play speed chess.  In speed chess material advantage is worth less than it normally would be.  Instead, attacking is valued in this type of play more.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2765" LastEditorUserId="2765" LastEditDate="2016-05-01T01:45:14.273" LastActivityDate="2016-05-01T01:45:14.273" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14243" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-05-01T10:49:39.530" Score="6" ViewCount="931" Body="&lt;p&gt;How do you deal with this? I'm a bit of a chess perfectionist, and I always want to play the best move, so when I go up against an irregular opening, I don't do badly, but it's hard be 100% sure you made the best move in the opening, and that really bothers me psychologically.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My current method for dealing with these types of situations is to just follow the basic opening principles, but at my level I feel like this is not detailed enough or too vague, since I always try to strive for a certain level of understanding in every position. What can I do to be more flexible in this area of chess? Are there more detailed guides for playing against uncommon openings?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even though I don't necessarily play badly, I really want to learn to be &quot;comfortable&quot; in all positions. How would I achieve this? Is the answer to play beginners since they tend to play strange openings all the time? I've already done this, but I still don't seem &quot;comfortable&quot; enough. Maybe its all in my head? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10030" LastEditorUserId="11202" LastEditDate="2017-05-16T05:18:45.057" LastActivityDate="2020-05-31T09:24:54.710" Title="Facing irregular or uncommon openings" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;psychology&gt;" AnswerCount="9" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14244" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14240" CreationDate="2016-05-01T10:52:34.140" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Option &lt;em&gt;A&lt;/em&gt; is correct, option &lt;em&gt;C&lt;/em&gt; applies to some tournaments, see below.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is not explicitly stated in the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=172&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Rating Regulations&lt;/a&gt; but the practice has always been that for rating purposes the rating valid at the starting date of the tournament is used. The only exception are tournaments that last longer then 90 days which have to be reported for rating every month&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4.1 For tournaments, a period not greater than 90 days, except:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;4.11 Leagues may be rated which last for a period greater than 90 days.&#xA;4.12 The QC may approve the rating of tournaments lasting more than 90 days.&#xA;4.13 For tournaments lasting more than 90 days, interim results must be reported on a monthly basis.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is made more explicit in the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=174&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;International Title Regulations&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.46 Rating of Opponents&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1.46a The Rating List in effect at the start of the tournament shall be used, see exception 1.15. ...&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.15 In tournaments which last longer than 90 days, the opponents’ ratings and titles used shall be those applying when the games were played.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similar wording as in &lt;code&gt;1.46a&lt;/code&gt; would probably be helpful in the FIDE Rating Regulations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are two examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/view_source.phtml?code=129872&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Sallskapets Jubileums-KM 2016&lt;/a&gt; lasted for exactly 90 days by a rough calculation and you can see that each player's rating is the same in all rounds (click on any player and you can see all their opponents have them with the same rating, the January rating in fact).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/view_source.phtml?code=125513&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;1. Bundesliga rounds 10-11&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/view_source.phtml?code=111325&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;1. Bundesliga rounds 14-15&lt;/a&gt; lasts for six months, it is reported every month and each month the current ratings are used.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8844" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T17:28:41.713" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="14245" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14243" CreationDate="2016-05-01T11:57:47.457" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;What you describe is the best advice to meeting an unusual opening: play by the principles.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In terms of resources, there are 2 I can think of:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.amazon.co.uk/Beating-Unusual-Chess-Openings-Annoying/dp/1857444299&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Beating Unusual Chess Openings&lt;/a&gt; by IM Richard Palliser. By 'unusual', Palliser really means anything other than 1. e4 or 1. d4, so he covers from Black's point of view: &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The respectable (English Opening, Reti and King s Indian Attack) through to the offbeat (Nimzo-Larsen Attack, Bird s Opening) and the totally bizarre (Orang-utan, Grob)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Chess.SE. We are always happy to see questions such as &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/14035/what-are-the-ideas-behind-the-blackmar-diemer-gambit&quot;&gt;What are the ideas behind the Blackmar-Diemer gambit?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.193" LastActivityDate="2016-05-01T11:57:47.457" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14246" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13648" CreationDate="2016-05-01T14:41:14.073" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Pichushkin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Alexander Pichushkin&lt;/a&gt; played at Master level, but wikipedia implies that he was quite a strong player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15" LastActivityDate="2016-05-01T14:41:14.073" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14247" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14249" CreationDate="2016-05-01T20:15:14.880" Score="1" ViewCount="232" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why did Bobby Fischer despise the U.S and why did he get exiled? &#xA;Wasn't he America's hero at one point?&#xA;I'm a big fan of his games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10181" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2016-05-01T22:34:37.430" LastActivityDate="2016-08-06T21:35:22.417" Title="Bobby Fischer and the U.S" Tags="&lt;history&gt;&lt;fischer&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14249" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14247" CreationDate="2016-05-01T21:30:13.760" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is not so much that Fischer &lt;em&gt;got exiled&lt;/em&gt; as much as it was that he chose to exile himself (though yes, out of a certain necessity). He was &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.nytimes.com/1992/12/16/world/fischer-is-indicted-over-chess-match.html&quot;&gt;indicted by a U.S. court for ignoring sanctions&lt;/a&gt; against Yugoslavia when playing his 1992 rematch against Spassky in that country, and so Fischer chose to avoid returning to the U.S. rather than face prosecution and a potential 10-year prison sentence. As to the various reasons he might have despised his home country, I won't speculate myself, but &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/0307463915&quot;&gt;plenty has been written&lt;/a&gt; about Fischer's troubled later years elsewhere.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2016-05-01T21:30:13.760" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14250" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-05-02T11:14:14.777" Score="5" ViewCount="2201" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would like to be a very flexible chess player as in never in a uncomfortable position unless I did something to deserve it such as a blunder. I've concluded that the only way to do this is to avoid as much theory as possible? I feel like I might rely too much on theory these days (is there a way to tell if I really do rely on theory too much?) and would like to make a change but I'm not sure how to go about it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10030" LastActivityDate="2018-05-21T04:19:09.513" Title="Is it possible to be a good chess player without theory?" Tags="&lt;theory&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14251" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14250" CreationDate="2016-05-02T11:58:21.663" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, depends on your definition of theory and good. If you mean, never really studying specific things then you will be lacking in a few areas. Notably:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Openings&lt;/strong&gt;. You will struggle at a high level without theory unless you are Magnus Carlsen. Most top level Grandmasters have memorised thousands of opening lines, and understand them extremely well. If they did not know these, they might be able to work out the correct answers, but they would use a lot more time to do so (which would be a very significant handicap). The computer age was leading towards theory being critical for most games, but Carlsen plays many novelties, showing that opening theory is not completely necessary.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Endgames&lt;/strong&gt;. You might be able to work it out for yourself, but again, you'd have to be a super genius to naturally get this at a top level. Endgames have many specific things that would be much easier to learn if you just studied the theory. Without theory, it will take you much longer to learn the same thing.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are probably more things. However, there are things that you can gain without theory:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Tactical Sense&lt;/strong&gt;. Tactics don't technically have much theory behind them, as there isn't a HUGE amount of concepts to learn (pins, skewers, etc). It just requires you to improve efficiency in your brain, and calculating power. This is easier said than done, without a good position, you'll find that you don't have many tactical opportunities available to you.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;General game sense&lt;/strong&gt;. If you don't use much theory, and alternate your openings, you will probably be more versatile. Also, until a high level (&gt;2000), you will trip up your opponents because you'll be playing off-book.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you're looking to avoid theory (which I do), just alternate your openings! Have a cycle between your openings. Each game as black, alternate between c5, d5, e6, c6, etc. Don't choose too many, just pick ones that suit you. If you want to play quiet games against e4, play d5 or c6. If you want more intense games, e6 or c5. It mixes it up, and you learn the different plans for different openings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7966" LastEditorUserId="7966" LastEditDate="2016-05-03T09:46:39.357" LastActivityDate="2016-05-03T09:46:39.357" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14252" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14250" CreationDate="2016-05-02T14:00:54.507" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is possible at a certain extent. First of all you at least need to know the characteristic of each warrior. The game is all about this much in the initial stage for beginners.Then being familiar to it you automatically start thinking in a different manner about the functions of each.And thus your game evolves. Any kind of theory isn't required. Experience in playing and proves more helpful. Observing minutely the techniques and tricks while playing with senior players will help proceed yourself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10188" LastActivityDate="2016-05-02T14:00:54.507" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14253" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-05-02T14:12:02.213" Score="4" ViewCount="608" Body="&lt;p&gt;My opening repertoire so far includes pretty much exclusively the French Defense as Black against e4, and that is about it. What does this indicate about what type of player I am? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also what would be some good suggestions to play as White? I tried the King's Gambit a lot but it either is just not my style or maybe it requires more study than I have put in to get decent results with it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10189" LastEditorUserId="10867" LastEditDate="2016-07-27T11:26:17.323" LastActivityDate="2016-07-27T12:54:58.197" Title="Can't decide on an opening for white" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14254" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14253" CreationDate="2016-05-02T14:21:03.907" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Do you like the french defense?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you prefer more halfclosed/closed positions (which often arise from the french defense), then i would suggest to play queens gambit because it focus more on positional play rather than attacking right out of the opening like king's gambit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But besides that, you should know some opening theory regardless which opening you play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10182" LastActivityDate="2016-05-02T14:21:03.907" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14255" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14253" CreationDate="2016-05-02T14:32:39.730" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I agree that 1.d4 and Queen's gambit are the best option from what you told about yourself.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In French, it's typical to have d4-d5 pawns in the center, a bad black white-squared bishop, space advantage for White and a plan based on c7-c5 for black. These points are also common in the Queen's gambit declined. I write from my own experience of playing these openings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You might also search through a database and see which grandmaster's style fits you well, and copy their opening repertoire. Good luck!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9082" LastActivityDate="2016-05-02T14:32:39.730" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14256" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14253" CreationDate="2016-05-02T14:45:50.223" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Basically (really):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you have an attacking style, with a preference for combinations with a lot of space to move your pieces, then you should go for open games (e4, as a first pawn move, can generally lead yout to that kind of positions, example : the Sicilian)&#xA;King's gambit (1.e4 e5 2.f4), for instance, is maybe not the best way to appreciate that (too cutting edge and still dangerous for white), instead you could try (1.e4 e5 2.d4) which can put you very quickly on the battlefield.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the contrary, if you like slow, closed, positional games with long piece maneuvres, then you should go for d4, that generally leads to closed games (exp: Queen's gambit, semi-slav defence) !&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyway, the better way for you to know waht really suits you is to try as many different openings as you can, until you get it !  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10190" LastEditorUserId="10190" LastEditDate="2016-05-10T13:17:23.310" LastActivityDate="2016-05-10T13:17:23.310" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14257" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14243" CreationDate="2016-05-02T16:56:18.957" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am afraid there is no good answer. If your opponent is playing an unusual opening intentionally, he or she has probably done so precisely so he or she is more prepared than you in that opening. I was once clobbered by a Grob. Aside from the standard &quot;play by established principles&quot;, you'll also have to watch for any tricks and traps. The most important thing is probably to go over the game carefully afterward so you are better prepared if you encounter the same opening again. (Another one that got me, but only once, was the Blackburne Shilling.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7314" LastActivityDate="2016-05-02T16:56:18.957" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14258" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="310" CreationDate="2016-05-02T17:17:02.103" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;Seems to me some players have a critical opinion about the Scandi mostly based on the fact that White gains time on the queen with Nc3. Actually, White only recovers the tempo &quot;lost&quot; on his second move (exd5). Someone even called it &quot;theoretically inferior&quot; based on the first few moves.  The Scandi is perfectly playable, and there are several strong GMs playing it regularly. Tiviakov, Kramnik, Ivanchuk, Karpov on his older days just to name a few, and even Carlsen has tried it out. The Scandinavian Defence - especially the 3...Qd6 variation - equalizes in almost every possible line against 1.e4. The &quot;problem&quot;  (if there is one), is not the irrelevant Nc3 threatens queen discussion, but the fact that it can be difficult to win with lots of games with Black. At amateur level this is hardly a problem, because most players with White doesn't have a clue about how to play against the Scandi. At higher levels, the main line is : &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;e4 d5 2.exd5 Qxd5 3.Nc3 Qd6 4.d4 Nf6 5.Nf3 c6 (also a6 is played, and GM Kovalenko's aggressive Bg4). Then only 6.Ne5 puts any pressure on Black. Earlier also 6.g3 was considered strong, but it has been well neutralized by Black thanks to the efforts of GMs Tiviakov and Kontronias. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After 6.Ne5 play goes:  6...Nbd7 and White has three main tries: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;7&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;f4 (Shirov's idea)&#xA;7.Bf4&#xA;7.Nc4&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Bf4 variation is not a problem anymore. Black equalizes quite easy. &#xA;7.f4 and 7.Nc4 is more challenging, but Black has found ways to maintain the balance and the theory of these lines are quite heavily developed. Playing Scandi (at least on a higher level) requires knowledge of these lines, and how to handle these quite complex middlegames. It is not enough to know just the opening lines of the scandi, it also important to know these middlegames, and you will need strong endgame abilities to win (or draw) these positions - both as White and Black. This is the &quot;problem&quot; of the Scandinavian (and in all other openings I guess).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Wish you all best of luck playing both sides of the Scandiavian Defence. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10191" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T17:09:35.230" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T17:09:35.230" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="14260" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14250" CreationDate="2016-05-03T01:55:48.770" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would argue that theory very important for the middle game in the sense of strategic knowledge.  Things like open files, opposite side castling and of course an understanding of pawn structures are crucial to get past the beginner levels.  Up to about 2000 or so I think you don't need a huge amount of opening theory and would argue that you learn more by varying your openings, as mentioned by mojo1mojo2. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10193" LastActivityDate="2016-05-03T01:55:48.770" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14261" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14243" CreationDate="2016-05-03T02:01:52.267" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;When in doubt, I like to play solid and defensive, d3, b3, Bb2 etc. which works against almost anything as long as you keep an eye out to play c4.  I've gotten crushed by traps in the Grob many times!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10193" LastActivityDate="2016-05-03T02:01:52.267" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14263" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-05-03T18:34:08.400" Score="5" ViewCount="364" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am trying to learn single rook endgames with two pawns against one, with added stipulation that the two pawns of the attacking side are on neighboring files with the pawn of the defending side also on one of those files. It could for instance be &lt;code&gt;e&lt;/code&gt;+&lt;code&gt;f&lt;/code&gt; pawns vs &lt;code&gt;f&lt;/code&gt; pawn or &lt;code&gt;g&lt;/code&gt;+&lt;code&gt;h&lt;/code&gt; pawns vs &lt;code&gt;g&lt;/code&gt; pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the most complicated such position that is still won for the attacking side? To make the question precise, I am asking for the position with the maximum &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endgame_tablebase#Metrics:_Depth_to_conversion_and_depth_to_mate&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;depth to conversion&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1485" LastActivityDate="2018-08-12T01:36:36.537" Title="KRPP vs KRP - maximum depth to conversion?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;tablebases&gt;&lt;rook-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14264" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="468" CreationDate="2016-05-03T19:20:24.723" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you want online solution you should try &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.swips.eu&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://www.swips.eu&lt;/a&gt;, it is easy to use and free.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10199" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2016-10-29T16:08:34.633" LastActivityDate="2016-10-29T16:08:34.633" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14265" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14266" CreationDate="2016-05-04T00:42:00.783" Score="2" ViewCount="260" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Black to move&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;r4rk1/pp1nbppp/2p1pn2/q6b/2B2BP1/2NP1N1P/PPP2P2/R2QR1K1 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White has just played &lt;code&gt;g4&lt;/code&gt;, after which I have replied &lt;code&gt;...Bg6&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have uploaded the position online for brief computer analysis, and engine suggested &lt;code&gt;...Nxg4&lt;/code&gt; as best. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The lines were skimpy, and I could not understand/learn how to proceed after the knight sacrifice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;QUESTION:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can someone offer &lt;strong&gt;detailed&lt;/strong&gt; analysis after &lt;code&gt;...Nxg4&lt;/code&gt; ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I need analysis of all relevant lines and branches, because I want to learn why is &lt;code&gt;...Nxg4&lt;/code&gt; good in the above position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Long story short, I have no access to engine, that is why I asked the question.&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastActivityDate="2016-05-05T02:35:46.453" Title="Does ...Nxg4 really work?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14266" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14265" CreationDate="2016-05-04T03:11:48.117" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;1... Nxg4&lt;/code&gt; works (?) because it allows Black to force a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;r4rk1/pp1nbppp/2p1pn2/q6b/2B2BP1/2NP1N1P/PPP2P2/R2QR1K1 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Nxg4 2.hxg4 Bxg4 3.Kg2 (3.Re3 Qh5 4.Kg2 e5 5.Bg3 Qh3+ 6.Kg1 b5 7.Bb3 a5 8.a4 Qh5) Qf5 4.Bg3 Bh3+ 5.Kg1 Bg4 6.Kg2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now here's Stockfish's Bg6 variation. I think it's kinda whacked. White sacrifices a few pieces to achieve a perpetual check. It is instructional in that it shows that White can choose this outcome. It never would have occurred to me to even look for it. The &lt;code&gt;11. Ne5&lt;/code&gt; variation within the diagram below shows that White doesn't have to settle for that draw; instead, the Knight move keeps the game going by ceding a meaningless -.08 advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think &lt;code&gt;Bg6&lt;/code&gt; is completely playable if Black is seeking more than a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;    [FEN &quot;r4rk1/pp1nbppp/2p1pn2/q6b/2B2BP1/2NP1N1P/PPP2P2/R2QR1K1 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;    1... Bg6 2.Bb3 Nd5 3.Nxd5 cxd5 4.d4 h6 5.c3 Rac8 6.a4 Be4 7.Nd2 Bh7 8.Nf3 Nb6 9.Bc2 Bxc2 10.Qxc2 Nc4 11.Bxh6 (11. Ne5 Nxe5 12.Bxe5 Qd8 13.a5 Rc4 14.Bg3 Qd7 15.Kg2 b5 16.axb6 axb6 17.f4 b5 18.f5 b4 19.fxe6 fxe6 20.Rf1 Bf6 21.Qd3 Rfc8 22.Be1 e5 23.dxe5 Bxe5 24.Ra5 bxc3 25.bxc3 Bxc3 26.Bxc3 Rxc3 27.Qxd5+ Qxd5+ 28.Rxd5) gxh6 12.Rxe6 fxe6 13.Qg6+ Kh8 14.Qxh6+ Kg8 15.Qxe6+ Kh8 16.Qh6+ Kg8 17.Qe6+ &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's 11:40pm here and it's racktime. If you have specific variations you want to see, let me know.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT - ALNS has perhaps found a playable variation for White though it is not for the faint-hearted. White is down a pawn but has a passed center pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;r4rk1/pp1nbppp/2p1pn2/q6b/2B2BP1/2NP1N1P/PPP2P2/R2QR1K1 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Nxg4 2. hxg4 Bxg4 3. Re3 Qh5 4.Ne4 e5 5.Ng3 Qh3 6.Bxe5 Nxe5 7.Rxe5 Bh4 8.Qf1 Qxf1+ 9.Nxf1 Bxf3 10.Nh2 Bd5 11.Bxd5 Bf6 12.Rf5 cxd5 13.Rxd5 {with Stockfish rating Black slightly better.}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2016-05-05T02:35:46.453" LastActivityDate="2016-05-05T02:35:46.453" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14267" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14269" CreationDate="2016-05-04T03:37:30.837" Score="2" ViewCount="805" Body="&lt;p&gt;The reply 2...Nf6 to the Reti opening 1.Nf3 d5 2.c4 Nf6 is not even mentioned in my three Reti opening books. What is wrong with that? There must be a well-known answer that is simply part of the professional player's erudition because otherwise this move would get attention from the authors.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Zbv0c.png&quot; alt=&quot;rnbqkb1r/ppp1pppp/5n2/3p4/2P5/5N2/PP1PPPPP/RNBQKB1R w KQkq - 1 3]&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3456" LastActivityDate="2016-05-04T09:23:40.553" Title="Why not 1.Nf3 d5 2.c4 Nf6 against the Reti opening?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14268" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14267" CreationDate="2016-05-04T06:57:17.627" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;White gets a strong center after chasing the Knight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. Nf3 d5 2. c4 Nf6 3. cxd5 Nxd5 4. d4 e6 5. e4&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a simplistic answer, there is more theory about the placement of pieces which is why 4. ... Bf5 is considered a bad move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9684" LastActivityDate="2016-05-04T06:57:17.627" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14269" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14267" CreationDate="2016-05-04T07:12:20.923" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is identical to the position that occurs after the move order &lt;code&gt;1. Nf3 Nf6 2. c4 d5&lt;/code&gt;. The central push &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt; is common in many openings, for instance the Grunfeld, but here the timing is bad. The position after&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Title &quot;Reti 2... Nf6&quot;]&#xA;[Startply &quot;7&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Nf3 d5 2. c4 Nf6 3. cxd5 Nxd5 4. d4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;is one I often get with white when I play online, and it usually ends up very well for white. White will follow up with &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; and get an advantage in the center with tempo.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The main difference with the Grunfeld is that there is no white knight on &lt;code&gt;c3&lt;/code&gt; that black can exchange the knight on &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt; with, and the knight (and black's whole position) will end up slightly passive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sample line:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Title &quot;Reti 2... Nf6&quot;]&#xA;[Startply &quot;13&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Nf3 d5 2. c4 Nf6 3. cxd5 Nxd5 4. d4 g6 5. e4 Nb6 6. h3 Bg7 7.Nc3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;with a slight white advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black can also try &lt;code&gt;4... Bf5&lt;/code&gt; to stop &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; temporarily, but then they have to be really careful. For instance&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Title &quot;Reti 2... Nf6&quot;]&#xA;[Startply &quot;15&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Nf3 d5 2. c4 Nf6 3. cxd5 Nxd5 4. d4 Bf5 5. Qb3 e6 6. Nc3 Nc6 7.e4 Nxc3 8. exf5!&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;is very good for white.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1485" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2016-05-04T08:03:01.517" LastActivityDate="2016-05-04T08:03:01.517" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14270" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14267" CreationDate="2016-05-04T09:23:40.553" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The position after &lt;code&gt;1. Nf3 d5 2. c4 Nf6 3. cd5 Nxd5 4. Nc3&lt;/code&gt; is column 62 of MCO-15 in the English Opening. I would look under the English for more on this line.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="921" LastActivityDate="2016-05-04T09:23:40.553" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14271" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="468" CreationDate="2016-05-04T10:37:57.320" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[...] keeping the scores and getting some statistics.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Do you have some examples, stories or tips for organizing similar&#xA;  office/company tournaments?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://rankade.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Rankade&lt;/a&gt;, our free ranking system, can be used in office/company for tracking results. It doesn't fit your need in &lt;em&gt;organizing a tournament&lt;/em&gt;, but it allows you to &lt;em&gt;keep the scores and getting some statistics&lt;/em&gt; (including Elo-like - here's a &lt;a href=&quot;https://rankade.com/ree#ranking-system-comparison&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;comparison&lt;/a&gt; - &lt;strong&gt;rankings&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;matchup stats&lt;/strong&gt;) in a playing group (even through different tournaments).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are some examples for &lt;a href=&quot;https://rankade.com/dojo&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;chess, foosball, and table tennis&lt;/a&gt; played at workplace, and we host many company/office playing groups for videogames, pool, crokinhole, carroms, boardgames, and more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7575" LastEditorUserId="7575" LastEditDate="2016-07-11T22:01:44.720" LastActivityDate="2016-07-11T22:01:44.720" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14272" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6257" CreationDate="2016-05-04T15:17:39.927" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;2.Nc3 is a move and I'm surprised it hasn't been mentioned yet. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If Black plays 2...e5 the game transposes into a Vienna game, if Black plays 2...d5 play can go &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Alekhine's defense&quot;]&#xA;[StartPly &quot;2&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 Nf6 2.Nc3 d5 3. exd5 Nxd5 4. Bc4 Nxc3 5. Qf3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Alekhine's defense&quot;]&#xA;[StartPly &quot;2&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 Nf6 2.Nc3 d5 3. exd5 Nxd5 4. Bc4 Nb6 5. Bb3.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Either way White doesn't overextend as in after 2.e5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4543" LastActivityDate="2016-05-04T15:17:39.927" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14273" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-05-04T20:46:24.307" Score="5" ViewCount="349" Body="&lt;p&gt;This might seem an odd question, however out of personal curiousity, are there any documented accounts of amazing feats by players while in an altered state of consciousness?  What I'm looking for would be something like attempts at drunken, blind, simultaneous chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2765" LastActivityDate="2020-03-04T20:16:12.640" Title="Amazing chess feats while in altered states of consciousness" Tags="&lt;history&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="8" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14275" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2321" CreationDate="2016-05-05T06:48:26.343" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It seems that &lt;a href=&quot;https://rankade.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;rankade&lt;/a&gt;, our ranking system for sports, games, and more, fits your needs. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's free to use and it's designed to manage &lt;strong&gt;rankings&lt;/strong&gt; (and &lt;strong&gt;stats&lt;/strong&gt;, including matchup stats, and more) for small or large groups of players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Rankade doesn't use &lt;strong&gt;Glicko&lt;/strong&gt;, but its algorithm (called &lt;strong&gt;ree&lt;/strong&gt; algorithm), although more complex (here's a &lt;a href=&quot;https://rankade.com/ree#ranking-system-comparison&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;comparison&lt;/a&gt;), is similar to Glicko if you play 1-on-1 matches only, and it manages &lt;em&gt;inactivity&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;late arrivals&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7575" LastEditorUserId="7575" LastEditDate="2016-05-05T16:13:51.287" LastActivityDate="2016-05-05T16:13:51.287" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14276" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14273" CreationDate="2016-05-05T08:51:28.273" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;For blindfold chess, the record is playing 46 games at once:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In 1947 GM Miguel Najdorf, while sitting in an isolated room, played 45 games simultaneously in São Paulo, Brazil. In another room his opponents sat with regular boards and pieces in front of them, and their and Najdorf’s moves were transmitted to each other via standard chess notation using a microphone. This performance exceeded his own previous world record of 40, set in 1943 in Rosario, Argentina. Until a few weeks ago, since 1947 only one player had played as many as 35 blindfold games at once under well-controlled conditions. That successful master was Marc Lang of Günzburg, Germany, who handled 35 opponents in November of 2010, surpassing blindfold champion George Koltanowski’s still-existing European and pre-Najdorf world record of 34 simultaneous games set in Edinburgh in 1937 (in 2009 Lang had set a new German record of 23). Lang’s only remaining goal was to exceed Najdorf’s 45 games and thereby gain the world record. &lt;strong&gt;For the past year he has been preparing to do just that, which he accomplished by playing 46 opponents on November 26-27, 2011.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.blindfoldchess.net/blog/2011/12/after_64_years_new_world_blindfold_record_set_by_marc_lang_playing_46_games/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;blindfoldchess.net&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2016-05-05T08:51:28.273" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14277" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14210" CreationDate="2016-05-05T12:47:21.320" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am answering this as an intermediate level player. Making good moves in fast chess results from remembering positions or patterns. The repretorie of strong moves in a given position developes when you have already evaluated similar positions and made similar moves. You will make strong moves only when you have thought through more number of outcomes, which is a slow process. Therefore, real learning comes through slow chess. You will be good at fast chess when you are good at slow chess! &lt;strong&gt;Only&lt;/strong&gt; playing blitz (10 minutes or less per player) is a waste of time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10159" LastActivityDate="2016-05-05T12:47:21.320" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14278" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14273" CreationDate="2016-05-05T21:54:26.330" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't know if this counts, but here is a story (unfortunately only in Norwegian) about the former president of the Norwegian Chess Federation, Jøran Aulin-Jansson, who in his youth played blitz for 92 hours straight: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.nrk.no/sport/92-timer-med-sjakk-i-strekk-1.6589371&quot;&gt;http://www.nrk.no/sport/92-timer-med-sjakk-i-strekk-1.6589371&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In 92 hours and 26 minutes he played 701 games and won 549 with 32 draws.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He explains how accidentally eating a rotten chicken kept him awake during the third night.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At one point he hallucinated about spiders crawling up his leg. I guess that qualifies as &quot;altered state of consciousness&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1485" LastActivityDate="2016-05-05T21:54:26.330" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14279" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-05-05T21:57:03.667" Score="5" ViewCount="245" Body="&lt;p&gt;Alexander Alekhine, the former World Chess Champion, came from a notable family in Russia. His father, Alexander Ivanovich, was apparently Privy Councilor to the Duma and a Marshal of the Nobility. Alekhine himself was imprisoned during the Revolution and narrowly avoided being executed. His brother &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexei_Alekhine&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Alexei&lt;/a&gt;, apparently survived as well, going on to be chess player and editor under the Soviets. What about the rest of his family? Did they survive the Revolution?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8673" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2016-05-06T21:21:30.583" LastActivityDate="2016-05-06T21:21:30.583" Title="What happened to Alexander Alekhine's family?" Tags="&lt;history&gt;&lt;famous-players&gt;&lt;alekhine&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14280" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9077" CreationDate="2016-05-06T12:59:50.483" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I use the games published by &lt;a href=&quot;http://theweekinchess.com/twic&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;The Week In Chess&lt;/a&gt;, which are published in a weekly basis. These games make a superb database, although maybe you'll miss some historical games. It takes some effort to build the database with all games published to the date, but from then on it's easy to keep it up to date.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is also possible to download the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.top-5000.nl/pgn.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Million Database&lt;/a&gt; and then to keep it up to date with TWIC games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2311" LastActivityDate="2016-05-06T12:59:50.483" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14281" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14273" CreationDate="2016-05-06T13:42:59.780" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Tal wrote in his biography that once he had a complex adjourned position and that night he dreamed the solution while sleeping. When he woke up, he remembered the dream and knew what to do. He wrote that this was the only time such a thing had ever happened to him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Playing chess while under the influence of recreational drugs or alcohol generally has very bad results, speaking from experience. You generally play at a significantly lower level. The only exception is that sometimes a very small amount of alcohol, like one drink, can sometimes be beneficial because it calms you down a little bit. So, if you are all wound up and nervous before a tournament game, a beer can be the antidote.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8673" LastActivityDate="2016-05-06T13:42:59.780" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14282" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14273" CreationDate="2016-05-06T14:09:22.077" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess games and matches played while drinking alcohol in particular are easy to find if you go back in history a bit. The one that immediately comes to mind are the matches &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Bourdonnais_%E2%80%93_McDonnell_chess_matches&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;between La Bourdonnais and McDonnell in 1834&lt;/a&gt; in which La Bourdonnais won despite reportedly spending much of his time between moves drinking, smoking and gambling on other games.  Perhaps this is not a 'feat' in the same manner as a massive simul or so on, but these were arguably the two strongest players in the world at the time and so could be considered a de-facto world championship match.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And also as in one of the comments to the OP, Alekhine also played many of his games while drinking heavily, apparently including his 1933 World Championship match.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="550" LastEditorUserId="550" LastEditDate="2016-05-08T12:48:03.993" LastActivityDate="2016-05-08T12:48:03.993" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14284" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14279" CreationDate="2016-05-06T19:01:14.197" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to the Italian Wikipedia his father, Aleksandr Ivanovič Alechin, died in 1917, (so &lt;em&gt;probably&lt;/em&gt; because of the revolution) and his mother, Anes'ja Ivanovna Alechina, died in 1915 in a clinic for mental illness. Alehkine's life during the revolution is not well known. Kotov's Alekhine biography should be a valuable source.     &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastActivityDate="2016-05-06T19:01:14.197" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14286" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-05-07T09:57:26.403" Score="1" ViewCount="175" Body="&lt;p&gt;Although I would prefer just figuring this out on my own I feel like I need a stronger or more knowledgeable player to help me out here. I keep seeing a lot of my losses are when I'm up in material, low on time and in the endgame. I just don't understand why this pattern keeps reoccurring. Although it may seem obvious that my endgame skills are the problem it just doesn't feel like that is all there is to it. Here I'll try post a couple of games as an example. I also can't seem to add annotation unfortunately which means it'll be harder to explain some of the silly errors I made. These loses always tend to be the most painful and cause me to sometimes even consider quitting all together.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I play as black in this game. Also note I was low on time in all these games (not saying as an excuse for losing)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;1. d4 Nf6 c4 e6 a3 c5 e3 d5 Nf3 Nc6 Nc3 Be7 dxc5 Bxc5 b4 Be7 Bb2 O-O Be2 dxc4 Bxc4 b6 O-O Bb7 Qe2 a5 Rfd1 Qb8 b5 Na7 Na4 Nc8 Be5 Qa7 Bc7 Bxf3 Qxf3 Qxc7 Qxa8 Qxc4 Rdc1 Qxa4 Rxc8 Qxb5 Rac1 g6 h3 Kg7 Rxf8 Bxf8 Rc7 Qb1+ Kh2 Bd6+ g3 Bxc7 Qb7 Bd6 Qc6 Bxa3 g4 b5 g5 Ne4 Kg2 Nxg5 Qc3+ f6 Qxa3 Qe4+ Kf1 Nxh3 Qe7+ Kh6 Qxf6 Qf5 Qh4+ Qh5 Qf6 e5 Qf8+ Kg5 Qe7+ Kf5 Qd7+ Ke4 Qc6+ Kf5 Qd7+ Kg5 Qe7+ Kg4 Qd7+ Qf5 Qd1+ Qf3 Qd7+ Kh5 Qxh7+ Kg5 Qe7+ Kh6 Qh4+ Qh5 Qe7 b4 Qf8+ Kg5 Qe7+ Kg4 Qd7+ Qf5 Qd1+&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lost on time, I'll show one more even though I've got way too many examples of games such as these haha.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Playing white this game&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 c6 Nf3 d5 Nc3 d4 Ne2 c5 c3 d3 Nf4 c4 Qa4+ Nc6 Qxc4 e5 Nxd3 f6 Nc5 Qd6 Nb3 Be6 Qd3 Qc7 Qc2 Bd6 d4 Bf7 Bb5 a6 16. Bxc6+ bxc6 17. Be3 Ne7 18. dxe5 fxe5 19. Nfd2 O-O Bc5 Rfd8 O-O-O a5 Bxd6 Rxd6 Nf3 Rxd1+ 24. Rxd1 h6 25. Kb1 Rd8 26. Rxd8+ Qxd8 27. Nxe5 Be8 28. Nd4 c5 29. Ndf3 a4 30. Nd3 Qc7 31. b3 a3 32. h3 Qa7 33. Nd2 Bh5 34. f3 Bf7 35. Nc4 Bxc4 36. bxc4 Nc6 37. Qd2 Na5 38. Ne5 Qb8+ 39. Kc1 Qxe5 40. Qd8+ Kh7 41. Qxa5 Qf4+ 42. Kc2 Qe3 43. Qxa3 Qf2+ 44. Kb3 Qe3 45. Qb2 Qd3 46. a4 Qd1+ 47. Ka3 Qd6 48. Qb5 Qe5 49. Kb3 Qd6 50. a5 Qd1+ 51. Ka3 Qa1+ 52. Kb3 Qb1+ 53. Ka4 Qa2#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;some obvious mistakes here like one of the many was me trying to trade dark squared bishops when his one is absolutely terrible, I regretted that choice during the game immediately&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also just remembering that my nerves tend to play up sometimes or I get quite emotional during play which I'm confident effects the ability to focus or think clearly. Although I try to work on this problem sometimes it feels like it can't be helped and everything just becomes somewhat chaotic in my mind. Maybe its my ego or my strong desire to win or not lose that is causing this, I'm not entirely sure. Honestly all these games look to me like I shouldn't be playing this bad and its not showing my real skill but that is really only what I feel about it and in reality I did play those games and there is no excuse and I guess I have to take responsibility and I deserved to lose. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10030" LastActivityDate="2016-05-09T10:52:22.963" Title="Need help spotting whats wrong?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;psychology&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14287" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14288" CreationDate="2016-05-07T10:27:59.983" Score="3" ViewCount="299" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[StartPly &quot;10&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 e5 5.Nb5 Nf6 *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5...Nf6 looks like a good move for black, however I failed to find analysis about this variation. Am I overseeing something, why would black not want to play this move? What is the best next move for white?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;6.N1c3 does not seem good because of 6...Qa5 (6.Bg5 for the same reason), and 6.Nd2 would make white to lose the ability to pressure Nd6+ and would close the bishop at c1.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10221" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-04T17:23:41.780" LastActivityDate="2020-03-04T17:23:41.780" Title="5...Nf6 in Sicilian defense" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="14288" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14287" CreationDate="2016-05-07T10:37:14.387" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;White's best move seems to be 6. N1c3, when 6... d6 transposes into the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evgeny_Sveshnikov#The_theoretician&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Sveshnikov&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After 6... Qa5, White just replies 7. Bd2, threatening Nd5 and Nc7. Black has nothing better than 7... Qd8 when White enjoys a huge advantage in development.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-05-08T13:20:00.397" LastActivityDate="2016-05-08T13:20:00.397" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14289" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14286" CreationDate="2016-05-07T10:41:01.443" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You are making basic blunders as in the checkmate in the second game. Ways to avoid this are&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Study tactics online or in books&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Play games with longer time controls and increments.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's no shortcut.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4543" LastActivityDate="2016-05-07T10:41:01.443" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14290" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14286" CreationDate="2016-05-07T10:47:53.747" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here are my observations:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Both games are long. The average game lasts &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/2506/what-is-the-average-length-of-a-game-of-chess&quot;&gt;about 40 moves&lt;/a&gt;. No wonder you ran out of time!&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I can see you know the principle that when you are ahead in material, trade down. However, both games involved your king being chased around by the queen. You are not trading the right pieces&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You don't need to be up that much material to win a technical game&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Advice:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Learn to play more efficient chess. I'm guessing it took you some time to figure out all the branches in the tactical analysis&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I feel that you are trying to find the best move by calculation. I.e. that you are trying to see 5 moves ahead to see if you can win more material. What I believe you should do is aim to look 2 and a half moves ahead and base those moves on your evaluation. This is particularly useful in non-tactical situations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, in your first game you win material and have to solidify. At move 31, you make life more complicated for yourself with 31...b5. Why not offer to trade queens with 31...Qe4, which needs almost no calculation? That move follows the principles and is in line with your evaluation of having to solidify and trade down.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When ahead in material, your first priority should be to trade queens. This is a big reduction in material and reduces the opponents counter attacking chances a great deal&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Don't spend so much time gaining more material. Spend time either solidifying your position or reducing the opponent's counter chances&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.193" LastActivityDate="2016-05-07T12:35:53.530" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14291" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14243" CreationDate="2016-05-07T11:12:02.053" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The question is a bit too broad and it all depends on the actual opening, but the rule of thumb I follow in such situations is to develop knights as early as possible and build a position that will give me control of the centre of the board (basically to control e4 (e5 as Black) and fields close to it).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10221" LastActivityDate="2016-05-07T11:12:02.053" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14292" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14243" CreationDate="2016-05-07T11:45:40.103" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;A good dvd is A Black Repertoire Against Offbeat Openings by Nick Pert on Chessbase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4543" LastActivityDate="2016-05-07T11:45:40.103" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14293" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-05-07T12:37:42.877" Score="5" ViewCount="1497" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been asked whats the point of blocking the bishop with a knight or a pawn and don't know how to answer. It seems like quite a strange idea to fianchetto and not as straightforward and logical as putting it on a natural diagonal such as on c4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10223" LastActivityDate="2016-05-07T16:44:00.537" Title="Why do you put a knight or pawn in front of a fianchetto bishop?" Tags="&lt;fianchetto&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14294" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14293" CreationDate="2016-05-07T12:58:23.427" Score="1" Body="&lt;h2&gt;Position of the Knight&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The knight allows discovered attacks to take place when it moves out of the way. Consider this position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Fen &amp;quot;rnb1kbnr/ppp2ppp/2qp4/4p3/8/5NP1/PPPPPPBP/RNBQ1RK1 w kq - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Nxe5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Position of the Bishop&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The Bishop is on the long diagonal so has more scope In a on g2 Bishop controls 2 central squares (e4 and d5). A Bishop on c4 only controls 1&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The Bishop fills up the holes left by the g-pawn&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Position of the pawn&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Attacks by the major pieces (Queen and Rooks) are blunted, as the g pawn is defended by 2 pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2016-05-07T12:58:23.427" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14295" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14293" CreationDate="2016-05-07T13:38:45.680" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/w8gsa.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/w8gsa.png&quot; alt=&quot;&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a typical Sicilian Dragon position.  The fianchetto Bishop controls the long diagonal which helps protect the King, by protecting the h8 square and providing luft, and attacks the opposing King.  The Bishop is able to control two center squares while one posted on c4 can only control one center square.&#xA;The Knight does currently obstruct the Bishop, but can move with devastating effect, Nxe4 uncovers an attack on the d4 Knight.  In lines where there is a Pawn blocking the Bishop, King's Indian Defense/Attack, the Pawn is pushed to release the Bishop or the Pawn is used for a kingside attack.  The Bishop is often in the way of the Rooks, but does still provide good defense for the King.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. d4 cxd4 3. c3 d3?! { (0.00 ? 0.75) Inaccuracy. Best move was dxc3. } (3... dxc3 4. Nxc3 Nc6 5. Nf3 e6 6. Bb5 a6 7. Qa4 Qc7 8. O-O Nf6 9. Re1 Ng4 10. Bxc6) 4. c4?! { B21 Sicilian Defense: Smith-Morra Gambit Declined, Dubois Variation (0.75 ? 0.15) Inaccuracy. Best move was Bxd3. } (4. Bxd3 Nc6 5. Nf3 Nf6 6. O-O e5 7. c4 Bc5 8. a3 a5 9. Nc3 O-O 10. Bd2 d6) 4... g6 5. Nc3 Bg7 6. Qxd3 Nc6 7. Bf4 d6 8. O-O-O Nf6 9. Bg3?! { (-0.24 ? -1.12) Inaccuracy. Best move was Qd2. } (9. Qd2 O-O 10. Nf3 Be6 11. Kb1 Qa5 12. Ng5 Ng4 13. f3 Bxc3 14. bxc3 Nge5 15. Nxe6 Qb6+) 9... O-O 10. f4 Qa5 11. Kb1?? { (-1.06 ? -7.19) Blunder. Best move was a3. } (11. a3 Nd7) 11... Nb4 12. Qd2?? { (-6.81 ? -12.80) Blunder. Best move was Qe2. } (12. Qe2 Nxe4) 12... Nxe4 { White resigns } 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Bishop plays a secondary role.  By controlling the long diagonal, it does support the attack.&#xA;By looking at Dragon games, especially Rxc3 sacrifices, you will find that the Bishop is excellent at attacking along the long diagonal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9684" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2016-05-07T13:38:45.680" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14296" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14408" CreationDate="2016-05-07T14:28:46.613" Score="9" ViewCount="1319" Body="&lt;p&gt;I always play the Tarrasch variation against the French defense and I have quite some good results with it.    &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nevertheless, when black exchanges on e4 and the game transposes into the Rubinstein variation, I have no good plan for white and don't know how to proceed. I also don't like the fast exchange on f6, which happens very often.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can anyone give me a good plan for white?   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks in advance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e6&#xA;2.d4 d5 &#xA;3.Nd2 dxe4&#xA;4.Nxe4 Nd7&#xA;5.Nf3 Ngf6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10182" LastEditorUserId="10867" LastEditDate="2016-07-27T11:11:38.390" LastActivityDate="2016-07-27T11:11:38.390" Title="What is a good plan for white against the Rubinstein variation in the French defense?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;french-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14297" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14293" CreationDate="2016-05-07T14:33:56.133" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;A pawn one square in front along the long diagonal of a fianchettoed bishop can attack the enemy center (supported by the bishop). Eg W: Bg2, p f2, g3, h2 B: p d5, e4. White plays f3! to break up the enemy central pawns&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4543" LastActivityDate="2016-05-07T14:33:56.133" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14298" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14302" CreationDate="2016-05-07T16:31:47.817" Score="3" ViewCount="104" Body="&lt;p&gt;I wonder if White can defend below position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;White to move&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;r4rk1/pppq2pp/2np1n2/2b1p1B1/8/2NP1N1b/PPP1BPP1/R2QR1K1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastActivityDate="2016-05-08T02:01:20.553" Title="Can Black crash through?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14299" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14293" CreationDate="2016-05-07T16:44:00.537" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Fianchettoing your bishop is most often done to influence the center and the long diagonals. It's usually not a one-move type of thing; it's long term. You're not supposed to win on the spot after fianchettoing your bishops.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Placing the knight in front of the bishop is done simply because that's more often than not &lt;strong&gt;the best square for the knight&lt;/strong&gt; in the opening. The point &lt;strong&gt;isn't&lt;/strong&gt; to block the fianchettoed bishop. The knight is expected to move away from the diagonal, freeing the bishop, when the time is right.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8300" LastActivityDate="2016-05-07T16:44:00.537" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14300" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14263" CreationDate="2016-05-07T17:03:57.287" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Download the &lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.convekta.android.lomonosovtb&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Lomonosov endgame Android application&lt;/a&gt;, it is what you are looking for. This probably solves your issue if you toy around for a while.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ZOXjEl.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ZOXjEl.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the Play Store, it looks like this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/bGKmtl.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/bGKmtl.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this helps!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9423" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-12-17T14:36:31.397" LastActivityDate="2016-12-17T14:36:31.397" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14301" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14273" CreationDate="2016-05-07T18:00:51.333" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Does it count when it is the opponent? I defeated a GM in a simul (I am a low 1800) just by playing passively until he had imbibed several mugs of &quot;tea&quot;, at which point he essayed a grossly unsound sacrifice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="921" LastActivityDate="2016-05-07T18:00:51.333" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14302" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14298" CreationDate="2016-05-07T19:42:10.770" Score="3" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;    [FEN &quot;r4rk1/pppq2pp/2np1n2/2b1p1B1/8/2NP1N1b/PPP1BPP1/R2QR1K1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;    1.Qd2 h6 2.Be3 Bxe3 3.fxe3 (3.Qxe3 Be6 4.Nd2 Rf7 5.Nde4 Ng4 6.Qg3 Raf8 7.Bf3 Nd4 8.Bxg4 Bxg4 9.Rac1 Be6 10.Ne2 Qa4 11.Nxd4 Qxd4 {-1.82. It took Stockfish 20 minutes to find `3...Be6`. It's preferred move until then was `3...Bg4`. Black is having a fine game.}) Be6 {So what we see here is that Black's attack is over. But the damage is done. He regroups with his extra pawn and better pawn structure.} 4.a3 Ne7 5.Ne4 {This is the best White has? To induce a doubled center pawn?} (5.e4 c5 6.Rf1 Rf7 7.Qe1 Raf8 8.Nd2 Ng6 9.Kh1 Nf4 10.Bf3 Nh7 11.Nd1 Ng5 12.Ne3 Qa4 13.b3 Qd4 14.Rd1 b5 15.Bg4 Bxg4 16.Nxg4 c4 17.dxc4 bxc4 18.bxc4 Qb2 {-1.78. White's position is passive and he gets picked apart.}) Nxe4 6.dxe4 Qc6 7.Bd3 Rf6 8.Rf1 Raf8 9.Qb4 R6f7 10.Nd2 b6 11.Rxf7 Rxf7 12.Bc4 Bxc4 13.Qxc4 Qxc4 14.Nxc4 Rf6 15.Nd2 Kf7 16.Rf1 Rxf1+ 17.Kxf1 Ng8 18.Kf2 Nf6 19.Ke2 Ke7 20.Kd3 Ke6 21.c3 a6 22.Kc4 b5+ 23.Kd3 { -1.58 }&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;    [FEN &quot;r4rk1/pppq2pp/2np1n2/2b1p1B1/8/2NP1N1b/PPP1BPP1/R2QR1K1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;    1.gxh3 Qxh3 2.Bf1 Bxf2+ 3.Kxf2 Ng4+ 4.Kg1 Qg3+ 5.Bg2 Nd4 6.Rf1 Nxf3+ 7.Rxf3 Rxf3 8.Qxf3 Qh2+ 9.Kf1 Rf8 10.Qxf8+ Kxf8 {White's King is flapping in the breeze; what White may be up in material he'll lose by being purely defensive with said pieces. White will be able to pick off pawns at will.} 11.Bd2 Qh4 12.Nd1 c6 13.Be1 Nh2+ 14.Ke2 Qh5+ 15.Kf2 Ng4+ 16.Kf1 d5 17.Bd2 Qh4 18.Be1 Nh2+ 19.Ke2 Qh5+ 20.Kf2 Ng4+ 21.Kf1 Kf7 22.a4 Qg5 23.Ke2 Nh2 24.Kf2 Qh4+ 25.Ke2 Qh5+ 26.Kf2 Qg5 27.Ne3 h5 28.a5 h4 29.a6 b6 30.Nf1 h3 31.Bxh3 Qf4+ 32.Kg1 Nf3+ 33.Kg2 Nd4 34.Bg3 Qf3+ 35.Kh2 Nxc2 36.Rc1 {-2.39 }&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's Kentucky Derby Day, and I live in Louisville, so celebrating is mandatory. More To Come.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As always, if you have any variations you want to see, let me know.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2016-05-08T02:01:20.553" LastActivityDate="2016-05-08T02:01:20.553" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14303" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-05-08T05:10:54.863" Score="2" ViewCount="145" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know this sounds ridiculous but I want to learn the hand movement for recapturing in chess. It seems like a good fast way to recapture especially in blitz. Here is an example if you don't know what I'm talking about (the way they quickly recapture/capture a piece).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9NG8J2yow4&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9NG8J2yow4&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10227" LastActivityDate="2016-05-09T04:52:23.533" Title="How to recapture more efficiently?" Tags="&lt;blitz&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14304" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14303" CreationDate="2016-05-08T06:11:48.697" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Replay the video and copy it? The only way is practice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4543" LastActivityDate="2016-05-08T06:11:48.697" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14305" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14303" CreationDate="2016-05-08T14:07:59.953" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Practice makes perfect. I've seen several different ways on how to capture pieces. It's not really something that you learn, but more like something that goes automatically. So, just try it a few times at home (without thinking, so it goes automatically), and do what feels the most &lt;em&gt;natural&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8732" LastActivityDate="2016-05-08T14:07:59.953" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14307" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-05-08T17:00:23.987" Score="6" ViewCount="884" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why is the g3 and Bg2 plan so strong vs the Dutch? For example, in other main openings (KID, Gruenfeld, Queen's Gambit, Queen's Indian) it's just an alternative to the &quot;classical&quot; systems, those with no early Kingside fianchetto. A strong one maybe, but an alternative. In the Dutch, it seems that if White wants to get an advantage in the opening he can do it only with this set up. Nf3, g3 and Bg2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastActivityDate="2016-07-10T22:34:26.723" Title="Why is the g3 and Bg2 set up so strong vs the Dutch?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;1.d4&gt;&lt;fianchetto&gt;&lt;dutch-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14308" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14307" CreationDate="2016-05-08T18:16:02.653" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The g3 and Bg2 setup is strong defensively and strong offensively. White wants to play e4 to challenge the f5 pawn and Black's kingside white square complex. g3 and Bg2 is one of the best ways to support e4 with Nd2/c3 and Qc2 along with defending the king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4543" LastActivityDate="2016-05-08T18:16:02.653" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14309" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14303" CreationDate="2016-05-09T04:52:23.533" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Since the most common capture is a pawn taking a pawn, this is the one to practice most.  (There is a video of a piece maker who designed the pieces so that the capture would seem natural.)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;My method is to pick up my piece with my thumb and index, then I force the captured piece into the other fingers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9684" LastActivityDate="2016-05-09T04:52:23.533" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14310" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12253" CreationDate="2016-05-09T05:07:35.217" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are plenty of people who will help you if you allow them to view you games.  This is easiest on &lt;a href=&quot;http://lichess.org&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;lichess&lt;/a&gt;, especially since they have a free computer analysis.  After finding your weaknesses, you will be able to improve the fastest.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The best general book is &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.uscfsales.com/my-best-games-of-chess-1908-1937-151-alexander-alekhine.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Alekhine's Best Games&lt;/a&gt;.  Alekhine is(was) one of the best players, and his annotations explain plenty in everyday nglish.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some GM said that experts think the most, as masters rely more on intuition than calculating variations.  So this plateau should be the hardest to overcome.  Good Luck.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9684" LastActivityDate="2016-05-09T05:07:35.217" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14311" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14286" CreationDate="2016-05-09T10:52:22.963" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would just like to expand a bit an answer given by @Bad_Bishop to perhaps give you some more specific ideas to look for - his observation #3 is one of the most important things you need to start applying, and it can be seen in both of your games, considering you said that you were low on time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You don't always need to play the best move, especially when you already have an advantage. You can even give up some of the material to simplify the position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, in the first game, you were chased by his Queen, losing precious time for no gain. But when an opportunity to get out of that showed up, you did not take it. You should be more active, even if it means sacrificing some of your material:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/7p/4p1pk/pp5q/7Q/4P2n/5P2/5K2 w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Qf6 Qd1+ 2. Kg2 Qg4+ 3. Kf1 (3. Kh2 Ng5 4. Qf8+ Kh5 5. Qc5 {Preventing your Knight from moving} (5. Qf4 Nf3+ 6. Kh1 Qg1#) e5 {You sacrifice a Pawn, but white will lose ability to check you on f8 when you move your King} 6. Qxe5 Kh6 7. Qf4 {Again, preventing you from moving your Knight and giving checkmate, but now you can exchange the Queens} Qxf4+ 8. exf4 Ne6 9. Kg3 a4 {As in the main line, Pawn can't be stopped, position is very simple and it requires no time to think.}) Qg1+ 4. Ke2 Qxf2+ {You end up giving your Kinght for a Pawn, but at the same time Queens are forcefully exchanged, and white has no more material for attacking back, which gives you simple and clear position.} 5. Qxf2 Nxf2 6. Kxf2 a4 {This Pawn can't be stopped, and you don't even need to think anymore, you can win this in less than ten seconds}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the second game, after 46...Qd1+, you played fine but passive move Ka3. But with Qc2 you are much more active, you threaten to exchange the Queens, and you also have discovered check with e5+, which enables you to get aggressive with your middle pawns:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/6pk/7p/2p5/P1P1P3/1KP2P1P/1Q4P1/3q4 w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Qc2 Qd7 2. e5+ Kg8 3. Qe2 {Support your pawn, now black has to defend and waste time thinking how to do it} Kf8 4. e6 Qe7 {Now black Queen is pinned here and he can't really afford to move it - note that there are other moves which black could do, but all end up similar because he has to defend here} 5. Qe5 Qe8 (5...Qb7+ {Your King is perfectly safe here} 6. Ka3 Qe7 7. Qb8+ Qe8 8. Qxe8+ Kxe8 9. a5 {Now you can promote either a-Pawn or e-Pawn without even thinking, depending on black's reposnse, you just need to push the one which is furthest from black King.}) 6. Qf5+ Kg8 7. Qf7+ Qxf7 8. exf7 Kxf7 9. a5 {You sacrificed your e-Pawn, but position is now very simple for you, just push this Pawn.}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In both of those games at the end, when you had an opportunity to make an active move, you instead went for more passive play, giving your opponent another chance to attack you.&#xA;In the first game in position I referred to, you played e5, which didn't bring you anything, your opponent still had the same attacking moves and he started chasing you around while you had to lose time avoiding making some blunder.&#xA;In the second game, your King was perfectly safe on b3, but instead of taking your chance to make some threats, you passively responded to opponent's moves, and you ended up making a blunder.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Remember, &lt;strong&gt;defending is very time-consuming&lt;/strong&gt;, so try to look for active moves. Let your opponent be the one to defend and waste time, and you can already plan ahead your next few moves while he is thinking. When you have such an advantage as you had in these games, you can easily afford to even give up some of the material in order to eliminate opponent's possible threats.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You often don't need more than a Pawn to win the game, so when you have material advantage, your first priority if you're low on time should always be to simplify the position as much as possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1099" LastActivityDate="2016-05-09T10:52:22.963" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14312" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14313" CreationDate="2016-05-09T11:04:59.650" Score="1" ViewCount="1234" Body="&lt;p&gt;Could someone recommend books or online resources on those two openings for intermediate players (about 1800)? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since my opponents at this level are likely to go out of theory on move 4 or 5, I want to have the knowledge to see why their move isn't that good and how to respond to it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, 1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 d4 exd4 4 Nxd4 &lt;strong&gt;d6&lt;/strong&gt;. Here I used to trade 5 Nxc6 bxc6, and double black's pawns, but I'm told it actually helps black to open the b file and have an active middle game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I would like resources that have more explanations on the opening's idea/planning, not just comprehensive list of variations. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: I bought the book &quot;The Petroff: move by move&quot;. After reading for about 30min, I put it down and disliked it. The reasons are&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;This book is supposed to be an opening book. But it runs all the example games to the end. The author should make a judgement when opening is finished, provide evaluation of the board and plan for middle game, then go on to next example.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;On one page, the author writes (for the Cochrane gambit) &quot;(white's) Bc4+ should always be met with d5 since after Be6 Bxe6 Kxe6 black's king is pulled further to the center&quot;. And on the next page when white plays Bc4 a move later, black plays Be6, then the game continues Bxe6 Kxe6. No explanation here!&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;There isn't any dedicated section for game plan/pawn structure/piece placement etc. These advice are scattered in the example games. Moreover, its explanations are more towards &quot;why this GM's move is good&quot;, not &quot;guidelines to find good moves&quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7002" LastEditorUserId="10867" LastEditDate="2016-07-27T09:38:06.863" LastActivityDate="2016-11-05T05:30:19.873" Title="Books/resources on Scotch (as white) and Petroff (both sides but mainly as black)" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;books&gt;&lt;scotch-game&gt;&lt;petroff-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14313" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14312" CreationDate="2016-05-09T11:33:24.417" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can only make recommendations for the Petroff Defence, as I have never played the Scotch:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;The Petroff: Move by Move&lt;/em&gt; by Cyrus Lakdawala. An engaging author using a question and answer format in annotated games&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;Petroff Defence&lt;/em&gt; by Alexander Raetsky and Maxim Chetverik. This book is more orientated towards Black's point of view, but the explanations are accessible to the club player&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&amp;amp;rct=j&amp;amp;q=&amp;amp;esrc=s&amp;amp;source=web&amp;amp;cd=1&amp;amp;cad=rja&amp;amp;uact=8&amp;amp;ved=0ahUKEwiH7Jj98czMAhXCbBoKHVj4CuQQtwIIHzAA&amp;amp;url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DDyDVQPwk6fY&amp;amp;usg=AFQjCNFUDmCrdr-X9765nwiwLxYIj0Zv3w&amp;amp;sig2=6pe-IX9H7u885973NVX1Yw&amp;amp;bvm=bv.121421273,d.bGs&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;thechesswebsite&lt;/a&gt; YouTube video on the Petroff Defence&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2016-05-09T11:33:24.417" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14314" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14312" CreationDate="2016-05-09T12:09:15.063" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;An Attacking Repertoire for White&quot; by Sam Collins has a chapter on the Scotch which does cover many of the offbeat variations. After 4. ... d6 he writes &quot;No one does this, for the simple reason that it fails to pressurise White's center and allows him a free hand in developing. After 5. c4 Nf6 6. Bc3 Be7... 12. b4! White has a clear advantage.&quot;&#xA;&quot;e4 White is Better&quot; by GM Dragan Barlov and Milos Jovicic is just many variations, but they cover more lines in this opening book.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://lichess.org&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Lichess&lt;/a&gt; has a forum where you could ask more specific questions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9684" LastActivityDate="2016-05-09T12:09:15.063" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14315" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14312" CreationDate="2016-05-09T14:15:37.303" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Fundamental Chess Openings - FCO, by Paul van de Sterren.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Good explanations on planning and ideas, light on deep lines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10233" LastActivityDate="2016-05-09T14:15:37.303" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14316" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14253" CreationDate="2016-05-09T22:05:10.060" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you are an attacking player who likes to develop quicker, I would recommend the Danish Gambit or Evan's Gambit. Even if declined, white can get a pretty decent advantage in development and can attack the weak pawn of f7 on the Black board. However, if you are a solid player, I reccomend the Italian Game or Reti's Opening. I owe a lot of my success in the intermediate level to these openings as white. As black, I nearly always play the Sicilian to e4 and the King's Indian against d4. The few times I do see c4, I play e4 and try to get a reverse Sicilian position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10236" LastActivityDate="2016-05-09T22:05:10.060" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14317" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-05-09T22:53:50.753" Score="5" ViewCount="727" Body="&lt;p&gt;I run competitions, not in chess, but my question relates to chess Ranking systems, and will give an example of the issue I face. Game 1:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Alice scores 5, Bob 4, Chris 3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I use the glicko-2 and elo Ranking system to break that down into two wins for Alice (over each other player) and one win for Bob (over Chris).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My problem is that if the result was:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Alice 10, Bob 4, Chris 3&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That is a much bigger win for Alice, but the ranking system sees the result as no different from the first.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Has anyone come across a ranking system that takes into account margins of victory etc.?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10237" LastActivityDate="2020-02-24T01:46:38.473" Title="Ranking systems that take into account the size of the victory" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;elo&gt;&lt;glicko&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14319" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-05-10T01:44:40.003" Score="4" ViewCount="1266" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've recently begun studying openings, and I've been practicing the Ruy Lopez.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I played a game that began as follows.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 d5 4. O-O dxe4 5. Nxe5 Qd5 6. Bxc6+ bxc6 7. Ng4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Generally the black response is 3... a6, and then I can either play the exchange variation or back up my bishop to Ba4. Instead, as seen, they played 3... d5. I responded by ignoring the threat to my pawn by castling. After 5... Qd5, I decided to make the exchange and backed up my knight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Did I respond correctly? Is there a named variation for that black response? If anything it was enough to throw me off. A few moves later I traded queens and forked his king and rook, but I can't tell if my advantage came from a bad move by my opponent or as a result of his atypical opening leaving him in a disadvantaged situation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10238" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-01-28T03:26:55.813" LastActivityDate="2020-02-01T04:30:32.093" Title="About how to respond to this atypical black defense in the Ruy Lopez" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;ruy-lopez&gt;&lt;minor-variations&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="14320" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14319" CreationDate="2016-05-10T03:46:03.110" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;3... d5&lt;/code&gt; is not listed &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Chess_Opening_Theory/1._e4/1...e5/2._Nf3/2...Nc6/3._Bb5&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; so it is a safe bet there's a problem.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It looks like an overreach, with both Black pawns being vulnerable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd go for a pawn steal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 d5&#xA;4.Nxe5 a6 5.Bxc6+ bxc6 6.Qe2 {White has better development, better pawns, and a free pawn.}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2016-05-10T03:46:03.110" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14321" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14317" CreationDate="2016-05-10T06:31:07.373" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think what you should do is, treat every pair of players like they played a match, and arrived at the given result. So for example in the second case:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Alice vs Bob 10-4 - 14 games&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bob vs Chris 4-3 - 7 games&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Alice vs Chris 10-3 - 13 games&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And calculate rating like that&#xA;Although this will distort the ratings, because every point is counted double the times, more if there are multiple players. I think you can weight that in in the k factor in case of ELO, or you can just divide all the games and points with two - this should not be a problem, since performance is calculated from percentages, so a half game can be fine mathematically.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8944" LastActivityDate="2016-05-10T06:31:07.373" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14323" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14319" CreationDate="2016-05-10T07:33:58.547" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The variation proposed is interesting and the one favoured by the computer. I went further and thought when seeing your variation (d5) that it reminded me of certain variations of the Ponziani, with one single (huge) difference: white has not yet played c3. So, taking on d5 to implement Nc3 came to my mind, with the following variation (as a sample and not definitively concluding - and with computer assistance): &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 d5 4. exd5 Qxd5 5. Nc3 Qd6 {for instance} 6. Qe2 Nge7 7. Nxe5 Be6 8. f4 0-0-0 9. Ne4 Qd4 10. c3 Qb6 11. Nc4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;etc. With an advantage to white. Of course, the line suggested by Tony Ennis is less &quot;messy&quot; and more clear-cut but I suggest another option. It is up to you to make your choice.  The variations we both propose are different in nature. Tony Ennis suggests you go for a material advantage in exchange for the bishop pair (for what it is worth without convenient development). My variation also proposes a material advantage but doesn't surrender the bishop pair. Furthermore, my variation keeps the center solid (pawns in the center), avoiding counterplay and hindering free piece play on black's part. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The idea of d5 is thematic, of course, but premature and clearly inferior but it has one advantage: you are on your own and one single misstep and problems appear. It could be interesting in blitz play but not more, i think. The positions arising after d5 should be examined by you (and possibly others) with computer assistance to refute your missteps in analysis and to get an idea of how to handle various responses. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10087" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2020-01-28T18:11:18.470" LastActivityDate="2020-01-28T18:11:18.470" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="14324" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14317" CreationDate="2016-05-10T07:34:31.187" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you're interested in use (more than in development), you should give a try to &lt;a href=&quot;https://rankade.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;rankade&lt;/a&gt;, our ranking system that features rankings, stats, and more. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Rankade doesn't use &lt;strong&gt;Elo&lt;/strong&gt;, but its algorithm (called &lt;strong&gt;ree&lt;/strong&gt; algorithm), although more complex, is similar to Elo if you play 1-on-1 matches only.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Opposite to Elo and &lt;strong&gt;Glicko&lt;/strong&gt;  (here's a &lt;a href=&quot;https://rankade.com/ree#ranking-system-comparison&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;comparison&lt;/a&gt;), rankade can manage any kind of match (one-on-one, faction vs. faction (two teams, which may be asymmetrical),&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;multiplayer&lt;/strong&gt;, multi-faction, cooperative games, single player games, and so on), so you can insert &lt;em&gt;one&lt;/em&gt; match with &lt;em&gt;Alice 5, Bob 4, Chris 3&lt;/em&gt; output (without breaking down one actual match in multiple &lt;em&gt;fake&lt;/em&gt; matches). Anyway, rankade - like all aforementioned ranking systems - does &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; incorporate margin of victory (even if you can easily manage this issue using &lt;em&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://rankade.com/frequently-asked-question/5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;weight&lt;/a&gt; feature&lt;/em&gt;, and/or insert scores for stats).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7575" LastActivityDate="2016-05-10T07:34:31.187" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14325" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14336" CreationDate="2016-05-10T07:49:04.000" Score="4" ViewCount="273" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've played the French and Queen's Gambit, which tend to lead to more closed, positional play.  I've played these openings consistently for roughly 25+ years now, with no set opening before then really.  I did try to learn both the Center counter, or Scandinavian, and the Danish early but eventually gave up and played random moves (I was quite young).  After that it was Petrov for a year, then on to closed games.  I'm currently 38 and have been at closed positions now for 25+ years.  By consistent I mean every single game I've played since then.  If it is relevant my USCF is around 1500, with a peak of 1620. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2765" LastActivityDate="2016-05-11T07:42:02.890" Title="Is it worth it to transition into more open lines when one is used to closed, positional games?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14326" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14325" CreationDate="2016-05-10T08:10:42.767" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your question is interesting but not to the point, if you allow me to say. You are speaking about openings and your problem is not about opening. When you say you have been playing closed openings for years, what do you really mean? Are you playing those out of interest or out of fear or prudence? I would advice you, given your rating, to restudy from the beginning the game of chess. Study all of its history with commented games and try to make progress tactically. Practise and practise again until you get a grip on tactics: this is the major step to mastering the basics of chess. You should be prudent: books for beginners and weaker players always insist on ideas, and they are right, but you should not forget that a minimal mastery of concrete tactical chess is unmistakenly necessary. There is no progress without this. Playing closed openings closes road for your progress. There are good books for you to study: just think of Yusupov's course in several volumes, for instance. You read the book with a board aside (computer also) and you think what you want to play and what could be annoying to you. Then when reaching your conclusion, you look up with computer assistance and finally you try to figure out why computer moves are better than yours. This is a very rude way to learn but you will make progress. You can keep on playing your openings, they are not bad, but play them with an open mind and try to master tactics. You rating will then go up. I know this is not comfortable, but there is no such thing as comfort when trying to progress. Maybe you will even lose elo points in the beginning, and so what, if you risk nothing you get nothing. Just try, it's a game, open and closed. Open games are more dangerous in the short term BUT you have to master them to understand what underlies closed positions when those get opened. Closing positions is not an aim in itself, it's just a means. Sorry for being so direct but i really want to help you ahead.&#xA;Greetings!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10087" LastEditorUserId="10087" LastEditDate="2016-05-10T20:25:21.133" LastActivityDate="2016-05-10T20:25:21.133" CommentCount="17" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14327" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14325" CreationDate="2016-05-10T09:33:45.313" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;My advice is to change openings only if you don't enjoy them and to practice tactics for when a game opens up. This is because:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The aim of the opening is to reach a playable middlegame. You reach a playable middlegame in any reputable opening, whether it is the wide open King's Gambit or the closed Advanced French&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If you enjoy the openings you play, stick with them. Chess is a game afterall, and if you are having fun with the openings you use, then that's great!&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Most games can be opened up if the opponent wants to do badly enough, so practice tactics to be prepared for open games. Think of the French Exchange Variation for example&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2016-05-10T09:33:45.313" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14328" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-05-10T10:42:20.957" Score="1" ViewCount="179" Body="&lt;p&gt;I play on chess.com and I noticed that at some times I am getting beaten by 1700 pretty easily but other times I can beat 1900 with almost no effort. I broke my record and passed 2000 in bullet recently, now I am fighting with 2000 and 2100+ bullet players. Also, I nearly broke 1900 in blitz.Can I say my game has improved? I recently started to do tactics on chess.com, and it might have to do something with it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But the problem is when I play my brother OTB, I am slightly better, but he is 1300 blitz rated on chess.com. What is going on with my game?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10241" LastActivityDate="2016-05-11T12:38:20.887" Title="Bullet rating fluctuations" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14329" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14253" CreationDate="2016-05-10T13:30:11.780" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I read your question. To answer it, it would be necessary that you provide more détails on your &quot;personal&quot; situation. I mean, what are your strength (elo?), your age, your experience, your motivation (time to learn), your aspirations? How long have you been playing, are you a newcomer to chess? What did you play until now with white (with what results), what is your preference: slow, positional, tactical play, both, manoeuvering, middlegame, opening rapidity of motion/development, do you like open or closed games. For instance, but just for instance, if you like slow positional, almost contactless play, you can adopt (with modifications to be made for opening developments since publication) the repertoire proposed by Emms in Attacking with e4 (an &quot;old&quot; but very good book). However, to continue with my example, if you are young and you want to learn and to make progress, there is a precondition for progressing, it is mastering tactical basic schèmes (all of them) and more advanced ideas, to be acquainted with tactics of everyday (by this i don't mean basic themes, as someone else understood here, but the subtle interweaving of themes and foremost the concrete calculation necessary to accomplish plans), and so on. Which kind of French positions do you like and predominantly, what don't you like as regards pawn structure types? You can furthermore take into account the frequency of types of positions played in the opening you choose. I mean if you play the Rubinstein French and you like a specific variation and dislike other variations and the statistics say the variations you don't like represent 80% of the played French Rubinstein games, then you should make a more pragmatic choice to increase your chance of getting a convenient (to you) position type. This does, as is quite evident, not mean that you can avoid all unwished variations. &#xA;Furthermore, you should be aware, should you wish to play a reversed French, that the difference between the french and the reversed french is the fundamental nature of it. The french is concrete and immediate whereas the reversed french, while offering no special advantage, postpones the concrete and direct confrontation in the late middlegame as a result of the absence of contact.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10087" LastEditorUserId="10087" LastEditDate="2016-05-10T14:43:13.850" LastActivityDate="2016-05-10T14:43:13.850" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14330" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14312" CreationDate="2016-05-10T14:02:11.880" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The best book on the Petrov is a book by Yusupov but it is very technical and high level stuff. You should look at the Chess Stars offer of books for the Scotch and also for the Petrov (in different books). There are also many books with entire chapters on the Scotch (ntirlis's quality chess book, emms's gambit book, etc...). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10087" LastActivityDate="2016-05-10T14:02:11.880" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14331" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14328" CreationDate="2016-05-10T17:46:06.803" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think you have proven to yourself that bullet ratings are garbage and not in any way, shape or form an accurate way to measure &quot;mouse skills&quot; - because, that is all bullet is...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10233" LastActivityDate="2016-05-10T17:46:06.803" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14332" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14325" CreationDate="2016-05-10T19:41:07.350" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think you should be playing open games, tactical chess, not positional chess and closed/semi-closed positions. Positional chess is inherently more difficult than open, tactical games. It's sounds to me you suffer from the classic idea that &quot;closed&quot; positions somehow protect you from tactics. If you are &quot;afraid&quot; of a tactical fight, become better at tactics! That is a learnable skill. Positional play is way more difficult and requires a deeper understanding to become a &quot;positional&quot; player, which maybe you think you are, or more accurately, you think that is what you &lt;em&gt;want&lt;/em&gt; to become. But, most games die by tactics. I've never lost a game to a player who outplayed me positionally - in the end, tactics decides it almost all the time. Of course, be aware of positional motifs in a tabiya, but that is experience talking there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should go out swinging as a C-player and trial by fire instead of ducking for cover at every opportunity. &quot;Closed&quot; positions for 38+ years as a C-Player should tell you something. It ain't workin'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You're chasing the wrong kite. You need to be at least 2100+ to even think about defining your &quot;style&quot; in that respect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would go for the most violent openings you can find - Scotch, Giuoco Piano, Kings Gambit - at Class C you don't worry about theory in the least. Just know enough to get into the middlegames and take the gloves off and punch each other in the face. Last man standing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;FYI: USCF 1871&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10233" LastActivityDate="2016-05-10T19:41:07.350" CommentCount="11" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14333" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14338" CreationDate="2016-05-10T22:48:05.820" Score="7" ViewCount="239" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can't remember whether White won or Black won, but I've been wondering for years where I saw this game. I remember toward the end, only heavy pieces and pawns were left, and the winner sacrificed two rooks so that only his queen faced his opponent's queen and rooks. I think resignation occurred before the checkmate, but the checkmate that was imminent was delivered by the queen supported by pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does anyone know this game or at least one like it? For a while I thought it was a Capablanca game, but I perused my book of his games and couldn't find it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="86" LastActivityDate="2016-05-17T09:00:40.830" Title="Trying to locate a historical game in which the win involves sacrificing two rooks" Tags="&lt;rooks&gt;&lt;sacrifice&gt;&lt;master-games&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14335" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14333" CreationDate="2016-05-11T06:44:32.953" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a book on such sacrifices of two rooks by Minev and Seirawan&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/187947901X&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.amazon.com/Take-My-Rooks-Nikolay-Minev/dp/187947901X&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10087" LastEditorUserId="10087" LastEditDate="2016-05-11T08:15:19.247" LastActivityDate="2016-05-11T08:15:19.247" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14336" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14325" CreationDate="2016-05-11T07:42:02.890" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;From a strong expert:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just because I find open games to be more fun, I would suggest playing more open games.  Also a variety of openings will expand your knowledge.  (Looking at your tournament history, you may already have enough knowledge.)  Just like you don't quit smoking in one day, don't switch to overly aggressive opening.  Try the Scotch, Vienna, or Giuoco Piano.  These openings requires the learning of more opening traps, but they should improve your quality of play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Assuming that you have the time to invest in studying an opening, learn the common positions and plans.  If after trying this style you feel uncomfortable, go back to playing the closed/positional games.  If the game is not fun, it is not worth playing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I reached expert level, I switched to a more positional game because I thought this is what was supposed to happen.  I lost many games because I hid my talent.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some GM said that he switched to d4 because he got lazy as he got old.  Anna Zatonskih said that with d4, White can make more mistakes before losing the game.  You could be hanging on to the safety of known avenues.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9684" LastActivityDate="2016-05-11T07:42:02.890" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14337" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14312" CreationDate="2016-05-11T09:55:49.687" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Quality Chess will publish &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.qualitychess.co.uk/products/1/209/playing_1e4_-_caro-kann_1e5_and_minor_lines_by_john_shaw/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;a book on 1.e4&lt;/a&gt; (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.qualitychess.co.uk/blog/4306#comment-306899&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;hopefully in a few month&lt;/a&gt;) which will feature the Scotch as far as I know. It is part of a two book repertoire and will be about 1…e5, Caro-Kann and minor lines. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This will be a &quot;Grandmaster Guide&quot; and not a &quot;Grandmaster Repertoire&quot; so it is aimed at slightly weaker players. It should contain the Scotch and the Petroff and books by QC are generally excellent. And of course it will be brand new, so it strikes me as your best bet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2016-05-11T09:55:49.687" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14338" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14333" CreationDate="2016-05-11T10:29:52.393" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Could it be this game?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Living Chess Exhibition&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Los Angeles, CA USA&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;1933&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Jose Raul Capablanca&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Herman Steiner&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 {From &quot;Viaje al Reino del Ajedrez &quot; de Y. Averbach et&#xA;al} e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. Bb5 Bb4 5. O-O O-O 6. d3 d6&#xA;7. Bg5 Bxc3 8. bxc3 Ne7 9. Nh4 c6 10. Bc4 Be6 11. Bxf6 gxf6&#xA;12. Bxe6 fxe6 13. Qg4+ Kf7 14. f4 Rg8 15. Qh5 Kg7 16. fxe5&#xA;dxe5 17. Rxf6 Kxf6 18. Rf1+ Nf5 19. Nxf5 exf5 20. Rxf5+ Ke7&#xA;21. Qf7+ Kd6 22. Rf6+ Kc5 23. Qb7 Qb6 24. Rxc6+ Qxc6 25. Qb4#&#xA;1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to the comments on &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1266710&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;chessgames.com&lt;/a&gt;, this might have been a prearranged game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1485" LastActivityDate="2016-05-11T10:29:52.393" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14339" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14328" CreationDate="2016-05-11T12:38:20.887" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Bullet is completely different from OTB game. In bullet what tells is your experience, your ability to spot hanging pieces and combinations very fast to make natural moves and not to blunder. Also time management and focus is very important. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In an OTB game things like positional knowledge, and long term thinking are very important, and if it takes you a few minutes to notice, that the move you want to make hangs your queen, it's not a tragedy. Also you can get away with holes in your opening knowledge.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another point: in bullet setting traps can earn you a lot of points, but in a long game traps are a lot of times counter productive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8944" LastActivityDate="2016-05-11T12:38:20.887" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14340" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14296" CreationDate="2016-05-11T13:03:57.687" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;1) &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.russell-enterprises.com/images/frenchrubinsteinexcerpt.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.russell-enterprises.com/images/frenchrubinsteinexcerpt.pdf&lt;/a&gt; - a book on the Rubinstein French from Black's perspective and therefore it aims to list all the possible lines for White, which you can use for inspiration.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1906552061&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.amazon.com/Grandmaster-Repertoire-French-Caro-Kann-Philidor/dp/1906552061&lt;/a&gt; - a new repertoire book for White, which includes advice against the French Rubinstein.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3456" LastActivityDate="2016-05-11T13:03:57.687" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14341" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-05-11T13:16:54.377" Score="3" ViewCount="187" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Title &quot;6.Ng3 against the French Rubinstein&quot;]&#xA;[Startply &quot;11&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 dxe4 4.Nxe4 Nd7 5.Nf3 Ngf6 6.Ng3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is so obviously wrong with the move 6.Ng3 against the French Rubinstein? I ask because I have two &quot;complete Black repertoire&quot; books on the French Rubinstein and this line is not even mentioned. Other two books which deal with the French Rubinstein (not from any particular side) also fail to mention this line. But this move is played by my opponents in online blitz and I can find nothing evidently wrong with it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There must be a reason why the the professionals writing books are so blind to it. Any idea?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3456" LastActivityDate="2016-05-11T18:14:31.467" Title="Why not 6.Ng3 against the French Rubinstein?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;french-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14342" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14407" CreationDate="2016-05-11T13:39:26.800" Score="8" ViewCount="3740" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Startply &quot;3&quot;]&#xA;[Title &quot;2.f4 against the French Defense&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e6 2.f4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is so obviously wrong with this approach? I ask because it is not even mentioned in the complete Black repertoire book French Defense: The Solid Rubinstein Variation by Hannes Langrock &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.russell-enterprises.com/images/frenchrubinsteinexcerpt.pdf&quot; title=&quot;French Defense: The Solid Rubinstein Variation by Hannes Langrock&quot;&gt;http://www.russell-enterprises.com/images/frenchrubinsteinexcerpt.pdf&lt;/a&gt; which includes second move alternatives to 2.d4 such as 1.e4 e6 2.b3 or 2.Qe2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3456" LastActivityDate="2016-10-01T05:10:24.110" Title="What is wrong with f2-f4 against the French Defense?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;french-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14343" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-05-11T16:24:13.077" Score="2" ViewCount="286" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd like some feedback and suggestions on how you use The Week In Chess pgn/cbv files for study. Here are a few things I do with them:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1. Play from a won position&lt;/strong&gt; - here we go down the list of decided games and using a chess engine, get to the point in the game where the evaluation flips to +/- 2.00 or greater. Play the game out at that point against the computer and try and find a winning continuation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;2. Update your repertoire&lt;/strong&gt; - Using the ECO Keys, gather the games in your main repertoire from the TWIC file and at least review those games and possibly add them to your repertoire games database. This allows you to see potential new ideas and how to play certain middle-games coming out of your repertoire.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;3. Hold the Draw&lt;/strong&gt; - Take a drawn game and jump in and play it against the computer and try and hold the ending with 10-20 moves left. Try it from both sides, alternatively. This ii a great way to understand endgame play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;4. Defend your King&lt;/strong&gt; - this is the opposite of #1 - Take the losing position and try to defend it. You might want to consider reducing the +/- to  a pawn down on the comp. valuation. This is good defensive practice when in a worse position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just some thoughts...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10233" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-12-17T14:29:45.517" LastActivityDate="2017-03-06T22:57:14.210" Title="How to use TWIC files for study" Tags="&lt;study&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14345" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-05-11T18:03:51.797" Score="1" ViewCount="111" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would like to program famous chess matches into a chess program so I can watch the matches. Is there a chess program that allows this or is there already a program that has famous chess matches we can watch? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10256" LastActivityDate="2016-05-11T20:01:21.010" Title="Best programable chess game on the market" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;programming&gt;&lt;famous-games&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14346" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14341" CreationDate="2016-05-11T18:14:31.467" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Usually when a move in a relatively positional setup such as this is omitted, it doesn't mean that it's a clear mistake. It only means that the author doesn't view the move as a critical move that challenges the opponent's setup as much as other moves. Therefore, it may not be the move to prioritize, as other moves can be more challenging.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It could also be that the author doesn't know really what the plans are, and tries to make him/herself look more certain about their topic than they are.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One question though, which needs to be answered by you: Does this move give you many difficulties in your games? If that is the case, you will be forced to look up some statistics and see if the move is a legitimately challenging line, or if you just don't know how to play against it. In this case, you will need to study games played in the variation and learn important ideas by yourself if you want to be more successful. It may be a difficult thing to do, but sometimes chess isn't very easy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've taken the liberty to consult my personal database, which for the moment lacks some games due to my negligence with database maintenance using TWIC these last weeks, and I found this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;6.Ng3 is likely not a bad move. It has a 55% score, with roughly 600 games played in the line. The highest rated player who played this had a rating of 2535. The move is not to be scoffed at, if you face it a lot.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;HOWEVER&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are better moves in the position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The main line, 6.Nxf6+, has a 63% score in roughly 4400 games, with the  highest rated player having a rating of 2838;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The second most popular alternative, 6.Bd3, has a 62.5% score in roughly 1800 games, with the highest rated player having a rating of 2851;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The third most common alternative, 6.Bg5, has a 57% score in roughly 1600 games, with the highest rated player having a rating of 2851.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The top rating is due to Kasparov in all the lines, but all the top players in the world have used at least one of these three main moves when faced with this position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8300" LastActivityDate="2016-05-11T18:14:31.467" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14348" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14345" CreationDate="2016-05-11T20:01:21.010" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;More or less every chess program is able to load games, replay them and even  sometimes analyze them. Personally I use &lt;a href=&quot;http://scid.sourceforge.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;SCID&lt;/a&gt; for replaying PGN games. It is free and works very well.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1030" LastActivityDate="2016-05-11T20:01:21.010" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14349" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14445" CreationDate="2016-05-11T22:02:28.740" Score="3" ViewCount="153" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want  to run a query on a chess games collection which would give me games played by strong players vs weak players, let's say games from the first round of Open tournaments (Swiss system) where grandmasters face amateurs, so basically a query for games where rating difference is bigger than x.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What tools would you suggest? what method?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10260" LastActivityDate="2016-05-23T15:33:24.510" Title="Query for games where the difference of player ratings was big" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;database&gt;&lt;programming&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14350" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-05-12T09:01:15.410" Score="21" ViewCount="2748" Body="&lt;p&gt;I always tend to be tense when playing. I guess you could say I find chess somewhat stressful? I see it as a fight to win as opposed to some ordinary board game like Monopoly. I really can't relate to well with people who just play chess because they find it relaxing. For some reason though, I still like the game, even though it's stressful to a certain degree, who knows why? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Would you say this is normal chess player behavior? What do you feel when it comes to chess, I would like to hear some other players' experience. Did you feel stressed out when you first started? Are you still tense or do you find the game purely relaxing?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10265" LastEditorUserId="10867" LastEditDate="2016-07-27T09:53:32.470" LastActivityDate="2019-05-06T04:43:53.670" Title="How to relax when playing chess?" Tags="&lt;psychology&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14351" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14350" CreationDate="2016-05-12T09:25:13.560" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;I play a lot of board games and a lot of chess in particular. I can tell you that every chess player has a certain element of nervous energy whilst playing. This keeps us sharp. These are the reasons I believe chess generates nervous energy in the players:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Competitiveness&lt;/strong&gt;: Chess is purely competitive and we are all playing to win on some level, whether it is to beat the opponent, get a draw against a Grand Master, or to improve our game, i.e. beat ourselves&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Skill&lt;/strong&gt;: There is no random component. I can't blame the dice gods if I lose&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Not a team game&lt;/strong&gt;: Similar to how I can't blame the dice gods if I lose, I can't even blame my team mates! Even when chess is played as a team (e.g. Olympiad), what my team is doing during my game doesn't affect the outcome of my game&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Ratings&lt;/strong&gt;: This relates to pride, but if I am playing against someone who I see as being a weaker player (lower rating/child player/patzer), then I'll be extremely embarrassed to lose. Similarly, I want to beat higher rated players to inflate my ego&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastEditorDisplayName="user1108" LastEditDate="2016-05-12T12:01:20.013" LastActivityDate="2016-05-12T12:01:20.013" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14352" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14307" CreationDate="2016-05-12T10:04:57.000" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Optimal piece setup in openings are determined by pawn structures. If you compare the common pawn structures of the openings KID, Gruenfeld, Queen's Gambit, Queen's Indian with the Dutch you will notice a substantial difference: The existence of the black f5-pawn and white's pawn on e2 rather than e4. The black pawn structure of Stonewall Dutch is usualy c6-d5-e6-f5 whereas the pawn structure of Leningrad Dutch is f5-e6-d6 (and c5 or c6 depending on circumstance). I will limit the answer to the Stonewall Dutch to be more precise however this should also be applicable to other openings of Dutch flavor.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examining the stonewall formation following the principle of optimal piece activity - that is all pieces should be placed where they are most active - we can easily see that the white-squared bishop would not be placed actively on anywhere but g2. The only comparison could be with the d3-square (we can eliminate other squares quickly: c4 impossible, e2 too passive having little or no perspective).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Comparing the d3 and g2 squares the important difference is the bishop on d3 targets the kingside and g2 targets the queenside. We know for a fact that Black plans to play on the kingside which means her/his pieces will be placed on or near to the kingside. Following the principle of &quot;attack your opponent's weaker spot/side&quot; we see that bishop on d3 will not make much sense as it will, so to speak, &quot;bite on granite&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Moreover, the bishop on g2 has multiple purposes: Putting pressure over the long diagonal and adding an extra defense for the king. In chess a piece is most useful when it is both attacking and defending, so g2 is not only the optimal square for the white-squared bishop on Dutch openings. It is the only square that actually makes sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1716" LastActivityDate="2016-05-12T10:04:57.000" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14353" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-05-12T10:24:57.127" Score="1" ViewCount="99" Body="&lt;p&gt;Currently, I am a good player of chess, I am a member of sites like chess.com and ChessCube.com and in Chess Online (Android application). Since I am a working professional, I could not spend much more time for chess which I fear would lose my competency.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am not referring to the &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/4434/struggling-to-improve-past-beginner-level&quot;&gt;Struggling to improve past beginner level&lt;/a&gt; link, but being a working professional, suggestions to improve my gaming side.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Are there any suggestions to keep myself improving?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10268" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-04T17:06:43.593" LastActivityDate="2020-03-04T17:06:43.593" Title="How to become a professional who plays chess?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ClosedDate="2016-05-12T20:03:42.200" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="14354" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-05-12T20:55:55.330" Score="7" ViewCount="339" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recently came across a very interesting rook and pawn endgame from one of the games between Fischer and Geller from the Curacao Candidates Tournament in 1962. More precisely, I am talking about the endgame from &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1044157&quot;&gt;this game&lt;/a&gt;, appearing after 33. Rc4 (see the diagram below).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It looks like a draw (to me, at least). Fischer himself was of the opinion, that the endgame is holdable, since after the game was adjourned after the 42. move, he allegedly said something like &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;I'll draw that game with my eyes shut!&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, Geller managed to win the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This endgame is unfortunately out of reach of my chess understanding, but I would like to remedy that. This brings me to my question: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Is there a detailed expert analysis of this endgame in chess literature (or on chess websites)?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The endgame is rather long and technical. Therefore, &lt;em&gt;I am primarily asking for a reference with detailed end extensive expert analysis&lt;/em&gt;, rather than a personal opinion or basic analysis. Of course, explanation of general ideas governing the way this endgame unfolded or any comments in that direction are also welcome, but please name a reference where I can learn more about it first. Thank you!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[StartPly &quot;65&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;1&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Curacao Candidates&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Willemstad CUW&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;1962.05.16&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;1962.05.02&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;9&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Robert James Fischer&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Efim Geller&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;B88&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;136&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 Nc6 6. Bc4 e6&#xA;7. Bb3 Be7 8. f4 O-O 9. Be3 Nxd4 10. Bxd4 b5 11. e5 dxe5&#xA;12. fxe5 Nd7 13. O-O Bc5 14. Bxc5 Nxc5 15. Qxd8 Rxd8 16. Nxb5&#xA;Ba6 17. Bc4 Rab8 18. a4 Nxa4 19. Nd6 Bxc4 20. Nxc4 Nxb2&#xA;21. Nd6 Rd7 22. Rfb1 Rc7 23. h3 Rb6 24. c4 h6 25. Nb5 Rc5&#xA;26. Rxb2 a6 27. Rf2 axb5 28. Ra7 Rxe5 29. Rfxf7 Rg5 30. Rfb7&#xA;Rxb7 31. Rxb7 bxc4 32. Rc7 Rf5 33. Rxc4 Kf7 34. g4 Rf3 35. Kg2&#xA;Rd3 36. Rc7+ Kf6 37. h4 Ra3 38. Rb7 Rc3 39. g5+ hxg5 40. hxg5+&#xA;Kg6 41. Re7 Re3 42. Kf2 Re5 43. Kf3 Rf5+ 44. Ke3 e5 45. Ke4&#xA;Rxg5 46. Re8 Rg1 47. Kf3 Rf1+ 48. Kg3 Rf5 49. Rb8 Kg5 50. Re8&#xA;Kf6 51. Rf8+ Ke6 52. Re8+ Kf6 53. Rf8+ Ke6 54. Re8+ Kd5&#xA;55. Ra8 Rf7 56. Kg4 Re7 57. Ra5+ Ke6 58. Ra6+ Kf7 59. Kf3 Re6&#xA;60. Ra8 e4+ 61. Ke3 g5 62. Ra1 Kg6 63. Rb1 Re5 64. Kd4 Kf6&#xA;65. Re1 Ra5 66. Rxe4 Kf5 67. Re8 Kg4 68. Ke3 Kg3 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2792" LastEditorUserId="2792" LastEditDate="2016-05-12T21:27:34.860" LastActivityDate="2016-05-13T21:00:32.850" Title="Fischer vs. Geller, Curacao Candidates 1962" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;rook-endgame&gt;&lt;fischer&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14355" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14358" CreationDate="2016-05-12T23:17:25.207" Score="2" ViewCount="352" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm looking for a chess GUI that shows the evaluation of each possible move rather than the top move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10273" LastActivityDate="2017-11-28T10:04:28.613" Title="Is there a chess GUI that gives an evaluation of each move?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14356" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14354" CreationDate="2016-05-13T03:52:34.143" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Geller himself analyzed this endgame in &lt;em&gt;The Application of Chess Theory&lt;/em&gt;. I'm not sure if it's quite as in-depth as you're looking for but I've reproduced the post-move-33 annotations here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[StartPly &quot;65&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;1&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Curacao Candidates&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Willemstad CUW&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;1962.05.16&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;1962.05.02&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;9&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Robert James Fischer&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Efim Geller&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;B88&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;136&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 Nc6 6. Bc4 e6&#xA;7. Bb3 Be7 8. f4 O-O 9. Be3 Nxd4 10. Bxd4 b5 11. e5 dxe5&#xA;12. fxe5 Nd7 13. O-O Bc5 14. Bxc5 Nxc5 15. Qxd8 Rxd8 16. Nxb5&#xA;Ba6 17. Bc4 Rab8 18. a4 Nxa4 19. Nd6 Bxc4 20. Nxc4 Nxb2&#xA;21. Nd6 Rd7 22. Rfb1 Rc7 23. h3 Rb6 24. c4 h6 25. Nb5 Rc5&#xA;26. Rxb2 a6 27. Rf2 axb5 28. Ra7 Rxe5 29. Rfxf7 Rg5 30. Rfb7&#xA;Rxb7 31. Rxb7 bxc4 32. Rc7 Rf5 33. Rxc4 Kf7 34. g4 (34. g3) {An inaccuracy. Of course, the white king has come into play, but for this 34. g3 was more appropriate, retaining the possibility in certain cases of continuing h3-h4 and Kg2-h3-g4. But now the white king is cut off along the third rank, and the white pawns are insufficiently defended} Rf3 35. Kg2&#xA;Rd3 36. Rc7+ Kf6 37. h4 Ra3 38. Rb7 Rc3 {Both sides have been making waiting moves before the time control, but White suddenly changes the character of the position} 39. g5+ hxg5 40. hxg5+&#xA;Kg6 41. Re7 Re3 42. Kf2? (42. Kh2!! Re5 (42... Kxg5 43. Rxg7 Kf6 44. Rg1 Rf3 45. Kg2 Rf5 46. Re1) 43. Kh3){This last move before the adjournment loses by force. White could still have drawn with 42. Kf2!!, so as to answer 42... Re5 with 43. Kh3, not allowing the black rook to take the g5 pawn with check or to leave the e-file with check. And in the event of 42... Kxg5 43. Rxg7+ Kf6 44. Rg1 Rf3 45. Kg2 Rf5 46. Re1 a theoretically drawn position would have been reached} Re5 {By this sealed move Black wins a second pawn, and with it the game} 43. Kf3 Rf5+ 44. Ke3 (44. Ke4 Rf7! (44... e5?? 45. Rxg7) 45. Rxe6 Kxg5) {In the event of 44. Ke4 Black of course would not have continued 44... e5?? 45. Rxg7+, but 44... Rf7! 45. Rxe6+ Kxg5, and since here White's king is cut off on the so-called &quot;long&quot; side of the board, he is lost. Something similar also occurs in the game} e5 45. Ke4&#xA;Rxg5 46. Re8 Rg1 47. Kf3 (47. Re6+ Kf7 48. Rxe5 Re1+ 49. Kf5 Rxe5+ 50. Kxe5 Kg6! 51. Kf4 Kh5) {The e-pawn is immune, since the pawn ending in the variation is lost} Rf1+ 48. Kg3 Rf5 49. Rb8 (49. Kg4 Rf4 50. Kg3 Kf5 51. Rf8+ Ke4 52. Rg8 Rf3+ 53. Kg2 (53. Kg4 Rf1) Rf7 {and Black completes his regrouping}) Kg5 50. Re8&#xA;Kf6 51. Rf8+ Ke6 52. Re8+ Kf6 53. Rf8+ Ke6 54. Re8+ Kd5 {Before the second control Black gains time on the clock by repeating moves}&#xA;55. Ra8 Rf7 56. Kg4 Re7 {The control is passed, the rook is ideally placed, and Black has merely to escape from the checks and advance his pawns} 57. Ra5+ Ke6 58. Ra6+ Kf7 59. Kf3 Re6&#xA;60. Ra8 e4+ 61. Ke3 g5 {All the conditions have been fulfilled, and the win is not far off} 62. Ra1 Kg6 63. Rb1 Re5 64. Kd4 Kf6&#xA;65. Re1 (65. Rf1 Ke6 66. Ke3 (66. Re1 g4 67. Rg1 e3) Rf5 67. Ra1 Rf4 68. Ra5 Kf6 {and the king breaks through at h4}) Ra5! {A typical plan. Black gives up one of his pawns to break through with his king and obtain a theoretically won position} 66. Rxe4 Kf5! {Here the pawn ending would have been drawn} 67. Re8 Kg4 68. Ke3 Kg3 {White resigned in view of the following plan, which is typical} (69. Ke2 g4 70. Rg8 Rf5 71. Rg7 Kh3 72. Rg8 g3 73. Rg7 Kh2 74. Rh7 Kg1 75. Rg7 g2 76. Ra7 (76. Rh7 Re5 77. Kd3 Kf2 78. Rf7 Kg3 79. Rg7 Kf3 80. Rf7 Kg4 81. Rg7 Rg5-+) Rh5 77. Kf3 Kh1)  0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3270" LastEditorUserId="2792" LastEditDate="2016-05-13T21:00:32.850" LastActivityDate="2016-05-13T21:00:32.850" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14358" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14355" CreationDate="2016-05-13T09:15:00.857" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In most GUIs you can set up top x moves. The reason why there is no program showing all moves, is that it would be terribly slow if you would make it show a lot of moves because of the engine. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All engines use some version of Alpha-Beta Search, without getting in the details of it, the point is, if a move is outside the interval of Alpha-Beta it is not examined further, so you can't really decide if it's right out of the window, or way off. If the engine wouldn't use this filtering, than it would need to check all branches, making it way too slow.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;tl;dr&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't think there is a GUI like that, if there is than the results it shows are completely bad, they would have the strength of a chess program from the 50s.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8944" LastActivityDate="2016-05-13T09:15:00.857" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14359" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8925" CreationDate="2016-05-13T11:02:27.557" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The ratings on chess.com are determined using the glicko rating formula, which is different from the elo rating formula. The initial start point in the glicko formula is 1200 so new ratings start at 1200.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10275" LastActivityDate="2016-05-13T11:02:27.557" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14360" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-05-13T12:47:04.810" Score="0" ViewCount="4062" Body="&lt;p&gt;When it comes to tactics training what is the best approach to optimize results? I've recently started only doing really hard puzzles, the only immediate change is it obviously take me a lot longer and end up maybe doing around 10-20 per day. Is it quality or quantity that's more important? Also as a side question I keep hearing that playing blindfold chess is bad for you for some reason? Can someone explain why I keep hearing that?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10030" LastActivityDate="2016-05-14T06:34:17.857" Title="How to practice tactics correctly?" Tags="&lt;tactics&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2016-05-15T17:49:19.457" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14361" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14360" CreationDate="2016-05-13T13:09:54.240" Score="1" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Use a book on tactics. This will help you recognize tactical patterns and subconsciously organize them into themes. A good book will also provide an appropriate amount of puzzles to each theme. Tactical themes usually occur with each other, and capitalizing on that usually involves a sacrifice, and the variations leading is called a combination. A book that fits nicely with that would be &quot;Chess Tactics for Champions&quot; for Susan Polgar.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Solve puzzles. Other than the puzzles you'd find in a book, solve lots and lots of puzzles. Solving online puzzles is a free and engaging way.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Play blitz. Blitz games are all about tactics and so you get to play a whole game that is based on a tactical and often sacrificial style. And what is good about blitz especially for tactics is that if your sacrifice is not sound, but good enough to catch your opponent off guard and force him to defend correctly, you would usually win on time! Blitz is all about tactics.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6985" LastActivityDate="2016-05-13T13:09:54.240" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14362" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14342" CreationDate="2016-05-13T13:16:34.757" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is nothing wrong with the &lt;strong&gt;Labourdonnais variation&lt;/strong&gt; (1. e4 e6 2. f4) &lt;em&gt;per se&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As mentioned in the comments by @Student T, the continuation is 2...d5. This is the mainline:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 e6 2.f4 d5 3.e5 c5 4.Nf3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black has a fine game with a good spatial edge. White hasn't blundered, but also has no theoretical edge here. E.g. the slight lead in development with 4. Nf3 cannot be exploited in any way. My assessment of the variation is an early dynamic equality.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2016-05-13T13:16:34.757" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14363" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-05-13T14:19:58.703" Score="8" ViewCount="779" Body="&lt;p&gt;So I've recently built and published a chess app, targeted at club chess player (like myself). The goal of the app is to educate and make chess more accessible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm working on an update. One of the new features will involve being able to play chess variants, I'm adding variants which I believe help enhance a certain chess skill (tactics, endgames etc.). These are all variants which I play at chess club (for fun and practice).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A chess variant that I think helps players practice endgames is a variant we play, which we call chess-battleships.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The way it works is each player can only see their half of the board. Both players place a predetermined number of pieces anywhere they want, usually 3/4 pawns and one minor piece, plus their king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then the full board is revealed to both players and they play out the equal material endgame. This helps players understand endgames and positional play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is does this chess game have an official name? If not I'd be happy to take suggestions as I'm unable to use the trademarked term &quot;battleships&quot; in my app.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks for your time,&#xA;Liam&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8677" LastEditorUserId="8677" LastEditDate="2016-06-12T22:31:45.370" LastActivityDate="2016-09-05T15:36:11.963" Title="What is this battleship-style chess variant called?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;programming&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14364" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14363" CreationDate="2016-05-13T14:39:13.290" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is &lt;em&gt;similar&lt;/em&gt; to &lt;strong&gt;Crazy Screen Chess&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Screen Chess&lt;/strong&gt; - Before the game, both players set up their pieces on the last 4 ranks, with the following restrictions: the bishops must be placed on opposite colors, and only 1 pawn can be placed on a file. Once the game starts, the rules are the same as regular chess, with no castling and no &lt;em&gt;en passant&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Crazy Screen Chess&lt;/strong&gt; - Same as Screen Chess, except with no restrictions on piece placement.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.itsyourturn.com/pp?gmavail&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;ItsYourTurn.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2016-05-13T14:39:13.290" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14365" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14360" CreationDate="2016-05-13T16:59:06.670" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I find that one of the things missing in tactics training is concentrated, thematic study, i.e., you try and solve a few dozen tactical problems with the same theme - Discovered Attack, The Mill, etc. Often there is a theme you might not be that familiar with and it shows when you try and solve tactical puzzles. Even though it might seem to point you in the right direction to solve the puzzle, that's not really the point. The point is to get used to seeing these themes in action so you can quickly recognize them in your games or when solving difficult tactical puzzles in earnest. In this regard, I use Renko's Intensive Course Tactics for thematic solving practice. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Thematic Study to understand all the different tactical nuances&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Master tactics problem-solving at 70+ percent success rate&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Blitz makes you lazy in calculation, so be careful. You'll &quot;get away&quot; with lots of bad tactics in blitz that you will pay for in real points in real games. You can generally spend 5 minutes on any position in a real game - not so in blitz.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, it might be worthwhile to keep a sheet of paper handy and note what &quot;theme&quot; you missed when you get a problem wrong. For example, let's say you failed to see a discovered check - write it down. Be honest. This will identify themes you are weak at.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2c.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10233" LastActivityDate="2016-05-13T16:59:06.670" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14367" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14368" CreationDate="2016-05-13T22:38:21.433" Score="3" ViewCount="156" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[StartPly &quot;10&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.g4 e5 2.Bg2 Bc5 3.e3 d6 4.d4 exd4 5.exd4 Bb6 *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the Grob attack opening database posted in &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/7812/10221&quot;&gt;this answer&lt;/a&gt; the suggested next move is 6.Nc3. However, in most variations of Grob opening I looked at so far, c4 is played by White very early in the opening phase. In the above position I would pick it as the next move also.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why is 6.Nc3 better for White here than 6.c4? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10221" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2016-05-14T00:40:06.260" Title="Why 6.Nc3 in the following position in Grob opening?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14368" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14367" CreationDate="2016-05-14T00:40:06.260" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think there is a drastic difference between playing 6.c4 than 6.Nc3, but from my perspective, I don't see much utility in the move 6.c4. What are you trying to achieve with 6.c4? It may seem as though you are expanding and gaining space and challenging Black's center, but Black can immediately put pressure on the d4 square with 6...Nc6 and you must defend with 7.Be3. Now, if you had played 6.Nc3, and after your opponent plays 6...Nc6, you still need to defend with Be3, but you have an extra developed piece. Note, you obviously don't want to play d5 (if you've already played c4) after 6...Nc6 since Black can play Ne5 or Qh4 and will have a better position than White. I'm no chess expert, but those are the very small differences I see.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5759" LastActivityDate="2016-05-14T00:40:06.260" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14369" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14360" CreationDate="2016-05-14T06:34:17.857" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm assuming your aim in practicing tactics is to improve your game performance. &#xA;In that case, I would recommend you treat each problem not as a puzzle, but as a real game situation, because your goal is to be able to spot tactics OTB, without knowing whether or not a tactical shot exists or not. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Thus, you should apply the thinking process you would use in a real game to the puzzle, and just try to play the move you would in a real game.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This means that you would, after a quick evaluation of the initial position, look for (1) Forcing moves, checks/caps/threats, (2) logical, positionally sound options that increase your activity/decrease opponent's activity. Then, you should calculate and evaluate these candidate moves one by one, and determine which one is the best. This is how you would play in a real game, and thus your tactical training should be like this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you can't spot the tactic (get the problem wrong), then you know that something is wrong with your thinking process, and you can correct it immediately. For example, if you spotted all the appropriate candidate moves, but, after calculation/evaluation, didn't find a winner, and thus settled for a &quot;positional&quot; move, then you know that there's an issue in your calculation; maybe you didn't remember to find all candidate moves at every move, and thus missed something. Or perhaps you couldn't visualize a long sequence, and now you know you have to get better at this. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is assuming you know how to improve every aspect of your thinking process. There are many free online resources, particularly youtube, that tell you how to train to improve certain things.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;I think that 10-20 difficult puzzles is plenty, as long as you apply your thinking process to each, and remember to diagnose/improve your thinking process at the end of each puzzle. Also, remember that in a real game, you have around 3 minutes per move. In critical situations, you may use more, but try not to use more than x minutes for a move, if you not spend more than x minutes on the position in a game.&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Also, playing blindfold chess is not bad. Blindfold chess is one way to improve your visualization skills, which is crucial for calculation.&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am a USCF expert rated player. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10283" LastActivityDate="2016-05-14T06:34:17.857" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14370" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12220" CreationDate="2016-05-14T13:31:54.030" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The concept of key squares, in general, is defined for pawn endgames with immobile pawns. It defines a winning strategy in two steps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Occupy one of the key squares with your king (usually, using zugzwang).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Once this has been done, the opposing king cannot defend his pawns passively (but you should computre whether it can counterattack).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A typical example is the theory of the endgame King+pawn vs King. The result of any position with this material can easily be determined using the key squares, as explained in: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/9239/9082&quot;&gt;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/9239/9082&lt;/a&gt;  . &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your example is about opposition, and thinking in the terms of key squares doesn't seem to really clarify things here. In general, an opposition should be linked to a certain &quot;axis&quot;, and here the plan is to use the 7th row. Here is what happens if White tries to use the opposition with the 6th row as an axis:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/5k2/1K4p1/5p1p/5P1P/6P1/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Kb7! Ke6 2. Kc6! Ke7 3. Kd5? Kd7 4.Ke5 Ke7 {and Black holds the opposition, while the white king has not reached the key squares. Draw}&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The correct plan is this one:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/5k2/1K4p1/5p1p/5P1P/6P1/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Kb7! Ke6 2. Kc6!  Ke7 3. Kc7!? Ke6 4. Kd8 Kd5 {The tentative of a counter-attack comes too late} 5. Ke7 Ke4 6. Kf6 Kf3 7. Kxg6 Kg4 8. Kf6 Kxg3 9.Kg5 {White wins}&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can find similar examples the book of Mark Dvoretsky &quot;Endgame Manual&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9082" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2016-05-14T13:31:54.030" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14371" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14374" CreationDate="2016-05-14T20:41:59.650" Score="1" ViewCount="2001" Body="&lt;p&gt;After 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 h6 4. d4:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 h6 4. d4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the best answer to avoid pile up of opponent pieces in the center as black? Especially after Nc3 and 0-0, this position sometimes gets awkward as it's difficult for the black queen to find a suitable square that both defends the king and attacks the opponent. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10290" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-07-31T06:03:16.423" LastActivityDate="2020-06-02T05:58:08.747" Title="Best reply against the Italian Game after 3...h6 4. d4?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;1.e4&gt;&lt;italian-game&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="8" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="14372" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-05-14T22:56:36.937" Score="8" ViewCount="300" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/MeTMU.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/MeTMU.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This endgame can come out of the scotch gamibt, albeit there are better lines for a black player that desires a draw. However, I was wondering out of curiosity if this is good for white or black. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3872" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2016-05-14T23:36:34.463" LastActivityDate="2020-05-01T14:37:50.870" Title="Who is better in this endgame?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;pawn-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14373" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14372" CreationDate="2016-05-14T23:48:10.760" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Komodo 9.3 evaluates the position after 1.Kd5 (after searching to 31 ply) as +2.32 for White. Playing out a few lines, White usually ended up with Q+2P vs Q+P. It's not necessarily winning (Q+P endings have lots of resources for the defender due to all the checks) but I am comfortable asserting that the position is more pleasant for White.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For what it's worth, the position has occurred 6 times in my database, with 4 White wins and 2 draws. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2016-05-14T23:48:10.760" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14374" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14371" CreationDate="2016-05-15T02:49:59.190" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;3...h6 is not a mistake, but it's certainly not the best move in the position.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the opening, one of your goals is to develop your pieces, and ...h6 doesn't do this. The only point of ...h6 seems to be to avoid the line 3...Nf6 4.Ng5, but this line is not dangerous to black at all. Play can continue 4...d5 5.exd5 Na5, and black will have good compensation for his pawn in this well known line.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason you may experience difficulties as black after 3...h6 is because you don't achieve any activity with h6, and you let white take control over the center with 4.d4. This is a Scotch Game / Scotch Gambit where white has the useful move Bc4, while black has the much less useful h6. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus, you should not play 3...h6 as black, but instead either 3...Nf6 or 3...Bc5 as black, which take control of the center and activate your pieces. These openings, the 2 knights (Nf6) and Giucco (Bc5) are very solid openings for black. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, even though a GM used to experiment with this line, it doesn't mean you should play it. Hikaru has played an early 3.Qh5 before in open games (1.e4 e5), but that doesn't make the move good. If black responds properly, white will have no chance to secure an opening advantage. While Hikaru can outplay many GMs even in worse positions, for non-master players, there's no reason to play a sub-optimal opening that has no surprise value (unlike 1.b4 or 1.g4, which can catch opponents off-guard). Thus, one of 3...Bc5 or 3...Nf6 is what you should do. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*If you are set on playing 3...h6, then you will have to accept a slightly worse position as black. He has wasted time with h6, and gives white an opening edge. An awkward queen might be one of these problems. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10283" LastActivityDate="2016-05-15T02:49:59.190" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14376" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-05-15T10:47:44.017" Score="2" ViewCount="203" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is it normal to no longer want to play chess? Or lose interest is probably a better way to put it. Is it temporary?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10294" LastActivityDate="2016-05-15T14:18:18.513" Title="No longer feel like playing chess?" Tags="&lt;psychology&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2016-05-15T17:49:38.507" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14377" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14376" CreationDate="2016-05-15T14:18:18.513" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sure, that's normal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can you identify why you lost interest? Are you losing too much or not showing improvement? re-evaluate your studies. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are winning too much (boredom), find better opposition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“A bad day of Chess is better than any good day at work” - Anonymous&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10233" LastActivityDate="2016-05-15T14:18:18.513" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14378" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14350" CreationDate="2016-05-15T21:47:30.783" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;In &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cbsnews.com/news/from-the-archives-bobby-fischer-in-1972/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;a 1972 interview with Bobby Fischer&lt;/a&gt; the following famous exchange took place:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;WALLACE: Winning for winning's sake is important, but do you like to&#xA;  beat another man? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;FISCHER: Yes, I like to beat another man. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;WALLACE: You smile about it. Do you like to crush another man's ego? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;FISCHER: Uh-huh, so when they go home that night, they can't kid&#xA;  themselves that they're so hot.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think a watered down version of that mentality drives many chess players. It generates a lot of stress which can make you feel really good when you win, really bad when you lose but more importantly it disturbs the calm thinking you need to find the best move and win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is a very Western way of thinking and behaving. A more Eastern approach where you enter something like a Zen state, calmly looking for the &quot;truth&quot; in the position, searching objectively for the best moves for you and your opponent, is likely to produce better results by reducing the errors that arise from over-strong emotions and reduce the stress levels.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course that stress high may be what some players play the game for. Bungee jumping levels of adrenaline without leaving your seat.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You will often see very strong players sit and think for several minutes before making their first move. Of course it could just be that they are trying to remember their opening computer preparation. I prefer to think that they feel they haven't arrived at the board in the optimum calm state of mind and are composing themselves, trying to enter the necessary Zen state :-)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2016-11-22T14:41:07.677" LastActivityDate="2016-11-22T14:41:07.677" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14379" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-05-16T09:08:10.007" Score="12" ViewCount="1935" Body="&lt;p&gt;This has been really frustrating for me since I don't get it. When I go through my games I spot errors and simply find better moves but then that's it. I just don't understand how this improves your game, all I did was find mistakes and correct them in a game I've already played. People keep telling me this is the best way to improve but I can't seem to get &quot;it&quot;. If anything I suppose going through your games can show you where you might be lacking but wouldn't simply just continue learning and training in all areas of chess be a far more efficient way to improve instead of wasting time analyzing? I would appreciate examples of how analysis helped you become a better player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10300" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2016-05-16T12:15:16.173" LastActivityDate="2016-09-14T18:29:29.420" Title="How does analyzing help me improve?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14380" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14379" CreationDate="2016-05-16T10:00:36.187" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;First of all you have to distinguish which kind of error you made.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Opening error: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should definitely study opening theory to avoid opening traps or get bad positions right out of the opening. On the other side when an opponent plays an unusual/bad move, you need to know how to respond and punish this move to get a better position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Middlegame error:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Have you overseen some tactical possibilities for you as attacker/defender?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-&gt; Try to solve tactical puzzles to get familiar with certain positions. This will also help you to spot tactics more easily the next time they occur.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Have you had the wrong plan?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-&gt; Study positional topics like pawn formations, weak/strong points, etc. in a position and you will find the right plan straightaway.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Endgame error:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you have no clue how to play certain theoretical endgames you will easily take a wrong step and lose drawish positions or draw winning positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-&gt; Take a good endgame book to study some basics.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also learning from mistakes you make, means you should not make the same mistake again. Thats especially true for opening errors and endgame errors in easy theoretical endgames.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10182" LastActivityDate="2016-05-16T10:00:36.187" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14382" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14379" CreationDate="2016-05-16T10:32:22.877" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In a way your question seems to be about learning skills in a very general sense, not limited to chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You have to find a way to generalise at least a bit from the improvements you find and then work on making those improvements become habits. As you say it's no good just working out &quot;oh in this exact position it would be better to take with the pawn&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example from my own experience (disclaimer: I'm a weak player and don't analyse enough!) I have found that I:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;don't see mating patterns unless they're pretty basic (eg corridor mate)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;lose too often by blundering pieces when otherwise in a winning position&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So now I practise mates and try to do an extra &quot;safety check&quot; for hanging pieces in any given position, and I'm improving.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In short you're right, the analysis of a game is just the start of a process that goes something like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Find error &gt; Identify most common errors &gt; Make a plan to address those errors in future.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this isn't too basic!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8453" LastActivityDate="2016-05-16T10:32:22.877" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14383" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14379" CreationDate="2016-05-16T14:30:20.623" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I will give an example of some of the preliminary analysis in one of my most recent tournament games below, and give a concrete example of what I could take from that analysis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Date &quot;2016&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;My opponent&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Me&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;[FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 e5 6. Ndb5 d6 7. Bg5 a6 8. Bxf6 gxf6 9. Na3 b5 10. Nd5 f5 11. Bd3 {Here I chose to include some lines illustrating what happens after 11.Bxb5. This information can be found in any reference database, however, and will not be included here} Be6 12. c3 Bg7 13. Qh5 {&quot;A very aggressive move, which really put me on the lookout for possible dangers. I knew that up until this point in the game, we had been following theory, so I was not worried that I had stepped into a trap by mistake.&quot;} f4 14. g3 {&quot;I think I did the right thing to challenge the white knight on d5 here. The idea is to let White take on f4, and then use the bishop pair to play the position. Black puts his dark squared bishop on e5 and plays on from there.&quot;} Ne7 15. Qf3 Ng6 16. Nc2 Bxd5 {&quot;A decision that had to be made before white can support his d5 knight with another light piece. A light piece on d5 is generally much better for white than a pawn on d5. I did not want to trade away my pair of bishops in the position, but even less did I want to see a white knight safely anchored on d5 for the forseeable future.&quot;} 17. exd5 O-O 18. Bf5 Qg5 19. Bd7 e4 20. Qg4 Qxd5 21. Nb4 Qc4 22. O-O-O Ne5 23. Qf5 Nxd7 {&quot;Here I thought I had seen all the way to the end of the sequence that is to come. The move is sound, but black has other ways to win in this position as well.&quot;} 24. Qxd7 Bxc3 25. bxc3 Qxc3+  26. Nc2 Rac8 27. Qg4+ Kh8 28. Qe2 f3?? {&quot;A blunder, which came very quickly from me. I thought that the game was completely over after the white queen would be forced away from e2. I completely forgot that a queen on e4 still protects c2. I should have kept my cool throughout the entire combination, so that I wouldn't have moved through the whole line on reflex. With this, black has thrown away the winning edge. Eventually the game ended in a draw.&quot;} (28... Qa1+! 29. Kd2 Rxc2+! 30. Kxc2 Rc8+ {&quot;wins on the spot.&quot;}) &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a preliminary analysis made of the game, without the use of anything else than a reference database in the opening. Note how few variations I have included in my analysis at this stage. What is there is basically just my impressions of the game soon after the game was finished. Instead I have focused on trying to remember my thought process during the game, and write it down in words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, when doing my analysis in this fashion, what can I learn from my game and my own mistake?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this example it becomes very clear: I realized that I played too quickly in a critical stage of the game, when I thought I had seen all the way to the end. I became too excited. Thus, it will be easier for me to recognize this happening in future games, and I will have a chance to make myself slow down a bit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This particular lesson will not be available for me to read in any book. I will only be able to learn it through experience if I try to remember as accurately as possible what happened during a game where something went wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is the true reason why analysis of your own games is so good for self-improvement. Well-done analysis will reveal things about your game that you cannot find very easily elsewhere. It is important to analyze your games yourself, without the help of computers in the preliminary stages. This is to ensure that you think back on your experience during the game, without being distracted by the computer lines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Computers should be used as a final touch, when you feel like you cannot think of anything else that was noteworhty in the game, to check how sound your analysis is. Do not remove your original analysis! Keep it, and note where the computer suggests improvements. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit:&lt;/strong&gt; The reference database is used in the opening to quickly reveal opening mistakes. It is not a bad idea to include references to master games where the master played a better move than the move played in the game. It has the primary purpose of finding out how to play the opening properly, if you don't already know that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8300" LastActivityDate="2016-05-16T14:30:20.623" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14384" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-05-16T14:46:19.910" Score="5" ViewCount="777" Body="&lt;p&gt;Considering the rise of the Internet for playing games online and the increasing strength of computers / engines for evaluation of positions and finding best moves, what is the status of traditional correspondence chess? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastActivityDate="2016-05-17T18:35:59.617" Title="What is the status of correspondence chess?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;correspondence-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14385" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2016-05-16T17:20:11.920" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="1485" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2016-05-16T17:20:11.920" LastActivityDate="2016-05-16T17:20:11.920" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14386" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2016-05-16T17:20:11.920" Score="0" Body="The process of activating and coordinating your pieces in the opening of the game" OwnerUserId="1485" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2016-05-16T17:20:11.920" LastActivityDate="2016-05-16T17:20:11.920" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14387" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-05-16T17:50:22.800" Score="1" ViewCount="612" Body="&lt;p&gt;Assuming that the principles of classical chess in the opening are still valid (which thing I very much believe), may we say that &quot;from a theoretical point of view&quot; 1.e4 is the best first move for White? (Occupying the center, freeing two pieces). No other first move can do that. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastActivityDate="2016-05-17T06:25:34.410" Title="Is 1.e4 the best first move for White from a theoretical point of view?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;1.e4&gt;&lt;center&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="5" ClosedDate="2021-01-16T23:31:52.757" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14389" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14387" CreationDate="2016-05-16T21:26:00.107" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;From the standpoint of first principles, 1. e4 and 1. d4 are equally valid.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, 1. e4 establishes central control and leads to fast castling. However, 1. d4 has its own unique advantage: it leads to an even stronger position in the center because the pawn on d4 is supported by the queen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If that seems less significant than castling quickly, consider that the Berlin Defense, perhaps the line that has most frustrated 1. e4 players over the last 16 years, is only viable because of the weakness of the e4 pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3270" LastEditorUserId="3270" LastEditDate="2016-05-16T21:45:23.393" LastActivityDate="2016-05-16T21:45:23.393" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14390" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14391" CreationDate="2016-05-16T21:34:12.100" Score="2" ViewCount="717" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm interested in teaching online chess lessons to my students. &#xA;But I haven't found any software plaftorm for this purpose. Are there any one? I don't mind if it's commercial or open-source.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3591" LastEditorUserId="3591" LastEditDate="2016-05-17T05:39:42.403" LastActivityDate="2016-05-17T06:10:02.953" Title="Software for online lessons" Tags="&lt;software&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14391" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14390" CreationDate="2016-05-17T06:10:02.953" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are several ways to teach online chess for free. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;1. Skype + Chessbase&lt;/em&gt;. An old version of Chessbase Reader can be downloaded for free (just google &quot;free download Chessbase&quot;). This program will have everything you need to play, analyze, and save games, along with many other options. With this program, you can use the &quot;share screens&quot; option on skype, where you have the chessbase program open, and your student can see the board on his screen. You can then proceed with the lesson via voice call. This is all 100% free.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;2. Skype + Online Analysis Board&lt;/em&gt;. Some websites, particularly chess.com and ICC, have ways for two users to share a board, meaning that both can use the board. For example, on ICC (requires membership), you two can share a board, and make a call, and have the lesson. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These are just two ways, and the first should suffice completely. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10283" LastActivityDate="2016-05-17T06:10:02.953" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14392" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14387" CreationDate="2016-05-17T06:11:39.847" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to some GMs, d4 is the best first move.&#xA;Alekhine, commenting on a Slav in his greatest games book, claims it gives White more chances of gaining an advantage.  After taking the c pawn, Alekhine further comments that White now obtains an appreciable advantage. (Quoted by Hans Berliner.)&#xA;Hans Berliner, in his book &lt;em&gt;The System--A World Champion's Approach to Chess&lt;/em&gt;, claims, and Fischer agrees, that the advantage of the first move is the ability to attack the opponent's pawn center first.  Since both agree that the King's Gambit is dubious, that leaves the Queen's Gambit as the only sound opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many GMs have said d4 is better:  although they claim it is due to needing a deeper understanding of chess.  Anna Zatonskih states it better that you can make some minor inaccuracies and still have a good game.  In e4 games, one mistake could cost you the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9684" LastActivityDate="2016-05-17T06:11:39.847" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14393" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14387" CreationDate="2016-05-17T06:25:34.410" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;1.e4 and 1.d4, from a &quot;theoretical point of view&quot;, are most likely completely equal. When you say &quot;theory&quot;, I'm assuming you mean variations. That is, given &lt;em&gt;best play&lt;/em&gt;, both will draw. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To clarify what I'm saying: suppose you have the following position: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White: Kf5, f6; Black: Kf7. White to move. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This position is &quot;solved&quot;, which means that we can investigate every single possible variation that can result from this position. If we were to consider the moves that white has, we can say that all of them are equal: all of them lead to draws, given black's best responses. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If we somehow solved all of chess, and somehow managed to investigate all the variations, I'm guessing we would see that every single first move leads to a draw with best play. Hence, 1.d4 and 1.e4 are equal in this sense. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, when you mention &quot;classical principles&quot;, this is a little different from theory. General principles are resultant from many observations of positions. For example, &quot;develop pieces&quot; in the opening follows from the fact that development allows you more activity, and hence more ability to restrict the opponent's activity. However, a theoretical opening line (like the poisoned pawn variation of the Sicilian Najdorf) may include good moves that blantantly violate these classical principles, yet still work. There are always exceptions to general principles.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, both 1.d4 and 1.e4 are great in following the classical view of chess: occupy the center with a pawn, and open lines for quick development. A move that would follow classical chess, but would be still viable, would be 1.g3, which is more of hypermodern chess. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10283" LastActivityDate="2016-05-17T06:25:34.410" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14394" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14333" CreationDate="2016-05-17T09:00:40.830" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Famous and old&lt;/em&gt; suggest the Mate of Dilaram as an answer to me, see, e.g., &lt;a href=&quot;https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mansube&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this German Wikipedia page&lt;/a&gt;. Note that this problem is about Chatranj, an older chess variant with different movements of the pieces (making the two rook sacrifice even more spectacular because the rooks were the strongest pieces in Shatranj).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3819" LastActivityDate="2016-05-17T09:00:40.830" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14395" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14396" CreationDate="2016-05-17T09:17:52.630" Score="9" ViewCount="3461" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some of the people I play against will &lt;em&gt;never&lt;/em&gt; accept a draw offer, even in positions that are a theoretical draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know it's a draw. They know it's a draw. But they want to play until:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Draw by stalemate&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Draw by insufficient material&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Draw by threefold repitition&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Draw by the 50 move rule&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In a recent casual game (i.e. no arbiter, no clocks), my opponent forced a stupidly long draw (49 moves with no captures or pawn moves, then 1 pawn move to recent the count. Repeat until insane).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is, &lt;strong&gt;why do some players never accept a draw offer, even in dead drawn positions?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-06-11T11:55:57.610" LastActivityDate="2020-03-23T18:01:36.897" Title="Why do some players never accept a draw offer?" Tags="&lt;draw&gt;&lt;etiquette&gt;" AnswerCount="8" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14396" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14395" CreationDate="2016-05-17T09:38:44.867" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm going to assume here you're playing against people you don't know very well in a park somewhere.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While you both know it's a draw, he's assuming that you don't know how to play it out or that you'll lose your patience and make a blunder. After you both have played against each other some time, you'll both know what you can and can't win against each other and he will offer draws out of his own initiative. Unless, of course, your opponent is very stubborn then you just have to put up with it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10230" LastActivityDate="2016-05-17T09:38:44.867" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14397" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14395" CreationDate="2016-05-17T11:20:05.613" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some people just have the psychology that they will not offer or accept a draw. Period.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A couple of months ago I was watching a game between a 2300 and a young (12 year old) 2050. I know the 2300. He doesn't accept draws. It's not a question of grading. Earlier he had a draw if he wanted against a GM. He played on and lost. In this game they reached a position where the 2300 had a perpetual check if he wanted. They both had about 1 minute on the clocks with 30 second increment. The 2300 didn't want the draw. He played another move instead. Now the 2050 had a perpetual. He started to play it. The 2300 deviated. Sharp intake of breath from the watching crowd. Two moves later he lost his queen and the game. He knows the 2050 player. He is not going to change. That's just the way he is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2016-05-17T11:20:05.613" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14399" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-05-17T12:48:44.527" Score="6" ViewCount="123" Body="&lt;p&gt;For some reason I feel uncomfortable in positions where the opponent has not committed any of his pawns in the center and was wondering why is that? I guess it feels like I'm not sure how to carry on in positions such as those. Here is an example of what I'm talking about.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq -&quot;]&#xA;1.g3 e5 Bg2 d5 Nf3 e4 Nd4 c5 Nb3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also tend to be very concerned about pawn breaks and my opponent using flank pawns or something else to attacking my center. Is this fear a valid one? Such as if lets say as a continuation from the previous example&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq -&quot;]&#xA;1.g3 e5 Bg2 d5 Nf3 e4 Nd4 c5 Nb3 Nf6 d3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Something like d3 in those situations really bother me for some strange reason. Like I want to keep my pawns intact and so on. I have a feeling that paranoia such as that may have an impact on my thought process and then game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10307" LastEditorUserId="550" LastEditDate="2016-05-17T18:34:56.893" LastActivityDate="2016-05-18T11:46:27.730" Title="Dealing with flexible opening positions" Tags="&lt;pawns&gt;&lt;psychology&gt;&lt;center&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14400" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14384" CreationDate="2016-05-17T13:49:37.557" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Correspondence chess is still alive and well. Just as in the pre-engine days it is the branch of chess which comes closest to chess &quot;truth&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Before the internet and strong chess engines correspondence players had days rather than minutes and seconds to consider their moves. They could use books with openings and analysis by the best players in the world. This extra help allowed the best correspondence players to play chess at a higher level than even the top over the board players who had to play all their moves in 5 or 6 hours.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nowadays strong engines substitute for the earlier forms of help but the result is pretty much the same. The best correspondence players play the best chess, better even than the engines unaided.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that top chess players, like Boris Gelfand for instance, are quite scathing about the capabilities of engines in many positions. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is also something I've seen at first hand in some of my games. A couple of times recently I've reached an endgame I thought was going to be winning only to find that there was no way to do it. Later, looking at the game with an engine it gave me +1 or +2 but couldn't give me a winning line.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Engines are useful for avoiding blunders and checking lines but when an engine gives a position a good plus score you should always check it with &quot;the human eye&quot; before you use it in your preparation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course now with email it is possible to play correspondence chess much cheaper and easier than in the old days. There is also much less chance of moves getting lost in the post.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2016-05-17T13:49:37.557" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14401" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14395" CreationDate="2016-05-17T15:37:02.867" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It might be something players who know each other very well might do when they're playing casually, but I can't understand the reasoning of a player who just refuses to accept a clear draw.&#xA;My mother taught me to play when I was very young, and I played a lot against her and not much against anyone else. I don't think we had very many draws, but we never ever resigned; we always played it out to the bitter end, even in positions where it might be considered rude not to resign. This wasn't something we really talked about, but it probably helped me a lot with developing my endgame play, and with identifying mating patterns. Against anyone else, I would resign if the position warranted it, and accept a draw if one was justified, but against Mum, I guess I felt like we both learnt more from finishing the game than from just ending it with an agreed draw or resignation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10308" LastActivityDate="2016-05-17T15:37:02.867" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14402" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14296" CreationDate="2016-05-17T17:30:20.730" Score="4" Body="&lt;h2&gt;A line without 6. Nxf6+&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;  1. e4             e6            &#xA;  2. d4             d5            &#xA;  3. Nd2            dxe4          &#xA;  4. Nxe4           Nd7           &#xA;  5. Nf3            Ngf6          &#xA;  6. Bd3 {This keeps pieces on the board as requested, but Black can always gain a tempo with 6... Nxe4 7. Bxe4 Nf6}           Be7 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My evaluation of this position is &lt;em&gt;dynamic equality&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White's plan is to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Castle kingside&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Solidify with c3. The space gainer c4 is often not as useful in the variation, as ...Nb6 can put some pressure on the pawn&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Utilise the queenside pawn majority to create a passed pawn&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black's plan is to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Castle kingside&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Engineer the liberating ...c5 break&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Gain a tempo with ...Nxe4&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source of variation: Ubisoft's Chessmaster opening book&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;A line with 6. Nxf6+&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;  1. e4             e6            &#xA;  2. d4             d5            &#xA;  3. Nd2            dxe4          &#xA;  4. Nxe4           Nd7           &#xA;  5. Nf3            Ngf6          &#xA;  6. Nxf6+          Nxf6          &#xA;  7. Bd3            c5            &#xA;  8. dxc5 {It seems a little odd to help Black develop, but there is no good waiting move}           Bxc5 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Again the evaluation of this position is &lt;em&gt;dynamic equality&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White's plan is to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Castle kingside&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Utilise the queenside pawn majority to create a passed pawn&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black's plan is to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Castle kingside&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Fianchetto the light square bishop and seek piece play&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTuxpwD8VnA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Dereque Kelly's YouTube video&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastEditorDisplayName="user1108" LastEditDate="2016-05-18T06:50:17.753" LastActivityDate="2016-05-18T06:50:17.753" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14404" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14399" CreationDate="2016-05-17T18:25:08.067" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;My guess is to learn how to play those positions from the side with the big pawn center. Examine games in such openings and see the ideas that both sides try to follow. A great book might be Pawn Structure Chess by Soltis. Develop an understanding of what the typical plans are against such a pawn center and understand how to react to those plans and what plan(s) you should be considering yourself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10233" LastActivityDate="2016-05-17T18:25:08.067" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14405" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14399" CreationDate="2016-05-17T18:34:03.827" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a general principle, when my opponent is breaking (in a loose sense) the opening principles by not occupying the center, &lt;strong&gt;I try to combat this by following the principles even more&lt;/strong&gt;. As a result, I would try to avoid making multiple pawn moves and instead try to get my pieces out once establishing e5 and d5. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, in your line I would play something like &lt;code&gt;1. g3 e5 2. Bg2 d5 3. Nf3 Nc6&lt;/code&gt;, defending the pawn and getting started on your own development. It's worth noting that while &lt;code&gt;3...e4&lt;/code&gt; looks good because it seems to gain a tempo on the knight it also cost you a move to make, allows your opponent's bishop to be opened up (the pawns probably won't last long as they are) and you're committed to d5/e4 instead of retaining the flexibility of being able to make either pawn move in response to what your opponent is doing. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I guess you could argue that &lt;code&gt;3...Bd6&lt;/code&gt; is also an option as it allows c5 soon, but it also removes a defender of d5 and goes against the advice of developing knights before bishops. Nc6 looks good to me and I'd just keep moving pieces to useful squares and see what kind of setup white ends up going with before making too many more pawn moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="550" LastEditorDisplayName="user1108" LastEditDate="2016-05-18T11:46:27.730" LastActivityDate="2016-05-18T11:46:27.730" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14406" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14384" CreationDate="2016-05-17T18:35:59.617" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I play Correspondence chess, via email. It's cheaper, a bit faster, and Chessbase makes it easier by doing ALL the bookeeping.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;FYI: evals by comps in endgames are horrendously inaccurate and usually overblown, and, this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Before the internet and strong chess engines correspondence players had days &amp;gt;rather than minutes and seconds to consider their moves. They could use books &amp;gt;with openings and analysis by the best players in the world. This extra help &amp;gt;allowed the best correspondence players to play chess at a higher level than &amp;gt;even the top over the board players who had to play all their moves in 5 or 6 &amp;gt;hours.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Nowadays strong engines substitute for the earlier forms of help...&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;This is patently cheating.&lt;/strong&gt; You should NEVER use an engine to eval any position while still playing your Corr. game. Use it for post-mortem only. Correspondence chess is &amp;quot;research&amp;quot; chess, where you can research your move over several days via home self-analysis, books, documents, etc. But using a computer engine for eval is illegal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10233" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2016-05-17T18:35:59.617" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14407" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14342" CreationDate="2016-05-17T23:05:30.177" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;Grandmaster Igor Glek wrote a survey about &lt;code&gt;1. e4 e5 2. f4&lt;/code&gt; in &lt;em&gt;Secrets of Opening Surprises&lt;/em&gt;, volume 8 (2008).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some quotes:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With &lt;code&gt;2. f4&lt;/code&gt; we return to the nineteenth century, when modern chess understanding made its first steps. The basic idea is clear I suppose - after &lt;code&gt;2... d5&lt;/code&gt;to play &lt;code&gt;3. e5!&lt;/code&gt; - gaining some space in the centre. So in principle we see the same ideas as in the popular Advance Variation (&lt;code&gt;2. d4 d5 3. e5&lt;/code&gt;), but White doesn't permit Black to create immediate counterplay against pawn &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My opponents usually played in the same way as they would against &lt;code&gt;2. d4 d5 3. e5&lt;/code&gt; line - &lt;code&gt;... c7-c5&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;... Nb8-c6&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;... Ng8-e7(h6)-f5&lt;/code&gt;. My reaction was &lt;code&gt;Nb1-a3-c2&lt;/code&gt;and then not &lt;code&gt;d2-d4&lt;/code&gt; immediately, but first &lt;code&gt;Bf1-d3&lt;/code&gt;. Interestingly, we can already see this manoeuvre in McDonnell's and Labourdonnais' games!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's exactly the plan Nakamura followed in the game mentioned in the comments.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Event &amp;quot;US Championship&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Site &amp;quot;Saint Louis USA&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Date &amp;quot;2012.05.19&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Round &amp;quot;11&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Result &amp;quot;1-0&amp;quot;]&#xA;[White &amp;quot;Hikaru Nakamura&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Black &amp;quot;Yasser Seirawan&amp;quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &amp;quot;59&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e6 2.f4 d5 3.e5 c5 4.Nf3 Nc6 5.c3 Nge7 6.Na3 Nf5 7.Nc2 h5&#xA;8.Bd3 g6 9.O-O Be7 10.Bxf5 gxf5 11.d4 h4 12.dxc5 Bxc5+ 13.Be3&#xA;Be7 14.h3 b6 15.Qe2 Nb8 16.Rfd1 Ba6 17.Qe1 Nd7 18.b4 Nf8 19.a4&#xA;Bc4 20.Ncd4 Qd7 21.b5 Ng6 22.Nc6 Kf8 23.Nd2 Bd3 24.c4 Kg7&#xA;25.cxd5 exd5 26.Nb1 Bc4 27.Qc3 Qe6 28.Nd2 Rhc8 29.Nd4 Qd7&#xA;30.e6 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the answer is: There's nothing wrong with &lt;code&gt;2. f4&lt;/code&gt; against the French Defense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1485" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2016-05-17T23:05:30.177" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14408" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14296" CreationDate="2016-05-18T00:35:58.800" Score="7" Body="&lt;h2&gt;INTRODUCTION:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You did not have to award a bounty, all you had to do is ask me to expand on my comment. I would have posted this answer. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To be honest, I thought that you found the line and solved your problem...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;CONCRETE LINES:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pay attention to the comments that go along with moves. You will see comments inside the textbox. Textbox is placed just below the PGN viewer (below the chess diagram ).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Kasparov's c3&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 dxe4 4.Nxe4 Nd7 5.Nf3 Ngf6 6.Nxf6+ Nxf6 7.c3 {White has aggressive ideas in mind, in view of Qa4, and if Black plays …c7-c5, White can try to pose some concrete problems with moves like Ne5, Bb5, Qa4 as well as 0-0-0} c5 {If Black wants to fully equalize, he has to play this move} (7...Be7 {White can press here for an advantage} 8.Bd3 O-O 9.Qe2 b6 10.Bf4! Bb7 11.O-O-O) 8.Ne5 a6 {Black must play this} 9.Be3 Qc7 10.Qa4+ Nd7 11.Bb5 {Most critical continuation} (11.O-O-O {Black is fine here} cxd4 12.Nxd7 Bxd7 13.Qxd4 Bc6! {Black’s bishop is actively placed on c6 and he is ready to follow up with …Rd8}) cxd4 12.Bxd7+ Bxd7 13.Qxd4 {Now the idea to attack d7 one more time with 0-0-0 is a little awkward, so Black has to do something about this.} f6 (13...Bb5 14.a4 Bd6 15.Nxf7 Kxf7 16.axb5 axb5 {Black has to play precisely and still suffers in the resulting endgame positions. Rubinstein expert Georg Meier prefers this line, but I have more faith in f6, that is why I chose it as a main move for Black}) 14.Nxd7 Qxd7 15.Qxd7+ Kxd7 16.O-O-O Kc7! {Black has difficult position but has also great chances to equalize}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;SUMMARY:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The move &lt;code&gt;7.c3 after 5.Nf3 Ngf6 6.Nxf6+ Nxf6&lt;/code&gt; was popularized by Gary Kasparov, and is in fact one of the most critical tests of the Rubinstein Defense! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White clears the way to &lt;code&gt;a4&lt;/code&gt; for his queen, possibly followed by queenside castling and other aggressive moves such as &lt;code&gt;Ne5&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;Bb5&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the critical line &lt;code&gt;7…c5! 8.Ne5 a6 9.Be3 Qc7 10.Qa4+ Nd7 11.Bb5 cxd4 12.Bxd7+ Bxd7 13.Qxd4&lt;/code&gt;, Black has a difficult choice to make. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Georg Meier has favored the structurally compromising &lt;code&gt;13…Bb5 14.a4 Bd6 15.Nxf7 Kxf7 16.axb5 axb5&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;em&gt;kind of&lt;/em&gt; worked it out to a draw. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black is still suffering a bit here in practice, and that is why I prefer &lt;code&gt;13…f6 14.Nxd7 Qxd7 15.Qxd7 Kxd7&lt;/code&gt;, keeping the pawn-structure intact. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In both lines it is only White who can win, and Black has to play very precise in order to draw. From practical point of view, I believe this line is your best chance for playing for a win against Rubinstein French.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;BOOK RECOMMENDATIONS:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would get the &lt;strong&gt;French Defense The Solid Rubinstein Variation&lt;/strong&gt; by Hannes Langrock, he did an excellent work in covering this line. It will help you grasp the ideas. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You might need additional resource to cover all the lines though... I think &lt;strong&gt;ECO C&lt;/strong&gt; could be useful here...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastActivityDate="2016-05-18T00:35:58.800" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14411" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-05-18T12:09:44.567" Score="10" ViewCount="2742" Body="&lt;p&gt;I hear that a good way to improve is by playing against much stronger opponents. The problem here is that there are hardly any stronger opponents where I live and that makes it not only not as challenging but with no one to really personal help me improve. I thought of playing chess on the internet to resolve this problem but something about it just doesn't sit well with me, in other words I really dislike online chess. Maybe its the fact it doesn't feel like you are playing a real person or you're just staring at a screen instead of playing with a real board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10317" LastActivityDate="2016-05-19T00:44:21.953" Title="What to do with no stronger players around?" Tags="&lt;online&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14412" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14411" CreationDate="2016-05-18T12:15:23.007" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Have you considered correspondence chess? You might have to use the internet for it but its fairly different from online chess if you ask me. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10030" LastActivityDate="2016-05-18T12:15:23.007" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14413" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14411" CreationDate="2016-05-18T12:45:43.107" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;What type of online chess do you play? Blitz is not a good option, if you want to improve. If you want to play and improve using the internet, you should play standard time controls (at least more than 20 min/game). There are many good players on for example ICC and FICS playing slow time control chess. Try to chat with your opponents after the games, to make it more than just staring at a computer screen. Otherwise it is unfortunately hard to find strong players to play against if you live in a place without many chess players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8300" LastActivityDate="2016-05-18T12:45:43.107" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14414" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14411" CreationDate="2016-05-18T15:11:02.367" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;If there are no stronger players convenient to you, and you don't want to use the technology available to play with stronger players further away, then you must go to where the stronger players are. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Organizations exist to do just this.  For instance the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.uschess.org/content/blogsection/18/95/&quot;&gt;US Chess Federation has tournaments&lt;/a&gt; around the US throughout the year that allow players to meet and play together. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Check out the organizations that serve you and see what opportunities they offer.  Some will require extensive travel, but with time and patience you will find chess clubs and tournaments that are within driving distance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once you establish a relationship with such a club or organization, and specific players within it, you may find playing online more comfortable once you know the people you are playing against.  Sometimes the issue isn't the mechanism, but the distance and relative anonymity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3386" LastActivityDate="2016-05-18T15:11:02.367" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14415" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14411" CreationDate="2016-05-18T16:53:40.367" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you want to play with stronger players, you need to be where those players are. I see two major ways to do this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Travel to where they are. You might only be able to do this every so often, but if a major tournament comes to your city or one within a few hours, maybe make a weekend of it and go to that tournament. You're likely to hit a bigger player pool at a bigger tournament, and usually they have brackets specifically for higher level players. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Bring them to you. Other high level players in the area may be in the same boat you are: they don't go to local clubs because there aren't enough (or any) strong players to challenge them. Try making a Craigslist ad that advertises your club and make sure to put a note in there that there's players of rating X that are seeking challengers. It might even be that a slightly lower ranked player that you're not used to playing will be a refreshing change, even if not as challenging.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are other things you can do to keep your skills sharp. You can design puzzles for your club, and even post them online. Indeed you can become a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_problem#Titles&quot;&gt;titled Grandmaster&lt;/a&gt; just for making chess puzzles. You can also coach a chess team. This has the advantage of passing on your skills to a new generation of players while at the same time giving you a chance to meet potential challengers (the other coaches and enthusiasts at the event).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="598" LastActivityDate="2016-05-18T16:53:40.367" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14416" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13522" CreationDate="2016-05-18T17:48:48.037" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;We know that an optimal strategy exists since when in a game there are a finite amount of players and a finite amount of strategies for each player, one can show that a Nash equilibra exists (so you are playing your optimal response to the other player's optimal response and viceversa).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The thing is that even if we know that such strategy exists, we don't know exactly which strategy is it because of computational limitations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10321" LastActivityDate="2016-05-18T17:48:48.037" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14417" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14411" CreationDate="2016-05-18T21:19:10.157" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Online chess is probably the best answer, particularly if you don't have enough tournaments nearby (or can't afford to go to many). It can be made better than just sitting in front of a screen, though, for sure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can play it like I played correspondence chess back in the day (chess by mail): with a real board on your side.  Every move you make, make on the real board, then enter on the computer.  Every move your opponent makes on the computer, make on the real board.  That way it still has that feel.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as not having a real person sitting across: once you find some good players and play several games against them, you may find one or more are willing to do Skype/etc. games (where you play in a video call in real time, with a real board in front of you, and chat on the video call).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8878" LastActivityDate="2016-05-18T21:19:10.157" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14419" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14411" CreationDate="2016-05-19T00:44:21.953" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Teach them to become strong. This is what I did   with  my brother. And now he had became a tough competetant for me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10328" LastActivityDate="2016-05-19T00:44:21.953" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14420" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14296" CreationDate="2016-05-19T01:42:03.580" Score="2" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;r1bqkbnr/pppn1ppp/4p3/8/3PN3/6P1/PPP2P1P/R1BQKBNR b KQkq - 0 5&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;1... Ngf6 (1... Be7 2.Bg2 Ngf6 3. Nxf6 Bxf6 4. Ne2 O-O 5. O-O Rb8 6. Nc3 b5 7. Qd3)2. Nxf6+ (2...Nxf6 3. Bg2 c5 Nf3 Qb6 O-O Be7 dxc5 Bxc5 Ne5 O-O Qe2 Rd8 c3 h6 b4)Qxf6 3. Nf3 Bd6 4. Bg5 Qf5 5. Bd3 Qa5+ 6. Bd2 Qb6 7. Qe2 c5 8. Bc3 cxd4 9. Bxd4 Qa5+ 10. c3 e5 11. O-O-O O-O 12. Be3 Nf6 13. Bb1 Be7 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you can see, white has a solid plus in each line. If you are playing someone lower rated and/or want to avoid theory, this is a solid option. Although White does not have as big of an advantage, it's easy to play and the position is very comfortable (the variations are all top level games). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8672" LastActivityDate="2016-05-19T01:42:03.580" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14421" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-05-19T01:53:20.997" Score="7" ViewCount="612" Body="&lt;p&gt;Having a correct mindset has been a frustrating endeavor in my chess career. I have some questions regarding how to get into a &quot;correct mindset.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) I can never seem to play against lower rated players. I am 2350 USCF and I have a higher win rate against 2400s (around 75%) than even 2100-2200s (40-50%). It's hard not to focus on the rating during my games, and it adds a lot of stress because I'm not expected to lose.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) The last round has always been a struggle for me. A lot of the times I just collapse, especially if I need to win the last round for money or for a title. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) I've lost against lower rated players so much that tournaments become stressful. This is mainly due to the fact that if I lose to a lower rated player in round 1, I am doomed to pair down the rest of the tournament. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can probably play 500 points better if I could get rid of all this unnecessary stress. The real question is how to get rid of it. Trying to calm down is a paradox. Some of the best games I've played was when I got so absorbed by the position I forget about everything else.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I appreciate all advice. Thanks for reading this post. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8672" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-04T18:26:22.510" LastActivityDate="2020-03-04T18:29:51.610" Title="Psychology in Chess" Tags="&lt;psychology&gt;" AnswerCount="9" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="14422" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14395" CreationDate="2016-05-19T02:00:03.927" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a player who rarely accepts draws, I will try to explain why higher rated players do not take draws. For a higher rated player, even in a drawn position, the only two results are a win and a draw. Obviously, sometimes he loses, but that chance is much smaller than the chance that he wins. The higher rated player doesn't take a draw because he can usually get more from playing on. Secondly, the higher rated player knows that you will be frustrated if he grinds for the next 100 moves. Each move increases the chance you make a mistake, and eventually you get so bored of the position you make a mistake and lose the game. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note: Don't offer draws against higher rated players unless it's three move repetition or a forced draw. Almost all of the time they decline, and you give them more confidence because it tells them that they can't lose. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8672" LastActivityDate="2016-05-19T02:00:03.927" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14423" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14372" CreationDate="2016-05-19T02:12:12.970" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are many variations here which all lead to a win for white. The pawn on c4 is the only piece making a difference. After 1. Kd5 Kf5, you just push on the queenside and eventually Black has to make a concession. White also wins the pawn race after 1. Kd5 Ke3 because of the advanced pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8672" LastActivityDate="2016-05-19T02:12:12.970" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14424" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12811" CreationDate="2016-05-19T05:11:44.817" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;A few points for consideration here for Standard Chess:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Lower Right Corner is White&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;White King is placed on black square, 4th from right. This square becomes e1.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Point 2 leads to Black King being placed on white square, 4th from left. This is now e8.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now when you place the board like this, it doesn't really matter whether you treat frosted or clear glass as white.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just for records, I have seen most people treating frosted glass as WHITE. But there are people who play as white with clear glass pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It should not matter as long as you orient the board right.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10331" LastActivityDate="2016-05-19T05:11:44.817" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14425" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14421" CreationDate="2016-05-19T08:21:41.310" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have had this problem during the entire time I was playing official games. I don't know if I am entitled to answer your question, because you seem to be stronger than I was (2250 FIDE). Anyway, my way of combating this trouble has been efficient in the measure of what I deemed possible. My &quot;trick&quot; was to focus on the game, avoiding whenever possible to be distracted by the idiosyncrasies of my opponents (and mine), and try to play the &quot;correct&quot; move, being very cautious on verifying. I say the &quot;correct&quot; move, not the best move, because this would lead you into problems on time. Just try to play correct moves, as Smyslov has been said to say, I play 40 correct moves, try to do the same and we shall see. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, this does not mean you cannot take into account specific features or conditions occurring during the games. A bit of psychology is always necessary. But when you get nervous, just say to yourself, &quot;Well no psychological auto-destruction, I just play right moves and that's all.&quot; This worked partially for me. Just try. It is purely mental, you have to adopt the right attitude, neutralizing any psychological negative interference. For this, of course, there is a price: you will also have to control and eliminate positive advantages during the game. By this I mean not getting overoptimistic when obtaining an advantage - whether psychological or real. If you can do this, you can become stronger. But that's only my opinion. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Have a nice day!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10087" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-04T18:27:08.913" LastActivityDate="2020-03-04T18:27:08.913" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="14426" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14421" CreationDate="2016-05-19T08:39:06.667" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Don't think about the result. Don't think about anything. Just play chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Attributed to Josh Waitzkin in &lt;em&gt;The Psychology of Competition&lt;/em&gt; training module in Ubisoft's &lt;em&gt;Chessmaster&lt;/em&gt; program.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What does this mean to you?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Rating difference&lt;/strong&gt;: When playing against lower rated players, a friend of mine said in a post-mortem that he &lt;em&gt;deserved&lt;/em&gt; to win. But there are tremendous attacking and defensive resources in chess, implying that the result is very much uncertain at the outset. In short, a higher rated player doesn't &lt;em&gt;deserve&lt;/em&gt; anything&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Money/prizes&lt;/strong&gt;: Do you &lt;em&gt;need&lt;/em&gt; the money from the tournament? It is unlikely that you do. In this case, just see the prize as a nice bonus. It isn't yours yet, so don't think about spending it before it is handed over to you&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Reaching 2850&lt;/strong&gt;: I think this is unrealistic on your part. Carlsen is rated 2850. Dreaming about being World Champion and being the highest rated player of all time is another distracting goal. Don't think about how the game will affect your Elo.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In summary, when playing chess, just think about chess. The result is irrelevant. The rating difference is irrelevant. Try to stay in the moment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-04T18:27:28.553" LastActivityDate="2020-03-04T18:27:28.553" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="14427" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14421" CreationDate="2016-05-19T11:03:24.130" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The book &quot;Mind Gym&quot; helped my brother who's a professional gamer (online strategy games). It examines some of the ways that athletes can activate and harness their psychology to do better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One thing in particular that helped me in competitive fields is to visualize in advance yourself winning: but not just winning, how you win. Visualize in color and detail how you're ready for everything, how you will deal with each challenge how you will persevere and keep focused throughout. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you've already won once in your head, you won't be surprised that things go well and you won't sabotage yourself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Everybody has their hangups and this is purely psychological. But the psychological part is very powerful. It is actually a common problem for high performers that they'll do much worse against lower rated players/teams.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Practice more than anything can acclimate you to this. Practice against worse players. Practice against the players you want to be able to beat. Lesser quality players play markedly differently and it's possible that you've only mastered the high level kind of play and although you should have all the chess tools in house to beat them, you may be missing the right mentality and this might need some figuring out and some time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's an old saying in martial arts: &quot;The best swordsman of the land shouldn't fear the second best swordsman: He should fear the worst swordsman&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(unpredictability can be a factor)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10339" LastEditorUserId="10339" LastEditDate="2016-05-19T12:11:37.230" LastActivityDate="2016-05-19T12:11:37.230" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14428" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13522" CreationDate="2016-05-19T12:42:19.490" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;At the beginning of the 20th century, the belief that chess would be solved soon (called &quot;the draw death of chess&quot;) was popular. The world champion J.-R. Capablanca tended to believe so. The games of the match Capablanca-Alekhine (almost all in the Queen's Gambit Declined) also confirmed this belief. See, for example: &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capablanca_chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capablanca_chess&lt;/a&gt; .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The revolution of modern openings (King's Indian etc), then the revolution of artificial intelligence provided intuitive proofs that solving chess is not so simple. Indeed, today grandmaster games are often analyzed using a program and this reveals lines that the players (even the best ones) oversaw during the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This being said, an &quot;absolute computational power&quot; can indeed solve chess in the sense of the theory of computation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9082" LastActivityDate="2016-05-19T12:42:19.490" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14429" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-05-19T15:45:20.503" Score="4" ViewCount="151" Body="&lt;p&gt;I unexpectedly found myself giving a tiny simul recently.  I won all the games, but it left me wondering if there is any published advice on how to handle simuls as the single player.  (There is plenty of advice on how to try to beat the single player, but that's a different story!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10343" LastActivityDate="2016-05-19T22:13:23.943" Title="Is there published advice on giving simuls?" Tags="&lt;simultaneous&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14430" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13477" CreationDate="2016-05-19T18:00:19.653" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3CL8WWd83Q&amp;amp;list=PLRziwL2_NOku7UokUz3_obokoo_qgQK6U&amp;amp;index=12&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3CL8WWd83Q&amp;amp;list=PLRziwL2_NOku7UokUz3_obokoo_qgQK6U&amp;amp;index=12&lt;/a&gt; explains how to filter games from the database screen.&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://steamcommunity.com/app/276750/discussions/0/522730699421109355/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://steamcommunity.com/app/276750/discussions/0/522730699421109355/&lt;/a&gt; is people with the same question.  Chessbase claims that there is no manual.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I only have chessbase 10 so the interface is different.  There is a menu item under Edit, Find Position.  THe catch-all answer for every software problem, reinstall and see if that works.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Get similar people together and demand that Chessbase writes a patch to fix their product.&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.chessbase.com/pages/download&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://en.chessbase.com/pages/download&lt;/a&gt; for just the reader without fritz.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9684" LastActivityDate="2016-05-19T18:00:19.653" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14431" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14429" CreationDate="2016-05-19T22:13:23.943" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are several techniques that a lot of masters commonly use in simuls. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(1) Know the players. Lower rated players can be confused easily with unsound play/attacks, leading to quick wins. You will also know which players to watch out for and spend more time on. Kasparov was very ardent on this point, and was very upset that a 2200 player posed as a 1600 once to get into his simul.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(2) Avoid heavy tactical complications against the stronger players. Simul players use intuition heavily to find good moves quickly. This is not possible in complicated positions, where a lot of time needs to be taken to calculate many lines. This is where the simul master has the most trouble. Generally, steer the game to quieter play, or make sure to only enter complications that clearly favor you. As a corollary of (1) and (2), you should try to defeat the weaker players quickly. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(3) Offer a few early draws. In games where you might not want to play on (games that are more tactical, against stronger players, worse position, etc.) you can offer a draw to reduce the games you play, and focus on doing better on the other games. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These are a few standard tactics that many simul masters use. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10283" LastActivityDate="2016-05-19T22:13:23.943" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14432" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13522" CreationDate="2016-05-20T10:57:40.630" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Another point is that the chess game is finite but only with the 75 move rule (the game is drawn if there are no captures or pawn moves for 75 moves). Before, this the rule with draw by consecutive threefold repetition of the position, the so-called 'German Rule', allowed an infinite number of games &lt;a href=&quot;http://homepages-fb.thm.de/boergens/english/stamps/briefmarke059engl.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;as shown by Max Euwe&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7357" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2018-09-27T15:11:08.333" LastActivityDate="2018-09-27T15:11:08.333" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="14433" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14421" CreationDate="2016-05-20T22:32:22.620" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;@user3456... I think your answer suits more, although I am not in a position to conclude. Playing to win is actually riskier than playing for a draw. When I play someone with a lower rating, I tend to end up losing than win, but it gets more challenging when I play someone stronger. I go all out, and end up doing well.&#xA;.&#xA;To solve it in my own understanding, is to learn to be brutal. Show no mercy, to even a 1300. &quot;Kill them all&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10348" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-04T18:29:51.610" LastActivityDate="2020-03-04T18:29:51.610" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="14434" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14443" CreationDate="2016-05-20T22:44:14.893" Score="22" ViewCount="1826" Body="&lt;p&gt;Assume we have a standard chess set setup, but we make a slight change so that (for example) pawns can now move two squares forward on any move rather than just on their initial move. Even assuming that we can still use the established point values for the pieces (Knight=Bishop=3 Rook=5 Queen=9 or whatever system you wish to use), how would one go about finding out how much our modified pawn would be worth?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My initial thought would be to (re-)program a chess engine with the modified piece ability, change the internal values for it in several different ways, and then hold a series of engine tournaments until an approximate value can be narrowed down. This would work (as all point values are approximate and situational anyway), but point values for pieces have been around longer than computers, so there must be other methods available.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any ideas?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note: I am not actually looking for software recommendations, etc. to do this. I'm just curious what the best way of doing this would be.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="550" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-08-18T22:25:02.060" LastActivityDate="2020-08-18T22:29:44.957" Title="How to determine the value of a piece from scratch?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;pieces&gt;&lt;point-value&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="14435" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14421" CreationDate="2016-05-20T23:00:55.243" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This won't be as comprehensive as some of the other answers, but some relevant points I've noticed from my other endeavors:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1) I can never seem to play against lower rated players. I am 2350 USCF and I have a higher win-rate against 2400s (around 75%) than even 2100-2200s (40-50%). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Focusing on ratings aside (only you can say if the true issue lies there), often there is also a technical issue here as well. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;People can fall into a situation where they feel comfortable playing against opponents who play &quot;correctly&quot;, but can't deal with people who play &quot;incorrectly&quot; or in an unexpected way. For example, high-rated player in chess might defend from an attack in a relatively orthodox manner, while a less experienced player might react by creating even more chaos and throwing pieces at you to throw you off-balance. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only real suggestion I can offer to counter this is to not just spend all of your study time looking at situation where the opponent defends perfectly but also consider the unorthodox replies that might emerge.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;2) The last round has always been a struggle for me. A lot of the times I just collapse, especially if I need to win the last round for money or for a title.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This may also be due to exhaustion making it easier for you to lose concentration, and the potential outcomes providing a good distraction to draw your attention. Naturally, the way around this would be to maintain your energy levels as best you can during earlier rounds, eating/sleeping well and ensuring that you use time between rounds effectively to recharge your batteries (assuming, of course, that this is a weekend or similar short-scale tournament rather than a game-a-week affair).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This might have all been familiar to you already, but I hope it helps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="550" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-04T18:28:07.113" LastActivityDate="2020-03-04T18:28:07.113" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="14437" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14434" CreationDate="2016-05-21T16:30:43.833" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The value for pieces in terms of pawn units was originally determined by collecting experience while actually playing the game. The same can be applied to the modified game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3456" LastActivityDate="2016-05-21T16:30:43.833" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14438" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14434" CreationDate="2016-05-21T16:39:00.817" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In a different reality, I would do this by creating an pool of experts, then asking them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) Ensure an educated set of experts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hold a chess tournament (or perhaps several) with attractive first, second, and third prizes. This will entice the best players to attend. They'll play and become educated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) Have the experts tell you the value of the pawn&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As part of the tournament, on the last day perhaps, have the top X players estimate the new value of the pawn. The GM who most closely guesses the value you feel is accurate wins another cash prize. From the estimates, calculate an average (or whatever) and pay the person making the closest guess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2016-05-21T16:39:00.817" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14439" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14028" CreationDate="2016-05-21T17:46:49.323" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Generally, you should belong to a club if you wish to play titled players in simuls. The more active your club is the more likely the club is able to do, which includes paying titled players to host simuls. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other than that, you could consider hosting the event. Simply contact titled players on sites like chess.com and the ICC to see if they're interested. They'll usually charge a fee, and off you go. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes titled players host simuls at tournaments as well, so it would do you well to find out what tournaments are near you or that you can attend. If you're in the US, then both USCF and FIDE are good for finding upcoming tournaments. Outside the US and you'll want to stick to FIDE as well as other national federations to find chartered/sponsored tournaments. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10350" LastActivityDate="2016-05-21T17:46:49.323" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14441" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14434" CreationDate="2016-05-22T07:56:08.930" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;The values of the pieces derive from which piece exchanges are considered desirable and which are not.  Knowledge of desirability of piece exchanges usually comes from having played many games, but it is probably also possible to mechanically extract this knowledge from a large collection of games played by skilled players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another option is to use an evolutionary process to determine piece values.  You start with a large collection of random piece values and hold one-on-one elimination matches (or maybe tournaments is better?) to determine some best fraction (half, top ten percent) of random piece values.  Then you create a new generation of random piece values through some method of combining values from that best fraction together with small random perturbations.  Repeat until the values stabilize.  The values you get will probably depend on the specific chess engine (and time controls) you use, but I don't know how strong that effect is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once you have a reasonably good sense of where the values are, you may want to use the scientific method to answer specific questions, such as whether the value of your new pawn is more or less than half a knight.  You could have your chess engine play many games at different strengths (time controls or ply depth) and use statistical analysis to determine an answer up to a certain confidence level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You may also be interested in deriving piece values in a more analytical way; many people have thought that there must be a relation between piece mobility and piece values.  Relevant factors may include: board-average mobility, board-maximum mobility, reachable fraction of the board, triangulation ability, mating ability, and (most confoundingly) the other pieces on the board.  Nothing very general seems to have been discovered though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9531" LastActivityDate="2016-05-22T07:56:08.930" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14442" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4987" CreationDate="2016-05-22T08:34:47.233" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I really like &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%C5%8Dbutsu_sh%C5%8Dgi&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;&quot;Let's catch the lion&quot; (dobutsu shogi)&lt;/a&gt; for young kids, and  I've built a Duplo version of the game to play with my almost 5-year old daughter.  Winning seems to be a big motivator so she likes it best when I play with only my lion and remove my other pieces from the game (not in hand).  So far I have also been playing without chick to chicken promotion.  For older kids there is &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%C5%8Dbutsu_sh%C5%8Dgi#Variation&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;goro goro dobutsu shogi&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9531" LastActivityDate="2016-05-22T08:34:47.233" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14443" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14434" CreationDate="2016-05-22T10:43:44.860" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's possible to use logistic regression (a statistical method) to estimate the predictive values. This way, you wouldn't need anyone to try the game at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.sumsar.net/blog/2015/06/big-data-and-chess&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.sumsar.net/blog/2015/06/big-data-and-chess&lt;/a&gt; has the details. I personally tried the method, and it was a good start.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The method estimates the value of each piece by predicting how they relates to  the log-odd of winning. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/eNccN.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/eNccN.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/fAaSg.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/fAaSg.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2016-05-22T10:43:44.860" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14444" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14434" CreationDate="2016-05-23T10:09:19.980" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;Ralph Betza tried to do this and he wrote a series of six articles about this, starting with this one: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessvariants.com/piececlopedia.dir/ideal-and-practical-values.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chessvariants.com/piececlopedia.dir/ideal-and-practical-values.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ideas to determine the piece values include the following factors&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;average mobility (clearly the dominant factor, but hard to bring it down to numbers)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;colourboundness&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;type of movement (jump vs. ride)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;levelling effect (Scharnagl calls it &quot;elephantiasis correction&quot;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Practical experience with chess variants shows that an empirical determination through playtesting cannot be replaced completely by a determination from first principles. For instance, the compound piece formed from Bishop and Knight (known under many names, including Archbishop, Princess, Janus, Cardinal, Paladin, Equerry, and Minister) is much stronger than an &lt;em&gt;a priori&lt;/em&gt; analysis suggests.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3819" LastEditorUserId="3819" LastEditDate="2018-03-28T09:32:41.963" LastActivityDate="2018-03-28T09:32:41.963" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14445" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14349" CreationDate="2016-05-23T15:33:24.510" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you have access to a Chess Query Language tool you can use that, albeit I'm not familiar with it. SCID is free and more easily available : &lt;a href=&quot;http://scid.sourceforge.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://scid.sourceforge.net/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1)Open your pgn file &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2)Search header rating differences white - black = 200 - 40000&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10230" LastActivityDate="2016-05-23T15:33:24.510" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14446" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2909" CreationDate="2016-05-24T11:04:49.020" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_%28chess%29#History&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;The queen used to be a ferz, a variant of the word vizier (and curiously close to its meaning of advisor), which could only step one square diagonally.&lt;/a&gt; So originally the piece that became the queen was less powerful than the king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9531" LastActivityDate="2016-05-24T11:04:49.020" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14447" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1567" CreationDate="2016-05-24T11:15:45.253" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's an old example that I forget when and where it happened, but a man wrote very clearly each move he made before he made it. Of course this took some extra time, but an opponent was sure to notice it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At some point when he was in not such a good position, he wrote down three moves ahead, the sign for losing the game for himself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That particular opponent interpreted this as a concession coming, but curious to play three more moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After those three moves, he simply crossed out the concession and continued playing and his opponent, in euphoria, had lost significant position in those turns and ended up with a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He was kind enough to say that this wasn't intentional on his opponent's part, but I'm not so sure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Though... these kind of psychological tricks can be as much as a distraction as they can have an effect. Kinda like astrology sometimes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10339" LastActivityDate="2016-05-24T11:15:45.253" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14448" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1567" CreationDate="2016-05-24T16:16:08.583" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The only ethical psychological &quot;tactics&quot; in my opinion are &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;getting opponent out of &quot;book&quot; by playing &quot;unusual&quot; moves,&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;playing &quot;trappy&quot; openings if you want to risk opponent already knowing the trap (e.g. Blackburne Shilling, 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nd4 (4.Nxe5? Qg5)), and &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;if opponent is not using good time management, that is, playing either too slowly or too quickly, then shade your own time management in the opposite direction -- play just a little quicker against dragging opponents and a little more deliberately against impatient opponents.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7314" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-08-12T16:21:45.753" LastActivityDate="2019-08-12T16:21:45.753" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="14449" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14450" CreationDate="2016-05-24T20:59:50.190" Score="18" ViewCount="2886" Body="&lt;p&gt;A friend recently gave me the following weird chess problem to solve. I'm afraid that I'm struggling to see the key idea that would ultimately count as proof. From the position, intuitively speaking, it looks like White should be allowed to castle, but I'm sure to be missing something here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Prove why white is not allowed to castle in this position.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;1n2k3/p1pqppp1/1p1p1n2/3N2p1/1PB3bP/2P1PN2/1P1P1PP1/2BQK2R w K - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user10376" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-09-14T03:25:28.567" LastActivityDate="2020-09-16T01:47:01.943" Title="Prove that White is not allowed to castle here" Tags="&lt;problems&gt;&lt;castling&gt;&lt;retrograde-analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="14450" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14449" CreationDate="2016-05-24T21:13:05.657" Score="22" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is actually a rather typical retrograde problem, just start with the most basic observations:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;We see that black is missing both rooks and the &lt;code&gt;f8&lt;/code&gt; bishop. Given black's pawn structure it's easy to see that neither the &lt;code&gt;f8&lt;/code&gt; bishop nor the &lt;code&gt;a8&lt;/code&gt; rook could have escaped the structure, thus they must have been captured on the 8th row (by a white knight for example). This leaves us with the &lt;code&gt;h8&lt;/code&gt; rook, for which there's only one plausible choice left, namely having been captured on the &lt;code&gt;b4&lt;/code&gt; square by the &lt;code&gt;a3&lt;/code&gt; pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;As for white, the only missing piece is the rook, which must evidently have been captured on the &lt;code&gt;g5&lt;/code&gt; square by the &lt;code&gt;h6&lt;/code&gt; pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Now we arrive at the &lt;strong&gt;real&lt;/strong&gt; question: which rook could have logically been captured first, the one on &lt;code&gt;g5&lt;/code&gt; or the one on &lt;code&gt;b4&lt;/code&gt;? Surely if the black &lt;code&gt;h8&lt;/code&gt; rook is to be captured on &lt;code&gt;b4&lt;/code&gt;, it must first have been freed by the white rook being in turn captured on &lt;code&gt;g5&lt;/code&gt;, but that's impossible, as the &lt;code&gt;h8&lt;/code&gt; rook being taken off on &lt;code&gt;b4&lt;/code&gt; is the &lt;em&gt;very thing&lt;/em&gt; that must have freed white's &lt;code&gt;a1&lt;/code&gt; rook in the first place! Which leaves us with one remaining logical possibility: White's &lt;code&gt;h1&lt;/code&gt; rook must have been &lt;strong&gt;the one&lt;/strong&gt; coming out and subsequently captured on &lt;code&gt;g5&lt;/code&gt;, which then in turn frees black's &lt;code&gt;h8&lt;/code&gt; rook, to come out and be taken off on &lt;code&gt;b4&lt;/code&gt; by white, which finally freed the &lt;code&gt;a1&lt;/code&gt; rook.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Thus the rook you see currently on &lt;code&gt;h1&lt;/code&gt; is actually the rook coming all&#xA;the way from &lt;code&gt;a1&lt;/code&gt; (once freed), with the original &lt;code&gt;h1&lt;/code&gt; rook having been&#xA;lost on &lt;code&gt;g5&lt;/code&gt;. Given this sequence as the only possible logical sequence&#xA;leading up to the current position, white cannot castle, as for&#xA;castling to be allowed, neither the king nor the rook must have&#xA;moved.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These kinds of puzzles usually go under the category of retrograde analysis, where unlike usual chess puzzles where the intent is to find the best moves/tactics or mates, in retrograde problems it's rather often just a logical question that can be answered by considering the basic rules of the game, and trying to find the only logical sequences (not move by move though, just the necessary ideas) that could have led to the position given in the puzzle. So if you're not familiar with these kinds of problems you may indeed find it difficult to attack them at first. Retrograde problems in chess are really fun to solve, specially as soon as you get the handle of them and start solving the real difficult ones. The solving process is really similar to that of a detective solving a crime, since if you think about it, you're given some clues and trying to figure out what could and could not have happened ;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Addendum after some comments:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(&lt;em&gt;This is regarding which of the black rooks may have been taken off on &lt;code&gt;b4&lt;/code&gt;, although this fact leaves the proof unperturbed.&lt;/em&gt;) The &lt;code&gt;a8&lt;/code&gt; rook is trapped on the 8th row, as the only possible way for it to escape the 8th row would be via the h-file, which once opened (i.e white losing the &lt;code&gt;h1&lt;/code&gt; rook on &lt;code&gt;g5&lt;/code&gt;) would first let the original &lt;code&gt;h8&lt;/code&gt; rook out. Of course you can always assume the &lt;code&gt;h8&lt;/code&gt; rook and &lt;code&gt;f8&lt;/code&gt; bishop were for example first taken off by a knight, then the &lt;code&gt;a8&lt;/code&gt; rook was the one coming out to get captured on &lt;code&gt;b4&lt;/code&gt; (e.g. &lt;code&gt;Nc6&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;Qe6&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;Kd7&lt;/code&gt; to open the 8th row), but for the purpose of the puzzle it won't matter, as in either scenario white wouldn't be able to castle as the same arguments hold.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3594" LastEditorUserId="3594" LastEditDate="2020-09-16T01:47:01.943" LastActivityDate="2020-09-16T01:47:01.943" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14451" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14074" CreationDate="2016-05-24T21:40:50.087" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think you may be right, but I can't find anything to support it.&#xA;However, if the goal was originally to actually capture the opponent's king, this raises another interesting question:&#xA;What happens if the goal is to capture the king, moving into check is allowed, and you &lt;strong&gt;still&lt;/strong&gt; have no legal move?&#xA;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;   [fen &quot;3k4/8/8/8/1p1p4/pPpPp3/PRP1P3/NKN5 w - - 0 1&quot;]    &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it is White to move, this position is stalemate under modern rules, but if there's no stalemate, and Black &lt;strong&gt;has&lt;/strong&gt; to capture the white king to end the game, does White just skip a move, and then 1…axb2 2.Kxb2, cxb2#, or would they just look at material, position, whatever, and work out who should win, agree to a draw, or just end the game with no result and replay it or something?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10308" LastEditorUserId="9531" LastEditDate="2016-05-25T11:15:13.827" LastActivityDate="2016-05-25T11:15:13.827" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14452" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15764" CreationDate="2016-05-25T00:14:36.463" Score="2" ViewCount="392" Body="&lt;p&gt;I had started playing Owen's Defense. My opponent pushed the pawn one step forward.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What variation did he try, securing this pawn he may play well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;r1bqkbnr/p1pppppp/1pn5/4P3/8/8/PPPP1PPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 1 3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9229" LastEditorUserId="9229" LastEditDate="2016-11-01T19:13:29.563" LastActivityDate="2016-11-02T20:43:46.937" Title="What is the name of this variation: 1. e4 b6 2. e5?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;1.e4&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14453" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14452" CreationDate="2016-05-25T02:18:30.883" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think that this variation has a name. Variations that are infrequently played are less likely to be named. I don't have access to Megabase right now, but I can't even find a game starting with 1. e4 b6 2. e5 in online databases. You're already well away from main lines with 1... b6. 2. e5 seems weird (2. d4 would be my choice) and 2... Nc6 will impede the bishop on b7.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3270" LastActivityDate="2016-05-25T02:18:30.883" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14454" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14452" CreationDate="2016-05-25T02:25:10.103" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is no King's Gambit here, which begins with &lt;code&gt;1. e4 e5 2. f4&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This opening looks OK for getting White out of his book, but otherwise I don't know what Black has going for it. This would be a fine blitz opening for Black since it's unusual. I don't care a lot for White's &lt;code&gt;2.e5&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stockfish finds nothing remarkable after the OP's moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="8300" LastEditDate="2016-05-25T11:16:04.130" LastActivityDate="2016-05-25T11:16:04.130" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14455" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13627" CreationDate="2016-05-25T04:55:03.043" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you include a pawn that has just been promoted to a rook, then yes, it is quite possible to give check with two rooks simultaneously.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Consider the position where White has Ke1 Re6 e7 g7,  and Black has Ke8 Nf8. White moves 1. exf8(R)++ and gives check with the newly promoted rook as well as the existing rook.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Checkmate could also be given in this way if, for example, White had a queen on g7 instead of a pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10308" LastActivityDate="2016-05-25T04:55:03.043" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14456" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14449" CreationDate="2016-05-25T07:17:14.567" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;This problem is by Raymond Smullyan, and is from his &lt;em&gt;The Chess Mysteries of Sherlock Holmes&lt;/em&gt; (p.54 of the Hutchinson edition).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Phonon's analysis is mostly sound, except that we don't know which black rook White's a-pawn captured. But that doesn't matter, because, before Black's h-pawn captured a White rook, neither of Black's rooks could have reached b4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10380" LastActivityDate="2016-05-25T07:17:14.567" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14457" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13627" CreationDate="2016-05-25T07:42:01.193" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you consider Chinese chess (&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xiangqi&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Xiang Qi&lt;/a&gt;), then technically even triple check is possible.  Imgaine the enemy king, your knight or bishop, your rook and your cannon all in line in that order.  Then if the knight or bishop can move away to give check it is a triple check.  Another difference is that a double check by rook and cannon on the same line could be blocked in one move, so even though technically it is a triple check, because the cannon can leap over the rook, it seems more similar to a double check with respect to blocking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9531" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-08-03T19:09:59.290" LastActivityDate="2019-08-03T19:09:59.290" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="14458" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-05-25T10:37:09.550" Score="8" ViewCount="859" Body="&lt;p&gt;Lately, I've been experimenting as white with pushing the c pawn in the Semi-Slav Defence, but mostly in blitz games, so I would be very thankful if some of you could analyze a bit and point out if there are any major drawbacks compared to other moves, as longer games could look quite different.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot; w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. c4 Nf6 3. Nc3 e6 4. Nf3 c6 5. Bg5 Nbd7 (5... Be7 6. e3 O-O 7. c5) 6. e3 Be7 (6... h6 7. Bf4 Be7 8. c5) 7. c5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My prerequisite for playing c5 is that I managed to get bishop out to g5/f4/g3 and pushed a King's Pawn to e3, while my opponent didn't push his bishop to b4 (so it's on f8/e7/d6).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the next few moves I usually play Be2/Bd3 and O-O, and later on it depends on the opponent's response.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What usually happens afterwards is that my bishop is pushed to h2-b8 diagonal (if it wasn't already there), and if black goes for pawn-exchange on Queen's side (by e.g. (X)... b6 (Y). b4 bxc5 (Z). bxc5), I have a strong b-line due to my bishop preventing opponent's Rb8.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some other players block out Queen side pawns and try to get my black-square Bishop for a Knight, but I feel like it still leaves me stronger.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some examples of live games:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;r1bqk2r/pp1nbppp/2p1pn2/3p2B1/2PP4/2N1PN2/PP3PPP/R2QKB1R w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;7. c5 a5 8. a3 O-O 9. b4 b6 10. Be2 Ba6 11. O-O Bxe2 12. Qxe2 Re8 13. Bf4 Nh5 14. Be5 Nxe5 15. Nxe5 Nf6 16. Nxc6 Qc7 17. Nxe7+ Rxe7 18. Nb5 Qc6 19. Nd6 g6 20. Qf3 Kg7 21. Qg3 axb4 22. axb4 bxc5 23. b5 Ne4 24. Nxe4 Qc8 25. Qe5+ Kg8 26. Nf6+ 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;OK, my opponent made a clear mistake with 14... Nxe5, it seems like not playing this position very often is one of the reasons why it happens, as this was a Blitz game. But that's exactly why I'm asking, as you can't expect such mistakes that often in classic games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot; w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. c4 c6 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. Nf3 Bg4 5. Bf4 e6 6. e3 Bd6 7. Be5 O-O 8. Be2 a6 9. c5 Be7 10. O-O a5 11. a3 b6 12. b4 bxc5 13. bxc5 Nbd7 14. Bg3 Ne4 15. Nxe4 dxe4 16. Ne5 Bxe2 17. Qxe2 Nxe5 18. Bxe5 f6 19. Bg3 Qd5 20. Rab1 Rab8 21. Bxb8 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Again, the opponent made a blunder with 20... Rab8, but I think I was already in a considerably better position at that point.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot; w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. c4 c6 3. Nc3 e6 4. Nf3 h6 5. Bf4 Bd6 6. Be5 Bxe5 7. Nxe5 Nd7 8. Nxd7 Bxd7 9. c5 Nf6 10. e3 a6 11. Bd3 b6 12. b4 a5 13. a3 axb4 14. axb4 Rxa1 15. Qxa1 b5 16. O-O O-O 17. Qa7 Qa8 18. Ra1 Qxa7 19. Rxa7 Rd8 20. f3 Kf8 21. Kf2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I made a mistake later on and ended up with one pawn less, but managed to get a draw. However, at this point of the game, I'm in a clearly better position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot; w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 c6 2. c4 d5 3. Nc3 e6 4. Nf3 Nf6 5. Bg5 Be7 6. e3 O-O 7. c5 Nbd7 8. b4 Nh5 9. Bxe7 Qxe7 10. Be2 Nhf6 11. O-O e5 12. dxe5 Nxe5 13. Qd4 Nxf3+ 14. Bxf3 Be6 15. a4 a6 16. Rad1 Nd7 17. Bg4 Bxg4 18. Qxg4 Nf6 19. Qf4 Rae8 20. h3 Ne4 21. Nxe4 Qxe4 22. Rd4 Qc2 23. Rfd1 Qxa4 24. Qc7 Qb5 25. Rg4 Qe2 26. Rdd4 Rb8 27. Qe5 Qe1+ 28. Kh2 g6 29. Rh4 Qxf2 30. Qg5 Rbe8 31. Qh6 Qxg2+ 32. Kxg2 f5 33. Qxh7# 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this game, there were significant mistakes on both sides, but once again, it's Blitz so it happens.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What I want to know is, if you were black, would you be happy with me as white playing c5, and why (or why not)? I have troubles finding games with c5, so I guess there must be a reason why it isn't popular. But I know the move itself isn't that problematic (there are better moves perhaps, but a lot of popular openings are often played with suboptimal moves), so why is it so rarely played?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1099" LastEditorUserId="18368" LastEditDate="2020-01-29T19:19:36.280" LastActivityDate="2020-01-29T22:24:47.080" Title="White's c5 in Semi-Slav (or Slav) Defense" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;semi-slav&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="14459" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18813" CreationDate="2016-05-25T15:33:02.217" Score="3" ViewCount="1667" Body="&lt;p&gt;I use Fritz8SE , which allows the following options :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You can let play two engines against each other a normal game.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You can setup a position and let one engine play out the position.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What I would like to do :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Setting up a position and then let play two engines against each other, ideally with different PLY's.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does anyone know whether this is possible ? And if yes, how ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5784" LastActivityDate="2017-10-07T22:41:15.940" Title="Game engine versus engine from a given position" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;fritz&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14460" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8291" CreationDate="2016-05-25T17:37:29.237" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a trick question because the only way to mate in one is to promote the pawn to a black knight, this stops the king from taking this space. While it is now illegal this problem was designed by a chess grand master he created this problem to make it an official rule that you can only promote to the same color as the pawn. This problem was relevant at the time because you could promote to any color but there was never a situation in which doing so would benefit you. The problem is a part of chess history and is the very example that created the promotion rule.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10389" LastActivityDate="2016-05-25T17:37:29.237" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14462" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14458" CreationDate="2016-05-25T19:23:16.607" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is problem 34 from &lt;em&gt;The Reassess Your Chess Workbook: How to Master Chess Imbalances&lt;/em&gt; by IM Silman. The notes are derived from his annotations:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;White has tried many moves here: 9. e4, gaining central space, and 9. b3, preparing to fianchetto the c1-Bishop and also giving White the chance to meet ...dxc4 with bxc4, both make sense. How would you judge the aggressive 9. c5?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[StartPly &quot;16&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Nf3 d5 2. d4 Nf6 3. c4 c6 4. Nc3 e6 5. e3 Nbd7 6. Qc2 Bd6 7. Bd3 O-O 8. O-O Qe7 9. c5 Bc7 10. e4 dxe4 11. Nxe4          &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What does White achieve in the final position?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Better control over e4 and d6&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Black's freeing maneuver of b6 and c5 has been stopped&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Although d4 is a backward pawn, it cannot be attacked so easily and helps cramp Black&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For why c5 is not as popular, Silman offers:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;At one time this move would have been the object of derision; White makes a one-move threat that's easily dealt with and... takes all the pressure off the Black d5-pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In summary, c5 is played to gain space, hence cramping Black. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2016-05-25T19:23:16.607" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14463" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12873" CreationDate="2016-05-25T19:34:28.707" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The only escape sqare that isn't currently covered by White is f8.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;1. Ng6 is the only move which gives check, while also defending f8, without also opening up another escape square.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;1. Qc5 comes close, but it allows 1… Kd8. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10308" LastActivityDate="2016-05-25T19:34:28.707" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14464" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13421" CreationDate="2016-05-25T21:34:20.720" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://pdb.dieschwalbe.de/search.jsp?expression=a=&amp;#39;Marquez%20de%20Burgos&amp;#39;%20and%20stip=&amp;#39;%234&amp;#39;&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;PDB&lt;/a&gt; attributes it to Francisco Javier Marquez de Burgos, and cites it as El Museo Universal, 17 Mar 1867, p.88, no. 74.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In his blog Open chess Diary, Tim Krabbé quoted this problem in his entry &quot;The Ponziani Mate&quot;, which may be found on &lt;a href=&quot;http://timkr.home.xs4all.nl/chess2/diary18txt.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this web page&lt;/a&gt;. (Unfortunately, the individual blog entries do not have individual URLs.) He quotes a problem by Ponziani, published in 1769, which shows a similar idea, though in a heavier setting, and without the initial rook-sacrifice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10380" LastActivityDate="2016-05-25T21:34:20.720" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14465" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12256" CreationDate="2016-05-25T22:51:19.097" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've definitely heard of this, where an engine evaluated a position as winning right up until 49½ moves without a pawn move or capture, where the very next ply &lt;em&gt;had&lt;/em&gt; to draw the game, and only then, evaluating the position as drawn. I don't remember the actual example that was given though. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10308" LastActivityDate="2016-05-25T22:51:19.097" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14466" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-05-26T03:00:14.640" Score="-2" ViewCount="1796" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't know the veracity of &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessdom.com/16-players-proceeded-to-foa-world-juniors-blitz-championship-final/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this link&lt;/a&gt;, but it says the wunderkind Ilya Makoveev is disqualified for cheating. I could also see &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/4jmet4/ilya_makoveev_chess_in_the_21st_century_gm_ben/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; as well. Is it true? What happened actually?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4618" LastActivityDate="2016-06-27T08:34:48.953" Title="Was Ilya Makoveev cheating?" Tags="&lt;cheating&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14467" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14468" CreationDate="2016-05-26T06:02:43.797" Score="5" ViewCount="787" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a very bad Sicilian player and I am easily played out of book in the Sicilian defense. I need a line that would prevent my opponents fom going into the Sicilian defense. I have tried c4, but sometimes it transposes into a Sicilian with the Maroczy bind. I know d4 is good, but are there any other suggestions I could play?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10397" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-05-26T08:49:12.520" LastActivityDate="2020-10-30T03:27:56.063" Title="Suggest a line for a player who does not want to be dragged into the Sicilian" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14468" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14467" CreationDate="2016-05-26T06:53:01.103" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You could transpose to the &lt;strong&gt;Botvinnik English System&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. c4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because it is a system opening, you usually put your pieces on the same squares regardless of what Black does. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. c4 Nc6 3. Nc3 g6 4. g3 Bg7 5. Bg2 Nf6 6. Nge2 O-O 7. O-O d6 8. d3 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The usual piece placements are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Fianchettoed kingside castle&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Knights on c3 and e2&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Queen on d2 and bishop on e3&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A rook off the a1-h8 diagonal, e.g. on b1&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Evaluating this opening we see that:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It's a system opening, so it is easy to learn. But it doesn't give the best chances to win&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The &lt;em&gt;Botvinnik Triangle&lt;/em&gt;, pawns on c4, d3 and e4, allow White to play on any sector of the board. For example: breaking with d4, attacking with f4 or gaining space with b4&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;White has a hole on d4, which might be quite tender&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See also the YouTube video &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TjEd-2J5e0Y&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chess Opening for White: Botvinnik-English System against the Sicilian Defence&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2016-05-26T06:53:01.103" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14469" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14467" CreationDate="2016-05-26T08:48:08.437" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The main problem (at least on amateur level) of White in the Open Sicilian (i.e. 2. Nf3 and 3. d4) is indeed that you need to know a lot of systems/lines that Black can throw at you (see also &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/1988/7297&quot;&gt;this answer&lt;/a&gt; which recommends the Grand Prix attack with 2. Nc3 and 3. f4 (or the other way around)).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On my former club, 2. c3, the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sicilian_Defence,_Alapin_Variation&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Alapin variation&lt;/a&gt; was quite popular. Black has a few options, but they all lead to positions which do not resemble the Sicilian main lines they are familiar with. The main options are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2... d5 will usually lead into position where White has an &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isolated_pawn#Isolated_queen_pawn&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;IQP&lt;/a&gt;, with the corresponding development and space advantage. Black can of course hold on but it is rather hard for him/her to play for a win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2... Nf6 3. e5 Nd5 is the other main line, where White builds a pawn center. It reminds a bit of the Alekhine Defense. This line sometimes transposes into the Morra-Smith gambit after a later d4 by White.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.193" LastActivityDate="2016-05-26T08:57:04.357" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14470" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14467" CreationDate="2016-05-26T09:10:21.037" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would be tempted to say : don't enter the sicilian, don't play e4, but as you mentioned yourself sicilian positions can occur in other openings. So, there is no way out: you will have to master several positions transposing into sicilian territory (partially or totally), would it be only for your own sake and progress in chess. What you can do is playing different style positions. The sicilian has a wide scope of possibilities (closed, b3 and so on). Anyway, avoiding open sicilian will impede your progress (tactically, positionally and strategically). What you should do is, if you still want to avoid open sicilians, learn to pay less studied and theoretically analysed positions, possibly avoiding potential (but not sure) immediate defeats. Bad Bishop's proposal is interesting but entails you do not play e4 at the first move. Furthermore, with black you could anyway have to face a reversed sicilian. Sicilian structures are fairly universal in normal or reversed order. You cannot avoid them all, you can just choose less studied options and as a consequence avoid learning certain types of positions and so impede yourself getting a view of chess as a whole, whether tactically, positionally and strategically. You must understand that not practising certain types of major positional complexes will handicap your understanding of other types of position you like.&#xA;Have a nice day!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10087" LastActivityDate="2016-05-26T09:10:21.037" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14471" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-05-26T12:30:52.790" Score="4" ViewCount="1248" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[StartPly &quot;12&quot;]&#xA;[Title &quot;What is wrong with 6..e5?&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.Bc4 e5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please do not reply that it weakens the d5 square and allows the white bishop to attack f7. I am an expert player with lots of experience with the Open Sicilian from both sides in many variations. In view of the systems where Black plays e7-e5 even allowing the doubling of pawns after bishop takes knight on f6 it is not at all evident that this move is bad.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a related question about 6..e5 after 6.Bg5 without satisfactory answer for two years: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/4642/why-does-6-bg5-prevent-6-e5-in-the-sicilian-najdorf&quot;&gt;Why does 6.Bg5 prevent 6...e5 in the Sicilian Najdorf?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The 2013 book on the Najdorf Sicilian by Zaven Andiasyan is a Black repertoire book which replies e7-e5 to anything except 6.Bg5 and Bc4 without a single line of explanation why not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3456" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.193" LastActivityDate="2016-06-10T04:41:41.090" Title="Why does 6.Bc4 prevent 6...e5 in the Sicilian Najdorf?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;&lt;najdorf&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14472" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14474" CreationDate="2016-05-26T12:56:07.593" Score="3" ViewCount="224" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[StartPly &quot;18&quot;]&#xA;[Title &quot;What is wrong with taking the pawn here?&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.Bc4 e6 7.Bb3 b5 8.O-O b4 9.Na4 Nxe4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have known this position for 25 years, having played it in blitz from both sides. I have looked into some books but the answers are too shallow. Looks to me like a gaping hole in opening theory. Is there an authoritative resource dealing with this line?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3456" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-05-26T13:28:09.707" LastActivityDate="2016-05-26T13:30:40.917" Title="What is wrong with taking the e4 pawn in the Najdorf Sicilian after 6.Bc4?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;&lt;najdorf&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14473" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-05-26T13:25:49.520" Score="2" ViewCount="1236" Body="&lt;p&gt;I ask about the exact rules for the chess variant known as pawn wars. The starting position contains only pawns which move exactly like in chess and the first to promote wins.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;[Title &quot;The first to promote wins&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But it should also be stated how to evaluate the end result when the side to move has no legal moves left. Is it lost or stalemated? I have been thinking about this game for years as a study tool for beginners but also as a philosophical research project into the game of chess for advanced players. I have found it recommended on several websites by kid educators.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would like to write an engine to play this game but I cannot make up my mind on the best statement of the rules to maximize its practical relationship to chess. Are there any guidelines by experienced educators or existing environments to play this game? Any ideas how and why to fix the rules?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3456" LastActivityDate="2020-02-04T19:24:28.223" Title="What are the rules for pawn wars?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;chess-variants&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14474" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14472" CreationDate="2016-05-26T13:30:40.917" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is not a gaping hole in opening theory. Looking through my reference database, White has an excellent score after 10.Re1.&#xA;Black needs to reply with 10...d5 not to be clearly worse, because of the weakness on e6(White can just crash through if Black is careless). After this there aren't many games, but White's score after 11.c4 is 73.3% in 15 games. The computer evaluates the position as approximately +0.20 for White, which indicates that White has full compensation for the pawn. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This isn't hard to imagine. White has a development lead, has a weakness on e6 to work on, open lines for bishops and rooks etc. It is essentially a very sound gambit. The only reason why the computer gives White just +0.20 eval is because computers do not tend to make mistakes that humans make. They can handle scary looking positions in another way than humans can, and they don't make tactical errors. If you look through the games played after 11.c4, you will notice that virtually every black player has played a game-losing move at move 13 in this line (after 11... bxc3 12.Nxc3, Nxc3 13.bxc3, Be7?? and now White obtains a winning advantage after 14.Nf5!). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This means that the position is too expensive for Black to enter just for a pawn. It's totally not worth the risk, in my opinion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8300" LastActivityDate="2016-05-26T13:30:40.917" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14475" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-05-26T13:52:51.643" Score="4" ViewCount="97" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm looking for book recommendations for kids learning chess and their parents, or for the broad general public intrigued by chess. The idea is to read stories true, or faked, that fire the imagination to promote chess enthusiasm, to educate on chess history and chess culture. Preferably with nice illustrations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3456" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T18:22:54.933" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T18:22:54.933" Title="Light chess literature for beginning kids and their parents" Tags="&lt;books&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="14476" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-05-26T14:03:32.160" Score="1" ViewCount="806" Body="&lt;p&gt;Looking for a tool to create animated diagrams from a PGN file. The usual way that animated diagrams are created is through the animated GIF file which shows separate positions with a fixed time delay between the still frames. The better tools indicate the last move with an arrow (like here for example &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.apronus.com/chess/diagram/animated/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.apronus.com/chess/diagram/animated/&lt;/a&gt;), but what I really need is a video file animation showing the actual continuous motion of the pieces across the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3456" LastEditorUserId="3456" LastEditDate="2016-06-05T17:20:45.137" LastActivityDate="2016-06-06T21:25:24.487" Title="Continuous-motion animated chess diagrams" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;diagram&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14477" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15327" CreationDate="2016-05-26T14:13:06.023" Score="8" ViewCount="382" Body="&lt;p&gt;Looking for a tool for designing chess puzzles with an interface to test the user against all reasonable defenses (not just the single main line), to allow alternative solutions (without the usual bother of try again please), and which continues playing after a wrong move with the help of an engine rather than interrupting the chess experience with &quot;wrong move try again&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The idea is to make the practice of solving problems a real chess experience like an analysis session with a trainer or partner. I am interested in this kind of software whether it is free or not, online or to be installed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3456" LastEditorUserId="3456" LastEditDate="2016-06-02T16:33:25.593" LastActivityDate="2020-02-12T14:59:59.437" Title="Tool for solving puzzles with multiple defense lines, alternative solutions and playing wrong lines until user resigns" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;training&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14478" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14475" CreationDate="2016-05-26T14:13:58.630" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's a really nice publication for both parents and kids, &lt;a href=&quot;http://capakhine.es/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Capakhine&lt;/a&gt;, but it is a Spanish one. As there are many Spanish-speaking users, here it is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2311" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T18:21:55.187" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T18:21:55.187" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="14479" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-05-26T15:27:26.883" Score="-2" ViewCount="292" Body="&lt;p&gt;On the screenshot below it says that a paying member of the FIDE Arena has unlimited access to a full games archive. Unfortunately, for almost a year I have been unable to locate the place where my games are stored in the interface. I wrote to support but received no answer. Can anyone help me navigate the interface to find those games or confirm that they are lying about their service? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Czyw2.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Czyw2.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3456" LastActivityDate="2016-05-31T05:36:28.407" Title="Full games archive in FIDE Arena" Tags="&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;online-blitz&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14480" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-05-26T15:49:05.230" Score="3" ViewCount="1060" Body="&lt;p&gt;I read opening books a lot and they are always focused on finding a way to draw for Black and finding a way for White to play for a win. This makes me wonder why people are not writing opening books on how to draw with White. Is there no market value for a White repertoire book focused on the most efficient way of making a draw?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From the scientific point of view it is would be highly advisable to first devise a drawing method for white and only then look for a draw for Black. Why is this not done this way? Is it about the buying tastes, or about the emotions related to winning? I sometimes read comments to the effect that playing for a draw should be below one's dignity. But from the scientific point of view and also from the practical point of view it is fascinating to investagte the art of making a draw. Any ideas?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3456" LastActivityDate="2016-05-28T00:11:43.943" Title="Advice on how to draw with White" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;books&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14481" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14480" CreationDate="2016-05-26T15:56:19.547" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Isn't a win better than a draw with either color? Yes, there are tournament situations where White only needs a draw, but in general, White begins the game with a slight advantage - the initiative - and should be looking to use that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The question is specifically about opening books. You can't &lt;em&gt;force&lt;/em&gt; a draw during the opening, &lt;strong&gt;especially&lt;/strong&gt; against a higher rated player. The best way to get a draw is to gain equality or better in a position in which you are more comfortable than your opponent. That's all that an opening can aim for, and it's already covered by the existing books.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9116" LastEditorUserId="9116" LastEditDate="2016-05-27T11:09:15.317" LastActivityDate="2016-05-27T11:09:15.317" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14482" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14509" CreationDate="2016-05-26T23:20:58.847" Score="1" ViewCount="308" Body="&lt;p&gt;@user1657 has given an interesting &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/6196/315&quot;&gt;answer&lt;/a&gt; to a question of @ArghyaChakraborty. He says that the Android app called &quot;Analyze your games&quot; can estimate the user's Elo strength.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How would it do that?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You're probably not going to offer me a master's thesis on the mathematics of Elo-rating estimation here, but I'd be interested in a vague outline of the mathematics, or of the technique, if you happen to know it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or maybe you'll close this question as off-topic. It's kind of on the borderline, I'll admit. But, still, a computer estimating your chess strength, so that you know whether you're ready to take Karjakin's seat against Carlsen? That's pretty cool.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="315" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2016-05-28T09:08:29.540" Title="How can Elo be unofficially estimated?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;elo&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14483" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-05-27T03:11:22.537" Score="8" ViewCount="495" Body="&lt;p&gt;This happened to me yesterday.  It was unreasonable for me to play on, so I was going to resign but my opponent was not at the board.  They probably left the board to watch another game, waiting for my next move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Question&lt;/em&gt;:  What is the correct way to resign if my opponent is not at the board?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I stopped the clock, wrote 1-0 on my scoresheet (I was black), and started resetting the pieces.  But this doesn't strike me as an officially correct thing to do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2785" LastActivityDate="2020-02-08T21:25:03.373" Title="How to resign when my opponent is not at the board?" Tags="&lt;etiquette&gt;&lt;resigning&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14484" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14483" CreationDate="2016-05-27T03:20:24.327" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;That's an acceptable way to do it. If you want a more official record, sign your scoresheet after writing 1-0. I usually motion for them to come back to the board and then offer a handshake.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3270" LastActivityDate="2016-05-27T03:20:24.327" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14485" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14480" CreationDate="2016-05-27T03:40:37.387" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Most opening books claim to maintain the advantage for White and equalize for Black.  This is slightly different than winning and drawing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most of the incentive to write this way is the psychology of selling.  Nobody wants to buy a book on how to draw against a lower rated player.  You higher rating should make this act trivial.  Winning is your objective, so that is a key word they try to put into titles.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since White starts with the initiative, White can choose a line which end in a lot of draws.  These line normally have &quot;exchange&quot; in them:  QGD Exchange variation, Slav Exchange Variation, and French Exchange Variation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;The turning point in my career came with the realization that Black should play to win instead of just steering for equality.&quot; Bobby Fischer.  This lesson should have encouraged editors to have put winning in both repertoire book titles.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is some risk aversion psychology that could be used in selling books.  &lt;em&gt;The Safest Sicilian&lt;/em&gt; by Delchev and Semkov is aimed at players who don't want to get into the hair-raising tactics of a normal Sicilian.  The Closed Sicilian has the same objective from White's point-of-view.  Petrosian and &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess24.com/en/read/news/giri-s-60-memorable-draws-exclusive-excerpt&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Giri&lt;/a&gt; have mastered this safety first approach.  (Capablanca may belong in this group.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The general consensus is that below a rating of 2000, you should not study openings more than to reach a playable middlegame without falling into an opening trap.  My personal feeling is that these opening books forget to include the line which puts up the most resistance.  It would be better to get someone who knows the line to explain them to you or to play against a computer just to find all of the inferior moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9684" LastActivityDate="2016-05-27T03:40:37.387" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14486" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-05-27T06:59:35.327" Score="3" ViewCount="369" Body="&lt;p&gt;Imagine that your opponent is away from the board and you want to make a move and then offer a draw and leave for the toilet with some urgency. What is the solution to this inconvenience? Can a player rely on the arbiter to go to the trouble of hunting for the opponent and passing the draw offer?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3456" LastActivityDate="2016-05-27T09:52:36.590" Title="How to offer a draw when the opponent is not present" Tags="&lt;draw&gt;&lt;etiquette&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14487" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-05-27T07:37:22.387" Score="4" ViewCount="1245" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are two ways to move the pieces in interactive interfaces, to drag and drop or to click-click. Drag and drop is by far the more common choice. Why is that given the two advantages of click-click?&#xA;1) Click-click avoids making mouse slips in online blitz play.&#xA;2) Click-click is easier from the ergonomic point of view.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have switched to click-click in online blitz very soon after starting to play regularly in order to avoid mouse slips and it works. I am a fast click-click player mostly using a touchpad and see no reason to think that my opponents play faster with their drag and drop technique. But they slip.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Perhaps the answer lies deeply in the psychology of making a move on a real chessboard when there is clearly the moment of taking hold, then an interval of keeping hold of the piece, and then the moment of releasing. Drag and drop instantiates the same psychological experience while click-click has no relation to the original hand movement. Any ideas?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3456" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-06-21T15:34:13.653" LastActivityDate="2020-06-21T15:34:13.653" Title="Why is drag and drop more popular than click-click in online blitz?" Tags="&lt;online-blitz&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="14488" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-05-27T07:54:00.190" Score="18" ViewCount="4507" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a rule of playing the game of chess that a touched piece of one's own should be the one to move. I have always been taught by professional trainers from early childhood that this is the official rule to be followed in tournaments, but not necessarily in friendly games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I find that online interfaces for playing rated games do not enforce this rule. I often find myself starting to make a move in blitz and then opting for another, possibly with a different piece. The interface always allows that in all the sites I have played.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this an omission on the part of the designers or rather an indication that chess players really do not care about this rule (mindlessly repeated from generation to generation)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3456" LastEditorUserId="3444" LastEditDate="2016-05-28T19:11:12.943" LastActivityDate="2016-05-29T20:19:29.303" Title="Why does a touched piece not have to move in online play?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;etiquette&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14489" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-05-27T08:04:14.917" Score="2" ViewCount="548" Body="&lt;p&gt;I remember reading somewhere that Leonid Stein (one of the top players at that time) has ridiculed Bobby Fischer for grabbing the poisoned pawn in the Najdorf Sicilian during the Spassky-Fischer match in 1972. I wonder if that is really true. Perhaps it was a journalist's way of attracting readers' attention. Can anyone point me to a source of the citation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3456" LastActivityDate="2016-12-12T21:30:28.823" Title="Did Stein really ridicule Fischer for grabbing the poisoned pawn in the Najdorf Sicilian?" Tags="&lt;fischer&gt;&lt;najdorf&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14490" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7810" CreationDate="2016-05-27T08:04:37.467" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;For the purpose of this answer, I'll guess that JMcPherson is asking for that chess problem that stipulates &quot;White to play and mate in &lt;em&gt;n&lt;/em&gt;&quot; for the greatest possible &lt;em&gt;n&lt;/em&gt;. Direct-mate in &lt;em&gt;n&lt;/em&gt;, in other words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are chess problems with stipulations other than &quot;White to play and mate in &lt;em&gt;n&lt;/em&gt;&quot;, but let's stick to direct-mates for this answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the problem to be sound, there must be a unique key (first move for White), and, after that, Black must be able to play in such a way that White is forced to go the whole &lt;em&gt;n&lt;/em&gt; moves and never has a choice of move at any turn. Such a choice for White is known as a dual. We thus need the problem to be dual-free.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The tablebase mate in 549 cited by DTR is not a sound #549 problem because White can play in such a way that, on &lt;em&gt;some&lt;/em&gt; occasions in the long solution line, every Black response which is strong enough to force White to go the full 549. moves gives White a choice (either on White's very next move or later). The same goes for the mates in 271 and 267 DTR mentioned.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One problem which has been cited as the longest dual-free direct-mate is the following.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Walther Jørgensen, Thema Danicum 26, Apr 1982, no.1921&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;1N2Q3/p6n/p5n1/p1p2rpb/p4k1r/K1P4p/2PP4/6B1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Bh2+! Kf3 2. Qe3+ Kg2 3. Qg1+ Kf3 4. Qf1+ Kg4 5. Qe2+ Rf3 6. Qe6+ Rf5 7. Nd7 Kf3 8. Qe3+ Kg2 9. Qg1+ Kf3 10. Qf1+ Kg4 11. Qe2+ Rf3 12. Qe6+ Rf5 13. Kb2! Kf3 14. Qe3+ Kg2 15. Qg1+ Kf3 16. Qf1+ Kg4 17. Qe2+ Rf3 18. Qe6+ Rf5 19. Kc1! Kf3 20. Qe3+ Kg2 21. Qg1+ Kf3 22. Qf1+ Kg4 23. Qe2+ Rf3 24. Qe6+ Rf5 25. Kd1! a3! 26. Kc1 Kf3 27. Qe3+ Kg2 28. Qg1+ Kf3 29. Qf1+ Kg4 30. Qe2+ Rf3 31. Qe6+ Rf5 32. Kb1 Kf3 33. Qe3+ Kg2 34. Qg1+ Kf3 35. Qf1+ Kg4 36. Qe2+ Rf3 37. Qe6+ Rf5 38. Ka2 Kf3 39. Qe3+ Kg2 40. Qg1+ Kf3 41. Qf1+ Kg4 42. Qe2+ Rf3 43. Qe6+ Rf5 44. Kxa3 Kf3 45. Qe3+ Kg2 46. Qg1+ Kf3 47. Qf1+ Kg4 48. Qe2+ Rf3 49. Qe6+ Rf5 50. Kb2 Kf3 51. Qe3+ Kg2 52. Qg1+ Kf3 53. Qf1+ Kg4 54. Qe2+ Rf3 55. Qe6+ Rf5 56. Kc1 Kf3 57. Qe3+ Kg2 58. Qg1+ Kf3 59. Qf1+ Kg4 60. Qe2+ Rf3 61. Qe6+ Rf5 62. Kd1 a4! 63. Kc1 Kf3 64. Qe3+ Kg2 65. Qg1+ Kf3 66. Qf1+ Kg4 67. Qe2+ Rf3 68. Qe6+ Rf5 69. Kd1 a5! 70. Kc1 Kf3 71. Qe3+ Kg2 72. Qg1+ Kf3 73. Qf1+ Kg4 74. Qe2+ Rf3 75. Qe6+ Rf5 76. Kd1 a6! 77. Kc1 Kf3 78. Qe3+ Kg2 79. Qg1+ Kf3 80. Qf1+ Kg4 81. Qe2+ Rf3 82. Qe6+ Rf5 83. Kd1 a3 84. Kc1 Kf3 85. Qe3+ Kg2 86. Qg1+ Kf3 87. Qf1+ Kg4 88. Qe2+ Rf3 89. Qe6+ Rf5 90. Kb1 Kf3 91. Qe3+ Kg2 92. Qg1+ Kf3 93. Qf1+ Kg4 94. Qe2+ Rf3 95. Qe6+ Rf5 96. Ka2 Kf3 97. Qe3+ Kg2 98. Qg1+ Kf3 99. Qf1+ Kg4 100. Qe2+ Rf3 101. Qe6+ Rf5 102. Kxa3 Kf3 103. Qe3+ Kg2 104. Qg1+ Kf3 105. Qf1+ Kg4 106. Qe2+ Rf3 107. Qe6+ Rf5 108. Kb2 Kf3 109. Qe3+ Kg2 110. Qg1+ Kf3 111. Qf1+ Kg4 112. Qe2+ Rf3 113. Qe6+ Rf5 114. Kc1 Kf3 115. Qe3+ Kg2 116. Qg1+ Kf3 117. Qf1+ Kg4 118. Qe2+ Rf3 119. Qe6+ Rf5 120. Kd1 a4! 121. Kc1 Kf3 122. Qe3+ Kg2 123. Qg1+ Kf3 124. Qf1+ Kg4 125. Qe2+ Rf3 126. Qe6+ Rf5 127. Kd1 a5! 128. Kc1 Kf3 129. Qe3+ Kg2 130. Qg1+ Kf3 131. Qf1+ Kg4 132. Qe2+ Rf3 133. Qe6+ Rf5 134. Kd1 a3 135. Kc1 Kf3 136. Qe3+ Kg2 137. Qg1+ Kf3 138. Qf1+ Kg4 139. Qe2+ Rf3 140. Qe6+ Rf5 141. Kb1 Kf3 142. Qe3+ Kg2 143. Qg1+ Kf3 144. Qf1+ Kg4 145. Qe2+ Rf3 146. Qe6+ Rf5 147. Ka2 Kf3 148. Qe3+ Kg2 149. Qg1+ Kf3 150. Qf1+ Kg4 151. Qe2+ Rf3 152. Qe6+ Rf5 153. Kxa3 Kf3 154. Qe3+ Kg2 155. Qg1+ Kf3 156. Qf1+ Kg4 157. Qe2+ Rf3 158. Qe6+ Rf5 159. Kb2 Kf3 160. Qe3+ Kg2 161. Qg1+ Kf3 162. Qf1+ Kg4 163. Qe2+ Rf3 164. Qe6+ Rf5 165. Kc1 Kf3 166. Qe3+ Kg2 167. Qg1+ Kf3 168. Qf1+ Kg4 169. Qe2+ Rf3 170. Qe6+ Rf5 171. Kd1 a4 172. Kc1 Kf3 173. Qe3+ Kg2 174. Qg1+ Kf3 175. Qf1+ Kg4 176. Qe2+ Rf3 177. Qe6+ Rf5 178. Kd1 c4! 179. Kc1 Kf3 180. Qe3+ Kg2 181. Qg1+ Kf3 182. Qf1+ Ke4! 183. Qxc4+ Kf3 184. Qf1+ Kg4 185. Qe2+ Rf3 186. Qe6+ Rf5 187. Kd1 a3 188. Kc1 Kf3 189. Qe3+ Kg2 190. Qg1+ Kf3 191. Qf1+ Kg4 192. Qe2+ Rf3 193. Qe6+ Rf5 194. Kb1 Kf3 195. Qe3+ Kg2 196. Qg1+ Kf3 197. Qf1+ Kg4 198. Qe2+ Rf3 199. Qe6+ Rf5 200. Ka2 Kf3 201. Qe3+ Kg2 202. Qg1+ Kf3 203. Qf1+ Kg4 204. Qe2+ Rf3 205. Qe6+ Rf5 206. Kxa3 Kf3 207. Qe3+ Kg2 208. Qg1+ Kf3 209. Qf1+ Kg4 210. Qe2+ Rf3 211. Qe6+ Rf5 212. Kb2 Kf3 213. Qe3+ Kg2 214. Qg1+ Kf3 215. Qf1+ Kg4 216. Qe2+ Rf3 217. Qe6+ Rf5 218. Kc1 Kf3 219. Qe3+ Kg2 220. Qg1+ Kf3 221. Qf1+ Kg4 222. Qe2+ Rf3 223. Qe6+ Rf5 224. Kd1 Nf8,Nf6 225. Nf6+ Kf3 226. Qe2#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This problem is at &lt;a href=&quot;http://pdb.dieschwalbe.de/search.jsp?expression=probid=&amp;#39;P1298048&amp;#39;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;PDB&lt;/a&gt;, from where I copied the moves. Morse lists it as the longest dual-free direct-mate; it is no. 741 in [1] and no. 865 in [2].&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This problem is a 26-move extension of an earlier #200 by Jørgensen: Special Prize, &lt;em&gt;Die Schwalbe&lt;/em&gt;, 1976. That problem is also at &lt;a href=&quot;http://pdb.dieschwalbe.de/search.jsp?expression=probid=&amp;#39;P1298047&amp;#39;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;PDB&lt;/a&gt;, and is no. 740 in [1].&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Is&lt;/em&gt; the #226 the record-holder? &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.chessbase.com/post/longest-dual-free-direct-mate-problem&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;This web page at chessbase.com&lt;/a&gt; claims that the record-holder is a #203, which is Jørgensen's earlier #200 with a more modest 3-move extension by André Chéron. Now that chessbase.com web page is dated 2015. Has it cited information which is out-of-date? Or has the #226 been cooked? I don't know.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;DTR cited a #292 by Otto Bláthy and correctly stated that its starting position is illegal. So to assess the above #226's acceptability, it is worth looking at its diagram to see if it is legal. It is, just. Four black pawns have made 8 captures b7xa6, c7xb6xa5, d7xc6xb5xa4, e7xd6xc5. White has 7 units, so those captures were of all but 1 of White's 9 missing units.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All those 8 captures were on the queenside, but White is missing all 4 kingside pawns. Black has 13 units, so White has made 3 captures. One was b2xc3, leaving 2. White could have also captured exd, but no more than 1 of White's kingside pawns can have made it to the queenside to be captured by a black pawn; no more than 1 was captured by a piece, so at least 2 had to promote.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is just possible that only 2 White pawns promoted: the fP and gP. A piece captured White's hP. White's eP captured a piece on the d-file, then was captured by Black's eP on d7. White's gP captured Black's fP on the f-file, and White's fP and gP promoted on f8.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, even if a problem's diagram cannot be reached without pawns promoting earlier in the game, that fact is not generally held against the problem, so long as it can be reached. What are regarded as blemishes are obtrusive pieces. Jørgensen's #226's diagram does not contain any obtrusive piece.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[1] Morse, Sir Jeremy. Chess Problems: Tasks &amp;amp; Records. 1st ed. Pub Faber &amp;amp; Faber, 1995. ISBN 0-571-15363-1&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[2] Morse, Sir Jeremy. Chess Problems: Tasks &amp;amp; Records. 3rd ed. Pub Faber &amp;amp; Faber, 2016. ISBN 9781785891434&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10380" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-29T18:17:41.540" LastActivityDate="2020-04-29T18:17:41.540" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="14491" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14487" CreationDate="2016-05-27T08:08:40.817" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there any research/poll that supports your claim for drag&amp;amp;drop being more common choice?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Personally, I use click-click, and most people I know also prefer this option. It's just as fast as drag&amp;amp;drop and it's much less prone to slip, as you already stated. And that's especially true when using smartphone instead of the mouse. :) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Perhaps, apart from being similar to real-life behavior, drag&amp;amp;drop gets used more when there's GUI that presents it as preferable (although I would say it's a bad design). For example, when you click on a piece, it pops-out/enlarges immediately, so it's somehow more obvious to just drag it; I guess some people don't even bother trying if click-click works at all afterwards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1099" LastActivityDate="2016-05-27T08:08:40.817" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14492" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14488" CreationDate="2016-05-27T08:37:25.617" Score="36" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the reason becomes more apparent when you consider why the rule is in place for OTB games - an opponent constantly moving their hands around the board and moving the pieces around can be very distracting while the other player is likely still trying to concentrate on the position. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By contrast, in online chess both players are using their own screens and the fact that one player starts moving one piece, decides against it and then moves another is &lt;em&gt;not even conveyed to the other player&lt;/em&gt; - they see a static board until the final move is made.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another factor (but not the main motivation IMO) might be that, as you hinted at in your question, most online games are seen as 'friendly' games - it has only been very recently that the idea of officially rated online games has been accepted by FIDE, for example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="550" LastActivityDate="2016-05-27T08:37:25.617" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14493" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14483" CreationDate="2016-05-27T08:46:31.493" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I agree with Cleveland that what you did is probably sufficient. One other thing you can always do if you can't find the opponent and are concerned that you might be seen as doing something suspicious is to call the arbiter and announce your resignation to them. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="550" LastActivityDate="2016-05-27T08:46:31.493" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14494" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14486" CreationDate="2016-05-27T08:53:54.553" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The correct way of offering a draw is, as you probably know:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Make a move &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Make an offer &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Press the clock&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When your opponent is not present:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Make a move&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Stop the clock (or you can leave your time running)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Call an arbiter and say that you want to offer a draw, and your opponent isn't here&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Start the opponent's time&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You are free to go now - if you run into your opponent on the way, you can mention the offer&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When you're back at the board, make your offer.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that the draw-offer is perfectly valid at any given time. The reason why you call an arbiter to explain the situation is to avoid being accused of distracting your opponent when you offer it in &quot;incorrect&quot; way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: Adding information from official &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fide.com/component/handbook/?id=171&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;FIDE rules&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;9.1.b.1:&lt;/strong&gt; A player wishing to offer a draw shall do so after having made a move on the chessboard and before pressing his clock. An offer at any other time during play is still valid but Article 11.5 must be considered. No conditions can be attached to the offer. In both cases the offer cannot be withdrawn and remains valid until the opponent accepts it, rejects it orally, rejects it by touching a piece with the intention of moving or capturing it, or the game is concluded in some other way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;11.5:&lt;/strong&gt; It is forbidden to distract or annoy the opponent in any manner whatsoever. This includes unreasonable claims, unreasonable offers of a draw or the introduction of a source of noise into the playing area.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1099" LastEditorUserId="1099" LastEditDate="2016-05-27T09:52:36.590" LastActivityDate="2016-05-27T09:52:36.590" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14495" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14488" CreationDate="2016-05-27T09:55:30.200" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are three issues here: regulation, time control and technology.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The FIDE Laws of Chess cover over the board play. They do not cover correspondence, simultaneous displays, handicaps, variants (other than chess960), computer chess and anything else which is not strictly OTB, although you are free to use a suitable subset for these other forms.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even if you are playing OTB there is no obligation unless you are playing in a formal competition which is governed by FIDE or an association of FIDE like your national chess federation. When I taught my kids to play, the touch-move rule came very late in my priorities.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first time I played in a formal blitz tournament I had been playing competitions with standard rates of play for about 30 years. I was very familiar with touch-move. However the informal rule I was used to for blitz was that touch-move did not apply. Your move didn't become &quot;fixed&quot; until you pressed the clock even if you moved a piece, let go of it, moved it back and moved another one. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is interesting that in the recent St Louis event in the Nakamura - Kasparov game where Kasparov violated touch-move quite blatantly, the commentators were unsure, Kasparov claims he was unsure and says (which you can actually see on the video) that he looked around at the arbiter for guidance to see if what he was doing was wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In OTB chess played at standard time controls (each player having at least an hour for all their moves, more for stronger players) touch-move makes a lot of sense. Calculate your move in your head without touching or moving pieces around on the board and then make it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In chess played online via a computer interface the vast majority of games are played at blitz rates (each player having 10 minutes or less for all their moves). Time controls go all the way down to bullet - just one minute for all the moves. That it is even possible to play a sensible game at these rates is down to the technology: there is no clock to press (the technology handles that), you can make moves (with practice and the right mouse) much quicker and you can pre-move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The last one of these is key. There is a lot of skill (and even character) in pre-moving and in a format where speed is vital pre-moving can make a big difference.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;FIDE laws regarding which hand you press the clock with, touch-move, how you capture a piece or castle (use one hand only, please!), how you promote a pawn just don't make sense in correspondence chess or in online chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2016-05-27T09:55:30.200" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14496" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14483" CreationDate="2016-05-27T10:11:34.783" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;When my opponent is at the board, I signal my resignation by handing him/her/it my King.  When my opponent is not at the board, I signal my resignation by placing both King on the center squares.  The dark squares if I played White, and the light squares if I played Black.  I do stop and try to shut off the clock.  I consider it bad etiquette to pick up his/her/its personal property, the chess case.  Normally, I have plenty of time and can wait for my opponent to return and help put away the set.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is good practice to have both players mark the score on the wall chart and to analyse the game, whatever the outcome of the game. &quot;People who want to improve should take their defeats as lessons, and endeavor to learn what to avoid in the future.&quot; Capablanca.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9684" LastActivityDate="2016-05-27T10:11:34.783" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14497" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13492" CreationDate="2016-05-27T10:24:24.440" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Guy Haworth gives an answer to this in his Chess Endgame Records.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;8/8/7p/7n/k7/8/2K5/3R4 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Rd4+! {dtc/m/z = -26/-49/-17m} Ka3 2. Kd3! Kb3 3. Rd6! Kb4 4. Kd4! Nf4 5. Rb6+! Ka5 6. Rf6! Ne2+ 7. Kc4! Ng3 8. Rg6! Ne4 9. Kd4! Nd2 10. Rg2! Nf3+ 11. Kc5! Ka6 12. Rg6+! Kb7 13. Kd5! h5 14. Rh6! h4 15. Rf6! Ne1 16. Rf1! Nc2 17. Rb1+! Ka6 18. Rb2! Ne1 19. Ke4! h3 20. Rb1! Nc2 21. Kd3! Na3 22. Ra1! h2 23. Rxa3+! {KRKP: dtc/m/z = -3/-15/-3m} {Nalimov and Lomonosov DTM EGTs} *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Haworth states that this is the longest-known decisive AUMS, Absolutely Unique Move Sequence, known to the author.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This move-sequence arose from White and Black adopting the following strategies. White's strategy is: first, preserve the value, i.e. keep the position won for White; second, maximize DTM. (Why &quot;maximize&quot; and not &quot;minimize&quot;? I don't know, but in the above line White has only one value-preserving option at each move anyway, so it doesn't matter.) Black's strategy is to challenge White to find the unique value-preserving move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Every move in the above line is optimal for the player's strategy. In the cases of Black's 20th and 22nd moves, there is not one unique option which is optimal for Black's strategy, but for all Black's other moves the move given above is Black's only option which implements Black's strategy of giving White only one option which keeps the position won for White.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that the identity and length of the longest decisive AUMS depends on what White's and Black's strategies are. Black's strategy of preferring &quot;restrict White to a unique winning move&quot; seems calculated to enable there to be long AUMSes. If, instead, Black adopts the strategy &quot;maximize DTM&quot;, then the game proceeds differently. 18...Ne1 is indeed Black's only option which gives White only one winning move, but it loses in 20 moves. By contrast, 18...Ne3 loses in 32 (i.e. keeps Black alive for 12 moves more); 19. Kc6 then wins in 32, and 19. Kc5 in 34.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some of the jargon explained:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;decisive: ending in checkmate, not in stalemate&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;AUMS: Absolutely Unique Move Sequence&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;DTC: depth to conversion (i.e. depth to capture, promotion, or the end of the game)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;DTM: depth to mate&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;DTZ: depth to changing which ply is the earliest at which a 50-move-rule draw may be claimed (i.e. depth to capture, pawn-move, or the end of the game)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;value: whether the position is (with best play) won for White, won for Black, or drawn&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Upper-case DTC/M/Z refer to white; lower-case dtc/m/z refer to Black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Depth is measured in plies, where a ply is either a white move or a black move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Haworth cites Conrady, 2003; van der Heijden #70232, (2010). The relevant entries in his bibliography are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Conrady H. (2003). Computerschach und Spiele, Vol. 2, No. iv-v&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;van der Heijden, H. (2010). &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.hhdbiv.nl/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.hhdbiv.nl/&lt;/a&gt;. ENDGAME STUDY DATABASE IV&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The longest AUMS I can see in Haworth which ends with the mating move is a 13-ply KNkp mate. Using Nalimov I have extended it back for a further two plies but only by dint of captures.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;8/8/8/1p6/b1R5/8/N7/k1K5 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Rxa4! bxa4 2.Nb4! a3 3. Nc2+! Ka2 4. Nd4! Ka1 5. Kc2 Ka2 6. Ne2 Ka1 7. Nc1 a2 8. Nb3#! {Nalimov and Lomonosov DTM EGTs} *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10380" LastEditorUserId="10380" LastEditDate="2016-05-27T12:47:08.650" LastActivityDate="2016-05-27T12:47:08.650" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14499" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14488" CreationDate="2016-05-27T14:12:35.173" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe that it is forbidden because you can touch a piece and see the other players reaction.  Was that a hint of a smile?  Maybe I better not move that piece.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is not an issue in online chess, because as others stated only the final move is seen by the opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10409" LastActivityDate="2016-05-27T14:12:35.173" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14500" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13322" CreationDate="2016-05-27T16:09:19.293" Score="22" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Matt Bengtson problem Prof. Elkies mentions is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Matt Bengtson, Chess Braintwisters (Burt Hochberg), no. 103. White to move &amp;amp; draw.&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;4kn2/3p1pPp/4pPpK/6P1/8/2p5/1b6/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt; The start of the solution-line can't be shown in PGN as White's 1st move is illegal: 1. g8=Black queen Qg7+ (anything else stalemates White) 2. fxg7 c2 3. g8=Q c1=Q 4. Qxf7+ Kd8 5. Qe8+ Kc7 6. Qc8+ Kb6 (Kd6 7. Qc5+) 7. Qc6+ Ka7/Ka5 8. Qb7/Qb5, drawing. White's queen is then taken for stalemate. Solution line taken from Chess Braintwisters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, the problem is actually cooked with a win for Black starting with “3... f6!”, and there is no stalemate for White. The solution and the cooking line can be played over on the &lt;a href=&quot;https://pdb.dieschwalbe.de/P1372297&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Schwalbe Problem Database&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(This is in answer to a comment by Prof. Elkies to Dag Oskar Madsen's answer, but, it seems, the syntax that activates the PGN-viewer in answers doesn't do so in comments.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A similar oddity from the same book:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;John Beasley, EBUR, 1996. White to move &amp;amp; win.&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;5r1K/2k1P3/3N1Bqp/N2Q1B1P/8/8/8/1R6 w - - 0 0&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This problem was reprinted as no. 107 in Burt Hochberg's &lt;em&gt;Chess Braintwisters&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt; White is in check, and his only reasonable move is to capture on f8 (1. Qg8? Qxg8#). But 1. exf8=R allows stalemate after 1. ... Qg7+ because the new rook guards d8 after 2. Bxg7. Similarly, 1. exf8=N guards d7 allowing 1. ... Qh7+ and stalemate, and 1. exf8=Q/B guards d6 allowing 1. ... Qg8+ and stalemate. The answer is 1. exf8! (no promotion). Now 1. ... Qg7+ 2. Bxg7 releases d8; 1. ... Qh7+ 2. Bxh7 releases d7; 1. ... Qg8 2. Qxg8 releases d6. 1. ... Qxf6+ destroys the stalemate at once, and White wins. Solution line and discussion taken from Chess Braintwisters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The is also viewable on the &lt;a href=&quot;https://pdb.dieschwalbe.de/P1372357&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;same site&lt;/a&gt; as the other problem.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10380" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-05-03T21:40:06.617" LastActivityDate="2020-05-03T21:40:06.617" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="14502" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14508" CreationDate="2016-05-27T22:44:51.703" Score="5" ViewCount="2169" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a low rated player myself, I often see people play h6 as black before playing Nf6, presumably to stop pins on g5 and things like the Fried Liver. Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 h6?!&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I keep hearing that such moves are an unnecessary waste of time, which would be better spent developing pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is h6 to allow the Knight to move to f6 justified? Should I be developing it to f6 at all?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10075" LastEditorUserId="550" LastEditDate="2016-05-28T00:07:42.637" LastActivityDate="2016-06-12T14:49:03.490" Title="h6 as a prophylactic move in the opening" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14503" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14502" CreationDate="2016-05-27T23:10:38.417" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The thing with h6 is that, in the opening, the move has one purpose for Black: prevent White from placing a piece on g5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The drawbacks of the move are that:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;It's a tempo investment. Tempos are important not to waste in, for example, open positions, where it is good to get your pieces out to active squares as early as possible.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;It potentially weakens your kingside if you decide to castle short. A pawn on h6 can become a target for a piece sacrifice if White decides to launch a kingside attack.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So basically, you shouldn't make the move h6 out of habit. It should be played after carefully considering the consequences of letting an enemy piece reach g5. Does White even want to play a light piece to g5? If not, then why waste the tempo?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This of course applies to the pawn push h3 in the opening for White, and also in some sense the pawn pushes a3 and a6, although the latter two can often have other purposes as well, as in the Sicilian, for example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8300" LastActivityDate="2016-05-27T23:10:38.417" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14504" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14511" CreationDate="2016-05-27T23:59:38.750" Score="2" ViewCount="608" Body="&lt;p&gt;I ran a game of mine on: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://analysis.cpuchess.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://analysis.cpuchess.com/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And I see that the analysis line changes from green to red and vice versa. What does it mean? Do the green lines mark the move was the engine's choice and red not? Does it make sense in the attached picture for 1400 and 1600 players?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/p43Y3.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/p43Y3.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8251" LastActivityDate="2016-05-28T12:37:01.210" Title="What is the green/red line in this analysis" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14505" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14487" CreationDate="2016-05-28T00:05:00.340" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I read this question the other day, and as a habitual drag-drop player (in spite of already knowing that click-click would at least be more precise) I couldn't really give a convincing answer why I do it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was playing some chess just now, however, and noticed one thing that does separate the two. Similar to what I mentioned in &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/14488/why-a-touched-piece-does-not-have-to-move-in-online-play/14492#14492&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; answer, when using the drag-drop method you can 'see' what the board looks like after your move and then if you don't let go of the mouse and decide it's not a good move you can retract it. Of course, I am not suggesting this as a good way to play online chess, but I played a few games with click-click just now and in a few situations found it a little jarring to not have that extra second of thinking time while you're moving the piece.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="550" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2016-05-28T00:05:00.340" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14506" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14504" CreationDate="2016-05-28T00:06:02.473" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;Green&quot; means advantage, and &quot;red&quot; means disadvantage for you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically, you had a slight advantage for most of the game, then made a terrible move or two at the end that lost you the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2016-05-28T00:06:02.473" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14507" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14480" CreationDate="2016-05-28T00:11:43.943" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;White has the advantage of the first move, and would normally be playing for a win, not a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The  people that would want to read the kind of book you are describing are people who think, &quot;How can I draw against a superior player if I have the first move as partial compensation?&quot; Relatively few people are in that position (or at least are willing to admit to that position).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The answer is to keep Black on the defensive and keep the initiative, and then only at the &quot;last minute&quot; (toward the endgame), release the tension and simplify the position into a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2016-05-28T00:11:43.943" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14508" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14502" CreationDate="2016-05-28T00:26:14.943" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;In addition to the useful points in Scounge's answer, I'd add that often the move ...h6 is a waste of time because it's being played at the wrong moment. To use an example from an opening I am familiar with, I play the Scotch Gambit and often find my opponents play this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 exd4 4. Bc4 h6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, if your main aim is to avoid a knight pin after &lt;code&gt;...Nf6&lt;/code&gt; or you want to stop &lt;code&gt;Ng5&lt;/code&gt; then this seems logical, but the move is simply bad for several reasons:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;White has played a (temporary) gambit for a lead in development by not immediately recapturing on d4. By not playing an active developing move you're exacerbating this.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;White is also not really planning to play &lt;code&gt;Ng5&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;Bf5&lt;/code&gt; in this position. Without going into too much irrelevant theory, White isn't playing with a pawn down in order to start an attack but instead to speed up development and hopefully then make something of it. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These points should lead you to conclude that allowing a move to f5 is less of a worry at this stage, and you should instead play something that develops naturally (FWIW &lt;code&gt;4...Nf6&lt;/code&gt; is the book move in the above position). &lt;strong&gt;You can apply to the same reasoning to other openings&lt;/strong&gt;, even though the specific things to consider are almost certainly going to be different (e.g. in the position in the question white isn't playing down a pawn, but instead has different ideas in mind).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Indeed, you'll find if you look at a lot of opening theory that the moves &lt;code&gt;h3&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;h6&lt;/code&gt; do appear quite a lot, but they appear at very specific points where that player has nothing more useful they could be doing or there is a specific impending attack that they want to defuse.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="550" LastActivityDate="2016-05-28T00:26:14.943" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14509" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14482" CreationDate="2016-05-28T09:08:29.540" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Generally the approach to estimate an Elo rating directly from the games, is to calculate the accuracy of the moves compared to the best move given by an engine. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a correlation between accuracy and playing strength, which can be used to calculate an Elo estimate from the accuracy. This idea is laid out in &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Intrinsic-Chess-Ratings-Regan-Haworth/239d16c31908d546dae6ec847c11965cb4530813/pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this paper by Ken Regan&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2016-05-28T09:08:29.540" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14510" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5655" CreationDate="2016-05-28T09:50:32.010" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is answered in Sir Jeremy Morse's Chess Problems: Tasks and Records, already cited by Professor Elkies. In paragraph 2.4, Morse says &amp;quot;The record for the total number of different White mates (and hence of variations also) in the two-mover is 24, shown in &lt;strong&gt;1&lt;/strong&gt;, with multiple threats but only a few minor duals.&amp;quot; (The problem Morse refers to is the same one in the 1st edition, published 1995, and the 3rd, published in 2016; I show it below.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the duals are removed, 24 dual-free lines remain, ending in 24 different mates.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Nenad Petrovic, The Problemist, 1946. #2&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;Q7/7P/3p2p1/2P1R3/1KN2pqp/1P4p1/r3P3/kr5R w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. h8=Q! Ra7 2. Qxa7#&#xA;(1... Ra6 2. Qxa6#)&#xA;(1... Ra5 2. Qxa5#)&#xA;(1... Ra4+ 2. Qxa4#)&#xA;(1... Ra3 2. Qxa3#)&#xA;(1... Rxh1 2. Qxh1#)&#xA;(1... Rxa8 2. Qxa8#)&#xA;(1... dxe5 2. Qxe5#)&#xA;(1... Qf5 2. Rxf5#)&#xA;(1... Qg5 2. Rxg5#)&#xA;(1... Qh5 2. Rxh5#)&#xA;(1... Qe6 2. Rxe6#)&#xA;(1... Qd7 2. Re7#)&#xA;(1... Qc8 2. Re8#)&#xA;(1... d5 2. Rxd5#)&#xA;(1... dxc5+ 2. Rxc5#)&#xA;(1... f3 2. Re4#)&#xA;(1... Qf3 2. Re3#)&#xA;(1... Qxe2 2. Rxe2#)&#xA;(1... Rg1 2. Rxg1#)&#xA;(1... Rf1 2. Rxf1#)&#xA;(1... Re1 2. Rxe1#)&#xA;(1... Rd1 2. Rxd1#)&#xA;(1... Rc1 2. Rxc1#)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So here we have the idea &amp;quot;line-pinned black line-piece moves away from black king; white pinner captures it&amp;quot; on a rank and on a file, as in Dag Oskar Madsen's and Prof. Elkies's problems, but not also on a diagonal. Instead, in 11 variations, White's other rook is used to discover a diagonal check, and must choose its destination accurately, either to interfere on the line a Black unit threatens to interpose on, or to capture that unit. Black uses a variety of means to make only one square work. wPe2 prevents 1. ... Qd1 and avoids a dual after 1. ... Re1.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10380" LastEditorUserId="10380" LastEditDate="2021-01-25T06:41:19.780" LastActivityDate="2021-01-25T06:41:19.780" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="14511" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14504" CreationDate="2016-05-28T12:37:01.210" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It seems obvious to me that a red line indicates a bad move and a green line a good move. Graphically this shows in the fact that steep lines are red and horizontal lines are green. This might be slightly confusing because the graph shows the moves of both, black and white. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because an engine always assumes best play when evaluating a position you can never improve your position by playing a move, best case scenario is you play the best move and the eval stays the same -&gt; horizontal line. A mistake on the other hand changes the evaluation -&gt; the line goes up if black moved, or down if white moved.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is probably a cutoff for what constitutes a bad move, something like a 1.0 pawns evaluation drop seems likely.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2016-05-28T12:37:01.210" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14512" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13322" CreationDate="2016-05-28T13:18:26.947" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here's another problem where White to move loses, but moving a pawn to the 8th rank and not promoting would (if it were legal) draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;By the 19th century [...] it was thought that promotion should give the maximum possible advantage. It was claimed that in some cases the best move would be to remain a pawn, and Kling composed a position to show this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Josef Kling&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;r7/1Pp5/2P3p1/8/6pb/4p1kB/4P1p1/6K1 w - - 0 0&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If 1 bxa8=any piece, 1 ... gxh3 2 any h2#, but if the pawn on a8 remains a pawn then 1 ... gxh3 is stalemate.&quot; - David Hooper &amp;amp; Kenneth Whyld, &lt;em&gt;The Oxford Companion to Chess&lt;/em&gt;, 1st ed. (1987) pub. OUP, s.v. promotion (slightly adapted). Dag Oskar Madsen's problem has the same tempo (not sure of the correct term here) as Kling's: White's only mobile unit is the pawn; promotion to any piece enables Black to #2, whereas by making the pawn immobile White immediately stalemates himself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If Black does not take White’s bishop. then White will play 2. Bxg2 and achieve a fortress position, thereby drawing the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10380" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-30T16:05:50.397" LastActivityDate="2020-04-30T16:05:50.397" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="14513" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14488" CreationDate="2016-05-28T18:13:52.613" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In OTB chess, the touch move rule prevents moves from being retracted, while in online chess, the software prevents this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10419" LastActivityDate="2016-05-28T18:13:52.613" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14514" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14488" CreationDate="2016-05-28T20:10:47.747" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The rule doesn't make any sense in an online game. The rule is that you cannot touch your own piece on the shared board. In other places accessible only to you, such as in your head, you are free to touch and manipulate pieces as you wish. In an online game, there is no shared board to make rules about. So there's no coherent way the rule could apply.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10422" LastEditorUserId="10422" LastEditDate="2016-05-29T20:19:29.303" LastActivityDate="2016-05-29T20:19:29.303" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14516" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14519" CreationDate="2016-05-29T08:19:21.120" Score="8" ViewCount="1434" Body="&lt;p&gt;In a last round tie between 2 players fighting for top seed in a competition, here is what happened.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White had 18 seconds on his clock and black had 26 seconds. Black was winning. At move 56, black made a pawn push which exposed his king to a check by a dark square bishop, thus making the pawn push an illegal move. White did not take note so he  raised the bishop and was about to play then he saw that the king was in check, so before he could call 'illegal' black quickly called the 'touch move rule'. Thus implying that white had to move the bishop. According to FIDE rules which call should supersede: Black's 'touch move' or white's 'illegal move'?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10397" LastEditorUserId="4223" LastEditDate="2018-05-17T05:13:53.100" LastActivityDate="2018-08-23T22:56:51.993" Title="Touch a piece and then claim opponent's previous move was illegal" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;fide&gt;&lt;illegal-move&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="14517" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-05-29T08:34:53.587" Score="4" ViewCount="231" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was slightly disappointed with the recent result at the Candidates.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Karjakin won, but I just don't think he can match Carlsen for the WCh title.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the most accurate prediction of the probability of Karjakin being victorious over Carlsen this November? (I.e. the prediction that takes the most relevant data into consideration.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10415" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2016-05-30T18:13:11.487" LastActivityDate="2016-09-15T19:48:46.820" Title="Based on their separate and mutual records, what chance does Karjakin have against Carlsen?" Tags="&lt;world-championship&gt;&lt;carlsen&gt;&lt;karjakin&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14518" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14516" CreationDate="2016-05-29T08:51:31.280" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;From &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fide.com/component/handbook/?view=article&amp;amp;id=171&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;FIDE's Laws of Chess&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;7.5 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;a. If during a game it is found that an illegal move has been&#xA;  completed, the position immediately before the irregularity shall be&#xA;  reinstated. If the position immediately before the irregularity cannot&#xA;  be determined, the game shall continue from the last identifiable&#xA;  position prior to the irregularity. Articles 4.3 and 4.7 apply to the&#xA;  move replacing the illegal move. The game shall then continue from&#xA;  this reinstated position.  If the player has moved a pawn to the&#xA;  furthest distant rank, pressed the clock, but not replaced the pawn&#xA;  with a new piece, the move is illegal. The pawn shall be replaced by a&#xA;  queen of the same colour as the pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;b. After the action taken under Article 7.5.a, for the first completed&#xA;  illegal move by a player the arbiter shall give two minutes extra time&#xA;  to his opponent; for the second completed illegal move by the same&#xA;  player the arbiter shall declare the game lost by this player.&#xA;  However, the game is drawn if the position is such that the opponent&#xA;  cannot checkmate the player’s king by any possible series of legal&#xA;  moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since the illegal move reverts the position back to before the &quot;touch move&quot; would be activated, White never touched the Bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9684" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2016-05-29T09:59:38.757" LastActivityDate="2016-05-29T09:59:38.757" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14519" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14516" CreationDate="2016-05-29T11:07:36.667" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;In standard play (each player has at least 60 minutes for all the moves) it makes no difference when the illegal moves is spotted the position must be restored to the one before the illegal move even if that was several moves ago.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In rapid or blitz Appendix A4 part 2b applies:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;b. An illegal move is completed once the player has pressed his clock.&#xA;  If the arbiter observes this he shall declare the game lost by the&#xA;  player, provided the opponent has not made his next move. If the&#xA;  arbiter does not intervene, the opponent is entitled to claim a win,&#xA;  provided the opponent has not made his next move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Provided white has not released the bishop on a different square the claim for an illegal move stands and white wins the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: As of 1st January 2018 the rules for rapid and blitz have been brought into line with standard rate. In all 3 cases there is a time penalty for the first illegal move (1 minute for blitz and rapid, 2 minutes for standard) and only the second illegal move loses you the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2018-08-23T22:56:51.993" LastActivityDate="2018-08-23T22:56:51.993" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="14520" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14521" CreationDate="2016-05-29T18:20:58.120" Score="1" ViewCount="679" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm new at chess and still learning the rules. The other day I was playing a friend of mine, and it got to the point where I had only my king and queen and he had only his king and bishop. I forgot the exactly how we got to this point, but when we did, he said it would be stalemate and result in a draw. I argued that we keep playing and I wound up putting him in checkmate. He didn't make any fatal or illegal moves; I just beat him. My question is, why would this be a draw if I could win? Everything I find says that when either side has only a king and bishop/knight it results in a draw. Of course I may have misunderstood, but it seems like one side can get punished for simply taking out the other sides pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10430" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2016-05-29T18:42:45.263" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T18:21:00.740" Title="Was this considered a stalemate?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;stalemate&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14521" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14520" CreationDate="2016-05-29T18:47:15.993" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;If I understand well you had a king and a queen, and your opponent a king and a bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is not a stalemate nor a draw, unless you reach a position like this one, for example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;8/8/8/8/8/6K1/8/5Qbk b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A stalemate occurs whenever the player having the turn has no legal moves and he's not under check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A draw happens when there's no sequence of legal moves (even if they are absurd ones) than can lead to a checkmate, when the same position is repeated at least three times, or when at least 50 moves have been done without a pawn move or a capture.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2311" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T18:21:00.740" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T18:21:00.740" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="14523" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2856" CreationDate="2016-05-30T12:43:55.627" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Two corrections are involved in the following very famous study. Its complete history, including how it was adapted from the conclusion of a game, are beyond the scope of this answer, but may be read on web pages from &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saavedra_position&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://timkr.home.xs4all.nl/chess/saavedra.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;the archive of Tim Krabbé's Open Chess Diary&lt;/a&gt;. When first published in study form, it was a draw-study as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;G.E. Barbier. Glasgow Weekly Citizen, 4 May 1895. Black to play and draw.&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;8/2P5/1K6/3r4/8/8/8/k7 b - - 0 0&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Rd6+ 2. Kb5 Rd5+ 3. Kb4 Rd4+ 4. Kb3 Rd3+ 5. Kc2 Rd4! 6. c8=Q Rc4+ 7. Qxc4 =&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Rev. Saavedra read the above solution, given by Barbier the following week. He then cooked Barbier's draw-study, showing how White could force a win:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;G.E. Barbier, corr. Rev. Saavedra. Glasgow Weekly Citizen, 18 May 1895. Black to play and White to win.&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;8/2P5/1K6/3r4/8/8/8/k7 b - - 0 0&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Rd6+ 2. Kb5 Rd5+ 3. Kb4 Rd4+ 4. Kb3 Rd3+ 5. Kc2 Rd4! 6. c8=R Ra4 7. Kb3 {and wins}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(The study is usually given in the version by Lasker; White's pawn is moved to c6, the stipulation is changed to &quot;White to play and win&quot;, and there is an extra move 1. c7.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Saavedra's move is beautiful in being a rook-promotion which, in a position with only four units, is the only winning move. And he transformed a draw-study into a win-study which is beautiful in that it puts White in that position and forces that promotion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Except ... it doesn't. Tablebases have shown that White can indeed force a win, but Black avoids the Saavedra position, and White can win only by promoting to queen. At move 3, Black's best defence is not &lt;code&gt;3. ... Rd4+&lt;/code&gt; but &lt;code&gt;3. ... Kb2&lt;/code&gt; (deferring mate for 3 more moves) giving White only one winning move: &lt;code&gt;4. c8=Q!&lt;/code&gt;. If Black does play &lt;code&gt;3. ... Rd4+&lt;/code&gt; then White's best attack, supposing that Black always plays the best defence, is either &lt;code&gt;4. Kb3 Rd3 5. Kc2! Rf3 6. c8=Q!&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;4. Kc3 Rd1 5. Kc2 Rf1 6. c8=Q!&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10380" LastActivityDate="2016-05-30T12:43:55.627" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14524" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15047" CreationDate="2016-05-30T14:08:58.327" Score="0" ViewCount="263" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is my first question on chess beta and I don't know if I'm insane or if the cpu is broken. So I was playing chess against a CPU on the iPhone with the app 3D Chess Game, and the CPU (playing black) made an odd move. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black to move:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/H5gGJ.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/H5gGJ.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Black to move&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White to move (one move later):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/4Dpeh.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;White to move&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I obviously edited this to simplify it, but the basic idea is same. That is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Black moves &lt;code&gt;Rook on a8 to d8&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;Knight on g8 to f6&lt;/code&gt; in the same move.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this legal? Or is it just a bug in the system?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10007" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-05-02T16:22:04.090" LastActivityDate="2017-05-02T16:22:04.090" Title="Rook and knight used together within the same move - legal?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;knights&gt;&lt;rooks&gt;&lt;illegal-move&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14525" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-05-30T15:38:54.877" Score="6" ViewCount="497" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know that there are practical methods of playing for a win with White without bothering with an opening advantage. In Kasparov's multivolume work on his predecessors Bent Larsen is described as someone who excelled at building complex playable positions without attention to opening advantage. It was enough for him that the position held enough complexity to make for a hard battle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Presumably, this kind of playing is easier than fighting for an advantage. My question is about the reason why opening books focus only on finding an advantage for white rather than make life simipler for the reader and show how to obtain a good promising position with equal chances using the White pieces as a means of forcing one's will.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my earlier question in this vein there was a lot of controversy over the value of winning versus drawing, which I find amazing because people don't seem to value draw as an outcome of a game of chess. So here I ask a similar question that is focused on winning rather than drawing but without fighting for the so called opening advantage. Compare&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/14480/advice-on-how-to-draw-with-white&quot;&gt;Advice on how to draw with White&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3456" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.193" LastActivityDate="2016-07-11T03:48:34.400" Title="How to play for a win with White without fighting for an opening advantage" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;theory&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14526" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8892" CreationDate="2016-05-30T19:51:26.350" Score="1" Body="&lt;h2&gt;Ubisoft's Chessmaster: Grandmaster edition does that&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Using the Mentor &amp;gt; Game Analysis... functionality gives the spoken annotation requirement.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the example below I went to the Academy section and chose a game from the Database. Then this was sent to the Training mode. Lastly, I used the Mentor menu at the top to analyse the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The annotations are narrated by Denny Delk in Chessmaster:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Q: Whose voices are used in Chessmaster?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: The voice used for Chessmaster (annotation, analysis, and moves) belongs to Denny Delk. The voice for illegal move commentary is Jeanne Reynolds. Their voices have been featured in Chessmaster for several years... since Chessmaster 6000.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;http://forums.ubi.com/showthread.php/299133-Chessmaster-Grandmaster-Edition-FAQ-READ-THIS-FIRST!-Forums&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Ubi.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Would I recommend the functionality?&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No, I would not recommend this functionality of the software, because the annotations are not very insightful in my opinion. I've taken sample commentary in the game below:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Event &amp;quot;Hoogovens II&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Site &amp;quot;Lone Pine, CA USA&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Date &amp;quot;1975.01&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Round &amp;quot;10&amp;quot;]&#xA;[White &amp;quot;Böhm, H&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Black &amp;quot;Timman, Ton&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Result &amp;quot;1/2-1/2&amp;quot;]&#xA;[ECO &amp;quot;c) U&amp;quot;]&#xA;[WhiteELO &amp;quot;2300&amp;quot;]&#xA;[BlackELO &amp;quot;2385&amp;quot;]&#xA;[WhiteCountry &amp;quot;NED&amp;quot;]&#xA;[BlackCountry &amp;quot;NED&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;  1. c3 {A00 Saragossa Opening. A rather passive treatment by White, planning a solid strategy of controlling d4.} f5            {A00 Saragossa Opening. There is some game reference in literature to this position, but it is most unconvincing. The players of the Black pieces were universally the better players, and as the positions evolved, the better player won. Objectively you'd have to say that Black was a bit better even here.}&#xA;  2. d4  {Out of Opening Book. f4 would have been in the Saragossa Opening opening line.} Nf6           &#xA;  3. Bg5            g6            &#xA;  4. Bxf6 {Pins Black's pawn at e7 with a partial pin and attacks Black's rook at h8.} exf6 {Removes the threat on Black's rook at h8. Black wins a bishop for a knight. Material is even.}&#xA;  5. e3             d5            &#xA;  6. h4             h5            &#xA;  7. Nh3            Bd6           {Enables the short castle.}&#xA;  8. g3             c6            &#xA;  9. Nf4 {Attacks Black's pawn at g6 and blocks Black's pawn at f5.} Kf7           {Removes the threat on Black's pawn at g6.}&#xA; 10. Nd2            Nd7           &#xA; 11. Bd3 {Clears the way for a kingside castle.} Nf8           &#xA; 12. c4             dxc4          {Threatens White's bishop.}&#xA; 13. Bxc4+ {Checks Black's king. White wins a pawn for a pawn. Material is even.} Kg7 {Moves it out of check.}&#xA; 14. Qb3 {Clears the way for a queenside castle.} Qe7           &#xA; 15. a4             a5            &#xA; 16. d5             Rb8           &#xA; 17. O-O            b5            {Slightly better is g5.}&#xA; 18. axb5 {Removes the threat on White's bishop, threatens Black's pawn at a5, and isolates Black's pawn at c6 and Black's pawn at a5.} cxb5 {Attacks White's bishop. Black wins a pawn for a pawn. Material is even.}&#xA; 19. Bd3 {Slightly better is Bxb5.} a4 {Moves it out of immediate jeopardy and attacks White's queen.}&#xA; 20. Qd1 {Moves it to safety.} Bxf4          &#xA; 21. exf4 {White wins a bishop for a knight. Material is even.} Qd6           {Threatens White's pawn at d5 and blocks White's pawn at d5.}&#xA; 22. Qf3            {Removes the threat on White's pawn at d5.} Nd7           {Takes the knight away from the edge of the board.}&#xA; 23. Rac1           Nc5           &#xA; 24. Bb1            Bd7           {Slightly better is Bb7.}&#xA; 25. Ba2            Rhe8          {Takes control of the open file.}&#xA; 26. Rfe1           Rxe1+         {Forks White's king and White's rook at c1. Black wins a rook. Black is ahead by a rook in material. The game ends in a draw.}&#xA; 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've never found comments such as &amp;quot;Slightly better is g5&amp;quot; to help in my training.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is partly because computers are better at pointing out variations (the answer to &amp;quot;what should I have played?&amp;quot;) as opposed to natural language descriptions (the answer to &amp;quot;why should I play that?&amp;quot;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This sentiment is also shared by Boris Spassky&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From computers you need variations. The evaluation you need to forget.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: Attributed to Boris Spassky in &lt;em&gt;The Wisest Things Ever Said About Chess&lt;/em&gt;, authored by GM Soltis&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2016-05-30T19:51:26.350" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14527" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14517" CreationDate="2016-05-30T22:17:09.737" Score="19" Body="&lt;p&gt;One of the Russians (Filatov?, maybe even Karjakin himself?) brown-nosed to the media that every match is 50-50 odds on the face of it...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But more seriously, Carlsen's rating has consistently been 2850 plus/minus a small amount (20) for some time now, while Karjakin has been more volatile, currently 2775 (near his career best 2788 of July 2011). So I think a 75 Elo advantage in raw strength must be assumed from the outset. This is about 60% scoring per game, and if this were the only factor, then over 12 games then Carlsen should win 7.25 to 4.75 or so, or likely 3-1 with 8 draws. Mathematically, one can model it one way or another (Poisson process), and get that if Carlsen is 30% wins, 8% losses, 62% draws in any game (ignoring color as a first approximation), then he has a 86% chance of winning in regulation, 6% of losing in regulation, and 8% chance of reaching a tiebreak. So nominally a bit over 90% for Carlsen, by Elo.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;OK, that's the pure stats version (like Chess by the Numbers might give). What sort of &quot;corrections&quot; to raw Elo might one give here? First there is the &quot;hunger&quot; factor, which I tend to discount. Second there is the preparation work of each (and their armies of helpers), where Karjakin might have a slight edge. But even if Karjakin wins one full game by prep (rather unlikely, at best he probably gets a superior position in two or three games, with a lot of work still to do), Carlsen still has about a 75% chance of winning by the above Elo estimation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally there is the &quot;grappling&quot; aspect, whether the strength of one player matches up against the weakness of the other, or vice-versa. This is where the chess knowledge of their styles and past meetings would come into play. Karjakin seems assured that his Queen's Indian Defense against d4 can hold as Black, and I'd expect him to play the Berlin against e4. On the other hand, Carlsen has shown himself quite happy to play Nf3 systems (including early g3), just to divert from theory, so I can't think this means much. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for later in the game, I would say that Karjakin's technical capacity (endings, maybe also material imbalances), both in conversion and defense, is probably slightly superior to Carlsen's, maybe simply because the latter is never pushed so hard in this direction. But Carlsen has the clear edge in semi-dynamic positions (think Fischer), and I don't think Karjakin can hope to avoid these for 12 games (including 6 Blacks).  Finally, both seem to play &quot;messy&quot; positions reasonably well, though perhaps not like a specialist might (Morozevich, just to name a name).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But this might be Karjakin's best meta-plan, to aim for chaos game-after-game, hoping that Carlsen cracks, and/or starts to doubt himself. Unfortunately, Karjakin's style is more typically &quot;small-ball&quot;, where he nibbles away with a small edge, first ensuring two results (especially on the Russian team, they would give him White on Board 2 or 3 against a 2650-2700, and expect him to grind out a win this way), and then slowly applying pressure for a victory. I don't see this as particularly that effective against Carlsen (or some other 2800ish players for that matter). On the other hand, Karjakin has previously shown himself to be adaptable in style to suit occasions, and if he objectively looks at the Elo calculation of above, might very well decide to play a bit out of character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is all to say nothing of the media circus and other side events that can cause disturbance to the players. Carlsen didn't face the &quot;Russian full-court psychology&quot; when playing Anand, but in the end I don't think it will affect him much.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9419" LastActivityDate="2016-05-30T22:17:09.737" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14528" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14452" CreationDate="2016-05-31T05:27:27.793" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is standard Owen's Defense, after your move to Nc6; white should play d4 for a strong center. In my opinion, your move to 2)...Nc6 is not the best; c5 to discourage d4, or d5 might keep your light squared bishop more flexible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10439" LastActivityDate="2016-05-31T05:27:27.793" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14529" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14479" CreationDate="2016-05-31T05:36:28.407" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Log in to your account.&#xA;Stay on the Home tab(top left), on the right side there a section called Tournament/Challenges section. This has an adjustable date selection option. Select the start date and end date; or leave the default dates in place and hit Ok. &#xA;There will be a need screen that loads that will list your game history based on the dates. Double click on each game and there you can download each game as .pgn files or just play over it again,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this helps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10439" LastActivityDate="2016-05-31T05:36:28.407" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14530" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14535" CreationDate="2016-05-31T05:54:53.290" Score="2" ViewCount="277" Body="&lt;p&gt;What books or web-sources have people worked with to improve their endgame?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have gone over &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1890085103&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Silman's Complete Endgame Course: From Beginner to Master&lt;/a&gt; and &#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1906454116&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Understanding Chess Endgames&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I feel good about major piece endings but I am still tripping over BN vs NN or BB endings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any thoughts, pointers?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10439" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-05-31T06:58:11.287" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T18:19:56.743" Title="Endgame books or web-sources" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;books&gt;&lt;bishop-endgame&gt;&lt;knight-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14531" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2016-05-31T06:58:35.740" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2016-05-31T06:58:35.740" LastActivityDate="2016-05-31T06:58:35.740" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14532" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2016-05-31T06:58:35.740" Score="0" Body="An endgame where each side has a king, a knight, and possibly some pawns." OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-05-31T09:02:34.573" LastActivityDate="2016-05-31T09:02:34.573" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14533" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14530" CreationDate="2016-05-31T08:15:18.350" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgym.net&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;chessgym&lt;/a&gt; you can train the standard endgames against the computer (An account is not necessary). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Generally playing endgames out against an engine multiplies the effect of just reading about it. Ideally you'll try to win a won endgame against an engine and only then you use the book to find out what you could have done better. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2016-05-31T08:15:18.350" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14534" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2515" CreationDate="2016-05-31T08:23:37.317" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Grunfeld or KID top level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Dutch isn't a number 1 choice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Benoni is hard to play in the middlegame, and I used to play it with poor results.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Slav can be sharp or solid. However, pretty much the only lines that are aggressive and tactical are the semi-Slav botvinnik lines and stuff. Well, what if white plays exchange slav?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Play Grunfeld or KID. Or, play the Budapest gambit until you reach 2200 or higher. That's when you want to play the Grunfeld or KID. Both are aggressive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10441" LastEditorDisplayName="user1108" LastEditDate="2016-05-31T08:32:51.580" LastActivityDate="2016-05-31T08:32:51.580" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14535" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14530" CreationDate="2016-05-31T09:59:12.113" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;A very interesting source is &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.newinchess.com/100_Endgames_You_Must_Know-p-388.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;100 Endgames You Must Know&lt;/a&gt; by Jesús de la Villa. Jesús focuses in most common endgames, with a very practical approach and only 100 pages (Spanish version) long. I miss the K+Q vs K+R ending here, but it's a very recommendable book.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More comprehensive books, and also longer and more dense, are &lt;a href=&quot;https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/1901983536&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Fundamental Chess Endings&lt;/a&gt; by Muller and Lampretch and &lt;a href=&quot;https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/1941270042&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Dvoretsky's Endgame Manual&lt;/a&gt; by Dvoretsky. I've actually used the first one to check missing endgames in de la Villa book, as the K+Q vs K+R.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These books are about theoretical endgames. Also both Dvoretsky's &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.newinchess.com/School_of_Chess_Excellence___the_Complete_Series-p-1912.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;School of Excellence&lt;/a&gt; and Jacob Aagaard &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.newinchess.com/Grandmaster_Preparation___The_Series__Hardcovers_-p-2986.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Grand Master Preparation&lt;/a&gt; series have a book each about practical endgames play. I have read none of them, so I cannot give you my impressions about them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another interesting book is &lt;a href=&quot;https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/0931462169&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Practical Rook Endings&lt;/a&gt; by Mednis, focused in rook endings that, as you know, are the most common ones.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My personal advice is to start with de la Villa Book, to have Muller or Dvoretsky's manual as a reference (at least I cannot afford to study them), and study a book about practical endings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2311" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T18:19:56.743" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T18:19:56.743" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="14536" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14530" CreationDate="2016-05-31T10:15:51.830" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would recommend &lt;em&gt;Endgame Tactics&lt;/em&gt; by Van Perlo, which won the ECF Book of the Year Award 2006.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is IM Silman's review of the book:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It’s important to mention that VAN PERLO’S ENDGAME TACTICS won the biggest award in the world for chess books: The ECF Book of the Year Award (it used to be called the British Chess Federation Book of the Year Award/BCF, but apparently they just changed it). In 2006 Van Perlo beat out both Kasparov (MY GREAT PREDECESSORS V) and Rowson (CHESS FOR ZEBRAS). That’s stiff competition, and is all the more surprising since endgame books usually don’t get the nod. Clearly, VAN PERLO’S ENDGAME TACTICS is something special!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Aside from its entertainment value, VAN PERLO’S ENDGAME TACTICS also gives you an interesting kind of instructive bang for your buck. Though you might know of all the basic tactical themes from your middlegame studies, the endgame offers up some odd tactical ideas that only apply in this final phase of the game (pawn promotions, strange King jigs, etc.). Thus, going over the examples from this book will prove to be quite instructive, while also being lots of fun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ger Van Perlo died in 2010. However, an odd thing happened. I’ll quote the NIC website: “By chance, in 2013 publisher New In Chess discovered a previously unnoticed and unpublished extra batch of endgame tactics collected by the legendary Dutch correspondence grandmaster” [Van Perlo]. As a result, the book has gone from 480 pages to 608, and is even better than the original 2006 award winner.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Highly recommended for players from 1200 to grandmaster.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;http://dev.jeremysilman.com/shop/pc/Van-Perlos-Endgame-Tactics-p3851.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;JeremySilman.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2016-05-31T10:15:51.830" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14537" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-05-31T10:32:31.273" Score="14" ViewCount="1357" Body="&lt;p&gt;In western chess, the Fool's mate and Scholar's Mate are two well-known mates that take very few moves from the starting position.  What would be the shogi equivalents to these, or, more generally, what are the fastest checkmates in shogi?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9531" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-04-29T15:41:07.077" LastActivityDate="2021-04-29T15:41:07.077" Title="What are the shogi equivalents of Fool's and Scholar's mate?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;shogi&gt;&lt;fools-mate&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="14538" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14525" CreationDate="2016-05-31T12:07:51.097" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;One way to play for a win without seeking an opening advantage is to play a &lt;em&gt;system opening&lt;/em&gt;. In this &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/14467/suggest-a-line-for-a-player-who-does-not-want-to-be-dragged-into-the-sicilian/14468#14468&quot;&gt;answer&lt;/a&gt;, I recommended the English Botvinnik System to a player struggling against the Sicilian.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A system opening is where one player develops their pieces to the same squares and has similar plans available no matter what their opponent does.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;System openings have the advantage of saving you clock time and giving you a position that you are familiar with, hence allowing you to play for a win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The problem with system openings is that they ignore the opponent's play and you tend to play with a mind that is half closed. That is, you may miss interesting moves that take advantage of an opponent's mistakes. This is why system openings are not objectively 'the best', i.e. they don't give a theoretical opening advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2016-05-31T12:07:51.097" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14539" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14541" CreationDate="2016-05-31T13:05:40.117" Score="5" ViewCount="1747" Body="&lt;p&gt;If white has the next move, can black still win the game? The players accepted the draw here, but I am not sure if it is still a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;8/8/3k4/4NK2/8/8/8/6r1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10444" LastEditorUserId="10444" LastEditDate="2016-05-31T13:22:55.830" LastActivityDate="2016-06-04T20:29:30.667" Title="Can black win in this KR vs. KN endgame?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14540" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14539" CreationDate="2016-05-31T13:08:36.720" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.k4it.de/?topic=egtb&amp;amp;lang=en&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;tablebase&lt;/a&gt; draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But speaking from experience it can be pretty difficult to defend for white, especially if you are playing on increment. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2016-05-31T13:08:36.720" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14541" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14539" CreationDate="2016-05-31T13:08:58.160" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, this is a draw. These kind of positions can be checked with an online database, e.g. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.shredderchess.com/online-chess/online-databases/endgame-database.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this one&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In general, King+Rook vs. King+Knight is only a win for the side with the Rook if the other King is cornered or separated from its Knight, as also described in &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/4981/7297&quot;&gt;this answer&lt;/a&gt;. Just play around a bit with the endgame database to get a feeling which positions are drawn and which ones are won. Black to move wins in this particular position only because of some short term tactics (Rf1+ and Re1+ wins the Knight).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2016-06-01T20:47:46.793" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14542" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14537" CreationDate="2016-05-31T13:25:41.357" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;A very fast checkmate (6 moves) is described &lt;a href=&quot;http://81squareuniverse.heavenforum.org/t98-quick-checkmate#336&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1. P-7f P-8d 2. P-5f P-5d 3. R-5h S-4b 4. P-5e Px5e 5. Bx5e P-8e 6. Bx7c+ mate&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/zl9mC.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/zl9mC.png&quot; alt=&quot;position after above moves&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;sub&gt;apologies in advance for everyone who feels insulted because of the use of figurines instead of real Shogi pieces - I couldn't find another analysis board&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="9531" LastEditDate="2016-06-01T07:25:34.780" LastActivityDate="2016-06-01T07:25:34.780" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14543" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14530" CreationDate="2016-05-31T16:46:27.137" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The chess training website &lt;a href=&quot;http://chesstempo.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://chesstempo.com&lt;/a&gt; has an environment for training endgames against computer. The positions can be selected according to many criteria to design custom problem sets. There are only winning positions, with no exercises on fighting for a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3456" LastActivityDate="2016-05-31T16:46:27.137" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14544" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14502" CreationDate="2016-05-31T16:51:49.403" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Actually each level of play has its own valid rules which become invalid on a higher level. I recommend sticking with &quot;inferior&quot; moves as long as they bring success against your usual opponents, no matter what the stronger players have to say. After you progress, you will outgrow the rule and will no longer ask.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3456" LastActivityDate="2016-05-31T16:51:49.403" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14545" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-05-31T17:37:33.533" Score="2" ViewCount="131" Body="&lt;p&gt;I remember reading as a child in a book by David Bronstein about an interesting piece of advice that he gave. He recommended to imagine the lines of movement for each piece all across the board as if not restrained by any intervening pieces. This is supposed to help to see all the tactical possibilities.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is to help me locate this quotation. I am also interested in any kind of remarks concerning this piece of advice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3456" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-06-01T10:26:09.777" LastActivityDate="2016-08-30T11:21:28.447" Title="Bronstein's lines of attack on the chessboard" Tags="&lt;famous-players&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14546" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14545" CreationDate="2016-05-31T19:40:10.347" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is actually a common piece of advice given to students of chess. Often chess blindness begins with not projecting your piece movement abilities beyond the first encountered piece in it's way. this helps to clear that deficiency away and begin to cultivate imagination and fantasy position ideas in your mind.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10233" LastActivityDate="2016-05-31T19:40:10.347" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14547" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14525" CreationDate="2016-05-31T20:08:38.833" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Bent Larsen played  somewhat off-beat stuff in the opening, a pseudo-hypermodern style. This reeks of playing for an imbalance in the position and playing to those imbalances. He knew his strengths and weaknesses. Remember: it is your understanding of a position's imbalances and your derivation of a good plan put up against your opponent's understanding that decides games, not evaluations given by a GM in the latest Informant. A position that a GM says &quot;white has an advantage&quot; but you cannot fathom it, is no advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10233" LastActivityDate="2016-05-31T20:08:38.833" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14548" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-05-31T21:44:59.710" Score="3" ViewCount="930" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is ECO, Encyclopedia of Chess Openings still considered the best printed reference work for all the chess openings, as it was back in the '80s? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-06-01T10:06:44.007" LastActivityDate="2017-02-02T20:47:40.630" Title="Is ECO still the best reference for all chess openings?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;books&gt;&lt;eco&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14549" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-05-31T21:49:06.257" Score="1" ViewCount="299" Body="&lt;p&gt;I often read that the Sicilian Sveshnikov is &quot;the most controversial of all chess openings&quot;, then I read the same for the Sicilian Poisoned Pawn... and then same for the Botvinnik Variation of Semi-Slav. What is the most controversial opening or variation? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-06-01T10:06:58.413" LastActivityDate="2016-06-01T10:06:58.413" Title="What is the most controversial opening or variation?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;poisoned-pawn&gt;&lt;sveshnikov&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14550" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14549" CreationDate="2016-05-31T22:32:07.090" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's no quantifiable answer to this. In my subjective experience, the most controversial openings would be the Dutch Defense and the King's Indian Defense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have heard strong players (Sam Shankland, multiple times, including in some of his chess.com videos) heavily disparage the Dutch, but it is still defended occasionally at the top level, most prominently by Nakamura.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The KID is a more frequent guest in super-GM play, and Vladimir Kramnik has a &lt;a href=&quot;http://livestream.com/accounts/1504418/lcc2014/videos/70972178&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;low opinion of it&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At a meta-controversial level, the Berlin Defense causes some debate due to its drawish tendencies and popularity in top-level round robin events.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3270" LastActivityDate="2016-05-31T22:32:07.090" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14551" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2856" CreationDate="2016-06-01T08:29:56.523" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is a study that has been busted. Perhaps it is not a famous one (it seems not to be in PDB or YACPDB). Tim Krabbé featured it in entry 376 of &lt;a href=&quot;http://timkr.home.xs4all.nl/chess2/diary_19.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Open Chess Diary&lt;/a&gt;. Tim reported that Olli Heimo busted it. The annotations are Tim's.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;B. Badai, Shakhmaty v SSSR, 1965. Draw&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;5k2/8/7P/6pP/8/8/8/4K1n1 w - - 0 0&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Kf2 Nh3+ 2.Kf3! (2.Kg3? Nf4 3.Kg4 Ne6 4.Kf5 Kf7 {and White is in zugzwang and must allow...} 5.Ke5 g4 6.Ke4 Kg8) 2...Nf4&#xA;3.Ke4! Ne6! {bust found by Olli Heimo} (3... Kf7? {the intended mainline} 4.Ke5! {Again, not 4.Kf5 Ne6 and White is in Zugzwang.} 4...Ne6 (4...Kg8 5.Kf5 {is the same}) 5.Kf5 {And now Black is in zugzwang.} 5...Kg8 6.Kxe6 g4 7.Kf5 (7.Kf6?? Kh7) g3 8.Kg6 g2 9.h7+ Kh8 10.Kh6 g1=Q =)&#xA;4.Ke5 Nd8! {and after 5... Nf7 Black wins the struggle to keep his last pawn.}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10380" LastActivityDate="2016-06-01T08:29:56.523" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14552" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-06-01T10:07:46.137" Score="5" ViewCount="291" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Black to move&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;8/p2N1pk1/1pn1p1p1/2p1P2p/5P1P/2P3P1/PP6/6K1 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I thought that I had advantage as White since I was able to temporarily cutt off Black king. I have underestimated Black's counterplay on the queenside with &lt;code&gt;...Na5&lt;/code&gt;, misplayed it and drew.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The more and more I analyze on my own, the more and more I start to wonder: Did I have any winning advantage at all, or was my position just &quot;prettier&quot; ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastActivityDate="2020-04-26T18:32:46.000" Title="Can White win this knight endgame?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;knight-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14553" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2016-06-01T10:13:50.650" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2016-06-01T10:13:50.650" LastActivityDate="2016-06-01T10:13:50.650" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14554" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2016-06-01T10:13:50.650" Score="0" Body="The Sveshnikov is a variation of the Sicilian Defense. It is characterized by the moves `1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 e5`." OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-06-01T11:23:16.513" LastActivityDate="2016-06-01T11:23:16.513" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14555" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2016-06-01T10:18:12.030" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2016-06-01T10:18:12.030" LastActivityDate="2016-06-01T10:18:12.030" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14556" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2016-06-01T10:18:12.030" Score="0" Body="In the opening, a pawn is called poisoned if its capture could lead to severe problems, often a disadvantage in development. The best known example is the Poisoned Pawn variation of the Sicilian Najdorf." OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-06-01T11:23:40.187" LastActivityDate="2016-06-01T11:23:40.187" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14558" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14502" CreationDate="2016-06-01T13:00:15.177" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Play a3/a6 type of prophylactic move only if it's in your opening preparation, or after you have fully developed (ie rooks connected). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If not, find ways to live with Bb5/Nb5 and develop first. As in your case, Nf6 is playable -- it doesn't always lead to Fried Liver. And even if you allow Nxf7, you are not lost and it'll be a good defense exercise&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7002" LastActivityDate="2016-06-01T13:00:15.177" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14559" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14561" CreationDate="2016-06-01T13:03:14.060" Score="6" ViewCount="266" Body="&lt;p&gt;Came across this position as part of some variation analysis of one of my previous games. To me it looks like a noticeable (though probably not &lt;em&gt;decisive&lt;/em&gt;) advantage for white -- based on pawn structure and bishop over knight.  Engine analysis however (Stockfish) seems to suggest a draw. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Perhaps someone more knowledgeable than me could resolve my confusion here to a degree, by commenting either why the game isn't likely to be drawn (ie the engine is wrong), or why I'm wrong in seeing an advantage for white when there is none.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;8/1pk2p2/p2p1n2/2pPbP2/P1P5/1P2K3/4B3/4B3 w - - 87 88&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9329" LastActivityDate="2016-06-15T06:01:43.347" Title="Unclear endgame / late middlegame position: looks like advantage white to me, but engine analysis suggests draw" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;middlegame&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14560" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14552" CreationDate="2016-06-01T13:48:11.690" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;You definitely had an advantage, but it's a bit of a challenge to turn that into victory. If you don't use all of your advantages and his disadvantages, it can quickly turn into a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this position, your main advantage is your Knight - it can jump very easily between very useful squares d7-f6-e4-d6.&#xA;Your King can be activated very easily in the next few moves, while black King is quite passive and has limited movement due to your Knight and Pawns (both yours and his) blocking him.&#xA;Moreover, your Knight can't be threatened at d7, so it's your decision when to move it (and give his King some breath).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;His ...Na5 is a logical choice from his side, but you have nothing to fear, your aim is to get your King closer to the center (Kf2-Ke3) and also put Pawn on b3 (not if he pulls back with his Knight, of course) to disable any chances of his Knight getting through (preferably he plays Nc4 before you play b3, so you play that move with gaining a tempo).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, the problem you have is that you can't go too far away with your King. Ideally you would come to the Queen side and take his Pawns, while his King watches helpessly; but you can't do that as he threatens Ne7-Nf5, which leaves your g3 Pawn at his mercy if your King isn't there to defend it. Now, you can try to exchange your g3 Pawn (Kf3 or Nf6 followed by g4), but that leaves you with weak h-Pawn which he can attack easily with his King (Kh6-Kh5) or/and his Knight (Nf5). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The best thing to try (after b3 and after your King is a bit activated on e3-d3) is to get your Knight back to e4 (Nf6-Ne4) to defend g3-Pawn so you can proceed with your King to the Queen side:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;8/p2N1pk1/1pn1p1p1/2p1P2p/5P1P/2P3P1/PP6/6K1 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1...Na5 2. Kf2 Nc4 3. b3 Na5 4. Ke3 Nc6 5. Kd3 Ne7 6. Nf6 Nf5 (6...Nd5 7. Ne8+ Kf8 8. Nd6 Ne7 {Otherwise, you win a Pawn with Nc8} 9. a4 a6 {Black is lost otherwise, he either lets your Knight to c8 or your King inside} 10. a5 bxa5 11. Ne4 Nd5 12. Nxc5 Nc7 13. c4 Ke7 14. Nb7 {And you are a Pawn ahead}) (6...Nc6 7. Kc4 a6 8. Nd7 Ne7 9. Nxb6 Nf5 10. a4 Nxg3 11. Kxc5 f6 12. Nd7 {And now you don't have any trouble promoting on the Queen side on time}) 7. Ne4 Ne7 8. Kc4 a6  9. Nd6 Nc6 10. Nc8 Na5+ 11. Kd3 b5 12. Nb6 Nb7 13. Nd7 a5 14. a3 {Now black has no good moves} Kg8 15. a4 c4+ 16. bxc4 bxa4 17. c5 Nd8 18. Kc2 {You can pick up his a-Pawns and push c-Pawns afterwards} 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But note that I didn't perhaps show the best black defense here. Although, to be honest, with his King that limited, he didn't have many options. If he tries to get his Knight to f5 before he provoked your b3, you can play a4-a5 and his defense on the Queen side is ruined. He can only perhaps try to push his Queen side Pawns and pray that he can somehow block you in time, although it's a very hard fight for him:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;8/p2N1pk1/1pn1p1p1/2p1P2p/5P1P/2P3P1/PP6/6K1 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1...Na5 2. Kf2 Nc4 3. b3 Na5 4. Ke3 c4 5. b4 Nc6 6. Nf6 Kf8 7. Ne4 b5 8. Nd6 a6 9. Ne4 Ke7 10. Nc5 a5 11. bxa5 Nxa5 12. Ne4 Nc6 13. a3 Kd7 14. Nd6 f6 15. Nxb5 fxe5 16. fxe5 Nxe5 17. Kd4 {And now you win a Pawn and have an easy way to victory} 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All in all, your advantage was a bit more substantial than just &quot;prettier&quot; position, at least in my opinion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1099" LastEditorUserId="2042" LastEditDate="2016-06-01T19:01:46.393" LastActivityDate="2016-06-01T19:01:46.393" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14561" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14559" CreationDate="2016-06-01T13:48:41.467" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is true that White has a slight material advantage (the bishop pair vs bishop and a knight), but White's light-squares' bishop is confined to your side of the board and cannot attack any of Black's pieces.  White's dark-squares' bishop cannot enter Black's territory or attack any of Black's pieces either, and your king has a long way to go to attack Black's isolated pawn on f7.  Black's king can easily defend their isolated pawn and Black can further close the position with b7 (so White's dark-squares' bishop cannot attack Black's pawn on d6 from c7 or b8 and overload Black's king while it is defending Black's pawn on f7).  It seems similarly difficult for Black to make any real progress towards a win, so in my inexpert assessment a draw is likely.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9531" LastEditorUserId="9531" LastEditDate="2016-06-05T06:23:11.833" LastActivityDate="2016-06-05T06:23:11.833" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14562" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14502" CreationDate="2016-06-01T14:26:16.980" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The way you've described h6, preventing the annoying Bg5 pin, is called a prophylactic move. They definitely have their uses, and you often see both sides going h3 and h6 after castling later in the game to prevent a later back-rank checkmate, BUT every stage of the game has its own priorities. In the opening, the focus is on establishing a center, developing your pieces, and castling. h6 this early on doesn't help accomplish any of these three objectives and as such should be considered a weak move. Look at it in this light, White generally has a small advantage in the opening by virtue of having the first move. h6 is, in the opening, essentially a do-nothing move, which can only put white further in the drivers seat.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also as a rule of thumb, Bg5 pins are only worth preventing if you've already developed your dark-square bishop with Bc5 or Bb4 (so that you don't want to play Be7) and you cannot break the pin with a queen move e.g., Qd6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.O-O Nf6 5.Re1 O-O 6.d3 h6 {You might want to consider playing h6 here, now black is mostly developed, and has his bishop on c5, so Bg5 could potentially be annoying}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10342" LastActivityDate="2016-06-01T14:26:16.980" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14563" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4353" CreationDate="2016-06-01T15:08:10.540" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would recommend that you download the engine from &lt;a href=&quot;https://stockfishchess.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://stockfishchess.org/&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unzip the zip file and go into the src folder.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;unzip stockfish-7-linux.zip&#xA;cd stockfish-7-linux/src&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Call the make script i.e.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;make build ARCH=x86-64&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10453" LastActivityDate="2016-06-01T15:08:10.540" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14564" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-06-01T17:07:08.217" Score="2" ViewCount="171" Body="&lt;p&gt;As I read both English and Russian chess literature I run into the term 'master'. It is clear from the context that is below grandmaster but is somehow given much respect. I never know what it actually means because it could be any of the three or even something else: FIDE Master, International Master, National Master (whose meaning depends on the country).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This site has many questions about 'master strength' so it is part of everybody's jargon. But I really don't know what it means.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3456" LastActivityDate="2017-02-26T16:16:39.610" Title="What does &quot;master&quot; mean?" Tags="&lt;titles&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14565" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-06-01T17:25:06.407" Score="8" ViewCount="302" Body="&lt;p&gt;Benjamin Franklin wrote a famous essay on the virtues of chess, claiming that it teaches foresight, circumspection, caution among others.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Kasparov Chess Foundation's mission is to bring the many educational benefits of chess to children worldwide by providing a complete chess curriculum and enrichment programs. The Foundation promotes the study of chess as a cognitive learning tool in curricular classes and after-school programs for elementary, middle and high schools, both in the public and private school sectors.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This mission statement presupposes that there actually are educational benefits of chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there any argument to support the claim that chess can help develop moral virtues or practical skills? Or is it perhaps just the wishful thinking of chess playing philosophers and philanthropists?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3456" LastEditorUserId="10905" LastEditDate="2016-11-21T20:09:23.097" LastActivityDate="2016-11-21T20:09:23.097" Title="Does chess help develop moral virtues or correct practical attitudes?" Tags="&lt;teaching&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="10" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14566" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14567" CreationDate="2016-06-01T20:21:47.353" Score="2" ViewCount="341" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;White to move&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;1r3rk1/1p4bp/p2p1q2/2pPn1p1/B1PnRp2/PPN2P1P/2QB2P1/3R2K1 w - - 5 27&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a diagram from the game between Del Rey, Diego and Efimenko, Zahar on the Zalakaros Chess Festival after 26...Nd4. White answered with 27.Rxd4. I don't understand why white needed to sacrifice his rook for the knight in this position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10456" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-06-01T20:46:23.657" LastActivityDate="2016-06-01T20:46:23.657" Title="Why sacrifice the rook?" Tags="&lt;knights&gt;&lt;rooks&gt;&lt;sacrifice&gt;&lt;exchange&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14567" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14566" CreationDate="2016-06-01T20:45:43.297" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, he has to because there is no other option. The black Knight threatens to capture the white Queen, but also a 'sacrifice' on f3 which will eventually win the white Knight on c3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;White to move&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;1r3rk1/1p4bp/p2p1q2/2pPn1p1/B1PnRp2/PPN2P1P/2QB2P1/3R2K1 w - - 5 27&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Qb2? Ndxf3+ 2. gxf3 Nexf3+ 3. Kg2 Nxd2 4. Qxd2 Qxc3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This might not even be the best variation for Black. In any case, even after the sacrifice, White is still lost.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2016-06-01T20:45:43.297" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14568" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14564" CreationDate="2016-06-02T04:07:14.507" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are several reasons why someone would use the term 'master', but without a specific reference to work from all I can suggest is that the term is generally synonymous with the phrase 'top player'. The two examples that come to mind are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Historical:&lt;/strong&gt; Many of the great early players did not have actual titles (either because the titles had not been invented or because the systems for reliably attaining them had not been introduced). In this case, one might refer to Morphy or Philidor as a 'master', simply because calling them a GM/IM would be inaccurate. Also consider that when the title 'Grand Master' was first conferred, it was not just a title to hand out to players but a real statement that those five players were some of the best ever. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Cultural:&lt;/strong&gt; As you noted in the question, many foreign (esp. Russian) books up until the 1980s or so use the term. I cannot say exactly why, but the usage is certainly meant to indicate that those people are deserving of respect as top-calibre players. Perhaps part of this is due to the fact that some top theoreticians were not acknowledged as being among the best practical players, and so this allowed them to be given the same level of respect as determined by the author. Hopefully someone more knowledgable in soviet chess culture can fill us in on this one.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is in contrast to the modern USCF system where a range of various master titles are (by comparison to earlier times and other areas of the world) given out like candy. This is not to say that the achievements are not still somewhat impressive, but they ultimately mean something much less than the term does in those other contexts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="550" LastActivityDate="2016-06-02T04:07:14.507" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14569" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14571" CreationDate="2016-06-02T04:28:26.307" Score="1" ViewCount="1801" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yesterday, after squandering a win, I played on until stalemate (actually, I offered a draw, but my opponent isn't a native English speaker, so I don't think she understood; in a few more plies we hit stalemate).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I realized I didn't know how to indicate this on my scoresheet and I just wrote &quot;stalemate&quot; in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Is there a proper way to indicate &quot;stalemate&quot; on your scoresheet?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For checkmate, I believe it's usual to write #, but I'm not sure for stalemate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2785" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-06-02T09:04:44.277" LastActivityDate="2016-06-02T20:22:01.180" Title="Is there a proper way to indicate &quot;stalemate&quot; on your scoresheet?" Tags="&lt;notation&gt;&lt;stalemate&gt;&lt;scoresheet&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14570" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14569" CreationDate="2016-06-02T09:04:15.273" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Stalemate is so rare that it doesn't seem to have it's own notation symbol. It is not listed in the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=171&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;FIDE Handbook&lt;/a&gt;, section C.13, which is the official source on these kind of rules. Even the symbol for mate (&lt;code&gt;#&lt;/code&gt;) is optional. I would just go for the word 'stalemate' like you did.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2016-06-02T09:04:15.273" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14571" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14569" CreationDate="2016-06-02T09:37:52.913" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;On your scoresheet you are required to record the result which 99.99% of the time will be one of 1-0, 0-1, ½-½. In the very rare cases when it is not one of those somebody will almost certainly be appealing the arbiter's / organizer's decision ;-).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You are not required to put how that result was achieved, e.g. flag dropped, resigned, defaulted, draw by 3-fold repetition, draw by 5-fold repetition, draw by 50 move rule, draw by 75 move rule (I actually got to rule that in a junior competition a few weeks ago - a real pain in the backside having to count up to 75 ;-) ), successful draw claim under appendix G in a quickplay finish that my opponent wasn't trying to win, successful draw claim under appendix G in a quickplay finish that my opponent couldn't win by normal means, checkmate, stalemate, etc. Note that I believe some national federations still allow adjudication but FIDE does not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You get the picture! It would get a bit silly. Of course you are free to record that if you want. Just that not being a requirement there is no &quot;approved&quot; way for doing this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2016-06-02T14:14:47.717" LastActivityDate="2016-06-02T14:14:47.717" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14572" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14574" CreationDate="2016-06-02T15:08:36.740" Score="2" ViewCount="126" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a new [and a late] comer to chess. I started practicing on &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chesscademy.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;chessacademy.com&lt;/a&gt; where I got &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chesscademy.com/tactics/15083&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this exercise&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;r1bqk1nr/ppp2pp1/4p2p/8/1bPnN3/5N2/PP1B1PPP/R2QKB1R w KQkq - 1 13&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to the site, the best move is ♗b4 and then it asks the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[Why not accomplish the same thing by Qa4+...Qxb4?]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can't see why not? Any hints?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10465" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-06-02T15:52:19.563" LastActivityDate="2016-06-02T16:06:18.433" Title="Why using the queen is not a good idea in this case?" Tags="&lt;tactics&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14574" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14572" CreationDate="2016-06-02T15:54:25.753" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You are missing the knight fork on &lt;code&gt;c2&lt;/code&gt;. After &lt;code&gt;1.Qa4+ Bd7 2.Qxb4 Nc2+ 3.Kd1 Nxb4&lt;/code&gt; you would lose the queen...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastActivityDate="2016-06-02T15:54:25.753" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14575" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14572" CreationDate="2016-06-02T16:06:18.433" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This kind of question can be answered by using an online engine connected with a chessboard editor. Since you need to get the FEN to enter this position here you might as well use that editor and play it against computer: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.apronus.com/chess/playcomputer/?fen=0r1bqk1nrXppp2pp1X4p2pX8X1bPnN3X5N2XPP1B1PPPXR2QKB1R_w_KQkq_-_0_1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.apronus.com/chess/playcomputer/?fen=0r1bqk1nrXppp2pp1X4p2pX8X1bPnN3X5N2XPP1B1PPPXR2QKB1R_w_KQkq_-_0_1&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The game will go 1.Qa4+ Bd7 2.Qxb4 Nc2+&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this helps next time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3456" LastActivityDate="2016-06-02T16:06:18.433" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14576" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14569" CreationDate="2016-06-02T20:22:01.180" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;2c: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Seems logical to use the symbol for zugzwang (no good move) and checkmate next to each other: ‡# (zugzwang is usually a circle with a dot at the centre.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10233" LastActivityDate="2016-06-02T20:22:01.180" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14577" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14477" CreationDate="2016-06-02T20:31:16.093" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The only tool I know of that would be useful here is Chessbase, but may not be exactly what you want. You can add variations along with training questions at any point in the main line or any sub-variation. This seems to be what you are looking for.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chessbase Reader may support that as well, but not sure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10233" LastActivityDate="2016-06-02T20:31:16.093" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14578" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14477" CreationDate="2016-06-02T20:42:27.030" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This sounds like just playing the original position against an engine normally, except maybe with a &quot;correct move&quot; message whenever the correct solution moves are played, and &quot;you solved it&quot; at the end?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I &quot;play out&quot; Shredder's puzzles sometimes this way by switching off puzzle mode and backing up a move. But yeah, it's clunky (a lot of extra clicking) and should be easier.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7314" LastActivityDate="2016-06-02T20:42:27.030" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14579" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14565" CreationDate="2016-06-02T20:57:26.707" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are better things to do than play chess if cognitive improvements are desired. This is not to say that chess has no utility in the educational system. I believe that chess is helpful for children to develop simple problem solving skills, but when we get to high school, a hour review session in mathematics is much more useful than a hour of chess. &#xA;As for moral values and attitudes, chess is not the rate determining step here. upbringing, environment, society, disposition.... These are much stronger factors. Not suprisingly, we all know non-virtuous chess players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3872" LastActivityDate="2016-06-02T20:57:26.707" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14581" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14564" CreationDate="2016-06-03T05:52:52.700" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Master is usually 2000 ELO, kind of national level player, who knows the game in much depth. Its consider below IM - international maser and Grand Master.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10476" LastActivityDate="2016-06-03T05:52:52.700" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14582" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8608" CreationDate="2016-06-03T07:21:09.263" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://swips.eu/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;SWIPS&lt;/a&gt; is also online tool for managing tournaments. It includes much more than just a swiss system and round robin, but you can use it solely for that purpose if you want.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Right now its free, available languages are English and Slovak.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10477" LastActivityDate="2016-06-03T07:21:09.263" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14583" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14589" CreationDate="2016-06-03T08:22:07.103" Score="6" ViewCount="487" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;rn1qk1nr/pp4p1/2p2p2/4P2p/1bp5/2NbPPP1/PP2N1BP/R1BQ1RK1 w kq - 1 11&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Komodo 8 and Stockfish agree on Nf4 here for white ( sacrificing the rook for development). It does not however show Bxf1 next for black but instead fxe5 and then Nxd3. Why shouldn't black just take the rook instead of fxe5. I get that after white swaps queens black will not be able to castle but wouldn't this still be worth it materially?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7236" LastActivityDate="2016-06-03T21:35:59.057" Title="Reasoning for Rook sacrifice" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14584" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-06-03T09:46:46.283" Score="4" ViewCount="315" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the following game I played as White where I was mated. Can you comment on my game and how to improve?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm particularly interested in understanding the my opponent's mating attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Live Chess&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Chess.com&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2016.05.26&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;anandsadasivam&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;PMajstor&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;878&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;886&quot;]&#xA;[TimeControl &quot;10|0&quot;]&#xA;[Termination &quot;PMajstor won by checkmate&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.f4 exf4 3.Qg4 Bd6 4.d4 f6 5.c4 Nh6 6.Qf3 b6 7.a4 a5 8.h4 O-O 9.Bxf4 Bxf4 10.Qxf4 d6&#xA; 11.g4 Nxg4 12.Ne2 h6 13.Bh3 f5 14.Rf1 Qxh4+ 15.Ng3 Qxh3 16.Nxf5 Bxf5 17.exf5 Ne3 18.b3 Nc2+ 19.Kd1 Nxa1 20.Kc1 Rxf5&#xA; 21.Qxf5 Nxb3+ 22.Kd1 Qxf5 23.Rxf5 Nxd4 24.Rf4 Nbc6 25.Nc3 Rf8 26.Re4 Nf3 27.Nd5 Ng5 28.Rg4 Rf1+ 29.Ke2 Rf8 30.Nxc7 Ne5&#xA; 31.Rd4 Rd8 32.Nd5 Nc6 33.Rf4 Re8+ 34.Kd3 Ne5+ 35.Kc3 Ng6 36.Rf1 Ne4+ 37.Kd4 Nd2 38.Rd1 Nf3+ 39.Kc3 Nge5 40.Nxb6 Rb8&#xA; 41.Rxd6 Ng5 42.Nd7 Ne4+ 43.Kd4 Nxd6 44.Nxb8 Nexc4 45.Nc6 g5 46.Kd3 g4 47.Ke2 g3 48.Kf1 h5 49.Kg2 h4 50.Kh3 Nf5&#xA; 51.Nd8 Nb2 52.Nc6 Nc4 53.Nd8 Kf8 54.Ne6+ Ke7 55.Ng7 Nxg7 56.Kxh4 g2 57.Kh3 g1=Q 58.Kh4 Ne6 59.Kh5 Kf6 60.Kh6 Qh1#&#xA; 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9229" LastEditorDisplayName="user1108" LastEditDate="2016-06-03T10:01:36.787" LastActivityDate="2016-06-05T09:29:52.340" Title="Please review my game in the King's Gambit Accepted" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;kings-gambit&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14585" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14583" CreationDate="2016-06-03T10:22:21.930" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;i'm No pro but I think that after:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nf4 Bxf1&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;Qxd8 Kxd8 [Queen Trade]&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;Ne6+&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;wherever the king goes black is in a poor position&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;Ke7/Ke8 is followed by Nc7&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;Kd7 is perhaps black's best bet. But even in this case the kin is vulnerable to a discovered check by the white squared bishop.&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;Kc8 leaves black in a poor position.The black king is blocking his own rook&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10478" LastActivityDate="2016-06-03T10:22:21.930" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14586" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8608" CreationDate="2016-06-03T10:49:10.100" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;An offline alternative is &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.vegachess.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Vegachess&lt;/a&gt;, which it is also homologated by FIDE. AFAIK Vegachess just uses javafo as its pairing engine. Linux version of vegachess is free to use and Windows version not very expensive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2311" LastActivityDate="2016-06-03T10:49:10.100" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14587" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14476" CreationDate="2016-06-03T13:10:03.150" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I dont know any way to do this.&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;One workaround you can try is:&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i) open the PGN in an analyzer. You can also use the chess.com game editor&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;ii) open a screen recorder&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;iii) most probably the analyzer shows animations when you click right/left. Record them.&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;iv) convert the video to a gif.(XD)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This method is not automatic(and is very slow), but it allows you to adjust the time shown per move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you could be a bit more specific as to where and how you wish to use it i may be able to give a better solution. The reason I am suggesting this method is that making a gif for a whole game is very impractical.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT:&lt;/strong&gt; You can use some programming knowledge to make it easier:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) Open the page with the analyzer&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) Select the right arrow button. Inspect Element. Get its ID.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) The Inspect editor allows you to change the code (just for yourself). Add a js command to autoclick the button after intervals.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4)Turn on a screen recorder and start recording.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5) Sit back, relax, and do other stuff while the game is being recorded automatically.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;WARNING: Do The js thing at your own risk. It may violate some protocols.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10478" LastEditorUserId="10478" LastEditDate="2016-06-05T17:13:55.840" LastActivityDate="2016-06-05T17:13:55.840" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14588" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14476" CreationDate="2016-06-03T14:12:49.277" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There seems to be &lt;a href=&quot;http://view-source:http://www.apronus.com/chess/pgnviewer/pgnviewer-scripts.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;php code for the apronus example you gave&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9531" LastActivityDate="2016-06-03T14:12:49.277" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14589" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14583" CreationDate="2016-06-03T14:45:30.213" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Also keep in mind that the rook isn't necessarily being sacrificed free and clear, because taking back on f1 is a possibility (if not playing Ne6+ right away), meaning white is only sacrificing the exchange, while trading queens and leaving the black king exposed and vulnerable and unable to castle, so it's not as costly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10479" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2016-06-03T21:35:59.057" LastActivityDate="2016-06-03T21:35:59.057" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14590" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14584" CreationDate="2016-06-03T19:48:58.857" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think your first step toward improvement has to be: don't just lose material. 11.g4 is the first example I see. There seems no rhyme nor reason for just letting the opponent have that pawn. Next is 14.Rf1. There seem to be reasonable ways to not lose the h4 pawn. And finally 15.Ng3 dropping a whole piece on h3, when 15.Bg2 would have saved it. Why keep material? 1) More material for you means you have more material to launch attacks, and 2) More material also gives you more defenses for your king if your opponent goes on a premature king attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7314" LastActivityDate="2016-06-03T19:48:58.857" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14591" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14584" CreationDate="2016-06-03T23:26:48.403" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Dev Anand Sadasivam&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my analysis will start after 6..Nh6&#xA;How I would proceed after that move, I would play: &lt;code&gt;6. Qxg7&lt;/code&gt; smash black's kingside and get his pieces tangled up. And a continuation could be this &#xA;&lt;code&gt;6.... Nf7 7. Nc3 c6 8. Qg4 c5 9. dxc5 Bxc5 10. Nd5 Nc6 11. Qxf4 Qa5+ 12. Bd2 Qd8 13. Nxf6+ Kf8&lt;/code&gt; White is up two pawns and needs to castle queen side.  &lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;As well I agree with Jeff Y with not dropping pieces. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10439" LastActivityDate="2016-06-03T23:26:48.403" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14593" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14595" CreationDate="2016-06-04T07:37:12.140" Score="5" ViewCount="385" Body="&lt;p&gt;For the record, I have already made my move. I am black and I moved 2. ... d5. But I am wondering if that was a mistake. I am a total newb and am trying to learn the Caro-Kann. As I understand it, after 1. e4 c6, black should play d5 regardless of white's response. However, I have not found any analysis on 2. g4.  Was my decision to go 2. ... d5 a mistake?  Is this still a Caro-Kann game or is it something else now?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10486" LastEditorUserId="10486" LastEditDate="2016-06-04T08:11:19.403" LastActivityDate="2016-06-04T13:09:38.353" Title="Is a Caro-Kann game still advisable after 1. e4 c6 2. g4?" Tags="&lt;caro-kann&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14594" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1743" CreationDate="2016-06-04T10:26:43.560" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chess.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chess.com&lt;/a&gt; is a good website, but I prefer &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.lichess.org&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;en.lichess.org&lt;/a&gt;.&#xA;It has multiple variants you can play (KOTH, etc.), it's free.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also it has its own game analyzer which is a very useful tool.&#xA;In all other ways, it's about as good as chess.com.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10478" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-06-04T12:45:58.537" LastActivityDate="2016-06-04T12:45:58.537" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14595" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14593" CreationDate="2016-06-04T13:09:38.353" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The g4  line is called the Spike Variation of the Caro-Kannn(B10). Commonly played line is 2...d5 with e5 there after. White gives up development of pieces for more spatial control. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10439" LastActivityDate="2016-06-04T13:09:38.353" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14596" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-06-04T19:28:20.233" Score="1" ViewCount="667" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a linux user and have been able to write not-too-complex C programs.  I have also used makefiles. I have tried to download tablebase generator programs from GitHub but do not understand how to do this. The site seems to be primarily for programmers rather than users. I'm also not sure whether downloading source code costs money there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10489" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-06-04T20:29:30.117" LastActivityDate="2016-06-05T08:39:51.113" Title="syzygy tablebase generation program" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14597" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14539" CreationDate="2016-06-04T20:29:30.667" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The black king and the rock are too far away from each other for the knight to have a fork. and no more pieces to have a tactic or coordinate an attack or promote a pawn. Black will always have the advantage of long range attack (that's why the rock valued for more points as it can attack larger number of squares) So the knight movements will always be restricted. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So in nutshell no hope for white player to achieve anything more than a draw. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10490" LastActivityDate="2016-06-04T20:29:30.667" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14599" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14596" CreationDate="2016-06-05T08:39:51.113" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;First of all, everything on Github can be downloaded freely.  Normally, there should be a download button somewhere.  Do you have a specific project in mind sou want to download?  There seem to be several tablebase generators available.  One is available from &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/syzygy1/tb&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://github.com/syzygy1/tb&lt;/a&gt; it seems to have decent documentation.  There is a green button on the top right labeled &quot;Clone or download&quot;, which allows you to download the whole thing as a zip file.  From there you will have to follow the provided instructions to compile it.  For questions on this another, more programming-related SE, may be more appropriate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3529" LastActivityDate="2016-06-05T08:39:51.113" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14600" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14584" CreationDate="2016-06-05T09:29:52.340" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The main sense of playing a gambit is to sacrifice material in order to have some kind of compensation. In the KGA, you give black a pawn for quick development and central control. For this reason 3. Qg4 don't make a lot of sense. Your queen can easily be harassed by black pieces (for example 3... Nf6 or 3... d5 black will give you back the pawn and have a better development).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After 2... exf4 you have three reasonable choices 3. Nf3 3.Bc4 or 3. Nc3 (I have no experience in this one but it is know as Keres gambit and to me it looks more risky than the other two options). You can look to some Morphy, Bronstein or Spassky games to have an idea of the main themes of this opening. Of course it is better to improve the rest of your gameplay first...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10455" LastActivityDate="2016-06-05T09:29:52.340" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14601" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-06-05T10:42:56.467" Score="7" ViewCount="5848" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am planning to create a chess puzzle book for beginners. Diagrams need to be published in the book. Right now I have all the materials in PDF. But I need a software to create diagrams for a particular chess position. Is there any way to scan chess diagrams from a PDF?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10497" LastEditorUserId="17823" LastEditDate="2021-01-04T07:18:24.900" LastActivityDate="2021-01-04T07:18:24.900" Title="How can I scan a chessboard and obtain its FEN?" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;fen&gt;&lt;diagram&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="14602" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14603" CreationDate="2016-06-05T11:49:53.610" Score="2" ViewCount="235" Body="&lt;p&gt;@JoshuaBakker &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/q/13026/315&quot;&gt;has made an interesting comment:&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Why would you want [weaker competition]? For learning it's better to play against decent players....&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But is it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I believe that such advice used to be conventional during the precomputer era. If Capablanca had time to play chess against me, then I should have seized the opportunity, even if I must certainly have lost.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But is this not chiefly because Capablanca rarely had time to play chess against me?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Today, Stockfish always has time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One could reasonably infer from the comment, taken in context, that an Elo 1300 player &lt;em&gt;wasted his time&lt;/em&gt; by playing any Elo 1000 to 1600 opponents, if he could instead have been playing against nothing but the masters. Yet, is this really true?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Would one really learn chess best by fighting only hopeless odds? Does one truly gain nothing by the occasional victory, having taking advantage of an opponent's blunder? Must steely, grim perseverance in the face of certain destruction be the sole mode of chess play which has any lessons to teach?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/q/9737/315&quot;&gt;(Here are a related question and answers from last year.)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="315" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2016-06-05T12:25:25.707" Title="Steely, grim perseverance in the face of certain destruction" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14603" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14602" CreationDate="2016-06-05T12:25:25.707" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;As this question highlights, it can become problematic if you don't even feel like you have a hope of winning a single game. Where's the fun in that? In my opinion, chess should be played first and foremost because it is fun. It isn't very fun never to feel the satisfaction of playing a nice winning combination against an opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think it's important for chess improvement to have fun while dealing with chess, and thus some success is needed. Otherwise it all becomes a chore, which will impede development in the long run. Therefore, I don't think it's&#xA;advisable to play against stockfish for practice, unless it's training of some particular technique. Furthermore, stockfish training (i.e playing games against stockfish) will never really be applicable in regular games, as humans cannot, and will not even try to, play like the top computers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, facing strong opponents is a crucial component to improving. The ideal opponent is in my view somebody with a strength about 200-400 rating points above oneself. Then they will most likely beat you, and highlight the mistakes you make which makes them easier for you to discover and correct for future games. But you still have a realistic chance of scoring. You will have to struggle though, and really push yourself not to get blown off the board. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you don't play stronger opponents, you will never improve very much. Why? Because there simply is no need for improvement then!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8300" LastActivityDate="2016-06-05T12:25:25.707" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14604" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14601" CreationDate="2016-06-05T14:15:47.683" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Try the following. You upload the image, it scans and generates FEN. I don't know if it will read a pdf but converting a pdf to a common graphic format is not hard.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgrabber.nicolaas.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess Grabber&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I tried it using the diagram from &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/14583/reasoning-for-rook-sacrifice&quot;&gt;this posting&lt;/a&gt;. It generated its determination of the diagram and this FEN:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;rn1qk1nr/Pp4P1/2p2P2/4P2p/1bp5/2NbPPP1/PP2N1BP/B1BQ1RK1 w kq - 0 1&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2016-06-05T16:39:48.280" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14605" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14607" CreationDate="2016-06-05T20:13:58.650" Score="1" ViewCount="392" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just finished a game. I got into a pretty convenient position at move 17 (I play white):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/HFAwL.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/HFAwL.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I noticed that in order to checkmate, I only need to remove the black bishop from protecting e7 and then I can get my knight there and checkmate. So, I figured that if I push the pawn on the b file to the c file, there's a good chance my opponent would capture the knight on c3 &quot;for free&quot; and would allow me to checkmate. My plan worked like a charm but the computer analysis tells me that was a blunder.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I do realize that it might not have been the best move if I would have played against a GM. But in this scenarios which we're both around 1400+, this seemed like the most logical move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, I wonder how could I really trust an engine if it only plays GM level and doesn't understand the potential move for a human on a specific level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's the PGN for the game with the analysis:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 d5 3.Nf3 dxc4 4.Nc3 e6 5.e4 Bb4 6.Bg5 h6 7.Bxf6 gxf6 { (+0.60 → +1.11) Inaccuracy. A better move was Qxf6. } 8.Bxc4 Nc6 9.O-O O-O 10.Qd3 e5 11.d5 Bg4 { (+0.94 → +2.81) Mistake. The best move was Na5. } 12.Qe3 { (+2.79 → +1.53) Inaccuracy. A better move was dxc6. } 12...Na5 13.Be2 Kh7 14.Nh4 f5 { (+1.48 → +2.08) Inaccuracy. A better move was Bd7. } 15.Nxf5 Qg5 { (+2.31 → +4.92) Blunder. The best move was Bxf5. } 16.Bxg4 Qxg4 { (+5.23 → +9.72) Blunder. The best move was Qxe3. } 17.Qxh6+ Kg8 18.b3 { (+11.64 → +3.66) Blunder. The best move was d6. } 18...Bxc3 { (+4.09 → +318.00) Blunder. The best move was Qg6. } 19.Ne7# &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8251" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2016-06-05T20:52:58.147" LastActivityDate="2016-10-20T11:06:54.807" Title="Can computer analysis really understand human behavior?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;engines&gt;&lt;blunder&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14606" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14559" CreationDate="2016-06-05T20:47:18.423" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;My rating peaked in the low 1800's and I'm probably a good deal weaker now.  I suggest, and there are probably many problems with this, that White begin with a5, follow with b4 and Ba4, then Bh4 threatening Bxf6.  This is great as long as Black doesn't do anything in the meantime :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10489" LastActivityDate="2016-06-05T20:47:18.423" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14607" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14605" CreationDate="2016-06-05T23:52:45.633" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;This response will be very critical of OP's attitude to chess analysis, and I realize that it may even come across as somewhat harsh. However, it is assumed below that OP is interested in improving, and thus I feel that some level of harshness is justified here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Playing for cheap tricks - because that is exactly what 18.b3 is - is not something a computer would do. You will never find an engine that &quot;understands&quot; the &quot;motivation&quot; behind playing such a move. It calculates variations, and notices that the move is just not good.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, you seem to be under the erroneous impression that this is not a desireable property for the engine under these circumstances. In the example position you give, of course 18.b3 is a bad move in every respect. It is good if and only if black is careless enough to take on c3. The move doesn't threaten anything, and it only gives black time to defend a lost position. As you have other ways of playing that, unlike 18.b3, won't jeopardize your winning chances, the move is correctly classified by the computer as a mistake.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So basically: you get a winning position, and you don't know how to win. Seeing no way to win, you play a move that isn't very good if black just ignores the knight on c3, hoping that your opponent blunders. You don't try to play the best move in the position. And yet you feel like there is a reason to object when the engine picks up on this? Remember that there is an iron clad rule when playing chess, that should always be followed:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;NEVER UNDERESTIMATE YOUR OPPONENT!&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would absolutely not put it past a 1400 player to spot that 18...Bxc3 is a bad move in that position. Furthermore, playing in a way that relies on your opponent falling for 1-move traps, because thinking of better ideas is too much of a bother, is no way to improve. And if you don't want to improve, why does this question even need to be asked? There is no other obvious point in reviewing the games that you play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you were in a lost position instead of a winning one, then your doubt would have been justified, as sometimes in such a situation, only the cheap tricks have a chance at succeeding. But if you have a good position, you shouldn't bash the computer for criticizing your way of handling the position. In analysis, you should under no circumstances assume that one side will make bad moves. Analysis is about finding the truth - not about making yourself feel better about your play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One final note: if you really want to improve using analysis, you shouldn't rely on the computer for analyzing your games. Focus on trying to find the best moves in the position yourself. The computer can never explain the &quot;why&quot; of a position. That is something you need to figure out for yourself most of the time if you don't have the help of a strong human player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8300" LastActivityDate="2016-06-05T23:52:45.633" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14608" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14605" CreationDate="2016-06-06T00:25:15.283" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The idea is right but the execution is wrong. The idea being that you noticed that that bishop is absolutely required to remain on that a3-f8 diagonal or it's checkmate for you. Good job seeing that! But trying to win by &quot;trickery&quot; is not really the way to go in chess. Because even lower-rated opponents may not &quot;fall&quot; for it, especially given enough time to think. Look instead at a more threatening/limiting move for that bishop like a3. Black has no good place to which to move the bishop. Black may well make the same mistake and take the knight, but if he/she does not, you have more good follow up moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7314" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2016-06-06T01:26:31.173" LastActivityDate="2016-06-06T01:26:31.173" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14609" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1960" CreationDate="2016-06-06T05:26:02.603" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;If you want to go e4:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Ruy Lopez is complicated, but it won't baby you. I recommend it for all levels; anyone between a FIDE rating of 100 and 9999. The scotch is also an acceptable choice i guess, but i recently learned that at the top level it's actually just a draw. The Ruy Lopez secures an initiative for white.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Against the Sicilian, either the open Sicilian or the c3/Alapin Sicilian is a great choice. c3 Sicilian leads to isolated queen's pawn positions, which are very good for understanding more about the game of chess. The c3 Sicilian doesn't require a massive amount of theory either.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Against the french, just play the Tarrasch I guess. The Tarrasch is the most solid line against the french at the top top top level (in which almost nobody plays the french at the supergrandmaster level because it's passive and doesn't 'play for a win').&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Against the Caro-Kann, you can try 1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. exd5 cxd5 Bd3 which is pretty easy to play if you do a little of homework, though it might be kind of dry. The absolute best response against the Caro-Kann is the advanced variation where you play e5, but it's actually hard to play and hard to get used to because black gets easy moves, and the pawn on e5 and d4 feels kind of over extended and loose. And playing c3 to hold the pawn chain together is never a good move in the main lines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Against the Pirc, 150-attack or Classical system are good. Look them up if you ever face the Pirc at your level. It's rare. You can also try f4 (Austrian Attack), g3, and Bc4, though I don't actually recommend the austrian attack. It's about dead equal but not very drawish at the same time. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Against the Scandinavian, just the main lines. The Scandinavian is also rare. Qd6 and Qa5 are two different systems and completely different.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;If you want to go d4:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can try the London system or just the main lines (d4 c4 Nc3 e4 setup). The London system is about equal (white wants to be slightly above equal), but it's super impervious, solid, and you'll broaden your understanding about chess, and there are a several grandmasters who play the London system.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;London System = d4 Bf4 e3 Nf3 c3 Nbd2 h3 setup.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Whether you play the London system or the mainline d4 with c4, you are going to have to watch out for:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Grunfeld. The Grunfeld is actually the best best best absolute best opening against the d4 if you go for the Nc3 mainline (1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 d5). The Grunfeld is very sharp and a lot of grandmasters are facing a little trouble against the Grunfeld. But, hey, grandmasters play d4 c4 setup, so it must be promising. The Grunfeld's endgames are always superior to white's in the main lines because of the 2-to-1 pawn majority on the queenside.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Nimzo-Indian defense is also very solid and good for black, just right behind the Grunfeld by a millionth of an inch.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Slav is right behind the Nimzo-Indian defense in soundness. The Slav can both be sharp and solid. Also the semi-Slav Botvinnik is the sharpest opening in all of chess openings. The Najdorf and the Grunfeld are just a little behind in sharpness but still super sharp.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;In conclusion:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I recommend one of the following:&#xA;-Mainline e4&#xA;-Mainline d4&#xA;-London System &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Alternates&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;-You can look at the English (c4)&#xA;-You can look at the Catalan&#xA;-You can look at the Reti, but you really have to like it to be good with it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Extra notes:&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;-Generally you want tactical and sharp openings if you're a beginner, because playing out their middle games will improve your tactics. e4 is sharper and more tactical than d4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10501" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T16:44:13.127" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T16:44:13.127" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="14610" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-06-06T05:37:12.297" Score="29" ViewCount="5029" Body="&lt;p&gt;A friend and I yesterday asked ourselves what the highest number of possible mates in a (legal) position is. We were able to come up with the following position which has a total of &lt;strong&gt;76 unique mates in 1&lt;/strong&gt;, but we then failed to improve upon this one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Q3Q3/4K2Q/6R1/3R4/QB2k3/5R1N/2R5/QQ1Q1N1B w - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do you know if this problem ever has been solved and what the highest possible number is? It was hard for us to come up with a reasonably low upper bound so that I have no idea whether this solution is close to the maximum.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3664" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-12-13T18:06:16.877" LastActivityDate="2020-12-13T18:06:16.877" Title="What is the highest number of different mates in 1 you can have in one (legal) position?" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;problems&gt;&lt;records&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="9" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14611" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14610" CreationDate="2016-06-06T06:22:26.763" Score="22" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;1B1Q1Q2/2R5/pQ4QN/RB2k3/1Q5Q/N4Q2/K2Q4/6Q1 w - - 0 1 &quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;105 mates — Nenad Petrovic, &lt;em&gt;Sahovski Vjesnika&lt;/em&gt; 1947 (&lt;a href=&quot;http://pdb.dieschwalbe.de/search.jsp?expression=probid=%27P0004129%27&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess Problem Database&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this position any check is mate. There are 3 knight mates (c4, g4, f7), 23 discovered mates (14 moves for the rook on c7, 9 for the bishop on b5), and 79 queen mates: 1 on a1, 2 on b2, 3 on c3, 4 on c5, 6 on d4, 3 on d5, 6 on d6, 3 on e1, 2 on e2, 4 on e3, 4 on e4, 2 on e6, 4 on e7, 3 on e8, 5 on f4, 3  on f5, 6 on f6, 4 on g3, 5 on g5, 2 on g7, 3 on h2, 3 on h5, and 1 on h8, for a total of 105 mates.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2299" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-08-20T20:18:21.143" LastActivityDate="2019-08-20T20:18:21.143" CommentCount="15" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="14612" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-06-06T08:16:06.383" Score="8" ViewCount="6147" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know a man who has the CM title and his wife is WGM. They wrote a book together and on the cover her name is given with the WGM title but his name is left without his CM title. I asked him about this and he insists that he is rather embarrassed by the low title.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am wondering if it is advisable to put his title on the book cover. Will it confer respect or rather discourage readers? The readers are supposed to be beginners or amateurs or even chess enthusiast that do not really play chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any answers should focus on how the title is perceived by potential buyers of the book, and not on the technical details of obtaining the CM title.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3456" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-25T13:18:29.147" LastActivityDate="2020-08-25T13:18:29.147" Title="How respectable is the CM title?" Tags="&lt;fide&gt;&lt;books&gt;&lt;titles&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="14613" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14610" CreationDate="2016-06-06T08:52:18.237" Score="17" Body="&lt;p&gt;Anthony Stewart Mackay Dickens found another solution, also with 105 mating moves, but with only 17 units in the diagram (16 white and the black king):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[title &quot;Anthony Stewart Mackay Dickens, The Problemist, Jan 1970. 105 mates&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;2Q1Q3/2Q4Q/Q4Q2/3k4/Q5Q1/1R6/B1NBQ3/K2R1N2 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This may be found &lt;a href=&quot;http://pdb.dieschwalbe.de/search.jsp?expression=PROBID=%27P1180418%27&quot;&gt;here on PDB&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black's last move must have been &lt;code&gt;...Kc5-d5&lt;/code&gt; following &lt;code&gt;Qxc7+&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10380" LastActivityDate="2016-06-06T08:52:18.237" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14614" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-06-06T14:00:48.870" Score="9" ViewCount="446" Body="&lt;p&gt;Kramnik introduced this idea in a couple of his games against Aroninan, but I am struggling to justify such a slow move in a rather open position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 exd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 Bb4 6. Nxc6 bxc6 7. Bd3 d5 8. exd5 cxd5 9. O-O O-O 10. h3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there any other idea besides preparing Qf3 and avoiding Bg4?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="618" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-06-06T15:10:37.600" LastActivityDate="2016-07-10T22:39:46.063" Title="What is the idea behind 10.h3 in the Scotch Four Knights" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;scotch-game&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14615" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14612" CreationDate="2016-06-06T14:39:08.067" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The CM title is awarded by &quot;just&quot; having a 2200+ FIDE rating, and after &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=173&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;some tournament results&lt;/a&gt;. Something similar happens with FIDE Masters (needed rating is 2300+).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Such ratings correspond to a strong amateur player, but they're far away from traditional GM and IM titles, which also need three norms before being awarded.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You have more info on this topic at &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=174&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Title Regulations&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2311" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T17:35:35.363" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T17:35:35.363" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="14616" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14614" CreationDate="2016-06-06T20:10:32.253" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Bg4 could be annoying to meet in this position for a few reasons:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It would force white to move the queen to an awkward square, play f3 opening the g1-a7 diagonal or play the passive Ne2.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;White would prefer not to trade light squared bishops (with Be2) here as Bc8 is black's worse piece.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Ne2, Qd2 and f3 all allow Bh5 with the idea of Bg6 essentially forcing a trade of black's bad bishop&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10508" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-06-06T20:30:06.387" LastActivityDate="2016-06-06T20:30:06.387" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14617" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14548" CreationDate="2016-06-06T20:29:21.410" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;There does not seem to be a consensus on this, but here is a relevant discussion:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/forum/view/chess-equipment/chess-opening-reference-books?page=1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://www.chess.com/forum/view/chess-equipment/chess-opening-reference-books?page=1&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For printed opening material (as you requested) I prefer ECO with Chess Informant updates for new opening ideas and analysis:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessinformant.org/about-chess-informant/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.chessinformant.org/about-chess-informant/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10508" LastActivityDate="2016-06-06T20:29:21.410" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14618" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14612" CreationDate="2016-06-06T20:34:41.570" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are, of course, some players who have been given the title in perfectly &quot;respectable&quot; circumstances like reaching a certain rating or reaching 50% in an Olympiad. However, try this. Go to the FIDE rating website and do &lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/advaction.phtml?idcode=&amp;amp;name=&amp;amp;title=all_g&amp;amp;other_title=&amp;amp;country=%25&amp;amp;sex=&amp;amp;srating=0&amp;amp;erating=3000&amp;amp;birthday=&amp;amp;radio=rating&amp;amp;line=asc&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;an advanced search for titled players sorted by rating ascending&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first 7 players in the list are WCM with ratings between 1032 and 1143. The next is a WFM with a rating of 1154! Which kind of throws doubt on the WFM title too. Then the first CM with a rating of 1161. Ignoring the WCMs for the moment and just looking for CMs we see that the next ones come in at 1204, 1247, 1282, 1298.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What we also see with these very low rated CMs and WCMs is that they are very young, some as young as 7 years old. And therein lies a clue. Another way to get the WCM and CM titles is by finishing in places 1 through 3 in world and continental championships in age groups going down as far as under 7.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These titles are titles for life so if they give up altogether or just play a few games a year and stop improving they will always have their titles. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You judge if giving out titles to players with sub 1200 ratings devalues those titles or not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2016-06-06T20:34:41.570" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14619" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14476" CreationDate="2016-06-06T21:25:24.487" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.caissa.com/chess-tools/pgn-editor.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;This program&lt;/a&gt; suggests a way to easily generate GIFs from PGNs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10511" LastActivityDate="2016-06-06T21:25:24.487" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14620" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14502" CreationDate="2016-06-06T21:55:22.333" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sometimes it has a bigger idea behind it, maybe preventing a certain dangerous knight from coming to g5 and possibly preparing a retreat square for a bishop.&#xA;I actually used to play this myself when I was at my first month to chess because I didn't know how to otherwise defend against Ng5 with threat to the f7 pawn (I did not know about the possible temporary pawn sacrifice with d5, exd5, followed by, say, Na5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But generally it is not a good move if it doesn't prevent a threat that CAN'T be prevented otherwise (Ng5 can easily be neutralized if played).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10511" LastActivityDate="2016-06-06T21:55:22.333" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14622" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14623" CreationDate="2016-06-06T22:57:42.967" Score="5" ViewCount="293" Body="&lt;p&gt;I used to be a problem composer and the thing I loved most about creating and solving chess problems is that you can't just rely on simple patterns. You need to think outside the box. This is one of my earlier chess problems. Can you solve it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;White to move and mate in 2&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &amp;quot;3BB1N1/QKp3pb/7p/5R1R/3br1k1/7N/4P2P/6n1 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Good luck!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8732" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-08-16T22:43:38.033" LastActivityDate="2020-08-16T22:43:38.033" Title="Simple mate in 2?" Tags="&lt;problems&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="14623" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14622" CreationDate="2016-06-06T23:24:13.487" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Adnan&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1) Rf8 Ba7 2)Rh4#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1) Rf8 g5 2) Nh6#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Fun puzzle. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10439" LastEditorUserId="10439" LastEditDate="2016-06-06T23:26:56.623" LastActivityDate="2016-06-06T23:26:56.623" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14625" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5630" CreationDate="2016-06-07T08:43:52.163" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt; Each side has 14 units and has thus made two captures. Thus A is not pawn: if so, White's pawn structure entails cxd3, exf3, hxg3. As Wes &amp;amp; Daniel pointed out, the way to let as many pawns as possible promote with as few captures as possible is for some pawns to capture pawns and then promote. For example White axPb lets White's a- &amp;amp; b-pawns and Black's a-pawn promote. Two such captures by White and two by Black let each side promote 6 pawns. But with each side making only two captures, no more promotions are possible. So each side has 2 original &amp;amp; 6 promoted A's, so A is not queen, but rook, bishop or knight. Moreover, every pawn either promoted or was captured, so no letter represents pawn.&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA; Which letter means king? Not A, C or E: White has 2 or more of each. Nor D, for then the Ds check each other. Therefore B.&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA; E is neither queen nor rook: if so, both kings would be in check. Nor is E pawn. Therefore bishop or knight. If E is bishop, White has promoted a pawn to bishop on a white square. But it has already been proved that there were 6 White promotions (to A) &amp;amp; that only 6 are possible. So E is knight.&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA; Queen is C or D. But there have been no promotions except to A, so queen is not C but D.&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA; A is not knight and so is rook or bishop. Suppose that A is bishop. Then there are 7 promoted bishops on white squares (3 white and 4 black) and 5 on black squares (3 white and 2 black). Each PxP allows 3 promotions all on the same colour square. So the total number of promotions on each colour square is a multiple of 3. So the supposition is false. So A is not bishop but rook.&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA; So C is bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10380" LastActivityDate="2016-06-07T08:43:52.163" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14626" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12622" CreationDate="2016-06-07T12:57:20.630" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is active and the mobile/tablet option is still coming. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Fide Rated tourneys are daily for various time controls. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10439" LastActivityDate="2016-06-07T12:57:20.630" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14628" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14475" CreationDate="2016-06-08T01:07:52.657" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;These two books are a good starting point, IMO.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/075661807X&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chess for Kids from Micheal Basman &lt;/a&gt; &lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1901983056&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;How to Beat Your Dad at Chess (Gambit Chess) &lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10439" LastActivityDate="2016-06-08T01:07:52.657" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14629" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14475" CreationDate="2016-06-08T14:21:04.103" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Check the USCF Sales site. They are very pro-kids and parents when it comes to beginning chess literature. You might find something there:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.uscfsales.com/catalogsearch/result/?cat=0&amp;amp;q=chess+for+kids&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://www.uscfsales.com/catalogsearch/result/?cat=0&amp;amp;q=chess+for+kids&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10233" LastActivityDate="2016-06-08T14:21:04.103" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14630" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14475" CreationDate="2016-06-08T15:08:43.310" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/0553263153&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess&lt;/a&gt; is another good one. It's a book of problems that are to be solved in sequence, with the principles learned earlier used in later problems.  $3.50 (used) from Amazon.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2016-06-08T15:08:43.310" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14631" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-06-08T18:42:11.947" Score="3" ViewCount="221" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am looking for a chess app that you can set an exact rate to play against the computer (same as you have in chess.com where you set it to play against others).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there any Mac (specifically) and iOS app where you can:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;play computer and choose the exact rate of the computer&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;have some kind of analysis of your game&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It must be an offline app.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10523" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-06-08T19:08:48.037" LastActivityDate="2016-06-09T02:29:18.390" Title="Mac/iOS chess app with rates option" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;software&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14632" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14631" CreationDate="2016-06-09T02:29:18.390" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd like to recommend my own iOS app, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.smallchess.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;SmallChess&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.smallchess.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;SmallFish&lt;/a&gt;. They have time controls and playing strength.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In addition, there are many many other similar apps on the market. A simple &quot;chess&quot; keyword search in the app store will give you many results.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For MacOS, the &lt;a href=&quot;http://stockfishchess.org/mac/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Stockfish MacOSX&lt;/a&gt; program is good.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2016-06-09T02:29:18.390" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14633" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14471" CreationDate="2016-06-09T05:29:54.920" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;e5 is bad against the Fischer-sozin variation, because of 7. Nf5, which puts pressure on the d6 weakness.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now granted, you could play Nf5 whenever black plays e5, whether you're playing Be2 (the classical system), or Be3 (the english attack).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the real question is, what's the difference between:&#xA;e5 in the Sozin variation, and&#xA;e5 in the classical variation, f4 variation, english attack, etc. anything but Bc4 and Bg5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The difference is, after white plays Nf5 in the classical variation, black has this amazing resource which is 7...d5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If black plays e5 against the Sozin variation, 7. Nf5, d5 doesn't work because the pawn is capturable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qjcVI.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qjcVI.png&quot; alt=&quot;You see why black can&amp;#39;t play d5? And if black goes Bxf5 (which is likely the best move) then well, white gains the bishop pair and the light squared bisohp was probably black&amp;#39;s strong bishop, because the pawns on e5 and d6 are on dark squares. The pawn on f5 can also be a strength or a weakness. The computers and the databases like white.&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If black plays e5 against the Bg5 variation, 7. Nf5, d5 doesn't work because the knight on f6 is pinned, therefore the pawn on d5 is safe to capture.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/CQfpL.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/CQfpL.png&quot; alt=&quot;Again, black can&amp;#39;t play d5. And again, Bxf5 is probably the best move for black hahaha.&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The remaining question is: Why is d5 a necessary resource?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well, d6 is going to fall and black will no longer play for a win because of the attack on the d file. He/she will have to worry and protect the d6 pawn while white goes for some kingside attack or whatever. After d5, black has no problems. Literally no weaknesses, none, and finally black can play for a win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, in the classical system, after d5, 8. Bg5 is the best move in which black gets in d4. Doesn't that just look crushing for black? And, which side would you rather pick? Black!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/PM7BI.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/PM7BI.png&quot; alt=&quot;This wouldn&amp;#39;t have been at all possible if white went Bc4 or Bg5.&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10501" LastActivityDate="2016-06-09T05:29:54.920" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14634" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4642" CreationDate="2016-06-09T05:37:19.437" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;That author sounds like an idiot (unless it was a very old book, of course), because e5 is not a 'problem' in the sicilian najdorf. e6 is equally good to e5 in all positional najdorf systems whether white plays Be2 or Be3 or whatever. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In fact, I believe e6 is better against the English attack. It was kasparov's favorite, and my Komodo 10 fell in love with it too, scoring +0.09 and stuff for white.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason it prevents e5 has been answered very well already; it allows the knights to jump into d5 and f5, and black can never push for d5, which is a critical resource against Nf5 in the classical variation of the Najdorf.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only time black wants to play e5 instead of e6 is in the classical Be2 variation (though black can play e5 with a good position in all systems except Bg5 and Bc4).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the author to give Bg5 an exclam is outdated and/or absurd. Be3 or even just Be2 is clearly a better system for white against the Najdorf. In fact, I factually believe that Bg5 equalizes for black. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Theres the poisoned pawn variation which is very sharp and is proven to draw with perfect play for both sides.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then there's the 7...Be7 variation which plays for a win but some very very deep lines get to a double edged, sound, and equal endgame where black has a queen and a rook and a bishop or something, while white has 2 rooks, 2 minors, and an extra pawn. It's considered equal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/IPyjC.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/IPyjC.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10501" LastEditorUserId="10501" LastEditDate="2016-06-09T05:43:06.943" LastActivityDate="2016-06-09T05:43:06.943" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14636" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14637" CreationDate="2016-06-09T23:25:43.003" Score="9" ViewCount="9828" Body="&lt;p&gt;Stockfish 7 for Windows comes with 3 64-bit binaries:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;stockfish 7 x64 bmi2.exe&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;stockfish 7 x64 popcnt.exe&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;stockfish 7 x64.exe&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All 3 of them work on my system. Which one gives the best performance?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4223" LastActivityDate="2017-08-28T08:03:33.323" Title="Which binary of Stockfish 7 should I use?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14637" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14636" CreationDate="2016-06-10T00:10:19.070" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;Open a terminal/console. Run the stockfish program, if the engine crashes move to the next one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Type &lt;code&gt;bench&lt;/code&gt; for the working binaries, and pick the one with best nodes/second.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/6Ndfm.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/6Ndfm.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2017-08-28T08:03:33.323" LastActivityDate="2017-08-28T08:03:33.323" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14638" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14471" CreationDate="2016-06-10T04:29:53.723" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Black &lt;em&gt;can&lt;/em&gt; play 6...e5, it's just not very good. After 7.Nf5 White has a comfortable position with an edge in development and mobility.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, how is Black going to develop the f8-Bishop? 7...Be7 gives up the 2 bishops for no compensation; and 7...g6 8.Nh6 gives White an initiative or the 2 bishops.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Perhaps 7...Bxf5 is the best move. Black has a plan in targeting f5, but White has a long term advantage in control of d5, and after Bg5xf6, his light-squared bishop has better mobility than the Black dark-squared bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Further, White gets easy control of the very important d5 square.  In other variations of the Sicilian where Black plays ...e5,  he either gets ...d5 in later , or has other positional compensation for giving up d5.  (The Sveshnikov is a perfect example of the latter principle).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your question sounds like you're asking for a specific line that refutes 6...e5, but there is no such refutation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A similar situation is the Budapest Gambit.  There's no refutation but White comes away with an edge.  It sees regular play at sub-master level where the Black player will count on his ability to get White out of book and outplay White despite having a slightly inferior start.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The 6...e5 does have some surprise value: in Mega Database, an alarmingly high number of games continued 7. Nde2 or 7. Nf3; after which 7...Be6 equalizes comfortably IMHO. (The central pawn mass compensates for doubled pawns, if Bxe6).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4223" LastEditorUserId="4223" LastEditDate="2016-06-10T04:41:41.090" LastActivityDate="2016-06-10T04:41:41.090" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14639" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-06-11T05:40:11.227" Score="4" ViewCount="402" Body="&lt;p&gt;A scenario that already happened many times. &quot;GM X&quot; comes out with this new book on &quot;Defense Y&quot; and this book becomes an instant classic for its lucid, clear explanations of the Defense's main themes, ideas, tactical motifs, etc. etc. Assuming that chess knowledge is learned from books, and that there was no previous such book on &quot;Defense Y&quot;, how did &quot;GM X&quot; learn all these ideas, plans, etc? Did he learn by himself, playing and analyzing game after game played with &quot;Defense Y&quot;, then got all his conclusions about the opening plans? Is there some secret &quot;oral transmission of knowledge&quot; among strong players, GMs, etc. so that other GMs told him what the plans are? Or else? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-07-04T16:12:32.337" LastActivityDate="2016-07-10T03:08:17.797" Title="How do strong players know opening ideas, plans, etc?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;defense&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14640" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-06-11T05:50:49.167" Score="6" ViewCount="3701" Body="&lt;p&gt;What are the best works trying to systematically summarize all middlegame themes and strategies: e.g. space advantage, pawn structures, exposed king, minority attack, isolated pawn, hanging pawns, etc. etc. I know of Euwe and Kramer two volumes work about the middlegame, but are there others, too? (PS no, I am not talking about Bronstein's Zurich 1953. Although it's a great book, I am speaking of a different kind of work.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastActivityDate="2019-10-16T19:13:38.687" Title="Best books on middlegame strategy?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;books&gt;&lt;middlegame&gt;&lt;pawn-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14641" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-06-11T05:59:42.090" Score="3" ViewCount="468" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why is closing the center by White generally considered a concession? I mean, pushing e4-e5 when there are Black Pawns on d5 (and e6), or pushing d4-d5 when there are Pawns on e5 (and d6), is often considered &quot;the second best way&quot; to play, and something that White has to do only if necessary. I.e. vs King's Indian is considered generally a stronger opening strategy to keep the d4-e5 tension (by delaying d4-d5) until necessary. Why? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-06-11T10:14:27.147" LastActivityDate="2016-07-27T15:41:18.210" Title="Why is closing the center by White generally considered a concession?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;pawns&gt;&lt;center&gt;&lt;closed-position&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14642" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14640" CreationDate="2016-06-11T06:15:45.820" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;The two books by John Watson about strategy. These themes are considered from a historical viewpoint usually in contrast to the way they are presented in textbooks. Even if you find a favorite textbook then later you should verify everything against John Watson's books because he always gives counterarguments and counterexamples to what is established as the usual course material.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3456" LastActivityDate="2016-06-11T06:15:45.820" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14643" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14641" CreationDate="2016-06-11T06:21:21.940" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The pawn advance reduces the potential, what is done cannot be undone and Black uses the information to set up accordingly. This is probably the broadest and most general explanation. In the end, however, it may turn out to be a matter of taste or fashion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3456" LastActivityDate="2016-06-11T06:21:21.940" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14644" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14639" CreationDate="2016-06-11T06:33:46.530" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;This kind of book is usually a work of synthesis. The author looks at the available games and takes notice of the various plans employed. It is a matter of noticing and making notes and then writing up a synopsis. An opening book can be written without prior personal experience with this opening. One can also discover a new plan, either by one's own thinking or by looking at the way an engine plays.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes ideas are transmitted orally. Bologan's book on the King's Indian Defense is by his own admission written on the basis of the notes he took while being tutored by his guru Lanka.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3456" LastActivityDate="2016-06-11T06:33:46.530" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14646" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14650" CreationDate="2016-06-11T11:07:51.663" Score="2" ViewCount="461" Body="&lt;p&gt;The following situation occurred in my last tournament.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It was a 5 min blitz game without time increment. My opponent didn't have any material left. I touched my rook and wanted to place it on the back rank to deliver checkmate on this move. While I am moved my rook, my opponent claimed a draw because my flag on the chess clock has fallen Nevertheless, I moved my rook and announced a checkmate. Then I saw both flags have fallen. Then the arbiter arrived at the board and gave me the point because he said he sees a checkmate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it valid for my opponent to claim a draw, even if it's not his move?&#xA;What would be the correct way for my opponent to claim a draw?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10182" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-01-05T21:09:18.197" LastActivityDate="2021-01-05T21:09:18.197" Title="Valid claims for a draw in a blitz game" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;blitz&gt;&lt;claim-draw&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="14647" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-06-11T11:21:00.760" Score="4" ViewCount="656" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am an amateur chess player. I have the knowledge of pawn structure, development of the pieces and control of the center in the opening. After that my midgame rationale is attacking the weak pieces, and if I am under an attack, focus on defense. This has failed to work among much stronger opponents of late. How would I change my rationale so that I can manage defense and attack at the same time?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10541" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-06-11T11:25:48.343" LastActivityDate="2019-12-22T11:02:14.457" Title="Simultaneously managing attack and defense" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;" AnswerCount="8" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14648" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14647" CreationDate="2016-06-11T11:38:51.820" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is interesting to see that you don't mention &lt;a href=&quot;/questions/tagged/tactics&quot; class=&quot;post-tag&quot; title=&quot;show questions tagged &amp;#39;tactics&amp;#39;&quot; rel=&quot;tag&quot;&gt;tactics&lt;/a&gt; in your post, while you did tag your question with it. Because, at the level you're playing, 99% of the games are decided by tactics. Practice more tactics, and you will advance quickly, especially if you know the basics of defense/offense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2016-06-11T11:38:51.820" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14649" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14647" CreationDate="2016-06-11T11:45:09.183" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think there are any specific rules for that. One must follow the greatest games played by the masters, what they did in what situation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can share &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M624T3PTggU&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;one of my favorite matches&lt;/a&gt;. Hope you'll learn something about your query. Strong combination between pieces is always a key.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10543" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-06-11T11:55:25.703" LastActivityDate="2016-06-11T11:55:25.703" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14650" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14646" CreationDate="2016-06-11T11:50:51.980" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, let's look at the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=171&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;FIDE rules&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, your opponent may claim a draw even if it's not his move. He should then stop the clock (rule 6.12b):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A player may stop the chessclock only in order to seek the arbiter’s assistance&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but, of course, it will be his word against yours that he did that &lt;em&gt;before&lt;/em&gt; you released your rook, because checkmate immediately ends the game (rule 5.1).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think it is up to the arbiter to decide which happened first, but as your opponent didn't stop the clock to claim the draw, I'd be inclined to the same decision: to award you the full point.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2016-06-11T11:50:51.980" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14651" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2016-06-11T11:54:49.670" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2016-06-11T11:54:49.670" LastActivityDate="2016-06-11T11:54:49.670" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14652" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2016-06-11T11:54:49.670" Score="0" Body="For questions about claiming a draw, e.g. because of threefold repetition, or your opponent making no effort to win when you have little time left on your clock." OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-06-11T14:00:06.030" LastActivityDate="2016-06-11T14:00:06.030" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14653" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14552" CreationDate="2016-06-11T12:01:42.420" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I put the position into the analysis board on Lichess and ran through what it thought was the best play by both sides. I'm not sure how good the engine is, but it came up with this as being a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;8/p2N1pk1/1pn1p1p1/2p1P2p/5P1P/2P3P1/PP6/6K1 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Ne7 2. Kf2 Nc6 3. Ke2 Ne7 4. a4 Nf5 5. Kf3 Ne7 6. a5 bxa5 7. Nxc5 Kf8 8. Ne4 Nf5 9. Nd6 Ke7 10. Nb7 a4 11. Nc5 a3 12. bxa3 Kd8 13. Ne4 Kd7 14. Ng5 Nh6 15. Ke3 Nf5+ 16. Kf2 Nh6 17. Ke3 Nf5+ 18. Kf3 Nh6 19. Ne4 Nf5 20. c4 Kc6 21. Ke2 Nh6 22. Kd3 Nf5 23. Ke2 Kd7 24. Kd2 Kc6 25. Kd3 Kd7 26. Kc3 Kc6 27. Kb3 Nd4+ 28. Kb4 Nc2+ 29. Kb3 Nd4+ 30. Kc3 Nf5 31. a4 a5 32. Kd2 Kc7 33. Ke2 Kc6 34. Kf2 Nd4 35. Ke3 Nf5+ 36. Ke2 Kb6 37. Kd3 Kc6 38. Kc3 Kc7 39. Kd3 Kc6 40. Kc3 Kc7 41. Kc2 Kd7 42. Kd2 Kc7 43. Ke2 Kd7 44. Kf2 Kc6 45. Kf3 Nd4+ 46. Ke3 Nf5+ 47. Kf3 Nd4+ 48. Kf2 Nf5 49. Ke2 Nd4+ 50. Kd2 Nf5 51. Kd3 Kd7 52. Kc2 Kc6 53. Kb2 Kd7 54. Ka3 Kc6 55. Kb3 Kd7 56. Ka3 Kc6 57. Kb3 Kd7 58. Kc2 Kc6 59. Kd3 Kd7 60. Ke2 Kc6 61. Kf2 Kb6 62. Kf3 Nd4+ 63. Kg2 Nb3 64. Kf3 Nc5 65. Ke3 Nxa4 66. Kd4 Nb2 67. Ng5 a4 68. Kc3 a3 69. Nxf7 Nxc4 70. Kb3 Kc5 71. Nh8 Kd5 72. Nxg6 Ne3 73. Kxa3 Nf5 74. Kb4 Nxg3 75. Kb5 Ne2 76. Ne7+ Ke4 77. Kc5 Kxf4 78. Nc6 Kg4 79. Nd8 Kf5 80. Kd6 Nd4 81. Nf7 Nb5+ 82. Ke7 Nc3 83. Ng5 Kxe5 84. Nxe6 Kf5 85. Ng7+ Kg4 86. Nxh5 Kxh5 87. Kd6 Kxh4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Around move 60, I was starting to think it would be a draw by the 50 move rule, or maybe repetition, but it ended up being insufficient material.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10308" LastEditorUserId="2042" LastEditDate="2016-06-11T14:53:26.000" LastActivityDate="2016-06-11T14:53:26.000" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14654" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14647" CreationDate="2016-06-11T13:08:13.430" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Defense&lt;/em&gt; isn't something that one does; it is not a tactic. Instead, &lt;em&gt;defense&lt;/em&gt; happens when one has ceded the initiative to the opponent. One spends moves patching holes versus attacking the opponent's weaknesses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Of course at some point &quot;tactics&quot; and &quot;retaining the initiative&quot; blur. Some fine attacking moves also defend, and some defensive moves free other pieces to attack. It can be a maelstrom when it comes to specifics.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So consider reading on &lt;em&gt;tempo&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;initiative&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2016-06-11T16:19:37.440" LastActivityDate="2016-06-11T16:19:37.440" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14655" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14663" CreationDate="2016-06-11T13:09:13.107" Score="5" ViewCount="790" Body="&lt;p&gt;From &lt;a href=&quot;https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/325936/reputation-and-badges-should-be-kept-hidden-until-the-question-is-answered&quot;&gt;Reputation and badges should be kept hidden until the question is answered&lt;/a&gt;, the below assertion is presented:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is often asked in chess, that does the personality of the opponent player has any influence on their game plan, the answer is almost yes for all grandmasters. Most also feel uncomfortable playing against Computer as a competitor in chess even if it's radically low-rated running at 1/10th of its strength. Why, because people lose, not because that they are weak players but because of the inherent psychology involved that &quot;computers make no mistakes&quot;. On the other hand, low-rated players often lose quickly when they know before-hand that the opponent player is a grandmaster. However, if the opponent rating is unknown, he tends to a better play, and even a long shot at winning it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do you agree with the above assertion or did you had any contrary experiences in chess. How do grandmasters employ assessing the personality as a tool to develop their game plan?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="838" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-03-20T09:39:08.973" LastActivityDate="2018-05-12T00:18:04.527" Title="Does knowing your opponent's personality have any influence on the game-plan" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;psychology&gt;&lt;grandmaster&gt;&lt;planning&gt;" AnswerCount="9" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14656" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14655" CreationDate="2016-06-11T17:10:46.893" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Botvinnik lost to Smyslov and to Tal in world championship matches and then won with them in rematches. From his writing it follows that he has studied the style of his opponents and learned to play against them. In playing against Tal in the rematch he avoided tactical complications in favor of dry endgames and that supposedly worked out. This is just an idea how to answer your question. One would need to investigate this line more deeply.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3456" LastActivityDate="2016-06-11T17:10:46.893" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14657" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14655" CreationDate="2016-06-11T17:35:00.770" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The world champion Emanuel Lasker is reputed to be a master of psychology, adjusting his play to upset his opponents to the point of making inferior moves on purpose. This is just an idea to pursue in the literature. For example, Kasparov writes about it in his predecessor series.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3456" LastActivityDate="2016-06-11T17:35:00.770" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14658" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14655" CreationDate="2016-06-11T17:56:25.970" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The young Bobby Fischer used to play the same opening scheme from game to game against every opponent. Later he adopted the element of surprise and varied his openings. I remember reading about it somewhere and it was worded so that the aspect of psychological battle became one of his tools contrary to his previous straightforward play. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3456" LastActivityDate="2016-06-11T17:56:25.970" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14659" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14655" CreationDate="2016-06-11T18:08:32.587" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I remember reading about Taimanov's preparation against Fischer before the match which he famously lost 6 to nil. His helpers recommended him to play the French Defense because Fischer was known to be ineffective against it, but Taimanov disregarded this advice and played his favorite Sicilian Defense which was to Fischer's liking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3456" LastActivityDate="2016-06-11T18:08:32.587" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14660" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14655" CreationDate="2016-06-11T18:17:31.767" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I remember reading Carlsen's comments after his first match against Anand to the effect that he soon discovered that he needed no change from his usual play but was prepared to play differently. I don't remember any particulars as to this modified way of playing that he had prepared but at least this answers the question in the positive that this phenomenon is real in preparation against opponents.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3456" LastActivityDate="2016-06-11T18:17:31.767" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14661" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-06-11T18:24:12.383" Score="-1" ViewCount="446" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know this is short for evaluation, as given by an engine, but I don't know how to pronounce it. My guess is simply like the first two syllables of evaluation but I would like to be reassured.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3456" LastActivityDate="2016-06-12T04:23:59.890" Title="How to pronounce &quot;eval&quot;?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ClosedDate="2016-06-13T09:19:52.130" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14662" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14661" CreationDate="2016-06-11T19:54:40.133" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;To pronounce &quot;eval&quot; it would be:&#xA;[EE-vahl]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Accent the first syllable&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user10549" LastEditorDisplayName="user10549" LastEditDate="2016-06-11T21:39:35.490" LastActivityDate="2016-06-11T21:39:35.490" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14663" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14655" CreationDate="2016-06-11T22:04:56.457" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If you know others and know yourself, you will not be imperiled in a&#xA;  hundred battles; if you do not know others but know yourself, you win&#xA;  one and lose one; if you do not know others and do not know yourself,&#xA;  you will be imperiled in every single battle. - Sun Tzu&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess is a game with countless variations.  It is commonly known that there are over 9 million possible positions after just three moves.  Nobody is expected to explore all of them, not even the mighty supercomputers.  There &lt;em&gt;will&lt;/em&gt; be lines which are simply not fully explored in every game we play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One of the early algorithms you learn when developing chess computers is min/max.  It's a rather blatantly obvious algorithm when you get down to it: the idea is that both players are trying to maximize their own benefit.  In min/max, we treat this as you trying to maximize your advantage, and they are trying to minimize it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you play chess using the kind of thinking behind min/max, you quickly find yourself limited.  No two players are thinking exactly the same.  They value different kinds of positions, different tactics.  You may find that it isn't effective to model your opponent as trying to minimize your advantage.  You have to recognize that they are merely trying to maximize their advantage.  The two phrases, &quot;minimizing your advantage&quot; vs &quot;maximizing their advantage&quot; are closely related in many situations, but they differ greatly in others.  In fact, Chess often hovers in that meddlesome region where the position is so strange that both players are approaching it quite differently.  Nowhere is this more visible than in a gambit.  In a gambit, you offer something in exchange for an advantage that you find more valuable.  They don't have to take it.  However, in many situations they may decide that it is in their interests to accept the gambit.  Min/max cannot explain a gambit; it cannot explain why both players would want the same position for different reasons.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Accordingly, it is essential in Chess to get into the head of your opponent.  Grandmasters may do this for months, studying up on the play styles of their opponents.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An opponent can get into your head at any time.  Kasparaov v. Deep Blue may be the most famous example.  In one game, Deep Blue simply refused to accept an obvious materialistic move and found a more &quot;human&quot; move.  For the rest of the tournament Kasparov was &lt;em&gt;convinced&lt;/em&gt; there had to be a human helping Deep Blue out, and that psychologically destroyed him (even though the computer wasn't even aware of a psyche).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6885" LastActivityDate="2016-06-11T22:04:56.457" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14664" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14640" CreationDate="2016-06-11T23:41:59.043" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;These books are what I have studied about middle game strategy:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1880673851&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;My System--by Aron Nimzowitch this newer version is better than the original.&lt;/a&gt; A solid introduction to several of your topics. &lt;br&gt; &#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1857440730&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chess Fundamentals (Algebraic)--Jose Capablanca &lt;/a&gt; A simple and clear book to read. &lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1857444000&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Art of Attack in Chess--Ladimir Vukovic&lt;/a&gt; Clear and concise book to work through more of your &quot;etc&quot; topics. &lt;br&gt; &#xA;Yasser Seirawan's series of books from Winning Chess - Everyman Chess; there are some good ideas in them.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/071349025X&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;The Art of Planning in Chess: Move by Move-- Grandmaster Neil McDonald &lt;/a&gt; has some good insights from the opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10439" LastActivityDate="2016-06-11T23:41:59.043" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14665" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14661" CreationDate="2016-06-12T04:23:59.890" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You pronounce it like the first part of the word &quot;evaluation&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's actually an internationally standardized way of writing words phonetically which is employed in most modern dictionaries. Meriam-Webster's dictionary also provides links to audible pronunciations of most words, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/evaluation&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;including this one&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/H3Wua.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/H3Wua.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;evaluate&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10550" LastActivityDate="2016-06-12T04:23:59.890" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14668" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14647" CreationDate="2016-06-12T11:05:03.710" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;As said it's all about initiative : you have it when you play with white, and the trick is to not lose it, while when you're black, you have to defend in a large part while trying to balance, steal the initiative or overturn your opponent's attacks (and some openings have been developed following this philosophy)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;personally, when I lose the initiative and have to defend, I always look for a counter (a move that while defending can represent a threat, or a refutation to my opponent's attacking move by playing a stronger attacking move, example : he's threatening my bishop, I threaten his Queen)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyway, the better way is to never lose a tempo and let the initiative slip, but for that you have to make a well prepared attack, so that it will never let your opponent rest ! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You have to study some great masters' games and see how they deploy their attacking plans which don't allow a retort.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10190" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-12-22T11:02:14.457" LastActivityDate="2019-12-22T11:02:14.457" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="14669" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1893" CreationDate="2016-06-12T11:34:26.703" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Better is 3...e5, on account of&#xA;1.e4 c5 2.d4 cxd4 3.c3 e5 4.Nf3 Nc6 5.Bc4 Nf6 6.Ng5 d5 7.exd5 Nxd5 and now&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: 8.O-O Be7 9.Nxf7 Kxf7 10.Qf3+ Ke6 11.a4 g5 (11...Rf8 12.Qe4 Kd6 13.Qxd5+ Kc7 14.Na3=) 12.Rd1 g4 13.Qxg4+ Kd6 14.Qf3=;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B: 8.Nxf7 Kxf7 9.Qf3+ Ke6 10.a4! (10.O-O Na5 11.Bg5!) 10...Be7 11.Qe4 (11.O-O {see variation A}) 11...Qd7 12.O-O Rd8 13.f4 Kf7 14.Qxh7 Bf6 = (14...e4 =);&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;C: 8.Qb3= Schroeder-Krzyzanowski, corr. ICCF 2015, &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.iccf.com/game?id=812611&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://www.iccf.com/game?id=812611&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10555" LastActivityDate="2016-06-12T11:34:26.703" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14670" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1893" CreationDate="2016-06-12T12:56:36.560" Score="-3" Body="&lt;p&gt;This kind of opening does not give advantage so it is not played often. The loss of a pawn does not give enough compensation.  If there is any compensation, it will be if it can be realized fast, in the opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8406" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-04T17:16:45.317" LastActivityDate="2020-03-04T17:16:45.317" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="14671" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-06-12T13:03:50.063" Score="6" ViewCount="234" Body="&lt;p&gt;After the moves&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 e5 6.Ndb5 d6 7.Bg5 a6 8.Na3 b5 9.Nd5 Be7 10.Bxf6 Bxf6 11.c3 O-O 12.Nc2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;12...Bg5 is considered the main move, to preserve the Bishop pair and to activate Black's dark-squared Bishop. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But White could easily take the same Bishop with the Knight at moves 11 and 12. Why is Black allowed to preserve and activate the Bishop? What are the refutations, at least as long as plans and ideas are concerned, of 11.Nxf6 and 12.Nxf6? I don't see ...d5 as an immediate threat from Black after Knight takes f6, so White could take the Bishop and perhaps follow-up with c3-Nc2-Ne3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-06-12T14:08:20.930" LastActivityDate="2016-06-23T13:02:19.047" Title="About 12...Bg5 and move orders in the 9.Nd5 Sveshnikov" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;bishop-pair&gt;&lt;sveshnikov&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14672" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14647" CreationDate="2016-06-12T13:04:20.300" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Hard to help you if I do not know you chess rating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On level 1000-1600 it is really enough to seek weak points and attack - whatever if you want play better it is not enough at all - solve 2k of chess puzzles :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On level 1600-1800 it is enough to manage tempo - whatever it is not enough to play better solve 5k puzzle and study some grand master games - try understand cooperation :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To play 1800+ you need understand position cooperation and powers of influence and known much more about openings and endings together with middle game. It will come that you will understand much more relations between pieces and positions and see what you never seen before on the same board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is long way to understand chess - you learn 20% what is probably triple times more than others :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8406" LastEditorUserId="8406" LastEditDate="2017-05-06T00:26:56.830" LastActivityDate="2017-05-06T00:26:56.830" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14673" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14671" CreationDate="2016-06-12T13:57:33.763" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Black would be thrilled if White exchanged his perfectly-placed knight on d5 for Black's bad bishop on f6. 12...Bg5 brings it to a diagonal where it's actually doing something and also makes it possible to eventually play ...f5, undermining the pawn supporting White's knight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White doesn't play Nxf6 earlier because he'd be exchanging a well-placed piece for a badly-placed one. Note that if Black plays alternative moves on move 12 like 12...Bb7 or 12...Rb8, White still doesn't play 13.Nxf6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2016-06-12T13:57:33.763" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14674" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14502" CreationDate="2016-06-12T14:39:22.577" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;To a aggressive player(like me), or to any other players, it is just wasting a move, it is better to develop to f6, if you are afraid of the fried liver attack/lolli, try this line, it is a messy line, but black gets more development at the end:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Nf6 4. Ng5 d5 5. exd5 Na5 6. Bb5+ c6 7. dxc6 bxc6 8. Qf3 Be7 9. Bxc6+ Nxc6 10. Qxc6+ Bd7 11. Qf3 O-O &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, if you dislike these kinds of positions, it is your choice to play h6 to prevent it, and it is totally fine, it is still playable as black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only time when h6/h3 is normally played is when there a backrank mate threat or you want to start a kingside pawn storm(a3/a6 for queenside), sometimes when you play sicilian, you world play a6 because of the amount of pressure on b5 and a white bishop there would just make black's life harder, I can't currently think of reasons to play a3/h3/a6/h6(related moves) other than these, if I come across any, I'll edit this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10558" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-06-12T14:49:03.490" LastActivityDate="2016-06-12T14:49:03.490" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14675" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14681" CreationDate="2016-06-12T14:44:18.377" Score="2" ViewCount="5331" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm installing stockfish to be used on SCID. I followed these two tutorials, using Stockfish from the Stockfish website rather than from git.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;https://www.chess.com/article/view/scid--stockfish&#xA;http://support.stockfishchess.org/kb/advanced-topics/compiling-stockfish-on-linux&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I downloaded the engine binaries for Stockfish7 for Linux from&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;https://stockfishchess.org/download/&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I read that you need to compile it first so I compiled the Stockfish engine with sudo apt-get install git g++. Tested it with make profile-build ARCH=x86-32 then I went to add the engine in SCID, with these settings:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;name: stockfish&#xA;command: stockfish&#xA;directory: /home/user/Desktop/stockfish-7-linux/Linux/src/.stockfish&#xA;UCI on&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But then it tells me that it is unable to start the program: stockfish.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That error is the default response for any error. If I typed in folders that don't exist and a file that doesn't exist, it gives that error too. What am I doing wrong?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9436" LastEditorUserId="10867" LastEditDate="2018-05-23T13:13:35.967" LastActivityDate="2019-07-13T04:18:33.263" Title="Why can't I put Stockfish in SCID?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;scid&gt;&lt;linux&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14676" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14655" CreationDate="2016-06-12T15:01:42.460" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let me quote Botvinnik's words from a chess history book in Russian. It is about his preparation for his rematch against Tal after losing the champion's title to him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I decided to play working in two directions. Firstly, to take a lesson from Tal and become a tactical trickster. Secondly, to prepare openings and middlegame plans with a closed character so that the board is fragmented into separate regions, the pieces are little mobile, even if objectively my positions are worse, hoping that my opponent will not be able to make use of his ingenuity and memory, while my understanding of positions might tell.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3456" LastActivityDate="2016-06-12T15:01:42.460" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14677" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14679" CreationDate="2016-06-12T15:03:48.040" Score="11" ViewCount="1435" Body="&lt;p&gt;I played a game with an amateur that resulted in my opponent having tripled pawns right beside my doubled pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/WxiED.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/WxiED.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Picture of my game&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm wondered if there were any games with quadruple pawns. After finding such games, I started thinking of the possibility of quintuple pawns (high level preferably). Are there any games with such pawn structures, or generally any interesting pawn structures as seen in the above picture? Also, as a side question, what are your picks on the weirdest and most interesting pawn structures in a game you've played/found?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10558" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-01-16T13:49:43.677" LastActivityDate="2020-01-16T13:49:43.677" Title="Quintuple pawns / Interesting pawn structures" Tags="&lt;pawn-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="14678" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14677" CreationDate="2016-06-12T15:11:28.177" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doubled_pawns#Tripled_and_quadrupled_pawns&quot;&gt;Wikipedia mentions Alekhine-Nenarokov 1907 and van der Wiel-Hort 1981&lt;/a&gt; as two (and by no means the only) games with quadrupled pawns. I can find no mention of quintupled pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2016-06-12T15:11:28.177" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14679" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14677" CreationDate="2016-06-12T16:49:39.433" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to Tim Krabbé, &lt;a href=&quot;https://timkr.home.xs4all.nl/records/recordstxt.htm#Longest%20living%20quadrupled%20pawns&quot;&gt;Kovacs - Barth, Balatonbereny 1994&lt;/a&gt; was the game with the longest living quadrupled pawns (23 moves). That would imply that he (an authority when it comes to chess records) doesn't know of any games with quintupled pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2016-06-12T16:49:39.433" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14680" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-06-12T17:02:40.600" Score="2" ViewCount="1141" Body="&lt;p&gt;I imagine that it might be pronounced&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) kye EE suh&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) kah EE suh&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) KAY suh&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4) KYE suh.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which is it? Or perhaps there is no established way and one shouldn't care too much.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3456" LastActivityDate="2016-06-24T12:15:08.283" Title="How to pronounce Caissa?" Tags="&lt;pronunciation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14681" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14675" CreationDate="2016-06-12T18:10:30.420" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the line:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;name:stockfish command: stockfish directory: /home/user/Desktop/stockfish-7-linux/Linux/src/.stockfish UCI on&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are you sure your exe file is called &quot;.stockfish&quot; and not only just &quot;stockfish&quot;. Seems odd that you have a hidden exe file (even that it is possible)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1030" LastActivityDate="2016-06-12T18:10:30.420" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14682" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14680" CreationDate="2016-06-12T20:30:44.480" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.howtopronounce.com/caissa/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;How To Pronounce Caissa&lt;/a&gt; Please listen to all the options to get a sense on how to pronounce casissa. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10439" LastActivityDate="2016-06-12T20:30:44.480" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14683" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14639" CreationDate="2016-06-12T22:26:24.863" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Adding to user3456's answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The GM also uses ideas from other openings with similar positions.  The most famous is from a &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1008376&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Fischer&lt;/a&gt; game.  He found the opening trap from a Russian magazine.  The trap is similar to the same trap in the Pirc, the Philidor, Ruy Lopez.  Alekhine has played the same trap in his games.  There are earlier games which have similar attacking techniques.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The GMs also provide the wrong information.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Uschold-Wallinger corr. 1985&amp;quot;]&#xA;[StartPly &amp;quot;24&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Bc4 Nf6 3. d4 exd4 4. Nf3 Nxe4 5. Qxd4 Nf6 6. Bg5 Be7 7. Nc3 Nc6 8. Qh4 d6 9. O-O-O Be6 10. Bd3 h6 11. Rhe1 Qd7 12. Bb5 O-O-O? 13. Qa4! Nd5 14. Rxd5 hxg5 15. Nd4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black's twelfth move was suggested by theory as the best move.  Larsen rated the position as unclear and Suetin said it was roughly even.  These evaluations were based from positions they have seen before.  This game proved that this pictacular position was an exception to their general knowledge.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note:  I'm not getting the title and startply tags to work correctly.  Would someone kindly fix this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9684" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2016-06-15T07:38:50.013" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14684" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14363" CreationDate="2016-06-13T09:24:51.530" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is probably a new Chess Variant not described before (allthough similar elements were used in &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessvariants.com/diffsetup.dir/chaotenschach.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chaotenschach&lt;/a&gt; in the 1980s).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3819" LastActivityDate="2016-06-13T09:24:51.530" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14685" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14198" CreationDate="2016-06-13T11:25:13.527" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;There seems to be an English copy of a 39-page “personal summary by the author&quot; (presumably not the full dissertation) &lt;a href=&quot;http://chessdevon.co.uk/HTML/Book%20sale/instructional.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8453" LastEditorUserId="8453" LastEditDate="2016-06-13T11:52:28.003" LastActivityDate="2016-06-13T11:52:28.003" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14686" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15509" CreationDate="2016-06-13T18:59:18.643" Score="16" ViewCount="1740" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm looking for software that can take FEN and generate a &lt;em&gt;high-quality&lt;/em&gt; diagram, in PDF, Postscript, Windows metafile, or something else that will look good at 1200x1200 dpi or better. I thought the various chess engines would do it, but their diagrams are all bitmaps (as far as I can tell) and look like garbage when resized arbitrarily. Also, their own publishing export can’t be edited in anything standard, AFAICT. I am willing to pay.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="921" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-04-07T04:06:33.093" LastActivityDate="2021-04-07T04:06:33.093" Title="High-quality (not bitmap) diagram software" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;fen&gt;&lt;recommendations&gt;&lt;diagram&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="14687" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14686" CreationDate="2016-06-13T23:17:19.857" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;A &lt;em&gt;vector format&lt;/em&gt; would suit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you may know, a vector format represents graphic not as a bitmap but geometrically, as a mathematical description which can be rendered at any scale.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For web display, you can use the SVG format. &lt;a href=&quot;https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:SVG_chess_pieces&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Here&lt;/a&gt; are some chessmen in the SVG format. (If you follow the link, for each chessman, click through to &quot;original file (SVG file).&quot; Until you click through, all you will get is a bitmapped, PNG approximation to the SVG. You want the real SVG.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For PDF display, TeX has several packages you can use. &lt;a href=&quot;https://packages.debian.org/sid/tex/texlive-games&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Here&lt;/a&gt; is a list. (This is convenient only if you are familiar with TeX or LaTeX; but the resultant diagrams are good. For example, see p. 4 of &lt;a href=&quot;http://wikitex.org/doc/skakdoc.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this PDF example&lt;/a&gt; in the Skak style. Moreover, I believe that p. 4 of &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.accademiadelproblema.org/archivio/RIVISTE/Estero/HARMONIE-AKTIV/2014/h122.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this PDF example&lt;/a&gt; shows the Schwalbe-chess style, which you might prefer, though its documentation seems to be all in German. All these are open source, at any rate.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="315" LastActivityDate="2016-06-13T23:17:19.857" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14688" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1709" CreationDate="2016-06-14T18:06:01.227" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Queen's Indian Defense easily equalizes against London, albeit some what passive. The problem with the King's Indian set up is that Black should be ready to play the Pirc if White chooses the  so-called 150 attack. 150 attack is a respectable opening used even by super grandmasters like Anand, Kasparov etc. In 150 Attack White normally goes for the King's side attack as in Yugoslav attack against the Sicilian Dragon. Black has to chose an altogether different plan than in KID.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think the critical test of London is 1. d4 d5 2. Bf4 Nf6 followed by ...c5 , ...Nc6 and ...Qb6 as mentioned herein before. This is one variation which the Londoners (people like myself) abhor to play against.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10574" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-06-14T19:20:24.533" LastActivityDate="2016-06-14T19:20:24.533" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14689" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14640" CreationDate="2016-06-14T19:51:27.090" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think you are looking for Priyomes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;Improve Your Chess Pattern Recognition: Key Moves and Motifs in the Middlegame&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA; van de Oudeweetering, International Master Arthur  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;Techniques of Positional Play: 45 Practical Methods to Gain the Upper Hand in Chess&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; - Bronznik, Valeri &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;100 Chess Master Trade Secrets: From Sacrifices to Endgames&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; - Soltis, Andrew &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10233" LastActivityDate="2016-06-14T19:51:27.090" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14690" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14639" CreationDate="2016-06-14T19:59:13.273" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Invariably the choice of opening lines is predicated on the GM's experience with the line and having played it for a good amount of his formative career. You'd be a fool to write a book on an opening based on research only. Playing experience has much to do with it and is probably the dominant aspect of it. I would not buy an opening book from someone who plays 1 d4 about the White Side of the Sicilian. But a book on the French written by (the now deceased, God rest his soul) Victor Korchnoi would get some buzz.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10233" LastActivityDate="2016-06-14T19:59:13.273" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14691" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14647" CreationDate="2016-06-14T20:12:13.517" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You have a &quot;Chess Planning&quot; and &quot;Thinking Process&quot; problem.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Depending on your rating, I would recommend:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Reassess Your Chess&lt;/strong&gt; - Jeremy Silman. Simple, to the point, written for &amp;lt;1800's.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Something with a little more substance:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Find the Right Plan with Anatoly Karpov (Batsford Chess)&lt;/strong&gt; - Karpov, Anatoly &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Me personally, I prefer Karpov's book, and tend towards his thinking process methodology. Having the weight of GM and World Champion behind is justified in the content.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10233" LastActivityDate="2016-06-14T20:12:13.517" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14692" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14641" CreationDate="2016-06-14T20:17:56.737" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Those pawn advances are not concessions, but rather stylistic choices.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess is about having choices.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10233" LastActivityDate="2016-06-14T20:17:56.737" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14693" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14640" CreationDate="2016-06-15T05:01:48.430" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;One should definitely mention John Nunn's amazing work on middlegames: &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1906454272&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot; title=&quot;Understanding Chess Middlegames&quot;&gt;Understanding Chess Middlegames&lt;/a&gt; is very well structured with regards to themes and strategies. The book is divided into main sections under which you may find dozens of subsections. Here is a list of main sections with crude descriptions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;Material Imbalances:&lt;/em&gt; exchange, two bishops vs. bishop and a knight, ...&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;Strategy:&lt;/em&gt; planning, improving piece position, ...&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;Activity:&lt;/em&gt; initiative, open files, ...&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;Attacking Play:&lt;/em&gt; common tactical motifs such as bishop sacrifices on king's flank, ...&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;Defensive Play:&lt;/em&gt; risks of attack, counter-attack, ...&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;Pawn Structures:&lt;/em&gt; isolated, doubled, hanging pawns, ...&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;Typical Central Pawn Formations:&lt;/em&gt; open, closed, half-open and formations arising from common openings, ...&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;Typical Mistakes&lt;/em&gt; common mistakes in the middlegame such as automatically accepting sacrifices, overvaluing slight advantages, ...&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This was one of the best books I have read recently and I definitely recommend it for a structured approach to middlegame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1716" LastActivityDate="2016-06-15T05:01:48.430" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14694" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14559" CreationDate="2016-06-15T06:01:43.347" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Try to breakthrough on the queenside and you will notice that the knight is able to penetrate the white territory through Nd7-Nb6-Na4. The White King marching to his kingside can not reach the f7 pawn that is easily defended by Bishop on e5. Therefore, your try to breach on black position is easily contrarrested by Black with his Knight and White can not advance on the kingside. Using an engine as opponent you can try moves that can reach the 50-move rule with no pawn taken by either side. But from my essay with an engine I feel that white moves are difficult to chose to contrarrest black possibilities. I can conclude that this game is a draw for engines, but on an OTB the draw is difficult to hold for the player with the white pieces. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1766" LastActivityDate="2016-06-15T06:01:43.347" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14695" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14639" CreationDate="2016-06-15T12:27:27.260" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;GMs are human and sometimes forget or mix up things, but they make errors like that far less than the rest of humankind. Opening preparation can be aimed at being ready for a particular opponent or tournament situation. Sometimes they prepare something for one event and don't get to use it, so it sits on the shelf until another time when it can be used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It was said that Dutch GM Jan Timman never played his opening preparations, but all the work he had done inspired him to play something good.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10582" LastActivityDate="2016-06-15T12:27:27.260" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14696" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1709" CreationDate="2016-06-15T12:36:50.663" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;London system is a little more tricky than it looks like. In many variation, white seems to simply play &quot;normal London move&quot; but there is a lot of knowledge behind those like move order or something else.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a London system player, i like to play these because there is not a lot of theory compared to other system like Kings-Indian or Grünfeld.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think that black needs to learn a little bit about the London and which variation to play against a London player. London players seem to prefer a strategical game rather than a tactical game, so they want to play a slow game with small advantages : space.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, there are some tricks on the black side too. For example, playing &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;1.d4 d5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.Bf4&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is a small mistake on the white side because of the following sequence : &lt;code&gt;3. ... c5 4.c3 Nc6 5.e3 Qb6 6.Qb3 c4 7.Qc2 Bf5&lt;/code&gt; and here theory says that black simply equalizes and has a little bit more space.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;r3kb1r/pp2pppp/1qn2n2/3p1b2/2pP1B2/2P1PN2/PPQ2PPP/RN2KB1R w KQkq - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a London system player, my advice to you is to find a good variation you like vs. the London system but in this case you need to learn a little bit about it. &lt;strong&gt;Play the London System&lt;/strong&gt; by Cyrus Lakdawala contains a lot of example and explanation about it, like mentioned before.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7357" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-08-19T18:06:01.167" LastActivityDate="2019-08-19T18:06:01.167" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="14697" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4180" CreationDate="2016-06-16T14:51:00.587" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Best way to learn openings as a beginning player: Don't.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You are a beginner. You should be just playing. As in go, lose your first 100 games before you begin studying. Studying openings now will give you a very &quot;easy&quot; sense of how to play the openings, assuming you are playing the lines you study and you opponent agrees by playing the moves too. But, that is NEVER the case at that level. NEVER. It's never the case up to Category A.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Play everything and see what you like, see what feels good. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Don't get bogged down by openings. It is the fastest way to getting stuck.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Best advice I heard here was not to study openings, but study BASIC opening principles, and play by those guidelines in a very Steinitzian manner.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Follow this guideline and you'll be ok.&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/article/view/the-principles-of-the-opening&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Basic Chess Opening Principles&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10233" LastActivityDate="2016-06-16T14:51:00.587" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14698" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4180" CreationDate="2016-06-16T15:33:53.053" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I was beginning I studied every book on the openings I intended to play. I had limited playing opportunities then, but today I would recommend playing those openings and using either human help or a computer analysis program to tell you where you went wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Study, Play, Get Feedback.   Wash, Rinse, Repeat!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10591" LastActivityDate="2016-06-16T15:33:53.053" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14699" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1709" CreationDate="2016-06-16T15:41:22.273" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are some very natural easy and wrong ways to play Black against 1. d4 and 2. Nf3 or 2. Bf4. A friend of mine plays those and he continually shows me games where Black loses badly -- even up to FIDE 2600 rating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As Black he tries to get the Bc8 developed quickly, so 1. d4 d5 2. Nf3 Bf5. I often hit the d4 pawn quickly to encourage e2-e3, so 1. d4 Nf6 2. Nf3 c5 3 e3 and White has to play a standard Colle or perhaps a Stonewall Colle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A small point to keep in mind about plans to exchange White's dark-square bishop: if you can encourage (or wait for him) to play h2-h3, then when you oppose bishops with ...Bd6 he doesn't have Bf4-g3 since ...Bxg3 fxg3 is horrible for White.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10591" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-08-19T18:07:53.340" LastActivityDate="2019-08-19T18:07:53.340" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="14700" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14749" CreationDate="2016-06-16T23:58:17.350" Score="5" ViewCount="1430" Body="&lt;p&gt;My question is simple.  Do we know of any 2700+ caliber players that regularly cite meditation as part of their lifestyle / preparation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's not hard to find meditating chess players, but I'm wondering about its use in top practice and perhaps if there are any studies that have attempted to measure its effects. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="69" LastActivityDate="2016-12-14T20:43:47.493" Title="Meditation practice among the chess elite?" Tags="&lt;preparation&gt;&lt;performance&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14701" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14700" CreationDate="2016-06-17T00:29:24.653" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't know of any studies. A quick search turned up &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.chessbase.com/post/nakamura-has-open-forum-q-a-with-fans&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this article&lt;/a&gt; where Nakamura says&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I don't do anything special to prepare myself although I do occasionally meditate!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3270" LastActivityDate="2016-06-17T00:29:24.653" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14703" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14475" CreationDate="2016-06-17T12:39:51.683" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;The Immortal Game: A History of Chess or How 32 Carved Pieces on a Board, Illuminated Our Understanding of War, Art, Science, and the Human Brain&quot; by David Shenk is definitely not for kids, but it is a competent history of chess with special emphasis on its interaction with culture in the broadest sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3456" LastActivityDate="2016-06-17T12:39:51.683" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14704" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14395" CreationDate="2016-06-17T13:11:17.660" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are many theoretically drawn positions which are difficult verging on impossible to draw without prior knowledge of the drawing strategy. R+B v R is a good example. But as a player who rarely accepts draws myself can you explain why I &quot;ought&quot; to accept one when I don't want a draw. If it's drawn then just demonstrate the draw and stop focusing on the opponent's behavior.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2415" LastActivityDate="2016-06-17T13:11:17.660" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14705" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-06-18T18:27:59.597" Score="8" ViewCount="680" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was as chess trainer with some young guys on a tournament, and wrote down some of their games. In nearly every game, there were wrong moves in it: king is in check, but does not move or react; making a move with a pawn more than one square, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The strange thing now is, that I have not found any program (chessbase or other) that allows to write down the notation with wrong moves in it. Is there any program that supports that? I know, they should play only legal moves, but in a rapid chess game (of 7 year old boys), non-legal moves are common.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3005" LastEditorUserId="9025" LastEditDate="2016-06-18T21:03:23.400" LastActivityDate="2020-11-02T15:52:32.757" Title="How to create PGN notation with wrong moves in it?" Tags="&lt;pgn&gt;&lt;illegal-move&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="11" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14706" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14708" CreationDate="2016-06-19T12:34:58.417" Score="2" ViewCount="848" Body="&lt;p&gt;Back in the past I know that it used to a pretty popular chess location. Fischer played there when he was young. I think Magnus went their once (a few years ago). I have seen videos with Maurice Ashley and some other famous chess players playing their as well. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm wondering if anyone knows if there are still a considerable amount of people that play there in 2016. If I went there could I find a game or would I be waiting for a while?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7236" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-06-19T13:33:30.997" LastActivityDate="2016-06-19T14:33:03.370" Title="Do people still play chess at Washington Square Park?" Tags="&lt;otb-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14707" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14705" CreationDate="2016-06-19T14:26:23.147" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;PGN files are normal text files. You can generate it to somepoint using the software and then save the file, open it in a text editor (notepad, notepad++, ...) and continue editing there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9593" LastActivityDate="2016-06-19T14:26:23.147" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14708" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14706" CreationDate="2016-06-19T14:33:03.370" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Less and less people are playing at Washington Square. Most people are moving to the Union Square (for business and money). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Check this article: &lt;a href=&quot;http://thevillager.com/2013/08/08/chess-moves-most-players-are-now-at-union-square/&quot;&gt;http://thevillager.com/2013/08/08/chess-moves-most-players-are-now-at-union-square/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And also have a look at this great video. A favorite of mine where GM Maurice Ashley beats a trash talking Washington Square player &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/manhattan/washington-square-park-chess-hustler-beaten-grandmaster-article-1.2534837&quot;&gt;http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/manhattan/washington-square-park-chess-hustler-beaten-grandmaster-article-1.2534837&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9593" LastActivityDate="2016-06-19T14:33:03.370" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14709" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14565" CreationDate="2016-06-19T15:43:08.100" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;To my opinion, chess also develops pacefulness, which in turn offers a more stable stress management ability to the person.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Obviously, this does not necessarily mean that chess does alter an individual's temper in expressing. Though, it suggests that long time players do develop both patience and strict time situations' overcoming, in clear thinking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10610" LastActivityDate="2016-06-19T15:43:08.100" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14710" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-06-19T16:12:44.123" Score="2" ViewCount="445" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to play against the computer using some engine with the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.babaschess.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Babaschess&lt;/a&gt; program (most used interface program in FICS). I want different levels of strength if possible.&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.redhotpawn.com/forum/only-chess/play-chess-engine-on-babaschess-4-0.75881&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;In this link&lt;/a&gt; they talk about the possibility but not what I need:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10601" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-06-19T16:28:24.293" LastActivityDate="2019-04-12T02:30:12.607" Title="How to play against an engine using Babaschess" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;babaschess&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2019-06-23T09:17:08.803" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14711" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-06-19T19:21:50.753" Score="7" ViewCount="640" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm using SCID with the latest Stockfish 7 on my Ubuntu PC. When I'm analyzing a position, I can see the depth counter on the left. After seeing that the move, Nf3 say, get to depth 25, I go to play the move. I would expect that when the engine is analyzing this new position, it would start at depth 25, but this is not the case. The engine needs to work up to there from the first observed depth considering the exponential increase in time-computing depth, around 14 or so. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Am I misinterpreting the depth counts or is there some technical reason as to why this is happening? One reason I thought, might be because if I hadn't chosen Nf3, and chose one of the worst moves, then there would be many missing branches due to pruning between candidate moves. This would mean evaluating the move using previous information would save little time since few variations have been examined. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9436" LastEditorUserId="9436" LastEditDate="2016-06-20T07:36:10.500" LastActivityDate="2016-06-21T18:45:24.830" Title="If I analyze a move in a position to depth 25, then why am i only up to depth 15 immediately after playing the move?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;scid&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="7" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14712" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1749" CreationDate="2016-06-19T22:49:21.157" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;My answer to your question is not an easy yes or no. Yes, it is beneficial to play chess against yourself when you want to reveal your weaknesses, and where you are lacking. No, it is not beneficial to play chess against yourself when you totally know your weaknesses and where you are lacking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10614" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-08-18T13:03:52.707" LastActivityDate="2019-08-18T13:03:52.707" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="14713" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14716" CreationDate="2016-06-20T15:40:30.177" Score="4" ViewCount="270" Body="&lt;p&gt;I saw the following position and was wondering how white should continue:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/a482x.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/a482x.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Should white exchange bishops?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Should white play a4 to protect the bishop?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Should white play c4 to protect the bishop and undefended pawn on d5?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Should white do something else&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which of the options above, would be the best way to continue and what should be the thought process behind each suggestion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="109" LastActivityDate="2016-06-22T05:20:59.267" Title="How to continue in this game?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;beginner&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14714" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14717" CreationDate="2016-06-20T19:00:29.817" Score="10" ViewCount="828" Body="&lt;p&gt;I remember a recent(1-2 years) drawn (super)grandmaster game in which white had 2 connected pawns and a rook, while black had a rook. I later learned that it was a theoretical draw, which quite surprised me, since I had always though that two connected pawns should win. &#xA;Does anyone remember this game? Are their similar positions? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4531" LastActivityDate="2016-06-20T19:48:34.720" Title="Drawn R+2P vs R endgame" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;draw&gt;&lt;rook-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14715" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14714" CreationDate="2016-06-20T19:45:30.987" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Two connected pawns usually win, but with a+b pawns, there are some positions which are drawn. I do not know which game you're referring to, but here are some examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;8/8/8/3k4/pr6/4R3/1p6/1K6 b - - 0 0&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Black to move, from Black's point of view - I forgot how to flip the board.)&#xA;The black king is cut off on the third row, while the black rook is tied to the defense of the b-pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;8/8/p7/rp6/6R1/3k4/1K6/8 w - - 0 0&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(White to move)&#xA;This one is even easier; white just keeps his king on b2 and his rook on the fourth row.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2016-06-20T19:45:30.987" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14716" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14713" CreationDate="2016-06-20T19:46:07.630" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;As white is a pawn down without compensation, piece exchanges should be avoided. White's only practical chance is a king side attack.  Maybe Bc4, with the plan of Bc4-a2, c2-c4, Ba2-b1. Along with Qh5 and/or Qc2 plus g2-g4. Its slow and black can defend, but what else can white try?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9321" LastActivityDate="2016-06-20T19:46:07.630" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14717" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14714" CreationDate="2016-06-20T19:48:34.720" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't know the game you have in mind, but the following is one example of such a drawn position in this ending (as can be verified with a &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.k4it.de/?topic=egtb&amp;amp;lang=en&quot;&gt;tablebase query&lt;/a&gt;):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;8/8/1r4kP/6P1/2R2K2/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White has no winning way to break the blockade and make progress. If the blockade is one rank further up the board, though, it can be broken straightforwardly:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;????.??.??&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;*&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;8/1r4kP/6P1/2R2K2/8/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Kg5 Ra7 2.Rf5 Rb7 3.Rf7+ Rxf7 4.gxf7 *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2016-06-20T19:48:34.720" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14718" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14713" CreationDate="2016-06-20T21:38:46.177" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a pawn down with bad pawn structure on my Queen side, so rather than exchange or play a4, I would like to keep the thin advantage of having the pair of bishops, so my bishop is to save. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Where to move it now ? I don't really like Be2, it doesn't give me anything and it dims my bishop's radiance, instead I would probably play &lt;strong&gt;Bc4&lt;/strong&gt;, then &lt;strong&gt;Ba2&lt;/strong&gt;, maybe pushing my pawn on c4 and playing &lt;strong&gt;Bb1&lt;/strong&gt; (and &lt;strong&gt;Bc2&lt;/strong&gt; after that), best position I think and the good (b1-h7) diagonale. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then with the Queen and Nf3 I could have some possibilities&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10190" LastActivityDate="2016-06-20T21:38:46.177" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14719" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14713" CreationDate="2016-06-21T02:48:23.147" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;See how black's bishop on d7 doesn't have good squares where it does something useful, so avoid the trade. Because the bishop could be a useful attacking piece, avoid &lt;code&gt;1. Bd3 Nxd3&lt;/code&gt; since White doesn't want to trade it off. The only available squares are &lt;code&gt;c4&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;e2&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;code&gt;1. Bc4&lt;/code&gt; seems a bit more active and flexible, so I would go with &lt;code&gt;Bc4&lt;/code&gt; and similar plans to CWallach's answer above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7500" LastActivityDate="2016-06-21T02:48:23.147" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14720" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-06-21T06:57:46.293" Score="5" ViewCount="1760" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a normal player with ~1500 FIDE rating, and I am quite good at tactics and trap things. But I falter at the positional games and I am bound to make mistakes where the things are non-tactical. So how should I improve my positional chess understanding?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7066" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-06-21T12:40:07.010" LastActivityDate="2020-01-10T16:56:07.897" Title="How to improve positional chess understanding?" Tags="&lt;positional-play&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14721" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14720" CreationDate="2016-06-21T09:40:59.687" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;My suggestion ist to take a book on positional chess and look through it.  For example &quot;How to Reassess Your Chess&quot; by IM Silman is, in my opinion, a good book to get started.  It walks you through all of the positional elements and gives you at least a good idea on what you might want to look out for.  Of course this can only be a start and at some point you may have to look beyond for some ideas on pawn structures, for which also several good works are available.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One word of warning is that, often, while you may feel that the weakest part of your game is positional chess, this might not be correct.  You can be sure only if a show a couple of your games (especially losses or games where you ended up in an uncomfortable position) to a (quite a bit) stronger player and ask their opinion.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In any case, I would like to recommend also the book series by Yusupov, in particular for your level the Fundamentals series (orange color).  These books contain positional chapters, but also endgame, tactics, openings and much more.  The goal is to raise the level of all your abilities to the same level.  If you can breeze through the tactical parts, this is good for you, then you will mostly gain from the positional chapters. However, it is likely that you will find further parts where you can learn a lot.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3529" LastActivityDate="2016-06-21T09:40:59.687" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14722" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14473" CreationDate="2016-06-21T18:34:56.637" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;A situation like this, with Black to move, is a &lt;strong&gt;win&lt;/strong&gt; for White:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/8/8/3pP3/3P4/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why? Well consider the case where White has been skillful enough to take all of Black's pawns and promotes easily. By definition, Black has no legal moves. From a training game we do not want to teach that losing all material leads to a forced draw. That would be a poor lesson to learn for building a knowledge of King and Pawn endings on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A note on &lt;strong&gt;passing&lt;/strong&gt;. It seems that to implement this in a program, a player with no legal moves is forced to 'pass', just in case a situation arises that allows the 'stalemated' side to have a legal move later on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2016-06-21T18:34:56.637" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14723" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14711" CreationDate="2016-06-21T18:45:24.830" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the answer is that, although the engine has indeed calculated to depth 25, it has certainly not been able to store anywhere near the amount of the tree it examined during that search, no matter the memory allocated to the transposition table (hashtable). A &lt;em&gt;lot&lt;/em&gt; of that tree (even of the pruned tree) is discarded as the depth-25 calculation continues, and so it pretty much has to be recreated after each move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You may object that, almost certainly there must be a depth-24 value for the position after Nf3 stored in the hashtable left over from the previous depth-25 calculation. But that kind of proves the point -- the hashtable only stores a single value and a single &quot;principle variation&quot; leading to that value, not the whole depth-24 tree from which that principle variation was determined, by any means.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7314" LastActivityDate="2016-06-21T18:45:24.830" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14724" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14713" CreationDate="2016-06-22T00:07:33.527" Score="0" Body="&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Protect (a4) so the black queen will stay in bad position and Nc5 won't attack. Nf3 to g5 and it will open up some options and clear a path for queen and bishop plays assuming the black queen still stays at the same position.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10629" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-06-22T05:20:59.267" LastActivityDate="2016-06-22T05:20:59.267" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14726" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14680" CreationDate="2016-06-22T14:03:05.680" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Short version:&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think that your best bet is probably option 2: &quot;kah EE suh&quot; (similar to the pronunciation of &quot;naïve&quot;). The phonemes match the spelling correctly (particularly the umlauted ï in &quot;Caïssa&quot; [ref. 1]), and it fits with the tonal stressing of multiple Thracian-related [ref. 2] languages.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Long version:&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Historically, both Greek and and Turkish (largely Hittite and Assyrian influences, in Thracian times [ref.s 3 &amp;amp; 4]) would appear to have likely had the strongest early influences.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Satemization of the Thracian language [ref. 5] would indicate the initial “C” to &lt;i&gt;typically&lt;/i&gt; be an “s” sound, though it seems that in the case of “Caïssa” it was more likely a “k” sound.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Given the remnants of the Thracian language available to us [ref. 6], there seem to be insufficient data to ensure “correct” pronunciation.  Thracian words seem [to me] to be equally likely to be most closely related to Latin, Greek, and several Balto-Slavic languages.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If Gottfried Schramm's derivation [ref. 7] is correct, then his Bessian-Albanian link would indicate that the “i” is indeed a “long e” (ï) sound [ref. 8].&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;References:&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%8F&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%8F&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ca%C3%AFssa&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ca%C3%AFssa&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thracians&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thracians&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkey#Prehistory_of_Anatolia_and_Eastern_Thrace&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkey#Prehistory_of_Anatolia_and_Eastern_Thrace&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centum_and_satem_languages&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centum_and_satem_languages&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thracian_language#Remnants_of_the_Thracian_language&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thracian_language#Remnants_of_the_Thracian_language&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thracian_language#cite_note-3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thracian_language#cite_note-3&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albanian_language#Vowels&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albanian_language#Vowels&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9926" LastEditorUserId="9926" LastEditDate="2016-06-24T12:15:08.283" LastActivityDate="2016-06-24T12:15:08.283" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14727" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4180" CreationDate="2016-06-22T14:12:05.750" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think you need a balance between what other people are trying to say here. Half of the answers are telling you to go ahead and memorize openings, and to use them when you play. Others are telling you to just play, and learn that way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I feel like you need a balance. You should definitely memorize some 3/4 move openings, such as 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6. Some openings are very common, such as this one, and you should know the ones that begin with e4, d4, or the knights (at least).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But you have to take these openings and study them. Understand the weaknesses of such openings for both sides, understand the strengths of each opening for both sides. Each opening leads to a different style of play (e4/e5, or the King's Pawn opening, which usually leads to a king-side game, will often lead to quick attacks and a quick game, whereas d4/d5, or the Queen's Pawn opening, usually leads to a queen-side game that is built upon developing pieces and optimizing the best structure before launching attacks and tactics). It is up to you as the player to find whichever style fits you the best, and you can often play those.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that better players are good with both king-side and queen-side openings, whether they are white or black. This is optimal if you want to succeed with playing tournament matches, as you'll have to adapt to other player's tactics well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10636" LastActivityDate="2016-06-22T14:12:05.750" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14728" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14113" CreationDate="2016-06-22T15:43:16.277" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found no scientific literature on hand bias in Chess on &lt;a href=&quot;https://scholar.google.co.uk/scholar?start=0&amp;amp;q=%22hand%20bias%22%20chess&amp;amp;hl=en&amp;amp;as_sdt=0,5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Google Scholar&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From the comments there doesn't seem to be any database analysis supporting a theory of hand bias, e.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Statistically, White is more likely to castle queenside than Black. Since 90-93% of people are right-handed, this is contrary to your theory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Accredited to @Mike Jones.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Additionally, I haven't found any anecdotal evidence of hand biased in my own chess books. E.g. there is no mention of it in the 'Psychology' or 'Tournament Tactics' sections of &lt;em&gt;The Wisest Things Ever Said About Chess&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2016-06-22T15:43:16.277" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14729" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="848" CreationDate="2016-06-22T16:58:52.540" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my experience, people have shown distinct interest (though often fleeting) when presented with the idea of chess variants. This is a hit-or-miss topic, since it has not uncommonly caused people to quirk their eyebrows in askance, but it's intriguing more often than not -- &quot;&lt;i&gt;and there's no such thing as bad publicity&lt;/i&gt;&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you get people talking about it, even if it's to debate the very idea, then they &lt;b&gt;will&lt;/b&gt; still have been drawn in (as well, it sometimes cascades to their conversations with friends and family, later), and &lt;i&gt;some&lt;/i&gt; of them find their opinions swayed. :-) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9926" LastActivityDate="2016-06-22T16:58:52.540" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14731" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="690" CreationDate="2016-06-22T17:57:23.790" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You asked, &quot;What software is there that lets me study chess, open .cbh files, and use chess computers on a Mac?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Games menu in Chess Openings Wizard for Mac does quite a bit of the work of a game database like ChessBase, indexing millions of games in PGN format. No direct support for .CBH files though. When it comes to studying chess and using the strongest chess engines on a Mac, it's a decent alternative.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess Openings Wizard for OSX is in pre-release beta testing as of June 2016.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9309" LastActivityDate="2016-06-22T17:57:23.790" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14732" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2142" CreationDate="2016-06-22T18:42:16.740" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you &quot;often find yourself making useless moves&quot; then the problem is your lack of planning and playing without a plan in mind. Get to the root of the real issue.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I suggest you work on that aspect of your game. You'll find you will be making less and less &quot;useless moves&quot;, and by default, less needing to default a move to improving your worst piece. Eventually you will get positions that you don't really have any poorly placed pieces and you'll need a good plan to execute. Now what? Shuffling wood is a very uninspiring way to play chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Planning generally follows the pawn formations so start there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10233" LastActivityDate="2016-06-22T18:42:16.740" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14733" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="39" CreationDate="2016-06-22T19:03:06.723" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Say &quot;no&quot; to memorizing openings. Say &quot;yes&quot; to playing based on opening principles. Say &quot;yes&quot; to trial-by-fire - you learn more. Every game is an opportunity to learn something. If you get rolled in the opening, find out how you can improve your play in that line and learn it - don't memorize variations just for the sake of it. Waste of time at levels of chess below Cat A, IMHO.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can find a list of basic opening principles freely on the net. Or, go to Chess.com and take some of the free beginner courses. Right up your alley.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10233" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-06-22T19:44:30.267" LastActivityDate="2016-06-22T19:44:30.267" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14734" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2142" CreationDate="2016-06-22T19:51:02.663" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I came up with a list of 8 &quot;one-move tactics&quot; which I published on my blog and which could be considered 8 &quot;ways to improve a position&quot;. They're not hard-and-fast rules -- they could be overridden by multi-move considerations -- but I think if you consider them on any move where you feel otherwise &quot;stuck&quot;, you might find one for yourself, or find a move which defeats a one-move tactic that your opponent would otherwise have. Here's the blog post: &lt;a href=&quot;http://youngjeff2.blogspot.com/2014/08/building-better-chess-thought-process.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://youngjeff2.blogspot.com/2014/08/building-better-chess-thought-process.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7314" LastActivityDate="2016-06-22T19:51:02.663" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14735" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2142" CreationDate="2016-06-22T23:19:11.833" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;JG Estiot and Mark Goodwin provide correct answers, but the easiest way find plans is to study master games and use similar ideas.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The suggestion provided by Martin, from Tarrasch's &quot;If one piece is bad, the whole position is bad.&quot;  This suggestion is a rule-of-thumb to try and help people learning the game.  I could provide many examples of where the winning attack was spoiled by one tempo used to &quot;improve&quot; a piece. &#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1044117&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1044117&lt;/a&gt; is a famous game where Fischer move a Rook, using general rules, and he moved it back to its correct square three moves later.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9684" LastActivityDate="2016-06-22T23:19:11.833" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14736" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14739" CreationDate="2016-06-23T03:48:47.563" Score="7" ViewCount="2086" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there an online chess site or app that would allow me and a friend to play live games against each other with time odds? I am somewhere around a low Class D player, and my friend is somewhere around a high Class F player. He is consistently losing games against me and I know that what little game I have falls apart under time pressure - so, to even things out a bit, I'd like to be able to play him under time odds. Bonus for a free solution, but very willing to look at subscriber sites/apps. (Extra bonus if it's an app and it works on iOS and Android).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10641" LastEditorUserId="4399" LastEditDate="2021-01-20T13:41:05.473" LastActivityDate="2021-01-20T13:41:05.473" Title="Play online live game against a friend with time odds?" Tags="&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;time-control&gt;&lt;odds&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14737" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="758" CreationDate="2016-06-23T04:47:18.867" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Grunfeld, Najdorf, and e4 mainlines (Scotch or Ruy against e5; i'm not a fan of the Giuoco Piano).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Grunfeld has excellent theoretical health and anti Grunfeld lines (like f3) are actually more fashionable than the mainlines whether it's Bf4, or the exchange variation, or the Russian system.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10645" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-07-28T11:49:28.120" LastActivityDate="2019-07-28T11:49:28.120" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="14738" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14671" CreationDate="2016-06-23T07:56:18.720" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the Sveshnikov variation, Black concedes positional advantages (weak pawn in d6, and outpost in d5) for dynamical play based on: active pieces, pawn break (...f5) and dark-square play. Indeed, White gives up their black square bishop early in the game meaning that they may lack of pieces controlling black squares.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems not appealing to exchange the strong d5 knight against the bad bishop in f6, therefore White usually develops a classical strategy in this case: put all your pawns on the colour of the missing bishop, i.e. White will try to put pawns on black square to control some black squares and then compensate their missing bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the position you point out Black has played two other alternative moves in practice: 12...Rb8 and 12...Bb7 and against both the strongest for White is 13.h4! (scoring very well in practice).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why White does not play 12.h4 ? Well, White need to take care of two goals: firm control of the d5 square (otherwise they have no advantage) and fight for the dark square.&#xA;In case of 12.h4, Black has time to fight for the d5 square :&#xA;12.h4 Be6! 13.Nc2 Bxd5 14.Qxd5 Ne7 15.Qd3 d5! (and the d5 square and the d6 pawn are no longer a weakness).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Something similar may happen in case of 12.Nxf6, then for instance this could follow:&#xA;12.Nxf6 Qxf6 13.Nc2 Bb7 14.Ne3 Ne7 and 15...Rd8, 16...d5 cannot be prevented.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3480" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-06-23T13:02:19.047" LastActivityDate="2016-06-23T13:02:19.047" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14739" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14736" CreationDate="2016-06-23T07:57:17.470" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;On &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.lichess.org&quot;&gt;Lichess&lt;/a&gt; there is a button that allows you to give 15 seconds to your opponent. You could use it to just give a bunch of extra minutes to your friend at the start of a game. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2016-06-23T07:57:17.470" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14740" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14720" CreationDate="2016-06-24T18:22:42.833" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The first thing you should do in order to improve your positional skills is to read classic books. In my opinion two of the most important books are:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/4871875873&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;300 Chess Games&lt;/a&gt; by Siegbert Tarrash and &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1880673851&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;My System&lt;/a&gt; by Aron Nimzowitch. I prefer these books because they could help you to understand the positional laws of chess(the only thing that matters when you face a good player is the ability to estimate an unknown position). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10659" LastActivityDate="2016-06-24T18:22:42.833" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14741" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14742" CreationDate="2016-06-24T20:07:02.270" Score="4" ViewCount="1637" Body="&lt;p&gt;How do the two systems work against each other? In particular, let's say I'm playing white, and the opponent has played e7-e5 after a Bird-like opening:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;rnbqkb1r/pppp2pp/5n2/4pp2/2PP4/2N5/PP2PPPP/R1BQKBNR w KQkq e6 0 4&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there any theoretically studied variations here that lead to determined outcomes?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2519" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-11-28T15:10:46.713" LastActivityDate="2017-10-17T02:31:02.357" Title="English opening against Dutch defense" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;english-opening&gt;&lt;dutch-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14742" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14741" CreationDate="2016-06-24T21:34:25.903" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;This isn't necessarily an answer&lt;/strong&gt;; it's some amusing searches and information that might help others get a &quot;real&quot; answer.  (It just seemed too much for a comment.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not familiar with this setup, so I resorted to &quot;Google-fu&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A quick Google search found &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.365chess.com/opening.php?m=3&amp;amp;n=63&amp;amp;ms=c4.f5&amp;amp;ns=15.63&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;A10 English, Anglo-Dutch defense&lt;/a&gt;.  Following forward with 2. Nc3 Nf6 3. d4 e5 shows only a &lt;em&gt;single game&lt;/em&gt; (but see below): &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.365chess.com/view_game.php?g=588601&amp;amp;m=7&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Haring vs. Freiberger&lt;/a&gt;, at the Werther 2000.  One game is not going to give you much theory to go on...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My search was simply &quot;1. c4 f5&quot;, for those wishing to play along at home.  Hopefully those 365chess.com links work for people without accounts; it's free, but they sometimes hide things behind log in screens...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've found that 365Chess.com's game database isn't the most robust, so I did some more searching, and found &lt;a href=&quot;http://studimonetari.org/edg/latex/rittenhouse.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this pdf&lt;/a&gt; claiming this is the Rittenhouse gambit, with 5 games played (all with dates between 1972 and 2001, inclusive).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately, that's where my trail led dry... I'm finding several links online of people calling this the Rittenhouse gambit, but no real information ON the Rittenhouse gambit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Good luck!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7897" LastActivityDate="2016-06-24T21:34:25.903" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14743" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14747" CreationDate="2016-06-24T22:08:28.980" Score="8" ViewCount="1430" Body="&lt;p&gt;Does any country have as many GM's per capita as Armenia?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If not which country is the closest? What are the some of the reasons for Armenian success in the chess world with its relatively small population?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there best practices from chess education in Armenia that can be utilized in other countries hoping to raise more strong Grandmasters?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10508" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-11-21T19:39:40.670" LastActivityDate="2016-11-21T19:39:40.670" Title="Does any country have as many GM's per capita as Armenia?" Tags="&lt;grandmaster&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14745" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14118" CreationDate="2016-06-25T04:30:37.393" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Given your stated goal,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;&lt;i&gt;...a GUI that I can control via the terminal. Something where I can input a series of moves into the terminal,...&lt;/i&gt;&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and Student T's comment of&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;&lt;i&gt;I'm not aware for any GUI that also offers command line.&lt;/i&gt;&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've tried to find paired items of engines that take command line moves and GUIs that will interact well with these.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;Your best bet might be &lt;b&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.craftychess.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Crafty&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/b&gt;:&lt;/i&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;It seems that one can use command lines through “Crafty” [ref. 1] in order to play or analyze a chess game within the GUI of XBoard [ref. 2]  (which can run multiple chess variants, in addition to orthochess) – as in one enters one's moves directly via command line at terminal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;Though a very close second best bet would probably be &lt;b&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://sjeng.org/download.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Sjeng&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/b&gt;:&lt;/i&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Sjeng takes command line moves (very definitely) [ref. 4], plays somewhere in the region of ELO 2500(±) [ref. 5, 6], can interface with XBoard [ref. 5], and supports multiple chess variants.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.playwitharena.com/?Download&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Arena (GUI)&lt;/a&gt; seems to be borderline sometimes.  Some indicate it to be unstable within Wine [ref. 7], some have no problem [ref. 8].&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/marcusbuffett/command-line-chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;“Command-line-chess”&lt;/a&gt; uses a TUI, rather than a GUI, but is at least definitely command line based [ref. 9].  Perhaps one might utilize UTF-8's chess characters as a workaround? [ref. 10]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;References:&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.cis.uab.edu/hyatt/craftydoc.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://www.cis.uab.edu/hyatt/craftydoc.html&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.delorie.com/gnu/docs/xboard/FAQ.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.delorie.com/gnu/docs/xboard/FAQ.html&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.linuxlinks.com/Software/Games/Board_and_Card_Games/Chess/index.shtml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.linuxlinks.com/Software/Games/Board_and_Card_Games/Chess/index.shtml&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.macworld.com/article/1139946/termchess.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.macworld.com/article/1139946/termchess.html&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://directory.fsf.org/wiki/Sjeng&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://directory.fsf.org/wiki/Sjeng&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.linux.com/news/chess-engines-linux&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://www.linux.com/news/chess-engines-linux&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.open-aurec.com/wbforum/viewtopic.php?f=2&amp;amp;t=6550&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.open-aurec.com/wbforum/viewtopic.php?f=2&amp;amp;t=6550&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-377613.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-377613.html&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/marcusbuffett/command-line-chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://github.com/marcusbuffett/command-line-chess&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_symbols_in_Unicode&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_symbols_in_Unicode&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9926" LastEditorUserId="9926" LastEditDate="2016-06-29T00:33:14.593" LastActivityDate="2016-06-29T00:33:14.593" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14746" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2771" CreationDate="2016-06-25T07:02:52.547" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've never had a coach. A loose record of my progress over 6 years can be found on my chess.com link below.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's my answer:&#xA;At 1600 you still blunder tactically. What's the use of knowing how to mate with two bishops when you are missing the knight fork 2 moves ahead? chesstempo.com offers free tactics training. It did quite a bit for me. The main difference between a 1600 and an 1800 player is that 1800 players blunder less tactically. Try to hit 1700-1800 tactical ranking at chesstempo.com &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By 1700 one should know the opening basic principles and be able to play 6-7 opening moves without getting a bad position. A paid chess.com membership ($7/month) comes with video lectures, many of which go over openings (you can also do this with the chesstempo.com gold membership) I have both, but the chess.com video lectures work much better for me. At this stage you just need to know enough so you don't get killed right out of the opening - so that you get a chance to play chess in the middlegame.&#xA;Once you get to 1800, repost here, I'll try to offer useful further insight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/members/view/ak87&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://www.chess.com/members/view/ak87&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2010 - 2012&#xA;1100-1400 - that just happened by itself...&#xA;1400-1500 - Tactics training, chesstempo.com, chess.com tactics trainer&#xA;1500-1600 - Tactics training, chesstempo.com, chess.com tactics trainer&#xA;1600-1700 - Tactics training, chesstempo.com, chess.com tactics trainer&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2012-2014&#xA;1700-1800 - Tactics training, chesstempo.com, chess.com tactics trainer and being more careful&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2014-2015&#xA;1800-1900 playing better in the opening, paying more attention to positional considerations and some improvement in tactics. &#xA;2016&#xA;1900-2000&#xA;playing even better in the opening - every move counts, paying more attention to positional considerations and some more improvement in tactics. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10664" LastEditorUserId="10664" LastEditDate="2016-10-27T03:13:28.440" LastActivityDate="2016-10-27T03:13:28.440" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14747" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14743" CreationDate="2016-06-25T07:03:18.827" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's from 2010 but you might look at&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://pogonina.com/index.php?option=com_content&amp;amp;task=view&amp;amp;id=154&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://pogonina.com/index.php?option=com_content&amp;amp;task=view&amp;amp;id=154&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;where as expected Iceland is number 1, and Armenia is number 3. Number 2 might surprise you!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7726" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2016-06-25T20:03:11.423" LastActivityDate="2016-06-25T20:03:11.423" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14748" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="593" CreationDate="2016-06-25T13:06:58.753" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I went from being a 1400 player to 2100 using Logical Chess Move by Move by Irving Chernev!  Great book, it is simply not in the same league as Nunn's book, it's like comparing the books &quot;Old Yeller&quot; and &quot;A tale of Two Cities&quot; The prose of the first is considered inferior to that in the latter, but few who have read both books would disagree that they both have something to offer the reader. You would benefit from reading them both, simply start with Chernev then finish with Nunn in that way any corrections that are required to the way you reason about chess theory can be correct by the modern theory in Nunn's book. Why not just read Nunn, because Chernev is a good read and easy to understand and implement it's a good place to start as either a chess student, or as a primer used by a chess teacher.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10668" LastActivityDate="2016-06-25T13:06:58.753" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14749" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14700" CreationDate="2016-06-25T16:35:06.930" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found these sources for &quot;meditation&quot; among the past 2 worlds champions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Carlsen:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELoJbv4bCHw&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELoJbv4bCHw&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anand:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://badrirag.wordpress.com/category/viswanathan-anand/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://badrirag.wordpress.com/category/viswanathan-anand/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Q : Do you practise meditation and if so, how effective do you find it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A:  I don’t meditate regularly and hence I do not know the extent to which it can help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Based on my Google research, some chess players meditate, but I see no evidence proving that top chess players meditate more than the general population&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10508" LastActivityDate="2016-06-25T16:35:06.930" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14750" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14752" CreationDate="2016-06-25T17:33:21.947" Score="5" ViewCount="521" Body="&lt;p&gt;When looking for tournaments I keep finding myself confused by abbreviations used (I just found a reference which has been slightly helpful). This one for example is from a Marshall club tournament in the coming future. I get the Under 2000 part but what about the&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;($600 b/25) $250-150-100&quot; ? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is the full listing:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;6-SS, G/90 +30. Two sections. U2000: ($600 b/25) $250-150-100. U1700: $100. U1400: ($600 b/25) $250-150-100. U1100: $100. EF: $60, MCC Mbrs $40. Reg:. 6:15-6:45pm. Rds.: 7pm each Wed. Limit two byes; request by rd. 4. www.marshallchessclub.org. 23 W. 10th St., NYC. 212-477-3716.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7236" LastActivityDate="2016-06-25T19:17:42.163" Title="What does &quot;U2000: ($600 b/25) $250-150-100.&quot; mean?" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;terminology&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14751" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14754" CreationDate="2016-06-25T18:56:49.860" Score="5" ViewCount="2241" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sorry for my chess ignorance. I'm organizing my understanding of openings and I thought it would be nice to know if there was a reason why the King's Indian Defense is called almost the same as King's Indian Attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know, KIA is a system that works for many things black may do... and KID isn't according to wiki, &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King%27s_Indian_Defence&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;it's a opening&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But it seems like the KID is the symmetrical counterpart for black of the KIA, indeed, g6 mimics g3, Nf6 mimics Nf3, the same with Bg7 and Bg2 and possibly e5 and d6 mimicking e4 and d3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On a related note: Can black do a system analogous to KIA? Is it KID?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10601" LastEditorUserId="11202" LastEditDate="2017-04-18T03:31:06.197" LastActivityDate="2017-04-18T03:31:06.197" Title="King's indian attack vs defense relationship" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;kings-indian&gt;&lt;kings-indian-attack&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14752" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14750" CreationDate="2016-06-25T19:17:42.163" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Based on (&quot;b/&quot;) 25 entries in the section, its total prize pool will be $600. That money will be distributed as $250 for first place, $150 for second place, $100 for third place, and $100 for the top-finishing player under 1700 in the under 2000 section.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If there are more than 25 entries, the prize pool will be larger, and the prizes for each place will likely be adjusted proportionally. Likewise, the prize pool will be smaller if there are under 25 entries.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3270" LastActivityDate="2016-06-25T19:17:42.163" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14753" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14743" CreationDate="2016-06-25T20:57:24.073" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/stats/Sports/Chess/GrandMasters-per-million&quot;&gt;NationMaster compiled a list&lt;/a&gt; of countries in order of GMs per capita, in 2006. In their study, Iceland and Andorra top Armenia.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is still the case, as Iceland currently &lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/advaction.phtml?idcode=&amp;amp;name=&amp;amp;title=g&amp;amp;other_title=&amp;amp;country=ISL&amp;amp;sex=&amp;amp;srating=0&amp;amp;erating=3000&amp;amp;birthday=&amp;amp;radio=name&amp;amp;line=asc&quot;&gt;boasts 13 GMs&lt;/a&gt;, and a population totaling a mere &lt;a href=&quot;http://px.hagstofa.is/pxen/pxweb/en/Ibuar/Ibuar__mannfjoldi__1_yfirlit__yfirlit_mannfjolda/MAN00000.px/table/tableViewLayout1/?rxid=2a632b0a-5bf6-4395-abd8-04ad987d408c&quot;&gt;332,529&lt;/a&gt; as of January 1. Per capita 0.0000391.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Andorra still holds its place above Armenia as well; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.estadistica.ad/serveiestudis/web/banc_dades4.asp?tipus_grafic=&amp;amp;bGrafic=&amp;amp;formules=inici&amp;amp;any1=01/01/2000&amp;amp;any2=01/01/2015&amp;amp;codi_divisio=8&amp;amp;lang=1&amp;amp;codi_subtemes=8&amp;amp;codi_tema=2&amp;amp;chkseries=&quot;&gt;its population is 78,014 as of 2015&lt;/a&gt;, and it &lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/advaction.phtml?idcode=&amp;amp;name=&amp;amp;title=g&amp;amp;other_title=&amp;amp;country=AND&amp;amp;sex=&amp;amp;srating=0&amp;amp;erating=3000&amp;amp;birthday=&amp;amp;radio=name&amp;amp;line=asc&quot;&gt;boasts two GMs&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/card.phtml?event=400106&quot;&gt;David Norwood&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/card.phtml?event=6900224&quot;&gt;Oscar De La Riva Aguado&lt;/a&gt;. That results in a per capita of 0.0000256 GMs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These countries are successful in this stat just because the population is so low. In a small country, one GM makes a very big statistical difference.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.armstat.am/file/article/bnakch_01.10.14.pdf&quot;&gt;Armenia estimates&lt;/a&gt; it has 3,013,900 inhabitants as of 2014, and FIDE shows &lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/advaction.phtml?idcode=&amp;amp;name=&amp;amp;title=g&amp;amp;other_title=&amp;amp;country=ARM&amp;amp;sex=&amp;amp;srating=0&amp;amp;erating=3000&amp;amp;birthday=&amp;amp;radio=name&amp;amp;line=asc&quot;&gt;36 GMS&lt;/a&gt;, which puts their per capita at 0.0000119, less than half Andorra's per capita total.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I checked into the top ten countries in NationMaster's list, to find whether any other country had crept above Armenia within the 10 years since NationMaster's study, but it appears that Armenia holds its 3rd place position pretty securely.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wouldn't read too much into these data. Iceland actually has fewer IMs than GMs (&lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/advaction.phtml?idcode=&amp;amp;name=&amp;amp;title=m&amp;amp;other_title=&amp;amp;country=ISL&amp;amp;sex=&amp;amp;srating=0&amp;amp;erating=3000&amp;amp;birthday=&amp;amp;radio=name&amp;amp;line=asc&quot;&gt;11&lt;/a&gt; vs. 13), and so does Armenia (&lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/advaction.phtml?idcode=&amp;amp;name=&amp;amp;title=m&amp;amp;other_title=&amp;amp;country=ARM&amp;amp;sex=&amp;amp;srating=0&amp;amp;erating=3000&amp;amp;birthday=&amp;amp;radio=name&amp;amp;line=asc&quot;&gt;29&lt;/a&gt; vs. 36). (Andorra has &lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/advaction.phtml?idcode=&amp;amp;name=&amp;amp;title=m&amp;amp;other_title=&amp;amp;country=AND&amp;amp;sex=&amp;amp;srating=0&amp;amp;erating=3000&amp;amp;birthday=&amp;amp;radio=name&amp;amp;line=asc&quot;&gt;2 IMs&lt;/a&gt;). Also, Armenia places 7th in &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/stats/Sports/Chess/International-Masters-per-million&quot;&gt;NationMaster's IM study&lt;/a&gt;. There are, on average, 2.31 IMs per GM (&lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/advaction.phtml?idcode=&amp;amp;name=&amp;amp;title=m&amp;amp;other_title=&amp;amp;country=%25&amp;amp;sex=&amp;amp;srating=0&amp;amp;erating=3000&amp;amp;birthday=&amp;amp;radio=name&amp;amp;line=asc&quot;&gt;3519&lt;/a&gt;/&lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/advaction.phtml?idcode=&amp;amp;name=&amp;amp;title=g&amp;amp;other_title=&amp;amp;country=%25&amp;amp;sex=&amp;amp;srating=0&amp;amp;erating=3000&amp;amp;birthday=&amp;amp;radio=name&amp;amp;line=asc&quot;&gt;1522&lt;/a&gt;), so Iceland, Andorra, and Armenia's combined total of 42 IMs (instead of the expected average of 118) indicates a very large margin of error. I guess most of the influx of GMs is a statistical fluctuation that will resolve somewhat over time (say, in a generation).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That said, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.rferl.org/content/armenia_introduces_chess_as_mandatory_school_subject/24333249.html&quot;&gt;chess is a mandatory school subject&lt;/a&gt; in Armenia as of 2011. Rather than a cause (as no current GMs would have been affected by this ruling), this move might be a symptom of chess proclivity in Armenia's culture, which would explain its popularity in the country. As far as I could tell, Iceland has no special chess program, but when you take a random sample as small as 300,000, some samples will contain no GMs and some will have 13 (or more). That kind of statistical &quot;noise&quot; doesn't necessarily mean anything. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="86" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2016-06-25T21:16:20.417" LastActivityDate="2016-06-25T21:16:20.417" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14754" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14751" CreationDate="2016-06-25T21:53:41.693" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;They are indeed similar in some ways; as you have noted, the kingside structure that gives the variations their names are identical to each other, and there are some similar themes, such as a kingside attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A comparison between them provides a great example of the general difference between White openings and Black openings. Black in the King's Indian Defense has to be very precise and constantly runs the risk of falling one move behind White with potentially disastrous consequences. On the other hand, because White started with the advantage of the first move, when he plays an initially restrained setup like the King's Indian Attack, all he is doing is ceding some of that first-move advantage, and the game does not balance on a knife-edge as much (until maybe later!).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For this reason the two openings proceed along quite different paths, and expertise in one does not necessarily translate to the other.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(To answer the nomenclature question: &lt;em&gt;Indian&lt;/em&gt; in chess opening terminology tends to indicate a fianchettoed bishop (one on g2, g7, b2, or b7); the &lt;em&gt;King's&lt;/em&gt; part means that the fianchettoed bishop is the one on the kingside; and Black openings tend to be &lt;em&gt;Defenses&lt;/em&gt; while White openings can be &lt;em&gt;Attacks&lt;/em&gt;.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2016-06-25T21:53:41.693" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14755" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8823" CreationDate="2016-06-26T01:46:00.163" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't own a Mac, so I can't test these myself (and the solutions' efficacy might vary with software/firmware), but here are some solutions that have worked for others:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Per ref. 1:&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;Note: Invalid moves in the PGN file seem to prevent the file's opening.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;At the end of every line in the PGN file, add a space. Then they should open with the current version of Stockfish for Mac.&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Open the PGN files with a text editor and convert the line endings to CRLF (Windows line endings). Then they should open with the current version of Stockfish for Mac.&lt;br&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Compile and run the latest Stockfish for Mac development version from GitHub. This has the fix.&lt;br&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Per ref. 2:&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If you're playing a chess variant, then add a FEN tag to the PGN file (if there isn't one there already).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;FEN tag example:&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;OTHER TAGS GO HERE&#xA;  [FEN &quot;brkbqnrn/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/BRKBQNRN w KQkq&quot;]&#xA;  [SetUp &quot;1&quot;]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;MOVES GO HERE&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;References:&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://support.stockfishchess.org/discussions/problems/3362-pgn-files-not-opening-stockfish-for-mac&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://support.stockfishchess.org/discussions/problems/3362-pgn-files-not-opening-stockfish-for-mac&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/2w9zgf/how_do_i_use_stockfish_with_chess960/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/2w9zgf/how_do_i_use_stockfish_with_chess960/&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9926" LastActivityDate="2016-06-26T01:46:00.163" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14756" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="979" CreationDate="2016-06-26T04:16:04.947" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a minor modification to EDT's material, above:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;According to the numbers there, the average game has a ply count of 57.63&#xA;  (i.e. total number of moves by both White and Black). So the number of&#xA;  times a single piece is moved is, on average,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;57.63 / 32 = 1.8009&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A given ply will see only one player's piece moved (castling aside). This means that the simplest average to be obtained should approach:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt; 57.63 / 16 = 3.601875 &lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;Note: this necessarily doesn't address any variables such as lost pieces, nor does it seek to address per-piece moves. This is intended only to address the special case of a &quot;lossless&quot; [in terms of pieces captured] game.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9926" LastActivityDate="2016-06-26T04:16:04.947" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14757" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13989" CreationDate="2016-06-27T02:39:28.300" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to the Chessfiles [ref. 1], Arena [ref. 2] can be played on OS X within Wine 1.0 or higher [ref. 3]. Likewise, Arena claims to function within Wine 1.0 or higher.&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Caveat: some indicate Arena to be unstable within Wine [ref. 4], some have no problem [ref. 5, 6].&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;References:&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessfiles.com/os-x-chess-gui.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.chessfiles.com/os-x-chess-gui.html&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.playwitharena.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.playwitharena.com/&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://wiki.winehq.org/MacOSX&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://wiki.winehq.org/MacOSX&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.open-aurec.com/wbforum/viewtopic.php?f=2&amp;amp;t=6550&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.open-aurec.com/wbforum/viewtopic.php?f=2&amp;amp;t=6550&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-377613.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-377613.html&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=31659&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=31659&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9926" LastActivityDate="2016-06-27T02:39:28.300" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14758" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14765" CreationDate="2016-06-27T03:05:16.973" Score="8" ViewCount="510" Body="&lt;p&gt;Does anyone know what the record for most mates-in-2 is for a composed problem?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: this one has 58 different moves that mate in 2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;6R1/8/8/8/3Q3B/5K2/7k/1R6 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10673" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2019-05-21T16:52:00.160" LastActivityDate="2021-05-02T04:02:08.367" Title="Problems: record for most mates-in-2" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;problems&gt;&lt;records&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="14759" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14741" CreationDate="2016-06-27T03:41:57.733" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chessbase free account has 2 lines of continuation&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;4.e3&#xA;4.g3 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With White having better results from these two lines. &lt;br&gt;&#xA;Though three chess engines (Deep Rybka, Stockfish and Komodo) state 4. dxe5 is better. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Determined outcomes no, but there is enough games to go over to get a good sense on what might be wrong with 3...e5. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10439" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-06-27T06:12:00.113" LastActivityDate="2016-06-27T06:12:00.113" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14760" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9572" CreationDate="2016-06-27T04:18:34.233" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to XBoard's manual [ref. 1]:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;...XBoard 4.2.7 and earlier... The internal move legality tester&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  [&lt;i&gt;had problems with&lt;/i&gt;] castling or en passant-capture rights.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you're running 4.2.7 (or earlier), then &lt;a href=&quot;http://hgm.nubati.net&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;a newer release&lt;/a&gt; should solve this problem.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Caution:&lt;/b&gt; &amp;nbsp;Although this is &lt;i&gt;not&lt;/i&gt; relevant to the specifics of the question, I feel that if you are running this version, then it would be remiss of me were I not to mention that there is also a reported security risk (mid-grade: stack overflow) inherent to XBoard 4.2.7 [ref. 2, 3].&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;References:&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.gnu.org/software/xboard/manual/xboard.html#Limitations&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.gnu.org/software/xboard/manual/xboard.html#Limitations&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.cvedetails.com/vulnerability-list/vendor_id-2551/product_id-4447/version_id-19153/Tim-Mann-Xboard-4.2.7.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.cvedetails.com/vulnerability-list/vendor_id-2551/product_id-4447/version_id-19153/Tim-Mann-Xboard-4.2.7.html&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2004/Mar/40&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2004/Mar/40&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9926" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-09-21T14:10:29.770" LastActivityDate="2019-09-21T14:10:29.770" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="14761" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14764" CreationDate="2016-06-27T05:11:24.097" Score="3" ViewCount="253" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I initially started playing chess I used books and board. Later, when I started using chess software, I think my game improved a lot for a time, and I got a rating of 2000 at &lt;strong&gt;chess.com&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I am now faced with the following problem: when I recently went to a tournament I was completely blank over the board, and I was feeling that this is a bit different.&#xA;I was not able to calculate moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The question is: how should I maintain balance between engine practice and over-the-board practice?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8576" LastEditorUserId="10867" LastEditDate="2016-07-27T09:29:56.620" LastActivityDate="2016-07-27T09:29:56.620" Title="Practicing against an engine vs practicing over the board?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;best-practice&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14762" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14758" CreationDate="2016-06-27T06:46:55.150" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I assume you want positions where a mate in one is not possible. Also, these kind of records are often two-fold: one with promoted pieces and one without.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is such a position with 76 different mate in twos. I don't think this is anywhere near a record though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/PPPPPP2/3N2pQ/6Rp/3B2p1/1B4Pk/R6P/4N2K w - - 0 0&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The main idea is to play a waiting move; Black's only move is h4 after which Qxh4 is mate. This works for all 24 promotions, 10 knight moves, 18 bishop moves, 11 moves by the rook on a2, Kg1, Rxg6, Qh7 and Qh8. On 1. Nf3 and 1. Nf5 Black can respond by taking the knight, but Be6 resp. Qxh5 mates. The moves Rga5, Rb5, Rc5, Rd5, Re5 can also be met with a black g5 (and Rf5 by gxf5), but Qxh5 is mate then. 1. Rxh5 gxh5 2. Qxh5 is mate (also in reverse order). Finally, 1. Rxg4 Kxg4 2. Be6 is also mate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-06-30T07:51:44.003" LastActivityDate="2016-06-30T07:51:44.003" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14763" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14466" CreationDate="2016-06-27T08:34:48.953" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's been 1 more month, yet I can't find anything new on Google (beyond your original post's links) to the same effect. I found only one related item, and it's speculation to the contrary (the speculation consists essentially of a CIA agent, a worm, and a chess engine).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can't guarantee this, but I suspect the Makoveev-cheating story to be an internet rumor.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;Speculation to the contrary:&lt;/i&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chessvdk.ru/forum/index.php?topic=459.235;wap2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://chessvdk.ru/forum/index.php?topic=459.235;wap2&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9926" LastActivityDate="2016-06-27T08:34:48.953" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14764" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14761" CreationDate="2016-06-27T09:00:50.053" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Engines do not make tactical or blunt mistakes. However, their calculation range is given by their predefined strength.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;People behave differently. In general, their game is rather stable. But they can make big mistakes, or on the contrary, excellent moves, when you don't expect it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, when playing against people, there is a certain level when psychology comes into account. Stress is generally higher than against an engine, which won't feel any emotions when playing against you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's one beautilful part of the game too, emotions are confronted. Good players know how to keep control.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9842" LastEditorUserId="9842" LastEditDate="2016-06-29T07:30:55.790" LastActivityDate="2016-06-29T07:30:55.790" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14765" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14758" CreationDate="2016-06-27T11:51:40.557" Score="17" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sir Jeremy Morse, in &lt;em&gt;Chess Problems: Tasks and Records&lt;/em&gt;, Introduction, cites this construction by E. Luukonen:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;E. Luukonen, Uusi Suomi, 1936&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;kr6/pnPPPPPPPP/P2N4/R7/3BBN2/1Q6/3K3P/6R1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All of White's 117 moves lead to mate in 2. White has no mate in 1, but if Black's rook were to move, or if (after White captures that rook) Black's king were to recapture, White then has a mate. Thus a waiting-move is enough.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10380" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-12-19T22:15:16.220" LastActivityDate="2019-12-19T22:15:16.220" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="14766" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14768" CreationDate="2016-06-27T12:11:14.173" Score="4" ViewCount="444" Body="&lt;p&gt;I started a game (with the black pieces) where I have the possibilty to play the Grünfeld that I never played before.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 &lt;strong&gt;d5&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I want to know what's the main idea behind it, especially for black, since I heard that it could lead to sharp positions and complications (even Kasparov had a hard time playing it against Karpov)  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10190" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-06-27T16:29:15.753" LastActivityDate="2016-06-27T16:48:00.277" Title="Ideas behind the Grünfeld defense" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;grunfeld-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ClosedDate="2016-06-28T01:59:02.777" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14768" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14766" CreationDate="2016-06-27T16:48:00.277" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The main idea behind the Grünfeld is that Black momentarily concedes the center to White, only to attack it later.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, in the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gr%C3%BCnfeld_Defence#Exchange_Variation:_4.cxd5_Nxd5_5.e4&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Exchange variation&lt;/a&gt;, White often gets a pawn center (c3, d4, e4) while Black will put it under pressure (especially aimed at the white d-pawn). Below is a diagram with a typical pawn structure for this variation, and some black pieces on squares where they can often be found.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;3r2k1/pp2ppbp/2n3p1/q1p5/3PP3/2P5/P4PPP/4K3 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2016-06-27T16:48:00.277" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14769" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14072" CreationDate="2016-06-27T23:39:36.273" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Νικόλαος Μανωλακος asked:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What would the SAN representation [&lt;i&gt;of a null move&lt;/i&gt;] be?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Several possibilities present themselves as to what the SAN notation can be, but &lt;i&gt;none&lt;/i&gt; that I have found claim to be &lt;i&gt;the official&lt;/i&gt; standard specification for SAN. The following results indicate within the quotation marks the annotation used (intended to be used without the quotation marks).&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;NAG (Numeric Annotation Glyph) &quot;$0&quot;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&lt;i&gt;IAW art. 10, table 1, line 1 [ref. 1, 2, 3]&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;PGN's SAN: &amp;nbsp;&quot;--&quot;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&lt;i&gt;[ref. 4, 5, 6, 7]&lt;/i&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&lt;i&gt;Note: &amp;nbsp;In ref. 7, null moves start out as mere comments, and can become [null] moves, but it's unclear as to whether they necessarily become so.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;PGN's SAN: &amp;nbsp;&quot;@@@@&quot;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&lt;i&gt;[ref. 8]&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;&quot;&amp;lt;&gt;&quot;, &quot;--&quot;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&lt;i&gt;[ref. 9]&lt;/i&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&lt;i&gt;Note: &amp;nbsp;&quot;A Null Move acts as a placeholder for an expected move that is not played.&quot;&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;&quot;pass&quot;, &quot;null&quot;, &quot;@@@@&quot;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&lt;i&gt;[ref. 10]&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Stockfish's SAN: &amp;nbsp;&quot;null&quot;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&lt;i&gt;[ref. 11]&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;&quot;(null)&quot;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&lt;i&gt;[ref. 12]&lt;/i&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;b&gt;References:&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.saremba.de/chessgml/standards/pgn/pgn-complete.htm#c10&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.saremba.de/chessgml/standards/pgn/pgn-complete.htm#c10&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessclub.com/user/help/PGN-spec&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://www.chessclub.com/user/help/PGN-spec&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://metacpan.org/pod/distribution/Games-Chess/lib/Games/Chess/PGN.pod#NUMERIC-ANNOTATION-GLYPHS&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://metacpan.org/pod/distribution/Games-Chess/lib/Games/Chess/PGN.pod#NUMERIC-ANNOTATION-GLYPHS&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/k2052/chess.rb/blob/master/lib/chess/san.rb&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://github.com/k2052/chess.rb/blob/master/lib/chess/san.rb&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.cs.kent.ac.uk/people/staff/djb/pgn-extract/help.html#portability&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://www.cs.kent.ac.uk/people/staff/djb/pgn-extract/help.html#portability&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.gnu.org/software/xboard/whats_new/4.6.0/#tag-D6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://www.gnu.org/software/xboard/whats_new/4.6.0/#tag-D6&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.triplehappy.com/faq.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.triplehappy.com/faq.html&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.gnu.org/software/xboard/engine-intf.html#8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://www.gnu.org/software/xboard/engine-intf.html#8&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.enpassant.dk/chess/palview/manual/pgn.htm#pgncontnull&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.enpassant.dk/chess/palview/manual/pgn.htm#pgncontnull&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://hgm.nubati.net/alien.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://hgm.nubati.net/alien.html&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/mcostalba/FishCooking/blob/master/src/notation.cpp&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://github.com/mcostalba/FishCooking/blob/master/src/notation.cpp&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/erashid/DON/blob/master/src/Notation.cpp&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://github.com/erashid/DON/blob/master/src/Notation.cpp&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9926" LastActivityDate="2016-06-27T23:39:36.273" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14770" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-06-28T06:10:46.843" Score="3" ViewCount="469" Body="&lt;p&gt;We are installing the Gull engine for some chess enthusiasts in an organization.&#xA;We would like to set 6 difficulty levels from beginner to master using depth.&#xA;Is there someone who can advice us about which values are the most accurate and progressive for each level?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10682" LastEditorUserId="10682" LastEditDate="2016-06-28T06:23:57.937" LastActivityDate="2017-05-30T20:16:34.980" Title="Gull engine : Which depth value to set 6 difficulty levels?" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;programming&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14771" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14772" CreationDate="2016-06-28T07:45:18.310" Score="22" ViewCount="2224" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [fen &quot;RNBQKBNR/8/8/pppppppp/PPPPPPPP/8/8/rnbqkbnr w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;During a comp, my friend an I had a team kill and we decided to make this position(legally) before drawing. Then we continued to find more and more optimal ways of getting the position until I found this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. a4 a5 2. Ra3 Ra6 3. Rb3 Rc6 4. Rb6 Rc3 5. Ra6 Ra3 6. Ra8 Ra1 7. h4 h5 8. Rh3 Rh6 9. Rg3 Rf6 10. Rg6 Rf3 11. Rh6 Rh3 12. Rh8 Rh1 13. e3 e6 14. Qg4 Ke7 15. Ke2 Kd6 16. Kf3 Qf6+ 17. Ke4 Kc5 18. d3 Kb4 19. c3+ Kb3 20. Qg5 Kc2 21. Na3+ Kd1 22. Nh3 Qf3+ 23. Kd4 Ke1 24. Qd8 Qd1 25. Ke5 Nh6 26. Ng5 g6 27. Kf6 Bg7+ 28. Ke7 Nc6+ 29. Ke8 Nd4 30. c4 Nf3 31. b3 b6 32. Nb5 Ng1 33. Ba3 Bb2 34. Bf8 Bc1 35. g3 Bb7 36. Bh3 d6 37. Nh7 e5 38. Bc8 Bg2 39. Nf6 Bf1 40. Ng8 Nf5 41. Na7 Nd4 42. Nc6 Ndf3 43. Nb8 Nd2 44. b4 Nb1 45. d4 d5 46. e4 c5 47. f3 b5 48. f4 f5 49. g4 g5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there any faster way of achieving this position? And (as an extra question) does anyone have a position that have the longest legal optimal series of moves to achieve it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10558" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-06T15:15:54.910" LastActivityDate="2020-09-15T01:00:21.597" Title="Least number of moves to achieve a complete switchover of nonpawns in starting setup" Tags="&lt;problems&gt;&lt;mathematics&gt;&lt;retrograde-analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="14772" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14771" CreationDate="2016-06-28T10:05:48.700" Score="21" Body="&lt;p&gt;As @chakerian's calculations show, 40 moves is the minimum. After a bit of puzzling, I found the solution.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. a4 {First, we need to get the rooks in position. They'll be hard to swap once the board is full.} a5 2. h4 h5 3. Rh3 Rh6 4. Rg3 Rf6 5. Rg6 Rf3 6. Rh6 Rh3 7. Ra3 Ra6 8. Rc3 Rb6 9. Rcc6 Rbb3 10. Ra6 Ra3 {Now, we can start with the knights. They're tricky because they need to swap places via the four center squares. Note that we cannot move the center pawns *before* the knights.} 11. Nf3 Nc6 12. Ne5 Nd4 13. Nc6 Nf6 14. Nc3 Nd5 15. Ne4 Nc3 {It's time for the kings to come out of their hiding, but they have do this carefully because of the knights.} 16. Rh8 d5 17. Ra8 Kd7 18. Nf6+ Kd6 19. e4 Ra1 20. Ba6 b5 21. Nb8 Kc5 {The black monarch chooses queenside - that means his colleague has to take the other one.} 22. Ng8 Nde2 23. d4+ Kc4 24. Kd2 Rh1 25. Ke3 Ng1 26. Kf4 Bh3 27. g4 f5 28. Kg5 e5+ 29. Kg6 Bf1 30. Bh6 {Note how the c1-h6 and a3-f8 diagonals have been left open for the transfer of the last four pieces.} Qg5+ 31. Kf7 Ba3 32. Ke8 Qc1 33. Qd2 Nb1 34. Qg5 {OK, we're almost there now, from here it's a walk in the park.} Qd1 35. b4 Kc3 36. Qd8 g5 37. Bf8 c5 38. Bc8 Kd2 39. c4 Bc1 40. f4 Ke1 {And we're done!}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To answer the second question: you're looking for the &lt;em&gt;longest unique &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proof_game&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;proof game&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt;. I found the longest known one &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.yacpdb.org/#306378&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://pdb.dieschwalbe.de/P0000136&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Dmitri W. Pronkin &amp;amp; Andriy Frolkin, Die Schwalbe 06/1989, 1st Prize, PG in 57.5&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. a4 h5 2. a5 h4 3. a6 h3 4. axb7 hxg2 5. h4 d5 6. h5 d4 7. h6 d3 8. h7 dxc2 9. d4 a5 10. Bh6 c1=R 11. e4 Rc5 12. Ne2 Rh5 13. e5 c5 14. e6 Nc6 15. b8=R a4 16. Rb4 a3 17. Ra4 c4 18. b4 c3 19. b5 c2 20. b6 c1=R 21. b7 Rc4 22. b8=R Qa5+ 23. Rbb4 Bb7 24. N1c3 O-O-O 25. exf7 e5 26. Rc1 Bc5 27. f8=R a2 28. Rf3 a1=R 29. Na2 g1=R 30. Rfa3 Rg6 31. f4 Re6 32. f5 g5 33. f6 g4 34. f7 g3 35. f8=R g2 36. Rf5 g1=R 37. Bf8 Rg7 38. Ng3 e4 39. Bd3 e3 40. O-O e2 41. Rcc3 e1=R 42. Bc2 R1e3 43. d5 Rdd7 44. d6 Rdf7 45. d7+ Kb8 46. Qd6+ Ka8 47. Qc7 Nge7 48. d8=R+ Nc8 49. Rdd3 Rhg8 50. h8=R Rae1 51. Rh6 R1e2 52. R1f2 Rce4 53. Kf1 Bd4 54. Rfc5 Ne5 55. Nf5 Nc4 56. Nd6 Nb2 57. Rbc4 Nb6 58. Qb8+&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What this really means, is that the final position can be reached in 57.5 moves (not less), and that there is only one way to do this. In your example, moves 48 and 49 (and many others) could be switched. Also, currently there is &lt;em&gt;no other&lt;/em&gt; position with this characteristic known which takes &lt;em&gt;more&lt;/em&gt; moves to obtain.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-09-15T01:00:21.597" LastActivityDate="2020-09-15T01:00:21.597" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="14773" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14771" CreationDate="2016-06-28T13:50:13.917" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is a small improvement. It gains a tempo by avoiding Ke4-d4-d5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;] &#xA;&#xA;1. a4 a5 2. Ra3 Ra6 3. Rb3 Rc6 4. Rb6 Rc3 5. Ra6 Ra3 6. Ra8 Ra1 7. h4 h5 8. Rh3 &#xA;Rh6 9. Rg3 Rf6 10. Rg6 Rf3 11. Rh6 Rh3 12. Rh8 Rh1 13. e3 e6 14. Qg4 Ke7 15. Ke2 &#xA;Kd6 16. Kf3 Qf6+ 17. Ke4 Kc5 18. d3 Kb4 19. c3+ Kb3 20. Qg5 Kc2 21. Na3+ Kd1 22. &#xA;Nh3 Qf3+ 23. Ke5 Ke1 24. Qd8 Qd1 25. Ng5 Nh6 26. c4 g6 27. Kf6 Bg7+ 28. Ke7 Nc6+ &#xA;29. Ke8 Nd4 30. b3 Nf3 31. Nb5 Ng1 32. Ba3 Bb2 33. Bf8 Bc1 34. g3 b6 35. Bh3 Bb7 &#xA;36. Nh7 Bg2 37. Nf6 d5 38. Ng8 e5 39. Bc8 Bf1 40. Na7 Nf5 41. Nc6 Nd4 42. Nb8 &#xA;Ndf3 43. b4 Nd2 44. d4 Nb1 45. e4 b5 46. g4 g5 47. f3 c5 48. f4 f5 *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that the absolute minimum amount of moves to achieve the position is at least 38, and without 'crossing the knights' and with moving the bishops in 3 turns the minimum is already 44. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So that would mean that without drastic changes, and improvement would need to depend on only 3 additional 'suboptimal' moves, like moving a pawn twice. As such I don't think there is much room left for improvement, but perhaps 1 or 2 moves could still be shaved off. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10684" LastActivityDate="2016-06-28T13:50:13.917" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14774" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-06-28T14:55:03.293" Score="4" ViewCount="19252" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you promote a pawn do you get a second move to move it out of danger? Or do you still only get the promotion as your move and it becomes the opponents move?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10686" LastEditorUserId="8201" LastEditDate="2018-05-17T19:59:14.123" LastActivityDate="2018-10-29T01:07:03.037" Title="Do you get an extra turn when you promote your pawn?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;pawn-promotion&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="14775" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14774" CreationDate="2016-06-28T15:00:43.227" Score="17" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Once you have promoted your pawn do you get a second move to move it out&#xA;  of danger?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Or do you still only get the promotion as your move and it becomes&#xA;  the opponents move?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From the FIDE Laws of Chess:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;3.7.e When a player, having the move, plays a pawn to the rank furthest from&#xA;  its starting position, he must exchange that pawn as part of the same&#xA;  move for a new queen, rook, bishop or knight of the same colour on the&#xA;  intended square of arrival.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is no discussion of extra turns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2016-06-28T15:00:43.227" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14776" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14771" CreationDate="2016-06-28T16:13:24.280" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;I came up with this, which is 43 moves, but I think it could be optimized further:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. h4 h5 2. Rh3 Rh6 3. Rg3 Rf6 4. Rg6 Rf3&#xA;5. Rh6 Rh3 6. Rh8 Rh1 7. a4 a5 8. Ra3 Ra6&#xA;9. Rc3 Rb6 10. Rc6 Rb3 11. Ra6 Ra3 12. Ra8 Ra1&#xA;13. e4 d5 14. Ke2 Qd7 15. Ke3 Qg4 16. Qf3 Kd7&#xA;17. Qf4 Kc6 18. Kd4 Qd1 19. Ke5 Bh3 20. g4 f5&#xA;21. Ke6 Kc5 22. Kf7 Kd4 23. Ba6 b5 24. Bc8 Bf1&#xA;25. c4 Kd3 26. Nf3 Ke2 27. Ne5 Nc6 28. Nd7 Ke1&#xA;29. Ke8 Nd4 30. Qd6 Nf3 31. Nb8 Ng1 32. Qd8 e5&#xA;33. d4 Ba3 34. b4 Ne7 35. Bh6 g5 36. Bf8 Bc1&#xA;37. Nd2 Ng6 38. Nb3 Nf4 39. Nc5 Nfe2 40. Ncd7 Nc3&#xA;41. Nf6 Nb1 42. Ng8 c5 43. f4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: Okay, I think this is the optimized one:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. h4 a5 2. a4 h5 3. Rh3 Ra6 4. Raa3 Rhh6&#xA;5. Rhf3 Rac6 6. Rab3 Rhg6 7. Rf6 Rc3 8. Rbb6 Rgg3&#xA;9. Rh6 Ra3 10. Rh8 Ra1 11. Ra6 Rh3 12. Ra8 Rh1&#xA;13. e4 d5 14. Ke2 Bh3 15. Ke3 Kd7 16. Kf4 Kc6&#xA;17. Qg4 Kc5 18. Qc8 Qd7 19. Ke5 Qg4 20. Qd8 f5&#xA;21. Ke6 Qd1 22. Kf7 Kd4 23. Ba6 Nc6 24. c4 Kd3&#xA;25. Nf3 Ke2 26. Nd4+ Ke1 27. g4 Ne5+ 28. Ke8 Nf3&#xA;29. Nc6 Ng1 30. Nb8 Bf1 31. d4 b5 32. Bh6 e5&#xA;33. Bc8 Ba3 34. b4 g5 35. Bf8 Bc1 36. Nd2 Ne7&#xA;37. Nb3 Ng6 38. Nc5 Nf4 39. Ncd7 Nfe2 40. Nf6 Nc3&#xA;41. Ng8 Nb1 42. f4 c5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10687" LastEditorUserId="10687" LastEditDate="2016-06-28T16:39:04.700" LastActivityDate="2016-06-28T16:39:04.700" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14777" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14771" CreationDate="2016-06-28T17:31:14.647" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;Shouldn't the minimum be &lt;strong&gt;40&lt;/strong&gt;?. I don't have any result to show yet but it seems that:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pawns (black and white): 8 moves&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Rooks (black and white): 10 moves&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Kings (black and white): 7 moves&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Queens (black and white): 3 moves&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Knights (black and white): 8 moves&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bishops (black and white): 4 moves&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I could be wrong&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Something to consider is that the e pawns for black and white can't be pushed up together until the kings have passed to their opposite positions. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Possibly it takes an extra two moves for the last two knights in which case it would be &lt;strong&gt;42&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7236" LastEditorUserId="7236" LastEditDate="2016-06-28T18:04:57.757" LastActivityDate="2016-06-28T18:04:57.757" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14778" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-06-29T02:56:53.770" Score="2" ViewCount="802" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have several apps on my iPad that will analyze the current position as I move through a game, but I can't seem to find any that will do an analysis of a complete game, ala the sort of analysis I used to do with Fritz when I still had a working PC. I don't need Grand Master level preparation insights (as in, I'm not trying to replicate the depth that Fritz could look at), just looking for something that will point out blunders and mistakes etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10641" LastActivityDate="2017-03-27T07:41:10.790" Title="Analyzing complete games on iPad?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14779" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9321" CreationDate="2016-06-29T06:25:55.907" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;b&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://hgm.nubati.net/alien.html&quot;&gt;XBoard Alien GUI&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/b&gt; is reputedly better suited to playing chess variants than the standard XBoard is, but that's just an observation. There are many engines that play only a few variants.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;Here's a list of engines (other than Fairy-Max) that have been noted as playing a large selection of variants and working with XBoard (Linux environment being implicit):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://samiam.org/chessv/&quot;&gt;ChessV&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/b&gt; (&lt;i&gt;plays over 50 variants&lt;/i&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://sites.google.com/site/dshawul/&quot;&gt;Nebiyu Alien&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/b&gt; (&lt;i&gt;a score of variants tested in homepage; many additional [user defined] .ini files available as a &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.solidfiles.com/d/67f321a0a9/&quot;&gt;collective package&lt;/a&gt; or &lt;a href=&quot;http://immortalchess.net/forum/showthread.php?t=12308&quot;&gt;individually&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/i&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.lanternchess.com/pulsar/&quot;&gt;Pulsar&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.eglebbk.dds.nl/program/chess-&quot;&gt;Sjaak II&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/b&gt; (&lt;i&gt;Glebbeek's, not de Man's&lt;/i&gt;)&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessbox.de/chess/SMIRF.html&quot;&gt;SMIRF&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9926" LastEditorUserId="9926" LastEditDate="2016-06-30T17:40:18.420" LastActivityDate="2016-06-30T17:40:18.420" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14780" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2016-06-29T07:57:41.637" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2016-06-29T07:57:41.637" LastActivityDate="2016-06-29T07:57:41.637" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14781" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2016-06-29T07:57:41.637" Score="0" Body="For questions about chess-related software running on the Linux operating system." OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-06-29T08:32:23.043" LastActivityDate="2016-06-29T08:32:23.043" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14782" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2016-06-29T08:04:09.660" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2016-06-29T08:04:09.660" LastActivityDate="2016-06-29T08:04:09.660" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14783" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2016-06-29T08:04:09.660" Score="0" Body="For question about chess-related apps on the Android platform." OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-06-29T08:32:12.997" LastActivityDate="2016-06-29T08:32:12.997" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14784" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14793" CreationDate="2016-06-29T12:13:06.007" Score="3" ViewCount="284" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am an active member of Chess.com. Now, I want a FIDE rating. Are there any possibilities that with reference to the Chess.com rating, I can get a FIDE rating? Since I am new to this please provide me a clear suggestion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10268" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-06-29T15:41:37.740" LastActivityDate="2016-06-30T09:01:38.277" Title="What are the sites and links to get a FIDE rating?" Tags="&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;fide&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14785" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14784" CreationDate="2016-06-29T15:34:09.533" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can get official FIDE rating for online play at &lt;a href=&quot;https://arena.myfide.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://arena.myfide.net/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3456" LastActivityDate="2016-06-29T15:34:09.533" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14786" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14751" CreationDate="2016-06-29T15:43:22.217" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;These two are not symmetrical for at least two reasons:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the KIA, the obligatory move is e2-e4, because otherwise the opening will not be called the KIA. But there are ways to play the KID without e7-e5, but with c7-c5 instead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White must play both d2-d4 and c2-c4 for the opening to be called the KID, but in the KIA Black may play c7-c6, or d7-d6 and it is still the KIA.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3456" LastActivityDate="2016-06-29T15:43:22.217" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14787" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14784" CreationDate="2016-06-29T16:11:01.990" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess.com is a private organization that is not affiliated with FIDE (the World Chess Federation). Also, Chess.com's ratings are based on online play (and so unofficial), whereas FIDE only rates official, over-the-board tournaments. So it is not possible to get a FIDE rating based on Chess.com rating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can get a FIDE rating by playing in a tournament that will get rated by FIDE.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7500" LastActivityDate="2016-06-29T16:11:01.990" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14788" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12833" CreationDate="2016-06-30T04:30:59.837" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The French Defense requires a lot of sharp, tactical play. It is &quot;like&quot; the Sicilian insofar as it tries to avoid e5 as a response to e4, and take away the initiative from White. But although &quot;tactical,&quot; the Sicilian offers more of a positional game than the French. (I play both, but prefer the Sicilian.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The French Defense was quite popular in the middle of the 20th century with tactical players such as Alexander Alekhine, Mikhail Botvinnik, and Vasily Smyslov. And before them &quot;lesser&quot; lights such as Rudolph Spielmann, and Mikhail Chigorin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But today's grandmasters are more positional players. On the other hand, with &quot;top 20,&quot; you're dealing with a small sample size, so in another half century, you might see the French Defense popular with the then-prevailing group.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2016-06-30T04:30:59.837" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14789" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14790" CreationDate="2016-06-30T05:00:56.170" Score="3" ViewCount="9535" Body="&lt;p&gt;I tried to download SCID for Mac and when I downloaded the latest version, I got a scid-src.zip. When I extracted this, I get a bunch of folders and source files. How do I launch this application? I see no launcher file.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you,&#xA;Sean&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1549" LastActivityDate="2016-07-04T13:21:39.477" Title="How do I install SCID Chess on a Mac?" Tags="&lt;scid&gt;&lt;macos&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14790" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14789" CreationDate="2016-06-30T05:36:41.167" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think SCID supports Mac OSX officially. The files you have are raw sources, which you'll need to compile with TCL. Why not try a newer (and better) SCID alternative?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Download SCID vs PC&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://scidvspc.sourceforge.net&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://scidvspc.sourceforge.net&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2016-06-30T05:36:41.167" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14791" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14792" CreationDate="2016-06-30T08:00:44.377" Score="1" ViewCount="125" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have tried to make a diagram but cannot figure out how to do the FEN, sorry.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In a game that I played online somebody has done a rather strange thing, they moved their rook in front of the pawn on that file. In that particular game this actually resulted in them winning, but since I have never seen anything like this before I thought that it must be named something.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10702" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-06-30T08:22:10.820" LastActivityDate="2016-06-30T10:38:19.740" Title="Is there a name for a rook moving in front of the pawn on a particular file?" Tags="&lt;rooks&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14792" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14791" CreationDate="2016-06-30T08:16:12.043" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;This manoeuvre is usually called a &quot;rook lift&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The commentators Shahade and Seirawan try to popularise the term &quot;rover&quot; which is supposed to be short for &quot;rook up and over&quot;. It's a bit of a running gag on their shows.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's an example in which the rook lift was pretty surprising for the live commentators:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;Kramnik vs Deep Fritz&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Bonn GER&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2006.12.05&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;6&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Deep Fritz (Computer)&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Vladimir Kramnik&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;B90&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;93&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.Bc4 e6 7.O-O&#xA;Be7 8.Bb3 Qc7 9.Re1 Nc6 10.Re3 O-O 11.Rg3 Kh8 12.Nxc6 bxc6&#xA;13.Qe2 a5 14.Bg5 Ba6 15.Qf3 Rab8 16.Re1 c5 17.Bf4 Qb7 18.Bc1&#xA;Ng8 19.Nb1 Bf6 20.c3 g6 21.Na3 Qc6 22.Rh3 Bg7 23.Qg3 a4 24.Bc2&#xA;Rb6 25.e5 dxe5 26.Rxe5 Nf6 27.Qh4 Qb7 28.Re1 h5 29.Rf3 Nh7&#xA;30.Qxa4 Qc6 31.Qxc6 Rxc6 32.Ba4 Rb6 33.b3 Kg8 34.c4 Rd8 35.Nb5&#xA;Bb7 36.Rfe3 Bh6 37.Re5 Bxc1 38.Rxc1 Rc6 39.Nc3 Rc7 40.Bb5 Nf8&#xA;41.Na4 Rdc8 42.Rd1 Kg7 43.Rd6 f6 44.Re2 e5 45.Red2 g5 46.Nb6&#xA;Rb8 47.a4 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastEditorUserId="4362" LastEditDate="2016-06-30T10:38:19.740" LastActivityDate="2016-06-30T10:38:19.740" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14793" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14784" CreationDate="2016-06-30T09:01:38.277" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is not possible to get a FIDE rating based on Chess.com rating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First you need to join the Fide Online Community, by &lt;a href=&quot;https://arena.myfide.net/register&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;registering&lt;/a&gt; there and then start playing to get your own rating &lt;a href=&quot;https://arena.myfide.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10696" LastActivityDate="2016-06-30T09:01:38.277" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14794" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9690" CreationDate="2016-06-30T09:13:16.827" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/users/4362/blindkungfumaster&quot;&gt;BlindKungFuMaster&lt;/a&gt; has offered some interesting points from the perspective of the GM players and those watching it. I would like to offer some from the perspective of the newcomers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess960 (and/or Chess480) is the great alternative to the classical chess, because it makes it impossible (or much more difficult) to win by simple memorisation, and one must actually use original thinking from the very first move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Currently there are, of course, things like &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUr_gdKQ8j4&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; that take place, but in most cases if a newcomer will play somebody 2000+ then the stronger opponent may actually not need to think at all for the first many moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Where Chess960 fails in that regard is when we talk about castling, and Chess480 would be a better alternative, since it doesn't require a person to &quot;intuitively&quot; feel the known castling positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10702" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.193" LastActivityDate="2016-06-30T09:13:16.827" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14795" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15299" CreationDate="2016-06-30T23:39:01.580" Score="6" ViewCount="1479" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm interested in chess patterns similar to the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windmill_(chess)&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;windmill&lt;/a&gt;. If you think there are none more than the ones that I'm listing I'm interested in a proof that satisfies me to stop looking for more of them. Wikipedia gives this definition for a windmill:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In chess, a windmill is a tactic in which a combination of discovered&#xA;checks and regular checks, usually by a rook and a bishop, can win&#xA;massive amounts of material. This tactic is also sometimes referred to&#xA;as a see-saw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know two windmills. First the one in the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1008361&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&amp;quot;game of the century&amp;quot; between Fisher and Byrne&lt;/a&gt; (moves between 18 and 23 black does a windmill), it involves a bishop and a knight (also a rook, but it's not essential. For example see this game for a windmill knight-bishop without white rook.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;K7/8/8/2B5/4N3/7q/6pp/3r1b1k w - - 0 9&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;9.Nf2+ Kg1 10.Nxh3+ Kh1 11.Nf2+ Kg1 12.Nxd1+ Kh1 13.Nf2+ Kg1 14.Ne4+ Kh1 15.Nf2+ Kg1 16.Ng4+ Kh1 *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This can also be seen as a royal fork constantly attacking the black king, but windmill contains and &amp;quot;mechanic&amp;quot; that allows the knight to do whatever it wants but black is still restricted to move his king back and forth.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A second example is &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/chessopedia/view/windmill&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this article.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The other type of windmill is of &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1100063&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this game&lt;/a&gt;. Starts at move 26, white does a windmill this time with rook and a bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I want to know if you can share more types of windmills with me. I realized you can substitute the bishop that remains still in both tecniques (B+R &amp;amp; B+N) with a queen carrying out the same function. So I have 4 types. Do you know similar positions?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PD: I realized also that if I change the bishop for a queen that allows sometimes checkmate, for example smothered checkmate can be seen as a windmill with the queen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10601" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2021-02-09T01:04:36.973" Title="How many windmills types exist in chess?" Tags="&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;windmill&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14796" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14795" CreationDate="2016-07-01T01:41:38.120" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;An example where the Bishop is the windmill piece.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[fen &quot;7R/kr4P1/5P2/4P3/3P4/b1P5/P1PP4/K2R4 b - - 0 0&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1...Bb2+ 2. Kb1 Bxc3+ 3. Kc1 Bb2+ 4. Kb1 Bxd4+ 5. Kc1 Bb2+ 6. Kb1 Bxe5+ 7. Kc1 Bb2+ 8. Kb1 Bxf6+ 9. Kc1 Bb2+ 10. Kb1 Bxg7+ 11. Kc1 Bb2+ 12. Kb1 Bxh8+&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since the requirement is that the windmill and the discovered piece move differently that is two with Bishop, four with Knight, and two with Rook as the windmill piece, for a total of 8 types of windmill attacks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT:  Inserting windmill position with Rook and Knight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;&#xA;[FEN &quot;5rk1/R7/6N1/4p3/5p1p/8/8/K5R1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Nxh4+ Kh8 2. Ng6+ Kg8 3. Nxf4+ Kh8 4. Ng6+ Kg8 5. Nxe5+ Kh8 6. Ng6+ Kg8 7.&#xA;Nxf8+ *&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9684" LastEditorUserId="9684" LastEditDate="2016-07-31T06:04:26.823" LastActivityDate="2016-07-31T06:04:26.823" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14797" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14798" CreationDate="2016-07-01T09:00:11.097" Score="3" ViewCount="1080" Body="&lt;p&gt;I couldn't find much sources on this opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm teaching my young students for them not to bother with opening theory in their early chess experience.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I push it as far as playing it black or white.&#xA;Having this position no matter what (if the opponent is playing decent moves) with white:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. g3 e5 2. Bg2 d5 3. d3 Nc6 4. Nf3 Nf6 5. O-O Be7 6. c4 Be6 7. Nc3 O-O&#xA;8. a3 a5 9. Rb1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Same goes for black (g6 etc ...).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The idea behind this is securing our king fast, and launching an attack on the queenside while strenghtening the diagonal of our bishop on the kingside.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Next we want to prepare b4. I don't really know what to do with my dark-squared bishop though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If some of you could give me some good advice or insight on this opening (is it good? Bad? What are the plans?) that would be awesome.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8661" LastEditorUserId="933" LastEditDate="2016-07-01T12:43:31.357" LastActivityDate="2016-07-01T14:21:46.753" Title="Opening g3 - Bg2" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14798" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14797" CreationDate="2016-07-01T09:16:00.193" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;&amp;nbsp;1. g3 is called the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Benko_Opening&amp;amp;redirect=no&quot;&gt;Benko opening&lt;/a&gt; or the King's fianchetto opening. It usually transposes into other systems where White plays g3 in the opening (e.g. the English or the Catalan), but the position you're showing reminds me of a reversed Sicilian Dragon (if White plays cxd5) or a reversed King's Indian / Pirc (if Black plays d4).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You could do a couple of things with your dark-squared bishop, e.g. exchange it for the knight on f6, to strengthen your grip on the light squares. You could develop it to d2 to support the b2-b4 push, or (after cxd5) to e3, as you're not likely to move the e-pawn very soon.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As most system openings, it is not really a bad opening. But you're giving away the initiative White has - essentially, you're playing with Black all the time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2016-07-01T09:16:00.193" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14799" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-07-01T10:27:49.413" Score="7" ViewCount="793" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Milan Vidmar's book Goldene Schachzeiten he writes that the brilliant Paul Morphy was known to be an extraordinarily slow player, who would probably have had a hard life if time control were part of the chess battle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was shocked to read this because earlier I had always read that Morphy was an exceptionally fast player. Can anyone explain this controversy with access to reliable sources?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3456" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2016-07-01T23:41:51.337" LastActivityDate="2016-07-05T14:26:47.827" Title="Was Paul Morphy a slow player?" Tags="&lt;history&gt;&lt;time-management&gt;&lt;morphy&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14801" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14797" CreationDate="2016-07-01T14:21:46.753" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Glorfindel provides an excellent answer, especially the light square strategy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would also suggest that playing the KIA, the proper course is to exchange the dark square Bishops, with Bg5, Qd2, and Bh6 and to attack on the Kingside.  The variation which the Kingside attack is most powerful is when White advances the e pawn instead of the c pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Dunnington's book &quot;The Ultimate King's Indian Attack&quot; suggests that if you plan on the Queenside attack, the Bishop is best left on c1 and moved to b2 or a3 after the pawn expansion.  John Hall's &quot;Modern King's Indian Attack&quot; does not even mention Queenside play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9684" LastActivityDate="2016-07-01T14:21:46.753" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14803" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6099" CreationDate="2016-07-01T16:19:56.160" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;After trying out several options, I have to say that I find the study tool on &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.lichess.org&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;lichess&lt;/a&gt; by far and away the best.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is intuitive, very easy to use, and the features are fantastic. For me, the most important features are the trivial way of importing previously annotated games (unlike with FICS, for example), the fact that all the analysis (variations, comments, arrows and highlighted squares) are saved and can be re-examined later, and all the comments from other users are also saved (which is very convenient). On top of all that, it's free (you only need to register). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can learn more about the study tool &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.lichess.org/blog/V0KrLSkAAMo3hsi4/study-chess-the-lichess-way&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;. I highly recommend trying it out (as well as lichess in general).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2792" LastActivityDate="2016-07-01T16:19:56.160" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14804" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-07-01T16:52:25.470" Score="2" ViewCount="208" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am looking for a software that would help me in improving my positional chess understanding. Is there any such software or website?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7066" LastEditorUserId="9926" LastEditDate="2016-07-02T08:23:49.367" LastActivityDate="2016-07-02T08:23:49.367" Title="Is there any software that can be used for positional chess training?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14805" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-07-01T17:40:44.507" Score="5" ViewCount="388" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there any instance in which, oe a possibility of,  that an engine can play a novelty in a game?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7066" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-30T04:10:42.037" LastActivityDate="2020-08-30T04:10:42.037" Title="Can an engine ever play a novelty?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;novelties&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="14806" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14805" CreationDate="2016-07-01T17:51:31.450" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, once it is out of its opening book, it will just start looking for good moves. That will usually happen later than a human is out of his/her book, but still, it is not impossible that a human will (unintentionally) follow a certain existing game, where the computer will make the first deviation. And in a computer vs. computer match, they're bound to either replay an entire existing game, or one of them will play a novelty at some point in the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, if you mean 'an opening novelty with any significance for actual play', the answer is probably no. Unless specifically configured that way, it will follow its book and not play a spontaneous novelty on move 12, like a human would be able to do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-07-01T20:41:58.153" LastActivityDate="2016-07-01T20:41:58.153" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14807" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2016-07-01T17:53:29.163" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2016-07-01T17:53:29.163" LastActivityDate="2016-07-01T17:53:29.163" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14808" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2016-07-01T17:53:29.163" Score="0" Body="A novelty is a move which has never been played before in a recorded game, usually in the opening. Use this tag for questions about novelties in general, or question about a specific novelty by a strong player." OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-07-01T21:12:14.457" LastActivityDate="2016-07-01T21:12:14.457" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14809" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-07-01T22:44:42.773" Score="3" ViewCount="212" Body="&lt;p&gt;As an extension to this question about &lt;a href=&quot;https://puzzling.stackexchange.com/questions/36874/can-whites-rook-and-knight-without-moving-white-king-force-stalemate&quot;&gt;can a rook and knight &lt;em&gt;without a king&lt;/em&gt; stalemate a opposing king&lt;/a&gt;, and the &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/5028/what-is-sufficient-mating-material&quot;&gt;traditional minimum-mating-material question&lt;/a&gt;, I had a puzzle question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are the minimum combinations of material (without a king) required to forcibly mate an opposing king? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;R + R/Q is clearly sufficient&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;R + N + N/B maybe, as an extension from the above stalemate question&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, there are some sets that fail without a king:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;B(w) + B(b) (but 3 bishops should work, so long as one is on a different color)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10715" LastActivityDate="2016-07-09T10:55:54.920" Title="Sufficient mating material, less a king?" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;material&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14810" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14804" CreationDate="2016-07-01T22:47:56.270" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Perhaps an engine something like &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesspositiontrainer.com/index.php/en/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chess Position Trainer&lt;/a&gt;, depending upon your requirements (and system).&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;There is some potential for an unexpected &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/download/view/chess-position-trainer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;learning curve&lt;/a&gt;, at least within version 5.04.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;That being said, it is noted as working in both &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesspositiontrainer.com/index.php/en/cpt-kunena-forum/10-general/184-windows-10-and-cpt&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Windows&lt;/a&gt; &amp;amp; &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/blog/SamCopeland/the-best-linux-apps-for-chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Linux&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.chessbase.com/post/hartmann-choosing-a-chess-engine&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Komodo 8&lt;/a&gt; also gets some recommendation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/positional-play-puzzle-bookssoftware&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chessimo&lt;/a&gt; has at least one detractor, who showed a preference for &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.convekta.com/download.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Convekta&lt;/a&gt;, this latter offering both downloadable and online games (their &lt;a href=&quot;http://chessok.com/?page_id=145&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;online play&lt;/a&gt; permits Windows, iOS, Android, &amp;amp; Web Interface).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesscentral.com/basic-positional-ideas-download/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Basic Positional Ideas&lt;/a&gt; &quot;...&lt;i&gt;is a supplementary program [that] can only be run if [&lt;i&gt;sic&lt;/i&gt;] &lt;a href=&quot;http://shop.chessbase.com/en/products/fritz_15_english?Ref=RF70-5OH0EFN840&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Fritz&lt;/a&gt; 8&lt;/i&gt;...&quot;. The description indicates that the program is for learning &quot;...&lt;i&gt;[how] to achieve the desired position on your board&lt;/i&gt;...&quot;.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;The use of Fritz indicates that it should run on Windows, but that you might &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.calmar.ws/div/fritz_and_wine.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;need Wine&lt;/a&gt; in order to run it within a Linux environment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9926" LastEditorUserId="9926" LastEditDate="2016-07-02T00:59:30.243" LastActivityDate="2016-07-02T00:59:30.243" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14811" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14805" CreationDate="2016-07-02T07:57:41.150" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, and it's very common. Top players use the strongest engines to fine tune their opening books and new opening ideas. Lot's of ultra-sharp lines that you see played by top-ten players are home preparation, prepared by the engines. Although sharp, those lines are harmless (if you know how to play), the top players are confident because they have checked and played those lines with a computer, they know exactly what to do (eg: learn by being beaten) and how to make transition to the endgame. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2016-07-02T07:57:41.150" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14813" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14821" CreationDate="2016-07-02T16:52:56.507" Score="23" ViewCount="1555" Body="&lt;p&gt;At various times, even going back 100 years or more, people have been predicting the &quot;draw death&quot; of chess meaning that top players will get so good that every game will be a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the 1984 World Championship, this prediction seemed to be coming true when the players drew an exhausting 40 times. There was even one stretch in that match when 16 games were drawn in a row.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, that computers have exceeded human ability in chess, are they drawing more or less than top human players? Are they exhibiting draw death?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8673" LastEditorUserId="3456" LastEditDate="2016-07-03T10:51:36.213" LastActivityDate="2016-07-04T11:00:44.983" Title="Is computer chess exhibiting the predicted &quot;draw death&quot;?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;draw&gt;&lt;computer-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14814" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="590" CreationDate="2016-07-02T18:56:25.650" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;Material&quot; is but one of the types of advantages in chess. However, it is the easiest one for most people to understand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other types of advantages: space, piece activity, king safety.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You learn how to spot good sacrifices when you become more aware of the &lt;em&gt;other forms of advantage&lt;/em&gt; in chess. Sacrificing is merely taking a hit on the material score in order to gain an advantage in another area.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These words will be easily forgotten without examples. The best examples are classic games. [The games of modern players are not as good because their defensive technique is so good that sacrifices rarely work against them.]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Don't wait for people to teach you in this thread - start learning with a google search or two. Here's one on Great sacrifices in chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.google.com/search?q=great+sacrifices+in+chess&amp;amp;ie=utf-8&amp;amp;oe=utf-8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://www.google.com/search?q=great+sacrifices+in+chess&amp;amp;ie=utf-8&amp;amp;oe=utf-8&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Go over the many games there and learn from them. See if you can get a sense as to what &lt;em&gt;compensatory advantages&lt;/em&gt; are gained for the sacrificed material.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10673" LastActivityDate="2016-07-02T18:56:25.650" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14815" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14817" CreationDate="2016-07-03T02:43:26.017" Score="1" ViewCount="96" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.lichess.org/training/5571&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.lichess.org/training/5571&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why is White knight to f5 not an ideal move in this situation? As far as I can see, unless Black takes the white bishop with the rook, it's mate in 2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/kwAOF.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/kwAOF.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10726" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-04T21:55:49.773" LastActivityDate="2020-04-04T21:55:49.773" Title="Ideal move in this situation" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;problems&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14817" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14815" CreationDate="2016-07-03T09:26:18.763" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.lichess.org/analysis/7r/p4p1p/4kp2/8/4P3/r1BR2N1/5PPP/3R2K1_w_-_-_0_31?color=white#61&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;The puzzle is a mate in 3 starting with a rook check. After knight to f5, there is a mate in 4 on the board, so that line is a mate in 5.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course one forced mate is as good as another, but if you did want to differentiate between forced mates of different length, then an argument can be made that fewer moves is better.  This is certainly how lichess does it in these puzzles, though it is certainly annoying if such a move is judged as a mistake.  Sometimes you get an admonition that your move although good is not the best and that is less annoying though arguably also incorrect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9531" LastActivityDate="2016-07-03T09:26:18.763" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14818" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-07-03T11:15:05.733" Score="4" ViewCount="248" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Following the structures with black pawn on c5, there is a tension in the center. When does black usually decide to take the d4 pawn, what is usually the trigger?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3326" LastEditorUserId="3326" LastEditDate="2016-07-03T12:34:46.053" LastActivityDate="2016-07-08T08:33:39.907" Title="When should black make the cxd4 move in French?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;french-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14819" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14818" CreationDate="2016-07-03T22:34:11.240" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The trigger for me is having nothing else useful to do. At some point you need to develop your dark-square bishop and castle. Moving the bishop only to then have your opponent release the tension wastes a tempo.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7514" LastActivityDate="2016-07-03T22:34:11.240" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14820" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1695" CreationDate="2016-07-04T00:33:11.930" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;b&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://hgm.nubati.net/alien.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;WinBoard Alien GUI&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/b&gt; is reputedly better suited to playing chess variants than the standard WinBoard is, but that's just an observation.&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As to engines that play Losers Chess within a WinBoard environment, it seems that the answer is unfortunately no: Sjeng seems to be the strongest of these (within context), though at least OliThink seems likely to give you a greater challenge than you might from get Pulsar.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;The results of several competitions (w/ environment data included) in Losers Chess (each with some changes in competing engines involved) are posted at the ImmortalChess forum (&quot;&lt;i&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://immortalchess.net/forum/archive/index.php/t-12308.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Losers tournament&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/i&gt;&quot; contains the pertinent tables, while the &lt;a href=&quot;http://immortalchess.net/forum/archive/index.php/t-12308-p-2.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;third&lt;/a&gt; &amp;amp; &lt;a href=&quot;http://immortalchess.net/forum/archive/index.php/t-12308-p-3.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;fourth&lt;/a&gt; pages of that thread contain two tables for their &quot;&lt;i&gt;Suicide chess tournament&lt;/i&gt;&quot; from which to infer Nebiyu's possible strength by comparison).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sequenced in accordance with the engines' &lt;i&gt;normalized&lt;/i&gt; mean averages of those tournaments:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://sjeng.org/download.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Sjeng 11.2&lt;/a&gt; &amp;nbsp;. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.885416(7)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://kirr.homeunix.org/chess/engines/Norbert%27s%20collection/OliThink%20(Compilation)/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Olithink 2.2.1&lt;/a&gt; [OliPow] &lt;b&gt;&lt;i&gt;note A&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/b&gt; &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;. . . . . . . . . 0.5625(0)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.lanternchess.com/pulsar/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Pulsar 2009-9b&lt;/a&gt; &amp;nbsp;. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.411458(3)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://web.archive.org/web/20070826142516/http://www.seanet.com/~brucemo/gerbil/gerbil.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Gerbil 02&lt;/a&gt; &lt;b&gt;&lt;i&gt;note B&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/b&gt; &amp;nbsp;. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.3541(6)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://kirr.homeunix.org/chess/engines/Jim%20Ablett/KKFCHESS/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;KKF 2.6.6&lt;/a&gt; . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.31708(3)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://sites.google.com/site/dshawul/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Nebiyu 1.41&lt;/a&gt; &lt;b&gt;&lt;i&gt;notes C.x&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/b&gt; . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . UNDEF. &lt;i&gt;(0.275(+), &lt;b&gt;est.&lt;/b&gt;)&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/pychess/pychess/wiki/StauntonRelease&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;PyChess&lt;/a&gt; &lt;b&gt;&lt;i&gt;note D&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/b&gt; &amp;nbsp;. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . UNDEF.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Notes:&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;A:&lt;/b&gt; multiple other versions of OliThink 2.2.1 (in addition to those in the normalized list's link) can be had &lt;a href=&quot;http://home.arcor.de/dreamlike/chess/index.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;elsewhere&lt;/a&gt; (at the bottom, in the “Older versions:” section).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;B:&lt;/b&gt; Gerbil ver.s 01 &amp;amp; 02 &quot;...&lt;i&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://immortalchess.net/forum/archive/index.php/t-12308.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;come with a separate executable for loser's chess&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/i&gt;...&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;C:&lt;/b&gt; Nebiyu Alien has many additional [user defined] .ini files available as a &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.solidfiles.com/d/67f321a0a9/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;collective package&lt;/a&gt; or &lt;a href=&quot;http://immortalchess.net/forum/showthread.php?t=12308&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;individually&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;C.1:&lt;/b&gt; Nebiyu can play Losers Chess, if you &lt;a href=&quot;http://immortalchess.net/forum/archive/index.php/t-12308.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;edit the winboard.ini&lt;/a&gt; (after which, “&lt;i&gt;With -W (w17) &lt;/i&gt;[in the command line option]&lt;i&gt; losers chess it works fine...&lt;/i&gt;”).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;C.2:&lt;/b&gt; Note that Nebiyu might be “&lt;i&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://immortalchess.net/forum/archive/index.php/t-12308-p-3.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;...playing atomic losers chess.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/i&gt;” (later attested &lt;i&gt;to the contrary&lt;/i&gt; by another).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;D:&lt;/b&gt; PyChess wasn't one of the competitors, but &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/pychess/pychess/wiki/StauntonRelease&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;can&lt;/a&gt; play Losers Chess, though it might be &lt;a href=&quot;https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/pychess-people/1gq5Hsin4JI&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;too weak an engine&lt;/a&gt; (in context of Losers Chess) to consider modifying for this purpose.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9926" LastEditorUserId="9926" LastEditDate="2016-07-04T02:50:17.963" LastActivityDate="2016-07-04T02:50:17.963" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14821" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14813" CreationDate="2016-07-04T11:00:44.983" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;For what it's worth, here are the rates of decisive games of the TCEC seasons 4 'til 8 superfinals. Season 4 is a bit of an outlier (maybe a rule change?), but after that the percentage of decisive games drops consistently. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Season 4: 10/48 = 20%&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Season 5: 18/48 = 37%&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Season 6: 19/64 = 30%&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Season 7: 11/64 = 17%&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Season 8: 11/100 = 11%&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Arguably at an even higher level are the games in correspondence chess which are played with engine assistance. I'm too lazy to count all the decisive games in the recent decades of the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.iccf.com/tables&quot;&gt;correspondence world championships&lt;/a&gt;, but in 2003 the rate of decisive games was 32% while in 2013 (two games still running) the rate has declined to 12%.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2003: 34/105 = 32%&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2013: 17/134 = 12%&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These numbers indicate that there is a draw death in chess, somewhere north of 3200+ Elo. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2016-07-04T11:00:44.983" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14822" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14799" CreationDate="2016-07-04T12:28:51.127" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=51ZeAAAAcAAJ&amp;amp;dq=paul%20morphy%20move%20speed&amp;amp;pg=PA19#v=onepage&amp;amp;q=paul%20morphy%20move%20speed&amp;amp;f=false&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;This 1860 book&lt;/a&gt; seems to have anecdotal evidence on the &quot;fast&quot; side of the argument: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Mr Morphy is a most fascinating player for those looking on, and there is always a crowd around his board whenever he is &lt;em&gt;en lutte&lt;/em&gt; with an opponent. His attention is not by any means riveted on the game and he makes his moves with a speed approaching rapidity.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Thus says Lowenthal in the Era:&#xA;We have great pleasure in announcing that Mr Morphy has arrived in London and has met with a most enthusiastic reception from the members of the St George's Club, where he paid a visit last Wednesday and played several excellent games. The prompt visit of this great player to England betokens his great anxiety to give the players of Europe an opportunity of encountering him. His powers as a Chess player have not in any degree been exaggerated. The quickness with which he forms and carries out his combinations is truly surprising. He possesses also another important quality, that of perfect coolness and self possession.&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8453" LastActivityDate="2016-07-04T12:28:51.127" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14823" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14789" CreationDate="2016-07-04T13:21:39.477" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You probably downloaded the Windows version.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The Mac version can be downloaded here: &lt;a href=&quot;http://scidvspc.sourceforge.net/#toc3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://scidvspc.sourceforge.net/#toc3&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The name (ScidvsMac-4.16-ElCap.dmg) probably means that you need El Capitan (the latest Mac OS X version) to run it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10578" LastActivityDate="2016-07-04T13:21:39.477" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14824" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15374" CreationDate="2016-07-04T16:07:56.213" Score="9" ViewCount="2440" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a beginner (approximately 1400) seeking to improve my endgame technique. Which one of these books would you recommend as suitable for my strength and why?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;100 Endgames you must know by Jesus de la Villa &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Silman's Complete Endgame Course: From Beginner to Master by Jeremy Silman&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have to say that in general I don't like Silman's writing style and methods at all (i.e. Reassess your chess), but then again, this is endgames - and hence a different topic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7687" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T17:35:04.980" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T17:35:04.980" Title="Which of these two endgame books?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;books&gt;&lt;beginner&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="14825" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-07-04T16:24:22.487" Score="0" ViewCount="402" Body="&lt;p&gt;I faced this opening 3 times recently in a tournament, and only scored 1 win and 2 losses. I would like to know: what are the best books or DVDs that cover the Chigorin variation of the Ruy Lopez?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8258" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-07-04T17:18:16.670" LastActivityDate="2016-07-23T06:10:15.490" Title="Best resources to learn the Chigorin variation of the Ruy Lopez for both colors?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;books&gt;&lt;ruy-lopez&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14826" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14824" CreationDate="2016-07-04T16:41:52.963" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;Since you are a 1400, Silman's book is the way to go. His book will give you the solid endgame foundation that you need. Only once you read his book up to &quot;Endgames for Class A&quot; should you get the other book.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7534" LastActivityDate="2016-07-04T16:41:52.963" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14827" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14799" CreationDate="2016-07-05T07:15:06.463" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;My item here does not &quot;explain the controversy&quot;, but for a contemporary tournament comment concerning Morphy, see top of page 90 here: &lt;a href=&quot;https://archive.org/details/bookoffirstameri00fisk&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://archive.org/details/bookoffirstameri00fisk&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From the First American Chess Congress book, quoting an article in The Chess Monthly:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Mr. Morphy is rapid in his moves and quick in his combinations, his&#xA;  time on any move never having reached a quarter of an hour; Mr.&#xA;  Paulsen is exceedingly slow, some of his moves having occupied more&#xA;  than an hour and several in succession having exceeded thirty minutes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On page 246 and 248, specific listings of moves longer than 5 minutes for two of the Morphy-Paulsen games are given, and a similar comment on page 255.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9419" LastEditorUserId="9419" LastEditDate="2016-07-05T07:33:46.930" LastActivityDate="2016-07-05T07:33:46.930" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14828" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14838" CreationDate="2016-07-05T09:27:24.517" Score="4" ViewCount="1302" Body="&lt;p&gt;One of my friends who follows chess told me that there was a player in the past whose defensive game was so good that he drew a game where the opponent had three queens ? I couldn't find a game like that. Has there ever been a game like that ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10737" LastActivityDate="2016-07-15T18:03:14.077" Title="Has there been a game which was drawn with three queens?" Tags="&lt;history&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14829" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-07-05T11:13:29.237" Score="4" ViewCount="808" Body="&lt;p&gt;In “&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2972788/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chess as a Behavioral Model for Cognitive Skill Research&lt;/a&gt;,” Mechner writes the following about mental representation of the game by blindfold chess masters:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;But the bombshell, which prompts the present reexamination of&#xA;  ‘‘visualization,’’ is this: &lt;strong&gt;blindfold chess masters consistently&#xA;  report that what they visualize are not images of pieces or&#xA;  chessboards, but abstractions of these with minimal or no physical&#xA;  features&lt;/strong&gt;. A typical report is, ‘‘I do not visualize real pieces but I&#xA;  know where they are.’’&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The fourteen or so blindfold champions quoted by Hearst and Knott&#xA;  describe what they do in these terms: ‘‘no mental pictures,’’&#xA;  ‘‘abstract knowledge,’’ ‘‘I know where the pieces are,’’ ‘‘only an&#xA;  abstract type of representation,’’ ‘‘only relationships,’’ ‘‘no real&#xA;  picture,’’ ‘‘the significance of a piece,’’ ‘‘knowing what combination&#xA;  or plan is in progress,’’ ‘‘lines of force,’’ ‘‘pieces are only friend&#xA;  or foe, carriers of particular actions,’’ ‘‘sort of formless visions&#xA;  of the positions,’’ and so forth. Many of the masters report that they&#xA;  have no mental image at all (p.151).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The masters also confirm that blindfold chess improves their performance in normal chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Some of the strongest masters find the actual sight of a chess position to be more distracting than helpful when thinking ahead during a game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, normal chess encourages a physical representation, when the game vision is more like geometry than algebra. That's compelling because humans get used to visual models since childhood. But extending the analogy with mathematics, the &quot;algebraic&quot; form is more powerful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So in normal chess, a player has to make a choice: developing a visual representation or adopting the blindfold chess relationship model. That's the foundation to build chess memory and calculations on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;What approach is more promising in the long run? Which one do top players use?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10730" LastEditorUserId="10730" LastEditDate="2016-07-06T14:33:07.150" LastActivityDate="2019-12-18T12:22:04.607" Title="Mental models in chess" Tags="&lt;blindfold-chess&gt;&lt;board-vision&gt;&lt;visualization&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14830" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2016-07-05T11:27:03.400" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2016-07-05T11:27:03.400" LastActivityDate="2016-07-05T11:27:03.400" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14831" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2016-07-05T11:27:03.400" Score="0" Body="Visualization refers to the process of chess players imagining the position several moves ahead in their mental calculations." OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-07-05T12:58:57.343" LastActivityDate="2016-07-05T12:58:57.343" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14832" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14824" CreationDate="2016-07-05T11:55:33.273" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I prefer &lt;code&gt;de la Villa's book&lt;/code&gt;. It has a very practical approach, has an affordable extension (100 endings, 200 pages in its Spanish version) and focuses on the most common endings and on understanding them rather than learning lines/positions by heart.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think it is suitable for a 1400 beginner, although some rook endings may be too difficult for you. I assume you know how to do the very basic checkmates (K+Q vs K or K+R vs K).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2311" LastEditorUserId="11202" LastEditDate="2017-04-17T22:17:55.163" LastActivityDate="2017-04-17T22:17:55.163" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14833" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14829" CreationDate="2016-07-05T14:23:55.593" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I used to try to imagine the whole board and it always seemed my mind would focus more narrowly. Then, one time when I was doing an exhibition in public versus just one opponent, I suddenly saw the chessboard a different way: it was floating in darkness and the board was translucent, so I could move around the board and see it (and the pieces) from different perspectives. I can't say it improved my play a lot, but it was an amazing experience. I hadn't been seeking a better way. It just appeared to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I haven't tried to play blindfold very much over the years, but I have studied chess quite a lot and earned the national master title. I guess our imagination is working hard in any of these ways we do chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10591" LastActivityDate="2016-07-05T14:23:55.593" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14834" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14799" CreationDate="2016-07-05T14:26:47.827" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;fast&quot; and &quot;slow&quot; are relative. In Emanuel Lasker's day they had more time per move (average) than Bobby Fischer and he, in turn, had more than today's players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Morphy's day the 12' for one critical move was noted because he generally played about 3' per move and 12' was his maximum. David Bronstein once took an hour on his first move. So, YES, Morphy played fast. So did, Fischer and Karpov and Anand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10591" LastActivityDate="2016-07-05T14:26:47.827" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14835" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14809" CreationDate="2016-07-05T15:49:04.447" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Assuming opponent has no pieces:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;4 or more knights&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;4 or more bishops, at least 2 per side&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;At least 2 pawns, but it also depends on where the pawns are&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;2 or more major pieces&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Queen and a minor piece&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Rook and 2 minor pieces&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;4 minor pieces&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Pawn+Minor pieces/2 Minor Pieces(depending on where the pawn is or a major piece&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If opponent have pieces:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Queen(maybe rook)+Minor Piece vs 1 pawn&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Queen(maybe rook)+2 pawns vs Rook+Bishop+Pawn&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Q+R vs Rook and bishop or 2 minor pieces(for most positions)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10558" LastEditorUserId="10558" LastEditDate="2016-07-09T10:55:54.920" LastActivityDate="2016-07-09T10:55:54.920" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14836" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14824" CreationDate="2016-07-05T17:50:32.560" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would go with de la Villa's. I have both, and de la Villa's book is more direct and applicable to what you'd see in play. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10233" LastActivityDate="2016-07-05T17:50:32.560" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14837" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14824" CreationDate="2016-07-05T18:05:19.890" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You should perhaps go for Comprehensive Chess Endings by Yuri Averbakh. I find it better than these two.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10743" LastActivityDate="2016-07-05T18:05:19.890" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14838" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14828" CreationDate="2016-07-05T19:03:44.653" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Currently I still can't find a drawn game, but I found a game where &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1316514&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;white had 3 queens, black had 2 and other pieces, and black won&lt;/a&gt;. There was a game on chess.com where black had 0:00.1s left and promoted in time for checkmate (3 queens).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[StartPly &quot;137&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Nf3 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 Bg7 4. e4 d6 5. d4 O-O 6. Be2 e5 7. O-O Nc6 8. d5 Ne7 9. Bg5 h6 10. Bxf6 Bxf6 11. b4 Bg7 12. c5 f5 13. Nd2 Kh7 14. Rc1 Ng8 15. cxd6 cxd6 16. Nb5 Nf6 17. Nc7 Rb8 18. Bd3 f4 19. Qa4 a6 20. b5 Nh5 21. f3 Rf7 22. b6 Bf8 23. Qb3 Ng7 24. Rc2 Qf6 25. Rfc1 Bd7 26. Bxa6 bxa6 27. Nxa6 Rb7 28. Rc7 Qg5 29. h4 Rxc7 30. Nxc7 Qxh4 31. b7 Nh5 32. b8=Q Ng3 33. Qc4 Qh1+ 34. Kf2 Qh4 35. Kg1 Qh1+ 36. Kf2 Qh4 37. Kg1 Qh1+ 38. Kf2 Qh4 39. Qb6 Be7 40. Nf1 Qh1 41. Nd2 Qh4 42. Ke1 Qh1+ 43. Nf1 Bh4 44. Kd2 Qxg2+ 45. Kc3 Ne2+ 46. Kb2 Nxc1+ 47. Kxc1 Qxf3 48. Ne6 Qa3+ 49. Kd2 Be7 50. Qcb3 Qa8 51. Qc7 Be8 52. a3 Qa6 53. Qcc4 Qa7 54. Qf3 Bh4 55. Qh3 g5 56. Nd8 Bd7 57. Qhc3 Rg7 58. Nc6 Qg1 59. Kc2 g4 60. Nb8 Be8 61. Nd2 Bg6 62. Qc8 Qg2 63. Nd7 Be7 64. Nxe5 dxe5 65. Qxe5 Bxa3 66. Qcc3 Bf8 67. d6 f3 68. d7 f2 69. d8=Q f1=Q 70. Qde7 Qf7 71. Qxf7 Bxf7 72. Qf5+ Kg8 73. Qfc8 Qf2 74. Qb4 Bg6 75. Qbc4+ Kh7 76. Qxg4 Bd6 77. Qce6 Bb4 78. Qd5 Rc7+ 79. Kd1 Bxd2 80. Qxd2 Qf1+ 81. Qe1 Rc1+ 82. Kxc1 Qxe1+&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(white had an advantage but didn't use it properly and hung too many pieces)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10558" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-07-05T19:33:48.183" LastActivityDate="2016-07-05T19:33:48.183" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14839" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2515" CreationDate="2016-07-05T21:19:53.277" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Budapest Gambit is a lot of fun to play and catches people by surprise. It is full of traps for black. &#xA;1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e5 3. dxe5 Ng4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10744" LastActivityDate="2016-07-05T21:19:53.277" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14840" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2515" CreationDate="2016-07-06T04:08:04.423" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Several people have recommended the Budapest Gambit, which I would second. It's fun, easy to play, and, while there aren't a lot of lines, it is both tactically and positionally rich. If White knows what they are doing, they won't get trapped, but it also won't leave you unbalanced or vulnerable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would also recommend that you look at the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chigorin_Defense&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chigorin Defense&lt;/a&gt; to the Queen's Gambit (1. d4 d5 2. c4 Nc6).  It's quite sharp and good for an attacking player, as it can swiftly unbalance White, or at least dictate the style or tempo of play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2569" LastActivityDate="2016-07-06T04:08:04.423" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14841" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14845" CreationDate="2016-07-06T15:12:04.937" Score="10" ViewCount="2336" Body="&lt;p&gt;The top FIDE rated players (&lt;a href=&quot;http://2700chess.com/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;2700 chess&lt;/a&gt;) are all under 50 years old. Most of them seem to be around the 23-32 age range. Why is this the case? I don't really know if this has always been the case or if it this is just something apparent in the current generation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm guessing this is the case for a number of reasons that may include:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Leaving chess&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Lacking needed attention&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Lacking stamina&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Impaired memory of positions and theory&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7236" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2017-03-01T00:01:49.530" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T17:22:55.143" Title="Why is chess dominated by relatively young players?" Tags="&lt;super-grandmaster&gt;" AnswerCount="8" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14842" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14818" CreationDate="2016-07-06T16:10:23.877" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Generally speaking, resolving tension helps the defender. White is the defender as far as the d4 square is concerned so Black should not aim to play c5xd4 unless he gains some follow-up advantage by doing so. One such advantage might be access to the b4 square for a knight or bishop after the reply c3xd4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2415" LastActivityDate="2016-07-06T16:10:23.877" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14843" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14851" CreationDate="2016-07-06T21:48:27.153" Score="8" ViewCount="1341" Body="&lt;p&gt;Which book is better for a 1700-1800 player? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;Pawn Power in Chess&lt;/em&gt; by Hans Kmoch (originally &lt;em&gt;Die Kunst der Bauernführung&lt;/em&gt;, 1956)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;Pawn Structure Chess&lt;/em&gt; by Andrew Soltis&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;Chess Structures: A Grandmaster Guide&lt;/em&gt; by Mauricio Flores Rios, or &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;The Power Of Pawns&lt;/em&gt; by Jörg Hickl.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7534" LastEditorUserId="10867" LastEditDate="2016-12-29T15:48:22.533" LastActivityDate="2016-12-29T19:41:25.833" Title="Pawn structure books" Tags="&lt;books&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;&lt;pawn-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14844" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14843" CreationDate="2016-07-07T15:48:40.300" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you are talking about strategy and positional play (pawn structures included) why don't you try one or both of&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Aron Nimzowitsch. &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_System&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;My System&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt; (originally in German: &lt;em&gt;Mein System&lt;/em&gt;), 1925,&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Mark Dvoretsky. &lt;em&gt;Strategic Play&lt;/em&gt;. School of Excellence: 3. Olms, 2002, 3rd ed 2008. ISBN 978-3-283-00418-7&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These books have been tested by time. The best chess players were reading them when they were at your level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Moreover, it's better to start with 'classic' materials and then move to something that truly suits your taste, like maybe one of those books you mentioned. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8160" LastEditorUserId="10867" LastEditDate="2016-12-29T19:41:25.833" LastActivityDate="2016-12-29T19:41:25.833" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14845" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14841" CreationDate="2016-07-07T15:54:18.860" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, all you mentioned are probably the reasons for some players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would also add 'lack of time' as one of the reasons. When you get older you may need to go to a college/university (chess don't bring much money, unless you are at the top), then family life/kids (chess players have to travel regularly a lot) makes travel harder... So, many people 'switch' to teaching and playing only in local tournaments. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8160" LastActivityDate="2016-07-07T15:54:18.860" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14846" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15266" CreationDate="2016-07-08T04:09:12.500" Score="3" ViewCount="396" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is The New Art of Defense in Chess or The Art Defense in Chess better? I am 1900 on an upward trend.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7534" LastEditorUserId="7534" LastEditDate="2017-04-26T23:34:25.800" LastActivityDate="2017-04-27T08:04:50.393" Title="The New Art of Defense in Chess vs The Art Defense in Chess" Tags="&lt;books&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14847" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14818" CreationDate="2016-07-08T08:33:39.907" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Adding to what TheMathemagician said, sometimes you will find that your c5 restricts your position, such as blocking your dark squared bishop. If, for instance, you prefer to have a bishop on c5, you might want to think about capturing on d4 just to get access to that square.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similarly, the c5 pawn could restrict a Rook on the c-file. If you want to use that file to the full potential, you will eventually have to open it with a capture.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, there are also cases where the capture is practically forced due to your c5 pawn being attacked twice, especially if white goes for a b4 push.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10755" LastActivityDate="2016-07-08T08:33:39.907" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14848" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14841" CreationDate="2016-07-08T16:32:04.183" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Note that all the exciting, major World Chess Championships occurred about 20-30 years ago (Kasparov, Karpov, Anand, Kramnik).&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Hence, young people (people who are now in their 30s) got interested in chess.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;This occurred especially in Europe and somewhat in US's major cities like NYC.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;So, more than mental capacity, it is the history and motivation 20-30 years ago that accounts for large volume of GMs in 30s.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10725" LastActivityDate="2016-07-08T16:32:04.183" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14849" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-07-08T22:06:17.103" Score="3" ViewCount="1254" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a chess instructor teaching a summer camp class of 20-ish kids at the 2nd-6th grade. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I want to hold a tournament on the last day of the camp. Any ideas on how to carry this out are appreciated. Here are my concerns:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The session is only 2 hours long. Therefore I can arrange between 5 and 6 rounds, max. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I don't want to have an elimination style because I want everyone to feel like their games still matter towards the end. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I don't have the kids' ratings but I do have them seeded based on observing their play for the last three weeks. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I anticipate most of the games ending in a draw, therefore I would like to incorporate points (captured material) as a method for tie breaking. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks in advance. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10761" LastActivityDate="2016-07-15T20:19:54.733" Title="How do I host a casual tournament for elementary level players?" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14850" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14849" CreationDate="2016-07-09T04:11:52.247" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;5 to 6 rounds could be done if they play blitz. If you were to set time controls of game/10 or game/15, you might be able to put the kids in groups of 4 and run quads.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would recommend pairing them up and having them play 2 games at game/30 time control, or perhaps finding a strong local expert or master to give a simul.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your suggestion for tie breaking isn't really feasible. That's not how it's done in rated tournaments, and could be confusing if you give them that impression. Draws happen in chess. There's really nothing you can do to avoid them, or change how they are scored.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9025" LastActivityDate="2016-07-09T04:11:52.247" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14851" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14843" CreationDate="2016-07-09T08:29:36.293" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would take a look at &lt;a href=&quot;https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Art_of_the_Middle_Game.html?id=qyzDAgAAQBAJ&amp;amp;hl=en&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;The Art of the Middle Game&lt;/em&gt; by Keres and Kotov&lt;/a&gt;. It is the only book I know of which devotes serious attention to pawn structure in a way that goes beyond opening development.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you liked &lt;em&gt;My System&lt;/em&gt; you might also check out &lt;em&gt;Chess Praxis&lt;/em&gt; (also by Nimzowitch). It isn't on pawn structure specifically, but details Nimzowitch's theory of Prophylaxis, covering pawn structure in the process of doing so. It's a good follow up to &lt;em&gt;My System&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As to the books in your question I've heard great things about &lt;em&gt;Pawn Power in Chess&lt;/em&gt;, but haven't read it myself so can only report second hand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="912" LastEditorUserId="912" LastEditDate="2016-07-09T09:03:03.357" LastActivityDate="2016-07-09T09:03:03.357" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14854" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4434" CreationDate="2016-07-10T02:53:52.103" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You have reached a certain level, and determined that you can hold your own against other players, computer and human, until you reach the endgame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then the endgame is the weakest part of the game, the one where you lose the most games. That's where you have the most room for improvement. Work on that until it reaches the level of the other parts of your game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2016-07-10T02:53:52.103" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14855" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14841" CreationDate="2016-07-10T02:57:53.573" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It may be possible for an older man to &quot;maintain&quot; a certain level of play, but people's ability to &lt;em&gt;improve&lt;/em&gt; and learn new things peak in their early 30s.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess is a dynamic and changing game. Someone who had trouble keeping up with the latest developments would fall behind, even with the same level of raw ability. That describes most people after, as opposed to before, age 30.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This phenomenon has become more pronounced with the current generation because chess is changing faster than it used to. Ditto for Go.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2016-07-10T02:57:53.573" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14856" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14639" CreationDate="2016-07-10T03:08:17.797" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;A grandmaster often writes a book when he has a &quot;Eureka&quot; moment. The main moves and ideas of a particular opening were known to him and others beforehand, but he has a special theme and emphasis from which to view the opening in a new way. After he publishes the book, others adopt his &quot;lens&quot; and it becomes known as &quot;his&quot; opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2016-07-10T03:08:17.797" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14857" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14751" CreationDate="2016-07-10T03:17:10.767" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The King's Indian &lt;em&gt;Defense&lt;/em&gt; is played by Black. The King's Indian &lt;em&gt;Attack&lt;/em&gt; is a variation of the same opening played by White, because he has an extra move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black plays the &quot;defense&quot; because he wants to turn the tables on White by strongly controlling the center, particularly the black squared diagonals, at whatever cost to his development. With the first move, White can &quot;have his cake and eat it too,&quot; strongly controlling the center, &lt;em&gt;without&lt;/em&gt; neglecting development.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some people dislike either the defense or the attack because it is &quot;slow,&quot; and they want a faster paced game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2016-07-10T03:17:10.767" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14858" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14774" CreationDate="2016-07-10T03:22:59.270" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;NO. You move the pawn to the eighth rank, promote it to a piece, and then your turn ends.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What confuses some people is that the &quot;promotion&quot; is a second action, which &lt;em&gt;feels&lt;/em&gt; like a second turn. So they wrongly remember getting a second &quot;turn.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2016-07-10T03:22:59.270" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14860" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14872" CreationDate="2016-07-10T16:20:55.830" Score="3" ViewCount="801" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've noticed a pattern with myself and I'd like to know if someone else can relate. I have a score which fluctuates between 1200-1300 on chess.com and I've noticed that after a great day of defeating opponents (some even higher rated than me by as much as 200) I tend to play inaccurately for the next couple or days or so. It's like some days I'm really playing good and even giving the computer a hard time and other days I just mess everything from openings to mid-games. Is this common? I play a lot of online chess regularly and have noticed this fluctuation from time to time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9662" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-07-10T19:51:14.333" LastActivityDate="2016-07-12T17:29:52.123" Title="Can playing too much chess affect your performance?" Tags="&lt;blunder&gt;&lt;performance&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14861" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14641" CreationDate="2016-07-10T20:14:45.947" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;White has the advantage of the initial move. As such, he will want to preserve as many options as possible (all other things being equal).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Closing&quot; a position reduces those options (by definition). That's why Black will sometimes play e6 and d5 (French defense) in response to d4, to try to induce White to close the position with e5. Some players feel that the advanced pawn in e5 is sufficient compensation, others do not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2016-07-10T20:14:45.947" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14862" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14655" CreationDate="2016-07-10T20:19:23.733" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;American master Fred Reinfield advised people to &quot;play the man and not the board.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While an opponent will have a given strength, X, s/he probably will not have the same strength in all types of games. It might be a strength of X+100 in positional games and X-100 in tactical games (or vice-versa). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Say your rated strength Y, is X-50. But if your strength is X in tactical games and X-100 in positional games, knowing your opponent's (game) personality may enable you to match your X level of tactical play against his X-100.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some years ago, I was a 1500 player playing with two 1800 players. The two other players played evenly between themselves. I was &quot;even money&quot; against one of these two players because I was able to match my strength in positional games (relative to my rating) against his weakness in this area. I was a heavy underdog against the other player, who matched me positionally, but had better tactics than me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastEditorUserId="17" LastEditDate="2016-07-10T20:44:16.787" LastActivityDate="2016-07-10T20:44:16.787" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14863" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14849" CreationDate="2016-07-10T20:49:59.383" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;(I work for an after school chess program... I've run 100ish end-of-session tournaments for K-6 kids).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not sure why you anticipate so many draws... I see maybe 95% checkmates, 4% stalemates and the occasional insufficient material or &quot;failure to make progress&quot; (TD discretion in lieu of 50-move rule).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My goal is to keep kids playing: finished games get new pairings as soon as opponents are available. I don't use clocks, might for older kids if I had them available. I don't track losses. I don't allow resignations. I do track the order they arrive at a given checkmate total. So if I have two kids with three checkmates the one who got to three first prevails.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, there's inherent unfairness in this format. Speed matters. Getting in a tight, slow game can be fatal to kids who should've been contenders. Less offensive to me than having a bunch of kids in an extended wait for the next round. I only have an hour, I really need to be efficient.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I LOATHE piece-value based scoring. I had to do it a couple of times when I was an assistant and it wasn't my decision. It's kind of the only option if you've got kids that can't get checkmates though. But even K/1 groups, if you don't have at least half capable of winning a game after 8 sessions their instructor is a problem.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't do a lot of seeding, but I try to keep the contenders away from each other on the initial pairings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7514" LastActivityDate="2016-07-10T20:49:59.383" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14864" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13278" CreationDate="2016-07-10T21:05:41.087" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you want to play &quot;defensively&quot; as White, start with 1. Nf3. a) This develops a piece. b) It delays moving a pawn, and gives Black a chance to &quot;commit&quot; first. c) It prevents Black from playing e5 without further preparation. d) It starts preparing for castling king side.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your next move is to move a pawn, probably g3. Then move the light squared bishop to g2. Then you can castle, O-O, with a maximally secure king side, protected by both a knight and a bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2016-07-10T21:05:41.087" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14865" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14614" CreationDate="2016-07-10T22:26:11.467" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;White has a decided positional advantage in Black's broken up queen side. In order to get this, he had to give Black a free, open game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White now wants to &quot;close&quot; the position somewhat by denying the square g4 to Black's bishop and knight. Black's compensation for his weak pawns is his &quot;piece play&quot; and White wants to reduce that &quot;compensation.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2016-07-10T22:26:11.467" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14866" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14307" CreationDate="2016-07-10T22:34:26.723" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The fianchetto of the light squared bishop is a &quot;double barreled pistol&quot; against the Dutch.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is strong defensively against Black's king side attack. It is strong offensively in the center.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most games resolve themselves into a &quot;race.&quot; Here, the issue is can White get a winning position in the center before Black's king side attack breaks through?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The fianchetto is particularly good in the Dutch defense race. In the other games, Black is stronger in the center and weaker on the king side, so the advantage is less pronounced.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2016-07-10T22:34:26.723" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14867" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14614" CreationDate="2016-07-10T22:39:46.063" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You're making it harder for black to make his bishop a good piece that does work. To accomplish that objective you have to make that move right then (timing being an important factor here) whereas other improving moves like Re1 or Qf3 can be played then or a few moves in the future. If black played 9. Bg4 instead of castling white could get a nice tempo and misplace a black piece with 10. Re1+. Also in some future lines h3 can get rid of the tactical threat of back rank mate. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Whether there is a better improving move than that I can't tell you since I don't play the scotch, but that seems to be the logic behind 10. h3&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9627" LastActivityDate="2016-07-10T22:39:46.063" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14868" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13033" CreationDate="2016-07-11T00:34:28.493" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;In economics, it's called the &quot;law of diminishing returns.&quot; You study tactics for a while, and then reach a point where you seem to make little progress.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then you &quot;switched gears&quot; and studied strategy, and that helped your game a lot because it was what you were weak in. So keep studying strategy until you &quot;hit a wall,&quot; at which point tactics may be the scarce factor of production.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or it may be something else, such as endgames. The quickest way to improve is to work on the thing you are weakest at.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2016-07-11T00:34:28.493" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14869" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13075" CreationDate="2016-07-11T00:45:28.890" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You should try for a breakthrough on the h file. You will eventually play h5, but you might want to move your king to g2 and double rooks on the file before you push the pawn. Your pieces have better lateral mobility than Black's, which is why you should be thinking of moving your rooks to one end of the board, and finding a way to break through.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2016-07-11T00:45:28.890" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14870" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12902" CreationDate="2016-07-11T00:54:56.223" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recommend the Exchange Variation of the Ruy Lopez. The &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1bSpMwciBc&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;&quot;classic game&quot;&lt;/a&gt; for this opening was played in 1914 between world champion Emmanuel Lasker and future world champion J.R. Capablanca.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It leads to an early exchange of queens, and hence an early endgame. In &quot;Chess Fundamentals,&quot; Capablanca noted that immediately after the queen exchange, &quot;The reader should note that if all the pieces were exchanged, White would be practically a pawn ahead and therefore have a won game.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black's compensation for this was the &quot;Bishop pair,&quot; which was not enough in this game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastEditorUserId="17" LastEditDate="2016-07-11T08:21:37.530" LastActivityDate="2016-07-11T08:21:37.530" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14871" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12853" CreationDate="2016-07-11T02:21:40.080" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's &quot;usually&quot; a good idea to capture a knight in this situation. If possible, you might consider using a rook on f1 to make this capture. The reason is that you have a second rook to control the open file, but only one dark-squared bishop to control the diagonal a1-h8,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's always a good idea to capture the knight if you can see a way to a winning combination. (This will often be the case.) Then finish the combination and win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another poster pointed out that capturing might cause endgame problems for you. That is if the game lasts till the endgame. If you capture, it's your job to see that it doesn't.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2016-07-11T02:21:40.080" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14872" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14860" CreationDate="2016-07-11T03:37:41.003" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;At least for some players, yes, although how many games, the type of games, and in what period of time, causes burn out, I would assume varies from player to player. I've been reading &quot;Bent Larsen's Best Games,&quot; and he mentions how he was drained after playing several consecutive events, but after a month's vacation, came back refreshed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9025" LastActivityDate="2016-07-11T03:37:41.003" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14873" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14525" CreationDate="2016-07-11T03:48:34.400" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;This kind of playing is easier than fighting for an advantage.&quot; &lt;em&gt;For Bent Larsen.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In his own way, Larsen was fighting for an opening advantage, of a kind that suited him, and was not obvious to most of us. (Larsen was just one level below world champion.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The textbooks teach more conventional ways of seeking an opening advantage, for those of us (most) who are &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; &quot;Bent Larsen.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2016-07-11T03:48:34.400" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14874" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5606" CreationDate="2016-07-11T04:25:28.043" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Nf3 leads to a more standard queen's pawn game, and White keeps the initiative longer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nc3 allows Black to pin the knight with Bb5, which would lead into a Nimzoindian game. That's a line favored by aggressive Black players, especially since Black may be able to double White's c pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's an example of what I mean about Nc3: (Black &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1586941&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;won&lt;/a&gt;.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2016-07-11T04:25:28.043" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14875" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13075" CreationDate="2016-07-11T08:01:56.577" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As stated, White is clearly better here, but it's hard to say if White can force a win in the long run against best play. I like the idea with Nc3 in Brian Towers response a lot, but I'm not sure the idea outlined in that answer is enough to win by itself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think that you should combine different ideas. As suggested, working on the h-file is not something to scoff at. Combine a pawn march to h6 with a well-timed Qc3, and Black is completely tied down. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Use pressure on the e-file to restrict Black even further. Play a4 at the right time to prevent counterplay; or play a3 followed by b4 to break up Black's pawn structure on the queenside! As long as a black pawn is on e7, it will be very difficult to coordinate Black's pieces to deal with the resulting pressure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The more I look at it, the more I like the a3-b4 idea. It's hard to see how Black copes with the pressure. Black may be forced to give up the e7 pawn for nothing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8300" LastActivityDate="2016-07-11T08:01:56.577" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14876" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-07-11T14:36:06.273" Score="-3" ViewCount="157" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't know how to beat my grandpa, he's really good and I don't know if he's beatable. He's hardcore when it comes to chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10780" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-06-10T13:21:48.623" LastActivityDate="2020-06-11T03:41:38.747" Title="How do I get better with my strategy?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;beginner&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14877" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12902" CreationDate="2016-07-11T17:47:33.880" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;For Black 1.d4 d5 2.c4 c5! to clear the c and d files.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another idea 1.d4 d6 2.c4 e5 to invite 3.dxe5 dxe5 4.Qxd8+.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similarly 1.e4 d6 2.d4 Nf6 3.Nc3 e5 to invite 4.dxe5 dxe5 5.Qxd8+.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3456" LastActivityDate="2016-07-11T17:47:33.880" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14878" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13278" CreationDate="2016-07-11T18:19:48.027" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have a strategy that works like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;G1F3&#xA;B1C3&#xA;H2H4&#xA;A2A4&#xA;H1H3&#xA;A1A3&#xA;E2E4&#xA;D2D4&#xA;F1E2&#xA;C1D2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this helps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10781" LastEditorUserId="10781" LastEditDate="2016-07-12T05:58:29.113" LastActivityDate="2016-07-12T05:58:29.113" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14879" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14876" CreationDate="2016-07-11T22:00:12.997" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It seems like you are fairly new to chess. Pick up a beginner's book like Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess or Chess for Dummies. It will be a long time before you beat your grandfather, however. Chess takes an hour to learn but most will never master it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7534" LastActivityDate="2016-07-11T22:00:12.997" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14880" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14876" CreationDate="2016-07-11T22:19:32.783" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can't figure out how to just comment so here's my answer:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've been studying chess for a couple of months now and I started with &lt;em&gt;Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess&lt;/em&gt;. It's nothing profound but it'll help you get a basic understanding of mating and how to mate from different positions. From there I read &lt;em&gt;Pandolfini's Ultimate Guide to Chess&lt;/em&gt;. It wasn't the most interesting book but it offers a lot of insight into the motive and consequences behind various moves. I then moved onto &lt;em&gt;Logical Chess: Move by Move&lt;/em&gt;, which contains a number of world champion chess games but the author thoroughly explains &lt;strong&gt;every single move&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Studying these texts has been really helpful for me, but in order to develop the skill you'll read about you need to supplement it with your own playing and application.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Becoming good at chess is no easy feat though. Depending on how good your grandpa really is it may take quite a bit of studying to beat him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10622" LastActivityDate="2016-07-11T22:19:32.783" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14881" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14849" CreationDate="2016-07-11T22:39:14.857" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;First of all, allow draws and don’t use tie-breakers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then, theoretically the best solution is a &lt;strong&gt;swiss-system blitz tournament&lt;/strong&gt;, but in your set up it has major flaws. Due to low total time and young players, wasting time for waiting for last match of every turn (while others may be ended in a few minutes), and then sort players, and then do pairings, and then rearrange players, and then again, well, it’s not the best way to  use two hours.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should use a &lt;strong&gt;‘free’ paring system&lt;/strong&gt; (just start a new match as soon as a new opponent is available, and only check and pair similar scores if you have the opportunity to choose) together with a easy-to-use &lt;strong&gt;rating system&lt;/strong&gt; (&lt;em&gt;Elo&lt;/em&gt;, or &lt;em&gt;Glicko&lt;/em&gt;, or our &lt;em&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://rankade.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;rankade&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt;), setting blitz time (or avoiding clocks) and using your seeding. Rating system provides a ranking, and this set up rewards fastest players (that can play more matches) and so it push everyone to end matches in a reasonable time (maybe less that clock time - so it works for your task to have significant outputs in two hours), and it assure - if well driven by the master - a fun experience for everyone (multi-losers included).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7575" LastEditorUserId="7575" LastEditDate="2016-07-14T10:34:27.533" LastActivityDate="2016-07-14T10:34:27.533" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14882" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13079" CreationDate="2016-07-12T00:35:00.170" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are two main lines after 1. e4 e5. 2. Nf3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &quot;easy&quot; line is 2... Nf6 (Petroff's Defense), which leads to a symmetrical position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The more complicated line is 2.... Nc6 (Ruy Lopez). It is the most common, and studied opening in chess, and if you want to rise above 1800, it will help to be at least &quot;conversant&quot; in it, if only to know what to avoid. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are many variations; pick at least one or two and study it thoroughly, as former World Champion J.R. Capablanca did. There are many books and other resources on the Ruy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2016-07-12T00:35:00.170" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14883" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12955" CreationDate="2016-07-12T00:40:14.547" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The main idea, in the exchange variation of the Ruy is &quot;exchange.&quot; White will play d4 next, followed by offering the exchange of queens in order to head for an early endgame. That's because he's traded away his light squared bishop, his best attacking piece.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1bSpMwciBc&quot;&gt;&quot;classic game&quot;&lt;/a&gt; for this opening was played in 1914 between world champion Emmanuel Lasker and future world champion J.R. Capablanca.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In &quot;Chess Fundamentals,&quot; Capablanca noted that immediately after the queen exchange, &quot;The reader should note that if all the pieces were exchanged, White would be practically a pawn ahead and therefore have a won game.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White relentlessly strove for the exchange of pieces in the game and won.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2016-07-12T00:40:14.547" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14884" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12867" CreationDate="2016-07-12T00:50:19.130" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Kh8 has two important functions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It takes the king off the open white diagonal, where he can be checked by Bc4, or &quot;forked&quot; by Qb3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It clears the square g8 for Rg8 to defend the g pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2016-07-12T00:50:19.130" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14885" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14886" CreationDate="2016-07-12T01:12:15.150" Score="10" ViewCount="506" Body="&lt;p&gt;In 1914, world champion Emanuel Lasker was trailing future world champion J.R. Capablanca in a tournament, meaning that he needed to win, not just draw, against Capablanca.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He played the exchange variation of the Ruy Lopez, trading his best attacking pieces, his queen and light squared bishop, early in this &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1bSpMwciBc&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;classic game&lt;/a&gt;.&#xA;For these reasons, the variation was considered &quot;drawish.&quot; Except that Lasker won.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's some background that may explain why:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Lasker was the best endgame player in the world. Capablanca was inferior (at the time) in this regard. (Both of these opinions are Capablanca's.)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Capablanca was already a ferocious middle game player (and seen as such).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;At the time, Lasker was 46 years old and Capablanca was 26. Lasker was more &quot;mature.&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In &quot;Chess Fundamentals,&quot; Capablanca noted that immediately after the queen exchange, &quot;The reader should note that if all the pieces were exchanged, White would be practically a pawn ahead and therefore have a won game.&quot; In fact, Capablanca was &quot;rattled&quot; by the prospect of a lost endgame and therefore misplayed what passed for a middle game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even though it was regarded as &quot;unconventional,&quot; did Lasker's strategy make sense from the point of view of his endgame advantage?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2016-07-16T17:01:53.403" LastActivityDate="2020-08-13T02:20:01.997" Title="Did it make sense for Lasker to play the Exchange variation of the Ruy Lopez in 1914?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;history&gt;&lt;ruy-lopez&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14886" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14885" CreationDate="2016-07-12T11:48:13.287" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;It made perfect sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He was very familiar with the opening:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Lasker played hundreds of practice games with the Exchange Variation of the Ruy Lopez and discovered what he thought was every mistake White or Black could make.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=kADBNjcpTLEC&amp;amp;pg=PA260&amp;amp;lpg=PA260&amp;amp;dq=lasker%20training%20games%20exchange%20lopez&amp;amp;source=bl&amp;amp;ots=3yPZSbuG44&amp;amp;sig=WZD648A0_xWdvbmZa9bls81U7hU&amp;amp;hl=en&amp;amp;sa=X&amp;amp;ved=0ahUKEwjv7eKx6-3NAhUFIpoKHRkoAtwQ6AEIQTAF#v=onepage&amp;amp;q=lasker%20training%20games%20exchange%20lopez&amp;amp;f=false&quot;&gt;#247: 300 Wisest Things Said about Chess: With 300 Annotated Positions&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lasker was well known to adapt his playing style to the opponent's psychology.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Lasker was considered to have a &quot;psychological&quot; method of play in which he considered the subjective qualities of his opponent, in addition to the objective requirements of his position on the board. Richard Réti published a lengthy analysis of Lasker's play in which he concluded that Lasker deliberately played inferior moves that he knew would make his opponent uncomfortable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emanuel_Lasker#Playing_strength_and_style&quot;&gt;wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your research has shown that the opening took Capablanca out of his stride and scored the full point, so yes it made perfect sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2016-07-12T11:48:13.287" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14889" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14860" CreationDate="2016-07-12T17:29:52.123" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The fluctuation within a range but never breaking out of the range means you have hit a ceiling and are flatlining. Think of it like the stock martet whereby you are consolidating, and take this opportunity to study and change your way of thinking about the opening, middle-game, and endgame. Get outside your comfort zone. read a difficult chess book that speaks to a full class above your current skill, etc., etc., and apply what you learn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Change.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note: you'll probably get worse short-term doing this, but hang in there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10233" LastActivityDate="2016-07-12T17:29:52.123" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14892" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9017" CreationDate="2016-07-12T22:42:35.967" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The most &quot;undrawable&quot; openings (against you) are the ones that you play the best. If you are getting too many draws from your openings, you do not know them well enough to punish your opponents for their (inevitable) mistakes. (This advice does not apply if you e.g. continually get advantageous middle games, and then lose the advantage in the endgame; then you should work on your endgame.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Former world champion J.R. Capablanca played only a handful of openings, played them time and time again, and played them perfectly. He could catch the tiniest error by an opponent, usually over the board, and if not then, in a &lt;em&gt;post mortem&lt;/em&gt; for the next time. This was usually enough for him to win, since he was (in his time) the world's best endgame player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He had a legendary undefeated streak for &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/5543/has-any-other-grandmaster-gone-as-long-undefeated-as-capablanca&quot;&gt;eight years&lt;/a&gt;. When he was finally defeated, it was because his opponents used openings he was unfamiliar with.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.193" LastActivityDate="2016-07-14T18:27:12.163" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14893" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8560" CreationDate="2016-07-12T22:48:58.890" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Basically you want to trade from a position of strength. If you have, say, a pawn advantage, you will want to trade piece.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another time to trade is when you have positional advantage. What you do is to keep build the advantage and keep pressure on the opponent. To relieve the pressure, your opponent will offer trades. Then you should trade, &lt;em&gt;but only on your terms,&lt;/em&gt; e.g. where your recaptures keep the pressure on, or where you have a good knight against a bad bishop, or the bishop pair against a bishop and knight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, you don't want to trade when your opponent is ahead in material, or his recapture will place one of his pieces in a dominant position. In that case, keep more pieces on the board, and hope to find &quot;salvation in complexity.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2016-07-12T22:48:58.890" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14894" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2948" CreationDate="2016-07-12T22:53:14.133" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;If white his playing defensively, he is creating a &quot;vacuum.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a vacuum you should fill. Often, but not always, this is done by playing aggressively.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2016-07-12T22:53:14.133" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14895" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="239" CreationDate="2016-07-12T23:00:31.107" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are a few disadvantages:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You trade your light-squared bishop, your best attacking piece.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You give Black the bishop pair.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The likely followup is an exchange of queens and an early endgame.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you like to attack and don't like to play against bishop pairs, don't play this variation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do play this variation if you are confident in your play with two good knights, fear having queens on the board, or like to play endgames. The doubled pawns are a clear endgame advantage, if you know how to &quot;shorten&quot; the middle game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-08-12T11:32:55.763" LastActivityDate="2019-08-12T11:32:55.763" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="14896" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12902" CreationDate="2016-07-13T00:24:14.023" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;in the gurgenidze variation of the accelerated dragon, all pieces are exchanged off except white's two bishops, and typically a bishop and a knight for black. white has a nice space advantage, but blacks structure is very solid and he should be able to draw. however, there are no winning chances for black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10794" LastActivityDate="2016-07-13T00:24:14.023" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14897" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15022" CreationDate="2016-07-13T12:35:03.250" Score="0" ViewCount="266" Body="&lt;p&gt;From childhood I have this favorite chess set which I use every day. The Black King and Queen no longer have the small white balls on their heads and the board is scratched in many places. I would like to buy a new one but cannot find it in any of the chess stores in Poland where I live. Can anyone point me to a seller of this kind of magnetic chess set anywhere in the world?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/zqV9w.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/zqV9w.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/gScfy.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/gScfy.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: I have already purchased a set like that thanks to Aric Fowler's answer, which is going to receive a 100 point bounty. Unfortunately, this new set is even more damanged than my old one. I have only managed to replace my damaged queen with a healthy one but I am still looking for another set, so this question is still open.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3456" LastEditorUserId="3456" LastEditDate="2016-08-19T12:00:26.713" LastActivityDate="2016-08-19T12:00:26.713" Title="Where to buy my favorite magnetic chess set" Tags="&lt;equipment&gt;&lt;chess-set&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14898" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2016-07-13T14:41:38.637" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2016-07-13T14:41:38.637" LastActivityDate="2016-07-13T14:41:38.637" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14899" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2016-07-13T14:41:38.637" Score="0" Body="A complete set of chess pieces and/or a board. Note that shopping recommendations for chess sets are off-topic, because they tend to attract opinionated answers." OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-06-04T07:44:29.737" LastActivityDate="2018-06-04T07:44:29.737" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="14900" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8560" CreationDate="2016-07-13T15:38:15.080" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Besides the pure chess reasoning others have given,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One other thing is player strength at different phase of the game. If you are good at endgame and you know you opponent isn't, then you would benefit from a simplified position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also to consider is clock. If opponent is under time pressure, don't trade. Keep the game complex and wait for a blunder. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7002" LastActivityDate="2016-07-13T15:38:15.080" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14901" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7611" CreationDate="2016-07-13T15:53:23.337" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;First of all, the advantage of winning a pawn is usually enough to win the game (among good players). That's why they're worth attacking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Second, pawns have the least mobility, that is the least ability to &quot;run away.&quot; Their &quot;tininess&quot; also makes them the most vulnerable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Third, because of one and two above, your opponent will (or at least should) make a major effort to defend pawns. In so doing, your opponent may create other (positional) advantages for you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2016-07-13T15:53:23.337" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14902" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6486" CreationDate="2016-07-13T15:59:41.510" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;White is better developed so he wants to 1) open the position and 2) &quot;chase&quot; the knight on c6 (Black's best placed piece).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White plays &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;d5 Na5 2. d5xe6  f7xe6 3. N d4, and White's two center knights have a great attack against Black's two &quot;hanging&quot; center pawns. This result was made possible by the fact that d5 forced Na5.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2016-07-13T15:59:41.510" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14903" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6486" CreationDate="2016-07-14T04:00:22.590" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;If black takes the pawn on d5, he will lose control over d5 and f5, which are key squares in Sicilian-type positions. The d-file opens, which makes the d6 pawn weak. Taking on d5 is positional suicide; as such, the lesser evil is for black to move his knight, which loses control over the d5 square, so white could play Nd4 himself at some point and exert pressure on e6 and possibly jump into f5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From a tactical perspective, the e-file opens, which makes the black king rather airy. Notice how black's pieces are rather poorly placed, and it looks like black is trying to carry out flank operations (while his king is uncastled). General principles suggest that white should strike in and open up the center in response to this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7473" LastActivityDate="2016-07-14T04:00:22.590" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14905" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14913" CreationDate="2016-07-14T18:35:21.473" Score="7" ViewCount="885" Body="&lt;p&gt;Former world champion JR Capablanca was not a particularly good opening player. Yet he was the &quot;champ&quot; because once he survived the opening, he played better middle and endgames than others. And this occurred because he was able to play a handful of openings time and time again.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Late in his career, he had particular difficulties against Russian masters. Not only the stars like Alekhine, Botvinnik, and Keres, but even second-rank Russian players. A major reason was that they played varied and complicated openings, and got the &quot;jump&quot; on Capablanca in this part of the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why didn't non-Russian players do more to take Capablanca out of his familiar opening lines?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2016-07-15T09:11:52.157" Title="Why did non-Russian masters allow Capablanca to play &quot;standard&quot; openings against them?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14906" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14916" CreationDate="2016-07-15T00:15:34.157" Score="7" ViewCount="3405" Body="&lt;p&gt;I love &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.lichess.org/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Lichess&lt;/a&gt;. It's web based client, but I want to use a program like Scid, scid vs Pc, or babaschess, or any of this clients programs used in FICS: &lt;a href=&quot;http://fics.freechess.org/interfaces.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;see bottom links this page&lt;/a&gt;. Those programs offer possibilities Lichess doesn't such as annotate games move per move, choose engines to run in your own PC (to the contrary on the cloud like lichess, wich could be slower). Can you help me?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10601" LastActivityDate="2016-07-15T23:10:08.423" Title="Can I play on Lichess with my own &quot;client&quot;?" Tags="&lt;online-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14907" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="509" CreationDate="2016-07-15T01:51:49.750" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Actually, the term I would use is &quot;lines,&quot; (of which &quot;squares&quot; are a special case). Each of your pieces is connected with a particular kind of line.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the case of rooks, you want open files, leading you deep into enemy territory, or at least open ranks, along which you can move from one open file to another.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the case of bishops, you want good diagonals, with either a lot of open &quot;squares,&quot; or a lot of enemy pawns that can be fodder for your bishops. You want your pawns on the opposite color of your bishop so they don't block him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With knights, you want good &quot;squares,&quot; specifically in &quot;holes&quot; that can't be attacked by enemy pawns. Any isolated enemy pawn has such a &quot;hole&quot; in front of him. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, pawns like good squares. A white pawn on e5, particularly if &quot;passed,&quot; may be worth two ordinary pawns instead of one. A white pawn that's &quot;backward&quot; on e3 might be a disadvantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2016-07-15T01:51:49.750" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14908" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14828" CreationDate="2016-07-15T02:08:16.810" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is one case cited [ref. 1, re. ref. 2] (Emil Szalanczy vs. Nguyen Thi Mai (2009)) wherein &quot;each side had three queens after 58th move until 65th move. The game ended in a draw with a single queen on each side.&quot;. That being said though, this example isn't one of a draw with six queens still on the board.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp; If interested, the game can be viewed with comments at ref. 3 (I copied their PGN code, but the comments aren't showing up in the preview below).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;&#xA;[Event &quot;FSIMB October&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Budapest HUN&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2009.10.04&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;2&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Szalanczy, Emil&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Nguyen, Thi Mai Hung&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1/2-1/2&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;B90&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;2354&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;2213&quot;]&#xA;[Plycount &quot;150&quot;]&#xA;[Eventdate &quot;2009.??.??&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.Be3 e5 7.Nb3 Be6 8.Qd2 Nbd7 9.f3 { The most common opening at master level in chess! Najdorf&#xA;variation, English Attack. } 9...Be7 10.g4 O-O 11.g5 Nh5 12.O-O-O Nb6 13.Kb1 Rc8 14.Rg1 g6 15.Qf2 { From this point on the game is on its own path. So much&#xA;for chess being worked out to a dead end... } 15...Nc4 16.Bxc4 Rxc4 17.Nd5 Bxd5 18.Rxd5 b5 19.Qd2 Qc7 20.Rd1 { It looks like white has a nice position due to&#xA;his well placed minor pieces, but still black has a very resiliant position&#xA;with counterplay. } 20...Rc8 21.c3 Rb8 22.Bc5 { A tactic. White is aiming for the&#xA;7th rank. } 22...Nf4 23.Bxd6 Bxd6 24.Rxd6 b4 25.cxb4 Rcxb4 { Black still has&#xA;chances with well placed pieces. } 26.Rd8+ Kg7 27.Rxb8 Qxb8 28.Nc5 Rd4 29.Qc2 Rxd1+ 30.Qxd1 Qb5 { Active defense has allowed black to equalize. } 31.Na4 Nh3 32.Nc3 Qc4 33.Qd6 Qf1+ 34.Kc2 Qxf3 35.Qxe5+ Kg8 36.b4 Qg2+ 37.Kb3 Nxg5 38.Ka4 Nf3 39.Qf6 h5 { You can see the shaping up of a phase four and&#xA;even phase five count down as both players begin to mobilize their pawns. } 40.Ka5 Nxh2 41.a4 Ng4 42.Qd8+ Kh7 43.Kxa6 Qg3 44.Nd5 h4 45.Qf8 Qf2 46.b5 h3 47.b6 h2 48.b7 h1=Q 49.b8=Q { Game on! It is hard to say whose king is in&#xA;more trouble. } 49...Qa1 50.Qbe8 Qg7 51.Qfe7 g5 { Say it is not so...Black wants to&#xA;get another Queen! } 52.a5! { LOL } 52...Nh6 53.Qc6 Ng8 54.Qec7 g4 55.Kb7 g3 56.a6 { A really unreal game. } 56...g2 57.a7 g1=Q 58.a8=Q { The only game in chess&#xA;history that I have found where six queens are on the board. } 58...Qb1+ 59.Nb6 { The white king has a strong fortress indeed. } 59...Nf6 60.e5 { It strikes me&#xA;humorus that this last remaining pawns feels the call to also move forward. } 60...Ng4 61.Qae8 Qff5 62.Qce7 Nh6 63.Kc7 Qbe4 { Like magnets the Queens are&#xA;attracted to the center of the board so as to maximize their radiation. } 64.Nd5 Qfxe5+ { All things shall pass. Here comes the mass exchanges. } 65.Qxe5 Qgxe5+ 66.Qxe5 Qxe5+ 67.Kd8 { Black has little chance of getting a fourth&#xA;queen. } 67...Kg7 68.Ne7 Qb8+ 69.Kd7 Qa7+ 70.Kd6 Qa3+ 71.Kd7 Qd3+ 72.Ke8 Qh3 73.Qd5 Qg4 74.Qe5+ f6 75.Qd5 Qa4+ &#xA;1/2-1/2&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;There are also two further curious cases [ref. 4]:&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Barroso, Ernesto (2440) - Puertas, Diego (2230) [A00] Valladolid ch Ascenso a Primera/Valladolid (3) 1992&quot;, as cited at ref. 4. It ends on ply 1 of move 62, 1/2-1/2, though all six queens were captured during moves 57 onward.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Ruecker, Benjamin (2403) - Schumacher, Dennis (2062) [A15] Hessen-ch U18/Marburg (9) 2000&quot;; in this instance &lt;b&gt;all six queens remain&lt;/b&gt; on the board at the end of the game (which was a &lt;b&gt;draw&lt;/b&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;References&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Promotion_(chess)#Promotion_to_various_pieces&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Promotion_(chess)#Promotion_to_various_pieces&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Boris Schipkov; &quot;17 Astonishing Chess Games with 5 and 6 Queens on the Board&quot;. Chess Siberia. Retrieved 24 Nov 2014 &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/blog/Boorchess/the-outer-limits-phase-5-multiple-queens&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.chess.com/blog/Boorchess/the-outer-limits-phase-5-multiple-queens&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessib.com/five-six-queens-chess-games.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chessib.com/five-six-queens-chess-games.html&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: undeleted answer after reconsidering the relevance. This answer doesn't address games with a 3 queen lead by the opponent, but in light of other somewhat tangential answers, this one might be in keeping.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9926" LastEditorUserId="9926" LastEditDate="2016-07-15T18:03:14.077" LastActivityDate="2016-07-15T18:03:14.077" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14909" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-07-15T04:30:04.030" Score="1" ViewCount="737" Body="&lt;p&gt;When a pawn reaches the opposing side it can be promoted. Given that the most advantageous choice of promotion is to a Queen I have 3 questions. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Does this mean that the newly promoted piece (e.g. Queen) stays on the opposing side and can attack from the rear?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Does this mean (hypothetically) that there can be 3 Queens on the board?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;How does one represent the newly promoted Queen if there are still 2 on the board?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10804" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-07-15T05:14:14.487" LastActivityDate="2016-07-15T20:58:18.843" Title="Promoting a pawn" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;pawn-promotion&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14910" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14909" CreationDate="2016-07-15T05:14:06.300" Score="3" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Yes, it is in all facets equal to an original queen of the same color as the pawn.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Yes, in fact this happens quite often, even among grandmaster. There are even cases known where there were &lt;a href=&quot;https://timkr.home.xs4all.nl/records/recordstxt.htm#Most%20queens&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;6 queens&lt;/a&gt; on the board!&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In official games, you'll need a queen from another chess set. In casual games, you could put a rook upside down. Don't do this in tournament games - the piece will be considered to be a rook. If there's no queen available, stop the clock and call the arbiter.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2016-07-15T05:14:06.300" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14911" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-07-15T05:17:41.143" Score="1" ViewCount="624" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm currently a Class B with a TT rating of 2100. I would like to aim to become a 2100 with norm of Candidate Master. What tactic rating does a CM usually have? How strong are Expert class chess players in tactical calculation? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3149" LastEditorDisplayName="user1108" LastEditDate="2016-07-15T10:15:10.370" LastActivityDate="2016-07-15T18:10:58.023" Title="What's a really good tactic trainer rating on chess.com for a Candidate Master?" Tags="&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;rating&gt;&lt;training&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14912" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14828" CreationDate="2016-07-15T06:12:44.963" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://timkr.home.xs4all.nl/records/records.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Krabbé&lt;/a&gt;'s first example for &quot;Most Queens: 6&quot; is a game Szalanczy - Nguyen, &#xA;Budapest 2009, where after 58 a8Q each side had K+QQQ+N+P.  The game was drawn on move 75, after two pairs of Queens were traded on moves 65-66.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8860" LastEditorUserId="8860" LastEditDate="2016-07-15T14:56:55.323" LastActivityDate="2016-07-15T14:56:55.323" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14913" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14905" CreationDate="2016-07-15T09:11:52.157" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Capablanca's non-Russian rivals did not press him hard in the opening because they didn't know how:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Capa continued to dominate until the unthinkable happened: He lost his world title to Alekhine. A grossly overconfident Capa entered the match unprepared psychologically for the new and improved Alekhine. In the end Capa lost the match because &lt;strong&gt;he had never previously been tested to the degree with which Alekhine pressed him&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;em&gt;Capablanca: Move by Move&lt;/em&gt; by Cyrus Lakdawala. Emphasis is mine&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2016-07-15T09:11:52.157" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14914" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14911" CreationDate="2016-07-15T10:08:47.570" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;While you cannot get to Candidate Master on tactics alone, most Candidate Masters have much higher tactics trainers ratings than you do. For example, Candidate Master Mago has a TT rating of 2602. While you should continue on your TT journey, you should also study master games, endgames, and positional play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7534" LastEditorUserId="7534" LastEditDate="2016-07-15T18:10:58.023" LastActivityDate="2016-07-15T18:10:58.023" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14916" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14906" CreationDate="2016-07-15T18:49:28.590" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Lichess does not support the FICS-interface, therefore clients used for FICS do not support it. At the moment you can only play it via a web-client.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;s&gt;Maybe in the future the Lichess-API allows sending and receiving moves, etc.&lt;/s&gt; Apparently it is already possible as the API already allows it via HTTP, see &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/ornicar/lila/tree/master/doc/mobile&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Link&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT:&#xA;As stated in this &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/pychess/pychess/issues/1332&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;issue tracker thread&lt;/a&gt; &lt;em&gt;pychess&lt;/em&gt; is interested in integrating Lichess support. An official desktop client will most likely not come in the near future as the web GUI is fantastic already and developers can use the time to further improve the current codebase. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1459" LastEditorUserId="1459" LastEditDate="2016-07-15T23:10:08.423" LastActivityDate="2016-07-15T23:10:08.423" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14917" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-07-15T20:12:14.010" Score="2" ViewCount="1494" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was playing chess with a buddy, and I put him in check. On the following move, without moving his king out of check, he moved a rook to put me in checkmate. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My questions are as follows: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Can he do that and leave his king still in check?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Even though I'm in checkmate, can I take his king to win the game?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Is checkmate an automatic win (meaning no moves can follow), or can I still &quot;try&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If it was an illegal move, where do we resume?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10809" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-05-28T22:16:08.913" LastActivityDate="2020-05-28T22:16:08.913" Title="Check and checkmate on following moves" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;check&gt;&lt;illegal-move&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="14918" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14849" CreationDate="2016-07-15T20:19:54.733" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is it possible on &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.lichess.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;lichess&lt;/a&gt; to host a private tournament?  (I don't know - and if not, this answer isn't going to work.)  It would handle pairings (including trying to pair as soon as reasonably possible), as well as all normal &quot;rules&quot; issues (e.g., draw by repetition or insufficient material).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For those not familiar, lichess tournaments score 2 points for a win, 1 for a draw, 0 for a loss (ignoring berserking/on fire for answer purposes).  Playing more games gives more opportunity for more points, therefore - and it is not unusual to have a relatively high disparity in number of games played.  It does tend to minimize &quot;down time,&quot; however, which is probably a good thing for younger players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, this assumes you have access to computers (but negates the need for physical boards/pieces).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7897" LastActivityDate="2016-07-15T20:19:54.733" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14919" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14909" CreationDate="2016-07-15T20:28:28.807" Score="2" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Yes, it will behave just like any other queen.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;There can be up to 9 queens on each side -- one for each potential pawn promotion and 1 original one.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Just find a queen of the same colour from a different set.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10810" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-07-15T20:58:18.843" LastActivityDate="2016-07-15T20:58:18.843" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14920" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14917" CreationDate="2016-07-15T20:31:58.510" Score="4" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;No, this is not legal.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Not relevant since 1 is illegal.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Checkmate is a win and no moves can follow. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You go back to illegal move and correct if its a friendly game, I don't know what the official rules are for when a player makes an illegal move.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10810" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-09-22T22:51:09.880" LastActivityDate="2019-09-22T22:51:09.880" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="14921" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14876" CreationDate="2016-07-15T20:37:04.903" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found the study plan on &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/article/view/study-plan-directory&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chess.com Study Plan&lt;/a&gt; very useful to pick up my game. I also found &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.amazon.co.uk/Back-Basics-Tactics-ChessCafe-Chess/dp/1888690348&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Dan Heisman's book&lt;/a&gt; helped me build up my rating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10810" LastActivityDate="2016-07-15T20:37:04.903" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14922" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1772" CreationDate="2016-07-15T22:36:49.963" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Those are bad exchanges for White.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, White has invested two moves in the knight on d4, and Black only one move in the knight on c6. So White loses a move by &quot;exchanging&quot; knights.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Second, when he recaptures, Black turns his b pawn into a c pawn. White earlier took a &quot;hit&quot; by exchanging his (center) d pawn for Black's (noncenter) c pawn. By allowing this sequence, White has effectively exchanged his d pawn for only a b pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2016-07-15T22:36:49.963" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14923" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12728" CreationDate="2016-07-16T04:48:42.897" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Try below Ebook, all free for download.&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://xiangqielephantgame.blogspot.my/p/download-free-ebook.html?m=1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://xiangqielephantgame.blogspot.my/p/download-free-ebook.html?m=1&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10812" LastActivityDate="2016-07-16T04:48:42.897" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14924" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-07-16T05:52:22.447" Score="4" ViewCount="279" Body="&lt;p&gt;While, I'm fully aware that the number of chess moves exceeds the number of atoms in the universe greatly, and so solving it is a problem that falls in NP, I was wondering if certain variations of it can be solved.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know that chess itself can't be solved.* But, is it possible to solve at least a few openings ? What I mean is, is it possible for computers to definitely say &quot;For this variation of the Sicilian Defense, White is winning.&quot; or &quot;For this variation of the Queen's Gambit, Black is winning.&quot; Are there special cases where it is possible to say exactly which side is winning after 7-8 moves?&#xA;(* - Strictly speaking, it has not been proven that chess cannot be solved. It cannot be solved by a brute force search of the game-tree, because such a graph is too large. But not all algorithms have been excluded in their ability to solve chess).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10737" LastEditorUserId="13813" LastEditDate="2017-07-23T14:39:39.017" LastActivityDate="2020-08-04T22:27:41.967" Title="Is it possible to fully analyse, at least some openings of chess?" Tags="&lt;game-complexity&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14925" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14924" CreationDate="2016-07-16T07:24:05.107" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;The moment we knew that a variation would be winning for either White or Black, the other side would never go for that variation. E.g. after 1. g4 e5, White will never play 2. f3 because we know that variation is winning for Black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But there are some openings which have been analyzed to a draw by repetition of moves, even before the computer era, e.g. the Greco variation of the main line (Giuoco Piano) of the Italian game:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Bc5 4. c3 Nf6 5. d4 exd4 6. cxd4 Bb4+ 7. Nc3 Nxe4 8. O-O Bxc3 9. d5 Bf6 10. Re1 Ne7 11. Rxe4 d6 12. Bg5 Bxg5 13. Nxg5 O-O 14. Nxh7 Kxh7 15. Qh5+ Kg8 16. Rh4 f5 17. Qh7+ Kf7 18. Rh6 Rg8 19. Re1 Qf8 20. Bb5 Rh8 21. Qxh8 gxh6 22. Qh7+ Kf6 23. Rxe7 Qxe7 24. Qxh6+ Kf7 25. Qh7+&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Almost all deviations after move 8 or so have been proven either to draw as well, or to lead to a worse position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-07-16T07:40:07.277" LastActivityDate="2016-07-16T07:40:07.277" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14926" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14924" CreationDate="2016-07-16T07:25:54.940" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are algorithms/chess engines that can heuristically evaluate a position and provide a score which can be proxied for who is winning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Completely analyzing an opening would require an engine to follow all paths or at least all reasonable paths (heuristically determined). This is computationally very time-intensive and we are very far from compute power that can do that for us. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10810" LastActivityDate="2016-07-16T07:25:54.940" CommentCount="12" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14927" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8892" CreationDate="2016-07-16T10:20:30.283" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I suppose you could use software like scid and turn on text to speech in your operating systems accessibility option.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10810" LastActivityDate="2016-07-16T10:20:30.283" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14930" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14933" CreationDate="2016-07-16T14:47:58.790" Score="4" ViewCount="646" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've seen the term &quot;big pawn&quot; come up a few times (such as &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/blog/Spektrowski/the-big-pawn-breakthrough&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/forum/view/more-puzzles/big-pawn-on-c2&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;), but I can't seem to trace down an exact definition. What is it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10817" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-07-16T15:28:33.397" LastActivityDate="2016-07-17T06:53:25.713" Title="What is a &quot;big pawn&quot;?" Tags="&lt;pawns&gt;&lt;terminology&gt;&lt;pieces&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14931" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4385" CreationDate="2016-07-16T14:58:13.450" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here You can ask even very deep analysis, possibly also for whole games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://sites.google.com/site/distributedchess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://sites.google.com/site/distributedchess&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10818" LastActivityDate="2016-07-16T14:58:13.450" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14932" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14841" CreationDate="2016-07-16T15:09:18.393" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;To all the factors already listed, I would also add &lt;strong&gt;fatigue&lt;/strong&gt; and, to some extent, &lt;strong&gt;boredom&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you start playing chess at the highest level when you are still in your mid-late teens, by the time you're 40 you've been around for more than 20 years, and that is 20 plus years of being around, traveling for the good part of the year and studying chess many hours every day.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is very natural that when your intellectual abilities and your capacity of recovering from stress starts fading you may be willing to slow down your pace and that itself has an impact on your playing strength.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="446" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T17:19:56.407" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T17:19:56.407" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="14933" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14930" CreationDate="2016-07-16T15:14:50.970" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;A piece (often a bad bishop, but in your second example a queen) which is doing nothing more than protecting a few squares is often called a big pawn. To be honest, I don't find your second example a real case of a 'big pawn', because the queen can easily move away and do something useful. And, as Dag Oskar Madsen mentions, in the first example the &lt;em&gt;pawn breakthrough&lt;/em&gt; is big, not the pawn itself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the position below, the white bishop is a typical example of a big pawn, because of Black's dominance on the dark squares:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;r4r2/5pkp/1q1pb1p1/2p1n3/2P1P3/1P3P2/2BN2PP/1R1Q1RK1 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-07-17T06:53:25.713" LastActivityDate="2016-07-17T06:53:25.713" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14934" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14930" CreationDate="2016-07-16T15:24:42.613" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;As mentioned, the first one refers to the amount and importance of pawn play throughout that game. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The second example seems to be making a joke about how the Queen is so ineffective in its position that it might as well be a pawn. If you play through the puzzle you see that it is not able to prevent the sequence. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7236" LastActivityDate="2016-07-16T15:24:42.613" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14935" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14930" CreationDate="2016-07-16T15:25:06.693" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The term &lt;em&gt;big pawn&lt;/em&gt; is usually used to mean an ineffective bishop trapped behind its own pawns. An example from the game Charousek-Maroczy, Budapest 1895:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;6rk/1pp3p1/1r3p1p/p3nP1P/P1PpP3/1P1P4/2B1K1R1/6R1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this position, the white bishop is just doing the work of a pawn and doesn't have any bigger prospects.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1485" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2016-07-16T15:50:16.417" LastActivityDate="2016-07-16T15:50:16.417" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14937" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14938" CreationDate="2016-07-16T18:52:58.130" Score="2" ViewCount="2047" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've searched everywhere, however, I couldn't find what are &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;ideas&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; in KIA. I know about Neil McDonal &lt;em&gt;&quot;The King's Indian Attack: Move by Move&quot;&lt;/em&gt; book. This book covers KIA against different openings. However, I'm struggling when my opponent stops playing opening moves, I find myself in situation where I don't know how to continue. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is general idea in KIA? Launch kingside attack, queenside attack? Or something else? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10820" LastActivityDate="2020-02-12T09:23:46.993" Title="King's Indian Attack - Middle game ideas" Tags="&lt;theory&gt;&lt;middlegame&gt;&lt;kings-indian-attack&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14938" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14937" CreationDate="2016-07-16T20:19:02.447" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The best way to learn the KIA is to study master games. White attacks on the kingside, and black attack on he queenside. Study Fischer's KIA games as well as the KIA games of others. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7534" LastActivityDate="2016-07-16T20:19:02.447" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14939" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-07-16T23:30:24.503" Score="5" ViewCount="948" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why can't the black pawn take the queen at h6? Instead the computer makes the king go to g8.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/24ykO.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/24ykO.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10824" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2016-07-17T04:30:35.947" LastActivityDate="2016-07-17T08:02:18.447" Title="Why does chess.com's tactics player avoid taking the queen in this problem?" Tags="&lt;tactics&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14940" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14939" CreationDate="2016-07-17T00:34:28.087" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;1... gxh6 2. Nxf6+ Kh8 3. Rg8#&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;4rb2/pbqr2pk/1p3p1p/4p3/2P3NP/1P4R1/P5P1/2Q2B1K w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Qxh6+ gxh6 2. Nxf6+ Kh8 3. Rg8#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3270" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2016-07-17T02:28:35.447" LastActivityDate="2016-07-17T02:28:35.447" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14941" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14937" CreationDate="2016-07-17T01:33:04.993" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;From the books &lt;em&gt;The Ultimate King's Indian Attack&lt;/em&gt; by Dunnington and &lt;em&gt;Modern King's Indian Attack&lt;/em&gt; by Hall, there can be attacks on either side or a center conflict.  Since I play the Sicilian Dragon, I usually play on the queenside.  If the opponent plays an early d5, I transpose the game into a Catalan and pressure the d5 pawn.  If my opponent does not fianchetto either Bishop, I overprotect e5 and play for a kingside attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Where you attack depends upon the opponent's pawn structure.  As suggested by Jimmy360, most common Ideas can be learnt by playing over games featuring the KIA and the KID.  See &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/9658/strategic-and-tactical-ideas-for-white-in-this-kia-game?rq=1&quot;&gt;ideas for KIA.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9684" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2016-07-17T03:27:29.263" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14942" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-07-17T03:40:05.217" Score="1" ViewCount="1816" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would like to know the point values of each chess piece. I forgot the values because I have not used that system in quite a long time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10826" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2016-07-17T08:50:37.910" LastActivityDate="2016-07-17T08:50:37.910" Title="What is the point value of each chess piece?" Tags="&lt;point-value&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ClosedDate="2016-07-17T10:01:38.927" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14943" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14942" CreationDate="2016-07-17T04:17:35.870" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;General consensus values chess pieces as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Pawn = 1 point&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Knight = 3 points&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Bishop = 3 points&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Rook = 5 points&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Queen = 9 points&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, you should consider this valuation scheme (as well as any valuation scheme) to be very vague, to the point where it is almost sloppy to assume it is correct in any specific position. For instance, two bishops together are often valued higher than 3+3, sometimes 6.5 or 7. Or a passed and advanced pawn may easily be worth a piece, especially when connected with another pawn. Rooks, bishops, and queens are worth less than normal when the position is closed, whereas knights thrive in such positions. When the position has clear lanes for the long-range pieces, the knight is less outstanding.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of interest, too, is the valuation of the king's tactical strength. The king is generally valued between 3 and 4 points, slightly higher than a knight or bishop. Of course, this valuation is meaningless when it comes to calculating exchanges.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_piece_relative_value&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Wikipedia's article&lt;/a&gt; on this topic is well-referenced and extensive. There is a table listing various valuation schemes, both historical and modern, and an average of all schemes in the table is given as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Pawn = 1 point&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Knight = 3.2 points&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Bishop = 3.3 points&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Rook = 5.2 points&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Queen = 9.6 points&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;King = 3.5 points&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="86" LastActivityDate="2016-07-17T04:17:35.870" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14944" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14939" CreationDate="2016-07-17T07:55:14.633" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;The pawn on g7 performs two vital functions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It protects the pawn on f6 from capture by the White knight.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It indirectly bars the way to g8 to the White rook on g3.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it captures the queen on h6 (thereby &quot;moving&quot;), it loses both these functions. Then:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Nxf6+  Kh8 &lt;br&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Rg8 mate.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For White, the checkmate would be well worth a queen, for Black, not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastEditorUserId="17" LastEditDate="2016-07-17T08:02:18.447" LastActivityDate="2016-07-17T08:02:18.447" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14948" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1477" CreationDate="2016-07-17T13:22:06.330" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would strongly recommend Stockfish. My reason for this is that it is the strongest open source engine that ia currently available. Being open source, you can not only work out how it evaluates, but also modify its code to suit your style and needs. It's very easy to install, build and use.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10810" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-08-02T18:44:58.847" LastActivityDate="2019-08-02T18:44:58.847" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="14949" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9625" CreationDate="2016-07-17T15:52:54.637" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Try adding this to your Babaschess engine configuration:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/KSGcV.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/KSGcV.png&quot; alt=&quot;Multi-PV configuration in Bababaschess 4.0&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10065" LastActivityDate="2016-07-17T15:52:54.637" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14950" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-07-17T17:16:06.770" Score="0" ViewCount="164" Body="&lt;p&gt;If I were to play against the computer simulations of chess players that have an account on chess-db (titled or none titled I know), will they get informed that I trained or prepared against them by playing their computer simulation? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3149" LastActivityDate="2016-07-18T03:07:47.040" Title="Do users of chess-db get informed when you play against their computer simulation of themselves?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;websites&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14951" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4531" CreationDate="2016-07-17T19:55:22.533" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think that it's a healthy response for young individuals to completely divorce themselves from an activity that requires so much dedication in order to be successful at. These people derive more of their happiness from winning and from the social acceptance that comes with winning than from the beauty of the game itself. At the more competitive levels of chess there's ultimately less winning and thus less satisfaction. It's perfectly healthy to divorce themselves completely from an activity that is leading them towards an existential depression. Unlike an addict, they are able to stop something that is no longer getting them high and so they seek more pragmatic pursuits.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10832" LastActivityDate="2016-07-17T19:55:22.533" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14952" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-07-17T23:48:10.733" Score="6" ViewCount="2173" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to analyze multiple games in one batch with Stockfish. Apart from &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shane%27s_Chess_Information_Database&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Scid&lt;/a&gt; I do not know any other tool which will do it faster or better. What are som alternatives to Scid with better performance or annotation quality in mind?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Scid allows me to set time or depth (not both at together), put score, put variation, multiple lines analysis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8406" LastEditorUserId="11425" LastEditDate="2016-11-24T07:02:43.120" LastActivityDate="2017-02-04T21:15:40.687" Title="How can I analyze and annotate multiple (500) games with stockfish?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;scid&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14953" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14950" CreationDate="2016-07-18T03:07:47.040" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, they are not. Chess-db has no good way of contacting those people anyway.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7534" LastActivityDate="2016-07-18T03:07:47.040" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14955" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14956" CreationDate="2016-07-18T12:25:57.683" Score="2" ViewCount="259" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm currently looking for this chess engine: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.smallchess.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.smallchess.com/&lt;/a&gt; but the link to access it is dead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can anyone help ? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10837" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2016-10-12T02:14:40.677" LastActivityDate="2016-10-12T02:14:40.677" Title="Looking for SmallChess source code?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;programming&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14956" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14955" CreationDate="2016-07-18T12:34:09.203" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The source code for SmallChess is not available as it is closed source. The link for the source code is for SmallFish.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you still want the source code you might have to wait, as neither does Google have that page cached nor does The Wayback Machine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10836" LastActivityDate="2016-07-18T12:34:09.203" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14958" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-07-18T15:14:27.620" Score="5" ViewCount="2932" Body="&lt;p&gt;Lichess.org has probably the best chess analysis interface. But, the problem it works only online.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Whereas, Stockfish the engine behind the analysis is downloadable, the interface is not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am looking for an analysis software (preferably open source and free) that uses traditional engines and can provide data such as number of blunders, mistakes, inaccuracies etc,. And, preferably with graphs and statistics like lichess.org.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason for open source is that so it can be compiled across several operating systems. And, most importantly, can be modified to suit individual needs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10836" LastEditorUserId="10836" LastEditDate="2016-07-19T18:34:38.240" LastActivityDate="2016-11-18T18:02:36.480" Title="An offline alternative to lichess.org's online analysis engine" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;software&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14959" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-07-18T16:58:35.597" Score="3" ViewCount="2274" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a video on YouTube about how Anand took 1:43 for move four in the Blitz semifinal and ended up winning the match. What I cannot understand is why White resigned because I can not see the checkmate. Can someone explain how checkmate is possible in one or two moves?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1018561&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Here&lt;/a&gt; is a link to their game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10737" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2016-07-18T22:45:40.400" LastActivityDate="2017-06-15T19:31:31.447" Title="Why did Smirin resign against Anand in the Blitz semifinal 1994?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;blitz&gt;&lt;resigning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14960" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14959" CreationDate="2016-07-18T18:13:41.877" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;While in the final position, checkmate is still a move or 20 away, it's clear that White is lost. Black is a piece ahead with no compensation for White at all. People resign in such a position already on the higher level of club play. In a normal (i.e. non-blitz) game between grandmasters, White would probably already have resigned by move 30.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;A. Smirin&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;V. Anand&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;New York Intel Active (blitz)&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;1994&quot;]&#xA;[StartPly &quot;100&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. d4 Ne4 4. Ne5 d6 5. Nf3 d5 6. Bd3 Nc6 7. O-O Be7 8. c4 Nb4 9. Be2 Be6 10. Nc3 O-O 11. Be3 Bf5 12. Rc1 dxc4 13. Bc4 c6 14. Ne5 Nc3 15. bxc3 Nd5 16. Qb3 f6 17. Qb7 fxe5 18. Qc6 Be4 19. dxe5 Kh8 20. Bd4 Rc8 21. Qa6 Nf4 22. f3 Rc6 23. Qa4 Rc4 24. Qc4 Bd3 25. Qc6 Ne2 26. Kh1 Nd4 27. cxd4 Bf1 28. Rf1 Qd4 29. f4 Qe5 30. g3 Qc5 31. Qe4 Bf6 32. Kg2 Rc8 33. Rf2 Qc6 34. Qc6 Rc6 35. g4 h6 36. Kf3 Rc3 37. Ke4 Kh7 38. Re2 Rc4 39. Kf5 Rc5 40. Ke6 Rc4 41. Rf2 Kg6 42. h3 Rc3 43. Rh2 Rf3 44. f5 Kg5 45. a4 Kh4 46. Kd5 Ra3 47. Kc6 Ra4 48. Kb7 a5 49. Kb6 Ra3 50. Kb5 Rh3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-07-19T07:45:08.673" LastActivityDate="2016-07-19T07:45:08.673" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14962" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-07-19T15:54:17.133" Score="3" ViewCount="281" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the beginner's starter pack you would recommend for any chess enthusiast?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am not asking for any specific product just the general software category.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example I think everyone should have a:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;chess engine&lt;/strong&gt;,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a &lt;strong&gt;graphical chess board&lt;/strong&gt; (preferably one that supports XBoard and UCI protocol),&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and a &lt;strong&gt;chess database&lt;/strong&gt; (like SCID).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anything, I am missing here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10836" LastEditorUserId="10836" LastEditDate="2016-07-20T14:08:42.477" LastActivityDate="2016-07-31T02:46:08.887" Title="Basic software for any chess enthusiast" Tags="&lt;software&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14963" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14962" CreationDate="2016-07-19T16:29:07.130" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think a &lt;strong&gt;tactics trainer&lt;/strong&gt; is definitely great to have. While there are many available online, having an offline tactics trainer is useful when I'm on the go.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9756" LastActivityDate="2016-07-19T16:29:07.130" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14965" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14966" CreationDate="2016-07-20T05:04:46.310" Score="4" ViewCount="163" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would often visit a site that had a live Carlsen game analyzed by a strong computer, and deeper than the &quot;average&quot; chess site, but I can't seem to find it. I think it had something to do either with the TCEC or the Stockfish team.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10855" LastActivityDate="2016-07-20T05:55:50.470" Title="Which webpage broadcasts a single chess game, usually Carlsen's, in infinite analysis?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;engines&gt;&lt;carlsen&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14966" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14965" CreationDate="2016-07-20T05:55:50.470" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You are probably thinking of &lt;a href=&quot;http://analysis.sesse.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;analysis.sesse.net&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1485" LastActivityDate="2016-07-20T05:55:50.470" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14967" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14962" CreationDate="2016-07-20T10:00:03.543" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Interactive tutorials&lt;/strong&gt;, for example presenting a game with commentary and periodically asking you to provide input, e.g. what you think is the best move, how to exploit a mistake etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Passive tutorials&lt;/strong&gt; where you just look at the screen. Youtube is best placed for this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Set up a position and play against the computer&lt;/strong&gt; is great for setting up endgames and taking resigned positions from master games and playing them against the engine. After all, the hardest thing to do in chess is to win a won game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Online arena&lt;/strong&gt; for playing against real opponents under various time controls.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Mini games&lt;/strong&gt; such as knight's tour, pawn wars etc. to practice key skills such as visualisation and endgame technique.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2016-07-20T10:00:03.543" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14968" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12728" CreationDate="2016-07-20T12:00:54.053" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I learned Shogi from &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/user/HIDETCHI&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;these videos&lt;/a&gt;.  It goes from absolute beginner to analysis of grand-master games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9531" LastActivityDate="2016-07-20T12:00:54.053" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14969" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="697" CreationDate="2016-07-20T15:12:43.620" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, it is playable in my opinion. The starting position on the diagram may not be reflective of Black's best chances in the Ulvestad because it assumes that 6...Nd4 it best, while it scores much worse than 6...h6. After 6...h6 White scores only 47% according to ChessBase, I don't think you can find many opening lines as playable for Black as this (we're only on move 6).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="618" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T19:14:14.373" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T19:14:14.373" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="14970" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9059" CreationDate="2016-07-20T15:23:47.297" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;An interesting read would be &quot;Move First, Think Later&quot; by Willy Hendriks. It covers this topic from a different (and very interesting) perspective. Here are a few highlights covered in the book:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The De Groot study found that a difference between weak and strong players was not usually depth of analysis but rather that strong players just see the best moves. Weak players may never even analyze the right move(s) at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He asserts that there is no magic thinking process that strong players use. His justification is that if there was a thinking process or algorithm that would suddenly make you strong, chess wouldn't be very interesting and there would be many more strong players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The voice you hear in your head that is suggesting moves is compared to a PR person speaking for a company (they may be well spoken but they didn't invent the things they are describing). In the same way, by the time you become aware of a move (and justify it with positional considerations) it has already been provided to you by a subconscious process that you are basically unaware of. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So how do strong players magically find moves? He suggests that it's less finding and more recall (e.g. memory). In other words they've looked at, played, and analyzed many high quality games, exposing the strong player to thousands of patterns. Which, you know, is what most strong players recommend you do if you want to get better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3431" LastActivityDate="2016-07-20T15:23:47.297" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14971" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-07-20T17:38:05.030" Score="5" ViewCount="189" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a black bishop at a4, black queen at b4, a black king at e5 and a white king at c1. There is a checkmate in 3 moves. I want to know what the moves are.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/8/8/4k3/bq6/8/8/2K5 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2263" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-07-20T18:06:13.340" LastActivityDate="2016-07-20T18:53:21.583" Title="Steps to checkmate in my endgame position" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;checkmate&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14972" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14971" CreationDate="2016-07-20T18:02:27.183" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Black mates in three with&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/8/8/4k3/bq6/8/8/2K5 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Qb7 2. Kd2 Qe4 3. Kc1 (3. Kc3 Qd4#) Qc2#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The paradoxical Qb7 is the only solution, you can check this with an &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.shredderchess.com/online-chess/online-databases/endgame-database.html&quot;&gt;endgame database&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-07-20T18:53:21.583" LastActivityDate="2016-07-20T18:53:21.583" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14973" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14958" CreationDate="2016-07-20T21:22:28.037" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I will strongly recommend SCID. Its open source and very feature rich.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10810" LastActivityDate="2016-07-20T21:22:28.037" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14974" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14977" CreationDate="2016-07-20T21:23:17.510" Score="2" ViewCount="2352" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm an intermediate player, and I practice chess tactics and play regularly. I'm looking for a good podcast or two to listen too during my day. I don't care if its a podcast that discusses chess news, tactics, or does analysis of games, I just need it to hold my attention for a while. Preferably something available on android or pc.&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Thanks&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10865" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T17:33:42.163" Title="What are some good podcasts to listen to?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;learning&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14976" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14974" CreationDate="2016-07-20T21:34:28.630" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not exactly what you may have asked for but sort of. Here the host interviews a celeb over a game of chess. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04njsks/episodes/downloads&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04njsks/episodes/downloads&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10810" LastActivityDate="2016-07-20T21:34:28.630" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14977" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14974" CreationDate="2016-07-21T08:06:16.947" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://thefeb.podbean.com&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;The Full English Breakfast&lt;/a&gt; by Stephen Gordon, Laurence Trent and Macauley Peterson was always fun. It has been discontinued 2 years ago but it might still be worth a look.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2016-07-21T08:06:16.947" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14978" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14974" CreationDate="2016-07-21T09:22:36.233" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;For those looking for Spanish podcasts:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ivoox.com/suscripciones_jb_3371285_1.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;El Rincón del Ajedrez&lt;/a&gt;, 30-40 minutes each, an interesting podcast focused on chess culture, with interviews, chess history, book reviews and so on with Manuel Azuaga. It used to be weekly, although lately it is done every 15 days (maybe summer holidays).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ivoox.com/suscripciones_jb_3501760_1.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;COOLtura de Ajedrez&lt;/a&gt;, another good podcast, 1 hour each, with chess news and some good interviews. Chess news are mainly about catalan chess, but major national and international tournaments are treated too.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ivoox.com/suscripciones_jb_3371286_1.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Xarxa de Mat&lt;/a&gt;, another weekly 1 hour podcast very similar to COOLtura de Ajedrez, but in this case language is Catalan.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2311" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T17:33:42.163" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T17:33:42.163" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="14979" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-07-21T10:40:32.587" Score="17" ViewCount="1271" Body="&lt;p&gt;Currently the most popular chess font is &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.enpassant.dk/chess/fonteng.htm#MERIDA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Merida&lt;/a&gt;. I used to be under the impression that this was a new font from the computer era, but I found it in a German chess book from 1952 (Lasker's biography).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The question is about the origin of this font. When was it introduced and how widespread was its use in the precomputer era? Does anyone have old books with such diagrams?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Prtuh.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Prtuh.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;diagram from German 1952 book&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3456" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-02-01T22:06:19.107" LastActivityDate="2021-03-15T07:18:35.577" Title="What is the origin of the Merida chess font?" Tags="&lt;chess-font&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="14980" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2016-07-21T12:52:41.400" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2016-07-21T12:52:41.400" LastActivityDate="2016-07-21T12:52:41.400" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14981" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2016-07-21T12:52:41.400" Score="0" Body="A font which is used to display chess pieces in diagrams. This tag can be used for questions to identify chess fonts, about the origin of a certain font, etc." OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-07-21T14:12:37.827" LastActivityDate="2016-07-21T14:12:37.827" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14984" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-07-22T16:20:27.177" Score="3" ViewCount="1057" Body="&lt;p&gt;What are the main ideas for White after 1. d4 d5 2. c4 dxc4 3. e4?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[StartPly &quot;5&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. c4 dxc4 3. e4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2016-07-22T17:40:54.910" Title="What are the main ideas for White in the Queen's Gambit Accepted, 3.e4 variation?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;queens-gambit-accepted&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14985" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-07-22T17:10:27.527" Score="0" ViewCount="2014" Body="&lt;p&gt;On my old windows-pc I created a database of my games on fritz 11 which I then uploaded to googledrive. The database is a .cbh file. My old computer broke and I'd like to re-open this database. As I have a mac, I got my roommate to download chessbase reader and sent him the database, but when trying to open it the message appeared &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;new-database.cbh is not a database&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does anyone know why this might have happened? Can anyone suggest something? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10875" LastActivityDate="2020-01-01T16:36:42.987" Title="How can I open a .cbh databse" Tags="&lt;database&gt;&lt;chessbase&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14986" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14984" CreationDate="2016-07-22T17:40:54.910" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Black has 4 main tries and one dubious line. White's plans vary based on the tabiya. The positions below are the lines given in &lt;em&gt;Starting Out: Queen's Gambit Accepted&lt;/em&gt; by Reatsky and Chetverik:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;3...e5&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[StartPly &quot;5&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;  1. d4 d5 2. c4 dxc4 3. e4 e5 {Best and thematic. A strong central counterattack that made the 3. e4 QGA unpopular in the '80s.} 4. Nf3 {White defends the pawn and prepares to castle kingside.}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now Black has 2 choices: 4...Bb4+ and 4...exd4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;4...Bb4+&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[StartPly &quot;7&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;  1. d4 d5 2. c4 dxc4 3. e4 e5 4. Nf3 Bb4+ {Black develops with tempo and blocks a defender of the d4 pawn.} 5. Bd2 Bxd2+ {Black is happy to trade, seeing as he is up material and has slightly less space when the c4 pawn falls.} 6. Nbxd2 {6. Qxd2 exd4 7. Qxd4 Nf6 8. Qxd8+ Kxd8 actually sucks the venom out of white's attack, as the queens are gone and the trades benefit black, whose king is open and has less space.} exd4 7. Bxc4 Nc6 8. O-O Qf6 {Black aims to play ...Nge7 and ...O-O.} 9. e5 {The queen has developed early and can be attacked, gaining space. The pawn cannot be taken due to tactics on the open e-file.} Qg6 10. Re1 Nge7 11. Nb3 {Thematically regaining the pawn.} O-O 12. Nfxd4 {The material is now even with quite even development and safe kings. But why was it the f3 knight that recaptured? Well: 1) 12...Na5, pestering the bishop, is prevented, and 2) The queen can develop to the kingside, e.g. Qf3 easily.}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;4...exd4&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[StartPly &quot;7&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;  1. d4 d5 2. c4 dxc4 3. e4 e5 4. Nf3 exd4 {Black invites white to play 5. Qxd4? Qxd4 6. Nxd4 Bc5 which equalises. Similarly, 5. Nxd4? c5 6. Nf3 Qxd1+ is also good for black.} 5. Bxc4 {White should definitely develop the bishop to regain a pawn and take control of a key diagonal.} Nc6 6. O-O Be6 {Defending the diagonal leading to the weak f7 square, this almost forces a trade of a well developed piece.} 7. Bxe6 {7. Bb5 is playable. See Kaspaprov-Anand, Linares 1999} fxe6 8. Qb3 Qd7 {Why not 8...Qc8? Well this is too passive and can be punished by 9. Ng5!} 9. Qxb7 Rb8 10. Qa6 Nf6 11. Nbd2 Bd6 {The bishop develops to a flexible square that discourages e5.} 12. Qd3 O-O 13. a3 {Preventing any annoying ...Nb4 or ...Bb4 manoeuvres.} Ng4 {Black seeks to place a knight on e5, a well placed steed.} 14. b3 Nce5 15. Nxe5 Nxe5 16. Qxd4 Ng4 17. e5 Nxe5 18. Bb2 Rb5 19. Qe4 Nd3 20. Bd4 Rf4 21. Qa8+ Rf8 {With a likely draw by threefold repition.}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;3...c5&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[StartPly &quot;5&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. c4 dxc4 3. e4 c5 4. d5 Nf6 5. Nc3 b5 {Principle: attacked in the centre, counter on the wing} 6. Bf4 {The Bishop thematically comes to f4 as in some variations the bishop takes on b8, often in conjunction with a rook on b1.} Ba6 {Black has to develop rapidly, as the game is somewhat open and Black is being squeezed in the centre.} 7. e5 b4 8. exf6 bxc3 9. bxc3 gxf6 10. Bxc4 {This initiates a combination that simplifies into an endgame where white plays against the pawn weaknesses on c5 and the kingside.} Bxc4 11. Qa4+ Nd7 12. Qxc4 Nb6 13. Qb5+ Qd7 14. Qxd7+ Kxd7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;3...Nc6&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[StartPly &quot;5&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. c4 dxc4 3. e4 Nc6 4. Nf3 Bg4 5. d5 Ne5 6. Bf4 Ng6 {6...Nxf3 7. gxf3 Bd7 is not so strong for Black, as White now has a semi-open g-file to work with, and the White king is reasonably safe in the centre.} 7. Be3 e5 8. Bxc4 Nf6 9. Nc3 a6 {Black threatens to remove the defender of the e4 pawn with 10...b5 11. Be2 b4 12. Ng1 Nxe4} 10. Be2 {White would like to offer to trade the bad light square bishop with Nd2, when Black should preserve their light square bishop with ...Bd7} Bd6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;3...Nf6&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[StartPly &quot;5&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. c4 dxc4 3. e4 Nf6 4. e5 {White gains a bit of space in this line but not much else.} Nd5 5. Bxc4 Nb6 6. Bb3 Nc6 7. Be3 {7. Nge2 is also playable, but 7. Nf3?! walks into the pin 7...Bg4, which is uncomfortable, seeing as Black doesn't mind trading his bad bishop if the question is put to it.} Bf5 8. Nc3 e6 9. Nge2 Be7 10. O-O O-O&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;3...b5?!&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[StartPly &quot;5&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. c4 dxc4 3. e4 b5 4. a4 {White challenges the base of the pawn chain.} c6 {Black reinforces the base...} 5. b3 {...so white attacks the head of the chain instead!} e5 {Thematic and best. Over and over we will see ...e5 as been a crucial move in the 3. e4 QGA variations.} 6. axb5 cxb5 7. bxc4 Bb4+ {Black is desperate to gain counterplay (and material!) seeing as white's central pawns are so menacing.} 8. Bd2 {Forced. Blocking with Nd2 enters into an uncomfortable pin, and Ke2 loses castling rights and blocks up the kingside.} Qxd4 9. Bxb4 Qxa1 10. Nf3 {Despite white being down in material, White has: 1) More space, 2) Better development, 3) A vulnerable enemy king, queen and rooks to go after.}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2016-07-22T17:40:54.910" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14987" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14985" CreationDate="2016-07-22T22:06:41.783" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The file might be corrupted or maybe the chess reader your friend got is broken. You could try using a different reader. You could also ask your friend to re-download the file in case there was some downloading error.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I just read &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/8734/convert-chessbase-format-to-pgn-on-linux?rq=1&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; about converting .cbh to another format and apparently &lt;a href=&quot;http://scidb.sourceforge.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;scidb&lt;/a&gt; can read .cbh. Maybe your friend could try using scidb to see if it opens in that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Alternatively you might need to do something inside chessbase in which case I would not know what to recommend.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7236" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2016-07-22T22:11:59.653" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14988" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9134" CreationDate="2016-07-23T06:05:24.153" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you know a little python or shell programming you could try and use uci for each move and grab stockfish output, I will try and see if I can get this sorted at some point and share the code. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If just being offline is your concern, then try the stockfish app, there is offline analysis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Again, from a programming angle, there is trying to add such a feature to scid.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10810" LastActivityDate="2016-07-23T06:05:24.153" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14989" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14825" CreationDate="2016-07-23T06:10:15.490" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not going to say its the best for exhaustiveness but great entertainment &lt;a href=&quot;https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NIIy3vZ5Dsc&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;st louis chess club&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10810" LastActivityDate="2016-07-23T06:10:15.490" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14990" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4749" CreationDate="2016-07-23T07:05:11.567" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some chess opening books for beginners, I can recommend:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Chess Openings by Michael Basman&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Discovering Chess Openings: Building Opening Skills from Basic Principles&#xA;By John Emms&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Mastering the Chess Openings: Unlocking the Mysteries of the Modern Chess Openings, Volume 1 By John Watson&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10810" LastActivityDate="2016-07-23T07:05:11.567" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14991" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5056" CreationDate="2016-07-23T07:11:58.853" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Its sort of debatable if you can call a heuristic based search and evaluate approach as brute-force. Most of top-tier chess engines today follow a rules-based approach to evaluate a position and a rules based search function to prune moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is actually not guaranteed to pick the &quot;global optimal&quot; move, however these moves are good enough for purpose. In this sense most chess engines are using an approximation on the global optimum and actually getting by.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To date, we haven't many chess engines succeed at the top level using a different approach, at least not on cheap hardware.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10810" LastActivityDate="2016-07-23T07:11:58.853" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14993" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13387" CreationDate="2016-07-23T11:11:34.980" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;White's main threat is c5, which forces a pawn exchange and a passed pawn with king covering queening squares. The bishop is covering the g pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Should black force an exchange of that pawn, white's rook could go to e5 and capture the d pawn, allowing a double passed pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If black defends c5, white first move his king to b4 to cover the next 2 pawn squares, then force black to zugzuang(by moving rook to a file) which forces black to stop defending c5 or move the rook. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If black moves rook to e5, putting pressure on the bishop, white pins black's knight and therefore forces a minor piece exchange, with a more active king, which will then go on and promote pawns. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If black stops pressuring the bishop, the endgame should be easily winnable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for Ke7, idea would be the same&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For moves that does not either pressurise c5 or protects d6, force an exchange on c5 and you can win easily&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10558" LastActivityDate="2016-07-23T11:11:34.980" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14994" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="14996" CreationDate="2016-07-24T07:02:51.117" Score="3" ViewCount="794" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.computerchess.org.uk/ccrl/4040/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.computerchess.org.uk/ccrl/4040/&lt;/a&gt; - Indicates that it is Komodo 10 but I am not completely sure this is up to date.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7236" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-07-24T09:01:28.723" LastActivityDate="2016-07-24T13:00:49.780" Title="What is the current highest rated chess engine?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;rating&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14995" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14994" CreationDate="2016-07-24T07:09:49.570" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The CCRL maintains a &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.computerchess.org.uk/ccrl/4040/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;list&lt;/a&gt; of chess engines and their ratings. Currently, Komodo (3358) is the strongest, closely followed by Stockfish (3340). According to the information on that page:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Computed on July 23, 2016 with Bayeselo based on 642'252 games&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;it is quite up to date.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2016-07-24T07:09:49.570" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14996" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14994" CreationDate="2016-07-24T13:00:49.780" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;CCRL has not tested Komodo 10.1 yet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;IPON has:  &lt;a href=&quot;http://inwoba.de/&quot;&gt;http://inwoba.de/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2016.07.23&#xA;Komodo 10.1 with a plus of 8 Elo in the full list and 11 Elo from one RRRL to the next.&#xA;This version would not be tested because it is to close to the last release but as it is the reigning world&#xA;champion it should be integrated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1 Komodo 10.1    3253&lt;br&gt;&#xA;   2 Stockfish 7   3228 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9419" LastActivityDate="2016-07-24T13:00:49.780" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14997" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4749" CreationDate="2016-07-24T17:40:32.763" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;A classic reference book (or more like an encyclopedia) is Modern Chess Openings (or colloquially, MCO) by Nick de Firmian. While it doesn't have a lot of discussion on chess openings or the strategy behind a chess opening, and is noted for typos, it is extensive in types of commonly used openings. Definitely not easy reading. I believe the most recent edition is the 15th. Again, it will not teach you strategy behind the moves, but for that, I would pick up books specific to the opening you want to learn. Additionally, nothing can substitute good old fashioned tournament experience.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3533" LastActivityDate="2016-07-24T17:40:32.763" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="14998" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22033" CreationDate="2016-07-24T20:59:35.653" Score="13" ViewCount="3516" Body="&lt;p&gt;Due to &lt;a href=&quot;http://chessok.com/?page_id=27966&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia: Endgame tablebase&lt;/a&gt; the Lomonosov endgame tablebase is still the biggest tablebase (with a size of 140TB). Now this tablebase was computed in the year 2012 with the Lomonosov 1 (&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.top500.org/list/2012/11/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Top500-list November 2012, rank 26&lt;/a&gt;). The Lomonosov 1 had 78.660 cores with ~900 TFlop/s (peak: 1.700 TFlop/s). When I have a look on the most &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.top500.org/list/2016/06/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;recent Top500-List (June 2016)&lt;/a&gt; I see that the Lomonosov 2 is ranked 41 in the world with ~2.100 TFlop/s (peak: ~2.900 TFlop/s), the No1-ranked super-computer has 93.000 TFlop/s.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I wonder why the Lomonosov-tablebase after 4 years still is the biggest tablebase. Shouldn't it be easy with the growing computer-power to calculate an 8-men-tablebase? Or is the step from 7 to 8 just too big? Maybe the size would go up exponentially so that standard-storage-systems just cannot handle this? Would appreciate all information about this theme.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4537" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-11-12T02:42:19.890" LastActivityDate="2020-11-16T06:17:23.073" Title="How is it possible that the Lomonosov-endgame-tablebase from 2012 still is the most powerful tablebase?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;tablebases&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="14999" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4749" CreationDate="2016-07-24T21:32:54.843" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Mastering the Chess Openings in 4 Volumes by John Watson:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1904600603&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://www.amazon.com/Mastering-Chess-Openings-Unlocking-Mysteries/dp/1904600603/ref=sr_1_sc_1?s=books&amp;amp;ie=UTF8&amp;amp;qid=1469395910&amp;amp;sr=1-1-spell&amp;amp;keywords=mastering+ches+openings+john+watson&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3456" LastActivityDate="2016-07-24T21:32:54.843" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15000" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1419" CreationDate="2016-07-25T08:31:08.153" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.apronus.com/chess/wbeditor.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.apronus.com/chess/wbeditor.php&lt;/a&gt; allows you to set up any illegal position and then you can create an image of the diagram to share or you can create a link to that position and use the link in a post or in an email, effectively allowing you to play any chesslike game by exchanging such links with your online partner.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3456" LastActivityDate="2016-07-25T08:31:08.153" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15001" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-07-25T11:27:27.480" Score="4" ViewCount="1891" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am searching for a program/library in Python which will let two users or a user and an AI play chess with each other.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS: I have found &lt;a href=&quot;https://pypi.python.org/pypi/python-chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;python-chess&lt;/a&gt;. Can this be used for the above along with a chess engine?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10886" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-03-04T21:24:04.237" LastActivityDate="2020-03-04T21:24:04.237" Title="Play chess in Python programming language?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;python&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15002" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15001" CreationDate="2016-07-25T12:29:07.740" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes. You can use the package to play against yourself and an engine. While I don't think there is one function that can do everything for you, but I can give you hints:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To setup up a game against an AI:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Read UCI documentation (you can find on Google)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Read the UCI functions for python-chess &lt;a href=&quot;https://python-chess.readthedocs.io/en/v0.14.1/uci.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Spawn an engine thread by &lt;code&gt;engine = chess.uci.popen_engine(&quot;/usr/games/stockfish&quot;)&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Start a new game by &lt;code&gt;engine.uci()&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Send a move by &lt;code&gt;engine.position&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Start analysis by &lt;code&gt;engine.go&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Get engine results by &lt;code&gt;command.result()&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You will need to read the documentation carefully.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To setup a game against yourself (copied from the package documentation)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt; import chess&#xA;&#xA;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt; board = chess.Board()&#xA;&#xA;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt; board.push_san(&quot;e4&quot;)&#xA;Move.from_uci('e2e4')&#xA;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt; board.push_san(&quot;e5&quot;)&#xA;Move.from_uci('e7e5')&#xA;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt; board.push_san(&quot;Qh5&quot;)&#xA;Move.from_uci('d1h5')&#xA;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt; board.push_san(&quot;Nc6&quot;)&#xA;Move.from_uci('b8c6')&#xA;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt; board.push_san(&quot;Bc4&quot;)&#xA;Move.from_uci('f1c4')&#xA;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt; board.push_san(&quot;Nf6&quot;)&#xA;Move.from_uci('g8f6')&#xA;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt; board.push_san(&quot;Qxf7&quot;)&#xA;Move.from_uci('h5f7')&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2016-07-25T12:29:07.740" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15003" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1419" CreationDate="2016-07-25T15:19:29.787" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I still don't have the ability to comment so I'll have to make this an answer, but Lichess has a variant &lt;em&gt;somewhat&lt;/em&gt; similar to what your looking for called Horde. It's 36 pawns against a normal starting side.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10622" LastActivityDate="2016-07-25T15:19:29.787" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15004" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1419" CreationDate="2016-07-25T18:15:12.223" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, the very popular lichess website has a mobile app with a board editor that would allow you to setup this position and pretend to play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's a screenshot of the board editor:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ukZI1.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ukZI1.png&quot; alt=&quot;Board Editor for Lichess mobile app&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You may also want to look into &amp;quot;Horde&amp;quot; chess, which is a similar variant to what your friend posted. From this site: &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.lichess.org/variant/horde&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.lichess.org/variant/horde&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Horde chess is a variant where the white side has a lot of Pawns (36 to be exact) (therefore shortnamed &amp;quot;the Pawns&amp;quot;) and the black side (&amp;quot;The Pieces&amp;quot;) needs to destroy the Horde to win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All pieces moves similar to standard chess. In other words, a move is legal if and only if it is legal in standard chess for a similar position. There is an exception for the Pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Pieces wins by capturing all the Pawns. This includes pieces promoted from the Pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Pawns wins by checkmating the King of the Pieces. Pawns on the first rank may move two squares, similar to Pawns on the second rank. However, Pawns of the Pieces may not capture Pawns on the first rank that has moved two squares, as it is not a valid en passant capture.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10687" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2016-07-25T18:15:12.223" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15005" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8004" CreationDate="2016-07-25T20:36:44.190" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This github post has links to polyglot books; the Komodo book looks especially enticing to me: &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/michaeldv/donna_opening_books&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://github.com/michaeldv/donna_opening_books&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Direct link to Komodo downloads: &lt;a href=&quot;http://komodochess.com/downloads.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://komodochess.com/downloads.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10687" LastActivityDate="2016-07-25T20:36:44.190" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15006" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15007" CreationDate="2016-07-26T08:41:37.660" Score="3" ViewCount="2244" Body="&lt;p&gt;I usually work things out as I go along. I don't know any openings and tend to improvise the opening and the middlegame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For a player like me, is opposite castling a good or a bad choice? I took a look at the tactics involved in such a game (&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/forum/view/livechess/attack-on-opposite-side-castled-king&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.chess.com/forum/view/livechess/attack-on-opposite-side-castled-king&lt;/a&gt;) and it seems that you need a high tempo to perform well. For someone who never follows a strict plan and improvises, is this an advantage or a disadvantage? Should I castle on the same side and aim for a slower game with less pawn involvement?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Say, for example, my queenside is under attack and the opponent has castled kingside. Castling kingside would reduce pressure and allow me to recollect my thoughts. Castling queenside would allow me to put pressure on the opponent's kingside and form a counterattack quickly. For each of these possibilities, the play style must change, but does castling opposite the opponent actually give me any advantage apart from aggression? Possibly, it would allow my bishops to take a long diagonal against the opposing king, w/hile same-side castling would require more knight action.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10887" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-02-24T13:33:24.393" LastActivityDate="2021-02-25T18:09:43.440" Title="Is opposite side castling an advantage?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;castling&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="15007" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15006" CreationDate="2016-07-26T08:52:35.710" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The short answer is that castling long, vs. short or staying in the centre depends on the &lt;em&gt;concrete nature of the position&lt;/em&gt;. I would advise against 'castling into it [an attack]', and give this quote from Pillsbury:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Castle because you will or because you must, but not because you can&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This means that if I gave a general answer of, say, 'always castle kingside, it's good', then that advice may not apply to many positions, and also goes against your player personality of working things out move-by-move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you could post some concrete positions into your question, then the community can comment on if/when castling queenside is appropriate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2016-07-26T08:52:35.710" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15009" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-07-26T10:38:42.290" Score="-4" ViewCount="235" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both players are above 40, but Kramnik is still rated #2 in the world and is rated close to 2800, whereas Anand's rating has steadily been falling. What has Kramnik done to get better with age, which Anand has not been able to do ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10737" LastActivityDate="2016-08-01T12:41:35.337" Title="What has been the difference between Kramnik and Anand?" Tags="&lt;psychology&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15010" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15009" CreationDate="2016-07-26T11:04:58.097" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Anand is 5 and a half years older than Kramnik. If you go back 5 and a half years, you'll see that &lt;a href=&quot;http://2700chess.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Anand peaked in 2011&lt;/a&gt; with a live rating of 2817.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the idea that Kramnik somehow kept his rating high in way Anand has not been able to is completely wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2016-07-26T11:04:58.097" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15012" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15013" CreationDate="2016-07-26T13:19:58.460" Score="6" ViewCount="585" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let White have the two bishops.  Given any setup, has the maximum number of moves to forced mate been calculated on an nxn board (for large enough n)?  If not, are there any bounds on this number?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, information on extensions of this problem to say any rectangular board, are also welcome.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I should note that for a 2xn board checkmate isn't possible.  Also, for m &amp;gt;= 3, with n &amp;gt;= m without loss of generality,  I'm not certain whether forced mate is always possible.  I would say though that it is given m,n sufficiently large though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To update let the bishops be on opposite colored squares, of course.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Update again:  I noticed someone edited the question out.  It isn't meant merely for the 8x8 board, but for any nxn board, where n is any sufficiently large natural number.  I know R&amp;amp;K vs K has been solved in this way for any nxn board.  I'm wondering whether the same has been done for K BB vs. K on any nxn board.  Please watch what you edit next time.  Also, an answer has been accepted to the edited question, not my intended question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2765" LastEditorUserId="2765" LastEditDate="2020-08-30T11:19:33.260" LastActivityDate="2020-08-30T11:19:33.260" Title="Checkmating with two bishops" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;bishops&gt;&lt;mathematics&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="15013" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15012" CreationDate="2016-07-26T13:33:44.083" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Mate could be forced sooner...[the] two bishops [can mate in up to] 19 [moves].&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/2502/1108&quot;&gt;Last paragraph from Daniel's answer to 'With only a king left, how many moves remaining until a draw?'&lt;/a&gt;, with editing from me, seeing as I am taking just the part relevant to this question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For a table of maximum number of moves to mate, see &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pawnless_chess_endgame#Tables&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;, which cites &lt;em&gt;Batsford Chess Endings&lt;/em&gt; by Speelman, Tisdall and Wade.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.193" LastActivityDate="2016-07-26T14:13:20.577" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15014" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-07-26T21:18:35.797" Score="2" ViewCount="709" Body="&lt;p&gt;Since the 1972 chess championship was televised I imagine there must be full footage of all the matches somewhere. I have spent time looking around, but found nothing but short clips of the games. Does anybody know if and where this footage might exist?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7507" LastActivityDate="2016-07-28T13:54:14.123" Title="Full Footage From 1972 Championship" Tags="&lt;history&gt;&lt;world-championship&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15015" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15001" CreationDate="2016-07-27T08:10:38.143" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You mentioned an AI. It might not be very strong, but &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/thomasahle/sunfish&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;sunfish&lt;/a&gt; is an example of a Python-based chess program, should you decide to go down that route.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do also bear in mind that XBoard protocol is a valid option, using Polyglot by Fabien Letouzey to convert from UCI to XBoard. It is much harder to convert from XBoard to UCI, through something like WB2UCI by Odd Gunnar Malin, as XBoard is much more lax about things like thinking output.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would recommend creating an account on the &lt;a href=&quot;http://talkchess.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Computer Chess Club&lt;/a&gt; if you are going to create a GUI.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1508" LastActivityDate="2016-07-27T08:10:38.143" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15016" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14198" CreationDate="2016-07-27T10:15:01.773" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;strong&gt;WorldCat.org&lt;/strong&gt;, Tigran Petrosian's PhD thesis is available in three libraries: the Koninklijke Bibliotheek (&quot;royal library&quot;) in The Hague (Netherlands), the Danish Union Catalogue and Danish National Bibliography (a catalogue strangely identified as a &quot;library&quot;?) and the State and University Library in Denmark. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Apparently, the English translation is (or was) only available in 250 copies, so there may be other libraries that have it but that aren't covered by WorldCat.org. Once you've identified a library that has it, you can try to get a copy through &lt;strong&gt;interlibrary loan&lt;/strong&gt;. (This may work best if you have access to a university library, especially for international interlibrary loan.) The other option is trying to buy it through a website for second-hand books, but the book is so rare that your chances of finding it are very small. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Tigran Vartani Petrosjan: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.worldcat.org/title/chess-logic/oclc/486152222?referer=br&amp;amp;ht=edition&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Chess Logic&lt;/em&gt;. Skakhus-forlaget, 1968&lt;/a&gt;. Translated from the Russian into English by Carl Andersen. (See the &lt;a href=&quot;http://opc4.kb.nl/DB=1/XMLPRS=Y/PPN?PPN=123164818&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;catalogue entry at the Koninklijke Bibliotheek&lt;/a&gt;.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Tigran Vartani Petrosjan: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.worldcat.org/title/chess-logic/oclc/69386187?referer=br&amp;amp;ht=edition&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Skak logik&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt;. Copenhagen : Skakhus, 1968. Translated into Danish by Carl Andersen. (See the &lt;a href=&quot;http://opc4.kb.nl/DB=1/XMLPRS=Y/PPN?PPN=123164923&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;catalogue entry at the Koninklijke Bibliotheek&lt;/a&gt;.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10867" LastEditorUserId="10867" LastEditDate="2017-08-23T14:06:45.363" LastActivityDate="2017-08-23T14:06:45.363" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15017" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14253" CreationDate="2016-07-27T12:54:58.197" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you're style is defensive, &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt; would be nice, it avoids Sicilian which can be very aggressive with opposite castling and most lines are passive with not much attacking potential.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are playing queen's gambit, beware of Albin countergambit as the game can be highly aggressive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you're opponent plays (Old)Benoni Defence, I recommend &lt;code&gt;1. d4 c5 2. d5 Nf6 3. c4&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;1. d4 c5 2. d5 Nf6 3. c4 e5&lt;/code&gt; will be a very passive game&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;1. d4 c5 2. d5 Nf6 3. c4 e6&lt;/code&gt; might be slightly aggressive on the queenside, but you could should be able to prevent any potential successful attacks &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for Benko gambit, I recommend&#xA;&lt;code&gt;1. d4 c5 2. d5 Nf6 3. c4 b5 4. cxb5 a6 5: b6/e3&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For &lt;code&gt;b6&lt;/code&gt;, the queen would take and white will attempt a queenside attack&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For &lt;code&gt;e3&lt;/code&gt;, you will be the one attacking, however, it should be easy as white's position is quite locked up by the pawns&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now if you're opponent plays dutch, it is defiantly an attacking game. Dutch is normally rare as it does nothing for black development, it only starts an early kingside pawnstorm but weakens their kingside, so you'll just have to defend the kingside or attack with your opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'll also recommend you to learn the London system which is a highly passive game and normally is a draw. If a draw is fine for you, you would want to look up the London system.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P. S. If you send some of your games, we could find openings that suit your style&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10558" LastActivityDate="2016-07-27T12:54:58.197" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15018" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14421" CreationDate="2016-07-27T15:10:25.010" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This worked for me when I was 2030 USCF and was attempting to climb my way to USCF master rating in 1 year. Psychologically I had 2 goals/methods:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) Play every game based on the board, and try to play the best moves no matter how crazy or complicated they seemed (or how quiet and dry in some cases). Whether my opponent was 1600 or 2450 it shouldn't matter and I should play the same move regardless, since my focus wasn't to beat my opponent but to find the best moves to play. Playing guess the move on thousands of gm games, double checked with engine analysis, helped solidify this into a habit. Also telling myself again and again not to care about the result, but instead to try and have an entertaining game I can learn from.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) I would always avoid looking at my opponents rating on the pairings, and would tell my friends to NEVER tell me the rating of who I'm playing against. Knowing this would only distract my attention away from the board and trying to find the best moves. If my opponent were Magnus I would still want to aggressively take advantage of anything that seemed to be a mistake, aka not give him the benefit of the doubt on complicated positions, and if my opponent was 1200 I'd still avoid playing aggressively if the position called for quiet moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also as far as your endurance problems I would never eat anything unhealthy during a tournament, only proteins and complex carbohydrates religiously (mixed bean salad, and turkey sandwiches without sauces mainly). I would do my best to get 8 hours of sleep each night and have a light workout each morning if the hotel had an exercise room. Even though my normal lifestyle isn't nearly this good, I'd change my habits for the tournaments to be more competitive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another thing I'd attempt to do is get through my first 20 or so moves in under an hour. Even if I didn't know the opening super well I didn't want to waste my energy on the opening phases. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd also try to completely avoid calculating when it wasn't my turn, to save energy. I'd get up and walk around to get my blood flowing and to avoid staring at a board for hours in the early rounds. Also consider that you have to calculate many irrelevant lines if you are trying to predict your opponents moves on their turn. Better to let them eliminate those irrelevant lines by picking something, and you can just calculate after that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Based on following these methods and training about 3 hours each day, I broke through to 2200 in exactly one year, playing just 5 tournaments. I didn't lose a single game to anyone under 2200 USCF during that time, and split 5-5 with players at 2200-2300 (was 4-1 in my last 2 tournaments), drew a 2350, and I also beat an IM, lost to an IM, and blundered a won game against a GM (but at least it was an interesting game and he talked with me quite a bit afterwards). In my final 3 tournaments I closed out quite strongly in the last few rounds since I had plenty of energy, winning money in my last 3 tournaments (even winning an entire section). Beyond just training myself to be a good player, following these methods gave me a decent competitive edge over my competition and led to strong results. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9627" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-04T18:28:48.053" LastActivityDate="2020-03-04T18:28:48.053" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="15019" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14641" CreationDate="2016-07-27T15:41:18.210" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Based on my understanding it's not closing the position that is a concession, it's releasing the tension for no reason that is the true concession. Finding meaningful moves in a position while maintaining tension, whether that is not moving pawns in contact that can take each other or pieces in contact, is approaching master level play (I say this being a master myself). The only time you want to release tension is when you get some tangible benefit. The results of releasing tension too soon is usually just slightly worsening your position, but can result in an outright blunder occasionally. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Concerning the Kings Indian you mentioned in the Mar del Plata variation where black plays 7...Nc6, closing the center with 8. d5 is the most &quot;correct&quot; move as you gain a tempo and gain space by releasing the tension. This makes releasing the tension completely worth it. In the Petrosian variation of the Kings Indian by comparison white only gains space by releasing the tension, which while not that bad often leads to equal positions with best play, losing the advantage of the first move. In systems of the Kings Indian where black plays Nbd7, often white is served best by maintaining pawn tension until black plays Re8 or Qe7 to prepare to play exd4 and try to gain piece activity along the e-file, then he can release the tension with d5, gaining space and pointing out black wasted a move to misplace his rook/queen to a file that will never be open. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You could say the philosophical reason to maintain the tension stems from forcing your opponent to develop his pieces and plan his moves in such a way that he has to react to a much larger series of positions and plans from yourself. This helps limit his pieces and keeps them from being placed optimally and efficiently. Whoever released tension first generally is simplifying the game for his opponent and making it easier for him to maximally place his pieces. Hence releasing tension must be justified with some sort of benefit, or because the tension just can't be maintained since the opponent has too much pressure on your position (understanding when this point is reached can be very difficult). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So closing the center itself isn't bad generally, it just depends if it's the right time to release tension or not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9627" LastActivityDate="2016-07-27T15:41:18.210" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15020" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14876" CreationDate="2016-07-27T15:59:43.870" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm a chess coach and a chess master, so I'll tell you what I tell my beginner level students.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What worked best for me to improve my middlegame when i was new to chess was solving puzzles in the book 303 tricky tactics by Fred Wilson and Bruce Albertson to get tactically strong, and to read the book The Amateur's Mind by Jeremy Silman to get positionally strong. Rereading either book more than once will only make you better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If your grandpa is too good you might also need to read Silman's Complete Endgame Course by Jeremy Silman. This will give you a basic understanding of endgame positions that should be enough to play up to the 1700-1800 level in endgames.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for openings it's best to bring your pieces to the center, and try to get all your pieces out before you move any of them more than once. I'd suggest searching the italian opening and the colle system on youtube, and check out some free videos masters have made on them. they are good openings for beginners and get you a reasonable position to try and play from. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Goodluck beating grandpa! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9627" LastActivityDate="2016-07-27T15:59:43.870" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15021" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14705" CreationDate="2016-07-27T20:51:19.517" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Go to &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.apronus.com/chess/wbeditor.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.apronus.com/chess/wbeditor.php&lt;/a&gt; and switch to &quot;position setup&quot;. On the chessboard act out the full game including illegal moves, it doesn't matter to this interface, and click &quot;animated diagram&quot; and then save the gif file as a record of the complete game. It can be converted later to a video file that can be viewed more conveniently than an animated gif.&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/sTAel.gif&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/sTAel.gif&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3456" LastActivityDate="2016-07-27T20:51:19.517" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15022" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14897" CreationDate="2016-07-28T08:11:19.580" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is this what you're after?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/220056672/vintage-plastic-magnetic-chess-set-in?utm_source=google&amp;amp;utm_medium=cpc&amp;amp;utm_campaign=shopping_uk_en_gb_vintage-toy-game-low&amp;amp;utm_custom1=c2997ca4-4f98-4c00-ac37-6b4d0c50e447&amp;amp;gclid=Cj0KEQjw2ua8BRDeusOkl5qth4QBEiQA8BpQcChMV8LxoiyYsGF-VDqNYAEzCAyYKzE47qqJ_COiumUaAjzz8P8HAQ&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess set&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Vintage plastic magnetic chess set in carton box. &#xA;Made in USSR, Latvia. &#xA;Material: Plastic, magnet. &#xA;Circa: 1980s. &#xA;Has vintage condition. One white figurine has a crack, black king missing the top. &#xA;Measurement: the box is 250 x 130 mm (9 7/8&quot; x 5 1/8&quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One problem is the black king in this set is also missing the white top, in which case you would have one incomplete piece. Also, the board has a black edge instead of white, however hopefully that isn't a problem.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/8crOB.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/8crOB.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;The closest match i can find&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10887" LastEditorUserId="10887" LastEditDate="2016-07-28T08:20:03.310" LastActivityDate="2016-07-28T08:20:03.310" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15023" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2016-07-28T12:26:12.330" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2016-07-28T12:26:12.330" LastActivityDate="2016-07-28T12:26:12.330" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15024" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2016-07-28T12:26:12.330" Score="0" Body="Questions concerning cheating in various forms, for example using a chess computer in tournaments or throwing a game." OwnerUserId="10905" LastEditorUserId="10905" LastEditDate="2016-07-28T12:41:42.687" LastActivityDate="2016-07-28T12:41:42.687" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15025" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2016-07-28T12:44:11.057" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2016-07-28T12:44:11.057" LastActivityDate="2016-07-28T12:44:11.057" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15026" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2016-07-28T12:44:11.057" Score="0" Body="Questions about teaching chess, chess strategies etc." OwnerUserId="10905" LastEditorUserId="10905" LastEditDate="2016-07-28T15:10:44.923" LastActivityDate="2016-07-28T15:10:44.923" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15027" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2016-07-28T12:45:15.463" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2016-07-28T12:45:15.463" LastActivityDate="2016-07-28T12:45:15.463" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15028" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2016-07-28T12:45:15.463" Score="0" Body="Questions about titles of players, for example FIDE Grand Master" OwnerUserId="10905" LastEditorUserId="10905" LastEditDate="2016-07-28T13:03:49.583" LastActivityDate="2016-07-28T13:03:49.583" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15029" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2016-07-28T12:47:29.307" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2016-07-28T12:47:29.307" LastActivityDate="2016-07-28T12:47:29.307" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15030" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2016-07-28T12:47:29.307" Score="0" Body="Simultaneous chess is a form of chess where one player (typically of high rank) plays multiple games at the same time against other players." OwnerUserId="10905" LastEditorUserId="10905" LastEditDate="2016-07-28T13:03:25.580" LastActivityDate="2016-07-28T13:03:25.580" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15031" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2016-07-28T13:07:49.027" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a special tag that is designed to be used only by the system for questions that have had all of their other tags removed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All questions in the system must have at least one tag. Normally, it is not possible to submit new or edited questions that do not have tags; the system will reject the submission until a valid tag is applied.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are a few unusual situations that can cause this tag to be applied. When a tag has existed for six months and only been used on one question, and no tag wiki has been created for the tag, the system deletes the tag. When the community decides that a given tag can never be appropriate &amp;#8212; for example, because it is misspelled or is off-topic &amp;#8212; moderators may remove the tag from the site &lt;em&gt;en masse&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When one of these deletions removes the last tag from a question, the system adds the &lt;a href=&quot;/questions/tagged/untagged&quot; class=&quot;post-tag&quot; title=&quot;show questions tagged &amp;#39;untagged&amp;#39;&quot; rel=&quot;tag&quot;&gt;untagged&lt;/a&gt; tag to that question so that the &quot;all questions must have at least one tag&quot; rule is not broken.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can help clean up some of these questions! If they're good questions, edit them to remove the &lt;a href=&quot;/questions/tagged/untagged&quot; class=&quot;post-tag&quot; title=&quot;show questions tagged &amp;#39;untagged&amp;#39;&quot; rel=&quot;tag&quot;&gt;untagged&lt;/a&gt; tag and add more descriptive tags. If they're not so good, use the usual tools: downvoting, flagging and voting to close/delete.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10905" LastEditorUserId="10905" LastEditDate="2016-07-28T13:21:48.397" LastActivityDate="2016-07-28T13:21:48.397" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15032" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2016-07-28T13:07:49.027" Score="0" Body="This is a special tag that is designed to be used only by the system for questions that have had all of their other tags removed. Do not add this tag to existing questions, it is reserved for use by the system to identify posts with no valid tags." OwnerUserId="10905" LastEditorUserId="10905" LastEditDate="2016-07-28T13:21:34.367" LastActivityDate="2016-07-28T13:21:34.367" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15033" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9306" CreationDate="2016-07-28T13:20:11.313" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;On this forum: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessbanter.com/rec-games-chess-computer-computer/17342-chessmaster-online-sound-effects.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.chessbanter.com/rec-games-chess-computer-computer/17342-chessmaster-online-sound-effects.html&lt;/a&gt;, one member says the same sound effects were used throughout the desktop applications (up through CM9000).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it possible a version of Chessmaster--like 6000--would contain those sound effects?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10687" LastActivityDate="2016-07-28T13:20:11.313" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15034" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15014" CreationDate="2016-07-28T13:54:14.123" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Holy Grail of chess match footage! This question has been asked before on Reddit, on Chess.com and probably on many other websites and no one has come up with an answer. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are many sources that claim that Chester Fox, an american businessman, had procured the filming rights for the match. According to an &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mark-weeks.com/chess/72fs$$.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;unsigned article on mark-weeks.com&lt;/a&gt;, &quot;Fox sold the rights to the American television company ABC for 100.000 US$&quot;, apparently after the eighth game.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another source of footage is Shelby Lyman's series of television programmes for PBS (Public Broadcasting Service). See, for example, &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.chessbase.com/post/the-man-behind-the-fischer-spaky-show&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;The man behind the Fischer-Spassky show&lt;/a&gt; by Rudy Chelminski (Chessbase.com, 2003). It is not clear to me where he got his images (unless the programmes didn't use any footage that was shot during the games). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/extra/spasskyfischer.html#Section_5:_Television&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;article by Edward Winter&lt;/a&gt; about the match also contains a pointer to some coverage in the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.aparchive.com/search?query=Iceland%20chess&amp;amp;startd=1%2F1%2F1900&amp;amp;endd=1%2F1%2F1990&amp;amp;orderBy=Oldestfirst&amp;amp;from=1&amp;amp;allFilters=True%3AIsDigitized%2C01%2F01%2F1900-01%2F01%2F1990%3ADate&amp;amp;g2ItemId=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;archives of AP (Associated Press)&lt;/a&gt;, but these are mostly short news items and some footage from outside the playing hall. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So my best guess is that the footage is in the vaults of ABC and PBS. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10867" LastActivityDate="2016-07-28T13:54:14.123" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15035" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2920" CreationDate="2016-07-28T15:24:22.507" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are good books where the annotations are done by strong players, but if you want books annotated by the people who played the games there are few.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I like the second Santa Monica Piatigorsky Cup tournament book with greats like Spassky, Larsen, Najdorf and others, and the Church's Fried Chicken Dallas, Texas 1970s tournament with players like Larsen, Petrosian, Browne and other greats.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want something in-depth, check out the Kasparov series on his own games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10591" LastActivityDate="2016-07-28T15:24:22.507" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15036" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9822" CreationDate="2016-07-28T17:09:13.753" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The tactics training websote &lt;a href=&quot;http://ChessTempo.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://ChessTempo.com&lt;/a&gt; uses the spaced repetition algorithm developed by the company SuperMemo to organize a review routine for tactical problems. I wrote an introduction to this kind of tactics training at&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.apronus.com/chess/trainingtactics.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.apronus.com/chess/trainingtactics.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3456" LastActivityDate="2016-07-28T17:09:13.753" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15037" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15039" CreationDate="2016-07-28T18:08:37.933" Score="1" ViewCount="2588" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to host my own chess server (just in my home network, nothing public) to play chess with some friends.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I did some research on it and found out that the protocol used to realize a chess server is called - like the server - ICS.&#xA;The results I've found were very vague, most of them point to the existing big hosters like freechess.org, chess.com etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there any tools to host an own chess server?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10905" LastEditorUserId="10905" LastEditDate="2016-07-28T18:19:09.667" LastActivityDate="2016-07-29T04:13:07.150" Title="How to host an own chess ICS server?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15038" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14017" CreationDate="2016-07-28T18:22:45.260" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Over the years, this question has been asked several times on other forums, but I am not aware of a purely native solution. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to this &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/fritz-training-videos-under-linux&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;discussion on chess.com from 2013&lt;/a&gt;, some people have tried &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.winehq.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Wine&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt;, which is &quot;a compatibility layer capable of running Windows applications on several POSIX-compliant operating systems, such as Linux, Mac OSX, &amp;amp; BSD&quot; (quoted from the Wine website). People have reported varying levels of success, depending on the version of Wine and the distro they were using.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In an &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/forum/view/chess-equipment/chessbase-on-linux&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;older discussion (started in 2009)&lt;/a&gt;, someone suggested using &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.virtualbox.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;VirtualBox&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt; and installing Windows in it. Unlike Wine, this requires Windows installation media and a Windows licence. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Update&lt;/strong&gt;: &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wine_(software)#Proton&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Proton&lt;/a&gt;, released by Valve (the developers of Steam) in August 2018, should enable Linux users to run Windows games directly through Steam for Linux. &lt;a href=&quot;https://store.steampowered.com/app/276750/Fritz_Chess_14/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Fritz XIV for Steam&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://store.steampowered.com/app/427480/FritzChess_15/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FritzChess 15 for Steam&lt;/a&gt; have been available since September 2014 and February 2016, respectively. I don't know whether this also solves the issue of using the Fritztrainer DVDs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10867" LastEditorUserId="10867" LastEditDate="2018-11-14T20:13:58.930" LastActivityDate="2018-11-14T20:13:58.930" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="15039" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15037" CreationDate="2016-07-28T18:45:43.587" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can setup lichess locally with this guide: &lt;a href=&quot;http://github.com/ornicar/lila/wiki/Lichess-Development-Onboarding&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;github.com/ornicar/lila/wiki/Lichess-Development-Onboarding&lt;/a&gt;. The creator of lichess said this should work over irc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7236" LastEditorUserId="7236" LastEditDate="2016-07-29T04:13:07.150" LastActivityDate="2016-07-29T04:13:07.150" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15042" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5199" CreationDate="2016-07-29T17:58:18.663" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;To the extent that &quot;chess-related math&quot; requires any expertise in chess beyond the rules(*), tournament play is probably not as useful as solving and composing chess problems/studies.  Typical positions in tournament play are too complicated to evaluate with mathematical certainty, while problems and studies should and usually do have rigorous proofs of correctness that are comprehensible to human players and problemists.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(*) Sometimes one needs no expertise beyond (say) how the Knight moves (as for questions involving the Knight's tour, or dominating the 8-by-8 board with a minimal number of Knights).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8860" LastActivityDate="2016-07-29T17:58:18.663" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15043" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15045" CreationDate="2016-07-30T03:31:22.000" Score="4" ViewCount="1304" Body="&lt;p&gt;OK I have read a lot of things on the web most of them using Java that doesn't have unsigned int. I am working on Objective-C that has unsigned int.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lets consider the following scenario.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The board is like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/wvDkn.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/wvDkn.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;A1&lt;/code&gt; is on the lower left and is the least significant bit and &lt;code&gt;H8&lt;/code&gt; is on the top right and is the most significant bit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have constructed the bitmasks for the movements of all pieces for all positions on the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Suppose the following simple situation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the game will start. All pieces are on their initial positions.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the user tries to move the knight on &lt;code&gt;G1&lt;/code&gt; to &lt;code&gt;E2&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Obviously this movement is impossible because there is a pawn on &lt;code&gt;E2&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How do I discover if a movement is valid?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ok I have the bitmask of all pieces that is this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;1111111111111111000000000000000000000000000000001111111111111111&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and I have the bitmask of the possible movements for the knight at &lt;code&gt;G1&lt;/code&gt; that is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;00000000&#xA;00000000&#xA;00000000&#xA;00000000&#xA;00000000&#xA;00000X0X&#xA;0000X000&#xA;00000000&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or in bits&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;0000000000001000000001010000000000000000000000000000000000000000&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;if I &lt;code&gt;AND&lt;/code&gt; these two&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;1111111111111111000000000000000000000000000000001111111111111111&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;0000000000001000000001010000000000000000000000000000000000000000&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I get&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;0000000000001000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;all I know is that there is a piece at that point but I am not seeing how this tells me if that is a valid move or not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another question is this: suppose this move would let my king under attack. Obviously the move would be technically possible under the knight rules of movement but impossible because I cannot do a move that puts my king under attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How do I get these informations? Thanks&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10914" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2016-07-30T05:22:29.270" LastActivityDate="2016-07-30T13:54:25.563" Title="Building a chess using magic bitboard... how do I know if the movement is valid" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;attack&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15044" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15043" CreationDate="2016-07-30T03:58:37.973" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Make a bitboard of all the white pieces.  If the AND of the possible knight move and the white pieces is TRUE, then the move is illegal--attempting to capture your own piece.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The simplest way is to make the move and check if the King is in check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The method I use is a little more complicated.  First I check is the King is in check now.  If the King is in check, I can delete all non-king moves which do not finish on the line the check is coming from.  If the King is not in check, I only have to check the line if the piece moves from the line.  The code seems harder to write, but the validating routine runs less lines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To explain the latter case better.  If the King on f1 is not in check, and I move the Knight on f3, I only have to examine if a check was masked by this Knight.  If a Bishop moved from d3, I only have to examine if the opponent's Bishop or Queen is checking from c4, b5 or a6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9684" LastActivityDate="2016-07-30T03:58:37.973" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15045" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15043" CreationDate="2016-07-30T05:14:29.603" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let me answer your questions for @MikeJones:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;You will need to store the generated moves in a bitboard. The following code example should work:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;unsigned int moves = .... // This gives a bitboard of where your knight can move&#xA;unsigned int whitePieces = .... // This gives a bitboard of where your white pieces are&#xA;&#xA;if (moves &amp; whitePieces) {&#xA;    // If your code reaches here, one of your moves is invalid because we can't capture our own piece&#xA;} else {&#xA;    // If your code reaches here, your moves are pseudo-legal&#xA;}&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that I say &lt;code&gt;pseudo-legal&lt;/code&gt;, because it's only legal if the move itself doesn't expose your own king. You'll need some logic to check it and this brings us to the second point.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Mike's solution for checking king attacks will work but it's slow. You should do what Stockfish is doing (I don't see a better and faster way). In &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/blob/master/src/position.cpp&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;position.cpp&lt;/a&gt;, Stockfish does this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If the moving piece is the king, then the move is only legal if the destination is not under attacked by the opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;if (type_of(piece_on(from)) == KING)&#xA;    return type_of(m) == CASTLING || !(attackers_to(to_sq(m)) &amp; pieces(~us));&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This can be easily implemented by AND, because you will always need to keep a bitboard for white pieces and black pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If the moving piece is not the king, the move is only legal if it's not pinned or it's moving along the ray towards or away from the king:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;return !(pinned &amp; from)&#xA;    ||  aligned(from, to_sq(m), square(us));&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can construct a pinned bitboard by going through all the pieces, and ask which of them is blocking the enemy attack to the king. Something like this will work:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;unsigned int enemyAttacks = ... // Bitboard of where the enemy pieces can attack the king&#xA;unsigned int myPieces = .... // Bitboard of where my pieces and pawns are&#xA;&#xA;if (enemyAttacks &amp; myPieces) {&#xA;    // One of our pieces is blocking the attack&#xA;}&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="8235" LastEditDate="2016-07-30T13:54:25.563" LastActivityDate="2016-07-30T13:54:25.563" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15047" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14524" CreationDate="2016-07-30T05:53:27.230" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;That's either a bug or some non standard chess variant&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10810" LastActivityDate="2016-07-30T05:53:27.230" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15048" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-07-30T17:11:55.890" Score="4" ViewCount="152" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm planning to create a bunch of printed exercises for kids of different levels. I am still searching online for ideas and software suggestion. I wonder how other coaches here have solved this problem. Which software did you use to make pages and pages of chess diagrams, say with little boxes below it for kids to enter the answer? Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ps: I have ChessBase. Researching about Latex, found something called Sribus (Although I'm yet to fully understand what it does). oh, and I don't code.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5653" LastEditorUserId="5653" LastEditDate="2016-08-01T06:26:03.443" LastActivityDate="2016-08-31T07:24:23.393" Title="Software suggestions to make printed chess exercises for kids" Tags="&lt;coach&gt;&lt;diagram&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15050" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-07-30T20:20:30.730" Score="6" ViewCount="1285" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm a ~2100 Elo rated player at the moment, and lately I've been wondering about the best general way of learning openings, and eventually mastering them in some sense. Note that this question is not in the same spirit as the question &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/2641/whats-a-good-way-to-learn-opening-theory&quot;&gt;What's a good way to learn opening theory?&lt;/a&gt;, already answered earlier.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is a general question about methods, in a few parts:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;What are some good methods to pick up an opening you've never played before? Are there any differences in approach if the opening is somewhat familiar, or completely new (think going from the French to the e6 Sicilian as Black vs. going from the French to the Pirc as Black)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If you've played an opening for a while, and you're not getting good results with the opening, how can you determine if the poor results depend on you not knowing enough theory/ideas or if it's more fundamental, like the opening not suiting your style?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;How do you determine if an opening book/DVD/[Whatever thing that costs money] will help your understanding of an opening before buying it? It's not very fun to buy something that won't be very useful in the long run.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Is it even necessary to get books on openings to learn them? How much more difficult is it really to learn openings without books, and what are necessary things to consider if you're trying to learn an opening by studying games in a big database? How much does this depend on player level?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;How much time is it reasonable to assume that it takes to master an opening on average? How much does this depend on the type of opening? Take, for example, the London system as White vs. the King's Indian Defence as Black, where the first is a &amp;quot;system opening&amp;quot; that's not very sharp, and the latter is incredibly sharp and complicated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't think that this is the type of question that can have only one good answer, and I would hope to see different people mentioning their methods of choice for learning openings. It's not easy to learn to play an opening well, if you don't know what's necessary to learn. I mean, otherwise every grandmaster would be as good on the Black side of the Najdorf Sicilian as MVL.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8300" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2019-12-02T02:14:04.490" Title="How to learn an opening" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15051" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15050" CreationDate="2016-07-30T23:35:48.747" Score="5" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Try to understand the key idea behind the opening, and try to relate each of the main moves to it. If you can't do this, you don't understand the opening.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;First test the new opening by playing it against players weaker than you (in your case, &amp;lt;2000). If you are getting bad results, it means that the opening doesn't suit your style. Then test the new opening against players stronger than you (&gt;2200). If you are winning more games that usual, the opening is &quot;value added;&quot; otherwise it's &quot;back to the drawing board.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If I buy a book or DVD, it's because something I've seen makes a &quot;lightbulb&quot; go off in my head. If I don't have this &quot;aha&quot; moment, I don't buy the item.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The greater your strength, the less benefit you will receive from books, and the more benefit from your own study. If you are the &quot;smartest kid in class,&quot; you won't benefit much from reading others' papers.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Depending on the opening, mastery could take from a few months to years. Some GMs spend a lifetime trying to understand one opening.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2016-07-30T23:35:48.747" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15052" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-07-31T01:59:41.807" Score="3" ViewCount="646" Body="&lt;p&gt;I saw the notations of the match in chessbase, and I couldn't understand why Boris resigned. Anand was no where close to checkmate. I don't see why he didn't just trade his queen for a bishop and continue and maybe force a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More importantly, resigning gives away the advantage he got by winning the previous match. Can someone explain what Anand should have done to checkmate Gelfand from the final position ? I can't see it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10737" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2016-07-31T16:26:19.253" LastActivityDate="2016-09-24T21:39:49.253" Title="Why did Gelfand resign against Anand in the shortest match in WCC?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;psychology&gt;&lt;world-championship&gt;&lt;anand&gt;&lt;gelfand&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15053" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14962" CreationDate="2016-07-31T02:46:08.887" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In addition to the software listed, I would add the web site &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.chessgames.com/&lt;/a&gt; -- It has a setup that lends itself quite well to teaching you the things you'd learn from software:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Game collections with a game viewer.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Ability to comment on and read others' comments on games.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A &quot;guess the move&quot; page to train on selecting the next move in some great historical chess games.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;FULL DISCLOSURE - the site is &quot;freemium&quot; so although many features are free, you can if you choose sign up for their paid membership. I paid for it, but whether you do is up to you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Good luck.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3968" LastActivityDate="2016-07-31T02:46:08.887" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15055" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-07-31T09:42:22.377" Score="1" ViewCount="233" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there a UCI command to output only selected info? For example if my input is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;setoption name MultiPV value 3 go depth 8&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I get info for every depth itineration in the search:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;info depth 1 seldepth 1 multipv 1 score cp 74 nodes 63 nps 31500 tbhits 0 time 2 pv e2e4&#xA;info depth 1 seldepth 1 multipv 2 score cp 70 nodes 63 nps 31500 tbhits 0 time 2 pv d2d4&#xA;info depth 1 seldepth 1 multipv 3 score cp 68 nodes 63 nps 31500 tbhits 0 time 2 pv e2e3&#xA;info depth 2 seldepth 2 multipv 1 score cp 79 nodes 158 nps 52666 tbhits 0 time 3 pv e2e4 b7b6&#xA;info depth 2 seldepth 2 multipv 2 score cp 73 nodes 158 nps 52666 tbhits 0 time 3 pv e2e3 b7b6&#xA;info depth 2 seldepth 2 multipv 3 score cp 63 nodes 158 nps 52666 tbhits 0 time 3 pv d2d4 b7b6&#xA;info depth 3 seldepth 3 multipv 1 score cp 94 nodes 294 nps 98000 tbhits 0 time 3 pv e2e4 d7d6 d2d4&#xA;info depth 3 seldepth 3 multipv 2 score cp 94 nodes 294 nps 98000 tbhits 0 time 3 pv d2d4 d7d6 e2e4&#xA;info depth 3 seldepth 3 multipv 3 score cp 53 nodes 294 nps 98000 tbhits 0 time 3 pv e2e3 d7d6 d2d4&#xA;info depth 4 seldepth 4 multipv 1 score cp 92 nodes 642 nps 160500 tbhits 0 time 4 pv e2e4 e7e6 d2d4 b7b6&#xA;info depth 4 seldepth 4 multipv 2 score cp 89 nodes 642 nps 160500 tbhits 0 time 4 pv d2d4 e7e6 e2e4 d7d6&#xA;info depth 4 seldepth 4 multipv 3 score cp 7 nodes 642 nps 160500 tbhits 0 time 4 pv e2e3 d7d5 d2d4 e7e6&#xA;info depth 5 seldepth 5 multipv 1 score cp 50 nodes 2484 nps 310500 tbhits 0 time 8 pv b1c3 f7f5 d2d4 e7e6 d4d5&#xA;info depth 5 seldepth 5 multipv 2 score cp 28 nodes 2484 nps 310500 tbhits 0 time 8 pv e2e3 d7d5 d2d4 g8f6 b1c3&#xA;info depth 5 seldepth 5 multipv 3 score cp 22 nodes 2484 nps 310500 tbhits 0 time 8 pv e2e4 e7e6 d1e2 d7d5 d2d4&#xA;info depth 6 seldepth 6 multipv 1 score cp 13 nodes 4812 nps 401000 tbhits 0 time 12 pv e2e4 d7d5 d1e2 e7e6 d2d4 g8f6&#xA;info depth 6 seldepth 6 multipv 2 score cp 0 nodes 4812 nps 401000 tbhits 0 time 12 pv b1c3 d7d5 d2d4 g8f6 e2e3 e7e6&#xA;info depth 6 seldepth 6 multipv 3 score cp 0 nodes 4812 nps 401000 tbhits 0 time 12 pv e2e3 d7d5 d2d4 g8f6 b1c3 e7e6&#xA;info depth 7 seldepth 7 multipv 1 score cp 22 nodes 7301 nps 429470 tbhits 0 time 17 pv e2e4 d7d5 d1e2 e7e6 d2d4 d5e4 e2e4&#xA;info depth 7 seldepth 7 multipv 2 score cp 8 nodes 7301 nps 429470 tbhits 0 time 17 pv d2d4 d7d5 d1d3 g8f6 b1c3 e7e6 e2e4 f6e4 c3e4 d5e4 d3e4&#xA;info depth 7 seldepth 7 multipv 3 score cp 8 nodes 7301 nps 429470 tbhits 0 time 17 pv b1c3 d7d5 d2d4 g8f6 d1d3 e7e6 e2e4&#xA;info depth 8 seldepth 8 multipv 1 score cp 31 nodes 13100 nps 485185 tbhits 0 time 27 pv e2e4 d7d5 e4d5 d8d5 b1c3 d5a5 d1e2 e7e6&#xA;info depth 8 seldepth 8 multipv 2 score cp 4 nodes 13100 nps 485185 tbhits 0 time 27 pv b1c3 d7d5 e2e4 d5d4 c3b5 e7e6 e4e5 b7b6&#xA;info depth 8 seldepth 8 multipv 3 score cp -11 nodes 13100 nps 485185 tbhits 0 time 27 pv d2d3 d7d5 e2e4 b8c6 e4d5 d8d5 b1c3 d5a5&#xA;bestmove e2e4 ponder d7d5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Instead the output I want is only the last depth reached:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;info depth 8 seldepth 8 multipv 1 score cp 31 nodes 13100 nps 485185 tbhits 0 time 27 pv e2e4 d7d5 e4d5 d8d5 b1c3 d5a5 d1e2 e7e6&#xA;info depth 8 seldepth 8 multipv 2 score cp 4 nodes 13100 nps 485185 tbhits 0 time 27 pv b1c3 d7d5 e2e4 d5d4 c3b5 e7e6 e4e5 b7b6&#xA;info depth 8 seldepth 8 multipv 3 score cp -11 nodes 13100 nps 485185 tbhits 0 time 27 pv d2d3 d7d5 e2e4 b8c6 e4d5 d8d5 b1c3 d5a5&#xA;bestmove e2e4 ponder d7d5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any ideas on how to do this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10926" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-07-31T09:54:33.653" LastActivityDate="2016-08-30T13:22:04.560" Title="How I tell the UCI engine to show less info during search?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;uci&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15056" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15055" CreationDate="2016-07-31T12:57:42.607" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think it's possible unless you recompile the source code. It's very easy to do it at the source code; you'll just need to add an if-statement just before the PV is printed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Otherwise, you can pipe the outputs to a text file and do a grep like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;grep 'depth 8' output.txt&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2016-07-31T12:57:42.607" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15057" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15052" CreationDate="2016-07-31T13:02:27.830" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1666558&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1666558&lt;/a&gt; the shortest game is World Championship history.  It's not so much the material difference, after Bd3 Qxb1+ two Rooks is not enough for the Queen and the Bishop, but the weakness around the Black King will cause Gelfand to lose anyway.  After h6 and Ne4, d6 will fall and mate is always possible on g7.  A thorough annotation is at &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ajschess.com/lifemasteraj/FIDE_World-Champ-2012_game-eight.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.ajschess.com/lifemasteraj/FIDE_World-Champ-2012_game-eight.html&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.f3 c5 4.d5 d6 5.e4 Bg7 6.Ne2 O-O 7.Nec3 Nh5&#xA;8.Bg5 Bf6 9.Bxf6 exf6 10.Qd2 f5 11.exf5 Bxf5 12.g4 Re8+ 13.Kd1&#xA;Bxb1 14.Rxb1 Qf6 15.gxh5 Qxf3+ 16.Kc2 Qxh1 17.Qf2 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9684" LastActivityDate="2016-07-31T13:02:27.830" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15059" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13944" CreationDate="2016-07-31T16:15:32.480" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your algorithm seems very wrong to me for SEE. It appears much closer to Quiescence Search instead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;SEE is an unary tree. After finding a legal move, the SEE function returns. It doesn't need to check all possible moves for the best one; just one.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You sort your moves in MVV/LVA order. Your ordering should just be on the least valuable attacking piece.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You search all possible moves. SEE only searches captures on a square.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To answer your question of:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;what to return &quot;in check&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;SEE doesn't actually care about check. If you capture with your king and the opponent can capture with anything, then the value of the king should be large enough that &lt;code&gt;Math.max(0, evalPiece(foo.captured) - _see(sq, tfen, depth + 1, maxDepth, -color, chess))&lt;/code&gt; has a greater score for not capturing with your king than capturing the king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1508" LastActivityDate="2016-07-31T16:15:32.480" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15060" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15113" CreationDate="2016-07-31T17:18:53.740" Score="5" ViewCount="1438" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some of the other questions on SE discuss the use of spaced repetition systems such as Anki and Mnemosyne to learn tactics, openings and other aspects of chess (see especially &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/8100/effectiveness-of-a-spaced-repetition-system-srs-for-memorizing-tactical-patter&quot;&gt;Effectiveness of a spaced repetition system (SRS) for memorizing tactical patterns for long-term skill gain?&lt;/a&gt;). &#xA;(I am also aware that memorisation should never be done at the cost of understanding (see &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/5280/understanding-vs-memorization/5286#5286&quot;&gt;Understanding vs. Memorization&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question, however, is about older memorisation techniques that don't rely on current SRS software. So far, I have found only one example of spaced repetition that does not rely on a computer. It comes from Hans Bouwmeester's book &lt;em&gt;Schaken als vak: brug naar het professionele schaak&lt;/em&gt; (1976; English: &lt;em&gt;Chess as a profession: bridge towards professional chess&lt;/em&gt;). (Bouwmeester coached people like &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Timman&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jan Timman&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gert_Ligterink&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Gert Ligterink&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_van_der_Sterren&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Paul van der Sterren&lt;/a&gt;.) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At the end of a chapter about building up a card index or filing system for opening theory, he briefly describes a method for memorising opening variations (pp. 96-97). Assuming that you can subdivide your opening repertoire into 16 groups, you can review it in the following way (with 1.5 to 2 hours of study per day): &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Day  1:     1&#xA;Day  2:     2   1&#xA;Day  3:     3   2&#xA;Day  4:     4   3   1&#xA;Day  5:     5   4   2&#xA;Day  6:     6   5   3&#xA;Day  7:     7   6   4&#xA;Day  8:     8   7   5   1&#xA;Day  9:     9   8   6   2&#xA;Day 10:     10  9   7   3&#xA;Day 11:     11  10  8   4&#xA;Day 12:     12  11  9   5&#xA;Day 13:     13  12  10  6&#xA;Day 14:     14  13  11  7&#xA;Day 15:     15  14  12  8&#xA;Day 16:     16  15  13  9   1&#xA;Day 17:     1   16  14  10  2&#xA;Day 18:     2   1   15  11  3&#xA;Day 19:     3   2   16  12  4&#xA;Day 20:     4   3   1   13  5&#xA;Day 21:     5   4   2   14  6&#xA;Day 22:     6   5   3   15  7&#xA;Day 23:     7   6   4   16  8&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, every day, you take a &quot;new&quot; group, you review the group from the day before, the group from 3 days earlier, the group from 1 week earlier and the group that was new 15 days earlier. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bouwmeester implies that there are other methods, but he does not mention any. Is anybody aware of other methods (possibly from other chess books)? Have Dvoretsky, Jusupov or Aagaard written anything about this in their books?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10867" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2016-10-01T19:15:16.487" Title="Chess study methods / memorisation techniques from before the computer-based SRS era" Tags="&lt;history&gt;&lt;training&gt;&lt;memorization&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15063" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8856" CreationDate="2016-08-01T03:09:16.743" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;In fact, Larry Kaufman (Komodo) did computer testing on this with Komodo, and found that White has about 50% winning chances when Black starts with no castling privileges. So it's a toss-up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://talkchess.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=650339#650339&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://talkchess.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=650339#650339&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Here is a perfect example: In the initial position, forbid Black from&#xA;  castling. Komodo gives that position a score that is around where I&#xA;  think the dividing line between win and draw lies. I had Komodo 9.3&#xA;  play it out on four threads (to insure variety due to MP&#xA;  unpredictability) a hundred times at game in one minute. getting 49&#xA;  White wins, 46 draws, 5 Black wins. Then at two minutes plus one&#xA;  second, a similar result: 49 White wins, 49 draws, 2 Black wins. So&#xA;  just forbidding castling for Black appears to put the game right on&#xA;  the win/draw line. Of course results could be different at TCEC time&#xA;  controls on many cores, but it's not obvious whether the White win&#xA;  percentage would go up or down.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There have been some who have dubbed this &quot;Kaufman chess&quot;, and suggested it as a sort of long-time control Armageddon method (rather than two rapid games, then two faster games, then two blitz games, and finally a blitz Armageddon, as in the FIDE World Cup).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9419" LastActivityDate="2016-08-01T03:09:16.743" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15064" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15048" CreationDate="2016-08-01T06:27:20.447" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Possible ideas I found when I asked the question on &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/4vcwwz/print_chess_exercises_for_students_ideas/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Reddit r/chess&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Chessbase + Wordprocessing tool &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Lichess + Evernote clipper (or snagit, etc) + Word (Add +blog if you want the answers to be public)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other useful links that were suggested as comments&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.apronus.com/chess/wbeditor.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Apronus Pgn viewer/editer&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.enpassant.dk/chess/diaeng.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Free chess diagrams list&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5653" LastActivityDate="2016-08-01T06:27:20.447" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15065" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15009" CreationDate="2016-08-01T11:27:10.613" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Anand seems to play a lot more than Kramnik, and five years age difference in the 40s is a considerable difference. I don't think Harikrishna will be top 5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10934" LastActivityDate="2016-08-01T11:27:10.613" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15066" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15009" CreationDate="2016-08-01T12:41:35.337" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://2700chess.com/charts/kramnik,anand?date-from=2010-03-01&amp;amp;date-to=2016-08-01&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;The difference between Kramnik's and Anand's ratings is basically just noise.&lt;/a&gt; They have been trading places on the rating list for over 20 years. Less than a year ago (September 2015), Anand's rating was higher than Kramnik's by the same amount that Kramnik's is currently higher than Anand's.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2016-08-01T12:41:35.337" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15069" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15050" CreationDate="2016-08-01T14:39:02.820" Score="1" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;After you've learned all the theory, try to understand all the concepts and ideas of each of the moves in the opening, go through many games in that opening between strong players, and play MANY games vs human/computer in that opening and use an engine to find your mistakes.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If you fully understand the ideas behind the opening, you should be able to find out what type of style the opening is, and by playing many games, you should be able to find out your own style. To find out what caused your poor results get an engine and see where you went wrong! Also check through the theory of the opening again/go through similar strong games to see if you went wrong in the theory.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Before you buy a book/DVD, you normally get to preview the product, (e.g. reading the book, watching the provided first part of the series etc.) If this preview makes you feel, &quot;hmm... This seems like it could potentially increase my knowledge of the opening!&quot; then buy it! Also take in to consideration the author of the product.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Books are just one of the many ways for you to Lear openings, (e.g. DVD, books, coach etc.) and I think these are all valid ways for you to learn an opening. However, unless your a gm I don't think just looking through games in a database is sufficient to learning the opening since it doesn't provide you with the ideas behind the opening like the other options, just plain moves. Sure, looking through games is a useful tool to learning openings but you can't solely rely on it.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;How long it takes depends on how complicated the opening is as you mentioned, your personal situation, and what you define as mastery. I think different openings do take different amounts of time to master, but generally it should take you at least a couple of months to master. Not learn, but master!&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10935" LastActivityDate="2016-08-01T14:39:02.820" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15070" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-08-01T17:47:48.043" Score="2" ViewCount="2449" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have read a lot of stuff about magic bitboard but some stuff is not clear. A lot of authors say to create the move masks for the piece avoiding the border positions. So, for a bishop at &lt;code&gt;D3&lt;/code&gt; the move mask would be this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;00000000&#xA;00000000&#xA;00000010&#xA;01000100&#xA;00101000&#xA;00000000&#xA;00101000&#xA;00000000&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;instead of this&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;00000000&#xA;00000001&#xA;00000010&#xA;01000100&#xA;00101000&#xA;00000000&#xA;00101000&#xA;01000100&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They say this is good for convenience. I don't see how, but anyway, lets bear with this idea.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The problem is that, if we will avoid the border are, how will the move map for a hook at &lt;code&gt;A1&lt;/code&gt; be? All zeros? The hook at &lt;code&gt;A1&lt;/code&gt; will be like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;10000000&#xA;10000000&#xA;10000000&#xA;10000000&#xA;10000000&#xA;10000000&#xA;10000000&#xA;11111111&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but if we cannot have the numbers at the border it will be all zeros.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there another reason for that &quot;avoid the border&quot; rule? Is that OK if I forget that rule and make it to the border?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10914" LastActivityDate="2017-12-17T22:31:12.623" Title="Understanding magic bitboard" Tags="&lt;software&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15071" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-08-01T17:50:33.400" Score="4" ViewCount="2484" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been playing on chess.com standard time (not blitz) for a while with a rating of around 1670, but my FIDE rating is still around 1600, still growing. Is there an actual conversion available for these ratings?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10935" LastEditorUserId="10935" LastEditDate="2016-08-02T09:14:43.403" LastActivityDate="2016-08-02T19:20:59.143" Title="Chess.com rating vs FIDE rating" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;fide&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2016-08-02T11:54:28.260" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15072" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15071" CreationDate="2016-08-01T17:55:02.923" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I play blitz there every day for many hours. My rating periodically oscillates between 1850 and 2050, which is a span of 200 points. This has little to do with my varying strength because it depends mostly on which opponents I happen to run into. This phenomenon puts a certain constraint on your idea of a conversion table.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I added two more comments to this answer. See below.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3456" LastEditorUserId="3456" LastEditDate="2016-08-02T19:20:59.143" LastActivityDate="2016-08-02T19:20:59.143" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15073" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15070" CreationDate="2016-08-01T19:23:38.357" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's not about avoiding the border. It's about avoiding the last bit of the ray.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Given this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;10000000&#xA;10000000&#xA;10000000&#xA;10000000&#xA;10000000&#xA;10000000&#xA;10000000&#xA;01111111&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Note that A1 should be zero as the rook is unimportant)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You will note that along the first rank, if there is no piece on G1, then a rook can attack H1, regardless of what is on that square. This also applies along the A-file, where if there is no piece on A7, then A8 can always be attacked.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because of this, we mask out the last bit of the ray, as we do not need to know what's at the end of the ray, producing this mask:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;00000000&#xA;10000000&#xA;10000000&#xA;10000000&#xA;10000000&#xA;10000000&#xA;10000000&#xA;01111110&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This produces a significant table reduction, as you need only 12 bits of occupancy to index the table, not 14.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1508" LastActivityDate="2016-08-01T19:23:38.357" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15074" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14998" CreationDate="2016-08-01T21:48:16.493" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm unable to comment as I don't have &quot;50 reputation&quot;, but I was wondering if one could use the 7 tablebase as part of the answer for an 8 tablebase.  Did they do that for the 7 tablebase?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That is, when determining the solution for 8 pieces, stop if you get to 7 pieces and just refer to the 7 tablebase.  Granted, even with that it would be huge because there would still be a lot of combinations &lt;strong&gt;before&lt;/strong&gt; getting to 7 pieces, but less than it would if you wanted to figure it out without referencing the 7 tablebase?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the solution used a method of going in the other direction, then maybe it doesn't help?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10948" LastActivityDate="2016-08-01T21:48:16.493" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15075" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15071" CreationDate="2016-08-01T22:48:27.287" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There isn't, but I believe the general consensus on this question on chess.com's forums is that your actual ELO/FIDE rating should be lower than your chess.com rating after you get a decent amount of games on both.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not really sure how much lower it should be though. Perhaps the forums on Chess.com hold the answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10950" LastActivityDate="2016-08-01T22:48:27.287" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15076" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15077" CreationDate="2016-08-02T15:32:10.523" Score="0" ViewCount="528" Body="&lt;p&gt;In chess, attacking the centre and using major pieces to support minor pieces to support pawns are common tactics. In three-player chess the game is more complex.&#xA;Should I be taking the centre, knowing I will be attacked from both sides, or should I try to flank opponents? If two players team up against one for a couple turns, how can I prevent my teammate from launching a surprise attack against me? There is little research into the mechanics of three-player chess and I find it very interesting.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/k9z1z.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/k9z1z.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;three-player chess board&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10887" LastEditorUserId="10887" LastEditDate="2016-08-03T08:12:53.433" LastActivityDate="2016-08-03T08:12:53.433" Title="Does three-player chess have any special tactics I should know about?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;chess-variants&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15077" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15076" CreationDate="2016-08-02T16:33:59.690" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, since an exchange between A and B is in the sole benefit of player C, your primary objective should be: avoid exchanges. How do you avoid exchanges in a normal chess game? Play an opening with a closed center (e.g. King's Indian, Ruy Lopez), or choose a modest setup (like the Hedgehog system). The less you're exposed, the better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2016-08-02T16:33:59.690" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15078" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="758" CreationDate="2016-08-02T18:09:40.670" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Nimzo-Indian Defense hands down. Black scores well, it's aggressive in nature and gives you targets as Black to attack. I would not touch the Dutch, Benoni, King's Indian or the Slav with a 10-foot pole. Slow grinding games is not what you want.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Go All in with the Nimzo!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10233" LastActivityDate="2016-08-02T18:09:40.670" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15080" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2364" CreationDate="2016-08-03T05:21:00.900" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;One of the better books on &quot;judging&quot; a sacrifice is &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/0486284492&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;&quot;The Art of Sacrifice&quot;&lt;/a&gt; by Rudolph Spielmann, even though it is a bit dated (1935).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In a &quot;non-gain&quot; sacrifice, one doesn't really think of compensation. Instead, the mentality is, &quot;can I get a winning attack?&quot; Normally, the sacrifice is large enough so that if you don't win by attack, you will lose the game on material. So most sacrifices involve either an immediate &quot;mating attack,&quot; or at least a &quot;king hunt,&quot; whereby the king is forced into the center of the board. In one notable game (against Rubenstein), Spielmann sacrificed a whole rook for a king hunt, and won with a mating attack of queen and rook against queen and two rooks, because the enemy king was totally exposed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other sacrifices can occur when your opponent has most of his pieces on say, the queen side, and you outnumber in the vicinity of his king say, five pieces to two. In that case, the priority is to remove the two pieces so that the remaining three can administer checkmate. In that case, it might be worth sacrificing a rook, or even a queen for a key defending knight; after that loss, the opposing king is helpless against your remaining pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An exception to the rule about compensation occurred after a &quot;classic&quot; sacrifice of a bishop for the h pawn. Spielmann also captured the g pawn, and eventually the f pawn fell, so he had three pawns for the piece, enough &quot;compensation.&quot; Eventually the Black king was driven to the queen side, where it was in the way of his other pieces, and Spielmann could win by queening his &quot;passed&quot; h pawn; with the &quot;crowding&quot; of Black's pieces on the opposite side more than compensating for his piece advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2016-08-03T05:21:00.900" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15081" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-08-03T10:21:36.177" Score="1" ViewCount="104" Body="&lt;p&gt;Say I have a chess coach, but I hire another titled player to play training games with. Would it be offensive or alright to do? Or they would they care as long as I'm paying them?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3149" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-10-05T01:16:22.750" LastActivityDate="2019-10-05T01:16:22.750" Title="Would it be offensive to a chess coach to hire another titled player just to play training games with?" Tags="&lt;etiquette&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="15082" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15081" CreationDate="2016-08-03T10:51:47.350" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;You are the customer, therefore you can spend your time and money as you see fit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From your coaches' point of view, they would prefer it if you didn't use the services of another player. After all, any professional who is paid on an hourly basis would prefer to have a monopoly on a revenue stream and work 100% of the hours that you are paying for. But that is your coaches' problem, not yours.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2016-08-03T10:51:47.350" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15083" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-08-03T13:01:09.747" Score="5" ViewCount="426" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Lasker's Manual of Chess (written 1932 or earlier) I have just read the phrase 'in passing' referring to the en passant capture. I wonder if this expression is old-fashioned or still in use. Basically, I am interested in whether I can say 'in passing' in spoken language and still be considered correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The image  shows the exact context. The phrase is right below the diagram.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/whsAF.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/whsAF.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3456" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-08-28T20:20:11.260" LastActivityDate="2020-01-15T14:05:42.150" Title="En Passant vs In Passing" Tags="&lt;terminology&gt;&lt;en-passant&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="15084" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15083" CreationDate="2016-08-03T13:41:25.820" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;In passing&quot; is english for the french phrase &quot;en passant.&quot;  Just like &quot;vis-a-vis&quot; and &quot;tete-a-tete&quot; is acceptable as are &quot;face-to-face&quot; and &quot;head-to-head.&quot;  I consider using the language of the listener to be the best course of action.  All are correct, but since I teach to kids, I prefer the english.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9684" LastActivityDate="2016-08-03T13:41:25.820" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15085" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15083" CreationDate="2016-08-03T13:43:35.593" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to wikipedia:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;En passant (from French: in passing) is a move in chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as i can find, 'In passing' is the translation of the name of the move, however it is not actually spoken as 'en passant' is used instead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One explanation for the appearance of this term is that Lasker, the author of the book, accidentally translated the word. According to &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emanuel_Lasker&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; page, the original form of this manual was written in German, and Lasker re-wrote it in English at a later date. He may have translated 'En Passant' into English by mistake, not realising that we also use the french for the term.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In 1926 Lasker wrote Lehrbuch des Schachspiels, which he re-wrote in English in 1927 as Lasker's Manual of Chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10887" LastActivityDate="2016-08-03T13:43:35.593" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15086" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-08-03T16:42:02.393" Score="1" ViewCount="84" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've recently started playing e-mail correspondence chess and I'm looking at Cmail/XBoard as a tool to play these games. Looking at the docs, I managed to get the right PGN tags for the game to be parsed and XBoard to launch and display the latest position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;XBoard will not allow any moves though. I can step through the game but not enter a new move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any idea on what could be wrong with the XBoard settings or the PGN input?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;Email correspondence game&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;NET&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2016.08.04&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;-&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Vergara, Rene&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;*&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteNA &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[BlackNA &quot;email@host.com&quot;]&#xA;[Mode &quot;EM&quot;]&#xA;[CmailGameName &quot;rav-vs-Rene&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4&#xA;*&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10962" LastEditorUserId="10962" LastEditDate="2016-08-04T22:06:33.040" LastActivityDate="2016-10-11T04:40:26.337" Title="Cmail/XBoard won't allow move" Tags="&lt;correspondence-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15088" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="758" CreationDate="2016-08-03T18:36:08.940" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;When choosing a black opening you have to come to grips with the thought that black (usually) has to make some concession &lt;em&gt;in any chosen opening&lt;/em&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When looking for my answer to &lt;code&gt;1. d4&lt;/code&gt;, I had to ask myself things that I liked about certain opening and things I didn't like. For example, when playing against the &lt;code&gt;London System&lt;/code&gt; I prefer having a pawn on &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt; to fight for the &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; square. Personally, I would rather play the IQP vs. passive LSB because (especially at low levels) the sort of opponent I'm likely to face is unlikely to be able to make much of the structural deficiencies in my position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I had to discard a great many openings due lack time to devote to memorization (Grunfeld, KID, Semi-Slav etc.). I settled on the &lt;code&gt;Tarrasch Defense&lt;/code&gt;. Active pieces (good for tactics) but leaves you with an IQP in many lines. Side note : I am currently making my way through 'Meeting 1. d4' by Aagard. I have only started but I like what I see so far.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7450" LastActivityDate="2016-08-03T18:36:08.940" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15090" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15083" CreationDate="2016-08-04T05:22:10.510" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;en passant&lt;/em&gt; does mean &quot;in passing&quot;, but the English phrase is not generally used in our specialized chess sense; e.g. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/en%20passant&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Merriam-Webster&lt;/a&gt; separates two senses of &lt;em&gt;en passant&lt;/em&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1) in passing,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;2) used in chess of the capture of a pawn as it makes a first move of two squares by an enemy pawn that threatens the first of these squares.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is similar to the chess sense of &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luft&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Luft&lt;/a&gt;&quot; (where the English air/space/breath would not be understood as specifically in a chess context), and different from &quot;Zwischenzug&quot;/&quot;Zwischenschach&quot; which are entirely equivalent with their English translations &quot;in-between move/check&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8860" LastActivityDate="2016-08-04T05:22:10.510" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15091" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2815" CreationDate="2016-08-04T05:33:17.617" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;Maybe your pawn happened to be pinned?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; 8/8/7r/5K1k/7p/8/6P1/7R w - - 0 1&#xA;&#xA; 1. g4+# hxg3?? 2. Rxh5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8860" LastActivityDate="2016-08-04T05:33:17.617" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15092" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15083" CreationDate="2016-08-04T11:54:13.200" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Lasker originally wrote in German and used the phrase &lt;em&gt;im Vorbeigehen&lt;/em&gt; that was translated literally here. &lt;em&gt;Im Vorbeigehen&lt;/em&gt; was the usual German term at Lasker's time, but nowadays it is mostly replaced by the French phrase &lt;em&gt;en passant&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3819" LastEditorUserId="3819" LastEditDate="2018-12-18T09:33:35.237" LastActivityDate="2018-12-18T09:33:35.237" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="15095" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="777" CreationDate="2016-08-05T04:51:29.250" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You never know when such rules will become relevant. In the past you could seal an illegal move (back when adjournments occurred), but that gave the player a chance to seal such an illegal move and then spend his adjournment time thinking of options. There was a puzzle I saw once which emphasized castling is definitely on a rank by showing how to castle up the board Ke1-e3 and Re8-e1 to give checkmate (notation: O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More real was the problem Viktor Korchnoi had in one of his world championship matches with Anatoly Karpov. He wanted to castle queen-side as Black, but Karpov had a bishop on the h2-b8 diagonal, controlling b8. Could he castle? He couldn't recall the rule and had to ask the arbiter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10591" LastActivityDate="2016-08-05T04:51:29.250" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15096" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15052" CreationDate="2016-08-05T04:56:43.087" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Gelfand must have been horribly demoralized. He was completely outplayed in a dozen moves and he knew it. Playing on would only have impressed this disaster on his mind in a way he didn't need. Some players, such as Nakamura, seem to not be affected by wins or losses. Some players don't recover well from a loss. A player has to know themselves and how to avoid the worst.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10591" LastActivityDate="2016-08-05T04:56:43.087" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15097" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15050" CreationDate="2016-08-05T05:06:26.667" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've done that kind of training to understand my opponent's openings better and also to switch from one form of my primary defense to another branch of the tree.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The learning is easier when you can relate it to what you already know. Study books, study it yourself alone, play blitz, talk to someone else who plays it or against it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I found years ago that when I played 1. d4 2. c4 openings I was horrible. I couldn't face hyper-modern defenses well. Then I understood the advantages on the Black side better and I understood both sides well enough to eventually learn to play a passable White side. In that instance I didn't study books because I was playing a variety of White openings: Catalan, English Open variation, QGD, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On a couple of other occasions I doubted my Black defense to 1. e4. I switched by reading a little blue booklet by a Russian I'd never heard of (Nikitin). It turns out he (GM Nikitin) was the personal trainer of child prodigy Garri Kasparov and that he and Kasparov later wrote a regular book on that defense. It was an eye-opener, but I learned a lot from that one little booklet and played that defense for years.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many years later I switched again. I had studied Tal's great book and saw how he played the defense. I changed to his variation and began reading books about it. I really was terrible at it at first, but I played it whenever I could. Over time I got better and feel at home with it now. I also played it with the aid of Houdini against other computer programs of various strengths. That's an interesting study method.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Current USCF rating 21?? Peak 2212&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10591" LastActivityDate="2016-08-05T05:06:26.667" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15098" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12664" CreationDate="2016-08-05T08:42:18.150" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I agree with several posters above that John Bartholomew's channel is perhaps the best for somewhat experienced amateurs. His jovial personality, his communication skills and his teaching abilities have great appeal. Also, his natural style of positional play is something I think many maturing chess players can relate to.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are some others (not mentioned above) that deserve honorable mention for both entertainment value as well as learning:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/user/chessbrah/videos&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chessbrah&lt;/a&gt; (Eric Hansen)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMBATpFb--uLNAODOVWvCTA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;PowerPlayChess&lt;/a&gt; (Daniel King)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6_wYihzxE2_7_GNPYKY42Q&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Daniel Rensch&lt;/a&gt; (chess.com)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10065" LastActivityDate="2016-08-05T08:42:18.150" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15099" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12664" CreationDate="2016-08-05T13:10:46.043" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you want to learn specific openings, traps, and strategies, I suggest &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/user/thechesswebsite&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;TheChessWebsite&lt;/a&gt;'s youtube channel.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, Kevin does a lot of analysis of games between Grand Masters both historical and modern, and even covers some games involving chess computers. I find that these are great for learning the subtle tactics of higher level play, and understanding how my own play is different. Also, it lets you see what the masters are actually looking at and the way in which they plan movements.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would like to point out this is not a good channel for &amp;quot;learning&amp;quot; chess, however it is great for furthering and expanding your own knowledge.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10887" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2020-01-02T13:04:40.063" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="15100" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-08-05T15:27:55.230" Score="17" ViewCount="910" Body="&lt;p&gt;Or, to ask the question a bit less opinionatedly, &quot;what new ideas have been introduced in chess problems over the last 20 years?&quot;  I imagine many problems have been composed in that time, but it seems like all of the stipulations (model mates, selfmates, etc.), all of the structural elements (pinnings and unpinnings, interference, and so on) and all of the tasks (Phoenix tasks, etc) have been long since sussed out.  The only relatively recent development that I'm aware of are various 'Babson cycles' that have been composed by Peter Hoffmann (see &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babson_task&quot;&gt;Wikipedia's page on the Babson task&lt;/a&gt; for details).  Are there any other relatively recent developments of note in chess problems?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4270" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-07-20T00:18:26.990" LastActivityDate="2020-11-23T20:32:12.530" Title="Is the chess problem a dead form?" Tags="&lt;problems&gt;&lt;history&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15101" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12664" CreationDate="2016-08-05T23:18:04.290" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Chess24&lt;/strong&gt; also seems to provide high-quality &quot;Banter Blitz&quot; videos (in English, German, and Spanish) which are quite useful for seeing the thought process of GM level play at 3 to 5-minute time controls.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9304" LastActivityDate="2016-08-05T23:18:04.290" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15102" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15100" CreationDate="2016-08-06T03:07:07.097" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not aware of any recent examples beyond the &quot;cyclic Babson&quot; type of problem mentioned in the Wikipedia article you posted. I would agree that virtually all meaningful tactical motifs (pins, deflection, desperado, different types of mates, etc.) have been classified, as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my opinion, problems like the Phoenix example are remarkable because they defy our natural impulse to evaluate a position against an instinctive set of strategic patterns and rules, and instead bluntly illustrate the fact that chess is fundamentally a tactical game. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Babson Task class of problems seem to have particular aesthetic value because they exhibit &quot;other interesting properties&quot; (I'll call them OIP) - in this case, the symmetrical beauty of White's promotion to any of the four possible pieces that Black promotes to (or some asymmetric mapping in the cyclic case) - as part of the forced sequence.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would argue that the OIP within such chess problems augment the aesthetic value of the composition; if a problem has no or some incomplete set of OIP in its solution, then its aesthetic value is less than a problem which contains a more complete or harmonious set of OIP. Thus, the example of the Wolfgang Pauly composition mentioned in the Babson Task Wikipedia article could be said to have less aesthetic value than a true Babson problem because of the fact that the Bishop under-promotion does not force a win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As an example of why the chess problem might not be a 'dead' form of art, I might conjure up a hypothetical class of problem with an intriguing set of OIP, or extend the depth of an existing scheme, for which an example might at least conceivably exist. I'm no good at this, but as a poor example, let's take a variation of the Allumwandlung pattern: perhaps a set of initial conditions exist such that White can forcibly win by promoting an a-pawn to a Rook, or a b-pawn to a Knight, or a c-pawn to a Bishop, or a d-pawn to a Queen. The OIP of such a solution would have obvious relevance for the fact that these files correspond to the starting position of Black's pieces. Voila - define a set of OIP, in this case a more restricted type of Allumwandlung (the easy part), and if one qualifying initial condition can be found to satisfy these boundary conditions (the hard part), a new class of problems is born. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, perhaps we have already classified all plausible and meaningful OIP.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While I find it difficult to believe that the chess problem as an art form is dead, I do think that there are limits to to the number of classes of chess problem that would be of interest to human beings, due to our relatively limited ability to evaluate concrete lines beyond a certain depth.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9304" LastActivityDate="2016-08-06T03:07:07.097" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15103" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15104" CreationDate="2016-08-06T10:27:35.027" Score="3" ViewCount="189" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was playing as White in this superior position when I decided to sacrifice my Queen for Knight + Pawn:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/2k1r1p1/5n2/5PK1/6PP/3Q4/8/8 w - - 0 46&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. Qc3+ Kd8           &#xA; 2. Qxf6 gxf6+         &#xA; 3. Kxf6 Ke8           &#xA; 4. g5 Rf7+          &#xA; 5. Kg6 Ke7           &#xA; 6. f6+ Kf8           &#xA; 7. h5 Ra7           &#xA; 8. h6 Kg8           &#xA; 9. Kf5 Kh7           &#xA; 10. g6+ Kxh6          &#xA; 11. f7 Kg7           &#xA; 12. Ke6 Ra6+          &#xA; 13. Ke7 Ra8 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My thoughts were that the 3 far advanced, connected pawns would beat the rook, but I was wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is: &lt;strong&gt;what is the best move and plan in the starting position shown?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2016-08-06T14:31:15.613" Title="How could I have won this Q vs R+N endgame?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;blunder&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15104" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15103" CreationDate="2016-08-06T13:44:40.247" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Partial answer - a Nalimov tablebase says your queen sacrifice should have resulted in a draw.  Black cannot withstand your pawnroller and goes for a perpetual/stalemate combo. Your fatal mistake was &lt;code&gt;9. Kf5&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;6k1/r7/5PKP/6P1/8/8/8/8 w - - 0 9&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Kh5 (1.Kf5??) Kh7 2.g6 Kh8 3.f7 Ra5+ 4.Kh4 Rh5+&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From the starting position, Stockfish recommended...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/2k1r1p1/5n2/5PK1/6PP/3Q4/8/8 w - - 0 46&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Kg6 Nd7 (1... Nxg4?? 2.Qc4+ {Black can't hold the g-pawn and both white pawns will queen... it's a merciful mate in 17}) 2.Qc3+ Kd8 3.Qa5+ Kc8 4.g5 Ne5+ 5.Kh5 Nd7 {This shuffling moves shows that Black is out of ideas.} 6.f6 gxf6 7.Qc3+ Kd8 8.gxf6 Re4 9.Kg5 Re6 10.Kg6 Ra6 {Black could take the pawn, trading both his pieces for the Queen and a pawn. But then White Queens the h pawn. } 11.h5 Ra4 12.Kg5 Ra2 13.h6 Rg2+ 14.Kf5 Rh2 15.Kg6 Rg2+ 16.Kf7 Rh2 17.Qa5+ Kc8 18.Ke7 Nb8 19.Qf5+ Kb7 20.Qb5+ Ka7 21.f7 Na6 22.f8=Q Rc2 23.Qf6 Rc7+&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yep, that's pretty computer-tactical. But what you see is White pushing the King away from the pawns, and then relentlessly pushing the pawns. As an aside, it would take quite a player to separate their King from the Rook without losing the Rook to a queen tactic. Not recommended!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's what Stockfish thinks about the sacrifice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/2k1r1p1/5n2/5PK1/6PP/3Q4/8/8 w - - 0 46&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Qc3+ Kd8 2.Qxf6 gxf6+ 3.Kxf6 Re4 4.h5 Rxg4 5.h6 Rg1 6.h7 Rh1 7.Kg7 Rg1+ 8.Kf6 {Draw by repetition.} )&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2016-08-06T14:31:15.613" LastActivityDate="2016-08-06T14:31:15.613" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15105" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-08-06T16:40:19.730" Score="2" ViewCount="1071" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have the Stockfish 7 engine loaded. I was playing through a variation of the Ruy Lopez [Open Berlin Defense], up to move 15,  using SFish. I let the engine run to a search depth of 25, and selected the best move. A short time later, I played the same sequence of moves and, at move 10, the suggested move and subsequent line of play had changed. On the first analysis, it suggested 10.Nc3-e2, and on the second run through, it came up with 10.Nc3-e4, and the followup line was, of course, completly different. So, why the difference between the two runs? And if the engine analysis is going to change from one day to the next, how can we know for sure what the objectively 'best' move is in any given line of play?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10984" LastActivityDate="2016-10-23T05:12:33.820" Title="My question is about inconsistencies in Stockfish 7 outputs" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15106" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15105" CreationDate="2016-08-06T17:05:08.840" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;A chess engine's algorithm is &quot;non-deterministic&quot;, meaning, given the same input, it will &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; necessarily provide the same output; see: &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nondeterministic_algorithm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nondeterministic_algorithm&lt;/a&gt;.  I especially like the following quote: &quot;a nondeterministic algorithm represents a single path stemming into many paths, some of which may arrive at the same output and some of which may arrive at unique outputs.&quot;  The single path stemming into many paths rather aptly describes the choice of moves in a chess game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm guessing you were not looking at multiple pv's (primary variations) but rather just one at a time?  I highly recommend always looking at at least two pv's at a time; if their evaluation is within 0.05 they are basically equal.  Furthermore you will have much better luck finding definitive best moves if you let the search depth to closer to 35 rather than 25.  If you have a multi-core machine (most are quad cores these days, so 4) you could increase Stockfish's settings to use 2 or even 3 cores (if you don't think you'll be doing other intense computing in the meantime) and it will get to depth 35 a lot quicker than using 1 core.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8731" LastEditorUserId="8731" LastEditDate="2016-08-06T17:29:51.810" LastActivityDate="2016-08-06T17:29:51.810" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15107" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15105" CreationDate="2016-08-06T17:29:11.163" Score="1" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Chess engines are not necessarily deterministic due to multi-threading and heavy pruning.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;In many positions, there is no such thing as objective &quot;best&quot; move. Many possibilities are possible and sound. Stockfish would not be able to give you a consistent answer in this case. Chess engines are simply not powerful enough to solve an opening for us.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The next time you analyze the same position, Stockfish might have hashing to guide the search. This will likely give you different line.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2016-08-06T17:29:11.163" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15108" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4627" CreationDate="2016-08-06T19:40:39.983" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Black can't save the endgame if White plays well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As Capablanca wrote in &quot;Chess Fundamentals,&quot; a rook on the seventh rank is worth a pawn. Given that actual pawns are even, consider White a pawn ahead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White will first capture the a pawn. Since there is no Black pawn on say, b6, White's a pawn is &quot;passed.&quot; Such a pawn is worth two pawns. Now White has the value of three pawns (a whole piece), ahead, even though he has one extra pawn. He will move his b pawn to b4  while Black moves his rook to d2. Afterward, he will move his a pawn toward the queening square. Black has to move (and keep) his rook on the a file. White's king then picks up the c pawn because Black's king is confined to the seventh rank.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2016-08-06T19:40:39.983" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15111" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6516" CreationDate="2016-08-06T22:18:43.903" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;This isn't exactly what you are looking for, but I'd like to throw this out there for anyone looking for a Bughouse app that lets you play both boards on one device. It's far more suitable for tablets and other large devices, but definitely still playable on phones. Currently there is no support for using/connecting multiple devices, but this app is intended for groups of people who just want to use one device for all the boards. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=fhu.bughousechess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=fhu.bughousechess&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10986" LastActivityDate="2016-08-06T22:18:43.903" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15112" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15100" CreationDate="2016-08-06T22:59:40.307" Score="19" Body="&lt;p&gt;An unsorted list of arguments for the vitality of chess problems (probably my answer is a little bit biased because I am an enthusiastic chess composer ...) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Computers&lt;/strong&gt;: A lot of new ideas have been developed during the last decades. One reason for it is the rise of computer programs which help to check the correctness of a chess problem. This simplified the chess composition dramatically, especially selfmates and helpmates with very complex and long solutions are now possible...&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Helpmates&lt;/strong&gt;: by the way help mates. This is an area I know a little bit and during the last 20 years there was phantastic progress. Here some non representative samples&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://kobulchess.com/en/problems/originals2013/321-chess-problem-helpmate-viktoras-paliulionis.html&quot;&gt;http://kobulchess.com/en/problems/originals2013/321-chess-problem-helpmate-viktoras-paliulionis.html&lt;/a&gt; &#xA;or &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.yacpdb.org/#320933&quot;&gt;http://www.yacpdb.org/#320933&lt;/a&gt; &#xA;or &lt;a href=&quot;http://pdb.dieschwalbe.de/search.jsp&quot;&gt;http://pdb.dieschwalbe.de/search.jsp&lt;/a&gt;. Study the solutions and look for other problems of these authors (and other like Caillaud, Mazlar ...) to find other good help mates ... also there are still  many open themes which are not realised. such as the '100$ theme' , the 'Oudot theme' or a helpmate with more than 27 moves...&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Specialisation&lt;/strong&gt;:  Chess compositions branch in many different ways. Some &quot;theoretical&quot; knowledge on certain themes is restricted only to a very small group of composers. So for example if you ask for the development of some themes for three movers (mate in three) the current state of the art is probably known only to a very small group of composers (probably less than 100 people world wide). I am definitely sure they know exactly how their field developed during the last years. And definitely they will argue for a good progress in their field of work. But from &quot;outside&quot; the progress seems very modest (of course I don't want to blame the three mover community but this is an area I know almost nothing  :-)... There is a similar situation in mathematics or other scientific areas where the current state of development is often only understood by a small group of experts...  &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Fairy chess&lt;/strong&gt;: If you think of chess problems in the broader sense of generalized chess the we come to fairy chess. This is the genre where the chess rules and the stipulations are extended far beyond the orthodox setup. For example new varieties of chess (varieties of circe chess, ghost chess ,... et.al.) and many many different pieces have been developed during the last decades and all of them help to represent new ideas in chess problems (or can you think of triple check or ...). For much more on fairy chess look at &lt;a href=&quot;http://juliasfairies.com&quot;&gt;juliasfairies.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;selfmate, retro problems ...&lt;/strong&gt;: There are a lot of other areas where chess problems develop. For example look at  the (german) retro blog &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.thbrand.de/retroblog/&quot;&gt;http://www.thbrand.de/retroblog/&lt;/a&gt; where you can learn a lot about retro chess (if you are aware of german)...&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I hope all this helps to believe in the vital functions. For much more infos check the websites I mentioned above&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8083" LastActivityDate="2016-08-06T22:59:40.307" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15113" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15060" CreationDate="2016-08-07T17:12:29.043" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I went through a number of chess books where advice on memorisation techniques might be expected, but I did not find anything that resembles Bouwmeester's proposed technique. Below is what I found; the books are listed in chronological order, except for Soltis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Maizelis (1960)&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ilya Maizelis: &lt;em&gt;The Soviet Chess Primer&lt;/em&gt; (English translation, 2014; original Russian edition, 1960)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Opening variations should not be taken on board by &amp;quot;cramming&amp;quot;, and&#xA;learnt by heart. The mechanical assimilation of a series of moves in&#xA;some line or other is perhaps not difficult, but to say the least it&#xA;is useless. (Page 373)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should play through opening variations on a chessboard, looking&#xA;carefully into the rationale of the manoeuvres involved. You must not&#xA;simply accept on trust everything written in the handbooks; you need&#xA;to form an independent assessment of the positions that arise. You are&#xA;therefore definitely not advised to play through opening after&#xA;opening, particularly at a fast pace. (Page 376)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Suetin (1974)&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A. Suetin: &lt;em&gt;Hoe men de opening speelt&lt;/em&gt; (1974; &amp;quot;How to Play the Opening&amp;quot;; originally in Russian).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the book's last chapter, which discusses the study of openings, Suetin points out that the study of openings requires a good memory, but one should not blindly memorise as many variations as possible.&#xA;Players should find games that illustrate the variations that they have chosen to learn. Some players are better at remembering visual features such as positions, while others are better at remembering move sequences. &amp;quot;It is not feasible to provide a recipe that works for everyone.&amp;quot; Players should note down their games and analyse them; they can then consult books to check for better continuations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Euwe (1977)&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Max Euwe: &lt;em&gt;Praktische schaaklessen 3: Openingsrepertoire&lt;/em&gt; (1977).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Euwe warns against blindly following what is printed in books, but offers no advice on how to memorise openings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Mednis (1982)&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edmar Mednis: &lt;em&gt;How to Play Good Opening Moves&lt;/em&gt;. (1982) Revised by Burt Hochberg (2002).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mednis points out that it is much more important to understand how to play good opening moves than to have memorised many complicated variations. He cites the match between Capablanca and Kostic as an example. Kostic was noted for his memorisation of openings (and games generally), while Capablanca admitted that he was no expert in opening theory. Nevertheless, Capablanca swept the first five games, after which Kostic resigned the match.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Awerbach, Kotow &amp;amp; Judowitsch (1983)&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;J. Awerbach, A. Kotow, M. Judowitsch: &lt;em&gt;Schachbuch für Meister von Morgen: Ein Lehr- und Trainingswert - nicht nur für den Nachwuchs&lt;/em&gt; (1983; originally in Russian).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The chapter on openings was written by Judowitsch. The last part of the chapter discusses how to learn openings. It contains the usual advice about understanding, healthy opening principles and the analysis of master games, but nothing about memorisation techniques.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Kostjew (1987)&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Alexander Kostjew: &lt;em&gt;Schach lehren leicht gemacht&lt;/em&gt; (1987; originally in Russian).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Like several other authors, Kostjew points out that is is important to understand the idea(s) behind the main variations in one's repertoire. These can be learnt by studying a few games that use these variations (chapter I, section 18).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Samarian (2007)&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sergiu Samarian: &lt;em&gt;Das systematische Schachtraining. Trainigsmethode, Strategien und Kombinationen&lt;/em&gt; (9th ed., 2007). This is the German chess federation's official instruction manual.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The book's last chapter discusses how to choose an opening repertoire and how to collect and analyse opening variations. It does not describe a memorisation technique. However, the book's introduction recommends players to memorise and understand one or two exemplary games for each of the themes discussed in the book.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Lars Bo Hansen (2009)&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lars Bo Hansen: &lt;em&gt;Improve Your Chess by Learning from the Champions&lt;/em&gt; (2009)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lars Bo Hansen says it is important to have a broad opening repertoire in order to adapt to your opponent, but does not give advice on how to study openings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Stewart (2013)&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;William Stewart: &lt;em&gt;Chess Psychology: The Will to Win&lt;/em&gt; (2013).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chapter 5, &amp;quot;How to Study Chess&amp;quot;, discusses how to organise a regimen for chess study. Stewart recommends a schedule with 30% tactics, 25% positional play, 20% endgames, 15% openings and 10% psychology. He also advises not to learn openings via memorisation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Memorization of certain positions is important for any kind of study,&#xA;but really understanding the core concepts of what is happening on the&#xA;board is a lot more important than automatically knowing what response&#xA;to make to your opponent's move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In spite of admitting that memorisation is important, Stewart does not say anything about efficient memorisation techniques.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Soltis (2010)&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Andrew Soltis: &lt;em&gt;Studying Chess Made Easy&lt;/em&gt; (2010).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At last a book that is honest about the importance of memorisation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chapter 4 discusses &amp;quot;the right was to study an opening&amp;quot;.&#xA;Soltis writes, &amp;quot;Every player memorizes. Grandmasters do it more than anyone else,&amp;quot; and that &amp;quot;all good opening play is part memory and part understanding&amp;quot;.&#xA;To start learning a new opening, &amp;quot;a good first step is to look briefly at a large number of games that were played in that line&amp;quot;. You should not look exclusively at recent grandmaster games, since the most instructive games are often several decades old.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An alternative approach is to find a book about the opening, especially one with good verbal descriptions. Soltis has much more to say about studying openings, but gives no advice on memorisation techniques.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Update 1: Dan Heisman&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In a &lt;a href=&quot;https://twitter.com/danheisman/status/763599041552756736&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;tweet on 11 August 2016&lt;/a&gt;, chess instructor &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Heisman&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Dan Heisman&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt; wrote, &amp;quot;[I]n all my chess reading I have never read about a player using a memorization technique &amp;amp; most analysis doesn't require it&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Update 2: Art of Memory Wiki and Forum&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Memorisation in chess was discussed in a few threads on the Art of Memory Forum:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://mt.artofmemory.com/forums/memorizing-chess-openings-and-classic-games-2268.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Memorizing Chess Openings and Classic Games&lt;/a&gt;,&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://mt.artofmemory.com/forums/memorizing-chess-methods-and-material-5221.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Memorizing Chess: Methods and Material&lt;/a&gt;,&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://mt.artofmemory.com/forums/my-system-for-random-chess-pieces-848.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;My system for random chess pieces&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, the page &lt;a href=&quot;http://mt.artofmemory.com/wiki/Memorizing_Chess_Games&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Memorizing Chess Games&lt;/a&gt; on the Art of Memory wiki is still a stub.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(The thread &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/nl/forum/view/chess-openings/memory-techniques&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;memory techniques&lt;/a&gt; on Chess.com from 2011 discusses an alternative to memorising opening lines, i.e. playing lots of games in the chose opening, starting with games that are won or lost in 20 moves or less.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Update 3: Mnemonics and Blindfold Chess&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Staffan A. Svensson: &lt;a href=&quot;http://sigmasociety.com/artigos/Staffan_A_Svensson_MNEMONICS_AND_BLINDFOLD_CHESS.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Mnemonics and Blindfold Chess&lt;/a&gt; (2003, PDF): discusses several aspects of mnemonics and mnemonic systems that are relevant to blindfold chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10867" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2016-08-18T20:39:11.100" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15114" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15115" CreationDate="2016-08-07T22:50:16.720" Score="3" ViewCount="1121" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was watching the Sinquefield Cup right now, in particular the game Svidler-Caruana. I analyzed once the position they got with Stockfish 7 64bit and it suggested the move Rf3. Svidler played instead Kg3, so i played it on Arena chess, and then i went back and re analyzed the same position, but this time the engine was suggesting Kg3. Is there some kind of machine learning algorithm implemented in the engines such that, when you go deeper in the game,they improve the analysis of previous positions?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8563" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2016-08-08T01:42:53.417" LastActivityDate="2016-08-08T01:42:53.417" Title="Does Stockfish(and other chess engines) learn after an analysis? (is there a machine learning algorithm implemented in it?)" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15115" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15114" CreationDate="2016-08-08T01:20:04.503" Score="4" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;No, there is no machine learning implemented&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Due to hashing, next time when you run the same analysis you might not get the same results&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Some other much weaker engines do have machine learning implemented, but not Stockfish&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;See &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/15105/my-question-is-about-inconsistencies-in-stockfish-7-outputs&quot;&gt;My question is about inconsistencies in Stockfish 7 outputs&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2016-08-08T01:20:04.503" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15116" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4627" CreationDate="2016-08-08T04:09:23.667" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Stockfish agrees with the other posters. You can stick a fork in this one, it is done. Of course, it requires the opponent to find the right moves...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;3rk3/p1R2ppp/2p5/8/P1K5/8/1P3PPP/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Rxa7 Rd2 2.b4 Rc2+ 3.Kd4 Kd8 4.a5 c5+ 5.bxc5 Rxf2 6.a6 Ra2 7.Kc4 Kc8 8.Rxf7 Rxa6 9.Rxg7 h6 10.Kb5 Rf6 11.h4 Rf1 12.g4 Kb8 13.h5 Rb1+ 14.Kc4 Rc1+ 15.Kd5 Rh1 16.Kc6 Ra1 17.Rg6 Ka7 18.Kc7 Rc1 19.c6 Rf1 20.Rxh6 Rf7+ &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2016-08-08T04:09:23.667" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15117" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15100" CreationDate="2016-08-08T06:53:53.717" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;Oliver Sick listed many good examples. Here are some of my thoughts: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Andrew Buchanan's &quot;Dead Reckoning&quot; (a consequence of Article 5.2b of the Laws of Chess)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Helpselfmates&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Parry series mates&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Goals other than (stale)mate, e.g. check, capture, or White to move a unit to a specified square.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Further developments in genres that are more than 20 years old, e.g.:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;proof games&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;retractors&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The idea of the task is more than a century old, but recently new sorts of task have been invented and worked on, e.g. construct the longest sound problem of a specific genre and with a specified number of units (or with specified force) in the diagram.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's more information about various chess problem genres at &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.janko.at/Retros/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.janko.at/Retros/&lt;/a&gt; (retroanalytical),&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessproblems.ca/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chessproblems.ca/&lt;/a&gt; (length-records in problems with series-conditions),&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://anselan.com/chess.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://anselan.com/chess.html&lt;/a&gt; (Andrew Buchanan's chess site, with Dead Reckoning problems and more).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10380" LastActivityDate="2016-08-08T06:53:53.717" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15118" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-08-08T15:38:24.110" Score="-10" ViewCount="2072" Body="&lt;p&gt;I couldn't find what the definition of a Checkers GM is exactly so I was wondering if it has the same requirements as chess (2500 points). Also, I was wondering if chess GMs are automatically considered checkers GMs &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10737" LastActivityDate="2021-03-11T16:57:17.380" Title="Are chess grand masters automatically checkers grandmasters?" Tags="&lt;grandmaster&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15119" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15118" CreationDate="2016-08-08T16:38:09.373" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;No. Chess grand master titles are awarded by the FIDE; see the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fide.com/component/handbook/?view=article&amp;amp;id=174&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Title Regulations effective from 1 July 2014&lt;/a&gt;. FIDE only awards titles in chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Checkers titles are awarded by the FMJD (World Draughts Federation); see the FMJD's &lt;a href=&quot;https://fmjd.org/docs/Annexes/Annex%2010%20norms%20and%20titles.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;FMJD Regulations for recognition of international titles&lt;/a&gt;. FMJD only awards titles in checkers/draughts. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10867" LastActivityDate="2016-08-08T16:38:09.373" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15120" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16103" CreationDate="2016-08-09T02:03:54.553" Score="3" ViewCount="156" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have a PGN file, in which I can view non-English (Cyrillic) comments on my PC in Chessbase or in Notepad++, but all Android apps (playchess, masterchess, scid on the go, droidfish) I tried instead show garbage for the comments. Is there an app that is worth trying that might support this? Example below:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;chessclub.com&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;-&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2016.8.5&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;PlayerA&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;PlayerB&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;6&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 f5 {Белые сдались.} 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="618" LastEditorUserId="618" LastEditDate="2016-08-10T02:42:09.890" LastActivityDate="2016-12-17T04:56:58.823" Title="Is there an Android viewer that understands international language comments in PGN?" Tags="&lt;pgn&gt;&lt;android&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="14" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15122" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15128" CreationDate="2016-08-09T11:46:58.230" Score="4" ViewCount="818" Body="&lt;p&gt;I played black and was a pawn up. My plan was to castle on the opposite side from white's king, then use my majority on that side to pawn storm him. So on the turn shown below, I was about to castle long.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After we drew, I analysed the game with an engine, which preferred castling short and pushing the a-pawn, so it seems I should have done the exact opposite of my plan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is, how should I have decided on which side to attack in this position? Why was my choice wrong?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks in advance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;r3k2r/1bp2ppp/pp2p3/8/8/2qPBP1P/P1P1Q1P1/R4RK1 b kq - 1 16&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e6&#xA;2. e5 d5&#xA;3. exd6 Bxd6&#xA;4. Nf3 Nf6&#xA;5. Bd3 b6&#xA;6. Bb5+ Nbd7&#xA;7. Nc3 Bb7&#xA;8. d3 a6&#xA;9. Bxd7+ Qxd7&#xA;10. O-O Ng4&#xA;11. h3 Ne5&#xA;12. Nxe5 Bxe5&#xA;13. Qe2 Qc6&#xA;14. f3 Bxc3&#xA;15. bxc3 Qxc3&#xA;16. Be3 O-O-O&#xA;17. Bd2 Qb4&#xA;18. Be3 Qc3&#xA;19. Qd2 Qxd2&#xA;20. Bxd2 Bc6&#xA;21. Bc3 f6&#xA;22. Rad1 Ba4&#xA;23. Rd2 e5&#xA;24. Rc1 g5&#xA;25. d4 exd4&#xA;26. Rxd4 Rxd4&#xA;27. Bxd4 Rf8&#xA;28. c3 c5&#xA;29. Bf2 Re8&#xA;30. Re1 Kc7&#xA;31. Bg3+ Kb7&#xA;32. Rxe8 Bxe8&#xA;33. Bd6 f5&#xA;34. g4 fxg4&#xA;35. hxg4 h5&#xA;36. Be7 hxg4&#xA;37. fxg4 Bd7&#xA;38. Bxg5 Bxg4&#xA;39. Kf2 Kc6&#xA;40. Ke1 Be6&#xA;41. a3 Kb5&#xA;42. Bd8 Ka5&#xA;43. Kd2 Ka4&#xA;44. Bxb6 c4&#xA;45. Bc5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10998" LastEditorUserId="11202" LastEditDate="2017-05-19T06:32:18.173" LastActivityDate="2020-01-23T21:25:15.027" Title="How should I have decided which side to attack on?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;pawns&gt;&lt;castling&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15123" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15122" CreationDate="2016-08-09T13:46:18.263" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I had a similar (but not the same) question &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/15006/is-opposite-side-castling-an-advantage&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Castling queenside would allow your four pawns and both rooks to push the opposing  king, with support from the light square bishop. This would allow you to pose a big threat on the king, protected only by two pawns and a bishop facing four pawns, two rooks, and possibly a bishop. The white rooks and queen would be somewhat blocked from joining the action due to the white pawn structure, reducing white's chances of defending their king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Castling kingside would allow you to push all of your pieces on the flank. Your queen is already there, and the three pawns, bishop, and rook could quickly launch an attack from the B and C files. The isolated pawn on A2 can possibly be taken, leaving white with 2 pawns against 3 on the queenside. Support from your major pieces and the bishop would create a solid attack, and trading would be an even greater disadvantage for white after A2 is taken.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Either way, it is technically possible to overcome white. It is unlikely that a human would be able to forsee the outcomes which the computer sees, and I cannot give an exact reason for why it would prefer short castling.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My suggestion is that perhaps it would be better to castle kingside, because then you would have all of your pieces coordinated in one attack. Queenside castling would leave the bishop and queen slightly excluded due to white's pawn structure, reducing their effectiveness in a pawn attack on the white king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10887" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2016-08-09T13:52:07.853" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15124" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15129" CreationDate="2016-08-09T20:18:20.273" Score="4" ViewCount="211" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am only used to check-in-n type of puzzle, so I am quite lost when my friend challenge me to this endgame position. EDIT: figured out how to do the chess board (note: the board seemed to be flipped, the black pawn should be close to queening)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;=====&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can Black win?&#xA;Black move first.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;8/7Q/7K/8/8/kp6/qp6/8 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;=====&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seemed very obviously that black should win, with an advantage of 2 nearly queening pawns. Yet the way the question is asked make me think otherwise.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11002" LastEditorUserId="11002" LastEditDate="2016-08-09T20:34:35.670" LastActivityDate="2016-08-10T07:08:08.337" Title="Strategy behind this chess position?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;puzzles&gt;&lt;queen-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15125" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15122" CreationDate="2016-08-09T20:24:00.723" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I look at this position and think: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1: you castle short because of the open b-file.&#xA;2: you play Rad8 and e5 to limit his bishop.&#xA;3: followed by things like f6 and Bd5 to reposition the black light-squared bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Seems like a reasonable plan to me. I would not castle long in this position. Gives white to many attacking options.&#xA;Not all positions call for direct attacks on the king position. this looks like one of them to me at first glance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10233" LastActivityDate="2016-08-09T20:24:00.723" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15126" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15134" CreationDate="2016-08-09T21:28:19.347" Score="3" ViewCount="188" Body="&lt;p&gt;Nimzovich was a proponent of the idea of over-protection, a concept which I don't understand well enough to ever implement in my games. Are there any example games at the GM level that illustrate this concept particularly well as a theme? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9304" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T17:19:19.567" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T17:19:19.567" Title="Example highlighting overprotection" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="15128" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15122" CreationDate="2016-08-10T02:37:48.733" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;You should castle &quot;short&quot; (on the king side). because you want to attack on the queen side without exposing your king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) White is short a pawn because of his missing b pawn. If you castle &quot;long&quot; and put your king on that side, White's open b file (and the black diagonal to b6) become compensation. If you don't, he's just a pawn down.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) Your queen is powerfully placed on the queen side. You want to move up your pawns to support your queen, without exposing your king, or allowing your queen to be &quot;pinned&quot; by a rook. White has his queen on the king side and you don't, so it doesn't make sense to attack there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) Your best chances of getting an &quot;outside&quot; passed pawn are on the a and b files, so you want to advance those pawns, with your c pawn in support.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2016-08-10T02:37:48.733" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15129" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15124" CreationDate="2016-08-10T07:08:08.337" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to the Nalimov Endgame Tablebase: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.k4it.de/?topic=egtb&amp;amp;lang=en&quot;&gt;http://www.k4it.de/?topic=egtb&amp;amp;lang=en&lt;/a&gt; this position is a win in 40 moves for black, if black promotes for a knight to block the upcoming avalanche of checks.&#xA;However if black promotes for a queen it's a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10182" LastActivityDate="2016-08-10T07:08:08.337" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15130" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15231" CreationDate="2016-08-10T14:18:59.660" Score="11" ViewCount="2085" Body="&lt;p&gt;After looking at &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/4001/fianchetto-bishop-vs-normal-bishop&quot;&gt;bishop placement&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/9309/bishop-vs-knight&quot;&gt;bishops compared to knights&lt;/a&gt; i came to the following question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;When would it be beneficial to trade a knight for a bishop, or vice versa?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This includes the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Trading a fianchettoed bishop and a centralised bishop&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Trading a bishop of a particular colour and a bishop of the other colour&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Trading a knight and a bishop&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Trading an outposted knight for a bishop&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Trading a bishop for a centralised knight&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Trading two knights when one side would be left with a bishop while the other would be left with a knight&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Trading an undeveloped, or otherwise &quot;out of the game&quot; piece for a developed and active piece, both knights and bishops.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;How does the value of a knight or bishop change depending on the current situation in game?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What examples are there of this?&#xA;Why does this happen and how can I trade these pieces to my own advantage?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example from GM (or other high level) games demonstrating one or multiple points would be greatly appreciated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10887" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.193" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T15:58:50.473" Title="When and why should I trade minor pieces?" Tags="&lt;knights&gt;&lt;bishops&gt;&lt;fianchetto&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15131" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1770" CreationDate="2016-08-10T14:49:18.727" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Normally, you don't want to castle &quot;long&quot; in the Sicilian because of the missing c pawn, which can make the king very vulnerable to attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An exception to this rule is when White has &quot;wasted&quot; a lot of moves on the king side, usually through a pawn &quot;storm&quot; &lt;em&gt;before&lt;/em&gt; you castled. This would have given you time to get a center counterattack going. Then, castling long puts a rook on the d file which may be the coup de grace to White's center. More to the point, you will be able to &quot;snipe&quot; at White's exposed kingside pawns, and ultimately his king (which will probably be there, or in the center), without danger to your own king. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2016-08-10T14:49:18.727" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15134" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15126" CreationDate="2016-08-10T16:11:35.910" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The classic game that is typically used to explain 'excessive' protection is Aron Nimzowitsch vs A Giese (played in 1913)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1316457&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1316457&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;pay attention to moves 10. Nf3! (first defense of e5) then 11. Re1! (second defense), and finally 13. Bf4! (third defense of e5)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8160" LastActivityDate="2016-08-10T16:11:35.910" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15135" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15174" CreationDate="2016-08-11T08:10:33.877" Score="6" ViewCount="7675" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am starting a chess club at my school, and I want to create a Python program to calculate and store Elo ratings for each player. I am confident I can program it, but I just need to know:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;How do you calculate Elo?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What i am looking for:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Equations to calculate expected outcome for each player.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Equations to calculate elo change using this.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;How to deal with a draw.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;How the value of K can be calculated, or suggestions for a static value of K which would work for students.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So far the best explanation I have found is the League of Legends rating system explained in &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_xLjI6zN3I&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; video (which happens to be the same system used in chess).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10887" LastEditorUserId="10887" LastEditDate="2017-08-09T14:11:37.983" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T17:33:14.937" Title="How do you calculate elo?" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;elo&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15136" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15135" CreationDate="2016-08-11T09:00:58.153" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;All the informations regarding FIDE elo rating can be found here :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=172&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=172&amp;amp;view=article&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Each player must start with an estimated FIDE elo rating. Usually people are playing tournaments against FIDE players and then get a rating. (see article 8.2) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The FIDE elo system update your rating after each game played according to article 8.5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3480" LastActivityDate="2016-08-11T09:00:58.153" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15138" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-08-11T16:33:35.660" Score="-2" ViewCount="2637" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm 14 and I started playing chess from 7 or 8 years ago, but now, I didn't think about being a grandmaster. So what should I do? Should I quit? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11016" LastEditorDisplayName="user10872" LastEditDate="2017-05-04T07:53:45.787" LastActivityDate="2017-05-05T01:06:16.327" Title="Is it too late to be a chess grandmaster at age 14?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;rating&gt;&lt;psychology&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15139" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15138" CreationDate="2016-08-11T20:06:06.473" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you're 14 and not a grandmaster yet, it only means that you probably will not become a contender for the world chess championship. But most lesser goals should be achievable, and &quot;only&quot; wishing to become a grandmaster is definitely not out of reach for someone your age.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What it all boils down to is whether you're determined enough to put in the work that is required to become a grandmaster at chess. Are you prepared to play much, and make systematic study of chess a part of your daily life? Depending on your talent and other circumstances in your life it may or may not be difficult to reach your goals, but it's unwise to assume it will be a breeze. Assume that you will have to work hard for a relatively long time, otherwise you will only become disappointed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, trying to become a grandmaster is a big committment if you're not already close to achieving the title, and therefore I think it would be wise if you tried to figure out why it is so important for you to become one? Why on earth would you need to stop playing chess just because you couldn't become a grandmaster? The overwhelming majority of chess players in the world aren't even close to that level of play, and most of us don't even care! I believe that most people play chess because they think it's fun, and not because they want to become a grandmaster. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe the above paragraph is misguided, and you simply wonder whether you should quit trying to become a grandmaster, and not whether you should quit chess altogheter. In that case, please ignore it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8300" LastActivityDate="2016-08-11T20:06:06.473" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15140" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8257" CreationDate="2016-08-11T22:45:01.677" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;How about the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.lichess.org/editor&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;lichess.com editor&lt;/a&gt;? &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.lichess.org/editor/8/8/8/8/8/8/8/8_w_-_-&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Here is a link&lt;/a&gt; to a board exactly as you describe I believe. Just click and drag any piece to the board. You can also share a URL at every state of the game which is pretty cool.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11017" LastActivityDate="2016-08-11T22:45:01.677" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15141" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15153" CreationDate="2016-08-11T23:25:12.347" Score="4" ViewCount="746" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm working on a chess program that gives the user various compositions for them to solve.  So far I'm only including &lt;em&gt;mate in n&lt;/em&gt; problems where 1 &amp;lt; n &amp;lt; 5, and I'd prefer to only deal with this particular type of problem, but the range is flexible.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm looking for any sources I can take problems from for my game without infringing on copyright or anything of that nature.  The only other requirement is that the problems need to list their solution (ideally clear enough for the layman to understand). These could be sources that are in the public domain or ones that I can get written permission from the author(s) to use.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've done some searching but haven't found many promising sources.  The more problems available the better, but I need approximately 100+ problems in total, so ~33 for each problem type (mate in 2, mate in 3, mate in 4, etc.).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm hoping the community here can point me in the right direction.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11018" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-05-28T22:05:28.083" LastActivityDate="2020-05-28T22:05:28.083" Title="Where can I find collections of chess problems (ideally direct mate) with solutions?" Tags="&lt;problems&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15142" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15130" CreationDate="2016-08-12T00:02:41.737" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;As you so amply put it: It depends.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It really is down to the how the pawns are placed. If you have all your pawns locked on white and you have a white-squared bishop, your opponent's knight can sit on a black square, be defended by a pawn and attack several pawns and your bishop at the same time, and there's nothing you can do about it. Obviously the knight is better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If there are no pawns in the middle of the board, and the bishop can harass the knight from a distance, there's nothing the knight can do about it, and the bishop is obviously better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a difference, though. It is sometimes possible to open a closed position. It is never possible to close an open position. And so in general, people prefer the bishop. Two bishops in an open position can be vicious.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you have a closed position, you reckon there is no way it can ever be opened and you have a bishop of the 'wrong' colour, exchange it. ASAP. Doesn't really matter what with.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the center is still mobile and you have ideas of opening it, exchange your knights for your opponent's bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With the caveat of the exceptions. If your knight has a really good outpost (hard-to-attack or defended weak square in the opposing camp) use it. Oh, and if the exchange weakens a pawn structure in a non-repairable way, it's worth considering. Or if there are other tactical concerns, obviously.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11020" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T15:58:50.473" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T15:58:50.473" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="15143" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15086" CreationDate="2016-08-12T02:42:03.597" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Once you provide the email file to Cmail/XBoard, you need to switch to 'Edit Game' mode, in the Mode menu in order to record a move. Also, I had to switch out of 'Edit Game' mode in order to mail the move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10962" LastActivityDate="2016-08-12T02:42:03.597" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15144" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-08-12T04:51:19.703" Score="-5" ViewCount="421" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recently won with the French Defense. Does Nh3 early on have any benefits?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Live Chess&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Chess.com&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2016.08.10&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;1itsamovie&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;anandsadasivam&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;675&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;670&quot;]&#xA;[TimeControl &quot;10|0&quot;]&#xA;[Termination &quot;anandsadasivam won by checkmate&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e6 2.Nh3 d5 3.d3 dxe4 4.dxe4 Nd7 5.Qf3 Ngf6 6.e5 Nxe5 7.Qg3 Bd6 8.f4 Nc6 9.Na3 Ne4 10.Qxg7 Qh4+&#xA; 11.Kd1 Rf8 12.g3 Qh5+ 13.Ke1 Qf3 14.Rg1 Bc5 15.Rg2 Nd4 16.c3 Nf5 17.Qe5 c6 18.g4 Ne3 19.Nf2 Nxg2+ 20.Bxg2 Qxf2+&#xA; 21.Kd1 Qg1+ 22.Kc2 Qxg2+ 23.Kb1 Nd2+ 24.Bxd2 Qxd2 25.b4 Be3 26.Nc2 Qc1# 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9229" LastEditorUserId="7236" LastEditDate="2016-08-25T07:07:38.733" LastActivityDate="2016-09-05T15:29:17.097" Title="Does the French Defense have any variation similar to the King's Indian Defense opening" Tags="&lt;french-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15146" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15147" CreationDate="2016-08-12T08:24:37.493" Score="5" ViewCount="331" Body="&lt;p&gt;Greetings fellow chess friends,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is a quick idea that came to my mind.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am interested in writing a software that is able to &lt;strong&gt;calculate and/or guess the first &lt;code&gt;n&lt;/code&gt; &lt;em&gt;unknown&lt;/em&gt; moves of a given chess game&lt;/strong&gt;.&#xA;For example take this game:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;?? ??&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;?? ??&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Nf3 b6 &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;g3 Ba6 &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Nbd2 Bb4&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;a3 Bxd2+ &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Nxd2 Bb7 &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Nf3 d5 &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;cxd5 Bxd5 &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Bg2 O-O &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;O-O Nbd7&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Bf4 c5 &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;dxc5 1/2-1/2 &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You don't know the first two moves. Would it be possible to &quot;calculate&quot; them from the rest of the game and if yes, with what certainty? For example the move &lt;code&gt;9. cxd5&lt;/code&gt; implies that a pawn has been placed on c4 earlier during the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do you think this would be possible and if yes, for what maximum amount &lt;code&gt;n&lt;/code&gt; of unknown moves?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Cheers&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Edit: corrected the 8th move, but need 6 characters to edit)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11021" LastEditorUserId="4588" LastEditDate="2016-08-12T15:06:29.527" LastActivityDate="2016-08-12T16:22:40.593" Title="Calculate the first N unknown moves of a chess game" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;puzzles&gt;&lt;annotation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15147" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15146" CreationDate="2016-08-12T09:00:26.620" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, this should be semi-simple for a computer, at least. We know with absolute certainty that there are only 20 possible moves for both black and white (pawns and knights) on the first turn. After that, the only possible moves are moving the piece moved again, moving another pawn or knight, or moving a piece freed by the first move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Knowing this, we can calculate the number of possible board positions after two turns. Luckily this has already been done &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/chessopedia/view/mathematics-and-chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;There are 400 possible chess positions after two ply moves (first ply move for White followed by first ply move for Black). &#xA;  There are 5,362 possible positions (White’s second ply move) or 8,902 total positions after two ply moves each. There are 71,852 possible positions or 197,742 total positions after four moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a LOT, but it is possible to at least guess which one was used in the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The method I propose is to go though all of the movements of the game after the first four, but starting with the default chessboard as if the game had only just started. If a move occurs which is impossible, this indicates that this move has been made by a piece moved in the first two turns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Despite this, there could be cases where a pawn moved on white's first turn and a pawn moved on white's third turn can take the same piece. If white takes with the pawn moved on the first turn, there would be no way to spot this, since you would assume the pawn moved on the third turn was used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sorry that this is only a half-answer; I will try to find more information to improve this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10887" LastActivityDate="2016-08-12T09:00:26.620" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15148" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-08-12T10:05:13.680" Score="3" ViewCount="85" Body="&lt;p&gt;I remember a few things from his saying - that he can produce a class A player out of an amateur in a span of so and so hours. I remember reading something along these lines, and I guess it's Lasker's quote, but my memory seems to fail me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5653" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-09-29T09:55:30.007" LastActivityDate="2017-09-29T09:55:30.007" Title="Help me find this Lasker Chess quote" Tags="&lt;lasker&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15149" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9159" CreationDate="2016-08-12T10:22:02.710" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;See if &lt;a href=&quot;https://imgur.com/a/Eunbm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this link&lt;/a&gt; helps. It's a type of chess puzzle designed by GM Maurice Ashley. Here's a Reddit discussion of he same - &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/4po8xm/how_good_is_your_chess_visualization/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;link&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5653" LastActivityDate="2016-08-12T10:22:02.710" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15150" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15148" CreationDate="2016-08-12T10:50:54.090" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chapter &quot;Final Reflections on Education in Chess&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;page 373 in this pdf file:&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.simardartizanfarm.ca/pdf/-_Lasker_s_Manual_of_Chess.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Lasker's Manual of Chess&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3456" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2016-08-13T23:54:07.493" LastActivityDate="2016-08-13T23:54:07.493" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15151" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15138" CreationDate="2016-08-12T11:00:31.577" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Possible:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ye_Jiangchuan&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ye_Jiangchuan&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's not easy though. But you still have lot of time, there are people who become GM's in the middle of their 30's (they don't start then of course, the point is you can still develop at that age).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8944" LastActivityDate="2016-08-12T11:00:31.577" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15152" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15146" CreationDate="2016-08-12T14:03:07.500" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The way I see it, there's no way to know for certain which order the moves were played in. For example, in the game you listed, it's not difficult to determine &lt;em&gt;what&lt;/em&gt; the moves are. Following Aric Fowler's method, d4 and c4 for white and Nf6 and e6 for black are the moves. As for the order, however, there are four combinations:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&#xA;1. d4 Nf6&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;2. c4 e6&#xA;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&#xA;1. d4 e6&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;2. c4 Nf6&#xA;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&#xA;1. c4 Nf6 &#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;2. d4 e6&#xA;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&#xA;1. c4 e6&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;2. d4 Nf6&#xA;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Obviously, case 1 is the most likely, assuming the players know and follow basic opening theory, but I don't think there's any way to determine the order for sure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9293" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2016-08-12T16:22:40.593" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15153" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15141" CreationDate="2016-08-12T14:52:56.083" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.theproblemist.org/sample-problems/36-challenge-problems&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;TheProblemist.org&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;These direct-mate problems are chosen as a challenge to chess players who may be new to the world of composition. You should try to solve each problem before looking at its concealed solution. It may be helpful to look at the commentary or hints before revealing the solution.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/article/view/can-you-find-checkmate-10-pr&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess.com&lt;/a&gt; has a great page of 10 puzzles with interactive chessboards. These are 'checkmate in one move' puzzles though, and are very easy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10887" LastEditorUserId="10887" LastEditDate="2017-08-22T08:06:18.957" LastActivityDate="2017-08-22T08:06:18.957" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15154" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-08-12T15:20:30.553" Score="2" ViewCount="181" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can someone show me how to stop arena engine from showing lines that he is intending to play while we play rated games? Thanks in advance&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11026" LastActivityDate="2016-10-18T05:29:41.530" Title="Arena Chess playing with the engines" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;arena&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15156" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15161" CreationDate="2016-08-13T03:36:55.310" Score="10" ViewCount="2292" Body="&lt;p&gt;I understand the definition of a minority pawn attack, is when one side has less pawns than other in a flank of the board (or any sector) and advances them to trade them with the oponent. The question is why would I want to do that? I imagine there is a different purpose of that for every game, but possibly there is a general reason that applies to various games. I heard here: &lt;a href=&quot;https://youtu.be/ziCLlmz0ATo?t=4m26s&quot;&gt;https://youtu.be/ziCLlmz0ATo?t=4m26s&lt;/a&gt; that minority attack serve the purpose of leaving pawn weakness. Probably leave an isolated pawn?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10601" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2016-08-13T19:24:11.183" LastActivityDate="2016-09-05T15:21:43.210" Title="What's the goal of a minority attack?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;pawn-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15157" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8387" CreationDate="2016-08-13T16:59:44.913" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Houdini 3 Extreme finds that 4. Bd2 promises White nothing more than dead equality at best. d2 is really not a very good square for the Bishop except to recapture on c3. The influence of White's Queen on the d file is effectively blocked when Bd2 is played. A simple line of defense such as O-O followed by d5 and b6 is sufficient for equality. In quite a few cases White does even get the two bishops after an exchange on c3 because of ____Ne4. Should White move his unpinned queen knight the Bishop will become a target of attack via Ne4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11035" LastActivityDate="2016-08-13T16:59:44.913" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15159" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15001" CreationDate="2016-08-13T18:51:08.110" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Cutechess cli ( &lt;a href=&quot;https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Cutechess-cli&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Cutechess-cli&lt;/a&gt; ) by Ilari Pihlajisto, is often used to run automated engine-engine matches. There is also work on a python port. ( &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.talkchess.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=60504&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.talkchess.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=60504&lt;/a&gt; ) Github: &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/lucasart/zinc&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://github.com/lucasart/zinc&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1025" LastActivityDate="2016-08-13T18:51:08.110" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15160" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15154" CreationDate="2016-08-13T20:40:03.403" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Right click on the window where moves are displayed -&gt; show/display -&gt; click on comments.&#xA;Now the engine output should be disabled.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10182" LastActivityDate="2016-08-13T20:40:03.403" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15161" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15156" CreationDate="2016-08-14T03:54:05.303" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The point of the minority attack, you have correctly pointed out, is to force pawn weaknesses. Usually, the weakness that you are going for is to create a backwards pawn. This weakness is very difficult to deal with for your opponent. Normal play is to gang up on the pawn, double your rooks along the file. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3872" LastActivityDate="2016-08-14T03:54:05.303" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15164" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-08-14T18:36:53.337" Score="1" ViewCount="103" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm been thinking about the metrics to measure to make a &quot;Best Cities for Chess&quot; list. Assume I'm going to call these cities as &quot;Chess Ecosystems&quot;, what are some of the things that would indicate its health? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ex: Number of FIDE rated players, tournaments organized every year, coaches available, etc. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What will you add to this list ? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5653" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-09-23T15:07:35.653" LastActivityDate="2016-09-23T15:07:35.653" Title="What constitutes a chess ecosystem?" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;clubs&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15165" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15171" CreationDate="2016-08-14T20:13:50.437" Score="3" ViewCount="559" Body="&lt;p&gt;Supposing my opponent has little time left and I have much more than him (e.g. 10 minutes to 50, or 1 to 5, or 20 seconds to 1 minute).&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;What are good strategies that take advantage of my rival's time situation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I read &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_trouble&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this article&lt;/a&gt;, and I will quote this part which I liked:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;When the opponent is in time trouble, Webb advocated the barrage technique which involves planning two or more moves ahead, and then playing them in rapid succession. The idea is to give the opponent little time to prepare for the second move, increasing the probability of that move being a mistake. Playing a barrage of moves does increase the chance of a blunder from the barrager as well, and the technique is inadvisable in a winning position where a player should focus on winning on the board.[2]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I agree that you should focus on your own game, but taking into account the opponent's time may help you. One idea could be to delay exchanges to make the game longer and make complicated positions on the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: I'm playing blitz/rapid chess with times between 3 and 30 minutes, without any increment, and online.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10601" LastEditorUserId="10601" LastEditDate="2017-07-02T18:28:04.097" LastActivityDate="2017-07-02T18:28:04.097" Title="How to exploit an opponent's time trouble? (no increment)" Tags="&lt;best-practice&gt;&lt;time-management&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15166" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15165" CreationDate="2016-08-15T09:14:26.310" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am unused to playing timed games, so excuse my poor experience.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would suggest putting the opponent into uncomfortable situations where they must defend from several possible attacks at the same time. Instead of starting your attack, you just threaten with another piece and so on. This will (theoretically) force the opposition to increase their calculation time since they must consider so many possibilities on each move. Eventually, as they run out of time, they will begin to make desperate moves. As long as you give them as little time as possible to think during your moves, you can keep them on edge and increase the chances of making a mistake (at which point you will have multiple attacks lined up to launch in a form of barrage to gain a severe advantage). As with most approaches regarding this situation, you need to make sure you don't make any mistakes while limiting your own thinking time as much as possible. High risk, high reward.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10887" LastActivityDate="2016-08-15T09:14:26.310" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15167" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15164" CreationDate="2016-08-15T09:51:38.960" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The parameters I can think of: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Number of&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Chess club members&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;FIDE rated players&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;FIDE titled players&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Grandmasters&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Female players&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Tournaments&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Seminars / lectures&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure how to convert these parameters into a final score, nevertheless I'm curious how the list of best chess cities would look like. I would expect Moscow to be clear number one (many resident grandmasters, many tournaments). I'm also wondering how good &lt;a href=&quot;http://saintlouischessclub.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Saint-Louis&lt;/a&gt; would score.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4588" LastActivityDate="2016-08-15T09:51:38.960" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15168" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15172" CreationDate="2016-08-15T12:14:09.313" Score="1" ViewCount="829" Body="&lt;p&gt;The first-move advantage is said to make it slightly more likely for white to win. This is shown in many databases of chess games, such as &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/chessstats.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chessgames.com&lt;/a&gt; which shows the following results:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White wins 294,068 games (37.57%)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black wins 216,938 games (27.72%)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;271,659 games are drawn (34.71%)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Despite this, &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Ra%C3%BAl_Capablanca&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Capablanca&lt;/a&gt; actually had a higher win rate when playing black compared to playing white. Of course there is always an exception to the rule, but what aspect of his play makes him different to all the other players of his time?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10887" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2017-08-08T17:09:11.260" Title="Why did Capablanca win a majority of games playing as black?" Tags="&lt;capablanca&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15169" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15165" CreationDate="2016-08-15T12:16:01.810" Score="4" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Do not play fast.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a common pitfall. He/She is the one who has to play fast, not you. Take your time and find a good move. Your opponent can't compete with you as he/she doesn't have enough time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Do not simplify the game, make it more complex. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Obviously, complicated positions are disadvantageous for the one who is in time trouble.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Don't think you won already.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You didn't, yet. If you sit back and relax, bad things gonna happen. Stay sharp.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9030" LastActivityDate="2016-08-15T12:16:01.810" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15170" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-08-15T12:21:12.090" Score="5" ViewCount="211" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recently studied the game Aronian vs Caruana in the Sinquefield Cup 2016, and I was absolutely delighted ! Unlike most GM games, it made total sense to me. I understood why the pawns were moved, why the bishops and knights were developed, how both sides had isolated pawns. I understood how the pressure slowly built around these isolated pawns and counted the number of defenders and attackers each side had around these pawns. I understood how the exchange took place, I understood how the pawns had to be placed on squares on the opposite colour as the opponents bishop and most importantly I understood why it was a draw (usually I don't) !&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was taken in by the beauty of the balanced positions and the web of Defense and attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Imagine my surprise when I saw their post match interviews. Aronian said he was not well, and although he was ashamed of the match was happy with the draw. Caruana said he jinxed it by saying that all his matches with Aronian have been interesting the day before, and that's why their match wasn't interesting.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this match considered boring because they played out old lines ? As a beginner it's new to me, and I actually understood it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's why my question is if beginners should first learn some of these standard boring lines so they can understand all the principles involved ? And if so, please recommend some sources where I can do that ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The game mentioned above goes as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/3P4/8/PPP1PPPP/RNBQKBNR b KQkq d3 0 1&#xA;1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nf3 c5 4. e3 a6 5. Nc3 d5 6. cxd5 exd5&#xA;7. g3 Nc6 8. Bg2 Bd6 9. dxc5 Bxc5 10. O-O O-O 11. Nd4 Nxd4&#xA;12. exd4 Ba7 13. Bg5 Be6 14. Rc1 Rc8 15. Bxf6 Qxf6 16. Nxd5&#xA;Bxd5 17. Bxd5 Rxc1 18. Qxc1 b5 19. Qc6 Bxd4 20. Qxf6 Bxf6&#xA;21. b3 Rd8 22. Rd1 Kf8 23. Kf1 a5 24. Bf3 Rxd1+ 25. Bxd1 Ke7&#xA;26. a4 bxa4 27. bxa4 Bc3 28. Bb3 Bb4 29. Ke2 Kf8 30. Bc4&#xA;1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10737" LastEditorUserId="10737" LastEditDate="2016-08-15T23:57:49.407" LastActivityDate="2016-08-16T00:37:57.147" Title="Should beginners learn some boring drawn games first?" Tags="&lt;theory&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15171" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15165" CreationDate="2016-08-15T12:36:40.467" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Don't try to blitz him by playing fast; now you both are playing without thinking much and you've lost the point of the time advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In general, you should still just try to play the best moves. But if there is any general strategy, it is to avoid forced moves on both sides, so that he has more to consider on every move. Unless it is advantageous, don't start some sequence of captures or checks or an otherwise forced sequence, as he will be able to play a few moves in a row very fast. Keep your threats active and play quiet moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If he is really really low on time (like, under a minute), then while your clock is ticking he will probably be looking at a few of your possible moves and trying to come up with a response to each of them that he can play instantly. If you play a different, quiet, move instead, he is likely to waste a few seconds just trying to make sense of it before he can even formulate a good response.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2016-08-15T12:36:40.467" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15172" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15168" CreationDate="2016-08-15T13:26:48.010" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Megabase 2016, Capablanca played 791 games as White and won 52.6% of them, and played 406 games as Black and won 48.5% of them, so he didn't win more as Black but it was surprisingly close.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The discrepancy between number of White games and Black games was surprising, so I broke out his simultaneous displays (in which he would generally be playing White). In his simuls, he played 304 games as White and won only 40.8% of them, and played 26 games as Black and won 34.6% of them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When we subtract out the simul games, he won 292/487 = 60.0% of his games as White, and 188/380 = 49.4% of his games as Black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In conclusion, I suspect that the unique aspect of his play was that he didn't try that hard in simuls.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2016-08-15T13:26:48.010" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15173" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15170" CreationDate="2016-08-15T14:25:17.240" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Understanding any game is always beneficial to learning. The advantage of a drawn game is that neither side has the upper hand, requiring that they must attack and defend simultaneously. This is less prominent in games where one player is clearly outmatched either in skill or due to losing a piece. This allows you to consider attacks, counter-attacks, defense, and all manner of tactics for &lt;em&gt;both sides&lt;/em&gt; and increases the complexity of the game in most cases.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Understanding games such as this is more beneficial due to them often involving complex board positions with simultaneous attacking and defending on both parts. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One disadvantage of studying drawn games is that most of the time the endgame is boring. Once the pieces are traded down, you often end up with a drawn-out and lengthy endgame where neither side can get any sort of advantage and end up making small moves of little significance. In this case, repetition is common and sometimes the 50 move rule is called upon. Despite this, some drawn endgames can be very interesting to study, however in most cases a drawn game is only interesting suring the opening and middlegame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10887" LastActivityDate="2016-08-15T14:25:17.240" CommentCount="12" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15174" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15135" CreationDate="2016-08-15T15:09:54.047" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here you have some more information about Elo system that maybe it's useful for you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Arpad Elo designed his system assuming a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normal_distribution&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;normal distribution&lt;/a&gt; in the results achieved by the players with a standard deviation of 200 rating points. So he used a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logistic_function&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;logistic function&lt;/a&gt; to calculate the expected results by a player. The actual function (actually a table is used with minimal differences with this function) is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;WEa = 1 / (1 + 10^((Rb-Ra)/400)), rounded to two decimal digits&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;WEa is the expected result for player a, while Rb and Ra are the ratings of both players. As you can see in a game between two players having 400 points of difference in rating the chances of winning the game are 10:1.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After the game(s) expected and actual results of a player are compared, so players performing better than their expected results increase their ratings, and players performing worse decrease them. To do that the difference between expected and actual results is multiplied by a constant factor K. This constant value has to be small enough to make the system stable and avoid reflecting the very last results only, but large enough to be able to track players evolution. I guess a good value would be between 20 and 30, &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.chessbase.com/post/the-sonas-rating-formula-better-than-elo-&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jeff Sonas for example suggest 24 as the optimum value&lt;/a&gt;, while &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=172&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE handbook&lt;/a&gt; points that rating stabilizes after 70 games (K10), 35 games (K20) and 18 games (K40), maybe these numbers can be useful for you to set your own K value.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Using a greater K value the very first few games can help your students to reach an approximate rating quickly and then you can change to a smaller K value.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2311" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T17:33:14.937" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T17:33:14.937" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="15175" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18269" CreationDate="2016-08-15T17:25:52.323" Score="1" ViewCount="369" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just played a game against a fairly low-level chess engine, and it made some really weird moves that i cannot see the logic behind. The game goes as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. a4 d5 2. d4 Qd6 3. c3 Qg6 4. Bf4 Qxb1 5. Qxb1 Kd8 6. e3 Bd7 7. Bb5 Bxb5     8.&#xA;axb5 e6 9. Ne2 Be7 10. g3 Nd7 11. O-O g5 12. Be5 f6 13. Bxf6 Ndxf6 14. Qd3&#xA;Kc8 15. c4 Bb4 16. cxd5 Nxd5 17. Qc2 Nge7 18. e4 Nb6 19. Rfc1 c5 20. dxc5 Nd7&#xA;21. b6 Nxc5 22. bxa7 Re8 23. Qc4 Nc6 24. Nd4 Be1 25. Qxc5 Bd2 26. Rc2 Rxa7&#xA;27. Rxa7 Be1 28. Nxc6 Bxf2+ 29. Kxf2 Kc7 30. b4 Rf8+ 31. Ke3 Rf3+ 32. Kxf3&#xA;g4+ 33. Kxg4 h5+ 34. Qxh5 Kd7 35. e5 Kc8 36. Na5+ Kb8 37. Rxb7+ Ka8 38. Rc8#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first weird move is 4. Bf4 Qxb1 which exchanges the queen for a knight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The second illogical move is 26. Rc2 Rxa7, where black sacrifices their rook for a pawn, while already down a queen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With 28. Nxc6 Bxf2+, black decides not to retake the knight and instead sacrifices a bishop to take a pawn and deliver a meaningless check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;31&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Ke3 Rf3+ gives away black's rook, leaving the computer with &lt;em&gt;no major pieces&lt;/em&gt; against both my rooks and a queen. The computer then proceeds to check me twice with pawns, both of which i take.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;e5 Kc8 Is the most stupid move, leaving black open to a forced checkmate.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Considering that this computer is set to 'hard' difficulty, i am very dissapointed. Does anyone have any explanation for what might have caused it to make these pathetic moves? I would like to think that it is not designed to let me win, however by the looks of things it is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10887" LastActivityDate="2017-08-09T14:16:16.473" Title="Can anyone explain the motives of this chess engine?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;sacrifice&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15177" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15170" CreationDate="2016-08-16T00:37:57.147" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes understanding gm games is a very wonderful feeling. To understand many of the plans that occur in high level games I would suggest reading Pawn Structure Chess by Soltis. It's a book describing plans inherent in the position based on pawn structure, something all top GMs use in their games.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason why Aronian and Caruana considered this game boring is 2 fold. 1) the pawn structure was pretty much symmetrical. They each had a,b,d,f,g, and h pawns, and their d pawns were identically placed in the center. Their really aren't pawn structure plans in such positions, leaving a lot less resources to push your opponent around. Also it's a lot easier to create an advantage in a position with imbalances and asymmetry for both sides. 2) Secondly many of the pieces were exchanged when Aronian took on f6, leading to a very equal endgame with no chances for a win. Not to mention it was an opposite colored bishop ending, which are notoriously drawish. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this helped!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9627" LastActivityDate="2016-08-16T00:37:57.147" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15178" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15138" CreationDate="2016-08-16T01:52:42.260" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You need a few things to become a gm.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) A commitment to improving and a never give up attitude. For example if you trained 5 hours a day for 5 months straight, then played in a tournament and had your rating go down 50 points that couldn't phase you. You would just have to trust in hard work, continue your training and then 2 months later you'd suddenly win a tournament and gain 100 points.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) A good training plan. There are certain phases of the game and you'd need to make sure you were training at each phase in the correct order, with the best training materials possible, and you'd need to be very focused during the training. You'd also need a good eye for your own weaknesses and come up with methods to overcome them. If you trained blitz tactics 2 hours a day and found in tournaments you were moving too fast and not calculating deeply enough, you may start studying tactics without any time limit attached, and only move when you think you truly see the answer and you have fully explored the position. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) Stamina. Playing 7 6-hour high pressure chess games over three days can be grueling. Getting inshape, eating healthy, exercising between rounds, and getting 7-9 hours of sleep everyday can help insure you're going strong by the time round 6 and 7 roll around. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4) Get some feedback from strong players on your games. Whether the local chess clubs top player is willing to help mentor you, or you find yourself a coach, it helps to have someone else looking at your games and having them find weaknesses you can improve at.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For general study I'd suggest always training tactics 1 hour everyday, reviewing a master game a day, reading a book on chess strategy everyday, reading an hour of an endgame book each day, and playing and reviewing a long classical game each day.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are ready to commit to becoming a top player and are pumped up to be a master yourself following a tough training schedule, I think you have a bright future in chess. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The masters who don't become gms generally quit training and don't believe they can do it. You have to believe, go for it, never give up and train hard for it to have a chance at gm. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Gl!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9627" LastActivityDate="2016-08-16T01:52:42.260" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15179" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11153" CreationDate="2016-08-16T08:21:34.737" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Although replies by Brian Towers and StudentT are the right ones (both players would be disqualified) from a theoretical points of view it would be possible that a game has not ended in time for the next round to begin. I would even say that it's possible that it could actually happen in a tournament with 3 rounds per day.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I case it would happen I guess the game would be adjourned by the arbiters. The entire round would not be delayed/cancelled, but the result would be considered to be a draw for pairing purposes only. See &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=84&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;General handling rules for Swiss Tournaments&lt;/a&gt;, point D.1, and &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=171&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Laws of Chess&lt;/a&gt;, point E.1.a.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From Laws of Chess&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If a game is not finished at the end of the time prescribed for play,&#xA;  the arbiter shall require the player having the move to ‘seal’ that&#xA;  move. The player must write his move in unambiguous notation on his&#xA;  scoresheet, put his scoresheet and that of his opponent in an&#xA;  envelope, seal the envelope and only then stop the chess clock. Until&#xA;  he has stopped the chess clock the player retains the right to change&#xA;  his sealed move. If, after being told by the arbiter to seal his move,&#xA;  the player makes a move on the chessboard he must write that same move&#xA;  on his scoresheet as his sealed move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;from General handling rules for Swiss Tournaments&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Adjourned games are considered draws for pairing purposes only.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Update: I've found a real example in a Catalan tournament (Masdenverge). You can read tournament rules here: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.escacsmasdenverge.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.escacsmasdenverge.com/&lt;/a&gt;. It was an U-2200 tournament (to allow a 60+30 time control) and three rounds per day were scheduled. See the note where this possible problem is mentioned:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;NOTA: Si una partida s'allargara en excés, superant l'hora prevista&#xA;  per a l'inici de la següent ronda, l'àrbitre principal podrà segons el&#xA;  seu criteri, emparellar amb el resultat provisional de taules, a&#xA;  l'efecte de que els altres participants puguen jugar la ronda següent.&#xA;  Quedaran ajornades les partides dels jugadors que estiguen jugant la&#xA;  ronda anterior i una vegada finalitzada, s'unixen a la ronda.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A free English translation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If a game lasts for too long, exceeding the scheduled time for the&#xA;  start of the next round, the main arbiter may at his discretion,&#xA;  proceed to the pairing with the interim result of a draw, to the&#xA;  effect that the other players can play the next round. Games of the&#xA;  player who are still playing the previous round will be delayed and&#xA;  once these games end they'll join the current round.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you can see in this case the draw for pairing purposes rule is used, but games are not adjourned but the players will continue to the end, and then they'll join the next round.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2311" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T15:54:05.150" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T15:54:05.150" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="15180" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15156" CreationDate="2016-08-16T22:40:18.167" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Weaknesses and to open lines against the remaining pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10233" LastActivityDate="2016-08-16T22:40:18.167" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15181" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15135" CreationDate="2016-08-17T14:57:23.967" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Per &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_rating_system&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_rating_system&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A player's new rating after a tournament is calculated :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Rn = Ro + (K/2)(W - L + (Sum of rating differences/2C))&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Rn is the new rating, Ro is the old rating. W and L are the number of wins and losses. A rating difference is the opponent's rating minus the player's rating, not the other way around. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;C will determine how spaced out the ratings are, i.e. the standard deviation. It appears that 200 is commonly used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;K will determine how much of an effect each game has. FIDE uses 30, and 20 once a player reaches IM. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fide.com/component/content/article/1-fide-news/3963-rating-regulations-the-k-factor&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.fide.com/component/content/article/1-fide-news/3963-rating-regulations-the-k-factor&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A draw is 0 wins and 0 losses. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11060" LastActivityDate="2016-08-17T14:57:23.967" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15182" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15183" CreationDate="2016-08-17T15:04:08.827" Score="3" ViewCount="616" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the idea of White playing  1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. Nxe5 d6 4. Nf3 Nxe4 5. c4 ? Does he intend to get some good version of the main lines, while avoiding certain sidelines? It seems in fashion now with games like this one, but I am not sure I grasp the full concept - &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1820976&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Ian Nepomniachtchi vs Sanan Sjugirov, 2016&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="618" LastEditorUserId="618" LastEditDate="2016-08-18T01:24:35.550" LastActivityDate="2016-08-23T02:39:50.033" Title="What is the idea of the Kaufmann Attack (5.c4) against the Petroff?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;petroff-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15183" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15182" CreationDate="2016-08-17T21:25:30.487" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the main line 5.d4, black responds with 5....d5 in order to occupy the centre and to continue his development. The most popular line continues with: 6.Bd3 Be7 7.0-0 Nc6! 8.c4 Nb4! 9.Be2 0-0 (e.g. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1819914&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Nakamura-Akobian&lt;/a&gt;). Important to note: after 7....0-0 white has good chances to obtain an advantage after 8.c4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With 5.c4 white wants to discourage black to play ...d5. After 5....d5 white seems to obtain an advantage with 6.Nc3. 6....Nxc3 is very dubious: 7.dxc3 Be6 8.Ng5 with a big advantage for white.&#xA;Instead, black often plays 5....Be7. After 6.d4 0-0 7.Bd3 d5 8.0-0 white has successfully transposed to 5.d4 d5 6.Bd3 Be7 7.0-0 0-0 8.c4 (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1825642&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Nepomniachtchi-Wang Hao (blitz)&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, black has better alternatives after 5.c4, for example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;5....Nc6 (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1569709&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Nisipeanu-Giri&lt;/a&gt;) 6.d4 d5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;5....Be7 6.d4 Nc6 7.Bd3 Ng5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;      [StartPly &quot;8&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;      [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;      1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.Nxe5 d6 4.Nf3 Nxe4 5.c4 (5.d4 d5 6.Bd3 Be7 7.O-O Nc6 (7...O-O 8.c4) 8.c4 Nb4 9.Be2 O-O) 5...Be7 (5...d5 6.Nc3 Nxc3 7.dxc3 Be6 8.Ng5)(5...Nc6 6.d4 d5) 6.d4 Nc6 (6...O-O 7.Bd3 d5 8.O-O) 7.Bd3 Ng5&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4588" LastEditorUserId="4588" LastEditDate="2016-08-18T17:29:39.160" LastActivityDate="2016-08-18T17:29:39.160" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15184" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14017" CreationDate="2016-08-18T08:31:58.203" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Wine or Virtualbox, as already mentioned, use to be the options when you wish to run Windows programs on Linux. Wine use to be the best option but it can be a challenge and a pain sometimes to make it work properly with the desired windows application. There is a commercial alternative called &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.codeweavers.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Crossover&lt;/a&gt; which basically is Wine with some more user friendly configuration scripts etc. I don't know how much better than Wine it is but if you are interested there is a free trail you can try out there before bying.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1030" LastActivityDate="2016-08-18T08:31:58.203" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15185" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15189" CreationDate="2016-08-18T12:07:35.133" Score="1" ViewCount="464" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you want a quick match and need a way to put off your opponent early on, what sort of tactics can i use to mess with their head? I am specifically interested in the opening and middlegame, however answers regarding the endgame would also be appreciated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm thinking about tactics such as alternating extreme attack and defense; making confusing moves to put off your opponent; playing with them and forcing them to move pieces to areas they do not want them in; disrupting their pawn chains and other defenses to make for an easier middlegame; piling up attackers on one square in particular, when in fact you are indirectly preparing for a strong attack on the opposite side (or even simply retreating and creating a stronghold around your king). I am also interested in direct body language such as making eye contact; showing a lack of emotion; and trying not to look like you are thinking hard, either to make the opponent think you are likely to make mistakes or to trick them into thinking you are completely confident with your position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Answers may include:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Addressing the strengths/weaknesses of a tactic, and how to perform it.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Specific examples of any of these tactics in GM games&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Reviews on the use of such tactics and whether they are likely to work&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;General rules of thumb in how to force moves or disrupt defenses&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Any tournament rules regarding mind tricks outside the game (either across the table or between games)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Suggesting tactics not mentioned in the question above and giving reasons and uses&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10887" LastActivityDate="2016-08-24T21:43:45.517" Title="Are mind games effective?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;middlegame&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15186" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15185" CreationDate="2016-08-18T19:24:32.593" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recommend you to stick to the &lt;em&gt;principles&lt;/em&gt; and don't hurry!&#xA;Chess is naturally a slow game. It's better to go slowly but surely win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe you can try some opening traps, or prepared tactics, but if your opponent knows what to do, the counter-attack can &lt;em&gt;annihilate&lt;/em&gt; you! Also, normaly traps don't have a 'plan b' if something goes wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example: Your idea of alternating between agressive/defensive only to mess with opponents mind may work sometimes, but there are no guaranties. If you are attacking, you put most (all?) your pieces in one side of the board, then stop the attack with no good reason and start to defend, your opponent probably &lt;em&gt;WILL&lt;/em&gt; take the advantage and start his attack! And is much harder to be on the defender side! From that point on, he will start to put pressure as much as he can, and soon or later brake your defenses...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, I &lt;em&gt;strongly&lt;/em&gt; recommend that you try your ideas against a good Engine. It will not forgive you, and will show every mistake you make and how your opponent can take advantage of it (and there is no psychology involved)!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Psychological tricks work better in poker than chess, but they can be useful. A tip that I heard from GM Igor Smirnov is: &quot;You don't have to make 'the best move possible', but the one that create as much problems to your opponent to solve as you can find.&quot; I think this is a more realistic approach.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9258" LastActivityDate="2016-08-18T19:24:32.593" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15187" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15185" CreationDate="2016-08-18T22:28:37.090" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Emanuel Lasker was famous for his psychological approach to the game. You may find some of his games in literature in which some of his moves are considered (were considered even at the time) inferior but his way of playing was indeed effective (search for his games against Capablanca to get an idea). However, as Rafael Borges pointed out, if your opponent plays very precise is very difficult to surprise him. Today with all the theory we have from the past, plus chess Engines (that are killing this &quot;creative&quot; approach to the game these days in my opinion) every little inaccuracy can turn out a complete disaster if your opponent is prepared (and most chess players today are able to play 30 moves of theory without doing any mistake). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8563" LastActivityDate="2016-08-18T22:28:37.090" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15188" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15168" CreationDate="2016-08-18T23:42:04.510" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Capablanca was a master of strategy and positional playing and was able to play some of the greatest defenses of all times. Those are all aspects that are fundamentals in playing as black. Also Magnus Carlsen excels in those aspects and plays very good games with the black pieces. Yet, the win % of both is higher with White.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8563" LastActivityDate="2016-08-18T23:42:04.510" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15189" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15185" CreationDate="2016-08-19T08:23:01.473" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Nigel Davies has a Fritz trainer DVD &quot;chess for scoundrels&quot; which works on this topic exactly. He shows some games and tells some anecdotes about how you can use mind games, to support your game (and he says that at GM level this is completely normal). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples by Davies: there was a Geller-Fisher game where Geller went for a drawing line with white, and offered a draw at move 7. Fisher laughed at his face (which is not so ethical imho) and then win in ~70 moves in a dead draw endgame, because Geller blundered.&#xA;Bronstein in a draw or little worse position saw a trap, but was fairly sure his opponent would see it, he offered draw, suspecting his opponent will not take it (and it was fine for him), and went for the trap. His opponent declined, was searching for a win, and didn't notice the trap.&#xA;I highly recomend buying the DVD, it's an amazing source in this topic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;People who were/are very good at this are for example Lasker, Tal, Fisher, Karpov, Kramnik. For examples read about the WC games Fisher vs Spassky, and Karpov vs Korchnoi with all the off board activities.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There was also a Benko book on psychology, but I didn't read it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8944" LastActivityDate="2016-08-19T08:23:01.473" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15190" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-08-19T09:36:17.683" Score="5" ViewCount="99" Body="&lt;p&gt;It occurred to me that it would be possible to have a match in which, say, each of 10 players play each other simultaneously twice. That is, if a regular simul match is a line of boards, this would be a grid, with each player playing black along one row, and white along a column. (The intersection of their row and column would obviously not be played...) Doing it online would simplify things a lot.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems like it would be a pretty interesting test of abilities, and solve the usual one-sided nature of simul matches.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Has this been done? What's the common term for it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11071" LastActivityDate="2016-08-19T18:19:53.467" Title="Have there been any simul round-robin games?" Tags="&lt;simultaneous&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15191" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-08-19T13:21:35.083" Score="7" ViewCount="214" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Panov and Estrin's &lt;em&gt;Kurs debuytov&lt;/em&gt; the following line is proposed in response to 3. d3:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Bc4 Nf6 3. d3 c6 4. Qe2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What's the point of 4. Qe2? Basically you should avoid moving the queen in the opening, which is the contrary here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7741" LastEditorUserId="8472" LastEditDate="2017-06-27T06:24:40.090" LastActivityDate="2017-06-27T06:24:40.090" Title="Bishop's opening - what's the point of 4. Qe2?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;1.e4&gt;&lt;bishops-opening&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15192" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15191" CreationDate="2016-08-19T14:09:13.257" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Black's main threat after 3... c6 is d5; it looks like Qe2 is an attempt to prevent that, by indirectly attacking pawn e5, even with check. However, I'm not so sure that it works as intended, because Black can play d5 anyway, e.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Bc4 Nf6 3. d3 c6 4. Qe2 d5! 5. exd5 cxd5 6. Bb5+ Nc6 7. Qxe5+ Be7 8. Nf3 O-O 9. Bxc6 bxc6 10. O-O Bd6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and Black's center control, slight development advantage and bishop pair provide more than enough compensation for the pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd prefer a normal developing move (4. Nc3 or Nf3) instead of 4. Qe2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2016-08-19T14:09:13.257" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15194" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15190" CreationDate="2016-08-19T18:19:53.467" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Although I've never seen such a simul in action, I've heard of a similar concept before. The person who explained it to me called it something like &quot;walking clock simul&quot;, but I doubt if there is an official name.&#xA;He applied it to a single round-robin (instead of a double round-robin) and a line of boards (instead of a grid), but the idea remains the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In any case, for N players, the number of required boards is N*(N-1)/2 for a single round-robin or N*(N-1) for a double round-robin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For 4 players (A, B, C, D), the pairings of a single round-robin could look like this: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A - B&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;C - D&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;D - A&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;B - C&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;D - B&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A - C&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In his format, the players would walk in the same direction (for instance clockwise) around the boards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, it is also possible to apply the idea to Swiss tournaments. For N players and M rounds, the number of necessary boards is M*N/2. Note that a single round-robin can be seen as a Swiss tournament with M = N-1.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4588" LastActivityDate="2016-08-19T18:19:53.467" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15195" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-08-19T21:55:52.597" Score="1" ViewCount="102" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Pawn Promotion, I read that: &quot;A pawn may be promoted to any piece.  (NOTE: A common misconception is that pawns may only be exchanged for a piece that has been captured.  That is NOT true.)&quot;  So, does this mean that if your queen hasn't been captured and you make it to the other side to promote your pawn, you can actually have, say, 2 queens on the board?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11078" LastActivityDate="2016-08-19T23:18:33.023" Title="Pawn-Promotions" Tags="&lt;pawn-promotion&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2016-08-20T15:45:15.723" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15196" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6516" CreationDate="2016-08-19T23:13:38.947" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Android mobile app for bughouse online game with your friends: &lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=ru.mail.park.bughouse&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=ru.mail.park.bughouse&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11079" LastEditorUserId="11079" LastEditDate="2016-08-19T23:23:03.623" LastActivityDate="2016-08-19T23:23:03.623" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15197" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15195" CreationDate="2016-08-19T23:18:33.023" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You may promote to a queen, a bishop, a knight or a rook of your own colour. Yes, you can end up with up to 9 queens in a game in principle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11020" LastActivityDate="2016-08-19T23:18:33.023" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15198" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11195" CreationDate="2016-08-19T23:22:40.793" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Android mobile app for bughouse online game with your friends: &lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=ru.mail.park.bughouse&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=ru.mail.park.bughouse&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11079" LastActivityDate="2016-08-19T23:22:40.793" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15199" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15215" CreationDate="2016-08-19T23:38:37.500" Score="5" ViewCount="349" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there rating formula like ELO but for bughouse chess? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11079" LastEditorUserId="3831" LastEditDate="2016-11-15T21:12:28.570" LastActivityDate="2016-11-15T21:12:28.570" Title="Bughouse rating formula" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;bughouse&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15200" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-08-20T00:35:13.053" Score="3" ViewCount="933" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to learn this opening right now, and I was wondering what are some good games that have been played in these two openings. I prefer games in between modern players so I can relate to the game. I also need some kind of commentary on what the problems and advantages with the opening are.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, Harikrishnan vs Giri was a good example of French Defense in which black won.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the best way to study it ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10737" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2016-08-20T14:44:11.793" LastActivityDate="2016-09-08T04:29:22.477" Title="Reference for good French Defense games?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;french-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15201" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15200" CreationDate="2016-08-20T02:32:57.007" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, you need to narrow down your scope a bit. The French Defense has a massive amount of theory and you only need to learn a small portion of that to play it competitively.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You'll most commonly face 1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3. Here, there are two main choices: 3... Nf6 and 3... Bb4. From an openings database or explorer (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/explorer?node=86190&amp;amp;move=3.5&amp;amp;moves=e4.e6.d4.d5.Nc3&amp;amp;nodes=21720.39913.40748.86189.86190&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here, for example&lt;/a&gt;), you can pick the one you prefer. Notice the &quot;Notable Games&quot; section of the interface. These games are usually thematic and will teach you a lot about a variation with careful study. The black players are also more often than not &quot;heroes&quot; of the given opening, and you can look through more of their games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Starting out, I would avoid only looking at the games of modern players. &lt;a href=&quot;https://twitter.com/Kasparov63/status/420663928209674240&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;This tweet&lt;/a&gt; by Garry Kasparov illustrates the problem with that nicely, in my opinion. You don't need cutting-edge theory to play the opening well, you need the core ideas. These were fleshed out in the games of classical masters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are other lines that you need to learn as well. I commonly face the Exchange French, the Advance French, and the Tarrasch French in tournaments, and sometimes other variations. You need to know a little bit about each of these. The same process should suffice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Apart from looking at games, I learned a great deal by reading &lt;em&gt;The Flexible French&lt;/em&gt; by Viktor Moskalenko. The expanded version is available &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.newinchess.com/The_Even_More_Flexible_French-p-9010.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3270" LastEditorUserId="3270" LastEditDate="2016-08-28T22:26:12.063" LastActivityDate="2016-08-28T22:26:12.063" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15202" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15199" CreationDate="2016-08-20T03:31:31.090" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, you take the same formula and do absolutely the same calculations. Elo formula has very little to do with chess (except of it is used to calculate rating in chess). You can take any event that has win/lose/draw and apply elo formula to calculate the rating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In bughouse you play in a team of two, so you will end up with a rating for a team. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="703" LastActivityDate="2016-08-20T03:31:31.090" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15203" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15233" CreationDate="2016-08-20T10:55:29.820" Score="1" ViewCount="199" Body="&lt;p&gt;I saw some chess tournaments with kids under the age of 7, and even under 5!&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Surprisingly, including their performance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is adding the pressure of competition at this early age worth it? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11068" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-08-25T11:23:29.927" LastActivityDate="2016-08-25T11:23:29.927" Title="Is it worth putting small kids in competitive chess?" Tags="&lt;psychology&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15204" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15200" CreationDate="2016-08-20T17:25:39.697" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is a good idea to play games by grandmasters who used the French Defence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Notable players of the French Defence include Mikhail Botvinnik, Viktor Korchnoi, Aron Nimzowitsch, Tigran Petrosian, Lev Psakhis, Wolfgang Uhlmann and Rafael Vaganian. It should be easy to find annotated games by Botvinnik and Korchnoi, who published annotations of their own games. Uhlmann used the French Defence almost exclusively against 1. e4, and published books about the opening (which are now out of date). Uhlmann published a selection of his best games, &lt;em&gt;Meine besten Partien&lt;/em&gt;, in German. Annotated games by Nimzowitsch and Petrosian should also be easy to find. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the younger generation, &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Defence#History&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt; lists Evgeny Bareev, Alexey Dreev, Mikhail Gurevich, Alexander Khalifman, Smbat Lputian, Alexander Morozevich, Teimour Radjabov, Nigel Short, Gata Kamsky, and Yury Shulman. When you look for annotated games, make sure that they have prose explanations instead of only variations. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10867" LastActivityDate="2016-08-20T17:25:39.697" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15205" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15203" CreationDate="2016-08-21T00:16:27.907" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If the interest, competitive drive, and knowledge of the rules are there, then I wouldn't recommend against it.  Even if they play competitively and find their talent for the game perhaps to be lacking, they can still take away much from the game, I feel.    &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Personally, I was pushed hard when I was young at the game (started at age 5, pushed relatively hard until about age 10), took a lackadaisical approach to the game as a rebellious result, but kept playing competitively through high school.  I didn't do so bad, but not great either.  What I took from the game though provided a niche for me for a time.  Even if not used in any professional sense it can provide a potential life-long hobby.  Even if it provides neither, denying them the opportunity given a desire to play competitively seems bad.  It's just how one prepares.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Try and get an idea early of how good your child is.  Playing with them a lot outside of tournaments first is a good way to do this.  Then, you'll be able to gauge how hard to push them.  If they're really good, push them just a little bit.  If not, don't press them to play at all.  Either way, if the desire remains to play and they're doing well in school, why not?  I know I always had the desire to play competitively, and I'm glad in ways that I was pressed to play competitively.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2765" LastEditorUserId="2765" LastEditDate="2016-08-21T00:53:02.247" LastActivityDate="2016-08-21T00:53:02.247" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15206" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15208" CreationDate="2016-08-21T02:53:46.463" Score="3" ViewCount="657" Body="&lt;p&gt;What's wrong if white move to Castle long(0-0-0) in Accelerated dragon?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11068" LastActivityDate="2017-02-21T07:23:25.893" Title="What's wrong with Long castle in accelerated Dragon being white?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;&lt;castling&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15207" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15917" CreationDate="2016-08-21T05:46:30.493" Score="4" ViewCount="162" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was browsing an old Informant today and came across an editorial comment, marked with RR. I've seen several of them at the beginning of a game that reference another game, involving a completely different opening, by other players. What is the purpose of these comments?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9025" LastActivityDate="2016-11-24T00:33:21.243" Title="What is the purpose of editorial comments in Informants?" Tags="&lt;books&gt;&lt;annotation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15208" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15206" CreationDate="2016-08-21T05:52:36.990" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the normal Dragon, the most dangerous system is the Yugoslav attack.  Current theory shows that Black can resist the attack with a pawn sacrifice and maintain the balance.  In the Accelerated Dragon, Black saves a move by moving the d pawn to d5 in one move.  This allows Black to gain a dangerous initiative.  With a Rook on the c file and the Bishops on g7 and f5, White must defend carefully. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9684" LastActivityDate="2016-08-21T05:52:36.990" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15209" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15206" CreationDate="2016-08-21T08:14:17.170" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;After 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 g6 5.Nc3 Bg7 6.Be3 Nf6, castling long as quickly as possible doesn't work for white: 7.Qd2 0-0 8.0-0-0 Ng4! 9.Nxc6 bxc6 and black is clearly better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, if white wants to castle longside, he should start with 7.f3. After 7....0-0, 8.Qd2 is again dubious: 8....d5! and black has an extra tempo with respect to the normal Dragon.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Instead, white can prevent ...d5 by 8.Bc4. After 8....d6 9.Qd2 white has transposed to one of the main lines of the normal Dragon. But black has a more powerful alternative: 8....Qb6! and after 9.Bb3 he has 2 options: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;9....Nxe4 10.Nd5! Qa5+ 11.c3 Nc5 (11....Bxd4 12.Bxd4 Nc5 is more ambitious, but also more dangerous (&lt;a href=&quot;http://chess-db.com/public/game.jsp?id=4667719.4121830.61194240.23665&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Baramidze-Motylev&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1598121&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Csiba-Sjugirov&lt;/a&gt;)) 12.Nxc6 dxc6 13.Nxe7+ Kh8 14.Nxc8 Raxc8, with an equal position&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;9....Ng4 10.fxg4 Bxd4 11.Bxd4 Qxd4 12.Qxd4 Nxd4, is an interesting alternative (&lt;a href=&quot;http://chesstempo.com/gamedb/game/1402651&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Sulskis-Andrianov&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1625220&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Mikhailov-Chuprov&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;      [StartPly &quot;12&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;      [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;      1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 g6 5.Nc3 Bg7 6.Be3 Nf6 7.f3 (7.Qd2 O-O 8.O-O-O Ng4 9.Nxc6 bxc6) 7...O-O 8.Bc4 (8.Qd2 d5) 8...Qb6 (8...d6 9.Qd2) 9.Bb3 Nxe4 (9...Ng4 10.fxg4 Bxd4 11.Bxd4 Qxd4 12.Qxd4 Nxd4) 10.Nd5 Qa5+ 11.c3 Nc5 (11...Bxd4 12.Bxd4 Nc5) 12.Nxc6 dxc6 13.Nxe7+ Kh8 14.Nxc8 Raxc8&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4588" LastEditorUserId="4588" LastEditDate="2016-08-21T09:22:28.220" LastActivityDate="2016-08-21T09:22:28.220" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15210" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-08-21T10:14:46.703" Score="23" ViewCount="3722" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have a question and I'm sorry if it sounds very uninformed, I'm not a professional chess player so my interest is mere curiosity. I was wondering if there are examples of illegal positions that require more than a superficial look at the chessboard to be recognized as illegal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All examples of illegal positions that come to my mind are pretty trivial.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A missing king&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Two kings of a color&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Too many pieces considering possible promotions (e.g. 4 queens + 6 pawns)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Pawns in the first rank&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Pawns in the eight rank&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;All pawns in the second rank and other pieces in higher ranks (except knights)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's very easy to see that these examples are all illegal. Are there any illegal positions that require more insights to spot?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11083" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-05-28T22:11:33.087" LastActivityDate="2020-09-14T12:17:48.150" Title="Are there any illegal positions that are difficult to spot?" Tags="&lt;illegal-move&gt;&lt;retrograde-analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15211" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15210" CreationDate="2016-08-21T12:21:40.073" Score="30" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes - the less a position looks like a real chess game, the harder it is to spot if it is illegal or not. Sometimes, &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retrograde_analysis&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;retrograde analysis&lt;/a&gt; is needed to prove a position can be reached in a legal way. For an example, see the starting position of the &lt;a href=&quot;https://timkr.home.xs4all.nl/tour/horse.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Horse Concoction&lt;/a&gt; by Harry Goldsteen, which can be proven to be legal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;8/7P/1P5B/2B1Q1n1/3nn2P/1PRnk1nR/3nnnK1/2B1nQBn w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, as White's pawns have to have captured at least five black pieces, the same position with an additional black piece is illegal:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;8/1b5P/1P5B/2B1Q1n1/3nn2P/1PRnk1nR/3nnnK1/2B1nQBn w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2020-09-14T12:17:48.150" LastActivityDate="2020-09-14T12:17:48.150" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="15213" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15210" CreationDate="2016-08-21T15:33:47.760" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;One of the most irregular rules says you cannot castle to escape check. You must move your king, block the check, or capture the checking piece. So, if a king is in check and castles it would not be visually so noticeable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10591" LastActivityDate="2016-08-21T15:33:47.760" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15214" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15206" CreationDate="2016-08-21T15:48:25.383" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't play the Dragon, but it seems to me it is pretty good when you play the Accelerated form and push White into castling short. It offers White fewer offensive choices.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, trying to castle long would still be the right ideal. It is only in the details that we see the flaws. The early Be3, f3 weakens Nd4, Be3 and pawn b2. The early Qd2 may allow ...Ng4. Using Bf1-e2 to guard g4 may allow an advantageous ...d5. An early f2-f4, to meet ...d5 with e5, may also leave Be3, Nd4 and pawn b2 too weak. White has to be careful in the opening to maintain safe coordination. See the early games like Lasker-(somebody whose name escapes me just now), Alekhine-Botwinnik, or Fischer-Reschevsky for examples of how crazy it can get.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10591" LastActivityDate="2016-08-21T15:48:25.383" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15215" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15199" CreationDate="2016-08-21T21:03:11.297" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Providing that teams are not fixed, Elo (and Glicko too) does not fit your needs, because it's designed for &lt;strong&gt;1-on-1 matches only&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You need something that manages both &lt;em&gt;team performance&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;players' rating&lt;/em&gt;, as &lt;strong&gt;TrueSkill&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;strong&gt;rankade&lt;/strong&gt;, our free-to-use rating system. Here's a &lt;a href=&quot;https://rankade.com/ree#ranking-system-comparison&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;comparison&lt;/a&gt; between aforementioned ranking systems.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7575" LastEditorUserId="7575" LastEditDate="2016-11-06T00:22:20.413" LastActivityDate="2016-11-06T00:22:20.413" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15216" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15210" CreationDate="2016-08-21T23:44:39.127" Score="16" Body="&lt;p&gt;If we define &quot;illegal position&quot; as a position that cannot happen in a game using legal moves, I think that the most difficult to spot would be positions that look normal, but are impossible to achieve.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;2k1rr2/pbpq2b1/1p1p1np1/nB1Pp2p/2P1Pp2/2N2NP1/PPQB1PP1/2KR3R w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example this position looks legal, but indeed there is no way how this position could happen in real game - all 16 black pieces are on the board and yet white has doubled pawns. There could be lots of such positions in which none of the rules you mentioned are broken and yet, the positions are impossible to achieve, for example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    [FEN &quot;4rrk1/ppp1bppp/2npbn2/1B6/3NP1q1/1P1Q1N2/P1P2PPP/1K1RR1B1 w Qq - 0 0&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is no way white bishop could get to g1.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    [FEN &quot;2krr3/pppbppbp/2n1pnp1/1B2q3/4P3/2N1QB2/PPP1NPPP/R4RK1 w KQkq - 0 0&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is no way how white could get two white-square bishops. Yes  they could promote a pawn theoretically, but the only square where this would be possible is d8 and this square is black. So had they done so the bishop would be black-squared (not mentioning the fact that with two pawns on c7 and e7 there is no way how bishop could get away from there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    [FEN &quot;6k1/p1p1np1p/1p4p1/3Kqr2/8/BQP3P1/P4P1P/1R6 w - - 0 0&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What was the last move? etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-08-07T13:12:11.990" LastActivityDate="2019-08-07T13:12:11.990" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="15217" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15138" CreationDate="2016-08-22T00:04:12.520" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_Ashley&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_Ashley&lt;/a&gt; besides the fact that he is the first black GM he also became IM at the age of 27 and GM at the age of 34. So it is absolutely achievable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15" LastEditorUserId="15" LastEditDate="2016-08-22T10:21:12.430" LastActivityDate="2016-08-22T10:21:12.430" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15218" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14601" CreationDate="2016-08-22T12:58:45.080" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.fimetech.chessfimee&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chessfimee&lt;/a&gt; can perfectly serve you. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It scans and analyses chessboards with chess diagrams, puzzles. All you need is to use the camera to take a photo of a chess diagram from books, papers, even LCD screens (PDFs, other sources). Also you can share the chess position (FEN) with other chess applications.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An iOS version will be coming soon.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11091" LastEditorUserId="11091" LastEditDate="2016-08-25T10:43:23.670" LastActivityDate="2016-08-25T10:43:23.670" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15219" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15182" CreationDate="2016-08-23T02:39:50.033" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just a tiny bit of history to explain the modern opening: It was Paul Morphy who started using the early ...Be7 and ...Nc6 which became the main line until the even more recent early Nc3 (without d4). However, Morphy had a penchant for ...f5 in many positions where it wasn't so wise, so 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. Nxe5 d6 4. Nf3 Nxe4 5. d4 d5 6. Bd3 Be7 7. O-O O-O 8. c4 f5 was his idea of securing the center. Today's players avoid that unless they're aiming for Pillsbury's idea of ...Bg4 and only then ...f5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All this is tossed out the window by Kaufmann (is it Larry Kaufmann?) who avoids all that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10591" LastActivityDate="2016-08-23T02:39:50.033" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15220" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15168" CreationDate="2016-08-23T02:43:06.050" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Check out the simul games and results of a top player from today: Topalov. The last I saw his play in simuls was horrendous. I think there are just some players who use time differently and faster time controls hurt them. Nigel Short is another stark example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10591" LastActivityDate="2016-08-23T02:43:06.050" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15223" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15168" CreationDate="2016-08-23T12:05:34.207" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Surely Capablanca played much more than a few hundred games, so obviously the observation bias makes it undesirable to base this answer on the numbers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore I provide a general answer to why strong people may score better with black than with white:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If you play a significantly weaker opponent, it is common courtesy to&#xA;  let them play with white. At least in the first game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a result ones scores with black can be 'boosted' compared those with white if one plays against weaker opponents in casual settings frequently.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11103" LastActivityDate="2016-08-23T12:05:34.207" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15224" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15225" CreationDate="2016-08-23T17:06:09.777" Score="0" ViewCount="77" Body="&lt;p&gt;Carlsen vs Grischuk: GM Blitz Battle Chess is currently being played on chess.com and being streamed on the chess channel on twitch.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My connection is very slow at the moment and I'm super busy and I'd like to watch previous matches especially the one that Carlsen played the other day. I have a free account on twitch and chess.com. Cess.com doesn't upload everything to youtube.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If they don't upload the video, is there any other way that I can watch the video?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1105" LastActivityDate="2016-08-23T21:22:11.567" Title="Is there a way to watch blitz championship currently on chess.com on youtube?" Tags="&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;online&gt;&lt;online-blitz&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15225" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15224" CreationDate="2016-08-23T18:33:18.690" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You should be able to go to the Past Broadcasts section on Twitch. I believe there is a newish Twitch feature called Clips that you may want to check out. If someone created a clip of the match, it would save you having to rewatc&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11105" LastActivityDate="2016-08-23T18:33:18.690" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15226" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15228" CreationDate="2016-08-23T20:53:14.380" Score="6" ViewCount="900" Body="&lt;p&gt;All the articles I've read on the internet explain how a King, Knight, and Bishop should work together to defend against a King and Queen. This is called the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/kingqueen-vs-kingbishopknight&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Karstedt fortress&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This article depicts the fortress in the corner. My question is, assume the King, Knight, and Bishop are maintaining this defensive position in the middle of the board, or anywhere on the board except around the perimeter. Is there a way for the King and Queen to prevent or break down this fortress if it is not in the corner and force a win, or is this fortress strong enough to defend against a mate anywhere on the board?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the King and Queen can force a win, how is that done?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1583" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-08-24T08:03:58.530" LastActivityDate="2016-08-24T08:03:58.530" Title="Knight &amp; Bishop vs. Queen" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15227" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15224" CreationDate="2016-08-23T21:22:11.567" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The stream from earlier today is available to be viewed &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.twitch.tv/chess/v/85266999&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There will be another broadcast tomorrow, but that will be a separate stream, with a different link to view (and the link won't be available until tomorrow).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7147" LastActivityDate="2016-08-23T21:22:11.567" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15228" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15226" CreationDate="2016-08-24T01:47:37.543" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Karstedt fortress must be set up in a corner.&#xA;Even one square away it won't keep out the opposing King:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;No fortress&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;6k1/5b2/7K/3nQ3/8/8/8/8 w - - 0 0&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is, however, a reverse fortress that keeps the stronger King&#xA;imprisoned:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Draw&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;8/8/8/8/8/5nkb/2Q5/7K w - - 0 0&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and even a mutual Zugwzang involving this configuration:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Mutual Zugzwang!&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;8/8/8/8/4k3/5n1b/8/2Q4K w - - 0 0&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Qh6 Bf1!&#xA;2.Qc1 Bh3!&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8860" LastActivityDate="2016-08-24T01:47:37.543" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15229" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2771" CreationDate="2016-08-24T13:38:44.433" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In spite of the literature that claims anyone can become a Master, I seriously doubt it.  There are natural limitations.  Not everyone is Capablanca, and no amount of studying/playing will change that.  I can attest to that from my own situation.  My initial rating in the late 1960's was 1759. I would periodically give up chess from lack of progress but start in again later.  In the early 1980's through concerted effort/ study, I did approach 1900 (at 1891) but again stopped due to several life crises (divorce, loss of job and home, death of parents). When my life had stabilized I started in again in the early '90's, but my rating started to slowly sink.  Old age and fatigue began to take their toll, and I found I could no longer calculate in depth after several hours of exhausting play, so I gave up the chase in 1995.  My final rating - 1759, the same one I started with.  Perhaps with expensive training I could have gotten to 2000, but I somehow doubt it. I suppose doubting it would have in and of itself prevented it, since supreme self-confidence is also a requisite, but I'll never know now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastActivityDate="2016-08-24T13:38:44.433" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15230" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15130" CreationDate="2016-08-24T15:25:29.883" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;When would it be beneficial to trade a knight for a bishop, or vice versa?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Obviously, bishops are more interesting when there's an open position, where you can aim at long distance on the chess set along diagonals, with no pawns on your path. So the choice would be to avoid the exchange in such positions. In tighten positions, with entangled pawn structures, Knights however can be more effective. So I would keep them in that situations. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is the &lt;em&gt;absolute&lt;/em&gt; point of view, but depending on the game, you can find a specific utility to keep a knight in an opened position or not exchange a bishop in a closed one. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;How does the value of a knight or bishop change depending on the current situation in game?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I played a game recently when I had a good bishop, that I wanted to use for my attack, but then my opponent played his knight in a strategic place, where he would have made a lot of problems and have me lose my tempo because of a threat, so after evaluating the situation I decided it was better to make the exchange with my &lt;strong&gt;(so good !)&lt;/strong&gt; bishop. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would have preferred to keep it, but it was the position and the dangerous square occupied by the knight (that increased its value) that decided my move. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10190" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T15:58:28.523" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T15:58:28.523" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="15231" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15130" CreationDate="2016-08-24T19:15:49.457" Score="13" Body="&lt;h2&gt;Guidelines of when to trade&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;First of all, you trade down when you're ahead in material. The more&#xA;  material that comes off, the bigger your advantage gets.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Next, you trade off when you have a spatial disadvantage. If your&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  opponent is crunching down on you, by trading off pieces, you&#xA;  relieve the pressure on your position.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Third, &lt;strong&gt;you trade when an exchange will make one of your surviving&#xA;  pieces more powerful&lt;/strong&gt;. For example, when trading bishop for knight,&#xA;  will leave you with a position with a very strong knight against a&#xA;  bad bishop of your opponent's.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;And fourth, you trade when you'll be &lt;strong&gt;getting rid of a very powerful&#xA;  piece of your opponent&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From &lt;em&gt;Josh Waitzkin's Academy&lt;/em&gt;, presented in the &lt;em&gt;Chessmaster&lt;/em&gt; program. Emphasis is mine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The remainder of this answer elaborates on points 3 and 4, i.e. you trade minor pieces when the resulting position is favourable to you, and the types of positions that favour the Knight or the Bishop are highlighted below.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;When a Bishop is stronger than the Knight&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Bishop and knight are of approximately equal value, but in the endgame, situations favouring the the bishop are considerably more common than those favouring the knight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why is this? Firstly, Bishops are stronger in open games, and endgames, with a large reduction in material, are often open.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Secondly, if play is on both sides of the board, then the bishop can cover both sides better than a knight can.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is an example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/8/1k3b2/1p3p1p/pPp2P2/P1P3P1/8/1N2K3 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Onoprienko&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Khasangatin&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;  1. Kd2            Kc6           &#xA;  2. Ke2            Kd5           &#xA;  3. Ke3            Bg7           &#xA;  4. Kf3            Bh8           &#xA;  5. Ke3            Bg7           &#xA;  6. Kf3            Bf6           &#xA;  7. Ke3            h4            &#xA;  8. gxh4           Bxh4          &#xA;  9. Kf3            Bf6           &#xA; 10. Ke3            Ke6           &#xA; 11. Kf3            Kf7           &#xA; 12. Kg3            Kg6           &#xA; 13. Kh3            Kh5           &#xA; 14. Kg3            Be7           &#xA; 15. Kh3            Bh4           &#xA; 16. Nd2            Be1           &#xA; 17. Nb1            Bf2           &#xA; 18. Kg2            Be3           &#xA; 19. Kf3            Bc1           &#xA; 20. Kg3            Kg6           &#xA; 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here we see that:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;White's pawns were locked onto dark squares, hence were targets for the Bishop&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The Knight was entirely passive, guarding the Queenside pawns&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The Bishop was able to triangulate to lose a tempo when White was in zugzwang. A Knight cannot do the same&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Play was on 2 sides of the board, which is to the Bishop's advantage&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source for quote and example: &lt;em&gt;Understanding Chess Endgames&lt;/em&gt; by John Nunn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;When a Knight is stronger than the Bishop&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The Bishop doesn't always defeat the Knight. The Bishop's weakness, that it can only reach half the squares on the board, is exacerbated when it is a 'bad' bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's take a look at an example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/1p6/3p1k2/2pPp1p1/P1P1K1Pp/3N3P/3b4/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Nunn&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Upton&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;  1. Kf3            Ba5           &#xA;  2. Nf2            Bc7           &#xA;  3. Ne4+           Kg6           &#xA;  4. a5             Kh6           &#xA;  5. Ke3            Kg6           &#xA;  6. Kd3            Kg7           &#xA;  7. Kc2            Kf8           &#xA;  8. Kb3            Bxa5          &#xA;  9. Nxd6           Bb6           &#xA; 10. Ne4            Bd8           &#xA; 11. Nxc5           b6            &#xA; 12. Ne6+            1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here we see that:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The position is closed, meaning White had time to maneuver the Knight to the ideal squares&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The Bishop was hemmed in by it's own pawns and had no targets. It was effectively a spectator&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source for quotes and example: &lt;em&gt;Understanding Chess Endgames&lt;/em&gt; by John Nunn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;The Bishop pair&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Two Bishops are often a powerful force in the endgame. They have the long-range power of a single Bishop, but without the lone Bishop's weakness of only being able to reach half the squares on the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this example, we see 3 themes as to how the Bishop pair can beat tBishop and Knight:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The long range of the Bishops means that whenever the Knight moves or makes a threat, then the Knight can be easily harassed or the threat can be parried&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;White's pawns are soon placed onto dark squares, whereas Black has a dark square Bishop. Black is playing with a passive, purely defensive Bishop&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In the final position, the a3 Bishop dominates the Knight in one direction, i.e. the Knight cannot move to c1, b2, b4 or c5. In general, a Bishop separated by 2 squares like this dominates the Knight:&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;7k/7p/p7/5B2/2b5/Pn2B2P/8/7K b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Ye Rongguang&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Nunn&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Kg7 Kg2   &#xA;2. Bd5+   Kg3   &#xA;3. Na5 Bd4+  &#xA;4. Kg8 Kf4   &#xA;5. Nc4 Bc5   &#xA;6. Kg7 h4&#xA;7. Kg8 Kg5   &#xA;8. Ne5 Kf6   &#xA;9. Nf3 Bf2   &#xA;10. Bb3 Bg4   &#xA;11. Bd5 a4&#xA;12. Nd2 Be1   &#xA;13. Nf3 Bg3   &#xA;14. Nd2 a5&#xA;15. Bc4 Be1   &#xA;16. Nb3 Bc3   &#xA;17. Nc5 Ke5   &#xA;18. Nb3 Kd6   &#xA;19. Kf7 Bh5+  &#xA;20. Kg8 Kc6   &#xA;21. Kf8 Bb4+  &#xA;22. Kg7 Kb6   &#xA;23. Kf6 Bg4   &#xA;24. Nc1 Bc8   &#xA;25. Nd3 Ba3  1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source for quotes and example: &lt;em&gt;Understanding Chess Endgames&lt;/em&gt; by John Nunn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;The Exchange: Bishop vs Rook&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I must prepare you for the fact that we are not at all dealing with simple material here [on the material imbalance of the Exchange in the endgame]. There are preciously few general rules that can be formulated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the sections where I consider the exchange, it is important to think about whether a player would prefer to have Bishop vs. Rook or Knight vs. Rook. From the quote above, there are no guidelines &lt;em&gt;per se&lt;/em&gt;. The positions require tactical analysis. However, a Bishop vs. Rook has better drawing chances than Knight vs. Rook. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this position White has built a fortress, and a draw is assured.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/8/p3kBp1/6P1/7r/1P6/1KP5/8 w - - 0 2&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Zuidema&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Kostro&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this example of Knight vs. Rook, the outcome is a draw, but the Knight side has to work much harder for it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/8/6R1/3k2P1/p2n4/2K1p3/8/8 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Smyslov&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Fischer&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. a3             Ra6           &#xA;2. Nb3            Rxa3          &#xA;3. e2             Ra1  1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source for quote and examples: &lt;em&gt;Van Perlo's Endgame Tactics, 2e&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;The Exchange: Knight vs Rook&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A firmly defended Knight or Bishop in the centre is only slightly weaker than a rook.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Quote attributed to Grigory Levenfish.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the example below, we see Black's c5 Bishop and e5 Knight are so centrally dominant that White has to come up with an interesting exchange sacrifice to generate attacking chances. If White could swap minor pieces for the Bishop and Knight, then the game would be about even, but that is impossible to do immediately in the starting position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;r4rk1/1pqb1ppp/p2ppn2/2b1nP2/3NP2Q/2NBB2P/PPP3P1/R4R1K w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Mitkov&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Rublevsky&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;  1. Rf3            Nxf3          &#xA;  2. gxf3           Kh8           &#xA;  3. Rg1            Qd8           &#xA;  4. e5             dxe5          &#xA;  5. Rxg7           Kxg7          &#xA;  6. Bh6+           Kh8           &#xA;  7. Bg5            Be7           &#xA;  8. fxe6            *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source for quote and example: &lt;em&gt;The Wisest Things Ever Said About Chess&lt;/em&gt; by Andy Soltis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Miscellaneous ideas e.g. tactical considerations, outposts, Bishops of opposite colour etc.&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here I give a few examples of exchanging minor pieces under miscellaneous themes:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Tactical considerations&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, winning material, mating or converting into a won endgame take over all general considerations on when to swap minor pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this example, White enters a won King and Pawn endgame by creating some dangerous passers:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/1p3pp1/p1k1pn1p/P6P/2P3P1/2BK1P2/1P6/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;  1. Bxf6           gxf6          &#xA;  2. f4             Kd6           &#xA;  3. g5             fxg5          &#xA;  4. fxg5           Ke7           &#xA;  5. gxh6           Kf8           &#xA;  6. b4              *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Removing a defender of an outpost&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this example, White eliminates the key defender of the d5 square, then pounds the backward pawn on d6:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;2rr2k1/p3q1b1/1p1pb1pp/4p3/2P5/1PN1Q1P1/P4PBP/2RR2K1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;  1. Bd5            Kh7           &#xA;  2. Bxe6           Qxe6          &#xA;  3. Rd3            Rc7           &#xA;  4. Rcd1           Rf7           &#xA;  5. Ne4            Bf8           &#xA;  6. Rd5             *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Bishops of opposite colour as a drawing resource&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here White is down 2 pawns, but by trading Bishop for Knight, a Bishop of opposite colour ending arises, which is usually a draw:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/4kp1p/Bp3np1/2p5/P2b4/8/3B2PP/5K2 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;  1. Bg5            Ke6           &#xA;  2. Bxf6           Kxf6          &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source for examples: &lt;em&gt;Practical Chess Exercises&lt;/em&gt; by Ray Cheng.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Summary&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The decision on whether to trade Bishop for Knight is complex, but it depends on:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Tactical considerations, such as mating, winning material or forcing a won endgame&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The Pawn structure - closed structure favour Knights, open favour the Bishops. Moreover, consider whether a Bishop has targets, i.e. enemy pawns on the same coour complex to attack&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Piece activity - centralised minor pieces are worth close to a Rook's value in some positions&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastEditorDisplayName="user1108" LastEditDate="2016-08-29T17:10:19.280" LastActivityDate="2016-08-29T17:10:19.280" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15233" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15203" CreationDate="2016-08-24T21:36:56.857" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;it's no different than any other competitive activity, like soccer, or dodgeball, or anything where you have team vs. team or player vs. player. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It builds character, win or lose.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To learn how to lose is a skill that can only be taught by losing. Just don't make it a &quot;win at all costs and we go to Applebee's&quot; thing. That is the pressure you are talking about, and totally out of the realm of the player themselves - the child. They are unaware of it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That is totally on you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Don't live vicariously through your children to achieve the things you were unable to achieve. Encourage? Yes. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10233" LastActivityDate="2016-08-24T21:36:56.857" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15234" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15185" CreationDate="2016-08-24T21:43:45.517" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Psychology may play a part in high-level chess (top 100) when your opponents are known to you when you enter a tournament. For your Joe-Club player or week-ender tourney dude, it has no effect. Playing that game will surely lose fore you because you have decided to play sub-optimal moves for the position based on non-chess principles. That is just stupid chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10233" LastActivityDate="2016-08-24T21:43:45.517" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15235" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15165" CreationDate="2016-08-24T21:53:07.927" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;I'm playing blitz chess with times between 3 and 30 minutes, without any increment, and it's not over the board (it's online).&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a: That is not blitz.&#xA;b: Wikipedia does not qualify to give advice about chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The best advice you can get, and this I got from a GM (James Rizzitano), is &quot;Play the board.&quot; By playing to your opponents time pressure, you put yourself in time pressure. Simple as that. A good move is a good move. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only time - the only time - this idea can work is if you are losing and you want to complicate the game to try and gain an advantage, as stated in the quote.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Otherwise, play good moves and do not change your thinking process.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10233" LastActivityDate="2016-08-24T21:53:07.927" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15237" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15165" CreationDate="2016-08-25T03:48:34.277" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Find the sharpest, most complicated variation that the position (and your own ability) will support. Take a reasonable amount of time to do this, because you have it, and your opponent doesn't.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once you've formed your plan, play it out step by step. Make your moves in natural tempo, let your strategy unfold, and let your opponent panic in time trouble.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A cautionary put out by another poster holds: This is not the time to &quot;sit back and relax,&quot; and possibly let your opponent catch up. This is the time to play &quot;hard,&quot; the hardest game you can possibly play, and hope that your opponent doesn't have the time to play it with you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2016-08-25T03:48:34.277" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15238" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2771" CreationDate="2016-08-25T04:04:00.657" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, understand what the levels mean. A 1600 level means that a player can &quot;get by&quot; at the club level. A 2000 rating refers to an expert, or what I call a &quot;near master.&quot; Those are two different worlds.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Study master games and learn how masters play, and especially how they think. Get an instructor to help you. You want to get out of the &quot;club&quot; rut and leave your current (1600) &quot;peers&quot; behind. So try not to play like them, but like the master players you are &quot;associating&quot; with (vicariously). You will take some beatings, but you will learn a lot.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One thing that separates top players from the merely good is the end game. As people go higher and higher, the differences in skill become less and less, and the endgame is where the small differences show up. A good grasp of the endgame will help your middle games to, because you will learn what kinds of positions to &quot;aim for,&quot; instead of blindly trying to master the game move by move, and opponent by opponent, like some of the other posters advocate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you have &quot;arrived&quot; at 2000, you will not be a master, because you won't know all the details. But you should be able to do a pretty good simulation of one, that is someone who will overawe the 1900s and lower.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2016-08-25T04:04:00.657" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15239" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8823" CreationDate="2016-08-25T06:12:23.103" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am on El Capitan. I was previously using the following app on Yosemite and it also worked their. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Assuming that your chess files aren't corrupted in some way, go to the App store on Mac and search Stockfish. Download that application and try using it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a gui version so you don't have to worry about any binary files or using the command line.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If there is any question as to whether or not the site download is working, this app will answer that question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT August 25, 2016:&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA; I just tried opening a lichess game in stockfish and it was giving me a &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;Stockfish could not parse the move text. Edit your PGN file and try&#xA;  again.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;error. I think this issue is coming from lichess pgn generation (if you are using lichess). I tried opening a game from chessgames and it worked properly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7236" LastEditorUserId="7236" LastEditDate="2016-08-26T00:38:40.440" LastActivityDate="2016-08-26T00:38:40.440" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15240" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8258" CreationDate="2016-08-26T16:15:33.923" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;We do not know the exact format for Chessbase books, and it is entirely possible that what I'm about to say is not true in this case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The open standard book formats that I know of (Crafty, Pro Deo, Polyglot) represent chess positions as a 64-bit Zobrist hash. You can google how one of these works if you want to, it's beyond the scope of this answer. This is likely the same for Chessbase books.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These hashes are designed so that the key for 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 is &lt;em&gt;identical&lt;/em&gt; to the key for 1.Nf3 c5 2. e4. This is useful for covering transpositions like this one. However, it means that it cannot distinguish between lines, resulting in there being no way of removing these transpositions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;TL;DR I suspect this is impossible because of technical restrictions in the Chessbase book format.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1508" LastActivityDate="2016-08-26T16:15:33.923" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15241" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-08-26T21:34:28.750" Score="17" ViewCount="1526" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a question concerning online blitz chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm sure we all have experienced having a completely winning position, but only having a few seconds left on the clock. After one such game I started to wonder: &#xA;In the ending KQ vs K, is it possible to &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Premove&quot;&gt;premove&lt;/a&gt; a sequence of moves such that no matter what moves the opponent makes, they will end up check mate? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1485" LastEditorUserId="4588" LastEditDate="2016-08-27T10:48:34.493" LastActivityDate="2016-09-07T22:09:41.743" Title="In the endgame KQ vs K, can you premove your way to checkmate?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;online-blitz&gt;&lt;elementary-mates&gt;&lt;bullet-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15242" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15241" CreationDate="2016-08-27T07:40:47.510" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;If the enemy king is cut off at the edge of the board, it is possible to mate him using only premoves. For example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[StartPly &quot;1&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;2k5/Q7/8/8/8/8/8/K7 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;      1.Ka2 Kd8 2.Ka3 Kc8 3.Ka4 Kd8 4.Ka5 Kc8 5.Ka6 Kd8 6.Qb7 Ke8 7.Kb6 Kd8 8.Qc7+ Ke8 9.Kc6 Kf8 10.Qd7 Kg8 11.Kd6 Kf8 12.Qe7+ Kg8 13.Ke6 Kh8 14.Kf6 (14.Qf7??=) Kg8 15.Qg7#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just make sure you don't stalemate your opponent with 14.Qf7.&#xA;Note that there is of course a much quicker path to mate, the sequence of moves just shows it is possible to exclusively use premoves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the enemy king is not cut off at the edge of the board, I doubt if it is possible to premove the entire sequence. In order to mate him, the quadrant in which the enemy king is located has to be narrowed. And that is the problem: whenever the queen is moved, the king might escape the quadrant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4588" LastEditorUserId="4588" LastEditDate="2016-08-27T07:45:49.153" LastActivityDate="2016-08-27T07:45:49.153" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15243" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15241" CreationDate="2016-08-27T15:20:22.220" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just to show it's possible, here is a position, without the opponent king trapped at the edge of the board, where you can premove the entire sequence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/6k1/4Q3/8/8/8/8/K7 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Move the king to &lt;code&gt;g5&lt;/code&gt;, play &lt;code&gt;Qd7(+)&lt;/code&gt;, and then continue as in Maxwell86's answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1485" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2016-08-27T15:27:41.983" LastActivityDate="2016-08-27T15:27:41.983" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15244" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8561" CreationDate="2016-08-28T00:10:14.423" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Without controlling for strength and for strength of opposition the above is largely meaningless--no offense intended. You would expect Bobby Fischer to play fewer draws, for example, simply because he so thoroughly outclassed nearly all his opposition. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That does not mean, however, he was not predisposed to drawing. It means that he didn't play enough players of his caliber for us to know his tendencies. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The converse is true--take a weak player who likes playing over his head. He won't draw often, but that does not mean he is not predisposed to drawing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You'll have a better chance of generating a meaningful result if you account for strength of opposition, eliminate games played for GMs when their rating was under 2500... perhaps a variable coefficient based on strength of opposition... you get the idea.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11133" LastActivityDate="2016-08-28T00:10:14.423" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15245" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-08-28T04:58:41.453" Score="3" ViewCount="165" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recently found out about Caruana's performance in the Sinquefield Cup - 2014. I only started watching chess recently. I was convinced that Carlsen is head and shoulders over everyone else when I started watching two months back. Now I've realized anyone above 2750 is very dangerous. Recently I came to know about Caruana's performance in 2014 and I am wondering why he was not able to maintain that level of performance .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10737" LastActivityDate="2016-09-09T15:04:21.090" Title="Why wasn't Caruana able to maintain the level he played in Sinquefield Cup - 2014 ?" Tags="&lt;psychology&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15249" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-08-28T10:48:05.357" Score="0" ViewCount="188" Body="&lt;p&gt;I need help!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am trying to invent something out of my own imagination. But something isn't right... I am playing as white and I can't figure out why is it that I have the feeling about losing a pawn on c3?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Nf3 Nf6&#xA;2. g3 g6&#xA;3. Bg2 Bg7&#xA;4. O-O O-O&#xA;5. c3 Nc6&#xA;6. b3 d5&#xA;7. d4 Bf5&#xA;8. Be3 Ne4&#xA;9. Nh4 Qd7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any suggestions and opinions will be much appreciated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11135" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-08-28T16:59:16.400" LastActivityDate="2016-09-27T17:20:43.827" Title="Help trying to invent a tactical chess opening" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;beginner&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15250" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15249" CreationDate="2016-08-28T12:34:34.220" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Be3 would make more sense on b2 since that would not only support c3 and d4, but also make room for opening the centre via e4 later (after Rf1-e1). Placing a bishop on the 3rd rank in the centre with the pawn behind still on the 2nd rank tends to become awkward.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11137" LastActivityDate="2016-08-28T12:34:34.220" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15251" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-08-28T14:11:07.910" Score="0" ViewCount="1314" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can someone tell me a good website in order to learn to use Anki for chess opening improvement?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11140" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-09-02T09:27:32.883" LastActivityDate="2016-09-02T09:27:32.883" Title="A good site to learn Anki for chess openings?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ClosedDate="2016-09-02T04:24:50.283" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15252" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15249" CreationDate="2016-08-28T16:58:54.970" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you're afraid of losing c3, you shouldn't play b3 in the first place (unless you intend to &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fianchetto&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;fianchetto&lt;/a&gt; the bishop, as &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/15250/7297&quot;&gt;@Ras&lt;/a&gt; mentions). Black also doesn't threaten to occupy c4 (or a4) with a piece. Remember that pawns cannot move backwards, so every time you move a pawn you lose control over the squares you leave behind.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, if you're trying to play/invent tactical openings, you're better off starting with 1. e4. The open positions which arise from these opening offer more chance for tactics.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2016-08-28T16:58:54.970" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15253" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1498" CreationDate="2016-08-28T17:24:17.287" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Certainly some of the suggestions listed above are possible, but I believe he played below his best and just lost.  I will explain why I think so.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;First&lt;/strong&gt;, I believe you played one of those games with 3 days per move (or similar) online.  Am I right?  I have played in those places and sometimes you just start too many games.  So while you played maybe one or two games, he might have played 30 games or more.  Playing so many games leads you to use less time on each move and to forget your plans in between.  I know, because I have tried this myself.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Second&lt;/strong&gt;, the moves he played in the games are not so bad at all.  Here is my analysis:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;3.-Bxe6  Play through &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/article/view/the-bold-icelandic-gambit&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this game&lt;/a&gt; between strong players and you will see important similarities with your game (Black castling long for example).  Black just gives up a pawn for speedy development.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;10.-Nbd7  This is a standard move in this kind of position, with the plan to castle long and attack on the King side.  However, I think he misjudged how strong the following Re1 would be.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;12.-0-0-0  At this point Black will lose a pawn no matter what and might as well try to unbalance the position by castling the opposite way.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;After 15.-fxe4 he has achieved what to me looks like a promising position with compensation for at least one pawn.  It looks like your Nf3 will have to move soon and that he will break through on h2.  In fact, I wonder if he could have followed up with the Bishop sacrifice 16.-Bxh2+.  After 17.Nxh2 the move 17.-Qh4 is strong, at least winning back the Knight.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;16.-Nf6 and 17.-Qf7 are inaccurate moves and whatever compensation he had is gone.  When the third pawn falls the game is over although he tries a last trick with Bxh2 check as had you moved Nh2 you would have been check mated.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Third and last&lt;/strong&gt;, do not underestimate your own play.  I am myself a FIDE master and I recently lost a game in just above 20 moves to a player 800 points lower than myself.  Sometimes I play below my best and when a weaker players finds all the correct moves he wins.  It did not help me that I could calculate all his winning lines many times faster and more accurate than him.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You played a good game!  Don´t think otherwise!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1493" LastActivityDate="2016-08-28T17:24:17.287" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15255" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4963" CreationDate="2016-08-28T20:06:03.903" Score="28" Body="&lt;p&gt;Assuming you allow promoted material (since you didn't say anything :-),&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://problem64.beda.cz/silo/feenschach51_1980.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this (on Page 13 of the PDF)&lt;/a&gt; is the (unfortunately, extremely unknown) finite record since ages. It shows the record for the longest sequence of only 1 legal move for each side, with use of promoted material.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Karl Scherer, Feenshach 1980, Page 13&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;BQ4R1/2Q5/3Q4/4Q1pp/5B1P/6QK/Rrrrrrrq/R4nk1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Qxh2+ Rxh2+ 2. Bxh2+ Rxh2+ 3. Qxh2+ Rxh2+ 4. Qxh2+ Rxh2+ 5. Qxh2+ Rxh2+ 6. Qxh2+ Rxh2+ 7. Rxh2 g4+ 8. Rxg4+ hxg4+ 9. Kxg4 Kxh2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11144" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-06T21:30:57.107" LastActivityDate="2020-04-06T21:30:57.107" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="15256" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15241" CreationDate="2016-08-28T20:18:31.210" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think with the black king on f7 it's also possible. For example, in the following position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[FEN &quot;8/5k2/3Q4/8/8/3K4/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;this sequence of moves for white checkmates always:&#xA;Ke4 Kf5 (go to f5 in two moves) Qd7 Kf6 Qh3 Qc8 Qa8 Qh1#&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I made this gif to explain why:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/KcmWd.gif&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/KcmWd.gif&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In green it is shown where the black king could be (to consider all possibilities).&#xA;Note that it is important that White's king can reach f5 in two moves (exactly two) because, thanks to the parity, after two moves it is impossible for Black to be in e8 and therefore, Qd7 is safe. Note also that even though 4 is an even number, in 4 moves Black's king could make it, thanks to triangulation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11139" LastActivityDate="2016-08-28T20:18:31.210" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15257" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15100" CreationDate="2016-08-28T20:39:20.563" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can only speak of the direct twomover genre, where I am...less nonexpert.&#xA;The twomover has been declared dead more often than all members of the X-Men combined, and yet it is still alive. True, the classics all have been found. Probably. But there always have been new ideas. (Suggestion: look up who got a grandmaster title in the field, check his problems in the original sources and what the audience commented.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And Fairy Chess is unlimited by definition (and practically depends only&#xA;which novelties catch on with composers and public).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11144" LastActivityDate="2016-08-28T20:39:20.563" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15258" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-08-29T03:04:32.827" Score="0" ViewCount="136" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the point at which promotion occurs?  Does the pawn as it enters the 8th rank become a promoted piece as it enters or does it have to occupy as a pawn then be promoted?  If promotion occurs as it enters then a pawn would not be blocked from moving to the 8th rank if some piece was in its way.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11146" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2016-08-29T06:00:24.527" LastActivityDate="2016-08-29T06:00:24.527" Title="Promotion transition" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;pawn-promotion&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15259" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15258" CreationDate="2016-08-29T05:10:26.123" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;When a pawn reaches the 8th rank, it then must be promoted to a Queen, Rook, Bishop or Knight.&#xA;The pawn can capture normally to reach the 8th rank. IE fxg8=Q, but as we know the pawns don't attack pieces whom are directly blocking them so captures straight is not an option.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According the the FIDE 2017 handbook promotions can be done in numerous ways:&#xA;4.6.1 the pawn does not have to be placed on the square of arrival,&#xA;4.6.2 removing the pawn and putting the new piece on the square of promotion may occur in any order.&#xA;4.6.3 If an opponent’s piece stands on the square of promotion, it must be captured.&#xA;It is worth noting that incorrectly promoting in Blitz or Rapid games results in a loss by illegal move according to the official rules.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11147" LastActivityDate="2016-08-29T05:10:26.123" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15260" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15251" CreationDate="2016-08-29T07:31:30.207" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://ankisrs.net&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Anki&lt;/a&gt; is a program for &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaced_repetition&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;spaced repetition&lt;/a&gt;. You can use it &lt;a href=&quot;https://ankiweb.net/shared/decks/Chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;to train chess&lt;/a&gt; without being online at all. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chesstempo.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chesstempo&lt;/a&gt; is a site on which you can train chess and it also allows you to use &lt;a href=&quot;http://chesstempo.com/user-guide/en/probSearchSpacedRepetition.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;spaced repetition&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2016-08-29T07:31:30.207" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15261" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15262" CreationDate="2016-08-29T19:22:13.663" Score="4" ViewCount="898" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was wondering if there is a statistical or probabilistic (at least approximate) way of looking at a score of a chess position of a certain fixed engine, say &quot;crafty version 5&quot; for example. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i.e. maybe +2 could be interpreted as &quot;if the engine keeps on playing, 60% wins white, 30% black and 10% draw. I know this isn't the purpose of the score, but maybe it can be translated to approximate probabilities, maybe someone has done a statistical test with hundreds of games to see the correlation. And the amount of draw maybe depends on the &quot;sharpness&quot; of the position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10601" LastEditorUserId="4588" LastEditDate="2016-08-29T19:35:08.003" LastActivityDate="2016-08-29T20:05:50.997" Title="Does engine score correlate with winning chances?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;statistics&gt;&lt;evaluation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15262" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15261" CreationDate="2016-08-29T19:33:36.843" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;On the website of &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cruxis.com/chess/houdini.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Houdini&lt;/a&gt;, one of the best chess engines (see for instance &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.computerchess.org.uk/ccrl/404/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;CCRL&lt;/a&gt; or &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.husvankempen.de/nunn/40_4_Ratinglist/40_4_BestVersion/rangliste.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;CEGT&lt;/a&gt;), the author writes&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Houdini 4 uses calibrated evaluations in which engine scores correlate directly with the win expectancy in the position. A +1.00 pawn advantage gives a 80% chance of winning the game against an equal opponent at blitz time control. At +2.00 the engine will win 95% of the time, and at +3.00 about 99% of the time. If the advantage is +0.50, expect to win nearly 50% of the time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Pawn+Advantage%2C+Win+Percentage%2C+and+ELO&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess Programming Wiki&lt;/a&gt; mentions a study where data from more than 400 000 computer games have been used to find a relation between pawn advantage (P) and winning percentage (W).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;W = 1 / (1+10^(-P/4))&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4588" LastEditorUserId="4588" LastEditDate="2016-08-29T20:05:50.997" LastActivityDate="2016-08-29T20:05:50.997" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15264" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14795" CreationDate="2016-08-30T19:02:59.797" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I do not have to time to create a diagram of every type, but it seems intuitive to me that it would be possible to contrive a windmill from any pair of (non-pawn) pieces where:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The stationary piece is a slider&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The moving piece is any other type of piece not capable of attacking along the axis at which the stationary piece will give check&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="550" LastActivityDate="2016-08-30T19:02:59.797" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15265" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15301" CreationDate="2016-09-01T03:58:51.477" Score="1" ViewCount="759" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want player 2 to see what last move player 1 has moved. The best way to do this would be to highlight the last move. How is it possible in chessboard.JS?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11165" LastActivityDate="2016-09-06T21:49:23.380" Title="How to highlight current and previous move of the player in chessboard.js?" Tags="&lt;chessboards&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15266" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14846" CreationDate="2016-09-01T09:59:34.010" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, the new book is quite different to the old one:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;On the whole, however, &lt;em&gt;The New Art of Defense in Chess&lt;/em&gt; &lt;strong&gt;should be seen as a fundamentally new book&lt;/strong&gt;. This is because Soltis recognizes the way in which dynamism and activity have become fundamental to modern defensive techniques.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chessbookreviews.wordpress.com/tag/new-art-of-defence-in-chess/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;ChessBookReviews&lt;/a&gt;, emphasis is mine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Synthesising the review, the reasons why the book is different is because:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Computer analysis has helped players find flaws in the attack in postmortems, which they use to improve their defensive technique&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Players are more open to playing 'ugly', counter intuitive moves that are based on concrete analysis&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;After Tal's reign as world champion, players realised that active defensive is usually better than passive defence&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastEditorDisplayName="user1108" LastEditDate="2017-04-27T08:04:50.393" LastActivityDate="2017-04-27T08:04:50.393" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15267" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15268" CreationDate="2016-09-01T12:04:34.510" Score="2" ViewCount="109" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are there any non-Chess games that use a chess board where the bottom-right hand cell for each player is black rather than white?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9863" LastActivityDate="2016-09-01T15:30:33.953" Title="Are there non-Chess games that use a chess board with &quot;black on the right&quot;" Tags="&lt;chessboards&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15268" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15267" CreationDate="2016-09-01T15:30:33.953" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Spain checkers is played with the board placed that way. Alternatively you can place the board the same way as chess, but then pieces are placed at light squares.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2311" LastActivityDate="2016-09-01T15:30:33.953" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15269" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1498" CreationDate="2016-09-01T22:02:06.833" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;It looks like your opponent underestimated you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He began by playing an inferior opening, sacrificing a pawn to get two &quot;free&quot; bishops. You neutralized his advantage by &quot;opposing&quot; bishops on his diagonals, eventually exchanging them with a pawn up. Then he tried to recoup by O-O-O, sacrificing another pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Given an initial advantage, you played steady, commonsense moves that kept that advantage. Your opponent didn't try to make it a long distance race by playing for the end game, but kept playing &quot;double or nothing&quot; and losing, through sheer frustration.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once, as a 1500 player, I played White and kept the advantage for 20 moves against a 2100 player before making a mistake on the 21st move that lost. Give my opponent credit for &quot;staying in&quot; the game, but he felt that I was a much stronger player than he had been led to believe. Your highly rated opponent fell apart when confronted by unexpectedly &quot;solid&quot; play by a lower-ranked player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There may be another reason. Your opponent appears to be a relatively weak player tactically. He may be &quot;no better&quot; or even worse than you at this aspect of the game, while often beating you with superior positional play (where he appears sophisticated). For instance, I have tested as an 1800 player positionally, and a 1400 player tactically, with my 1500 rating being a &quot;weighted average&quot; of the two. My 2100 ranked opponent was apparently facing the 1800 positional player, and not the 1400 tactical player, which is why I was &quot;stronger&quot; than he had expected.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastEditorUserId="17" LastEditDate="2019-12-17T16:09:32.947" LastActivityDate="2019-12-17T16:09:32.947" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="15270" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15275" CreationDate="2016-09-01T23:43:37.203" Score="9" ViewCount="811" Body="&lt;p&gt;What's stopping teams in chess olympiads from mixing up their board order to gain an advantage? All I could find was the rules (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fide.com/FIDE/handbook/chess_olympiad_regulations.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.fide.com/FIDE/handbook/chess_olympiad_regulations.pdf&lt;/a&gt;) that said that the board order couldn't be switched in between rounds. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, even without changing board order, being able to arrange the boards independently of playing strength can be used to gain an advantage. For example, suppose we had players A,B,C,D,D', where player A is stronger than player B, player B is stronger than player C, player C is stronger than player D, and player D is the same strength as player D'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Instead of ordering the players by strength, we could put player D' at first board, and then place the remaining players by strength (so player A is second and so on). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In each round, we only play four players. If we have the first board sit out, we could get the usual board order by playing strength. However, we could also have the fifth board sit out, in which case we have shifted our top three boards down by one, which could be useful against a stronger opponent (especially one that is top heavy). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Related question: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/1325/are-the-board-positions-of-the-4-players-of-each-country-determined-by-elo-ratin/1326#1326&quot;&gt;Are the board positions of the 4 players of each country determined by Elo rating in chess olympiads?&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11163" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2016-09-05T17:17:22.533" Title="Board order in chess olympiads" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;team&gt;&lt;chess-olympiad&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15271" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15276" CreationDate="2016-09-02T00:59:11.133" Score="1" ViewCount="149" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a player I know, whom I would guess to be somewhere between 1600-1800 in strength (call it 1700) who has an unusual profile. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He's a defensive player who's good enough to beat players 1500 and under most of the time. But he stops beating players as they approach the 1600 level, even though he seldom loses to them. Against players in the 1600-1800 range, he wins 10%-15% of the time, loses 10%-15% of the time, and draws the remaining 70% Against players in the 1800-2000 level his stats are slightly worse, about 15% wins, 25% losses, and 60% draws. His loss rate rises as he plays opponents above 2000. But basically, he gets similar results against people in a (wide) range of 1600-2000.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are the dynamics of this player's rating? Will he get points for beating 1500 players more often than other 1700 players? Will his ability to draw against players up to 2000 also pull up his rating above 1700? Or will his lack of wins hold down his rating?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2016-09-02T07:46:40.797" Title="How is a player rated who has similar results against a wide range of players?" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15272" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8907" CreationDate="2016-09-02T02:01:59.293" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not quite sure on this one. For me, endgames only became fun when I dug into a couple of examples I found by myself and discovered how intricate they were. I think most intermediate players realize two things when they actually try an endgame just for the practice.&#xA;1. They suck at endgames.&#xA;2. These things are richer than they look.&#xA;And with the help of a good endgame book,&#xA;3. It truly is amazing what a Capablanca or a Karpov can do in the endgame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I will say that some endgames are rather dry, but they're challenging in a different way. The ability GMs have to assess these things from 2-4 moves away is amazing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In many ways, this is symbolic of chess. This happens many times to players, where they have to get past a &quot;boring&quot; part of the game. I've found in my 15 months of serious chess that there is no substitute for going and doing it yourself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can supply a couple of interesting positions that I've used if you need them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9571" LastActivityDate="2016-09-02T02:01:59.293" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15274" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15271" CreationDate="2016-09-02T04:16:16.757" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not completely sure what your exact question is, but this may help clarify things for you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Keep in mind that an Elo rating only makes sense within a given population of players, and the difference between the ratings of two players serves to predict the result of a competition between those two players.  Also, remember that the ratings of your friend's opponents are not static - just as your friend's rating changes over time as a result of his play, so do his opponents' ratings.  There's no such thing as a &quot;2000 player&quot;, per se - there are only players who are rated 2000 as a result of play within a given population of players.  The Elo rating isn't like a &quot;skill level&quot; or anything, like, &quot;if you have this rating, then you have X, Y, and Z skills&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When your friend plays an opponent, the difference between their ratings is a predictor of the eventual result.  So if your friend is rated 1600, and plays 6 games against an opponent also rated 1600, then your friend's expected result would be 3.0 - which could come as 3 wins and 3 losses, all 6 games drawn, or some other combination.  If the result is different than that - say, your friend scores 4.0, a better than expected result - then as far as the rating system is concerned, either your friend's rating is too low, or his opponent's rating is too high, or both.  So the rating system adjusts both players' ratings - your friend's rating goes up, and his opponent's rating goes down.  The amount by which the players' ratings change depends on how different the actual result is from the expected result - and the expected result depends on the difference between your friend's rating, and his opponent's rating.  If your friend does better than expected against someone whose rating isn't too different than his, then his rating will go up by a little bit, by a small portion of the K value (and the opponent's rating will go down a little bit, by a small portion of the K value).  If your friend does better than expected against someone whose rating is much higher, than your friend's rating will go up by a much larger portion of the K value.  Depending on exactly what rating system you're using, and the ratings of the players involved, the K value for each player might be different, so your friend may not gain the same number of rating points as his opponent loses.  And of course, if your friend does worse than expected against an opponent, he'll lose some number of rating points, and his opponent will gain rating points, depending of the K value, and exactly how different the actual result is from what the rating system would predict.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But, in either case, the ratings of your friend's opponents are not some fixed, static thing - they're changing too, as a result of actual play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does that help answer your question?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7147" LastActivityDate="2016-09-02T04:16:16.757" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15275" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15270" CreationDate="2016-09-02T07:21:17.610" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, in short, nothing. This (a &lt;em&gt;tactical lineup&lt;/em&gt;) is actually quite common in team matches. There are basically two problems, the second of which is not a problem in the Olympiad because of the fixed board order.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Chess isn't an exact science; a weaker player can beat a stronger player (the odds that this happens are just lower). Given the ratings, you can calculate the expected score of a match where both teams are lined up in the regular way, and the expected score when one of the teams employs a tactical lineup. See below for some details.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If you do this too often, the opposing team can prepare and put their weakest player on board one (or even their second weakest player, putting their weakest player on board two, which results in &lt;em&gt;them&lt;/em&gt; having a tactical lineup instead).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are some calculations based on the formula mentioned &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elo_rating_system#Mathematical_details&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; for the expected score. As you see, the tactical lineup increases the expected score for the team by only 0.01 point.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/0wp5G.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/0wp5G.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-09-04T11:23:31.370" LastActivityDate="2016-09-04T11:23:31.370" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15276" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15271" CreationDate="2016-09-02T07:46:40.797" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Elo system treats every player as if his expected score against for example -200 -100 0 100 200 points stronger players would be 24 36 50 64 76 percent. If your real expected score deviates from this assumed distribution it just means that the Elo rating doesn't describe your strength very well. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In a way that is actually the norm and the culprit is the huge drawing range in chess. Stronger players on average slightly underperform against weaker opposition afaik, because drawing with white is just a little too easy. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your special case the players rating would fluctuate depending on his opposition without his actual strength changing all that much. If he manages to get a steady diet of 1800-2000 opponents his rating would rise above 1800, if his opponents are between 1600 and 1700, his rating would stay in that range. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This doesn't actually mean much and it isn't particularly unusual. It's only relevant in team matches or if you need to maximise your rating to be eligible for titles or something. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2016-09-02T07:46:40.797" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15277" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-09-02T18:17:38.207" Score="4" ViewCount="614" Body="&lt;p&gt;I noticed that most websites that allow correspondence chess have time controls that are per move. I believe that historically correspondence chess was played with x days per y moves, which allows one to distribute time where it is needed most, while not making games excessively lengthy, and taking into account the length of a game. As far as I know, official international correspondence chess tournaments are still played this way. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there any free online websites that allow this, even if only to set up opponents who can play via e-mail (maintaining a ratings system)? If there are no free sites, what are the non-free options? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An answer to this question &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/2845/best-websites-for-correspondence-chess&quot;&gt;Best websites for correspondence chess?&lt;/a&gt; listed 5 sites, but I checked all of those and none of them seem to allow standard time controls. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11177" LastActivityDate="2016-09-13T22:44:36.623" Title="Are there any websites that allow standard correspondence chess time controls?" Tags="&lt;time-control&gt;&lt;correspondence-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15278" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15277" CreationDate="2016-09-02T19:33:58.510" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://ChessTempo.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://ChessTempo.com&lt;/a&gt; offers a wide choice of correspondence time controls including a fixed number of days per game, or increment after a move. Just check it out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3456" LastActivityDate="2016-09-02T19:33:58.510" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15279" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15277" CreationDate="2016-09-02T20:38:46.580" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.iccf.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot; title=&quot;ICCF&quot;&gt;ICCF&lt;/a&gt; is a non-free site that offers 'standard' correspondence chess. I believe they have free 'friendly' (non-rated) matches. Typical fees for 7 player tournaments are around $11USD last time I checked.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://schemingmind.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot; title=&quot;Scheming Mind&quot;&gt;Scheming Mind&lt;/a&gt; offers free correspondence chess. I admit it has been a while since I last played there. I believe it is still active.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7450" LastActivityDate="2016-09-02T20:38:46.580" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15280" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8907" CreationDate="2016-09-02T23:31:15.570" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think that RemcoGerlich and BlindKungFuMaster are on the right track: challenge him with suitable exercises, especially exercises which become much easier to solve once you know a certain endgame by heart. It seems that your student acknowledges the fact that endgames are important, but doesn't fully grasp WHY they are important. Giving exercises that requires some knowledge to solve can greatly help your student in this regard. After some consideration I've decided to give a simple example of what I have in mind for a &quot;suitable exercise&quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Take the following position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;R7/P5kp/6p1/8/6P1/8/r4P2/6K1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, say &quot;White to move and win&quot;, and give your student some time to solve it. Since you have noted your student's poor endgame skills, it wouldn't be surprising for him to fail (The only surefire way to win this is by playing 1.f4! Why is that so? Don't reveal the solution just yet!). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now it is time to really make your student think about how difficult this problem is to solve. Is this type of position really beyond his level of understanding? If he thinks so, the effect of this exercise could become a confidence boost.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now you go over this position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;R7/P5k1/8/8/8/8/r7/6K1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ask your student what the evaluation of this endgame is if white is to move. Let him play around with the pieces if necessary, and then let him explain in his own terms why this is a draw. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What pitfalls are there for black? It should not be too difficult to get your student to realize that black must keep his king on the own second rank, and his rook behind the a-pawn. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What may be harder to realize initially is why black needs to keep his king on g7 and h7. It is necessary to notice the underlying skewer idea that white can use: after ...Kf7, white wins with Rh8!, as the a-pawn then is taboo.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now you could ask your student to choose where to put a pawn for white: on f2, on g2, or on h2? Where would your student want to place it if he were white? With this, you should be able to get your student to realize that white wins if there is a passed f-pawn on the board for white as well, due to the skewer idea mentioned earlier: the f-pawn will eventually force the black king away from g7 and h7.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now it may be time to go back to the initial position, and again ask your student to solve it. If your student gets stuck, give hints, such as &quot;How does this relate to the other position we looked at?&quot; and &quot;What should be white's main goal here? What will black do if white does nothing in particular?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It would not be surprising if your student got the exercise right this time around, and the basic theoretical ending involved would be more likely to stick than if you just went through the theoretical position by itself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8300" LastActivityDate="2016-09-02T23:31:15.570" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15281" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15144" CreationDate="2016-09-03T00:21:58.037" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Other than surprise value (dubious value) and keep players out of book, it's a pretty lousy move and goes against basic development principles.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Play good normal moves to guarantee at least equal play. So if you can manage some sort of KID formation it should be sufficient. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11178" LastEditorUserId="11178" LastEditDate="2016-09-03T00:27:00.233" LastActivityDate="2016-09-03T00:27:00.233" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15282" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2771" CreationDate="2016-09-03T00:31:43.030" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;My IM instructor once told me that reading and mastering the single book &quot;Modern Chess Strategy&quot; by Pachmann was enough to raise my level to 2000. I was rated around 1700 and reached 1996 (FIDE) in a year or so. Obviously I needed help with my ending and he used the excellent endgame book by Shereshevsky. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11178" LastActivityDate="2016-09-03T00:31:43.030" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15283" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8907" CreationDate="2016-09-03T00:41:26.590" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The answer to this question is mostly psychological in nature. Tell him first that most amateurs thinks it's boring and doesn't spend much time studying the endgame. Then say that it is exactly this that we must take advantage of. The &quot;fun&quot; part is knowing what to do in the endgame and slowly squeeze your opponent like an anaconda and cherish every moment when the opponent starts squirming in his chair and ultimately resign. Bobby Fischer loved to see the opponent in agony. I spent many months playing openings that led directly to the endgame to grind my opponents down and improve my endgame. Mednis wrote an excellent book from opening to endgame. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11178" LastActivityDate="2016-09-03T00:41:26.590" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15284" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15277" CreationDate="2016-09-03T02:18:42.967" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The old IECG (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.iecg.org&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.iecg.org&lt;/a&gt;) moved its operations to the LSS server. It's pretty good and is free. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11178" LastActivityDate="2016-09-03T02:18:42.967" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15285" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15200" CreationDate="2016-09-03T02:21:11.470" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Uhlmann's &quot;Winning with the French&quot; is an excellent book. Another is &quot;Mastering the French&quot; by McDonald. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11178" LastActivityDate="2016-09-03T02:21:11.470" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15286" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15156" CreationDate="2016-09-03T02:32:03.653" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Ludek Pachmann's &quot;Modern Chess Strategy&quot; covers this and is sufficient to give you enough middle game knowledge for up to about 2000 FIDE level. My IM coach uses this method along with endgame training. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11178" LastActivityDate="2016-09-03T02:32:03.653" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15287" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5280" CreationDate="2016-09-03T02:56:06.873" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Check the books of the &quot;Read and Play&quot; method written by Ponzetto and Bellin. It was the most impactful book in my chess learning. Totally focused on learning the ideas rather than variations memorization. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11178" LastActivityDate="2016-09-03T02:56:06.873" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15288" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14517" CreationDate="2016-09-03T04:30:25.690" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Pinnacle has put the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.pinnacle.com/en/betting-articles/more-sports/world-chess-championship-2016-betting&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;odds&lt;/a&gt; at about 75-80% for Carlsen, and Gelfand &lt;a href=&quot;http://chess-news.ru/node/21940&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;suggested&lt;/a&gt; 65-70%. I personally think both of these are low.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nigel Short now &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess24.com/en/read/news/Nigel+Short+calls+anti-cheating+rule+%E2%80%9Canti-chess%E2%80%9D&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;says&lt;/a&gt; only 60%. Maybe the players know more than I do!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9419" LastEditorUserId="9419" LastEditDate="2016-09-15T19:48:46.820" LastActivityDate="2016-09-15T19:48:46.820" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15289" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13846" CreationDate="2016-09-04T17:18:40.473" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Exchange Sacrifice: A Practical Guide by by Sergey Kasparov&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Particularly for advanced chess players. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7415" LastActivityDate="2016-09-04T17:18:40.473" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15291" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15156" CreationDate="2016-09-05T15:21:43.210" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;A minority attack begins when you have fewer pawns on one side of the board (usually the queen side) and one more pawn on the other side. When pawns are &quot;unbalanced,&quot; the game often comes to a &quot;race&quot; between the players' respective strengths on the king and queen sides. If you can tie up the opponent's supposedly &quot;strong&quot; side with a &quot;minority&quot; attack, the strength on your strong side should decide the game in your favor.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the essential goal of a minority attack is to create a situation where your one fewer pawns is worth as much as your opponent's pawns that number one more (that is two is worth three). This is done by creating a weak enemy pawn that is subject to heavy attack, or is captured outright.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In &quot;Chess Fundamentals,&quot; Capablanca expressed it another way: &quot;A unit that holds two.&quot; Say you are Black with a pawn on a7. White has two (queen side) pawns on a2 and b2, He unwisely moves a4 (he should have moved the &quot;extra&quot; b pawn first). You play a5!, and now your one pawn is worth two of White's. His b pawn is &quot;backward,&quot; and if he moves it to b4, you play a5Xb4, and your new &quot;b&quot; pawn is one step ahead in the queening race against the pawn on a4. So White's two queen side pawns are effective &quot;tied up,&quot; and Black's extra king side pawn should win for him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2016-09-05T15:21:43.210" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15292" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14363" CreationDate="2016-09-05T15:23:18.217" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would call it a stratego-style chess variant (instead of battleship-style).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For names, my preference is descriptive, and I suggest secret-setup chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9531" LastActivityDate="2016-09-05T15:23:18.217" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15293" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15144" CreationDate="2016-09-05T15:29:17.097" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The move Nh3 is unusual to say the least. It might have some value later in the game by supporting a White pawn on f4. But when White played it on his second move, there was no such pawn on f4. So it was a &quot;wasted&quot; move that gave you an extra move, and the initiative. A few more bad moves (with the queen and the sacrifice of the e pawn) gave you the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2016-09-05T15:29:17.097" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15294" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14363" CreationDate="2016-09-05T15:36:11.963" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure that this game has a name. But there is a similar game that does called &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kriegspiel_(chess)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Kriegspiel&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this variation, each player has the full complement of Black and White pieces in front of them. But they sit back to back, so they can't see each other's moves. You need a third person, an umpire, to tell the two players the consequences of each move: e.g. capture, check, or take it back because it's illegal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2016-09-05T15:36:11.963" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15295" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2016-09-05T17:18:39.450" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2016-09-05T17:18:39.450" LastActivityDate="2016-09-05T17:18:39.450" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15296" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2016-09-05T17:18:39.450" Score="0" Body="For questions about the Chess Olympiads, which are tournaments for national teams (open and women) held once every two years." OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-09-05T17:44:57.620" LastActivityDate="2016-09-05T17:44:57.620" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15298" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2241" CreationDate="2016-09-06T02:09:03.473" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The two player's scoresheets are the record of the game, and they should &quot;match.&quot;&#xA;They prove how the game went, and players' signing them show that they agree on the end result and outcome.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If for some reason, the scoresheets don't match, the game will have to be &quot;reconstructed&quot; by other means, (the position on the board, eyewitness accounts, etc.) Even so, it's likely that one of the scoresheets will &quot;make sense&quot; in this context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2016-09-06T02:09:03.473" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15299" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14795" CreationDate="2016-09-06T02:19:34.840" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yet more possibilities . . .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;: Two-way windmill, with either Rook or Bishop as the front piece;&#xA;e.g. with a Rook:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;5n2/3bb2k/6pp/4B1pr/8/8/8/5RK1 w - - 0 0&#xA;&#xA;1. Rf7+ Kg8&#xA;2. Rg7+ Kh8&#xA;3. Rxe7+ Kg8&#xA;4. Rg7+ Kh8&#xA;5. Rxd7+ Kg8&#xA;6. Rg7+ Kh8&#xA;7. Rxg6+ Kh7&#xA;8. Rg7+ Kh8&#xA;9. Rxg5+ Kh7&#xA;10. Rxh5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(it's important to capture g5 last, else Black has Rh5xe5)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;: Windmill against a piece other than a King:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;5kr1/6pp/8/4N1p1/6p1/6P1/6BP/6K1 w - - 0 0&#xA;&#xA;1. Bd5! Rh8 &#xA;2. Nf7! Rg8 &#xA;3. Nxg5 Rh8 &#xA;4. Nf7 Rg8 &#xA;5. Ne5 Rh8 &#xA;6. Nxg4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(with better winning chances than the immediate 1 Nxg4)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;: That means that even the King can be the front piece of a&#xA;windmill of sorts against a Knight:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;8/8/1n1p1p2/3K1k2/8/1P6/6B1/8 w - - 0 0&#xA;&#xA;1. Kc6! Na8&#xA;2. Kxd6 Nb6&#xA;3. Kc7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(or first 3. Bb7 and then 4. Kc7(c6); if 1...Nc8 then 2 Bh3+ wins.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8860" LastEditorUserId="8860" LastEditDate="2016-09-06T02:55:54.237" LastActivityDate="2016-09-06T02:55:54.237" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15301" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15265" CreationDate="2016-09-06T21:49:23.380" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I wasn't familiar with chessboard.js - but a quick search of their site turned up an example entitled &lt;a href=&quot;http://chessboardjs.com/examples#5004&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Piece Highlight 1&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt;, which seems to do just that.  The link includes both javascript and HTML examples, depending on which you're looking for.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since links are not permanent, here is the HTML example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&amp;lt;style type=&quot;text/css&quot;&amp;gt;&#xA;.highlight-white {&#xA;  -webkit-box-shadow: inset 0 0 3px 3px yellow;&#xA;  -moz-box-shadow: inset 0 0 3px 3px yellow;&#xA;  box-shadow: inset 0 0 3px 3px yellow;  &#xA;}&#xA;.highlight-black {&#xA;  -webkit-box-shadow: inset 0 0 3px 3px blue;&#xA;  -moz-box-shadow: inset 0 0 3px 3px blue;&#xA;  box-shadow: inset 0 0 3px 3px blue;  &#xA;}&#xA;&amp;lt;/style&amp;gt;&#xA;&amp;lt;script src=&quot;js/chess.js&quot;&amp;gt;&amp;lt;/script&amp;gt;&#xA;&amp;lt;div id=&quot;board&quot; style=&quot;width: 400px&quot;&amp;gt;&amp;lt;/div&amp;gt;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7897" LastActivityDate="2016-09-06T21:49:23.380" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15302" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-09-07T01:54:03.540" Score="2" ViewCount="903" Body="&lt;p&gt;I will try to be specific. I was playing a game, and the only piece my opponent could move was their king. It was taking forever for me to checkmate the king. I had a queen, two rooks, and a few pawns, but I was still having difficulty. My question is this: can an opponent move their king into check? For example, how about moving their king into the attacking line of a rook? Can I then capture the king, or does a check have to be initiated from the result of my move? Is it illegal for the opponent to move into a check? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11201" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-05-21T15:52:49.030" LastActivityDate="2019-05-21T15:52:49.030" Title="Moving into check?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;rooks&gt;&lt;kings&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="15303" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15302" CreationDate="2016-09-07T02:04:09.757" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is illegal for a King to move into check, or by moving a piece, expose one's King to check. Check can only happen by the opponent attacking the King.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If this leaves a player with no legal moves, and that player is not in check, then the game is drawn by stalemate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2016-09-07T02:04:09.757" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15304" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4596" CreationDate="2016-09-07T02:21:03.607" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think of it as if your king gets captured, all your pieces are automatically captured also. So if your king is next to his king and your king is protected, if he captures your king your rook is captured too and cannot capture it back. So those types of moves are considered illegal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9739" LastActivityDate="2016-09-07T02:21:03.607" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15306" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15307" CreationDate="2016-09-07T12:46:24.063" Score="4" ViewCount="2141" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I was very young I remember learning the point values of the pieces. And then I ran into something very confusing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was able to learn king and rook vs king mates pretty easily, but king and 2 bishops was trickier--and bishop/knight took me much longer to learn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This confused me. B+B/B+N = 6 points &gt; R = 5 points. So I did not understand why the rook did things more quickly. Was it just me seeing things linearly, or was there something about how pieces interacted?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have some ideas for how to express this simply, but nothing concrete. It seems like there should be such an explanation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11202" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2016-09-07T17:17:17.720" LastActivityDate="2020-01-25T15:00:45.600" Title="Reasons why king and rook mate quicker than king, knight/bishop and bishop?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;point-value&gt;&lt;minor-pieces&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15307" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15306" CreationDate="2016-09-07T13:06:40.043" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;King and Rook mate faster because the 2 pieces &lt;strong&gt;coordinate better together&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Recall that the mating procedure for King and Rook is about making a box with the Rook, then making that box smaller. This is quite straight forwards. Compare this to mating with King, Bishop and Knight, which is hard even for masters!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This brings me to discuss your misconception on the point value of the pieces. They relate to &lt;strong&gt;trading&lt;/strong&gt; pieces. So if you trade Rook and Pawn (6 units) for 2 minor pieces (6 units), then on a &lt;strong&gt;point only basis&lt;/strong&gt;, material is even.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note also that the point value system is a &lt;strong&gt;guideline&lt;/strong&gt;. It is not a cast iron law of the universe. In the example above, which side is better after trading Rook and Pawn for 2 minor pieces depends on the concrete position. But that is a different topic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2016-09-07T13:06:40.043" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15308" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14210" CreationDate="2016-09-07T13:58:18.813" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Playing blitz chess got me in a rut. I played simply to win the game, or to confuse my opponent, or to get in wood-shifting positions where I wasn't thinking of strategy. I was just playing for the immediate move and skating on what I knew instinctively.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That said, playing blitz chess is very worthwhile if you have a plan and use it to try out new ideas or openings to get quick ideas of where you go wrong, or what variations give you trouble in practical play. If I got back to more regular playing, I'd take notes on my losses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But if you start playing by rote or just for short-term competition or excitement, it may damage the long-term view. For me it was too tempting to go in for gotcha moves instead of more careful planning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11202" LastEditorUserId="11202" LastEditDate="2016-09-07T14:14:28.603" LastActivityDate="2016-09-07T14:14:28.603" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15309" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15306" CreationDate="2016-09-07T14:37:33.320" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Note, that a Rook alone can block a whole rank or file, enabling the king to get into position alone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B+B and B+N cannot do this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2929" LastActivityDate="2016-09-07T14:37:33.320" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15310" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15241" CreationDate="2016-09-07T22:09:41.743" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;In some special cases you can &quot;premove&quot; to a forced mate even against&#xA;a King in the center:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;8/8/8/8/3k4/7Q/3K4/8 w - - 0 0&#xA;&#xA;1. Qe6! Kc5 2. Kc3! Kb5 3. Qd6! Ka5 4. Qb4+ Ka6 5. Kc4 Ka7 6. Qb5 Ka8&#xA;7. Kc5 Ka7 8.Kc6 Ka8 9. Qb7#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Black's only option is 3...Ka4 when 4 Qb4 is already mate.&#xA;The alternative 1 Qf5!? Kc4 2 Qe5 Kb4(b3) 3 Qd5(+) or 3 Qc3+&#xA;might not be quite good enough.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8860" LastActivityDate="2016-09-07T22:09:41.743" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15311" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15315" CreationDate="2016-09-08T01:36:37.410" Score="3" ViewCount="275" Body="&lt;p&gt;In &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/q/811&quot;&gt;this related question&lt;/a&gt; I see that en passant and two-square first move for pawns were introduced together between 1200 and 1600. What was the reason for adding these rules? Put another way, has the variant of chess without the two-square first move rule been studied and found to be less interesting or enjoyable?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11208" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2020-06-14T13:08:53.133" Title="What is the consequence of removing the two-square first move rule?" Tags="&lt;history&gt;&lt;pawns&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15312" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15311" CreationDate="2016-09-08T02:40:41.477" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The game of Indian Chess (a slight variant of traditional chess) is played without the initial two-square pawn move. According to &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;, it lost popularity in the 1960s, but perhaps if you could look for more information and evidence supporting that this variant was &quot;less interesting or enjoyable,&quot; if that is the case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10622" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-06-14T13:08:53.133" LastActivityDate="2020-06-14T13:08:53.133" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="15313" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9750" CreationDate="2016-09-08T04:14:50.527" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;On general principles, trading a slightly wing pawn for a center pawn is good, but on the other hand, the e6-pawn no longer blocks Black's queen bishop. cxd5 may allow the White bishop to move a bit more, but it's to b5 (Black is playing c6 anyway).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White is trading an aggressive pawn that influences a center square on Black's side of the board for a slightly more passive one. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, if White is trying for a minority attack, this shows his hand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;cxd5 isn't bad per se--if you are playing a higher-rated player and need a draw, it may be a throw down the gauntlet moment to say &quot;you'll have to take risks to beat me!&quot; But I usually find it's best to keep the tension going. This is oversimplifying, but sometimes chess is a game of chicken, and if you take to relieve a bit of pressure on you, you may relieve more on your opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11202" LastActivityDate="2016-09-08T04:14:50.527" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15314" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15200" CreationDate="2016-09-08T04:29:22.477" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a longtime player, I've been impressed by Andrew Martin's YouTube videos on the French. Simon Williams's on iChess work well too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One thing to watch out for is that these can maybe point out the good points, to encourage players just to get started. You also want to see games where the French didn't work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXEjDAacBcA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXEjDAacBcA&lt;/a&gt; shows Carlsen beating Short in the sort of endgame that can be painful or French players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0SEBkKrJW-8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0SEBkKrJW-8&lt;/a&gt; shows Kasparov taking out Short.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While a previous poster mentioned that it's important to look at variations, you need to decide whether the bad French bishop (light squared) is enough of a hindrance to scare you away from playing the opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And most importantly you will want to look at French Exchange games, because people will do that to you, and as you get better, it's sadly a good way for lesser players to make you sweat trying for a win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/explorer?node=371491&amp;amp;move=4&amp;amp;moves=e4.e6.d4.d5.exd5.exd5&amp;amp;nodes=21720.39913.40748.86189.906262.371491&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot; title=&quot;This&quot;&gt;This&lt;/a&gt; will show you theoretically not-critical games that may show you how to keep play alive if people want to deaden it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11202" LastActivityDate="2016-09-08T04:29:22.477" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15315" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15311" CreationDate="2016-09-08T04:49:27.963" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The purpose of the two space first move rule was to speed up the game, and the (military) theory behind it was that soldiers leaving &quot;camp&quot; and marching to the &quot;battlefield&quot; could march at double &quot;time&quot; (speed) before the actual fighting began.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The one thing that could prevent this was an enemy pawn on his fifth rank (your fourth) adjacent to the marching pawn (soldier). Think of your soldier as being &quot;ambushed&quot; by the enemy &lt;em&gt;en passant&lt;/em&gt; on the way to taking up his designated position on the battlefield. He never arrives there, even though his marching orders tell him to march two squares in one move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not having these rules would make for a slower game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2016-09-08T04:49:27.963" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15316" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15306" CreationDate="2016-09-08T04:58:31.293" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, a rook is worth less than two bishops (five versus six).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But a rook offers more &lt;em&gt;concentrated&lt;/em&gt; power in one piece. To utilize the &quot;six,&quot; you need to move two pieces rather than one. Add your king to both the rook on one hand, and the two bishops on the other hand, and you realize that it is easier to manage two pieces rather than three.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even if the &quot;three&quot; are worth a little more. This is particularly true when the &quot;third&quot; piece is a knight rather than a bishop. The two bishops control squares of both colors between them, but the knight controls squares of opposite color to the bishop only half the time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2016-09-08T04:58:31.293" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15317" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15652" CreationDate="2016-09-08T09:44:04.617" Score="8" ViewCount="1420" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In the history of sport — and publishing — it’s not even close: one sport has had more books (and for that matter, magazines, tracts, pamphlets and handbills) published about it far more than any other: Chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;http://publishingperspectives.com/2015/09/chess-the-worlds-most-published-sport/#.V9Exz_krLrc&quot;&gt;publishingperspectives.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I often hear, but have never seen justification for, the claim that there are more books published on chess than any other sport.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My questions are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is this true?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What are the origins of the claim?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2018-12-21T15:29:23.523" Title="Have there really been more books published on chess than any other sport?" Tags="&lt;books&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15318" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14210" CreationDate="2016-09-08T12:10:29.653" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Playing blitz chess gives you a lopsided set of skills. It does improve your ability to think quickly, and to find a &quot;good enough&quot; move for most situations. In this regard, it is good training for the times (in tournaments), when you get into time trouble.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The problem with &quot;blitz&quot; is that real mastery does not come from finding &quot;good enough&quot; moves, but rather finding the best move, time and time again, which requires slow play. Here, blitz is counterproductive, because your highest achievable level is based on the best moves you can find. Using &quot;good enough&quot; moves keeps you below that level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2016-09-08T12:10:29.653" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15319" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12587" CreationDate="2016-09-08T12:45:09.343" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;First of all, neither a rook nor a knight can make the single diagonal &quot;en passant&quot; move. Of course, kings, queens, and bishops can, so the question is why they do not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A pawn moving two squares represents a group of lightly armored foot soldiers moving at &quot;double time&quot; (speed, actually). In an en passant move, they are &quot;ambushed&quot; by similar light infantry able to give chase at similar speeds. &quot;Kings&quot; and &quot;queens&quot; represent heavily armored &quot;guards&quot; troops (think bodyguards), commanded by the king and queen respectively. These are heavily armed (and armored) &quot;formation&quot; troops that are not good at hot pursuit. Bishops have been likened to artillery or archery, neither of which are good at chasing lightly armed peasants over broken ground. That's why only fellow pawns can use the &lt;em&gt;en passant&lt;/em&gt; move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2016-09-08T12:45:09.343" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15320" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11195" CreationDate="2016-09-08T19:59:15.020" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;Now you can play bughouse  at &lt;a href=&quot;http://chess.com&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess.com&lt;/a&gt; (for free). You can read &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/article/view/how-to-play-variants-on-chess-com#bughouse&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this article to get help&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9666" LastEditorUserId="10601" LastEditDate="2017-07-30T20:43:39.130" LastActivityDate="2017-07-30T20:43:39.130" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15321" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4695" CreationDate="2016-09-09T04:32:15.063" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I worked on the chess tracking project &lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://iie.fing.edu.uy/investigacion/grupos/gti/timag/trabajos/2013/ajedrez/index.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;8x8cam&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; within image processing course in 2013 at FING UdelaR.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then in 2014 other students created a better version for Android named &lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://iie.fing.edu.uy/investigacion/grupos/gti/timag/trabajos/2014/ajedrez/index.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chesstrack&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;. Under it's web you can find videos and link to the code they used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would love to see a finalized app of this project idea I had for years. So if there is some news about this please leave a comment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Answering your pointed questions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Does any such thing exist (webcam/video to pgn converter? A prototype maybe?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br&gt;Apart from my project &lt;a href=&quot;http://iie.fing.edu.uy/investigacion/grupos/gti/timag/trabajos/2013/ajedrez/index.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;8x8cam&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://iie.fing.edu.uy/investigacion/grupos/gti/timag/trabajos/2014/ajedrez/index.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chesstrack&lt;/a&gt;, I have recently found a project named &lt;a href=&quot;http://blogdugas.net/blog/2015/05/18/play-chess-with-a-webcam/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;ChessCam&lt;/a&gt;. All of these projects are Open Source and only need to be named as resource if you create a new project from them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Has anyone attempted such a feat and shared their research?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br&gt;Yes. You can see such on previous question's answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Are there obvious limitations that make this project unlikely to succeed?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br&gt; The hardest part I believe is to make the software work no matter how the camera is placed and independently of the illumination. And also to work on fast paced games and work with the hand occlusions when the game is being played, in order to detect correctly the move done.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Would you buy it if it existed?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br&gt; Definitely yes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11215" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2019-10-16T20:04:21.833" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="15322" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15326" CreationDate="2016-09-09T05:31:04.527" Score="5" ViewCount="713" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this game, the last move made by white was &lt;strong&gt;Bg5&lt;/strong&gt; . Now it's black's turn. A software analysis shows that black is winning in this position with -2.51 evaluation. I am unable to spot the black's next best move ? Any kind of hint is appreciated !&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/0KBZm.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/0KBZm.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9620" LastActivityDate="2016-09-09T09:27:38.303" Title="What should be Black's next move?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15323" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="889" CreationDate="2016-09-09T08:51:09.873" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a French player, I never liked d4 e6 because I didn't want to go into the QGD. I see its dynamic potential now, but it's just not my style.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can't say this is based on strict logic, but my play got a big boost from the Benko Gambit. The French and Benko have a reputation for just being annoying and they shouldn't be solid, but they are. And you won't have to memorize as much theory to get a good start.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Benko has more positional maneuvering than you'd expect in the main pawn-sac line, and it also has the same themes of queenside play if White advances, along with a cramped but potentially dynamic position. It has some thematic moves that flow pretty naturally too. In this case you may fianchetto a bishop, but it's not blocked in.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I tried the Dutch but found there were too many good anti-Dutch systems.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The French is a woolly opening that requires you to recognize many different odd positional things. So is the Benko. I was worried about sac'ing a pawn, but I think it helped me play more dynamically. And it is definitely not symmetric! The main drawback is White doesn't have to play d5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11202" LastActivityDate="2016-09-09T08:51:09.873" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15324" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1846" CreationDate="2016-09-09T08:59:17.477" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Odds chess seems like it could be helpful. Even giving a queen and rook, or a queen. And as they get better, offer them shorter and shorter odds. At the start it's important to learn just to hold on to pieces, and there's too much to keep track of otherwise.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11202" LastActivityDate="2016-09-09T08:59:17.477" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15325" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15322" CreationDate="2016-09-09T09:17:43.627" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;This seems to be a bug in the chessboard's engine. If you look at the engine's main line, you'll see that it is bogus. After 11... h6, White will never sacrifice his bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/0l3zQ.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/0l3zQ.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2016-09-09T09:17:43.627" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15326" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15322" CreationDate="2016-09-09T09:27:38.303" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;This isn't a deep analysis using a computer, just my 'at a glance' thoughts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are my observations:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The pawn structure is typical for a Caro-Kann structure&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Black is a little cramped&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;There is no forced win, so what you pick is a stylistic decision&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These are the moves I would consider:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1...Qc7&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;strong&gt;1...O-O&lt;/strong&gt; are thematic in the Caro-Kann pawn structure&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1...Nd5&lt;/strong&gt; offering a trade of dark square bishops would help relieve Black's cramped position&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1...c5?!&lt;/strong&gt; is too soon, but Black would like to get this move in sometime to challenge White's space advantage&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1...Bxf3?!&lt;/strong&gt;, although exchanges a bad bishop, I think this is too soon, and I would prefer to keep the pressure on the knight&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2016-09-09T09:27:38.303" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15327" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14477" CreationDate="2016-09-09T14:03:14.883" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Being a programmer, I have created an answer to this burning question of mine. A puzzle designing and solving interface as described in the question is available online at &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.apronus.com/chess/puzzle/editor.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.apronus.com/chess/puzzle/editor.php&lt;/a&gt;. Anyone can create their own puzzle and make it public through a hyperlink. Free for amateur non-commercial use only.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A demonstration of this kind of puzzle solving experience is available as a large collection of mate-in-2 puzzles at &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.apronus.com/chess/puzzles/mate-in-2/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.apronus.com/chess/puzzles/mate-in-2/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a Facebook group dedicated to these interactive puzzles with hundreds of examples: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.facebook.com/groups/InteractiveChessPuzzles/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.facebook.com/groups/InteractiveChessPuzzles/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3456" LastEditorUserId="3456" LastEditDate="2020-02-12T14:59:59.437" LastActivityDate="2020-02-12T14:59:59.437" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="15328" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15245" CreationDate="2016-09-09T15:04:21.090" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;TL;DR&lt;/strong&gt;: Caruana says that his performance depends on 'luck', which can be boiled down to Caruana's effort in the game compared to his opponent's effort. And by effort at this level, he mostly means fighting spirit and opening preparation, but also external factors affecting the players' psychology.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This interview records Caruana's changing fortunes in his own words:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Interviewer&lt;/strong&gt;: You’ve managed to be the 3rd highest rated playe[r] in chess history at your young age. To what do you owe this success?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Caruana&lt;/strong&gt;: I think I was having an extremely good period. I won 40 points in one tournament. It could have gone another way - I could have just had a few good tournaments, but &lt;strong&gt;all my success was basically concentrated on one tournament&lt;/strong&gt; and that’s why I (laughs a little) won seven games in a row and my rating went up to 2840… I still wonder why I had that result and some results after it were very good, like the European Club Cup and after the Grand Prix. For some time I was playing extremely strong chess, probably stronger than I deserved (laughs). Maybe I had some luck as well! Because I had the strong period, and for a couple months after that I was struggling. In Wijk aan Zee, Zurich the next year I had like a six-month period where I was struggling to show good results, but for that especially one tournament (Sinquefield Cup 2014) I was unstoppable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess24.com/en/read/news/caruana-olympiad-gold-would-be-a-huge-personal-success&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chess24.com&lt;/a&gt;, emphasis is mine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So Caruana says that he put a lot of effort into one tournament, the Sinquefield Cup 2014, but after that it is hard to maintain such a dominant position in chess. From the same interview, Caruana says this about fluctuating performance:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let’s say you’re playing an opponent who is 2750. There’s a chance that one day he will play like, let’s say, not 2750 but 2300, 2400 or 2500 – he’ll just have a very bad day. Just a recent example - Nakamura against Ding Liren in the last round of the Sinquefield Cup was just an example of a very strong player having a very bad day, but I think it all balances up. You might have cases where your opponent is playing very poorly, but also cases where your opponent plays just unstoppably and doesn’t give you a chance, or you fall into preparation and lose because your opponent just had a new opening idea. Or the reverse! You win because of your new opening idea. I think in general it balances up, but there are ways to increase your luck just by fighting and never giving up. The more resistance you put up the more chances there are that your opponent will screw up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2016-09-09T15:04:21.090" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15329" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1846" CreationDate="2016-09-09T15:25:21.627" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I play good chess moves without thinking too hard. If I am threatening something I would say &quot;Be careful&quot;. I strongly emphasize kids to ask the basic question after my moves: &quot;What is my opponent threatening?&quot; to the point it's second nature. I wouldn't play silly moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11178" LastActivityDate="2016-09-09T15:25:21.627" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15330" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="468" CreationDate="2016-09-09T18:03:25.393" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I run a chess school where I conduct chess tournaments very often. I prefer &lt;strong&gt;Swiss Manager&lt;/strong&gt; over other software because it is simple and free if the number of players is less than 60.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/2UTjZ.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/2UTjZ.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This software is very similar to Swiss Perfect but better in many ways. I have written a tutorial on how to use it: &lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://kidschessworld.com/swiss-manager/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Swiss Manager Tutorial&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I hope that helps you conduct small tournaments.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11223" LastEditorUserId="11223" LastEditDate="2016-11-24T15:41:43.710" LastActivityDate="2016-11-24T15:41:43.710" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15331" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15277" CreationDate="2016-09-10T00:23:27.293" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I play on &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.schemingmind.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.schemingmind.com&lt;/a&gt; which allows you to play with time limits such as &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;entire game in 10 days + 1 day per move &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;entire game in 30 days + 1 day per move &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;entire game in 30 days + 3 days per move&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="884" LastActivityDate="2016-09-10T00:23:27.293" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15332" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-09-10T13:39:52.370" Score="0" ViewCount="959" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am building a chess engine with the use of Artificial Intelligence, and I am almost done as long as the AI and the internal game mechanics are concerned.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Currently I am training the AI and I want to get it to play with as many other AIs as possible. As I was searching, I came across the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.playwitharena.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Arena&lt;/a&gt; interface which makes possible exactly what I want.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I began to modify my engine to meet the specifications required for this to work and here is where my question lies. To be more specific, Arena uses the &lt;a href=&quot;http://wbec-ridderkerk.nl/html/UCIProtocol.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;UCI&lt;/a&gt; protocol to make two engines communicate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the UCI protocol, the move format is in long algebraic notation. I would like to know how exactly long algebraic notation differs from algebraic notation, and more specifically how pawn promotion is represented.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8485" LastEditorUserId="26887" LastEditDate="2021-03-08T16:51:20.257" LastActivityDate="2021-03-08T16:51:20.257" Title="Long algebraic notation-piece promotion" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;notation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="15333" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15332" CreationDate="2016-09-10T16:39:23.997" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The following open source program: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.cs.kent.ac.uk/people/staff/djb/pgn-extract/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;pgn-extract&lt;/a&gt; can do a lot of manipulations with PGN files among others convert them to long algebraic notation. I expect that you are familiar with the short algebraic form so if you want to learn the difference between these two form of notations you could convert some of your short games to long and look at the cases you are in doubt about. An alternative since it is an open source program is that you use the code from that in your code to convert from short to long and vice versa. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1030" LastActivityDate="2016-09-10T16:39:23.997" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15334" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-09-10T18:08:22.577" Score="2" ViewCount="133" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found myself in a game with this position. Last Black's move was a Queenside castle, which let him a little bit uncovered. My first spontaneous move idea (which I finally played, because of time trouble and having no really other interesting idea) was to play Rc1, to put pressure on the king on the C column added to the fact that my bishop on f4 makes the move Kb8 impossible (and then c4 etc). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/gsZ4k.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/gsZ4k.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, this can be easily countered just by playing Bd6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, we all know the importance of a threat (which is, like Nimzowistch said, &lt;em&gt;stronger than the execution&lt;/em&gt;), but do you think it's a good move in this position ? or, knowing that it can be countered, do I had to choose another &quot;more effective&quot; move ? (like I don't know : a4 ?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Would you have played Rc1 ? If not, what would have been the best move ?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10190" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-09-10T20:09:04.607" LastActivityDate="2016-09-11T01:06:32.490" Title="An unnecessary threat?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;attack&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15335" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15334" CreationDate="2016-09-11T01:06:32.490" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Stockfish thinks &lt;code&gt;1. Rc1&lt;/code&gt; leads to a even game or maybe a draw. It's undone immediately by &lt;code&gt;1. ... Ba3&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stockfish preferred &lt;code&gt;1. Nh4&lt;/code&gt; with a 60 centi-pawn advantage to White.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;2kr1b1r/pp3p1p/1q2pp2/3p1b2/3P1B2/1PP2N2/P4PPP/R2QR1K1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Nh4 Bg6 2.Qf3 Be4 3.Qh5 Rd7 4.Rad1 Rg8 5.c4 Bb4 6.Re3 Qc6 7.Qe2 Bd6 8.Bxd6 Qxd6 9.f3 Bg6 10.c5 Qf4 11.Nxg6 hxg6 12.b4 Qc7 13.b5 Kb8 14.Rb3 b6 15.Qe3 g5 16.Rc1 Qf4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;code&gt;1. c4&lt;/code&gt; move fares ok at about 40 centi-pawns but by the end any winning chances look like an illusion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;2kr1b1r/pp3p1p/1q2pp2/3p1b2/3P1B2/1PP2N2/P4PPP/R2QR1K1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.c4 dxc4 2.Rc1 Bd6 3.Bxd6 Qxd6 4.bxc4 Rhg8 5.d5 Qf4 6.g3 h5 7.Nd4 h4 8.Nxf5 Qxf5 9.Rc3 exd5 10.cxd5+ Kb8 11.d6 Qd7 12.Rc7 Qxd6 13.Qxd6 Rxd6 14.Rxf7 a6 15.Ree7 b5 16.Kg2 hxg3 17.hxg3 Rgd8 18.Kf3 Rd3+ 19.Kf4 Rd2 20.Rb7+ Ka8 21.Ra7+ Kb8 22.Rxa6 Rxf2+ 23.Ke3 Rg2 24.Rb6+ Kc8 25.Rxb5 Rxa2  (964.21)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2016-09-11T01:06:32.490" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15336" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15339" CreationDate="2016-09-11T04:46:01.223" Score="2" ViewCount="196" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;] &#xA;[Event &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2016.09.11&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Bright&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Ogbe&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;C64&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 Bc5 4. Bxc6 dxc6 5. O-O Bg4 6. d3 Ne7 7. Bg5 f6     8. Be3 Bxe3 9. fxe3 O-O 10. Nc3 Ng6 11. h3 Be6 12. Qe2 Qd7 13. d4 b5 14. b3 Rad8 15. Rad1 exd4 16. exd4 Nf4 17. Qe3 Nxg2 18. Kxg2 Bxh3+ 19. Kh2 Bxf1 20. Rxf1 Qg4 21. Rg1 Qh5+ 22. Kg2 f5 23. e5 f4 24. Qe4 Rf5 25. Kf2 Qh3 26. Qxc6 g5 27. Qe6+ Kf8 28. Rxg5 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think after the knight sacrifice I should have doubled up my rooks and attack slowly. Please help me improve the options.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10397" LastEditorUserId="17" LastEditDate="2016-09-14T04:04:47.557" LastActivityDate="2016-09-14T04:56:41.627" Title="Can you please help me analyse my game?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15337" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8257" CreationDate="2016-09-11T08:49:45.823" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.apronus.com/chess/wbeditor.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.apronus.com/chess/wbeditor.php&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;The &quot;position setup&quot; part of the dual interface allows setting up anything on the board without regard for legal moves. Each change to the board is recorded in memory and then can be exported to an animated GIF file. You can delete some of the positions from the animation sequence to create an exact scenario to fit your needs, just check the ckeckbox &quot;animation sequence&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/m1XRk.gif&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/m1XRk.gif&quot; alt=&quot;demo animation&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3456" LastActivityDate="2016-09-11T08:49:45.823" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15338" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15336" CreationDate="2016-09-11T14:43:55.073" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Stockfish agrees with your assessment - you were overly aggressive.  Your &lt;code&gt;Ng2&lt;/code&gt; sacrifice seems sound but by opening your King up you allowed White blunt your attack. After 10 minutes, Stockfish said:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 Bc5 4. Bxc6 dxc6 5. O-O Bg4 6. d3 Ne7 7. Bg5 f6     8. Be3 Bxe3 9. fxe3 O-O 10. Nc3 Ng6 11. h3 Be6 12. Qe2 Qd7 13. d4 b5 14. b3 Rad8 15. Rad1 exd4 16. exd4 Nf4 17. Qe3 Nxg2 18. Kxg2 (18.Kxg2 Bxh3+ 19.Kf2 Bxf1 20.Rxf1 Rde8 21.Rh1 Rf7 22.Qd3 Qe7 23.Ke2 b4 24.e5 {Be careful, White is tricky} g5 25.Na4 fxe5 26.Nxe5 Rf4 27.Qc4+ Kg7 28.Qd3 Kg8 {with a more-or-less even if crazy game. Can White leverage his extra piece to overpower the opponents rook? With Queens on the board and the Kings exposed, a draw by repetition/perpetual seems likely unless great pains are taken to prevent it.}) Bxh3+ 19. Kh2 Bxf1 20. Rxf1 Qg4 21. Rg1 Qh5+ 22. Kg2 f5 {This is where the wheels start to come off the wagon. Instead `Rde1` preserves equality. White is now almost 2 pawns up.} 23. e5 f4 24. Qe4 Rf5 {Now Black is doomed; The deficit is about 400 centi-apwns. Black continues in dire straits with Qf5 instead.}  25. Kf2 Qh3 {Black is down about 600 centi-pawns after this move. `a6` was recommended.} 26. Qxc6 g5 {and that's that. There's no plausible hope. How much do you think White's magnificent f3 Knight is worth?} 27. Qe6+ Kf8 28. Rxg5 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2016-09-11T18:32:54.480" LastActivityDate="2016-09-11T18:32:54.480" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15339" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15336" CreationDate="2016-09-11T16:49:27.277" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Overall:&#xA;The game was pretty drawish, leaning towards the black side, it was up to whose endgame was better. However, at the end, you took too much risks and lost due to that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2016.09.11&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Bright&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Ogbe&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;C64&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 Bc5 4.Bxc6 $6 {Minor comment: c3 and O-O are the moves that are studied, this throws away all advantage.} dxc6 5.O-O Bg4 6.d3 Ne7 7.Bg5 f6 8.Be3 Bxe3 9.fxe3 O-O 10.Nc3 Ng6 11.h3 Be6 12.Qe2 Qd7 13.d4 b5 14.b3 {Notice the weaknesses, save them and exploit them later in game. This is an example when you exploit them immediately[%draw full,c3,red][%draw full,b2,red] [%draw full,a3,red]} 14...Rad8 ( 14...b4 15.Na4 a5 16.c4 bxc3 17.Nxc3 )15.Rad1 exd4 $1 16.exd4 Nf4 17.Qe3 Nxg2 18.Kxg2 Bxh3+ { [%draw arrow,g2,f2,green]} 19.Kh2 Bxf1 20.Rxf1 Qg4 $2 {I suggest you start opening the board and exchanging pawns} ( 20...Qe6 {[%draw arrow,e6,a2,red][%draw arrow,a7,a4,red]} 21.Rg1 a5 22.Ne2 Rfe8 23.e5 fxe5 24.Qg5 Qe7 25.dxe5 Qxg5 26.Rxg5 Rd5 ) ( 20...Rfe8 21.Rg1 a5 22.Ne2 a4 ( 22...Qf7 {[%draw arrow,f7,a2,red][%draw arrow,a5,a4,red]} 23.Nf4 a4 24.Rg3 axb3 25.cxb3 Ra8 ) 23.bxa4 Ra8 24.axb5 Rxa2 25.bxc6 Qxc6 26.Qb3+ Qe6 ) 21.Rg1 Qh5+ 22.Kg2 f5 $2 {Defend. Be careful of counter-atacks} 23.e5 f4 24.Qe4 Rf5 $4 {White can easily win this [%draw full,c6,red][%draw full,c7,red][%draw full,a7,red][%draw full,h5,red] [%draw full,d8,red]} ( 24...b4 25.Ne2 Rd5 26.c4 Ra5 $14 ) 25.Kf2 Qh3 $18 {Pieces are too disconnected[%draw full,h3,red] [%draw full,c7,red] [%draw full,c6,red] [%draw full,a7,red] [%draw full,d8,red]} 26.Qxc6 g5 27.Qe6+ Kf8 28.Rxg5 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: SE somehow has errors when flipping it, I suggest not flipping it, or un-flip it at moments where there are arrows/highlighted squares(not much in this analysis)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Clearer PGN for users who can't render the board:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 Bc5 4.Bxc6 {?! Minor comment: c3 and O-O are the moves that are studied, this throws away all advantage.} 4...dxc6 5.O-O Bg4 6.d3 Ne7 7.Bg5 f6 8.Be3 Bxe3 9.fxe3 O-O 10.Nc3 Ng6 11.h3 Be6 12.Qe2 Qd7 13.d4 b5 14.b3 {Notice the weaknesses, save them and exploit them later in game. This is an example when you exploit them immediately}&#xA;14...Rad8 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;( 14...b4 15.Na4 a5 16.c4 bxc3 17.Nxc3 )&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;15.Rad1 exd4{!} 16.exd4 Nf4 17.Qe3 Nxg2 18.Kxg2 Bxh3+ 19.Kh2 Bxf1 20.Rxf1 Qg4{? I suggest you start opening the board and exchanging pawns}&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;( 20...Qe6 21.Rg1 a5 22.Ne2 Rfe8 23.e5 fxe5 24.Qg5 Qe7 25.dxe5 Qxg5 26.Rxg5 Rd5 )&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;( 20...Rfe8 21.Rg1 a5 22.Ne2 a4 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;( 22...Qf7 23.Nf4 a4 24.Rg3 axb3 25.cxb3 Ra8 )&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;23.bxa4 Ra8 24.axb5 Rxa2 25.bxc6 Qxc6 26.Qb3+ Qe6 )&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;21.Rg1 Qh5+ 22.Kg2 f5{? Defend. Be careful of counter-atacks} 23.e5 f4 24.Qe4 Rf5 {?? White can easily win this}&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;( 24...b4 25.Ne2 Rd5 26.c4 Ra5{+=} )&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;25.Kf2 Qh3{+- Pieces are too disconnected} 26.Qxc6 g5 27.Qe6+ Kf8 28.Rxg5 1-0&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10558" LastEditorUserId="10558" LastEditDate="2016-09-11T18:20:47.323" LastActivityDate="2016-09-11T18:20:47.323" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15340" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5774" CreationDate="2016-09-12T13:02:46.133" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just speculating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;Increasing the points scored by opponent&lt;/code&gt;. In a tournament (Swiss rounds) when players with equal points are ordered (all else being equal) by opponent's points, then you might want the game to be 1-1, not 1-0. Would this be a scenario?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7002" LastActivityDate="2016-09-12T13:02:46.133" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15342" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13173" CreationDate="2016-09-12T23:04:01.467" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;ICC has a large number (around 1,000) of players who play games at SD 45 d/45 in a league called the Team 45 45 League. Due to the amount of time required to play a game, all games are scheduled at a time mutually agreed upon by the players themselves. Captains select who will play on the 4 boards in each round.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You will need an ICC membership to play, and a compatible client (they use Blitzin and Dasher).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For more information, see the Players Handbook at &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.team4545league.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.team4545league.org/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is also a group at ICC called Chess9030 who play in a league at SD 90 d/30 controls. See their website at &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess9030.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.chess9030.com&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;I don't know how large their membership is, but I've observed that their games take place less frequently than those of T4545.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While there are occasionally pickup games at controls longer than 30 minutes, they are unusual on ICC.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Good luck!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11245" LastActivityDate="2016-09-12T23:04:01.467" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15343" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14736" CreationDate="2016-09-12T23:07:05.320" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;On the ICC, you can specify a match request to include two pairs of time controls when you request a match with a specific opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, you can enter the command:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;match FIZZBANG 30 10 45 20&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and you would get a SD 30 d/10 time allowance, while FIZZBANG would be playing at SD 45 d/20.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope that helps!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11245" LastActivityDate="2016-09-12T23:07:05.320" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15344" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-09-12T23:08:28.227" Score="5" ViewCount="4025" Body="&lt;p&gt;How do you have Arena show the second and third best moves in analysis?&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;I seem to be able to only see the evaluation for the engine's best move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3872" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-01-17T19:53:36.510" LastActivityDate="2021-01-17T19:53:36.510" Title="How do you have Arena show the second and third best move in analysis?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;arena&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="15345" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8283" CreationDate="2016-09-12T23:30:34.537" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;These additional points elaborate on what ETD said in his reply.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A Swiss Tournament is one in which you are matched against opponents so that the pool of players is differentiated as much as possible in as few rounds as possible.  So, in the first round, those in the top half of the pool by rating are each paired against someone from the bottom half.  The assumption is that the higher-rated player will win each game.  In the 2nd round, the winners of Round 1 play each other, and the losers play each other. As points accumulate, the process continues until, at the end, the players with the best scores play each other in a few (hopefull) decisive matches. The winner has thus had the toughest opposition, while others are quickly sorted into the level at which they will get a succession of fair games. SS tourneys are usually between 4 and 9 rounds, so while each of the 120 players will each only play a maximum of 9 other players, the SS allows a definitive winner to be selected.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;Sudden Death&quot; means that the first player whose time runs out (i.e. his &quot;flag falls&quot;) at the end of that time control instantly loses the game. This is known as &quot;forfeiting on time.&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;d5 does mean that there's a delay in the way the timer works. There are several kinds of delay. The most common is the &quot;simple delay&quot;, in which the clock counts down the seconds of the delay. If it reaches zero, then the time control allotment starts running down. So, if you had 20 minutes after your last move, and a 5-second delay is in effect, then when the opponent punches the clock, the timer will count down from 5 to 0, and then display 20:00, then 19:59, and so on.  If you make a move and punch the clock after 3 seconds (i.e. the delay timer displays 2), one of 2 things may happen: a) your original time of 20:00 is displayed and the opponent's delay timer starts, b) the remainder of the delay is added to your time, and the clock shows 20:02 for your time.  The second approach is common on ICC and in many digital clocks.  A 3rd method is occasionally used, as Bobby Fischer proposed it: The delay is handled as an increment, so that when your clock is punched it reads 20:05, not 20:00 as it did after your prior move.  You get to keep any unused increment.  A 4th method is also possible: Your time reads 20:00 when your clock starts, but after you make your move and punch the clock, the increment is added retroactively. So, if you started at 20:00 and took 30 seconds to move and punch the clock, the clock would read 19:30 just before you punched it, and 19:35 just after.  The retroactive increment was invented to make sure that players who are low on time won't be able to play indefinitely unless &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;all&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; of their moves are made in 4 seconds or less. Finally, some controls require that the clock's total never exceed the original time control allotment. Otherwise, a player who played every move in 4 seconds or less would be able to accumulate time indefinitely, and always have more than the time control amount, in some situations, unless this condition were imposed. That's why it was invented.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11245" LastActivityDate="2016-09-12T23:30:34.537" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15346" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5480" CreationDate="2016-09-12T23:33:58.363" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The DGT North American and DGT 2010 were designed for different markets. DGT's assumption was that one style of clock delay/increment would prevail in the US, and that's what the NA is equipped with. The other is what prevails in other countries, which is what the DGT 2010 uses. They are otherwise identical.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;FYI: The DGT 3000 (a newer and more expensive model) offers both types of delay/increment mechanism.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11245" LastActivityDate="2016-09-12T23:33:58.363" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15347" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1846" CreationDate="2016-09-13T04:58:41.437" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;(I teach chess in an afterschool program at a variety of schools.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I despise playing &quot;easy&quot; against a kid.... it's lying to them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Whatever handicap I give them (material or time) I explain why I do it that way and that that is the ONLY advantage they get, that I'm going to now play my hardest against them. And that beating me means they get to &quot;level-up&quot; to a smaller handicap.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I avoid playing kids when I can, but sometimes a class has an odd number of kids and no one wants to play as a team. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or some little overdeveloped ego has their heart set on playing the teacher. Actually had kids try to 4-move me more than once :-) OTOH there was that 1800ish 2nd-grader no one warned me about. But all the other kids knew what was about to happen. Ouch.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Having them play out won endgames against you is often a better alternative.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7514" LastActivityDate="2016-09-13T04:58:41.437" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15352" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5280" CreationDate="2016-09-13T05:44:43.743" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is better to understand and play even the openings but you can learn some of the openings from stockfish 7 which itself analyses but here even it thinks something deep so it is recommended for only bit beginners. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11247" LastActivityDate="2016-09-13T05:44:43.743" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15353" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-09-13T07:13:20.780" Score="2" ViewCount="174" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have seen the ending position of this game in between Nakamura and Harikrishna. I sense a checkmate is close, but can't figure out what white should do after Qxg7. Please tell me how to complete the checkmate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1744377&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1744377&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10737" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-09-13T07:28:07.580" LastActivityDate="2016-09-13T09:58:17.530" Title="How to complete a checkmate in this game?" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15354" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15353" CreationDate="2016-09-13T07:18:30.427" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;After 33... Qxg7, 34. Qxg7 is just mate in one. The queen is protected by the knight on h5. Black &lt;em&gt;cannot&lt;/em&gt; avoid short-term mate at all, because Qxh7# is also a threat. He can stave it off with some desperate checks by the queen, e.g. 33... Qa1+ 34. Kh2 Qh1+ 35. Kxh1 but it is mate next move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Pentala Harikrishna&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Hikaru Nakamura&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. Bb5 Nd7 4. O-O a6 5. Bd3 Ngf6 6. c3 b5 7. Bc2 Bb7 8. Re1 e5 9. d4 Be7 10. Nbd2 O-O 11. Nf1 Re8 12. Ng3 Bf8 13. d5 g6 14. b3 Nb6 15. Rb1 c4 16. bxc4 Nc4 17. a4 Qc7 18. axb5 axb5 19. Rb5 Na3 20. Rb3 Nc2 21. Qc2 Nd7 22. Be3 Ba6 23. Ra3 Bb5 24. Rea1 Ra3 25. Ra3 Rb8 26. Ra7 Qc8 27. h3 Nb6 28. Qc1 Nc4 29. Bh6 Qc5 30. Nh5 Bg7 31. Bg7 Qa7 32. Qh6 f5 33. Ng5 Qxg7 34. Qxg7#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-09-13T09:58:17.530" LastActivityDate="2016-09-13T09:58:17.530" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15355" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15344" CreationDate="2016-09-13T12:13:36.960" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Right click on the analysis output window to be able to enable Multi-PV mode:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/TC5mC.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/TC5mC.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3158" LastActivityDate="2016-09-13T12:13:36.960" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15356" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-09-13T12:52:51.897" Score="1" ViewCount="459" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am building a chess engine using AI and have succesfully connected it to the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.playwitharena.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Arena&lt;/a&gt; Gui, by implementing the &lt;a href=&quot;http://wbec-ridderkerk.nl/html/UCIProtocol.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;UCI&lt;/a&gt; protocol.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My goal is to train my AI by facing other AIs that Arena offers.&#xA;Everything works well except the checkmate part where one of the engine loses.&#xA;More specifically Arena does not give the last move made(that ended the game) to the losing engine,but instead it starts a new game when in tournament mode.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;eg(from Arena debug): &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;2016-09-13 14:48:26,119--&amp;gt;2:position startpos moves d2d4 d7d5 a2a3 e7e6 a3a4 b8c6 a1a3 f8a3 e2e4 a3f8 b2b4 f8b4 c2c3 b4a5 f1e2 d5e4 g2g3 c6d4 e2d3 e4d3 c1g5 d4c2 d1c2 d3c2 g5d8 c2b1q e1e2 b7b6 g1f3 c8a6 c3c4 a6c4 e2e3 b1b3 e3e4 c4e2 d8g5 b3f3 e4d4&#xA;2016-09-13 14:48:26,119--&amp;gt;2:go wtime 295296 btime 231219 winc 0 binc 0&#xA;2016-09-13 14:48:26,121&amp;lt;--2:info score cp 3343 lowerbound depth 1 nodes 1 time 0 pv f3h1&#xA;2016-09-13 14:48:26,123&amp;lt;--2:info score cp 3343 depth 1 nodes 2 time 0 pv f3h1&#xA;2016-09-13 14:48:26,126&amp;lt;--2:info score mate 1 lowerbound depth 1 nodes 5 time 0 pv a5c3&#xA;2016-09-13 14:48:26,128&amp;lt;--2:info score mate 1 depth 1 nodes 6 time 0 pv a5c3&#xA;2016-09-13 14:48:26,129&amp;lt;--2:info cpuload 0&#xA;2016-09-13 14:48:26,130&amp;lt;--2:bestmove a5c3&#xA;2016-09-13 14:48:26,130*2*Found move:Ba5-c3&#xA;2016-09-13 14:48:26,290********Game end: 0-1 {Mate}&#xA;2016-09-13 14:48:26,291********Last game won by AnMon 5.75 with Black in 20 moves&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the example above my engine lost to its adversary(AnMon). As you can see the opponent gave the move a5c3 to the interface, and Arena just ended the game without sending a message to my engine before beggining a new game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The problem lies in the fact that my goal is to train my engine's AI and to do that i need the last move made so that i can determine who won and who lost.&#xA;Is there a way to make Arena give me that information?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If not what other engines that meet my needs would you reccomend?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8485" LastEditorUserId="8485" LastEditDate="2016-09-13T13:22:19.050" LastActivityDate="2017-11-27T12:34:07.853" Title="Make Arena send last move to chess engine" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;programming&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15357" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15356" CreationDate="2016-09-13T13:09:21.740" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Arena is closed source, so I don't see any possibility for you to force the GUI to send you the last move. In fact, I don't think chess GUI should send the move to you because there wouldn't be anything for your engine to do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you really need the last move, maybe you want to use &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/cutechess/cutechess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Cutechess&lt;/a&gt;? It's open source so you can do whatever you want once the game is over.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2016-09-13T13:09:21.740" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15358" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15356" CreationDate="2016-09-13T17:12:44.940" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think for this you actually want the XBoard protocol, which &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.gnu.org/software/xboard/engine-intf.html#8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;specifies&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;result RESULT {COMMENT}&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;After the end of each game, xboard will send you a result command.&lt;/strong&gt; You can use this command to trigger learning. RESULT is either 1-0, 0-1, 1/2-1/2, or *, indicating whether white won, black won, the game was a draw, or the game was unfinished. The COMMENT string is purely a human-readable comment; its content is unspecified and subject to change. In ICS mode, it is passed through from ICS uninterpreted. Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;result 1-0 {White mates}&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are some notes on interpreting the &amp;quot;result&amp;quot; command. Some apply only to playing on ICS (&amp;quot;Zippy&amp;quot; mode).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you won but did not just play a mate, your opponent must have resigned or forfeited. If you lost but were not just mated, you probably forfeited on time, or perhaps the operator resigned manually. If there was a draw for some nonobvious reason, perhaps your opponent called your flag when he had insufficient mating material (or vice versa), or perhaps the operator agreed to a draw manually.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;You will get a result command even if you already know the game ended&lt;/strong&gt; -- for example, after you just checkmated your opponent. In fact, if you send the &amp;quot;RESULT {COMMENT}&amp;quot; command (discussed below), you will simply get the same thing fed back to you with &amp;quot;result&amp;quot; tacked in front. You might not always get a &amp;quot;result *&amp;quot; command, however. In particular, you won't get one in local chess engine mode when the user stops playing by selecting Reset, Edit Game, Exit or the like.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(emphasis mine)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;UCI protocol is designed to be stateless, so an engine does not know when a game begins or ends, but is merely given a position to search.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a compromise, you &lt;em&gt;could&lt;/em&gt; trigger learning on a &lt;code&gt;ucinewgame&lt;/code&gt; command, but this is not nearly as useful, because UCI does not send you the winning move. Perhaps perform a depth-1 search to see if there was a mating move, then assume they made that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1508" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2016-09-13T17:12:44.940" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15359" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15336" CreationDate="2016-09-13T17:57:23.700" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;16...Nf4 is the problem, regardless of what any engine tells you. The plan is wrong, there is no clear win for the sacrifice. I would have centralized both rooks (Rfe8), relocated the Be6 to g6 (Nf8/Bf7/Bg6), and attacked on the queenside where White's weaknesses are. White has problems on the e-file too if he is not careful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2c.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10233" LastActivityDate="2016-09-13T17:57:23.700" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15360" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15277" CreationDate="2016-09-13T21:32:26.870" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessworld.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;chessworld&lt;/a&gt; website is a subscription site (with a free introductory period) that offers a specific time control which combines two constraints:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Each set of 10 moves must be completed in 50 days (this counter is then reset)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Each move must be completed within 10 days from the prior move&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, you can distribute your time over a 50 day period fairly flexibly, up to 10 days between moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I noted that a previous poster mentioned that &lt;a href=&quot;http://ChessTempo.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;ChessTempo&lt;/a&gt;, the strong tactics puzzle website, is now offering correspondence (and live) game serving. When I checked their seek graph to see what time controls people were looking for a partner for, I only found 1 ad posted, and that was only for a SD 12-hour game. Their website indicates that this funtionality is only in Beta release, as well.  So, you may have to wait awhile for a longer-duration game ad to get a response. It may even be worth coming back to their site later on, after they have gathered more of a following. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the plus side, their game serving is free.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another free correspondence chess server is the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ficgs.com/waiting_lists.html#chess_tournaments&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Free Internet Chess Games Server&lt;/a&gt;.  They have time controls of:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;40 days + 40 days / 10 moves&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;30 days + 1 day / move&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These should offer the kind of time flexibility you're looking for.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11245" LastEditorUserId="11245" LastEditDate="2016-09-13T22:44:36.623" LastActivityDate="2016-09-13T22:44:36.623" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15361" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14565" CreationDate="2016-09-13T22:11:07.280" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess definitely helps with intellectual development and education. Math is the most obvious area where chess definitely helps. There is a lot of research to back this up. If you think about it, chess develops general mental abilities including: strategic competency; the ability to analyze variations; spatial relationships and interdependencies; self-confidence in the face of complex problems. All of those abilities are generally useful in solving all kinds of problems in school and life. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are links to some web resources where you can read more about the well-documented benefits of chess in education. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://education.jhu.edu/PD/newhorizons/strategies/topics/thinking-skills/chess/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://education.jhu.edu/PD/newhorizons/strategies/topics/thinking-skills/chess/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.psmcd.net/otherfiles/BenefitsOfChessInEdScreen2.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.psmcd.net/otherfiles/BenefitsOfChessInEdScreen2.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These are just two examples. There are a lot more articles out there on the Internet, and they mostly arrive at the same basic conclusion. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Moral virtues are another story.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess doesn't directly help with moral values. Bobby Fischer was a great example of this. He was a brilliant chess player, but widely regarded as the worst kind of person. He had very clever and elaborate arguments to support his negative and self-destructive points of view. There are many examples of top level chess players who are wonderful people, but also quite a few examples of immoral behavior among grandmasters. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7928" LastActivityDate="2016-09-13T22:11:07.280" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15362" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15336" CreationDate="2016-09-13T22:17:24.593" Score="0" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 { Ruy Lopez } 3...Bc5 { (delayed) Classical variation } 4. Bxc6 { Exchange Variation, perhaps premature as Black hasn't given up anything to get the bishop. } (3. c3 { to prevent ...Nd4, a useful move to force a trade } ) 4...dxc6 { I think Black is equal, with the two bishops and no noticeable weaknesses. } 5. O-O Bg4 ( 5...Qd6 { should be good, staying flexible with Bc8, though Nb1-d2-c4 } ) ( 5...Qf6 { aiming for the king-side might be good if it can later move safely to g6 without loss of pawn e5 } ) 6. d3 Ne7 7. Bg5 { a waste of time as ...f6 was good for Black } 7...f6 8. Be3 Bxe3 9. fxe3 O-O ( 9...Qd7 { !? keeping the option of ...O-O-O to stay free for offense on the king-side } ) 10. Nc3 Ng6 ( 10...c5 { not the king-side attack, but intending ...c6 to hold squares d4 and d5, but also to consider ...Ne7-c6 } ) 11. h3 Be6 12. Qe2 Qd7 { Can you imagine how happy Black would be if he could follow-u with ...O-O-O? The king-side could go fully on the offense. } 13. d4 b5 { The position is pretty level. It's hard to generate offense anywhere. Threatening ...Bc4 is fine. Threatening ...b4 to disrupt White is also fine. Simply ...Rad8 or ...b6 may be best. } 14. b3 Rad8 15. Rad1 exd4 16. exd4 Nf4 {?} ( 16...Rfe8 { to put pressure on the weak central pawns makes more sense than to go after the king-side since the Black rooks can't help in that fight } ) 17. Qe3 Nxg2 18. Kxg2 Bxh3+ 19. Kh2 Bxf1 20. Rxf1 Qg4 21. Rg1 Qh5+ 22. Kg2 f5 23. e5 f4 24. Qe4 { +/- The king is safe enough and White's pieces are working together much better than Black's. } 24...Rf5 25. Kf2 Qh3 26. Qxc6 g5 27. Qe6+ Kf8 28. Rxg5 { White wasn't playing very aggressively, but the position didn't offer much after his early Bxc6. Black could have gotten more by aiming for an unbalanced position with ...Qd7, ...O-O-O. Then Black over-reached with the Nxg2 sac and it cost the game. } 1-0&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10591" LastActivityDate="2016-09-13T22:17:24.593" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15363" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8258" CreationDate="2016-09-14T01:55:59.443" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately, many of the statistical functions of the Opening Book feature in ChessBase have been unreliable in every version I've owned. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, after the Caro-Kann line 1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. e5 Bf5 4. Nf3 e6 5. Be2 Nd7 6. O-O h6 7. Nbd2 Ne7 8. Nb3 Qc7 9. Bd2, the opening book PowerBook 2013 shows this table:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Move       N     %    Av  Perf&#xA;          15  76.7  2409  2283&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;9...Bh7    8  56.3  2433  2494&#xA;9...g5     6  83.3  2405  2233&#xA;9...Nc8    4  62.5  2393  2335&#xA;9...a5     2  50.0  2561  2564&#xA;9...Be4    1 100.0  2414  2315&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well, first off, you'll notice that the number of games in the total (15) has no relation to the number of games in each variation given (a total of 21).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Second, if you do some simple arithmetic, you can work out that the average White win percentage is actually 66.7%, not 76.7%, as reported.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well, then, let's ignore the overall position total statistics, and move on to examining a line item. Let's look at the 9...Bh7 line, which this table says was derived from 8 games, with a White winning percentage of 56.3%&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you make that move, you get a new table. Since we're now at the new position, the position statistics at the top of the new table should read the same as those from the 9...Bh7 detail line of the parent table from the prior position, right?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's what they &lt;em&gt;actually&lt;/em&gt; say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Move       N     %    Av  Perf&#xA;           8  56.3  2545  2484&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not bad, right? The first two stats agree... but the Average ELO and Performance ELO numbers are off by 100 ELO in the 1st stat, and 10 ELO in the 2nd.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And here's the full table for the new position&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Move       N     %    Av  Perf&#xA;           8  56.3  2545  2484&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;10.a4      4  75.0  2455  2513&#xA;10.Bb4     4  62.5  2557  2537&#xA;10.Rc1     2  50.0  2650  2591&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Again, the total # of games is unrelated to the # of games in each of the continuations.  And this time, the White winning percentage works out to 65%, not 56.3%.  And the position's Performance ELO is clearly not the average of the continuations' Performance ELO. It should be 2538, an error of 50 ELO.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I picked a ready example from a game I was looking at a few minutes ago, but any game will do to demonstrate this problem.  I frequently find that when I try to choose a move from an apparently winning continuation that the the detail data from the resulting position just doesn't support the apparently &quot;winning&quot; statistic. In some cases, it could say White has as much as a 60% winning percentage for the continuation, and then in the next position none of the further continuations has a percentage higher than 50%. Simply put, it's nonsensical.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, here's where it gets interesting: &#xA;I have set my Reference Database as the database of games that was supplied with PowerBook 2013 (PowerGames 2013). PowerBook 2013 was generated by ChessBase using &lt;strong&gt;all&lt;/strong&gt; of the games from PowerGames 2013, and &lt;strong&gt;only&lt;/strong&gt; those games. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can now open the Reference window pane, and it will look up the statistics from the games in that database. They should be identical to the stats shown in the Opening Book pane, but they're not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In fact, the Reference statistics for the 2nd position (after 9...Bh7) show the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;10.Bb4     4  62.5  &#xA;10.a4      2  50.0  &#xA;10.Rc1     2  50.0 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;This&lt;/em&gt; is where the total statistics in PowerBook 2013 are coming from! The total number of games = 8 (correct), and the average performance = 56.25% (correct)!  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In fact, in the PowerBook 2013 continuation stats there appear to be 2 extra games where 10.a4 was played (and which White apparently won), but they don't appear in the Reference database stats at all, and they aren't factored into the PowerBook 2013 totals stats.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It doesn't really matter whether this is a problem inherent in the commercially-sold books from ChessBase, or in how the ChessBase database software uses/calculates/displays the statistics. Simply put, there's a defect here that's been present since at least ChessBase 6.0, and hasn't been fixed at late as Version 11 (the one I'm using).  Just watch out for it when you try to use an opening book to pick a line based on its purported winning percentage.  The best approach is to use the Reference Pane, or at least double-check the continuations for a couple of further moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Personally, I now use the Reference window pane for this purpose, and put up with the slight lag required to update the stats for every new position in the game.  I use an AMD Quad processor at 2.9 GHz, so if you have something less powerful, you might feel the pinch a little more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not excessively critical of the ChessBase software in general; I use many of the features quite effectively. But a few of them have known faults you should know how to work around. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another example: Try using a position search in a database; ignore the results. Then, &lt;em&gt;edit&lt;/em&gt; the position within the search filter (add, move, delete pieces, whatever), make a note of the new position you're now searching for, and run the search again. Save the resulting list of games.  Now, reset the search filter completely (I suggest closing and reopening the database as well). Finally, set up the (altered) search position again from scratch, and run the search a 3rd time. The results from the 2nd (edited position) and 3rd (fresh position) searches should match. They frequently &lt;strong&gt;do not&lt;/strong&gt;.  I've noted many cases where the fresh search filter returned many more games than the edited search filter.  I have no explanation for this, but I no longer edit the position in the search filter.  I always create a fresh position (usually by copying and pasting from a game window I set up for the purpose).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this is helpful!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11245" LastActivityDate="2016-09-14T01:55:59.443" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15365" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7747" CreationDate="2016-09-14T03:04:00.640" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;As if this weren't confusing enough, on ICC there are ratings for &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;bullet&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;blitz &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;standard&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;1-minute&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;3-minute&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;5-minute&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;15-minute&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;25-minute&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To make matters worse, a game with any of the time controls of 5 minutes or greater can be either in that TC category, or simply a Standard TC game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, this seems to be a matter of personal taste at a number of the websites, rather than a case of adhering to FIDE, USCF or any other rules.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, there's also allowable variation in the USCF time controls definitions of regular time controls, but the basic criteria are these (for regular rated games):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The duration of the first time-control must be at least 30 minutes for each player.(However, see (3) below for an exception.)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If a non-sudden death control is used, the rate of play must be equal to or slower than an average of 60 moves per hour. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Rule 5Fa is an option that allows the TD to shorten the basic time control in minutes by the delay in seconds for games using a digital clock with delay. When this option is mandated, the initial control, not the shortened control will govern under which system the event is rated. A G/30 ( 5 second delay) with the control shortened to G/25 for the games using a delay will still be rated in the regular system.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Any secondary controls must be at least 30 minutes.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For FIDE, this is the information I use (a summary taken from USCF reference materials):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.0 Rate of Play&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For a game to be rated each player must have a minimum of two hours in which to complete all the moves, &lt;em&gt;assuming the game lasts 60 moves&lt;/em&gt;. Examples of ways this can be achieved follow.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a. The rate of play must not exceed 23 moves per hour at any stage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;b. All the moves in two hours.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;c. 40 moves in two hours followed by all the moves in 30 minutes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;d. All the moves in 100 minutes initially, but each time a player makes a move an additional 30 seconds is added to the clock time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that these are minimum conditions; any time control system that a TD implements that is more generous than these conditions require automatically satisfies the regular rating criteria.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11245" LastActivityDate="2016-09-14T03:04:00.640" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15366" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15336" CreationDate="2016-09-14T03:52:15.310" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your losing move was 23...f4. That allowed Qe4, gave White's queen a magnificent central square, from which she dominated the game. I like your chances up to that point, especially if you can exchange queens. A rook and two extra pawns (your h pawn is passed) is usually strong against two knights. Therefore, you should have  centralized your queen at d6 and moved the passed h pawn rather than aiming for a direct attack against the king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your second worst move (earlier) was 13... b5, which weakened your c5 pawn, which the Q on e4 was able to take. But this would not have been a problem if you had not allowed her to get to e4 in the first place.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastEditorUserId="2299" LastEditDate="2016-09-14T04:56:41.627" LastActivityDate="2016-09-14T04:56:41.627" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15368" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8923" CreationDate="2016-09-14T05:06:51.017" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;A standard structure for a chess training program is broken down as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Use a 4-day cycle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Divide each day's chess time into 4 time units (the total of whatever time you can afford each day). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Activities include:&#xA;- Study (S)&#xA;- Solve (V)&#xA;- Play (PL)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Areas of the Game include:&#xA;- (O) Openings&#xA;- (T) Tactics&#xA;- (G) Strategy&#xA;- (E) Endings &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, a time unit consists of a combination of an Activity and an Area. For example, SO means Study Openings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Each play unit involves a combination of games at different time controls. If you are serious, use 1 x 15, 2 x 10, and 3 x 5 minute games. That's 50 minutes (not including any partner-seek time). If you can spare more time, add more to the number of quick games while you're at a lower rating, and when you get stronger, add more of the longer time control games to the unit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A typical 4-day cycle might start out as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Day 1: SO2, SG1, VT1&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Day 2: VE2, PL1, VT1&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Day 3: SG1, VG1, PL1, VT1&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Day 4: SO2, VE1, VT1&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that Tactics are worked on &lt;em&gt;every day&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After you have played a set of 20 games (however many days that takes), do a retrospective on your performance. If you've got a chess engine, run the games through it.  Ignore what your opponents did. Look only at whether you made a mistake (and what kind of mistake it was), and whether you caught your opponent's mistake when he made one. Keep track of the number of mistakes in each category, figure out a way to reduce them, and introduce that into your training.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you lose games in the Ending more often than you win them, increase the number of units you spend on Endings. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Never go higher than 4 units on one area in the 4-day cycle, though. Since Tactics is already at 4, that's only going to go down if you're doing well in it, but not higher than 4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, never take away from Play time to increase another area. So, for example, if you find you need to spend more time on Endings, but your Tactics still need work too, reduce the time you spend on Openings and increase the time on Endings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;http://chessok.com/?p=21207&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;source&lt;/a&gt; I used of this training scheduling method appears on the ChessOk website.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for what specifics to study and where to get materials, there are plenty of good resources on the Web; I'll leave that to other sources to address.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now to your question: Correspondence chess is &lt;em&gt;excellent&lt;/em&gt; at helping you learn openings and endings. These involve &lt;em&gt;theory&lt;/em&gt;, and you need to memorize it to be able to use it in a tournament where you're playing over-the-board (OTB).  Study the theory, and then practice it a little, and then test yourself. Test yourself immediately, then again the next day, and then again a week later. That will reinforce the memory, and convert it from short-term to long-term memory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;However&lt;/em&gt;, correspondence chess has 4 major flaws when it comes to serving as training for OTB play:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;It won't strengthen your board vision (your ability to see the potential combinations in a position), because the normal way to select a move in CC is by moving pieces on a board until you find the most promising variation. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;It will hurt your time management ability. You will get used to thinking slowly, and to repeating your thinking, unless you are very strict in budgeting your time and limiting repetition in your analysis.  It's very different when you have 3 days to decide on a move, instead of 3 minutes.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;It will not help you learn and enforce your rights as afforded by the rules. For example, in a tournament, a player may knock over some pieces, and press his clock regardless, only bothering to set up the displaced pieces on your time. This is illegal, and you need to know it's illegal, and you need to act immediately to stop the clock and get a TD to enforce a time penalty on your opponent for the infraction. Such infractions never even occur in correspondence play.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;It will not help you analyze variations in your head. Correspondence play allows as much note-taking as you want. You can analyze variations to ridiculously-deep levels, if you want. In OTB, you may only note the move, the time, and draw offers - that's it.  Unfortunately, if you try to use correspondence games to practice analyzing in your head, you're going to get creamed by everyone else, because they're taking notes, and will make fewer mistakes and be analyzing deeper.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is why you should play games at regular time controls (no blitz faster than 5 minutes) in order to strengthen your play, and you should play in an OTB tournament at least once per month, if you want to be able to improve your OTB (or online) play at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If all you want is to play correspondence chess, then you're all set. I still encourage you to use the regular time control games to improve your tactical vision, but you can survive by just moving the pieces around a lot and stumbling on 3-move combinations you didn't actually see at the beginning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11245" LastEditorUserId="11245" LastEditDate="2017-02-03T06:07:38.273" LastActivityDate="2017-02-03T06:07:38.273" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15370" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9901" CreationDate="2016-09-14T11:58:54.743" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Internet Email Chess Group is now hosted by the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess-server.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Lechener SchachServer&lt;/a&gt;. They have collected over 400,000 CC games, which you can download for free in ChessBase or PGN format, after registering for a free account.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I bought Correspondence Database 2013 from ChessBase, and it has over 1 MM games. You can often get a slightly-out-of-date CD of CC games on ebay at a steep discount.  Mine came as part of a product package containing ChessBase 11, which I got at a discount once ChessBase 12 was released.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11245" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-09-14T12:30:48.453" LastActivityDate="2016-09-14T12:30:48.453" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15371" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13252" CreationDate="2016-09-14T14:24:58.080" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a very broad question. The following topics all seem to be relevant:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Learning about chess theory (opening and endgame, as well as &lt;em&gt;priyomes&lt;/em&gt;, which are appropriate stratagems for certain typical aspects of a position)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Didactic methods (i.e. how humans learn)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Pattern recognition and memorization&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Productive chess play against a chess engine&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Analysis skills improvement&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;[I'll think of another one in a minute...]&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.a Openings&#xA;To learn an opening, you need to have the objective of &lt;em&gt;knowing what move to play in a given position from that opening&lt;/em&gt;. The word &lt;em&gt;position&lt;/em&gt; is critical; if you only learn a given sequence of moves, you will get outwitted by an opponent who starts by playing one opening, and then plays a move that isn't in that opening, but which transposes to another. For example, your repertoire includes the Dutch Defence vs 1.d4, so when your opponent plays 1.d4, you reply 1...e6 (you avoid playing 1...f5 immediately, to preclude the Staunton Gambit (1.d4 f5 2.e4).  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This (1.d4 e6) allows your opponent to play 2.e4, which transposes to a French Defense (normal order is 1.e4 e6 2.d4).  The &lt;em&gt;position&lt;/em&gt; is what tells you it's a French, not the move order.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To learn openings using positions, get a chess position trainer (some are free), and load up your repertoire.  The trainer will give you flashcard-like training on random positions, and you need to reply with the correct move for that position; the way you got there is irrelevant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.b Endgames &#xA;To learn endgames, you need to a) determine which ones to learn, b) find the theory somewhere, c) learn that theory, and d) develop competence in applying that theory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Software can:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a) Tell you the relative frequency of different endgame types. For example, Rook v Rook endgames occur in about 50% of all endgames, but K+B+N v K occurs only once in 6000 games.  Learn RvR; skip K+B+N v K.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;b) Teach you the theory. The better chess software packages come with an Endgame Trainer module, but you can also just download a very inexpensive one; I recommend the Chess King app &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;Ending&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; for Android in the Google Play Store; it's ported from the PC version, &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;Total Chess Endings&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; (by ChessOK, the same company on the PC platform).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;c) The Endgame module will illustrate how the ending is handled, and then pose problems for you to solve that incorporate that ending.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;d) A chess database can help you find examples of that ending in practical games. You can grab one of these at the point where the game transitioned to that ending, and play it out against an engine.  Then, go back to the actual game and see what the masters did. BTW: You should choose games where the players were both rated at least 2200; lower-rated players are virtually guaranteed to mishandle most practical endings to one degree or another; some 2600+ ELO players do it, too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.c Priyomes&#xA;A &lt;em&gt;priyome&lt;/em&gt; is a typical procedure for handling a specific aspect of a position. It deals with limited numbers of pieces, and implements a key idea.  For example, when trying to create a passed pawn the general priyome is to &lt;em&gt;push the candidate first&lt;/em&gt;, i.e. the pawn that has no opposing pawn on its file. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I haven't found a single source for priyomes in software or databases anywhere, but software can help you play out a priyome that is illustrated in a book.  I can recommend &quot;How to Choose a Chess Move&quot;, by GM Andrew Soltis, for some examples of priyomes. Find the games from that book in a games database, and play through the variations he gives.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you can afford it, either &lt;em&gt;buy your chess literature in software form&lt;/em&gt;, or &lt;em&gt;take the time to load the games from a book into a database&lt;/em&gt;. If you do the latter, extract them from a large database, such as a version of MegaBase from ChessBase, or the equivalent from Chess Assistant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why do your chess study in software form? The fact is that chess instruction in software is much more effective than it is on paper, because:&#xA;&lt;/p&gt; &#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt; &#xA;&lt;li&gt;You don't have to spend time setting up the position or moving the pieces&lt;/li&gt; &#xA;&lt;li&gt;You waste no time in resetting the position to review the lesson from the beginning&lt;/li&gt; &#xA;&lt;li&gt;You can review a difficult variation separately, and easily return to the mainline without losing your train of thought while resetting the pieces&lt;/li&gt; &#xA;&lt;li&gt;You never make a mistake in setting up the position&lt;/li&gt; &#xA;&lt;li&gt;You can speed through uninteresting moves or even jump to critical positions effortlessly and completely accurately&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You can analyze an interesting line that wasn't included in the material, and return to the text easily&lt;/li&gt; &#xA;&lt;li&gt;You can use a chess engine to analyze the position at any point in the lesson, if you want to explore further or just want a better understanding of why a particular move works or fails&lt;/li&gt; &#xA;&lt;li&gt;You can even add notes and variations to help you learn the material&lt;/li&gt; &#xA;&lt;li&gt;You can test yourself not only with the exercises, but also by repeating the lesson materials, hiding the given moves and attempting to guess them instead, with immediate feedback&lt;/li&gt; &#xA;&lt;/ul&gt; &#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I only addressed the first topic, and this answer is already 2 screen's worth, so this is probably an appropriate place to take stock (and a break).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Feel free to post questions about the other topics, and I'll try to address them there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11245" LastActivityDate="2016-09-14T14:24:58.080" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15372" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15050" CreationDate="2016-09-14T16:22:09.347" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;By part:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If you're interested in learning a new opening, I recommend considering the following:&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Know your preferred style of play: positional or tactical&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Know your areas of strength: memorization, calculation, tactical vision, stamina, cool-headedness, etc.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Decide how much time you want to spend learning (and keeping up with) the opening&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These factors will all influence the decision of &lt;em&gt;which opening&lt;/em&gt; to study; don't do this by feel.  For example, successfully using the London System is largely based on strategic concepts; there are very few traps and forcing lines. As a result, the established theory isn't very deep. The King's Indian Defense, on the other hand, is the complete opposite: it's full of traps and forcing lines, and the theory runs to 20 moves and more in some lines.  Just look at &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;Beating the King's Indian and Benoni&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;, by Anatoli Vaisser, which is almost completely dedicated to the 4 Pawns Attack variation, and has an average of 7 games per page for 114 pages (that's nearly 800 games) as reference material.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately, we can't assume that because a few of the same moves occur in two openings that they are similar in nature, either in the degree of complexity or the strategic / tactical balance.  The &quot;...e6 Sicilian&quot; you refer to includes the Taimanov, Szen, Pin, Kan and Closed variations, as well as the Marshall.  The French Defence has almost nothing in common with these, largely because in almost every French variation White plays either e5 at some point or exd5, while in the 195 distinct lines of the Sicilian Defense (by ECO code), White plays e5 in only 7 of them, and exd5 in only 1.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This makes the French a cramped, counterattacking defense where White holds d4 and even e5 as long as possible, while Black tries to liquidate the e5 pawn and open the f-file. By contrast, in the Sicilian White loses the d4 pawn immediately in all of the Open-related variations (Closed and Alapin are the main exceptions), and Black fights on the half-open c-file.  Not much in common there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, there &lt;em&gt;are&lt;/em&gt; some similarities between Black-and-White mirrors of the same opening, such as the KID and the King's Indian Attack, and the Sicilian Dragon and the English Sicilian Reversed or the English Bremen, Reversed Dragon. Similarly, the Dutch Defense and Bird's Opening have strong similarities.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Cause of poor opening results: First, you have to determine that the opening was the problem. An analysis of the games should determine that:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;You played the first out-of-book move, when book moves with good results were available in the position, and &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;An engine determines that the positional evaluation dropped by at least 0.30 pawns as a result of the novelty&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If these are true, then you don't know the opening well enough. If, on the other hand, the evaluation didn't change much after you played your last book move, then the opening was fine (and not the problem).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;On value of books: Read the reviews. I find these extremely valuable. I was once interested in booking up on the Glek Variation of the KID as White, to prepare for an opponent. Several books I was considering claimed to address it, but the reviews revealed that the treatment was cursory, and I was able to eliminate them from consideration. But you need to be able to learn the opening from the book when you find it; read, practice, test, repeat.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;You can certainly learn an opening by playing master games in it. Pick some where the players are equally rated, and a few where the stronger player was playing your opening vs a weaker player.  Start with the imbalanced games first. If you can determine that the positional evaluation shifted during the opening (in the first 12-15 moves), you're looking at a demonstration of how to use the opening to win. Then, play through the games between the equally-matched players. Because they foil each other's intentions, you won't see the themes unfold, but you should be able to spot how a strong player avoided the problems a weaker player ran into.  &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't recommend this approach over using an opening reference, though. If the latter's any good at all, you'll save hours of time distilling the key elements and themes of the opening.  For learning a new opening, I can strongly recommend the &quot;&lt;strong&gt;Starting Out&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; series by &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.everymanchess.com/starting-out&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Everyman Publishing&lt;/a&gt;; they publish in both paperback and e-book versions. Go from there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;5&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;This is very much a &quot;your-mileage-may-vary&quot; situation. You can learn to play the London passably in a weekend (say, 4-6 hours), but you won't be decent at the King's Indian for months (i.e. you'll have a decent chance to win if you get to carry out the general ideas, but good opposition will very likely kill you with tactics and traps repeatedly until you're familiar with them and how to avoid them). That said, the KID leads to fewer draws and more decisive games than the London System, and if you're a good tactician and weak on strategy, the KID's a pretty good weapon.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11245" LastActivityDate="2016-09-14T16:22:09.347" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15373" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14974" CreationDate="2016-09-14T16:38:25.767" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can get a lot out of the Banter Blitz videos (served by YouTube) by &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess24.com/en/live/video/c54f29aeec-banter-blitz-with-jan-gustafsson&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess24&lt;/a&gt;. The link shows an example by GM Jan Gustafsson, but there are other masters offering similar material. Much of the content is free.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You said you weren't particular about the content, but you might find it interesting to know that these videos involve the master explaining what's going on during a blitz game they're playing, and what they're thinking while they play. As a result, you will get advice about openings, learn to spot the kinds of mistakes their opponents make, pick up some endgame theory, and even get some in-game commentary on tournaments, personalities, and history.  A very enriching experience, overall.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I find the format where one game at a time is played, start-to-finish, more enriching than the simul display formats that are offered elsewhere, such as at ICC.  For one thing, in the simul format the master is often playing as fast as possible, with very little time for talk. On the other hand, in the one-at-a-time format, the master can advise/warn/speculate/muse/babble during the opponent's think time. I find that the content is just richer with this format.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11245" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T17:33:28.637" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T17:33:28.637" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="15374" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14824" CreationDate="2016-09-14T17:10:20.397" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Jesus de la Villa's book comes highly-recommended by a coach (a Russian IM) whom I approached about this question.  It is refreshingly focused on making your study time as productive (in terms of decisive game results) as possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My own assessment of Silman's material is that while it has rich instructive content, I find the style of presentation (cynical, demeaning of the players at times) unappealing. It also lacks focus at times.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I agree that the more comprehensive works such as Dvoretsky's Endgame Manual and Averbakh's Chess Endings: Essential Knowledge should be left until you're at least 2000 ELO.  I would also recommend using them sparingly; some of the topics are too arcane to be useful (such as &lt;strong&gt;K+R+f-pawn+h-pawn vs K+R&lt;/strong&gt;, or &lt;strong&gt;K+B+N vs K&lt;/strong&gt;).  But by that time, you could just get Fundamental Chess Endings by Müller and Lamprecht, and you'd be set for life.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you haven't made a purchase yet, for more depth I'd invite you to consider &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.everymanchess.com/starting-out-pawn-endgames&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Starting Out: Pawn Endgames&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.everymanchess.com/starting-out-minor-piece-endgames&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Starting Out: Minor Piece Endgames&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.everymanchess.com/starting-out-rook-endgames&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Starting Out: Rook Endgames&lt;/a&gt; by Everyman Publishing. All are available in a Kindle edition at Amazon for about $10. Used paperback copies are very reasonably priced as well.  I believe the Rook book is still in publication, but Everyman doesn't seem to be selling the other two anymore.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to limit yourself to just one book, then I would also encourage you to check out James Howell's &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/B01DTAKG7Y&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Essential Chess Endings&lt;/a&gt;. Howell is a chess coach who was frustrated with the unsuitability of the available endgame manuals for teaching aspiring tournament players.  His book is readable, uses actual games, and emphasizes strategic themes for each type of endgame. Enjoyable and effective. It's (sadly) only available at a reasonable price as a Kindle book on Amazon (the used copies are a goldmine, apparently).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11245" LastActivityDate="2016-09-14T17:10:20.397" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15375" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14379" CreationDate="2016-09-14T18:29:29.420" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;To be able to improve, you need to isolate:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The move that was a mistake&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Why the move was a mistake&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Why you made that move in particular&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Why you didn't make (an)other, better move(s)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To get better at analyzing, you want to be able to spot the weak move by yourself. Initially, you may not be able to do this very well. But try it: Go backward through the game from the end, and try to isolate the last position where you felt you were either equal or better. Then, retrace your steps and try to identify the offending bad move that happened after that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Looking at that move, figure out what your opponent did that exploited that move (this assumes you're working on a move that your opponent punished, and not one that he missed).  Then, try to find an alternative move you could have made that foils his idea. It can do this in several ways:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Avoid the structure / situation he exploited&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Make a more compelling threat, so he doesn't have time to exploit it&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Prepare the move with another move first, so the weakness is addressed before you play it&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, try to figure out why you played that bad move in particular:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Did you play the move reflexively, almost without thinking?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Did you expect a different outcome?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Did you fail to anticipate his reply?  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Did you anticipate the reply, but underestimate its impact? &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Each of these behaviors has multiple possible explanations, and you need to isolate the ones that were in effect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If you didn't think hard enough:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;You need to re-examine the position after every reply. You may see something you didn't notice before, even if you anticipated his reply. You should follow the discipline of, &lt;em&gt;at a minimum&lt;/em&gt;, examining &lt;em&gt;every check, capture or threat&lt;/em&gt; (CCT) that your opponent might make on his next move if you did nothing, and &lt;em&gt;every check, capture or threat&lt;/em&gt; you can make immediately.  This is particularly important if the reply was unexpected.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;You must also avoid &lt;em&gt;reacting&lt;/em&gt;. If the opponent's reply was unexpected and poses an immediate threat, there's a natural tendency to react quickly, out of fear. &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;You must avoid this.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; If he captured one of your pieces unexpectedly, don't immediately recapture. &lt;em&gt;Look at all the possibly useful replies&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you still make this mistake, try setting a &lt;strong&gt;minimum think time&lt;/strong&gt;. For example, in a 30-minute game, make sure you spend at least 30 seconds selecting your move &lt;em&gt;every time&lt;/em&gt;, unless it's rote opening theory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Or, you may need to curb your appetite. Some players make speculative sacrifices that are easily refuted. This is typical of many players under 1600, but some persist even when their ratings somehow get higher. If you notice that you are consistently capturing pieces with negative results, try to understand your motivation, and moderate it. Once you force yourself to recognize that &lt;em&gt;winning&lt;/em&gt; is more exciting than &lt;em&gt;sacrificing and then losing&lt;/em&gt;, you'll kick the habit. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Conversely, you may need to man up. Some players play defensively, even with White, as a matter of preference.  It is 4-10 times harder to defend than it is to attack, because the attacker (unless he sacrifices) has multiple options, each of which may offer substantial benefits and incur only minor costs, while the defender frequently has only &lt;em&gt;one&lt;/em&gt; move that will work, while all others lose.  So, the defender has to think harder.  He will therefore get tired first.  He also is likely to have the poorer morale, and as a result, the weaker fighting spirit. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to avoid these disadvantages, you must follow Steinitz' dictum that you &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;must&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; (not &lt;em&gt;may&lt;/em&gt;) launch an initiative &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;if and only if&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; you have the advantage. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If you anticipated his reply, but expected a different outcome, then you either misevaluated the resulting position, or failed to find or anticipate a strong move later in the game that your move made possible.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An example of the first case might be trading your better bishop for his worse knight, leaving yourse;f with a drawn rook endgame you thought was winning. If so, you need to learn more about minor piece endgames, and about rook endgames.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An example of the second might be your not noticing that 3 moves later, a recapture by your opponent puts you in check, halting your combination abruptly. If that's the case, you need to do tactical exercises of at least 3 moves' length, and get them right at least 75% of the time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If you failed to anticipate his reply, you're either not doing the CCT part, or you're not &lt;em&gt;also&lt;/em&gt; examining seemingly unlikely or purposeless moves like quiet moves that leave a piece hanging, moves that close a mating net around your king without actually giving check, and moves that prepare a tactic, such as masking a queen, rook, or bishop with another piece that can be moved away with tempo, or aligning a rook with your queen or king.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To address this problem, do exercises where you take a position from a game (it doesn't have to be one of yours), and catalog &lt;em&gt;all of the possible moves&lt;/em&gt; with reasons why they are useful or not.  Don't reveal the actual move played until you're finished. Then, figure out whether you selected the best move, and &lt;em&gt;for the correct reason.&lt;/em&gt; You might find Bruce Pandolfini's &quot;Your Move&quot; column in USCF's Chess Life useful for this kind of training.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;4&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If you anticipated your opponent's move but underestimated its impact, try to figure out if you made one of the following mistakes:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Did you find at least one justification for his move? If not, get into the habit of doing this. &lt;em&gt;Every move has at least one justification&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Did you come up with the wrong reason for his move?  If so, why? Was it because you'd never seen the idea before, and didn't recognize it? Or did you just fail to notice it?  Or, did you see one justification, when in fact there were &lt;em&gt;several&lt;/em&gt; justifications for the move?  Gaining more experience will address the first two, but to fix the last one, you have to get into the habit of asking yourself &quot;What else?&quot;. Make sure you discover &lt;em&gt;all&lt;/em&gt; of the possible explanations for his move, not just one of them.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If you found the right reason for his move, but your response was ineffective, was it because: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;His idea was something you considered impractical, or easy to&#xA;refute?  If so, you need to improve your calculating ability,&#xA;including finding all of the reasonable candidates, using CCT and&#xA;possible surprise moves.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;By the time he made his move, there was no longer any effective defense? In this case, you needed to notice the idea sooner; maybe while analyzing the preceding positions, you didn't spot the final move, because you didn't recognize the threat. Two causes are common for this:&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;In the earlier position, you stopped analyzing before there were no more threats. This is fixed by working harder during analysis, and cataloging all the reasonable moves when visualizing the final position, along with their threat potential, and only halting your analysis when you have concluded that none are significant.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;You were unfamiliar with this kind of threat, and so couldn't recognize it. The only remedy for this is experience. Based on the type of threat (tactics, endgame, forcing a strategic weakness, etc), find games or exercises with that kind of element and play through them.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11245" LastActivityDate="2016-09-14T18:29:29.420" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15376" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14105" CreationDate="2016-09-14T19:14:13.507" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here's what you might consider a slightly off-the-wall idea for figuring out what kind of opening you might enjoy playing...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Get a source of games which will afford you a plentiful variety of openings. I use a games database, but take your pick.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Find some random way of selecting 100-200 of these games. You might pick the month of July in a random year; whatever is easiest for you.  Try to make the other particulars as varied as possible, but choose games played by players whose ELO rating was at least 1800.  Those will offer a few advantages over games played by lower-rated players:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;They will be full of the ideas that are characteristic of those openings&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;They won't be cluttered by simple blunders that teach you nothing about that opening&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;They will demonstrate the variety of positions (or lack of it) that comes out of each opening&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;They will generally be true to the nature of the opening (strategic vs tactical, slow maneuvering vs immediate contact, melee combat vs constant attacking against constant defense).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then, start playing through the games fairly quickly. Try to keep in mind that you are getting a &lt;em&gt;feel&lt;/em&gt; for the opening, not trying to memorize or recognize anything.  Ignore any variations, but if you stumble on a game you think might be useful or fun to analyze, tag it so you can return to it later.  You shouldn't spend more than 10 minutes on the play-through for each game, and more often than not, it should take less than 5 minutes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bias your play-through time towards more unfamiliar openings with positions you aren't used to.  Make sure you hit a couple of Trompowsky's, Budapest Gambits, Smith-Morra Gambits, Hedgehogs, Two Knights Tangos, Sokolskys, Grobs, Dutch Defenses, Snakes, Moderns, Wades, Veresovs and so on. This isn't a comprehensive list of relatively unusual openings, of course, but if you're missing one of these openings completely, your selection may be too homogenous.  Go get some more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you find yourself playing through a game that's still very similar to a prior game, skip it.  You can also just look at the ECO codes; if you have more than 5 of one code, skip the remainder.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you find yourself playing through an opening you know, skip it.  If you find a game that's out of book from move 3, skip it (you'll need to use some chess software and an opening book to make this efficient, but you can do it with an ordinary opening theory manual).  These games won't contribute to your understanding of what kinds of new openings you might enjoy playing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For each game you play through, play it through &lt;em&gt;once as White&lt;/em&gt;, and then &lt;em&gt;once again as Black&lt;/em&gt;. &lt;strong&gt;Stop at move 20, and don't look at the remaining moves.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Try to notice how you feel while you're playing through it, and how you feel about the resulting position. As White, and again as Black, were you: Excited? Bored? Anxious? Suspicious? Angry? Interested/Curious?  Add corresponding tags to the games so you can find them again, preserving the color information. Note that &quot;Confused?&quot; isn't one of the options; it's fine if you're confused by an opening, when you first encounter it.  That's a good place to develop more chess muscle!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Next, play through the games that made you Excited or Curious. This time, stop at around move 22 in each case, and put about 5 minutes' think time into selecting a move for the color who's on move, without looking at the actual move played.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How did you do?  Compare the actual move, your selection, and a chess engine's preference. Did you do as well as, or better than, the actual player? If so, this might be a good opening for you to try first. If not, but the opening made you excited or curious enough, the fact that you didn't come up with the best move just means it's not as good a fit with the openings whose ideas you already understand - you'll just have to put more work into getting to know the ideas for these new openings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can ignore those games that gave you negative vibes, if you want, and I wouldn't blame you if you did. But consider that you might be able to use them to teach yourself patience, stamina, tenacity, adaptability, tolerance for discomfort, and a host of other character attributes that will make you much harder to beat. Try to &quot;guess the move&quot; for one color as you play through the remainder of the game (I prefer to choose the winner's color, but I play the loser's side too, occasionally, just to see if I can save the game).  The experience will pay dividends, even if you don't use the game in opening preparation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, none of this work will be wasted, whether you choose to learn a particular opening or not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11245" LastActivityDate="2016-09-14T19:14:13.507" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15377" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="394" CreationDate="2016-09-14T19:39:36.117" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's a good reason that beginners are coached to learn the Open Games (1.e4 e5) as both Black and White. These games are heavily populated with tactics that teach:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;How to make and recognize threats&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;How to calculate&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;How to defend&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because the central pawns are often exchanged or captured, or become reduced to a fixed ram pair, these games involve a lot of open lines, giving beginners a chance to learn to visualize long-range threats, and to combine line pieces to attack focal squares, such as by constructing batteries.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The density of threats and heavy bias towards tactics and away from strategy makes these types of games easier to understand for a beginner.  Topics such as provoking and defending weaknesses (e.g. Isolated Queen's Pawns and doubled pawns), exploiting outposts, and endgame theory often involve too much complexity for beginners to be successful and enjoy the game.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most beginners will remain more engaged and enjoy the game more if there is frequent capturing, it is easy to find active moves, and they can visualize what's going on easily. This is the same reason TD's are very lenient towards beginners; they want to avoid frustrating experiences that discourage play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, the traditional (and still useful) first openings include the:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Italian Game (Giuoco Piano) and Evans Gambit&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Scotch Game and Gambit&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Ruy Lopez (especially Exchange Variation)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;King's Gambit&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and so on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After some experience with these, beginners will be able to assimilate the new concepts required in the Semi-Open Games. The Sicilian Defense is a good candidate, for similar reasons, although it introduces the ideas of weaknesses, imbalances, stock sacrifices, queenside vs kingside play, and so on.  Teachers advocate learning either the Caro-Kann or the French, after some experience with the Sicilian, to introduce more elements of closed positions and maneuvering.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Next, the Closed Games can be introduced, with their ideas of preparation of pawn breaks, center vs wing attacks, emphasis on weak pawns and outposts, and so on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's a rough outline of a fairly universally-applied sequence, with an explanation I've heard from several coaches.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11245" LastActivityDate="2016-09-14T19:39:36.117" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15378" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13697" CreationDate="2016-09-14T19:56:18.887" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your coach will approach you with a proposal, based on his experience of what works best for your situation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;He will complete an assessment of your standard of play by examining your games.  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;He will likely explore your thinking process with you as you describe how you selected some of the key moves in your games.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;He will diagnose problems with your thinking process and/or your understanding of the game&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;He will prescribe a training regimen that will either correct your weaknesses, or reinforce your strengths, or both. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;He will offer to meet with you again after a period of training on your part to carry out the regimen&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If you have a 2nd meeting, he will review your progress, and either prescribe more remedial work for defects in your play that persist, or diagnose the next set of weaknesses to work on, and prescribe training to correct those.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a fairly common formula. Some coaches vary from it by:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Using a programmed training course with only minor customizations&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Emphasizing endgame theory and tactics more than average&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Playing games against you to observe your thinking process in real-time&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All of these approaches are valid, and may be more effective at reducing cost, overcoming specific weaknesses, and improving diagnostic accuracy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11245" LastActivityDate="2016-09-14T19:56:18.887" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15379" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13679" CreationDate="2016-09-14T20:02:12.363" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Please check out my response to another question &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/14379/how-does-analyzing-help-me-improve/15375#15375&quot;&gt;How Does Analyzing Help Me Improve?&lt;/a&gt; in which I outlined some of the more common kinds of flaws that often appear during move selection, and what can be done about them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11245" LastActivityDate="2016-09-14T20:02:12.363" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15380" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1263" CreationDate="2016-09-14T20:05:43.660" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Please check out my response to another question &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/8923/does-playing-correspondence-chess-improve-your-game/15368#15368&quot;&gt;Does Playing Correspondence Chess Improve Your Game?&lt;/a&gt;. It includes a fairly comprehensive proposal for a training program, including tips on allocating time between play and study.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11245" LastActivityDate="2016-09-14T20:05:43.660" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15381" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13504" CreationDate="2016-09-14T20:48:09.773" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;While I bow abjectly before the likes of Botvinnik and Kasparov, I think those who unquestioningly accept Botvinnik's assertion that the goal is &quot;*perfection in the realm of analysis&quot; and assume that he means &lt;em&gt;both OTB and at home&lt;/em&gt; should be informed that several of the world's foremost analysts, C.S. Purdy, Jonathan Penrose, and Bent Larsen, were all prone to time-trouble in OTB play. It should be noted that Purdy and Penrose were both Correspondence Chess champions, which surely influenced their style of OTB analysis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The simple fact is that time-management and analysis are mutual enemies in OTB.  The best one can realistically hope for is &lt;em&gt;speed&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;economy&lt;/em&gt;, which means being able to do a few tricks, including:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Memorizing a position in the future at which several viable candidate moves must be considered (a so-called &quot;Stepping-Stone&quot; or &quot;Stop Sign&quot;, depending on your preferred author), so that you can return to it instantly instead of having to retrace your steps from the position on the board&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Visualizing tactics in future positions as easily as you do on the actual board (this is why GM's close their eyes or stare at the ceiling; they are avoiding the distraction of the actual position on the board)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Keeping track of which moves you have already considered for each future position, and what you thought of them (I call this &quot;cataloging&quot;, but have never seen anyone name the process before)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;As far as possible, visiting each branch of analysis only once (Kotov's advice, in &quot;&lt;em&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/0713478853&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Think Like a Grandmaster&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&quot;).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, in a tournament game, you simply do not have the time required to analyze all positions this way.  So you also need to learn when to use in-depth analysis, and when not to bother.  There are multiple good references offering guidance on how to do this. I can recommend both &quot;&lt;em&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/0713489790&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;How to Choose a Chess Move&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&quot;, GM Andrew Soltis, Batsford Press, and &quot;&lt;em&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.everymanchess.com/your-best-move-a-structured-approach-to-move-selection-in-chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Your Best Move&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&quot;, Per Ostman, Everyman Publishing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, you need to be able to do effective and careful &quot;&lt;em&gt;pruning&lt;/em&gt;&quot; of candidate moves, or figuring out which candidates merit further analysis, and which ones are a waste of time. The aforementioned texts also address this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, with all due respect, I put it to you that it is in fact &lt;em&gt;detrimental&lt;/em&gt; to strive for perfection in OTB analysis. The best player will think fast and efficiently and only when needed, and will use advanced thinking techniques that are &lt;em&gt;not themselves analysis&lt;/em&gt; to arrive at the best candidate available in the time he can afford to spend selecting it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For Correspondence Chess, time limits are designed so that, barring external circumstances, it's almost impossible to spend too much time analyzing a move.  The ICCF uses 10 moves / 50 days, and no more than 10 days for any move. Who among us would even be thinking straight after 9 days of analysis?? So, this is effectively unconstrained. CC masters almost never default on time (see the CC Olympiad and World Championship cross-tables, if you need proof).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for home analysis of a completed game, take all the time you want.  Is that your wife calling?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11245" LastActivityDate="2016-09-14T20:48:09.773" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15382" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13679" CreationDate="2016-09-14T20:58:40.050" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your tactical sacrifices and blunders sound like two sides of the same coin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You're making aggressive, attacking moves. When the move pans out, it's a &quot;tactical sacrifice&quot; when it doesn't it's a &quot;beginner blunder&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With nothing else to go on, I would slow down and play less aggressively. You'll make fewer tactical sacrifices, fewer beginner blunders and better moves on average.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11105" LastActivityDate="2016-09-14T20:58:40.050" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15383" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13308" CreationDate="2016-09-14T21:26:26.377" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;To get the most from other people's games, it makes sense to look at games that were played well. However, what a beginner needs to see is not perfection, but what happens if one player makes a mistake, and how the other player punishes it. This means either looking at games where only one of the players is a master, or at games played by two masters that were annotated by a master to show what &lt;em&gt;would have happened&lt;/em&gt; if certain bad moves had been played.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are quite a few good ways to do this. The most economical use of time is &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; to watch a live game, because this involves long delays, interruptions, and incomplete and erratic delivery of any offered analysis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Instead, the most economical use of study time on master games is to replay a game that has annotations, ideally accompanied by explanations in English (or some other language comprehensible to the reader).  Perhaps the best idea is to find classic games by one of the masters in the Romantic Age of chess that are comprehensively annotated, but almost any master's game should yield benefits.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A word about annotations: Many games are annotated by masters &lt;em&gt;for masters&lt;/em&gt;.  Examples are those analyses that are published in Sahovksi Informator (&quot;Chess Informant&quot;). These contain no words; all games are annotated with only variations and glyphs representing chess concepts, ideas and evaluation results.  They would be incomprehensible to a beginner. What I'm referring to are games like those annotated in USCF's Chess Life, or the collected games of a master such as: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;&lt;em&gt;My 60 Memorable Games&lt;/em&gt;&quot;, Bobby Fischer&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;&lt;em&gt;Fire on Board&lt;/em&gt;&quot;, Alexei Shirov&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;&lt;em&gt;The Sorcerer's Apprentice&lt;/em&gt;&quot;, David Bronstein&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;&lt;em&gt;I Play Against the Pieces&lt;/em&gt;&quot;, Svetozar Gligoric&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;&lt;em&gt;The Life and Games of Mikhail Tal&lt;/em&gt;&quot;, Mikhail Tal&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;&lt;em&gt;Alekhine's Best Games: 1908-1923&lt;/em&gt;&quot;, Alexander Alekhine&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;&lt;em&gt;Alekhine's Best Games: 1924-1937&lt;/em&gt;&quot;, Alexander Alekhine&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;&lt;em&gt;100 Selected Games&lt;/em&gt;&quot;, Mikhail Botvinnik&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;&lt;em&gt;My Best Games of Chess&lt;/em&gt;&quot;, Valeri Smyslov&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;&lt;em&gt;Capablanca's 100 Best Games of Chess&lt;/em&gt;&quot;, Harry Golombek&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another source is Everyman Publishing's &quot;&lt;em&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.everymanchess.com/catalogsearch/result/index/?limit=all&amp;amp;q=move+by+move+series&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Move by Move Series&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&quot;. I would recommend the books in this series on Paul Morphy, Victor Korchnoi, Raul Capablanca, Mikhail Tal, or William Steinitz.  They have the advantage of being published in e-book format.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;&lt;em&gt;The Amateur's Mind&lt;/em&gt;&quot;, by Jeremy Silman, approached this technique differently with the (relatively) novel idea of looking at &lt;em&gt;amateur&lt;/em&gt; games, pointing out their flaws, &lt;em&gt;why&lt;/em&gt; they were flaws, and what would have worked better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The other disadvantage of this book is that you won't see an illustration of how to play well, you will only see &lt;em&gt;some illustrations&lt;/em&gt; of how to play badly.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That said, since the mistakes made by the players involved are common among amateurs, you may realize that you are also making them, and be able to fix them. Another benefit is that the book tries to delve into &lt;em&gt;why&lt;/em&gt; these amateurs made these particular mistakes; the author tries (though a bit unsystematically) to get to the &lt;em&gt;root cause&lt;/em&gt;.  This may be very illuminating for other amateurs out there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One final note on Silman's book: Not everyone likes Silman's writing style, which some find abrasive at times, so I recommend that you look over samples of the content in a bookstore, or at your library or chess club.  (Somewhat mysteriously, Amazon doesn't seem to offer a preview of this book, as they do with many others...). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11245" LastActivityDate="2016-09-14T21:26:26.377" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15384" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15391" CreationDate="2016-09-15T03:28:40.843" Score="0" ViewCount="156" Body="&lt;p&gt;How are tiebreaks calculated in the Baku Chess Olympiad? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, the US team took gold over Ukraine having scored 413.5 on tiebreaks vs 404.5. My gut instinct was to guess the Sonneborn-Berger score or team points, but 413.5 is too high for that. Is it some combination of the two?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11163" LastActivityDate="2016-09-15T06:04:30.500" Title="Tiebreaks in the Baku Chess Olympiad" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;team&gt;&lt;chess-olympiad&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15385" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12797" CreationDate="2016-09-15T03:51:42.450" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;A number of chess coaches strongly recommend work on endgames. This is for several reasons:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;When you get a similar endgame, you will save a lot of time figuring out what to do, and this often happens when you don't have much time to spare, nearing a control.  This is &lt;em&gt;very&lt;/em&gt; handy, and potentially winning in a clock race just because your opponent's clock is running down much faster than yours.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Endgames depend more heavily on accurate, long calculations than any other part of the game. If you can practice and improve your competence in the endgame, your calculating ability will come along with it.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Endgames require knowing how to coordinate your pieces to accomplish a goal. You learn to be much more economical about moves, to find the most efficient way of doing things, and to focus on finding ideas that will win. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;You also develop better board vision, because there are fewer pieces and the line pieces' range is maximized. You have to &lt;em&gt;always&lt;/em&gt; notice when a piece is having an influence on the other side of the board. The endgame is a particularly strong influence on learning to see &lt;em&gt;backward&lt;/em&gt; moves, and &lt;em&gt;bounce&lt;/em&gt; moves of queens and bishops (2 moves to cross the board using only 2 diagonals, and &quot;bouncing&quot; off the edge on the way).  These are almost non-existent moves in the middlegame; you need to play endgames to become good at finding them.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;You learn how to use your pawns more effectively, especially in combat with other pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;You learn how to redeploy pieces more efficiently. Finding the shortest routes, using checks in transit to earn tempi, keeping lanes clear, and getting pieces out of the way quickly are all skills you develop more in endgames than in other parts of the game.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;You learn to appreciate how strong pawns warp the piece value scale, and how the effect is amplified the further up the board they go.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;You learn to steer towards endgames where your pieces and position will offer the greatest advantage, and avoid those that will benefit your opponent more than you.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many of the top chessplayers also dedicate a portion of their time to solving endgame &lt;em&gt;compositions&lt;/em&gt;.  They are fully aware that no similar position will ever actually appear on the board.  What they benefit from is the &lt;em&gt;stretching of the imagination&lt;/em&gt; that's required to solve the most challenging puzzles.  &lt;em&gt;That's&lt;/em&gt; readily transferable to an actual game.  Kasparov in particular used to swear by this kind of training.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11245" LastActivityDate="2016-09-15T03:51:42.450" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15386" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9713" CreationDate="2016-09-15T04:33:24.493" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I wholeheartedly agree that competent endgame play is a hallmark of a master. In fact, chess history is littered with the corpses of games that were lost because a &lt;em&gt;GM&lt;/em&gt; had no idea how to win or draw a purely theoretically won or drawn endgame.  So you can imagine what kind of an edge this skill will give you over a typical club or tournament player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To back up what I said about some GM's, here's an example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[White &quot;Aronian, Lev&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Bacrot, Etienne&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;8/b7/P4k1p/5P2/6K1/7B/8/8 w - - 0 0&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Kf4 h5! 2.Ke4 Ke7 3.Kd5 Kd7 4.f6+ Ke8 5.Be6 h4! 6.Kc6 h3! 7.Kb7 h2 8.Bd5 Bd4 9.a7 Bxa7 10.Kxa7 h1=Q 11.Bxh1 Kf7 { All well and good, but Bacrot *resigned* in this drawn position without even trying this variation!} 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's another one:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[White &quot;Shirov, Alexei&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Morozevich, Alexander&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;8/8/R6p/2k4P/8/1PK5/7r/8 b - - 0 0&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Rh3+ 2.Kb2? { This allows Black a neat escape by stalemate.} Kb4? (2... Rxh5! 3.Ra5+ Kb4 4.Rxh5 { is stalemate.}) 3.Rb6+ Kc5 4.Rxh6 { White secured a distant passed pawn, and after another 16 moves, Black lost.} 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you get good at endgames, when you reach one you will beat almost any player you will meet at tournaments in your class until you get to be about 2100 or higher.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Don't neglect the other aspects completely, or you'll never get to the endgame, but put in the investment of time, and your results will improve.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for myself, I get into an endgame in about 40% of my games, and a little theory definitely goes a long way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11245" LastEditorUserId="11245" LastEditDate="2016-09-24T18:11:56.177" LastActivityDate="2016-09-24T18:11:56.177" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15387" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12797" CreationDate="2016-09-15T04:37:15.650" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I remember the jump from 1900 to 2000. It was over a summer, and I did a lot of things to get better. I'd play blitz chess or hit a tournament over the weekend, and during the week I'd piece together the games that gave me trouble.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also think studying openings is the least productive of the three ways. It doesn't give you enough back, because you will eventually hit a hole in your opening repertoire and you won't know why. I also ran into a problem of &quot;this has to be right, I have a slight edge, how can I expect to do better?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Though I think falling on your face in the opening against other players helps: you need to learn to fight from behind, and I found that when I memorized stuff, I wound up saying &quot;But I SHOULD be winning&quot; instead of focusing on taking chances. And you'll know what you need to work at, or against. It's trial by experiment and experience, instead of reading theoretically critical lines you may not understand yet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One big thing I wished I'd realized was understanding how many errors 2000+ players &lt;em&gt;can&lt;/em&gt; make. Computers bear this out, and if you understand they make mistakes, you won't feel you have to understand things perfectly. Have your computer analyze your best and worst games. It's hard to face the mistakes you made, but on the other hand, patterns reveal blind spots. You can also just look at an old game if you only have a few minutes. GM games are great, but they can't point to your individual style. This means, of course, notate your longer games ASAP--at least the ones that can be recorded.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I agree that endgames are quite productive to study or learn. I felt guilty being able to scoop out a win in the endgame, but truth is, it's important to focus on--you can learn how a few pieces work together, which helps you learn how even more work together.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One thing I didn't have was a powerful computer to analyze what I did wrong. Even in games against people rated 400 points below me, I learned a lot. I thought I played solidly and cleverly, but I kept making mistakes that weren't obvious. In a way this is painful, but in a way it keeps you grounded. So I think the keys are&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;if you play blitz, note openings that trouble you, and when, and why you're lost. Quit playing blitz if it becomes more about woodpushing and waiting for an opponent to hang a pawn than actual ideas.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;after a tourney game, write down stuff that confuses you. If an opponent suggests a longer strategic idea, ask them about it, but try it out against a strong computer when you get home. An example might be letting your opponent place a knight on e4/e5 and seeing why it can't be dislodged, or even ruining your pawn structure. Note moves you didn't have the guts to play and moves you feared. See if your fears were valid. Also pay attention to what your opponent could've done but didn't. It may reveal other weaknesses.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;play imbalanced openings when you can, if there's not a lot of risk. While it's useful to know/learn how to win a pawn up in static positions, I find chess can get stale if you go too technical too fast--and the lessons learned from dynamic positions can often include useful ones for static positions. It happened for me. You always want to question piece value and activity and make sure you are not playing by rote.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;find a chess tactics site and play at it. Especially one with comments. Why didn't move X work? Why can't I shuffle the move order? I know I tended to skate with chess puzzles saying &quot;Oh, I made the right move, yay!&quot; and I forgot to look into side lines, or I guessed that this tactic was right because it was a puzzle.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Cecil De Vere's comment about plateauing is one I can relate to. If you feel like you are, or you're doing everything right, but... you may be better off taking a break and maybe playing a different opening to try new stuff.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, this may be moot and you may've made it by now. If so, congratulations! But if not, I hope this helps someone else.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11202" LastActivityDate="2016-09-15T04:37:15.650" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15388" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13308" CreationDate="2016-09-15T04:41:06.983" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, keeping abreast of current games in current tourneys and trying to play/understand them all is not so useful. Many GM games fizzle out into a draw, because they are based on 20 moves of theory not worth remembering.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are a lot of chess channels that show a game a day, or a game a week, and they can pick out the most exciting and instructive ones, the ones that help most with the basics. I also like the randomness and not knowing what comes next, as often I'm exposed to an opening I blew off, but I can see its dynamic potential.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also like to visit chessgames.com for the game of the day, as well as play the daily tactics. The comments there help me see &quot;what if X/then Y&quot; and so forth, which is at least as important as a list of moves, or a GM's analysis. People of a variety of strengths comment, so you get to see a bunch of ideas beyond &quot;oh he got this right&quot; or &quot;oh he messed this up.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11202" LastActivityDate="2016-09-15T04:41:06.983" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15389" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="496" CreationDate="2016-09-15T04:48:36.160" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It may be what you need to cut &lt;em&gt;out&lt;/em&gt; as much as what you need to add. I got a big jump in my play (and in other mental activities) once I stopped watching TV. There was quite simply less stuff to distract me and have me worry about. It sounds simple, but if your mind is cluttered by silliness and trivia and ads, there's more risk you can't focus on the game. I suppose this can apply to watching the Internet, too, if there are any websites that suck your time and energy away. I've seen studies saying that just spacing out is more restful than going down an Internet clickhole.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And it might be important to specify when as well as what. I like to exercise to take time out when thinking of a tough problem, so I think the study chess/exercise/see what you missed pattern can work very well. Taking breaks is important to learn anything. I'm not sure what sort of break is best for you, but make sure it's a real one. Also, I like to look at an important problem first thing in the morning so it's on my radar, whether it be for chess or programming or writing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also found that reading and studying literature really tore me away from chess to the point I found something new. I had all sorts of books I always meant to read. So that is a risk--you may find something even more fun than chess, for you, and it's tough to do two mentally tricky things at a high level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11202" LastActivityDate="2016-09-15T04:48:36.160" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15390" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12849" CreationDate="2016-09-15T04:57:21.020" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, it seems there's a bit of a controversy going on here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One group of people seem to think that the experience of playing can actually teach you new ideas, and that's how you can best improve.  There's certainly pedagogical research that says a sizeable portion of students learn much better by doing than by observing/listening/reading/viewing. But that's not true for all students.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another group seems to think that training (presumably regimented instruction) is the way to improve, and that playing undermines that. The aforementioned research states that this is true for a &lt;em&gt;different&lt;/em&gt; segment of students, the ones who prefer that style of learning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's a &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;Third Way&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; (and probably a Fourth...) of considering the question, though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Almost every coach with whom I've talked, or whose publications I've read, advocates using play to improve because:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;It is the primary diagnostic tool for figuring out what the player is doing wrong or doesn't know, and &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;It reinforces the concepts already learned in the instruction&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You'll notice that they're &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; saying that you should play games and try to take notes afterwards on the good new stuff you found in them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's just that, in their experience, you can't improve very well solely from instruction. You need to practice, and to be tested. Your mistakes are the evidence of areas you need to improve. Playing reinforces newly-learned material, and highlights when it hasn't been properly assimilated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And incidentally, I've learned plenty of new ideas and maneuvers over the board; it'd be amazing if you never saw any in your games, and surprising if you didn't notice at least some of them.  In some cases, during a game I struggled to find an idea, and failing to do so, was inspired to look for the theory and examples afterwards, using some games from a database.  That's something I wouldn't have done without having the experience of needing something I couldn't come up with while playing the game.  So &quot;play as instruction&quot; has certainly applied to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11245" LastActivityDate="2016-09-15T04:57:21.020" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15391" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15384" CreationDate="2016-09-15T06:04:30.500" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The tie-break rules are listed on the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=95&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;FIDE website&lt;/a&gt;, D.II.02 paragraph G.14:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The position of teams that finish with the same number of match points shall be determined by application of the following tie-breaking procedures in sequence ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(a) the sum of Sonneborn-Berger points, which are calculated as follows:&#xA;  match points of each opponent, excluding the opponent who scored the lowest number of match points, multiplied by the number of game points achieved against this opponent&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So yeah, it's called Sonneborn-Berger, but it's different from the one you see in individual tournaments.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's see if this holds for the USA team:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;GP  OPP MP   GP*MP&#xA;&#xA;4   AND 10 (ignored)&#xA;3.5 SCO 12 = 42 &#xA;3   ARG 14 = 42&#xA;2   CZE 14 = 28&#xA;3   SRB 13 = 39&#xA;2.5 UKR 20 = 50&#xA;3.5 IND 16 = 56&#xA;2   RUS 18 = 36&#xA;3   NOR 16 = 48&#xA;2.5 GEO 14 = 35&#xA;2.5 CAN 15 = 37.5&#xA;TOTAL:      413.5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We arrive at the same total.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(scores can be found &lt;a href=&quot;http://chess-results.com/tnr232875.aspx?lan=1&amp;amp;art=0&amp;amp;rd=11&amp;amp;flag=30&amp;amp;wi=821&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2016-09-15T06:04:30.500" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15394" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15396" CreationDate="2016-09-15T11:27:18.543" Score="2" ViewCount="1160" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm an unrated player with some experience playing and studying various aspects of the game. If I had to give a subjective rating to myself, I would say 1000-1100. In all my quest for improvement, I have come across the suggestion, &quot;Study end games first&quot; multiple times, so I decided to start with that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the last three days I spent quality time understanding KP vs. K end game study. Was fortunate to stumble upon a very good wiki article, which very logically and completely explained the topic. Now I'm clear with the key squares, opposition, sixth rank, square of the pawn concepts in these studies. I have even effectively worked out several exercises on this topic to my own satisfaction.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That brings me to my current need. I would like to move ahead in logical phases, gradually adding more knowledge and experience to what I have already gathered, and without just jumping all over the place. So then, what would be the next rung of the logical ladder I should step on? What should I study next? And what study material could help me in an organized and phased manner of study?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many thanks in advance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11261" LastActivityDate="2016-09-21T13:06:44.763" Title="Suggestions for endgame study" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;study&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15395" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15394" CreationDate="2016-09-15T12:11:10.583" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would recommend &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.amazon.co.uk/SILMANS-COMPL-ENDGAME-COURSE-Beginner-Master/dp/1890085103&quot;&gt;Silman's Complete Endgame Course&lt;/a&gt; which has a syllabus targeted by USCF rating as well as regular quizzes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2016-09-15T12:11:10.583" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15396" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15394" CreationDate="2016-09-15T14:08:08.610" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The book I would recommend is &quot;From Amateur to IM&quot; by the British GM Jonathan Hawkins. Despite the title it is really all about playing the endgame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It sounds like it fits in really well with what you have been doing because chapter 1 deals with the KP v K stuff you just finished studying. It goes on to cover stuff like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) Capablanca's Pawn Endgame (white king on g1, pawns on g2, h2 black king on g8, pawn on h7)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) Essential Rook Engames&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) Bishop + Pawn(s) v Rook + Pawn(s)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4) Opposite Coloured Bishop endings, how to win with extra pawns, how to draw with fewer pawns&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5) Minor piece endgames&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;6) KRB v KR&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;7) Minority Attack&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;8) Extra pawn on the queenside&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is mixed in with lots of stuff about plans in the endgame, steering the game towards endgame positions you have a good chance of winning, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've only got about half way through and in looking through the book to prepare this answer I've just had the shock of seeing a whole chapter in the second half of the book dedicated to an opposite coloured bishop position (from Aronian v Bacrot 2005) very similar to one in which I quickly accepted my opponent's draw offer a few days ago. Did I blunder?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the one hand Hawkins' comment &quot;For perhaps the first time in the game White had serious winning chances&quot; was a bit of a blow. I was obviously much too ready to just shake hands. On the other hand this kind of position is so complex that it is worth a whole chapter and in the game itself after a lot more moves Bacrot made the mistake of resigning in a drawn position, so maybe I shouldn't feel so bad after all!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2016-09-15T14:08:08.610" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15397" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="690" CreationDate="2016-09-15T17:49:30.380" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The question relates to &lt;em&gt;alternatives&lt;/em&gt; to ChessBase for OS X.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since numerous posters have responded by suggesting that you try to run ChessBase in a virtual machine or emulator, I thought it would be relevant to raise an important consideration regarding this strategy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Elsewhere on chess.stackexchange.com I have enumerated several known defects in ChessBase, in multiple versions. There are 2 that I would expect to manifest in an emulator-based environment:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;My versions of ChessBase (from 6-11) all exhibited crashes every few hours, just in regular use.  Some of these crashes appear to be related to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Leaving a dialog open in one window/instance, (say, the annotation window for a game, or the statistics window for a games list, or the filter window for a games database), and then trying an action in other instance/window that requires a dialog.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Trying to close a games list with the [Esc] key, instead of mousing over and clicking the [X] button on the window header bar. This sometimes works, and sometimes causes a crash.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Obviously, dialogs &lt;em&gt;should&lt;/em&gt; be independent and completely decoupled objects, but the dialog handler appears to have a design flaw. This isn't the only case of an action that causes ChessBase to crash, of course.  &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To make matters worse, ChessBase 11 is so buggy that when it crashes in Windows 10, it fires up multiple instances of the Windows Crash Resolution Dialog (not its real name), and keeps cycling through them so insistently that you can't even toggle to another application. If I don't want to sit around for several minutes while this resolves itself, I have to override this behavior by pulling an interrupt with the Task Manager and use the End Task function to rip ChessBase out of the OS application stack. Even then, I still have to click &quot;Ok&quot; in the Close Program dialog box. It's vampire-like behavior dressed in a software cloak.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Context-handling is erratic. When a database games list window is opened, the list may have context (i.e. one item is selected), or it may not. The resulting odd behaviors include: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;In the 1st case, pressing [Enter] opens the game, and in the 2nd, nothing happens.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;In the 1st case, pressing [Ctrl]-F opens a filter window for that games list. In the 2nd case, either nothing happens, or, if you messed up and happen to have another games list window open in the background, &lt;em&gt;the filter window opens, but when you run the search, it will be applied to the background window's games list.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;When no game is selected in the games list: sometimes pressing [Up] or [Down] will select one, and sometimes not. Sometimes pressing [Tab] once will select a game, sometimes pressing it twice will do so, and sometimes no number of presses of [Tab] will do anything.  Sometimes switching windows and coming back will select a game, and other times it will do nothing.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've completely given up trying to use the HotKeys feature for many types of action, because the context is so unpredictable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;4&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Switching between several ChessBase windows can be done fast enough to overwhelm ChessBase's context management functions, in which cases it simply freezes up and never comes back. I'm not talking breakneck, try-to-break-the-program switching, I'm talking normal-expert-hotkey-switching use.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;- &#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When a database games list search completes, sometimes the selected games appear in that window, and sometimes the context handler arbitrarily puts the games list in the background and switches to another ChessBase window, such as an open game board.  Once it starts doing this, it will do it repeatedly until ChessBase is restarted.  Plus, you can't just use the [Alt]-[Tab] hotkey to switch windows just once, to get it back; you have to do 2 operations, and you have to toggle multiple windows to find the window where the games list is.  I now just hold the [Alt]-[Tab] hotkey down while I mouse over the window selection display to find it.  [BTW: This is the display that best shows what goes on after ChessBase crashes. It's a high-speed kaleidoscope of 3-Card Monte with as many cards as you have windows open in Windows. As impressive a mind-boggling feat of buggy coding in a commercial product as I've ever seen.]&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, keep in mind that all these behaviors are being exhibited in the &lt;em&gt;native target environment for which ChessBase was written&lt;/em&gt;. If they make you shudder, just imagine how you'll feel when you see what happens when the emulator tries to handle them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a footnote, I should add that in no other Windows package that I own that was built to for the Windows XP architecture has there &lt;em&gt;ever&lt;/em&gt; been any serious issue with backwards compatibility in Windows 10.  Windows 10 is &lt;em&gt;very&lt;/em&gt; capable of resolving these issues, when they present, including &lt;em&gt;multiple&lt;/em&gt; configuration options to roll back how operating system calls are handled to prior versions.  &lt;em&gt;None&lt;/em&gt; of these recovery / compatibility functions make a bit of difference with ChessBase 11.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To be fair, ChessBase GmbH don't claim that CB 11 is Win 10 compatible, but they also say the only solution is to buy two upgrades at the upgrade price, or a full-price copy of the newest CB.  Given that 5 prior versions in a row exhibited so many defects, some of them persisting through all the generations of the product, I'd say it's a poor bet that 13 will delight the user in this area.  There are very few software products that &lt;em&gt;actually have user-rant websites dedicated to criticizing them&lt;/em&gt;, but ChessBase is one of these.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, I implore you not to make things worse for yourself by trying to run the product in a non-native environment.  The question poser asked for &lt;em&gt;alternatives&lt;/em&gt; for Mac OS X, and this is one good reason why.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11245" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T19:22:27.203" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T19:22:27.203" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="15398" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1392" CreationDate="2016-09-17T01:09:52.287" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chessbase.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;ChessBase&lt;/a&gt; nailed it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It offers:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://account.chessbase.com/en/apps/playchess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Playchess&lt;/a&gt; - Everyday, playchess.com welcomes 20,000 chess players from all around the world from beginner to grandmaster. You can even play without registration.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://account.chessbase.com/en/apps/livedb&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Live Database&lt;/a&gt; - Updated weekly, their definitive database has all the latest games.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://account.chessbase.com/en/apps/cloud&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;My Games Cloud&lt;/a&gt; - You can store your games and access them everywhere.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://account.chessbase.com/en/apps/video&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Video&lt;/a&gt; - Private Masterclasses&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://account.chessbase.com/en/apps/training&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Training&lt;/a&gt; - Solving Tactical positions.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://account.chessbase.com/en/apps/fritz&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Fritz Online&lt;/a&gt; - Play, analyze and train against fritz.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://account.chessbase.com/en/apps/openings&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Openings&lt;/a&gt; - Build and maintain your repertoire.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://account.chessbase.com/en/apps/news&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;CB News&lt;/a&gt; - Daily Reports on all top tournaments.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But if you want to watch live top tournaments, I usually go to &lt;a href=&quot;http://chessdome.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chessdom&lt;/a&gt; because its not heavy and easy to use.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chess24.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chess24&lt;/a&gt; is also good but for me its too heavy to use.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I play online I use &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;chess.com&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are also upcoming chess community and looks like they are interesting. I'm watching &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessfam.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;ChessFam&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessfamily.net&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chess Family&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2915" LastEditorUserId="2915" LastEditDate="2016-09-17T01:15:14.247" LastActivityDate="2016-09-17T01:15:14.247" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15399" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="75" CreationDate="2016-09-17T04:53:00.133" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I like the Colorado Counter Gambit for Black in Blitz. Here's an example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Colorado Counter-Gambit:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;FRG-ch corr&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;1987&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Hallier, Karl Heinz&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Winckelmann, Thomas&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;38&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 Nc6 2. Nf3 f5 3. exf5 d5 4. Nh4 e5 5. Qh5+ g6 6. fxg6 Nf6 7. g7+ Nxh5 8.gxh8=Q Qxh4 9. d4 Bf5 10. Bd3 e4 11. Be2 O-O-O 12. g3 Bb4+ 13. c3 Qe7 14. Qxd8+ Kxd8 15. Bxh5 Nxd4 16. Bd1 Nf3+ 17. Ke2 Qc5 18. Ba4 Qc4+ 19. Kd1 Bg4 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You might notice who was playing Black: the famous Thomas Winckelmann (of Winckelmann-Riemer Gambit fame).  &lt;em&gt;And&lt;/em&gt; it was a correspondence game. &lt;em&gt;And&lt;/em&gt; he beat White, who had essentially all the time in the world, in 19 moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11245" LastEditorUserId="11245" LastEditDate="2016-09-17T05:00:43.470" LastActivityDate="2016-09-17T05:00:43.470" CommentCount="0" CommunityOwnedDate="2016-09-17T04:53:00.133" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15400" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1835" CreationDate="2016-09-17T05:44:37.147" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure I'd agree that you need to start young. Larry Kaufman became a GM in 2008, at the age of 61. &#xA;But you will definitely have to put in the hours and the effort. Some of the distinctives of higher level mastery in chess are: &#xA;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;efficient calculation&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;accurate visualization (to at least 20 ply)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;fast and comprehensive pattern recognition&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;a heightened sense of danger&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;strategic focus&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Probably the most time-consuming skill to acquire is pattern recognition. It has been estimated in cognitive research that GM's know nearly 100,000 patterns. This requires focus, patient and diligent memorization, and gaining experience with new patterns from playing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Intuition is the foundation for a sense of danger; you don't want to make moves intuitively, but you need to sense when your opponent might be able to prepare a threat or even a package of multiple threats. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Conversely, you need to be able to sense when there &lt;em&gt;must&lt;/em&gt; be an opportunity for a combination on the board, even though you can't see it yet.  It's as if the deployment of pieces or the pawn structure is whispering to you, but you can't quite hear what they're saying.  The highest level of this kind of expert judgment takes 1,000's of hours of experience to acquire, but it starts small and builds.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A master is also able to allocate their thinking effort (and time) much more productively than an ordinary club player. They know when to calculate a tree of variations in depth, and when to make a move on principle without any deep analysis.  This helps them conserve their energy, and increases their stamina.  Carlsen and others are rightly famous for being able to think as well in the 7th hour of a game as they did in the 1st.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For more guidance on becoming a Chess Master, I recommend Andrew Soltis' &lt;a href=&quot;http://batsford.com/blog/what-it-takes-to-become-a-chess-master/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;What it Takes to Become a Chess Master&lt;/a&gt;, from Batsford Publishing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11245" LastActivityDate="2016-09-17T05:44:37.147" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15401" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8285" CreationDate="2016-09-17T07:07:45.033" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can set Fritz to a sparring mode where it &quot;deliberately&quot; makes mistakes, to allow you the opportunity to spot human-like moves that are bad, and punish them. These can be as obvious as hanging a piece at the lower ELO settings, or as subtle as leaving the king uncastled a little too long in the opening or marooning a piece that you can trap if you notice it and can figure out how to cage it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Fritz's case, you can &lt;em&gt;even&lt;/em&gt; have it flash an indicator when there's a mistake on the board, so you know when to look. I discourage this, because it doesn't happen in real games, but the mistakes do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11245" LastActivityDate="2016-09-17T07:07:45.033" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15402" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9554" CreationDate="2016-09-17T07:17:11.117" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Computer training is invaluable, as long as you set the level of the engine to something fair. You don't want every encounter to be one-sided, or you'll get discouraged, and it's not representative of OTB play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Computers don't play like humans, but I've learned a lot of ideas by annotating master games using a good engine. Some of these are ideas I can't find in any games played by humans, so they're valuable surprise weapons my opponents will never have seen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Annotating along with an engine (I go first, then check to see what I overlooked) will also teach you how to spot trouble before it develops, and how to balance offense and defence.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Engines can be set to be very aggressive (you can generally alter the level of by aggressiveness by adjusting engine parameters), but sometimes that's a good model to follow to get you out of the rut of being too defensive and/or too cautious, if that's one of your playing faults.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't recommend annotating with the engine at full strength; it will spot variations where the killer blow comes on move 15, and &lt;em&gt;no one's&lt;/em&gt; likely to see that in a real game unless it's a forcing variation or an endgame, and they're a GM.  So, although you'll find lots of interesting lines, you won't be able to emulate it in real play.  Stick to learning what you can actually use.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11245" LastActivityDate="2016-09-17T07:17:11.117" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15403" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14421" CreationDate="2016-09-17T07:38:03.913" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm one of those lower-rated players that higher-rated players wish they hadn't met. I've beaten players rated 500 ELO higher than me, and drawn players rated 400 ELO higher.  Of course, I get beaten most of the time by them, but it's the attitude I bring that gives me a fighting chance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can accomplish this by taking certain approaches:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I don't play to get us both into unfamiliar territory, but I won't play all the mainline moves in his preferred opening. He's going to know the lines better, so I throw in a second-choice move fairly early. I've even innovated (actual &lt;em&gt;novelties&lt;/em&gt;! that was a surprise to me, too) as early as moves 3 and 4 in some well-established openings, and found myself in very playable lines that had the effect of jarring the opponent into long thinks.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I keep him off-balance, posing as many challenges as I can. If I can put him on the defensive, he'll have to think harder than if he's attacking.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I turn over &lt;em&gt;every rock&lt;/em&gt; trying to scare up tactics.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I mask my plans as much as possible.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I set traps, letting him take a pawn here or there so his pieces will get marooned, offside, or trapped. I've trapped and won more pieces from players rated 400+ ELO higher than me than I can count.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I try to find ways to make him burn time on his clock.  The more complex the position, the better. The sooner the novelty, the better. The more advanced my passed pawn, the better. The more solid my defense, the better. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;When defending, I always look for chances for serious counterplay first. If I can line up a shot with the same move I'm using for defence, chances are good he'll see only the defensive function, and overlook the threat.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, your concern about lower-ranked players may be perfectly justified. But they're just an opportunity for you to prove your superior ability; you &lt;em&gt;can't&lt;/em&gt; play intuitively against a player who keeps pulling out improbable moves. You have to find the &lt;em&gt;refutation&lt;/em&gt;, and punish him.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You have superior calculation, pattern recognition, endgame and defensive technique, strategic awareness, patience, cool-headedness and stamina on your side.  If you apply yourself to the position on the board, you may still lose once in awhile against these guys, but it won't be a regular thing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just play chess!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11245" LastActivityDate="2016-09-17T07:38:03.913" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15404" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1567" CreationDate="2016-09-17T08:10:13.107" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you are the underdog (in rating points), be satisfied with a draw. Let him come to you, because he will lose rating points from a draw, and you will gain them.  He is likely to overreach in those circumstances. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a previous poster pointed out, make sure that you calculate any potentially winning candidate in that situation right to the end. What's the best move for each player &lt;em&gt;after&lt;/em&gt; everything has settled down and you're ahead in material or positionally?  If you find another potential tactic, your analysis isn't finished.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for draw offers, by all means make one if you think a) the draw would be a good result for you, and b) it might antagonize him.  Nigel Short once said, &quot;If your opponent offers you a draw, try to work out why he thinks he's worse.&quot;  So, expect the draw offer to be rejected unless your opponent has demonstrated that he's committed to winning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Don't make repeated draw offers. It constitutes annoying behavior, and can get penalized.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If your opponent is low on time and you have plenty, don't try to blitz him in the hope that you'll deprive him of thinking time on your move.  You have an advantage; &lt;em&gt;use it&lt;/em&gt;.  I once played an opponent rated 250 ELO higher than me, and pinned one of his pieces. There was no way out, but he thought for half his time about how to fix the problem. &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;I just walked around the room for nearly half an hour&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;, letting him stew.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He finally made a move when he had only 15 minutes left on his clock, and I had nearly 45.  When he got down to a minute left on his clock, he went for an all-out pawn storm against my king's position. After each of his moves, made in 10 seconds or less, I would spend &lt;em&gt;at least&lt;/em&gt; 45 seconds on an obvious reply, and 3-4 minutes on moves that could complicate the position but were still winning.  I burned another 15+ minutes playing defense, but when it was over, his attack was simply coming apart, and he lost on time anyway.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BTW: Don't mess around with using the scoresheet in psychological games. USCF has changed the rules so that the player must make his move &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;before&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; he writes it down.  Writing it down first can (and should) be claimed as illegal, and earn you a time penalty.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11245" LastActivityDate="2016-09-17T08:10:13.107" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15405" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6129" CreationDate="2016-09-17T08:32:19.317" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The USCF rules do not require a forfeit for a player who is late. In fact, they provide for the case where Black is late, and therefore loses the right to choose the board and pieces, and the side of the clock. If White completes setting up before Black arrives, White's set is used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, if both players are late, the rules provide that the time elapsed until the first of them arrived should be split and deducted equally from both clocks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, clearly, USCF doesn't expect a forfeit at T=0.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, the rules only provide for not leaving the tournament hall and consulting materials relevant to the game once the game has started.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would love to hear an International Arbiter's opinion on whether the prohibition on consulting materials should pertain no matter where the player is, but the fact of the matter is that if one of the players leaves the hall, goes out to the parking lot and leaves the premises, his actions can't be supervised.  The best the TD can do is prohibit leaving the playing hall and contiguous, monitored areas, once the player has arrived.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, FIDE or the USCF would be asking for trouble if they prohibited an act they cannot detect or prevent.  If he's late, he's late, and he can do anything he wants except observe the game in progress remotely.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11245" LastActivityDate="2016-09-17T08:32:19.317" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15406" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15407" CreationDate="2016-09-17T11:55:55.117" Score="-1" ViewCount="199" Body="&lt;p&gt;What software application do you think that does not exist? I'm a programmer and I would like to implement it to help the Chess world. Thanks in advance to those who give me good ideas.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11111" LastActivityDate="2016-09-17T21:46:21.230" Title="Developing a New Software Application in Chess" Tags="&lt;software&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2016-09-19T00:05:10.190" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15407" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15406" CreationDate="2016-09-17T12:33:57.833" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't know if it already exists, but a cell phone app to scan diagrams and chess notation from books and then store the information in a database in a re-playable format would be handy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1485" LastActivityDate="2016-09-17T12:33:57.833" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15408" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15406" CreationDate="2016-09-17T12:57:46.847" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'll give some nice applications, but I'm not sure if you'll have the skills...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Automatically annotate a chess game with natural language processing, like how a human coach would do. I'm not talking about a blunder check, but a &lt;em&gt;full&lt;/em&gt; annotated game.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Port Komodo or Houdini to the iOS platform&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A website that can analyze a chess website (eg: Chessbase), extract the diagrams and give back analysis&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A website that I can analyze a chess position in FEN. There're several that can do that, but they are very limited. I'm looking for a complete package like Chessbase.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Given a single chess game, estimate the ELO rating&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Extend deep learning and use it to make a new engine that can consistently beat Stockfish&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A chess engine that can speak and coach you for chess&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Train a convolutional deep neutral network that can recognize a board position in a YouTube video (Google can already do that for face detection) &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2016-09-17T16:05:44.733" LastActivityDate="2016-09-17T16:05:44.733" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15409" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15406" CreationDate="2016-09-17T21:46:21.230" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;A program that can convert PDF chess book files to PGN or CBH format.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7500" LastActivityDate="2016-09-17T21:46:21.230" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15410" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15411" CreationDate="2016-09-17T21:49:00.393" Score="6" ViewCount="500" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've read in a book that one should play a line if (s)he thinks it is decisive and let the opponent proves that (s)he is wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But what about playing a (risky, by risky, I mean that I am not sure) combination when I don't see the refutation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The trouble I have with sacrificing when I am not sure is that if I am wrong, the opponent will win without effort, just by answering to my moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is an example of a game that I saw a combination (18. a5), but I didn't play it because I was not sure enough (and it turned out to be good):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;r4rk1/1b3pb1/pq2pn1p/1pn3p1/PQ1N4/2N1P1BP/1P2BPP1/R2R2K1 w - - 3 18&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. a5 Qa7 2. Ndxb5 axb5 3. Nxb5 Na6 ( 3... Qa6 4. Rd6 Nfe4 5. Rxa6 Nxa6 )&#xA;4. Qe7 Qc5 5. Qxb7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, my ELO is around 1900.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7056" LastEditorUserId="7056" LastEditDate="2016-09-19T13:30:57.133" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T16:10:01.180" Title="Should I play a risky combination when I don't see the refutation?" Tags="&lt;combinations&gt;" AnswerCount="9" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15411" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15410" CreationDate="2016-09-17T23:15:45.703" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Often times, a combination is the most direct way to take advantage of superior coordination of your pieces.  If you want to get better, you have to have more confidence in your analysis at the board and just go with what it tells you.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If there were multiple ways to win however, it can be simpler (and less error prone) to win by positional means and not have to rely on calculation to win the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8258" LastActivityDate="2016-09-17T23:15:45.703" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15412" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1835" CreationDate="2016-09-17T23:23:59.630" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;My highest USCF rating was 2302.  The biggest difference I see between masters and experts is the defensive resistance and resourcefulness that masters show during the game.  They don't just let you beat them the first time something goes wrong!  You have to beat them over and over again during the game in order to finally win.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, masters have better all around openings, tactical vision, technique etc.  But you really have to hate to lose in order to be a master.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8258" LastActivityDate="2016-09-17T23:23:59.630" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15413" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15410" CreationDate="2016-09-18T02:12:58.093" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;While this is a not a direct answer, when not sacrificing, there's only small risk and a good chance of reward as your opponent might not see the refutation either. When sacrificing, it's often better the play the direct approach of superior force.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8063" LastActivityDate="2016-09-18T02:12:58.093" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15414" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15410" CreationDate="2016-09-18T03:31:05.110" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;It depends on how well you like your chances &lt;strong&gt;without&lt;/strong&gt; the combination.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If, taking everything into account (material, position, opponent's rating, etc.), you are likely to win the game in the normal course of events, then play it safe.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, if you have lost material, or are in a bad position, or your opponent is rated much higher than you, take a chance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2299" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T16:10:01.180" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T16:10:01.180" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="15415" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15410" CreationDate="2016-09-18T04:46:13.593" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;One one hand, a common piece of advice is to assume your opponent will always find the refutation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I also seem to recall reading an story in &quot;The Inner Game of Chess&quot; by Soltis. During a game, a position may come up where a sacrifice is possible with say 10 to 12 possible continuations. Roughly 7 would win, 3 or 4 would lead to an even position and the remaining would lead to a worse, or even lost, position. One GM, having done all that calculation, would feel the time wasted, if he didn't go for the sacrifice, while another, upon seeing the losing lines, would not feel comfortable playing the sacrifice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Simon Webb also talk about how to defeat a stronger player, in his book &quot;Chess for Tigers&quot;, by getting into complicated positions, where they may lose their way just as easily as you could.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically, you shouldn't play &quot;hope chess&quot;, where you play a move, and hope your opponent doesn't see the obvious refutation, but, depending on your opponent, you shouldn't necessarily be afraid to play a sacrifice or get into tactical positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9025" LastActivityDate="2016-09-18T04:46:13.593" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15416" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8927" CreationDate="2016-09-18T08:53:32.833" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, according to 7-man tablebase your analysis is correct:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;ol start=&quot;56&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Rxh6 would win, reaching a Lucena position.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;81...h4? was a mistake, ...Ra5 was the only drawing move.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Neither player made a mistake in between those two points.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, Black could have made it more difficult with 86...Qxc6+, reaching QvR which can be hard to win. White didn't have to allow that possibility.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, there's a big difference between checking tablebase, and giving useful advice to use during a game.  I guess we could say that White should really have seen the chance to go into Lucena; and Black must have miscalculated something when playing ...h4 -- or possibly overlooked the Ra5 plan (it is unusual).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4223" LastActivityDate="2016-09-18T08:53:32.833" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15417" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15934" CreationDate="2016-09-18T15:52:14.467" Score="4" ViewCount="342" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was playing &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crazyhouse&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Crazyhouse&lt;/a&gt; online on &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.lichess.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Lichess&lt;/a&gt; and I wondered how to play OTB, namely how to change the color of a captured piece.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I came up with 2 methods.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Exchange the captured piece for another of a separate chess set, picking the opposite color.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Pieces are 2d cards, with the Black version of the piece on one side and White on the other.]&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75NjePOThCk&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;3&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does anyone know better methods?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10601" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-09-18T18:49:57.513" LastActivityDate="2020-09-18T18:49:57.513" Title="Playing Crazyhouse OTB" Tags="&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;otb-chess&gt;&lt;crazyhouse&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="15418" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1835" CreationDate="2016-09-18T22:50:02.233" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's not &quot;technique&quot; that separates an expert from a master; it's &quot;orientation.&quot; Unless you plan to make a living e.g. teaching chess, or make it the dominant part of your life, I advise you &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; to aspire to be a master. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An &quot;expert&quot; in chess (or other games) is someone who has a sound overall knowledge of the game, plays well, and makes very few &quot;obvious&quot; mistakes. This kind of person is at the top of &quot;amateur&quot; levels. In Academia, this might be the equivalent of a &quot;Masters&quot; degree.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A &quot;master&quot; is a &lt;em&gt;professional&lt;/em&gt;-caliber chessplayer. That is, someone whose games (even losses) are of high enough quality to contribute to the &quot;literature.&quot; To be a master, you have to be &quot;creative&quot; and able to outthink and out create other masters. It's like being a &quot;PhD&quot; in the field of chess. This is only for the most dedicated and skilled practitioners.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I knew two guys from high school. One was the champion of our chess league. Now in his 50s, he was rated about 2175 (when I looked him up on the internet). The other was a &quot;varsity&quot; football player, drafted by a professional team out of Penn State--and was soon cut from the roster. Both men were on the border between &quot;expert&quot; and &quot;master,&quot; and they illustrate what it takes to get there. More to the point, they represent the best people in their respective fields that &quot;average&quot; people (outside their fields) are likely to get to know. &quot;Better&quot; players travel in rarefied circles confined to their field. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastEditorUserId="17" LastEditDate="2016-09-21T15:21:21.943" LastActivityDate="2016-09-21T15:21:21.943" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15419" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-09-18T23:47:02.370" Score="5" ViewCount="207" Body="&lt;p&gt;Question here regarding black responses to Nf3 - at my level 60% of players open with e4, 30% open with d4. The other 10% of the time, it's Nf3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My issue with Nf3 is that it has the possibility to transpose into many different openings, most of which I am not prepared for. What is the response that allows white the fewest transpositional possibilities?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10772" LastActivityDate="2016-09-22T09:36:11.937" Title="Looking for a stable pawn structure after 1. Nf3" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15420" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9907" CreationDate="2016-09-19T05:49:45.140" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I encourage practicing tactics puzzles whenever you have free time. You don't need to go to a website on the Internet; you can also use apps on your Android phone or Tablet. TacticTrainer has a large problem set, and you'll get presented with problems that are generally rated within 200 ELO of your level. You can specify a starting level, but the app keeps track of progress, and as you get better, gives you harder problems to solve.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also use Chess King apps from ChessOK; Combinations I and II are good, but cost a few dollars.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11245" LastActivityDate="2016-09-19T05:49:45.140" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15421" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9782" CreationDate="2016-09-19T06:01:48.410" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Endgames are the most powerful way to learn tactics, properties of the pieces, visualization, and calculation.  Anyone who thinks they're boring should thumb through a few pages of &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/B017L3AO4A&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Van Perlo's Endgame Tactics&lt;/a&gt;.  You'll be amazed at the creativity, surprises, and overall amazing capabilities of just a few pieces in the hands of a capable player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What's more, in the middlegame you have pawns shielding and supporting your pieces, and have enough pieces that most or all are always defended. In the endgame, pawns are diminished or scattered, and you only have a couple of other pieces to work with. You &lt;em&gt;have to&lt;/em&gt; go out on a limb and leave your pieces loose once in awhile, and the winner is often better at judging when you can get away with this and when you can't, and does more of it, more successfully.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, this means that you should understand some of the strategies for each type of middlegame you're likely to come across, but don't focus on theory all the time. Look at practical endgames from a database, and analyze them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Get a few openings (1 for White, 1 each for Black against 1.d4 and 1.e4) that you feel comfortable playing. You don't need a backup rep unless you're playing both standard and blitz time controls (you can play much riskier stuff in blitz), until you hit about 1800-1900 ELO.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11245" LastActivityDate="2016-09-19T06:01:48.410" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15422" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6125" CreationDate="2016-09-19T06:26:53.070" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your question involves several topics:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Attacking successfully, instead of failing and being forced onto the defensive&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Being resourceful in defense (whether you had an attack going prior to that or not&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For a general guide to attacking, I'd recommend &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/B007ZZISPM&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Vladimir Vukovic's Art of Attack&lt;/a&gt;.  It addresses how to combine the pieces effectively, standard attacks on castled positions of different kinds, use of pawns or pieces or both in an attack on the king, and so on.  &lt;em&gt;Get the edition revised by John Nunn in algebraic notation with corrections, of course, not the original in English descriptive notation.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for learning defensive concepts, I recommend &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/B00QMJ529M&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Andrew Soltis' New Art of Defence in Chess&lt;/a&gt;.  It covers a lot of aspects of defense, and in particular how defensive technique has changed since Petrosian's time.  Today, defenders are a lot more enterprising in how they coordinate their pieces, cover focal squares, overprotect, and generate counterplay.  &lt;em&gt;Note that there's an older edition of this book also, but the newer one is more than an update, it is a rewrite to account for this sea change in technique; it makes the older edition completely obsolete.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both are available at Amazon in Kindle editions, which you can read on pretty much any device. This has the advantage of making it easy to bookmark important sections, review, etc.  The Art of Attack is also available from Everyman Publishing in a &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.everymanchess.com/art-of-attack-in-chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;PGN or Chessbase&lt;/a&gt; format, making it easy to review the variations, and annotate them, as well as tag them for later reference with whatever scheme you like.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All of that said, you &lt;em&gt;will&lt;/em&gt; get surprised by your opponent with a counterattack from time to time, and it may well trump whatever you were doing. Or, he may simply refute a sacrifice you made. Just follow Steinitz' dictum: If you have the advantage, you &lt;em&gt;must&lt;/em&gt; attack. If not, you &lt;em&gt;must not&lt;/em&gt;. It's that simple. And just get decent at defending and look for counterplay. Most games contain errors by both players; when your opponent makes one in his attack (and he most probably will), be ready to punish it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11245" LastActivityDate="2016-09-19T06:26:53.070" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15423" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1107" CreationDate="2016-09-19T07:42:53.070" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Practice your visualization skills. Opportunities lie in any chess book with a game score in it.  Start with a position (the starting position is fine, but harder), and play 4-5 moves for each side. Don't check the position just yet. First, &lt;em&gt;try to find all of the captures, checks and threats&lt;/em&gt; (CCT's) available to the player who's now on move, and write them down.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Then&lt;/em&gt; proceed to that position on a board (wood or electronic - doesn't matter), and verify a) that you had the pieces on the right squares, and b) your findings of the CCT's.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you are good at this, you'll be going longer and longer before having to verify the board position (10 moves a side, and eventually a whole game).  A master has to be able to visualize well; many make a point of being able to replay an entire game in their head, &lt;em&gt;including&lt;/em&gt; memorizing the moves, not reading them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Getting good at tactics requires being familiar with tactical patterns, which means you have to see them, and then learn them.  Tactical problems are a good way to learn them, but make sure you don't think longer than 5 minutes about the candidate moves; if it takes longer than that, you're still in learning mode for this tactic, and it's more productive to watch the demonstration than to bang your head against the wall for 20 minutes trying to invent an unfamiliar solution from scratch.  Then, run through it a couple of times to familiarize yourself with all the ideas it encompasses. Finally, if you can, put the puzzle through an engine, and try out some of your alternative ideas. That way, you'll see why they don't work (if you haven't already), and that's just as valuable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you do the work to learn the solution, then the next time you see a similar problem, you'll solve it within 5 minutes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I agree with the poster who suggested playing &quot;Solitaire Chess&quot; with an annotated game, trying to predict the moves for one color every step of the way.  But that's going to be difficult if you're a beginner or low intermediate player (say 1400 or below); it only becomes manageable once you have a decent toolkit of ideas for what to do in various kinds of positions.  So, until then, just play through the games, trying to understand each move's purpose. A good &quot;Move-by-Move&quot; book will help at this stage, and there are many to choose from.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11245" LastActivityDate="2016-09-19T07:42:53.070" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15424" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15419" CreationDate="2016-09-19T09:11:33.550" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would suggest something like a Sicilian Dragon / Sniper attack with moves like c5, g6, Bg7 etc. White will find it very difficult to stop you playing like this after opening with Nf3 and you don't have to worry about learning a boatload of white transpositional possibilities.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2016-09-22T09:36:11.937" LastActivityDate="2016-09-22T09:36:11.937" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15427" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-09-19T13:46:12.617" Score="2" ViewCount="233" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have seen on the FIDE website &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=10&amp;amp;view=category&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=10&amp;amp;view=category&lt;/a&gt; that only the regulations governing the award of FIDE titles effective from 1st July 2014 are available.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are the regulations governing the award of FIDE titles prior to these ones available somewhere ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3480" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2016-09-19T21:59:21.523" LastActivityDate="2016-09-20T08:20:53.067" Title="Old FIDE Title Regulations" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;fide&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15428" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15427" CreationDate="2016-09-19T15:45:22.460" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The previous version, for &quot;competitions starting before 1 July 2014&quot; are still &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/component/handbook/?id=124&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;available on the FIDE website&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are looking for older versions, it may be good to know that some of them were published as printed books. For example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;The Official Laws of Chess and Other FIDE Regulations&lt;/em&gt;, Macmillan, 1986 (see the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.worldcat.org/title/official-laws-of-chess-and-other-fide-regulations/oclc/12970495&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;entry in WorldCat&lt;/a&gt;);&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;The Official Rules of Chess&lt;/em&gt;, by Eric Schiller, Cardoza Publishing, 2001; 2nd edition 2003.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As pointed out by Brian Towers, the Chess Arbiters’ Association, a group of mainly British arbiters, also has &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessarbitersassociation.co.uk/html/laws.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;historical versions of the laws of chess&lt;/a&gt; on its website.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10867" LastEditorUserId="10867" LastEditDate="2016-09-20T08:20:53.067" LastActivityDate="2016-09-20T08:20:53.067" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15429" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15410" CreationDate="2016-09-19T16:10:09.287" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Whenever I do that, and if I survive, almost always I didn't have a good time, always worrying along the way. I learned that at our level (I'm FIDE 1996) just playing good solid moves consistently and waiting for the opponent to make a mistake or stretch more than the position allows is the easiest way to win games, even when the position seems boring and even. My openings is extremely solid but I win most of the games. I think I beat them through boredom. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11178" LastActivityDate="2016-09-19T16:10:09.287" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15430" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15419" CreationDate="2016-09-19T16:16:50.360" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I answer 1.Nf3 with 1...e6 followed by 2...f5 and going for the solid Dutch Stonewall or other Dutch. If 2.e4 I go for 2...d5 and go for a Fort Knox French variation. Super solid systems. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11178" LastActivityDate="2016-09-19T16:16:50.360" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15431" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15427" CreationDate="2016-09-19T22:33:17.097" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think there is an official listing of previous title regulations. You just have to glean what you can from internet searches.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's what I found.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;From the 1st July 2009 the following changes will apply to FIDE&#xA;  titles.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1) Only one player can having a rating uplift, instead of two.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;2) The rating of the player uplifted has been reduced by 50 points.&#xA;  Hence the uplift for a GM norm is now 2200 (was 2250), IM norm 2050&#xA;  (was 2100).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;3) Performance requirements and requirements of the opponents’ ratings&#xA;  have been changed to even tens. i.e GM norm used to be 2601&#xA;  performance, now 2600, minimum average rating of opponents used to be&#xA;  2381, now 2380.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;4) For any given title norm at least 1/3 of a players opponents must&#xA;  hold that title. i.e. For a GM norm 1/3 must hold GM title. Whilst in&#xA;  comparison to the old regulations this makes no change to a 9 round&#xA;  event, it would effect a 12 round event where 4 GM's would be required&#xA;  (used to be 3).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Going back to the beginning, this chessbase article fills in some of the history - &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.chessbase.com/post/a-gm-is-a-gm--fide-title-devaluation-270613&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://en.chessbase.com/post/a-gm-is-a-gm--fide-title-devaluation-270613&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Summarizing -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When grandmaster titles were first awarded in 1950, they were given to the world champion Mikhail Botvinnik and all those who had qualified or been seeded in the inaugural Candidates Tournament: Isaac Boleslavsky, Igor Bondarevsky, David Bronstein, Max Euwe, Reuben Fine, Salo Flohr, Paul Keres, Alexander Kotov, Andor Lilienthal, Miguel Najdorf, Samuel Reshevsky, Vasily Smyslov, Gideon Ståhlberg, and László Szabó.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The title was also given to older living players who were recognized as having been world class at their peak: Ossip Bernstein, Oldrich Duras, Ernst Grünfeld, Borislav Kostic, Grigory Levenfish, Géza Maróczy, Jacques Mieses, Viacheslav Ragozin, Akiba Rubinstein, Friedrich Sämisch, Savielly Tartakower, and Milan Vidmar.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In 1957 the regulations were set to give the GM title automatically to the world champion and to any player qualifying from the Interzonal tournament to play in the Candidates.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In 1965  the rules were tightened up so that a player had to score 40% in the Candidates Tournament, or reach the quarter finals of the Candidates Matches to get the title.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In 1970 the modern system was initiated whereby you had to get your rating up to a certain ELO rating - 2450 - and to get 3 &quot;norms&quot; in a 3 year period. A &quot;norm&quot; was a rating performance of 2551 or above in a suitable tournament.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since 1970 that basic formula has been tweaked with changes to the ratings involved and the type and makeup of qualifying tournaments in terms of how many of the other players must be from different federations, how many have the GM title, what the time controls are, how many players, etc., etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2016-09-19T22:33:17.097" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15433" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="883" CreationDate="2016-09-20T09:12:41.430" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Found this resource on the topic, which explains the three concrete steps involved in playing this endgame. Sharing here as it may help someone: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess-insights.com/queen-vs-rook.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chess-insights.com/queen-vs-rook.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The linked article gives detailed explanation with good diagrams for each step. But to summarize in 3 sentences, the steps mentioned are as follows: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;First: force the rook into a third-rank defence and break that down. The defender then has to opt for a second-rank defence. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Second: play against the second-rank defence until you reach the Philidor position. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Third: win the rook from the Philidor Position.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11261" LastEditorUserId="14079" LastEditDate="2018-01-16T08:12:30.987" LastActivityDate="2018-01-16T08:12:30.987" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15434" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9040" CreationDate="2016-09-20T14:44:36.767" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am unable to find the complete game, &lt;strong&gt;therefore must conclude that it is no longer available&lt;/strong&gt;. These are the methods I used:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Searching the &lt;em&gt;Chessmaster&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;Fritz for Fun&lt;/em&gt; databases yields no results. Referencing the comments  by @dfan and @Iodebari, the complete game is not in Chessbase's &lt;em&gt;Mega Database&lt;/em&gt; or in &lt;em&gt;MillionBase&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Google doesn't return it&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I've emailed Tim Krabbe, the author of the site linked to in the question, but have received no response&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The game is not in any books that I have in my (admittedly limited) chess library. E.g. the game does not feature in &lt;em&gt;Mastering Chess Strategy&lt;/em&gt; by Johan Hellsten&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;PS. A note about topicality:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On meta I've asked a question about how to answer questions where I don't believe there is an answer. If you feel that this should have been a comment instead of an answer, please feed back on the meta question &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/438/what-do-we-do-with-questions-that-i-dont-think-there-is-an-answer-to&quot;&gt;What do we do with questions that I don't think there is an answer to?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Additionally, if you have an answer to the question, I would love to see it. My own research methods are limited and I don't mind being proven wrong if someone can find the complete game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-03-16T15:50:45.707" LastActivityDate="2016-09-20T14:50:31.750" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15435" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15446" CreationDate="2016-09-20T17:02:27.277" Score="1" ViewCount="121" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there a place to look up rankings of USCF players for a previous year?  Specifically, I would like to know who was &lt;em&gt;#3 in the USCF in 1998&lt;/em&gt; (for reasons not relevant to the question) - but figured a broader question would be more useful to others.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I tried &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.uschess.org/component/option,com_top_players/Itemid,371?op=list&amp;amp;month=1506&amp;amp;f=usa&amp;amp;l=R:Top%20Overall&amp;amp;h=Overall&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;USCF's Top 100 Lists&lt;/a&gt;, but it doesn't seem to go back nearly that far.  My other Google searching turned up even less.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7897" LastActivityDate="2016-09-22T06:11:07.893" Title="1998 USCF Chess Rankings" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;history&gt;&lt;uscf&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15436" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15410" CreationDate="2016-09-20T17:33:08.593" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've had the same problem, and I think it affected my chess. I used to be a bit more carefree. About all you can do is check off on things like, is any piece loose? Did I miss an obvious capture? Did I miss any double attacks? Also, does his position have any clear signs of weaknesses, and does my combination capitalize on that?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The problem with cutting down risk is that you may stop asking interesting questions about the game, period. And even at 1900/2000 you (meaning me, too) will still make mistakes well worth learning from.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But on the other hand, as you said, you don't want to just lash out and make a combination that fizzles. I know I needed to track what sorts of combinations I couldn't pull the trigger on, to notice patterns of when and where I needed to look a move deeper. In your game's case it would be interesting to know why you didn't play things. You wind up winning material pretty safely after a few moves. Did you not see the material win, or were you worried Black had a resource?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My guy feeling is that your opponent is as scared as you are about tricky positions and moves. I think we all are. So I think if you are worried about potential simple refutations, have a list of things that you must check straight out so that, if your combination is refuted, the refutation will be interesting.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, if you're clearly winning anyway, you don't want to do anything fancy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11202" LastActivityDate="2016-09-20T17:33:08.593" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15437" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15410" CreationDate="2016-09-21T03:32:10.320" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Without regard to the &quot;refutation,&quot; you should evaluate the position after the combination.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At one level, you sacrificed a knight for two pawns. That's &quot;bad.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, you got two &lt;em&gt;passed&lt;/em&gt; pawns for the knight. That's a &quot;horse of a different color&quot; (pun intended). A passed pawn is often worth two ordinary pawns. So your compensation for the knight may be 3-4 points rather than 2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You could get your Queen to the seventh rank. Usually it's a rook, but in this case, the queen is just as good. That by itself is worth a pawn. It would have pinned a bishop, which was soon captured, leaving you two pawns to the good. Even if you can't see the whole sequence, your intuition should tell you that you are doing well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So you got at least 3, and could have gotten as much as 5 pawns' compensation for the knight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2016-09-21T03:32:10.320" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15438" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-09-21T09:30:39.260" Score="2" ViewCount="105" Body="&lt;p&gt;The passed pawns are g and d pawns. Can the losing side draw such a rook endgame? Can you give some examples to how or why it can't be drawn? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3149" LastActivityDate="2016-09-21T21:41:04.087" Title="Is a rook ending where the winning side has a passed g and d pawns drawn?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;rook-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2016-09-23T04:10:19.477" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15439" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15410" CreationDate="2016-09-21T12:54:10.477" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Fear of losing is no way to play chess. Also, the sequence of moves is forced so it becomes evident that your ability to see the position after a series of forced moves to point A needs some work, but that is almost always the case for sub-master chess players. Since the series of moves is forced, you can safely play the first several moves to point B without any great concessions, reaching an intermediate position where a longer think with a clearer positional vision is possible. So:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[point A] After 1. a5, Qa7 is forced or black drops the Nc5. &#xA;After 2. Nxb5 axb5 is forced.&#xA;After 3. Nxb5 Na6 looks forced again. At this juncture you have 2 connected, passed pawns for your sacrificed knight. That is marginal and you could have played to this position safely. [point B]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At this point, the finish of the combination is trivial.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That is how my thought process goes with positions that have a forced continuation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Good luck and keep improving!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;p.s.: I'm sure masters don't see everything. They do the same thing in the context of a real, OTB game more than you might want to believe.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10233" LastActivityDate="2016-09-21T12:54:10.477" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15440" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15394" CreationDate="2016-09-21T13:06:44.763" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Highly readable book with useful information and how to handle these most common positions. You are asked to work out some of the ideas yourself:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/9056916173&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;100 Endgames You Must Know: Vital Lessons for Every Chess Player&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10233" LastActivityDate="2016-09-21T13:06:44.763" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15441" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15444" CreationDate="2016-09-21T14:14:59.450" Score="1" ViewCount="827" Body="&lt;p&gt;How do I get the percentile rating? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is the rank:   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;World (all players):    97112&lt;br&gt;&#xA;World (active players): 45540&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How many players are there in the world that are members of FIDE? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11288" LastActivityDate="2016-09-21T15:30:30.837" Title="How do I get my FIDE percentile?" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15442" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1263" CreationDate="2016-09-21T14:24:25.607" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;A 50/50 split between studying and playing is recommended. Recording all your games and analyzing your losses is also recommended. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, if you study for an hour a day, play a couple of G15 games and analyze your losses. Play 'up' in class - i.e., if you are rated on your favorite server as 1600 then play against 1800's so you get punished for your mistakes&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Studying for blitz play is contraindicated. If you want chess entertainment, play blitz but don't expect to get much out of it from a serious chess perspective.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10233" LastActivityDate="2016-09-21T14:24:25.607" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15443" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6125" CreationDate="2016-09-21T15:05:35.860" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;How to deal with the psychological pressure of having a great position&#xA;  and having it collapse over the next few moves?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd recommend reviewing Dan Heisman's articles, books, and/or videos if you can get hold of them. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.danheisman.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.danheisman.com/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Heisman's basic instructions provide a framework you can use to be more systematic in evaluating your chess positions while under pressure. Having a way to assess the situation will reduce your stress and reduce the chances that you will blunder.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In essence, Heisman's advice is to review a position for &lt;strong&gt;checks, captures, and threats&lt;/strong&gt;. Or as Hesiman posted to Twitter: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I always say &quot;Checks, captures &amp;amp; threats&quot; cause it's catchy, but the&#xA;  order is really &quot;Checks, mate threats, captures &amp;amp; other threats&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://twitter.com/danheisman/status/425647419762548737&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://twitter.com/danheisman/status/425647419762548737&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have mostly learned from Heisman's videos, wherein he goes into more detail on the method above. In essence, he emphasizes &lt;strong&gt;not rushing&lt;/strong&gt;, but rather taking a little time to review choices that might result in blunders. Of course there are many other things to cover in a chess game, but what I found most helpful in Heisman's advice is that he repeatedly underscores how many times players move quickly or think their next move is &quot;obvious,&quot; only to realize with dread a second later that it contained a huge mistake because they overlooked the consequences of an opponent's check, capture, or threat. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What other ways for improvement would you recommend?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Study many games with players around your rating, but also some annotated games of higher rated players. Personally I try to set up a real board and review all of the sidelines contained in the annotations. But if reviewing games on a screen works for you, great. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Try to keep copies of your own games and review them, including running them through an engine to see what it says. I use the import game feature on lichess.org then request a computer analysis. I always learn something from seeing what the computer says I did wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Good luck!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3968" LastActivityDate="2016-09-21T15:05:35.860" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15444" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15441" CreationDate="2016-09-21T15:30:30.837" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.quora.com/How-many-active-chess-players-are-there-in-the-world&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this question&lt;/a&gt; on quora.com, there are ~486,000 players as of January 2015.  (They reference a FIDE rating list &lt;a href=&quot;http://ratings.fide.com/download.phtml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.)  Not an exact number, but most likely close enough for percentile purposes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you're not sure how to calculate a percentile rating, I found &lt;a href=&quot;http://study.com/academy/lesson/percentile-rank-in-statistics-definition-formula-quiz.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this question&lt;/a&gt;, which gives the following formula:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;R = P / 100 (N + 1)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;... where R represents the rank order of the score, P represents the percentile rank, and N represents the number of scores.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7897" LastActivityDate="2016-09-21T15:30:30.837" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15445" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15438" CreationDate="2016-09-21T21:41:04.087" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;By definition if there's a &quot;winning side&quot; and a &quot;losing side&quot; then&#xA;the question is already answered :-)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But seriously, if you just want K+R+P(d)+P(g) vs. K+R, that's within&#xA;database range, so you can explore for yourself&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://k4it.de/index.php?topic=egtb&amp;amp;lang=en&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&#xA;In general such positions are easy wins (note that the defending&#xA;King can &quot;always&quot; be cut off from one pawn or the other by a&#xA;Rook move to e or f), though naturally there are some initial positions &#xA;where one pawn is lost tactically to leave a draw, and there can even&#xA;be &quot;accidents&quot; such as this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;6r1/8/7k/8/3P1KP1/8/8/4R3 w - - 0 0&#xA;&#xA;1. Kf5?? Rf8+ 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8860" LastActivityDate="2016-09-21T21:41:04.087" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15446" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15435" CreationDate="2016-09-22T06:11:07.893" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;At one time, there was an annual rating list published each year in the January issue of Chess Life.  They don't do that anymore, and I'm not sure if they still did it in 1998 (or, I assume what you'd really want would be such a list that would have been published in January 1999, which would have the year end ratings for 1998).  If they still did, if you can find a library that has back issues of Chess Life, you could look there.  Or, House of Staunton / USCF Sales has the January 1999 back issue available for $1.00.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you can find someone who has been a USCF TD for that long, and if they're a bit of a packrat, they might still have the 1998 annual rating list, though you'd have to sort it yourself.  And it might be on floppy disk...  I looked on the USCF web site in the TD/Affiliate area, and they don't have rating supplements online that go back nearly that far.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7147" LastActivityDate="2016-09-22T06:11:07.893" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15447" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-09-22T07:38:09.540" Score="3" ViewCount="2020" Body="&lt;p&gt;Oftentimes a bishop will move to b5 or g5 early in the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/4R8sa.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/4R8sa.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I personally never do this because I see a6 coming, and if I move the bishop back to a4, then b5, nearly trapping the bishop, and certainly having made it a waste of time to move it to b5 in the first place.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, when I watch games by top-level players, bishops get moved to the 5 row all the time, and nobody ever fights them away with pawns like I think they will. Why not?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="725" LastActivityDate="2016-09-30T04:32:09.460" Title="Why not fight off a bishop on row 5 with pawns?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15448" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15447" CreationDate="2016-09-22T09:19:57.823" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;One downside to expanding the pawns too much before developing pieces is that the pawns can become overextended and weak. Below is a sample variation of how Black can become overextended:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Bb5 a6 3. Ba4 b5 4. Bb3 c5 {Intending to trap the Bishop in a 'Noah's Ark' with c4.} 5. Bd5 Ra7 6. a4 {Trying to break the queenside pawns up and make the vulnerable.} b4 7. c3 bxc3 8. Nxc3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this sample variation, White leads in development and Black's space advantage disappears.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;N.B. The sample variation was worked out in my head, and references no games in particular, nor do I examine the best moves. 4... c5 is a mistake to show the perils of overextending, and 5...Ra7 isn't forced.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastEditorDisplayName="user1108" LastEditDate="2016-09-22T14:07:22.560" LastActivityDate="2016-09-22T14:07:22.560" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15449" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15447" CreationDate="2016-09-22T09:45:01.147" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here are a couple of relevant questions and answers that might help to explain why the bishop move happens:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/4733/morphy-defence-in-ruy-lopez/4734#4734&quot;&gt;Morphy Defence in Ruy Lopez&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/226/why-is-the-ruy-lopez-such-a-common-opening&quot;&gt;Why is the Ruy Lopez such a common opening?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In summary the main points seem to be that:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Black loses as much time chasing the bishop as White does retreating it&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;White can gain a long-term advantage from Black's weaker Queen side pawn structure&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you might expect in such a popular opening though it's very finely balanced for both sides.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If as you say you are &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; seeing a6 and b5 in the games you're looking at, you might be looking at games where Black plays the Berlin Defence: 3... Nf6. This is quite popular at the moment in very high level games. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to see some games where the pawn move a6 is played, &quot;putting the question to the bishop&quot;, here's a link: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessopening?eco=C70&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessopening?eco=C70&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8453" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2016-09-22T15:16:39.707" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15450" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-09-22T22:42:39.590" Score="3" ViewCount="293" Body="&lt;p&gt;In a club game this week, checkmate was reached legally on the board, however the players thought it was stalemate, shook hands and signed the scoresheet as a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &quot;winner&quot; was a young junior, she initially wrote 0-1 on the scoresheet but then the &quot;loser&quot; pointed out that he thought it was stalemate, and so the junior accepted this and changed the score and signed it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Being a club game the arbiter let the result stand; but if this happened in a FIDE-sanctioned tournament then what should happen? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4223" LastEditorUserId="4223" LastEditDate="2016-09-22T22:52:29.000" LastActivityDate="2016-09-24T06:12:40.360" Title="Agreeing a draw after checkmate" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15451" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15450" CreationDate="2016-09-22T23:50:02.323" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=171&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Laws of Chess&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5.1        The game is won by the player who has checkmated his opponent’s king. This immediately ends the game, provided that the move producing the checkmate position was in accordance with Article 3 and Articles 4.2 – 4.7.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;8.7    At the conclusion of the game both players shall sign both scoresheets, indicating the result of the game. Even if incorrect, this result shall stand, unless the arbiter decides otherwise.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &amp;quot;winner&amp;quot; won the game. However, both players signed both scoresheets indicating 0.5 - 0.5, so that would be the result unless the arbiter were involved.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this case, I think the arbiter made a mistake. The young junior should have stuck to her guns and kept the 0-1. She agreed to mark it a draw because she didn't understand that she won regardless of her opponent realizing he was beaten. Were she an experienced chess player, I would absolutely let the 0.5 - 0.5 stand, but I think you need to help young players understand the rules without penalizing them for trying to avoid conflict. I think the gender dynamic and potential age dynamic (you explicitly mentioned she was young, but made no mention of his age) should also be considered in the decision.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11105" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2016-09-22T23:56:21.800" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15453" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6125" CreationDate="2016-09-23T03:05:44.613" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think it might be worthwhile for you to focus on the subject of exchanging pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One way to reduce checkmating potential against your king is to exchange off your opponent's attacking pieces.  However, doing that can often have the disadvantage of allowing your opponent to develop with tempo when recapturing.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So ideally you want your opponent to have to spend time exchanging their attacking pieces for your defensively placed pieces so you recapture with tempo instead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If your king safety is sound in the initial position, then usually after a series of exchanges the opponent's initiative will peter out leaving a position where endgame factors (superior pawn strucure, outside passed pawn, etc.) often determine the result of the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8258" LastActivityDate="2016-09-23T03:05:44.613" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15454" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15447" CreationDate="2016-09-23T07:18:23.920" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;Spanish Bishop&quot; can become very useful and strong piece, especially when it arrives on the c2 square sometimes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3158" LastActivityDate="2016-09-23T07:18:23.920" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15455" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15450" CreationDate="2016-09-23T11:16:44.480" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;In a FIDE rated event the win would stand (checkmate ends the game) and the &quot;scammer&quot; would, at the very least, receive a warning against his unethical behaviour. In the FIDE Laws of Chess Article 11 covers the conduct of the players and 11.1 would be used in this case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;11.1 The players shall take no action that will bring the game of chess into disrepute.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this particular case I would strongly suggest that the offending player be spoken to and it made clear that his behaviour is unacceptable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2016-09-23T11:16:44.480" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15456" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2016-09-23T13:42:34.403" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2016-09-23T13:42:34.403" LastActivityDate="2016-09-23T13:42:34.403" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15457" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2016-09-23T13:42:34.403" Score="0" Body="For questions about material (im)balances, which happen when each player has different pieces on the board, e.g. a Bishop vs. a Knight or an exchange (Rook vs. minor piece). Use this tag only if it's the main topic of the question, not just because it contains a position with a material (im)balance." OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-09-29T09:46:06.463" LastActivityDate="2017-09-29T09:46:06.463" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15458" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2016-09-23T13:44:36.580" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2016-09-23T13:44:36.580" LastActivityDate="2016-09-23T13:44:36.580" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15459" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2016-09-23T13:44:36.580" Score="0" Body="Opening system that begins with the moves 1.d4 and 2.Bf4 (white) or 2.Nf3 &amp; 3.Bf4 (black)." OwnerUserId="10867" LastEditorUserId="10867" LastEditDate="2016-09-26T19:43:31.070" LastActivityDate="2016-09-26T19:43:31.070" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15460" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2016-09-23T13:45:41.443" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2016-09-23T13:45:41.443" LastActivityDate="2016-09-23T13:45:41.443" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15461" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2016-09-23T13:45:41.443" Score="0" Body="Fictional works (novels, films, etc.) that feature chess (games, players, ...) or that are mainly about chess." OwnerUserId="10867" LastEditorUserId="10867" LastEditDate="2016-09-23T14:07:41.543" LastActivityDate="2016-09-23T14:07:41.543" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15462" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2016-09-23T13:49:29.317" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Opening system for white that mirrors black's setup in the King's Indian Defence and that can be reached via 1.e4 followed by d3, Nd2, Ngf3, g3, Bg2 and 0-0.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This opening system for white should not be confused with the King's Indian Defence for black, which has a different tag: &lt;a href=&quot;/questions/tagged/kings-indian&quot; class=&quot;post-tag&quot; title=&quot;show questions tagged &amp;#39;kings-indian&amp;#39;&quot; rel=&quot;tag&quot;&gt;kings-indian&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10867" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-06-22T12:30:14.953" LastActivityDate="2017-06-22T12:30:14.953" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15463" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2016-09-23T13:49:29.317" Score="0" Body="Opening system for white that mirrors black's setup in the King's Indian Defence and that can be reached via 1.e4 followed by d3, Nd2, Ngf3, g3, Bg2 and 0-0." OwnerUserId="10867" LastEditorUserId="10867" LastEditDate="2016-09-23T14:29:48.633" LastActivityDate="2016-09-23T14:29:48.633" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15464" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2016-09-23T13:50:22.490" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2016-09-23T13:50:22.490" LastActivityDate="2016-09-23T13:50:22.490" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15465" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2016-09-23T13:50:22.490" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2016-09-23T13:50:22.490" LastActivityDate="2016-09-23T13:50:22.490" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15466" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2016-09-23T13:51:02.947" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2016-09-23T13:51:02.947" LastActivityDate="2016-09-23T13:51:02.947" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15467" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2016-09-23T13:51:02.947" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2016-09-23T13:51:02.947" LastActivityDate="2016-09-23T13:51:02.947" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15469" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5394" CreationDate="2016-09-24T00:21:41.980" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Grand Prix is a very aggressive opening, and as such, it may be played when someone really needs a win, or they know their opponent may be superior at slower lines, as Qiri alluded above. But that's more about aggressive openings than the GP itself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Grand Prix seems suitable for club play if you know the ideas. I think Sunil Weeramantry had a book with a few GPA games that showed how it worked. Pretty much any opening with f4 is good at the club level (Austrian Attack, 4 pawns vs King's Indian) because it's fun to attack, and people aren't as focused on defense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I remember dabbling in the QGA and not realizing I needed to attack the king, and that was kind of a failure. I think the worst that happens if you play it is, you find you don't like it, but you get an appreciation for Black's game. So if you are looking specifically to avoid very sharp play and big attacks, the GPA is probably not for you. The c3 (Alapin) sicilian may be a better bet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11202" LastActivityDate="2016-09-24T00:21:41.980" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15470" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2653" CreationDate="2016-09-24T00:46:41.993" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Memorizing things move by move is very hard indeed. There's evidence that masters use something called chunking. Google chess masters chunking to see various links. A basic example would be instead of Nxd5 Bxd5 Bxd5 cxd5, you might think &quot;everything is exchanged on d5.&quot; Masters might think &quot;OK, we set up the King's Indian formation.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessprogramming.org/Chunking&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.chessprogramming.org/Chunking&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once you understand basic structures and motifs, memorization will be easier. Until then, it may feel like studying for a test in a class you don't like.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11202" LastEditorUserId="15989" LastEditDate="2020-01-06T08:03:34.900" LastActivityDate="2020-01-06T08:03:34.900" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="15471" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8714" CreationDate="2016-09-24T00:57:47.407" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this case ...d4 might be overextending. The answer might not be &quot;when do I stop&quot; but &quot;when can/should I make my threats subtler.&quot; I remember I used to like to attack the opponent's queen a lot. I felt active. But the thing is, ...Nf6 instead of ...d4 is a good idea as Nd5 and Ng4 may both be threats.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similarly, ...Qc7 before ...Be6 might be a good idea, too, as you can hold on to the pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I remember telling myself you don't get hustle points for attacking pieces for its own sake. But if you can do so with gain of time, it's pretty wonderful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One example of this may be 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 Nxd4 4. Nxd4 exd4 5. Qxd4 Ne7 to attack the queen...but you're taking two moves to make the queen move once.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11202" LastActivityDate="2016-09-24T00:57:47.407" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15472" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15474" CreationDate="2016-09-24T01:10:34.147" Score="3" ViewCount="373" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is something that always confuses me. If I have an edge, I may trade and the game becomes drawish. If I am down, I seem to trade and I get ground down.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm aware of things like potential weaknesses or space to consider, and I know that putting pawns on the same colored square as your bishop should be avoided.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But how do you evaluate if the advantage is enough? And what does give advantage e.g. what pieces left on the board are better for the attacker? What sort of checklists are there? I know that for R&amp;amp;P endgames, there is an active rook and so forth, but with opposite colored bishops it seems less clear.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a separate question from actual technique. I just know I avoid trades to opposite colored bishops on principle, because I'm clueless about them, and that's a big problem. And while it's fun to see GMs capitalize, I still don't have an idea of the thought that goes into when to trade.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11202" LastActivityDate="2016-09-24T04:39:14.293" Title="When should I trade into opposite colored bishops?" Tags="&lt;bishops&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15473" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5587" CreationDate="2016-09-24T03:03:45.353" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you are concerned about avoiding a lot of theory, and since 1.Nf3 transposes into more openings than 1.d4 does, I'd pick 1.d4 on that basis alone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you really want to play an opening with less theory, the London System is so non-confrontational initially that it has no sharp lines to speak of.  Plenty of club players I know use it because they're not interested in learning a lot theory, and like the quiet positions it produces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The initial lines are presented as a teaser at the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesspublishing.com/content/8/index.htm#lon&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chess Publishing&lt;/a&gt; website. You can purchase a subscription to the entire set of &quot;d-pawn Specials&quot; Opening Analysis articles for more details, if you want, or any book on the London.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11245" LastActivityDate="2016-09-24T03:03:45.353" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15474" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15472" CreationDate="2016-09-24T04:39:14.293" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Opposite-colored bishop endgames aren't &lt;em&gt;always&lt;/em&gt; drawn; it depends on the pawns. The drawish aspect comes from the fact that either bishop can halt a passed pawn in its tracks, and the opposite bishop can't help overcome the barricade. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you have a positional or material advantage, avoid going into such an OCB ending if you can. If you can't, then start action on &lt;em&gt;both sides of the board&lt;/em&gt;, creating a passed pawn on each. Sac a pawn to accomplish this, if necessary. This will force your opponent to dedicate his bishop to one side and his king to the other.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Leave your bishop to guard one wing, preferably the wing where the opponent's pawns are less of a threat, and/or yours are easier for the bishop to defend. Then, send your king over to help push the passed pawn (or create one). He can chase the opponent's bishop away, or force it to give itself up for the passed pawn your king, but your bishop can't. So, king on offense, bishop on defense. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, try to keep your king in front of the pawns, so he can cover their advance squares.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note: The OCB ending is &lt;em&gt;an exception to the endgame rule of having your pawns on squares of the opposite color to your bishop&lt;/em&gt;. The exception applies &lt;em&gt;only to the defender&lt;/em&gt;. If you follow that rule, your opponent's bishop will pick them off, and your bishop won't be able to defend them. So, if you're defending an OCB ending, put your pawns on the &lt;em&gt;same color squares as your bishop&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you're the attacker, put your pawns on squares of the opposite color to your bishop. That way, they cooperate with the bishop to keep the opponent's king away or drive him off.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you're defending an OCB ending, keep your king on the same wing as, and in front of, the opponent's pawn majority, and defend your (possibly weak) pawns on the other wing with your bishop. Blockade your opponent's passed pawn with your king. Put your king on a square of your bishop's color, so your opponent's bishop can't dislodge it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you can, try to leave the base pawns of your pawn chains where your bishop can reach all of them quickly. If you can arrange two chains, one on each wing, with the bases near the center, then your bishop may be able to defend both from just one square.  If your opponent's king comes over to try to drive your bishop off Defense Junction, then he can't reach the pawns. No way to make progress.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you can't arrange this, then try to stagger the chains a bit so that your bishop and king can navigate across the board, and keep an eye on the pawns at the bases of the chains. Leaving a few gap squares is important for the king's mobility, because if you don't stagger the chains and your king has to use the opposite colored squares to cross the board, your opponent's bishop can usually just attack the squares around the pawns when your king tries to get through, and block it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Move a pawn only when absolutely necessary.  If he can't make progress, you'll get your draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Almost every endgame book treats this topic; I recommend a couple, such as Howell's Essential Chess Endings, Glenn Flear's Starting Out: Minor Piece Endgames, or Bruce Pandolfini's Endgame Course. Andrew Soltis' GM Secrets: Endings has an especially understandable and thorough discussion of &quot;Bees of Opps&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, the &lt;strong&gt;short&lt;/strong&gt; answer is: Trade into an Opposite-Colored Bishops ending if you're likely to lose otherwise, and use its special characteristics to save the draw. This can sometimes work &lt;em&gt;even if the opponent has 3 connected passed pawns, and you have none!&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11245" LastActivityDate="2016-09-24T04:39:14.293" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15475" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="662" CreationDate="2016-09-24T05:06:35.833" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The bishop pair overcomes a problem of having a lone bishop; it can only operate on half the board. So, strategically, the owner of the bishop pair can limit his opponent's activity anywhere on the board that's not shielded by pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As b1 pointed out, Ludek Pachman observed that this advantage extends to being able to control and sometimes force an advantageous simplification. If the opponent manages to stage a knight at an annoying outpost in your position, you're only guaranteed to be able to eliminate it if you have another knight or both bishops. Using a knight can take up to 4 moves, so give me the bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A prime demonstration of using the two bishops strategically took place in the following game. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;London&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;1883&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Englisch, Berthold&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Steinitz, William&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 g6 4. d4 exd4 5. Nxd4 Bg7 6. Be3 Nf6 7. Nc3 O-O    &#xA;8.O-O Ne7 9. Qd2 d5 10. exd5 Nexd5 11. Nxd5 Qxd5 12. Be2 Ng4 13. Bxg4 Bxg4&#xA;14. Nb3 Qxd2 15. Nxd2 Rad8 16. c3 Rfe8 17. Nb3 b6 {A key element in the two bishops strategy is to contain the opponent's knight.} 18. h3 Be6 19. Rfd1 c5 &#xA;20. Bg5 f6 21. Bf4 Kf7 22. f3 g5 23. Rxd8 Rxd8 24. Be3 h6 25. Re1 f5 26. f4 &#xA;Bf6 27. g3 a5 28. Nc1 a4 29. a3 Bc4 30. Kf2 gxf4 31. Bxf4 Bg5 {Now it's time to simplify, because Black has a favorable bishop-vs-knight endgame, with pawns on both wings.} 32. Bxg5 hxg5 &#xA;33. Ke3 Kf6 34. h4 gxh4 35. gxh4 Re8+ {Taking off the rooks increases Black's advantage due to the pawn structure, and amplifies the superiority of the bishop over the knight.} 36. Kf2 Rxe1 37. Kxe1 Ke5 38. Ne2 {Time for the knight to go, so Black will have a clear path to promotion on the kingside. He doesn't need the bishop to accomplish the promotion.} Bxe2&#xA;39. Kxe2 Kf4 40. c4 Kg4 41. Ke3 f4+ 42. Ke4 f3 43. Ke3 Kg3 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The bishops can also be used to help connected pawns crawl forward and defeat the facing pawns, and to provide a shield for the king to advance behind. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They are at their strongest when the position is open, so the owner of the bishop pair should prepare one or more pawn breaks to clear the center.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, when playing &lt;em&gt;against&lt;/em&gt; the two bishops, block the position as much as possible, and find or create good outposts for your knight(s).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the Czech Benoni and Dutch Stonewall openings, the center becomes blocked early and stays that way. It's not uncommon for both players to attempt to trade their bishops for the opponent's knights, because the knights are more useful in that type of position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, the evaluation of the bishop pair's advantage depends on the character of the position. In general, it behaves the way the single bishop vs knight does; pawns on both wings enhance it, and the openness of the position enhances it. Blocked positions reduce it, and pawns on only one wing reduce it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11245" LastActivityDate="2016-09-24T05:06:35.833" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15476" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="246" CreationDate="2016-09-24T05:16:01.243" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Steve Mayer wrote an excellent book on the subject, &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1879479737&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Knight versus Bishop: The Verdict&lt;/a&gt;.  You could do worse than have a look at that. It explains the circumstances under which one is better than the other, and the fact that he wrote a well-regarded book about the topic suggests that it's not easily addressed in a forum reply.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11245" LastActivityDate="2016-09-24T05:16:01.243" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15477" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="59" CreationDate="2016-09-24T05:58:58.453" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;While it's possible to force this mate, before you go getting interested in it, take a look at these facts:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It's a &lt;em&gt;very&lt;/em&gt; rare ending. Most GM's never see one.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;There are only 263 such endgames in my database of 1,172,256 games in which at least one player was at least 2450 ELO. That's only 1 such endgame in nearly 4,500 games.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Of the 263 games, 24 (9%) were drawn because the player with the pieces couldn't force mate.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Only 31 were forced mates, in which the player with the bare king forced the opponent to complete the mate. In the 232 other games, the one with the bare king graciously resigned first.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some interesting character stories in this rarified drama: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Two Super-GM's with ELO over 2700 couldn't force the mate: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Ruslan Ponomariov (vs Daryatkin in 2004, in a blitz game)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Alexander Moiseenkko (vs Drozdowski in 2013, also in a blitz game)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The highest-ranked GM to fail in a standard-time-controls game was Kiril Georgiev, vs Julio Granda Zuniga in 2009, in Pamplona. Other 2600-level GM's to fail were Socko and Motylev (standard) and Sethuraman (blitz).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of those who forced their opponent to complete the mate in the hopes of getting a draw, Alexander Morozevich holds the record with three attempts; he failed twice (his opponents Ivanchuk and Malakhov were up to the task and duly mated him in front of spectators), and gave up once when he saw it was going to happen when playing against Tal Shaked in the Under 20 World Championship, 1997. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Interestingly, Drozdowski has &lt;em&gt;also&lt;/em&gt; seen this ending three times, once in the aforementioned draw against Moiseenko, once as the probable winner (his opponent Viktor Erdos resigned first, in the European Championship in 2012), and once as &lt;em&gt;the loser&lt;/em&gt;, against Lukasz Licznerski in 2014. Entertainingly, Licznerski was the underdog by 130 ELO, with a rating of only 2344, and could pull this off!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, learn it if you want; it may just come up &lt;em&gt;once&lt;/em&gt; in your life.  But you'll see way more games with equally-matched numbers of minor pieces, and like B v N or R+B v R+N.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11245" LastEditorUserId="11245" LastEditDate="2016-09-26T17:54:03.650" LastActivityDate="2016-09-26T17:54:03.650" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15478" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15450" CreationDate="2016-09-24T06:12:40.360" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It matters when the winner noticed that the game ended in checkmate, and that the opponent's claim was in fact wrong.  If the arbiter was the one to point this out, then he could defend his action in ruling the draw as standing by saying that he wanted to clearly communicate to the winner that the accuracy of the score is a solemn duty.  It is, after all, why the player signs the scoresheet. By doing so, they are finalizing the result and implicitly waiving their right to contest it, &lt;em&gt;unless new facts come to light&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since new facts came to light, she now has grounds for disagreeing with the arbiter's ruling, and filing an appeal.  She should learn her appeal rights, and the normal procedure for doing so. These include a hearing with the senior Tournament Director or Arbiter, and the possibility of an Appeal Committee it still not satisfied with the outcome.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would certainly advise her to file an appeal, but it must be done within 30 minutes of the game's end (or the time of the TD's decision, if prior to the game's end as when disallowing a draw claim during a game), as I understand the rules.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Given that she doesn't seem to know when her opponent's king is in check, this may all be too much for her at this stage, however.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11245" LastActivityDate="2016-09-24T06:12:40.360" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15479" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2727" CreationDate="2016-09-24T06:35:05.903" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The FIDE rules that Kenzo cited applied in 2013:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The player intending to claim a draw as a result of 3 occurrences of the same position &lt;em&gt;with the same characteristics*&lt;/em&gt; writes down his move on the scoresheet, stops the clocks, and announces his claim to the Arbiter/TD.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If the claim is valid, the game is drawn.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If the claim is invalid, 3 minutes are added to the opponent's clock, and the game is resumed.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that Article 8, The Recording of the Moves, specifically states:&#xA;&quot;It is forbidden to write the moves in advance, &lt;em&gt;unless the player is claiming a draw according to Article 9.2&lt;/em&gt;...&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's also worth noting that if the claim is disallowed, the player must make the move he intended in accordance with Article 4, i.e. if he made the move on the board.  Therefore, it is in the player's interest &lt;em&gt;not to touch the pieces&lt;/em&gt; while he is making the claim, in case it is disallowed. This preserves his right to make a different move, if he wishes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*The position is only occurring again if &lt;em&gt;all of the following conditions are met&lt;/em&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The same player is on move (no triangulation games, folks)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;All rights of both players are the same, including castling rights&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;All of the same moves must be available to each player. Specifically, if a pawn could have been captured en passant as the next move in the first occurrence of the position, that occurrence of the position is not eligible to be counted, because the en passant capture is no longer possible in the following occurrences&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11245" LastActivityDate="2016-09-24T06:35:05.903" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15480" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4598" CreationDate="2016-09-24T07:26:41.817" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;@TKR is right - I ran into this OTB, and had never even heard of it. But, I'm a dedicated French player, and I understand the concepts of opening theory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here, the situation is clear: the white pawn on e5 is overextended. It &lt;em&gt;must&lt;/em&gt; be supported by d4.  So, Black prevents this with 2...c5. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White spent the next 15 moves trying to hang on to his e-pawn while I just kept adding pressure. I could see him squirming, thinking he'd made some kind of terrible opening mistake.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since White often has a pawn on e5 for most (and sometimes all) of the game in a French Defense, players of the black pieces are not fazed in the least by the pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was eventually able to overpower and win the pawn for nothing, but another strategic option would have been to launch a queenside initiative while his pieces were tied down defending that pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Incidentally, in a database of 7 MM games, I found 136 games with players over 2000 ELO who played the French Steinitz. Of the games with 2...c5, White had a 20% win rate, Black won 50% of the games (that's a 5:2 decisively winning ratio), and there were 30% draws.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11245" LastActivityDate="2016-09-24T07:26:41.817" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15481" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15485" CreationDate="2016-09-24T12:03:13.450" Score="1" ViewCount="615" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is said that today openings are connected to middlegame plans and even with potential endings. But I can't find those middlegame plans, except for some occasional comments in opening books. In fact I feel lost about middlegame plans. What is the best way to learn the plans related to the openings in my repertoire?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3423" LastActivityDate="2017-02-25T03:49:58.063" Title="Middlegame plans" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;middlegame&gt;&lt;planning&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15482" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15481" CreationDate="2016-09-24T13:11:29.637" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Look at and study hundreds and hundreds of Grandmaster games from the 1800s onwards. Also check out the book How To Reassess Your Chess and other related books&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7534" LastActivityDate="2016-09-24T13:11:29.637" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15483" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15481" CreationDate="2016-09-24T15:30:33.397" Score="-4" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are only two overarching plans in chess.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The short term one is to play to attack the opponent's king in a mating attack.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The long term one is to queen a pawn in an endgame.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Study the master level games that relate to your opening repotoire and learn the typical piece manuevers that support the two plans I mentioned above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8258" LastActivityDate="2016-09-24T15:30:33.397" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15484" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9713" CreationDate="2016-09-24T18:10:02.323" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In one of his DVD's, GM Nick Pert offers an interesting analysis of common problems in the skills of players in the 1800-2000 range. I'm assuming the implication is that higher-rated players display fewer of these problems.  Here's my abbreviated version of the main points (I give a link to the DVD below):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Not being able to convert an advantage&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Not anticipating the opponent's plans&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Not knowing when (and how) to exchange pieces&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Not knowing your openings&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Not considering the opponent's possible replies, or not analyzing them deeply enough&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Not exploiting your opponent's weak pieces&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Not knowing how to exploit the pawn structure and when to change it&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Not pressing the advantage&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Not escaping pins religiously&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Not keeping your best piece&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If these sound like some of the things you suffer from, it may help to focus on them.  I can recommend his excellent DVD on the subject, &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/386681481X&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Typical Mistakes by 1800-2000 Players&lt;/a&gt;. He offers examples, tips on addressing the problems, and exercises. I found it very helpful in my play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11245" LastActivityDate="2016-09-24T18:10:02.323" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15485" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15481" CreationDate="2016-09-24T18:59:54.863" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Try taking a look at books that discuss the &lt;em&gt;structures&lt;/em&gt; arising out of various openings.  Andrew Soltis' &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1849940703&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Pawn Structure Chess&lt;/a&gt; and Mauricio Flores Rios' &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1784830003&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chess Structures&lt;/a&gt; both provide good overviews of the appropriate pawn breaks, piece placements, and defensive resources. Of the two, I'd say Rios' book is the more rigorous and comprehensive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's certainly possible to learn this by examining master games, but it's a lot more time-consuming. If you're going to try this, I'd recommend anthology / memoir books by authors who specialize in the openings you like (Kasparov: KID, Bronstein: KG, etc.). I found Svetozar Gligoric's &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/0713487704&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;I Play Against the Pieces&lt;/a&gt; useful in this regard because he divides the games into sections &lt;em&gt;by opening&lt;/em&gt;.  Sadly, this last one's become a collector's item in the last 10 years (well, sad for &lt;em&gt;you&lt;/em&gt;, anyway), so it's pricey at the moment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also strongly recommend John Watson's &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1904600603&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Mastering the Chess Openings&lt;/a&gt; series (4 volumes) as a reference. Each volume can be had in used condition for less than $15, so it's not an outrageous purchase, and Watson's approach is to explain &lt;em&gt;in words&lt;/em&gt; what's going on in the variations, and their pros and cons. You may not use 80% of the material, but whatever relates to your opening will will be a goldmine, and is certainly worth the price. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some publishers do an exceptional job of trying to convey opening theory with these strategic pointers mixed in.  For specific openings, I can recommend Everyman Publishing's two series, &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&amp;amp;field-keywords=Easy+guide+everyman&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Easy Guide to the ...&lt;/a&gt; (about 12 volumes, now out of print but available in used condition) and &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.everymanchess.com/starting-out?limit=all&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Starting Out: The ...&lt;/a&gt; (about 40 volumes available). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11245" LastActivityDate="2016-09-24T18:59:54.863" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15486" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15052" CreationDate="2016-09-24T21:39:49.253" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here's my take (FWIW):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Black's remaining queenside pieces are undeveloped, &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;He's lost control of the dark squares, &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;He can't conquer either White's back or 2nd rank,&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;His queen is trapped,&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;He's about to get a spike pawn shoved down his throat at h6, &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;All of this has happened in 17 moves, meaning&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Anand must have foreseen this variation in his home preparation, so&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Anand knows Black is lost, and&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;With so few pieces left, a refutation is just out of the question.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's a pretty big list.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11245" LastActivityDate="2016-09-24T21:39:49.253" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15487" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13994" CreationDate="2016-09-24T21:52:42.583" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;White has a couple of good strategic ideas here, and Black's position makes it hard to combat them:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;After Rd2 (or Rf3), Nxa7 forks the queen and bishop, so Black's attempt to create counterplay with ...Qc6 has just gotten her into more hot water&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Qf4 will support Nd6, which forks the rooks if they stay where they are&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Qf4 also pins the knight to f7&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Black can try driving off the queen with ...g5 and ...Nh5, but she just goes to Qf2 and the f7 square is hit again (while the knight has been lured out of position to the sidelines)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;After the tussle's over between the knight and the queen on the kingside, which Black loses a tempo resolving, White plays N(d6)xe8, winning the Exchange&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;White then simplifies to a BvN endgame where his bishop is superior to Black's remaining knight, and exploits his queenside pawn majority to create a passed pawn, diverts the black king to the queenside, mops up the black kingside pawns with his king, promotes and mates. Easy-peasy.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11245" LastActivityDate="2016-09-24T21:52:42.583" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15488" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="548" CreationDate="2016-09-24T23:03:06.160" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It all depends on whether you can confidently expect your opponent to pursue the win to completion competently. Of course, the higher rated the players are, the more likely this is. At the club level, blunders happen frequently.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But even at the highest levels of play, it can happen that the opponent missteps.  Here's an example of a stunning upset from the Women's Olympiad, Baku 2016 that just finished. White's ELO: 1932. Black's: 2252 (That's a &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;320 ELO difference&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;)...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Women's Baku Chess Olympiad&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;chess24.com&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2016.09.13&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;11.1&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Shabanaj, Eglantina&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Milovic, Aleksandra&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;1932&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;2252&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 Nf6 2. Nf3 e6 3. e3 b6 4. Bd3 Bb7 5. Nbd2 c5 6. c3 Nc6 7. O-O d5 8. dxc5 Bxc5 9. e4 O-O 10. Qe2 dxe4 11. Nxe4 Be7 12. Bg5 Nxe4 13. Qxe4 g6 14. Bh6 Re8 15. Rad1 Qc7 16. Bf4 Bd6 17. Bxd6 Qxd6 18. Qh4 Qe7 19. Ng5 h5 20. Rfe1 Kg7 21. Re3 Rad8 22. Qg3 Qd6 23. f4 Ne7? {+/- 3.26} 24. Rde1? {(=, -0.05) gives away the advantage} (24. Nxf7! {was correct} Kxf7 25. Bxg6+ Nxg6 26. Rxd6 Rxd6 27. f5 e5!? 28. fxg6+ Rxg6 29. Qf2+ Kg7 30. g3 Rf6 {+/- 3.38}) 24... Nd5?? {(-/+, -9.72) An unfortunate choice. In fact, a howler. Almost any other black move is better, including} (24... Bc6) (24... Rf8) (24... Bd5 {, or}) (24... Qc6) 25. Nxf7! {destruction with tempo} Kxf7? {Now it's mate in 5.} (25... Qxf4!? {(+/-, 11.67)} 26. Qxg6+ Kf8 27. Rf3 {is also winning}) 26. Qxg6+ Kf8 27. Qh6+ Kf7 28. Bg6+ Kf6 29. Bxe8+ (29. Bxh5+ {is faster, but the text works fine.} ) 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For an example of how this question of &quot;when to resign&quot; plays out (no pun intended) at the GM level, see my response to the question &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/59/is-it-possible-to-force-checkmate-with-king-knight-and-bishop-vs-king/15477#15477&quot;&gt;&quot;Is it possible to force checkmate with King, knight, and Bishop vs. King?&lt;/a&gt; (It is, of course, but apparently some GM's still want their opponents to prove it...).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11245" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.193" LastActivityDate="2016-09-24T23:03:06.160" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15489" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15410" CreationDate="2016-09-24T23:34:16.527" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The question implies that &lt;em&gt;you can't see a refutation&lt;/em&gt;, but it doesn't presume there is one to see in the first place.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, the question really becomes: If I can't see a refutation, what are the chances my opponent will find one?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well, clearly, if there isn't one, he won't find it. But there are several ways he could find one if it's there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;He could see it as soon as you play your move.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;He could find it as the position evolves, and you play out your combination. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, #2 is much easier, since the pieces are moving into position, and if there &lt;em&gt;is&lt;/em&gt; a refutation, it may become much more obvious as it approaches.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, #2 represents the real risk.  If you can visualize the position after you make what you believe is the last move of the combination (mating, or winning material), then sit still and figure out &lt;em&gt;all&lt;/em&gt; of the moves he could make that might affect you in any way. For each one, you need to know that you have an adequate reply.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you can't visualize that position clearly enough to identify those moves, then you can't determine whether the move is safe to play. In that case, I would advise that you &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; play it unless your position is desperate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By all means try to confound a superior opponent; for one thing, it will burn time on his clock. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are a creative and resourceful player, it &lt;em&gt;may&lt;/em&gt; be worthwhile to play a sacrifice that offers you some positional advantages, even if it may have a hidden refutation. Whether you should do this or not depends on how well you generally convert such advantages into wins.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mikhail Tal was famous for his tendency to attempt sacrificial combinations that were too complex to calculate fully; he depended on his ability to improvise as the position evolved, and find new resources.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Karpov, on the other hand, while a very competent tactician, would never take such a risk. He would only play the combination if he could visualize the final position and determine that the opponent had no meaningful threats.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, it's a matter of style, to a large degree.  Build your tactical vision by playing through games, 4-5 moves per side at a time, without moving the pieces. Visualize the board, and try to predict the next move.  Then, bring the position on the board up to the current move, and check how well you visualized the position. Finally, see if you predicted the next move correctly.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you can't visualize the board reliably 90% of the time, reduce the number of moves and try again.  If you can, try stretching yourself to increase it.  If you can handle 6-7 moves per side, you're doing pretty well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11245" LastActivityDate="2016-09-24T23:34:16.527" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15490" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15491" CreationDate="2016-09-25T16:20:32.850" Score="6" ViewCount="355" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some gambits are playable whether the gambit is accepted or not, such as the Queen's Gambit, the King's Gambit, the Evans Gambit and the Budapest Gambit. Some are just dubious (the Elephant and a host of others). Some are playable if they're accepted, but the Declined forms are just worse for the gambiteer. Which gambits fall into this category?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11245" LastActivityDate="2016-09-25T21:53:40.307" Title="Which gambits get good results if they're accepted, but lead to poor results for the gambiteer if they're declined?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;gambits&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15491" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15490" CreationDate="2016-09-25T17:21:20.313" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;One example is the so-called &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bishop%27s_Opening&quot;&gt;Calabrian Countergambit&lt;/a&gt;: 1.e4 e5 2.Bc4 f5. After 3.exf5 Nf6, black seems to be fine. However, white should ignore the gambit and play a developing move: 3.d4 (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1650422&quot;&gt;Bologan-Bednarek&lt;/a&gt;), 3.d3, 3.Nf3 or 3.Nc3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;      [StartPly &quot;4&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;      [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;      1.e4 e5 2.Bc4 f5 3.exf5 (3.d4)(3.d3)(3.Nf3)(3.Nc3) Nf6&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another example is a line in the exchange variation of the Ruy Lopez: 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Bxc6 dxc6 5.0-0 Bg4 6.h3 h5. Accepting the sacrifice with 7.hxg4 is clearly too dangerous as it opens the h-file for the black rook. White is probably slightly better if he declines the sacrifice with 7.d3 (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1824854&quot;&gt;Naiditsch-Mons&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;      [StartPly &quot;12&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;      [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;      1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Bxc6 dxc6 5.O-O Bg4 6.h3 h5 7.hxg4 (7.d3) hxg4&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4588" LastActivityDate="2016-09-25T17:21:20.313" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15492" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8982" CreationDate="2016-09-25T17:40:43.077" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Edit: This doesn't work because I forgot about discovered checks.  However, I think this progress is notable, so I'll leave the answer here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Repetition is impossible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, there obviously cannot be any pawn moves, castling or captures.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Next, I claim that there cannot be any king moves.  To prove this, note that a king move can give check only if it is a discovered check.  So, in order for a king move to give check, the two kings must be in a line, whether vertical, horizontal, or diagonal.  Given the position of one of the kings, the set of squares the other king can be on so that it can give check is the set of squares in the same line with the king and not the same square as the king or the squares next to that square.  No two of these squares are adjacent, so the king cannot move from one such square to another in one move.  Note that squares A and B are in a line if and only if squares B and A are in a line, so once one of the kings moves, they are no longer in a line, so no further king moves can give check.  So, there is at most one king move in the cycle, but if it were a cycle the king would eventually have to move again, so there cannot be any king moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, there cannot be any knight checks, or else the king would have to move or the knight would have to be captured.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, all moves are moves by pieces, which means they must all block the previous checks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For any metric on the set of squares of the chessboard, suppose it is true that, for any set of positions for the kings K1 and K2 and any square A which is in some line (vertical, horizontal, or diagonal) with the king, any blocking square B cannot increase the sum of the distances from the square to each of the kings (that is, d(A,K1)+d(A,K2)&gt;=d(B,K1)+d(B,K2)).  Then the sum of the distances to each of the squares of the kings must remain constant throughout the cycle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is easy to check that the following metrics satisfy that property:&#xA;d(A, B)=|row(A)-row(B)|&#xA;d(A, B)=|column(A)-column(B)|&#xA;d(A, B)=|slope1diagonal(A)-slope1diagonal(B)| (By this I mean number the diagonals that are parallel to the A1H8 diagonal from 1-15)&#xA;d(A, B)=|slope-1diagonal(A)-slope-1diagonal(B)| (Same as the previous, but parallel to the other diagonal)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In fact, it is easy to see that, for any of the above metrics, if the blocking square is not within the two parallel lines of those metrics (e.g. for the first metric, within the rectangle with sides made by the rows of each of the kings, and columns the sides of the board), then the sum of the distances will decrease with the next blocking square.  Which would be a contradiction, so the blocking squares are restricted to be within each of the bounding parallel lines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the two kings are on the same row, column, or diagonal, using the argument from the paragraph above shows that all blocking squares must be in that row, column, or diagonal, clearly impossible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, if we view the king positions as two opposite vertices of a rectangle with sides parallel to the sides of the board, by using the first two metrics, all blocking squares must be in or on the bounding rectangle.  Using the other two metrics allows us to shrink this to a bounding parallelogram.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that the only possible blocking squares are those that are intersections of the rows, columns, and diagonals through each of the squares of the kings because they must give check to the other king and block a check.  It is easy to see that there are always 2 possible blocking squares in the bounding parallelogram: the other two vertices of the parallelogram.  But then, if we have one checking piece in each (which is necessary), then there are no squares from them to move to to give check, contradiction.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11326" LastEditorUserId="11326" LastEditDate="2016-09-25T17:58:50.413" LastActivityDate="2016-09-25T17:58:50.413" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15493" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15490" CreationDate="2016-09-25T21:53:40.307" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_Game,_Blackburne_Shilling_Gambit&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Blackburne Shilling Gambit&lt;/a&gt;  &lt;code&gt;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nd4&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  [StartPly &quot;6&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;  [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;  1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Nd4 4. Nxd4 (4. O-O) (4. Nxe5 Qg5!)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;black gambits the &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt;-pawn, but white gets an advantage if they simply decline the gambit with &lt;code&gt;4. Nxd4&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;4. 0-0&lt;/code&gt;. Black is behind in development.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If white accepts the sacrifice (&lt;code&gt;4. Nxe5&lt;/code&gt;), then black gets good play with &lt;code&gt;4... Qg5!&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1485" LastActivityDate="2016-09-25T21:53:40.307" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15494" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15496" CreationDate="2016-09-25T22:10:42.440" Score="4" ViewCount="1932" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm developing a small Engine in Java, before trying something more elaborate in C/C++. Right now I'm running some perft tests (the 'perf_talkchess' file), but as expected it has some bugs. Consider this position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;FEN r3k2r/1b4bq/8/8/8/8/7B/R3K2R w KQkq - 0 1&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;r3k2r/1b4bq/8/8/8/8/7B/R3K2R w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wrote the following perft method:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    public long perft(int depth){&#xA;&#xA;        List&amp;lt;Move&amp;gt; moves = board.getAllMoves(board.state.currentPlayer);&#xA;        int n_moves = moves.size();&#xA;        long totalNodes = 0L;&#xA;&#xA;        if (depth == 1){            &#xA;            return n_moves;&#xA;        }&#xA;&#xA;        for (Move mv : moves){                      &#xA;            board.makeMove(mv);&#xA;            totalNodes += perft(depth - 1);         &#xA;            board.undoMove(mv);&#xA;        }&#xA;        return totalNodes;&#xA;    }&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My perft (4) gives 1184480, it should be 1274206. In order to debug the position, I wrote this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;   public void divide(){&#xA;&#xA;        List&amp;lt;Move&amp;gt; moves = board.getAllMoves(board.state.currentPlayer);&#xA;&#xA;        for (Move m : moves){&#xA;            board.makeMove(m);&#xA;            //ignore the 0 arg&#xA;            Perft p = new Perft(board.toFEN(), depth, 0);&#xA;            p.run();&#xA;            board.undoMove(m);&#xA;            System.out.println(m + &quot;:&quot; + p.result);&#xA;            total += p.result;&#xA;        }&#xA;        System.out.println(&quot;Moves: &quot; + moves.size());&#xA;        System.out.println(&quot;Total: &quot; + total);&#xA;    }&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I run &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Divide d = new Divide(&quot;r3k2r/1b4bq/8/8/8/8/7B/R3K2R w KQkq - 0 1&quot;, 3);&#xA;d.divide();&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I got &lt;code&gt;Moves: 26&lt;/code&gt; &lt;code&gt;Total: 1276215&lt;/code&gt; and a very long output. I have 2 questions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a) How do I properly write/use a divide algorithm?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;b) How do I handle the castle state inside the make/unmake methods? What are the general traps to avoid regarding castle rights? I guess I'm screwing up the undo move code. What I do now is the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At makeMove I backup the current state before applying the move&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;makeMove(move)&#xA;  prevState.x = currentState.x&#xA;  prevState.y = currentState.y&#xA;  ...&#xA;  if (move.isFoo)&#xA;      change currentState accordingly&#xA;  ...&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At undoMove I just restore the currentState and undo the board:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;undoMove(move)&#xA;  currentState.x = prevState.x&#xA;  currentState.y = prevState.y&#xA;  ...&#xA;  if (move.isFoo)&#xA;      undo board state accordingly&#xA;  ...&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe there's some flaw with the reasoning above, I can post the code if necessary. Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11328" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-09-25T00:22:40.473" LastActivityDate="2019-09-25T00:22:40.473" Title="Validate Engine moves using Perft and divide" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;computer-chess&gt;&lt;performance&gt;&lt;perft&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15495" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="548" CreationDate="2016-09-26T01:42:30.547" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;No game was ever won by resigning.&quot; -Tartakover&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If playing on the team of opponents in a timed simultaneous exhibit,&#xA;resigning makes it easier on the exhibitor and thus harder on your teammates.&#xA;Thus one is often advised to &lt;em&gt;never&lt;/em&gt; resign in this setting: even if your position&#xA;is hopeless, you may still help your teammates by forcing the exhibitor to actually win it.  Then again, some may regard this advice as unsportsmanlike.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8860" LastActivityDate="2016-09-26T01:42:30.547" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15496" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15494" CreationDate="2016-09-26T01:56:54.703" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Q1&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wouldn't code up a new divide function because if you have a bug in your code, your new function will also be buggy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why don't you use Stockfish? Do you know you can run perft on Stockfish?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Stockfish, run the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;position fen r3k2r/1b4bq/8/8/8/8/7B/R3K2R w KQkq - 0 1&#xA;d&#xA;perft 3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should get the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Position: 1/1&#xA;h2g1: 1160&#xA;h2g3: 1320&#xA;h2f4: 1444&#xA;....&#xA;&#xA;===========================&#xA;Total time (ms) : 2&#xA;Nodes searched  : 27826&#xA;Nodes/second    : 13913000&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now you just need to add a std::cout to the perft function in &lt;code&gt;search.cpp&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Find the function &lt;code&gt;uint64_t Search::perft(Position&amp;amp; pos, Depth depth) {&lt;/code&gt; in &lt;code&gt;search.cpp&lt;/code&gt;, then use it to print out all the positions in your perft search.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can then compare your perft moves with Stockfish with the following Unix commands:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;sort MyPerftMoves &amp;gt; MySortedPerftMoves&#xA;sort SFPerftMoves &amp;gt; SFSortedPerftMoves&#xA;diff MySortedPerftMoves SFSortedPerftMoves&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Q2&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should use Zobrist hashing if you haven't. This is the standard technique for board representation in chess. In Stockfish, the code below does the trick for castling:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;// Update castling rights if needed&#xA;if (st-&amp;gt;castlingRights &amp;amp;&amp;amp; (castlingRightsMask[from] | castlingRightsMask[to]))&#xA;{&#xA;    int cr = castlingRightsMask[from] | castlingRightsMask[to];&#xA;    k ^= Zobrist::castling[st-&amp;gt;castlingRights &amp;amp; cr];&#xA;    st-&amp;gt;castlingRights &amp;amp;= ~cr;&#xA;}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your move representation should be able to tell you what castling move it is, and what castling rights (queen side? king side?) it has. This is implemented in Stockfish as &lt;code&gt;castlingRightsMask[from] | castlingRightsMask[to]&lt;/code&gt;. Once you know your rights, you can just add it to your Zobrist key.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2016-09-26T04:26:53.343" LastActivityDate="2016-09-26T04:26:53.343" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15497" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8982" CreationDate="2016-09-26T10:29:39.653" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;With Nightriders (NN) (a classical fairy piece) and Rooks, there are positions with mutual perpetual check. A position was given by &lt;a href=&quot;https://pdb.dieschwalbe.de/search.jsp?expression=STIP%3D%27perpetual%27%0D%0A&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Arthur J. Roycroft&lt;/a&gt; in 1976.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Formerly, I attributed it to &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessvariants.com/index/listcomments.php?id=29540&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this comment on chessvariants.org&lt;/a&gt; by H. G. Muller in 2012. The position is Black: Rb1, Rc1, Kb2; White NNa6, NNd6, Kb4; Black to move. Thanks to @RosieF for finding the reference to Roycroft, it was very recently added to the Schwalbe Problem Database.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is also possible to construct a &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessvariants.com/index/listcomments.php?id=29563&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;mutual perpetual check with Nightriders and Bishops&lt;/a&gt;: Black: Ba2 Bb1 Kb3 (two Bishops of the same colour); White NNf8, NNh6, Ke6; Black to move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3819" LastEditorUserId="3819" LastEditDate="2021-02-14T01:25:40.320" LastActivityDate="2021-02-14T01:25:40.320" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="15498" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15510" CreationDate="2016-09-26T16:47:25.203" Score="1" ViewCount="177" Body="&lt;p&gt;For instance, &quot;pawn odds&quot; is really &quot;pawn &lt;em&gt;and move&lt;/em&gt;&quot; odds. That is, the odds giver plays Black and removes his KBP.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why not allow an &quot;intermediate&quot; odds where the odds giver plays white? And why not allow the odds give to choose which pawn to remove?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the case of knight and rook odds, it is the queen knight or rook that's removed, but why not allow the odds giver to substitute the king's pieces instead?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2016-09-28T18:54:19.090" Title="How and why were the chess pieces given as &quot;odds&quot; predetermined?" Tags="&lt;handicapping&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15499" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15498" CreationDate="2016-09-26T20:36:26.650" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would like to challenge the premises in the question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Why not allow an &quot;intermediate&quot; odds where the odds giver plays white? ...In the case of knight and rook odds, it is the queen knight or rook that's removed...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Emmanuel Neiman cites the following example in &lt;em&gt;Tune Your Chess Tactics Antenna&lt;/em&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKB1R w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Kennedy&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;NN&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;  1. e4             e5            &#xA;  2. Bc4            Nf6           &#xA;  3. d4             Nxe4          &#xA;  4. dxe5           Nxf2          &#xA;  5. O-O            Nxd1          &#xA;  6. Bxf7+          Ke7           &#xA;  7. Bg5#            1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Admittedly this game is played in the nineteenth century, but it is a counterexample to the premises in the question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Seeing as handicaps are not in the FIDE rules, then it is for the players to agree as they see fit, and in this example the players agreed that white would be without his kingside knight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2016-09-26T20:36:26.650" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15500" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6385" CreationDate="2016-09-26T22:24:11.473" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been playing the Alekhine for a while now, and unless white plays it safe, you can get a very agressive game. The idea is for you to develop your pieces quickly while white wastes its time sending pawns up front. I personally enjoy playing lines with my light squares bishop on f5. Then (especially in fast paced games) you can often get a nice fork with your knight on c2. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for the scandinavian, I believe it's quite bad if you want to get active pieces (which is usually necessary for agressive play). The only way you'll get a sharp game out of this opening is if you manage to play a gambit (icelandic or scandinavian). But you'll rarely get a chance to actually play that. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the end, I believe that you can turn any opening into an agressive opening. You just have to play agressively. The question then turns into: How do I play agressively? Here are some ways of doing that: try to open lanes for your rooks (sometimes at the cost of a pawn. Keep your pieces active. Try to set up outposts for your knights. Keep your bishops on open diagonals. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lastly, if you want to make sure you get a very sharp game with agressions from both sides. Just castle on the opposite side! No matter what opening you choose.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9255" LastActivityDate="2016-09-26T22:24:11.473" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15501" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15494" CreationDate="2016-09-27T00:53:34.480" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just to answer my own question, the bug I had is better explained here:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.talkchess.com/forum/viewtopic.php?topic_view=threads&amp;amp;p=234034&amp;amp;t=25096&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.talkchess.com/forum/viewtopic.php?topic_view=threads&amp;amp;p=234034&amp;amp;t=25096&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My make/undo/perft code are correct, the problem was that the board state (castle rights and ep square) were being destroyed in the recursion. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1  e2-e4 a7-a6 &#xA;2  e4-e5 d7-d5 // ep square created at d6 &#xA;3  c2-c3 // ep square destroyed        &#xA;4 ..c7-c6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now when you undo the move c2-c3 the ep square at d6 is gone. The same happens for castle states. Some solutions are given in the link, I did the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;BoardState makeMove(move)&#xA;&#xA;    //currentState is a ivar&#xA;    freezeState = currentState.clone&#xA;&#xA;    //update currentState, board, ep square and castle rights&#xA;    if (move.castle_ks &amp;amp;&amp;amp; currentState.player == WHITE)&#xA;        currentState.white_castle_ks = false&#xA;        currentState.white_castle_qs = false&#xA;    else if (mv.pawnJump)&#xA;       currentState.epSquare = ...&#xA;    ...&#xA;&#xA;    return freezeState&#xA;&#xA;void undoMove(move, prevState)&#xA;    // undo state&#xA;    currentState.white_castle_ks = prevState.white_castle_ks&#xA;    currentState.white_castle_qs = prevState.white_castle_qs&#xA;    ...&#xA;&#xA;   //undo board&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now it works&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;public long perft(int depth){&#xA;&#xA;        List&amp;lt;Move&amp;gt; moves = board.getAllMoves(board.state.currentPlayer);&#xA;        int n_moves = moves.size();&#xA;        long totalNodes = 0L;&#xA;&#xA;        if (depth == 1)                 &#xA;            return n_moves;     &#xA;&#xA;        for (Move mv : moves){                  &#xA;            BoardState undo = board.makeMove(mv);               &#xA;            totalNodes += perft(depth - 1);         &#xA;            board.undoMove(mv, undo);&#xA;        }&#xA;        return totalNodes;&#xA;}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11328" LastActivityDate="2016-09-27T00:53:34.480" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15502" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1263" CreationDate="2016-09-27T05:16:49.437" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you want to become something related to study, study and play at a ratio of 4:1. Study whole day and play for sometime to refresh your mood. If you want to become something like cricketer, footballer or anything related to play, study and play at a ratio of 0:4. Play every time to achieve your goal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11333" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-09-27T05:36:03.927" LastActivityDate="2016-09-27T05:36:03.927" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15503" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8982" CreationDate="2016-09-27T07:55:28.097" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;Another way to get an infinite series of checks is by using a fairy piece. Consider this position, except that the black piece on e5 is not a knight but a camel (a (3,1)-leaper). Then the given sequence of four crosschecks restores the diagram position with White to move. (Unfortunately the PGN-viewer can't display it because of the fairy piece.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Infinite series of checks&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;1k1b4/8/8/KN2n1r1/8/6B1/8/1R6 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Nc7+ Cb6+ 2. Nb5+ Ce5+&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10380" LastActivityDate="2016-09-27T07:55:28.097" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15504" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-09-27T07:59:21.003" Score="9" ViewCount="1285" Body="&lt;p&gt;So this is a bit of outlier question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am writing a chess library, essentially from scratch. &lt;a href=&quot;https://codereview.stackexchange.com/questions/141425/grand-chess-domain-model-and-helper-functions&quot;&gt;You can find much of the code here&lt;/a&gt;, with the intention of using it for a GUI and/or an engine. (The game is Grand Chess but for the purposes of this question it doesn't really matter.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am currently writing unit tests to verify that my functions work as expected. And I was wondering if there was some sort of library or database of suggested positions to test I can use and work from, categorized by whether they're Checkmate, Stalemate, Check, Legal, Illegal, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;tl;dr I am looking for a list of positions to unit test my code against.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/asibahi/Stamma/blob/master/StammaTests/PositionTests.fs&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;You can find my current tests here, I add to them every few days.&lt;/a&gt; However, I want to make sure the tests are exhaustive before I go debugging the code. (Half of them fail currently).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit : to clarify : I am not looking for &lt;em&gt;engine&lt;/em&gt; (&quot;best move&quot;) tests. I am looking for &lt;em&gt;board representation&lt;/em&gt; (&quot;is this position checkmate&quot;) tests. I already have a few puzzles lined up for engine testing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11335" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:41:09.840" LastActivityDate="2018-02-19T14:55:47.327" Title="Unit Testing a chess board representation" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;database&gt;&lt;programming&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15506" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4830" CreationDate="2016-09-27T17:14:23.060" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;As others have said, the number of those unreachable positions is rather small. There are other important things to consider, though: it seems rather difficult to determine which positions are unreachable and which are not for all but the trivial cases. And then, even if you know which positions are unreachable, that information can hardly be used to minimise the database size, as you cannot just remove some &quot;random&quot; positions. The positions are not stored as such, but just the values. Hence, you would need to construct an indexing function that skips just those positions, which seems impossible. (If not removed, it might bring tiny tiny gains during compression if you treat those positions as &quot;don't cares&quot;, but this is probably negligible, and dangerous when looking at the position and not knowing it's unreachable).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a side note, the Nalimov databases don't include illegal positions with unblockable checks, i.e. wKe1 bQe2 BTM, but they do include illegal positions with the slider away more than one square. These positions take up a significant part of the database, but it's rather difficult to exclude them in the indexing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as &quot;legal but unreachable&quot; goes, keep in mind that even if unreachable, the position might become legal in a real game (after a non-disputed illegal move).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10708" LastActivityDate="2016-09-27T17:14:23.060" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15507" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2823" CreationDate="2016-09-28T00:56:31.603" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &quot;log unit&quot; term refers to a unit increment change in that variable, converted into the logarithmic equivalent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Table 3 on p. 158 shows how the variables that the researchers investigated are &lt;em&gt;related&lt;/em&gt; to the output variable, which is ELO rating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The variables included: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;v1: Hours of serious study&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;v2: Hours of tournament play&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;v3: Years of private instruction&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;v4: Years of group instruction&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;v5: Current hours/week serious study&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;v6: Current hours/week tournament play&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Each of these is converted into a logarithm &lt;em&gt;before&lt;/em&gt; the equation's factors are calculated. (The &lt;em&gt;factor&lt;/em&gt; of a variable is the multiplier of that variable that produces the closest prediction to actual results, when all factors and variables are included.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Their regression model shows that (if you use only these variables and the logarithmic approach) the peak ELO of a player will be best predicted by the equation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PeakELO = 1145 +&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;195 x log(v1) + 32.7 x log(v2) +&#xA;9.4 x log(v3) +  4.3 x log(v4) +&#xA;6.3 x log(v5) + 20.3 x log(v6)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;where 1145 is just a constant that helps improve the prediction.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They point out that the variables with the &lt;em&gt;strongest effect&lt;/em&gt; on the prediction were those with the highest factors; v1 (total hours of serious study), and v2 (total hours of tournament play), but the first was much stronger than the second (195 vs 32.7, which is nearly 6 times as strong a factor), and dominated the other factors in their effect on the prediction.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The short answer to your question is that a log unit &lt;em&gt;for the variable of total hours of serious study&lt;/em&gt; is an increment of 1, which transforms into different numbers of &lt;em&gt;actual hours&lt;/em&gt;, depending on what the increment is being added to.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To illustrate what this means, if I've studied 1,000 total hours, then the log of 1000 = 3. My predicted PeakELO (for that variable alone) becomes&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PeakELO = 1145 + 195 x log(1000) = 1145 + 195 x 3 = 1145 + 585 = 1730 ELO&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(I'm ignoring the other variables for simplicity, but the results show that they're not substantial anyway.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I work 1 more hour, then &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PeakELO = 1145 + 195 x log(1001) = 1145 + 195 x 3.0004 = 1145 + 585.086&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which is an indistinguishably small change.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I work &lt;em&gt;100&lt;/em&gt; more hours, though:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PeakELO = 1145 + 195 x log(1100) = 1145 + 195 x 3.041 = 1145 + 593 = 1738 ELO&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, while I'm at 1730, 100 hrs more of study will boost my ELO by 8 points.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But look at what happens if I've only studied 500 hours in total so far:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PeakELO = 1145 + 195 x log(500) = 1145 + 195 x 2.70 = 1145 + 526 = 1671.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, if I study an additional 100 hrs, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PeakELO = 1145 + 195 x log(600) = 1145 + 195 x 2.78 = 1145 + 542 = 1687.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The same 100 hours boosts my ELO by 16 points.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What the formula is clearly doing is reflecting the &lt;em&gt;diminishing returns&lt;/em&gt; of the same number of hours of study time as your ELO increases.  It accomplishes this accurate depiction of what actually happens by &lt;em&gt;using the logarithm of the underlying data&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I would question the simple interpretation that the investigators offer, which is that a log unit increment of 1 results in 200 ELO increase.  Well, log of 1,000 is 3. Log of 10,000 hrs is 4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, they claim that I would get 200 ELO improvement if I had already studied 1,000 hours, and now committed to studying another 9,000 hours (yes, that's about 4.5 years of full-time study).  In their model, I would advance from 1730 ELO to 1930 ELO in no less than that time. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Clearly, this cannot be true for every player.  I would suspect the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a) some confounding variables are having an effect, such as &lt;em&gt;effectiveness of study&lt;/em&gt; (as determined by periodic assessment), &lt;em&gt;ability to implement knowledge in tournament games&lt;/em&gt; (as determined by post-game analysis vs established knowledge base), &lt;em&gt;age of player&lt;/em&gt; which the investigators acknowledge the model does not take into account, and so on...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;b) the model's coefficient of correlation estimate (R^2) is only 0.34. Perfect correlation has 1.0; chaos (no correlation) is 0. So, 0.34 is promising, but not wholly effective by a long shot.  Also, the Standard Estimate of the Error is 222, meaning the predicted ELO could be off by over 200 ELO for a particular player, and it wouldn't be remarkable. That's a pretty wide margin.  So, in short, the model needs &lt;em&gt;substantial improvement&lt;/em&gt; to be useful as a predictor of ELO.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What the model does accomplish at the moment is to suggest that &lt;strong&gt;study is 6 times more effective than tournament play, which is in turn more effective than any other training method, &lt;em&gt;including coaching&lt;/em&gt;, for the average player&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11245" LastActivityDate="2016-09-28T00:56:31.603" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15508" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14069" CreationDate="2016-09-28T03:55:32.690" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I support Tony Ennis' answer - you want the clock as your ally, not your enemy. That means you want to get your opponent out of book before he does it to you, so he burns more time on the clock. If you can play an opening he's not likely to be familiar with, but which is still playable, you're going to gain lots of time on the clock if he tries to play well. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once he eventually decides that he doesn't have time for long thinks and just starts to improvise, you may be able to lure him into a trap or two.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then, once you have an advantage, back off on the tactics and just grind out the win by picking up extra material or squeezing him positionally.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Expect a sacrifice/breakout if he's got a positional disadvantage, try to figure out where it's likely to happen, and have an equal or stronger threat ready, if not a refutation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, since it's a Swiss and not a Round-Robin, you will play the strongest players if you win every game. The overall winner in your section (if winning is your goal) may not need to have a perfect score at the end, so if you have a game that looks drawish, don't be afraid to offer a draw, instead of risking trying to win a drawn game. It'll probably improve your winning chances in the next few games due to the pairing rules anyway.  However, you should know that if you end up on this track and at the end of the tournament, you tie on game points with another player, it's likely (if there isn't a playoff) that the tiebreak will be based on the scores of your opposition. So, if you played weaker opponents than he did, it's likely his tiebreak score will be higher due to his opponents' having fewer losses and draws than yours.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't go to win the section so much as to play, so for me that's not a concern.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for openings, you might consider:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;For Black&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Budapest Gambit&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Colorado Gambit&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Icelandic Gambit&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Schliemann Defense (to the Ruy Lopez)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Bird's Defence (to the Ruy Lopez)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;3...a6!? (to the Italian Game/Giuoco Piano)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Pick a line you're comfortable with against the English (1...a6 and 2...b5 has been tried), and&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Pick a line you're comfortable with against the Reti (1.Nf3)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Expect a few London/Colle/Zukertorts, which attempt to avoid an early confrontation, so have a one-size fits all system for them&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;10&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Have a line against the King's Indian Attack (1.e4, 2.d3) that you like, if you don't play 1...e5.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, have at least one line prepared for the Grob Attack and for the Sokolsky Opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;For White&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Vienna Gambit vs. 1...e5, or Göring Gambit vs 1...e5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;King's Indian Attack (KIA) vs French (1. e4 e6 2.d3 d5 3.Qe2!?)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;KIA vs Sicilian:    &#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;e4 c5 2. Nf3 e6 3. d3 Nc6 4. g3 g6 5. Bg2 Bg7 6. O-O Nge7 7. c3 O-O 8. d4 cxd4 9. cxd4 d5 10. e5 Nf5 11. Nc3 f6 12. Re1 Kh8 13. g4 Nh4 14. Nxh4 fxe5 15. Nxg6+ hxg6 16. dxe5 Nxe5 *&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Alekhine's Defense line (I recommend 1. e4 Nf6 2. e5 Nd5 3. d4 d6 4. Nf3 Bg4 5. Be2 e6 6. O-O Be7 7. c4 Nb6 8. Nc3 O-O 9. Be3 d5 10. c5 )&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Scandinavian Defense line (take your pick)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11245" LastEditorUserId="11245" LastEditDate="2016-09-29T02:15:55.530" LastActivityDate="2016-09-29T02:15:55.530" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15509" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14686" CreationDate="2016-09-28T09:47:20.457" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;As thb pointed out, you need vectors. I suggest you use a python-chess to generate SVG vector images.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Prerequisites:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.python.org&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Python&lt;/a&gt; 2.6+ or 3.3+&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://pypi.python.org/pypi/python-chess#installing&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Python-chess&lt;/a&gt;:&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Install form &lt;a href=&quot;https://pypi.python.org/pypi/python-chess#installing&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;pypi&lt;/a&gt; using pip: &lt;code&gt;pip install python-chess[uci,gaviota]&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Creating a script&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since you might need to generate multiple SVGs, let's create a script.  So, you can use the script to generate multiple chess boards easily. The following is written in Python 3.x. Create a Python script, FENtoSVG.py for example. Insert the following code:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;import chess, sys&#xA;from chess import svg&#xA;'''&#xA;This imports python-chess module and sys module. &#xA;Python-chess will generate the boards while sys.argv will take &#xA;arguments for your script.&#xA;'''&#xA;svgstomake = (list(sys.argv))[1:]&#xA;for svgs in svgstomake:&#xA;    board = chess.Board(svgs)&#xA;    nameoffile = svgs.replace(&quot;/&quot;, &quot;&quot;)+&quot;.SVG&quot;&#xA;    boardsvg = chess.svg.board(board = board)&#xA;    filetowriteto = open(nameoffile, &quot;w&quot;)&#xA;    filetowriteto.write(boardsvg)&#xA;    filetowriteto.close()&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are on linux, start script with &lt;code&gt;#!/usr/bin/env python3&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Usage&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, this is a very simple script if you know python but I want to keep it simple for those who don't code. To use the script, open CMD/Terminal where you saved the script. Then, use as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;./FENtoSVG.py &quot;examplefen&quot; &quot;morefen&quot;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Say I want two SVGs for the FEN &lt;code&gt;&quot;8/8/8/8/4N3/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;&quot;8/8/8/8/4Q3/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;, I would enter:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;./FENtoSVG.py &quot;8/8/8/8/4N3/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot; &quot;8/8/8/8/4Q3/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This would create two files: &lt;code&gt;88884N3888 w - - 0 1.SVG&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;88884Q3888 w - - 0 1.SVG&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I suggest python-chess because of the customizations that can be easily made to the diagram using built-in functions. It is also well documented.     &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11345" LastEditorUserId="11345" LastEditDate="2017-01-07T17:12:14.810" LastActivityDate="2017-01-07T17:12:14.810" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15510" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15498" CreationDate="2016-09-28T18:54:19.090" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The queenside pieces are less missed than their kingside equivalents, not only in defense but also in attack.  Giving the kingside piece amounts to increasing the handicap.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This would be most pronounced if the bishop's pawns were involved, because the square on which they originally stand is the weakest point in the uncastled position, and vacating it offers open lines for an attacker to check the king both &lt;em&gt;before&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;after&lt;/em&gt; castling, and may result in being unable to castle at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, while it was done to give the kingside piece, the queenside piece was considered fair odds.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11245" LastActivityDate="2016-09-28T18:54:19.090" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15511" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14069" CreationDate="2016-09-28T21:39:26.807" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I find dfan's answer the best posted, but I want to add a few things that I think should be considered:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Against players signifigantly weaker than you - PLAY SOLID CHESS! These players will unwittingly outplay themselves if you let them. You have to be patient, and not give them any chances to actually get anything sharp going. Just hoist them up gently after they've tied the noose around their neck.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Against players roughly at the same level as you (1600-1700), offbeat openings may actually give you an edge, if you're familiar with them. But don't try to play something unsound just to confuse your opponent. Remember that you cannot expect the game to be over just because you got out of the opening with an advantage. And focus on playing well - the game will most likely be decided by who was more tactically alert.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Against strong players, you should only be happy after you've won the game, and not because you won a pawn/piece in the opening. These players are greedy (and strong) enough to rip off your arm if you lend them a finger, so do not relax, even if you have a great position. Also, try to decide the game before the endgame if possible. A CM will most likely outplay you in an equal endgame, so go for &quot;high-risk-high-reward&quot; openings, since anybody can make fatal mistakes in sharp positions. Avoid slow, positional setups. Be prepared that these players will do to you what you should do against the weaker players. They will not be as easy to fool with uncommon setups as the others, and even if they are fooled, it may not be enough.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8300" LastActivityDate="2016-09-28T21:39:26.807" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15512" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7838" CreationDate="2016-09-29T01:31:43.707" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This question raises a couple of topics:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;What is the minimum amount of time per move a player needs in order to avoid blunders, displacing the pieces, fingerfehlers, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;When the time handicap is considerable, how do you prevent the stronger player from profiting from the weaker player's time?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Is there a rating (or rating gap) beyond which additional time (or a larger handicap) makes no appreciable difference to the outcome?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Q1. Analyzing the blitz games of GM's, I've found (unsurprisingly) that they're significantly more vulnerable to blundering at 3 minutes a game.  This is true for both the eventual winner and the loser, suggesting that neither morale nor satisfaction with one's position is solely responsible for this tendency.  It also occurs (typically) multiple times per game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have a collection of games played on ICC at different time controls, and I noticed that the same players use both sets of time controls. This might be a valuable testing ground for the effect of time controls on game performance (at least, as reduced to blunder occurrence rates). But, no conclusions yet. I would expect to find the same is true; although it likely varies by player, there is probably some minimum time control at which blunders begin to appear with frequency and/or magnitude that dominate the play of the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Q2. I might suggest that the stronger player be distracted. On ICC, on Wednesdays (currently), an International Master with the handle Voja plays a simultaneous display against his opponents. Nominally, their time control is 3 minutes + 3 seconds delay, while his is 1 minute plus 1 minute delay. As in most simuls, he makes a move and goes on the next board/game. So, he is not able to think about Game 20 while selecting moves for Games 21-30 and then Games 1-19. He only gets to think once he returns, and that's when his clock starts again.  His opponents, however, have the clock time to make their move, but then they get to try to anticipate his move and think ahead until he returns to the board.  Lower rated players (1700 ELO and up) are often able to beat him with this kind of time handicap.  (Of course, once the number of opponents has been whittled down to a few and he's returning more quickly to each board, the 3/3 control begins to take hold, and there's no borrowed time anymore).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Q3. I would suspect that below a certain rating, say 1500 ELO or so, certain critical aspects that may develop in a position are not visible to the player. So, no amount of additional time will help them find the right move.  Potential discovered attack, decoy, and trapped piece tactics that are one or two moves away seem to fall into this category, in my experience, but that's subjective (so far).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think the evidence that some 1700 players can beat an IM at blitz on ICC when the time controls are substantially weighted in their favor answers the question about gap; below 1700, they don't seem to be able to do this.  (The ELO gap involved is around 600 ELO.) In that situation, it may not make a difference for them to have more time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11245" LastActivityDate="2016-09-29T01:31:43.707" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15515" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6171" CreationDate="2016-09-29T17:24:38.967" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Although you asked about players such as Nakamura, you might want to consider how correspondence chess players use computers.  They play the most &quot;perfect&quot; games, in terms of reliably picking the best move in each position, and they do it with the assistance of computers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For an interview with the most recent CC World Champion in which he talks about his approach to using a computer, including databases and engines, see &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.chessbase.com/post/better-than-an-engine-leonardo-ljubicic-1-2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Better Than an Engine: Leonardo Ljubicic, ChessBase.com, 2016.02.21&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11245" LastActivityDate="2016-09-29T17:24:38.967" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15516" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-09-29T19:39:16.027" Score="3" ViewCount="417" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm looking for information about the unusual Caro-Kann variation that appears to be a sort of Pirc. I recently ran across this line and I'm struggling to understand why you would deviate from 2... d5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c6&#xA;2. d4 d6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can't seem to locate any information on this unusual line. Book suggestions would be helpful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11358" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-09-29T20:27:32.557" LastActivityDate="2019-12-10T19:56:18.390" Title="Unusual Caro-Kann Variation" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;caro-kann&gt;&lt;1.e4&gt;&lt;pirc-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15518" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15516" CreationDate="2016-09-29T22:30:14.520" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Its likely a transposition to the Pribyl defense.  1. e4 d6 2. d4 nf6 3. nc3 c6 where black plays e5 at some point.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Its covered in a few books about 1 .. d6 lines where black does not play g6. Also it can transpose to the Old-Indian defense when white plays c4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9321" LastActivityDate="2016-09-29T22:30:14.520" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15520" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1263" CreationDate="2016-09-30T02:31:18.720" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Okay,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I feel like there have already been many good responses regarding the study:play ratio. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's no correct answer - as a beginner you can't really 'study chess' because you don't know exactly what to study, how to study and you don't have the foundation yet to make certain judgements about why a certain move is right or wrong. Sometimes a move can be so deep that even grandmasters have to think for a few minutes before finding the correct reason why something is played.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One thing is for sure, you must play and you must study. The play:study ratio should decrease you become stronger at chess. So as a beginner, you should spend 90% of your time playing and 10% of your time studying. Playing will give you the best lessons because you will lose and learn a lesson and then you will never lose the same way again. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once you're about 1300-1400 the ratio drops to 80:20 play:study and when you're about 2100-2200 it should be about 40:60, because there will be a lot more material you need to cover to increase your strength comparatively to when you were 1300. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, there's one important thing you should note and that is &lt;strong&gt;analysing your own games is NOT considered study&lt;/strong&gt; and the reason is because it's imperative that you find out what you did wrong each game and try to avoid it the second time. Studying is like doing tactics, studying openings, analysing middlegames and grinding out endgames etc. etc. analysing your own games doesn't count. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many strong chess players have advocated analysing your own games (without an engine preferably, until you're around 1800 elo). If you need an beginner's guide you can check out this &lt;a href=&quot;http://chessncognac.com/studying-your-own-games-how-and-why-you-should/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;article&lt;/a&gt;. The author talks about the fatal reason why weaker players don't become stronger and at the same time gives some instructive advice about annotating your own games (+ freebies :D)! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Keep us updated about your chess study!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11352" LastActivityDate="2016-09-30T02:31:18.720" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15521" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15516" CreationDate="2016-09-30T03:48:05.957" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a line of the Pirc, the Ufimtsev-Pytel Variation, that includes these moves after 1.e4 and 2.d4:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Pirc Defense&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Ufimtsev-Pytel Variation&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 d6 2. d4 Nf6 (2... c6 3.Nc3 (3.c4! {taking advantage of Black's move order to install another center pawn} Nf6 4.Nc3 {may transpose to a Classical KID after ...g6 and ...Bg7, with or without the Kazakh move ...Na6 thrown in}) Nf6 {transposes}) 3.Nc3 c6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But if Black omits 2... Nf6, then there's no pressure for White to play 3.Nc3.  In fact, 3.c4 seems best, taking advantage of Black's omission, and only playing Nc3 in reply to ... Nf6, after that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11245" LastActivityDate="2016-09-30T03:48:05.957" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15522" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15447" CreationDate="2016-09-30T04:32:09.460" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The moves Bg5 and Bb5 usually have one the following six purposes:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;To pin a knight on f6/c6&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;To &lt;em&gt;provoke&lt;/em&gt; ...h6 or ...a6, weakening the pawns&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;To trade White's bishop for its counterpart (usually because the position later will make Black's bishop a better piece than White's)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;To take the knight in order to break up the pawns behind it&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;To take the knight because it defends a central square White wants to occupy with a piece, usually his own knight&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;To set up the removal of the knight and prepare a mate at h7 once the knight defender is eliminated&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If Black responds with ...h6 (say), White can maintain the pin with Bh4.  On the kingside, Black is left with a difficult choice: kick the bishop away with ...g5, weakening the kingside, or leave it there as a loose piece.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White often intends to transfer the bishop to the diagonal h2-b8 anyway, when Black's punting the bishop only wastes a tempo and weakens his kingside.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The same is true about the possible destinations of the bishop on the queenside. On the a2-g8 diagonal, it hits the f7 square, which is usually uncomfortable for Black in the KP openings (and obviously good for White).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In some openings, White wants to exchange the bishop, with or without the knight already on f6/c6. In the Sicilian Defense, Rossolimo Attack, White plays 3.Bg5 in reply to 2...Nc6, but Black hasn't moved the d-pawn, so there's no pin. Black doesn't normally play ...a6, because he's not feeling any pain from the Bishop (yet).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the Canal-Sokolsky Nimzovitch Variation of the Sicilian (also known as the Moscow, although there is a completely different &lt;em&gt;Prins Moscow&lt;/em&gt; Variation), the line runs like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;B51&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Sicilian Defence&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Canal-Sokolsky Nimzovich&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;*&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;B51&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. Bb5+ {What?? No knight to pin?} Bd7 4. Bxd7+ Qxd7 5. O-O (5. c4) *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;...there's no knight there; White just wants to get rid of Black's good bishop, and saddle Black with a bad one unless he either fianchettoes it on the kingside, or moves all of those pawns (ain't gonna happen). So he invites it to interpose, and trades it off. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the French Defense, the Alekhine-Chatard attack (strictly speaking, the &lt;em&gt;Albin&lt;/em&gt;-Alekhine-Chatard), White leaves the bishop on g5 and props it up with his own h-pawn, daring Black to take it. If Black does, he ends up staring down the barrel of White's king's rook on an open file:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;C13&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;French Defence&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Albin-Alekhine-Chatard Attack&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;C13&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. Bg5 Be7 5. e5 Nfd7 6. h4 *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black doesn't play ...h6 here, since there's no point; White will just take on the bishop e7.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the Ruy Lopez, in 75% of games Black plays 3...a6 immediately. He has no concerns about weakening his queenside; in fact, the pawn storm it initiates often constitutes his main counterplay.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, these are some illustrations of what the bishop is doing there, and when it may not make sense to chase it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Note: Many of these ideas are also present in variations with colors reversed, i.e. ...Bg4 and ...Bb4. The latter is the primary theme of the Nimzo-Indian and Bogo-Indian Defenses.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11245" LastActivityDate="2016-09-30T04:32:09.460" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15523" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1498" CreationDate="2016-09-30T05:10:22.147" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Black played the Scandinavian Defense, with a stab at the Icelandic Gambit.  Normally, before he plays ...e6 in that gambit, he plays ...Nf6, i.e. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Scandinavian Defence&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Icelandic Gambit&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 d5 2. exd5 Nf6 3. c4 e6 4. dxe6 Bxe6 *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black plays ...Nf6 first, to provoke 3.c4. That way, there's a target on c4 he's hitting with the bishop, and he prevents White from meeting ...Bb4 with c3 (which he failed to do in this &lt;em&gt;novelty/blunder&lt;/em&gt;).  The goal (as with most gambits) is to accelerate his development.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, I'd say Black misplayed his opening choice (badly).  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Otherwise, other than slight missteps, I'd say the only other poor move by Black was missing ...Bxh2 on his 16th move (he found it later). He could have equalized with that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Fixed Point&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Some Dude&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 d5 2. exd5 e6 3. dxe6 Bxe6 4. d4 Bb4+ 5. c3 Bd6 6. d5 Bf5 7. Bd3 Qe7+ 8. Be3 Bg6 9. Nf3 Nf6 10. O-O Nbd7 11. Bxg6 hxg6 12. Re1 O-O-O 13. Bxa7 Ne4 14. Nbd2 f5 15. Nxe4 fxe4 16. Qa4 Nf6 (16... Bxh2+ 17. Nxh2 Qh4 18. Kf1 Qxh2 19. Be3 Qh1+ 20. Ke2 Qh5+ 21. Kd2 Qxd5+ 22. Kc2 Qd3+ 23. Kb3 Qd5+ 24. Qc4 Qxc4+ 25. Kxc4 Ne5+ 26. Kb3 Nd3 27. Rh1 Rhf8=) 17. Bd4 Qf7 18. Bxf6 gxf6 19. Qxe4 Rh5 20. Qe6+ Rd7 21. c4 Qxe6 22. Rxe6 Rf7 23. Rae1 Bxh2+ 24. Nxh2 Rfh7 25. Rxf6 Rxh2 26. f4 Rh1+ 27. Kf2 Rxe1 28. Kxe1 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, no, I don't think he threw this game at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want an example of an &lt;em&gt;allegedly&lt;/em&gt; thrown game, try this on for size:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;8th ch-Euro&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Dresden GER&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2007.04.05&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;3&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Khairullin, I.&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Kalvaitis, S.&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1/2-1/2&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;B07&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;2586&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;2216&quot;]&#xA;[Annotator &quot;Mutual Blunders, Thrown Game?&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 Nf6 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 Nxe4 4. Bd3 Nc6?? {This just drops a piece.} &#xA;(4... Nf6 {is correct.}) 5. O-O?? {And this just gives it back. Amazing - White's a GM!} Nb4?? (5... Nf6!) 6. c4?? {The same blunder, twice, for each player.} (6. Bxe4! d5 7. Bd3 Nxd3 8. Qxd3 {White has a piece for a pawn.}) 6... Nc3?? 7. Be2?? (7. Nxc3 Nxd3 8. Qxd3 {leaves White up a piece (again).}) 7... Nc6?? 8. Nbd2?? (8. Nxc3) 8... Nxd1 {Finally, a sensible move. But this won't last.} 9. Rxd1 Nb4 10. Nb3 Nd3?? 11. Be3?? (11. Bxd3) 11... Nxb2 12. Rd2 Nd3?? (12... Na4) 13. Rad1 (13. Bxd3) 13... Nb2?? {Black is up a queen and 2 pawns for a knight. And the players agreed a draw??} (13... Nb4) 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Shocking. Just... shocking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11245" LastEditorUserId="11245" LastEditDate="2016-09-30T05:16:06.837" LastActivityDate="2016-09-30T05:16:06.837" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15524" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15525" CreationDate="2016-09-30T08:31:28.703" Score="-6" ViewCount="130" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know that modern programs are highly use historical plays databases to have openings and ends lists. Also chess algorithms often use AI to learn how to better calculate the move. Anyway I am not still sure if they also use plays database to learn the algorithm.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know that modern chess programs are way better than the best players but I am wondering what would happen if we used only e.g. minimum 50 years old games to learn computers how play (so learn the algorithm only on the games since 1966). The quality of the human play improved since 1966 so IMO the questions makes sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11362" LastActivityDate="2016-09-30T08:56:17.557" Title="Who could win today: modern chess players or computers with old games database?" Tags="&lt;computer-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ClosedDate="2016-10-02T23:57:58.827" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15525" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15524" CreationDate="2016-09-30T08:56:17.557" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;This question is based on a number of misconceptions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One, engines are not self-learning software, they are not &quot;trained&quot; on a set of games. They just go through a huge number of possible variations and evaluate the end positions based on fixed factors set by the human programmers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Second, engines can be configured to use opening databases, but they hardly need them to beat humans -- they play above world class level without them as well, nowadays. The main reason to include them is to introduce some variety (they'll pick a random well known opening move) because the programs are deterministic and otherwise they would play the same move in the same position every time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Endgame tablebases are sometimes turned off because the time it takes to look up a position in them may not be worth it and it doesn't help the engine differentiate between a bunch of moves that all lead to a draw against best play; but they are perfect, of course.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyway the way it usually goes is that nowadays engines win &lt;em&gt;whatever&lt;/em&gt; you do to them... for instance this january top GM Nakamura played Komodo in various odds games (twice starting a pawn ahead, once an exchange ahead, and once four moves ahead) and lost 1.5-2.5 ( &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/news/komodo-beats-nakamura-in-final-battle-1331&quot;&gt;https://www.chess.com/news/komodo-beats-nakamura-in-final-battle-1331&lt;/a&gt; ). Those advantages are huge.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2016-09-30T08:56:17.557" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15528" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4588" CreationDate="2016-10-01T02:31:05.820" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Actually, what has been written is incredibly misleading.  There is a defense to 1. d4 that is forcing.  It is 1...e5, The Englund Gambit.  Mostly, this defense is played in blitz chess.  However, if you know it backwards and forwards as Black, you will give White fits because White barely studies this defense and it can be quite sharp.  The only book I've seen written in English is The Englund Gambit by Ken Smith (2360) and John Hall (2456).  Just remember, you have to study this defense for it to be effective.  If you don't, you'll find yourself trying to find complicated moves on your own, OTB.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11367" LastActivityDate="2016-10-01T02:31:05.820" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15529" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12833" CreationDate="2016-10-01T04:35:39.917" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm a French Defense player. As Peter Svidler opined in his interview on Chess24, &quot;If the white player would prefer a quiet life he will find it harder to find a quiet life in the French than in the Spanish [Ruy Lopez]&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The main reason it &lt;em&gt;isn't&lt;/em&gt; played is that it is harder for Black to play the French Defense than it is for White to play against it.  He accepts the following limitations:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;He is facing a White pawn at e5 for much of the game in many of the variations&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;As a result, his king's knight rarely gets to sit comfortably on f6&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;As a result, White's queen often goes raiding on the kingside&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;As a result, Black often can't castle safely on the kingside.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These are not problems that most players are comfortable having.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I play it because:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It's relatively easy to get the game into areas where I'm better prepared (and in more familiary territory) than White, which is unnerving to a lot of players of White&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It's a fighting defence, with a few traps, clever stratagems, and ways to knock White into burning a lot of time on his clock&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It shows you have nerve, and and that you have probably put a fair amount of effort into learning how to play a defence that can be tricky to handle. This can be intimidating by itself.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Obviously, at the GM and Super-GM levels, the players stay pretty booked-up, and you have to be really adventurous to suprise them (think Sveshnikov/Pelikan Sicilian, Scotch Game, King's Gambit, and so on, which were considered either unplayable or too quiet to be useful when they resurfaced in the latter half of the last century, typically with great success).  Many of these players are now starting to try unorthodox ideas in the older established openings, like the Italian Game (Giuoco Piano).  The French may get another day in the sun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the meantime, it &lt;em&gt;is&lt;/em&gt; getting played by the likes of Carlsen, Caruana, Nakamura, Anand, Radjabov, Morozevich, Ivanchuk, So, Giri, Karpov, Grischuk, Harikrishna, Gelfand, Leko, Mamedyarov, Topalov, Wang Hao, Ponomariov and others. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, while it's not getting played as much as the Spanish and Sicilian by the highest-level players, they certainly are playing it from time to time, even in blitz!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11245" LastActivityDate="2016-10-01T04:35:39.917" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15530" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14342" CreationDate="2016-10-01T05:10:24.110" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In his &lt;em&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1857446801&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Play the French, 4th Edn&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt;, John Watson recommends:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;French Defense&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Labourdonnais Variation&quot;]&#xA;[Annotator &quot;John Watson&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e6 2. f4 d5 3. e5 c5 4. Nf3 Nc6 5. c3 d4 6. d3 Nh6 $11 {M.Weiss-Maróczy, Budapest 1895. I think that Black's position is easier to play, and White doesn't seem to have a good way of making 2 f4 interesting.} *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black's d-pawn is going to be hard to get rid of, and White's d-pawn is jammed behind it. Black aims for the natural (in the French) moves ...Nf5 and/or ...Qb6, and he's right at home, while White has trouble making progress.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I could only find about 60 games among players rated 2000 ELO or higher involving 2.f4 , so there's not much modern practical experience to go on, but the overall results were 22-25-13. So, it's certainly playable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Needless to say, Nakamura's played it. He played it in the 2012 Sinquefield Cup, after having first run into it as Black in 2010 at the same tournament. I guess he liked what he saw. Other 2600+ ELO players who've tried it include Bologan, Zviagintsev, Stevic and Yudasin. It's most ardent supporter seems to have been the Moldovan Viktor Komliakov , whose score in games I can find was 4-7-2.  But since he's now 56, he seems to be playing a lot less frequently.  They might be a good reference, though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11245" LastActivityDate="2016-10-01T05:10:24.110" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15532" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-10-01T11:07:33.270" Score="8" ViewCount="578" Body="&lt;p&gt;A friend challenged me to a chess variation I have never heard of.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;All chess rules apply.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If you have an opportunity to take a piece, you must take it, you cannot avoid or block exchanges.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The only piece that cannot be taken is the king and there's no checkmate but you can check the king, and you can castle.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The strategy is to force your opponent to take all your pieces.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The winner is the one who has no pieces on board except the king.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Questions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Have you ever heard of this variation before? What is it called? Is it formally recognized like Chess960?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I played black and lost all the matches. Does White have a decisive advantage since he can play d4 followed by Bh6, and losing a piece and stay ing one move ahead? This variation does not seem fair because it looks like a race to lose everything, hence White will win the race by force every time.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If it exists and have a community, what are the main tactics and strategies, especially when playing black?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1105" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-17T02:32:09.587" LastActivityDate="2020-10-01T20:35:58.203" Title="Chess variation where the goal is to lose all pieces" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;chess-variants&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="15533" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2771" CreationDate="2016-10-01T15:49:24.140" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;To get something you really want, which in this case is to be rated over 2000, you need to work harder than everyone else is, or at least work harder than you normally do. Currently, I'm a 1750 player, and I got that rating in only four months since I was a 1600 player&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11369" LastActivityDate="2016-10-01T15:49:24.140" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15534" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15060" CreationDate="2016-10-01T19:15:16.487" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm afraid I can't contribute to your research on pre-computer, pre-SRS memorization techniques.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would suggest that, since in your response to your own question you acknowledge multiple sources that advise &lt;em&gt;against&lt;/em&gt; memorization of openings at all, the question is moot apart from its value to chess history.  I can't roust out my copy of &lt;em&gt;The History of Chess&lt;/em&gt;, by Whyld, et al, to confirm my suspicion, but it may be able to shed light, if you're still interested for that rather arcane reason.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In addition, spaced repetition has been demonstrated through multiple research projects to produce the best &lt;em&gt;retention&lt;/em&gt; in memorization efforts, so it doesn't seem as if a pre-SRS technique (digital or otherwise) is worth using, if SRS is available for free and has been optimized for retention.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are also some useful, related questions on this forum that are related to the two assumptions in your question that you challenge in your own response. See:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/5280/understanding-vs-memorization/5286#5286&quot;&gt;Understanding vs Memorization&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/8100/effectiveness-of-a-spaced-repetition-system-srs-for-memorizing-tactical-patter&quot;&gt;Effectiveness of a spaced repetition system (SRS) for memorizing tactical patterns for long-term skill gain&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other questions have been posed and answered that relate to the specific SRS techniques and tools, if you're interested.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11245" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.193" LastActivityDate="2016-10-01T19:15:16.487" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15535" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-10-01T20:29:13.423" Score="2" ViewCount="100" Body="&lt;p&gt;Children at my school have become very interested in playing chess during morning break and in before/after care.  However, they only have a limited amount of time to play and must clean up...so, they cannot leave pieces on the board.  In this situation, what is the best way to declare a winner?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it fair to use point count for the pieces captured?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11373" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-10-02T06:55:13.747" LastActivityDate="2016-10-02T08:30:24.303" Title="Novice Kid Play and Declaring Winners when Recess is Over" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;point-value&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15536" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15535" CreationDate="2016-10-01T20:47:39.143" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Point count is a fair way to &lt;em&gt;start&lt;/em&gt; evaluating a chess position; even the strongest computer engines do so. I see two potential problems:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;One player might have less material but an initiative, e.g. a strong kingside attack. On this level, it is not usual to sacrifice material for an initiative, so this might not be a big problem for you.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;What constitutes a decisive advantage? One pawn is -usually- not enough to win an endgame, but it might be, when combined with other advantages.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2016-10-01T20:47:39.143" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15537" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-10-01T21:45:25.157" Score="2" ViewCount="763" Body="&lt;p&gt;So say my queen is pinned in front of my king by the opponents rook. However if I move my queen to check their king it is certain checkmate, is that legal? I'm not sure because I'm intentionally endangering my king to be taken on the next move, but technically there won't be a next move since I checkmate my opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11374" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-09-20T04:51:34.847" LastActivityDate="2020-09-25T07:10:30.620" Title="Pinned Vs. Checkmate" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;pins&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15538" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15537" CreationDate="2016-10-01T22:18:36.733" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In standard chess, no, you cannot move into, nor make a move that puts your king in, check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I noticed this is tagged chess-variants, so I will add that the rules for speed/blitz chess may be slightly different, in terms of penalties. In addition, in casual blitz games, that may be acceptable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9025" LastActivityDate="2016-10-01T22:18:36.733" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15539" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8100" CreationDate="2016-10-01T23:03:15.877" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess Position Trainer is a software package that uses a spaced repetition method to help you learn moves for both openings and just a selected set of positions.  It stores the information to be trained as positions, so move order becomes moot.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is actually a more useful approach to learning the opening, because move (re)ordering is often used to try to steer the game into a position but avoid disadvantageous variations that can arise if the normal order is chosen.  So, the players who are best at both &lt;em&gt;spotting opportunities for transpositions&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;recognizing when one has occurred&lt;/em&gt; will be best equipped to play the best theoretical move from that position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately, CPT's schedule for repetition is not adjustable. So, if you think there may be some advantage to that, Anki is a good option, as mentioned by Christophe in a comment to another answer.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You will need to load data into both. CPT has the advantage that it will accept a PGN game (or file of games) and produce the required training for the whole suite automatically. For Anki, you would need to setup/import each position that you want to be tested on individually.  So, at least in the short- to medium-term, CPT is less labor for about the same benefit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11245" LastActivityDate="2016-10-01T23:03:15.877" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15540" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5280" CreationDate="2016-10-01T23:42:55.443" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Memorization &lt;em&gt;is&lt;/em&gt; important in chess. You need to memorize lots of &lt;em&gt;concepts&lt;/em&gt;, and in some cases, memorizing &lt;em&gt;move sequences&lt;/em&gt; will save time, especially in the opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have to disagree with others who make the blanket statement that memorization in the opening is a bad idea. But it should not be the primary method for learning an opening. As others have said (viz. the Kasparov quote in another response), you should understand the ideas behind the moves &lt;em&gt;first&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But your memory is a frail and fickle thing.  You &lt;em&gt;need&lt;/em&gt; to reinforce the learning with repetition.  It's the &lt;em&gt;repetition&lt;/em&gt; that commits to memory what you already understand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, think of it as a finishing touch, or like &lt;em&gt;polishing&lt;/em&gt;; it isn't the main technique, but it's an essential to the longevity of your knowledge.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11245" LastActivityDate="2016-10-01T23:42:55.443" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15541" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15537" CreationDate="2016-10-01T23:47:02.450" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The rules are clear. A move that puts your king in check is an illegal move (I'll leave it to you to find the reference; you might find the other rules helpful to review once you get there).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You cannot checkmate your opponent's king (or accomplish anything else) with an illegal move. Once you make an illegal move on the board, the following things happen:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The position is restored to the position in effect before the illegal move is made.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You get penalized for an illegal move. For the 1st and 2nd offenses, this results in your opponent's being awarded an extra 2 minutes on his clock. For the 3rd offense, the normal penalty is forfeit of the game.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nice try, though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11245" LastActivityDate="2016-10-01T23:47:02.450" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15542" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7690" CreationDate="2016-10-02T00:15:13.333" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you want a &quot;friendly&quot; computer opponent, some of the available packages offer the ability to &quot;spar&quot;, in which they will evaluate &lt;em&gt;your&lt;/em&gt; moves, and generate a rating for you that way. Then, they will adjust their play to be (roughly) at your level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Fritz, for example, has a variety of such &quot;hobbling&quot; methods, including &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;&lt;em&gt;Friend&lt;/em&gt;&quot; mode (which behaves as I described),&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;&lt;em&gt;Sparring&lt;/em&gt;&quot; mode, in which the program occasionally makes tactical mistakes, with 3 levels of play, including an optional &quot;alert&quot; feature to encourage you to look for such a mistake&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;&lt;em&gt;Handicap and fun mode&lt;/em&gt;&quot;, in which you adjust variables that affect play, such as playing strength (they say in ELO pts, but see above), piece biases, king safety, tendency to attack, etc.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that my comments on Fritz are for version 9, and they're at 15 now, so it's probably a bit different.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11245" LastActivityDate="2016-10-02T00:15:13.333" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15543" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="777" CreationDate="2016-10-02T00:47:35.977" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The question hinges on whether an &quot;&lt;em&gt;illegal&lt;/em&gt;&quot; move is a &quot;&lt;em&gt;possible&lt;/em&gt;&quot; move.  Strictly speaking, the move is &lt;em&gt;not possible&lt;/em&gt;, any more than Bc1-c3 is possible.  Both are &quot;&lt;em&gt;illegal&lt;/em&gt;&quot; moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the first position, there is no en passant capture that is possible, hence&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;... the possible moves of all the pieces of both players are the same.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Until FIDE draws a distinction between these two terms, then, the first position is identical to the later positions, and the draw claim would be valid.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I should add, however, that I am not a FIDE-certified Arbiter. An Arbiter would be the definitive source for an answer to your question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11245" LastEditorUserId="11245" LastEditDate="2016-10-02T17:20:26.683" LastActivityDate="2016-10-02T17:20:26.683" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15544" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15535" CreationDate="2016-10-02T08:30:24.303" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my workplace when someone needs to go to a meeting and can't finish a game, we adjourn it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;If&lt;/em&gt; camera phones are allowed in your school, take a photo of the position with an agreed indication of who is to move (e.g. you can put a white pawn on h1 if it is white to move).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, if your school doesn't allow camera phones, then it may be that the position is recorded on paper in &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forsyth%E2%80%93Edwards_Notation&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;FEN notation&lt;/a&gt;. But this is something else to digest for students with a lot to learn and is not as easy to implement as taking a picture.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2016-10-02T08:30:24.303" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15545" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-10-02T10:04:56.610" Score="0" ViewCount="218" Body="&lt;p&gt;What are good FIDE rated tournaments in China? I'm currently a FIDE class B and would like to play up. What would be some tournament recommendations and how would I register? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3149" LastActivityDate="2016-10-02T15:24:42.733" Title="What are good chess tournaments that are FIDE rated in China for foreigners?" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15546" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15549" CreationDate="2016-10-02T14:44:12.297" Score="8" ViewCount="702" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess getting played since long years with evolutionary advancements. In this process few openings or variations may get outdated. Can it happen so? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11068" LastEditorUserId="3831" LastEditDate="2016-10-16T12:49:48.193" LastActivityDate="2016-10-16T12:49:48.193" Title="Can any opening get outdated?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15547" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-10-02T14:51:25.233" Score="10" ViewCount="1492" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the longest known stalemate your opponent in x-moves problem where the given stalemate is the fastest one from the initial position? A win is not possible, but stalemating your opponent so they can't move is, and any other draw takes at least as many moves. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The solution does not have to be unique. The stalemating side will try to keep the game as short as possible, while the to-be-stalemated attempts to prolong it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is an example of such a &quot;stalemate your opponent&quot; problem that is in 2 moves long.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;5k1K/8/7P/8/8/7b/8/8 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;[startflipped &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Bf5 2. h7 Kf7.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another example is this with White to move. It is the record for White having only a king. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;CJ Morse, The Problemist 1985&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;8/ppp1p3/4p3/4p3/8/8/1pp5/brk1K3 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Ke2 e4 2. Ke1 e3 3. Ke2 e5 4. Ke1 e2 5. Kxe2 e4 6. Ke1 e3 7. Ke2 e6 8. Ke1 e2 9. Kxe2 e5 10. Ke1 e4 11. Ke2 e3 12. Ke1 e2 13. Kxe2 c6 14. Ke1 c5 15. Ke2 c4 16. Ke1 c3 17. Ke2 b6 18. Ke1 b5 19. Ke2 b4 20. Ke1 b3 21. Ke2 a6 22. Ke1 a5 23. Ke2 a4 24. Ke1 a3 25. Ke2 a2 26. Ke1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can anyone find a longer fastest stalemate your opponent in x-moves problem than the 35-move one below that I created?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user11382" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditorDisplayName="user11382" LastEditDate="2020-04-04T14:33:16.647" LastActivityDate="2021-05-02T15:33:51.340" Title="What is the longest known stalemate your opponent in x-moves problem?" Tags="&lt;problems&gt;&lt;stalemate&gt;&lt;records&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="8" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="15548" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15545" CreationDate="2016-10-02T15:24:42.733" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;FIDE's worldwide calendar of tournament events normally lists tournaments around the world, but for some reason no tournaments located in China appear. The Chinese Chess Federation has this &lt;a href=&quot;http://chess.sport.org.cn/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;website&lt;/a&gt;, which carries notices of future tournaments.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11245" LastActivityDate="2016-10-02T15:24:42.733" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15549" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15546" CreationDate="2016-10-02T16:31:20.543" Score="16" Body="&lt;p&gt;The game of chess depends upon outwitting your opponent. Part of the toolbox used by the top players is &lt;em&gt;changing&lt;/em&gt; the openings so that their opponents find themselves surprised and unprepared for the new position. This also results in opening variations that are discarded because a flaw has been found.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Openings also go in and out of fashion, for the same reason. The Scotch Opening, for example, first became popular when it was played in a major correspondence chess match between the London and Edinburgh Chess Clubs from 1824-1828, at the recommendation of the Scottish player, John Cochrane.*&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's a summary of how often it was used in the years that followed, as a percentage of all Double King Pawn games (1.e4 e5) that were played in that period:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Period   Period  Scotch &#xA;Begin    End     Opening %&#xA;1824     1900,    7.5% &#xA;1900     1950     3.3% &#xA;1950     1989     5.4%&#xA;1990     2000    10.4%&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The jump in the last period has been attributed to Garry Kasparov's surprising Anatoly Karpov with it during their match in the 35th World Championship in 1990. In addition, for the 16 years after that, from 1990 through 2005, Garry Kasparov had a score of 17-8-0 with it (17 wins, 8 draws, no losses). This drew attention to the opening again.  It has maintained its popularity in the years since that match.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, the King's Gambit has not gone through the same increase in popularity:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1824     1900,   16.5% &#xA;1900     1950     9.4% &#xA;1950     1989     5.4%&#xA;1990     2000     2.9%&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From this data, you might think that the reason the King's Gambit is unpopular is because the results that White achieves with this opening are disappointing.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But that hypothesis can be disproven: In that last period, 1990-2000, White scored 56% with this opening, with only 18% draws. This is a substantially higher rate of wins than in many other openings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, at the highest levels of play (players over 2400 ELO), White scores only &lt;em&gt;51%&lt;/em&gt; with this opening! This is very poor performance, when compared with a &lt;em&gt;55%&lt;/em&gt; win rate in all Double KP openings.  So, because they don't get good enough results with it, it's unpopular at the highest level of play. Only 2.2% of all double KP games involve the King's Gambit at 2400+ ELO.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This suggests that players at lower levels are following &lt;em&gt;fashion set by the highest level players&lt;/em&gt;, not the actual results they can achieve in practice at their own level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*&lt;em&gt;The Scotch Game Explained&lt;/em&gt;, Gary Lane, Batsford Chess 2005, p.5&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11245" LastActivityDate="2016-10-02T16:31:20.543" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15550" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15547" CreationDate="2016-10-02T16:32:00.253" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can't speak to whether this satisfies the (rather awkward) constraints you've put upon the problem, but the longest I was able to find with a rather cursory search was 201 moves:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;6K1/pn5n/2p3Q1/P1P5/Bp5p/p5p1/pbP3pr/rk5b w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. c4+ Kc1 2. Qh6+ Kb1 3. Qxh7+ Kc1 4. Qh6+ Kb1 5. Qg6+ Kc1 6. Qg5+ Kb1 7. Qf5+ Kc1 8. Qf4+ Kb1 9. Qe4+ Kc1 10. Qe3+ Kb1 11. Qe1+ Bc1 12. Qxb4+ Bb2 13. Qe1+ Bc1 14. Qe4+ Kb2 15. Qe5+ Kb1 16. Qf5+ Kb2 17. Qf6+ Kb1 18. Qg6+ Kb2 19. Qg7+ Kb1 20. Qxb7+ Bb2 21. Qh7+ Kc1 22. Qh6+ Kb1 23. Qg6+ Kc1 24. Qg5+ Kb1 25. Qf5+ Kc1 26. Qf4+ Kb1 27. Qe4+ Kc1 28. Qe3+ Kb1 29. Qg1+ Bc1 30. a6 Kb2 31. Qd4+ Kb1 32. Qe4+ Kb2 33. Qe5+ Kb1 34. Qf5+ Kb2 35. Qf6+ Kb1 36. Qg6+ Kb2 37. Qg7+ Kb1 38. Qb7+ Bb2 39. Qh7+ Kc1 40. Qh6+ Kb1 41. Qg6+ Kc1 42. Qg5+ Kb1 43. Qf5+ Kc1 44.Qf4+ Kb1 45. Qe4+ Kc1 46. Qe3+ Kb1 47. Qg1+ Bc1 48. Kf8 Kb2 49. Qd4+ Kb1 50. Qe4+ Kb2 51. Qe5+ Kb1 52. Qf5+ Kb2 53. Qf6+ Kb1 54. Qg6+ Kb2 55. Qg7+ Kb1 56. Qb7+ Bb2 57. Qh7+ Kc1 58. Qh6+ Kb1 59. Qg6+ Kc1 60. Qg5+ Kb1 61. Qf5+ Kc1 62. Qf4+ Kb1 63. Qe4+ Kc1 64. Qe3+ Kb1 65. Qg1+ Bc1 66. Ke8 Kb2 67. Qd4+ Kb1 68. Qe4+ Kb2 69. Qe5+ Kb1 70. Qf5+ Kb2 71. Qf6+ Kb1 72. Qg6+ Kb2 73. Qg7+ Kb1 74. Qb7+ Bb2 75. Qh7+ Kc1 76. Qh6+ Kb1 77. Qg6+ Kc1 78. Qg5+ Kb1 79. Qf5+ Kc1 80. Qf4+ Kb1 81. Qe4+ Kc1 82. Qe3+ Kb1 83. Qg1+ Bc1 84. Kd8 Kb2 85. Qd4+ Kb1 86. Qe4+ Kb2 87. Qe5+ Kb1 88. Qf5+ Kb2 89. Qf6+ Kb1 90. Qg6+ Kb2 91. Qg7+ Kb1 92. Qb7+ Bb2 93. Qh7+ Kc1 94. Qh6+ Kb1 95. Qg6+ Kc1 96. Qg5+ Kb1 97. Qf5+ Kc1 98. Qf4+ Kb1 99. Qe4+ Kc1 100. Qe3+ Kb1101. Qg1+ Bc1 102. Kc8 Kb2 103. Qd4+ Kb1 104. Qe4+ Kb2 105. Qe5+ Kb1 106. Qf5+ Kb2 107. Qf6+ Kb1 108. Qg6+ Kb2 109. Qg7+ Kb1 110. Qb7+ Bb2 111. Qh7+ Kc1 112.Qh6+ Kb1 113. Qg6+ Kc1 114. Qg5+ Kb1 115. Qf5+ Kc1 116. Qf4+ Kb1 117. Qe4+ Kc1 118. Qe3+ Kb1 119. Qg1+ Bc1 120. Kb8 Kb2 121. Qd4+ Kb1 122. Qe4+ Kb2 123. Qe5+ Kb1 124. Qf5+ Kb2 125. Qf6+ Kb1 126. Qg6+ Kb2 127. Qg7+ Kb1 128. Qb7+ Bb2 129.Qh7+ Kc1 130. Qh6+ Kb1 131. Qg6+ Kc1 132. Qg5+ Kb1 133. Qf5+ Kc1 134. Qf4+ Kb1 135. Qe4+ Kc1 136. Qe3+ Kb1 137. Qg1+ Bc1 138. Kxa7 Kb2 139. Qd4+ Kb1 140. Qe4+ Kb2 141. Qe5+ Kb1 142. Qf5+ Kb2 143. Qf6+ Kb1 144. Qg6+ Kb2 145. Qg7+ Kb1146. Qb7+ Bb2 147. Qh7+ Kc1 148. Qh6+ Kb1 149. Qg6+ Kc1 150. Qg5+ Kb1 151. Qf5+ Kc1 152. Qf4+ Kb1 153. Qe4+ Kc1 154. Qe3+ Kb1 155. Qg1+ Bc1 156. Kb8 Kb2 157. Qd4+ Kb1 158. Qe4+ Kb2 159. Qe5+ Kb1 160. Qf5+ Kb2 161. Qf6+ Kb1 162. Qg6+ Kb2 163. Qg7+ Kb1 164. Qb7+ Bb2 165. Qh7+ Kc1 166. Qh6+ Kb1 167. Qg6+ Kc1 168. Qg5+ Kb1 169. Qf5+ Kc1 170. Qf4+ Kb1 171. Qe4+ Kc1 172. Qe3+ Kb1 173. Qg1+ Bc1 174. a7 Kb2 175. Qd4+ Kb1 176. Qe4+ Kb2 177. Qe5+ Kb1 178. Qf5+ Kb2 179. Qf6+ Kb1 180. Qg6+ Kb2 181. Qg7+ Kb1 182. Qb7+ Bb2 183. Qh7+ Kc1 184. Qh6+ Kb1 185. Qg6+ Kc1 186. Qg5+ Kb1 187. Qf5+ Kc1 188. Qf4+ Kb1 189. Qe4+ Kc1 190. Qe3+ Kb1 191. Qg1+ Bc1 192. a8=Q Kb2 193. Qd4+ Kb1 194. Qb7+ Bb2 195. Qh7+ Kc1 196. Qh6+ Kb1 197. Qg1+ Bc1 198. Qd2 Rh3 199. Bxc6 Rh2 200. Bd7 Rh3 201. Bxh3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White plays c4+, then continually checks the black king (who alternates between shuttling back and forth between b1 and c1 with the bishop on b2, and shuttling between b1 and b2 with the bishop on c1) while maneuvering the WQ from g6 first to capture the Nh7, then the Pb4, then the Nb7, then eventually to check black at g1 and force 29...Bc1.  Play then goes 30. Pa6 Kb2 and White executes a zigzag up to g7, then checks on b7 (forcing 38...Bb2 once again), then checks on h7 and zigzags back to play 47. Qg1+ and force Bc1 again, taking another 'free move' to play 48. Kf8.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This same maneuver (zigzag up to g7, check on b7 inducing Bb2, zigzag to check on g1, forcing Bc1, then take a 'free move' when Black's best play is Kb2) repeats as White plays 66. Ke8, 84. Kd8, 102. Kc8, 120. Kb8, 138. Kxa7, 156. Kb8, 174. Pa7, and 192. Pa8Q; play concludes with Qd4+, Q-b7-h7-h6+, Qg1+, and 198. Qd2 Rh3 199. Bxc6 Rg3, 200. Bd7 Rh3 201. Bxh3 stalemate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(This problem comes out of &lt;em&gt;The Problemist&lt;/em&gt;, by CJ Morse.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4270" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-08-04T03:02:41.840" LastActivityDate="2019-08-04T03:02:41.840" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="15551" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15547" CreationDate="2016-10-02T16:32:17.273" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm sure this problem has been posed before, but let's see how far we can get. I assume White will try to stalemate Black as quickly as possible, and Black tries to stave it off as long as possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/p1p1p1p1/2p5/2p5/2p5/2K5/p3P1P1/k7 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Kc2 e6 2. e4 e5 3. g4 g6 4. g5 c3 5. Kc1 c2 6. Kxc2 c4 7. Kc1 c3 8. Kc2 c5 9. Kc1 c2 10. Kxc2 c4 11. Kc1 c3 12. Kc2 c6 13. Kc1 c2 14. Kxc2 c5 15. Kc1 c4 16. Kc2 c3 17. Kc1 c2 18. Kxc2 a6 19. Kc1 a5 20. Kc2 a4 21. Kc1 a3 22. Kc2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White needs to go back and forth between c2 and c1 with his King, but can try to move his pawns forward to speed up the process. Black just pushes his pawns one step at a time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-10-03T06:36:54.273" LastActivityDate="2016-10-03T06:36:54.273" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15552" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2815" CreationDate="2016-10-02T16:39:38.600" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;As I understand your question, the &lt;em&gt;computer checkmated you&lt;/em&gt; with a pawn move from the 2nd to the 4th rank. (Such a move is the only situation that invokes the en passant rule.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Checkmate ends the game.  That is why you were not permitted to capture; the game is already over.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11245" LastActivityDate="2016-10-02T16:39:38.600" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15553" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15546" CreationDate="2016-10-02T16:44:22.547" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, openings can fall out of favor. At the higher levels, it often has to do with how well an opening performs, but it can also be due to a matter of popular style.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Typically a refutation of a particular line makes it unpopular, for example, the Dragon Sicilian fell out of favor in the 60's when Bobby Fischer, among others, found lines that led to overwhelming victories by white, including  upsets of much higher rated players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Cambridge Springs Defense is an example of a line that used to be a popular, and rather successful, variation for black in the Queen's Gambit Declined. To avoid it, players of the white pieces started to play the Exchange Variation of the QGD. When black started to equalize against that, the leading players had moved on to other lines in the QGD.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes it's a matter of style or movement. The Philidor Defense is and example of an opening that lost popularity because it leads to cramped positions, that are difficult to defend. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the early to mid 20th century, the romantic style was fading, and the hyper-modern movement was on the rise, so there were a lot fewer King's and Evans' gambits, and more Reti-English systems and Indian defenses to the Queen's Gambit being played.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9025" LastActivityDate="2016-10-02T16:44:22.547" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15557" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15537" CreationDate="2016-10-02T18:40:01.353" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Think of it this way:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Check mate is where nothing the opponent can do will save them from having you take their king on the next turn, so even if by putting their king in checkmate, you expose your own king, they can take your king before you can take theirs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is NO circumstance in which your actions put your own king into check without an opponent making a move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11384" LastEditorUserId="956" LastEditDate="2020-09-25T07:10:30.620" LastActivityDate="2020-09-25T07:10:30.620" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="15558" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-10-02T21:39:31.153" Score="0" ViewCount="234" Body="&lt;p&gt;Hi StackExchange#Chess! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am looking to track how much time I spent &quot;working&quot; and &quot;not working&quot;. I would like to use a chess clock for this. When I go away from my desk, I hit the player 1's timer, and when I get back to work, I hit the player 2's timer. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think I found some &lt;strong&gt;Android&lt;/strong&gt; apps that could work nicely, but if I need to switch apps or lock the screen, they all pause. Is there any such app that runs in the background? I use Android&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11386" LastActivityDate="2016-10-03T14:55:27.153" Title="Chess Clock App that does not pause when put in the background?" Tags="&lt;chess-clocks&gt;&lt;android&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15560" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14069" CreationDate="2016-10-03T12:52:16.980" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;To add to what the others have said, it also depends on how much preparation time you have for the tournament. If the tournament starts next week, you don't really have time to learn a new opening. Even if you do manage to throw your opponents off guard, you won't be any more familiar with the resulting positions than they will. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4532" LastActivityDate="2016-10-03T12:52:16.980" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15561" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15558" CreationDate="2016-10-03T14:55:27.153" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I use &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.pomelloapp.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;pomello&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This isn't a timetracker really. It's more for those who practice the &lt;a href=&quot;http://pomodorotechnique.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;pomodoro technique&lt;/a&gt;. It tracks the number of pomodoros you can achieve while allowing you to also tag disruptions and keep you focused until your break. I picked this particular one because it's integrated with trello. The integration allows it to tag your work items with the number of pomodoros you've done on that work item.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11392" LastActivityDate="2016-10-03T14:55:27.153" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15562" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15537" CreationDate="2016-10-03T16:12:12.920" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Basically if you are confused about pin/checkmate rule, just play the game out until one king is captured. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You move you Q to threat taking his king in your NEXT move. Unfortunately it's now his move and he takes your K first.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, if you use your other piece to attack so that his K has to move into your pinned Q's firing range, you can capture (not threat to capture) his K with your Q before he can capture your K. Or in standard chess rule, he is checkmated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7002" LastActivityDate="2016-10-03T16:12:12.920" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15563" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15567" CreationDate="2016-10-03T17:58:00.973" Score="6" ViewCount="1115" Body="&lt;p&gt;Scid outputs this analysis of a PGN file using the Stockfish engine:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/kXjLD.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/kXjLD.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What does the &lt;code&gt;D&lt;/code&gt; mean? And where (e.g. a web page) is this actually explained?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11394" LastEditorUserId="11394" LastEditDate="2016-10-04T00:12:12.380" LastActivityDate="2016-10-04T11:17:17.503" Title="Scid PGN analysis using Stockfish" Tags="&lt;pgn&gt;&lt;scid&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15565" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1702" CreationDate="2016-10-04T02:33:46.007" Score="3" Body="&lt;h1&gt;Openings:&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Problem: You reported being dissatisfied with learning from books, if they have long variations between diagrams, since you study without a board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Recommendation: Study with a board, or use DVD-based material or at least digital books that offer replay (search elsewhere on chess.stackexchange for tips on these).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Problem: You find that you're getting outplayed in the opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Recommendation:&#xA;If you don't know many book moves of either the KG or Alekhine's Defence, then you may not lose much by switching. Keep in mind that they are highly idiosyncratic openings; few others transpose into and out of them (Vienna Gambit to KG in some lines is all I can thin of), so this knowledge and understanding of opening sequences may be largely untransferable. So, keep them fresh and use them as surprise weapons, say in blitz games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Decide which type of opening you like to play, and try to keep your return on investment of time spent learning it.  That means try to find pairs of openings for Black&amp;amp;White that share ideas (as Dennis recommends), like the English Dragon Reversed and the Sicilian Dragon, the KIA and the KID, the Dutch and Bird's, etc.  Play through some games from each to see how well you intuitively understand what's going on, and whether you feel at home with them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You don't &lt;em&gt;have&lt;/em&gt; to follow this philosophy, but it's one way to save time learning theory.  You'll learn the moves faster in the reversed color.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or, you can learn theory-sparse openings, like the London System, the Two Knights' Tango, and so on.  They won't offer you the rate of decisive middlegames you're used to, so you'll need to boost your endgame play substantially.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Endgames&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Problem: You don't know much about them, and don't play them often enough to learn more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Recommendation: Endgames are often considered dull, because the same pieces seem to be going to and fro, there are long sequences of maneuvering, the pace seems to be slower because it's mostly about creating and pushing a passed pawn, the queens are gone, there are few mating opportunities, etc., etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But that doesn't have to be &lt;em&gt;your&lt;/em&gt; take on them (it's &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; mine).  Endgames are where the pieces come into their own, where their smooth cooperation is most important, and where tactics and tricks hide in the most unlikely places.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Take a look at this study from Troitsky. &lt;em&gt;Yeah, I know it's not from an actual game&lt;/em&gt;, but look at what the knights are doing. The starting position offers no hint of what's about to happen:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;8/2N3K1/8/5k1q/4pPpP/8/4PPN1/8 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Date &amp;quot;1935&amp;quot;]&#xA;[White &amp;quot;Troitzky, A.&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Black &amp;quot; &amp;quot;]&#xA;[Result &amp;quot;1-0&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Ne3+ Kxf4 2. Ncd5+ Ke5 3. Nf6 Qxh4 4. Nd7+ Ke6! (4... Kd4 5. Nf5+) (4...Kf4 5. Ng2+) 5. Nf8+ Ke7 6. Ng6+ 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, two knights beat a queen in the right circumstances, and although they don't seem to be cooperating, they shepherd the king inevitably into a fork that wins the queen, even with so little material left on the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By replaying this (and other positions like it ) a few times and trying to visualize which squares the knights controlled directly, and which were the tips of knight forks, I got much better at knight handling &lt;em&gt;in every part of the game&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's the secret of endgame study; few players do it well, but if you do it, you'll be better than most of your opponents at handling the pieces both in the endgame &lt;em&gt;and in the middlegame&lt;/em&gt; too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A fun book to learn about endgames from is Van Perlo's &lt;a href=&quot;https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/9056914944&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Endgame Tactics&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt;. There's none of the usual &amp;quot;this is what you have to know&amp;quot; stuff; it's all about practical games, mistakes players made when they could have saved the draw or won the game &lt;em&gt;if&lt;/em&gt; they'd known the theory, and amazing ways the pieces cooperate to accomplish things they could never do alone, including some pretty wacky checkmates.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Eventually, you should be able to recognize which endgames are better than others, so you can steer your middlegame in that direction. &amp;quot;&lt;em&gt;Should I swap my bishop for his knight?&lt;/em&gt;&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;&lt;em&gt;Should I exchange off a pair of rooks, or all of them?&lt;/em&gt;&amp;quot; are the kinds of questions you can't answer if you don't have any knowledge.  For that, you will need to hit a book or two about theory. I &lt;em&gt;don't&lt;/em&gt; recommend Dvoretsky's Endgame Manual for this (although I own it and occasionally use it); that book is for Masters.  Instead, find something light and easy; there are lots of choices. A quick and ready choice is Jesus de la Villa's &lt;a href=&quot;https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/9056916173&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;100 Endgames You Must Know: Vital Lessons for Every Chess Player&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11245" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2016-10-04T02:33:46.007" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15566" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4588" CreationDate="2016-10-04T03:07:03.573" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you like the French as Black against e4, play the Queen's Gambit Declined against d4. It'll lead to similar pawn structures and the closed/semi-closed structures you like against the French. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One thing: watch out for the Exchange QGD. Unlike the French version, it is not the &quot;boring&quot; variation; in fact, the QGD Exchange is probably the critical line for White!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11400" LastActivityDate="2016-10-04T03:07:03.573" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15567" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15563" CreationDate="2016-10-04T10:49:37.940" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a special mark meaning &lt;code&gt;diagram&lt;/code&gt;. When you export the game into a PDF/LaTeX file positions after moves marked with &lt;code&gt;D&lt;/code&gt; are rendered in the document.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only documentation I've found is &lt;a href=&quot;https://sourceforge.net/p/scid/wiki/HowToExportGames/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://sourceforge.net/p/scid/wiki/HowToExportGames/&lt;/a&gt;. Scid vs PC documentation maybe is clearer &lt;a href=&quot;http://scidvspc.sourceforge.net/doc/Export.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://scidvspc.sourceforge.net/doc/Export.htm&lt;/a&gt;. But documentation is actually poor, I discovered this feature just testing the &lt;code&gt;Export to LaTeX&lt;/code&gt; feature.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2311" LastEditorUserId="2311" LastEditDate="2016-10-04T11:17:17.503" LastActivityDate="2016-10-04T11:17:17.503" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15568" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6282" CreationDate="2016-10-04T12:25:24.223" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;The late Doreen Kimura, a world expert on sex differences, says in her book, ‘Sex and Cognition’, that men outperform women by half a standard error in maths/problem solving.  If true and it probably is, there will be 3.6 times as many men as women in the top 2.5% of ability in that vector and six times as many men as women at or above the 0.1% level, supposing my statistics is adequate.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Additionally men are more likely to commit absolutely, as is required at the top level.  Hence, although we may, one day, have a female world chess champ, only a few will compete at the top level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11404" LastActivityDate="2016-10-04T12:25:24.223" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15569" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17675" CreationDate="2016-10-04T16:49:50.937" Score="0" ViewCount="230" Body="&lt;p&gt;What to tell to a kid of 6 years about Giuoco Piano opening? Isn't it to calculative or aggressive for a beginner of 6 years?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11068" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2016-10-04T19:20:02.760" LastActivityDate="2017-05-29T20:22:29.530" Title="Giuoco Piano to Kids" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;teaching&gt;&lt;italian-game&gt;&lt;coach&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15570" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15569" CreationDate="2016-10-04T19:10:43.150" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd explain nothing about openings to a 6 year old, except &lt;em&gt;maybe&lt;/em&gt; something about using all your pieces (but it'll fall to deaf ears, most likely).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I assisted at a local school tournament recently, where players of about seven had a lot of trouble playing legal moves, or checkmating their opponent when being up almost everything. Checkmate is often not recognized and whole phases of the game had both kings in check...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The key point is that they must &lt;em&gt;have fun&lt;/em&gt;, and they usually want to go on hunting expeditions with their queen. That is fine. It's a game, and they're six. My seven year old does not want to play games where she can't create new rules on the fly, period.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once they &lt;em&gt;ask&lt;/em&gt;, you can show something like the Italian and explain that it gets some pieces out. That is enough.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But please, show them lots of other things as well, up to move 3 or so (when they ask). I hate to see those kids matches that always start 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.d3 d6 5.Nc3 Nf6 etc because for both of them that's all they know. That makes the game boring, and the main thing should be to have fun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't think concepts like &quot;too aggressive&quot; or &quot;requires too much calculation&quot; really apply to openings for six year olds...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2016-10-04T19:10:43.150" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15571" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15572" CreationDate="2016-10-04T19:33:27.683" Score="-7" ViewCount="840" Body="&lt;p&gt;This isn't so much a 'hard' knowledge or analysis question, but more of a request for feedback on a moral issue.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I cheat in online chess, daily/correspondence that is. I use a strong engine not only for post game analysis, but during the game as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why would you even want to do that?, you might ask. What's the point of 'empty' wins? The answer is: I don't use the engine before submitting my move, but only run it after I made my move, with the engine/GUI set to output scores only. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In other word, I'm performing an engine blunder check after I make my (unassisted) move. Not after every move, in every game, but most moves in most games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Am I trying to argue whether that's maybe not really cheating? No, I absolutely know it is cheating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The strongest effect, I believe, is that while I don't receive a move suggestion by the engine, being made aware of a blunder even after the fact means I'll probably pay more attention next move, which further means that my opponent, who might have been able to exploit my blunder some time later might not get a chance to do so anymore. And that &lt;em&gt;is&lt;/em&gt; effectively a move suggestion/prediction coming from the engine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What am I actually asking in here? Perhaps I should explain &lt;em&gt;why&lt;/em&gt; I cheat the way I do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One, it makes me extremely nervous not &lt;em&gt;knowing&lt;/em&gt; whether I blundered or not. The check seems to give me peace of mind, no matter whether the move was a blunder or not. Just knowing whether it was or not seems to be enough.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Two, post game analysis in one big chunk is something I usually skip. The game's over anyway, why bother?, part of my brain thinks. The (cheating) post move blunder check seems to be the only analysis of my own games I can reliable motivate myself for. And it actually does motivate me to do so. If I see my score suddenly dropped, I will take a good look at what my blunder was, just the way I &lt;em&gt;should&lt;/em&gt; do it &lt;em&gt;after&lt;/em&gt; the game is over.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I mention these two reasons above not as justification, but because, aside from moral points that you might want to raise, maybe I'd also like to ask if you can think of ways to constructively address these two weaknesses above... ways to 'hack' myself out of them in a way that doesn't require cheating like I do now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11408" LastActivityDate="2016-10-10T01:12:39.263" Title="Moral question about online chess &amp; engine analysis" Tags="&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;etiquette&gt;&lt;cheating&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="7" FavoriteCount="1" ClosedDate="2016-10-05T20:56:50.403" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15572" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15571" CreationDate="2016-10-04T21:59:10.123" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;Chess is war over the board&quot;, Bobby Fischer once said.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But chess is also &lt;em&gt;work&lt;/em&gt;.  If you enjoy the thrill of playing chess, including the risk of blundering, but don't feel up to the task of the work involved to get better at it, don't worry: welcome to a fairly large club.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Engines are labor-saving devices, first and foremost. Unfortunately, the more labor you save, the more out-of-shape you get. Pretty soon you're like the robotically-attended cruise guests in the movie &lt;em&gt;Wall-E&lt;/em&gt;, unable to get up out of their levitating deckchairs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, if you want to avoid that, you have to go on the hunt for a way to take advantage of what an engine can do for you without giving it all of the heavy lifting to do for you.  That's what you're &quot;check-the-engine-after-each-move&quot; technique seems to be doing, &lt;em&gt;except&lt;/em&gt; that you're not following up with &lt;em&gt;analyzing your games&lt;/em&gt;. (And one other thing, too; more on that below...)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would bet you can't find a chess coach anywhere who will tell you that you can get better at chess without putting in some time analyzing your games. They'll all tell you that you'll improve &lt;em&gt;more and faster&lt;/em&gt; by getting knocked down for the count in about half of your games, and then studying your losses, because that's the most effective way to learn.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After all, that's what the rating system is supposed to do; it puts people &lt;em&gt;of roughly equal ability&lt;/em&gt; in a &lt;em&gt;fair match&lt;/em&gt;, where either one could win. That means (excluding draws) &lt;em&gt;either player could lose&lt;/em&gt;. Therefore, half of the time, you &lt;em&gt;should&lt;/em&gt; lose.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, &#xA;a) Unless your partner is doing what you're doing &lt;em&gt;and&lt;/em&gt; you both know what's going on, you're tipping the scales and not disclosing it to your partner. Yes, that's unethical.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;b) You are depriving yourself of being able to play better, by avoiding the work required to get there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What kinds of work you need to do to improve:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Diagnose your strengths and weaknesses.  To figure these out, you need to &lt;em&gt;analyze your games&lt;/em&gt;. Do it alone, with a friend, or with a coach, but you'll find that you make the most progress if you do it alone &lt;em&gt;first&lt;/em&gt;.  There's lots of good guidance on how to analyze your games.  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Wait to use an engine until &lt;em&gt;after you've done the first pass on your own&lt;/em&gt;.  Try to find the points in the game where one side improved, and the other side got worse. Try to figure out which move caused the problem, and why. &lt;em&gt;Take notes&lt;/em&gt;. Only then, use the engine to discover what you missed in the analysis, and to confirm what you found.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Catalog the kinds of mistakes you make.  What are your weaknesses? Which ones cost you the most games?  Are they: Blunders? Strategic weaknesses? Poor development? Poor king safety? Unsound sacrifices? Lack of a sense of danger? Allowing counterplay? Poor defense? Lousy attacking? Floundering in the endgame? Not knowing what to do in the middlegame once the book moves are over in the opening?  Messing up the opening itself?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Figure out where to start. It's usually either the most common problem, or the one that kills the game instantly when it appears. Then, devise a plan to correct the problem.  You will probably need advice from better players or a coach to help with this.  Here are some common problems and some possible solutions:&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4a. If you &lt;em&gt;miss&lt;/em&gt; tactical opportunities (a common weakness among players below about 1800), practice tactics problem sets, and &lt;em&gt;track your progress&lt;/em&gt;.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4b. If you &lt;em&gt;allow&lt;/em&gt; tactical opportunities, pick up a fresh tactics problem set, and for each one, &lt;em&gt;turn the board around&lt;/em&gt;, remember that it's now the &lt;em&gt;other side to move&lt;/em&gt;, and figure out what your opponent could do to you. Then try to figure out how you could &lt;em&gt;prevent&lt;/em&gt; it, if it were &lt;em&gt;your&lt;/em&gt; move.  See the &lt;em&gt;New Art of Defence in Chess&lt;/em&gt;, by Andrew Soltis, or Colin Crouch's &lt;em&gt;How to Defend in Chess&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4c. If you have a tendency to blunder (miscalculate, overlook a simple capture or immediate tactic, etc), get a book on avoiding blunders; both Angus Dunnington and Lev Alburt have written one, and they're both good resources.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4d. Do you find yourself missing good candidate moves, or misjudging which move was the best, or missing a tactic that came up after the line you analyzed was played out?  These are all &lt;em&gt;analysis&lt;/em&gt; mistakes, and a disciplined method of analyzing at the board will help.  Try Per Ostman's &lt;em&gt;Your Best Move&lt;/em&gt;, or Soltis' &lt;em&gt;How to Choose A Chess Move&lt;/em&gt;, to solidify your thinking technique.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then, once you've fixed that problem, Rinse, and Repeat with Step 3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4e. If you frequently get into time trouble, work on i) budgeting your time per move, ii) knowing when to have a long think and when not to, and iii) finding the best available move when short of time.  Blitz games are &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; a remedy for this; the right approach is to develop a sense of what kinds of situations allow quick thinking, and which ones don't, and learning how to steer the game in the right direction. I can recommend &quot;&lt;em&gt;What It Takes to Become a Chess Master&lt;/em&gt;,&quot; by GM Andrew Soltis; it has several sections on finding moves quickly and when to apply the techniques.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then, play slower games, but work on ending the game with a budgeted amount of time to spare. If you meet or beat the budget, you're improving. If not, you won't lose on time, but you'll know you have to improve.  Once you can reliably meet your budget, play a slightly faster time control. Do this until you can play a 5 minute game with 10 second delay respectably well.  You'll lose quite a few, but you'll be thinking faster and more efficiently. Note that this approach will work much better if you do 4d) first, to make sure you're using your thinking time as efficiently as you can.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;During your game, keep track of the time you spend on moves. When you analyze the game, in addition to finding and cataloging the mistakes, try to figure out where you spent what turned out to be too much time, and why.  Did you rehash the calculation of lines multiple times?  Did you get anxious when faced with only poor choices, and just procrastinate?  Did you get distracted?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can't justify doing any of this work unless you are confident that it will help you improve, and that doing &lt;em&gt;this particular work&lt;/em&gt; will be the most help to you now.  Many players simply decide they need to work on openings because the lost a quick game.  Or that they need to work on endgame theory because they missed a fork in a knight-and-pawns endgame.  They &lt;em&gt;could&lt;/em&gt; be right, or they &lt;em&gt;could&lt;/em&gt; be wrong.  If they're wrong, they'll end up spinning their wheels and wasting effort, and will continue to struggle to improve. This happens &lt;em&gt;all the time&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To justify this work, you &lt;em&gt;need&lt;/em&gt; that analysis of your games. Set aside time to do it, ideally soon after you play the game. If you wait, you'll forget key information that could provide insight into why you made a particular mistake. If you play multiple games before you get around to it, you might find the amount of work daunting and never get around to it. It's a simple choice: &lt;em&gt;Procrastinate&lt;/em&gt;, or &lt;em&gt;Improve&lt;/em&gt;. You can't have both.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another potential issue you mention is that you get anxious not knowing whether you've made a mistake.  I'm not a psychologist, and I certainly don't want to read too much in between the lines here, but &lt;em&gt;risk&lt;/em&gt; is inherent in everything we do.  Sure, it's nice to minimize it, but in the end, we need to get accustomed to accepting risk, and dealing with failure. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On top of the other things it is, chess is also a &lt;em&gt;game&lt;/em&gt;. Unless you're trying to make a living at it, it might help to try to develop a greater tolerance for blundering, possibly not finding out that you've blundered until your opponent takes advantage of it, and losing.  You should &lt;em&gt;want&lt;/em&gt; to win, or you won't be motivated, but you will play better if you're not &lt;em&gt;afraid to lose&lt;/em&gt;.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Postscript on Fear of Failure:&lt;/em&gt; In his article &quot;&lt;em&gt;An Improvement Plan&lt;/em&gt;&quot; for ChessCafe.com back in 2006 which I recently rediscovered, Dan Heisman said: &quot;...results will be strongly diminished if you can’t abandon your fears about losing and your rating. Any good improvement program will include enough practice that you will be faced with plenty of losses and the need to endure times when your rating goes down. That’s life; it happens – no one goes straight up. So if multiple setbacks cause discouragement and not determination, it’s going to be one long path…&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You will learn much more from your mistakes than from perfect play.  &lt;em&gt;Make the mistakes&lt;/em&gt;, and then &lt;em&gt;learn from them&lt;/em&gt;.  Play, &lt;em&gt;on your own&lt;/em&gt;, and &lt;em&gt;study your games&lt;/em&gt; afterwards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You will improve fastest if you can persuade yourself to do those things. Good luck!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11245" LastEditorUserId="11245" LastEditDate="2016-10-10T01:12:39.263" LastActivityDate="2016-10-10T01:12:39.263" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15574" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15532" CreationDate="2016-10-05T03:39:18.837" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The variation I used to play is suicide chess, where the king can be captured. I have not heard of your variation though&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Answers To Your Questions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;No, Chess960 is when both sides start with identical starting pieces but the pieces on the 1st and 8th files have been scrambled.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11410" LastEditorUserId="11410" LastEditDate="2016-10-25T00:54:49.520" LastActivityDate="2016-10-25T00:54:49.520" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15575" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15576" CreationDate="2016-10-05T03:42:12.277" Score="5" ViewCount="2097" Body="&lt;p&gt;In a PGN file, there are tags like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;Tournament&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;John Smith&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And so on. I would like to know all the possible tags for PGN files so I can use them in a PGN file that my friend is demanding for.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11410" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-10-05T05:42:12.343" LastActivityDate="2017-07-16T09:07:22.373" Title="What are all of the possible tags for PGN?" Tags="&lt;pgn&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15576" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15575" CreationDate="2016-10-05T05:41:47.663" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;PGN standards are described &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.saremba.de/chessgml/standards/pgn/pgn-complete.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;. There are seven more-or-less required tags:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event]&#xA;[Site]&#xA;[Date]&#xA;[Round]&#xA;[White]&#xA;[Black]&#xA;[Result]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and many different &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.saremba.de/chessgml/standards/pgn/pgn-complete.htm#c9&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;supplemental tags&lt;/a&gt;, for example &lt;code&gt;[WhiteElo]&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;[BlackElo]&lt;/code&gt; for the players' ratings, &lt;code&gt;[Board]&lt;/code&gt; for the board number in team events, and &lt;code&gt;[TimeControl]&lt;/code&gt; for information about the time-control used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-07-16T09:07:22.373" LastActivityDate="2017-07-16T09:07:22.373" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15577" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15547" CreationDate="2016-10-05T07:48:39.550" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;The following thirty five move position is the longest position I could create. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White basically checks with four knights on c2 before blocking the black pawns with the king and knight on h1 while keeping the black king boxed in on a1. I tried extending this by adding another white knight on a3 to check on c2 but a black queen or black bishop cannot be added to capture on c2 since black still has eight pawns and there would be no square to place a black knight on to capture on c2. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/p1p2p1p/5pbp/8/qN1N4/4N2p/pr1r4/k1K1N2N w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;  1. Nbc2 Bc2 2. N4c2 Rbc2 3. N3c2 Rc2 4. Nc2 Qc2 5. Kc2 h2 6. Nf2 h5 7. Nh1 h4 8. Nf2 h3 9. Nh1 h6 10. Nf2 h5 11. Nh1 h4 12. Nf2 f5 13. Nh1 f4 14. Nf2 f3 15. Nh1 f6 16. Nf2 f5 17. Nh1 f4 18. Nf2 a6 19. Nh1 a5 20. Nf2 a4 21. Nh1 a3 22. Nf2 c6 23. Nh1 c5 24. Nf2 c4 25. Nh1 c3 26. Nf2 h1=Q 27. Nh1 h2 28. Nf2 h3 29. Nh1 f2 30. Nf2 f3 31. Nh1 f2 32. Nf2 h1=Q 33. Nh1 h2 34. Nf2 h1=Q 35. Nh1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user11382" LastEditorDisplayName="user11382" LastEditDate="2017-07-08T23:49:36.067" LastActivityDate="2017-07-08T23:49:36.067" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15578" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15532" CreationDate="2016-10-05T09:05:04.190" Score="4" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I played black and lost all the matches. Does white have a decisive advantage since he can play d4 followed by bh6 and lose a piece and stay one move ahead?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;http://magma.maths.usyd.edu.au/~watkins/LOSING_CHESS/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Dr Mark Watkins of The University of Sydney&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;em&gt;losing chess&lt;/em&gt; has been solved and White can force a win with 1. e3:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The move 1. e3 has been solved as a win for White under both FICS and&#xA;  International Rules. The final leg was actually much easier than expected,&#xA;  as I wasted around a year on false leads. In fact, the not-too-deep idea&#xA;  1. e3 b6 2. a4 e6 3. Ra3 Bxa3 4. Nxa3 Qh4 5. a5 bxa5 6. Qh5! leads to&#xA;  some queen races where White just needs a bit deeper search to show&#xA;  a good score&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastEditorDisplayName="user1108" LastEditDate="2016-10-14T10:35:15.217" LastActivityDate="2016-10-14T10:35:15.217" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15579" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-10-05T11:24:02.553" Score="5" ViewCount="582" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are there any general guidelines to choose the square colour for your own pawns in bishop endgames? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Especially in knight vs bishop endgames, would you put your pawns on same coloured squares as the opponent's bishop?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2249" LastActivityDate="2016-10-09T03:51:13.337" Title="Pawns In The Bishop Endgames" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;bishop-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15580" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15579" CreationDate="2016-10-05T11:38:29.937" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;In general&lt;/em&gt;, the pawns should be on the &lt;strong&gt;opposite colour&lt;/strong&gt; of the bishop, especially if this forces the &lt;strong&gt;opponent's pawns onto the same colour&lt;/strong&gt; as the bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This prevents the bishop from being bad (locked in by it's own pawns) and gives the bishop targets.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my answer to &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/15231/1108&quot;&gt;When and why should I trade minor pieces?&lt;/a&gt;, I gave this sample position of a bishop dominating the knight:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/8/1k3b2/1p3p1p/pPp2P2/P1P3P1/8/1N2K3 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Onoprienko&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Khasangatin&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;  1. Kd2            Kc6           &#xA;  2. Ke2            Kd5           &#xA;  3. Ke3            Bg7           &#xA;  4. Kf3            Bh8           &#xA;  5. Ke3            Bg7           &#xA;  6. Kf3            Bf6           &#xA;  7. Ke3            h4            &#xA;  8. gxh4           Bxh4          &#xA;  9. Kf3            Bf6           &#xA; 10. Ke3            Ke6           &#xA; 11. Kf3            Kf7           &#xA; 12. Kg3            Kg6           &#xA; 13. Kh3            Kh5           &#xA; 14. Kg3            Be7           &#xA; 15. Kh3            Bh4           &#xA; 16. Nd2            Be1           &#xA; 17. Nb1            Bf2           &#xA; 18. Kg2            Be3           &#xA; 19. Kf3            Bc1           &#xA; 20. Kg3            Kg6           &#xA; 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This position is cited from &lt;em&gt;Understanding Chess Endgames&lt;/em&gt; by John Nunn&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2016-10-05T11:38:29.937" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15583" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15575" CreationDate="2016-10-05T18:44:25.547" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;PGN specification makes differences between import and output formats. For example, the seven tags event, site, date, round, white, black, result are mandatory for output in a specific order, but when importing you shouldn't be that strict - missing tags are ok, other order is ok, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then, there are a number of frequently used additional tags, like tags for rating, opening, title, etc. Open some of your favourite PGN files in an editor and have a look.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then, when importing, I'd more or less accept &lt;em&gt;anything&lt;/em&gt; that looks like a &quot;key-value-pair&quot; tag, and ignore (but maybe store) it if it's unknown.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't think most chess software give perfect PGN output, but most of them will also accept rather &quot;exotic&quot; interpretations. What does this mean for your use-case? Ask yourself what games you want to transfer, what info is in there, and then you'll probably find good tags for that. Maybe consider how your friend is going to process the PGN files.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10708" LastActivityDate="2016-10-05T18:44:25.547" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15584" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15579" CreationDate="2016-10-05T22:46:51.600" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;em&gt;normal pawn square color rule&lt;/em&gt; says: &lt;strong&gt;put your pawns on the opposite color&lt;/strong&gt;. But there's an exception.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, the precise answer depends on two things:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Are you playing, or are you trying to transition to, an opposite-colored bishops endgame?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If so, and you are the attacker, you follow the &lt;em&gt;normal pawn square color rule&lt;/em&gt;: put your pawns on the opposite color.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If so, and you are the defender, put your pawns on the &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;same color as your bishop&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;, so they cannot be attacked by your opponent's bishop, and you can defend them with yours.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If not, then follow the &lt;em&gt;normal pawn square color rule&lt;/em&gt; (see #2).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See my response to the question &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/15472/when-should-i-trade-into-opposite-colored-bishops/15474#15474&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;When should I trade into opposite-colored bishops?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt; for more details.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11245" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2016-10-09T03:51:13.337" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15585" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15575" CreationDate="2016-10-05T23:15:29.197" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Glorfindel cited the PGN standard, so if you feel you need to include fields that you're not familiar with, by all means consult it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But like &lt;em&gt;many&lt;/em&gt; standards, it's far too comprehensive to be implemented fully in most situations.  For example, the standard provides for the [Date] of the game, and the [EventDate] of the tournament; both White's and Black's clock time at the end of the game; the 3-letter acronym for the player's country, the name of the player's team (in an Olympiad or World Team Championship, these will match, but otherwise the team is normally unrelated); the name of the source publication for the game, the [SourceDate] for the date of the publication that the game appeared in; the &lt;em&gt;Site&lt;/em&gt; and the &lt;em&gt;EventSite&lt;/em&gt;; ... you get the idea.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Way over the top for all but the professionals, primarily those involved in publishing tournament bulletins and chess e-/magazines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd also encourage you to make sure your PGN fields include:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[Event]&#xA;[Date]&#xA;[White]&#xA;[Black]&#xA;[Result]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of the seven mentioned, the following are optional, even in published games:&#xA;[Site]&#xA;[Round]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Site can be multiple things: the city name, such &quot;Baku&quot;, the server organization name (if online) such as &quot;playchess.com&quot;, the correspondence chess association (if CC) such as &quot;ICCF&quot;, or the tournament name, such as &quot;Dos Hermanas&quot;.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Round is used when there are multiple games in one event, as in most tournaments, but can also be a combination of Board # &lt;em&gt;and&lt;/em&gt; Round # in team tournaments.  So, in the Baku Olympiad, for example, &quot;Round 1.1&quot; signifies a game played on Board 1 in Round 1.  In most older tournament scores, the Round information is often missing, although it could be reconstructed from the tournament crosstable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that [Event] &lt;em&gt;must&lt;/em&gt; be the first field for most PGN import processing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the game score doesn't begin from the start position, you can insert a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forsyth%E2%80%93Edwards_Notation&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;FEN&lt;/a&gt; field to represent the position, who's on move, what castling rights remain, and any e.p. capture that is possible at the beginning position. Just look up &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forsyth%E2%80%93Edwards_Notation&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Forsyth-Edwards Notation&lt;/a&gt; for more information.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Use spaces to separate the moves and move numbers as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;9&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;[white move] [black move] 10. etc.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You may run into trouble with variations, if you transcribe them manually. Keep the following rules in mind.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A. The variation immediately follows the move that it varies from, so:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;4&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;e5 dxe5 (4... d5)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;shows the alternative move 4...d5 in the proper position in the score, immediately following the main (or parent-variation) move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B. Certain codes are used by some PGN translators to represent the position evaluations at the end of a variation. They don't always import and export them the same way, and they don't always accept the &quot;+/-&quot; Informator symbology.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;C. The game score should end with the result. e.g. &quot;1-0&quot;, or &quot;*&quot; if it is only a line.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;D. The FEN diagram / game replayer used on Chess.StackExchange is non-conforming, so don't use your experience with it as a guide. Two examples: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It doesn't require the [Event] field at all&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It requires all PGN information lines to have a 4-space prefix. The&#xA;latter helps distinguish the games from the language of the rest of&#xA;the post on C.SE; such text outside of a game is not an option in the&#xA;PGN standard.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11245" LastEditorUserId="11245" LastEditDate="2016-10-07T13:55:11.033" LastActivityDate="2016-10-07T13:55:11.033" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15586" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2223" CreationDate="2016-10-06T14:47:59.963" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think this is a valid 2-Rook mate on an infinite board. You use one rook as the wall and the other rook to cooperate with K to give KR vs K mate conventionally.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;2R5/3k4/8/8/8/8/8/4R2K w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Ree8 Kd6 2. Kg2 Kd5 3. Kf3 Kd4 4. Re7 Kd5 5. Kf4 Kd6 6. Rcc7 Kd5&#xA;7. Red7+ Ke6 8. Rb7 Kf6 9. Rb6# 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7002" LastActivityDate="2016-10-06T14:47:59.963" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15588" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="346" CreationDate="2016-10-07T06:57:15.633" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here are the best moves according to Komodo 10:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;1.  d4 Nf6&#xA;2.  c4  e6&#xA;3.  Nf3 b6&#xA;4.  g3  Ba6&#xA;5.  Qa4 Bb7&#xA;6.  Bg2 c5&#xA;7.  O-O cxd4&#xA;8.  Nxd4 Qc8&#xA;9.  Bf4 Bxg2&#xA;10. Kxg2 Be7&#xA;11. Nc3 a6&#xA;12. f3  O-O&#xA;13. Rfd1 Qb7&#xA;14. Qb3 d6&#xA;15. Nc2 Qc7&#xA;16. Qa3 Rd8&#xA;17. Rac1 Nc6&#xA;18. Nb4 Ne5&#xA;19. Bxe5 dxe5&#xA;20. Rxd8+ Rxd8&#xA;21. Nxa6 Bxa3&#xA;22. Nxc7 Bxb2&#xA;23. Rd1 Rxd1&#xA;24. Nxd1 Ba3&#xA;25. Nf2 Nd7&#xA;26. Nd3 Bd6&#xA;27. Nb5 Be7&#xA;28. Nc3 Kf8&#xA;29. Kf2 f6&#xA;30. Ke3 Ke8&#xA;31. Na4 Kd8&#xA;32. Nc3 Kc7&#xA;33. Nb5+    Kc6&#xA;34. h3  Nc5&#xA;35. Nb4+    Kd7&#xA;36. Nd3 Nb7&#xA;37. Kd2 Kc6&#xA;38. g4  g6&#xA;39. Kc3 Na5&#xA;40. e4  g5&#xA;41. Nb4+ Kd7&#xA;42. Na6 Kc6&#xA;43. Nb8+ Kb7&#xA;44. Nd7 Nc6&#xA;45. Kb3 Nd4+&#xA;46. Nxd4 exd4&#xA;47. e5 fxe5&#xA;48. Nxe5 Kc7&#xA;49. Nd3 Kd7&#xA;50. Ne5+ Kd6&#xA;51. Nf7+ Kc5&#xA;52. Ne5 Bd6&#xA;53. Nd7+ Kc6&#xA;54. Nf6 Bf8&#xA;55. Ne4 h6&#xA;56. a4  Be7&#xA;57. Nf2 Bd8&#xA;58. Nd3 Bc7&#xA;59. Nb4+ Kc5&#xA;60. Na6+ Kd6&#xA;61. Kc2 e5&#xA;62. Nb4 Kc5&#xA;63. Kb3 Bd6&#xA;64. Nd5 Bf8&#xA;65. Nf6 Bg7&#xA;66. Nh5 Bf8&#xA;67. Ng3 Be7&#xA;68. Ne4+ Kc6&#xA;69. Kc2 Bc5&#xA;70. Kd3 Bb4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11418" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-08-16T09:22:38.397" LastActivityDate="2020-08-16T09:22:38.397" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="15589" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15579" CreationDate="2016-10-07T09:08:27.800" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It depends on the stage of the game an the pieces on board. The principles  I usually follow  is&#xA;1. If there is a knight on the board, then it would be better to place some pawns on thesame color most of them on a different  colour so that the bishop could quickly be attached to a pawn when it's threatened to prevent forks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If there is an opposite colour bishop on the board then it would the piston of your pawn would not depend on your bishop but your opponent's bishop. The pawn should be placed on the same colour to prevent  them from attack..&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10397" LastActivityDate="2016-10-07T09:08:27.800" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15590" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15594" CreationDate="2016-10-07T15:08:10.627" Score="1" ViewCount="1202" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/XNaw0.gif&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/XNaw0.gif&quot; alt=&quot;Threefold repetition animation&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I was wondering if this is the right way of how the threefold repetition works. Thanks. (The image is in gif format, it should play automatically.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user11229" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-10-08T08:22:47.937" LastActivityDate="2016-10-09T14:51:35.893" Title="Threefold repetition: Am I getting it right?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;threefold-repetition&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15592" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15579" CreationDate="2016-10-07T15:56:17.533" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I mostly agree with the other answers, but want to make one distinction.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, for long-term &lt;em&gt;strategic&lt;/em&gt; reasons it is generally correct to fix the opponent's pawns on the same colour as their bishop in order to restrict that bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, for short-term &lt;em&gt;tactical&lt;/em&gt; reasons the opposite is often true. You may want to fix some of the opponent's pawns on the opposite colour of the bishop so that they cannot be defended by the bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;White to move&quot;] &#xA;[FEN &quot;8/pkp5/1p6/5bp1/8/1P4P1/PK1N4/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. g4!&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White to move plays &lt;code&gt;1. g4!&lt;/code&gt; and black has no way to defend the pawn on &lt;code&gt;g5&lt;/code&gt;, with a draw as the likely result.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1485" LastActivityDate="2016-10-07T15:56:17.533" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15593" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-10-08T17:10:38.590" Score="0" ViewCount="815" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm looking for a &lt;strong&gt;strong&lt;/strong&gt; chess program for GNU/Linux with a command line interface, or one that I can alter to make it suit my needs&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After a quick search, I found the question &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/1600/chess-program-for-linux-unix-console&quot;&gt;Chess program for Linux/Unix console&lt;/a&gt;, which gives some programs that are either too slow or too weak (with no command line though, it was on terminal, but that is easily manageable).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11429" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2016-10-09T00:29:50.860" Title="Strong chess program for GNU/Linux with a command line interface?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;software&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2016-10-24T21:05:33.330" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15594" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15590" CreationDate="2016-10-08T20:28:49.337" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The confusion regarding the right to claim a draw when the position occurs 3 times results from the common misnomer for the situation: &quot;&lt;em&gt;Three-Fold Repetition&lt;/em&gt;&quot;.  A correct term could be &lt;em&gt;Three-Fold&lt;/em&gt; &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;Occurrence&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a result, in your diagram, after there have been 2 repetitions (which shows in the animation as &quot;Repitition (sic) 2&quot;, there have been 3 occurrences of the position, and a draw may be &lt;em&gt;claimed&lt;/em&gt;.  The game is not actually &quot;drawn&quot; until a claim is made and the Arbiter or Tournament Director approves the claim. This also has the result that if the player creating the 3rd occurrence of the position neglects to make the claim and proceeds to make a move, the right to claim a draw for this situation expires instantly, with his move. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that the protocol for making such a claim must be (to avoid causing his right to claim to expire) the following: The player announces his intention to make the move and cause the 3-fold occurrence, makes the claim to the TD before moving, and the claim is adjudicated. The rules do not describe whether the TD will require the player to make the move, but it would seem that he must, for the claim to be completed, or he will not have fulfilled his claim by causing the position to appear.  If it is determined (after the move has been made, presumably) that the position is &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; in fact a third occurrence, presumably his move must stand, and a penalty for incorrect claim would be levied.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;all of the legal moves in all of the 3 occurrences must be identical&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;, including rights to castle as well as any possibility of en passant capture.  It is &lt;em&gt;not sufficient&lt;/em&gt; that the same pieces merely appear on the same squares.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11245" LastActivityDate="2016-10-08T20:28:49.337" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15595" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="75" CreationDate="2016-10-08T20:47:20.660" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;For me, it has to be Scandinavian Alekhine. Although it could be responded by Alekhine's defence (B02), Spielmann variation and would prove better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both sides' queen, both sides' centre pawn, both sides' knight with good position lost as soon as the 7th move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Alekhine Defense: Scandinavian Variation:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;Computer Chess Test B02&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2016&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Stockfish 9&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Komodo 10&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 Nf6 2. Nc3 d5 3. e5 d4 4. exf6 dxc3 5. fxg7 cxd2 6. Qxd2 Qxd2 7. Bxd2 Bxg7 8. O-O-O&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11431" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2019-05-20T13:05:35.530" LastActivityDate="2019-05-20T13:05:35.530" CommentCount="1" CommunityOwnedDate="2016-10-08T20:47:20.660" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="15596" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4719" CreationDate="2016-10-08T20:56:46.673" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Azlan Iqbal (PhD) has programmed a chess problem generator. The problems are completely synthesized from only some rough inputs, the way most problems are composed by composition masters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.chessbase.com/post/computer-generated-chess-problems-for-everyone&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;ChessBase article&lt;/a&gt; announcing the work, he says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Chesthetica neither takes these constructs from actual games nor extrapolates them from endgame tablebases (which are currently limited to seven pieces, I believe). It is composing them by itself. It is not programmed or told what sort of compositions to create (beyond being of the #3 variety, at this point). There have been no detected repetitions of the compositions generated to date.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To the date of the article, Iqbal has only explored using the program, &lt;em&gt;Chesthetica&lt;/em&gt;, to compose mates in 3.  He also states:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;One might ask where does Chesthetica “get its ideas”? I do not know. How or why should a computer be able to compose chess problems like these at all? Can computers autonomously do this sort of thing? These are also good questions and I believe the answer lies with the DSNS* technology. Again, why it works is still an open question but clearly, it does work.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you're interested in knowing more about how the system was constructed, a brief recap of how DSNS functions is described in slides available &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.researchgate.net/publication/293817210_The_Digital_Synaptic_Neural_Substrate_A_New_Approach_to_Computational_Creativity_Slides&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;here&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, other than describing the algorithm and a few comments about the inputs he is using, Iqbal doesn't provide enough material for you to do this by yourself. The software isn't released, and no plans to release it have been announced. In addition, the method for choosing, capturing and inputting the inputs has not been divulged. You're welcome to search for more publications on the topic, available &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.researchgate.net/search?q=digital%20synaptic%20neural%20substrate&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;here&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*DSNS: Digital Synaptic Neural Substrate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11245" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2016-10-08T20:56:46.673" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15597" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6032" CreationDate="2016-10-08T21:36:15.797" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In math, the &quot;opposite&quot; of &quot;add 5&quot; to A (A+5), then multiply B by 6 (Bx6) is &quot;subtract 5&quot; from A (A-5), then divide B by 6 (B/6).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In math, there is no possibility of &quot;opposite&quot; meaning &quot;switch the variables&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, I am completely certain that GM Kaufman is recommending that for each pawn fewer than 5, you should &lt;em&gt;subtract&lt;/em&gt; 1/16 from the knight's standard value. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similarly, for each pawn fewer than 5, you should &lt;em&gt;subtract&lt;/em&gt; 1/8 from the rook's value.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is &lt;em&gt;no reason&lt;/em&gt; to believe that he meant the factor of 1/16 for the &lt;em&gt;knight&lt;/em&gt; should now apply to the &lt;em&gt;rook&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The logic of this intuitive; rooks need semi-open or open files to be effective, so the fewer friendly pawns there are, the more powerful they become. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Conversely, the knight is &lt;em&gt;stronger&lt;/em&gt; in closed positions, so the more friendly pawns there are, the stronger the knight becomes &lt;em&gt;relative to the other pieces, which need open lines&lt;/em&gt;.  It is reasonable to assume that, unless there is some evidence that says otherwise, the factors are mostly &lt;em&gt;linear&lt;/em&gt;, i.e.  A &lt;em&gt;bit more&lt;/em&gt; of an input results in &lt;em&gt;an increment&lt;/em&gt; of the output. &lt;em&gt;Another bit more&lt;/em&gt; of the same input results in &lt;em&gt;a similar additional increment&lt;/em&gt; of the output.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, this is simplistic; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The question of value is affected by whether pawns are &lt;em&gt;doubled&lt;/em&gt;, which would provide a semi-open file &lt;em&gt;without&lt;/em&gt; reducing the number of pawns, as well as how the pawns are positioned relative to their counterparts; two interlocking chains of 8 pawns each provide no toeholds or even targets to attack for the knights (and hence &lt;em&gt;reduce&lt;/em&gt; their value somewhat), whereas if some of these pawns are doubled and a base pawn can be reached from a square that is safe for the knight, their value should be &lt;em&gt;greater&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It's likely that the increment to the value of the rook for removing &lt;em&gt;the last pawn&lt;/em&gt; would be nearly nothing; it already has 7 open files; why would it need &lt;em&gt;an 8th?&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It's possible that the change in the value of the knight for adding the 8th pawn would be &lt;em&gt;negative&lt;/em&gt;. This is because the knight needs squares for mobility, and if all 8 pawns are on the board, there may be openings it can use to jump over its own pawns, or there may not be. There might instead be a &lt;em&gt;complete coverage&lt;/em&gt; of all such potential squares by the &lt;em&gt;opposing 8 pawns&lt;/em&gt;. The knight would seem to be more likely to find open squares in a 7-vs-7 situation.  But then, I'm not a GM.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would also expect that the bishops' and knights' values are inversely affected by this factor; clearly, closed positions favor the knight more than the &lt;em&gt;rook&lt;/em&gt;, but they also favor the knight more than the &lt;em&gt;bishop&lt;/em&gt;.  I assume Kaufman treats this topic separately, and your question only related to the knights and rooks. But if you're going to do this with knights and rooks, it seems only reasonable to to something with bishops.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11245" LastActivityDate="2016-10-08T21:36:15.797" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15598" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15601" CreationDate="2016-10-08T23:26:40.747" Score="6" ViewCount="2669" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think this is a very noob mistake, but bear with me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes I run into a situation where my opponent and I &quot;chase&quot; each other around, repeatedly checking the king and escaping the check by moving the king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's say I'm the one getting checked. My opponent checks me, I then move my king to escape the check, my opponent checks me again, I move my king, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only way to get out of this repetitive cycle is for my opponent to choose not to check my king, but that's probably not going to happen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What should I do in such a situation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11432" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2016-10-08T23:34:22.973" LastActivityDate="2016-10-10T01:41:13.617" Title="What should I do when my opponent and I are &quot;chasing&quot; each other around?" Tags="&lt;check&gt;&lt;perpetual&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15599" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15593" CreationDate="2016-10-09T00:29:50.860" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I wrote about &lt;strong&gt;Stockfish&lt;/strong&gt; in the link you had. I don't see there is any engine better than that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2016-10-09T00:29:50.860" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15600" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1521" CreationDate="2016-10-09T00:37:36.300" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;FWIW, no one has mentioned Dr. Ken Regan by name, though the pointer to Lipton's blog describes &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.uschess.org/content/view/12677/422/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;another article&lt;/em&gt; in &lt;em&gt;Chess Life&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt; that discusses his work. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That article is very informative about Regan's work, the state of detection techniques that were in effect in 2014, and FIDE's work in setting up a committee to define and promulgate standards, tools and techniques to assist TD's in stamping out cheating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11245" LastActivityDate="2016-10-09T00:37:36.300" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15601" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15598" CreationDate="2016-10-09T00:50:42.190" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's not entirely clear what you mean by &quot;chase each other around&quot;, since in the scenario you describe, only one player is doing the chasing, and the other is being chased.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are a few options normally available, depending on the position and what you believe to be the goal of the other player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are about to win, and he is &quot;nuisance checking&quot; you to avoid giving you the time you need to make progress, then you can:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Shelter your king. Ways to do this include taking refuge behind a line piece like a bishop or rook, and waiting for him to swing the piece he's checking with (assume it's a queen) onto that piece's line type. So, if you have a rook as the defender, he can't use a file or a rank to attack you, or you'll interpose. You could also try to make sure you have a couple of pawns in a short chain near the edge of the board as you transition into an endgame if the queens are still on the board; if you can reach them, you can often hide behind them, so he has few or no checks available.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Set up a barricade. Find a square that two of your pieces control,&#xA;and put that square between your king and his queen. When he checks&#xA;you on a line through that square, put one of your pieces on it to&#xA;&lt;em&gt;interpose&lt;/em&gt;, as long as that piece won't be threatened by more of his pieces immediately. You can sometimes use another tempo to get&#xA;the king off that line, so the piece is no longer pinned.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you think he's actually trying to trap your king, make a mental note of a position that you think you can recreate by returning to it after one &quot;loop&quot; of the chase. If so, make a note of the 2nd time you return to that position. If all of the pieces are in the same positions (plus, the same castling moves are still possible), then you have a draw claim, due to 3 occurrences of the same position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you choose squares on this &quot;loop&quot;, try to stay away from squares that would allow him to move a pawn to check your king. That would immediately reset the loop &quot;counter&quot;.  But once it happens, just calculate a new/updated loop, and keep trying.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even if your king will have to wander far and wide for this loop to be completed, it's still worth doing, because if he genuinely doesn't have a win, it will end the game in a draw, rather than a loss.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just for fun, here's the tail end of a game I played when I was rated 1264, and my opponent was rated 1841. I had to hold on for dear life for 76 moves but eventually swindled a draw, to the amazement of the entire club which was looking on while they waited for us to finish the last game of the round. The game was mentioned in the state chess newsletter, since although it was only a draw, I was the underdog by nearly &lt;em&gt;800 points&lt;/em&gt;, which made the odds of a draw practically microscopic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I present the game here precisely because I &lt;em&gt;was chasing the other guy around, and though he was up a piece, he couldn't find shelter&lt;/em&gt;. A perfectly legitimate &lt;s&gt;ruse&lt;/s&gt; strategy to draw, I think.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/8/7p/6p1/1k1p2P1/3Bb3/2K5/8 b - - 0 58&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;WCC Quick&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2004.03.19&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;jaxter&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Goldowsky, H.&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1/2-1/2&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;E60&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;1264&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;1841&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... h5 (1... Bf2 $142 $5 $17) 2. gxh5 $11 g4 3. Be2 (3. Bf1 $142 $5 $11 {should not be overlooked}) 3... g3 $17 4. Bf3 Kc4 5. Be2+ Kd5 6. Bf3+ {setting a trap} Ke5 7. Kd3 $5 Kf4 $4 {into which Black falls} (7... Kf6 $142 $5 $17) 8. h6 $1 $11 {This secures the draw} Kxf3 9. h7 g2 10. h8=Q {Attacking the isolated pawn on d4} g1=Q 11. Qa8+ Kf2 12. Qa2+ Kg3 13. Qg8+ Kh2 14. Qh8+ Kg2 15. Qa8+ $8 Kf1 16. Qa1+ Kf2 17. Qa2+ $8 {The queen has to navigate around the black pawn on d4, but because of the awkward placement of Black's other pieces, perpetual is inevitable.} Kf3 18. Qa8+ Kf2 (18... Kf4 19. Qf8+ Kg5 20. Qg7+ Kf5 21. Qf7+ Ke5 22. Qe7+ Kd5 23. Qd7+ Kc5 24. Qc7+ Kb4 25. Qb6+ Ka4 26. Qa6+ Kb3 27. Qb5+ Ka3 28. Qa6+ Kb2 29. Qb6+ Kc1 30. Qc6+ {and because of the position of the white king, black cannot enter the escape tunnel because of the threat of immediate mate.} Kb1 (30... Kd1 $4 31. Qc2+ Ke1 32. Qe2#) 31. Qb6+ Ka1 32. Qa7+ Kb1 33. Qb6+ Ka2 34. Qa6+ Kb2 35. Qb6+ Kc1 36. Qc6+ Kb1 37. Qb6+=) 19. Qa2+= 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11245" LastEditorUserId="11245" LastEditDate="2016-10-10T01:41:13.617" LastActivityDate="2016-10-10T01:41:13.617" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15602" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13476" CreationDate="2016-10-09T00:57:28.317" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;FIDE Laws of Chess do not recognize &quot;perpetual check.&quot; They only recognize a case where the same position appears 3 times on the board. If it does, the player about to make the move that will cause it to appear for the 3rd time may claim a draw, but must do so &lt;em&gt;before&lt;/em&gt; he makes his move. Once he makes his move, he no longer has any rights to claim a draw, because this can only be done while the player is still &quot;on move&quot;.  Once he moves, his opponent is &quot;on move&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The term &quot;Threefold Repetition&quot; is widely used, but misleading. Many players take it to mean what it seems to say, that a &lt;em&gt;repetition&lt;/em&gt; has occurred 3 times, i.e. the position occurred once (no repetition), then again (1st repetition), then once again (2nd repetition; draw claim already available), and then &lt;em&gt;one more time&lt;/em&gt; (3rd &lt;em&gt;repetition&lt;/em&gt;, but &lt;em&gt;4th occurrence of the position&lt;/em&gt;; draw claim still available).  It's quite possible that 2 repetitions may occur, but the opponent may then vary &lt;em&gt;to avoid a draw claim&lt;/em&gt;, in which case the 3rd repetition would &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt;.  If this came about, the player who wanted to claim a draw &lt;em&gt;missed his chance&lt;/em&gt;, and he won't get another.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It pays to understand the rules, not just know what people call them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11245" LastActivityDate="2016-10-09T00:57:28.317" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15603" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1103" CreationDate="2016-10-09T01:32:11.150" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are 3 basic themes in middlegame planning:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt; Pawn breaks to &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Create open files&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Seize control of the center&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Eliminate pawns that control key squares&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt; Short plans to create a positional imbalance, e.g.:&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Set up an outpost&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Create doubled, backward or isolated pawns in your opponent's pawn structure&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Weaken the king's position&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Sideline or block-in an opponent's piece&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Redeploy one of your pieces to a better square&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Seize control of a key file or diagonal&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Exchange off a poor minor piece of your own for a better piece of your opponent's&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Preparing for transition to the endgame, involving:&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Trading or preserving either one pair or both pairs of rooks&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Selecting which minor piece(s) of your own to &lt;i&gt;keep&lt;/i&gt; and which of your opponent's to &lt;i&gt;eliminate&lt;/i&gt; to maximize the imbalance of material based on the deployment of the remaining pawns&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Deploying your remaining pieces and king so they're in position and ready for the transition&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Adjusting your pawns for optimal placement for the type of endgame you're seeking&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you can tell, the pawn structure is the focus of many of these elements. For more on how to plan regarding the pawn structures that arise from common openings, take a look at my response to another question, &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/15481/middlegame-plans/15485#15485&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Middlegame Plans&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11245" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2016-10-09T01:32:11.150" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15604" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15615" CreationDate="2016-10-09T02:35:42.170" Score="2" ViewCount="351" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have a text file with 10K+ ECO opening codes from the Scid source distribution, for example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;C45g Scotch: Steinitz, Berger Variation&#xA;C45q Scotch: 4.Nxd4 Bc5 5.Nb3 Bb6 6.a4 a6 7.Nc3 Qf6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know &lt;code&gt;C45&lt;/code&gt; is the code for Scotch Game, but I'm not sure &lt;code&gt;C45g&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;C45q&lt;/code&gt; are valid.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Q&lt;/strong&gt;: Are &lt;code&gt;C45g&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;C45q&lt;/code&gt; valid? Should I just rename them to &lt;code&gt;C45&lt;/code&gt;? If they're valid, where should I look up for more information? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2016-10-18T05:31:50.027" Title="C45g, where to find this ECO code?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;eco&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15605" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15604" CreationDate="2016-10-09T03:30:33.977" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have the 1981 editions of Volume C, and there is no g or q that I can find. It's possible that the creators of that file used lettering instead of numbering for the sub-variations, since q is the 17th letter of the English alphabet, and line 17 under C45 does match up with the variation listed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9025" LastActivityDate="2016-10-09T03:30:33.977" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15606" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4154" CreationDate="2016-10-09T05:01:11.583" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Beware of hubris.&lt;/strong&gt;  That's the only reason why this would be rude or insulting.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I will tell you how I would handle such a situation, for an increased &lt;em&gt;friendliness&lt;/em&gt; with the other player.  It's almost totally disrelated from the actual strategies of chess; this has to do with interpersonal relationships.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a fairly decent chess player, I still have a great deal of humility.  First of all, if I am only &lt;em&gt;fairly&lt;/em&gt; certain I have checkmate in three moves, I would not want to assume that there is &lt;em&gt;zero&lt;/em&gt; possibility that I have overlooked something.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the case where I have double and triple checked the finite possibilities carefully and know that there is &lt;em&gt;zero&lt;/em&gt; chance I've overlooked something—I &lt;em&gt;know&lt;/em&gt; it is mate in three—there is also zero harm (and much benefit!) in communicating it as a &lt;em&gt;belief&lt;/em&gt; rather than a undeniable certainty, at least at first.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What I would say if I determined I had a guaranteed mate in three is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&quot;And, I believe that's mate in three.  Do you see any way out?&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;People are much more willing to accept things as true that they see for &lt;em&gt;themselves.&lt;/em&gt;  Of course they shouldn't just believe you.  They should see it for themselves.  And presenting it in this particular way opens the possibility for a dialogue, which is much more friendly than an adversarial relationship.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this way you could guide them—without any arrogance or hubris—to be able to see the &quot;mate in three&quot; that you have your eye on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They will either discuss the possibilities with you (&quot;No, it isn't mate; what if I move my bishop?&quot;  &quot;You would think—but don't forget about my rook!&quot;) and then finally conclude that it &lt;em&gt;is&lt;/em&gt; checkmate—or, if you &lt;em&gt;have&lt;/em&gt; overlooked something, maybe they will see it and the game will continue!  And you will have learned something.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Either way is fun.  &lt;strong&gt;Why be serious about it?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, if your goal is just to prove to other people how much smarter you are than them, then the above method won't work at all.  But in that case you have other problems than winning a chess game, like how to make friends.  ;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10513" LastActivityDate="2016-10-09T05:01:11.583" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15607" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15598" CreationDate="2016-10-09T09:48:49.040" Score="8" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What should I do in such a situation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Shake hands and agree a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it is a serious game where you are writing down the moves and your opponent doesn't agree to a draw then mark the move on your scoresheet where the last time a pawn was moved or a capture was made, mark the move 50 moves on from that and when you reach that move make a draw claim under the &quot;50 move rule&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2016-10-09T09:48:49.040" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15608" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1569" CreationDate="2016-10-09T19:05:06.567" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Several factors determine how you go about this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Your style of play&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Your available resources&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;How much time you are willing to invest&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1. Your Style of Play&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are more comfortable playing strategically/positionally than tactically, you will tend to prefer openings like the Colle System, London System, Queen's Indian Defense, French Defense and Hedgehog Defense.  If you prefer tactical play, then the Sicilian, King's Gambit (or almost all gambits, for that matter), King's Indian Defense, Gruenfeld Defense, Scandinavian and Alekhine's Defense are good candidates.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your choice of opening dictates whether or not you need to know a lot of theory.  In the tactical openings, you need much more theory, because they abound with traps and frequently-occurring combinations that are known to theory (and therefore your opponents).  This means that learning to play the Sicilian Defense, where theory goes nearly to move 30 in many of the lines, will be much more work and require more time practicing them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;2. Your Available Resources&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you can afford (or already have) both chess software and a ChessBase or Chess Assistant version of a database of games, that's a huge help (some would say indispensable).  Then, you need a decent introductory book, preferably in digital format.  I strongly recommend digital because it's an enormous time-saver when learning a line for the first time; you can review as many times as you want with no (board) setup effort, you can skip to hotspots easily, you can investigate quickly with a database search or an engine, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The best methods involve &lt;em&gt;finding the ideas in the opening&lt;/em&gt;.  You can get this information a couple of ways, and I would recommend trying them in sequence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Read an overview of the opening that explains the ideas.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;High-level summary: Gabor Kallai's &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1857441133&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Basic Chess Openings&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1857442067&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;More Basic Chess Openings&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt; cover all the major openings, but at only a very high level. These books are available for about $5 used. You can &quot;test drive&quot; an opening by using the material in these books to see if you think it might be useful.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Detailed overview: The series &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_c_2_20?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&amp;amp;field-keywords=mastering+the+chess+openings&amp;amp;sprefix=Mastering+the+CHess+%2Caps%2C139&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Mastering the Chess Openings, Vols&#xA;1-4&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt; by John Watson, covers all the openings in much more&#xA;detail. Another candidate is &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/B009YOM2L8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Fundamental Chess Openings&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt; by Paul Van der Sterren.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Read and practice the lines in an introductory but more detailed theory book, such as one from the Everyman Publishing series &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.everymanchess.com/starting-out?limit=all&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;&quot;&lt;em&gt;Starting Out: ...&lt;/em&gt;&quot;&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Pick out some games (30-50) from a database where the player of your color was rated about 2100-2300 ELO. Try to find games they won, where their opponent was rated at least 50 ELO &lt;em&gt;lower&lt;/em&gt;.  These games will show you how the opening is handled when the opposition doesn't handle it well. Play through them quickly, and try to find recurring ideas. Tag these, as well as any others you find interesting ideas in. Then, play through the tagged games more slowly, and see if you can understand each move by your color.  When you don't, switch on an engine, and try some ideas for alternative moves to see what happens. That should reveal why the move was correct in most cases. Mark any that are still unclear to explore later.  Take notes in the games themselves.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Once you understand the ideas, pick out more games, this time among players rated 2400+, and watch how the &lt;em&gt;opposite&lt;/em&gt; color handles the problems faced by the weaker players in the first set of games.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Finally, settle on your repertoire for this opening. Run through the opening with an opening book, or by using a large database as a reference, and find the most common lines in each position for the lines you want to study. Record the lines that are most common (don't study any move that occurs less than 10% of the time in a given position), indicating your choice at each position where your color has multiple options. Pick only one move to learn; put the others aside. If you can determine the win rate (an opening book or reference db will show this) for each move, this may be easy, but sometimes it's a matter of preference for the kinds of positions that arise, or an exchange that is arranged or avoided, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;With your repertoire now both understood and recorded, figure out a way to &lt;em&gt;train&lt;/em&gt; yourself in it. Many players use either Chess Position Trainer or Chess Openings Wizard.  CPT accepts a PGN import of games in your repertoire, and will prompt you to find the repertoire move for each one of a set of positions that it presents you.  It will schedule repetition of each exercise according to whether you recalled the move correctly or not; soon if not, after a few days if so.  This makes training &lt;em&gt;much more efficient&lt;/em&gt; than simply repeating all the moves in a line every time.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, CPT throws positions at you &lt;em&gt;without replaying lines&lt;/em&gt;. Once you learn to respond to the position, you won't be surprised when your opponent transposes to a different line or even a completely different opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To learn to play the lines well, however, &lt;em&gt;nothing&lt;/em&gt; can replace playing them in rated games. The closest you can come to it is moving the pieces for both sides on a board; &lt;em&gt;don't&lt;/em&gt; try to jump straight from digital to a tournament game.  The visualization and recall processes are not the same, and a familiar position on a screen often looks completely new on a board.  So, learn it digitally, practice it on a board, then play it in games (online is convenient, but not a complete substitute for OTB play if that's your ultimate goal; do both).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;3. How Much Time You Are Willing to Invest&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you can afford to study chess an hour a day, then you can afford about 2-3 hours a week on openings; you should spend the remaining time on other topics, including 1) playing, 2) tactics, 3) strategy, and 4) endgames.  The average intermediate player (under 1850 or so) spends &lt;em&gt;way too much time on openings&lt;/em&gt; for it to be beneficial to their rating/quality of play.  I've played with a number of 2000+ players who don't know the names of some of the common variations, let alone how to play them.  If they can get to 2000 without that kind of knowledge, then so can you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you can only spend 2-3 hours a week, then stick to some core openings: 1 for White, and 2 for Black (1.e4 and 1.d4). Choose a less tactical opening for each, for the reasons given above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you have a bit more time than that, I recommend &lt;em&gt;starting&lt;/em&gt; to study a more tactical opening, but where the theory is fairly stable and not excessively deep. The Scotch Opening for White is a decent candidate, as is the Scandinavian for Black against 1.e4.  Keep learning and practicing the new opening without playing it seriously until you're confident in your ability to follow all the main lines. Then, introduce it gradually.  Many players use &quot;extra openings time&quot; to learn a different opening for blitz, or a surprise opening for opponents they expect to meet more than once in several tournaments.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you have lots of time, by all means tackle one or more of the Big Ones, i.e. the Ruy Lopez, Sicilian, Two Knights Defense, Queen's Gambit, etc.  You'll lose for awhile, but then you'll get enough experience to play them well. You should expect this to take at least 6 months against strong opposition, but it will pay dividends against weaker opponents.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11245" LastActivityDate="2016-10-09T19:05:06.567" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15609" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15627" CreationDate="2016-10-09T21:34:00.597" Score="11" ViewCount="737" Body="&lt;p&gt;Recently, I've been playing the Caro-Kann exclusively against 1. e4, with good results. The one line that I find somewhat confusing is the advance Caro - specifically, where does the kingside knight go?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pp2pppp/2p5/3pP3/3P4/8/PPP2PPP/RNBQKBNR b KQkq - 0 3&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After 3. e5 Bf5, the bishop gets developed outside the pawn chain, which seems good for black. Something that consistently gets me in trouble is that it seems like my g8 knight has no good squares to go to.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the knight is developed to h6, it gets captured by the bishop, and after the pawn recaptures, black is left with doubled pawns and the option to castle kingside is more or less not available after this point (the g-file is now open).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The knight obviously cannot go to f6, as it would simply be captured by the advanced pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only reasonable possibility seems to be moving the pawn to e6, then moving the knight to Ne7, but where is the knight going from here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10772" LastActivityDate="2019-09-26T16:31:51.300" Title="Knight constrained in advance Caro-Kann" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;caro-kann&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15610" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4414" CreationDate="2016-10-10T01:52:04.940" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Because that would be cheating.  Well, to be fair, the reason is to make it reasonable that when &lt;em&gt;all of the squares surrounding a king and the square it stands on are attacked by the opponent&lt;/em&gt;, the defender cannot simply &lt;em&gt;warp&lt;/em&gt; away and out of trouble, while simultaneously delivering a new defender in the fray.  The move would simply be too powerful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, you &lt;em&gt;are&lt;/em&gt; allowed to do this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;1r6/p2nkp1p/2B1pb1B/2p5/6r1/2P5/PP3P1P/R3K2R w KQ - 0 21&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Todd Southam Memorial&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Toronto&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2004.06.13&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Krupnov, Maxim E&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Smith, Hazel&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;2361&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;2051&quot;]&#xA;[SetUp &quot;1&quot;]&#xA;[EventType &quot;schev (rapid)&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Be3 Rxb2 2. Bxd7 Kxd7 3. O-O-O+ Kc6 4. Kxb2 {and White won in 42 moves} 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11245" LastActivityDate="2016-10-10T01:52:04.940" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15612" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15604" CreationDate="2016-10-10T05:36:32.243" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The ECO system, invented by the publishers of Informator chess magazine, has 2 levels that represent valid coding, just as the United States Postal Service and the Post Office in the UK do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first is the 3-character code structure of X99, where X is in the set {A-E} and 99 are any numeric digits. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The second is the &lt;em&gt;first&lt;/em&gt; triplet, then a &quot;/&quot; slash character, and then another 2-digit code, used for subvariations in the main lines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are no lower-case alphabetic characters in the Informator system. So, the code that the Scid opening book is not valid according to the standard.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's not unusual for an organization to find that the ECO code system is weak, disorganized and difficult to apply. This is in part because it was not designed well for growth, and copes poorly with the evolution of opening theory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are some examples of where it falls down:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some codes have multiple openings. The &quot;A00&quot; code encompasses the Grob Attack, Dunst Opening, Sokolsky Opening, Basman's Opening, Benko's Opening, Mieses Opening, Saragossa Opening, Ware Opening, Anderssen's Opening, Van't Kruis Opening, Gedult's Opening, Durkin's Attack, and the Deprez Opening.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically, it is the bucket into which anything other than a commonly-used first white move goes, including 1.Nc3, 1.g4, 1.b4 and 1.g3, although these start many games. I have over 22,000 games beginning 1.Nc3 alone in my database, and nearly 27,000 games beginning 1.b4.  So, the A00 designation is not useful, from a practical standpoint, in separating games like these.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another problem with the ECO system is that it is based on move order, and it is possible to &lt;em&gt;transpose&lt;/em&gt; between opening systems within the first or so 10 moves.  As a result, common &lt;em&gt;tabiyas&lt;/em&gt; or standard positions can &lt;em&gt;arise&lt;/em&gt; from multiple, completely different move orders. They can also &lt;em&gt;lead&lt;/em&gt; to entirely different openings. One example of such a tabiya is the Caro-Kann Defense, Panov-Botvinnik Attack variation's position after:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;B13&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;1996.??.??&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Caro Kann Defence&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Panov_Botvinnik Attack&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;*&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;B13&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;7&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;1996.??.??&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. exd5 cxd5 4. c4 *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This can lead to positions from: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A35, the English Opening, Four Knights Variation; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;B22, the Sicilian Defense, Alapin Variation; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;D20, the Queen's Gambit Accepted with e4;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;D26 the QGA with 5.Bc4 c5 sidelines; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;D40-42, various variations of the Queen's Gambit Declined, Semi-Tarrasch;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;D94, the Gruenfeld Defense with 4 Nf3 Bg7 5 e3; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;E54-55 and E57, The Nimzo-Indian Rubinstein, mainline with 7...dxc4 8 Bxc4;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;E61, the King's Indian Defense, early deviations.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, no single ECO code can be reliably applied to this tabiya, or to the moves leading up to it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Furthermore, certain openings such as the opening moves of the English and Reti Openings often evolve into tabiyas that then lead to a Queen's Gambit, King's Indian Defense, Queen's Indian Defense, Gruenfeld Defense or Catalan. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This field of transpositions has become so thick that Andrew Soltis has published a book about it, &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/B00PPH895Q&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Transpo Tricks in Chess&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Fortunately, thanks to game databases that store &lt;em&gt;positions&lt;/em&gt;, not moves, the problems of move order can be left behind when researching openings.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This suggests that the ECO Code system is not really needed for most purposes, either, though it can be handy as long as you realize that it is an unreliable guide, and are willing to work within its limitations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11245" LastActivityDate="2016-10-10T05:36:32.243" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15613" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2325" CreationDate="2016-10-10T05:50:43.477" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;entire family&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; of Benoni Defenses and the Benko Gambit all include ...c5 in response to 1.d4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Benoni Defense &amp;amp; Benko Gambit&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;A57-A79&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;15&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 c5 3. d5 b5 {is the Benko Gambit} (3... e6 4. Nc3 exd5 5. cxd5 d6 {is the Benoni}) &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Blumenfeld Counter-Gambit is another example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Blumenfeld Counter Gambit&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;E10&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nf3 c5 4. d5 b5 {is the Blumenfeld Counter Gambit}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Benoni has a performance of 62%-38% for White over 9650 decisive games, and 28% draws. So, ...c5 doesn't seem to work for Black in that opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Benko Gambit has a performance of 58%-42% for White over 15,300 decisive games, and 31% draws. So, it looks as if ...c5 doesn't seem to work for Black in that opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Blumenfeld has a performance of 58%-42% for White over 2390 decisive games, and 28% draws. So, again, it looks like ...c5 doesn't seem to work for Black in that opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, in the Berlin Defense, a notoriously difficult nut for White to crack, the performance is &lt;em&gt;59%-41%&lt;/em&gt; for White in decisive games, with 49% draws.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, ironically, the Blumenfeld and Benko Gambits_both_ yield marginally &lt;em&gt;better&lt;/em&gt; results for Black than the Berlin Defense!  There is no way to confirm that it is a direct result of the move ...c5, however.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Conversely, when White can play both 1.d4 and a later &lt;em&gt;c5&lt;/em&gt;, he has a performance of 61%-38% score in the decisive games, and about 32% of the games being draws. (This is based on a sample of 3880 games where both players were ELO 2000 or higher.)  This is a slightly higher score than most openings offer. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A comparison could be made with the Giuoco Piano (Italian Game), where White scores only about 54-46% in decisive games, with 43% draws.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A possible hypothesis is that &lt;em&gt;the move c5 leads to a win&lt;/em&gt;, but it may be that strong players of White play the move when it's reasonable, and weaker players don't, even if it's reasonable.  In other words, it may just be an &lt;em&gt;indicator&lt;/em&gt; of when a strong player of white is facing a weaker player of black, not the deciding factor itself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11245" LastEditorUserId="11245" LastEditDate="2016-10-11T01:55:24.757" LastActivityDate="2016-10-11T01:55:24.757" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15615" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15604" CreationDate="2016-10-10T08:08:43.187" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;These codes are the extended ECO codes by SCID, and have no meaning outside it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When classifying the games you can enable or disable the extended ECO codes to force SCID to use the standard ones, if you prefer so.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's a short explanation of the reason for the extended ECO codes here: &lt;a href=&quot;https://sourceforge.net/p/scid/wiki/TheECObrowser/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://sourceforge.net/p/scid/wiki/TheECObrowser/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2311" LastActivityDate="2016-10-10T08:08:43.187" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15616" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15617" CreationDate="2016-10-10T13:26:28.743" Score="4" ViewCount="2442" Body="&lt;p&gt;I gave someone 3 months to become as good a chess player as I am. She was just a beginner and I'm a slightly below average player (around 1500 elo).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To see if she managed to do this, I figured we should play a chess match consisting of multiple games. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But what is a reasonable or standard amount of games to play in a chess match (or a 2 player tournament, if you will)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11442" LastActivityDate="2016-10-11T22:52:53.167" Title="How many games to play in a chess match?" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15617" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15616" CreationDate="2016-10-10T13:43:08.500" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The amount of games in a match is usually* even, to guarantee an equal balance between White and Black. 2 game (mini)-matches are rare, except in knock-out tournaments like the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_World_Cup_2015&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chess World Cup&lt;/a&gt;. More games will produce a more reliable result, so you should play as many games as you have time for, but 4 games should already give a good indication about who's the better player. With some mathematics and the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elo_rating_system#Mathematical_details&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;expected performance formula&lt;/a&gt; you can calculate the odds of losing an X-game match to a player who is Y ELO points better/worse than you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*&lt;sub&gt;: The only exception is an &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_chess#Armageddon&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Armageddon game&lt;/a&gt; which can be used after a match which ended in a draw (i.e. the same score for both players).&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2016-10-10T13:43:08.500" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15618" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15609" CreationDate="2016-10-11T08:52:21.247" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my answer to &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/12377/1108&quot;&gt;What are the ideas behind the Short variation in Advance Caro-Kann?&lt;/a&gt;, I address the move Nh6, specifically:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Black does not fear the bishop taking the h6 knight. The Bishop pair and semi open g-file provide ample compensation for the doubled h-pawns, which are not easy to attack. Often White will have to un-double these pawns for defensive purposes&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So &lt;strong&gt;Ng8-h6-f5&lt;/strong&gt; is not as odd as it may seem.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2016-10-11T08:52:21.247" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15619" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6501" CreationDate="2016-10-11T12:02:58.467" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Professor Mark Watkins announced he had found the &lt;a href=&quot;http://magma.maths.usyd.edu.au/~watkins/LOSING_CHESS/email.html&quot;&gt;solution&lt;/a&gt; to Losing Chess in October 2016. Regardless of what Black plays, White can force a win beginning with 1. e3.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11448" LastActivityDate="2016-10-11T12:02:58.467" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15620" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12951" CreationDate="2016-10-11T15:48:56.557" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I wrote some free software: GuessTheMove.  YouTube: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZgWSCHxJHI&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZgWSCHxJHI&lt;/a&gt;. Website: &lt;a href=&quot;https://sites.google.com/site/fredm/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://sites.google.com/site/fredm/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11453" LastActivityDate="2016-10-11T15:48:56.557" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15621" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15609" CreationDate="2016-10-11T21:48:44.200" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You have to take basic opening strategy into consideration. Black is playing for the c5 break in the Advanced Caro. Piece placement rotates around this break. Things like Qb6, Na6-c7/Nd7/Ne7-c6 are possible; It takes but a brief moment to review opening lines to get a feel for how one develops when playing the Caro Kann Advanced. To point out, if White exchanges on c5 you get a nice placement for your dsB. if not, you can pressure d4 and force some exchanges, weakening the e5-pawn, along with a potential queenside attack. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Good Luck! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10233" LastActivityDate="2016-10-11T21:48:44.200" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15622" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15616" CreationDate="2016-10-11T22:52:53.167" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Play 6 games at G15 or G30. record all the games so you can review them afterwards. That will give you just enough games to gage her play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10233" LastActivityDate="2016-10-11T22:52:53.167" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15623" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9159" CreationDate="2016-10-11T23:09:43.803" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Visualization training is visualizing moves on the board &lt;strong&gt;WITHOUT looking at the board&lt;/strong&gt;, like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Tell all the squares controlled by a knight on d4&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;All the shortest paths to move a knight from a3 to h8&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;How a Qa5 can attack a Rh4 without being captured&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;How a Nc4 can check a Kb7 defended by Bb6 without being captured&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;etc., etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;you might laugh and think it is easy, but it is not. Try a series of them randomly created and write down your answers then compare them to what you see while looking at the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Fun stuff.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Purpose?&#xA;It makes you a better calculator when looking at positions during your game. You will eventually instantly see multi-move paths that pieces can take across the board, especially knights.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10233" LastActivityDate="2016-10-11T23:09:43.803" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15624" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15625" CreationDate="2016-10-12T03:12:18.183" Score="7" ViewCount="2676" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have a pgn file containing a game. I want to add a comment into the game (like at move 23. - This is a ok move etc.) using words and not symbols. Is it possible  to do this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11410" LastActivityDate="2018-05-13T08:13:35.437" Title="Add comments in a pgn file" Tags="&lt;pgn&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15625" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15624" CreationDate="2016-10-12T04:12:12.073" Score="9" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Date &quot;1910.01.07&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1/2-1/2&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Carl Schlechter&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Emanuel Lasker&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 {Notes by J. R. Capablanca} e5 {This is Black's second move!} 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 Nf6 *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a sample PGN game. You'll just need &lt;code&gt;{&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;}&lt;/code&gt; to enclose your comments. But you should use a chess program to do it for you. SCID is free and can do it for you. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2016-10-12T04:12:12.073" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15626" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15624" CreationDate="2016-10-12T04:15:26.970" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, there are two ways to add a text comment to a pgn file.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first is far more common: simply wrap the comment in {braces}  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1. e4 {Best by test!} e5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The second is less common, but also a part of the official pgn spec&lt;sup&gt;1&lt;/sup&gt;.  An end of line comment is allowed if it is preceded by a semicolon  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1. e4; Best by test!&#xA;1... e5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is far more awkward to read (since there is an extra move number in the file) and not all software supports this.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As an aside, all major annotating software (chessbase, chess.com, lichess.org, SCID) defaults to using the first scheme.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1: The pgn spec file can be found either at &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessclub.com/user/help/PGN-spec&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.chessclub.com/user/help/PGN-spec&lt;/a&gt; or &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.saremba.de/chessgml/standards/pgn/pgn-complete.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.saremba.de/chessgml/standards/pgn/pgn-complete.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12" LastActivityDate="2016-10-12T04:15:26.970" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15627" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15609" CreationDate="2016-10-12T09:22:03.803" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Where the knights go depends on your pawn structure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One option is to do the following, at some point&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;e7-e6&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Nb8-d7&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Ng8-e7&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;c6-c5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Ne7-c6&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You get a French defence pawn structure with corresponding ideas.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You could go for the same pawn structure with a different knight setup.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;e7-e6&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;c6-c5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Nb8-c6&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Ng8-e7&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Ne7-f5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Putting pressure on the d4 square.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2001" LastActivityDate="2016-10-12T09:22:03.803" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15628" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15629" CreationDate="2016-10-13T13:33:48.363" Score="3" ViewCount="380" Body="&lt;p&gt;After the moves 1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. exd5 cxd5 4. c4 Nf6 5. Nc3 e6 6. Nf3, what are major differences in plans and variations for Black between 6...Bb4 and 6...Be7?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[StartPly &quot;11&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. exd5 cxd5 4. c4 Nf6 5. Nc3 e6 6. Nf3 Bb4 (6...Be7)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Currently I use 6...Bb4 and play against an isolated d-pawn or hanging c and d pawns. I understand these plans quite well. But often Black concedes the bishop pair and is left with a bad light square bishop, which I think is a major weakness.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2017-10-26T13:08:02.227" Title="What are the main differences between 6...Bb4 and 6...Be7 in the Panov-Botvinnik attack?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;caro-kann&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15629" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15628" CreationDate="2016-10-13T18:19:40.773" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to the &lt;a href=&quot;http://chesstempo.com/game-database.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Game Database of ChessTempo&lt;/a&gt;, the mainlines of 6...Bb4 and 6....Be7 are quite similar: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;6....Be7 7.cxd5 Nxd5 8.Bd3 Nc6 9.0-0&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;6....Bb4 7.cxd5 Nxd5 8.Bd2 Nc6 9.Bd3 0-0 10.0-0&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Remarkably, the main move for the second line is 10....Be7, which transposes to the first line, but with an extra Bd2 for white. For instance, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1594914&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Nakamura-Wojtaszek&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1692865&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Motylev-Jakovenko&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Instead of 7.cxd5, white can also play 7.Bd3. In this case it is difficult to tell whether the bishop is better placed on b4 (to have the possibility to take on c3) or on e7 (to protect against the pin after Bg5).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit by Evargalo:&lt;/strong&gt; The logic behind Black wanting the White bishop on d2 and not c1 is a bit complicated: In the variations with the bishop on c1, the main line (after 9.0-0 Nc6) is the logical 10.Re1, where there is a lot of theory and Black has to work hard to equalize. With the bishop on d2, however, 11.Re1?! is a dubious pawn sacrifice after 11...Ndb4! 12. Bb1 (or Be4, or Bf1, or Bc4) Nxd4, because the Bd2 interferes in the Qd1-Pd4 connection. Thus the main lines are 11.Qe2 or 11.a3, which are less direct although the opening debate remains open to this day.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Objectively speaking, the values of 6....Bb4 and 6....Be7 are probably similar. Therefore, choosing between both moves is more a matter of taste.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that the position after 6....Bb4 can also arise after a transposition from the Nimzo-Indian, which is the subject of another &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/9461/what-are-all-the-most-common-transpositions-between-the-caro-kann-panov-botvinni/9476#9476&quot;&gt;Stack Exchange question&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;      [StartPly &quot;11&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;      [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;      1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.exd5 cxd5 4.c4 Nf6 5.Nc3 e6 6.Nf3 Bb4 (6...Be7 7.cxd5 (7.Bd3) Nxd5 8.Bd3 O-O 9.O-O Nc6 10.Re1) 7.cxd5 (7.Bd3) Nxd5 8.Bd2 Nc6 9.Bd3 O-O 10.O-O Be7 11.Re1?! (11.Qe2) (11.a3) Ndb4 12.Be4 Nxd4&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4588" LastEditorUserId="4588" LastEditDate="2017-10-26T13:08:02.227" LastActivityDate="2017-10-26T13:08:02.227" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15630" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6574" CreationDate="2016-10-13T20:06:01.193" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are several &quot;forced&quot; drawing conditions (other than an agreed draw). In most of these situations, someone is usually behind in material.Basically, a draw occurs when one player can prevent the other from checkmating him, using force.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One is &quot;insufficient material to win.&quot; That is, someone has a king and bishop or knight against a lone king, and can't force a win. Another is &quot;stalemate, whereby one player can't make a legal move, but is not in check (and is therefore not &quot;checkmated&quot;). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your situation covers two more categories of draw. The &quot;classic&quot; description of your situation is called perpetual check. That is, you keep the other side so &quot;busy&quot; dodging your checks that your opponent never gets a chance to checkmate you. This also leads to another drawing condition called &quot;repetition of position.&quot; That is, if the same position is repeated three times, with the same player to move, it is a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2016-10-13T20:06:01.193" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15631" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-10-14T01:17:01.010" Score="1" ViewCount="306" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm currently attempting to program a chess engine for a club project; one where many different people could create different engines and they could play a tournament or something of that nature. As such, I'm not sure if it's appropriate for me to rely on a GUI like Arena to provide opening/endgame database support. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a good way to integrate such databases into the engine itself? I am using UCI on Java to program the engine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11473" LastActivityDate="2016-10-14T01:46:56.807" Title="Is it possible to integrate an opening book and/or endgame tablebase into a chess engine? If so, how?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15632" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15631" CreationDate="2016-10-14T01:46:56.807" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's possible to integrate an opening book and/or endgame tablebase. Unfortunately there is no Java solutions, because chess engine programming is dominated by C/C++. Maybe you want to switch to C/C++? Your life will be easier.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Opening book&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PolyGlot book (&lt;a href=&quot;http://wbec-ridderkerk.nl/html/details1/PolyGlot.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://wbec-ridderkerk.nl/html/details1/PolyGlot.html&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Tablebase&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Syzygy tablebase (this &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/9960/what-is-syzygy-tablebases&quot;&gt;question&lt;/a&gt; has the details)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;My recommendation&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unless you're an expert in programming, I don't think it's a good idea to work on Polyglot and Syzygy yourself. They're not written for beginners. GUI like Arena would be a better idea.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.193" LastActivityDate="2016-10-14T01:46:56.807" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15634" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15532" CreationDate="2016-10-14T13:03:01.197" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I suppose this chess variation is called &lt;strong&gt;Anti-chess&lt;/strong&gt;. You can also play it online on &lt;strong&gt;lichess.com&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;chess.com&lt;/strong&gt;(new version). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9620" LastActivityDate="2016-10-14T13:03:01.197" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15635" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15636" CreationDate="2016-10-14T13:03:29.417" Score="8" ViewCount="1369" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recently heard about &lt;strong&gt;Owen's opening&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;strong&gt;1. e4 b6&lt;/strong&gt; is the starting move which can transform into various lines. I am just curious about the traps (for both black and white) involved in this opening. I tried surfing on the internet but couldn't get any traps on this opening. So, are there any traps involved or not?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS- Although I've accepted an answer, feel free to add any relevant comment or answer !&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9620" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2016-10-31T23:37:20.577" LastActivityDate="2021-01-20T11:07:06.473" Title="Traps in the Owen's opening" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;opening-traps&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15636" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15635" CreationDate="2016-10-14T13:32:09.663" Score="8" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1 &quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 b6 2. d4 Bb7 3. Bd3 f5 4. exf5 Bxg2 5. Qh5+ g6 6. fxg6 Nf6 7. gxh7+ Nxh5 8. Bg6++&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One possible trap for black is in the Matinovsky gambit which starts with ... 3.f5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10182" LastActivityDate="2016-10-14T13:32:09.663" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15637" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6574" CreationDate="2016-10-14T15:18:54.000" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;If the chess opponent is not good, then he could &lt;em&gt;lose&lt;/em&gt; a queen, then all you now need to do is do a Queen-as-Rook+King check&lt;em&gt;mate&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, if he &lt;em&gt;is&lt;/em&gt; good, then perpetual check is &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; an option. You will lose your queen, and get mated by the double Queen mate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately, the &lt;em&gt;only&lt;/em&gt; way you will get a queen is by a skewer attack and luck. Keep your Queen close to your King, and guarantee at least a Queen loss for the opponent. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He can perpetually check you. There is no denying it. &lt;em&gt;If he does decide to do so, do the same to him&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11438" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-10-14T15:32:22.117" LastActivityDate="2016-10-14T15:32:22.117" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15638" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15635" CreationDate="2016-10-14T18:21:57.907" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Owen's Defense is a bit passive, but quite solid opening, so there aren't that many traps to watch out for.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is a primitive one:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Title &quot;Owen's Defense&quot;]&#xA;[Startply &quot;5&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 b6 2. Nf3 Bb7 3. Bc4?! Bxe4? (3... e6) 4. Bxf7+ Kxf7 5. Ng5+ Ke8 6. Nxe4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black has lost their castling rights, so there must be some advantage for white. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;3. Bc4&lt;/code&gt; isn't a good move, though. After &lt;code&gt;3... e6&lt;/code&gt; the white bishop is awkwardly placed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1485" LastActivityDate="2016-10-14T18:21:57.907" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15640" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14565" CreationDate="2016-10-15T05:00:36.860" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sez Ben. Sez Sherlock Holmes, chess is &quot;one mark, Watson, of a scheming mind.&quot; Doyle excelled at chess. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for its usefullness, one may as well ask if a Picasso or a Da Vinci masterpiece is usefull.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Virtues? Playing chess has only made me more bloody-minded...when playing chess.  Kill...quickly-eficiently! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For moral insight, I like using a mirror.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11482" LastEditorUserId="11482" LastEditDate="2016-10-15T05:21:33.917" LastActivityDate="2016-10-15T05:21:33.917" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15641" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14273" CreationDate="2016-10-15T06:38:04.330" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Paul B.,&#xA;Good question. I'm possibly a 1000 rated player on a good day, fingers crossed. A few decades ago I was playing the black pieces against an unbeatable cafe player. I'd dropped acid.  Five moves into the game, he suggested I move my Bishop to b4. Then I started peaking, and I absolutely annihilated him - felt vibrating ley lines humming from all the squares and pieces. I knew with absolute certainty that I couldn't lose. Best game I've ever played, and the odd thing was that I beat the second-best player twice the next evening...? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sigh. Hick town, no chess here, not willing to drop acid and have elderly freakout even though, whew, I live next door to a trauma center...yuk, yuk. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In short, you never know about mind expanding drugs and chess, (in fact the mind is endless,) but wow-what a ride!!!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11482" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-04T20:16:12.640" LastActivityDate="2020-03-04T20:16:12.640" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="15643" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15644" CreationDate="2016-10-15T09:43:28.620" Score="3" ViewCount="1527" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have seen (and studied) some books on opening theory. They basically deal with chess openings and various lines in which those openings can transform into. But I haven't found a book which completely focuses on opening chess traps. I want to learn chess traps which originate from various openings. I have looked online and found traps like &quot;Legal trap&quot;, &quot;Fishing pole trap&quot;, etc. Can someone recommend me a book or even some other online material(s) which basically have a compilation of such kind of traps?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9620" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-12-17T14:34:01.830" LastActivityDate="2017-03-06T18:47:42.033" Title="Books for chess traps" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;books&gt;&lt;opening-traps&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15644" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15643" CreationDate="2016-10-15T11:48:09.667" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess.com has a review of &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/download/view/700-opening-traps-by-bill-wall&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;700 Opening Traps by Bill Wall&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Bill Wall is a well known chess writer and his book '700 opening traps' is available as a free download from the website mentioned above, as well as his many other books and articles.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The book is available for download at &lt;a href=&quot;http://billwall.phpwebhosting.com/permanent/700_Opening_Traps.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://billwall.phpwebhosting.com/&lt;/a&gt; (this opens the book as a PDF).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2016-10-15T11:48:09.667" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15645" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15643" CreationDate="2016-10-16T00:37:49.343" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Pandolfini wrote at least one book titled &quot;Chess Openings,  Traps and Zaps&quot;. In addition, there are numerous books of miniatures, which are, in some cases, traps. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9025" LastActivityDate="2016-10-16T00:37:49.343" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15647" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6574" CreationDate="2016-10-16T19:28:00.887" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, this is good sportsmanship. In fact, the perpetual check is the most important defensive tactic in the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_and_pawn_versus_queen_endgame&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Queen+pawn vs Queen endgame&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can add the following to the previous answers. Other variants of chess have a different opinion about this question. For example, in Chinese Chess, it is forbidden to make perpetual check. See, for example, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.clubxiangqi.com/rules/d1to3.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;this resource&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I hope that my contribution is not too far from the topic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9082" LastActivityDate="2016-10-16T19:28:00.887" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15648" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5069" CreationDate="2016-10-16T22:02:40.213" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think a lot of this debate centres around differences between boys and girls and men and women. If we are not allowed IQ or intelligence skills, then what could we possibly  actually mean by &quot;life skills&quot; - sometimes, this is not an easy question either at the chess club,or in the classroom, or outside the pub at closing time.... I could go on. (But I won't). Will they eventually give us a &quot;Life Quotient&quot; and will it be measured by the number of kids you've got, or divorces you've experienced -- will it be means tested???? As I say I could go on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11490" LastActivityDate="2016-10-16T22:02:40.213" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15649" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15650" CreationDate="2016-10-17T01:49:50.487" Score="2" ViewCount="304" Body="&lt;p&gt;friends...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am looking for a really-bad-by-design chess engine, compatible with Arena chess GUI... Not just lowering engine power...&#xA;I have tried lowering Stockfish's power, and it didn't suit my needs, so, I am looking for a weak one!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks in advance!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11425" LastActivityDate="2016-10-17T15:28:28.817" Title="Looking for a Horrible-by-design chess engine" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;arena&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15650" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15649" CreationDate="2016-10-17T04:36:32.133" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;You have a whole list at &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.computerchess.org.uk/ccrl/4040/&quot;&gt;http://www.computerchess.org.uk/ccrl/4040/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you're looking for a weak engine, I'd suggest:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Predateur 2.2 64-bit&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;MicroMax&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;CupCake&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;BikJump &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know those four engines work and run smoothly, although they're quite weak (which is exactly what you want!). Any Elo 2000 rated human player can trash them easily.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;__ &lt;strong&gt;My Recommendation&lt;/strong&gt; __&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If your engine can't even beat the lowest Stockfish level, maybe it'd be a better idea to focus on your engine, such as adding easy technqiues like null-move pruning. As an average human player, I can consistently beat the lowest Stockfish level, it plays around 1500-1600 level. Even the engines I mentioned might be too strong for you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2016-10-17T04:41:35.103" LastActivityDate="2016-10-17T04:41:35.103" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15651" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15649" CreationDate="2016-10-17T15:28:28.817" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found it! &lt;a href=&quot;https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Ufim&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;UFIM&lt;/a&gt; works well for my purpose! thanks for all your help!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11425" LastActivityDate="2016-10-17T15:28:28.817" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15652" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15317" CreationDate="2016-10-17T15:32:43.463" Score="1" Body="&lt;h2&gt;Is the claim true?&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;No&lt;/strong&gt;. Using the &lt;a href=&quot;https://books.google.co.uk/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Google Books Library Project&lt;/a&gt;, there are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;233,000 results for &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.google.com/search?tbm=bks&amp;amp;q=chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Chess&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;987,000 results for &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.google.com/search?tbm=bks&amp;amp;q=chess#tbm=bks&amp;amp;q=sport&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Sport&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;472,000 results for &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.google.com/search?tbm=bks&amp;amp;q=chess#tbm=bks&amp;amp;q=football&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Football&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Where does the claim come from?&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_theory&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;, the claim likely originated from H. J. R. Murray in 1913:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In 1913, preeminent chess historian H. J. R. Murray wrote in his 900-page magnum opus A History of Chess that, &quot;The game possesses a literature which in contents probably exceeds that of all other games combined.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastEditorDisplayName="user1108" LastEditDate="2016-10-18T12:17:06.583" LastActivityDate="2016-10-18T12:17:06.583" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15653" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6191" CreationDate="2016-10-18T02:51:35.287" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess Position Trainer can be loaded with a PGN file of games in your repertoire. The manual describes how to do this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The question of how to choose a repertoire is dealt with elsewhere on Chess.StackExchange.com.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Good guidance for how to prepare the PGN file for CPT is in the manual.  The manual is available at the Chess Position Trainer website for free.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11245" LastActivityDate="2016-10-18T02:51:35.287" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15655" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15154" CreationDate="2016-10-18T05:29:41.530" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Goto the menu, (at the top.) And click engines, click manage, and in the left side menu that pops up, double click all of the enabled engines to disable them!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11425" LastActivityDate="2016-10-18T05:29:41.530" CommentCount="0" CommunityOwnedDate="2016-10-18T05:29:41.530" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15658" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15660" CreationDate="2016-10-18T07:36:52.433" Score="5" ViewCount="520" Body="&lt;p&gt;At the recent Isle of Mann coverage, the topic of conversation was grandmaster superstitions, during which GM Simon Williams conveyed that Karpov would only wash his hair when he lost a game. Apparently he went over 40 games without a loss during a streak, leaving it up to our imagination on the consequences.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now I know GM Simon Williams is quite the joker, so I'm inclined to believe that this is just one of his jibes, but is there perhaps any truth to this? I found some references to this with Google, but I'm not sure about how authoritative they are.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1816" LastEditorUserId="1816" LastEditDate="2016-10-18T07:42:39.737" LastActivityDate="2016-10-18T12:17:48.623" Title="Did Karpov really only wash his hair when he lost?" Tags="&lt;history&gt;&lt;karpov&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15659" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-10-18T09:07:02.573" Score="6" ViewCount="1683" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am training endgames using Lucas Chess and playing the position from FEN against Stockfish. But sometimes I would like to have engines play the position with itself. I can achieve this in Lucas Chess easilly with 'Engine Tournament'. But the problem is that there is a FEN position, in 3 moves the evaluation goes to -3 for black and the match ends because engine resigns. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would like to force engine to play itself till the very end so I can see the plan used to win the ending. I can of course use additional program and make a move suggested by it (eg. Scid with Stockfish too) but I would like it better to have only one program used. Is there any setting for an engine that can force it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8637" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2017-02-24T05:57:20.680" LastActivityDate="2017-02-24T05:57:20.680" Title="How to force engine (eg. Stockfish) to play position till checkmate in Lucas Chess?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15660" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15658" CreationDate="2016-10-18T12:17:48.623" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;This story has a very long pedigree going back much further than the GingerGM.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The earliest reference I can find on the internet is from a November 1985 report on the Karpov v Kasparov match in People.com's archive - &lt;a href=&quot;http://people.com/archive/anatoly-karpov-is-straining-in-vain-to-keep-his-world-chess-title-from-gary-kasparov-vol-24-no-20/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://people.com/archive/anatoly-karpov-is-straining-in-vain-to-keep-his-world-chess-title-from-gary-kasparov-vol-24-no-20/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Unlike his extroverted rival, Karpov — who has all the appeal of a&#xA;  cold fish —ignores the crowd. When he intends to play aggressively, he&#xA;  emerges onstage clad in a black suit. In keeping with a chess&#xA;  superstition, he hasn’t cut his hair during the current match. Indeed&#xA;  he seldom seems to wash it, and he has been losing weight to boot.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Paul Hoffman (&lt;a href=&quot;https://paulhoffman.wordpress.com/2007/11/19/superstition-in-chess/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://paulhoffman.wordpress.com/2007/11/19/superstition-in-chess/&lt;/a&gt;) says he mentions it in his book &quot;King's Gambit&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In King’s Gambit, I write about superstitions at the board. Players&#xA;  who insist in wearing their lucky T-shirt or underwear or keeping&#xA;  score with the same special pen. World champion Anatoly Karpov was&#xA;  famous for not washing his hair when he was on a winning streak.&#xA;  Grandmaster Nigel Short said of Karpov: “Unfortunately, he had long&#xA;  tournaments where he never lost a game—the guy got greasy.”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The English Chess forum brought this up in a thread on &quot;Poor Taste&quot; - &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ecforum.org.uk/viewtopic.php?t=2045&amp;amp;start=30#p36136&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.ecforum.org.uk/viewtopic.php?t=2045&amp;amp;start=30#p36136&lt;/a&gt; - back in 2010.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2016-10-18T12:17:48.623" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15661" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15673" CreationDate="2016-10-18T12:38:28.783" Score="3" ViewCount="683" Body="&lt;p&gt;Tactics have motifs like skewer, pin, fork, weak back rank etc which can be used to guide you towards candidate moves. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there similar positional motifs? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think Silman's imbalances is close to what I'm asking for, but is a bit too higher level and not especially useful in generating candidate moves. His concept of dream position is something to target in 10+ moves, and I find it hard to implement in practice. (Yes, major piece ending with his backward pawn is good for me, but we have 4 minors to trade, what's the first move?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm looking for something less blue-sky and can give guidance for the next 1-2 moves. Example: h4-h5 against king side fiachetto; c4 is more powerful when opponent puts B on d6 (usually with opposing pawns in d4,d5). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, just as a pin does not always lead to winning a piece, these are ways to generate candidate moves and everything needs to be checked in a concrete position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, are there any training software/website like chesstempo, but on positional puzzle? I tried chessimmo, but its positional puzzles are mostly opening moves (I only did the free ones though).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7002" LastActivityDate="2016-10-21T15:22:39.533" Title="Positional motifs and training websites/softwares/apps?" Tags="&lt;positional-play&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15662" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15664" CreationDate="2016-10-18T12:56:33.577" Score="7" ViewCount="5404" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can never remember Silman's imbalances when it comes time for a tournament. I can remember them any other time when I'm not all stressed out. Is there any way that I can?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11425" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-10-14T13:06:34.690" LastActivityDate="2020-12-11T17:00:20.053" Title="How can I remember Silman's imbalances?" Tags="&lt;positional-play&gt;&lt;memorization&gt;" AnswerCount="12" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="15663" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15669" CreationDate="2016-10-18T12:58:28.110" Score="1" ViewCount="64" Body="&lt;p&gt;More or less as the title. I'm helping transcribe some games for a team tournament that is happening, but I can't find any field in the software I'm using or even the PGN format specification for a 'Team' field. Considering that this problem must have occurred before for high-profile team events (Olympiad, Bundesliga, etc.), is there an accepted way to record this information in a PGN file?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="550" LastActivityDate="2017-04-20T13:09:18.233" Title="For team events, what is the correct way to record a player's team in PGN format?" Tags="&lt;pgn&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15664" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15662" CreationDate="2016-10-18T13:27:43.990" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;At the moment you are trying to remember the imbalances using &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.human-memory.net/types_declarative.html&quot;&gt;declarative memory&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Declarative memory (“knowing what”) is memory of facts and events.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Whereas you need to have the imbalances in &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.livescience.com/43595-procedural-memory.html&quot;&gt;procedural memory&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Procedural memory is a part of the long-term memory that is responsible for knowing how to do things, also known as motor skills.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So you need to internalise the imbalances by practicing, for example using the &lt;em&gt;The Reassess Your Chess Workbook&lt;/em&gt; by I.M. Jeremy Silman.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2016-10-18T13:27:43.990" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15665" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15670" CreationDate="2016-10-18T13:59:21.723" Score="-1" ViewCount="326" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was wondering, what should I eat during and before a big tournament? I've already learned that sugar is a &lt;i&gt;no-go&lt;/i&gt; for me for the most part... Any advice? Thanks in advance, ~CSS&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;My question is different from &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/7781/eating-and-drinking-before-and-during-a-game&quot;&gt;Eating and drinking before and during a game&lt;/a&gt;.&#xA;  &lt;br&gt; I find that sugar affects me adversely, and all the answers on the other thread are referencing sugar... I need something substantial...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11425" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2016-10-18T21:10:07.497" Title="What should I eat during a tournament?" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ClosedDate="2016-10-19T06:52:14.107" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15666" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15662" CreationDate="2016-10-18T14:11:45.233" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I remember them as DIMPS (development, initiative, minor, pawn, space).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7002" LastActivityDate="2016-10-18T14:11:45.233" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15667" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15668" CreationDate="2016-10-18T15:43:26.297" Score="0" ViewCount="2760" Body="&lt;p&gt;A friend of mine recently lost his job, and he happens to be a pretty decent chess player; Over 2000. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is not enough chess teaching positions in the area to employ him full time, and he hasn't quite found his niche yet in the working world. What sort of job opportunities really take advantage of spacial logic and other characteristics that would belong to a good chess player?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2697" LastActivityDate="2016-10-18T16:35:13.393" Title="What sort of job opportunities fits well with a good chess player?" Tags="&lt;teaching&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ClosedDate="2016-10-24T21:05:49.020" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15668" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15667" CreationDate="2016-10-18T16:35:13.393" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you're question is: What job can I get if I put &quot;strong chess player&quot; on my CV, the answer is probably nothing. Although a difficult game to master, the skills you acquire with chess has very little resemblance to the skills prospective employers are looking for. Employers value real world experience in their domain - they are not usually too interested in abstract similarities.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, if you're question is: I'm good at chess - what else could I be good at? I imagine any career that is founded on logic and mathematics would be a reasonable fit - perhaps computer programmer or actuarial work. But you still have to do show that you can do the job - either by getting an education or getting experience even if it means doing work in your free time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Being a chess player is a certainly a benefit - it shows you are able to grasp complex problems and perform under pressure - but at your friend's level it is not nearly enough by itself to get any kind of job that I'm aware of.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1816" LastActivityDate="2016-10-18T16:35:13.393" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15669" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15663" CreationDate="2016-10-18T20:29:39.410" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are two fields I have seen used extensively for this purpose: &lt;strong&gt;WhiteTeam&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;BlackTeam&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They don't appear to be documented in the PGN Standard, but don't let that discourage you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As one example, I have found these fields present in the Olympiad 2016 Baku PGN games download file. They are also present in any PGN file created from a MegaBase database for a team tournament. They are also included in every PGN file published by The Week In Chess (TWIC) by Mark Crowther and by ChessBase Magazine, such as the World Team Championships, the French, Swedish and Hungarian Team Championships, the United States Chess League, the European Club Cup, and so on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This means they are populated by publishers of game scores, and also that they are stored in a CBH-format database. The PGN handler for ChessBase will both export and import these fields within the PGN data.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11245" LastActivityDate="2016-10-18T20:29:39.410" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15670" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15665" CreationDate="2016-10-18T21:03:09.247" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;...what should I eat during and before a big tournament?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Try taking a look at an article that FM Mike Klein wrote for Chess Life, the USCF publication, in 2008.  It's available &lt;a href=&quot;http://chess.jliptrap.us/grandmasterdiet.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;here&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It recommends nutrition for before and during play, but it also emphasizes the importance of a good diet &lt;em&gt;all the time&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11245" LastActivityDate="2016-10-18T21:03:09.247" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15671" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15662" CreationDate="2016-10-18T22:17:19.857" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The list of imbalances Silman provides in &lt;em&gt;Reassess Your Chess&lt;/em&gt; runs:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Superior Minor Piece&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Pawn Structure&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Doubled&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Isolated    &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Backward&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Passed&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Space&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Material&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Control of key lines and squares&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Development&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Initiative&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can see that &#xA;    a) There are 2 elements beginning with an &quot;S&quot;, and&#xA;    b) There are no priorities offered&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since this is the case, you need to supplement this information with other material.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I found a very useful guide to thinking about both positional and tactical situations in an online course offered by VisualWize, who make chess visualization training software.  You can find it &lt;a href=&quot;https://chessfox.com/free-chess-course-chessfox-com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;here&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are both sections of content and exercises to practice what you've learned. I admit to using an amalgam of different methods that I've learned from &#xA;multiple sources, but this is the closest I can find to a comprehensive system.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I realize that this doesn't assist you in memorizing Silman's Imbalances material, but I hope I've convinced you (or &lt;em&gt;will&lt;/em&gt; convince you, when you visit the VisualWize site) that the material he offers is not adequately structured or comprehensive enough to work well without being supplemented by other content.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11245" LastActivityDate="2016-10-18T22:17:19.857" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15672" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="56" CreationDate="2016-10-18T23:12:20.657" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;GM Edmar Mednis wrote an excellent book on &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/0945806019&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;How to Defeat a Superior Opponent&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt;, in which he states that you should &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; attempt to play to your opponent's weaknesses, but instead &lt;em&gt;play to your strengths&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This means that you should:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Know what playing style suits you&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Pick a few openings that lead to games of that kind&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Learn the main ideas of those openings, and some key variations (and any traps)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then he adds:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Find opportunities to create complexity in the position, so that your opponent has a higher chance of making a mistake&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are a few off-the-beaten path openings that will force him out of his book, but they will only give you an advantage if &lt;em&gt;you are also comfortable in the positions to which those openings lead&lt;/em&gt;.  If you're both at sea, he's still going to win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If he's over 2200, you should expect him to have a pet line for each of:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The Sokolsky Opening&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Grob's Attack&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The Budapest Gambit&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The Benko Gambit&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The Vienna Game and Gambit&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The King's Gambit (this would really be asking for it)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The Blackmar-Diemer Gambit&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The Sicilian Wing Gambit (if he plays the Sicilian)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The French Wing Gambit (if he plays the French)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The Trompowsky&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The Evans Gambit&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The Scotch Game and Gambit&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Bird's Opening&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The Dutch Defense&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Alekhine's Defense&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The Scandinavian, including the Icelandic Gambit&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The Danish Gambit&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The Göring Gambit&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but you might catch him with (in order of solidity):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The Two Knights Tango&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The Chigorin Defense (QGD)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The Urusov Gambit&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The Winckelmann-Riemer Gambit in the French&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11245" LastActivityDate="2016-10-18T23:12:20.657" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15673" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15661" CreationDate="2016-10-18T23:31:21.697" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found a very useful guide to thinking about both positional and tactical situations in an online course offered by VisualWize, who make chess visualization training software.  You can find it &lt;a href=&quot;https://chessfox.com/free-chess-course-chessfox-com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;here&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You might find the portion of the course on positional evaluation helpful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are both sections of content and exercises to practice what you've learned. I have not tried their other training courses, which go into this material in more depth, but this course struck me as comprehensive and effective.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I admit to using an amalgam of different methods that I've learned from &#xA;multiple sources, but this is the closest I can find to a comprehensive system.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also try a variety of chess training apps offered by ChessOK on the PC, and Chess King on Android (and probably Apple) - these are the same people, in two different markets.  On Android, their &quot;Strategy&quot; app offers a limited number of theoretical topics for free, plus a corresponding set of problems that cover Development, Space, Attack on the King, Attack on the Queenside, and Defense/Counterattack.  For a small charge (less than $10), you can buy the rest of the course, including 13 more topics in areas like: weak squares, positional sacrifices, hanging pawns, improving your pieces, pawn structure, open files and diagonals, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Andrew Soltis wrote a good book on choosing a strategic move (well, any move) called &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/0713489790&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;How to Choose a Chess Move&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt;, in which he offered a short course in &quot;priyomes&quot;, which are short plans to be used in certain types of positions to accomplish a short-term objective.  Unfortunately, there is no catalog of priyomes anywhere, since there 10's of thousands of them (apparently), but you get a good introduction to the concept.  Also, Mauricio Flores Rios' book, &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1784830003&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Chess Structures&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt; discusses quite a few openings, their tabiyas, and the types of plans each offers for both sides. That makes it a kind of catalog for priyomes for the openings.  These aren't software, but you can't always have everything...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Arthur Van De Oudeweetering has written an interesting book on 40 less well-known (but actually fairly frequently-occurring) priyomes that he has identified, which is called &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/905691538X&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Improve Your Chess Pattern Recognition&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt;.  I'm working my way through that book, and adding the patterns to my pattern store, because they're surprisingly common (and effective).  He also does something I don't see often in chess training materials: he complements the normal &quot;&lt;em&gt;Do's&lt;/em&gt;&quot; with some &quot;&lt;em&gt;Don'ts&lt;/em&gt;&quot;, pointing out some of the kinds of anomalies in the position that could render the pattern ineffective or even dangerous.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He has now published a sequel, called &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/9056916130&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Train Your Chess Pattern Recognition&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt;.  I haven't seen this one, but I'd be surprised if it doesn't live up to the original. BTW: An Amazon reviewer has warned against buying the Kindle version of the 2nd book because the figurine characters don't render properly; the first book's Kindle edition is fine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11245" LastEditorUserId="11245" LastEditDate="2016-10-21T15:22:39.533" LastActivityDate="2016-10-21T15:22:39.533" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15674" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15696" CreationDate="2016-10-19T00:02:05.347" Score="8" ViewCount="3020" Body="&lt;p&gt;How do I checkmate with &lt;em&gt;3&lt;/em&gt; knights? I know 2 is a draw, but with 3 is not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11425" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-03-12T17:19:37.773" LastActivityDate="2021-04-30T12:34:49.687" Title="Mate With 3 Knights" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;knights&gt;&lt;knight-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="8" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="15675" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15679" CreationDate="2016-10-19T00:48:27.633" Score="5" ViewCount="2335" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was going to do a tournament recently, and then, I found out just &lt;em&gt;how much&lt;/em&gt; &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;$$&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.google.com/search?q=swisssys&amp;amp;ie=utf-8&amp;amp;oe=utf-8&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;SwissSys&lt;/a&gt; Tournament software costs...  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What good alternatives to this expensive mainstream software are there, if any?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11425" LastActivityDate="2018-11-06T09:19:01.350" Title="free alternatives to SwissSys?" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;tournament-directors&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15676" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13349" CreationDate="2016-10-19T01:36:48.983" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess software programmers is missing in the list. I can give you the following names (google them if you want to know more):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Larry Kaufman&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Mark Lefler&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Mark Uniacke&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Robert Hyatt&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2016-10-19T01:36:48.983" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15677" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15675" CreationDate="2016-10-19T09:48:37.770" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The one I like is Vega - &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.vegachess.com/tl/index.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.vegachess.com/tl/index.php&lt;/a&gt;. This is free on Linux. The guy who wrote it is an open source supporter who welcomes feedback and is willing to make changes. He is also an active FIDE arbiter. It is also free on Windows for up to 30 players and 50 euros for unlimited use.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a review by an English arbiter here - &lt;a href=&quot;http://chessarbitersassociation.co.uk/Vega.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://chessarbitersassociation.co.uk/Vega.pdf&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2016-10-19T09:48:37.770" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15678" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15674" CreationDate="2016-10-19T12:43:57.953" Score="-1" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;K7/8/1nn5/2n3p1/k7/8/pPp5/8 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I promoted the c-file to a knight and mated 2 moves later. Mind you, a queen or even a rook would have been mate upon promotion&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's entirely possible, although you have to be either dominating already in which case your opponent might resign, or you surprise him with a promoted mating knight where he was counting on you choosing queen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To answer your on &amp;quot;how&amp;quot;, I would suggest pinning the king down in the corner as shown and positioning your third for the checkmate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11364" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-04-30T12:34:49.687" LastActivityDate="2021-04-30T12:34:49.687" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="15679" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15675" CreationDate="2016-10-19T12:44:17.747" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The FIDE's software &lt;a href=&quot;http://swiss-manager.at/download.aspx&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Swiss manager&lt;/a&gt; has a free demo version. It contains many options for different types of &quot;tournaments&quot;. But you will need a bit of time to learn how to use it. I have already used this program with success.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9082" LastActivityDate="2016-10-19T12:44:17.747" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15680" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15681" CreationDate="2016-10-19T14:26:05.267" Score="5" ViewCount="273" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a novice in chess. After about ten moves, I sometimes get into a situation where I am neither attacking nor defending and really can't figure out what my next move should be (that is I don't want to launch a premature attack, but not getting any offense from the opponent too). Is this common? and what should I do in such a situation?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Update:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What should be the general attitude while playing the game? of course, the goal is to win, but rather, what should be in the back of the mind when moving pieces? Should it be always according to a plan or is there something else?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11509" LastEditorUserId="17" LastEditDate="2016-10-21T16:18:40.570" LastActivityDate="2016-10-21T16:26:40.123" Title="Neither Attacking nor Defending?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;beginner&gt;&lt;defense&gt;&lt;attack&gt;&lt;development&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15681" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15680" CreationDate="2016-10-19T14:49:03.710" Score="5" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Help your pieces so they can help you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: Paul Morphy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The situation you describe is quite common. You find yourself in a position where there is no clear course of action. In these cases, I urge you to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Identify your worst placed piece&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Implement a short plan to improve that piece (no longer than 3 moves)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the example below, which is position 41 of the quizzes in &lt;em&gt;Mastering Chess Strategy&lt;/em&gt; by Johan Hellsten, we see that it's an early middle game with no major attacking or defensive duties for either side. Neither are there simplifying opportunities.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With White to move, we note that the a1-Rook is not doing anything. How can we activate it? Well, Rooks belong on open or semi-open files. The f1-Rook is already on a semi-open file, so it would be great to play Rae1. But the Queen is in the way. This led to the following plan being executed:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;2bq1r1k/rp4pp/p1p3n1/5p2/3P4/1BP2N1P/PP4P1/R2Q1RK1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Kristjansson&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Sokolov&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;  1. Qd2            b5            &#xA;  2. Rae1           Qd6           &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you find that you really can't decide on a move, then&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;When in doubt, move a piece, not a pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;em&gt;The Wisest Things Ever Said About Chess&lt;/em&gt; by Andrew Soltis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is because if the piece move is poor, you can often rectify the mistake by moving it back. Not so with pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this example (game 149 of &lt;em&gt;Mastering Chess Strategy&lt;/em&gt;), the centre is closed implying that play should be on the wings, so White plays 1. a4?!, instead of the flexible 1. O-O* (the King is almost certain to castle kingside anyway, and this also prevents Black's queenside play). The problem with 1. a4 is that Black gets a big space advantage and his King is still stuck in the middle, whereas 1. O-O doesn't suffer from this. Let's take a look:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;1rbq1rk1/1p1nbppp/p2p1n2/2pPp3/2P1P3/P1NB1N1P/1P3PP1/R1BQK2R w KQ - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Gurevich&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Piket&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;  1. a4 (1. O-O b5 2. cxb5 axb5 3. Nxb5 Nxe4 4. Na7)            Nh5           &#xA;  2. Ne2            g6            &#xA;  3. g4             Ng7           &#xA;  4. Bh6            Nf6           &#xA;  5. Ng3            Kh8           &#xA;  6. Qc2            Bd7           &#xA;  7. a5             b5            &#xA;  8. axb6ep         Qxb6          &#xA;  9. Ra2            a5            &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Last but not least, regarding planning. Yes, it is advisable to have a series of short term plans (usually 3 moves or so) and to remain alert to tactical opportunities and threats. From John Nunn's &lt;em&gt;Understanding Chess Middlegames&lt;/em&gt; on the section called &lt;em&gt;Losing the Thread&lt;/em&gt; (emphasis is mine):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Typical symptoms of this [playing poorly from a superior position] are &lt;strong&gt;planlessness&lt;/strong&gt;, playing from move to move without any overall strategy, and spending too much time on moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*OK, castling isn't exactly a reversible decision, but it is more flexible, in the example position, than 1. a4?!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastEditorDisplayName="user1108" LastEditDate="2016-10-19T20:25:19.083" LastActivityDate="2016-10-19T20:25:19.083" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15682" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15662" CreationDate="2016-10-19T16:23:21.183" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Categorize them!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1: Easy to assess - Material, King Safety, Development&#xA;2: More difficult - Pawn Structure, Space&#xA;3: Difficult - Statics vs Dynamics, Initiative, Key files/Squares/Diagonals.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10233" LastActivityDate="2016-10-19T16:23:21.183" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15683" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15661" CreationDate="2016-10-19T19:51:32.810" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Positional Motifs are known as Priyomes, and can generally be described without using chess notation, such as &quot;To win, White must open the c-file, double his rooks and infiltrate the seventh rank.&quot; You get the idea. There are several books that have been written about them - a google search will reveal those to you. But, one in particular stands out - 100 Chess Master Trade Secrets by Soltis. Chapter One: Twenty Five Key Priyomes is what you might be looking for.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Good Luck.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10233" LastActivityDate="2016-10-19T19:51:32.810" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15684" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15680" CreationDate="2016-10-19T19:57:30.373" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Gah.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Go to Amazon and do a search for &quot;Complete Chess Course&quot; and purchase a used copy of either Fred Reinfeld's or I.A. Horowitz' book. It is right up your alley. They teach you classic chess in a course format and that gives you a good footing. You'll make simple moves that make sense. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You gotta walk before you run.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Recommended - Link: &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1941270247&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Chess-Course-Beginning-Reinfeld/dp/1941270247&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10233" LastActivityDate="2016-10-19T19:57:30.373" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15686" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15693" CreationDate="2016-10-20T07:36:09.833" Score="5" ViewCount="347" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm a mid-level player just starting to systematically study openings, and I'm wondering why it is that after the signature Yugoslav initiation 6. Be3 by White, and the certain follow-up 6. ... Bg7, it seems that virtually all masters (~95% according to lichess) opt to play 7. f3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Specifically, I've been reading John Emms' &lt;em&gt;Starting Out&lt;/em&gt; series on the Sicilian, and the only mention he gives of this move is that it prevents an &quot;annoying Ng4.&quot; Why is it all that annoying? For example, let's say I play 7. Qd2 first, then Ng4 by Black, chasing the bishop to g5 for fear of exchange, with h6 by Black forcing Bh4:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;rnbqk2r/pp2ppb1/3p2pp/8/3NP1nB/2N5/PPPQ1PPP/R3KB1R b KQkq - 1 9&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sure, the bishop has had some cardio in the opening, and it no longer looks like the typical Yugoslav exchange of Dragon bishops is going to happen, but it at least looks playable. Stockfish 25ply rates it at +0.3. This is equivalent to how it rates the orthodox Yugoslav tabiya:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;r2q1rk1/pp1bppbp/2np1np1/8/2BNP3/2N1BP2/PPPQ2PP/2KR3R b - - 6 10&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What am I missing?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11518" LastEditorUserId="4588" LastEditDate="2016-10-22T10:09:37.353" LastActivityDate="2016-10-22T10:09:37.353" Title="Why is 7. f3 so ubiquitous in the Yugoslav Sicilian?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;&lt;statistics&gt;&lt;1.e4&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15687" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14605" CreationDate="2016-10-20T11:06:54.807" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;Can computer analysis really understand human behavior?&quot;. My answer is 'Yes, I believe so - as least as well as any person can'. I have studied many chess games over the past 50 years with a view to understanding how natural thought processes occur, so I think that I am qualified to make such a bold statement. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If we assume that intelligence is essentially a matter of information processing - based on knowledge about the world - then the conclusion must be that computer programs will be capable of emulating natural intelligence to a large extent. I am also assuming of course that human beings will be able to comprehend what goes on 'behind the scenes' and I dare say that I have developed some useful insights in that respect, at least in the domain of chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this particular scenario, the knight move to e7 could satisfy a goal of mate, given that the program/person knows about checkmate situations from prior experience or study. Likewise the black bishop at b4 may be 'activated' (i.e. the internal concept relating to it would be), such that it could counter the proposed knight move. That in turn could lead to a sub-goal of moving the bishop away, perhaps via placing some tasty morsel in its path so to speak.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The last paragraph is deliberately tentative, as the actual behaviour depends upon the relevant knowledge available (which will vary from player to player) and the speed of information-processing involved. It is conceivable that a computer could be equipped with knowledge equivalent to that of a poor human player and thus exhibit similar behaviour. Whether it could actually think in linguistic or pictorial ways is another matter but I don't see why not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus my conclusion is that a suitable computer program could also play in the manner described and might also be able to explain its reasoning. Then we might reasonably decided that it also understands human behaviour.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a lot more theory that I could write about but I this is not the best place to do so.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11519" LastActivityDate="2016-10-20T11:06:54.807" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15688" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-10-20T11:46:43.000" Score="2" ViewCount="41" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am running a strong computer chess engine tournament, using arena 3.5.1 All engines are playing a large number of games. One engine appears to be glitching so I want to replace it with another alternative (in terms of CPU speed / compatibility) of the same version of the engine. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it possible to substitute one engine with another and retain the points that the other engine has already earned?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11520" LastActivityDate="2016-10-21T01:05:59.593" Title="Substituting one engine for another in a tournament" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;tournament&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15689" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15686" CreationDate="2016-10-20T13:22:14.000" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;F3 prepares g4 and h4, starting a pawn storm on the black king. It also prevents Ng4 by black, harassing white's dark squared bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7534" LastActivityDate="2016-10-20T13:22:14.000" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15690" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8331" CreationDate="2016-10-20T13:38:04.257" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I may be looking at this too simplistically but it seems to me the number has to be finite. If we look at the board and the pieces rather than the game of chess and calculate the number of possible variations we can obtain an answer that is finite. Mind bogglingly huge but finite. Given not all combinations are possible in a game of chess the number of combinations in a game of chess has to be less than this finite number and therefore a finite number itself. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11522" LastActivityDate="2016-10-20T13:38:04.257" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15691" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15680" CreationDate="2016-10-20T14:37:44.370" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The reponse for this situation you described, in which every chess player found himself, shoud be learning how to make a &lt;strong&gt;strategy&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As GM Savielly Tartakower said :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Tactics is knowing what to do when there is something to do; strategy is knowing what to do when there is nothing to do&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You have to ask yourself &quot;What am I going to do to win this game ?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your can decide that your strategy will be a direct attack on the king, or that you will try to gain a positional advantage (this decision can be determined by the position, but also by you playing style). It's the part of the game when you have to take time for thinking and coming with an idea.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then, when you have a strategy, you will need to build a &lt;strong&gt;tactic&lt;/strong&gt; to fulfill it and the question here is &quot;How am I going to do it ?&quot; (actually, the succession of moves you will play) Is there an exploitable fail in your opponent pawn structure ? a hole that can be occupied by one of your pieces ? is there a weakness in the king's defense ?  etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Strategy require toughts, tactics require observation&lt;/em&gt; (Max Euwe)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So my advice is to look for books about GM's startegies, thinkings and ways of coming with a plan and to learn from them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10190" LastEditorUserId="10190" LastEditDate="2016-10-20T14:43:17.113" LastActivityDate="2016-10-20T14:43:17.113" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15693" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15686" CreationDate="2016-10-20T18:10:26.810" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Objectively speaking, you're probably right: 7.Qd2 seems fine and after 7....Ng4 white can still hope for an advantage after 8.Bg5 Nc6 9.Nb3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, after 7.Qd2 Nc6, black does threaten Ng4. So, white should play 8.f3 anyway, also because it is part of his plan. As a result, we transposed to the main line of 7.f3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, white doesn't gain anything by playing 7.Qd2 first. Actually, it only gives black an extra option: 7....Ng4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4588" LastEditorUserId="4588" LastEditDate="2016-10-20T18:34:22.310" LastActivityDate="2016-10-20T18:34:22.310" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15694" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15688" CreationDate="2016-10-21T01:05:59.593" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can delete the old engine executable and copy a new one with the same filename to the same directory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2016-10-21T01:05:59.593" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15695" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15720" CreationDate="2016-10-21T09:08:28.810" Score="5" ViewCount="218" Body="&lt;p&gt;Below is my effort from last night in the league. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;My Team v. Their Team&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2016.10.20&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;A. Nonymous&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Ian Bush&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;A31&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1/2-1/3&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;170&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;148&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 c5 3.Nf3 cxd4 4.Nxd4 e5 5.Nc2 d5 6.cxd5 Nxd5 7.a3 Be6 8.e4 &#xA;Nb6 9.Qxd8+ Kxd8 10.Nc3 N8d7 11.Be2 Nc5 12.O-O Nb3 13.Rd1+ Kc7 14.Rb1 Bc5 &#xA;15.Be3 Rad8 16.Bxc5 Nxc5 17.b4 Nca4 18.Nxa4 Nxa4 19.Ne3 Nb6 20.Bg4 Bxg4 &#xA;21.Nxg4 Rxd1+ 22.Rxd1 f6 23.Ne3 Rd8 24.Rxd8 Kxd8 25.Nf5 Nc4 26.a4 g6 27.&#xA;Nh6 Ke7 28.f3 a5 29.bxa5 Nxa5 30.Ng4 Nc4 31.Kf2 Nb2 32.Ke3 Nxa4 33.Kd3 b5 &#xA;34.Ne3 Kd6 35.g4 Nb6 36.Kc3 Kc5 37.h4 h5 38.gxh5 gxh5 39.Nf5 b4+ 40.Kb3 &#xA;Nc4 41.Ng3 Nd2+ 42.Kb2 Nxf3 43.Nxh5 Nxh4 44.Nxf6 Kc4 45.Nd7 Nf3 46.Nb6+ &#xA;Kc5 47.Nd7+ Kd6 48.Nf6 Ke6 49.Nd5 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm currently rated ECF 148, ~1810 FIDE. As you can see my higher rated opponent (ECF 170 which is ~1975 FIDE) pushed too hard after declining a draw offer after 19 ... Nb6, and then dropped a pawn; however I couldn't win the game. As such I was wondering if people could help point out where I went wrong, if indeed I did go wrong, I'm not even sure if the ending is won or not. In retrospect I'm wondering if 37 ... h5 is all that good, all those pawns dropping off I feel can only be good for him, but maybe h5 was a symptom of earlier mistakes - should I be trying to get f5 in? More generally what thoughts should I be having in knight and pawn endings? I was playing pretty much in the dark. And if anybody wants to look at the rest of the game that would be great as well!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7726" LastEditorUserId="7726" LastEditDate="2016-10-21T09:17:42.750" LastActivityDate="2016-10-24T22:38:39.870" Title="Engame Play: Knight Endings" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;knight-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15696" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15674" CreationDate="2016-10-21T10:41:05.323" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here's an example of how to do it, plus some general guidance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can't find a single game in my 7 MM games database where it was managed, though a couple of players have tried it and come pretty close.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The key difficulty (beyond knowing what to do) is managing the timing; knights can't lose a move, so you can end up being ready to mate in a good position, but having one move too many (or being a move short). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I pulled this mate off once in a tournament game. My opponent is known for forcing his opponents to play out to mate, so I thought it might make the process a more interesting challenge.  I promoted two pawns to knights to make a team of 3, and deliberately dropped a bishop in a check that forced capture.  I solved the timing problem by keeping a spare rook away from the mating area, and when I found myself needing to lose a move with the king already netted, just shifted the rook.  Then I was able to finish the mate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are two main types of mating pattern, the side mate and the corner mate.  There are a couple of types of corner mate, but once you get close, you'll probably see the one that's eligible in your situation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's a theoretical position I cooked up, to present the most challenging problem I could imagine. I used this as a training position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;3 Knights Mate&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;[Annotator &quot;K + 3N v K&quot;]&#xA;[SetUp &quot;1&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;6n1/n7/4K3/8/8/4k3/8/1n6 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;29&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Kf4 {Mate in 14 from this position.  Note that the knights are almost in the corners, so this is as bad as it's likely to get without obstacles in the way. General move guidelines:  1. Close with the king before the knights _unless_:  a. You can close with check      b. You are defending     2. Surround the king at a distance first, so that whichever direction he runs, he will be moving towards more than 1 of your pieces.       3. Use self-defending &quot;Tango&quot; formations of 2 knights to create a fence to guide the king towards an edge or corner. Use the king to protect the 3rd knight.     4. Drive the king        a. first towards the other pieces,        b. then towards an edge       c. then _near_ but not _into_ a corner       5. Use zugzwang; checks aren't always necessary. Just make sure the defending king only has bad exits, ideally only one bad exit.     6. Learn the corner-zone mating maneuver.     7. Don't rush; the knights don't all come into contact with each other before at least the 10th move, and then only when they're on the 3rd rank/file from the edge, at the closest.     8. When the knights are together, keep your king next to them, or you'll lose one (and the win).      9. Don't worry about forcing the king onto only one square all the time.  Just make sure that if he has 2 squares to use near the edge, you're between him and the center, and can pivot to pen him in no matter which he chooses.} {flanking - Close with the king before the knights. Surround the king first.} 2. Kd5 Nc3+ {2. Close with check. (cutoff setup, closing with check.)} 3. Kc4 Nab5 {The 2 nearest knights form a Tango, and create a cutoff. Note how, with the king, they form an almost complete cutoff separating the queenside from the kingside.  The nearest hole is on d7.  That's where the defending king heads next.} 4. Kc5 Ke4 5. Kc6 Ne7+ $1 {Black sets up another knight tango, and splits the board into two zones.} 6. Kd7 Ncd5 {Tango} 7. Ke6 Kf4 $1 {Cutoff. Black uses zugzwang to push the king back. Checks are not essential.} 8. Kf7 (8. Kd7 Ke5 9. Ke8 Kf6 10. Kd7 Kf7 {transposes}) 8... Kf5 {The natural followup, closing with the king} 9. Kf8 Nd6 {cutoff along the edge again} 10. Kg7 Nf6 {This is the first piece to take up its final mating square.    The king and rear knight keep the white king from escaping via f7 or g6. The rear knight also maintains the cutoff behind the white king. The knights are on the same color squares as the corner they are forcing the defending king into.  The defending king has only 3 squares to choose from, including the corner, while he's in zugzwang.    The knights now start a series of maneuvers in which they form a kind of spinning wedge or Flying V; the center knight is towards the corner or edge, and the others flank it on the diagonals or the rank and file. This is Wedge 1.  &quot;Don't Rush.&quot; This is the 10th move of the maneuvering, and the knights have only just come into contact on adjacent squares.} 11. Kh6 {Now that the rear knight's cutoff along the back rank is no longer vital, it can advance, relieving the king from denial of g5.} Nf7+ {Push the king onto the 2x2 corner square on the long diagonal, _not_ into the corner! He must be driven to the opposite edge square at the end of the 3rd file/rank. Note how the rear knight relieved the king from denial of g5.  The king will move onto e6, its final mating square, next move. The knights and king form a knight's move shape themselves. The knight on the corner of their formation attacks both the king and the corner they are targeting. It is a knight's move from the corner, itself, of course. The king forms the &quot;tail&quot; of the knight's move formation.  Next, it will &quot;close the box&quot; with the 3 knights.    The knight that just moved is weaving a zig-zag of 3 moves to mate on g6.    This is the 2nd Wedge.} 12. Kg7 Ke6 $22 {(support, zugzwang) The black king moves onto its final mating square, closing the box with the 3 knights.    Now the white king is trapped, and has only one move.} 13. Kf8 Ne5 {Quiet move. Pull the first of the two knights nearest the edge back 2 squares until it's behind the king, __without check_.  Note that mate is not immediate; the knight must redeploy.  This is the 2nd move of the knights 3-move zig-zag maneuver to give mate. You are &quot;flipping the box&quot;, putting the two knights that are closest to the defending king on the opposite side of the box. (3rd Wedge)} 14. Kg7 Nf5+ {Pull the other knight back 2 squares _with check_, leaving only the corner square and the edge square free, but setting a new cutoff on the other edge.    You have &quot;flipped the box&quot;. This is the final formation to give mate.    (4th Wedge)} 15. Kf8 Ng6# {The farthest knight &quot;opens the box&quot; to give the mate.     (Oh, and this is the 5th Wedge in a row that the knights have formed.)} 0-1 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11245" LastEditorUserId="11245" LastEditDate="2016-10-21T15:04:39.613" LastActivityDate="2016-10-21T15:04:39.613" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15697" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-10-21T10:42:10.003" Score="6" ViewCount="261" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I play Bughouse, I see that, every single time after a castling, petty sacrifices can easily be break the wall that surrounds the king,Therefore, is it really worth castling, especially short castling, in Bughouse?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1534" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-05-21T16:16:21.133" LastActivityDate="2020-11-27T23:39:18.253" Title="Is short castling dangerous in Bughouse?" Tags="&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;castling&gt;&lt;bughouse&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="15698" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15703" CreationDate="2016-10-21T15:35:43.923" Score="3" ViewCount="644" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been playing chess off and on for the better part of 15 years, however, I've never done it enough to count myself as any good at it. I'd like to get better, but intermediate guides go over my head, and &quot;chess for beginners&quot; is all about rules and simple stuff I picked up a long time ago. I'm looking for something that can help me improve from my weird in-between state to an intermediate level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11533" LastActivityDate="2016-10-28T03:35:23.367" Title="What are some resources for someone past beginner but not yet intermediate?" Tags="&lt;beginner&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15699" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="347" CreationDate="2016-10-21T16:20:08.307" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In a nutshell, the standard approach to tuning a chess engine's parameters is to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Define the parameters&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Give the parameters nominal (starting) values&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Run the engine to see how it performs&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Tune the parameter values to try to improve its performance&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then repeat Steps 3 and 4 until you've reached your goal for performance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The usual approach to doing this is to set up a laboratory where engines face off in engine tournaments.  Multiple games are used in which the engine plays both colors.  The main tournaments of interest involve running an engine with parameter value set A against the same engine with parameter value set B.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you can probably guess, results from this approach are heavily dependent on:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The parameters chosen&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;How the parameters are specified&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;How the parameter values are varied throughout the testing&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;How the engines are run (limited ply-depth, limited time, sensitivity, etc)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This approach also consumes &lt;em&gt;a lot&lt;/em&gt; of time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A more recent (and innovative approach) was developed in 2010 by researchers using Genetic Algorithm techniques to a) specify the parameters, and b) tune the parameter values.  The investigators first ran an engine with a starting, nominal set of parameter values against a &lt;em&gt;set of grandmaster games&lt;/em&gt; to see if it could effectively choose the &quot;best move&quot;. The &quot;best move&quot; was defined as the move the grandmaster made*.  Wherever it failed to do so was recorded.  Then, another parameter value set was tried, and relative performance vs the prior run determined.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then, a programmatic approach to &lt;em&gt;combining the parameter values&lt;/em&gt; was tried, using the Genetic Algorithm principle of survival of the &quot;fittest&quot;. Here, &quot;fittest&quot; means the one that generates output that most closely matches the ideal. (It also happens to be a pun on the statistical technique of &quot;least squares fit&quot; regression, a technique used to judge the quality of the approximation.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Only after engine parameters have been found that can mimic a GM reasonably well does the actual engine tournament phase begin.  In this phase, different parameter value sets are once again pitted against each other, this time &lt;em&gt;directly&lt;/em&gt;.  Genetic Algorithm improvement techniques are applied to generate successively better generations of the engine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this research project, 36 parameters were used, including all of the material values of the pieces, and many of the more common strategic evaluation criteria, such as backward pawns, weak squares, bishop pair, and so on.  However, the researchers added some new parameters, such as &quot;king pressure&quot;, &quot;mobility&quot; values for each kind of piece, rook on a file adjacent to the king, rook on a semi-open file, rook attacking the king on the a-/b-/g-/h-file, separation between a passed pawn and the defending king, and more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately, the researchers don't elaborate on how they came up with this suite of parameters, and what alternate parameters they may have tested and rejected.  It would be reasonable to assume that they began with a much larger set, and determined (through trial and error) which ones had the greatest effect on performance, and which ones were either insignificant or derivative, and so could be dropped.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If this sounds like it might be useful, you can find the research &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.researchgate.net/publication/220174485_Genetic_Algorithms_for_Automatic_Search_Tuning?enrichId=rgreq-f65e8ac5722304e4f9b279e10f30e55f-XXX&amp;amp;enrichSource=Y292ZXJQYWdlOzIyMDE3NDQ4NTtBUzoxMDUwMjM1MzA4NjQ2NDNAMTQwMjA1MDk2OTUxMA%3D%3D&amp;amp;el=1_x_2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;here&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*A caveat about a phase of the approach that the researchers used is in order. In his Introduction to &lt;em&gt;Understanding Chess Move by Move&lt;/em&gt;, John Nunn chose &quot;...hard fought games between strong grandmasters...&quot; to illustrate his themes.  He then adds:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Readers may be quite surprised to see the number of question marks that adorn the games in this book. Surely, you might think, with just thirty games to select, it should have been easy to find some sound games. However, I can assure you that it was not. ... it is possible to find fault with virtually any complex, hard-fought game... I have never felt that my play was anywhere near completely accurate, so I personally don't find these revelations distressing. However, some may find it hard to admit that chess as played by human beings is less accurate than previously thought.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The point that Dr Nunn raises suggests that the researchers' initial approach to setting the engine parameters by requiring them to imitate grandmaster moves may be flawed &lt;em&gt;because human play is flawed&lt;/em&gt;. In fact, it's well established that &lt;em&gt;engines already play better than humans&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, perhaps a better approach to setting the initial parameters would be to match a new engine against &lt;em&gt;a superior existing engine&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11245" LastActivityDate="2016-10-21T16:20:08.307" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15700" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15680" CreationDate="2016-10-21T16:26:40.123" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Start by making a plan based on the assumption that your opponent will &quot;waste&quot; moves, e.g. by moving the same piece back and forth between two squares until directly threatened. Opponents have been know to do this, especially novices.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance, in the first position shown in Bad Bishop's answer, White has several things he wants to do. 1) &quot;Connect&quot; his rooks by moving his queen off the first rank (e.g. Qd2). 2) Strengthen his control of the e file by moving a rook there (R a1- e1) after the queen move, since his f rook is already doing good work on the f file 3) move Ne5 to gain control of that square. If Black exchanges, knights, recapture with the e1 rook, and you have a &quot;big&quot; piece on a strong central square (Black has no black squared bishop to chase it off e5).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Black moves given in the example, b5 and Qd6 are &quot;passive&quot; and don't counter White's &quot;creeping&quot; centralization. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess is basically a &quot;race.&quot; You and your opponent start with &quot;level&quot; positions at the beginning. This can be true even early in the midgame when you are &quot;neither attacking nor defending.&quot; There's always something to do. The only question is can your opponent prevent you from doing it (in the above example, the answer is no). Whoever activates his pieces and executes first is likely to win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2016-10-21T16:26:40.123" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15701" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15698" CreationDate="2016-10-21T16:35:14.877" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The internet is an amazing tool - for good or for ill.  All of the following will help people at a &lt;em&gt;wide&lt;/em&gt; variety of levels.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd suggest looking into some sort of tactics training.  &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;chess.com&lt;/a&gt; has a good reputation; I personally use &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.lichess.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;lichess&lt;/a&gt;; I used to look at &lt;a href=&quot;http://chesstempo.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;chesstempo&lt;/a&gt;.  Practicing a few a day (or an hour or so a day) can give you an amazing boost; this is probably the best &quot;bang for the buck&quot;.  (I speak from experience!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Find a good YouTube channel with a presenter who speaks to your level and has a teaching style you enjoy; there are a TON of options out there.  Depending on your level, something like the Backyard Professor, IM John Bartholomew, any of the St. Louis Chess Club, MetoJelic, Dereque Kelley, etc.  I enjoy all of those and many more (they're at widely different levels) for different reasons.  (I enjoy others like the Ginger GM, too - but I definitely wouldn't watch him at a &quot;lower&quot; level... he'll give you bad habits that he can get away with.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to improve some openings, I can't stress &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessable.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;chessable&lt;/a&gt; enough.  My online rating jumped about 200 points just by going to this site every day for two months.  (Yes, online ratings are &quot;worthless&quot;: it's the relative level, not the absolute.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another option would be to find a player whose style you like or have empathy with, and go to &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;chessgames&lt;/a&gt; to look through all of their games.  Walk through them slowly, trying to figure out why they made the moves they did (when they did) - and why their opponent did what they did.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Beyond that, &lt;em&gt;play&lt;/em&gt; games - and then analyze them afterwards.  Even just walking back through slowly, trying to identify what went right or wrong (and what could have been better) can help a LOT.  Lichess has the option to analyze your games for free - which is a HUGE boost.  I've seen the advice &quot;play slower games&quot; (10+ min. on the clock) from quite a few people, as those games give you more time to calculate, analyze, and think.  Practice visualization!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you don't like the internet, there are always physical books - but I'll let someone with more experience on them weigh in.  I've got some, I enjoy them, but I don't know enough to make recommendations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Good luck!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7897" LastActivityDate="2016-10-21T16:35:14.877" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15702" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15697" CreationDate="2016-10-21T20:43:01.297" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Tempo is king in bug house for castling. By definition, unless your castle makes a immediate threat somehow, you have lost 1 tempo. In other words, it is at least one more move until you improve or gain position to attack.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;If it takes your op 2 or more moves to make a threat, then you have a +1 tempo gain and it might be worth it. &#xA;If you are under immediate threats, then this might be good also if it forces a 1 tempo action for op to retarget.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If your partner's board is timelocked, then it may be of long term value to castle. Depends on how many troops are waiting to crash down. Your board becomes more like a normal yet rapid chess game&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11537" LastActivityDate="2016-10-21T20:43:01.297" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15703" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15698" CreationDate="2016-10-21T20:47:30.137" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I will go ahead and assume that your playing strength is roughly at ~1100 Elo, since that is what I consider to be the approximate level of an &quot;advanced beginner&quot;, so to speak.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To a player of your level, I would give the following advice:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess is a game which consists of three main phases: The opening, the middle game, and the endgame. These three phases are characterized below.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The opening: The part of the game where both sides have yet to get their pawns and pieces into action. Both sides should strive to take control of the center, develop their pieces, and put their king somewhere safe.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The middle game: Both sides come into attack range of each other, and a battle for the advantage is begun. Many things happen, and the ability to think of &quot;a plan&quot; is vital not to get lost completely.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The endgame: If the game is not already decided in the middlegame, one can expect that both players are somewhat comparable in strength, causing them to eventually trade down pieces until not very many are left. Since there are not many pieces left, the ones that are still present matter more than ever, and tactical ability combined with concrete knowledge of basic endgames is key to playing the endgame with success.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Q: What does an advanced beginner need to know about the opening to up their game? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: In the opening, one needs to know about the basic opening principles, and one should strive to apply them into their games. For instance, look into the thread &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/1960/good-openings-for-a-beginner-for-white?rq=1&quot;&gt;Good openings for a beginner (for white)&lt;/a&gt;, and xaisoft's answer, which outlines some opening principles. The following link also gives some advice on how to conduct one's opening play as a beginner: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/blog/NimzoRoy/chess-opening-principles&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.chess.com/blog/NimzoRoy/chess-opening-principles&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Q: Why is it good to follow the opening principles? Why shouldn't I just learn concrete opening variations?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: The opening principles are the &lt;em&gt;easiest means&lt;/em&gt; to get you to &lt;strong&gt;a playable middle game&lt;/strong&gt;, and if you follow them you would be surprised at how often they will succeed in guiding you towards the right moves in the opening. As to why one should not focus on learning concrete opening variations as a beginner, it mainly has to do with the fact that it's too early for a beginner to do that. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason you study specific opening theory is to try to get a concrete advantage out of the opening, and at the beginner scene, most players don't know opening theory, &lt;strong&gt;and will thus not very likely play the exact lines you've studied&lt;/strong&gt;. This means that you will have to spend an unreasonably big part of your studying on openings, which will impede your progress in the other two major phases of the game. Also, as a beginner, &lt;strong&gt;it is extremely difficult to learn specific openings well&lt;/strong&gt;, since that requires understanding of the ideas in certain positions(which is very hard to attain if you don't know much about planning in chess in general), and not just knowledge of precise variations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Q: Ok, so I applied the opening principles, and got my pieces out and all that. What's next? What about the middle game?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: Following the opening principles, unless you're facing some really nasty opponent, the following will most likely happen:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You will most likely have a pawn or to in the center of the board.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Most of your light pieces(knights and bishops) are likely out of their starting positions.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Your king is likely castled already.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now it's time to start looking for short-term and long-term goals for you(and for your opponent!). In the middle game, the thing that will make you reign supreme over beginners is &lt;em&gt;tactics&lt;/em&gt;, and &lt;em&gt;plan-oriented play&lt;/em&gt;. Most beginners are not very procifient at tactics, and do not play their moves according to a clear-cut plan. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Q: Ok, so what are &lt;em&gt;tactics&lt;/em&gt;? How do I learn them?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: The term &lt;em&gt;tactics&lt;/em&gt; is an umbrella term that involves &lt;em&gt;concrete, often forced, sequences of moves&lt;/em&gt; in a position. These sequences can be one move long(like capturing hanging pieces), or more long, and complex(like conducting a well planned attack successfully against the opposing king).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Normally, the difficulty of a &lt;em&gt;tactical sequence&lt;/em&gt; is determined by how long it is; shorter sequences are easier, and longer sequences are harder.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a beginner, one should focus on learning to find these shorter tactical sequences(1-3 moves deep) consistently. To do this, use the following guidelines for calculating(looking for) tactical variations:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;THE GOLDEN RULE FOR CALCULATING TACTICS&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At every move in a tactical sequence, consider the responses in the following order of priority:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;First, consider &lt;em&gt;all&lt;/em&gt; the checks in a position;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Then, consider &lt;em&gt;all&lt;/em&gt; the possible captures in the position;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Consider other moves.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Using this will help you to spot the details that make or break a tactic. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But starting out with tactics, one should definitely look for some common &lt;em&gt;tactical ideas&lt;/em&gt; that will further aid one's play. Here is a good list, with examples, of a wide array of tactical ideas: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/article/view/chess-tactics--definitions-and-examples&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.chess.com/article/view/chess-tactics--definitions-and-examples&lt;/a&gt;. Learning how to apply these in one's games is not easy, and practice is crucial. Playing games is very good to improve calculation, and solving tactical exercises, on for example &lt;a href=&quot;http://chesstempo.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://chesstempo.com/&lt;/a&gt;, can be very beneficial as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Q: Ok, great! So, what about &lt;em&gt;plan-oriented play&lt;/em&gt;? What is it, and why is it good to learn?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: By &lt;em&gt;plan-oriented play&lt;/em&gt;, I simply mean that one should always make a move according to &lt;em&gt;some&lt;/em&gt; plan, and not just make an arbitrary move with no clear purpose other than wanting the game to progress. Bent Larsen, one of the great players in the 1960's and 1970's, has the following very famous quote attached to his name: &lt;strong&gt;A bad plan is better than no plan!&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What this means is that a you need to have a goal in mind - however misguided - to ever hope to beat your opponent. If chess were boxing, this advice could be that no matter how unrefined, it's better to throw punches aimed at your opponent, than it is to just throw your arms around aimlessly and run around in circles.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a beginner, go for simple plans, like trying to win a pawn or piece by threatening it with your pieces. Or you can try to use tactics, to gain material or to try and mate your opponent's king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The plan can even be long-term, like &quot;I don't want to get checkmated on the first rank, and I don't want my knight on f3 to be pinned. Therefore I will go h3, to create &lt;em&gt;luft&lt;/em&gt; for my king, and prevent my opponent from stepping on g4.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you don't find an immediate plan, it could help to &quot;talk with your pieces&quot;, and try to improve their placement. By this, I mean that you should try to evaluate if a piece is badly placed or not, by trying to give your pieces some personality traits:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The knights like to stand in the center, where they can move very freely, and control the enem forces. Even better if they are defended by a pawn, and there are no annoying enemy pawns to chase them away! The knights don't like very much to stand on the edge of the board, which leaves them restricted. But as long as it's not a corner square, it may be tolerable. In general, the knights are stronger in closed positions(not many open lines).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The bishops like best to stand placed on long, unrestricted diagonals. This way, they can be relatively safe, and at the same time work to make the opponent's pieces stumble over each other to avoid the scary bishops in the distance. Since the bishops are so mobile, they like to have multiple targets in the enemy camp. The bishops dislike being treated like pawns, and they absolutely &lt;em&gt;hate&lt;/em&gt; having to be trapped behind their own pieces, with no hope of coming out to play in the near future! The bishops are stronger in open positions(many open lines to work with), with pawns on both sides of the board.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The rooks like open ranks and files, and in particular, they love to work together. The best thing they know is to &quot;double up&quot; on an open file, and then just crash into the enemy's position. This can be devastating for the opponent, since the rooks are real powerhouses. In particular, the rook likes to go on the seventh rank, where it will run around, scaring the enemy pawns, and severely restricting the movement of enemy pieces. Rooks are, like bishops, stronger in open positions, with open lines to work on. However, they are also more vulnerable, since they are more valuable than a bishop or a knight.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The queen boasts with unparallelled power at the board. She likes to spread terror in the enemy camps, and will gladly cooperate with other friendly pieces to get her way. She likes the center, where she has free access to almost any part of the board, but she hates getting in the line of fire from the enemy lines(that's no way to treat a lady!), and wants to stay safe, if possible. Therefore, she often waits until after the opening to get out, when the coast is clear, in some sense.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The king is the most important piece, and he knows it. Therefore, he makes a point of staying safe at all cost. During the middle game, when the battle is in full swing, the king wishes to sit back and ride out the storm in safety, behind his loyal pawns and pieces. However, when the dust settles somewhat, and the endgame approaches, he feels it's a lot safer to go out and show who is the real boss! Boasting with striking power close to that of a rook, he will join up with his allies to end the battle, using his flexibility to drive away those who dare oppose him. However, he is still quite gun-shy, to be honest.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Knowing your pieces is the fundamentals to learning how to use them properly, and it's a vital part of learning how to go from beginner to intermediate player(it's at the core of so-called &lt;em&gt;positional play&lt;/em&gt;). Searching for &quot;planning in chess&quot; should bring you some helpful online resurces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Q: Do I really need to study endgames if I want to improve? They are boring, and I never even reach them in my games, so what's the point?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: If you really wish to improve, the endgame is essential to study in some detail. However, the endgame has an unfair reputation of being boring. Granted, there aren't as many &quot;flashy&quot; moves. However the tactics are never-ending, and in many cases the endgame is a battle on the knife's edge. So even if it doesn't look very flashy from an onlooker's perspective, I can promise you: it is when you learn to truly appreciate its many finesses!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, if you're never reaching endgames in your own games, it often means that either you or your opponent tries to avoid the endgame at the cost of a potential loss, or it means that your games are very lop-sided(someone gets mated or loses many pieces early on). As soon as you play someone of equal ability, you won't get fooled by your opponent's tricks, and your opponent will not very easily fall for your traps either. Therefore, to win, you will need to be able to outlast your opponents, and be prepared to face them in the endgame. Expecting never to reach an endgame is equivalent to expecting that at least one player will make a &lt;em&gt;severe&lt;/em&gt; mistake early on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With that being said, at the beginner level, you don't really need to learn everything about endgames immediately! Learn the basic mates with rook, queen, etc., and learn the basic concepts of pawn endgames(there's a wiki page on this topic here: &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_and_pawn_versus_king_endgame&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_and_pawn_versus_king_endgame&lt;/a&gt;). Some basic concepts of rook endings could also prove useful, and in general, the more endgames you study, the better! However, don't push yourself if you can't stand studying endgames further. If you want a good book on endgames to use as a beginner, I'd recommend &lt;em&gt;Silman's Complete Endgame Course&lt;/em&gt;. It divides the different endgames after player ability, rather than piece configuration, and you can use it to improve later as well. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That concludes it, I think. I cannot think of anything more I'd say to an advanced beginner seeking to improve. Good luck with your ambition!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8300" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.193" LastActivityDate="2016-10-21T20:47:30.137" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15704" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15707" CreationDate="2016-10-22T23:21:08.920" Score="6" ViewCount="5202" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have Stockfish compiled on my machine. Instead of just running the Stockfish program in the terminal, is it possible to interact with it in a separate program?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, some basic things I might want to do:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Create a position object from a FEN.    &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Get an evaluation from the position object (limiting with depth or time).    &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Return an array of positions for all the legal moves from the position.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These are just some very basic examples. Can anyone supply some code snippets for these instructions? I'm really struggling to find any helpful documentation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;EDIT&lt;/em&gt;: It looks like this really has a two part solution. The first is piping the input/output to some external program. The second is understanding the UCI protocol to perform what I want to do. Does anyone know the UCI protocol for getting all of the possible moves/positions from a given position? Also, it looks like the 'eval' command only gives a static evaluation of a position (i.e. no consideration of the future). Is there anyway to retrieve a time/depth based evaluation as well?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11543" LastEditorUserId="4509" LastEditDate="2016-10-28T08:07:13.483" LastActivityDate="2018-11-30T23:53:13.153" Title="What is the optimal way to use Stockfish programmatically?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;programming&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15705" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15708" CreationDate="2016-10-23T01:11:56.817" Score="4" ViewCount="2590" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've just finished translating my Java Engine to C++11, expecting great speed improvements in move generation. The code is very straightforward and uses a pre-generate bitboards approach. I also generate only legal moves, ie, inside generateMoves() I check to see if the king is in check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a quick test, I ran Perft (6) from the starting position. The Java version finishes the test on ~11 seconds. The C++ version takes ~8.5 seconds (my perft stops at depth 1, and zobrist keys are being updated on makeMove and undoMove).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The same test on Stockfish runs under 1 second.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was expecting the C++ version to be at least twice as faster as the Java one, and of course, somewhat slower than Stockfish. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After some investigation, it's clear that checking if the king is in check, for every move, is the major bottleneck. What can I do about this? I was trying to understand how to work with pinned pieces (&lt;a href=&quot;https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Checks+and+Pinned+Pieces+(Bitboards)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Checks+and+Pinned+Pieces+(Bitboards)&lt;/a&gt;), but I'm not sure how to follow. For example, what does &lt;code&gt;obstructed()&lt;/code&gt; do in the link above?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;NOTE: I already compiled it with the -O2 optimization flag.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: Here is some more details on the code:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Q: How did you generate sliding pieces?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I use the classfical bitboard approach, at program start I generate attack masks for all pieces:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;void MoveGen::bishopMoves(Board&amp;amp; board, int side, MoveList&amp;amp; moves){&#xA;    int opp = side ^ 1;&#xA;    U64 bishops = board.bitboards[Board::BISHOP | side];&#xA;    U64 occup = board.bitboards[side] | board.bitboards[opp];&#xA;    U64 enemyOrEmpty = ~board.bitboards[side] &amp;amp; ~board.bitboards[Board::KING | opp];&#xA;&#xA;    U64 *up_r = BitBoardGen::BITBOARD_DIRECTIONS[BitBoardGen::IDX_UP_RIGHT];&#xA;    U64 *up_l = BitBoardGen::BITBOARD_DIRECTIONS[BitBoardGen::IDX_UP_LEFT];&#xA;    U64 *down_r = BitBoardGen::BITBOARD_DIRECTIONS[BitBoardGen::IDX_DOWN_RIGHT];&#xA;    U64 *down_l = BitBoardGen::BITBOARD_DIRECTIONS[BitBoardGen::IDX_DOWN_LEFT];&#xA;&#xA;    while (bishops != 0){&#xA;        int from = numberOfTrailingZeros(bishops);&#xA;        U64 upward =  upwardMoveTargetsFrom(from, occup, up_r, enemyOrEmpty) | upwardMoveTargetsFrom(from, occup, up_l, enemyOrEmpty);&#xA;        U64 downward =  downwardMoveTargetsFrom(from, occup, down_r, enemyOrEmpty) | downwardMoveTargetsFrom(from, occup, down_l, enemyOrEmpty);&#xA;        add_moves(board, from, upward | downward, Move::NO_FLAGS, moves);&#xA;        bishops &amp;amp;= bishops - 1;&#xA;    }&#xA;}&#xA;&#xA; //handle blocking&#xA;U64 MoveGen::upwardMoveTargetsFrom(int from, U64 occup, U64 dir_mask[], U64 enemyOrEmpty){&#xA;    U64 ray = dir_mask[from];&#xA;    U64 blocker = occup &amp;amp; ray;&#xA;&#xA;    if (blocker != 0){&#xA;        int sq = numberOfTrailingZeros(blocker);&#xA;        ray^= dir_mask[sq];&#xA;    } &#xA;    return ray &amp;amp; enemyOrEmpty;&#xA;}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Q: How did you generate legal moves?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I only generate legal moves, so I check if the king is in check while generating moves. This is probably one of the problems, since most moves don't leave the king in check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The generateAllMoves code:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;MoveList genLegalMoves()&#xA;   valid = ()&#xA;   moves = getPseudoLegalForAllPieces (may leave the king in check)&#xA;   for move in moves&#xA;      board.applyMove(move) //its a local makemove, no zorbist involved&#xA;      atCheck = isAtCheck()  //dumb code, be more selective here?&#xA;      board.removeMove(move)//its a local undomove, no zorbist involved&#xA;&#xA;      if !atCheck:&#xA;         valid.add(move)&#xA;&#xA;  atCheck = isAtCheck() //again for castling&#xA;  if (! atCheck and canCastleKS)&#xA;     valid.add(castleKS)&#xA;  if (! atCheck and canCastleQS)&#xA;     valid.add(castleQS)&#xA;  return valid   &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Q: How did you undo your move?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My makeMove is like the following (this is fast):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;int makeMove(int move):&#xA;    int undo = board.state&#xA;    incremental update zobrist key&#xA;    update board.board[]&#xA;    update board.bitboards&#xA;    update board.state&#xA;    return undo&#xA;&#xA;void undoMove(int move, int undo):&#xA;    board.state = undo&#xA;    incremental undo zobrist key&#xA;    update board.board[]&#xA;    update board.bitboards&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And finally, my &lt;code&gt;isAtCheck()&lt;/code&gt; code goes like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;boolean isAtCheck(int side):&#xA;    locate king square&#xA;    get all opponent attacks mask &#xA;    return kingSquare &amp;amp; attacksMask&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT 2: I have changed the code to a pseudo-legal generator. The problem now is that I have to go to depth 0 to count only legal moves, and now it's taking ~16 seconds.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11328" LastEditorUserId="11328" LastEditDate="2016-10-24T02:29:54.343" LastActivityDate="2020-01-25T23:54:52.547" Title="C++ vs Java Engine move generation performance" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;programming&gt;&lt;performance&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15706" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15704" CreationDate="2016-10-23T03:52:42.660" Score="0" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Can anyone supply some code snippets for these instructions? I'm really struggling to find any helpful documentation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since you say you need to manipulate chess data structures programmatically, you might find the kind of specific programming guidance you want at the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessprogramming.org&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;Chess Programming Wiki&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It links to the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Chess_Interface&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;Universal Chess Interface standard&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt;, which Stockfish uses to interface to the chess GUI or other program you're using/writing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11245" LastEditorUserId="17895" LastEditDate="2018-11-30T23:53:13.153" LastActivityDate="2018-11-30T23:53:13.153" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="15707" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15704" CreationDate="2016-10-23T04:46:16.903" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think you're talking about how to fork a process for the engine and how to use it for the UCI protocol.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What you need to do is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Fork a new child process for the Stockfish engine&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Send and receive UCI commands to/from the engine&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Parse the UCI commands yourself&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do you want to study existing source code? Look at:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://talkchess.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=57770&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://talkchess.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=57770&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Download &lt;strong&gt;Chess Game Analyzer&lt;/strong&gt;, it's a simple Python script for automatic annotation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you have the source code, look at the the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; p = subprocess.Popen(engineName, stdin=subprocess.PIPE,&#xA;                     stdout=subprocess.PIPE,&#xA;                     stderr=subprocess.STDOUT)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This line creates a new process for the engine, where &lt;code&gt;engineName&lt;/code&gt; is the path of the engine executive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;p.stdin.write(&quot;uci\n&quot;)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This line sends the &lt;code&gt;uci&lt;/code&gt; command to the engine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;for eline in iter(p.stdout.readline, '')&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This line parses a UCI response.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2016-10-23T04:46:16.903" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15708" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15705" CreationDate="2016-10-23T04:59:02.770" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your code looks fine. We can't really give you the exact cause, but we can give you some hints.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Q: How did you generate sliding pieces?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sliding piece generation is typically the slowest because we need to check the enemy pieces. Stockfish uses &lt;strong&gt;magic bitboard&lt;/strong&gt;, which is also used by Houdini and Komodo.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Q: How did you generate legal moves?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stockfish always generate &lt;strong&gt;pseudo-legal&lt;/strong&gt; moves and &lt;a href=&quot;https://stackoverflow.com/questions/7197369/chess-programming-no-ai-moves-validation/8589734#8589734&quot;&gt;only check when it's necessary&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Q: How did you undo your move?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stockfish can easily undo a move by &lt;strong&gt;zorbrist hashing&lt;/strong&gt;. Hash value can be updated efficiently.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;------------------------ &lt;strong&gt;EDIT&lt;/strong&gt; ------------------------&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your sliding generation and undo look okay to me. I think the bottleneck is your legal move generation. Look at this recent thread:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://talkchess.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=61797&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://talkchess.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=61797&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;How do you ensure legality:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  a) by making/unmaking each move and testing whether it leaves the king in check, or&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  b) by only doing this for the small set of moves that could actually be illegal (king moves, check evasions, ep captures, and moves of pinned pieces), or&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  c) by doing clever move generation that knows how to avoid generating illegal moves?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Only in case of a) I'd say you should spend effort to improve speed, since that could be done an order of magnitude faster, e.g. like b). Otherwise I'd keep it as it is, provided it is correct Smile&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Sven Schule&lt;/strong&gt; is a respected engine programmer, we should trust his words. Your implementation looks like &lt;strong&gt;exactly&lt;/strong&gt; his point a.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="1711" LastEditDate="2020-01-25T23:54:52.547" LastActivityDate="2020-01-25T23:54:52.547" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="15709" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15105" CreationDate="2016-10-23T05:05:27.667" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Many expert chess engine users (such as correspondence chess masters) advocate using more than one engine to analyze a position, because each has strengths and weaknesses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Generally, Stockfish is considered strongest in positions with tactical elements, while Komodo is biased toward positional / strategic strengths.  Neither is a broad-spectrum solution.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As other responders have indicated, there's a lot of squishiness in the output of engines when there aren't any forcing lines, or transpositions are possible and undifferentiated.  Engines do a fair amount of pruning, which saves computation but introduces problems with &quot;horizon&quot;. The horizon is the depth of moves the engine will look at a variation that leads to a disadvantage. Such a variation may have a redeeming &lt;em&gt;comeback&lt;/em&gt; move at the end, but may be just long enough that the engine gives up analyzing the line before it reaches the comeback move, because it's &lt;em&gt;over the horizon&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On its way to a &quot;final&quot; evaluation, the engine is essentially &lt;em&gt;approximating&lt;/em&gt;.  That is, it evaluates the position, adds a few more moves and looks at the position, evaluates for the &quot;best&quot; move based on those, shifts to the next position, adds a few more hypothetical moves and evaluates, shifts, and so on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At any one particular instant, the engine may be just about to shift from one evaluation of the position to another, even while the depth you're specifying is being reached.  If you terminate the analysis manually (i.e. pick a move and make it, or just hit the Stop button), you may get a different &quot;best&quot; move recommendation in one millisecond, and another one a millisecond later, &lt;em&gt;even at the so-called maximum depth&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The best way to ensure consistency is to &lt;em&gt;run the engine by itself in analysis mode&lt;/em&gt; using software such as Fritz.  The engine will evaluate the actual moves of a game (or an opening variation) offering improvements. The computation behind the improvements will be strictly limited by depth or time, as you specify.  If you let the engine terminate the search at each position, you should get consistent (deterministic) results. Unfortunately, although it will annotate the improved variation at each position, this approach involves the engine resetting its analysis with each move/position of the move score that is analyzed.  It won't move from improvement to improvement to improvement, leaving the game behind.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To get &lt;em&gt;that&lt;/em&gt; kind of result, you need an &lt;em&gt;engine tournament&lt;/em&gt;.  Give two identical engines a starting position (such as the Berlin or Moscow Variations of the Ruy Lopez) that you want to improve from, set their limits as discussed, and let them duke it out. Play at least a dozen games, and see if anything shakes out.  Two cautions: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;This is time-consuming (but at least it's not your time), and&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;As you go further and further from known theory, the less likely that you'll ever see that position in an actual game played by anyone other than these engines, for the reasons discussed above.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BTW: As far as I know (and my research supports this), non-deterministic algorithms are not used in Stockfish or any other major engine.  The reasons for this are self-evident - if you're looking for a solution to a deterministic problem, you use a deterministic approach.  Stochastic approaches are only better in stochastic problem domains, or where a deterministic model is unavailable or problematic in itself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as analysis depth goes, there's a point of diminishing returns that's determined by what you're trying to accomplish.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In different types of positions, the evaluation function of any engine will tend to stabilize at different points.  For one type of position, there will be no noticeable difference in the evaluation or the recommended &quot;best&quot; move after about 20 ply.  In another, you may need to hit 26 or 28 ply for the move to stop changing, and the evaluation function to stabilize at a terminal value to 2 significant digits (e.g. 1.&lt;em&gt;87&lt;/em&gt;, instead of 1.86 or 1.88).  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Clearly, if your goal is the perfect move / best evaluation accuracy, then if you can only choose one depth/time parameter limit, instead of a &lt;em&gt;stability limit / sensitivity threshold&lt;/em&gt;, then you need one large enough to accommodate the most positions where the evaluation continues to be unstable to greater depth/for longer analysis time.  You need to &lt;em&gt;aim high&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But there's a tradeoff.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In an actual game, as the game proceeds, the probability increases exponentially that one or both (human) players will play a non-optimal move.  Since the engine &lt;em&gt;only&lt;/em&gt; calculates optimal moves, this means that in quiet positions (and in some complex tactical ones) the engine's choice of a move and the actual move played will almost always diverge, even if only slightly. It will also do so surprisingly frequently, often as many as a dozen times in a game &lt;em&gt;even between GM's&lt;/em&gt;. This is, in fact, one of the indicators that TD's use to figure out whether a player at a tournament is getting outside help from an engine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because of this, if you're comparing a variation that an engine analyzes with a line that humans might actually play, the longer the variation, the more likely it is that the tail of the variation will only match the humans' moves when there is a forcing line.  In fact, unless the line is forcing, a fair amount of the time not even the opponent's &lt;em&gt;first reply&lt;/em&gt; will match the engine's expected optimal reply.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The more unclear or quiet the position, the shorter the useful tail of an analyzed variation will be, &lt;em&gt;even if the opponent replies with the expected move&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, if you're analyzing a murky or quiet position or opening, and you're curious to know whether an &lt;em&gt;engine&lt;/em&gt; could &lt;em&gt;possibly&lt;/em&gt; play a line better, then have at it. But if you want to know if it's possible to find a single winning line given the replies that the opponent would actually end up playing, the real odds start to look like a craps game as the variation gets longer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That said, there are ways to optimize how you use the calculation time as you analyze a game or an opening variation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As @GeorgeJempty indicated, you can get much better results at 35 &lt;em&gt;ply&lt;/em&gt; (ply are half-moves; 12 ply is 6 moves for each side) than you will at 25.  However, I use Stockfish on a Quad AMD at 2.9 GHz, and the positions where I need to go even 26 ply deep to find a hidden winning move that were missed at 25 ply are &lt;em&gt;very&lt;/em&gt; few and far between (something on the order of 1 in 1,000).  For me, that's simply not worth the extra compute time it takes to find it.  What's more, the resulting improvement is almost certainly going to be negligible, because the probability that the opponent would have made the corresponding replies shrinks to zero, and the resulting end position would never appear. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In other words, the longer the move sequence, the greater the probability that any analysis will be &lt;em&gt;overtaken by events&lt;/em&gt;.  This is one reason that even Grandmasters rarely calculate beyond 12 ply (except in endgames), and often only calculate to 4 or 6, relying on positional intuition instead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for how much of a difference ply depth makes at extreme depths, I have some background in the problem.  When I'm screening games for analysis targets (by this I mean trawling through large sets of them to find ones that had interesting highlights suggesting they're worth deeper analysis), I use just 23 ply. My configuration can get through about 10 games an hour at that clip, so I can process about 750 every night.  Once I find these, I then reset the depth to 25, and rerun the analysis on those selected games.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Obviously this approach would only make sense if I'd tested it, and I have. I've run a few experiments to test the merits of different depths, and the settings I use turn out to be optimal for the compute time I'm willing to allocate.  Only about 1 in 50 games turns out to have an interesting feature that shows up at 25 ply but gets missed at 23.  Clearly, that suggests that some of the games I screened out using 23 ply would &lt;em&gt;also&lt;/em&gt; have shown such elusive features if they'd screened &lt;em&gt;in&lt;/em&gt; instead, and subsequently been processed at 25 ply.  That's just the opportunity cost of the rate at which I choose to process games, and for my purposes, there's so much low-hanging fruit I don't really need to go climbing trees.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would definitely take advantage of every CPU on your PC's chip, though. Most of the world's PC's computational power is incredibly underutilized.  On my configuration, at 1 CPU Stockfish does about 1K positions / sec, while at 4 CPU's, it runs over 4K positions / sec.  That quadrupling of the rate really tells when you're data mining, as I am.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To reiterate, I would also turn to Komodo for analyzing openings and quiet/murky positions as a comparative tool, and you should find that with one of the two engines the evaluations stabilize tolerably soon, at around 22-23 ply for most positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11245" LastEditorUserId="11245" LastEditDate="2016-10-23T05:12:33.820" LastActivityDate="2016-10-23T05:12:33.820" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15710" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16533" CreationDate="2016-10-23T19:47:58.610" Score="1" ViewCount="330" Body="&lt;p&gt;My aim is to create a database of endgame positions taken from Van Perlo's &lt;em&gt;Endgame Tactics&lt;/em&gt; in Fritz for Fun 13.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've created a new database, but I do not know how to add games or positions. How do I add content to my empty database?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastEditorDisplayName="user1108" LastEditDate="2016-10-27T11:54:03.437" LastActivityDate="2017-02-03T11:29:55.463" Title="Fritz for Fun 13: how do I add positions to a new database?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;database&gt;&lt;fritz&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15711" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15719" CreationDate="2016-10-23T21:22:47.770" Score="3" ViewCount="560" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chesstempo database gives white over 65% in all the variations after 6. dxc5 (130 games with both players 2200+). It has been used by Anand and Ivanchuk. So why the main line 6. g3 is way (2800+ games with both players 2200+) more popular where black scores much better?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It has to be because of black's preparation. But what should be the correct response? I don't see one using the database. Nor can I find one using chess engine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 c5 4. cxd5 exd5 5. Nf3 Nc6 6. dxc5 d4 7. Na4 Bxc5 &#xA;( 7... b5 8. cxb6 axb6 9. e3  )&#xA;( 7... Bf5 8. e3 d3 9. Qb3 )&#xA;8. Nxc5 Qa5+ 9. Bd2 Qxc5 10. Rc1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7002" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-11-18T14:47:29.963" LastActivityDate="2016-11-18T14:47:29.963" Title="Tarrasch defense with 6. dxc5" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;queens-gambit&gt;&lt;1.d4&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15712" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15711" CreationDate="2016-10-24T00:03:24.660" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, I think your statistics are misleading. 130 games is not a very large sample set, and you didn't give the minimum rating for the players. Are these master games, grandmaster games, or games by players of all ratings? The winning percentage of white might be meaningful if all the games were played by super-grandmasters, but I don't think that's the case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think that the 6. dxc5 line is more forcing than other lines. This means that a well-prepared black player might have an easier time accomplishing a draw. The 6. g3 variation is slower, and allows for a more playable game where world-class players like Magnus Carlsen have more room to outplay an opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's look at it from a logical point of view, too. White's goal is to isolate black's d5 pawn and attack it. White doesn't have to do this right away. Allowing black to play d4 changes the character of the  game. Why not keep things as they are, slowly develop your bishop to a great square on g2, and isolate the pawn when you feel ready? This way, hopefully, we don't allow d4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the position you give, 10... Qb6 is the best response according to the &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess24.com/en/analysis&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;chess24 engine.&lt;/a&gt; If you play through the line, you see that the pieces get traded off and it is pretty forcing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2614" LastActivityDate="2016-10-24T00:03:24.660" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15713" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15705" CreationDate="2016-10-24T04:57:50.690" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Disclaimer: I can't support my claims with numbers. I don't have your engine to profile. It is mostly gut feelings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It looks like a performance killer is a castling test.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Testing for &lt;code&gt;canCastle*S&lt;/code&gt; (it &lt;em&gt;looks&lt;/em&gt; like it is about King and Rook didn't move, and nothing is in between) is way cheaper than testing for King becoming exposed, so swap the tests order. C++ will short-circuit logical &lt;code&gt;and&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BTW, for castling you need to test against &lt;code&gt;inCheck&lt;/code&gt; at three squares:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;if (canCastleKS &amp;amp;&amp;amp; !inCheck(e_file) &amp;amp;&amp;amp; !inCheck(f_file) &amp;amp;&amp;amp; !inCheck(g_file)) {&#xA;    ....&#xA;}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3774" LastActivityDate="2016-10-24T04:57:50.690" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15714" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15721" CreationDate="2016-10-24T13:30:57.210" Score="6" ViewCount="1470" Body="&lt;p&gt;This post is a follow up of this one: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/15705/c-vs-java-engine-move-generation-performance/15713#15713&quot;&gt;C++ vs Java Engine move generation performance&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My goal here is to improve the performance of my move generator, which finishes perft (start_pos, 6) in 8.5 secs.&#xA;That's too slow for C++ code (the same Java code runs in 11 secs).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The bottleneck is the check for validity, which in turn tests if the king is in check. This is running for every move,&#xA;and given that most moves are legal, it's a total waste of time. As pointed out by Student T, we should restricted&#xA;this test for king in check, pinned pieces and en passant captures.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The king in check or walking to check cases are easy, this post is about pinned pieces  code.&#xA;So, the &lt;a href=&quot;https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Checks+and+Pinned+Pieces+(Bitboards)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt; cpwiki code&lt;/a&gt; goes like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;pinned = 0;&#xA;pinner = xrayRookAttacks(occupiedBB, ownPieces, squareOfKing) &amp;amp; opRQ;&#xA;while ( pinner ) {&#xA;   int sq  = bitScanForward(pinner);&#xA;   pinned |= obstructed(sq, squareOfKing) &amp;amp; ownPieces;&#xA;   pinner &amp;amp;= pinner - 1;&#xA;}&#xA;&#xA;pinner = xrayBishopAttacks(occupiedBB, ownPieces, squareOfKing) &amp;amp; opBQ;&#xA;while ( pinner ) {&#xA;   int sq  = bitScanForward(pinner);&#xA;   pinned |= obstructed(sq, squareOfKing) &amp;amp; ownPieces;&#xA;   pinner &amp;amp;= pinner - 1;&#xA;}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And here's the code for xrayRookAttacks():&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;U64 xrayRookAttacks(U64 occ, U64 blockers, enumSquare rookSq) {&#xA;   U64 attacks = rookAttacks(occ, rookSq);&#xA;   blockers &amp;amp;= attacks;&#xA;   return attacks ^ rookAttacks(occ ^ blockers, rookSq);&#xA;}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Questions:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a) What is &lt;code&gt;obstructed()&lt;/code&gt; doing?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;b) After getting the &lt;code&gt;pinned&lt;/code&gt; set, how exactly do I use it to test for a valid move?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you all!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11328" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.193" LastActivityDate="2016-10-28T23:08:46.303" Title="Detect pinned pieces code" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;programming&gt;&lt;illegal-move&gt;&lt;performance&gt;&lt;pins&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15715" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9750" CreationDate="2016-10-24T13:36:34.063" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Exchanging on move three is too early.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After 1 d4 d5 2 c4 e6 3 cxd5? exd5 4 Nc3 Black solves his main problem of how to develop with the Queenside Bishop. This achieved with with 4 ... c6! and ... Bf5!, for example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[StartPLY &quot;6&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. c4 e6 3. cxd5 exd5 4. Nc3 c6 5. Qc2 Bd6 6. Nf3 Ne7 7. Bg5 Bf5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11553" LastEditorDisplayName="user1108" LastEditDate="2016-10-24T17:22:55.087" LastActivityDate="2016-10-24T17:22:55.087" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15716" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15704" CreationDate="2016-10-24T14:03:54.373" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;As for the first part, I have been using Perl and the IPC::Open2 package successfully for running Stockfish programmatically. &lt;a href=&quot;http://perldoc.perl.org/IPC/Open2.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://perldoc.perl.org/IPC/Open2.html&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for the UCI way to &quot;get all possible moves&quot;, you need to set the &quot;multiPV&quot; parameter to some large value (99?), causing the engine to calculate and report a value for every possible move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for making the engine calculate (and report), you use the &quot;go&quot; command.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Try it first interactively from the console to get an idea of what the output looks like, so you can intelligently parse it with your program.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7314" LastActivityDate="2016-10-24T14:03:54.373" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15717" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13509" CreationDate="2016-10-24T18:15:44.653" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a lot of depth to the tactics and strategy. Assuming at least familiar with single board chess tactics such as a fork, pin, etc. then next up is understanding Time &amp;amp; Communication.  Neither of these has a single board equivalent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Communication&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Agree on how communication works. It does no good for one player to say hold on trades, or no knights, if their partner moves and allows the ops to win because they got the knight they needed from the other board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Before a game begins, some more advanced teams will agree on a multiboard plan. For example, 1 person will feed from their board, meaning lots of trades and they will move as fast as they can. They will try and keep the trades close to even.  Most likely at some point they will go &amp;quot;I have stopped moving&amp;quot; meaning they are in the process of getting mated.  No more move will be coming because all that will happen is they will lose material without getting anything more for their partner or mated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Time&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How time works in a two board game is significantly different from a single board.  The op that can force you on time is the one playing your partner.  If you have 2 minutes left, and they have 3 minutes left, they can force you to move by just moving themselves. If you could crush or would like a blocker or anything else, tough they have you on time.  Note how much time your opp has left does not matter. If they only have 15 seconds but have you in a mate in 2, you have to stop moving.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Besides forcing, it is real bad for both players of a pair to have their time going. Bleeding time is bad. One of you need to move. Abandon whatever you are waiting for and get a move on. If your opponents are bleeding, do not say or do anything.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is just a start. Enjoy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11537" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2016-10-24T18:15:44.653" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15718" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15726" CreationDate="2016-10-24T18:46:56.593" Score="6" ViewCount="705" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was wondering... When me and my friends play bughouse, a very common opening we play is &lt;code&gt;1. Nf3 Nf6, 2. Ng5 Ng4, 3. Nxf7 Nxf2, 4. Nxd8 Nxd1&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this a good choice of opening in bughouse?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11425" LastActivityDate="2020-11-28T00:04:30.813" Title="Is 1. Nf3 good for white in bughouse?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;bughouse&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15719" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15711" CreationDate="2016-10-24T19:31:19.053" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;6. dxc5&lt;/code&gt; is just a good move, and you cannot really hope to refute it. It was given an exclamation mark in &lt;em&gt;Grandmaster Reportoire 10&lt;/em&gt; by Ntirlis and Aagard, and their main line starts as in your diagram.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Moves such as &lt;code&gt;dxc5&lt;/code&gt; were underestimated by older theory because they were thought to give the initiative to black. Nowadays with computers we can analyse more concretely and see if blacks initiative is something to be afraid of or not. In the case of &lt;code&gt;6. dxc5&lt;/code&gt;, the analysis seems to suggest that white ends up with a small advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1485" LastActivityDate="2016-10-24T19:31:19.053" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15720" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15695" CreationDate="2016-10-24T22:38:39.870" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;First off, let me say I've not put your game through an engine. I'm assuming you can do that yourself and in any case they're not terribly good at endgames.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now for some appropriate general principles and observations:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) King, Knight and pawn endgames are very similar to king and pawn endgames. The same kind of principles apply. With enough pawns on the board and an extra, distant passed pawn you should be looking for the win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) If the knights come off then it is an easy win for you&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) If too many pawns come off it is an easy draw for your opponent. He seems to have known what he was doing from about move 33 because with pawn advances and good use of his knight that is exactly what he achieved.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4) Two related principles. Pawns can only move forwards. They cannot move back. Patience is often the key to good endgame play. The immediate 33) ... b5 is too impatient.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5) On a4 your knight is badly offside. Your first task, given your opponent's immediate lack of threats, should be to get it over to the kingside where the action is. d4 looks like a wonderful square.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;6) By the same token your opponent's knight is also in need of some improvement. d5 looks like the right square. From there it keeps half an eye on your b pawn, stays in touch with the kingside pawns and threatens your f6 pawn. Either your king is going to be tied down to its defence or it is going to have to advance and be swapped off. One small step closer to a draw. You should try and prevent this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, what I suggest for your first possible mini-plan is Na4 - c5+ - e6 - d4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What happens next depends on white's reaction. I think it would be a mistake for him to go for your b pawn with something like Kd3 - c4 - b5 - b6. You would go for his pawns with your knight starting with Nc2 with the threat of Ne1 forking the f3 and g2 pawns. After Nc2 one possible (non-forcing) line might be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) g3  h5 2) Nf2 Ne3 (now aiming for f1 forking the h2 and g3 pawns) 3) h3 Nf1 4) g4 h4 and white's pawn structure is badly compromised.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More sensible for white would be a compromise where he plays Kd3 - c4 but then aims for Ng4 - e3 - d5+. Black might counter this by Ne6 - f4 instead of d4 to temporarily prevent Nd5+ and to start harrying white's pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A second possible mini plan for black would be to start with Na4 - b2+. If white plays the tempting Kd3 - c3 than the paradoxical Nb2 - d1+ followed by h5 is going to force the knights off at the cost of a pawn when black's outside passed pawn plus better king position is going to win it for him. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So white can't play Kd3-c3. So white needs to play his king to c2. Then black can play his knight to c4 to prevent white's knight coming to e3 and protect the knight with b5 if attacked by the king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If white goes after the b5 pawn with Kc3-b4 then black forces the white knight to the more passive f2 with h5. Rather than defend the b5 pawn passively with Nc4-d6 he could go after the white pawns with Ne3. Then I would suggest a (non forcing) sequence something like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) g4 h4 2) Nd3 h3 3) Nf2 Nc2+ 4) Kxb5 Nd4+ 5) Kc4 Nxf3 6) Nf2 Nxh2 and, OK, with just 3 black pawns left it is looking difficult to win. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, either defend the b5 pawn with Nd6 or go back to the Na4-c5+ plan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If either of these two plans is black's best I'm not good enough to say, but they do pose white major problems to steer it to a draw. You have to make it as difficult as possible for white to find good moves in these positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2016-10-24T22:38:39.870" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15721" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15714" CreationDate="2016-10-25T10:40:07.413" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;A:&lt;/strong&gt; Let's use bishop for our example. &lt;code&gt;xrayBishopAttacks&lt;/code&gt; works if we have the following position&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/pX5jR.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/pX5jR.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but it &lt;strong&gt;doesn't&lt;/strong&gt; work if you have this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/V8eT8.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/V8eT8.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The f3 knight is not pinned because there is something else behind it. &lt;code&gt;obstructed&lt;/code&gt; takes this into consideration.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;B:&lt;/strong&gt; Once you get the pinned pieces, you can just do XAND to check if the piece you want to move is pinned. If it's pinned, you can't move it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;************** &lt;strong&gt;EDIT&lt;/strong&gt; **************&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You won't find &lt;code&gt;obstructed()&lt;/code&gt; because it's just a pseudocode function. You're expected to implement pinning in &lt;code&gt;obstructed()&lt;/code&gt; yourself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Forget the pseudocode, you should study Stockfish. Goto &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/blob/master/src/position.cpp&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/blob/master/src/position.cpp&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Find &lt;code&gt;bool Position::legal(Move m) const&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Check the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;// A non-king move is legal if and only if it is not pinned or it&#xA;// is moving along the ray towards or away from the king.&#xA;return   !(pinned_pieces(us) &amp;amp; from)&#xA;    ||  aligned(from, to_sq(m), square&amp;lt;KING&amp;gt;(us));&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is &lt;strong&gt;exactly&lt;/strong&gt; what I'm talking about.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2016-10-25T14:22:10.300" LastActivityDate="2016-10-25T14:22:10.300" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15723" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15734" CreationDate="2016-10-26T12:44:30.103" Score="9" ViewCount="3173" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am looking for a way to return scores for all possible moves from a chess engine (preferably, Stockfish).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;http://wbec-ridderkerk.nl/html/UCIProtocol.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;UCI protocol&lt;/a&gt; does not seem to require it, but is seems like a useful feature to include.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there any chess engines/extensions of UCI that implement that?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11567" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-11-22T15:48:26.620" LastActivityDate="2020-01-27T23:35:05.957" Title="Returning scores for all possible moves from a chess engine" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;uci&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15724" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4138" CreationDate="2016-10-26T14:03:51.097" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;python-chess provides a useful API and supports UCI, apparently:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://python-chess.readthedocs.io/en/v0.15.3/uci.html?highlight=engine&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://python-chess.readthedocs.io/en/v0.15.3/uci.html?highlight=engine&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The above link gives a 'stockfish' example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11569" LastActivityDate="2016-10-26T14:03:51.097" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15726" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15718" CreationDate="2016-10-27T16:15:36.697" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;For an opening to be good in bughouse, it needs to incorporate both boards.  Timing, material trades, attack/defend all have a huge influence.  On top is predictability. If you know what the ops will try, then you may come up with a counter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, 3 ... KxN is playable by black if there are limited material and a huge flood does not come on board. If the other board can control the flow of pieces then this sac will fail.  Yes, KxN could get hammered if several drops come into play. &#xA;But look what the other side gets. A drop knight vs a drop pawn. No immediate easy path to getting more pieces. Most likely a time bulge.  (Typically one player waits for pard to get them stuff to drop on the exposed king.)  With enough of a time lead, the off board can wait and force you to play a few moves without extra stuff.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As part of team opening, the knight sac can be useful, but need to first gain enough drops to make it a threat.  To do this, will need play on other board to be faster, and get 3 or more drops in hand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11537" LastActivityDate="2016-10-27T16:15:36.697" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15728" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15698" CreationDate="2016-10-28T03:35:23.367" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would also recommend various books by Yasser Seirawan, he has a way of simplifying positions.  His books are for beginner to intermediate level players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11581" LastActivityDate="2016-10-28T03:35:23.367" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15730" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2217" CreationDate="2016-10-28T09:38:07.747" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/42zpnv/crazyhouse_an_overview_strategic_concepts/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;This reddit page&lt;/a&gt; has plenty of good advice, and mentions a (strong player's) opening repertoire (section &amp;quot;My Opening Systems&amp;quot;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Excerpt :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For White:&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uz-dZ2W4Bf0#t=4m14s&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Modified Catalan&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Basic setup: 1. d4 ... 2. g3 ... 3. Bg2 ... 4. h3 ... 5. Nf3 ... 6. Bg5 ... 7. 0-0 ... 8. Nbd2&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Themes: Solidify and fortify your king before you attack. h3 is an important move so your opponent can't place a pawn there attacking your fianchettoed bishop. You start out a bit passive but extremely solid. Black will have a hard time breaking through while you use the time he's trying to drum something up to form an attack of your own on his likely more exposed kingside. Trade pieces in the center and then drop on the kingside. Often p@e5 to challenge the center or a pinned piece or p@h6 to pry open the king. You can allow the f3 knight to be captured, whereafter you'll often recapture with the e-pawn to build a nice box around your king. If they sac on h3, capture and then simply replace the pieces right back where they were. If no tension develops after the first 8 moves and there is no obvious attacking idea, bring a rook to c1 and break with c4 (or just play c4 immediately) to trade pawns and open things up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Illustrative Game: &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.lichess.org/THYYswroKIlD&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://en.lichess.org/THYYswroKIlD&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[NdT : there's this length of description for all the lines listed below]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uz-dZ2W4Bf0#t=1m01s&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Modified Chigorin/Trompowsky&lt;/a&gt;: 1. d4 ... 2. Nc3 ... 3. Bg5 ... 4. Nf3 ... 5. e3 (or e4, if allowed) ... 6. Be2/d3 ... 7. 0-0&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.lichess.org/UA6ayvXzhDQv&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;e4 systems&lt;/a&gt;: 1. e4 ... 2. Nf3 ... 3. Bc4/b5/e2 ... 4. Bg5/f4 ... 5. Nc3 or Nbd2 followed by eventual c3 ... 6. 0-0&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://redd.it/3qz167&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Offbeat stuff&lt;/a&gt;: 1. b3 ... 2. Bb2 ... 3. e3 ... 4. d3 ... 5. Nf3 ... 6. Be2, stuff like that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For Black&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uz-dZ2W4Bf0#t=9m32s&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Crosky Gambit&lt;/a&gt; : 1. e4 Nf6 2. e5 Nc6!? 3. exf6 gxf6! 4. ... d5 (can transpose with 2. ... d5 instead of Nc6) 5. ... Rg8 6. ...Bg4 7. ...e6&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.lichess.org/Ix9npN7BriSK&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Modified Modern&lt;/a&gt; : 1. ...g6 2. ... Bg7 3. ...Nf6 4. ...h6 5. ...d5 6. ...Bg4 7. ... 0-0 8. ...Nbd7 or Nc6&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(and more)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;tl;dr&lt;/strong&gt;: Beginners may be best served by playing conventional e4/d4 systems as white and the French as black. Avoid pawn moves which weaken key squares; fortify weak squares around your king. Maintain the initiative and attack. Sac when it draws the king out and you have a follow-up. Emphasize king safety over material gain. Calculate what your opponent (and you) can do with exchanged pieces before entering into tactical complications. Go crazy!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="672" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2016-10-28T09:38:07.747" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15731" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13509" CreationDate="2016-10-28T11:09:41.547" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/42zpnv/crazyhouse_an_overview_strategic_concepts/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;This reddit page&lt;/a&gt; has a ton of information, coming from a strong player. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Excerpts (&lt;code&gt;z&lt;/code&gt; means &quot;crazyhouse&quot;) : &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Opening&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  The standard rules apply: develop your pieces, control the center, and get your king to safety. But there are some opening ideas uniquely emphasized in z:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Flank pawns should usually be kept where they stand in the opening. Openings like the Bird or Dutch exposing this square are extremely dubious. Even openings like the English and Sicilian aren't to be recommended as they weaken the c2/c7 square respectively. Diagonal pieces can be dropped to exploit the weakened color complex.&#xA;  Guard the tender f2/f7 square from sacs so that your king isn't drawn out early.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Pawn gambits, especially those in which you delay the recapture, are almost without exception a bad idea; your opponent can accept and then simply drop the extra pawn to stabilize.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Note that getting your king to safety does not always mean castling: sometimes it means keeping it in the center and fortifying the tender points of egress.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Middlegame&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  The middlegame is almost always where the game is won or lost. This is where you should look to start exchanging pieces, breaking with your pawns, building up pressure on vulnerable squares, or cracking open your opponent's defenses with careful pawn drops or piece sacs. The midgame is rapidly achieved in crazyhouse, so be ready to join battle straight away! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Strategy Pointers&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;em&gt;and other midgame motifs&lt;/em&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;On both offense and defense, be aware of positional sacrifices: knights and bishops or even major pieces can often be sac'd to expose the king in a manner which might be considered unsound in chess but which in z is very powerful. Similarly, a few points of material can be sacrificed to gain a foothold in enemy territory.  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Scan for weaknesses: holes where pawns can be dropped, pieces vulnerable to a fork, weakly defended kingside squares, overloaded defensive pieces. Identify a weakness and then concentrate all your drops on that weakness.  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;If you identify a weakness but your pocket is empty, look to force exchanges. If your own position is weak, avoid exchanges until you're more solid.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Defend pawn drops on your kingside: know how to react to p@h3/h6. The knight is an excellent defensive piece in this scenario. [...]&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Knights should be kept on hand until you can drop them to attack weak squares around the enemy's king, place extra pressure on a pin, or drop into a fork.  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;A knight and a queen is the most powerful complementary attacking combination because they each cover squares the other doesn't. Knights can be used to place un-blockable checks, and queens can be used to drop into mates.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;(and a ton more)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Common Mating Patterns&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  [...]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;My Opening Systems&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  (see &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/15730/672&quot;&gt;this answer&lt;/a&gt; for an excerpt)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="672" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.193" LastActivityDate="2016-10-28T11:09:41.547" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15732" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="274" CreationDate="2016-10-28T16:07:53.717" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Colle is about building very small advantages over a long period of time. In fact, you may not see the fruits of all your labors until move 30-35 in many cases.  Bear in  mind there are two methods for playing the Colle,  the Koltanowski and Zukertort.  The Koltanowski is a slow, precise system where White  focuses on d4 and then frees his dark-squared bishop for the rest of the game.  The Zukertort does have more of an attacking flair and will give White more excitement.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11586" LastEditorUserId="2299" LastEditDate="2016-10-29T10:00:37.107" LastActivityDate="2016-10-29T10:00:37.107" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15733" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15714" CreationDate="2016-10-28T21:24:27.727" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Answering my own question here. I've managed to increase the speed of the move generation code, by implementing the &lt;code&gt;pinnedPices()&lt;/code&gt; routine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The C++ version runs Perft (start_pos, 6) under ~3.5 secs, including hash updates.&#xA;Here's some Java code for reference (messy indentation, sorry):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;//return bitboard of pinned pieces for player side&#xA;public static long pinnedBB(Board board, int side, int kingSQ){&#xA;    int opp =  side ^ 1;&#xA;    long occup = board.bitboards[side] | board.bitboards[opp];&#xA;    long pinned = 0L;&#xA;    long pinner = xrayRook(board, board.bitboards[side], &#xA;            kingSQ, opp) &amp;amp; (board.bitboards[Board.ROOK | opp] | board.bitboards[Board.QUEEN | opp]);&#xA;&#xA;    while (pinner != 0) {&#xA;       int sq  = Long.numberOfTrailingZeros(pinner);&#xA;       pinned |= BitBoardGen.rectLookUp[sq][kingSQ] &amp;amp; board.bitboards[side];&#xA;       pinner &amp;amp;= pinner - 1;&#xA;    }&#xA;    pinner = xrayBishop(board, board.bitboards[side], &#xA;        kingSQ, opp) &amp;amp; (board.bitboards[Board.BISHOP | opp] | board.bitboards[Board.QUEEN | opp]);&#xA;&#xA;    while (pinner != 0) {&#xA;       int sq  = Long.numberOfTrailingZeros(pinner);&#xA;       pinned |= BitBoardGen.rectLookUp[sq][kingSQ] &amp;amp; board.bitboards[side];&#xA;       pinner &amp;amp;= pinner - 1;&#xA;    }&#xA;    return pinned;&#xA;}&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;  public static long xrayBishop(Board board, long blockers, int from, int side){&#xA;      int opp = side ^ 1;&#xA;      long occup = board.bitboards[side] | board.bitboards[opp];&#xA;      long attacks = bishopAttacks(board, occup, from, side);&#xA;       blockers &amp;amp;= attacks;&#xA;       return attacks ^ bishopAttacks(board, occup ^ blockers, from, side);&#xA; }&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;  public static long bishopAttacks(Board board, long occup, int from, int side){&#xA;    int opp = side ^ 1;&#xA;    long enemyOrEmpty = ~board.bitboards[side] &amp;amp; ~board.bitboards[Board.KING | opp];&#xA;    long[] up_r = BitBoardGen.BITBOARD_DIRECTIONS[BitBoardGen.IDX_UP_RIGHT];&#xA;    long[] up_l = BitBoardGen.BITBOARD_DIRECTIONS[BitBoardGen.IDX_UP_LEFT];&#xA;    long[] down_r = BitBoardGen.BITBOARD_DIRECTIONS[BitBoardGen.IDX_DOWN_RIGHT];&#xA;    long[] down_l = BitBoardGen.BITBOARD_DIRECTIONS[BitBoardGen.IDX_DOWN_LEFT];&#xA;&#xA;    long upward =  upwardAttackTargetsFrom(from, occup, up_r) | upwardAttackTargetsFrom(from, occup, up_l);&#xA;    long downward =  downwardAttackTargetsFrom(from, occup, down_r) | downwardAttackTargetsFrom(from, occup, down_l);&#xA;    return upward | downward;&#xA;}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;code&gt;rectLookUp&lt;/code&gt; matrix stores the pre-generated bitboards representing the squares between two given squares.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, inside &lt;code&gt;moveGen()&lt;/code&gt; you only need to test for illegal moves in these situations:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a) ep capture   b) pinned piece    c) at check     d) king move&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Everything else will be legal, assuming your pseudo-legal generator is bug-free.&#xA;You can improve it further for cases 'c'  and 'd' (checking only evasive moves for ex).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope it helps someone, thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11328" LastEditorUserId="11328" LastEditDate="2016-10-28T23:08:46.303" LastActivityDate="2016-10-28T23:08:46.303" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15734" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15723" CreationDate="2016-10-30T20:35:43.323" Score="16" Body="&lt;p&gt;Of course there's a way: I'm going to show you one way of doing it on your own, using only free software. We'll write a small script in &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Python_(programming_language)&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Python&lt;/a&gt; (I'm using &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.python.org/download/releases/2.7/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;v2.7&lt;/a&gt;) and only use the wonderful &lt;a href=&quot;https://pypi.python.org/pypi/python-chess&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;python-chess library&lt;/a&gt; (licensed under &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_General_Public_License&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;GPL3&lt;/a&gt;, note that I'm using the version 0.14.0).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In short, the script will first load up the engine, we will stick to free and open source software so we'll use the amazing &lt;a href=&quot;https://stockfishchess.org/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Stockfish engine&lt;/a&gt; [*], then create a board instance of the position you want analyzed (using the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forsyth%E2%80%93Edwards_Notation&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;FEN notation&lt;/a&gt;), generate all legal moves, and finally ask the engine to evaluate each move for a predefined amount of time (in this example it is set to 1 second ponder time). Here's a working sample: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;import chess&#xA;import chess.uci&#xA;&#xA;#Let's try our code with the starting position of chess:&#xA;fen = 'rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1'&#xA;board = chess.Board(fen)&#xA;handler = chess.uci.InfoHandler()&#xA;&#xA;#Now make sure you give the correct location for your stockfish engine file&#xA;#...in the line that follows: e.g., /home/.../stockfish_6_x64&#xA;engine = chess.uci.popen_engine('stockfish_6_x64')&#xA;&#xA;engine.info_handlers.append(handler)&#xA;engine.position(board)&#xA;if board.turn: print 'White to move'&#xA;else: print 'black to move'&#xA;&#xA;for el in board.legal_moves:&#xA;    engine.go(searchmoves=[el],movetime=1000)&#xA;    print str(board.san(el)), 'eval = ', round(handler.info[&quot;score&quot;][1].cp/100.0,2)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that this is not necessarily the best/most efficient way of doing it, I wrote this in 5 minutes just to showcase it at a basic level &lt;em&gt;without&lt;/em&gt; using any advanced features of the engine, I'm sure you will do much better on your own. Anyhow here's the output once you run it (assuming you have python installed on whatever OS you're using, same goes for the python-chess library):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;White to move&#xA;Na3 eval =  -0.39&#xA;Nc3 eval =  0.15&#xA;Nf3 eval =  0.15&#xA;Nh3 eval =  -0.37&#xA;a3 eval =  0.01&#xA;b3 eval =  -0.15&#xA;c3 eval =  -0.03&#xA;d3 eval =  -0.06&#xA;e3 eval =  0.12&#xA;f3 eval =  -0.49&#xA;g3 eval =  -0.33&#xA;h3 eval =  0.0&#xA;a4 eval =  -0.12&#xA;b4 eval =  -0.67&#xA;c4 eval =  0.07&#xA;d4 eval =  0.17&#xA;e4 eval =  0.17&#xA;f4 eval =  -0.15&#xA;g4 eval =  -0.74&#xA;h4 eval =  -0.15&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There you go! The beauty of all this is of course the fact that you have now &lt;strong&gt;your&lt;/strong&gt; own software to work with, modify and extend it as you wish...no limitations. All very easy to do, just acquaint yourself with the workings of the library we're using by following its &lt;a href=&quot;http://python-chess.readthedocs.io/en/v0.15.3/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;documentation&lt;/a&gt;, and knock yourself out ;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Don't hesitate to ask if you have any questions about the code, or adding potential functionalities. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[*]: which also happens to be one of the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.computerchess.org.uk/ccrl/4040/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;strongest current chess engines&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Edit to address the common request:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's the &lt;strong&gt;updated version&lt;/strong&gt; of the same code using the latest version:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;&lt;strong&gt;python-chess 0.30.0 and using the latest Stockfish&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;import chess&#xA;import chess.engine&#xA;import os&#xA;&#xA;#here we assume the engine file is in same folder as our python script&#xA;path = os.getcwd()&#xA;#Let's try our code with the starting position of chess:&#xA;fen = 'rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1'&#xA;board = chess.Board(fen)&#xA;#Now make sure you give the correct location for your stockfish engine file&#xA;#...in the line that follows by correctly defining path&#xA;engine = chess.engine.SimpleEngine.popen_uci(path+'/'+'stockfish-10-64')&#xA;&#xA;if board.turn: print('White to move')&#xA;else: print('black to move')&#xA;&#xA;for el in board.legal_moves:&#xA;    info = engine.analyse(board, chess.engine.Limit(time=1), root_moves=[el])&#xA;    t = str(info[&quot;score&quot;])&#xA;    if t.startswith('#'):&#xA;            print(str(board.san(el)),&quot; eval = mate in &quot;, t)&#xA;    else: print(str(board.san(el)),&quot; eval = &quot;, round(int(t)/100.,2))&#xA;engine.quit()&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The output for ponder time set to 1 second per found move &lt;code&gt;chess.engine.Limit(time=1)&lt;/code&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;White to move&#xA;Nh3  eval =  -0.43&#xA;Nf3  eval =  0.69&#xA;Nc3  eval =  0.29&#xA;Na3  eval =  -0.35&#xA;h3  eval =  0.41&#xA;g3  eval =  -0.2&#xA;f3  eval =  -0.62&#xA;e3  eval =  0.45&#xA;d3  eval =  0.03&#xA;c3  eval =  0.19&#xA;b3  eval =  0.1&#xA;a3  eval =  0.46&#xA;h4  eval =  -0.42&#xA;g4  eval =  -1.22&#xA;f4  eval =  -0.07&#xA;e4  eval =  0.82&#xA;d4  eval =  0.63&#xA;c4  eval =  0.57&#xA;b4  eval =  -0.26&#xA;a4  eval =  -0.02&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3594" LastEditorUserId="3594" LastEditDate="2020-01-07T04:35:41.697" LastActivityDate="2020-01-07T04:35:41.697" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="15735" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15718" CreationDate="2016-10-31T00:53:38.137" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;1. Nf3&lt;/code&gt; is a bad move in bughouse. &lt;code&gt;Nf3&lt;/code&gt; intending to &lt;code&gt;Ng5, Nxf7&lt;/code&gt; is not good because this idea can be easily refuted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. Nf3 e6 2. Ng5 Qf6 3. Nxf7 Qxf7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Place the knight on &lt;code&gt;g6, Qe7&lt;/code&gt;, pawn on &lt;code&gt;f7, Kd8&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;em&gt;Black king is surprisingly safe&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are many other good options for White such as &lt;code&gt;1. e4&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11602" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-05-06T10:34:45.357" LastActivityDate="2017-05-06T10:34:45.357" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15737" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1107" CreationDate="2016-10-31T02:32:25.107" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am rated 2200 USCF and 2100 FIDE.&#xA;Look, this is a question that is often asked by lower rated players.  Yes, stronger players have better analytical skills and you need to develop them.  But it is wrong to think you can train chess vision by simply doing blindfold exercises or working from a tactics book.  The key is to first develop a base of chess understanding (no, this is not off the topic) and then proceed to develop a battery of chess knowledge through reading many many (many) games.  Vision comes from learning chess positions.  You need to understand that even the world's top players can't visualize random positions well.  They visualize and analyse well because they have seen the positions before.  A knowledge of positions and the best moves played in those positions helps to develop visualization skills and helps to trim the tree of analysis to a manageable level.  Trying to imitate a computer is a sure way of getting bogged down.  Also, tactics books are great, but they train only a certain type of knowledge.  More than 50% of chess moves are quiet moves and most tactical errors extend from inferior positions obtained by playing inferior quiet moves.  Learn all types of moves by reading games played by the world's best players.  And don't forget the endgame.  This is where the basics of chess come into sharpest focus.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11603" LastActivityDate="2016-10-31T02:32:25.107" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15738" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-10-31T12:26:06.423" Score="-1" ViewCount="252" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.lichess.org/B6L5XNox&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.lichess.org/B6L5XNox&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Never mind the sloppy play. I'm just curious why this ended in a draw:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Does anyone know how to copy moves from lichess?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyway, the final 5 moves:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;58&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Rc4+ Kb6&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Qd8+ Kb5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Qd5+ Kb6&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Rb4+ Kc7&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Rc4+ Kb6 &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There was no 3-fold repetition and the King still has places to move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10726" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-06-08T14:21:35.103" LastActivityDate="2017-06-08T14:21:52.223" Title="How did this game end in a draw?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;draw&gt;&lt;claim-draw&gt;&lt;threefold-repetition&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15739" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15738" CreationDate="2016-10-31T12:48:54.943" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;There was a three-times repetition. Note that only the position needs to be repeated, it is not necessary that the moves leading to the position are the same. The position occurred first after move 58, second after move 60 and third at the end of the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3819" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-06-08T14:21:52.223" LastActivityDate="2017-06-08T14:21:52.223" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15740" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-10-31T23:18:54.690" Score="1" ViewCount="204" Body="&lt;p&gt;Many UCI engines that can read syzygy database put same score for every winning move (#1000 in komodo, +123.53 in stockfish, ...) and you have no idea how to make real progress when analysing root positions with them. &lt;strong&gt;Is there some UCI engine that scores move based on dtz value?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I understand that this dtz value is something new and that it doesn't fit very well to standard way moves are scored by engines, but without this dtz value engine becomes useless when material is reduced to 6 pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11609" LastActivityDate="2018-08-17T15:00:39.453" Title="Is there any UCI engine that presents DTZ information from syzygy in analyse mode?" Tags="&lt;tablebases&gt;&lt;uci&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15741" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-11-01T03:03:32.230" Score="4" ViewCount="1235" Body="&lt;p&gt;What are some good resources one may use to get better at chess? (training etc)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i don't mind paying for a software like Chessbase or a website or any magazine subscription.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11602" LastActivityDate="2018-10-10T12:19:42.900" Title="What are some good resources one may use to get better at chess? (training etc)" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;training&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15742" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8071" CreationDate="2016-11-01T03:19:40.743" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both of those books are meant for a much more advanced player. 2100+ at least. &#xA;There are many more suitable books for players your level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Silman's Endgame Course is a great book for players 2000 and under as the sections are grouped by your rating and you can just read what is need for your rating group.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;John Nunn's &quot;Understanding Chess Endgames is a must for all serious chess players if they really want to improve on their endgame play. The examples are really easy to understand which makes this superb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11602" LastActivityDate="2016-11-01T03:19:40.743" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15743" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15662" CreationDate="2016-11-01T03:28:23.870" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Minor Pieces&#xA;Pawn Structures&#xA;Space&#xA;Material&#xA;Files and squares&#xA;Development&#xA;Initiative&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You shouldn't try to memorizing the Silman's Imbalances material but instead understand them so you will naturally use them in your play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is how I would use these imbalances during the game:&#xA;Opening Stage:&#xA;Development and Initiative usually exists here so focus on these imbalances mostly throughout the opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Middlegame and Endgame:&#xA;Minor Pieces&#xA;Pawn Structures&#xA;Space&#xA;Material&#xA;Files and squares&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For Minor pieces and Pawn structures and material: Just think about the pieces&#xA;While For Space and files and squares: think about territory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So during a game: Just focus on these imbalances: Pieces and Territory&#xA;Opening Stage: Development and Initiative. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11602" LastActivityDate="2016-11-01T03:28:23.870" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15744" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-11-01T05:42:32.717" Score="3" ViewCount="710" Body="&lt;p&gt;Wiki has a couple of pages on opening traps, but I get the sense there must be more, and these are just representative samples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_chess_traps&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;List of chess traps&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Checkmates_in_the_opening&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Checkmates in the opening&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS. The &quot;10 move&quot; limit is really just for practical reasons - I know that the opening can be longer, but I am just looking to make sure I don't fall for any famous trap early on in the game.... &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11611" LastEditorDisplayName="user4378" LastEditDate="2016-11-02T14:11:39.797" LastActivityDate="2016-11-02T14:11:39.797" Title="Is there a list of ALL potential mates/traps under 10 moves or so?" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;opening-traps&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15745" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15748" CreationDate="2016-11-01T06:38:11.913" Score="3" ViewCount="8750" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm curious to know what are some of the 1. d4 openings (Queen's Pawn), especially if they are highly agressive and/or are regularly used at higher GM level of play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I really want to learn all I can and focus on d4 openings everytime I get to play white. I currently play the London System Opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All recomendations are welcome.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7576" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-11-01T11:02:53.587" LastActivityDate="2019-09-12T03:50:33.500" Title="Strongest / most aggressive 1. d4 openings" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;1.d4&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15746" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8071" CreationDate="2016-11-01T07:50:27.690" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are good books by Karsten Muller. Not sure I wrote the names correctly. I only studied these two endgame books.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;How to play chess endgames&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Fundamental chess endings&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11609" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2018-09-24T20:52:11.593" LastActivityDate="2018-09-24T20:52:11.593" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="15747" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15744" CreationDate="2016-11-01T09:23:49.017" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would suggest investigating &lt;a href=&quot;http://billwall.phpwebhosting.com/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Bill Wall's Chess Page&lt;/a&gt;, specifically:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://issuu.com/visualdesigngraphics/docs/700traps&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;700 Opening Traps&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Miniatures that relate to your favourite openings, e.g. &lt;a href=&quot;http://billwall.phpwebhosting.com/collections/500_Caro_Minis.txt&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;500 Caro-Kann Miniatures&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The PGN files related to you favourite opening&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2016-11-01T09:23:49.017" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15748" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15745" CreationDate="2016-11-01T11:02:49.390" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a partial recommendation, as your repertoire depends on what Black does.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would recommend offering the Queen's Gambit, and if it is accepted to play e4:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. c4 dxc4 3. e4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This becomes a true gambit. For more information, I would recommend:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;Starting Out: Queen's Gambit Accepted&lt;/em&gt; by Reatsky and Chetverik&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/14984/what-are-the-main-ideas-for-white-in-the-queens-gambit-accepted-3-e4-variation&quot;&gt;What are the main ideas for White in the Queen's Gambit Accepted, 3.e4 variation?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.193" LastActivityDate="2016-11-01T11:02:49.390" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15749" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15744" CreationDate="2016-11-01T12:01:14.360" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is there a list of ALL potential mates/traps under 10 moves or so?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;No&quot; is the obvious answer if you do the maths regarding just how many there could potentially (to use your word) be. Starting with all 32 pieces on the board the possible number of positions in the first 10 moves is mind-boggling.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2016-11-01T12:01:14.360" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15750" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15741" CreationDate="2016-11-01T13:33:59.623" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can sign-up at chess.com it has an excellent training for free but with a limit each day you can subscribe for paid user if you want unlimited daily lessons.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11615" LastActivityDate="2016-11-01T13:33:59.623" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15751" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15741" CreationDate="2016-11-01T14:25:15.950" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think this question is a duplicate, but I'm going to shamelessly reuse &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/15698/what-are-some-resources-for-someone-past-beginner-but-not-yet-intermediate/15701#15701&quot;&gt;my answer&lt;/a&gt; to a related question anyway:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The internet is an amazing tool - for good or for ill. All of the following will help people at a wide variety of levels.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd suggest looking into some sort of tactics training. &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chess.com&lt;/a&gt; has a good reputation; I personally use &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.lichess.org&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;lichess&lt;/a&gt;; I used to look at &lt;a href=&quot;http://chesstempo.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chesstempo&lt;/a&gt;. Practicing a few a day (or an hour or so a day) can give you an amazing boost; this is probably the best &quot;bang for the buck&quot;. (I speak from experience!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Find a good YouTube channel with a presenter who speaks to your level and has a teaching style you enjoy; there are a TON of options out there. Depending on your level, something like the Backyard Professor, IM John Bartholomew, any of the St. Louis Chess Club, MetoJelic, Dereque Kelley, etc. I enjoy all of those and many more (they're at widely different levels) for different reasons. (I enjoy others like the Ginger GM, too - but I definitely wouldn't watch him at a &quot;lower&quot; level... he'll give you bad habits that he can get away with.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to improve some openings, I can't stress &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessable.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chessable&lt;/a&gt; enough. My online rating jumped about 200 points just by going to this site every day for two months. (Yes, online ratings are &quot;worthless&quot;: it's the relative level, not the absolute.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another option would be to find a player whose style you like or have empathy with, and go to &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chessgames&lt;/a&gt; to look through all of their games. Walk through them slowly, trying to figure out why they made the moves they did (when they did) - and why their opponent did what they did.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Beyond that, play games - and then analyze them afterwards. Even just walking back through slowly, trying to identify what went right or wrong (and what could have been better) can help a LOT. Lichess has the option to analyze your games for free - which is a HUGE boost. I've seen the advice &quot;play slower games&quot; (10+ min. on the clock) from quite a few people, as those games give you more time to calculate, analyze, and think. Practice visualization!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you don't like the internet, there are always physical books - but I'll let someone with more experience on them weigh in. I've got some, I enjoy them, but I don't know enough to make recommendations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Good luck!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7897" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2016-11-01T14:25:15.950" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15752" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15754" CreationDate="2016-11-01T19:02:33.590" Score="5" ViewCount="407" Body="&lt;p&gt;(C32 King's Gambit Declined, Falkbeer, 5.de) 1. e4 e5 2. f4 d5 3. exd5 ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Instead I made the move &lt;strong&gt;3. fxe5&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What can this variation can be named as?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [Fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA; [Event &quot;Let's Play!&quot;]&#xA; [Site &quot; Chess.com&quot;]&#xA; [Date &quot;Jul 1, 2016&quot;]&#xA; [White &quot;anandsadasivam&quot;]&#xA; [Black &quot;MaximusXIV&quot;]&#xA; [Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA; [WhiteElo &quot;1168&quot;]&#xA; [BlackElo &quot;1000&quot;]&#xA; [TimeControl &quot;1 in 14 days&quot;]&#xA; [Termination &quot;anandsadasivam won on time&quot;]&#xA; 1. e4 e5 2. f4 d5 3. fxe5  1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Wherein the one with ECO code C32 comes up like this&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. f4 d5 3. exd5 e4 4. d3 Nf6 5. dxe4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9229" LastEditorUserId="21546" LastEditDate="2020-02-25T12:57:40.670" LastActivityDate="2020-02-25T12:57:40.670" Title="King's Gambit Variation" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;kings-gambit&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="15753" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15752" CreationDate="2016-11-01T19:17:00.813" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The opening trap doesn't have a name, but was made famous in the game &lt;strong&gt;Rigaud vs. Cooper, 1974&lt;/strong&gt;. Not all motifs and variations have names, but you can make reference to this famous game to name the trap.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2016-11-01T19:17:00.813" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15754" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15752" CreationDate="2016-11-01T19:17:22.733" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;1. e4 e5 2. f4 d5&lt;/code&gt; is known as the &lt;strong&gt;Falkbeer Countergambit&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, 3.fxe5?? is not a variation but a blunder. As &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King&amp;#39;s_Gambit,_Falkbeer_Countergambit&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt; explains, you will either lose material after  3...Qh4+, 4.g3 Qxe4+ (due to a fork between the King and the Rook), or expose your King to the black pieces after 3...Qh4+,  4.Ke2 Qxe4+ 5.Kf2 Bc5+.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am not aware of a name for 1. e4 e5 2. f4 d5 3. exd5 e4 4. d3 Nf6 5. dxe4. Not every opening variation has a name. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10867" LastEditorUserId="10867" LastEditDate="2016-11-02T12:14:04.783" LastActivityDate="2016-11-02T12:14:04.783" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15755" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15741" CreationDate="2016-11-01T20:30:55.620" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not to diminish anything from the other answers, below's a list of things (by no means exhaustive) you could try:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Solving puzzles to improve your tactics and general understanding of the game. It suffices to just google &quot;chess puzzles&quot; and you'll find plenty of resources to get started with. Keep solving them on a regular basis. (Note that you can be specific with puzzles based on your needs, e.g., search for &quot;endgame chess puzzles&quot;). &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Read chess books: there are many freely available books online, but generally chess books are quite affordable. For recommendations, just search for &quot;chess books&quot; here on chess SE, here's &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/search?q=chess%20books&quot;&gt;the result&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Use an engine (install a simple editor that handles uci chess engines, then set up your engine, e.g., &lt;a href=&quot;https://stockfishchess.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Stockfish&lt;/a&gt;, or simply use lichess). Learning how to use an engine to analyse your games (or other games that you study) is one of the best resources, it really cannot be emphasized enough. Every game you play, just run it quickly through an engine, and find out about your inaccuracies (specially the common mistakes you tend to make, the engine will bring them to your attention if you use it regularly to study played games). &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Play online chess on a regular basis: whatever time control you may prefer, although you will find the practice to be more fruitful if you tend towards longer time controls (10 mins, 15... or with increment). &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess24.com/en&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chess24.com&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;lichess&lt;/a&gt; (e.g. on lichess you can freely analyze your games on the cloud without having to store them locally and run your own engine) are two very famous/stable platform to play on these days. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Youtube: there are many strong chess players that record their online playing along with commentary on the moves-openings etc. I personally find these generally very insightful, as they often bring ideas to your attention that you'd never thought of in that way before. A couple that come to mind: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/user/chess24media/videos&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chess24 youtube channel&lt;/a&gt; (where you'll find videos from GM Peter Svidler, GM Jan Gustafsson, to name a few). &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/user/Chessexplained/videos&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chessexplained youtube channel&lt;/a&gt; (IM Christof Sielecki is a very logical player, almost always he has a concrete idea for his moves, highly recommended). There are many others of course, try to find one you relate to better. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Follow chess news: it will encourage you to follow top player's recent games on a regular basis, and also chess news platforms such as &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess24.com/en&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chess24.com&lt;/a&gt;, which quite often also publish educational articles.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The list can go on... Just note that these ideas are not exclusive, try to come up with your routine and cover the mentioned elements to the extent possible. And whatever you decide, make sure not to limit yourself to one source, try some options and stick with those that fit better with your level and style of play. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3594" LastEditorUserId="3594" LastEditDate="2018-10-10T12:19:42.900" LastActivityDate="2018-10-10T12:19:42.900" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="15756" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14452" CreationDate="2016-11-01T21:01:55.830" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;French defense Steinitz attack starts with 1. e4 e6 2. e5. It's very likely that after OP's initial moves, e6 will be played. So it might transpose.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7002" LastActivityDate="2016-11-01T21:01:55.830" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15757" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15745" CreationDate="2016-11-02T08:40:11.733" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I feel that the most ambitious, principled and aggressive 1.d4 repertoire is the one given by John Cox in his book &quot;Starting Out: 1.d4!&quot;. Of course these are the most ambitious lines for white in chess so they have also got extreme amounts of published theory and as they lead to very sharp positions, not knowing the theory may lead to quick losses for white.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The main criticism of the book was that a collection of lines fit for top players may not be suitable for the audience of &quot;Starting Out&quot; books, but you don't ask for easy openings :-). Ironically even the world top has now moved away somewhat from these lines because the theory had been worked out so far, they go for slightly more restrained lines with g3 or so more of the time these days.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is based on 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 and 1.d4 d5 2.c4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The following list of the lines it offers is from Watson's review of the book (&lt;a href=&quot;http://theweekinchess.com/john-watson-reviews/the-end-of-openings-part-1&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://theweekinchess.com/john-watson-reviews/the-end-of-openings-part-1&lt;/a&gt;), as I don't have the book with me right now:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Cox's book suggests a complete repertoire for White beginning with 1&#xA;  d4. Here are a few of the main systems that he recommends:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(a) versus the King's Indian: the main line 4 e4/5 Nf3/6 Be2/7 0-0 and 9 b4, the Bayonet Variation, , one of the most theoretical lines possible, with&#xA;  Black systems to cope with on every move that leads up to that move;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(b) versus the Grünfeld: the main line of the 7 Nf3/8 Rb1 system, that&#xA;  is, the one that Edward Dearing recently wrote a densely-packed&#xA;  205-page book about;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(c) versus the Nimzo-Indian: 4 Qc2 and pretty&#xA;  much every main-line line that follows this most investigated of&#xA;  modern lines;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(d) versus the Benoni: the Modern Main Line with h3 and&#xA;  Bd3, again the most-analysed current variation;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(e) versus the Benko&#xA;  Gambit: g3 and Bg2 with the contemporary main variation 10 Rb1;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(f) versus the Queen's Gambit Declined: the main line Exchange Variation&#xA;  with the sharp Nge2;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(g) versus the Tarrasch Defence, the main line: 6&#xA;  g3/9 Bg5, also ridden with traps and tricks to remember;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(h) versus&#xA;  the Slav Defence: the main line with 6 Ne5, the most theoretical and&#xA;  complicated Slav line ;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(i) versus the Semi-Slav: the main line&#xA;  Botvinnik Attack, one of the most-analysed variations in all of chess&#xA;  history.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2016-11-02T08:40:11.733" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15760" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-11-02T19:26:31.427" Score="4" ViewCount="362" Body="&lt;p&gt;I saw this picture on the Internet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/e5Mct.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;chess&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am wondering if there is any way to play on this board. Does anyone know what the rules are for this type of chess?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11121" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-05-21T16:24:18.647" LastActivityDate="2019-05-21T16:54:49.513" Title="48 pieces on one board" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;chessboards&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="15761" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-11-02T19:56:04.573" Score="3" ViewCount="703" Body="&lt;p&gt;I played against a bot as a White and had this position. The computer claimed that it's a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;2Q/k/3QP/8/3K/8/8/1N - - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I thought it would be a checkmate because wherever the Black king moves, he will be captured. So, how this position is a draw?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11628" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-07-02T16:48:05.160" LastActivityDate="2017-07-02T16:48:05.160" Title="How is this position a draw?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;rules&gt;&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;draw&gt;&lt;stalemate&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15762" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15761" CreationDate="2016-11-02T20:04:25.933" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalemate&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;stalemate&lt;/a&gt;; you're right that Black can't move, but (unfortunately for you) in Chess this means it's a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2016-11-02T20:04:25.933" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15763" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15760" CreationDate="2016-11-02T20:32:11.537" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is one of many forms of &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-player_chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;three-player chess&lt;/a&gt;, apparently called 3 Man Chess. Rules are explained &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.3manchess.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2019-05-21T16:54:49.513" LastActivityDate="2019-05-21T16:54:49.513" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="15764" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14452" CreationDate="2016-11-02T20:43:46.937" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;No idea whether this line has a name. The plan is apparently to prevent the natural development of the knight from g8 to f6. Also black might struggle finding a good spot for the bishop on f8. On the plus side for black it opens the long diagonal a8-h1 for the black bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Likely white is sooner or later going to support the pawn on e5 with d4 and f4, and black should somehow work against this strong center with moves like c5, d6,..&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore I think that 2. ... Nc6 is not the best move as it blocks the pawn on c7 and also the knight might get attacked later if white pushes the d pawn d2-d4-d5...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2016-11-02T20:43:46.937" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15765" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15741" CreationDate="2016-11-03T06:37:03.793" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you want an app on your phone, you can download thr app, Play Magnus. You are literally playing against Magnus Carlsen on his different ages. As he became grand master. &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/XPo5c.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11632" LastActivityDate="2016-11-03T06:37:03.793" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15766" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13250" CreationDate="2016-11-03T09:38:40.463" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can't find a link anymore, but I remember seeing somewhere (perhaps in the Netherlands?) that they used cameras or mobile phones suspended above the board in order to visually register the moves. Might not be as accurate though and perhaps you want some high contrast pieces/boards in order to use this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2016-11-03T09:38:40.463" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15767" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11045" CreationDate="2016-11-03T09:42:26.923" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Lichess has a feature called &quot;study&quot; which allows collaboration and best of all it is free: &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.lichess.org/blog/V0KrLSkAAMo3hsi4/study-chess-the-lichess-way&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.lichess.org/blog/V0KrLSkAAMo3hsi4/study-chess-the-lichess-way&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2016-11-03T09:42:26.923" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15768" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15761" CreationDate="2016-11-03T12:42:24.160" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just to add Black can't move their king anywhere without being in check. When you have a few pieces and your opponent only has the king left you have to be careful to always leave your opponent somewhere to move unless you have them in check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11633" LastActivityDate="2016-11-03T12:42:24.160" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15769" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15761" CreationDate="2016-11-03T13:04:57.983" Score="17" Body="&lt;p&gt;Two conditions must apply for a position to be checkmate:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The player to move has no legal moves.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;His king is in check&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first is true here, but the second isn't, so it's not checkmate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When a player to move has no legal moves but isn't in check, it's called &lt;em&gt;stalemate&lt;/em&gt;, and it's an immediate draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2016-11-03T13:04:57.983" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15771" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15761" CreationDate="2016-11-04T14:15:04.160" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a draw by Stalemate, which is just like Checkmate, except that:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Black's King is not in check.  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;if you had a Rook on A2 for example, the King would have no squares to go to, thus Stalemate,&lt;br&gt;&#xA; &lt;strong&gt;but&lt;/strong&gt; he would be in check &lt;em&gt;as well&lt;/em&gt;, Thus, Checkmate!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In general, the best way to avoid stalemates is to look before every move, and ask yourself&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;Can black move anywhere? Is he in check?&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That is a surefire way to avoid this unfortunate occurrence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S. if you are &lt;em&gt;really&lt;/em&gt; losing, a good idea is to try to fool your opponent into Stalemating &lt;em&gt;you&lt;/em&gt;...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More reading:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;A href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalemate&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia Article on Stalemate&lt;/A&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;A href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/article/view/the-art-of-playing-for-stalemate&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess.com Article 'How To Save Yourself With Stalemate' By GM Daniel Naroditsky&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;A href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draw_(chess)&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia Article on draws in chess&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this helped!&lt;br&gt;&#xA;~CSS&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11425" LastActivityDate="2016-11-04T14:15:04.160" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15772" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-11-04T21:31:09.967" Score="2" ViewCount="1555" Body="&lt;p&gt;Do human-machine combinations still beat the best computer chess players, or have computer players gotten good enough to beat even the best computer-human duos?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11650" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-11-05T07:33:00.433" LastActivityDate="2016-11-10T17:58:51.983" Title="How do the best centaurs compare to the best computers?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;rating&gt;&lt;computer-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15773" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15772" CreationDate="2016-11-04T21:53:13.240" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Two years ago, top GM Nakamura played a match against one of the top engines, Stockfish. In the first two games, he was assisted by a very strong engine, rating about 200 points lower than Stockfish. Still, this wasn't enough to win, he even lost this part of the match 1,5 - 0,5. More details, including games, can be found &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/news/stockfish-outlasts-nakamura-3634&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, a human assisting a computer player will be stronger than the same computer player alone, but this gives you an idea of how little we (human players) are able to add at the moment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2016-11-04T21:53:13.240" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15774" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14312" CreationDate="2016-11-05T05:30:19.873" Score="1" Body="&lt;h3&gt;On the Scotch&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Gary Lane has written two good books, &lt;em&gt;Winning with the Scotch&lt;/em&gt; (first Batsford in the UK and then Henry Holt in the US, 1993) and &lt;em&gt;The Scotch Game Explained&lt;/em&gt;, Batsford, 2005.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Starting Out: The Scotch Game&lt;/em&gt; by John Emms (Everyman, 2005) is a good guide; it talks about the main ideas in each line before showing sample games (which are complete, once they reach the middlegame the commentary tapers off).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Batsford has also published &lt;em&gt;4...Qh4 in the Scotch Game&lt;/em&gt; by Lev Gutman, 2001, which is an in-depth analysis of this line.  It is considered the most dangerous line for White to face, but will have more material than you sound like you need.  If you ever face the Scotch as Black, though, this is a great lifetime reference.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;On the Petroff&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Janjgava wrote a definitive book, &lt;em&gt;The Petroff&lt;/em&gt;, in 2001, published by Gambit.  I also endorse &lt;em&gt;The Petroff Defense&lt;/em&gt; by Raetsky and Chetverik, from Everyman.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11245" LastActivityDate="2016-11-05T05:30:19.873" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15775" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13855" CreationDate="2016-11-05T12:12:48.613" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you move, you move the King to h8 and next, you move your rook to f6. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11655" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-11-05T12:25:49.010" LastActivityDate="2016-11-05T12:25:49.010" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15776" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15761" CreationDate="2016-11-05T13:50:23.357" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;To elaborate a bit on &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I thought it would be checkmate, because anywhere the king goes he'll&#xA;  be captured.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This will never happen, though. A player must never oppose his king to attack, so he just has not a single move he can make. If it was ok to play an illegal move (moving into check), then he could just make any other illegal move at well, like capturing your king with his king, or capturing your queen - there is really no difference.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And as he's neither attacked, nor the game can advance any further, the game is drawn per the rules, which seems a natural choice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that other chess variants (also Chinese Chess) might treat stalemate differently.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10708" LastActivityDate="2016-11-05T13:50:23.357" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15777" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15772" CreationDate="2016-11-05T14:05:04.843" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;First and foremost:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The centaur should get &lt;em&gt;at least&lt;/em&gt; 50% of the points.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As the centaur is not obliged to intervene at all, he could just let the software do the job, so it's best computer - best computer... with an expected result of .5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How much better the centaur will perform depends on his ability (not necessarily chess skills alone) and rules. If he's allowed to to change engines and knows about strengths and weaknesses in the programs for certain kind of positions, choosing the right engine for the given type of position might gain an advantage. Also, the human might be better at time management.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Generally speaking I think the better the engines get (compared to the operator), the less advantage they have. And of course it's easy to ruin the game by bad decisions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10708" LastActivityDate="2016-11-05T14:05:04.843" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15778" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15781" CreationDate="2016-11-05T14:38:24.477" Score="3" ViewCount="359" Body="&lt;p&gt;I try a variation of Reti opening these days where I aim both my bishops kingside.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. Nf3 d5 2. c4 c6 3. b3 Nf6 4. Bb2 Bg4 5. e3 e6 6. Be2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And after that I struggle a lot trying to bring that bishop to c4 or d3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does anybody have a better suggestion how to take this repertoire forward?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11656" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2016-11-05T14:54:15.360" LastActivityDate="2016-11-05T21:26:09.843" Title="Reti opening with bishop aiming kingside" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15779" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15778" CreationDate="2016-11-05T17:12:26.477" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Being a Slav and Caro-Kann enthusiast, I play the Black side of these types of positions quite often.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would advise aiming to win the Bishop pair with 7. h3:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[StartPly &quot;11&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Nf3 d5 2. c4 c6 3. b3 Nf6 4. Bb2 Bg4 5. e3 e6 6. Be2 Nbd7 {This reinforces the f6-Knight and prepares ...c5} 7. h3 Bh5 (7...Bxf3 {White has the Bishop pair for no Kingside weaknesses}) 8. g4 Bg6 9. Nh4 {White will gain the Bishop-pair, but I advise delaying the capture if possible, for example after Black castles Kingside. It is also a psychological burden for Black to have the Bishop under tension like this.}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2016-11-05T17:12:26.477" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15780" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15828" CreationDate="2016-11-05T19:15:19.063" Score="1" ViewCount="181" Body="&lt;p&gt;My Windows 7 Bootcamp partition failed me, so I'm using &lt;code&gt;Scid vs Mac OSX 10.9.5&lt;/code&gt; app to test my engine. It works fine, but sometimes a tournament game is 'interrupted' and I don't know why. For example, in this game my engine was playing white:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.Nxe5 Nxe4 4.Qe2 d6 5.Nxf7 Kxf7 6.Qxe4 d5 7.Qf3+ Kg8 8.Nc3 Be6 9.Qe3 Qf6 10.Nb5 Na6 11.Kd1 Bf7 12.d4 c6 13.Nc3 Nb4 14.a3 Re8 15.Qd2 Bh5+ 16.Be2 Bxe2+ 17.Nxe2 Na6 18.Qf4 Be7 19.Re1 Bd8 20.Be3 Qg6 21.Qg3 Qf5 22.Kc1 Bc7 23.f4 Kf7 24.Qf2 Rhf8 25.Ng3 Qg4 26.h3 Qh4 27.Ne2 Qxf2 28.Bxf2 Bd6 29.Bg3 Nc7 30.Kd1 Re4 31.Ra2 Rfe8 32.c3 c5 33.dxc5 Bxc5 34.f5 Nb5 35.a4 Nd6 36.b4 Nxf5 37.Rf1 Ke6 38.Rxf5 Kxf5 39.bxc5 Re3 40.Bf2 Rd3+ 41.Kc1 Kf6 42.Bd4+ Kf5 43.Bxg7 Rg8 &#xA;White movetime 0.033 secs&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We see this message: &quot;White movetime 0.033 secs&quot;. What does that mean?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11328" LastEditorUserId="11328" LastEditDate="2016-11-07T19:58:03.680" LastActivityDate="2016-11-13T02:41:39.337" Title="Scid vs Mac game interrupted" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;scid&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15781" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15778" CreationDate="2016-11-05T21:02:15.360" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a good question, but I think it could use a slight reformulation: &#xA;It's not so much a question of &quot;how can we get our bishop to either d3 or c4&quot;, but rather &quot;under which circumstances would the bishop become powerful on those diagonals&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you're looking for positional ideas to further advance your repertoire in this line, it's often very useful to keep an eye on possible transpositions and openings that lead to analogous structures. For example, in the line you show, black has a very solid &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slav_Defense&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Slav structure&lt;/a&gt;, arguably even an improved one, since white doesn't have the Qb3 option anymore, so the Bg4 maneuver is perfectly sound. On the other hand, white's position has the same ingredients as most &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larsen%27s_Opening&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Larsen (1.b3)&lt;/a&gt; variants do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as I remember (it's up to you to do the in depth search here), Larsen tended for the e3-f4 (instead of c4) pawn structure whenever he wanted to plant his bishops on b2 and e2. But he did have this Reti type of structure every now and then, see e.g. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1019583&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;his game vs Ulf Andersson&lt;/a&gt;. So make sure you find out about the positional ideas Larsen used to employ in this system. But for a more extensive search, look into a database and search for all the games where this position has occurred and get inspired by how other players have gone about it. For example I use the &lt;a href=&quot;http://theweekinchess.com/twic&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;TWIC database&lt;/a&gt;, I have a collection with many of the older series, and after a quick search I find about 200 games with this exact position. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What Bad_Bishop has suggested to you in his &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/15778/reti-opening-with-bishop-aiming-kingside/15779#15779&quot;&gt;answer&lt;/a&gt; is actually a very practical idea, with a relatively clear plan ahead: you're threatening to win the bishop pair, and the weaknesses you may induce in doing so are less important than they seem specially because your weakening of the light squares is coupled with taking away the opponents light square bishop! Although it must be noted that in this specific line, after 9.Nh4, I'd be a bit worried about Be4, as f3 doesn't work due to Nh5. (Make sure you check this variation).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A couple of positional suggestions you might want to consider: (by no means exhaustive, in fact these will be very crude, just to give you some rough ideas)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A conservative approach: stick to the solid pawn structure and double the b2-g7 battery by bringing the queen to a1 or b2 and you coordinate your play around the control of the long diagonal. e.g. a sequence along the lines of: 7.d3 8.Nbd2 9.Re1 10.Qc2 11.Bc3 12.Qb2 etc should get you there... If you're not familiar with such battery ideas on the long diagonal, a good start would be to study this marvelous game by Peter Svidler playing as black: (notice that your pawn structure in this Reti line is completely transposable to that of Svidler's in this game):&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Dortmund Sparkassen group-A&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Dortmund GER&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2004.07.26&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;5&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Arkadij Naiditsch&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Peter Svidler&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;B42&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;2574&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;2727&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;78&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;2004.07.22&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 e6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 a6 5. Bd3 Bc5 6. Nb3 Be7 7. O-O d6 8. c4 Nf6 9. Nc3 Nbd7 10. f4 Qc7 11. Qe2 b6 12. Bd2 Bb7 13. Rae1 O-O 14. Kh1 g6 15. Nd4 Rfe8 16. Nf3 Rad8 17. Ng5 Bf8 18. Qf2 Bg7 19. b4 Nh5 20. Rc1 Rc8 21. a3 Qd8 22. Nf3 Rc7 23. Rfe1 Nhf6 24. Qh4 Qa8 25. Qh3 Rec8 26. e5 dxe5 27. Nxe5 Nxe5 28. fxe5 Nd7 29. Bf4 Rxc4 30. Bxc4 Rxc4 31. Qg3 h5 32. Ne2 Nxe5 33. Rxc4 Nxc4 34. h4 Qd8 35. Bg5 Qd7 36. Nf4 e5 37. Nd3 Qd5 38. Nf2 Nd6 39. Rd1 Ne4 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Go for the king asap: 7.Nc3 (idea being to force the retake on d5 to be by the e pawn and securing the f5 square for your f3 knight - with a clear attack on the kingside) 8.Nd4 ... Here's an example I could find: &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;70th ch-GER&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Bremen GER&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;1998.11.12&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;7&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Hickl, J.&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Jussupow, A.&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;A12&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;2540&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;2640&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;59&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;1998.??.??&quot;]&#xA;[SourceDate &quot;2011.01.01&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. c4 c6 2. Nf3 d5 3. e3 Nf6 4. b3 Bg4 5. Bb2 e6 6. Be2 Nbd7 7. Nc3 Bd6 8. Nd4 Bxe2 9. Qxe2 O-O 10. cxd5 exd5 11. Nf5 Bc5 12. Na4 Bb4 13. Nxg7 b5 14. Nf5 bxa4 15. Qh5 Kh8 16. Qg4 Bxd2+ 17. Kxd2 Rg8 18. Qxa4 Rxg2 19. Ke2 Qg8 20. Ng3 Qg6 21. Rac1 Re8 22. Qf4 c5 23. Kf1 Rxg3 24. Bxf6+ Nxf6 25. hxg3 Ne4 26. Rh6 Qg7 27. Rd1 Re5 28. Kg2 Ng5 29. Rc6 h6 30. Rxh6+ 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Transpose to a Queen's gambit decline type of position to secure the d3 square for your bishop: d4, Nbd2, h3, Bd3 ... Here's an example:&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Golombek Mem&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Paignton ENG&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2000.09.05&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;3&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Bischoff, K.&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Hillarp Persson, T.&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1/2-1/2&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;A12&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;2556&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;2549&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;37&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;2000.09.03&quot;]&#xA;[SourceDate &quot;2011.01.01&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Nf3 Nf6 2. c4 c6 3. b3 d5 4. Bb2 Bg4 5. e3 e6 6. Be2 Nbd7 7. O-O Bd6 8.d4 O-O 9. Nbd2 Qb8 10. h3 Bh5 11. Bd3 Re8 12. Qc2 a5 13. Rac1 a4 14. Bc3 axb3 15. axb3 Bg6 16. Bxg6 hxg6 17. Ra1 Rxa1 18. Rxa1 e5 19. dxe5 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Similar to Bad_Bishop's suggestion: start off with h3, make your opponent commit to a decision with the g4 bishop, but instead of an immediate rather committal g4, play the slow game: castles, d3, Nbd2, ... or possibly Nc3 specially if you plan to capture on d5 subsequently: two simple ideas to bear in mind: if black recaptures on d5 with the c-pawn, you want to take control of the c-file asap, if black recaptures with the e-pawn it's often possible to force the exchange of light square bishops in order to secure f5 for your knight. (I admit this is all still very crudely put).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Finally, note that within such Slav structures for black, you'll never see your bishop on c4, it's just incompatible with black's control of the center. Alternatively, if you want your bishop on d3, your best bet is to transpose (as early as possible) into Queen's pawn type of positions. To play openings such as the Larsen, English or the Reti, you really must like slow-positional plays, and in my opinion these are by no means easier to learn/play than open positions, in fact they can get extremely complicated rather quickly. Intuitively, this is because strategic ideas tend to be very abstract and hard to grasp, whereas open positions are more tactical which makes them inherently more concrete. To give you an example of a highly strategic game, played recently, quickly leading to a highly non-trivial middle-game (see the game below). For your purposes I highly recommend studying GM Michael Adams' games in the English opening.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;GRENKE Chess Classic 2015&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;chess24.com&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2015.02.07&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;5&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Adams, Michael&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Bacrot, Etienne&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1/2-1/2&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;2738&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;2711&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;129&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;2015.??.??&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. c4 Nf6 2. g3 g6 3. Bg2 c5 4. Nc3 Bg7 5. Nf3 O-O 6. d4 cxd4 7. Nxd4 Nc6 8. O-O Qa5 9. Nb3 Qh5 10. Nd5 d6 11. Nf4 Qe5 12. e4 Bg4 13. f3 Bd7 14. Rf2 b5 15. Nd3 Qh5 16. Nf4 Qe5 17. c5 dxc5 18. Nd3 Qc7 19. Nbxc5 Rfd8 20. Qe1 Be8 21. Bf4 e5 22. Be3 a5 23. Rc1 Qe7 24. Rd2 Nd4 25. Nb3 Nd7 26. Nxd4 exd4 27. Bf4 Rdc8 28. Bh3 Rc4 29. Rdd1 a4 30. Bd2 Ne5 31. Nxe5 Qxe5 32. Bf1 Rxc1 33. Bxc1 Qe6 34. a3 Rc8 35. Bd3 Qb3 36. Qe2 Bd7 37. Bf4 Be6 38. h4 Bc4 39. e5 Bxd3 40. Rxd3 Qd5 41. Kg2 h5 42. Qd2 Rc4 43. Qe2 b4 44. axb4 Rxb4 45. Kf2 Qb5 46. Rd2 Qd5 47. Qe4 Qa2 48. Qc2 Kh7 49. Kg2 Qa1 50. Rf2 a3 51. bxa3 Rb1 52. Qd3 Rd1 53. Bd2 Rg1+ 54. Kh3 Rh1+ 55. Rh2 Qg1 56. Qe2 Bxe5 57. f4 Bd6 58. a4 d3 59. Qg2 Rxh2+ 60. Qxh2 Qd1 61. Qg2 Ba3 62. a5 Bc1 63. Qd5 Qf1+ 64. Kh2 Qe2+ 65. Kh3 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3594" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2016-11-05T21:02:15.360" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15782" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15778" CreationDate="2016-11-05T21:26:09.843" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have no experience with this kind of setup, however I would question your approach to the opening phase. Having a fixed plan like &quot;aiming the bishops kingside&quot; seems a bit simplistic to me. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Whether this plan makes sense will also depend on black's setup (e.g. if black castles queenside your bishops won't threaten all that much anymore). Also general opening principals (like occupying the center, gaining space, developing pieces...) should not be forgotten.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The position after 6. Be2, seems fine to me. Not much going on and probably equal. If you don't like the plan with immediate h3, g4,...  (which seems fine to me), you could complete your development and only move the kingside pawns if black castles kingside.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are playing for a win, you will want to create some imbalance somewhere and the kingside seems to be the most obvious place to do so.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2016-11-05T21:26:09.843" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15783" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-11-05T23:08:44.760" Score="2" ViewCount="309" Body="&lt;p&gt;When only one player is left in a simul, does he have to move at once or does he have 5 seconds per move?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7404" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-11-06T13:43:54.777" LastActivityDate="2016-11-08T23:15:10.977" Title="In a simul what happens with timing when only one player is left?" Tags="&lt;simultaneous&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15784" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15783" CreationDate="2016-11-06T00:43:23.460" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is up to the organizer to decide on the rules, so anything is possible. A lot will depend on the level of players vs level of the exhibitor, so it is difficult to generalize. Most often simul exhibitions are fun events and rules are rather relaxed and participants cooperative.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In a typical simul players are expected to make their move promptly (e.g. within 5 seconds) when the exhibitors arrives at their board. If only few players are left it can make sense to give the players some extra time to think. For instance in &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.hampshirechess.co.uk/clubs/southampton/Rules/Simultaneous%20Exhibition%20Guidelines.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this simul&lt;/a&gt;: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;As there are no clocks, the opponents should make their moves in a reasonable time when few boards are active.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If necessary this could be enforced with a clock.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are other ways to avoid this problem of few players and time:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;clock simul, where players and exhibitor get a certain amount of time&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;open ended simul, where when a game finishes a new game is started, so the number of players is always the same&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2016-11-06T00:43:23.460" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15785" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14952" CreationDate="2016-11-06T04:20:14.473" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you are using Android, &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&amp;amp;rct=j&amp;amp;q=&amp;amp;esrc=s&amp;amp;source=web&amp;amp;cd=1&amp;amp;cad=rja&amp;amp;uact=8&amp;amp;ved=0ahUKEwiE3trkopPQAhUL5oMKHSRmAioQFggbMAA&amp;amp;url=https%3A%2F%2Fplay.google.com%2Fstore%2Fapps%2Fdetails%3Fid%3Dcom.pereira.analysis%26hl%3Den&amp;amp;usg=AFQjCNHWTqN5jgL8ptuTDidb-S2d8LvA7g&amp;amp;sig2=VAKcaWbB8INkvkQaMtVldg&amp;amp;bvm=bv.137904068,d.amc&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Analyze This (Free)&lt;/a&gt; is the way to go, just use the 'Auto Analysis' feature.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;If you are using windows, &lt;a href=&quot;http://playwitharena.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Arena Chess&lt;/a&gt; is the way to go (you need to install Stockfish, and load the games in a single PGN, and turn on Auto Analysis ...)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this helped, ~CSS &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11425" LastActivityDate="2016-11-06T04:20:14.473" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15786" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15783" CreationDate="2016-11-06T11:19:16.020" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The idea that there is a 5 second limit on thinking time in a simul is just nonsense. Early in the simul when the ordinary players have plenty of time while the simul giver is going round all the other players the player is expected to have his move ready and play immediately the simul giver arrives at the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That said, it is not unheard of for a player to &quot;pass&quot; or request a pass. Usually, in a well organized simul, there will be rules saying whether passes are allowed and if so how many (usually only one or two).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The simul giver is also not required to move immediately, particularly when it comes down to just 2 or 3 players. Believe it or not, he is often thinking about tricky positions in other games while he is making moves in the more routine positions and he is also affected by the cut down in numbers and the reduced thinking times.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Back in 1972 when I faced the late Viktor Korchnoi in a simul he rocked back and thought for a minute or two over one of my moves in the opening. He later accepted a draw which probably tells me a better player than me would have won my position ;-).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2016-11-06T11:19:16.020" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15787" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13855" CreationDate="2016-11-06T18:45:28.790" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;A king on the 6th rank and pawns that can't be collected too easily are a good countermeasure. With two rooks often it is possible to attack opponent's rook forever to protect you from the situation where there are two deadly rooks on 7th rank. And if you for example need to protect the f7 pawn in a two-rooks endgame, it is better to try to put your rook on f6 than on f8. You can counterattack f2 in such a case. And generally try to avoid scenarios with opponent that active.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11609" LastEditorUserId="11202" LastEditDate="2017-04-18T02:11:13.037" LastActivityDate="2017-04-18T02:11:13.037" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15788" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13855" CreationDate="2016-11-06T21:53:34.463" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a lost position.  All black can really do is to move the rook next to his king over and delay the immediate and impending checkmate in two, however in doing this he's going to lose many of the pawns on his 7th rank and as a result the game &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit I guess it's checkmate in three isn't it&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11663" LastActivityDate="2016-11-06T21:53:34.463" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15789" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-11-07T01:44:56.840" Score="1" ViewCount="166" Body="&lt;p&gt;I’ve played chess for some time now, but I’ve really started to get into it these past few months. The thing I need help on is openings. I know about the different ones, and even attempted one or two of them, but I either end up forgetting the opening, or having the opening completely backfire on me. So what I’m wondering is, is there any opening that’s simple to learn but effective?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11665" LastEditorUserId="417" LastEditDate="2016-11-07T16:35:35.903" LastActivityDate="2016-11-07T16:35:35.903" Title="What are some beginner to advanced openings or variations I could use?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;beginner&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15790" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4638" CreationDate="2016-11-07T03:39:31.067" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sure, but you need the caveat of &quot;within the data considered.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Personalities matter, skill levels matter, moods matter, time matters, tournament situation matters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An ordinary engine considers none of these things.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Plenty of examples of top players choosing the more complicated move over the &quot;best&quot; move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Engine evaluation assumes a win is twice as good as a draw. But what if you only need a draw to clinch first place? Suddenly a win and a draw are identical--ambitious moves are worth less, forcing a queen trade worth more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Conversely, what if you need a win? If drawing and losing give the same result wild speculative sacrifices look better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Engine evaluation also assumes subsequent moves are all the &quot;best&quot; moves. Accurate valuation would require calculating the likelihood of each player finding said best move. Trading into a &quot;lost&quot; P vs. 2N ending may be -99 vs. a GM, but a dead draw vs. a 1500.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7514" LastActivityDate="2016-11-07T03:39:31.067" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15791" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-11-07T08:58:16.707" Score="4" ViewCount="455" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have been able to make a custom build of asmFish on Linux. However, I have been unable to do so on macOS. I've seen a Mac version of the FASM compiler on the Internet.  But when I tried using it for building it, it didn't generate a binary that could be run. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am running the latest macOS at time of writing. Any help appreciated. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11262" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-07-07T15:58:03.727" LastActivityDate="2020-12-17T07:07:55.240" Title="Compiling asmFish on macOS" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;programming&gt;&lt;linux&gt;&lt;macos&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="15792" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2016-11-07T09:50:55.587" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;An opening trap is where the opponent facing the trap is tempted to play a superficially pleasing, but bad move. For example, we can call Scholar's mate a trap. White plays an inaccurate move, hoping that Black will play 3...Nf6??, attacking the queen, but it fails to 4. Qxf7 checkmate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Opening traps may also come at chance. A normal developing move is incorrect for some reason or another. As an example, the Siberian Trap in the Smith-Morra gambit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-09-13T23:46:21.730" LastActivityDate="2020-09-13T23:46:21.730" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="15793" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2016-11-07T09:50:55.587" Score="0" Body="An opening variation where the opponent is tempted to play a bad move" OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-09-13T23:46:46.623" LastActivityDate="2020-09-13T23:46:46.623" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="15794" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15789" CreationDate="2016-11-07T09:56:56.660" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are certainly openings which are easier to learn, because they have fewer variations, and also there are certain systems (like Kings Indian Attack with white) which you can play basically independent of what your opponent does.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Still, it is well worth to invest some time in learning some proper opening. &#xA;If you play the same opening over and over again and analyze where you went wrong, sooner or later you will remember the lines. Start with learning the main line and go from there to add side lines as you encounter them. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I find it useful to write down the lines that I am playing together with commentary (can be done in a chess database system or on paper). If you reach a certain level, I suggest to follow a Grandmaster who is playing your opening and see how they handle it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also it is very important to not only learn the lines by heart, but also to understand the typical plans of the opening, which differ from opening to opening. This will be helpful also in later phases (middlegame, endgame) of the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would not base my decision on how easy an opening is to learn, but rather on what kind of positions you like and whether you prefer quiet positional play or lots of action/tactics in your games. I like open positions with tactics, so I play 1. e4 with white and Sicilian, Kings Indian/Grünfeld with black.Can't give a concrete suggestion for you as I don't know what kind of player you are.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BTW, I don't think there are really &lt;em&gt;beginner&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;advanced&lt;/em&gt; openings. When I started to learn chess I was playing the Italian, which you could call &quot;beginner&quot; opening, because it is very easy and obvious where to put the minor pieces and also because it is symmetric. However the same Italian is played increasingly at the highest level, so it would also be an &quot;adanced&quot; opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastEditorUserId="11629" LastEditDate="2016-11-07T13:23:56.690" LastActivityDate="2016-11-07T13:23:56.690" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15795" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-11-07T10:08:48.293" Score="2" ViewCount="670" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can someone point to me whereabouts in asmFish I can hardcode the SyzygyPath into the source code. I can do it in StockFish 8, however I've yet to find it in the source code of asmFish. I'll be using the Linux version.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any help much appreciated. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11262" LastActivityDate="2016-11-10T23:07:46.330" Title="SyzygyPath in asmFish" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;linux&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15796" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15795" CreationDate="2016-11-07T11:22:53.920" Score="2" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I don't think you should hard-core SyzygyPath because the ASM engine follows the UCI protocol. You can just send the &lt;code&gt;SyzygyPath&lt;/code&gt; option to the engine.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If you insist to modify the assembly language (I don't recommend), goto &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/tthsqe12/asm/blob/f34c20b25c2160b27efda5c5c388ff5e66636d3e/asmFish/guts/Uci.asm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://github.com/tthsqe12/asm/blob/f34c20b25c2160b27efda5c5c388ff5e66636d3e/asmFish/guts/Uci.asm&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Find this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;.SyzygyProbeDepth:&#xA;        lea    rcx, [sz_syzygypath]&#xA;        call   CmpStringCaseless&#xA;        lea    rbx, [.SyzygyPath]&#xA;        test   eax, eax&#xA;        jnz   .CheckValue&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Try to replace the path with &lt;code&gt;'C:\MyPath\'&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Note&lt;/strong&gt;: My recommendation is not tested, but I am sure that's the code you'll need to change.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2016-11-07T11:22:53.920" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15797" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15789" CreationDate="2016-11-07T12:03:38.110" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is hard to answer a repertoire question with little supporting information. On that basis, I would recommend 3 things:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Complete the quiz on &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesspersonality.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chesspersonality.com&lt;/a&gt;. At the end you will receive recommendations on openings, for White and Black, based on your answers&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;To stick to one opening as White, and have 1 response as Black for 1. e4 and 1. d4. The other common opening moves, 1. c4 and 1. Nf3 are quite rare at a  beginner level, and are chosen because they usually transpose into 1. e4 or 1. d4 openings anyway&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Look at some opening videos on YouTube, such as those by &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/user/KebuChess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Dereque Kelley&lt;/a&gt;. If you like the look of an opening, try taking the main themes into your next game&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2016-11-07T12:03:38.110" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15798" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15801" CreationDate="2016-11-07T12:40:28.063" Score="5" ViewCount="1368" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm looking to study the English opening. To cut down my homework, I would like to focus on one or two variations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why am I interested in the English opening, I hear you cry? Mostly because I want to vary my games a bit*. I'm a fan of 1. d4 and 1. c4 has transpositional possibilities to 1. d4 openings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Can you recommend a variation of the English opening that suits my playing style?&lt;/strong&gt;. Any references to books, videos, top players who employed the line etc. are appreciated too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Player background&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Rated 2100 Elo&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesspersonality.com/type/technician&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Technical&lt;/a&gt; playing personality. Preference for positional, intuitive moves and the endgame&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Currently using queen pawn openings, e.g. Slav Mainline Dutch, Queen's Gambit Accepted: 3. e4, Queen's Gambit Declined: Lasker Variation&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;As Black I use the Caro-Kann and Slav&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Have experimented with the English Botvinnik system, but I don't like how Black can get easy equality&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*Oh, I'm also English too...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T17:31:19.630" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T17:31:19.630" Title="Can you recommend a variation in the English opening for a technical player?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;books&gt;&lt;queens-gambit&gt;&lt;english-opening&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="15799" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15798" CreationDate="2016-11-07T13:20:02.293" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I started playing the English a short time ago, too. I used to play the London System before, and I found that at a certain level I had to fight for equality as white. I think my playing style fits yours too and I was advised to move to the English opening with g3. I'm currently rated 1912 ELO by FIDE, in case this info is useful for you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With this repertoire in mind I've found the books by &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1906552045&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Mihail Marin &quot;The English Opening&quot;&lt;/a&gt; from the Grandmaster Repertoire series extremely useful. Despite its name (Grandmaster Repertoire made me think they would be too advanced for me) I found these books fit my needs perfectly, Mihail's explanations of plans and structures are clear and easy to understand and he builds a complete repertoire based in 1.c4 and 2.g3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2311" LastEditorUserId="11202" LastEditDate="2017-04-17T22:21:29.287" LastActivityDate="2017-04-17T22:21:29.287" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15800" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15789" CreationDate="2016-11-07T15:51:38.807" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is only one answer to this question: &lt;strong&gt;Play what you like.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are a beginner, you should not be worried about &quot;studying&quot; an opening, but only correcting your opening mistakes by reviewing your losses regularly and finding better moves in the lines you play (i.e., review with a better player is best, or, look up better lines). This iterative process will teach you way more than &quot;memorizing&quot; opening lines or studying an opening, because you have attached this experience to a middle-game in one of your games, so you see the results. In the end, you will either get better in the opening or drop it for something else, and that is a very natural process.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I used to play the Dutch Defense as black against 1.d4 a long time ago, then migrated away from it into the Slav/Semi-Slav, but have returned to using the Dutch Defense again because I like the middle-games I get and I feel comfortable in them. I don't play 1.d4 because I don't feel comfortable in the positions I get, and that is a personal choice. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Comfort is king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We slow down on the highways because we don't feel comfortable driving at high speeds. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10233" LastActivityDate="2016-11-07T15:51:38.807" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15801" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15798" CreationDate="2016-11-07T19:32:49.450" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's a good question. Just a quick answer with some thoughts to give you some starting ideas, hopefully to be improved later.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've always liked the English exactly for its rich transpositional possibilities, they're endless aren't they? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your intent to divert towards d4 lines via the English is very common. For example Magnus Carlsen often employs it to avoid main theory lines (it's very hard to prepare against 1.c4). So make sure you look into his games on 1.c4. Some exemplary games off the top of my head: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One of the 2013 world championship matches (specially because you're a d4 player and you seem to like endgames): Notice how by move 7 we've reached a completely off-book position, though very natural to play for white: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;WCh 2013&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Chennai IND&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2013.11.15&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;5&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Carlsen, M.&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Anand, V.&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;D31&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;2870&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;2775&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;115&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;2013.11.09&quot;]&#xA;[EventRounds &quot;10&quot;]&#xA;[EventCountry &quot;IND&quot;]&#xA;[Source &quot;Mark Crowther&quot;]&#xA;[SourceDate &quot;2013.11.18&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. c4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 c6 4. e4 dxe4 5. Nxe4 Bb4+ 6. Nc3 c5 7. a3 Ba5 8. Nf3 Nf6 9. Be3 Nc6 10. Qd3 cxd4 11. Nxd4 Ng4 12. O-O-O Nxe3 13. fxe3 Bc7 14. Nxc6 bxc6 15. Qxd8+ Bxd8 16. Be2 Ke7 17. Bf3 Bd7 18. Ne4 Bb6 19. c5 f5 20. cxb6 fxe4 21. b7 Rab8 22. Bxe4 Rxb7 23. Rhf1 Rb5 24. Rf4 g5 25. Rf3 h5 26. Rdf1 Be8 27. Bc2 Rc5 28. Rf6 h4 29. e4 a5 30. Kd2 Rb5 31. b3 Bh5 32. Kc3 Rc5+ 33. Kb2 Rd8 34. R1f2 Rd4 35. Rh6 Bd1 36. Bb1 Rb5 37. Kc3 c5 38. Rb2 e5 39. Rg6 a4 40. Rxg5 Rxb3+ 41. Rxb3 Bxb3 42. Rxe5+ Kd6 43. Rh5 Rd1 44. e5+ Kd5 45. Bh7 Rc1+ 46. Kb2 Rg1 47. Bg8+ Kc6 48. Rh6+ Kd7 49. Bxb3 axb3 50. Kxb3 Rxg2 51. Rxh4 Ke6 52. a4 Kxe5 53. a5 Kd6 54. Rh7 Kd5 55. a6 c4+ 56. Kc3 Ra2 57. a7 Kc5 58. h4 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But it must be admitted that Magnus makes these endgames look easy when for us it's a nightmare to convert. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Personally I really like the Catalan and Larsen transpositions, so I would definitely recommend those. The Catalan and all its variants are very natural to play (with sound endgame structures, because you always have a choice how you commit your central pawn strcuture, unlike most other d4 lines).  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Two other examples that come to mind, are the two times Magnus employed 1.c4 vs Nakamura in classical chess:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One leading to a Catalan with a delayed d4: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;8th Tal Memorial&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Moscow RUS&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2013.06.22&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;8.5&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Carlsen, M.&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Nakamura, Hi&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;A13&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;2864&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;2784&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;93&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;2013.06.13&quot;]&#xA;[EventRounds &quot;9&quot;]&#xA;[EventCountry &quot;RUS&quot;]&#xA;[EventCategory &quot;22&quot;]&#xA;[Source &quot;Mark Crowther&quot;]&#xA;[SourceDate &quot;2013.06.24&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. c4 e6 2. g3 d5 3. Bg2 c6 4. Qc2 Nf6 5. Nf3 dxc4 6. Qxc4 b5 7. Qb3 Bb7 8. O-O Nbd7 9. d4 a6 10. Ne5 Qb6 11. Be3 c5 12. Nxd7 Nxd7 13. d5 e5 14. a4 b4 15. Nd2 Bd6 16. Nc4 Qc7 17. f4 O-O 18. Rac1 exf4 19. Bxf4 Bxf4 20. gxf4 a5 21. e4 Rae8 22. e5 Ba6 23. Rfe1 Kh8 24. Nd6 Re7 25. Qe3 Qd8 26. b3 g5 27. Kh1 Qb8 28. Qf2 gxf4 29. Qxf4 Bd3 30. Re3 Bg6 31. Rf1 Rxe5 32. Rxe5 Qxd6 33. Re8 Qxf4 34. Rxf8+ Kg7 35. Rxf4 Kxf8 36. d6 Ne5 37. Bf1 Bc2 38. Bb5 f5 39. Kg2 c4 40. Bxc4 Be4+ 41. Kg3 Nxc4 42. bxc4 Ke8 43. c5 Bc6 44. Rxf5 Bxa4 45. Re5+ Kd8 46. Re7 Bc6 47. Rc7 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The second leading to a Larsen (1.b3) type of middlegame: (with black playing the Dutch)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;2nd London Chess Classic&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;London ENG&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2010.12.11&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;4&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Carlsen, M.&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Nakamura, Hi&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;A10&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;2802&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;2741&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;117&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;2010.12.06&quot;]&#xA;[EventRounds &quot;7&quot;]&#xA;[EventCountry &quot;ENG&quot;]&#xA;[EventCategory &quot;19&quot;]&#xA;[Source &quot;Mark Crowther&quot;]&#xA;[SourceDate &quot;2010.12.13&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. c4 f5 2. g3 Nf6 3. Bg2 d6 4. Nc3 g6 5. e3 Bg7 6. Nge2 O-O 7. O-O e5 8. b3 Nbd7 9. d3 c6 10. Ba3 Qc7 11. Qd2 Re8 12. Rae1 Nc5 13. h3 e4 14. dxe4 Nfxe4 15. Qc2 Nxc3 16. Nxc3 Be6 17. Rd1 Rad8 18. Bb2 Bf7 19. Rd2 a5 20. Rfd1 Be5 21. Ne2 a4 22. b4 Nd7 23. Bd4 Nb6 24. Bxb6 Qxb6 25. Rb1 Qc7 26. Nd4 Rc8 27. Rc1 Qe7 28. Rd3 c5 29. bxc5 Rxc5 30. Qxa4 Rec8 31. Rb1 Rxc4 32. Qd1 b6 33. Nb5 R4c5 34. Nxd6 Bxd6 35. Rxd6 Bxa2 36. Ra1 Rc1 37. Rxc1 Rxc1 38. Rxg6+ hxg6 39. Qxc1 Qd6 40. h4 Bf7 41. h5 Kh7 42. hxg6+ Kxg6 43. Qc2 b5 44. g4 Qe5 45. gxf5+ Kg7 46. Qe4 Qd6 47. Qh4 Bc4 48. Bf3 Qf6 49. Qxf6+ Kxf6 50. Be4 Ba2 51. f4 b4 52. Kf2 b3 53. Bd5 Kxf5 54. Kf3 Kf6 55. e4 Kg6 56. Ke3 Kh5 57. Kd4 Kg4 58. f5 Kg5 59. Ke5 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's another 1.c4 into Catalan, though it was only a rapid: Notice how white intentionally delays the pawn to e3 committment until black has made a decision with the b4 bishop (8...Bc5 now you repond with e3. Otherwise, with the black e4 pawn, a preemptive e3 would weaken your light squares). This is a good example of what I meant earlier with &quot;not committing too early&quot; with the pawn structre you want to achieve. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Amber Rapid&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Nice FRA&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2008.03.22&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;7&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Carlsen, M.&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Anand, V.&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;A20&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;2733&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;2799&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;95&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;2008.03.15&quot;]&#xA;[EventType &quot;rapid&quot;]&#xA;[EventRounds &quot;11&quot;]&#xA;[EventCountry &quot;FRA&quot;]&#xA;[EventCategory &quot;21&quot;]&#xA;[Source &quot;Mark Crowther&quot;]&#xA;[SourceDate &quot;2008.03.24&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. c4 e5 2. g3 c6 3. d4 e4 4. d5 Nf6 5. Bg2 Bb4+ 6. Bd2 Qe7 7. Nc3 O-O 8. a3 Bc5 9. e3 d6 10. Nge2 cxd5 11. Nxd5 Nxd5 12. cxd5 Nd7 13. O-O Nf6 14. Bc3 Bg4 15. Bxf6 Qxf6 16. b4 Bb6 17. Bxe4 a5 18. bxa5 Rxa5 19. Bxh7+ Kxh7 20. Qb1+ g6 21. Qxb6 Rfa8 22. Qd4 Qf3 23. Nc3 Re8 24. h3 Bf5 25. Qf6 Kg8 26. Rab1 Rxe3 27. Rxb7 Bc8 28. Qd8+ Kg7 29. Qxc8 Rxc3 30. Rxf7+ Kxf7 31. Qd7+ Kf6 32. Qd8+ Kf5 33. Qxa5 Rxa3 34. Qb4 Ke5 35. Qd2 Rd3 36. Qg5+ Qf5 37. Re1+ Kxd5 38. Qxf5+ gxf5 39. Kg2 Ra3 40. h4 Kd4 41. h5 d5 42. h6 Ra7 43. Kf3 Rh7 44. Re6 Kc3 45. Rc6+ Kd3 46. Kf4 Rf7 47. Kg5 Ke2 48. Rd6 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's a crazy one: a 1.c4 turning into a Caro-Kann leading into a IQP middlegame: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Corus A&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Wijk aan Zee NED&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2009.01.31&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;12&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Carlsen, M.&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Smeets, J.&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;B10&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;2776&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;2601&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;57&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;2009.01.17&quot;]&#xA;[EventRounds &quot;13&quot;]&#xA;[EventCountry &quot;NED&quot;]&#xA;[EventCategory &quot;19&quot;]&#xA;[Source &quot;Mark Crowther&quot;]&#xA;[SourceDate &quot;2009.02.02&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. c4 c6 2. e4 d5 3. exd5 cxd5 4. cxd5 Nf6 5. Nc3 Nxd5 6. Nf3 Nc6 7. Bb5 e6 8. O-O Be7 9. d4 O-O 10. Re1 Bd7 11. Bd3 Rc8 12. Nxd5 exd5 13. Ne5 Bf6 14. Bf4 g6 15. Qb3 Na5 16. Qb4 Be6 17. Bh6 Bg7 18. Bxg7 Kxg7 19. h4 Re8 20. h5 f6 21. Nf3 b6 22. Bb5 Re7 23. Re2 Rcc7 24. Rae1 Kf7 25. Qd2 Qf8 26. Qf4 Bf5 27. g4 Bc8 28. b4 Nb7 29. Bc6 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The list can go on, but it's up to you to carefully study these games and figure out which ones really suit your style of playing, no one can know it better than yourself. &#xA;As for the English-Botvinnik system, I'm surprised you don't like it, it's a sharp weapon specially in faster time controls, just watch how Nakamura plays it frequently in blitz. I recently read &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/article/view/english-opening-botvinnik-system&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this article on the Botvinnik variation on chess.com&lt;/a&gt;, it may change your mind.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another very interesting use of the English is to dodge the Grünfeld, as it is also pointed out on the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_Opening&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;wikipedia page&lt;/a&gt;, e.g.: 1.c4 Nf6 2.Nc3 g6 3.e4... But there are many such examples and that's why the English is so much fun to play.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Finally, there's one response that I dislike the most vs 1.c4, and that is 1...e5 leading sometimes to a reversed Sicilian...This is an example of black making use of the versatility of the English. But even if black decides to not play the Sicilian, a simple plan with e5 Nf6 Bc5 d6 a6 and tucking the bishop back to a7 is not obvious to face as white. So make sure you have a line (or at least some ideas) vs this. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This was just to give you some ropes. You will have lots of fun playing the English opening, and the more you play it the more resourceful you'll become with it, and hopefully you'll grow to appreciate its unique potentials. Enjoy!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3594" LastActivityDate="2016-11-07T19:32:49.450" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15803" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15761" CreationDate="2016-11-08T23:01:46.303" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know that this specific question has been thoroughly answered, but it's also a good idea to know all of the different ways to draw, of which a stalemate is just one.  Repeating the same position three times with the same player to move is another.  Perpetual check is a third.  Exceeding 50 moves without a pawn move or piece capture is yet another.  And a draw by agreement would also be another. Finally a draw also occurs when neither player has sufficient material to checkmate the opponent.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastActivityDate="2016-11-08T23:01:46.303" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15804" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15783" CreationDate="2016-11-08T23:15:10.977" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I played in an untimed simul against Bent Larsen in 1972.  We had to have our move ready when he got to our board (out of some 20+ boards), with the option of one or two passes if necessary.  I assume this could be decided upon differently in advance though by the exhibitor.  Ultimately I was the last player left.  I was probably the highest rated player of his opponents, although only Class A.  At that point he sat down across from me and we continued at a relatively slow rate as I would have done in a normal non-timed game, taking perhaps two or three minutes per move.  Naturally I lost, but at no point then did I feel rushed to make a move.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastActivityDate="2016-11-08T23:15:10.977" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15807" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-11-10T10:59:51.110" Score="3" ViewCount="1138" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there any way a Linux UCI Engine (such as StockFish 8) be used with Fritz 15? Will this involve customizing the source code and rebuilding to implement things like hash size, tablebase locations, and the like, or can those engine settings be set as BASH environment variables? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have used a program called InBetween.exe before, to act as a conduit between the GUI and the Linux engine. However I have yet to be able to get InBetween.exe to pass  UCI environment variable commands to the engine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If someone can post an answer to these questions, I would be most appreciative.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11262" LastActivityDate="2017-02-26T12:30:18.700" Title="Using a Linux UCI Engine with a GUI (eg. Fritz 15)" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;computer-chess&gt;&lt;linux&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15808" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15807" CreationDate="2016-11-10T14:31:15.450" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think you can do it using this tool &lt;a href=&quot;https://bitbucket.org/pokey909/chessbridge&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;ChessBridge&lt;/a&gt;. There's also &lt;a href=&quot;http://home.arcor.de/bernhard.wallner/netChess.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;netChess&lt;/a&gt;, but the website is down, so use the &lt;a href=&quot;http://web.archive.org/web/20140724074729/http://home.arcor.de/bernhard.wallner/netChess.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;mirror at Archive.org&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11691" LastEditorUserId="454" LastEditDate="2016-11-11T13:25:27.967" LastActivityDate="2016-11-11T13:25:27.967" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15811" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1066" CreationDate="2016-11-11T09:09:43.610" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;One theory that I find reasonable is that the prohibition was originally unique to tsume problems, which makes them more fun, and later re-imported to normal shogi as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another interesting one is a claim that it's implemented to prevent cheating of dropping the hidden 19th pawn to checkmate and immediately stir the pieces to blur it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11699" LastActivityDate="2016-11-11T09:09:43.610" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15812" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15807" CreationDate="2016-11-11T09:19:49.673" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Mixing Windows and Linux for this (and this way) might not be the easiest way. Also think about future updates that can break your working solution. You already experienced this with &lt;code&gt;InBetween.exe&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you only use Fritz as database and to analyse your games then you might consider to use &lt;a href=&quot;http://scid.sourceforge.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;SCID&lt;/a&gt; on Linux. It has Stockfish in it. Not the most recent version but you can easily install the most recent version.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4509" LastActivityDate="2016-11-11T09:19:49.673" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15813" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-11-11T11:41:04.730" Score="2" ViewCount="197" Body="&lt;p&gt;I wonder how many times Carlsen and Karjakin played so far and who won the more number of games. Any idea?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5653" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2019-12-04T21:54:16.180" LastActivityDate="2019-12-04T21:54:16.180" Title="Carlsen vs Karjakin individual encounter results statistics so far?" Tags="&lt;statistics&gt;&lt;world-championship&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15814" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15813" CreationDate="2016-11-11T12:19:30.213" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a list of chess games between them &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/ezsearch.pl?search=Magnus+Carlsen+vs+Sergey+Karjakin&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;; I'm not sure if any games are missing. The list includes blitz, rapid and blindfold games, but there's a convenient statistics block at the top of the page:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;h3&gt;LIFETIME RECORD:&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Classical games: Magnus Carlsen beat Sergey Karjakin 4 to 1, with 17 draws.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Including rapid/exhibition games: Magnus Carlsen beat Sergey Karjakin 18 to 8, with 22 draws.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Only rapid/exhibition games: Magnus Carlsen beat Sergey Karjakin 14 to 7, with 5 draws.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2016-11-11T12:19:30.213" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15815" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15840" CreationDate="2016-11-11T16:42:43.207" Score="3" ViewCount="282" Body="&lt;p&gt;In 1972, when Fischer and Spassky played the championship tournament, Fischer demanded to play the games in a ping pong room stating &lt;em&gt;too much distractions&lt;/em&gt; as his reason. Later (if I am not wrong) he returned to the main hall to play the rest of the games. What was all this about? I mean weren't there distractions then? What kind of psychological warfare was this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9620" LastEditorUserId="3831" LastEditDate="2016-11-12T06:57:11.193" LastActivityDate="2016-11-14T02:43:15.377" Title="Change of venue of 1972 match" Tags="&lt;world-championship&gt;&lt;fischer&gt;&lt;spassky&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15816" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-11-12T04:39:27.153" Score="8" ViewCount="136" Body="&lt;p&gt;In recent 1st Match between Maguns &amp;amp; Karjakin, started with Trompowsky. How can Karjakin prefer catsle even g file is open ( g × f6 at 3rd move ). Whats idea behind it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11068" LastActivityDate="2016-11-13T18:50:02.427" Title="Short castle in Trompowsky" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;castling&gt;&lt;karjakin&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15817" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15816" CreationDate="2016-11-12T07:09:37.860" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;A few thoughts:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Leaving the king in the centre or long castle are not attractive either with all the open lines and pinned knight on c6&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The g file is open but it is not easy for white to make use of it. White has exchanged its bishop which would have had a good square on h6. Also black's pawns on e6 and f6 cover important squares that could be occupied by white knights.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The centre is open and if white concentrates forces on the king side, black will very quickly push through on the queen side and in the centre.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;It is an opening and has been analysed by humans and computers and found to be OK.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2016-11-12T07:09:37.860" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15818" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15791" CreationDate="2016-11-12T14:26:12.550" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can download Stockfish for OS X already built.  &lt;a href=&quot;https://stockfishchess.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://stockfishchess.org/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4016" LastActivityDate="2016-11-12T14:26:12.550" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15819" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15821" CreationDate="2016-11-12T14:32:26.807" Score="11" ViewCount="3726" Body="&lt;p&gt;I looked around and could not find an answer for this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've studied a pretty good amount of opening theory and so I know the &quot;correct&quot; moves for some basic lines.  Most e4 openings and a fair amount of Nimzo-Indian, Pirc, and QGD for D4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The thing of it is, I often play opponents who have not studied these lines.  So they play the &quot;wrong&quot; moves and I'm not sure how to proceed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it best for me to stop and eat clock time figuring out why the wrong move is wrong?  Or should I keep playing my same opening even though I might be putting myself deeper into a hole?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4016" LastActivityDate="2020-01-21T00:16:58.200" Title="What to do when your opponent doesn't play along in the opening?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;opening-traps&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15820" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15819" CreationDate="2016-11-12T15:11:44.867" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;It sounds like you're a beginner. As such, you should be focusing more on tactics than openings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, just because they play a move that's not in your book, doesn't mean it's &quot;wrong&quot;. It may be an older line that's not in modern opening books, or just not in the books you have.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That being said, to answer your question, it depends on the opening. In a slow, closed or positional openings, it's not likely to matter too much, when your opponent deviates from your book, just adjust your plans as necessary. If it's a gambit, or tactical opening, you should take some time to check to see if it's a blunder.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9025" LastActivityDate="2016-11-12T15:11:44.867" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15821" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15819" CreationDate="2016-11-12T15:44:07.060" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Nothing is ever certain, but when you are in position that was played in thousand of high class games, any deviation is virtually always dubious move. On the other hand in position which was played in lets say just 10 high class games, novelty is still more probably to be dubious, but it is nowhere close to be certain. Also there can be more equally strong moves in later stages of a game then in very beginning when you run to fight for centre. Taking time with first new position is good thing to do. Compare move with your knowledge of other moves and try to build good plan. No reason to play autopilot in position you don't know. No two positions are really similar, today chess is pretty concrete.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11609" LastActivityDate="2016-11-12T15:44:07.060" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15822" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-11-12T18:35:29.293" Score="3" ViewCount="600" Body="&lt;p&gt;Does anyone have tips on where to watch the (now ongoing) World Championship match between Carlsen and Karjakin? I'm looking for live commentaries and a video feed if that's available. Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11709" LastActivityDate="2016-11-16T09:38:01.510" Title="Where can I watch Carlsen - Karjakin with video + commentaries?" Tags="&lt;world-championship&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15824" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15822" CreationDate="2016-11-12T21:57:35.423" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's live commentary from two GMs on Chess24's youtube channel:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/user/chess24media&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/user/chess24media&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They have video, but only of the commentators (not the players), together with an analysis board&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11709" LastEditorUserId="11709" LastEditDate="2016-11-13T21:28:57.813" LastActivityDate="2016-11-13T21:28:57.813" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15825" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15822" CreationDate="2016-11-12T22:05:35.507" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can get live moves and commentary from various websites such as chess24  or Spiegel.de or...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want the video of the players you have to register and pay at the worldchess website.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, in Norway (and perhaps Russia) the match is broadcast on TV&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastEditorUserId="11629" LastEditDate="2016-11-15T08:41:46.787" LastActivityDate="2016-11-15T08:41:46.787" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15826" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-11-12T22:59:17.310" Score="3" ViewCount="897" Body="&lt;p&gt;So in the last 2 or 3 games I've played, I've used the Najdorf variation of the Sicilian. It's worked alright in the games, and I was wondering if you guys have any tips that I could use to improve my effectiveness with the Sicilian.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11665" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-11-13T09:25:38.950" LastActivityDate="2018-04-16T01:30:09.330" Title="Tips for the Najdorf Sicilian?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;&lt;najdorf&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15828" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15780" CreationDate="2016-11-13T02:41:39.337" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I find out that my UCI protocol parsing had some nasty bugs, that's why all the Perft tests were ok, but the engine matches were buggy... ouch!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So it was not SCID's fault, sorry!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11328" LastActivityDate="2016-11-13T02:41:39.337" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15829" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-11-13T03:46:59.243" Score="3" ViewCount="156" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are there any general principles to playing middlegames with all of the minor pieces exchanged?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I often find myself in middlegames with two rooks and a queen on either side, with no clear idea of how to proceed. Are there any guidelines for how to proceed in such games? In general, I find that the initiative is much more important than being up a pawn or two.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A good example of such a position that I have reached is the following game (white to play):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Xif8R.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Xif8R.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10772" LastActivityDate="2018-10-16T11:29:10.787" Title="Queen &amp; Rook Middlegames" Tags="&lt;middlegame&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15830" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15829" CreationDate="2016-11-13T04:30:13.040" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;King safety is a big issue for white in your position.  White would be much better if the f3 pawn were at g2 instead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would probably play kg2 and if the black queen checks along the g-file try to hide the king on e2 via f1.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for general principles, I would say king safety is the first priority.  Then probably obtaining advanced supported passed pawns and active pieces are next most important quality.  Material balance is always important, but the key to winning these endgames usually comes down to queening a pawn and the more advanced one is the more dangerous one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8258" LastActivityDate="2016-11-13T04:30:13.040" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15831" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15826" CreationDate="2016-11-13T08:09:23.267" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Two or three games is very little to say much. You will not even have encountered all of the main lines after ....a6. Generally the Najdorf Sicilian is rather tactical and opening mistakes can quickly lead to a loss. In some lines white has a very straightforward plan of pushing its h and g pawns and checkmating black. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Practising tactics and studying the opening thoroughly is essential. &#xA;For more useful advice it would help to know your playing strength and to see one of your games &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastEditorUserId="11629" LastEditDate="2016-11-13T08:45:11.463" LastActivityDate="2016-11-13T08:45:11.463" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15832" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15829" CreationDate="2016-11-13T08:50:21.710" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;A lot depends on the position, particularly on whether there are open or semi- open files. Occupying these lines is usually a good idea as is getting pieces on the 2nd or 7th row (I.e. close to the opponent's king). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other than this, king safety and activity is of course important but that is true for any endgame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2016-11-13T08:50:21.710" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15833" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15835" CreationDate="2016-11-13T11:30:56.610" Score="15" ViewCount="8250" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why are a few chess openings named King's &lt;em&gt;Indian&lt;/em&gt; Defense, Queen's &lt;em&gt;Indian&lt;/em&gt; Defense, Nimzo-&lt;em&gt;Indian&lt;/em&gt; defense, and so on?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the significance of &lt;em&gt;Indian&lt;/em&gt; in all these opening names? What's India's contribution to it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11068" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2017-03-19T14:09:12.623" LastActivityDate="2020-09-23T09:28:34.523" Title="Why do some openings have Indian in their name?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;history&gt;&lt;kings-indian&gt;&lt;queens-indian&gt;&lt;nimzo-indian&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15834" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15833" CreationDate="2016-11-13T12:37:08.583" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess has evolved from the Indian game &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shatranj&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Shatranj&lt;/a&gt;. In early versions of Shatranj, the starting positions included the fianchetto, which is common in all of the modern chess openings you listed. This is why these openings have the word Indian in them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See also &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/q/720/1108&quot;&gt;Did Indian systems really have fianchettos?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2017-03-19T16:54:16.273" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15835" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15833" CreationDate="2016-11-13T12:38:37.203" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;In many cases, openings are named after a notable first master game (or games). The master or country does not necessarily must have contributed to it. Apparently in the case of Indian openings (1. d4 Nf6), they are named after &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moheschunder_Bannerjee&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Moheschunder Bannerjee&lt;/a&gt;. See the Wikipedia article on &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Defence&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Indian defence&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastEditorUserId="10867" LastEditDate="2016-11-13T19:09:49.917" LastActivityDate="2016-11-13T19:09:49.917" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15836" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15816" CreationDate="2016-11-13T18:50:02.427" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Also with a queens side castle it would take the king two extra moves to get complete safety for the king and that would make black lose tempo and might lose the game especially when it's against carlsen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10397" LastActivityDate="2016-11-13T18:50:02.427" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15837" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15841" CreationDate="2016-11-13T23:42:01.640" Score="7" ViewCount="610" Body="&lt;p&gt;1) e4 Nc6 is Nimzowitch Defence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The 1) d4 Nf6 defences are classed as Indian Systems (King's Indian, Queen's Indian, Bogo Indian, Old Indian, etc.) - &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Defence&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Defence&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But does 1) d4 Nc6 have a name?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I recently played somebody who according to my research almost invariably replied to 1) d4 with Nc6. After 2) ... d5 they often transposed into a Chigorin but he often ended up in strange variations of other openings. I have never faced this and decided I needed to do some preparation so I could have some understanding of what kind of positions I should be aiming for and what kinds of traps to avoid.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I could find very little information about possibilities other than Chigorin's and decided that on the night I would chance my arm with 2) d5 aiming for a kind of queenside Alekhine's. Again I couldn't find anything published about this. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the night he surprised me by replying with 1) ... Nf6 avoiding my last minute prep but falling into my much more extensive experience and knowledge of playing against this. Still, I'm curious.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="18475" LastEditDate="2019-04-09T20:53:09.247" LastActivityDate="2019-04-09T20:53:09.247" Title="Does 1) d4 Nc6 have a name?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;1.d4&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15838" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15833" CreationDate="2016-11-14T00:56:04.337" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In &quot;Indian&quot; defenses, Black holds back his center pawns, especially his d-pawn, against a White 1. d4. This &quot;Indian&quot; style is in contrast to the European style of opposing 1. d4 with 1. ... d5, and 1. e4 with 1. ... e5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Instead, Black opts to contest White's control of the center from the side. In the King's and Queen's Indian defenses, this means moving g6 or b6 respectively, and &quot;fianchettoing&quot; a bishop along the &quot;long&quot; diagonal. In the Nimzo-Indian defense (Nimzo stands for Aron Nimzowich), it means playing B b4 after e6. But the idea is to oppose White's d4 with c5 and not d5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2016-11-14T00:56:04.337" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15839" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13855" CreationDate="2016-11-14T01:05:31.460" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You should prevent enemy &quot;rook(s) on the seventh&quot; at almost all costs before it happens. Once it does, you're usually doomed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A &lt;em&gt;single&lt;/em&gt; rook on the seventh is worth a pawn. Put another way, it is worthwhile for a player to sacrifice a pawn to get a rook on the seventh. The defender ought to be willing to sacrifice &lt;em&gt;back&lt;/em&gt; the pawn to get the rook off the seventh, usually through exchange.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Two rooks on the seventh is even worse. They have almost absolute control of the rank. Here, you are lucky to break it up for &quot;only&quot; a pawn. Here, at least three or four pawns are at White's mercy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the diagrammed position, with two white rooks on the seventh and pawns even (for now), Black is dead lost. Black would need almost an (extra) minor piece, say a B on h6, to compensate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2016-11-14T01:05:31.460" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15840" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15815" CreationDate="2016-11-14T02:43:15.377" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Fischer objected to the proximity of the spectators, the intensity of the lighting, and the noise of the cameras. He did &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; request a separate venue. It was the organizers who suggested the ping-pong room as a compromise to address his objections.  They then set to work modifying the conditions in the main playing hall to meet his demands.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the start of Game 3, they had been able to reduce the lighting, rearrange the seating of spectators, and relocate the cameras so their noise would not be heard by the players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11245" LastActivityDate="2016-11-14T02:43:15.377" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15841" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15837" CreationDate="2016-11-14T09:33:56.727" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen%27s_Knight_Defense&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The &lt;strong&gt;Queen's Knight Defense&lt;/strong&gt; (also known as the &lt;strong&gt;Nimzowitsch Queen Pawn Defence&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;strong&gt;Bogoljubow–Mikenas Defense&lt;/strong&gt;) is a chess opening defined by the moves 1. d4 Nc6&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From the same article, there are 3 named variations:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;2.d5 Nb8 (Montevideo Retreat)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;2.c4 e5 3.d5 Nd4 (Cannstatter Gambit)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;2.c4 e5 3.d5 Nce7 (Lithuanian Variation)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastEditorDisplayName="user1108" LastEditDate="2016-11-14T09:39:03.190" LastActivityDate="2016-11-14T09:39:03.190" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15842" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15843" CreationDate="2016-11-14T18:11:30.467" Score="6" ViewCount="255" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some commentators have expressed surprise at the two relatively bland draws to open out the most recent (Carlsen-Karjakin) World Championships.  I'm wondering whether there's been any study as to whether 'feeling-out' is a real phenomenon: are draws more likely to happen at the start of a championship match, in the middle, or towards the end?  Has any objective research (whether specifically WCC or any high-level chess match play) been done on this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4270" LastEditorUserId="3831" LastEditDate="2016-11-14T21:41:14.620" LastActivityDate="2016-11-14T21:52:18.017" Title="Draws by game number in championship matches" Tags="&lt;draw&gt;&lt;statistics&gt;&lt;world-championship&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15843" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15842" CreationDate="2016-11-14T21:27:25.557" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am not aware of a study of this kind, but why not make our own? Let us parse some WCC PGNs!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/VK5k6.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/VK5k6.png&quot; alt=&quot;WCC games results&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/HHXdt.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/HHXdt.png&quot; alt=&quot;Fraction of draws by round&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To me, this does not seem to have any definite regularities for when a draw is more likely (also note, that at the very high number of rounds, only a few games are available - there have been only a few very long WCC matches).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Recent events only. Looks like more draws overall and slight tendency for more draws towards the end of a match.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/paoHC.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/paoHC.png&quot; alt=&quot;WCC games results - post 1985&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/mGYI1.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/mGYI1.png&quot; alt=&quot;Fraction of draws by round - post 1985&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3831" LastEditorUserId="3831" LastEditDate="2016-11-14T21:52:18.017" LastActivityDate="2016-11-14T21:52:18.017" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15844" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15822" CreationDate="2016-11-15T13:21:47.047" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are several places you can watch live commentaries, and only one place you can watch the video feed of the players. Some of these are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://worldchess.com/nyc2016/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;The official Agon/World Chess website&lt;/a&gt; has both live video feed and commentary, for prices from $15 and up – however, the feed can be watched for free at &lt;a href=&quot;http://wcc.protectedvideos.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://wcc.protectedvideos.com&lt;/a&gt; if you use Android (or if you spoof your user agent), but I don't know if that's legal&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess24.com/en/watch/live-tournaments/carlsen-karjakin-world-chess-championship-2016&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess24&lt;/a&gt; has live video commentary and analysis&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessbomb.com/arena/2016-carlsen-karjakin-world-chess-championship&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;ChessBomb&lt;/a&gt; has live web analysis and commentary&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://analysis.sesse.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;analysis.sesse.net&lt;/a&gt; has no commentary, but a deep multi-PV analysis of ongoing games&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://nrk.no/sjakk/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;The Norwegian public broadcaster NRK&lt;/a&gt; (on web and the TV channel NRK2) has live video and Norwegian commentary, it's geolocked, &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.reddit.com/r/norsk/comments/2dshka/tutorial_how_to_watch_nrktv_while_being_outisde/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;but you can get around that&lt;/a&gt; – again, no idea if that's legal&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Ditto the Norwegian web TV channel &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.vgtv.no/#!/kategori/100157/sjakk-vm-2016&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;VGTV&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some background information for the coverage of this year's world championship: Agon, the official partner of FIDE for the world chess championship cycle, owns the international rights to the official video feed(s) of the players through World Chess. Nobody else is permitted to broadcast it internationally.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(The feed is produced by NRK, the Norwegian public broadcaster, who retains the right to broadcast it on their national TV channels, and the Norwegian web TV channel VGTV has also purchased the rights to broadcast it from NRK. If you live in Norway (or can pretend you do), you can watch it for free, with Norwegian commentary.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Agon &lt;em&gt;also&lt;/em&gt; tried to retain the sole rights to relay the actual moves made in the games. They sued Chess24 because they planned to relay the moves with commentary anyway, and &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess24.com/en/read/news/chess24-win-moscow-case-announce-new-york-line-up&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Agon lost the case&lt;/a&gt;. They are currently contemplating whether to appeal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2590" LastEditorUserId="2590" LastEditDate="2016-11-16T09:38:01.510" LastActivityDate="2016-11-16T09:38:01.510" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15845" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-11-15T20:00:25.113" Score="4" ViewCount="298" Body="&lt;p&gt;How should someone prepare for a chess tournament? &#xA;Openings? Tactics? Strategy? Endgames?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are some of the techniques strong players use in order to get ready for an upcoming tournament?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(1800 USCF)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11602" LastActivityDate="2016-11-29T19:30:44.663" Title="Tournament Preparation" Tags="&lt;training&gt;&lt;preparation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15846" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5730" CreationDate="2016-11-15T20:02:58.220" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are many tactics software that are very good.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Free:&#xA;chesstempo.com&#xA;lichess.org&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Paid:&#xA;chess.com tactics &#xA;CT-ARt  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These are very common software and websites to improve tactics. Personally I like to use lichess.org because of the other uses it has like the study feature. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11602" LastActivityDate="2016-11-15T20:02:58.220" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15847" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15845" CreationDate="2016-11-15T21:06:23.113" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;If the opponents are known (e.g. in a round robin tournament) you can prepare specifically for these opponents, i.e. find openings or positions which your opponents don't like or in which they perform badly, etc.Professional players would do this even during the tournament (in-between rounds).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the opponents are not known (e.g. in a large open tournament) there is not much you can do other than what you should always do: practice tactics, learn/study endgames, strategy, refreshing your openings, doing some sports (not chess)...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Overall at your level I would not worry too much about all this. Arriving relaxed to a match will be more important than trying to prepare specifically for one opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2016-11-15T21:06:23.113" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15848" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15845" CreationDate="2016-11-15T21:40:33.740" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;After posting a question, I shortly found an article on tournament preparation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Exercise&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Study Openings&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Tactics&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11602" LastActivityDate="2016-11-15T21:40:33.740" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15850" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13652" CreationDate="2016-11-15T22:58:20.147" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Fischer declared in several media channels that his goal, all of his life, had been to become World Chess Champion. Once he had accomplished that, he concluded that playing chess competitively was no longer a challenge, and that if he did not have something significant to gain, there was no longer any reason for him to play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11245" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-11-16T10:29:16.663" LastActivityDate="2016-11-16T10:29:16.663" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15853" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-11-16T03:44:00.440" Score="2" ViewCount="461" Body="&lt;p&gt;After White's sixth move 6. Bd3 in the Milner-Barry gambit line, White hasn't yet truly offered his pawn up for sacrifice yet. It's for this reason that Black will play cxd4, but not continue the exchange following cxd4, instead fortifying against a possible Bb5+ with Bd7. What if Black chooses not to begin the exchange until he can be sure to win it? After all, is usually happy to return dxc5 with Bxc5, so there shouldn't be any rush to trade off the c-pawn. Yet when I follow the &quot;best play&quot; by Stockfish (and uniquely best, if it is to be trusted) following 6. ... Bd7 and arrive at the following position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;r3k1nr/pp1b1ppp/1qn1p3/2bpP3/8/2PB1N2/PP3PPP/RNBQ1RK1 b kq - 1 8&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. e5 c5 4. c3 Nc6 5. Nf3 Qb6 6. Bd3 Bd7 7. dxc5 Bxc5 8. O-O&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I see White has traded away one center pawn, and the other center pawn needs to be defended by pieces for the foreseeable future, and he doesn't have the attacking chances that could be expected from the mainline. Following Black's likely 8. ... a5, White can't even chase away the Black bishop with b4. Despite this, Stockfish rates White at about 0 to +0.5. What resources does he have?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is also the following similar line, where if I didn't know any better, I'd say White ends up with many of the same problems including a meddlesome knight on his kingside, yet Stockfish rates this as about equal:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;r1b1k2r/pp3ppp/1qn1p3/2bpP3/6n1/2PB1N2/PP2QPPP/RNB2RK1 b kq - 3 9&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. e5 c5 4. c3 Nc6 5. Nf3 Qb6 6. Bd3 Nh6 7. dxc5 Bxc5 8. O-O Ng4 9. Qe2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11518" LastEditorUserId="3831" LastEditDate="2016-11-16T06:24:34.083" LastActivityDate="2016-11-16T06:24:34.083" Title="How is White compensated in these lines of the Milner-Barry gambit?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;french-defense&gt;&lt;gambits&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15854" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15853" CreationDate="2016-11-16T04:31:01.740" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am not too excited about this line for white either. Probably there is a reason that it is not played much.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;What resources does he have?&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As in most French, white has more space, two good bishops (vs one good for black) and if black castles short there are always ideas with attacking the king because most of black's forces are concentrated on the queen side.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, because you took on c5, white does not have to worry anymore about black taking on d4, making it easier to play particularly for a more positional player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for future plans, black most likely wants to play a5 to prevent white playing b4, Be3, a3, c4... Black's pieces are currently placed ok, but there is not much they can do from where they are. Likely sooner or later black wants to attack in the center with f6 or even d4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After black's a5, the square b5 gets weak and white can target it developing for instance with a4, Na3, Nb5, perhaps later putting  a knight on d4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And if black castles short kingside attacks are always an option.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2016-11-16T04:31:01.740" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15855" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-11-16T13:50:18.580" Score="3" ViewCount="535" Body="&lt;p&gt;The same games of chess could be played if:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;white and black squares were swapped (i.e. the board rotated by 90 degrees)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;king and queen were swapped in the starting position (i.e. white/black kings on d1/d8 and white/black queen on e1/e8)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;black was allowed to start the game&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there any other transformations, which leave the game the same (I think not)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the origin of the current board orientation and king/queen position and first move for white?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Has anybody studied the effect of such transformation on the play? For instance: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;How much worse would an experienced player play?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Would there be a preference for different kind of openings or trading pieces differently? For instance I could imagine that if the board was rotated 90 degrees (change of square color) this could change play because say a black bishop on a dark square has different contrast than a black bishop on a light square. Similarly, if king and queen were swapped, this could affect play as people are right or left handed.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2017-08-03T19:39:48.597" Title="Symmetries in chess" Tags="&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;psychology&gt;&lt;chessboards&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15856" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15891" CreationDate="2016-11-16T19:24:31.430" Score="6" ViewCount="1773" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here I am trying to improve my engine, and the next feature on the list is LMR.&#xA;I understood the general ideia, but since I don't want to introduce bugs and the &lt;a href=&quot;https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Late+Move+Reductions&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;CPW&lt;/a&gt; on the subject has no code, how do I go about coding it inside an &lt;code&gt;iterative deepening&lt;/code&gt; scheme?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's my current code:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;   //inside alpha-beta move loop&#xA;   //bool doReduce = false;&#xA;   int tmp_mv = moves.get(i);&#xA;&#xA; /* Late move reduction CPW code */&#xA;    if (depth &amp;gt; 3 &amp;amp;&amp;amp; legal &amp;gt; 3 &amp;amp;&amp;amp; (!atCheck) &amp;amp;&amp;amp;&#xA;        Move::captured(tmp_mv) == 0 &amp;amp;&amp;amp; Move::promoteTo(tmp_mv) == 0 &amp;amp;&amp;amp; &#xA;            (mv_from != Move::from(board.searchKillers[0][board.ply]) || mv_to != Move::to(board.searchKillers[0][board.ply])) &amp;amp;&amp;amp;&#xA;            (mv_from != Move::from(board.searchKillers[1][board.ply]) || mv_to != Move::to(board.searchKillers[1][board.ply])) &amp;amp;&amp;amp;&#xA;            !oppAtCheck){&#xA;                int reduce = legal &amp;gt; 6 ? 2 : 1;&#xA;                //doReduce = true;&#xA;                score = -alphaBeta(-beta, -alpha, depth - 1 - reduce, true);&#xA;&#xA;            //re-search&#xA;            if (score &amp;gt; alpha)&#xA;               score = -alphaBeta(-beta, -alpha, depth - 1, true);&#xA;        }&#xA;        else {//no LMR&#xA;            score = -alphaBeta(-beta, -alpha, depth - 1, true);&#xA;        }&#xA;&#xA;    &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This appears to be working, but I have some questions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Is the code correct?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;CPW engine (and many others) have code like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt; if (! isPV &amp;amp;&amp;amp; ... ) { apply some heuristic }&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since I'm not using &lt;code&gt;PVS&lt;/code&gt;, how do I deal with this in my code? Do I need something like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;//probe hashtable, at the top of alphabeta&#xA;int hash_move = HashTable::probe(board)&#xA;&#xA;//inside move loop&#xA;if (tmp_mv !=  hash_move &amp;amp;&amp;amp; conditions ){ apply heuristic } &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11328" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2016-11-24T01:58:48.927" Title="Implementing Late Move Reduction (LMR) inside iterative deepening" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;programming&gt;&lt;computer-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="9" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15857" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15858" CreationDate="2016-11-17T06:35:54.820" Score="1" ViewCount="361" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm struggling to find information on this chess tournament.  It's listed on FIDE's website (&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/index.php?option=com_fidecalendar&amp;amp;view=fidecalendar&amp;amp;ny=2017&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;link&lt;/a&gt;):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/GRnHA.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/GRnHA.png&quot; alt=&quot;Asian Zonal 3.3, Tagaytay, Philippines, 24 Feb 2017 to 6 Mar 2016&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd be interested in playing in this tournament, but my federation is Australia and I don't know if I'm eligible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Question&lt;/em&gt;: Who is eligible to play in the 2017 FIDE Asian Zonal 3.3 in Tagaytay, Philippines?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2785" LastActivityDate="2016-11-17T22:02:05.813" Title="Who is eligible to play in the 2017 FIDE Asian Zonal 3.3 in Tagaytay, Philippines?" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15858" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15857" CreationDate="2016-11-17T09:15:57.403" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;That tournament is for federations in zone 3.3 (basically SE-Asia and Japan). Australia is in zone 3.6. So you could only play at the Asian zonal 3.6 in Auckland.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastEditorUserId="11629" LastEditDate="2016-11-17T22:02:05.813" LastActivityDate="2016-11-17T22:02:05.813" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15859" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15876" CreationDate="2016-11-17T10:08:41.570" Score="3" ViewCount="1049" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm an advanced beginner.  I don't have internet access as much as I like to, so I'd much rather have a series of chess position FENs that I can put into some free chess engine and then try to play them myself offline.  I've tried getting those huge books with bunch of problems for beginners (like &quot;mate in three&quot;) but they're heavy to carry around and also I'm still struggling with visualization so I like to have the computer nearby.  I've also tried to just play a game against those free chess engines but I find it very difficult to maintain my focus.  It's much easier to work 30 minutes on a problem or two, take a break, then do another couple, until it becomes easy enough to visualize.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The sort of problems I have in mind are like the one I just mentioned (mate in X number of moves) but also ones see on the popular chess websites, like being given a position and try to either gain material or checkmate or prevent opponent from doing so.  In short, not so much positional chess than tactical.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Appreciate suggestions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11581" LastActivityDate="2016-11-18T06:45:07.503" Title="Is there a master list of FEN chess positions for advanced beginner/intermediate?" Tags="&lt;problems&gt;&lt;fen&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15860" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-11-17T10:35:31.413" Score="3" ViewCount="230" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the Sicilian Najdorf there is a well known line which ends in threefold repition (if both players want).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;NN&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;B90&quot;]&#xA;[Opening &quot;Sicilian Defense: Najdorf Variation, English Attack, Anti-   English&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 a6 6. Be3 Ng4 7. Bc1 Nf6 8. Be3 Ng4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since white retreats the bishop to c1, the positions after 5. ... a6 and 7. Bc1 are almost the same (only difference is that the knight is on g4 now) and since it is black's turn, black gained a tempo (if not for the knight's position on g4).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Two questions on this line:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Why does black have to return the knight to f6? Aren't there any other useful moves that he could make and only retreat when being attacked?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Ignoring any match situation or Elo difference, etc, both players insisting on this repetition, does it mean that Be3 is the best 6th move in the Najdorf for white and does it mean that normal play with 6... e5 is very dangerous for black?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2016-11-17T14:36:06.437" Title="Najdorf threefold repition" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;najdorf&gt;&lt;threefold-repetition&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15861" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15869" CreationDate="2016-11-17T11:20:57.843" Score="9" ViewCount="2361" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm almost a beginner in the chess world who at the moment only plays online and watch various chess lectures on youtube.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm thinking about using &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.elometer.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.elometer.net/&lt;/a&gt; &#xA;on a monthly basis in order to see my progress over time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are the pro and cons of doing that? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11748" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-11-17T11:39:47.663" LastActivityDate="2017-07-29T07:03:46.837" Title="Does it make sense to use an online ELO-rating-test for a beginner as a monthly test tool in order to see my progress?" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;elo&gt;&lt;beginner&gt;&lt;online&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15862" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15861" CreationDate="2016-11-17T11:39:32.117" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, the main problem with these tests is that they aren't reliable. They can only give you a &lt;em&gt;rough indication&lt;/em&gt; of your playing strength, nothing more. Maybe something accurate to 100 rating points, and it's very hard to gain 100 points in a month, even for a beginner. So it will be hard to measure your progress on that scale.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, taking the same test over and over again makes you recognize certain test questions, instead of solving them with pure chess skills. And lastly, they measure your ability to solve chess diagrams, instead of your playing strength. That encompasses many more things like an opening repertoire, knowing how to spend your time over the game, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2016-11-17T11:39:32.117" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15863" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15870" CreationDate="2016-11-17T12:18:00.170" Score="2" ViewCount="180" Body="&lt;p&gt;Or will it be better to learn 5 different openings at a lower detail level?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And what 1 or 5 openings would you then suggest?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11748" LastActivityDate="2016-11-17T17:28:18.450" Title="Should a beginner try to learn 1 specific opening in depth or is not the best use of time?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;training&gt;&lt;beginner&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15864" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15860" CreationDate="2016-11-17T12:39:48.123" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;He doesn't have to return, but it is probably the most flexible move. You can't hold knight's position on g4, you don't like going on e5 and the knight will be attacked by the most natural move in the world (Be2 or f3). White makes no concessions while black would make some.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e6 isn't possible&#xA;Nc6 isn't Najdorf's favorite move&#xA;g6 is dragon&#xA;e5 is well met by Nf5&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If Bc1 was easy to 'refute', it would never become popular in the first place.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't understand much the 2nd question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11609" LastEditorUserId="11609" LastEditDate="2016-11-17T12:45:30.543" LastActivityDate="2016-11-17T12:45:30.543" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15865" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15863" CreationDate="2016-11-17T12:54:22.720" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is your level?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For an absolute beginner learning general opening principles (fight for the centre, develop minor pieces, castle for king safety...), tactic training and paying attention not to blunder pieces in one move, will be much more useful than learning an opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also if you play mostly low rated opponents there is not much point studying a specific line in the Sicilian to move 30 if all your opponents know is the first 4 moves of the Italian game. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you study an opening make sure to not only study the move but also the typical plans which can be for instance typical pawn breaks, exchanging bad bishops and keeping the good one, typical regrouping manoeuvres, etc&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Opening theory can be very complex. For a beginner I recommend to start with the main line and not too deep (how deep will depend on the opening). As you encounter side lines in your games or feel that you lose because you are on your own after your main line theory ends, you can always learn more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Getting away with one opening will not be possible as with black you will have to prepare for at least d4 and e4. And if you are white and start with e4 you need to be prepared for at least e5, c5, e6, c6...&#xA;As above I recommend to start studying what you encounter most often first and play the other opening s on general principles until you learn them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2016-11-17T12:54:22.720" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15866" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15861" CreationDate="2016-11-17T13:49:23.050" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you are playing online you should already have an online rating which should be enough to track your progress.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as I can see, the website you list tries to give an estimate based on how well you solve tactics puzzles. Tactics is important, but not all to estimate playing strength.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At least at some level other aspects like openings or strategy/developing long time plans will become relevant and it is difficult to assess these in a test.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also note that ratings (e.g online and FIDE  Elo) are not comparable as they always depend on the player pool. If you only want to track progress it is fine if you stick with one rating system. I don't see much need for another test.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2016-11-17T13:49:23.050" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15867" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15860" CreationDate="2016-11-17T14:36:06.437" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;does it mean that Be3 is the best 6th move in the Najdorf for white&#xA;  and does it mean that normal play with 6... e5 is very dangerous for&#xA;  black?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;No&quot; is the answer to the first question and &quot;Not really but in any case, as hoacin points out, there are plenty of reasonable alternatives for black&quot; is the answer to the second question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Look, whether it is true or not, the vast numbers of cynical ordinary club players like me strongly suspect that every time a game like this was played it was preceded by the players meeting in the bar the night before and agreeing a draw and then picking their favourite &quot;forced draw&quot; variation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When challenged the players will come out with standard BS along the lines of &quot;Well, I spent hours preparing the X variation [say first 5 moves above] because I know my opponent plays that line a lot. All my preparation was based around move 6 and I expected he would play move y [obviously a different choice from the drawing variation] and when he didn't I had to fall back on the repetition line&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is complete hogwash. Everybody knows it. But if both players have decided, for perfectly good reasons [tournament situation, tired after previous long hard game, minor illness - cold, stomach bug, etc., opponent is a close relative] that a draw is what they want then there isn't much anybody can do about.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2016-11-17T14:36:06.437" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15868" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-11-17T14:45:36.053" Score="2" ViewCount="290" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am interested in Blender 3D models for chess pieces that can be used in a 3D printer.&lt;br /&gt;I am aware of Blender 3D models for &quot;normal&quot; chess pieces that are available under an open licence, i.e. &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.blender-models.com/model-downloads/objects/id/chessboard/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this chessboard&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.blender-models.com/model-downloads/objects/id/chess/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;these pieces (just the pieces?)&lt;/a&gt; in the Blender 3D Model Repository (available under a Creative Commons licence). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I have an additional requirement: I would like 3D models of chess pieces and a chess board that can be used by &lt;strong&gt;blind players&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;For the &lt;strong&gt;pieces&lt;/strong&gt;, this means that each piece has a little pin at the bottom that fits into a hole in the squares (so the pieces don't get knocked over when you check where they are). In addition, the pieces need something to distinguish white from black (e.g. an extra pin at the top of the black pieces.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;For the &lt;strong&gt;board&lt;/strong&gt;, this means that each square has a little hole where the pins on the fit in, and the black squares are raised compared to the white squares.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can see some examples on &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesshouse.com/chess_for_blind_or_visually_impaired_s/475.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;ChessHouse.com&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.maxiaids.com/large-table-top-chess-set-for-the-blind-or-those-with-low-vision&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;MaxiAids.com&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there any Blender models for this? Especially under a Creative Commons licence? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10867" LastEditorDisplayName="user4378" LastEditDate="2016-11-17T21:57:55.343" LastActivityDate="2016-11-18T07:29:53.140" Title="Blender 3D models for chess pieces and board for blind players (open licence)?" Tags="&lt;chess-set&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15869" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15861" CreationDate="2016-11-17T14:55:52.180" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Elometer is just a test.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A &lt;em&gt;true&lt;/em&gt; rating system score is only &lt;em&gt;relative&lt;/em&gt;, i.e. it means something only &lt;em&gt;among the members of a group&lt;/em&gt; (that should be big, but is &lt;em&gt;finite&lt;/em&gt;). After choosing &lt;strong&gt;Elo&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;ree&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;TrueSkill&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;Glicko&lt;/strong&gt; - here's a &lt;a href=&quot;https://rankade.com/ree#ranking-system-comparison&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;comparison&lt;/a&gt; - or what you like better, it makes no sense at all to compare your score  within a group with your or someone else's scores in other groups, or do some other &lt;em&gt;abstraction&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can go on playing online and check your Elo variations, or record a subset of matches in another rating system (as aforementioned Glicko, &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TrueSkill&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;TrueSkill&lt;/a&gt; or &lt;a href=&quot;https://rankade.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;rankade&lt;/a&gt;, our free-to-use rating system), or in case use them for your club, or friends, and track your score vs matches or time. These are good ways to measure your progress.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7575" LastEditorUserId="7575" LastEditDate="2017-07-29T07:03:46.837" LastActivityDate="2017-07-29T07:03:46.837" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15870" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15863" CreationDate="2016-11-17T17:28:18.450" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would recommend against focusing on depth and instead focus on breadth.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are &quot;famous&quot; openings that people memorize, and there's some value in it.  However, you also have to understand all of the points of departure that arise from it.  What happens if your opponent ignores your move, and does their own thing.  If you truly understand the opening, then that isn't an issue.  However, if you merely memorized the opening, you may not know what to do when your opponent doesn't play ball.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A perfect example from my past is the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scandinavian_Defense&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Scandinavian Defense&lt;/a&gt;, 1. e4 d5.  This is typically followed by 2. exd5 Qxd5.  Then there's a merry chase as black tries to leverage the power of having such a massive piece as the queen out in the open, but still having to pay attention to the development of other pieces.  Meanwhile, white can develop while attacking the queen.  It's a beautiful opening, and I really enjoyed playing it.  However, one time I had an opponent who simply didn't go after my queen.  He calmly just went about his business.  I soon realized that I'd learned how to follow the &quot;main lines&quot; of this opening so deeply that I had never learned how to actually leverage that queen out in the open if my opponent lets me use it.  I fell behind on development, and ended up losing.  Later analysis with my chess coach showed me that I actually had the advantage when my opponent deviated from the normal lines, but I simply had not prepared myself to leverage the situation when he departed from the main line.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also consider what your goals are for chess.  If your goal is to win a bunch of games at the beginner level, massive memorization of how to beat someone in the opening has value.  If you want to learn the game, however, you may need to take a more subtle nuanced approach.  You may want to just &lt;em&gt;try things&lt;/em&gt; in the opening, just to see what happens.  Eventually you will find that these &quot;openings&quot; are indeed best practices, but by exploring on your own you will learn &lt;em&gt;why&lt;/em&gt; they are best practices.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6885" LastActivityDate="2016-11-17T17:28:18.450" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15871" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15883" CreationDate="2016-11-17T19:09:44.417" Score="0" ViewCount="1191" Body="&lt;p&gt;Using ChessBase 13, I saved a bunch of games in PGN format. Is there a simple way to suppress the comments of all annotated games? I would like to avoid doing it one by one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11749" LastActivityDate="2016-11-19T15:31:40.210" Title="Delete annotations in pgn games" Tags="&lt;pgn&gt;&lt;chessbase&gt;&lt;annotation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15872" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15826" CreationDate="2016-11-17T20:09:46.370" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;My tip would be to study the games of the best specialists of the Najdorf, notably Bobby Fischer and Garry Kasparov in old times, or Maxime Vachier-Lagrave today. You will improve fast your effectiveness with the Sicilian.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chesscollection?cid=1004144&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;ChessGames.com&lt;/a&gt; offers a collection of classical Najdorf games. But I will go for the best: Garry Kasparov on &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uii0wOYbYRU&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;How to play the Najdorf&lt;/a&gt;. Brilliant!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11749" LastActivityDate="2016-11-17T20:09:46.370" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15873" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15868" CreationDate="2016-11-17T22:10:14.613" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't know much about 3d printing, but you could design your own.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Windows has a program called 3D Builder with a built in chess set that you modify, as well as a 4x4 game board that can be modified and built up. 3D Builder is free on the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/store/p/3d-builder/9wzdncrfj3t6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;app store&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/6XjFh.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/6XjFh.png&quot; alt=&quot;Pieces&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/kBUOx.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/kBUOx.png&quot; alt=&quot;Board&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you get stuck, I suggest visiting &lt;a href=&quot;https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/&quot;&gt;3D Printing.SE&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T13:00:58.483" LastActivityDate="2016-11-18T07:29:53.140" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15874" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15871" CreationDate="2016-11-17T23:25:12.070" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Goto &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.cs.kent.ac.uk/people/staff/djb/pgn-extract/help.html#suppress&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.cs.kent.ac.uk/people/staff/djb/pgn-extract/help.html#suppress&lt;/a&gt; and look for Suppress annotations in the output.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/GpaTe.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/GpaTe.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2016-11-17T23:25:12.070" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15875" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15879" CreationDate="2016-11-18T05:54:35.707" Score="5" ViewCount="1143" Body="&lt;p&gt;In an event I played in this past weekend, I was surprised when (playing Black) I encountered:  1. e4 e5  2. c3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd never seen this opening before - later web searching told me that it is the Lopez Opening a/k/a MacLeod Attack (ECO code C20, which seems to cover several miscellaneous double king pawn openings).  When I saw White's second move, I couldn't imagine what the purpose of it was, and was worried that I was missing some sort of obvious trap.  But I didn't see one.  The only thing I could think at the time was that my opponent was trying to get me &quot;out of book&quot;, but at my level that's sort of pointless - I don't have much of a book to begin with...  So I just fell back to general opening principles and played 2. ... Nf6.  My opponent's continuation was the (possibly even more dubious) 3. d3.  This all led to a fairly easy game for me, that I won in less than 20 moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thinking about it afterwards, the most confusing thing was that this was played by a player with about 4 years of tournament experience rated about 150 points higher than me.  So this wasn't someone who's just learning the game.  So I'm just mystified as to why someone would play this opening.  I tried to do some research to see if there are any lines that are good for White, but found that MCO and FCO don't even cover this opening.  The opening explorer on 365Chess (which I admittedly don't know how big its database is, or where it gets its games) seems to indicate that the best continuations for Black are 2. ... Nf6 or 2. ... d5, with around a 75% winning percentage, or 2. ... Nc6, with more than an 80% winning percentage (but with a much smaller sample size than the other two).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there any reasonably rational plans for White with this opening that I haven't been able to find, other than just playing it for the &quot;surprise factor&quot;?  Am I missing something obvious here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7147" LastEditorUserId="7147" LastEditDate="2016-11-18T09:02:45.597" LastActivityDate="2016-11-18T09:33:34.013" Title="Are there any lines in the Lopez Opening / MacLeod Attack that are actually good for White?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;1.e4&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15876" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15859" CreationDate="2016-11-18T06:45:07.503" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Do you have a smartphone or tablet? The Chessok (formerly Convekta) people have ported a number of their training programs to Android (and I'm guessing iOS), and they are much cheaper than the PC versions ($8 vs $15-20). Search for chess king in one of the app stores. This includes things like CT-ART, Elementary Chess Tactics I &amp;amp; II, Chess Tactics for Beginners, and others. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A quick search on Google found this as well:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://tacticstime.com/tactics-time-download-page/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://tacticstime.com/tactics-time-download-page/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4324" LastActivityDate="2016-11-18T06:45:07.503" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15877" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14958" CreationDate="2016-11-18T06:52:21.740" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Scid vs PC has the ability to annotate games:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://scidvspc.sourceforge.net/doc/Analysis.htm#Annotating&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://scidvspc.sourceforge.net/doc/Analysis.htm#Annotating&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4324" LastActivityDate="2016-11-18T06:52:21.740" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15878" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15875" CreationDate="2016-11-18T08:46:04.290" Score="4" Body="&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;c3 is probably not a good move as it blocks the square c3 for the white knight. Black can take advantage of this fact with either:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;2....d5, when after 3. exd5 Qxd5, the black queen is difficult to attack &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;2.....Nf6, when white is forced to defend the e4 pawn passively with 3. d3/Qc2 or similar or go for sharp play with 3. d4 (likely sacrificing a pawn doing so)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why did he play this? Ask him! One reason I could think of is that some beginners might automatically play 2....Nc6 as they are used to the Italian/Spanish game. In that case 2...Nc6 3. d4 going for a strong pawn center, could be a point, though it is not the end of the world for black either.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2016-11-18T08:46:04.290" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15879" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15875" CreationDate="2016-11-18T09:22:55.227" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The reason to play 1.e4 e5 2.c3 is probably to go for a slow manoeuvring/strategic game without much theory. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After the natural 2...d5, white can go for 3.d3 and in case of 3... dxe4 4.dxe4 Qxd1 5.Kxd1. This transposes into a familiar position with one tempo up and reversed colors compared with 1.e4 d6 2.d4 d5 3.dxe5 dxe5 4.Qxd8 Kxd8.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that in the line 1.e4 e5 2.c3 d5 3.d3 dxe4 4.dxe4 Qxd1 5.Kxd1 the move c3 is useful because it gives the King the square c2 to hide and a good control on d4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11749" LastEditorUserId="11749" LastEditDate="2016-11-18T09:33:34.013" LastActivityDate="2016-11-18T09:33:34.013" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15880" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14958" CreationDate="2016-11-18T18:02:36.480" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www-lucaschess.rhcloud.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;LucasChess&lt;/a&gt; Has a great anlysis interface and is also open source&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11763" LastActivityDate="2016-11-18T18:02:36.480" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15881" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15882" CreationDate="2016-11-18T18:51:16.077" Score="0" ViewCount="4071" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have a chess.com 3-days-per-move rating of ~1400 and recently I played someone offline with a national ELO rating of ~1530 which was a surprisingly equal game (even according to the computer) until I eventually got a slightly worse position, blundered and subsequently resigned. I assume my national ELO rating (although I don't have one) would be between 1400 and 1500.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I found this website &lt;a href=&quot;http://elometer.net&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://elometer.net&lt;/a&gt;, claiming to approximate your ELO strength (ostensibly with a 95% confidence interval of 250 points) by asking you which move you would play in 76 different positions (including, but certainly not limited to, tactical puzzles), and took the test.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately for the authors of the test their estimation was about 500 (?!) points too high: I was estimated having a playing strength of ~1950 ELO with the &quot;95% confidence interval&quot; of [1829, 2079].&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, I remember taking this test one or two years ago, getting an estimation which was lower. IIRC (&lt;em&gt;big&lt;/em&gt; if), the estimation then was around 1700. This correlates with my chess.com rating, which has improved by about 200 points since then.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The test appears to have some serious theoretical foundation and was made by people associated with a university in a major city in Germany, so I assume the people who made this are quite knowledgeable in their fields and knew what they were doing. Yet the test is quite inaccurate. Why did the authors publish this test? Do they actually believe the test is accurate? Why is it off by so much?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="674" LastActivityDate="2016-11-18T21:20:11.763" Title="Huge difference between elometer.net approximation and other rating" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;elo&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2016-11-19T17:01:30.637" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15882" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15881" CreationDate="2016-11-18T21:20:11.763" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recently took the test and the result was reasonable (around 2100), so it is not complete bogus.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However I am rather skeptical about such tests, since I believe that playing strength/Elo rating depends on more factors than finding the best move in a certain position; such as the following which are not really tested at elometer as far as I can see: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Can you concentrate for 4-6 hours that a game can last?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Do you blunder often?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Can you come up with good long time plans in the middlegame?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;How good is your opening knowledge?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Can you spot the point in a game where you need to find a good/special move, i.e. the point where you have to invest some time thinking vs following a certain plan more or less automatically?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Regarding your comparison of online rating (1400), expected Elo of 1400-1500 and the elometer estimate of 1950, a few thoughts:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Any rating system is only relative to the pool of people playing. You cannot compare online ratings from one website with online ratings from another website or with the FIDE Elo.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You say your online rating is from 3 days/move game, which is a big difference to the Elo which is from normal games with hour long time scale.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In my experience players of your strength, particularly if they are beginning with chess, are not very stable in their playing strength. One game they might play like a grandmaster ;-) and in the next game, well...&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;There is a small (but finite) probability for you to score any Elo rating in the elometer test, so having just one outlier like yours does not mean that the test is bad.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2016-11-18T21:20:11.763" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15883" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15871" CreationDate="2016-11-19T02:16:58.823" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Chessbase, copy the games to a temp database, right click the file, go to tools and select Unannotate db, then copy to the games to a pgn file.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edited to note Unannotate doesn't work on pgn files directly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4324" LastEditorUserId="4324" LastEditDate="2016-11-19T15:31:40.210" LastActivityDate="2016-11-19T15:31:40.210" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15884" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15826" CreationDate="2016-11-19T09:04:00.673" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;With the Najdorf, there are A LOT of ideas available to both players. Just after &lt;code&gt;5.. a6&lt;/code&gt;, White has a number of main lines: &lt;code&gt;6. Be2, Bc4, Be3, Bg5, f4, g3, Rg1&lt;/code&gt;, just to name a few.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The important thing to learn is the themes within the opening itself. What is Black trying to achieve, and what is White trying to achieve? Black aims for a Queenside advance of his &lt;code&gt;a&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;b&lt;/code&gt; pawns (called a Minority attack). A common weakness for White is the c-file, so aiming to place a Rook on &lt;code&gt;c8&lt;/code&gt; is very nice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, it is important to understand the weaknesses in your own setup. Your &lt;code&gt;d&lt;/code&gt;-pawn will be very weak, and you will be aiming to create a breakthrough with &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt; as soon as possible in order to trade it. Common ways you can support this advance include &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;Bb7&lt;/code&gt; (after playing &lt;code&gt;b5&lt;/code&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;Nbd7-b6&lt;/code&gt; (not always. You might want &lt;code&gt;Nc5&lt;/code&gt; for your Minority attack.),&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;Nf6&lt;/code&gt; (if it is never booted from this square).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;Qd8&lt;/code&gt; (on it's home square)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Remember, in the Najdorf it is Black who has the solid centre with the 2 centre pawns, but you need to flank around the Queenside in order to prove this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, the best way to practice this is by playing different lines each game! I've never been a fan of memorising opening theory because it makes the game less fun. Many of the ideas are still shared in each setup, but the exact circumstances change. Most of the time, you will still be aiming for a Minority attack, a semi-open &lt;code&gt;c&lt;/code&gt;-file, &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt;-pawn break against the &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt;-pawn and trying to prove your strong centre makes up for your slower development.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Best of luck :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7966" LastActivityDate="2016-11-19T09:04:00.673" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15885" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15894" CreationDate="2016-11-20T05:17:04.117" Score="4" ViewCount="268" Body="&lt;p&gt;So, I was a very good player 4 years ago and then due to academic commitments I had to discontinue playing chess. Now, I want to start again but I seem to have lost the old skills and it seems that the quality of my game has dropped very much. I want to again start playing but I don't know where to start from? Is it advisable to start again from scratch as that will take a lot of time? Should I just focus on playing more games? Any pointers or suggestions please?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11676" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2016-11-20T17:15:40.483" LastActivityDate="2016-11-23T08:13:44.393" Title="How should I prevent the quality of my game from declining?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15886" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-11-20T06:28:06.023" Score="4" ViewCount="289" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to understand general principles and common themes on how to play against a bad bishop outside of the pawn chain. In particular, I'm talking about the less sharp variations of the london system, slav, and caro kann(although I don't play the caro kann with either side). Think typical london system or 4. e3 slav where black plays Bf5 or Bg4. &#xA;Are there any enlightening games or common ideas?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4260" LastActivityDate="2016-11-22T18:41:36.663" Title="How to play against bad bishop outside pawn chain" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;slav-defense&gt;&lt;london-system&gt;&lt;bad-bishop&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15887" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15886" CreationDate="2016-11-20T10:12:29.790" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Two ideas that spring to my mind:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Harass the bishop, and threaten to trap it / exchange it for a knight, with moves like h3, g4 and Nh4.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Attack the squares/pawns the bishop has left behind, with moves like Qb3 targeting the b7 pawn, or Qa4 / Bb5 / Ne5 targeting the a4-e8 diagonal.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2016-11-20T10:12:29.790" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15888" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15885" CreationDate="2016-11-20T17:14:15.497" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Should I just focus on playing more games?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Absolutely!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The single most effective way to improve, regardless of your situation, is to play lots of serious games at standard time rates (so not blitz and rapid). You have been good before. You will be good again, probably even better, if you just start playing serious games (league and congress) more often. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Playing serious games means that the rules oblige you to write the moves down. A day or two after each game try and make a point of setting up the pieces on a board and going through the game. If you have the time an old tip from the Soviet school of chess is to write annotations for each of your games. This will help you think about where you went wrong and where your opponent went wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2016-11-20T17:14:15.497" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15889" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-11-21T05:39:45.650" Score="3" ViewCount="364" Body="&lt;p&gt;USCF is the chess federation for all of the United States. My question is if there is difference in a rating given in one state and another. For example, is a 1900 rated player in California on average better or worse than a 1900 in Indiana? I'd be interested in people's insights and/or data which draws you to your conclusion. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3872" LastActivityDate="2020-01-09T19:17:21.140" Title="Difficulty of attaining USCF rating in different states." Tags="&lt;rating&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15890" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15889" CreationDate="2016-11-21T07:50:04.417" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Ratings are not exactly &quot;given&quot;, but determined from the outcome of games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If 1) there is enough mixing (players from Indiana play against those from California, etc) and 2) if many games are played, the ratings should be comparable between states.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Conversely if a group of players is separated because they only play among themselves, this can lead to distortion of their ratings compared to players outside their group.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2016-11-21T07:50:04.417" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15891" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15856" CreationDate="2016-11-21T09:58:53.833" Score="3" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;LMR is a general technique and there is no rule on the best implementation. That is why chess programming is hard, because you are expected to come up with your own interpretation and implementation.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;LMR works like this:&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;if (this is a late move)&#xA;{&#xA;    if (this late move satisfies certain conditions)&#xA;    {&#xA;        Find a reduced depth to search&#xA;        Search alpha-beta with the reduced depth&#xA;        Do a full-search if the result is greater than alpha&#xA;    }&#xA;}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;LMR is easy to understand but hard to master. Let's go through one by one. We will use Stockfish for our example. The code is &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/blob/master/src/search.cpp&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/blob/master/src/search.cpp&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;If this is a late move&lt;/strong&gt;. What is a late move? We know the first move in iterative deepening is definitely not a late move, because we assume the first move is most likely the best move. Stockfish defines a late move like this:&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;if (... moveCount &amp;gt; 1 ...)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stockfish starts LMR search if there's enough  depth to reduce and the move is not the first move in iterative deepening (&lt;code&gt;moveCount &amp;gt; 1&lt;/code&gt;). There is no right or wrong answer here, in my engine I refused to reduce for the first two moves and I like my idea. Your implementation might be different, but you should always find a move that you think most likely to &lt;strong&gt;fail-low&lt;/strong&gt;. The CPW wiki suggests:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Typically, most schemes search the first few moves (say 3-4) at full&#xA;  depth, then if no move fails high, many of the remaining moves are&#xA;  reduced in search depth.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is just a recommendation, as Stockfish has implemented more aggressive reduction. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;4&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;This late move satisfies certain conditions&lt;/strong&gt;. Generally, you don't reduce if:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Tactical sequences&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Checks&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;During reduced search&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;PV node&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should consider to minmise reduction for PV nodes. The PV nodes form the most likely sequence of moves your engine reports, thus it's important to be as precise as possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should also be careful if the move is a capture, because it's easier to make a search horizon mistake if you reduce the move too much.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is Stockfish's implementation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;if (    depth &amp;gt;= 3 * ONE_PLY &amp;amp;&amp;amp;  moveCount &amp;gt; 1&#xA;  &amp;amp;&amp;amp; (!captureOrPromotion || moveCountPruning))&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;5&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Find a reduced depth to search&lt;/strong&gt;. This is hard because nobody knows how much to reduce. You'll need to play hundreds and hundreds of games to tune your parameter. Generally, you reduce more if:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Cut node&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Poor SEE&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Quiet move&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Again, there's no right or wrong here. Stockfish has the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; // Decrease/increase reduction for moves with a good/bad history&#xA; r = std::max(DEPTH_ZERO, (r / ONE_PLY - ss-&amp;gt;history / 20000) * ONE_PLY);&#xA;&#xA; if (cutNode)&#xA;     r += 2 * ONE_PLY;&#xA;&#xA; // Decrease reduction for moves that escape a capture. Filter out&#xA; // castling moves, because they are coded as &quot;king captures rook&quot; and&#xA; // hence break make_move().&#xA; else if (   type_of(move) == NORMAL&#xA;             &amp;amp;&amp;amp; type_of(pos.piece_on(to_sq(move))) != PAWN&#xA;             &amp;amp;&amp;amp; !pos.see_ge(make_move(to_sq(move), from_sq(move)),  VALUE_ZERO))&#xA;      r -= 2 * ONE_PLY;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stockfish considers the history, node type and move type.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;6&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Search alpha-beta with the reduced depth&lt;/strong&gt;. This is standard. You will need to recursively search for the reduced depth you calculate. Stockfish has this:&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;value = -search(pos, ss+1, -(alpha+1), -alpha, d, true);&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that the reduced depth is passed to the search function.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;7&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Do a full-search&lt;/strong&gt;. This is also standard. If your alpha-beta returns something greater than your lower bound (alpha), you have no choice but to do a full-search. If your LMR implementation is correct, the benefit you gain by reducing should outweight the cost of doing a full-search. Otherwise, LMR is a liability. Stockfish has this:&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;// For PV nodes only, do a full PV search on the first move or after a fail&#xA;// high (in the latter case search only if value &amp;lt; beta), otherwise let the&#xA;// parent node fail low with value &amp;lt;= alpha and try another move.&#xA;if (PvNode &amp;amp;&amp;amp; (moveCount == 1 || (value &amp;gt; alpha &amp;amp;&amp;amp; (rootNode || value &amp;lt; beta))))&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You don't have to add a check to PV node if you don't want to. But in chess programming, there are lots of things you should and should not be done in PV nodes. For example, we typically don't reduce for PV nodes. Your engine might lose rating if you don't check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2016-11-23T01:14:35.910" LastActivityDate="2016-11-23T01:14:35.910" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15892" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15893" CreationDate="2016-11-21T11:13:29.960" Score="0" ViewCount="203" Body="&lt;p&gt;Does Black's pinned knight on &lt;code&gt;g4&lt;/code&gt; protect the bishop on &lt;code&gt;f2&lt;/code&gt; from the white king?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;B2N4/8/3p2p1/Q2P4/4R1nk/7b/PPP2bpP/1R4K1 w - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10887" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2016-11-21T12:26:28.557" LastActivityDate="2016-11-21T12:26:28.557" Title="Is White checkmated?" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2016-11-30T10:36:00.487" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15893" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15892" CreationDate="2016-11-21T11:27:12.390" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is checkmate. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to the fide rules (bold by me):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.2&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The objective of each player is to place the opponent’s king ‘under attack’ in such a way that the opponent has no legal move. The player who achieves this goal is said to have ‘checkmated’ the opponent’s king and to have won the game. Leaving one’s own king under attack, exposing one’s own king to attack and also ’capturing’ the opponent’s king are not allowed. The opponent whose king has been checkmated has lost the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3.9&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The king is said to be 'in check' if it is attacked by one or more of the opponent's pieces, &lt;strong&gt;even if such pieces are constrained from moving to that square because they would then leave or place their own king in check&lt;/strong&gt;. No piece can be moved that will either expose the king of the same colour to check or leave that king in check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2016-11-21T11:27:12.390" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15894" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15885" CreationDate="2016-11-21T11:45:14.213" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have always found the fastest way to get rid of some rust to be tactics training. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would recommend two steps:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First you do a lot of relatively simple exercises, like &lt;a href=&quot;http://wtharvey.com/m8n2.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;game typical 'mate in two'&lt;/a&gt; (not chess problems, those can be quite difficult). This will remind your brain to automatically spot the easy stuff and reduce the probability of really bad blunders. You can go through the same positions several times.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then you do some hard problems with something like 15 minutes per problem, here every problem should be new to you, you should sit down with a clock and write down your solution. This should get you back into tournament shape. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my experience this works a lot better than playing blitz online. Playing long games seriously should have a similar effect, but I usually want to get back into shape &lt;em&gt;before&lt;/em&gt; I play a really serious game. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2016-11-21T11:45:14.213" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15895" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2016-11-21T18:54:47.120" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2016-11-21T18:54:47.120" LastActivityDate="2016-11-21T18:54:47.120" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15896" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2016-11-21T18:54:47.120" Score="0" Body="This tag refers to chess games played by computers. If you want to ask a question about those games, use this tag. Otherwise, use the tag [engines]." OwnerUserId="10905" LastEditorUserId="10905" LastEditDate="2016-11-21T20:09:53.683" LastActivityDate="2016-11-21T20:09:53.683" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15897" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15889" CreationDate="2016-11-21T19:16:36.480" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can't speculate on whether ratings are worth more in one US state than another but I can outline the mechanism which could explain that phenomenon if observed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When two players play a graded game (in an ELO type rating system) then the rating exchange is zero sum. That is, one player's rating loss is the other player's rating game. If one player's rating keeps on rising (perhaps because he is young and improving rapidly) then on average his opponents' ratings are declining even if their playing strength remains the same. Similarly if a highly rated player's rating keeps on declining (perhaps because of increasing age and declining health) then on average his opponents' rating are rising even if their playing strength remains the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In a state (or any particular area if you want to apply the analysis to other countries) rating points are &quot;created&quot; when either a new player starts playing rated games or when a rated player moves to the state / area. In ELO style rating systems when a new player receives a rating for the first time it does not involve removing rating points from his previous opponents. They are created out of thin air.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similarly rating points are &quot;destroyed&quot; when either a rated player moves from the state / area or a rated player permanently gives up playing rated games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This suggests several scenarios in which relative rating inflation / deflation could occur.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An economically poor area is likely to have new players come through the system as juniors, improve, reach say 2200 - 2400, finish school or university and then go off to the big city to earn serious bucks. Players in this area are likely to be underrated. Conversely the big city players are likely to be overrated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A vibrant chess area which has lots of new players learning the game and joining / boosting the rating pool is likely to have rating inflation. Conversely an area where players are aging and stopping playing through poor health, family or work pressures and which has few new players learning to play or moving to the area is likely to have rating deflation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2016-11-21T19:16:36.480" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15898" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13627" CreationDate="2016-11-21T20:30:02.893" Score="-5" Body="&lt;p&gt;In standard chess, you can illegally can check a king 8 times at once. Consider 8 knights a that are leap away from the enemy king. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;4k3/8/3n1n2/2n3n1/4K3/2n3n1/3n1n2/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The king still has his orthogonal moves left, and is now 1 move away from attacking 2 of the knights. Since both of them are unprotected, one of the 8 knights may move to where the king was, to protect all 7 other knights. The King is not necessarily trapped, but certainly not free.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11438" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-08-03T19:55:01.353" LastActivityDate="2019-08-03T19:55:01.353" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="15899" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15900" CreationDate="2016-11-22T12:58:42.150" Score="5" ViewCount="2267" Body="&lt;p&gt;Assuming that both players do the best move, I want to know the minimum number of moves needed in the worst case scenario when checkmating a lone king using king and rook.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit&lt;/strong&gt;: The worst case does not include &quot;stalemate&quot; or &quot;king able to capture rook&quot; positions, as it will be clearly draw in that cases.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11745" LastEditorUserId="11745" LastEditDate="2016-11-23T05:33:39.667" LastActivityDate="2016-11-23T09:59:27.363" Title="What are minimum number of moves needed to checkmate a king using king and rook?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;checkmate&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15900" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15899" CreationDate="2016-11-22T13:23:06.050" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;http://kirill-kryukov.com/chess/longest-checkmates/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this site&lt;/a&gt;, the worst case for King + Rook vs. King is the following position, requiring 16 moves to mate (White to move):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/8/8/8/8/2k5/1R6/K7 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are other positions which require 16 moves, e.g. with the White King on a1, Rook on e2, and the Black King on d3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can play these endgames with an online database viewer, e.g. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.shredderchess.com/online-chess/online-databases/endgame-database.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Shredder&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The worst case scenario (for White) with Black to move is when Black is stalemated or can capture the rook, when it is a draw. With White to move, all positions are won.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-11-23T09:59:27.363" LastActivityDate="2016-11-23T09:59:27.363" CommentCount="13" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15901" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2016-11-22T13:38:20.827" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2016-11-22T13:38:20.827" LastActivityDate="2016-11-22T13:38:20.827" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15902" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2016-11-22T13:38:20.827" Score="0" Body="Questions concerning the play performance, both of humans and chess engines." OwnerUserId="10905" LastEditorUserId="10905" LastEditDate="2016-11-22T15:48:07.490" LastActivityDate="2016-11-22T15:48:07.490" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15903" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2016-11-22T13:38:54.537" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2016-11-22T13:38:54.537" LastActivityDate="2016-11-22T13:38:54.537" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15904" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2016-11-22T13:38:54.537" Score="0" Body="Questions about playing chess as a team." OwnerUserId="10905" LastEditorUserId="10905" LastEditDate="2016-11-22T15:50:05.737" LastActivityDate="2016-11-22T15:50:05.737" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15905" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9772" CreationDate="2016-11-22T17:17:58.653" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've some experience with CUDA and chess programming (not engine programming). This question also came to my mind many times. Here is my opinion, I never studied this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well, first, it is virtually certain that with current design of chess engines it's impossible. Otherwise someone would simply do it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Whether you could use it in completely new design, that's a bigger question. There's no problem with integer operations, but clearly there is huge thing that you must run primitive code with no serious branching on many of entities.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my opinion all the tree calculations should run on CPU.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I can imagine (I don't say it's possible) some partial evaluation function(s) that just make as much evaluations on positions as possible, to give CPU more time, to help him build the tree in a better way, lets say one such function could calculate how serious calculation should be made on each position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can calculate number of squares attacked, pieces attacked, firepower around kings and in some subregions on board, pawn structure related things, you could probably make GPU optimised code for these. You can probably get a lot of useful informations for free (no CPU time, no CPU waiting), but you would have to be real genius to use full horsepower of modern GPUs for such small things.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is probably not very interesting thing to do to create completely new design of engines to get let's say 30% extra speed. And to get let's say 20x speedup on state of the art GPUs, you would have to make evaluation functions really alien.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And last thing on this what I see to be a problem. You can run one code on CPU with not many thinking, but in CPU+GPU scenario you would have to deal with really different ratios of CPU and GPU. speeds and core counts. You would need different code for 16 cores cluster with weak GPU than on slow CPU with super fast GPU to use full capabilities of hardware. Benchmarking CPU vs. GPU and then running more code on the faster machine would be desirable. But still, I think you will get nowhere close to feeding 3000 cores beast just with evaluation function(s).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: Just to make things clear, CPU would regularly send GPU arrays of positions to make partial evaluations. Maybe that wasn't clear from what I wrote.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many problems to make this work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11609" LastEditorUserId="11609" LastEditDate="2016-11-22T17:24:43.703" LastActivityDate="2016-11-22T17:24:43.703" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15906" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15861" CreationDate="2016-11-22T18:00:22.723" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;answer: No cons. More info can only be better, but it is just a number to measure an abstract skill. The key is to not read into it anything other than that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As mentioned already, you should be playing online as much as you can (G15 at least, blitz less, bullet never), and that will give you a good approximation of your rating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But it is just a number, something you should not be married to.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10233" LastActivityDate="2016-11-22T18:00:22.723" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15907" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15886" CreationDate="2016-11-22T18:41:36.663" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;More to the point would be why do you think a bishop is &quot;bad&quot; if it is outside the pawn chain? The bishop on f5/g6 for black is a fine piece in the Caro Kann. It serves several functions, offensively and defensively.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That is simplistic and novice thinking. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More to the point is it can be considered &quot;bad&quot; if it cannot attack opposing pawns and only its own pawns, and if it serves no useful purpose.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10233" LastActivityDate="2016-11-22T18:41:36.663" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15908" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15885" CreationDate="2016-11-22T18:45:50.203" Score="1" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Play&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Tactics&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Play out Difficult Positions multiple times from both sides against a decent computer program or a friend with a comparable or higher rating.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You want to simulate and stimulate game play with #3. It is a great training tool to use and is underutilized by just about everyone. Why do you think masters know plans so well in a wide variety of positions? &amp;lt;== SECRET&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You play the position multiple times from both sides to investigate different offensive and defensive ideas. &amp;lt;== SECRET&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10233" LastActivityDate="2016-11-22T18:45:50.203" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15909" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-11-22T20:46:41.373" Score="4" ViewCount="665" Body="&lt;p&gt;One of the &lt;a href=&quot;https://zuttobenkyou.wordpress.com/2012/01/27/problems-with-the-portable-game-notation-pgn-standard/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;problems with PGN&lt;/a&gt; is that it requires ASCII, while names of players often contain non-ASCII characters. (And of course, many names are not written in the Latin alphabet ...) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The background to this question is the rendering of non-ASCII characters in Arena 3.5.1 (on Windows 7), as in the image below. The names for white and black are &lt;code&gt;Mittelsträß, Jürg&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;王, 玥&lt;/code&gt;, respectively. Arena reads the UTF-8-encoded file as if it were encoded as &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows-1252&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Windows Codepage 1252&lt;/a&gt;. Editors such as Notepad++, SublimeText and JEdit identify the file as UTF-8 (which is the default encoding of all my plain text files, anyway). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/oe6aX.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/oe6aX.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's an example PGN for testing:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;Office Armageddon&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Böblingen GER&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;??.??.??&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Mittelsträß, Jürg&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;王, 玥&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;*&quot;]&#xA;[SetUp &quot;1&quot;]&#xA;[Mode &quot;OTB&quot;]&#xA;[Termination &quot;unterminated&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d2-d4 d7-d5 2. e2-e3 c7-c5 3. Bf1-b5+ Bc8-d7 4. a2-a4 Ng8-f6 5. d4xc5 e7-e5 6. b2-b4 Nb8-c6 7. Ng1-f3 Qd8-c7 8. Nb1-c3 a7-a6 9.  * &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(&lt;a href=&quot;http://scidvspc.sourceforge.net/doc/Encoding.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;SCID&lt;/a&gt; assumes a system encoding if a PGN is encoded in UTF-8 without a byte order mark (BOM), but the BOM makes no difference in Areana 3.5.1.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I'd like to know if there is a &lt;strong&gt;Unicode-compatible alternative (ideally UTF-8)&lt;/strong&gt; that is supported by some chess programs. (If not, PGN needs an overhaul.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10867" LastEditorUserId="10867" LastEditDate="2017-07-27T10:23:18.250" LastActivityDate="2017-07-27T10:23:18.250" Title="Is there a Unicode-compatible alternative to PGN?" Tags="&lt;pgn&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15910" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15909" CreationDate="2016-11-22T22:09:17.250" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://sourceforge.net/p/pgn4web/wiki/PGN_Support/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://sourceforge.net/p/pgn4web/wiki/PGN_Support/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;if you read that, you will notice:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/MkmBd.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/MkmBd.png&quot; alt=&quot;Screenshot&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA; &lt;code&gt;in order for pgn4web to display those characters correctly, the PGN file should be saved in unicode UTF-8 format.&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;you &lt;em&gt;can&lt;/em&gt; save PGN as UTF-8... Just open &lt;code&gt;notepad &amp;gt; Save As... &amp;gt; Encoding&lt;/code&gt; and select &lt;code&gt;UTF-8&lt;/code&gt;. and you can then add the appropriate player names! I've tested this, and it works with Arena Chess and a few others...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this solves your problem. ~CSS&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11425" LastActivityDate="2016-11-22T22:09:17.250" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15911" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15885" CreationDate="2016-11-23T08:13:44.393" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I had more or less the same situation when university intervened. I have tried a couple of solutions, having returned after five years. I am (almost) back to my old strength now, barely missed an IM norm few months ago. Here is what I can say about the process:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Tactics first: Knowledge and patterns fade slower than your calculation so first things first. Find tactics from actual games which must &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; be trivial for you, nor too hard. Get out of your comfort zone and get the engine rolling.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Update your opening repertoire: Make it brief, stick with your old openings. I would suggest against starting to play new openings immediately. Find analyzed games (no engine, the more text the better) in your openings and guess the moves.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Play training games: Make sure to go over each and every game in detail afterwards. Postmortem is an invaluable tool. Tournaments is first, otherwise internet and rapid time controls (blitz only before the tournaments to get in shape)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Solve studies: This teaches you endgames and skill of calculation (elimination above all). I believe this helped me most.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Good luck!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1716" LastActivityDate="2016-11-23T08:13:44.393" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15912" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15909" CreationDate="2016-11-23T08:22:15.260" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;PGN databases created by ChessBase programs are encoded as UTF-8 by default, too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5756" LastActivityDate="2016-11-23T08:22:15.260" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15913" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="599" CreationDate="2016-11-23T14:00:25.407" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I find blitz harder to play otb than online but really the way one plays otb should be the same as how they would play online as it's the same game and the same person playing the game. The main differences I find are the 3d pieces and board/surroundings, which can be quite daunting especially if I don't get regular'ish' practice otb, and I also tend to hesitate a lot more than I do online. I believe the hesitation aspect comes from the heightened fear of losing otb as apposed to online due to the personalization factor (opponent and onlookers) and as a result I tend to take less risks nor trust my intuition and as a result play worse, spend too much time and calculate less. I think really it's more of a psychological issue rather than a visual one and requires more self belief and trust in ones intuitive skills. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11792" LastActivityDate="2016-11-23T14:00:25.407" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15914" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2016-11-23T15:08:54.193" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2016-11-23T15:08:54.193" LastActivityDate="2016-11-23T15:08:54.193" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15915" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2016-11-23T15:08:54.193" Score="0" Body="Unicode is a computing industry standard for the consistent encoding, representation, and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems. Developed in conjunction with the Universal Coded Character Set (UCS) standard and published as The Unicode Standard, the latest version of Unicode contains a repertoire of more than 128,000 characters covering 135 modern and historic scripts, as well as multiple symbol sets." OwnerUserId="11425" LastEditorUserId="11425" LastEditDate="2016-11-23T20:04:45.520" LastActivityDate="2016-11-23T20:04:45.520" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15916" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-11-23T18:42:50.270" Score="1" ViewCount="96" Body="&lt;p&gt;When entering names as search criteria, do wildcards exist, like + for one character and * for many? I have made many attempts without any success. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1855" LastEditorUserId="11060" LastEditDate="2016-11-24T01:42:53.130" LastActivityDate="2016-12-13T12:00:37.137" Title="Can wildcard characters be used in search in Chessbase for Android?" Tags="&lt;chessbase&gt;&lt;android&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15917" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15207" CreationDate="2016-11-24T00:33:21.243" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;RR&lt;/code&gt; = &lt;code&gt;Redaction Remark&lt;/code&gt;, meaning they consider recommended line to be better, or that the game/line they pointed out is relevant...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;{Credit to AlwaysLearningNewStuff's comment above}&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11425" LastActivityDate="2016-11-24T00:33:21.243" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15918" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-11-24T00:37:32.280" Score="5" ViewCount="3448" Body="&lt;p&gt;I keep losing at my chess club to the Bishop's Opening:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Bc4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have no idea what to play after that, any help?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11425" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2019-05-18T17:02:54.323" LastActivityDate="2019-05-18T17:02:54.323" Title="What to play as black after Bishop's Opening: 1. e4 e5; 2. Bc4" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;1.e4&gt;&lt;bishops-opening&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="15919" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2016-11-24T00:39:01.983" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2016-11-24T00:39:01.983" LastActivityDate="2016-11-24T00:39:01.983" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15920" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2016-11-24T00:39:01.983" Score="0" Body="The Bishop's Opening is a chess opening that begins with the moves:&#xD;&#xA;&#xD;&#xA;    1. e4 e5&#xD;&#xA;    2. Bc4 " OwnerUserId="11425" LastEditorUserId="11425" LastEditDate="2016-11-24T07:03:10.577" LastActivityDate="2016-11-24T07:03:10.577" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15921" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15918" CreationDate="2016-11-24T01:31:29.420" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have played this in the past, and always had trouble with the following line:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4  e5  &#xA;2. Bc4 Nf6  &#xA;3. d3  c6  &#xA;4. Nc3 d5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also play Bc5 on move 2, to prevent the Urusov Gambit, 3. d4, and likely transpose either into the Italian Game, or white may continue as above into a King's Gambit Declined setup.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9025" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2019-05-18T17:02:19.063" LastActivityDate="2019-05-18T17:02:19.063" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="15922" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15918" CreationDate="2016-11-24T10:46:36.787" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can go and convert it into a Giuoco Piano chess opening with the moves:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5&#xA;2. Bc4 Bc5&#xA;3. Nf3 Nc6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now you have transposed into a regular opening line and can carry forward from there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11757" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2019-05-18T17:02:29.650" LastActivityDate="2019-05-18T17:02:29.650" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="15923" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15918" CreationDate="2016-11-24T13:17:38.710" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Bishop's Opening often transposes to the Italian, so black's response depends on which line he wants to play after 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4: 3....Bc5 or 3....Nf6. The former allows the Evans Gambit (4.b4), while in case of the latter, black should be ready for 4.Ng5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to the &lt;a href=&quot;https://chesstempo.com/game-database.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;GameDatabase of ChessTempo&lt;/a&gt;, after 1.e4 e5 2.Bc4, the most popular responses are 2....Nf6, 2....Nc6 and 2....Bc5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The most popular and probably the most aggressive move is 2....Nf6. Now, white's main options are&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;3.d3. After 3....Nc6, the game will likely transpose to the Italian after 4.Nf3. Another idea is to try to grab the initiative with 3....c6 4.Nf3 d5.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;3.d4, the Urusov Gambit. After 3....exd4 4.Nf3 has several options, e.g. 4....Nxe4, 4....d5 and 4....Bb4+. Moreover, 4....Nc6 transposes to 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nf6 4.d4 exd4.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;3.Nc3. Now, black has two good options: 3....Nc6 or 3....Nxe4.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If black wants to play 3....Bc5 against the Italian, then 2....Bc5 against the Bishop's Opening is definitely an option. However, white has the option transpose to the King's Gambit with 3.f4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If black doesn't want to bother with all the possible transpositions, then he can consider 2....Nc6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;      [StartPly &quot;3&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;      [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;      1.e4 e5 2.Bc4 (2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 (3...Nf6 4.Ng5) 4.b4) Nf6 (2...Nc6) (2...Bc5 3.f4) 3.d3 (3.d4 exd4 4.Nf3 Nc6 (4...Nxe4)(4...d5)(4...Bb4+)) (3.Nc3 Nc6 (3...Nxe4)) Nc6 (3...c6 4.Nf3 d5) 4.Nf3&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4588" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2019-05-18T17:00:26.290" LastActivityDate="2019-05-18T17:00:26.290" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="15924" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15953" CreationDate="2016-11-24T13:35:42.063" Score="2" ViewCount="590" Body="&lt;p&gt;What are the best moves for white after the following moves&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Nc3 g6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One aggressive choice here is &lt;strong&gt;4. h4&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which can potentially damage the pawn structure or harass the bishop if he is deployed to g7. Is this a fairly good move? What are other alternatives in this position?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11641" LastEditorDisplayName="user1108" LastEditDate="2016-11-24T14:00:56.500" LastActivityDate="2016-11-27T23:51:17.607" Title="Attacking the accelerated dragon" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15925" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13643" CreationDate="2016-11-24T14:36:05.063" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I had also problems with finding good book about it. What is worth Chessbase has videos tutorial about it and I find it quite resourceful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.chessbase.com/post/robert-ris-fighting-the-ruy-lopez-exchange&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot; title=&quot;Fighting exchange variation&quot;&gt;https://en.chessbase.com/post/robert-ris-fighting-the-ruy-lopez-exchange&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://shop.chessbase.com/en/products/spanish_exchange_variation&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot; title=&quot;Full tutorial about this opening&quot;&gt;https://shop.chessbase.com/en/products/spanish_exchange_variation&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8637" LastActivityDate="2016-11-24T14:36:05.063" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15926" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15927" CreationDate="2016-11-24T14:37:44.240" Score="5" ViewCount="652" Body="&lt;p&gt;I understand that they are much &lt;em&gt;better&lt;/em&gt;, but are they good enough yet that they can always win (i.e. never draw) against a GM? If not, how far away might this situation be?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11799" LastActivityDate="2016-11-24T22:10:10.113" Title="Are the best engines good enough that they will always win against the best humans?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15927" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15926" CreationDate="2016-11-24T14:59:33.843" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;TL;DR - that ship has sailed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT - one user claims quite rightly that the ELOs between different populations should not be compared. And by different populations, he means FIDE ELO and whatever ELO the chess engine people are using. He is correct. Therefor, we cannot say that a 2800 ELO is the same as a 2800 other-ELO. But in the current case, we do have enough information to know that the other-ELO are in the ballpark. Giving the paucity of information available, what follows is my best guess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bear in mind that there have been few ratable games between humans and chess engines. Comparing ELOs is &lt;em&gt;fraught with peril&lt;/em&gt;. That being said...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The best engines on non-customized but stout hardware are rated well above Magnus. Stockfish and Komodo are estimated to play with the strength of a 3381 player. At his peak, Magnus Carlsen achieved a rating of 2882, the highest rating ever achieved by a human.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The way ELO works is that a 400 point ratings difference means the lower rated player has virtually no chance of winning the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The difference between the current Stockfish rating and peak-Magnus' rating is 499 points, well over the 400 point limit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When Kasparov lost a match to a computer (the first) he wasn't hailed as the Heroic Defender of the Realm. It hurt his reputation to a degree. Engines are far better now even on non-custom hardware. Professionals have little incentive to play them. And engines are no fun to play. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think it is fair to say that Magnus would have no chance of winning a tournament-type match against the best Stockfish or Komodo implementations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For this reason, while we can't know for sure, but the time has probably already arrived - only a fluke would save Magnus from losing every game.  And bear in mind, this is on commercial-commodity, not custom, hardware. (&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Blue_(chess_computer)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Deep Blue&lt;/a&gt;, the machine that beat Kasparov, was on corporate-sponsored custom hardware, as a comparison.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.computerchess.org.uk/ccrl/4040/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;enthusiasts have rated many engines&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Remember, these ratings should probably not be directly compared to FIDE ELO ratings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Fun fact! &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.chessbase.com/post/breakthrough-performance-by-pocket-fritz-4-in-buenos-aires&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;According to this page&lt;/a&gt;, in 2009, a &lt;strong&gt;cell phone&lt;/strong&gt; achieved a rating of 2898 (higher than Magnus' highest), against humans, at a FIDE category 6 tournament. Had it been human, it would have received a &quot;GM norm&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human%E2%80%93computer_chess_matches#Kramnik_.E2.80.93_Deep_Fritz_.282006.29&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;according to this page&lt;/a&gt;, in 2007 and 2008, there were a few human-engine matches, and Rybka gave odds (eg pawn-and-move) to the human. A 2700-ish player won these matches but it was not a slaughter. The player lost a normal (non-odds) match to Rybka. The best Rybka engine is currently rated as the &lt;em&gt;15th&lt;/em&gt; strongest engine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2016-11-24T22:10:10.113" LastActivityDate="2016-11-24T22:10:10.113" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15929" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15926" CreationDate="2016-11-24T20:34:39.403" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess engines increase in playing strength each year.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is partly due to the increase in processing power that enables calculations to be made to ever greater depths in a given time. In addition, programming techniques have improved, enabling the engines to be more selective in the lines that they analyze and to acquire a better positional understanding.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to one survey, the top engines have been increasing in strength by an average of 67 Elo per year since 1986.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Current Computer Engine ELO Ratings&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/5zJ20.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/5zJ20.png&quot; alt=&quot;Engine Rating List&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Highest Ratings Achieved by &lt;em&gt;Humans&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/T9EVS.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/T9EVS.png&quot; alt=&quot;Human Top 20&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you can see, there is a substantial difference in the top ratings of Man, and Machine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To answer your question:&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;&lt;em&gt;Are the best engines good enough that they will always win against the best humans?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most of the time, yes. Though sometimes they &lt;em&gt;will&lt;/em&gt; draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11425" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2016-11-24T21:48:16.397" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15930" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-11-24T21:58:08.747" Score="3" ViewCount="969" Body="&lt;p&gt;White players in search for the win are sometimes annoyed when people play the berlin defense against their ruy lopez. I notice that the italian game often reaches position very similar to the ruy lopez middle game. So my question is why grandmaster do not switch to the italian game as the new E4 main line?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3872" LastActivityDate="2016-11-26T21:37:32.187" Title="Why grandmasters play giuoco pianissimo less often than the ruy lopez?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15931" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15933" CreationDate="2016-11-25T03:49:06.113" Score="3" ViewCount="174" Body="&lt;p&gt;What does the FIDE do besides the organize the international tournament?  Or does the FIDE specialize in the tournament?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11804" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T16:58:58.983" Title="What does the FIDE do besides organize the international tournament?" Tags="&lt;fide&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15932" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15930" CreationDate="2016-11-25T07:37:12.797" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In italian game black put his bishop easily to c5 while not making too many concessions. In Ruy-Lopez prospects of that piece are usually worse. Berlin is not the main choice for black in the first place and it isn't horrible to play with white either. Many black players just stop thinking about Berlin the first time they see Re1 line. No fun at all. Endgame, while interesting, also not to everyone's taste. And white can settle for d3 systems. Black positions seem perfect by machine eyes, but still people prefer a6. The more people play a6, the less you worry about Berlin. And you can still make your opponent suffer in Berlin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11609" LastActivityDate="2016-11-25T07:37:12.797" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15933" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15931" CreationDate="2016-11-25T10:25:44.787" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;(I am not an expert so the following list will be incomplete.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;FIDE does:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;calculate Ratings&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;issue Titles (CM/WCM, FM/WFM, IM/WIM, GM/WGM)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;defines the chess rules&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;umbrella organization for national organizations&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;issue &quot;Medal of Merit Awardees&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;and overall try to promote-improve chess (like try to make chess part of the Olympic games)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11805" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T16:58:58.983" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T16:58:58.983" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="15934" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15417" CreationDate="2016-11-25T11:37:16.543" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Shogi also called &quot;Japanese Chess&quot; use the crazyhouse mechanics as well. They have one-colored  (flat) pieces that always face in one direction. If you capture a piece and bring it back into play you just let it face towards your opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11805" LastActivityDate="2016-11-25T11:37:16.543" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15935" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15930" CreationDate="2016-11-25T13:23:50.593" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Berlin defence only got popular after the world championship match in 2000. Various lines have been tried over the years to play for a win with white. So it is not like it made the Ruy Lopez immediately drawish. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some possible answers to your question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Some (older) grandmaster or coaches might still be more used to the Ruy Lopez than to the Italian game.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Even the Berlin is not automatically a draw but requires precise play. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The Italian does not give much of an advantage for white either. It is mostly played for trying something new, perhaps less analysed.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Some white players might like the Berlin endgame.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Some black players might not like the Berlin endgame. If white is aware of it, no need to forego the Ruy Lopez.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Overall most decent openings if analysed well enough will lead to drawish positions.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS: Magnus Carlsen just won against Karjakin in the WC match in an anti-Berlin (not because of the opening though) and did not achieve much in the Italian.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastEditorUserId="11629" LastEditDate="2016-11-25T17:24:22.750" LastActivityDate="2016-11-25T17:24:22.750" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15936" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-11-25T16:07:45.083" Score="1" ViewCount="254" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have a collection of checkmated chess positions, in FEN/EPD format.&#xA;Most of the time, each of these positions contains some &lt;em&gt;useless&lt;/em&gt; pieces, that I really want to remove, in the aim of getting cleaner schemes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then, I'm searching for a batch possibility to check if my whole chess collection is checkmate or not. Ideally, it would be a tool/solution using DOS/CMD, because I have to clean many FEN checkmates.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've googled for various DOS chess tools, but in vain. I also searched to use some chess engines (under cmd), Arena/WinBoard, EPD2Diag, PGN-Extract, etc. but also without success.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are two examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;3q4/6b1/4k3/4r3/3p2Q1/B1N1R3/5R2/6K1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;1K6/1b6/1b6/1P6/7r/7p/7Q/4qN1k w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here, it's obviously both checkmate for White, but knowing I have few hundreds of others, how can I get a DOS batch possibility to check all in once?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11807" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-12-13T11:05:17.123" LastActivityDate="2017-01-12T12:02:15.043" Title="How to determine checkmated positions using DOS/CMD, from numerous FEN/EPD chess positions?" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;evaluation&gt;&lt;fen&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15937" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15659" CreationDate="2016-11-25T16:26:30.467" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess engines will play till checkmate :)&#xA;Only GUIs can be set to give up face to indefensible positions (+10 for B, or -10 for W).&#xA;ARENA, for example, can be set to play till K's death.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11807" LastActivityDate="2016-11-25T16:26:30.467" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15938" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15936" CreationDate="2016-11-25T16:57:45.653" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If I understand you correctly, you want to automatically simplify the mating sequence (final position minus a couple of moves) basically keeping the same mating pattern.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think doing this automatically will be very difficult because if you remove pieces all kind of things can happen:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;additional sidelines (loss of quality)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;change of the theme of the mating pattern&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;... and if you don't run an engine to compare original mating sequences with simplified ones, you are in even more trouble...&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BTW, are you sure that all the mates in your collection are forced and that the moves played are best play from both sides?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastEditorUserId="11629" LastEditDate="2016-11-25T17:13:41.470" LastActivityDate="2016-11-25T17:13:41.470" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15939" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15947" CreationDate="2016-11-25T19:06:45.950" Score="13" ViewCount="1143" Body="&lt;p&gt;Throughout the 2016 World Championship match, analysts have made many references to the term &quot;fortress&quot;. What does it mean, and how can I use it to my advantage?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10397" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-03-12T18:29:30.047" LastActivityDate="2020-03-12T18:29:30.047" Title="What is a fortress in chess?" Tags="&lt;terminology&gt;&lt;fortress&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="15940" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15939" CreationDate="2016-11-25T21:42:50.097" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's a position with a big material disadvantage that still can be held.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Eg.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White: Kg1 Pg2&#xA;Black: Kd2 Pg3 + Bishop anywhere&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You are piece down but the opponent still can't win. Your position is a fortress.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11609" LastEditorUserId="10397" LastEditDate="2019-10-21T11:03:20.960" LastActivityDate="2019-10-21T11:03:20.960" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="15942" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4422" CreationDate="2016-11-25T22:31:03.020" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't have an logical answer because I believe one does not exist. None of the responses above — almost all of which are non-responsive — answer the WHY of the question. The fact that pawns cannot move backward does not begin to address why a piece cannnot capture a pawn en passant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My best guess as to the Why of it is that, the last time the rules were changed, nobody thought to bring it up. Or, if they did, it was decided better to stick with an established rule than to change the nature of the game too much, and this would have been considered too much of a change.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think the same with regard to the question of why a piece pinned to its king can still give check. Neither one of these two rules is logical, though. They are just &quot;there,&quot; and we live with them. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is, of course, nothing preventing someone from starting up a club around a new chess variant that incorporates these two rule changes. Might be interesting to see just how much it does change the game. Most games wouldn't be changed at all, I think. But for those it does change, ... different outcomes, perhaps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11808" LastActivityDate="2016-11-25T22:31:03.020" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15943" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2539" CreationDate="2016-11-25T22:43:00.060" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If, in the original diagram, above, Black's move had been 3. ... b6, White could not have captured it with the pawn on c6. Why would you think that because Black played b5, the c6 pawn could do so? It is simply &lt;em&gt;physically&lt;/em&gt; impossible for a given pawn to capture en passant a second time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11808" LastActivityDate="2016-11-25T22:43:00.060" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15944" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14636" CreationDate="2016-11-25T23:15:22.990" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think in general, the 'best' is x64_bmi2, then x64_popcnt, then x64 and x32 is 'worst'. That said, if your processor doesn't support bmi2 it won't run, etc. So pick the best one that doesn't crash.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To confirm this I ran the benchmarks given above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On my PC (nodes/sec):&#xA;stockfish_32: 1380872&#xA;stockfish_64: 1764951&#xA;stockfish_64_popcnt: 1813557&#xA;stockfish_64_bmi2: 1886284&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11812" LastActivityDate="2016-11-25T23:15:22.990" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15945" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15931" CreationDate="2016-11-25T23:38:53.123" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;FIDE (Fédération Internationale des Echecs) is the world governing body for chess in the same way that FIFA (Fédération Internationale de Football Association) is the world governing body for soccer. You'll notice that both titles are in French. That's because these organizations were started almost 100 years ago when French was the language of international diplomacy. Today the principle language of FIDE is English and the definitive versions of the rules and regulations are the English versions. Where there is a conflict between the English version and a translation then the English version is the correct version.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;FIDE is an international federation, so its constituents are national federations, although &quot;national&quot; is stretched a bit so that, for instance, the UK is represented by separate English, Scottish and Welsh &quot;national&quot; federations and conversely the Irish Chess Federation represents both the country of Ireland and the part of the UK called Northern Ireland. There are currently 188 member federations, but this number is almost constantly changing. These member national federations run chess in their regions and supply individuals to serve on the FIDE board and commissions. The chess competitions these federations run are for the most part run according to the rules and regulations laid down by FIDE.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are also about 20 affiliated organizations. These include wider geographical organizations like the European Chess Union, special interest (language or race) organizations like the Francophone Chess Association and Arab Chess Federation and more loosely associated organizations like the International Computer Games Association, International Correspondence Chess Federation and the World Federation for Chess Composition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a president and a board who form the &quot;government&quot; of FIDE and meet 4 times a year at quarterly presidential board meetings but the bulk of the work of administration is performed by the approximately 25 different commissions. These vary in importance from the Rules Commission, Anti-Cheating Commission, Events Commission to less critical ones like Commission for Chess in Museums and Commission of Chess Journalists, for example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To give a complete answer to your question as to what FIDE does would involve describing the work of these ~25 commissions which would be very long indeed so I will make do with describing the functions of some of the more important commissions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Rules Commission&lt;/strong&gt; (&lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/fide_directory.phtml?content=25&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://ratings.fide.com/fide_directory.phtml?content=25&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This commission controls the FIDE Laws of Chess which define the layout of the pieces, how they move, how the game ends, how players should move, behave, handle the clock, record the moves, how the arbiter should behave, etc. The aim is to update these rules once every 4 years with improvements, updates and corrections. For instance, as digital clocks have replaced analogue clocks the rules have been updated to reflected changing technology. The latest version of the FIDE Laws of Chess (likely valid until summer 2017 when the next set of updated rules is expected to be authorized) is here &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=171&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=171&amp;amp;view=article&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Anti-Cheating Commission&lt;/strong&gt; (&lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/fide_directory.phtml?content=9&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://ratings.fide.com/fide_directory.phtml?content=9&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is primarily concerned with preventing outside help for the chess player. Currently the emphasis is on detecting when this happens and steps to prevent it. More details here - &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/FIDE/handbook/Anti%20Cheating%20Guidelines.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.fide.com/FIDE/handbook/Anti%20Cheating%20Guidelines.pdf&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Medical Commission&lt;/strong&gt; (&lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/fide_directory.phtml?content=22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://ratings.fide.com/fide_directory.phtml?content=22&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This commission investigates health related issues regarding chess. This includes on the one hand health benefits of chess and how healthy living can legitimately improve your chess and on the other the dark side of substances / drugs which can give illegal aid to the chess player. For more on all these topics see here - &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/fide-anti-doping-regulations.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.fide.com/fide/fide-anti-doping-regulations.html&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Qualifications Commission&lt;/strong&gt; (&lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/fide_directory.phtml?content=6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://ratings.fide.com/fide_directory.phtml?content=6&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This commission is responsible for regulating the FIDE Rating System and the FIDE titles for over-the-board competitions. For more on title regulations see here - &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=10&amp;amp;view=category&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=10&amp;amp;view=category&lt;/a&gt;. For rating system rules see here - &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=172&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=172&amp;amp;view=article&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Technical Commission&lt;/strong&gt; (&lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/fide_directory.phtml?content=24&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://ratings.fide.com/fide_directory.phtml?content=24&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a high level commission which oversees technical aspects including control over other related commissions like the Rules Commission. As well as responsibility for the Laws of Chess (via Rules Commission) it also is in charge of tournament rules and regulations (&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/FIDE/handbook/Competition_Rules.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.fide.com/FIDE/handbook/Competition_Rules.pdf&lt;/a&gt;), Swiss Pairing Rules (&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=18&amp;amp;view=category&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=18&amp;amp;view=category&lt;/a&gt;) and regulations for FIDE competitions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Arbiters' Commission&lt;/strong&gt; (&lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/fide_directory.phtml?content=10&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://ratings.fide.com/fide_directory.phtml?content=10&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This commission is in charge of setting the standards and training required for the different levels of FIDE arbiters (the chess equivalent of a referee in football). They appoint and govern FIDE arbiters. The FIDE regulations for the titles of arbiters is here - &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=41&amp;amp;view=category&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=41&amp;amp;view=category&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Trainers' Commission&lt;/strong&gt; (&lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/fide_directory.phtml?content=30&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://ratings.fide.com/fide_directory.phtml?content=30&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This commission is in charge of setting the standards, training and qualification of FIDE trainers. They appoint and govern FIDE trainers. The regulations for these titles are here - &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=42&amp;amp;view=category&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=42&amp;amp;view=category&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2016-11-25T23:38:53.123" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15947" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15939" CreationDate="2016-11-26T00:21:59.193" Score="16" Body="&lt;p&gt;A fortress in chess is a position in where the weaker side defends by making waiting moves, and where the stronger side cannot make any progress as long as the defender does not make a crazy move. A very well-known fortress position is the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;6k1/6p1/5r1p/8/Q7/8/7P/6K1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is impossible for white to make any progress if black just moves his king around in the corner, since the black rook denies the white king any possibility to infiltrate as long as it stands on f6. Since the rook is guarded by the g7 pawn, and the g7 pawn is in turn guarded by the black king, the only way to make progress would be to force the black king out of the corner. However, this is not possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The way you use it to your advantage in your own games is as always: understand the concept, and recognize when a fortress is possible in your own games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8300" LastActivityDate="2016-11-26T00:21:59.193" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15948" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13389" CreationDate="2016-11-26T01:44:27.220" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Try also Burt Hochberg's &lt;strong&gt;Chess Braintwisters&lt;/strong&gt;,&#xA;which often require &quot;thinking outside the box&quot; to a move that is&#xA;logical but illegal (like promoting to a King) and thus would never&#xA;be found by an ordinary chess-playing or problem-solving computer program.&#xA;A couple of examples from that book have already been posted in this forum&#xA;in reply to another question: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/13322/is-there-any-position-where-not-promotingillegally-would-be-the-best-move&quot;&gt;Is there any position where not promoting(illegally) would be the best move?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8860" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2016-11-26T01:44:27.220" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15949" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13389" CreationDate="2016-11-26T17:27:00.247" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Apart from non-standard problems (fairy chess, retrograde analysis, etc), there also exist particularly difficult regular chess problems which are used for testing chess engines, like Nightmare II. These might not be solvable by some engines/computers. Take a look at &lt;a href=&quot;https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Test-Positions&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this list&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2016-11-26T17:27:00.247" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15950" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15930" CreationDate="2016-11-26T21:37:32.187" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am not grandmaster, but I took lessons from one, and he said RL immediately threatens defender of center pawn, whereas GP is less aggressive (more quiet).  If you want a sharper game the RL is sharper, but both lead to open games. I was told if opponent kicks pawn to take knight immediately.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I find that a lot of people don't like their knight gone right away.  Others don't seem to care so much as they might keep the bishop pair.  Some of chess is personal preference.  Experience players will try to find games that their opponents have played, see what they do when they play black or white, and the prepare to give them the kind of game they don't like.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11820" LastActivityDate="2016-11-26T21:37:32.187" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15951" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-11-26T21:47:29.930" Score="8" ViewCount="889" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are positions in chess where the only good move (e.g. only move that preserves equality) is very unnatural for a human player. For instance if this move goes against common principles or if it opens the king to a potential attack, a human might be less likely to play this move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Have there been attempts to find such positions with a computer? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am not interested in using this to identify cheaters (=humans using illegally computer help in chess). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am more interested in whether this could be used to win equal positions against humans. For example with such analysis, one could improve opening preparation, steering towards positions where the opponent has to find a &quot;computer move&quot;. Also in endgame studies it could be used for the same reason.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastEditorUserId="11629" LastEditDate="2016-11-28T23:44:57.803" LastActivityDate="2018-12-11T17:28:48.213" Title="Computers finding computer moves" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;computer-chess&gt;&lt;preparation&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="9" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15952" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15924" CreationDate="2016-11-27T13:40:33.767" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The move 4 h4 can have some surprise effect, but it certainly goes against the general opening principle of piece development as primary goal &lt;strong&gt;and&lt;/strong&gt; the other principle that flank attacks can be undertaken only if the situation in the centre is clarified.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Given that, it may well be not a real bad move in the sense that it doesn't lead to a clear advantage for black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do you know of occurrences of 4 h4 at the (grand)master level?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="446" LastActivityDate="2016-11-27T13:40:33.767" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15953" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15924" CreationDate="2016-11-27T21:49:19.307" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The two sources I'd depend upon to answer this question are &lt;em&gt;actual games&lt;/em&gt; played by GM's (best), and &lt;em&gt;engine analysis&lt;/em&gt;, carried to a depth of at least 24 ply (12 moves by each side).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's what I get:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Actual Games&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Move     Games  Win %  Latest  Players&#xA;4 d4      2947  57.3    2016   Carlsen, Kasparov, Karjakin, Anand&#xA;4 Bb5      513  57.8    2016   Grischuk, Karjakin, Morozevich, Adams&#xA;4 Bc4      229  47.2    2016   Vallejo Pons, Movsesian, Lu SHanglei, Zhigalko&#xA;4 g3       153  48.4    2010   Mamedyarov, Romanishin, Galego, Biyiasas&#xA;4 h4        38  43.4    2012   Hamdouchi, Pilavov, Minasian, Pridorozhni&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, the move is pretty unpopular at the highest levels (about 1% of games), and since Black outscores White by 57%-43% in this line, it's no wonder.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Engine Analysis&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Engine parameters: Stockfish 7, QuadCore AMD CPU using 4 Cores, Depth=25/39&#xA;Line Move    Eval&#xA; a.  4 Bb5   0.17&#xA; b.  4 d4    0.13&#xA; c.  4 h3    0.13&#xA; d.  4 Rb1   0.11&#xA; e.  4 a4    0.10&#xA; f.  4 Bc4   0.09&#xA; g.  4 a3    0.03&#xA; h.  4 Be2   0.01&#xA; i.  4 d3    0.00&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's &lt;em&gt;9 lines&lt;/em&gt; that are better than 4 h4, and the 9th has an evaluation of dead equal, implying that the move 4 h4 must have a lower evaluation. Note that 4 h4 starts at among the top four moves until the engine reaches a depth of about 15-17 ply, and then falls off the map.  So the blowback seems to occur somewhere between move 11 and move 13.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11245" LastActivityDate="2016-11-27T21:49:19.307" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15954" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15924" CreationDate="2016-11-27T23:30:41.007" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;4.h4 is a decent move, is not objectively best, but that doesnt matter unless you are playing a GM.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I play the accelerated dragon myself and know early h4s  can be a pain to deal with. The usual approach when your opponent &amp;quot;wastes&amp;quot; moves on the flank early on is to go for opening of the center to exploit better development, however in the sicilian blacks development is usually slower anyway, since he already starts with a nondeveloping move c5, so is hard to flip the script like that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance in one tournament game of mine the game went&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1.e4 c5 2.Nc3 g6 3.h4 {i decided to follow the formula and go for opening the center and played} 3...Nc6 4.h5 Nf6 5.hxg6 fxg6 6.Nf3 d5 7.exd5 Nxd5 8.Bc4 {here i discovered to my surprise that i wasn't ahead in development at all, and with my kingside ruined i went on to lose without ever finding the time to castle queenside (which might not have been that safe either)}&#xA;&#xA; [FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your given position i guess the idea is to sac the h pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1.e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Nc3 g6 4.h4 Nf6 5.h5 Nxh5 6.d4 cxd4 7.Nxd4 {when the open h file and better development means black's king will have no safe place to castle, which i would say gives good enough compensation below GM level.}&#xA;&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11684" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2016-11-27T23:51:17.607" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15956" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-11-28T20:54:27.350" Score="4" ViewCount="2033" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the strongest chess engine working on &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arduino&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Arduino&lt;/a&gt;? Or does any engine work on it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11833" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-11-28T21:22:26.960" LastActivityDate="2018-10-07T16:43:21.517" Title="What is the strongest chess engine working on Arduino (Atmega328)?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15959" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15964" CreationDate="2016-11-29T05:41:28.293" Score="3" ViewCount="2012" Body="&lt;p&gt;I had downloaded Delfi because I read that it function in the range &quot;1000..2300 ELO&quot; so that means I will be able to play with it at a level that I am (beginner/intermediate).  But I'm confused about how to get it to the particular strength.  I am using Arena and the only thing I notice is that in the &quot;details&quot; section of the engine I can change the &quot;strength&quot; of the engine from 1-100%.  But how does that correspond to a particular ELO rating?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is not just an issue with Delfi but with other engines too I assume.  If you want to bring them down to, say, 1200-1300, or 1600-1700?  Thanks. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11581" LastActivityDate="2019-09-14T21:50:23.457" Title="Question about Arena and strength of chess engines" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15960" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15951" CreationDate="2016-11-29T05:58:38.833" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;First off, this is a very valid question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The short answer is that no - to my knowledge, there are no programs that can somehow &quot;steer&quot; the game into positions where &quot;unnatural&quot; moves are good. While it is certainly possible to create such an engine, remember that a natural move is subjective. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, you don't need a computer program to do it for you! You can do it yourself. Select a complicated opening, especially something like the Najdorf or some other sharp line, and you'll notice that there will be many opportunities for you to lead your opponent into muddy water - complex positions where you know the theory sue to computer analysis, and your opponent might not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's the thing though; to attempt such a thing, you'd need to be a VERY strong player already, at least FIDE master I would say. The reason is that while grandmasters play complicated positions on purpose all the time, they have to do it to beat equally strong players. But they don't need to if they're playing against even a 2000 rated player, as they can just gradually outplay them, without need for double edged positions. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For practical purposes, I will repeat that complicated openings, which you shouldn't be playing in the first place unless you're a master level player at least, will offer an incredible array of tough positions which are amazing fro computers, yet in which humans make plenty of mistakes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, note that good players will play unnatural moves if they are good! That's part being a good player - considering all possible candidate moves. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To make myself even more explicit, Kasparov once said that even he can't calculate everything. In complex positions, there naturally tend to be no real natural moves. That's where computers dominate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(I am an expert rated USCF player)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10283" LastActivityDate="2016-11-29T05:58:38.833" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15961" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15959" CreationDate="2016-11-29T07:01:08.250" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can't give a precise ELO rating to a chess engine in Arena.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The option &lt;code&gt;1-100%&lt;/code&gt; is a mapping function. Let me give you an example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stockfish defines 20 playing strength.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If you give 50% to Arena, you will play strength 10&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If you give 100% to Arena, you will play strength 20&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If you give 0% to Arena, you will play strength 0&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Arena doesn't know the ELO rating for Delfi. It simply maps you to something reasonable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You will need to read the documentation for Delfi and work out what percentage to give.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2016-11-29T07:58:58.500" LastActivityDate="2016-11-29T07:58:58.500" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15962" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9828" CreationDate="2016-11-29T07:52:15.840" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you download an UCI like Arena, it is posible to install a lot of free engines and some of them are adjustable in terms of ELO (or the equivalent in computers). I've found this very helpful. In the menu Levels - Limit Playing Strenght to ELO, is posible to tweak the ELO almost by 1 point at a time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here you have some of the Engines I have installed, with the respective ELOs:&#xA;MadChess   400-2000&#xA;Rodent        600-2600&#xA;Ufim802      700-2000&#xA;Cheng         800-2500&#xA;Deuterium 1000-2800&#xA;Spike         1100-2500&#xA;Rybka        1200-2400&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note: Some of this ELOs are not very accurate, but I think the margin is around 80-100 points. MadChess and Rodent are my everyday engines and I found them pretty consistent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this help!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11838" LastActivityDate="2016-11-29T07:52:15.840" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15963" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15956" CreationDate="2016-11-29T09:37:16.843" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not every chess engine works on Arduino as it doesn't run a conventional *nix operating system.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's a list of chess engines that do work here:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strike&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Arduino&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Arduino&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strike&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Updated url from Fabian's comment:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessprogramming.org/Arduino#Chess_Programs&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.chessprogramming.org/Arduino#Chess_Programs&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11839" LastEditorUserId="9025" LastEditDate="2018-10-07T16:43:21.517" LastActivityDate="2018-10-07T16:43:21.517" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="15964" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15959" CreationDate="2016-11-29T09:54:32.750" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;You cannot compare human (FIDE) Elo ratings with settings of any engine. Besides of the problems of comparing human Elo and any computer ratings (see below), I see another problem:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Making a chess engine as strong as possible is a well defined task, but having it play at a certain level is not so clear. You could cripple it by limiting the depth, or force it to make a blunder every second game or... Lots of options that can affect the playing strength, in the same way that you have all kinds of different human players. For instance Alice at rating 1800 could be a very stable player, drawing most of the games because of her rather conservative playing style. On the other hand you can have Bob at the same rating of 1800 playing attacking chess winning brilliant games, but also blundering many games. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Trying to map these options to a single number (1-100%) is impossible. Personally if I was to play against engines, I'd rather have settings to let me chose the playing style of the engine (e.g. attacking, defensive, passive, &quot;opening guru&quot;, endgame nerd,...) than having it play at a certain strength (whatever that means). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In order to find a setting of your engine which you like, why not play a few games at some setting and depending on the outcome change it? But if you want to get better don't set it too low.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Personally I find playing against humans on or off-line much more enjoyable. And if you do this you will not have a problem finding a player that is of comparable strength.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Why computer Elo cannot be compared with human Elo?&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This should really go into some kind of FAQ as it pops up very regularly here. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In principle you can give an ELO rating to a chess engine. However ELO (or glicko or any other rating) is made in such a way that it will only give you the relative strength of people or computers in the pool of people/computers that use this same rating system. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So if you have a FIDE Elo as many human chess players do, this will tell you how good you are among all these FIDE Elo human players, because the FIDE Elo is calculated from the outcome of many games between FIDE players only.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are also people running engines against each other (CCRL, CEGT,...) creating Elo lists for computer engines. These Elo lists will tell you how good computer engines are relative to each other, because the computer ELo are calculated from the outcome of many games between computer engines only. They do not tell you how good computers are relative to FIDE Elo players because they are separate pools.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastEditorUserId="11629" LastEditDate="2016-11-29T10:06:00.843" LastActivityDate="2016-11-29T10:06:00.843" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15965" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8892" CreationDate="2016-11-29T17:50:46.960" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I envsion that Amazon Alexa will soon have this capability. It feels very Ex Machina-like.  Not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing.. first instinct is that it's a bad thing because it is you that should be doing the analysis, by hand, if you wish to improve your game and/or learn something of value. But if you're stuck, and have spent considerable time on a position, and you're getting nowhere, then I see no harm in this. Yet, in online competitive play, this could become quite the problem. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;Alexa, run Stockfish analysis on this current position.  I want a&#xA;  forced mate in 7 or less.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Alexa: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;Checkmate in 5 ... Qxf7#.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10350" LastActivityDate="2016-11-29T17:50:46.960" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15966" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15845" CreationDate="2016-11-29T19:30:44.663" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Openings can be trained with applications like &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessable.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chessable.com&lt;/a&gt;, and if you're going to be playing in a tournament, then it's probably assumed that if you want best results that you're going into it with a plan. What this means is that you're going to play your pre-determined openings and thus openings should not be a major area of focus in your preparation, at least at your level. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I use chessable as an everyday practice so that I always know what to play in response to my main lines. Yet, this doesn't take much time to do. At your level, I would recommend tactics over openings, but still incorporate chessable into your regimen. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Endgames are critical to reaching higher levels, so they should not be left out. Again though, at an 1800-level, endgame study can certainly help but typically at this level I've found that it's more about the middlegame than anything. For example: tactics resulting from your pre-determined openings, and lacking a clear plan of what to do when a desired position is reached, or recognizing key features of a position and acting on them. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;is the c-file open? &lt;strong&gt;Yes, get a rook to occupy it.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;who's bishop is better? &lt;strong&gt;Well, my bishop has free reign because my pawns are on opposite colors. My opponent's bishop is locked in by its own pawns, so I can try to attack the chain while seeking to preserve my bishop for a while.&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;is the position closed? &lt;strong&gt;Yes, so keep knights on the board.&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;is the position closed, but I have no knights, but instead I have bishops? &lt;strong&gt;Seek to open the position asap.&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;am I up material? how much material? &lt;strong&gt;A pawn? who has the initiative? I do. So seek to trade down. Opponent has initiative? Guard against threats first. I'm up 2+ pawns, definitely seek to trade material - for example, you my find getting the queens off the board to greatly help your advantage.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;blunder proofing? &lt;strong&gt;Tactics training!&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So in the end, I believe at your level tactics training, overall middlegame strategy and recognizing positional features are going to play an important role in tournament preparation. Sprinkle on some endgame study and do your daily chessable training (openings) and you're good to go. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also keep in mind retrograde and post-mortem anaylsis; using the completed tournament's results to learn from. Using this analysis, you'll hopefully learn from your mistakes and not make them again in future tournaments.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10350" LastActivityDate="2016-11-29T19:30:44.663" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15967" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-11-29T20:50:44.993" Score="0" ViewCount="361" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess at the highest level has changed a lot perhaps helped by computers, so that nowadays we have:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;black often playing for a draw&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;GM analyzing some opening lines all the way to the endgame&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;opponents blitzing out 30 moves of theory&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;some openings considered to be drawish&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;games ending more often than not in draws&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;GM playing obscure openings like the London system, etc, not with the aim to gain an opening advantage, but with the aim of keeping enough pieces on the board and to achieve less analyzed positions.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;, and other, similar factors which make for less interesting (to watch) games. I was wondering, what proposals there are to lessen the influence of computer analysis on human games and to focus more on the work done at the board instead of at home? A few I am aware of:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;chess960 (Fischer Random)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;reduced time control&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Sofia rules&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What else is there?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastEditorUserId="11629" LastEditDate="2016-11-29T22:18:08.943" LastActivityDate="2018-12-17T19:31:34.560" Title="Make chess great again" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;computer-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ClosedDate="2016-11-30T22:04:12.017" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15968" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15967" CreationDate="2016-11-29T23:40:46.077" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Mindset of many players is way bigger problem than computer influence in my opinion. Watch engine/corr games, it's hell fight on whole board, crazy tense positions all the time... When there are two fighters, you can make good game by playing good moves and then I see no big problem to make a draw when position is exhausted. But when white says I'm 100 rating less and plays d4 Bf4 c3 e3 just to make safe and easy position in hope for a draw, it is bad for chess and don't blame computers for that. Rating system and human mind is the problem. If people played 50% as fighting chess as pc/corr players, no one would ever say the draws are boring and that chess isn't interesting any more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11609" LastActivityDate="2016-11-29T23:40:46.077" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15969" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1519" CreationDate="2016-11-29T23:52:10.907" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's a training site on variants : &lt;a href=&quot;https://chessvariants.training/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://chessvariants.training/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;We support these variants: Antichess, Atomic chess, King of the Hill, Three-check, Horde chess and Racing Kings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So more or less the set of variants supported on lichess. It's mostly puzzles about tactics, and some about endgames. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="672" LastActivityDate="2016-11-29T23:52:10.907" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15970" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15967" CreationDate="2016-11-30T10:35:17.020" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Play Chess Variants&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Capablanca suggested to add to new pieces, a Bishop-Knight compound and a Rook-Knight-compound, to the setup and enlarge the board size to 10 files and 8 rows. Computer experiments suggest that Capablanca Chess and some variations of it (putting the new pieces on different files than Capablanca) are less drawish than Classical Chess, see &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessvariants.com/index/listcomments.php?id=23842&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this comment on Schoolbook on chessvariants.org&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want a balanced and very decisive Chess Variant, try Shogi.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3819" LastEditorUserId="3819" LastEditDate="2018-12-17T19:31:34.560" LastActivityDate="2018-12-17T19:31:34.560" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="15971" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15973" CreationDate="2016-11-30T12:53:48.403" Score="5" ViewCount="621" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I search for books on the middlegame versus the endgame, I usually find discussions about positions that have almost nothing to do with each other: the former being rich with strategies with upwards of five pawns on each side, and the latter being more precise and cut-and-dry, rarely with more than one or two pawns if there's a valuable piece on each side. Discussions of the latter sometimes include vague advice along the lines of &quot;try to reduce to a winning cut-and-dry endgame&quot; to extend the complexity a couple pieces/pawns more. Yet when I reach a point in the game like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;6k1/5p1p/6p1/2Np1b2/1r1P4/7P/5PP1/3R2K1 w - - 5 28&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I feel like I'm playing on nothing more than shallow tactical threats sometimes colored by old adages like Tarrasch's rule, the principle of two weaknesses, bishop and pawn colors, open files, etc. Can anyone recommend me sources of good theory/practice for this stage of the game?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11518" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-12-17T14:33:24.240" LastActivityDate="2016-12-17T14:33:24.240" Title="How to improve my early endgame / late middlegame?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;books&gt;&lt;middlegame&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15972" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15971" CreationDate="2016-11-30T14:47:43.943" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;There exist all kinds of position from that stage of the game, so it is difficult to give general advise. But it certainly holds, that if you cannot gain any advantage out of the middlegame, it is not likely that you will win an equal endgame unless your opponent cooperates. That's why books focus on middlegames with many pieces or endgames with few pieces. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Studying endgames first is not a bad idea as you will learn what kind of positions can be won and which positions are draw. So you know what to aim for in the middlegame. It is usually a good idea to transfer into the endgame if:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;you have decisive material advantage (which is often more easily won with few pieces on the board)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;if your opponent has weaknesses in the pawn structure which can be attacked&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;if you would end up with more active pieces&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Regarding your example: If there is no immediate tactics, it looks very drawish to me. The only way to potentially win this for either side is by winning the d pawn. Starting from this you can think of plans for white and for black. My line of thought would be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;White plan&lt;/strong&gt;: Obviously white needs to free his rook from defending the d4 pawn. The only way to try to do this is by defending it with the king from e5 (too dangerous), e3 or c3. This might not be easy because black can check with the rook from c3 and c2. So it could be worth trying to get the black bishop from the b1-h7 diagonal which would give white also the square d3 for the king or perhaps another piece to defend against checks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But even when white frees the rook, it is not clear to me how to proceed. Black can just centralize the king to f6 or d6, put the bishop on e6 and a pawn on h5 and wait.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Black plan:&lt;/strong&gt; Since black has a light-squared bishop, the only way to win the d4 pawn is with the help of the black king. So black wants to walk the king to c4 or c3 basically. This is a serious threat and white needs to think of how to prevent it, either with active counter-play on the king side or cutting-off the black king or defending passively.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Knowing these plans you can come up with concrete moves. Also it would be worth keeping in mind what endgames can result from this position. E.g. what about if the rooks are exchanged, or if knight/bishop are exchanged or if you end up with an endgame (e.g. after a piece had to be sacrificed against a pawn and the f-g-h pawns were exchanged) R+B vs R or alternatively R+N vs R. This will help you in coming up with moves as you will know what to aim for or what to avoid.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't know what this position resulted from, but if it was a kind of good knight vs. bad bishop position, white should have tried not to exchange pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2016-11-30T14:47:43.943" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15973" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15971" CreationDate="2016-11-30T17:53:57.063" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;It sounds like you are looking for strategic guidelines in non-theoretical endgames. Then a modern classic is &lt;em&gt;Endgame Strategy&lt;/em&gt; by Mikhail Shereshevsky. Strong players tend to like this book, which should tell us something, but I'm not sure exactly what (causation? correlation?).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another decent choice is &lt;em&gt;Practical Endgame Play - beyond the basics&lt;/em&gt; by Glenn Flear. It focuses on so-called NQEs (Not Quite Endgames) where each side has a couple of pieces each, not counting kings and pawns. The chapter on Rook and Bishop against Rook and Knight contains 50(!) fragments from real games with this material balance, the one in your example. At least it should give you plenty of study material.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1485" LastActivityDate="2016-11-30T17:53:57.063" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15974" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2889" CreationDate="2016-12-01T11:50:57.550" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Kasparov took 63 minutes over his response to the ....e3 move, that in itself made the novelty a very worthwhile undertaking from Karpov's perspective.  Clearly he found a gap in Kasparov's preparation and often that might be all one needs in a contest between two near equals, especially when the psychological factors are complex and significant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11859" LastActivityDate="2016-12-01T11:50:57.550" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15976" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15980" CreationDate="2016-12-01T14:53:43.550" Score="9" ViewCount="351" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there a rule on how accurately pieces have to be positioned within a square? Can they touch the border for instance?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-09-19T15:56:09.100" LastActivityDate="2019-09-19T15:56:09.100" Title="Position of pieces in square" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="15977" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15978" CreationDate="2016-12-01T18:29:01.673" Score="16" ViewCount="805" Body="&lt;p&gt;Although very unlikely, the starting position &lt;em&gt;could&lt;/em&gt; be a forced win for Black. This would mean it is a position of mutual zugzwang, in the strong sense that whoever moves first loses. &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zugzwang#Tr.C3.A9buchet&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt; refers to one such position as &lt;em&gt;trébuchet&lt;/em&gt;. Such positions are rare, and it would be a big surprise if the starting position was one of them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The starting position has another property in that it is symmetric. White and Black have exactly the same possible moves (when written in descriptive notation). Are there any symmetric positions that are known to be a mutual zugzwang?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1485" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-05-06T13:28:09.497" LastActivityDate="2021-05-06T13:28:09.497" Title="Are there any symmetric zugzwang positions?" Tags="&lt;zugzwang&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="15978" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15977" CreationDate="2016-12-01T18:41:01.290" Score="22" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can easily construct many such positions. For instance:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;4k3/8/3P1P/8/8/3p1p2/8/4K3 w - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First to move loses - either by moving a king and allowing the opponent to promote or by losing one (and subsequently next) pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3831" LastActivityDate="2016-12-01T18:41:01.290" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15979" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4272" CreationDate="2016-12-01T18:56:31.517" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;About ten years ago I had the occasion to play the guys in the business district in SF. I was rated 1654 at the time.  There was only one person there who was clearly a better player than I. After losing a few games to opening tricks and on time, I adjusted to the speed and did quite well. I may have even won a few dollars.  As for the top dog, thank goodness I was accompanied by my friend, who, at the time was class A state champion with a rating of about 2120. He too adjusted to the quick pace, and quickly got the upper hand. The top player got frustrated and exclaimed, &quot;If you want a good game, come back at such and such a time...&quot; We left and came back to encounter a new player there. My friend and I proceeded to lose back all of the money we won, learning later that they had rolled out the local GM on us.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11864" LastActivityDate="2016-12-01T18:56:31.517" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15980" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15976" CreationDate="2016-12-02T00:16:00.840" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are no FIDE laws governing these items for very obvious reasons.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;FIDE does not legislate the size of the board, the squares or the pieces for ordinary play, nor the colour of the board nor the pieces. Since the pernickety days of Bobby Fischer these kind of things can be legislated for in something like the World Championship according to the demands of the players but it is unusual.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you don't legislate for the size of the board, squares and pieces then it is nonsensical to start legislating for how pieces must be positioned within their squares. Obviously if you happen to be playing with kings whose diameter matches the width of a square then the king is going to be touching at least 2 sides of the square.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The FIDE laws of chess do give the following relevant guidance in the Preface:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The Laws of Chess cannot cover all possible situations that may arise&#xA;  during a game, nor can they regulate all administrative questions.&#xA;  Where cases are not precisely regulated by an Article of the Laws, it&#xA;  should be possible to reach a correct decision by studying analogous&#xA;  situations which are discussed in the Laws. The Laws assume that&#xA;  arbiters have the necessary competence, sound judgement and absolute&#xA;  objectivity. Too detailed a rule might deprive the arbiter of his&#xA;  freedom of judgement and thus prevent him from finding a solution to a&#xA;  problem dictated by fairness, logic and special factors. FIDE appeals&#xA;  to all chess players and federations to accept this view.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The one line summary of that is not too hard to understand -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Use your common sense!&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On your turn you are allowed to say &quot;j'adoube&quot; and adjust as many of the pieces as you like as may your opponent when it is his turn. However if you continue to do this repeatedly you may find that the arbiter comes and first warns you for disturbing other players and then starts penalizing you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: For a real world example of pieces touching and crossing edges check out this Youtube video of a game between IM Basman and GM Fodor played in a FIDE rated rapid competition in August 2016 - &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYTy7xAT6uU&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYTy7xAT6uU&lt;/a&gt; .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The game starts just after the 3 minute mark on the video so start watching from about 2:45. Note the black c pawn which is 2/3 on c7 and 1/3 on c6. This doesn't disturb white who makes his first move without adjusting black's wayward pawn. It does mildly disturb black, though, who adjusts the pawn without saying j'adoube. His first move is b5 and the c pawn is adjusted en passant, as it were, with a backward nudge from his middle finger. Adjusting like this makes it clear that there is no intention to move the piece.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now scroll forward to about 34:50 when white plays exd7. Note the white pawn on d7 is fractionally over the line into d8. Black plays Qxd7 and again the black queen is partially in d8. Both white and black players are unconcerned. Black plays Qb7 and again the queen is over the line and just edging into a7.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Scroll forward to the 40 minute mark and watch white play BxRc8. Note the bishop is just fractionally over the edge of the board. The black queen is still 90% in b7 and 10% in a7.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both players, internationals in their own right, have no problems with this. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that the Youtube channel belongs to Adam Raoof who runs these monthly FIDE rapid tournaments. He is a FIDE international arbiter who has officiated at World Candidate match level and is a qualified FIDE international organizer who makes a living running and organizing FIDE rated chess competitions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2016-12-05T10:23:30.887" LastActivityDate="2016-12-05T10:23:30.887" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15981" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-12-02T15:05:13.933" Score="6" ViewCount="712" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there a world-class chess engine that can be configured so that it equally likes to draw and win?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I imagine the engine would really like making exchanges, for example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What would happen if you placed the engine against top-of-the-line Stockfish? If it would basically never lose, it would be strong evidence (but obviously, not a proof) that chess is a draw with perfect play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4172" LastActivityDate="2016-12-03T10:30:15.763" Title="Engine that likes to draw" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;computer-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15982" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15981" CreationDate="2016-12-02T15:45:43.680" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Ubisoft's &lt;em&gt;Chessmaster: Grandmaster Edition&lt;/em&gt; allowed users to play against computer personalities. One was described as being a &lt;em&gt;drawmaster&lt;/em&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;LOGAN&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[RATING] 2561&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[BIOGRAPHY]&#xA;  Logan is an English professor at a small, prestigious college in the &#xA;   Northeast. As faculty advisor for the college chess team, he enjoys the &#xA;   opportunity of playing against the bright young minds of his school and &#xA;   helping shape the strengths and strategies of his protégés.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[STYLE]&#xA;  Logan is called the 'drawmaster'. His openings tend to be drawish and he will &#xA;   often play for a draw even when ahead. He is rated at 2561.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2016-12-02T15:45:43.680" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15983" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1632" CreationDate="2016-12-02T18:07:29.470" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have a simple idea. Let's take a chess computer (hardware + software) that had it's rating measured 20 years ago, via play with other chess computers with known ratings that they had 20 years ago. Now let's measure it's rating now (exactly the same hardware plus exactly the same software), via play with modern chess computers, with known today's rating. The difference of two measurements would constitute rating inflation for the past 20 years. Simple enough?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11874" LastActivityDate="2016-12-02T18:07:29.470" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15984" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15981" CreationDate="2016-12-03T10:30:15.763" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Stockfish, Houdini and Komodo (many other engines too) can all be configured like what you said. This is known as &lt;code&gt;Contempt&lt;/code&gt;. In Komodo, the name is &lt;code&gt;Drawscore&lt;/code&gt; (same thing). If you give enough negative value to the option, the engine will not push for a win even it sees it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/1U659.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/1U659.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://support.stockfishchess.org/kb/advanced-topics/engine-parameters&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://support.stockfishchess.org/kb/advanced-topics/engine-parameters&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2016-12-03T10:30:15.763" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15985" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-12-03T14:26:46.217" Score="4" ViewCount="2333" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to implement a chess app for Android with Stockfish.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I downloaded the Stockfish binary source code, but I don't know how to use engine &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please tell me how to use Stockfish engine for programming.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11878" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-12-03T14:36:03.183" LastActivityDate="2016-12-03T15:05:15.487" Title="Implement a chess app for Android with Stockfish" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;programming&gt;&lt;android&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ClosedDate="2016-12-06T19:18:50.857" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15986" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15985" CreationDate="2016-12-03T14:34:17.417" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Stockfish is written in C++, so in order to call it from your Android app (which I presume is written in Java), you need to call its library via JNI (Java Native Interface). This is a rather technical task better suited for Stack Overflow; &lt;a href=&quot;https://stackoverflow.com/questions/9007693/call-c-library-from-java-in-android&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; is a question to get started.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you encounter specific problems while doing this, you can ask a question there; in it's current form it is way too broad. Afterwards, you might need to find out which &lt;em&gt;methods&lt;/em&gt; to call (e.g. to evaluate a certain position, or to suggest the best move). That's something we'd be able to answer here, provided that you have a very specific question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-05-23T12:37:05.403" LastActivityDate="2016-12-03T14:34:17.417" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15987" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15985" CreationDate="2016-12-03T15:05:15.487" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;@Glorfindel is absolutely correct (+1). To get you started, do this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Read UCI specification (&lt;a href=&quot;http://wbec-ridderkerk.nl/html/UCIProtocol.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://wbec-ridderkerk.nl/html/UCIProtocol.html&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Download Droidfish source and check how it interacts with the engine&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Learn how to compile Stockfish with JNI&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Create an empty Android project. Send the engine &lt;code&gt;isready&lt;/code&gt;. Do you get anything back from Stockfish?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2016-12-03T15:05:15.487" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15988" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15989" CreationDate="2016-12-03T16:00:21.927" Score="8" ViewCount="447" Body="&lt;p&gt;In a recent game I reach this position (white to play). I was playing white and eventually lost the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;1R6/5pkp/4n1p1/8/3b1P2/6P1/7P/7K w - - 1 51&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Kg2 h5 2.h3?! h4! 3.f5 gxf5 4.gxh4 Bf6 5.Rb4 f4 6.h5 Kh6 7.Rb5?! Bg5 8.Rf5 f6 9.Ra5 Kxh5 10.Ra8 Nd4 11.Rd8 Nf5 12.Kf3 Nh4+ 13.Kf2 Ng6 14.Kg2 Ne5 15.Rh8+ Bh6 16.Kf2 Ng6 17.Rh7 Kg5 18.Kf3 Bf8 19.Rb7 Ne5+ 20.Kg2 Bc5 21.Rb3 Be3 22.Kf1 Kh4 23.Kg2 f3+ 24.Kh2 Bf4+ 25.Kg1 Kxh3 26.Rb7 Kg3 27.Kf1 Ng4 28.Rg7 Bd2 29.Rg8 Bg5 30.Kg1 f2+ 31.Kf1 Kf3 32.Rxg5 Nh2#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is: has white any chance to draw this game? which would be the plans for players, both white and black, to draw/win the game?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edited: I've added the rest of the game. &quot;Evaluations&quot; (?! and !) are mine, maybe they're not correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2311" LastEditorUserId="2311" LastEditDate="2016-12-04T17:45:56.483" LastActivityDate="2016-12-04T18:44:50.540" Title="R+3P vs B+N+3P ending. Win or draw, and plans for both players" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15989" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15988" CreationDate="2016-12-03T19:30:16.110" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here's what my sources say about this endgame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Müller, Lamprecht, &lt;em&gt;Fundamental Chess Endings&lt;/em&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;With three against three on one wing the defender is usually able to hold on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [Title &quot;Mueller vs Yusupov, Hamburg SKA (1991), after 66... Ba5&quot;]&#xA; [fen &quot;8/5p2/6p1/b1n4p/2k2P1P/4K1P1/1R6/8 w - - 0 0&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. f5 Bc3 2. Rg2 gxf5 3. Kf4 Kd5 4. Kxf5 Ne4 5. g4 Nd6+ 6. Kf4 Be5+ 7. Kf3 hxg4+ 8. Rxg4 Ke6 9. h5 Nf5 10. Rg1 Kf6 11. Rg8 Nh6 12. Rg1 Kf5 13. Rg2 Bf4 14. Rg1 Bg5 15. Rg2 Bf4 16. Rg1 f6 17. Rg7 Bg5 18. Kg3 Ng4 19. Rg8 Ne5 20. Rg7 Bh6 21. Rg8 Nd3 22. Kh4 Nf4 23. Rh8 Bg5+ 24. Kg3 Ne6 25. Rg8 Bh6 26. Rg6 Bf4+ 27. Kf2 Bg5 28. Rg8 Nf4 29. Rh8 Kg4 30. h6 Kh5 31. h7 Kh6 32. Kf3 Ng6 33. Ra8 Kxh7 34. Kg4 Ne7 35. Kh5 Kg7 36. Ra5 Bf4 37. Ra6 Be5 38. Rb6 Kf7 39. Ra6 Nc8 40. Rc6 Nd6 41. Ra6 Ne4 42. Kg4 Kg6 43. Rc6 Bd6 44. Ra6 f5+ 45. Kf3 Kf6 46. Ke3 Kg5 47. Kf3 Nd2+ 48. Ke2 Bf4 49. Ra4 Kg4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;White should just sit and wait in his fortress. However, he decided to start some misguided activity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Dvoretsky, &lt;em&gt;Dvoretsky's Endgame Manual&lt;/em&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If both sides have three pawns placed on the same wing, then the defender may hope for a draw (only if, of course, the pawn structure is devoid of grave flaws).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[He then analyses the endgames in &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1258182&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Capablanca vs Lasker, St Petersburg (1914)&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1142590&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Timman vs Karpov, Bugojno (1980)&lt;/a&gt;.]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Flear, &lt;em&gt;Practical Endgame Play - beyond the basics&lt;/em&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The case where all pawns are on the same flank is interesting as the result isn't always evident. However, a general rule could be that the bishop and knight require a target in order to convert their superiority.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[He then uses &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1295391&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Ponomariov vs Sasikiran, Biel (2004)&lt;/a&gt; and the aforementioned &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1142590&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Timman vs Karpov, Bugojno (1980)&lt;/a&gt; as examples.]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1485" LastEditorUserId="11267" LastEditDate="2016-12-04T01:21:23.113" LastActivityDate="2016-12-04T01:21:23.113" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15991" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-12-04T15:17:37.403" Score="2" ViewCount="6049" Body="&lt;p&gt;I downloaded Arena 3.5.1, and then downloaded stockfish from &lt;a href=&quot;https://stockfishchess.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://stockfishchess.org/&lt;/a&gt; it had 4 files: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;stockfish_8_x32.exe&#xA;stockfish_8_x64.exe&#xA;stockfish_8_x64_bmi2.exe&#xA;stockfish_8_x64_popcnt.exe&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I loaded the four engines to Arena, but it always says at the top (2000), which means level 2000, how do I make it level 3000+? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also when I am playing on Arena, it takes 15 seconds and more for each step from the computer to play, is this right? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks, am still new to all these things. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11889" LastActivityDate="2017-04-05T17:28:12.917" Title="Playing stockfish level 3000 on Arena 3.5.1" Tags="&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;arena&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15992" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="15994" CreationDate="2016-12-04T15:34:56.023" Score="5" ViewCount="3079" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have seen a lot of debate about who is better between Carlsen and Kasparov.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could a match between Carlsen and the exact same Deep Blue configuration that beat Kasparov be used to settle this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11890" LastEditorUserId="18475" LastEditDate="2019-12-04T12:40:46.533" LastActivityDate="2019-12-05T16:09:10.890" Title="Deep Blue versus Magnus Carlsen?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;carlsen&gt;&lt;kasparov&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15993" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15992" CreationDate="2016-12-04T15:46:56.067" Score="4" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Deep blue was dismantled soon after playing Kasparov.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, I guess, we will never know what would have happened. However, if it does happen, then I would favour Carlsen winning against the computer. At the time that the match against Kasparov was played, computers weren't really stronger than humans.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And to be honest, I think, Kasparov lost because of his usually attacking instincts and the fact that he played openings that he never usually played.(This was because, he feared the computer had access to his games and he wanted to take the computer out of theory known at that time.) Even then, Deep Blue barely managed to win when Kasparov fell into a known trap in the last game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, I would say if this hypothetical match did happen and Carlsen plays at his best, Carlsen would easily win against Deep Blue.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, this does not mean that in the current times, humans would beat computers without odds. Deep Blue was far weaker than modern-day engines, say Stockfish or Komodo. If you want to see the strongest human chess player vs strongest engine and who will win, then, engines would reign supreme. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11891" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-12-06T14:20:36.000" LastActivityDate="2016-12-06T14:20:36.000" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15994" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15992" CreationDate="2016-12-04T15:49:33.760" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd say no. Playing against a human being is &lt;em&gt;a lot&lt;/em&gt; different than playing computers. &lt;a href=&quot;https://timkr.home.xs4all.nl/admag/nemeth.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Here&lt;/a&gt; is an article (unfortunately, it is in Dutch) about a German player with a rating under 2100 who regularly beat the top chess programs, by playing strange openings and long-term sacrifices. This was a few years after the Kasparov - Deep Blue match.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2016-12-04T15:49:33.760" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15995" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15988" CreationDate="2016-12-04T18:44:50.540" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Maximenko, Srokovsky, and Braslawski wrote a book on this material imbalance in the endgame called &lt;em&gt;&quot;Mastering Rook vs Minor Pieces&quot;&lt;/em&gt;.  This imbalance only occurs in about 2% of endgames, so unless you're at least master level, knowing the theory may be a fairly low priority.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11245" LastActivityDate="2016-12-04T18:44:50.540" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15997" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-12-05T02:34:35.747" Score="5" ViewCount="1706" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are there any notable Grandmaster-level games that were won with only pawns captured, but no higher level pieces?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11897" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-12-05T10:31:52.417" LastActivityDate="2016-12-05T11:05:55.997" Title="Notable decisive grandmaster-level games where only pawns were captured?" Tags="&lt;captures&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15998" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15997" CreationDate="2016-12-05T03:22:19.090" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes. A quick search came up with this game: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/the-shortest-gm-game-ever&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Zapata vs. Anand&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. Nxe5 d6 4. Nf3 Nxe4 5. Nc3 Bf5 6. Qe2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My initial thought was to look for the game Christiansen vs. Karpov. However, that game had one set of minor pieces exchanged before Karpov's blunder and resignation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nf3 b6 4. a3 Ba6 5. Qc2 Bb7 6. Nc3 c5 7. e4 cxd4 8. Nd4 Nc6 9. Nc6 Bc6 10. Bf4 Nh5 11. Be3 Bd6 12. Qd1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9025" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-12-05T11:05:55.997" LastActivityDate="2016-12-05T11:05:55.997" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="15999" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15997" CreationDate="2016-12-05T09:51:23.247" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;Last week GM Nigel Short &lt;a href=&quot;https://twitter.com/nigelshortchess/status/802892636486975489&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;tweeted&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Not sure I have won too many games without a single piece or pawn being captured. Short-Derakshani, Beautiful Minds Krulich Cup, rd 10.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can't find PGN of that game yet and am at work, but you can replay it at &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess24.com/en/watch/live-tournaments/krulich-cup-2016/10/1/1&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://chess24.com/en/watch/live-tournaments/krulich-cup-2016/10/1/1&lt;/a&gt; - all 32 pieces still on the board, until at move 20 black removed the last escape square of his own queen. After 21.Ng2 attacking it, black resigned.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Moves, taken from &lt;a href=&quot;http://chess-db.com/public/pinfo.jsp?id=12500330&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. c4 e5 2. e3 Nc6 3. a3 Nf6 4. Nc3 g6 5. d3 Bg7 6. g4 h6 7. Bg2 d6 8. h3 Be6 9. Nd5 Qd7 10. Ne2 Nd8 11. b3 Nh7 12. e4 c6 13. Ne3 Qe7 14. Bb2 Bd7 15. d4 O-O 16. d5 c5 17. Qc2 Qh4 18. Nc3 b6 19. O-O-O Nb7 20. Bf1 Ng5 21. Ng2 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-12-05T10:29:23.840" LastActivityDate="2016-12-05T10:29:23.840" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16000" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16001" CreationDate="2016-12-05T19:58:08.970" Score="4" ViewCount="683" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Ba4 Nf6 5. O-O Nxe4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why is 6. Re1 not played, prefer players 6. d4 only? Please answer with explanation and variations so that it could help all players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11904" LastEditorUserId="4588" LastEditDate="2016-12-05T21:22:12.303" LastActivityDate="2016-12-06T18:23:21.037" Title="Ruy Lopez Open Variation" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;ruy-lopez&gt;&lt;1.e4&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16001" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16000" CreationDate="2016-12-05T21:07:07.580" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;6.Re1 is considered inaccurate because black has the strong reply 6...Nc5!.  Nc5 forces white to part with the bishop pair, and although white will regain the pawn, white cannot claim any advantage.  Black will have a slight lead in development after, for example, &lt;code&gt;7.Bxc6 dxc6 8.Nxe5 Be7 9.d4 Ne6&lt;/code&gt; because white will have to consolidate the d4 pawn at some moment.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;6.d4 has several advantages.  Black's king is still in the center and white has a lead in development, so it is a principled response to try to open the center.  d4 keeps white pieces off of the c5 square (at least until white plays dxe5).  Finally, in many lines of the Open Ruy, white is quite happy to keep the rook on f1 where it defends the f2 square.  For example, consider the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.O-O Nxe4 6.d4 b5 7.Bb3 d5 8.dxe5 Be6 9.Nbd2 Bc5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is one of the main starting positions of the Open Ruy, white is immediately subject to pressure on f2, and the rook on f1 gives white a moment to complete development with c3 and Bc2 (for example).  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12" LastActivityDate="2016-12-05T21:07:07.580" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16002" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16000" CreationDate="2016-12-05T21:18:55.773" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;After 6.Re1, black equalizes comfortably after 6....Nc5, as he wins the bishop pair. For example, 7.Bxc6 dxc6 8.Nxe5 Be7 9.d4 Ne6 10.c3 0-0.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Instead, 6.d4! is the main line, after which 6....b5 7.Bb3 d5 8.dxe5 Be6 is almost forced for black. The resulting position is the &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/2097/what-is-a-tabiya-and-what-is-their-importance&quot;&gt;tabiya&lt;/a&gt; of the Open Spanish.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;      [StartPly &quot;10&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;      [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;      1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.O-O Nxe4 6.Re1 (6.d4! b5 7.Bb3 d5 8.dxe5 Be6) Nc5 7.Bxc6 (7.Nxe5 Be7) dxc6 8.Nxe5 (8.d4 Ne6) Be7 9.d4 Ne6 10.c3 O-O&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4588" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.193" LastActivityDate="2016-12-06T18:23:21.037" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16003" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-12-05T22:05:21.543" Score="7" ViewCount="286" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1819775&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Here&lt;/a&gt; is a link to the game itself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;[White &amp;quot;Wesley So&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Black &amp;quot;Varuzhan Akobian&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 dxe4 4. Nxe4 Nd7 5. Nf3 Ngf6 6. Nxf6+ Nxf6 7. c3 c5 8. Be3 cxd4 9. Bxd4 Be7 10. Bd3 O-O 11. Qc2 h6 12. O-O-O Qa5 13. Kb1 Rd8 14. Ne5 Bd7 15. Qe2 Bc6 16. Rhe1 Bd5 17. c4 Bxg2 18. Bc3 Qb6 19. Rg1 Bc6 20. Nxf7 Kxf7 21. Rxg7+ Kxg7 22. Qxe6 Qxf2 23. Qxe7+ Kg8 24. Bh7+&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm a chess newbie and was looking at this game and quite amazed by the White knight's attack. I have two questions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First what point did Akobian go wrong? I really didn't see the attack coming. Only at 20. Nxf7 did I realize that the White knight must have some sort of plan and it was probably calculated way ahead. I assumed it was only on the next move that Akobian was also able to calculate ahead and see no chance of winning.  But at what point was the game not saveable, at what point did Akobian make a big mistake? I have a very limited chess program, but it never gives the White knight a big advantage for any of the moves until then so I can't figure it out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Secondly, did the White knight make a mistake at the end? My computer gives 24. Bxf6 as the better move, forcing a checkmate in just a few moves. Meanwhile, the line played by the White knight is not forcing, at least not immediately.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11905" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-01-18T14:51:08.223" LastActivityDate="2021-01-18T15:30:11.177" Title="Two questions about Wesley So vs Varuzhan Akobian (2016)" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;knights&gt;&lt;master-games&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="16004" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16003" CreationDate="2016-12-06T00:35:28.017" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;the line WS played is not forcing, at least not immediately.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You have a funny definition of not forcing. The lines look pretty forcing to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First possibility:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;24 ... NxB 25. Qg7#&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Second possibility:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;24 ... Kh8 25. BxN+ QxB 26. QxQ+ KxB 27. RxR RxR 28. QxR&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;leaving white with Q+4P v B+3P.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The aim of the game is to win not to copy the computer's best line. So won the game so by definition did not make a mistake. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2016-12-06T00:35:28.017" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16005" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16003" CreationDate="2016-12-06T01:25:10.883" Score="9" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;But at what point was game not saveable, at what point did Akobian&#xA;  make a (big) mistake?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Qxf2 is a big mistake as after that it is forced mate in 7 moves. If So had played 24. Bxf6 there is no defense against all the mate threads and all black can do is prolong his suffering by throwing in some pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;US Chess Championships&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Wesley So (2773)&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Varuzhan Akobian (2615)&quot;]&#xA;[StartPly &quot;46&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;47&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;C10&quot;]&#xA;[Opening &quot;French Defense: Rubinstein Variation, Kasparov Attack&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 dxe4 4. Nxe4 Nd7 5. Nf3 Ngf6 6. Nxf6+ Nxf6 7. c3      c5 8. Be3 cxd4 9. Bxd4 Be7 10. Bd3 O-O 11. Qc2 h6 12. O-O-O Qa5 13. Kb1 Rd8 14. Ne5 Bd7 15. Qe2 Bc6 16. Rhe1 Bd5 17. c4 Bxg2 18. Bc3 Qb6 19. Rg1 Bc6 20. Nxf7 Kxf7 21. Rxg7+ Kxg7 22. Qxe6 Qxf2?? 23. Qxe7+ Kg8 24. Bh7+!? (24. Bxf6 Qxf6 25. Qxf6 Bg2 26. Rg1 Rxd3 27. Rxg2+ Rg3 28. Rxg3+ Kh7 29. Qg7#)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However So did not play 24. Bxf6 but went for Bh7+ instead which is of course also winning. Most likely he saw that after Bh7+ lots of material would  &lt;strong&gt;come off the board&lt;/strong&gt; in a &lt;strong&gt;forced line&lt;/strong&gt; and he would end up in an easily won endgame with queen plus 4 pawns vs. bishop plus 3 pawns&#xA;(no counterplay for black and no fortress either).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While mating quickly is more desirable for the beauty of chess, from a practical standpoint, going for a forced line which is easy to calculate and obviously won makes a lot of sense. 24. Bxf6 of course looks very good even without calculating concrete lines, but has more potential for error. Furthermore if So had played 24. Bxf6, he would have needed a bit more time for calculating consequences of that move and also Akobian might have fought on for a move or two. So in the end the second best move (Bh7+) might even have ended the game quicker, because it was obvious that white will win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Back to Qxf2...&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's a curious choice as it leaves the bishop on e7 hanging and after that also the knight on f6 is hanging. I have no idea what Akobian was thinking here (probably desperation or time trouble?). He must (or should) have checked at least all the options of protecting the bishop on e7, like Qc5, Qc7, Re8 and Rd7. Both, Qc5 and Qc7 lose and it is easy to calculate this on the board. 22 .. Re8 seems to hold according to the computer. Black is still under a very dangerous looking attack and will have to find the correct moves to secure equality in the moves to come. 22 .. Rd7 will lose, but not as fast as 22 .. Qc5/c7. From a GM I would have expected to play one of Re8 or Rd7 at least.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Did Akobian go wrong before Qxf2?&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Computers give more or less equality (small advantage for white) before that move, but from a human perspective I find 17 .. Bxg2 a strange choice as it opens the g file for white's rook. This will always be dangerous even if there is no immediate tactics.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also I am not sure whether transferring the bishop from c8 to d5 via d7 and c6 was such a good idea. Wasted lots of tempi just to force white to play c4. Probably a better plan for black here was to go for a minority attack on the queen side with b5, b4...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastEditorUserId="11629" LastEditDate="2016-12-06T07:13:11.897" LastActivityDate="2016-12-06T07:13:11.897" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16006" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16003" CreationDate="2016-12-06T06:59:44.213" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Great answer by user1583209.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But my view is that the error was perhaps a series of small errors, so I don't put as much emphasis on Qxf2 as THE error though it was a big error still.  In fact, if you use a chess engine, even if black plays Re8, it's still a losing game and the queen can continue to check the king as it regains its material advantage. Perhaps that's what Wesley So had in mind because otherwise why did he make those sacrifices (move 20 and 21)?  He surely did not know that Akobian would play 22...Qxf2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11909" LastEditorUserId="3757" LastEditDate="2021-01-18T15:30:11.177" LastActivityDate="2021-01-18T15:30:11.177" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="16008" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16009" CreationDate="2016-12-07T07:56:43.490" Score="5" ViewCount="421" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a beginner playing against other beginners, I find that around moves 8-10 the centre of the board gets quite cluttered. I have a hard time finding good places to put my pieces and improve my position, they get in one another's way, and I often find my opponent threatening my pieces with mere pawns, forcing me into awkward moves I don't want to make.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I realise that part of this comes down to choice of opening, and perhaps I haven't read enough and played enough to get a better sense for which openings/defences lead to more open or closed games.  I know there are literally hundreds of questions about openings for beginners (e.g. &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/1251/how-do-i-get-a-well-rounded-understanding-of-chess-openings&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/1844/switching-from-1-e4-to-1-d4&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/2188/openings-e4-vs-d4/2189#2189&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;, or &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/4539/beginner-openings-defenses-to-learn?rq=1&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;), however I'm still not sure which general features of openings tend to lead to more or less cluttered boards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That said, what I'd really like to know is this: is a cluttered board, or a feeling of being cramped also a sign I am trying to develop too many pieces too quickly, or that I am being too hesitant to exchange pawns and pieces in the opening, or even just of a lack of imagination on my part, or anything else along these lines?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This happens both when I play with white and black.  Typically with white I play e4, with black I'm less settled, though I favour ...e5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks in advance for any answers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;edit: Here is a sample opening.  It's perhaps not wholly representative that there are &lt;em&gt;no&lt;/em&gt; exchanges, but it's not surprising either.  Beware: beginners playing here&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e6 2. Nf3 c5 3. Nc3 a6 4. b3 Nc6 5. Bc4 Nf6 6. d3 d6 7. O-O Bd7 8. Be3 Be7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11919" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2016-12-08T15:52:00.923" Title="How to avoid an overly cluttered board in the opening?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;center&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16009" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16008" CreationDate="2016-12-07T09:56:15.100" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I find that around moves 8-10 the centre of the board gets quite cluttered.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Typically (exceptions occur) around moves 8-10 you should have completed your development: you should have moved all or most minor pieces (i.e. ca 4-6 moves), should have moved a few pawns to occupy the center and to make space for developing the bishops (ca. 3-5 moves) and have castled (one move). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, pieces and pawns tend to &quot;clutter&quot; in the center because it is an important part of the board and if you control the center you often have an advantage. This cluttering is not a bad thing and should affect both players equally. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I have a hard time finding good places to put my pieces and improve my position, they get in one another's way, and I often find my opponent threatening my pieces with mere pawns, forcing me into awkward moves I don't want to make.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because there is so much going on in the center, there are often tactics available, particularly in more open positions. So &lt;strong&gt;studying tactics&lt;/strong&gt; is highly recommended for a beginner (and also advanced) player. Closed positions tend to be quieter and are better if you like slow, maneuvering kind of games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In either case, if you have completed development, (which you should around move 8-10), it is time for the middlegame and you should come up with a plan on how to proceed and also consider the plans of your opponent and if necessary prevent them. Finding plans is not something easy to learn and requires time and experience. I would recommend to start with analyzing the position and to check:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Are any pieces (mine or opponent) attacked?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Are there obvious tactics available?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Which pieces are well placed (lots of space to move around and attack something) and which not (little space to move and don't attack anything)?  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is the king safe? Typically with many pieces on the board you want it behind pawns on either side after castling.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Are there any weaknesses in the position such as isolated pawns?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Who owns the center?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Are there open or half-open files which are occupied or can be occupied by rooks?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is the position open or rather closed? Who would benefit from changing it?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Check all of these items for both sides (you and your opponent). Based on the outcome of this evaluation you should come up with a plan. I ordered the questions in order of importance (exceptions occur), e.g. usually you want to deal with attacked pieces (if you lose/win material) first, before thinking of anything else.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I realise that part of this comes down to choice of opening, and perhaps I haven't read enough and played enough to get a better sense for which openings/defences lead to more open or closed games&#xA;   is a cluttered board, or a feeling of being cramped also a sign I am trying to develop too many pieces too quickly, or that I am being too hesitant to exchange pawns and pieces in the opening, or even just of a lack of imagination on my part, or anything else along these lines?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't think your problem is really related to open/closed  positions but rather to a lack of experience of what is possible and knowledge of tactical motives.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For a beginner I would not recommend to worry to much about concrete openings and to study these. Instead I would play openings from general opening principles (occupy the center, develop pieces, ...) and focus on tactics and learning other themes like good bishop/bad bishop, open files (and what to do with them), undermining a closed center, etc. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2016-12-07T09:56:15.100" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16010" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16020" CreationDate="2016-12-07T16:31:04.087" Score="9" ViewCount="6226" Body="&lt;p&gt;Has it been revealed who helped Magnus Carlsen in preparing and during the World Chess Championship against Karjakin?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2019-12-04T21:53:55.237" LastActivityDate="2019-12-04T21:53:55.237" Title="Seconds of Magnus Carlsen" Tags="&lt;world-championship&gt;&lt;carlsen&gt;&lt;preparation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16011" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16008" CreationDate="2016-12-07T22:59:35.163" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Regarding the example.In principle this is a very normal position and I would not call it cluttered. Two points regarding white's opening play:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The move 4. b3 only makes sense if you want to develop your bishop to b2 (or to a3). The way you played it, b3 in combination with d3, you limit your bishop on c4 (which in fact would be lost if black played b5) and also you weaken the dark squares on the queenside (because there are no pawns on dark squares anymore).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Developing the bishop to c4 is often not a good idea if black has a pawn on e6. First of all the bishop has not much to attack there and second it invites black to play d5 or b5 (which black wants to play anyway), attacking the bishop a tempo. If you want to play such closed Sicilian structures, put that bishop on e2 or g2.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ignoring for a moment that white is about to lose the c4 bishop, typical plans in positions like this (closed Sicilian):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black will want to play on the queenside or in the center gaining space with moves like b5 or d5. White can consider making this difficult by playing a4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White could think of playing on the kingside, particularly if black decides to castle short. Pushing pawns f4, g4, ... trying to mate the black king in the end could be a plan. Often this is safer to do if the center is fixed and not open.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2016-12-07T22:59:35.163" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16012" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-12-08T09:38:16.470" Score="6" ViewCount="589" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was wondering about the exact meaning of &lt;em&gt;winning percentage&lt;/em&gt; (white/draw/black) in database systems and how to use them for studying.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;How are move order variations taken care of? For instance, if I go to a certain position, the winning percentage is only calculated from games which had this exact position on the board, right?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Let's say I look at a position from an opening which had been popular for many years. So there are lots of games in the database from those years with more or less equal percentage for black and white. Then at some point a novelty was found which gave a clear advantage for white, making the opening basically unplayable for black. As a consequence people stopped playing this opening and there are very few games in the database which show this big winning percentage for white. So if I look at some position before the novelty move, the winning percentage at that position will still show more or less equal percentages for white and black (because many pre-novelty-games get averaged with few novelty-games)?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this correct? If yes, IMO, the &lt;em&gt;winning percentage&lt;/em&gt; is of rather limited use and should not be used when assessing a single position, without traversing and analyzing all the lines originating from that position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Have there been attempts, to create a better (more useful for actual use) parameter than the &quot;winning percentage&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2020-02-06T16:28:32.550" Title="Meaning of winning percentage" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;database&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16014" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1832" CreationDate="2016-12-08T11:49:12.030" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would question that there is a craze of becoming a GM (or other titled player). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do you have any proof of this claim? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;True there are lots of people playing online, but in general people are doing all kinds of useless activities online. Chess is perfectly suited for playing online as it does not require many resources (no huge graphics as in other games) and has reasonable time scales (if you play blitz). Also it is interesting/difficult enough to have all kinds of coaching/courses online as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the old days in order for many people to become good at chess you needed a certain environment (good coaches, books, but also social recognition). That's what made players from the Soviet Union that strong for a long time. With the internet and appearance of strong chess engines, chess (at the highest levels) is now available to many more people than before. That's why you might see more GM now. Also rating inflation might have an effect on having more rated players now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2016-12-08T11:49:12.030" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16015" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-12-08T13:49:56.250" Score="8" ViewCount="831" Body="&lt;p&gt;I wonder if there is any existing or a way to create a chess database organised &lt;em&gt;only&lt;/em&gt; according to pawn structures, where the notion of a pawn structures is crudely defined by GM Andrew Soltis in his book Pawn Structure Chess and GM Mauricio Flores Rios in his book Chess Structure: A Grandmaster Guide as shown in this Wikipedia article? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pawn_structure&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pawn_structure&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have the first book and I read a free excerpt of the second.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The software I am currently using is SCID vs PC.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11931" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-12-08T13:57:37.403" LastActivityDate="2019-01-05T18:06:01.593" Title="Pawn Structure database" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;database&gt;&lt;pawn-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16016" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16008" CreationDate="2016-12-08T15:10:44.970" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;My first chess book was &lt;em&gt;How to Think Ahead in Chess&lt;/em&gt; by I. A. Horowitz and Fred Reinfeld. It was truly an amazing book because it focused on a simple opening with simple ideas. You knew where the pieces belonged. You knew the attack plan. This one book took me directly to USCF 1600s. It's out of print but it is worth gold if you can buy an used copy. FYI, it deals with the Stonewall Attack as White. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11178" LastEditorUserId="10867" LastEditDate="2016-12-08T15:52:00.923" LastActivityDate="2016-12-08T15:52:00.923" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16020" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16010" CreationDate="2016-12-08T19:04:33.547" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;So far, following seconds have been revealed (&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.nrk.no/sport/dette-er-carlsens-hemmelige-hjelpere-1.13253569&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;NRK&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.chessbase.com/post/carlsen-karjakin-interview-with-peter-heine-nielsen&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;ChessBase&lt;/a&gt;): &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;GM Peter Heine Nielsen (no surprise as he was part of team Carlsen in &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Chess_Championship_2014&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;WCC 2014&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;GM Laurent Fressinet (also no surprise as he was part of team Carlsen in &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Chess_Championship_2013&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;WCC 2013&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Chess_Championship_2014&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;WCC 2014&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (quite a surprise as he is the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.2700chess.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;current world's nr. 4&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;GM Nils Grandelius&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;GM Jan Gustafsson (the &lt;a href=&quot;https://twitter.com/RadioJan/status/806133661934428160&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;tweet of RadioJan&lt;/a&gt; was not a joke)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;GM Samuel Shankland (a surprise to many, however it was revealed that &lt;a href=&quot;https://twitter.com/PHChess/status/806457832275083264&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;he also helped for WCC 2014&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another surprise is that GM Jon Ludvig Hammer was &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; part of Carlsen's team for this match, while he was for &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Chess_Championship_2013&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;WCC 2013&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Chess_Championship_2014&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;WCC 2014&lt;/a&gt;. Instead, he chose to do commentary work for &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/nl/news/how-to-follow-carlsen-vs-karjakin-on-chess-com-1761&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;VG and Chess.com&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4588" LastEditorUserId="4588" LastEditDate="2016-12-09T14:46:33.477" LastActivityDate="2016-12-09T14:46:33.477" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16021" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2016-12-08T20:38:45.720" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2016-12-08T20:38:45.720" LastActivityDate="2016-12-08T20:38:45.720" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16022" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2016-12-08T20:38:45.720" Score="0" Body="The tag is for questions involving the 2016 World Chess Championship between Magnus Carlsen and Sergey Karjakin" OwnerUserId="11629" LastEditorUserId="11629" LastEditDate="2016-12-09T05:28:39.497" LastActivityDate="2016-12-09T05:28:39.497" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16024" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16012" CreationDate="2016-12-09T07:34:44.147" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Winning percentages are quite useless not only because of novelties, but also because of general distribution of results. For example there is no meaningful average for line which is branching into (0,100,0) and (60, 0,40) later. I saw even more brutal examples like (55,0,45) branching on next black move into something like (100,0,0) and (0,20,80) which in original position seems like standard white advantage :D There is another problem that some lines are virtually always played by much weaker player. That can be reason why exchange Slav or 4 knights may in some books have positive score for black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Engine evaluation / usage in corr games is in my opinion generally much closer to truth and count &quot;N&quot; can help you as well, even if this runs into novelty problem you pointed out. It has many drawbacks for evaluating human chess with many mistakes, but results graphs tells nothing of any value. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11609" LastEditorUserId="11609" LastEditDate="2016-12-09T07:39:54.773" LastActivityDate="2016-12-09T07:39:54.773" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16026" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-12-09T11:26:51.840" Score="19" ViewCount="3987" Body="&lt;p&gt;We've just had the World Championship match between Carlsen and Karjakin, so one qualifier for the next Candidates is known: Karjakin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I assume it will be held in 2018, is anything more known about the date?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are the rules for qualification of the other players?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2017-10-30T14:46:02.793" Title="When will the 2018 FIDE Candidates tournament be held, and who will qualify for it?" Tags="&lt;fide&gt;&lt;world-championship&gt;&lt;candidates&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16027" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16026" CreationDate="2016-12-09T12:09:26.390" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.agonlimited.com/calendar/2018/11/8/candidates-tournament-2018&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Agon&lt;/a&gt; (who owns the rights), it will take place from March 8 to March 29, 2018. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't think anything else is known at this point in time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2016-12-09T12:09:26.390" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16028" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-12-09T13:16:26.523" Score="3" ViewCount="118" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there any parser available in which we take PGN data as input and then convert it to &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_Description_Framework&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;RDF&lt;/a&gt; format? Has someone worked on this thing?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11938" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-12-09T13:26:51.413" LastActivityDate="2017-01-18T17:01:50.443" Title="How can we convert PGN format to Resource Description Framework (RDF)?" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;pgn&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16029" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16028" CreationDate="2016-12-09T19:36:41.310" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found this website that seems to do exactly what you are asking, as far as I can tell, it is the only resource available for PGN-&gt;RDF conversion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The website is &lt;a href=&quot;http://salonica.dia.fi.upm.es:8080/rdfchess/pgn2rdf.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://salonica.dia.fi.upm.es:8080/rdfchess/pgn2rdf.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://salonica.dia.fi.upm.es:8080/rdfchess/pgn2rdf.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sorry for the link-only answer, but it seems to answer the question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~CSS&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11425" LastActivityDate="2016-12-09T19:36:41.310" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16030" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16031" CreationDate="2016-12-09T21:09:05.973" Score="31" ViewCount="3192" Body="&lt;p&gt;A few years ago Vishy Anand mentioned in an interview that computers had changed the way humans play chess.  Obviously computers help a lot in opening preparation, but what other concrete examples are there?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is there a certain opening line or endgame whose evaluation has changed a lot due to computer analysis?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Have new principles or strategies been found thanks to computers?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Are grandmaster specifically training to play computer moves instead of relying on traditional principles?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2017-06-14T11:45:40.737" Title="How computers have changed the way humans play chess" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;computer-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16031" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16030" CreationDate="2016-12-09T21:31:56.047" Score="24" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Computers allowed the creation of endgame tables, which allow the user to know with 100% certainty if a position can be won, and how to do it. Currently all positions containing 7 or fewer pieces are 100% known.  I am unaware of any opening line busted by computers.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Not that I know of, but computers do find answers to some hard questions. So while computers don't change the principles, they can surely change the evaluation of specific positions. For example, it is common for computers to find flaws in pre-computer chess books, even books held in high regard.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;No. Grandmasters use computers as a training aid, however.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2016-12-09T21:31:56.047" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16032" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16026" CreationDate="2016-12-09T22:37:26.580" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, finalist from the previous cycle is one of the candidates; two more spots go to the latest World Cup winner and runner-up, a couple of spots are determined by Grand Prix results, one spot is the host's choice (that's how Aronian got into the last Candidates), and the rest are determined by the FIDE rating list. That is, more or less, what was used for the last tournament - I don't know if that's subject to change or not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11941" LastActivityDate="2016-12-09T22:37:26.580" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16033" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16030" CreationDate="2016-12-10T01:04:19.763" Score="17" Body="&lt;p&gt;Anand is absolutely right. Computers have revolutionized the way we play chess, think about chess and prepare.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tony Ennis mentions tablebases. That is just the tip of the iceberg. Computers have infiltrated almost every aspect of the game. The only place they're banned is when we sit down to play over the board (and perhaps on some online platforms).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At the risk of losing half the population let me make an analogy with the game of cricket. Actually Svidler, Anand, the rest of the population of India and the rest of the Commonwealth, for that matter, will understand. Computer tracking technology has revolutionized cricket and in particular the LBW law. As a result of the technology umpires now interpret the law differently, because computer technology has shown them that balls which hit the batter when he is well down the pitch would have hit the wicket, spin bowlers have a new lease of life and greater opportunities, and batters have to play spin much more carefully and skillfully than they did 20 or 30 years ago. The mindset and the way the game is played has changed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Putting opening preparation and endgames with 7 or fewer pieces to one side, no serious book involving analysis can be published and succeed without at the very least computer checking the lines. Certain authors, like GM John Nunn, have made particularly skillful use of computers both in his endgame books and books containing analysis of old games. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But, like the computer and video technology in cricket, computers have changed the way we think about chess. We see the calm computer assessment in what looks like a horrendously risky position and realize that, yes, that apparently unsound move is playable. We realize that endgame can be drawn. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think all the top players have learnt this to some extent but the doyen for me is Karjakin. Time and time again he over stretches and reaches positions which have the fans and expert commentators saying that he has gone too far and is going to lose (or his opponent outplays him in the middlegame) only for him to find a way to thread the needle through to a draw. This belief that apparently indefensible positions can often be defended, often in contradiction to established principles, is a mind-opening that has been brought about by computers and their use in study.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To a lesser extent I think this also happens with attacking moves. Very occasionally in one of the top games you will hear the expert commentators saying something like &quot;Well, the computer is pointing out a fantastic line here. It involves a very unlikely piece sacrifice 3 moves into the combination. He is thinking a long time here. Will he see it? It is a computer move, not a human move&quot; and then a few minutes later &quot;OMG! He's played it!&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the preparation front it is probably worth mentioning the democraticizing effect of computers. There is now a vast amount of chess knowledge which is available online which 30 years ago was only available if you subscribed to Informator and 40 years ago to Shakmatny Bulletin. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Above a certain level you can also find a lot of your opponents' games in online databases like chess-db. You can download them and quickly scan through them on your computer and hopefully identify lines you can investigate further with a view to playing against them. Even as recently as 10 years ago you mostly had to rely on your personal database of games you had played previously against them or that from co-operating friends.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are players specifically trying to play &quot;computer&quot; moves? No, they are trying to play the best moves whether they accord with standard principles or not. I think this predates computers. One of the best books on this subject is John Watson's &quot;Secrets of Modern Chess Strategy: Advances since Nimzowitsch&quot; published in 1998. This makes it clear that top players have not been bound by dogmatic principles for quite some time. Computers are just the latest, most powerful tool to aid the human mind in finding chess &quot;truth&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2016-12-10T01:04:19.763" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16034" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16035" CreationDate="2016-12-10T13:04:21.340" Score="1" ViewCount="304" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the expected probability that someone rated 2150 will have a performance rating of 2450 over a 9 round tournament and earn an IM norm?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8258" LastActivityDate="2016-12-10T15:24:26.380" Title="FIDE norm chance expectation calculation question" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;performance&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16035" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16034" CreationDate="2016-12-10T13:27:50.963" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Given the new requirements, I tried to do a calculation. I couldn't find one on the internet suitable for this task, but &lt;a href=&quot;https://wismuth.com/elo/calculator.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this one&lt;/a&gt; suggests that for &lt;em&gt;one game&lt;/em&gt; between a 2150 and a 2450 player, the following probabilities hold (from the standpoint of the weaker player):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;win   4.5%&#xA;loss 75.1%&#xA;draw 20.4%&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To get a score of 4.5 or more, which is needed to score a TPR of at least 2450, the following results work:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;5 or more wins              (0.0023%)&#xA;4 wins, and 1 or more draws (0.0434%)&#xA;3 wins, and 3 or more draws (0.0842%)&#xA;2 wins, and 5 or more draws (0.0490%)&#xA;1 win,  and 7 or more draws (0.0045%)&#xA;            9 draws         (0.0001%)&#xA;-------------------------------------&#xA;                             0.1835%&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(you need some combinatorics to get the percentages)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So he will succeed once every 545 tournaments, on average.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;s&gt;It will depend on the strength of the opposition. To take two extremes: if your opponents all have a rating of 1000, you'll always win but never be able to get a TPR of 2450 (9/9 gives a TPR of +700). Conversely, if you're playing nine Stockfishes/Houdinis, rated 3300, you'll score 0/9 but that would give you a TPR of 2600. So the probability you're looking for can be 0%, 100% and everything in between.&lt;/s&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-12-10T15:24:26.380" LastActivityDate="2016-12-10T15:24:26.380" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16036" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16037" CreationDate="2016-12-10T20:40:45.463" Score="2" ViewCount="212" Body="&lt;p&gt;I remember watching some games on youtube in this weird format but forgot what it's called.&#xA;One player has only pawns (lots of them. no other pieces, not even king) and has to achieve mate. Other player has to capture all of opponent's pawns to win the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11497" LastEditorUserId="11497" LastEditDate="2016-12-13T07:08:32.607" LastActivityDate="2016-12-13T07:08:32.607" Title="What is the name of chess format in which one player has only pawns, no king?" Tags="&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;online-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16037" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16036" CreationDate="2016-12-10T20:52:08.507" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is either Horde or the very similar Dunsany's chess: 32 pawns against the regular chess army.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2016-12-10T20:52:08.507" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16038" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16039" CreationDate="2016-12-11T03:45:07.027" Score="2" ViewCount="234" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[title &quot;White to move&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;8/8/4kr1Q/1p2pp2/1P1n4/p3K3/P7/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I’m looking at this current position, and I think I'm going to lose, as I have limited mobility with both my king and queen. But a friend suggested otherwise, saying that I should put more focus on destabilizing the pawns up front, and therefore I have a high probability of winning otherwise.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Suggestions would be appreciated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11953" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-01-06T23:32:53.170" LastActivityDate="2020-01-07T00:01:54.287" Title="Is this endgame scenario winnable for white?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="16039" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16038" CreationDate="2016-12-11T08:55:53.300" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Looks rather lost (for white) to me.  Black basically has a fortress except for the a3 pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If white wanted to win this (with black not doing anything), you'd have to win the a3 pawn, play a4 and promote a pawn. I don't think white has time for this as black's e,f-pawns will run very fast.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the only realistic chance is a perpetual.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2016-12-11T08:55:53.300" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16040" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16038" CreationDate="2016-12-11T10:50:46.317" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Black threatens Nc2+ and this allows one or both the white pawns to be captured. You would have to virtually dedicate your Q to preventing this. No matter what you attempt, Black has strong replies.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I agree perpetual check is your best option.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11946" LastActivityDate="2016-12-11T10:50:46.317" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16041" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16047" CreationDate="2016-12-11T11:34:08.073" Score="2" ViewCount="302" Body="&lt;p&gt;I like chess puzzles, and particularly like those for which there is a prize.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;The Times&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;Sunday Times&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;Spectator&lt;/em&gt; provide weekly puzzles (I'm based in the UK). These puzzles are available online as well as printed. I can usually answer two of these and, in good week, all three.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd like to know of other sources of chess puzzles in the press or on the web which offer a modest reward. Do you know of any?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11946" LastActivityDate="2016-12-12T13:30:39.050" Title="Chess puzzles in newspapers and magazines which offer a prize" Tags="&lt;puzzles&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16042" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-12-11T18:46:34.917" Score="1" ViewCount="164" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there any a free software or free pgn files that presents a survey of all openings and their variations (the deeper the best) similar to those found in chess opening references like MCO or ECO ? I just want to explore and analyze the resulting moves and positions by myself. I am not asking for games but rather just openings and their variations in a software version instead of normal books. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11950" LastActivityDate="2016-12-12T13:44:59.587" Title="software for a survey of chess openings" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;database&gt;&lt;pgn&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16043" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16042" CreationDate="2016-12-11T22:17:59.253" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;What do you call an opening? ECO would not be very deep, only a couple of moves usually.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, if you get really deep, the number of variations will increase dramatically and you won't have time to study each and every variant down to move 20 or so.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd suggest to find out what kind of opening s you like (closed/positional, open/tactical, popular, off-beat, ...) and thereby limit your choices. Use a regular database and study how grandmasters handle the opening of your choice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2016-12-11T22:17:59.253" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16044" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-12-12T11:47:05.647" Score="3" ViewCount="224" Body="&lt;p&gt;Below is the beginning of a game I played against the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.playmagnus.com/play-magnus&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;8 year old&lt;/a&gt; Magnus Carlsen (yes, I'm a beginner). I'm white.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My opening moves are similar to that of a Spanish opening (but not quite), but I don't understand black's moves here. As far as I can see, there are only negatives (except the queen is threatening b2 if the white bishop is moved). Does this opening have any pros? The reason why I'm asking is that I've noticed that &quot;Magnus&quot; often plays moves that are good if played against a worse player, but rarely moves that are just plain bad (except some major blunders). I win probably 75% of the time against 8 year old Magnus, thus we're almost at the same level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as I know, the most important principle during the first phase of the game is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Control the center&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Activate the pieces&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Perform a castling move&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is: Does black's opening here have any advantages against a beginner or is it simply bad? Is black just &quot;hoping&quot; white will forget about the queen and move the bishop (or some other blunder I'm not seeing)? Am I doing something bad in this opening? What would a be a good next move for white?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e6 2. Bc4 c5 3. d3 Nh6 4. Nc3 Be7 5. Nf3 Qb6 6. O-O a5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11964" LastEditorUserId="11964" LastEditDate="2016-12-12T12:55:14.480" LastActivityDate="2016-12-12T14:05:05.787" Title="Strange(?) opening by computer (beginner level)" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;engines&gt;&lt;opening-traps&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16045" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16044" CreationDate="2016-12-12T12:58:01.410" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, to be honest, it's not a very good opening by either of the players.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;While you haven't made any real mistakes, there were chances for black to seize the initiative.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In The French defence, you hardly see black taking the initiative. Black always hopes to sit tightly and looks for counter attack, usually on the queenside. i am not a huge fan of your move (2.Bc4)(Better was 2.d4). The bishop has no future on c4. Well, yes it controls the d5 square but Black could simply have moved (3..d5) instead of that horrible (3..Nh6) and your bishop would have moved twice in the opening 5 moves. &lt;strong&gt;Not a good sign&lt;/strong&gt;. Black's opening here is almost terrible. White gains a substantial advantage and with logical play should win this game without much trouble. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A good move at this stage would be 7.Bxh6 which doubles up black's pawn on the h file and a future Qc1 would mean that the pawn would always be upon attack by enemy forces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11891" LastActivityDate="2016-12-12T12:58:01.410" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16046" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16042" CreationDate="2016-12-12T13:24:56.757" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think you are looking for my &lt;a href=&quot;https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/encyclopedia-chess-openings/id1165950660?mt=8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Encyclopaedia of Chess Opening&lt;/a&gt; iOS app.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/rMD3j.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/rMD3j.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This app provides you the ECO openings, annoated games for each opening and lots of variation. There is an engine embedded for you to explore lines and positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, this is &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; a free app but it costs less than a McDonald BigMac. Please consider if you are interested.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2016-12-12T13:44:59.587" LastActivityDate="2016-12-12T13:44:59.587" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16047" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16041" CreationDate="2016-12-12T13:30:39.050" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The only one I am aware of is &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesspuzzles.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chesspuzzles.com&lt;/a&gt; offering a prize drawing for:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Mate in 1 problem: &lt;em&gt;Chess Rules for Students&lt;/em&gt; (RRP $4.50) &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Mate in 2 problem: &lt;em&gt;Checkmate! Ideas for Students&lt;/em&gt; (RRP $5.00)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Mate in 3 problem: &lt;em&gt;Chess Tactics for Students&lt;/em&gt; (RRP $16.00, but on sales for $12.80 now)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All prizes written by John Bain. The latest prize drawing was week ending Saturday 16-December-2016, at the time of answering this post.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2016-12-12T13:30:39.050" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16049" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16044" CreationDate="2016-12-12T14:05:05.787" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;Magnus&quot; often plays moves that are good if played against a worse player...&#xA;  Does black's opening here have any advantages against a beginner or is it simply bad? Is black just &quot;hoping&quot; white will forget about the queen and move the bishop (or some other blunder I'm not seeing)? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would not think in terms of: &lt;em&gt;moves that are good against beginners&lt;/em&gt;, etc Either a move is good or it is not, the opponent does not matter. OK, if you play against a very beginner it is enough to attack something and it will likely not be noticed. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other than that for players that are rated much below you, a good strategy is to keep the positions complicated with many pieces on the board. And make (universally) good moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Am I doing something bad in this opening? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nothing serious. You develop your pieces naturally, but it seems to me that you basically ignore what black is doing. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance black's 1.... e6 normally indicates that he wants to follow it up with d5 attacking the center this way (French defense). Putting a bishop on c4 is not a good idea as it will have to move after d5 and also if black does not play d5 it, the bishop does not attack much on the a2-g8 diagonal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Second point you should have paid attention is when Magnus played Nh6. Capturing, Bxh6 should at least be considered as it weakens black's kingside pawn structure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What would a be a good next move for white?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not a single move, but a few plans:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;give the white bishop on c4 some escape square on a2 in case it gets attacked by pawns; i.e. play either a3 or a4.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;free the dark squared bishop by protecting the pawn on b2 with Rb1&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;capture, Bxh6 to weaken the kingside (this would be even stronger after black castles kingside)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;kingside pawn attack playing f4 (after the knight made space), h3, g4 ... (this also makes best sense after black castles kingside)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;play on the light squares on the queenside which black has weakened; can think of later putting a knight or two at b5, etc (but watch out, immediate Nb5 loses a piece after d5)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2016-12-12T14:05:05.787" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16050" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-12-12T17:55:35.187" Score="3" ViewCount="145" Body="&lt;p&gt;In their paper about DeepChess, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cs.tau.ac.il/~wolf/papers/deepchess.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.cs.tau.ac.il/~wolf/papers/deepchess.pdf&lt;/a&gt;, David et al show a cool way to train a net to play chess. I've trained my net to some degree of success and I want to test how well it performs in play. The neural net can only compare 2 positions to each other - it has no static evaluation function. The paper briefly talks about Alpha-Beta search for this net. I'm trying to write the pseudo-code for this algorithm, and would appreciate any help:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;function alphabeta(node, depth, α, β, maximizingPlayer)&#xA;      if depth = 0 or node is a terminal node&#xA;          return eval(node, α, β, maximizingPlayer)&#xA;      if maximizingPlayer&#xA;          v := -∞&#xA;          for each child of node&#xA;              α := alphabeta(child, depth – 1, α, β, FALSE)&#xA;              if net(β, α) == β //beta is the winner&#xA;                  break (*β cut-off *)&#xA;          return α &#xA;      else&#xA;          v := ∞&#xA;          for each child of node&#xA;              β := alphabeta(child, depth – 1, α, β, TRUE)&#xA;              if net(β, α) == α //alpha is the winner&#xA;                  break (* α cut-off *)&#xA;          return β &#xA;&#xA;function eval(node, depth, α, β, maximizingPlayer)&#xA;    if maximizingPlayer and net(node,α) == α //alpha is the winner&#xA;         α = node&#xA;    if not maximizingPlayer and net(node,β) == β //beta is the winner&#xA;         β = node &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Am I on the right track? Is this totally wrong? I know that I haven't account for no legal moves, which means I have to return negative infinity, and I'm also not sure how to initiate the call... Any help would be appreicated!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11966" LastEditorUserId="3270" LastEditDate="2016-12-13T00:57:33.717" LastActivityDate="2016-12-13T02:36:52.830" Title="How do you implement Alpha-Beta search when you can only compare 2 positions to each other?" Tags="&lt;computer-chess&gt;&lt;chess-algorithms&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16051" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14489" CreationDate="2016-12-12T21:30:28.823" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Although it is hard to prove a negative, I don't believe that Stein ridiculed Fischer for taking the poisoned pawn. My evidence is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;An analysis on &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/blog/NimzoRoy/spassky---fischer-1972-wch-game-11-b97&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess.com&lt;/a&gt; of game 11 claims to source commentary of Stein's and others from &lt;em&gt;Fischer-Spassky 1972 From a Soviet Point of View&lt;/em&gt;. Although I cannot find the original source, the commentary quoted on Chess.com is fair and balanced. In fact, 8...Qxb2 doesn't even receive a dubious mark&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Googling &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.google.co.uk/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&amp;amp;ion=1&amp;amp;espv=2&amp;amp;ie=UTF-8#q=leonid%20stein%20ridicule&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;leonid stein ridicule&lt;/a&gt; picks up no relevant articles on the first page&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;According to the &lt;em&gt;Chessmaster&lt;/em&gt; database, Stein's co-comentators Bronstein and Korchnoi had grabbed the poisoned pawn before. I don't think that Stein would have been critical of a move that other top players had played before in a well analysed opening&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2016-12-12T21:30:28.823" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16052" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-12-13T01:13:18.030" Score="8" ViewCount="1159" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have been looking at the open variation of the Catalan game, where White seems not to extremely worry about conceding the pawn with 4...dxc4, going for calm development instead. One notorious example is the below game where Black eventually gives back the material playing 9...b5 without (apparent) preparation; however, I do not see why this is necessary and the questions is whether the underlying idea for White behind this opening is to just gambit without really looking at any way of taking back the c4 pawn unless re-offered.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    [fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;    [Event &quot;WCC Match 2006&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Elista RUS&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2006.09.23&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;1&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Vladimir Kramnik&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Veselin Topalov&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;E04&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;2743&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;2813&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;149&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;    1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 d5 4.g3 dxc4 5.Bg2 Bb4+ 6.Bd2 a5 7.Qc2 Bxd2+ 8.Qxd2 c6 9.a4 b5 10.axb5 cxb5 11.Qg5 O-O 12.Qxb5 Ba6 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another example is this other below game where again Black gives back the pawn after quite a few moves although it seems it could have defended and kept it, had it wanted to, preparing ...b5 after proper set up and development. I have purposely chosen to display games by Kramnik as he is a major player of the Catalan games and I assume his continuations in these positions are theoretically correct (hence it all boils down to what Black chooses).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Corus&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Wijk aan Zee NED&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2007.01.21&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;8&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Vladimir Kramnik&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Magnus Carlsen&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1/2-1/2&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;E04&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;2766&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;2690&quot;]&#xA;[TimeControl &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Time &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;55&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;2007.01.13&quot;]&#xA;[Annotator &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Nf3 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. g3 d5 4. d4 dxc4 5. Bg2 a6 6. O-O Nc6 7. e3 Bd7 8. Nc3 Nd5 9. Nd2 Nb6 10. Qe2 Na5 11. Nde4 Be7 12. Nc5 Bc6 13. Bxc6+ Nxc6 14. Nxb7 Qc8 15. Nc5 O-O 16. N5a4 Nb4 17. Bd2 Rd8 18. a3 Nc6 19. Rac1 Rb8 20. Rfd1 e5 21.Nxb6 cxb6 22. Qxc4 exd4 23. Ne4 dxe3 24. Bxe3 Rxd1+ 25. Rxd1 Qb7 26. Rc1 Ne5 27. Qc7 f6 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does White play a gambit in the open Catalan or is the c4 pawn doomed to be taken back necessarily, at some point in the game?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11726" LastActivityDate="2017-12-19T21:22:30.750" Title="Is the open Catalan a gambit?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;kramnik&gt;&lt;catalan&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16053" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16050" CreationDate="2016-12-13T02:36:52.830" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This looks right to me, but there are two big caveats, one technical nitpickery in your pseudocode and one much deeper.  The nitpickery is that your &lt;code&gt;net()&lt;/code&gt; function shouldn't return a &lt;em&gt;position&lt;/em&gt; because comparing positions is expensive; instead it should return something along the lines of 'left is better' or 'right is better' (i.e., a boolean) and your conditionals should be on the value of that boolean.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your negative infinity case (as well as initiation) can be handled pretty easily with &lt;em&gt;sentinel positions&lt;/em&gt;: these are fake positions that serve exactly the same function that &amp;minus;&amp;infin; does in 'traditional' alpha-beta, in that (using your pseudocode convention) &lt;code&gt;net(sentinel, P)&lt;/code&gt; will always return that &lt;code&gt;P&lt;/code&gt; is better for any (non-sentinel) position &lt;code&gt;P&lt;/code&gt;.  (The simplest way of doing this is likely with something like an &lt;code&gt;IsSentinel&lt;/code&gt; boolean in the position structure, but that's a very code-specific decision).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's a much deeper caveat, though: you're making the implicit assumption in this pseudocode that your neural network is &lt;em&gt;linearly ordering&lt;/em&gt; positions, or at least close enough to linearly ordering them to make this algorithm viable; that is, there are no three positions &lt;code&gt;A&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;B&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;C&lt;/code&gt; with &lt;code&gt;A&lt;/code&gt;&amp;lt;&lt;code&gt;B&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;B&lt;/code&gt;&amp;lt;&lt;code&gt;C&lt;/code&gt;, but &lt;code&gt;C&lt;/code&gt;&amp;lt;&lt;code&gt;A&lt;/code&gt; (where &lt;code&gt;A&lt;/code&gt;&amp;lt;&lt;code&gt;B&lt;/code&gt; here is just shorthand for '&lt;code&gt;net(A,B)&lt;/code&gt; returns that &lt;code&gt;B&lt;/code&gt; is better').  If your neural network isn't at some level returning a value for each position, or at least the results of comparing two values one generated from each position, then it's almost certain that it will run into some measure of this 'rock-paper-scissors' issue.  Unfortunately, there isn't an easy answer there, because the very premise of game tree search (that there is an Objectively Best position) breaks down in that case.  There are certainly ways of trying to tackle that issue, but now we're starting to get into thesis-level research mathematics, in the sense that you could probably get a pretty good thesis out of working through various approaches to the problem...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4270" LastActivityDate="2016-12-13T02:36:52.830" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16054" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16012" CreationDate="2016-12-13T06:41:47.520" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The percentages of triumph are very important. They tell us what types of movement have &quot;more strength&quot; to win. However, in chess there is no absolute truth, for many reasons. The first that comes to my mind is that during the game the player who lost is the one who committed the &quot;last mistake&quot;. There are also reasons external to the chess logic, such as the health of the player, his strength and his psychology, which make him value in a different way the risk of losing and the variants that appeal to him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another aspect implicit in the question is whether the percentage of success is an evaluation of the resulting positions. The clearest answer is given above: No. However, there is some of it if we consider the percentage of success as an evaluation when it has been qualified by the ELO of the opponents. We all know that two players with an ELO difference of 400 points, it is almost certain that the result of a tournament between both is 100% for one and 0% for the other and with players with a similar ELO, it is expected 50% for both. Therefore, the winning percentage is a &quot;statistical assessment&quot; of the resulting positions (plural); I consider that as information.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How can we take advantage of that?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, finding the movement in which the variant is considered a loser, for example, due to a mistake or a very difficult strategy to implement and seek a solution to that problem. We can also use percentages to choose more table-like continuations if we are facing impatient or stronger opponents than ourselves. Thirdly, I have used it to choose variants with fewer satisfactory continuations for the opponent; It seems to me that when there are few suitable continuations to the opponent, there is more risk that he chooses a wrong move. In this, the frequency of use statistic is interesting.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1766" LastActivityDate="2016-12-13T06:41:47.520" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16055" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16052" CreationDate="2016-12-13T09:50:59.293" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Generally it seems to me if you want to keep the pawn on c4 with b5, white can play a4 which is cumbersome for black as protecting the pawn on b5 with c6 or a6 runs into pins on the a file or the h1-a8 diagonal. Even if you did manage this setup with pawns on a6, b5, c6 and c4 and maybe the bishop on b7 (or moving the rook out of the pins), black's light-squared bishop is very passive and moving any of these four pawns will create weaknesses or lose a pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So yes, you could call it a gambit I guess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2016-12-13T09:50:59.293" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16056" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15936" CreationDate="2016-12-13T10:14:12.270" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't know if any such tool exists. If you want to program yourself you need to watch out for:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Change of mating theme&lt;/strong&gt;: If you remove pieces you might get new/different mates, e.g. in:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    6rk/5Npp/8/8/8/8/2K5/7R b - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;if you remove the white knight and the black pawn on h7 you have a new mate, which might not be desirable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Impossible positions&lt;/strong&gt;: If you remove pieces you might end up with positions that cannot be reached in normal play. This can be as easy as positions where three pieces attack the king at the same time, but it can also be a lot more difficult. So in addition to checking for mate, you also need to run some &lt;em&gt;retrograde analysis&lt;/em&gt; to check whether the position is legal&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2016-12-13T10:14:12.270" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16058" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15916" CreationDate="2016-12-13T12:00:37.137" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;From your own experimentation and the lack of documentation from a Google search indicates that wildcards are not supported at this time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2016-12-13T12:00:37.137" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16059" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16060" CreationDate="2016-12-13T12:55:47.103" Score="1" ViewCount="8698" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have used e.g. the game of paper, stone and scissors. Is there another method which determines who has white or black? If so, what is the method? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11309" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-12-13T17:21:21.583" LastActivityDate="2019-01-05T15:53:36.513" Title="How do I determine who has white or black?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16060" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16059" CreationDate="2016-12-13T13:01:55.780" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;White always moves first. To determine who plays white in a friendly game, you can:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Toss a coin&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Roll a dice&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Play an even number of games, alternating sides&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Play rock-paper-scissors&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;One player takes a white pawn and black pawn, and secretly places one in each hand. The other player picks the hand and therefore the colour to play&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Use any other agreed method&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In tournament play, who plays which colour is determined by the organisers and you should be informed of which colour to play before each game. If you are unsure, ask an arbiter or an organiser for clarification.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please note that &lt;em&gt;the initiative&lt;/em&gt; is a specific chess term defined below:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Initiative in a chess position belongs to the player who can make threats that cannot be ignored.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Initiative_(chess)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2016-12-13T13:01:55.780" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16061" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16062" CreationDate="2016-12-13T15:34:50.757" Score="5" ViewCount="448" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the Najdorf can white play 7. Qd2 and plan later 0-0-0 for faster development? It looks very interesting. But we do not find such games with these move orders. Chess experts, please explain with variations and explanations so that it can help many budding players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[StartPly &quot;13&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6  5. Nc3 a6 6. Bg5 e6 7. Qd2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11904" LastEditorUserId="4588" LastEditDate="2016-12-13T18:09:01.470" LastActivityDate="2016-12-13T18:09:01.470" Title="Sicilian Najdorf 6. Bg5 line" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;1.e4&gt;&lt;najdorf&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16062" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16061" CreationDate="2016-12-13T15:50:55.233" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;This line is not very popular because black can challenge the bishop with 7…h6.&#xA;Now white is forced to exchange his bishop against the knight, either by taking right away 8.Bxf6 or after 8.Be3 Ng4. This is something you'd rather avoid, though its not immediately problematic for white. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you try to avoid this with 8.Bh4 you run into 8…Nxe4. I actually lost a game like this, if I remember correctly, some 10 years ago.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 a6 6. Bg5 e6 &#xA;7. Qd2 h6 8. Bh4 Nxe4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2016-12-13T15:50:55.233" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16063" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16059" CreationDate="2016-12-13T17:18:50.367" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Another way is to bet for black in an armageddon setup (draw means win by black).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, white will have say 60 min. Players bet for the time allowance of black. Whoever offers least amount plays black with that amount of time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7002" LastActivityDate="2016-12-13T17:18:50.367" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16064" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4588" CreationDate="2016-12-13T18:07:32.287" Score="-3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Guh. Theory - theory - theory - you throw that word around like it is a light blanket in a blizzard.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Play something you are comfortable with. If 'theory' you are trying to avoid, run away from the Nimzo-indian, Catalan, Slav, King's Indian.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is your rating? Do you even know what opening 'theory' is? If you are not 2200+ then it's a moot discussion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10233" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-08-19T04:36:37.403" LastActivityDate="2020-08-19T04:36:37.403" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="16067" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16052" CreationDate="2016-12-14T04:22:18.483" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As far as i understand the Catalan is a variation of the queens gambit, so yes, it is a gambit. However, like in the regular queens gambit, in most lines white gets the pawn confortably back, black has to run big risks to keep it. Not to mention that you can play 5.Qa4+ to get the pawn back immediately, though this is not the most ambitious approach.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11684" LastActivityDate="2016-12-14T04:22:18.483" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16068" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16074" CreationDate="2016-12-14T13:35:02.540" Score="7" ViewCount="797" Body="&lt;p&gt;With every other middlegame formation, I know more or less what I would do if I were given a load of free tempi, and thus, what I should aim for in the present. However, concerning a highly defensive Semi-Slav still with &quot;fangs,&quot; it seems like there's not much I can do but twiddle my thumbs and hope Black opens up the position for me (which is of course a terrible strategy):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;r1bq1rk1/ppn1bpp1/2p1pn1p/8/3P3B/2NBPN2/PPQ2PPP/R3K2R w KQ - 6 13&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black currently has five (!) defenders locking down d5, with the possibility of bringing in an additional rook or fianchettoed bishop if the current defenders were relocated/exchanged. Thus, I wouldn't have any idea how to launch a successful central takeover (in particular, whenever I push e3-e4 in these situations, my center pawns only seem to turn into a liability for me).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As well, the kingside is without any real defect to exploit, and starting a kingside pawn storm would (afaict) be to bet my whole position on an attack with less-than-ideal odds.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, it seems to me that at present the queenside is White's best option to secure a weakness-free advantage. Let's say I get the opportunity for free to push my pawns and reposition my rook. The issue is that it seems Black often has the ability to liquidate the queenside at his will in his favor, for example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;r1bq1rk1/ppn1bpp1/2p1pn1p/8/PP1P3B/2NBPN2/2Q2PPP/1R2K2R b KQ - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... a5 2. bxa5 Ncd5 3. Nxd5 Nxd5 4. Bxe7 Qxa5+ 5. Nd2 Nxe7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Usually, however, Black commits to some expansion before White has the time to engineer a true queenside pawn storm, often in the form of a fianchetto for his weak bishop. This in turn tends to create a weakness on c6 that, personally, I'm glad to see, because it's at least &lt;em&gt;something&lt;/em&gt; for White to begin to target.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But from my tabiya in the first diagram, how does White ideally want to take advantage of Black's position in the Semi-Slav, without giving himself weaknesses in the process, and without relying on Black's cooperation to loosen his own position?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11518" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-12-14T16:01:42.757" LastActivityDate="2020-01-08T16:35:36.987" Title="How to break through a stubborn Semi-Slav?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;attack&gt;&lt;semi-slav&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="8" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16069" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-12-14T17:57:11.590" Score="4" ViewCount="314" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know it is normal to play the e5 or d5 or c5 or Nf6. All of which have the common intention of controlling the center.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What if Black gets a little creative and tries a6? With the idea being that you go to b5 the next move and then play Bb7. If white castles kingside, you could then play h5,g5 and start an attack. White could easily get over excited with dominance over the center and over extend his pawns producing weakness in his ranks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is:&lt;strong&gt;How bad is 1..a6? Has it ever been played in modern chess by grandmasters?(By modern, I mean in the 21st century)?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11891" LastActivityDate="2016-12-14T20:11:07.167" Title="How bad is 1...a6?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16070" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16069" CreationDate="2016-12-14T19:32:23.017" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;1... a6 is a wasted tempo in most openings. If you want to fianchetto your queen's bishop, 1... b6 is a better choice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;How bad is 1..a6?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well, because it does almost nothing, you're wasting a move. If you play 1. a3 as White, you're basically 'switching sides', so you decrease your expected score (against an opponent of equal strength) from 55% (White's first move advantage) to 45%. So one should expect 1... a6 to score 37%* &amp;ndash; in practice it scores &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.365chess.com/opening.php?m=2&amp;amp;n=3&amp;amp;ms=e4&amp;amp;ns=3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;more&lt;/a&gt; but that might be because of black players rating higher than their opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Has it ever been played in modern chess by grandmasters?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know of no other example than &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1068157&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Karpov - Miles&lt;/a&gt; as mentioned by Christophe Strobbe in the comments, but you can find a few games with both sides &gt;2500 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.365chess.com/search_result.php?search=1&amp;amp;p=1&amp;amp;m=2&amp;amp;n=322&amp;amp;ms=e4.a6&amp;amp;wid=&amp;amp;bid=&amp;amp;order=belo&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;sub&gt;*: the ratio 55% : 45% is about equal to 45% : 37%.&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2016-12-14T19:32:23.017" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16071" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16069" CreationDate="2016-12-14T20:11:07.167" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is not a bad move, i.e. it does not lose immediately. It is more common in open games where it can have some merit in preventing white pieces occupying the b5 square (e.g. Ruy Lopez, Najdorf). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In closed games (after 1. d4) I would expect it to be generally less useful, as after 2. c4 it would already be difficult to continue with your plan of playing 2...b5 (or would leave you a weak pawn on b5).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Playing unusual openings like this can have some merit if you want to avoid theory. However there is a reason that normal openings fight for the center....&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also I am not convinced that your plan (a6, b5, Bb7, no play in center, and if white castles short attack on the kingside), is all that dangerous for white. Playing an opening with the aim that white &quot;gets overexcited...&quot; is an unnecessary gamble IMO.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If white plays a4, the b5 pawn can turn out to be a weakness quickly and also the long diagonal could easily be secured with pawns on f3 and e4 for instance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How do you intend to develop the other pieces and where do you put the other pawns? Perhaps you could start with that first and postpone the a6, b5 plan for later.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2016-12-14T20:11:07.167" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16072" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14700" CreationDate="2016-12-14T20:43:47.493" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Found this article on GM Jonathan Rowson:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.tm.org/blog/people/british-chess-champion/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.tm.org/blog/people/british-chess-champion/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11177" LastActivityDate="2016-12-14T20:43:47.493" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16074" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16068" CreationDate="2016-12-14T23:59:42.637" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The position you are looking at is indeed very common in the semi-Slav defense and the solid control of the d5 square is exactly the underlying idea for Black, often after having played ...dxc4 at some point in the opening. Looking at White's piece placement, in particular at the e pawn on e3 and the White dark squared bishop on the king's side, this seems to have originated from the classic Moscow variation, namely&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Merano defense, Moscow variation&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Nf3 c6 5.Bg5 h6 6.Bh4 dxc4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At this point White has to play aggressively to avoid Black keeping &lt;em&gt;both&lt;/em&gt; the pawn and maintaining the &lt;em&gt;initiative&lt;/em&gt;: the standard continuation for White is 7.e4 (that you have not played) to threaten the knight on f6 and force Black to play 7...g5 and weaken their king's side. Playing 7.e3 instead gives Black the possibility to continue developing their pieces calmly; they played possibly something like 7...Be7 but could have played instead 7...b5, pushing on the queen's side and threatening ...b4 at some point.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, given your position on the board, White usually pursues the plan of the minority attack on the queen's side rather than going for control of the d5 square, pushing the a and b pawns to threaten b5 or c6. In order to do so it is fundamental to give rook support on the c-file with something like 0-0 followed by Rfc1. Stockfish gives the following idea, after castling:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Merano defense, Moscow variation: Stockfish analysis&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Nf3 c6 5.Bg5 h6 6.Bh4 dxc4 7.e3 Be7 8.Bxc4 Na6 9.Bd3 O-O 10. Qc2 Nc7 11.O-O b6 12.Rfc1 Bb7 13.Ne5 Rc8 14.a3 Nce8 15.b4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and White can play trying to break on the b-c files somehow. Perhaps you want to play 12.Rfd1 instead, to avoid ...c5; dxc5 and already having control of the d-file instead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As an example let us have a look at a famous match Topalov-Kramink, one of the many regarding (semi)-Slav variations and Queen's gambit declined as in the fashion of two amongst the most productive players of those lines:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Corus&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Wijk aan Zee NED&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2008.01.22&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;9&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Veselin Topalov&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Vladimir Kramnik&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;D44&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;89&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.Nc3 e6 5.Bg5 h6 6.Bh4 dxc4 7.e4 g5&#xA;8.Bg3 b5 9.Be2 Bb7 10.O-O Nbd7 11.Ne5 Bg7 12.Nxf7 Kxf7 13.e5&#xA;Nd5 14.Ne4 Ke7 15.Nd6 Qb6 16.Bg4 Raf8 17.Qc2 Qxd4 18.Qg6 Qxg4&#xA;19.Qxg7+ Kd8 20.Nxb7+ Kc8 21.a4 b4 22.Rac1 c3 23.bxc3 b3 24.c4&#xA;Rfg8 25.Nd6+ Kc7 26.Qf7 Rf8 27.cxd5 Rxf7 28.Rxc6+ Kb8 29.Nxf7&#xA;Re8 30.Nd6 Rh8 31.Rc4 Qe2 32.dxe6 Nb6 33.Rb4 Ka8 34.e7 Nd5&#xA;35.Rxb3 Nxe7 36.Rfb1 Nd5 37.h3 h5 38.Nf7 Rc8 39.e6 a6 40.Nxg5&#xA;h4 41.Bd6 Rg8 42.R3b2 Qd3 43.e7 Nf6 44.Be5 Nd7 45.Ne6 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11726" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-10-06T14:40:09.893" LastActivityDate="2019-10-06T14:40:09.893" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="16075" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8767" CreationDate="2016-12-15T09:57:16.243" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you look only at the number of people that are obviously intelligent and put a lot of effort into their chess, and then look at the tiny fraction that achieve the level of national master or Candidate master (never mind the higher levels of FIDE masgter, International Master and Grandmaster) then it would seem that the answer is no, not everyone can become a Grandmaster.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But this begs the question.  We do not know what made the difference. Was some of that effort and intensity wasted in the wrong sorts of study? Is some mental skill present in those that succeed that could have been developed in anyone if we only knew how? Does luck play a part? [Being in the right place, finding the right coach, stumbling on the right books, scoring highly your first tournament]. Or was it genetic?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Pólgar experiment tells us nothing. It does not disentangle genetics from environment. László Polgár would have done well to learn something about designing experiments before he started. Then he might have adopted a child or two and compared their chess development to the biological children so as to exclude the genetic influence. Even then the results would not have been conclusive: a handful of subjects do not produce a statistically significant result.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Achieving excellence in chess is no different than achieving excellence in anything. There might be a genetic component. Where you live and are raised makes a difference to your opportunities and the quality of your training. Hard work is mandatory (even if some prodigies would prefer you to believe that it all came to them easily without ever having to work hard - because that is a myth).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the answer to your question?  It is simple.  It is the answer to many questions. It is not one that is popular. It is the reason for interminable debates and arguments, for cherry picking and for much opinion dressed as fact.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;WE DO NOT KNOW!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11985" LastEditorUserId="3890" LastEditDate="2019-07-03T04:59:26.223" LastActivityDate="2019-07-03T04:59:26.223" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="16076" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5022" CreationDate="2016-12-15T10:18:48.650" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is obviously a learned skill. No-one pops into the world after gestating for 9 months able to play blindfold chess!  Just as no-one arrives destined to be an International footballer, genius mathematician or Olympic athlete.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The real question is, is it learned by specifically training to acquire the skills of blindfold chess, or does it develop in some other way?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am a reasonably strong chess player (and was stronger when I was much younger) but have always been well short of IM or GM strength. Yet I can play blindfold chess with ease. Unfortunately it is not especially strong blindfold chess! It lags about 100 rating points below my OTB rating. The main difference is that although I make fewer gross blunders when playing blindfold I do not find exceptionally strong moves or plans either.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have never studied specifically for it but I have been able to play blindfold since I passed about 1800 strength.  At least that is when I first tried it, and succeeded. The first hint that I might be able to play blindfold was when I realised that I could follow chess books without a board and pieces. When I got stronger I found that I could play several blindfold games simultaneously, so in my case the ability developed as a side effect of learning to play chess with a board and pieces. I suspect the same is true of most players including all those FMs, IMs and GMs that are much stronger than me. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Isn't this what you would expect? In learning to play chess well we become intimately familiar with the board, with the powers of the pieces, and with the patterns commonly made by tactical operations and by positional features.  We also calculate future positions by imagining sequences of moves and the positions to which they lead.  These are the basic skills of blindfold play, so it is not surprising that the skill can develop naturally alongside increasing chess strength.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is not to say that you cannot train specifically to play blindfold.  I expect that you can.  But I do not think that is how most chess players gained the skill.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Blindfold chess is  not such an exceptional and amazing mental feat as it is thought to be by people that don't play chess (and by some that do!). I do not know of any strong player that cannot play blindfold. I have challenged some strong players that have never tried to play blindfold to give it a try, and they have always managed it with some ease. What is strong?  Well no-one I know that has achieved a rating of 2100 or more has failed this challenge, and many with lower ratings have managed it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11985" LastEditorUserId="11985" LastEditDate="2016-12-15T10:25:15.460" LastActivityDate="2016-12-15T10:25:15.460" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16077" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16087" CreationDate="2016-12-15T18:41:31.470" Score="2" ViewCount="696" Body="&lt;p&gt;I consider myself an advanced beginner in the 1400-1500 range. I play for fun, like to do tactics and I try to understand instead of memorizing openings and such.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've been analyzing some grandmaster games and realized that improving the position of pieces is a critical part of chess. I usually develop pieces pretty quickly and launch attacks as soon as I have  a bit of tempo. I often see weaknesses in my position but I fear that if I stop the attack I'll lose tempo and it'll backfire on me. Sometimes if the game is very closed, I'll try to break through first by sacrificing and gaining some tempo but I feel I should be making sure that every piece is at an optimal position before breaking in. The thing is, I want to make I dictate the game, not the other way around.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How would you recommend that I improve my positional play while keeping in mind tempo? I can think of putting pressure on pieces as being on, but what about pawn development? Moving my knight 3-4 times to put it on a better square? These seem to take too much time, and I realize I am in the wrong here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11122" LastEditorUserId="11122" LastEditDate="2017-02-16T15:28:47.877" LastActivityDate="2017-02-16T15:28:47.877" Title="How to improve positional play while keeping the initiative?" Tags="&lt;positional-play&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16078" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16077" CreationDate="2016-12-15T23:31:26.963" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;user1583209 is right, &quot;tempo&quot; means something different in chess and is not the same as &quot;initiative&quot;, what is what you are referring to.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;The thing is, I want to make I dictate the game, not the other way around.&quot;, this should not be the way of reasoning about a game or a specific position. In general, it´s the position on the board, which dictates what you have to play. For example, it is very likely that your king side attack will fail, if your center is broken.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An advanced beginner can apply a very concept, my ex-coach called it &quot;chess machine&quot;, which states: Just look at all of your pieces, one by one, and then decide, which one is positioned worst and then improve its position. Although this sound too trivial, this works astonishing well.&#xA;He also said that, if you play strategically correct, tactics and initiative will follow naturally. Manoevres like moving the knight 3-4 times to put it on a better square is something you can do if you are a really advanced player, you should really understand a position, which probably starts around 2200 ELO, or even higher. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11990" LastActivityDate="2016-12-15T23:31:26.963" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16079" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-12-16T03:59:44.800" Score="1" ViewCount="651" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm a casual player, and I learned chess from my Dad when I was a kid, but I still have the problem that I miss really obvious moves I can make (or I don't see really obvious moves the other side can make.) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a chess GUI out there that has a feature that shows all the legal moves possible on the board at a time? Like as arrows pointing from the pieces to squares or something like that? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11994" LastActivityDate="2016-12-16T10:24:04.150" Title="Chess software that can show all legal moves?" Tags="&lt;software&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16080" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16085" CreationDate="2016-12-16T04:20:40.337" Score="9" ViewCount="1958" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm an amateur chess player.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was reading an article about how f7 is such a vulnerable square and how castling makes the king safe and attacks on F7 no longer worrisome.  But looking at it, I am wondering, is this really that much better for the king?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sure, originally F7 is only protected by the King himself.  But after castling (king side) it has only one additional protector, the rook (compare that with the four protectors the E2 pawn has at the beginning of the game).  Secondly, that rook is unlikely to stay there anyways and protect the F7 pawn, as it's likely to move to an open file early in the game.  It would be a waste a five point piece to keep there just to protect the pawn.  Lastly, we now also have the additional concern of backrank mate in this position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can someone explain to me why castling is so important for king safety?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11995" LastActivityDate="2016-12-20T17:58:30.227" Title="Why is castling seen as making the king so safe?" Tags="&lt;castling&gt;&lt;king-safety&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16081" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16080" CreationDate="2016-12-16T05:30:52.370" Score="4" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Can someone explain to me why castling is so important for king safety?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Kings are safest behind pawns that have not moved from their starting squares, because it's harder to create open files and diagonals against such a pawn formation. Once pawns have moved forward, they can be attacked more easily by other pawns, which can make them move even more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In most good openings, one or more central pawns are moved at the start of the game on each side.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Castling lets you put your king behind the untouched pawns on one wing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Additionally, it's usually harder to direct one's pieces against a side of the board rather than the center, because the edges of the board are a natural space constraint.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3270" LastActivityDate="2016-12-16T05:30:52.370" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16082" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15951" CreationDate="2016-12-16T08:38:42.040" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;First of all I think that your question needs to center on how to discover unusual moves that hold or improve your position evaluation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First of all, in equal positions sometimes any move is equally good. Therefore, is the frequency of moves what gives us an indication of the preferred variations that correspond aproximately to the same number of plans. In this circunstance an engine is almost uncapable to discover a move of value, due to the horizon effect.  You should select by yourself a potential move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This kind of position can be of advantage for your purpose. You can explore withing the several moves ordered by the engine the second or the third alternative and explore its continuation (different from chess &#xA;database moves) and adjust the resulting line with your chess knowledge and your plan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A different approach that sometimes I have experimented is to find positons in which there are only one best move according to an engine and the remaning moves have an inferior valuations of at least 1/4 of pawn. This is a kind of position that I consider risky for my oponent and if this variation is preceded by an unusual move as chosen with the method previously explained, you have build a potential surprise for your opponent that could be useful for your preparation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1766" LastActivityDate="2016-12-16T08:38:42.040" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16083" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16079" CreationDate="2016-12-16T09:13:12.173" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Try chesspad. It is small and can highlight the available squares for a piece. Another alternative is Arena.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1766" LastActivityDate="2016-12-16T09:13:12.173" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16084" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16079" CreationDate="2016-12-16T10:24:04.150" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe most sophisticated GUI would have the feature to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;highlight possible moves for any piece; i.e. if you click (or hover) on a piece it will highlight all possible destination squares&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;highlight attacked pieces&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;highlight the last move&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Arena and chesspad and many others should be able to do this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Showing all possible moves is not useful as there are far too many in most positions, that you would not see anything anyway. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to play online, also the lichess client (and probably others) can highlight moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2016-12-16T10:24:04.150" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16085" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16080" CreationDate="2016-12-16T11:09:52.980" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;The f7 pawn is really only a concern for beginners. It is not easy to attack for white with many pieces and is easily defended.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Generally (in the opening/middlegame) you want to surround your king with pieces or pawns for protection. Usually you don't want to bind your pieces to the protection of the king as they have other (attacking) duties. This leaves you with hiding the king behind pawns. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You want those protective pawns to be difficult to attack and difficult to exchange for other pawns as this would open files and diagonals, leaving your king without protection. A typical motive in chess (particularly with opposite side castling) is a &lt;em&gt;pawn storm&lt;/em&gt; where the attacking side pushes its pawns forward in order to open lines around the enemy king. Obviously this is most difficult to achieve if the pawns are far away, i.e. close to their original position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another way to attack the protective pawns would be with pieces. This is often easier to do in the middle than towards the border where there are fewer squares available for the attacking pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now in the opening both sides fight for control of the center; basically in order to gain space to operate the pieces and because pieces can easily move to either side of the board from the center. In order to achieve this central control the players typically move one or two central pawns and concentrate piece activity around the center. This means that often the situation in the center is very dynamic and lines can be opened, pieces exchanged... (another typical motive: ''open lines in the center against an uncastled king''). You don't want to find your king among all this action in the middle of the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Taking all of this together in many cases hiding the king behind pawn chains on the side of the board after castling is usually a good idea for king safety. Another added advantage is that castling joins the rooks, i.e. the castled rook can easily get to the central files (c-d-e-f) where  there are often open or half open files to occupy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are also cases where players don't chose to castle (e.g. in some Sicilian and French opening lines), usually in positions with static, blocked centers and easily to attack king-/queen-sides.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2016-12-16T11:09:52.980" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16086" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-12-16T12:17:09.870" Score="3" ViewCount="288" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are lots of questions asked here about best books about endings or which types of endings are important at the beginning. I have another question - how do you benefit from learning endings?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;E.g. You've read Silman/Dvoretsky/Averbach/Pandolfini books and how did it benefit you? You just achieve (trying to achieve) positions from the books in your games, or is it just easier to create plans in endgames and you just 'see' what should be played? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8637" LastEditorDisplayName="user1108" LastEditDate="2016-12-16T13:20:43.533" LastActivityDate="2019-05-05T18:32:46.807" Title="Chess endings progress story" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16087" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16077" CreationDate="2016-12-16T13:12:41.680" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You need to realize that &lt;em&gt;initiative&lt;/em&gt; (what you call &quot;tempo&quot;) is only one of many factors that determine the evaluation of a position (&quot;Who is better?&quot;) and consequently determine the best move (as you don't want to end up in a worse position after the move).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While playing aggressive attacking chess all the time might work against lower rated players; who are not that good at spotting tactics, at defending or who might be more easily intimidated by a piece sacrifice; if you play in the same style  against stronger opponents you will find that more often than not your initiative is not all that sound. Indeed most won games at higher level are not resulting from directly checkmating the king in an attack, but from converting a tiny positional or material advantage at move 62 in an endgame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I agree that playing like Morphy is more fun than positionally outplaying the opponent, but if you want to become a stronger chess player it is essential to broaden your horizon and not focus on initiative only.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would recommend to start with evaluating a position (from your games or grandmaster games). In order to do so, ask yourself the following questions and do this for both sides (black/white)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Are any pieces attacked?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Are there obvious tactics available?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Which pieces are well placed (lots of space to move around and attack something) and which not (little space to move and don't attack anything)?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is the king safe? Typically with many pieces on the board you want it behind pawns on either side after castling.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Are there any weaknesses in the position such as isolated pawns, pinned pieces...?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Who owns the center?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Are there open or half-open files which are occupied or can be occupied by rooks?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is the position open or rather closed? Who would benefit from changing it?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you see, I did not put &quot;Who has the initiative?&quot; here, because in my view, the initiative is made up of several factors like more piece activity, occupation of open files, etc&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Based on the outcome of this evaluation you should come up with a plan. The difficult part is how to weigh the different factors, i.e., &quot;Is a better piece activity worth a pawn sacrifice?&quot; Or, &quot;I am up a rook, but my king is under attack, will I survive?) Doing this correctly requires lots of experience. However usually, in most normal positions, dealing with attacked pieces (if you lose/win material) and keeping a reasonably safe king position are the main priorities and should get the most weight, before you think of anything else.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You don't need to go crazy with this evaluation, but keeping in mind that there are more factors than initiative is a good start. You could pay attention to one point at a time to get used to it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also IMO, at a level of 1400-1500 studying tactics will give you a lot more benefit than thinking of positional details.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2016-12-16T13:12:41.680" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16089" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16086" CreationDate="2016-12-16T13:53:56.893" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think there are several ways you benefit from endgame study.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Your middlegame can benefit&lt;/strong&gt;: For a beginner player it is often easier to process an emptier board with few pieces. The limited move options and plans then can help to focus on main concepts or ideas. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance if you learn to mate K+R vs K, you will learn how the pieces move, which squares are &quot;attacked&quot; (unavailable to the enemy king) and that in order to win you need to checkmate (take away all possible moves from the king and attack it). Also you will learn about zugzwang. All of this can be useful in the middlegame as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As another example you will learn that isolated and other weak pawn structures are things you don't want to have in an endgame, so you will want to avoid them in the middlegame (unless you get another advantage in exchange).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also the importance of piece activity is usually pronounced in endgames which could make you pay more attention to it in the opening/middlegame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;It can make you win equal positions (or hold lost positions)&lt;/strong&gt; ...if you are much better in endgames than your opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;It can help you decide whether and how to change from middle to endgame&lt;/strong&gt; If you know that an endgame position is won/lost/draw, you might or might not want to go for a line in the middlegame that leads to that endgame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2016-12-16T13:53:56.893" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16090" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14084" CreationDate="2016-12-16T14:39:34.010" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;From the question &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/q/9376/1108&quot;&gt;Confused about ChessBase&lt;/a&gt;, the answer by @Apasserby sums the GUIs up nicely:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Deep Fritz 14, Houdini 4, Komodo 9 and Rybka 4 all use the same Graphic User Interface (GUI).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So yes, ChessBase uses the same GUI.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T20:46:49.350" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T20:46:49.350" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="16091" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13692" CreationDate="2016-12-16T14:44:59.547" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a &lt;a href=&quot;https://wordpress.org/plugins/rpb-chessboard/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;wordpress.org&lt;/a&gt; plug-in called RPB chessboard (hat tip to @GloriaVictus in the comments).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Installing the plug in allows PGN and FEN to be added using the &lt;code&gt;[pgn] ... [/pgn]&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;[fen] ... [/fen]&lt;/code&gt; tags.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2016-12-16T14:44:59.547" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16093" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16099" CreationDate="2016-12-16T17:15:39.617" Score="3" ViewCount="374" Body="&lt;p&gt;Building on this question about tournament etiquette:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/4903/what-is-the-etiquette-or-tournament-rule-for-the-act-of-capturing-a-piece&quot;&gt;What is the etiquette (or tournament rule) for the act of capturing a piece?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Suppose I want to capture a piece but am not sure which of my pieces I'd like to capture with. Is it legal to remove the opponent's piece from the board, then think for 15 minutes before completing the move (i.e., placing my chosen piece on the square previously occupied by the enemy) and pressing the clock?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know it's probably disconcerting to my opponent (and not good etiquette). I wouldn't do this intentionally. At this point I'm just asking about legality.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10640" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-01-05T21:06:05.210" LastActivityDate="2021-01-05T21:06:05.210" Title="Stretching the tournament rules, re: capturing pieces" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;captures&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="16094" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16095" CreationDate="2016-12-16T19:22:03.437" Score="4" ViewCount="153" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was checking Hikaru vs Caruana's round 6 game, these are the first moves:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;London Chess Classic 2016&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;London&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2016.12.15&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;6.3&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Caruana, Fabiano&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Nakamura, Hikaru&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;2779&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;2823&quot;]&#xA;[LiveChessVersion &quot;1.4.8&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;B96&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c5 {[%clk 1:59:50]} 2. Nf3 {[%clk 1:59:52]} d6&#xA;{[%clk 1:59:45]} 3. d4 {[%clk 1:59:48]} cxd4 {[%clk 1:59:39]} 4. Nxd4&#xA;{[%clk 1:59:44]} Nf6 {[%clk 1:59:24]} 5. Nc3 {[%clk 1:59:39]} a6 {[%clk 1:59:19]}&#xA;6. Bg5 {[%clk 1:59:26]} e6 {[%clk 1:59:01]} 7. f4 {[%clk 1:59:15]} h6&#xA;{[%clk 1:58:56]} 8. Bh4 {[%clk 1:59:08]} Qb6 {[%clk 1:58:40]} 9. a3&#xA;{[%clk 1:58:15]} Be7 {[%clk 1:57:01]} 10. Bf2 {[%clk 1:57:06]} Qc7&#xA;{[%clk 1:56:55]} 11. Qf3 {[%clk 1:56:14]} Nbd7 {[%clk 1:55:27]} 12. O-O-O&#xA;{[%clk 1:55:28]} b5 {[%clk 1:55:14]} 13. g4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I came up with the following variation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;13. ... O-O 14. g5 hxg5 15. fxg5 Ne5 16. gxf6 Nxf3 17. fxe7 Qxe7 18. Nxf3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Who is better after the queen sacrifice?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11998" LastEditorUserId="11998" LastEditDate="2016-12-16T20:06:30.610" LastActivityDate="2016-12-16T20:57:28.727" Title="Who is better after this queen sacrifice line?" Tags="&lt;sacrifice&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16095" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16094" CreationDate="2016-12-16T20:10:14.013" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;How did you come up with this line?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Castling kingside on move 13 right into the attack, looks like suicide for black to me. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also I don't see the point of white sacrificing the queen. Instead of giving black the dream square on e5, I'd first play h4 and only then g5, so that you can recapture on g5 with the h pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Regarding your position at the end of your variation, it is probably just equal. Black does not have any particular weaknesses and also there does not seem to be any immediate threat of an attack on the black king anymore. Compare this with the queen sacrifice Caruana played in the game where he had only 2 pieces for the queen, but complete dominance on the light squares.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastEditorUserId="11629" LastEditDate="2016-12-16T20:57:28.727" LastActivityDate="2016-12-16T20:57:28.727" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16096" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16093" CreationDate="2016-12-16T20:20:31.237" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think it is regulated how much time you can spend performing a move. In this sense it is legal, but might still violate some general fair play rules.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In any case you'd lose 15 minutes on the clock. Is it worth it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2016-12-16T20:20:31.237" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16097" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16098" CreationDate="2016-12-16T21:32:04.693" Score="0" ViewCount="372" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are obvious ones that I know, like queen and rook (or either) vs lone king, and I also know you can't checkmate with only a bishop or knight, for instance.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But what if you have a rook and bishop vs a knight, is that possible?  What if it's vs a knight but with eight pawns?  I mean the list is endless.  In short, I just want to know when it's a good idea just to say it's a draw vs other times you just keep trying and trying to get a checkmate.  Thank you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11995" LastActivityDate="2016-12-16T23:05:32.667" Title="Where can I find a list of all theoretically possible piece combinations where checkmate is possible? (e.g. bishop and knight and pawn vs knight)" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16098" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16097" CreationDate="2016-12-16T22:00:13.757" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The ones that are &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; possible are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;King + Bishop vs King&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;King + Knight vs King&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;King + Bishop vs King + Bishop &lt;em&gt;if the bishops are on the same color square&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the bishops, imagine black king on h1, black bishop on g1, white king on g3, white bishop on f3 giving mate. That isn't possible if the black bishop is also on a white square, say f1.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Otherwise, &lt;strong&gt;checkmate is possible&lt;/strong&gt; with a given material balance. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance, of course rook and bishop vs knight can lead to checkmate, because checkmate with a lone rook is possible, and it is possible that the rest is captured.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any material balance that includes a pawn can lead to checkmate, because pawns can turn into queens.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2016-12-16T22:00:13.757" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16099" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16093" CreationDate="2016-12-16T22:40:38.467" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your opponent has the right to view the board also when it is your turn. If you did this and your opponent complained to the arbiter after a minute or two you would face sanctions. Probably just a warning for a first offence, then a time penalty and if you continue repeating the tactic eventually you would forfeit the game. This loss would be graded as such.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2016-12-16T22:40:38.467" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16100" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16097" CreationDate="2016-12-16T23:05:32.667" Score="0" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I just want to know when it's a good idea just to say it's a draw vs other times you just keep trying and trying to get a checkmate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't think you should base your decision on whether to play on, on the piece combination only. A few things that can happen are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;A position might be theoretically won, but it is not easy if the opponent defends well (e.g. queen and king vs rook and king). The winning side might struggle giving mate within the 50 move limit.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;A position might be a theoretical draw, but very difficult to hold for the defender. You would want to play on in this case&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;For some piece combinations also the position of pieces matters (e.g. central pawn vs side pawn).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Some opponents might not be familiar with best play. In this case it is worth playing on drawn or lost positions.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2016-12-16T23:05:32.667" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16101" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-12-16T23:48:42.233" Score="4" ViewCount="254" Body="&lt;p&gt;There exists a heuristic that recommends checking from the diagonals (using a queen) in order to get a perpetual. This, I expect, is a rule that is meant for the worse player in queen and pawn endgames. My question is, why does checking from diagonals ensures, or at least raises the probability, for a draw? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3872" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-12-17T14:29:00.180" LastActivityDate="2017-06-08T12:02:59.063" Title="Using the diagonal in perpetual queen checks?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;queen-endgame&gt;&lt;perpetual&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16102" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16101" CreationDate="2016-12-17T01:16:13.803" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As you said, this is a very general guideline, but looking back it has served me well in practical play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that by &quot;checking from the diagonals&quot;, the pattern I have seen is that the queen maintains a stable circuit on a diagonal but the checks themselves are usually horizontal or vertical.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think it's because the checks from a diagonal allow the queen to keep the king in a box with only minimal pawn support (a single nearby pawn for &lt;em&gt;either&lt;/em&gt; side will usually do it). Checks from a file or rank each allow the king to run across the board in one direction unless there's a pawn directly blocking his path.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3270" LastActivityDate="2016-12-17T01:16:13.803" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16103" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15120" CreationDate="2016-12-17T04:56:58.823" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;PGN files need to be converted to UTF-8 as pointed out by @Artem Mostyaev, then most apps would support this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="618" LastActivityDate="2016-12-17T04:56:58.823" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16104" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16101" CreationDate="2016-12-17T08:56:49.673" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I first heard this from chess24.com's GM Jan Gustaffson during one of his commentary sessions. The explanation he gave was that it is harder for the opponent to block diagonal checks with the queen. In queen and pawn endgames it can be much harder to continue with checks once the opponent's queen has managed to come back and help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2016-12-17T08:56:49.673" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16105" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16107" CreationDate="2016-12-17T14:56:57.753" Score="3" ViewCount="228" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm currently training a student (rating: ~1350 ELO, Age: 16) in my local chess club, who has been making quite some progress in his rating and playing style lately. Nevertheless, when he is playing against me or another much higher rated opponent (1700+ ELO), he always plays quite cowardly and defensively and isn't going for an attack even if it is objectively good for him. Therefore, he is quite happy when he draws a game against a higher rated player instead of taking a little risk to win a game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How can I access this psychological problem in my training sessions and teach him some courage?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10182" LastEditorUserId="10867" LastEditDate="2016-12-30T01:30:18.710" LastActivityDate="2016-12-30T01:30:18.710" Title="Psychological training" Tags="&lt;training&gt;&lt;psychology&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16106" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16105" CreationDate="2016-12-17T16:46:41.090" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Give your student a particular responsibility, for example finding out as much about a particular opening, in this case an assertive or attacking opening such as the King's Gambit, and ask him to use the opening in his training with you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Praise any positive changes in his play, even if it is only a mildly attacking move or series of moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If these ideas don't work, start playing games by giving your student the advantage of a minor or major piece, as appropriate. He will be forced to attack because you will have more work to do to develop your fewer pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, turn things around: tell your student you want to develop your defensive skills, and ask him to attack more to help you do this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11946" LastEditorUserId="11946" LastEditDate="2016-12-17T16:57:19.737" LastActivityDate="2016-12-17T16:57:19.737" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16107" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16105" CreationDate="2016-12-17T22:34:52.097" Score="3" Body="&lt;h3&gt;Possible reasons&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Strictly speaking to content oneself drawing a much higher ranked player in tournaments, when not having a clear understanding of what the exact counterpart for aggression might be, is not a bad idea at all. This said, I would look at two main sources for this to happen:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Playing style&lt;/strong&gt;: not all chess players encourage attack: there are many examples of ultimate GM who are notorious for their positional solid play who dismantle the opponent only one bit at a time, very often just going into endgames where they convert tiny positional advantages into wins (promoting that f pawn after 30 moves preparation). Above all I would mention Karpov and Kramnik, not ultimately known for their attacking fantasies but for sure almost impossible to win against exactly due to the hard discipline and strong knowledge of theoretical positions.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Knowledge of enough lines, variations and continuations&lt;/strong&gt;: it is by all means true that one is more comfortable attacking in positions where one knows already many (if not all) the standard outcomes, because &lt;em&gt;&quot;well, the worst that can happen is that I will be left with a doubled pawn on the g file...&quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Possible exercises&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I myself am part of the above category and generally dislike attacking only for the sake of it; since it is however true though that this characteristic has sometimes held me back from better results, I tried to address the problem in two ways, so far:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;chess puzzles&lt;/strong&gt;: looking and solving chess puzzles helps giving you the &quot;feel&quot; of a given position, showing how tactics can help winning a piece on the short run or combining together bishop and knight for a vortex attack (or the like).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;better preparation of openings and position&lt;/strong&gt;: preparing all (well, not all, but many) possible outcomes of a given opening helps minimising the &quot;risk&quot; of a blunder attack; it can be helpful to practice only one-two openings and defenses to be more secure about the continuations.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11726" LastActivityDate="2016-12-17T22:34:52.097" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16108" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16105" CreationDate="2016-12-17T22:59:59.600" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The simple solution is to teach him to not look at his opponents' ratings until after the game. Seeing that he played well against a player who he did not know had a high rating will boost his confidence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7534" LastActivityDate="2016-12-17T22:59:59.600" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16109" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16105" CreationDate="2016-12-17T23:42:23.187" Score="-4" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can't solve this person's problems, or teach them courage really, they might have complex psychological issues that go beyond chess.  Best you can do is just do the best you can with the mechanics of chess and leaving the rest up to the person himself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11995" LastActivityDate="2016-12-17T23:42:23.187" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16110" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8767" CreationDate="2016-12-17T23:50:32.633" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, the higher you go the bigger the role of innate intelligence becomes a factor.  Less than 1% of Fide rated chess players are grandmasters (about 1500 people around the world).  If you consider the number of grandmasters as portion of all people who play chess, that percentage is much smaller.    &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11995" LastActivityDate="2016-12-17T23:50:32.633" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16111" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12664" CreationDate="2016-12-18T08:14:44.957" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In addition to John Bartholomew and ChessNetwork, there are a ton of other interesting and entertaining channels.  I have about 30+ &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.welearnchess.com/youtube-chess-channels/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;YouTube chess channels&lt;/a&gt; listed on a page on my blog if you're interested in a brief explanation of each. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12008" LastActivityDate="2016-12-18T08:14:44.957" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16112" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-12-18T11:51:04.140" Score="0" ViewCount="260" Body="&lt;p&gt;The following dialogue is between two chess players at the end of a game. Does it mean &amp;quot;you have lost 4 games so far, what is your idea about going for the 5th game and developing the competition to 8 games&amp;quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Dialogue:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: Checkmate! Care to try for best five out of eight?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B: No, Thank you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The source: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.clockwork-comics.com/2012/09/06/i-like-the-way-you-think-schlumberger/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.clockwork-comics.com/2012/09/06/i-like-the-way-you-think-schlumberger/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12009" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2016-12-19T05:06:55.763" Title="What does &quot;best five out of eight&quot; mean?" Tags="&lt;terminology&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16113" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16112" CreationDate="2016-12-18T12:11:19.403" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;To me, it just seems A is asking for a match of 8 games. If you exclude the possibility of draws, you'll need 5 wins to win such a match. This is similar to the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Playoff_format#Best-of_formats&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;best-of-X&lt;/a&gt; formats used in playoffs in many sports.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In any case, it's not terminology specific to chess. You might have more luck on &lt;a href=&quot;https://english.stackexchange.com/&quot;&gt;English Language &amp;amp; Usage&lt;/a&gt; or &lt;a href=&quot;https://ell.stackexchange.com/&quot;&gt;English Language Learners&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:55:20.563" LastActivityDate="2016-12-18T12:11:19.403" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16114" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12664" CreationDate="2016-12-18T13:26:41.220" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's also a relatively unknown &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUzhSlr-PyawQXk2RzSWO7g&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;channel of GM Tal Baron&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Like the channels mentioned in dfan's answer, &lt;strong&gt;GM Tal Baron&lt;/strong&gt; also commentates while playing Blitz.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11775" LastActivityDate="2016-12-18T13:26:41.220" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16115" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-12-18T13:34:29.320" Score="0" ViewCount="366" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am trying to develop a Monte Carlo Chess game, to get rid of draw death in higher ranked matches, and give humans a chance against engines. I want it to still be a strategic game, just with determinism removed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My Current idea:&#xA;The objective of the game remains the same: Capture the opponent's King.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Each piece has an initial Power Ranking&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Queen(Q) = 9&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Rook(R) = 5&lt;br&gt;&#xA;King(K) = 4&lt;br&gt;&#xA;kNight(N) = 3&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Bishop(B) = 3&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Pawn(P) = 1&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Rules:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(1) When a piece A moves to attack another Piece B, the probability of the attack succeeding is given by: &#xA;P = A/(A + B/W) *&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(2)If the attack fails, the attacking piece is removed and vice versa.&#xA;The piece which wins the confrontation, has its power rankings updated as such. (Supposing A Wins)&#xA;A += B/X&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(3) Kings are special. A King's power ranking is 4 when attacking, but when the King is being attacked, it's power ranking is reduced to 4/Y Opponents do not have to respond to checks, but will lose the game if their King is captured. **&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(4) If a pawn C gets promoted to a piece D, then C's power ranking changes as such; C += D/Z&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(5) You are &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;allowed&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; to put your king in danger&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't think a draw will occur, unless we have 50 repetitive moves, or both players agree to draw. Because a player lacking any valid move, will not occur since players are allowed to risk their kings, and may be forced to.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What values do you propose for W, X, Y, Z?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;What rules do you think should be changed?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(*) This is to favour the attacking piece, and hence propel the game forward.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(**) This is to keep in line with modern chess, since the objective remains capturing the King and not eliminating the oponent's king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9339" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2016-12-18T21:36:02.827" LastActivityDate="2018-06-01T17:34:41.397" Title="Monte Carlo Chess" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;rules&gt;&lt;chess-variants&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16116" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16115" CreationDate="2016-12-18T14:10:10.700" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The idea seems interesting but at the same time it differs quite a lot from what chess is; it is not entirely clear to me what the basic rules should be for this to be somehow a &lt;em&gt;strategic&lt;/em&gt; game. In particular my concerns are mainly the following: let W and B the two players and f_i(A,B) the evaluation of the i^th move, namely the sum of all possible pieces confrontations (and all combinations thereof) between the two players, at moment i^th of the game. Moreover, since you said&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The piece which wins the confrontation, has its power rankings updated as such. (Supposing A Wins) A += B/X&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;it follows that if f_i(A,B) &gt; 0 then one can already calculate exactly what f_k(A,B) is for k&gt;i (given the weight given to each piece) and I suspect that in most cases one has f_k(A,B) &gt; f_i(A,B) for k&gt;i. In other words if winning a piece increases the attacking weight of a figure then this may cause a chain reaction, that is you just win the first piece and then automatically win them all (since the attacking weight of your side increased spontaneously after winning the first piece).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;are the players &lt;em&gt;forced&lt;/em&gt; to move? If so, since the probability of attacking success is known a priori (as a function of A and B) why would a player choose to play at all, if the attack is inferior by definition?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;since the attacking success is known a priori I would see this favouring too much the player who starts first: this is because they can choose to start attacking maximising f(A,B) in a given position.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;positional games will have no meaning because of the above: it is not the position that counts, rather the weight assigned to each figure,no matter what the evolution of the game can be (since the evolution is frowned upon by the fact that pieces &quot;gain&quot; weight after winning attacks).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the whole idea behind chess is that figure do &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; have a predefined value, rather their scope and attacking power depends ultimately on their position, which is what makes chess a strategic game.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;sacrifices do not make any sense, since everything is &quot;forced&quot; to happen (it is because you already know what the value of a piece is after winning the attack).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other than that it is definitely worth it looking at some sort of game like you mentioned, only I fear it will differ very much from actual chess (plus it might be completely solvable after 2-3 moves).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11726" LastActivityDate="2016-12-18T14:10:10.700" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16118" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8500" CreationDate="2016-12-18T16:29:01.777" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You asked: One really missing bit in the FEN is the fact that it carries no information as to whether the position corresponds to a checkmate or check for that matter. Of course one can always put the position on the board and see if it's a checkmate or not, but it is not directly deducible from the notation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At this point, it might be a good a good question if one wants to embed a computationally complex piece of information into what should only be a description. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The same thing applies to move notations - for example, between: algebraic notation (e2e4 b1c3) and SAN (e4 Nc3) - the later requires an engine to compute the TO position of every move, and is computationally complex to decode, while the former doesn't require writing a whole move generator to determine the inferred TO position - which may be of benefit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12011" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-12-18T16:35:52.080" LastActivityDate="2016-12-18T16:35:52.080" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16119" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9657" CreationDate="2016-12-18T22:00:07.047" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have the same problem, eye strain, then blurry vision after an hour. My ratings will also drop, where I was beating guys in the 1000s for blitz 1 minute, I struggle with the 800 folks after an hour or so. Someone suggests its that I'm not getting enough high quality blood to my eyes and brain, because chess takes up so much mental capacity, which demands a lot of oxygen. Since I can use the computer for hours and not have blurry vision, but once I start playing chess it would come. So it must have a correlation with the high demand of mental capacity.  By the way, I also have a fatty liver, and in alternative medicine, the liver is responsible for the health of the eyes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12013" LastEditorDisplayName="user7637" LastEditDate="2019-01-22T16:35:00.770" LastActivityDate="2019-01-22T16:35:00.770" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="16120" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16122" CreationDate="2016-12-19T05:01:01.900" Score="2" ViewCount="975" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was reading a book on chess where the author suggested that a good way to practice getting good at the opening is look at miniature games (less than 12 moves specifically) played, that have led to checkmate.  The implication is that these games must have involved serious blunders to end so early, and so that an amateur can learn about vulnerabilities and how to take advantage of them, by reviewing or playing through these games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have looked up books on miniature games, but first they're often longer than 12 moves, and second, usually it's only the famous ones that involve brilliant tactics that are mentioned.  I want a much bigger list of these games that I can play through.  Appreciate any help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11995" LastEditorUserId="11122" LastEditDate="2016-12-19T15:55:26.307" LastActivityDate="2017-03-17T08:46:50.217" Title="Where can I find a list of chess games (or PGN file) for games less than X number of moves (specifically 12 moves)?" Tags="&lt;pgn&gt;&lt;blunder&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16121" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16112" CreationDate="2016-12-19T05:06:55.763" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Essentially, you would not ask for &quot;best five out of eight&quot; unless you have, excluding draws,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;lost 4 points&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;can win 5 points within 8 games.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But these together are mathematically impossible, as that would require 9 games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It doesn't get better if draws are allowed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reply should be &quot;best 5 out of 9.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12014" LastActivityDate="2016-12-19T05:06:55.763" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16122" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16120" CreationDate="2016-12-19T09:04:44.143" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.cs.kent.ac.uk/people/staff/djb/pgn-extract/help.html#-b&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;code&gt;pgn-extract&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/a&gt; can extract games from a pgn file based on the number of moves. The &lt;code&gt;-bu12&lt;/code&gt; flag would give you games of 12 moves and less. There are various databases which you can download for free, see &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgameslinks.lars-balzer.info/#large-databases_worldwide&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this link&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;12 moves are really short games, you might want to extend that limit a bit and probably you also want to exclude games that end in draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also IMO  solving general tactics puzzles is very useful for a beginner.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastEditorUserId="11629" LastEditDate="2016-12-19T10:24:34.563" LastActivityDate="2016-12-19T10:24:34.563" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16123" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8767" CreationDate="2016-12-19T09:31:28.873" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is really no definite answer on this. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To check this hypothesis, we would need to get a sufficient number of random children aged six and force them (against their own will and that of their parents if necessary) to devote themselves to chess under the same conditions (e.g. trainers, books). This would be clearly unethical. With the Polgar family you have obvious selection bias.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another practical problem is that if you pick too many children, you made it harder for each individual one of them to become a grandmaster (as you have to be successful in competition).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I suspect that a high percentage (but not all) of the children sufficiently pressured would make it, considering how easily children learn new languages at that time. But that is a personal feeling. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Personally, I find the Polgars still instructive. I regard them as weak evidence that the male/female differential is mostly cultural, which may indicate that the same could be true other strength differentials in chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11666" LastActivityDate="2016-12-19T09:31:28.873" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16124" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16125" CreationDate="2016-12-19T13:09:28.430" Score="7" ViewCount="1584" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been playing with the Chesscademy app for a while, solving some tactics (which I'm not sure is improving my chess, but it's a good puzzle to kill some time). Today I ran into one tactic that I failed to solve, though my play seemed to result in the same advantage as the one picked as an answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since I'm a beginner at Chess, I might be missing something about the move that makes it a better candidate, so I decided to post it here and get some opinions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Below is the move that the tactic claimed is right (Black then White):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;r1r4k/1p5R/3b4/4q3/B3P1Q1/1n1P3P/6P1/5R1K b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Kh7 2. Rf7 Kh6 3. Qh4 Qh5 4. Rh7 Kh7 5. Qh5+&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My answer was basically the same, except instead of &lt;code&gt;3. Qh5 Rh7&lt;/code&gt; I played &lt;code&gt;3. Qh5 Rf6&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I could foresee one outcome from that play:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;r1r4k/1p5R/3b4/4q3/B3P1Q1/1n1P3P/6P1/5R1K b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Kh7 2. Rf7 Kh6 3. Qh4 Qh5 4. Rf6 Kg7 5. Qh5 (Kf6 6. Qh6) &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That opens up an X-ray attack on the bishop if the King captures the rook (&lt;code&gt;5. Kf6 Qh6&lt;/code&gt;), though it can be easily defended if the king goes to a square next to the bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there any reason why this play is worse than the original answer? Usually, when I thought I was right about a play I'd think for a while and find some reason why it was not a good one, but this time I'm not really figuring out why the original answer would be better than this one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12017" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-08T16:59:24.173" LastActivityDate="2020-04-08T16:59:24.173" Title="Chesscademy Tactic: Is my alternative as good as the right answer?" Tags="&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;queens&gt;&lt;puzzles&gt;&lt;captures&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16125" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16124" CreationDate="2016-12-19T13:29:01.137" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;The problem is that 5. Qxh5 isn't check, so Black has time for some back rank tricks (instead of capturing the rook on f6):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;r1r4k/1p5R/3b4/4q3/B3P1Q1/1n1P3P/6P1/5R1K b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Kxh7 2. Rf7+ Kh6 3. Qh4+ Qh5 4. Rf6+ (4. Rh7+ Kxh7 5. Qxh5+) Kg7 5. Qxh5 Rc1+ 6. Qd1 Rxd1+ 7. Rf1 Rxf1#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-12-19T16:43:33.133" LastActivityDate="2016-12-19T16:43:33.133" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16126" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16127" CreationDate="2016-12-19T22:39:18.543" Score="1" ViewCount="213" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are &lt;em&gt;all&lt;/em&gt; KQvK positions winnable if the position isn't in itself a stalemate and Black cannot capture on the current move?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12032" LastEditorUserId="12032" LastEditDate="2016-12-19T22:45:06.950" LastActivityDate="2017-06-08T14:23:08.163" Title="Are all KQvK positions winnable if it's not stalemate and Black can't capture on current move?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;tablebases&gt;&lt;queen-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16127" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16126" CreationDate="2016-12-19T23:54:01.767" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, all KQvK positions are won under these conditions (no stalemate, no capture). The same holds for KRvK. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only possibilities for such basic endgames not to be won under your conditions would be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;a piece has too few square available and can be captured by the black king (not immediately but in the next move)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;white on the move cannot avoid stalemate (or material loss)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An example for the first case (black to move):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;7N/8/8/4k3/8/8/6K1/7B b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the second case (white to move) looks like this (to avoid stalemate, white's king has to go to the d file when after Kb7, black wins the bishop or knight):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;kB6/2K5/N7/8/8/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However with the KQvK and KRvK, the queen/rook always have enough space to avoid these problems.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-12-20T08:18:52.623" LastActivityDate="2016-12-20T08:18:52.623" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16130" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16126" CreationDate="2016-12-20T05:35:59.307" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here are the replayers for &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/users/11629/user1583209&quot;&gt;user1583209&lt;/a&gt;'s answer's positions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;KBNvK Position 1&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/16130/12032&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2016.12.19&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;White&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Black&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1/2-1/2&quot;]&#xA;[SetUp &quot;1&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;7N/8/8/4k3/8/8/6K1/7B b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;5&quot;]&#xA;[SourceDate &quot;2016.12.19&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Kf6 2. Kg3 Kg7 3. Be4 (3. Ng6 Kxg6) 3... Kxh8 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;KBNvK Position 2&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/16130/12032&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2016.12.19&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;White&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Black&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1/2-1/2&quot;]&#xA;[SetUp &quot;1&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;kB6/2K5/N7/8/8/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;4&quot;]&#xA;[SourceDate &quot;2016.12.19&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Kd7 (1. Kc6) 1... Kb7 2. Nc5+ (2. Bd6 Kxa6) 2... Kxb8 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12032" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2016-12-20T05:35:59.307" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16131" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14979" CreationDate="2016-12-20T06:16:21.367" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately I can't comment. Perhaps a moderator can transform this answer as a comment, to give it a proper place. I found the following information from: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.enpassant.dk/chess/downl/figrom1.zip&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Archivo con figuras basadas en el tipo Mérida&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;...&#xA;The figurines of this font are a simple design from  my  CHESS MERIDA  font. The font was created exclusively in Corel Draw 3.0, drawings  and  exporting to TTF format.  I made the font in the  &quot;Colegio La Salle de  San Cristobal&quot; (La Salle School of San Cristobal), located in the pleasant mountains of the south of Mexico; in order to expand our collection of chess fonts. This font is freeware, I hope it is useful for the  chess community.  If  you  want  to repay us, you can send us some other chess  fonts  (we are collecting them). Your comments and suggestions would be welcome; please send them  to  either of address that appear below.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;                            **************&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wish to thank:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  ERIC BENTZEN&#xA;  http://users.cybercity.dk/~ccc25222/homeeng.htm&#xA;&#xA;  HANS BODLAENDER&#xA;  http://www.cs.ruu.nl/~hansb/d.chessvar/d.font/index.html&#xA;&#xA;  SETEPHANE MOUCHEL&#xA;  http://www.europe-echecs.com/&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;for the Website space which has enabled you to receive these fonts, to  ANDY TEMPLETON for the advices  and  ideas,  and  to  VIRGINIA CALHOUN my  friend translator.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;ÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍËÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍ&#xA;CIRCULO LASALLISTA DE AJEDREZ         º  ARMANDO HERNANDEZ MARROQUIN&#xA;Apartado Postal 168                   º&#xA;San Cristobal de Las Casas, Chiapas.  º  mquin@sancristobal.podernet.com.mx&#xA;29200 MEXICO                          º&#xA;                                      º&#xA;lasalle@sancristobal.podernet.com.mx  º  Marzo 18 de 1998.&#xA;ÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÊÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍ&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The designer does not inform at all what was the source of his inspiration.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And, about your question of what books do we have with this font, I can't remember any book with this design. I have books in Spanish from 1970.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1766" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-12-20T08:29:08.233" LastActivityDate="2016-12-20T08:29:08.233" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16132" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-12-20T09:26:02.407" Score="6" ViewCount="4698" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not the most experienced player by a long shot and appear to be below average, but I know how to play the French Defense quite well and I tried e6 in response to d4 a few times because I don't really know many d4 openings and got a French out of it. How do I respond to c4 or any other common ones (maybe Nf3 or g3?)? I've looked at opening databases and know popular responses, but I want to know why these moves were made. If anyone knows of a video describing it well, that'd be preferable, but I'll gladly take any advice I can get.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12035" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-12-20T09:33:19.590" LastActivityDate="2017-05-02T21:43:18.880" Title="What are some main lines of the Horwitz Defense (d4 e6) besides the French?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16133" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16132" CreationDate="2016-12-20T10:49:16.983" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I play this a lot, as I'm happy to play a French defence 2. e4 d5. My personal solution has been to learn ideas from the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_Defence&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot; title=&quot;Dutch&quot;&gt;Dutch Defence&lt;/a&gt; so have an interesting, attacking game with 2. c4 f5 or most other quieter second moves from White.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1750" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-12-20T12:43:46.877" LastActivityDate="2016-12-20T12:43:46.877" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16134" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16132" CreationDate="2016-12-20T10:51:17.267" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Basically, you have a lot of options left to transpose into other openings. I remember having read a book calling this opening the Franco-Indian for this very reason. &lt;em&gt;I do not expect that many White players will actually play 2. e4;&lt;/em&gt; they played 1. d4 for a reason and are usually not experts in the French opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After 2. c4, you can:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;transpose to the Orthodox Queen's Gambit with 2... d5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;transpose to the Dutch opening with 2... f5 (but you lose the ability to play the Leningrad system)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;transpose to the Nimzo-/Queen's Indian with 2... Nf6&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;transpose to the Benoni with 2... c5 (thanks @&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/users/11629/user1583209&quot;&gt;user1583209&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;2... Bb4+ is about the only independent line.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2. Nf3 (and to a lesser extent, 2. g3) offer similar transpositional options.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2016-12-20T12:43:17.603" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16135" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16105" CreationDate="2016-12-20T17:54:08.427" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Play the board, not the rating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10233" LastActivityDate="2016-12-20T17:54:08.427" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16136" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16080" CreationDate="2016-12-20T17:58:30.227" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Most chess activity in the opening is through or related to the centre. With your king still in the centre, you overtly expose him to attack. Castling makes safe your king, in general.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most openings try to get the king safely tucked away ASAP. But many openings delay castling to the edge of safety for the sake of tempo or central play and piece development. There are many a classic chess game where black delayed castling by 1 move too many and succumbed to a violent attack through the centre. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10233" LastActivityDate="2016-12-20T17:58:30.227" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16137" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9657" CreationDate="2016-12-21T06:16:09.513" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It may be that you need glasses or adjust their strength if you already have some.  Your eyes can compensate this to some degree, but it is really tiring and can easily lead to the symptoms you describe. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3529" LastActivityDate="2016-12-21T06:16:09.513" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16138" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14198" CreationDate="2016-12-21T10:28:14.047" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is another copy of the English edition in the University Library in Frankfurt am Main (Germany), &lt;a href=&quot;http://kvk.bibliothek.kit.edu/view-title/index.php?katalog=HEBIS_RETRO&amp;amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Forsprod.rz.uni-frankfurt.de%2FDB%3D1.50%2FCHARSET%3DUTF-8%2FIMPLAND%3DY%2FLNG%3DDU%2FSRT%3DYOP%2FTTL%3D1%2FCOOKIE%3DU203%2CK203%2CI251%2CB1999%2B%2B%2B%2B%2B%2B%2CSN%2CNDefault%2Blogin%2CD1.50%2CE11542a73-1%2CA%2CH%2CR129.13.130.211%2CFY%2FSET%3D1%2FSHW%3FFRST%3D1&amp;amp;signature=zyusH_ldMaZ0hn4i-jGOuqOLR4NRlENAjncBk8q7WnI&amp;amp;showCoverImg=1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This particular library obtained the chess book collection of Willi Summ (1896–1982) as donation in 1975. Though it is not as large as Cleveland or Den Haag, it possesses some rare volumes. The paper in question is no. 1379 in the printed catalogue:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;@BOOK{summ:meissenburg:1982,&#xA;    EDITOR = {Summ, Willi AND Meissenburg, Egbert},&#xA;    TITLE = {Der Frankfurter Schachbücherkatalog},&#xA;    SUBTITLE = {Schachschriften in der Stadt- und Universitätsbibliothek Frankfurt am Main},&#xA;    DATE = {1982},&#xA;    PAGETOTAL = 116,&#xA;    PUBLISHER = {Schachverlag Horst Helten},&#xA;    LANGUAGE = {german},&#xA;    GENDER = {pm},&#xA;    EDITORTYPE = {compiler},&#xA;    ISBN = {3-922853-03-X},&#xA;    EDITION = 2,&#xA;}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5756" LastEditorUserId="5756" LastEditDate="2016-12-21T12:26:49.437" LastActivityDate="2016-12-21T12:26:49.437" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16140" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2641" CreationDate="2016-12-21T14:37:00.283" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my opinion a lot depends on your level. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For a &lt;em&gt;beginner&lt;/em&gt; I would not recommend to learn an opening by heart. Instead focus on tactics and play openings based on general opening principles:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;occupy the center&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;develop minor pieces&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;castle&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;don't blunder a piece to some tactics&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A good indication for when you need to learn some opening theory is, if you regularly end up with slightly worse positions after the opening. (If you lose a piece or more in the opening, that would usually mean that you should improve your tactical skills instead). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2016-12-21T14:37:00.283" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16141" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16142" CreationDate="2016-12-21T20:24:08.753" Score="3" ViewCount="257" Body="&lt;p&gt;Does anyone know of a reliable source (e.g. a knowledgeable tutor, academic surveys, GM John Doe's autobiography) that verbally describes the ability and study/training material of a variety of chess players along the FIDE/USCF rating ladder? For example&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The average X-rated player will see most one- and two-move tactics but is prone to oversight. He may know five or six moves of his &quot;favorite&quot; opening but likely is still gaining experience with what factors make a position &quot;good.&quot; He has likely already learned basic endgame mates and KP vs. KP situations, and may go on to learn simple fundamentals like Lucena and Philidor.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The average Y-rated player will rarely ever lose material outright to simple threats or tactics. Lately he has been binging on &lt;em&gt;Reassess Your Chess&lt;/em&gt;. He probably has a decent store of experience and theoretical knowledge about his opening repertoire. He may find it useful to study more intermediate-advanced endgame tactics like the Vancura position and memorize which pawns win or draw in which positions.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The average Z-rated player...&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and so on. I know that any rigid attempt at proscribing what material is appropriate for which level player is bound to fail, but I still think ballparks and &quot;on average&quot; statements are useful for growth.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11518" LastActivityDate="2016-12-21T21:24:31.850" Title="Verbal description of FIDE/USCF ratings" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16142" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16141" CreationDate="2016-12-21T21:24:31.850" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://beginchess.com/2009/08/02/anatomy-of-a-chess-player-from-beginner-to-expert/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Here's a post&lt;/a&gt; I found that seems along the lines of what you're asking for. The descriptions seem more or less accurate to me (probably more for USCF as opposed to FIDE ratings), although the corresponding &quot;years experience&quot; it lists alongside the ratings seem to assume continuous, fairly serious tournament play, as opposed to a casual hobby.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as being a &quot;reliable source&quot;, I'm not sure who the author is, but s/he appears to be &lt;a href=&quot;http://beginchess.com/author/beginchess/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;quite prolific&lt;/a&gt; on that site, having written over 100 articles.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12042" LastActivityDate="2016-12-21T21:24:31.850" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16143" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16154" CreationDate="2016-12-21T22:13:37.567" Score="10" ViewCount="826" Body="&lt;p&gt;I decided to start learning some opening theory, so far I have only played online and studied a couple of end games. Seems that a correct approach might be to chose one opening for white and two for black (answers to e4 and d4), and stick to those three openings for a while, since that is a fairly low number so you can keep up with the variations with some work, and also large enough so you can use your preparation in a good amount of games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the question would be, what do you think is easier to start with, as a first timer learning any theory, e4 or d4? (I usually prefer d4 for no particular reason). And which defenses would you start with against those two moves as black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12045" LastActivityDate="2021-03-26T12:15:35.897" Title="Which chess opening to learn?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16144" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16143" CreationDate="2016-12-21T23:46:32.117" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;For a beginner, the goal of the opening is simply to avoid losing material and blundering; don't stress playing a perfect opening just yet. However, here are some general (and not at all exhaustive) distinctions between the openings:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;e4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Often leads to open games&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Bishops are slightly more valuable, as they have more space on the board to play&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Through the midgame towards the endgame, entire files may be left open - because of this, Rook positioning is key and often can be make or break&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Openings to study: Ruy Lopez, Sicilian (although I'd avoid playing the Sicilian as a beginner)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;d4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Often leads to more closed games&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Bishops and Rooks are relatively immobile throughout the midgames, and serve passive (but still important!) roles&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Knights form the basis for strong attacks and exerting control in the center of the board&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Openings to study: Queen's Gambit, Indian Defenses (fianchettoed bishop)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ultimately, you should decide which you prefer better. However, I personally find 1. e4 to be a simpler opening to play, with less chances for blundering. Hope this helps!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12046" LastActivityDate="2016-12-21T23:46:32.117" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16146" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16143" CreationDate="2016-12-22T02:53:09.077" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It depends on what kind of chess player you are, whether you like open more tactical positions, or rather closed positional play. So can't give a general advise what you should learn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You could take a look at typical positions of different openings around move 10-15 and see what kind of position you like best.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the end you cannot go wrong with e4 or d4 and any major opening. If you want to become serious with chess, avoid obscure gambit lines and other strange openings like 1. g4... Learn an opening with the aim of fighting for an advantage, not with the aim of avoiding theory or surprising your opponent with a suspicious side line.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not to be overwhelmed by theory, when learning any opening, I recommend to start with the main line first and look at side lines later or when you encounter them in play. Make sure not only to learn the moves by heart but also to understand what they do and also what typical plans or motifs are in the particular opening you learn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2016-12-22T02:53:09.077" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16147" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16148" CreationDate="2016-12-22T04:06:57.280" Score="3" ViewCount="248" Body="&lt;p&gt;For example, a knight can go from b1 to d5 in 2 moves and in many other routes by an even number of moves. However, can it go to d5 in an odd number of moves?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was wondering this because it would give me a little bit of insight into some theory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any help would be appreciated. Thank you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12048" LastActivityDate="2016-12-22T04:32:11.963" Title="Can a knight jump into a square in both an odd and even number of moves?" Tags="&lt;knights&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16148" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16147" CreationDate="2016-12-22T04:32:11.963" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;No. There's a fairly simple proof by looking at the square colors: they alternate each move. That means the parity of the move count to travel between two squares is fixed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3270" LastActivityDate="2016-12-22T04:32:11.963" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16149" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16143" CreationDate="2016-12-22T05:19:22.643" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's true that 1. e4 and 1. d4 are the two most common opening moves by White, and there is nothing wrong with playing one of them. The other answers provide good explanations on which one might suit your playing style better, and what common openings they will lead to.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, if you have a limited amount of time to study openings and want to pick one up that will serve you well at the beginner levels, I would suggest checking out the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bird&amp;#39;s_Opening&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Bird's Opening&lt;/a&gt;, characterized by 1. f4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, 1. f4 is less popular than 1. e4, 1. d4, or even 1. c4 among top players, and there are concrete reasons for this, some of which are discussed in &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/1302/birds-opening-and-the-dutch-defense&quot;&gt;this question&lt;/a&gt;. However, at the beginner level these nuanced considerations tend not to matter too much. On the other hand, adopting a less common opening has its advantages when you're just getting started, namely:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You have fewer variations to learn, and&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Your opponent is more likely to be unfamiliar with the opening and make early mistakes.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After 1. f4, you will likely face one of two main variations:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If Black response 1. ...d5, your goal will be to establish control over the e5 square and probably launch an attack on your opponent's kingside.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. f4 d5 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The other common response by Black is 1. ...e5, known as From's Gambit, which can lead to some very complex and dangerous tactical situations. The best way to prepare for this response is to study some concrete lines coming out of this variation and identify common tactical pitfalls.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. f4 e5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, I want to caution that as your play improves and - more to the point - as you start to play tougher opponents, at some point you'll want to switch to a more standard opening, since as the level of play improves those &quot;nuances&quot; I mentioned earlier start to become more relevant. However, I would suggest trying out the Bird if:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You don't want to commit the time to learn all the major variations to a more common opening&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You're not afraid of getting involved in sharp, tactical lines, and&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You're prepared to learn a more common opening later on as your level of play improves.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12042" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2016-12-22T05:19:22.643" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16150" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16151" CreationDate="2016-12-22T05:35:01.973" Score="0" ViewCount="192" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there  any chess position where the most correct move would be promoting a pawn on the 7th or 2nd rank to a Rook or Bishop since the queen can perform both their moves. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10397" LastActivityDate="2016-12-22T09:27:07.747" Title="Promoting to Rook or Bishop" Tags="&lt;pawn-promotion&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ClosedDate="2016-12-22T22:39:15.720" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16151" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16150" CreationDate="2016-12-22T08:00:56.957" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;For rook is typical this one:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;W: Kh8 Re3, B:Kg4 Pf2&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White to move can't hold.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Re4 Kg5 Re5 Kg6 Re6 Kf7 Re5! f1R!! (queening runs to Rf5 with stalemate). Rh5 Kg6  0-1&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11609" LastActivityDate="2016-12-22T08:00:56.957" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16153" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16155" CreationDate="2016-12-22T10:42:36.517" Score="9" ViewCount="452" Body="&lt;p&gt;I noticed the Fide rating list is always published with the date of birth of the player. Is registering one's actual birthdate with Fide a requirement for a Fide rating? It is a major concern for me given the rise in cases of identity theft.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12002" LastActivityDate="2020-05-01T20:48:47.870" Title="Get Fide-rated without revealing your birthday?" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;fide&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16154" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16143" CreationDate="2016-12-22T11:26:04.767" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;They say that beginners should learn &lt;code&gt;1. e4&lt;/code&gt; as White first, and the &amp;quot;natural&amp;quot; response &lt;code&gt;1... e5&lt;/code&gt; as Black. But I think it's a matter of personal taste.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Usually for beginners the easiest openings are those that simply stick to the basic principles: pieces development, occupation of the center, King safety, tempo.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my opinion, at this stage &lt;em&gt;you should avoid&lt;/em&gt; openings having somewhat &amp;quot;complicated&amp;quot; strategic ideas, such as 1) &amp;quot;control of the center without occupying it&amp;quot;, or 2) &amp;quot;induce pawn advances and center occupation in order to attack it later&amp;quot;, or also 3) &amp;quot;lose tempo to gain positional compensation&amp;quot;. To me, it's important to grasp the basic principles &lt;em&gt;before&lt;/em&gt; you go and break them, even if the resulting openings are sound.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This rules out most of the Indian Defences against &lt;code&gt;1. d4&lt;/code&gt;, as they fall in both categories 1 and 2. Same goes for the Sicilian against &lt;code&gt;1. e4&lt;/code&gt; as its main purpose is to avoid White having an &lt;code&gt;e4 d4&lt;/code&gt; pawn duo in the center, thus falling into category 1 (center control without occupation). Many other openings fall into these categories and should be avoided, such as the Scandinavian Defence (cat. 3), the Alekhine Defence (2), the English (1), the Dutch (1), and all the &amp;quot;unusual&amp;quot; openings for Black and White (Bird Opening, Indian Attack, Lasker Opening, etc.).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that &lt;em&gt;this doesn't mean the opening I just mentioned are bad&lt;/em&gt;: they are sound, and some of them are really a lethal weapon if you can handle them well (I'm thinking about the Sicilian and most of the Indian Defences, for example). But you should first try the &amp;quot;most basic&amp;quot; ones, before you go and dig deep into these.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;TL;DR&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To me, the most basic openings to study as a beginner are the &amp;quot;symmetric&amp;quot; openings, thus &lt;code&gt;1. e4 e5&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;1. d4 d5&lt;/code&gt;, as they stick to the basic principles of the openings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On &lt;code&gt;1. e4 e5&lt;/code&gt; I recommend&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Italian Game, classical variation &lt;code&gt;2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Bc5&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Italian Game, Two Knight Defence &lt;code&gt;2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Nf6&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Four Knights Game &lt;code&gt;2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Nc3 Nf6&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Ruy Lopez &lt;code&gt;2. Nf3 Kc6 3. Bb5&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On &lt;code&gt;1. d4 d5&lt;/code&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Queen's Gambit Declined &lt;code&gt;2. c4 e6&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Slav Defence &lt;code&gt;2. c4 c6&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course if you are a beginner you shouldn't go too deep into these lines, but just have an overall grasp of the resulting positions and the ideas behind them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="279" LastEditorUserId="14678" LastEditDate="2021-03-26T12:15:35.897" LastActivityDate="2021-03-26T12:15:35.897" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="16155" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16153" CreationDate="2016-12-22T12:56:35.287" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes it is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Article 1.14 in &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=180&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Regulations for Registration &amp;amp; Licensing of Players (effective from July 1, 2015)&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;All player's data are obligatory for online registration in FOA. For players registered by the National Rating Officers or the FIDE Rating Administrator, first name, last name, gender, date of birth, e-mail address and Federation are obligatory for a successful registration.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user4378" LastActivityDate="2016-12-22T12:56:35.287" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16156" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14127" CreationDate="2016-12-22T14:57:21.927" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Would highly recommend 3...Nf6. You have strong spots on both d4 and e5 to anchor your knight, the former targeting the Queen and weak c-pawn, and the latter targeting both the Queen and Bishop. 3...Nf6 also opens up Nc6, without having to worry about the pawn push to e5. Feel free to follow up with further questions&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12046" LastActivityDate="2016-12-22T14:57:21.927" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16157" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14952" CreationDate="2016-12-22T15:01:14.310" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Would recommend creating an account (free) on Lichess.org, and importing the pgn there. You'll have options for auto-analysis with lichess (~2800 rating), as well as annotating the games. This will avoid you having to download anything onto your computer or phone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've used Analyze This, and would definitely recommend it as well, but free users don't get strong auto-analysis, so I don't think it will fulfill your purpose.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this helps!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12046" LastActivityDate="2016-12-22T15:01:14.310" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16158" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16160" CreationDate="2016-12-22T16:22:56.623" Score="7" ViewCount="3255" Body="&lt;p&gt;I really like the analysis tool on chess.com that processes your games and identifies the Excellent and Good moves, as well as Mistakes and Blunders. It also proposes which move should have been played.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I realize it's probably based on a drop or increase in your piece advantage, but I really like this tool since I can clearly see what were my opponent's blunders or mistakes (as well as mine).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there an Android app that has similar features? The chess.com app allows me to analyse my chess.com games, but not to import a PNG and process it. Other analysis apps I've seen only return the &quot;piece advantage score&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11122" LastActivityDate="2021-03-01T16:44:36.230" Title="App that identifies moves as Excellent/Good/Mistakes/Blunders" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;android&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16159" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-12-22T16:24:10.040" Score="8" ViewCount="299" Body="&lt;p&gt;programmers and mathematicians!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm looking for some opinions how to build meaningfull formula that represents broadness of opponent's repertoire.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At the moment I do it like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I filter all positions that player played at least 2 times. This count = &lt;strong&gt;N&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;By Monte Carlo I evaluate average &quot;broadness&quot; of Mr. Average  (using book informations about move probabilities) for &lt;strong&gt;N&lt;/strong&gt; occurrences in his games.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I evaluate the same &quot;broadness&quot; for our target player.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This broadness I calculate with &quot;pythagoras thesis&quot;&#xA;sqrt(m1^2+m2^2+m3^2+m4^2 + ... + mn^2)/N where m1 is number of occurrences of move 1, m2 occurrence of move 2 in that position and sum(m1...mx)=&lt;strong&gt;N&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So if in 20 games you play 20 times 1.e4, you get sqrt(20^2)/20=1 which means the extreme when repertoire is just as narrow as possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you play 10x 1.e4, 8x 1.d4 1x 1.c4 and 1x 1.Nf3, you get sqrt(10^2+8^2+1^2+1^2)/20=0.64420493633&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And when you are on the other side of extreme and make 20x different move in starting position, you get sqrt(20)/20=0.22360679775.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now I can sum broadness of Mr. Average to find the optimum. I can do the same to the target player and find how the numbers compare to the strategy that I call optimal (playing book moves as Mr. Average). I can weight position broadnesses by any f(N). I can divide player/mr. Average at every position or I can divide sums of these values, there is milions of approaches that can be used but none of them seems easy and logical at the same time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not concerned here about using correct moves, as I deal with them in other formula. So if it is 10x a4, 8xNh3 etc, I don't mind having same number here like for 10x e4, 8x d4...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With my approach it is possible to see difference between players playing always the same positions compared to coffeehouse masters just picking the line randomly, but still&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I don't see much logic in my calculation in the first place.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The numbers aren't distribured very nicely&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;With changing amount of games/positions same number might have different meaning.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I worry there can be problem that the final result can be created by one huge number making the rest of calculation irrelevant.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only thing I really like here is comparing to Mr. Average, as I don't want to blame players not to be creative in positions where only one move is serious.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you have some ideas, link to mathematics page dealing with similar problem, anything, I will be happy to think about it!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11609" LastActivityDate="2017-02-02T07:16:49.153" Title="Mathematical formula to get how broad opening repertoire is" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;programming&gt;&lt;mathematics&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16160" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16158" CreationDate="2016-12-22T17:46:22.473" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would suggest starting at &lt;a href=&quot;http://lichess.org&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;lichess.org&lt;/a&gt;. It has tools that let you (1) analyze a game that you play on the site or (2) import a game and analyze it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The lichess.org analysis includes inaccuracies, mistakes, and blunders. It does not have excellent or brilliancy (! or !!) markers, but they provide a rationale for why they don't use those. You can decide whether their explanation suffices for your purposes. They use a centipawns lost or gained graph that seems to be a good indicator of the game state. And they often suggest better moves with the corresponding alternate lines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They have an Android app at &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.lichess.org/mobile&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.lichess.org/mobile&lt;/a&gt; that you can try out to see if it meets your needs. You can also try out their web site on a mobile device to see how that works, too. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, what I like about lichess.org is that they seem to have a great interest in having a clean, stylish piece and game user interface and they also seem to be actively developing, so if you have suggestions they may take a listen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: Somehow I neglected to mention earlier that the site is free and the code is open source. Both are great if you want to save some money while learning chess and even possibly get interested in seeing how the site code works.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3968" LastEditorUserId="3968" LastEditDate="2020-01-14T20:32:21.180" LastActivityDate="2020-01-14T20:32:21.180" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="16161" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16158" CreationDate="2016-12-22T18:53:02.697" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In addition to lichess, which has a great service for analyzing, Analyze This (Free) is a good app which lets you auto-analyze games, and has a beta feature which will identify blunders, mistakes, annotate your games for you, and suggest other lines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12052" LastActivityDate="2016-12-22T18:53:02.697" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16163" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16165" CreationDate="2016-12-23T03:01:42.300" Score="16" ViewCount="2298" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there a difference in the amount of ELO a player loses from resigning versus being checkmated? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If so - What is the difference in the calculation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12057" LastEditorUserId="10295" LastEditDate="2017-08-08T05:04:04.357" LastActivityDate="2018-11-02T21:05:06.330" Title="Elo loss for resign vs checkmate" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;rating&gt;&lt;elo&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16164" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14952" CreationDate="2016-12-23T03:01:51.933" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;ChessBase's Fritz (any version less than 10 years old or so) will accept any UCI-compatible chess engine, including Stockfish.  You should be able to find a used copy for about $15-20 at most.  You don't need to worry about the version, because the functionality of annotating the games has been around a long time, the deciding factor in analysis is the engine, which you're going to replace anyway.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Fritz can process PGN files, but I find it's more helpful to convert the games database to ChessBase's format (.cbh, etc.), so that training questions and the more exotic glyphs that are generated by Fritz from the engine's output can be stored.  I haven't tested the impact of file format on processing speed, but I'd expect it to be minimal, as long as your games database to be processed is 1 MM games or less in size.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Regarding speed, a lot depends on your CPU and memory configurations.  I use a 1024 MB hashtable, though you can go up to 2048 MB.  I also use a quad core AMD Athlon processor running at about 2.9 GHz, and set the engine to use 4 threads.  The speed increases pretty linearly with each additional core, so if you have 8, you'll almost double it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I use Stockfish 7, and set the engine parameters to a depth of 22 or 23 ply, with unlimited time. I've found that the proportion of games where deeper analysis makes a difference to the best move selection is very small (well under 5%), and each additional ply increases the work exponentially, so there's a significant tradeoff in speed for additional depth of analysis.  My configuration will process about 15 games per hour (games are about 36 moves long, on average).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11245" LastActivityDate="2016-12-23T03:01:51.933" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16165" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16163" CreationDate="2016-12-23T04:45:34.233" Score="21" Body="&lt;p&gt;No difference whatsoever.  As with tournament results, ELO (or Glicko, or any other chess rating system) counts all losses the same, all draws the same, and all wins the same.  Doesn't matter if you lose on time, resign, or get mated on the board --- nor whether it took 12 moves or 120.  Likewise a draw is a draw, whether by agreement, repetition, stalemate (either side), or even the 50-move rule.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8860" LastEditorUserId="8860" LastEditDate="2018-11-02T21:05:06.330" LastActivityDate="2018-11-02T21:05:06.330" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="16166" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9134" CreationDate="2016-12-23T06:02:05.410" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Stockfish, like the UCI protocol in general, does not have a single &quot;annotate all&quot; command. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From your question, you seem not to be interested in a GUI option like Chessbase or Scid, but instead in how to create a program of your own.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've found that the script posted here: &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/rpdelaney/python-chess-annotator&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://github.com/rpdelaney/python-chess-annotator&lt;/a&gt; provides a good start at a model. It's written in Python, which has a great chess library. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are few tricks it uses. It makes two passes: the first to identify key moves, and the second to focus on those. It works backwards so that it will already know the evaluation of the move actually played when it is calculating the optimal move. It doesn't spend time evaluating ECO positions. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can't guarantee that this is the best approach, but it seems to work. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11060" LastActivityDate="2016-12-23T06:02:05.410" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16167" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16168" CreationDate="2016-12-23T07:02:12.937" Score="12" ViewCount="1940" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm a hobbyist chess player, mostly playing online correspondence. I often play the King's Indian defense as Black, but there seems to be a key idea in the opening that I'm missing. Specifically, I don't understand why 6...e5 is so commonly played in so many variations, for example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;1&quot;]&#xA;1. d4 Nf6&#xA;2. c4 g6&#xA;3. Nc3 Bg7&#xA;4. e4 d6&#xA;5. Nf3 O-O&#xA;6. Be2 e5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems to me that in this position by playing 6...e5 Black blocks his own fianchettoed bishop, and given that White frequently pushes d5 later on, the diagonal is unlikely to reopen up any time soon. It seems to me that something like 6...c5 would be a much more natural move, logically setting up a queenside attack with the central pawn chain supporting the dark-squared bishop on the long diagonal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Clearly I'm missing something here, given 6...e5's popularity relative to 6...c5. So my questions are&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Why is 6....e5 so much more popular than 6...c5&lt;/strong&gt;, and&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;What is Black supposed to do with his dark-squared bishop after 6...e5?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12042" LastActivityDate="2017-11-13T16:40:48.723" Title="Why 6...e5 in King's Indian?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;kings-indian&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16168" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16167" CreationDate="2016-12-23T08:07:18.830" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is good to think more concretely here. After move like e5 three things can happen. White can take on e5, white can play d5 or black will one day play exd4 himself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Taking on e5 never wins a pawn and creates a hole on d4. For good reason not very popular&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;With d5 your bishop is now bad, but the position for black is good, easy and funny to play. An attack with f5 f4 g5 h5 g4 Ng6 Nh4 is very dangerous. Bishop often joins the attack in later stages from h6 and is often use on f8 till its time to hold the queenside for a little longer. Also maneuver Rf8-f7-g7 us typical to protect 7th rank and attack at the same time. Find games of Nakamura how he murdered some 2700+ players just rolling on the kingside.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Tactics say it is not so easy for white to achieve exchange on d4 under good terms. After 7...Nc6 there are no useful moves for white and pressure against centre is already too strong. Popular d5 goes to (2) and Be3 runs to Ng4, even if it is also variation.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So there are three good scenarios for black after e5 and in comparison to some Maroczy bind or benoni structure I think they are both better and more interesting to play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note1: Many c5 style players play c5 already on move 2, by the way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note2: Calm players with no intention of attacking don't play kings indian in the first place, playing Nimzo Indian, Slav etc...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So everybody wants to play e5 and win!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11609" LastEditorUserId="14079" LastEditDate="2017-11-13T09:52:39.647" LastActivityDate="2017-11-13T09:52:39.647" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16169" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16167" CreationDate="2016-12-23T08:13:33.740" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;After 6....e5 the centre usually gets closed with white playing d5. This closed centre helps black in his kingside attack with f5, g5, ... The dark squared bishop sometimes goes to f8 from where it helps to support the d6 pawn which can get weak if white attacks on the queenside. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The positions after c5 are completely different resembling the Sicilian dragon or Benoni to which it can transpose. Here it is white who is attacking on the kingside.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I guess e5 is more popular because black players of the king's Indian prefer to attack the king more than defending.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2016-12-23T08:13:33.740" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16170" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16163" CreationDate="2016-12-23T14:49:49.507" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Elo rating system is widely used in non-chess competition too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for other rating systems (here's a &lt;a href=&quot;https://rankade.com/ree#ranking-system-comparison&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;comparison&lt;/a&gt; between &lt;em&gt;Elo&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;Glicko&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;TrueSkill&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;ree&lt;/em&gt;, our free-to-use ranking algorithm), all wins count the same, &lt;strong&gt;even in sports/games with a score&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For multifaction rating system (e.g. for boardgames), calculations depend on all standings, so you need to correctly enter the full results, not just the winner (but scores still don't matter).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are some game-specific implementations for including scores (or different winning condition) in rating algorithms, indeed (e.g. &lt;a href=&quot;http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/introducing-nfl-elo-ratings/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FiveThirtyEight for NFL&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7575" LastEditorUserId="7575" LastEditDate="2016-12-23T15:32:03.840" LastActivityDate="2016-12-23T15:32:03.840" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16171" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16172" CreationDate="2016-12-23T15:48:36.183" Score="21" ViewCount="2806" Body="&lt;p&gt;Take a look at the following position, reached in &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/tactics/40794&quot;&gt;the #40974 Tactics Problem on chess.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;4N1K1/5P2/6k1/8/6n1/8/N7/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The engine gives +6.22 for white in this position. I already understand that any move other than &lt;strong&gt;f8=N+&lt;/strong&gt; draws. &lt;em&gt;(For example, promoting to a queen allows perpetual Nh6+ and Nf7+ unless white gives up the queen which would also draw)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is: &lt;strong&gt;Is white really winning after promoting the pawn to a knight with check?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How does one proceed to checkmate in this position, with three knights against a knight? And worse, &lt;strong&gt;in less than 50 moves?&lt;/strong&gt; (otherwise it's a draw, of course)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know that three knights versus lone king is possible (although quite hard!), but it seems to me that three knights versus knight is extremely unlikely to be winning upon perfect play...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8235" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-03-12T17:33:28.637" LastActivityDate="2020-03-12T17:33:28.637" Title="Is three knights versus knight really winning?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;knight-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16172" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16171" CreationDate="2016-12-23T15:57:51.123" Score="20" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is lost. You can enter all positions of six pieces into a tablebase, like &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.k4it.de/index.php?lang=en&amp;amp;topic=egtb&quot;&gt;this online one&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's mate in at most 39 moves, for example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;4N1K1/5P2/6k1/8/6n1/8/N7/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.f8=N+ Kf5 2.Kg7 Ke4 3.Nb4 Kd4 4.Kf7 Kc5 5.Na6 Kd4 6.Nac7 Ne5 7.Kf6 Nc4 8.Ke6 Na5 9.Nd6 Nc4 10.Nf5 Kd3 11.Nd5 Na5 12.Nf6 Nc4 13.N8d7 Kd2 14.Nd5 Ke2 15.Kf6 Kd2 16.Nc5 Kc2 17.Nd4 Kd2 18.Kg5 Na5 19.Kf5 Nc4 20.Ke4 Kd1 21.Kd3 Ne5 22.Kc3 Ke1 23.Ne4 Ng6 24.Kc2 Ne5 25.Nf4 Nc4 26.Kc3 Ne5 27.Nf5 Kf1 28.Kc2 Nc4 29.Nfg3 Kg1 30.Kd3 Na5 31.Ke2 Nc6 32.Nf5 Ne5 33.Nd2 Kh1 34.Kf2 Ng4 35.Kg3 Nh6 36.Nxh6 Kg1 37.Ng4 Kh1 38.Nf2 Kg1 39.Ne2#.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There were many other choices along the way for both sides that would lead to the same amount of moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: I think this is probably a quite modern study, where the composer used tablebases in the process of composing the study, but I might be wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastEditorUserId="924" LastEditDate="2016-12-23T21:20:49.187" LastActivityDate="2016-12-23T21:20:49.187" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16173" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16171" CreationDate="2016-12-23T15:58:02.863" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;http://chessok.com/?page_id=361&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;tablebase&lt;/a&gt; says that it is mate in 38 moves after f8N+. That is for perfect play of both sides. If black does not play perfectly it might be shorter (same for white). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since it is a chess problem/study, it does not really matter how easy it is to win, though I would not expect it to be too difficult (against a human player).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastEditorUserId="11629" LastEditDate="2017-01-17T20:23:33.180" LastActivityDate="2017-01-17T20:23:33.180" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16175" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16176" CreationDate="2016-12-24T01:07:25.443" Score="16" ViewCount="3783" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a chess newbie and I was watching a video on four knights opening and the person was discussing another variation and he said that one is dramatic and quite sharp.  From what I saw, it seems &quot;sharp&quot; means immediate mating threats. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Wiki has this: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Risky, double-edged, highly tactical. Sharp can be used to describe moves, maneuvers, positions, and styles of play.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossary_of_chess#S&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossary_of_chess#S&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That definition, if correct, is still sort of vague for me.  Does it mean Kasparov plays sharp because he was very good at tactics?  Or if you go for Scholar's Mate, does that mean you're using a sharp line?  Can someone elaborate on the meaning of sharp more, like what makes a line sharp, maybe with examples?  Thanks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11995" LastActivityDate="2019-12-21T07:14:44.090" Title="What does it mean to call a line &quot;sharp&quot;?" Tags="&lt;terminology&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16176" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16175" CreationDate="2016-12-24T03:13:30.593" Score="21" Body="&lt;p&gt;A sharp position is one where every move is critical and any mistake could be your last; in such positions basic principles take a back seat to calculation. The opposite of a sharp position is a calm position, where you have time to maneuver as you please and arrange your pieces as you want before initiating confrontation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11684" LastEditorUserId="9304" LastEditDate="2016-12-24T18:42:34.900" LastActivityDate="2016-12-24T18:42:34.900" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16177" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16143" CreationDate="2016-12-24T13:07:21.733" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I suggest two openings for white and black which I find simple and easy to study. Ruy Lopez as white     &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;&#xA;[FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt; &#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and Caro-Kann as black &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 c6 2. d4 d5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt; &#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Caro-Kann may sound difficult but it has easy patterns to learn because you can always answer white's second move with 2.. d5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12072" LastEditorUserId="12072" LastEditDate="2016-12-24T13:21:40.490" LastActivityDate="2016-12-24T13:21:40.490" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16178" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16180" CreationDate="2016-12-24T13:44:56.143" Score="5" ViewCount="6980" Body="&lt;p&gt;I often see this phrase being used in chess articles, apparently used to distinguish these players from professional chess players, grandmasters, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But what exactly are they?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;What Elo range?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Only players associated with a club?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Why not call them amateurs?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2017-11-24T05:49:09.177" Title="What is a &quot;club player&quot;?" Tags="&lt;terminology&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16179" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16132" CreationDate="2016-12-24T14:19:18.440" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It makes sense to think in terms of the future development of black pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you know, in the French defense Bishop f8 goes either to e7 (classical, gets rid of g5-d8 pin) or b4 (Winawer, typically leads to exchange on Nc3). So in d4-e6 openings you may have the same choice (say, orthodox Queen's Gambit Declined vs. the Nimzo-Indian or maybe Ragozin defense).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Next, your c8-Bishop can easily get stuck in place because of pawn e6. You can leave it as is, or develop it by fianchetto b6-Bb7 (or even Ba6). The latter is probably the Queen's Indian or Tartakower-Makogonov-Bondarevsky system in QGD.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Next, after e6 you probably have no immediate plan to play e5, as it's just loss of tempo (or even loss of a pawn). So Black wants to move the d7 and c7 pawns first. Thus we may have basically three pawn formations: e6-d5-c5, e6-d5-c6 and e6-d6-c5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e6-d6-c5 makes sense if you develop a bishop on b7 (so it's not stuck behind your pawns and has control of e4 square), so this is essentially the classical Queen's Indian defense formation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e6-d5-c6 is an (in)famous solid triangle which is typical for that Semi-Slav defense or whatever you call it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And e6-d5-c5 (which is also normal in French defense) will probably be the Tarrasch variation of QGD (if Black plays Be7) or Nimzo-Indian defense (if c5 played after Bb4).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now about White's unusual plans. First of all, White may postpone Nc3 (typically by playing Nf3 first), so Black can't go Nimzo-Indian with Bb4-Bxc3 and has to play QGD or Queen's Indian (or maybe even Bogolyubov defense with Bb4+) instead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another idea is to play some &quot;black&quot; game with one additional move. For example, a so-called London system where White plays c3-d4-e3 which could be viewed as the Slav (or Semi-Slav defense) played by White.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Considering the g3 move, if White plays g3 along with d4 then it probably ends in some variation of openings mentioned earlier (actually g3 can be played in any of them at some point), because White has to support the d4 pawn by moving c2 and e2 anyway.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12071" LastEditorUserId="11202" LastEditDate="2017-05-02T21:43:18.880" LastActivityDate="2017-05-02T21:43:18.880" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16180" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16178" CreationDate="2016-12-24T17:30:26.017" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you call somebody a club player, you not only distinguish him from professionals and masters (though those obviously play in clubs too), but also from hobbyists. And that distinction makes some sense, because hobby players usually don't reach a strength beyond 1500 Elo or so. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So a club player is somebody who is serious about chess, plays rated games regularly and knows something about the game. He is only implicitly not a master (otherwise you'd call him that). Depending on which distinction you want to stress, you might also call him a &quot;rated player&quot; or an &quot;untitled player&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The term amateur is also often used, but of course, depending on context, an amateur can also be a hobbyist or even a non-professional world class player (like, Euwe, McShane, Malakhov …).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2016-12-24T17:30:26.017" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16181" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16178" CreationDate="2016-12-24T21:57:50.837" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The clue is in the name - &quot;club player&quot; - somebody who plays chess for a chess club. I'm a member of 2 chess clubs in 2 different countries. I'm a club player as are most, if not all, the players I know. Although I recognize a few players on the congress circuit who don't play club chess and whom I wouldn't regard as club players. The lowest rated is about elo 2000.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the smaller of the two clubs I play for, where we have 4 teams, the lowest graded player who plays bottom board for the bottom team has a grading which equates to an elo of about 1250 and board 1 on the first team has an elo of just over 2200. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The other is a much bigger club with something in the region of 15 teams. The top team has 2 GMs playing for it, round about the 2400 mark, and the weakest team starts somewhere round about the 1500 mark.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;None of the players in either of my two clubs makes a living solely from playing chess. Rather several of them earn some money from coaching. In club 2 one of the GMs, an IM and a couple of players round about the 2100-2200 mark earn some money coaching. In club 1 one of the players rated about the 1950 mark coaches.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also don't think you can limit the definition according to whether or not a player plays international chess. In club 2 I know of one player rated about 1950 who has played in the last 2 world championships for 65+. He is in his mid 80's. Good luck to him. He should continue enjoying his chess as long as he can, but at the end of the day he is a club player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, I don't think you can define a club player by his rating, whether he makes money from chess or whether he plays in international championships. There is enormous overlap. At the end of the day a club player is somebody who plays chess for a chess club.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2016-12-24T21:57:50.837" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16182" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16183" CreationDate="2016-12-25T03:08:10.427" Score="2" ViewCount="189" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've noticed that many amateur games degrade incredibly once they enter mid-game (meaning move beyond opening theory).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are some great questions and suggestions about improving mid-games, such as strategies to improve positions etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yet, many players with mediocre ratings (myself included) cannot help but make impulsive moves, blunders, simply because they have not approached the move carefully enough.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So my question is this: Does anyone have suggestions for improving mental discipline when making moves?  I'm thinking of suggestions such as; examine how your move might weaken positional defence; or, have you observed how many pieces are attacking the square your moving too?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There has to be some methodological way of improving one's game by improving one's mental discipline.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12077" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-09-29T09:51:11.643" LastActivityDate="2017-09-29T09:51:11.643" Title="Psychology of moving a piece" Tags="&lt;psychology&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16183" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16182" CreationDate="2016-12-25T05:33:38.893" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes good habit building is necessary. You need a chess-checklist in your mind. Prepare your checklist before a game, and then go into the game while using it. As you become a higher-rated player your checklist will evolve.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Look for all the &quot;check&quot; moves you can make in a position at each turn.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Look for all the &quot;threat&quot; moves you can make in a position. (this may include simple tactics)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Look for all the &quot;tempo&quot; moves you can make in a position. (as in, attacking a piece that forces the opponent to move).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Look for all the complicated tactical moves, combinations of moves.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you evolve the checklist becomes smarter:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Look for all &quot;double threat&quot; moves. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Look for all &quot;tempo&quot; moves but also &quot;counter-tempo&quot; moves (where the enemy moving the piece is actually helping your enemy's position become better).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Look for all the counter-checks&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Look for all undefended pieces&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Look for all weak points in enemy structure&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These checklists become more elaborate in the mid-game and you play slow-games to build up that habit, until it is subconscious. Then you can play faster games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12078" LastActivityDate="2016-12-25T05:33:38.893" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16184" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16175" CreationDate="2016-12-25T05:37:44.510" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Usually a complex position that has a lot of tactics. A very open-position with lots of pieces usually, or a crowded-closed position. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It means that players must think extra-hard in every move for potential mistakes and complexities, where each candidate move has a large set of lines that constantly switch positional-advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It could be a position that 6 moves down can lead to White's advantage, but 7 moves down can lead to black's advantage, so it might be worth falling into White's &quot;trap&quot; that is actually a &quot;counter-trap.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12078" LastActivityDate="2016-12-25T05:37:44.510" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16185" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-12-25T19:14:08.403" Score="-3" ViewCount="235" Body="&lt;p&gt;How much do you know Chess.com website? Chess.com is the most successful website for chess players to use in their chess life. I'm a web developer and I'm going to create a social network for chess players all around the world. What are some strengths/shortcomings of Chess.com which one might learn from in building another site? What do you need that Chess.com or other currently chess sites do not have? Not interested in getting in a debate here, but just to discuss possible functional features/capabilities, and I understand that different users will have different priorities.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11111" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-12-02T14:18:36.097" LastActivityDate="2020-12-02T14:18:36.097" Title="Lessons to learn from Chess.com" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;computer-chess&gt;&lt;websites&gt;&lt;chess.com&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ClosedDate="2016-12-26T23:28:12.540" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="16186" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16185" CreationDate="2016-12-25T19:44:18.520" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Short comings are best illustrated by comparison.  I'd simply encourage you to compare/contrast chess.com with lichess.org.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I could observe some pluses and minus here, and that might be subjective, but it's better you discovered chess.com's defects through comparison yourself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd also add - I like chess.com greatly, but I like lichess.org more.  I also play directly on the site and by app.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(some might find this response &lt;strong&gt;NOT&lt;/strong&gt; specific enough but identifying 'shortcomings' is a bit subjective with out something to compare to)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12077" LastEditorUserId="12077" LastEditDate="2016-12-25T23:27:45.377" LastActivityDate="2016-12-25T23:27:45.377" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16187" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16158" CreationDate="2016-12-25T21:11:46.230" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd point out that lichess.org uses the Stockfish engine which is regularly one of the top 3 most powerful chess analysis engines available (and its free):&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.computerchess.org.uk/ccrl/404/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;CCRL Chess Engine ratings through competitive competitions&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although I completely agree with the recommendation to check to checkout lichess.org why not its engine directly in Android?  Download 'Droidfish' for Android:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://stockfishchess.org/download/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Droidfish Download&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12077" LastActivityDate="2016-12-25T21:11:46.230" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16188" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16185" CreationDate="2016-12-25T21:17:17.733" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This question can be quite opinionated, but seeing as you are seeking to improve on the site with your own design, rather than bash it, I'll try to be objective and help out. Here are some (non-exhaustive), factual examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) Users have to pay for certain features. It can be taken as a given that users would much rather prefer features for free than having to pay for them. For example, for deep analysis, playing multiple games, getting rid of ads, and more, users have to pay on chess.com&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) The majority of people on chess.com do not play variants&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) It is quite difficult for players to play against those ranked well above them, even in tournament settings&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4) Mods (in select cases) have been known to abuse their privileges and ban/kick people without reason&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5) The site is not open-source&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this helps! Would also encourage you to look at lichess, and decide what improvements you can find there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12052" LastActivityDate="2016-12-25T21:17:17.733" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16189" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16178" CreationDate="2016-12-25T21:35:21.750" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In general, the notion of a club player denotes some level of seriousness about approach to the game, including studying (at least some opening preparation, and certainly tactics practice, and possibly endgame theory), and occasional tournament play, which may or may not be limited to club tournaments.  There are certainly patzers in clubs, and amateurs who don't really care about improving, but that's not what the term is intended to describe.  See, for example, Kostyev's &quot;40 Lessons for the Club Player&quot;, by which he clearly means instruction for &lt;em&gt;improving&lt;/em&gt; intermediate players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11245" LastActivityDate="2016-12-25T21:35:21.750" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16190" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15992" CreationDate="2016-12-25T22:35:52.530" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess engines and hardware since Kasparov played Deep Blue continue to improve.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Recently (Dec 2016) Stockfish achieved a rating of 3478:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.computerchess.org.uk/ccrl/404/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.computerchess.org.uk/ccrl/404/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Carlesen fares reasonably well against it (on a reasonably normal computer) though its a strong engine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Carleson playing against Deep Blue also has a couple of advantages Kasparov didn't have.  Carlesen himself can use computers to prepare to play a computer &lt;strong&gt;AND&lt;/strong&gt; Deep Blue has now has games on record so can have its own play analyzed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So a Carlesen/Deep Blue game would tell us little.  More interesting would be a Carlesen game against a modern chess engine with less time restrictions per move on searches, and on optimized hardware beyond what you can get at home.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even then advantage goes to machine (likely).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12077" LastActivityDate="2016-12-25T22:35:52.530" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16191" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15991" CreationDate="2016-12-25T22:47:31.220" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are you beating it when it says 2000?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As of December 2016 Stockfish 8's Elo computer rating was 3478 as seen &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.computerchess.org.uk/ccrl/404/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;CCRL&lt;/a&gt;.  This was calculated by pitting Stockfish against other Chess engines under controlled conditions and compiling statistics.  The testing framework used by Stockfish in those competitions can be found &lt;a href=&quot;http://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/54429d600ebc590e5652b684&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;HERE&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Rest assured that the 2000 you're seeing is more a problem with Arena's inability to calculate a meaningful rating, than Stockfish's ability to play at the highest levels.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In order for any rating to be believable, lots of games (data) in controlled conditions needs to be seen (for humans those are competitions).  I'm apt to believe the CCRL rating before Athena.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Athena is known to struggle with accurate rating calculations.&#xA;So to answer you: be wary of believing Athena.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12077" LastActivityDate="2016-12-25T22:47:31.220" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16192" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16195" CreationDate="2016-12-25T23:57:41.597" Score="1" ViewCount="977" Body="&lt;p&gt;I love the B06 Modern Opening for Black:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[Title &quot;White - Black&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 d6 2. d4 g6 3. Nc3 Bg7 4. Bc4 e6 5. Nf3 Ne7 6. Bg5 h6 7. Bh4 a6 8.O-O Nd7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I find it leads to a strong position for White to attack and a secure one for Black to defend (especially if it leads you to the Hippo Defense because, as Black, I've had my greatest success with atypical openings:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[Title &quot;Petrosian vs. Spassky, World Championship 1966 (game 16)&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 g6 2.e4 Bg7 3.Nf3 d6 4.Be2 e6 5.c3 Nd7 6.0-0 Ne7 7.Nbd2 b6 8.a4 a6 9.Re1 Bb7 10.Bd3 0-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Question: What are the major defences that statistically have seen the most success by Black?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12077" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-12-26T09:24:58.790" LastActivityDate="2016-12-26T21:13:03.347" Title="Openings that Black has success with statistically?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16193" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16194" CreationDate="2016-12-26T02:05:14.623" Score="3" ViewCount="219" Body="&lt;p&gt;my question is about the position below.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is, if I copied it correctly, from a book called &quot;How Good Is Your Chess&quot; by Evans.  I'm an amateur so pretty much every single problem is difficult and not the book I had thought it would be but as I was returning this book, I tried another problem in the first few pages, where white is said to have three options:&#xA;1.Rac1 2. Rfc1 and 3. Bxf6&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We are then told the answer is 3.  I had chosen number 1.  In explaining the answer I had chosen and why it's wrong, he says that if you choose that, then it leads to loss of initiative and endgame:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1 Rac1 Nc5 &#xA;2 dxc5 Qxc5+&#xA;3. Kh1 Qxg5&#xA;4. Qa4 Qa5&#xA;5. Qxa5 bxa5&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Eventually now we get to my question.  Why do I have to take the black knight on my second move anyways?  What if I just moved my queen to a square defending my knight?  Can I get out of this with a winnable endgame?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;2r2rk1/p1qn1ppp/bp1ppn2/6B1/2PP4/PQ1B1P2/1P2N1PP/R4RK1 w - - 0 1 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11995" LastActivityDate="2016-12-26T02:09:11.273" Title="A chess problem (need help with analysis)" Tags="&lt;problems&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16194" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16193" CreationDate="2016-12-26T02:09:11.273" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;If white does not take the knight on c5 after 1. Rac1, Nc5, the c4 pawn will be lost after 2.Q-somewhere, Nxd3 3.Qxd3, Bxc4. And that is just horrible for white.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8300" LastActivityDate="2016-12-26T02:09:11.273" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16195" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16192" CreationDate="2016-12-26T02:18:03.517" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It depends very much on what you intend by the word &quot;advantage&quot;: if you are asking&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Are there any openings that give Black advantage at correct play?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the answer is obviously no, as well as there are no openings that give White advantage, at correct play. If otherwise there will just be no openings, rather only that one line that always gives advantage to White (or Black, respectively) without any need to play anything else. At correct play all standard opening variations are equal, if only there might be a tiny slight advantage for White in the sense that it is enforced to play the next move and as such the next-to-come threat.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If instead you are asking&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What are the major defenses that statistically have seen the most success by Black?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;that is another matter completely. You might want to have a look at any of the large chess databases present on the internet where openings are sorted by winning percentages according to the variation (for the games contained in the database, obviously); an example is &lt;a href=&quot;http://chesstempo.com/gamedb/opening/2148&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this page&lt;/a&gt; from ChessTempo showing winning percentages for the Sicilian Najdorf variation, for instance, that is well-known to be among the most played defenses versus 1.e4. Other examples for 1.d4 are the &lt;a href=&quot;http://chesstempo.com/chess-openings.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Slav defense&lt;/a&gt; or the Indian defenses, as standard sound counterplay for Black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11726" LastEditorUserId="11726" LastEditDate="2016-12-26T02:22:46.493" LastActivityDate="2016-12-26T02:22:46.493" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16196" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16192" CreationDate="2016-12-26T09:23:12.530" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'll start with a quote about the Modern Opening from The Road to Chess Improvement by Alex Yermolinsky:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The Modern Defense. This 'universal' method of solving opening problems has been widely popularized recently. Some of its protagonists even claim that White has no way of earning the opening advantage after &lt;code&gt;1. d4 g6 2. e4 Bg7&lt;/code&gt;. Some statement, isn't it? By the way, it can hardly be supported or overturned by statistical research. The thing is, in these days of open tournaments, there are many situations when Black feels obliged to play for a win. It could be the sheer difference in the player's strength that determines the choice of opening and, at the same time, affects the outcome. If we mostly see grandmasters playing it as Black against masters (USCF 2200) and experts (USCF 2000), what do you think we'll get? A statistical edge to Black, of course.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While the Modern Opening isn't bad, of course, the point is that we &lt;em&gt;can't&lt;/em&gt; rely on simple winning statistics alone. If it really promised Black better chances than, say, the Ruy Lopez or the Najdorf, it would see much more play at the top level. What an opening &lt;em&gt;can&lt;/em&gt; do, is make the game sharper with more chance on decisive results (whether that means a win or a loss for Black).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you enjoy playing the Modern Opening, and score good results, by all means, keep doing it. Just remember that what works for &lt;em&gt;you&lt;/em&gt;, doesn't need to work in general.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2016-12-26T09:23:12.530" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16197" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16271" CreationDate="2016-12-26T20:31:40.383" Score="7" ViewCount="1978" Body="&lt;p&gt;Using Arena with a number of Chess engines, I love configuring Arena to use its 'book' feature.  There are books of &lt;em&gt;openings&lt;/em&gt;, books of &lt;em&gt;famous games&lt;/em&gt;, books of &lt;em&gt;particular players&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;surprise wins&lt;/em&gt;, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore I'm constantly on the search for PGN resources, such as the ones found here:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mark-weeks.com/chess/wcc-indx.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Historic Tournament Matches&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.pgnmentor.com/files.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Particular players&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Can anyone recommend specific &quot;&lt;em&gt;must have&lt;/em&gt;&quot; PGN files &lt;strong&gt;OR&lt;/strong&gt; PGN sites where such files may be downloaded?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Recommended files or sites should be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Well organized&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Correct&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Comprehensive or complete&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Noteworthy&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12077" LastEditorUserId="12077" LastEditDate="2017-01-01T20:40:03.467" LastActivityDate="2019-08-21T07:33:04.557" Title="Great Chess match resources (PGN) suggestions anyone?" Tags="&lt;books&gt;&lt;pgn&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16198" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16192" CreationDate="2016-12-26T21:13:03.347" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You don't really want to play an opening that gives statistical success, i.e. averaged over all kind of players. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What you want is an opening that you are comfortable with, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;that matches your style of play&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;that does not require more work than you are willing to devote learning it&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;that leaves you with positions where you still have an idea how to continue&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;that perhaps sees your opponents not as well prepared&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;that gives &lt;em&gt;you&lt;/em&gt; good results&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If that's the modern defence for you, why not. It is not a bad choice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would not go by database winning percentages as these can be quite distorted due to move order changes, different levels of players in the database, GM playing for a draw with black (while most normal players would rather play for a win with any colour) etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2016-12-26T21:13:03.347" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16199" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16200" CreationDate="2016-12-26T22:32:24.153" Score="8" ViewCount="1733" Body="&lt;p&gt;Growing up in the '80's in the Pacific Northwest (USA), my chess hero naturally was Yasser Seirawan.  He was the first top-class GM to emerge from the USA since Fischer and our country's best hope to break the Soviet headlock on world chess.  Our hopes at the time seemed reasonable - he twice made the Candidates Matches.  Sadly, after the fall of the Iron Curtain the chess world fell into general chaos, and my understanding is that Yasser spent what should have been his peak competitive years focused on simply making a living in a difficult chess economy.  He famously beat the newly minted world champion, Kasparov, in the '86 Olympiad, but never had a chance at the title.  He semi-retired from competitive chess around the turn of the century, but has returned to competition on occasion and turned in some very strong results.  In 2011 he earned a silver medal in the World Team Championships, representing the USA, with a 2773 performance rating.  (To me, that seems a ridiculous result!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question to the historians of the game:  Did Seirawan have the potential to challenge Kasparov, but was held back by his inability to focus entirely on chess in that chaotic era?  Or am I just making excuses for my hero, and I should be content with Seirawan's considerable achievements and the salutary impact that he has had on American (and world-wide) chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12084" LastActivityDate="2020-04-11T08:34:36.343" Title="How close was Seirawan to challenging Kasparov?" Tags="&lt;history&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16200" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16199" CreationDate="2016-12-26T23:31:58.043" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are games on record between the two:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;&#xA;[Title &quot;Yasser Seirawan vs Garry Kasparov (1986)&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Dubai&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Dubai&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;1986.11.23&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;8&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Yasser Seirawan&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Garry Kasparov&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;D91&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;123&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 d5 4.Nf3 Bg7 5.Bg5 Ne4 6.cxd5 Nxg5&#xA;7.Nxg5 e6 8.Nf3 exd5 9.b4 Qd6 10.a3 O-O 11.e3 c6 12.Be2 Bf5&#xA;13.O-O Nd7 14.Na4 a5 15.Qb3 b5 16.Nc5 a4 17.Qc3 Nb6 18.Nd2&#xA;Rae8 19.Rfe1 Re7 20.Bf3 Rfe8 21.g3 Bh3 22.Bg2 Bxg2 23.Kxg2 f5&#xA;24.h4 Nc4 25.Nf3 Bf6 26.Re2 Rg7 27.Rh1 Qe7 28.Ree1 h6 29.Qd3&#xA;Rf8 30.Nd2 Qe8 31.Nxc4 dxc4 32.Qd1 Re7 33.Ref1 Qf7 34.Qf3 Qd5&#xA;35.Qxd5+ cxd5 36.Kf3 Bg7 37.Rd1 Rff7 38.Rd2 Re8 39.Rdd1 Bf8&#xA;40.Rdg1 Bg7 41.Rd1 Kf8 42.Rd2 Ke7 43.Rdd1 Kd6 44.Rh2 Kc6&#xA;45.Rhh1 Bf8 46.Rd2 Bd6 47.Rdd1 Bxc5 48.dxc5 Re4 49.Rhe1 Rd7&#xA;50.Rd4 g5 51.hxg5 hxg5 52.Red1 Rxd4 53.Rxd4 Rh7 54.Ke2 Rh3&#xA;55.g4 f4 56.exf4 Rxa3 57.fxg5 Ra2+ 58.Kf3 c3 59.Rd1 d4 60.g6&#xA;d3 61.Ke3 Rxf2 62.g7 1-0&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;&#xA;[Title &quot;Garry Kasparov vs Yasser Seirawan (1988): You Come at the King, You Best Not Miss&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Thessaloniki ol (09)&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Thessaloniki GRE&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;1988.11.22&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;9&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Garry Kasparov&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Yasser Seirawan&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;D21&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;76&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 d5 2.Nf3 c5 3.c4 dxc4 4.Nc3 cxd4 5.Qxd4 Qxd4 6.Nxd4 Bd7&#xA;7.Ndb5 Na6 8.e4 Nf6 9.f3 Bxb5 10.Nxb5 e5 11.Be3 Bb4+ 12.Kf2&#xA;Ke7 13.Bxc4 Rhc8 14.Rac1 Bc5 15.Rhd1 Bxe3+ 16.Kxe3 Ne8 17.Bb3&#xA;Rxc1 18.Rxc1 f6 19.a3 Nd6 20.Bd5 Nxb5 21.Bxb7 Nbc7 22.Bxa8&#xA;Nxa8 23.Rc8 Nb6 24.Rg8 Kf7 25.Rh8 Nc5 26.Rb8 Ke7 27.b4 Nc4+&#xA;28.Ke2 Nd7 29.Rg8 g5 30.a4 a5 31.bxa5 Nxa5 32.Ra8 Nc6 33.a5&#xA;Kd6 34.g3 h5 35.h4 gxh4 36.gxh4 Nc5 37.a6 Kc7 38.a7 Nb7 1-0&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;&#xA;[Title &quot;Cup World: Seirawan vs Kasparov (1989)&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Cup World&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Skelleftea SWE&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;1989.08.??&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;13&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1/2-1/2&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Yasser Seirawan&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Garry Kasparov&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;E75&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;85&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.e4 d6 5.Be2 O-O 6.Bg5 c5 7.d5 h6&#xA;8.Be3 e6 9.Qd2 exd5 10.cxd5 Re8 11.f3 h5 12.a4 a6 13.a5 Nh7&#xA;14.Bd1 Nd7 15.Nge2 Ne5 16.b3 Qh4+ 17.Bf2 Qf6 18.Qe3 h4 19.h3&#xA;g5 20.O-O Bd7 21.Kh1 Nf8 22.Bg1 Nfg6 23.Bh2 c4 24.Rb1 Rac8&#xA;25.Qa7 Nf4 26.bxc4 Nxc4 27.Rxb7 Nd2 28.Rg1 Nxh3 29.e5 Rxe5&#xA;30.Rxd7 Nxg1 31.Qxg1 Ree8 32.Rxd6 Qf5 33.Ba4 Qd3 34.Bxe8 Rxe8&#xA;35.Rc6 h3 36.Bg3 hxg2 37.Qxg2 Nxf3 38.d6 Re6 39.Qf2 g4 40.Rc8+&#xA;Kh7 41.Nf4 Rh6+ 42.Kg2 Ne1+ 43.Kg1 1/2-1/2&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yasser Seirawan won the World Junior Chess Championship in 1979 in Skien Norway, a year before Garry Kasparov won it in Dortmund Germany. The two were contemporaneous. Seirawan proceeded to train in Switzerland with Korchnoi following his Junior Chess Championship win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's not precisely clear why the two didn't meet up in international competition. In the games they played it seems Seirawan was competitive against Kasparov.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessdom.com/interview-with-yasser-seirawan/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;interview's&lt;/a&gt; Seirawan stated publicly that he &lt;strong&gt;doesn't like the FIDE cycle at all&lt;/strong&gt; and that he always enjoyed being busy and working on projects (such as writing). Speculating, it could be Seirawan's dedication to editing &lt;strong&gt;Inside Chess magazine&lt;/strong&gt; and his dislike for the FIDE cycle may have distracted him away from international competition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Perhaps only Seirawan knows.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12077" LastEditorUserId="12077" LastEditDate="2016-12-27T02:27:33.943" LastActivityDate="2016-12-27T02:27:33.943" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16201" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1804" CreationDate="2016-12-26T23:50:47.187" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The origin of the Classification and the Codes themselves were the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encyclopaedia_of_Chess_Openings&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Encyclopedia of Chess Openings&lt;/a&gt; compiled and edited by Aleksandar Matanović.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They are organized as indicated in another answer above as were originally laid out in the ECO.  For a fairly comprehensive &lt;strong&gt;oneline&lt;/strong&gt; copy of Chess Openings see &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.365chess.com/eco.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;HERE&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12077" LastActivityDate="2016-12-26T23:50:47.187" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16202" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-12-27T06:10:49.633" Score="2" ViewCount="3658" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just wondering some examples of peoples' USCF rating to Lichess (classic lichess, 10 min+)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know it's hard to compare different pools of players. But I think that considering how we do polling with sample sizes, the numbers could be similar once you have the appropriate offset calculated. I need examples of comparisons of the ratings, to know &quot;what's the average offset&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I figure if I am in the top 90% Percentile in lichess, then I should be at least top 70% in USCF or some comparison like that. (just as an example)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12078" LastActivityDate="2016-12-28T08:01:12.670" Title="How does Lichess rating compare to USCF?" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;elo&gt;&lt;uscf&gt;&lt;glicko&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ClosedDate="2017-01-03T07:29:14.980" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16203" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16202" CreationDate="2016-12-27T16:01:34.523" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is unfortunately no 'good' way to convert from Glicko-2 to ELO. While a lot of people claim they have a formula, there really isn't any system that maintains the same invariants and distribution curve when converting.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That being said, there are some ways you could try and 'convert' your score. For example, you could find people on lichess who have similar ratings to yours, and see if they are USCF rated. Also, playing in a couple OTB tournaments would be more than enough to give you an accurate sense of what your ELO rating is around.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this helps!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12052" LastActivityDate="2016-12-27T16:01:34.523" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16204" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-12-27T16:35:31.300" Score="-2" ViewCount="87" Body="&lt;p&gt;What approach would you recommend to calculate current tendency in opening position?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You have set of (move+year) values from games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Amount of total games is unknown but will be somewhere between 1 and 100.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can just sum some f(year) for each move and compare.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a) Would you do it differently?&#xA;b) If not, what f(x) would you use?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11609" LastActivityDate="2016-12-27T22:47:39.553" Title="How to calculate which opening move is modern" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;mathematics&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16205" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16204" CreationDate="2016-12-27T19:33:20.070" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You should think what the typical timescale for opening trends would be. Also to make the result meaningful you should take into account changes in move order that lead to the same position/opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2016-12-27T19:33:20.070" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16206" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16214" CreationDate="2016-12-27T21:22:00.470" Score="4" ViewCount="616" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was trying to find a kid's app for chess that has some incredibly simple problems. However, all the apps I found had rather tricky problems. So I thought I would download 3 piece table bases and use SCID (or grep, if necessary) to create a 3-piece Mate-In-One tablebase PGN. Then just use that in iChess or any other problem app that allows PGN imports.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Much to my chagrin, the tablebases aren't in PGN format as I expected (and I cant even read them in a text editor. Guess I really misunderstand how these tablebases work).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any solutions out there?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12094" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-17T00:27:16.713" LastActivityDate="2020-08-17T00:27:16.713" Title="Generate Simple Mate In 1 From Tablebases (for kids)" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;database&gt;&lt;problems&gt;&lt;tablebases&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="16207" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16204" CreationDate="2016-12-27T22:47:39.553" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Would recommend choosing a year to serve as a base year, then calculating a weighted average based on that. For example, if we choose 2000 as our base year, and say Ruy Lopez was played once in 2000, twice in 2001, and three times in 2003, we would sum (1 * 0 + 2 * 1 + 3 * 3)/6 = 11/6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Alternatively, you could also compute the median (which in this case would be 2). Or, you could graph the data entirely, which would probably give you the best picture.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This definitely sounds like an interesting study, good luck! Let me know if you have followups&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12052" LastActivityDate="2016-12-27T22:47:39.553" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16208" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16216" CreationDate="2016-12-27T22:57:42.560" Score="3" ViewCount="2107" Body="&lt;p&gt;How do most people play blindfolded chess? Is it akin to a live video feed in their mind where they can see all of the pieces, or do they just remember what moves have been made so far and go from there?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12057" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-12-28T10:46:58.013" LastActivityDate="2016-12-29T23:10:21.303" Title="How do people 'see' the position in blindfolded games?" Tags="&lt;blindfold-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16209" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-12-28T00:18:58.070" Score="6" ViewCount="1108" Body="&lt;p&gt;The curious Urusov Gambit seems something of a gimmick.  A great article on it appears &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~goeller/urusov/gambit/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;&#xA;[Event &quot;Urusov Gambit&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Tehran IRI&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2016.10.28&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;4.20&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Mashmooli, Kian&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Nasri, Amin&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;2137&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;2248&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;C44&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Bc4 Nf6 3.d4 exd4 4.Nf3&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The same article observers &quot;&lt;strong&gt;With that the opening fell into disfavour at the highest levels of master competition, and today it is mostly seen in club play, where it racks up quick scores against inexperienced or unprepared opponents.&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Certainly there are many chess sites advocating its adoption as a quick way for WHITE to get ahead.  It's considered a common '&lt;em&gt;opening trick&lt;/em&gt;'  Yet &quot;&lt;strong&gt;Estrin's analysis revealed, however, a possible equalizing method for Black (with Panov's 4....d5) and suggested that some of the deepest lines might end in equality with best play.&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even with (4....d5) it seems difficult for WHITE to re-obtain equality. The opening can evolve into a Two Knights Defense (with  4....Nc6), albeit with a pawn exchanged for tempo.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;QUESTION&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Does lack of play at senior levels really suggest the gambit is not sound? Does anyone know of GMs who favour such a gambit?  And would anyone be able to take us through some of the possible lines from this point as WHITE?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12077" LastEditorUserId="12077" LastEditDate="2016-12-28T02:07:36.093" LastActivityDate="2020-08-05T02:18:26.283" Title="The Urusov Gambit" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;gambits&gt;&lt;two-knights&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16211" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6039" CreationDate="2016-12-28T01:48:28.717" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;PGN files are simple flat text files.  Using a program such as &lt;a href=&quot;https://notepad-plus-plus.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Notepad++&lt;/a&gt; you can simply merge the PGN files containing the openings you wish, into a single PGN file.  It's pretty simple.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That said, if the two books you're merging contain the same openings you will have duplicates.  Accordingly another strategy is to find the largest PGN book of openings you can, and simply add the missing openings you seek.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also convert PGN books to other formats such as the native *.abk format favoured by Arena.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Using one book at a time seems to be a natural constraint of Arena. So you will have much more success working within that constraint and adopting the idea of merging multiple books into a single one and using it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12077" LastActivityDate="2016-12-28T01:48:28.717" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16212" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15951" CreationDate="2016-12-28T02:12:19.373" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Have you seen the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.computerchess.org.uk/ccrl/404/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Computer Chess Rating Lists&lt;/a&gt; competitions?  They pit chess engines against one another for the purpose of &lt;strong&gt;assigning chess engines consistent ratings&lt;/strong&gt;, and for &lt;strong&gt;determining which chess engines are the strongest&lt;/strong&gt; using fair methodologies (such as by using controlled conditions and hardware).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I ask because in the process of doing this you can find games of chess engines (&lt;em&gt;with ratings much higher than humans&lt;/em&gt;) playing chess engines (&lt;em&gt;with ratings much higher than humans&lt;/em&gt;).  Some of these games are &lt;strong&gt;very strange&lt;/strong&gt; to watch.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These chess engines can see so many moves beyond what a normal human can (even GMs), that the moves they make are &lt;strong&gt;very nuanced&lt;/strong&gt; and strange to us (and GMs).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;ANSWER&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Have there been attempts to find such positions with a computer?&lt;/strong&gt;  Indirectly, yes but as a consequence of pitting chess engines against one another.  These games, and their odd moves can be downloaded and witnessed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;&#xA;[Event &quot;CCRL 40/4&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;CCRL&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2016.11.25&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;351.6.759&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Fire 5 64-bit 4CPU&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Stockfish 8 64-bit 4CPU&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;3481&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;B06&quot;]&#xA;[Opening &quot;Modern&quot;]&#xA;[Variation &quot;1.e4 g6 2.d4 d6&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;3324&quot;]&#xA;[Termination &quot;normal&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;119&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteType &quot;human&quot;]&#xA;[BlackType &quot;human&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 g6 2. d4 d6 3. c3 Nf6 4. Bd3 Bg7 5. f4 O-O 6. Nf3 c5 7. dxc5 Nbd7 8.&#xA;cxd6 exd6 9. Be3 Nxe4 10. Bxe4 Re8 11. Qd3 Nf6 12. Bxg6 hxg6 13. O-O Bf5&#xA;14. Qd2 Qa5 15. Re1 Rac8 16. a4 a6 17. Bd4 Bg4 18. Rf1 Ne4 19. Qd1 Rc4 20.&#xA;Bxg7 Kxg7 21. Qd3 Qc5+ 22. Nd4 Be2 23. Qxe2 Rxd4 24. Qe3 Rxa4 25. Qxc5 Nxc5&#xA;26. Rxa4 Nxa4 27. b3 Nc5 28. Nd2 Re3 29. Rf3 Rxf3 30. gxf3 Kf6 31. Kf2 d5&#xA;32. Ke3 Ne6 33. c4 dxc4 34. Nxc4 b5 35. Nd6 Ke7 36. Ne4 f5 37. Nc3 Kd6 38.&#xA;b4 Nd8 39. Na2 Nc6 40. Ke2 Nd4+ 41. Ke3 Kd5 42. Kd3 Nxf3 43. h3 Ng1 44. h4&#xA;Nf3 45. Nc3+ Ke6 46. Ke3 Ne1 47. Kd2 Ng2 48. Ne2 Kd6 49. Kd3 Nxh4 50. Ng1&#xA;Ng2 51. Ne2 Kc6 52. Nd4+ Kc7 53. Ne2 Kb6 54. Kd4 a5 55. bxa5+ Kxa5 56. Kc3&#xA;Ka4 57. Kd2 Ka3 58. Kc2 b4 59. Kb1 Kb3 60. Nd4+ 0-1&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And in this game (&lt;strong&gt;NOTE&lt;/strong&gt;) Watch WHITE's Knight in this match between move 12-15.  WHITE spends 3 moves to relocate his Knight to an adjacent square (because he can see far enough ahead to want it there, and can afford 3 moves to get him there):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;&#xA;[Event &quot;CCRL 40/4&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;CCRL&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2016.11.25&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;351.6.716&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Stockfish 8 64-bit 4CPU&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Fire 5 64-bit 4CPU&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;A00&quot;]&#xA;[Opening &quot;Benko's opening&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;208&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;3481&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;3324&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. g3 e5 2. c4 Nf6 3. Bg2 Nc6 4. Nc3 Bb4 5. Nd5 O-O 6. a3 Bc5 7. Nc3 Bd4 8. Nf3&#xA;Bxc3 9. bxc3 d6 10. O-O Bd7 11. d3 h6 12. e4 Re8 13. Ne1 Qc8 14. Nc2 Bh3 15.&#xA;Ne3 Ne7 16. f4 Bxg2 17. Kxg2 exf4 18. Rxf4 Nd7 19. Rf1 f6 20. a4 Ne5 21. a5 c5&#xA;22. Qe2 Qd7 23. Bd2 Kh8 24. Ra2 Rac8 25. h4 Qc7 26. g4 Rg8 27. Be1 Nf7 28. Bg3&#xA;Nc6 29. Rb1 Rcd8 30. Rb5 Qc8 31. Nf5 Rd7 32. Rb1 Re8 33. Rba1 Qd8 34. Qf3 Nfe5&#xA;35. Qd1 Nf7 36. Kg1 Kh7 37. Kh2 Kg8 38. Ne3 Nfe5 39. Qe2 Rc7 40. Bf2 Rc8 41.&#xA;Nf5 Qc7 42. Bg3 Nf7 43. Rf1 Rcd8 44. Qf3 Nfe5 45. Qd1 Ne7 46. Ne3 N7c6 47. Kg1&#xA;Rf8 48. a6 b6 49. Raf2 Qd7 50. d4 Nf7 51. Nd5 Qc8 52. Qd3 Rde8 53. Rxf6 Qxg4&#xA;54. R1f4 Qd7 55. Bf2 Ne7 56. Qg3 Nxd5 57. cxd5 cxd4 58. cxd4 Nh8 59. e5 Rxf6&#xA;60. exf6 h5 61. Kh2 Re2 62. Rf5 Re8 63. Qg5 Rf8 64. Bg3 Rf7 65. Rf4 Qc8 66.&#xA;Qxh5 Rxf6 67. Rxf6 gxf6 68. Bxd6 Qc2+ 69. Kg3 Nf7 70. Ba3 Qc7+ 71. d6 Qc2 72.&#xA;Qf3 Qa4 73. Qd3 Kg7 74. h5 Kh8 75. Kf4 Nh6 76. Kf3 Qd7 77. Ke2 Nf7 78. Qf3 Kg7&#xA;79. Qe4 Kh8 80. Qe7 Qb5+ 81. Ke3 Qg5+ 82. Kd3 Qf5+ 83. Kc3 Qa5+ 84. Bb4 Qa1+&#xA;85. Kb3 Qb1+ 86. Kc4 Qa2+ 87. Kd3 Qb1+ 88. Ke2 Qb2+ 89. Bd2 Qb5+ 90. Ke3 Qb3+&#xA;91. Ke4 Kg7 92. d7 Qb1+ 93. Ke3 Qg1+ 94. Kd3 Qf1+ 95. Kc2 Qc4+ 96. Kb2 Qd5 97.&#xA;h6+ Kg6 98. h7 Qb5+ 99. Bb4 Qh5 100. Qxf7+ Kxf7 101. d8=Q Qe2+ 102. Kc3 Qf3+&#xA;103. Kc2 Qe2+ 104. Bd2 Qc4+ 1-0&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12077" LastEditorUserId="12077" LastEditDate="2016-12-28T02:19:33.943" LastActivityDate="2016-12-28T02:19:33.943" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16213" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14459" CreationDate="2016-12-28T03:17:30.930" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;ANSWER&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Yes. Here's how:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Download &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.playwitharena.com/?Download&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Arena Chess Engine GUI&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Ensure Athena has the Chess Engines you desire installed&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If not - &lt;a href=&quot;https://hobbylark.com/board-games/Best-Free-Chess-Engines&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Check Best Free Chess Engines&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://stockfishchess.org/download/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Download Stockfish&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Download other desired Chess Engine&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.playwitharena.com/?Tips_%2B_Tricks%26nbsp%3B:Remote_Engines:Configuring_Arena.&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Configure Chess Engines in Arena&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Load both Chess engines&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Set up position&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Example for setting up and conducting a tournament in Arena can be found &lt;a href=&quot;http://adamsccpages.blogspot.ca/p/conducting-engine-tournaments-under.html#e&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12077" LastActivityDate="2016-12-28T03:17:30.930" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16214" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16206" CreationDate="2016-12-28T07:41:16.803" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's possible to generate mates in 1,2,3 etc with tablebase, but that's probably not what you want. You should understand:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You will need good programming knowledge&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You will need a week generating 6-men tablebase mates&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You will generate too many mates than you can possibly study&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are confident in programming, you can do this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Modify the Gaviota tablebase generator (ask the author for source code). Find where it calculates distance-to-mate, if it's one (or two or three), print the position out.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Modify the Syzygy tablebase generator. Syzygy reports distance-to-zero, so you may need to use online probing (e.g. Nalimov) or an engine.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Use the public API in &lt;a href=&quot;https://syzygy-tables.info&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://syzygy-tables.info&lt;/a&gt;. Start from a randomised position. Use the API result to move your position to mate-in-one.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you don't have any idea what I'm talking about, generating mate positions with tableabse is not for you. You should:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Buy a book with mate-in-one positions. There is an Android app that can read a chess diagram and convert it to PGN.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT&lt;/strong&gt;: You shouldn't generate total random FENs. You should try to generate FENs that either side has an extra rook, queen etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2016-12-29T12:11:28.227" LastActivityDate="2016-12-29T12:11:28.227" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16215" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16202" CreationDate="2016-12-28T08:01:12.670" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;From my personal experience, the ratings at lichess and most other online chess websites are drastically overrated in score. I know someone who uses lichess regularly. Although I don't know his USCF rating, he has a score of about 1600 on lichess. Having played him in real life, he seems to be more around 1000-1200 player. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, my rating on chess.com is about 1700, but in the last several times I've played in real tournaments, I seemed to be on par with those at 1500. (My USCF rating is 800, but that's a different story).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10072" LastActivityDate="2016-12-28T08:01:12.670" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16216" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16208" CreationDate="2016-12-28T10:28:09.377" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;You certainly do not remember all the moves made. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Instead you remember the position on the board. In chess you have certain typical structures, so you don't really need to remember each and every piece's position. Instead you can for instance store the information: fianchettoed bishop to mean the very typical position of pawns on f2,g3,h2 bishop on g2 and knight on f3. Similarly you could store certain typical pawn chains. For instance in the French defence you could have white pawns on b2,c3, d4,e5 and black pawns opposing them on f7, e6, d5, c5, again you'd just store something like &quot;closed French&quot; .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any player of reasonable strength is doing this automatically and subconsciously when doing calculations at regular chess as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2016-12-28T10:28:09.377" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16217" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16219" CreationDate="2016-12-28T14:37:18.500" Score="2" ViewCount="3984" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm solving tactics on &lt;a href=&quot;http://chesstempo.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://chesstempo.com&lt;/a&gt; .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One of the things that I struggle with, is tactics involving moving the Knight several times. I find it very odd to calculate Knight movement beyond the first move and often miss very simple tactics as a result.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have an ELO of ~1600 on chess.com and still sometimes miss simple tactics involving this piece.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there any ways to train yourself to be better at calculating Knight movement?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11775" LastActivityDate="2017-01-03T18:38:43.213" Title="How to play better with Knight?" Tags="&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;knights&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16218" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4096" CreationDate="2016-12-28T14:52:35.680" Score="-3" Body="&lt;p&gt;4fter After e4 c5 d4 cxd c3 d5 exd5 Qxd5 cxd4 e5 White can Simply play Nc3 and has a Little advantage After Qxd4 Dxd4 Nb5 Na6 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12097" LastActivityDate="2016-12-28T14:52:35.680" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16219" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16217" CreationDate="2016-12-28T16:28:55.523" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've mulled this over a number of times.  Here is what helps &lt;strong&gt;me&lt;/strong&gt; play better with a knight.  I offer it not as a general solution, but as a solution that has worked for me.  I hope you find it useful:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Understand how the Knight moves COMPLETELY.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Understand ALL the Knight threatens COMPLETELY.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Understand that the value of the Knight relative to the Bishop may change.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Understand by colour, what the Knight threatens when he sits still or moves twice (Rule of Even).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Understand by colour, what the Knight threatens once he moves (Rule of Odd).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Point 1&lt;/strong&gt;. Most people know how the Knight moves described as a &quot;L&quot;.  I've found this to be inefficient since this is only visualizing &lt;strong&gt;one&lt;/strong&gt; of his possible moves and it's possible to miss some of his possible moves thinking this way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To truly see his potential a player needs to know &lt;strong&gt;all&lt;/strong&gt; of his possible moves at once.  Here's how I visualize it (and will try to explain clearly how I see it):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/rbczI.gif&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/rbczI.gif&quot; alt=&quot;All of Knights Moves&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Around the Knight is a &lt;strong&gt;box&lt;/strong&gt; the corners of which match the colour he is sitting on.  The Knight jumps &lt;strong&gt;outside&lt;/strong&gt; of the box to the opposite colour squares touching the corners.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is possible to look at a board and see this &quot;&lt;em&gt;box&lt;/em&gt;&quot; while playing and see all of Knights potential moves at once, rather than just one.  The ability to see this &lt;strong&gt;box&lt;/strong&gt; rather than a &lt;strong&gt;single&lt;/strong&gt; move is something of an epiphany.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Point 2&lt;/strong&gt;.  Understanding &lt;strong&gt;all the Knight threatens&lt;/strong&gt; at once, rather than a single threat allows the player to understand all the pieces he can &lt;strong&gt;attack&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just as above (Point 1) where seeing all of a Knights moves show his true potential, seeing all he threatens shows all of his attacking potential.  Many players identify what he threatens (in a somewhat sequential manner) one threat at a time.  However, this is inefficient and may inevitably miss some.  The ability to &lt;em&gt;visualize his box&lt;/em&gt; allows a player to see &lt;strong&gt;all he threatens&lt;/strong&gt; which allows a player to realize his full attacking potential. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Point 3&lt;/strong&gt;.  Some theories of Chess don't assign the Knight a static value relative to the Bishop (meaning the same unchanging value). Consider this for a moment:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the Bishop works best on an &lt;strong&gt;open board&lt;/strong&gt; with far reaching open diagonals &lt;strong&gt;BUT&lt;/strong&gt; the Knight can jump around pieces on a &lt;strong&gt;crowded board&lt;/strong&gt; but whose reach is always limited, it stands to reason the Bishop's value increases over time as the board opens up and as the game goes on; whereas the Knight's value decreases overtime since the board opening up removes his advantage.  Accordingly, consider assigning the Knight a value of 3.5 in the beginning of the game (Bishop at 3.0), and flip these values as the game goes on as it's appropriate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Point 4&lt;/strong&gt;. An un-moved Knight threatens the &lt;strong&gt;opposite&lt;/strong&gt; colour he's sitting on (or if he moves twice).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A Knight on &lt;strong&gt;BLACK&lt;/strong&gt; is threatening &lt;strong&gt;WHITE&lt;/strong&gt;.  A Knight on &lt;strong&gt;WHITE&lt;/strong&gt; is threatening &lt;strong&gt;BLACK&lt;/strong&gt;.  Remember this and consider it when considering position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Point 5&lt;/strong&gt;. A moved Knight threatens the &lt;strong&gt;same&lt;/strong&gt; colour he sat upon before moving.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A Knight moving off &lt;strong&gt;BLACK&lt;/strong&gt; will threaten &lt;strong&gt;BLACK&lt;/strong&gt; once he comes to rest.  A Knight moving off &lt;strong&gt;WHITE&lt;/strong&gt; will threaten &lt;strong&gt;WHITE&lt;/strong&gt; once he comes to rest.  Remember this and consider it when considering position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These last 2 points really help in end-game situations where you're forced to chase an odious opponent around the board.  If you want to threaten the same colour you sit upon, you must move. If you want to threaten the opposite colour, stay or move twice. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Good luck!&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/FJtDe.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/FJtDe.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Mighty Knight!&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12077" LastEditorUserId="12077" LastEditDate="2016-12-28T23:03:17.127" LastActivityDate="2016-12-28T23:03:17.127" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16222" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16228" CreationDate="2016-12-28T23:39:59.203" Score="2" ViewCount="914" Body="&lt;p&gt;Usually if there is a blocked pawn chain one is trying to attack it close to its base with a pawn from the side.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance, in the classical king's Indian black is playing f5 (not c6) and later (if white plays f3) perhaps even g4 etc. White on the other hand is pushing c5 (not f4).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am aware why attacking chains in this way is generally the best choice. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there any examples in openings or famous games (besides the French defence f7-f6) where the pawn chain is attacked at the other, &quot;wrong&quot; end?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2017-09-18T20:10:21.990" Title="Undermining pawn chains at the &quot;wrong&quot; end" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;pawn-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16223" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16208" CreationDate="2016-12-29T05:20:41.457" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I play blindfolded, I don't see a sharp image of a board in my head, but I can see sections of the board at a time and I remember the placement of the pieces and their influence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7534" LastActivityDate="2016-12-29T05:20:41.457" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16225" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16222" CreationDate="2016-12-29T10:07:59.280" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The first example that springs to mind are the Benoni structures:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 c5 3. d5 (3. dxc5? e6 {Black recovers the pawn favourably, so we see that 2...c5 induces the d-pawn forwards to be challenged later.}) e6 {Black challenges the head of the pawn chain, rather than the base.} (3... b5 {Attacking the base of the pawn chain with the Benko gambit is also a popular try.})&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastEditorDisplayName="user1108" LastEditDate="2016-12-29T13:02:30.190" LastActivityDate="2016-12-29T13:02:30.190" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16226" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16227" CreationDate="2016-12-29T11:30:19.373" Score="3" ViewCount="207" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to make syzygy browsing tool &lt;strong&gt;fathom.exe&lt;/strong&gt; work. If you have experience with this, please let me know. I tried million of combinations of tokens to format the position command and the program always returns empty string.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I run this command&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;FILE* pipe = _popen(&quot;c:\\fathom.exe --help&quot;, &quot;r&quot;);&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;program returns this info string:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;usage: c:\fathom.exe [--help] [--path=PATH] [--test] FEN&#xA;&#xA;WHERE:&#xA;FEN&#xA;    The position (as a FEN string) to be probed.&#xA;--help&#xA;    Print this helpful message.&#xA;--path=PATH&#xA;    Set the tablebase PATH string.&#xA;--test&#xA;    Print the result only.  Useful for scripts.&#xA;&#xA;DESCRIPTION:&#xA;This program is a stand-alone Syzygy tablebase probe tool.  The&#xA;program takes as input a FEN string representation of a chess&#xA;position and outputs a PGN representation of the probe result.&#xA;&#xA;In addition to the standard fields, the output PGN represents the&#xA;following information:&#xA;- Result: &quot;1-0&quot; (white wins), &quot;1/2-1/2&quot; (draw), or &quot;0-1&quot; (black wins)&#xA;- The Win-Draw-Loss (WDL) value for the next move: &quot;Win&quot;, &quot;Draw&quot;,&#xA;  &quot;Loss&quot;, &quot;CursedWin&quot; (win but 50-move draw) or &quot;BlessedLoss&quot; (loss&#xA;  but 50-move draw)&#xA;- The Distance-To-Zero (DTZ) value (in plys) for the next move&#xA;- WinningMoves: The list of all winning moves&#xA;- DrawingMoves: The list of all drawing moves&#xA;- LosingMoves: The list of all losing moves&#xA;&#xA;The PGN contains a pseudo &quot;principle variation&quot; of Syzygy vs. Syzygy&#xA;for the input position.  Each PV move is rational with respect to&#xA;preserving the WDL value.  The PV does not represent the shortest&#xA;mate nor the most natural human moves.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can you write me please an &lt;strong&gt;exact string command&lt;/strong&gt; to analyse for example &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4k3/4n3/8/8/4K3/8/1B2B3/8 w - - 0 1&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My wdl folder is C:/Tablebases/Syzygy/wdl&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My dtz folder is C:/Tablebases/Syzygy/dtz&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11609" LastActivityDate="2016-12-29T12:04:19.707" Title="Fathom syzygy browsing tool" Tags="&lt;programming&gt;&lt;tablebases&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16227" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16226" CreationDate="2016-12-29T12:04:19.707" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have experience working with Fathom in one of my iOS apps. Look at my recent post:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://talkchess.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=62378&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://talkchess.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=62378&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My command was: &lt;code&gt;fathom --path=YOUR_PATH --test &quot;FEN_STRING&quot;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Substitute &lt;code&gt;YOUR_PATH&lt;/code&gt; with your path. You must have both WDL and DTZ files in the same directory.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Substitute &lt;code&gt;FEN_STRING&lt;/code&gt; with your FEN string. You will need the quotation mark.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My console session posted in the link:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/jJ6sj.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/jJ6sj.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2016-12-29T12:04:19.707" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16228" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16222" CreationDate="2016-12-29T13:54:07.107" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is rule for strategic chess with no tactics involved. This rule was good in days when players liked their pawn structures and didn't go too crazy with their moves. I think this is Nimzovich's rule from My System, but I'm not certain about this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my opinion, this rule should be taken very lightly today, as there is really a lot of examples, when players attack the &quot;bad end&quot; of a chain.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason is simple: Pawn is for 1, knight and bishop are for 3, rook for 5 and queen for 10. You should point your attention to place where you have advantage in total firepower. Pawns are very small part of that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is however higher probability that your pieces are aimed towards the &quot;correct end&quot; of a chain. That's reason why a lot of players respects this rule a lot. When you have bishops on d3 and c1 in closed french type position, you certainly want to play on a kingside.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In King's Indian it is very typical black plays c6 move even in some of the racing lines. On the other hand white sometimes play 0-0-0 with g4 h4 attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In french both black's f6 and white's a3 b4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In e5 carocan white often pushes c4 and black takes some breathing space with f6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11609" LastActivityDate="2016-12-29T13:54:07.107" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16229" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16231" CreationDate="2016-12-29T14:29:14.157" Score="17" ViewCount="4046" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Oh8TV.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Oh8TV.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;The last move&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is no check.&#xA;Was it a victory on time? Or did Shirov resign?&#xA;In all the discussion over this game it's just accepted that Kasparov won, without anyone mentioning the reason for his victory.&#xA;And it is so often called a great game, whereas I don't see any great brilliance. Just 2 guys trading blows.&#xA;There's hardly a significant difference in material in the final position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12108" LastEditorUserId="8300" LastEditDate="2016-12-30T01:29:55.503" LastActivityDate="2020-03-04T20:24:57.330" Title="How is Kasparov vs Shirov 1992 a victory?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;famous-players&gt;&lt;kasparov&gt;&lt;famous-games&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16230" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16229" CreationDate="2016-12-29T14:52:44.457" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;Black has (almost) three connected passed pawns which will be unstoppable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White is not going to promote his pawn without the king, which is far away and likewise is not going to get a passer on the a or  b file soon.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2016-12-29T14:52:44.457" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16231" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16229" CreationDate="2016-12-29T15:03:56.523" Score="26" Body="&lt;p&gt;Shirov resigned: the thinking was that despite both sides left with pawns and a knight, the advantage went to Black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black has an extra pawn and Black's pawn chain is mutually supporting. White is down a pawn and they are split. White's king is buried too deeply in the corner to either prevent a black pawn advance to promotion or to save White's pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;True, White does have a pawn that is more advanced, but Black's king is already central, pretty much attacking the pawn and knight.  The white knight is insufficient to protect that pawn.  That pawn is pretty much gone, so really Black's advantage effectively becomes two pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With White's advanced pawn gone, advantage becomes three black pawns and a knight against White's single king-side pawn and a knight, except even here Black's knight is already attacking that pawn so it, too, is effectively gone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Kasparov would truly have to make some blunders to fail to promote a pawn, so pawn promotion was seen to be unavoidable given the position.  Hence White resigns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12077" LastEditorUserId="2789" LastEditDate="2016-12-29T21:25:07.660" LastActivityDate="2016-12-29T21:25:07.660" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16233" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16244" CreationDate="2016-12-29T19:01:16.577" Score="6" ViewCount="1044" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am new to chess and know only a bit of opening theory and understand some general ideas like developing my pieces, threatening and controlling the center of the board, etc. but I struggle against players who follow no opening and just bring out the queen and run amok on the board. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How does one wanting to stick to principles deal with such unorthodox play? Am I just too new to understand that there are book responses to such moves or should I focus on repulsing pieces before I develop or should I just follow my plan for development? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, I would really appreciate any recommendations about resources for beginners.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12110" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-10-06T14:17:09.897" LastActivityDate="2019-10-06T15:27:24.360" Title="How to deal with unorthodox players?" Tags="&lt;beginner&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="16234" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16233" CreationDate="2016-12-29T19:23:04.853" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just do what you would do against 'normal' players. Develop your pieces, occupy the center, castle your king, but at the same, watch out for tactics (which, against a lone queen, means: don't leave pawns or pieces undefended).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can harass the queen during development to gain extra tempi (e.g. 1. e4 e5 2. Qg4 Nf6), that never hurts, but you can also just wait until your development is complete, and only &lt;em&gt;then&lt;/em&gt; attack the queen. There are no 'book moves' for this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-12-30T07:37:13.047" LastActivityDate="2016-12-30T07:37:13.047" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16235" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16229" CreationDate="2016-12-29T19:41:09.747" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Think of white's next move. The pawn in g is lost. If you move the pawn in e, black just leaves the king there and the white knight is pinned. So the only reasonable move is b1, to start taking the king to where the action is. Black can now take the g pawn and start advancing the three pawns to get to promote one of them. I might screw that up, but not a GM. Shirov resigned. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12113" LastActivityDate="2016-12-29T19:41:09.747" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16236" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16233" CreationDate="2016-12-29T19:43:05.310" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;For the first question I think Glorifindel just said the important, against whatever type of moves you always want to play good, reasonable chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the second question, when I was beginning my chess career, I loved books of Czech author Ludek Pachman (Modern chess strategy, endgames, middlegame...) and even today I think I liked them not only because they were written in my native language. Imho they are way better than popular Nimzovich's My System. I have no doubt there is plenty of good material out there, this is just what I have good personal experience with. Good luck with studying chess!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11609" LastActivityDate="2016-12-29T19:43:05.310" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16237" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16229" CreationDate="2016-12-29T19:50:08.853" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's a race.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If White is next then:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The White knight can take on a5, whilst Black moves to g5.  If White tries to rush the pawn to a4, Black takes en passant.  This leaves the Black king to atack e6 and the Black night to attack g3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But pawn tof4 signals the start of black pushing their pawns forward. which creates a queen on the same diagonal as the white pawn, which is being pushed along on the b-file&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If Black turn is first then game over already, because Nxf3, and pawn pushing asap.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12114" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-09-23T21:20:32.193" LastActivityDate="2019-09-23T21:20:32.193" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="16238" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16233" CreationDate="2016-12-29T20:19:28.463" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The idea behind opening theory is that it is such because, besides showing what to do in opening situations, it also show what &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; to do; namely this means that a good way to practice opening theory is to take one line and purposely move a piece otherwise, so that you understand how to punish it (for example try the standard Spanish opening without the book and see how White/Black can capture this or that other pawn if played otherwise). This helps in the long run to understand in general how to punish moves that are out of book (if they were sound they would then be &lt;em&gt;in the book&lt;/em&gt;, somewhere).   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Coming to the actual question we see few different points:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;How does one wanting to stick to principles deal with such unorthodox play?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;this depends very much on what you mean by &quot;unorthodox play&quot;: if unorthodox means, say,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.e4 b6 2. d4 Bb7 3.Nc3 e6 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That is not really unorthodox, rather it follows a different principle of occupying the centre via indirect control; it is sound and it is indeed in the books, just not on Chapter 1. As a consequence either you just play following natural development or, if you wish, you can go deeper into those lines and learn their theory. If, otherwise, your opponent plays manifestly wrong moves, blundering pawn protections and the like, well, you just take that pawn on, say d5, left as a gift.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I struggle against players who follow no opening and just bring out the queen and run amok on the board. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well, if the Queen is running wild on the board then just developing the two Knights in their proper squares (f3-c3 vs f6-c6) will definitely make your opponent spend many tempi, resulting in their pieces &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; being developed. As a consequence you will then have major figures development and initiative; this, obviously, unless the Queen is there for a good reason (see for example all the lines containing the &quot;poised pawn&quot; on b2-b7 or the old-style King's gambits and Cambridge Springs variations).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Am I just too new to understand that there are book responses to such moves or should I focus on repulsing pieces before I develop or should I just follow my plan for development? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would say it is half-half: improvement in chess follows the path of both ideas/principles and book analysis. Continue doing what you are doing and the improvements and the results will come as the time goes by. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11726" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-10-06T14:16:19.517" LastActivityDate="2019-10-06T14:16:19.517" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="16239" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2016-12-29T21:47:01.800" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2016-12-29T21:47:01.800" LastActivityDate="2016-12-29T21:47:01.800" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16240" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2016-12-29T21:47:01.800" Score="0" Body="Questions related to chess compositions or chess problems, a type of puzzles using chess pieces on a chess board." OwnerUserId="10867" LastEditorUserId="10867" LastEditDate="2016-12-30T08:01:41.170" LastActivityDate="2016-12-30T08:01:41.170" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16241" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2016-12-29T21:48:35.237" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2016-12-29T21:48:35.237" LastActivityDate="2016-12-29T21:48:35.237" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16242" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2016-12-29T21:48:35.237" Score="0" Body="Questions related to the Bulgarian grandmaster and former FIDE World Chess Champion Veselin Topalov." OwnerUserId="10867" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-12-29T21:56:22.193" LastActivityDate="2016-12-29T21:56:22.193" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16243" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16208" CreationDate="2016-12-29T23:10:21.303" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There have been studies conducted on this (by de Groot and later Herbert &amp;amp; Simon) where they showed both masters and novices chess board layouts for a few seconds and then asked them to reconstruct the layouts from memory. Some of the layouts were real chess positions and some of them had pieces randomly placed, sometimes in illegal positions. The masters were vastly better than the novices at recalling the real positions, but virtually no better at recalling the random layouts. This demonstrated that masters perceive a position based on the familiar chess elements of it - pawn structures, tension between pieces which can capture each other and so on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's a &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWuJqCwfjjc&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;video&lt;/a&gt; of GM Patrick Wolff being given the test and talking afterwards about how he was able to recall the real positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12115" LastActivityDate="2016-12-29T23:10:21.303" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16244" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16233" CreationDate="2016-12-30T05:54:33.380" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some beginners bring out their queen early, looking for &quot;game.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just make sure to defend everything the opposing queen attacks. In the process, you will develop your pieces and control the center, while the opponent has only the queen out. Then you'll win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you are a bit more advanced, you can offer some of your pieces to the opposing queen while you concentrate on building a winning attack. Here's an example of such a &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1586941&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;game&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2016-12-30T05:54:33.380" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16245" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16178" CreationDate="2016-12-30T06:30:03.880" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;By definition, a &quot;club player&quot; is someone who follows &quot;organized&quot; chess at a club.&#xA;They attend lectures by professional players, follow their games, read their books, and play (occasional) simultaneous games with the pros, and more often games with other, similarly inclined players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While the pros are technically &quot;club&quot; players, the term is used to describe people who are below pro, or at least master, level; that is below ELO 2200 or so. These are &quot;serious&quot; players, usually intermediate to strong, because they play &quot;organized&quot; chess at clubs, that are &quot;amateurs&quot; who are not good enough to make a living at chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastEditorUserId="17" LastEditDate="2017-11-24T05:49:09.177" LastActivityDate="2017-11-24T05:49:09.177" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16246" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="274" CreationDate="2016-12-30T06:39:27.233" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Colle-Zukertort is a good way to advance beyond beginner. The whole purpose of the opening is to teach you how to play &quot;sound,&quot; chess, and to beat people who don't play that way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once you've advanced beyond beginner, you will want greater variety of openings and games. Colle-Zuckertort is a &quot;slow&quot; system, and once you've reached a certain level, you will want openings that give you a chance to win faster.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2016-12-30T06:39:27.233" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16247" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16167" CreationDate="2016-12-30T06:47:50.083" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;E5 starts the kingside development/attack that Black wants. The reason he is doing this is because he has more pieces developed on the kingside than White. Eventually, he will move f5, and even advance his g pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, e5 reduces the effectiveness of the black bishop in the center and long diagonal. But that's not the point. If Black wants to be aggressive the kingside, advancing his pawns, the bishop is needed at g7 for &lt;em&gt;defense.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;E5 is what gives the &lt;em&gt;King's&lt;/em&gt; Indian its character, and it is at this point that the opening becomes the King's Indian. Before it, Black had a variety of potential center and queen's side defenses such as the Gruenfeld. With e5, Black commits to playing on the king, not the queenside. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2016-12-30T06:47:50.083" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16248" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5535" CreationDate="2016-12-30T07:27:45.770" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I realise that this is a couple of years old, but in case anyone reaches this page you can use SCID analysis, there is an icon at the bottom of the analysis window called &quot;annotate&quot; and this will loop over each move with whatever chess engine you configure, and label the mistakes, blunders etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12118" LastActivityDate="2016-12-30T07:27:45.770" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16249" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13744" CreationDate="2016-12-30T12:57:43.737" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can try &lt;a href=&quot;http://chess.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chess.com&lt;/a&gt;, but you must be a premium user to create a tournament.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12099" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-12-30T13:14:54.020" LastActivityDate="2016-12-30T13:14:54.020" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16250" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2016-12-30T18:36:17.607" Score="4" ViewCount="150" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am working through the book mentioned and in game 8 (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1242926&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Przepiorka vs Prokes&lt;/a&gt;) at move 4 ...P-B4, which is black moves pawn to C5.  The book states the following:  &quot;This move is almost indispensable in Queen Pawn openings.  It is important not to play ...Kt-C6 first, as the bishop pawn must not be obstructed.&quot;  Could someone shed some light on the importance of ensuring the queen's bishop pawn is unobstructed? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12126" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2016-12-30T18:50:57.477" LastActivityDate="2017-01-03T18:27:50.673" Title="Clarification in the book Logical Chess, Move by Move, by Chernev" Tags="&lt;colle-system&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16251" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16253" CreationDate="2016-12-30T20:41:51.273" Score="2" ViewCount="305" Body="&lt;p&gt;What are some common tactics or ideas that arise when black has played h6 (or white has played h3) in front of his castled king?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An example I have in mind is, in this position, white can win a pawn with Bxh6, gxh6, Qxf6:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/pDu6E.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;white can win a pawn&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A less concrete but still important idea is, with a bishop on the a2-g8 diagonal (pinning black's pawn on f7), white often plans to sink his king's knight into g6 in a couple of moves:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/bOzFR.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;g6 is weak&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12130" LastActivityDate="2017-01-03T18:01:43.787" Title="What are some common tactics that arise when black has played h6?" Tags="&lt;theory&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;castling&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16252" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16250" CreationDate="2016-12-30T22:27:03.630" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;One thing would be it allows you to put more pressure on d4, having both the pawn and knight hitting it instead of the pawn being blocked behind the knight on c7. The king's pawn is usually supporting the queen's pawn on d5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4324" LastActivityDate="2016-12-30T22:27:03.630" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16253" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16251" CreationDate="2016-12-30T22:51:46.703" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Two basic ideas:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Put a knight on f5; Black will have a hard time chasing it away with g6 without losing material.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Storm with your g-pawn to g5. Especially with the black knight still on f6, Black cannot avoid the opening of some lines.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both plans would work in some circumstances with the pawn still on h7, but are a lot more effective with the pawn on h6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2016-12-30T22:51:46.703" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16254" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16258" CreationDate="2016-12-30T23:49:53.827" Score="5" ViewCount="613" Body="&lt;p&gt;Now it's fine either as percentage of all FIDE players registered or just as number itself (like either 1/100k players are rated above X, or 23 players rated above X, respectively).  Let's say by their peak rating and not necessarily current one. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If unclear what I mean, let's take an example: Last time I checked there were 10 players who reached a rating of over 2800 ELO at some point in their career.  I don't know how many FIDE players there are, but if, say, a million, then rarity here is 10/1,000,000.  Or we could simply use the number 10.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now I'm looking for something similar but in a table, like with +2700, +2600, and all the way down.  Do you think such information is available?  Thanks. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;edit: I wanted specific numbers which the other thread had not provided. I am happy with the answer I've chosen now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11995" LastEditorUserId="11995" LastEditDate="2017-01-02T01:00:59.467" LastActivityDate="2017-01-02T01:00:59.467" Title="Where can I find a rarity table of chess player ratings?" Tags="&lt;elo&gt;&lt;statistics&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2017-01-03T07:29:43.803" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16255" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16251" CreationDate="2016-12-31T00:41:49.813" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my experience, your second  idea, sinking a knight in g6, is not very common. Some more ideas:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;piece sacrifice on h6 for two pawns and an open king&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;piece sacrifice on g5 (not forced but tempting). If white has a pawn on h4 and rook on h1, the opening of the h file can often be very dangerous for black. This is also known as &lt;em&gt;fishing pole trap&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastEditorUserId="11629" LastEditDate="2016-12-31T10:58:38.090" LastActivityDate="2016-12-31T10:58:38.090" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16258" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16254" CreationDate="2016-12-31T10:31:44.117" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to the list downloaded &lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/download.phtml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;, there are currently 261782 players with a FIDE rating. I wrote a small program to analyze it, and here are the results:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;-------------------------&#xA;Rating  Number of players&#xA;2800+   5&#xA;2750+   18&#xA;2700+   43&#xA;2650+   114&#xA;2600+   262&#xA;2550+   514&#xA;2500+   921&#xA;2450+   1641&#xA;2400+   3130&#xA;2350+   5223&#xA;2300+   8669&#xA;2250+   13791&#xA;2200+   21033&#xA;2150+   30045&#xA;2100+   41411&#xA;2050+   54631&#xA;2000+   69229&#xA;1950+   83243&#xA;1900+   97932&#xA;1850+   112783&#xA;1800+   127483&#xA;1750+   141826&#xA;1700+   155776&#xA;1650+   168856&#xA;1600+   180987&#xA;1550+   192154&#xA;1500+   202332&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Keep in mind that there are a lot of countries where club level players (1500 - 2000) have a national rating but not a FIDE rating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For reference, here is the Java program I wrote. Feel free to modify it for your own analysis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {&#xA;    BufferedReader reader = new BufferedReader(new FileReader(&quot;rating.txt&quot;));&#xA;    String line;&#xA;    int[] frequencies = new int[3000];&#xA;    boolean first = true;&#xA;    while ((line = reader.readLine()) != null) {&#xA;        if (first) {&#xA;            first = false;&#xA;            continue;&#xA;        }&#xA;&#xA;        frequencies[Integer.valueOf(line.substring(113, 117))]++;&#xA;    }&#xA;&#xA;    int total = 0;&#xA;    for (int rating = 3000 - 1; rating &amp;gt;= 0; rating--) {&#xA;        total += frequencies[rating];&#xA;        if (rating % 50 == 0) {&#xA;            System.out.println(rating + &quot;+\t&quot; + total);&#xA;        }&#xA;    }&#xA;}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2016-12-31T10:31:44.117" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16259" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16251" CreationDate="2016-12-31T15:53:17.063" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;With usual piece placement for this struture it is good to be careful that with weak 8th rank king can get to serious troubles on h7. Qf5+ with knight on f6 lost after g6, occasionaly Ng5+ hxg5 Qh5#. Also any b1-h7 attack can be often very dangerous. Shelter on g7 is more often safer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can think out and write to comment some reasons for that as a training. Or you don't have to trust this statement, but I'm always very careful if my King must run after check to h7.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11609" LastActivityDate="2016-12-31T15:53:17.063" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16260" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16261" CreationDate="2016-12-31T17:30:11.293" Score="6" ViewCount="414" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the classical line, the book &lt;em&gt;Starting Out: Modern Benoni&lt;/em&gt; by Endre Vegh recommends 13. f3:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[StartPly &quot;26&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 c5 3. d5 e6 4. Nc3 exd5 5. cxd5 d6 6. Nf3 g6 7. e4 Bg7 8. Be2 O-O 9. O-O Re8 10. Nd2 Na6 11. Kh1 Nc7 12. a4 b6 13. f3 (13. f4)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is what the author says of 13. f3:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;the centre is thereby strengthened and will not be easily undermined.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;But given that White would like to push with e5, why not support it with 13. f4 beforehand?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2016-12-31T18:47:55.550" Title="Why does White play 13. f3 and not 13. f4 in the Modern Benoni, Classical Line?" Tags="&lt;pawn-structure&gt;&lt;modern-benoni&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16261" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16260" CreationDate="2016-12-31T18:47:55.550" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I played this position many times with white and f3 is really good move here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is not only about what white wants, but also about what black wants. You have more space and so you can choose easier from more plans. You can play for Rb1 b4, you can play for g4, you can play for f4 and e5. Black has not that much space and can't choose from many plans.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now look at the position. Who will be happy to see f4 and potentially e5? Probably you in the beginning, but then also Qd8, Re8, Nf6 and Nc7. That is quite a body count. They don't have much work now but will have plenty of job after you weaken the centre. What about your pieces? Both knights will lose part of its mobility as they will have to protect pawn on e4. Bishop on c1 will hate you. Maybe you will help Rf1, while Qd1 and Be2 will see also slight improvement of their chances, but simple adding pros and cons of f4 action compared to f3 should lead to clear NO!. You won't loose the e4 pawn just by playing f4 or anything like that, but by this overextending on part of board where you really are not stronger, you achieve nothing positive at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The plan is good only when it helps you more than your opponent!&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The f3 alternative with killing opponent's bishop immediately on c4 (f3 Ba6 Nc4 Bxc4 Bxc4 is the main line and for good reason, as black can't afford you to play b3 and retake on c4 with pawn!) saves you material advantage of bishop vs. knight, doesn't commit you to anything and then you can calmly go either for Rb1 b4 or some other stuff depending on black answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11609" LastActivityDate="2016-12-31T18:47:55.550" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16262" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16274" CreationDate="2016-12-31T19:22:11.173" Score="4" ViewCount="666" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm doing research about how different conditions or situations affect the decision making process in chess. For example if the opponent's ELO ranking affects the average time used for every move. In the example, both variables are numerical and easy to obtain. However I struggle when it comes to define if a move is more passive or aggressive (specially after the opening theory).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I noticed that, independently of playing style, there are some external factors that make us play more actively (aggressively, taking more risk) or passively (defensively, taking less risk). I read some articles that say it depends on the current position and the analyzer &amp;quot;strength&amp;quot; to determine with certainty, but that is too subjective for my purposes. There must be some some objective cues to help me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was thinking about the mobility (as in how many moves the player or the specific piece have after the last move) or/and if it is making or stopping a threat. Are there other cues or methods I could use to define if a move is passive or aggressive?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there software where I can analyze a complete game and give me this kind of output? Perhaps not if the movement was aggressive, but maybe if it is making a threat or reaching more mobility than before?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also know that some software like Chessmaster, uses AI &amp;quot;personalities&amp;quot; and some make passive or aggressive moves as their traits. Can someone explain how the software chooses a move that may not be optimal but a passive one?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12138" LastEditorUserId="3757" LastEditDate="2021-02-19T13:58:42.287" LastActivityDate="2021-02-19T13:58:42.287" Title="How to determine objectively if a move is passive or aggressive?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;style&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="16263" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16262" CreationDate="2016-12-31T19:36:06.167" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think that at the GM level, all moves are aggressive, after a fashion. All are designed to harm the opponent, even if a previous error has cost us the advantage.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tal's moves may seem aggressive but frequently granted him remarkable defensive resources. Similarly, Petrosian's 'passive' style was anything but. They were elemental forces with wholly different styles.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't know how a chess program would rate one more as aggressive and another as passive, except for the obvious - checking may be deemed aggressive. Setting up a double attack may seem aggressive. Perhaps choosing the 2nd or 3rd best 'good' move would be considered passive. Or the lowest rated 'good' move that involved a pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Perhaps a passive move is one that allows the other player the widest array of good responses.  Yep, that rings true. That's my answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2016-12-31T19:36:06.167" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16264" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16262" CreationDate="2016-12-31T19:45:53.423" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You want to define it for some automat system? This will be very hard work to do if it should reflect the real meaning of passivity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want some easy parameter not very concerned about precision of result, these come to my mind:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Some function of target rank of piece.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Some function of long term material imbalance in games.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For more complex logic you should probably ask some engine developers but this is closer to science than to everyday work and without good reason they will probabbly not be very cooperative.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: even though I like Tony Ennis answer more, this one is still viable as it will do the work with waaaaaay less CPU resources.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11609" LastEditorUserId="11609" LastEditDate="2017-01-01T08:40:25.897" LastActivityDate="2017-01-01T08:40:25.897" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16265" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16286" CreationDate="2016-12-31T22:13:52.770" Score="4" ViewCount="198" Body="&lt;p&gt;During an actual over the board game, I can be very concentrated. It's almost as if I &lt;em&gt;feel&lt;/em&gt; things like the danger an uncastled king is in, and it &lt;em&gt;matters&lt;/em&gt; that I find the very best move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But when I try to improve my chess at home alone with the board and the pieces, and do some exercise positions from a book, the feeling just isn't there. I look very superficially, my mind wanders, I have tunnel vision, and taking more time doesn't lead to more ideas.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What's a good way to improve my concentration level during training?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-10-02T21:28:50.520" LastActivityDate="2019-10-02T21:28:50.520" Title="How can I concentrate during training?" Tags="&lt;training&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="16266" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12287" CreationDate="2017-01-01T00:22:59.100" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've looked at this question a lot since I first saw it.  I spent the last day of 2016 looking at its variations.  I wasn't able to find a variation with white winning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;SETUP&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;GUI: &lt;strong&gt;Athena-3.5.1 build 2861&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;ENGINE: &lt;strong&gt;stockfish_16123114_x64_modern&lt;/strong&gt; (&lt;em&gt;daily build - none more recent&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;ENGINE: &lt;strong&gt;komodo-10.1-64bit&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;ENGINE: &lt;strong&gt;andscacs-0.89&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;ENGINE: &lt;strong&gt;Fire_5_x64-popcnt&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I always assigned white the strongest chess engine to give it advantage to win, and I used more resources (more memory and CPUs) to allowed for deeper analysis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;MAIN LINE&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The so-called 'main line' simply deteriorates into move repetition; so a draw. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This position ultimately appears unwinnable for white because black's act of advancing a pawn with &lt;strong&gt;1 .. a4&lt;/strong&gt; draws white's King away from the centre with &lt;strong&gt;2. Kc2 ..&lt;/strong&gt; ultimately placing the King on &lt;strong&gt;a1&lt;/strong&gt; with &lt;strong&gt;6. Kxa1 ..&lt;/strong&gt;.  Black exploits this positioning in a very clever way with another foot race white falsely appears to win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Looking forward to having whites King capture the promoted &lt;strong&gt;a&lt;/strong&gt; column black pawn, Black chooses to moves &lt;strong&gt;2. .. g4&lt;/strong&gt; to sacrifice material and to open the &lt;strong&gt;h&lt;/strong&gt; column. This material sacrifice &lt;strong&gt;2. .. g4&lt;/strong&gt; ultimately allows the pawn on &lt;strong&gt;h&lt;/strong&gt; file to race to promotion and gains black tempo by putting whites &lt;strong&gt;a1&lt;/strong&gt; King in check.  The sacrifice doesn't look it provides advantage yet because black has to wait for whites King to be put in check.  However black's material sacrifice on &lt;strong&gt;2. .. g4&lt;/strong&gt; indeed gains tempo because of the positioning of white's King.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Recall, white's king has been drawn to &lt;strong&gt;a1&lt;/strong&gt;.  The foot race between white's &lt;strong&gt;a5&lt;/strong&gt; pawn and black's soon-to-be &lt;strong&gt;h4&lt;/strong&gt; pawn seems to advantage white (who promotes first) except that black Pawn's promotion putting white's &lt;strong&gt;a1&lt;/strong&gt; King in check is where black realizes the tempo.  As long as black continues to check, white position is unwinnable. White's promoted Queen never gets a chance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;&#xA;[Event &quot;Ricky Demer's Position: Main Line&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;GHOST&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2016.12.31&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;2&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Stockfish 16123114 x64 POPCNT&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Stockfish 16123114 x64 POPCNT&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;*&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;3397&quot;]&#xA;[Time &quot;13:29:29&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;3397&quot;]&#xA;[TimeControl &quot;300&quot;]&#xA;[SetUp &quot;1&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;8/8/2p5/p2k1ppp/pP1P4/3K1PPP/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;[Termination &quot;normal&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;71&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteType &quot;human&quot;]&#xA;[BlackType &quot;human&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;8/8/2p5/p2k1ppp/pP1P4/3K1PPP/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. bxa5 a3 2. Kc2 g4 3. hxg4 f4 4. gxf4 a2 5. Kb2 a1=Q+ 6. Kxa1 h4 7. a6 h3 8. a7 h2 9. a8=Q h1=Q+ 10. Ka2 Qg2+ 11. Ka1 Qh1+ 12. Ka2 Qg2+ 13. Ka1 Qf1+ 14. Ka2 Qe2+ 15. Ka1 Qe1+ 16. Ka2 Qf2+ 17. Ka1 Qf1+ 18. Ka2 Qf2+ 19. Ka1 Qxd4+ 20. Kb1 Qd1+ 21. Ka2 Qc2+ 22. Ka1 Qd1+ 23. Ka2 Qd2+ 24. Ka1 Qc1+  25. Ka2  Qc2+ 26. Ka1 Qc3+ 27. Kb1 {(Ka1-b1 Qc3-e1+ Kb1-c2 Qe1-f2+ Kc2-b1 Qf2-e1+) 0.00/42 4} Qe1+  28. Ka2  Qf2+  29. Ka1 Qe1+ 30. Ka2 Qf2+ 31. Ka1 Qg1+ 32. Ka2 Qg2+ 33. Ka1 Qf1+ 34. Ka2 Qe2+ 35. Ka1 Qe1+ 36. Ka2 (36. Ka2 {(Ka1-a2)&#xA;0.00/47 3-fold repetition}) *&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;FALSE HOPE&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The variation you suggest has white's King taking the pawn on &lt;strong&gt;a2&lt;/strong&gt; with &lt;strong&gt;6. Kxa2&lt;/strong&gt; rather than allow it to promote and take it on &lt;strong&gt;a1&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The apparent advantage to white is illusory.  Because black appears to win the second race to pawn promotion &lt;strong&gt;8. .. h1=Q&lt;/strong&gt;, and because white's King is still on &lt;strong&gt;a2&lt;/strong&gt; white King's moves are nuanced, ultimately allowing black to take all white's Pawns (as white is taking black's pawns) leading to a stalemate (again) due to insufficient material.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The variation supposedly advantaging white, in fact allows black to take all of white's other pieces.  Here are some examples using Stockfish against Stockfish.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;&#xA;[Event &quot;Ricky Demer's Position: White hope?&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;GHOST&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2016.12.31&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;1&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Stockfish 16123114 x64 POPCNT&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Stockfish 16123114 x64 POPCNT&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;*&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;3210&quot;]&#xA;[Time &quot;13:05:02&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;3210&quot;]&#xA;[TimeControl &quot;40/2400:40/2400:40/2400&quot;]&#xA;[SetUp &quot;1&quot;]&#xA;[Termination &quot;insufficient material&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;53&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteType &quot;program&quot;]&#xA;[BlackType &quot;program&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;8/8/2p5/p2k1ppp/pP1P4/3K1PPP/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. bxa5 {(b4xa5 a4-a3 Kd3-c3 g5-g4 f3xg4 a3-a2 Kc3-b2 a2-a1B+ Kb2xa1 h5-h4&#xA;g3xh4 f5-f4 Ka1-a2 f4-f3 a5-a6 f3-f2 a6-a7 f2-f1Q a7-a8Q Qf1-f2+ Ka2-b3&#xA;Qf2-e3+ Kb3-c2 Qe3-e2+ Kc2-c3 Qe2-e3+ Kc3-b4 Qe3xd4+ Kb4-b3 Qd4-d3+ Kb3-b2&#xA;Qd3-d2+ Kb2-b1 Qd2-d3+ Kb1-c1 Qd3-e3+ Kc1-b2 Qe3-e2+ Kb2-b1 Qe2-f1+ Kb1-b2&#xA;Qf1-e2+) 0.00/30 11} a3 {(a4-a3 Kd3-c3 g5-g4 f3xg4 h5-h4 g3xh4 a3-a2 Kc3-b2&#xA;a2-a1Q+ Kb2xa1 f5-f4 a5-a6 f4-f3 a6-a7 f3-f2 a7-a8Q f2-f1Q+ Ka1-a2 Qf1-f2+&#xA;Ka2-b3 Qf2-e3+ Kb3-c2 Qe3-e2+ Kc2-c3 Qe2-e3+ Kc3-b4 Qe3xd4+ Kb4-b3 Qd4-d3+&#xA;Kb3-b2 Qd3-d2+ Kb2-b1 Qd2-d3+ Kb1-c1 Qd3-e3+ Kc1-b2 Qe3-e2+ Kb2-b1 Qe2-f1+&#xA;Kb1-b2 Qf1-e2+) 0.00/32 6} 2. Kc2 {(Kd3-c2 g5-g4 h3xg4 a3-a2 Kc2-b2 f5-f4&#xA;g3xf4 h5-h4 a5-a6 h4-h3 a6-a7 a2-a1R Kb2xa1 h3-h2 Ka1-a2 h2-h1Q a7-a8Q&#xA;Qh1-g2+ Ka2-a3 Qg2xf3+ Ka3-b4 Qf3xf4 Qa8-d8+ Kd5-e4 g4-g5 Qf4-d2+ Kb4-c5&#xA;Qd2-c3+ Kc5-b6 Qc3-b4+ Kb6xc6 Qb4-c4+ Kc6-b7 Qc4-b5+ Qd8-b6 Qb5xg5 Qb6-b1+&#xA;Ke4xd4 Qb1-b4+ Kd4-e3 Qb4-c3+ Ke3-e2) 0.00/29 9} g4 {(g5-g4 f3xg4 h5-h4&#xA;g3xh4 f5-f4 a5-a6 a3-a2 Kc2-b2 f4-f3 a6-a7 a2-a1R Kb2xa1 f3-f2 a7-a8Q&#xA;f2-f1Q+ Ka1-b2 Qf1-e2+ Kb2-c1 Qe2-f1+ Kc1-d2 Qf1-f2+ Kd2-d3 Qf2-f3+ Kd3-c2&#xA;Qf3-e2+ Kc2-b3 Qe2-c4+ Kb3-b2 Qc4-e2+) 0.00/31 5} 3. hxg4 {(h3xg4 a3-a2&#xA;Kc2-b2 f5-f4 g3xf4 h5-h4 a5-a6 h4-h3 a6-a7 a2-a1Q+ Kb2xa1 h3-h2 a7-a8Q&#xA;h2-h1Q+ Ka1-b2 Qh1-g2+ Kb2-b3 Qg2xf3+ Kb3-b4 Qf3xf4 Qa8-d8+ Kd5-e4 Kb4-c5&#xA;Qf4xg4 Kc5xc6 Qg4-e6+ Kc6-c5 Qe6-f5+ d4-d5 Qf5-f2+ Kc5-c6 Qf2-c2+ Kc6-d7&#xA;Ke4xd5 Qd8-a5+ Kd5-e4 Qa5-b5 Ke4-f3 Qb5-d5+ Kf3-f4 Qd5-f7+ Kf4-e3 Qf7-e7+&#xA;Ke3-f4) 0.00/27 10} a2 {(a3-a2 Kc2-b2 f5-f4 g3xf4 h5-h4 a5-a6 h4-h3 a6-a7&#xA;a2-a1Q+ Kb2xa1 h3-h2 a7-a8Q h2-h1Q+ Ka1-b2 Qh1-g2+ Kb2-b3 Qg2xf3+ Kb3-b4&#xA;Qf3xf4 Qa8-d8+ Kd5-e4 Kb4-c5 Qf4xg4 Kc5xc6 Qg4-e6+ Kc6-c5 Qe6-f5+ d4-d5&#xA;Qf5-f2+ Kc5-c6 Qf2-c2+ Kc6-d6 Qc2-h2+ Kd6-c5 Qh2-c2+ Kc5-b6 Qc2-b3+ Kb6-c5&#xA;Qb3-c3+ Kc5-d6 Qc3-e5+ Kd6-c6 Qe5-c3+ Kc6-d7 Qc3-h3+ Kd7-c7 Qh3-c3+ Kc7-d7)&#xA;0.00/31 6} 4. Kb2 {(Kc2-b2 f5-f4 g3xf4 h5-h4 a5-a6 h4-h3 a6-a7 a2-a1Q+&#xA;Kb2xa1 h3-h2 a7-a8Q h2-h1Q+ Ka1-b2 Qh1-g2+ Kb2-b3 Qg2xf3+ Kb3-b4 Qf3xf4&#xA;Qa8-d8+ Kd5-e4 Kb4-c5 Qf4xg4 Kc5xc6 Qg4-e6+ Kc6-c5 Qe6-f5+ d4-d5 Qf5-f2+&#xA;Kc5-c6 Qf2-c2+ Kc6-b6 Qc2-b3+ Kb6-c5 Qb3-c3+ Kc5-d6 Qc3-e5+ Kd6-c6 Qe5-c3+&#xA;Kc6-d7 Qc3-h3+ Kd7-c7 Qh3-c3+ Kc7-d7) 0.00/33 9} f4 {(f5-f4 g3xf4 h5-h4&#xA;a5-a6 h4-h3 a6-a7 a2-a1Q+ Kb2xa1 h3-h2 a7-a8Q h2-h1Q+ Ka1-b2 Qh1-g2+ Kb2-b3&#xA;Qg2xf3+ Kb3-b4 Qf3xf4 Qa8-d8+ Kd5-e4 Kb4-c5 Qf4xg4 Kc5xc6 Qg4-e6+ Kc6-c5&#xA;Qe6-f5+ d4-d5 Qf5-f2+ Kc5-c6 Qf2-c2+ Kc6-b6 Qc2-b3+ Kb6-c5 Qb3-c3+ Kc5-b5&#xA;Qc3-d3+ Kb5-c6 Qd3-c4+ Kc6-b7 Qc4-b5+ Kb7-a7 Qb5-c5+ Ka7-b7 Qc5-b5+)&#xA;0.00/33 4} 5. gxf4 {(g3xf4 h5-h4 a5-a6 h4-h3 a6-a7 a2-a1Q+ Kb2xa1 h3-h2&#xA;a7-a8Q h2-h1Q+ Ka1-b2 Qh1-g2+ Kb2-b3 Qg2xf3+ Kb3-b4 Qf3xf4 Qa8-d8+ Kd5-e4&#xA;Kb4-c5 Qf4xg4 Kc5xc6 Qg4-e6+ Kc6-c5 Qe6-f5+ d4-d5 Qf5-f2+ Kc5-c6 Qf2-c2+&#xA;Kc6-b6 Qc2-b3+ Kb6-c5 Qb3-c3+ Kc5-b5 Qc3-d3+ Kb5-b4 Qd3-d4+ Kb4-a3 Qd4-c5+&#xA;Ka3-a4 Qc5-d4+ Ka4-a3) 0.00/34 10} h4 {(h5-h4 Kb2xa2 h4-h3 a5-a6 h3-h2&#xA;a6-a7 h2-h1Q a7-a8Q Qh1-g2+ Ka2-b3 Qg2xf3+ Kb3-b4 Qf3xf4 Qa8-d8+ Kd5-e4&#xA;Kb4-c5 Qf4xg4 Kc5xc6 Qg4-e6+ Kc6-c5 Qe6-f5+ d4-d5 Qf5-f2+ Kc5-c6 Qf2-c2+&#xA;Kc6-b6 Qc2-b3+ Kb6-c5 Qb3-c3+ Kc5-b5 Qc3-d3+ Kb5-c6 Qd3-c4+ Kc6-b6 Qc4-b4+&#xA;Kb6-c6 Qb4-c4+) 0.00/31 5} 6. Kxa2 {(Kb2xa2 h4-h3 a5-a6 h3-h2 a6-a7 h2-h1Q&#xA;a7-a8Q Qh1-g2+ Ka2-b3 Qg2xf3+ Kb3-b4 Qf3xf4 Qa8-d8+ Kd5-e4 Kb4-c5 Qf4xg4&#xA;Kc5xc6 Qg4-e6+ Kc6-c5 Qe6-f5+ d4-d5 Qf5-f2+ Kc5-c6 Qf2-c2+ Kc6-b6 Qc2-b3+&#xA;Kb6-c5 Qb3-c3+ Kc5-b5 Qc3-d3+ Kb5-b4 Qd3-d4+ Kb4-a3 Qd4-c5+ Ka3-a4 Qc5-d4+&#xA;Ka4-a3) 0.00/31 6} h3 {(h4-h3 a5-a6 h3-h2 a6-a7 h2-h1Q a7-a8Q Qh1-g2+&#xA;Ka2-b3 Qg2xf3+ Kb3-b4 Qf3xf4 Qa8-d8+ Kd5-e4 Kb4-c5 Qf4xg4 Kc5xc6 Qg4-e6+&#xA;Kc6-c5 Qe6-f5+ d4-d5 Qf5-f2+ Kc5-c6 Qf2-c2+ Kc6-b6 Qc2-b3+ Kb6-c5 Qb3-c3+&#xA;Kc5-b5 Qc3-d3+ Kb5-b4 Qd3-d4+ Kb4-a3 Qd4-c3+ Ka3-a4 Qc3-d4+ Ka4-a3) 0.00/32&#xA;6} 7. a6 {(a5-a6 h3-h2 a6-a7 h2-h1Q a7-a8Q Qh1-g2+ Ka2-b3 Qg2xf3+ Kb3-b4&#xA;Qf3xf4 Qa8-d8+ Kd5-e4 Kb4-c5 Qf4xg4 Kc5xc6 Qg4-e6+ Kc6-c5 Qe6-f5+ d4-d5&#xA;Qf5-f2+ Kc5-c6 Qf2-c2+ Kc6-b6 Qc2-b3+ Kb6-c5 Qb3-c3+ Kc5-d6 Qc3-e5+ Kd6-c6&#xA;Qe5-c3+ Kc6-d7 Ke4xd5 Kd7-e8+ Kd5-e4 Qd8-h4+ Ke4-d5 Qh4-d8+) 0.00/33 10} h2&#xA;{(h3-h2 a6-a7 h2-h1Q a7-a8Q Qh1-g2+ Ka2-b3 Qg2xf3+ Kb3-b4 Qf3xf4 Qa8-d8+&#xA;Kd5-e4 Kb4-c5 Qf4xg4 Kc5xc6 Qg4-e6+ Kc6-c5 Qe6-f5+ Kc5-c4 Qf5-e6+ d4-d5&#xA;Qe6-a6+ Kc4-c5 Qa6-a3+ Kc5-c6 Qa3-a4+ Kc6-d6 Qa4-a3+ Kd6-e6 Qa3-h3+ Ke6-d6&#xA;Qh3-h2+ Kd6-c5 Qh2-c2+ Kc5-b6 Qc2-b3+ Kb6-c5 Qb3-c3+ Kc5-b5 Qc3-d3+ Kb5-b4&#xA;Qd3-d4+ Kb4-b5 Qd4-b2+ Kb5-c6 Qb2-c3+ Kc6-b5) 0.00/34 7} 8. a7 {(a6-a7&#xA;h2-h1Q a7-a8Q Qh1-g2+ Ka2-b3 Qg2xf3+ Kb3-b4 Qf3xf4 Qa8-d8+ Kd5-e4 Kb4-c5&#xA;Qf4xg4 Kc5xc6 Qg4-e6+ Kc6-c5 Qe6-f5+ Kc5-c4 Qf5-e6+ d4-d5 Qe6-a6+ Kc4-c5&#xA;Qa6-a3+ Kc5-c6 Qa3-a4+ Kc6-d6 Qa4-a3+ Kd6-e6 Qa3-h3+ Ke6-d6 Qh3-h2+ Kd6-c5&#xA;Qh2-c2+ Kc5-b6 Qc2-b3+ Kb6-c5 Qb3-c3+ Kc5-b5 Qc3-b2+ Kb5-c6 Qb2-c3+ Kc6-b5)&#xA;0.00/35 20} h1=Q {(h2-h1Q a7-a8Q Qh1-g2+ Ka2-b3 Qg2xf3+ Kb3-b4 Qf3xf4&#xA;Qa8-d8+ Kd5-e4 Kb4-c5 Qf4xg4 Kc5xc6 Qg4-e6+ Kc6-c5 Qe6-f5+ Kc5-c4 Qf5-e6+&#xA;d4-d5 Qe6-a6+ Kc4-c5 Qa6-a3+ Kc5-c6 Qa3-a4+ Kc6-d6 Qa4-a3+ Kd6-e6 Qa3-h3+&#xA;Ke6-d6 Qh3-h2+ Kd6-c5 Qh2-c2+ Kc5-b6 Qc2-b3+ Kb6-c5 Qb3-c3+ Kc5-b5 Qc3-b2+&#xA;Kb5-c6 Qb2-c3+ Kc6-b5) 0.00/35 4} 9. a8=Q {(a7-a8Q Qh1-g2+ Ka2-b3 Qg2xf3+&#xA;Kb3-b4 Qf3xf4 Qa8-d8+ Kd5-e4 Kb4-c5 Qf4xg4 Kc5xc6 Qg4-e6+ Kc6-c5 Qe6-f5+&#xA;Kc5-c4 Qf5-e6+ d4-d5 Qe6-a6+ Kc4-c5 Qa6-a3+ Kc5-c6 Qa3-a4+ Kc6-d6 Qa4-a3+&#xA;Kd6-e6 Qa3-h3+ Ke6-d6 Qh3-h2+ Kd6-c5 Qh2-c2+ Kc5-b6 Qc2-b3+ Kb6-c5 Qb3-c3+&#xA;Kc5-b5 Qc3-b2+ Kb5-c6 Qb2-c3+ Kc6-b5) 0.00/35 3} Qg2+ {(Qh1-g2+ Ka2-a1&#xA;Qg2-g1+ Ka1-b2 Qg1-f2+ Kb2-b3 Qf2xf3+ Kb3-b4 Qf3xf4 Qa8-d8+ Kd5-e4 Kb4-c5&#xA;Qf4xg4 Kc5xc6 Qg4-e6+ Kc6-c5 Qe6-f5+ Kc5-c4 Qf5-e6+ d4-d5 Qe6-a6+ Kc4-c5&#xA;Qa6-a3+ Kc5-c6 Qa3-a4+ Kc6-d6 Qa4-a3+ Kd6-e6 Qa3-h3+ Ke6-d6 Qh3-h2+ Kd6-c5&#xA;Qh2-c2+ Kc5-b6 Qc2-b3+ Kb6-c5 Qb3-c3+ Kc5-b5 Qc3-b2+ Kb5-c6 Qb2-c3+ Kc6-b5)&#xA;0.00/35 12} 10. Ka1 {(Ka2-a1 Qg2-f1+ Ka1-b2 Qf1-f2+ Kb2-b3 Qf2xf3+ Kb3-b4&#xA;Qf3xf4 Qa8-d8+ Kd5-e4 Kb4-c5 Qf4xg4 Kc5xc6 Qg4-e6+ Kc6-c5 Qe6-f5+ Kc5-c4&#xA;Qf5-e6+ d4-d5 Qe6-a6+ Kc4-c5 Qa6-a3+ Kc5-c6 Qa3-a4+ Kc6-d6 Qa4-a3+ Kd6-e6&#xA;Qa3-h3+ Ke6-d6 Qh3-h2+ Kd6-c5 Qh2-c2+ Kc5-b6 Qc2-b3+ Kb6-c5 Qb3-c3+ Kc5-b5&#xA;Qc3-b2+ Kb5-c6 Qb2-c3+ Kc6-b5) 0.00/36 8} Qf1+ {(Qg2-f1+ Ka1-a2 Qf1-e2+&#xA;Ka2-a1 Qe2-d1+ Ka1-b2 Qd1-d2+ Kb2-a1 Qd2-d1+) 0.00/37 19} 11. Ka2 {(Ka1-a2&#xA;Qf1-e2+ Ka2-a1 Qe2-d1+ Ka1-b2 Qd1-d2+ Kb2-a1 Qd2-d1+) 0.00/38 8} Qg2+&#xA;{(Qf1-g2+) 0.00/42 26} 12. Kb3 {(Ka2-b3 Qg2xf3+ Kb3-b4 Qf3xf4 Qa8-d8+&#xA;Kd5-e4 Kb4-c5 Qf4xg4 Kc5xc6 Qg4-e6+ Kc6-c5 Qe6-f5+ Kc5-c4 Qf5-e6+ d4-d5&#xA;Qe6-a6+ Kc4-c5 Qa6-a3+ Kc5-c6 Qa3-a4+ Kc6-d6 Qa4-a3+ Kd6-e6 Qa3-h3+ Ke6-d6&#xA;Qh3-h2+ Kd6-c5 Qh2-c2+ Kc5-b6 Qc2-b3+ Kb6-c5 Qb3-c3+ Kc5-b5 Qc3-b2+ Kb5-c6&#xA;Qb2-c3+ Kc6-b5) 0.00/35 26 Black forfeits on time} Qxf3+ {(Qg2xf3+ Kb3-b4&#xA;Qf3xf4 Qa8-d8+ Kd5-e4 g4-g5 Qf4-d2+ Kb4-c5 Qd2-c3+ Kc5-b6 Qc3-b4+ Kb6-a7&#xA;Qb4-a4+ Ka7-b8 Qa4-b5+ Kb8-c8 Qb5-f5+ Kc8-b7 Qf5-b5+ Kb7-c7 Qb5-a5+ Kc7-c8&#xA;Qa5-f5+) 0.00/35 123} 13. Ka2 {(Kb3-a2 Qf3xf4 Qa8-a5+ Kd5-e4 Qa5-c5 Qf4-d2+&#xA;Ka2-b3 Qd2-d3+ Kb3-a2 Qd3xd4 Qc5xc6+ Qd4-d5+ Qc6xd5+ Ke4xd5 g4-g5 Kd5-e5&#xA;Ka2-b3 Ke5-f5 g5-g6 Kf5-f6 g6-g7 Kf6xg7 Kb3-c4 Kg7-f6 Kc4-d4 Kf6-g5 Kd4-e4&#xA;Kg5-g4 Ke4-d3 Kg4-h3 Kd3-d4 Kh3-g2 Kd4-c3 Kg2-f1 Kc3-b2 Kf1-e2 Kb2-c2&#xA;Ke2-e3 Kc2-c3 Ke3-f4 Kc3-c2 Kf4-g5 Kc2-d3 Kg5-g6 Kd3-c3 Kg6-g5) 0.00/39&#xA;234} Qxf4 {(Qf3xf4 Qa8-d8+ Kd5-c4 Qd8-b6 Qf4-d2+ Ka2-a3 Qd2-c1+ Ka3-a2&#xA;Qc1-c2+ Ka2-a3 Qc2-c3+ Ka3-a2 Qc3-d2+) 0.00/42 278} 14. Qa5+ {(Qa8-a5+&#xA;Kd5-e4 Qa5-c5 Qf4-d2+ Ka2-b3 Qd2-d3+ Kb3-a2 Qd3xd4 Qc5xc6+ Qd4-d5+ Qc6xd5+&#xA;Ke4xd5 g4-g5 Kd5-e5 g5-g6 Ke5-f6 Ka2-b3 Kf6-g7 Kb3-c4 Kg7-f8 Kc4-d5 Kf8-g7&#xA;Kd5-c5 Kg7-f6 Kc5-d5 Kf6-g7) 0.00/41 247} Kxd4 {(Kd5xd4 Qa5-b4+ Kd4-e5&#xA;Qb4-c5+ Ke5-f6 g4-g5+ Kf6-g6 Qc5xc6+ Kg6-f7 Ka2-b1 Qf4xg5 Qc6-c4+ Kf7-f6&#xA;Qc4-a6+ Kf6-g7 Qa6-b7+ Kg7-f6 Qb7-a6+) 0.00/43 354} 15. Kb2 {(Ka2-b2 Qf4-e3&#xA;Qa5-a4+ Kd4-d5 Kb2-c2 Kd5-d6 Qa4-b4+ Kd6-d5 g4-g5 Qe3-e2+ Kc2-c3 Qe2-d1&#xA;Qb4-f4 Qd1-e1+ Kc3-d3 Qe1-d1+ Kd3-c3) 0.00/36 67} Ke4 {(Kd4-e4 Qa5-a4+&#xA;Ke4-e3 Qa4xc6 Qf4-d4+ Kb2-b3 Qd4-d1+ Kb3-a3 Qd1-d3+ Ka3-a4 Qd3-d4+ Ka4-b5&#xA;Ke3-f4 Kb5-a5 Qd4-e5+ Ka5-b4 Qe5-e4+ Qc6xe4+ Kf4xe4 Kb4-b5 Ke4-f4 Kb5-c5&#xA;Kf4xg4 Kc5-d4 Kg4-g5 Kd4-c4 Kg5-h4 Kc4-c3 Kh4-g5 Kc3-c4) 0.00/35 52} 16.&#xA;Qc3 {(Qa5-c3 Ke4-d5 Qc3-a5+ Kd5-e6 g4-g5 Qf4-d4+ Kb2-b3 c6-c5 Qa5-c3 Qd4-e4&#xA;Qc3xc5 Qe4-e5 Qc5-b6+ Ke6-f7 Qb6-f2+ Kf7-g6 Qf2-f3 Qe5-e6+ Kb3-b4 Kg6xg5&#xA;Kb4-c3 Kg5-g6 Qf3-g3+ Kg6-f7 Qg3-f4+ Kf7-g6 Kc3-d2 Qe6-d5+ Kd2-c3 Qd5-c5+&#xA;Kc3-b2 Qc5-d5 Qf4-g3+ Kg6-f7 Qg3-f4+ Kf7-g6) 0.00/36 43} Kd5 {(Ke4-d5&#xA;Qc3-d3+ Qf4-d4+ Kb2-c2 Qd4xd3+ Kc2xd3 Kd5-e5 g4-g5 Ke5-f5 g5-g6 Kf5xg6&#xA;Kd3-d4 Kg6-f5 Kd4-c5 Kf5-e4 Kc5-c4 c6-c5 Kc4-c3 Ke4-d5 Kc3-d3 c5-c4+ Kd3-c3&#xA;Kd5-c5 Kc3-c2 Kc5-d4 Kc2-d2 c4-c3+ Kd2-c2 Kd4-e5 Kc2-d1 Ke5-f6 Kd1-c2&#xA;Kf6-g6 Kc2-d1 c3-c2+ Kd1-c1 Kg6-f6 Kc1xc2 Kf6-g7 Kc2-c3 Kg7-g6 Kc3-c4&#xA;Kg6-g5 Kc4-c3 Kg5-h4 Kc3-d4 Kh4-g5 Kd4-c3) 0.00/46 64} 17. Qd3+ {(Qc3-d3+&#xA;Qf4-d4+ Kb2-c2 Qd4xd3+ Kc2xd3 Kd5-e5 g4-g5 Ke5-f5 g5-g6 Kf5xg6 Kd3-d4&#xA;Kg6-f5 Kd4-c5 Kf5-e4 Kc5-c4 c6-c5 Kc4-c3 Ke4-d5 Kc3-d3 c5-c4+ Kd3-c3 Kd5-c5&#xA;Kc3-c2 Kc5-d4 Kc2-d2 c4-c3+ Kd2-c1 Kd4-d3 Kc1-d1 c3-c2+ Kd1-c1 Kd3-e3&#xA;Kc1xc2 Ke3-e4 Kc2-c3 Ke4-e3 Kc3-c2) 0.00/48 56} Qd4+ {(Qf4-d4+ Kb2-c2&#xA;Qd4xd3+ Kc2xd3 Kd5-e5 g4-g5 Ke5-f5 g5-g6 Kf5xg6 Kd3-d4 Kg6-f5 Kd4-c5 Kf5-e4&#xA;Kc5-c4 c6-c5 Kc4-c3 Ke4-d5 Kc3-d3 c5-c4+ Kd3-c2 Kd5-d4 Kc2-d2 c4-c3+ Kd2-c2&#xA;Kd4-e4 Kc2xc3 Ke4-e3 Kc3-c2 Ke3-f4 Kc2-d2 Kf4-f3 Kd2-d3 Kf3-f2 Kd3-d2&#xA;Kf2-f3) 0.00/51 72} 18. Kc2 {(Kb2-c2 Qd4xd3+ Kc2xd3 Kd5-e5 g4-g5 Ke5-f5&#xA;g5-g6 Kf5xg6 Kd3-d4 Kg6-f5 Kd4-c5 Kf5-e4 Kc5-c4 c6-c5 Kc4-c3 Ke4-d5 Kc3-d3&#xA;c5-c4+ Kd3-c2 Kd5-d4 Kc2-d2 c4-c3+ Kd2-c2 Kd4-e4 Kc2xc3 Ke4-e3 Kc3-c2&#xA;Ke3-e4 Kc2-c3) 0.00/55 55} Qxd3+ {(Qd4xd3+ Kc2xd3 Kd5-e5 g4-g5 Ke5-f5 g5-g6&#xA;Kf5xg6 Kd3-d4 Kg6-f5 Kd4-c5 Kf5-e4 Kc5-c4 c6-c5 Kc4-c3 Ke4-d5 Kc3-d3 c5-c4+&#xA;Kd3-c3 Kd5-c5 Kc3-b2 Kc5-d4 Kb2-c2 c4-c3 Kc2-c1 Kd4-d3 Kc1-d1 c3-c2+ Kd1-c1&#xA;Kd3-e3 Kc1xc2 Ke3-e2 Kc2-c1 Ke2-f2 Kc1-d2 Kf2-g3 Kd2-c3 Kg3-h2 Kc3-d2&#xA;Kh2-g3) 0.00/57 47} 19. Kxd3 {(Kc2xd3 Kd5-e5 g4-g5 Ke5-f5 g5-g6 Kf5xg6&#xA;Kd3-d4 Kg6-f5 Kd4-c5 Kf5-e4 Kc5-c4 c6-c5 Kc4-c3 Ke4-d5 Kc3-d3 c5-c4+ Kd3-c3&#xA;Kd5-c5 Kc3-b2 Kc5-d4 Kb2-c2 c4-c3 Kc2-c1 Kd4-d3 Kc1-d1 c3-c2+ Kd1-c1&#xA;Kd3-c3) 0.00/56 54} Ke5 {(Kd5-e5 g4-g5 Ke5-f5 g5-g6 Kf5xg6 Kd3-d4 Kg6-f5&#xA;Kd4-c5 Kf5-e4 Kc5-c4 c6-c5 Kc4-c3 Ke4-d5 Kc3-d3 c5-c4+ Kd3-c3 Kd5-c5 Kc3-b2&#xA;Kc5-d4 Kb2-c2 c4-c3 Kc2-c1 Kd4-d3 Kc1-d1 c3-c2+ Kd1-c1 Kd3-c3) 0.00/56 52}&#xA;20. g5 {(g4-g5 Ke5-f5 g5-g6 Kf5xg6 Kd3-d4 Kg6-f5 Kd4-c5 Kf5-e4 Kc5-c4 c6-c5&#xA;Kc4-c3 Ke4-d5 Kc3-d3 c5-c4+ Kd3-c3 Kd5-c5 Kc3-b2 Kc5-d4 Kb2-c2 c4-c3 Kc2-c1&#xA;Kd4-d3 Kc1-d1 c3-c2+ Kd1-c1 Kd3-c3) 0.00/55 56} Kf5 {(Ke5-f5 g5-g6 Kf5xg6&#xA;Kd3-d4 Kg6-f5 Kd4-c5 Kf5-e4 Kc5-c4 c6-c5 Kc4-c3 Ke4-d5 Kc3-d3 c5-c4+ Kd3-c3&#xA;Kd5-c5 Kc3-b2 Kc5-d4 Kb2-c2 c4-c3 Kc2-c1 Kd4-d3 Kc1-d1 c3-c2+ Kd1-c1&#xA;Kd3-c3) 0.00/53 48} 21. g6 {(g5-g6 Kf5xg6 Kd3-d4 Kg6-f5 Kd4-c5 Kf5-e4&#xA;Kc5-c4 c6-c5 Kc4-c3 Ke4-d5 Kc3-d3 c5-c4+ Kd3-c3 Kd5-c5 Kc3-b2 Kc5-d4 Kb2-c2&#xA;c4-c3 Kc2-c1 Kd4-d3 Kc1-d1 c3-c2+ Kd1-c1 Kd3-c3) 0.00/54 70} Kxg6 {(Kf5xg6&#xA;Kd3-c2 Kg6-f6 Kc2-d3 Kf6-e5 Kd3-e3 c6-c5 Ke3-d3 Ke5-d5 Kd3-c3 Kd5-e4 Kc3-c4&#xA;Ke4-e3 Kc4xc5 Ke3-f2 Kc5-c4 Kf2-g1 Kc4-c3 Kg1-f2 Kc3-c4) 0.00/50 49} 22.&#xA;Kc2 {(Kd3-c2 c6-c5 Kc2-d3 Kg6-f5 Kd3-c4 Kf5-e4 Kc4-c3 Ke4-d5 Kc3-d3 c5-c4+&#xA;Kd3-c3 Kd5-c5 Kc3-b2 Kc5-d4 Kb2-c2 c4-c3 Kc2-c1 Kd4-d3 Kc1-d1 c3-c2+ Kd1-c1&#xA;Kd3-c3) 0.00/82 54} c5 {(c6-c5 Kc2-b1 Kg6-f5 Kb1-c2 Kf5-e4 Kc2-c3 Ke4-d5&#xA;Kc3-d3 c5-c4+ Kd3-c3 Kd5-c5 Kc3-b2 Kc5-d4 Kb2-c2 c4-c3 Kc2-c1 Kd4-d3 Kc1-d1&#xA;c3-c2+ Kd1-c1 Kd3-c3) 0.00/108 48} 23. Kb1 {(Kc2-b1 c5-c4 Kb1-c2 Kg6-f7&#xA;Kc2-c3 Kf7-e6 Kc3-b2 Ke6-e5 Kb2-c3 Ke5-d5 Kc3-b2 Kd5-d4 Kb2-c2 c4-c3 Kc2-c1&#xA;Kd4-d3 Kc1-d1 c3-c2+ Kd1-c1 Kd3-c3) 0.00/125 59} c4 {(c5-c4 Kb1-c2 Kg6-f7&#xA;Kc2-c3 Kf7-e6 Kc3-b2 Ke6-e5 Kb2-c3 Ke5-d5 Kc3-b2 Kd5-d4 Kb2-c2 c4-c3 Kc2-c1&#xA;Kd4-d3 Kc1-d1 c3-c2+ Kd1-c1 Kd3-c3) 0.00/127 7} 24. Kb2 {(Kb1-b2 Kg6-f7&#xA;Kb2-c3 Kf7-e6 Kc3-b2 Ke6-e5 Kb2-c3 Ke5-d5 Kc3-b2 Kd5-d4 Kb2-c2 c4-c3 Kc2-c1&#xA;Kd4-d3 Kc1-d1 c3-c2+ Kd1-c1 Kd3-c3) 0.00/127 26} Kh5 {(Kg6-h5 Kb2-c3 Kh5-g5&#xA;Kc3-c2 c4-c3 Kc2-b1 Kg5-g6 Kb1-c2 Kg6-g7 Kc2xc3 Kg7-g6 Kc3-b2 Kg6-g7&#xA;Kb2-c3) 0.00/127 3} 25. Ka1 {(Kb2-a1 c4-c3 Ka1-b1 Kh5-g6 Kb1-c2 Kg6-g7&#xA;Kc2xc3 Kg7-g6 Kc3-b2 Kg6-g7 Kb2-c3) 0.00/127 6} c3 {(c4-c3 Ka1-b1 Kh5-g6&#xA;Kb1-c2 Kg6-g7 Kc2xc3 Kg7-g6 Kc3-c4 Kg6-g5 Kc4-d3 Kg5-f6 Kd3-c4 Kf6-g5)&#xA;0.00/127} 26. Kb1 {(Ka1-b1 c3-c2+ Kb1xc2 Kh5-g6 Kc2-b3 Kg6-f6 Kb3-c4 Kf6-e6&#xA;Kc4-c5 Ke6-f6 Kc5-b6 Kf6-g7 Kb6-c5 Kg7-f6) 0.00/127} c2+ {(c3-c2+ Kb1xc2&#xA;Kh5-g6 Kc2-b3 Kg6-f6 Kb3-c4 Kf6-e6 Kc4-c5 Ke6-f6 Kc5-b6 Kf6-g7 Kb6-c5&#xA;Kg7-f6) 0.00/127} 27. Kxc2 {(Kb1xc2 Kh5-g6 Kc2-b3 Kg6-f6 Kb3-c4 Kf6-e6&#xA;Kc4-c5 Ke6-f6 Kc5-c4) 0.00/127 1 Insufficient material} *&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;QUESTION&lt;/strong&gt;: Does white really have a win in this pawn ending, as claimed by Tim Krabbé?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;ANSWER: With respect to Tim Krabbé, if the strongest chess engines in the world cannot find a winning line for White, &lt;strong&gt;it's reasonable to infer there isn't one&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12077" LastActivityDate="2017-01-01T00:22:59.100" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16267" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16265" CreationDate="2017-01-01T10:08:27.087" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;One can see more over the board than in the quiet of one's study.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: Attributed to Nikolai Krogius in &lt;em&gt;The wisest things ever said about chess&lt;/em&gt;, by Andrew Soltis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We can see that this is a common problem. We need to find &lt;strong&gt;what motivates you&lt;/strong&gt; to study and &lt;strong&gt;find a solution&lt;/strong&gt; to helping you achieve that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I personally am &lt;strong&gt;motivated&lt;/strong&gt; by:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Material that is fun for me. My favourite openings, games by favourite players, endgame play etc.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Studying a topic when I've been beaten in a game by having that weakness exploited. For example, Bobby Fischer swallowed a book on pawn endgames after blundering in one&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If I am able to combine both, then that is even better&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I accomplish these by &lt;strong&gt;making my own videos&lt;/strong&gt; on the areas that I would like to study. If my concentration drops whilst making a video, then I have to go back and remake the video.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2017-01-01T10:08:27.087" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16268" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1655" CreationDate="2017-01-01T11:04:08.790" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;5 games against rated opponents played in a rated tournament.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12142" LastActivityDate="2017-01-01T11:04:08.790" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16269" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16265" CreationDate="2017-01-01T14:21:32.677" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It sounds very much like your problem is the same one students have a couple of months before their exams. Googling it seems that their &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/science-news/11812682/Smart-drug-taken-by-one-in-four-students-really-does-boost-performance.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;study drug of choice is something called Modafinil&lt;/a&gt; with somewhere between 20% and 25% of students at some British universities supposedly using it to help them study in the weeks leading up to their exams.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/22820554/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;some published research which suggests it might help&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;RESULTS: Improvements under modafinil were seen on spatial working&#xA;  memory, planning and decision making at the most difficult levels, as&#xA;  well as visual pattern recognition memory following delay. Subjective&#xA;  ratings of enjoyment of task performance were significantly greater&#xA;  under modafinil compared with placebo, but mood ratings overall were&#xA;  not affected. The effects of modafinil on creativity were inconsistent&#xA;  and did not reach statistical significance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;CONCLUSIONS: Modafinil reliably enhanced task enjoyment and&#xA;  performance on several cognitive tests of planning and working memory,&#xA;  but did not improve paired associates learning. The findings confirm&#xA;  that modafinil can enhance aspects of highly demanding cognitive&#xA;  performance in non-sleep deprived individuals. This article is part of&#xA;  a Special Issue entitled 'Cognitive Enhancers'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But you should note that Modafinil is on the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/FIDE/handbook/WADA%20Anti%20Doping.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;list of FIDE banned substances&lt;/a&gt; along with amphetamines (including ADHD drugs like Ritalin and Adderall), ephedrine (common in over the counter nasal decongestants - a few years ago a Scottish skier lost his Olympic bronze medal due to use of a nasal spray he bought in a pharmacy), caffeine and codeine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Personally I'm a bit skeptical. If you woke up in the morning and took one of these and immediately opened your book of rook and pawn endgames then it might work. But if you logged on to an online chess site and started playing blitz you might be stuck there for 8 hours! Oh, wait, that second scenario happens all the time (or at least until it's time for lunch).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2017-01-01T14:21:32.677" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16270" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16262" CreationDate="2017-01-01T19:02:11.680" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would say a move is more aggressive if it involves one or more of the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) Attacking an enemy piece, particularly a more powerful piece&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) Attacking a square near the opponent's king&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) Moving deep into enemy territory&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4) Threatening to move deep into enemy territory&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5) Moving forwards&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would say a move is more defensive if it involves one or more of the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) Moving away from an attack by an enemy piece&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) Defending own piece&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) Defending a square near own king&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4) Moving out of enemy territory&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5) Moving backwards&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2017-01-01T19:02:11.680" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16271" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16197" CreationDate="2017-01-01T20:32:19.230" Score="4" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;The first site I'd recommend is &lt;a href=&quot;https://database.chessbase.com/?lang=en&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chessbase&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This site has a massive searchable database containing over 8 million games, including very recent matches, meaning at the time of this post 2016.  The interface is very well designed and feature rich (such as presenting per move statistics).  The site's authors do a reasonably good job of establishing comprehensive sets by pursing all extant copies of a particular player or tournament.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although this database is essential, the site's features favour those who log in.  The basic account is free, and it's credentials are accepted at sister sites, however to getting PGN of particulars game you need a premium account.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;The second, more historical site to check out is &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;ChessGames&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This site's vast database of historical chess games has over 812,000 games, all searchable via the sites Search feature.  Many of the not-so-recent historical games can be found in this gem-of-a-site.  That said, the games are accessible in PGN format &lt;em&gt;one at a time&lt;/em&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;The third site to checkout, more specialized, is &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.365chess.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;365Chess&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many players have seen as high-profile sponsors of top calibre competitions, or great match GM commentators. Accounts are free to create, and the site has other useful features such as the &quot;&lt;em&gt;Chess Opening Explorer&lt;/em&gt;&quot; which allows you to create notes for particular openings (useful for study).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, the site presents a subset database of openings by players of 2400 ELO or more. The games included in the Masters Database are also part of the Big Database, but if you search or browse the database you'll obtain only games of the most talented masters.  This database is called &quot;The Masters Database&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another really nice feature is the ability to download all games by a particular player, but this feature requires a full membership, so not available to the free hobbyist.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol start=&quot;4&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;The fourth site to check out is &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.pgnmentor.com/files.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;PGN Mentor&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This site freely gives away complete sets of PGN games for specific players.  They download as .zip files.  Likewise, the site gives you the ability to download compilations of games categorized by opening. The sets you get aren't entirely current, and the sets not always complete (meaning important games for examples are left out), however they are free and generally pretty good.  That makes this site invaluable!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol start=&quot;5&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Finally, check out &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mark-weeks.com/chess/wcc-indx.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Mark Weeks collection&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is another recommended site with surprising curiosities such as &lt;strong&gt;Kasparov vs. IBM's Deep Blue&lt;/strong&gt; and very early (historical) games.  The site is not fancy looking but nicely organized grouping by &quot;Pre-FIDE&quot; and &quot;FIDE&quot;.  It claims to have millions of games, but honestly, I haven't yet given this site the attention it merits to get a sense of this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol start=&quot;6&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;A recommendation that came from a read is &lt;a href=&quot;http://theweekinchess.com/twic&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;This Week In Chess&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This site keeps you up to date by delivering you Weekly updates, specifically, daily Chess news and games are in this weekly digest for download, by Mark Crowther. The site says &quot;&lt;em&gt;Every Monday The Week in Chess covers all the latest news and games from international chess. Download the zipped file of games in PGN or ChessBase (cbv is the modern format) format for reading off-line.&lt;/em&gt;&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If you have other recommendations and 'must have' sites that provide PGN resources, please &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12077" LastEditorUserId="12077" LastEditDate="2017-01-03T01:59:45.643" LastActivityDate="2017-01-03T01:59:45.643" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16272" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16265" CreationDate="2017-01-01T22:11:10.867" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you have a demanding job, studying in the evenings can be difficult. You can even have the feeling that your brain simply says, &quot;No&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://productivity.stackexchange.com/&quot;&gt;Personal Productivity Stack Exchange&lt;/a&gt; has many questions related to &lt;a href=&quot;https://productivity.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/concentration&quot;&gt;concentration&lt;/a&gt;, and many of the answers there should be relevant to chess training:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Using the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomodoro_Technique&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;pomodoro technique&lt;/a&gt;: divide tasks or study session into sequences of intervals of roughly 25 minutes. Take a break after each 25-minute interval. This is one &quot;pomodoro&quot;. Take a longer break after four pomodoros. (I'm just covering the basics of the technique here, obviously. One of the questions that mentions the pomodoro technique is &lt;a href=&quot;https://productivity.stackexchange.com/q/1698/19635&quot;&gt;My thoughts distract me, how do I keep my focus?&lt;/a&gt;.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If your mind still keeps wandering in spite of this technique, there are two things you can consider:&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Meditation. (I haven't tried it myself, but it is often mentioned on Personal Productivity SE.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Some vigorous exercise before a study session or during a longer break. (See also &lt;a href=&quot;https://productivity.stackexchange.com/q/1649/19635&quot;&gt;How to quickly restore concentration?&lt;/a&gt;, which is actually about restoring concentration after an interruption, but the answers are more generally applicable.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Make sure that you get enough sleep. In addition, you can also take a nap before a study session.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Some people find it helpful to &lt;a href=&quot;https://productivity.stackexchange.com/a/17037/19635&quot;&gt;visualize goals&lt;/a&gt; to maintain motivation. Alexander Heyne (on YouTube) proposes a different approach to goals; see his videos on goal setting &amp;amp; outcome goals versus habit tracking (and process goals): &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Gq_KduF4bM&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Why goal setting DOESN'T WORK (and what does)&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUoy4b9QqSQ&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Stop Setting Goals - Stack Your Habits&lt;/a&gt;. He does not talk about chess study, but his ideas should also work for this.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If concentration is still difficult in spite of all of the above, don't keep &quot;banging your head against the wall&quot;. If you repeatedly force yourself to keep on studying in spite of being tired, you can create negative associations with studying chess.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10867" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:52:19.670" LastActivityDate="2017-01-01T22:11:10.867" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16273" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16277" CreationDate="2017-01-02T01:19:31.243" Score="3" ViewCount="964" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'll use a random example here with white to move, but I'm really asking about the general principles. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;8/7p/6p1/pp3p2/3k1P2/PP6/1P1K1PPP/8 w - - 0 1 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm a chess amateur and endgames drive me crazy.  Every pawn can move in limited ways but when there are several, suddenly there are so many variations based on which one you move first and how the enemy reacts.  Do chess experts really calculate all that?  Or do they look and see, for instance, three pawns facing three pawns and right away know that's draw if king is located in a certain square?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In short, I'm sort of looking for some rules of thumbs that can help me analyze (like that pawn square rule about catching a pawn before it gets promoted) just to make pawn endgames manageable.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11995" LastActivityDate="2017-01-02T22:20:56.740" Title="How do you calculate pawn endgames, like if you have X number of pawns facing X numbers of opposite color?" Tags="&lt;pawns&gt;&lt;pawn-promotion&gt;&lt;pawn-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16274" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16262" CreationDate="2017-01-02T03:22:13.520" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let me answer your questions precisely and technically:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;Q: I also know that some softwares like chessmaster...?&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nobody knows for sure because Chessmaster is closed source. Fortunately, it's &lt;strong&gt;not hard&lt;/strong&gt; to replicate Chessmaster personalities. There're several ways to do it:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Define different piece-square-table (PST) for each personality&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Define different tuning parameters for each personality&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Scale the attacking parameters and/or defending parameters with a constant&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Give an appropriate Contempt value&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It takes some work to create a new personality, but it should be just minor changes to a working chess engine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Stockfish engine had an UCI option for optimizating attacking and defending parameters. This was done by scaling the evaluation score accordingly. For example, if you scaled your own king safety score by a positive constant greater than 1, the engine would be more defensive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;Q: How to determine if a move is aggregative or defensive?&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tony, Brian and others gave good suggestions, but their suggestions are for human players and too abstract for a computer. If you want a computer to tell you whether a move is aggressive or defensive, you may need:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Null move&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Monte-Carlo tree search&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Null-move is simple and it's been implemented in various chess softwares. The idea is simple - if the move doesn't threaten anything, it should not be an aggressive move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Monte-Carlo tree search goes even further. You can use it to determine the distribution of your payoff. If a move is aggressive, the margin error should be smaller. If a move is defensive, the margin error should be bigger.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2017-01-02T03:22:13.520" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16276" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16273" CreationDate="2017-01-02T11:31:04.870" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In most cases you don't mate with pawns only, so the plan in all pawn endgames is clearly to &lt;strong&gt;create a passed pawn and promote it&lt;/strong&gt;. This already determines what you should look for in these positions, namely:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;passed pawns, and whether you can create one&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;king activity&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;weaknesses / easily attacked and capturable pawns&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are a few (somewhat related) concepts which become important in such endgames, such as: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corresponding_squares&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Corresponding squares&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;: basically if your opponent moves the king to a certain square your king has to be moved to a specific square&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Mined squares&lt;/strong&gt;: squares you should not go to with the king&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zugzwang&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Zugzwang&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;: since any player is forced to make a move, this can be used in certain positions when there is no good move available; forcing your opponent into a position to make a bad move&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangulation_(chess)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Triangulation&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;: a method to force  a zugzwang position&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opposition_(chess)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Opposition&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;: one specific type of zugzwang&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_and_pawn_versus_king_endgame&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;basic king and single pawn versus king endgames&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;: how to win or defend these; topics like: as attacker put your king in front of our pawn, occupying &lt;em&gt;key squares&lt;/em&gt;, how to defend (aiming for opposition),...&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Regarding your example diagram, I would evaluate the position as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;black's king is more active&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;slight imbalance of pawns (3 vs 2 and 3 vs 4, but because there are doubled pawns it will be difficult to create a passed pawn)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the f4 pawn could be weak and if white protects it with g3, he has weakens the white squares on the kingside, particularly f3 giving black an attack route&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is obviously impossible to win the game on the kingside as neither side will be able to create a passed pawn there (even if white gives away the f4 pawn). So let's look at the queenside and how the pawn structure could change there. Basically there are four options:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;black pawns on a5, b4, white on a4, b3, b2; This is a closed pawn structure, basically white wants to move the king via d3-c4-b5 to attack the pawns, while black wants to move his king via d3-c2 to attack the white pawns. Neither of this can be forced as black can just shuffle the king between c5 and d5 (covering c4) and white between d2 and e2 (covering d3). Neither player can make progress. Draw.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;black pawn on b4, white pawns on b3, b2. This is similar to the first position (&quot;1&quot;), where the kings can be prevented from entering.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;black pawns on a4, b5, white pawns on a3, b4, b2; This is the most interesting position. White wants to put the king on c2 and play b3 in order to create a passed pawn. Black wants to walk the king via c4 to b3. As a result when the black king moves to c4 white wants to move the king to c2 to prevent that walk; and likewise if the white king moves to c2, black wants to move the king to c4 to prevent b3. If there are no pawn moves available on the kingside (or none that lose there), this can result in a position of mutual zugzwang for whoever goes first to c4 (black)/c2 (white). &lt;strong&gt;3a&lt;/strong&gt;: white goes to c2 first, then the line could be 1. Kc2 Kc4, 2. Kc1 Kb3 3. Kb1 Kc4 4. Kc2 and white will play b3 and probably get a passed pawn and win; &lt;strong&gt;3b&lt;/strong&gt; black king goes to c4 first, then white king goes to c2 and creates a zugzwang position where black has to allow b3 afterwards&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;black pawn on a4, white pawns on a3 and b2. This is similar to the previous position (&quot;3&quot;) with corresponding squares.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Taking this into account, it seems that black does not want to create position &quot;3&quot;, i.e. black does not want to play a4 in the original position. If white is trying to achieve position &quot;3&quot; by playing b4 in the original position, black can capture on b4 after which white ends up with a weak pawn on b4 which will be captured.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as I can see, neither side can make any progress on the queenside.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This leaves as the only option for a win some combined play on king and queenside. A plan could be to place a pawn as far ahead as possible, (e.g. a black pawn on h3), then try to capture the blocking pawn (white pawn on h2 in this example) with the king. If you do this you give up the queenside, so need to calculate exactly who wins the race. However in this particular position I don't see how such plan could be forced and I believe it is just a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastEditorUserId="11629" LastEditDate="2017-01-02T11:43:56.583" LastActivityDate="2017-01-02T11:43:56.583" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16277" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16273" CreationDate="2017-01-02T22:20:56.740" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Do chess experts really calculate all that?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No, they really don't.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In a position like the one you gave an expert would look at two things -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) The opposition&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) Reserve moves&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and only then start calculating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The opposition is what you get when the kings are opposite each other with one square gap between them exactly as shown in your diagram. The player who &quot;has the opposition&quot; (a good thing) is the player who doesn't have to move. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason it's a good thing is because currently neither king can move forward because then the kings would be next to each other. Generally speaking the player who has to move their king first would have to move either sideways or backwards letting the other king advance when maybe they can attack the other sides pawns. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here it's not so straightforward because white pawns stop the black king from going to c3, c4, e3 and e5 and black pawns stop the white king from going to c4 and e4. White might want to play f3 to cover e4 instead of e3 and black might want to play b4 to cover c3 instead of c4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Reserve moves are all the moves each player can play before he has to move his king and lose the opposition. The more the better and one reason to be careful how you push your pawns in an endgame. Here white has 4 obvious reserve moves - f3, g3, h3 and h4. Black has only 2 - h6 and h5. If white plays his moves in the right order, f3, g3, h3 first (in any order) then he will get extra moves g4 and g5 if he wants them because black cannot take the g4 pawn without giving white a passed pawn. So right from the get go black is in bad shape. He is going to have to give way and let white advance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, black's only hope is that he can construct a fortress with his pawns so that even though he will have to let the white king come to d3 he can stop it getting to the fourth rank using his king and pawns. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now it's time to do some calculation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It looks at first glance that maybe black is just going to be able to go back to d5 with his king (once his reserve moves are used up) and then shuffle his king between d5 and c5 because that will stop the white king going to c4 or d4 and the f5 pawn stops king to e4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The problem is that then white is going to play b4 when his king is on c3 and black's king is on d5. This will give white a passed pawn and the win after either black takes the pawn and white recaptures with the king or black pushes the pawn to a4 and black plays b3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, maybe black needs to play b4 himself first? Maybe on his first move? Now it doesn't matter what white does. If he takes on b4 then black recaptures with his a pawn and his pawn is on b4. If white pushes a4 then black's pawn is protected on b4 and if white leaves it then so does black and the white king is never going to get to c4 to double attack it because the black king can always shuffle between c5 and d5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But!!! It is white to go first. If he wants to win he has to play b4 himself on the first move. Otherwise it's going to be too late. So, what happens next? Black must capture with the a pawn and white moves Kc2 forcing black to take the a3 pawn as well. White recaptures with his a pawn and he has broadened the base and has the distant pawn (which means that after they take each other's pawns white is going to get back to the kingside just before white). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An expert white would probably stop calculating here confident that he would win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's look at how it might go.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;8/7p/6p1/pp3p2/3k1P2/PP6/1P1K1PPP/8 w - - 0 1&#xA;&#xA;1. b4 axb4 2. Kc2 bxa3 3. bxa3 Kc4 4. h3 h6 5. g3 h5 6. f3 Kc5 7. Kc3 Kc6 8. Kd4 Kb6 9. g4 Ka5 10. Kc5 Ka4 11. Kb6 Kxa3 12. Kxb5 Kb3 13. gxf5 gxf5 14. Kc5 Kc3 15. Kd5 Kd3 16. Ke5 Ke3 17. Kxf5 Kxf3 18. Kg5 Kg3 19. h4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and the f pawn queens.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2017-01-02T22:20:56.740" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16278" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16250" CreationDate="2017-01-02T22:37:03.210" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've often thought that the author over-emphasized this point.  But there are good reasons for ...c5 in Queen's pawn openings.  This single move accomplishes three things.  1. Put pressure on d4, as @Jerry Snitselaar has said.  2. Make room for the Queen Bishop, assuming ...e5 is not workable.  3. Create a meaningful open file for a rook--again, assuming ...e5 cannot reasonably be played.  (I say &quot;meaningful&quot; because it is relatively easy to open &lt;em&gt;some&lt;/em&gt; file, such as with the a- or b-pawn, but usually a rook on the c-file hits more valuable targets, and besides, it is usually important to prevent White dominance on this file.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2967" LastActivityDate="2017-01-02T22:37:03.210" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16279" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14127" CreationDate="2017-01-02T22:49:10.653" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In your posted game you have done a decent job of harrassing and eventually marginalizing the White King bishop.  Yet, do you realize that each of your first seven moves is a pawn move?  Besides neglecting piece develpment, you leave your center rather unprotected, which partly defeats the purpose of using the Sicilian, and you expose yourself to the inconvenient discovered attack of e5.  For the moment, the Queen/Bishop attack is sufficiently neutralized by your 2...e6 and that is the time to begin development of your pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2967" LastActivityDate="2017-01-02T22:49:10.653" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16281" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16282" CreationDate="2017-01-03T02:09:37.183" Score="0" ViewCount="142" Body="&lt;p&gt;Imagine a scenario where you have two perfect players (i.e. they can consider all the possibilities in a very short amount of time and they choose &lt;strong&gt;always&lt;/strong&gt; the right movement).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If they decided to play against each other, would all of their games end up on a draw?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11917" LastActivityDate="2017-01-03T03:28:49.250" Title="Would games played between two perfect players always end up on a draw?" Tags="&lt;theory&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2017-01-03T15:04:58.663" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16282" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16281" CreationDate="2017-01-03T03:28:49.250" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The answer is currently unknown. If you don't consider the opening (generally the first 8-15 moves or so), strong AI like Stockfish will generally show a clear optimal move in any position, and the majority of openings tend to yield a draw in these computer matches. However, as there are an incredibly large variety of openings, and this number scales exponentially with the number of moves, it is infeasible, at least in the present, for us to find a definitive answer to this question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12052" LastActivityDate="2017-01-03T03:28:49.250" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16283" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14127" CreationDate="2017-01-03T06:00:36.437" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;At 3...., you should play nf6 threatening 4.... d5. You need the Nf6 to protect the d5 pawn against exd5, e6xd5, Bxd5, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If White plays nc3 to attack d5 again, you play Nc6 to threaten Na5, attacking the bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2017-01-03T06:00:36.437" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16284" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6093" CreationDate="2017-01-03T09:06:23.510" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Try TarraschDB analysis. Just paste the PGN, pick your move to start the analysis and click Start. It will give you the best 4 moves and you can use Capture All if you want all 4 best moves or just Capture Top to select the best move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Link: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.triplehappy.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.triplehappy.com/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12151" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-01-03T09:31:00.240" LastActivityDate="2017-01-03T09:31:00.240" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16285" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6093" CreationDate="2017-01-03T15:13:54.980" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Check out &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.playwitharena.com/?Download:Arena_3.5.1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Arena Chess GUI 3.5.1&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It works with Stockfish, and comes with built in Engines.  You can also download additional engines for it and pit them against one another in tournament mode. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also Arena with Stockfish supports Syzygy tablebase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's a very strong gui.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12077" LastActivityDate="2017-01-03T15:13:54.980" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16286" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16265" CreationDate="2017-01-03T17:45:32.570" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The first thing I would try is to simulate game conditions when doing your training exercises. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Set up a real board with a real clock and simulate playing conditions - quiet, no TV, no music, maybe some low ambient noise at most. Give yourself an arbitrary amount of time on the clock to complete the exercise - say, 3 minutes for easy exercises, 10 minutes for difficult ones, whatever - and have at it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The fact that you train means you do not have a motivation problem. Your problem is in execution, so change the way you execute your training and experiment on that end.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Good Luck.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10233" LastActivityDate="2017-01-03T17:45:32.570" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16287" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16251" CreationDate="2017-01-03T18:01:43.787" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;To understand this question, we must look at what the move ...h6 does to the protection of the black kingside position once it is played.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When black plays ... h6, he:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Weakens g6 - no longer protected by a pawn on both f7 AND h7. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Weakens h6 itself and makes it vulnerable to capture sacrifices. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Weakens h5 as well because playing g6 now leaves the h6 pawn unprotected. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;To some extent it weakens ... e6 also, as a sacrifice on e6 and subsequent recapture by fxe6 results in g6 undefended. Do you smell a combination?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Whenever you move a pawn, you change the fundamental structure of the position most of the time, so be very careful. Pawn moves can have far-reaching effects.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10233" LastActivityDate="2017-01-03T18:01:43.787" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16288" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16250" CreationDate="2017-01-03T18:27:50.673" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Often black plays b6/Bb7/c5 to support an attack against the White d-pawn, and at times even Na6 to support c5. Obstructing the c-pawn slows down or prevents these kinds of maneuvers. Nc6 is an awkward placement of the knight on the queenside with d5/e6 being played by black, as it has no real good second move from c6 to get out of the c-pawns way, thus losing time, if black wants to follow up with ...c6 or ...c5. The move ...c5 is a &quot;breaking&quot; move that black wants in many openings, including the Caro-Kann, the French, etc., and not just d-pawn openings. A knight on c6 is generally speaking a 'good' knight when ...e5 and/or ...c5 has been played, i.e., king's pawn openings, The Sicilian Defense, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10233" LastActivityDate="2017-01-03T18:27:50.673" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16289" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16217" CreationDate="2017-01-03T18:38:43.213" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You suffer from &quot;Knight Vision&quot; problems.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;:)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do a series of visualization exercises whereby you randomly select a start square and an end square, and without looking at the board, write down all the shortest paths the knight can take to get there. Do 8 a day, every 2 or three days, always, and no more frequently than that (your brain won't absorb it all).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You WILL see improvement after several weeks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10233" LastActivityDate="2017-01-03T18:38:43.213" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16290" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16233" CreationDate="2017-01-03T18:56:20.117" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;[chess joke]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, you don't know &quot;a bit of opening theory&quot;. You might have a few pet lines, but a better player would mop you up regardless of how much 'theory' you think you know, and will quickly turn that 'theory' into a poorly formulated hypothesis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;:)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[/chess joke]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyways:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Play dogmatically. You are young in your chess-age, and dogmatic play will punish those who want to bring their queens out. Play like Steinitz, Tarrasch, Rubinstein, in a classic sense. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What does this mean?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Theory of Steinitz - &lt;a href=&quot;http://exeterchessclub.org.uk/content/theory-steinitz&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://exeterchessclub.org.uk/content/theory-steinitz&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Rule #6 applies to you:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;6.At the beginning of the game a player should not at once seek to attack. Instead, a player should seek to disturb the equilibrium in his favour by inducing the opponent to make an error - a preliminary before attacking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;...'equilibrium in your favour' being a lead in development for you caused by him bringing his queen out too early and playing cat-and-mouse with your knights and bishops.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And, maybe it's time for a basic strategy book, something shiny and new?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://smile.amazon.com/Chess-Training-Post-beginners-Positional-Understanding/dp/9056914723/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&amp;amp;qid=1483469842&amp;amp;sr=8-3&amp;amp;keywords=Basic%20Chess%20Strategy&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess Training for Post-Beginners&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10233" LastEditorUserId="10233" LastEditDate="2017-01-03T19:03:21.833" LastActivityDate="2017-01-03T19:03:21.833" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16291" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16386" CreationDate="2017-01-04T09:46:10.410" Score="4" ViewCount="627" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess engine strength has increased considerably over time due to increase of computer strength, but also improvement in algorithms/parameters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there any statistics or graph out there which shows this improvement? Perhaps something like computer Elo vs time and compared to computer strength!?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2017-01-15T02:32:34.883" Title="Improvement of chess engines over time" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;history&gt;&lt;statistics&gt;&lt;computer-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16292" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16293" CreationDate="2017-01-04T09:54:43.480" Score="14" ViewCount="2262" Body="&lt;p&gt;As far as I understand, roughly speaking, chess engines work by:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;calculating all possible variations (game tree) up to some depth&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;evaluating the final position based on some criteria (material, piece activity...)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;based on this evaluation decide for the best move&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I fully understand that to have an efficient engine there are ways to prune certain lines, limiting the depth, etc; but this is not my question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Question is: Are there any alternative attempts to program a (not necessarily strong, but not random either) chess engine, which does not follow this scheme?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2017-01-11T22:47:02.503" Title="Alternative approaches to chess engine programming" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;programming&gt;&lt;computer-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16293" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16292" CreationDate="2017-01-04T10:51:52.360" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the beginning years of computer chess, people have actually tried to teach computers chess in the same way as they do with humans, explaining strategic concepts like a healthy pawn structure or the initiative. These attempt were soon abandoned because the method you describe was much more successful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Recently, there has been another attempt to let an engine teach itself chess via &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.technologyreview.com/s/541276/deep-learning-machine-teaches-itself-chess-in-72-hours-plays-at-international-master/&quot;&gt;Deep Learning&lt;/a&gt; (probably encouraged by the success of &lt;a href=&quot;http://qz.com/639952/googles-ai-won-the-game-go-by-defying-millennia-of-basic-human-instinct/&quot;&gt;Google's Go AI&lt;/a&gt;). According to the article I linked to, they were quite successful and managed to reach IM strength.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2017-01-04T10:51:52.360" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16294" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16292" CreationDate="2017-01-04T13:29:22.843" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;@Glorfindel is not wrong but deep learning approach to chess is really a fancy term for parameter tuning in chess programming.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Deep learning allows a chess engine to learn a evaluation function, something usually hand written by a programmer. During a game, it works like a normal chess engine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other possibilities:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;GPU chess programming&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Monte-Carlo tree search&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2017-01-04T13:29:22.843" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16295" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2038" CreationDate="2017-01-04T21:51:22.877" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I wanted to have this as a surprise weapon with black, but was very disappointed even with immediate d4. Plus after Nxf7 black is on the edge of losing in the Kf1 line as was played in some correspondence games. And it is by far not clear what problems white has in Bxf7+. So for me this looks more like a rapid/blitz attempt. But for players who like mess and don't care that much about objective evaluation this looks very acceptable. No easy refutation, to get something white must go to the complications.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11609" LastActivityDate="2017-01-04T21:51:22.877" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16297" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16436" CreationDate="2017-01-05T05:52:30.100" Score="4" ViewCount="306" Body="&lt;p&gt;We play with the rule one loses -&gt; the team loses. My cheesy titled question is serious: let's try to wrap our heads around the Bughouse clock mechanics. When should one consider sitting/stalling? I imagine these ones:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I sit because the opponent mates me in the next move.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Because moving would mean giving my opponent a chance to capture a piece of mine, giving his partner a piece he needs and improves his game a lot.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;To wait for a piece my opponent could handle me that could give me huge advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, for stalling/sitting we always need more time that the diagonal opponent, if not, he could stall and we lose by time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there other reasons to sit/stall?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10601" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-01-05T13:59:39.480" LastActivityDate="2017-02-20T17:13:04.853" Title="Bughouse sitting/stalling full strategic breakdown" Tags="&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;bughouse&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16298" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16299" CreationDate="2017-01-05T07:23:27.660" Score="3" ViewCount="1825" Body="&lt;p&gt;I need inspiration.  I'm an amateur. One of the areas that I find least likeable and just plain boring, is the endgame.  I sometimes feel like I'm making no improvement there whatsoever.  That's why unless I am significantly up in terms of material and can force a win fast I try to get a draw or just resign.  But anyhow I want to get better and find the motivation to improve my endgame, so I figured one way is look at some examples of masters of endgame.  Maybe that will help me see the exciting aspects.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've looked at several resources but I was reading a few days ago that high rated grandmasters these days are all good in every aspect of the game, including the endgame (or they would not be up there), and that old grandmasters who were seen as great in endgame, were actually not that positionally sound when their moves are compared with today's chess engines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I figured I just ask about that here, as I've got different opinions, someone saying Magnus Carlsen is the best in endgame, while many others go to historical figures like Capablanca, Rubinstein, and Smyslov (couple others also whom I forget).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And if there are particular games/books by a particular master that really brings endgame to life, I would appreciate you mentioning that so I can look and be inspired. Thank you!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11995" LastActivityDate="2018-11-06T10:43:59.340" Title="Which chess players are/were best at the endgame? Can you refer me to their exemplary games?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;grandmaster&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16299" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16298" CreationDate="2017-01-05T10:10:36.077" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here are a few candidates for great endgame players, where I give a feeling of their playing style and recommended sources:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Capablanca&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Capablanca is considered to be a balanced player, but one who excelled particularly in the endgame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The game might be divided into three parts, the opening, the middle-game and the end-game. There is one thing you must strive for, to be equally efficient in the three parts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Recommended sources:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;Capablanca's Best Chess Endings: 60 Complete Games&lt;/em&gt; by Irving Chernov&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;Capablanca: Move by Move&lt;/em&gt; by Cyrus Lakdawala&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Smyslov&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Smyslov is best known for the simplicity of his play. He adopted an intuitive approach to most moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[By studying 'simple' endgames,] I was able to gain a deep feeling for what each piece was capable of, to sense their peculiarities, their strength and impotence in various different situations on the board, the limits of their capabilities, what they 'like' and what they 'don't like' and how they behave.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Recommended sources:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;Vasily Smyslov: Endgame Virtuoso&lt;/em&gt; by Vasily Smyslov&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yuhDu27EnQ&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;The Legend: Vasily Smyslov - GM Ben Finegold&lt;/a&gt; on YouTube&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Karpov&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Karpov is best known for reducing the options his opponent had, even in the endgame. Zugzwang and prophylaxis was his forte.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I still remember Botvinnik's reaction to each of my games, right from the opening moves. At first he would express amazement, then annoyance, and, finally irritation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Recommended sources:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;Karpov: Move by Move&lt;/em&gt; by Sam Collins&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YxAII4L075c&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Karpov's Endgame Mastery for Beginners&lt;/a&gt; on YouTube&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2017-01-05T10:10:36.077" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16300" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16301" CreationDate="2017-01-05T10:35:54.933" Score="3" ViewCount="344" Body="&lt;p&gt;So far I used UCI only to make analysis of particular positions, sending FEN, showing multipv, analysing fixed depth/time, clearing hash for every next position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now I would like to make the same engine play against itself a blitz game and I guess this approach might waste a lot of CPU resources. Any information on this topic, ideally with example of UCI communication included, will be appreciated. Especially I want to ask:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;How should I setup hash and when should I clear it&lt;/strong&gt;? After each move, after reaching certain amount of nodes searched from last clearing to defend against hash colisions?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Is there a better way than sending FEN after each move to UCI?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Should I setup multipv to 1 and always wait for &quot;bestmove&quot;?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not very concerned by slowdowns caused by fen parsing etc, but I would like not to make some huge mistake like clearing knowledge made on previous moves. Of course I want engine being able to reuse as much calculations as possible for both sides from last moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11609" LastActivityDate="2017-01-05T12:27:48.987" Title="Best way to use UCI engine to play against itself" Tags="&lt;programming&gt;&lt;uci&gt;&lt;blitz&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16301" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16300" CreationDate="2017-01-05T11:47:05.837" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think it's a good idea to write a new framework. You should use &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/cutechess/cutechess/tree/master/docs&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Cutechess&lt;/a&gt;. CuteChess is free, stable, fast and reliable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'll answer your questions anyway:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You should not clear the hash, it's the engine job to fill it and replace it&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You don't have to send FEN, you can also give a move list&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;By default, multipv is 1 so you don't need to do anything&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2017-01-05T12:27:48.987" LastActivityDate="2017-01-05T12:27:48.987" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16302" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16298" CreationDate="2017-01-05T12:50:02.647" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The classical players - Flohr, Rubinstein, Capablanca. All excellent endgamers, the beauty in the simplicity. But, you are putting the cart before the horse, so to speak. It's hard to appreciate the beauty of endgame play if you do not understand it. Saying you are &quot;bored&quot; with it is sooo millennial snowflake-ish it isn't funny. Your fast-food attitude towards chess has to be modified. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I suggest you cozy up with a small set next to the fireplace and open up one of many excellent basic chess endgame books and deliberately go through it front to back. Spend 30 minutes a day on just this. A really good, practical book is &quot;100 endgames you must know&quot;. A second choice might be &quot;A guide to chess endings&quot; by Euwe and Hooper, if you can handle descriptive notation (you being a snowflake and all), and you can find it. Both of those are deliberate and address the practicality of endgame play. If you just can't control yourself, try Van Perlo's Endgame Tactics. If you catch fire get Dvoretsky's Endgame Manual, which is just awesome, but not for children.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Good luck, and avoid melting.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10233" LastActivityDate="2017-01-05T12:50:02.647" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16303" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16316" CreationDate="2017-01-06T16:12:48.200" Score="3" ViewCount="3103" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to get a list of all (because they are certainly only a few existing) crazyhouse engines. I searched in lichess forum posts by googling &quot;crazyhouse engine&quot; and collected many names and links from 3 different posts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Initial list, to complete:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://sunsetter.sourceforge.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Sunsetter&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.lichess.org/forum/team-crazyhouse-engine-development-and-game-analyses/stockfish-playing-crazyhouse?page=1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Stockfish&lt;/a&gt; (a well known engine, recently implemented for crazyhouse, seems to be the strongest for this variant in this thread, is the default used in lichess for crazyhouse, &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL-09pBUCdduLOlOZQwwfdZUBaVcgEPuB3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;important news: has beaten jann lee consistently in informal match in this playlist&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://sjeng.org/indexold.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Sjeng&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://tonyjh.com/chess/tjchess/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Tjchess&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://sites.google.com/site/deuteriumengine/files/crazyhouse&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Immortal&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://sites.google.com/site/dshawul/home&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;nebiyu&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.lanternchess.com/pulsar/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;pulsar&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.eglebbk.dds.nl/program/chess-download.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;sjaak&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/nathanlo99/Crazyhouse&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Crazyhouse by nathanlo99&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10601" LastEditorUserId="8201" LastEditDate="2019-12-28T04:55:45.793" LastActivityDate="2019-12-28T04:55:45.793" Title="List of Crazyhouse engines" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;crazyhouse&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16304" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16311" CreationDate="2017-01-06T16:29:39.027" Score="2" ViewCount="3214" Body="&lt;p&gt;In a situation where both players castle on the same side, is it ever a good idea to charge the pawns in front of the castled king? Are there any rules for when you can do this? I know that generally those pawns shouldn't move. But I am also increasingly finding it useful in my games to break up my opponent's king's defensive structure by pushing up pawns. If I don't see any obvious attack on my position, is it worth it? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is an example position from my previous game. &#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Fnnnj.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Fnnnj.png&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I played h3, stopping a further knight advance and looking at pushing g4 to close off the black's light square bishop. But my deeper idea was always to push those pawns right up to open up black's king. To be honest though, I'm still not sure whether this was a good idea at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12174" LastActivityDate="2017-01-07T07:09:15.940" Title="When should you charge pawns in front of a castled king?" Tags="&lt;pawns&gt;&lt;castling&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16305" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16304" CreationDate="2017-01-06T18:03:43.980" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;is it ever a good idea to charge the pawns in front of the castled king? Are there any rules for when you can do this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What comes to mind first is King's Indian defence where Black attack on king's side (just as an example &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1567841&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Gelfand - Nakamura, 2010&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The rule is as usual: side attack could be met by center (or opposite side) counter-attack, so you need to make sure that your center and Queen side survive long enough without much protection. The best measure to achieve this is to close the center first.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Attacking in front of castled kings will surely require from you to keep your rooks before your king too. And then the other side of the board will become absolutely unguarded. So when your opponent wins all the pawns on the other side he can just checkmate you by using his rooks or to create a passed pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On your diagram advancing g- and h-pawns by White looks like nonsense. The center is not closed, and even more than that, Black have more pieces on the King's side than White. So Black can easily meet your g4 by f5. Also moving just f- and g-pawns will be hardly sufficient to open Black's king. You need your f-pawn too. But black pawn on e5 is too strong for this to ever happen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12071" LastActivityDate="2017-01-06T18:03:43.980" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16306" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-01-06T18:15:33.003" Score="7" ViewCount="2146" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am thinking about getting my first chess book. After making a bit of research, people recommend to not worry about opening and endings and start with a primer on general strategy. That description lead me to a book called &quot;Logical chess: Move by move&quot; by Irving Chernev, I was wondering if this is an appropriate book for this matter, or is there a must-own bible for the beginner that I missed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For more information about my level, I pretty much just played chess online for a couple of months, and I would like to get a bit more serious, and start improving my game by doing more than just playing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: Following the advice of Mark Goodwin, here comes my best game, according to Stockfish&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 e6 2. e4 Bb4+ 3. c3 Be7 4. Nf3 Nc6&#xA;5. Be2 h6 6. O-O d6 7. Be3 a6 8. c4 Bd7&#xA;9. d5 Ne5 10. Nxe5 dxe5 11. Nc3 Nf6 12. Rb1 O-O&#xA;13. Qc2 c6 14. Rbd1 cxd5 15. cxd5 exd5 16. Nxd5 Nxd5&#xA;17. Rxd5 Rc8 18. Qd2 Bc6 19. Rxd8 Rfxd8 20. Qa5 f6&#xA;21. Bb6 Rd7 22. Bg4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I didn't meant to 12. Rb1, was a mouse slip, although I wanted to do Rc1 which, according to Stockfish again, isn't much better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12045" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-01-10T09:23:11.007" LastActivityDate="2020-03-04T18:48:23.490" Title="A first book for a chess beginner" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;books&gt;&lt;beginner&gt;" AnswerCount="8" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16307" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16304" CreationDate="2017-01-06T19:22:45.993" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Generally you should play on side where you have advantage in total firepower (P=1, N=3,...). In case of pawn storm in front of your king, the advantage should be bigger than you usually need. You can start easily minority attack with one extra horsie on the queenside, but you should probably not weaken your king seriously when you are just one knight stronger there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit: To make the rule about firepower complete, I would say your king is somewhere around -8 for these calculations while your opponent's around -3. Takes time to get close to him while your king is already weak.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this position I would play for b4. Good rule is that bishop g2 is very bad kingside attacker!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11609" LastActivityDate="2017-01-06T19:22:45.993" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16308" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16304" CreationDate="2017-01-06T20:07:05.630" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Personally, the set up I like for white is King's Gambit with a quick castle: pawns-&gt;g2 and h3, king-&gt;h1, and I think it offers more protection. the set up you have here doesn't allow for you to develop your pieces without losing your king's protection. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11488" LastActivityDate="2017-01-06T20:07:05.630" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16309" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16306" CreationDate="2017-01-06T20:32:38.683" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Consider the following classic: Capablanca, &quot;Chess fundamentals&quot;, 1921.&#xA;Look for the algebraic edition, to not lose time learning two different notation systems. But if you wish, the effort pay, because some times you will find old books in descriptive notation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The book covers the stages of the game (opening, middle and ending) and gives advice of strategy, using games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, &quot;A Primer of Chess&quot; by the same author (José R. Capablanca) cover the sames games stages, and start in a more simple fashion, explaining the moves of every piece. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1766" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-04T18:45:26.973" LastActivityDate="2020-03-04T18:45:26.973" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="16310" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16317" CreationDate="2017-01-07T00:31:48.273" Score="9" ViewCount="769" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have been playing chess for years but I was just introduced &lt;em&gt;en passant&lt;/em&gt; only recently. I keep on forgetting when to play this weird move. I keep on asking myself &quot;is it on the 5th row or the 4th row&quot; If there is an easy way to remember, please help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12176" LastActivityDate="2019-03-31T02:14:23.997" Title="How do you use 'en passant'?" Tags="&lt;en-passant&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16311" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16304" CreationDate="2017-01-07T02:46:32.467" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As others have noted, you should not move the pawns in front of your king except in defense, with very few exceptions, such as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The center is closed, and you can attack a &quot;hook&quot; pawn in your opponent's position by advancing &lt;em&gt;one&lt;/em&gt; of your pawns before your opponent can break through in a meaningful way on the queenside. This strategy usually appears with the h-pawn attacking a kingside castled position with fianchetto, or with g5 (after a preparatory h5 to fix the opponent's h-pawn at h6), where he has not fianchettoed.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The center is closed, and you can open a file for a heavy piece attack by advancing and sacrificing a pawn, usually the h-pawn, faster than your opponent can attack on the queenside.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The center is closed, your opponent has no counterplay on the queenside, and you have occupied the e5 square with a pawn as White (e4 as Black), denying your opponent a knight position on f6 (f3). Typically, the g-pawn is the attacking pawn in this situation, though the h-pawn occasionally takes the stage.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For examples, take a look at the English Attack against the Najdorf/ Scheveningen Sicilian, the Alekhine-Chatard Attack against the French, the Bayonet Mariotti Attack against the Pirc, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that &lt;em&gt;the center must always be closed&lt;/em&gt;.  In such types of positions, you should (as others have noted) play on the side containing your most advanced center pawn, i.e. in the direction they are &lt;em&gt;pointing&lt;/em&gt;.  So, in situations where both players have castled kingside, the center pawns will often be arranged d4-e5 for White, and d5-e6 for Black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11245" LastActivityDate="2017-01-07T02:46:32.467" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16312" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16298" CreationDate="2017-01-07T02:59:02.827" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Given your view that the endgame is boring, your study of it is bound to be (understandably) half-hearted, at best.  So the first element in a successful endgame training strategy is to build enthusiasm for it. This is best done by gaining a respect and admiration for the creative possibilities in actual endgame play.  This is &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; the time to tackle the 48-or-so types of piece constellations in single-rook endgames, or any other deep theory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would recommend Van Perlo's &lt;em&gt;&quot;Endgame Tactics&quot;&lt;/em&gt;, published by New In Chess, 2nd edition.  You will find that often even in the dryest-looking position there are tricks and traps that can save or win a game that looks lost or drawn.  Once you have begun to appreciate the potential for surprise and beauty in the endgame, you will be much more likely to attack the learning process with enthusiasm. You will also soon see how endgame theory builds on itself, with fundamental principles and techniques at the bottom of the pyramid, and novel combinations at the pinnacle, and find the former easier to remember, and the latter easier to create.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I hope you grow to enjoy the creative potential and excitement of the endgame as much as I do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11245" LastActivityDate="2017-01-07T02:59:02.827" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16313" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5191" CreationDate="2017-01-07T04:38:11.450" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I played international chess a lot, learning chinese chess now. Here is my impression.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Intl chess peices are much more mobile. Queen in intl chess has no matching piece in chinese chess. Rooks are equal. Knight in intl chess is better (at worst - equal) than in chinese chess. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;King in chinese chess is way less mobile. &quot;Defending pieces&quot; (king, advisors and elefants) smother your king very often. A spot in front of the king is a trap. By moving there you block your advisors. Castling is a good idea in intl chess, but in chinese chess king shouldn't move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On average, at a given position less squares are under attack in chinese chess. Hence, you can put your room in enemy lines. If you do this in intl chess you will lose your valuable piece (see catch ing enemy queen puzzles).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Brinning a game to a draw is easier in intl chess. This is because two kings cannot stand on the line of sight and because they cannot leave their cartle. Thus, obvious draws (King +pawn or King+knight vs King) in intl chess are wins in chinese chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Cannon piece is has no analog in intl chess and is hard to get used to. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In intl chess as the game progresses the value of king increases. King is supposed to be passive in midgame, but become active in king+rook+pawn vs king+rook type ending. In chinese chess game progress impacts knight vs cannon values the most. In early game cannon&gt;&gt;knight. In late game knight &gt;cannon.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12177" LastEditorUserId="12177" LastEditDate="2017-01-07T04:45:30.443" LastActivityDate="2017-01-07T04:45:30.443" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16314" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16304" CreationDate="2017-01-07T07:09:15.940" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is common in many openings with an early f4/f5. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some examples that I've played include:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Closed Sicilian, where white has pawns on c2/c3, d3, e4, f4 and g3, sometimes called &quot;The Big Clamp&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;r2q1rk1/pp1b1pbp/2nppnp1/2p5/4PP2/2PP1NP1/PP2N1BP/R1BQ1RK1 b - - 0 10&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]  &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White can play for a pawn storm starting with h3 and g4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Dutch Defense, mainly the Stonewall&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;r1bq1rk1/pp1n2pp/2pbpn2/3p1p2/2PP4/2NQ1NP1/PP2PPBP/R1B2RK1 w - - 6 9&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black will typically play Ne5, and can play for an attack starting with g5&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The King's Gambit Declined, by transposition from the Bishop's Opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;r1bq1rk1/ppp2ppp/2np1n2/2b1p3/2B1PP2/2NP1N2/PPP3PP/R1BQK2R w KQ - 2 7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One of white's plans here is to exchange off Black's dark squared bishop before castling, then playing f5 and initiating a pawn storm with h3, and g4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9025" LastActivityDate="2017-01-07T07:09:15.940" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16315" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16310" CreationDate="2017-01-07T09:04:58.387" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can capture en passant when your opponent pushes his pawn twice (to the 4th rank (white) or the 5th rank (black)) and you have a pawn sitting next to it. Then you can capture the pawn as if it only moved one square - but only immediately after the pawn push of your opponent, you can't delay this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you have trouble remembering this rule, then perhaps having a position in your mind works better?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/1ppppppp/8/p3P3/8/8/PPPP1PPP/RNBQKBNR b KQkq - 0 2&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;White&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Black&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;2... f5 3. exf6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7061" LastActivityDate="2017-01-07T09:04:58.387" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16316" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16303" CreationDate="2017-01-07T09:12:34.147" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;From the &lt;a href=&quot;https://sites.google.com/site/zhassociation/computer-zh-engine&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;computer list of the Crazyhouse Chess Variant Association&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://sjeng.org/indexold.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Sjeng&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://web.archive.org/web/20160305200546/http://freespace.virgin.net/andrew.fankk/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;KKFchess&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.lanternchess.com/pulsar/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Pulsar&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://sites.google.com/site/dshawul/home&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Nebiyu Alien&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://sites.google.com/site/deuteriumengine/files/crazyhouse&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Imortal&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.eglebbk.dds.nl/program/chess-download.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Sjaak&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://tonyjh.com/chess/tjchess/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;TJchess&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.tckerrigan.com/Chess/TSCP/Community/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;TSCP zh&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/georgvonzimmermann/Sunsetter&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Sunsetter&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://hgm.nubati.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;CrazyWa&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And aside from that there is the &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/ddugovic/Stockfish&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;multi-variant Stockfish&lt;/a&gt; that plays Crazyhouse.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/nathanlo99/Crazyhouse&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Crazyhouse by nathanlo99&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7061" LastEditorUserId="7061" LastEditDate="2017-02-10T14:40:17.853" LastActivityDate="2017-02-10T14:40:17.853" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16317" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16310" CreationDate="2017-01-07T11:18:20.613" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;Perhaps it helps if you remember the (presumed) reason for having this special move. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Originally pawns were only allowed to make single steps. This meant that pawns on adjacent files could not pass each other without running into the danger of being captured.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When the double step was introduced, pawns on adjacent files could suddenly pass each other (which would have changed the evaluation of many positions most notably in endgames). They could pass each other exactly in one case: white pawn on 5th row black pawn making double step (or equivalently black pawn on 4th row white pawn making double step).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So bottom line if you see a pawn passing your pawn without your pawn ever having a chance to capture it, it is time for en passant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2017-01-07T11:18:20.613" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16318" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8882" CreationDate="2017-01-07T15:23:36.170" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Step back for a moment and consider ideas:&#xA;With 2. b4, white sacrifices a pawn for virtually nothing. His idea is to get a pawn on d4 without exchanging it for the black c-pawn (the basic underlying idea of 1...c5), but black will have ...d5 as a response and be fine. So, you accept the pawn with 2...cxb4 (there is no good reason not to - do not play in fear), and now white has to chose between 3. a3, a quasi-Volga gambit in reverse, or go for 3. d4. Both moves are met with 3...d5 by black. Black will end up with quicker development and a better pawn structure and should have an advantage going into the middlegame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10233" LastActivityDate="2017-01-07T15:23:36.170" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16319" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16306" CreationDate="2017-01-07T15:50:41.097" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You might want to post your best game here (cut and paste the pgn is sufficient). There are many different stages of 'beginner' in chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyways, what I suggest you do is to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) Keep playing every day. Experience is king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) Learn basic opening principles - you do not want to get caught out with your king in the centre, your pieces sitting on the first rank, or your rooks dusting off in the corners.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) learn all the basic mating patterns - what good is being up two pieces if you cannot finish him off?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4) Do chess tactics daily, without fail - &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess24.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chess24&lt;/a&gt; has a pretty good chess tactics trainer and it adjusts to your level. You will lose games because of tactics more than anything else. You will win all your games because of tactics. I've been playing since 1973, and to this day, I do tactics every day.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5) record and review all your games (if you are playing online you are all set - all servers record the game for you), and maybe once a week or as frequently as you see fit, review your losses and understand where you went wrong. Make some friends online on your chess server with people who are better than you and ask them to review some of the games with you. This is the most single valuable thing you can do to improve your game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;6) Ignore all opening advice and play what you like. If you fail in the opening, understand why and fix it (books, better players, online resources, chess engines, etc.) If you really want to develop your chess openings at such a nubile stage, then &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessable.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chessable&lt;/a&gt; is a good place to start and it's free, but unnecessary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;7) acquire a basic chess strategy book - someone mentioned Ludek Pachman's book but that might be too advanced, I think. You may grow into it, however. Jeremy Silman's Imbalances book(s) are popular. There are many.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;8) Lastly mentioned, but not lastly important, learn the basic endgames necessary. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Good Luck and Good Chess!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10233" LastActivityDate="2017-01-07T15:50:41.097" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16320" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-01-07T18:36:29.177" Score="0" ViewCount="206" Body="&lt;p&gt;After a brief study over the exchange variation in the Alekhine's defence, On the fifth move Black can choose an extremely sharp line with e5 but i couldn't find it anywhere explained as either a bad or good move or even played.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12179" LastEditorUserId="12179" LastEditDate="2017-01-07T18:47:39.937" LastActivityDate="2017-02-04T21:48:28.587" Title="Alekhine's defence: Exchange variation 5.e5?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;alekhines-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16322" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16323" CreationDate="2017-01-07T22:28:07.273" Score="0" ViewCount="271" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have heard numerous times that stated that India was the inventors of the original chess. I have also heard that the origin was in the Middle East. Sometimes I heard that the origin was in Arabia. As I have heard many things I wanted to know the right answer. If there is no right answer, please give the closest guess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12176" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-01-08T10:16:37.037" LastActivityDate="2020-08-13T04:17:26.017" Title="What's the origin of chess?" Tags="&lt;history&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16323" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16322" CreationDate="2017-01-08T15:05:57.817" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I agree with the comment that the question is too broad.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, in the spirit of helpfulness, these pages:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/blog/jim_ostler/history-of-chess12&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.chess.com/blog/jim_ostler/history-of-chess12&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.tradgames.org.uk/games/Chess.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.tradgames.org.uk/games/Chess.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessmaniac.com/the-etymology-of-chess/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chessmaniac.com/the-etymology-of-chess/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.quora.com/Who-invented-chess-and-how&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.quora.com/Who-invented-chess-and-how&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessdryad.com/articles/wcc/transcribed/origin.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chessdryad.com/articles/wcc/transcribed/origin.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;may be useful in addition to Wikipedia.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11946" LastActivityDate="2017-01-08T15:05:57.817" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16324" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16325" CreationDate="2017-01-08T19:04:07.693" Score="4" ViewCount="382" Body="&lt;p&gt;I played a blitz game against a 1900 player which I won. I'm interested in this position, with me as Black to move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The computer recommended to take the bishop, but I didn't want to take it immediately, because I don't want to give their rook an open file. I thought if they want to take my rook, they better do it with the g pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;r2q2k1/2p2ppp/2p2n2/p7/P2pr3/1BB2P2/1PP3PP/3Q1RK1 b - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I played Rh4 to keep an eye on the pawn and if they were willing to kick it by playing g3, they'll end up with a weakened position. They replied with g3 as expected. And here I could take the bishop or the h pawn then the bishop, which is what I did.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Had I followed what the computer said, I would have been up 2.5 or 3 points in computer evaluation. What I did got me half a point to 0.8, which is strange, hence I'm asking this question. The computer didn't even bother moving the rook to the h-file.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the position, what would be the best approach?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1105" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-12-16T16:27:57.920" LastActivityDate="2020-12-16T16:27:57.920" Title="Was I right to capture the pawn in this position?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;middlegame&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="16325" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16324" CreationDate="2017-01-08T19:55:06.170" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;N.B. This answer is without the aid of a computer.&lt;/strong&gt; Here I compare 1...Rh4 to 1...dxc3&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;1...Rh4&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The material difference in the given position is exchange + pawn vs. minor piece. This is a difference of 3 pawns. After 1...Rh4, white can win a pawn with 2. Bxa5. On paper this is now a difference of 2 pawns, but computers tend to overvalue pawn structures, so is probably penalizing black for the doubled, isolated c-pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;1...dxc3&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think that Black is better after this sequence, because:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Black will soon be up 2 pawns&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Black has better placed pieces&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Black has the long term strategy of making the light square bishop a spectator by placing most of the pawns on dark squares&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;r2q2k1/2p2ppp/2p2n2/p7/P2pr3/1BB2P2/1PPQ2PP/5RK1 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... dxc3 2. Qxd8+ Rxd8 3. fxe4 cxb2 4. e5 Nd5 5. Rb1 Nc3 6. Rxb2 Re8&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2017-01-08T19:55:06.170" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16326" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-01-08T22:09:58.977" Score="3" ViewCount="3054" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/JxnzE.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can there be two bishops on White squares? If not, can my queen be captured and then be promoted so I can win the game?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I reallly. don't know what to do because I think you cannot that have two bishops on White squares when the bishop is the only captured piece.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12188" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-29T13:04:44.447" LastActivityDate="2020-08-29T13:04:44.447" Title="Can there be two bishops on white tiles? If not, can my queen be capture and then promoted so I can win the game?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;pawn-promotion&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="8" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="16327" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16326" CreationDate="2017-01-09T00:39:19.420" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;11684's comment is correct.  You can have 2 White bishops if you want. It is possible for you to have 9 Queens, if you want. You can't have:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A king&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A pawn&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Per Brian, a piece of your opponent's color&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2017-01-09T12:50:46.540" LastActivityDate="2017-01-09T12:50:46.540" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16328" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16326" CreationDate="2017-01-09T01:42:12.920" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your only problem here is logistical. You can promote your pawn to any piece except the King, even if that means you have two bishops on the same colour squares, or two (or more) queens on the board; but according to the official rules, you must replace it physically with a piece of the correct shape and colour. What to do if no such piece is to hand?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In a tournament, the organisers will make sure to have spare pieces available for such contingencies; but in a home game, improvisation is the norm. For instance, if one of your Rooks has been captured, you can turn it upside down and call it a Queen. In this case, you can just say &quot;that pawn is now a Queen&quot;, which ends the game immediately with checkmate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12189" LastEditorUserId="12189" LastEditDate="2017-01-09T13:21:16.050" LastActivityDate="2017-01-09T13:21:16.050" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16329" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16322" CreationDate="2017-01-09T06:32:04.127" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;agree..broad ?..info for fun. There are 13 different claims to the origin of chess. No proof. Earliest documentation--600 A.D. Chaturanga - 4 sided game in what is now India. In this authors opinion chess was originally a 2 player game changed to a 4 player game then back to a 2 sided game. Trivia-the one peice that has not changed apperance or move pattern-knight..last major rule changes....Q &amp;amp; O-O..France 1400s.   Source &quot;A Short History of Chess&quot; by Henry A. Davidson m.d.1949&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12190" LastActivityDate="2017-01-09T06:32:04.127" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16330" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-01-09T13:53:55.580" Score="-3" ViewCount="862" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to know how I can get advantages in a chess game and what the different types of advantages are, e.g. space and positional advantages?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12192" LastEditorUserId="10867" LastEditDate="2017-01-09T21:25:58.237" LastActivityDate="2017-04-17T19:33:24.483" Title="Advantages in chess game" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16331" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16330" CreationDate="2017-01-09T14:08:36.963" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The question isn't very clear...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An advantage in chess could be many different things:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Space advantages by the pawn structure&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Pieces mobility/activity&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Pieces coordination&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Strong and weak square&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Pawn structure (isolated pawn, double or tripled pawn, majority or minority, backward pawn on open and/or close line)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;King safety&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Good or bad pieces&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Etc...&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are many forms of advantages, and I certainly forgot some...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And one way to get an advantage is to build on the very small advantages you have in your position at the end of the opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, in the main line of the King's Indian defense, white has space advantages but the king is under serious pressure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I hope this helps a bit...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7357" LastEditorUserId="11202" LastEditDate="2017-04-17T19:33:24.483" LastActivityDate="2017-04-17T19:33:24.483" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16332" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2017-01-09T17:45:33.560" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-01-09T17:45:33.560" LastActivityDate="2017-01-09T17:45:33.560" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16333" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2017-01-09T17:45:33.560" Score="0" Body="Questions related to chess or chess players in films (UK English) / movies (US English) or television series." OwnerUserId="10867" LastEditorUserId="10867" LastEditDate="2017-01-10T04:45:25.827" LastActivityDate="2017-01-10T04:45:25.827" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16334" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16910" CreationDate="2017-01-09T23:11:13.107" Score="5" ViewCount="391" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know how the pieces move and understand basics, like forks and pins. Now I am looking for additional tutorials in English. So far, I've only found this book: &quot;Introduction to Chinese Chess (XiangQi) for International Chess Players&quot;.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can you please suggest video tutorials or books in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12177" LastActivityDate="2017-04-10T23:31:29.223" Title="XiangQi (Chinese chess) textbook or video tutorial" Tags="&lt;books&gt;&lt;xiangqi&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16335" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16306" CreationDate="2017-01-10T06:21:52.660" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;1)Judgment and Planning in Chess by Max Euwe&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2)The Chess Player's Battle Manual by Nigel Davies&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The above books would be fantastic if you can read chess notation&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11046" LastActivityDate="2017-01-10T06:21:52.660" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16336" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16330" CreationDate="2017-01-10T18:19:55.977" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;These all could be considered potential imbalances in the Silman universe. Because, you know, that is what chess really is all about.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10233" LastActivityDate="2017-01-10T18:19:55.977" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16337" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16324" CreationDate="2017-01-10T21:46:17.217" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You reasoning for not taking on c3 is flawed, as the Rook will end up on the b-file after exchanges and cxb2, suffering inactivity to get back the black b-pawn. Bad_Bishop's answer seems accurate to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After 6.Rxb2 then Rd1+ 7. Kf2 Rd4 (threat Nd1+) and -+. White is busted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10233" LastEditorUserId="10233" LastEditDate="2017-01-13T13:56:07.937" LastActivityDate="2017-01-13T13:56:07.937" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16339" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16609" CreationDate="2017-01-11T00:42:01.947" Score="4" ViewCount="937" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have spent around half an hour searching Google and I have not found what I am looking for -perhaps I did recognise it as what I needed if I had come across it. I have just recently downloaded SCID and decided to add all of my games from Chess.com as a starter to a database. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After combining all the separate PGN files into one, I used the utility that comes with SCID to convert it into the SCID database format. Along with the output of that utility is a file -.err format- of errors -if any- that occurred during conversion. While the number of errors I got is not much, it is large enough for it be a complicated process if I went through and deleted the games by hand. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An example from the first three lines of the error file (1 game):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;my_games.pgn:(game 383, line 10658) Error: Invalid FEN: rnqkrbbn/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNQKRBBN w EAea - 0 1&#xA;&#xA;my_games.pgn:(game 383, line 10658) Error reading tag: [FEN &quot;rnqkrbbn/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNQKRBBN w EAea - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;my_games.pgn:(game 383, line 10663) Error reading move in game graffitivisuals - walidmujahid, 2012: Ng3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a utility out there where I could simply pass my PGN file though it and specify the game number -multiple- to delete. I am still new to SCID, so perhaps did I miss the fact that SCID has something that can help with this matter?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any guidance on this would be most appreciated. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Post Script: GitHub was among the places that searched for such a utility, though, without fruition. If, perhaps, there is a script that comes remotely close to doing what I described, or perhaps even does exactly what I need, any guidance towards that script would also be most appreciated. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user12209" LastActivityDate="2017-04-02T12:27:50.763" Title="Deleting multiple games from a large PGN file" Tags="&lt;pgn&gt;&lt;scid&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16340" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16341" CreationDate="2017-01-11T06:10:58.963" Score="4" ViewCount="989" Body="&lt;p&gt;5 rounds of a Swiss Style Tournament passed and a person who was second in the table quit (withdrew). What should we do? What about points others earned wining him? What about people who lost against him? And what about his future games?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12187" LastEditorUserId="12187" LastEditDate="2017-01-11T11:25:07.870" LastActivityDate="2017-01-11T13:40:53.523" Title="What happens when someone quits in the middle of a swiss tournament?" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16341" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16340" CreationDate="2017-01-11T10:34:16.927" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=84&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;General handling rules for Swiss Tournaments&lt;/a&gt; published on the FIDE website merely say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol start=&quot;5&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Players who withdraw from the tournament will no longer be paired. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The rules don't say that he/she can't be included in the final ranking (unless the additional rules for the tournament say the contrary, I suppose). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The points that his/her opponents won should remain valid. (How to deal with ties between opponents in the final ranking - that is unclear to me.) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is not clear why leaving a tournament should affect a player's future games, unless there are regulations that apply to a cycle of tournaments. For example, for the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fide.com/FIDE/handbook/FIDE_GP_Regulations_2016_2017.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Regulations for the 2016-2017 FIDE World Chess Grand-Prix Series&lt;/a&gt; contain the following rules:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;4.5 If a player withdraws from an event after completing 50% or more of the games, the rest of his games are lost by default. Unless a withdrawal is justified by serious injury or illness, he will forfeit his right to the prize for the tournament and be excluded from the rest of the World Chess Championship cycle. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;18.3 Should a player withdraw from a tournament or the Grand Prix Series without proper justification to the WCOC, then an automatic penalty of €5,000 will be imposed by FIDE on the player and the player may be excluded from the next World Championship cycle. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For &lt;em&gt;official FIDE competitions&lt;/em&gt; (not all tournaments fit this category), the following rules from the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessarbiters-bg.info/help/docs/05%20FIDE%20Tournament%20Rules%20_%20%20last%202011.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Tournament Rules&lt;/a&gt; (version from 2011) also apply: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;5 (c) If a player withdraws, is excluded from a competition after the drawing of lots but before the beginning of the first round, or there are additional entries, the announced pairings shall remain unaltered. Additional pairings or changes may be made at the discretion of the CA in consultation with the players directly involved, but only if these minimise amendments to pairings that have already been announced.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;9 (b) When a player withdraws or is expelled from a round-robin tournament, the effect shall be as follows:&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;  1. If a player has completed less than 50 % of his games, his score shall remain in the tournament table (for rating and historical purposes), but the points scored by him or against him shall not be counted in the final standings. The unplayed games of the player are indicated by (-) in the tournament table, and those of his opponents by (+). If neither player is present this will be indicated by two (-).&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;  2. If a player has completed at least 50 % of his games, his score shall remain in the tournament table and shall be counted in the final standings. The unplayed games of the player are shown as indicated as above.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;  (c) If a player withdraws from a Swiss-system tournament, the points scored by him and by his opponents shall remain in the cross-table for ranking purposes. Only games that are actually played shall be rated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10867" LastEditorUserId="10867" LastEditDate="2017-01-11T13:40:53.523" LastActivityDate="2017-01-11T13:40:53.523" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16342" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16324" CreationDate="2017-01-11T12:41:56.707" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, actually it's hard to spot this line without using computer assistance, so your choice in blitz game seems reasonable (except your opponent should have played Bxa5 which gives you a material advantage of pure exchange only).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;r2q2k1/2p2ppp/2p2n2/p7/P2pr3/1BB2P2/1PPQ2PP/5RK1 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... dxc3 2. Qxd8+ Rxd8 3. fxe4 cxb2 4. e5 Nd5 5. Rb1 Nc3 6. Rxb2 Rd1+! 7. Kf2 Rd4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now Black threat with Nd1+, so they win an extra tempo to play Kf8 protecting against White's attack on 8th horizontal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus Black keep their main idea to play Rb4 and c5-c4 winning material. The only way for White to save bishop is to play Ba2 and Bb1 which puts White's pieces into absolute zugzwang. So this ending is a total win for Black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12071" LastActivityDate="2017-01-11T12:41:56.707" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16343" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16326" CreationDate="2017-01-11T21:24:43.460" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Good answers here already, but I don't feel like they actually answer the question(s).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Can there be two bishops on white tiles?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, there can. You can promote your pawn on g8 to a Bishop. Luckily you can use the dark-squared Bishop that has been captured, ready at hand at the top of your photo, for this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tony Ennis has summed up the only restrictions on promotion in his answer. If you still had both Bishops on the board, TonyK's answer explains how to deal with that logistically, so even in that case you could've had one dark-squared Bishop and two light-squared Bishops on the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If not can I get my queen killed and change my pawn to a queen and win the game&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This question has two parts/misconceptions, I believe.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First of all, you need to promote the pawn immediately as it reaches the eighth rank. As soon as it set foot on g8, it must be promoted before your turn ends, and it can't stay a pawn on g8. Therefore, you can't get your Queen captured/&quot;killed&quot; and &lt;em&gt;then&lt;/em&gt; promote your pawn afterwards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Secondly, just like you can have two light-squared Bishops on the board, you can also have two Queens on the board. If I understand you correctly, you're proposing that you sacrifice your Queen in order to be able to promote the pawn to a new Queen. This is not necessary; you can just promote to a second Queen right away. Again, like TonyK said, the only problem with that is logistics: If you don't have a second Queen piece at hand, stop the clock and look for one, or use an upturned Rook, or something else. Seeing as promoting to a Queen there immediately wins the game by mate, however, it's probably not necessary to do that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2590" LastActivityDate="2017-01-11T21:24:43.460" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16344" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16352" CreationDate="2017-01-11T21:25:16.213" Score="6" ViewCount="626" Body="&lt;p&gt;How does the winning percentage (white win/draw/black win) in chess 960 (Fischer random) compare to that of regular chess? Are there more white wins, fewer draws,...?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastEditorUserId="4399" LastEditDate="2021-04-19T11:48:53.947" LastActivityDate="2021-04-19T11:48:53.947" Title="Winning percentage in chess 960" Tags="&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;statistics&gt;&lt;chess960&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16345" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16292" CreationDate="2017-01-11T22:47:02.503" Score="-3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Certainly! IF you truly just mean.... &quot;in theory, are there other methods to code a chess engine?&quot;... Then, yes!!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance.... one could store a copy of every possible position in chess (a huge number, I know), and have an evaluation for each one. Then, it's answer to any given question (i.e., &quot;best move for white in X position&quot;), will be known immediately just by looking up that board. Is the current state of computer hardware such that this would make any sense? Nah. But you didn't ask that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12219" LastActivityDate="2017-01-11T22:47:02.503" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16346" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16339" CreationDate="2017-01-12T00:47:36.113" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Maybe use the free Chessbase Reader and import/open the file. That might work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10233" LastActivityDate="2017-01-12T00:47:36.113" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16347" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16348" CreationDate="2017-01-12T05:01:24.293" Score="1" ViewCount="150" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm thinking of entering a chess tournament, and finding it very hard to decode some of the jargon in the tournament listings. The tournament I'm considering entering has 4-day, 3-day, and 2-day options, and I can't figure out how this works regarding the possibility of winning 1st place in your section. Can someone give a general run-down of what the consequences are of joining the 2-day option vs the 3- or 4-day? Can you still win the tournament? How could that work, given that you cannot possibly play some of the other people in your same section but who chose the 3- or 4-day option, since the time controls are listed as being different?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11799" LastActivityDate="2017-01-12T05:27:04.573" Title="Different number of day options in tournaments" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16348" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16347" CreationDate="2017-01-12T05:27:04.573" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's my understanding that all of the players, regardless of whether they started in the 2, 3 or 4-day options, merge on the final day of play. Playing fewer days means you will play faster time controls in the early rounds, so that everyone plays the same number of games, up to the final day's rounds, which are played at the slower time control. The winner is determined like in any other Swiss, by who has the most points at the end of the tournament.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9025" LastActivityDate="2017-01-12T05:27:04.573" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16349" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-01-12T09:08:27.103" Score="9" ViewCount="524" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recently started playing 1. e4.  Since black has a big choice of replies, I would like to learn one opening at a time. If black plays something I haven't learned yet, I would like to resort to a King's Indian setup (pawns on d3, e4, g3, bishop on g2 and knight on f3) which I am familiar with and enjoy playing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Obviously this backup plan does not work with all of black's replies (e.g. not with the Scandinavian 1. e4 d5). With most others it should be ok-ish, but perhaps there are also slight differences.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is: Against which openings is the KIA setup not all that great? Or alternatively, which openings should I learn first so that I don't have to resort to the KIA backup plan?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastEditorUserId="11629" LastEditDate="2017-01-12T13:35:34.823" LastActivityDate="2017-01-13T20:17:02.530" Title="1. e4 with backup plan" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;1.e4&gt;&lt;kings-indian&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16351" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2368" CreationDate="2017-01-12T10:46:49.807" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;This &lt;em&gt;particular&lt;/em&gt; position gives white the option of going 4.e4, transposing to a fianchetto Pirc. White doesn't go for c2-c4 in the Pirc, making it quite different from the King's Indian, and it may be that black isn't prepared for that. Also this move order is quite flexible for white because he still has choices for both his knights.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's how white got black out of his preparation in a famous game by Benko vs Fischer in the Curacao Candidates, 1962:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Curacao Candidates&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Willemstad CUW&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;1962.05.02&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;1962.05.02&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;1&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Pal Benko&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Robert James Fischer&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;A00&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;80&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. g3 Nf6 2. Bg2 g6 3. e4 d6 4. d4 Bg7 5. Ne2 O-O 6. O-O e5&#xA;7. Nbc3 c6 8. a4 Nbd7 9. a5 exd4 10. Nxd4 Nc5 11. h3 Re8&#xA;12. Re1 Nfd7 13. Be3 Qc7 14. f4 Rb8 15. Qd2 b5 16. axb6 axb6&#xA;17. b4 Ne6 18. b5 Nxd4 19. Bxd4 Bxd4+ 20. Qxd4 c5 21. Qd2 Bb7&#xA;22. Rad1 Re6 23. e5 Bxg2 24. Kxg2 Qb7+ 25. Kf2 Rd8 26. exd6&#xA;Nf6 27. Rxe6 fxe6 28. Qe3 Kf7 29. Qf3 Qb8 30. Ne4 Nxe4+&#xA;31. Qxe4 Rd7 32. Qc6 Qd8 33. Kf3 Kg7 34. g4 e5 35. fxe5 Rf7+&#xA;36. Kg2 Qh4 37. Rf1 Rxf1 38. Kxf1 Qxh3+ 39. Qg2 Qe3 40. Qe2&#xA;Qh3+ 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So that's something to look out for, it's not automatically a problem but it's different. Black can prevent this by playing an early d7-d5, but then it's not a King's Indian anymore either.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2017-01-12T10:46:49.807" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16352" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16344" CreationDate="2017-01-12T10:54:53.647" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;The CCRL 40/4 FRC engine competition that has run through almost 200,000 games running night and day come up with these stats:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess960 FRC based off 200,000 or so games:&#xA;White wins: 80'914 (41.6%)&#xA;Black wins: 70'840 (36.5%)&#xA;Draws: 42'546 (21.9%)&#xA;White score: 52.6%&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.computerchess.org.uk/ccrl/404FRC/rating_list_all.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.computerchess.org.uk/ccrl/404FRC/rating_list_all.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Standard chess based off 1.4 million games:&#xA;White wins: 547'582 (39.2%)&#xA;Black wins: 447'252 (32.0%)&#xA;Draws: 403'047 (28.8%)&#xA;White score: 53.6%&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you can see, there are significantly fewer draws among the engines and slightly more black wins. These days, the top engines are playing the Chess960 opening fairly well so the stats aren't completely useless. As for top quality human games, there are less than 2000 on the records which is way too small a sample.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A rudimentary case study was carried out to find out if there were any really unfair start positions in Chess960, but none were found. Each of the 960 starts offers players something reasonable. Here is where it was done:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chess960jungle.blogspot.com.au/search/label/SP%20analysis&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://chess960jungle.blogspot.com.au/search/label/SP%20analysis&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can't post more links as references because the site won't let me. The problem with Chess960 right now is that most of it is being played online at blitz time controls which is useless for statistics.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12223" LastActivityDate="2017-01-12T10:54:53.647" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16353" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16349" CreationDate="2017-01-12T11:55:12.250" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Depends on your style somewhat. I'm not sure I would like using KID setup against black playing e7-e5 at some point. I think the best openings for this backup plan are Sicilian and French, where e7-e5 is ranging from dubious to impossible. And for sure these two are theoretically the most heavy. In systems like Caro, Pirc, Alekhine I would prefer better backup plan. In e4e5 I would go for d3 Italian instead. But I can imagine some players like bishop on g2 even in e4e5 structure and then there is only Skandinavian left. Even against that I once employed 2.d3 but it is not very good.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11609" LastActivityDate="2017-01-12T11:55:12.250" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16355" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-01-12T12:55:26.083" Score="2" ViewCount="163" Body="&lt;p&gt;As suggested, I have reworded my question. Hope this is more appropriate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/MTC1b.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/MTC1b.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Picture of the King&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;  &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/D3lGX.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/D3lGX.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Picture of the Knight&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many years ago (circa 1988/89) I had commissioned and made a chess set of key characters from the American Independence (American, French and British figures).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a one-off (the casts were broken after use) and is hand crafted/painted, made from solid pewter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have a data sheet for the set (albeit photocopy quality) detailing the pieces. This set has never been used so the condition is mint.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was collecting sets for quite a few years and did intend to display this one but never got round to it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What I am after is advice from the forum as to what to do? I have stopped playing and collecting a long while ago. It's not that I am not a fan of chess but lack a regular playing partner and work consumes so much of my time (particularly when travelling), I can never seem to get the time to even set them on display on the few boards I have.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sensible comments appreciated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;p.s. for information/interest I have uploaded pictures of the set I have described in this post&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12226" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-06-04T07:42:06.940" LastActivityDate="2018-06-04T07:42:06.940" Title="I have an unusual chess set and am seeking advice" Tags="&lt;chess-set&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="10" FavoriteCount="0" ClosedDate="2017-02-17T14:44:27.223" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16356" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16359" CreationDate="2017-01-12T15:41:14.137" Score="6" ViewCount="2832" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have some concern when playing King's Gambit as white but it's interesting. After:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 e5&#xA;2.f4 exf4&#xA;3.Nf3 Be7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the best move for white?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12230" LastEditorUserId="4183" LastEditDate="2017-01-25T03:48:23.250" LastActivityDate="2017-01-25T03:48:23.250" Title="The best way to continue King's Gambit Accepted as White after 3 ... Be7" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;kings-gambit&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="7" FavoriteCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16357" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16355" CreationDate="2017-01-12T15:45:26.523" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Amazon, ebay, and top local online shop in your country&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12230" LastActivityDate="2017-01-12T15:45:26.523" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16358" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16356" CreationDate="2017-01-12T15:54:51.610" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this position, 4. Bc4 is played the most. It continues White's development, and 4. Bc4 makes room for the king on f1 (which isn't a bad square, at least not any more than h4 is a bad square for the black bishop). E.g. after 4. Nc3, Black can play the nasty 4... Bh4+, forcing the king to move to e2. The calm 4. Be2 works as well, but I feel it is less in the spirit of the King's Gambit, which is an aggressive opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-01-12T16:01:18.313" LastActivityDate="2017-01-12T16:01:18.313" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16359" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16356" CreationDate="2017-01-12T15:55:40.380" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;The black threat of Bh4+ is not really ones, white should play Bc4 in this position. Releasing the f1 square for the king after the check on h4. After the check white cannot castle anymore but the bishop on h4 is not very happy, black can't play the g8 Knight and need to spend one more tempo on retreating the bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If black don't give the check, white could just occupy the center with the d4 pawn, castle and capture back the f4 pawn with a nice game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7357" LastActivityDate="2017-01-12T15:55:40.380" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16360" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16385" CreationDate="2017-01-12T16:43:18.547" Score="-2" ViewCount="126" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have a doubt ... wat if in a 5 member team during tournaments 3 of the team members fail to turn up , can no 4 and 5 promote themselves to board 1 and 2?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12231" LastActivityDate="2017-01-14T23:41:31.967" Title="Chess team tournament regulation query" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16361" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16362" CreationDate="2017-01-12T17:30:16.553" Score="2" ViewCount="3519" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm beginner chess player who like aggressive play. I often counter e4 with e6(french defence) or c5 (sicilian defence). But I still don't know what's detail pros and cons with these openings. Can anyone explain me? Thank you very much for your answer. I appreciate that&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12230" LastActivityDate="2017-01-21T14:12:45.930" Title="French defence vs Sicilian defence" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;&lt;french-defense&gt;&lt;aggressive-play&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16362" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16361" CreationDate="2017-01-12T18:45:54.500" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The French and the Sicilian are almost as different openings as you could get as a response to 1. e4. The French (especially the Advance Variation, which is the most common among amateur play) tends to lead to closed positions, that is, positions clogged up with stable pawn chains where long-term maneuvering and strategy prevail. The Sicilian (as much as there is a &quot;single&quot; Sicilian, seeing as the multitudinous Sicilian systems can range from quiet and defensive [cf. the Sheveningen] to dangerous and aggressive [cf. the Dragon Variation, or the Sveshnikov]) tends to lead to open or semi-open positions, and the tide of play may shift within just a couple of moves owing to tactics.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's really not much to be said in terms of meaningful, general, and objective &quot;pros&quot; and &quot;cons&quot; of the two opening systems. I would just study very briefly the theory behind the first few moves of each, play several games with them, and decide for yourself which you like to play. They're both super-solid in principle and played all the way up to the GM level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(If you say you like aggressive play, I tend to think you'd like the Sicilian as such. The French is still among my favorites, however, because as Black you're constantly making White react to your threats of winning small but significant positional or material gains whilst in the opening. As a beginner I found games almost played themselves and if White wasn't keen on defense I would obtain the upper hand.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11518" LastEditorUserId="11518" LastEditDate="2017-01-12T18:54:14.873" LastActivityDate="2017-01-12T18:54:14.873" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16363" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="510" CreationDate="2017-01-13T02:04:53.017" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think &lt;a href=&quot;http://lichess.org&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Lichess&lt;/a&gt; training do just that. It's software take a game position from it's database and challenge you to pick the best one based on Stockfish analysis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12237" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T16:03:42.333" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T16:03:42.333" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="16364" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16376" CreationDate="2017-01-13T02:48:23.967" Score="4" ViewCount="4122" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm a beginning chess player and still learning the opening. If white's first move is 1.d4 and black counters with d5 (closed or semi-closed games), and white's second move is c4 bringing the Queen's Gambit, black counters with dxc4. What are the pros and cons for black? Thank you for your answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12230" LastEditorUserId="11202" LastEditDate="2017-05-01T05:05:30.713" LastActivityDate="2017-05-01T05:05:30.713" Title="Pros and Cons for black in Queen's Gambit Accepted" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;queens-gambit&gt;&lt;queens-gambit-accepted&gt;&lt;closed-position&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16365" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16356" CreationDate="2017-01-13T03:59:28.633" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;4.Bc4 is a good move here. The line usually worried about, the bishop check 4...Bh4+, often leads to a line with strong, aggressive chances for White. Sacrificing pawns and using black's pawn for protection, 4...Bh4+ 5. g3 fxg3 6. 0-0 gxh2 7. Kh1 gives's White's king surprisingly strong safety as well as piece development and attacking chances.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12239" LastEditorUserId="12239" LastEditDate="2017-01-13T04:10:34.120" LastActivityDate="2017-01-13T04:10:34.120" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16366" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-01-13T07:16:16.917" Score="-2" ViewCount="255" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is the game I played which belongs to &lt;code&gt;ECO C34&lt;/code&gt;. I would like to know Check NxC3+ implications. I couldn't cut the Knight. In which are the ECO games this NxC3+ can arise. Thanks for your comments and analysis in advance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is the PGN.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Live Chess&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Chess.com&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2017.01.12&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;anandsadasivam&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;keviano7&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;C34&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;643&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;667&quot;]&#xA;[TimeControl &quot;600&quot;]&#xA;[Termination &quot;keviano7 won by checkmate&quot;]&#xA;[CurrentPosition &quot;rn3k2/ppB2bp1/8/3p1B2/1b1P2P1/7P/PPP5/R2Kq3 w - - 0 20&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 {[%clk 0:09:59]} e5 {[%clk 0:09:50]} 2.f4 {[%clk 0:09:53]} exf4 {[%clk 0:09:13]} 3.Nf3 {[%clk 0:09:43]} Nf6 {[%clk 0:09:04]} 4.Nc3 {[%clk 0:09:35]} Bb4 {[%clk 0:08:51]} 5.d4 {[%clk 0:09:28]} O-O {[%clk 0:08:43]} 6.Bxf4 {[%clk 0:09:25]} Re8 {[%clk 0:08:28]} 7.Bc4 {[%clk 0:09:17]} Nxe4 {[%clk 0:08:20]} 8.Ng5 {[%clk 0:09:06]} Nxc3+ {[%clk 0:08:16]} 9.Kd2 {[%clk 0:08:00]} Nxd1+ {[%clk 0:08:11]} 10.Kxd1 {[%clk 0:07:59]} d5 {[%clk 0:07:22]} 11.Bd3 {[%clk 0:07:32]} f6 {[%clk 0:06:53]} 12.Bxh7+ {[%clk 0:07:27]} Kf8 {[%clk 0:06:36]} 13.Nf3 {[%clk 0:07:07]} Bg4 {[%clk 0:06:08]} 14.h3 {[%clk 0:06:27]} Bh5 {[%clk 0:05:37]} 15.g4 {[%clk 0:06:18]} Bf7 {[%clk 0:04:41]} 16.Nh4 {[%clk 0:06:09]} f5 {[%clk 0:04:31]} 17.Bxf5 {[%clk 0:05:59]} Qxh4 {[%clk 0:04:22]} 18.Bxc7 {[%clk 0:05:29]} Re1+ {[%clk 0:04:09]} 19.Rxe1 {[%clk 0:05:17]} Qxe1# {[%clk 0:04:05]} &#xA;0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For reference here is the FEN.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;rn3k2/ppB2bp1/8/3p1B2/1b1P2P1/7P/PPP5/R2Kq3 w - - 0 20&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9229" LastEditorUserId="9229" LastEditDate="2017-01-23T16:13:41.237" LastActivityDate="2017-01-23T16:41:24.713" Title="Check by Knight NxC3+ Move Implications" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;kings-gambit&gt;&lt;eco&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16367" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16366" CreationDate="2017-01-13T09:17:00.337" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am not sure what you are asking. This is not a question of any eco or opening but rather of tactics which you were missing. After Nxc3+ (discovered check), you lose the queen and basically the game. There are two main themes in this game: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;pin&lt;/strong&gt;: of the knight on c3 by the bishop on b4; Therefore the pawn on e4 is not protected anymore as you cannot move the knight&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;discovered check&lt;/strong&gt;: These are in 99% of cases deadly as the piece which moves out of the way (in your case the knight on e4) can capture a piece  or attack a stronger piece (in your example both happens as black first captured on c3 and thereby attacked the queen on d1), while you have to deal with the check first and cannot recapture or secure your stronger piece.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you practice tactics (which you should particularly as a beginner playing an opening like the king's gambit which is very tactical) you will be more aware of these themes and will be able to avoid them in the future.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should have prevented this earlier. For instance 6. Bxf4 seems unnecessary as this pawn would be very difficult to protect for black and would fall sooner or later anyway. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Instead I'd suggest 6. Bd3 and castling as soon as possible in order to get out of the pin of the c3 knight and also out of any problems on the e-file as in your game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastEditorUserId="11629" LastEditDate="2017-01-13T09:25:43.410" LastActivityDate="2017-01-13T09:25:43.410" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16368" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16364" CreationDate="2017-01-13T09:44:15.900" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you are a beginner, studying tactics, general opening principles and some strategy first will be more useful than learning any opening. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically the idea of the queen's gambit for white is to remove a central pawn (the one on d5) and then to occupy the center (general opening principle).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As with any opening theory it does not stop at the second move, dxc4, so it is difficult to make a general statement. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black has won a pawn, but it is not easy to  keep it without concessions, specifically if you want to protect it you will have to put the queenside pawns all (or most) on light squares (a6, c6, b5, c4) which in turn weakens the dark squares and in many cases also locks in the light squared bishop on c8. So in many cases black is happy to return the pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2017-01-13T09:44:15.900" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16370" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16366" CreationDate="2017-01-13T14:12:33.867" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;After 4...Bb4 5. e5 makes Black look scattered. White mobilizes nicely after 5...Nh5 6.Nd5 Nc6 7.Bb5 Be7 8. 0-0 0-0 9. d4. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The problem with 5. d4 is it makes good on the Bb4 pin on the Nc3.  5... Nxe4 is possible immediately, instead of ...0-0. But even so, as in the game, after 5... 0-0, 6. Bxf4 is simply not paying attention to the e-pawn, and as suggested already, 6. Bd3, 6. Qd3, or even 6. e5 are better moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tactically speaking, you should shy away from the King's gambit unless your tactics are tight and fast. Dropping a queen by move 9 tells me this is not so. Play to your strengths.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10233" LastActivityDate="2017-01-13T14:12:33.867" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16371" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16364" CreationDate="2017-01-13T14:26:52.533" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As was said already: &quot;If you are a beginner, studying tactics, general opening principles and some strategy first will be more useful than learning any opening.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would add End Games to that important list, and modify the opening principles to include you being able to play &quot;the first 4-6 moves as black against anything comfortably&quot;. This is not learning opening theory - this is your anti-surprise, beginner's opening preparation, and will give you a starting point to figuring out what you like without getting smeared off the board. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For that, check out &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessable.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chessable&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When a beginner complains &quot;I hate playing against the Sicilian&quot; my answer to that is &quot;well, what have you done to prepare against that?&quot;, and usually the answer is &quot;I hope they play the Ruy Lopez&quot; or &quot;I play 1.d4&quot;, both insufficient.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Seek general opening advice from better players. Maybe invest is a couple beginner books like &lt;a href=&quot;https://smile.amazon.com/Winning-Chess-Openings-Everyman/dp/1857443497/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;amp;qid=1484317514&amp;amp;sr=8-1&amp;amp;keywords=Winning%20Chess%20Openings&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Winning Chess Openings&lt;/a&gt;, which is right in your wheelhouse.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Learn to walk before you run, and play often.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10233" LastActivityDate="2017-01-13T14:26:52.533" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16372" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16349" CreationDate="2017-01-13T14:38:08.573" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;When you play 1.e4, you should have a plan against:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;d5 - Scandanavian&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Nf6 - Alekhine's&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;d6 - Pirc&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;c6 - Caro-Kann&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;g6 - Modern&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;c5 - Sicilian&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;e5 - King's Pawn&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;e6 - French&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Nc6 and other garbage.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would say you can go for a King's Indian Attack setup against all of them except the Scandanavian and the King's Pawn openings. You just need to know where to place your pieces based on your opponents opening choices and what pawn structures you want to achieve against them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, Scandanavian and 1...e5 it is not so great against. Everything else you can make do with minor tweaks. I like 1.e4 d5 2.exd5 and if 2...Nf6 3.Bb5+ lines in the Scandanavian. White gets easy development and Black's pices sort of get in each others way a bit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10233" LastActivityDate="2017-01-13T14:38:08.573" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16373" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-01-13T17:30:41.013" Score="4" ViewCount="1338" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to learn how to build a deck in Anki so that I can improve my play by creating positions that I need to learn and by improving tactics. I'm looking for a guide on that process. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12245" LastActivityDate="2017-09-20T21:21:02.743" Title="Has anyone used the Anki decks to learn tactics?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16374" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16349" CreationDate="2017-01-13T20:17:02.530" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;As long as you dont expect an opening edge you can play KIA against sicilian, french and caro-kann. The KIA is most often played against the french and e6 sicilian, but it can also be used with somewhat less sting against the caro and other sicilians. This is pretty good as it covers 3 out of the 4 main replies. So you should start by learning 1.e4 e5 and then go covering the rest latter. Against stuff that isnt the 4 main replies you can get away with simple development untill you have the main lines covered.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11684" LastActivityDate="2017-01-13T20:17:02.530" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16375" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16306" CreationDate="2017-01-13T22:55:27.560" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can vouch for the Chernev book. It literally has at least some explanation for every move, which I have found quite enlightening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Along the same lines, I can recommend these books:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;The Amateur's Mind: Turning Chess Misconceptions Into Chess Mastery&lt;/em&gt;, by Jeremy Silman. A variation on &lt;em&gt;Logical Chess,&lt;/em&gt; Silman's book describes how he trains players to tell him what they are thinking as they make their moves. He does so not only for beginners but for players up through the expert level. This may not be something you do for the rest of your chess career, but it would be very helpful for you to study a few of your games by writing down or audio recording what you were thinking. It yields amazing insights.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;The Improving Chess Thinker: Revised and Expanded&lt;/em&gt;, by Dan Heisman. This book is also divided up by player level and also focuses on the thought process behind one's moves. I really like how Dan Heisman emphasizes finding and fixing flaws in chess thinking. For example, it may be that a player gets away with a mistake in a game and rationalizes it as a great move. But if the thinking behind the move was flawed, that error is bound to catch up with him in a future game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Play Winning Chess&lt;/em&gt;, by Yasser Seirawan. Rather than explain every move, this book focuses on learning chess principles of space, material, time, and so on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Welcome to chess - it is a fantastic game!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3968" LastActivityDate="2017-01-13T22:55:27.560" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16376" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16364" CreationDate="2017-01-13T23:06:45.477" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;A super-abridged guide to the QGA (Queen's Gambit Accepted) is that Black temporarily cedes the center with dxc4, and hopes to develop rapidly while White recovers the pawn (you'll want to look up some key lines where Black suffers because he is greedy and tries to hold on to the pawn; personally, I found it instructive to look at the main line of an entirely different opening called the Noteboom Variation, where Black has better chances to hang on to the pawn, but White's tricks &lt;em&gt;still&lt;/em&gt; recover it), and then—just before White can start to cash in on his central advantage—play c5 in an attempt to nullify the center.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, a sample line (not necessarily main line; it lacks some &quot;professional subtleties&quot; that, as others said, you really don't need to memorize as a beginner):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;rnbqkb1r/pp3ppp/4pn2/8/2Bp4/4PN2/PP3PPP/RNBQ1RK1 w kq - 0 7&quot;]&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. c4 dxc4 3. e3 Nf6 (3... b5? 4. a4 c6 5. axb5 cxb5 6. Qf3 {Winning White material}) 4. Bxc4 e6 5. Nf3 c5 6. O-O cxd4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the above ending position, White has the option to either cede the center himself with Nxd4, or give himself an IQP (isolated queen's pawn) where he accepts what could turn out to be an endgame weakness (an isolated pawn) in exchange for a middle game catalyst (the White pawn will serve as a powerful battering ram and outpost provider that Black must stop at all costs).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, Black will have his work cut out for him trying to actually gain the upper-hand over White, whose spatial advantage allows him to develop relatively more comfortable than Black. If you want something that's a bit less of an &quot;exposed&quot; opening for Black, I might recommend the French or the Caro-Kann which has the same idea of ceding the center only to counterattack with c5 (unfortunately, of course, neither of these are likely with 1. d4).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11518" LastEditorUserId="11518" LastEditDate="2017-01-14T22:00:59.113" LastActivityDate="2017-01-14T22:00:59.113" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16377" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-01-14T04:54:21.400" Score="2" ViewCount="148" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess engines are built to find the best move with the assumption they are playing against a perfect player. My question is, is there an engine out there or would it be easy to create an engine that focuses more on winning quickly against weak human players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance, maybe this engine notices that in a position, it capture a minor piece, but this would open up a 10 move tactic in which the opponent could win a rook. Perhaps this engine would risk capturing the piece and go for a quicker win under the assumption that the human player would not see the tactic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12248" LastActivityDate="2017-01-14T13:16:23.797" Title="Engine against non-perfect players" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16378" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16377" CreationDate="2017-01-14T12:28:24.830" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Short answer&lt;/strong&gt;: No such thing&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Long answer&lt;/strong&gt;: Contempt factor noted by @Tony is close but not exactly what you are looking for. It is a scaling constant for changing the evaluation score. It is a simple technique for avoiding early draws against apparently weaker opponents, or to prefer draws versus stronger opponents otherwise.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other techniques that can influence the engine:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Run multi-pv analysis, and choose a move from the principal variations&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Randomly add noise to the search&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Slow down the engine&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Fixed depth or fixed number of nodes&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;......&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But they are still not what you are looking for, because chess engine &lt;strong&gt;always&lt;/strong&gt; assume a perfect opponent. Why? That's because the alpha-beta framework always prune bad moves. The framework &lt;strong&gt;doesn't allow&lt;/strong&gt; for dirty cheap tricks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's think about it. It's actually not trivial to code an engine that makes dirty tricks. How does an engine know the tricky would work for a human player? Maybe it's just a gross blunder?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's hard to to tell the engine:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When to swindle vs when to defend &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;How a human player would fall into a trap&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Stupid blunder vs great swindle&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2017-01-14T13:16:23.797" LastActivityDate="2017-01-14T13:16:23.797" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16379" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-01-14T12:55:18.383" Score="1" ViewCount="181" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is a recent game I played and I know it is bad, but wanted some input on ways to improve.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.f4 Nc6 3.Nf3 d6 4.d4 Bg4 5.h3 Bxf3 6.Qxf3 Nf6 7.Bc4 Qd7 8.f5 Nxd4 9.Qd3 b5 10.Bb3 h5 11.c4 Rb8 12.Nc3 b4 13.Nb5 Rb7 14.a4 g6 15.O-O Bh6 16.Qd1 gxf5 17.Rxf5 Nxf5 18.exf5 a6 19.Bxh6 Rxh6 20.Qc1 axb5 21.Qxh6 Qxf5 22.Qh8+ Ke7 23.c5 dxc5 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I resigned, but I find it difficult to see where the worst moves were. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12250" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-01-14T12:58:43.910" LastActivityDate="2017-01-15T17:04:34.133" Title="Please analyze my game" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16380" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16379" CreationDate="2017-01-14T13:33:55.610" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;These are my first thoughts, without the aid of a computer:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.f4 Nc6 3.Nf3 d6 4.d4 Bg4 5.h3 {5.h3 is a wasted move. Putting the question to the bishop doesn't make sense, as Black wins a pawn by removing a defender: 5. h3? Bxf3 6.Qxf3 Nxd4} Bxf3 6.Qxf3 Nf6 7.Bc4 Qd7 8.f5 {8.f5 takes the tension off the pawn centre and closes the f-file, which negates the point for White's play in the King's gambit, i.e. to play against the f7-square, for example with a rook on f1.} Nxd4 9.Qd3 b5 10.Bb3 h5 11.c4 Rb8 12.Nc3 b4 13.Nb5 Rb7 14.a4 {Why not retain the 2-bishops and regains a pawn with 14. Nxd4 exd4 15. Qxd4?} g6 15.O-O Bh6 16.Qd1 gxf5 17.Rxf5 {17.Rxf5 simply loses the exchange for no compensation.} Nxf5 18.exf5 a6 19.Bxh6 Rxh6 20.Qc1 axb5 21.Qxh6 Qxf5 22.Qh8+ {This check doesn't lead anywhere a the queen is not supported. I would have played 22. cxb5 followed by Rf1, placing pressure on f7, f6 and f5.} Ke7 23.c5 {I still don't see a reason for not taking the b-pawn or playing Rf1.} dxc5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2017-01-14T13:33:55.610" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16381" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16379" CreationDate="2017-01-14T14:05:05.810" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Before I answer I'm sorry if my english is bad. This game opening using King's Gambit declined (C30). I make the assumption that you are aggressive player who like open game than close game based on your opening and moves. In my opinion the several your mistakes and blunders is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;5.h3; the best move is 5.d5. Why d5? Because you can push your opponent knight and you winning the center position. If your opponent play 5...Nd4, you can counter with 6. Be3 Nxf3+ 7.gxf3 exf4 8.Bxf4 Bd7 9.Nc3.... You absolutely win the center and have a pole position to develop your pawns and pieces&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;7.Bc4; Black move in 6...Nf6 is mistake, 6...Nd4 is better than 6...Nf6 because he can push your Queen. But you counter with Bc4, the move that you should take is 7.Bb5 because you can freeze your opponent knight. If your opponent moves is 7...exd4, you can counter with 8.0-0 and makes your opponent pawn hanging in the center&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;8.f5, Black move in 7.Qd7 is bad, but your counter move 8.f5 is bad too, you can counter with 8.d5. You will lost your pawn in the center if you take the other move than 8.d5&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;11.c4, In my opinion, black move in 10...h5 is not good. I don't know what his plans but he should take 10...c5 to backup the knight in d4 and can push your Queen and Bishop. Your move should 11.0-0 make your King safer than before. But Black made a mistakw again with 11...Rb8. He should take your pawn in c4 and next move maybe 12.Qxc4 d5 13.exd5. He make your f5 pawn hanging.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;13.Nb5. It makes your bishop in b3 taken by Black knight&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;14.a4. Maybe it's your biggest mistake in this game. Your opponent 13...Rb7 is bad move. You can obtain his knight in d4 with your knight and next move is 14...exd4 15.Qxd4. You got his pawn in center!!!!&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;15.0-0. Black second biggest mistake is 14...g6??? He can focus in his right side(A-D) and push your pawn. The best Black move is 14...Nxb3. Your counter is  very bad. You should still take the 15.Nxd4 move.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;16.Qd1. And this is your biggest mistake too. You are lead the game if you take 16.Nxd4 move. 3 move and maybe you still don't realize this is your greatest move so far in this game&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;17.Rxf5. Another biggest mistake too. 4 move and still don't realize.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;20.Qc1. 20.Qf3 is better&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;22.Qh8+. 22.Rf1 is better&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;23.c5. 23.cxb5 is better&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is my analyze. I'm sorry if I made a mistake too in this analyze&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12230" LastEditorUserId="12230" LastEditDate="2017-01-14T17:43:07.457" LastActivityDate="2017-01-14T17:43:07.457" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16382" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16383" CreationDate="2017-01-14T16:54:33.900" Score="9" ViewCount="6326" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to ask a question about Bird's opening (1. f4). My question is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What's the main idea of this opening?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is &lt;code&gt;1. ... d5&lt;/code&gt; the best counter to &lt;code&gt;1. f4&lt;/code&gt;? Why &lt;code&gt;1. ...d5&lt;/code&gt;?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12230" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-05-01T07:03:11.253" LastActivityDate="2020-08-03T20:47:53.060" Title="Main idea of Bird's opening" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;birds-opening&gt;&lt;counterplay&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16383" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16382" CreationDate="2017-01-14T21:14:31.907" Score="9" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What's the main idea of this opening? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Main ideas for white:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;surprise weapon as it is rarely played (since it is not all that good)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;playing the Dutch opening with an extra tempo, but this is not a big deal IMO&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;avoiding opening theory as you can basically learn a &quot;system&quot; (certain position of pieces that you want to achieve) and follow this almost independent of what black plays&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;in some cases the pawn being already on f4 can be handy for kingside attacks&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically there are three set ups:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;stonewall with pawns on f4, e3, d4, c3; gives you good control of dark squares but weakens the light squares; Usually you only play this if black plays d5 at some point as otherwise black has the option to play something like d6 and e5 which is often unpleasant for the stonewall setup&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;fianchettoed bishop on  b2 often in combinations with pawns on e3 and f4. This gives you good control along the a1-h8 diagonal &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;fianchettoed bishop on g2. This can lead to king's indian like setups if you combine it with d3, e4.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the end it depends whether you like the resulting positions. Check a few games from the database and look at the positions around move 10.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is the best counter of 1.f4 is 1...d5? Why 1...d5?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, d5 is most popular and best. It takes control of the center, opens the way for the light squared bishop and is just a natural move. A reason not to play 1. ...d5 could be if you are worried about losing control of the dark squares in the center. In that case you could think to wait with d5, perhaps develop the bishop to g7 (which would work well against the white setup number &quot;2&quot; above) and leaving the option open to play d6 e5 later which would work well against the stonewall.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a former 1. f4 player I would discourage you from playing this or any other off-beat opening if you want to be serious about chess. You can learn a lot more (and get better positions) if you play more normal openings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastEditorUserId="11629" LastEditDate="2017-01-15T01:05:57.403" LastActivityDate="2017-01-15T01:05:57.403" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16384" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16382" CreationDate="2017-01-14T21:25:05.333" Score="4" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;What's the main idea of this opening?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is basically white playing what is normally a black defence, the Dutch 1) d4 f5, with a move in hand so the idea is the same - white will develop his kingside quickly with the knight on f3 behind the pawn, castle kingside, maybe bring the queen over with Qd1 - e1 - h4 if there isn't already a pawn on g3 and then use his f4 pawn in conjunction with his pieces to launch a rapid attack against black's castled king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the opponent isn't careful this can be very effective and lead to quick victories, but ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Is the best counter of 1.f4 is 1...d5? Why 1...d5?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you believe in classical chess then, yes. In classical chess you try and win control of the center first with pawns then with pieces. From black's point of view the problem with 1) f4 is that it doesn't exert the same control and influence as e4 or d4 would and it weakens f2, an already weak square.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of the two main ideal first moves for black, from a classical pov, e5 is not possible so d5 is the best that's left. It is also good because it releases the f8 bishop to go to g4 undermining white's center when white plays Nf3 which he will almost certainly do on his 2nd move. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If black wants to be a bit unconventional there are also ideas of following up with moves that prepare e5 like Qd6, Nd7 or Nc6, maybe even f6. If black can get in e5 then white is probably in trouble.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another idea could be to follow up with c6 and Qb6 looking down the open diagonal to g1 making castling difficult.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Alternatively black can just play the white side of the Dutch relying on the fact that in the past some grandmasters have had such a low opinion of the Dutch that they think it is just giving them a free point, Kortchnoi for one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2017-01-14T21:25:05.333" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16385" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16360" CreationDate="2017-01-14T23:41:31.967" Score="0" Body="&lt;h2&gt;Sportsmanship demands that the strongest players play at the highest boards.  Period.&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately, as simple as this statement it, it is so difficult to enforce that it is often completely omitted from tournament rulebooks.  In scholastic chess, most players are unrated and the directors must rely on the honor of the coaches.  In my personal experience as a tournament director, the violation of this principle is the &quot;trick&quot; that honest players and coach most despise, and yet hardly a scholastic tournament occurs without at least one team violating it.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;This &quot;shuffling&quot; tactic robs the strong players on both teams the opportunity to play competitive, meaningful games and violates the spirit of the game.&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What makes chess such a princely game is that everything is in plain view - there is scant luck and zero subterfuge, only preparation and skill.  The board-shuffling strategy works only because the real strength of the players has been hidden from the opponents and the tournament director.  There are many other sports and games where such tactics are allowed or even encouraged, but most of us are attracted to chess precisely because the game is almost entirely free of such features.  Chess is one of the purest tests of skill and preparation available to mental athletes.  When we want a test of deception, we move to the card tables.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;If a team cannot fill every board, it must fill in the highest boards first.&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A missing player is obviously the weakest on the team - at least for that round.  Every team competition that I have been a part of has enforced this rule.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12084" LastActivityDate="2017-01-14T23:41:31.967" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16386" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16291" CreationDate="2017-01-15T02:32:34.883" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a post about Stockfish improvement over the years.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/pUZoB.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/pUZoB.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://talkchess.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=62822&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://talkchess.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=62822&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2017-01-15T02:32:34.883" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16387" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16306" CreationDate="2017-01-15T04:22:30.400" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm suprised nobody mentioned &quot;Bobby Fisher teaches CHESS&quot; $7 new. This is a paperback that is a progressive self-paced step-by-step book that won't leave any big holes in the basics. I suggest build pattern recognition with Susan Polgar and Dan Heisman. There is a free download at the Polgar foundation website-helpful training tools. Shredderchess has free tactics--there app is $7 works fine--allows position setup &amp;amp; analysis--you said beginner and book--suggestions from an experienced coach..best to you..When you play SLOW DOWN all novice players move to fast.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12190" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-04T18:48:23.490" LastActivityDate="2020-03-04T18:48:23.490" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="16388" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16379" CreationDate="2017-01-15T17:04:34.133" Score="1" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;5.h3 is just bad and unnecessary at the time. 5.d5 is to the point. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;6...exd4 or 6... Nxd4 is direct and obvious.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;7.d5 again&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;7...Nxd4 again&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;8.d5 Nd4 9.Qd3 is asking to be played again. 8.f5 is the wrong pawn push.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;ol start=&quot;11&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Bg5 or 11.Nc3 are both better and developing moves.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;13.Ba4 c6 14.Nd5 is a nice tweener.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;13...Nxb5 14.cxb5 Qxb5 and your compensation is hard to find.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;you should trade on d4: 14. Nxd4 exd4 15.Qxd4 followed by 0-0 and Bf4 is so much better and direct.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;after your move 14.a4, black should trade Nxb3 (a knight not long for this word for White's good bishop) and snap Nxe4. At this point, White is busted.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;again, 15 Nxd4 is screaming at you. You must end this love affair with the Nb5.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;15...Nxb3 again. Black should have played this move at any point in the next few moves.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;16.Qd1 is ... weird. You need to justify that move here with your thinking process. I can't find a reason to play that move. It does not cover any square the queen already covers on d3, and in fact, leave the e-pawn unguarded. Why you do not play Nxd4 is ... uncertain. &#xA;18...Bxc1 19.Rxc1 a6 wins for black. The care and feeding of your pieces has gone unattended.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, black opens lines against his king for you and you resign. Clearly after Rd1 white has the edge. 24.Rd1 Ne8 25.Rf1 Qg5 16.Rxf7+ +-.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lots of tactical oversights that are definitely fixable and should have been seen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are looking for advice it would be stop playing the kings gambit. You are insufficiently skilled in tactics to play such an opening, based on this game. Of course, you can take your lumps and keep playing it. It is just a game. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10233" LastActivityDate="2017-01-15T17:04:34.133" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16389" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16382" CreationDate="2017-01-15T18:17:07.653" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The two answers have already provided a very good explanations of the Bird's opening. So mine can be viewed as an addition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;1.f4 e5&lt;/code&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;is a known gambit and is reasonably sound. Followed by &lt;code&gt;2.fxe5 d6 3.exd6 Bxd6&lt;/code&gt;. Black sacrifices a pawn but gets ahead in development.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I like to point it out for two reasons.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) It is one of the approaches to play against the Bird's opening. Especially if Black prefers open positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) It shows that black has wide choices as to what kind of position they like to play. This limits practicality of the Bird's opening. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="307" LastActivityDate="2017-01-15T18:17:07.653" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16390" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16391" CreationDate="2017-01-15T20:32:07.923" Score="14" ViewCount="1641" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the idea behind playing 6.a3 in the Sicilian Najdorf?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 a6 6. a3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This seems to be getting popular at the highest level (e.g. yesterday/today's games at the Tata Steel Masters, Carlsen - Wojtaszek, Karjakin-Giri).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it just a waiting move or is there some deep idea behind it? As far as I am aware in most lines black is not aiming to put any piece on b4 (which would be prevented by 6. a3). In the poisoned pawn variation a3 prevents the capture Qxb2, but other than that, I don't see what white wants to achieve with 6. a3. Is he preparing to play b4?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-01-16T10:25:17.893" LastActivityDate="2017-01-16T10:25:38.037" Title="What is the idea behind playing 6.a3 in the Sicilian Najdorf?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;&lt;najdorf&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16391" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16390" CreationDate="2017-01-15T20:48:41.290" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;The move a3 serves basically two functions: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;White can develop the bishop to c4, and keep it aimed on d5, even if Black attacks it with b5, or, as Giri did, with Be6. In the lines where Black plays ...e5, the battle for d5 is often very important so it &lt;em&gt;could&lt;/em&gt; be worth spending a tempo in it.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Black often plays b5 to gain some space on the queenside. The move a3 then discourages a further advance of the pawn to b4.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another reason to choose this line could be that the main line is heavily analyzed, beyond the 20th move, and the White players didn't want to engage in a theoretical battle. This would especially apply to Carlsen who often plays 'sidelines', and &lt;a href=&quot;https://twitter.com/SergeyKaryakin/status/820670752949174272&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this tweet&lt;/a&gt; from Karjakin confirms it as well:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The only reason why I played 6.a3 against @anishgiri is that I forgot adaptor for my laptop and I urgently had to create a new ideas&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;sub&gt;Thanks @DagOskarMadsen and @DavidRicherby for drawing my attention to this tweet.&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-01-16T10:25:38.037" LastActivityDate="2017-01-16T10:25:38.037" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16392" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16390" CreationDate="2017-01-15T21:15:13.677" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Pawn b7 generally wants to threaten knight on c3 at some point so definitely there is one piece that is interested in b4 square. But a3 is not developing move in open position so the deepest idea of this system is probably its surprise value.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11609" LastActivityDate="2017-01-15T21:15:13.677" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16394" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16396" CreationDate="2017-01-16T21:17:05.073" Score="-1" ViewCount="140" Body="&lt;p&gt;Queen's Gambit Declined: Queen's Knight Variation, 3...Nf6 game for analysis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is the PGN&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Live Chess&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Chess.com&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2017.01.17&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;anandsadasivam&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;RandyDoce&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;684&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;687&quot;]&#xA;[TimeControl &quot;600&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;D35&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[Termination &quot;anandsadasivam won by checkmate&quot;]&#xA;[CurrentPosition &quot;5Q1k/2P3p1/8/4P2p/2rPB3/4PN2/PP1K1b2/R1B4q b - - 2 33&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 d5 2.c4 Nf6 3.Nc3 e6 4.c5 a5 5.f4 c6 6.h4 Be7 7.Rh3 Ng4 8.e3 Nf6 9.g4 O-O 10.h5 b5 11.g5 e5 12.gxf6 Bxf6 13.fxe5 Bh4+ 14.Kd2 b4 15.Na4 Na6 16.Nf3 Bxh3 17.Bxh3 Rb8 18.Nb6 b3 19.Qxb3 Bf2 20.Bd7 Qh4 21.Bxc6 Qxh5 22.Bxd5 Qh1 23.Qa4 Rbd8 24.Be4 Nb4 25.Qxa5 Nd5 26.Nxd5 Rc8 27.Ne7+ Kh8 28.Nxc8 Rxc8 29.c6 h5 30.Qd5 Rb8 31.Qxf7 Rb4 32.c7 Rc4 33.Qf8# &#xA;1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is the fen,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;5Q1k/2P3p1/8/4P2p/2rPB3/4PN2/PP1K1b2/R1B4q b - - 2 33&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9229" LastEditorUserId="9229" LastEditDate="2017-01-17T06:05:41.487" LastActivityDate="2017-01-17T06:05:41.487" Title="ECO D35 for Game Analysis,- Queen's Gambit Declined: Queen's Knight Variation, 3...Nf6 game for analysis" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;pawns&gt;&lt;game-complexity&gt;&lt;eco&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16396" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16394" CreationDate="2017-01-16T23:06:09.763" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;My move by move analysis see below. Comments appear below the board as you play through the game. Generally a blunder rich game. White seems to like pushing pawns a bit too much, while black played too passively in the beginning. Black should have attacked the strong white center right from the start with b6. Both players neglected the development of their pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;anandsadasivam (684)&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;RandyDoce (687)&quot;]&#xA;[TimeControl &quot;-&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2017.01.16&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[Termination &quot;Normal&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;D35&quot;]&#xA;[Opening &quot;Queen's Gambit Declined: Normal Defense&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. c4 Nf6 3. Nc3 e6 4. c5?! { Gives up the pressure on the d5 pawn. Temporarily gains some space but with correct play by black white will not keep this c5 outpost for long. } 4... a5?! { In structures like this you should attack the pawn on c5 by playing 4...b6 and if white defends it with 5. b4, you play 5. ... a5. In the end black ends up with a slight advantage on the queenside. } 5. f4?! { Weakens the light squares and locks in the bishop on c1. If you want to play f4, it would make sense to first move that bishop out to g5 where it can be exchanged if necessary and only then play f4. This way you avoid having a bad dark squared bishop behind your pawn chain. } 5... c6 { Better would be 5...b6 to undermine the white pawn on c5 and if white plays cxb6 (which is the best move) you can recapture with the pawn on c7. You gain space for developing your pieces, most importantly for the c8 bishop which can go to a6 for instance. After 5... c6 you don't have this option of recapturing with the pawn from c7 anymore and if black played b6 later he'd end up with a weak pawn on c6. Also 5...c6 locks in the bishop on c8. } 6. h4!? { Weakening the light squares even more. It is unclear what the purpose of this move is. } 6... Be7 7. Rh3 Ng4?! { This knight had a very decent position on f6. You should think of how to improve your undeveloped pieces on the queenside instead of moving this knight again. } 8. e3 Nf6 9. g4 O-O { Brave. Castling right into the white attack. } 10. h5 b5?! { Typically when being attacked by a pawn storm on one side, the best reaction is to either open the center or to play on the opposite side (here on the queenside). After b5 white can keep the queenside closed and also in the center there is no counterplay in sight for black. } 11. g5 e5? { This just loses a piece for nothing. } 12. gxf6 Bxf6 13. fxe5 Bh4+ 14. Kd2 b4 { Why not capture the rook with Bxh3? } 15. Na4 Na6 16. Nf3 Bxh3 17. Bxh3 Rb8?! { Nothing to do for the rook here since there are no open files here and black cannot force opening of files either (e.g. ... b3 would be answered with a3 closing the position on the queenside. } 18. Nb6 b3?! { Makes room for the knight to jump to b4, but a better chance could have been an exchange sacrifice with Rxb6. cxb6 and trying to open some lines in the center against the uncastled white king. } 19. Qxb3 Bf2 20. Bd7 Qh4?? { Blunders the queen } 21. Bxc6?? { White should take the queen with Nxh4. } 21... Qxh5 22. Bxd5 Qh1 { Too many queen moves. Improve the pieces that don't do much yet, e.g. 22... Nb4 could be an idea as could bringing one of the rooks to attack the white king. } 23. Qa4 Rbd8 24. Be4?? { Spoils a winning position. } 24... Nb4?? { Nxc5 should be played which wins a pawn, improves the position of the knight and opens the c-line against the white king. } 25. Qxa5 Nd5?? { Blunders a piece as d5 is attacked by two white pieces and only defended by one black piece. } 26. Nxd5 Rc8 27. Ne7+ Kh8 28. Nxc8 Rxc8 29. c6 h5 30. Qd5 Rb8 31. Qxf7 Rb4 32. c7? { Qf8++ or Qe8++ would already be mate. } 32... Rc4 33. Qf8# { 1-0 White wins by checkmate. } 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2017-01-16T23:06:09.763" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16397" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14263" CreationDate="2017-01-17T02:57:38.470" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;As &lt;strong&gt;Glorfindel&lt;/strong&gt; notes,&#xA;the Lomonosov tables are great but might not have the answer you want.&#xA;In RPP/RP, according to the list in&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://centaur.reading.ac.uk/34268/2/chessendrecann.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&#xA;article&lt;/a&gt; by Guy Haworth, we find that the maximal distance to mate&#xA;is 200+ moves, from the following position -- which happens not to have&#xA;the White pawns connected, but worse for your purpose,&#xA;it looks like most of the play is post-conversion:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Black to move; White eventually wins&quot;]&#xA;[Fen &quot;8/k1P5/8/8/1R5P/7p/r7/1K6 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1...h2 2.Kxa2 h1=Q 3.c8=R!&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;after Kxa2 we're in 6-man territory, and the k4it.de site says&#xA;&quot;Win in 216&quot; starting Qd5+ 4 Kb1 Qa5(d6) -- that's right, not Qd1(h1)+,&#xA;which lets White win in only 200, nor Qd3+, which hastens the end&#xA;by another move (199).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Possibly Guy Haworth has enough access to 7-man tables&#xA;to get the answer to your query.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8860" LastEditorUserId="8860" LastEditDate="2017-01-17T15:50:09.923" LastActivityDate="2017-01-17T15:50:09.923" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16399" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16406" CreationDate="2017-01-17T20:25:48.253" Score="4" ViewCount="1036" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have a USCF rating, but never had a FIDE rating.  Two of the recent tournaments I played in were USCF/FIDE events.  As a result, I now have a FIDE ID, and a &quot;FIDE Chess Profile&quot; page on the FIDE site.  (This happened without my knowledge, but I wanted to &quot;eventually&quot; get a FIDE rating anyway, so I'm very pleased.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How do I create a login/password &lt;strong&gt;and associate&lt;/strong&gt; myself (real life) with that chess profile?  (The bold part is the important part.)  Specifically, on the FIDE Chess Profile page in question, there are login/password fields on the right side - but since I never initiated getting the ID in the first place, I'm not sure how to let FIDE know that I'm me. I would think this information/process would be easy to find, but I'm having trouble locating it...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is sort of similar to &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/14169/is-there-a-way-to-get-a-fide-id-without-playing-in-fide-rated-events&quot;&gt;this question&lt;/a&gt; about obtaining a FIDE ID without having played a FIDE event - but I apparently already have the ID.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(For the record, the name/birthday/etc. are all correct, as are the specific tournaments and opponents I played in.  I am 100% certain that this really is me.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7897" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2017-01-18T11:36:13.520" Title="Associating myself with my FIDE chess profile" Tags="&lt;fide&gt;&lt;websites&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16400" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-01-17T22:02:14.903" Score="3" ViewCount="847" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a person trying to get better using Lucas chess. I am using the competitive mode and starting with the easiest engine. The tutor will suggest moves from time to time and will have a number associated with my move and the suggestion one (see below).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/vtESP.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/vtESP.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have lost games taking the hints because I assumed largely positive numbers mean a stronger move. Are these pawn units and how is it calculated?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12272" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-07T01:17:57.850" LastActivityDate="2020-08-07T01:17:57.850" Title="Point assigned to move in Lucas Chess" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;point-value&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="16401" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16400" CreationDate="2017-01-17T23:46:52.537" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The points are given by a chess engine. I believe Lucas uses the Stockfish engine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In short, the engine scores your position approximately by the number of pawns. If you have 1.00, you would have an extra pawn advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The magnitude indicates how strong or weak your position is. Positive means advantage for White, and negative translates to advantage for Black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2017-01-17T23:46:52.537" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16402" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16403" CreationDate="2017-01-18T02:04:43.547" Score="8" ViewCount="426" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just finished writing customizing a chess engine by basically adding a bitboard to the freely availably tscp engine. Now I'm testing it out in winboard and notice that often the two machines will play the same game multiple times in a match. I'd like to add some variety to the games by at least having it pick equal moves at random. I'm just using alpha-beta search with simple move ordering. I'm thinking about just adding a small random number to the leaf nodes to break ties but I don't really like this solution because some of the smaller bonuses that the evaluation function uses are 3-5 centipawns. So I don't have enough &quot;room&quot; for random number to break the ties.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;my other thought was to have the engine pick randomly which move to keep when it found an evaluation == alpha. I don't really like this because I suspect it favors moves ordered last in the search.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Question is how can I pick from the equal scoring leaf nodes randomly? and also evenly?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12273" LastActivityDate="2017-01-18T02:37:47.037" Title="engines keep playing same game" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16403" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16402" CreationDate="2017-01-18T02:29:18.373" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Note:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's a &lt;strong&gt;good&lt;/strong&gt; idea for your engine be deterministic. There is no reason to select a move randomly. You would only do it to lower your engine strength. If you make your engine non-deterministic, you will find it very hard to debug and reproduce a bug. My recommendation is &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; to do it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You shouldn't modify your engine. You may want to use an opening book, and pick a line randomly. Many chess GUI can do that, for example, the &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/cutechess/cutechess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;CuteChess&lt;/a&gt; software. Arena GUI can do also that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;But if you insist:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's take a look at the &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/blob/master/src/search.cpp&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Stockfish source code&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; Move Skill::pick_best(size_t multiPV) {&#xA;&#xA;    const RootMoves&amp;amp; rootMoves = Threads.main()-&amp;gt;rootMoves;&#xA;    static PRNG rng(now()); // PRNG sequence should be non-deterministic&#xA;&#xA;    // RootMoves are already sorted by score in descending order&#xA;    Value topScore = rootMoves[0].score;&#xA;    int delta = std::min(topScore - rootMoves[multiPV - 1].score, PawnValueMg);&#xA;    int weakness = 120 - 2 * level;&#xA;    int maxScore = -VALUE_INFINITE;&#xA;&#xA;    // Choose best move. For each move score we add two terms, both dependent on&#xA;    // weakness. One is deterministic and bigger for weaker levels, and one is&#xA;    // random. Then we choose the move with the resulting highest score.&#xA;    for (size_t i = 0; i &amp;lt; multiPV; ++i)&#xA;    {&#xA;        // This is our magic formula&#xA;        int push = (  weakness * int(topScore - rootMoves[i].score)&#xA;                    + delta * (rng.rand&amp;lt;unsigned&amp;gt;() % weakness)) / 128;&#xA;&#xA;        if (rootMoves[i].score + push &amp;gt; maxScore)&#xA;        {&#xA;            maxScore = rootMoves[i].score + push;&#xA;            best = rootMoves[i].pv[0];&#xA;        }&#xA;    }&#xA;&#xA;    return best;   }&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Stockfish starts multi-PV (not supported in TSCP, so you'll need to code it yourself!)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Compute a random number and add it to the score for each PV&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Compare each weighted PV, and pick the best one&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You may find the following links useful:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/13026/chess-programs-that-mimic-some-amateurs&quot;&gt;Chess programs that mimic some amateurs&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/7690/how-does-a-chess-engine-mimic-an-elo-rating&quot;&gt;How does a chess engine mimic an Elo rating&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Recommendation:&lt;/strong&gt; Don't do it unless you want to weaken your engine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2017-01-18T02:37:47.037" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16404" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16417" CreationDate="2017-01-18T09:20:13.497" Score="5" ViewCount="347" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yesterday Anish Giri played the scotch opening at the Tata Steel Tournament with the strange looking move(to me) 5.Nf3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 exd4 4.Nxd4 Qf6 5.Nf3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the idea/plan behind this move after retreating the knight immediately.&#xA;From my point of view i would assume the knight is better placed on d4 than on f3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can white even hope to have an opening advantage after this move?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10182" LastEditorUserId="4588" LastEditDate="2017-01-20T08:23:07.083" LastActivityDate="2017-01-22T08:57:04.010" Title="Scotch opening 5.Nf3" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;1.e4&gt;&lt;scotch-game&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16406" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16399" CreationDate="2017-01-18T11:36:13.520" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Getting a login is easy, free and worthwhile if you want to see your or other players' histories (ratings, titles, performance, etc.) If you click on the link on your FIDE ratings page where it says &quot;Get rating&quot; next to &quot;Online rating not rated&quot; it will take you to the &lt;a href=&quot;https://arena.myfide.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Online Arena&lt;/a&gt; page. Underneath the banner on that page is a menu item &quot;Registration and fees&quot; and in the drop down list when you hover over it is the item &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://arena.myfide.net/registration-and-fees/memberships&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Memberships&lt;/a&gt;&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That memberships page describes the different levels of membership available - &quot;Guest Member&quot;, &quot;FIDE Member&quot;, &quot;Platinum Service&quot;. Guest membership is free and is what I have but it does not associate me with my FIDE profile. To do that I would have to join as a FIDE member and pay them 25 euros. On the form that comes up when I want to join as a FIDE member are entries for my name, date of birth, gender email address, FIDE number and the username and password I want to use. For the association to work the details I give would have to match those that FIDE have for me in their database.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2017-01-18T11:36:13.520" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16407" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16400" CreationDate="2017-01-18T12:31:18.470" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;These numbers are the score given to the position by the engine. In your particular case (screenshot) these are the scores &lt;em&gt;after&lt;/em&gt; the respective move is made. But of course you can also evaluate the current position in the same way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Positive values mean that white is better, negative values that black is better, a value of zero means equal. So if you are playing black, you should aim for very small numbers (=negative numbers with large absolute value). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The actual numbers are made up based on many factors. The actual factors and the weight given to them will be different between engines, but all (decent) engines would give most weight to the material. And as you guessed right a value of 1 corresponds to one pawn (see your example where black has one pawn less and the evaluation is around +1).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some other factors and a very simplified view of how they could be implemented on a computer are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;piece activity; could evaluate the number of all possible moves&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;king safety; number of defenders around the king&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;control of the center; number of squares under attack in the center&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;pawn structure; minus points for doubled pawns or for isolated pawns...&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my experience positions with evaluation between about -1 and +1 still have a good chance of ending in a draw (assuming best play) while starting from 1.5 or 2 the games have a decisive result (assuming best play).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2017-01-18T12:31:18.470" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16408" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16028" CreationDate="2017-01-18T17:01:50.443" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I do maintain that converter at UPM. &#xA;You may also want to read the (highly technical) related papers:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://delicias.dia.fi.upm.es/~vrodriguez/pdf/2015.09.wop.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;An Ontology Design Pattern for Chess Games&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://delicias.dia.fi.upm.es/~vrodriguez/pdf/2015.10.cold.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Pattern-Based Linked Data Publication: The Linked Chess Dataset Case&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12280" LastActivityDate="2017-01-18T17:01:50.443" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16409" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16404" CreationDate="2017-01-18T23:37:17.357" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;They're playing on the extremely high level and opening preparation is amongst the things they invest the most of their time so they're always searching for the new ways to spice the game up and thus increase their chances for the victory.I don't think there's a deep idea behind Nf3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12282" LastActivityDate="2017-01-18T23:37:17.357" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16410" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-01-18T23:42:36.103" Score="2" ViewCount="208" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was wondering how to find chess students or better said how and where one can advertise himself? I am sure that many chess players are searching for a coach, but they don't know where to find him. Here is my page for example, &lt;a href=&quot;https://bs.lichess.org/coach/PetarBosnjak&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://bs.lichess.org/coach/PetarBosnjak&lt;/a&gt;, have I mentioned all the needed informations, should I omit something?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12282" LastActivityDate="2017-01-19T11:18:56.137" Title="How to find chess students?" Tags="&lt;coach&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16413" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16410" CreationDate="2017-01-19T11:18:56.137" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the UK the busiest chess forum is the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ecforum.org.uk/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;English Chess Forum&lt;/a&gt;. They have an &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ecforum.org.uk/viewforum.php?f=29&amp;amp;sid=53cdf66ec134b2c78ed2b26c3730877e&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Adverts&lt;/a&gt; topic which would be suitable for you to use.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I should stress that despite the presence of the letters &quot;ecf&quot; in the url it is independent of the English Chess Federation which has its own web site, although senior members of the board do from time to time make announcements and answer questions on the English Chess Forum. This independence allows a much broader range of opinions to be expressed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2017-01-19T11:18:56.137" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16415" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12587" CreationDate="2017-01-19T17:46:56.563" Score="0" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;any piece that guards that square could in principle capture the pawn&#xA;  on that square.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You're incorrect. I've found numerous references that says that you can't capture en passant with &lt;em&gt;nothing&lt;/em&gt; but pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessvariants.com/d.chess/enpassant.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chessvariants.com/d.chess/enpassant.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12290" LastActivityDate="2017-01-19T17:46:56.563" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16416" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16404" CreationDate="2017-01-19T18:05:50.093" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, the knight on d4 is attacked, so you have to do something about it. So:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Exchange on c6: certainly possible, if black recaptures with a pawn he gets a double pawn, but on the other hand gains a tempo for developing the light square bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Defending via Be3: also possible, but you might develop that bishop later on to a better place like g5 without losing a tempo.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Defending via c3: possible, but that's blocking the natural place for the Nb1&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Nb3: Naa, don't like it. It looks a little too passive to me, although it's probably perfectly playable.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Nf3: Why not? The knight is out of trouble, after Nc3 you can bring your bishop to g5 kicking the queen with tempo, also defending the king after castling king side and it's placed absolutely harmoniously on f3.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12292" LastEditorUserId="10867" LastEditDate="2017-01-19T19:06:55.397" LastActivityDate="2017-01-19T19:06:55.397" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16417" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16404" CreationDate="2017-01-19T19:10:26.000" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;After 4....Qf6, both 5.Be3 and 5.Nxc6 are likely to transpose to 4....Bc5: 5.Be3 Bc5 and 5.Nxc6 Bc5. Instead, 5.Nf3 seems to be an interesting alternative, with chances to obtain an advantage. It worked quite well for Giri, as he was pressing the entire game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After 5.Nf3, black should probably be able to equalize. Andreikin played the precise 5....Bb4+ and the game continued 6.c3 Bc5 7.Be2 d6 8.0-0. Black followed up with the logical 8....Nge7, but ended up in a worse position after 9.b4 Bb6 10.Bg5. Note that 9....Nxb4 or 9....Bxb4 doesn't work because of 10.Bg5. Instead, 8....a6 and 8....Qe7 (to play Nf6) are probably better alternatives, after which black should be able to keep the balance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Actually, one can also wonder why black would give white the opportunity of 5.Nf3 by playing 4....Qf6 instead of 4....Bc5.&#xA;Two possible reasons are: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;After 4....Qf6 5.Nxc6, black wants to play 5....dxc6, instead of 5....Bc5. This way, he can still chose between Bb4, Bc5 or Bd6.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Black doesn't like the position after 4....Bc5 5.Nb3 Bb6 6.Nc3 Nf6&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;      [StartPly &quot;7&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;      [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;      1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 exd4 4.Nxd4 Qf6 (4...Bc5 5.Nb3 (5.Be3 Qf6)(5.Nxc6 Qf6) Bb6 6.Nc3 Nf6) 5.Nf3 (5.Be3 Bc5)(5.Nxc6 dxc6 (5...Bc5)) Bb4+ 6.c3 Bc5 7.Be2 d6 8.O-O Nge7 (8...a6)(8...Qe7) 9.b4 Bb6 (9...Nxb4 10.Bg5)(9...Bxb4 10.Bg5) 10.Bg5&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4588" LastEditorUserId="4588" LastEditDate="2017-01-22T08:57:04.010" LastActivityDate="2017-01-22T08:57:04.010" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16420" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-01-19T21:45:26.850" Score="2" ViewCount="229" Body="&lt;p&gt;I tried one a while back but it was quite elementary, it had a few thousand problems but did not give detailed answers, just one single move as correct and that's it!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I do play Chesstempo sometimes but don't always have internet connection and also I want something I can have on my computer if I'm outside or somewhere there is no connection so I can do that, one with range of problems, not just tactics but like endgame stuff too that sometimes is more tough to calculate than tactic. Any programs you're aware of? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: I only saw a thread on training particular chess tactics but that's not what I'm looking for, just chess problems of all sorts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11995" LastActivityDate="2017-01-22T16:42:35.460" Title="&quot;chess problem&quot; software (free/paid) to download for PC?" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;problems&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16421" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-01-19T23:18:58.447" Score="2" ViewCount="371" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm looking for some ideas on good games for one player (to create) that would be enjoyable, fun and with at least a little chess logic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I already created one that I very like. Searching for pairs of white and black piece of same value in symetric material positions &lt;strong&gt;from real games&lt;/strong&gt; (P:P, B:B, N:N, R:R, Q:Q, K:K). Looks like the picture. One must be very careful to reveal all pairs without single error, pawns help a lot but by far not easy. Understanding pawn structures, typical openings very helps here so this is the chess part for this game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/0BbVf.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/0BbVf.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similarly I made also one where you are looking for pawns knowing count of pawns and knowing where pieces stand. Clicking empty square is error obviously in this game. Not bad but the first is better :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any ideas for not very hard games that would be funny on touch screen devices are welcome. Preferably games that will be funny to play repeatedly. It is no problem to search for whatever type of positions necessary in game database, but I don't like creating random positions that aren't real as the chess value of such games would probably be very low...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: Does not neceassarily have to be logical but can be memory game or ever some quiz or game for fast decison making.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11609" LastEditorUserId="11609" LastEditDate="2017-01-20T07:35:33.430" LastActivityDate="2017-01-20T12:35:18.653" Title="Funny games for 1 player with chess theme" Tags="&lt;chess-variants&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16422" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16421" CreationDate="2017-01-20T01:31:17.647" Score="3" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;find the most/least attacked square (or some other special square) on the board quickly&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;arranging pieces on the board with a certain condition (this can be the classic 8 queens problem, but also other pieces with other condition); perhaps not realistic enough for you, though IMO this can teach you a lot about how the pieces move&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;guess the opening based on some position&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;guess the move in a famous game; perhaps too close to chess for your purpose&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;some retrograde problems&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastEditorUserId="11629" LastEditDate="2017-01-20T11:00:33.080" LastActivityDate="2017-01-20T11:00:33.080" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16423" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-01-20T10:34:09.843" Score="-1" ViewCount="133" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I had looked at &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessopening?eco=C02&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessopening?eco=C02&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;there are 4,893 variations found for ECO C02.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this variation can have some name from among 4893 variation, sorry for asking from the count I just asked as its in ECO. However I want some better analysis for this game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Except one pawn move which I had planned to do before on its turn.- &lt;code&gt;10 .. g5&lt;/code&gt;, I tried my ability well, rather maybe not atlast.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Live Chess&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Chess.com&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2017.01.11&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Meketrex&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;anandsadasivam&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;C02&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;713&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;668&quot;]&#xA;[TimeControl &quot;600&quot;]&#xA;[Termination &quot;Meketrex won by checkmate&quot;]&#xA;[CurrentPosition &quot;4Q3/bb3Q2/p1k1p3/Pp1pP2p/1Pp2P1P/2P3P1/R3q3/KN6 b - - 3 37&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 {[%clk 0:09:59]} e6 {[%clk 0:09:54]} 2.d4 {[%clk 0:09:54]} d5 {[%clk 0:09:47]} 3.e5 {[%clk 0:09:46]} Nc6 {[%clk 0:09:25]} 4.g3 {[%clk 0:09:42]} Bb4+ {[%clk 0:09:08]} 5.c3 {[%clk 0:09:36]} Ba5 {[%clk 0:09:03]} 6.b4 {[%clk 0:09:28]} Bb6 {[%clk 0:08:58]} 7.a4 {[%clk 0:08:55]} a6 {[%clk 0:08:49]} 8.a5 {[%clk 0:08:47]} Ba7 {[%clk 0:08:47]} 9.Bg2 {[%clk 0:08:37]} b5 {[%clk 0:08:39]} 10.Qg4 {[%clk 0:07:56]} g5 {[%clk 0:08:34]} 11.Bxg5 {[%clk 0:07:53]} Qd7 {[%clk 0:08:14]} 12.Nf3 {[%clk 0:07:09]} h6 {[%clk 0:08:10]} 13.Bf6 {[%clk 0:07:00]} Nxf6 {[%clk 0:08:00]} 14.exf6 {[%clk 0:06:58]} h5 {[%clk 0:07:54]} 15.Qg7 {[%clk 0:06:55]} Rf8 {[%clk 0:07:31]} 16.Ng5 {[%clk 0:06:53]} Bb7 {[%clk 0:07:21]} 17.Nh7 {[%clk 0:06:50]} O-O-O {[%clk 0:07:16]} 18.Nxf8 {[%clk 0:06:48]} Rxf8 {[%clk 0:07:12]} 19.Qxf8+ {[%clk 0:06:46]} Nd8 {[%clk 0:07:10]} 20.Qh6 {[%clk 0:06:22]} e5 {[%clk 0:06:58]} 21.dxe5 {[%clk 0:06:08]} Qf5 {[%clk 0:06:55]} 22.f4 {[%clk 0:05:57]} Ne6 {[%clk 0:06:43]} 23.Qh8+ {[%clk 0:05:16]} Kd7 {[%clk 0:06:36]} 24.h4 {[%clk 0:03:59]} c5 {[%clk 0:06:32]} 25.Bh3 {[%clk 0:03:54]} Qe4+ {[%clk 0:06:27]} 26.Kd2 {[%clk 0:03:33]} Qxh1 {[%clk 0:06:13]} 27.Bxe6+ {[%clk 0:03:14]} fxe6 {[%clk 0:06:05]} 28.f7 {[%clk 0:02:50]} Qg2+ {[%clk 0:06:02]} 29.Kc1 {[%clk 0:02:42]} Qg1+ {[%clk 0:05:55]} 30.Kb2 {[%clk 0:02:40]} Qf2+ {[%clk 0:05:49]} 31.Ka3 {[%clk 0:02:38]} Qc2 {[%clk 0:05:14]} 32.Ra2 {[%clk 0:02:27]} Qa4+ {[%clk 0:05:04]} 33.Kb2 {[%clk 0:02:22]} Qd1 {[%clk 0:04:41]} 34.f8=Q {[%clk 0:02:17]} Qe2+ {[%clk 0:04:38]} 35.Ka1 {[%clk 0:02:12]} c4 {[%clk 0:04:17]} 36.Qf7+ {[%clk 0:02:09]} Kc6 {[%clk 0:04:12]} 37.Qhe8# {[%clk 0:01:40]} &#xA;1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is the fen&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;4Q3/bb3Q2/p1k1p3/Pp1pP2p/1Pp2P1P/2P3P1/R3q3/KN6 b - - 3 37&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9229" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2017-01-24T14:50:56.160" LastActivityDate="2017-01-24T14:50:56.160" Title="What can be the variation name of this complete game which falls on ECO C02" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;french-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16424" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16423" CreationDate="2017-01-20T11:16:03.027" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;C02 is the French advance variation. &lt;em&gt;If handled properly&lt;/em&gt; it is characterized by white gaining space in the center with white pawns typically on b2, c3, d4, e5, f4. The center is closed and black is challenging the white pawn chain from the side playing c5 and often f6. Only after c5, the black knight will go to c6 in order to increase the pressure on the white d4 pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now in your game black does none of this and allows white to expand even more creating no counterplay. Since 3. ... Nc6 is already a bad move (c5 is best and by far the most popular) this whole line does not have a name. Note that attacking the center with pieces only (e.g. with Nc6) does not pose any problems for white as after c3, black will not be able to take on d4 with knight or bishop without losing material.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastEditorUserId="11629" LastEditDate="2017-01-23T11:37:11.647" LastActivityDate="2017-01-23T11:37:11.647" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16425" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16421" CreationDate="2017-01-20T12:35:18.653" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Ubisoft's &lt;em&gt;Chessmaster&lt;/em&gt; program had a few fun games:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Fork my fruit&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;move pieces to a square so that they can fork whatever fruit is in their line of movement.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Quote source: &lt;a href=&quot;http://uk.ign.com/articles/2008/02/28/chessmaster-the-art-of-learning-review&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;ign&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Minesweeper&lt;/strong&gt;: &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A game where you diffuse hidden mines by not running over them and diffusing them, similar to capturing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Snake&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;where the player chooses a long-range chess piece, then trying to make a long tail using captured pieces, and avoiding the enemy pieces to capture the main piece or tail parts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Quote source: &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chessmaster&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2017-01-20T12:35:18.653" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16426" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-01-20T16:03:08.563" Score="8" ViewCount="1574" Body="&lt;p&gt;As I try to understand how one would publish a large chess book, it feels that chess gives some pretty custom requirements for an editor or publisher. I am pretty sure that chess authors use Chessbase or similar software for writing their books and then pass them off to editors who proofread and do all the final layout and typesetting for printed version. Since Chessbase does not support proper document management (export to RTF is as far as it goes), and layout software like InDesign don't support adding chess diagrams, do software publishers like Gambit, Everyman chess, Quality Chess, etc have their own chess aware custom publishing tools? Or do editors just use regular publishing software and then insert diagrams by hand to optimize for page space as they see fit, with plenty of room for manual errors (i.e. inserting diagrams that don't match the moves)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="618" LastActivityDate="2021-03-23T18:20:22.713" Title="Do major chess publishers use custom software for typesetting chess books?" Tags="&lt;software&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16427" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16428" CreationDate="2017-01-20T20:38:19.697" Score="2" ViewCount="1540" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a beginner, and I have just discovered this annoying stalemate. I got the definition but while playing, I ended up with a stalemate and I don't know why. Could you explain it to me?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;8/8/4K3/8/6R1/2k5/7R/1R1R4 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I had 4 rooks that were supposed to block the king so he could not move anymore. Isn't this supposed to be checkmate?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12299" LastEditorUserId="25131" LastEditDate="2021-03-04T13:23:31.807" LastActivityDate="2021-03-04T13:37:15.580" Title="Instead of giving checkmate, I gave stalemate. Why?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;check&gt;&lt;stalemate&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="16428" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16427" CreationDate="2017-01-20T20:43:21.403" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;No; for checkmate, the king must be &lt;em&gt;in check&lt;/em&gt;, i.e. attacked by one of your pieces. This isn't the case in the position you posted, but if you were to move, you'd be able to force mate in two:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/8/4K3/8/6R1/2k5/7R/1R1R4 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Rh3+ Kc2 2. Rg2#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Actually, you don't need that many rooks to checkmate. A lone king and rook will be enough; the procedure is explained in &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Checkmate#King_and_rook&quot;&gt;this Wikipedia article&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2017-01-20T20:43:21.403" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16429" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16427" CreationDate="2017-01-20T20:49:30.733" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;For checkmate you need to &lt;strong&gt;be able to capture the enemy king in the next move&lt;/strong&gt; and your opponent must not have any way to prevent this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Alternatively this can be defined by two rules that have to be satisfied simultaneously:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;all escape squares of the king are taken; either blocked by pieces of the king's color or (as in your case) covered by the checkmating side&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the king is in check (i.e. attacked) and cannot (a) capture the piece which gives check; nor (b) put a piece between the piece which gives check and the king so that the check is interrupted (this would only work for bishop, rook and queen checks)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your case only &quot;1&quot; is satisfied, so it is not checkmate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2017-01-20T20:49:30.733" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16433" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16434" CreationDate="2017-01-21T04:33:49.027" Score="0" ViewCount="519" Body="&lt;p&gt;I asked the same question on Stockfish's forum.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black to move in the classic scholar's mate position. mate in 1. Engine produce erroneous results?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;position fen rnbqkbnr/pppp1ppp/8/4p3/6P1/5P2/PPPPP2P/RNBQKBNR b KQkq -&#xA;&#xA;eval&#xA;&#xA;Total Evaluation: -0.85 (white side)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Same position, except black checkmated white. White to move:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;position fen rnb1kbnr/pppp1ppp/8/4p3/6Pq/5P2/PPPPP2P/RNBQKBNR w KQkq -&#xA;&#xA;eval&#xA;&#xA;Debug error! abort() has been called&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is another position that crashes:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1b1B1k2/8/2B1p1p1/3n1p2/4KP2/6P1/8/8 w&#xA;eval&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;Go&lt;/code&gt; seems to work properly, showing that its mate in 1, and checkmate. However &lt;code&gt;eval&lt;/code&gt; is not showing the correct numbers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or am I misunderstanding something here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12304" LastEditorUserId="12304" LastEditDate="2017-01-21T17:52:38.570" LastActivityDate="2017-01-21T17:52:38.570" Title="Stockfish crashing on checkmate positions, and erroneous evaluation" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16434" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16433" CreationDate="2017-01-21T09:14:00.603" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Everything works perfectly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You should add 50 move counter to your FEN, but this is not the biggest issue.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The &lt;code&gt;eval&lt;/code&gt; command returns a &lt;strong&gt;static&lt;/strong&gt; evaluation of your position. It &lt;strong&gt;doesn't&lt;/strong&gt; start the search, that's why Stockfish gave you back the results immediately.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Try this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;ucinewgame&#xA;position fen rnbqkbnr/pppp1ppp/8/4p3/6P1/5P2/PPPPP2P/RNBQKBNR b KQkq - 0 1&#xA;go movetime 1000&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The engine gives you back mate in one:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;info depth 126 seldepth 2 multipv 1 score mate 1 nodes 3781 nps 945250 tbhits 0 time 4 pv d8h4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2017-01-21T09:14:00.603" CommentCount="12" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16435" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16361" CreationDate="2017-01-21T14:12:45.930" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Each opening is good for trying to introduce potential imbalances. The Sicilian is very popular, and you may have to learn a few opening lines, but don't memorize too much. You'll recognize move-groups or ideas or piece formations that work. Playing ...d5 is generally the goal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only drawback is that White can often have a general plan against any sicilian e.g. f4 O-O with a kingside attack, or a quick g4-h4-(g5/h5) with O-O-O. You need a certain degree of confidence against both.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The French Defense often leaves you with a space disadvantage and a bad queen's bishop, since White often plays e5. Black's moves also feel relatively logical if you look at a few GM games. And &quot;just developing&quot; often gets White's position in hot water if he doesn't understand his weaknesses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I learned a lot about pawn chains and such from playing the French Advance: e4 e6 d4 d5 e5 c5 and Black can do a lot on the Queenside. It's also relatively harder for White to sacrifice soundly against the French. The Milner-Barry is about all there is, though the Alekhine-Chatard can be a pain if you play e4 e6 d4 d5 Nc3 Nf6 Bg5 Be7 e5 Nfd7... h4!? burned me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But the big drawback of the French is e4 e6 d4 d5 exd5 exd5, the exchange, which is potentially boring, and lower rated players may use it to try to draw against you and frustrate you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I played the French when I was younger. Sometimes I wondered if I should've gone with the Sicilian. There's no wrong answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11202" LastActivityDate="2017-01-21T14:12:45.930" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16436" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16297" CreationDate="2017-01-21T16:31:14.467" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, since the values of pieces in bughouse chess depends severely on the position type (e.g. a queen is often useless) you may want to stall/not play immediately when you're waiting for a specific piece to complete your strategy in general, not necessarily to win you a piece or gain some specific advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;E.g. you may have noticed experienced bughouse players starting with 1.Nf3 followed by Ng5 or Ne5 and sacrificing at f7. Now, when the king takes the knight, you might not reach an immediate advantage, but getting a knight could yield you a nice aggressive position.&#xA;Or another example would be waiting to get a pawn very early to disturb your opponents development as early as 2nd or 3rd move, with the goal of attacking, but also getting more space and a psychological advantage.&#xA;While we're on that, sometimes if you're playing blitz bughouse casually, chatting etc. you might want to spend some time just to get your opponent off track, since psychology plays a huge role in chess, and therefore in bughouse as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I would agree with you that on most occasions it is that you see you're getting checkmated in the next move so you let your partner play as long as he can(given that you have more time than your diagonal opponent, of course). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's pretty much all I can think of, I hope you find this answer useful!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10894" LastActivityDate="2017-01-21T16:31:14.467" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16437" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16438" CreationDate="2017-01-22T07:21:44.587" Score="2" ViewCount="159" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is plenty of sites offering database searches and I wonder how to make it without breaking any laws. I'm looking for games source (pgn ideal) that I can download, process and use in my application. Looking for both human and correspondence sources. No big problem if the work is heavy or difficult. Interested just in new games so if some sources started just a few years ago, no big deal. How complete various sources are? Can I just pack the database to my own format and offer it as a free download?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11609" LastEditorUserId="11609" LastEditDate="2017-01-22T07:34:42.567" LastActivityDate="2017-01-22T07:53:08.167" Title="Chess games ownership, databases to use in app to sell" Tags="&lt;database&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16438" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16437" CreationDate="2017-01-22T07:53:08.167" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Nobody has copyright to raw PGN games, so you are free to distribute it. You may pack it to your own format, you may offer it as a free download, or you may sell it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, you can't sell annotation. You may use Chessbase's &lt;code&gt;2017 Mega Database&lt;/code&gt;, get the games, remove annotation (if any) and use the games for your app.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2017-01-22T07:53:08.167" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16439" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30399" CreationDate="2017-01-22T13:55:01.853" Score="12" ViewCount="6642" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have recently discovered Horde Chess on lichess.org and was wondering if there is somewhere a online guide on some openings or on some general tactic? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm really a beginner in general chess itself also, but this seems like its simpler and more fun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12314" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2017-01-22T14:58:36.943" LastActivityDate="2020-10-10T05:31:12.430" Title="Horde Chess Guide?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;chess-variants&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2020-10-10T09:28:33.217" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16440" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16420" CreationDate="2017-01-22T16:29:19.783" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can't comment, so I'll have to answer: CT-Art has great tactics that you can buy for like $35. It runs through this program called Peshk@. Its full of tons and tons of tactics that are organized thematically (forks - split into knight forks, pawn forks, etc. - , pins, destroying the defense). After working through some thematically you can 'test' and pick to shuffle together the tactics. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10622" LastActivityDate="2017-01-22T16:29:19.783" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16441" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16447" CreationDate="2017-01-22T16:31:25.517" Score="5" ViewCount="253" Body="&lt;p&gt;While practicing, is it advisable to play themed games? For example, playing practice games using the Sicilian Defence, or the French Defence. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I play at an intermediate level. I have chess.com rating of around 1500. I have never read or studied any chess books.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11068" LastEditorUserId="10867" LastEditDate="2017-01-23T17:28:06.910" LastActivityDate="2017-01-25T01:17:39.390" Title="Is it beneficial to play themed practice games?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;training&gt;&lt;best-practice&gt;&lt;preparation&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16442" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16420" CreationDate="2017-01-22T16:42:35.460" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;LucasChess is the best free software out there. You can add any engine you like and you can analyze your games with multiple engines. It also has a training mode for tactics, openings, and endgame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I highly recommend it. I recommended it to a friend who loved it so much that he hardly uses his Chessmaster these days.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's the link:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www-lucaschess.rhcloud.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www-lucaschess.rhcloud.com/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9946" LastActivityDate="2017-01-22T16:42:35.460" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16443" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16441" CreationDate="2017-01-22T17:33:42.193" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;It really depends on what your end goal is. Themed games in a specific opening are good to get familiar with a specific opening, and get a &quot;feel&quot; for the positions arising in the resulting middlegames. So, if you want to learn a new opening, or are having trouble in a certain line, it could be a great way to learn an opening, coupled with studying some opening theory (on the 1500 level the amount of opening theory needed isn't that great, and a few lines together with some basic knowledge of ideas in the opening usually is enough).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, if you want to become a stronger player all-round, I would say that it's an inefficient training method in and of itself, and should be used as a supplement, rather than your main means of exercise. You will learn more studying tactics and analysing your games, since tactics will be an area any 1500-level player can improve, and practicing analysis is key to being able to improve later on. But of course - play chess! That is probably the single most important means of training available, since it gives you more experience. And playing some of these games in a pre-arranged opening line will not be a waste.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8300" LastActivityDate="2017-01-22T17:33:42.193" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16444" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16441" CreationDate="2017-01-22T17:37:35.423" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;A great practice routine if you have a willing partner is to take a position from an opening you wish to study and play a series of blitz games from both sides. For example, when I was younger me and my chess buds would play a bunch of blitz games from B63, Sicilian Richter-Rauzer position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 Nc6 6. Bg5 e6 7. Qd2&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We did this with the Sicilian Dragon variation as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a tremendously beneficial training technique. You learn what types of middlegame plans work (and don't work) from both sides of the board. Pick any opening position , say 6-10 moves in, and have at it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After you have played a bunch of blitz, move along to longer time controls (G10, G15, G30 even), and help refine your play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10233" LastActivityDate="2017-01-22T17:37:35.423" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16445" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16439" CreationDate="2017-01-22T17:40:09.857" Score="-5" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's not chess, however. So that is the major drawback. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Only advice to give is to just play, and forget about approaching it with the same ideas as in standard chess. It won't last long.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10233" LastActivityDate="2017-01-22T17:40:09.857" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16447" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16441" CreationDate="2017-01-23T12:30:50.717" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;For somebody at your level I'd recommend to focus on tactics and general  principles (in openings/middle game and endgames) first, before worrying about specific openings (which have very little effect compared to missing simple tactics etc). Also if you learn typical general motives/principles of openings (attacking a pawn chain, developing pieces....) first they will help a lot when studying a particular opening later.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you do want to learn an opening, I would recommend to first find out what kind of player you are, particularly whether you prefer closed positional games or rather open tactical battles. This will influence the kind of opening you are happy with.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In a second step, I'd take a look at some master games played in different openings and see what kind of positions result from different openings and which of them you like best. Looking around moves 10-15 is usually a good indication for what you get out of the openings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you have decided on an opening I'd start with learning the main line to some reasonable depth. Make sure not only to memorize the moves by heart but also to understand why they are made and what the general idea behind this particular opening is. For this you probably need some external help such as books, a database and online resources (videos, streams where good players comment on their moves live,...).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once you have a rough idea of how this opening works you can think of playing themed games with an opponent. This will be a lot more efficient if your opponent has a much higher level than you or at least knows this opening much better than you; as in that case he will be able to point out mistakes you do when practicing. BTW, on lichess there are also regularly themed tournaments where you start from a custom position (randomly playing black and white): &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.lichess.org/tournament&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.lichess.org/tournament&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In any case I'd see these themed games only as a supplement and a way to test yourself. If you want to be serious about chess, it will not replace studying with databases, books, annotated games, analyzing your games for mistakes etc. Another good way to study particularly if you reach a level of Elo 2000 or so, is to pick a GM who is playing your opening and to follow their games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2017-01-23T12:30:50.717" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16448" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-01-23T14:29:11.217" Score="4" ViewCount="748" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have downloaded a copy of the 6 man Syzygy tablebase and configured it on my Fritz 15 GUI. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Due to obvious memory constraints, the full 6 man Syzygy tablebase cannot be loaded into memory (ie. ramdisk). Will I gain any benefit moving some of the 6 piece tablebase files onto a ramdisk, and if so, which piece combinations should I gain the most benefit from (ie. in terms of endgame positions). Has anyone done analysis in this area?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Currently I host my 6 piece Syzygy tablebase on my Synology NAS via iSCSI. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11262" LastActivityDate="2017-08-18T19:28:17.597" Title="6 man syzygy tablebase and ramdisk" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;tablebases&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16449" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16448" CreationDate="2017-01-23T14:41:54.633" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have been doing this a lot recently. My iOS Syzygy 6-men apps require at least 2GB (possibly more) to run, which is not so easy for iPhones and iPads.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You gain the most benefit if you follow &lt;a href=&quot;https://shop.chessbase.com/en/products/endspiel_turbo_4&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://shop.chessbase.com/en/products/endspiel_turbo_4&lt;/a&gt;. This is also how I distribute.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Stockfish only memory map (mmap) your tablebase file when it is needed. So you might choose your files depend on what position you want.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I can't comment on iSCSI, NAS etc.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2017-01-23T14:41:54.633" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16451" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16356" CreationDate="2017-01-23T17:21:12.990" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a regular 3, ... Be7 player, I can say that Be7 is not played to give an immediate check on h4. As others pointed out the best move is 4, Bc4 but white must be aware of the several tactics that could arise in this position. For example after the natural 4. Bc4 attacking the f7 pawn, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5&#xA;2. f4 exf4&#xA;3. Nf3 Be7&#xA;4. Bc4 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black would simply develop his knight to f6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5&#xA;2. f4 exf4&#xA;3. Nf3 Be7&#xA;4. Bc4 Nf6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The idea is to attack the central e4 pawn and plan a trick if white tries to protect the pawn by 5, Nc3 then comes&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5&#xA;2. f4 exf4&#xA;3. Nf3 Be7&#xA;4. Bc4 Nf6&#xA;5. Nc3 Nxe4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;if 6, Nxe4 then 6, ... d5 wins the piece back with a fine position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5&#xA;2. f4 exf4&#xA;3. Nf3 Be7&#xA;4. Bc4 Nf6&#xA;5. Nc3 Nxe4&#xA;6. Nxe4 d5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have seen most players would give back the piece immediately after 5 ... Nxe4 by 6, Bxf7+ Kxf7 and then 7, Nxe4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5&#xA;2. f4 exf4&#xA;3. Nf3 Be7&#xA;4. Bc4 Nf6&#xA;5. Nc3 Nxe4&#xA;6. Bxf7+ Kxf7&#xA;7. Nxe4 d5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a perfectly playable position for black. The king could seek shelter in g8 after developing the rook to f8 or e8. The bishop at e7 guards the possible knight maneuvers and there is no real threat of decisive attack in this position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are many more interesting variations after 4, Bc4 but I am stopping here as the OP would likely be able to discover them without much effort.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4183" LastEditorUserId="4183" LastEditDate="2017-01-25T01:16:07.640" LastActivityDate="2017-01-25T01:16:07.640" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16452" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16457" CreationDate="2017-01-23T23:47:42.087" Score="3" ViewCount="220" Body="&lt;p&gt;in this board, after Nf5 as indicated, why does stockfish suggest the best move is king-knight e7? Surely it would be better to save the Q to h7 towards the check-mate on h2 (white knight blocks the white bishop, so Q safe here). Any ideas? Am I missing something obvious? Thanks. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/EtMjO.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/EtMjO.png&quot; alt=&quot;Kf5 | King-Ke7&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12323" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2017-01-23T23:58:13.893" LastActivityDate="2017-01-24T02:10:36.557" Title="Why does black not move Queen here?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16453" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16452" CreationDate="2017-01-23T23:59:10.207" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;After Nf5 ...Qh7??, Nd6+ wins the queen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2017-01-23T23:59:10.207" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16454" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="486" CreationDate="2017-01-24T00:03:50.890" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Lasker in his Manual of chess refers to the King's leap when he writes about the fianchetto.  He says that the fianchetto originated to provide a safe square for a king with the king's leap &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12324" LastActivityDate="2017-01-24T00:03:50.890" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16455" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-01-24T00:20:41.620" Score="4" ViewCount="313" Body="&lt;p&gt;I won the game easily because my opponent left a rook hanging in the end. I believe I missed opportunities to build a stronger attack, but I am not sure how I could have done so.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.d4 e5 2.dxe5 Qe7 3.Nc3 Qxe5 4.e4 Nf6 5.Nf3 Qe7 6.Bd3 Qb4 7.O-O Be7 8.e5 Ng4 9.Nd5 Qc5 10.Nxe7 Qxe7 11.Re1 O-O 12.h3 Nh6 13.Nd4 Qh4 14.Re4 Qe7 15.Bxh6 gxh6 16.Qh5 d5 17.Re3 f5 18.Rg3+ Kh8 19.f4 Nc6 20.Nxc6 bxc6 21.Qxh6 Qe6 22.Qxf8+ Qg8 23.Qxg8#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12322" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2017-01-24T00:40:27.980" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T18:51:17.467" Title="How could I have improved my attack in this game?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;&lt;attack&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16456" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16455" CreationDate="2017-01-24T02:00:53.823" Score="5" Body="&lt;ol start=&quot;16&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Nf5 would win the queen one way or another because of the threat Qg4+, Qg7++. For instance 16. Nf5 Qe6 17. Qg4+ Qg6 18. Ne7+&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other than that, when you are attacking and the opponent's pieces are undeveloped or discoordinated you really want to open files and not create a closed position. Therefore 17. exd6 e.p. or even better 18. exf6 e.p. seems natural. Then white will bring a rook to e7 and black should be lost soon.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastEditorUserId="11629" LastEditDate="2017-01-24T10:23:08.323" LastActivityDate="2017-01-24T10:23:08.323" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16457" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16452" CreationDate="2017-01-24T02:10:36.557" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Nf5 ...Qh7, Nd6+ (discovered attack) wins the queen. Note that any other attempts to save the queen fails:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Nb4 or Nce7 or Nge7 or Nf6 with the idea to attack the white queen fail because Nxg7+ is check&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Qg6 has the same problem as Qh7, i.e. loses the queen after Nd6+&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Qxe5 Rae1 (or Rfe1) pins the queen. Unpinning the queen with Nge7 (or Nce7) and an attack on the white queen does not help since after Rxe5 the knight on e7 is pinned and cannot capture the white queen.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2017-01-24T02:10:36.557" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16459" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16455" CreationDate="2017-01-25T01:14:34.680" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;exd6/exf6 as mentioned above are good just because they open lines and the pawn isn't likely to anchor the knight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I really like 17. Rh4 because it forces Qg5, then Qxh6 gets both h pawns and the game's pretty much over.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black has a resource of ...Qg5 to try to trade queens, but White's so far ahead in development it isn't a real threat to dissipate his advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;19 Nxf5 seems fine too as Qf7 (or) Qxe5 Qxh6 and ...Qf5 allows Qg7 mate, so White is just a pawn up and has opened up Black's kingside a bit more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes it's easy to overthink stuff and not go for the clear captures. And a move like f4 appears to build up your position, but the e-pawn doesn't need protection. Open lines are important.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;20 Nxc6 seems to let Black off the hook too. You should avoid piece exchanges while you're ahead unless they lead to a clear endgame. Yeah, you mess up his queenside pawns a bit, but you need to think bigger. It's nice to win a pawn, but as opposed to the line above, which also wins a pawn, the game is a bit closed off.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A good way to continue the attack after ...Be6 instead of Qe6 looks to be Rg3-g5-h5 and Kh2 and Rg1 and g4. White will break through on the g-file. Black will have trouble exchanging queens since the queen has to guard the bishop, and if that moves, Qxc6 works. Meanwhile White brings his rook into the game, either with Ra1-e1-e3-g3 or Kh2, Rg1, g4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11202" LastActivityDate="2017-01-25T01:14:34.680" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16460" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16441" CreationDate="2017-01-25T01:17:39.390" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think it can be very good especially if you are getting into a rut playing the same sort of game over and over again. I know that when I played too much blitz I just threw openings all over the place, but I wasn't focusing on one and learning. It became more about short term trying to fool my opponent than saying, I want to get better at this or that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So if you see yourself or a friend flagging in this way, a training game seems like a good way to get around that. Keep notation and see what computers/books say and it'd be a very good learning experience.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11202" LastActivityDate="2017-01-25T01:17:39.390" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16461" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-01-25T11:12:21.527" Score="5" ViewCount="1730" Body="&lt;p&gt;I watched some Komodo endgame play and what he is capable of is just horrible. From nice advantage with pawn up and activity he gives up two pawns ending in some miracle fortress position. Who can blame him when he knows everything about the endgame (7 man position for example using 6man tablebase) in a few seconds, knowing it is 0.00 everywhere, but still, is this the best chess engines can do with technical endgames? I see no imagination in his endgame play, no problem creation for oponent, just random moves not making his position worse in theoretic terms. Clearly he would lose many points playing this way with any human being incapable of precise play. Playing another perfect oposition they don't lose anything but still not sure I like such a design.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as I understnad engines, contempt has nothing to do with this problem, is there another setting that can help here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: example position&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;2k5/7R/r5p1/3K4/3P4/7P/8/8 b - - 0 1&#xA;&#xA;1...g5 2.Ke4 Kd8 3.Ke5 Ra3 4.Rh6 Ke7 5.Rh8 Re3+ 6.Kd5 Kf6 7.Kc5 Kg7 8.Rh5 Kg6 9.Rh8 Kg7 10.Rb8 Rxh3 11.Rb2 g4 12.Rg2 g3 13.d5 Kf6 14.d6 Ke6 15.d7 *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11609" LastEditorUserId="4509" LastEditDate="2017-01-25T12:49:50.820" LastActivityDate="2017-01-26T08:09:25.087" Title="Are chess engines too briliant to play good endgame?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16462" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16461" CreationDate="2017-01-25T12:54:59.660" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The problem with an engine playing a drawn position with tablebases is that it has no concept of making life difficult for the opponent. All their moves are perfect in the sense that they don't turn a drawing position into a losing one -- not losing is guaranteed. But it has no concept of trying to win, and no way to decide between several moves that all lead to yet another drawn position, because in theory there &lt;em&gt;is&lt;/em&gt; no difference.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you turn off the tablebases, you get the normal engine play. It won't be &lt;em&gt;perfect&lt;/em&gt;, but still usually much better than humans, and it uses an evaluation function that rewards material advantage, passed pawns, active pieces, and so on. That's probably what you want.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2017-01-25T12:54:59.660" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16464" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16461" CreationDate="2017-01-26T06:16:17.230" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think @RemocoGerlich is correct, and I'm here to add a real-life example. The point is that a chess engine would like to transpose a position into a known endgame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is also a technical explanation from Syzygy's author in the reference (nobody understands tablebase better than him!).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Reference: &lt;a href=&quot;http://talkchess.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=62837&quot;&gt;http://talkchess.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=62837&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although black easily wins in the following position, Stockfish with 6-piece Syzygy would give the move:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1...Qe3+ 2.Kd5 Qxd3+&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ii1Oc.png&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ii1Oc.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The reported moves appear to be random and absurd, but they're correct&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Stockfish would try to transpose to a known tablebase endgame as quickly as possible. While it does that, it'd play non-human moves&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If you turn tablebase off, Stockfish would do something else such as trying to checkmate the White king with the queen. Stockfish would play 1...Qc5 without tablebase, and that's also how a human would do.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2017-01-26T08:09:25.087" LastActivityDate="2017-01-26T08:09:25.087" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16465" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-01-26T06:16:47.343" Score="3" ViewCount="665" Body="&lt;p&gt;The line for &lt;strong&gt;Queen's Indian Defence&lt;/strong&gt; goes like this - &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]    &#xA;1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nf3 b6 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, the most popular choice for white in this position is &lt;strong&gt;g3&lt;/strong&gt; preparing to fianchetto its light squared Bishop. After this, if Black wants to develop its light squared Bishop, the two choices are either &lt;strong&gt;Ba6&lt;/strong&gt;(modern main line) or &lt;strong&gt;Bb7&lt;/strong&gt;(old min line). Suppose Bb7 is played by Black. Now white can also fianchetto its Bishop and the play can go on. But here is my question - Given that Black plays b6, why does white go on with g3 ? Given that white's main light squares defender around the king (after white castles king side) is its Bishop on g2 which at some point in the game can be exchanged with Black's bishop on b7, isn't this line a bit more riskier? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, this line has been played at top level a very large number of times. Like yesterday in Tata steel 2017 masters, Aronian played this opening and won a wonderful game. So what is the justification behind white's fianchettoing its light squared Bishop given Black has already done that?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9620" LastEditorUserId="9620" LastEditDate="2017-01-26T10:03:16.303" LastActivityDate="2017-01-26T21:14:49.307" Title="Why does White fianchetto the light square Bishop in QID" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;queens-indian&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16467" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16465" CreationDate="2017-01-26T09:28:00.323" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Given that white's main light squares defender around the king (after white castles king side) is its Bishop on g2 which at some point in the game can be exchanged with Black's bishop on b7, isn't this line a bit more riskier?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If they get exchanged black will also lose his light squared bishop which could have taken advantage of the weakened light squares around the white king. For white it would be much worse to exchange the bishop on g2 for a black knight which could make that bishop on b7 very strong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In any case there is nothing wrong having such opposing bishops. Many other factors play a role here as well and the white bishop on g2 does put some pressure on the center and is not threatened to be immediately exchanged. You really need to look at the whole position not at one element only.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Otherwise you could argue that any opening where you fianchetto the bishop and castle to the same side (King's Indian, Grünfeld, ....) is bad as the opponent could always fianchetto himself to oppose your bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2017-01-26T09:28:00.323" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16468" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16465" CreationDate="2017-01-26T09:31:52.037" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are 3 reasons why White fianchettos the light square bishop:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;White's plan is to play e4 to gain space. The bishop on g2 supports this&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Building from point 1), white could play e3, Bd3 then e4, but that is an extra tempo spent to play e4&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;White has latent pressure on the queen-side, and may be able to play discovery or pinning tactics with a bishop on g2&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2017-01-26T09:31:52.037" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16469" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16439" CreationDate="2017-01-26T16:27:52.553" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;TL;DR&lt;/strong&gt;: White should target the rook files and get to the back rank. Black should keep the pawns together an promote.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I found this guide on the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.lichess.org/forum/general-chess-discussion/how-to-play-horde-chess&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;lichess forum&lt;/a&gt;, found after Googling &quot;Horde Chess Strategy&quot;. Tips for white are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[Winning with white] is most easily achieved by getting to the back of the horde. The weakest files are the a, and h file, as those pawns are only defended once. The easiest way to immediately create pressure on either of those files is 1. a4 (or h4). This forces the b5 (or g5) pawn to choose between capturing or being captured, and thus opening up the file for the rooks. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tips for black are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The goal for black is to checkmate. This is most easily achieved after promotion (by which time white will probably resign after all of their sacrifices). As aforementioned, black's weakest files are the a, and h files. Black must guard these files and the backrank. Black must remember that the power is in the horde, and therefore must not spreadout his pawns in an easily permeable, checker like structure. Accept or reject sacrifices as the position calls for. Black must also keep in mind that should white get to the back of the horde, it's not always the end of the game. It takes valuable time for white to capture all of the pawns rank by rank -- time black could be using to promote pawns. And if all else fails, it's often quite possible for black to play for a draw -- stalemate -- when black has no legal moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2017-01-26T16:27:52.553" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16470" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-01-26T17:24:53.737" Score="4" ViewCount="1166" Body="&lt;p&gt;Has FIDE ever given reasons why it rates woman in different category and organises their tournaments seperately?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12108" LastActivityDate="2017-01-27T00:08:17.327" Title="Why does FIDE rate women in different category?" Tags="&lt;women&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16471" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-01-26T18:00:56.290" Score="2" ViewCount="371" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's easy for me to locate 6-piece tablebases online for free (e.g. lichess), and I know 7-piece tablebases exist (cf. Lomonosov tablebase), but I don't know of any easy way to access them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I'm not really interested in all the weird positions like K4B vs KQ that a ≥7-piece tablebase would &quot;honestly&quot; have to include to be called as such. Haven't there been any restricted tablebases generated that only bother to include useful positions, such as e.g. KR vs. KR with more than a total of two pawns? Or is such a thing still technically infeasible?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(I realize that in theory, such a tablebase may not be 100% perfect, since calculations for common positions may be inextricably linked to those for uncommon ones; I would hope this issue could be circumvented with a minimum of resources spent brute forcing the uncommon positions and a minimum loss of accuracy for the common positions, but I could be wrong)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11518" LastActivityDate="2018-11-30T01:03:51.287" Title="Public higher-order endgame tablebases for *common* positions?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;tablebases&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16472" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16471" CreationDate="2017-01-26T18:58:41.860" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not expert in this field but my opinion is that even if you managed to create selected tablebases of 10% size of full package, what would be the point? I understand if you made 0.0001% size that you could be thinking about adding some pieces count but I highly doubt yo can eliminate that much and still call it tablebase. I would expect size of database for every next piece added to go extremely bigger so I think there is no point in doing this. How more precise would heavily incomplete tablebase be compared to engine? I think engine itself is way too precise these days.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11609" LastActivityDate="2017-01-26T18:58:41.860" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16473" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16470" CreationDate="2017-01-26T21:06:38.807" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess is not a sport that relies on physical skill, not withstanding the rigors of tournament and match play. Men and Women should not be separated on the FIDE title scales. Separate tournaments? Maybe - that is the organizers prerogative. World Championship? Yes. Titles, no. This is False Prestige. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After watching the Women's Championship from (Spain?) last month and the horrid play by a supposed FIM making horrendous errors, I have no faith any of them. You are either an IM or you are not. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Polgar(s) got it right when they refused to accept watered-down, female FIDE titles. There should be no difference, especially in this day and age where the average woman will hardly blink at telling you how smart she is and wants equal pay for equal play. I say, prove it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess should award titles equally across both genders on the same scale and not discriminate women any longer. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10233" LastActivityDate="2017-01-26T21:06:38.807" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16474" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16465" CreationDate="2017-01-26T21:14:49.307" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The reason is the opposition of influence in the center and the common break of e4 by White. Black's q-side fianchetto by b6/Bb7 met by g3/Bg2 is common and for good reason. White wants to oppose the Bb7 with his bishop on the same diagonal, and in turn try to get in the break e4. With c4/d4 played, White will likely go for a queenside assault, perhaps down the c-file. With the b6/Bb7 being played, the fianchetto by white makes the white Kingside more secure and contests the long diagonal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10233" LastActivityDate="2017-01-26T21:14:49.307" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16475" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16470" CreationDate="2017-01-27T00:08:17.327" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, let's clear up a misunderstanding.  Women and men are &lt;em&gt;rated&lt;/em&gt; on the same scale, with the same formula.  A woman with a FIDE rating of 2400 can be assumed to be equally matched with a man with the same 2400 rating.  FIDE merely defines four titles that are only available for women.  In general, woman can and do participate in tournaments against men.  However, there are a handful of tournaments open only to women, including a Women's World Championship.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason for the tournaments and titles is obvious: some women want to participate in such tournaments, and some women appreciate the titles.  Chess is filled with reserved tournaments and not-too-prestigious titles of other kinds - this isn't a &quot;woman-thing&quot;.  Every club, state, or national championship is a tournament which sacrifices strength and prestige to encourage the participation of a specific group.  The USCF has titles down to &quot;4th Category&quot;, a title which requires hardly more than a heartbeat and a willingness to play in at least five tournaments, obviously to encourage tournament play among those still learning the game.  FIDE correctly calculates that having the WGM, WIM, WFM, and WCM provides motivation for &lt;em&gt;some&lt;/em&gt; women and encourages them to improve their game and participate in tournaments.  Given that FIDE exists to promote chess among all populations, including women, providing these title is a no-brainer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Damning women who participate in such tournaments or accept such titles is as ridiculous as complaining that the Canadian National Championship is tainted by the lack of Americans in the field or considering the USCF Candidate Master title to be a farce because it is easier to obtain than the FIDE Candidate Master.  There is no shame or fraud in competing for these titles, as the requirements are well-known and observers can easily understand exactly how much prestige should be attached to them.  Some of the strongest women players may disdain the women-only titles, but there are many male GMs who disdained their IM or FM norms.  You may choose to learn what you want from their examples.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12084" LastActivityDate="2017-01-27T00:08:17.327" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16477" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16500" CreationDate="2017-01-27T14:04:20.770" Score="7" ViewCount="299" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was watching the current Carlsen vs Adhiban game and I saw a move that always puzzles me:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;5. h3 Bh5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd say Carlsen want to unpin the knight, or kick the bishop away. The bishop retreats, while keeping pressure on the same diagonal&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;6. Be2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This move I don't get. I can imagine that &lt;code&gt;6.g4&lt;/code&gt; would cause positional trouble on the kingside, so the bishop is moved to e2 in order to break the pin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But if this is true, then why did Carlsen play &lt;code&gt;5.h3&lt;/code&gt; in the first place ? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't get what does &lt;code&gt;5.h3&lt;/code&gt; achieve.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks !&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/MoOOz.png&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/MoOOz.png&quot; alt=&quot;this puzzles me&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12364" LastActivityDate="2017-01-30T22:35:48.503" Title="what does this move achieve?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16478" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16477" CreationDate="2017-01-27T17:03:37.010" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Off the dome:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To support a future g4/h4/h5 push; Protect against Nf6-g4; forces the bishop to a more vulnerable square (h5; make Black make a decision regarding the bishop - exchange it/leave it on the c8-h3 diagonal/move it to h5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10233" LastEditorUserId="10233" LastEditDate="2017-01-28T13:05:47.673" LastActivityDate="2017-01-28T13:05:47.673" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16479" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16471" CreationDate="2017-01-27T18:43:31.270" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Creating those tablebases requires a lot of resources (CPU time, memory, storage). The Lomonossov tables were built in the course of months and require &gt;100TByte of storage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For 'interesting' tables with pawns, you need to compute all tables which can result from pawn promotions first. So it requires quite some effort to create even a single table.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;OTOH, you can be pretty sure that engines equipped with 6-man TBs are sufficent to analyze 7-man positions well enough for all practical needs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12365" LastActivityDate="2017-01-27T18:43:31.270" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16480" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-01-27T20:34:00.020" Score="5" ViewCount="118" Body="&lt;p&gt;To use a simple example, tablebases show that KQ vs. K is won in at most ten moves. But chess books going back many decades, well before tablebases, say the same thing. How was this calculated? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12366" LastActivityDate="2017-01-27T20:53:53.333" Title="Endgames: How was &quot;maximum moves required&quot; determined before tablebases?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;calculation&gt;&lt;mathematics&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16481" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16448" CreationDate="2017-01-27T20:34:10.063" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;During search engines access the *.rtbw files only. These are best placed on your fastest local drive (ca. 70 GB). Low latency is more important than bandwidth.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The *.rtbz files are not speed critical. They are needed at the root only, when playing out 6-man positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The caching is best left to your OS.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12365" LastActivityDate="2017-01-27T20:34:10.063" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16482" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16480" CreationDate="2017-01-27T20:49:45.130" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, it &lt;em&gt;is&lt;/em&gt; calculated by tablebases. I can't imagine anybody declaring a definitive number for the minimum moves needed to achieve checkmate with KQ vs. K.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2017-01-27T20:49:45.130" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16483" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16480" CreationDate="2017-01-27T20:53:53.333" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Nothing was calculated. They arrived at their results by trial and error.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some guy would start with a seemingly disadvantageous position and tried to find the shortest mate. His result remained valid until the next guy found a more disadvantageous position or a quicker mate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A long time later, engines became powerful enough to calculate simple endgames like K+Q v K simply by exhausting all possibilities, but by that time technology was also advanced enough to create the first tablebases.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12365" LastActivityDate="2017-01-27T20:53:53.333" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16484" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16471" CreationDate="2017-01-27T23:18:17.060" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I understand where you are getting from. Unfortunately, it doesn't quite work like that. To generate a 7-man &lt;code&gt;KRPPvKRP&lt;/code&gt; you would also need 7-man endgames for the promotion. You would need:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;KRQPvKRP&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;KRQPvKRQ&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;KRQQvKRQ&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;KRBBvKRB&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;.......&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can you see, it's really not that easy to generate an endgame with a pawn, because that can transpose to another endgame with the same number of pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We &lt;strong&gt;do&lt;/strong&gt; have technology to generate Syzygy 7-piece, but you'd need a super-computer or a high-performance-computing to do it. Google can definitely do it if they want to. So far, nobody wants to cover the costs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2017-01-27T23:18:17.060" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16485" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5969" CreationDate="2017-01-28T01:48:34.900" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think that &lt;a href=&quot;http://openings.chessbase.com&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;openings.chessbase.com&lt;/a&gt; has what you're looking for.&#xA;I use it to drill openings and it works really good.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Enter moves on the board or click them in the Live Book.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mark a move to add it to your White or Black repertoire. All marked moves will be colored in the Live Book.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Load your White or your Black repertoire as game notation. White and Black are stored separately.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From any position, drill your repertoire. It doesn't matter whether you have marked moves or not, you can drill any position. The program will lead you into your openings.&#xA;If you run out of moves, stop the drill and check the Live Book.&#xA;Repeat the drill from the position where you last started it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9636" LastEditorUserId="9636" LastEditDate="2018-05-30T20:02:36.127" LastActivityDate="2018-05-30T20:02:36.127" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="16486" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16490" CreationDate="2017-01-28T01:59:43.777" Score="8" ViewCount="462" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there any material difference between chess the way it is now versus doing away with check and checkmate and defining victory as simply capturing the opponent's King, assuming an available King capture is always taken?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is another way way of putting it, along with the motivation for my question: If a chess AI ignored the concepts of check and checkmate, and treated the material value of a King as infinity, would that change its behavior?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3325" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-02-23T18:43:05.617" LastActivityDate="2020-02-23T18:43:05.617" Title="Checkless Chess" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;programming&gt;&lt;check&gt;&lt;kings&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="16487" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16486" CreationDate="2017-01-28T02:33:26.983" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you ignore check/checkmate and do something else, the side giving check would be able to capture the king on the next turn. Therefore, what you are asking is simply the current rules.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess AI is already representing the king as infinity internally. You are not changing anything.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2017-01-28T02:33:26.983" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16488" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16489" CreationDate="2017-01-28T03:36:50.667" Score="6" ViewCount="360" Body="&lt;p&gt;Tim Krabbe gives this position on his &lt;a href=&quot;https://timkr.home.xs4all.nl/chess2/minor.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;list of serious promotions to rook and bishop&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/8/5b2/8/K7/4N3/kp6/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Boniface&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Pugh&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Bristol&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;1995&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Nd1 b1=B&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And states that: &quot;Although the position was then technically won for Black, he did not manage to win, and a draw was agreed at move 92.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can black win the resulting 2 bishops vs knight ending, and if so can it be done within 50 moves to avoid a draw? I had Stockfish 5 grind at it for almost two hours and a depth of 83 but it couldn't find a win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9850" LastActivityDate="2017-03-25T03:38:35.220" Title="Is this 2B vs. N endgame won for the bishops?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;pawn-promotion&gt;&lt;bishop-pair&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16489" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16488" CreationDate="2017-01-28T04:22:41.830" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Try Syzygy tablebase: &lt;a href=&quot;https://syzygy-tables.info/?fen=8/8/5b2/8/K7/8/k7/1b1N4_w_-_-_0_1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://syzygy-tables.info/?fen=8/8/5b2/8/K7/8/k7/1b1N4_w_-_-_0_1&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/OWpkr.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/OWpkr.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please ignore DTZ if you don't know what it is, look at DTM. It's &lt;strong&gt;checkmate in 139 piles&lt;/strong&gt; with perfect play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No, the position is drawn under the FIDE 50-move rule.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2017-01-29T04:34:54.577" LastActivityDate="2017-01-29T04:34:54.577" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16490" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16486" CreationDate="2017-01-28T05:49:13.987" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your &quot;checkless&quot; chess AI would run into problems with the stalemate rule. It would consider the poaition with white king on a6, white pawn a7, black king a8, a win for White because wherever Black moves his king it will get captured. In standard chess, of course, the position is a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2299" LastActivityDate="2017-01-28T05:49:13.987" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16491" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16486" CreationDate="2017-01-28T08:26:52.633" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Apart from stalemate, what you have to account for is the possibility that both kings are captured in succession, restoring the balance. That's what one of my chess programs did, capturing a defended piece with the king, because the defending pawn was pinned against my king. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, if the only possible moves are with the king, you need to check whether those are actually legal, or whether the position is stalemate. And when a king is taken, you need to make sure that subsequent moves don't change the evaluation. Apart from that you need to check for checkmate only in the current position, as far as I can see. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2017-01-28T08:26:52.633" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16492" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-01-28T16:56:38.957" Score="7" ViewCount="376" Body="&lt;p&gt;I read an article about how Wesley So hired a coach. Well, Wesley is rated 2800 and is far stronger than his coach ever was. I'm just wondering what a coach would have to offer to a player as strong as Wesley, and if it's really worth the money.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In physical sports, coaches can provide plans. For example, in tennis, Nadal is a great player. His coach can give him plans so that Nadal can go out and execute them. The reason Nadal is better than his coach is because he can execute the plan. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But, in chess, the plan is the sport. If Wesley So's coach can make better plans than Wesley So, why isn't he a better player than Wesley ? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10737" LastEditorUserId="10737" LastEditDate="2017-01-29T02:49:35.997" LastActivityDate="2017-01-30T22:30:11.040" Title="What do top players' get from coaches?" Tags="&lt;psychology&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16493" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16492" CreationDate="2017-01-28T18:28:32.330" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, same argument could be made for all the other top athletes in different individual sports. Why does Roger Federer needs a coach? Why did Michael Phelps need a coach? Whether is to point them to the right direction, give them study plans, analize  their or an upcoming opponent's strategies, boost their mental skills (a huge part in individual sports, can't stress this enough), the fact is all top chess players have coaches. &#xA;Just because they are good, they aren't perfect. So they all have room for improvement, that's why the coach(es) exist.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12369" LastActivityDate="2017-01-28T18:28:32.330" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16494" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16492" CreationDate="2017-01-29T03:29:27.817" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Being a good coach takes a different set of skills than being a great, or world-class player. You can't just say that the coach makes better plans, as that is over simplification and somewhat inaccurate. The point of the coach is typically to help the player identify and eliminate their weaknesses, whether it's tactics, strategy/positional considerations, technique, opening, middlegame, endgame, etc, or non-chess considerations like diet and exercise. The coach will also have different ideas on how a position could be played, and can be useful in bouncing ideas around with, or analyzing opponents weaknesses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9025" LastActivityDate="2017-01-29T03:29:27.817" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16495" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-01-29T05:12:15.643" Score="5" ViewCount="376" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there any variation of chess where the winner has to take all of the opponents pieces rather than just force the capture of one of them ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I guess sacrifices wouldn't work well in this variation of chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10737" LastActivityDate="2017-01-30T16:20:51.043" Title="Variation of chess where winner has to capture all pieces?" Tags="&lt;chess-variants&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16496" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16495" CreationDate="2017-01-29T23:40:03.863" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Horde/Dunsany's chess would match your requirement for one side (the other has to mate).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2017-01-29T23:40:03.863" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16497" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16492" CreationDate="2017-01-30T00:44:17.530" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think making plans and executing them are two different things. Our calculational abilities diminish as we get older, so maybe having someone who can work out the big picture stuff but is not able to calculate as far ahead could be very valuable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In addition a chess coach may not want or need the thrill of competition any more. For instance, Garry Kasparov retired as world champion and coached Carlsen for a bit, but then Kasparov found activism to be where he wanted to focus his energy. Other coaches may have a family that means they can't focus on chess full-time. Kasparov is still very good at chess if he wants to be. But he did all he could and decided to move on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11202" LastActivityDate="2017-01-30T00:44:17.530" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16498" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1565" CreationDate="2017-01-30T04:47:11.047" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a volunteer chess coach in a couple Dallas Inner-city schools (a middle school and a high school). I am a mediocre player with a standard tactics problem rating of about 1400. Because I cannot give significant individual attention to 25 students with varying degrees of chess skill, I have utilized chesstempo extensively and have encouraged all of the chess club players to work standard tactics problems to improve their games. Largely as a result of this activity, our two chess clubs have managed to win several first, second and third place trophies as team and individual players in the city school district. Some of the students have worked over 3000 tactics problems. Many of them beat me regularly online and on the boards. Our best player has a chesstempo rating in the mid-1500s and he works problems approximately four times as quickly as I do. I firmly believe that an interest in chesstempo is a big factor in the success of many of our best players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One big advantage of chesstempo that by playing virtually all of our club games on line the club members can play at their convenience. This allows them to play a lot more chess than if they could only play once or twice a week during our regular after school club meetings. It also gives me the opportunity to look at accurate records of their games and show them their strengths and weaknesses. I can then create a database that includes every club game that each member plays.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We are currently running an asynchronous inter-mural tournament (two schools in the same general neighborhood) on chesstempo in which 28 contestants are each playing 27 simultaneous games over a 60-day period. Thus they will log 378 games against each other and will have the privilege of playing every other interested club player. At this point in the tournament our strongest (and leading) player, a ninth grade student from Afghanistan, has won about fifteen games and has not lost or drawn a game. Eighteen months ago he had a mere understanding of how to move the pieces.  Our players currently include 4th graders to 10th graders.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12375" LastActivityDate="2017-01-30T04:47:11.047" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16499" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16492" CreationDate="2017-01-30T09:21:50.423" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Everybody needs training material, preferably specific to the skill to be trained.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You and I can just buy improvement books with hundreds of positions and have plenty work to do, at a high enough level. And we have so many weaknesses in our play that basically any training helps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you're a professional grandmaster, you've already done all the books when you were 14. You spend 10+ hours per day improving your chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Much material presents itself (you need to analyze your own games and those of the other top players to death, keep analyzing all your openings to find new ideas), but someone also has to collect interesting training material to improve your skills, and that can be a full time job. They need to be good enough to know what kinds of position a player with some set of strengths and weaknesses (even a 2800 player) needs to get better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2017-01-30T09:21:50.423" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16500" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16477" CreationDate="2017-01-30T10:46:26.530" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I see at least 3 good points to &lt;code&gt;5. h3&lt;/code&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;first and foremost, it puts a question to the Bishop: if Black wants to maintain the pin, he will have to move it to &lt;code&gt;h5&lt;/code&gt;, which is more vulnerable and decentralized. Moreover, once the Bishop will be on &lt;code&gt;h5&lt;/code&gt;, white squares on the Queenside will become vulnerable, as the Bishop cannot retreat and defend them in one move (just have a look to &lt;code&gt;b7&lt;/code&gt;, for example);&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;once the Bishop is on &lt;code&gt;h5&lt;/code&gt;, White can kick it away with &lt;code&gt;g4&lt;/code&gt; if he wants, gaining space and advancing a Pawn with tempo;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;now that &lt;code&gt;h3&lt;/code&gt; is in place, &lt;code&gt;h2&lt;/code&gt; becomes a comfortable flight square for the King if White castles Kingside, thus avoiding first rank weaknesses during the endgame.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="279" LastActivityDate="2017-01-30T10:46:26.530" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16501" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16495" CreationDate="2017-01-30T16:20:51.043" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;First of all, the historical rules of &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessvariants.com/historic.dir/shatranj.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Shatranj&lt;/a&gt; include the victory condition &quot;bare King&quot;, i.e., capturing all pieces except the King is a victory, except that the other player can capture the last piece of the first player immediately after the loss of his last piece (then, the game is drawn).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a modern variant, there is &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessvariants.com/winning.dir/extinction.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Extinction Chess (aka Survival of the Species)&lt;/a&gt; where the extinction of one piece type (Knight, Bishop etc.) wins the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3819" LastActivityDate="2017-01-30T16:20:51.043" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16502" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15710" CreationDate="2017-01-30T19:47:23.567" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not familiar with Fritz for Fun 13, but I have information about Fritz 13, which I will assume is the basis for your variant. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'll also assume that you want to add a game / position manually, rather than import one (or a collection) from, say, a PGN file.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;New Game: You can enter the moves for a new game by simply setting the players to 2-player mode, instead of player vs Fritz.  If you can't figure out how to do that, turn on &quot;Infinite Analysis&quot; mode with Alt-F2. That will prevent Fritz from entering an engine move. Then, just enter the moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;New Position: Choose the menu option &quot;Insert, Position Setup&quot;. Then, clear the board (in Fritz 13, it is pre-populated with the start position), and drag-and-drop or click-click your way to populating the position. Hint: In Fritz 13, if you click the white piece in the legend, and then left click on a square, you get a white piece. If you &lt;em&gt;right-click&lt;/em&gt; on a square, you get a &lt;em&gt;black&lt;/em&gt; piece. So, you can save yourself about 30-40% of your setup clicks by just selecting white pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, specify the side to move, using the appropriate checkbox. If one of the kings is in check, of course, you cannot save the position until that side is specified as having the move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You may have to specify castling rights (kingside and/or queenside) for either white or black or both, if the kings and rooks are in their original positions, but the setup wizard (dis-)allows that side's castling erroneously. However, the wizard settings are generally correct, in my experience.  Only when either the king or the rook have moved from their home squares &lt;em&gt;and then returned to them&lt;/em&gt; will the wizard's settings be wrong.  Don't worry about the king being in check or any of the relevant castling squares being under attack; the move entry function will prevent an immediate castling attempt in that situation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then, confirm that you're done with the position setup using the Ok button. You will then have an open game window (but &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; a saved game).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Saving Games and Positions: The last step is simply to save the game/position. In Fritz 13, if you had clicked on a database (or had a list open) before you started the game/position entry process, that database would be where the game/position is saved by default if you use the &quot;Save&quot; menu item.  Otherwise, you have to navigate to the appropriate database using the &quot;Save As...&quot; menu option. So, I generally select my database first.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tip: You can actually use a copy/paste operation to save the game from an open game window into a database. There are tons of ways to specify &quot;copy&quot;, including right-clicking in the Notation pane, or by typing [Ctrl][C]. Once you've put the game in the clipboard (the results of this copy action are invisible, but trust me, it's there), you can paste it (any way you like) into a selected or open database, a Notepad window or other text editor, or an email as a text attachment.  But watch out; if you paste it into a database window, different versions of Fritz are inconsistent about whether a subsequent Replace operation will affect the pasted game.  To be safe, I close the open game window, and then open the game from the database list.  That ensures that a later Replace will put the game back in that slot.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11245" LastActivityDate="2017-01-30T19:47:23.567" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16503" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1565" CreationDate="2017-01-30T21:03:41.477" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Generally solving tactics puzzles should be part of every player's training schedule. There can be several reasons why this did not help your tournament games:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Perhaps your play is limited by other factors (opening, endgame, strategy, ...), which you need to focus on!?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Perhaps you have a problem recognizing when it is time for tactics!? If you only solve problems on sites like chesstempo, you already know beforehand that something is possible which is a big advantage over the real game situation.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, in my experience, tactics training has the biggest effect on tournament play for beginners. At your level, you (and your typical opponents) should be already familiar with most tactical motives and most games are likely not decided by simple tactics. This does not mean that you should ignore tactics completely, but analyzing your own games should help you to find out your weaknesses and work on them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It has been some time that I used chesstempo, so I don't remember exactly what kind of problems they have. For somebody familiar with tactical motives, I would look for more realistic/messy problems instead of streamlined/simplified versions. This will teach you to also consider defensive resources of your opponent, or teach you to decide between several promising continuations and also it is closer to the real tournament games. I know that the problems on lichess are taken from real games and that those on chess24 also include problems where you start from a worse position and have to find a way to draw. Both of these features I consider useful and they might exist on other websites as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2017-01-30T21:03:41.477" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16504" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16505" CreationDate="2017-01-30T21:57:42.820" Score="6" ViewCount="2333" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was looking at minimal combinations of material needed to force checkmate (K+R, Q+B, R+N+N, etc). You end up with a sort of threshold of how much material is needed, and that sort of assigns a strength to the king. But that made me wonder if K+K is sufficient material to force checkmate. Obviously this is normally impossible, but in the hypothetical endgame where white has two kings and black has one (and make the obvious loosenings of the restrictions on moving into check), could the two kings force checkmate against the one king?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Alternatively, one could think of it as white having a king and a fairy chess piece that moves exactly like a king. Is this enough material to force checkmate?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12377" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-03-08T20:18:33.170" LastActivityDate="2020-07-14T07:14:44.677" Title="Could two kings force checkmate against a lone king?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;kings&gt;&lt;unorthodox-pieces&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="9" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16505" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16504" CreationDate="2017-01-30T22:22:31.370" Score="17" Body="&lt;p&gt;If these are two real kings, it is not possible. This is because one requirement of checkmate is that the black king is in check which cannot be achieved with any of the white kings, since it would put the white king in check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you say that white has only one king and a nonstandard chess piece that moves exactly like a king (i.e. this piece can be put next to the enemy king), then yes, it seems possible and quite easy to mate the black king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, put the king and “king” for on c3 and f3, and the black king on d5. As you can see the two kings almost cover the whole 4th rank. Pushing the black king to the side of the board and into the corner is quite easy, e.g. if black starts with 1... Ke5, 2. Kc4 Kd6 3. Kf4 Ke6 4. Kc5. Once you have the black king around the corner you put white's real king on c6 and give checkmate with the &quot;king&quot;, the piece that moves like a king but really isn’t one, on g7. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is a demonstration of said strategy in the replayer. Remember, white’s standard king is on b2 and their other “king” is on f3!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/8/8/3k4/8/5K2/1K6/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Kc3 Ke5 2. Kc4 Kd6 3. Kf4 Ke6 4. Kc5 Kd7 5. Kf5 Ke7 6. Kc6 Ke8 7. Kf6 Kd8 8. Kf7 Kc8 9. Ke8 Kb8 10. Kd8 Ka8 11. Kb6 Kb8 12. Kdc7+ Ka8 13. Kcb7#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-03-08T20:02:01.597" LastActivityDate="2020-03-08T20:02:01.597" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="16506" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16492" CreationDate="2017-01-30T22:30:11.040" Score="0" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;in chess, the plan is the sport. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You seem to be confusing &quot;training plan&quot; with &quot;strategic plan&quot;. The coach's job is to diagnose weaknesses and strengths, and design a corrective &lt;em&gt;training&lt;/em&gt; plan with exercises and study to address the weaknesses. It is also his job to help develop a playing style that will exploit the player's strengths and minimize the impact of their weaknesses.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This has nothing to do with the actual conduct of a particular game, which is where a &lt;em&gt;strategic&lt;/em&gt; plan is used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I will assume that, with this point clarified, it is straightforward to see how a coach can be better at developing a training plan than the player himself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11245" LastActivityDate="2017-01-30T22:30:11.040" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16507" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16477" CreationDate="2017-01-30T22:35:48.503" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would emphasize and simplify @javatutorial's 1st point: 5 h3 restricts the bishop's mobility.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It used to have freedom to transfer between the kingside and the queenside, but now it cannot reach the queenside during the opening unless it can reach f5 or e4, which is very unusual.  This reduction in the bishop's scope makes it less powerful than it was before, and therefore &lt;em&gt;worse&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, the main point is to make the bishop &lt;em&gt;a worse minor piece&lt;/em&gt;, which is a strategic goal for White in this opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11245" LastActivityDate="2017-01-30T22:35:48.503" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16508" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9173" CreationDate="2017-01-30T22:38:35.287" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Simply put, ...Qxf2 is a &lt;em&gt;&quot;spite check&quot;&lt;/em&gt;, otherwise known as a &lt;em&gt;&quot;nuisance check&quot;&lt;/em&gt;.  It serves no useful purpose other than to delay the inevitable and frustrate the opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11245" LastActivityDate="2017-01-30T22:38:35.287" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16510" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16511" CreationDate="2017-01-31T14:27:35.183" Score="3" ViewCount="328" Body="&lt;p&gt;in this position: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;rnbqk2r/pp2bppp/5n2/1Bpp4/8/3P1N2/PPP1QPPP/RNB1K2R b KQkq - 3 7&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stockfish 8 gives the move of Kf8, and claims my move of Bd7 is an inaccuracy. I don't quite understand why. I can see that it breaks the pin on my bishop on e7 and sets up for possible tactics with Qa5, but that's not going to happen against decent opposition and surely I'd rather my right to castle and connected rooks rather than my rook doing nothing on h8 and a somewhat weakened king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe this is just one of those positions where an engine gives moves too removed from human play to really comprehend?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any help is appreciated, cheers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12387" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-01-31T14:30:56.850" LastActivityDate="2017-01-31T14:40:26.467" Title="Why is Kf8 the recommended move here?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16511" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16510" CreationDate="2017-01-31T14:35:24.147" Score="9" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;sets up for possible tactics with Qa5, but that's not going to happen against decent opposition&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well, the Qa5+ tactics is &lt;em&gt;exactly&lt;/em&gt; what's going to happen, and Black also threatens ...a6, ...b5 and ...c4 trapping the Bishop. It looks like White cannot avoid losing a piece, but he will only get a pawn and some light pressure in return.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;rnbqk2r/pp2bppp/5n2/1Bpp4/8/3P1N2/PPP1QPPP/RNB1K2R b KQkq - 3 7&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Kf8 2. Ba4 {2. a4 doesn't help because of ...a6, trapping the bishop; 2. Nc3 fails to ...d4 and the bishop will again be unprotected} Qa5 3. Nc3 d4 4. O-O dxc3 5. Re1 Qd8 6. bxc3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-01-31T14:40:26.467" LastActivityDate="2017-01-31T14:40:26.467" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16512" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-01-31T20:56:33.183" Score="7" ViewCount="195" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is almost certainly public domain material by now (I believe it originates in a 1906 article), but I'm happy to buy it with or without &lt;em&gt;Collection of Chess Studies&lt;/em&gt; if I can get it as a digital download somewhere.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nunn defers to the original analysis because of how accurate it was. The derivative material on this endgame from other authors leaves too much unanswered for a more complete understanding (the original analysis contains dozens of pages).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12394" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-03-12T17:22:53.410" LastActivityDate="2020-03-12T17:22:53.410" Title="Is there a copy of Troitsky's analysis of KNN vs. KP online anywhere?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;books&gt;&lt;knight-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16513" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-02-01T04:15:21.903" Score="5" ViewCount="1301" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have a collection of middle-game chess puzzles classified in levels. I can solve most puzzles in the first level after a few minutes, and some of the puzzles in level 2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But for higher levels there is no hope I can solve any of them, even if I tried for a thousand years. Nevertheless, those are supposed to be interesting positions with hidden treasures, and I wonder if I can still learn something from them. What should I do? Play against a computer from those positions until finding the solutions? Look at the solutions and memorizing them?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12396" LastActivityDate="2019-09-26T07:13:12.507" Title="Method to study chess puzzles way above your level" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;puzzles&gt;&lt;study&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16514" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16513" CreationDate="2017-02-01T10:34:14.433" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess puzzles (and to a large extent playing chess) are based around recognizing certain patterns or motifs which help you to quickly assess a position and to visualize potential lines without the need to calculate move by move in your head. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chesstempo has a good list of &lt;a href=&quot;http://chesstempo.com/tactical-motifs.html&quot;&gt;tactical motifs&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://chesstempo.com/positional-motifs.html&quot;&gt;positional motifs&lt;/a&gt;. It is important that when you solve problems (or when analyzing your games) that you realize which motives (usually there is more than one) apply to this problem. If you cannot solve a problem on your own it is fine to look up the solution or to get help from a computer, but make sure you understand the solution (i.e. match them to motifs/patterns). Again chesstempo is very useful for this as it shows you the motifs of each problem as &quot;tags&quot; (after you solved it or after you failed to solve it).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once you have built a repertoire of patterns/motifs in your mind you should have a good basis to solve more complicated problems as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another factor could be visualization when calculating long lines, but there is not much you can do about it other than concentrating, playing games, analyzing games, solving puzzles.... basically everything you should be doing anyway.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2017-02-01T10:34:14.433" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16516" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16512" CreationDate="2017-02-01T18:26:08.373" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Troitsky's analysis of the endgame K+NN v K+P was published in the German magazine &lt;em&gt;Deutsche Schachzeitung&lt;/em&gt; in 19 installments between 1906 and 1910. They all can be read online. I am not aware of an English translation. A Russian book featuring his full analysis was published during Troitsky's lifetime. Apart from that, I don't know of any other source.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Permalinks of the five relevant &lt;em&gt;Deutsche Schachzeitung&lt;/em&gt; volumes follow below. In case that I missed an installment, serve yourself in the TOC at the beginning of each volume.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To access the full text you need to connect from a US IP address. If you are located elsewhere, use a VPN and set the USA as your country of origin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Deutsche Schachzeitung 1906 (vol. 61)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;permalink: &lt;a href=&quot;https://hdl.handle.net/2027/njp.32101072325978&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://hdl.handle.net/2027/njp.32101072325978&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;pages 129, 161. 193, 257&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Deutsche Schachzeitung 1907 (vol. 62)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;permalink: &lt;a href=&quot;https://hdl.handle.net/2027/njp.32101072325960&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://hdl.handle.net/2027/njp.32101072325960&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;pages 1, 97, 161, 225&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Deutsche Schachzeitung 1908 (vol. 63)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;permalink: &lt;a href=&quot;https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc1.a0002788768&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc1.a0002788768&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;pages 1, 101, 197, 293&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Deutsche Schachzeitung 1909 (vol. 64)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;permalink: &lt;a href=&quot;https://hdl.handle.net/2027/njp.32101072325945&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://hdl.handle.net/2027/njp.32101072325945&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;pages 33, 97, 161, 225, 321&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Deutsche Schachzeitung 1910 (vol. 65)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;permalink: &lt;a href=&quot;https://hdl.handle.net/2027/njp.32101072325937&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://hdl.handle.net/2027/njp.32101072325937&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;pages 65, 129&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12401" LastEditorUserId="12" LastEditDate="2017-02-01T18:30:29.700" LastActivityDate="2017-02-01T18:30:29.700" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16517" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1632" CreationDate="2017-02-01T22:14:42.107" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, you have to define what you mean by best.  For example, does best mean you are the most dominant player for your era?  Or does it mean that the quality of your player is superior to all other players.  And if quality is what you mean, then how do you define quality?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Paul Morphy was probably the most dominant player.  For example, when he was 12 years old he defeated a top ten player (Lowenthal) in a match 3-0.   According to Edo and chessmetrics he was probably already one of the best players in the world at the age of 12!  At the age of 21, he played against a simultaneous against 5 top ten players (Bird, Barnes, Boden, De Reviere,  and Lowenthal) and scored 3-2.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, most would argue that dominance is a poor indicator of who is best.  After all, Morphy has been described as the first modern chess player.  His competition was weak compared with subsequent champions. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another definition that has been used is quality of play.  However, this definition also has a lot of problems.  In the 1900 hundreds , a number individuals argued that Steinitz or Lasker were the best players of all time arguing that their knowledge of opening and modern theory would make them superior to players from the past.   However, Louis Paulsen made some very clever arguments against this hypothesis.  He argued that Morphy (who had a photographic memory and memorized the Louisana bar code by the age of 19) if brought back to life would learn openings and modern theory within a year and be able to compete successfully against modern chess players.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Regan argues that modern chess players who have access to chess computers and modern training methods play more like computers than players of the past.  That’s no surprise because they were trained by computers but does that mean that modern players are really better?  This begs the question what would Fischer or Capablanca do if they had access to modern computers?   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In addition, Professor Regan’s analysis computer strikes me as rather incomplete as it just involves a few five year periods and the players included in the analysis are not mentioned.  A more thorough computer analysis by professors Matej Guid and Ivan Bratko found that in fact Capablanca played more like a computer than modern players! &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.chessbase.com/post/computers-choose-who-was-the-strongest-player-&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.chessbase.com/post/computers-choose-who-was-the-strongest-player-&lt;/a&gt;.  However, Guid and Bratko noted that there is a problem with concluding from this that Capablanca was a better player.  Perhaps his rather sedate style led to fewer positions where he would be likely to blunder.  Therefore, his blunder percentage was lower but he was also putting less pressure on his opponents than more aggressive players were.  In fact, Capablanca had a high draw percentage compared with his contemporaries. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In contrast, a highly tactical player such as Kasparov might be penalized by his playing style which was more likely to lead to highly tactical positions where computers are especially good a finding errors.  In fact, computers tend to perform better against tactical players than positional or in particular closed position players where tactics play a lessor role.  Thus, computer analysis that relies on the number of computer detected errors is likely to favor sedate closed position players. In contrast, &#xA;an aggressive player like Kasparov may make more tactical errors than some other players because he sought very complex positions but his opponents will make even more!  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, you need an error weighting system that doesn’t just calculate the percentage of errors per 100 moves (which is basically what Regan and Guid and Bratko did ).  Instead, you need to calculate the difference between your error rate and your opponents error rate.  After all, chess is about committing fewer errors than your opponent. Putting pressure on your opponent to induce more errors is considered a good quality.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, my revised calculation method leads to another problem which is these computer analyses don’t take into consider the strength of your opponent.  For example, perhaps Larson achieves a very high chessmetrics rating because his aggressive (optimistic) style led to dominance over lower rated players.  However, he had trouble in games against players of equal rating.  Other players have frequently argued that he was too optimistic in his play against other high rated players.  To avoid this problem, computer error checking analysis should only look at games against strong competors (e.g., the top 10, 20 or 100 players).  However, that still doesn’t address the problem of increasing strong competition over time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can the problem of increasing quality of play be corrected by looking at back ratings such as Chessmetrics?  Actually, I prefer the Edo back rating system &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.edochess.ca/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.edochess.ca/&lt;/a&gt; because the statistical assumptions are better.  For example, Chessmetrics assumes a player’s peak rating occurs when they are 40 years old.  I doubt that is true for everyone and many players give up chess before that age or their play was only top notch for a few years (e.g., Harry Nelson Pillsbury, Charousek, Fischer, Morphy, Rubinstein, Fine).  Unfortunately, Edo only compares players ratings from 1811 to 1920.  According to Edo, Capablanca and Morphy are rated the two highest players from this era.  According to Chessmetrics, Capablanca and Lasker were the two best players (Morphy doesn’t even make the top ten.)  According to Chessmetrics, Zukertort, Steinitz, Tarrasch, Lasker, Pillsbury, Maroczy, Marshall, Janowsky, Chigorin, Schelecter, Blackburne, Duras, Teichmann, Neumann, Vidmar, Gunsberg, Rubinstein and Burn were better than Morphy.  There are many other discrepancies between these two rating systems.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If innovation leads to dominance within a specific chess era over time and it becomes increasingly difficult to innovate over time as the strength of the competition increases you can’t measure true dominance by just looking at the match records of the top 30 players.  That is, it’s a lot harder for Magnus Carlsen to dominate his opponents than it was for past champions. If you look at back ratings  it’s easy to see that the magnitude of the difference between the top players’ ratings has been decreasing over time.  So I believe an Edo type statistical model that takes into consideration the difficulty to dominate over time would be a better approach than what has been tried previously.   For example, Fischer was a pretty dominant player for his era because he won 20 games in a row.  What was Kasparov or Karpov longest winning streak compared with this winning streak?  According to Seirawan, their longest winning streaks were seven games.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, I’m not claiming that winning streaks are a good metric.  I’m just arguing that dominance by ratings or in individual matches against other top players is a useful metric that isn’t explicitly taken into consideration in current back rating systems.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So my dream analysis is that you use Edo ratings based on a database that only includes the top 20 or 30 players from each five year period.  After you complete this analysis you reweight your results by a dominance factor.  That is, more recent players get a bonus factor that is calculated by estimating the trajectory of difficulty of dominating over time (the decrease in rating disparities between top 30 players over time).  Next, you would validate this analysis by comparing players percentage of chess computer calculated blunders their opponents make minus their own blunders.  If this invalidates the above, then you need to reweight according to the computer error checking analysis if it shows there is a tendency for more recent top players to play more accurately even after my dominance factor is taken into consideration.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My guess based on my eyeballing this, is that Kasparov would do very well.  But that’s just a guess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12402" LastActivityDate="2017-02-01T22:14:42.107" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16518" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16519" CreationDate="2017-02-01T22:22:46.237" Score="-1" ViewCount="2370" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would like to be able to play the Stockfish engine using the Arena GUI.  I consulted the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.playwitharena.com/?Download:Arena_for_Linux&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&quot;playarena&quot; site&lt;/a&gt; and the only instructions were to download and unpack the .tar.gz file.  I did this but there is no makefile in the directory so I am not able to compile the Arena application with a 'make' command. what steps should I take to get Arena working with the Stockfish engine? I am new to linux and would appreciate any help.  Thank you.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12407" LastActivityDate="2017-02-01T22:49:28.907" Title="How to start arena on Ubuntu linux" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;linux&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16519" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16518" CreationDate="2017-02-01T22:49:28.907" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Arena is not an open source program, so you won't be able to compile the source code. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do you see &lt;code&gt;Arena_x86_64_linux&lt;/code&gt;? Just run it and play chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2017-02-01T22:49:28.907" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16521" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-02-02T06:04:33.483" Score="8" ViewCount="387" Body="&lt;p&gt;I heard that both Fischer and Karpov felt that physical training was extremely important to their success and that the Russian coaches also felt a certain amount of physical training was necessary.  Why is that?  How is it supposed to help?  What sort of exercise is supposed to help.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12402" LastActivityDate="2017-02-03T20:33:21.847" Title="I heard professional chessplayers must train physically as well as mentally. Why is that?" Tags="&lt;training&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16522" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16159" CreationDate="2017-02-02T07:16:49.153" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't believe your approach works because you're counting every position as an opening repertiore what you're actually measuring is the degree to which they play openings where theory has prescribed a large number of moves.  For example, a Ruy Lopez player might play the first 15 and 20 moves to reach the end of book play.  In contrast, someone who plays the Trompowsky or another unusual opening might be out of book after six moves.  Therefore, I would define &quot;opening&quot; differently.  For example, you could use ECO standard positions as a starting point for defining a person's opening.  I believe Eric Schiller also has an list of chess openings.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12402" LastActivityDate="2017-02-02T07:16:49.153" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16523" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16521" CreationDate="2017-02-02T10:14:24.600" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;You've heard it right. Physical training is as important as mental training in chess. Thinking is an energy intensive activity and often has a direct effect on the physical body. &#xA;Quoting &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/thinking-hard-calories/&quot;&gt;this scientific american article&lt;/a&gt; by By Ferris Jabr on July 18, 2012, &lt;em&gt;brain weighs about 1.4 kilograms, only 2 percent of total body weight, it demands 20 percent of our resting metabolic rate (RMR)—the total amount of energy our bodies expend in one very lazy day of no activity&lt;/em&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Karpov had lost 10kg (22lb) over the course of 1984-85 Kasparov-Karpov world championship match. Quoting Kasparov from &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessclub.com/user/resources/articles/interview_kasparov.html&quot;&gt;this interview&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;em&gt;I pay a lot of attention to my physical condition; to be fit under the terrible pressure of big competitions. Obviously this is becoming more important with age&lt;/em&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From a study by &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14692598&quot;&gt;Speakman JR &lt;em&gt;et. al&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/a&gt;, being physically fit improves resting metabolic rate (RMR) which is a major contributor to daily energy reserve and thus any increases in RMR in response to exercise interventions are potentially of great importance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess, as you know is a brain intensive activity and thus RMR plays an important important role. Therefore from the 1st and the 3rd paragraphs, it is clear that physical fitness improves mental fitness and therefore beneficial to chess. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4183" LastEditorUserId="4183" LastEditDate="2017-02-02T13:52:29.753" LastActivityDate="2017-02-02T13:52:29.753" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16524" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16504" CreationDate="2017-02-02T16:57:14.960" Score="16" Body="&lt;p&gt;A King and a Man (or commoner; i.e., a non-royal King) can mate a lone King. The longest distance to mate on a standard 8x8 board is 18 moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The result quoted above was obtained by H.G. Muller in 2008, see this coment on chessvariants.com: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessvariants.com/index/listcomments.php?id=28770&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chessvariants.com/index/listcomments.php?id=28770&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3819" LastEditorUserId="3819" LastEditDate="2018-12-17T19:34:05.223" LastActivityDate="2018-12-17T19:34:05.223" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="16525" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14548" CreationDate="2017-02-02T20:47:40.630" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;IMO, this is an area that needs work.  I developed a small computer program to check for duplicates in openings and found that most opening categorizations contain duplicate positions.  For example,  Schiller's opening list has duplicate openings.  The same positions arise through different move orders but are named differently.  ECO is far too general.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12402" LastActivityDate="2017-02-02T20:47:40.630" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16526" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1372" CreationDate="2017-02-02T21:35:19.280" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I had your rating.  I read &quot;Think Like A Grandmaster&quot; by Kotov and practiced the techniques for 6 months.  I played in a few tournaments and I skipped the expert class gaining 250 rating points and became a master but that was a long a time ago in the 70s.  I don't know if it would work today.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12402" LastActivityDate="2017-02-02T21:35:19.280" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16527" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16513" CreationDate="2017-02-02T21:52:28.207" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a decent question because it tries to delve into the thinking process of solving a tactical puzzle. Of course, Tactical motifs and Positional motifs are important but you gain those by experience or study time, and I believe what the asker is looking for is a methodology he can apply to a difficult puzzle in hopes of solving it. So, with that in mind:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note all captures, checks, and unprotected or insufficiently&#xA;protected pieces. Visualize each separately, alone. When you do this, you begin to connect some dots in the position, like &quot;if I take here and he takes, that leaves this piece undefended...&quot;, etc., etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note all potential double-attacks, probably the most common tactic in chess. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Visualize all avenues of attack for every long-range piece - Bishops, Rooks, and Queens; this means mentally &lt;em&gt;ignore&lt;/em&gt; any obstructing enemy or friendly pieces, i.e., Bd3 looks down the b1-h7 diagonal regardless if there are black or white pieces in the way. This paves the way for &lt;em&gt;clearance&lt;/em&gt; sacrifice ideas, and discovered attacks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Visualize all potential knight-forks, and all knight-forks after the move of the knight. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Honestly, I would start there and avoid using the computer. It will not teach you anything you cannot figure out yourself - you just need to be persistent. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would also &lt;em&gt;write it all down&lt;/em&gt; so you can drop the puzzle and come back to it later. You are gaining good habits by doing this, and it gives you valuable references.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Only then when you are completely spent on the puzzle do you pass it to Stockfish.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2c.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10233" LastActivityDate="2017-02-02T21:52:28.207" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16529" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16513" CreationDate="2017-02-03T05:46:13.187" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Delivering instruction in how to solve tactical problems is much too complex a topic to address in a forum post, unfortunately. The main points are these:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;You need to learn to recognize 1st-level tactics when they appear. Most players can do this.  1st-level tactics include things like forks, skewers, pins, etc. You will only be able to exploit this skill (by itself) if your opponent blunders.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;You need to recognize situations that may lend themselves to a 1st-level tactic after a short sequence of 1 or more forcing moves. Forcing moves are mate threats, captures, checks, and threats to capture. I call these 2nd-level tactics, because they involve a setup before the 1st-level tactic appears. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Such situations include possibilities such as being able to force an alignment of the opponent's queen and king that may then become vulnerable to a pin or skewer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Finally, you need to recognize situations where no 1st-level tactic is available, and the opponent has replies that would frustrate a series of setup moves that would otherwise work.  It may still be possible to employ one or more other, supporting tactics to eliminate those replies, thus allowing the setup to work. Then, the 1st-level tactic will become possible.  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I call these 3rd-level tactics, because of the additional preparatory moves that must be played to eliminate the opponent's defensive options prior to (or during) the setup to the final, 1st-level tactic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;4&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Once you have mastered some degree of 3rd-level tactics, you will be able to move onto 4th-level tactics. These involve &lt;em&gt;multiple&lt;/em&gt; 2nd- and 3rd-level tactics in a sequence.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is my personal approach to understanding combinations, and there is much more theory around it than I can relate here. I am writing a book to cover this gap in current teaching.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Until you can find such a book, I strongly recommend George Renko's Intensive Chess Tactics Course, now in its 2nd edition, from ChessBase.  Renko has spent many years codifying this classification of tactical themes (of which he has enumerated 112).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please note he has made a &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.avlerchess.com/chess-misc/Chess_plagiarism_289873.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;claim of plagiarism&lt;/a&gt; against Convekta for their product Encyclopedia of Chess Combinations by NM Kalinichenko, which is an exact copy published several years after Renko's.  Snopes.com has confirmed this claim. For this reason I advise against purchasing the Convekta product.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11245" LastActivityDate="2017-02-03T05:46:13.187" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16531" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16532" CreationDate="2017-02-03T09:08:32.320" Score="-2" ViewCount="2188" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have read some articles that chess has a numbers of 10 to power of 120. Can some one can throw lights to it:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White 1st move: No of Position&#xA;White 2nd move: No of Position&#xA;till&#xA;White 72nd move: No of Position&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similarly for Black&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black 1st move : No of Position&#xA;Black 2nd move : No of Position&#xA;Till&#xA;Black 72nd move : No of Position&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your help will improve one's chess understanding better and will bring some hope to readers relating to chess can be solved.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you for your time Raman Thanks for the first answer&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user12419" LastEditorDisplayName="user12419" LastEditDate="2017-02-03T10:06:20.720" LastActivityDate="2017-02-04T11:30:57.047" Title="What is the number of chess position for each move?" Tags="&lt;statistics&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2017-02-04T06:35:04.130" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16532" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16531" CreationDate="2017-02-03T10:01:15.900" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You are misusing the word &quot;probability&quot; in your question. 10 to the power 120 is known as the Shannon number and is a lower bound for the game-tree complexity (number of different games of chess). This has nothing to do with probability. Also this number of different games is not the same as the number of possible chess positions (which is estimated as 10^43).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you look at the starting position in chess, each player has 20 possible moves (16 with the pawns and 4 with the knights). So the number of possible games of 1 move (2 plies, i.e. one white move and one black move) would be 20*20 = 400 already. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now the number of possible moves increases initially because your pieces get more space. The number of possible second moves is not fixed, but will depend on the first move. So it is impossible to give an exact answer to your second question. But you can do some estimates...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you say that at each move you have a choice between 30 moves (this is an estimate) and if you say that an average chess game lasts 40 moves (80 plies), you end up with the number of possible games equal to: 30^80=(30^2)^40 which is approximately equal to 1000^40=10^120.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a very rough estimate but is sufficient to show that chess is incredibly complex and is not going to be solved anytime soon.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You might also like the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Km024eldY1A&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Numberphile episode&lt;/a&gt; on the topic&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastEditorUserId="11629" LastEditDate="2017-02-04T11:30:57.047" LastActivityDate="2017-02-04T11:30:57.047" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16533" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15710" CreationDate="2017-02-03T11:29:55.463" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is one way to do it:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Create a text file of PGN positions&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Open that PGN file in Fritz for Fun. Each PGN can be seen as a line in the database view&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Either play the position against the computer, or turn the engine off and play through the variation. If your variation differs from that in the PGN, the 'new variation' dialogue box will open&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2017-02-03T11:29:55.463" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16535" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16536" CreationDate="2017-02-04T05:41:20.837" Score="7" ViewCount="1968" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a beginning player in chess.(~1300 on chess.com/blitz: 5 and 10 minutes) And I mostly like to attack and favor fully open positions to closed and defensive. In response to e4, when the opponent plays c5, I don't have much options left. I don't like nf3, d4 too much. So, I have to resort to d4 and the Smith-Morra gambit. And, I really like this opening. However, this opening is not famous among top chess players and I wonder why. Please explain the merits and demerits of this opening apart from the early loss of a pawn to white.&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;Further information about openings I like and I'm comfortable with: Scotch Gambit, King's gambit. Please explain in simple terms and don't use terminology related to chess theory as I'm not familiar with those. I only play chess on chess.com and sometimes practice a few puzzles.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12029" LastEditorUserId="12029" LastEditDate="2017-02-04T08:20:16.793" LastActivityDate="2020-08-10T07:50:54.673" Title="The strength of Smith-Morra gambit" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16536" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16535" CreationDate="2017-02-04T09:26:12.593" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Merits for white:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;easy and quick development&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;attacking chances, particularly against f7 (with a bishop on c4) and on the open c and d files (after putting rooks on c1 and d1&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;potentially (depends on the opponent) playing off-beat openings like this can avoid theory/preparation of the opponent&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Demerits for white:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;you lost a pawn&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;if black plays properly there is no danger from the white attack&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;black is not forced to accept the gambit (does not have to take the pawn on c3). There are basically two ways to decline it: &lt;strong&gt;(1)&lt;/strong&gt; 3.... d3, which can be annoying for a Morra-Gambit player because now you don't get as nice squares for the pieces (knight cannot go to c3 and after capturing on d3 the bishop is blocked by the e4 pawn). &lt;strong&gt;(2)&lt;/strong&gt; 3...Nf6 4.e5 Nd5 which is the Alapin variation and a bit dry/boring (for me playing this with black), so also not what somebody looking for a wild game wants.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you look at regular Sicilian lines, in many you get very nice open tactical positions with lots of attacking potential and you are not a pawn down.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why is it not popular at the highest level?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Simply because after all, if black plays correctly (as grandmasters tend to do most of the time), white ends up just a pawn down with no compensation for the pawn. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This does not mean that you have to give up playing the Smith-Morra if you like it. At your level I am sure you can have fun with it as black will often not play perfectly. However as you improve towards Elo 2000 or so, you might want to look at more normal openings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2017-02-04T09:26:12.593" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16537" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16535" CreationDate="2017-02-04T10:08:20.530" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you like the Morra gambit, then there is no reason not to play it. It indeed leads to open positions where white has a lead in development. Moreover, black players are typically more familiar with the main lines than the Morra, while white's initiative can be quite dangerous.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Profound analyses can be found in &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.newinchess.com/Mayhem_in_the_Morra_-p-7122.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Mayhem in the Morra!&lt;/a&gt;, written by IM Marc Esserman in 2012. The forewords in the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.newinchess.com/Shop/Images/Pdfs/7122.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;sample pages&lt;/a&gt; are interesting and fun to read.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The theoretical status of the Morra is that black is fine: white has enough compensation for the pawn, but nothing more.&#xA;White has better chances for an advantage in the main lines after 2.Nf3 and 3.d4. Therefore, the Morra gambit is not seen very often at the top level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4588" LastEditorUserId="4588" LastEditDate="2017-02-04T13:03:54.140" LastActivityDate="2017-02-04T13:03:54.140" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16538" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-02-04T11:58:41.400" Score="3" ViewCount="182" Body="&lt;p&gt;In connection with the Hou Yifan incident in Gibraltar I read that when doing the pairings they avoided matches between players from Iran and Israel (for whatever reason...). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How is this technically done in a Swiss pairing system? Is there an option in the pairing program to set this? Algorithmically, is it done in such a way that these matches are considered played already (through some flag &quot;playedAgainstEachOther=true&quot;) or in some other way?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2017-02-04T21:48:30.797" Title="Intervening with swiss pairing" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;swiss-pairing&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16539" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-02-04T12:09:50.920" Score="2" ViewCount="732" Body="&lt;p&gt;I realize that there are various types of Swiss pairing systems. What would be a minimum set of parameters that needs to be specified in order to avoid ambiguity in pairings? I am thinking of parameters like &quot;initial order&quot;, &quot;fold/slide/adjacent pairing&quot;, ... &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does such deterministic system actually exist or will there always be some pairings that have to be decided by an arbiter or by flipping a coin?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Trying to clarify with an example: As far as I understand for any major tournament there should be rules (either set by FIDE or the organizers) regarding the way the pairings are done. These rules should specify all kinds of things like for instance, how do you pair players with the same number of points? Do you pair the strongest with the second strongest or you split the group in two and pair the first from the first group (i.e. the strongest) with the first from the second group (i.e. the one of medium strength). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Now if all of these rules/parameters have been set, is there still any ambiguity left? Or conversely, is it possible to satisfy all rules or would some get precedence in case they contradict each other?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance FIDE specifies that no player should play three games in a row with the same color. But if there are only two players (who both have played the last two rounds with the black pieces) with 7 points left who are therefore going to be paired. What is going to happen then? Is the FIDE rule of three same-color games going to be violated or are they going to be paired with other players first?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically what I am asking is, whether &lt;em&gt;in practice&lt;/em&gt; the rules are stated and followed completely (meaning that all kinds of exceptions need to be stated) or whether pairing rules are only laid out roughly and if necessary the organizer is entitled to change some pairings?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastEditorUserId="11629" LastEditDate="2017-02-04T17:18:07.073" LastActivityDate="2019-12-16T01:48:15.053" Title="Swiss pairing parameters" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;swiss-pairing&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16540" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16539" CreationDate="2017-02-04T15:04:25.770" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is this question prompted by Hou Yifan's unfortunate experience at Gibchess this year?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The point for her was she was expecting to be paired with less women and 7 out of 9 pairings was rather high.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However the pairing rules made no provision for her gender and have a small but finite probability that this would happen. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How can you make pairings gender agnostic by ignoring gender which they did.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12429" LastActivityDate="2017-02-04T15:04:25.770" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16543" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15991" CreationDate="2017-02-04T15:52:27.853" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You need only one of the four engine files. The four executables are &#xA;compiles of the same source code for different CPUs. They differ in speed only; sorted in descending order these are: stockfish_8_x64_bmi2.exe, stockfish_8_x64_popcnt.exe, stockfish_8_x64.exe, stockfish_8_x32.exe. Keep the fastest which runs on your system and delete the other three.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I loaded the four engines to Arena, but it always says at the top (2000), which  means level 2000, how do I make it level 3000+?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This number doesn't set the playing strength. It has informative purposes only. You can change it as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Open 'Engine Management' (F11).  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Click the 'Details' tab and select Stockfish from the list.  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Click the 'Information' tab in the right part and type the desired value into the 'Rating' field. If this field is empty, a default value of 2000 will be used.  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Close the dialog and start a new game to display your new setting.  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can't set Stockfish to play at a given Elo level. If you want to weaken it, change the Skill Level in the engine settings (Ctrl+1, if it's loaded as 1st engine). '0' is the weakest setting and the default value '20' means full strength.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12401" LastActivityDate="2017-02-04T15:52:27.853" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16545" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-02-04T18:21:15.607" Score="3" ViewCount="2213" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is more than a decade now that no human has beaten a top chess program, and now there are computer vs computer matches continuously running and getting results. Those results are used by programmers to improve the algorithms. The improvement is not merely a result of the increasing CPU speed, but also the result of theory research and improvement in the algorithms that prune and evaluate the game tree. This process was driven in the 80s and partly in the 90s by the desire to make the programs stronger against humans, but beyond a certain point the programs became so strong that now they are only tested against each other (and even against themselves) and I wonder if that is causing a deviation from chess into... another thing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hence my question. When top chess programs fight against each other at a level that no human could withstand, evaluating branches of the game tree up to an insane depth, how do we know that, beyond a certain depth, the moves make sense?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let me explain my question with a simplified example. I bought recently a table chess computer in a toy shop chain, and it plays really bad. Even set at 3 minutes per move, I honestly doubt it is reaching farther than 1 or 2 plies at most and I am sure it is without any check extensions. It is really easy to beat, it goes out of the opening book at the 2nd or 3rd move, and it blunders miserably all the time. However, if you force it to play against itself, it stays within the opening book quite long, you don't see obvious blunders and the resulting game does not look bad. The algorithm playing against the same algorithm produces something that seems like decent chess, but I know it is fake, because if I interrupt it at any point and play against the machine I will beat it in no time. Hence my doubt when this example is translated to a much higher level... Do the strongest human see any value on those Stockfish-Houdini matches, do they give credibility to what those machines play, or it is simply crap nobody understands?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12396" LastActivityDate="2017-02-18T07:44:01.580" Title="Are computers playing good chess beyond what humans can see?" Tags="&lt;computer-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16546" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-02-04T19:07:56.203" Score="3" ViewCount="449" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have recently managed to build up my opening repertoire to something that will no longer cause me to fall into lost positions against decent players, so I can no longer blame my losses upon bad opening preparation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I still need to improve in order to get to a level that I'm content with, and after doing some soul-searching, I am convinced that I still have one glaring weakness in my games that needs some serious work: I am bad at converting a positional advantage into a win!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I haven't learned how to think efficiently, and what to look for when I'm given a good position. I still think way too much in terms of concrete variations, and I have a hard time forming coherent long-term plans to improve my positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore I am planning to start studying classical games from past masters, where they convert an edge into a clearly winning position with confidence and clarity. The masters I have in mind are first-and-foremost:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Rubinstein&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Lasker&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Capablanca&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Botvinnik&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Others, like Karpov or Kramnik (or any other great technical player, for that matter), are also interesting.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But there is one big problem: These players have all won a huge number of games, and obviously it will not be possible for me to go through them all.&#xA;I want to study their good technical victories, not some random game that they won based on obvious blunders from their opponents, or where they just won by launching an early attack and crashing through before the opponent knew what happened.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What I'm looking for is a list of famous games to study from the players mentioned above, so I have somewhere to start.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8300" LastActivityDate="2017-06-08T17:16:25.743" Title="Good master games for learning how to win from a superior position" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16547" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16545" CreationDate="2017-02-04T20:27:28.883" Score="5" Body="&lt;h2&gt;Computers suffer from a fundamental flaw.  (Or maybe it's humans with the problem . . . )&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's suppose that we have a &quot;perfect&quot; computer, trained against similar &quot;perfect&quot; computers.  On move one, it analyzes perfectly and realizes that the position is a draw.  Moreover, it is so perfect that it realizes that with perfect play, 1.a4 leads to a draw, just as 1.e4 does.  So, as White, it picks randomly and perhaps plays a4.  As the game continues, it will continue playing &quot;equal&quot; moves until just before it reaches the point where one more such blunder would lose against perfect play.  At that point it will start playing &quot;perfect&quot; moves to secure the draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Today's engines avoid this through most of the game because they can analyze only so deep.  At some point they have to rely on position-evaluation heuristics, which usually give positions after 1.a4 a low score.  But when we get to the endgame, at a certain point the analysis becomes &quot;perfect&quot; (thanks to exhaustive databases available of positions with a limited number of pieces) and this phenomenon kicks in.  If we ever have a perfect computer, the process would begin at the very start.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A human eschews 1.a4 because he can never assume that he or his opponent is &quot;perfect&quot;.  A human is much more dependent on his ability to evaluate positions and therefore always tries to play &quot;beautiful&quot; chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus we reach the ironic conclusion.  The more &quot;perfect&quot; our computers, the shoddier their apparent play.  We have already reached the point where computers are of limited value in analysis.  The engines routinely play seemingly ridiculous moves because they see threats that no human could calculate deeply enough to play over the board, while missing out on attacks because there happens to be a defensive line that is similarly impossible for humans to find.  This isn't due to any lack of imagination, insight or effort by the programmers.  On the contrary - it is because we have evolved our concept of &quot;good&quot; or &quot;beautiful&quot; chess to compensate for the limitations of our calculating ability.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12084" LastActivityDate="2017-02-04T20:27:28.883" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16548" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16546" CreationDate="2017-02-04T20:28:58.403" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just look for collections of their best games. Off the top of my head Capablanca's Best Games by Harry Golombek is one. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Test Your Positional Play by Bellin and Ponzetto also covers winning games after picking the correct positional plan. The move by move series covering games by a given player is also pretty good and covers a lot of players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4543" LastActivityDate="2017-02-04T20:28:58.403" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16549" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16539" CreationDate="2017-02-04T20:38:44.037" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In general your questions are all answered in the FIDE Handbook section for &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=18&amp;amp;view=category&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Swiss Rules&lt;/a&gt; and its subsections. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance, you ask:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;For instance FIDE specifies that no player should play three games in&#xA;  a row with the same color. But if there are only two players (who both&#xA;  have played the last two rounds with the black pieces) with 7 points&#xA;  left who are therefore going to be paired. What is going to happen&#xA;  then? Is the FIDE rule of three same-color games going to be violated&#xA;  or are they going to be paired with other players first?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is answered in &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=83&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;C.04.1 Basic rules for Swiss Systems&lt;/a&gt; as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;f For each player the difference of the number of black and the number&#xA;  of white games shall not be greater than 2 or less than –2. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Each system may have exceptions to this rule in the last round of a&#xA;  tournament.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;g No player will receive the same colour three times in a row.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Each system may have exceptions to this rule in the last round of a&#xA;  tournament.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you take the trouble to read the specifications for the Dutch system, the most commonly implemented system in approved Swiss pairing programs, in &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=167&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;C.04.3.1. Dutch System&lt;/a&gt; you will find it expands on how this is handled by this system in the last round:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;B Pairing Criteria&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;em&gt;Absolute Criteria&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(These may not be violated. If necessary players will be moved down to&#xA;  a lower score bracket.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;B.1 a Two players shall not meet more than once.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;b A player who has received a point or half point without playing,&#xA;  either through a bye or due to an opponent not appearing in time, is a&#xA;  downfloater (see A4) and shall not receive a bye.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;B.2 Two players with the same absolute colour preference (see A7.a)&#xA;  shall not meet (therefore no player’s colour difference will become&#xA;  greater than +2 or &amp;lt; -2 nor a player will receive the same colour three times in row) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Note:  If it is helpful to reduce the number of floaters or the score of a floater when pairing top scorers B2 may be ignored. If a&#xA;  top scorer is paired against a non-top scorer, the latter is&#xA;  considered a top scorer for colour allocation purposes.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Top scorer&quot; is defined as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Top scorers are players who have a score of over 50% of the maximum&#xA;  possible score when pairing the last round.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2017-02-04T20:38:44.037" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16550" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9208" CreationDate="2017-02-04T21:07:43.680" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you have Chess Assistant (CA), it will do the conversion for you.  For example, within CA just right click game on the game and go to Edit --&gt; Copy to Clipboard and pick pgn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12402" LastActivityDate="2017-02-04T21:07:43.680" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16551" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16298" CreationDate="2017-02-04T21:13:18.447" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;IMO all the world champions were great endgame players.  Rubinstein has been called the greatest player in Rook and pawn endgames. Check out his games &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chesscollection?cid=1005102&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chesscollection?cid=1005102&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12402" LastEditorUserId="12402" LastEditDate="2017-02-26T15:44:41.107" LastActivityDate="2017-02-26T15:44:41.107" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16552" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14952" CreationDate="2017-02-04T21:15:40.687" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess Assistant and Chessbase would do it but of course you have to pay for the software.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12402" LastActivityDate="2017-02-04T21:15:40.687" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16553" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16545" CreationDate="2017-02-04T21:22:19.640" Score="6" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Do the strongest human see any value on those Stockfish-Houdini matches, do they give credibility to what those machines play, or it is simply crap nobody understands?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In many positions, computers play strange moves that no human would ever consider. People refer to moves like that as &quot;computer moves.&quot; Some insanely deep tactic to reach a risky position that scores every so slightly higher than an obvious, safe move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;But&lt;/strong&gt;, it's not crap. These computers playing these moves beat all human grandmasters. That's how we know the moves make sense, the computers would lose if their moves didn't make sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's just that our human way of understanding the game is ultimately limited. Some moves just look like they go against all our understanding of positional play -- &lt;em&gt;but they work&lt;/em&gt;. So it's our understanding that is wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2017-02-04T21:22:19.640" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16554" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="940" CreationDate="2017-02-04T21:25:40.843" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Generally, openings that result in compact connected pawn structures are known to result in good positions when pieces are traded but can be cramped and too defensive if pieces are not traded.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For e4, Classical Caro-Kann and French, Black gets the better ending if he survives the Middlegame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For d4, Nimzo-Indian, Queen's Indian, Maroczy bind structures usually favor Black in the endgame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some Colle and Slav positions give you the queenside pawn majority which can be winning in K + P endgames.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12402" LastActivityDate="2017-02-04T21:25:40.843" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16555" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14343" CreationDate="2017-02-04T21:29:56.850" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Grandmaster Larry Christiansen recommends studying 200 recent games per week from games that relate to your opening repertiore.  TWIC is ideally suited for doing that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12402" LastActivityDate="2017-02-04T21:29:56.850" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16556" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16209" CreationDate="2017-02-04T21:40:41.687" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It suggests that strong players believe it doesn't give White much of a chance for an advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12402" LastActivityDate="2017-02-04T21:40:41.687" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16557" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16538" CreationDate="2017-02-04T21:43:01.043" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is there an option in the pairing program to set this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Different approved Swiss pairing programs will do this is different ways. You should check out the User Manuals for the different programs to see how this is done.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance, in &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.vegachess.com/tl/tl_files/music_academy/distrib/vega_en.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;the Vega program&lt;/a&gt; go to the File menu, Round Manager, Avoid Pairs option and you can specify groups of players who should not be paired against each other for certain rounds. Generally speaking this should not be done in the last round where one of the players is on more than 50% even in the case of Iranian v Israeli since this can affect prizes and important placings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Algorithmically, is it done in such a way that these matches are&#xA;  considered played already (through some flag&#xA;  &quot;playedAgainstEachOther=true&quot;) or in some other way?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a programming question rather than a chess question and does not belong here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2017-02-04T21:48:30.797" LastActivityDate="2017-02-04T21:48:30.797" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16558" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16320" CreationDate="2017-02-04T21:48:28.587" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's losing for Black because 6.c5 N(6)-d7 7. dxe!  Black can't capture the pawn on e5 because 8. f4! wins a piece (e.g., 8. ... Nd7 9. Qe2+) so Black must play 7. Nxc5 and after 8. Bf4 White's pawn on d6 is a dagger in Black's heart.  The chess engines say White is winning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12402" LastActivityDate="2017-02-04T21:48:28.587" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16559" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-02-04T21:58:05.023" Score="6" ViewCount="200" Body="&lt;p&gt;Although chess is frequently thought of as a tree structure, it is not because positions can be arrived at through different move orders and moves can be repeated.  Are their graphing programs/databases representing chess moves that can be used to illustrate this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12402" LastActivityDate="2017-04-07T06:39:38.137" Title="Are there any dicylic graphing programs for chess?" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;programming&gt;&lt;computer-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="2" ClosedDate="2019-06-23T16:45:23.297" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16560" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2018" CreationDate="2017-02-04T22:05:50.927" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Kasparov has said that computer + Grandmaster analysis is vastly superior than either computer or Grandmaster alone.  I believe there was a chess league for a while that allowed strong programmer + player to compete one another along with strong chess computers or players alone.  The combined players usually won tournaments.   That's because the strong players can sense when a computer move is perhaps not the best long term strategic plan, although in the short term it is tactically justified.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12402" LastActivityDate="2017-02-04T22:05:50.927" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16561" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9782" CreationDate="2017-02-05T00:14:13.367" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's very difficult for a beginner to study endgames because they think like, &quot;what good does it do to study endings if I get killed in the opening and middle game.&quot; Of course this is logical in its own way and I would suggest tactics, tactics, tactics first. However here's a reason for studying endgames that I feel really helps. You really learn the power of the pieces. For example if you study an interesting R+p vs R+p ending you will learn how great the Rook is at defense or its power to attack and defend simultaneously. You start to admire the power of Bishops and learn their weaknesses. You'll discover the power of a well posted Knight or its weakness in stopping rook pawns. These are all concepts that are easier seen with fewer pieces on the board, i.e. endings. Something to think about as it will rollover into your middle game planning. Suddenly you'll look at games (another must is to play through many games) and understand the positioning of pieces, exchange of pieces, pawn structure etc etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12434" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-02-05T10:16:36.153" LastActivityDate="2017-02-05T10:16:36.153" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16562" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-02-05T04:49:49.293" Score="2" ViewCount="249" Body="&lt;p&gt;To find the degree (or the number of attacked squares), of a square's corresponding vertex for all pieces and their corresponding graphs, given any square of the board.  In other words, given a piece and a square - the number of attacked squares by the piece at the given square on an empty board is what the student finds.  This is repeated until all squares are examined.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, has anyone had the idea to make a 3-D representation for each piece, where each square has a respective height equal to the degree of its' corresponding vertex in the given piece's graph (where the degree is the number of squares attacked by each specific piece at each square)?  Of course, the rook's graph representation would be dull, as the graph is regular (ie the number of attacked squares is the same at any square),  but all the other pieces, save for the pawn, would give students the visual lesson that the pieces in the center have more options.  Not only this, it appeals to an old military adage - to control the high ground - which in these cases is the center, if at all possible.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2765" LastEditorUserId="10905" LastEditDate="2017-06-09T06:21:06.957" LastActivityDate="2017-06-09T06:21:06.957" Title="Who is the teacher of the game that has a lesson plan as follows:" Tags="&lt;teaching&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16563" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12833" CreationDate="2017-02-05T05:27:10.870" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The French is played at the highest levels today.  For example, the number # ranked player in the world Caruana uses it.  There is no refutation of the French.  It's a sound opening.  However, it may not be well suited for certain situations.  For example, the exchange variation is considered vary drawish if White wants a draw.  It is true that the current top twenty players seem obsessed with the Najdorf and Ruy Lopez (Berlin Defense) lines as Black because currently it seems that Black can equalize with these lines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12402" LastActivityDate="2017-02-05T05:27:10.870" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16564" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16562" CreationDate="2017-02-05T14:08:33.273" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not in 3D and not super-fancy, but it should get across the point. I did not do it for the rook because as you note the rook always has 14 squares to go to (on an empty board).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However if you want to use this to argue for putting pieces in the center, I'd be careful, because:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;This is for an empty board. Lots of things can happen when other pieces are on the board.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The illustration for the king is probably of limited value because (unless you are Steinitz) we don't usually think of the king as an active piece.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;For the queen and bishop (which are essentially the same, only shifted by 14, the number of rook moves) you notice that the difference between different squares (center and border) is not all that great. In my opinion a much more important factor for positioning queen and bishop centrally in a real game is that they have more options, i.e. a bishop in the center can go in four directions while a bishop in the corner has only one direction. This means that a bishop in the center can attack things in all four directions and likewise in order to block this bishop, the opponent has to block four directions. Also for transferring the bishop to other parts of a board a central position might be better.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;For the knight there could be some value in this as it cannot be blocked by other pieces, so the situation for a knight is essentially the same as on an empty board. That's where you get the saying: &quot;A Knight on the rim is dim&quot; from. But as with all such rules there are plenty of exceptions.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/nXXZd.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/nXXZd.png&quot; alt=&quot;King&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/BdYxJ.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/BdYxJ.png&quot; alt=&quot;Knight&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/QGXDC.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/QGXDC.png&quot; alt=&quot;Queen&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/17R2B.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/17R2B.png&quot; alt=&quot;Bishop&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2017-02-05T14:08:33.273" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16565" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-02-05T14:56:27.453" Score="29" ViewCount="10900" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know how all the pieces move and I've learned about castling and en passant. But all I do is play online against other people and get wrecked because I don't know how to &amp;quot;play.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I make moves like Knight to h3 on my first move because I have no idea what I'm doing (I only learned this move is bad because a nice person pointed it out to me while I was playing against them).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also manage to mess up situations where the opponent only has like two pieces left and I have like five but I still lose or draw the game. Sometimes I make bad decisions or miss checkmates in one move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But most of the time, I have the majority of my peices taken from me so the opponent has an overwhelming number of pieces more than me (this happens like 80% of the time unless I get lucky). I have been playing on and off leisurely for a few years now, but I still don't know how to &amp;quot;play&amp;quot; properly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What am I supposed to do at this point if playing more games does not improve my gameplay?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12437" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-08-17T02:02:43.623" LastActivityDate="2020-08-17T02:15:26.593" Title="How to learn chess if you're still a 3-digit rating after a few years" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;training&gt;&lt;beginner&gt;" AnswerCount="16" CommentCount="10" FavoriteCount="11" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="16566" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16565" CreationDate="2017-02-05T15:00:26.817" Score="38" Body="&lt;p&gt;Very simple.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Join a chess club and play people face-to-face. You'll improve rapidly after that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-08-17T02:02:56.023" LastActivityDate="2020-08-17T02:02:56.023" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="16567" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16565" CreationDate="2017-02-05T16:30:16.157" Score="26" Body="&lt;p&gt;The first thing to learn once you know how the pieces move is basic tactics and general strategy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Tactics&lt;/strong&gt;: In certain positions it is possible to gain an advantage doing a certain move or sequence of moves. This is referred to as tactical motif/pattern and for a list of all kinds of motifs take a look &lt;a href=&quot;http://chesstempo.com/tactical-motifs.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;. You don't need to start learning all of them at once, but eventually you will. The idea is that you recognize the pattern (not a particular position) that enable these tactics and burn the pattern into your brain so that you immediately recognize it when playing chess. As a beginner I'd start with the following motifs:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;hanging piece&lt;/em&gt; (make sure that you always check which of your pieces are attacked and which of the opponent's pieces you attack) and related to this the motif of &lt;em&gt;counting&lt;/em&gt; (if there is a sequence of captures); knowing about the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_piece_relative_value&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;value of pieces&lt;/a&gt; is essential here&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;simple mating patterns&lt;/em&gt; (back rank mate, Scholar's mate and similar mates,..., king and queen vs. lone king, etc)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;double attack&lt;/em&gt;; particularly pawn and knight forks&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can practice your tactics by solving puzzles on many websites like chesstempo, lichess, chess.com... Usually (if it is a good website) the problem you are given to solve is adapted to your level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Strategy&lt;/strong&gt;: This refers to general rules on how you should play in order to gain an advantage in the long term. Most important for a beginner I'd consider the following &lt;em&gt;opening&lt;/em&gt; principles:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;develop pieces&lt;/em&gt; (knight, bishop) quickly in the opening; don't move a piece twice unless forced to do so&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;occupy the center&lt;/em&gt; (typically you rather want to move the central pawns  (on c-d-e-f files) two steps (or more) than the outside pawns (a-b, g-h files).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;put pieces on meaningful squares&lt;/em&gt;, usually so that they attack something or  cover many squares&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;king safety&lt;/em&gt; (usually this means castling and hiding behind your own pawns)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your move 1. Nh3 does not do anything to occupy the center (1. Nf3 would be more suited for that) and also knights on the border of the chess board are somewhat limited (as they say: &amp;quot;a night on the rim is dim&amp;quot;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As with tactics, there are also &lt;a href=&quot;http://chesstempo.com/positional-motifs.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;positional/strategic motifs&lt;/a&gt;. However these are a bit more difficult to understand than tactics. The best way to appreciate them IMO is to read/listen/watch commentated games of masters or even better to have your own games analyzed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should still keep on playing games, but avoid blitz or other short timed games. And analyzing your games afterwards to see where you went wrong (or where you made a great move) is also a good way to improve. On lichess (and perhaps other websites) you have a very useful feature that let's you have your games analyzed by a computer which will point out inaccuracies/mistakes/blunders.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And yes, if you can join a chess club that would be more efficient and fun than trying to learn everything on your own.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-08-17T02:03:22.023" LastActivityDate="2020-08-17T02:03:22.023" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="16568" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16565" CreationDate="2017-02-05T17:34:14.200" Score="19" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recognize that attitude.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Remember, first, that &lt;em&gt;chess is HARD&lt;/em&gt;. That's why it took so long to get computers to be able to play it well. The rules are simple enough but understanding how those rules fit together to build strategy when the opponent is also building their own strategy, is very difficult. It's not even quite like backgammon, where I like to tell new players that the point of the game is to &lt;em&gt;manufacture more luck&lt;/em&gt; than your opponent (and thankfully chess does not have a doubling cube, too!). Because there is no &amp;quot;luck&amp;quot; per se in chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You will start where you were a few years ago: you know the rules of movement but you are giving up pieces because &amp;quot;oh, I didn't see you were threatening me there.&amp;quot; Then you will graduate to where you are now: you are not giving up pieces pointlessly, but you do not really understand all of your possible moves and have a way to evaluate them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Probably the next good things for you to learn are a little &lt;em&gt;opening theory&lt;/em&gt; about trying to get this wall of pawns usefully out of your way so that your stronger pieces are doing more useful work in the game, and &lt;em&gt;forks and pins&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Opening theory is just something that you should watch YouTube videos on. It seems like a lot of &amp;quot;oh memorize this opening and its variations&amp;quot; but I want to tell you that if you are stuck in that rut you are doing it wrong, learn the &lt;em&gt;principles&lt;/em&gt; that make openings good or bad, about &amp;quot;I want to get these knights out and have my bishops threatening more than just the backsides of my pawns&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;ok, I will let you take my pawn so that you can have doubled pawns and my rook can take this open file,&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;well if I'm moving that pawn anyway I might as well &lt;em&gt;fianchetto&lt;/em&gt; my bishop up there and simultaneously get my bishop doing something useful as well as get one step closer to castling.&amp;quot; Those sorts of ideas are just as important as &amp;quot;there is this variation where you give up this pawn to take control of the right-hand side of the board, putting pressure on the opponent's king.&amp;quot; Eventually you'll see enough of these videos that some game you will say, &amp;quot;oh, we castled on opposite sides, in this one YouTube video they suggested that those games turn into pawn-storms, let me start pushing my pawns forward and see if I can't get the drop on him first with that&amp;quot; and it'll at least lead to a really interesting game, even if there's no win in it for you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A &lt;em&gt;fork&lt;/em&gt; is when you move a piece to threaten two other pieces at once. &amp;quot;I am either taking your queen or your knight, pick one.&amp;quot; Look for these and begin to understand when you're vulnerable, for example in these endgames that you have been losing, start thinking &amp;quot;oh, if she's still got her white-square bishop then I shouldn't line my pieces up on white diagonals.&amp;quot; A good fork has no defense, but you should be aware that there are two common defenses: either &amp;quot;I take your forking piece, let's trade&amp;quot; (sort of seizing the initiative so that you don't give up a piece for nothing) and counter-threats: &amp;quot;You can have my queen, because I move my knight to __ threatening YOUR queen if you take mine.&amp;quot; In the best counter-threat you check the king so that it's not even your opponent's &lt;em&gt;choice&lt;/em&gt;, so the sequence is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Alice: Knight to C4 (forking Queen on D6 and Bishop on E5)&#xA;Bob: Queen to C5, check. &#xA;Alice: King to H1.&#xA;Bob: Queen takes C4 (if undefended), or Bishop to F6 or D4.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similarly I would learn about &lt;em&gt;pins&lt;/em&gt;. A pin is a threat to a big piece (queen or king, sometimes rooks in the late game) which is blocked by another piece. For example you might pin a bishop to the queen, or you might pin the queen to the king: the bishop and queen respectively are standing in the way of a threat to the queen and king respectively. That other piece is then &amp;quot;pinned&amp;quot;, it cannot move freely. Either it cannot move freely at all (when pinned to the king; can't move into check) or it cannot move freely without giving away the big piece for cheap. So you can basically make the piece somewhat useless. Similarly you get &lt;em&gt;out of a pin&lt;/em&gt; either by moving the Big Piece, or by putting a second piece like a pawn also in the way of the pin, or (if you're not pinned to the king) by making an equivalent counter-threat.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally I'd recommend that you learn some of how one checkmates others. Keeping someone in check so that they are forced to react, rather than act, is a good start. Understand the threat of back-row checkmate, where pieces start to get into the way of the king's escape from a simple threat from the Rooks or Queen. Both defend yourself against it and use it in your games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you learn these things your brain will have the &amp;quot;seeds&amp;quot; of thinking strategically, but it will still take years to nurture those seeds into strong trees.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12440" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-08-17T02:03:33.600" LastActivityDate="2020-08-17T02:03:33.600" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="16569" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16565" CreationDate="2017-02-05T22:01:12.923" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;As said above, if you have a local club, then go there. If not, and you have a few bucks, get this book:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://smile.amazon.com/Complete-Chess-Course-Chess-Comprehensive/dp/0385004648/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;amp;qid=1486331735&amp;amp;sr=8-1&amp;amp;keywords=complete%20chess%20course&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Complete Chess Course&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is a step-by-step course that covers a broad spectrum of issues that beginners struggle with, and gives good advice on how to deal with such problems along with clear reasoning. Based on the original post and my 44 years of playing and teaching chess to beginners, that book works well as it gives it to you in digestible amounts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you do not have any money, then go to your local library. They probably have similar books for beginners.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Keep playing, record your games, and look over your losses with a stronger player, or come back here and post your game and ask for a review.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10233" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-08-17T02:03:50.077" LastActivityDate="2020-08-17T02:03:50.077" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="16571" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16565" CreationDate="2017-02-06T04:43:32.633" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;To complement the other answers, I would like like to recommend a beginners' book that was wonderful to me: &lt;em&gt;Journey to the Chess Kingdom&lt;/em&gt;, by Yuri Averbakh and Mikhail Beilin. The book is written in a very entertaining way, and covers from the very basics to openings, strategy, and end game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12113" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-08-17T02:03:58.563" LastActivityDate="2020-08-17T02:03:58.563" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="16572" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16565" CreationDate="2017-02-06T05:13:58.023" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Play long time control games. With this it is possible to avoid any sort of blunder like hanging pieces, overlooking a basic threat etc.,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3158" LastActivityDate="2017-02-06T05:13:58.023" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16574" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="590" CreationDate="2017-02-06T05:51:50.640" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Measurable gain is not a sacrifice. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a percentage of physical and before so don't hesitate, which capacity is been already accumulate for gain....&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12450" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T19:40:46.867" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T19:40:46.867" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="16575" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16565" CreationDate="2017-02-06T09:51:31.327" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Something that I usually do is set a goal what you want to get, like a certain piece you want to take, and then find out a way how to get it, without losing your piece or making the loss worth it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Try to manipulate the chess board to your liking. meaning plan out your moves and sometimes plan another move if something doesn't go the way you like it, also always check before making a move,will your piece be in danger or will they be able to take it.&#xA;And of course playing in real life and reading books works too, sometimes even playing games where you have to use strategy helps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12451" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-08-17T02:04:07.027" LastActivityDate="2020-08-17T02:04:07.027" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="16576" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-02-06T10:11:37.047" Score="0" ViewCount="337" Body="&lt;p&gt;After long time, I had played ECO D00,- 1.d4 d5 2.e3 . As my precision lags, I was not yet well with Queens Gambit Accepted or Declined variation. For this position 1.d4 d5 2.e3 my Android Chess.com App says Stonewall Attack, I am not much aware what does that first of all, when I checked, its all are different in WIKI for &lt;code&gt;Stonewall Attack&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here I have the complete game embedded for further analysis. I would like to know abt. PIN in this game. Is that arisen because inaccurate moves considering positioning powers or pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other than PIN I would like general analysis &amp;amp; reviews. Thanks!  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is the game and PGN,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Live Chess&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Chess.com&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2017.02.01&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;anandsadasivam&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Tudorache951&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;D00&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;756&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;714&quot;]&#xA;[TimeControl &quot;600&quot;]&#xA;[Termination &quot;anandsadasivam won by checkmate&quot;]&#xA;[CurrentPosition &quot;5BQ1/8/3N3R/8/8/3K4/5P1k/8 b - - 4 55&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 d5 2.e3 Nc6 3.Qf3 { (+0.37 → -0.81) Inaccuracy. A better move was 3. Nf3. } ( 3.Nf3 e6 4.Be2 Bd6 5.c4 Nf6 6.Bd2 O-O 7.Nc3 b6 ) 3...Nb4 { (-1.00 → -0.16) Inaccuracy. A better move was 3... Nf6. } ( 3...Nf6 4.h3 e5 5.Bb5 Bd6 6.Bxc6+ bxc6 7.Qg3 O-O 8.dxe5 ) 4.Bd3 g6 5.Nh3 { (-0.30 → -0.94) Inaccuracy. A better move was 5. Qe2. } ( 5.Qe2 Nf6 6.Nf3 Nxd3+ 7.cxd3 Bg4 8.Nc3 Bg7 9.O-O O-O ) 5...h6 { (-1.00 → -0.29) Inaccuracy. A better move was 5... Nf6. } ( 5...Nf6 6.Nc3 Bg4 7.Qf4 e6 8.Nb5 Nxd3+ 9.cxd3 Bd6 10.Nxd6+ ) 6.Na3 { (-0.38 → -1.21) Inaccuracy. A better move was 6. Nf4. } ( 6.Nf4 Nf6 7.h3 Nxd3+ 8.Nxd3 Bg7 9.Nc3 Bf5 10.O-O O-O ) 6...Bf5 { (-0.99 → +0.78) Mistake. The best move was 6... Nf6. } ( 6...Nf6 7.Bd2 ) 7.e4 { (+0.82 → -0.52) Mistake. The best move was 7. Bxf5. } ( 7.Bxf5 gxf5 8.Qxf5 Nf6 9.Qf3 e6 10.O-O Rg8 11.Nf4 Bd6 ) 7...Be6 { (-0.20 → +1.05) Inaccuracy. A better move was 7... Nxd3+. } ( 7...Nxd3+ 8.cxd3 ) 8.e5 { (+0.88 → -0.01) Inaccuracy. A better move was 8. Nf4. } ( 8.Nf4 Nxd3+ 9.Qxd3 dxe4 10.Qxe4 Nf6 11.Qxb7 Bd5 12.Nxd5 Qxd5 ) 8...f6 { (+0.23 → +10.58) Blunder. The best move was 8... Nxd3+. } ( 8...Nxd3+ 9.Qxd3 c6 10.Nf4 Bf5 11.Qe2 h5 12.O-O e6 13.Nd3 ) 9.exf6 { (+10.68 → +0.43) Blunder. The best move was 9. Bxg6+. } ( 9.Bxg6+ Bf7 ) 9...Nxf6 { (+0.56 → +3.46) Blunder. The best move was 9... Nxd3+. } ( 9...Nxd3+ 10.Qxd3 ) 10.Nf4 { (+3.28 → +0.36) Blunder. The best move was 10. Bxg6+. } ( 10.Bxg6+ Kd7 11.Nf4 Bg4 12.Qb3 e6 13.f3 Bf5 14.Bxf5 exf5 ) 10...Bg4 { (+0.33 → +2.81) Mistake. The best move was 10... Nxd3+. } ( 10...Nxd3+ 11.Qxd3 Bf5 12.Qb5+ c6 13.Qxb7 Qc8 14.Qb3 Rb8 15.Qe3 ) 11.Qe2 { (+2.74 → -4.24) Blunder. From winning to losing. The best move was 11. Bxg6+. } ( 11.Bxg6+ Kd7 ) 11...Bxe2 12.Kxe2 Ng4 { (-7.22 → -1.70) Blunder. The best move was 12... Nxd3. } ( 12...Nxd3 13.Nxd3 e6 14.h4 Kf7 15.Bf4 Bd6 16.Be5 c6 17.c3 ) 13.h3 { (-2.16 → -6.32) Mistake. The best move was 13. Bxg6+. } ( 13.Bxg6+ Kd7 14.Bf5+ e6 15.Bxe6+ Kc6 16.Bxg4 Bd6 17.g3 Qf6 ) 13...Nf6 { (-6.89 → -3.22) Blunder. The best move was 13... Nxd3. } ( 13...Nxd3 14.Nxd3 Nf6 15.Bf4 c6 16.c3 Qb6 17.f3 Qa6 18.Kd2 ) 14.Bxg6+ Kd7 15.Re1 e6 16.Kf1 Rg8 { (-3.79 → -2.51) Inaccuracy. A better move was 16... Ne4. } ( 16...Ne4 17.c3 Nc6 18.Bf7 Ng5 19.Nxe6 Qf6 20.Nxg5 hxg5 21.Be6+ ) 17.Bd3 { (-2.64 → -5.68) Mistake. The best move was 17. Nxe6. } ( 17.Nxe6 Rxg6 18.Nxd8 Rxd8 19.f3 Bd6 20.g4 Rf8 21.Kg2 c6 ) 17...Nxd3 18.cxd3 Nh5 { (-6.44 → -4.54) Inaccuracy. A better move was 18... c6. } ( 18...c6 19.Nxe6 ) 19.Nxe6 { (-4.70 → -8.49) Inaccuracy. A better move was 19. Nxh5. } ( 19.Nxh5 Qh4 20.Nf4 Bd6 21.g3 Rxg3 22.fxg3 Qxg3 23.Ke2 Bxf4 ) 19...Qe7 { (-8.55 → -0.04) Blunder. The best move was 19... Qf6. } ( 19...Qf6 20.Re5 ) 20.Nc5+ Kd6 { (-0.02 → +1.02) Inaccuracy. A better move was 20... Kc6. } ( 20...Kc6 21.Rxe7 ) 21.Rxe7 Bxe7 22.Bxh6 { (+1.13 → +0.34) Inaccuracy. A better move was 22. g4. } ( 22.g4 Nf6 23.Bf4+ Kc6 24.Rc1 Rac8 25.Be5 Ne8 26.Nc2 Bxc5 ) 22...Rae8 { (+0.12 → +2.33) Mistake. The best move was 22... b6. } ( 22...b6 23.Na6 c6 24.Rc1 Kd7 25.Nc2 Rg6 26.Bd2 Rf8 27.Ne3 ) 23.Nxb7+ { (+2.31 → +1.03) Mistake. The best move was 23. g4. } ( 23.g4 Rh8 24.Bd2 Kc6 25.Rc1 Nf6 26.g5 Rxh3 27.Na6+ Kb6 ) 23...Kc6 24.Nc5 Bxc5 25.dxc5 Kxc5 26.Rc1+ Kd6 { (+1.71 → +3.83) Mistake. The best move was 26... Kb6. } ( 26...Kb6 27.Nc2 Kb7 28.g4 Ng7 29.Nb4 Ne6 30.Kg2 Rh8 31.Bd2 ) 27.Nb5+ Kd7 { (+3.27 → +5.02) Inaccuracy. A better move was 27... Ke7. } ( 27...Ke7 28.Rxc7+ Kf6 29.Bd2 Re7 30.Bc3+ Kf7 31.Nd6+ Ke6 32.Rc6 ) 28.Nxa7 { (+4.62 → +0.88) Blunder. The best move was 28. Rxc7+. } ( 28.Rxc7+ Kd8 29.Rxa7 Rg6 30.Bd2 Re7 31.Ra8+ Kd7 32.Nd4 Rf7 ) 28...Rg6 29.Be3 { (+0.50 → -0.29) Inaccuracy. A better move was 29. Bd2. } ( 29.Bd2 Rb6 30.b4 Ra8 31.Rc5 Rxa7 32.Rxd5+ Rd6 33.Rxh5 Rxa2 ) 29...Rf8 { (-0.67 → +1.70) Blunder. The best move was 29... Ng3+. } ( 29...Ng3+ 30.fxg3 ) 30.Nb5 c6 31.Nd4 c5 { (+1.80 → +3.42) Inaccuracy. A better move was 31... Nf4. } ( 31...Nf4 32.Bxf4 Rxf4 33.Ne2 Ra4 34.a3 Rg8 35.Rc2 Rb8 36.g4 ) 32.Rxc5 Kd6 { (+3.79 → +9.60) Mistake. The best move was 32... Nf4. } ( 32...Nf4 33.Bxf4 ) 33.Nf5+ { (+9.86 → +0.14) Blunder. The best move was 33. Rc6+. } ( 33.Rc6+ Kd7 34.Rxg6 Nf4 35.Rg5 Kd6 36.Rf5 Rxf5 37.Nxf5+ Ke5 ) 33...Ke6 { (+0.07 → +6.10) Blunder. The best move was 33... Rxf5. } ( 33...Rxf5 34.Ra5 Ke5 35.g4 Ng3+ 36.Kg2 Ne2 37.Kf1 Ng3+ 38.Kg2 ) 34.Nd4+ { (+6.34 → +4.59) Inaccuracy. A better move was 34. g4. } ( 34.g4 Nf6 35.Rc6+ Kd7 36.Ra6 Rgg8 37.Ra7+ Kc6 38.Ne7+ Kd6 ) 34...Kd6 { (+4.58 → +10.25) Mistake. The best move was 34... Ke7. } ( 34...Ke7 35.g4 Ng7 36.Rxd5 Ra8 37.a3 Kf7 38.Kg2 Raa6 39.Kg3 ) 35.Nb5+ { (+10.39 → +4.14) Blunder. The best move was 35. Rc6+. } ( 35.Rc6+ Kd7 36.Rxg6 Nf4 37.Rg5 Nxd3 38.Rxd5+ Kc8 39.b3 Nb4 ) 35...Kd7 { (+3.97 → +7.89) Inaccuracy. A better move was 35... Ke6. } ( 35...Ke6 36.Nc7+ Kd6 37.Rc2 Nf4 38.Bc5+ Kxc7 39.Bxf8+ Kd7 40.f3 ) 36.Rc7+ { (+8.08 → +3.99) Blunder. The best move was 36. Rxd5+. } ( 36.Rxd5+ Ke6 37.Rxh5 Rd8 38.Bd4 Rc8 39.g4 Rc1+ 40.Ke2 Kf7 ) 36...Ke8 37.Bc5 Nf4 { (+4.65 → +7.01) Inaccuracy. A better move was 37... Rff6. } ( 37...Rff6 38.Re7+ Kd8 39.Re5 Nf4 40.Be7+ Kd7 41.Bxf6 Rxf6 42.a4 ) 38.Rc8+ Kf7 { (+7.39 → +14.41) Inaccuracy. A better move was 38... Kd7. } ( 38...Kd7 39.Rxf8 Ne6 40.Ba3 Nxf8 41.Bxf8 Ra6 42.a3 Rc6 43.Bg7 ) 39.Rxf8+ Kg7 40.Rxf4 Rc6 41.Bf8+ Kg6 { (+14.83 → +51.78) Inaccuracy. A better move was 41... Kg8. } ( 41...Kg8 42.Nc3 ) 42.h4 { (+53.21 → +13.48) Mistake. The best move was 42. Nc3. } ( 42.Nc3 Ra6 43.Nxd5 Ra5 44.Ne7+ Kg5 45.b4 Rb5 46.a4 Kxf4 ) 42...Rc1+ 43.Ke2 Rc2+ 44.Kf3 Rxb2 45.Nd6 Rxa2 46.g4 Ra3 47.Ke3 { (+58.08 → +18.77) Inaccuracy. A better move was 47. h5+. } ( 47.h5+ Kh7 48.Ke3 Ra8 49.g5 Rd8 50.Be7 Rd7 ) 47...d4+ 48.Kxd4 { (+33.15 → +16.17) Inaccuracy. A better move was 48. Ke4. } ( 48.Ke4 Ra7 49.h5+ Kg5 50.Nf7+ Kh4 51.h6 Kh3 52.h7 Kg2 ) 48...Rxd3+ { (+25.38 → +318.00) Mistake. The best move was 48... Rb3. } ( 48...Rb3 49.h5+ ) 49.Kxd3 Kh7 50.g5 { (Mate in 4 → Mate in 4) Excellent. Faster mate A better move was 50. Nf5. } ( 50.Nf5 Kg8 51.Ne7+ Kh8 52.Rf5 Kh7 53.Rh5# ) 50...Kg6 51.Rf6+ { (Mate in 5 → Mate in 5) Excellent. Faster mate A better move was 51. Ke4. } ( 51.Ke4 Kh7 52.h5 Kh8 53.g6 Kg8 54.Bh6 Kh8 55.Rf8# ) 51...Kh5 52.g6 Kxh4 53.g7 Kh3 54.g8=Q Kh2 55.Rh6#  1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is the fen,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;5BQ1/8/3N3R/8/8/3K4/5P1k/8 b - - 4 55&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9229" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2017-03-19T13:52:05.860" LastActivityDate="2017-03-19T13:52:05.860" Title="ECO D00 Game for Analysis" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16577" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="590" CreationDate="2017-02-06T11:45:16.497" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Most of the examples presented in the other answers are about sacrifices related to tactics, i.e. you give up material for a clear purpose; to mate the enemy king or to gain back the material (and more) soon. While these are certainly valid sacrifices they don't happen all that often in high level chess, because everybody is doing their best to not allow them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Much more common at those levels are positional sacrifices, where you give up material in order to gain a long-term positional advantage or even just to unbalance the position. Most common are pawn and exchange (you give a rook for a bishop or knight) sacrifices. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Typically exchange sacrifices happen in rather closed positions where the rooks are not that powerful and often the captured knight/bishop was a very valuable piece (for defense or attack).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pawn sacrifices are often done to spoil the opponent's pawn structure or coordination of pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As an example this very nice positional queen sacrifice by Caruana. Look at the position around move 21. Black is completely dominated on the light squares. While it is not clear how black will lose it is a pretty hopeless position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;London Chess Classic&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;London ENG&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2016.12.15&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;2016.12.09&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;6.3&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Fabiano Caruana&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Hikaru Nakamura&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;B96&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;2823&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;2779&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;63&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 a6 6. Bg5 e6&#xA;7. f4 h6 8. Bh4 Qb6 9. a3 Be7 10. Bf2 Qc7 11. Qf3 Nbd7&#xA;12. O-O-O b5 13. g4 g5 14. h4 gxf4 15. Be2 b4 16. axb4 Ne5&#xA;17. Qxf4 Nexg4 18. Bxg4 e5 19. Qxf6 Bxf6 20. Nd5 Qd8 21. Nf5&#xA;Rb8 22. Nxf6+ Qxf6 23. Rxd6 Be6 24. Rhd1 O-O 25. h5 Qg5+&#xA;26. Be3 Qf6 27. Nxh6+ Kh8 28. Bf5 Qe7 29. b5 Qe8 30. Nxf7+&#xA;Rxf7 31. Rxe6 Qxb5 32. Rh6+ 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2017-02-06T11:45:16.497" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16579" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16576" CreationDate="2017-02-06T12:27:56.243" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Stonewall attack refers to a pawn structure with pawns on f4, e3 and d4. If you don't play f4, it should not be called stonewall. If you want to give it a name you could call it closed &quot;Queen's pawn game&quot;. In any case looking at this game you should not worry about opening at all, but first and foremost focus on not blundering pieces in one move (and so should your opponent).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I would like to know abt. PIN in this game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do you mean a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pin_(chess)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;pin&lt;/a&gt;? At which move do you see a pin?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Analysis/comments:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Qf3 Getting out the queen early makes her prone to attack. Develop your minor pieces (bishop, knight) first. Also on f3 the queen does not do much and takes away that square for development of the knight.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;ol start=&quot;5&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Nh3 and 6. Na3 You really like putting the knights on the rim, do you? Usually it is better to develop knights towards the center (via c3, f3, d2 or e2) where they have more space and can attack things)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;ol start=&quot;7&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;e4 Here you could have won a pawn after 7 Bxf5 gxf5 8. Qxf5 (tactical motif: &lt;em&gt;counting&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Starting from move 9. you could just take the pawn on g6 with check&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;ol start=&quot;11&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Qe2?? It is good that you realized that your queen was attacked but you should have removed her to somewhere safe like e3 or g3. Also you could still have captured Bxg6+ with check and only after that removed your queen.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;ol start=&quot;19&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Nxh5 would give you a knight for free&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;20 Nc5+ and 21 Rxe7 Well spotted that you can win the queen!&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;33 Rc6+ (&lt;em&gt;skewer&lt;/em&gt;) would win the rook on g6; 33 Nf5+?? this knight could just be taken by black 33. ... Rxf5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;35 Nb5+? Missed your second chance to play 35 Rc6+ winning the rook on g6&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your question suggests that you are concerned about opening theory, which you really should not at this level. During the game you and your opponent blundered like 5 pieces each and whether you play queen's gambit or stonewall attack or whatnot is completely irrelevant in this case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most important for you would be to concentrate on not blundering pieces and also to take pieces when allowed to. So at every move check whether something is attacked and whether you attack something which you can capture. Also before making a move make sure that after the move you don't lose material. There are two ways to do this, you can go through the whole board each and every time to look for these things or you can do this incrementally, meaning to look for changes in the position. What I mean by this is that if say your opponent makes a move this will only affect some part of the board, so you only need to look for any changes in that part (and keep in mind all the other potential options which did not change).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once you blunder fewer pieces you can start studying basic tactics like pin, skewer, double attack (knight and pawn forks) and improve on your strategy, which is not all that bad (for a player at your level), except for somewhat neglecting development of pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Only then should you think of opening theory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2017-02-06T12:27:56.243" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16581" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9782" CreationDate="2017-02-06T22:01:11.680" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Endgame study seems boring especially for novice players, but it's necessary for two reasons: you need to know what is winning and how, and more importantly IMHO it helps you internalize the basic tactics of these pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That said, I can tell you certainly when I was 1900 to mid 2100 USCF, the majority of my wins from lower rated players, and the easiest, arose from exploitable opening mistakes. You have to do both. Not just five moves and a general idea of where the pieces go. but familiarize ourselves with the associated lines as much as possible.  It is much better to know one or two openings pretty well than to try to learn a bunch halfway.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To answer your question explicitly, yes when I was 15 (rated around 1550) I got a hold of an endgame book and went through all of the positions, every chance I got. At that time and that place there were no strong local players so I had to play in tournaments to improve, ten or fifteen games per year. So there are better ways to train, but left to my own devices I feel like that was the first step in improving.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12461" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T15:56:38.187" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T15:56:38.187" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="16582" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-02-07T05:33:42.387" Score="1" ViewCount="2158" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can someone suggest good to great developments starting with the Sodium Attack Na3? I am currently using this opening for my games, but I cannot find a really powerful strategic development with this opening. Any previous games with this is also welcome, as well as some advice on development strategies.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10861" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-02-28T19:58:33.667" LastActivityDate="2020-02-29T16:26:53.107" Title="Starting with the Sodium Attack" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="16583" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16209" CreationDate="2017-02-07T07:31:04.433" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The gambit doesn't lose but it also doesn't gain much advantage. Black can play Nc6 and transpose into the two knight defense which is seen in the Italian and the scotch gambit. These lines have a lot of theory and grandmasters are comfortable that they can draw them. Thus, white struggles to find an advantage using this opening at the top level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3872" LastActivityDate="2017-02-07T07:31:04.433" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16584" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16582" CreationDate="2017-02-07T09:34:13.147" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The analysis below is without the aid of a computer or any resources, but are just my thoughts on an unconventional opening:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Na3 e5 {Black seizes the centre and has the option to play ...Bxa3} 2. b3 {White dissuades ...Bxa3 and plans to fianchetto the bishop later} d5 {Black gains more space to counter white's hypermodern plans} 3. c4 {White must challenge the black centre, and hopes for 3...dxc4 4. Nxc4} d4 {Black wants to retain the space advantage} 4. Nc2 {Preparing e3, Be2 and O-O} Nf6 5. Nf3 Nc6 6. d3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastEditorDisplayName="user1108" LastEditDate="2017-02-07T11:47:31.517" LastActivityDate="2017-02-07T11:47:31.517" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16585" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16565" CreationDate="2017-02-07T09:40:03.617" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Recognizing that you're lacking somewhere is the first step to improvement. There are two areas you could be lacking in chess - 1. &lt;strong&gt;knowledge&lt;/strong&gt; and 2. application of the knowledge which comes through &lt;strong&gt;practice&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My suggestions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Online Tutorials&lt;/strong&gt;: Both chess.com and lichess.org [the only two sites I am familiar with for chess] have tutorials for starters. It's a good practice to go through them. Signing up for their courses would be an overkill.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Tactics Trainers&lt;/strong&gt;: Once you've gone through the tutorials, I also suggest you download both chess.com and lichess apps for mobile. They have various tactics puzzles which you should try solving. These will expose you to common mistakes which shouldn't be made and common opportunities which shouldn't be missed. Also, I've found apps from &lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/dev?id=8196632901699712832&amp;amp;hl=en&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this publisher on Google Playstore&lt;/a&gt; to be very helpful. Even after solving a tactics puzzle, you might want to spend time on it to figure out why other moves are not as good as the ones the puzzle expected.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Analyse your matches&lt;/strong&gt;: simple example, if you play on lichess.org, after every game, you can request a computer analysis of the game. If you're using the desktop site for this analysis, it not only tells you your blunders, mistakes and incorrect moves, but also prompts you to think what the best move could have been. Again like in tactics trainers, spend time on thinking why other moves are bad.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Books&lt;/strong&gt;: After the basic tutorials mentioned in point 1, you can also start reading books if interested. Two of my recommendations (though I haven't finished them myself) are: &lt;em&gt;My System&lt;/em&gt; by Aron Nimzowitsch (who is probably the best known chess writer while he was like the third-best chess player of his time) and &lt;em&gt;Art of Attack&lt;/em&gt; by Vladimir Vukovic. Having a chessboard around while reading these is definitely helpful. Also, I would advice against the Kindle versions, at least of Art of Attack, reading around figures can be tedious at times. As mentioned in comments below, this can wait, like Part II of the My Systems book is totally not for beginners.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Lastly, you can read &lt;a href=&quot;https://medium.com/@prateekvarshney/chess-101-for-those-who-know-the-moves-but-have-never-played-cd422c7f4f11#.2plx18s1c&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;the Chess 101 that I wrote&lt;/a&gt;. It's meant for people like us :), has been written in story-sort of fashion and in case you do not find it helpful, your feedback on how to make it more helpful is welcome.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope you and many others find these suggestions helpful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12467" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-08-17T02:04:20.717" LastActivityDate="2020-08-17T02:04:20.717" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="16586" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13789" CreationDate="2017-02-07T15:05:48.040" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can use mine. I have an Android application that takes care of the GUI elements.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/jj30/ChessPGNHelper&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://github.com/jj30/ChessPGNHelper&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The application itself is in the play store at &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=bldg5.jj.pgnbase&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=bldg5.jj.pgnbase&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please attribute me (Jan Jansz) as a developer where possible. (I need it; thanks.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12475" LastActivityDate="2017-02-07T15:05:48.040" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16587" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16565" CreationDate="2017-02-07T17:13:38.663" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess is not hard, despite what people tell you, but there is a trick and you won't learn it unless you play people willing to share. The 'trick' to chess is that it is not the pieces that are important, it is the spaces and what makes one piece more powerful then another is how many spaces it can control. When you control a square, you can move another of your pieces into it, but your opponent can't and this is how you force your opponent to do what you want them to.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12479" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-08-17T02:04:43.903" LastActivityDate="2020-08-17T02:04:43.903" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="16588" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16582" CreationDate="2017-02-07T18:05:26.587" Score="3" Body="&lt;h2&gt;Let's think this through.&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Frankly, I think Na3 is a &lt;em&gt;terrible&lt;/em&gt; opening move.  But I'll play along with the concept for a moment because there is the germ of a useful lesson in this exercise.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Clearly, a3 is a poor spot for a knight - it can only attack four spaces, all of which are near the edge of the board - so this move must be to get the knight to a better square.  c2 and c4 are the obvious candidates.  From c2, the knight exerts pressure on d4, which isn't a bad thing.  (In a lot of openings, d5 ends up being critical, which suggests that Na6 might have potential as an opening move for Black.)  From c4, the knight pressures d6 and e5.  You could imagine this move being paired with f4 or Bf4, along with Nf3, to put pressure deep into the Black center.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I seriously doubt that any of these ideas are really going to be effective over the board.  But the exercise of looking at a move like this and thinking through how it might be turned to advantage is what every player should be doing every time his opponent makes a move.  The moment your opponent lifts his fingers from his piece, you should run through just this sort of exercise.  Try to figure out what sort of strategic ideas (as well as tactical) his move might support.  To win consistently, it isn't enough to have a strategy.  You have to be able to identify and counter your opponent's strategy as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12084" LastActivityDate="2017-02-07T18:05:26.587" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16589" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16582" CreationDate="2017-02-07T22:34:05.400" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess openings are characterized by a &lt;strong&gt;sequence of moves&lt;/strong&gt; and a certain &lt;strong&gt;pawn structure in the center&lt;/strong&gt;. This pawn structure is the major factor that determines the strategic ideas for the middlegame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your question you give a &lt;em&gt;single move&lt;/em&gt; and in a comment you state that you &lt;em&gt;do not want to disturb the central pawn line initially&lt;/em&gt;  (for whatever reason..). As you can see from this, what you have here is not really an opening and therefore it is impossible to give you any specific strategic ideas without knowing your plan/setup for the center. Basically asking for strategic plans in the position after 1. Na3 is like asking for strategic plans in the initial position. All we can recommend are general opening principles in this case: fight for the center, develop pieces...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I agree with anybody else that 1. Na3 is not a good move. It is not going to lose immediately, but gives away the advantage you have playing white. Some reasons why it is a bad start for a game:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1 Na3 puts the knight on the rim where it has few squares. This is not in itself a bad idea, if it could go to some meaningful squares from there or if it could attack something from there. However playing this as the first move you cannot say whether it will be a good place for the knight in the future. If black is an experienced player he will try to take advantage of you committing your knight to such a square that early.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's see what future the knight could have from there. On b5 and c4 it could easily get kicked away by a pawn, which leaves c2, which is really only a useful square if you need to defend a pawn on d4 or if you want to push a pawn-break on d4. But do you know whether this will be the case?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A similar purpose you could achieve by moving the knight b1-c3-e2, which is a more flexible route with lots of alternative options, while for your knight on a3 most of the time the only possible path will be to c2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also note that in order to get to the semi-useful square of c2 you needed to move the knight twice so you lost a tempo.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As others I strongly recommend to play something more normal. Chess openings are very well analyzed and there is a reason that nobody is playing 1 Na3&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2017-02-07T22:34:05.400" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16591" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6081" CreationDate="2017-02-08T04:49:41.797" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The h2/h7 pawns as confirmed by @Charles Rockafellor seems to be the most likely to me; at least for normal games above Patzer level. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you look at games there are very few pawnless end positions. And since more people castle short than long, it makes sense to keep those protective f-g-h pawns a bit longer. Also the h pawns being where they are at the rim, it is very hard to get at them and if they'd ever be involved in some exchange action it could only be to one side, towards the g file.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2017-02-08T04:49:41.797" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16592" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16565" CreationDate="2017-02-08T10:57:49.190" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;First learn basic openings by referring to books and using the internet. A good chess website is Chess.com; it has lessons and tactics which will improve your understanding on Chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then play regularly with some good chess players face to face. Even if you lose every game you will learn something from it. Review the games afterwards and try to identify where you have erred, and then try to avoid that mistake in future games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, review games of high rated players, preferably games of grandmasters. Try to work out the basic ideas of the moves and then to apply the ideas in your next game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12489" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-08-17T02:06:34.403" LastActivityDate="2020-08-17T02:06:34.403" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="16593" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16426" CreationDate="2017-02-08T14:24:54.810" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is less a question about chess, than a publishing question.  The answer is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No.  The publishing industry largely uses publishing software (open source, and proprietary) to publish books, including chess books.  You've named one - InDesign.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Software such as &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.adobe.com/ca/products/indesign.html?sdid=KKQLR&amp;amp;mv=search&amp;amp;s_kwcid=AL!3085!3!155829415329!e!!g!!indesign&amp;amp;ef_id=WJJT6AAAADRmetwl:20170208141416:s&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Adobe's InDesign&lt;/a&gt; or Open Source software such as SILE or LaTex can lay out a book given the correct font.  Fonts can be used with Typesetting software to represent positions and pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example a common book font is &lt;strong&gt;Chess Mérida&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ivNwa.gif&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ivNwa.gif&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This font also includes black backgrounds and pieces on backgrounds so you can make images such as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qPMiI.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qPMiI.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The font converts that from the text:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;!&amp;quot;&amp;quot;&amp;quot;&amp;quot;&amp;quot;&amp;quot;&amp;quot;&amp;quot;#  &#xA;$tMvWlVmT%  &#xA;$OoOoOoOo%  &#xA;$ + + + +%  &#xA;$+ + + + %  &#xA;$ + + + +%  &#xA;$+ + + + %  &#xA;$pPpPpPpP%  &#xA;$RnBqKbNr%  &#xA;/(((((((()  &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Download the font &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.enpassant.dk/chess/downl/merid_tt.zip&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; and cut that text into a Word Document and change the text to the Chess font and see for yourself)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can find many chess fonts to use with your publishing software &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.enpassant.dk/chess/fonteng.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12077" LastEditorUserId="293" LastEditDate="2021-03-03T10:07:20.970" LastActivityDate="2021-03-03T10:07:20.970" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="16595" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5559" CreationDate="2017-02-08T16:45:05.363" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is hit or miss.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No one can really know what puzzle your thinking about, so please don't down vote wrong attempts.  People shouldn't be penalized for trying to help.  It's only through trial and error we're going to help you find your puzzle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this your puzzle:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.puzzles.com/puzzleplayground/FourKnights/FourKnights.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;HERE&lt;/a&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12077" LastActivityDate="2017-02-08T16:45:05.363" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16596" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8285" CreationDate="2017-02-08T22:31:39.120" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Playing winning positions vs chess engine is a very useful training. Try it out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12282" LastActivityDate="2017-02-08T22:31:39.120" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16597" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-02-09T12:22:22.713" Score="1" ViewCount="191" Body="&lt;p&gt;I agree that many people like it more when chess puzzles do not give a clue on the tactical theme. That is not my question, and I would like to focus on how to study a collection of chess puzzles classified by themes. I have one of those books, with one chapter devoted to each theme. In each chapter the difficulty is supposed to increase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I was preparing for undergraduate math exams, I used to rotate the exercises: one exercise per chapter, instead of devoting myself to one chapter exhaustively until jumping to the next one. That way, I was reviewing all the material in each session and was exposed to a bit of everything all the time. This approach has always served me well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I am doing the 1st chess puzzle in each chapter and, after reaching the end of the book, I go back to the beginning and solve the 2nd problem of each chapter and so on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, authors do not seem to have designed chess puzzle books for this approach. Sometimes they may even give detailed instructions like &quot;look at each puzzle for 5 minutes and then look at the solution&quot;, &quot;try to be exposed to 20 puzzles per day in order to develop a sense of pattern recognition&quot; but there is no mention to this rotation approach I think I should use.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it better to focus on one tactical motive for a while instead?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12396" LastEditorUserId="3831" LastEditDate="2017-02-10T06:21:08.443" LastActivityDate="2020-01-08T03:40:50.380" Title="Puzzle training: rotating tactical themes or exhausting each one?" Tags="&lt;puzzles&gt;&lt;study&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16598" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16373" CreationDate="2017-02-09T12:42:15.043" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, what exactly do you want to know? The essentials are very simple: Have a &quot;front side&quot; showing a tactical position and a &quot;back side&quot; showing the answer. For the former you can just use images taken from scans. But there's also a note type available for Anki which lets you store positions in FEN notation. Search for &quot;chess&quot; on AnkiWeb to find it. This method is more memory efficient (and in some cases looks better), but might require a little more work than images, unless you also have the puzzles in e.g. PGN format.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I started out as an absolute beginner a little less than a year ago. I'm still a beginner and at the very bottom of food chain in the chess club I joined recently, but compared to from where I started I have improved a lot.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my informed opinion spaced repetition in learning chess aims at pattern recognition. In other words: It's not about actually memorizing the solutions (so don't bother creating very short repetition circles), but developing an intuition for where possible solutions might be. In effect, though, it trains tactical intuition more than calculation. So I find that I need to compliment my Anki training not only with actual play, but also with solving composed mate-in-2 puzzles that I set up on the board to improve my board vision and calculation ability.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The specifics of what types of puzzles/questions are suitable depend on your level of play. As always with spaced repetition the cards should have clear, unambigous, easy to state answers. Though what exactly constitutes a &quot;clear, unambigous, easy to state answer&quot; probably differs from person to person and today I find solutions clear that were confusing to me a year ago. That being said, at my level basic tactics still work best. I gave up on creating more strategic cards for now, until my abilities have improved.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I guess that, since this is about pattern recognition, it matters what book you are using. I'm using Susan Polgar's tactics book for tactical motifs and the mate-in-two puzzles from L. Polgars 5000-something book for piece-interaction, mating patterns etc. Since solving puzzles on your smart phone is a great way to pass the time in the subway, I also have a deck with beginner puzzles from the 'Manual of chess combinations': unlike with the other two, I don't put any pressure on myself to go through this deck every day, but use it only when I want some 'extra chess'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12502" LastActivityDate="2017-02-09T12:42:15.043" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16599" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16597" CreationDate="2017-02-09T14:25:40.567" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Whatever works best for you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I guess for a beginner it does make sense to see / study different variations of the same theme first. If you feel that it is too easy studying one chapter at a time, i.e. if you can spot the solution within a few seconds, it would make sense to mix it up a bit. You can do this by randomly picking problems from your book or online at sites like chesstempo or lichess or many others that have chess puzzles and that automatically adapt to your strength.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once you get to more advanced puzzles you will see that the solution usually consists of several motives, e.g. a &quot;clearance&quot; followed by a &quot;fork&quot;. At that stage you will not run into the problem of being stuck with one motif. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2017-02-09T14:25:40.567" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16600" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8285" CreationDate="2017-02-10T01:39:18.040" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Play against a chess engine at material odds.  Just take off the computer's Queen and a Rook or two and see if you can still win.  I like to play something like 5'2&quot; vs 1'2&quot;.  That is, I give myself 5 minutes with a two second increment, the machine has 1 minute with a two second increment.  It will still be very strong with modern software.  This way, you have to be disciplined with your play because of the time, but still can recover from some tactical mistakes as you have a big material advantage.  Once you can score 75% against the beast, make the odds a little tougher.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2119" LastActivityDate="2017-02-10T01:39:18.040" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16601" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16602" CreationDate="2017-02-10T02:19:33.977" Score="3" ViewCount="5180" Body="&lt;p&gt;I wanted to make a 1 player chess game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The idea is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The move made by the player would be displayed on the GUI.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It is sent to the Chess Engine in its own specific understood form.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Then the result of the Chess engine would be taken and then made visible on the GUI.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Currently I have made no progress on it and am on a dead end. My current program on Java lets 2 players play with each other. The program manages the rules that have to be followed and which moves are illegal. But for a single player game I wanted an AI for my game that can take inputs and give outputs. I searched online for various open source chess engines like Stockfish. But found nothing about using it in my program.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I tried to work on to create my own engine but it was quite a challenge for me. Hence connecting it with an external AI is the only solution I think there is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12511" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2017-02-10T03:04:56.377" LastActivityDate="2017-02-10T03:07:06.007" Title="Connecting Chess Engine with a Java program" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16602" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16601" CreationDate="2017-02-10T03:01:12.780" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let's break it down:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You have a working Java chess board that you can use to move pieces&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You want a chess engine (&lt;strong&gt;engine&lt;/strong&gt; is a more precise term than &lt;strong&gt;AI&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You want to download Stockfish and use it&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You want to invent a new protocol or technology to communicate your chess board with the Stockfish engine&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To me, your question is really:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;How to connect an external chess engine such as Stockfish within my own chess GUI in Java?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Useful old posts in this site:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/9632/chess-engine-api/9633#9633&quot;&gt;Chess Engine API&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/15704/what-is-the-optimal-way-to-use-stockfish-programmatically/15707#15707&quot;&gt;What is the optimal way to use Stockfish programmatically?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically, what you need to do is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;You shouldn't invent your own technology, you should study the UCI protocol. &lt;a href=&quot;http://wbec-ridderkerk.nl/html/UCIProtocol.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://wbec-ridderkerk.nl/html/UCIProtocol.html&lt;/a&gt; is a useful reference. I can get you started, do this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Download Stockfish&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Open Stockfish in a console/terminal, don't double-click on it with your mouse&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Type &lt;code&gt;ucinewgame&lt;/code&gt; and then &lt;code&gt;go movetime 1000&lt;/code&gt;. Do you see Stockfish's move?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Read the protocol specification and learn how to analyze a position, and the output format.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Write a UCI output parser. Parse whatever information you want.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Use the information to make a move on your chess board.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only technical difficulty I can see here is to establish a &quot;connection&quot; between your GUI with the engine. This is done by creating a new process, running the engine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2006035/how-to-create-a-process-in-java&quot;&gt;https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2006035/how-to-create-a-process-in-java&lt;/a&gt; has information on how to do it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once you have the new process, you can establish a simple standard input/output pipeline. &lt;a href=&quot;https://stackoverflow.com/questions/27081918/java-how-to-send-a-value-to-child-process-using-outputstream&quot;&gt;https://stackoverflow.com/questions/27081918/java-how-to-send-a-value-to-child-process-using-outputstream&lt;/a&gt; has the details. Ask on Stackoverflow if you're not sure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-05-23T12:37:05.403" LastActivityDate="2017-02-10T03:07:06.007" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16603" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16597" CreationDate="2017-02-10T04:50:16.443" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;top author..yakov neishadt..uses a theme by theme intro..then a mixed theme no hints format..he was the editor of &quot;64&quot; a Soviet pub..lev alburt uses a mix format in his &quot;300 most important positions and ideas&quot;..optimum review time for the brain to transfer from short term memory to long term is 5 to 7 min..&#xA;timothy ferriss in his &quot;the 4 hour chef' details how to learn anything rapidly..dont be confused by the title..&#xA;personally i never forget it when i get caught by something i thought i knew..&#xA;HAVE FUN every body forgets / every body loses&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12190" LastActivityDate="2017-02-10T04:50:16.443" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16604" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16597" CreationDate="2017-02-10T14:14:55.633" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;Is it better to focus on one tactical motive for a while instead?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My answer would be 'yes', the reason being that seeing a motif repeated in multiple different forms makes you more aware of what kinds of positions will have that motif. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That is how I solve large amounts of tactical chess puzzles in one sitting.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10233" LastActivityDate="2017-02-10T14:14:55.633" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16605" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-02-11T10:07:03.550" Score="2" ViewCount="209" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why is it compulsory to write a game in classic chess tournaments? If the purpose is the validity of the moves, then  why not in quick games?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11068" LastActivityDate="2020-03-06T16:49:28.443" Title="Writting of a tournament game" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;tournament&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16606" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16608" CreationDate="2017-02-11T11:13:25.427" Score="1" ViewCount="165" Body="&lt;p&gt;absolute beginning self-learner here, asking trivial terminology:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;xyz(&lt;em&gt;placeholder&lt;/em&gt;) &lt;strong&gt;opening&lt;/strong&gt; is speaking of &lt;strong&gt;white&lt;/strong&gt;'s play and zyx(&lt;em&gt;placeholder&lt;/em&gt;) &lt;strong&gt;defense&lt;/strong&gt; is referring to &lt;strong&gt;black&lt;/strong&gt;'s play, is that correct?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;or&lt;br&gt;&#xA;opening schemes are played by white, while defense schemes are played by opponent -- the black.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Is this thinking correct?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12519" LastActivityDate="2017-02-11T23:52:22.363" Title="beginner chess terminology: opening is white's and defense is black's?" Tags="&lt;terminology&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16607" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16605" CreationDate="2017-02-11T12:20:49.860" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are several reasons having to write down the moves in standard chess games:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;as a document, proof of the game and result (in some cases but not always the players also have to sign)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;in order to confirm 50-move and 3-fold repetition rules&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;in order to count the number of moves which can be relevant for the time control (e.g. sometimes you have say 2 hours for the first 40 moves plus 1 hour for the next 20 moves plus 30 min for the rest)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;to prevent cheating (players changing position of pieces, etc), though this is usually not much of an issue&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;for storage (so that you can later analyze your game or sometimes it might even be entered into a database)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With short time controls there is simply no time to write down the moves. Also with some longer time controls, it is sometimes allowed not to write down moves when the remaining time drops below some limit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just for information the technicalities on how to record (and how not to) moves are laid out in article 8 of the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/component/handbook/?id=171&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE laws of chess&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastEditorUserId="11629" LastEditDate="2017-02-13T11:23:59.457" LastActivityDate="2017-02-13T11:23:59.457" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16608" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16606" CreationDate="2017-02-11T12:54:09.463" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe that there is not much meaning in these terms and the terminology developed historically. Terms like &lt;em&gt;opening, defense, attack, game,...&lt;/em&gt; are often used synonymously.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Opening&lt;/strong&gt; is the general term which can be used to refer to any sequence of moves at the start of the game. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also it refers to systems that develop after 1. e4 e5 (e.g. Italian, Spanish openings) which a long time ago were by far the most popular and considered the best because they follow the straightforward plan of occupying the center and developing pieces to active positions. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Later, other openings were developed which do not follow such a natural plan. E.g. in those new openings white is often allowed to create a strong  pawn center which black later attacks. Many of these received the name &lt;strong&gt;defense&lt;/strong&gt;, perhaps to signify that black is not going for active play immediately but lets white get somewhat active. Examples are the French, Sicilian, Caro-Kan, King's Indian,... defense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However note that in these defenses it is black who determines the structure of the game to a large extend, by deciding e.g. between the French or the Sicilian which result in completely different kind of games. In the Spanish/Italian on the other hand it is white  who makes the major decision on the third move, between 3. Bc4 and 3. Bb5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then there are also the &lt;strong&gt;attacks&lt;/strong&gt; (e.g. King's Indian attack) which often refer to color-reversed defenses. In these it is mostly white who decides the structure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Generally (with a few exceptions, usually called &quot;system&quot; or &quot;set-up&quot; such as the Colle system), black's and white's moves in openings are related. So it does generally not make sense to talk about an opening for one side only. For instance the King's Indian is basically defined by a certain set-up for black: (pawns on d6, e5, g6, bishop on g7, short castle, later play f5 and attack on the king side). But still experience has shown that there is a recommended way for white to play against it and therefore King's Indian means both, the black and the white set-up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But as mentioned, don't break your head over this. Just take it as a name without much meaning. In the same way there is not much meaning in &quot;open&quot;, &quot;semi-open&quot;, &quot;closed&quot; openings. For instance you can have very closed positional play in some lines of the Spanish/Ruy-Lopez which would be classified as &quot;open&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are a beginner focus on general opening principles and tactics. This will be more useful than learning a specific opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastEditorUserId="11629" LastEditDate="2017-02-11T23:52:22.363" LastActivityDate="2017-02-11T23:52:22.363" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16609" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16339" CreationDate="2017-02-11T16:31:39.990" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;A PGN file is simply a flat text file, which can be created/edited using a text editor (I use &lt;a href=&quot;https://notepad-plus-plus.org/download/v7.3.1.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Notepad++&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;ANSWER:&lt;/strong&gt; While using a text editor may not be optimal, or may not be an automagical way of many specific games from a large PGN file, it works.  I don't know of a text editor specifically designed to deal with PGN files otherwise.  Also, SCID itself allows you to delete games from a collection.  Notice in &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/blog/repecmps/scid---how-to-delete-duplicate-games&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this link&lt;/a&gt; the option to delete current game?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would also observe that the FEN you've posted is only valid if you're playing Fischer (or 'random') Chess where the pieces are randomly placed at the beginning.  Copy your FEN &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess-poster.com/english/fen/fen_epd_viewer.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;HERE&lt;/a&gt; and observe that while valid FEN, is not a valid opening position for a regular game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The problem with your file is that it is mixing regular and Fischer chess games..&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12077" LastEditorUserId="12077" LastEditDate="2017-02-16T14:42:04.950" LastActivityDate="2017-02-16T14:42:04.950" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16610" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16611" CreationDate="2017-02-12T00:47:35.437" Score="2" ViewCount="125" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am currently using a triangular array to collect the PV in my chess engine (written in C). However, I would like to return several variations such as the second best, third best, and so fourth. Is is possible to do with a triangular array scheme or do I need to use a transposition table. In either case is there a simple example of an engine that uses; one preferably in C?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12273" LastEditorUserId="1508" LastEditDate="2017-02-13T17:03:45.537" LastActivityDate="2017-02-13T17:03:45.537" Title="multi PVs using triangular array" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;transpositions&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16611" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16610" CreationDate="2017-02-12T12:01:08.457" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You use neither.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You run your search to collect the best PV from your triangular table. This gives you your best variation. Then you exclude this best move and run another search to get the best PV from your triangular table. This gives you your second best variation. And so on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1508" LastActivityDate="2017-02-12T12:01:08.457" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16613" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6424" CreationDate="2017-02-12T18:09:58.493" Score="-1" Body="&lt;h2&gt;&quot;Caveat Emptor&quot;&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A lot of the chess sets out there &lt;em&gt;look&lt;/em&gt; pretty nice, but frankly most of the manufacturers invest all their effort into attractive molds and durable plastic.  Very few of them offer even the most basic features that you would expect in this day and age - the features that would most enhance your game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I just spent over $50 for a tournament set for my son.  Yes, it has hefty, triple-weighted pieces for stability and an attractive Staunton design, and the pieces seem very durable.  The set even came with extra queens - a nice touch for those four-queen positions you get every once in a while.  But look at what it doesn't have:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Undo.  This feature has been in cheap word processors since the '80's, but is totally missing from the set.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Syntax Checking.  The set allows illegal moves without so much as a warning. This has been a feature of programming editors since the '90s.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Speed Regulation.  The set allows me to make moves as hastily as I want, even though my game always suffers as a result.  For goodness sake, the &lt;em&gt;escapement&lt;/em&gt; has been a part of clocks since the &lt;em&gt;13th Century&lt;/em&gt;!&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Drink Holders.  Ok, this one is just a personal preference, but my minivan comes with about 16.  You would think that a chess set would have space for at least two.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The upshot:  It doesn't seem to matter how much you spend, you aren't going to get these sorts of features.  So if you ask me, &lt;em&gt;all&lt;/em&gt; the companies out there are ripping us off.  The USCF has been doing it the longest - I suppose there is some merit to the thought that if you are going to be swindled, get swindled by someone who has been at it for a long time and has swindled lots of others.  It's less embarrassing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12084" LastActivityDate="2017-02-12T18:09:58.493" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16614" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="59" CreationDate="2017-02-12T18:51:18.480" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;[Edited] The winning plan is to force the king into either of the corners which have the same colour as your bishop. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is done in a few steps. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Force the king to one side of the board so he is stuck on either the a/h file or 1st/8th rank&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Use the W manoeuvre to force the king to the corner of your bishop, then use the motif of knight check on (e.g. Na3+ to hit b1) then mate with your king on b3, knight covering b1 and Bishop mates on the long diagonal (e.g. Bg7#).  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have put a detailed review of each step of the ending on &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.thequietmove.com/endings-bn-mate-king/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;my website&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12533" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2017-02-15T00:56:54.537" LastActivityDate="2017-02-15T00:56:54.537" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16615" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-02-12T21:50:18.667" Score="3" ViewCount="4721" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to learn a chess opening and using a chess engine (stockfish8) to analyze the position but I'm wondering what move depth should I set it to (e.g., 25, 30 35 half moves).   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12402" LastActivityDate="2017-03-04T07:52:09.603" Title="To what move depth should you analyze a chess position" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;engines&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16616" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-02-12T22:33:46.247" Score="-2" ViewCount="418" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been told (but I don't understand) that it's a good idea to use a number of chess engine to analyze a chess opening.  It this true?  Why is this a good idea?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12402" LastActivityDate="2017-06-04T04:47:34.480" Title="Using multiple chess engines for chess preparation" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;engines&gt;&lt;study&gt;&lt;preparation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16618" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16615" CreationDate="2017-02-13T00:51:47.110" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Generally, the only reason running a chess engine at less than maximum power are time constraints or if you want to give yourself a chance to win, though in the latter case I'd still prefer to play human players instead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Regarding the use of a chess engine &lt;strong&gt;to analyze the position&lt;/strong&gt; in an opening in order &lt;strong&gt;to learn a chess opening&lt;/strong&gt; I am wondering how you are going to practically do this? I mean, the engine will give you only a certain sequence of moves which it considers best play for both sides. It will not teach you the ideas/plans behind an opening which is the most important part and something which you can rely on if your opponent for instance does not play the expected move. It will not teach you about subtleties, like move-order changes or any sidelines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am not saying a chess engine is completely useless for studying openings. You could use it for practice games in a specific opening or you could study a certain alternative move in an opening (but that would be at a stage where you already know the opening somewhat).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For studying a new opening I'd find much more useful than an engine:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;any explanation of plans/ideas (this can be books, videos, or a coach/friend)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;a database&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;following games of a Grandmaster who is playing the opening regularly (let them do the difficult analyzing part...)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2017-02-13T00:51:47.110" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16619" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16622" CreationDate="2017-02-13T02:23:39.130" Score="1" ViewCount="987" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sometimes when I'm playing a variation that I'm comfortable with I get bored while waiting for my opponent to move, so I get distracted and start to pay attention to other things around me. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know that focus is important, and being distracted can put me on short pants when playing, but lets, for the purpose of this question, ignore that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As an example, yesterday I was playing with my uncle with no time limit, and the Real Madrid game was on. While waiting his moves I took a (sometimes not so) quick look at the TV.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Obviously, my uncle is someone I respect. When doing this I had (and always have) no intention of looking presumptuous or insinuate the game is easy (and I don't think my uncle got me wrong).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But not everyone I play against knows me as well as my uncle. Does this look bad when playing? Can my opponent be offended? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11917" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T15:46:50.053" Title="Is it disrespectful to pay attention to other things while playing?" Tags="&lt;etiquette&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16620" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16619" CreationDate="2017-02-13T02:30:18.473" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Whether or not your opponent is offended may depend on your local culture outside of chess, and might also depend on the situation in which you're playing the game. In a tournament with slower time controls, it's not uncommon to even see players get up and walk over to watch other games in progress. On the other hand, if you're just playing a casual game with someone then it's probably polite to pretend you're interested in the current position because otherwise your opponent may think that you don't actually want to be playing with them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="550" LastEditorUserId="550" LastEditDate="2017-02-15T10:13:56.850" LastActivityDate="2017-02-15T10:13:56.850" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16621" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16619" CreationDate="2017-02-13T07:44:55.380" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The main etiquette rule to follow when playing a game of chess with someone is to not do anything to distract your opponent while he's thinking about his move.  I think it's OK to watch soccer on TV when it's your uncle's turn, but I wouldn't do it on your own move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8258" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T15:43:05.777" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T15:43:05.777" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="16622" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16619" CreationDate="2017-02-13T11:21:09.960" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think this question is really chess related. For an informal (no tournament) situation like you describe I don't see much difference in whether you play a game of chess or do some other activity together with somebody.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Whether it is disrespectful depends on your cultural background and also on how well you know each other. For instance some people like (trash-) talking during informal games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Regarding tournament games you can read about the FIDE rules of conduct in article 11 &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/component/handbook/?id=171&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;, particularly article 11.5 which states:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;It is forbidden to distract or annoy the opponent in any manner whatsoever. This includes unreasonable claims, unreasonable offers of a draw or the introduction of a source of noise into the playing area.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In practice you can do almost anything which does not affect your opponent directly. For instance it is very common that players get up and walk around, as is eating/drinking at the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2017-02-13T11:21:09.960" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16623" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16615" CreationDate="2017-02-13T12:49:32.063" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The depth of a Chess Engine is the Level of Play when you analyse the game . If you are aware of the ELO System of rating I would like to describe below .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;100  - 1000  :--&gt; Beginner&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;1001 - 1200  :--&gt;  Casual&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;1201 - 1400  :--&gt;  Average  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;1401 - 1600  :--&gt;  Intermediate&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;1601 - 1800  :--&gt;  Experienced&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;1801 - 2000  :--&gt; Tournament Player&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;2001 - 2200  :--&gt; Expert&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;2201 - 2300  :--&gt; National Master&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;2301 - 2400  :--&gt; Fide Master&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;2401 - 2500  :--&gt; International Master (IM)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;2501 + -2800 :--&gt; Grandmaster / World Champions (GM)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now when you set the Chess Engine depth to a Highest Level they play with the Strength of an IM/GM . The Depth what you should set is always on the category that you are in this ELO level . &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's assume that if you are a 1600 Approx Player you must try defeating the Players who are about 1700-2000 ELo level . As you know when you climb up a stair case you should take 1-2 steps at one time and you just cannot leap at one shot you must try crossing the next levels and check where your standard is and then prceed on to the next levels .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastActivityDate="2017-02-13T12:49:32.063" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16624" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4638" CreationDate="2017-02-13T13:04:48.637" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The best move sometimes takes decades or even centuries to be discovered. For an example, take a look at a moment from the famous game &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1132699&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;“The Battle Of Hastings”&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Wilhelm Steinitz-Curt von Bardeleben, Hastings London, 8/17/1895&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[startply &quot;28&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Bc5 4. c3 Nf6 5. d4 exd4 6. cxd4 Bb4+ 7. Nc3 d5 8. exd5 Nxd5 9. O-O Be6 10. Bg5 Be7 11. Bxd5 Bxd5 12. Nxd5 Qxd5 13. Bxe7 Nxe7 14. Re1 f6 15. Qe2 Qd7 16. Rac1 c6 17. d5 cxd5 18. Nd4 Kf7 19. Ne6 Rhc8 20. Qg4 g6 21. Ng5+ Ke8 22. Rxe7+ Kf8 23. Rf7+ Kg8 24. Rg7+ Kh8 25. Rxh7+&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is White to move and at the time the best move considered to be Qe2. After 78 years,  it was discovered that the best move in this position was actually Qa4!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus it is impossible to find always the best move on the board. There can be a lot of good moves that could win the game for you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-03-29T14:15:16.113" LastActivityDate="2020-03-29T14:15:16.113" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="16625" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16615" CreationDate="2017-02-13T19:16:04.467" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't torture engines much when preparing openings as it makes almost no sense. I grew up from this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No human can get anywhere close to engines in &lt;strong&gt;dynamic&lt;/strong&gt; positions. That means your moves will be quite random in sharp positions and your opponent's will be also quite random (or very unprecise if it sounds better to you). There is also quite a little point in analysing &lt;strong&gt;static&lt;/strong&gt; position to extreme depths. What for, does it mean something to improve by 3 centipawns on depth 40?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The engine evaluation may be based on some alien variation club players will never make playing unprepared. Evaluation of main line isn't important at all if it is almost certain that it won't happen. And that is exactly what engines expect, 100% precision. Engine will go to a minefield for one centipawn, not caring any mistake means immediate loss.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I doubt it makes much sense for grandmasters and I'm pretty sure it makes no sense for hobby players to waste time and electricity for calculations they will never be able to replicate at the board. If the line is too messy, you will either not be able to find correct moves at the board (if engine didn't see it early enough) or you will simply forget it sooner than you will be able to catch there someone unprepared (if you try to remember it by heart). I think people heavily overestimate use of deep engine searches for practical games. They behave like if it was 30% of a success while it may very well be 0.2% of it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And here is beautiful example from last round of republic championchip where I had to win with white to make silver and my opponent (very dangerous 2500 player with sharp PC preparation) caught me unprepared in dragon sicilian and from engine perspective he just murdered me with black right from the opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1rr3k1/4pp1p/3p2p1/q2P1b2/2BQ2PP/1P3P2/2P5/2KR3R b - - 0 24&#xA;&#xA;1...Bxc2 2.Kxc2 Qa2+ 3.Kd3 Rxc4 4.bxc4 Rb3+ 5.Ke4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After the game he told me that he knew taking on c2 leads to very good endgame with queen and five pawns against two rooks and four pawns. I didn't know anything so I had to make my decision at the board. Do I want to give a queen and suffer in this type of endgame or do I like to go with my king to the center? I was thinking about half an hour and it looked to me that marching king to e4 could be very easily winning position (maybe I found the only forced draw,  I don't remember that exactly, but for sure I saw no single worse position for me in this variation). I made my march to e4 instead of giving up a queen, my opponent spent remaining 40 minutes calculating. I spent another twenty minutes of his time too, then I went to look on cups and medals as I was almost certain I'm winning (or at least not losing). Neither me nor my opponent found the -10 winnig strike for black that Komodo found on depth 5 in a few miliseconds. In the game I easily converted my extra rook as my opponent missed also the only forced draw (not completely obvious too) and the rest of variations were just easy wins for me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even in a dream scenario things can go really wrong. It is horrible strategy to go into a minefield for a few centipawns which is exactly what engines do. They don't help you in recognising minefields, they don't care about them. There is some value in doing deep searches, one can hardly find reason why lower depths would produce better chess related results than higher depths, but that value is very close to zero. It is much easier to measure time related results and they are horrible on higher depths. Even if you are comfortable with wasting the electricity, don't waste your time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The stronger player you are, the more precision you want, obviously. But with today strength of computers, even GMs should be comfortable on under 1sec for unprobable variations to forget soon and on a few seconds for highly probabe positions to happen. There is always something to do if you want to see depth 50 result, it makes no sense but you can feel pretty comfortable with it, if you can for example prepare a breakfast in a meantime :-)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11609" LastActivityDate="2017-02-13T19:16:04.467" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16626" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-02-13T20:46:23.900" Score="2" ViewCount="248" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was playing chess with my Dad, and he was shocked when I made a capture while check. He said that when he learned to play, that, when you are in check, you cannot capture with the king or any other piece to get out of check. This means that all you can do is move out of check. Is there a special rule or game type where this is true? We live in Hungary, so maybe they play different here. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12544" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-02-19T02:59:34.017" LastActivityDate="2020-02-19T02:59:34.017" Title="Only being able to move and not capture while in check" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;check&gt;&lt;kings&gt;&lt;captures&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="16627" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16626" CreationDate="2017-02-13T21:15:34.667" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Below is for regular chess. I don't know about any chess variant which would have a rule like you describe. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are in check you have to deal with it somehow, i.e. after your move you should not be in check anymore. If there is no move which achieves this, it is check-mate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are at most three different ways to get out of check:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;move the king out of check&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;capture the piece which attacks your king&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;put a piece in-between the piece which attacks your king and your king (this can only work if a bishop, rook or queen attacks your king)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A simple example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/VYCuQ.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/VYCuQ.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White is in check by the rook on h7. There are three possible moves for white: Kg1 (see &quot;1&quot;), Bxh7 (&quot;2&quot;), Nh3 (see &quot;3&quot;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a side note, you cannot castle out of check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastEditorUserId="11629" LastEditDate="2017-02-14T20:03:15.317" LastActivityDate="2017-02-14T20:03:15.317" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16628" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2641" CreationDate="2017-02-14T02:33:39.627" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Write the various ideas that you discover in the opening. For example, in the Taimanov Sicilian against the English Attack when White attacks the Knight with g5, Black should consider playing  Nh5 and using the Knight to blockade the kingside. As you understand more and more ideas in the opening (and write them know), you'll begin to understand that it's not about memorizing moves but understanding how to respond to various plans that the opposing player can try.  That's should be your mindset when learning an opening.  Don't memorize - understand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12402" LastActivityDate="2017-02-14T02:33:39.627" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16629" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8799" CreationDate="2017-02-14T02:39:49.247" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sicilian especially Najdorj and Taimanov/Kan have currently have a good reputation.  You're not likely to get a passive position from these openings.  They are very sound openings.  Try the Marshall Gambit in the Ruy Lopez if you don't want to play Sicilian.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12402" LastActivityDate="2017-02-14T02:39:49.247" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16630" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13220" CreationDate="2017-02-14T02:51:20.640" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;A strong player is going to know how to get a good position against an opening like this that is considering weak. Theory and computers suggest your position favors Black.  There have been 29 master level games played from this position with Black winning the majority of them. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That said, after Bg7, White should play Qe1.  Below is a sample game.  12. Qe4 was the losing move but the best move was the embarrassing retreat 12.Qe1.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[Event &quot;Ch England&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;England&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2015.3.22&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;8&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Dean Michael (ENG)&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Levy Christopher A (ENG)&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;[Eco &quot;B23&quot;]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.e4 c5 2.Nc3 Nc6 3.f4 e6 4.Nf3 d6 5.Bb5 Nge7 6.O-O g6 7.d3 Bg7&#xA;8.Qe1 h6 9.Qh4 Bd7 10.f5 exf5 11.exf5 g5 12.Qe4 Bxf5 13.Bxc6+&#xA;bxc6 14.Qa4 O-O 15.Be3 Be6 16.Rae1 Qd7 17.Ne2 Nf5 18.Bd2 d5 19.d4&#xA;cxd4 20.Nexd4 Nxd4 21.Nxd4 c5 22.Qxd7 Bxd7 23.Nf5 Bxf5 24.Rxf5&#xA;Rad8 25.Ba5 Rd7 26.c4 Bd4+ 27.Kf1 dxc4 28.Bc3 Rb8 29.Rd1 Rdb7&#xA;30.Rd5 Bxc3 31.bxc3 Rb1 32.Kf2 Rxd1 33.Rxd1 Rb2+ 34.Kf3 Rc2 35.Rd8+&#xA;Kg7 36.Rc8 Rxc3+ 37.Ke4 Rc2 38.Kf3 Rxa2 39.Rxc5 Ra3+ 40.Ke2 c3&#xA;41.Kd3 Ra2 42.Rxc3 Rxg2 43.h3 Rg3+ 44.Kc4 0-1&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12402" LastActivityDate="2017-02-14T02:51:20.640" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16631" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-02-14T03:15:09.830" Score="5" ViewCount="1314" Body="&lt;p&gt;There have been a number of statistical attempts (e.g., &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessmetrics.com/cm/CM2/HistoricalRatings.asp&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chessmetrics&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.edochess.ca/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;edo&lt;/a&gt;)  or &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.chessbase.com/post/computers-choose-who-was-the-strongest-player-&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;computerized attempts&lt;/a&gt; to determine who was the best chess player of all time.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The statistical approaches attempt to back rate all top chess players through time in order to make meaningful rating comparisons.  You can't just compare Elo ratings because many great players played before the Elo system was implemented.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A second approach is to use computer analysis of the games of great players and determine who blundered the least.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I see some problems with these approaches as implemented to date.  Here are my thoughts on this.  I would like to hear others thoughts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A computer comparison blunder analysis by professors &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.chessbase.com/post/computers-choose-who-was-the-strongest-player-&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Matej Guid and Ivan Bratko&lt;/a&gt; found that Capablanca played more like a computer than modern players! . However, Guid and Bratko noted that Capablanca's rather sedate style and lower quality of competition than modern players led to fewer positions where he was likely to blunder. Perhaps, an aggressive player like Kasparov may make more tactical errors because he sought complex positions but his opponents made even more errors under his pressure! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Perhaps, you need an error weighting system that doesn’t just calculate the percentage of errors per 100 moves but estimates the difference between your error rate and your opponents error rate. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because computer comparison analyses don’t take into consideration the strength of your opponent back ratings have been used to adjust for increasing quality of play over time.  These approaches make some hidden assumptions as well. For example, Chessmetrics assumes a player’s peak rating occurs when they are 40 years old which probably isn't true in all cases. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to Edo, Capablanca and Morphy are rated the two highest players from the pre 1920s era.  According to Chessmetrics, Capablanca and Lasker were the two best players (Morphy doesn’t even make the top ten.). There are many other discrepancies between these two back rating systems.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can one derive a better system based on more solid assumptions to accurately estimate who was the best chess player?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12402" LastEditorUserId="11629" LastEditDate="2017-02-16T10:03:11.510" LastActivityDate="2020-01-12T11:24:32.987" Title="Can you objectively determine who was the best chess player of all time?" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;world-championship&gt;&lt;famous-players&gt;&lt;computer-chess&gt;&lt;best-practice&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="14" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16632" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16619" CreationDate="2017-02-14T03:17:54.770" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would say no.  There was some training school in the 80s where you were not supposed to look at the board much but try to look anywhere else.  The idea was to only see the board in your mind.  Some famous players (e.g, Shirov I believe) adopt this method.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12402" LastActivityDate="2017-02-14T03:17:54.770" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16633" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1893" CreationDate="2017-02-14T04:53:53.910" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You create a hole on d5 for the White knight and the e pawn can no longer defend f7.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12402" LastActivityDate="2017-02-14T04:53:53.910" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16634" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5394" CreationDate="2017-02-14T04:57:08.110" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;If Black knows what his doing, he can obtain easy equality.  It's not an opening where White is likely to gain an advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12402" LastActivityDate="2017-02-14T04:57:08.110" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16636" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8687" CreationDate="2017-02-14T06:31:18.783" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Nakamura, Mamedyarov, Topalov, Svidler, Shirov, Jobava&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12402" LastActivityDate="2017-02-14T06:31:18.783" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16637" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5112" CreationDate="2017-02-14T06:35:38.657" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Baadur Jobava &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1782733&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1782733&lt;/a&gt;, Richard Rapport Odd Larson sidelienes, Baskaran Adhiban (every third game he tries to play something new and crazy &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1860331&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1860331&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Steinitz has numerous dubious openings named after him including the Steinitz defense from the Ruy Lopez.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Steinitz Attack in the Sicilian.  1.e4 c5 2.g3&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Steinitz Gambit from the Vienna or King's Gambit 1. e4 e5 2. Nc3 Nc6 3. f4 exf4 4. d4 Qh4+ 5.Ke2&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12402" LastEditorUserId="12402" LastEditDate="2017-02-26T15:30:29.760" LastActivityDate="2017-02-26T15:30:29.760" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16638" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16615" CreationDate="2017-02-14T06:45:39.037" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sorry to disappoint you but from my Chess experience I can say that when you play real Chess Tournaments or even in the Internet you would find Players of the above category have different way to produce the Openings . &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you play with a Player of 2300 + you would see that his openings are more ultra sharp and much more precise compared to a Player of 1500 Elo level . &#xA;The Player with a 2300 + would get an opening advantage very soon and the Score of the Game would be a plus to him . Infact they will even defeat his low rated opponent within 15-20 moves . &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A player with 1500-1600 Elo would play average openings with not so great quality but still he can give good competition . &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For a better reference please download Stockfish/SmallFish if you have an iPhone and then go to the Game Difficulty Section and choose any one . &#xA;PLAY with the APP for sometime and then you would realize the difference .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One more thing : I have given you the answer from a Player's perspective . Please let me know what exactly you are trying to achieve so that I can frame my answer accordingly if the above is not satisfactory .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastEditorUserId="12700" LastEditDate="2017-03-04T07:52:09.603" LastActivityDate="2017-03-04T07:52:09.603" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16640" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16644" CreationDate="2017-02-14T07:18:37.153" Score="8" ViewCount="2647" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't have an extensive knowledge of the opening theory of the two openings mentioned in the title. However, I do understand that, at a very basic level, in response to the Queen's Gambit the moves 2...c6 and 2...e6 have the effect of defending the d5 pawn as well as erecting a solid position for Black. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, the move 2...c6 has a simple advantage: Black's queen bishop is more easily developed. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why, then, is the move 2...e6 even played? What advantages does it have over 2...c6? It seems to me as though the move just impedes the development of a piece. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The same consideration applies to semi-slav type structures in which the queen bishop is still on c8. Why would one want to play e6 before playing Bg4 or Bf5? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12448" LastActivityDate="2017-03-05T15:28:49.143" Title="What are the advantages of the QGD over the Slav?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;queens-gambit&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16641" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16619" CreationDate="2017-02-14T07:34:38.347" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In a tournament game, as long as you do not distract the other player and are not consulting help with your game, you may do as you please.  The other player will not be able to persuade a tournament director that you are distracting him if you are just looking (or walking) around.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think the more important question is how well you maintain your train of thought through the game.  While you are playing purely on technique, such as in an opening variation, you may be tempted to spend time on something else while waiting for your opponent's move.  However, even Grandmasters have misplayed openings because they left the board, and when they returned expecting the &quot;only move&quot; to have been played by their opponent, responded to that move, only to realize that their opponent had played something else.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you do lose focus on the game while playing a known variation, make sure you double-check your opponent's move when you return to avoid that mistake.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11245" LastActivityDate="2017-02-14T07:34:38.347" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16642" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16631" CreationDate="2017-02-14T07:37:00.120" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm posting a sample answer to my question to give others an idea about what I'm thinking about.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, you have to define what you mean by best. For example, does best mean you are the most dominant player for your era? Or does it mean that the quality of your player is superior to all other players. And if quality is what you mean, then how do you define quality?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Paul Morphy was probably the most dominant player. For example, when he was 12 years old he defeated a top ten player (Lowenthal) in a match 3-0. According to Edo and chessmetrics he was probably already one of the best players in the world at the age of 12! At the age of 21, he played against a simultaneous against 5 top ten players (Bird, Barnes, Boden, De Reviere, and Lowenthal) and scored 3-2. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, most would argue that dominance is a poor indicator of who is best. After all, Morphy has been described as the first modern chess player. His competition was weak compared with subsequent champions. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another definition that has been used is quality of play. However, this definition also has a lot of problems. In the 1900 hundreds , a number individuals argued that Steinitz or Lasker were the best players of all time arguing that their knowledge of opening and modern theory would make them superior to players from the past. However, Louis Paulsen made some very clever arguments against this hypothesis. He argued that Morphy (who had a photographic memory and memorized the Louisana bar code by the age of 19) if brought back to life would learn openings and modern theory within a year and be able to compete successfully against modern chess players. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The mathematician Kenneth Regan argues that modern chess players who have access to chess computers and modern training methods play more like computers than players of the past. That’s no surprise because they were trained by computers but does that mean that modern players are really better? This begs the question what would Fischer or Capablanca do if they had access to modern computers?   The problem with computer comparisons is they don’t take the historical factor into account.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You need an error weighting system that doesn’t just calculate the percentage of errors per 100 moves (which is basically what Regan and Guid and Bratko did ). Instead, you need to calculate the difference between your error rate and your opponents error rate. After all, chess is about committing fewer errors than your opponent. Putting pressure on your opponent to induce more errors is considered a good quality.&#xA;If innovation leads to dominance within a specific chess era over time and it becomes increasingly difficult to innovate over time as the strength of the competition increases you can’t measure true dominance by just looking at the match records of the top 30 players. That is, it’s a lot harder for Magnus Carlsen to dominate his opponents than it was for past champions.&#xA;Can the problem of increasing quality of play overtime be corrected by looking at back ratings? I prefer the Edo back rating system &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.edochess.ca/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.edochess.ca/&lt;/a&gt; because the statistical assumptions are better. According to Chessmetrics, Zukertort, Steinitz, Tarrasch, Lasker, Pillsbury, Maroczy, Marshall, Janowsky, Chigorin, Schlechter, Blackburne, Duras, Teichmann, Neumann, Vidmar, Gunsberg, Rubinstein and Burn were better than Morphy.   That doesn’t ring true for me.&#xA;If you look at Edo or Chessmetrics back ratings it’s easy to see that the magnitude of the difference between the top players’ ratings has been decreasing over time. So I believe an Edo type statistical model that takes into consideration the difficulty to dominate over time would be a better approach than what has been tried previously. &#xA;So my dream analysis is that you use Edo ratings based on a database that only includes the top 20 or 30 players from each five year period. After you complete this analysis you reweight your results by a dominance factor. That is, more recent players get a bonus factor that is calculated by estimating the trajectory of difficulty of dominating over time (the decrease in rating disparities between top 30 players over time). Next, you would validate this analysis by comparing players percentage of chess computer calculated blunders their opponents make minus their own blunders. If this invalidates the above, then you need to reweight according to the computer error checking analysis if it shows there is a tendency for more recent top players to play more accurately even after my dominance factor is taken into consideration. &#xA;My guess based on my eyeballing this, is that Kasparov would do very well. But that’s just a guess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12402" LastEditorUserId="8201" LastEditDate="2020-01-12T11:24:32.987" LastActivityDate="2020-01-12T11:24:32.987" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="16644" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16640" CreationDate="2017-02-14T08:31:26.930" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is not so easy to develop c8 bishop to f5 or g4 in any of these systems. You run into many tactics like Nh4 winning bishop on f5 for a knight, f3 e4 as in open Slav or Qb3 Ne5 stuff with bishop on g4. The bishop is often developed to b7 in both semislav and QGD. It is safe and effective square for him. It is better to have the bishop passive for a while than to go for long term disadvantage of exchanging it for a knight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That being said, e6 is good developing move even with bishop on c8. Now you can look for differences in 2...c6 and 2...e6 systems. The advantage of c6 is that it threatens to win a pawn forcing white either to close the c1 bishop (meran) or to be prepared to sacrifice it (botvinik, moscow). The advantage of e6 is obvious, the active c7-c5 will be played in one move, it doesn't take c6 square from knight and it helps you develop kingside faster.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11609" LastActivityDate="2017-02-14T08:31:26.930" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16645" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12368" CreationDate="2017-02-14T08:42:42.337" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I played a blind player with a high expert rating in the 1970s.  He said that going blind cost him about 200 rating points.  His play was very strong but then he would miss things that I don't think a sighted player would.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12402" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-11-02T23:54:31.023" LastActivityDate="2019-11-02T23:54:31.023" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="16647" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15951" CreationDate="2017-02-14T10:32:58.400" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;One of the most common &quot;unnatural&quot; moves for a human is an under-developing move. Computers find them easily, as it's just another move to check but human's have invested time and energy developing a piece - why then move it back again?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Computers just crunch and then evaluate. Humans are much more emotive and have certain biases for development so it's very easy as a human to overlook a move that a computer would find in a heartbeat. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(one example might be re-routing a queen from one side of the board to the other, via the home-square - e.g. Qa5-d8-h4)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I realise this is a general answer but might help :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12533" LastEditorUserId="13544" LastEditDate="2018-12-11T17:28:48.213" LastActivityDate="2018-12-11T17:28:48.213" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="16648" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12480" CreationDate="2017-02-14T10:38:29.667" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have looked for similar online. Chessgames.com has a premium guess the move section. I think you can play the Paulsen - Morphy game for free. I am trying to work on putting something together on my site but will keep you posted! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12533" LastActivityDate="2017-02-14T10:38:29.667" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16649" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13397" CreationDate="2017-02-14T10:41:57.043" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;PGN is for game notation, i.e. the whole game. You can use the FEN notation by creating the position on chessvideos.tv FEN generator site and then use the code to input this into Fritz or your preferred software. Code is on the top right. &lt;code&gt;3k4/8/3K3R/8/8/8/8/8&lt;/code&gt; is the code for the position you gave.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12533" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-02-14T11:46:51.470" LastActivityDate="2017-02-14T11:46:51.470" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16650" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16791" CreationDate="2017-02-14T10:48:02.807" Score="7" ViewCount="1370" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been meaning to develop my understanding of the Hyper-Accelerated Dragon (1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 g6) as Black, mainly by playing a few correspondence games and working through deep positional analyses. Most of what I read about this opening centers on the Maróczy Bind as White's typical response, as it's the most efficient restriction on Black's dynamic play. I haven't yet read any solid ideas for Black to play for an advantage against the Maróczy. Most sources that I've been able to find could basically be summed up as &quot;Stay sharp and wait for White to lose concentration.&quot; However, this isn't realistic when it comes to correspondence games (particularly against centaurs). It seems that facing an ideal offense from White, Black's position gets irredeemably worse:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 g6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nc6 5.c4 Nf6 6.Nc3 d6 7.Be2 Nxd4 8.Qxd4 Bg7 9.Be3 O-O 10.Qd2 Be6 11.O-O Qa5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In fact, there are several OTB games between high-rated players that feature this line, such as &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.365chess.com/game.php?gid=1670589&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;two&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.365chess.com/game.php?gid=1654918&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;games&lt;/a&gt; between Ivanchuk and Anand in 1994. Actually, after 12.b3, it seems that White has never lost an ICCF game from this position, nor does the database at 365Chess have any winning games for Black. Is the Hyper-Accelerated Dragon just not a viable opening for Black in a correspondence game? Can anybody point out where Black might improve their play along this line? Thanks in advance for your time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12553" LastActivityDate="2017-02-27T13:08:18.440" Title="Refutation of the Maróczy Bind, suitable for correspondence chess?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;&lt;correspondence-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16651" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16631" CreationDate="2017-02-14T12:30:41.717" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;If&lt;/em&gt; the players were all alive and at their peak, then they could play against each other in a tournament to determine who is the best.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is infeasible, but we can simulate it using computer representations of the players. So computer Alekhine faces computer Kasparov etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The assumption here is that we can create accurate computer equivalents of our favourite players. This will never be objective, but can be data led, e.g. giving computer players an opening book of what they would have learned in real life.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2017-02-14T12:30:41.717" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16652" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8123" CreationDate="2017-02-14T13:37:44.853" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Deep Blue will have a higher rating as it was a supercomputer. Do note that all chess engines have a higher rating of 3000+, which no human has been able to achieve so far.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I give Deep Blue as an example because there is something called as adaptability. Adaptability is what chess programmers use to make a chess engine preform better. In 1996 when Garry Kasparov beat Deep Blue, IBM enhanced Deep Blue to hide the computer’s weaknesses that Kasparov unfolded during his play. They covered their actions up, strengthened Deep Blue, and then it went on to defeat Kasparov in th 1997 rematch.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess engines derive their strength based upon the play/ELo from the best players. If you are just seeing a higher number and make your decision, then that would not be the best way to judge. I would say that Magnus Carlsen’s best play will defeat Stockfish’s best play any day.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-12-26T17:51:06.140" LastActivityDate="2019-12-26T17:51:06.140" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="16653" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16631" CreationDate="2017-02-14T17:22:59.927" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is an endless discussion . The best way to predict the player is based upon whose games you would like to see again &amp;amp; again . The games from whom you learn the most . The style of players that you become fascinated with , I mean you would like to copy . &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From the above what I mean is let's say I want to play Sicilian as Black then Fischer &amp;amp; Kasparov have the best Games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I want to make my Endgame strong then Magnus I should choose .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I like Tactics &amp;amp; imaginative Sacrifices then Mikhail &#xA;Tal , Shirov , Speilmann are my Idols .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Positional play then Botvinnik , Karpov etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From a popular perspective my vote goes to Bobby Fischer and Kasparov . Now from a Country perspective Russsia may deny Fischer &amp;amp; Americans may not like Kasparov . Indian security may say Anand .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So everyone has a different opinion .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastActivityDate="2017-02-14T17:22:59.927" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16654" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16640" CreationDate="2017-02-14T17:56:54.937" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;QGD had more strategic &amp;amp; Tactical Games in Database compared to Slav . Even it has more to learn and has wider variations. The above technical explanations also hold true .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastActivityDate="2017-02-14T17:56:54.937" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16656" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16616" CreationDate="2017-02-14T19:14:30.460" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think that is someone's opinion. A few years ago (maybe more than few) I routinely beat some of the commercial chess engines. They are much better today, but facing a (skilled) human opponent is much more helpful. Although now a days, you're sure to get you butt handed to you if you play a quality engine on the most advanced levels.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7397" LastActivityDate="2017-02-14T19:14:30.460" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16657" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16658" CreationDate="2017-02-14T21:08:08.987" Score="1" ViewCount="1447" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;http://wbec-ridderkerk.nl/html/UCIProtocol.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this page&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;cp &#xA;        the score from the engine's point of view in centipawns.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but is it a score for the current (start) position of the game that I feed to engine, or it is a difference between start and final(when coputations completed and best line found) scores?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And the range in which this value varies is unclear to - how could it be as big as 6000 that I sometimes get for my positions? That would be a ton of figures:)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12557" LastActivityDate="2017-02-15T08:20:17.540" Title="What exactly means centipawns field in stockfish/uci output?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;uci&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16658" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16657" CreationDate="2017-02-14T21:54:59.237" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's the score of the &lt;em&gt;current&lt;/em&gt; position, but it is computed by static evaluation (i.e. counting pieces, pawns, pawn structure, king safety, mobility, etc.) of positions arising in the program's search tree, and applying the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimax#Minimax_algorithm_with_alternate_moves&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;minimax algorithm&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha%E2%80%93beta_pruning&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;alpha-beta pruning&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A cp-score of 6000 does indeed mean the engine thinks White is 60 pawns (centi means 1/100) = between 6 and 7 queens ahead. Because it wasn't able to find a forced mate, it will just try to get the highest possible point advantage, knowing that this will bring the game closer to mate. In practice, a score of (+/-)150 is already decisive most of the times.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-02-15T08:20:17.540" LastActivityDate="2017-02-15T08:20:17.540" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16659" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16662" CreationDate="2017-02-14T23:25:12.380" Score="0" ViewCount="434" Body="&lt;p&gt;One problem I have with ChessBase is that often I need to enter moves that are non sequential in a comment. For example, I might have a comment like &quot;with the idea of g5 followed by Bb7&quot;. There is no way to enter these moves, I just have to type them in as text. As an extreme example of non-sequential moves, there is of course the chess game from &quot;Through the Looking Glass&quot; which features many out of order (illegal) moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The bizarre thing is that ChessBase has a &quot;with the idea of&quot; Informant symbol (the delta), but this annotation is useless, because you always use it with a non-sequential move, which you cannot enter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there any way around this dilemma? Note that I am using ChessBase 9.0, so more recent versions may have additional capability.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;UPDATE -------------------------------&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I tried entering a null move according to an answer below, and this is the result:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/kv7Sq.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/kv7Sq.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, this kind of works and allows use of the annotation symbol, but it does look a little kooky with the dashes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8673" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T20:44:30.727" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T20:44:30.727" Title="Enter non-game moves in ChessBase" Tags="&lt;chessbase&gt;&lt;annotation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="16660" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16545" CreationDate="2017-02-15T00:46:19.240" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Computers have consistently found strange defensive moves that have altered evaluations of many classic positions.  Correspondence players still beat computers.  The combination of human and computer is far more powerful than either alone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12402" LastActivityDate="2017-02-15T00:46:19.240" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16661" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5078" CreationDate="2017-02-15T02:16:10.557" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Another top grandmaster &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.chessbase.com/post/wang-hao-profile-of-a-chess-prodigy-1-2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;(Wang Hao)&lt;/a&gt; who believes computers are damaging classical chess. &quot;chess is doomed&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12402" LastActivityDate="2017-02-15T02:16:10.557" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16662" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16659" CreationDate="2017-02-15T06:27:25.067" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Enter a null move by ctrl+alt+0.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12449" LastActivityDate="2017-02-15T06:27:25.067" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16663" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5078" CreationDate="2017-02-15T06:44:32.983" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess is the only game where Computers can show the best performance . I mean they play the real moves .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From a learning perspective I believe Computers are not a good tool for strategic perspective . They are good for analysis for the Players who are above the 2000 + Elo level . Computers find the moves mainly based on Calculation abilities and are powerful Tactical opponents . There is a term called &quot; Gambit &quot; in Chess which does not apply to Computers . If a Player plays a gambit which means a temporary sacrifice of a Pawn to get some good activity then for Computers it is honorary to accept the Sacrifice but for Humans it has to be thought twice before accepting ,else I would recommend to have professional chess players where the good moves can be found based on discussions of Strategic &amp;amp; tactical motifs with a Plan. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The good part of Computers is they can make a Beginner's opening to the level of a Grandmaster . &#xA;One more equation where the Computers can take a advantage to the balance is that Chess can be a Self Study game . It is not easy to find good coaches all across the Globe . People who are isolated and do not have access to Professional Chess persons can take help with Computers to improve their game . Their are a lot of Chess Videos , training materials where Computers can help to conglomerate the Openings/ Middle/ End game and help a Chess maniac to go ahead &amp;amp; become a Chess Master.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastActivityDate="2017-02-15T06:44:32.983" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16664" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5394" CreationDate="2017-02-15T06:52:42.947" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Club level and below 2200 level it is a good weapon but in Top GM Tournaments it is not that frequent . Gawain Jones is a GM who has a video on it . Here is an example of his Play . &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1469817&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&quot;Sicilian Grand Prix Attack&quot; &lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastActivityDate="2017-02-15T06:52:42.947" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16665" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16668" CreationDate="2017-02-15T08:59:38.607" Score="2" ViewCount="271" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the anti-Caro-Kann (also known as the Pseudo Panov-Botvinnik or Panov's little Brother), reached by 1. e4 c6 2. c4, what are the main differences between &lt;strong&gt;2...d5&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;2...e5&lt;/strong&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[StartPly &quot;4&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c6 2. c4 d5 (2...e5)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason why I ask this question is because I play the Black side of this opening, using 2...d5, as suggested in &lt;em&gt;The Caro-Kann: Move-by-Move&lt;/em&gt;. I also own &lt;em&gt;The Panov-Botvinnik: Move-by-Move&lt;/em&gt;, which covers 2...e5 but from White's point of view, so Black ends up making a mistake, or the author annotates the White moves more heavily.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2017-02-15T09:46:26.160" Title="What are the main differences between 2...d5 and 2...e5 in the anti-Caro-Kann?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;caro-kann&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16666" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16665" CreationDate="2017-02-15T09:11:15.133" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is nothing similar with these two variations. Panov is unbalanced open game, both sides have some pros and cons.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The e5 is weak move, it leads to something that I think is called old indian defence, KID with bishop on e7, which makes black setup way too passive. No pressure on h8-a1 diagonal, no pressure on the e-file, no kingside attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11609" LastActivityDate="2017-02-15T09:11:15.133" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16667" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16665" CreationDate="2017-02-15T09:29:18.733" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't play this from either side, but apparently &lt;strong&gt;2... d5&lt;/strong&gt; leads to positions known as &lt;strong&gt;isolated queen pawn&lt;/strong&gt; (isolani) which can also result from many other openings. Look it up, there is lots of information out there about this. There is a fairly standard plan in these positions. White wants to avoid getting into an endgame where the pawn would be a weakness. Typically black would try to control the square in front of the isolani (i.e. d5 in this case) preventing white from exchanging the pawn playing d5 himself. White usually has a bit more active play in the middle-game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't like &lt;strong&gt;2...e5&lt;/strong&gt;. If white attacks the e5 pawn, e.g. with 3. Nf3, black is almost forced to play 3...d6 and the set-up with pawns on e5,d6 and c6 is gernerally not good. White can later play d4 and open the d-file after which the pawn on d6 might get weak. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2017-02-15T09:29:18.733" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16668" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16665" CreationDate="2017-02-15T09:46:26.160" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;They are based on two different strategies - in the e5 line, black focuses on preventing (or making less favourable) the d4 central grab. Black may continue with Bc5, d6, Qc7 (defending laterally), Nf6, Nbd7, Be6. White has a small space advantage thanks to ownership of d5 but probably not a lot more. It's a slow but solid development plan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the d5 line, black seeks to clarify the centre straightaway. After 1. exd5 cxd5 2. cxd5 black has some open lines and leaves white with an isolated queen pawn, however, after 2...Qxd5 3. Nc3 and 4. d4 white has a small development advantage. The game becomes about whether white's development advantage outweighs the potential weakness on d4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12533" LastActivityDate="2017-02-15T09:46:26.160" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16669" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1986" CreationDate="2017-02-15T09:52:31.923" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As you wanted aggressive, the Levenfish attack can catch a lot of players out and black needs to know what he's doing to defend against it. I'll put the opening moves but leave the analysis to you :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1 e4 c5 2 Nf3 d6 3 d4 cxd4 4 Nxd4 Nf6 5 Nc3 g6 6 f4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12533" LastActivityDate="2017-02-15T09:52:31.923" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16670" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1986" CreationDate="2017-02-15T14:35:10.843" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sicilian Najdorf is the best reply . You would find majority of Wins with Black in Sicilian Najdorf .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but when I say Najdorf Sicilian please note that this particular Sicilian Pattern can get transformed into many other Sicilians . &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Sicilian Scheveningen&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Sicilian Paulsen&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Sicilian Taimanov&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Sicilian Richter Rauzer&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Sicilian Kan&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So when you learn Najdorf you should also have knowledge of the above . &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastActivityDate="2017-02-15T14:35:10.843" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16671" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16672" CreationDate="2017-02-15T15:40:04.140" Score="6" ViewCount="10066" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is the Scandinavian Defense a good opening for beginners?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm wondering this because I'm a beginner and I mainly try to do this opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9069" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-02-15T17:08:13.390" LastActivityDate="2019-07-30T07:35:41.043" Title="Is the Scandinavian Defense a good opening for beginners?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;beginner&gt;&lt;scandinavian-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16672" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16671" CreationDate="2017-02-15T15:44:04.943" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;The opening is playable at all levels, though quite rare in grandmaster play. Here is what &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/chessopedia/view/scandinavian-defense&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chess.com&lt;/a&gt; says on the opening:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Although the Scandinavian is not played much by grandmasters, it is generally considered to be an opening that is easy to learn and worth trying out for beginners and club level players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I believe the appeal of the opening is that it is quite conceptual. After 3...Qa5, the mainline, none of the pieces are attacking each other, meaning that there aren't many tactics or much theory in the early part of the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 d5 2. exd5 Qxd5 3. Nc3 Qa5 4.d4 c6 {Creating a bolt hole for the queen if she is attacked.} 5.Nf3 Nf6 6.Bc4 Bf5 {Developing the bishop before locking it outside of the pawn chain.} 7.Bd2 e6 {Black will develop the dark square bishop, castle kingside, then play for central pawn breaks.}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both sides have developed simply and logically.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit:&lt;/strong&gt; Others have stated the Scandinavian is not testing at the high level. If you wish to employ different openings later on, the &lt;a href=&quot;/questions/tagged/caro-kann&quot; class=&quot;post-tag&quot; title=&quot;show questions tagged &amp;#39;caro-kann&amp;#39;&quot; rel=&quot;tag&quot;&gt;caro-kann&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;/questions/tagged/slav-defense&quot; class=&quot;post-tag&quot; title=&quot;show questions tagged &amp;#39;slav-defense&amp;#39;&quot; rel=&quot;tag&quot;&gt;slav-defense&lt;/a&gt; have good reputations and similar pawn structures to the Scandinavian.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastEditorDisplayName="user1108" LastEditDate="2017-02-27T12:33:43.683" LastActivityDate="2017-02-27T12:33:43.683" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16673" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16631" CreationDate="2017-02-15T21:17:51.310" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You need to define &quot;best&quot;. I agree with Todd's answer above that Morphy was the most dominant. He was probably the strongest in the world when he was only 12 years old (before puberty). No player in history can compare with that. Tal and Capablanca were the best in the world when they were about 18. In terms of chess knowledge and problem solving capability it would be Kasparov. Kasparov was not as talented as Tal or Capablanca and others, but he was much, much more disciplined and hard working. In terms of what human penetrated most deeply into the secrets of chess and knew it the best, it would be Kasparov.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8673" LastActivityDate="2017-02-15T21:17:51.310" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16674" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16631" CreationDate="2017-02-16T00:05:15.180" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The ++&lt;strong&gt;only and only way&lt;/strong&gt;++ objectively determine the best player is to make the candidates play games against each other.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is no way to perfectly answer your question, because:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Anyone who comes up with a new paper will argue the statistical assumptions in the paper are more solid and reliable than anything else&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;There will be always someone arguing how the best player should be judged. For example, Kasparov lost a match to Kramnik in a world-championship match, but... Kasparov was still considered a better player until he retired.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There're lots of ways to determine the &quot;best&quot; player without making them to play chess:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Use the change in principal variation across depth (the paper cited in the question)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Use a computer algorithm to simulate the player&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Estimate the strength by comparing accuracy to a computer&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Use weighted average of past performance (Chessmetrics)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is no perfect method.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Change in principal variation assumes the change is a good indicator.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Accuracy may not be reliable. In chess, the winner only needs to play better chess than the opponent.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Weighted average can't be used for comparing players from different eras.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I should share my personal opinion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Best by dominance&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Someone in other answer suggests Paul Morphy. But... Philidor was able to beat everybody else. He would even win with a pawn odd. I'd argue Philidor is the best player ever in terms of dominance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Best by playing strength&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hard to believe anyone before the computer era can play chess better than modern elite players. Thus, we should only consider modern players. Carlsen and Kasparov are clearly the best players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2017-02-16T00:05:15.180" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16675" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16671" CreationDate="2017-02-16T06:08:08.553" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Scandinavian is one of the easiest openings where Black can neutralize the ultra sharp openings of e4 against White . If the White Player is very aggressive , like sharp tactical lines and offers gambits then Scandinavian is one of the best weapon to encounter against those players .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is even played at higher levels . The lines are even easier to learn and Black achieves a decent Game . From a Strategic Perspective the Scandinavian is less prone to Sacrifices unlike Sicilian defence which has theoretical sacrifices example in Najdorf Poison pawn and with moderate play it extends up to the End game most often where Win is decided by the silly mistake of the opponent .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastActivityDate="2017-02-16T06:08:08.553" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16676" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16619" CreationDate="2017-02-16T06:32:03.673" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Definitely be in any profession it is not advisable to pay attention to other details, but sometimes in chess it is important that you look here and there and take your eyes from the board during a tournament play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When two people play the game of chess sometimes they lose the presence and they enter into a world of illusion. This happens majorly when the game extends for 3-4 hours. During the openings phase it is not advisable but in middle and endgames when you require a definite plan sometimes a few secs of break from the game can re-energize you and can make you think better. Your brain even gets stuck when you are playing a hard game for a long time. Top players do this at their levels in classical chess not in blitz.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now a concrete rule: Blumenfeld's rule: Here the rule says that &quot;after a prolong deep calculation it is important that you look away from the board for sometime which helps you to skip blunders&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So sum it up, look here and there sometimes during a game but do not make someone else's business yours, and take few breaks during long calculations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T15:46:50.053" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T15:46:50.053" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="16677" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1986" CreationDate="2017-02-16T08:04:21.997" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am surprised nobody mentioned the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sicilian_Defence,_Alapin_Variation&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Alapin Variation&lt;/a&gt; yet. It is played at all levels and considered a very solid Anti-Sicilian, not without reason:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;e4 c5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;c3&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After 2. c3 white aims for a bold center with the move d4. The benefit (for white) is that many times black is not familiar with the arising positions, which can look very different from what Sicilian players usually expect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11021" LastEditorUserId="11021" LastEditDate="2017-02-16T08:55:47.093" LastActivityDate="2017-02-16T08:55:47.093" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16678" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16671" CreationDate="2017-02-16T10:07:50.170" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my opinion you should try other openings as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Scandinavian itself is sound, but it actually doesn't teach you many &quot;basic opening principles&quot;. It breaks some of them, instead (like &quot;avoid moving your pieces twice&quot; and &quot;develop your light pieces before your heavy pieces&quot;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since there's a strategy beyond the opening despite all these &quot;side effects&quot;, it's good anyway. But in the long term you could end up with very bad habits if you continue playing it without critical reasoning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, as a conclusion, I would not recommend the Scandinavian if you are a beginner. I think that other openings are better, at your level (like the Philidor defence, the 2 Knights or the Ruy Lopez), even if the theory behind is much more difficult to study: but you shouldn't memorize all the lines... instead, you should try to understand the principles behind the first moves of each of these openings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="279" LastActivityDate="2017-02-16T10:07:50.170" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16679" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16650" CreationDate="2017-02-16T18:39:12.373" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;INTRO TO POSITION&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;With B27 Sicilian (Hungarian): &lt;strong&gt;1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 g6&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.365chess.com/opening.php?m=5&amp;amp;n=50&amp;amp;ms=e4.c5.Nf3.g6&amp;amp;ns=3.3.4.50&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;365Chess.com&lt;/a&gt; lists black chances at 33% compared to Whites 35.9% (draw: 31.2%).  That seems to be pretty even.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Carry on to the Sicilian Defence, Accelerated Dragon: &lt;strong&gt;1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 g6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nc6&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.365chess.com/opening.php?m=5&amp;amp;n=50&amp;amp;ms=e4.c5.Nf3.g6&amp;amp;ns=3.3.4.50&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;365Chess.com&lt;/a&gt; has whites chances pretty much the same but black's chances dropping to 29.5% (draw: 35.4%).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White's &lt;strong&gt;5. c4&lt;/strong&gt; (making it the Maróczy) seems to suggest play ahead is sharp.  Blacks chances are restored at 35.5% but whites also improve at 39.6%.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Draw's chances fall to 25% so these percentage changes don't suggest black's chances are disadvantaged.  Rather it suggests this position presents many traps for both white and black.  So the recommendation to 'stay sharp' applies equally to both black and white, not just black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was able to find 11621 games with this position in my SCID Database (my SCID DB is 3.3M games). Here's a couple of games to look at:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EXAMPLES&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Fischer used this opening to beat Bent Larsen:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[Event &quot;Fischer - Larsen Candidates Semifinal&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Denver, CO USA&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;1971.07.08&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;1971.??.??&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;2&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Bent Larsen&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Robert James Fischer&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;A30&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;108&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. c4 c5 2. Nf3 g6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nc6 5. e4 Nf6 6. Nc3 d6&#xA;7. Be2 Nxd4 8. Qxd4 Bg7 9. Bg5 h6 10. Be3 O-O 11. Qd2 Kh7&#xA;12. O-O Be6 13. f4 Rc8 14. b3 Qa5 15. a3 a6 16. f5 Bd7 17. b4&#xA;Qe5 18. Rae1 Bc6 19. Bf4 Nxe4 20. Nxe4 Qxe4 21. Bd3 Qd4+&#xA;22. Kh1 Rce8 23. Be3 Qc3 24. Bxh6 Qxd2 25. Bxd2 Be5 26. Bf4&#xA;Bxf4 27. Rxf4 gxf5 28. Rxf5 Kg7 29. Rg5+ Kh6 30. h4 e6 31. Rf1&#xA;f5 32. Re1 Rf7 33. b5 axb5 34. cxb5 Bd7 35. g4 Ra8 36. gxf5&#xA;exf5 37. Bc4 Ra4 38. Rc1 Bxb5 39. Bxf7 Rxh4+ 40. Kg2 Kxg5&#xA;41. Bd5 Ba6 42. Rd1 Ra4 43. Bf3 Rxa3 44. Rxd6 Ra2+ 45. Kg1 Kf4&#xA;46. Bg2 Rb2 47. Rd7 b6 48. Rd8 Be2 49. Bh3 Bg4 50. Bf1 Bf3&#xA;51. Rb8 Be4 52. Ba6 Ke3 53. Rc8 Rb1+ 54. Kh2 Kf4 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From the emergence of the Maróczy bind position white is encouraged &lt;strong&gt;NOT&lt;/strong&gt; to castle queen-side as there are many traps black can exploit.  From the Maróczy the main line continues with black &lt;strong&gt;5. .. Bg7&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;strong&gt;5. .. Nh6&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;BLACKS RESPONSE&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The Stockfish chess engine has &lt;strong&gt;5. .. Nh6&lt;/strong&gt; as the stronger response with a 20 move analysis, but let it run for a while with deeper analysis (36 moves) and it really favours &lt;strong&gt;5. .. Bg7&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;36 +0.40 5.... Bg7 6.Be3  (1048.58)&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It really doesn't matter because whichever move you play &lt;strong&gt;Nh6&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;strong&gt;Bg7&lt;/strong&gt; either has the other move following quickly in the sequence anyway.  In the above game Fischer played &lt;strong&gt;5. .. Nh6&lt;/strong&gt; .  Stockfish eventually (after a really long analysis) has the very counter-intuitive &lt;strong&gt;5. .. d6&lt;/strong&gt; emerging as strongest: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;37 +0.40 5.... d6 6.Be2 Nf6 7.Nc3 Nxd4 8.Qxd4 Bg7 9.Be3 O-O 10.Qd2 Qa5 11.O-O Be6 12.b3 Rfc8 13.Rfc1 Ng4 14.Bxg4 Bxg4 15.Bd4 Bxd4 16.Qxd4 Be6 17.a4 Qc5 18.Qxc5 dxc5 19.Nd5 Kf8 20.f3 Rd8 21.Kf2 Rac8 22.Ke3 f5 23.exf5 gxf5  (1513.20)&lt;/strong&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's such a long advantage it's likely best stick with &lt;strong&gt;5. .. Nh6&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;strong&gt;Bg7&lt;/strong&gt; since even the best humans can't see that far ahead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;STATISTICS&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Some statistics for the Maróczy with a black &lt;strong&gt;5. .. Bg7&lt;/strong&gt; response are as follows (SCID):  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Most frequent players (White)&lt;/strong&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1:  14  1988-2000  64%  2605  Nijboer, Friso [2,3,7,88,105]&lt;br&gt;&#xA;   2:  12  1991-2013  67%  2609  Korneev, Oleg [24,35,63]&lt;br&gt;&#xA;   3:  10  1993-1998  70%  2570  Wojtkiewicz, Aleksander [55,101]&lt;br&gt;&#xA;   4:   9  1993-2014  83%  2599  Kotronias, Vasilios [37,61,102,105]&lt;br&gt;&#xA;   5:   8  1995-2012  69%  2732  Lékó, Péter [45,55]&lt;br&gt;&#xA;   6:   8  1980-1998  69%  2475  Székely, Péter  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Most frequent players (Black)&lt;/strong&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1:  21  1991-1998  43%  2515  Nielsen, Peter Heine [55,79,88,94,100,105]&lt;br&gt;&#xA;   2:  20  1973-2006  55%  2575  Velimirovic, Dragoljub [18,23,34,41,45,49,50,54,...]&lt;br&gt;&#xA;   3:  17  1987-2014  29%  2395  Afek, Yochanan&lt;br&gt;&#xA;   4:  16  2000-2016  56%  2646  Guseinov, Gadir [2,62,63,78,89,96,102]&lt;br&gt;&#xA;   5:  14  2009-2013  39%  2492  Plat, Vojtech [9,29,30]&lt;br&gt;&#xA;   6:  13  2013-2016  54%  2661  Iturrizaga Bonelli, Eduardo   [3,8,48,88,89,96,103,105]  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Oldest game&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;   =-=(20) Keres - Benkő, Moskou olm 1956.09 [38] (Draw)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Newest game&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;   =-=(17) Kovalev 2596 - Guseinov 2623, Konya TUR 2016.07.21 [102] (Draw)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;FIRST MATCH?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;This is likely the original Maróczy match with Maróczy winning (from &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1094266&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chessgames&lt;/a&gt;):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[Event &quot;Monte Carlo&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Monte Carlo MNC&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;1904.02.11&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;1904.02.08&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;4&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Rudolf Swiderski&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Geza Maroczy&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;B38&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;96&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 c5 2.c4 Nc6 3.Nf3 g6 4.d4 cxd4 5.Nxd4 Bg7 6.Be3 Nf6 7.Nc3&#xA;d6 8.Be2 Bd7 9.O-O O-O 10.h3 Nxd4 11.Bxd4 Bc6 12.Qd3 Nd7&#xA;13.Bxg7 Kxg7 14.b4 b6 15.Rfd1 a5 16.a3 axb4 17.axb4 Qc7 18.Nd5&#xA;Bxd5 19.Qxd5 Rxa1 20.Rxa1 f5 21.Qe6 Ne5 22.exf5 Rxf5 23.Ra8&#xA;Rf8 24.Rxf8 Kxf8 25.c5 dxc5 26.f4 Nf7 27.Bc4 Qxf4 28.bxc5 bxc5&#xA;29.Qc8+ Kg7 30.Qxc5 Qe5 31.Qc8 Nd6 32.Qg8+ Kh6 33.Qf8+ Kg5&#xA;34.Bf1 Qe3+ 35.Qf2 Qxf2+ 36.Kxf2 Kf4 37.Bd3 Ne4+ 38.Ke2 g5&#xA;39.Bc2 h5 40.Bb3 e5 41.Bf7 h4 42.Bc4 Nf6 43.Kf2 Ke4 44.Bf7 Kd3&#xA;45.Bg6+ e4 46.Bf5 Kd2 47.Bxe4 Nxe4+ 48.Kf3 Kd3 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;AGAINST FISCHER&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;And here is Pál Benkő using it as black to keep Bobby Fischer at bay in New York in a draw.  Note: my SCID DB has this game in 1960 but &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1044111&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chessgames&lt;/a&gt; has it taking place in 1961:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[Event &quot;New York ch-US  Rd: 10&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;New York, NY USA&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;1961.01.01&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;10&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1/2-1/2&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Robert James Fischer&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Pal Benko&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;B36&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;24&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 g6 5. c4 Nf6 6. Nc3&#xA;Nxd4 7. Qxd4 d6 8. Be2 Bg7 9. Be3 O-O 10. Qd2 Be6 11. O-O Qa5&#xA;12. f4 Rfc8 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;CONCLUSION&lt;/strong&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I'm not sure what you mean by &quot;&lt;strong&gt;nor does the database at 365Chess have any winning games for Black&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;.  I found &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.365chess.com/view_game.php?g=2862598&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;many&lt;/a&gt; (and &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.365chess.com/view_game.php?g=582868&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this one&lt;/a&gt; for example).  It's not true this opening is necessarily weak for Black.  Mikhail Tal (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1141060&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Oliver Reeh vs Mikhail Tal, Deutschland Cup (1989)&lt;/a&gt;) and Viswanathan Anand (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1018469&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Vassily Ivanchuk vs Viswanathan Anand, Tournament (thematic) 1994&lt;/a&gt;) have both had success with it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Perhaps they know its opening theory better than others but it seems to be whoever knows their theory best has the greatest chance to win unsurprisingly. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12077" LastEditorUserId="12077" LastEditDate="2017-02-17T03:35:38.980" LastActivityDate="2017-02-17T03:35:38.980" CommentCount="12" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16681" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9002" CreationDate="2017-02-16T20:24:27.250" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not to rain on your hopes - but the problem you're looking for at first appeared in:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Troitzky&lt;/em&gt;, A. (1924), &lt;strong&gt;500 Endspielstudien&lt;/strong&gt;, Verlag Kagan, Berlin  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Troitzky was an impeccable note-taker when it came to chess.  This book was End Game Studies and show endgame positions with only with a few endgame moves.  It didn't show complete games.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Unfortunately &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexey_Troitsky&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;all of his notes were destroyed&lt;/a&gt; in the siege of Leningrad, so there is likely no record of this complete game (not even in Russian sources). (He also died of starvation during the same siege)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please don't shoot the messenger.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12077" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2020-05-28T18:21:58.883" LastActivityDate="2020-05-28T18:21:58.883" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="16684" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-02-17T06:09:21.027" Score="-1" ViewCount="204" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is the game pgn,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Live Chess&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Chess.com&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2017.02.15&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;johnybravo001&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;anandsadasivam&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;B40&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;827&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;829&quot;]&#xA;[TimeControl &quot;600&quot;]&#xA;[Termination &quot;anandsadasivam won by checkmate&quot;]&#xA;[CurrentPosition &quot;r5k1/pb4p1/1p1b2r1/2p2Q1N/6PP/2PP1P2/7q/1NR2RK1 w - - 3 25&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e6 2.Nf3 c5 3.Bc4 Nc6 4.d3 Qf6 5.Bg5 Qxb2 6.Nbd2 Nf6 7.Bxf6 Qxf6 8.h4 h5 9.Ng5 Nb4 10.O-O Qc3 11.Rc1 Nxa2 12.Bxa2 b6 13.Qe1 Bb7 14.f3 f6 15.Nb1 Qb2 16.Bxe6 dxe6 17.Nxe6 Ke7 18.Nf4 Rh6 19.c3 Kf7 20.e5 fxe5 21.Qxe5 Kg8 22.Nxh5 Rg6 23.g4 Bd6 24.Qf5 Qh2#  0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is the fen diagram of end game,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;r5k1/pb4p1/1p1b2r1/2p2Q1N/6PP/2PP1P2/7q/1NR2RK1 w - - 3 25&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Assume, &lt;code&gt;24.Qf4!&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;24.Qg3!&lt;/code&gt; is played, what could be the further game. Please analyze further considering either of this move is been played.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As part of the game, it progressed better maybe few blunders or maybe the kind of swindle. My concern is not about that. I need further analysis as if the check mate avoided by my opponent. However you comment or scribble about the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And please name this ECO B40 game name. My Android phone says &lt;code&gt;French Sicilian Defense&lt;/code&gt;. And to say it is not exact ECO B40, as there is swap of moves, I had started French Defense by the fact.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9229" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2017-03-19T13:44:35.483" LastActivityDate="2017-03-19T13:44:35.483" Title="ECO B40 game for analysis" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;&lt;french-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16685" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-02-17T07:15:32.653" Score="2" ViewCount="583" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've seen commentators use this symbol at the end of their analysis but I don't know what it means.  Does anyone know?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12402" LastEditorUserId="12402" LastEditDate="2017-02-19T18:22:37.317" LastActivityDate="2020-01-27T17:30:04.287" Title="What does the annotation symbol &quot;TR&quot; mean?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;notation&gt;&lt;annotation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16686" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16685" CreationDate="2017-02-17T08:51:16.497" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Descriptive_notation&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Descriptive Notation&lt;/a&gt;. It is an alternative notation for recording chess games. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From Wikipedia:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Descriptive notation is a notation for recording chess games, and at&#xA;  one time was the most popular notation in English- and&#xA;  Spanish-speaking countries (Brace 1977:79–80) (Sunnucks 1970:325). It&#xA;  was used in Europe until it was superseded by algebraic notation,&#xA;  introduced by Philipp Stamma in 1737.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The abbreviation TR seems to refer to the spanish descriptive notation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The initials are taken from the equivalent Spanish words: dama for&#xA;  queen, rey for king, torre for tower (i.e. rook), caballo for horse&#xA;  (i.e. knight), alfil for bishop and peón for pawn. The files are named&#xA;  after the initials of the pieces on the back rank, with those on the&#xA;  queen's side being suffixed by the letter &quot;D&quot; and those on the king's&#xA;  side suffixed by the letter &quot;R&quot;. From left to right along the back&#xA;  rank, this gives: &lt;strong&gt;TD, CD, AD, D, R, AR, CR, TR&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11021" LastActivityDate="2017-02-17T08:51:16.497" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16687" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16684" CreationDate="2017-02-17T10:50:37.853" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You should really not get obsessed with opening theory at your level. Just make natural moves that develop pieces and occupy the center. Learn general principles first which will help you more than if you learn an opening. In any case your opponent got out of any theory already on the third move (3. Bc4), so opening theory won't help you. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not a bad game from your side, except for the blunder of the knight on move 11. My analysis:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;After 1.e4 e6 2.Nf3 c5 you have what is called the &lt;em&gt;Sicilian defense, French variation&lt;/em&gt;, which usually appears after 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 e6 (black avoiding the possibility of the French defense in this move order).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Bc4; not the best move, since unlike in say the Italian game the bishop does not attack much on f7. Also the bishop could easily be kicked away by pawns playing either 3...d5 immediately or after 3...a6. The most popular/best move is 3. d4&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;... Nc6, ok move, but here or in the following moves you should really consider playing a6, b5 (developing the bishop to b7 later) or d5, taking advantage of the misplaced bishop on c4 which you can attack a tempo.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;4 ... Qf6, don't get out the queen that early. It could easily get attacked and does not threaten anything from f6 either. Develop your pieces, likely the bishop to e7, knight to f6....&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;11 ... Nxa2?? blunders the knight in one move&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;14 f3 seriously weakens the dark squares in the white camp, particularly since white does not have a dark squared bishop anymore. Black should focus on how to take advantage of this.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;15 ... Qb2? allows white to get two pawns for a piece. After 15... Qxe1 16 Rxe1 fxg5 black would only lose one pawn and would keep the important pawns on e6, d7 which restrict the white bishop somewhat&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;17 ... Ke7!? blocks the bishop on f8. 17... Kf7 looks more natural&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;18 ... Rh6!? not a good square for the rook which does not have much space here. If you wanted to get out of the knight fork on g6, you could have played Kf7 which would also free the bishop on f8.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;23 ... g4?? loses the game. White should have played Nf4 which protects g2 and at the same time attacks the rook on g6. Even if g4 did not lose immediately it does not look like a good choice as it seriously weakens the kingside, particularly the f3 pawn.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After 23 ... Bd6 white loses the queen and ends up with a piece vs queen and a rather passive position (particularly the knight on b1). There is no point to analyze this position as there are many ways to win this. An obvious plan could be to bring in the rooks via the open e-file to e2 or to win the pawn on f3 which seems very difficult to protect and once it is gone there are always mate threads on g2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2017-02-17T10:50:37.853" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16688" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13692" CreationDate="2017-02-17T13:30:59.233" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are a couple.  The most popular is likely &lt;a href=&quot;https://en-ca.wordpress.org/plugins/embed-chessboard/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Embed Chessboard&lt;/a&gt;.  The nice thing about it is that the tags are simply PGN references:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[pgn parameter=value ...]&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  ... chess games in PGN format ...&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  [/pgn]  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So if you're already familiar with PGN, put it into your Wordpress page and the plugin detects it..&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Would you share your Wordpress site URL in comments once complete?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12077" LastActivityDate="2017-02-17T13:30:59.233" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16689" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8652" CreationDate="2017-02-17T13:31:36.343" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;GMs do not wait for themselves to take the effort for total annihilation . They resign long way back when they feel the Position does not have to offer anything . In Classical Chess the above stands True but in Blitz sometimes they might wait for the Checkmate to happen . &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastActivityDate="2017-02-17T13:31:36.343" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16690" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4776" CreationDate="2017-02-17T13:38:13.547" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The above advises are absolutely good in almost all cases . My advice would be first to treat Chess as a Study and just not a game between two Players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please analyse some Chess games , understand the openings , the Middle games and the End game .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The best Algorithm is that Start with the End games first . You will understand the value of Pieces better , their Activity &amp;amp; Coordination . Then gradually you understand the Middle Game and then the Openings .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastActivityDate="2017-02-17T13:38:13.547" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16693" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16545" CreationDate="2017-02-18T07:44:01.580" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, I believe there have been tournaments with highly-rated AI chess engines and after 300,000 games or so, some of the most incredible games were found with some incredible moves. But it's robust evaluation of the position through scoring and yes it is smarter than a human in this domain. But its world is limited into a 64 square area with billions of moves. The human brain is more adapted to the challenges and concepts that humans face every day which is different than a pretty massive domain like chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The AI in a sense is specialized in chess while humans are adapted to generic analysis to address many different challenges. Humans also specialize which is why we can sometimes see someone who is gifted in one area but terrible in another.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The world's best chess players do understand most computer moves but some computer moves are so deep that it's almost not even worth fully analyzing because it is so specialized move to that specific position while human players are more adapted to patterns and generic responses to a variety of positional strategic moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12078" LastActivityDate="2017-02-18T07:44:01.580" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16694" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-02-19T09:40:34.033" Score="1" ViewCount="1076" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this position black queen defended by pawn checked white king. Is it possible if the white king take black queen and end up threatened by black pawn?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/OJVocl.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12598" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-02-19T10:21:10.007" LastActivityDate="2017-02-19T19:44:13.920" Title="Can King take piece end up threatened?" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16695" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16694" CreationDate="2017-02-19T09:50:21.510" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Assume the image was taken from Black's side (otherwise the queen is not protected).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No. The Black queen is protected by the black pawn, and thus can't be taken by the White king. The only possible move is to move the king to the other direction one square.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2017-02-19T09:50:21.510" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16696" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16671" CreationDate="2017-02-19T12:25:41.293" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just as a preference, 1 e4 d5 2. exd5 Nf6 is a different (modern treatment?) method to play, allowing you to capture on d5 with a piece, avoiding the tempo play by white after 2. ... Qxd5 3. Nc3, etc. Either way, there is little risk. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some points about the Scandinavian Defense:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Positionally Quiet;&#xA;One of the simplest openings for Black;&#xA;There is only one type of pawn structure in the centre characterized by a 1/2-open file for both sides.;&#xA;All of Black's pieces have good squares to develop to.;&#xA;Black's pawn structure (after e6 and c6) has no weaknesses;&#xA;Offers White no direct attack against the Black king;&#xA;White has a space advantage;&#xA;Black is slightly passive;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Portuguese Gambit (1. e4 d5 2. exd5 Nf6 3. d4 Bg4) was recently featured in New In Chess Yearbook #117.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unless you are a top flight player, it is completely reasonable to include it in your repertoire.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10233" LastActivityDate="2017-02-19T12:25:41.293" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16697" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14200" CreationDate="2017-02-19T18:32:29.633" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;At other levels in chess it means you get in time trouble and you don't panic and fall apart or you get in a difficult position and you continue to play your best.  You're willing to take calculated risks.  You continue to play well when you opponent blows smoke in your face or does other things to try to get you upset. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12402" LastActivityDate="2017-02-19T18:32:29.633" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16698" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16694" CreationDate="2017-02-19T19:44:13.920" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In general, in chess, the aim is to capture the enemy king and not to have your own king captured.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This means that after you make a move your king must not be attacked (=in check), as otherwise your opponent could capture it. If it is not possible to do this, i.e. if for any move your king ends up being in check, the game is over and the game is either check-mate (if your king is attacked in the original position) or stalemate (if your king is not attacked in the original position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Specifically for your example, the only way to get out of check is to move the king one step to the left (to the square which should be f1, but is c8 here; see below). It is not possible to take the queen because your king would end up in check after that move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS: The board is incorrectly set up. At the start of the game, the white pieces should be on the 1st and 2nd row, and the black pieces on the 7th and 8th row.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2017-02-19T19:44:13.920" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16699" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16565" CreationDate="2017-02-20T02:23:36.493" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;slow down... all novice players move too fast...suggest you look at the Whole board 1st with a + pattern then with a x pattern..then look away from the board 2 seconds..repeat patterns..then make your move. How can you eat 500 gallons of ice cream ? Answer..1 bite at a time.&amp;quot; Below 1600 don't worry about openings &amp;quot; Susan Polgar. Basic opening theory each move should 1 develop power 2 gain board control 3 help get your K safe [ castle ]..dont move the same peice twice without a good reason..get your whole team active..thats all you need for now. Have Fun knowing you are building a better brain..Yes ..playing chess helps make you smarter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12190" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-08-17T02:07:28.823" LastActivityDate="2020-08-17T02:07:28.823" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="16702" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16706" CreationDate="2017-02-21T06:09:49.713" Score="1" ViewCount="214" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just learned that bishops are better in an opened game, but in a &quot;normal&quot; game is it good to follow this strategy?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12622" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-02-21T06:42:25.347" LastActivityDate="2017-02-21T09:18:41.610" Title="Is exchanging a knight for a bishop and open the game a good strategy for beginners?" Tags="&lt;knights&gt;&lt;bishops&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2017-02-21T15:42:25.810" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16703" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16650" CreationDate="2017-02-21T07:11:14.070" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The correspondence chess database includes many wins for Black.  Black typically wins by queenside attack or because his pawn structure is superior to Whites for the endgame because it is a bit over extended.  The best way to prepare is to look at games from the best players you can find.  There are plenty of opportunities for Black to win if he understands the position. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12402" LastActivityDate="2017-02-21T07:11:14.070" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16704" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4517" CreationDate="2017-02-21T07:15:38.400" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;GM Gawain Jones (who plays this opening) just published a huge two volume work.  His conclusion, of course, is that it is quite playable.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12402" LastActivityDate="2017-02-21T07:15:38.400" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16705" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15206" CreationDate="2017-02-21T07:23:25.893" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 g6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nc6 5.Nc3 Bg7 6.Be3 Nf6 7.Bc4&#xA;O-O 8.Bb3 d6 9.f3 Bd7 10.Qd2 and White will castle queenside (probably on the next move).  Note my comment about the necessity of playing this move order.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12402" LastActivityDate="2017-02-21T07:23:25.893" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16706" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16702" CreationDate="2017-02-21T09:18:41.610" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, it is not a good strategy (in any situation).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Each game is different and it is not a good idea to follow a strict strategy like this. Even in open positions there are situations where knights can become very strong. Take for instance the following position which is inspired by the Sicilian Najdorf (so would satisfy your semi-open requirement). The knight is very strong and cannot easily be removed from its dominant position. The black bishop on the other hand is stuck defending the pawn on d6 and does not have many options in general.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;r2q1rk1/1p2bppp/p2p4/3Np3/4P3/8/PPP2PPP/R2Q1RK1 w - - 1 13&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is not possible to generalize that bishops are always stronger. You really need to analyze the position you have and base your strategy on this. A few things to look for:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;badly placed pieces - which you could improve&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;weaknesses in the pawn structure - which could be attacked&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;open files - which you could occupy&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;more space - which you could take advantage of&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;better development - which you could take advantage of (typically by opening up the position)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;insecure king - which you could attack&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And of course you should analyze this for both sides in order to be aware of possible plans of your opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2017-02-21T09:18:41.610" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16707" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16709" CreationDate="2017-02-21T09:30:13.570" Score="4" ViewCount="381" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can white win this queen and pawn endgame?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From this position put Black queen on the best defensive square, and then it will be White's to move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/1PQ3pk/6pp/8/8/8/8/3K4 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It might look like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/1PQ3pk/6pp/8/q7/8/8/3K4 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My computer gives +6 for White, but it doesn't seem to be able to find a winning strategy. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7002" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-03-26T15:20:00.817" LastActivityDate="2020-08-06T22:30:10.453" Title="Can White win this Q+P endgame?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;queen-endgame&gt;&lt;winning&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="16708" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16707" CreationDate="2017-02-21T10:25:55.143" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Black seems to be able to get away with a draw by perpetual check. The usual way for White to escape that, is to advance the pawn, or interpose his/her own queen while giving check (thereby forcing the exchange of queens). The latter is impossible because black's king is well protected. The former is impossible as well, as long as black remembers to give check from the a-file if the white king is on a8.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your computer probably doesn't see a threefold repetition (indeed, it's possible for White to stave this off for more than 50 moves) and thinks the b7 pawn is worth almost 6 pawns because it is on the verge of queening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2017-02-21T10:25:55.143" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16709" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16707" CreationDate="2017-02-21T10:47:03.300" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The 7-piece tablebase says that the position without the pawn on h6 is draw, so I believe this position is also a draw (by perpetual check).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A typical winning attempt in queen+pawn vs queen endgames is to find a position where white can block a check with his queen while at the same time giving check. This is not possible here since the black king is protected by pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another option is to hide behind the pawn somehow. A somewhat ideal situation would be if white could move the king to a8, and to have the white queen on the a-file (e.g. on a5). In this position there is no check on the a-file and if black checked on the 8th row, white could respond by queening the pawn. However even in this ideal position black has the single (but sufficient) resource of pinning the pawn along the h1-a8 diagonal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So yes this position with the b-pawn is draw and you can almost freely arrange white king and queen and it still stays a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it was a c-pawn though it would be more difficult for black to hold this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastEditorUserId="11629" LastEditDate="2017-02-21T11:01:38.013" LastActivityDate="2017-02-21T11:01:38.013" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16710" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-02-21T15:44:45.243" Score="1" ViewCount="472" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am looking for something similar to &lt;a href=&quot;http://scidvspc.sourceforge.net/doc/progref.html#game_truncate&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;sc_game truncate&lt;/a&gt;, but to remove preceding moves (from a current position), rather than remaining ones.&#xA;Does such a function exist in the API exposed to scripts called via tcscid.exe?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="618" LastEditorUserId="618" LastEditDate="2017-02-26T19:29:00.693" LastActivityDate="2017-02-26T19:29:00.693" Title="Does SCID have a command for removing preceding moves in a game?" Tags="&lt;scid&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16711" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16710" CreationDate="2017-02-21T16:57:27.360" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The SCID tool's focus is on collections of positions more than single games.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Accordingly, the best way to do what you're trying to do is to deal with the PGN directly.  PGN is flat text and available in SCID.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want part of a game, the typical action is to copy the PGN into a text document from SCID, and edit the part that you wish.  Load your edited game back into SCID if you want ..&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12077" LastEditorUserId="12077" LastEditDate="2017-02-21T21:12:48.267" LastActivityDate="2017-02-21T21:12:48.267" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16712" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13432" CreationDate="2017-02-22T01:11:53.880" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Larsen's opening b3.  aims and counterattacking the center and aiming that bishop at the opponents kingside.  Bird's opening 1.f4 is basically a reverse Dutch.  You can play a reverse Alekhine's beginning with 1.g3 e5 2.Nf3 and in other lines play a reverse Modern/Pirc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12402" LastActivityDate="2017-02-22T01:11:53.880" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16713" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4793" CreationDate="2017-02-22T01:28:54.360" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Get SCID and insert Shredder or almost any other engine into it.  I do this and it works great.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12402" LastActivityDate="2017-02-22T01:28:54.360" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16714" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-02-22T07:15:02.417" Score="5" ViewCount="156" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/IVi4f.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/IVi4f.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A game I just played at chess.com, in the analysis, it was a missed win at a point. My mind is saturated right now, and I can't think of the line. Can you help me out?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12108" LastActivityDate="2017-02-22T09:35:20.313" Title="What is the line here?" Tags="&lt;online-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16715" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13432" CreationDate="2017-02-22T07:38:20.123" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Word Counter Attacking suits more for Black . If you read ever a Chess Book or Video the Counter Attacking is in a wrong context for White . The Player who plays White should be the Attacking one . Counterattacking goes for Black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for g3 opening it is Hungarian Opening . You can convert the opening to d4 Catalan/Reti which is a good repertoire for the White Player . &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastActivityDate="2017-02-22T07:38:20.123" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16716" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16714" CreationDate="2017-02-22T07:51:08.000" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe that the missed win text refers to the score going strongly in your opponents favour after that move. I have noticed it in my own analysis after a blunder and since I have premium, i recall the line shown not resulting in a mate but just a maintained advantage which i had blundered. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12387" LastActivityDate="2017-02-22T07:51:08.000" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16717" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4517" CreationDate="2017-02-22T08:12:51.447" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Dragon Opening is an Opening which should not be played below the 2000 ElO level for the Black Player . The main objective of Dragon for the Black is to sacrifice the c8 Rook for the c3 Knight which guards the White King when he does the long Castle . It is one of the most popular Exchange Sacrifice which Players at Master level and above do understand and can play it better. I am not saying that Players who are 1500 ~ Elo fails to understand . &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My Objective is if you understand the Counterattacking theme from black then you should go ahead to play the Dragon . Generally compared to other Sicilians White's attack comes very fast (Yugoslav Attack )because the pawn stands on g6 and Black has to be extra cautious because the h file gets opened very soon where White unites his Rooks on h-file and hover around Black's King . Black's game has to be ultra sharp to do the Counter attack . The Theory of Dragon even extends to 25-30 moves which the Black player should memorize in order to win the game . If he makes 2-3 incorrect moves he/she loses very soon .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-06T16:10:33.510" LastActivityDate="2020-03-06T16:10:33.510" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="16718" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16714" CreationDate="2017-02-22T08:31:54.357" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, a6 to kick that knight away.  Assuming they don't want to lose it, it has to go to the horrible square a3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Second, Qxf3.  It takes a pawn, puts more pressure on the pinned e2 knight, and also threatens c3 now that the b5 knight is gone.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After that, it really depends how they reply, but you're certainly winning.  They're down a pawn, they're poorly developed, their king is in the center (which is partially open), and their knight is pinned.  Perhaps one plan would be to double the rooks on the e-file to exploit the pin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2017-02-22T08:31:54.357" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16719" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16714" CreationDate="2017-02-22T09:35:20.313" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The obvious tactic is &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) ... a6 2) Na3 Nxd4 3) cxN Qxd4 4) QxQ BxQ and you are forking the two rooks on a1 and g1&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Disclaimer: I haven't checked this with an engine but it would be my first thought during the game. The engine may find a hole in this&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2017-02-22T09:35:20.313" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16720" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16710" CreationDate="2017-02-22T12:00:23.053" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you open the PGN window you can right click over a trait and select to delete all moves before that one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1921" LastActivityDate="2017-02-22T12:00:23.053" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16721" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16722" CreationDate="2017-02-22T19:12:47.810" Score="1" ViewCount="277" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a sample position from a book (no further details are given to avoid copyright issues).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9Vybj.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9Vybj.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can read the first line and follow it in my mind, departing from the figure. But the continuation in the 2nd and 3rd line is too much. I cannot look at the figure and remember what pieces are supposed to be in different squares, much less do it in a proficient way (i.e. I might place a non-existing bishop in a square in my mind, but not realizing which other squares he is threatening).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However the book is not for advanced players. I wonder how are readers supposed to follow these comments and variations, if you are supposed to use a physical board with pieces, or if you are supposed to visualize all that in your mind and the problem is that I need more practice on that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12396" LastActivityDate="2017-02-22T19:59:12.590" Title="How are chess variations meant to be read" Tags="&lt;books&gt;&lt;annotation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16722" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16721" CreationDate="2017-02-22T19:59:12.590" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Visualization usually improves as you get stronger, and there are exercises that can be done to improve it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When following lines in a book, most players use a board,  and sometimes two. The second one is used to explore those side variations,  without having to constantly reset the board and play from the first move. This can be done with either physical boards, or software, which makes it easier to follow a variation,  then go back to then main line with just a mouse click. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9025" LastActivityDate="2017-02-22T19:59:12.590" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16723" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-02-23T02:23:02.253" Score="1" ViewCount="592" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Max Lange attack..when white is giving gambit of d and e pawns and can grab a piece or good attacking favorable position. Then why black should accept it? Is there any solid defense against it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11068" LastActivityDate="2020-01-20T16:31:07.960" Title="Why Black should play Max Lange attack, when its favorable for white only.?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;opening-traps&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16724" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9155" CreationDate="2017-02-23T03:37:39.287" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is not a direct answer to your question, but it will be helpful. I happen to miss too the playing style of the early chess computers. Those machines ran amazing algorithms on incredibly poor hardware resources (usually 128 or 256 &lt;strong&gt;bytes&lt;/strong&gt; RAM and a 2 to 16 Mhz, 8-bit processors with limited instruction sets, which would make anyone laugh when compared with the cheapest smartphone of today). The resulting game style at a few seconds per move was aesthetically decent chess (rooks placed in open lines, knights towards the center and so on) that tried to use the machine resources as good as possible (instead of being purposely dumbed down like modern engines) but with the so-called &quot;horizon effect&quot;. This allowed the attentive human player to beat the computer by means of combinations whose final result was above the horizon of the few plyes the computer was able to examine, e.g. you could trick the machine with a sacrifice for instance, or you could detect a weakness in an otherwise apparently sound position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, as a result, those chess computers played what many people like me find more human than all the PC chess software that followed. With &quot;modern&quot; software (meaning PCs since ~1990) it is very noticeable when randomly stupid moves are inserted in an otherwise strong play, or when the program plays something ugly with not much sense positionally that does not win you immediately but also does not allow to be beaten with tactics. There is no way you can beat modern software by being tactically strong, that has never again happened since the 90s. It is incredible that &lt;em&gt;almost&lt;/em&gt; no one has paid any attention to this, but the solution was very simple: limiting the calculation speed of engines until matching those of the early devices. Without altering anything else: no choosing of suboptimal moves, no random noise added to the evaluation function or anything. Just let the algorithm get the most out of a position but set a very low limit to the number of positions evaluated per second and you have it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It has been done at least once: try the &lt;em&gt;open source&lt;/em&gt; UCI engine Rodent II by Pawel Koziol. Set the parameter &lt;strong&gt;NpsLimit&lt;/strong&gt; at something between 40 and 100 and allow it between 5 and 20 seconds per move. It really plays like those old chess computers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am unaware of other engines that implement that possibility. Some engines limit the search depth (Rybka) but the response is nearly instantaneous. Others emulate a slow response but it is not clear what they are doing (looking at the playing style I suspect Ufim might be following this approach but it is not explicit). Others choose suboptimal moves as said (Stockfish), but nearly any author has thought of implementing the full chess knowledge and positional evaluation at arbitrarily low speed, and I hope the idea is copied by many developers. Playing against such algorithms with horizon effect is fun, and it really gives you the impression of a fight against an opponent that is trying to do his/her best, instead of a mighty opponent that is playing sub-optimally on purpose. I think that is what your question is about.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12396" LastEditorUserId="12396" LastEditDate="2017-03-06T18:21:52.307" LastActivityDate="2017-03-06T18:21:52.307" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16725" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16723" CreationDate="2017-02-23T09:12:36.110" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I hope you are talking about the below line . &quot; 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nf6 4.d4 exd4 5.0-0 Bc5 6.e5 &quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Best response to the above line from Black is 6) ..d5! .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;7.exf6 dxc4 8.Re1+ Be6 9.Ng5 Qd5 (9...Qxf6?? 10.Nxe6 fxe6 11.Qh5+ followed by 12.Qxc5 is a notorious trap) 10.Nc3 Qf5 (10...dxc3?? 11.Qxd5 wins, since 11...Bxd5 is illegal) 11.Nce4 0-0-0 with complicated play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;True the Theory of max lange extends long but it is refutable from Black side . Black needs to be extra cautious to avert White's Activity . Black should try castling Q-side . One line goes as follows &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;1. e4 e5   2. Nf3 Nc6   3. Bc4 Bc5   4. d4 exd4   5. O-O Nf6   6. e5 d5   7. exf6 dxc4   8. Re1+ Be6   9. Ng5 Qd5   10. Nc3 Qf5   11. Nce4 O-O-O   &quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If on move no 9)White captures the g7 pawn then advantage goes to Black's side .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot; 1. e4 e5   2. Nf3 Nc6   3. Bc4 Bc5   4. d4 exd4   5. O-O Nf6   6. e5 d5   7. exf6 dxc4   8. Re1+ Be6   9. fxg7 Rg8  &quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The White Player is the Man with the Plan and he needs to remember each move precisely else one incorrect move and the Tables will turn towards Black side .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The most aggressive line is &quot; 1. e4 e5   2. Nf3 Nc6   3. Bc4 Bc5   4. d4 exd4   5. O-O Nf6   6. e5 d5   7. exf6 dxc4   8. Re1+ Be6   9. Ng5 Qd5   10. Nc3 Qf5   11. Nce4 O-O-O   12. Nxe6 fxe6   13. g4 Qe5   &quot; . Here the Game depends on who is a better player .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are still unsure &amp;amp; afraid to play Max Lange then I would suggest that you try Philidor Defense as Black which is safe and does not involve too many gambits line . &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In top level Tournaments you can rarely see Max Lange nowdays .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastActivityDate="2017-02-23T09:12:36.110" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16726" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-02-23T10:07:51.653" Score="2" ViewCount="313" Body="&lt;p&gt;My initial rating came out to be 1166. At the time I played the games against the rated players, which gave me this rating, I did not know much about the rating system and would often agree to draw with lower rated players. But now I see that it will be really difficult to improve my rating even if I improve my play, as defeating higher rated players will not give me much of a push. Can I reset my rating and become unrated again? What can I do?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12641" LastActivityDate="2020-02-08T20:18:38.487" Title="What to do about my low initial rating?" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16727" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5877" CreationDate="2017-02-23T10:15:22.417" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would disagree, if a player wants to draw, he would prefer the Ruy Lopez variation as a black. The Berlin Defense on the other hand provides all three results; it's possible to win with black (draw and lose as well), it depends how good black is in outmaneuvering his opponent. With advantage of two bishops (grandmasters value them more than knights, with their power in defense and offense, especially in the open game) vs. double pawns and lost right to castle which isn't the worst. Obviously this isn't an opening which I would recommend for beginners, cause misplay may cost you a game and some of the maneuvers aren't easy to find.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12642" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-02-23T10:30:28.440" LastActivityDate="2017-02-23T10:30:28.440" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16728" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16726" CreationDate="2017-02-23T11:02:23.057" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It depends on how much more rated those players are. But you should get lots of rating defeating a higher rated player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Aside that, the only way to improve your rating is to become better at playing chess. You can't expect your rating to increase drastically after a few games. Just improve your tactics, learn good openings, tactics, practice with better players at a chess club (this way they can help you and teach you which is useful). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Eventually you'll have an easier time defeating higher rated players and your rating will increase. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Good luck with it, just a question, you're playing online? I'd really recommend going to a chess club.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8827" LastActivityDate="2017-02-23T11:02:23.057" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16729" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16726" CreationDate="2017-02-23T11:13:31.600" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think you are too obsessed with ratings in general. Try to not think about your and your opponents' ratings and just focus on playing a good game. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ratings only get important:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;if you want to get a title such as IM, GM&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;if you want to be invited to some (usually high level) tournaments&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;for prestige, e.g. if you want to teach chess for money&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In any case you are very far from these and the only effect your rating currently has is that it affects pairings in (some) swiss tournaments. But if you play much above your rating, winning the first few rounds you would soon be paired to stronger opponents anyway.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A rating of 1166 is rather low and if you do improve your chess you will automatically also improve your rating. For example if you play at a level around 1800 you should be able to gain around 50 rating points in a tournament. (this rating gain will slow down as you get closer to 1800, unless you increase your playing strength further).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2017-02-23T11:13:31.600" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16731" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-02-23T13:09:24.037" Score="0" ViewCount="1284" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am just curious. Is it possible for a rated player to quit his association with FIDE and start afresh, as an unrated player?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12644" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-02-23T13:21:04.020" LastActivityDate="2020-03-04T17:36:13.840" Title="Can a player ever lose her or his rating (voluntarily)?" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;fide&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16732" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16731" CreationDate="2017-02-23T13:42:49.430" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It seems that the simple answer is no, you cannot reset your rating and start again.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This discussion was had at the link posted below a few years ago:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ecforum.org.uk/viewtopic.php?t=3689&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.ecforum.org.uk/viewtopic.php?t=3689&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I cannot find anything referencing resetting rating on the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fide.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.fide.com&lt;/a&gt; website.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8910" LastActivityDate="2017-02-23T13:42:49.430" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16733" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9750" CreationDate="2017-02-23T14:00:59.577" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Objective of White is to develop the Pieces and attack Black ASAP. Both sides should try to complete Development and then Play in Center/Flanks .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When White does a cd5 then it is helping Black to free himself and Develop the c8 Bishop . You know Bishops are already active from their Initial Position &amp;amp; cover the Squares that come across its Diagonals . So it is not a very good Strategic Decision from White to play cd5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastActivityDate="2017-02-23T14:00:59.577" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16734" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2865" CreationDate="2017-02-23T14:16:09.423" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sicilian is hard to play for the below points .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Either the Black Player still an Amateur does not understand Counter-Attacking Chess.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Theory is just too long and ultra-sharp lines are difficult to memorize.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Many Variations of Sicilian just coerce with each other and you can not keep yourself to one line . Eg Najdorf can transition to Schevengien/Kan/Taimanov etc .&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Black usually has to face K-side Attack very early from White and to defend against it the Play in Center and Q-side may gets extinguished and Black has to defend against powerful Sacs and defend precisely.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Black has to sometimes go on a material deficit as like Exchange Sacrifice in Sicilian Dragon and where R*N on c3 has to be done which many Players below 2000 Elo would like to condemn and focus on Activity .&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You need to understand high level chess to understand Sicilian which many Players do not seem to understand.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastActivityDate="2017-02-23T14:16:09.423" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16735" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1" CreationDate="2017-02-23T14:22:26.090" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;a6 serves three purpose .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It is a waiting move in Sicilian as like Black waits for White's Plan . &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It is the start of Q-Side Counter Play from black . As in Sicilian Black generally plays on the Center &amp;amp; Q-side .&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Generally in Sicilian the Black Queen's favourite Square is c7 . You may see this move in Kan/Taimanov/Najdorf etc . When Black Plays a6 then it covers the b5 Square which prevents White's Knight to come to b5 and attack the c7 Queen which costs a Tempo to Black .&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastActivityDate="2017-02-23T14:22:26.090" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16736" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-02-23T16:31:07.113" Score="4" ViewCount="406" Body="&lt;p&gt;When using Stockfish it gives options/hints for both white and black. How do I make it so it only shows hints of moves for black? I am using mac.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12645" LastEditorUserId="18475" LastEditDate="2019-04-09T20:54:37.087" LastActivityDate="2019-04-12T00:00:51.333" Title="Stockfish: How to do so it only gives hints to one color" Tags="&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;macos&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16737" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16738" CreationDate="2017-02-23T16:48:13.350" Score="2" ViewCount="3045" Body="&lt;p&gt;This may seem like a very amateur question, but I was playing chess with my dad, and when my dad won, I realized that I could've captured my own pawn in order to evade checkmate. I tried to do this move, but my dad said that it was cheating to do so. So can anybody settle this debate?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12105" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-02-23T17:32:30.877" LastActivityDate="2017-02-24T07:21:58.683" Title="Can I capture my own piece?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;checkmate&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16738" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16737" CreationDate="2017-02-23T16:59:35.033" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;From the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/FIDE/handbook/LawsOfChess.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Laws of Chess&lt;/a&gt;, §3.1:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;It is not permitted to move a piece to a square occupied by a piece of the same colour.&lt;/strong&gt; If a  piece  moves  to  a  square  occupied  by  an  opponent’s  piece the  latter  is  captured  and  removed  from  the  chessboard  as  part  of  the  same  move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(emphasis mine).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So you can't capture your own piece.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2017-02-23T16:59:35.033" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16739" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-02-23T16:59:53.910" Score="4" ViewCount="13676" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was wondering if the actual champion is ever going to play against a chess engine like Kasparov and Krammik did?&#xA;Or is this kind of event not going to happen anymore due to the strength of the engines being just too high?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12646" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-02-23T17:12:50.160" LastActivityDate="2017-08-01T12:04:46.480" Title="Is Magnus Carlsen ever going to play against Stockfish in a event?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;computer-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16740" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16739" CreationDate="2017-02-23T17:12:22.853" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;This will not happen in a traditional form; engines are just too strong for that. In 2014, Nakamura, one of the world's top players, played a &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chess.pl?tid=84631&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;match 'with odds'&lt;/a&gt; against Stockfish. In two of those games, Stockfish was a pawn down; in the other two games, Nakamura had the help of an older version of the engine running on a slower computer. Stockfish won both minimatches with 1.5 - 0.5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2017-02-23T17:12:22.853" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16741" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16739" CreationDate="2017-02-23T17:52:16.293" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am sure Magnus would not like to compete in an event like that because it is not a new kind of Event anymore which would arouse any innovative interest for the Chess World . As for Strength true the Engines have a relatively higher rated but I confide in Magnus more because I have seen some of his amazing games which are full of Innovative ideas which even Kasparov &amp;amp; Fischer would have not been able to do . &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastActivityDate="2017-02-23T17:52:16.293" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16742" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4793" CreationDate="2017-02-23T19:48:15.413" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As much as I love Linux (particularly Ubuntu) and as many downvotes I am going to collect with this, I must acknowledge something and move on: &lt;strong&gt;Chess software sucks in Linux and it is still in the pre-2000 era, if not worse.&lt;/strong&gt; I am thinking for instance of the year 2000 when a particular software for Windows 9x was released (I don't want to give them free publicity) with a beautiful interface and lots of easy to use options. 17 years before, there is still nothing that compares. Interfaces are ugly, non-intuitive, dissociated from the engines (e.g. some configuration options may work, some others may not without any notice) and often buggy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The best option is a virtual machine with Windows 9x or Windows XP. There you may install your software and play against the emulated Chessmaster opponents, the Sparring mode in Fritz, and others. For me it is either that, or playing in lichess online with the internet browser. Or playing in Android in my phone (Droidfish with Rodent II engine, there is a Jim Ablett compile that works like a charm).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Someone is going to say now that this is not true. Yes, there is Scid and even Arena for linux, and you can install Crafty with book-medium-to-small and Stockfish, Pychess, Knights in KDE, and lots of options... Be my guest, Sir, give them a try...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12396" LastEditorUserId="12396" LastEditDate="2017-02-23T19:54:38.020" LastActivityDate="2017-02-23T19:54:38.020" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16743" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16731" CreationDate="2017-02-23T19:56:04.280" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found FIDE regulations 7.21 which state: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Players whose ratings drop below 1000 are listed on the next list as&#xA;  ‘delisted’. Thereafter, they are treated in the same manner as any&#xA;  other unrated player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This sounds like a &quot;reset&quot; to me. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that this is different to an &lt;em&gt;inactive&lt;/em&gt; player which you become after not playing rated games for a year. However in the case of inactive players you retain your rating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other than this &quot;delisting&quot; I don't think there is a way to lose your rating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2017-02-23T19:56:04.280" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16744" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-02-23T22:22:25.793" Score="3" ViewCount="96" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am using arena to play through pgn games.&#xA;Unfortunately the replay feature is far to fast for me.&#xA;I have tried to slow it down by changing the settings in levels but this does not work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you for your help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12649" LastActivityDate="2017-02-23T22:22:25.793" Title="How to slow down replay in Arena" Tags="&lt;computer-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2019-06-23T09:06:50.190" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16745" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16739" CreationDate="2017-02-23T22:27:02.220" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think it'll ever happen because:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Who's going to pay? Deep Blue was covered by IBM, Deep Fritz was covered by Chessbase, but Stockfish is a free open-source engine.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It's not fun for Carlsen to play an odd match with Stockfish, but he will likely be beaten convincingly if the match is fair.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Human vs computer in chess is not interesting anymore. The focus has shifted to Go and Poker.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's not going to happen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2017-02-23T22:27:02.220" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16746" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15659" CreationDate="2017-02-23T22:39:28.130" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's possible, but you'll may need to update the source code.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/lukasmonk/lucaschess/blob/843be9f57baa3f631c05181b1012df844f53c84b/Code/QT/PantallaEntMaq.py&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://github.com/lukasmonk/lucaschess/blob/843be9f57baa3f631c05181b1012df844f53c84b/Code/QT/PantallaEntMaq.py&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    # Resign&#xA;    lbResign = Controles.LB2P(self, _(&quot;Resign/draw by engine&quot;))&#xA;    liResign = ((_(&quot;Very early&quot;), -100),&#xA;                (_(&quot;Early&quot;), -300),&#xA;                (_(&quot;Average&quot;), -500),&#xA;                (_(&quot;Late&quot;), -800),&#xA;                (_(&quot;Very late&quot;), -1000),&#xA;                (_(&quot;Never&quot;), -9999999))&#xA;    self.cbResign = Controles.CB(self, liResign, -800)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The GUI will resign if the score goes below 800 cp. You can do this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;self.cbResign = Controles.CB(self, liResign, -9999999)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This will disable auto resign for the software.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2017-02-23T22:39:28.130" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16747" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16737" CreationDate="2017-02-24T07:21:58.683" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Very basic Question : You can never capture your piece.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Be it anybody at the start of their Chess Career or even a Professional it may feel sometimes that if I would not have my own Pawn in front of my Piece I could have captured my Opponents Piece or could have started a Great attack but this is where the embodiment of a high level Chess thinking starts . &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You need to either sometimes sacrifice your pawn or piece in order to achieve a greater Activity or occupy a file in order to squeeze your Opponent . &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your imagination needs to be extended in order to think deeper to evade that checkmate from your Dad . &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastActivityDate="2017-02-24T07:21:58.683" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16748" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16739" CreationDate="2017-02-24T08:41:30.887" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Although it would be very exciting, I don't believe it would ever happen. Here is a quote out of the mouth of Magnus:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Would you participate in a public game against a computer in the near future - or is that not an option for you? The last one I remember was&#xA;  Vladimir Kramnik against Deep Fritz in 2006.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I personally never wanted that. I find it much more interesting to&#xA;  play humans. And also, of course, now that they have become so strong&#xA;  in a game like that, I wouldn't stand a chance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.dw.com/en/world-chess-champion-magnus-carlsen-the-computer-never-has-been-an-opponent/a-19186058&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.dw.com/en/world-chess-champion-magnus-carlsen-the-computer-never-has-been-an-opponent/a-19186058&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From watching Magnus Carlsen many years shows that his style of play is not suited to playing against a computer. His desire to win causes him to willfully play weaker or obscure moves to confuse/challenge his opponents; this will surely mean he will be a lamb to the slaughter against a modern day computer chess software.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8910" LastActivityDate="2017-02-24T08:41:30.887" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16749" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16731" CreationDate="2017-02-24T08:59:24.140" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is no way that a player can lose his rating. If it happens then there are several ways of mistaken identities that can occur in the chess world. Even if a player explicitly tries doing it can even lead to corporal punishments and FIDE will ban his entire chess career. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-04T17:36:13.840" LastActivityDate="2020-03-04T17:36:13.840" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="16750" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16605" CreationDate="2017-02-24T10:12:19.443" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The reasons for writing down chess moves are of great importance in classical games with minimum time formats of 1 hour, with 30 secs increment. The uses are: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) The game is played with longer time, and players try playing the best move on the board. They get more time to think, and the thought process is better displayed. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) Cheating is obviously prohibited.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) Chances of silly mistakes happen less during the game as compared to quick/rapid format play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4) After the game is over, the winning player keeps the game in his own database which inspires him for upcoming matches. The losing player analyses more and learns from his mistakes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5) During the game it records the 50 move rule, which can leads to a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;6) Chess is divided in three phases: Openings, middlegames and endgames. During a longer format, professionals divide this phase according to some precise timings. They make sure they complete the openings in 10 mins, the middlegame in 30 mins, and keep 20 mins for their endgames. After the game is over, they make it a point that they completed the same in the stipulated time . It helps them to think faster with adept in both moves within time. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-06T16:49:28.443" LastActivityDate="2020-03-06T16:49:28.443" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="16751" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-02-24T10:13:19.713" Score="4" ViewCount="155" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm looking for some tournaments that have high tourist (sport) value and are good for spending holiday, played in some sea resort, small town in good place for riding bicycle or somewhere in nature park/mountains to have nice walks. I'm not interested at all in big cities no matter how many museums you can find there and how interesting history does it have. Of course the event should be in time good for desired activity and right in the area of interest, not 10km away. Location preferably close to central europe. Tournament should be strong enough for titled players, may even be GM/IM roundrobins.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11609" LastActivityDate="2017-02-24T12:00:52.550" Title="Good tournaments in 2017 to go for a sport holiday" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16752" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16753" CreationDate="2017-02-24T10:49:55.357" Score="1" ViewCount="2128" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is it possible to checkmate if all you have is a rook and your opponent only has a knight? If both of you play without mistakes or blunders?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12645" LastActivityDate="2017-02-24T11:24:00.393" Title="Can you checkmate with rook vs knight?" Tags="&lt;knights&gt;&lt;rooks&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2017-02-25T12:50:14.703" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16753" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16752" CreationDate="2017-02-24T11:23:32.943" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;When you have a Rook &amp;amp; King vs Knight &amp;amp; King then in most cases the Game would be a draw if played with Best play . Now the Person who has got the Knight he is to make sure that the Knight does not get separated from its King . The Rook should try pushing the King either on the 1st or 8th Rank or a-file or h-file. The Opponent King should try centralize himself . If also the King reaches any of the four Corner ranks or files then the Knight should stay close with the King . The Knight always hinders the Checkmate pattern and comes between the Rook &amp;amp; King .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this kind of play it is the focus &amp;amp; attention of the Knight Player that plays the role because he is to make sure that Knight does not go far from the King where sometimes it gets trapped and the Game gets Lost.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastActivityDate="2017-02-24T11:23:32.943" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16754" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16752" CreationDate="2017-02-24T11:24:00.393" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The short answer is yes but under certain conditions. Here are some tutorials on how it can be done.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/article/view/rook-vs-knight&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.chess.com/article/view/rook-vs-knight&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xODyqQ95zV0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xODyqQ95zV0&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8910" LastActivityDate="2017-02-24T11:24:00.393" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16755" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16751" CreationDate="2017-02-24T12:00:52.550" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can recommend you the Faaker See Open in Austria,Carinthia.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.faakerseeopen.at/faakersee_open.php#english&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.faakerseeopen.at/faakersee_open.php#english&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is an lovely area close to a nice lake and mountains nearby.&#xA;I have played two times there myself and it is good organized, but if you go there don't book the bed and breakfast place called Pension Wrolich.(It might look cheap but it is not worth it)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10182" LastActivityDate="2017-02-24T12:00:52.550" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16756" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-02-25T00:00:57.157" Score="1" ViewCount="784" Body="&lt;p&gt;I bought the Komodo 10 chess engine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nowhere in the instructions that I could find does it explain how to add it as an engine, nor can I find any &quot;komodo.eng&quot; file in the Komodo directories.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What happens when try to add Komodo as a UCI engine. First this screen appears as I open &quot;ChessEngine15.exe&quot; in the Komodo directory:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/gXMXB.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/gXMXB.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Notice how the &quot;OK&quot; button is grayed out. Then after I click &quot;Open&quot; this happens:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/u5lky.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/u5lky.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The screen stays like this for about 20 seconds, then the Komodo front page disappears and the &quot;Loading ChessProgram15.exe&quot; box disappears as well, but the &quot;Set up UCI Engine&quot; dialog remains the same with the OK button grayed out, so there is no way to proceed other than Cancel. Clicking the &quot;Parameters&quot; button results in a &quot;Loading&quot; box, followed by a dialog box &quot;Doesn't have parameters&quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/aJDDDm.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/aJDDDm.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/X8rCtm.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/X8rCtm.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8673" LastEditorUserId="8673" LastEditDate="2017-02-25T14:46:04.907" LastActivityDate="2017-04-03T04:55:43.633" Title="How can I add the Komodo chess engine to ChessBase 9?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;chessbase&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16757" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-02-25T03:18:13.407" Score="2" ViewCount="956" Body="&lt;p&gt;People talk about chess stylet.  Obviously, some players such as Tal or Shirazi sought out highly tactical positions but is there anything more to it than that?  The only alternative to being a tactician appears to be a positional player.  Are there other dimensions of style or is that it? I suspect there are other dimensions.  For example Petrosian, Carsen and Karpov are more positional players but their styles were quite different. Similarly, Spassky is a tactical players but quite different from Tal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12402" LastActivityDate="2019-10-11T15:50:30.923" Title="What is chess style?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;&lt;carlsen&gt;&lt;style&gt;&lt;tal&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16758" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15481" CreationDate="2017-02-25T03:49:58.063" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Middlegame Vol. I and II by Max Euwe is terrific.&#xA;My System by Aron Nimzovitch&#xA;Chess Fundamentals by Jose Capablanca (good for beginners and up)&#xA;Think Like A Grandmaster by Alexander Kotov&#xA;Ideas behind the chess openings Rubin Fine &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12402" LastActivityDate="2017-02-25T03:49:58.063" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16759" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8544" CreationDate="2017-02-25T06:27:24.113" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;chessgames.com because there are many comments on each game.  Has a good selection of top level games. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12402" LastActivityDate="2017-02-25T06:27:24.113" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16762" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16736" CreationDate="2017-02-25T15:09:03.623" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just use Stockfish within a database program and pick the &quot;play against engine&quot; option.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12402" LastActivityDate="2017-02-25T15:09:03.623" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16763" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13692" CreationDate="2017-02-25T15:20:22.227" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm the developer of dhtmlchess.com. I have created a plugin for Wordpress which is available at &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://wordpresschess.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://wordpresschess.com/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It supports the [fen] and [pgn] tags, and also a [chess] tag for games stored in a database. It also comes with an online game editor which makes it possible to create, analyse and edit games online. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It also lets you import PGN games and have them stored in a database. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12659" LastActivityDate="2017-02-25T15:20:22.227" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16764" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9485" CreationDate="2017-02-25T17:23:22.507" Score="3" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Wesley So → Vladimir Tukmakov&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Bobby Fischer → William Lombardy&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Viswanathan Anand has used Peter Leko, Radoslaw Wojtaszek, Sandipan Chanda and Krishnan Sasikiran.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Hikaru Nakamura → Kristoffer LittleJohn&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Fabiano Caruana → Rustam Kasimdzhanov&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12402" LastEditorUserId="17823" LastEditDate="2021-01-20T14:28:32.507" LastActivityDate="2021-01-20T14:28:32.507" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="16765" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6526" CreationDate="2017-02-25T17:41:02.697" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Alekhine - Yates&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1012179&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1012179&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;19 moves.  Alekhine resigned a couple of moves before mate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12402" LastEditorUserId="7575" LastEditDate="2017-02-26T15:33:56.360" LastActivityDate="2017-02-26T15:33:56.360" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16767" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-02-25T22:41:35.677" Score="-2" ViewCount="117" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is it a way to paste FEN from a game and see how many of those moves Stockfish would recommend doing? If the percentage is high, the person has most likely been using it. Is there a way of doing this? Thanks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12645" LastActivityDate="2017-04-12T06:46:42.657" Title="Get percentage amount of Stockfish usage" Tags="&lt;stockfish&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16768" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8789" CreationDate="2017-02-26T03:06:03.593" Score="18" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you don't mind a bushel of promoted Queens, you can get 14 half-moves . . .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;14 forced half-moves to checkmate&quot;]&#xA;[Fen &quot;3b3k/qqqqq3/rr4NK/7R/5N1Q/7Q/B6Q/7R b - - 0 0&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Rxg6+ 2. Nxg6+ Rxg6+ 3. Kxg6+ Qh7+ 4. Rxh7+ Qxh7+ 5. Qxh7+ Qxh7+ 6. Qxh7+ Qxh7+ 7. Qxh7+ Qxh7+ 8. Rxh7#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8860" LastActivityDate="2017-02-26T03:06:03.593" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16769" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16770" CreationDate="2017-02-26T10:07:03.120" Score="-2" ViewCount="93" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have saved PGN file from a file in Stockfish on mac, but when I open it the position of the pieces does not move. Why?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12645" LastActivityDate="2017-02-26T10:25:47.860" Title="Opening saved game Stockfish" Tags="&lt;stockfish&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16770" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16769" CreationDate="2017-02-26T10:25:47.860" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Press on Arrows in order to run the moves:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/F84O7.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/F84O7.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12665" LastActivityDate="2017-02-26T10:25:47.860" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16771" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15807" CreationDate="2017-02-26T12:30:18.700" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;This actually works fine with inbetween, for setup see:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://rybkaforum.net/cgi-bin/rybkaforum/topic_show.pl?tid=31412&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://rybkaforum.net/cgi-bin/rybkaforum/topic_show.pl?tid=31412&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12666" LastActivityDate="2017-02-26T12:30:18.700" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16772" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9525" CreationDate="2017-02-26T15:50:59.717" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Having great coaches.  Peter Heine Neilsen and Kasparov.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He started young and studied a lot.  I heard he used a standard Russian approach of learning two openings for Black and White which he would study for one hour a day  He would spend two hours on endgames, two hours on tactics and one hour on middlegame strategy.  If you take it that seriously for many years, you're bound to get pretty good.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12402" LastActivityDate="2017-02-26T15:50:59.717" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16773" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8825" CreationDate="2017-02-26T15:59:58.073" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Spassky gave the advice that against such place you should develop your pieces and strive for central control.  Sorry I can't find the quote but he was playing against Petrosian who adopted an opening similar to your opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12402" LastActivityDate="2017-02-26T15:59:58.073" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16774" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13698" CreationDate="2017-02-26T16:03:38.850" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There has been some research.  However, the quality of that research is considered exploratory and descriptive so no firm conclusions can be made.  It does seem to help with &lt;a href=&quot;http://education.jhu.edu/PD/newhorizons/strategies/topics/thinking-skills/chess/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;academic achievement&lt;/a&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12402" LastActivityDate="2017-02-26T16:03:38.850" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16775" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5829" CreationDate="2017-02-26T16:06:58.703" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I agree with other comments but I also believe you should have an approach to studying tactics such as recommended by Alexander Kotov in &quot;Think Like a Grandmaster&quot; (I skipped a rating class after studying this book) or  in the book &quot;Imagination in Chess&quot;  That is, it helps to have an understanding of tactics and a systematic way of studying them. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12402" LastActivityDate="2017-02-26T16:06:58.703" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16776" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14564" CreationDate="2017-02-26T16:16:39.610" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;A USCF master has a chess rating of at least 2200.  You used to be able to become a Life Master by playing 300 games where the rating you achieved was over 2200.  In subsequent years the requirements for Life Master have continually changed.  You can achieve a 2200 rating by playing in USCF tournaments. Other countries have different systems.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are also International Tournaments sponsored by FIDE. One is considered a FIDE master if one's rating is over 2300 for at least 21 games.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12402" LastActivityDate="2017-02-26T16:16:39.610" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16777" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2082" CreationDate="2017-02-26T16:19:24.667" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is also an International rating body FIDE.  In some tournaments, you can get both a USCF and FIDE rating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12402" LastActivityDate="2017-02-26T16:19:24.667" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16779" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16546" CreationDate="2017-02-26T16:25:47.540" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would add Paul Morphy to the list as he mostly had to play against weak players so you can get a good understanding of what to do against weak moves.  Bobby Fischer played over all of his games as well as Capablanca's and Steinitz.  He did it by hiding the next move they played and trying to find it himself.  If that's how Fischer learned to be a great player, I would argue that's a good way to study.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12402" LastActivityDate="2017-02-26T16:25:47.540" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16780" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5877" CreationDate="2017-02-26T18:37:22.160" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It was considered unsound and unplayable before Kramnik revived it by introducing a number of improvements in Black's play.  Before that, people believed that White's kingside majority was a winning advantage.  The Berlin is a very drawish unless Black moves his king to the Queenside, which is risky. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12402" LastActivityDate="2017-02-26T18:37:22.160" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16782" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14114" CreationDate="2017-02-27T06:06:14.240" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a simple keyboard shortcut for it: You can just hit the &quot;.&quot;-Button, when the board is &quot;active&quot; (you can use the arrow-keys to make or take back a move).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11434" LastActivityDate="2017-02-27T06:06:14.240" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16783" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16298" CreationDate="2017-02-27T07:22:32.997" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Classical Player whose End game was Best was Mikhail Botvinnik &amp;amp; at present the Best Player who excels in it is Magnus Carlsen . Rubinstein had very innovative examples of Rook endings which cannot be paralleled even to this day . &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The best way to find the best chess endings is to search in Chessgames.com where you can filter the games accordingly . There are some tools in Chessgames like Guess the Move where you can look for a Position with Rook/Queen/Knight endings and even play with that tool . There is even an at par Score which will decide how good you are .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastActivityDate="2017-02-27T07:22:32.997" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16784" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9525" CreationDate="2017-02-27T08:38:00.460" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is not possible to become someone like Magnus/Garry/Fischer/Vishy etc . They are some one like Chess Genius. Now if you know there is a vast difference between the word Talented and to be Genius . All Chess Players whom I have named above and also World Champions like Alekhine/Capa/Botvinnik/Tal had some IQ level which normal Human brain does not have . An Average Human Being has 100-120 IQ which compared to Magnus/Garry have 180 + as their IQ Score . You see it brings a significant difference in learning Chess .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;True you can do some hard work, &amp;amp; maintaining Chess Discipline you can steer to become a Player up to some 2400 level or even rise above. With the right Training which is the utmost importance you should be able to  go ahead but it is not a guarantee that you would become someone like Magnus . As Garry Kasparov himself said that &quot; Magnus is a Force of Nature &quot; before he became World champion so it is important that you become realistic in this view.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is a bitter Truth :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The worst thing is all Chess players who are even 1400-1500 ELo can attain the rating of 2000 + but they could not do even in their lifetime . They fail to find the Errors in their games and they do not have the attitude to improve or they do not know how to improve .( It is said by a Famous GM ) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyways the Best ways to improve your game .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;1) Make sure you hit the best Coach.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;2) Believe in yourself that you can do well .(Attitude Factor )&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;3) Play with High rated Players .(Most important)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;4) You can choose your Openings and the first 15-20 moves you can by&#xA;heart.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;5) Middle Game &amp;amp; End games is always a scope of improvement .You can practice Puzzles and analyse Games of GMs.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There can be some more ways but I believe the above can be a good lesson .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastActivityDate="2017-02-27T08:38:00.460" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16786" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16787" CreationDate="2017-02-27T09:20:39.850" Score="1" ViewCount="344" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have a rook, a queen and my king while my opponent has only 2 pawns and a king left.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The situation is complicated because they cannot move anything, except for a single pawn move. But if they move that pawn their king is checked by my queen. Is this situation stalemate or checkmate?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;8/8/8/6rk/8/5qPK/7P/8 w - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12673" LastEditorUserId="17823" LastEditDate="2021-01-04T08:52:08.633" LastActivityDate="2021-01-04T08:52:08.633" Title="Stalemate or checkmate?" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;stalemate&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="16787" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16786" CreationDate="2017-02-27T09:33:32.570" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;If the situation is as in the diagram below, it is stalemate. You correctly noticed that white has no legal moves: any potential move would put the white king into check, which is not allowed. Furthermore in the position the white king is not attacked, so it is stalemate (not mate).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;       8/8/8/6rk/8/5qPK/7P/8 w - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastEditorUserId="11629" LastEditDate="2017-02-27T09:37:13.513" LastActivityDate="2017-02-27T09:37:13.513" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16788" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5022" CreationDate="2017-02-27T09:55:07.657" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Blindfold Chess is an ability which can be learned with Practice . Though some People may learn it faster than others but with average Chess intelligence it can be achieved . As like Magnus Carlsen who can play blindfolded with 10 Opponents at a time is something God Gifted but with the Training the Average Player can achieve to play one person blindfolded at one time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Every Chess Player should try enhancing this Quality because it gradually helps in doing better Chess calculations &amp;amp; Visualizations in Games. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastEditorUserId="12540" LastEditDate="2017-02-27T10:10:51.100" LastActivityDate="2017-02-27T10:10:51.100" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16789" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16757" CreationDate="2017-02-27T10:51:43.480" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;When you say the word &quot;Chess Style &quot; the kind of Play the Player will reveal. The Style means what kind of play he is adept with and he likes to play the most. Yes Styles can even be transitioned .e.g. Bobby changed his playing style and his opening repertoire in 1992 match against Spassky . Chess Style reflects your own Personality and brings out the facets of the game according to your own way. The Style is something you are born with.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are not many different kinds of Style that Chess has been bestowed . Already you have named the different Players where they categorise . &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Fischer/Kasparov           :- Tacticians and also Positionally sound . &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Mikhail Tal                :- Highly imaginative &amp;amp; Wild Tactician play.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Botvinnik/Karpov/Petrosian :- Very Positional &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Capablanca                 :- Fights with small force.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Alekhine                   :- A Style as Brilliant as Sunlight . Brilliant Tactician.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Nimzowitsch                :- His Opponents proclaimed Magical Moves as like Wizard.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Rubinstein/Magnus Carlsen  :- End Game Experts &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Rudolf Speilmann           :- Art/Master of Sacrifice.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Vishy Anand                :- No specific style but lots of Hard work and effort with some ultrasonic gigantic calculating ability .&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Vladimir Kramnik          :- Very mobile with pieces.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are many other players whom I cannot define everyone but what I mean I can look into any games of these above players and I can tell by looking at the Style that it belongs to Tal/Capa/Magnus or any other .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastActivityDate="2017-02-27T10:51:43.480" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16790" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16757" CreationDate="2017-02-27T12:21:18.517" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesspersonality.com/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;ChessPersonality.com&lt;/a&gt; lists the following chess styles, listed with a great player who exemplifies that style and opening recommendations:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesspersonality.com/type/professional&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Professional&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesspersonality.com/type/romantic&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Romantic&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesspersonality.com/type/surgeon&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Surgeon&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesspersonality.com/type/technician&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Technician&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesspersonality.com/type/anaconda&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Anaconda&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesspersonality.com/type/assassin&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Assassin&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesspersonality.com/type/barbarian&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Barbarian&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesspersonality.com/type/champion&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Champion&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesspersonality.com/type/escape-artist&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Escape artist&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesspersonality.com/type/genius&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Genius&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesspersonality.com/type/grinder&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Grinder&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesspersonality.com/type/mad-scientist&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Mad scientist&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesspersonality.com/type/magician&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Magician&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesspersonality.com/type/mastermind&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Mastermind&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesspersonality.com/type/natural&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Natural&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesspersonality.com/type/prodigy&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Prodigy&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Each style varies according to where players typically sit on the following spectra:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Attacking - positional play&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Aggressive - solid&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Intuitive - calculating&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Emotional - calm&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2017-02-27T12:21:18.517" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16791" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16650" CreationDate="2017-02-27T13:08:18.440" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;In &lt;em&gt;Beating the Sicilian 3&lt;/em&gt; by Nunn and Gallagher, they claim (emphasis is mine):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Although the Maroczy Bind is slightly passive for Black, players such as Larsen, Petursson and Velimirović have shown that &lt;strong&gt;by patiently waiting for a lapse of concentration from White&lt;/strong&gt; this line can offer winning chances for Black. The theoretical opinion is that White should maintain a slight advantage, but no one should believe that this is a line in which White cannot lose.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you know, in a correspondence game lapses of concentration are rarer than in over-the-board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My generic advice would be to be alert to weaknesses induced by white's last move, and take advantage of that. If you want more specific advice, please post a new question requesting feedback on your middle/endgame play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2017-02-27T13:08:18.440" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16792" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16546" CreationDate="2017-02-27T13:24:59.960" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Rather than recommend a series of games, I am going to recommend the book &lt;em&gt;Excelling at Technical Chess: Learn to Identify and Exploit Small Advantages&lt;/em&gt; by Jacob Aagaard.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is the blurb (emphasis is mine):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In this book Jacob Aagaard studies the valuable skill of chess technique. He arms the reader with several endgame weapons that every strong technical player has in his toolbox. These include important skills such as &lt;strong&gt;schematic thinking&lt;/strong&gt;, domination, preventing counterplay, building fortresses and utilizing zugzwang. These tools are illustrated in deeply analyzed games containing numerous different themes. A serious study of this book will ensure that the reader no longer need fear the word &quot;technique&quot;!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2017-02-27T13:24:59.960" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16793" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13698" CreationDate="2017-02-27T18:15:08.570" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;So far, studies I‘ve seen mentioned in newspapers making a claim either for or against a correlation between chess and intelligence strike me as highly dubious in their methodology. That‘s not surprising, since the concept of a “general intelligence” is itself dubious. (And it’s not even entirely clear in every context what “intelligence” actually means.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess is basically a duel that two people fight with their minds. One would expect that as a pastime it’s more attractive to people who enjoy exercising their minds in various areas in general. Therefore, it wouldn’t be surprising to find that among good chess players there would also be more people than average that are good at mathematics, spatial visualisation, music and arts, programming etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Speaking metaphorically: A rooster makes cock-a-doodle-doo, because the sun goes up. It's not the other way around: The sun doesn't rise because of the rooster.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Developing, for instance, a good memory for chess games and long variations doesn’t automatically grant a good memory for reciting poetry or repeating the dance steps in a choreography or the memory necessary to keep one’s focus through deciphering a particularly difficult classical Greek text. Nor does it make you good at drawing portraits (which is for a very substantial part about having a good short term visual memory).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There &lt;em&gt;might&lt;/em&gt; be some soft form of synenergy in that playing chess increases brain activity, brain metabolism etc. which conceivably &lt;em&gt;might&lt;/em&gt; have a positive effect on other mental activities. That, though, would also go the other way around.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12502" LastEditorUserId="12502" LastEditDate="2017-02-27T18:32:43.710" LastActivityDate="2017-02-27T18:32:43.710" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16794" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-02-27T23:34:59.683" Score="0" ViewCount="304" Body="&lt;p&gt;im posting this from my blog: &lt;a href=&quot;http://chessratios.altervista.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://chessratios.altervista.org/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Surprisingly engines like Stockfish and Houdini (the top 2!), Are not very close in this table ordered by Captures.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Carlsen is 1 point under the other humans.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/kvUkM.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/kvUkM.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;captures and checks&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What do you think about this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Following data analysis of chess games where made by me, the Engines games where extracted from de &lt;strong&gt;CCRL page&lt;/strong&gt; in the category of “40 moves in 4 minutes” , also known as “404”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The analysis was made game by game, and move by move… so the information, I think, is very precise.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All the analyzes and indicators presented here do not mean that one engine or person is better than another, they are only characteristics of their personality.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Captures:&lt;/strong&gt; This are amount of captures that the engine or player made in proportion to the other moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Checks:&lt;/strong&gt; This are amount of checks that the engine or player made in proportion to the other moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other: Represents all the other moves that are not Captures or Checks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Rank:&lt;/strong&gt; The Rank column is the rank in CCRL of the engine at the moment when the data was downloaded.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All calculations are averaged with the number of games of each engine/player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I add 4 human players to see the difference against the Engines analysis of these factors. And also added a ‘middle strength’ engine name Zotron (Ranked 441), also for the same cause, to see how these factors behave in different Engines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12646" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2017-02-28T00:51:36.630" LastActivityDate="2017-02-28T11:50:50.520" Title="BigData of chess" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16795" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13698" CreationDate="2017-02-28T06:28:44.720" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess is game between two Intellectuals, two Wills &amp;amp; two Egos. ~~ Garry Kasparov.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now when you ask that Chess improves your intelligence ??&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This answers is just the two sides of the Coin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A direct answer is Chess does not increase your IQ . If you are hoping that Chess would increase your Intelligence Quotient then please note that there is no such Theory or evidence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess helps you to think objectively , make quick decisions and helps you in strategic thinking . As Chess is Gymnasium of the mind it constantly allows the exercise of your Brain Cells and does not make your Brain grow old with time . As Intelligence is not directly proportional to just the IQ level but with other factors associated with it like knowledge, awareness , experience so with that said Chess improves your intelligence .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastActivityDate="2017-02-28T06:28:44.720" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16796" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16794" CreationDate="2017-02-28T09:14:44.680" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think the human-engine comparison is fair, because the engine data is restricted to 40 moves in 4 minutes, whereas the human data is, as far as I know, not restricted in the same way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Given this limitation, I will address the possible differences between the human-computer data:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Threefold repetition&lt;/strong&gt;: the computer data has more checks, which may imply that more games end in threefold repetition&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Endgame bias&lt;/strong&gt;: three of the human players you've included are famous endgame players, therefore their games are likely to include a lot of captures. Maybe a player like Tal would have fewer captures but more checks?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Maintaining the tension&lt;/strong&gt;: computers are better at maintaining the tension than humans. They just don't have the need to simplify the position with a capture to alleviate the strain of calculating many variations like humans have.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2017-02-28T09:14:44.680" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16797" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16794" CreationDate="2017-02-28T11:50:50.520" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd be careful drawing conclusions from this data only. Most captures (in %) happen in the opening/mid game, so shorter games will result in a higher percentage in the &quot;captures&quot; column. I would expect this to be the main reason for the data you see in that column (and not Carlsen avoiding capturing pieces). Perhaps you could analyze the average number of moves  of the players!?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There can be various reasons for shorter/longer games:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Humans resigning/drawing earlier than computers&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If a player is playing at a much higher level than his opponents (which is not so much the case nowadays anymore, but perhaps was at the time of Kasparov and before), this could result in those players winning games out of the opening.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Different style; a more tactical player might have overall shorter games than somebody like Carlsen who likes to slowly build up an advantage&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Particularly in recent years top players, when facing much weaker opponents, try to avoid exchanging pieces. This is done to keep the position complicated and not necessarily represents best play.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2017-02-28T11:50:50.520" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16798" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16546" CreationDate="2017-02-28T16:15:03.637" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think you would really like GM Boris Gelfand's book, Positional Decision Making in Chess.  This book was the English Chess Federation's 2015 book of the year.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to the promotional blurb:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Positional Decision Making in Chess offers a rare look into the mind of a top grandmaster. In his efforts to explain his way of thinking, Boris Gelfand focuses on such topics as the squeeze, space advantage, the transformation of pawn structures and the transformation of advantages. Based on examples from his own games and those of his hero, Akiba Rubinstein, Gelfand explains how he thinks during the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this helps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8258" LastActivityDate="2017-02-28T16:15:03.637" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16799" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16800" CreationDate="2017-02-28T17:02:59.603" Score="2" ViewCount="160" Body="&lt;p&gt;In &lt;em&gt;The wisest things ever said about chess&lt;/em&gt; by GM Soltis, he quotes this about tempi and gives the following example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Tempi should not be counted but weighed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;r2q1rk1/pp1b1nb1/n2p1pp1/3Pp2p/2N1P2B/2N2P2/PP2B1PP/R2Q1RK1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Istanbul&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2000&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Gelfand&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Shirov&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;  1. a4             Qb8           &#xA;  2. Nb5 (2...Bxb5 3. axb5 Nc7)           Rc8           &#xA;  3. Bf2            Bh6           &#xA;  4. Qb3            Nc5           &#xA;  5. Qa3             *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The point of the example is that white started with 2 extra tempi in a King's Indian structure, that allowed him to place pressure on the queenside.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is, &lt;strong&gt;why didn't black play 2...Bxb5 3. axb5 Nc7 to gain chances to win one of the b-pawns&lt;/strong&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastEditorDisplayName="user1108" LastEditDate="2017-02-28T17:23:24.620" LastActivityDate="2017-02-28T18:59:31.190" Title="Why did Shirov not trade bishop for knight in this position to play against doubled, isolated b-pawns?" Tags="&lt;knights&gt;&lt;bishops&gt;&lt;kings-indian&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16800" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16799" CreationDate="2017-02-28T18:52:27.890" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;After 4.Qb3 in your proposed line, there aren't any real chances to win the b5 pawn.  If Black continues to add pressure with ...Qe8, then after the knight on c4 moves, the bishop on e2 will provide enough protection to defend the b5 pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the meantime, white gets the advantages of the bishop pair, the semi-open a-file for his rook, and a black knight that has no future on c7.  Black doesn't appear to my eyes to have quick enough counterplay on the kingside while white can continue building up forces on the queenside and has a potential pawn break with the move b5-b6.  The resulting position in your proposed variation would be static and strategically miserable for black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8258" LastActivityDate="2017-02-28T18:52:27.890" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16801" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16799" CreationDate="2017-02-28T18:59:31.190" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;why didn't black play 2...Bxb5 3. axb5 Nc7 to gain chances to win one&#xA;  of the b-pawns?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) The bishop on d7 is a particulerly fine bishop fighting for control of some very important white squares contested by white pawns. Getting rid of it seems a shame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) It's not clear that black is going to win the resulting white pawn on b5 any time soon and in the meantime it is very annoying indeed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) Maybe white is going to follow up with b6 and either that pawn is going to be a monster or if it is swapped off white is going to end up with a knight on b6 instead supported by the bishop which is going to move to f2. The white squared bishop is going to come to b5 and there is no corresponding bishop for black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4) It is going to be difficult for black to compete for the a and c files.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All in all only a masochist is going to go down that route.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2017-02-28T18:59:31.190" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16803" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14841" CreationDate="2017-03-01T00:51:19.603" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;All the reasons you (and others) mentioned are very valid, however they don't explain the trend that top players become increasingly younger.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I do believe that this has a lot to do with how chess is learned. In the past this was much harder: You had to find a coach, analyze openings by hand and gradually gain experience through many games. All of this took time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nowadays, in the time of databases and chess engines, all the information is only a click away and accessible to everyone. Experience gained from playing chess is not all that important anymore. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2017-03-01T00:51:19.603" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16804" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-03-01T02:26:17.880" Score="5" ViewCount="306" Body="&lt;p&gt;Basically: I make blunders. The most disgusting, reprehensible, indefensible mistakes that I would've discarded had even one neuron in my brain noticed it before I moved. I know everyone experiences them to a greater frequency than they would prefer. But I can say that they are without a doubt the &lt;strong&gt;number one&lt;/strong&gt; deficiency in my play, and also the number one thing detracting from my enjoyment of the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I play mostly online, and am around 1900-2000 on lichess after several on-and-off years of chess. Up until recently I have always played with long time controls (~30 minutes with increment), although I have started experimenting with blitz  in an attempt to remedy my tendency to take an unreasonably long time studying certain positions and still making outright blunders; this hasn't helped. Regardless of the time controls, I still always feel myself at an imbalance compared to my opponent because while I may have slightly superior technique that'll allow me to chisel fractions of a pawn of an advantage each move, I am more prone to naked blunders throwing the whole game away in one move (and unless it's blitz, I have little hope of recovering since my opponent can play consistently).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I really don't think this is just in my head. I've tried &quot;slowing down&quot; (even though my calculation/processing style is already very laid back), I've tried &quot;checklisting&quot; for blunders (but the checklisting just becomes a hollow routine that can't even cover all the dynamic ways I can screw up), I've tried just waiting throughout months of playing but I don't feel I'm adapting. I love studying and practicing the more refined aspects of chess, and I feel like I'm capable of it the vast majority of the time, but I'm really only as strong as the weakest link in my performance. Has anybody else that's felt the same as me managed to improve their recurrent blindness?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11518" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T15:42:02.603" Title="Consistently playing moves below my potential" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;blunder&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16805" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16804" CreationDate="2017-03-01T03:22:16.627" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't know that I have any good answers for your question, but I wanted to commiserate with you.  One can learn a new opening variation or master an unfamiliar endgame, but such improvement is only incremental as this new knowledge gets applied only once in a while. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What you are asking for is to improve something that is central to defining your playing strength.  If we could all have perfect tactical vision, we would be as strong as computer engines.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm also relatively weak in this area, but recently I was able to go from uscf 2200 to 2300+.  One thing I tried to do was consider additional candidate moves in my thought process to better avoid tactical blunders, but I didn't find that helped much.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What did help though a bit was me focusing on bringing harmony to my pieces and position with every move.  What I mean by this is that I made it a priority to make sure that my pieces protected each other instead of being potentially hanging on a limb unprotected.  As GM John Nunn has said, loose pieces drop off.  If you have harmony in your position among your pieces, then there are many fewer opportunities to blunder material because even if you miss something the tactics will tend to work out in your favor more often.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8258" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T15:41:25.290" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T15:41:25.290" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="16806" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16808" CreationDate="2017-03-01T08:13:54.017" Score="4" ViewCount="173" Body="&lt;p&gt;My mom is going to chess classes for some years now. Am absolutely noob. She has been asked to buy a book: &quot;Modern Chess Openings&quot; by Walter Korn. While googling, I came to know that the author of this title is changed over edition.&#xA;Till MCO12, it seems that it was completely written by Walter:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/cIw9Nm.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/cIw9Nm.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;MCO13 says &quot;Revised by Nick De Firman, under the editorship of Walter&quot;:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/EsZbim.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/EsZbim.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now MCO14, 15 completely erases Walter's name from the book:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/19moT.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/19moT.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/vx8xfm.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/vx8xfm.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is the content of the book considerably changed over these editions. Which one should I prefer?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12683" LastActivityDate="2017-09-23T20:19:36.393" Title="Which is MCO book by Walter" Tags="&lt;books&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16807" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14841" CreationDate="2017-03-01T10:20:46.913" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;For chess at tournament level, good physical condition is an absolute must. And it is well known that physical condition decreases after an age of about 30 years. Chess players can remain top-level somewhat longer than professional football players (maybe because of a lesser frequency of physical injuries, and because stamina lasts longer than sprinter qualities), but nevertheless they are affected by age. The effect was clearly visible in the World Championship match between Carlsen and Anand: Carlsen played out his superior physical condition against Anand (e.g., by playing out drawn looking endgames and making games longer).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3819" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T17:20:15.087" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T17:20:15.087" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="16808" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16806" CreationDate="2017-03-01T10:45:37.257" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The MCO series is styled like an encyclopedia. Just how encyclopedia's tended not to change all that much from one year to the next, the MCO series hasn't changed all that much.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would balance price with target audience rating. If the target audience rating is high, then spend more on the latest MCO. If the target audience rating is low, save money on a second hand, older MCO.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This advice is based on the fact that at lower levels, opening theory isn't all that important, so paying a lot of money for an opening encyclopedia doesn't make much sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One final note is that openings come in-and-out of fashion. You may find that differences in MCO editions over time reflect more the level of popularity of an opening rather than any substantial changes to chess theory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastEditorDisplayName="user1108" LastEditDate="2017-03-01T11:36:28.453" LastActivityDate="2017-03-01T11:36:28.453" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16809" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14841" CreationDate="2017-03-01T12:23:12.487" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In addition to the plausible answers already given, I'd venture another psychological aspect that resonates well with Leo Skhrnkv's point about family life and other 'distractions':&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lack of single-mindedness. Generally, when people get older, they also get (to the extent applicable to them) wiser. Outside of competitive sport this is a good thing, but in fields like chess it means that not winning a game is not quite the same disaster for one's self esteem that it used to be, other fields of interest start to seem more important, etc. Younger people feel a stronger need to prove themselves and tend to feel that they can afford to put everything but their chosen field into second place.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Compare to this that Magnus Carlsen famously said in an interview that the only reason in his opinion that John Nunn never became world champion is that Nunn is 'too smart', i.e. too good at and too interested in too many other fields.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12502" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T17:20:29.270" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T17:20:29.270" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="16810" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16818" CreationDate="2017-03-01T12:40:53.567" Score="3" ViewCount="235" Body="&lt;p&gt;What &lt;em&gt;precisely&lt;/em&gt; does 'opening theory' mean? Generally when I see the word 'theory', I'd expect a conceptual move away from the particular towards the universal. That is, I would expect 'opening theory' to refer to a generalizing reasoning about strategic options and dangers implicit in an opening, aiming for the formulation of guidelines and principles. But the way I see it used in the chess world, 'opening theory' seems to pertain to the memorization of particular variations. Is this correct? If so, I find this slightly odd: How did this use of the word come about?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12502" LastActivityDate="2017-03-03T19:48:53.727" Title="Meaning and origin of 'theory' in 'opening theory'" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;history&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16811" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16810" CreationDate="2017-03-01T13:08:38.180" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You are right in your assessment of the usage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Opening theory&lt;/strong&gt; refers to particular variations; but also to typical plans specific to the respective openings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Opening principles&lt;/strong&gt; (develop pieces, occupy the center...) are of a more general nature applying to all (or most) openings and is closer to what one would consider a &quot;theory&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't have a good answer to your question, but in recent years at least there has been a trend away from playing based on opening principles towards  concrete play. So perhaps at one point in time, &quot;opening theory&quot; was a lot more based on principles and less concrete lines!?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2017-03-01T13:08:38.180" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16812" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16804" CreationDate="2017-03-01T15:43:50.043" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;while I may have slightly superior technique that'll allow me to chisel fractions of a pawn of an advantage each move&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is quite telling. I played a game myself where I've had to make a choice between 2 captures; either take a bishop or take a knight. My reasoning might be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I will take the bishop, because bishops are worth slightly more than knights.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then I will be mated, as the knight supported a queen-mate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In these cases, you need to recognize that the game is at a critical point, then calculate the concrete variations as accurately as you can.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T15:41:39.057" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T15:41:39.057" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="16813" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16810" CreationDate="2017-03-01T18:17:51.510" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the word theory, in the context of chess, means what is thought to be the best line. It has  a parallel to comparing an experimental result to the theoretical one, the one that's suppose to be correct. Like scientific theories, they are corroborated by a lot of evidence, but sometimes people find a hole and theories are proven wrong. This happened a lot when computers became strong enough to aid professionals in their theoretical work, and many pre computer analysis was shown to be sub-optimal. Of course, it's not all about what computers think, but also what type of positions you like, which line brings the most winning chances... And computers are much weaker in the opening anyways(depending on the position), but they do help to give inspiration and check tactics especially. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3872" LastActivityDate="2017-03-01T18:17:51.510" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16814" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-03-01T20:11:32.107" Score="6" ViewCount="561" Body="&lt;p&gt;Where did this rule originate? Why does it exist?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I just recently learned about it, and in my casual coffeeshop chess games, it has never been mentioned or enforced.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12686" LastActivityDate="2017-03-01T20:39:33.450" Title="What is the idea behind the touch move rule?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16815" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16814" CreationDate="2017-03-01T20:39:33.450" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you're allowed to touch a piece, you can also pick it up and land it on another square, look how the new position would look like, and return it to it's original square if you don't like the new position. Repeat this over and over again, and it becomes very annoying for your opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;sub&gt;This explains &lt;em&gt;why&lt;/em&gt; the rule might exist, but not since &lt;em&gt;when&lt;/em&gt;. I do not know the answer to that question.&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2017-03-01T20:39:33.450" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16817" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9178" CreationDate="2017-03-02T10:17:53.680" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;As mentioned by others, this move is perfectly legal (unless it puts your own king in check) and is called &lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discovered_attack&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;discovered check&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; or  more generally &lt;strong&gt;discovered attack&lt;/strong&gt; (if the attacked piece is not the king). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is usually a deadly tactic because the piece moved effectively gets to move twice while the opponent has to deal with the check from the other piece. This allows you to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The moved piece can move to a square where it attacks a stronger piece which it will capture in the next move. (Bh7+ in the example below). The attacked piece cannot escape because the king is in check.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The moved piece can capture anything directly without being recaptured. (Bxc6+ in the example below).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Take a look at the following example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;6q1/1p6/2p5/4k3/3pB3/6P1/5P1P/4R1K1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Bh7+ {Black has to deal with the check and cannot capture this bishop with the queen} (1. Bxc6+ {Even though this pawn is protected by the pawn on b7, black has to deal with the check and cannot capture the bishop} Kd6 2. Bxb7 {White won two pawns}) Kd6 2. Bxg8&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2017-03-02T10:17:53.680" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16818" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16810" CreationDate="2017-03-02T12:41:03.160" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In common usage, &quot;theory&quot; often refers to knowledge gained by someone authoritative and at least somewhat verified by a process of critique and reasonably accepted by experts in the field, which you then study/copy/apply as required to solve a problem. It is sometimes used as a synonym for &quot;book-knowledge&quot;, which stands opposed to &quot;practice&quot;, where you obtain knowledge through invention/experimentation yourself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This use of the word makes no distinction about the &lt;em&gt;kind&lt;/em&gt; of knowledge so obtained. Both specific variations of an opening, as well as underlying principles and techniques, can be defined as &quot;theory&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1816" LastEditorUserId="1816" LastEditDate="2017-03-02T13:44:59.943" LastActivityDate="2017-03-02T13:44:59.943" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16819" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2596" CreationDate="2017-03-03T07:18:42.447" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The shortest ways to prevent Blunders is &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Look for which Opponent's Piece is coming more into your Territory or can cross half of the Board . It is also one way of finding the most aggressive reply of your opponent .&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When you move your Piece make sure you check the Placement of your Opponents Pieces . It would be worth if you can start with the most Worthy Piece from Q/R/B/K/Pawn.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Make sure you play Blitz/Bullet Chess and there your Objective would not be to win the game but to prevent any Blunders . Make sure that you do an Anti Blunder Check before you move your Piece.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I saw this Video from one of my Chess Teachers GM Igor Smirnov . Here is the link from his Youtube channel . I hope this would be of some help to you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http:////https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_N0E0eahWnQ&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;How to Eliminate Blunders - 1&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xASlcNhMXwg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;How to Eliminate Blunders - 2&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastActivityDate="2017-03-03T07:18:42.447" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16820" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14841" CreationDate="2017-03-03T07:35:43.783" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess is dominated by young players because other than your brain no part of the body is really involved. True, you need to have a healthy and fit body to concentrate on the game hard, but technically your brain is the only part that is involved.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;During your childhood, your memory and intelligence are sharper compared to your youth years. Your learning capability is much more, and your intake for remembering patterns is higher. One more plus as a child is that your focus is not deterred by other factors. Your parents make sure you get more learning, and other responsibilities are taken care by them. You even get more time to learn but when you are in your 20s, then there are various factors which does not allow you to concentrate entirely on chess which makes you sometimes learn more slowly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T17:22:55.143" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T17:22:55.143" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="16821" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-03-03T13:47:43.940" Score="3" ViewCount="168" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessdom.com/2017-women-world-chess-championship-live/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;2017 Women's World Chess Championship match&lt;/a&gt; (Round 3, game 2) between Yang Shen (white) against Nana Dzagnidze (black) I don't understand why white resigned. There was not a time control issue and it appeared that white could at least get a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[StartPly &quot;77&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c5&#xA;2. Ne2 e5&#xA;3. Nbc3 Nc6&#xA;4. g3 g6&#xA;5. Bg2 Bg7&#xA;6. d3 Nge7&#xA;7. Bg5 d6&#xA;8. Nd5 h6&#xA;9. Be3 Nxd5&#xA;10. exd5 Nd4&#xA;11. Nc1 O-O&#xA;12. c3 Nf5&#xA;13. Bd2 Ne7&#xA;14. Ne2 Bf5&#xA;15. Be3 Qd7&#xA;16. Qd2 Bh3&#xA;17. Bxh3 Qxh3&#xA;18. c4 b5&#xA;19. Nc3 bxc4&#xA;20. dxc4 e4&#xA;21. O-O-O Rfb8&#xA;22. b3 a5&#xA;23. Nb5 a4&#xA;24. b4 Qd7&#xA;25. bxc5 Rxb5&#xA;26. cxb5 Qxb5&#xA;27. Qc2 Qb4&#xA;28. Rd2 Bc3&#xA;29. Re1 Rc8&#xA;30. Kd1 f5&#xA;31. cxd6 Qxd6&#xA;32. Bf4 Qd7&#xA;33. d6 Bxd2&#xA;34. Qxd2 Qb5&#xA;35. dxe7 Qb1+&#xA;36. Ke2 Qb5+&#xA;37. Ke3 Qb6+&#xA;38. Ke2 Qb5+&#xA;39. Kd1 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12697" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2017-03-03T15:00:57.143" LastActivityDate="2017-03-03T15:00:57.143" Title="Don't understand why white resigned" Tags="&lt;resigning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16822" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16821" CreationDate="2017-03-03T13:58:19.187" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The game ended in a draw. Chessbomb isn't an official source, but it recorded the game as a &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessbomb.com/arena/2017-womens-world-championship/06-Shen_Yang-Dzagnidze_Nana&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;draw&lt;/a&gt;, and the comments there indicate that the game was originally reported (by the digital board, perhaps) as a win for Black, but it has been corrected to a draw. These glitches happen from time to time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for the position: it doesn't seem possible for white to escape perpetual check, and black cannot force a mate and is far behind in material. Therefore, it's a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2017-03-03T13:58:19.187" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16823" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16824" CreationDate="2017-03-03T17:03:39.190" Score="3" ViewCount="600" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm looking for non commercial program where I can import PGNs. And to visualize the games I want simple GUI and analysis-table like you will find &lt;a href=&quot;http://chessok.com/?page_id=352&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;. Additionally it would be nice if the program provides an interface where I can write my own statistics.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What I found was &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.gnu.org/software/chess/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;gnu chess&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/thomasahle/sunfish&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;sunfish&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://jose-chess.sourceforge.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;jose&lt;/a&gt;. But those programs are more then I'm looking for.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12698" LastEditorUserId="1025" LastEditDate="2017-03-20T21:14:39.780" LastActivityDate="2017-03-20T21:14:39.780" Title="Personal chess database" Tags="&lt;database&gt;&lt;linux&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16824" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16823" CreationDate="2017-03-03T19:36:59.257" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://scid.sourceforge.net/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;SCID&lt;/a&gt; does everything you are looking for, it's great chess database software.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2017-03-03T19:36:59.257" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16825" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16810" CreationDate="2017-03-03T19:48:53.727" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I view it as theory &lt;em&gt;as opposed to practice&lt;/em&gt;, where practice is what happens in actual games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Theory is developed at home, published in books, debated in articles, and so on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's also a &lt;em&gt;search for absolute truth&lt;/em&gt; (as opposite to practical chances); in particular, it's a &lt;em&gt;quest to find a white advantage&lt;/em&gt; -- when full equality for black is proven to be available by force from some position, the theoretical interest in it is over. We already know plenty of ways to get an equal game with white.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A move may lead to an advantage according to the latest theoretical articles but not chosen by grandmasters in actual games because the positions, even if slightly better, are just too hard to play correctly. And on the other hand an opening may be completely uninteresting to opening theory because it clearly leads to an equal position, but there may be so much play left in the position that it's very popular in actual play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Opening books are often produced as works of theory -- they're attempts to improve on the analysis that's been done before, white strives for an advantage, black for equality, and the analysis goes much deeper than is useful for the average reader. Although the trend nowadays is away from that, towards books that explain and instruct more to help the practical player get better results -- even though theory couldn't care less.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2017-03-03T19:48:53.727" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16826" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-03-03T21:14:39.793" Score="3" ViewCount="181" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd like to create a library of chess positions with associated tags. For example, one position might be tagged &quot;Tactics&quot;, &quot;Counterplay&quot;, and &quot;Knight Forks&quot;. The goal is to be able to search the positions by tag to create examples/exercises for a specific idea without spending a huge amount of time digging up new positions. Does anyone know of a program/format that would be well-suited for this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12699" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-04T21:56:22.617" LastActivityDate="2020-04-04T21:56:22.617" Title="Good format for library of chess positions w/tags?" Tags="&lt;database&gt;&lt;problems&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16827" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16829" CreationDate="2017-03-04T00:27:45.157" Score="3" ViewCount="360" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to spend between 1-2 hours/week practicing chess. I know that my skill will be severely limited by the time constraint. However, within this time constraint, where would my time be best spent? I obviously won't expect to challenge serious players and win (or even provide much of a challenge), so you can assume that all of my opponents are casual players as well. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, would my time be best spent playing AI's (so I don't have to wait for my opponent to make a move)? I'm not expecting an exact breakdown of what I should be doing, just some general advice. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12700" LastActivityDate="2021-04-16T14:28:32.727" Title="Which elements of chess are best to focus on for extended &quot;crash course&quot; learning?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;beginner&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16828" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16827" CreationDate="2017-03-04T00:49:23.017" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would focus on tactics, and playing games. For example, do 15 minutes of some form of tactics trainer and then spend the rest of your time playing against other humans online. Every time you do an interesting tactic, make sure to take note of it so that you can do the same thing in similar positions later on. The emphasis is on tactics. Tactics lead to material advantages, which are much more static and concrete than positional play, which only gives a small edge and it is easy to lose the edge at your level. For information about tactical motifs, I refer you the chesstempo's site. &#xA;Do not play against a computer. You should not be waiting for your opponent to move anyways, you should be thinking about the position.Play against other people on common online servers such as chess.com, lichess, chess24.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chesstempo.com/tactical-motifs.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://chesstempo.com/tactical-motifs.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3872" LastActivityDate="2017-03-04T00:49:23.017" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16829" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16827" CreationDate="2017-03-04T01:02:11.497" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Depends a bit on your level. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Assuming you are rather a beginner player, the best way to improve is by studying &lt;strong&gt;tactics&lt;/strong&gt;/solving tactics puzzles. You can do this on many websites, which is quicker than doing it from a book and also most websites will present you puzzles suited to your level. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For a beginner I find chesstempo.com quite useful because after you solve a puzzle (or after you fail to solve), it will tell you the name of the tactical motif. Take note of these motifs, understand them and try to look for them when solving puzzles. Once you have stored a number of motifs in your brain, solving tactics puzzles will be much easier since you will not have to calculate move by move, but can think in patterns. Also chesstempo have a &lt;a href=&quot;http://chesstempo.com/tactical-motifs.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;list of tactical motifs&lt;/a&gt; which you might want to consult.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a second major topic you should learn &lt;strong&gt;general principals&lt;/strong&gt; of play (e.g. develop pieces to active squares, occupy the center, king safety...) and perhaps a bit later &lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chesstempo.com/positional-motifs.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;positional motifs&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Opening theory is not very relevant for beginners, because in general it can only gives a small positional edge and most beginner games are decided by blundering a piece somewhere. Also for making use of openings you need to play opponents who also play theory, which is usually not the case with beginners. So don't waste your time with openings at this point in time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And of course you should keep on playing games. Personally I'd rather play humans (online or over the board) than computers, but whatever suits you. Play games with longer time controls (10 min or more) in order to reduce the chance for blunders and to give you the opportunity to think about the position. For me lichess works best and has lots of features, but there are other options for playing online.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How to split time between studying and playing is up to you. After all you want to enjoy playing chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2017-03-04T01:02:11.497" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16830" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16756" CreationDate="2017-03-04T04:23:03.677" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The problem is that the main exe is not the engine. The engine EXE is kind of hidden.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was able to find the engine by using the SysInternals tool &quot;Process Explorer&quot;. By starting Komodo and running Process Explorer I found that the main Komodo program launches the engine EXE as a child process.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The location of this child process on my Windows XP machine was the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;C:\Program Files\Common Files\ChessBase\Engines.uci\Komodo 10\&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By browsing to the exe in this folder in the UCI engine selection shown in the question, it worked.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8673" LastActivityDate="2017-03-04T04:23:03.677" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16831" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16827" CreationDate="2017-03-04T04:32:53.753" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would read &quot;How to Beat Your Dad at Chess&quot; first.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Step 2 would be able to verify that you know the following endings by heart:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Q versus lone King&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;R versus lone King&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;K+P versus K&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;K+2P versus K&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;BB versus K&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The Lucena Position&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The Philidor Position&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then practice tactics. I recommend the book &quot;The Manual of Chess Combinations&quot; by Sergey Ivaschenko, volumes 1a and 1b.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8673" LastActivityDate="2017-03-04T04:32:53.753" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16832" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-03-04T11:58:05.113" Score="3" ViewCount="1617" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was wondering if the only way to evaluate a position is by looking for next moves like a chess engine does.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it possible with only a static evaluation of the board to get a correct evaluation about which side has the best position?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12646" LastEditorUserId="11122" LastEditDate="2017-03-07T20:44:04.427" LastActivityDate="2017-03-07T20:44:04.427" Title="Ways to evaluate a position?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16833" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16832" CreationDate="2017-03-04T13:00:42.087" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Evaluate without calculating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;em&gt;The wisest things ever said about chess&lt;/em&gt; by GM Soltis&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So yes, we should evaluate a position before selecting candidate moves and calculating concrete variations. Considering whether the opponent's king is safe will help you decide whether you should look for a mate in &lt;em&gt;N&lt;/em&gt; type move, which is very different to capitalising on a space advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From &lt;em&gt;Tune your chess tactics antenna: know when (and where!) to look for winning combinations&lt;/em&gt; by Emmanuel Neiman, he recommends the following steps to selecting a move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Global vision&lt;/strong&gt;: think of this as walking past a game and your first impression being 'white is winning' or 'it's about equal'&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Analysis of the position&lt;/strong&gt;: This is where you look at king safety, material, space etc.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Looking for the theme&lt;/strong&gt;: is there the potential for a pin, fork, back rank mate etc. in the position?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Looking for candidate moves&lt;/strong&gt;: based on steps 1-3, generate a small list of candidate moves (usually 2 or 3)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Calculation of variations&lt;/strong&gt;: work out the candidate moves as far as you can, and evaluate that final position&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would argue that steps 1-3 fall into the category of evaluating a position without looking ahead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastEditorDisplayName="user1108" LastEditDate="2017-03-06T09:02:16.267" LastActivityDate="2017-03-06T09:02:16.267" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16834" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13663" CreationDate="2017-03-04T17:27:21.857" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This tool converts between USCF and FIDE ratings:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://beginchess.com/2017/03/04/chess-rating-conversion-tool/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://beginchess.com/2017/03/04/chess-rating-conversion-tool/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9216" LastActivityDate="2017-03-04T17:27:21.857" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16835" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16832" CreationDate="2017-03-04T20:44:26.423" Score="0" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is posible only with a static evaluation of the board to get a correct Score about who side Is in best position?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not sure what you consider &lt;em&gt;correct Score&lt;/em&gt;. You can certainly evaluate a score for the current position basically in the same way that engines do, giving points for material, piece activity... And that's what humans do first when looking at a position: they look for material imbalances, piece activity, space advantage, king safety, etc and end up with an evaluation of the position including an idea about who is better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Based on this evaluation you would develop a general plan: do I need to improve piece activity, do I need to defend my king,...?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Only then you would think of concrete ways to implement this plan, candidate moves and calculate variations. Because of the initial analysis of the position you would already have limited the number of variations that you want to calculate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Obviously if you calculate a score from the current and possible future positions like engines do, the score will be more reliable than if you only calculate a score from the current position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can think of two exceptions to all this and that is &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;forced lines, where you don't have much choice (e.g. re-capture after a capture, getting out of check,...). &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;highly tactical concrete positions, where an evaluation on general principles will be useless and you won't be able to get a meaningful score without considering possible variations.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastEditorUserId="11629" LastEditDate="2017-03-05T19:57:02.220" LastActivityDate="2017-03-05T19:57:02.220" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16836" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16842" CreationDate="2017-03-05T06:57:55.750" Score="3" ViewCount="988" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I play the game of chess, I feel that I am quite weak when my kingside is being subjected to attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have two games to demonstrate as an example. I am black in both cases. Can someone place their annotations with analysis to determine my strategic mistakes, and what I should have done earlier to prevent the attack from happening in the first place?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Game 1 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.Bc4 Nc6 4.d4 cxd4 5.Nxd4 Bd7 6.Nc3 Nf6 7.Be3 a6 8.h3 e6 9.Qd2 b5 10.Bd3 Be7 11.a3 Rc8 12.Nf3 Na5 13.Rd1 Qc7 14.Ne2 Nc4 15.Qc1 Nxe3  16.Qxe3 Bc6 17.Ng3 O-O 18.O-O Nd7 19.Qe2 Bf6 20.c3 g6 21.Rfe1 Rfe8 22.Qd2 d5 23.Nh2 Ne5 24.Ng4 Nxg4 25.hxg4 Rcd8 26.Qe2 Be5 27.Nf1 Qe7 28.g3 d4 29.f4 Bc7 30.c4 Bb6 31.Kg2 b4 32.Ra1 a5 33.Nd2 a4 34.Rh1 bxa3 35.Rxa3 Bc5 36.Ra2 Rb8 37.Bc2 Rb4 38.Nf3 f6 39.g5 f5 40.Ne5 Ba8 41.Rh6 Qg7 42.Kf1 Reb8 43.Bd3 Bd6 44.Nxg6 hxg6 45.exf5 Qxh6 46.Qxe6+ Kh7 47.gxh6   1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Game 2&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 c5 2.c3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.cxd4 d5 5.e5 Bf5 6.Nc3 e6 7.Nf3 Bb4 8.Bd3 Bxc3+ 9.bxc3 Nge7 10.O-O O-O 11.Bg5 Bxd3 12.Qxd3 h6 13.Bh4 Rc8 14.Rab1 b6 15.Nd2 Na5 16.f4 Qc7 17.Rbc1 Nf5 18.Bf2 Nc4 19.Nf3 Nb2 20.Qc2 Nc4 21.Qe2 Qc6 22.g4 Ne7 23.Qd3 Ng6 24.Bg3 Ne7 25.f5 f6 26.Nh4 fxe5 27.dxe5 Rcd8 28.f6 Nc8 29.Qg6 Rf7 30.fxg7 Rdd7 31.Qxh6 Rxf1+ 32.Rxf1 Rxg7 33.Ng6 Qc5+ 34.Kh1   *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T18:41:19.313" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T18:41:19.313" Title="How to survive a Kingside Attack in Chess?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="16837" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16832" CreationDate="2017-03-05T08:47:47.153" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;How to Evaluate a Chess Position would cover up a Book or two . There would be some infinite Chess Advices from different GMs in respective Positions .It is also a Time factor parameter . It really matters how much time you have on Clock to determine the various elements . &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some of the Simplest way to determine is &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;How many Pieces are Active on respective side . You can count the number of squares occupied by your Opponent's pieces .&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Who has an Attack ? I mean whose pieces are covering up on a particular side of the Board . &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Is your King safe and Opponent's Bishops , Rooks are not pointing towards your King .&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Do you have a Passed Pawn and Opponent's Pieces are tied up to block the parser .&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;let's assume you are in Middle game and you have a chance to exchange the Pieces and go to End Game directly . You have two Pawns one on either side of the flanks and your Opponent has the same material (two Pawns) and on same side of your King where it can Blockade easily .&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So above are some of the factors where Position can be evaluated and you can make the Critical decision .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastActivityDate="2017-03-05T08:47:47.153" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16838" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16827" CreationDate="2017-03-05T14:18:56.657" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Do you mean 1-2 hours/week &lt;em&gt;in addition to&lt;/em&gt; playing, or &lt;em&gt;including&lt;/em&gt; playing?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If &lt;em&gt;including&lt;/em&gt; playing, I would suggest using most/all of your time playing. That's the most important thing, and you have so little time you can't afford to devote much of it to anything else.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately, like you said, it will be tough to make much progress. Learning chess is a lot like learning a language. Imagine trying to learn a new language from scratch on 1 hour a week.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12699" LastActivityDate="2017-03-05T14:18:56.657" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16839" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16640" CreationDate="2017-03-05T15:28:49.143" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;2...e6 has the advantage of facilitating the development of the kingside, allowing for quick castling. Thus in a sense 2...e6 is the more &quot;solid&quot; move, while 2...c6 delays development to pursue strategic gains.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As hoacin points out, developing the light-squared bishop is easier said than done after 2...c6. To give one example, after the natural moves 1. d4 d5 2. c4 c6 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. Nc3, 4...Bf5? is a mistake because after 5. cxd5 cxd5 6. Qb3, there is no good way to defend the b7-pawn. Therefore black usually plays A) 4...dxc4 5. a4 and only now 5...Bf5, but this involves the concession of giving up the center, or B) 4...e6, blocking the bishop after all and moving into the Semi-Slav.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, when you're talking about established openings with countless games, a few abstract ideas and lines don't tell the whole story, but hopefully this at least gives you a few ideas.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12699" LastActivityDate="2017-03-05T15:28:49.143" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16840" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15643" CreationDate="2017-03-05T15:47:15.567" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Greatest Ever Chess Tricks and Traps Gary Lane. The blurb on the back says&quot;There is no easier way to win a game of chess than by luring your opponent into a devious trap. Similarly, there's nothing worse than being the one on the receiving end. Tricks, traps and swindles lie in wait everywhere, especially so in the opening phase of the game, and many battles can be won or saved simply through learning and mastering the most important ones. In this instructive and fun book, Gary Lane looks back through chess history and at modern times to create a list of his own favourite tricks and traps. Selecting from hundreds of contenders, Lane examines a variety of factors in order to decide which ideas are most worthy of inclusion. Discover the stories behind the most cunning tricks and traps of all time; how you can utilize them to score easy wins; and how you can avoid being tricked yourself. This is an entertaining guide to the best ever tricks and traps. It offers invaluable advice from a seasoned tournament player and is ideal for players of all levels.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12709" LastActivityDate="2017-03-05T15:47:15.567" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16842" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16836" CreationDate="2017-03-05T21:29:18.130" Score="4" Body="&lt;h2&gt;1st game&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As in the second game you gained a good position out of the opening, exchanging the strong dark-squared bishop for a knight. Around move 25 black just seems better having the bishop pair, dominating the dark squares and having no apparent weaknesses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Around move 25 you seem to start playing without clear plan. A natural plan would be to play a5-b4 (after preparation) which would make white's queenside pawns very weak&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;around move 30/31 could think of playing bxc4 31 Bxc4 a5 and work against the b2 pawn, or alternatively think of closing the kingside by playing e5 or even g5.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;32.. a5 You certainly do not want to recapture a5xb4 (since this would give white a protected passed pawn on c4 the open a file...). That's why perhaps 32.. bxa3 33 Rxa3 a5 (and work against the b2 pawn) or 33 bxa3 (and white has weak a and c pawns) might have been better.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;around move 35: Black is still better. You created a weak pawn on b2 and nothing should happen on the kingside since the white king is rather weak. Not sure whether black can achieve much from here. Perhaps you need to create some tactical ideas with a3 later on. First of all I would try to close the kingside/center with e5 which would also make the white bishop even weaker than it is. After black's e5, because of the weak pawn on e4 white is basically forced to respond with f5 after which nothing dangerous should happen to you on the kingside. If needed you can always play f6, g5 and defend the h pawn with heavy pieces from the 7th rank.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;36..Rb8!? allows 37 Nf3 which makes closing the center more difficult&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;around move 40: you allowed the white knight to get to e5. Compare this to the position after blocking the center with black pawns on e5, f6, g5 where white would have virtually no counterplay. With the pinned pawn on e4 black should still be better but now you need to be more careful with tactics compared to the blocked kingside variation.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;41..Qg7 Using a queen for the only purpose of defending a pawn  is not something you want to do, but seems to be the only normal  defense. A better (but not that easy to see) choice would have been to play 41..d3 42 Bxd3 Bd4 which prevents the knight sacrifice on g6 because now the square h8 (which in some lines allows the white queen to enter) is covered by the bishop.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;43..a3 works here and would allow your rooks to get very active. After 44 bxa3 you can play 44..Rb1+ and white is lost if playing 45 Bxb1&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;44..hxg6 loses. You could have tried fxe4, but even then white should be much better.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Summary: Out of the opening black had a good position and also created some targets (weak pawns) on the queenside. Intentionally or not intentionally (?) black chose to not close the kingside and to keep the pawn structure flexible. This is not necessarily a bad idea considering the weak white king. Basically you made a choice between: (a) closing the kingside and playing safely for a win (with admittedly decent drawing chances for white) or (b) Keeping the structure flexible allowing additional options in the center in case black cannot achieve anything on the queenside. Unfortunately, black then lost to a tactics (Nxg6). I would not really consider this game an example for a kingside attack, because basically you lost because of that tactics only.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;2nd game&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You achieved a quite decent position around move 12, having exchanged the strong white bishop on d3 and created a weak pawn on c3. There does not seem to be any attack on the king side threatened soon. Black should be slightly better at that point. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;At move 13 you should consider how to continue your play on the queenside. Obviously a rook or two will go on the c-file, the knight seems to have a nice square on c4, but also you might want to use a knight to attack the pawn on c3 from b5 or a4. The queen would have a good square on a5 from where it attacks the pawns on a2 and c3. You started with 13 .. Rc8, which is certainly not wrong, but Qa5 might be more correct as it un-pins the knight on e7 and prevents being locking in the queen after b6.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;14 .. b6 makes your play on the queenside much more difficult as your queen cannot go to a5 anymore. And also it prevents activating rooks via Rc6-Rb6 or Ra6. 14.. Na5 might have been better.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;18 .. h5 could have been an idea in order to prevent white playing g4.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;19 ... Nb2 seems useless unless you want to move the knight to a4. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Activating the queen via Qe7-Qa3 (this does not work yet because after g4 you'd lose the knight on f5, but could be prepared, with h5) or via Qb7-Qa6-Qa3 or Qa5 could be a long-term plan. But first of all you really need  to prevent white from playing g4-f5 here, which is basically the only way for white to gain any counter-play. 19 .. h5 seems like a logical move here, unless you want to go for a passive setup with g6, Ng7 which does not seem attractive to me.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;23 ... Ng6!? does not seem like a good square to me. White will want to play f5 anyway and this just gives him an extra tempo since the knight will be attacked.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;24 ... Ne7 You noticed your mistake, but as with the Nb2-Nc4 maneuver, you are wasting tempi in a position where you should either play very strongly on the queenside or think of defenses.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;25 ... f6? Not a good move as it weakens the light squares and gives the bad bishop on g3 lots of squares if white plays  exf6. Your best option might have been to play with rook against two minor pieces after 25..exf5 26 gxf5 Nxf5 27 Qxf5 Ne3 With the weak white bishop and weak pawn on c3 chances might not have been that bad.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;27 .. Tcd8? White is threatening f6 which does look pretty deadly. 27 ... Qc5+ with the idea to play Qe3 looks like an option since exchange of queens would be good for black. If white responds to the check with 28 Bf2 this would block the rook on f1 from supporting the f6 push and would give black another tempo to play Qc7 attacking the e5 pawn again. In fact white's only good option might be to return with the bishop to g3, making this a move repetition.. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;28 f6 Black is basically lost after this move, so there is no point analyzing further.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Summary: Out of the opening black had a good position. You did not really get anywhere on the queenside though (perhaps because of b6) and also you wasted a few tempi moving knights back and forth. White has basically only one plan in this position which is a kingside attack with g4-f5-f6... When breaking through on the queenside seemed impossible you should have focused on how to prevent white from carrying out this plan. You missed two defensive tactics which could have given you a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A few ideas on what to do in general against this plan in positions like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Play h5 to prevent g4 and to strengthen the position of your knight on f5. If white plays h3 with the idea to play g4 sometimes you can play h4 or you can go for a setup (after g4 hxg4 hxg4) with knights on h6 and e7 and queen on d7 all working against f5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Put a rook on the 6th rank (c6 in your case) which could help to prevent f6 later&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Escape with the king to the center&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Open the center. This is kind of what you tried playing 25 .. f6. However this would have been more effective e.g. with the rook from c8 on e8 defending the knight and putting pressure on the center. Generally opening a center is a good response to a pawn storm.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Be faster on the queenside.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;What should you do?&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Looking at the two games, I would say that in the second you really encountered a kingside attack which is not easy to defend against and is perfectly possible to lose even with best play. There is no reason that you should lose to the first game's &quot;kingside attack&quot; though, because: you have very good counterplay (b2, e4 pawns), have the option of preventing any of white's activity by closing the center/kingside, don't have many threats to defend against.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some ideas on how to improve your play against kingside attacks:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Work on your tactics, which is always a good idea. In game 1 you missed 41..d3 and 43..a3; in game 2 you missed 27..Qc5+ and the tactics around moves 25-27 (exchange of two pieces for a rook).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You could also think about changing your opening repertoire to playing for instance 1 e4 e5 which does not run into problems with such kingside attacks as easily. In many of the Sicilians you do run into such kingside pawn storms, similarly in many French and in the Modern/Pirc.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Study how masters handle kingside attacks for pawn structures that occur in your games.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Consider whether you can close the pawn structure on the kingside.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Be quicker with your queenside counterplay (don't fool around).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastEditorUserId="11629" LastEditDate="2017-03-06T01:23:13.070" LastActivityDate="2017-03-06T01:23:13.070" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16843" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16846" CreationDate="2017-03-06T00:39:01.543" Score="1" ViewCount="621" Body="&lt;p&gt;Question is related to chess computing about &lt;em&gt;number of possible moves in chess&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not talking about the number of possible positions but about &lt;strong&gt;the number of ways a piece can go from one square to any other.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example 1:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A piece can be on any one of the 64 squares and (approximately) it can go to any other. Thus, the number of possible moves are &lt;code&gt;64*64 = 4,096&lt;/code&gt;. This is clearly an overestimate. In other words, &lt;strong&gt;what's the actual number of &quot;from square&quot; and &quot;to square&quot; combinations?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example 2:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;For the square &lt;code&gt;a1&lt;/code&gt;, there are 23 possible &lt;em&gt;from - to combinations&lt;/em&gt;. Because a knight can go to two squares and a queen can go to twenty one squares (the other pieces don't add any).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12273" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-09-29T09:51:52.357" LastActivityDate="2019-09-21T18:06:54.633" Title="The number of possible moves in Chess" Tags="&lt;pieces&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16844" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16826" CreationDate="2017-03-06T00:47:17.493" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You could use a MySQL database with a column for the fen string and a column for the category. MySQL pairs well with php, perl, and python depending on what you w&#xA;ant to use the database for (such as a website or something you can just use personally through a browser), a WAMP server can make this easier to set up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12273" LastActivityDate="2017-03-06T00:47:17.493" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16845" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16836" CreationDate="2017-03-06T01:30:15.997" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would suggest that you try to avoid moving your pawns in front of your castled king unless there is a really good reason to do so. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The 20...g6 move in your first game and the 12...h6 move in your second game were both unforced and didn't accomplish much.  However, both moves created weaknesses that white took advantage of later in the example games.  the reason why this is the case is that these moves cost black in terms of having flexibility in determining a defensive pawn structure to cover the king depending on the attacking formation that white chooses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, in the Sicilian defense, white pretty much always has much the better of it on the kingside anyway.  Black's usual plan is to try to crash through on the queenside first.  So it becomes a race to see who breaks through first.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8258" LastActivityDate="2017-03-06T01:30:15.997" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16846" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16843" CreationDate="2017-03-06T02:54:27.110" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Unless I misunderstand your question wouldn't that just be  (for every from square) the number of (to) squares that a knight can go to plus the number of squares that the queen can go to. As in the following diagrams which show to how many squares the respective piece can go.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/aCJr8.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/aCJr8.png&quot; alt=&quot;knight&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/F9yvq.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/F9yvq.png&quot; alt=&quot;queen&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You'd just need to add the two numbers from the diagrams for every square. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Depending on what you need all this for you might have to consider separately the special moves of castling, en passant and pawn promotion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-09-21T18:06:54.633" LastActivityDate="2019-09-21T18:06:54.633" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="16847" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16229" CreationDate="2017-03-06T05:25:06.760" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Black's next four moves will be Nxg3, (unless White advances the g pawn, in which case Black plays f5xg4), Ne4, Ng5, and Nxe6, unless White moves his N to protect it, in which case Black moves Ke7.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White's best plan is to activate his king to b1, c2, b3, and a4.So White's king is at a4, his N at c6 with two pawns in a2 and b2, having lost both his king side pawns. Black has a N at e6 and a K at e8, two queenside pawns and three king side pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White takes two Black pawns with his next two moves, Ka5 and kb4. Black plays his h pawn to h5 and h4. White moves his N to e5 Black pawn to h3, White N to f3, temporarily blocking the pawn. B moves g5, &quot;chasing&quot; the WN, which goes to h2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastEditorUserId="14079" LastEditDate="2019-09-24T06:39:07.897" LastActivityDate="2019-09-24T06:39:07.897" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="16848" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16229" CreationDate="2017-03-06T08:37:07.243" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Of course, Shirov resigned in this position. Black has got three connected pawns on the K-side to which white has only one and it will fall soon. The black knight makes it more difficult to stop those pawns. The white king is in the corner on a1, and it will never reach the kingside on time to stop any of the black's pawns. As far as the queenside is concerned, the pawns on a2 and b2 are blockaded by a5 and b4. The white pawn on e6, though far advanced, is just a hollow threat, which aided by knight is not enough to threaten the black monarch. Once the white knight moves, the black king will occupy the e7 square. The entire play is on black's side, and white has to wait for his defeat, fighting till the end, only to lose. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-04T20:24:57.330" LastActivityDate="2020-03-04T20:24:57.330" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="16849" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15643" CreationDate="2017-03-06T10:31:53.867" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is even more . You can go to chessmaniac.com and there is an option of Mini Games at the left corner where you can see a lot of Tactical miniatures which consists of various Chess openings . Link of the Website is below .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessmaniac.com/Games/MyChessViewer/Trappy.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chessmaniac Mini games&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even you can go across the You tube Videos of Kevin from Chess Website and Gunjan Chess Videos by the name &quot; Dirty Chess tricks &quot; where you can learn a lot of miniatures .Hope it helps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastActivityDate="2017-03-06T10:31:53.867" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16850" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12382" CreationDate="2017-03-06T11:39:55.583" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I play 3 minutes games on a smartphone and am usually around 1500-1600. In my personal experience it works well for me for the following reasons:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I open with the second bishop also (sometimes called ultramodern opening) and against weaker players I sometimes get the knights pawn on the opposing end and then a rook too because sometimes people just don't see a long diagonal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the opponent opens with a knight on the third row I can pin that knight to the king and get that pawn in the center. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In some worst case scenarios I double the opponents pawns and develop a little better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One of the main ideas of these openings is giving up the center at first and then gaining it a bit later.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, I feel my game is stronger in the mid and tactical part when I still have knights so exchanging bishops early makes this possible and also makes it easier for me to think about castling sides and combinations if my opponent misses the black or white bishop...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12716" LastActivityDate="2017-03-06T11:39:55.583" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16851" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12382" CreationDate="2017-03-06T12:33:11.247" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my view a chess opening is characterized by a typical pawn structure and plans associated with it. As such a single move like 1. e3 should not deserve to be called an &quot;opening' because there are no ideas behind it besides that it allows you to develop queen and bishop. True it can transpose to somewhat decent openings like the Colle system, reversed Stonewall, reversed French and the English, but it is impossible to give you a single &quot;idea&quot; that is behind all these openings. Similarly you would not get a good answer asking for the &quot;ideas&quot; in 1.e4 openings, because it can turn into so many different openings each with its own ideas. Call it &quot;too broad&quot; if you prefer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;OK, 1. e3 is not the worst first move you can make, but it is unambitious, basically giving black free choice in the final pawn structure in the center. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my opinion the only &quot;ideas&quot; behind 1. e3 are not found on the board, but rather in  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;getting the opponent out of book, and&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;surprise. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is nothing that black should fear and does not require any preparation for black either, as you can just play whatever setup you want against it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for the Keoni-Hiva Gambit and similar suspicious lines, I don't see how playing f4 helps white's development. Perhaps if black gets greedy and starts eating pawns (fxe3, exd2) white can get a lead in development but black is not forced to do so and just playing normally I'd be happy to face the Keoni-Hiva Gambit with black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-11-02T23:37:45.427" LastActivityDate="2019-11-02T23:37:45.427" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="16852" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15643" CreationDate="2017-03-06T18:47:42.033" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Perhaps &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.newinchess.com/Taming_Wild_Chess_Openings-p-9014.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Taming Wild Chess Openings&lt;/a&gt;, written by IM Watson and FM Schiller, is interesting for you. The book contains a collection of tricky openings and the authors show how to react and, if possible, refute them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4588" LastActivityDate="2017-03-06T18:47:42.033" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16853" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12382" CreationDate="2017-03-07T14:29:23.620" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm surprised no one has yet mentioned, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1830402&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;none other than Magnus Carlsen recently played 1. e3 in the Olympiad&lt;/a&gt;. His teammates said that when he told them his intentions, they suddenly realized what a &quot;punchable face&quot; he had, but he ended up winning a very nice game. As for the opening, it transposed into a well-known variation of the Queen's Indian Defense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you see a strong player open with 1. e3, their intentions are probably like Magnus's: to transpose to another opening, perhaps after confusing their opponent a bit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Take the variations given on Wikipedia and the like with a grain of salt. For example, the so-called Keoni-Hiva Gambit, 1.e3 d5 2.Nc3 Nf6 3.a3 e5 4.f4 exf4 5.Nf3, is nothing more than a series of mistakes by white, leaving black a pawn up with a better position. My computer already gives -1.3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12699" LastActivityDate="2017-03-07T14:29:23.620" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16854" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16856" CreationDate="2017-03-07T14:51:14.413" Score="8" ViewCount="1428" Body="&lt;p&gt;Usually chess puzzles at my level (beginner) have just one or two forced variations and a clear achievement, like a substantial material gain or checkmate. Once in a while, though, a puzzle leaves me wondering, why the solution is actually supposed to be such a good thing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The following puzzle is from Susan Polgar's and Paul Truong's book &quot;Chess Tactics for Champions&quot;, #11 from the chapter on trapping. White to move:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[White &quot;Puzzle by Susan Polgar&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Trapping: #11&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;*&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;2rr2k1/p3bpp1/1p2pn1p/2p5/8/2P1PPB1/PP2B1PP/R4RK1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The solution is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;This example demonstrates well the power of the pair of bishops 1.♗a6 ♖c6 (1...♖a8 2.♗b7) 2.♗b7.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After 2...♖cd6 3.♗xd6 ♗xd6 (or 3...♖xd6?) White wins the exchange. So far, so good, numerical material gain. However, I'm trying to make my very first baby steps in understanding strategy: In an actual game, assuming I'd see the variation, I'd be hesitating to play it. My -- probably naive -- reasoning would go like this: &quot;A rook is worth five pawns, a bishop three. But White has the bishop pair. Moreover, the rook on c8 doesn't do much, while the dark squared bishop has a nice diagonal. So, I'm not convinced that it's really 5 vs 3.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's not that I don't trust Polgar/Truong, but I would like to understand. Is it, because after the exchange White is now able to control the d-file? Or am I completely off the track somewhere else?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12502" LastActivityDate="2017-03-07T20:16:55.807" Title="Strategic implications in this puzzle by S. Polgar/P. Truong" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;beginner&gt;&lt;puzzles&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16855" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16854" CreationDate="2017-03-07T15:06:02.943" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;Material trumps positional factors, unless the positional factors are &lt;em&gt;extremely&lt;/em&gt; pronounced.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The advantage of the bishop pair is often estimated at half a pawn - enough to pressure the opponent, but not always force a win. Rook vs. knight is an advantage of roughly two pawns - clearly winning - so you're gaining a lot in terms of material.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should cash in the bishop for the rook and look forward to a clearly winning position. You're not likely to have a better opportunity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12699" LastActivityDate="2017-03-07T15:06:02.943" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16856" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16854" CreationDate="2017-03-07T15:06:04.680" Score="12" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A rook is worth five pawns, a bishop three. But White has the bishop pair. Moreover, the rook on c8 doesn't do much, while the dark squared bishop has a nice diagonal. So, I'm not convinced that it's really 5 vs 3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Congratulations! You are taking your first steps to moving away from using the Reinfeld piece values as a method of evaluation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason why winning the exchange is good here is because:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Material appreciates as the endgame approaches. For example, if you have 8 pawns vs. 7, you are up a pawn. If you reduce that to 1 pawn to 0, you are still up a pawn but now you are very likely to win (or certain to draw)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Building from point 1, white can take control of the crucial d-file and likely trade down more material, going into an even better endgame&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Owning the bishop pair is &lt;em&gt;usually&lt;/em&gt; worth 1/2 a pawn, but in this position the rooks are the most important pieces because the pawn structure means that the black minor pieces don't have great squares (a somewhat blocked bishop and a knight with no forward outpost)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please note that winning material isn't always advantageous. This example in &lt;em&gt;Mastering Chess Strategy&lt;/em&gt; by GM Hellsten shows white sacrifice the exchange to gain a good outpost for his knight and play against a bad bishop:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;r4r2/1pp1q1bk/3p2b1/p2Ppp2/1nP5/1PN1BP2/P2N2PP/2RQ1RK1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Hellsten&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Cramling&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;  1. Qe2            f4            &#xA;  2. Bf2            Bd3           &#xA;  3. Qd1            Bxf1          &#xA;  4. Qxf1           Bf6           &#xA;  5. Kh1            Bh4           &#xA;  6. Bg1            Rf7           &#xA;  7. Nde4           Rg8           &#xA;  8. a3             Na6           &#xA;  9. Rc2            Rg6           &#xA; 10. Rb2            Qd8           &#xA; 11. b4             axb4          &#xA; 12. axb4           Be7           &#xA; 13. c5             Nb8           &#xA; 14. Qc4            Kh8           &#xA; 15. b5             Nd7           &#xA; 16. c6             Nb8           &#xA; 17. cxb7           Rg8           &#xA; 18. Ra2            Bh4           &#xA; 19. Ra8            Rfg7          &#xA; 20. Qf1            Qd7           &#xA; 21. Ba7             1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Addendum:&lt;/strong&gt; Regarding how material appreciates as the ending nears, consider the case of K+8P vs. K+7P:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;4k3/pppp1ppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/4K3 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Compared to K+P vs. K, which is the same material difference of 1 pawn but a higher material ratio for the attacker, the first example is a likely draw, whereas the second example is a theoretical win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;4k3/8/8/8/8/8/4P3/4K3 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastEditorDisplayName="user1108" LastEditDate="2017-03-07T20:16:55.807" LastActivityDate="2017-03-07T20:16:55.807" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16857" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14350" CreationDate="2017-03-07T18:26:12.623" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/FHews.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/FHews.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This (or variations thereof) is a common graph from performance psychology. As you can see, some level of arousal is good, but too much can be a problem. Too much stress is certainly a common problem (as is the opposite, too little arousal leading to lack of focus or energy). If you find yourself too far to the right side of the graph, there are many techniques to reduce your arousal. One very helpful idea is to learn some breathing exercises. For example, inhale deeply, count to three, then exhale slowly. This can be surprisingly effective for calming down.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12699" LastActivityDate="2017-03-07T18:26:12.623" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16858" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16854" CreationDate="2017-03-07T18:26:25.733" Score="5" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A rook is worth five pawns, a bishop three. But White has the bishop pair. Moreover, the rook on c8 doesn't do much, while the dark squared bishop has a nice diagonal. So, I'm not convinced that it's really 5 vs 3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sure, but the rook doesn't have to stay on c8. After, say, ...Rd2 and ...Rcd8, Black's rooks start to look a lot more useful. Being up the exchange is a long-term advantage; Black's rook not being very useful on c8 is a short-term feature of the present position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2789" LastActivityDate="2017-03-07T18:26:25.733" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16859" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-03-07T21:01:27.277" Score="2" ViewCount="395" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why does Stockfish suggest this move in this position for white? It is a clear losing position if the king moves that way, as supposed to a draw if the king chooses f7 instead...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/E4UH4.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/E4UH4.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a real game that ended up this way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12730" LastActivityDate="2017-03-24T12:18:10.203" Title="Bug in Stockfish/Suggesting bad move" Tags="&lt;stockfish&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16860" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16827" CreationDate="2017-03-07T21:42:29.380" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Capablanca says:&#xA;“In order to improve your game, you must study the endgame before everything else, for whereas the endings can be studied and mastered by themselves, the middle game and the opening must be studied in relation to the endgame”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is because to be able to judge a middlegame position, you need to know when it is advantageous to transition into an endgame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;The Big Three&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1: Endgames&#xA;2: Tactics&#xA;3: Rudimentary openings&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you play, record your games, and review them with a stronger player. Fix your openings. Investigate strategic concepts as they come up in your middlegames (there will be many you are unfamiliar with). Play ideas, and don't get hung up on losing games. It happens, a lot.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should forge ahead, then.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10233" LastActivityDate="2017-03-07T21:42:29.380" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16861" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16826" CreationDate="2017-03-07T21:47:18.660" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chessbase. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It has a build in Medal system, and positions are searchable by piece maneuvers, text, fuzzy position searches, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why reinvent the wheel?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10233" LastActivityDate="2017-03-07T21:47:18.660" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16862" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14350" CreationDate="2017-03-07T22:15:21.713" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;People ask me what I do when I want to relax and are often baffled when I tell them I race motorcycles.  They don't seem to understand that when you're traveling 120mph around a corner with a knee a quarter inch off the asphalt, if you're not relaxed, you're @!^&amp;amp;ed.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The things which relax people are often baffling.  I, for one, do not understand how running long distances can ever be considered relaxing, but people do it!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would argue that there are two reasons why a game like chess is not relaxing.  The first is the competitive nature.  If you focus on winning the game above all else, you will naturally enter a stressing mindset.  For some environments, such as tournament play, this is desired.  In more casual games, it can be undesirable.  It can help to reframe the game not as a way to compete with the other person, but as an opportunity to better yourself, sharpening your claws within the rules of the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The other reason is that you use stressing approaches.  This can happen to anyone, and can go completely unnoticed.  We often have many different ways of resolving a situation, each of which taxes the brain in different ways.  For example, we may be able to use a gut instinct approach to play where you slowly look at the position until it makes itself clear to you, or we may use a highly analytical approach which involves keeping mental maps of game trees and board positions in our head.  Choosing the latter will add to stress, no matter how much you focus on bettering yourself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Zen solution to this is not just to focus on bettering yourself, but to focus on letting the game make you more aware of what is going on inside.  When you realize that you are using a particularly punishing approach to a position, revel in it.  Use it as an opportunity to learn how to use that tool.  In general, this leads to a decrease in stress as you home that tool into something which is just as effective, but far less stressful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We do see a pattern in human nature for relaxation.  Many people who learn to relax while doing an otherwise stressful action teach themselves to strive towards something which can only be attained by relaxing.  Through this, they gain the skill to relax anywhere, and that is a powerful skill.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are people who are at their calmest jumping out of perfectly good airplanes.  I'd call them freaks, but who am I to judge.  The things which relax us are tremendously personal.  I recommend exploring them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6885" LastActivityDate="2017-03-07T22:15:21.713" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16863" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16859" CreationDate="2017-03-07T23:56:50.650" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can't be sure, but I suspect Stockfish just hasn't completed its move or flushed the current move to your UI. Or the UI you are using isn't giving all the information.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My Stockfish (6) gives '1. Kf7', unsurprisingly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2017-03-07T23:56:50.650" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16864" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16859" CreationDate="2017-03-08T02:30:40.123" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I tried Stockfish 8 for your position, but unable to reproduce the issue. Your depth is very low for this simple position. Can you wait a few more seconds in your analysis?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2017-03-08T02:30:40.123" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16866" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="274" CreationDate="2017-03-08T03:45:26.287" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Many people who disparage the Colle have never really studied it.  It is solid and has a very clear objective that is easy to understand.  The Colle is about accumulating small advantages and this may not fully be appreciated until move 30 or 35.  Someone made a comment that learning to play the Colle won't teach you how to play chess, it will only teach you how to play the Colle.  That is absolute absurdity.  Get a good book on the Colle and take some time to really learn it.  Make sure you understand WHY you are making the moves you are making and not just MEMORIZING the opening moves.  You'll be glad you did.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12708" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-03-08T07:02:01.867" LastActivityDate="2017-03-08T07:02:01.867" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16867" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-03-08T06:11:21.893" Score="4" ViewCount="82" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have written a python script to verify the strategical rule of &quot;controlling the center&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have parsed the free &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.top-5000.nl/pgn.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;2.2 million games database&lt;/a&gt; (it takes about 5 minutes) and I have found that the winner of a game controls the center at any given time with (on average) 1 more piece than the losing side.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd like to look at the correlation of other strategical principles with winning. What would you suggest would be an interesting list to look into?&#xA;(I'm thinking of castling vs no castling, knights on the rim...)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: I would like suggestions for interesting statistics that you would like me to run. I could then send an article (say, to chess.com, or TWIC) with the results, referencing the suggestions posted here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12734" LastEditorUserId="12734" LastEditDate="2017-03-09T17:22:39.653" LastActivityDate="2017-03-09T17:22:39.653" Title="What kind of statistics should I run on a database?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;statistics&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ClosedDate="2017-03-09T04:54:48.377" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16871" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16872" CreationDate="2017-03-08T14:26:54.003" Score="2" ViewCount="3019" Body="&lt;p&gt;If I play better than the current world champion, Carlsen, and I am able to win him - how would I do to become world champion as fast as possible? Would I have to go through long tournaments or is it enough to consistently beat the world champ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If that is the case, I wonder why Vassily Ivanchuk isn't the world champion?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12730" LastActivityDate="2017-03-09T19:50:34.657" Title="How do I become chess world champion?" Tags="&lt;world-championship&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="10" ClosedDate="2017-03-08T17:46:16.130" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16872" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16871" CreationDate="2017-03-08T15:15:10.260" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The rules for becoming world champion have changed over the years and might very well change in the future. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With the current rules, in order to become chess world champion, you have to beat the reigning world champion in a match over 12 games and potentially (if the score is 6-6) additional tie-break games. The next match will be in 2018. Rules for this &lt;strong&gt;FIDE World Championship Match&lt;/strong&gt; are found in the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fide.com/component/handbook/?id=144&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Handbook&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In order to qualify for this match for the world championship you have to win the &lt;strong&gt;Candidates Tournament&lt;/strong&gt;. The following qualify for the next Candidates Tournament according to the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=145&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Rules and Regulations&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Sergey Karjakin (as runner-up of the previous WC match),&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the first two of the FIDE World Cup 2017, &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the first two of the FIDE Grand Prix 2017, &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the two highest rated players who are not otherwise qualified and who have participated in the FIDE World Cup or FIDE Grand Prix&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;one player nominated by the organizer with a rating of at least 2725 in 2017&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some more detail regarding the Candidate tournament you can find in &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/16026/when-will-the-2018-fide-candidates-tournament-be-held-and-who-will-qualify-for&quot;&gt;this question and answers&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the quickest way to the Candidate tournament?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are just starting out with chess, it will take you many years to reach a level of 2725 (required for the organizer wildcard) or of being among the highest rated players not qualified otherwise (which would be in the 2800 range).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Qualification for the FIDE Grand Prix is also aimed at top level players. If you are interested you can read about it &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fide.com/component/handbook/?id=31&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are many ways to get to the FIDE World Cup (see &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fide.com/FIDE/handbook/WorldCup2017Regulations.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;) including winning continental championships. If you are from a part of the world where chess is not all that popular, qualifying as IM is not impossible. In any case this seems to be the easiest route for getting to the Candidates Tournament.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.193" LastActivityDate="2017-03-09T19:50:34.657" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16873" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16867" CreationDate="2017-03-08T19:34:28.480" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;To extend your center squares analysis, it might be interesting to determine the expected winning percentage in the database when one side has 0, 1, and 2 pieces on average central square advantage.  This would begin to show just how important the advantage is as I would think the winning percentage would increase as the advantage becomes more pronounced.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, a knight on c3 covers two central squares e4 and d5.  Are you counting the number of times the central squares are controlled or are you counting just the knight on c3 once?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8258" LastActivityDate="2017-03-08T19:34:28.480" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16874" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-03-08T22:55:50.887" Score="8" ViewCount="641" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was always interested to play blindfold chess not with a friend but versus a real opponent but I have heard only about such tournaments for elite players (like &quot;Melody Amber&quot;). Are there any blindfold chess tournaments, where players with Elo around 2000 points (standard) are allowed to participate?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12745" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-07-26T11:21:48.887" LastActivityDate="2019-12-31T17:13:29.883" Title="Blindfold chess tournaments" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;blindfold-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16875" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16222" CreationDate="2017-03-09T06:21:35.290" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is the best way to attack instantly the pawn chain and not only the pawn is attack it sometimes also opens rook files; opens bishops diagonals etc.&#xA;In the king's Indian defense.&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/2Jush.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/2Jush.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12748" LastEditorUserId="12748" LastEditDate="2017-03-25T07:16:38.993" LastActivityDate="2017-03-25T07:16:38.993" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16876" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16026" CreationDate="2017-03-09T10:32:23.853" Score="20" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Candidates will be held in &lt;strong&gt;Berlin, Germany, on 10-28 March 2018&lt;/strong&gt; (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.agonlimited.com/news/2017/9/10/the-fide-world-chess-candidates-tournament-will-take-place-in-berlin-germany-on-march-10-28-2018&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;source&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=145&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE's Rules &amp;amp; Regulations for the Candidates Tournament of the FIDE World Championship cycle 2016-2018&lt;/a&gt;, the following will qualify, in order of priority:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1. The loser of the previous World Championship Match -- Sergey Karjakin.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;2. The 2 finalists of the FIDE World Cup 2017 - Ding Liren and Levon Aronian.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a 128-player knockout tournament, currently being held from &lt;strong&gt;1 to 25 September 2017&lt;/strong&gt;, in Batumi, Georgia, with the final in Tbilisi, Georgia (see &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_World_Cup_2017&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;, which also has details about qualifiers to the World Cup that go too far for this answer).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Karjakin and Carlsen played the World Cup so a situation could have arisen where a player not in the final would qualify, but they were both eliminated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Quarter finals:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Maxime Vachier-Lagrave&lt;/strong&gt; beat Peter Svidler 2.5 - 1.5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Wesley So&lt;/strong&gt; beat Vladimir Fedoseev 1.5 - 0.5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Ding Liren&lt;/strong&gt; beat Richard Rapport 1.5 - 0.5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Levon Aronian&lt;/strong&gt; beat Vassily Ivanchuk 1.5 - 0.5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Semi-finals:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Levon Aronian&lt;/strong&gt; beat Maxime Vachier-Lagrave 5-4&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Ding Liren&lt;/strong&gt; beat Wesley So 3.5 - 2.5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Final (not relevant for the Candidates, but for completeness):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Levon Aronian&lt;/strong&gt; beat Ding Liren 4-2&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;3. The top 2 winners of the FIDE Grand Prix 2016/2017.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are four events:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;18-27 February 2017, in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;12-21 May 2017, Moscow, Russia&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;6-15 July 2017, Geneva, Switzerland&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;16-25 November 2017, Palma Majorca, Spain&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Top standings after 3 events:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Shakhriyar Mamedyarov&lt;/strong&gt; (3/3 events played): 340&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Alexander Grischuk&lt;/strong&gt; (3/3): 336 3/7&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Teimour Radjabov (2/3): 241 3/7&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (2/3): 211 3/7&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(players with 3 events and insufficient points left out)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;4. The 2 players not otherwise qualified with the highest average rating (among those that participated in the WC or GP).&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Calculated using the 12 rating lists from january 1 to december 1, 2017. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;| Name                      | Avg  | Jan  | Feb  | Mar  | Apr | May | June| July| Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov |&#xA;|---------------------------|------|------|------|------|-----|-----|-----|-----|-----|-----|-----|-----|&#xA;| Caruana, Fabiano          | 2808 | 2827 | 2827 | 2817 | 2817| 2802| 2808| 2807| 2807| 2799| 2794| 2799|&#xA;| So, Wesley                | 2806 | 2808 | 2822 | 2822 | 2822| 2815| 2812| 2810| 2810| 2792| 2788| 2788|&#xA;|---------------------------|------|------|------|------|-----|-----|-----|-----|-----|-----|-----|-----|&#xA;| Vachier-Lagrave, Maxime   | 2796 | 2796 | 2796 | 2803 | 2803| 2795| 2796| 2791| 2789| 2804| 2794| 2796|&#xA;| Mamedyarov, Shakhriyar    | 2786 | 2766 | 2766 | 2772 | 2772| 2772| 2800| 2800| 2797| 2797| 2791| 2802|&#xA;| Nakamura, Hikaru          | 2785 | 2785 | 2785 | 2793 | 2793| 2798| 2785| 2792| 2792| 2781| 2774| 2780|&#xA;| Anand, Viswanathan        | 2785 | 2786 | 2786 | 2786 | 2786| 2786| 2786| 2783| 2783| 2794| 2783| 2783|&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;5. One organiser's nominee.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.agonlimited.com/news/2017/10/29/vladimir-kramnik-nominated-as-wild-card-choice-to-the-fide-world-chess-candidates-tournament&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Vladimir Kramnik&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; was chosen as the wildcard.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This could have been player with a rating of 2725 or higher in one of the rating lists in 2017.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Next update: the final Grand Prix, result 25 november.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastEditorUserId="924" LastEditDate="2017-10-30T14:46:02.793" LastActivityDate="2017-10-30T14:46:02.793" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16877" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16878" CreationDate="2017-03-09T22:47:33.570" Score="-1" ViewCount="3959" Body="&lt;p&gt;So, you can capture any piece in chess except for the king. But what happens if me and my opponent get all pieces captured (except for the king)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12751" LastEditorUserId="8201" LastEditDate="2018-04-06T11:58:12.463" LastActivityDate="2018-04-06T11:58:12.463" Title="What happens if me and my opponent only have kings?" Tags="&lt;kings&gt;&lt;dead-position&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2017-03-10T16:31:38.780" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16878" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16877" CreationDate="2017-03-09T23:09:39.157" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;Since you can't move your king into check, you can't legally check the other king. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/component/handbook/?id=171&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;The Laws of Chess, section 5.2b&lt;/a&gt;, states that:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The game is drawn when a position has arisen in which neither player can checkmate the opponent’s king with any series of legal moves. The game is said to end in a ‘dead position’. This immediately ends the game, provided that the move producing the position was in accordance with Article 3 and Articles 4.2 – 4.7. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12752" LastEditorUserId="10295" LastEditDate="2017-09-14T12:07:27.997" LastActivityDate="2017-09-14T12:07:27.997" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16879" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9828" CreationDate="2017-03-10T00:51:54.830" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;None of these answers address the OP's crucial incorrect assumption that software ENGINES can have specific ratings across different hardware! If you want to know an engine's strength in any meaningful sense that's even roughly equivalent to human ratings, you have to look at the power of the hardware running the engine. A weak engine on the latest expensive high-end computer can still thrash a strong engine on a cheap computer bought several years ago.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The CCRL 40/40 list already posted attempts to standardise chess engine ratings with reference to an Athlon64 X2 4600+ at 2.4 GHz. Depending on the hardware you're using to run your software engine, the actual playing strength of your engine could be completely different: even the relative strengths may change (i.e. you can't guarantee that engine A's beating engine B on different hardware means it will still win on your hardware, because different engines may benefit differently from different processors).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To get a realistic sense of your chess engine's strength on YOUR hardware, you need to enter your specific engine+hardware into a tournament against rated competitors. Otherwise, the best you can do is to use a rated system (e.g. one of the ones on the CCRL 40/40 website) as a reference point, and estimate from that (really &quot;guesstimate&quot;, because a small difference in software engine version or computer hardware configuration can make a big and not necessarily predictable difference in actual playing strength).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12755" LastActivityDate="2017-03-10T00:51:54.830" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16880" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16826" CreationDate="2017-03-10T06:23:52.353" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I suggest to read about &lt;strong&gt;Extended Position Description(EPD)&lt;/strong&gt;, a format based on &lt;em&gt;Forsite Edward Notation (FEN)&lt;/em&gt; with specifications to store additional information. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In &lt;a href=&quot;http://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Extended+Position+Description&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chessprogramming&lt;/a&gt;,&#xA;there is a EPD syntax description of this standard.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It allows to record comments in fields c0 through c9, that are appropriate &#xA;for your purpose.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Several years ago, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.rebel.nl/epd2diag.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;EPD2diag version 1.5p5&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;was a good option to edit, save, analyze and annotate epd files. Now is &#xA;older but could give you an idea of what can be obtained with such a program.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1766" LastEditorDisplayName="user10872" LastEditDate="2017-05-03T16:23:57.847" LastActivityDate="2017-05-03T16:23:57.847" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16881" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-03-10T07:17:28.970" Score="0" ViewCount="86" Body="&lt;p&gt;We would be considering, of course, the over the board rating of the respective machines and/or players.  I'm ultimately wanting to see evidence that suggests there is an increase of draws amongst machines with modern technology paired against one another, over humans paired with similar ratings.  For example, if we compared games with both players at 2700 strength, would they have a higher draw rate than the best machines, when paired off opposing one another?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know that this tends to happen when considering humans alone.  Does the trend extend, ratings wise anyway, beyond human playing strength?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2765" LastEditorUserId="2765" LastEditDate="2017-03-10T07:23:11.550" LastActivityDate="2020-03-06T16:07:59.797" Title="Can it be said that draws occur less often between top-level players of equal caliber, rather than machine draws?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;draw&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2017-03-10T13:55:57.983" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16882" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14231" CreationDate="2017-03-10T09:11:57.713" Score="0" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Play the isolani like a gambit&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;em&gt;The wisest things ever said about chess&lt;/em&gt; by GM Soltis&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many answers have advised playing gambits (+1 to them) to learn the trade off of material with time. I've also been playing isolated pawn positions to learn more about the initiative, which even if the initiative dissipates, then the isolated d-pawn is not a fatal weakness.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2017-03-10T09:11:57.713" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16883" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16877" CreationDate="2017-03-10T09:24:12.073" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;When you only have Kings then you can take a tour of the entire board till the end of the World without any hesitation . :-) (Just Joking ) .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Game at this point is a DRAW . Since neither Player can play without any objective and Game of Chess is all about Checkmating your King then without any material resistance it is DRAW . Infact a lone King with a Knight or Bishop and also against another King is also a DRAW material is not sufficient to Capture King .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastActivityDate="2017-03-10T09:24:12.073" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16884" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14231" CreationDate="2017-03-10T10:05:55.753" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;One important aspect that you can consider apart from Material is &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Check how much Space you are occupying on a particular side of the Board .Here what I mean is sometimes your opponent has captured some Squares around your King but is material down . So when he gives up the Material (Sacrifice) to open up a line or deflect a Piece from your K-side do not accept the Material .&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Follow games of Kasparov/Shirov/Fischer where they have sacrificed Material to gain Activity .&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;When you already have an ELO of 2000+ I do not feel you will be having difficulty in understanding the concept that Activity of Pieces is the sole purpose when you play a Chess Game .&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Follow Sicilian Dragon games from Black side where Rook is exchanged for Knight on c3 . Sicilian Dragon is one of the best example for Activity instead of material .&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;There are a lot of tactics which focuses on Space advantage and Activity instead of Material . Practice those . &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastActivityDate="2017-03-10T10:05:55.753" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16885" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16881" CreationDate="2017-03-10T10:29:50.467" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The draws among chess-playing machines tend to be far more than players of 2700-plus Elo Level. Of 100 games, and I mean in 100 matches, machines will have 60-70 draws compared to humans where they may have 50 draws.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now the score can fluctuate a lot from the players side owing to different conditions .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Both players are not in a Spirit/mood for fighting as like Kasparov/Karpov 1985 WCC.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Unlike a computer, a strong 2800 player may not be in his best form. He may have different reasons like health/family problems, or other factors which may cause a setback .&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;A Player may even make a basic tactical mistake and lose the game like Anand did against Carlsen in 2014 WCC match. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These are some reasons that a machine does not encounter at all, and plays freely. You can even check the database among players, and if possible there is a lot fo history associated with famous chess games. You could find many interesting stories which would adjudge many of the reasons above and even attract various other info.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-06T16:07:59.797" LastActivityDate="2020-03-06T16:07:59.797" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="16886" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9828" CreationDate="2017-03-10T10:39:52.117" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can find some best robots in Fics Website . Free Internet Chess Server Website &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.freechess.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FICS&lt;/a&gt;. There you find various Chess Robots which play from a level of 1800-2400 .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just login to the website and you can find the machines are having a different color code to identify . Please see the link for the Chess Engines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.freechess.org/Help/HelpFiles/computer_list.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FICS Chess Engines&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastActivityDate="2017-03-10T10:39:52.117" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16887" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="928" CreationDate="2017-03-10T11:56:43.970" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is no more a challenge between Human &amp;amp; Computer . Man vs. Machine is over . &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Earlier this was a curiosity . This was not only related to the field of Chess but People from other professions wanted to know who is better . &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Playing against a top rated Computer somewhat seems lack of creativity . Computer mostly plays tactical and their opening repertoire is so vast that a Player needs to go out of the Box to think somewhat new and defeat it .&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Now almost every Computer rates to almost 3000+ Elo which is almost 200 points higher than the World's best player . So mathematically it seems Computer will win but it may not happen always but surely it does not rouse the Interest .&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When Kasparov got defeated in 1997 he was shaken and even putting up his Best play he could not repeat the same in 1996 . So from there the Chess World's verdict was that a Computer can be made stronger and can defeat anybody . &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastActivityDate="2017-03-10T11:56:43.970" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16888" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14231" CreationDate="2017-03-10T15:22:16.460" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Study openings that are known for being tactical rather than positional.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Work lots of tactical puzzles (but it sounds like you already are).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Play unranked games against weaker opponents and limit your repertoire to very aggressive and sacrificial attacks.  Work your way up to stronger opponents.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Take positions you have seen in games that are dynamic and tactical (from high rated players) - enter them into a chess program and play the side of the attacker without studying the conclusion of the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At the end of the day, just accept that you are a positional player and enjoy being who you are.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12728" LastActivityDate="2017-03-10T15:22:16.460" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16889" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16804" CreationDate="2017-03-10T15:52:51.053" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I significantly reduced my blunders by switching to a positional style play and avoiding dynamic lines.  I  studied openings enough to avoid anything dynamic and force my opponent into positional play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This had another advantage of putting me into familiar and safe openings, where I could spot my opponents traps quickly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From a safe position, I could look for common mating patterns without worrying about throwing a piece away in a blunder.  I think positional players also tend to frustrate tactical players and improve the odds of capitalizing on an opponents blunder.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12728" LastActivityDate="2017-03-10T15:52:51.053" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16890" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-03-10T16:41:34.950" Score="5" ViewCount="1396" Body="&lt;p&gt;so I've written an entire pseudo legal move generator as well as a simple gui to interface with. I also have my AI only play the best move available without going into a minimax tree. Before I begin any further AI coding I need to factor in putting a king into check and how it changes the list of legal moves. My question is how should i go about this. Given a board state and a list of pseudo legal moves, am I forced to then generate all responses by my opponent to ensure none of these moves will checkmate me? If I go from generating legal moves for 10 of my pieces would I then have to generate all responses to make sure none of those moves result in a checkmate? How also would I go about taking this response-parse requirement for a minimax algorithm? Would I store multiple boards in memory one for each node that I've traversed? Let me know what kind of design principles you think I should look out for.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12760" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2017-03-11T10:08:38.770" LastActivityDate="2019-09-21T18:06:21.703" Title="Efficient ways to go from pseduo legal to fully legal move generation" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;programming&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="0" ClosedDate="2017-03-11T15:08:13.370" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16891" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-03-10T18:19:34.703" Score="9" ViewCount="3372" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm curious about why the symbols O-O and O-O-O  are used for castling in algebraic notation. Why not use the consistent and logical Kg1/Kc1 for White and Kg8/Kc8 for Black? Why adopt the less than obvious O-O and O-O-O from descriptive notation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12762" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-12-10T14:18:37.367" LastActivityDate="2020-12-10T14:18:37.367" Title="Why are the symbols 0-0 and 0-0-0 used for castling in algebraic notation?" Tags="&lt;history&gt;&lt;castling&gt;&lt;notation&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="16892" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16896" CreationDate="2017-03-10T18:20:52.017" Score="2" ViewCount="245" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have been playing chess for almost two years now and my playing strength revolves around 1000.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Quite often every month or so, i play below par and drop to 900's and never been consistent. I dont play to win, i enjoy playing chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is causing this? Am i playing too much chess?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7644" LastActivityDate="2017-03-14T11:15:53.183" Title="Chess fatigueness and recovery?" Tags="&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;psychology&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16893" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16891" CreationDate="2017-03-10T18:29:56.277" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;A notation like Kg1 would give the impression that only the king is moved. At the very least, it is not &lt;em&gt;obvious&lt;/em&gt; that castling moves the rook as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2017-03-10T18:29:56.277" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16894" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16892" CreationDate="2017-03-10T20:17:36.897" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In order to play chess, you have to try to win :)  Otherwise you are denying your opponent a proper game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If your strength is bouncing between 900 and 1000 (stagnant), then you are not improving.  If you want to improve, then you have to have a plan to move forward, which normally involves study, training, and/or mentoring (in addition to playing).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are a lot of ways to begin developing as a player.  A big one is to learn end-game mating scenarios.  Others involve start training tactics, studying openings, recording and re-analyzing your games, joining a club, reading chess articles, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should create a plan for developing your skills (start with learning end games).  Execute your plan and refine it as necessary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12728" LastActivityDate="2017-03-10T20:17:36.897" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16895" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16891" CreationDate="2017-03-10T21:00:50.657" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The point is to make it obvious it's a castling move. It's important because that's the only time in a game that you can move two pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that computers represent the moves as Kc1 and Kg1, so both ways work. O-O and O-O-O are easier for humans to read.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2017-03-10T21:00:50.657" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16896" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16892" CreationDate="2017-03-10T21:13:11.410" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Having some fluctuations in rating is quite natural and not something I would be overly concerned. At your rating level blunders are very common, so that games are to some extent not decided by apparent playing strength (=rating) but by a random process and this shows in your rating fluctuations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, with your approach (for fun) to chess you should not be worrying about ratings at all and just enjoy playing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you do want to improve your chess there are many ways and even a little work will have a large impact on your playing strength at this level. For suggestions on how to improve see &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/16565/how-to-learn-chess-if-youre-still-a-3-digit-rating-after-a-few-years/16567#16567&quot;&gt;this question and answers&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2017-03-10T21:13:11.410" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16897" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16891" CreationDate="2017-03-10T22:39:39.583" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;The castling notation was invented by Johann Allgaier and used for the first time in his 1811 2nd edition of his &lt;em&gt;Neue theoretisch-praktische Anweisung zum Schachspiel&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He didn't explain why he came up with it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Allgaier (and algebraic notation in general) used digit-0. The use of letter-O is an anglo-saxon oddity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12401" LastActivityDate="2017-03-10T22:39:39.583" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16898" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16905" CreationDate="2017-03-11T04:51:01.083" Score="5" ViewCount="855" Body="&lt;p&gt;What's the purpose of &lt;code&gt;3. Nd2&lt;/code&gt; in the French opening? Does it not block the dark-squared bishop and offer space in center for black? What's the sharpest line for white in this variation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Nd2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11068" LastEditorUserId="3884" LastEditDate="2017-03-15T08:43:34.557" LastActivityDate="2017-03-16T14:03:29.553" Title="Purpose of Tarrasch variation in French" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;french-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16899" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12983" CreationDate="2017-03-11T07:26:41.653" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;The ratings for the class players are correct for the USCF - 1200-1399 is indeed the definition of class D, master is 2200+, etc.  (IM and GM are international titles not based on USCF ratings, so they aren't directly comparable.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I'm not so sure about the descriptions, especially at the upper and lower ends.  It doesn't match my perceptions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, it says that a class D player is &quot;usually a beginner&quot;.  Perhaps it seems that way to someone rated very high.  But that leaves no gap at all between &quot;beginner&quot; and the class C &quot;most people can achieve this level if they work at it&quot;.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Based on a quick search of the USCF website, someone rated 1300 - smack in the middle of class D - is in the 75th percentile of USCF rated tournament players.  I suppose you could claim that 3/4 of tournament players are beginners, but I think that would involve a rather strange definition of &quot;beginner&quot;.  There has to be something for &quot;people who have played the game for years but haven't realized their full potential&quot;, and I think that's actually where many class D players fall.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the high end, it's rather silly to say that an IM would eat a master for breakfast, or that a GM would eat an IM for breakfast lunch and dinner.  An IM beating a GM isn't all that notable - it's an upset, but far from shocking.  If a 2380 non-IM master played 12 2500 GMs, he'd be expected to score about 4 points.  And ratings naturally fluctuate within about 100 points anyway.  I would say that at about a ratings difference of about 400 - about two classes - the stronger side would dominate to the point where you could talk about them eating the weaker side for breakfast.  100 or even 200 points isn't really enough for that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2017-03-11T07:26:41.653" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16900" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16931" CreationDate="2017-03-11T09:41:07.210" Score="4" ViewCount="435" Body="&lt;p&gt;Someone told me he's a national master in the Chinese rating system (not FIDE). His English wasn't very good, so he wasn't able to communicate more. He doesn't have a FIDE rating. He has only played rated games in China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What does that mean? What's his approximate FIDE rating? My guess is around FIDE 1900, because I was able to defeat him. Correct?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2017-03-11T10:01:06.457" LastActivityDate="2017-03-14T09:10:20.860" Title="What's &quot;National Master&quot; in China?" Tags="&lt;elo&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16901" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16890" CreationDate="2017-03-11T10:07:18.827" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is my understanding:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You have a pseudo-legal move generator&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Now, you want to get rid of the illegal moves&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How serious do you want your engine be? You can always write a function that takes a position and checks your king. Everytime when you wants to check a pseudo-legal move, you call the function. It will definitely work, and it's simple but it's slow.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's study at what a modern engine does. The source code for Stockfish is: &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/blob/master/src/position.cpp&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/blob/master/src/position.cpp&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;/// Position::legal() tests whether a pseudo-legal move is legal&#xA;&#xA;bool Position::legal(Move m) const {&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Check en passant:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;// En passant captures are a tricky special case. Because they are rather&#xA;// uncommon, we do it simply by testing whether the king is attacked after&#xA;// the move is made.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do you want move your king?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;// If the moving piece is a king, check whether the destination&#xA;// square is attacked by the opponent. Castling moves are checked&#xA;// for legality during move generation.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can make the move if it's not pinned. Or it's pinned, but it still protects the king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;// A non-king move is legal if and only if it is not pinned or it&#xA;// is moving along the ray towards or away from the king.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-09-21T18:06:21.703" LastActivityDate="2019-09-21T18:06:21.703" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="16902" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16891" CreationDate="2017-03-11T10:43:45.630" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Kg1/Kg8 or Kc1/Kc8 are Singular moves where the King only moves during the Game . Since before the Algebraic Notation Descriptive Notation was used which was quite cumbersome &amp;amp; lengthy Algebraic was a short hand . Why 0-0 &amp;amp; 0-0-0 was exactly used is quite inexplicable but this is the only move in International Chess where two pieces are moving simultaneously . In K-side Castling K is moving two squares and in Q-side Castling it is moving three Squares . &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So it might have seen an innovative way of recording the Castling move since King is the most important piece in a Chess Game 0-0/0-0-0 was a royal move indicating King is going inside the castle and the Battle Begins . &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastActivityDate="2017-03-11T10:43:45.630" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16903" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16904" CreationDate="2017-03-11T13:30:42.093" Score="2" ViewCount="260" Body="&lt;p&gt;When playing against a player rated ~2500 Stockfish 8 managed merely to draw when playing white. This was the endgame before the draw (the draw occurred because it was king vs. king in the end).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black played rook to h7 and then Stockfish played the rook to a7.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ngAGt.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ngAGt.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12730" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-03-11T16:18:52.680" LastActivityDate="2017-03-11T16:18:52.680" Title="Can white really not win this rook endgame?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;rook-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16904" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16903" CreationDate="2017-03-11T13:53:02.007" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.shredderchess.com/online-chess/online-databases/endgame-database.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Shredder database&lt;/a&gt; (sorry, I can't link directly to a position), the position after Rh7 is won in 32 moves and Ra7 gives the win away.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are some similar positions with a- and b-pawns which &lt;em&gt;are&lt;/em&gt; drawn, but this is not one of them. Actually, playing around with the database, I found that the initial position with the black king on b8, &lt;em&gt;is&lt;/em&gt; drawn (and Rh7 is one of the two moves keeping the draw).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another example is this one, where the white rook is tied to the defense of the b pawn and the white king can't really help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[White &quot;J. van der Wiel&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;P. Boersma&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1/2&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;8/2k5/1R6/PP5r/8/4K3/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Ke4 Rh4+ 2. Kf5 Rh5+ 3. Kg6 Rc5 4. Kf7 Rh5 5. Rc6+ Kd7 6. a6 Rxb5 7. a7 Ra5 8. Re6 Kc7 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;sub&gt;source: Fundamental Chess Endings by Müller and Lamprecht&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-03-11T14:07:21.350" LastActivityDate="2017-03-11T14:07:21.350" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16905" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16898" CreationDate="2017-03-11T15:07:10.143" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Now I haven't played the Tarrasch, but I am considering it, as an alternative to the exchange variation, and this is what I've discovered in my limited research.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The main purpose is to support the pawn chain, if Black continues with &lt;code&gt;3. ... Nf6&lt;/code&gt;, as the c3 square is available for a pawn to support d4. Additionally, as a bonus, it avoids the Winawer variation of the French, without playing the advanced or exchange variations, which are easier for black at higher levels.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While it does block in the Queen's Bishop, other than the classical lines, &lt;code&gt;1. e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. Bg5&lt;/code&gt;, it's not uncommon for the Queen Bishop to remain undeveloped for most of the opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for which line is the sharpest, a lot depends on black's responses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9025" LastActivityDate="2017-03-11T15:07:10.143" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16906" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16907" CreationDate="2017-03-11T17:41:15.497" Score="3" ViewCount="117" Body="&lt;p&gt;How many &quot;possible&quot; attacks can be focused on one point on the board? For instance the pawn in E5:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/2uWAP.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/2uWAP.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the maximum (realistic) amount of attacks that are focused on a single point on the board?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12730" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-05T01:16:59.420" LastActivityDate="2020-04-05T01:16:59.420" Title="How many attacks can be focused on one point?" Tags="&lt;problems&gt;&lt;attack&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16907" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16906" CreationDate="2017-03-11T19:35:21.277" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not sure what you mean by &quot;realistic&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically you can attack it with 8 knights plus 7 other pieces attacking horizontally/vertically/diagonally, i.e. from each cardinal direction (North, NorthEast, East,...) except for one. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;8/3N1N2/2NBQBN1/3RpR2/2NPK1N1/3N1N2/8/8 w - - 1 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Notes:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;At the start of the game each player has 16 pieces of which two are  bishops of opposite color. That's why one of the bishops will not be able to attack the square and the maximum number is 15.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In the example 7 of the knights are fixed. You can think of (1) using other pieces to attack along the cardinal directions or (2) replace one knight with a piece attacking from f4.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You can move pieces that attack along the cardinal directions further away from the attacked square but this does not help to focus more pieces on the square unless you count &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battery_(chess)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;batteries&lt;/a&gt; double. In any case you are running out of pieces to achieve more than 15 attacks.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It is possible to get 8 knights and two dark squared bishops through pawn promotion. In the example 6 pawns have been promoted to knights and one pawn to a bishop which together with the remaining pawn sums to 8 pawns.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastEditorUserId="11629" LastEditDate="2017-03-11T21:50:28.440" LastActivityDate="2017-03-11T21:50:28.440" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16909" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16911" CreationDate="2017-03-11T23:14:02.877" Score="3" ViewCount="441" Body="&lt;p&gt;My 7 year old son plays competitive chess. He can checkmate with king and rook nicely. He can make a queen from a single pawn &amp;amp; king. Now, how to proceed for further endgame training?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11068" LastEditorUserId="11202" LastEditDate="2017-04-16T09:09:03.133" LastActivityDate="2017-04-16T09:09:03.133" Title="Endgame training for a 7 year old kid" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;training&gt;&lt;best-practice&gt;&lt;coach&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16910" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16334" CreationDate="2017-03-11T23:24:54.500" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The book I learned from is &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/080483508X&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chinese Chess: An Introduction to China's Ancient Game of Strategy&lt;/a&gt; by H. T. Lau.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The book is mostly examples and exercises. There could have been more explanatory text.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1485" LastActivityDate="2017-03-11T23:24:54.500" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16911" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16909" CreationDate="2017-03-12T00:30:19.553" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;When he is mating, is he just following a method blindly or does he understand it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance in the two examples you mention, &lt;strong&gt;zugzwang&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;opposition&lt;/strong&gt; are important themes, which are also relevant to many endgames. You can find many easy pawn only endgames with these motifs and since they are so fundamental, I'd start with these motifs. Somewhat related, &lt;strong&gt;triangulation&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;key/corresponding squares&lt;/strong&gt; could also go here. All of these you can do in pawn endgames which, because of the few options you have, are generally easier to understand than if you add any other pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some more specific topics could be &lt;strong&gt;king and rook-pawn vs king&lt;/strong&gt; (draw/stalemate), &lt;strong&gt;mating with two bishops&lt;/strong&gt; (which is not all that difficult if you understand that two bishops can build something like a &quot;wall&quot; that the enemy king cannot cross and your own king can relatively easily push the enemy king to the border), &lt;strong&gt;square rule&lt;/strong&gt; to quickly assess whether a king can catch a pawn before promotion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you think that these are too complicated at his current level, I'd forget about endgames for the time being and focus on opening/middlegame play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2017-03-12T00:30:19.553" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16912" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16917" CreationDate="2017-03-12T09:29:34.787" Score="3" ViewCount="197" Body="&lt;p&gt;I played a rapid game last night and got this symmetrical English position as black:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[StartPly &quot;116&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. c4 c5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. Nc3 Nc6 4. g3 g6 5. Bg2 Bg7 6. d4 cxd4 7. Nxd4 O-O 8. Nxc6 bxc6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I found it hard to know where to put my d and e pawns, and how to develop my light square bishop. So, &lt;strong&gt;thematically where do black's central pawns and light square bishop develop to and why?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2017-03-12T13:15:25.097" Title="Where do black's centre pawns and light square bishop belong in the symmetrical English?" Tags="&lt;english-opening&gt;&lt;development&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16914" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-03-12T10:45:06.223" Score="4" ViewCount="281" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is it possible for white to turn the tables and win this game or is it &quot;almost&quot; over?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;1r4k1/2p2pp1/5r1p/p1p1p1bq/P1PpP1b1/1P1P1NP1/2N1QPKP/1R1R4 w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Nce1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What would you do if you were white?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12774" LastEditorUserId="1456" LastEditDate="2017-03-17T14:11:02.960" LastActivityDate="2017-03-20T07:29:44.433" Title="Can white still win this?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16915" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16912" CreationDate="2017-03-12T10:54:25.473" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This does not seem &lt;em&gt;symmetrical&lt;/em&gt; to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After 8...dxc6 you could have reached a symmetrical and very drawish position. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Playing 8...bxc6 seems more ambitious. Seems like black will want to play d5 sooner or later to get rid of that backward pawn on d7 and to limit the white bishop on g2. Depending on what white does, this might require to play e6 and/or to put the bishop on b7 to support d5 or to a6 to ask white how he wants to defend the c4 pawn. I don't see how the c8 bishop could find any good square along the h3-c8 diagonal anytime soon.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2017-03-12T10:54:25.473" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16916" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16914" CreationDate="2017-03-12T11:00:46.690" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;White can do nothing right now, because he made the last move (Ne1). Black can simply sacrifice the exchange on f3, keeping the pin intact, and aim the other rook at f3. Then, White's position will collapse entirely.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's no way White can escape the pin, e.g. after h4, Black can just ignore the attacked bishop:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;1r4k1/2p2pp1/5r1p/p1p1p1bq/P1PpP1b1/1P1P1NP1/4QPKP/1R1RN3 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Rxf3 2. Nxf3 Rb6 3. h4 Rf6 4. hxg5 Bxf3+&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-03-12T11:08:37.223" LastActivityDate="2017-03-12T11:08:37.223" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16917" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16912" CreationDate="2017-03-12T13:15:25.097" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;If your opponent is the type to bring his own rope to commit a suicide, I would certainly go for Rb8 d6 Bd7 c5 and later a5 a4 setup, hoping knights will go off the board (on d5) as soon as possible ruining white's gueenside later in the style of Benko gambit, with equal material and stupid (but nice looking) bishop on g2 aiming to nowhere. Reasonable opposition will do everything to stop this plan so the game will certainly not be easy, especially white should stay with knight on c3 or a4, never exchanging it without good reason. Still Rb8 c6 d6 e7 Bd7 looks like setup I would call good plan. Then you just make usefull waiting moves. I don't like d5 plans much as it weakens c5 square making white the captain of the queenside. It is however respectable approach restricting g2 bishop and putting pawn to the center, different handling of the same position. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11609" LastActivityDate="2017-03-12T13:15:25.097" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16918" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16927" CreationDate="2017-03-12T23:54:31.437" Score="1" ViewCount="616" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is often said that grandmasters calculate many moves in advance before moving a piece. &#xA;If this is so, why do miniature game (games less than less than 25 moves long) happen?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11068" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-10-13T17:25:46.360" LastActivityDate="2019-10-31T03:47:29.487" Title="Why do miniature games happen at the grandmaster level?" Tags="&lt;grandmaster&gt;&lt;master-games&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="16919" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16918" CreationDate="2017-03-13T01:02:24.987" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your statement, &lt;em&gt;Grandmasters think of next many moves ...&lt;/em&gt; is a bit misleading for your question. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Grandmaster &lt;em&gt;are able to&lt;/em&gt; calculate many moves ahead, but this is not something they do at each and every move. Basically, as for the start of the game, the first 10 or 20 moves are played from memory (known opening repertoire + home preparation) and not found over the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even when the home preparation ends, players usually do not start calculating  like crazy all possible moves to depth 20. They would rather (also see &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/16832/ways-to-evaluate-a-position/16837&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;evaluate/analyze the position based on general principles and experience&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;depending on this analysis develop a general plan (Should I improve piece activity? Should I play against an opponent's weakness?....)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;come up with concrete (candidate) moves&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;calculate the consequences of the candidate moves: Depending on the position at hand this can be many moves ahead (e.g. in tactical or forced lines) or it can just be a single move, basically just checking whether you don't blunder something (e.g. in less tactical, more positional games where it is just practically impossible to calculate all possible lines)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;So how can grandmasters lose in less than 25 moves?&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They are humans so not perfect and might make mistakes. In this case they can go wrong at basically each part of the thought process:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;They might mix up memorized opening theory, confusing lines and thereby making a bad move. Occasionally they might run into a strong opening novelty prepared by the opponent in which case even playing the commonly accepted opening line can bring them into trouble. Also there is the funny story around the Zapata-Anand miniature where Anand apparently blindly followed published opening theory (informator) of a Miles-Christiansen game which was a prearranged draw but in fact included a huge blunder.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;They might evaluate the position wrongly, e.g. underestimate a threat.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;They might come up with a plan that is impossible to push through or pick the wrong plan out of a choice of plans.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;They might miss a possible candidate move&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;They might  make a mistake in calculation.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In addition any combination of the above is possible. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.193" LastActivityDate="2017-03-13T01:02:24.987" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16920" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-03-13T10:56:07.970" Score="8" ViewCount="1892" Body="&lt;p&gt;My tactics and calculation abilities are fairly decent since I practice chess puzzles a lot, but I seem to be lacking in other areas. I always feel uncomfortable in a lot of chess games even though I've honestly played a lot of them by now. As the title suggests I want to gain the confidence and knowledge on what moves to make. I would love to become more adaptable. I love seeing masters being able to play and knowing what to do in any given position and would like to work towards that sort of ability. What should I do?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12783" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-31T00:29:09.353" LastActivityDate="2020-08-31T00:29:09.353" Title="Not knowing what moves to make and feeling lost all the time" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;" AnswerCount="8" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="16921" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16920" CreationDate="2017-03-13T11:13:46.380" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You lack basic opening knowledge, strategic thinking and likely endgame knowledge.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) &lt;strong&gt;Modern Chess Strategy&lt;/strong&gt; by Ludek Pachman is a good starter, and&#xA;2) &lt;strong&gt;100 endgames you must Know&lt;/strong&gt; by de Villa&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Openings are a matter of choice, but you need a good general book if you are just getting into chess study:&#xA;3) &lt;strong&gt;Fundamental Chess Openings&lt;/strong&gt; by van der Sterren&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Good Luck.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10233" LastActivityDate="2017-03-13T11:13:46.380" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16922" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="595" CreationDate="2017-03-13T13:03:33.877" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;There was a game where Korchnoi was completely lost and deliberately ran himself into time trouble so that the opponent would try to take advantage of it rather than playing the merits of the position. I believe it worked and he turned the game around. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ref : &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.chessbase.com/post/clean-tricks-and-creative-attacks&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://en.chessbase.com/post/clean-tricks-and-creative-attacks&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4543" LastActivityDate="2017-03-13T13:03:33.877" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16923" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16924" CreationDate="2017-03-13T17:29:41.730" Score="-1" ViewCount="408" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is fen diagram of end game,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;3Qk2r/B1p2pp1/p7/4P2p/P4P2/2P4q/2r4P/R2R2K1 w k - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I tried few games with Bird's opening today. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Chess.com says &lt;code&gt;Bird's Opening Dutch Variation&lt;/code&gt; in fact for this game. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The other games has much blunders. Here is the good one, but somewhat straight forward however representable, however so, I say,- I mean not much development principles followed. However as start of, here is the one for analysis which bounds &lt;code&gt;ECO A03&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;A03&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Live Chess&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Chess.com&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2017.03.13&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;anandsadasivam&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;skenderaliu&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;798&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;769&quot;]&#xA;[TimeControl &quot;600&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[Termination &quot;anandsadasivam won by checkmate&quot;]&#xA;[CurrentPosition &quot;3Qk2r/B1p2pp1/p7/4P2p/P4P2/2P4q/2r4P/R2R2K1 b k - 0 19&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.f4 d5 2.a3 e6 3.d4 Nf6 4.e4 Nxe4 5.Nh3 Na6 6.Bxa6 bxa6 7.O-O h5 8.Nc3 Nxc3 9.bxc3 Bd6 10.Qf3 Qh4 11.a4 e5 12.dxe5 Be7 13.Qxd5 Rb8 14.Be3 Bxh3 15.gxh3 Qxh3 16.Bxa7 Rb2 17.Rfd1 Rxc2 18.Qa8+ Bd8 19.Qxd8#  1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is early e4 is bound to lost concerning Bird's Theory. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I felt to do, to free up space for King and to start with Gambit [or] Attack from my side. And I had opened it up for Attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;rnbqkb1r/ppp2ppp/4pn2/3p4/3PPP2/P7/1PP3PP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq e3 0 1&quot;]    &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And does this has any name &lt;code&gt;1.f4 d5 2.a3 e6 3.d4 Nf6 4.e4 Nxe4&lt;/code&gt; by technique wise or is just a spoof.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9229" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-05-27T16:14:34.313" LastActivityDate="2020-05-27T16:14:34.313" Title="ECO A03 Bird's opening Dutch Variation for analysis" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;birds-opening&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16924" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16923" CreationDate="2017-03-13T19:45:49.243" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is early e4 is bound to lost concerning Bird's Theory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, 4. e4 is a bad move giving black a pawn for free. In usual gambit lines you gain something (e.g. lead in development, better pawn structure...) for the sacrificed pawn, but here, black's position is very solid with no weaknesses. I don't see how e4 gives you any attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I felt to do, to free up space for King...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You don't free up space for the king, but for the minor pieces...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The bird opening/reversed stonewall that you play here is not really suited for quick development and usually it is wise to keep the position closed at the start of the game. If you want quick development, play something normal, like 1. e4. For instance a somewhat similar position like you got in the game you can have in some French lines (and with equal number of pawns).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A typical set-up for the reversed stonewall that you played would look like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;8/8/8/8/3P1P2/2PBPN2/PP1N2PP/R1BQ1RK1 w - - 1 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The dark squared bishop on c1 is typically weak in this opening and may be devloped via d2-e1-h4 or sometimes to a3. If you are allowed, you can try to play e4 later after preparation and without losing a pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Regarding the rest of the game:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;a3: It is unclear what the idea behind this move is. I mean, you play 1. f4, then 2. a3 and on move 4 you suddenly realize that you need to develop your pieces...&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;ol start=&quot;12&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;dxe5: You got lucky that black played 11. ... e5. Here 12. fxe5 seems stronger as you attack the bishop on d6 and at the same time have the threat of Qxf7+&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2017-03-13T19:45:49.243" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16925" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="274" CreationDate="2017-03-13T22:41:14.243" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It doesn't matter if you win fast or win slowly.  A win is a win and the Colle will give you the wins you're looking for.  You can tell because people are playing all sorts of anti-Colle lines just to avoid this &quot;passive&quot; opening.  It's far from passive.  White develops his pieces, giving black no targets and then at the precise moment, opens the game with the thematic e4 thrust.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12708" LastActivityDate="2017-03-13T22:41:14.243" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16926" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16920" CreationDate="2017-03-14T00:54:13.827" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;What you want to achieve requires a lot of practice by playing, but I think there are things that could help you get there faster than just playing game after game. From what I can gather, my guess is that you are not yet an intermediate player (Elo range 1300 - 1800), but correct me if I'm wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To me, it sounds like you are rather unfamiliar with the concept of a plan in chess. This concept is dealt with in detail in the book &lt;strong&gt;Play like a Grandmaster&lt;/strong&gt; by Alexander Kotov, and is of essential importance when playing any game of chess. You must have a plan, always! Try to avoid making moves without having a clear purpose behind them as much as you can.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Coming up with plans is a skill that needs to be honed, and it is this that you should practice on whenever you play a game of chess. And it doesn't really matter much if the plan is bad; it will still have a higher success rate, in general, than a move played without a purpose.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We could also divide plans into two main categories:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Concrete plans&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Strategic plans&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Concrete plans: as the label suggests, these are plans using specific sequences of moves, such as threatening to take an enemy piece, combinations, mating attacks, etc. These are often good to start looking for, since they can become immediately apparent after looking at the different threats in a position. Furthermore, concrete plans can be used to execute long-term strategic plans. Worth noting is that tactics could be thought of as concrete plans. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Strategic plans: these are of a more long-term, and often positional, nature than the concrete plans mentioned earlier. They are typically not dependent on a specific sequence of moves to be executed, but could consist of using a combination of concrete plans to achieve some end-goal. Examples of typical strategic plans are the basic opening principles, gaining space in order to give one's own pieces freedom of movement while restricting the opponent's pices, pawn storms, trading one's &quot;bad&quot; pieces for the opponent's &quot;good&quot; pieces, setting up a blockade for defensive purposes, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To become good at strategic plans, one must be familiar with positional play, which has to do with making sure that one's own pieces have lots of influence and can cooperate well, while trying to make the opponent's pieces discoordinated and useless. Therefore it is good to know in what situations certain pieces typically are good, and why. Going over games played by strong players is good when trying to learn this, and it's very good to have good comments explaining the ideas behind the moves being played. A very famous game collection is &lt;strong&gt;Chess Master vs. Chess Amateur&lt;/strong&gt; by Euwe and Meiden, which could be a good set of games to study. One thing worth noting is that the beginner ought to begin studying the games of the masters of the past, since modern master games are often very intricate and advanced.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8300" LastActivityDate="2017-03-14T00:54:13.827" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16927" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16918" CreationDate="2017-03-14T07:28:31.203" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is true a GM can think of many moves ahead but sometimes only in particular positions. They also have a vast knowledge of the opening theory like some specific lines in Sicilian or Kings Indian Defence or Ruy Lopez. But there are also limitations. There are some lines which are very sharp and 1 move not played according to the opening book knowledge can pull you down very fast. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lets say a master of 2200 ELO level is playing the Poison Pawn variation in Sicilian as Black and in the other game he is playing QGD Barmen Variation as Black against a 2400 IM in both games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now the opening move order will not matter that much in QGD where some move orders can be changed without affecting the position that much compared to the Poison Pawn in Sicilian. If he makes one callous move in Sicilian Poison Pawn then very soon his game will spiral downwards against an IM who will grab the advantage and squeeze like a python. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mostly it is the lack of opening knowledge or invention of a novelty which may even backfire due to a lack of understanding of some unfamiliar positions or choosing a wrong plan in middle game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So there are some reasons why tactical miniatures happen even at Master/GM level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastEditorUserId="18168" LastEditDate="2019-10-13T22:58:41.953" LastActivityDate="2019-10-13T22:58:41.953" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="16928" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16920" CreationDate="2017-03-14T07:53:04.633" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess is a very stagnant game . Even to improve the Game is like you need to innovate ways .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Change your Playing Style .&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are playing d4 play e4 . If you play French against e4 try playing Sicilian or any other Sicilian Variation . &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Stop doing excessive puzzles and concentrate on Piece Placement .&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Follow Karpov / Botvinnik games if you like Tactical games of Kasparov/Fischer etc .&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are lot more other ways but the thing to do is you change your thinking system and try adapting some other styles .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastActivityDate="2017-03-14T07:53:04.633" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16929" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="595" CreationDate="2017-03-14T08:01:48.947" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;In team matches it can sometimes make some kind of sense. One case I saw was white was miles up on time and in a somewhat better position, but certainly not clearly winning. At that point Black offered a draw, to which white responded by waiting for the other boards to become more clear before he decided whether the team needed a win from him, or if a draw was sufficient. In the end neither was (I was on the side of Black)!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7726" LastActivityDate="2017-03-14T08:01:48.947" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16930" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16932" CreationDate="2017-03-14T08:48:58.137" Score="18" ViewCount="5746" Body="&lt;p&gt;I started playing correspondence on chess.com purely for the fun of it and to gain some deep learning (i.e. there's no prize involved).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We are about 10 moves in and coming close to me being out of book. To help my learning, I'd like to set the position up against a computer and spar against that. I am not interested in the computer's evaluation, recommended moves for me etc. I'm really just interested in practicing from a specific position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is, &lt;strong&gt;is it ethical to spar against a computer between moves in a correspondence game?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2018-02-05T11:54:05.820" Title="Is it ethical to spar against an engine when playing correspondence?" Tags="&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;etiquette&gt;&lt;correspondence-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16931" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16900" CreationDate="2017-03-14T09:10:20.860" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;TL;DR:&lt;/strong&gt; gaining national master level in China is based on gaining competition norms, likely to be in the amateur league.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you know, national federations can set their own standards for national master titles:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;National chess federations are free to set whatever standards they want for such titles [e.g. National Master], which are &lt;strong&gt;not recognized by FIDE&lt;/strong&gt;. Standards for &quot;Master&quot; titles in different countries vary, but are usually based on criteria such as achieving a certain rating (typically about 2200 Elo), &lt;strong&gt;achieving the required number of tournament performances (&quot;norms&quot;) at a certain level&lt;/strong&gt;, or featuring prominently in the country's national championship. In some cases, it may extend to honorary titles awarded to (for example) prominent chess administrators, business patrons or politicians.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_title&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;, emphasis is mine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In China, you can gain the national master title by playing in tournaments and getting NM norms;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;There are really two tracks for chess players. One is run by the &lt;strong&gt;National Chess Association &amp;amp; the National Chess Academy&lt;/strong&gt;, as well as the associated provincial- and municipal- level chess academies. They award certificates for amateur players, from level 6 (the lowest) to level 1 (the highest), which are followed by the titles of Candidate Association Master Association Master &amp;amp; &lt;strong&gt;National Master&lt;/strong&gt;. Meanwhile, the National Sports Bureau uses a different classification system entirely (recognising instead the ‘Athlete system’), bestowing upon the elite players the titles of Third class (the lowest), Second class and First Class (the highest) Athlete, National Elite and International Elite.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Chess players gaining the required norms (gaining a certain placing in some designated tournament perhaps, or satisfying the required win rate) can apply for First Class certification&lt;/strong&gt;. For example, I gained the titles of Association Master and First Class Athlete through competing in various events.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/blog/China_Uni_League/chess-in-china-unveiling-the-chinese-system&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess in China: Unveiling the Chinese System on Chess.com&lt;/a&gt;, emphasis is mine&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2017-03-14T09:10:20.860" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16932" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16930" CreationDate="2017-03-14T09:13:03.380" Score="33" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess.com's site rules have the following to say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;You can NEVER use chess programs (Chessmaster, Fritz, etc) to analyze current ongoing games unless specifically permitted (such as a computer tournament, etc). The only type of computer assistance allowed is games databases for opening lines in Turn-based Chess and Vote Chess. [...]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So it boils down to the question if playing out positions from a corr game against an engine counts as analyzing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The answer can only be &quot;yes&quot; because for some possible continuations of your game, the engine provides its best moves. This is clearly an act of analysis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There will be plenty of time to play against your engine after the game jas finished.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12401" LastActivityDate="2017-03-14T09:13:03.380" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16934" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16892" CreationDate="2017-03-14T11:15:53.183" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;A rating of 1000 means is a beginner . Great that you enjoy the Royal Game but you must focus more on studying the game and play less . When I say study it means focus more on Master Level games with Annotations and you would learn why was this game played . Look at YouTube videos especially Matojelic , King Crusher and you would definitely learn it more . &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastActivityDate="2017-03-14T11:15:53.183" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16935" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16930" CreationDate="2017-03-14T14:00:25.110" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;In chess we have to find the best move to play. In order to achieve this, we calculate several moves ahead. By using a computer 'only for sparring' you're effectively limiting the depth of your search tree by half - namely the opponent's moves. This is not like starting the 100m sprint at the 50m line and asking if it's ethical, because the number of possible lines grows exponentially with the depth of the tree. It turns out using a computer for only your opponent's moves is more like starting the race 87m ahead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On Chess.com specifically computers are never allowed (as &lt;a href=&quot;https://support.chess.com/customer/portal/articles/1444774-what-are-the-rules-for-playing-&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;the rules&lt;/a&gt; state), although correspondence chess usually allows computer analysis for all moves. See the lack of a rule against it in the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.iccf.com/message?message=447&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;International Correspondence Chess Federation (ICCF) Rules&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2768" LastEditorUserId="2768" LastEditDate="2018-02-05T11:54:05.820" LastActivityDate="2018-02-05T11:54:05.820" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16936" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16920" CreationDate="2017-03-14T16:59:07.470" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The usefulness of any advice given here will depend greatly on your rating, but for what it's worth, I'm around 1650-ish and one aspect of the game that has become increasingly important for me is pawn structures:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The pawn structure determines the ideal squares for you pieces. Rooks like open ranks. Bishops are inhibited by your pawns on the same colour. Knights love squares where they can't be attacked by pawns on the side ranks, especially advanced squares.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The pawn structure often determines the nature of the play, i.e. whether the game is closed and manoeuvring or open and tactically complex.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Backward and isolated pawns are weak and good targets for attack. Similarly, &lt;em&gt;your&lt;/em&gt; backward pawns are weak and perhaps you can do something about it?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Advanced pawn chains can be powerful in controlling squares in the opponent's territory, but they also provide opportunities for piece placement (especially knights), and a well timed pawn push can annihilate a pawn chain easily.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;A pawn push at the right moment can greatly swing the initiative in your favour. Look at your pawns and try to find the best candidate for advancement, and consider the best placement of your pieces for this advancement.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Many opening variations give rise to the same pawn structures, hence a good understanding of the positions that you often arrive at during opening play will greatly improve your level of comfort and ability to come up with sensible moves during the middle game. For example, the so-called Carlsbad structure often arise from a variety of openings, and is one common idea here is the powerful minority attack. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Whether you should liquidate into an endgame is greatly determined by your pawn structure. If you have many weak or isolated pawns, you probably should prevent piece exchanges until you can either fix your weaknesses or create similar weaknesses to your opponent. Higher rated players can often evaluate whether an endgame is winning or not by simply looking at the pawns on the board.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are a number of books about pawn structures available. The one I've been studying is &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.newinchess.com/The_Power_of_Pawns-p-9034.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;The Power of Pawns&lt;/a&gt; by Jurg Hickl. Again, this book may not be appropriate if you are higher rated, but to me it provides reasonable guidance on how to approach the post-opening phase of the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1816" LastEditorUserId="1816" LastEditDate="2017-03-14T17:13:22.090" LastActivityDate="2017-03-14T17:13:22.090" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16937" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16920" CreationDate="2017-03-14T18:31:16.450" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;What you describe is a lack of strategic intuition. Fortunately that can be learnt. All of the following quotes come from &lt;em&gt;Studying chess made easy&lt;/em&gt; by GM Soltis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;You need to learn how to spot strategic patterns&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;I only see things quickly if I have seen the position before,&quot; GM Yasser Seirawan once said in explaining how he found strong moves so easily.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to this, developing strategic intuition rests on pattern recognition. When learning tactics, you had:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;Theory&lt;/em&gt;: e.g. the abstract idea of a pin&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;Practice:&lt;/em&gt; e.g. solving tactics puzzles&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This brings me onto...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Learning patterns is about theory and practice&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The same thing that was said about tactics can be said for strategic patterns. For example, one pattern might be the exchange sacrifice. It has theory, you can find puzzles, and you can apply it to your games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Remember that:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Theory + Practice = Success&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Learning patterns is often subliminal&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This begs the question, how do I learn these patterns? Well, this is a life-long process.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Some researchers concluded that the typical grandmaster knows 10,000 patterns (!). Don't worry.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;You can become a pretty good player, perhaps even a master, with a much smaller number of positions in your mental 'pattern bank'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;GM Soltis suggests analysing master games, and gave this specific advice:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Take note of each middlegame move that is awarded an exclamation point. Try to figure out why it's a good move. If you think you understand why, try explaining it in your own words, as if you were teaching a fellow student.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2017-03-14T18:31:16.450" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16938" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16930" CreationDate="2017-03-15T01:44:27.167" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;USCF correspondence chess rules forbid the use of computers except to record moves. In other words, you can not use the engine for any form of analysis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12796" LastActivityDate="2017-03-15T01:44:27.167" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16940" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-03-15T06:13:41.240" Score="1" ViewCount="120" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm using Arena 3.5.1 with Stockfish_8_x64 engine. In engine output window it proposes best moves with different continuation variants and values. Can I add few arbitrary moves there myself and ask engine to calculate it values?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12756" LastActivityDate="2017-11-21T13:44:00.220" Title="How to add arbitrary move to analyze by chess engine in Arena" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;arena&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16942" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16930" CreationDate="2017-03-15T09:04:27.237" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The answer is simple, and nobody has come out and said it:  NO.  Not ethical.  You need to either disclose to your opponent, find a way to save the game, and play with the computer later.  The reason it is not &quot;ethical&quot; is because the other player assumes they are playing a human only, that is the underlying assumption.  I don't think it is &quot;terribly&quot; unethical, but it kind of fits the very definition of unethical, it is violating the understanding between you and the other player.  Full disclosure will handle it, and the other player can decide to play or not.  My chess computer is so damn good, I can beat anyone, if I secretly use it!  Wish life itself were that easy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12802" LastActivityDate="2017-03-15T09:04:27.237" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16943" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1335" CreationDate="2017-03-15T09:37:09.390" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the best of the Learning material is Chessgames.com . There you have a Tool called Guess the move . This allows you to make a move and then gives a Score to your move . Often it is best to be at par with GM thinking lines .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;link below &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/guessthemove&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/guessthemove&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastActivityDate="2017-03-15T09:37:09.390" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16944" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-03-15T16:58:23.190" Score="4" ViewCount="409" Body="&lt;p&gt;I use Babas Chess as a client for FICS.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would like to have a standard tell be issued to my opponent when a game starts like &quot;Hello from Chicago!&quot; or whatever, but I cannot find out how to do this and FICs itself seems to have no mechanism for this either.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Normally, I would just use the Babas Help to find the answer, but Babas is REALLY complicated and has a lot of options including scripting, so I am hoping somebody who has done it before can tell me how.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8673" LastActivityDate="2019-12-23T18:20:20.323" Title="Way to make a standard tell at beginning of game in Babas Chess?" Tags="&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;babaschess&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16945" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16947" CreationDate="2017-03-15T17:12:28.367" Score="5" ViewCount="598" Body="&lt;p&gt;Normally, using engines for any given opening I can find ways for White to maintain a slight edge into the middle game. By a &quot;slight edge&quot; I mean an evaluation of around +0.20&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The exception to this is the Classical French (and Steinitz), where it seems like every line Black has at least equality and most lines lead to an edge for Black!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, in his book on the French, Psakhis says that after 1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. Bg5 Be7 5. e5 Nfd7 6. h4 0-0?! is dubious for Black after 7. Bd3. However, the engine shows that not only is not dubious for Black, but Black has the advantage after 7...c5!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is just one example. No matter what line I try, Black always seems to get at least equality.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even more scary is that not only is Black always getting equality, but White seems to have a lot more ways to go wrong than Black in many of the lines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there any line in the Classical where White can retain a pull?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am using Komodo 10 as my engine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8673" LastActivityDate="2017-03-16T14:27:01.483" Title="White fights for equality in French classical?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;engines&gt;&lt;french-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16946" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16945" CreationDate="2017-03-15T20:21:41.360" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;An evaluation of +0.2 is just noise and nothing like a &quot;slight edge&quot;. Another engine might very well give you -0.2 or so. I would not be overly concerned by such evaluation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When analyzing opening lines, much more important is the character of the position: whether you like it, whether it  gives you winning or drawing chances (depending on requirement), whether it is easy to play for you (and difficult for your opponent), etc. All of these are difficult to assess automatically with a computer and require you to look at it. That's why GM spend so much time on openings and don't just have their computers running looking for the line with the highest evaluation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2017-03-15T20:21:41.360" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16947" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16945" CreationDate="2017-03-15T20:48:30.827" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;From my experience it can be dangerous to analyze openings with a single engine only. Adding an extra engine can be very helpful, as it has a different evaluation function. &lt;a href=&quot;https://stockfishchess.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Stockfish&lt;/a&gt; is open source and probably at least as strong as Komodo (according to the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.computerchess.org.uk/ccrl/404/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;CCRL&lt;/a&gt;).&#xA;Futhermore, when studying an opening, it is also important to check game databases and opening books.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as I know, the current theoretical status of the French defence is that it is a sound opening, with good chances to obtain equality with black, but white can try to fight for a small advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the line you give, 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Bg5 Be7 5.e5 Nfd7 6.h4 0-0 7.Bd3 c5, it seems that white can force a draw: 8.Qh5 g6 9.Qh6 cxd4 10.Nf3 Nxe5 11.Nxe5 dxc3 12.Nxg6 fxg6 13.Bxg6 hxg6 14.Qxg6+. This is exactly what happened in several games, e.g. &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess-db.com/public/game.jsp?id=2285525.2288230.78551296.28085&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Anton Guijarro-Forcen Esteban&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Instead, white can try to obtain an advantage with 7.Qg4, which was played for the first time in &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessagain.com/index.php?cnt=5&amp;amp;sub=3&amp;amp;game=21426&amp;amp;type=5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Hebden-Gurevich&lt;/a&gt;. The immediate threat is Bh6 and after 7....f5, white is probably better after 8.Bxe7 Qxe7 9.Qg5.&#xA;Therefore, the main line is 7....f6 (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1624937&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Hector-So&lt;/a&gt;), where white can choose between the greedy 8.Qxe6+ (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1638893&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Hector-Matthiesen&lt;/a&gt;) or the aggressive 8.Bd3. After the latter, white seems to have a very dangerous attack, e.g. 8....Rf7 9.Nf3 c5 10.Nxd5 exd5 11.e6 and 9....Nc6 10.Bg6! hxg6 11.h5 gxh5 12.Qxh5 Rf8 13.Nxd5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;      [StartPly &quot;12&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;      [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;      1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Bg5 Be7 5.e5 Nfd7 6.h4 O-O 7.Qg4 (7.Bd3 c5 8.Qh5 g6 9.Qh6 cxd4 10.Nf3 Nxe5 11.Nxe5 dxc3 12.Nxg6 fxg6 13.Bxg6 hxg6 14.Qxg6+) f6 (7...c5 8.Bh6) (7...Kh8 8.Nf3 c5 9.Bd3) (7...Re8 8.Bh6 Bf8 9.h5) (7...f5 8.Bxe7 Qxe7 9.Qg5 Qb4 10.O-O-O) 8.Bd3 (8.Qxe6+ Kh8 9.exf6 Nxf6 10.Qe2) Rf7 (8...fxg5 9.Bxh7+) 9.Nf3 Nc6 (9...c5 10.Nxd5 exd5 11.e6) 10.Bg6! hxg6 11.h5 gxh5 12.Qxh5 Rf8 13.Nxd5&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4588" LastEditorUserId="4588" LastEditDate="2017-03-16T14:27:01.483" LastActivityDate="2017-03-16T14:27:01.483" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16950" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16945" CreationDate="2017-03-16T08:10:57.320" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Very good question! I was looking at Negi's book on e4 and in French in Nc3 Bb4 line the engine evaluated soooo many lines better for black that it could drive me crazy. In Qg4 O-O system (instead of sacrificing g7+h7) it shows advantages only for black even on very high depths. Similarly the immediate Nf6 e5 and your Nf6 Bg5. Was quite frustrated by this, but than I checked correspondence games in some of the lines and white was often one with clearly the better results. But it stood often on insane sacrifices, precise maneuvers no human could ever find. So you must make the best assessment possible how each line fits for human and your play, whether it is more difficult to play for white or for black. Often one side gets the objective advantage while the other side gets desired type of position, which is both valuable. No popular line can be both bad and unpractical. In my particular example the final truth was on white's side, but missing one move can hurt the evaluation to what engine thinks about the position not seeing the precise continuation. I didn't very enjoy what I saw as defence had too obvious moves while attack was too hard to play good. Engine doesn't understand human needs for position so it's use in specific lines is limited. Those comes to my mind.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;French&#xA;g5 b4 racing in Najdorf&#xA;Poisoned pawn in Sicilian&#xA;KID&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;for the main theoretical ones&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many gambit and tricky lines are of course also misunderstood by chess engines as they expect perfect play from both sides which never happen. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11609" LastActivityDate="2017-03-16T08:10:57.320" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16951" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16945" CreationDate="2017-03-16T08:31:43.170" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You need to first understand what does this +0.20 exactly means . Well true that in majority of cases White stands a slight more advantageous to Black if both play their openings correctly . The reason for this is White always gets to move first . White always has the initiative . In a standard middle game +0.2 for any engine like Fritz/ StockFish /Komodo or any other Engine it means that out of 64 Squares before the game begins White &amp;amp; Black has equal number of Squares on their command . After a few moves White may occupy 2-3 Squares more than Black . It may be that as in case of Ruy Lopez White has 2 pawns in center like e4,d4 and Black has e5 d6 . May be that White castles first or an extra piece developed .Then the evaluation changes to +0.2 or +0.3 . These are some  examples to consider . I would advise until &amp;amp; unless the Score shows a tentative &gt; +0.8 you should not get bothered by such low figures . &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With time, knowledge &amp;amp; experience I have seen that even when the Score shifts to +- 1.0 also people with less than 2200 Elo can not find looking at the board as to who has a better position in many respective positions . &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;People with 2400 IM norms &amp;amp; above are the ones who can pull out the win from these positions. So in opening and especially French you can ignore that slight advantage . Yes in Sicilian/Evans/Semi Slav Meran it may affect you because positions are very razor sharp and openings may turn the middle game into a disaster if not carefully played . &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastActivityDate="2017-03-16T08:31:43.170" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16953" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16898" CreationDate="2017-03-16T14:03:29.553" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The main purpose of 3. Nd2, as opposed to 3. Nc3, is to avoid the pin after 3...Bb4. For inspiration you might check out Kasparov's games. The Tarrasch was his main weapon against the French for years and he scored many crushing victories. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1220572&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;For example...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12699" LastActivityDate="2017-03-16T14:03:29.553" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16955" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7906" CreationDate="2017-03-17T01:02:00.590" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have greatly improved my checkmate skills  by solving puzzles from John Nunn's 1001 deadly Checkmates book.I highly recommend this book.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12822" LastActivityDate="2017-03-17T01:02:00.590" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16956" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7906" CreationDate="2017-03-17T02:11:40.827" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Solving tactics puzzles that end in mate should help a lot. Even if the puzzles are short (2-3 moves), you will learn all kinds of mate positions which is useful because you will know what to aim for in longer mate sequences.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In practical play, looking for long mate sequences is not necessarily the best choice, particularly if you don't trust your calculation skills. Often this happens when the mate requires you to make quiet (not forcing) moves or if you are under time pressure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In some cases you might rather want to play a simple forced line that simplifies the position and leads to a clearly won endgame for instance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2017-03-17T02:11:40.827" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16957" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7906" CreationDate="2017-03-17T02:50:53.327" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have found that the &quot;Practice&quot; section of Lichess.org has great examples, specifically because they guide you through &lt;em&gt;standard&lt;/em&gt; Checkmating patterns (e.g. Boden's Mate, Arabian Mate, etc.) They also tell you how many moves you &lt;em&gt;should&lt;/em&gt; make  for each of the problems (e.g. Checkmate in 3 if played perfectly), which I have found to be quite helpful. The site also has other helpful practice problems (tactics and pawn endgames), I highly suggest you check it out!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12057" LastActivityDate="2017-03-17T02:50:53.327" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16958" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16960" CreationDate="2017-03-17T05:01:32.040" Score="7" ViewCount="1307" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is the algebraic notation &lt;code&gt;Rdxd2&lt;/code&gt; valid?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If there is a problem with this notation, then how can it be corrected?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12824" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2017-05-03T11:17:23.000" LastActivityDate="2021-03-17T19:38:12.427" Title="Is &quot;Rdxd2&quot; algebraic chess notation valid?" Tags="&lt;notation&gt;&lt;rooks&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16960" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16958" CreationDate="2017-03-17T07:24:53.350" Score="16" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you have two rooks, standing on different files (one of them on the &lt;code&gt;d&lt;/code&gt;-file), that could capture on &lt;code&gt;d2&lt;/code&gt;, then &lt;code&gt;Rdxd2&lt;/code&gt; is the correct notation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you have two rooks on the &lt;code&gt;d&lt;/code&gt;-file, and both can take on &lt;code&gt;d2&lt;/code&gt;, then use the rank number to disambiguate, for instance &lt;code&gt;R1xd2&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is according to the Algebraic System required by FIDE's &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fide.com/component/handbook/?view=article&amp;amp;id=171&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Laws of Chess&lt;/a&gt; (see appendix C, paragraph C.10).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the very, very rare case that you have more than two pieces of the same kind that can capture on the same square, it might be necessary to use both rank and file to disambiguate. This could theoretically be needed for queens, bishops and knights, but never for rooks. As Martin Bonner explains in the comments, for this to be necessary you would need to have a piece which is on the same rank as another of the same kind and the same file as a third of the same kind, and all three attack the same square. That is not possible with rooks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1485" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2021-03-17T19:38:12.427" LastActivityDate="2021-03-17T19:38:12.427" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="16962" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16958" CreationDate="2017-03-17T08:41:39.140" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is no problem with this notation . Chess Board is divided into 1-8 ranks and a-h files . &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When a Rook standing on different ranks and have one common attacking Square or same Piece then we use R(1-8) * Square number . eg of such moves are R7e3,R2e3 .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When Rook standing on different Files and have one common attacking Square or same Piece then we use R(a-h) * Square number. eg of such common moves when we are almost completing the Development Rad1,Rfe1.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You may even remove the asterisk in both cases .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastActivityDate="2017-03-17T08:41:39.140" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16963" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16120" CreationDate="2017-03-17T08:46:50.217" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Go to &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chessgames.com/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the Homepage only you can see advanced search . You can filter out depending on Years/Players/Openings/Number of moves and many others. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Give Number of moves is &amp;lt;= no more than 12 and also add year filter along with specific openings .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You will get the Games of your choice .You can download the games in PGN format .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastActivityDate="2017-03-17T08:46:50.217" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16964" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16965" CreationDate="2017-03-17T09:02:04.073" Score="6" ViewCount="606" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/3P1NP1/PPPNPPBP/R1B1QRK1 w kq - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I see that many players play Qe1, but why not just Re1? What is the difference? Doesn't the queen on e1 also make the potential weakness of a black battery from c8-h3 by exchanging the light squared bishops?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12767" LastEditorUserId="1456" LastEditDate="2017-03-17T13:56:36.410" LastActivityDate="2017-06-13T22:29:10.040" Title="Why Qe1 in the KIA? Why not Re1?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;kings-indian-attack&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16965" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16964" CreationDate="2017-03-17T09:19:27.390" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;This might depend a bit on the black set-up. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One reason to play Qe1 instead of Rf1 could be that the rook will often be needed on the f file later to support the attack with f4...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another example where Qe1 can make sense in the KIA is to support a knight on h4 when playing f4 as in positions like the following (which is fairly random) where white can recapture on f4 with the g pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;r1bq1rk1/pp1n1ppp/2nb4/2p1p3/3pPP1N/3P2P1/PPPN2BP/R1B1QRK1 w - - 1 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One problem with Qe1 besides the one you mention is that the pawn on c2 is unprotected and could be attacked by black with Nb4. Playing a3 to prevent Nb4 is also not something white usually wants as it creates targets for black's queenside pawn storm attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2017-03-17T09:19:27.390" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16966" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16968" CreationDate="2017-03-17T09:29:14.757" Score="1" ViewCount="271" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the following example (and similar situations you can make up), both queens can capture the knight. If for instance the queen on f5 takes the knight, this could be written as: Qfxd3 or as Q5xd3. Is there a preference/guideline/law/... for using one or the other notation in this case? I am specifically interested in notations made by humans in a normal game situation, not in PGN notation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;8/8/8/5Q2/8/3n4/4Q3/8 w - - 1 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastEditorUserId="11629" LastEditDate="2017-03-17T10:03:05.637" LastActivityDate="2017-03-17T10:03:05.637" Title="Algebraic notation avoiding ambiguity rank or file preference" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;notation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2017-03-17T19:25:59.713" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16967" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16964" CreationDate="2017-03-17T09:35:41.313" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;One reason the set-up with &lt;code&gt;Re1&lt;/code&gt; is less popular could be that it loses a pawn in a certain quite common variation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Title &quot;KIA with Re1&quot;]&#xA;[Startply &quot;15&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Nf3 d5 2. g3 c6 3. Bg2 Nf6 4. O-O Bf5 5. d3 h6 6. Nbd2 e6 7. Re1 Be7 8. e4?&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do you see black's tactic?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt; After 8. ... dxe4 9. dxe4 Nxe4 10. Nxe4, white has opened the file allowing for Qxd1!, forcing the Rook to abandon the Knight and black ends the exchange sequence up a pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1485" LastEditorUserId="8300" LastEditDate="2017-06-13T22:29:10.040" LastActivityDate="2017-06-13T22:29:10.040" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16968" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16966" CreationDate="2017-03-17T09:40:13.140" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;This would be &lt;strong&gt;Qfxd3&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algebraic_notation_(chess)#Disambiguating_moves&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;wikipedia&lt;/a&gt; (emphasis is mine):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;When two (or more) identical pieces can move to the same square, the moving piece is uniquely identified by specifying the piece's letter, followed by (&lt;strong&gt;in descending order of preference&lt;/strong&gt;):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;the &lt;strong&gt;file&lt;/strong&gt; of departure (if they differ); or&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;the rank of departure (if the files are the same but the ranks    differ); or&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;both the file and rank (if neither alone is sufficient to identify    the piece—which occurs only in rare cases where one or more pawns&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  have promoted, resulting in a player having three or more identical&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  pieces able to reach the same square).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2017-03-17T09:40:13.140" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16969" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16966" CreationDate="2017-03-17T09:45:43.840" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess Board is divided into 1-8 ranks and a-h files .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Generally this problem arises with Rooks &amp;amp; Knights .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When two Queens standing on two different Squares and have one common attacking Square or same Piece then we use for convenience &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Q Square number * Square number . &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here it would be either Qf5*d3 or Qe2*d3 .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any of the 64 Squares can be represented with the File + Rank convention . Always use the initial &amp;amp; final square number for better representation &amp;amp; avoiding ambiguity .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastActivityDate="2017-03-17T09:45:43.840" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16970" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16964" CreationDate="2017-03-17T10:07:35.863" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Objective of KIA from White is to attack on the K-side of Black where Queen is an essential piece and without it the attack cannot be carried out . When the Queen moves from d1 to e1 then after White plays e4 and then pawns are exchanged and d file gets open Black can do an exchange of Queens and neutralize completely with White . So it is important to secure the Queen and sometimes along with Rook on f1 and Queen on e1 White is able to prepare a pawn storm .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastActivityDate="2017-03-17T10:07:35.863" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16971" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16973" CreationDate="2017-03-17T11:44:14.600" Score="2" ViewCount="222" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;r3kb2/pp3pp1/8/2P5/1qN3p1/3Qp2r/P4P1P/5RK1 w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Qe4+ Be7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this position why is Be7 the best move for black after Qe4+, given that black will instantly lose its queen afterwards (Knight d6)? For example Kd8 would not immediately lose the queen (still losing the game though).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12830" LastEditorUserId="1456" LastEditDate="2017-03-17T13:56:51.273" LastActivityDate="2020-03-04T18:20:01.523" Title="Why does the engine suggest Be7 after Qe4+?" Tags="&lt;stockfish&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16972" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16971" CreationDate="2017-03-17T12:11:25.817" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;While Be7 loses the queen in three moves, Kd8 will lose the queen in the end as well. This kind of position contains a lot of forcing moves (checks, mating threats) and can be analyzed quite deeply by engines like Stockfish. They will evaluate the position at the &lt;em&gt;end&lt;/em&gt; of their search tree, which is often &gt;15 moves deep. For the engine, it doesn't matter if you lose your queen in one move or in 15 (though losing the queen sooner increases the chance of losing more material) - it's the end result that counts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2017-03-17T12:11:25.817" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16973" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16971" CreationDate="2017-03-17T12:35:17.733" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a very losing position for Black. I am not evaluating it from a Computer perspective .In this position Be7 is a better move though it loses the Queen because Kd8 allows Rd1+ check . Now it was only Queen &amp;amp; Knight who were attacking the King and after Kd8 Rook joins the attack . &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Black King has only two valid squares . Kc7 &amp;amp; Kc8 . The Black King is left wide open and the Queen, two Rooks and Bishop cannot come in between to intercept the attack . True after Rd1+ the Queen can intercept in between but anyways it is getting killed either by Knight or the Rook .On Kc8 White can take the g4 pawn and the rook on h3 will fall . &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Be7 only provides an escape square for the King on f8 and King is not subjected to plenty of checks .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the Queen and Rook falls leaving White with Knight/Rook and the Queen and with an unstoppable attack .A GM at this position would throw in the Towel if he/she were at Black's position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-04T18:20:01.523" LastActivityDate="2020-03-04T18:20:01.523" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="16974" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2747" CreationDate="2017-03-17T15:06:50.053" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have played against computer engines with material odds for myself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At queen odds I win easily.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Minor piece odds gave me a lot of good practice. I was losing them to start off but managed to improve my play and start winning them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I play a relatively closed game in such circumstances. and ensure my kingside cannot come under a major attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Exchange odds would be an interesting one to try out. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12398" LastActivityDate="2017-03-17T15:06:50.053" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16975" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14778" CreationDate="2017-03-17T17:34:15.060" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Smallfish as mentioned is good, the website lichess.org has made an app, you can downnload it and make an account. It needs internet connection for the database but not for the complete game analysis&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12767" LastActivityDate="2017-03-17T17:34:15.060" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16976" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-03-17T19:09:05.610" Score="-1" ViewCount="159" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is the game for analysis which had been played between two matured person.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 e6 2.d3 g6 3.f3 Bg7 4.g4 a5 5.h3 a4 6.b3 a3 7.Nxa3 Bxa1 8.Bd2 Rxa3 9.Qxa1 f6 10.Qc1 Rxa2 11.Qb1 Ra3 12. Qc1 Ra6 13.Qb1 Ra3 14.Qb2 Ra6 15.f4 b5 16.f5 c5 17.Be3 Qb6 18.Bc1 b4 19.c3 d6 20.d4 Ra3 21.Qb1 Ra5 --&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This game had withdrawn due to this wrong move,- &lt;code&gt;22.h5&lt;/code&gt; observed at the time scribbling. The person who made this move not only a very good artist but very good person in many kind. That person knows many thing which me,- the other person not aware of.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Saying or commenting about the game as part of analysis, make a note abt. what is fascinating overall.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why did I moved &lt;code&gt;3.* Bg7 4. g4 a5 ...&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9229" LastActivityDate="2017-03-17T21:01:36.097" Title="French Defense ECO C00 game for analysis" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;french-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16978" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16979" CreationDate="2017-03-17T19:47:17.353" Score="-2" ViewCount="248" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've got myself into this position a number of times:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/a5hwZ.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/a5hwZ.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I cannot bring the knight up to C3 as he will just drop the pawn down to D4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Brining my pawn up to d3 could lead to an exchange of pawns followed by an exchange of queens.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the best way to defend this poisition?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12834" LastActivityDate="2017-03-17T20:42:42.677" Title="Defence against black pawn threatening E4" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16979" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16978" CreationDate="2017-03-17T20:42:42.677" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;How did you manage to get your pawn to h3?!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm assuming the position you're interested in occurs after 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 d5. Now white's best move is considered to be 3. exd5. After 3...e4 4. Qe2 Nf6 5. Nc3, white regains the pawn on e4 leaving black with little to no compensation. Feel free to explore the lines yourself, but that's the gist of it as far as I can tell.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In a more general sense, have a little faith in your position :) You seem to be already worried about defense...but all white has done so far is make the absolute most classical, principled opening moves. Why on earth does black get to make this super-aggressive thrust in the center? White should be looking to go on the offensive and punish this overreach.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For a little inspiration, check out a &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1139713&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Tal classic&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12699" LastActivityDate="2017-03-17T20:42:42.677" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16981" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16976" CreationDate="2017-03-17T21:01:36.097" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Putting all your pawns on one type of square color is usually not a good idea. For instance black could have played 4 .. Qh4+. Also with all the pawns on light squares the bishop on g7 gets incredibly strong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Generally too many pawn moves in the opening from both sides. Should have developed pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Few bad moves:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;ol start=&quot;6&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;b3?? blunders the rook which black should take already here&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;ol start=&quot;8&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;.. Rxa3? I would not exchange this very powerful bishop for the knight on a3. Better to retreat the bishop to g7.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Not sure why black insists putting the rook on a3 in moves 11 and 13. Not much to attack there and the rook could always easily be attacked.Nothing wrong with retreating to a8 for the time being. The main duty of the rook is to occupy the open a file which it does equally well from a8.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2017-03-17T21:01:36.097" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16983" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16985" CreationDate="2017-03-18T00:17:33.130" Score="5" ViewCount="89" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/blog/Geiss/chess-query-language-cql&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;This article&lt;/a&gt; and some questions on this forum - mention &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.rbnn.com/cql/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.rbnn.com/cql/&lt;/a&gt; as a source for getting cql.exe, but that domain seems unclaimed at the moment. Is this executable available anywhere else online?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="618" LastActivityDate="2017-03-18T01:08:03.073" Title="Is CQL executable available anwhere online?" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;cql&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16984" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17008" CreationDate="2017-03-18T00:46:00.667" Score="1" ViewCount="248" Body="&lt;p&gt;is there a program available that will take a position as input and output the features in that position such as: bad knight on H3, good bishop on g2, knight outpost on E5, passed pawn on c6, etc.  It would be ideal if it took FEN string and operated from the command line? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12273" LastActivityDate="2017-03-20T01:35:06.283" Title="program to output features in a position" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;&lt;computer-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16985" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16983" CreationDate="2017-03-18T01:08:03.073" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can get it from &lt;a href=&quot;https://web.archive.org/web/20160226050834/http://www.rbnn.com/cql/cql.zip&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;the archive&lt;/a&gt;. Also the former rbnn website is preserved &lt;a href=&quot;https://web.archive.org/web/20140130143815/http://www.rbnn.com/cql/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;there&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2017-03-18T01:08:03.073" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16986" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16993" CreationDate="2017-03-18T01:39:48.367" Score="0" ViewCount="701" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/AQIB7.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/AQIB7.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My friend plays this all the time as white. He cites the following two reasons:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Gives white a chance to play like black (respond to an opening rather than create one)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Defends against bg4&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can this turn into a modified Grob? Are there any other good reasons to play this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12837" LastEditorUserId="12837" LastEditDate="2017-03-18T20:18:23.290" LastActivityDate="2017-03-18T20:18:23.290" Title="What are the benefits of playing 1. h3?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;pawns&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="5" ClosedDate="2017-03-19T02:24:25.610" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16987" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-03-18T07:24:47.940" Score="-2" ViewCount="185" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been working on planning and my positional chess by reading How to reassess your chess by Jeremy Silman. In his book he talked about the opening that the true purpose of every opening was to build imbalances and make moves/plans based on the imbalances. I found this advice very useful as I've always played the opening moves with reasons such as it develops my pieces or gives center control which I always found the reasons to be too vague/aimless to justify the moves and often resulted in me not knowing how to continue. I feel I am guilty far too often of &quot;bad development&quot; as he mentioned in the book, which is worse than no development according to him. How would I implement this new view on playing the opening? I can't seem to understand what imbalances certain openings try to create, for example 1. e4 e5. What imbalance is black trying to create here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12839" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-03-18T07:44:08.047" LastActivityDate="2017-03-20T07:08:11.357" Title="How to play the opening?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16988" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16987" CreationDate="2017-03-18T07:43:57.017" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, Black doesn't play 1... e5 (after 1. e4) to create an imbalance &lt;em&gt;directly&lt;/em&gt;. Rather, he &lt;em&gt;challenges&lt;/em&gt; White's plans to create an imbalance by occupying the center with pawns on e4 and d4. (There are openings like the Pirc Defense, which do allow this to White.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Following well-played lines, you'll get a chance to create an imbalance eventually, sometimes at move 3, sometimes at move 15. Good opening books will tell you what imbalances these lines create and how you can profit from them (often with example games played by grandmasters). Some examples of imbalances are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;exchanging a knight for a bishop, or vice versa&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;damaging an opponent's pawn structure&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;occupation/control of the center&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;significant lead in development / the initiative&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;material imbalance (gambiting a pawn)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most lines involve 'exchanging' two or more imbalances (e.g. the Nimzo-Indian where White obtains the bishop pair, at the cost of doubling his c-pawn and being slightly behind in development) and then it's up to the players to make better use of their advantages than their opponents.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2017-03-18T07:43:57.017" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16989" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16987" CreationDate="2017-03-18T07:50:02.600" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not every opening is about creating an imbalance.  After 1.e4 e5 black is trying to neutralize white's first move advantage and equalize the position.  A draw for black is usually considered a more than acceptable result.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When black wants to play for a win, then maybe he will introduce an imbalance himself like as in the sicilian defense 1.e4 c5.  This creates greater chances to win, but also greater chances to lose due to the asymmetry in the resulting positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8258" LastActivityDate="2017-03-18T07:50:02.600" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16990" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="16992" CreationDate="2017-03-18T14:23:34.990" Score="3" ViewCount="106" Body="&lt;p&gt;What are sites to learn for kids. Especially, video lectures. The lectures should be simpler to understand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11068" LastActivityDate="2017-03-18T17:41:42.680" Title="Online chess lectures for kids" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;training&gt;&lt;online&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16991" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16986" CreationDate="2017-03-18T17:34:52.507" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are no benefits from playing &lt;code&gt;1.h3&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;1.a3&lt;/code&gt;. There are merely certain variations where White is not severely punished for it.  That's not the same as a benefit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only good reason to play it is that it might somehow confuse an inexperienced player or take them &quot;out of their book&quot;. I am not sure that actually qualifies as a good reason.  Hoping for your opponent to be incompetent is not a strategy!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2017-03-18T17:34:52.507" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16992" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16990" CreationDate="2017-03-18T17:41:42.680" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to chessyourchild.com, the top 5 sites are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;chesskid.com&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;zoomchess.com&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;chesscoachonline.com&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;chessclub.com/icckids&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;chesscademy.com&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's also a chess.com forum about it: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/safe-chess-sites-for-children&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/safe-chess-sites-for-children&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a child, I used chesskid.com right about when it was established. It was pretty good, but I found nothing worked better than on-the-board learning. It all depends on the psyche of the kid; I recommend that you try these 5 sites and see which fits best.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12837" LastActivityDate="2017-03-18T17:41:42.680" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16993" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16986" CreationDate="2017-03-18T18:23:45.523" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The advice I've heard is that if you're going to play one of these 'waiting moves', so that white effectively becomes black, you may as well play a3. This has the same two advantages that your friend refers to (although preventing the mirror image bishop move, of course), without weakening the kingside.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not aware of any other advantages than those two you mention, and of course there are quite a few disadvantages. Obviously this is not perfect opening theory, but at amateur level I imagine it's quite playable. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, worth noting that Adolf Anderson opened with a3 in a few games against Paul Morphy. So not sure that I agree with Tony Ennis that there are &lt;em&gt;no&lt;/em&gt; good reasons to play this way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12843" LastActivityDate="2017-03-18T18:23:45.523" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16994" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17253" CreationDate="2017-03-18T19:00:28.720" Score="0" ViewCount="349" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Arena I select one field with piece I want to move or click some field accidentaly. Suppose after that I changed my mind and want to make move by other piece, now when I click new piece nothing happens and I have to find what field is selected and deselect it first by clicking on it. This mode is very annoying for me. How can I switch it off? I want to select new piece to move just by clicking it once.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12756" LastActivityDate="2017-04-12T20:18:50.747" Title="Select and deselect piece to move mode in Arena" Tags="&lt;arena&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16995" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16986" CreationDate="2017-03-18T20:08:49.517" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are no good reasons to play 1. h3 (or 1. a3) other than psychology (confusing the opponent, avoiding theory/opponent's preparation/...).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Regarding the two &quot;reasons&quot; you mention:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Gives white a chance to play like black (respond to an opening rather than create one)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't see this as an argument for playing a waiting move like 1. h3/a3. Why would you want to play like black (which has statistically a lower winning percentage)? What is the advantage of &quot;responding to an opening&quot;? That would mean that you have to be prepared for all kind of moves, so if anything you would have more work, studying more lines, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also I disagree that it is always white who is &quot;creating&quot; the opening. In the end the opening is created by both players. Take for instance 1. d4. Black can respond with 1...d5 playing some kind of Slav or Queen's gambit which more often than not leads to symmetrical equalish positions. Or black can go for something like a King's Indian, Benoni, Grunfeld... which leads to asymmetric wilder play. So here it is black who decides the character of the opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Defends against bb4 [Bg4!?]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is too early to know whether you want or need to defend against this. It is not like Bb4/Bg4 is a major threat (in most openings) that must be prevented. Also in some openings the bishop might not even want to (be able to) go to those squares. Lastly, pushing the pawn to h3/a3 can create weaknesses or targets for pawn storms in some lines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2017-03-18T20:08:49.517" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16996" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30089" CreationDate="2017-03-18T20:59:10.857" Score="8" ViewCount="480" Body="&lt;p&gt;The first game in Paul Keres' book &quot;The Complete Games of Paul Keres&quot; is a correspondence game against &quot;A. Karu&quot; who is otherwise unidentified. I could find no entry for him in Chess Personalia by Jeremy Gaige.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Who was he? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8673" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2017-03-18T22:12:17.667" LastActivityDate="2020-06-22T17:13:09.233" Title="Who was A. Karu? (played Paul Keres)" Tags="&lt;history&gt;&lt;famous-players&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="16998" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="728" CreationDate="2017-03-19T11:09:48.940" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a book called &quot;Great Chess Upsets&quot; by Reshevsky, but unfortunately most of the games are not upsets at all, but one famous player against another. Reshevsky himself, in his first major tournament, beat Janowski even though he was prepubescent. Prior to the tournament Janowski bitterly complained to the organizers that they were spoiling the gravity of the event by allowing children to play in it. After he won, Reshevsky reporting starting jumping up and down shouting, &quot;I beat a grandmaster! I beat a grandmaster!&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some of the more notable upsets:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In 1905 Frank Marshall, a World Championship candidate, lost to the unknown Dutch player Dirk Bleijkmanns at the Scheveningen Masters Tournament.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Joel Fridlizius beating both Alekhine and Spielmann at the Nordic Masters Tournament in 1912.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At the great St. Petersburg Tournament of 1914, the winner, Alexander Alekhine lost to German lesser light Bernhard Gregory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the 1923 Scheveningen Match Tournament, Spielmann lost to the little known Dutch master George Fontein.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the 1924 Masters Tournament in Merano, Rubinstein lost to unknown player Gyula Patay.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Max Euwe lost to Vera Menchik at the 1930 Hastings Tournament, thereby becoming a member of the &quot;Menchik Club&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Cuban master Guillermo Estevez Morales beat Mikhail Tal after Tal blundered the exchange.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Croatian master Josip Rukavina beat Korchnoi at the 1973 Interzonal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The unknown Ecuadorian player César Muñoz beat Bobby Fischer at the 1960 Leipzig Olympiad.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bernardo Wexler beat Fischer at the 1960 Buenos Aires tournament.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An unknown player named Robert Burger beat Bobby Fischer in 12 moves in a simul after Fischer fell into a surprising trap of the queen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Israeli Alexander Huzman beat Kasparov in the 2003 European Clubs Cup in 24 moves after Kasparov blundered two pawns because he missed a mate threat.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8673" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T18:09:42.470" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T18:09:42.470" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="16999" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-03-19T12:30:38.787" Score="0" ViewCount="262" Body="&lt;p&gt;If Stockfish had infinite computing power, or perhaps connected to all Google servers, etc. would it be able to solve the perfect chess moves after 10 moves? Or be able to create the perfect game directly? What would happen?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12730" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-03-19T14:28:53.577" LastActivityDate="2017-03-19T14:28:53.577" Title="What if Stockfish had infinite computing power?" Tags="&lt;stockfish&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ClosedDate="2017-03-19T19:20:58.167" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17000" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16999" CreationDate="2017-03-19T13:15:30.740" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;No.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What do you mean by &quot;perfect&quot; chess moves after 10 moves? We don't know they are perfect until the game ends in checkmate! You'll need go mucher deeper than 10 moves. You can't even solve King's Gambit in just 10 moves.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The Stockfish algorithm &lt;strong&gt;heavily&lt;/strong&gt; skips stupid moves off the search tree. It will &lt;strong&gt;not search&lt;/strong&gt; everything no matter what CPU power you give it. You're actually talking about a brute-force engine (search all the possible moves). No, Stockfish is much &lt;strong&gt;smarter&lt;/strong&gt; than that.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Nothing really happen. You could publish a new paper, but your results would not change the world. We don't need to know what happens after 10 moves, we want to know what happens after 100 moves.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2017-03-19T13:20:42.570" LastActivityDate="2017-03-19T13:20:42.570" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17001" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-03-19T14:05:52.190" Score="14" ViewCount="3164" Body="&lt;p&gt;Various articles and books mention the following advantages of having an isolani:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Better development &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Outposts on e5 and c5 &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Constrained Black position&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What I don't understand is how are the above mentioned advantages specific to isolani? Any side which gains centre control will get these advantages, right?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So back to the question, what makes isolani special? If I have an isolated pawn at some other file say c-file or e-file, the same rules will apply right? I'll still get the same advantages while having the disadvantage of being isolated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12849" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-03-19T15:45:07.940" LastActivityDate="2020-03-06T16:27:01.633" Title="Why is an isolated queen pawn so special?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;isolated-pawn&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17002" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17001" CreationDate="2017-03-19T14:48:11.880" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is mainly so special because it can arise from many different openings, both open and closed, e.g. the Queen's Gambit, Nimzo-Indian, Caro-Kann and the Alapin variation of the Sicilian. It is simply &lt;em&gt;much more common&lt;/em&gt; than a mirrored situation with an isolated pawn on e4, which would require exchanging the white f-pawn, which often stays on f2 to protect the king. In general, an early isolated pawn on the &lt;em&gt;n&lt;/em&gt;-file requires an early n4 move by White and n5 by Black, followed by undermining pawn moves in the adjacent files. Those are most likely to happen on c-, d- and e- files.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An IKP (Isolated King's Pawn – an isolani is often called an IQP) would give the same advantages, but in addition:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;it would be harder to defend than an IQP&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;assuming kingside castling, the half-open f-line would give White even more attacking chances, at the cost of being more exposed as well&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A isolated c-pawn is even rarer, and has less influence on the center than a d- or e-pawn. All other things being equal, this is definitely a disadvantage for the side having an isolated pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossary_of_chess#Hanging_pawns&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Hanging pawns&lt;/a&gt; are another commonly occurring structure where (potentially) weak pawns have compensation in the form of center control and space advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-03-19T18:55:36.983" LastActivityDate="2017-03-19T18:55:36.983" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17003" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17001" CreationDate="2017-03-19T14:56:49.767" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The IQP is the most common so it is easiest to talk about all isolated pawns from this one example.  Isolated pawns have rook support, on a half-open file, for the outposts, and they would be attacking a weakness (e6) if a pawn ever chased the Knight away.  This would not be the case in the Stonewall where the e3 pawn blocks the rook's activity.&#xA;The e5 outpost allows the knight to close to the opponent's king with possible attacks on f7 and g6.  The c5 outpost allows for the knight to attack the queenside pawns and hampers the queen's bishop movement.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Sicilians, black plays e5 to attack white's powerful center and may give white an isolated King's pawn and two outposts.  These outposts are mostly balanced by black having an outpost on e5 or equal control of the center.&#xA;The f-pawn can provide support for e5 and g5 outposts.  Knights on these outposts usually provide great support for an attack, but moving the f-pawn weakens you own king position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even without it being an outpost, there are many sacrifices on d5 and f5.  These are found in many Sicilians and Indian defenses.  Since accepting these sacrifices bring about a ferocious attack, most black players try to refuse the pieces and make the square an honorary outpost.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12449" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-06T16:27:01.633" LastActivityDate="2020-03-06T16:27:01.633" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="17004" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15833" CreationDate="2017-03-19T15:59:28.653" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Apart from the name Indian we have French defence, Yugoslav attack of Sicilian, the Russian attack of some defence which I do not remember right now but, the names came from the country where they originated but they are played in their respective way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess has its &lt;em&gt;origination in India&lt;/em&gt; and it was named &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaturanga&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chaturanga&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the medieval world, &lt;em&gt;India was the only country who deployed Elephants during warfare so we have Rooks in the Game&lt;/em&gt;. The Indian Name in many Openings does not necessarily mean a Fianchetto of the Bishop as we have Nimzo-Indian Defence where Bishop comes to b4 but &lt;em&gt;it's the introduction of a Bishop which is also an Indian animal Camel which was used in north India during Warfare&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I believe that would be the only idea behind this naming convention. Even I have tried finding the reasoning but there is nothing specific. It is a sad history of chess that we do not have the name of the Person who invented the Game. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastEditorDisplayName="user10872" LastEditDate="2017-03-23T06:35:48.543" LastActivityDate="2017-03-23T06:35:48.543" CommentCount="12" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17005" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17007" CreationDate="2017-03-19T19:48:28.823" Score="2" ViewCount="484" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the best way to go through a database of my games and have the computer generate a FEN string as well as the next move any time I make an error greater than, say, a minor piece loss?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've looked at SCID a bit and am not sure if I can do it there. I also doubt I could do it with stockfish on the command line. Pointers?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12094" LastActivityDate="2017-03-20T01:13:43.033" Title="Engine output: FEN string when blundering" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;scid&gt;&lt;fen&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17006" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17005" CreationDate="2017-03-19T22:56:38.743" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can count on crafty. Its annotate or annotateh command, allows you to &#xA;automatically comment games with variations. You can specify wich side to &#xA;analyze; how much difference on engine evaluation (after/before) will trigger an annotation an also the time invested analyzing each position. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After that, SCID, Chesspad, Compoches or any other software for visualizing &#xA;pgn gamescores will allow you to review your game and most important than &#xA;Anki, to anotate your thoughts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here I reproduce the pertinent fragment from a help doc about crafty commands:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;annotate | annotateh &amp;lt;filename&amp;gt; &amp;lt;colors | name&amp;gt; &amp;lt;moves&amp;gt; &amp;lt;margin&amp;gt; &amp;lt;time&amp;gt;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This command is used to annotate (make comments in) a game that has already &#xA;been played; annotate produces a file with the .can extension added to the &#xA;original name. This file will contain pure ascii information from the &#xA;annotation pass.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The annotateh command will produce an htm file.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1766" LastActivityDate="2017-03-19T22:56:38.743" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17007" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17005" CreationDate="2017-03-20T01:13:43.033" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You may want to do it yourself. Please take a look at a PGN annotation project on Github:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/fsmosca/chess-artist&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://github.com/fsmosca/chess-artist&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The source code is easy to follow.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;To get the engine evaluation, you have:&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;engBestMove, engBestScore, complexityNumber, moveChanges, pvLine = self.GetSearchScoreBeforeMove(gameNode.board().fen(), side)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;To check whether a move you play is a blunder:&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;if abs(engBestScore) &gt; 3.0:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;To print FEN:&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;fen = gameNode.board().fen()&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;To print FEN and whatever you want to the console, follow the implementation in:&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;def WriteNotation(self, side, fmvn, sanMove, bookMove, posScore,&#xA;                        isGameOver, engMove, engScore, complexityNumber,&#xA;                        moveChanges, pvLine, threatMove):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2017-03-20T01:13:43.033" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17008" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16984" CreationDate="2017-03-20T01:35:06.283" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's possible (statically) but you may need to do some works. Let's take a look at Stockfish.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the terminal, start Stockfish and type &lt;code&gt;eval&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/NYjKu.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/NYjKu.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stockfish knows about your passed pawns, king safety, good knights etc. Your job is to pull it out from the source code.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's study Stockfish's evaluation. The source file is at: &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/blob/master/src/evaluate.cpp&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/blob/master/src/evaluate.cpp&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's try two examples: &lt;strong&gt;bad knight&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;passed pawn&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Bad knight&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The line:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;pos.attacks_from&amp;lt;Pt&amp;gt;(s)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;gives you the attack bitboard for your knight. The PST table for the knight is in &lt;strong&gt;psqt.cpp&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;{ S(-144, -98), S(-96,-82), S(-80,-46), S(-73,-14) },&#xA;{ S( -83, -69), S(-43,-54), S(-21,-17), S(-10,  9) },&#xA;{ S( -71, -50), S(-22,-39), S(  0, -7), S(  9, 28) },&#xA;{ S( -25, -41), S( 18,-25), S( 43,  6), S( 47, 38) },&#xA;{ S( -26, -46), S( 16,-25), S( 38,  3), S( 50, 40) },&#xA;{ S( -11, -54), S( 37,-38), S( 56, -7), S( 65, 27) },&#xA;{ S( -62, -65), S(-17,-50), S(  5,-24), S( 14, 13) },&#xA;{ S(-194,-109), S(-66,-89), S(-42,-50), S(-29,-13) }&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do you see -29 for the h1 square? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Passed pawn&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The line:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;ei.pe-&amp;gt;passed_pawns(Us)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;gives you passed pawn information for a colour.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2017-03-20T01:35:06.283" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17009" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16987" CreationDate="2017-03-20T07:08:11.357" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;When Black plays e5 in response to White's e4 it does not mean from the very first move there would be an imbalance . The imbalance starts from further moves which can result in Ruy Lopez / King's Gambit / Giuoco Piano / Evan's Gambit / Petroff Defense / Center game . &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The above are mostly the defence which arises from e4,e5 play . As you asked the Question from Black's perspective it would be wise if you play the Marshall Gambit of Ruy Lopez . This is the best Gambit line where till date there has been no proper refute been discovered from White's perspective . Black gets a superb initiative and is down a Pawn and the Play shifts to White's K-side . Here is the link of the Games &amp;amp; Opening from Marshall Gambit . This creates a ferocious imbalance where Black pounces upon White's K-side .You can check out the games from Black's side . &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/explorer?node=765374&amp;amp;move=9&amp;amp;moves=e4.e5.Nf3.Nc6.Bb5.a6.Ba4.Nf6.O-O.Be7.Re1.b5.Bb3.O-O.c3.d5&amp;amp;nodes=21720.21721.21722.21723.21724.21725.21726.34841.34842.187048.187049.187050.187051.187202.187328.765374&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Ruy Lopez Marshall Gambit line &amp;amp; Games from Chessgames&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I will request you not to play the Petroff Defence as it is very hard from either side to get an advantage . If you want to play a drawish game you can play the Petroff . &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;King's gambit / Giuoco Piano / Evans gambit creates some imbalance but it is white who has the initiative here . White sacrifices a pawn or two to open lines and a huge attack . So Black should be cautious here and be a good defending player to keep White at bay .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Center Game 1)e4,e5 2)Nf3,d5 also creates some imbalance but please make sure you play it with lower rated opponents. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All the above lines except Petroff creates a lot of imbalances and Pawn &amp;amp; even material sacs for initiatives . &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastActivityDate="2017-03-20T07:08:11.357" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17010" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17001" CreationDate="2017-03-20T07:19:33.890" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;An IQP is a great plus in the middlegame and it is a great minus in the endgame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you look at the games in database you, would find that as white the objective would be to give a centre break causing d4-&gt;d5. The pawn would be supported by rook on d1, bishop on b3 and knight on c3. This isolani attacks the e6 pawn and thereafter white gains a good attack on centre and black's K-side. After the exchange of the pawns from d5 to e6 white's pieces get very mobile. The IQP generally arises in QGA . &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the endgame the reverse happens. If the isolani is not exchanged in the middlegame then after all pieces are exchanged black's King takes the centre stage and occupies the d5 square and white's king is always on d3, e3 squares to hold on to the isolani. In extreme cases, white loses the d4 pawn and black wins the game at the end promoting one of the extra pawn to a queen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-06T16:25:19.813" LastActivityDate="2020-03-06T16:25:19.813" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="17011" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16914" CreationDate="2017-03-20T07:29:44.433" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;White is in a precarious position holding onto the pin and has no counter play . As a Prisoner sometimes waits for his punishment and he knows no escape here White has got its centre &amp;amp; Queen side even blocked to generate NIL counter play . Looking at the board without any calculation also an amateur can determine that white would be very soon in Zugzwang resulting in huge material  loss.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastActivityDate="2017-03-20T07:29:44.433" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17012" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-03-20T08:19:38.327" Score="4" ViewCount="466" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a beginner and am targeting to become an expert. I see many people who barely takes 4 years to become an expert and many people who take 10 years to become an expert. I don't want to repeat the mistakes committed by players who had slow progress. What are the mistakes committed by players with slow progress? Some of them that I could think of are 1) lack of reading books  2) lack of proper coaching  3) merely playing thousands of games without strategic development. What do you think? Can you please provide suggestions on how to be efficient in my preparation? What is the best way to train?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12856" LastActivityDate="2020-01-02T19:04:44.050" Title="What are the mistakes committed by players who take many years to become an expert?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;books&gt;&lt;training&gt;&lt;psychology&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="8" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17013" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17012" CreationDate="2017-03-20T09:13:26.357" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Each person is different and what works for one might not work for you. That being said, for a beginner, a coach (friend, private coach or in chess club) can make a huge difference in my opinion as  he could go through your games, pointing out where you went wrong strategically, which is something that is impossible to do on your own and something that engines will not tell you either. In any case, if you haven't done already, I'd recommend to join a chess club, simply because it is more fun than playing online and also you can get many tips from other players besides formal coaching sessions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other factors:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;time dedicated to chess&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;determination&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;predisposition&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;having a good mix of study, play and analyzing your mistakes&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for your first mistake (&quot;lack of reading books&quot;): You certainly want to do some study on your own (without a coach). Books are not the only source of information though. Also consider videos/streams, chess databases (particularly for openings) and whatever else you find.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastEditorUserId="11629" LastEditDate="2017-03-20T10:11:06.363" LastActivityDate="2017-03-20T10:11:06.363" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17014" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17016" CreationDate="2017-03-20T09:34:27.660" Score="17" ViewCount="2652" Body="&lt;p&gt;I use PyChess to play. It talks sometimes about how White or Black moved their pawns into &quot;stonewall formation.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How do they do that, and what are the position's advantages/disadvantages?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user11939" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-03-20T20:40:29.870" LastActivityDate="2017-03-22T00:07:31.957" Title="What is the &quot;stonewall formation&quot;?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;pawn-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17016" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17014" CreationDate="2017-03-20T09:53:22.500" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;Black usually reaches the Stonewall formation from the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_Defence&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Dutch Defense&lt;/a&gt; (though QGD is an option as well, if he/she postpones Nf6) and involves putting pawns on c6, d5, e6 and f5. These pawns guarantee a strong grip on the light squares in the center (especially e4, which is often occupied by a knight later on), but weaken the dark squares. Another problem for Black is the light-squared bishop, which is severely limited by its own pawns. A typical Stonewall position is the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 f5 2. g3 Nf6 3. Bg2 e6 4. Nf3 Be7 5. O-O O-O 6. c4 d5 7. Nc3 c6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's hard for White to crack Black's center, but he has many options, of which my favourite is to exchange some pieces and take advantage of Black's bad bishop in the late middlegame and endgame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As @user1583209 notes, if White tries to reach this formation it's called the  &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/q/339/7297&quot;&gt;Stonewall Attack&lt;/a&gt; – see the linked question for more details.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2017-03-20T10:10:07.633" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17017" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5774" CreationDate="2017-03-20T13:15:54.287" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I'm curious: Is there potentially a way to benefit yourself by being&#xA;  penalized?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Definitely, but it is high risk. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you have a winning but very tricky position with only 20 or 30 seconds left on the clock while your opponent has 10 minutes then the extra 2 minutes is not going to immediately help your opponent and if it takes the arbiter 2 or 3 minutes to respond and change the clock settings then that could be all you need to calculate your way to victory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But be aware that the arbiter is an intelligent human being with experience, knowledge and power. If the arbiter is watching the game he has a number of options he can follow:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) He can tell you to play on. You must take back your move, make a legal move and warn you that another illegal move loses you the game. All this with your clock running. He will only stop the clocks to adjust the time when your opponent needs it by which time you may have already lost on time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) If he thinks you are deliberately cheating he can default you on the spot. He can even throw you out of the competition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) He can reduce your time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If he is not watching then 2) is much less likely, at least for a first offence, but 1) and 3) are definite possibilities.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2017-03-20T13:15:54.287" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17018" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17034" CreationDate="2017-03-20T16:10:48.063" Score="0" ViewCount="944" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm returning  to chess.  I used open as 1. d4 when white, but have switched to 1. e4 instead (I find it is more interesting).  When I played 1. d4, I constantly found myself transposing into a symmetrical development against my opponent - usually due to playing Queens Gambit, but also from other lines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm looking for a general list of black responses to explore so I can avoid a symmetric position when my opponent plays 1. d4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By reference, when white plays 1. e4 - black can respond with strong moves that force the white player into very non-symmetrical development (Sicilian or Caro-Kann).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I used to play a very positional set of openings, but am currently leaning towards openings that favor tempo and greater tactical possibilities.  I play mostly correspondence or slow over the board matches.  I don't want to rely on openings that rely on tricks and traps my opponent might miss.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12728" LastEditorUserId="12728" LastEditDate="2017-03-24T19:33:34.337" LastActivityDate="2017-03-24T19:33:34.337" Title="What are the normal non-symmetric black responses to 1. d4" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;correspondence-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ClosedDate="2017-03-22T01:15:29.520" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17019" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17012" CreationDate="2017-03-20T20:56:21.083" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can think of three mistakes that a &lt;em&gt;lot&lt;/em&gt; of class players who think they're working on their chess make:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;They &lt;strong&gt;read&lt;/strong&gt; chess books.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In particular they buy lots of them and then skim them, or study / try to memorize them as if they were textbooks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most low level players don't take the time to really get to the bottom of the positions in the books, they don't &lt;em&gt;work&lt;/em&gt; with them, only passive consumption.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;They memorize openings.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Opening books sell far better than all other types of chess book combined, even though the best they have to offer a class player is a slightly better position against someone who else who had memorized the opening but not quite as far. It's fun to feel like you're playing as a grandmaster, and sure it will lead to some short term improvement, but in the long term this is mostly wasted time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;They don't analyze.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What class player is actually able to take any position and start analyzing it to figure out what's going on? Not many, even though that's what the actual game is about. The best way to improve is just analyze a lot of positions, especially together with a mate (so you can argue and learn from each other), especially your own games. But few put in the work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know this because I'm very guilty of all three.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2017-03-20T20:56:21.083" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17020" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11163" CreationDate="2017-03-21T03:57:57.863" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Solution&lt;/strong&gt;: Use 'expect' script as shown below. Tested with stockfish_8_x64_modern. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;BlindKungFuMaster: &quot;I think the main problem is that the uci protocol is a dialog.&quot;&#xA;    &lt;strong&gt;I agree!&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;#!/usr/bin/expect&#xA;&#xA;spawn ~/stockfish_8_x64_modern&#xA;&#xA;expect -timeout 1000  Linscott &#xA;&#xA;send &quot;setoption name Ponder  value false \r isready \r&quot;&#xA;&#xA;expect -timeout 1000  readyok&#xA;&#xA;send &quot;setoption name Hash    value 2048 \r isready \r&quot;&#xA;&#xA;expect -timeout 1000  readyok&#xA;&#xA;send &quot;setoption name Threads value 8    \r isready \r&quot;&#xA;&#xA;expect -timeout 1000  readyok&#xA;&#xA;send &quot;setoption name MultiPV value 4    \r isready \r&quot;&#xA;&#xA;expect -timeout 1000  readyok&#xA;&#xA;set row8 &quot;rnbqkbnr&quot;&#xA;&#xA;set row7 &quot;pppppppp&quot;&#xA;&#xA;set row6 &quot;11111111&quot;&#xA;&#xA;set row5 &quot;11111111&quot;&#xA;&#xA;set row4 &quot;11111111&quot;&#xA;&#xA;set row3 &quot;11111111&quot;&#xA;&#xA;set row2 &quot;PPPPPPPP&quot;&#xA;&#xA;set row1 &quot;RNBQKBNR&quot;&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;send &quot;position fen $row8/$row7/$row6/$row5/$row4/$row3/$row2/$row1 w KQkq - 0 1 moves e2e4 \r isready \r&quot;&#xA;&#xA;expect -timeout 1000  readyok&#xA;&#xA;send &quot;go infinite \r&quot; &#xA;&#xA;expect -timeout 999999  readyok&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12867" LastEditorUserId="12867" LastEditDate="2017-03-22T03:19:09.880" LastActivityDate="2017-03-22T03:19:09.880" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17022" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17012" CreationDate="2017-03-21T08:12:59.863" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The most common mistake I believe is the &quot;ATTITUDE FACTOR&quot;. Now what I mean from this is all Chess aspirants have some great deal of knowledge nowadays either from Books, Internet, Chess Clubs, Coaches etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Everyone works hard but many fail to get the deserving rating or climbing up the ladder . What lacks here is the proper attitude and Systematic way of learning . You must set goals in a respective time period and should keep a &quot;Can do situation to accomplish it &quot; . They say that people who has that spunk they see Chess even in their dreams and analyse their failures . The next morning they cross that level and jump to the next one . You will get many answers to your Questions about practicing puzzles, End games , Openings and tons of advices but it is important that you take the failures into your heart ,work &amp;amp; analyse upon it and stop not till you become the expert .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastActivityDate="2017-03-21T08:12:59.863" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17023" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17028" CreationDate="2017-03-21T10:51:30.373" Score="1" ViewCount="298" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not sure whether this is more of a physics or a chess question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Looking at the evaluation graph (computer evaluation vs. move number) of a game of chess, I realized that there are some similarities to the physics model of escape from a local potential minimum. Let me explain:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While none of the players make a mistake the evaluation will stay at values around zero corresponding to a draw. This I would associate with the motion of a particle in a local minimum, whose coordinate (=evaluation) might fluctuate a bit around the minimum value.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If a player makes a mistake, the evaluation will increase to let's say +2, corresponding to a won position. Normally (i.e. with a very high probability) white should win this game. Until mate, the evaluation will further increase to +3, +4, +5....&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This process is similar to the escape from a local minimum. A blunder can &quot;activate&quot; the particle so that it can leave the local minimum and it will subsequently accelerate to larger coordinates (evaluation increases).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/4ROZp.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/4ROZp.png&quot; alt=&quot;simple model for chess&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Have there been any studies on chess using such model?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does it make sense at all?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2017-03-22T05:20:43.717" Title="Chess as random process" Tags="&lt;theory&gt;&lt;computer-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="13" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17024" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-03-21T12:20:47.667" Score="2" ViewCount="767" Body="&lt;p&gt;Does the Rookside opening have a name? It is not very popular, I believe so I'm wondering what the best defense could be.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12792" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-03-21T12:39:50.840" LastActivityDate="2020-08-16T04:43:34.220" Title="What are the normal black responses to rookside openings?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17025" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11163" CreationDate="2017-03-21T12:59:49.563" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;look into python-chess package. It includes a protocol for interacting with engines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12273" LastActivityDate="2017-03-21T12:59:49.563" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17026" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17024" CreationDate="2017-03-21T13:44:43.963" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would occupy the centre. When I was a beginner, I played a game that started like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Bad_Bishop&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. a4 e5 2. Ra3 {White looks to develop a rook towards the centre, but this just loses material} Bxa3 {Winning the exchange. I forget how the game ended, but white was lost from the start} 3. bxa3 {If I had white in this position, I would play 3. Nxa3, so that I don't have doubled, isolated a pawns} d5 {Black should take the centre, seeing as it is totally untested. Black has an easy game}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In terms of naming:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;a3 is &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anderssen&amp;#39;s_Opening&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Anderssen's Opening&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;a4 is the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ware_Opening&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Ware Opening&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;h3 is the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clemenz_Opening&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Clemenz Opening&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;h4 is the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desprez_Opening&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Desprez Opening&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2017-03-21T13:44:43.963" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17028" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17023" CreationDate="2017-03-21T14:06:14.170" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd argue the process you're talking about can be represented by &lt;code&gt;Markov Chain&lt;/code&gt;. It solves the continuous problem raised by @Brian.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't know where to find a proper state diagram for your question.The following diagram is for a simple board game. Imagine we model the &lt;strong&gt;transition probability&lt;/strong&gt; from &lt;code&gt;win&lt;/code&gt; to &lt;code&gt;lose&lt;/code&gt; (or &lt;code&gt;win&lt;/code&gt; to &lt;code&gt;draw&lt;/code&gt;) as the blunder probability, this is similar to what you are asking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/QVbay.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/QVbay.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We can represent &quot;local minimum&quot; described in your question as an &lt;code&gt;absorbing state&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More generally, if you want to assume some latent factors for making a blunder (e.g. bad opening, personal issues), you could generalize to &lt;code&gt;hidden markov model&lt;/code&gt;. It's possible to use the EM algorithm to fit a model from engine PV evaluations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Given a fitted model, you can query the probability of a blunder given a chess game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Have there been any studies on chess using such model?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No studies that I am aware of.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2017-03-22T05:20:43.717" LastActivityDate="2017-03-22T05:20:43.717" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17029" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17033" CreationDate="2017-03-21T14:21:33.073" Score="1" ViewCount="110" Body="&lt;p&gt;This game was my first correspondence game on chess.com.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I played as black. I felt my position was quite good. Then I grabbed a pawn and the game ended in a draw by threefold repetition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My questions are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;How could black improve their game instead of playing 25...Rxe3?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Can you provide any other feedback to my game?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;mario401&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Bad_Bishop&quot;]&#xA;[StartPly &quot;50&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. c4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. cxd5 cxd5 4. Nc3 Nf6 5. Bf4 Nc6 6. Nf3 a6 7. e3 Bg4 8. Be2 e6 9. h3 Bxf3 10. Bxf3 Bd6 11. Bxd6 Qxd6 12. O-O O-O 13. a3 Rac8 14. Be2 Na5 15. b4 Nc4? (15...Rxc3 {I played an 'auto-pilot' move and saw this tactic immediately afterwards,} 16. bxa5 Rxa3) 16. Bxc4 Rxc4 17. Na4 b6 18. Nb2 Rc3 19. Qd2 Ne4 20. Qe1 Rfc8 21. f3 Ng3 22. Rf2 h5 23. f4 h4 24. Na4 Rb3 {this was a crude attempt to trap the knight. Maybe I should have considered 24...R3c6 to maintain control of the c-file} 25. Qd1 Rxe3? {Only now do I realise that the rook can't go to e4 if attacked with 26. Qd2} 26. Qd2 Rb3 (26...Re4? 27. Nc3 f5 28. Nxe4 fxe4 {Black might look OK, having a protected passed pawn, but it is easily blockaded}) 27. Qd1 Re3 28. Qd2 Rb3 29. Qd1 Re3  1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2017-03-21T20:39:08.490" Title="Could I have improved my position in this pawn up exchange Slav?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;correspondence-chess&gt;&lt;slav-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17030" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17029" CreationDate="2017-03-21T14:45:24.647" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;25...Rxe3 appears to be forced. However, it's not a bad move, and you have several ways to keep an advantage afterwards. The simplest is 26...Nf5, just defending the rook and remaining up a pawn with a good position. After 26...Re4 27. Nc3 you could go for the forcing line 27...Rxc3 28. Qxc3 Ne2+ 29. Rxe2 Rxe2 30. Qc8+ Kh7 31. Qxa6 Rd2 when material is back to equal but black is doing well because of white's weak pawns and exposed king. Even this isn't necessary though, because 27. Nc3 isn't actually threatening anything: black's recapture ...Nxe4 will win back the exchange immediately, so you could also try to improve your position slowly, say with ...g6 and ...Kg7. I don't see much white can do about this. Overall, you thoroughly outplayed your opponent, but seemed to panic when something unexpected happened. You still had a great position!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for other parts of the game, 24...Rc2 looks natural and good. Rooks on the 7th/2nd are usually great and this is no exception.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12699" LastActivityDate="2017-03-21T14:45:24.647" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17031" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17014" CreationDate="2017-03-21T17:56:36.323" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The one shown above is the more modern approach. The classic stonewall develops as f5/nf6/e6/d5/c6/Bd6 with Qe7/Qe8 ideas. White's Bg2 is biting on granite.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The stonewall is very simple to play strategically for Black. Most white players &quot;scoff&quot; at it when you play, but eventually, after they are tipping their king, learn to respect it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's fun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10233" LastActivityDate="2017-03-21T17:56:36.323" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17033" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17029" CreationDate="2017-03-21T20:39:08.490" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your play was good, and you managed to slowly gain the upper hand from the more or less dead equal opening.  At the end Rxe3 is forced, but after Qd2 I would have definitely considered Re4.  You actually don't lose the exchange:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;25... Rxe3 26. Qd2 Re4 27. Nc3 Rc4!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now at this point you're threatening to take on d4, so 28. Nxe4.  But then you take back on e4 with your g3 Knight and you have White's Queen and Rook in a fork.  You are winning back the exchange and are a pawn ahead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Overall you played a good game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2017-03-21T20:39:08.490" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17034" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17018" CreationDate="2017-03-21T20:46:33.467" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are a number of Black openings you can play in response to White playing 1. d4 (I'm assuming this is what you mean by &quot;Queenside opening&quot;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is a good list of Black openings against d4 you can look up that avoid symmetrical positions and promise good tactical play:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;King's Indian Defence (1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 Bg7 4. e4 d6)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Benoni Defense (my opening: 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 c5 3. d5 e6 4. Nc3 exd5 5. cxd5 d6)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Albin Counter-Gambit (1. d4 d5 2. c4 e5!? 3. dxe5 d4)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Dutch Defence - Leningrad variation (1. d4 f5 2. c4 Nf6 3. g3 g6 4. Bg2 Bg7 5. Nf3 0-0)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are many more, but I would recommend looking at one of these, based on what you've told me.  If you're looking for something where you're on the offensive immediately and there isn't too much theory to memorize, I would go with the Albin Counter-Gambit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To look up an opening, I would recommend going to chess.com and finding a forum or article where the opening is discussed.  Then, I would recommend looking up some games online of strong Grandmasters playing the opening (just type into Google:  Albin Counter-Gambit Grandmaster games).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you like the opening, the next step would be to buy a book on it - the Everyman books are relatively simple.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2017-03-21T20:46:33.467" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17035" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17014" CreationDate="2017-03-22T00:07:31.957" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The stonewall setup results in Black putting their pawns on f5, e6, d5, and c6.  White could also play the setup by putting his pawns on c3, d4, e3, and f4.  In the rest of this post I will assume &quot;Black&quot; is the person playing the stonewall.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Stonewall's idea is to close the center and gain attacking chances on the Kingside.  Due to its closed nature, the side playing the Stonewall has the opportunity to take their time developing and creating a plan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The main drawback of the Stonewall is the big gap in the middle of the board on e5 created by the f5 and d5 pawns (assuming Black plays it).  This nuance usually gives White an advantage, as it is a very good outpost for one of the Knights.  This can be especially dangerous if White begins an attack on the Queenside, since the Knight on e5 is in a perfect position to target the c6 pawn.  If White pushes his b-pawn to b5 and has a Rook on the c-file, the c6 pawn will be under an unbearable amount of attack.  This is why it is vital for Black to begin his Kingside attack quickly, lest he be overwhelmed by White's positional advantages.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's a dynamic opening that is a bit risky and slightly dubious, but if you play it right it can lead to some very exciting positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is a link to an article of two chess Grandmasters discussing the Stonewall setup:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/article/view/the-stone-wall&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.chess.com/article/view/the-stone-wall&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you would like to look at some games that feature the Stonewall setup in them, here is a good link for that:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chesscollection?cid=1023312&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chesscollection?cid=1023312&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For further information on the Stonewall, I would &lt;strong&gt;highly&lt;/strong&gt; recommend looking up some videos of Grandmaster Simon Williams explaining it.  He's one of the world's foremost experts on the Stonewall and has written some very good books on it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope that helps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2017-03-22T00:07:31.957" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17036" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17024" CreationDate="2017-03-22T00:14:39.770" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;One of the foremost principles of chess is to control the center squares.  Side pawn openings do not do this, which is why they are unpopular.  My recommendation would be to simply control the center with your pawns and develop normally.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An old chess saying goes like so: &quot;When your opponent attacks on the side, strike in the center&quot;.  The logic behind this is when your opponent is occupied on an insignificant region of the side, they will be unprepared for a direct assault in the most important section of the board - the center.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is no need to treat these kinds of openings differently - just develop your pieces and control the center like you normally would against a normal opening.  Then once you reach the middlegame, you will be far better prepared for the inevitable struggle due to having more pieces out and in much better outposts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you would like to read a further discussion on this topic, here is a link to a chess.com forum on it, where various chess players throw in their two cents:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/forum/view/chess-openings/the-rook-pawn-opening&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.chess.com/forum/view/chess-openings/the-rook-pawn-opening&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want a cheap book on this, here is a link to Chess Grandmaster Kontronias' book on &quot;Beating the Flank Openings&quot;.  It only costs about $9:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/0713477814&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.amazon.com/Beating-Flank-Openings-Vassilios-Kotronias/dp/0713477814&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2017-03-22T00:14:39.770" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17037" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7588" CreationDate="2017-03-22T09:23:41.737" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I organised a few chess tournaments and the important thing is to have good chess pairing software. It will save you lot of time and nerves. I tried lots of stuff, but almost every software was too difficult for me to use. I ended up using swips sofware,.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10199" LastActivityDate="2017-03-22T09:23:41.737" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17038" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17041" CreationDate="2017-03-22T12:25:44.547" Score="3" ViewCount="4094" Body="&lt;p&gt;In lower level chess matches I often find myself in closed positions where black and whites knights are restricted, bishops can't be used for attack, and rooks are locked behind your pawn structure. What tips do you have to play in this position, or is it better to play more aggressive and avoid this position all together.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I interpret Closed Position as being, where major pieces are developed behind the pawn structure, where both players prioritized positional plays.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is an example using the Pirc defense&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 d6 2. d4 Nf6 3. Nc3 e6 4. Nf3 a6 5. Be2 Be7 6. O-O O-O 7. h3 b5 8. a3 Bb7 9. e5 Nfd7 10. Bf4 Nc6 11. Bg3 Nb6 12. Bd3 d5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Where the next best move would be for to take the e pawn, but black decides to advance the d-pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12876" LastEditorUserId="4509" LastEditDate="2017-03-24T09:37:29.703" LastActivityDate="2017-09-23T20:01:57.293" Title="How to play in a Closed Position?" Tags="&lt;closed-position&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17039" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17038" CreationDate="2017-03-22T12:55:12.370" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;If the centre is closed, then you need to play on the flanks. Which flank should you focus on? The flank where you have more space. In the advanced Caro-Kann, white often plays on the kingside:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. e5 Bf5 4. Nc3 {This is the start of Nunn-Shirov attack. It is not the only way to play the advanced Caro-Kann as white, but shows the idea of 'attacking where you have space' in a neat way} e6 5. g4 Bg6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In some openings you have a choice of which flank to play on, for example when there is a &lt;em&gt;Botvinnik triangle&lt;/em&gt;, e.g. pawns on c4-d3-e4:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[StartPly &quot;16&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. c4 c5 2. Nc3 Nc6 3. g3 g6 4. Bg2 Bg7 5. e4 e5 6. Nge2 Nge7 7. O-O O-O 8. d3 d6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the Botvinnik English setup above, white has the options of playing:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;On the queenside, with Rb1 and b4&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;On the kingside, with f4&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In the centre, with d4, &lt;em&gt;assuming it is properly prepared&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the setup above, I've made black mimic white (not always a good thing to do!) to illustrate that black could have the same options as white.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The final point I want to make is that when you prepare a pawn break, take your time to put all of your pieces onto the best squares.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastEditorDisplayName="user1108" LastEditDate="2017-03-22T13:32:01.343" LastActivityDate="2017-03-22T13:32:01.343" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17040" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6125" CreationDate="2017-03-22T13:32:27.670" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's impossible to say for sure without seeing games, but what you're describing sounds like a problem with blundering, which really isn't the same thing as prophylaxis or defensive play. You talk about defense under pressure, but it sounds like you're encountering problems when you have a comfortable advantage, i.e., when you're &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; under pressure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a coach, I've found it's very common for players to misdiagnose their own problems, which makes sense if you think about it: if you really knew what was holding you back you'd likely have solved it already! I would strongly suggest getting some coaching if possible. It sounds like you could really benefit from another pair of eyes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Having said all that, let me recommend a simple technique that's very helpful for prophylaxis, defensive play, &lt;em&gt;and&lt;/em&gt; avoiding blunders! Get in the habit of asking yourself, &quot;What is my opponent's next move?&quot; This is one of the best questions to direct your attention to what's important in the position. Keep in mind, you don't need to react to your opponent's ideas defensively. In some cases it's best to ignore them or render them irrelevant with a powerful aggressive move. But awareness of the opponent's ideas is extremely important.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12699" LastActivityDate="2017-03-22T13:32:27.670" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17041" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17038" CreationDate="2017-03-22T13:35:44.047" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;It would help to see a specific example of your games. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Normally &lt;em&gt;closed positions&lt;/em&gt; refers to positions with a closed center where the central (e and d pawns, sometimes also c and f pawns) pawns are blocking each other. It is unusual that all 8 pawns are blocked. In this case the normal plan is to attack the center by pawns from the side. For instance in the advance French black is attacking the center by a pawn from c5 and later also from the other side with f7-f6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. e5 c5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The technical term for this is &lt;em&gt;pawn break&lt;/em&gt; and you can see other examples in the wikipedia article on &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pawn_structure&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;pawn structure&lt;/a&gt;. (Search for &quot;break&quot;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2017-03-22T13:35:44.047" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17042" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15504" CreationDate="2017-03-22T14:58:40.510" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;When reading your question, my gut reaction is that your scope is too complicated for unit testing.  I recommend a quick read through the free e-book Unit Testing Succinctly.  However, I have no experience writing chess code (maybe your paradigms are different) - although I do software for a living.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A unit test should be very simple and test a function that does 1 single thing.  Then you can combine the functions with some reasonable expectation that they will work.  For example, I would expect a unit test for each piece to determine if a particular move is legal.  A unit test for each piece to determine if it is putting the king in check.  A test for each piece to determine where it is attacking, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Testing a position seems like a very complicated unit test and would be much harder to do thoroughly.  Instead write smaller tests against smaller functions and then know that those individually work - evaluating a position is just a matter of iterating over the simple functions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to test a position for a good (not forced) move, I think unit test's will artificially limit the long term development and strength of your chess engine... a binary result of a unit test will force your engine to make the same move every time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd also look at adding unit tests for 'most direct' path to a mate with known endgames.  I'd look to add unit tests for traversing through known openings as well.  Mid game unit tests will be much harder - maybe plugging in a position and evaluating that the engine produces a usable result (which is a binary response).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the question of evaluating a set of positions for your engine, you may do far better putting this question on &lt;a href=&quot;https://stackoverflow.com/&quot;&gt;https://stackoverflow.com/&lt;/a&gt; with the &quot;chess&quot; tag.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12728" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-05-23T12:37:05.403" LastActivityDate="2017-03-22T14:58:40.510" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17043" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17038" CreationDate="2017-03-22T19:35:46.907" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Closed positions are a very different type of game, but if you understand them then there is no reason to avoid entering them.  Generally, the best idea in closed positions is the play on the sides of the board (either the Queenside or Kingside) since the center is locked.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The best way to play on the sides is to open lines for your pieces.  This is often done through a pawn breakthrough.  One important thing to keep in mind is that you want to open the position so that your worst pieces can get out into the game.  For example, assume you had a terrible Knight that was stuck in the corner and was completely out of the game.  Try to find ways to open the position so that this Knight can escape.  For example, if you need a file opened, organize a pawn breakthrough on that file.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In closed positions Knights tend to be better than Bishops since they can hop around the pawns.  With this in mind, it is often a good idea to exchange your Bishops for your opponent's Knights (however, if you think the position may open up soon, this is not a very good idea! ).  In closed positions, Knights can often find one good outpost that they can just stay on for a long time.  Try to identify a number of squares that you would like to have your Knight(s) on, and then map out a route for your Knight to hop to that square.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is a good video on how to break through in closed positions.  It is by Grandmaster Akobian, who I think is currently in the top 15 list in the US.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bT1iy4dLgxE&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bT1iy4dLgxE&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, here is a link to a post where a FIDE Master discusses closed, semi-open, and open positions.  I think there are some additional resources he lists as well:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/blog/MattyDPerrine/how-to-play-closed-semi-open-and-open-positions&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.chess.com/blog/MattyDPerrine/how-to-play-closed-semi-open-and-open-positions&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2017-03-22T19:35:46.907" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17045" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17052" CreationDate="2017-03-23T01:37:26.297" Score="3" ViewCount="2230" Body="&lt;p&gt;A recent game of mine went like this (I was Black):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.d4 Nf6 2.d5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Looking at the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.lichess.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;lichess&lt;/a&gt; database (amateur games book) I see that the more common responses are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;2..d6&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;2..c6&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;2..e6&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;hellip; in that order.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the master games book there are only two games in this variation where the responses were &lt;code&gt;2..d6&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;2..c6&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I played &lt;code&gt;2..e5&lt;/code&gt; which seems to be a rather infrequent response. The continuation in my game was:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.d4 Nf6 2.d5 e5 3.dxe6 fxe6 4.Bg5 b6 5.e3 Bb7 6.Nc3 Nc6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I then proceeded to castle Queen-side and took advantage of the open f column. The game went well but apparently my response to the &quot;pawn push variation&quot; was suboptimal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can someone explain the ideas behind the more common responses and why &lt;code&gt;2..e5&lt;/code&gt; is bad?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2307" LastActivityDate="2020-03-04T20:05:07.237" Title="Indian game pawn push variation" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17046" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17055" CreationDate="2017-03-23T05:02:46.760" Score="5" ViewCount="271" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been playing the Dutch defense, mainly the Leningrad, although sometimes I'll delay the fianchetto, starting off in more of a Hort-Antoshin Dutch. My biggest trouble has been when white avoids the main lines and plays an early Bc4 or Qb3, making it impossible to castle without e6, or d5, which completely changes the nature of the opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm referring to positions like the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;rnbqkb1r/ppp1p1pp/3p1n2/5p2/3P4/1QP2N2/PP2PPPP/RNB1KB1R b KQkq - 1 4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;rnbqkb1r/ppp1p1pp/3p1n2/5p2/2BP4/4PN2/PPP2PPP/RNBQK2R b KQkq - 1 4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What can I do to counter this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9025" LastActivityDate="2017-03-24T15:19:40.547" Title="The a2-g8 diagonal in the Dutch Defense" Tags="&lt;dutch-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17047" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17049" CreationDate="2017-03-23T08:20:49.460" Score="0" ViewCount="1404" Body="&lt;p&gt;How can I stop my knight getting pinned like this in an opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd like to advance my knight and avoid the pin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/CWaMj.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/CWaMj.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12834" LastActivityDate="2017-04-08T20:01:39.980" Title="Stop pinned knight opening" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17048" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17038" CreationDate="2017-03-23T08:47:42.937" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just a generic answer to your Question . When you encounter Closed position u then you can do the below .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Prefer Knights instead of Bishops as Bishops are long ranged piece and if a Bishop is confined to its own Pawn structure then it acts as a Pawn and not a Piece .&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;You can exchange your Bishops with Opponents Knights before you make the Position closed .&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes it is essential to make a Sacrifice to gain activity . Lets assume you have central pawns which is blockaded by Opponents central pawns and you see that a combination is there which gains activity and opens up lines for the attack . Then you must not be afraid to make such sacrifices at all . example of a game with a Blockade position is &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1254352&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Blockade Position piece sacrifice&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Try arranging your pieces and look for a Pawn break . Blocked games are never fast and you can put your pieces into the best squares taking your time . &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;William Steinitz was one of the Players that I had read who loved playing Blocked Closed Positions . Study his games for your advancement .&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastActivityDate="2017-03-23T08:47:42.937" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17049" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17047" CreationDate="2017-03-23T08:54:36.807" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are a few ways to deal with pins in general:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Break the pin&lt;/strong&gt;. In the position you posted, a long term plan might be to play e3, Nge2 and O-O&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Ignore the pin&lt;/strong&gt;. In the position you show, if black takes on c3, he surrenders the bishop pair (specifically his better bishop) for a knight whilst giving you a semi-open b-file. But this is at the cost of a weakened pawn structure&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Play prophylactically&lt;/strong&gt;. This depends on the position though. Sometimes it is a weakening move, e.g. playing h3, O-O may allow a sacrifical attack with ...Bxh3&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Put the question to the bishop&lt;/strong&gt;. White may want to test black with a3, putting the question to the bishop of '&lt;em&gt;are you going to take or retreat?&lt;/em&gt;'&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Play a cramped  game with Nbd2&lt;/strong&gt;, which allows c3 if the bishop comes to b4&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2017-03-23T08:54:36.807" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17050" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17047" CreationDate="2017-03-23T08:58:34.867" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You play and develop your Knight to d2 instead of c3 or you make a delay to play the d4 move . You can even play e3 and then develop the King's knight to e2 and then Castle quickly so the Pin won't be served for a longer time .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastActivityDate="2017-03-23T08:58:34.867" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17051" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17045" CreationDate="2017-03-23T09:12:26.897" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Playing d4 and then d5 does not seem to be a great idea from White as it is only a pawn push and not develop any Piece . You can take ideas from Modern Benoni/Benko Gambit which have similar Pawn structures . The White Pawn d5 is an ideal move in both the openings . e5 is also an ok move but c5/c6 are somewhat better because they are a bit always from Centre and you should not lose the Centre pawns or allow Opponent to capture the centre with Pawns .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-04T20:05:07.237" LastActivityDate="2020-03-04T20:05:07.237" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="17052" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17045" CreationDate="2017-03-23T10:15:13.800" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;As you noticed there are very few games in the database with this line. That's why it does not make much sense to speak of &quot;more common&quot;/&quot;infrequent&quot; response here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The move 2. d5 is not good, but not so bad that you can expect to get a huge advantage as black soon. Basically it gives away the first move advantage and gives black an equal position for free. Generally, if your opponent plays an unusual move like this to which you don't see an immediate refutation, stay calm and make normal moves. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Problems with 2. d5 are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;it neglects development (don't move a piece twice if you don't have to)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;it weakens the dark squares in the centre&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;it does not do much; Typically a pawn push like this is meant to limit the opponents options. Here it prevents the knight going to c6, however the knight rarely wants to go to c6 in these kind of openings. Also black has not fixed the position of its central pawns so is free to attack the pawn at wish with c6, e6 ...&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your opening repertoire or your preference for closed vs open positions might influence your decision on how to respond to it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are a King's Indian or Benoni player you could for instance transfer this to a main line King's Indian or Benoni. Or just go for a fianchetto on g7 first, trying to take advantage of the weakened dark squares and don't fix your central pawns yet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you don't mind unknown territory, 2 .. c6 seems like a good choice questioning the pawn immediately  and giving you tactics with Qa5+ (and attack on d5) in some lines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But any other continuation such as 2 ... e6, d6, e5, g6,.... can't be wrong either. I don't understand why you think that e5 was bad. The position you achieved seems quite normal to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2017-03-23T10:15:13.800" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17053" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17046" CreationDate="2017-03-23T11:34:50.177" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In both diagrams I see you have played d6 . Already Dutch provides a Weakness on the e6 Square and now d6 again makes it more vulnerable . Instead of d6 play e6,Be7 0-0 and then you can go on .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastActivityDate="2017-03-23T11:34:50.177" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17055" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17046" CreationDate="2017-03-23T20:00:47.630" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Playing ...e6 should be totally fine to counter these setups from White. I saw you claim in the comments that this would lose tempi for Black compared to the main lines of the Leningrad Dutch. This is not true, since White never plays:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Bc4 in the mainline Dutch;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;c3 in the mainline Dutch.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So White has made at least one completely useless move in direct conflict with the ideas of the mainline systems for White in these cases. What does this mean in the long run? It basically means that you have more freedom in carrying out your plans, since the plans you mentioned only serve one purpose which is terminated by the move ...e6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tempi will most likely have to be wasted trying to rectify White's mistakes in the opening (because c3 seems terrible and will probably have to be corrected by playing c3-c4 at some point anyway, and Bc4 is an easy target for the black pawns now that it isn't safely placed on g2 staring down Black's queenside).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You don't have to be worried about potential tempi for a standard plan in the MAINLINES when White is playing a total SIDELINE IN DIRECT CONFLICT WITH THE IDEAS OF THE MAINLINES which will enable you to play according to different ideas.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In general, when your opponent does something strange/non-standard in the opening you should try to think of the possible drawbacks of the deviation played, and when you study the opening you should try to figure out why the mainline is played the way it is by both sides.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8300" LastActivityDate="2017-03-23T20:00:47.630" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17057" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17047" CreationDate="2017-03-24T02:08:57.980" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are a few ways to deal with (or prevent) pins.  Normally it's not too big of a deal if a Bishop pins a Knight, since they are pieces of equal worth.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Method 1:  Prophylaxis - this involves taking precautions ahead of time to stop things your opponent might do to you in the future.  In this case, one example would be pushing your a-pawn to a3, which prevents Bb4 (if this situation was on the Kingside, it would be playing h3).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Method 2:  Castle first and then develop the Knight to c3.  This avoids being in a pin in the first place.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Method 3:  Have a Bishop ready to break the pin.  If you still had your dark squared Bishop on the board, you could just move it back to d2 and defend your Knight, while at the same time breaking the pin.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Push the Bishop away.  In this case you would just play a3, and if the Bishop retreats to a5 then play b4.  If you are worried about Black taking on c3 and doubling your pawns, first protect your Knight with a piece (such as Qd2 or moving your King's Knight to e2) and then push the Bishop away.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These are the main ways to deal with pins.  If you really don't want to get involved with them, the easiest solution is to just play a3 before developing your Knight.  It wastes a tempo, but if the game is closed like the one you have, it doesn't really matter too much.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2017-03-24T02:08:57.980" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17058" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17046" CreationDate="2017-03-24T04:47:17.170" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;My suggestion would be to go for the g6 setup right away, and then if White plays Bc4 or Qb3 you can counter with d5 or e6.  In this case you could combine the Stonewall setup with the Leningrad setup, for example.  While not perfectly ideal, Nakamura himself has played it a few times (in the main line!), and it's a respectable setup in the Leningrad.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The good thing too is that White usually has to go for a less than ideal setup against the Dutch in order to play Bc4 or Qb3.  The positions you showed aren't that great for White, so the small compromise you would have to make with e6 or d5 is completely worth it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is a link to a Chess Publishing article where a Leningrad game with ...e6 is discussed:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesspublishing.com/content/11/oct11.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chesspublishing.com/content/11/oct11.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2017-03-24T04:47:17.170" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17059" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14778" CreationDate="2017-03-24T09:54:08.557" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://itunes.apple.com/nl/app/analyze-this-chess/id1090863537?l=en&amp;amp;mt=8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Analyze this&lt;/a&gt; is a chess tool for iPhone/iPad which is a good app and you can include that as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12891" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-03-27T07:41:10.790" LastActivityDate="2017-03-27T07:41:10.790" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17061" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17046" CreationDate="2017-03-24T15:19:40.547" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;...e6 is fine with the option of transitioning to a stonewall setup and gaining a tempo against the Bc4 with d5,c6,Be7/Bd6,Qe7. The bishop on the a2-g8 diagonal is now a bit offsides. that is how I look at it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Don't fall in love with the &quot;Leningrad&quot; and hang on to dear life to it's precepts if transitioning into another system warrants it. That seems the case here. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black should be fine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10233" LastActivityDate="2017-03-24T15:19:40.547" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17062" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17063" CreationDate="2017-03-24T17:55:39.103" Score="1" ViewCount="1021" Body="&lt;p&gt;For each square on the board, how many moves could a queen on that space move, including not moving?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ideally I'd like to see this visualized but I understand if that's not possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12893" LastActivityDate="2017-03-27T05:30:56.113" Title="How many places can the queen move at each position?" Tags="&lt;queens&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17063" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17062" CreationDate="2017-03-24T18:14:39.033" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;It depends on the square, but simple counting (along the rows, columns and diagonals) reveals that this is the answer:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;22 22 22 22 22 22 22 22&#xA;22 24 24 24 24 24 24 22&#xA;22 24 26 26 26 26 24 22&#xA;22 24 26 28 28 26 24 22&#xA;22 24 26 28 28 26 24 22&#xA;22 24 26 26 26 26 24 22&#xA;22 24 24 24 24 24 24 22&#xA;22 22 22 22 22 22 22 22&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You see that in the center, the queen controls the most squares. I'm more familiar with a similar diagram counting the number of squares a queen controls (excluding the square itself):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;21 21 21 21 21 21 21 21&#xA;21 23 23 23 23 23 23 21&#xA;21 23 25 25 25 25 23 21&#xA;21 23 25 27 27 25 23 21&#xA;21 23 25 27 27 25 23 21&#xA;21 23 25 25 25 25 23 21&#xA;21 23 23 23 23 23 23 21&#xA;21 21 21 21 21 21 21 21&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a superposition of the diagram for a bishop:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; 7  7  7  7  7  7  7  7&#xA; 7  9  9  9  9  9  9  7&#xA; 7  9 11 11 11 11  9  7&#xA; 7  9 11 13 13 11  9  7&#xA; 7  9 11 13 13 11  9  7&#xA; 7  9 11 11 11 11  9  7&#xA; 7  9  9  9  9  9  9  7&#xA; 7  7  7  7  7  7  7  7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and the one for a rook, which is very simple, and a good illustration why rooks aren't at home in the center like most other pieces:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;14 14 14 14 14 14 14 14&#xA;14 14 14 14 14 14 14 14&#xA;14 14 14 14 14 14 14 14&#xA;14 14 14 14 14 14 14 14&#xA;14 14 14 14 14 14 14 14&#xA;14 14 14 14 14 14 14 14&#xA;14 14 14 14 14 14 14 14&#xA;14 14 14 14 14 14 14 14&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-03-24T18:17:58.850" LastActivityDate="2017-03-24T18:17:58.850" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17064" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16488" CreationDate="2017-03-24T22:14:39.513" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.thechessworld.com/resources/nalimov-endgame-tables&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.thechessworld.com/resources/nalimov-endgame-tables&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Per Nalimov  Endgme Tablebases the  endgame of K+2B vs. K+N is a force win for the 2Bs in a maximum of 67 moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12894" LastActivityDate="2017-03-24T22:14:39.513" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17065" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16488" CreationDate="2017-03-25T03:38:35.220" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would suggest running Tablebase on the position - the program can calculate exactly how many moves until the end, provided there are six or less pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In practical play, it is one of those endgames that borders on the brink between a draw and a win.  It should be a draw with &lt;strong&gt;constant&lt;/strong&gt; perfect play, but in practice it is much easier to win with the 2 B's than draw with in the one Knight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think even Karpov failed to draw this endgame in a game he had with Kasparov, and he was renowned for his incredible technique.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2017-03-25T03:38:35.220" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17066" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12694" CreationDate="2017-03-26T04:32:40.233" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess.com now allows games down to 10 seconds and no increment. However, it's hard to find anyone playing faster times than the normal 60 second bullet. I just played a 10 second game after seeking for about two minutes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I pulled this announcement off Facebook just now:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/q3nw8.png&quot; width=&quot;400&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I tested how low the time control is allowed to be set. I found that the system seeks for a ten second game, but if you input 9 seconds as the time control, it will reject the input.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="86" LastActivityDate="2017-03-26T04:32:40.233" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17068" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17086" CreationDate="2017-03-26T06:12:58.903" Score="5" ViewCount="555" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there somewhere online I can play chess tactic puzzles and redo them whenever I want? I do tactics on lichess but it doesn't store my puzzles. Is there somewhere that stores all my tactic problems so I can redo them? I feel that would be better to develop pattern recognition. Thanks in advance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12897" LastActivityDate="2017-07-05T16:25:01.163" Title="Reviewing Chess Tactics Puzzles" Tags="&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;training&gt;&lt;puzzles&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17069" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17072" CreationDate="2017-03-26T08:32:43.620" Score="4" ViewCount="1965" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would like to improve my position evaluation skills. And as we all know - there are tons of tactical exercises , endgames studies, etc. But when it comes to exercises for positional evaluation - well - things are getting complicated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So far I know these sources:&#xA;- 'How to Reassess Your Chess' workbook&#xA;- Aagard 'Positional Play' contains some exercises&#xA;- Khmelnicky 100-exercises test book (but it contains all kinds of puzzles)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've read Dan Heisemann idea to work with complicated middlegame position and then process it with an engine. But IMHO it lacks clear plan presentation and overall view of what is going on the board. So my question is - can anyone point me to specialised book or webpage that contain more of position evaluation exercises with long descriptive answers? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8637" LastEditorDisplayName="user1108" LastEditDate="2017-03-27T08:17:37.183" LastActivityDate="2017-03-27T08:17:37.183" Title="Exercises for positional evaluation" Tags="&lt;positional-play&gt;&lt;training&gt;&lt;evaluation&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17070" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-03-26T08:33:22.470" Score="8" ViewCount="864" Body="&lt;p&gt;Among my weaknesses (which I am aware of), the most irritating and the most important for me, at this point, is &quot;checkmate blindness&quot;, whether because of time pressure or because of any other reason.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most of the time I am able to develop a pretty tough attack that forces my opponent to defend and not letting him to seize the initiative.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The problem is that I can't see, &lt;strong&gt;too often (!)&lt;/strong&gt;, a forced checkmate sequence and sometimes even mate in 1. Despite the fact that I am familiar with all checkmate patterns and easily checkmating a lonely king with knight+bishop etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is what is a good way to improve those checkmating skills when the board is not empty and the checkmate is not obvious?&#xA;Solving checkmate puzzles doesn't help me too much because I know that the checkmate is unavoidable and I am able to find it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, this is a game I played yesterday (white). Eventually, I won this game but I did not find the checkmate sequence 5 times!&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.lichess.org/B6FRwado&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.lichess.org/B6FRwado&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12898" LastActivityDate="2017-04-10T19:18:31.987" Title="Finding checkmate sequence / Successful attack completion" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;attack&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17071" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17070" CreationDate="2017-03-26T15:52:04.250" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm only rated ~1400 in online chess, but I think I can still provide some advice.&#xA;In that game you played I can see three main problems with your checkmating attacks:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You're not exploiting pins on the king. There are multiple occasions where you could have taken the pawn on b6, but you miss the opportunity until later. This is just something you have to get used to. Pins on the king are a relatively simple way of attacking and if you start to think about how you can take pawns, placing the queen accross the king is usually a relatively easy way to grab one, if your opponent is unaware (which is probably the case at your rating).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You close up the position. On move 14, you put your pawn on b5, which immediately loses you a two pawn(!) advantage because it allows your opponent to close the position thereby protecting his king. Admittedly, I don't think I would have found Bc4 in this position either, but even if you can't find it, try to think more about your pawn moves. Pawn moves are especially important because you can't undo them. So instead of playing b5 in that position, you could just play something else entirely.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You let the king run away. Around move 40 you've obviously already won, but something you could improve on is keeping your opponent's king trapped.  Around there you check their king with your bishop, allowing him to run away. If you're unsure what to play, just keeping your rook on a7 is fine. Eventually you can try to move around your rook and bishop to deliver checkmate.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Missing one-move checkmates is pretty normal and pretty much the same as one-move-bunders. You'll improve by playing a lot. One useful thing to think about during the game is to force yourself, every single move, to think about what your opponent's move does: Which square is it undefending? Which squares is it defending?&#xA;Similarly, when you're just about to checkmating, try to think about what squares your opponent's king has and how you can take them away during every move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12901" LastActivityDate="2017-03-26T15:52:04.250" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17072" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17069" CreationDate="2017-03-26T16:35:07.013" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Three recommendations from me:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;Mastering chess strategy&lt;/em&gt; by GM Hellsten has annotated games with more than 350 positional exercises with detailed answers. He has also authored &lt;em&gt;Mastering opening strategy&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;Mastering endgame strategy&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;Chess strategy: move by move&lt;/em&gt; by IM Hunt isn't quite a puzzle book, but looks at annotated games and asks you questions as you analyse the games&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;Practical Chess Exercises&lt;/em&gt; by Ray Cheng has a mix of all types of positions (tactical and positional across all phases of the game). There are a total of 600 positions with detailed explanations here&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2017-03-26T16:35:07.013" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17074" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17069" CreationDate="2017-03-26T19:38:22.723" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd recommend reading annotated games or watching videos of commented games. If you wish you can pause before the comment, do the evaluation yourself and then compare your analysis with that of the commentator. You can find plenty of commentaries of major chess tournaments for free online and also you find streams of online matches commented by the master players live.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd find this much more efficient than trying to make sense of an engine evaluation of a middlegame position, because the engine will not tell you anything about the position but only give you the best continuation (or whatever it thinks is the best continuation).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2017-03-26T19:38:22.723" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17075" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17151" CreationDate="2017-03-27T04:31:09.903" Score="0" ViewCount="1643" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've built a chess game engine using Minimax and when I play AI against the AI, everything goes fine(for sometime) until both the AI players make the same set of moves again and again. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Observe the moves made by the AI players in the move-log(Right panel).&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/k34ry.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/k34ry.png&quot; alt=&quot;AI vs AI repeats moves&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How do I eliminate this scenario?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12906" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2017-03-27T07:37:55.073" LastActivityDate="2017-04-02T01:36:38.810" Title="My chess AI makes the same repeated moves" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;programming&gt;&lt;chess-algorithms&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="8" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17076" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17068" CreationDate="2017-03-27T05:12:44.803" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't know of a specific tactics site that stores all your previous puzzles so that you can redo them.  However, to develop pattern recognition you don't need to do the exact same puzzles over again - doing different puzzles with the same type of tactic / concept is just as good or better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's better to get a variety of examples for one tactic / concept, since it would cover more of the possibilities you can face in a game.  Just doing a few puzzles many times wouldn't be as good, since it doesn't cover enough of the types of positions you may run into during a game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to see full solutions immediately after you get a puzzle wrong, try Chess Tempo.  It shows you the full solution after you finish and let's you play through it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2017-03-27T05:12:44.803" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17077" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17070" CreationDate="2017-03-27T05:19:27.470" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's one thing to be aware of the checkmating patterns, but it's another to have them fully cemented in your mind.  The key here would for you to develop pattern recognition, which happens when you practice these checkmating tactics so much you can almost instantly see them in a real game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would suggest just solving countless checkmating tactics day after day.  Do problems that have lots of pieces on the board - the checkmating patterns against a lone King, for example, won't help you much in a complex middlegame.  Probably the best idea would be to buy a tactics book that either focuses on checkmate tactics or at least has an entire chapter dedicated to it.  The other option would be to do online chess tactics, although I don't know of a site that allows you to pick which kind of tactics you want to do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One chess book you could check out is: &quot;1001 Deadly Checkmates by John Nunn&quot;.  It's a fairly well recommended book.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2017-03-27T05:19:27.470" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17078" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17075" CreationDate="2017-03-27T05:24:54.043" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Even top level engines could do this if they evaluate the position to be completely equal.  If your AIs evaluate this position to be equal, then there's nothing wrong with a three fold.  But in the position you posted it doesn't make much sense for White to go for a three fold, considering the 7 point advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do your AIs do this in every game, or does it just happen once in a while?  What you could try is to build a method in your code called &quot;Evaluate&quot;.  It finds the rough evaluation of the position, and if one AI is better then it should not repeat moves.  You could do this by making it not repeat the move it made two moves ago.  So at: Rg7 Ke6 Rg6 Kd7, since the position has repeated itself call the Evaluate method.  If the Evaluate method returns that White is ahead, do not let the AI repeat the move it made two moves ago (Rg7).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2017-03-27T05:24:54.043" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17079" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17062" CreationDate="2017-03-27T05:30:56.113" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It would depend on which square the Queen is.  If the Queen was in on of the corner squares, it could move to the least squares possible.  If the Queen was in one of the center squares, it could move to the most squares possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2017-03-27T05:30:56.113" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17080" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17069" CreationDate="2017-03-27T05:36:51.583" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The sources you have (Reassess Your Chess and the Aagard book) are two of the best positional books out there.  I would definitely recommend getting those, if you haven't already.  The Reassess Your Chess book is better for really grasping the basics of positional play.  The Aagard book is more advanced, and it's better if you already have a solid positional base.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another option is going to chess.com and getting a coach... there are many Grandmasters on there giving lessons at relatively cheap prices ($30 / $40 an hour).  You could maybe take 10 lessons and get them to just focus on positional exercises with you, which I think would be beneficial.  Some coaches on there are renowned for improving their students' play in an area very rapidly.  Although I think the two positional books I mentioned above should be good enough.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2017-03-27T05:36:51.583" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17081" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1565" CreationDate="2017-03-27T07:32:03.347" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Question is not about how many Tactical Puzzles you were able to solve on ChessTempo but in your real games whether you were you able to bring out same kind of Positions .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are a lot of Players who practice Tactical Puzzles day in &amp;amp; out and their rating does not take a major stand according to their expectations . Studies have revealed even if you practice some 1000 puzzles also with in 5-10 days doing nothing else your rating would stand the same or differ by a small margin for some people . The reason is even if you practiced those puzzles you got to take care of the Piece placement . When you solve a Tactical Puzzle you knew that there is a combination and the pieces are on the best squares which actually does not happen in majority of games . You need to focus on the Activity of the Pieces which is the original aspect in any Chess Game . Follow games of Players like Kasparov/Fischer/Alekhine and you will see how they carry out the attack instead of just solving the final combination.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastActivityDate="2017-03-27T07:32:03.347" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17082" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17075" CreationDate="2017-03-27T07:33:42.767" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You may want to consider third-repetition in your search. Stockfish does that:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/blob/30c583204f97da2c67b5042c30327013e70ae209/src/search.cpp&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/blob/30c583204f97da2c67b5042c30327013e70ae209/src/search.cpp&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    // Step 2. Check for aborted search and immediate draw&#xA;    if (Signals.stop.load(std::memory_order_relaxed) || pos.is_draw(ss-&amp;gt;ply) || ss-&amp;gt;ply &amp;gt;= MAX_PLY)&#xA;        return ss-&amp;gt;ply &amp;gt;= MAX_PLY &amp;amp;&amp;amp; !inCheck ? evaluate(pos)&#xA;                                              : DrawValue[pos.side_to_move()];&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/blob/master/src/position.cpp&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/blob/master/src/position.cpp&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;/// Position::is_draw() tests whether the position is drawn by 50-move rule&#xA;/// or by repetition. It does not detect stalemates.&#xA;&#xA;bool Position::is_draw(int ply) const {&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Implementing third-repetition is important, otherwise your engine might waste moves and think it can still keep the advantage after some meaningless checks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDITED&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should implement the check, otherwise your engine doesn't know the move it tries to make is just simple repetition draw. You will need to program the knowledge. Someone else had the problem  like you:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://talkchess.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=59322&amp;amp;highlight=move+repetitions&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://talkchess.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=59322&amp;amp;highlight=move+repetitions&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2017-03-31T09:42:56.290" LastActivityDate="2017-03-31T09:42:56.290" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17083" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1565" CreationDate="2017-03-27T07:43:35.950" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have not solved too many Puzzles from ChessTempo but other Websites like Chess.com and Chessgames provide 5 and 1 puzzle each day respectively . There are always two kinds of tactical puzzles what I have noticed . One is from the real games and the other is a puzzle which is manually set up to improve the Calculation Skills . The ones which are from real games I believe they are well enough to improve your ratings and even help you in pattern recognitions .The other is just for improving calculations .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12891" LastActivityDate="2017-03-27T07:43:35.950" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17084" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17069" CreationDate="2017-03-27T07:49:51.493" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe Understanding the Sacrifice by Dunnigton is a great book on positional understanding . Here is link of the below .&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.amazon.in/Understanding-Sacrifice-Success-Everyman-Chess/dp/1857443128&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Understanding the Sacrifice &lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even in Google you can get a free pdf of this book. I downloaded it some years back.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12891" LastActivityDate="2017-03-27T07:49:51.493" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17086" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17068" CreationDate="2017-03-27T13:49:11.147" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you have a premium membership on ChessTempo, you can create problem sets with spaced repetition, which is one of the advanced options under problem search. If you select this option, the site will show you both new puzzles and puzzles you've already solved. You'll see puzzles you've gotten wrong more often, and if you get a puzzle right a few times, you won't see it as much.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lucas Chess, which is a desktop program and free to download, also includes sets of tactics puzzles for training using spaced repetition. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4532" LastActivityDate="2017-03-27T13:49:11.147" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17087" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-03-27T14:05:32.553" Score="2" ViewCount="213" Body="&lt;p&gt;I wonder if there is an application that will help with statistics for my own games. Of course - there are applications (eg. Scid, Chessbase) that allow to make some statistics out of database - but it mostly applies to openings. What I would like is to:&#xA;- import my games into the app&#xA;- run some kind of analysis (with more or less filters)&#xA;- get nicely presented statistical output by category&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sample scenario would be - I put all my standard games from 2016, and I want them to be scanned. After that I get report like:&#xA;- 40% lost because of tactical blunders&#xA;- 90% of draws were when playing black&#xA;- in 20% of won games I've reached endgame&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It could be in some way done manually - so I could actually annotate the game with simple tags like: 'pawn endgame', 'slav opening' or 'tactical blunder' and put comments of my own or after I've analysed the game with the coach. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is - does this kind of application even exist?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8637" LastActivityDate="2018-09-29T21:20:45.920" Title="Database program for statistics about mistakes" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;statistics&gt;&lt;database&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17088" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17092" CreationDate="2017-03-27T18:11:34.073" Score="14" ViewCount="12009" Body="&lt;p&gt;What makes a grandmaster special? Is it the amount of steps the grandmaster can foresee, or the creativity? How many steps can a grandmaster foresee in average in a game (for instance Carlsen and Ivanchuk)? Is there a minimum amount?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12730" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-03-28T04:15:19.080" LastActivityDate="2017-04-26T17:43:53.887" Title="How many steps can a grandmaster foresee?" Tags="&lt;grandmaster&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="3" ClosedDate="2017-03-29T04:23:30.880" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17089" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17088" CreationDate="2017-03-27T19:26:00.183" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;It depends upon the position&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For a simple endgame, grandmasters use shortcuts to see very far. For example, using the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_and_pawn_versus_king_endgame#Rule_of_the_square&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;rule of the square&lt;/a&gt;, a grandmaster can see 7 moves. Combining other shortcuts like this, they can see 15 or more moves ahead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In middlegames with few tactics, GM Soltis argued in &lt;em&gt;Studying Chess Made Easy&lt;/em&gt; that seeing 2 1/2 moves ahead was sufficient for grandmasters to find a good move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2017-03-27T19:26:00.183" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17090" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17088" CreationDate="2017-03-27T19:29:00.867" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;It entirely depends on the position and number of variations.  For example, if there is a forced line (where both sides only have one option on each move in a line), then grandmasters can calculate 20 or 30 moves ahead without much trouble.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But if each side has multiple choices on each move, grandmasters can not calculate nearly as much, since the number of possible positions grows exponentially.  Think of the number of variations as a tree - if both sides have two choices on each move, the tree grows two new branches at each branch.  You can see how this would become very large quickly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In general though, most positions do not require extensive calculation - on most of their moves, Grandmasters only calculate 4-5 moves ahead... mainly to just make sure their idea works.  They would only need to calculate many moves when they're in an intense tactical battle, which usually only happens once or twice in a game (since the winner of the tactical skirmish usually wins the game shortly after).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What makes a grandmaster special is a number of things.  The ability to calculate many moves is definitely one trait, but there are many other traits as well:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Evaluating a position to find the correct plan.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Pattern recognition abilities (the quickly recognize tactics or well known strategic plans during a game).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Raw talent - many people work very hard at the game, but only 0.1% of those people actually make it to grandmaster level.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Competitive spirit and the will to win - this one is definitely important in competitive tournaments.  The burning desire to win is important to succeed in chess, even though it may be somewhat unhealthy to have in real life :)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2017-03-27T19:29:00.867" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17091" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17087" CreationDate="2017-03-27T19:32:04.383" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I do not know of an application that exists, unfortunately.  If there was one, people could probably find out and fix their mistakes far quicker than they do now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The problem is programming an computer to recognize &quot;tactical blunders&quot; or &quot;positional mistakes&quot;.  It's hard to define in logical terms.  Telling a computer to calculate using a point system for pieces and a set of rules is one thing, but teaching it to recognize rather vague concepts is another.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2017-03-27T19:32:04.383" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17092" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17088" CreationDate="2017-03-27T19:42:16.663" Score="16" Body="&lt;p&gt;This depends a lot on the position and cannot be answered generally. If you have a forced line, i.e. a position where there are only few candidate moves at every step, a grandmaster can calculate many moves. I am reluctant to give a concrete number because it really depends, but to give you a rough idea, let's say 20 moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand if the position is rather closed, of the maneuvering type, with many equal alternatives at every step, the calculation depth will be much smaller, simply because the number of variations will be much much larger in this case. And even if you calculated 20 moves deep you might not come to a conclusion on which line is best, because 20 moves in the future the position might still be equal. In this case a grandmaster would typically only calculate a couple of moves deep (if at all) in order to check that he is not blundering anything to a tactic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you can see from this description, pure calculation strength is only needed sometimes in a game and certainly not the only reason that grandmasters are much better than the rest. Unlike computers, humans &lt;strong&gt;do not&lt;/strong&gt; play chess by calculating many moves in advance. The strength of human players over computers is that they can &lt;em&gt;evaluate&lt;/em&gt; the position and &lt;em&gt;develop a plan&lt;/em&gt; based on the evaluation. Humans focus more on recognizing patterns and play moves based on these patterns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, grandmasters are grandmasters, because they are good at all parts of the game:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;calculating many moves ahead&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;evaluating a position correctly&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;finding the right plan&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;good at defense: using tactical ideas, standard methods, pure calculation...)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;good at openings: knowing main lines, side lines, recognizing wrong moves in an opening and knowing how to react to them, knowing the ideas behind openings...&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;good at endgames: as with openings, there is a huge body of theory that you can study; also some grandmasters like Carlsen, are said to be particularly good at endgames beyond the known theory&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;pattern recognition abilities: to recognize tactics and other known motives&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;creativity&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;personal traits, physical fitness&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2017-03-27T19:42:16.663" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17093" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17087" CreationDate="2017-03-27T19:51:47.037" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Lichess has something called &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.lichess.org/blog/VmZbaigAABACtXQC/chess-insights&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chess insights&lt;/a&gt; which looks a lot like what you want. As pointed out by others, you won't get statistics for something like &quot;lost because of tactical blunders&quot; because it is subjective and difficult to assess computationally.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However there are some useful metrics such as &lt;em&gt;How often you take advantage of your opponent blunders.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2017-03-27T19:51:47.037" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17094" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8531" CreationDate="2017-03-28T00:10:18.423" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just attack the queen with knights, bishops and pawns! If you don't make any huge mistake (letting a mate happen on f7 or something) then you'll be ahead and have an advantage later on in the game. :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12915" LastActivityDate="2017-03-28T00:10:18.423" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17095" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17088" CreationDate="2017-03-28T07:15:42.250" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Grandmasters follow many Chess principles which sometimes reduce the amount of Calculations in the game. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When the Position is Tactical and lot of forcing moves are compelled they can calculate up to 15-20 moves in different variations.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Please note that they do not pick up all the combinations as an amateur tries to do but they calculate the important lines. Now you may ask how they choose the important lines. After the calculation they have already visualized the basic aspects like their own King safety, piece placement, etc. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;There is a Principle of Elimination method which helps them to reduce the unimportant lines and selection of candidate moves.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;They choose their openings which they can memorize for 20 moves on average, and they know the clear ideas in the middlegame. For example, if a GM plays the Sicilian Najdorf as Black, he knows that Black's idea is to play on the c-file, attack on the Q-side and play in the Centre. They know the aspects of the middle game when they choose an opening. They even study 100s of games on that particular line.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;One characteristic is that they believe if their pieces are on good squares and positionally sound, it helps to reduce calculations. As Carlsen said during his WCC match against Anand, &quot;My pieces are on better squares compared to his, so why I should be afraid of losing?&quot; This, I believe, is a great lesson for all.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastEditorUserId="11202" LastEditDate="2017-04-26T17:43:53.887" LastActivityDate="2017-04-26T17:43:53.887" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17097" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8531" CreationDate="2017-03-28T10:14:20.730" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;When you move the Queen early in the Game it is subjected to attacks by minor pieces Bishops &amp;amp; Knights which occupies central squares and important diagonals . Bringing the Queen out early is an uncanny choice and it would lead to a big loss of Tempo which is important to understand from beginner's point . &#xA;Moreover the Queen can be trapped by opponents minor pieces and then the Game would be easily won by opponent .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastActivityDate="2017-03-28T10:14:20.730" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17098" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17099" CreationDate="2017-03-28T11:58:25.227" Score="2" ViewCount="337" Body="&lt;p&gt;Someone sent me a screenshot of a chess website with detailed analysis. What is this website? Where does it come from? It doesn't look like lichess to me, I have no idea.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/YTok0.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/YTok0.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2017-03-28T12:16:00.547" Title="What website is this?" Tags="&lt;online-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17099" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17098" CreationDate="2017-03-28T12:16:00.547" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The board here looks similar: &lt;a href=&quot;http://analysis.sesse.net&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://analysis.sesse.net&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11946" LastActivityDate="2017-03-28T12:16:00.547" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17100" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-03-28T13:16:14.920" Score="-3" ViewCount="278" Body="&lt;p&gt;If the game had played between to GM which game progresses to more steps if pgn notion tends more defensive approach with less blunders.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just for recap&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Scandinavian defense &lt;code&gt;ECO B01&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;1. e4 d5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Dutch defense &lt;code&gt;ECO A80&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;1.d4 f5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both openings are quite unbalancing. Which opening would lead to a longer game, and why would this be so?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9229" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2021-01-12T14:53:08.963" LastActivityDate="2021-01-12T14:53:08.963" Title="Considering Scandinavian defense versus Dutch defense" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;scandinavian-defense&gt;&lt;dutch-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="0" ClosedDate="2017-03-28T14:37:34.813" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="17101" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17100" CreationDate="2017-03-28T14:02:23.073" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am still not sure whether this answers your question, but: Scandinavian tends to lead to more open/tactical games while the Dutch tends to lead to more closed/positional games. If you want to profile openings I suggest to take a database and check game positions of master players around move 10-15 and see whether you like any of those positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But anyway (and this is not meant to be condescending; I know I wrote this before to one of your other questions): if you want to improve in chess forget about all those openings for the time being and focus on not losing pieces in one move. This will give you much better chess than if you learn some opening lines by heart, without understanding the ideas behind the openings. As a second step, learn some general principles (good, bad pieces, development, ...) At move 16 both players blundered their queen and worrying about opening theory at this level is-to be honest-a waste of time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2017-03-28T14:02:23.073" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17102" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-03-28T16:16:50.907" Score="5" ViewCount="297" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've always been told that Q and N are very strong in attacking K. Could someone show me some real GM games where Q+N attack decides the game? (where at the end of the aggression, the attacking side gets decisive advantage)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7002" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-26T17:26:47.830" LastActivityDate="2020-03-26T17:26:47.830" Title="Q+N in attacking K" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;knights&gt;&lt;queens&gt;&lt;master-games&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17103" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17113" CreationDate="2017-03-28T20:00:51.293" Score="4" ViewCount="620" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Marshall defence goes &lt;strong&gt;1. d4 d5 2. c4 Nf6?!&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I played this game recently as white. It was the first time I saw the Marshall in a game and the real contest was over by move 14.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[StartPly &quot;7&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. c4 Nf6 3. cxd5 Nxd5 4. Nf3 Bg4 5. e4 Nb6 6. Be2 Bxf3 7. Bxf3 e6 8. O-O Be7 9. d5 O-O 10. dxe6 fxe6 11. Qb3 Qd7 12. Bg4 Rf6 13. Rd1 Bd6 14. e5 Rg6 15. exd6 Rxg4 16. dxc7 Rd4 17. Rxd4 Qxd4 18. Qxe6+ Kf8 19. c8=R+ Nxc8 20. Qxc8+ Ke7 21. Qxb7+ Kf6 22. Qf3+ Ke6 23. Qe3+ Qe5 24. Nc3 Nc6 25. f4 Qxe3+ 26. Bxe3 a5 27. Rd1 Ne7 28. Nb5 Rb8 29. a4 Nd5 30. g4 Nxe3 31. Re1 Rf8 32. Rxe3+ Kd7 33. f5 g6 34. Rf3 Kc6 35. Kg2 gxf5 36. Rxf5 Rg8 37. Kf3 Rd8 38. Kg3 Rd3+ 39. Rf3 Rd2 40. b3 Rb2 41. Na3 Ra2 42. Nc4  1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now the Marshall defence is considered to be dubious, even refuted: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;This [1. d4 d5 2. c4 Nf6?! 3. cxd5 Nxd5 4. Nf3!] is considered to be the refutation for this defence&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2urOgXfleco&amp;amp;t=117s&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;GreenCastleBlock on YouTube&lt;/a&gt;, @ 0:58.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But my question is &lt;strong&gt;there any move after 4. Nf3 where black gains equality?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastEditorDisplayName="user1108" LastEditDate="2017-03-29T09:06:02.927" LastActivityDate="2017-03-29T19:58:18.407" Title="Is there any way to gain equality with the QGD Marshall Defence?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;queens-gambit&gt;&lt;refuted&gt;&lt;queens-gambit-declined&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17104" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-03-28T23:52:43.790" Score="10" ViewCount="287" Body="&lt;p&gt;I came upon the following wonderful painting by Sofonisba Anguissola, ‘&lt;a href=&quot;http://earlymodernwomen.blogspot.com/2010/03/sofonisba-anguissola-first-great-woman.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;The first great woman artist of the renaissance&lt;/a&gt;,’ of her sisters playing chess (painted 1555). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/wrCOQ.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/wrCOQ.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Sofonisba Anguissola (1555) her sisters playing chess&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The painting is truly sublime. Chess players will notice, however, that the color of the squares on the board is the opposite from what is usually used in modern games, with light on the right, and so it made me wonder about the history of this convention. When did the light-on-the-right convention come into prominence? Has it been long established that way? Is this painting illustrating a different custom at that time, or rather might it be explained by an artist inventing a scene and not aware of the custom?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3454" LastEditorUserId="3454" LastEditDate="2017-03-29T00:00:09.880" LastActivityDate="2017-03-31T14:14:39.517" Title="When did the light-on-the-right convention ascend to dominance?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;history&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17105" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2223" CreationDate="2017-03-29T00:34:29.933" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Thank you for the question, and for linking to some of my work on infinite chess. You can find additional material on infinite chess on my blog at &lt;a href=&quot;http://jdh.hamkins.org/tag/infinite-chess/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://jdh.hamkins.org/tag/infinite-chess/&lt;/a&gt;. There are numerous talks, including slides, with infinite chess movies, as well as more detailed research papers and more. I'd be happy to discuss any aspect of that---please go ahead and ask focussed questions about infinite chess. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But in regards to your question, I would agree that most people working on infinite chess are more mathematicians than chess players, and furthermore the central issues seem to be mathematical in nature. Certainly I am more a mathematician than a chess player, although I enjoy a lot of chess (you can play me on ICC, username: JDH). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You ask specifically whether infinite chess has been explored by chess players, as opposed to mathematicians, and the answer to this is yes. My co-author on several of the infinite chess papers, for example, is &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.uschess.org/msa/MbrDtlMain.php?12565771&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;C. D. A. Evans&lt;/a&gt;, US National master, also philosophy PhD candidate at the City University of New York, but not a mathematician. Also, &lt;a href=&quot;http://math.harvard.edu/~elkies/chess.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Noam Elkies&lt;/a&gt;, professor at Harvard, is also an accomplished chess player who is also a mathematician, and has written on infinite chess.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my research practice with Cory Evans, I can report that his chess intuition and analysis was invaluable in shooting down and finding flaws in numerous proposed chess positions. But also, it seemed to be an essentially mathematical activity to come up with the various infinite chess positions that illustrate the various high game values and so on. So it was a true collaboration between two fields.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3454" LastEditorUserId="3454" LastEditDate="2017-03-29T01:01:01.157" LastActivityDate="2017-03-29T01:01:01.157" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17106" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-03-29T01:09:56.787" Score="7" ViewCount="548" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would like to know what are the formal rules for two-player bughouse without a clock. I'd like to think of each team as a single player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems to me that bughouse chess works primarily because of the time limit imposed by the clock. If one should remove the clock, then it is easy to imagine a position where both teams are at a disadvantage to move first. Perhaps it is one team's turn to move on board 1 and the other team's turn on board 2, but whoever moves first will be put at a disadvantage on the other board because of a resulting capture. In such a case, neither player wants to go first, and the game enters a deadlock, with no team specifically to blame for not having moved.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there formal rule sets for bughouse chess that eliminate the possibility of such a deadlock?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I suppose that if one insists that play proceeds on each board in turn (white on board 1, black on board 2, white on board 2, black on board 1, repeat), then it would resolve this issue, since it would at any stage be a certain player's obligation to move, just as in any game. But in practice, bughouse chess does not obey such a convention, and I wonder whether there is a way to set up the rules to more closely follow the practice, but while avoiding the problematic kind of deadlock where neither team wants to move, but nobody is obliged to move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3454" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2021-01-31T22:51:51.827" LastActivityDate="2021-05-18T13:02:36.370" Title="Formal rules for two-player bughouse without a clock" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;bughouse&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="17107" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17068" CreationDate="2017-03-29T02:54:44.827" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I do problems on Lichess, and they do save at least the last 15 that you've done.  There are little boxes for each of these in sequence under the current problem diagram that you can click on to bring up the old problem diagrams.  The boxes are either green or red according to whether you have solved or failed the problem.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastActivityDate="2017-03-29T02:54:44.827" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17108" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17106" CreationDate="2017-03-29T07:24:37.637" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;In bughouse there are no formal rules, since bughouse isn't exactly a formal game :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But from my experience, the two most common ways to deal with this are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;A player counts to 10 after moving, and his opponent has to move before he reaches 10.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;You are only obligated to move once the person sitting diagonally from you (your opponent's partner) moves.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other than these, I don't know of any other effective rules that would work.  I've played with some very strong bughouse players (borderline professionals), and even they often just resort to counting :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2017-03-29T07:24:37.637" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17109" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2017-03-29T09:07:15.487" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Queen's Gambit Declined, often abbreviated to QGD, is a chess opening characterised by 1. d4 d5 2. c4 e6&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastEditorDisplayName="user1108" LastEditDate="2017-03-29T09:07:15.487" LastActivityDate="2017-03-29T09:07:15.487" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17110" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2017-03-29T09:07:15.487" Score="0" Body="The Queen's Gambit Declined, often abbreviated to QGD, is a chess opening characterised by 1. d4 d5 2. c4 e6" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastEditorDisplayName="user1108" LastEditDate="2017-03-29T09:07:15.487" LastActivityDate="2017-03-29T09:07:15.487" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17111" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17070" CreationDate="2017-03-29T15:14:13.183" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;As someone else has mentioned, it is important to know all the standard checkmating positions, which can be found in online tutorials. And while you are playing, you must always be aware of king safety. Many players concentrate only on their own moves and don't pay enough attention to their opponent's plans.  You must always stay alert to both. Overlooking a mate in one is clearly an observation problem.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastActivityDate="2017-03-29T15:14:13.183" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17112" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2174" CreationDate="2017-03-29T17:09:30.203" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I highly recommend &lt;em&gt;The Sniper&lt;/em&gt; by Charlie Storey.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The publisher's blurb says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The Sniper is a dynamic and universal opening weapon for Black which&#xA;  can be used against all mainline openings. Black's system of&#xA;  development with ...g6 and ...Bg7 initially allows White to occupy the&#xA;  centre but, in true hypermodern style, Black strikes back immediately&#xA;  with ...c5. The Sniper can lead to original or barely-known positions&#xA;  in which Black can strive for the initiative. It's also rich in&#xA;  move-order possibilities, with potential transpositions into Sicilian,&#xA;  King's Indian or Benko-type positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my opinion the book delivers what it claims.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11946" LastActivityDate="2017-03-29T17:09:30.203" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17113" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17103" CreationDate="2017-03-29T19:58:18.407" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Marshall is considered dubious since Black essentially just gives up full control over the center.  For that reason, there is no move that would give Black absolute equality after 4. Nf3&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are probably good development schemes that would give Black a playable game, but there is no direct path to absolute equality.  Heck, there's no direct path to complete equality for Black in even the most respected openings, such as the Grunfeld and Slav.  Even in those openings Black has to work to achieve an equal game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The best development scheme that I know of in the Marshall is the following (after 4. Nf3):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;g6, Bg7, 0-0, Nc6, Bg4.  And if White plays e4 at any point, the Knight on d5 retreats to b6.  This gives Black a reasonable game, and I believe it is the most popular system in the reference database.  But even here, White keeps a comfortable edge.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2017-03-29T19:58:18.407" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17115" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17116" CreationDate="2017-03-30T14:09:25.313" Score="5" ViewCount="407" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 c5 3.d5 b5 4.cxb5 a6 5.bxa6 g6 6.Nc3 Bxa6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a main line of the Benko Gambit. Black could also have played 5...Bxa6, followed by 6...g6 to get the same position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, 5...Bxa6 is played only half as often as 5...g6, and the majority of those games go 6.Nc3 d6 in my database, more often than 6...g6. So to reach the game position, g6+Bxa6 is about four times as popular as Bxa6+g6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there some minor detail that makes 5...Bxa6, 6...g6 less attractive?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2017-03-30T15:50:22.083" Title="Why ...g6 before ...Bxa6 in the Benko Gambit?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;benko-gambit&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17116" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17115" CreationDate="2017-03-30T14:25:52.127" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, there are no real differences between the 2 lines. White has no way to defend the pawn, so black can choose the move order they feel most comfortable with.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You see something similar in the french defence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. e5 c5 4. dxc5 Nc6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black could have regained a pawn straightaway with 4...Bc5, but decided to develop a knight first, seeing as white has no way to defend that pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I found this explanation of 5...g6 on &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benko_Gambit&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The main line continues with the moves 4. cxb5 a6 5. bxa6 Bxa6 followed by Black fianchettoing the f8-bishop. (Black players leery of the double-fianchetto system, where White plays g3 and b3, and fianchettos both bishops, have preferred 5...g6 intending 6.b3 Bg7 7.Bb2 Nxa6! The point is that it is awkward for White to meet the threat of ...Nb4, hitting d5 and a2, when Nc3 may often be met by ...Nfxd5 because of the latent pin down the long diagonal.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The double fianchetto has fallen out of favour seeing as the king's walk variation gives a good game for white. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastEditorDisplayName="user1108" LastEditDate="2017-03-30T14:32:46.467" LastActivityDate="2017-03-30T14:32:46.467" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17117" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17115" CreationDate="2017-03-30T15:50:22.083" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is technically as such not such a great difference but it implies a Basic Chess principle . Development of the Dark Square Bishop on Long diagonal ASAP . &#xA;Black knows that the Pawn on a6 is not going anywhere . He waits to capture either with Knight or Bishop or even Rook sometimes . Playing g6 Black makes the way for castling or makes some space for his King on f8 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastActivityDate="2017-03-30T15:50:22.083" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17118" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2017-03-30T17:55:23.933" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-03-30T17:55:23.933" LastActivityDate="2017-03-30T17:55:23.933" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17119" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2017-03-30T17:55:23.933" Score="0" Body="For questions about (presumably) refuted openings." OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-03-30T17:55:23.933" LastActivityDate="2017-03-30T17:55:23.933" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17120" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17123" CreationDate="2017-03-30T19:25:53.167" Score="2" ViewCount="219" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've got two questions. I'm wondering if:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It is possible to search for certain positions in a database (like Chessbase) and display all of them in a text file.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;To be able to assign a score to each position automatically with a chess engine. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've got some notions of programming but I wouldn't mind getting some ideas on how to write such a program.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12944" LastEditorUserId="4509" LastEditDate="2017-03-31T09:25:03.383" LastActivityDate="2017-04-07T08:51:29.207" Title="Analysing Positions in Databases with a program" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;database&gt;&lt;programming&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17121" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17012" CreationDate="2017-03-31T01:26:13.790" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The biggest things I think are that you need to commit to learn from your mistakes, and you need to avoid burnout.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I spent time off from playing chess and threw my games into a computer engine and I was amazed at the simple stuff I missed repeatedly. Obviously, you don't magically become better just by seeing analysis of your own game, but it helps to say: yes, I continually miss this tactic, or, I continually miss a win in this sort of endgame, or even &quot;I thought I played great but I still missed some stuff.&quot; A computer can show you a few immediate patterns. It is no substitute for working with another person, but it is more patient about pointing out the mistakes you keep making. It also points out that you don't have to play anywhere near perfectly to be an expert, which is a relief. You'll want to find a happy medium between placing experts on a pedestal and realizing they make mistakes, too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd like to echo @RemcoGerlich's point about &quot;reading&quot; chess books as if it is studying for a vocabulary or history multiple-choice exam. Knowledge doesn't quite work that way. If you spend 15 minutes on the stairmaster, you will burn X calories, but on the other hand, spending 15 minutes glossing over a book and flipping pages probably doesn't help you learn. I also think many of us fall into the trap of needing to play over advanced GM games from now to keep up to date, when really, games from 1900 or so emphasize basic principles much better, and it's more fun to see all the sacrifices to boot.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some people don't ask questions about their games--their own moves and their opponents'. Some people don't have resources where they can try a few tactical puzzles per day and track their progress. And some people haven't found a good YouTube site where they can get training for free and even choose what lessons to learn next. There are so many free resources on the Internet, and it's worth taking time to find a few (you only need a few) that work well for you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11202" LastActivityDate="2017-03-31T01:26:13.790" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17123" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17120" CreationDate="2017-03-31T04:07:20.703" Score="1" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Use &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.cs.kent.ac.uk/people/staff/djb/pgn-extract/help.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;pgn-extract&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;... FEN positional matches with -t ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Use &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/fsmosca/chess-artist&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;ChessArtist&lt;/a&gt;. It supports any UCI chess engine, including Stockfish and Komodo.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2017-03-31T04:07:20.703" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17124" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17125" CreationDate="2017-03-31T04:55:25.947" Score="4" ViewCount="868" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let's say the following happens during a blitz match:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;White makes a move, resulting in stalemate&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Black doesn't notice the stalemate and moves the king into an illegal position.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Usually illegal moves result in instant loss according to FIDE rules, but a stalemate results in instant draw. So, what's the outcome of the game? Draw or win for white?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This didn't happen in one of my matches, but &#xA;I've had some losses in the past because of illegal moves and I'm wondering what would happen in this case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12946" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-03-31T05:46:51.610" LastActivityDate="2017-03-31T05:46:51.610" Title="What happens if you move your king on stalemate?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;stalemate&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17125" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17124" CreationDate="2017-03-31T05:46:40.903" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just like checkmate, stalemate &lt;em&gt;immediately ends the game&lt;/em&gt;. From the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/FIDE/handbook/LawsOfChess.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Laws of Chess&lt;/a&gt;, 5.2a:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The game is drawn when the player to move has no legal move and his king is not in check. The game is said to end in ‘stalemate’. This immediately ends the game,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  provided that the move producing the stalemate position was legal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is not overridden by any rules in Appendix B, covering Blitz, so the situation you describe is a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2017-03-31T05:46:40.903" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17126" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9450" CreationDate="2017-03-31T07:58:09.803" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Chess there is a saying &quot; A Weakness is not a weakness unless it is exploited or it can be exploited.&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well the move h6 does not look a good move at all because it just deprives the White Black Bishop coming into g5 . It does not develop anything from Black's perspective but it weakens the g6 Square somehow . If White understands this then he can play e3/e4 , bring the Knight to e5 and then do a sacrifice on f7 and Qh5+,Bd3 can make the game difficult for Black . Black will be running away with his King in the entire game . I understand that Black will develop his Knight on f6 which would take the h5 Square but that can be dislodged by playing e4 ,d&lt;em&gt;e4 and then N&lt;/em&gt;e4. The above explanation is quite imaginary but nevertheless can be applied in some games depending on a lower level opponent ELO.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now this is absolutely true :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Playing h6 prevents many important lines of QGD like Barmen, Lasker, Miles and many other variations where Bishop comes on g5 White can instead play the Harrwitz Attack where he can bring the Bishop on f4 and try for a K-side attack or even the London System and advance the h4 Pawn , Ng5 which can serve a nice line for this h6 move .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastActivityDate="2017-03-31T07:58:09.803" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17127" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17128" CreationDate="2017-03-31T08:07:44.133" Score="4" ViewCount="3241" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm making a chess engine that has to implement a three-fold repetition as my AI vs AI engine repeats the same moves over and over again (Have a look at my post here - &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/17075/my-chess-ai-makes-the-same-repeated-moves&quot;&gt;My chess AI makes the same repeated moves&lt;/a&gt;). I've read the rules of this scenario from the wiki and would like to implement it. I'm not sure if I have understood the rules thoroughly, so what I'm doing here is - &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Checking if the present move made (from the movelog I have) has already occurred before.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If it did, check for one more occurrence (as we need three in total).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If the moves pattern for all the three re-occurred moves is same, return true.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please have a look at my Java code and suggest me the corrections.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    boolean isThreeFoldRepetition() {&#xA;        List&amp;lt;Move&amp;gt; allMoves = Table.get().getMoveLog().getMoves();&#xA;        int currentMoveIndex = allMoves.size()-1;&#xA;        int secondFoldMoveIndex = currentMoveIndex - 4;&#xA;        int firstFoldMoveIndex = secondFoldMoveIndex - 4;&#xA;        int distance = currentMoveIndex - secondFoldMoveIndex - 1;&#xA;&#xA;        while(firstFoldMoveIndex &amp;gt;= 0){&#xA;            Move thirdFoldMoveMade = allMoves.get(currentMoveIndex);&#xA;            Move secondFoldMoveMade = allMoves.get(secondFoldMoveIndex);&#xA;            Move firstFoldMoveMade = allMoves.get(firstFoldMoveIndex);&#xA;&#xA;            if(thirdFoldMoveMade.equals(secondFoldMoveMade) &amp;amp;&amp;amp;&#xA;               secondFoldMoveMade.equals(firstFoldMoveMade) &amp;amp;&amp;amp;&#xA;               firstFoldMoveIndex - distance &amp;gt;= 0){&#xA;                int gap;&#xA;                for(gap = 1; gap &amp;lt;= distance; gap++){&#xA;                    thirdFoldMoveMade = allMoves.get(currentMoveIndex - gap);&#xA;                    secondFoldMoveMade = allMoves.get(secondFoldMoveIndex - gap);&#xA;                    firstFoldMoveMade = allMoves.get(firstFoldMoveIndex - gap);&#xA;&#xA;                    if(!thirdFoldMoveMade.equals(secondFoldMoveMade) || !secondFoldMoveMade.equals(firstFoldMoveMade))&#xA;                        break;&#xA;                }&#xA;                if(gap == distance)&#xA;                    return true;&#xA;            }&#xA;&#xA;            secondFoldMoveIndex -= 2;&#xA;            firstFoldMoveIndex = secondFoldMoveIndex - distance - 3;&#xA;        }&#xA;        return false;&#xA;    }&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12906" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-09-16T21:30:46.180" LastActivityDate="2019-09-16T21:30:46.180" Title="Programming three-fold repetition for my chess engine" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;programming&gt;&lt;threefold-repetition&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="17128" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17127" CreationDate="2017-03-31T08:14:42.180" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;Threefold-repetition is about &lt;strong&gt;a position&lt;/strong&gt; (not moves) occurring three times. Those positions &lt;strong&gt;do not&lt;/strong&gt; have to be reached by the same moves. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also (as this also seems to be confused sometimes) it is completely irrelevant when this happens, e.g. you can have the same positions after moves 10, 42 and 63 and it would still be a draw. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should check whether the position is repeated. So basically at every move you need to check whether the position occurred in the game before. By &lt;em&gt;position&lt;/em&gt; I mean the same position of all pieces on the board &lt;em&gt;and&lt;/em&gt; the same castling rights &lt;em&gt;and&lt;/em&gt; the same player to move &lt;em&gt;and&lt;/em&gt; the same enpassant rights. That is, basically you are checking whether the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forsyth%E2%80%93Edwards_Notation&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FEN&lt;/a&gt; are the same (except for halfmove clock and fullmove number).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Something like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;int positionCount=0;&#xA;while(iterate through game positions) {&#xA;    if ( positionToCheck.piecesPosition == iterationPosition.piecesPosition &amp;amp;&amp;amp; &#xA;         positionToCheck.castleRights == iterationPosition.castleRights &amp;amp;&amp;amp; &#xA;         positionToCheck.enPassantRights == iterationPosition.enPassantRights &amp;amp;&amp;amp;&#xA;         positionToCheck.playerToMove == iterationPosition.playerToMove ) {&#xA;      positionCount++;&#xA;    }&#xA;    if (positionCount==3) { return true; }&#xA;}&#xA;return false;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course you can simplify the above algorithm. E.g. you only need to iterate over position with the same player to move. Also you only need to iterate over positions back to the last pawn move, capture or castling move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastEditorUserId="11629" LastEditDate="2017-04-04T07:45:54.720" LastActivityDate="2017-04-04T07:45:54.720" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17129" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17127" CreationDate="2017-03-31T09:25:20.817" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Although @user1583209 is on the right track. His approach would only work for a chess GUI but too &lt;strong&gt;slow&lt;/strong&gt; for a chess engine. Modern engines only check for the last few moves, they won't go all the way back to the initial position because that'd be an almost waste of time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You have complicated your code too much. In reality, checking for repetition is very simple:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/blob/master/src/position.cpp&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/blob/master/src/position.cpp&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;int cnt = 0;&#xA;for (int i = 4; i &amp;lt;= end; i += 2)&#xA;{&#xA;  stp = stp-&amp;gt;previous-&amp;gt;previous;&#xA;&#xA;  // At root position ply is 1, so return a draw score if a position&#xA;  // repeats once earlier but after or at the root, or repeats twice&#xA;  // strictly before the root.&#xA;  if (   stp-&amp;gt;key == st-&amp;gt;key&#xA;      &amp;amp;&amp;amp; ++cnt + (ply - i &amp;gt; 0) == 2)&#xA;      return true;&#xA;}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You go back in the history and check the key for your position. &lt;strong&gt;Very simple&lt;/strong&gt;. You may want to ignore the &lt;code&gt;ply&lt;/code&gt; check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should have a way to hash your position, if you don't you will need it for transposition table anyway. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A useful reference link to prove my idea is correct:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://talkchess.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=59322&amp;amp;highlight=move+repetitions&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://talkchess.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=59322&amp;amp;highlight=move+repetitions&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2017-03-31T09:35:13.643" LastActivityDate="2017-03-31T09:35:13.643" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17130" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-03-31T10:54:29.460" Score="8" ViewCount="4816" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm playing lots of online chess. I find one thing in particular really hard: time. I lose on time a lot. Yesterday and today I lost 3 times pure on time - games where I would've destroyed the other if it wasn't for the time - but since I keep on thinking too long about certain situations it takes a lot of time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I play mostly 10+0 matches. I know I can play longer games; I just want to know how I can improve my time 'problem' so I can also play shorter games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8827" LastActivityDate="2019-10-26T21:46:52.920" Title="Losing on time constantly" Tags="&lt;time-management&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17131" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17130" CreationDate="2017-03-31T12:11:44.223" Score="8" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I know I can play longer games; I just want to know how I can improve my time 'problem' so I can also play shorter games&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My advice is &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; going to address how you can speed up your thinking or improve your clock handling skills. My advice is to &lt;strong&gt;play longer games&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I personally cannot think quick enough for bullet or blitz chess. My 'home' is rapid play or slower. The slower time controls also suit my more positional style and a preference for the endgame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When it comes to time controls, &lt;strong&gt;choose the time controls that suit you and your style&lt;/strong&gt;, otherwise you are going to go against your grain and become frustrated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2017-03-31T12:11:44.223" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17132" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17130" CreationDate="2017-03-31T13:51:38.217" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure if this will work, but have you considered playing much shorter time controls, and then going back to 10+0?  I have noticed that if I play 1+0 &quot;bullet&quot; on lichess, and then play 5+0 &quot;blitz&quot;, it seems easier...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7897" LastActivityDate="2017-03-31T13:51:38.217" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17133" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2017-03-31T14:07:20.547" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-03-31T14:07:20.547" LastActivityDate="2017-03-31T14:07:20.547" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17134" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2017-03-31T14:07:20.547" Score="0" Body="The Benko gambit, also called Volga gambit, is an opening characterized by the moves 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 c5 3.d5 b5." OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2017-04-07T08:53:44.127" LastActivityDate="2017-04-07T08:53:44.127" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17135" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17104" CreationDate="2017-03-31T14:14:39.517" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sometimes chess textbooks would rotate the board by 90 degrees, under the assumption that the players sat at the left and right of the board:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The only clear evidence of the use of different sources is supplied by the diagrams. While the great majority are oriented in the way universally followed in modern text-books, a small number in each work are at right angles to the ordinary arrangement. These must have been derived from an MS [manuscript], in which the positions were drawn on the supposition that the players were seated to the right and left of the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;em&gt;A History of Chess: The Original 1913 Edition&lt;/em&gt; by H.J.R. Murray&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Murray unfortunately does not give the origins of 'light on right'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2017-03-31T14:14:39.517" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17136" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17215" CreationDate="2017-03-31T15:07:17.420" Score="8" ViewCount="826" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my own games I have seen fewer advance Caro-Kann games (1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. e5) than the semi-open games (3. Nc3 or 3. Nd2) or the Botvinnik systems (3. exd5 cxd5 4. c4 or 2. c4).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My questions are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Has the advance Caro-Kann become less popular at club or master level?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;How do we know? E.g. how can we mine a database to show opening popularity over time?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-03-31T20:25:35.893" LastActivityDate="2017-04-07T20:41:15.820" Title="Is the advance Caro-Kann becoming less popular?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;database&gt;&lt;caro-kann&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17137" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17127" CreationDate="2017-03-31T23:19:31.903" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why not just keep a map indexed by the position hash pointing to a count of how many times it has been seen so far?  No iteration required... just update the hash as you traverse the move tree.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="606" LastActivityDate="2017-03-31T23:19:31.903" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17138" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17130" CreationDate="2017-04-01T08:39:08.240" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you want to play a 10 min format and you are unable to cope up with time I would suggest first check out in which phase you are taking more time . Are you thinking long in the middle game, trying to do deep calculation and finding the most perfect move? Then do not think in that fashion! Try finding an easier move instead, which is safe. It is important that looking at the position you can make some moves using your instinct and not calculating every move. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should also keep track of your Opponent's time &amp;amp; try flagging your opponents. Also practice games where you always have a time advantage. What I mean here is you would always have more time on clock compared to your opponent. You play chess not only to checkmate your opponent but to have a time plus on clock.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One more suggestion would be always practice at shorter time controls before you play in the original format. For instance play 5 min, 3 min or even 1 min games so that when you return to 10 min it feels easy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-10-26T21:46:52.920" LastActivityDate="2019-10-26T21:46:52.920" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="17139" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2341" CreationDate="2017-04-01T08:46:29.207" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;As of 2017.04.01, &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.cs.kent.ac.uk/people/staff/djb/pgn-extract/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;pgn-extract&lt;/a&gt; (version 17-38) does provide variation splitting functionality via its --splitvariants flag. So, if you want this in a Windows/Linux/Mac OS environment it is available. Disclosure: I am the author of pgn-extract.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12951" LastActivityDate="2017-04-01T08:46:29.207" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17140" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12909" CreationDate="2017-04-01T10:56:53.533" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;TL;DR &lt;strong&gt;Absolutely!!&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In fact, I see no reason why it will not run on a microcontroller. Possibly a side project for someone to do one day.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It should work fine (as it says it requires less than 64KB of RAM) which on a PC is already provided. :D&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for the 64-bit integers, where are you seeing those? Didn't see that in my copy of the code.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user11939" LastActivityDate="2017-04-01T10:56:53.533" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17143" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-04-01T14:34:15.637" Score="13" ViewCount="2409" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is my specific situation: I have written a novel in which two characters play a game, the moves of which follow exactly a known game between two ranked players in ChessGames.com. Must I get permission from the two real players? Or must I only credit them in the acknowledgments of the novel? Or need I even do that? Any information, especially with legal citations, would be greatly appreciated!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12954" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-04-01T16:04:06.793" LastActivityDate="2017-04-03T10:13:37.867" Title="What are the laws concerning copyright of chess games?" Tags="&lt;famous-players&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17144" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17143" CreationDate="2017-04-01T16:04:40.553" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess games without annotation can't be possibly copyrighted. You don't need to inform them. You don't need to acknowledge them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've been using Carlsen's games (without annotation) for commercial. I literally sell his moves and the games. So far, the world champion has not complained.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Game annotations are protected by the laws. Make sure you only use the game moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;@itub has some links, such as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess24.com/en/read/news/us-judge-agrees-with-chess24-on-chess-moves&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://chess24.com/en/read/news/us-judge-agrees-with-chess24-on-chess-moves&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2017-04-02T13:05:30.347" LastActivityDate="2017-04-02T13:05:30.347" CommentCount="15" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17146" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-04-01T18:21:08.707" Score="6" ViewCount="234" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've noticed that when black goes Nd7 in the KID fiancetto variation, then often he follows up with c6. What is the main reason(s) for this? Especially, I'm asking this question as often the d6 pawn afterwards becomes subject for attack by white. First I thought the reason was mainly defensive to hold white knights away from b5 and maybe even d5, but I don't really see this being such a threat. Then I figured the reason for c6 was do go d5 at some point, but rarely does black indeed play this move, so I'm unsure as to why black usually does go c6 and thus creates this target on d6. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;*&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.Nf3 O-O 5.g3 d6 6.Bg2 Nbd7 7.O-O e5 8.e4 c6 ( 8...Re8 9.h3 c6)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12953" LastEditorUserId="12953" LastEditDate="2017-04-01T20:30:29.893" LastActivityDate="2017-04-03T07:07:55.690" Title="KID fiancetto variation - reason for c6 after Nd7" Tags="&lt;kings-indian&gt;&lt;fianchetto&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17147" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17143" CreationDate="2017-04-01T19:55:39.590" Score="1" Body="&lt;h2&gt;They probably could be . . .&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is likely that a court would rule that a chess game is an act of authorship and thus could be copyrighted.  But to do so, the players - or, more likely, the organizers of the event - would have to take some steps to publish or register the &quot;work&quot;.  And at some point they would have to take steps to defend the copyright from infringement.  But copyrights are expensive to litigate and chess games have little commercial value, so it shouldn't be surprising that there aren't any court precedents (to my knowledge).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But there have been debates outside the courthouse and incidents where publishers refrained from stepping on an event organizer's toes to avoid trouble.  Emmanuel Lasker apparently attempted to copyright some of his games - his reward was a press boycott.  Eventually the chess community came to the consensus that any attempt to copyright games was bad for the game.  For nearly a century the subject rarely came up.  But in the last decade or so, there have been several events in which the organizers threatened litigation to prevent others from broadcasting game moves during the event.  But I can't find any actual court cases or successful attempt to prevent publication of game scores after the fact.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;For the Good of the Game ....&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So your ability to use these game moves is due to the fact that generations of players and publishers have worked under a general understanding that we all benefit from being able to publish game scores.  As a member of the chess community, you have the moral responsibility to support the chess community and honor the players who have provided you with this gift.  Legally, it is uncertain whether you need to attribute the moves to the players, and you take virtually no risk upon yourself if you don't, but if you have a drop of honor in your body, you will give a warm acknowledgement to them in a preface or end note.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;As for annotations and commentary . . .&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's a totally different subject, and most annotations may be copyrighted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12084" LastActivityDate="2017-04-01T19:55:39.590" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17148" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17149" CreationDate="2017-04-01T20:32:38.390" Score="6" ViewCount="162" Body="&lt;p&gt;I saw the following puzzle recently in a newspaper:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;h2&gt;Black to play and win &lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;6rk/6qp/2Bp4/P1pP1p2/3bnP2/6BQ/7P/5R1K w - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My proposed solution was&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1. ...   Nf2+&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and the lines I foresaw were&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;2. Bxf2  Bxf2&#xA;3. Rxf2  Qg1 mate&#xA;&#xA;2. Bxf2  Bxf2&#xA;3. (something else)  Qg1+&#xA;4. Rxg1  Rxg1 mate&#xA;&#xA;2. Rxf2  Bxf2&#xA;3. Bxf2  Qa1+ and interposing B or Q only delays the end&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, the given solution was&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt; &lt;pre&gt;1. ...   Bf2!&#xA;2. Rxf2  ...&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA; (If &lt;code&gt;2. Bxf2?  Nxf2+  3. Rxf2   Qg1 mate&lt;/code&gt;)&#xA; &lt;pre&gt;2. ...   Nxf2+&#xA;3. Bxf2  Qa1+ and white resigns&lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can see three possibilities:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I missed something&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;My solution is as good as the official one&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;They're actually equivalent under transposition&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which is the case?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12958" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-03-12T19:41:37.637" LastActivityDate="2020-03-12T19:41:37.637" Title="Is my solution to this puzzle wrong or a transposition of the official one?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;puzzles&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17149" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17148" CreationDate="2017-04-01T20:38:53.453" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;They're not &lt;em&gt;equivalent&lt;/em&gt;, but your solution is just as good. In fact, it's more easy to find because Nf2+ is a 'forcing' move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2017-04-01T20:38:53.453" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17150" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17146" CreationDate="2017-04-01T21:58:03.713" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I'm unsure as to why black usually does go c6 and thus creates this target on d6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The key point is this: it's not a weak point unless it can be attacked, and white can currently only attack it with one bishop, which is easily defended against. If white tries to attack it further, they can only do so by opening the d-file, which ends up removing the weakness (9. dxe5 dxe5, for example) and also demonstrates the usefulness of 8...c6 (it is covering d5).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for why black is playing c6 over other options: the position in the centre is in considerable flux, and black doesn't know where they want the rest of their pieces until the centre settles (e.g. if white closes with 9.d5, the rook doesn't want to be on e8 and instead was perfectly fine on f8). 8...c6 is a move that retains black's flexibility and gives white another chance to act decisively.&#xA;As previously mentioned, it is very useful if the centre opens with 9.dxe5, but it is also useful if white advances 9.d5, because after 9...c5 white can't take en passant and black gets a structure similar to the Czech-Benoni but with more comfortable development.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, white is free to maintain the tension, continuing the theme of the fianchetto response to the KID.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: in the exd5 exd5 lines, you are possibly wondering about the vulnerablity of d6, with the pawn defending it having advanced to c6. This is an important thing to think about, and I can't answer it from my own experience, but in practice the g7 bishop retreating to f8 is enough to cover it (swapping off the the bad bishop in the process :-) )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12269" LastEditorUserId="12269" LastEditDate="2017-04-01T22:44:08.183" LastActivityDate="2017-04-01T22:44:08.183" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17151" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17075" CreationDate="2017-04-02T01:36:38.810" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately, the only right answer to &quot;How do I eliminate this scenario&quot; is &quot;fix your algorithm.&quot;  Yes, you could implement the 3-fold repetition rule, but you should also figure out what it tells you about your algorithm.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This sort of repetition happens when there is an oscillating pattern that arises in your scoring.  Think of it like rock paper scissors.  White makes move to try to achieve a rock position, so black tries to make a counter-move that turns it into a paper position.  Then white tries to create a scissors position and black replies by creating a rock position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only way to fix this is to look at your algorithm, and make the algorithm better.  My advice is to put your chess program into a debug mode and have it dump out an analysis of what it is &quot;thinking&quot; with each move.  Look at the factors which lead up to your final score, and understand how they're acting.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once you understand why the algorithm is doing what it's doing, you can fix it.  Look at the game and decide what move you'd rather see them do, and why you like that move.  See if you can add additional scoring which encourages the type of play you want to see.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One thing in particular I've seen that can cause this sort of behavior is a discontinuity on the horizon.  If your scoring stops at your ply limit, and that position looks good from black's perspective, looking one ply further may show a good position for white instead!  This, of course, will always happen in real life, but you can try to minimize how often it happens by doing a better job of scoring each position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If all else fails, a little randomness can help nudge the game along.  One mode I implemented when I had to write one of these programs was a variable depth algorithm.  Sometimes it would look at 100,000 positions before making a decision, other times it might make 200,000.  That decreased the probability that I would run into a simple issue just past my horizon, because my horizon kept moving.  Instead, I might blunder into the bad move, but at least the game moved forward!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6885" LastActivityDate="2017-04-02T01:36:38.810" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17152" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16339" CreationDate="2017-04-02T12:27:50.763" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;For the specific requirement to filter out Chess960 games from a PGN file, you could use pgn-extract.&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.cs.kent.ac.uk/~djb/pgn-extract&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;pgn-extract home page&lt;/a&gt; Since such games necessarily include a SetUp tag, the --nosetup argument of pgn-extract allows them to be filtered out. The same argument could be used to remove any game that has a non-standard starting position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Disclosure: I am the author of pgn-extract.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12951" LastActivityDate="2017-04-02T12:27:50.763" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17153" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17143" CreationDate="2017-04-02T12:38:35.057" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;There was a case last year where World Chess Championship sued chess24.com, who was publishing the moves of the games, and my understanding is that the conclusion was that chess moves are not copyrightable (disclaimer: I am not a lawyer!). You can surely find lots of information about this case by googling &quot;world chess lawsuit&quot;, but here is a link telling the story in some detail from the defendant's point of view: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess24.com/en/read/news/us-judge-agrees-with-chess24-on-chess-moves&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://chess24.com/en/read/news/us-judge-agrees-with-chess24-on-chess-moves&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See also this article by a law professor:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-11-15/there-s-legal-intrigue-at-the-world-chess-match&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-11-15/there-s-legal-intrigue-at-the-world-chess-match&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12523" LastEditorUserId="12523" LastEditDate="2017-04-02T13:04:40.607" LastActivityDate="2017-04-02T13:04:40.607" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17154" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17146" CreationDate="2017-04-02T13:24:27.873" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;First of all, to sit back and wait isn't a good strategy for black, as white has many useful moves to make: &lt;code&gt;h3&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;Be3&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;Qc2&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;Rfe1&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;Rad1&lt;/code&gt;. If white can get these moves in with black doing nothing, white will be clearly better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So black has to look for counterplay. Most of black's options involve &lt;code&gt;c6&lt;/code&gt; to activate the queen on the &lt;code&gt;d8&lt;/code&gt;-&lt;code&gt;a5&lt;/code&gt; diagonal. If you absolutely don't want to move the &lt;code&gt;c&lt;/code&gt;-pawn, then one of the few options left is to play &lt;code&gt;exd4&lt;/code&gt; followed by &lt;code&gt;Nc5&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;a5&lt;/code&gt;. This is playable, but not popular, as white can place an annoying knight on &lt;code&gt;b5&lt;/code&gt;, see &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1403713&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Giorgiev vs Ilincic, Belgrade 2000&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black can also try to play &lt;code&gt;exd4&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;Nc5&lt;/code&gt; without &lt;code&gt;a5&lt;/code&gt; (instead &lt;code&gt;Bd7&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;a6&lt;/code&gt;, and so on). The game then can get sharp, but current theory says white is comfortable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In summary: Black plays &lt;code&gt;c6&lt;/code&gt; to get needed counterplay. The other options to get counterplay aren't quite as attractive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1485" LastActivityDate="2017-04-02T13:24:27.873" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17155" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17156" CreationDate="2017-04-02T14:34:55.123" Score="3" ViewCount="394" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is white able to recover/win this game after these moves?&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/gX66N.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/gX66N.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And then black takes the bishop:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/IOqI1.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/IOqI1.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White resigned after this, what would you do?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12730" LastActivityDate="2017-05-10T09:13:18.020" Title="Can you save white from checkmate?" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17156" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17155" CreationDate="2017-04-02T15:01:18.460" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;First off: I suspect White resigned due to the material disadvantage rather than some immediate mating threat. Having said that, I don't see any reason not to give check on c8 and try to setup some threats here as White, since it seems like Black gets checkmated:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.Qc8+, Ke7 2.Rb7+, Kf6 3.Qf5+, Kg7 4.Qxf7+, Kh6 5.Qg7#&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8300" LastActivityDate="2017-04-02T15:01:18.460" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17157" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17143" CreationDate="2017-04-02T16:05:54.420" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think so, what advantage can you take from them? The tournament is the main area which they get benefits from, including ELO recognition. Besides, the important part of in a novel is not much the exact game but the &lt;em&gt;metaphor&lt;/em&gt; you find in the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That makes it the idea made by you so if you work on the narrative it is your work. Focus on that and you would get the novel done.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9877" LastEditorUserId="9877" LastEditDate="2017-04-02T17:58:31.107" LastActivityDate="2017-04-02T17:58:31.107" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17160" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17146" CreationDate="2017-04-03T07:07:55.690" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The purpose of c6 move is below .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;c6 stops the Knight on c3 coming onto d5.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It makes a square for the Queen to come on c7 or sometimes gauge an eye over the Q-side . Q comes to a5 and then attacks b4.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It eventually sometimes supports b5 which makes a Q-side pawn push.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12891" LastActivityDate="2017-04-03T07:07:55.690" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17161" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17143" CreationDate="2017-04-03T10:13:37.867" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;A usual chess game (i.e., a competitive game between two players) is not copyrightable because there is no identifiable creator of that work (at least, this is the legal situation in Germany).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Annotations of all kind are copyrighted, problem compositions are copyrighted, a constructed game by a single author is copyrighted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3819" LastActivityDate="2017-04-03T10:13:37.867" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17162" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17148" CreationDate="2017-04-03T16:40:51.287" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;They aren't quite equivalent because of the differences in the position if White declines or partially declines the sacrifice (for example, after Nf2+ Rxf2 Bxf2, White doesn't have to retake the bishop - but after Bf2 Rxf2 Nf2+ declining the knight instantly loses the queen.)  But both should win, even if Bf2 is slightly better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2017-04-03T16:40:51.287" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17163" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17155" CreationDate="2017-04-03T18:27:40.730" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Looking at the board I can speculate that both players are at almost beginner level. I do not see any reason why White should resign because Black does not have any forced checks. It is the middle game and both Black's knights are at the back rank, undeveloped. Any opening, you let knights get developed first within 5-7 moves. In fact this kind of position does not even need any concrete calculations because Black's queen alone cannot do anything. Here White should have attempted at least the checks shown in the above variation, and if he would have run out of checks, then I can understand the situation, else Black should resign here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-05-10T09:13:18.020" LastActivityDate="2017-05-10T09:13:18.020" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17164" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-04-03T20:36:58.597" Score="5" ViewCount="2579" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to use the opening trainer in scid. I've set up a filtered database of master games in a particular opening, as &lt;a href=&quot;https://sourceforge.net/p/scid/wiki/TheOpeningTrainer/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;described in the wiki&lt;/a&gt;. I was expecting some kind of interactive experience from there but, when I start the opening trainer, it just cycles through the moves in the database then offers me a report. What am I missing?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12970" LastEditorUserId="18475" LastEditDate="2019-04-09T06:14:47.150" LastActivityDate="2019-04-09T06:14:47.150" Title="How does the scid opening trainer work" Tags="&lt;training&gt;&lt;scid&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17165" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17167" CreationDate="2017-04-03T21:21:01.717" Score="2" ViewCount="2502" Body="&lt;p&gt;When analysing my games with an engine (Stockfish 8) I found that I quite frequently miss when the engine thinks it would be a good idea/time to move a rook to the second rank to double up (I guess). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I had a short search on YouTube to find some material on the topic and couldn't find one at first glance. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do you guys have any recommendations on how to recognise when the position allows/favours bringing rooks into position? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe its a naive question but I'll give it a try anyway since I consider myself somewhat of an intermediate beginner.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12972" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-04-05T16:37:43.587" LastActivityDate="2017-04-05T16:37:43.587" Title="When is a good time to double rooks?" Tags="&lt;rooks&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17166" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17165" CreationDate="2017-04-03T21:46:54.707" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There can be all kinds of reasons for moving a rook to the second rank.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;in order to double rooks (and/or queen) on an open or half-open file so that you control the file and can use it for access to the opponent's camp; This is a very common theme and often very strong.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;in order to protect a pawn on the second rank; e.g. in the King's Indian Main line (Mar del Plata variation) black often moves the rook from f8 to f7 where it protects c7, b7...&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;in order to make space for another piece; in the same variation, after Rf7, black will often followup with Bf8 so that the bishop protects the d6 pawn&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;in order to get to a better square; yet again in the same variation, after Rf7...Bf8 black can play Rg7 from where the rook supports a pawn push of g5-g4.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2017-04-03T21:46:54.707" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17167" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17165" CreationDate="2017-04-04T01:17:00.213" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;You may consider doubling rooks if:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;There is an important open-file, and you want to make sure you have firm control on it. You want to minimize your opponent's controls to the file. (&lt;strong&gt;very common&lt;/strong&gt;).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;There is a semi-open file with an isolated or backward pawn. The pawn is protected by your opponent's rook. You want to win it. (&lt;strong&gt;very common&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If you want to exchange both rooks.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If you want to improve the position of your rooks. In particular if no other good squares for the rooks to go.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You have something to pin on the open-file, and you want to win it (look at the game below)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You may want to study the classical game between Alekhine and Nimzowitsch. Look at the final position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1012683&amp;amp;kpage=1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1012683&amp;amp;kpage=1&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/xSEdK.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/xSEdK.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here, you have absolutely no reason not to double your rooks for both sides. Nimzowitsch had to double to protect his c6 knight. Alekhine had to double his rooks to win the c6 knight. Note there is an open c-file and no any other good squares for the rooks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2017-04-04T07:03:47.263" LastActivityDate="2017-04-04T07:03:47.263" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17168" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17165" CreationDate="2017-04-04T07:01:08.143" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Doubling of the Rooks in Chess means that you want to capture an Open file . You do doubling because you feel that controlling any open file leads you to a better &amp;amp; faster attack . It exactly paves a Path for attacking your Opponent and keep the attack within your control. I would suggest you to go through some of the Games of Sicilian Dragon Yugoslav Attack where White clears the h-file sacrificing a Pawn and then tries to break open and checkmating Black's monarch . Simultaneously Black sometimes double his rook on c-file and goes for an exchange Sacrifice with Knight . &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can find one game of Nimzovitsch where doubling Rooks on f-file created the infamous Immortal Zugzwang Game . &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immortal_Zugzwang_Game&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Immortal Zugzwang Game wiki Explanation&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1102400&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Immortal Zugzwang Game&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastActivityDate="2017-04-04T07:01:08.143" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17169" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13018" CreationDate="2017-04-04T07:02:43.923" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/8ZqtA.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/8ZqtA.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/pr3u0.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/pr3u0.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are two pictures of Bobby Fischer (Robert James Fischer), in a New York apartment, mainly taken from the movie (documentary) Bobby Fischer Against The World.(I have no rights to this pictures ,but I think I can post them in some networking sites).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12748" LastEditorUserId="12748" LastEditDate="2017-04-04T07:26:36.603" LastActivityDate="2017-04-04T07:26:36.603" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17170" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17102" CreationDate="2017-04-04T07:15:42.883" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The best classical game of Q+N vs king is The game of Fischer vs Panno (1970),&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Fischer&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Panno&quot;]&#xA;[StartPly &quot;71&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 e6 3. d3 Nc6 4. g3 g6 5. Bg2 Bg7 6. O-O Nge7 7. Re1 d6 8. c3 O-O 9. d4 cxd4 10. cxd4 d5 11. e5 Bd7 12. Nc3 Rc8 13. Bf4 Na5 14. Rc1 b5 15. b3 b4 16. Ne2 Bb5 17. Qd2 Nac6 18. g4 a5 19. Ng3 Qb6 20. h4 Nb8 21. Bh6 Nd7 22. Qg5 Rxc1 23. Rxc1 Bxh6 24. Qxh6 Rc8 25. Rxc8 Nxc8 26. h5 Qd8 27. Ng5 Nf8 28. Be4 Qe7 29. Nxh7 Nxh7 30. hxg6 fxg6 31. Bxg6 Ng5 32. Nh5 Nf3 33. Kg2 Nh4 34. Kg3 Ng6 35. Nf6 Kf7 36. Qh7 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12748" LastEditorUserId="12748" LastEditDate="2017-04-04T08:32:41.573" LastActivityDate="2017-04-04T08:32:41.573" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17171" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17136" CreationDate="2017-04-04T08:17:38.333" Score="-3" Body="&lt;p&gt;This advanced Caro-Kann is so tricky that few players have interest in this opening , This is much more complicated opening that sicilian dragon or the scotch game mieses variation also (i think).But it is playable , and it is recently also played in the game between  Veselin Topalov and Hikaru Nakamura (2016)london chess classics .But Topi lost in that game. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1848832&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1848832&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. e5 c5 4. dc5 Nc6 5. Nf3 Bg4 6. c3 e6 7. b4 a6 8. Nbd2 Ne5 9. Qa4 Nd7 10. Ne5 Ngf6 11. c4 a5 12. Nb3 ab4 13. Qb5 Be7 14. c6 bc6 15. Nc6 Qc7 16. f3 Bf5 17. Ne7 Rb8 18. Nf5 Rb5 19. Ng7 Ke7 20. cb5 Nc5 21. Bb2 Nb3 22. ab3 Qf4 23. Be2 Rc8 24. Rd1 Qg5 25. b6 Rc2 26. Bf6 Qf6 27. Nh5 Qc3 28. Kf1 Qe3 29. Re1 Qb6 30. Nf4 Qe3 31. g3 Qb3 32. Kg2 Kf8 33. Kh3 Qb2 34. Rb1 Qf6 35. Rhe1 e5 36. Nd5 Qe6 37. Kg2 Qd5 38. Rb4 Qd2 39. Rb8 Kg7 40. Kf1 Qh6 41. Kg2 e4 42. Rb3 Qe6 43. Re3 ef3 44. Kf3 Qh3 45. Rd1 Qh5 46. Kf2 Qh2 47. Kf3 Rc6 48. Rd4 Rg6 49. g4 Rf6 50. Ke4 Qh1 51. Kd3 Qb1 52. Kd2 Qb2 53. Kd3 Rc6 0-1&#xA;It is also reviewed by GM Daniel King - &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPQJWJcGbzg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPQJWJcGbzg&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12748" LastActivityDate="2017-04-04T08:17:38.333" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17172" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16616" CreationDate="2017-04-04T08:30:04.990" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you have no human opponent to study , you have to choose the engines . But &#xA;Firstly, you have to recognize the engines weakness and strengths .&#xA;         Like if you analyse some routine openings , it will be a bad decision. A complicated position or something like that needs the engine.&#xA;Secondly, Some engines also fail to find a clear path in the complex middle game or end games . Like I tried to analyse a game of Dragon variation(Sicilian defense) But engine failed to find immediately a right path(with Houdini 4 and Komodo 6). &#xA;So, you can study with two engines ( not more than that because that's not going to helpful for your study) , but it sometimes never helpful .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12748" LastActivityDate="2017-04-04T08:30:04.990" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17173" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17127" CreationDate="2017-04-04T15:38:44.107" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would look at the source code for TSCP which implements zobrist keys. Basically you assign a unique number to each position and store the numbers in a list. Then check if the same number is in the list three times. you generate the unique number based on the position of the pieces, en passant square, side to move. here i have copied and pasted the TSCP code (authored by Tom Kerrigan). hash_piece is indexed by the color(2), piece type(6), and position(64). hash_side is the side to move. hash_ep is the en passant square. The initialization function populates a table of random numbers for each of these possible entries. To generate the unique position for a position&lt;br&gt;&#xA;you look up all the entries correspoding to a given position and xor the numbers from the three tables (this is the set_hash function). You probably dont need the hash_rand on newer computers with better random number generators. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;void init_hash()&#xA;    {&#xA;        int i, j, k;&#xA;&#xA;        srand(0);&#xA;        for (i = 0; i &amp;lt; 2; ++i)&#xA;            for (j = 0; j &amp;lt; 6; ++j)&#xA;                for (k = 0; k &amp;lt; 64; ++k)&#xA;                    hash_piece[i][j][k] = hash_rand();&#xA;        hash_side = hash_rand();&#xA;        for (i = 0; i &amp;lt; 64; ++i)&#xA;            hash_ep[i] = hash_rand();&#xA;    }&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;    /* hash_rand() XORs some shifted random numbers together to make sure&#xA;       we have good coverage of all 32 bits. (rand() returns 16-bit numbers&#xA;       on some systems.) */&#xA;&#xA;    int hash_rand()&#xA;    {&#xA;        int i;&#xA;        int r = 0;&#xA;&#xA;        for (i = 0; i &amp;lt; 32; ++i)&#xA;            r ^= rand() &amp;lt;&amp;lt; i;&#xA;        return r;&#xA;    }&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;    /* set_hash() uses the Zobrist method of generating a unique number (hash)&#xA;       for the current chess position. Of course, there are many more chess&#xA;       positions than there are 32 bit numbers, so the numbers generated are&#xA;       not really unique, but they're unique enough for our purposes (to detect&#xA;       repetitions of the position). &#xA;       The way it works is to XOR random numbers that correspond to features of&#xA;       the position, e.g., if there's a black knight on B8, hash is XORed with&#xA;       hash_piece[BLACK][KNIGHT][B8]. All of the pieces are XORed together,&#xA;       hash_side is XORed if it's black's move, and the en passant square is&#xA;       XORed if there is one. (A chess technicality is that one position can't&#xA;       be a repetition of another if the en passant state is different.) */&#xA;&#xA;    void set_hash()&#xA;    {&#xA;        int i;&#xA;&#xA;        hash = 0;   &#xA;        for (i = 0; i &amp;lt; 64; ++i)&#xA;            if (color[i] != EMPTY)&#xA;                hash ^= hash_piece[color[i]][piece[i]][i];&#xA;        if (side == DARK)&#xA;            hash ^= hash_side;&#xA;        if (ep != -1)&#xA;            hash ^= hash_ep[ep];&#xA;    }&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12273" LastActivityDate="2017-04-04T15:38:44.107" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17174" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17130" CreationDate="2017-04-04T18:11:23.857" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You have to become good at slow play before you can graduate to blitz.  You learn very little in the fast games, and if that's all you do, you'll never really progress.  The great players like Fischer were strong at blitz, but only after they were nurtured on classical play and really understood chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastActivityDate="2017-04-04T18:11:23.857" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17175" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17178" CreationDate="2017-04-04T19:28:44.430" Score="5" ViewCount="632" Body="&lt;p&gt;I played as white against Owen's defence from black, which is seen as being quite dubious. After 21 moves, we agreed to a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is, &lt;strong&gt;how could white have extracted an opening edge here?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 e6 2. e4 {2. c4 is also played in the Horwitz defence, but I wanted to aim for the French, as I used to play it as black} b6 3. Nf3 Bb7 4. Bd3 Nf6 5. Qe2 Bb4+ 6. c3 Be7 7. O-O h6 {This was the first move that surprised me, so I chose 8. Nbd2 and 9. Re2 simply because they were thematic, as I couldn't see a way to punish 7...h6} 8. Nbd2 d6 9. Re1 Nbd7 10. e5 {I'm not too sure about this move, but my plan was to make a few trades to play Nd2-f3 to liberate the dark square bishop. I also thought the open d-file could be useful} dxe5 11. Nxe5 Nxe5 12. dxe5 Nd5 13. Be4 c6 14. Nf3 a5 15. Rd1 Qc7 16. c4 Nb4 17. a3 Na6 18. Be3 c5 19. Bxb7 Qxb7 20. Rd3 O-O 21. Rad1  1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2017-04-05T16:10:13.643" Title="How could I have extracted an opening advantage in this Owen's defence game?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;french-defense&gt;&lt;owens-defence&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17176" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17175" CreationDate="2017-04-04T20:16:42.330" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I really don't like 10. e5 which makes black's bishop on b7 strong, gives black an outpost for his knight on d5 and makes you lose control of the center. There is no need to force anything in the center. Instead of 10. e5 I'd consider regrouping your pieces, e.g. the knight from d2 could go via f1 to g3. Or you could try to create some weaknesses on the queenside by playing a4-a5. Or you could prepare a kingside attack playing h3 (which is useful even without kingside attack).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2017-04-04T20:16:42.330" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17177" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17175" CreationDate="2017-04-04T20:31:19.703" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Getting a substantial advantage in the opening against this type of system is very difficult in general, since Black's position is designed to cope with various direct attacking attempts from White. So the best course of action I'd reckon is to try and get a space advantage, and optimize your own piece placement. This is easier to accomplish, since Black isn't really trying to challenge White at all in the opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Consequently, I agree with user1583209 about the move 10.e5. This move is trying to clarify the situation in the centre by force, which is not in line with the approach of building up your position. You don't have to prove your advantage as White in the position after move 9; it's Black who has to prove equality!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8300" LastActivityDate="2017-04-04T20:31:19.703" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17178" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17175" CreationDate="2017-04-04T21:22:23.850" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Black's opening play doesn't look good. This is more passive and dubious than a normal Owen's.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The suggestion of &lt;code&gt;10. Nf1&lt;/code&gt; followed by &lt;code&gt;11. Ng3&lt;/code&gt; is a good one and should give white a nice advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I believe black should be punished harder for their passive play. Perhaps &lt;code&gt;8. e5 Nd5 9. a3!?&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[StartPly &quot;17&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 e6 2. e4 b6 3. Nf3 Bb7 4. Bd3 Nf6 5. Qe2 Bb4+ 6. c3 Be7 7. O-O h6 8. e5 Nd5 9. a3!?&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black has to worry about the knight on &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt; getting trapped. After &lt;code&gt;9... c5 10. c4 Nc7 11. dxc5 bxc5 12. Nc3&lt;/code&gt;, white obtains a better position than they usually get in Owen's. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[StartPly &quot;23&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 e6 2. e4 b6 3. Nf3 Bb7 4. Bd3 Nf6 5. Qe2 Bb4+ 6. c3 Be7 7. O-O h6 8. e5 Nd5 9. a3!? c5 10. c4 Nc7 11. dxc5 bxc5 12. Nc3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black's kingside looks really weak.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1485" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2017-04-04T21:29:03.677" LastActivityDate="2017-04-04T21:29:03.677" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17179" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17175" CreationDate="2017-04-05T07:36:03.000" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I do not believe that you should have agreed to a Draw after move 21)Rad1 since this is too early . If you compare the position of the Pieces White's pieces are ready for a K-side onslaught . The pawn is on e5 . I remember the great Alexander Alekhine stated that &quot; When the pawn is on e5 White should attempt a K-side attack &quot; . The Black Queen is somewhat misplaced and cannot come immediately to K-side for any rescue . Black has little to do on Q-side . From White Bf4,Nd2-&gt;Ne4 and then sac on f6 and then swinging Rook on g3 and Queen on h5 will definitely tie Black down . The Paws g4 h4 are also a part of White's arsenal . &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One more thing : 10)e5 is just too early here . You could have delayed e5 for a moment and maneuvered Nf1 -&gt; Ng3 . &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastActivityDate="2017-04-05T07:36:03.000" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17180" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17182" CreationDate="2017-04-05T12:56:12.700" Score="5" ViewCount="176" Body="&lt;p&gt;Today's daily puzzle on chess.com is called &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/forum/view/daily-puzzles/4-5-2017-desperation-draw&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Desperation Draw&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;White to move&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;r5k1/P4ppp/8/8/p1p1P3/4KP2/2P3PP/5R2 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Rb1 Rf8 2. Rb8  *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One of the commentators asked:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What draw?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I agree with this. I think this is a simple win for white who threatens to promote soon when black has no counter play, e.g. 2...a3 3. Rxf8+ Kxf8 4. a8Q+ Ke7 5. Qxa3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is, &lt;strong&gt;am I missing the draw in the position above?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2017-04-05T13:05:03.593" Title="Is today's chess.com daily puzzle a draw (as hinted at in the puzzle title)?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;draw&gt;&lt;puzzles&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17181" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17184" CreationDate="2017-04-05T13:03:37.413" Score="13" ViewCount="5572" Body="&lt;p&gt;Basically I have seen that people write a lot of chess algorithms, and ask questions in this forum, which I fumble to answer appropriately. I see the code, but unable to make out whether it is correct or not? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am myself a software professional, but I am unfamiliar with chess algorithms, or coding-related stuff. Could you please help me to suggest where I can learn these things, or I will get the explanations ? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T18:39:26.310" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T18:39:26.310" Title="How do I learn Chess Programming?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;chess-algorithms&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="17182" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17180" CreationDate="2017-04-05T13:05:03.593" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, you are not. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's an easy win for white as far as I can see. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2017-04-05T13:05:03.593" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17183" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5811" CreationDate="2017-04-05T13:20:35.717" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I understand what are you thinking at this point. Even I would also like to have software which would tell me the move is between two category levels. Let's say, software which says after you play a move that this move is a &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A Super GM Level move. above 2700 Elo&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A GM/IM level move.    above 2500 and &amp;lt; 2700.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A Master Level move.   2200-2400&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;2000-2199&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Amateur Level below 2000&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;An Experienced level 1600-1800&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and continue till the beginner level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It would be a nice way of learning, but unfortunately it is yet to come out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only thing which you can make out is feed your game to StockFish / Fritz and see after every move you make, the score of the game changes. Since computer engines also calculate depending upon depth and do a lot of calculations, you can see, according to the score, who is better at any point. If you are playing White and the score is always &gt; +0.0 and gradually rises, then you can be sure that you did not make any mistake.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You will also see a lot of lines that the computer suggests, and if most of your moves match, then definitely, you have played very well .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But please note one thing, there are some positions which Computers are not able to analyse, so do not get biased completely by the system. Instead a Coach's recommendation is more useful. Computers always give you a negative score when playing gambits.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastEditorUserId="11202" LastEditDate="2017-05-18T06:32:59.610" LastActivityDate="2017-05-18T06:32:59.610" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17184" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17181" CreationDate="2017-04-05T13:26:55.437" Score="10" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/blog/zaifrun/creating-a-chess-engine-from-scratch-part-1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.chess.com/blog/zaifrun/creating-a-chess-engine-from-scratch-part-1&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://mediocrechess.blogspot.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://mediocrechess.blogspot.com&lt;/a&gt; (a blog that gives you some ideas how chess engine works)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How you would approach the problem:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Check out &lt;a href=&quot;https://web.archive.org/web/20180216204915/https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chessprogramming.wikispaces.com&lt;/a&gt;. This'll be your reference site.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Create an account at &lt;a href=&quot;http://talkchess.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;talkchess.com&lt;/a&gt;. All the best engine developers are there. If there's an engine question that you can't find an answer there, you won't find it anywhere else.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Check out the TSCP engine source code. TSCP is a simpler but working implementation chess engine. Easier to read than Stockfish.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Do something. Try to write a chess board generator. Check the reference sites above. Study how TSCP does it.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Compare your PERF results with &lt;a href=&quot;https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Perft&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Perft&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Write a simple position evaluation with materials only. Copy the PST table from TSCP or the chessprogramming site.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Write a simple nega-max and alpha-beta search.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Read about UCI protocol&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Add transposition table&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Add simple null-move pruning&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="19945" LastEditDate="2019-08-26T06:12:29.007" LastActivityDate="2019-08-26T06:12:29.007" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="17185" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17130" CreationDate="2017-04-05T13:47:23.137" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Analysis:  You will have to change your analysis of a position to require fewer calculations.  You can look around stackexchange for questions dealing with board analysis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Time Management:  You will also have to force yourself to make a move quickly when you are not at a critical point of the game (recognized through your analysis).  You will need to look at your clock regularly so your time does not slip away.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Preparation:  Studying openings to a deeper level and knowing endgames thoroughly will also help you make quicker moves - giving you more time to acquiring an edge (tempo/material/position) during the mid game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Forced Moves:  If you can put your opponent in a position that requires a forced move, you can start thinking further ahead while your opponent is playing.  At slower time controls this isn't as obviously valuable as a deeper calculation of the current move can derive a greater benefit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Retro:  Review your games after they are played.  Determine why you require so much more time than your opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12728" LastActivityDate="2017-04-05T13:47:23.137" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17186" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17175" CreationDate="2017-04-05T16:10:13.643" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If it seems like I've pointed out a lot here, well...this sort of thing is a problem for me too, knowing I have a space and development advantage I should be able to cash in but I don't. So I ran this through Fritz to see improvements. And you may like to do so, too. Sometimes it's frustrating to see a move that looks good but you don't quite have the guts/justification to play it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Fritz gives 8. e5 Nd5 9. a3. It's always tough to know when to push the pawn, and while 8. Nbd2 looks natural, the Black knight is a target for the pawns, especially with the pawn on b6. It can't go to b5. So Black has to play ...Bg5 or ...g5 to protect it, each of which is ugly. ...c5 is a possibility, but dxc5 and Rd1 give you the open file.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With 8. Nbd2, an e5/a3 thrust leaves you open to Nf4. The thing is that while developing moves are good, the knight might be better placed on c3, and a3/c4 might gain space and give you that square. Also, if you are worried c3-c4 is wasting a move, remember that's not really the case. ...Bb4+ c3 Be7 provoked it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;11&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Nxe5 also seems to relieve the pressure on Black. As a general principle you shouldn't exchange pieces when you have a space advantage unless you get something in return. But you still have an edge. Another poster noted the Bb7 could gain scope, but with a knight or bishop on e4, you are more likely to block it.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;... c6 is also weak. It blocks the bishop, and c4! is vigorous. ...Nc7 is awkward, but ...Nf4 14. Qf3! loses a pawn. ...Nb4 15. a3 Na6 16. Qg4 and Black must play ...g5 or ...g6 with kingside pawn problems. White will again get the d-file. You played c4/a3 in the game, but letting Black get ...a5 in meant you found it tougher to play b4 and restrict Black's pieces on both sides of the board.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, this is something I had to throw into an engine, but Rd3, while it doubles the rooks, also lets Black exchange them off. Fritz's idea of Nd2 followed by Qg4 and Ne4 looks strong. The point is that Black is too busy defeinding a kingside attack to swap rooks right away.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;18&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Bf4 also seems more accurate than Be3. It allows for an attack with Bc2 and Qd3 or e4. Black's having played ...h6 makes for a potentially weak kingside.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It looks like you considered the moves that a computer engine marked off as the best, and in some cases you played them a bit too late, and in some, a bit too soon. When you have more space it's tough to know when to squeeze and when to use tactics. Often you don't need to &quot;just&quot; develop with a space advantage. It may be better to restrict your opponent from meaningful development, for instance, with the early 8. e5. It's good to check for overextending, but Black's development isn't good enough to poke at any of your weaknesses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The main problem for White is to figure how to take advantage of space and make Black's pieces stumble over each other. The Bb7 is rather good, but once Black plays ...c6 or ...c5 there are is that weakness on d6, and e4 is always available for a bishop or knight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11202" LastActivityDate="2017-04-05T16:10:13.643" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17187" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17190" CreationDate="2017-04-05T16:49:02.917" Score="7" ViewCount="464" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was playing in a sudden death time control last night with less than 5 seconds left and while thinking about my moves with literally 2 or 3 seconds remaining, my opponent blurted out a draw offer. Startled by this, I blundered and lost the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My understanding is that draw offers must be made when the OFFERER's clock is running and that offering a draw or making other statements to an opponent when they are thinking is a distraction and is not allowed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Would I have been within my rights to stop the clock and demand from the TD that 2 minutes be added to my clock because of the distraction?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The game was played under USCF rules and was in sudden death with seconds remaining for both players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8673" LastActivityDate="2017-04-05T20:51:05.453" Title="Does an out of turn draw offer constitute an actionable distraction / time penalty?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;time-control&gt;&lt;uscf&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17188" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17187" CreationDate="2017-04-05T18:18:37.873" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't know about USCF rules, but according to FIDE Laws of Chess, article 9.1.b.1:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A player wishing to offer a draw shall do so after having made a move on the chessboard and before pressing his clock. An offer at any other time during play is still valid but Article 11.5 must be considered. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Where article 11.5 is about distracting the opponent and says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;It is forbidden to distract or annoy the opponent in any manner whatsoever. This includes unreasonable claims, unreasonable offers of a draw or the introduction of a source of noise into the playing area.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, according to my understanding, offering a draw when the opponent's clock is running is not forbidden unless it is &quot;unreasonable&quot; (e.g. you offer a draw in lost position) or you offer a draw every other move or so, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2017-04-05T18:18:37.873" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17189" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7844" CreationDate="2017-04-05T18:49:59.380" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think when you are looking for a mate, the answer lies in blocking out the escape route of opponent's King, in this case Kg6 is clearly something that white does not want. And since white Queen is the only piece that can guard that square you must look at other pieces for a tactical mate. Clearly the second thing then is trapping black King on h-file, which can only be done with white moving Rh1, which essentially are three moves: moving the pawn because you want to then move your king away from h-file and moving the rook. And since its a mate in four, the fourth move will definitely be a check. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12984" LastActivityDate="2017-04-05T18:49:59.380" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17190" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17187" CreationDate="2017-04-05T20:51:05.453" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to my copy of &lt;em&gt;US Chess Federation's Official Rules of Chess (5th Edition)&lt;/em&gt;, rule 14B2 states:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If a player offers a draw while the opponent's clock is running, the&#xA;  opponent may accept or reject the offer.  A player who offers a draw&#xA;  in this manner may be warned or penalized for annoying the opponent (20G).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that it says &quot;may&quot;, not &quot;must&quot;.  Rule 20G says that the director has discretion to say whether there was a violation and what the penalty, if any, should be.  So you could request, but you could not &quot;demand&quot;, that the time be added.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Rule 1C2a says that two minutes added to your clock is the standard penalty if one is imposed.  1C2b, however, explicitly states that the director can vary from this. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Rule 21F says you indeed have the right to stop the clock to ask for a ruling from the director.  And you must do it right away; you ordinarily waive your rights if you don't notify the director promptly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2017-04-05T20:51:05.453" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17191" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="216" CreationDate="2017-04-05T21:35:38.313" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to the 5th edition of the USCF rules (rules 16O and 16P), the TD should use his discretion if a clock was erroneously set.  It gives the guidance that if any time is subtracted from a clock, it should leave the player with at least 5 minutes, or one minute per move until the time control, whichever is greater (although this doesn't seem to apply in your case since you were adding a delay, not subtracting time.)  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it was intentional, the &quot;TD Tip&quot; by this rule says to add two minutes the the injured player's unused time after making any other corrections (which seems like a very minor penalty in such a situation, but I didn't write these rules, I'm just reading them.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your solution of simply turning the delay on seems reasonable.  After doing that, you both then had exactly the amount of time left that you thought you had, which is 6-9 minutes with a 5 second delay.  Assuming that you were at no point blitzing moves, you also could have considered adding time to both clocks of (5 seconds * number of moves), to get back the time you should have had, but that might be awkward.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2017-04-05T21:35:38.313" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17192" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17193" CreationDate="2017-04-06T08:44:36.333" Score="10" ViewCount="5267" Body="&lt;p&gt;Consider the following pictures:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/FaI6w.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/FaI6w.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/6HjXu.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/6HjXu.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would like to understand the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;My understanding is that it depends on the opponent's move against our move. Am I right?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What is the minimum and maximum range of the score?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When one can achieve the maximum score at very first move?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What is the use of the score?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Sorry for asking very basic questions. Newbie for the Chess stuff).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user10872" LastEditorDisplayName="user10872" LastEditDate="2017-04-06T11:31:30.597" LastActivityDate="2017-04-06T13:17:36.657" Title="How are the scores decided in Chess?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;beginner&gt;&lt;evaluation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17193" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17192" CreationDate="2017-04-06T08:56:46.680" Score="17" Body="&lt;p&gt;Those aren't scores; there are just three possible scores in chess: White wins, Black wins, and draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Those are &lt;em&gt;evaluations&lt;/em&gt; of the chess engine; a score of +0.62 means the engine thinks White's position is better by 0.62 &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_piece_relative_value#Standard_valuations&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;pawns&lt;/a&gt;. A negative score would mean Black is better. On professional level, a score of 1.5 pawns is in most positions decisive, i.e. enough to win the game. However, weak moves by the players will change the evaluation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The maximum and minimum score depends on the chess engine you're using. If you play the game till checkmate, you will see that the scores will get larger (either more positive or more negative) until you see something like &lt;code&gt;+#8&lt;/code&gt; which means White can mate in 8 moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2017-04-06T08:56:46.680" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17194" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17192" CreationDate="2017-04-06T10:47:52.960" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Ok,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Going by your Questions I paste below and answer accordingly .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What is the use of the score?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The use is to determine whether you have an advantage or you are better playing or winning. For best results take a good game and analyse with Fritz/StockFish. You would see that as the game progresses there will be a shift as whoever plays well. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;My understanding is that it depends on the opponent's move against our move. &#xA;  Am I right?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Almost true but not absolutely. The Score is a mathematical evaluation like for example during the start of the Game it is &lt;code&gt;0.0&lt;/code&gt;. It means both are equal at this point. The Score depends upon a number of factors like more space, pieces, king safety and a lot more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What is the minimum and maximum range of the score?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Score is always in favor of Black or White. You can see that when it has a winning combination it can be -infinity to +infinity. The higher the score it means it favors a particular side. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;When one can achieve the maximum score at very first move?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It does not depend on you except you are playing your opponent at the beginner level and scholar's mate or fool's mate is played on board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastEditorDisplayName="user10872" LastEditDate="2017-04-06T13:17:36.657" LastActivityDate="2017-04-06T13:17:36.657" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17195" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17192" CreationDate="2017-04-06T11:08:02.480" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;As pointed out by Glorfindel, these are &lt;em&gt;evaluations&lt;/em&gt;, which tell you who the engine thinks is better. A positive score means white is better, a negative black is better and values around zero mean that both sides are equal. These evaluation values are (traditionally) displayed with two decimals which is much too high precision for humans. In practical play you would hardly notice a change of +-0.1 or so. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Take these values with a grain of salt, particularly for any evaluation between -1 and 1: there are many cases where the engine evaluations are not good, such as openings or closed positions with lots of maneuvering. Ignore the evaluation in these cases. On the other hand, in very tactical positions you can usually trust engine evaluations. Starting from values above around 1.5 (or below -1.5) in many positions the game ends decisive with a win for white (black) assuming perfect play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The actual evaluation is calculated based on many factors. The main one is material, and this is also how the evaluation is normalized, namely such that a value of 1 corresponds to one pawn. Similarly other pieces have values of around 3 (bishop, knight), 5 (rook) and 9 (queen). Other factors include piece activity, king safety, control of the center, etc. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With regard to your questions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What is the minimum and maximum range of the score?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In typical games you will find a maximum of maybe around 20 (or minimum of -20). Beyond that the engine can usually count down to mate and would display the number of moves to mate. If you wish you can probably construct a  very closed position (e.g. all pawns blocking each other) and give one player a huge material advantage and in that case you might be able to reach very large evaluation values where the mate is beyond the calculation power (&quot;horizon&quot;) of the engine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;When one can achieve the maximum score at very first move?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is no meaningful answer to this. If there is a first move which gives you maximum score this will depend on the details of the engine and the calculation depth more than on anything else. Another engine might very well give you another best first move. Engines are not powerful enough (or chess is too complex) to give you a good answer to this. That's why engines use opening books and do not calculate anything at the start of the game. Experience has shown that all  normal moves (1. e4,d4,c4, Nf3...) give white a small advantage but nothing more. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What is the use of the score?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the engine, it decides what move to play based on this score. Very simplified you could say that the engine calculates all possible lines down to a certain number of moves and evaluates the final positions using this score. It then picks the line which gives it the best score in the final position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For a human, you can use this score to analyze your own games or to analyze openings/endgames/... in order to find the correct moves or to locate blunders.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2017-04-06T11:08:02.480" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17196" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17213" CreationDate="2017-04-06T13:14:37.390" Score="2" ViewCount="644" Body="&lt;p&gt;Recent question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/17192/how-are-the-scores-decided-in-chess&quot;&gt;How are the scores decided in Chess?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It has been argued that PV scores for Stockfish (the engine being used by chess.com) can be interpreted as something like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;+1.0 is a pawn advantage for White. -0.5 is a half-pawn advantage for Black. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Is that correct?&lt;/strong&gt; The weights and parameters in Stockfish are either manually calibrated or tuned by something like the &lt;a href=&quot;https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/SPSA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;SPSA optimiser&lt;/a&gt;. We only care if the optimization can give the engine gradients to a local optimum solution.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The objective function is to maximise the playing strength. Maximising playing strength has nothing to do with making sure &quot;+1.0 is a pawn advantage for White&quot;. In fact, we should be able to &lt;strong&gt;scale&lt;/strong&gt; all all the PV scores by a constant. As long as the engine makes the same move, the &lt;strong&gt;magnitude&lt;/strong&gt; of the scores shouldn't matter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is consistent to the minimax algorithm, where both players &lt;strong&gt;only care&lt;/strong&gt; how to minimize/maximise the evaluation. Again, there are &lt;strong&gt;no efforts&lt;/strong&gt; to make the PV scores human-interpretable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To me, the PV scores are only important &lt;strong&gt;relatively&lt;/strong&gt;, not &lt;strong&gt;absolutely&lt;/strong&gt;. For instance, we should be able to say &quot;+2.0 is about two-times advantage for White than a position with +1.0 for White.&quot;, but that &lt;strong&gt;shouldn't&lt;/strong&gt; have anything to do with pawns. Similarly, if I modify the source code and scale the outputs by a factor of 10. I can still say: &quot;+20.0 is about two-times advantage for White than a position with +10.0 for White&quot;. We &lt;strong&gt;shouldn't&lt;/strong&gt; be able to connect the scores to pawns, knights, bishops etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I haven't seen anybody in the Stockfish development team spent any efforts to make the outputs interpretable. To me, the scores have &lt;strong&gt;no direct interpretation&lt;/strong&gt; to chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Should I call all answers in the question &lt;strong&gt;technically&lt;/strong&gt; incorrect?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is in response to @D_M. How would you scale the outputs to make it human interpretable? What's the algorithm? How would you define the loss function? How to test for the changes? I don't see it's a trivial problem.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.193" LastActivityDate="2017-04-07T17:30:23.413" Title="&quot;How are the scores decided in Chess?&quot; - Correct?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17197" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17196" CreationDate="2017-04-06T13:47:18.383" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In fact, we should be able to scale all all the PV scores by a constant. As long as the engine makes the same move, the magnitude of the scores shouldn't matter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;True. We can even add a constant to all scores (e.g. an equal position would have a score of +1) without any effect on the engine's decisions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, it's useful to keep the well-known score definitions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;+1.0 is a pawn advantage for White&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;for 'backwards compatibility', just like we still have a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_metre#International_prototype_metre&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;'meter bar' in Paris&lt;/a&gt; while the meter is currently defined with &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isotopes_of_krypton#Krypton-86&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Krypton 86&lt;/a&gt;, so the 'meter bar' is technically slightly longer or shorter than a meter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2017-04-06T13:47:18.383" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17199" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4925" CreationDate="2017-04-06T15:29:47.190" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess is one of the few human endeavors that formally falls into all three categories of 'Art', 'Sport' and 'Science'. (I cannot actually think of another)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Sport&quot; from the French &lt;em&gt;desport&lt;/em&gt; meaning &quot;leisure&quot;, is generally understood to be defined as &lt;strong&gt;a skillful competitive leisure activity whose rules and norms are either regulated/adjudicated by an objective governing body or understood by agreement or convention.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;NOTE&lt;/strong&gt; The requirement for sport to display skill is frequently misunderstood to be restricted to displays of physical skills only.  However this false definition of 'skill' ignores the great spectrum of human endeavor and focus's only one a single facet.  Displays of mental skill or general skills such as horseback riding are included as human capabilities (or skill).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Consider motorsport:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Does motorsport exhibit competition?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Does motorsport require skill?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is motorsport a leisure activity? (Is motorsport essential to human survival?)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is motorsport regulated by an objective governing body? &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If '&lt;strong&gt;YES&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; was answered to the above questions, motorsport is a sport.  Now apply the same questions to chess:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Does chess exhibit competition?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Does chess require skill?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is chess a leisure activity? (Is chess essential for human survival?)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is chess regulated by an objective governing body? &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If '&lt;strong&gt;YES&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; was answered to the above questions, chess is a entirely a sport.  (Now ask why is Chess a science, or an art!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12077" LastEditorUserId="12077" LastEditDate="2017-04-06T15:35:11.380" LastActivityDate="2017-04-06T15:35:11.380" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17200" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17130" CreationDate="2017-04-06T16:47:08.497" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a Method that is described in Chess Master at any age that tells you how much time you should have after each move. The book describes breaking each move down into periods and marking how long you have for each move. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Considering that most games are over in about 40 moves you break it down into time per move and at 10 minute that should be 15 seconds per move. So you mark down your time and any time that you take fall behind the 15 seconds per move you punish yourself. Say 10 push-ups for every move made not in the allotted time. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As long as you stick to this immediately after your games you'll find that time control problems become less frequent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12245" LastActivityDate="2017-04-06T16:47:08.497" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17202" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-04-06T19:13:48.643" Score="5" ViewCount="323" Body="&lt;p&gt;Following on from &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/17192/how-are-the-scores-decided-in-chess?newreg=a65ef85c453f4b90af777545add44028&quot;&gt;this question&lt;/a&gt;, it was suggested in answer and a discussion in the comments that an evaluation of a board of +1.5 is 'decisive' in the sense of allowing an estimation of which side would win with reasonable certainty.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, this was debated as to whether it would hold at a professional or amateur level as a rule of thumb. Thus, my question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What evaluation at the amateur and professional level is sufficient to make a reasonable determination of the outcome of the game, barring highly anomalous moves by either party?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12993" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2017-04-13T06:18:05.527" Title="What is considered a decisive evaluation of a board in chess?" Tags="&lt;evaluation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17203" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17202" CreationDate="2017-04-06T21:09:30.817" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You need to realise that any number given as answer (including the 1.5) is just a rough estimate which depends on many factors. Professional players were  mentioned because their play will be close to that of computers so that blunders/mistakes do not affect the statement. An evaluation around 1-1.5 in the midgame often means that the player can make use of his advantage further improving the evaluation. On the other hand in an endgame with few pieces on the board a similar evaluation can be a lot more drawish because there are few options to improve.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And there are many other reasons why you can't really give absolute numbers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to discuss the situation for amateur players it gets really vague as you need to make assumptions about the blunder rate. Perhaps the following is useful....&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When analyzing a game in lichess, the engine knows three levels of error: &lt;em&gt;blunder, mistake, inaccuracy&lt;/em&gt; corresponding to a change in evaluation of 3, 1, 0.5 respectively. So for instance if you start from an advantage of 5, you can make a blunder and still have a won position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2017-04-06T21:09:30.817" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17204" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17196" CreationDate="2017-04-06T23:19:14.300" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, I found a place where a member of the Stockfish support staff &lt;a href=&quot;http://support.stockfishchess.org/discussions/questions/1303-stockfish-evaluation-numbers-and-their-meaning&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;says&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Your intuition is correct. Positive values mean white is winning.&#xA;  Negative values mean black is winning. The units are in pawn units, so&#xA;  +1.00 means white is winning by one pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, it seems that they at least claim it corresponds.  I don't know how exact it is; there really isn't an &quot;exact&quot; value for any piece since it depends on the position anyway.  But I think that's your answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;We only care if the optimization can give the engine gradients to a&#xA;  local optimum solution.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I disagree.  Your premise that Stockfish is only used to find the best move is incorrect - some of us actually look at the evaluation score.  If I'm using Stockfish to look at a game I played, I absolutely care whether the move I played lost me 5 pawns or 0.05 pawns compared to the best move (one is a blunder, the other is a perfectly reasonable move and might not even be objectively worse.)  And it makes a difference whether a move took the evaluation from -10 pawns to -20 (it was completely hopeless anyway and I shouldn't worry too much), or -1 pawns to -2 (going from disadvantaged to probably lost, and maybe I should study that a bit more to see what went wrong.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, you can scale it however you like - and since you can, why not just scale it so a pawn is 1?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2017-04-06T23:19:14.300" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17205" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4925" CreationDate="2017-04-07T07:00:36.027" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess is a Sport or not depends upon the Person's perspective . I second to all the above view points and agree to everyone . Truly it does not go by the blind definition of Sport as &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot; an activity involving physical exertion and skill in which an individual or team competes against another or others for entertainment. &quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because Chess is mainly played inside a room which only needs your Eyes and Brain it cannot be coined as a Sport entirely . Some say that it is a gymnasium of the mind others may agree it is an Art . &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now my Perspective of Chess .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot; Chess is exactly a Mathematical Exercise where we solve the Board one move after another . It is more of a kind of Study where we learn from Basic Principles to Advanced level . It reminds me of School Mathematics where we used to solve all problems after an adequate knowledge of the Lesson or after some experience,for an example any chapter of Integration or Permutation/Combination . When we encounter a lower rated opponent it is equivalent to the first problems of the Exercise which were easy to solve . The higher rated opponents were the toughest Questions or the Entrance Exams which after a lot of hard work , dedication and practice were the best accomplishments . &quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have derived the above from Bobby Fischer's Quote &quot; Play the Board &amp;amp; not the Man &quot; .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastActivityDate="2017-04-07T07:00:36.027" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17206" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-04-07T07:15:01.553" Score="-2" ViewCount="647" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have read how grandmasters think, but I do not play like them. I have read about their systems of thinking, and other things, and how to emulate any of the top GMs; but I would like to see if there are a list of steps where Tal's style can be copied? True, if you imitate some of his games you may copy his style somewhat. and this applies to Fischer / Kasparov and all. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But Mikhail Tal had a style which was not only daring, but he had a charisma to intimidate his opponents with his thinking, sacrifices and moves. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I want to list out particularly his thinking system.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T18:37:27.087" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T18:38:08.463" Title="Can anyone of us pinpoint the thinking Algorithm of Mikhail Tal?" Tags="&lt;tal&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="17207" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17206" CreationDate="2017-04-07T08:41:59.223" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Tal didn't really have an algorithm. He played on intuition:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Many sacrifices do not require any concrete calculation at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A glance at the resulting position is sufficient to realize the sacrifice is correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: Tal, as quoted in &lt;em&gt;The wisest things ever said about chess&lt;/em&gt; by GM Soltis&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T18:37:39.623" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T18:37:39.623" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="17208" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17120" CreationDate="2017-04-07T08:51:29.207" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am the author of &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.cs.kent.ac.uk/people/staff/djb/pgn-extract/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;pgn-extract&lt;/a&gt; and, as has been pointed out, it doesn't hook up directly with a chess engine. However, if you would like to try out something I recently wrote that does interface with an engine then there is a description of a &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.cs.kent.ac.uk/people/staff/djb/chessplag/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;UCI-based analyser&lt;/a&gt; that can output annotated PGN via its --annotatePGN option. It is still a little experimental and you will need to compile from source but it might provide something close to what you are looking for.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12951" LastActivityDate="2017-04-07T08:51:29.207" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17209" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17210" CreationDate="2017-04-07T11:22:39.063" Score="10" ViewCount="310" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've downloaded and parsed the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.kingbase-chess.net/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;king-base chess database&lt;/a&gt; (about 1.5 million games) and am looking at distribution of moves for games. When plotting the distribution for different outcomes, I see spikes at 80, 100 and 120 moves (and smaller spikes for draws at 20, 40 and 60 moves).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/fOYk3.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/fOYk3.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why are these spikes occurring? Are people more likely to resign at these round numbers? Or are there rules in professional games that mean games are more likely to end after multiples of 20 moves?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13002" LastActivityDate="2017-04-07T11:36:44.117" Title="Why are games more likely to last 60, 80 and 120 moves?" Tags="&lt;statistics&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17210" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17209" CreationDate="2017-04-07T11:36:44.117" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is due to &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_control&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;time control&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;the World Chess Federation FIDE sets a single classical time control for all major FIDE events, according to the handbook: 90 minutes for the first 40 moves, followed by 30 minutes for the rest of the game, with an addition of 30 seconds per move&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other time controls are used, but are usually based on multiples of 20 moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mikhail Botvinnik, a former world champion, once said:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The amount of errors made at time control are legion&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So gross errors accumulate around the 20th, 40th, 60th etc. move, and so would resignations, loss on time and draw offers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2017-04-07T11:36:44.117" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17212" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15662" CreationDate="2017-04-07T14:39:13.430" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;IMPLODeS&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I - Initiative&lt;br&gt;&#xA;M - Material&lt;br&gt;&#xA;P - Pawn Structure&lt;br&gt;&#xA;L - Lines&lt;br&gt;&#xA;O - Officers (referring to the Knights and Bishops i.e. Minor Pieces)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;De - Development&lt;br&gt;&#xA;S - Space&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13004" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-04-07T15:01:42.573" LastActivityDate="2017-04-07T15:01:42.573" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17213" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17196" CreationDate="2017-04-07T16:13:38.513" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;How does the algorithm work?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Starting here, the rest become trivial extensions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The algorithm runs under a tree structure. For example, it looks at Move A, find every corresponding move from the opponent. Then it finds all moves from yourself, over and over.  We list all of these plausible positions a score.  The process Balances itself out so in each case the algorithm spends most of it's time following branches of the tree that seem most likely to win, rather than obviously losing branches.  The score is the key here - I have run under the assumption that it is not directly decided by position (although I could be wrong now), but based upon the material value of future positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As an example, if you make move A now, in a few more moves, you might have 200 plausible positions where you're up a rook, 250 where you're down a rook, 300 plausible positions where you're up a knight, 250 where you're down, 1000 where you're up a pawn, and 500 where you're down a pawn, as determined by the algorithm playing a branch.  Then it just averages the material, divided by the total number of positions):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(200*(5) + 250*(-5) + 300*(3) + 250*(-3) + 1000*(1) + 500*(-1))/2500 = 400/2500 = 0.16.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The branch is assigned that value.  But in the same branch of that tree, a slightly different course might get a score of 0.56.  We accumulate a bunch of scores by looking in depth 5,6,7 (in the endgame way more) moves ahead this way for all the branches with this many moves, then average all of them and get a score for move A.  We use this logic of assigning scores based upon future material gains for each of the possible moves available, until a set amount of time is up, or we've thought through a set number of moves ahead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, if it finds a branch that would make all branches lead to a capture of the king (which is in itself mate), then it would follow this as such with a mate in X moves.  From playing with the machine, it seems the computer has arbitrarily set the king as worth 100 points, rather than the infinite game-ending value it really has.  This simply means it's worth more than the cumulative sum of the other pieces though, so has the desired effect.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With this knowledge, we can then answer:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is this correct:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes.  Going a single move ahead that has a 100% chance for being up a single pawn, a +1.0 would be the algorithm's response.  A single move for black which has a 50% chance for being up a single pawn would result in an outcome from the algorithm of -0.5&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;How would you scale the outputs to be human interpret-able:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To me, a better output would be % chance of win.  However, while computers are beating humans, they haven't beaten the game.  Just to much math.  Knowing that move A gives me 4% more chance to win matters more to me then pawns I might win in the future.  The computer could only spit out based upon plausible positions where wins and losses were detected, but long term strategy usually isn't to aim for repeated Scholar's Mates.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;How would you define the loss function? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's the probability of having more material in the future.  A +0.01 means you have 1% chance of being up one pawn in the future if you made the intended move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;How to test for the changes?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This needs clarification.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13000" LastEditorUserId="13000" LastEditDate="2017-04-07T17:30:23.413" LastActivityDate="2017-04-07T17:30:23.413" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17214" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17206" CreationDate="2017-04-07T17:42:50.377" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;@SethProjnabrata:I think above all he loved tactics.It's about playing a lot of tactics, memorizing them, and the pattern recognition would make him &quot;see&quot; what could work or not in a new position...memory became imagination....and bluff because one point is better than 1/2 which is better than 0.&#xA;If you want to TRY to play like Tal, try practising a lot of tactics, but it's not always easy, because it requires a lot of concentration, and if you do that all days during say one month or more, you will &quot;see&quot; combinations in every game(the majority won't works, but some will do)...maybe it won't be the same style as Tal, but it will nevertheless worth the cost when you will see a nice trick that will make you happy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1855" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T18:38:08.463" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T18:38:08.463" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="17215" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17136" CreationDate="2017-04-07T20:41:15.820" Score="3" Body="&lt;h2&gt;Summary&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From the plot of games played under the Caro-Kann ECO codes (&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caro%E2%80%93Kann_Defence#ECO_codes&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;B10-19&lt;/a&gt;), the advance variation (in B12, but B12 does hold some other miscellaneous variations) &lt;strong&gt;has been consistently the most popular line since the 1990's and peaked at 1,803 games in 2008&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/rsWdr.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/rsWdr.png&quot; alt=&quot;Number of Caro-Kann games over time&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Methodology&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I extracted the games from the &lt;em&gt;Fritz for Fun 13&lt;/em&gt; into PGN format&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I ran the following R code, which extracts the year (mandatory) and the ECO (optional). The games are filtered to ECO codes B10-19 (Caro-Kann) and for games from 1927. Why 1927? That is when it debuted at the top:&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;He [Capablanca] used it [the Caro-Kann] in his crushing strategic destruction of Aaron Nimzowitsch in the great New York tournament of 1927.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;em&gt;The Caro-Kann: Move-by-Move&lt;/em&gt; by IM Lakdawala&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The raw number of games are then plotted over time. Unfortunately my data only goes to 2009&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;library(ggplot2) # For making the charts look nice&#xA;&#xA;dat &amp;lt;- readLines(&quot;C:/Users/Peter/SkyDrive/Chess/Fritz for fun 13 database.pgn&quot;) # Read in the data from a local file&#xA;&#xA;eco &amp;lt;- dat[grep(&quot;\\[ECO &quot;,dat)] # Extract the ECO, if there is one &#xA;eco &amp;lt;- sub(&quot;\\[ECO \&quot;&quot;,&quot;&quot;,eco) &#xA;eco &amp;lt;- sub(&quot;\&quot;\\]&quot;,&quot;&quot;,eco)&#xA;&#xA;year &amp;lt;- dat[grep(&quot;\\[Date &quot;,dat)]&#xA;year &amp;lt;- sub(&quot;\\[Date [\&quot;]&quot;,&quot;&quot;,year)&#xA;year &amp;lt;- sub(&quot;\\..*&quot;,&quot;&quot;,year)&#xA;year &amp;lt;- as.numeric(year)&#xA;&#xA;ecoindex &amp;lt;- grep(&quot;\\[ECO &quot;,dat) # Find which lines have an eco&#xA;yearindex &amp;lt;- grep(&quot;\\[Date &quot;,dat) &#xA;yearindex &amp;lt;- yearindex + 5 # The date is always the 3rd pgn tag and is mandatory. The ECO, if present, is the 8th tag&#xA;matchindex &amp;lt;- yearindex %in% ecoindex  # This code finds which games have both a year and eco tag&#xA;&#xA;year &amp;lt;- year[matchindex] # Filter out games without an ECO&#xA;&#xA;countgame &amp;lt;- table(eco,year)&#xA;countgame &amp;lt;- as.data.frame(countgame) # Convert to a data frame&#xA;&#xA;Carocode &amp;lt;- paste(&quot;B&quot;,10:19,sep=&quot;&quot;) # ECO codes for the Caro-Kann are B10-B19&#xA;&#xA;Carogame &amp;lt;- countgame[which(countgame$eco %in% Carocode),] # Keep the data for the Caro-Kann ECO codes&#xA;&#xA;Carogame$year &amp;lt;- as.numeric(as.character(Carogame$year))&#xA;Carogame &amp;lt;- Carogame[Carogame$year&amp;gt;=1927,]&#xA;&#xA;p1 &amp;lt;- ggplot(Carogame,aes(x=year,y=Freq,group=eco))+geom_line(aes(colour=eco)) # Plot count of games&#xA;&#xA;p1 &amp;lt;- p1 + ggtitle(&quot;Number of Caro-Kann games over time&quot;) + ylab(&quot;Number of games&quot;)&#xA;&#xA;print(p1)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2017-04-07T20:41:15.820" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17216" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16909" CreationDate="2017-04-08T07:32:11.310" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;chess is a game you learn backwards&quot;_G.M. Susan Polgar. One of her basic lessons is to put 2 to 4 pieces on a board vs a lone K and ask how many #s can you make ?&#xA;Single book with probably the most variety &quot;chess&quot;_Lazlo Polgar..you need to edit for a 7 yr old- over 5 thousand problems .&quot;how to beat your dad at chess&quot; fairly recent # only book by G.M. Murray Chandler [ solid book with ? title]  .Susan Polgar, Dan Heisman, Bruce Pandolfini are all modern style authors who write for novice players. In my opinion many of the mainstay classics are a bit dense and hard for kids to understand. Suggest ..stress Control the opponent vs just seeing the + . And of course keep it fun..use mistakes to get better..value the experience ..SLOW DOWN all newer players move to fast&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12190" LastEditorUserId="12190" LastEditDate="2017-04-14T01:42:10.740" LastActivityDate="2017-04-14T01:42:10.740" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17217" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16909" CreationDate="2017-04-08T12:04:55.253" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I highly suggest the book 'Complete endgame course' by Jeremy Silman. It starts from the most basic of all mates starting with 2 queens and continues for more general endgames like Lucena and also touches advanced endgames including analysis of specific grandmaster games. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Along with the book, I suggest setting up positions to test if whoever is being thought understands what is happening and can do it easily. For example, drawing a endgame where the opponent has a pawn but you have the (distant) opposition, where the opponent is a computer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Endgame in general requires lots of practice and experience. Do not expect one to be amazing at endgames after 1 to 2 years of practice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another way of practicing endgames after understanding the concept is to play Guess The Move for endgames by people like Fisher or Capablanca.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I personally feel learning endgames is better than learning middlegame after one does not blunder in the middlegame. From experience, players rated less than 1700 to 1900 do not study advanced endgames, so if one is able to survive the middlegame, knowing how to play a complex endgame is incredibly helpful. This doesn't mean to play openings like English or French which are less tactical, playing openings like Sicilian or Kings pawn/ Kings gambit can train tactical skills when learning. Of course when in tournaments you would play the openings which are more silent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10558" LastActivityDate="2017-04-08T12:04:55.253" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17218" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16909" CreationDate="2017-04-08T18:38:48.433" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Check out the book Chess Endgames For Kids by Karsten Muller.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4543" LastActivityDate="2017-04-08T18:38:48.433" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17219" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17047" CreationDate="2017-04-08T19:57:46.840" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You will handicap yourself if you are always fearful of being pinned. Strong players know when to prevent the pin and when to allow it. Play through some well-annotated master games where a strong player allows the pin. And dont get carried away thinking about only aspect of the position&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastActivityDate="2017-04-08T19:57:46.840" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17223" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-04-09T13:07:06.033" Score="5" ViewCount="651" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ee4ym.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ee4ym.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why is pawn to c4 opening advantageous in the screenshot above?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12834" LastActivityDate="2017-04-10T11:16:27.857" Title="Why is pawn to c4 opening advantageous?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17224" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17223" CreationDate="2017-04-09T14:18:28.290" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Because if black takes on c4 it loses Control of the centre and white will generally get that c pawn back sooner or later&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12830" LastActivityDate="2017-04-09T14:18:28.290" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17226" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17223" CreationDate="2017-04-10T10:38:03.510" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;c4 in general, controls more central square, opens Qa4 diagonal, gains Q side space. Your N can now hop to c3 without blocking your c-pawn (and in turn blocking your Q to a4 or b3).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;c4 in this particular position (Queens gambit) is as @DammJoe said. To challenge d5 and black's center and white can easily regain it if black takes immediately.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7002" LastActivityDate="2017-04-10T10:38:03.510" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17227" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17223" CreationDate="2017-04-10T11:16:27.857" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Key Centre Squares of Chess are e4,e5.d4,d5 . Usually any of your Piece resides in these Squares it provides more Centre Control and best possible activity . Now coming to your Q c4 tries to deflect Black's centre pawn and opens up a diagonal for White . You see that White captures back the pawn with a Check and Queen gets activated . Similarly the c-file for White also opens up in this case . &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastActivityDate="2017-04-10T11:16:27.857" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17229" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17070" CreationDate="2017-04-10T19:18:31.987" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Something you might do is to practice the elementary checkmates versus a computer (KQvK,KRvK,KBBvK,KBNvK, especially the first three) I disagree here with Inertial Ignorance for two reasons. If you get one of these endings in a speed game you want to be able to finish the game WITHOUT THINKING. The second reason is that you should try not simply to force the mate, but to do so in as few moves as possible. Keep a record, and try to get better. Even in these basic end games you need to think about when to check, when to cut off the Kings escape, when to improve your worst-placed piece (and what does that even mean?) Which squares do you control and where have you left a gap?&#xA;KBNvK is very hard, and although it does not come up very often, it really teaches planning, and even waiting. Do not think of learning these endings, but of learning how to think.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastActivityDate="2017-04-10T19:18:31.987" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17230" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16804" CreationDate="2017-04-10T19:41:55.780" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yeah, tell me about it!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The most helpful thing I was ever told is &quot;Try to remember that every move weakens something&quot; It leaves something (a piece or a square) unguarded, releases a pin, blocks a line for you, opens a line for him, blocks a retreat square, etc., etc. I think it was in a John Nunn book.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The least useful aspect of this is the bit about trying to remember. THAT is the problem.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T15:42:02.603" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T15:42:02.603" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="17231" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17260" CreationDate="2017-04-11T00:50:26.503" Score="6" ViewCount="1808" Body="&lt;p&gt;Historically, what, if any, are the genders of the pieces and pawns?  Is the king male and the queen female, etc?   What about promoted pieces?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user11382" LastEditorDisplayName="user11382" LastEditDate="2017-04-11T00:53:16.180" LastActivityDate="2017-11-17T14:50:33.170" Title="The genders of the pieces and pawns" Tags="&lt;pieces&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17233" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17231" CreationDate="2017-04-11T08:16:59.323" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot; Men are from Mars . Women are from Venus &quot; . Quite an abstract Quote related to this Q . Isn't it ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ok why I say the above is because Chess originated as a game of war where there are two Kingdoms fighting against each other . In earlier days and even to this day a major portion you would see it is the men who always fights or takes part in Battle field compared to Women . True Women are somewhat competing with Men and showing good results but in medieval World this was almost prohibited . &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So as Chess is as good as War so the Pieces/Pawns participating are all Males . In ancient Roman religion Mars was the god of war so men are categorised to fighting machines and that's the reason it implies the Gender is Male .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastActivityDate="2017-04-11T08:16:59.323" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17234" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17309" CreationDate="2017-04-11T09:02:37.810" Score="4" ViewCount="910" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is commonly known that Mikhail Tal was an alcohol addict and also had a morphine addiction for a short time. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there any games where he played under the influence of drugs that affected his play, or had any troubles regarding this matter with an arbiter?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10182" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditorDisplayName="user1108" LastEditDate="2021-01-05T21:05:39.017" LastActivityDate="2021-01-05T21:05:39.017" Title="Games of Mikhail Tal under the influence of alcohol" Tags="&lt;famous-games&gt;&lt;tal&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="17235" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17236" CreationDate="2017-04-11T13:58:38.567" Score="6" ViewCount="713" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there a method to determine whether or not a player should continue playing, or resign?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would currently consider myself a beginner at chess. So when for example I make a bad decision and lose a lot of material early, I will be naturally deflated from the loss and be tempted to resign.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13019" LastEditorUserId="11202" LastEditDate="2017-04-12T06:33:35.773" LastActivityDate="2017-04-12T07:55:45.150" Title="Resignation methodology" Tags="&lt;beginner&gt;&lt;resigning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ClosedDate="2017-04-13T03:30:25.250" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17236" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17235" CreationDate="2017-04-11T14:05:22.863" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;It depends on your level. At the beginner level, most people recommend not resigning and instead playing until there is either checkmate or a stalemate. If you're a beginner playing against other beginners, blunders are so common that even being a queen behind doesn't guarantee losing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once you get past the beginner level, an easy way is to ask yourself if you know how you would force a win if you had the other side's pieces. If you do, then you would consider resigning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4532" LastActivityDate="2017-04-11T14:05:22.863" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17237" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17235" CreationDate="2017-04-11T19:01:49.783" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think there is a universal method to determine whether you should resign. Many factors could affect your decision&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First of all, if you are just playing a practice match for fun, you might want to resign earlier (assuming you have a lost position) instead of fighting till the bitter end. On the other hand, for a beginner player you can learn how to convert an advantage if you do not resign.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In a tournament however the situation is different and even if you have a theoretically lost position you might not want to resign immediately for any of the following reasons:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;if your opponent is &lt;strong&gt;short on time&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;if the &lt;strong&gt;position is sufficiently rich&lt;/strong&gt; (complicated with e.g. many pieces on the board); giving you swindle chances and your opponent options to screw up&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;if you think that your &lt;strong&gt;opponent is too weak&lt;/strong&gt; to reliably convert his advantage in a normal position (playing a beginner you might still want to continue with a queen down or so, while playing a GM in most cases they will squeeze out a win if you are down say two pawns or so)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;if you are &lt;strong&gt;playing in a team&lt;/strong&gt; and your loss would help your opponents to adapt their strategy: for example, knowing that they have a point for sure on your board they could go for draws on other boards in some situations&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Whatever you do avoid playing out until the end, completely lost/easily won positions against reasonably strong opponents.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastEditorUserId="11629" LastEditDate="2017-04-12T07:55:45.150" LastActivityDate="2017-04-12T07:55:45.150" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17238" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17246" CreationDate="2017-04-11T19:46:37.387" Score="3" ViewCount="489" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm looking to buy a nice wooden set and board, something I've wanted for a long time. I have this Kasparov vs Karpov picture as my desktop background &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/yNLz7.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/yNLz7.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Kasparov vs Karpov&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and I love the set, but I can't find one quite like it. Does anyone know the name of this style of set, or where I could get one?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12970" LastActivityDate="2017-04-12T07:51:44.723" Title="What's the name of this set design?" Tags="&lt;chess-set&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17239" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17231" CreationDate="2017-04-11T20:16:57.413" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Depends on the language. E.g. Russian words for pawn and Rook are feminine. On the other hand, Russian words for (real life) infantry, cavalry, etc. are also feminine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3774" LastActivityDate="2017-04-11T20:16:57.413" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17240" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-04-12T02:29:14.280" Score="4" ViewCount="1104" Body="&lt;p&gt;As black, I always play the Sicilian against e4. I personally like the Scheveningen system but to avoid the Keres Attack, I play a6 before e6:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 a6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In that sense, the opening can also be named as Najdorf variation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I generally avoid playing ...e5 and prefer ...e6. I avoid ...e5 because I feel like playing ...e5 weakens the d5 square. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My desired set up is to have:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Bishops on b7 and e7&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Knights on f6 and d7 (or c6) &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Pawns on a6, b5, e6, d6&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Queen on c7 (b6 or sometimes a5)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My general plan is to play d5 to open up the game for my white bishop at b7.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now I have 2 questions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Sometimes (especially in closed Sicilian games) against black's ...d5 white can move their pawn to e5 and so creates a pressure on my king side. In those cases I have the tendency not to play ...d5 but then my white bishop can get stuck so becomes a bad bishop. &lt;strong&gt;Should I allow e5 with ...d5 and do something after e5 or should I think doing a move different from ...d5?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Secondly, sometimes white pushes their pawn to c4 to block my ...d5. &lt;strong&gt;What could be a good strategy for black after c4?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS. I generally prefer open Sicilian games to closed Sicilian games with maybe one exception. The exception is the variant where both sides make fianchettos on the g-file (like English opening with sides reversed) where the black has pawns on g6-e6-d6, black bishop on g7, knights on e7 and c6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then my strategy is to play Nd4 in order to exchange knights, making a queen side pawn rush by putting my rook to b8, and defending a possible g4 by moving my pawn to f5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Can I apply that kind of play/strategy against white where white does not make a fianchetto with his white bishop where the game is a closed Sicilian game&lt;/strong&gt;, (e.g. 1 e4 c5 2 c3... ) to overcome the problems that I described above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13039" LastEditorDisplayName="user1108" LastEditDate="2017-04-12T08:42:35.800" LastActivityDate="2018-04-11T16:08:08.840" Title="In Sicilian Defense with pawn structure as in Scheveningen, what should black do when playing d5 does not look so good?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;&lt;pawn-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17241" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17247" CreationDate="2017-04-12T03:05:25.717" Score="5" ViewCount="863" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the search for answers beyond immediately threatening back rank mates. How early is it possible to spot that you'll have problems down the aisle, from a strategic perspective? What are the defining characteristics of this position?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13040" LastActivityDate="2017-04-13T14:17:32.703" Title="What are the symptoms of a weak back rank?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17242" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17248" CreationDate="2017-04-12T03:28:02.017" Score="6" ViewCount="592" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the Sicilian Najdorf poisoned pawn variation what is the difference between including the moves 7...h6 8 Bh4 (as many top players do) and not including them?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6. Bg5 e6 7. f4 Qb6 (7...h6 8. Bh4 Qb6 9. Qd2 Qxb2) 8. Qd2 Qxb2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastEditorUserId="4588" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T18:54:16.360" LastActivityDate="2017-04-14T11:16:21.097" Title="Najdorf poisoned pawn with or without 7..h6 8 Bh4" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;1.e4&gt;&lt;najdorf&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17243" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4649" CreationDate="2017-04-12T03:44:19.283" Score="2" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;NC3 should not be underestimated. There is an excelent book called &amp;quot;Knight on the Left&amp;quot; by Harald Kielhack, that is also among the best general chess book I know.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I normally open 1.e4 but about one game in eight I roll out 1.Nc3. Why? THere is no risk because there is no refutation. Quite often I get into standard open or semi-open positions with my opponent having used some extra time. And Black can get quickly into trouble with some very plausible moves&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.Nc3 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 exd 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Bg5 Be7 6. Nf5! 0-0 7. Nxe7+ Qxe7&#xA;8. Nd5 Qd8 9. Nxf6+ gxf6 10. Bh6 Re8 11.e3 with a very pleasant advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I dont have general philosophical justification for you, 1.Nc3 offers not quite such a good chance of opening advantage as the four main moves, but it can be effective if you pick your opponents. PLayers who are prone to time trouble, players who will try too hard to refute it, players who know much more regular book than you do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2017-04-12T03:44:19.283" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17244" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5115" CreationDate="2017-04-12T04:19:48.857" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You have this fantasy of planning out an unstoppable operation based on a threat to checkmate. I believe that this is because you have had no real contact with strong human players. Nobody above a beginner level thinks like that, and Chess is much more interesting because of it. Most players begin the game with only a very vague idea of what they would like to do, and their plan constantly changes in response to the opponent's moves. Playing for mate from an early stage is seldom successful because strong players will see your obvious threats and avoid them. At a strong amateur level, pressure against a weak pawn may result in an advantageous endgame where the extra pawn becomes a Queen and only then, when you have an overwhelming force, do you start to think about checkmate. Although your opponent may very well (and really should) frustrate you by resigning. Games at master level are even subtler.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do most of your games with the computer follow a similar course? If so, you are both persevering with some limited approach to the game. It may be amusing and satisfying for you to take on the challenge of beating that particular machine, but it won't make you a good player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I apologise that I did not answer your question. What I tried to do was to convince you to seek a better question. Good luck with that!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastEditorUserId="11202" LastEditDate="2017-04-16T13:57:58.943" LastActivityDate="2017-04-16T13:57:58.943" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17245" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16767" CreationDate="2017-04-12T06:46:42.657" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a question related to the general topic of using of a chess engine to cheat. There has been quite a lot of research on this by people like &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~regan/chess/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Kenneth Reagan&lt;/a&gt;. I have also done some research in this area and &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.cs.kent.ac.uk/people/staff/djb/chessplag/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;made some open source tools available&lt;/a&gt; that will allow you to generate statistics on move matching with engine choices. I think these would do what you are asking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12951" LastActivityDate="2017-04-12T06:46:42.657" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17246" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17238" CreationDate="2017-04-12T07:51:44.723" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;From Tony Rotella on &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/64tk5n/can_anyone_help_me_identify_what_kinddesign_of/dg4yk32/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;the reddit page I pointed to this one&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;They're DGT &quot;Timeless&quot; pieces: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.digitalgametechnology.com/index.php/products/eboard-chess-sets&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.digitalgametechnology.com/index.php/products/eboard-chess-sets&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;  This has been a very standard FIDE design for a long time, though there have been slight modifications over the years to (at the least) the pawns and bishops I believe.&#xA;  You might also be interested in these, which are basically the same: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.houseofstaunton.com/the-championship-series-chess-set-3-75-king.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.houseofstaunton.com/the-championship-series-chess-set-3-75-king.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12970" LastActivityDate="2017-04-12T07:51:44.723" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17247" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17241" CreationDate="2017-04-12T11:50:29.347" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This puzzle from chess.com shows a back rank weakness:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;3r1k2/1p5p/pqn1Qpp1/5n2/8/5BP1/PP3P1P/4R1K1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Qxf6+ Kg8 2. Bd5+ Rxd5 3. Re8#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It shows that:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The heavy pieces have to exploit the weak back rank&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;To exploit the weak back rank, there has to be at least one open file&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A sacrifice (2. Bd5+) may be needed to lure away a defender&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The weak back rank is typified with there being no escape for the king if it is checked&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Back rank mate is the most common checkmate. The earliest when you need to think about it is when:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Heavy pieces are still on the board&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Files are being opened&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The defending rooks are leaving the back rank (maybe deflected, exchanged off, going to the centre etc.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When the king has castled, usually kingside, with no &lt;em&gt;luft&lt;/em&gt; having being made e.g. black hasn't played ...h6&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2017-04-12T11:50:29.347" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17248" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17242" CreationDate="2017-04-12T11:54:45.947" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;One reason is that it avoids a certain line that you would get after playing 7...Qb6, which is &lt;strong&gt;8.Nb3&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If Black plays 7...h6 first, 8.Bh4 Qb6 &lt;strong&gt;9.Nb3&lt;/strong&gt; is no longer possible because Black can play &lt;strong&gt;9...Qe3+&lt;/strong&gt; winning the f4-pawn. This would not have been the case in the  7...Qb6 line since the bishop would have still been on g5, protecting the pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another reason is that sometimes Black would like to play ...g5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6. Bg5 e6 7. f4 Qb6 (7...h6 8. Bh4 Qb6 9. Nb3 Qe3+ 10.Qe2 (10.Be2 Nxe4) 10...Qxf4) 8. Nb3 Be7 (8...Qe3+ 9.Qe2)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13044" LastEditorUserId="13044" LastEditDate="2017-04-12T12:07:49.423" LastActivityDate="2017-04-12T12:07:49.423" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17249" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17241" CreationDate="2017-04-12T11:58:12.853" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;One of the most famous chess games ever. Both sides have back rank mates!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;29...Qb2!!&lt;/strong&gt; (0-1) wins the game for Black by back-rank mate&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1261680&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1261680&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/H0CjD.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/H0CjD.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;None of the king-side pawns move&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Both kings are behind the pawns and have no escape square&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;There are open-files on the board&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Both side has a rook and a queen exploring the open files&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;No white rook on the back rank defending (the white rook is on the third rank)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The white queen is the only piece guarding the f1 square &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2017-04-12T12:04:59.620" LastActivityDate="2017-04-12T12:04:59.620" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17250" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17240" CreationDate="2017-04-12T14:27:21.657" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If the position allows you to play d5, I would play it. That's the key move for Black in most variations of the the Sicilian, so it is a good idea to aim for it. In your sequence, you forgot to add that after moving your queen, you should try to double rooks on the d file. In most of these variations, White's response of e5 would have lost its impact; the key move of the game would be your d5. But if White had somehow created a long-term situation where &quot;d5 does not look so good,&quot; it would likely mean that White had retained his advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If White gets to play c4, that's a different kettle of fish. Actually, that has a couple of subtle disadvantages. 1) It restricts his light squared bishop which then becomes at least as &quot;bad&quot; as yours. 2) It weakens his black squares, specifically d4 and the long diagonal. So the antidote to that is the Dragon variation, g6 followed by Bg7. You must play g6 immediately after c4 so that White doesn't get to play Bg5 (Richter Attack).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you can play both the Scheveningen and the Dragon variations well, you can be considered a &quot;complete&quot; Sicilian player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastEditorUserId="17" LastEditDate="2017-04-19T11:49:21.920" LastActivityDate="2017-04-19T11:49:21.920" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17251" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17252" CreationDate="2017-04-12T14:43:11.720" Score="2" ViewCount="325" Body="&lt;p&gt;My Taken Pieces Panel clusters ugly with the pieces.&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/a35ul.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/a35ul.png&quot; alt=&quot;GUI bug&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's my code :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;class TakenPiecesPanel extends JPanel {&#xA;private final JPanel northPanel;&#xA;private final JPanel southPanel;&#xA;private final Dimension TAKEN_PIECES_DIMENSION = new Dimension(80, 80);&#xA;&#xA;TakenPiecesPanel(){&#xA;    super(new BorderLayout());&#xA;    this.setBorder(PANEL_BORDER);&#xA;    this.northPanel = new JPanel(new GridLayout(8, 2));&#xA;    this.southPanel = new JPanel(new GridLayout(8, 2));&#xA;    this.add(this.northPanel, BorderLayout.NORTH);&#xA;    this.add(this.southPanel, BorderLayout.SOUTH);&#xA;    setPreferredSize(TAKEN_PIECES_DIMENSION);&#xA;}&#xA;&#xA;void redo(final MoveLog movelog){&#xA;    this.northPanel.removeAll();&#xA;    this.southPanel.removeAll();&#xA;&#xA;    for(final Piece takenPiece: whiteTakenPieces){&#xA;            final BufferedImage image = ImageIO.read(new File(BoardUtils.ICONS_PATH +&#xA;                    takenPiece.getPieceColor().toString().substring(0,1)+&#xA;                    takenPiece.toString()+&quot;.gif&quot;));&#xA;            final ImageIcon icon = new ImageIcon(image);&#xA;            /*This didn't work too &#xA;            final JLabel imageLabel = new JLabel(new ImageIcon(ic.getImage().getScaledInstance(&#xA;                    ic.getIconWidth() - 15, ic.getIconWidth() - 15, Image.SCALE_SMOOTH)));*/&#xA;            this.southPanel.add(imageLabel);&#xA;            this.southPanel.add(new JLabel(icon));&#xA;    }&#xA;    validate();&#xA;}&#xA;}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The images are displayed in a single column and when the number exceeds the column limit, they are displayed in the adjacent column. This is when the panel gets ugly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm a beginner in GUI programming. I've tried increasing the panel size but it won't work. Please help me out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12906" LastActivityDate="2017-04-12T15:52:21.990" Title="Chess GUI Java Swings code needs fixing" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;software&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="7" ClosedDate="2017-04-14T07:50:25.847" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17252" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17251" CreationDate="2017-04-12T15:52:21.990" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your GUI design is bad. I'd just do this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;White pawn x3&#xA;White queen x1&#xA;Black pawn x2&#xA;....&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Draw a chess piece and add a number to it's top-right corner. It's like how iOS and Android show the number of unread SMS messages you have.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nobody wants to count the number of pawns in your panel. Just add a number.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2017-04-12T15:52:21.990" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17253" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16994" CreationDate="2017-04-12T20:18:50.747" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Although there may be a solution for your problem, I suggest you get used to it instead, as it follows the official laws of chess and deters you from doing otherwise. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;4.3 Except as providedin Article 4.2, if the player having the move deliberately touches on the chessboard:   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;a. one or more of his own pieces, he must move the first piece touched which can be moved&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Good practice for visualization and proper chess etiquette. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/component/handbook/?id=124&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.fide.com/component/handbook/?id=124&amp;amp;view=article&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13040" LastActivityDate="2017-04-12T20:18:50.747" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17254" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17202" CreationDate="2017-04-13T03:14:21.917" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Also there are times when the numerical edge doesn't mean much, or the computer can't see far enough ahead to realize it's a draw. Endgames can be particularly thorny. An extreme example is above. My chess engine (Fritz 11) gives +4.8 for White, but it's drawn. Black shuffles the rook between a2 and a1 and leaves the king at h7. A computer might see this given infinite time, but if we are looking for a relatively quick evaluation, it will misfire.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;R7/P6k/8/8/8/8/6KP/r7 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another classic example is opposite colored bishops. Fritz 11 gives me +2.0 for White after 5+ minutes in one of the linked games (&quot;Illustration of a drawing concept&quot;), but Black's fortress means Black can either force e6 or exchange a bishop for two pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/12229/how-do-you-draw-in-an-opposite-color-bishops-endgame-with-two-pawns-down&quot;&gt;How do you draw in an opposite color bishops endgame with two pawns down?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11202" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T12:48:53.737" LastActivityDate="2017-04-13T03:14:21.917" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17255" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17202" CreationDate="2017-04-13T06:18:05.527" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the great book &quot;How to win better positions&quot;, it was calculated that an advantage of about +1.50 is enough to win, provided both sides play PERFECTLY.  If the evaluation is less than +1.50, it should be a draw if, once again, both sides play perfectly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That being said, no one plays perfectly (not professionals, or beginners).  However, it is safe to assume that professionals are much closer to this &quot;perfect&quot; level of play.  So we only need to increase the +1.50 by a small amount.  +1.80 to +2.00 should be enough to more or less guarantee a win for one of the sides in a match between two professionals.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, there are other variables to take into account.  If the position is simple and one side is up 2 clear pawns (giving a +2.00 advantage), then there is a +99% chance the professional will win.  Conversly, if the position is very complex and one side is up 2 points just by the engine evaluation, then the outcome is not at all certain.  The engine may evaluate a complex position to be +2.00, but for humans in a practical game it could seem equal to them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For amateurs, we need to increase the margin far greater, since they are far from the margin of &quot;perfect play&quot;.  To guarantee a win for an amateur, one would probably need to provide at least a +3.00 advantage, due to the possibility of blunders and mistakes.  Even at this level of an advantage though, it is not certain that an amateur will not make some game losing blunder.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For beginners, there is likely no advantage you can give that will ensure a win.  Beginners make game losing blunders very frequently, which makes an engine evaluation more or less moot.  There is no evaluation that would guarantee a win for beginners, due to the unpredictability of their skill.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To summarize, for top level professionals about a +2.00 advantage is needed to secure the win.  For amateurs, you'd probably need at least a +3.00 advantage.  For beginners, there is no number.  For engines that play &quot;perfectly&quot;, at least a +1.50 advantage is needed.  However, it is important to keep in mind that it depends on the type of position too.  Simple positions provide more certainty that the better side will win.  Complex positions make the result far more uncertain.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2017-04-13T06:18:05.527" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17256" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17242" CreationDate="2017-04-13T11:01:25.377" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Originally the Q that you have asked would cover a book with both Variations pros &amp;amp; cons with Games from Top level being annotated . There are no two very different significant ideas stemming from the above lines . &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can play both and find out yourself which one you are comfortable in . &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would like to bring out one difference which is when you play the h6 and then Bh4 then Qb6 I would say that you play Be7 also which removes the Knight pin . As I can say this variation is quite difficult for White to make the K-side attack which is generally the main line .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.Bg5 e6 7.f4 Qb6 8.Qd2 Qxb2 9.Rb1 Qa3 10.e5 dxe5 11.fxe5 Nfd7 12.Bc4 Bb4 13.Rb3 Qa5 14.O-O O-O 15.Bf6 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The above is one of the main lines in Najdorf Poison Pawn and extreme ultra sharp . If Black makes one single mistake he will face the danger of getting exploded . So compared to the above h6 is quite a good line to consider .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can even play h6 later and not only on 7th move as such no such a great difference can be pulled out .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastActivityDate="2017-04-13T11:01:25.377" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17257" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17241" CreationDate="2017-04-13T13:34:28.887" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The main hallmark of a weak back rank is that your king is hemmed in by pawns, pieces, or squares controlled by your opponent so that it can only move sideways. It may also have insufficient defenders (rooks or queen) or defenders may be blocked from defending the king by other pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But the back rank is nearly always weak - what you need to watch out for is opportunities your opponent has to exploit that weakness. For example, their rook is on an open file or a file that can be opened by a tactical maneuver or sacrifice. A weak back rank can really only be exploited by your opponent's rooks or queen, so keep an eye on them, and on the availability of escape squares for your king. You basically never want those guys on your back rank if you can help it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yet it can also be a mistake to waste a tempo you could have used for attack to prevent a potential back rank threat that may never come, or to weaken your pawn structure in front of the king just to give him an escape square. This is why back rank threats remain such a common motif.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12027" LastEditorUserId="12027" LastEditDate="2017-04-13T14:17:32.703" LastActivityDate="2017-04-13T14:17:32.703" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17258" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17264" CreationDate="2017-04-13T16:25:02.360" Score="8" ViewCount="584" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let's say a tournament decides to have special consolation prizes for players who finish in the 20th, 30th, 40th, and 50th positions. It does this to give incentive to players to keep playing all rounds even if they don't have a chance of finishing in the top 10, who would get the normal prizes. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now suppose player X playing the last round calculates that if he now resigns, he finishes exactly 20th, so he resigns. However, his opponent Y calculates that if he resigns now, he finishes 30th. Both players have incentive to resign. So as soon as X resigns, Y resigns as well. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So what is the result of the game? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2429" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2020-01-01T11:59:12.577" LastActivityDate="2020-01-01T11:59:12.577" Title="If both players simultaneously resign, what is the result of the game?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;resigning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17259" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17258" CreationDate="2017-04-13T16:34:13.400" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;From FIDE Handbook: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Article 5: The completion of the game&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5.1&#xA;b. The game is won by the player whose opponent declares he resigns. This immediately ends the game. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So simultaneous resignation is not possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10182" LastEditorUserId="11202" LastEditDate="2017-04-16T06:31:52.310" LastActivityDate="2017-04-16T06:31:52.310" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17260" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17231" CreationDate="2017-04-13T16:41:29.870" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess originated in India and in the Indian armies of those times, it was common to have elephants, camels, horses and the like. Even now in rural India, the rook is the &quot;elephant&quot;, the bishop is the &quot;camel&quot; and the knight is the &quot;horse&quot;. The king is still the king, the queen is the &quot;wazir&quot; or vizier, and pawns are foot soldiers. In fact there was a recent Indian movie called &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0315642/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wazir&lt;/a&gt;, themed on chess and the Wazir was portrayed by a male character.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Traditionally, the armies fought mostly with men, however, even Indian history has had female warrior queens (for example Rani of Jhansi). The Wazir, however, is not a queen, but a powerful minister in the kingdom, maybe even the king's prime minister or right-hand-man (person?). Traditionally, this would be a male. Similarly, the elephant riders, camel riders, horse riders and foot soldiers would traditionally be male with females being the exception to the norm. The king is obviously male.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2429" LastActivityDate="2017-04-13T16:41:29.870" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17261" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17242" CreationDate="2017-04-13T18:32:11.287" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to the &lt;a href=&quot;http://chesstempo.com/game-database.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Game Database of ChessTempo&lt;/a&gt;, 7....Qb6 is actually more popular than 7....h6.&#xA;At the very top level, both moves have their supporters, e.g. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1721594&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Anand&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1784849&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Grischuk&lt;/a&gt; for 7....Qb6 and &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1849673&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Vachier-Lagrave&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1859495&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Nepomniachtchi&lt;/a&gt; for 7....h6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both moves can easily transpose, as the main line of the Poisoned Pawn goes 7....Qb6 8.Qd2 Qxb2 9.Rb1 Qa3 10.e5 h6 11.Bh4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After 7....Qb6, white has the option to play 8.Nb3, as mentioned by Seth-Riley. With the inclusion of 7....h6 8.Bh4, 9.Nb3 is not possible because of 9....Qe3+.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, after 7....h6 8.Bh4 Qb6, white has the option to play 9.a3. If black takes the pawn with 9....Qxb2, white can trap the queen by 10.Na4. Instead black should continue his development, for instance with 9....Be7. Now white can play 10.Bf2, which is of course possible thanks to the inclusion of 7....h6 8.Bh4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;      [StartPly &quot;13&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;      [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;      1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.Bg5 e6 7.f4 h6 (7...Qb6 8.Qd2 (8.Nb3) Qxb2 9.Rb1 Qa3 10.e5 h6 11.Bh4) 8.Bh4 Qb6 9.a3 (9.Nb3 Qe3+)(9.Qd2 Qxb2 10.Rb1 Qa3 11.e5) Be7 (9...Qxb2 10.Na4) 10.Bf2&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4588" LastEditorUserId="4588" LastEditDate="2017-04-14T11:16:21.097" LastActivityDate="2017-04-14T11:16:21.097" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17264" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17258" CreationDate="2017-04-14T17:50:50.407" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;In such a hypothetical situation, I wouldn't be surprised if both players lose &lt;em&gt;and&lt;/em&gt; will be eliminated from the tournament's results, thereby not qualifying for the consolation prize. It's entirely possible to classify their behaviour as unsportsmanlike and discrediting the game of chess, which is against the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=9&amp;amp;view=category&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Code of Ethics&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;2.2.10&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  In addition, disciplinary action in accordance with this Code of Ethics will be taken in cases of occurrences which cause the game of chess, FIDE or its federations to appear in an unjustifiable unfavorable light and in this way damage its reputation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2017-04-14T17:50:50.407" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17265" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17283" CreationDate="2017-04-14T22:13:18.707" Score="5" ViewCount="760" Body="&lt;p&gt;Whenever I watch chess games played by grandmasters, they usually resign far before reaching checkmate (often even before a forced checkmate occurs). However, I wonder if there are recent examples of famous grandmasters getting checkmated?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Would be interesting to see how the game looks in order for them to get checkmated. Is there any examples of this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12730" LastEditorUserId="18475" LastEditDate="2019-12-26T10:34:39.453" LastActivityDate="2019-12-26T10:34:39.453" Title="Have famous grandmasters ever been checkmated?" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;grandmaster&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17266" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-04-14T23:13:07.967" Score="6" ViewCount="623" Body="&lt;p&gt;I see plenty of information stating that a Knight and King vs a King is a Draw because a mating position is not possible.  I also see that it IS possible, no matter how unlikely, to acquire a mating position with 2 Knights, therefore that would technically NOT be a Draw.&#xA;I would &quot;assume&quot; a Knight vs a Knight (no pawns) is also a Draw, but I don't see that stated anywhere.  Does the extra Knight on the board allow for the possibility of a mating position?  For example, somehow blocking it's own King in.  If so, does anyone have an example?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13057" LastActivityDate="2020-01-26T18:29:34.543" Title="Is checkmate possible in knight vs knight pawnless endgame?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;knights&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17267" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17266" CreationDate="2017-04-15T00:29:29.167" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, it is indeed possible :)  I'll give you the coordinates for the pieces in a possible mating position, and you can set it up on your chessboard.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Place the White King on g6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Place a White Knight on f7.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Place the Black King on h8.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Place a Black Knight on g8.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;6nk/5N2/6K1/8/8/8/8/8 w - - 1 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In that position, Black's King is checkmated.  Although, I doubt even the biggest beginner would ever let that happen to them :)  You would only be able to checkmate in that endgame if your opponent literally played the worst moves multiple times in a row.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastEditorUserId="12026" LastEditDate="2020-01-26T18:29:34.543" LastActivityDate="2020-01-26T18:29:34.543" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="17271" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17265" CreationDate="2017-04-15T06:40:10.287" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, although over 10 years old, there is this, which I came across in Soltis' &lt;em&gt;Studying Chess Made Easy&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;Match&quot;]    &#xA;[Date &quot;2006&quot;]  &#xA;[White &quot;Deep Thought&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Kramnik&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;2006.??.??&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;5N1k/q5p1/7p/8/pp2Q3/8/1P4PP/2b4K b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1...Qe3 2.Qh7# 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9025" LastActivityDate="2017-04-15T06:40:10.287" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17272" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2017" CreationDate="2017-04-15T08:29:18.337" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Looking at the statistics shown by Sunanda above, it appears that white has some advantage. I feel it is more a question of human brain's (or machine's) capability to handle 8x8 squares to maintain that advantage for white or achieve equality or advantage) for black. With this in mind I tend to believe that white's advantage is more if the size of the board is say 5x5  or 6x6 (of course with some pieces removed from the board). The simple reason for my belief is that the game becomes a lot easier with smaller sized board. On the other side, if the board is large say 12x12, with some additional pieces and pawns, the game would be lot more difficult for white to have any advantage, because there would be many more possibilities for the moves at every stage of the game. First move advantage may actually cease to exist at some size of the chess board (as we move from small to large size for the board). This size at which it breaks has to be found out. To digress a little, some game designers have come up with chess variants to eliminate this supposed advantage. Google for Synchronous chess, parity chess and synchronistic chess to know the rules of these variants.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13061" LastEditorUserId="13061" LastEditDate="2017-04-22T09:59:53.867" LastActivityDate="2017-04-22T09:59:53.867" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17273" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17265" CreationDate="2017-04-15T08:52:18.480" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;An example from earlier this week, if admittedly blitz&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;6th Zurich Opening Blitz&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2017.04.12&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Pelletier, Yannick&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Gelfand, Boris&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;D15&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;2541&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;2724&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. c4 c6 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. Nc3 e6 5. e3 Nbd7 6. Qc2 Bd6 7. b3 O-O 8. Be2 b6 9. O-O Bb7 10. Bb2 Qe7 11. Rad1 Rad8 12. Rfe1 Rfe8 13. Bf1 e5 14. cxd5 e4 15. Ne5 Nxe5 16. dxe5 Bxe5 17. dxc6 Bxh2+ 18. Kxh2 Ng4+ 19. Kg3 Qe5+ 20. f4 Qh5 21. Rxd8 Qh2+ 22. Kxg4 h5+ 23. Kg5 Qg3+ 24. Kxh5 g6+ 25. Kh6 Qh4# &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7726" LastEditorUserId="7726" LastEditDate="2017-04-15T17:18:40.343" LastActivityDate="2017-04-15T17:18:40.343" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17274" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6379" CreationDate="2017-04-15T11:16:40.840" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Apart from Synchronistic chess, two more variants that fall into this category are Synchronous chess and Parity chess. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13061" LastActivityDate="2017-04-15T11:16:40.840" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17276" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-04-15T18:33:40.453" Score="2" ViewCount="61" Body="&lt;p&gt;In various positions in elementary bishop endgames, the stronger side tries to prevent the sacrifice of the bishop for the last remaining pawn by interposing the diagonal with the bishop. For example, second position in this &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luigi_Centurini&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Centurini article&lt;/a&gt;. What are the possible terms for this idea? Besides 'interference', can it be called a 'bridge', by analogy with rook endgames?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="618" LastActivityDate="2017-04-15T20:31:58.983" Title="What are the possible terms for interference in the bishop endgame?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;bishop-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17277" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17276" CreationDate="2017-04-15T20:31:58.983" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Dvoretsky in &lt;em&gt;Endgame Manual&lt;/em&gt; just calls this technique &lt;em&gt;interferring&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Building a bridge&lt;/em&gt; in RPvR endgames is slightly different as it is about sheltering your king from checks from the enemy rook, not about preventing the rook from sacrificing itself for the last remaining pawn. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1485" LastActivityDate="2017-04-15T20:31:58.983" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17278" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17335" CreationDate="2017-04-16T02:11:40.077" Score="3" ViewCount="228" Body="&lt;p&gt;I installed &lt;code&gt;pgn-extract_17.38&lt;/code&gt; and want to suppress the output of &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;$ FEN=$(echo &quot;1.d4 Nf6 2.Nf3 e6 3. *&quot; | pgn-extract -F)&#xA;Processing stdin&#xA;&#xA;1 game matched out of 1.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I read about suppressing methods on the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.cs.kent.ac.uk/people/staff/djb/pgn-extract/help.html#skipmatching&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;website&lt;/a&gt;. But till now it does not work for me. Has any one experience in that tool?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12698" LastEditorUserId="12698" LastEditDate="2017-04-21T02:47:25.490" LastActivityDate="2017-04-22T07:13:35.017" Title="pgn-extract suppress output" Tags="&lt;pgn&gt;&lt;fen&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17279" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17280" CreationDate="2017-04-16T10:16:01.027" Score="6" ViewCount="491" Body="&lt;p&gt;What was the intention for the moves  23. ... Bb6 and 24. ... Bd7&amp;nbsp;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Anand&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Topalov&quot;]&#xA;[StartPly &quot;45&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nf3 d5 4. g3 dxc4 5. Bg2 a6 6. Ne5 c5 7. Na3 cxd4 8. Naxc4 Bc5 9. O-O O-O 10. Bg5 h6 11. Bxf6 Qxf6 12. Nd3 Ba7 13. Qa4 Nc6 14. Rac1 e5 15. Bxc6 b5 16. Qc2 Qxc6 17. Ncxe5 Qe4 18. Qc6 Bb7 19. Qxe4 Bxe4 20. Rc2 Rfe8 21. Rfc1 f6 22. Nd7 Bf5 23. N7c5 Bb6 24. Nb7 Bd7 25. Nf4 Rab8 26. Nd6 Re5 27. Nc8 Ba5 28. Nd3 Re8 29. Na7 Bb6 30. Nc6 Rb7 31. Ncb4 a5 32. Nd5 a4 33. Nxb6 Rxb6 34. Nc5 Bf5 35. Rd2 Rc6 36. b4 axb3 37. axb3 b4 38. Rxd4 Rxe2 39. Rxb4 Bh3 40. Rbc4 Rd6 41. Re4 Rb2 42. Ree1 Rdd2 43. Ne4 Rd4 44. Nc5 Rdd2 45. Ne4 Rd3 46. Rb1 Rdxb3 47. Nd2 Rb4 48. f3 g5 49. Rxb2 Rxb2 50. Rd1 Kf7 51. Kf2 h5 52. Ke3 Rc2 53. Ra1 Kg6 54. Ra6 Bf5 55. Rd6 Rc3+ 56. Kf2 Rc2 57. Ke3 Rc3+ 58. Kf2 Rc2  1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13066" LastEditorUserId="2789" LastEditDate="2017-04-16T18:03:17.290" LastActivityDate="2017-04-18T20:55:16.250" Title="Intention of two moves of Topalov vs Anand" Tags="&lt;beginner&gt;&lt;anand&gt;&lt;topalov&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17280" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17279" CreationDate="2017-04-16T10:57:35.103" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well I'm no GM but for me there's a couple of things going on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In the given position white is threatening to take the pawn on a6&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If white can get a knight to d6 he will fork the rook on e8 and the bishop on f5, so winning the exchange after a move like Bd7&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus black's move 23 protects the pawn on a6 by uncovering the line of the rook on a8. White then tries to get his knight to d6 via b7, and black stops the fork by moving his white squared bishop back to d7. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7726" LastEditorUserId="924" LastEditDate="2017-04-16T13:56:28.317" LastActivityDate="2017-04-16T13:56:28.317" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17281" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17279" CreationDate="2017-04-16T11:06:26.467" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Alongside &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/17280/1108&quot;&gt;@IanBush's answer&lt;/a&gt;, the bishops prevent white's doubled rooks from penetrating black's camp:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Anand&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Topalov&quot;]&#xA;[StartPly &quot;48&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nf3 d5 4. g3 dxc4 5. Bg2 a6 6. Ne5 c5 7. Na3 cxd4 8. Naxc4 Bc5 9. O-O O-O 10. Bg5 h6 11. Bxf6 Qxf6 12. Nd3 Ba7 13. Qa4 Nc6 14. Rac1 e5 15. Bxc6 b5 16. Qc2 Qxc6 17. Ncxe5 Qe4 18. Qc6 Bb7 19. Qxe4 Bxe4 20. Rc2 Rfe8 21. Rfc1 f6 22. Nd7 Bf5 23. N7c5 Bb6 24. Nb7 Bd7 {[%draw full,c4,red][%draw full,c5,red][%draw full,c6,red][%draw full,c7,red][%draw full,c8,red][%draw arrow,b5,c4,green][%draw arrow,b6,c5,green][%draw arrow,b6,c7,green][%draw arrow,d7,c6,green][%draw arrow,d7,c8,green]} 25. Nf4 Rab8 26. Nd6 Re5 27. Nc8 Ba5 28. Nd3 Re8 29. Na7 Bb6 30. Nc6 Rb7 31. Ncb4 a5 32. Nd5 a4 33. Nxb6 Rxb6 34. Nc5 Bf5 35. Rd2 Rc6 36. b4 axb3 37. axb3 b4 38. Rxd4 Rxe2 39. Rxb4 Bh3 40. Rbc4 Rd6 41. Re4 Rb2 42. Ree1 Rdd2 43. Ne4 Rd4 44. Nc5 Rdd2 45. Ne4 Rd3 46. Rb1 Rdxb3 47. Nd2 Rb4 48. f3 g5 49. Rxb2 Rxb2 50. Rd1 Kf7 51. Kf2 h5 52. Ke3 Rc2 53. Ra1 Kg6 54. Ra6 Bf5 55. Rd6 Rc3+ 56. Kf2 Rc2 57. Ke3 Rc3+ 58. Kf2 Rc2  1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2017-04-16T11:06:26.467" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17282" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4649" CreationDate="2017-04-16T14:57:59.157" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1.Nf3&lt;/strong&gt; develops a piece, prevents 1...e5, gives black no targets (e.g. 1.e4 can be challenged with 1...d5 immediately) and keeps all options as far as pawn moves are concerned open.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Instead of choosing to place a pawn on e4, d4 or c4, white first sees what black's first move is. He may choose to play something like 2.g3 and 3.Bg2 to delay even further, depending.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's quite a few benefits.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2017-04-16T14:57:59.157" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17283" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17265" CreationDate="2017-04-16T15:03:09.333" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The most recent super Grandmaster level checkmate I can think of is the game &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1800188&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wesley So vs Hikaru Nakamura&lt;/a&gt;, Sinquefield, Cup August 2015. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[White &quot;Wesley So&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Hikaru Nakamura&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;] &#xA;&#xA;1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 Bg7 4. e4 d6 5. Nf3 O-O 6. Be2 e5 7. O-O Nc6 8. d5&#xA;Ne7 9. Ne1 Nd7 10. f3 f5 11. Be3 f4 12. Bf2 g5 13. Nd3 Ng6 14. c5 Nf6 15. Rc1&#xA;Rf7 16. Kh1 h5 17. cxd6 cxd6 18. Nb5 a6 19. Na3 b5 20. Rc6 g4 21. Qc2 Qf8 22.&#xA;Rc1 Bd7 23. Rc7 Bh6 24. Be1 h4 25. fxg4 f3 26. gxf3 Nxe4 27. Rd1 Rxf3 28. &#xA;Rxd7 Rf1+ 29. Kg2 Be3 30. Bg3 hxg3 31. Rxf1 Nh4+ 32. Kh3 Qh6 33. g5 Nxg5+ 34. &#xA;Kg4 Nhf3 35. Nf2 Qh4+ 36. Kf5 Rf8+ 37. Kg6 Rf6+ 38. Kxf6 Ne4+ 39. Kg6 Qg5#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2429" LastActivityDate="2017-04-16T15:03:09.333" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17284" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-04-16T15:58:09.947" Score="7" ViewCount="1804" Body="&lt;p&gt;All is said in the title. I find the move 2. d5 after 1. d4 Nf6 pretty annoying even if it's probably not a great move. What are suitable moves to &quot;punish”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Blockquote&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;this opening play? I will add that I am more of a Benoni/Benko player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13069" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-27T01:43:30.323" LastActivityDate="2020-04-27T01:43:30.323" Title="Looking for way to “punish” the d5 push after 1. d4 Nf6" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;1.d4&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="17285" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17284" CreationDate="2017-04-16T16:14:34.600" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you're a Benoni player, there's nothing wrong with 2... c5, which will get you in familiar territory (3. dxc6 e.p. is harmless and not something White wants to play - exchanging a center pawn for a flank pawn).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While it's not a great move, Black isn't immediately better, just about equal. So it's dangerous to try to 'punish' this move, especially if White has probably more experience with this line than you (and less with the main Benoni/Benko lines).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2017-04-16T16:14:34.600" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17286" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17284" CreationDate="2017-04-16T19:32:47.480" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you like the Benoni, 2...c5 is definitely an option.  However, the kicker here is that White doesn't have to play 3. c4 and transpose to the main line.  Instead, White could play 3. Nc3!? and if you play 3...e6 then 4. e4! could be unpleasant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A solid option would be 2...e5.  While this gets you out of your familiar territory, it does give you good play on the dark squares. Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;c4 Bc5 (or Bb4+) 4. Nc3 a6 (giving the Bishop a strong home on a7) 5. e4 d6 sees Black's typically passive dark-squared bishop enjoying activity.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One last suggestion could be 2...b5.  It prevents 3. c4, and if 3. Nc3 then 3...b4.  Since White also can't play e4 for the moment, the d5 pawn is vulnerable.  You can play Bb7 and e6 to put pressure on it and take it out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastEditorUserId="12873" LastEditDate="2020-04-27T01:40:04.937" LastActivityDate="2020-04-27T01:40:04.937" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="17287" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17284" CreationDate="2017-04-16T19:54:33.007" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The most direct way to punish this move seems to be to attack the d-pawn immediately. Black gets a very slight advantage. For example&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA; 1. d4 Nf6 2. d5 c6! 3. c4 cxd5 4. cxd5 Qa5 + 5. Nc3 b5! 6. Qd3 b4 7. Qb5 Qb6 8. Qxb6 axb6 9. Nb5 Ra5 10. e4 Nxe4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd recommend that you run this line by the engines. They do tend to agree that this line gives Black a very slight advantage. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2429" LastActivityDate="2017-04-16T19:54:33.007" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17289" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17284" CreationDate="2017-04-16T21:00:26.460" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why is 1.d4 a good move? Partly ecause it controls the central squares c5,e5. What squares does 2.d5 weaken? c5 and e5. Good plans would take advantage of this. . 2...e5 looks very nice with ..Bc5 to follow&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastActivityDate="2017-04-16T21:00:26.460" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17290" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2017" CreationDate="2017-04-16T21:25:39.317" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your question turns on the meaning of perfect play. If White starts with a Colle system and neither player offers any aggression I cannot imagine that the result is anthing but a draw. For one side to win, at some stage an ambitious move must be played to unbalance the position.. If it turns out that this move actually gave the advantage to the opponent then it could not have been perfect play.&#xA;In the days of Alekhine and Capablance, many players expressed fear that Chess would experience a draw-death, Instead, the Kings Indian became popular&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastActivityDate="2017-04-16T21:25:39.317" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17291" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17294" CreationDate="2017-04-16T23:38:44.160" Score="4" ViewCount="370" Body="&lt;p&gt;I feel this 'fix' terminology may have come as a direct translation from Russian chess literature (so I see it used in Dvoretsky's books); is 'fixed' really a proper English term to describe pawns that are blockaded (especially in the endgame) by opponent's pawns and have little or no chance of advancing?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="618" LastActivityDate="2017-04-17T09:40:08.647" Title="Is the expression 'fixing pawns' or 'fixed pawns' - a proper term to describe blockaded pawns?" Tags="&lt;terminology&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17292" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17291" CreationDate="2017-04-17T00:02:12.787" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As far as i know, the term 'fixed pawn' is used exactly when a pawn is being blocked by other pawn, and thus can't move. The term 'blockade' is usually used when a piece is blocking the pawn, and we do use different terms for blocking with pawns and pieces because a fixed pawn (block with pawn) is static, while a blockaded pawn (block with piece) is dynamic (the blockading piece can always be kicked away from it's position, and the pawn becomes mobile again)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12946" LastActivityDate="2017-04-17T00:02:12.787" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17293" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17266" CreationDate="2017-04-17T05:31:14.753" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In speed games, you only win when your opponents flag falls if you have mating material. This means that mate is possible, however unlikely. So if a position with K+N vs K+N is on the board, and one players flag falls, then they have lost. Infuriating for the loser.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastActivityDate="2017-04-17T05:31:14.753" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17294" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17291" CreationDate="2017-04-17T09:40:08.647" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Often pawns are &quot;fixed&quot;, it's more than them just being blockaded.  For example assume Black's pawns are on b7 and a6.  If White pushes his a-pawn to a5, he is fixing the b-pawn on the b7 square, since it's backwards and can't move.  However, in this example no one would really think White's also &quot;fixing&quot; the a6 pawn, even though it's blockaded.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But then you have another case like the following: suppose Black has an isolated pawn on c5.  If White pushes his c-pawn to c4, many would say he is fixing the weak c5 pawn, so that it can be easily attacked.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But assume Black had two extra pawns on d6 and e7, forming a pawn chain from e7 to c5.  If White played c4, I doubt there would be many that considered White was &quot;fixing&quot; the c5 pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, when someone says &quot;fix&quot; they are most often talking about when you keep one of your opponent's weak pawns from moving.  This is just arbitrary terminology though, and I don't think saying a blockaded strong pawn is &quot;fixed&quot; is &lt;em&gt;wrong&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2017-04-17T09:40:08.647" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17295" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17284" CreationDate="2017-04-17T16:08:09.617" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Wes's answer seems quite good but I think ...e6 is also a strong alternative. The point is that you just get pieces out, and d5 comes under pressure. It also seems that, since you play the Benoni, the exd5 capture will lead to positions favorable compared to the main lines, since White never has time for e4. You can castle and play Re8 (f3 is not really an option, as White's king knight will be terrible for a while). Your position will not be cramped. Here is what happens if Black tries to push pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA; 1. d4 Nf6 2. d5 e6 3. c4 (3. Nc3 Bb4) Na6 4. a3 Nc5 5. b4 Nce4 6. f3 Nd6 7. e4 Nfxe4!&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;...Bb4 is also good here, and maybe less risky, as Black can just threaten to exchange the bishop for the knight, again either winning a pawn or collapsing the White center. The two bishops aren't enough compensation for the loss of time from d4-d5-dxe6 or a3.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So 2. d5 looks annoying until you find a way you like to go against it. The main thing is to attack the pawn immediately and force White to trade it for a less aggressive pawn or waste time defending it. Fortunately, there are pretty straightforward moves to dissipate White's advantage, but there are more adventurous ones like Na6 too. So I bet after you see it a few times, you will have fun neutralizing it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11202" LastActivityDate="2017-04-17T16:08:09.617" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17296" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-04-17T23:02:59.807" Score="11" ViewCount="1047" Body="&lt;p&gt;I used to be a fan of the English, but some ultrasymmetrical variations bugged me, especially if a lower rated player decided to play for a draw against me with them. There seemed to be a lot to consider to get any sort of meaningful advantage, if Black really wanted to be annoying. No players ever did, but that's probably because they themselves were worried about slipping and losing a painfully boring game where they never really had a chance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I played e3 after c4/Nc3/g3/Bg2, so obviously one solution is to play c4, Nf3 and d4...or an entirely different first move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I'm wondering, how would someone get around an opponent who deliberately tries to frustrate them with smart copycat moves? Are there a couple lines that give clear convincing edges? I can see how the pawn trades at d4/d5 create a  structural imbalance, but I don't see when and where White has an edge.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Fritz evaluates the position as equal below.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. c4 c5 2. g3 g6 3. Bg2 Bg7 4. Nc3 Nc6 5. e3 e6 6. N1e2 N8e7 7. d4 cxd4 8. Nxd4 d5 9. cxd5 Nxd5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this case, Black finesses the copycat by not playing ...d5 on move 7, which would be bad then, but it can't be stopped on move 8.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And now it doesn't seem like anything White does gets an edge. With Nxd5, Black's pawn is isolated, but Black can return the favor. If White moves the knight, Black has a nice diagonal, and White's QB is bad.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, even if a symmetrical position is achieved, as after 10. Nxd5 exd5 11. O-O Nxd4 12. exd4 O-O, what is a good plan to try to shake it up? I think something like Qa4 might work. But it just seems very drawish.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Usually it's White who can force the symmetrical pawn structure e.g. with the Slav or French exchange. But here Black forces it on White.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it what White &quot;deserves&quot; for not playing more in the center, and does waiting for ...d5 defuse things for Black, or am I missing possibilities e.g. a way to inject life into this by pushing d4/taking on d4 differently? Or is there a good concrete line with, say, Nf3, where Black can copycat me for only so long? In that case 1. c4 c5 2. Nc3 Nc6 3. g3 g6 4. Bg2 Bg7 5. Nf3 Nf6 6. d4 cxd4 7. Nxd4 d5 looks bad for Black, as does 6. ...d5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11202" LastActivityDate="2017-04-18T19:55:00.853" Title="Outsmarting an intelligent copycat in the Ultrasymmetrical English" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;english-opening&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17298" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13252" CreationDate="2017-04-18T07:21:02.640" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Honestly a Chess Software does not let you to learn the depth of the Game . It never helps you to learn strategy or think in terms of a human mode , for an example majority of gambits are coined into a negative score for Computers but as for Humans they are a big psychological bonuses . &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well the biggest plus is that you can improve on your openings because you need to memorize them and learn the whereabouts and you can feed a position to see which lines or moves are best in this position , what is the Score etc . &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is always good to watch videos in Chess.com, Youtube and other websites from GMs where you get the real insights of the Game .  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastActivityDate="2017-04-18T07:21:02.640" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17299" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12853" CreationDate="2017-04-18T07:35:18.773" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are a lot of factors which gets counted in situations like this .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If you see that there can be a Kingside attack after you break the castle and you have a lot of initiative with the pieces forcing a strong attack on the King .&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;According to the diagram above it might be that you will be closing the centre soon with your pawns and your pawns will belong to the dark squares so you part with your dark square Bishop.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A situation in End game can arise where your &amp;amp; your enemy Pawns are all on one flank and you do not have any other pawns in other flank . You can trade your Bishop for a knight because Knight is generally worse if you need to control both flanks .&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If it is a Middle game and your Knights are on good central squares like d5 or f5 , h6 somewhere then it is surely a good choice  (Weak Squares around the King).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There can be other factors also but the above is the most common .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastActivityDate="2017-04-18T07:35:18.773" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17300" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13855" CreationDate="2017-04-18T13:30:04.813" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You need to prevent rooks coming into 7th rank by exchanging them with your own rooks. When your opponent's rook is eyeing towards 7th rank you need to restrict its mobility by continuously moving your rook in front of his so that the rooks get exchanged. The old teachers say that rook on the 7th rank acts like a pig which will gobble up the pawns. Here in the picture it is two rooks on 7th Rank which means game over for black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T15:32:27.350" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T15:32:27.350" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="17301" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-04-18T14:19:56.283" Score="5" ViewCount="493" Body="&lt;p&gt;Against &lt;code&gt;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4&lt;/code&gt; I usually play the Two Knights Defense, but I don't really know what to play after 4.d3. I'm bored to death in the Giuoco Pianissimo (4...Bc5) and 4...Be7 is a bit dull.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So what would you recommend for Black to play to spice it up, for a player who enjoys asymmetrical positions? Even if it's a bit inferior from a theoretical point of view to the aforementioned lines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13069" LastEditorUserId="11202" LastEditDate="2017-04-19T07:01:32.823" LastActivityDate="2017-04-19T09:39:12.067" Title="What to play after 4.d3 in the Two Knights for Black" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17302" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17301" CreationDate="2017-04-18T15:01:11.380" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you really want an unsymmetrical position, don't play &lt;code&gt;1...e5&lt;/code&gt;.  White has many move order options to steer the game into a relatively quiet position in double king pawn openings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are a few things that you can consider in order to keep the game interesting.  First and foremost, if you must win at all costs, I would recommend playing &lt;code&gt;4...Be7&lt;/code&gt; in order to keep all of the pieces on the board.  Black will be cramped for some period of time, but since all of the pieces remain on the board there is plenty of play left in the position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you just want open lines, then consider playing an early d5.  For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nf6 4.d3 Bc5 5.c3 O-O 6.O-O d5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The downside is that lots of pieces can get traded, but black has easy development plans with Bg4, Nb6, and f7-f5 once the white bishop moves off of the diagonal.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With all that said, although black can have a hard time creating immediate imbalances, white has a very hard time getting an advantage with the Italian game, so generally keeping the pieces on the board and accepting equality will let the better player outplay his or her opponent and win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12" LastActivityDate="2017-04-18T15:01:11.380" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17303" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17296" CreationDate="2017-04-18T18:40:19.343" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The line you give, 1.c4 c5 2.g3 g6 3.Bg2 Bg7 4.Nc3 Nc6 5.e3 e6 6.Nge2 Nge7 7.d4 cxd4 8.Nxd4 d5, indeed leads to an equal drawish position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Actually, 5.Nf3 Nf6 6.d4, the second line you give, seems to be a better try to obtain an advantage, as 6....d5 7.dxc5 should be better for white.&#xA;Instead of 5....Nf6, there are probably several ways for black to maintain equality, e.g. 5....d6, 5....e6 and 5....e5, but white successfully avoided a symmetrical position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another way in the English to avoid symmetrical positions is 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.d4, as both 3....d5 4.cxd5 and 3....cxd4 4.Nxd4 d5 5.cxd5 Nxd5 6.e4 are better for white.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;      [StartPly &quot;2&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;      [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;      1.c4 c5 2.g3 (2.Nf3 Nf6 3.d4 cxd4 (3...d5 4.cxd5) 4.Nxd4 d5 5.cxd5 Nxd5 6.e4) g6 3.Bg2 Bg7 4.Nc3 Nc6 5.Nf3 (5.e3 e6 6.Nge2 Nge7 7.d4 cxd4 8.Nxd4 d5) Nf6 (5...d6)(5...e6)(5...e5) 6.d4 d5 7.dxc5&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4588" LastActivityDate="2017-04-18T18:40:19.343" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17304" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17296" CreationDate="2017-04-18T19:55:00.853" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In general, the best way to prevent Black from copying you is to go for the d4 push.  If you play the e3 system, it is indeed very easy for Black to equalize with no problems at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's best to go for the main line with 1. c4, 2. Nc3, 3. g3, 4. Bg2, 5. Nf3, 6. 0-0.  If Black copies you up to castling, then you immediately go for 7. d4! with a slight edge.  If Black plays 6...d5 instead of castling on the 6th move, then you just take on d5.  Black's now playing the position you would have had with 7. d4, just a tempo down.  This tends to allow you to pressure Black with Qb3 / Qa4 ideas, combined with pressure on the g2 - a8 diagonal from your Bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In any case, in this line both options for Black (copying you up until castling and playing d5 first) lead to asymmetrical positions that should be marginally better for you.  But most importantly, they are not dead equal like the line you demonstrated above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2017-04-18T19:55:00.853" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17305" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17301" CreationDate="2017-04-18T20:01:08.683" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;While I wouldn't really recommend this to one of my students in a serious tournament, if you wanted to spice things up you could go for the h6 - g5 plan.  The idea is simple: pawnstorm White's Kingside.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Usually this idea is very dubious, since White can counter your side attack with a timely d4 push (the attack in the center makes the pawn storm look bad).  However, in your example if White has already played d3, playing d4 would waste a move, something White may not have time for.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An example of the line:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Nf6 4. d3 Be7 5. 0-0 d6 6. c3 h6 7. Rel g5!?  most likely followed by ...g4, pushing your Kingside pawns and gaining some control over the d4 square.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Though to be honest, 1...e5 isn't really the best opening for getting double-edged, &quot;non-boring&quot; positions.  Most lines in 1...e5 (Italian, Ruy Lopez, etc) lead to pretty dull games.  If you want more exciting positions, I'd recommend studying the Pirc or Sicilian, though these do of course require a bit of dedicated work to play well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2017-04-18T20:01:08.683" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17306" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17279" CreationDate="2017-04-18T20:55:16.250" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;...Bb6 because the a6 pawn is hanging;&#xA;...Bd7 because of the threat of Nd6 forking the Re8 and Bf5. Black wants to keep the bishop pair.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10233" LastActivityDate="2017-04-18T20:55:16.250" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17307" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="347" CreationDate="2017-04-19T01:47:56.747" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a nice website at:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://hxim.github.io/Stockfish-Evaluation-Guide/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://hxim.github.io/Stockfish-Evaluation-Guide/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It gives you an introduction on how the Stockfish functions work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/miAcF.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/miAcF.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2017-04-19T01:47:56.747" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17308" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17301" CreationDate="2017-04-19T09:39:12.067" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;With the caveat that I've only played it twice, and that was because it was an on line themed tournament (I don't normally play 1 ... e5), but I have had fun with 4 ... h6 to stop Ng5 tricks followed by a king side fianchetto. Yes it's an attempt to turn a Two Knights into what I normally play (Pirc or Modern) but it in my limited experience it seems more interesting than either of the bishop moves. The one completed game so far:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;Italian Game Themed Tournament&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Somebody&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Ian&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;C55&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nf6 4.d3 h6 5.O-O d6 6.c3 g6 7.Re1 Bg7 8.h3 O-O 9.Nbd2 Na5 10.Bb5 a6 11.Ba4 b5 12.Bc2 c5 13.Nf1 Bb7 14.Ng3 Qc7 15.Nh2 d5 16.Ng4 Nxg4 17.hxg4 Rad8 18.Qe2 d4 19.cxd4 exd4 20.f4 c4 21.Kh2 Qe7 22.g5 hxg5 23.f5 Be5 24.Qg4 f6 25.fxg6 Bc8 26.Qf3 Qc7 27.b4 cxb3 28.Bxb3+ Nxb3 29.axb3 Kg7  0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7726" LastActivityDate="2017-04-19T09:39:12.067" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17309" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17234" CreationDate="2017-04-19T10:45:56.560" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I [William Hartson] remember him vying for first place with another Soviet grandmaster in a tournament in Holland. On the night before the final round they began buying each other drinks and lining up the empties on the table. When I left them at around 2am, Tal had the remains of 11 drained brandies, his rival had 11 empty rum-and-cokes. They continued for another two hours. At 8.30 in the morning, Tal trotted downstairs to start the last round looking fresh and relaxed. He won easily to take first prize, while his drinking companion was happy with a quick draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-mikhail-tal-1530878.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;The Independent&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm going to search for this game when I get home this evening. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2017-04-19T10:45:56.560" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17310" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16996" CreationDate="2017-04-19T14:36:39.953" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.365chess.com/players/Aivi_Karu&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;365chess.com&lt;/a&gt;, Aivi Karu was a female player from Estonia.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;She has 12 games logged, including those with Keres, and scored 20.83%. In fairness, she played against highly rated players (elo's above 2000), so my guess is that she was an amateur player who played some correspondence, training games and open tournaments where she was inevitably mismatched.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2017-04-19T14:36:39.953" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17311" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12743" CreationDate="2017-04-19T17:55:34.780" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Since you have gotten no answer in 27 months, I will give you what is most likely only a potential solution. The lichess.org website supports eight variants, and also has a smartphone app.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's fairly likely that your variant is not covered, but that is not the end of it! The site is 100% open source, and will almost certainly incorporate a variant if someone contributed the time and code.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I hope this answer was better than nothing!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="849" LastActivityDate="2017-04-19T17:55:34.780" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17312" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17314" CreationDate="2017-04-19T18:56:04.030" Score="16" ViewCount="5100" Body="&lt;p&gt;How do I get rid of achess addiction? Both winning and losing just make me play more, and in the end, after many hours of play, I feel miserable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13090" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-17T02:39:24.137" LastActivityDate="2020-11-13T19:49:55.687" Title="Getting rid of a chess addiction" Tags="&lt;psychology&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="17313" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7601" CreationDate="2017-04-19T19:28:16.830" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You could post an example of a game where he lost against a weaker opponent and we could try to pinpoint the mistakes he makes, in a more abstract way.&#xA;Generally speaking, as pointed out by others, this is not an uncommon problem. People get overambitious when pressing for a win against a weaker player, but play very safely when playing against a stronger player, since a draw would be sufficient. &#xA;Another reason could be, I suppose, that he is very good at opening theory but lacks skills in other areas. When playing against weaker players, this illusion of the guy who can withstand the strong opponents collapses, because he doesn't know how to punish non-standard, suboptimal moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To avoid getting frustrated, I suggest that your friend trains more (if he is looking for the most efficient method: 30 mins to 1h tactics a day + playing lots of tournaments). This enables him to maybe get rid of his issue through accumulation of knowledge, or, if this doesn't happen, compensate for his frustration over the losses against weaker players through a general improvement.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With ascending skill and experience, you can learn which positions to avoid and which to seek against weaker players. For example, if you are playing the Semi-Slav, start with e6 instead of c6 against a weaker player, because he might enter the Exchange Slav, which is known to be very drawish.&#xA;Hope I could help you a bit with those thoughts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12604" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-06T16:20:46.237" LastActivityDate="2020-03-06T16:20:46.237" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="17314" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17312" CreationDate="2017-04-19T19:36:56.870" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;You are probably referring to online chess and I know this problem, because I've suffered from online chess adiction at least a year or so.&#xA;It helped me to realise that those imaginary rating points online are not worth anything and that playing at fast time controls does not improve your chess (too much bullet might even harm it).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, I suggest, you approach chess a bit more seriously over the board, so you have successes you can be proud of. This means that you don't need the kick of online chess anymore, or at least that was the case for me. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Try finding something that makes you happy when you do it. For me, it is, at least sometimes, to be productive in any kind of way (choose an area of your liking) or to simply relax or hang out with friends. Generally speaking, playing lots of online chess is one of the LEAST PRODUCTIVE things you can do and nothing that will propel your skill in any area. Hanging out with your friends for instance, is a much better way of spending your time.&#xA;I mean, I could go on about this, but those are my initial thoughts. If you have any specific questions about how I got rid of my online chess addiction, you may as well shoot me a message.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12604" LastActivityDate="2017-04-19T19:36:56.870" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17315" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17312" CreationDate="2017-04-19T20:12:18.740" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;A suggestion would be to delete your account on the website you are playing. It's hard to click &quot;delete&quot;, losing all your statistics and games, but after it's done you might feel like going back to the point you were before would take too much time, so you decide to do something else instead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I had this issue with a particular video game, I decided to delete my character and never played the game again. I had urges, but I felt like it would take too much time to get back where I was and I didn't want to redo the same things I did before. I mean, you can easily rank up in chess with a new account, but the idea is that you might not want to do it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11122" LastActivityDate="2017-04-19T20:12:18.740" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17316" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-04-19T20:35:22.460" Score="3" ViewCount="361" Body="&lt;p&gt;Context:  I'm returning to the game after more than 25 years away!  I only got back into it because my 8-year old son joined his elementary school chess club.  They all got accounts to chesskid.com.  Which in turn is parented by chess.com.  I clicked on chess.com to see what that was about, and blam!  I was swallowed up into the matrix again!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyways, there's not a lot of tournaments where I live, and I went to the Senior Open and talked to the TD.  (To show how out of touch I was and still am, I asked him what that electronic device was that some of the players had.  He said it was a play counter.  I said, &quot;What?&quot;  And &quot;how much?&quot;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I said that I used to play, and do I have to come back as an Unrated since I haven't played since the late 80's?  He said no, you always have your rating.  He looked me up, and said that I have a 1762 rating!!!  I was astonished.  All these years I thought I was at best a Class C patzer.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was astonished, and now I want to make Expert before I die.  (I'm in my mid 50's).  But as mentioned, there's not a lot of OTB games where I live PLUS I work and have kids and I do a lot of stuff with my 8-year old.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I anticipate at best 20 tournament games a year.  If I finish +4 against all rating classes that I get paired up against (Assuming an effective study plan), how many rating points can I gain, roughly in a year by playing 20 tournament games? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13091" LastActivityDate="2017-04-25T20:37:54.633" Title="Potential Rating Gain if Only 20 OTB Games Per Year" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;rating&gt;&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;training&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17317" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17312" CreationDate="2017-04-20T00:05:10.770" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you are playing online, one thing you can do is to make a password like &quot;dontplaytoomuch&quot; or something. It sounds silly, but having this sort of password (I mix it up with numbers, for any hackers watching) is a small but nice nudge. There are studies showing these small things can add up, which is fortunate, because so often small things can send us into a time wasting spiral.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Addictive behavior in general is tricky to deal with, and it's important to recognize when you are just playing out of inertia. Often this becomes obvious if you make a really dumb mistake. There's a double benefit to this: you save rating points. Maybe you can even step back and look to improve your game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But regardless of how your addictive behavior invades your life, there are ways around it. For instance, I caught myself playing FreeCell to put off things I needed to do, so I&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;deleted the Windows Freecell.exe app&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;installed a SiteBlock extension for my various web browsers to avoid a certain freecell site. I googled &quot;add-on to restrict time on a website&quot; and found some nice ones. Now, you can use a password to re-enter a site, but the point is, it's deliberately intrusive and difficult.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Finally, I wrote a FreeCell game in Python, to learn something. You may not want to take the drastic step of writing a chess engine, but I know I played chess out of inertia a lot, forgetting the main reason I played it was that I could learn and enjoy trying new things. So maybe you need to evaluate something you really want to learn that might give you the same happiness you used to get from chess.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other points:&#xA; - this may seem paradoxical, but set aside a half-hour per day for playing games. If you can stick to it, this will help you feel you aren't totally missing out.&#xA; - I don't know if you have options to set up a profile, but even typing &quot;I like to play chess, but sometimes I lose track of time play too much. If I've been on for an hour, and I challenge you, can you poke me to get back to work?&quot; may help. This is true without beating yourself up, and maybe it will help other people get back to stuff you need to do.&#xA; - Write a program to kick yourself out after an hour, or you might even ask on various channels if someone has written a time-management program that allows you an hour per day. You probably aren't the first to ask about this!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are many tools out there to help you. But as @postnubilaphoebus says, and @Habbo commented, it's important to recognize there are better ways to spend your time. Playing chess has definite diminishing returns to scale.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Having goals outside chess helps. Maybe it is just getting through a book before it is due at the library, or working out, or connecting with old friends, or making new ones. If you're worried you might not be good at it, well, you're not alone in getting sucked into online life.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The main thing I've found with addictive behaviors is framing it as &quot;I want to give myself a reason to do something cooler&quot; works a lot better than &quot;I have to stop doing this.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Good luck! I think all of us chess players can be prone to going into a chess-playing shell, so don't be too ashamed of getting in a rut even if it's lasted a while. I hope you get lots of other suggestions on this topic, because moving on from habits that aren't quite as fun any more isn't as easy as it seems it should be. And some things work much better for some people than for others.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11202" LastEditorUserId="11202" LastEditDate="2017-04-20T04:24:10.150" LastActivityDate="2017-04-20T04:24:10.150" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17318" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="588" CreationDate="2017-04-20T00:23:58.633" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;One way &quot;bad bishop&quot; can be defined and avoided is by using Capablanca's rule. &#xA;1) If you have a bishop keep most of your pawns on the squares of opposite color. This rule has priority.&#xA;2) If opponent has a bishop, limit it by using your pawns.&#xA;Of course some factors might balance these rules out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The article below seems to illustrate this very nicely. &#xA;It shows how a strong player makes a decision about the &quot;quality&quot; of their bishop and based on that decides on the best structure.&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/blog/Illingworth/capablancas-rule&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.chess.com/blog/Illingworth/capablancas-rule&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13093" LastEditorUserId="13093" LastEditDate="2017-04-20T07:05:40.600" LastActivityDate="2017-04-20T07:05:40.600" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17319" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6548" CreationDate="2017-04-20T02:14:38.197" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I noticed you posted you'd mostly found answer for yourself in the comments,  but...it reminded me of when I faced this while trying out the Caro-Kann.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It doesn't look like ...b5 works to me, either. If I were white I would play cxb5 and then let Black decide if and how to take back. There is no hurry to take on c6. The knight on b8 looks restricted, and a move such as ...a6 to force White to decide what to do with the b5 pawn wastes a move, and Black can't even get Benko-ish pressure on the a/b files unless ...c5 is played (which also gives up a move,) since White can just take back with bxc6. If black plays ...Qb6, then Nc3 (or even a4) defends the b5-pawn enough.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So from what I see Black doesn't get enough development for the pawn, and White has a pretty easy game with Nc3, d4, Nf3, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I played Black I found another pawn sac worked rather well: 4 ... Nf6 and while White can play Bb5+, Black can get it back. ...Bd7 5. Bc4 Qf7 6. Na3 Nxd5 as 7. Bxd5 Qe5 gets the bishop. This seems like a straightforward and low-risk way to equality.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11202" LastActivityDate="2017-04-20T02:14:38.197" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17320" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17321" CreationDate="2017-04-20T04:09:15.443" Score="6" ViewCount="230" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Black to move&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;3k4/3r4/8/8/p7/8/4K3/1N6 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... 58. Kc7 59. Nc3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;McDonald notes that if &lt;strong&gt;59...a3&lt;/strong&gt;, then &quot;&lt;strong&gt;60 Nb5&lt;/strong&gt; wins it.&quot; I don't understand why this wins it. Can't the King just deflect the check and continue the game? Or by saying &quot;... wins it&quot;, does McDonald mean that after that, the game is practically a win as he can mate easily? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If anything, I'd assume it'd just be another draw.  Can someone please clarify?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13094" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-03-28T18:30:00.933" LastActivityDate="2020-03-28T18:30:00.933" Title="Unable to understand why N.McDonald - A. Stromer (1991) is a draw and not a win" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;draw&gt;&lt;knight-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="17321" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17320" CreationDate="2017-04-20T04:38:48.340" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;I suspect he means wins the pawn, as opposed to the game. A lone knight is insufficient material to mate, and black would have to cooperate to be mated with the rook vs. knight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9025" LastActivityDate="2017-04-20T04:38:48.340" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17322" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17316" CreationDate="2017-04-20T10:29:39.327" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I went to &lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/calculator_rtd.phtml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;the FIDE rating calculator&lt;/a&gt; and inputted:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Your ELO of 1762&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;An estimate of your opponent's ELO of 1750 (assuming you play roughly equal opposition)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The development coefficient of 20 (representing that you have an established rating)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Per game you get a rounded rating change of:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;+10 for a win&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;0 for a draw&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;-10 for a loss&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At +4 in 20 games, your rating will change by +40 (4 wins to 16 draws) to -120 (4 wins, 16 losses).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2017-04-20T10:29:39.327" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17323" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-04-20T12:45:23.030" Score="-2" ViewCount="274" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there any software that would allow me to add additional PGN tags to existing PGN files?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, PGN tags like &lt;code&gt;WhiteTeam&lt;/code&gt; etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13097" LastEditorUserId="15989" LastEditDate="2020-01-05T03:49:04.880" LastActivityDate="2020-01-05T03:49:04.880" Title="How to add additional tags to an existing PGN?" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;pgn&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="17324" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17323" CreationDate="2017-04-20T12:53:15.947" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;PGN files are flat text files.  You can simply edit them with a text editor.  (I use Notepad++).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12077" LastActivityDate="2017-04-20T12:53:15.947" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17326" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-04-20T13:54:18.543" Score="4" ViewCount="282" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why is the KIA preferably played when black has already committed to e6? What's the purpose of spending an extra move (g3) to develop the bishop to g2? What are the general plans and strategy that come with this opening?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also I was thinking of creating an opening repertoire starting with 1.g3 hoping to transpose to the English or KIA hoping to avoid any symmetrical English games Is this a reasonable idea, since g3 doesn't seem to place a pawn in the center on move 1?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13098" LastEditorUserId="11202" LastEditDate="2017-04-22T08:18:09.220" LastActivityDate="2017-04-22T08:18:09.220" Title="Question about KIA?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;theory&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17327" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17240" CreationDate="2017-04-20T15:33:01.530" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is generally true that, especially in the Najdorf variation, Black does not get to play ...d5 at any point early in the opening: if they do they have basically solved all the opening problems and acquired an equal if not superior position. Conversely, White's plan is to get a grip on d5 and make it the whole point of the opening, very often playing a set-up with &quot;good Knight versus bad Bishop&quot; (there is a good lecture with examples of the Saint Louis Chess Club &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JuLYgClRe-Q&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, in the standard set-ups of the Najdorf variation (especially against the English attach 6.Be3 or the classical line with 6.Be2) Black plays 6...e5 themselves to avoid White from doing so (unless White plays f4 and &lt;em&gt;then&lt;/em&gt; e5, but they have to spend two more tempi to do so) and to get their fair share of the centre. Black's bishop if often deployed in e6 and not in b7 to avoid Bc4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A good example of this approach is the game &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1800174&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Carlsen vs So&lt;/a&gt; (Sinquefield Cup (2015)).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Secondly, sometimes white pushes their pawn to c4 to block my ...d5. What could be a good strategy for black after c4?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If White plays the standard open Sicilian set-up with 5. Nc3 then they cannot play c4 easily; Black will play ...b5 in most of the Najdorf set-ups (also allocating a Knight in c4 if allowed). Therefore the general rule is to &lt;em&gt;avoid&lt;/em&gt; White to play c4 rather than worrying after c4 was played. If otherwise White plays an early c4 (Maróczy variation) then this is a completely different line to be analysed and does not fall in the scope of the Najdord (or Scheveningen) variation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a general rule, by playing the Najdorf variation, Black allows d5 to be weak, gaining back their fair share of the centre with ...e5 and counterplay on the Queen's side with ...b5 sooner or later. Moreover Black will always try to preserve their Knight on f6 and if possible play Nbd7-Nb6 and Be6 to have three pieces looking at d5. If White really wants to use that square they must do so at the cost of many tempi and converging all of their pieces there, which leaves room for counterplay meanwhile.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11726" LastEditorUserId="11726" LastEditDate="2017-04-21T13:51:18.977" LastActivityDate="2017-04-21T13:51:18.977" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17328" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="588" CreationDate="2017-04-20T19:04:21.310" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Bad bishops and doubled pawns are both commonly misunderstood. The advice to avoid them is usually based on very superficial observations. If you were to focus your efforts on properly understanding them you should gain a class at least. And understanding takes high precedence over defining.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Look at The Secret Life of Bad Bishops by Esben Lund from Quality Chess&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastActivityDate="2017-04-20T19:04:21.310" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17330" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17337" CreationDate="2017-04-21T11:47:30.070" Score="2" ViewCount="69" Body="&lt;p&gt;How can I map file and rank numbers (0-7) to a square number in Tom Kerrigan's Simple Chess Program?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know how to do the conversion from square number to rank and file, but not the other way around.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user11939" LastActivityDate="2017-04-22T11:30:49.850" Title="How to map file and rank to a square number in TSCP?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17331" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-04-21T20:08:51.883" Score="2" ViewCount="440" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/VObBg.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/VObBg.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this an Anderssen's mate or Opera mate?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to Wikipedia, Opera mate uses losing's side pawn to restrict its own king. In this position, f7 fulfils that requirement. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But it also fits the description of Anderssen's mate. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I fail to see the difference between Anderssen's mate and Opera mate except for the blocking pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2249" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-03-02T17:03:30.037" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T09:12:04.863" Title="Is this an Anderssen's mate or Opera mate?" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;patterns&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17332" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17331" CreationDate="2017-04-21T20:22:36.517" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I assume you took the mates' definitions from &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Checkmate_pattern&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;. Then, it fits the &lt;em&gt;description&lt;/em&gt; of the Opera Mate but I don't think that's intended – a 'real' Opera Mate doesn't happen in the corner.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then again, those two terms aren't commonly used anyway. I bet most grandmasters will have to check Wikipedia as well to find out what they mean. Of that list, just a handful are common knowledge (the back-rank mate and the smothered mate being the most well-known). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2017-04-21T20:22:36.517" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17333" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17326" CreationDate="2017-04-21T22:55:22.990" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;One of the most common plans in the KIA is to play e5, which gains space, kicks the f6 knight and enables white to start a kingside attack. If black has played e5, you will have to remove the black e pawn before you can advance e5 yourself, making it much harder to start an attack. Other common plans involve breaks with f4 and pawn storms to disrupt the enemy king's position. c3 is a good move if your opponent has a knight in c6 because it restricts the knight from moving agressively, and also prepares b4 (starting a queenside pawn storm) in case black castles long.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The bishop in g2 is inactive for a while, but when its diagonal gets opened, it becomes one of the strongest white pieces, controlling a nice long diagonal. Also, it's an additional defender for your king, and that's important because in the KIA we usually do pawn storms with the pawns that protect our king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I suggest starting with Nf3 instead of g3, otherwise you allow your opponent to play e5 immediately, and unless you have specific reasons to play 1. g3, 1. Nf3 will do the same thing in the end but prevent a quick e5. If you know that your opponent is a French player, you can also start with e4 because he will play e6 anyway. That said, g3 is a not bad first move, i just don't like it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12946" LastActivityDate="2017-04-21T22:55:22.990" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17334" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17368" CreationDate="2017-04-22T03:40:52.597" Score="-2" ViewCount="455" Body="&lt;p&gt;It seem to follow some scheme showing what is under attach and if it is a good trade. Specifially I don't want the red/green/yellow highlighting in the image below.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is v1.1 for Linux.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/8P2Qk.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/8P2Qk.png&quot; alt=&quot;Sample&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12847" LastActivityDate="2017-04-26T09:59:13.163" Title="(Arena) How do I turn off highlighting of occupied squares under attack?" Tags="&lt;arena&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17335" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17278" CreationDate="2017-04-22T07:13:35.017" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you add the --quiet option that should do it:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;FEN=$(echo &quot;1.d4 Nf6 2.Nf3 e6 3. *&quot; | pgn-extract -F --quiet)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;kentdjb (author of pgn-extract)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12951" LastActivityDate="2017-04-22T07:13:35.017" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17336" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9772" CreationDate="2017-04-22T10:48:26.910" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I finished my current run on Zeta v099a, my experimental gpu chess engine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/smatovic/Zeta&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://github.com/smatovic/Zeta&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The actual conclusion of the current iteration is, that an simple engine, with&#xA;standard chess programming techniques, can be ported to OpenCL to run on a gpu,&#xA;but it would take more effort to make the engine competitive in terms of &#xA;computed nodes per second (speed), heuristics (expert knowledge), &#xA;and scaling (parallel search algorithm). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Computer Chess, as an computer science topic, evolved over decades,&#xA;starting in the 40s and 50s, and reached one peak 1997 with the match Deep&#xA;Blue vs. Kapsarow. Nowadays chess engines are tuned by playing thousands&#xA;and thousands of games, so to get an chess playing engine running on the gpu &#xA;and to get an competitive chess playing engine running on the gpu are &#xA;two different tasks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13117" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-04-22T15:11:04.457" LastActivityDate="2017-04-22T15:11:04.457" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17337" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17330" CreationDate="2017-04-22T11:30:49.850" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The conversions from square to row and column are defined in defs.h as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;#define ROW(x) (x &amp;gt;&amp;gt; 3)&#xA;#define COL(x) (x &amp;amp; 7)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so you can apply the inverse to generate the square number:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;(row &amp;lt;&amp;lt; 3) | col&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12951" LastActivityDate="2017-04-22T11:30:49.850" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17338" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-04-22T19:01:26.707" Score="7" ViewCount="481" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have encountered a profound number of players that simply leave the game when they realize they are losing/in difficult situation, without pressing &quot;I resign&quot; button. This often leaves me waiting a long time for no reason and, consequently, wasting my time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a site that prohibits this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12730" LastActivityDate="2017-06-09T13:07:02.347" Title="Online chess leavers" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17339" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17338" CreationDate="2017-04-22T22:26:19.623" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Use lichess.org. When your opponent leaves game you can press button 'Claim draw/loss' there&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13119" LastActivityDate="2017-04-22T22:26:19.623" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17340" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-04-23T09:49:16.387" Score="5" ViewCount="720" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm a bit of a perfectionist and strive to make the best move every game. As a result I think I expend too much brain power throughout the game and get burned out or overwhelmed by the possibilites, for example in the opening I would try consider all my opponents responses of which there are many in the opening, sometimes I feel habits such as these are unnecessary and are just a waste of energy. What is the most correct way to expend your mental energy in a chess game? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13123" LastActivityDate="2017-10-17T18:18:58.637" Title="What is a more efficient thinking process?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17341" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17340" CreationDate="2017-04-23T10:35:19.993" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;When you learn an opening you learn sequences of moves and the ideas behind those moves. If your opponent follows &quot;book&quot; then you don't have too much to think about. Probably just &quot;Which variation am I going to play today? Am I feeling like a quiet strategic game or a wild tactical game?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If your opponent plays a move you are not familiar with then there are two questions and two situations to cover.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) You are playing a sharp, tactical opening where there are lots of threats and he didn't counter your threat and isn't counter threatening anything. In that case carry out your threat!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) You are playing a quieter opening in which you are both just developing your pieces. In that case, after checking for threats, ask yourself if his move stops you developing the way you wanted. If it doesn't then carry on. If it does then work out how you now need to develop the rest of your pieces. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the middlegame it is a bit different. When it is your turn you do need to calculate what you evaluate are your opponent's best replies. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When it is your opponent's turn it depends how many good looking possibilities he has. If it looks like just one or two forced or &quot;best&quot; replies then stay in your seat and calculate those. If it is a complicated position with lots of equally likely looking possibilities then either take a step back and look at the position from a long term strategical point of view or save your energy, go get a cup of coffee or glass of water or relax looking at other games whilst keeping half an eye on whether your opponent has moved yet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2017-04-23T10:35:19.993" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17343" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17340" CreationDate="2017-04-24T07:30:24.550" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The more efficient thinking process is definitely not to take too much time on the chess board during a Tournament Game .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Openings you need to choose by yourself and there are lines till 20th moves where you need to remember and that is absolutely up to you . &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In the middle game you need to find out always Opponent's which piece is crossing half of the board . &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You might need to find out the Opponent's most aggressive reply .&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When you are getting attacked &quot;Always thing that Counterattack is the best defence.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When you do not have a plan in the middle game always try capturing the centre squares . This will always help you to attack on any part of the board .&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Plus you sometimes need to sac material to gain activity on any part of the board .&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Above are some of the examples that you need to follow to have the best of the thinking .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastActivityDate="2017-04-24T07:30:24.550" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17344" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2017" CreationDate="2017-04-24T08:40:23.430" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Chess White has an advantage or not depends upon who is playing and what opening is played on board . Man or Machine.There are statistics to prove and both disapprove . Playing white for Humans is more of a Psychological thing and for Machines it hardly matters . &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Generally from the opening itself if you take any powerful Chess Engine Fritz/ StockFish/Komodo they will show a Score slight advantage of +0.3 to +0.7 even if the most accurate Openings are played . &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it is Sicilian then the Score will incline more and if it is Petroff then the Score will be less . Please remember Petroff is the only defence where White has not been able to find a real advantage . So it really depends upon the Opening and the Player who plays White .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I will take the best instance of WCC matches from Lasker, Alekhine, Capablanca  to Carlsen where both Players have got equal number of matches with both white &amp;amp; black and the mightiest Player have always won with their respective chosen openings. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastActivityDate="2017-04-24T08:40:23.430" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17345" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17338" CreationDate="2017-04-24T09:23:55.670" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Chess.com&lt;/strong&gt; has an algorithm which senses whether a user/player is active or not during the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am not very sure but they have a time frame of 5 minutes, during which if they find the player is not active then the game gets abandoned and the opponent wins. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastEditorUserId="8300" LastEditDate="2017-06-09T13:07:02.347" LastActivityDate="2017-06-09T13:07:02.347" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17346" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17338" CreationDate="2017-04-24T12:39:34.577" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;chess.com seems to be the better option. If the opponent leaves the game or gets inactive they have a time period to get back in the game based on what game you're playing(blitz, bullet or standard).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13130" LastActivityDate="2017-04-24T12:39:34.577" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17347" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17340" CreationDate="2017-04-24T12:57:57.433" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;So, it sounds to me you want a reliable thinking method for chess. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Karpov's 7 Timeless Reference Points:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Material relationship between the forces;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Presence of opponent's direct threats;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Position of the kings, their safety;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Possession of open lines;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Pawn Structure, weak and strong squares;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The centre and space;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Development and the position of pieces.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most of these &quot;assessments&quot; can be done quickly, and point you to the moves (candidates) you should consider. Only then do you begin to look at concrete variations to come up with your &quot;best&quot; move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10233" LastEditorUserId="10867" LastEditDate="2017-10-17T18:18:58.637" LastActivityDate="2017-10-17T18:18:58.637" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17348" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17312" CreationDate="2017-04-24T13:44:53.457" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;How do I get rid of chess addiction? Both winning and losing just make me play more, and in the end, &lt;strong&gt;after many hours of play&lt;/strong&gt;, I feel miserable.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You have a very solvable problem. 'many hours of play' is the real culprit. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Limit yourself to a set timeframe. I won't play more than an hour or so in a day, which for me, would be 2 games at a time control of G15 (15 minutes per side for entire game). I find it gives me enough time to play reasonably, and the games are enjoyable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With the following time controls, in 1 hour you can play: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;G3 - 10 games&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;G5 - 6 games&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;G10 - 3 games&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;G15 - 2 games&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;G30 - 1 game&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An important aspect of this is that with G10 and slower, you should always review your games. Spend any additional time after playing on this and learn something.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess is to be played and enjoyed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10233" LastActivityDate="2017-04-24T13:44:53.457" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17349" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17372" CreationDate="2017-04-24T18:34:11.243" Score="4" ViewCount="346" Body="&lt;p&gt;Last year I played in a chess league in my city (Average of 1800 ELO). But I currently have a sense of boredom with chess in general. I have lost the passion for this game. Winning or losing don't affect me too much. I'm focused mainly on the quality of my games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Playing chess tournaments takes some preparation: like tactics, endings, openings, ... I don`t feel bored with preparation or training. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But In the moment when I play with another person, I don´t enjoy it. I enjoy more playing against the computer. but this doesn't make sense. If anybody trains to be better, it is to put this learning into practice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could you give me any suggestions to recover the encouragement to play? Any tip to enjoy playing chess tournaments? What tips do you use to maintain your motivation at a high level?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13132" LastEditorUserId="11202" LastEditDate="2017-04-26T17:43:50.587" LastActivityDate="2017-04-27T16:32:25.407" Title="Recover lost passion" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;psychology&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17350" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17349" CreationDate="2017-04-24T19:27:11.563" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you are new to Chess subject, then you might be interested in gaining the knowledge of Chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/article/view/5-great-chess-books-for-beginners&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;This&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.expert-chess-strategies.com/chess-books.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; site suggests different books to excel in Chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you already aware of subject then you might be interested in &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_chess_variants&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess variants&lt;/a&gt;. Few are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Crazyhouse&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Chess960&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;King of the Hill&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Three-check &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Antichess&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Atomic&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Horde&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Racing Kings&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.lichess.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Lichess&lt;/a&gt;, all the above listed chess variants are available to play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Trying different &lt;em&gt;Chess variants&lt;/em&gt; would probably interests you in playing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user10872" LastEditorDisplayName="user10872" LastEditDate="2017-04-24T19:41:05.000" LastActivityDate="2017-04-24T19:41:05.000" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17351" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17349" CreationDate="2017-04-25T00:32:54.693" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;If this only concerns playing in tournaments just play casual non-tournament games. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am not sure how you would judge the &quot;quality of your games&quot; if the outcome (win/loss) is not important to you. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you haven't done so already, perhaps joining a chess club and playing in team competitions could motivate you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastEditorUserId="11629" LastEditDate="2017-04-25T07:49:10.150" LastActivityDate="2017-04-25T07:49:10.150" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17352" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11028" CreationDate="2017-04-25T03:01:44.293" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The idea for white with 11. Kb1, a defensive move with a long term plan of playing Ka1 Then Rb1 which is a very safe king for white.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user13138" LastActivityDate="2017-04-25T03:01:44.293" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17353" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17349" CreationDate="2017-04-25T07:58:22.850" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think you need to change your Openings . There are a lot of Youtube vidoes from different GMs and Players . Do not repeat the same kind of positions , Websites or materials . &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You must change everything to gain back your interests . Even you should change your Chess Heroes . &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Change is inevitable and you should be flexible and adaptable to it . Do not follow a rigid course . &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastActivityDate="2017-04-25T07:58:22.850" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17354" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2017" CreationDate="2017-04-25T11:31:42.740" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is not a single game where white wins &lt;strong&gt;because of&lt;/strong&gt; the first move advantage. All wins for white are related to something else (e.g. blunders or more inaccuracies). If both sides play perfectly (i.e. achieving the most out of a move according to any decent algorithm), the game ends in a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But it is difficult to play 50+ moves perfectly. Either side will go wrong sooner or later. Apparently this happens to black more. Maybe it is just psychological: chess players are told that White has the initiative from the start and that Black needs to respond to that initiative and try to equalize.&#xA;Responding to the other players plan is more difficult. Based on a single move played and the current position, you need to understand what the opponent is trying to do. As long as mind reading is not allowed in OTB games, mistakes will happen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The interpretation of the stats, are misleading at best. It assumes that difference in winning percentage can only be explained by the first move advantage, and that is demonstrably not true.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13141" LastActivityDate="2017-04-25T11:31:42.740" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17355" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17356" CreationDate="2017-04-25T13:27:26.870" Score="4" ViewCount="1628" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there some site where you can play with your friend with no need to either of players having account there? Just searching for way how to make online training sessions with various people, everybody having different favorite chess sites.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11609" LastActivityDate="2017-04-25T16:05:08.123" Title="Where to play with friend online with no need to register?" Tags="&lt;online-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17356" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17355" CreationDate="2017-04-25T13:36:56.323" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Lichess is great for that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you click the 'play with a friend' button, it allows you to create a custom game to invite someone with a link, the amazing thing is that if the game is unrated, you can invite anonymous players, and it works even if you are not logged in at all, thus you can do anon vs anon games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have some online friends that are very timid, and don't want anyone knowing who they are online in any manner, they love lichess because of this possibility of playing completely anonymous.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13144" LastActivityDate="2017-04-25T13:36:56.323" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17357" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-04-25T13:40:28.243" Score="13" ViewCount="1705" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have an opponent that knows nothing about formal chess stuff, no glossary, no openings, and so on...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And yet that opponent destroys me every time with some DEEEEEP calculating, sometimes 20 minutes long for a single move in untimed chess...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am nowhere good enough for that. I have ADHD and lose track of what I was calculating in my head mid-move, and every time this happens, I make some stupid blunder. (Also I tend to lose due to running out of time).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there any obvious play style I can start to use to go around that weakness?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13144" LastEditorUserId="11202" LastEditDate="2017-04-26T16:51:01.643" LastActivityDate="2017-04-26T16:51:01.643" Title="What is a good playstyle for players that are not good with deep calculations?" Tags="&lt;style&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17358" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17357" CreationDate="2017-04-25T14:39:45.007" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have a rating of 2200, and I have similar difficulties with long calculations, but I have a good positional understanding.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My advice is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Reduce your blunder rate by making a simple check to see whether you hang any pieces, walk into mate etc. Check out &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/q/2596/1108&quot;&gt;What is the most effective way of reducing blunders?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You don't need to calculate too far ahead. In my answer to &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/17089/1108&quot;&gt;How many steps can a grandmaster foresee?&lt;/a&gt;, I quote GM Soltis who argues that 2 1/2 moves ahead is fine for most positions&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Play quiet and solid openings that don't have many forcing moves or tricky tactics. Try &lt;a href=&quot;/questions/tagged/1.d4&quot; class=&quot;post-tag&quot; title=&quot;show questions tagged &amp;#39;1.d4&amp;#39;&quot; rel=&quot;tag&quot;&gt;1.d4&lt;/a&gt;, the &lt;a href=&quot;/questions/tagged/slav-defense&quot; class=&quot;post-tag&quot; title=&quot;show questions tagged &amp;#39;slav-defense&amp;#39;&quot; rel=&quot;tag&quot;&gt;slav-defense&lt;/a&gt; or the &lt;a href=&quot;/questions/tagged/caro-kann&quot; class=&quot;post-tag&quot; title=&quot;show questions tagged &amp;#39;caro-kann&amp;#39;&quot; rel=&quot;tag&quot;&gt;caro-kann&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a correspondence game I played on chess.com recently. My play was quite simple all told. I stuck to looking a few moves ahead and stuck to a plan of targeting white's isolated d-pawn:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Bad_Bishop&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c6 2. c4 d5 3. cxd5 cxd5 4. exd5 Nf6 5. Bb5+ Nbd7 6. Nc3 a6 7. Ba4? {White is out of opening theory now. Now I can focus on recovering my pawn.} b5 8. Bb3 Nb6 9. Qf3 Bb7 10. Nge2 Nbxd5 11. O-O Nxc3 {My plan from now on is to reduce material and target white's isolated d-pawn. This is quite a straightforward plan that doesn't need much calculation.} 12. Qxc3 Rc8 13. Qd4? {White should keep queens on the board, especially when my king is still in the middle. If queens were kept on, then I might have to deal with some tricky long variations.} Qxd4 14. Nxd4 Rd8 {Now I need to double rooks on the d-file to put pressure on the pawn.} 15. Nf5 e6 16. Ne3 Bc5 17. Rd1 Rd7 18. Bc2 Ke7 19. b3 Rhd8 20. d3 Bd4 21. Rb1 Nd5 {I saw an opportunity to trade minor pieces, seeing as the c3 square is weak.[%draw full,c3,red][%draw arrow,d5,c3,green]} 22. Nxd5+ Rxd5 23. Bb2 b4 {I wanted to add one more attacker onto d3, by playing ...b4, ...a5 and ...Ba6.} 24. Bxd4 Rxd4 25. Re1 a5 26. Rbd1 Ba6 27. Re3 R8d5 {I wanted to make sure that white could not start targeting my pawns with Re5.} 28. f3 f5 {If I could scare away the rook, then the d3 pawn is more likely to fall. Also, having my pawns on dark squares means white's light square bishop has no targets.} 29. Kf2 f4 30. Re4 e5 31. Rxd4 Rxd4 32. Ke2 h6 33. Kd2 g5 34. Re1 Ke6 35. Re4 Kd5 36. Ke2? {Because the d3 pawn is now pinned, I can trade rooks and invade with my king.} Rxe4+ 37. fxe4+ Kd4 38. Kd2 g4 39. Bd1? {White now cracks and loses the d3 pawn, and next the e4 pawn.} Bxd3 40. Bxg4 Bxe4  0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastEditorDisplayName="user1108" LastEditDate="2017-04-25T15:09:03.817" LastActivityDate="2017-04-25T15:09:03.817" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17359" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17355" CreationDate="2017-04-25T16:05:08.123" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;This &lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chess.cool/play/with_friend.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess.Cool&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; website is also good (free and easy to access).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can enjoy board editor, chess problems are other features as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user10872" LastActivityDate="2017-04-25T16:05:08.123" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17360" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17364" CreationDate="2017-04-25T16:17:03.633" Score="7" ViewCount="1830" Body="&lt;p&gt;I frequently see advice about how to learn chess that include links to databases, or how to set them up, or a question here about Analysis where the accepted answer says to just add some stuff to your database.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But &lt;strong&gt;what is that database, really?&lt;/strong&gt; I never saw an explanation for that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And &lt;strong&gt;how would a beginner use a database?&lt;/strong&gt; Why does everyone talk about databases but never explain what they are in first place?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I assume they are important, since seemingly there are lots of companies that get lots of money solely by selling chess databases...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13144" LastEditorUserId="11202" LastEditDate="2017-04-26T16:53:46.703" LastActivityDate="2021-04-02T20:22:17.160" Title="What is a chess database used for?" Tags="&lt;beginner&gt;&lt;database&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17361" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17360" CreationDate="2017-04-25T17:46:57.637" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;To become proficient at chess, one must study other games, not just one's own. This aids in determining the best move or sequence of moves in a given position, by comparing outcomes. This necessitates collecting games to be viewed. Since collecting them in writing on index cards or in books and then trying to organize them is too physically laborious and time consuming, chess game databases are the &quot;perfect&quot; solution, at least until the next innovation.  Computerized databases permit detailed and now quite &quot;granular&quot; searches, thus speeding up the learning process.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13145" LastActivityDate="2017-04-25T17:46:57.637" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17362" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17360" CreationDate="2017-04-25T17:55:40.033" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Good question!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Actually, a chess database is profoundly used for different openings and along with corresponding game. It is also used for any particular position whether it has arisen before. It is also used for different player categories.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, let's assume you are learning the Fianchetto Variation of the Dutch Defense. So when you learned some lines of this particular openings you need to analyze some games of this variation. What are the middlegame ideas and who are the best practitioners? If you mistakenly see the Leningrad Variation of Dutch then you will get confused. So it is important that you maintain your own Database and sort your own games accordingly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another example would be if you belong to a rating class of approx. 2000 Elo then you might be interested in games of 2200-2300 Elo; that is one level up, because you would be focusing on their strengths and weaknesses. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You would also be storing your own games in your database.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-04-26T16:31:33.907" LastActivityDate="2017-04-26T16:31:33.907" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17364" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17360" CreationDate="2017-04-25T20:03:10.447" Score="7" Body="&lt;h2&gt;what is that database, really?&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A chess database is basically a collection of chess games, i.e. a collection of moves with metadata such as player names, date, Elo rating of players, place, opening name ... It can also include comments/annotations for some or all games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are various websites such as lichess, chesstempo, 365chess where you can access chess databases for free. Alternatively you can download database files from the internet or buy them from somewhere like ChessBase and access them on your computer. For this you need a program/application such as Scid (free) or ChessBase (not free) which can read the database files and allows you to play through the games and do all kinds of searches/manipulations to the database files.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also you can of course manually add your (or anybody else's) games to the database.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;how a beginner use a database?&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You don't, really. As a beginner you should focus on learning general principles of playing chess and studying tactics. You don't really need a database for either.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;How can a database be used?&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Databases are immensely useful for studying openings. They allow you to keep all the variations/sidelines nicely &lt;strong&gt;ordered&lt;/strong&gt;, you can add &lt;strong&gt;comments&lt;/strong&gt; to moves, you can see which line is the most &lt;strong&gt;popular&lt;/strong&gt;, which line has the highest &lt;strong&gt;winning percentage&lt;/strong&gt; (or which line is more drawish, which more risky...), you can &lt;strong&gt;filter&lt;/strong&gt; games (e.g. show only recent, or only games of high rated players or only white wins, or only a certain variation...). Based on this you can build an opening repertoire (which you could save in a separate database) and/or expand your opening knowledge. Also chess database software works well together with chess engines which gives you further possibilities for study. Unlike books, a database can always updated (e.g. from twic), so you always have the latest developments in opening theory at hand.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You can also use the database to study middle- or endgame plans. For instance you can search the database for specific positions and/or material distributions and then see how a grandmaster plays these positions.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You can prepare for a game against an opponent by studying his/her games beforehand (assuming there are games of your opponent in the database) looking for weaknesses in the opening repertoire or weaknesses in playing certain types of positions.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You could use it to follow your favorite chess player's games just for fun.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastEditorUserId="11202" LastEditDate="2017-04-26T16:52:07.507" LastActivityDate="2017-04-26T16:52:07.507" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17365" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17316" CreationDate="2017-04-25T20:37:54.633" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Anticipate early losses to bring yourself back to form, and every loss comes with a rating penalty that you will have to make up over the remaining games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think +4 over 20 games is a little ambitious, given you will probably be -2 or -3 after your first half dozen games out of sheer rust. that means +6/+7 over the next 14 to reach your goal of +4. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To win half your games is ambitious, assuming you are playing like competition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10233" LastActivityDate="2017-04-25T20:37:54.633" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17366" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12879" CreationDate="2017-04-26T08:48:24.957" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;When you say you want to apply &quot; the Principle of two Weaknesses into your own game &quot; then I will surely assuming that your rating should be at least 2200 Elo .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now why I say this because there are rarely Games below this Elo level where you would find this principle being thoroughly applied . It is not that Players below this Level do not apply this but they do it implicitly without knowing that Principle of two Weakness is in consideration .Generally this particular methodology is applied mostly in End games where the battle is on both flanks or on two different positions and the Opponent gets subdued trying to control both and gets a catastrophic failure trying to shift balance on both sides .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You could see some Games from Youtube where you would understand this better . &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tmpT2D2UgY&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Principle of Two Weakness&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once you go through this link you will find many others with different examples .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastActivityDate="2017-04-26T08:48:24.957" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17367" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8615" CreationDate="2017-04-26T09:01:25.670" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I second Grunfeld &amp;amp; I can understand when you have an aficionado for the Dragon then you love fianchettoes but my suggestion would be that you can try Slav &amp;amp; Semi Slav as Black . If you see then their Winning percentages as Black is the Best against d4 . Kramnik Anand Kasparov are the best teachers in this Variation .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Technically what I feel that this opening has an Initiative which White cannot parry easily . I never feel that playing Black as Semi Slav &amp;amp; Slav has any disadvantage . lets go for an example now Lets consider the Semi Slav Meran Variation .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.Nc3 e6 5.e3 Nbd7 6.Bd3 dxc4 7.Bxc4 b5 8.Bd3 Bb7 9.O-O a6 10.e4 c5 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can see how Black snatches the initiative when he pushes the Bishop to d3 via 7)..b5 . It is Black infact who is dominating . &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can go through some games and you will find that whatever I mentioned would be an interesting option to you as well .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastActivityDate="2017-04-26T09:01:25.670" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17368" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17334" CreationDate="2017-04-26T09:59:13.163" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Under the &quot;help&quot; tab there is a &quot;show attacked pieces&quot; option which removes the color coding.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12449" LastActivityDate="2017-04-26T09:59:13.163" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17369" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17357" CreationDate="2017-04-26T10:56:21.907" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Somewhat related to your question of playing styles, perhaps a good book on thinking process is really what you need. Organized chess thought is not obvious at times and takes practice. There are a bunch of good books out there written by GM's who give advice on how to organize your thinking during a game. Here are a few authors:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1: &quot;How to Reassess Your Chess&quot;  by Jeremy Silman&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2: &quot;Find the Right Plan&quot; with Anatoly Karpov&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3: &quot;How to Choose a Chess Move&quot; by Andrew Soltis&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of these three, the first is the easiest, the 2nd is the most practically applicable to play, and the 3rd is a little scattered. But, all three give you a good base for which to base decisions on. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My favorite is Karpov's book because it is reproducible during games easily for me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10233" LastActivityDate="2017-04-26T10:56:21.907" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17370" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17360" CreationDate="2017-04-26T11:01:07.183" Score="4" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;what is that database, really?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A chess database is a file or set of files along with a computer program which allows you to store chess games in a way that allows you to easily search through them. The associated computer program should also allow you to easily hook up a chess engine to help you analyse the games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;how would a beginner use a database?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Every time you play a game where you recorded the moves when you get back home open the database and enter your game in the database. Then you can go through it, first using your own brain trying to work out which were the good moves and bad moves and why and second with a chess engine hooked up to see where the engine thinks good moves and bad moves were played.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then a few weeks or months or years later when you are drawn to play somebody you played before you can go back to your database, look up the game, work through it again and see what you have to do to get a better result this time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I assume they are important, since seemingly there are lots of companies that get lots of money solely by selling chess database&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well, I don't think there are any companies making money &lt;em&gt;solely&lt;/em&gt; by selling chess databases but it is certainly part of their revenue.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that you don't need to pay money to get your hands on a chess database. There are lots of free programs out there which will do the job for you and free sources of games if you want to download other people's games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance, this combination will do the job for you:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://scidvspc.sourceforge.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Scid vs PC&lt;/a&gt; for the database management program&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://stockfishchess.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Stockfish&lt;/a&gt; for the chess engine&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Ordinary pgn files for the database files&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://theweekinchess.com/twic&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;TWIC&lt;/a&gt; for a supply of the latest top games played around the world&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A paid for solution like Chessbase will get you a deluxe solution which could be worth it if you are semi pro but if you just want to look at top games then Chessbase make their database available (with cut down functionality) &lt;a href=&quot;http://database.chessbase.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;online for free&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you need help getting started then Watford chess club have put up the following useful web pages:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.watfordchessclub.org/index.php/chess-freeware/54-scid-vs-pc-getting-started&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.watfordchessclub.org/index.php/chess-freeware/54-scid-vs-pc-getting-started&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.watfordchessclub.org/index.php/chess-freeware/56-scid-vs-pc-using-databases&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.watfordchessclub.org/index.php/chess-freeware/56-scid-vs-pc-using-databases&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.watfordchessclub.org/index.php/chess-freeware/68-scid-vs-pc-using-databases-2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.watfordchessclub.org/index.php/chess-freeware/68-scid-vs-pc-using-databases-2&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2021-04-02T20:22:17.160" LastActivityDate="2021-04-02T20:22:17.160" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="17371" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-04-26T15:27:47.343" Score="12" ViewCount="346" Body="&lt;p&gt;A simple web search doesn't seem to readily give the answer to this question. Who is the youngest player to defeat a &lt;strong&gt;reigning&lt;/strong&gt; World Chess Champion in a classical chess game?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2429" LastActivityDate="2017-05-05T22:25:31.903" Title="Who is the youngest player to defeat a reigning World Chess Champion in a classical chess game?" Tags="&lt;history&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17372" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17349" CreationDate="2017-04-26T16:58:01.610" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, there seems to be nothing wrong with wanting quality over quantity in your games. But if you're worried that a creeping perfection is ruining your chances to enjoy a game, maybe you just need a break. I know there were times I thought I was getting bored with chess, so I played in a tournament to prove I wasn't, and I wound up playing what was frankly pretty boring chess just to avoid blunders, and I wound up more and frustrated than when I started.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Discovering knowledge for its own sake can be extremely rewarding. I had a lot of fun running my old games through a chess engine to see what sort of mistakes I commonly made. It was tough, but revealing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Perhaps you are at a phase where studying things without the pressure of winning and losing is more exciting, or the enjoyment last longer. &quot;Winning isn't everything&quot; is a bit of a cliche, but in this case, maybe you will have more fun just meeting once a week to play several blitz games and to try out new odd openings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11202" LastActivityDate="2017-04-26T16:58:01.610" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17373" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14421" CreationDate="2017-04-26T17:51:25.027" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;A GM I used to know, when he was an IM and going professional, told me that he had come to regard low-rated opponents as food, and he did not want to starve. This was one way to change his attitude. Would something analogous work for you?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastActivityDate="2017-04-26T17:51:25.027" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17374" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17349" CreationDate="2017-04-27T06:33:28.583" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;To quote IM Jeremy Silman:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;What to do if a Young Player Gets Stuck After Achieving His/Her Goals&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A young player that achieves his goal (in this case making master) but then stalls for a long period of time has, in most cases, moved on to other interests (school, sports, dating, other intellectual passions, etc.). For him to improve, he’ll need to study hard AND, most importantly, get jazzed by chess again. In other words, if he doesn’t find chess more than a fun pastime, then it’s doubtful that he’ll make another surge until some future time when he decides that’s what he wants to do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, there’s no doubt that a talented young player could be much stronger if he decided that this was a life priority, but I’ve seen the passion for chess vanish in many promising kids once that master rating was achieved and university beckoned. This might or might not change at some point in the future. If the newly minted young master does decide to go to another chess level, and he understands and embraces the need for hard work to achieve that goal, then his talent will easily take him there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I should add that those young men who become grandmasters by their early teens are driven to do so. To them, chess is usually life itself – it’s all they can think of. They eat it, breathe it, and live it in their dreams. The young men and women you asked about don’t have that kind of obsession, and I think that’s usually a good thing!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To answer your original question, &amp;quot;How to enjoy the (local) chess tournaments?&amp;quot; Remember if you keep improving you're going to grow and become better. Eventually you'll be playing at a well-known state, or even national tournament.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13147" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2017-04-27T16:32:25.407" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17375" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14421" CreationDate="2017-04-27T07:37:00.083" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The problem here is that you are just concentrating more on other factors than just Chess .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As our great genius Robert James Bobby Fischer said &quot; Play the Board and not the man &quot; , it is important that you think only about Chess and do not think about Prize money or Lower ratings of opponents . &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am a Player and I do have fever when I meet lower &amp;amp; higher rated Opponents . I have my anxieties too but when you sit down on the board and start playing do not think anything else . Try Playing 40 Best moves as suggested by Vassily Symslov and leave the rest . &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Trust me not only with my experience but from other Top Players also say that some games even if you play the best unfortunately the result might not be in your hands always . What you can do is try putting your best effort.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can read a book from GM Igor Smirnov &quot;Champion Psychology &quot; .&#xA;This book will work for you .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastActivityDate="2017-04-27T07:37:00.083" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17376" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2300" CreationDate="2017-04-27T10:09:53.773" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I do not believe that Black is somewhat better. There are two viewpoints. From a very technical perspective, an Engine point of view, Black is surely better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From a human point or psychological point of view White should be the one who has more attacking prospects and has reasonable play. White has better minor pieces and will rush his King side pawns towards Black's king. The attack from White will come faster than Black can handle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Though Black's forces look to be well developed, none of them have crossed half of the board to attack White's King. White will play Nf3, Bd3, g5, Nd5 and with these active moves will turn weaknesses into a brutal attack. White's Bishop will point towards the Black K-side and slice him, depriving Black of any counterplay.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black will defend more in this scenario and has to be very patient throughout the game. So I would prefer White in this position. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-09-09T16:35:45.580" LastActivityDate="2019-09-09T16:35:45.580" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="17377" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-04-27T15:00:49.673" Score="2" ViewCount="1339" Body="&lt;p&gt;After I learned the Sicilian, I started to love to play as black, while before it my win rate with white was bigger than black (as expected due to white first move advantage). When I learned Sicilian exists, I started to win a lot as black (also in my low level of play I rarely see Sicilian used against me...)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't bother learning all Sicilian variations, I just move the C pawn first, and 'go with the flow' as needed, and with experience learn some of the more unusual moves (like moving pawns or knights in counter-intuitive ways after I notice in analysis why they were good idea, and then I learn later that it is a named opening).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How I do that as white? Right now all I do is spam Wayward queen, that sucks, but seemly other players suck more and lose to it anyway, the problem is that Wayward Queen attack is entirely a gamble, if other player sucks, I win, if other player is good, I lose.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I want some better white opening I can rely on as beginner, like I do with Sicilian for black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know there is &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/1960/good-openings-for-a-beginner-for-white&quot;&gt;another question&lt;/a&gt; about white openings, but that question talks about lots of openings, I want ONE flexible opening I can rely upon and learn its variants as I play, like it happened to me with Sicilian.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13144" LastEditorUserId="11202" LastEditDate="2017-04-29T06:42:28.340" LastActivityDate="2017-09-22T12:51:46.987" Title="What is a good flexible opening for beginner with white?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;beginner&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17378" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17377" CreationDate="2017-04-27T15:13:20.733" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you like the Sicilian, then try the &lt;a href=&quot;/questions/tagged/english-opening&quot; class=&quot;post-tag&quot; title=&quot;show questions tagged &amp;#39;english-opening&amp;#39;&quot; rel=&quot;tag&quot;&gt;english-opening&lt;/a&gt;, which can become a Sicilian with colours reversed:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. c4 Nf6 2. Nc3 Nc6 3. Nf3 e5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now most players don't recommend the English for beginners, as it can transpose into many other openings, such as Queen Pawn Openings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But you can adopt a system opening, where you play (mostly) the same moves no matter what black does. I would recommend the &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/14468/1108&quot;&gt;Botvinnik system&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2017-04-27T15:13:20.733" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17379" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17377" CreationDate="2017-04-27T15:24:37.973" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I prefer &lt;strong&gt;Ruy Lopez&lt;/strong&gt; as one of the most popular opening in white because of its flexibility in placing knights and bishops in more squares that makes them powerful. There are lots of variation you can apply into it in case that you are being trapped. You can place your white tiled bishop step back at the center as Bobby and back at right side as Open variation to maintain the strong position of your bishop at the center.&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/uCT8I.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/uCT8I.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Chess.com&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13157" LastActivityDate="2017-04-27T15:24:37.973" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17380" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17377" CreationDate="2017-04-27T19:25:25.970" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;From your question it seems to me that you should focus on learning &lt;strong&gt;general opening principles&lt;/strong&gt; (control the center, develop pieces, don't move the same piece twice, castle...), study &lt;strong&gt;tactics&lt;/strong&gt; and learn how to &lt;strong&gt;develop a plan.&lt;/strong&gt; These will be useful in all kind of situations you encounter during a game and if you follow them you will end up playing an &quot;official&quot; opening naturally.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Studying openings is not useful for beginners because:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;your opponents will rarely play the moves you learned&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;without knowing some general ideas you will basically only end up memorizing moves without understanding the ideas behind them (which is particularly useful if your opponent makes a worse move)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;generally, opening knowledge only has a very small effect on the level of play and only becomes relevant at higher playing strengths, let's say from Elo 2000 or so&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are happy with the Sicilian, by all means continue playing it, but be aware that this is among the most complicated chess openings out there and you are far away from understanding it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for what to play with white, I suggest to first figure out what kind of player you are, or what kind of positions (e.g. open/tactical, closed/positional...) you like. For instance what do you like particularly about the Sicilian? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2017-04-27T19:25:25.970" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17381" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-04-27T21:45:08.333" Score="6" ViewCount="528" Body="&lt;p&gt;Added transposition table (this was tested alone and worked as expected), three fold repetition and null move pruning in my engine and wins more games but some of them end with three fold repetition even in win positions, played against the previous version&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I keep a table history to save the current state of the board before making the move, to save the current zobrist key, move, en passant and castling&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In make null function I just hash the en passant if exists, switch side, hash it and increment the fiftymove counter &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To check for repetitions I do this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;int i;&#xA;for (i = 4; i &amp;lt;= board-&amp;gt;fiifty_move; i += 2) {&#xA;    if (board-&amp;gt;zkey == board-&amp;gt;history[board-&amp;gt;ply - i].zkey) {&#xA;        return true;&#xA;    }&#xA;}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The question is when checking for repetition it will check also for null move positions, is that correct? If a null move is repeated can we take that as a move even that null move it just switching sides?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've seen engines that has a array like: &lt;code&gt;hist_rep[index++].zkey = curr_zkey;&lt;/code&gt; that is only to check for repetitions and the array is not filled in the make null move function&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Others engines has a counter inside the repetition function to check if the position has been repeated before more than one time&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;for (...) {&#xA;    if (zkey[i] == curr_zkey) ++rep;&#xA;    if (rep == 2) return true;&#xA;}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the correct way?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1703" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-09-21T18:04:53.340" LastActivityDate="2019-09-21T18:04:53.340" Title="Three-fold repetition and null move" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;programming&gt;&lt;transpositions&gt;&lt;threefold-repetition&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="17382" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-04-28T01:50:26.407" Score="4" ViewCount="405" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm kinda new to chess and I'm trying to learn new openings that are aggressive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've used the &lt;em&gt;Fried Liver attack&lt;/em&gt; many times. Are there any other opening(s) which are close to the &lt;em&gt;Fried Liver attack&lt;/em&gt; that I could use?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13164" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-04-28T06:40:43.290" LastActivityDate="2017-05-04T18:13:14.673" Title="Attack Opening For White" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;beginner&gt;&lt;fried-liver-attack&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17383" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17382" CreationDate="2017-04-28T04:43:25.267" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;For white&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Danish Gambit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;For black&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A variation of the four knights with 4. Bc4 will lead to an opening of the game for black by the means of 4...Nxe4 5. Nxe4 d5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Alternatively, 5. Bxf7+ Kxf7 6. Nxe4 may also occur with sharp play (although you do give up the bishop pair, Black also gave up his right to castle).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Related: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/75/very-aggressive-openings&quot;&gt;Very Aggressive Openings&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13147" LastEditorUserId="13147" LastEditDate="2017-05-04T18:13:14.673" LastActivityDate="2017-05-04T18:13:14.673" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17385" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1668" CreationDate="2017-04-28T16:32:26.613" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Think about taking a test. You're given 120 minutes for it. Under normal circumstances you may take all of the allotted time, even when you've adequately prepared for it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But what about overpreparing? If you've assumed you only have 80 minutes for this exam, you may just begin preparing under over constrained time limits. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A chess game is an exam of your tactics and plans for enhancing your position. The faster you can finish it, the less pressure you are placed under. Blitz games help with this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13147" LastActivityDate="2017-04-28T16:32:26.613" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17387" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17377" CreationDate="2017-04-29T01:19:56.667" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;One problem with flexibility is that it gives up some of the very best chances for a quick kill, and if you're comfortable with the tactics in the Sicilian, you may have to sacrifice that as White. In the Sicilian, ...c5 imbalances the game immediately and if White doesn't understand the opening (whether or not d4 is played), bad things happen quickly. I had trouble against it for a long time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Still a flexible opening makes a lot of sense if you are learning things. If you want a flexible opening as White, there are formation style openings that work well. Black can roughly equalize, but it's not trivial, and there's a good deal of play. @Bad_Bishop mentions a good one with the Botvinnik system, and I've enjoyed it, but there are others too. Shop around and see which you like best.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The strongest other candidates are the King's Indian Attack (e4, Nf3, g3, Bg2, d3, Nbd2) or the Torre Attack (d4, Nf3, Bg5). Then you drop a knight in on e5. The Torre is a bit more flexible because you can play c4/Nc3 or c3/Nbd2 depending on what Black does. It also has a few traps if Black plays mechanically.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The London System (d4, Nf3, Bf4) is a bit quieter but still can give an opponent trouble.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other formations similar to the Torre include the Stonewall (f4 instead of Bg5) or the Colle (no Bg5) but I just like getting the bishop outside the pawn chain.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to play the Torre, you need a good response to early ...c5 moves, but I've always&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11202" LastActivityDate="2017-04-29T01:19:56.667" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17388" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17397" CreationDate="2017-04-29T06:24:16.690" Score="11" ViewCount="4688" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just have a quick question. I was playing on chess.com and got into the following position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/4n/6k1/8/K2/3N1/8/8 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, I assumed that once we traded off the last pawns, the game would automatically draw as it usually does. However, since if didn't, I was wondering if it was possible to checkmate in this position. I know on some occasions it's possible to checkmate with really weird positions (e.g king and bishop vs pawn and king assuming the pawn doesn't move, or something similar to this), but I had always assumed that the position I was in was a draw.. Also, if a checkmate is possible, would it have to be as a result of a blunder or would it be able to be forced? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13175" LastEditorUserId="8666" LastEditDate="2017-04-29T18:10:39.037" LastActivityDate="2017-04-30T03:55:59.507" Title="Checkmate with King and Knight vs King and Knight" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;draw&gt;&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;knight-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17389" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17388" CreationDate="2017-04-29T06:42:09.567" Score="9" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If a checkmate is possible, would it have to be as a result of a blunder or would it be able to be forced?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mate is possible. This could be the final position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/8/8/8/8/1K6/2N5/kn6 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However this cannot be forced. According to the tablebases, the game is a draw with correct play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2017-04-29T06:42:09.567" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17390" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17388" CreationDate="2017-04-29T12:08:45.440" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is, of course, objectively a draw. But according to the FIDE rules, the game can be declared a draw (without agreement of both opponents) only if there's &lt;strong&gt;no sequence&lt;/strong&gt; of moves that can lead to a mate. Here the sequence leading to mate &lt;em&gt;exists&lt;/em&gt;, even thought it is really &lt;em&gt;illogical&lt;/em&gt;. Here is just a random example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;4k3/8/7n/4K3/8/6N1/8/8 w - - 0 1&#xA;&#xA;1. Kf6 Kf8 2. Kg6 Kg8 3. Ne4 Kh8 4. Nd6 Ng8 5. Nf7#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The problem is similar to king + 2 knights against king. Again, obejctively a draw, but after a &lt;strong&gt;blunder/s&lt;/strong&gt; mate is possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Websites like chess.com use similar rules as FIDE does. So that was the reason, why your game wasn't declared a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore the only rule you can apply here to draw the game without agreement of your opponent is the &quot;50-moves without capture or pawn move&quot; rule.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13055" LastEditorUserId="13055" LastEditDate="2017-04-29T12:19:01.957" LastActivityDate="2017-04-29T12:19:01.957" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17391" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17392" CreationDate="2017-04-29T15:39:37.400" Score="10" ViewCount="988" Body="&lt;p&gt;Position with KN vs KN aren't automatically drawn because checkmate is possible, even though it can't be forced; however, KN vs K is automatically drawn because checkmate isn't even possible with the lone king's co-operation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If my opponent won't agree to a draw, can I force them to take my knight to reach the automatically drawn position, rather than having to wait for the 50-move rule?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;sub&gt;This question is based on a &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/17388/checkmate-with-king-and-knight-vs-king-and-knight/17389?noredirect=1#comment24095_17389&quot;&gt;comment&lt;/a&gt; on a &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/q/17388/2789&quot;&gt;question about KN vs KN&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2789" LastActivityDate="2017-04-29T16:38:58.420" Title="KN vs. KN: can I force my opponent to take my knight?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;knight-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17392" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17391" CreationDate="2017-04-29T15:39:37.400" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you can fork your opponent's king and knight with your knight, then your opponent must either take your knight or allow you to take theirs on the next turn.  Since that gets you down the KN vs K one way or the other, this forces the draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, the answer to the literal question is no: there is no situation in KN vs KN where the only legal move is to take a knight.  Here is a case analysis, assuming White to move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;White is checkmated. Then, by definition, White can't take anything.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;White is in check, but not mated.  The check must be from the knight, so White can't take it with their king.  If white's king is not in the corner, they can simply move their king out of check (there are at least five adjacent squares; the black king might block three of those, and the white knight one more, but that still leaves an escape square). If the king is in the corner, the black king covers at most two of the three adjacent squares, and the third one can't be occupied by the white knight because that would be checkmate; so there's still an escape square.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;White is not in check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If the white knight is not in a corner, it can move to at least three squares.  The white king could be on one of these squares, the black knight could be on another, but the black king can't be on any of them (it's White's move, so Black can't be in check). Therefore, white has at least one possible knight move that isn't taking the black knight.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If the white knight is in a corner, there are two squares it can potentially move to. If either of these is empty, White has a non-capturing knight move. If they're both occupied, we're in a position such as the one below.  Wherever the black king is, White has at least one king move that doesn't capture the knight. But note that this position is another one where the white knight can be captured on the following move.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/8/8/8/8/6n1/5K2/7N b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So perhaps the more interesting question is whether we can force the transition to KN vs K, rather than specifically forcing the opponent to take our knight. Again, the answer is no: as long as you keep your knight out of the corners and avoid having your king and knight forked, you can force the game to continue for 50 moves. The only way this could go wrong is if your knight starts in the corner and the opponent can force it off the board before you can get it out, as in the following position&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;K7/8/2k6/8/4n3/8/8/7N b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2789" LastActivityDate="2017-04-29T15:39:37.400" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17393" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17391" CreationDate="2017-04-29T16:38:58.420" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd like to present an alternate to what David Richerby says, which I agree with, but hopefully it's fun to have another way to look at things. While this isn't a rigorous proof, it seems like your opponent can be rather mean about dragging things out (or even flagging you to lose on time if they're REALLY ornery) if they want to be.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They should be able to&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) keep the king &gt;4 squares (or &gt;3 diagonally each way) away from your knight or, failing that,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) keep the king on an opposite colored square from your knight, in case the two pieces are close by, which prevents a knight fork. The easiest way to do this would seem to be to place a knight on b2/g2/b7/g7, the opposite corner from their king. Even if your pieces corner the king, moving the knight back and forth would work, or you could move the knight 5 squares in 3 moves to one of the other squares to get even further away. 2L1D, 1L2U, 2L1D is one example, but you can mirror or rotate that as need be.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11202" LastActivityDate="2017-04-29T16:38:58.420" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17394" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17396" CreationDate="2017-04-29T19:52:52.627" Score="3" ViewCount="929" Body="&lt;p&gt;I currently use the Ruy Lopez Exchange (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Bxc6). Is there a simpler and/or better opening to use instead?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13176" LastActivityDate="2020-03-06T15:54:59.653" Title="Better opening than Ruy Lopez Exchange?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;ruy-lopez&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2017-05-04T20:02:45.380" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17395" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17394" CreationDate="2017-04-29T20:21:15.710" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;Simpler&quot; is somewhat subjective. You could argue that learning a system like the King's Indian Attack is simpler because you can play it irrespective of what black plays, while playing the Ruy Lopez Exchange requires your opponent to cooperate to some extent as at any move there are perfectly fine alternatives.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Ruy Lopez Exchange variation is not the most popular line at the highest level, but there is nothing wrong with it. If you are happy with it and like the positions you get out of it, there is no reason to change.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are not happy with it, you could analyze yourself, what kind of positions you like. Perhaps compare positions you get out of different openings (e.g. around move 15) and see which you like best. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2017-04-29T20:21:15.710" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17396" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17394" CreationDate="2017-04-29T23:05:40.733" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;An opening choice will be always subjective. Nevertheless, I will give you two pieces of advice:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If you asked for simpler opening, &lt;em&gt;Giuoco Piano&lt;/em&gt; (aka Italian opening with d3) comes to my mind. It has some similarities with Ruy Lopez and the moves are easy to learn, &lt;strong&gt;but&lt;/strong&gt; strategically it is &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; as easy as it looks.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If you asked for better opening (objectively), I would vote for &lt;em&gt;&quot;classical&quot; Ruy Lopez&lt;/em&gt; (I mean without exchange on c6). But I understand that it is not an easy opening.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you don't feel like having hours for study of the openings, I would go for &lt;strong&gt;Giuoco Piano&lt;/strong&gt;, but I would alternate it with your Ruy Lopez Exchange variation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13055" LastActivityDate="2017-04-29T23:05:40.733" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17397" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17388" CreationDate="2017-04-30T03:55:59.507" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to USCF rule 14E2, if your opponent has only a king and knight (and no forced mate) and you run out of time, the game is drawn.  According to FIDE rules, the game is not drawn if there is any legal sequence of moves leading to mate.  Chess.com appears to use &lt;a href=&quot;https://support.chess.com/customer/en/portal/articles/1444798-how-do-i-claim-a-draw-&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;something similar&lt;/a&gt; to the USCF rules for this situation; it says &quot;... note that in cases where the opponent has insufficient material to mate (lone King, King + Knight, King + Bishop, King + 2 Knights) a draw will be automatically declared where there is a time-out.&quot;  So even if the game doesn't immediately end and you've only got 5 seconds left, you don't have to panic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Also, if a checkmate is possible, would it have to be as a result of a&#xA;  blunder or would it be able to be forced?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the position you give as an example, even a single &quot;blunder&quot; isn't sufficient to lose.  Your opponent can't even force your king to move more than one square from where it's sitting, let alone force it into the corner; and even if you did move it to the corner, there's no way to force your knight to go alongside it when it literally has the entire rest of the board to use. A checkmate would probably be the result only if someone was &lt;em&gt;trying&lt;/em&gt; to lose, although it could perhaps also happen if there was an extremely ill-advised attempt at inducing a stalemate.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But it is possible in other positions that the knight vs knight situation happens in exactly the right spot for a forced mate in one (which is probably why chess.com does not simply declare a draw when you reach knight vs knight.)  Here's an example where Black is forced to take the White queen with his knight, setting up a knight vs knight checkmate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[White &quot;NN&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;NN&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;6qk/8/5nKN/8/2Q5/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;[SetUp &quot;1&quot;]&#xA;[CurrentPosition &quot;6nk/5N2/6K1/8/8/8/8/8 b - - 1 2&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Qxg8+ Nxg8 2.Nf7#  &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Interestingly, there is no point where Black could abuse the time-out draw rule and intentionally let his clock expire for a draw; before he plays Nxg8, White has sufficient material.  So stalling can't save him in this position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2017-04-30T03:55:59.507" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17398" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17394" CreationDate="2017-04-30T05:14:27.793" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Scotch Game (1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 exd4 4. Nxd4) gave me a boost when I saw all the Ruy Lopez theory I was up against and didn't want to learn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now Black has a very sharp line (...Qh4) where White can get a great initiative for the e4-pawn, and you don't have to study much. The 4. ...Nf6 line is very sharp, but again, you don't have to worry about nearly as many positional concepts as in the Ruy Lopez. The Ruy is a good opening, but the Scotch has the advantage of being open and also of not letting Black play their pet move against the Ruy. There's less theory on the Scotch, but because two pawns are swapped early, there are fewer complex positional principles. In fact, in many lines, Black needs to watch out for an early Nb5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The main line is ...Bc5 5. Be3 Qf6 6. c3. White can play O-o, f4, e5 with a good game. The Scotch felt intuitive to me, and it may to you, too. I always just sort got my pieces out there and had a comfortable game. Your mileage may vary, but the Scotch isn't as heavily analyzed/played as the Ruy, so you may be able to learn more from it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11202" LastActivityDate="2017-04-30T05:14:27.793" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17399" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-04-30T12:06:06.193" Score="4" ViewCount="1634" Body="&lt;p&gt;My usual way of opening as white is as follows, usually regardless of what my opponent plays (although there are exceptions and I do play some other openings):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;d4. 2. Nc3  3. Bf4&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I have been reviewing my games, and almost every game I play I find that the engine considers my 3. Bf4 move to be either an inaccuracy or just a 'good' move. I am quite confused as to why this would not be one of the best moves - much less an inaccuracy. Consider openings I've used in 2 of the games I played: (I am white in both)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1st game:&#xA;1. d4 f6 2. Nc3 Nc6 3. Bf4 e6&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2nd game:&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. Nc3 c6 3. Bf4 Nf6&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, in the first game I can understand that maybe it would have been better to play pawn d5 as the computer recommends, attacking his knight. However, wouldn't this be relatively easily countered by Nb4? Of course, I could go e4, but wouldn't this just make it harder for me to defend all these pawns in the future? I prefer playing safely and if it means giving up some control over the center to ensure a middle game I am in more control of, I will take it. Could anyone explain to me why this is considered an inaccuracy by engines and perhaps offer a continuation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the second game, I am also somewhat confused as to why the computer considers this an 'ok' move and put me from a +0.55 score to a +0.33. I'm pretty sure this is a relatively big drop in the opening... I play the move in order to create threats on the bishop's diagonal, which I have found to help quite a lot in the past. I also play the move in order to get as much control over e5 as I can, which I usually find is a key square when playing my opening (I believe it is the Chigorin opening until my bishop move). Could anyone explain to me why the computer doesn't consider this a good tactic and what other, better move I could play that would lead to an endgame that is more in my favor?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm interested in improving my opening - thanks to whoever reads this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13175" LastEditorUserId="11202" LastEditDate="2017-04-30T23:55:17.377" LastActivityDate="2017-05-02T07:51:41.400" Title="Is 1.d4 2.Nc3 3.Bf4 bad?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17400" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17399" CreationDate="2017-04-30T13:23:36.887" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;First of all: &lt;strong&gt;Don't take engines so seriously!&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;code&gt;0.22&lt;/code&gt; is &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; a big drop, especially if your move suits you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, in order to get better, you should play more aggressive and complex lines (also that is what chess engines do), because it will expose you to some important ideas. Your opening system satisfies neither of these criteria.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just stop avoiding main lines. Yes, they are full of theory, but you can &lt;strong&gt;learn&lt;/strong&gt; from them &lt;strong&gt;a lot&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You are a &lt;code&gt;1. d4&lt;/code&gt; player, so I would definitely recommend you not to play &lt;code&gt;Nc3&lt;/code&gt; before &lt;code&gt;c4&lt;/code&gt;. I know that &lt;code&gt;2. Nc3&lt;/code&gt; is a playable system, but it won't do much for your improvement.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now to the games:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the &lt;strong&gt;first game&lt;/strong&gt; you need to understand that black is playing badly (obviously the first move is horrible - doing nothing for development and weakening his own king).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore if you want to punish him, you need to play more forcefully, either the engine move &lt;code&gt;3. d5&lt;/code&gt; or simply fighting for the center with &lt;code&gt;3. e4&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You don't have to worry about these pawns too much, because you're actually ahead in development and it will take black a lot of time to start attacking them. In the meantime black's king might be already mated...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Secondly, these pawns are in the center and only help you to grab more and more space. They &lt;em&gt;should&lt;/em&gt; be moved in the opening and &lt;em&gt;occupy the central squares&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the &lt;strong&gt;second game&lt;/strong&gt;, black played quite normally. So when you play these unambitious moves, you risk &lt;em&gt;giving up all your opening edge&lt;/em&gt; as white (and you might even end up being &lt;em&gt;worse&lt;/em&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But again that drop in engine assessment &lt;strong&gt;isn't&lt;/strong&gt; that important.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13055" LastEditorUserId="11202" LastEditDate="2017-04-30T16:32:26.823" LastActivityDate="2017-04-30T16:32:26.823" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17401" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17399" CreationDate="2017-04-30T13:28:54.393" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Actually the questionably bad move is &lt;code&gt;2. Nc3&lt;/code&gt;, as it blocks the c-pawn. It's fine, after &lt;code&gt;c4&lt;/code&gt;, but not before, as in most queen pawn openings, the c-pawn is either pushed to c3 to support the d4 pawn, or to c4 to challenge the center. Additionally, from the comments, when you don't play &lt;code&gt;c4&lt;/code&gt;, the knight usually goes to d2, to support the &lt;code&gt;Nf3&lt;/code&gt;, and an &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; break. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your first example, &lt;code&gt;1. ... f6&lt;/code&gt; is just horrible for black, and you should probably have played &lt;code&gt;2. e4&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the second one, &lt;code&gt;3. e4&lt;/code&gt; would transpose to the main line of the Caro-Kann. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, if you play &lt;code&gt;2. Nf3&lt;/code&gt; instead of &lt;code&gt;Nc3&lt;/code&gt;, you have the London system, sometimes called the Businessman's Opening, due to its straightforward and simple method of development. Since you appear to be a beginner, it's not a bad system to learn, but your focus should be on general opening principles, more than specific openings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9025" LastEditorUserId="9025" LastEditDate="2017-05-01T00:44:38.777" LastActivityDate="2017-05-01T00:44:38.777" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17402" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17399" CreationDate="2017-04-30T17:19:43.860" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In your first game, not only is 1..f6 a terrible move, but so is 2..Nc6, to which you SHOULD have replied 3.d5, and if then, as you suggest ..Nb4, the knight is doing nothing and will just have to retreat even if you dont force it to. The fact that you apparently saw nothing very wrong with your opponents moves suggests that your general level of chess awareness is not yet very highly developed. In that case, worrying about playing the perfect opening is not your highest priority. ANY move that develops the pieces, especially if done with a view to their future cooperation, that works toward controlling the center, and does not lose time, is likely to be a good move. From this point of view Nc3 is just fine. But since your moves are not very forcing, your opponents will have many choices in response, and you should not just continue with your favorite sequence, without taking their choices into account.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An old adage is &quot;Knights before Bishops&quot; Although this is NOT something to be followed rigidly, the nugget of truth that it contains is that USUALLY the Knights will go to c3, d2, e2 or f3, and it will USUALLY be apparent early on that one or more of these are suitable. On the other hand, your QB can go to b2,a3, d2, e3, f4, g5 or h6, and you will PROBABLY not know which choice is best until you have had a chance to see what your opponent is doing. For example, suppose the game begins1. d4 d6, 2. Nc3 Nd7 (all perfectly reasonable) then 3.Bf4 is not very good because of 3.. e5 and your Bishop will have to move again. In that case, since Black has not prevented it, many players would choose 3.e4 (and might well have played it on move 2)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The question whether Bf4 is good or not CANNOT be answered without considering what other moves have already been played, particularly by Black. Most of the time it will be at least a decent move, but sometimes you should avoid it because Black has prepared a good answer (as in my example) and sometimes you should avoid it because you have something better (as in your first example).&#xA;Try to focus on understanding WHEN Bf4 is good or bad.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Good luck&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastEditorUserId="13012" LastEditDate="2017-04-30T18:35:34.473" LastActivityDate="2017-04-30T18:35:34.473" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17403" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17394" CreationDate="2017-04-30T17:46:29.030" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;By reading your article, I think you have a passion to play e5 against, and you want simpler opening, so you can open with e5 and Nf6 (Petrov Defence), it is so solid (I played some exchange variation of Ruy Lopez, with move f6, but it is so theoretical line). And you can also play French Defence (e6) it offers a quiet play and a positional one (and theoretical positional attacks, but some of the human players lose due to some central attacks by f6 and knight attacks). 1.opening in Petrov variation, 2.&amp;amp;3. French Defence   &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/0gTYt.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;This is the opening of the Petrov Defence, it is so solid only can be avoided early by Bishop's opening, which is and Anti-Petrov Defence or Anti-Russian opening&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/kUnkU.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/kUnkU.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;it is a middlegame or ending of the opening and starting position in french defence, in advanced line it is mainly about breaking in the centre by black.Here by 2 knights and one bishop.[![][2]&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;]&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/fJNB2.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;3&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12748" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-06T15:54:59.653" LastActivityDate="2020-03-06T15:54:59.653" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="17405" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17406" CreationDate="2017-04-30T19:44:36.960" Score="6" ViewCount="734" Body="&lt;p&gt;I had the following position with black in a game I recently played:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;r1bqkbnr/pp1n1ppp/2p1p3/2Pp4/3P4/4PN2/PP3PPP/RNBQKB1R b KQkq - 9 5&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and proceeded with 5... e5&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, after the game was over, while reviewing it with a chess engine, Stockfish suggested 5... b6 instead and gives -0.16 (equal)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I find this very confusing. I was taught in Nimzowitsch's My System (among in other sources) that one must undermine a pawn chain at it's root, hence e5 seems appropriate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So my question is: without looking deep into variations, why is in this case b6 a good move (in principle)? Wouldn't white follow up with b4 and have a nice position?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13184" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-05-01T08:13:30.620" LastActivityDate="2017-05-03T09:44:15.127" Title="Why does the computer want to undermine this pawn chain at the tip instead of at its root?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;pawns&gt;&lt;pawn-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17406" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17405" CreationDate="2017-04-30T19:56:45.730" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, Black want to play ...e5 &lt;em&gt;eventually&lt;/em&gt; (even though the root of the pawn chain is actually at f2). But that doesn't mean you need to play it now, if there are better moves at hand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems Stockfish thinks it's good for Black to liquidate the pawn chain as soon as possible. 6. b4 doesn't bring White much; after 6... a5, White can't protect the b4 pawn with a3 so he needs to push it with 7. b5. After that, many lines are possible but the most likely outcome is that all b- and c-pawns are exchanged and Black retains a very small advantage in development.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2017-04-30T19:56:45.730" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17408" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17382" CreationDate="2017-04-30T20:45:43.077" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you are familiar with the Fried Liver attack, I recommend you the Evans Gambit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4&#xA;3...... Nf6 is fried liver attack.&#xA;3....... Bc5 4 b4 leads to Evans.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are afraid of losing two pawns in the opening, try the Italian game which is similar to Evans.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Try green game, night at the opera etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13187" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-05-01T19:33:49.737" LastActivityDate="2017-05-01T19:33:49.737" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17409" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17405" CreationDate="2017-04-30T21:15:45.573" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;You would like an answer that does not &quot;go into deep variations&quot;, but if all such questions could be answered just on general principles, chess would not be as interesting as it is. In this particular case 5.c5 is definitely premature and BOTH methods of undermining the center work well, transferring the initiative (but no more) to Black. The tactics are important. AS Glorfindel observes, after 6..a5 the chain cannot be preserved. If it could, the assessment would change. Usually, though, you either need to strike soon, or you must be able to see that a delayed strike cannot be prevented.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But computer assessments at early stages of the game do not mean much. Stockfish is just saying that both approaches are playable, and you cannot trust it more than that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastActivityDate="2017-04-30T21:15:45.573" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17410" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13522" CreationDate="2017-04-30T22:46:04.720" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here's an answer I originally wrote at &lt;a href=&quot;https://cstheory.stackexchange.com/questions/6563/what-is-the-computational-complexity-of-solving-chess/38102#38102&quot;&gt;https://cstheory.stackexchange.com/questions/6563/what-is-the-computational-complexity-of-solving-chess/38102#38102&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A perfect chess player will always force a win when they can force a win and force a draw when they can force a draw. Of course, at any point if they can force a win, they can also force a draw. Also when ever one player can't force a win, the other player can force a draw. Chess without the 50 move rule or 3 fold repetition rule might not be as hard to solve as you think. It can be shown that adding in the 3 fold repetition rule makes no difference to whether a player can force a win or a draw. The number of possible ways a game can go after n moves keeps growing exponentially with n. The number of states that can occur after n moves on the other hand doesn't keep on growing exponentially because it can't exceed the total number of possible states that can occur in a legal game. According to &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_complexity&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_complexity&lt;/a&gt;, there are about 10^47 states that can occur in a legal game of chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess can be solved as follows: take a set of states that we can prove contains all states that can occur in a legal game of chess without the 3-fold repetition rule or 50 move rule. Two different states could have the same arrangement of chess pieces and differ by whose turn it is, whether you have the right to capture by en passant, and whether a given king or rook has the right to ever castle again. Next, take all states where the minimum number of moves white can force a win in is 1 which must occur on white's turn. Next take all states where the minimum number of moves white can force a win in is 2, which means it's black's turn and no matter which move they can make, white can force a win in 1 move. Next take all states where the minimum number of moves white can force a win in is 3, which means white has a move that will give them a forced win in 2 moves but can't force a win in 1 move. Next take all states where the minimum number of moves white can force a win in is 4, which means it's black's turn and no matter which move they make, white can force a win in 3 moves but white can't currently force a win in 2 moves. Once we get to a number such that there are no states where the minimum number of moves white can force a win in is that number, we've already found all the states that white can force a win in. We can find all states that black can force a win in in a similar way. All the remaining states are ones where both players can force a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since there are about 10^47 states that can occur in a legal game of chess, it would take more than our lifetime to use brute force to build a computer that will play chess perfectly no matter how it's opponent plays. I believe it hasn't been proven that there's no much shorter algorithm that can tell you how to play perfectly no matter how your opponent plays. For instance maybe only a small fraction of states that can occur in a legal game can occur in a game where you play the way that algorithm tells you to play so that algorithm works even though it only tells you how to play perfectly in all states that can occur when you have always followed that algorithm since the beginning of the game but not in all states that can occur in a legal game. Maybe in addition to that, that algorithm is a complex algorithm that for each state that can occur in a game where you have always followed it, takes way fewer steps to compute an optimal move than the number of states that can occur in a game where you have always followed it. According to &lt;a href=&quot;http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/sres.2171/abstract&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/sres.2171/abstract&lt;/a&gt;, the evolutionary learning laboratories are planning to solve complex problems. Maybe some day, they'll figure out a complex strategy for playing chess perfectly. Maybe even if an algorithm that's very short and takes very few steps to compute an optimal move in any state that can occur in a game where you have always followed that algorithm doesn't exist, that still doesn't stop a human from being able to learn how to play chess perfectly. Maybe a human could continuously figure things out and retain what they figured out figure more things out from what they previously figured out and retain them by some complex method, be able to figure out from the pieces of information they previously figured out how to play perfectly with a 90 minute base time and 30 second increments in any state that can occur in a game where they play the way they play after learning way fewer bits of information than the number of states that can occur in a game where they play the way they do which they can learn in their life time especially if the technology to live 6000 years gets invented.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's probably even simpler for a player to have a strategy that ensures that if their opponent plays perfectly, they will also play perfectly. I suspect both players have a forced draw from the beginning of the game. It's probably simpler to have a strategy that forces a draw than a strategy that guarantees that if your opponent gives you a forced win, you will not lose it. A strategy that forces a draw is also a strategy that ensures that if your opponent plays perfectly, you will play perfectly. If they play perfectly, they will not give you a forced win in the first place so you will not lose a forced win after they give you one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Update:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOqmLYlFdBo&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOqmLYlFdBo&lt;/a&gt;, AlphaZero is a neural network that plays chess better than any other chess program including Stockfish. After it was created, it gained that ability in only a few hours. I don't know exactly how it works but I believe it does something like simulate natural selection on chess strategies. Suppose you have some beings playing rated chess tournaments with a 90 minute base time and 30 second increments except that there is no 3-fold repetition rule or 50 rule and there is no resigning and each game counts as a draw if nobody checkmates after 4,000 moves. Furthermore, suppose they have no interaction with one another except for the tournaments where they are randomly paired with somebody of a very similar rating and their probability of cloning themselves in a lab is tiny t approximately 1 in a billion each time they play a game and varies linearly with their rating after the game and that there are a billion individuals and each time one is created, a randomly picked one disappears. You may be thinking natural selection cannot select for a new trait if there isn't an advantageous pathway towards it. I'm not sure that's the case. Some individuals might have genome that gives a small chance of undergoing a partially ordered major rearrangement when it produces its clone. Then very rarely and occasionally, the rearrangement will improve the chess playing strategy. Then the descendants of the single mutant clone will multiply into very large numbers. Then that will select for the tendency to rarely and occasionally mutate in a random way. Then that can lead to evolution of creatures that are really good at trying different ways of thinking until they come up with a solution.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13189" LastEditorUserId="13189" LastEditDate="2020-06-13T03:25:11.827" LastActivityDate="2020-06-13T03:25:11.827" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="17411" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-05-01T00:16:58.307" Score="0" ViewCount="856" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why is it so important to KEEP a pawn from promoting if you have a piece situated so that when the pawn promotes your next move can be to capture it? Is this a matter of tempo? Frankly, once the pawn has reached the seventh rank why go through so much effort just to protect it? I guess I am new at this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12723" LastActivityDate="2017-06-08T17:51:19.173" Title="Pawn promotion strategy" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;pawn-promotion&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17412" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17425" CreationDate="2017-05-01T03:08:15.437" Score="6" ViewCount="1562" Body="&lt;p&gt;Suppose the players misplace the position of King and Queen in a tournament game, what should the arbiter do according to the latest FIDE rules? Does the action depend on the time control/format of the tournament? &#xA;Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5653" LastEditorUserId="18475" LastEditDate="2020-01-23T09:28:37.853" LastActivityDate="2020-01-23T09:28:37.853" Title="Misplaced King and Queen" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;fide&gt;&lt;pieces&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17413" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-05-01T03:14:14.443" Score="3" ViewCount="625" Body="&lt;p&gt;We have regular friendly matches in our chess club. So far we have used an older version of swiss manager for swiss and round robin; but today when we had to pair using double round robin format, I was so puzzled. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a chess pairing system that can be used for double round robin system? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5653" LastActivityDate="2017-07-04T05:46:02.017" Title="Chess pairing program for double round robin" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;swiss-pairing&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17414" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17417" CreationDate="2017-05-01T03:20:41.017" Score="1" ViewCount="568" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just realized that there are two versions of Swiss Manager. Does anyone know the difference? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5653" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-05-01T05:22:58.290" LastActivityDate="2017-05-01T08:10:02.247" Title="Difference between Swiss Manager Light and Full version?" Tags="&lt;swiss-pairing&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17415" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17412" CreationDate="2017-05-01T03:35:44.587" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to the FIDE rules in the back of my USCF Official Rules of Chess 5th Edition, FIDE rule 7.1 states:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If during a game it is found that the initial position of the pieces&#xA;  was incorrect, the game shall be cancelled and a new game played.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This, however, might not be the &quot;latest&quot; FIDE rules.  The book was copyright 2003.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2017-05-01T03:35:44.587" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17416" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17723" CreationDate="2017-05-01T04:36:14.510" Score="4" ViewCount="207" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/dqCVh.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/dqCVh.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Between 18. Na2 and 18. Rac1, which is more favorable for white?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13147" LastActivityDate="2017-06-02T09:09:32.307" Title="Elimination of the knight: Direct or Indirect?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17417" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17414" CreationDate="2017-05-01T08:10:02.247" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The difference is in the scale of the tournament / match you need to handle. If you plan a tournament with maximum of 60 participants and 11 rounds (or a team championship up to 6 teams), the light version is enough.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you plan to grow big, then choose the full version.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can read this on the &lt;a href=&quot;http://swiss-manager.at/general.aspx?lan=1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;official site&lt;/a&gt; (last paragraph).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13055" LastActivityDate="2017-05-01T08:10:02.247" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17418" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17411" CreationDate="2017-05-01T12:11:31.273" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Usually, there's a piece behind that pawn that supports its promotion. Then you're eager to stop the promotion otherwise you'll have to give up your piece for the promoted queen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the pawn isn't supported, then the reason for blockade might be prevention of some tactics that could be related to a sacrifice of that pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Aron Nimzowitsch once said:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The passed Pawn is a criminal, who should be kept under lock and key.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13055" LastActivityDate="2017-05-01T12:11:31.273" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17419" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17411" CreationDate="2017-05-01T12:29:10.680" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Firstly, if you can keep the pawn from promoting without losing any minor pieces, why not try to? Pawns that are close to being promoted (usually passed pawns) are often defended (e.g by a rook on the same file), and this means that if they are allowed to be promoted, it usually results in the piece used to capture the promoted pawn being captured itself by the defender of the pawn. This is clearly not good. In addition to this, all pawns with the high potential to queen in the future (I.e passed pawns) could become a threat if they are not dealt with later on in the game. Even if they do not appear to be a threat because, as you said, they can be captured if they are promoted, in the future the piece(s) that are defending against this pawn promoting can never be moved from their position (rank for rooks, diagonals for bishops) lest the pawn is allowed to queen. In addition to this, your opponent can put even more reinforcements on the passed pawn if you do it try to defend it, improving its chances of being promoted, which is obviously not good! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13175" LastActivityDate="2017-05-01T12:29:10.680" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17421" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-05-01T13:19:00.013" Score="6" ViewCount="391" Body="&lt;p&gt;Recently I found quite surprising evaluations for me, especially in KNPP vs. KB, where the defending side could hold a draw just with waiting moves, not winning one of the pawns immediately. The h+f pawns with bishop holding promotion square is probably one of those theoretically most important and straightforward draws, but I saw many with pawns being on different files with one file gap and even pawns many files away like c+g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I just wonder if there was some research on this topic and if there could be some rule said when position is drawn and when it is lost, in both KNP vs. (K)B and KNPP vs. KB. It looks like the bishop can stop some pawns almost forever, giving the king enough time to go sightseeing, grab a very distant pawn and return with very little stress to achieve a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11609" LastEditorUserId="11609" LastEditDate="2017-05-02T07:30:39.193" LastActivityDate="2017-05-02T14:58:14.567" Title="For how long can lone bishop stop king, knight and pawn?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17422" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17416" CreationDate="2017-05-01T15:17:06.780" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;IM Silman gives this position as problem 3 in &lt;em&gt;The reassess your chess workbook&lt;/em&gt;. He recommends 18. Na2:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Short played the surprising and strong &lt;strong&gt;18. Na2!!&lt;/strong&gt;. This idea ... shows that White considers the b4-Knight to be more important than its brother on e4. The reason is simple: the b4-Knight is the main guardian of Black's weak points on a6, c6 and d5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;IM Silman does not consider 18. Rac1 in his analysis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2017-05-01T15:17:06.780" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17425" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17412" CreationDate="2017-05-01T22:41:18.197" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;The action taken depends on the time control.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For standard play (each player has 60 minutes or more for all the moves) the game is cancelled and a new game started.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For rapid and blitz (i.e. each player has less than 60 minutes for all the moves) the game is cancelled and a new game started only if fewer than 10 moves have been made. If 10 or more moves have been made then the game continues with the proviso that the side(s) with misplaced king may not castle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that this will remain the case when the news FIDE Laws come in to effect in July 2017.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some references from the &lt;a href=&quot;http://%20fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=171&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;current (2014 - 2017) FIDE Laws of Chess&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Glossary of terms in the Laws of Chess: standard play&lt;/strong&gt;: G3. A game where each player’s thinking time is at least 60 minutes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Article 7.2.a.&lt;/strong&gt; If during a game it is found that the initial position of the pieces was incorrect, the game shall be cancelled and a new game shall be played.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Appendix A Rapidplay&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A.1 A ‘Rapidplay’ game is one where either all the moves must be&#xA;completed in a fixed time of more than 10 minutes but less than 60&#xA;minutes for each player; or the time allotted plus 60 times any&#xA;increment is of more than 10 minutes, but less than 60 minutes for&#xA;each player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A.4 Otherwise [one arbiter supervising more than 3 games or arbiter not recording moves] the following apply:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a. From the initial position, once ten moves have been completed by&#xA;each player,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(1) no change can be made to the clock setting, unless the schedule of&#xA;the event would be adversely affected.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(2) no claim can be made regarding incorrect set‐up or orientation of&#xA;the chessboard. In case of incorrect king placement, castling is not&#xA;allowed. In case of incorrect rook placement, castling with this rook&#xA;is not allowed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Appendix B. Blitz&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B.1 A ‘blitz’ game’ is one where all the moves must be completed in a fixed time of 10 minutes or less for each player; or the allotted time plus 60 times any increment is 10 minutes or less.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B.4 Otherwise [one arbiter supervising more than 1 game or arbiter not recording moves], play shall be governed by the Rapidplay Laws as in Article A.4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2017-05-03T09:43:15.663" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17426" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17428" CreationDate="2017-05-02T04:52:44.273" Score="4" ViewCount="3304" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=39&amp;amp;view=category&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Handbook (Time Control)&lt;/a&gt;, the time control is 90 minutes for the first 40 moves followed by 30 minutes for the rest of the game plus an additional 30 seconds per move. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I heard from somebody working at the Annex chess club that there the time control there is 90 minutes base time and 30 second increments for both players. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can you clearly explain to me what &quot;90 minutes for the first 40 moves followed by 30 minutes for the rest of the game plus an additional 30 seconds per move&quot; means? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does it mean each player starts at 90 minutes with no increments until both players have made 20 moves, then after black's 20th move, each player gets 30 minutes with 30 second increments; or does it mean that each player gets 90 minutes with no increments and then after their side of the clock goes down to zero, instead of forfeiting the match, they get 30 minutes with 30 second increments? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, in what situations is that time control followed and in what situations is the other time control followed? Is that time control for competitions that only people above a certain rating can join?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13189" LastEditorUserId="4509" LastEditDate="2017-05-03T10:26:29.317" LastActivityDate="2017-05-03T10:26:29.317" Title="What is the time control for FIDE chess tournaments?" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;time-control&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17427" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17399" CreationDate="2017-05-02T06:30:59.797" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The system you are playing is called &lt;strong&gt;Barry attack&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This comes with: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt;, Knight to &lt;code&gt;f3&lt;/code&gt;, Knight to &lt;code&gt;c3&lt;/code&gt;, Bishop to &lt;code&gt;f4&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;e3&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This attack is the most famous attack in &lt;em&gt;Queen's Pawn Opening&lt;/em&gt;. You can follow games of  &lt;em&gt;GM Mark Hebden&lt;/em&gt; and also see the chessgames site with some famous kingside and many other types of attacks.&#xA;Some famous games for opening preparation are:&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1030013&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Blatny-Fette 1991.&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1056612&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Hebden-Birnboim 1992.&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1056819&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Hebden-Nunn 1997.&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1056727&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Hebden-Williams 1995.&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1056289&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Pira-Hebden 1987.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12748" LastEditorDisplayName="user10872" LastEditDate="2017-05-02T07:51:41.400" LastActivityDate="2017-05-02T07:51:41.400" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17428" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17426" CreationDate="2017-05-02T06:37:35.377" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;The clocks would start at 90 minutes, with 30 seconds added per move, starting at move one.  When move 40 (not 20 - we're counting full moves, not half moves) is completed, 30 minutes would be added (along with the 30 seconds that's added for every move.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Events would ordinarily state what time control they are using.  If it's not on the list of major events (which is on the page you linked to) they don't have to use the time control specified for major events.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2017-05-02T06:37:35.377" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17429" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17405" CreationDate="2017-05-02T07:05:06.760" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;We have some excellent answers, in particular the one by @Glorfindel. You should understand:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The evaluation by ...e5 and ...c5 are very close. Both are practically playable. Stockfish has to choose one of those as it's best move but that doesn't mean ...e5 is bad.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;5...b6 attacking the c5 pawn is very typical and very common in Queen's pawn opening. We shouldn't even need an engine for this position.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;5...b6 is definitely little stronger than ...e5. White is not obliged to play 6.dxe5 after 5...e5, but the c-pawn is harder to defend. 5...b6 gives a small challenge for White to go wrong (the line given by @Glorfindel).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2017-05-02T07:05:06.760" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17430" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17426" CreationDate="2017-05-02T08:50:45.460" Score="3" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;From the very &lt;strong&gt;beginning&lt;/strong&gt;, you get the 30 second increment after every move you play (for example: white plays 1. e4, press the clock and 30 seconds are added to his time, then black plays 1... e5, press the clock and he gets also his 30 seconds).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;40 moves don't mean 40 half-moves. 40 moves mean: &lt;strong&gt;40 white's moves and 40 black's moves&lt;/strong&gt;. So usually &lt;strong&gt;after&lt;/strong&gt; you have played 40 moves if you run out of time, you will get additional 30 minutes. The increment still works the same way.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It mostly depends on the organisers whether they want to use the 30 minutes after 40 moves or not.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13055" LastActivityDate="2017-05-02T08:50:45.460" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17431" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17421" CreationDate="2017-05-02T14:58:14.567" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The reason why endgames are difficult, despite there being only a few pieces left on the board, is that many positions can only be evaluated by accurate calculation rather than by appealing to any rule. Rueben Fine in Basic Chess Endings says that KNPP vs KB &quot;&lt;em&gt;is in general a fairly simple win. The exceptions come only with a blockade&lt;/em&gt;&quot; He then analyses seven examples of marginal cases. One very surprising example is that doubled pawns always win, a rare case of a universal rule. But even then, some accurate moves have to be found.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But some general advice is possible. For the superior side. Make active use of your King. Send him on ahead of the pawns and then escort them through. For the defender, try to keep your bishop on the longer of the two diagonals that control a crucial square. That will give a better chance of having waiting moves available. But always calculate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastActivityDate="2017-05-02T14:58:14.567" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17432" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7612" CreationDate="2017-05-02T18:18:00.450" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;And sometimes it can just be a bad move. One example worth remembering. With Black pawns on f7, g7, h6, a White Knight on f5 cannot easily be driven away by ..g6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastActivityDate="2017-05-02T18:18:00.450" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17433" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5644" CreationDate="2017-05-02T18:47:15.150" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sure, it all depends. But usually the most important question is can the pawn be blockaded. For example you have isolated passed pawn on d4, Black puts N on d5 and laughs at you. To play against an isolated pawn, Nimzovitch said it best..First restrain, (get several pieces controlling the square in front of it),then blockade (put one of them on that square; if it gets taken another piece will replace it), then destroy (attack and win it). But perhaps Black takes so much time to set that situation up that you can mount a big attack against his King. It all depends.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A pawn that cannot be blockaded is often a strength, but the exploitations can be various. A diversion to set up an attack elsewhere. Tying down the opponents pieces to allow you to march in with your King. And sometimes you can just promote the thing. If the Pawn is far advanced it may cramp your opponent more, but it also might be cut off from support. It all depends.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At some early stage of the game, there is often a choice between capturing/recapturing in ways that do/do not create such a pawn. If you are feeling aggressive, or if you believe that you are stronger than your opponent, you will tend go for the position with the isolated pawn, whether you or your opponent will have it. This is because you will (probably) be creating an unbalanced position with more chance of a decisive result, even if at the moment you do not see an advantage either way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastActivityDate="2017-05-02T18:47:15.150" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17434" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17405" CreationDate="2017-05-02T19:02:58.247" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;...b6 is not an undermining move - it is a direct assault with tempo to win a pawn on c5. There is a difference. One is a tactical motif (...b6), the other is a strategic idea (attacking the base of the pawn chain).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To know the difference and which to apply and when is the beauty of Chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10233" LastActivityDate="2017-05-02T19:02:58.247" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17435" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2596" CreationDate="2017-05-02T21:06:15.520" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This answer may be redundant by now, but when I was regularly playing tournament chess, I wrote down 2 pieces of advice for myself in advance on a 3x5 card (which is probably illegal now).  They were &quot;Anticipate&quot; and &quot;No Blitz&quot;. since most of my blunders stemmed from not checking my opponent's potential replies and from moving too quickly before I had double checked my own intended move.  This worked pretty well, for me at any rate. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastActivityDate="2017-05-02T21:06:15.520" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17436" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17405" CreationDate="2017-05-03T05:16:10.377" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The other answers so far are all great but I would like to reinforce 2 things.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Firstly, small differences in computer evaluations do not mean much. A computer evaluation is a complicated and imperfect thing.   In fact, Stockfish on my PC rates 1.Nf3 as +0.16, and 1.e4 and 1.d4 both as +0.15.  Does that mean 1.Nf3 is the best opening move?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even large differences don't necessarily mean much; for example in a main-line King's Indian (with the closed centre), most computers give White a notable advantage (sometimes even more than +1.0) due to the space advantage, whereas in fact Black's attack will force concessions later that the computer can't see yet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The best computer evaluation is NOT the answer to &quot;What is the best move in this position?&quot;, in general.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Secondly, you talk about which point in the pawn chain you will attack it. Those are general principles that you use in guiding yourself to find ideas for formulating a plan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However , a plan is NOT a substitute for calculation. Regardless of your plan, you must calculate each move and evaluate the result of that move, and then compare evaluations between those final results.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you just move based on principles you will lose due to overlooking simple tactics.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4223" LastActivityDate="2017-05-03T05:16:10.377" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17437" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17405" CreationDate="2017-05-03T09:44:15.127" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Ok so you have two Questions with the Diagram and the above answers are all correct .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) When you see a difference of -0.16 please ignore this score . This is just too small for a Human or GMs to make out any difference . The minimum Score should be +-1.0 for any Chess Engine . Even it depends upon a Player's playing strength . Considering the ELO factor there are infinite Chess positions &amp;amp; Opening advantages where a 1600 Elo Player won't be able to find out the best move even the Score shifts to +- &gt; 3.0 . Amateurs below 2000 Elo sometimes miss a Checkmate combination even the Score can be above 50 .  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) Now coming to your undermining of the Pawn Chain e5 from Black surely attacks the d4 pawn but it is not inviting a forcing reply from White . White can play Be2 a simple Development move and after the exchange ed4,ed4 White maintains the pawn chain at c5 &amp;amp; d4 . b6 on the other hand is more forcing since White has to play b4 or c*b6 . If white does not play either of these moves then Black seizes the c5 pawn . This is a common position which arises in Amatuer Tournaments and Black should be the one who has the advantage . Reserve e5 in your Kitty and develop your Pieces &amp;amp; Strategy of Black should be to attack on K-side in this position .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastActivityDate="2017-05-03T09:44:15.127" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17438" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17382" CreationDate="2017-05-03T09:55:20.057" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can find similar Chess Openings .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The Evans gambit . (Play it if you love Tempos and initiative)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The Scotch &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Max Lange Attack &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Morphy Attack .&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Philidor Central Attack&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are many more but you need to find it out for yourself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can find some good Chess Videos for the above .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMcDNVSXyd0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Max Lange Attack &lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrbChWI89ek&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Morphy Attack&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9I3Q0wBKvI&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Philidor Central Attack &lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldM0MirbodE&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Scotch&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastActivityDate="2017-05-03T09:55:20.057" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17440" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-05-03T13:08:20.690" Score="6" ViewCount="285" Body="&lt;p&gt;I deal with this problem every time. I have some 'default' repertoire and when preparing against concrete opponent, I find that it is highly probable we will reach some concrete well known position and I want be the one to come with system he can't expect me to play. Ok I can use book, engine, games to create interesting system myself, but it takes soooo much time. People already made thousands of preparations like this, coming with a sharp forcing idea hard to refute over the board, playing new move with completely different approach compared to main lines... Is there somewhere something like market of these ideas? Just pgn with 20 lines, for example. Or text. Anything that is good for titled players, computer checked lines, dangerous surprises for one game etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11609" LastActivityDate="2017-09-03T20:19:49.723" Title="Is there a site with preparation ideas for opening tabiyas?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;websites&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="9" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17441" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11153" CreationDate="2017-05-03T14:06:14.790" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think a player in a tournament with a 90 minute base time and 30 second increments would have an advantage in dragging on a game more than 24 hours. The only way a game could drag on that long is if they have a lot of pawns and very rarely move one forward. If a player can force a game to drag on that long if they haven't won yet, they can probably also force one of their pawns to promote into a queen and then force a win in way fewer moves. That will probably not however stop a player from forcing a game to drag on more than 5 hours in the hope of winning. For that reason, they could add in the extra rule for everybody that if a game doesn't end after 5 hours, it's declared a draw to prevent that problem in the future, and invent a clock that tells them how much time there's left until the game ends. Maybe that rule could even allow the 50 move rule to be taken out of those tournaments without the game dragging on too long, allowing a player to win when they have a forced win in more than 50 moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13189" LastActivityDate="2017-05-03T14:06:14.790" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17442" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-05-03T15:07:26.077" Score="2" ViewCount="181" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to amass as much Chess experience as I can, by playing several games against my phone/laptop AI.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&amp;nbsp; &#xA;&amp;nbsp;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I'm not a good player, and would estimate my ELO is &amp;lt;1500.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&amp;nbsp; &#xA;&amp;nbsp;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I am wondering if I would level up fastest by playing against an AI closer to my level, or by playing against my AI at the highest level.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&amp;nbsp; &#xA;&amp;nbsp;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I've known the rules of chess for several years and been playing casually — I want to start playing seriously.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&amp;nbsp; &#xA;&amp;nbsp;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;What I most desire, is experience — and the intuition that comes with.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9339" LastActivityDate="2017-05-08T17:12:05.403" Title="Fastest Way to Amass Experience" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;learning&gt;&lt;training&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17443" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17442" CreationDate="2017-05-03T17:03:27.317" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Playing against machines will definitely help you get better at playing against machines.  If that's the goal, go for it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to get better at Chess, you need to play several slow serious games against human opponents (both slightly above and below your skill level) on a regular basis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The metaphor here is picking up a &quot;learn some language in 6 months&quot; interactive audio/software course that you do solo vs. being thrown into a village where that  is all that people speak and your ability to survive and grow  is acquired organically by making mistakes, getting critiqued with regular feedback loops as well as the social osmosis that is typical of increasing competency in any learning fraternity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even the mighty &lt;em&gt;self-taught&lt;/em&gt; Fischer visited the clubs and competed against the world's finest to get from &lt;strong&gt;good&lt;/strong&gt; to &lt;strong&gt;better&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's also an aspect of gamesmanship, learning how to use the clock under pressure, deceptive stratagems and sub-optimum &quot;play the man&quot; ideas like gambits that you will NEVER pick up when practicing against a machine.  Gaining &lt;strong&gt;experience&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;intuition&lt;/strong&gt; in a very short window of time is best achieved with a human feedback loop to help you constantly identify your weaknesses and recommend avenues of play (openings, endings, middlegame strategy) that you are clearly missing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With that being said, seeking out human opponents at any time control is fairly easy these days via your laptop/tablet/mobile device. For instance sites like Chess.com,  Playchess and the ICC provide mobile-friendly apps that you can certainly use to get some chess in at all times of the day against human opposition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For your kind of ambition though,  start hitting your local clubs and find (and in some cases, &lt;strong&gt;pay&lt;/strong&gt;) a strong mentor to review each and every slow game you play as often as possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1751" LastEditorUserId="1751" LastEditDate="2017-05-04T20:00:53.090" LastActivityDate="2017-05-04T20:00:53.090" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17444" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17442" CreationDate="2017-05-03T17:04:36.483" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The IM (International Master) Jeremy Silman, at the age of 14, &quot;studied master games until he was slaphappy and drooling.&quot; (He also mentions eating a lot of ice cream.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Luckily, there's an easier way for beginners.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Read Silman's books:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Re-assess your chess: 3rd edition&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;The Amateur's mind&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Complete Endgame Course&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Re-assess your chess (workbook)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Chess Fundamentals&lt;/em&gt; (By Capablanca - recommended but advanced reading - meant to be read ONLY after finishing the above four)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Reading the four Silman books for an hour a day (do the included exercises) and playing ONE 60/5 game on Sunday will net at least 36 hours a week and satisfy the necessary practice to play ratio.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your practice to play ratio must be 20:1. You cannot play well if you don't practice. I don't mean go and play 20 30-minute games for one tournament game; no. I mean devote 400 hours of reading and strategy, positional, and tactical exercises for 20 hours of games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Surely enough, you will win. The 2000's+ didn't get there on sheer luck. The 1500's and below only stay there because they don't put in the necessary work or are focusing on the wrong information.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It should take you ten weeks to finish the four Silman books and unofficially land you (at least) at the 1800 level. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, &lt;strong&gt;playing four 15/5 games is not the same as playing one 60/5 game.&lt;/strong&gt; You have at most enough time to consider and ponder seriously upon one move in the former; four or five in the latter. I no longer play 15/5's, even though they are very fun! They just don't get me any better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;I am not selling anything and/or do not receive commissions for selling Silman's books.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13147" LastEditorUserId="13147" LastEditDate="2017-05-03T17:09:39.000" LastActivityDate="2017-05-03T17:09:39.000" CommentCount="13" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17445" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14207" CreationDate="2017-05-03T17:50:25.397" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think that Nimzowitsch wanted to demonstrate that after &lt;code&gt;6. Qe2&lt;/code&gt;, if black exchanges the queens with &lt;code&gt;6... Qxe2+&lt;/code&gt;, he will have &lt;strong&gt;no development&lt;/strong&gt; because the only piece that was developed was the queen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That is good for white since his advantage (the &lt;em&gt;difference&lt;/em&gt; between black and white) in development has grown bigger.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If black doesn't exchange queens, he will have to protect his lady (for example with &lt;code&gt;6... Nc6&lt;/code&gt;), but then white is winning more time anyway with &lt;code&gt;7. Nf3&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I understand that &lt;code&gt;6. Be2&lt;/code&gt; is more natural, because you want to keep queens on the board for an attack on the undeveloped black's army.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's not that easy, thought, mainly because of the unpleasant move &lt;code&gt;6... Bg4&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13055" LastActivityDate="2017-05-03T17:50:25.397" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17446" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17447" CreationDate="2017-05-03T17:57:54.043" Score="6" ViewCount="372" Body="&lt;p&gt;Silman mentions that King and Queen vs. King and pawn on the 7th rank wins, except when it's a flank or rook pawn (and the king is far away from the action, i.e. 6th rank).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The rook pawn case is clear; black king on h1 gets stalemating chances with its pawn on h2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But the c-pawn and f-pawn case isn't clear to me. Why does King and Queen vs. King and flank pawn on the 7th rank draw?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13147" LastActivityDate="2018-03-30T08:34:10.137" Title="Why does KQ vs. KP (flank pawn) on 7th draw?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;theory&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17447" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17446" CreationDate="2017-05-03T18:23:51.277" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;For a similar reason, black also gets stalemating chances:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/8/1K6/8/5Q2/8/5p2/6k1 w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Qg3+ Kh1! 2.Qf3 Kg1 3.Qg3+ Kh1 4.Qd3 Kg1 5.Qg3+ Kh1 6.Qxf2 {stalemate}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are some ways to win if the king is close, but if it's far away as you say then white can't make progress -- he can't take the pawn without stalemating black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2017-05-03T18:23:51.277" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17448" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8778" CreationDate="2017-05-03T23:10:17.117" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The normal way for white to play the Sicilian is to push d4 early which after the exchange cxd4 will lead to very interesting &lt;strong&gt;open and tactical positions&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a &lt;strong&gt;large body of theory&lt;/strong&gt; related to the Sicilian and in many lines not knowing this theory can be &lt;strong&gt;very risky&lt;/strong&gt; for both sides.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A white player who is not very familiar with the Sicilian or who prefers more closed positions might very well play a King's Indian Attack (KIA) like setup with pawns on d3, e4, g3, knight on f3 and bishop on g2. The typical idea for white (if black castle's kingside) is to go for a pawn storm with f4, g4... This is very easy to play for white and fairly independent on what black does. So it does not require any knowledge of theory. Personally I do use this against some types of the Sicilians.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my opinion, 3. d3 is a normal move, perhaps not the most demanding, but nothing wrong with it. Assuming white goes for a King's Indian Attack setup, black can chose for instance between:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;a setup like in the dragon with fianchettoed bishop on g7, and perhaps a pawn storm on the queenside, as black you can use your control of the dark squares (d4, e5) where you might want to place a knight at some point.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;pushing d5 (e.g. after playing e6), which threatens to open the center and often leads to simplification and equal positions in the KIA. Also this helps against potential pawn storms/kingside attacks. Since you already played 2. ... d6, you would lose a tempo playing d5, so it might be wise to postpone the move d5 for later and first continue with normal development, with, e.g. Nc6, Nf6, e6, Be7, 0-0,.... and only then think of d5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2017-05-03T23:10:17.117" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17449" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14647" CreationDate="2017-05-04T00:43:10.867" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You are asking what to do, if you are not sure whether to attack or defend.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First point, Never commit to an attack until you have some kind of advantage to base it on. If you dont yet have an advantage, there is no magic way to conjure one up out of nowhere. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The key to both attack and defence is mobility. Your pieces should be able to go wherever they need to. In games between top players it may seem like nothing happens for a long time, but both players are manoeuvring to make their pieces mobile. As a rule of thumb, try to ensure the each piece stands on a good square, and also has a good square to move to.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So what is a good square? It will take you a lifetime to answer that question&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastActivityDate="2017-05-04T00:43:10.867" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17450" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14647" CreationDate="2017-05-04T01:14:28.423" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;Attack the weak pieces, and if I am under attack, focus on defense.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Heads up: There are positions where neither side is attacking or defending. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(In these cases, you are supposed to take advantage of an imbalance.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13147" LastActivityDate="2017-05-04T01:14:28.423" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17451" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17381" CreationDate="2017-05-04T02:53:19.883" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;No. You &lt;strong&gt;shouldn't&lt;/strong&gt; count null-move in repetitions because:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Null-move is fake&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Null-move artificially creates a repetition when there is none&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your implementation is correct, but you might want to exclude null-move. Let's take a look at Stockfish:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/blob/master/src/position.cpp&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/blob/master/src/position.cpp&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;bool Position::is_draw(int ply) const {&#xA;&#xA;  if (st-&amp;gt;rule50 &amp;gt; 99 &amp;amp;&amp;amp; (!checkers() || MoveList&amp;lt;LEGAL&amp;gt;(*this).size()))&#xA;      return true;&#xA;&#xA;  int end = std::min(st-&amp;gt;rule50, st-&amp;gt;pliesFromNull);&#xA;&#xA;  if (end &amp;lt; 4)&#xA;    return false;&#xA;&#xA;  StateInfo* stp = st-&amp;gt;previous-&amp;gt;previous;&#xA;  int cnt = 0;&#xA;&#xA;  for (int i = 4; i &amp;lt;= end; i += 2)&#xA;  {&#xA;      stp = stp-&amp;gt;previous-&amp;gt;previous;&#xA;&#xA;      // At root position ply is 1, so return a draw score if a position&#xA;      // repeats once earlier but after or at the root, or repeats twice&#xA;      // strictly before the root.&#xA;      if (   stp-&amp;gt;key == st-&amp;gt;key&#xA;          &amp;amp;&amp;amp; ++cnt + (ply - i &amp;gt; 0) == 2)&#xA;          return true;&#xA;  }&#xA;&#xA;  return false;&#xA;}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You already have &lt;code&gt;st-&amp;gt;rule50&lt;/code&gt; in your code (&lt;code&gt;board-&amp;gt;fifty-move&lt;/code&gt;) but you don't have &lt;code&gt;st-&amp;gt;pliesFromNull&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's check what Stockfish author said about &lt;code&gt;pilesFromNull&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.talkchess.com/forum/viewtopic.php?start=0&amp;amp;t=35052&amp;amp;topic_view=flat&amp;amp;sid=46a5561bcd0c4d36796c0fbfe5158079&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.talkchess.com/forum/viewtopic.php?start=0&amp;amp;t=35052&amp;amp;topic_view=flat&amp;amp;sid=46a5561bcd0c4d36796c0fbfe5158079&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By Joona Kiiski (2010):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;They are already excluded, note the use of st-&amp;gt;pliesFromNull: &#xA;&#xA;Null moves can artificially create a repetition &#xA;draw where instead there is no one. &#xA;&#xA;So use a second counter to reset history after a null move. &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You see, if the strongest engine in the world does it you have no reason for not doing it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you check the code carefully, the first time when you do a null-move &lt;code&gt;pliesFromNull&lt;/code&gt; is 0.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;void Position::do_null_move(StateInfo&amp;amp; newSt) {&#xA;    ....&#xA;    st-&amp;gt;pliesFromNull = 0;&#xA;}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;later the engine increments the counter in &lt;code&gt;do_move&lt;/code&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;++st-&amp;gt;pliesFromNull;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2017-05-04T03:48:25.933" LastActivityDate="2017-05-04T03:48:25.933" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17452" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-05-04T04:06:44.263" Score="-1" ViewCount="131" Body="&lt;p&gt;After watching a good deal of annotated games of Mikhail Tal on YouTube, I've finally decided to go in deeper by the means of 3 of his most famous books&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;Life and Games of Mikhail Tal&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;Study Chess with Tal&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;Attack with Tal&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even after having bought all the three books, I don't know which one is the best...and sometimes the exercises become quite monotonous...what is your opinion?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12487" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2017-05-04T19:36:15.293" LastActivityDate="2017-05-04T19:36:15.293" Title="Which Book should I choose" Tags="&lt;books&gt;&lt;tal&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17453" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8778" CreationDate="2017-05-04T06:47:30.397" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;When you are a beginner it is good and important that you concentrate a good deal of Chess games of Fischer , Kasparov , Anand and many others . &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sicilian is a huge subject and mastery takes a lifetime to learn . There are many different variations and Patterns which requires a Strategic understanding . You must first classify differently and then choose which one would be the best for you .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Classifications below .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Sicilian Najdorf &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.a) Scheveningen&#xA;1.b) Sozin&#xA;1.c) English&#xA;1.d) Poison Pawn &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many more ......&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Sicilian Kan &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Sicilian Richter Rauzer&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Sicilian Dragon&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are many more which I cannot mention all . Important is you need to have an attitude where you can do brutal counterattack , exchange Sacrifice, understand the c-file play and gain initiative by giving by material .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastActivityDate="2017-05-04T06:47:30.397" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17454" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17800" CreationDate="2017-05-04T08:27:17.860" Score="5" ViewCount="377" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was once at a cafe on a Saturday; a novice joined our chess club meeting to have fun. After observing his opening moves, I concluded he randomly used pawns to attack the opponent (completely ignoring positioning, let alone developing, of pieces)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I offered to play a game with him. He told me about chess boxing (playing chess in between boxing rounds). After an enjoyable conversation, I then told him that chess IS like boxing: You must control the center, or be bullied around. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After enforcing this tip on him, I was extremely but delightfully surprised to find he was developing and positioning his pieces like a decent tournament player. &lt;em&gt;The only issue was his tactics; he would regularly hang pieces and not realize in the middle game why he moved a piece.&lt;/em&gt; &lt;strong&gt;The main idea is the simple advice of going over the following list:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Asking what squares compromised the center (to which he answered correctly; e4, d4, e5, d5)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Asking whether pieces or pawns are stronger&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Telling him every (opening) move must control one of those squares with the stronger resource&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This list significantly improved his positioning, decision-making, and enjoyment for chess. My question is, what similarly short analogies have you told chess newcomers that connect real world situations with the nature of chess?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13147" LastEditorUserId="13147" LastEditDate="2017-05-05T16:36:58.163" LastActivityDate="2017-06-10T02:52:44.107" Title="Significant and efficient advice for amateurs" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;teaching&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17455" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17454" CreationDate="2017-05-04T12:15:21.353" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The first analogy to chess ever made seems cogent to me. I mean a &lt;strong&gt;real army&lt;/strong&gt; preparing for a fight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The real army can't afford a fight before being &lt;em&gt;placed on the strategically important positions&lt;/em&gt;. This first stage is &lt;strong&gt;development&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;opening&lt;/strong&gt; in chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the &lt;strong&gt;middlegame&lt;/strong&gt; the two armies should start a real war. The side that occupied more &lt;strong&gt;important points&lt;/strong&gt; has an advantage in the fight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To the values of pieces: It's clear that when you lose a casual soldier (pawn), it will be better then missing a knight etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13055" LastActivityDate="2017-05-04T12:15:21.353" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17456" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17452" CreationDate="2017-05-04T19:33:49.447" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It depends on what you are looking for.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Personally I like &lt;em&gt;Attack with Mikhail Tal&lt;/em&gt; best because it is really an excellent textbook (or guide, see the introduction) on how to play attacking chess. So if you are looking to improve your own game, this is the book I would recommend.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If on the other hand you are more interested in Tal himself and his career, his personality and style, then you should definitely go for &lt;em&gt;The Life and Games of Mikhail Tal&lt;/em&gt;, which has much more comprehensive coverage of those aspects.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1485" LastActivityDate="2017-05-04T19:33:49.447" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17457" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="75" CreationDate="2017-05-04T19:36:14.487" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recommend to try Grob's Attack. This opening is very agressive for both white and black. And a lot of players don't know to play correctly in this opening as I found.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;1. g4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black can answer with Romford Countergambit, for example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;1. g4 d5 2. Bg2 Bxg4 3. c4 d4 4. Bxb7 Nd7 5. Bxa8 Qxa8 6. f3 d3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13120" LastActivityDate="2017-05-04T19:36:14.487" CommentCount="0" CommunityOwnedDate="2017-05-04T19:36:14.487" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17458" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15138" CreationDate="2017-05-05T01:06:16.327" Score="0" Body="&lt;h2&gt;Yasser Seirawan didn't pick up a chess piece until he was 12.  He reached the Candidates Matches twice.&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He was World Junior Champion at 19 and for a decade was America's best hope to break the Soviet monopoly on the world championship.  In fact - he did something that Fischer didn't accomplish until his last sanctioned match.  He defeated a reigning world champion over the board.  (Fischer had never beaten Spassky or his predecessors until his famous match.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My best advice to you:  read every book by Yasser Seirawan, and watch every one of his videos.  Maybe it is because he learned the game at such a late age that he is indisputably among the greatest teachers of chess of all time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12084" LastActivityDate="2017-05-05T01:06:16.327" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17459" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17454" CreationDate="2017-05-05T01:15:46.923" Score="0" Body="&lt;h2&gt;Maximize mobility.&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Put every piece where it has the most places it can go.  Bishops go on long diagonals.  Rooks on open files.  Knights prefer the center of the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Look for forcing moves.&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Put your opponent in situations where he has no choice.  The most powerful forcing move is the Mate Threat.  Next is the Check.  And next, any time a weaker piece threatens a stronger piece.  As you learn more tactics, you learn more ways to force a move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Find your opponents weaknesses and concentrate your firepower on them.&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Look for weak spots in your opponent's game - backwards pawns, pieces that can be pinned, holes in his pawn structure, areas where his mobility is constricted - and concentrate your firepower on them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12084" LastActivityDate="2017-05-05T01:15:46.923" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17460" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17454" CreationDate="2017-05-05T06:58:37.717" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The best advice for Amateurs would be the most Basic rules of Chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Develop your pieces first . Even though you may not be aware of any Opening knowledge or the importance of e4,d4 you should have an idea that Knights belong on Centre Squares , Bishops on good diagonals , Rooks on Open Files and King in a castled position.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Always try thinking one or two moves ahead . Solving tactical exercises would help you with that.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Basic Checkmate Patterns will help you to checkmate the opponent's king .&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Make a habit of keeping an eye on all the Opponent's Pieces after your opponent plays a move. (This adheres to even the Best Players and they sometimes miss many moves).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When you learn, play Online Live Chess so that you would have an estimation of your own Chess Level.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastEditorUserId="11202" LastEditDate="2017-05-05T19:41:47.227" LastActivityDate="2017-05-05T19:41:47.227" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17461" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17371" CreationDate="2017-05-05T13:31:39.670" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'll start an answer just to get going as kmartin suggested. &#xA;I'm sure it'll be superseded by other findings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1536059&amp;amp;kpage=1&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Carlsen beat Anand&lt;/a&gt; in Linares 2009 when he was 18 years and 3 month old.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Other games that came to mind but narrowly miss out: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1451947&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Carlsen beating Topalov, 2007&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1260681&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Radjabov beating Kasparov, 2003&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2017-05-05T13:31:39.670" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17462" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6382" CreationDate="2017-05-05T13:40:16.380" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, there are no translations that I have found.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0382724/releaseinfo?ref_=tt_dt_dt#akas&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;IMDB&lt;/a&gt; only lists the Russian and Polish versions. &lt;a href=&quot;http://sovietmoviesonline.com/en/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Soviet Movies Online&lt;/a&gt; hasn't translated it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2017-05-05T13:40:16.380" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17464" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8068" CreationDate="2017-05-05T16:28:33.700" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Would it were true that &lt;strong&gt;the moves are there if you're clever enough to find them.&lt;/strong&gt; Nobody would ever have to resign! Really, the moves are &lt;strong&gt;usually&lt;/strong&gt; there &lt;strong&gt;in a good position&lt;/strong&gt; if you are clever enough to find them, and the first task is to build that good position. In your game you did all the right things. You opened up his King position, dominated the open file, and permanently placed your Knight on an outpost. You must have had some cooperation from your opponent allowing all this, but credit to you anyway. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your instinct then told you that there must be something decisive in this position, maybe even a mate, so you looked hard and came up with Nd7 which is a move that anyone would be pleased to spot, and which completely destroyed Black's position. But you are clearly developing a &quot;killer instinct&quot; and you are following the old advice &quot;If you see a strong move look for a better one&quot;. In fact there wasn't anything better and your position was good enough that a good opponent should resign rather than hope for a silly mistake. Apparently he did not play quite badly enough to leave an immediate mate on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Between strong players, forcing resignation feels almost as good as delivering mate, but you are correct to always be pressing for something extra. The satisfaction that you got from this nice finish should inspire you to try to create such positions against strong opponents.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastActivityDate="2017-05-05T16:28:33.700" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17465" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17454" CreationDate="2017-05-05T17:35:14.090" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I really like this question, because I never realized how much of my chess reasoning (for better or worse) I applied elsewhere. So I hope these answers work, or they inspire others to come up with something better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I have related a part of chess to negotiations. This is an oversimplification, but it works as follows: when you have a potential capture for an even trade, don't do it just to have something to do. Whoever blinks first usually gives something up. So taking a piece is like naming a figure in a negotiation. If you'd be happy with it and it's clearly advantageous to you, then accept it. This is particularly useful to chess players who may not be terribly social or say they aren't good negotiators, because it gives them some assurance that thinking calmly and not giving someone else something for free is itself negotiation.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You know how you have stuff you check before you leave your house or apartment? Keys, wallet, make sure the door is locked, lights turned off? An even longer list if you're going away for the weekend? Have stuff you check on the chessboard too after each move. Like the leaving-your-place list, it doesn't have to be too fancy, because you don't want to lose your nerves. The obvious stuff like no vicious checks/forks/pieces hanging/weaknesses made will go a long way. Similarly, maybe you have a weekly grocery list that doesn't change much. Each move you can do a simple checkoff. If that list becomes inadequate or too unwieldy (e.g. buying too much/little food), you can always tune it up later.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;This is a bit of a stretch, and it's a reverse on the previous point, but you could also compare seeing a piece you could just take to a flyer saying &quot;YOU MAY ALREADY HAVE WON!&quot; You need to do your due diligence, but if nothing's fishy, then go for it. Don't respect your opponent too much.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11202" LastActivityDate="2017-05-05T17:35:14.090" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17466" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17371" CreationDate="2017-05-05T19:46:24.973" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you don't mind including female chess players (I don't see any reason not to do so), I found that &lt;strong&gt;Maia Chiburdanidze&lt;/strong&gt;, the seventh women's world chess champion, played a game in 1973 against the reigning champion &lt;strong&gt;Nona Gaprindashvili&lt;/strong&gt;. The game was played in USSR Championship.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;She was only &lt;strong&gt;12&lt;/strong&gt; (born in 1961) and defeated Gaprindashvili.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is the link to the game: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1285155&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1285155&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maia Chiburdanidze took over the crown from Nona Gaprindashvili in 1978, aged 17.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13055" LastEditorUserId="13055" LastEditDate="2017-05-05T22:25:31.903" LastActivityDate="2017-05-05T22:25:31.903" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17467" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17454" CreationDate="2017-05-05T20:19:38.313" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Strategy&lt;/strong&gt; is a strict adherence to rules. Not the legal rules - like moving bishops only diagonally - but guidelines, such as &quot;Control the center.&quot; These guidelines are favorably set by you making it nearly impossible to lose, unless you're drinking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, the opponent may not be well-informed in strategy. Failure to comply, well-informed or not, results in unforgiving consequences for the violator.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Make your opponent respect your strategy, and don’t rush anything. Every time he breaks one of your rules, punish him with the consequence of breaking that rule.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Did he exchange a bishop for a knight in an open game? Now take away&#xA;his advanced posts using pawns and release the potential of your&#xA;long-range pieces. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Did he launch a kingside pawn roller with all of&#xA;his pieces on the queenside? Take advantage of the space you're&#xA;creating and nullify his anemic attack. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is the challenger creating&#xA;opening &lt;em&gt;faux pas&lt;/em&gt; by pushing his pawns aimlessly? Infiltrate the&#xA;weak points e.g. holes. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These &lt;strong&gt;tactics&lt;/strong&gt; - moving of the forces (pawns&#xA;   and pieces) - are the &lt;em&gt;bridges between positions&lt;/em&gt; that satisfy your&#xA;   strategy. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;On Tactics&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Crossing the bridge i.e. performing the tactic leads to the net conversion of one or more positive imbalances. Notice I said net. Some players will fight for queenside space and disastrously give up the center and development in the process.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's all about assessing the situation. If that gain of space leads to a forced win, great. Otherwise, you're going to have to put up a herculean effort managing his counter-play. Avoiding this mistake is just a matter of sealing the opponent in and making sure the execution of the tactic doesn't give him chances.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Whose Strategy Is Better?&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Usually, we get our guidelines from grandmasters and more commonly from IMs. Compliance with their successful (but verified) principles will result in your rating rocketing to prominence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, following advice from other amateurs isn't taboo as long as they show they're also improving. Your mileage may vary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Testing a Guideline&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At any rate, flawed guidelines will not be powerful enough to influence the nature of the board. The result is your opponent's army running amok unpredictably (ending usually in your defeat). Your strategy will have to be taken back to the body shop for improvement.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At the body shop (some place with internet and snacks) strategy can easily be fixed by studying games from higher-rated players at least a few hundred points higher than your level. Look for moves that violate your guideline but lead to an advantage (more space, safer positioning, catching up in development, and/or more).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example say that you believe you should capture any hanging pawn because several others told you it's a good idea. It makes sense, anyway: you agreed that more firepower leads to an easier win. During a game where you're two pawns up, you decide to use the restroom and go for a sip of water in celebration of your position. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you return you find yourself in check. Subsequently you are checkmated in five moves because of an unforeseen tactic - a confusing experience. Surely being two pawns up guaranteed winning?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now you have your guideline that needs repair.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You then &lt;strong&gt;search for games&lt;/strong&gt; in a database from masters (or if you're a master, then FMs) where they violated the guideline (ignored the free pawns) but ended up with a superior position.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Look for the preferred objective&lt;/strong&gt; that the master (or FM, etc.) followed instead of gaining material, instead of winning those free pawns. Was he focused on converting his dynamic play into a secure, static position that would bind his opponent and cause him to cry deep down inside?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Make an exception for your guideline, if any.&lt;/strong&gt; If your guideline is strong, you may have a few exceptions - at most. Bishops are stronger than knights in open endgames &lt;strong&gt;except&lt;/strong&gt; when there's pawns on only one side of the board.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you find yourself constantly making exceptions for your guideline, the guideline itself may be an exception to some other, strong guideline. g2-g4 should be launched except if you castled kingside. g2-g4 is correct unless the f4 square creates an outpost for the enemy's pieces. After discovering a few more exceptions, you'll discover the stronger guideline: Don't endanger your king. Discard the old guideline for the novel, stronger one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;The Big Picture&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Scrutinize as much as you can, then scrutinize some more. When someone tells you, &quot;X rule should be followed&quot;, apply X to several games by grandmasters, IMs, or anyone clearly better than you. If it's constantly being violated, it's probably not useful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13147" LastEditorUserId="13147" LastEditDate="2017-05-11T19:46:44.410" LastActivityDate="2017-05-11T19:46:44.410" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17468" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17454" CreationDate="2017-05-05T22:21:23.893" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't like any of these answers as they are too wordy and assume a certain level of skill firsthand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, I would say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1: Pay attention to what your opponent's move was. Many players get so focused on their own pieces they overlook what the opponent is doing, and suddenly they are dropping material. &lt;strong&gt;Chess is like a dance so pay attention to what your partner (opponent) is doing.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2: In association with #1, what does your opponent's move do? What are it's consequences? does it attack something? Does it leave something unprotected? Pay attention to that. &lt;strong&gt;Chess is like a conversation with a long-time friend. Let the move speak to you and give you all the information it has and don't interrupt the story it is telling you.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3: Do the basic &quot;Captures, Checks, Threats&quot; after &lt;em&gt;every&lt;/em&gt; move. Just by looking at the board and mentally going over every capture, every check, and every clear threat, you will avoid losing material, and losing material is the single biggest problem for newbies. &lt;strong&gt;Chess is like boxing - you have to be able to read and anticipate what &quot;punches&quot; your opponent plans to throw at you. There are no surprises in chess - everything is before you. You only have to develop the skills to look closer to find what truths the position is telling you.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10233" LastActivityDate="2017-05-05T22:21:23.893" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17469" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-05-06T00:56:06.287" Score="3" ViewCount="461" Body="&lt;p&gt;Opening variations may be memorized by recalling what the objective behind every move is. For example, the first few moves of the Ruy Lopez fight to control e5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the middlegame, we may find ourselves thinking about a critical move - a move that requires tactical precision. Said tactic, if performed correctly, will yield an improved position. The tactic may reach several moves, usually six or seven and occasionally ten moves. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We would like to memorize a position in the middle of our visualized tactic as a &quot;mental checkpoint&quot;. In case we don't like a move, say our eighth move, we can return to the position after the 5th move in our visualized tactic instead of the current position (move one). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What is a consistent method for creating the checkpoints? &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Next, where in the tactic do we set the checkpoint? Do we set it every fourth move, do we only create one, or do we only create it in quiet circumstances?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If the method is not consistent, such as it does not work for all positions, list the exceptions. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13147" LastActivityDate="2017-05-06T11:06:00.693" Title="Best heuristic for memorizing positions in chess" Tags="&lt;tactics&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17470" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17469" CreationDate="2017-05-06T01:29:11.917" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This seems a bit theoretical/artificial to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd say, just do whatever works best for you. In the end all this should happen subconsciously without you thinking about any &quot;methods&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;What is a consistent method for creating the checkpoints?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do you mean, how to memorize a position 5 moves from now? For any reasonably strong player this is not a problem (could be more problematic with positions very far in the future). You could use similar methods as in blindfold chess, e.g. you could combine groups of pieces (e.g. store the information of &quot;fianchettoed bishop&quot; instead of the position of each piece separately). Also for tactics very often only a small part of the board/limited number of pieces are relevant; so you could ignore irrelevant pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Next, where in the tactic do we set the checkpoint? &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could make sense to create them at points where you have a number of alternative moves. Also, could create them at positions that are easy to remember.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2017-05-06T01:29:11.917" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17472" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17469" CreationDate="2017-05-06T10:58:00.013" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I agree with &lt;code&gt;user1583209&lt;/code&gt; that checkpoints should be created &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;at points where you have a number of alternative moves&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and that memorizing groups of pieces instead of each piece on it's own is probably the best method chess players know.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BUT:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think that most players don't memorize positions (while calculating) at all because they don't need it. I can't agree with your statement:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The tactic may reach several moves, &lt;strong&gt;usually six or seven&lt;/strong&gt; and occasionally ten moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Usually you have to calculate shorter variations (between 2-4 moves).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Imagine that you need to calculate variation that is 4 moves long and after the second move there are lots of possibilities. It wouldn't be very efficient to memorize the position, since only two moves are played and you can easily replay the variation in your mind.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand it isn't bad thing if you try to improve yourself in visualization and memorizing visualized positions, since it improves your overall chess vision.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That means I'm not completely against this idea (if you use it for example as a &lt;em&gt;training method&lt;/em&gt;), but I think it's &lt;em&gt;not so useful in practice&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13055" LastEditorUserId="13055" LastEditDate="2017-05-06T11:06:00.693" LastActivityDate="2017-05-06T11:06:00.693" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17473" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17476" CreationDate="2017-05-06T18:33:53.007" Score="9" ViewCount="693" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.cxd5 exd5 5.Bg5 Be7 6.e3 Bg4!?&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.shredderchess.com/online-chess/online-databases/opening-database.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Shredder Opening Database&lt;/a&gt; indicates no games played with this move, and my edition of John Watson's &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00K5WBOVM/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&amp;amp;btkr=1&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;A Strategic Chess Opening Repertoire&lt;/a&gt; does not cover it either (unless I'm missing a transposition of some sort), so you would expect this move to be somewhat dubious.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yet, according to my analysis with Stockfish, not only is this move OK for Black, but White struggles to maintain an advantage without either giving up his white squared bishop or allowing Black to get his white squared bishop into the game without concessions (both important themes in this opening for White, as I understand it).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are the main ideas for White in this line? Can White punish Black for this bold early move? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are a few variations that I looked at with Stockfish - I focused on what I consider &quot;natural&quot; moves rather than radical ideas. Is there a line I'm missing that spoils this idea for Black?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. cxd5 exd5 5. Bg5 Be7 6. e3 Bg4 &#xA;7. Nf3 &#xA;( 7. Qb3 Nbd7 8. Bd3 ( 8. Bf4 O-O 9. Bd3 Nb6 10. Nge2 c6 11. O-O &#xA;{ Eval: 0.15. Black's white squared bishop is developed and he seems to &#xA;have solved most of his problems.}  )&#xA;8... c5 9. Bxf6 Nxf6 10. dxc5 O-O 11. Nge2 Bxc5 12. O-O d4 &#xA;13. exd4 Bb6 14. Rac1 Rc8 15. h3 Be6 &#xA;{ Eval: 0.29. A pawn down, but White's isolani seems like it would &#xA;be easy to recapture.}  )&#xA;( 7. Nge2 O-O ( 7... Nbd7 8. h3 Bf5 9. Ng3 Bg6 10. Bd3 Bxd3 &#xA;11. Qxd3 { Eval: 0.25. Exchanging white squared bishops must &#xA;be a small concession from White.}  )&#xA;8. h3 Bxe2 9. Bxe2 Nbd7 10. O-O &#xA;{ Eval: 0.25. This seems like the most promising line for &#xA;White if you want a quiet position, &#xA;but Black seems reasonably well developed.}  )&#xA;7... c6 ( 7... O-O 8. Bd3 c6 9. O-O h6 &#xA;{ Eval: 0.19. The Black white squared bishop is &#xA;nicely developed, and the king is safe.}  )&#xA;8. Bd3 O-O 9. Qb3 ( 9. Qc2 h6 10. h3 Bxf3 11. Bxf6 Bxf6 12. gxf3 &#xA;{ Eval: 0.16. White has kingside attacking chances at the cost of a &#xA;messed up pawn structure and dubious king safety.}  )&#xA;( 9. h3 Bh5 10. Qb3 Bxf3 11. gxf3 Qc8 12. Rg1 { Eval: 0.37: &#xA;White attack on kingside looming, but with messed up pawn structure &#xA;and king safety issues.}  )&#xA;9... Bxf3 10. gxf3 { Eval: 0.34. This position seems double &#xA;edged - the White rook going to g1 looks dangerous, but the pawn &#xA;structure is messed up and I'm not sure about the White king's safety.}   &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1816" LastEditorUserId="1816" LastEditDate="2017-05-07T12:37:17.297" LastActivityDate="2017-05-07T12:37:17.297" Title="In this QGD Exchange variation, how should white deal with 6 ...Bg4?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;queens-gambit&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17474" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17473" CreationDate="2017-05-06T18:53:01.943" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Usually white's aim in this line is to play Qc2 anyway to take away the F5 square from the black bishop. Therefore I dont think Nf3 is a great move. Its better for white to play Qc2 or Qb3 which is also thematic since blacks white squares on the queenside are now weak due to absence of the bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12273" LastEditorUserId="12122" LastEditDate="2017-05-06T22:32:49.303" LastActivityDate="2017-05-06T22:32:49.303" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17475" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17473" CreationDate="2017-05-06T20:01:05.733" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;A key strategic idea for white in the exchange qgd is to build a big pawn center with f2-f3 and e3-e4.  Perhaps white can accelerate his normal middlegame plans by playing f2-f3 here after ...Bg4?  I haven't checked this line with an engine, so unfortunately I don't have a concrete line for you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8258" LastActivityDate="2017-05-06T20:01:05.733" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17476" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17473" CreationDate="2017-05-06T20:10:57.987" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's probably no way to punish the move immediately. You'll have to play normal moves and hope that the bishop on &lt;code&gt;g4&lt;/code&gt; will be useless.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only try to punish black immediately is &lt;code&gt;7. f3&lt;/code&gt;, but from the positional point of view it isn't a very nice move (although there might be a concrete justification) because you're weakening your king when you aren't developed. It would be very good if white was in time with &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; move, but again since he isn't completely developed, I wouldn't risk it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I like both of the logical queen moves (Qb3 and Qc2), especially &lt;code&gt;7. Qc2&lt;/code&gt;, since you can play &lt;code&gt;Bd3&lt;/code&gt; next, &lt;strong&gt;fully exploiting the absence of black's bishop on b1-h7 diagonal&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.cxd5 exd5 5.Bg5 Be7 6.e3 Bg4 7.Qc2 O-O {And now you can play either Bd3 or h3 and Bd3.} 8.Bd3 {The position looks good to me.} (8.h3 {Challenging the bishop, which has not so many good squares.} Bh5 9.Bd3)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13055" LastActivityDate="2017-05-06T20:10:57.987" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17477" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17478" CreationDate="2017-05-06T20:45:19.907" Score="9" ViewCount="1080" Body="&lt;p&gt;FIDE Laws of Chess article 11.2 says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;11.2 The ‘playing venue’ is defined as the ‘playing area’, rest rooms, toilets, refreshment area, area set aside for smoking and other places&#xA;  as designated by the arbiter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The playing area is defined as the place where the games of a&#xA;  competition are played.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Only with the permission of the arbiter can&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;a. a player leave the playing venue&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;b. the player having the move be allowed to leave the playing area&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At a congress recently the following happened.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After the first 6 moves, which I played very slowly as I I had never seen the opening before, my opponent played his move and got up. I thought for 5 or 10 minutes, played my move and noticed that my opponent hadn't come back. I got up, had a look around the playing area and couldn't see him. I checked the toilets. They were empty. He wasn't there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I went to see the arbiter. &quot;I've lost my opponent&quot; I said and explained the situation. &quot;There are some toilets at the very far end of the building&quot; she said. &quot;He's probably gone there&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It didn't sound likely to me. I waited just inside the entrance to the playing area and 5 or 10 minutes later my opponent appeared. There had been insufficient time between rounds for him to get some food and so, rather than go immediately before the round started and lose 20 minutes or so (30 minute default time) he waited until part way through the game when the position was complicated and he would lose much less time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now that my opponent admitted leaving the playing venue during the game without the arbiter's permission I asked what she would do about it. &quot;Well, he's ever such a nice chap. He's a charity worker, you know. So, of course he wouldn't cheat. He shouldn't really have done it but no harm done&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As an arbiter myself I think the explanation the arbiter gave in this case is a good one to justify not throwing my opponent out of the tournament altogether. It is not a good one to justify not defaulting him. And certainly not a good one for letting him off completely.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've never had to deal with this when I have been the arbiter but for a &quot;cheating related&quot; violation like this I would automatically default the player and then consider whether I believed anything more untoward had happened before deciding whether to let him continue in the tournament or not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Have any other arbiters had this situation before? If so what did you do? If not what would you do? There is no one prescribed penalty in the FIDE laws of chess as far as I know nor even specific guidance (please correct me if I'm wrong) and so it is left to the discretion of the arbiter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-09-29T14:01:56.377" LastActivityDate="2020-07-18T05:29:49.653" Title="What should the penalty be for a player leaving the playing venue?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;fide&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17478" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17477" CreationDate="2017-05-07T12:19:12.357" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to FIDE Handbook (12.9):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Options available to the arbiter concerning penalties:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;warning&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;increasing the remaining time of the opponent&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;reducing the remaining time of the offending player&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;increasing the points scored in the game by the opponent to the maximum available for that game&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;reducing the points scored in the game by the offending person&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;declaring the game to be lost by the offending player (the arbiter shall also decide the opponent’s score)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;a fine announced in advance&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;expulsion from the competition&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;I think that the arbiter should penalize the player anyway&lt;/strong&gt;, the question is which way. For me as an arbiter would be crucial the presence/absence of a mobile phone in player's pocket, bag etc. If the presence of his mobile phone was proven, I would declare the game to be lost for this player. Another problem is that arbiters &lt;em&gt;don't have the right for any inspections without permission&lt;/em&gt;, the player has to agree...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the presence of his mobile phone wasn't proven, &lt;strong&gt;reducing the player's time&lt;/strong&gt; seems most adequate to me. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13055" LastEditorUserId="13055" LastEditDate="2017-05-07T19:53:20.423" LastActivityDate="2017-05-07T19:53:20.423" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17479" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17480" CreationDate="2017-05-07T14:59:45.740" Score="5" ViewCount="225" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1241495&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1241495&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[White &quot;Capablanca&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Lasker&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;2r2rk1/pb1n1ppp/Bp3q2/2p5/3P4/Q3PN2/PP3PPP/2R1K2R b K - 1 16&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is the 5ht Match game for the 1921 World Championship.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lasker played 16...Bxf3 giving up the exchange.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Capablanca wrote:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Dr. Lasker thought for over half an hour before deciding on this continuation. It is not only the best, but it shows at the same time the fine hand of the master. An ordinary player would never have thought of giving up the exchange in order to keep the initiative in this position, which was really the only reasonable way in which he could hope to draw the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Capablanca sounded like the position was already hopeless for Black (&quot;hope to draw the game&quot;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Q:&lt;/strong&gt; Was 16...Bxf3 really Lasker's only reasonable move? Was Black's position really that bad? Couldn't he just take the bishop?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2017-05-07T15:05:12.787" LastActivityDate="2017-05-10T19:41:22.977" Title="Capablanca vs Lasker - 1921 WCC" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;world-championship&gt;&lt;capablanca&gt;&lt;lasker&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17480" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17479" CreationDate="2017-05-07T16:31:57.767" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;After &lt;code&gt;16... Bxa6 17. Qxa6&lt;/code&gt; the problem is that black has &lt;strong&gt;no play&lt;/strong&gt;. His white-squared bishop is really important in the upcoming attack on the white king (this is the only play black can try), so if he exchanged it on a6, white would have a very comfortable position (mainly thanks to the attack on the black's weak queenside) and nothing to fear.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: I completely omitted the fact that black's pawn down. Of course that is somewhat important, too... :-)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You may oppose me with the fact that white managed to exchange these bishops anyway (see move &lt;code&gt;18. gxf3&lt;/code&gt; later in the game), but at least black destroyed white's perfect pawn structure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My second point is that you can't always take Capablanca for granted. He wasn't the most modest player in the world :-) and the fact that he already had known the result of the game when he was commenting it is also important. He was indeed one of the greatest players, but sometimes I find his comments biased.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13055" LastEditorUserId="13055" LastEditDate="2017-05-09T13:05:28.477" LastActivityDate="2017-05-09T13:05:28.477" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17481" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-05-08T09:05:38.757" Score="4" ViewCount="678" Body="&lt;p&gt;I looked at this question&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/15985/implement-a-chess-app-for-android-with-stockfish&quot;&gt;Implement a chess app for Android with Stockfish&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but it doesn't seem to be answering what I want to ask. Maybe part of my question is topic for stack overflow forum, but anyway, I try it here first. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm doing android app in c# with xamarin and would like to use Stockfish for analysis and play functions. I already have c++ class working with PC version of engine (uci) and I would like to reuse some of the code like uci parsing. What steps should I do to run Stockfish in my c# app? Also I would like to ask if there are some conditions under which stockfish can/can't be used in android chess app. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11609" LastEditorUserId="11609" LastEditDate="2017-05-08T11:25:58.840" LastActivityDate="2017-05-08T13:55:14.343" Title="Using Stockfish in c# android (xamarin) app" Tags="&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;programming&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17482" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17481" CreationDate="2017-05-08T11:10:37.657" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Reusing C++ classes in C# is annoying but straightforward. You'll need to know managed C++.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://stackoverflow.com/questions/855756/difference-between-native-and-managed-code&quot;&gt;https://stackoverflow.com/questions/855756/difference-between-native-and-managed-code&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;gives you what managed C++ is. It is a C++ technology invented by Microsoft, and it works as a layer between C# and unmanaged C++.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is no reason why you can't do it in C#. You may want two background threads. The first one sends UCI commands to the engine, while the second thread asynchronously wait for engine results.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Steps you should follow:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Read what managed C++ is and why you would need it&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Make sure you can compile your unmanaged C++ code (regular C++). How to do it depends on your environment&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Make sure your can also compile managed C++ code.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Make sure your C# code can call into managed C++&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Make sure your managed C++ code can call into unmanaged C++&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Now, you should be able to pass a PGN string from C# to your unmanaged C++ UCI parsing code&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is no reason why you can't use the Stockfish engine in Android.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-05-23T12:37:05.403" LastActivityDate="2017-05-08T13:55:14.343" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17483" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17486" CreationDate="2017-05-08T16:52:38.920" Score="4" ViewCount="1790" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/bCdF1.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/bCdF1.png&quot; alt=&quot;Re-assess Your Chess Workbook, Silman&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After elaborately detailing the imbalances, I've concluded that black needs to take advantage of his kingside space with ...f5. Therefore, the move ...Nd7 is completely justified (the author agrees with this).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I've also deduced that black's dark bishop is bad whereas white's has a powerful outlook on the diagonals c1-h6 and g1-a7 (after Be3, preparing c2-c4-c5). Therefore, ...Kh8 preparing ...Ng8, ...Bh6 is also justified. In case of f4, ...Bh6 is played anyway. Such a positional move is okay in a slow, ice cold position as this one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus, I chose ...Kh8 as my second move. The author doesn't elaborate on that, only noting ...Nd7 or ...Ne8 as acceptably clearing the way for ...f5. Is ...Kh8 playable?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13147" LastEditorUserId="11629" LastEditDate="2017-05-08T20:05:09.380" LastActivityDate="2017-05-09T05:20:03.490" Title="In the King's Indian Defense, is 9...Kh8 playable?" Tags="&lt;positional-play&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17484" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17479" CreationDate="2017-05-08T17:02:23.067" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;What, then, after he takes the bishop? I can imagine Capablanca rolling in his grave right now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black will be down a pawn whereas white will keep pressure on the a6-c8 diagonal. White doesn't need to get greedy and take the a7 pawn after ...Nb8 (but he can if the knight just sits unprotected on d7).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After the bishop exchange, black's center is distended. He can't cause white to surrender the center because of the queen's pressure in that diagonal. Black is better off finding something else to do with his time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lastly, to paraphrase IM Jeremy Silman's thoughts on a similar problem (&lt;em&gt;Re-assess your chess, 3rd edition&lt;/em&gt;, pp. 106):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[Black would] have sacrificed the exchange. True, White enjoys an extra exchange. However, Black possesses an attack on White's weak kingside, enjoys an enemy king that is stuck in the center in the midgame of an open game (i.e., in front of semi-open files), and a bishop which assists with threats on the h1-a8 diagonal. &lt;strong&gt;In this way Black has several favorable imbalances to play with.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Whether this would have offset White's material advantage is a moot point - &lt;em&gt;never leave yourself with no favorable imbalances or no chances to create them.&lt;/em&gt;&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;If you do, you will surely&lt;/em&gt; [logically, because of no available counter-play] &lt;em&gt;lose.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another quote on imbalances by the same author, same book pp. 225 (sorry, but I really have to drive the point home here)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Though we all can sacrifice material if we see a forced mate, many of us are less likely to part with our men if the return is just 'positional'. However, I must once again remind the student that &lt;strong&gt;material is just an imbalance like pawn structure, space, and all the others.&lt;/strong&gt; Does it make sense to create one imbalance in your favor (material) while giving the opponent several others (space, better minor pieces, superior pawn structure, initiative, etc.)? Simple math gives us a clear answer.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can actually see what Capablanca had to say about the game (due to the centralized king in an open midgame, Black's rooks taking control of the d- and e- files, weakened pawn protection for the king, yada yada)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The play here was extremely difficult. I probably did not find the best system of defense. I can not yet tell which was the best defense here, but it is my believe that with the best play White should win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13147" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2017-05-10T19:41:22.977" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17486" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17483" CreationDate="2017-05-08T17:40:36.957" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't know what does &quot;playable&quot; mean for you, but... even though &lt;code&gt;9... Kh8&lt;/code&gt; isn't a losing move, it's &lt;em&gt;just&lt;/em&gt; &lt;strong&gt;a waste of time&lt;/strong&gt;. Even a greater waste of time is the suggested plan with &lt;code&gt;Ng8&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;Bh6&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why? Because almost in every position there are more imbalances and you have to choose the most important. Let me explain it:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You've already listed two imbalances in your question: black's space on the kingside (it's actually the pawn structure that is pointing to kingside therefore creating some space for black) vs white's space on the queenside and a bad bishop on &lt;code&gt;g7&lt;/code&gt; vs a better bishop on &lt;code&gt;c1&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There may be other imbalances in this position, but they're irrelevant to us. Now you have to choose which of these two differences is of greater significance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now comes the &quot;master&quot; part. I think it is actually the ability to judge the importance of particular features, that every chess position has, that makes the difference between an amateur and a master. Fortunately I didn't have to come up with my own judgement of this position because it is a well known opening and I have some experience in it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason why &lt;code&gt;9... Nd7&lt;/code&gt; is better than &lt;code&gt;9... Kh8&lt;/code&gt; is the fact that black's &lt;strong&gt;play on kingside is more important than an exchange of your bad bishop&lt;/strong&gt;. In this position it is simple: You can't ignore a whole pawn structure because of only one piece (while I was writing this I realized that this is probably just an explicit rule that won't help you in any other position, but... OK).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The 3 moves you would have given white for the queenside attack can be fatal for you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also remember a quote but don't know who said it:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In King's Indian (this line) white's attack is usually faster, but black's attack is usually stronger, because he attacks the king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another (concrete) reason against &lt;code&gt;9... Kh8&lt;/code&gt; is that after &lt;code&gt;10. b4&lt;/code&gt; (white starts his attack) white can simply play Bb2 next and no exchange will be possible for black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The final judgement: &lt;em&gt;&lt;code&gt;9... Kh8&lt;/code&gt; with the idea of &lt;code&gt;Ng8&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;Bh6&lt;/code&gt; is a bad plan because black should concentrate his play on the white king.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13055" LastEditorUserId="13055" LastEditDate="2017-05-08T19:13:01.590" LastActivityDate="2017-05-08T19:13:01.590" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17487" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17488" CreationDate="2017-05-08T17:42:30.983" Score="2" ViewCount="1967" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to describe chess to a person, and one of my sentences was:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&quot;Two rows, one with&lt;/em&gt; &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;pawns&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;em&gt;and another with [non-pawns]&quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What would the collection of King, Queen, Bishops, Knights and Towers be called?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13236" LastActivityDate="2017-05-08T17:56:36.690" Title="Is there a name for non-pawn pieces?" Tags="&lt;terminology&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2017-05-12T21:09:19.297" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17488" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17487" CreationDate="2017-05-08T17:56:36.690" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;As you probably know, sometimes the word &quot;pieces&quot; itself is used for that (you can say for example: white has two pieces and three pawns left). But that isn't very practical to use.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only solution I can think of is using &lt;strong&gt;light pieces, heavy pieces and a king&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not a one word, but at least it can be used in your sentence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13055" LastActivityDate="2017-05-08T17:56:36.690" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17489" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17483" CreationDate="2017-05-08T20:33:41.443" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;As mentioned by Dag Oskar Madsen, this is not a &lt;em&gt;slow, ice cold position&lt;/em&gt;. Normally black goes for a pawn storm/attack on the kingside while white is trying to make something happen on the queen side. Whoever gets through first has a good chance to win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You are right in your assessment that black can only play on the kingside in this position and that he should definitely push f5 to challenge the white center and to gain space on the kingside. After white protects the e4 pawn with f3 black continues to play against this new target on f3 with g6-g5-g4 (often played only after f5-f4). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White's plan is equally natural: Play against the pawn on d6 with c4-c5, exchange pawns on d6, put a rook on the c file, try to force black to play b6 or a6 which weakens the queenside and creates holes; and/or enter via c7.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Regarding the bishop on g7, it is not all that bad. For one it gives additional protection to the black king and also in some lines it goes to f8 where it protects the pawn on d6 and possibly can work against white playing c5. It is not clear whether exchanging the bishop via h6 is all that great for black. If you do, you are basically doing something like 4 moves just for exchanging a bishop on c1 which hasn't moved yet. Also you would end up with a knight on h6, which is not a good square.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In case of f4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't think white would ever want to play f4 here. If he did, you could take on f4 which would open the long diagonal for your bishop, give your knights a nice square on e5 and leave white with a weak pawn on e4. Also it would make any queenside attack much more difficult for white.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2017-05-08T20:33:41.443" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17490" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17483" CreationDate="2017-05-08T21:31:42.667" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the given position I do agree that ..Kh8 etc is too slow, and White will quickly develop a Q-side initiative by preparing c5. However, I think that OP is to be commended for responding to the spirit of the question by looking for a positionally desirable exchange and then wondering how to achieve it. ..Kh8 may not be a good move, but I think that it indicates the development of a good thinking style. Always ask the first question, what do I want to do?, and the second question, can I actually do it? (Followed by the third question, is there anything else I want to do?).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ADDED In fact, the suggestion that there are only two moves that conform to the needs of the position is itself questionable. ..c5 has not been played nearly as often as the two Knight moves but it has been chosen by Benko, Larsen, Uhlmann and Larry Evans, who between them scored 2.5/4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Incidentally, IMO, b4 followed by Bb2 is not how White should respond. The puts his own Bishop where it &quot;bites on granite&quot; and leaves the Bh6 looking really good.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastEditorUserId="13012" LastEditDate="2017-05-08T22:25:25.310" LastActivityDate="2017-05-08T22:25:25.310" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17491" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17483" CreationDate="2017-05-09T05:20:03.490" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have played and play this position a lot as white, and based on that I don't think your move is bad, though the plan of putting the bishop on h6 might be.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In general, black in this position withdraws the f-knight, pushes f7-f5 and then redeploys the knight to f6. If your extra move Kh8 entices white to play Be3 and Qd2, the extra move you gave white was used for the potentially bad move Qd2. After black block the position with f7-f5-f4, white often tries to stop black from pushing his g-pawn all the way to g4, but the queen move actually weakens that g4 control. Instead white should try Be3 and f3 in my opinion, so that your Bh6 can be answered with Bf2. Now the bishop on h6 blocks the black h-pawn, while the temporary denial of the c1 square to the white rook does not seem to me to fully compensate for that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Personally, I would play Nd3 and c5 though. In the lines with Ne1-d3-f2, the bishop on c1 is more or less always in the way, usually moved to d2 to allow the rook access to c1, then later to e1 which blocks the rook at f1 in, making it just about impossible for the white king to ever consider running towards the queen side for safety. I'd be super happy to get it exchanged, especially if I get a bunch of free moves on top of it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="849" LastActivityDate="2017-05-09T05:20:03.490" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17492" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9737" CreationDate="2017-05-09T08:40:47.940" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think chess engines are great from learning from at all levels. I know that I have learnt much from them. It is the case that positional games from the top grandmasters can be baffling and for that a chess engine may not be much use and an explanation from a stronger player may be a quicker way to understand. Nevertheless chess engines are great for learning in general.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13244" LastActivityDate="2017-05-09T08:40:47.940" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17493" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9737" CreationDate="2017-05-09T10:21:23.080" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think a beginner player gets much out of using chess engines. As you note, while a chess engine will give you the best move (or at least something very good), it will not tell you why this is the best move. So unless you have the exact same position on the board (which rarely happens), you will not have learned anything.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even if you analyze your own games with an engine and it shows you blunders or missed tactics, it is still the task of a human to understand and categorize the tactics (was it a double attack, zwischenzug, just a hanging piece, or...?). In the end you need to store these patterns in your mind. For this I find training tactics puzzles much more efficient. And on some sites, such as chesstempo it would also show you the &lt;a href=&quot;http://chesstempo.com/tactical-motifs.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;tactical motifs&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In quiet positions the engine suggestions are often not easy to understand even for GM and also engines by design are not really good at slow maneuvering. Don't worry if you don't understand what they suggest in this case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For a beginner you should focus on not blundering pieces in one move, avoiding simple tactics (study tactics puzzles) and learn simple strategy. The best way for the latter is to have a stronger player analyze your games and tell you where you went wrong. In addition you can make use of books or watch/read annotations of games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2017-05-09T10:21:23.080" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17494" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9737" CreationDate="2017-05-09T13:42:06.287" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;One use that hasn't been mentioned yet and which I happen to find very helpful is to use the engine for endgame drills. You can set up whatever endgame position strikes your fancy and play it out to see if you can really win those theoretical wins and draw those theoretical draws. If you make a mistake, you can be pretty sure that the engine will notice!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One caveat though is that when the engine can't win, it sometimes makes weird and &quot;inhuman&quot; moves. For example, when I defend a theoretical draw, I've seen the engine blithely give up its pawn or piece leading to an immediate draw by insufficient material. A human might want to keep trying, hoping for an error (depending on the complexity of the ending and the opponent's level), whereas the engine seems to think &quot;all moves evaluate as zero; fuggedaboutit!&quot;. Or, in a lost position, the engine might take its king for a run without even trying to defend. Maybe it calculates that it then faces a mate in 12 instead of a mate in 10...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12523" LastActivityDate="2017-05-09T13:42:06.287" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17495" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-05-09T15:13:10.193" Score="2" ViewCount="106" Body="&lt;p&gt;Capablanca states that &quot;control of the center is an essential condition for a successful attack against the king.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Control of the center&lt;/em&gt; doesn't mean we need dictatorship over all four central squares, as the following game &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/users/2359/newshutz&quot;&gt;(annotated by newshutz)&lt;/a&gt; shows: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[Event &quot;London Chess Classic&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;London ENG&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2011.12.06&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;4&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;V Anand&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Hi Nakamura&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;E97&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;2811&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;2758&quot;]&#xA;[Annotator &quot;Fritz 12 (120s)&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;98&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;2011.12.03&quot;]&#xA;[Source &quot;ChessBase&quot;]&#xA;[SourceDate &quot;2004.11.03&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 Bg7 4. e4 d6 5. Nf3 O-O 6. Be2 e5 7.&#xA;O-O Nc6 8. d5 Ne7 9. b4 Ne8 10. c5 f5 11. Nd2 Nf6 12. a4 (12. cxd6 cxd6 13. Ba3&#xA;Bh6 14. exf5 gxf5 15. Nc4 Ng6 16. b5 Ne8 17. b6 a6 18. Bh5 Rf6 19. Bc1 Bxc1 20.&#xA;Rxc1 Nf4 21. Bxe8 Qxe8 22. Ne2 Ng6 23. f4 Bd7 24. fxe5 dxe5 25. Ng3 Qf8 26. Nh5&#xA;Rf7 {Postny,E (2591)-Nataf,I (2592) Evora 2006 0-1 (40)}) 12... g5 (12... Kh8&#xA;13. f3 Bh6 (13... g5 14. Nc4 g4 15. fxg4 dxc5 16. bxc5 fxe4 17. d6 cxd6 18. g5&#xA;Ne8 19. cxd6 Ng6 20. Nxe4 Be6 21. Ba3 Rf4 22. Rxf4 exf4 23. Rb1 b6 24. Bb2 Rc8&#xA;25. Bxg7+ Nxg7 26. Qd4 Rc5 27. Nxc5 {1-0 (27) Petran,P (2386)-Werner,D (2362)&#xA;Budapest 2004}) 14. Nc4 Bxc1 15. Qxc1 f4 16. a5 g5 17. b5 Ng6 18. b6 dxc5 19.&#xA;Nb5 Ne8 20. Nxa7 Bd7 21. Qb2 cxb6 22. axb6 Qf6 23. Nb5 Rb8 24. Nc7 h5 25. h3&#xA;Nd6 26. Rfc1 Nxc4 27. Rxc4 {Schussler,H (2420)-Ivarsson,J (2355) Stockholm&#xA;1980 1-0 (37)}) (12... f4 13. Nc4 Kh8 14. Ba3 Ne8 15. a5 Ng8 16. f3 Rf7 17. Qb3&#xA;Ngf6 18. b5 Nh5 19. Rfc1 dxc5 20. Bxc5 Nd6 21. b6 Nxc4 22. Bxc4 cxb6 23. axb6&#xA;a6 24. d6 Rf8 25. Nd5 Bd7 26. Nc7 Rb8 27. Ne6 {Lekic,D (2390)-Filipovic,M &#xA;(2121) Budva 2009 1-0 (34)}) (12... fxe4 13. Ndxe4 Nf5 14. Bg5 h6 15. Bxf6 Bxf6&#xA;16. Bg4 Bg7 17. b5 Rf7 18. c6 bxc6 19. bxc6 h5 20. Bh3 Ba6 21. Re1 Rb8 22. Rb1&#xA;Rxb1 23. Qxb1 Bh6 24. Nb5 Kg7 25. Ng3 Nxg3 26. hxg3 Bd2 27. Re4 {Gleizerov,E &#xA;(2405)-Temirbaev,S (2375) Uzhgorod 1988 1/2-1/2}) 13. Nc4 $146 ({fritz opening&#xA;book variations} 13. a5 f4 14. g4 (14. f3 Ng6 15. a6 b6 16. Bb5 g4 17. Bc6 Rb8&#xA;18. Nb5 g3 19. h3 Bxh3 20. gxh3 Qc8 21. Re1 Qxh3) 14... Ng6 15. f3 h5 16. h3&#xA;Rf7 17. Rf2 (17. Ba3 Bf8 18. Nc4 Rh7 19. Kg2 Be7 20. b5 Qf8) 17... Bf8 18. Ba3&#xA;Rh7 19. Nf1 Be7 20. Rc1) 13... h6 $6 {wastes a tempo as ...f4, f3 is going to&#xA;happen anyway.  IMHO,13...f4 was called for. OTOH,  Nakamura is a much better&#xA;player than I. The engines give 13...h6 as black's best move, but white has a&#xA;clear advantage} (13... f4 {gets back into a main line} 14. f3 Ng6 15. Ba3 Rf7&#xA;16. b5) (13... h6 14. f3 fxe4 15. fxe4 Ng6 16. Ba3 Nf4&#xA;17. Bf3 b6 18. cxd6 cxd6 19. Rc1 g4 20. Be2 h5 21. b5 Ne8 22. g3 Nh3+ 23. Kg2&#xA;Rxf1 24. Qxf1 Bh6 {0.58/25}) 14. f3 f4 15. Ba3 Ng6 16. b5 dxc5 17. Bxc5 Rf7 18.&#xA;a5 h5 19. b6 g4 20. Nb5 cxb6 21. axb6 g3 {Though the pawn chain pointed at&#xA;White's king looks threatening,  Nakamura is a long way from finishing his&#xA;kingside attack. Anand has a tremendous advantage, but needs to play actively&#xA;to bring the point home.} 22. Kh1 $2 {Not a losing move, but much too timid.&#xA;Anand was trying to secure his position by making sure that ...gxh2 did not&#xA;come with check. Preventing ...gxh3 with 22.h3 would allow the thematic ...&#xA;Bxh3 sacrifice that is usually bad for white.} (22. Qc2 {Does not look all&#xA;that active, but keeps all of White's threats in the air, and positions the&#xA;queen for invasion of Black's position along the c-file, frees the Rf1,&#xA;provides defensive support to g2, support for the Bc5, and support for a&#xA;knight posted on f5 (via d6, which is not a square the knight wants to rest on,&#xA;as it blocks the d-pawn, the Bc5, and the other knight.} a6 (22... gxh2+ 23.&#xA;Kh1 {is safe enough, as both black knights are far from g3. White might be&#xA;able to take on h2, but that requires a lot of calculation, that might be&#xA;better spent on other lines.}) 23. Ncd6 Rd7 24. Nf5) 22... Bf8 23. d6 {I think&#xA;this is premature. White can maintain control of d6, so the pawn is not going&#xA;to be blockaded, soon.} ({Fritz likes} 23. Rxa7 Rb8 24. Ncd6) 23... a6 24. Nc7&#xA;Rb8 25. Na5 Kh8 26. Bc4 Rg7 27. Ne6 Bxe6 28. Bxe6 gxh2 29. Nc4 $2 {Where is&#xA;this knight going? If Anand felt the need to shore up the d6 pawn, then I&#xA;think 29.Ra2 would have been better.} ({Fritz 12:} 29. Bh3 Nh7 30. Qd5 Nf6 31.&#xA;Qd3 Nh7 32. Nc4 Ng5 33. Bf5 Nf7 34. Qd5 Qf6 35. Qe6 Qg5 36. Ra2 {2.39/25})&#xA;29... Qe8 30. Bd5 $2 (30. Bh3 {would stifle any black attack on the kingside,&#xA;and keep control of c8}) 30... h4 31. Rf2 h3 32. gxh3 Rc8 33. Ra5 Nh4 34. Kxh2&#xA;Nd7 35. Bb4 Rg3 36. Qf1 Qh5 37. Ra3 a5 38. Be1 Rxc4 $1 {This exchange&#xA;sacrifice allows Nakamura to activate his dark square bishop and bring it into&#xA;the attack.} 39. Bxc4 Bxd6 40. Rxa5 Bc5 41. Be2 $2 (41. Rxc5 {returning the&#xA;exchange this way allows Anand to keep the Rf2} Nxc5 42. Be2 Ne6 43. Kh1 Ng2&#xA;44. Qxg2 Rxg2 45. Rxg2 {and things are pretty grim for white, but if he can&#xA;exchange off the rest of the pawns, he might be able to hold.}) 41... Bxb6 42.&#xA;Rb5 $2 Bd4 (42... Bxf2 $1 {I was screaming at my computer as I watched this&#xA;game live. It also would have worked on the previous move, but I did not see&#xA;it then.} 43. Bxf2 Nxf3+ 44. Bxf3 Qxf3) 43. Bd1 $2 (43. Rxb7 {would have&#xA;lessened the damage.}) 43... Bxf2 {finally, this move would have worked on move 41 and 42} 44. Bxf2 Nxf3+ 45. Bxf3 Qxf3 46.&#xA;Rb1 Rg6 47. Rxb7 Nf6 48. Rb8+ Kh7 49. Rb7+ Kh6 {White must give up material,&#xA;or the e4-pawn will fall and white cannot stop the black pawns.} (49... Kh6 50.&#xA;Rb6 (50. Rb8 Nxe4 51. Rb2 Rg3 52. Re2 Qd3 53. Bxg3 Nxg3 54. Qf2 Qxe2 55. Qxe2&#xA;Nxe2 56. Kg2 Nd4) 50... Ng4+ 51. hxg4 Rxb6) 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the above game, it is evident from move 20 onwards that white attains control of the central d5 square and more than half of the d-file. However, it is black's prevention of white's control over the e5 square (by blockading f2-f4 and keeping a pawn at e5) that grants black the necessary space to launch a kingside attack. In this sense white has no counterplay on the kingside. (Black also controls d4 with his e5 pawn).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What if black had no control of the center? &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/253/13147&quot;&gt;It is widely accepted here&lt;/a&gt; that even a violent attack against the king is favored over control of the center. &lt;strong&gt;How violent does black's attack have to be&lt;/strong&gt; when white unambiguously controls at least three of the four central squares?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13147" LastActivityDate="2017-05-09T20:16:48.927" Title="Successful attacks against the king without control of the center" Tags="&lt;positional-play&gt;&lt;center&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17496" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17495" CreationDate="2017-05-09T15:28:32.080" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;From the &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/253/7297&quot;&gt;accepted answer&lt;/a&gt; you linked to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The center is the crossroads of the board. Controlling it will give you access to every other part of the board. At the same time, it will drive a wedge in the opponent's position that hampers communication between king and queen side.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a &lt;em&gt;general&lt;/em&gt; rule which is widely applicable. However, in this case, the e- and f-pawns block White's access to the kingside. And communication between king- and queenside isn't really necessary for Black: all his action takes place on the kingside.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So basically this is just the exception that proves the rule.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2017-05-09T15:28:32.080" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17497" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9737" CreationDate="2017-05-09T15:49:33.130" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess engines are, in my opinion, not suitable for novice players to use for the purpose of learning chess. And the reason for my opinion is very simple: chess engines are not designed to teach chess! If that doesn't suffice as an answer, I will try to explain my views in a more detailed manner below.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess engines are designed to be able to evaluate any given position as accurately as possible, and using these evaluations to try and come up with an optimal sequence of moves for both sides should the game progress.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In order to evaluate positions, chess engines assign positions with a numerical value based on things such as material, king safety, etc. But the engine will never explain what positional factors were the most important ones leading to a given score of a position. This is the key as to why any chess player should use engines with caution, and treat the engine with some level of scepticism.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The chess engines are very good at what they are supposed to do; in fact, they are so good at evaluating most positions nowadays that the leading chess engines cannot be beaten by humans. This makes it very difficult to reject the computer's evaluation even if one is not sure why the computer engine evaluates a position in a seemingly strange way, or why it favours a strange-looking high-risk continuation when there are much simpler ways of bringing a game to its logical conclusion. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is a typical mistake people tend to make in the type of scenario described above: they just trust the computer, no questions asked, and move on. This way these players will not only learn nothing of substance, but there is an added risk of the players thinking that they actually gained some insight even though they didn't understand a thing!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That last part, about people thinking that they learned something when in fact they didn't, is not an exaggeration. This happens to people all the time in many different setting, and it has to do with how people learn in general.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In academia, the terms &quot;Deep learning&quot; and &quot;Surface learning&quot; are used to describe two very different learning approaches used by students to pass courses:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Surface learning has to do with trying to pass a course by learning the presented information with minimal effort. This often means that the student will try to memorize facts without a hint of reflection.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Deep learning has to do with considering the course contents important in some way, which drives the student to make a real effort to learn and understand the contents of a course.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For a more detailed (and in my opinion better) description of these terms, see the first few paragraphs of the following article: &#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.lsu.edu/departments/the/EProc03/Facilitation%20of%20Critical%20Thinking%20and%20Deep%20Cognitive%20Processing.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Facilitation of Critical Thinking and Deep Cognitive Processing&#xA;by Structured Discussion Board Activities&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since surface learning emphasizes on learning facts and definition, but not on actually understanding why something is true or not, it can often leave students with a severely limited ability to apply the facts learned.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the context of learning chess, surface learning would be regarded as memorizing specific opening variations by heart, or learning positional guidelines such as &quot;a knight on the rim is dim&quot; without concerning oneself with the reasons behind the variations and guidelines. I think that most people would agree that this approach to learning chess would not be very successful in the long run.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess is a game heavily dependent on the player's ability to calculate and evaluate positions on-the-fly. There are simply too many positions to memorize, and if your opponent sidesteps any variations you may have memorized you are on your own for the rest of the game. You need to be able to judge when to side with common guidelines and when to deviate from them. And learning to play chess well is connected with cultivating these abilities by trying to understand the moves in certain variations, and why certain guidelines are formulated as they are. This is clearly more in line with the deep learning approach than the surface learning approach.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tying this back to chess engines: using chess engines to learn chess is dangerous, since it can very easily turn into the player using surface learning approaches to learn chess. The computer only gives a numerical evaluation and optimal variations, which can easily trap the player into thinking something along the lines of &quot;Huh! The computer says that I was winning here, if I just played the given computer line. Instead, after my move, I was losing, if my opponent just had played the given computer line. I'll remember that for next time!&quot; without reflecting much further. The player may have learned something, but will this new knowledge help the player improve their game in any meaningful way?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With all this being said, I still think that chess engines can be used to learn chess. But it requires that the player is careful, and ready to put in a lot of effort. The player should strive to go for a mindset along the lines of &quot;Oh I see Stockfish, you think this position is _______ huh? You silly goose, I'm going to show you just how wrong you are!&quot; as soon as you're uncertain why the computer evaluates a position the way it does. This way you can try to force the engine to explain itself in some sense, instead of just listening to it blindly. But this is very difficult and time-consuming for a novice player to do, and I believe learning about tactics, making plans etc. is more effective for players relatively new to the game wishing to improve.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8300" LastActivityDate="2017-05-09T15:49:33.130" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17498" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17495" CreationDate="2017-05-09T16:19:40.680" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I will tell you three rules that say when space isn't useful:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;All the general rules work until there's something concrete&lt;/strong&gt;. That means it is useless to have complete dominance over the center if you're losing because of a concrete line. Then the question isn't &quot;How violent is the attack?&quot; but &quot;Is there a win?&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Center only creates space for your pieces that has to be used. If the space isn't used properly (your pieces have to be &lt;strong&gt;well-placed&lt;/strong&gt;), center won't help you. It actually creates only more weaknesses.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Your pieces should be prepared for a fight &lt;strong&gt;when your opponent starts the attack on the king&lt;/strong&gt;. Then you should act as quickly as possible. If you find yourself still developing or improving your pieces &lt;strong&gt;while&lt;/strong&gt; your opponent's attack is already up and coming, it's too late. I think the game you mentioned is a good example of it. Anand was too slow in the center. He had a good-looking pawn on &lt;code&gt;d6&lt;/code&gt;, good-looking center and an open c-file, but that was all he had. In the meantime Nakamura was already developing his play on the white's king. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's hard to answer directly the question &quot;How violent should be the attack?&quot;, because firstly in chess every position bears different amount of violence and secondly there's no unit for violence... :-)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I intentionally don't mention a weak center that could be destroyed in the cases above, because that's off topic here (we're talking about an attack on the king).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13055" LastActivityDate="2017-05-09T16:19:40.680" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17499" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17495" CreationDate="2017-05-09T20:16:48.927" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;FYI: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think you have to consider the time and place Capablanca made his comments - 1921. Although Capablanca was a brilliant player, Chess Strategy has come a long way in 96 years, and this exact position is dealt with on page 104 of John Watson's &quot;Secrets of Modern Chess Strategy&quot;, in the chapter titled &quot;Rule-Independence&quot;, The Demise of the General Rule.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He goes on to discuss the modern idea by White of 9.Ne1 Nd7 10.f3 f5 11.g4!? and white attempts to stonewall black's dogmatic kingside attack with h4 and g5, and have a free hand on the queenside with a c5 break.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just something to consider when you are in post mortem and cannot fathom how you got rolled by a plan that seemingly violated every dogma you have learned about the centre. I do cringe when I see &quot;widely accepted&quot; used to bolster some dogmatic saying from one of the old masters. In today's game, we look for ways to prove it wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Good Luck and Good Chess! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10233" LastActivityDate="2017-05-09T20:16:48.927" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17500" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17505" CreationDate="2017-05-09T20:59:56.003" Score="0" ViewCount="123" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is moving the Knight to c6 considered a stronger move than the Najdorf pawn to a6?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13250" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-05-10T06:36:11.093" LastActivityDate="2017-05-10T15:01:36.667" Title="Black's 6 move in open Sicilian" Tags="&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;&lt;najdorf&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17501" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17500" CreationDate="2017-05-09T22:15:02.897" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You probably mean Najdorf vs Classical variation in Sicilian defense:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 a6 (5... Nc6)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since they're both normal opening lines, you can't say which one is better. This is mostly matter of taste.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand on the highest level Najdorf is more played (I can't even remember a top game in the Classical variation). That means Najdorf is more trendy now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's true that Classical variation is not so attractive any more, because it is deeply analyzed. Najdorf has still a lot to offer...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13055" LastEditorUserId="13055" LastEditDate="2017-05-10T15:01:36.667" LastActivityDate="2017-05-10T15:01:36.667" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17502" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17500" CreationDate="2017-05-09T23:45:57.873" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&quot;Is moving the Knight to c6 considered a stronger move than the Najdorf pawn to a6&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You are talking about 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 Nc6, instead of 5. ... a6. ...?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If so , as stated, it is a matter of preference and style.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&quot;It's true that Classical variation is not so attractive any more, because it is deeply analyzed.&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This might be true to a professional, but hardly true to the general chess-playing public patzer you meet in OTB tourneys.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10233" LastActivityDate="2017-05-09T23:45:57.873" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17503" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17506" CreationDate="2017-05-10T05:15:11.940" Score="4" ViewCount="209" Body="&lt;p&gt;Has the dragon variation of the Sicilian defense lost favor to the Najdorf variation since I rarely see a fianchettoed bishop in the Najdorf defense&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13250" LastActivityDate="2017-05-10T08:56:56.143" Title="Open Sicilian Defense" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17504" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4588" CreationDate="2017-05-10T07:07:25.213" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Honestly I am surprised that after so many users comments that only KID,QGD,Catalan,Dutch and other defences have been mentioned but few have realised the Power of Semi Slav/Slav Defences . &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Slav/Exchange Variation and Semi Slav (Botvinnik/Meran ) are the best counter attacking defences against d4 . Ok true they have huge lengths of theory but if you study them carefully you will find that Black has an mind boggling initiative and White has a hard task to keep Black at bay . You can study Kramnik/Kasparov/Anand games where you would find interesting games and you find yourself getting attracted to these Variations . &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One more thing : You might need to learn some side-lines too as you cannot force them to limit in these openings .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastActivityDate="2017-05-10T07:07:25.213" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17505" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17500" CreationDate="2017-05-10T07:15:17.223" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;a6 is the Najdorf which is most commonly played and Nc6 is the Richter Rauzer which is not as popular like the Najdorf . &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With experience I have seen Players below 2000 ELo level do not play the Richter Rauzer variation and they are unfamiliar with this line . So if you are playing some one below that level you can give a jolt if you play the Richter line .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The common strategy for both lines is that Black will do the minority attack on the Queen side and try playing a d5 break in the Centre in most cases . &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is nothing technically stronger as which one to choose b/w a6 &amp;amp; Nc6 but it depends upon your opponents knowledge and preparation . &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastActivityDate="2017-05-10T07:15:17.223" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17506" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17503" CreationDate="2017-05-10T07:37:32.520" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Dragon Variation of Sicilian is complex and difficult to defend sometimes against White's ferocious King side attack. I will recommend Dragon to those Players only who are not timid enough to sacrifice material against activity. Since in Dragon normal theory Black does a Castling with his fianchettoed Bishop &amp;amp; the g6 pawn is hooked to White's h5 pawn sacrifice.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unlike Najdorf where White also attacks mostly on K-side but Black has equally good chances to attack White on the Q-side since with a6 on move 5th b5 from Black comes faster and dislodges the Knight on c3. In Dragon the attack from Black is somewhat slow compared to Najdorf. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Najdorf there is one variation where Black does a Fianchetto also. Below is the variation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.f4 g6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and with any other move from White like Qf3 or Be2 Black puts his Bishop on g7 .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastEditorUserId="4509" LastEditDate="2017-05-10T08:56:56.143" LastActivityDate="2017-05-10T08:56:56.143" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17507" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5710" CreationDate="2017-05-10T08:56:28.380" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Rd2 (giggling) is just a move like a computer which will not lose until it has been programmed to resign. There is nothing Black can do except run like a mouse here &amp;amp; there. White is in an extreme dominating position with his Beautiful Knight on e5 making him supreme in the Game. Question is after sacrificing the rook what black can do?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The point of this game is the exchange sacrifice on 16th move Rd3 which does not seem to be correct because white sacrificed his pawns and did not keep his weaknesses intact. He just opened up the position and Black made a tactical mistake and White trapped the queen. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks for bringing this game into concern . A lot of things to learn here .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-05T19:29:58.540" LastActivityDate="2020-03-05T19:29:58.540" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="17509" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17511" CreationDate="2017-05-10T15:36:06.393" Score="5" ViewCount="784" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Sicilian, I see white plays Bc4 after or before I castle.&#xA;I saw a lot of players responding to this move by playing e6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;rnbqkb1r/1p2pppp/p2p1n2/8/3NP3/2N5/PPP2PPP/R1BQKB1R w KQkq - 0 1&#xA;&#xA;1. Bc4 e6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this case people usually respond with e6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is good about e6?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Doesn't e6 create a weakness on d6?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13257" LastEditorUserId="4186" LastEditDate="2017-06-14T14:44:33.730" LastActivityDate="2017-06-26T17:30:31.913" Title="After Bc4, is it better to play e6 to stop the bishop?" Tags="&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17510" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-05-10T15:47:28.673" Score="7" ViewCount="1019" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was just watching a video on YouTube that analysed a game in between two chess engines. So, chess engines do find good moves but how do they manage their time when they're playing a game ? Is there any algorithm that tells them how much longer they must continue thinking till they make a move, keeping the amount of time left for them in the game in mind ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10737" LastActivityDate="2017-05-11T11:08:04.317" Title="How do chess engines manage time when they play real games?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17511" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17509" CreationDate="2017-05-10T16:10:02.350" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;You have already mentioned one good thing about &lt;code&gt;e6&lt;/code&gt;, it blocks the c4-bishop. It may not seem very important, but the white's attack on &lt;code&gt;a2-g8&lt;/code&gt; diagonal can be rather unpleasant later on, especially after white's moves &lt;code&gt;f4&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other important factor is the &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt; square. &lt;code&gt;Nd5&lt;/code&gt; can be sometimes very unpleasant, so you want to avoid it. It potentially stops even &lt;code&gt;Bd5&lt;/code&gt; (for example after b5).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black in these structure usually opts for a central break with &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;e6&lt;/code&gt; supports this plan. That's another reason for playing this move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We shouldn't also forget the fact that &lt;code&gt;e6&lt;/code&gt; allows to develop the bishop on &lt;code&gt;e7&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To the &quot;weak&quot; pawn on &lt;code&gt;d6&lt;/code&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's the deal. You protected &lt;code&gt;c5&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;f5&lt;/code&gt;, you have avoided some nasty moves like &lt;code&gt;Nd5&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;Nf5&lt;/code&gt;, you have made some space for your bishop on &lt;code&gt;f8&lt;/code&gt;... but there's a price for that. Your d-pawn has become a bit weak.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's not such a problem, though. Bishop and queen is guarding that pawn and later you can even put a rook on the d-file. Also, as I said, &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt; should be coming. That means the weak pawn won't be there forever.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would say &lt;code&gt;e6&lt;/code&gt; has many more advantages than disadvantages... so I would go for it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13055" LastActivityDate="2017-05-10T16:10:02.350" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17512" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17510" CreationDate="2017-05-10T17:03:33.887" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Tom Kerrigan's simple chess program uses a scheme to just check every 1024 nodes if a certain amount of time has passed&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;basically there is a function called think that has the following lines which we jump back to when the time is up...stop_search is set by a function called checkup()&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;/* some code that lets us longjmp back here and return&#xA;    from think() when our time is up */&#xA;    stop_search = FALSE;&#xA;    setjmp(env);&#xA;    if (stop_search) {&#xA;&#xA;        /* make sure to take back the line we were searching */&#xA;        while (ply)&#xA;            takeback();&#xA;        return;&#xA;    }    &#xA;    start_time = get_ms();&#xA;    stop_time = start_time + max_time;    &#xA;    ply = 0;&#xA;    nodes = 0;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the following lines are part of the search function that gets called by think()&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;/* do some housekeeping every 1024 nodes */&#xA;if ((nodes &amp;amp; 1023) == 0)&#xA;    checkup();&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can see that search() calls checkup() every 1024 nodes. In a more complex scheme the think function could dynamically set the amount of time for the searches. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;void checkup()&#xA;{&#xA;    /* is the engine's time up? if so, longjmp back to the&#xA;       beginning of think() */&#xA;    if (get_ms() &amp;gt;= stop_time) {&#xA;        stop_search = TRUE;&#xA;        longjmp(env, 0);&#xA;    }&#xA;}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12273" LastActivityDate="2017-05-10T17:03:33.887" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17513" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17509" CreationDate="2017-05-10T17:49:09.963" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Conceptual Question and almost answered correctly by KMartin . This variation is a favourite of Bobby Fischer and is named as Sozin Variation of Sicilian . The main point in playing e6 is Black protects the f7 square . Let's assume Black plays g6 and then White plays f4 . Black develops the Bishop on g7 . White e5 , de5 fe5 and then Qf3 . So you see that f7 is vulnerable .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One more important function is e6 protects d5 square . Study more Sicilian Schevengien games and you would know it better .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastActivityDate="2017-05-10T17:49:09.963" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17514" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13391" CreationDate="2017-05-10T18:13:11.993" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;As @saibot well said, &quot;Time control is part of chess&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, I'm sure that everyone of you had a game where the enemy played far way better and in this case I'm ok on resigning/offering draw (depend on the game) even if it's won by time because I'm used to think that I really win iff I've played better than my enemy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13258" LastActivityDate="2017-05-10T18:13:11.993" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17515" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17526" CreationDate="2017-05-10T18:44:12.700" Score="5" ViewCount="345" Body="&lt;p&gt;In bullet, blitz, and rapid chess having more time than your opponent is an advantage. I'm wondering if there have been any efforts to determine how much of a time advantage a pawn is worth. Or say a knight. Has anyone tried playing machine matches to figure this out? Since I frequently play speed chess this could be good to know. For Example: 1 pawn = 1 minute advantage in 5 min chess; 1 knight = 30 second advantage in bullet; etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12273" LastEditorUserId="12273" LastEditDate="2017-05-10T18:49:24.047" LastActivityDate="2017-05-11T23:13:39.323" Title="how much time is a pawn worth" Tags="&lt;time-control&gt;&lt;time-management&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17516" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17515" CreationDate="2017-05-10T20:10:02.640" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;You can't say that generally.&lt;/strong&gt; Apart from the fact that your pawn might be of different quality and your opponent might have some compensation for it, there is one other thing that influences the judgement.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think &lt;strong&gt;the level of players matters most&lt;/strong&gt;. One pawn is a different advantage for a club player and for a grandmaster. For example: if two grandmasters are playing a 5-minute blitz, one is pawn up and the other is a minute up (let's say the first player has 3 minutes and the second player 4 minutes), it hasn't such a big significance (extreme case is when the first player is very low on time e. g. 1 minute vs 2 minutes, that is of course something different). At the club level your estimate might be true.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another important concept is that the &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;ratio&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; of both times is more important than the &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;difference&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; between the two times (see the extreme case in the last brackets).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you tried that with computers, you would find out that it almost doesn't matter, because the machines can move almost instantly (again you probably can find some extreme corner cases).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13055" LastActivityDate="2017-05-10T20:10:02.640" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17520" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17524" CreationDate="2017-05-11T04:39:19.127" Score="4" ViewCount="633" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was analyzing a game and got stuck in this position by Re7 move. I do not want to mention the player's name. As seen in the diagram Bc5 is misleading, but Bd6 is one of the lines. Bd6 is OK, but Re7 seems inexplicable to me. Please anyone can explain??&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/DL5xJ.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/DL5xJ.png&quot; alt=&quot;Why Computer suggest Re7 when it is Black to move ?&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T18:35:16.283" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T18:35:27.497" Title="Can anyone explain why Re7 is one of the lines suggested by the computer?" Tags="&lt;positional-play&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="17521" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17510" CreationDate="2017-05-11T06:54:16.757" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Possibilities:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Number of nodes&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Fixed depth&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Fixed time&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Divide a fixed percentage of remaining time&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;By the complexity of the position&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's take a quick look at Stockfish. Briefly, the file &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/blob/d8f683760c9eb6d2c4714ec83e717dd2143de55c/src/timeman.cpp&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;timemann.cpp&lt;/a&gt; calculates the minimum time allowed for a move. The default minimum time allowed is about 20 seconds.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Later, during the &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/blob/master/src/search.cpp&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;search&lt;/a&gt; it does:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; // Stop the search if only one legal move is available, or if all&#xA; // of the available time has been used, or if we matched an easyMove&#xA; // from the previous search and just did a fast verification.&#xA;&#xA; ...&#xA;&#xA; if (   rootMoves.size() == 1&#xA;              || Time.elapsed() &amp;gt; Time.optimum() * unstablePvFactor * improvingFactor / 628&#xA;              || (mainThread-&amp;gt;easyMovePlayed = doEasyMove, doEasyMove))&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the position requires longer thinking (unstable position -&#xA; &lt;code&gt;unstablePvFactor&lt;/code&gt;), the engine would extend the search. How long it extend depend on calibrated parameters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If there is an obvious move (&lt;code&gt;doEasyMove&lt;/code&gt;), Stockfish plays it immediately.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2017-05-11T11:08:04.317" LastActivityDate="2017-05-11T11:08:04.317" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17522" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17515" CreationDate="2017-05-11T06:57:57.020" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It entirely depends upon the Position that you are playing . Let's assume that it is an end game and your Pawn is on the 7th Rank and about to Queen next move &amp;amp; you have 1 min of time left in the clock . Your Opponent is unable to stop it from Queening and trying to find safe squares . Then your Pawn and time are equally important .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the initial position you may play gambits such as a Pawn to make your opponent think and gain time on clock . So there is no simple equation which will lead to a concrete evaluation . There can be many different examples where time and piece are directly &amp;amp; indirectly proportional to each other .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastActivityDate="2017-05-11T06:57:57.020" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17523" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17525" CreationDate="2017-05-11T09:51:51.310" Score="1" ViewCount="198" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm interested in the Russian system of the &lt;a href=&quot;/questions/tagged/grunfeld-defense&quot; class=&quot;post-tag&quot; title=&quot;show questions tagged &amp;#39;grunfeld-defense&amp;#39;&quot; rel=&quot;tag&quot;&gt;grunfeld-defense&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[StartPly &quot;10&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 d54. Nf3 Bg7 5. Qb3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd like to buy a book on this line alone (I'm not interested in books offering other mainlines, as I much prefer the Russian).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's when I came across &lt;em&gt;Grunfeld Defense: Russian Variations&lt;/em&gt; (1988) by Eric Schiller for sale on Amazon.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My problem is that I don't know what I'm buying, as there are no reviews, previews, blurb, contents or even number of pages for me to weigh up the benefits of purchasing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, my questions are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;What does the book cover?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Can you provide a review of the book?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Would you recommend any other resources specifically for the Russian system?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2017-05-12T10:57:32.567" Title="What is covered in &quot;Grunfeld Defense: Russian Variations&quot; (1988) by Eric Schiller?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;books&gt;&lt;grunfeld-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17524" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17520" CreationDate="2017-05-11T10:41:30.687" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Protecting bishop for case Ne4 Nxe4 dxe4 and having f7 covered is also useful. Calm position, no need to hurry. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11609" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T18:35:27.497" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T18:35:27.497" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="17525" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17523" CreationDate="2017-05-11T11:07:10.807" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is D96/D97 classification - ECO D would be your best bet. It would be comprehensive in variations but in Chess Informant style. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would add this:&#xA;Even though Eric Schiller is somewhat known for his error-prone books, this book &lt;em&gt;is&lt;/em&gt; in it's second edition. I would venture to say that, as far as Schiller books go, it might not be all that bad. It really depends on your playing level. If you are a relatively weak player (say, 1400 rating or less), I'm sure it is fine to get your feet wet using this book. It is important to know how not to play an opening as well as know how to play it. It might be a good jumping off point for the opening. Of course, get an inexpensive used copy if possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Good luck!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10233" LastEditorUserId="10233" LastEditDate="2017-05-12T10:57:32.567" LastActivityDate="2017-05-12T10:57:32.567" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17526" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17515" CreationDate="2017-05-11T11:39:46.793" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a well known quote about pawns and tempi:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A pawn is worth three tempi&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So a pawn is worth 3 good, developing moves. Given that most games are 40 moves long then for bullet and blitz we have:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Bullet&lt;/strong&gt;: 1 minute for all moves per side implies 1/40 minute per move, implying a pawn is worth 3/40' = 0.075' = 4.5''&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Blitz&lt;/strong&gt;: 5 minutes for all moves per side implies 5/40 minute per move, implying a pawn is worth 3*5/40' = 0.375' = 22.5''&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a rough guide and the value of a pawn varies by position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2017-05-11T11:39:46.793" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17527" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17565" CreationDate="2017-05-11T15:43:37.250" Score="5" ViewCount="347" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know there are some really old games on the internet there , but are there records of any really good/great games played in the ancient style of chess ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This style had rules like pawns could move only one square at a time.&#xA;Rook's pawn promotion would be a rook , bishop's pawn would be bishop etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8558" LastActivityDate="2017-07-27T18:28:01.200" Title="Ancient style chess games?" Tags="&lt;famous-games&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17528" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4896" CreationDate="2017-05-11T17:05:57.387" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is some discussion of this position with Kasparov from the Chess24 website:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess24.com/en/read/news/kasparov-conversation-with-tyler-cowen&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Kasparov taps So to challenge Carlsen&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10233" LastActivityDate="2017-05-11T17:05:57.387" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17530" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13605" CreationDate="2017-05-11T20:02:11.133" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The terms &lt;em&gt;flanking&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;flanking maneuver&lt;/em&gt; are distinguishably (by a word) different.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The latter refers to &lt;em&gt;outflanking&lt;/em&gt;, i.e. enveloping the target (a square, an opponent's pawn, or an opponent's piece) so it cannot escape from being controlled or captured. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The maneuver is analogous to a policeman trapping a perpetrator in an alleyway.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13147" LastActivityDate="2017-05-11T20:02:11.133" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17531" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17515" CreationDate="2017-05-11T23:13:39.323" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, at least we know that &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUr_gdKQ8j4&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;relinquishing your ability to draw counts as 16% of the opponent's time.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13147" LastActivityDate="2017-05-11T23:13:39.323" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17532" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17523" CreationDate="2017-05-11T23:43:16.630" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;While I'm unfamiliar with the book, it was published in 1988.  A 29 year old opening book it obsolete and shouldn't be studied. There are more recent books on the Grunfeld that cover the Russian variation, albeit from the black side.  You could also search for chess videos on that variation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9321" LastActivityDate="2017-05-11T23:43:16.630" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17534" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11104" CreationDate="2017-05-12T07:06:02.157" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess tactics frame different positions which we sometimes come across the Board . It may be Double attack , fork , Pin and many others . Just solving the Chess tactics lone is never the measurement because when you solve a tactic you know already that there is a sacrificial or a combinational move which will make you win or help to solve the tactic . In real games sometimes you even get an easy position but you fail to find the best move OTB . &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Solving tactics just make you at ease that you are doing something and practicing Chess but it is never the complete homework to make the best judgement .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A different way to find the performance measurement is that how good you are making a calculation or even finding your own weaknesses in specific patterns . like for an example you have a habit of leaving your piece hanging in your own games . So you must solve tactics relating to Hanging pieces which will help to improve your weak point . They say in whichever tactic you find it difficult to solve you have a weakness in that area . &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastActivityDate="2017-05-12T07:06:02.157" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17535" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17540" CreationDate="2017-05-12T13:31:56.707" Score="4" ViewCount="1237" Body="&lt;p&gt;I do the research on a difference of players' behaviour on different levels. There is no problem to find games with players rated over 2000 ELO but I lack those below 2000. Does anybody know a source with such games?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8707" LastActivityDate="2017-07-17T15:01:27.067" Title="PGN database with games of players with ELO 1000 - 2000" Tags="&lt;pgn&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17536" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17537" CreationDate="2017-05-12T13:56:27.267" Score="8" ViewCount="466" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the position given by the moves below, checking the DB, I can see that Nh5 is far more common than Ne8. When is generally Nh5 the better idea compared to Ne8, given the weaknesses of the knight on h5, namely the fact that after black pushes f5, if white the takes exf5 and black recaptures (typically) with the g pawn, there is tactics in the air due to the fact that the black knight on h5 is now unprotected?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;*&quot;]&#xA;[StartPly &quot;7&quot;]&#xA;1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.e4 d6 5.Nf3 O-O 6.h3 e5 7.d5 *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12953" LastEditorUserId="12953" LastEditDate="2017-05-12T14:14:12.187" LastActivityDate="2017-05-13T08:19:10.260" Title="King's Indian defense: When is Nh5 the better option to prepare f5" Tags="&lt;kings-indian&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17537" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17536" CreationDate="2017-05-12T17:04:34.543" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The reason for playing ...Nh5 is to have the option of playing ...Nf4, where ...exf4 would unleash his usually bad KID bishop. Case in point is the Bayonet Attack:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;*&quot;]&#xA;1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 Bg7 4. e4 d6 5. Nf3 O-O 6. Be2 e5 7. O-O Nc6 8. d5 Ne7 9. b4 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The main move is 9...Nh5, where in some lines black plays for ...Nf4, where a move like Bxf4 would be made worse by the fact that the absence of the b2 pawn gives even more potential to black's dark-squared bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your suspicion that the Nh5 can be loose is correct; note that in the line you describe, black needs to play ...Qe8 before going for ...f5, but on the other hand, 7...Nh5 disturbs white's position, as immediately developing the f1 bishop runs into 8...Nf4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Generally, black would prefer ...Nh5 because it's more active; when it's not possible (say in the main line after 9.Ne1), ...Nd7 works to slow down white's c5, and ...Ne8 allows it, but can defend d6 and c7 (which can be important as white often goes for c5, cxd6, Nb5, Nc4 and Rc1).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyway, the differences between each choice of knight move are theoretically rather subtle, as you often find the knight moving back into f6; that said, picking the 'wrong' square gives white the option of changing his plan. In other words, one could probably argue, in some sense, that you don't pick the option that is favorable, but rather eliminate those that are not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, back to the Bayonet Attack, after the main move 9...Nh5, white plays 10.Re1 to meet 10...Nf4 with 11.Bf1, and now 11...f5 runs into 12.Bxf4 and 13.e5. So the main line runs 10...f5 11.Ng5, and black can go for 11...Nf4 here, but it's not clearly favorable to 11...Nf6 (which is in fact the main move; ...Nf4 is considered a serious alternative). That said, 9...Nd7 is considered inaccurate, and white can attempt to highlight this with 10.a4, and simply carry on with his queenside attack (10.Nd2, which transposes to positions reached through 9.Nd2, sort of lets black off the hook, as white had no immediate motivation to move his king's knight, as black is not 'threatening' 10...Nh5)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A theoretical note: the immediate 9.Ne1 and 9.Nd2 were the old main lines as white wanted to stop 9...Nh5; the modern Bayonet Attack argues that white can allow it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7473" LastEditorUserId="7473" LastEditDate="2017-05-13T08:19:10.260" LastActivityDate="2017-05-13T08:19:10.260" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17538" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16944" CreationDate="2017-05-12T21:31:04.003" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This &quot;script&quot; is a command universal to all chess clients that run FICS, because it is a FICS command.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;alias &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Usage: alias [word [string]] &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &quot;alias&quot; command sets up a command alias so that 'word' is equivalent to typing 'string'. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PARAMETERS ---------- &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;alias: If no parameter is supplied all of your aliases are displayed. word: The word for the alias. If 'string' is not supplied it lists the command associated with 'word'. string: The command string to use for the alias. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EXTRA INFO ---------- &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In order for an alias to actually do something, the server has to process each command you type. This is what happens: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If your command begins with a $, no alias substitution is done. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The first word is compared against your &quot;alias&quot; list, looking for a match. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The first word is compared against the server aliases, looking for a match. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If no match is found, the word is compared against the server commands. This means you can overwrite server commands with an alias. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;SUBSTITUTION ------------ If the first word of your command matches an alias, it is replaced with the alias 'string'. The rest of what you type is substituted into the alias as 'parameters'. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can access these parameters with special characters. They all start with an $. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;$$ Replace with a $ (let's you use a '$' in the new command &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;$@ Replace with all parameters typed after 'word' &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;$n Replace with parameter number n &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;$-n Replace with all parameters 1 through n &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;$n Replace with all parameters from n onward &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;$m Replace with my name &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;$o Replace with my (last) opponent's name &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;$p Replace with my partner's name &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;$. Replace with the last person I told to &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;$, Replace with the last channel I told to &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;SPECIAL NOTES ------------- &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Use the &quot;unalias&quot; command to remove an alias. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;You may not create an alias for the quit command, or for the unalias command. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;A list of system aliases is available from the help system_alias file. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You can not put multiple commands with one alias. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Aliases are not transitional. This sequence of commands alias foo bar alias bar baz Will NOT result in foo being equivalent to baz. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;WARNING: Be careful to avoid using an alias that can also stand for another command on the server. For example, &quot;fg&quot; could be a chess move (for f-pawn X g-pawn), so don't have &quot;fg&quot; be an alias. For similar reasons, it would not be best to use &quot;t&quot; as an alias since it is already assigned as an alias for &quot;tell&quot;. You could do so, of course; but then you would not be able to use the system alias for tell unless you unalias your alias. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EXAMPLES -------- Some examples for useful aliases. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;alias gm say Good move! If you type 'gm' it will say 'Good move!' to your opponent. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;alias gg say Good game, $o! If you type 'gg' it will say 'Good game, !' &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;alias greet it waves at $1. How are you? $2- You can type 'greet playername Enjoy dinner?' and it will shout '--&gt; yourname waves at playername! How are you? Enjoy dinner?'. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;alias afk set busy is away for a bit Sets your busy string to 'is away for a bit' if you type 'afk' alias s1 seek 5 0 blitz f m If you type 's1' it will &quot;seek&quot; a 5 0 blitz game to all those who match your formula and set it to manual verification. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;alias sf seek $1 $2 f Typing 'sf 3 0' will seek a 3 0 game and your opponent must fit your formula. 'sf 2 12' will seek a 2 12 game restricted to your formula. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;alias 50 xtell 50 $@ You can now chat in channel 50 by typing in '50 whatever you want to say'. By using xtell the ',' system alias will allow fast communications to another channel. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;SEE ALSO -------- system_alias unalias &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;AUTHORS ------- Created: 22 February 2002 DAV Last Modified: 30 December 2007 mhill&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13147" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-12-23T18:20:20.323" LastActivityDate="2019-12-23T18:20:20.323" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="17539" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17535" CreationDate="2017-05-13T10:23:52.940" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The reason nobody has gone to the trouble of collecting games of sub 2000 players is because the quality is not expected to be high and not because they are not available.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course the FIDE rating rules also mean that fewer of these games are saved in the first place. For all events where norms are available the arbiter must send in to FIDE a pgn file with all the games. This is for the obvious reason of preventing fraud with title norms.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For FIDE rated tournaments where norms are not available (in other words the ones with few higher rated players and lots of lower rated ones) sending in this file to FIDE is optional. Still some arbiters do it although many, maybe most, do not because it is a lot of (unpaid) work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, these games are out there. You will find them for individual tournaments on the FIDE rating site and sites like chess-results.com (because a large number of arbiters use the Swiss Manager pairing program which works with chess-results.com). I believe sites like chess-db.com periodically look at these sites and collect games. You can find games for named individuals by searching the chess-db.com site.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In short nobody has done the hard work for you of collecting all these games into a sub-2000 database but games are out there if you want to do the work yourself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2017-05-13T10:23:52.940" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17540" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17535" CreationDate="2017-05-13T14:35:47.720" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can find a large collection of games played on FICS archived from the superb site: &lt;a href=&quot;http://ficsgames.org/download.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;ficsgames.org&lt;/a&gt; Here you can find downloads of games based on rating category and type of games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: Now we also have LiChess giving out all games! Check out &lt;a href=&quot;https://database.lichess.org&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;database.lichess.org&lt;/a&gt;. Even though it is not already categorized into Elo, you can easily do it via a pgn parser program. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3158" LastEditorUserId="3158" LastEditDate="2017-07-17T15:01:27.067" LastActivityDate="2017-07-17T15:01:27.067" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17541" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17554" CreationDate="2017-05-13T20:47:58.170" Score="6" ViewCount="753" Body="&lt;p&gt;Back when I was in high school, I played chess with a group of other students. One of the students would pick on me sometimes. Once, we decided to play and he cornered me into a forced mate in two. Before the threat turned into the final execution however, I swept my arm across the chessboard vehemently, blasting the pieces across the room. Needless to say, he got very mad. I spontaneously kept doing this for a few more games (to my sole entertainment).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Curt von Bardeleben is known as the opponent who never returned. After move 25 in the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1132699&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Battle of Hastings&lt;/a&gt;, Steinitz's opponent mysteriously disappeared:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;At this point, Steinitz's opponent left the tournament hall and never reappeared. By these offensive means he hoped to deprive Steinitz of 'a piece of immortality', ... - Art of Attack, V. Vukovic. pp 21&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are some of the most unsportsmanlike manners witnessed in over-the-board chess play?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13147" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T16:48:22.417" Title="What are some of the most unsportsmanlike conducts witnessed in over-the-board play?" Tags="&lt;sportsmanship&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17542" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17545" CreationDate="2017-05-13T20:53:19.940" Score="2" ViewCount="1299" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have some good quality chess books and of course use the chess board to follow all chess game examples and variations provided. However I noticed that it is quite a tiring activity as it takes time and I do sometimes lose  the sequence of moves as I lose focus when switching between board and the book.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not long ago I found that there are ebooks (CBH, CBV and PGN file format) which allow to &quot;read&quot; books on a chess application (chessbase, fritz etc) and examines provided using software. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The question I want to ask actually about learning: do you learn more by physically interacting with the pieces (reading book and moving pieces) or you find yourself learning more and quicker by interacting with the software while going through variations?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9151" LastEditorUserId="10233" LastEditDate="2017-05-14T13:30:17.333" LastActivityDate="2017-05-15T07:02:27.633" Title="Learning chess over the board vs using software" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;books&gt;&lt;otb-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17543" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17541" CreationDate="2017-05-14T00:48:00.863" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;Blackburne made an insulting remark, Steinitz spat towards him – though not necessarily hitting him – and Blackburne smashed him in the face with his fist. It happened at the City of London Chess Club.&quot; (From Edward Winter's excellent &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/extra/violence.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chesshistory.com&lt;/a&gt; site)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7534" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-12-11T22:17:44.140" LastActivityDate="2019-12-11T22:17:44.140" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="17544" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17542" CreationDate="2017-05-14T06:19:26.620" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;You always pay attention when moving heavy wooden pieces. Work with PC can be faster but make sure you don't do it too superficially. Sometimes I just wheel the mouse, listen to the music and after checking twenty games of my opponent I don't know what is his first move. I like the old style learning, it isn't that powerful technically but still it can produce better results. The faster you play the lines, the less understanding you will get. That's why real pieces and books are not dead for training. I would go for watching videos on pc but I think I wouldn't read ebook on it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11609" LastActivityDate="2017-05-14T06:19:26.620" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17545" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17542" CreationDate="2017-05-14T06:59:14.247" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think playing a PGN helps me more. Often I will be curious why a side line doesn't work, and often that is as revealing as the main analysis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, there's opportunity for abuse with anything as powerful as a chess engine reading through moves, but that's the case for any powerful technology. So maybe the question is not so much which is more powerful but how to blend things effectively, which is different for everyone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This may seem like a cop-out, though. You never get a second chance to get a good first look at a position or game to assess your weaknesses/strengths honestly, so it seems like a first pass without an engine, then a second pass with an engine to clean up what you missed, would be best.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I would set a specific amount of time for if you get stuck on something and can't figure it out (e.g. why did White, or the book, not consider a certain move,) and if you can't figure it out, use a chess engine on it. I use similar procedure for learning how to code. I note my tries that didn't work, and then stackoverflow often has several ways to look at things, so I can see &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11202" LastActivityDate="2017-05-14T06:59:14.247" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17546" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17542" CreationDate="2017-05-14T07:14:03.593" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Personally, I prefer using a computer, especially when going through highly theoretical openings, because often a small difference between two positions result in a different consensus for the preferred treatment. As such, you'd not only want to be able to quickly transition between these positions in order to compare them, but you'll also want an engine that could often tell you why one move works in one position but fails in a similar one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's an example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 g6 6.Be3 Bg7 7.f3 O-O 8.Qd2 Nc6 9.O-O-O d5 10.exd5 Nxd5 11.Nxc6 bxc6 12.Nxd5 cxd5 13.Qxd5 Qc7 14.Qxa8 Bf5 15.Qxf8+ Kxf8&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;is generally regarded as good for black, whereas&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 g6 6.Be3 Bg7 7.Be2 O-O 8.Qd2 Nc6 9.O-O-O d5 10.exd5 Nxd5 11.Nxc6 bxc6 12.Nxd5 cxd5 13.Qxd5 Qc7 14.Qxa8 Bf5 15.Qxf8+ Kxf8&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;is preferred for white. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You could of course look at this over the board (in this case, the only difference is a white pawn on f3 and a bishop on c1 versus the pawn remaining on f2 and the bishop on e2) and try to figure out why the evaluations differ, but being told (likely by the engine) that 16.Bd3 runs into 16...Qe5 in only one of these lines isn't going to hurt your absorption of opening knowledge, and saves you the time taken to look for a tactic that is almost part the theory itself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, if you're doing puzzles/tactics, you &lt;em&gt;need&lt;/em&gt; to use a board to simulate thinking in a real game (whereas while studying openings, it's more of understanding and memorizing theory that has been developed by others, than trying to find an idea by yourself).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Middlegame-oriented books are somewhat in the middle ground: variations in these books either have a ton of branches (computers let you traverse these quickly), or skip over weak lines whose refutation is not immediately clear to weaker players (the engine gives you an immediate answer). Having said so, it might be better for your development to just take your time with these positions over the board, and try to answer any questions yourself, before asking the engine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In summary, use computers in cases where you need to move quickly between variations and get insight from the engine, and on the other hand, do things over the board in cases where you need to think for yourself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7473" LastActivityDate="2017-05-14T07:14:03.593" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17547" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17548" CreationDate="2017-05-14T10:09:37.023" Score="8" ViewCount="1197" Body="&lt;p&gt;After black moved his rook, what would you do as white? I did not find the best move according to the chess engine; I'm wondering what ideas you have.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;1r2k2r/p1Q5/3p1qn1/4npp1/7p/1B6/PP1B1PPP/R3R1K1 b K - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Rbd8&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13280" LastEditorDisplayName="user1108" LastEditDate="2017-06-14T14:20:14.563" LastActivityDate="2017-06-15T09:22:53.347" Title="What would you do in this situation?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17548" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17547" CreationDate="2017-05-14T10:27:38.970" Score="19" Body="&lt;p&gt;Black's queen is the only defender for the mate on f7 (the knight on e5 is pinned). This makes Bxg5 a very attractive move, as the black queen has nowhere to go (the only safe spot, Qf8, is met with Qxd8 and mate).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;3rk2r/p1Q5/3p1qn1/4npp1/7p/1B6/PP1B1PPP/R3R1K1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Bxg5!&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black can chase the white queen for a couple of moves but his position will collapse very soon.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2017-05-14T10:27:38.970" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17549" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5543" CreationDate="2017-05-14T11:00:34.750" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sergey Tiviakov in the latest number of New in Chess (2017/3):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;It is a well-known fact that I am the official world record holder, as I played 110 tournament games without a defeat in the period 2004-2005. That streak lasted for 11 months. In that period I played a lot against world top players like Aronian, Radjabov, Ivanchuk and Carlsen (just to name a few).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chessbase has now published Tiviakov's 110 games in a row without a loss: &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.chessbase.com/post/ding-defeated&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Ding defeated! Tiviakov celebrates!&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1485" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2018-11-12T21:40:11.123" LastActivityDate="2018-11-12T21:40:11.123" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="17550" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-05-14T18:32:44.030" Score="7" ViewCount="6219" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been playing chess since my childhood however just recently got into chess very seriously and my online balance was approx. 90-60 out of 150 games and then I lost 25 games due to a broken phone. Now I'm rated 1323 and my balance is 118-96 rising drastically from 1116 a month ago. Currently I'm playing 20 games and winning in about 16 of them. I have been playing very well since learning new openings. So I would say I'm experienced online when I have been challenging people and mostly I am the white player which I do play very well as against &gt;1400 using Stonewall as white and generally winning 9 out of 10 games. Recently I have been using Kopec system vs Sicilian defence players and wrecking my opponents. But I have been playing as black more often now for overall game development and started using Sicilian def. but found that playing against &lt;code&gt;1.d4&lt;/code&gt; gives me serious trouble and confusion of how I should play it. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. d4 c5 2. dxc5 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;leaves me in an inferior pawn position and enemy queen staring me down &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am more a tactician and I set up position rather than setting up traps or use an exchange of pieces to gain center board position until I have better position/castle and I am up on pawns/pieces and then gg.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13284" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-05-14T20:33:56.967" LastActivityDate="2020-09-30T17:52:15.260" Title="What to play vs. 1. d4 when Sicilian is my favorite defense?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;&lt;1.d4&gt;&lt;stonewall-attack&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17551" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17550" CreationDate="2017-05-14T20:00:39.203" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can play the Stonewall defence with black as well, as &lt;code&gt;quid&lt;/code&gt; suggested. You can start with a Dutch and get the familiar structure (just an example):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. d4 f5 2. c4 e6 3. g3 Nf6 4. Bg2 d5. Nf3 c6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or you can play as you have shown and don't have to worry about &lt;code&gt;dxc5&lt;/code&gt; (it actually isn't such a good move):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. d4 c5 2. dxc5?! e6 3. Nc3 (3. b4? a5 4. c3?? axb4 5. cxb4 Qf6-+) Bxc5=&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If this variation was your only problem, it should be solved now... :-)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you don't mind playing Benoni or the Benko gambit I would stick with this variation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13055" LastActivityDate="2017-05-14T20:00:39.203" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17552" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17555" CreationDate="2017-05-15T00:39:08.307" Score="3" ViewCount="401" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am looking for the PGN file corresponding to Watson's strategic chess opening repertoire for white; is it available? If the PGN is not available, I would be interested to know what other opening books have a PGN companion available. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;as a side note I've though about writing a python script to read in chess books as PDF and extracting the variations as PGN. Has anyone done this yet?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12273" LastEditorUserId="12273" LastEditDate="2017-05-15T01:04:08.650" LastActivityDate="2017-05-15T11:58:50.567" Title="Watson's strategic chess pgn file" Tags="&lt;pgn&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17553" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17542" CreationDate="2017-05-15T07:02:27.633" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Chess Software especially with .pgn .cbh files have become very handy and is easy user friendly compared to the old style of reading books . Chess has an in depth knowledge and it takes years to master them . Unless you are residing in a City where there are good Chess Clubs with coaches and you are alone and you have time enough it would be easier to have Softwares which makes your life easier . Let me give you my own example . I learned Chess all by myself and my rating is approx. 1850-2100 range in different Chess websites I do not have any Chess coach at all . I find it is very easy learning through the available Softwares . I do not have time to visit a coach where they charge also higher.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now what I miss is OTB (Over the Board Play ) which I do only a few times in a year in Practical Tournaments. Having an online advanced Chess rating in your PC in your comfortable AC room does not mean that you would be the same in OTB play where a crowd of 500-1000 players also caters to the environment , so these are absolutely two different things . OTB is essential before you step in to any Tournaments .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You will see many experts will also second the fact that Practical Tournament Play OTB is different and good in learning especially with Masters as compared to just be isolated with Chess Software.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastActivityDate="2017-05-15T07:02:27.633" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17554" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17541" CreationDate="2017-05-15T11:24:31.947" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here are some examples of unsporting behaviour I have heard of before:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Kicking opponent under the table (from Josh Waitzkin in the Chessmaster tutorials)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;(Added for interest) Running down the clock in correspondence chess with the aim of waiting for an opponent to die of old age (this shouldn't be a major issue under the ICCF, as games with deceased players are now cancelled or substitutes are called, but they could be misrecorded as a loss on time)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Using an iPhone for analysis (hat tip to @SmallChess)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2017-05-15T11:24:31.947" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17555" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17552" CreationDate="2017-05-15T11:58:50.567" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Given that PGN files are just plain text, then you can create your own.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portable_Game_Notation&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;wikipedia&lt;/a&gt; you need 7 tags:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;PGN data for archival storage is required to provide seven bracketed fields, referred to as &quot;tags&quot;...:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Event&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Site&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Date: the starting date of the game, in YYYY.MM.DD form. ?? is used for unknown values&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Round&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;White: the player of the white pieces, in Lastname, Firstname format.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Black: the player of the black pieces, same format as White.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Result: the result of the game. This can only have four possible values: 1-0 (White won), 0-1 (Black won), 1/2-1/2 (Draw), or * (other, e.g., the game is ongoing).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An example might be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[Event &quot;QGA: Main line with 7.Bd3&quot;] &lt;br/&gt;&#xA;[Site &quot;?&quot;] &lt;br/&gt;&#xA;[Date &quot;????.??.??&quot;] &lt;br/&gt;&#xA;[Round &quot;?&quot;] &lt;br/&gt;&#xA;[White &quot;Me&quot;] &lt;br/&gt;&#xA;[Black &quot;The other guy&quot;] &lt;br/&gt;&#xA;[Result &quot;*&quot;] &lt;br/&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;d4 d5 2. c4 dxc4 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. e3 e6 5. Bxc4 c5 6. O-O a6 7. Bd3 *&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2017-05-15T11:58:50.567" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17556" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17541" CreationDate="2017-05-15T18:11:00.460" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a book on the topic.  &quot;Underhanded Chess: A Hilarious Handbook of Devious Diversions and Stratagems for Winning at Chess&quot;, by Jerry Sohl.  It was originally published in the '70s, but apparently has been picked up again by a publisher and is available from on-line booksellers.  Bobby Fischer, naturally, gets a lot of ink from the author.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12084" LastActivityDate="2017-05-15T18:11:00.460" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17557" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17558" CreationDate="2017-05-15T19:15:28.533" Score="2" ViewCount="185" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the following photograph, Alekhine decided to move his king to c3 before playing it to b3. Afterwards he moved his king back to the starting point, i.e. e2. Why didn't he just play b3 right away, which is so much easier?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The game can be found &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1012117&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here on chessgames.com&lt;/a&gt;.In the current postion, it is Alekhine’s 34th move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Alexander Alekhine-Max Euwe, London England, 8/4/1922&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[startply &quot;66&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 Nf6 2. Nf3 g6 3. Bf4 Bg7 4. Nbd2 c5 5. e3 d6 6. c3 Nc6 7. h3 O-O 8. Bc4 Re8 9. O-O e5 10. dxe5 Nxe5 11. Bxe5 dxe5 12. Ng5 Be6 13. Bxe6 fxe6 14. Nde4 Nxe4 15. Qxd8 Rexd8 16. Nxe4 b6 17. Rfd1 Kf8 18. Kf1 Ke7 19. c4 h6 20. Ke2 Rxd1 21. Rxd1 Rb8 22. Rd3 Bh8 23. a4 Rc8 24. Rb3 Kd7 25. a5 Kc6 26. axb6 axb6 27. Ra3 Bg7 28. Ra7 Rc7 29. Ra8 Re7 30. Rc8+ Kd7 31. Rg8 Kc6 32. h4 Kc7 33. g4 Kc6 34. Kd3 Rd7+ 35. Kc3 Rf7 36. b3 Kc7 37. Kd3 Rd7+ 38. Ke2 Rf7 39. Nc3 Re7 40. g5 hxg5 41. hxg5 Kc6 42. Kd3 Rd7+ 43. Ke4 Rb7 44. Nb5 Re7 45. f3 Kd7 46. Rb8 Kc6 47. Rc8+ Kd7 48. Rc7+ Kd8 49. Rc6 Rb7 50. Rxe6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13147" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-12-11T23:00:49.573" LastActivityDate="2019-12-11T23:00:49.573" Title="Why did Alekhine decide to move his king to c3 before playing b3?" Tags="&lt;positional-play&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="17558" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17557" CreationDate="2017-05-15T19:42:30.060" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;He probably wanted to make the time control which is usually on the 40th move before making any comittal decisions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8258" LastActivityDate="2017-05-15T19:42:30.060" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17560" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14243" CreationDate="2017-05-16T02:08:23.997" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You are prepared for popular opening lines as you studied guides about them, but you are lost when you are out of the book. This indicates that you lack opening strategy and piece improving skills and you should work on  them. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Memorizing and playing best opening moves won't help you to improve your chess. Actually, if you don't understand why a particular move is the best, you can't take advantage of resulting position. Let's say you played perfectly in the opening, after the opening you are on your own and you have to take advantage of resulting position, but you won't be able to as you don't understand deeply what you achieved in the opening so far. So instead, you should improve your overall chess ability to be able to play in any random position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For this very reason, Fischer suggested 960Chess. He was complaining about that chess is getting more and more an opening memorizing game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9030" LastActivityDate="2017-05-16T02:08:23.997" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17561" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-05-16T03:19:51.027" Score="3" ViewCount="168" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1019420&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Andersson gives Karpov two tempi&lt;/a&gt; (Na6-b4-a6-b4). Understandably, he moved his knight to b4 initially to attack the white bishop. But then he moved it back and forth! It was &lt;strong&gt;the 32nd move&lt;/strong&gt; when he did this, so it is possible that it was due to time. Is there a subtler intention?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13147" LastActivityDate="2017-05-16T21:24:11.257" Title="Why did Andersson waste two tempi in this game?" Tags="&lt;positional-play&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17562" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17561" CreationDate="2017-05-16T03:56:28.287" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;Na6-b4-a6-b4&lt;/code&gt; was a waiting strategy. Black lacked counterplay in the position, and there wasn't much else to do. ...Nxf3+ was a possibility but it would just open the g-file for White's rook.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2017-05-16T03:56:28.287" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17563" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4385" CreationDate="2017-05-16T06:35:29.597" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You may want to download this free Creatica chess game analyzer for Windows for your pgn games &lt;a href=&quot;http://chessgame-analyzer.creatica.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://chessgame-analyzer.creatica.org/&lt;/a&gt; Just right click on your pgn file and choose &quot;Analyze with Stockfish&quot;. The result will be opened in your default pgn GUI; for example, in SCID vs PC or Chessbase. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13293" LastActivityDate="2017-05-16T06:35:29.597" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17564" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14243" CreationDate="2017-05-16T08:05:49.823" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you face something unexpected in the opening it is important to &lt;strong&gt;stay calm.&lt;/strong&gt; It is unlikely that the new move is a super-strong novelty which will make you lose immediately. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also you should avoid getting into the opposite mindset. We all know that things like the Grob are bad for white, but this does not mean that you can easily refute it and get a winning position. In many cases what you get even with perfect play is just a small advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From a chess point of view, if you don't know theory you have to play on &lt;strong&gt;general principles and avoid tactical traps&lt;/strong&gt;. Training both of these will help you not only when you encounter new openings, but also when playing the openings you know after you run out of book moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also in many cases, particularly in less ambitious irregular openings, you can just play a &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;system&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; that you are familiar with: e.g. (depending on the situation) a Sicilian dragon setup or a Kings Indian or...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2017-05-16T08:05:49.823" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17565" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17527" CreationDate="2017-05-16T10:39:07.177" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;TL;DR:&lt;/strong&gt; there are recorded games for Shatranj from the 10th century onward, but I haven't found the variant asked for by the OP.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The earliest recorded game of &lt;em&gt;modern&lt;/em&gt; chess was 1475:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1475: Castellvi-Vinoles, Valencia 1475. The first documented chess game played with the modern queen and bishop moves; the moves were described in the poem Scachs d'amor.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_chess_games&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Going to the predecessor of modern chess we have Shatranj:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The earliest listing of works on chess [Shatranj] is in the &lt;strong&gt;Fihrist&lt;/strong&gt;, a general bibliography produced in 377 AH (988 AD) by Ibn al-Nadim. It includes an entire section on the topic of chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shatranj#Mansubat&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess2u.com/t8826-oldest-recorded-chess-game&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chess2u.com&lt;/a&gt; provides, what they claim to be, the oldest recorded chess game (10th century):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;f3 f6 2. f4 f5 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. g3 g6 5. Rg1 Rg8 6. h3 h6 7. e3 e6 8. g4 fxg4 9. hxg4 g5 10. fxg5 hxg5 11. d3 d6 12. e4 e5 13. Be3 Be6 14. Nxg5 Ke7 15. c3 Nxg4 16. Ke2 c6 17. d4 d5 18. b3 b6 19. Nd2 Nd7 20. Qc2 Qc7 21. Qd3 Qd6 22. Ndf3 Ndf6 23. Bh3 Bh6 24. Bf5 Bf4 25. Rac1 a6 26. c4 Rac8 27. c5 bxc5 28. Bxc5 Ke8 29. dxe5 Nxe5 30. Nxe6 Rxg1 31. Rxg1 Nxf3 32. Kxf3 1-0 (Black resigns)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However I haven't found any sources for the variant you mention.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2017-05-16T10:39:07.177" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17566" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-05-16T14:23:28.707" Score="6" ViewCount="1069" Body="&lt;p&gt;My 5 year old son is showing immense interest in chess. I play with him and he has joined an after school class for chess. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was told to buy the book by Polgar. He is solving the mate in one puzzles.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I just let him play and have fun. Any suggestions to help me develop his game?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13295" LastActivityDate="2017-05-28T20:26:08.070" Title="5 year old chess" Tags="&lt;teaching&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17568" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14243" CreationDate="2017-05-16T21:18:04.433" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I used to play 1.b4 with some regularity and success. It worked extremely well against two kinds of opponent. One kind reacts by going on the defensive, and playing safety-first moves which give them a cramped position. The other kind believes that they can find a refutation over the board, consumes a great deal of time, and eventually gets nowhere (I would not play anything actually known to be refutable.) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The sensible reaction is not to get into obscure tactics that your opponent&#xA;is likely to be prepared for. However, if you play well, you are probably under less pressure than you would be in a mainstream opening. So you may be able to choose slightly more aggressive piece placements than you normally would, such as Bd6 rather then Be7.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you allow your normal thinking style to be disrupted by an unusual opening, then your opponent has already achieved one of their main objectives&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastActivityDate="2017-05-16T21:18:04.433" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17569" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17561" CreationDate="2017-05-16T21:24:11.257" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In &quot;Anatoly Karpov: My 300 Best Games&quot; Karpov gives 31...Nb4?! as a dubious move, and suggests 31...Rb4 instead, with the clear idea that Bxb4 cxb4 and Nc5 gives black a bind on the queenside.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10233" LastActivityDate="2017-05-16T21:24:11.257" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17570" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17589" CreationDate="2017-05-17T03:46:19.817" Score="2" ViewCount="303" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1kb4r/4r3/p1p3p1/Pp1p1p1p/1P1P3P/5PP1/2P2K2/1NR2R2 w - - 0 1&#xA;&#xA;1. Nd2 Rhe8 (1... f4!) (1. f4!)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Silman suggests 1. Nd2, with a black response of Rhe8. Wouldn't black just respond with 1...f4! instead? This gives black counter-play on the kingside, opens an f-file for him, and activates his bishop (with an eventual ...Bf5!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White should have just played 1. f4! What prevented such a move from being considered?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13147" LastEditorUserId="4186" LastEditDate="2017-06-14T14:46:00.650" LastActivityDate="2017-06-14T14:46:00.650" Title="Why was Nd2 played? instead of f4!" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17572" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17570" CreationDate="2017-05-17T09:20:06.173" Score="5" Body="&lt;h2&gt;Why 1. Nd2?&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Silman is suggesting to improve the worst placed piece with Nd2-b3-c5. This makes sense because:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;White will have a good knight vs. bad bishop&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The position is closed so White has the time to improve the worst piece&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Why not 1. f4?&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black's ...f4 and ...Bf5 plan isn't that strong, because:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When black's bishop gets to f5, it doesn't threaten anything&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;White doesn't have to open files with gxf4. White should continue with the Nd2-b3-c5 plan as before&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Having said this, 1. f4 isn't a bad move, i.e. it deprives the bishop of another target.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2017-05-17T09:20:06.173" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17573" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17570" CreationDate="2017-05-17T11:10:31.793" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;1.f4 gives away the e4-square and temporarily hands black a slight initiative. Aesthetically, it looks unpleasing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10233" LastActivityDate="2017-05-17T11:10:31.793" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17574" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-05-17T11:44:55.183" Score="4" ViewCount="670" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can somebody tell me the right six moves, and what has to be done? This puzzle was created vy &#xA;Fritz Giegold and published in Zeit-Magazin in 1976&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;n1N3br/2p1Bpkr/1pP2R1b/pP1p1PpR/Pp4P1/1P6/1K1P4/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13302" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-03-12T20:13:40.503" LastActivityDate="2020-03-12T20:19:12.673" Title="Checkmate in 6 moves" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;problems&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="9" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="17576" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-05-17T15:30:00.143" Score="2" ViewCount="283" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have plenty of endgames that engine evaluates like +1, even +2, not changing much for like 50-100 halfmoves, repeating, playing without plan. Defending side seems to be always just in time on right corresponding squares to hold. The evaluations are from 2m+2s engine blitz games, starting from low material endgame position, plenty of time to make good calculations in bishop/rook/knight endgame I think. How certain can I be such positions are really draws? Is it possible that engines would miss winning line with so much time more than exceptionally? Not in study type positions but in normal practical endgames. Is for example sightseeing tour with king from g4 to g8 through a4 in opposite colored bishop 3 vs. 1 still beyond horizon of engines? They often don't use easy plan I would try to win the game and I wonder if they see all the corresponding drawing setups all over the board or if they are still living in a box in technical endgames. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11609" LastActivityDate="2017-09-19T22:40:48.610" Title="Engine evaluation in endgame not increasing, what it means?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;evaluation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17577" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17576" CreationDate="2017-05-17T16:48:42.163" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess engines are notoriously optimistic in endgame positions. I'm sure Stockfish would give you a healthy margin for many theoretical drawn rook endgames, where the defending side is a pawn down.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can't just look at the evaluation score. You should try to interpret the engine line, and use your common sense. If you have something like +8, most likely it's a win but +1 isn't always sufficient.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Engines are not perfect, and they may not evaluate a long-term strategic position correctly. Opposite colour bishops are good example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do you know you can use Syzygy 6-men tablebase to boost your engine endgame performance. Most serious engine users have tablebase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2017-05-17T17:00:33.467" LastActivityDate="2017-05-17T17:00:33.467" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17578" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17574" CreationDate="2017-05-17T17:28:34.570" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is the solution:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt; 1.Rh1 d4 2.Ra1 d3 3.Ra3 bxa3+ 4.Ka1 a2 5.Ba3 Kxf6 6.Bb2#&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It can also be &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.yacpdb.org/#66738&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;found&lt;/a&gt; in the YACPBD chess problem database.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13306" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-03-12T20:19:12.673" LastActivityDate="2020-03-12T20:19:12.673" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="17579" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8456" CreationDate="2017-05-17T18:33:11.247" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Keshav's solution works. But I tend to set the engine in infinite mode (Levels &gt; Infinite), and it never makes a move and also lets you input moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3950" LastActivityDate="2017-05-17T18:33:11.247" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17581" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17586" CreationDate="2017-05-17T18:42:02.670" Score="0" ViewCount="546" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;r2qkb1r/5ppp/p1bppn2/1p3P2/4P3/1BN5/PPP3PP/R1BQ1RK1 b qk - 0 1&#xA;&#xA;1... b4 2. fxe6! bxc3 3. exf7+&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the above game, black played 1...b4 to encumber the white knight's journey to d5. Ambitiously, white sacrificed it with 2. fxe6! bxc3 3. exf7+: attacking the uncastled king, claiming the f7 square as his, and trapping the king on the center files. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The inactivation of black's dark bishop justifies this sacrifice: it's not soon seeing daylight anytime. Similarly, the a8 rook is also passive; only the queen, light-squared bishop, and f6 knight appear to be able to defend a central onslaught. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The black king can move to either Kd7 or Ke7, which aren't ideal in the least: these squares lie on two semi-open files available for white to take advantage of.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Altogether, this convinces white that black's life is going to be a terrible time. Still, the development of the queen's bishop must occur for placement of the connected rooks on d1, e1. He can choose squares such as g5, pinning the queen, or move his bishop along the a3-f8 diagonal after a capture on c3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;White needn't checkmate, but he should return with, beyond question, a better position than black. What final position does white visualize that warrants the knight's goodbye?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;There can be an overwhelming number of variations in realizing that final position: after 4. Re1, black has a number of responses. If this is the best move, how does white calmly reassure himself that all of its responses are inadequate? If it's not the best move, what is and why?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am not looking for a final, deeply analyzed (e.g. best) variation, but &lt;strong&gt;a winning position and the most effective way to achieve it&lt;/strong&gt;: the moves that should be played first, and why. A 3-ply variation is enough, but a 4-ply variation is perfect. Maybe I also missed some critical details about the board, and would welcome these observations, if any.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13147" LastEditorUserId="4186" LastEditDate="2017-06-14T14:42:38.367" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T16:02:34.657" Title="How can one precisely sacrifice a piece for a winning attack?" Tags="&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;attack&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="13" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17583" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17581" CreationDate="2017-05-17T20:39:47.700" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If this is the best move, how does white calmly reassure himself that all of its responses are inadequate?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White doesn't see a forced advantage in every line. He sees, what he believes to be, good winning chances. To quote Spielmann in &lt;em&gt;The Art of Sacrifice in Chess&lt;/em&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In real sacrifices the player gives up material but is unable to calculate the consequences with accuracy; he has to rely on intuition&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What final position does white visualize that warrants the knight's goodbye?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think you answered your own question. After 2. fxe6 bxc3 3. exf7+ white probably thought that a lead in development and 2 pawns for the piece (potentially 3 if bxc3 is played) is sufficient compensation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White doesn't have to look further than this &lt;em&gt;if&lt;/em&gt; they are willing to take risks and figure out the attack 2 or 3 moves at a time. If white is risk averse, then they may not even consider 2. fxe6 bxc3 3. exf7+ at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2017-05-17T20:39:47.700" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17584" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24573" CreationDate="2017-05-18T00:06:38.553" Score="4" ViewCount="558" Body="&lt;p&gt;Playing around with the Stockfish 8 UCI from the terminal, I've managed to make it compute moves, and set the position and load Syzygy tables.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But how I can know if an endgame, one that corresponds to the kind of endgame I've loaded, is winnable or drawable?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've looked at the Stockfish UCI protocol, but I have not found the relevant information.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13310" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-05-25T00:43:12.970" LastActivityDate="2019-05-25T10:33:45.180" Title="How to use ending evaluation in UCI interaction with Stockfish" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;tablebases&gt;&lt;uci&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="17585" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17581" CreationDate="2017-05-18T06:27:16.010" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The gut feeling is that White is not developed enough. For example, after &lt;code&gt;2. ef Qb6 3. Kh1 cb 4. ef Kd7&lt;/code&gt; White cannot protect the &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; pawn. And it is not so much the pawn, but the Black Knight at &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt;, with the Black Queen at &lt;code&gt;b6&lt;/code&gt; forming an immediate (smothered) mate threat. White is pretty much forced to &lt;code&gt;5. Re1 Ne4 6. Be3 Qb7&lt;/code&gt;, and now White has to worry about the weakness at &lt;code&gt;g2&lt;/code&gt; as well as the Knight fork at c3 after &lt;code&gt;cb&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So unless I am missing something obvious, the sacrifice doesn't look sound.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3774" LastEditorUserId="3774" LastEditDate="2017-05-18T06:34:58.780" LastActivityDate="2017-05-18T06:34:58.780" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17586" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17581" CreationDate="2017-05-18T08:03:41.807" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well I hope you are looking for a kind of algorithm or steps which would justify whether you should sacrifice or not. Irrespective of the above diagram which serves as an example I would like that you pay attention to the fact that &quot;There is no perfect way to find out whether the sacrifice that you have played can be refuted or it will bring a complete victory&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You need to depend upon a few factors to bring out the best results. If you have ever watched videos on YouTube or see game annotations you may have heard that in some games the GM or the host says it is chess &quot;intuition&quot; which brings out this kind of magical moves. Chess intuition somewhat comes from experience or your own chess understanding. It can not be conscious calculations but looking at the board your active pieces vs. opponent's inactive pieces and with proper imagination can bring great results. If you see that after the sacrifice you can add fuel to the fire with every move, your king is safe and you can lodge a continuous pressure then a sac is definitely good for a winning attack. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You need to take risks sometimes which you may win or lose depending upon some infinite chess factors which is not easy to state for every scenario. Even the great players make many mistakes and they forego the game. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T16:02:34.657" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T16:02:34.657" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="17587" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1312" CreationDate="2017-05-18T08:05:50.120" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;StockFish / Small fish / Fritz / Chess master GM version all have this functionality .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastActivityDate="2017-05-18T08:05:50.120" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17588" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17570" CreationDate="2017-05-18T09:50:16.893" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe the f4! move for White is definitely a good idea instead of Nd2 . After f4 from White it is like catching 2 birds with one arrow . &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;f4 from White deprives the Black Light Squared Bishop &amp;amp; tangles it into his own pawn chain and creates a Bad Bishop .&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;f4 frees the f3 squares for the Knight . The Knight hops to d2-f3-e5 . From e5 the g6 &amp;amp; c6 becomes juicy targets and makes the Knight a supreme one . The Knight can change the course and even go to c5 . There are many ways where the Knight will dominate and the Bishop will be locked in its pawn chain . &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even Black has a mild command of the open e-file White can place his any Rook on the e-file and exchange them . Creating a principle of two Weakness and positional strategy White should win the game in the end .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I did not feed this position into any computer but there seems to be one catch in the above explanation . With the Rooks being exchanged on e-file and f4 from White locks up everything . The pawn formation creates a wall where neither King will be allowed to enter in opponent's territory . Black Bishop can stay in e8 and protect the pawns c6 &amp;amp; g6 and will control the squares of the Knight and Black King can do the remaining tasks of flanking the white King .So summary is it is better to delay f4 from White and possibly ignore it until you have a sure advantage .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastActivityDate="2017-05-18T09:50:16.893" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17589" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17570" CreationDate="2017-05-18T11:32:14.037" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;1.f4 kills the game. White currently has the advantage of a good knight against a bad bishop. But black will double on the e-file and that will lead to an exchange of rooks. In the resulting endgame the better minor piece won't be enough to put pressure on black because with f4 you have closed the way for your king into the enemy position. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to play for the win you need to keep a way open for the white king to penetrate. That also means that after 1.Nd2 f4 you probably shouldn't take on f4. After 2.gf Bf5 there is again no way into the black position. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2017-05-18T11:32:14.037" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17590" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4416" CreationDate="2017-05-18T12:47:31.837" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www-lucaschess.rhcloud.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Lucas Chess&lt;/a&gt; sounds like exactly what you want. It has a competition mode where you play against weaker engines. A strong engine follows your play, and when you make a move that doesn't evaluate well, it shows you an alternative, with possible continuation lines for both moves. You can pick the engine move or continue with your own. Comparing the lines will show you if you blundered something or missed a tactic. You get points for beating the weaker engines, and as you accumulate points, you'll have stronger engines available to play against.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4532" LastActivityDate="2017-05-18T12:47:31.837" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17591" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17581" CreationDate="2017-05-18T13:21:03.443" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&quot;I am not looking for a final, deeply analyzed (e.g. best) variation, but a winning position and the most effective way to achieve it:&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This statement is in conflict with itself. You are dealing with a position that requires CONCRETE analysis, i.e., accurate calculation leading to checkmate or a winning position. This is not a positional assessment where you are gaining a strong square, etc. The most effective way would be a final, deeply analyzed variation that is irrefutable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In a blitz or rapid time control, I'd go in for it &quot;because it looks good (intuitive senses). In a slow tournament game, I would settle into a long think and give it my &quot;Karpov 7&quot; treatment and assess it and compare it to my alternatives, which of course, is always how you should play. If I find my alternatives offer less, then I play it. Otherwise, I probably play safe. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10233" LastActivityDate="2017-05-18T13:21:03.443" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17592" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17594" CreationDate="2017-05-18T14:08:13.737" Score="5" ViewCount="791" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there good free software for creating video lessons, that allows you to make board as big as desired, highlight squares, show arrows and not checking rules, allowing to move pieces in any way, playing without king etc? I mean just board software, not software for capturing video.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11609" LastActivityDate="2017-06-01T17:12:06.107" Title="Board for lectures, with arrows, highlights, not checking rules" Tags="&lt;software&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17594" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17592" CreationDate="2017-05-19T00:45:31.387" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can use a setup board function is programs like scid and chessbase.  These boards aren't full screen. In setup mode, they don't allow for arrows and highlights.&#xA;It might be better to just program the software yourself.  This would make all the features just as you like.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://scid.sourceforge.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://scid.sourceforge.net/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.chessbase.com/post/new-and-blindingly-fast-chebase-light-2009&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://en.chessbase.com/post/new-and-blindingly-fast-chebase-light-2009&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chessity.com has a new e-tool for teachers.&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/hpwpY.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/hpwpY.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;Allows illegal moves, coins and flags on any square, and four colored arrows and squares.  Large enough for students in back to see clearly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12449" LastEditorUserId="12449" LastEditDate="2017-06-01T17:12:06.107" LastActivityDate="2017-06-01T17:12:06.107" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17595" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8957" CreationDate="2017-05-19T06:47:57.867" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is no Opening defined for any particular level as to which opening you should play or attempt in any level but there are certain openings which require a deep chess thinking &amp;amp; strategy like Kings Indian Defence cannot be understood by Intermediates and below level and I have seen that they fail to play this opening . Even many lines of Sicilian are not being played even about 2000 Elo level . They say that you should play e4 in the start of your career or else their is a big gap in your chess education . &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The best suggestion is that you try an opening and look for some annotated games in that line and watch videos in YouTube to learn the key points and play training games in that variation . If your winning percentage is high then I believe you must try that line and include in your opening repertoire else discard .   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastActivityDate="2017-05-19T06:47:57.867" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17596" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-05-19T07:14:25.713" Score="4" ViewCount="571" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;6k1/p7/3K2p1/1P5p/7P/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;White to move.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Dvoretsky notes that the correspondence between the 'f7, e5' squares is less evident. Originally, I thought that g7 and e6 were corresponding (and I don't see why not). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Clearly, e5 and f7 are corresponding: the first person to move on these squares loses. Did he just serendipitously discover this pair?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;How do I discover that e5, f7 are corresponding?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is my original claim, 'g7, e6 are corresponding', incorrect?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13147" LastEditorUserId="4186" LastEditDate="2017-06-14T12:04:54.580" LastActivityDate="2017-06-14T12:04:54.580" Title="Identifying corresponding squares" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;zugzwang&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17597" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17610" CreationDate="2017-05-19T08:30:45.877" Score="8" ViewCount="481" Body="&lt;p&gt;I reached this position as white that led to a draw:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Bad_Bishop&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[StartPly &quot;61&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1/2-1/2&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. c4 dxc4 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. e3 Bg4 5. Bxc4 e6 6. h3 Bh5 7. Nc3 Nbd7 8. O-O Bd6 9. e4 e5 10. g4 Bg6 11. dxe5 Nxe5 12. Nxe5 Bxe5 13. f4 Qd4+ 14. Qxd4 Bxd4+ 15. Kh2 Bxc3 16. bxc3 Bxe4 17. g5 Bd5 18. Re1+ Kf8 19. Bb5 Ne4 20. c4 Nd6 21. cxd5 Nxb5 22. Rb1 a6 23. a4 Nc3 24. Rxb7 Nxd5 25. Re5 c6 26. Bb2 Rd8 27. Rf5 f6 28. gxf6 Nxf6 29. Bxf6 gxf6 30. Rxf6+ Ke8 31. Re6+ Kf8 32. Rxc6 Rg8 33. Rc2 Rg7 34. Rb6 Ra7 35. Rcc6 a5 36. Ra6 Rxa6 37. Rxa6 Rd5 38. Ra7 h5 39. Kg3 Rc5 40. Ra6 Kf7 41. Kh4 Ke7 42. Rh6 Rc4 43. Kg5 Rxa4 44. Rxh5 Ra1 45. Rh7+ Kd6 46. Ra7 a4 47. f5 a3 48. f6 a2 49. f7 Rg1+ 50. Kh6 Rf1 51. Rxa2 Ke6  1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was up a pawn and had more active rooks. &lt;strong&gt;How could white have won this endgame (if there is a win at all)?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2017-05-26T22:32:01.467" LastActivityDate="2020-04-27T11:11:05.457" Title="Could White have won this double rook endgame?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;rook-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17598" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17596" CreationDate="2017-05-19T08:49:02.810" Score="2" Body="&lt;h2&gt;f7/e5&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Clearly, e5 and f7 are corresponding: the first person to move on these squares loses&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't think your definition of corresponding squares is quite correct. If the black king goes to f7, black does not necessarily lose. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this position the fight is about the square f6. If black manages to get the king to f6 (with the white king not on f4) he can play g5 and create a passed pawn on the h file.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this sense, e5 and f7 are corresponding because:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If the white king goes to &lt;strong&gt;e5&lt;/strong&gt; first, black will play &lt;strong&gt;Kf7&lt;/strong&gt; putting white in zugzwang. White has to retreat with the king (or play b6 which is equally bad). Assuming white retreats the king from e5, you note another theme of corresponding squares: f6 and f4: if the black king goes to f6, white - in order to keep equality - has to reply with Kf4. Conversely, if white plays Kf4 himself first, black can reply with Kf6 putting white in Zugzwang. However you can easily see that black will always get to f6 favourably. For example 1. Ke5 Kf7 2. Ke4 (staying close to the square f4) Ke6! and white has to play Kf4 (which is answered with Kf6) or retreat further to the third rank, letting the black king to the fifth rank. In this case black is winning.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If the black king goes to  &lt;strong&gt;f7&lt;/strong&gt; first, white has to prevent Kf6 by playing &lt;strong&gt;Ke5&lt;/strong&gt;. The position is still a draw in this case.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;g7/e6&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can confirm for yourself that white is too slow to win on the queenside, i.e. capturing the pawn on a7 with the king and promoting the b pawn will take longer than black getting a queen on h1 (after playing g5...). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This means that white always has to keep an eye on the kingside pawns, because black is threatening to create a passed pawn with g5, hxg5 h4. Particularly this means, that the white king has to be able to reach the square (&quot;pawn promotion square rule&quot; for black pawn on h4): d4-d1-h1-h4. Particularly this means that the white king may never move to the sixth rank. So e6 is never going to be a corresponding square for the white king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastEditorUserId="11629" LastEditDate="2017-05-19T20:41:48.837" LastActivityDate="2017-05-19T20:41:48.837" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17599" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17597" CreationDate="2017-05-19T09:10:09.253" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The original endgame might very well be a draw due to the open position and the large number of weak pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The position after 45 .. Kd6? is won for white...until  48. f6?. You needed this square for the white king in order to escape from rook checks. Could have won with 48. h4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2017-05-19T09:10:09.253" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17600" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17550" CreationDate="2017-05-19T12:12:37.017" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think you &lt;em&gt;under&lt;/em&gt;estimate the scope of opening theory and &lt;em&gt;over&lt;/em&gt;estimate the efficiency of sticking to a few &quot;pet lines&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As already mentioned by bof, playing ..c5 against 1 d4 has little to nothing to do with the &quot;Sicilian Defense&quot;. White very specifially has to continue with e4 in the second or third move (after 2 c3/Nf3) to transpose into the Sicilian. Any other moves and you are in a completely different opening with very own motives and ideas. Actually, there is no such thing as &quot;the&quot; Sicilian either: White has no less than 4 common alternatives for his second move alone (Nf3, Nc3, c3, d4) that lead to very different positions.. and it's not going to get better from that point on regarding the size of the move tree. Telling us that you play &quot;the Sicilian Defense&quot; is equally vague, as there are many different systems Black can use (based on g6, e6 or e5, mainly). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Trying to only play lines that are similar to each other will lead into a dead end in the long run (even if it might be successful for now). It's an illusion, especially when playing Black: No matter what you do, your opponent always has the choice to disturb your plan by playing a line you don't like (e.g. an early Bf4/Bf5/Bg4/Bg5 can be a real pain if you try to play Stonewall Attack/Dutch). Most openings offer the possibility for both players to choose either really sharp or really quiet continuations, and you have to adapt to the choices of your opponent. Because the higher your rating, the better your opponents will get in adapting to &lt;strong&gt;you&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The 1 d4 c5 variation illustrates this point pretty well: Because you don't have the full picture yet and only tried to apply the (Sicilian) schemata known to you, the variation gave you a lot of trouble. kmartin on the other hand applied a common motive from the Queen's Gambit (variations of this can be found in many other openings, e.g. the French Defense) to prove that you can take back that pawn with tempo (or trap the opponent if he's too greedy) and have a comfortable game (after 4 Nf3 d6, your position isn't that much away from a common Sicilian one after all, hooray!). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, my advice would be that instead of asking us and thus limiting your attention to only one or maybe a couple of defenses with the same patterns you already know, give ALL of them (and the White openings, too, of course) an honest try yourself*. Then you can make that choice on your own. And even if you end up choosing the Stonewall Attack and Dutch Defense as your favorites anyways, having looked into the others and thus broadening your view will pay off, believe me. &#xA;And no, time consumption is not an excuse. Whoever devotes the time to ponder the question of his opening choice enough to consider asking it on stackexchange also has 10 minutes to look up the main lines of some opening before he starts playing. The actual work is nicely hidden in that playing.. which by itself should be considered a pleasure, not a chore, right? :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*It's okay to look up variations as long as you don't overdo it. There are a lot of purists around that claim that noone below 2000 elo or some other number should be learning any opening theory at all, but I disagree with that. You don't have to reinvent the wheel. You should however put a serious effort into trying to understand how cars work and what the differences between a Mini and a SUV are before you settle to buy one. ;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13323" LastActivityDate="2017-05-19T12:12:37.017" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17601" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4531" CreationDate="2017-05-19T13:45:21.703" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Many of the other comments are correct but one thing that hasn't been said but was a major factor for me: The opening book. Once I got to the point where I knew I couldn't much progress in terms of tournament performance without significant opening study (hours per week), I lost interest in competitive play. If Fisherchess/Chess960 or something similar took hold, I would be more likely to spend more time with chess, and more able to believe that chess has a non-niche future.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other important factors:&#xA;Computers have changed chess enormously. Separately, The internet has changed chess enormously too. This comment doesn't address these facts but they are relevant to this discussion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Developing on someone's comment above, the fact that there exist now strong deep-strategy &quot;video&quot; games, means that young people who might have been drawn to chess are drawn to more &quot;exciting&quot; and &quot;cooler&quot; games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I agree with the commenter above that the rarity of women in the chess community is a factor.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13325" LastEditorUserId="13325" LastEditDate="2019-09-21T15:20:20.200" LastActivityDate="2019-09-21T15:20:20.200" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="17602" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4531" CreationDate="2017-05-19T19:56:40.220" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd expect that many children give up chess on adulthood for the same reason they give up baseball, soccer, playing a musical instrument, and other childhood activities. Adults have less leisure time and access to school programs is cut off. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9321" LastActivityDate="2017-05-19T19:56:40.220" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17603" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17597" CreationDate="2017-05-19T20:13:05.310" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I feel like you should have played &lt;code&gt;31. Rff7&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;32. Ree7&lt;/code&gt; on the next move, doubling rooks on the seventh rank (even though I don't how much better it is :-) ). Black wouldn't have been able to create any play with his rook. Instead you (naturally) took the pawn freeing both black rooks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Altogether I liked your game. GG!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13055" LastEditorUserId="13055" LastEditDate="2017-05-19T21:01:09.330" LastActivityDate="2017-05-19T21:01:09.330" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17604" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15122" CreationDate="2017-05-20T03:52:11.270" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The question &quot;on which side to attack?&quot; is already flawed. In many positions, a direct attack isn't appropriate. For an attack to have good chances of success, you need some sort of advantage, such as a lead in development or extra space on one side of the board. You don't really have any advantages that would help you launch an attack on the kingside - arguably your bishop pointing that way, but it's not much. Your real advantage in this position is your extra pawn, which can eventually help you make a passed pawn in an endgame. Castling on opposite sides and going for a pawn storm is an extremely high risk strategy that doesn't have any positional factors supporting it, and doesn't exploit your advantage, the extra pawn. A good starting point in this position is getting your king to safety and getting the rooks in the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12699" LastActivityDate="2017-05-20T03:52:11.270" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17605" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13480" CreationDate="2017-05-20T03:58:04.490" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You could just do what most grandmasters do and play 3...Bc5. It will usually transpose to positions you could get after 3...Nf6 while avoiding the Ng5 stuff.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12699" LastActivityDate="2017-05-20T03:58:04.490" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17606" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17607" CreationDate="2017-05-20T05:35:41.590" Score="2" ViewCount="294" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can Black somehow get a stalemate against the White King-Queen combination or should he try to save his pawn as long as he can?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;8/8/5K2/4Q3/4p3/3k4/8/8 b - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13334" LastEditorUserId="4186" LastEditDate="2017-06-14T14:21:48.733" LastActivityDate="2019-12-23T18:09:16.840" Title="Can black get a stalemate?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;stalemate&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17607" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17606" CreationDate="2017-05-20T05:58:55.960" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;No way. I would resign if I were Black. This is a hopeless position - game over. Anybody other than a total beginner would win for White.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However if:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Black's pawn is a rook or bishop pawn&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Black's pawn is close to promotion&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Black's king is close to the pawn&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;White's king is far away from the pawn&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It'd be possible to draw by stalemate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess24.com/en/read/news/7-stalemates-every-chess-player-needs-to-know&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://chess24.com/en/read/news/7-stalemates-every-chess-player-needs-to-know&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Note:&lt;/strong&gt; colour reversed in the examples.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;King + rook pawn vs. queen&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;7K/7P/6q1/8/8/1k6/8/8 w - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;King + bishop pawn vs. queen (variation)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;7K/5P2/6q1/8/8/3k4/8/8 w - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="4186" LastEditDate="2017-06-14T12:24:18.810" LastActivityDate="2017-06-14T12:24:18.810" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17608" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17606" CreationDate="2017-05-20T07:16:56.960" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Black gets a stalemate if his pawn is a rook or bishop pawn, it's on the 7th rank, and the white king is not inside the winning zone (usually one or two squares from the pawn - see Jesus De La Villa's &lt;em&gt;100 Endgames You Must Know&lt;/em&gt; for more details.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13147" LastActivityDate="2017-05-20T07:16:56.960" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17609" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17606" CreationDate="2017-05-20T12:34:16.013" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Black's only chance to salvage a draw is to of course, keep his pawn with the hope of queening it. However, this is not possible here because after, say, 1...e3 2.Qd5+ Kc2 3. Qe4 Kd2 4.Qd4+, black must block his own pawn with 4...Ke2 and white can play 5.Kf5, bringing his king closer to the pawn. After 5...Kf2 for example, white goes 6.Qf4+ and black needs to go back with 6...Ke2, and white brings his king closer again with 7.Ke4 and plays 8.Qxe3 the next move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;8/8/5K2/4Q3/4p3/3k4/8/8 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1...e3 2.Qd5+ Kc2 3. Qe4 Kd2 4.Qd4+ Ke2 5.Kf5 Kf2 6.Qf4+ Ke2 7.Ke4 null 8.Qxe3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This idea is similar with the pawn on the 2nd or 7th rank (i.e. 1 square away from queening), except for rook or bishop pawns, which can be drawn under certain conditions (the side with the queen needs to have his king in what most endgame textbooks call the &quot;winning zone&quot;). &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_versus_pawn_endgame#Queen_versus_a_pawn_on_the_seventh_rank&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt; actually has an article on this. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7473" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-12-23T18:09:16.840" LastActivityDate="2019-12-23T18:09:16.840" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="17610" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17597" CreationDate="2017-05-20T13:05:21.003" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;48.Kf6 should be winning. After say 48...a2, white goes h4-h5-h6 and something involving ...Rh1, Rxa2 Rxh6+, Kg5 followed by Re2 will lead to the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucena_position&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Lucena position&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Much earlier on, I believe 31.Kg3 is winning, but it's also the best try by elimination: without an active king (which is the most important non-trivial factor in rook endgames), white won't be able to win with just his f- and h- pawns vs. black's h-pawn if he loses his a-pawn, and after Rg8 as happened in the game, white's own king is exposed to a perpetual. Black is doomed to passivity because his rooks are disconnected, and white can slowly capture the rest of black's pawns and/or get his king to e6 and promote the f-pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P/S: 17.Re1 Kf8 18.Ba3+ Kg8 19.Rad1 followed by 20.Re7 looks crushing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7473" LastEditorUserId="7473" LastEditDate="2017-05-20T13:52:20.300" LastActivityDate="2017-05-20T13:52:20.300" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17611" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17612" CreationDate="2017-05-20T23:19:14.643" Score="2" ViewCount="189" Body="&lt;p&gt;A decoy tactic is forcing an enemy piece to move to a square that prevents it from guarding an original square.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, if the black queen is at c7 and the f7 square is being attacked, getting the queen to move to c6 would be a successful decoy tactic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Where can I find such puzzles?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13147" LastActivityDate="2017-05-21T09:27:57.967" Title="Where to find Tactical Exercises on the Decoy" Tags="&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;problems&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17612" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17611" CreationDate="2017-05-21T03:17:56.310" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The paid version of chesstempo allows you to search the problem database for all kinds of &lt;a href=&quot;https://chesstempo.com/tactical-motifs.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;tactical motifs&lt;/a&gt;. Depending on your exact definition of &quot;decoy tactic&quot;, you should look for what they call &quot;attraction&quot;, &quot;distraction&quot;, &quot;clearance&quot;, &quot;coercion&quot;, &quot;sacrifice&quot; and perhaps more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2017-05-21T03:17:56.310" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17613" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2865" CreationDate="2017-05-21T04:34:58.750" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It makes absolutely no sense to avoid it. Play it, learn it, study it, and understand it. You'll want it in your arsenal eventually anyway. It's not going to hurt you. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe you wouldn't want to try it at on OTB tournament for the first year or two. But you can start by studying up on all three of the major families of at least the Open Sicilian, 2...e6, 2...d6, 2...Nc6, and their 11 main variations, over the course of a year or two, and playing dozens or hundreds of harmless online games with them. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you get good, and your rating is getting fairly impressive, and you feel comfortable with it, you can delve deeper. Imagine if you only started the opening 10 years from now, from scratch? Now imagine if you started now, how much farther ahead you'll be with it in 10 years. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There just isn't much reason not to learn something as early as possible. When you're older, and time is running out, you'll have had more experience with it than otherwise. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13339" LastActivityDate="2017-05-21T04:34:58.750" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17614" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17611" CreationDate="2017-05-21T09:27:57.967" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1901983951&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.amazon.com/365-Ways-Checkmate-Joe-Gallagher/dp/1901983951&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It has lots of mind blowing tactics inside, including decoys. I finished it in one year and it caused an huge leap in my tactical ability.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9030" LastActivityDate="2017-05-21T09:27:57.967" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17615" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9277" CreationDate="2017-05-21T17:50:51.237" Score="16" Body="&lt;p&gt;It was discovered that e3 is a win for White:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://magma.maths.usyd.edu.au/~watkins/LOSING_CHESS/ICGA2016.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://magma.maths.usyd.edu.au/~watkins/LOSING_CHESS/ICGA2016.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13343" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-05-21T19:53:07.697" LastActivityDate="2017-05-21T19:53:07.697" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17616" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17592" CreationDate="2017-05-21T21:15:03.150" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Perhaps &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.apronus.com/chess/diagram/editor/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.apronus.com/chess/diagram/editor/&lt;/a&gt; will satisfy your needs. If not, then please let me know because I am the author of this free tool and I am still working on improving it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Perhaps &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.apronus.com/chess/pgnviewer/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.apronus.com/chess/pgnviewer/&lt;/a&gt; in the setup mode will be also useful. The problem with these tools is that they are very powerful but not easy to operate without instruction. So do not get discouraged just ask for help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3456" LastActivityDate="2017-05-21T21:15:03.150" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17617" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17637" CreationDate="2017-05-22T04:46:28.413" Score="8" ViewCount="2315" Body="&lt;p&gt;Quoting &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fide.com/fide/handbook?id=124&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE rulebook&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;This capture is &lt;strong&gt;only legal on the move following this advance&lt;/strong&gt; and is called an ‘en passant’ capture.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Quoting &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/En_passant&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The &lt;em&gt;en passant&lt;/em&gt; capture must be made &lt;strong&gt;at the very next turn&lt;/strong&gt; or the right to do so is lost.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Why?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know the basic story of &lt;em&gt;en passant&lt;/em&gt; and I'll just paraphrase it here: A rule was added to let pawns move two squares forward on its first move. Someone said something like, what if a pawn uses this to escape from an enemy adjacent pawn? Then the basic pawn skeleton/framework would be changed! So we must have an &lt;em&gt;en passant&lt;/em&gt; to preserve the same chess framework.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Okay that part makes sense, but why does it have to be &lt;strong&gt;on the very next move?&lt;/strong&gt; Was that part of the rule only added later? Why was it added at all? When two pawns are diagonally adjacent confronting each other, they don't have to capture immediately or else forefeit the ability to capture. So the concept of the &quot;ghost pawn&quot;, if you don't capture it immediately, and the other player doesn't move it, seems to me like it should still be there and available for capture as long as it's there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Does anyone know why this part of &lt;em&gt;en passant&lt;/em&gt; was created?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Optional Background:&lt;/strong&gt; In case you're curious, I come from a programming background. Of all the special moves, &lt;em&gt;en passant&lt;/em&gt; is (was, see below) the hardest to program. Not only is it the only move where the capturing piece moves to a blank square, but it's the only move that &quot;disappears&quot; if you don't take it. That means it's a move where &lt;strong&gt;the total board position is not enough information&lt;/strong&gt; to generate all moves. (That's true for castling too, which already has its fair share of tricky rules.) Two enemy pawns could be adjacent on the 4th or 5th rank, surrounded by blank squares, but you still don't know if &lt;em&gt;en passant&lt;/em&gt; is possible. You have to check the previous move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or so I thought. Now that I'm revisiting this, I figured out a clever way to implement &lt;em&gt;en passant&lt;/em&gt; without checking the move log. Don't generate it at turn start. Generate it at move_take, specifically at the end of a 2-step pawn move. But store it in a special move array since the normal one gets cleared at every inc_turn. Then migrate and clear appropriately at gen_all_moves. That way, if ep is not taken, it doesn't generate itself on the next move because you didn't move that same pawn two steps on the next move. Just remember to check both sides of the pawn and create &lt;strong&gt;two&lt;/strong&gt; ep moves if two enemy pawns are there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Castling was implemented with the help of a &quot;moved&quot; boolean in every piece, which is also useful for a pawn's first move of course. Even if the King and Rook are in the right spot, you use that to see if the King/Rook has moved before. No need to check the move log. But I will say that Castling is now the hardest move to implement because you gotta check if the path is under attack. En passant is no longer the hardest now that I thought of the clever way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8509" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-09-21T18:05:47.070" LastActivityDate="2019-09-21T18:05:47.070" Title="Why is en passant only possible on the first opportunity?" Tags="&lt;history&gt;&lt;en-passant&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="8" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="17619" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17617" CreationDate="2017-05-22T06:15:46.120" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;A pawn which 'exposes' itself to en passant will be distinct from one that doesn't. Say, for a black pawn on a4 and a white pawn on b4: giving black the option of playing ...axb3 at any time after b2-b4 means that the moves b2-b4 and b3-b4, which seemingly lead to the same position, have long-term implications as it depends too much on the past. In particular, when the pawn stands on b2, white would need to weigh the pros and cons of moving his pawn to b4 in one or two moves (where the con is giving black a long-lasting right to take on b3).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or, in the spirit of the motivation of en passant that you correctly described, permanently stopping a two-square pawn from 'escaping' would greatly neglect (or complicate) the benefit of being able to move two squares forward.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another practical reason because it's just much simpler for humans: with more than one pawn on the board, it would be complicated to keep track of en passant rights on all of them. (Someone once suggested that pieces be able to capture en passant at some FIDE meeting; needless to say, it was laughed out of the room --- that said, I can't recall the source of this story.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One may ask a similar (opposite?) question about castling rights; the 'simpler' option may arguably be to always allow castling as long as the pieces are back on their original squares, but that too has strong implications, one of which is a reduced importance of development.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Generally, the special moves in chess have restrictions associated with them to ensure that they don't change the way the game 'looks' after the time these special moves are made (playing ...axb3 to take a white pawn on b4 looks completely unlike the old game, so it's only allowed for one move). After all, the rules were designed by humans, arguably arbitrarily.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7473" LastEditorUserId="7473" LastEditDate="2017-05-22T06:32:15.470" LastActivityDate="2017-05-22T06:32:15.470" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17621" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17617" CreationDate="2017-05-22T20:30:00.130" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Interesting question, though I am not sure there is a good answer which could be backed by sources. I can think of the following motivations:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If you imagine your pawns to be real &quot;armies&quot;, then if one army is passing you at high speed (double step), you need to act immediately (if you wish to do so) and cannot wait before the other army is far away.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Practicality. Keeping track of all possible en passant captures could become tricky. What if one or both of the pawns involved get replaced by another pawn of the same color...&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In chess, if a piece attacks a piece of the same type, the other piece at the same time attacks the first piece. With indefinite en passant you would create an asymmetry where one pawn could capture another pawn but not vice versa.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Indefinite en passant would be too big a change to the game as it was known before the introduction of en passant.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;(see Ken Wei's answer): With a black pawn on a4 and a white pawn on b2. You need to compare the option of playing b2-b3-b4 in two moves (which would lose you a tempo) with the double step (which would put you in danger of indefinite capture). &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2017-05-22T20:30:00.130" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17622" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-05-22T23:58:37.017" Score="4" ViewCount="534" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Chicago Open is in four days. Assuming a player continues his daily regimen of reading chess books for a few hours and playing two, perhaps three slow games (60/5, at least) a week, what else should a player be doing?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, should a player stop this regimen before the tournament to &quot;clear the mind&quot;? If so, how many days before?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Regarding openings&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm completely confident in the middle game. Everyone says that opening study should be reserved for when I'm higher rated (~2000).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is true, because by following general strategy, I can transition into the middle game easily. With a plan, it's hard (if not impossible) to go wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why, then, does everyone advise to review openings before a tournament? (I have taken perhaps a brief look at the classical variation of the Ruy Lopez, but that's it.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13147" LastEditorUserId="13147" LastEditDate="2017-05-23T14:46:18.113" LastActivityDate="2017-05-24T17:09:44.593" Title="How does one prepare for a big chess tournament?" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;preparation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17623" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-05-23T02:30:30.823" Score="6" ViewCount="792" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know that the theoretical refutation of &lt;code&gt;1.d4 d5 2.c4 Nf6?!&lt;/code&gt; is supposed to be &lt;code&gt;3.cxd5 Nxd5 4.Nf3&lt;/code&gt;.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Perhaps Black doesn't fear the refutation because he intends a gambit such as &lt;code&gt;3.cxd5 c6?!&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;3.cxd5 c5?!&lt;/code&gt;.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is not about the refutation or the gambits. My question is, what if White declines to capture on &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt;, and plays &lt;code&gt;3.Nf3 or 3.Nc3&lt;/code&gt;? Does the game simply transpose into a normal line?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In that case, &lt;strong&gt;has Black gained or lost anything because of his funny move order?&lt;/strong&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If White is not going to play &lt;code&gt;3.cxd5&lt;/code&gt;, does &lt;code&gt;2...Nf6&lt;/code&gt; have any advantage over normal moves like &lt;code&gt;2...dxc4&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;2...e6&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;2...c6&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;2...c5&lt;/code&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2299" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-04-10T10:29:41.507" LastActivityDate="2019-04-10T10:29:41.507" Title="Marshall Defense 1.d4 d5 2.c4 Nf6 — transpositions" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;queens-gambit&gt;&lt;transpositions&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="17624" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17630" CreationDate="2017-05-23T07:33:59.327" Score="0" ViewCount="311" Body="&lt;p&gt;I played a &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/live/game/2114062299&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;game&lt;/a&gt; yesterday on chess.com with the Pirc Defence. I am kind of weak in the endgame but I was concerned about the middlegame plan. Was my approach the wrong one? Why, and where, did I lose?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Live Chess&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Chess.com&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2017.05.22&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;-&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;ISeth&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;qwcnm&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;1954&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;B07&quot;]&#xA;[TimeControl &quot;900+10&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;1869&quot;]&#xA;[EndTime &quot;6:21:19 PDT&quot;]&#xA;[Termination &quot;qwcnm won by resignation&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 c6 2.d4 d6 3.g3 h6 4.Bg2 g5 5.c4 Bg7 6.Ne2 Nd7 7.Nbc3 Nf8 8.Be3 Nf6&#xA;9.h3 Ne6 10.d5 cxd5 11.Nxd5 Nxd5 12.exd5 Nc5 13.Bd4 Qa5+ 14.Nc3 O-O 15.Bxg7&#xA;Kxg7 16.O-O Bf5 17.Qd4+ f6 18.Rfe1 Rfe8 19.g4 Bg6 20.Ne4 Nd7 21.Ng3 Ne5&#xA;22.Be4 Rac8 23.b3 Qc5 24.Qxc5 Rxc5 25.Bxg6 Kxg6 26.Kg2 a6 27.Ne4 Rc7 28.Rec1&#xA;Rec8 29.a4 b5 30.axb5 axb5 31.c5 Nd3 32.Rc3 Nxc5 33.Nxc5 Rxc5 34.Rxc5 Rxc5&#xA;35.Rd1 Rc3 36.Re1 Kf7 37.Re3 Rxe3 38.fxe3 e6 39.e4 exd5 40.exd5 f5 41.Kf3&#xA;f4 42.h4 Kf6 43.hxg5+ hxg5 44.Ke4 b4 45.Kd4 f3 46.Ke3 Ke5 47.Kxf3 Kxd5&#xA;48.Ke3 Ke5 49.Kd3 d5 50.Ke3 d4+ 51.Kd3 Kd5 52.Kd2 Ke4 53.Ke2 d3+ 54.Kd2&#xA;Kd4 55.Kd1 Kc3 56.Kc1 Kxb3 57.Kd2 Kc4 58.Ke3 Kc3   0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can see that black wasted some tempos with his Knight in the opening, so I decided to strike in the centre with d5 or e5. I played d5 and was expecting some fireworks and tactical superiority, but could not achieve anything. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can anyone suggest something better?      &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-03-28T16:32:50.337" LastActivityDate="2020-03-28T16:32:50.337" Title="What strategic plan, for the White player, needed to implemented in the middlegame?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;planning&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="17625" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17624" CreationDate="2017-05-23T08:09:59.943" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Black played the opening against principles: did not develop pieces and did not occupy the center. In order to gain an advantage out of this, you need to act quickly. However you played just normal moves giving black enough time to complete his slow development.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;ol start=&quot;4&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;... g5?! is rather dubious and you could ask black with h4 or f4 (played immediately or a few moves later) what he wants to do with the pawn there. If after h4 he plays gxh4 you gain the open h-file and play against black's h pawn. If he replies with g4 the pawn on g4 will become weak. Similarly f4, gxf4 will give you the open f-file with attacking chances.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;10 d5?! this gives black the long diagonal for the bishop on g7 and a decent square on c5 for the misplaced knight on e6. Going for the e4-e5 push (not now but soon, perhaps after f4) seems much more natural to me as it would limit the bishop on g7 and not give any good squares for the knights.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;19 g4?! You have reached a rather good position. Black has a weak pawn on e7, weak light squares on the kingside and white has no apparent weaknesses. After 19 g4 however you weaken the dark squares on the kingside and allow black to place his knight on its ideal square at e5 where it attacks c4, is centrally placed and cannot be easily removed (only through exchange for the knight or an exchange sacrifice. Before playing g4 you had the option of playing f4 gxf4, gxf4 where black does not have the square e5. An alternative plan here could be to play Kh2 with the idea to follow-up with f4, or perhaps try to take advantage of the weakened light squares by exchanging the light squared bishops and transfer your knight to e6, f5 or h5 and the queen on some light squares as well.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;20 Ne4 This seems potentially risky as you could end up with the light squared bishop against a very strong knight on e5. Need to evaluate if you get enough play on the b1-h7 diagonal.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;29 ... b5 Around this point black is taking over and it is probably lost already.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2017-05-23T08:09:59.943" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17626" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17627" CreationDate="2017-05-23T11:07:36.227" Score="-1" ViewCount="147" Body="&lt;p&gt;As black has the upper hand, should white try to go piece-a-piece (Rooks for Rooks) or try and get the two rook endgame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1r3rk1/p1p2p1p/3p2p1/Rp2p3/3bP1P1/1P1P4/2P3P1/5R1K w - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13334" LastEditorUserId="4186" LastEditDate="2017-06-14T14:42:50.037" LastActivityDate="2017-06-14T14:42:50.037" Title="Should white go for piece-a-piece or two rook endgame?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;rook-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17627" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17626" CreationDate="2017-05-23T11:20:34.423" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Black has an extra bishop and two extra pawns. Black is &lt;em&gt;completely and easily winning&lt;/em&gt;, and white can't do anything really constructive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black's easiest way to win is to promote a pawn to queen and then checkmate white; that in turn is easiest if white's rooks are exchanged off (take all rooks off the board, and black just plays a5, a4, a3, a2, a1=Q).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So that's what white should avoid -- if there is a choice, &lt;em&gt;don't exchange the rooks!&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That said, resigning is also a perfectly normal action for white in the given position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2017-05-23T11:20:34.423" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17628" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17626" CreationDate="2017-05-23T11:28:35.180" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Black has an extra piece and 2 pawns, with an extra pawn being on each side of the board. Black has no glaring pawn weaknesses. If the rooks are off the board, White's only chance, and it is a slim one, will be to lock the pawns up in such a way that Black can make no progress. I don't see how he can do it, especially with those doubled pawns on the g file. For example, Black could play &lt;code&gt;f6&lt;/code&gt; followed by &lt;code&gt;h5&lt;/code&gt; or work towards &lt;code&gt;g5&lt;/code&gt; (to lock the white pawn), &lt;code&gt;Kg6&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;h5&lt;/code&gt;, then &lt;code&gt;f5&lt;/code&gt;. White cannot contain the pawns. And that is without taking the Bishop into consideration.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In short, Black wants to get those rooks off the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2017-05-23T11:28:35.180" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17629" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17622" CreationDate="2017-05-23T13:13:36.587" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Eat your carbs, get up at a time such that you'll be most alert during the games, maybe play a few blitz games to go through your opening repertoire. Move around according to your level of physical activity, because you're going to be sedantary for a long time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Playing long, proper games is exhausting if you're really focused throughout, so you don't want to play any extra games just before the event. Reading chess books at a time so close to a tournament has its parallels with cramming before an exam: it pays off if you're faced with something relevant, but could cost some precious mental energy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Be rested and stop training long enough so that you feel ready on the day of the event. For some, one day is enough, others may need over a week.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On an indirect note, fatigue usually starts to set in after 4 rounds or so; physical endurance is actually important here. While it's a little too late to address this now, if you find yourself making incredibly careless mistakes in the later rounds, you'd want to consider adding a physical part to your regime if you're serious about the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7473" LastActivityDate="2017-05-23T13:13:36.587" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17630" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17624" CreationDate="2017-05-23T14:54:59.827" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you look at the position round about move 20 you see that you are already strategically worse. Black has a very good bishop and you have a very bad one thanks to your pawns on c4 and d5. Your pawn on c4 is much weaker in the endgame than black's on e7. You have set up the conditions for black to launch a winning minority attack on the queenside which he eventually did.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your best chance at that stage in the game was to launch your own kingside attack. To that end you needed to keep pieces on the board and not swap them off as you did. On move 19, instead of g4, double rooks on the e file starting with Re3, then push your f pawn to break open his kingside. His pawns on d6 and e7 form a block making it difficult for him to bring his queen and a8 rook over to the defense. That should give you good chances of winning on the kingside before he wins on the queenside.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As it was you swapped off into a losing endgame. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Going back further in the game you can see that your pawn push to d5 set up the conditions for his win. In that kind of position you should be looking for the e5 push instead. If you can make that work then you will be much better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2017-05-23T14:54:59.827" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17631" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17617" CreationDate="2017-05-23T15:05:36.870" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The reason is very simple. If white has a pawn on d5 preventing a black pawn on e7 from moving then the move e7-e5 circumvents that. To keep things fair when the double pawn first move was introduced then the en passant rule was also introduced so that white wouldn't lose the possibility to capture. However going back to the pre-double move era if black plays e7-e6 and white doesn't capture immediately then black can play e6-e5 on the next move and white has lost his chance forever. That is reflected in the restriction of en passant to the move immediately following the double pawn move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2017-05-23T15:05:36.870" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17632" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17623" CreationDate="2017-05-23T16:00:34.377" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;If you don't take on &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;, I think the only advantage black has gained is &lt;strong&gt;flexibility&lt;/strong&gt;. That means he can choose his opening according to your move. But you can be almost 100% sure that the opening will be transposed into some traditional line so white can't be worse, for example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Slav Defence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. c4 Nf6?! 3. Nc3 (3. Nf3 c6) c6 {with the possibility of both Semi-Slav and Classical Slav Defence}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Queen's Gambit:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. c4 Nf6?! 3. Nc3 (3. Nf3 e6 (3... dxc4 {Queen's Gambit Accepted})) e6 (3... dxc4 {Queen's Gambit Accepted})&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Grünfeld Defence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. c4 Nf6?! 3. Nc3 g6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and there are probably many other transpositions...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my opinion you have no reason not to play &lt;code&gt;3. cxd5&lt;/code&gt;. The position after &lt;code&gt;3... Nxd5 4. e4&lt;/code&gt; (I think this is logical and even better than &lt;code&gt;4. Nf3&lt;/code&gt;) is very comfortable for white. You have a great center and black has to lose time again...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13055" LastActivityDate="2017-05-23T16:00:34.377" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17633" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17623" CreationDate="2017-05-23T21:17:27.850" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Another possible transposition after &lt;code&gt;3. Nc3&lt;/code&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After &lt;code&gt;1. d4 d5 2. c4 Nf6 3. Nc3 Nc6&lt;/code&gt; we arrive at a variation of the Chigorin Defense. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A particularly tricky line is the following.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Title &quot;Chigorin Defense&quot;]&#xA;[Startply &quot;6&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. c4 Nf6 3. Nc3 Nc6 4. cxd5 Nxd5 5. e4 Nxc3 6. bxc3 e5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1485" LastActivityDate="2017-05-23T21:17:27.850" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17634" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17624" CreationDate="2017-05-23T22:07:26.927" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;On the basis of a quick glace I put the question mark at 11.Nxd5. You felt the urge to punish Black for eccentric development. I think that you were correct and that 10. d5 was well motivated. But why exchange Knights? That is not a consistent followup. If you play 11. exd5 and he then plays Nc5, you now have 12.b4, leaving you with a big advantage in space and mobility. That was not available with his Bishops diagonal opened up by exchanging Knights. At a guess,&#xA;your courage was high when you played d5, but then you got a bit nervous and exchanged a piece &quot;to reduce the risk&quot;. Even against strong opponents, always ask who will benefit from exchanging. And calculate as far as you can. If you cant see the risk, there is a good chance that it isn't there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastActivityDate="2017-05-23T22:07:26.927" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17635" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-05-24T03:07:30.623" Score="2" ViewCount="854" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have been looking for this book for quite some time. I have his book, &lt;em&gt;&quot;How to Become a Candidate Master&quot;&lt;/em&gt;, but have had trouble finding this one at a reasonable price. Currently on Amazon, used copies are listed at $75 on up to over $100, with one copy listed at $655.04. Other sites have similar price ranges. I recently tried bidding on a copy on E-bay, but was outbid at the last minute where it sold for $31.00. Why is this particular book so hard to find at an affordable price, say $25-30?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9025" LastActivityDate="2017-05-26T21:42:15.090" Title="Why is Alex Dunne's book 'How to Be a Class A Player' so valuable?" Tags="&lt;books&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17636" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17635" CreationDate="2017-05-24T07:34:20.613" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are a few reasons why &lt;em&gt;How to be a class A player&lt;/em&gt; is so valuable:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The book is &lt;strong&gt;out of print&lt;/strong&gt;, and is therefore rare&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The book takes a different approach of showing &lt;strong&gt;amateur games&lt;/strong&gt; (class A vs. mostly class B players). This makes the material targeted to the audiance&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The book has been &lt;strong&gt;well reviewed&lt;/strong&gt;, with 4.5 stars on 4 reviews on Amazon&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2017-05-24T07:34:20.613" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17637" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17617" CreationDate="2017-05-24T07:35:05.870" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;The OP asked me to provide sources supporting the claim that the double step was originally a &lt;em&gt;double move&lt;/em&gt;. I'll do my best.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The immediate predecessor of modern chess, the game &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shatranj&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Shatranj&lt;/a&gt;, did have pawns (&lt;em&gt;sarbaz&lt;/em&gt;), but no double step. The pieces in Shartanj had relatively weak powers, and gameplay, especially in the opening, was generally slow.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In medieval times they addressed this problem by starting the game from certain &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shatranj#Openings&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;tabiyas&lt;/a&gt;, battle arrays where the opposing forces were already in contact.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A more recent western invention to speed up the play was to allow double-initial moves of pawns.&#xA;From &lt;a href=&quot;https://books.google.no/books?isbn=0307828298&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;A Short History of Chess&lt;/a&gt; by Henry A. Davidson, Chapter 7:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;The Initial Double Move&lt;/em&gt;. Not until about 1550 did the pawn uniformly enjoy the power of moving two squares for his first move. The reason for the final adoption of the rule was simply that openings became conventionalized. White moved P to K3 [&lt;code&gt;e3&lt;/code&gt;]; Black did likewise. Then each pushed the pawn up a square. Since this was the usual opening, the modern practice of allowing both moves at once, thus speeding up the game, was introduced. As a matter of fact, this pawn privilege was the last, not the first, of a series of special consecutive-move privileges.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Davidson then very briefly discusses consecutive-move rules in earlier versions of chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There was also at some point an option to move two different pawns simultaneously one step each. Quote from the same book:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;During the seventeenth century a convention was in effect permitting a player to open a game by moving both rooks' pawns simultaneously one square each.&#xA;  [...]&#xA;  Perhaps the idea was that moving two pawns each one square was the equivalent of moving one pawn two squares.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think this historical context provides some rationale for why the en passant rule was introduced. If the double step is actually a double move, then it's quite logical that the opponent should be given a chance (on the next move) to capture the pawn after the first step. (See also Brian Towers' answer.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1485" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2017-05-24T21:45:42.777" LastActivityDate="2017-05-24T21:45:42.777" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17638" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17635" CreationDate="2017-05-24T09:31:36.983" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Supply and Demand (Economics 101)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: Some additional clarification at the request of the OP.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Supply is pretty clear. It is fairly easy to measure although it can be a bit more tricky to get an accurate measure when it is very light.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Demand is a bit more nebulous. When there is enormous demand then it is also pretty clear. Where things become less clear is when demand becomes very light, when supply is also likely to be very light. Then you have actual, real demand and perceived or imagined demand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just as in chess between humans the clear logic of the situation can be distorted by emotion. It is not something you see in computer chess and you also see much less of it in big business. Suppose there is enormous demand for the latest Harry Potter book or Star Wars film. The companies controlling the product will try and match price and supply in a fairly mathematical way to maximize profit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When supply and demand are very light then over emotional human beings make the decisions and things become a bit random.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let me give some examples.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) Cyril Northcote Parkinson, originator of Parkinson's Law, wrote an excellent book called &quot;The Evolution of Political Thought&quot;. It has been out of print for decades. A few years ago somebody recommended it to me and I looked for it and found a cheap copy, &amp;lt; $5, from a bookseller via Amazon. Why was the price so much lower than for your chess book? Well, Parkinson was right wing and so not politically correct. A PC person trying to set a price is likely to automatically value it less in financial terms because they value it less politically. They will put a lower price on it, a more realistic price. And now I've checked on Amazon again and, lo and behold! a publisher called &quot;Forgotten Books&quot; brought out a new edition just 2 days ago so they must see or anticipate fresh demand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) In 1978 I found some old chess magazines scattered over a couple of shelves in a second hand bookshop priced at 10p each. As far as I could see they were all different issues of the same English magazine, &quot;Chess&quot;. I approached the shopkeeper and asked for a price for the job lot. &quot;£8&quot; he said and I bought them. When I got them home and sorted them out I found I had the first 12 years complete from 1935 to 1946, importantly covering the war years when stuff like paper was in short supply. I've occasionally thought of selling them. But there are two questions I find difficult to answer. How much could I get? and How much would I want? You would think I should be able to get $1200, $100 per year. If a collector really wanted them he might pay me $12000, $1000 per year. But I certainly wouldn't sell for $1200 and nor for $12000. I would sell for $120,000 but I doubt there are any buyers at that price. I'm sure there is a lower figure, somewhere between $12,000 and $120,000 , which I would accept if offered but the offer is extremely unlikely. I could put them on the market for $50,000 but that would just be a more extreme version of your Alex Dunne chess book on offer for &gt; $100.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You see where this is going? A big, professional business which bought the magazines for roughly $12 in 1978 would have no problem selling them for $1200 today. But I'm not a professional business. I'm a human being who is emotionally attached to these magazines. Supply is being distorted by emotion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) A large general store about 15 minutes walk from where I live has a charity table by the exit full of donated second hand books which you are encouraged to take in return for a suggested donation of 50p. A few months ago I came across the second part of John Masters' autobiography, The Road to Mandalay, which covers his progress during the second world war from lieutenant to colonel, and donated my 50p. I enjoyed it and so looked for parts 1 and 3 on Amazon. I found them, again for &amp;lt; $5. Despite John Masters' politics being middle of the road (he would be a Liberal Democrat in the UK today) and being the author of the book Bhowani Junction which was turned into a classic film, I suspect he is seen in modern eyes as old fashioned and not politically correct and this &quot;value&quot; is reflected in the low price asked.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I doubt very much if the actual demand for Alex Dunne's &quot;How to be a Class A Player&quot; is really so much higher than for my books by Parkinson and Masters but the emotional beings setting the price have no good way of accurately measuring it. Their judgement has been clouded. They are not behaving rationally and their stock will remain unsold ... unless you win the lottery :-)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2017-05-26T21:42:15.090" LastActivityDate="2017-05-26T21:42:15.090" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17639" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17623" CreationDate="2017-05-24T13:16:21.137" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Playing 2...Nf6 requires black's willingness to play 3.cxd5 c6 lines, because black really needs a pawn recapture on d5. If he is ok with that and is prepared schematically for the lines arising after white declines playing cxd5, then sure, why not. Chess, like life, sometimes does not have absolute answers, especially at sub-Master levels. It is more important to feel comfortable with the kinds of positions you get than to have an absolute answer. Chances are, you or your opponent will play sub-optimal very soon, so the hand-wringing comes without cause.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10233" LastActivityDate="2017-05-24T13:16:21.137" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17640" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17622" CreationDate="2017-05-24T13:39:08.050" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The Chicago Open is in four days. Assuming a player continues his daily regimen of reading chess books for a few hours and playing two, perhaps three slow games (60/5, at least) a week, what else should a player be doing?&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;you should be playing more and studying less. Your study-to-play ratios are fragged. Acceptable ratios (suggested by &quot;everyone&quot;) is somewhere around 4:1, maybe even as high as 50/50 if your opening play is solid. I know you advocated a 20:1 ratio in previous posts, and that is way too high. You need to play more, see more positions under fire.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Also, should a player stop this regimen before the tournament to &quot;clear the mind&quot;? If so, how many days before?&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;What ever brings peace of mind and reaches your comfort level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Regarding openings&#xA;I'm completely confident in the middle game. Everyone says that opening study should be reserved for when I'm higher rated (~2000).&#xA;This is true, because by following general strategy, I can transition into the middle game easily. With a plan, it's hard (if not impossible) to go wrong.&#xA;Why, then, does everyone advise to review openings before a tournament? (I have taken perhaps a brief look at the classical variation of the Ruy Lopez, but that's it.)&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&quot;You have to choose the systems you feel comfortable with and understand their principles.&quot; - Chess instructor&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Define &quot;Everyone&quot;. you should know enough to play an opening &lt;em&gt;comfortably&lt;/em&gt;. I suspect &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;you are somewhere in the [1600] 1499 range (edit: based on the Chicago Open Entry List and your name, you are rated 1499)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; based on your previous questions. Studying openings before an event won't help all that much. Mental quietude and rest is much more valuable in my opinion. My name is not Everyone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Good luck at the Open. We look forward to seeing some of your games here on Stack Exchange. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10233" LastEditorUserId="10233" LastEditDate="2017-05-24T17:09:44.593" LastActivityDate="2017-05-24T17:09:44.593" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17641" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-05-24T15:23:01.867" Score="1" ViewCount="118" Body="&lt;p&gt;Tactics, such as the pin, skewer, and fork, take advantage of uncompromised positions of pieces, and sometimes inadequately guarded pieces. Usually, tactics can also occur during an intermezzo.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If both sides made positional improvements with every move, followed their plan, and made no mistakes, could tactics take place because of the evocation of an incorrect plan? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Perhaps in that case, at least one of the moves was an incorrect move because it's supporting the manifestation of an incorrect plan (wrong strategy). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;How can one make sure, other than by scanning for the positive conversion of &lt;a href=&quot;http://strikingtan.com/guaranteed-checkmate-opponent-every-time/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;the seven imbalances&lt;/a&gt; and looking out for checks, captures, and threats, that an opportunity for a tactic is created? &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What are some tips to ensure one is following a correct plan (such as counting that your plan will become effective before his)?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13147" LastActivityDate="2017-05-26T12:16:37.993" Title="Creating opportunities for tactics other than by enemy mistakes" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ClosedDate="2017-05-28T07:23:27.020" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17643" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4681" CreationDate="2017-05-24T17:48:30.787" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess engines aren't necessarily superior in strategy.  In fact, the strategy is programmed in.  But they can SEE MORE of the possibilities on a chess board (board vision).  They can see all the forks and all the pins after this move, the next move, and so on.  The human mind isn't that thorough and organized, and will miss opportunities and threats.  So it isn't necessarily superior in strategic play, the chess software is superior in board vision.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13363" LastActivityDate="2017-05-24T17:48:30.787" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17644" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17646" CreationDate="2017-05-24T19:16:05.807" Score="3" ViewCount="1541" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been playing c5 as black in Queens Gambit Declined lately.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i.e.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. c4 e6 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. e3 c5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I just want to know, how bad an idea it is to play in this way? I saw someone play it in bullet game but I don't know when it's best to play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13364" LastEditorUserId="13364" LastEditDate="2017-05-24T20:15:42.107" LastActivityDate="2017-05-25T10:04:58.370" Title=".. c5 in Queens Gambit Declined" Tags="&lt;queens-gambit-declined&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17645" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17331" CreationDate="2017-05-25T01:22:01.050" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to chesstempo.com:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The Opera mate occurs when the opponent king is mated on the edge of the board by a rook placed on the edge next to the king, and a bishop supporting the rook, and blocking escape onto the bishop's diagonal. A piece friendly to the mated king (usually a pawn) is blocking the king's escape on the diagonal of the colour opposite to the supporting bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So it's saying the Opera Mate can occur anywhere along the edge which would make Anderssen's Mate, which does require the mating-rook to be in the corner, just a special case of the Opera Mate.&#xA;If you buy the chesstempo defintion, then just because Morphy's Rook was at d8 and Count Isouard's King was at e8 and a pawn blocked the escape doesn't mean it can't happen anywhere along the edge as long as it's the King's own piece or pawn that prevents the King's escape.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13367" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-05-25T07:39:23.607" LastActivityDate="2017-05-25T07:39:23.607" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17646" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17644" CreationDate="2017-05-25T10:02:03.237" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The move 4... c5 is good because:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It is thematic in the Queen's Gambit Declined to break with either ...c5 or ...e5. With 4...c5, this is done without loss of time&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;White isn't putting pressure on the centre, so Black can take it&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is a sample game, which ended in a draw, between top players Karpov-Sveshnikov&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Karpov&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Sveshnikov&quot;]&#xA;[StartPly &quot;8&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. c4 e6 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. e3 c5 5. Nc3 Nc6 6. cxd5 Nd5 7. Bb5 cxd4 8. Nd4 Nc3 9. bxc3 Bd7 10. O-O Nd4 11. Bd7 Qd7 12. cxd4 Be7 13. a4 O-O 14. Qb3 Rfc8 15. Bd2 Rc6 16. Rab1 Rb6 17. Qa2 Ra6 18. a5 Bd8 19. Qb3 Ba5 20. Ba5 Ra5 21. Qb7 Qb7 22. Rb7 Rc8 23. Rfb1 g6 24. h3 Rc2 25. R1b2 Rb2 26. Rb2 Ra1 27. Kh2 h5 28. g4 hxg4 29. hxg4 a5 30. g5 a4 31. Rb8 Kg7 32. Ra8 a3 33. Kg3 Rg1 34. Kf4 Rg2 35. f3 a2 36. e4 Kh7 37. Ke5 Kg7 38. f4 Rb2 39. d5 exd5 40. exd5 Re2 41. Kd6 Rd2 42. Kc6 Rc2 43. Kd7 Rd2 44. d6 Rc2 45. Ke7 Re2 46. Kd8 Rd2 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastEditorDisplayName="user1108" LastEditDate="2017-05-25T10:04:58.370" LastActivityDate="2017-05-25T10:04:58.370" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17647" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-05-25T13:48:35.507" Score="8" ViewCount="639" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have been trying to solve this for a long time, but can't find a solution. How can white force a checkmate in 2 moves?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1R6/4p3/2pkB3/4n1N1/8/1N2K1B1/8/8 w - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13370" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-04T21:34:17.990" LastActivityDate="2020-04-04T21:34:17.990" Title="Chess challenge from a newspaper in 1927 (win in 2 moves)" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;problems&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17648" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17647" CreationDate="2017-05-25T14:03:43.817" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;Ask yourself: what would Black do if he were to move? After 1... Kc7, 2. Bxe5 is mate. His other option is 1... c5, threatening to escape with 2... Kc6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The solution:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt; 1. Nc5! blocks the c-pawn. Black gets the additional option of 1... Kxc5, but after that, 2. Ne4 is mate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;sub&gt;(I can post an interactive version, but that doesn't work with spoilers. And it's a good visualization exercise.)&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2017-05-25T14:03:43.817" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17649" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17624" CreationDate="2017-05-25T16:47:15.263" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Also interesting is 11.cxd5 with ideas like Nd4, Qe2, 0-0-0 and f4 and press black on the kingside. This seems a bit more solid than 11.exd5, which opens the b1-h7 diagonal for the B on c8, which is blacks problem child. Just some thoughts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10233" LastActivityDate="2017-05-25T16:47:15.263" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17651" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17624" CreationDate="2017-05-25T19:34:18.403" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;After 3. h6? It's clear as day he's going to play 4...g5. There's no other reason he played this; if you say, &lt;em&gt;it's to prevent some sort of eventual Bg5&lt;/em&gt;, that's great. Now you can take advantage of his fearful thinking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The move 4. f4 should have been played not just to prevent this (a defensive move) but more importantly, to control e5 - &lt;strong&gt;an attacking move&lt;/strong&gt;. Lastly, it gains kingside space and cramps up the enemy; he doesn't have an adequate response. This move improves your position by a considerable amount. Instead you played 4. Bg2? and now he was able to play his beloved move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S. After 4. f4 Nf6, 5. e5? is a mistake. Now you're just weakening the f5, d5 squares...don't push it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13147" LastActivityDate="2017-05-25T19:34:18.403" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17652" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17624" CreationDate="2017-05-25T21:12:31.190" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would say another important &quot;turning point&quot; of the game is 28.Rec1. This self-pin along the c-file is ugly. Much better, in my opinion, is 28.a4 (eventually played a move too late), allowing White to gain an outside passed pawn should black continue with 28...b5 29.cxb5 axb5 30.a5! and might be good enough to hold for the draw. With the rook remaining on the e-file, the pin along the e-file on the black Re8 might come into tactical play with Nxd6 should black attempt a knight sortie by Nd3: Crazy stuff like this is possible, instead of 28.Rec1:  28. a4 b5 29. cxb5 axb5 30. a5 Nd3 31. Nxd6&#xA;Nxe1+ 32. Rxe1 Ra8 33. Nxb5 Rb7 34. Nd4 Rxa5 35. Nc6 Rab5 36. Nxe7+ Kf7 37. d6 is unclear but White is certainly not much worse. Chess is great!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10233" LastActivityDate="2017-05-25T21:12:31.190" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17654" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17658" CreationDate="2017-05-26T04:14:30.327" Score="5" ViewCount="318" Body="&lt;p&gt;Wikipedia has a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalemate#History_of_the_stalemate_rule&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;stalemate history&lt;/a&gt; section, but for France it only says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The forfeiture of Black's turn to move (medieval France) (Murray 1913:464–66) (Davidson 1981:64–65), although other medieval French sources treat stalemate as a draw (Murray 1913:464–66).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Forcing a passed move is a very interesting stalemate rule. It would mean KNNvK could force a checkmate by first forcing stalemate, then Black passes, then White delivers checkmate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(But not all stalemates necessarily lead to checkmate. There may be some material that can force a stalemate but cannot make a checkmating move right afterwards. An example is black king at d8, white bishop at d7, white king at d6. Black to move is stalemate, but even if he passes a turn, White has no move that can checkmate him. White couldn't force that position alone, of course. It's just an example of stalemate that doesn't lead to checkmate.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyway, the &quot;medieval France&quot; is not qualified in the article. I would guess 1000 - 1600?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would like to know what was the stalemate rule in France around the Revolutionary and Napoleonic times? 1789 - 1815.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8509" LastActivityDate="2017-05-29T11:25:12.610" Title="During the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Era, what was the rule for stalemate in France?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;history&gt;&lt;stalemate&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17656" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1391" CreationDate="2017-05-26T11:54:23.687" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Ironically I've just played my first few games against it.  On its medium setting it twice overlooked a material winning pawn fork, so it may not even be looking two moves (4 ply ahead).  In my mind, that makes it less than average ELO strength. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastActivityDate="2017-05-26T11:54:23.687" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17657" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17641" CreationDate="2017-05-26T12:16:37.993" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Theoretically if both sides play perfectly the game should be drawn.  Someone has to make a mistake for the other side to win.  According to that logic, material-winning tactics would not be possible without an error, an unlikely scenario I know.  Or to invert that, if such tactics were possible, by definition a mistake must have occurred.  If you are gaining space, protecting everything and looking for imbalances that you can exploit, I'm not sure there's much else you can do, particularly against someone else who is doing the same. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastActivityDate="2017-05-26T12:16:37.993" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17658" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17654" CreationDate="2017-05-26T13:04:12.330" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can only cite Davidson, &lt;em&gt;A short history of chess&lt;/em&gt; (&lt;a href=&quot;https://books.google.no/books?isbn=0307828298&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Link&lt;/a&gt;), again. From chapter 8:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[...] In Italy, however, from the very beginning, players could not accept stalemate as a victory for anybody. They argued that since no legal move was possible, the game simply stopped. Consequently in medieval Europe four different stalemate rules were simultaneously in effect, and travelling players had to agree in advance as to whether they were playing by the Spanish (victory for White), French (forfeited move for Black), British (victory for Black), or Italian (drawn game) rules. The Italian practice eventually spread throughout the Continent, partly because of the tremendous influence which Italy exercised on all European culture, partly because of the fame of Italian chess players, and partly because the rule seemed inherently logical. By the end of the eighteenth century every part of Europe (except Britain) had agreed that stalemate was a drawn game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So according to this account, at least by the time of Napoleon stalemate was considered a draw in France.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ADDED: Even better, there is a contemporary source confirming that stalemate was considered a draw. Philidor, &lt;em&gt;Analyse du jeu des échecs&lt;/em&gt;, 1777 edition (&lt;a href=&quot;https://books.google.no/books?id=BV0GAAAAQAAJ&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Link&lt;/a&gt;), rule XVI at the very end of the book confirms this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[...] En Angleterre, celui dont le roi est pat, gagne la partie; (b) en France, &amp;amp; dans plusieurs autres pays, le pat est un refait.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1485" LastEditorUserId="12401" LastEditDate="2017-05-29T11:25:12.610" LastActivityDate="2017-05-29T11:25:12.610" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17659" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-05-26T23:09:44.053" Score="5" ViewCount="975" Body="&lt;p&gt;the likes of stockfish and komodo are much stronger than humans. The 3300 plus ratings of these engines suggests that even the top humans would find it impossible to draw even 1 game, but is this really true? Also, are these high ratings meaningful? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3872" LastActivityDate="2018-12-11T06:02:27.347" Title="Do top chess grandmasters have significant drawing chances against top engines?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;computer-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17660" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17606" CreationDate="2017-05-27T02:21:56.273" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Without going into a lot of detailed analysis, the simplest way to win as White is to get the Q in front of the pawn (1. Qa1 followed by 2. Qe1 will do it) and then bring your K up to win it with the Q's help.  After that it's a simple win with K and Q vs K.  Forget about any stalemate ideas.  They're wishful thinking in this position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastActivityDate="2017-05-27T02:21:56.273" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17661" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17566" CreationDate="2017-05-27T02:44:36.233" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Unless he's one of the rare prodigies, I wouldn't suggest anything too complicated for him now at age 5.  I was only able to show my 5 year old grandson the moves.  His attention span was too short for anything else. Just stick with the basic's - value of the pieces, simple tactics (forks, pins, simple checkmates such as the mate-in-one puzzles you've been doing).  You don't need the Polgar book yet.  You can set up your own mate-in-one puzzles.  Chess is first of all a game and should be fun.  Let him enjoy it while he's young.  Making it like work now could be counter-productive in the long run. Your approach sounds correct.  Serious training programs are work, and my opinion is that they can wait till later.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastActivityDate="2017-05-27T02:44:36.233" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17662" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17669" CreationDate="2017-05-27T03:48:58.410" Score="2" ViewCount="254" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e6&#xA;2.Nf3 d5 &#xA;3.exd5 exd5 &#xA;4.d4 Bd6&#xA;5.Be2 Ne7&#xA;6.c3? O-O&#xA;7.O-O Ng6&#xA;8.Nbd2 Nf4&#xA;9.Re1 Nxe2+&#xA;10.Rxe2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black's plan in the beginning was to take advantage of the (to-be) weak light squares around the white king by trading either his knight or light bishop for white's. It went easy, but now black can't find a solid way to break into the position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black sees that Qb3 is a potential threat that forks b7 and d5. The attack on d5 is not to be feared after 11. Qb3 b6 12. Qxd5?? Bxh2+, but this is how the game could have continued:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;10... Bf5 (activating the light bishop and preventing white's control of the b1-h7 diagonal by Qc2) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;11. Qb3 b6&#xA;12. Kh1 c6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does black have anything better?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13147" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2017-05-28T08:09:24.400" LastActivityDate="2017-05-30T07:16:56.477" Title="How does black break into the position? What is a good plan for black?" Tags="&lt;attack&gt;&lt;planning&gt;&lt;development&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17663" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17662" CreationDate="2017-05-27T07:02:54.673" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;What I see is not a light square weakness, but a bad dark square bishop.  You first need is to catch up in development.&#xA;My plan would be to play c6 to prevent the d pawn from moving, Bg4 to exchange off my bad bishop, (I don't play well with bishops, so this is very subjective.) and h6 to restrict his bishop.  Due to only open file, the rooks and probably the queens will be exchanged. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since white has more center control, you shouldn't be thinking about an attack.  Your best bet seems to be in the endgame, however, due to the lack of pawn weaknesses, it is hard to proceed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12449" LastActivityDate="2017-05-27T07:02:54.673" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17664" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17659" CreationDate="2017-05-27T07:32:54.413" Score="-3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Statistics state that for a 400 point rating difference, the higher rated player should win 99.9% of the time.  The slight chance for the lower rated player is due to the player's increased knowledge and human error.  Since at the grandmaster level, there is no huge increase of knowledge, and the computer will never tire, the human has, if effect, zero chance of even getting a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12449" LastActivityDate="2017-05-27T07:32:54.413" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17665" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14008" CreationDate="2017-05-27T12:44:00.803" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Black's move is forced to stop mate at g7.  He has no other alternative. The c3 rook will also fall if the bishop is then recaptured, so the game is hopeless for Black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastEditorUserId="14079" LastEditDate="2018-01-25T15:47:41.397" LastActivityDate="2018-01-25T15:47:41.397" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17666" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17662" CreationDate="2017-05-27T14:25:39.743" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is the french exchange variation, and as far as I see it, the game is still in its opening phase. And we know what that means: development, development, development! Neither player has finished deploying their pieces to their most effective squares, and they should focus on doing this to begin with.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore I think that your suggested 10...Bf5 is a perfectly reasonable move, since it places black's LSB on a very active diagonal, and even manages to restrict white's movements somewhat. Then black should aim to improve the b8-knight by putting it on, say, f6, and connect the rooks. Fighting for the control over the e-file is a very common theme in the French advance, so doubling the rooks over there is a reasonable course of action.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, what will white play in the meantime? Just like black, white should focus on developing his pieces. At the moment, the c1-bishop is blocked by the d2-knight, which is totally unacceptable, so white must at some point reposition the d2-knight. White's idea with Qb3 may seem appealing, but since it really doesn't threaten anything particularly dangerous (as you demonstrated) it's more a question whether white really wants the queen there to begin with.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Regardless, the d2-knight has to go somewhere, and most likely it will go to g3 via f1, or to b3. Then white will clear the first rank to double the rooks on the e-file (in this context Qb3 has a point, since it helps white clear the first rank with tempo).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Worth mentioning, due to the placement of the e2-rook, is that after 10...Bf5 whenever white moves the d2-knight, black will be able to play Be4, threatening to take on f3 and damaging white's pawn structure. This could potentially gain a tempo for black in some lines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In general, after both players have finished developing, I think that black should be at least slightly favoured due to the bishop pair and white's somewhat clumsy development.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One final note: under no circumstances will Kh1 be a good move for white in the next few moves. It simply wastes a tempo when white is already struggling to develop the remaining pieces. Even after 10...Bf5 11.Qb3 b6, white does not go for the simple threat of taking on d5 with Kh1?!, since black still has to develop the knight on b8. Black would love to play Nd7 to develop the piece, but that is not possible to do immediately, since then white really can take on d5. Thus, if black prepares Nd7 by playing c6 anyway, the tempo wasted on playing Kh1 could be more effectively used for other things.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8300" LastActivityDate="2017-05-27T14:25:39.743" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17667" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1872" CreationDate="2017-05-27T18:43:10.567" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't play the Evans, but I happened to play this friendly game an hour ago, and came here looking to see what the Books said about 4...Nxb4. I saw no reason to transpose to other lines but sought some advantage, and it was a fun if flawed game. I have not seen a master game with this yet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(PHS vs Ken, offhand game 5-27-2017)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Bc5 4. b4 Nxb4 5. Nxe5 d5 6. exd5 Qf6 7. d4 Bb6 8. Nc3 Ne7 9. a3 Na6 10. Ne4 Qh4 11. Qf3 f6 12. Nf7 Bg4 13. Qb3 Bxd4 14. d6 Be6 15. Qxb7 Rb8 16. d7+ Kxf7 17. Bxe6+ Kxe6 18. Qxa6+ Bb6 19. Qc4+ Ke5 20. Bb2+ Kf5 21. Ng3+ Kg5 22. Bc1+ &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13387" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-05-28T09:07:57.540" LastActivityDate="2017-05-28T09:07:57.540" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17668" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7821" CreationDate="2017-05-27T18:47:10.717" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let's see what happens if we just look at the math.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=172&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE handbook&lt;/a&gt;, a rating difference of 422 points would mean the engine would get an average score of about 0.93 per game.  Assuming that the human player is only going to draw and not win, that results in the computer winning about 86% of the time, and the human drawing 14%.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the computer wins 86% of the time, the computer will win a 10 game match about 99.3% of the time.  About 0.6% of the time, it will be a 5-5 tie, and 0.1% of the time, the human will win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But this ignores the effect of giving the human the White pieces.  &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.robweir.com/blog/2014/01/first-move-advantage-in-chess.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;This blog&lt;/a&gt; suggests the first-move advantage is worth about 35 rating points.  That would put the computer's odds of winning a single game at perhaps 83% instead of 86%.  Using those odds, the computer would win the 10-game match about 98.3% of the time, it would be a 5-5 tie about 1.4% of the time, and the human would win about 0.3% of the time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2017-05-27T18:47:10.717" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17669" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17662" CreationDate="2017-05-27T18:50:24.203" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;This position is still very far from having a definitive character that would dictate the nature of best play. That is still perhaps twenty moves away. If you are already thinking that you have an advantage and just need to find a way in, you will not be playing objectively. Your position is fine, you will be able to develop easily, you have two Bishops, but you have no point of attack, and you don't know yet what White plans to do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is an old saying that if you can't think of a good move, wait until your opponent makes a bad one. I think that may apply here, because White has not yet played badly enough to lose, but it does not mean that you can just play anything. Do not simply play the position as it is. What can you create? There is usually something, which is how Magnus creates wins out of sterile positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I rather like ..b6 to be followed by ..Ba6, ..c5 and ..Nc6. That puts a lot of new ideas on the board, and gives White more chance to go wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastActivityDate="2017-05-27T18:50:24.203" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17670" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17662" CreationDate="2017-05-27T20:49:51.123" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;What pops to mind are the Natural looking c6/Qc7; Nc6/Ne7/Ng6 and Bg4 is another development plan. Black needs to coordinate his pieces and place them on good squares to complete his development - as a Cat A player, that is how I look at it. The position is a little flat.&#xA;Part of me is not crazy about 10...Bf5 11.Qb3 b6 12.c4!? c6 13.Nf1 Bg4 14. Bg5 and white is nicely reorganized and has freed his game up quite a bit. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10233" LastEditorUserId="10233" LastEditDate="2017-05-27T21:07:43.887" LastActivityDate="2017-05-27T21:07:43.887" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17671" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1634" CreationDate="2017-05-28T10:43:08.040" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a professional chess therapist out there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://web.archive.org/web/20170105171446/http://szachoterapia.pl/kontakt.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://web.archive.org/web/20170105171446/http://szachoterapia.pl/kontakt.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;NOTE: the &lt;a href=&quot;http://chess-therapy.org&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;original link&lt;/a&gt; is dead, and the website is only available on the Wayback Machine in Polish.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let me quote the overview of her ideas from her website:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;chess is the bridge between the therapist and the world of the kid&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;action on the board serves as an ice-breaker and stimulates the conversation&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;initially the therapist plays passively and observes the child&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;only much later the therapist raises the stress level by more active play&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;this kind of interaction at the chessboard serves as a diagnostic tool&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the core of the method: new behaviors learned in chess transfer to the kid's real life&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;chess therapy ignores correct chess from the competitive point of view&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3456" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2019-07-01T09:33:46.077" LastActivityDate="2019-07-01T09:33:46.077" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="17672" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17566" CreationDate="2017-05-28T14:41:29.117" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would press him to find out &lt;em&gt;if&lt;/em&gt; he is a prodigy. There is no going back in time, and you've nothing to lose if done responsibly, and he has everything to gain with your assistance. Maybe find out if he is interested in tournament play and interested in the competitive aspect of organized chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10233" LastActivityDate="2017-05-28T14:41:29.117" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17673" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17566" CreationDate="2017-05-28T20:26:08.070" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a FIDE National Instructor.  Five is plenty old enough.  I recommend The Comprehensive Chess Course, by Lev  Alburt et al.  &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1889323233&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.amazon.com/Comprehensive-Chess-Course-Lessons-Enlarged/dp/1889323233&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, just take short games from a book (Polgar has some in the back), let your child take the winning side.  Let him guess some of the moves, and talk about why the players made the moves they did.  Keep it simple: threatens the pawn on e5, forks King and Queen, lets the Bishop out, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13400" LastActivityDate="2017-05-28T20:26:08.070" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17675" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15569" CreationDate="2017-05-28T20:41:27.267" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;My daughter is a 1400 now, and we have studied openings very little.  She knows a few names, but little else.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I teach opening principles.  In ten moves, you should have advanced both center pawns, developed all four minor pieces, and castles.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just that is enough to get her a decent position out of the opening in most games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13402" LastActivityDate="2017-05-28T20:41:27.267" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17676" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12990" CreationDate="2017-05-28T20:41:32.063" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;7-year olds have a wide capacity for chess. Don't treat them as tactical children, but press them with ideas that expand their chess thought.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bxh7 mates; Nh6/Bf6 mates; f7-sacrifices followed by invasion on the light squares (e6/g6); Rook lifts to the third rank followed by sacrifices on the 7th rank; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Important is to make observations on their own games of mating patterns that they missed. Nothing better. Chess is fun - taking a game of their own and expanding on the ideas they had during the game is awesome sauce.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10233" LastActivityDate="2017-05-28T20:41:32.063" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17678" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17527" CreationDate="2017-05-28T22:43:44.950" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you are interested in historical versions of the game, or generally in chess history, then you would be interested in Winter's Chess Notes, start at &#xA;the wiki entry for &quot;Edward Winter (chess historian)&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a nice bibliography at &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_chess#References&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_chess#References&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and that then points to the classic text on the subject by Murray,&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._J._R._Murray&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._J._R._Murray&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Peter&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13387" LastActivityDate="2017-05-28T22:43:44.950" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17679" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17680" CreationDate="2017-05-28T23:20:44.547" Score="10" ViewCount="1688" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to know what the differences are between &quot;Dvoretsky's Endgame Manual&quot; and &quot;Fundamental Chess Endings&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I want to know also if these books are compatible, I mean, if I buy for example &quot;Dvoretsky's Endgame Manual&quot;, it would be useless to buy &quot;Fundamental Chess Endings&quot; because they are very similar in his ideas or the examples that they show, or it is OK to have both books? I'm a 2100+ FIDE rated player, and that's why I want to buy these books, because I think they are for my level already.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13403" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-05-29T07:37:28.647" LastActivityDate="2017-05-30T10:48:35.227" Title="Dvoretsky's Endgame Manual vs Fundamental Chess Endings" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;books&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17680" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17679" CreationDate="2017-05-29T08:03:39.290" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;They are both great, I agree that you should get both.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Dvoretsky's Endgame Manual&lt;/em&gt; is perhaps more instructive since it has slightly more explanatory text and tries to organize the material around rules for reader to learn, while &lt;em&gt;Fundamental Chess Endings&lt;/em&gt; has more examples in about the same number of total pages. They both focus on practical examples from real games with very few pieces left.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the end it's not the books you buy, but the work you put in, that matters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1485" LastActivityDate="2017-05-29T08:03:39.290" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17681" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17682" CreationDate="2017-05-29T08:42:44.793" Score="7" ViewCount="475" Body="&lt;p&gt;Lomonosov Endgame Tablebase says it includes all endgames with 7 pieces. But does that include things like KQQ v KQQQ? At every possible position?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Such things seem highly unlikely, but theoretically possible. I recently watched a &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJwRwNTOeDM&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Fischer-Petrosion&lt;/a&gt; game that went to 4 queens in the endgame that also included a bishop v knight and some pawns. They eventually agreed to a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other unlikely things: KBBvKNNN, KQRvKQQ, KRvKBBBB. Have any of these been evaluated?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I guess the general question would be, have all 7-or-less endgames been evaluated where at least one side has 2+ queens, 3+ rooks, 3+ bishops, or 3+ knights?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8509" LastEditorUserId="8509" LastEditDate="2017-05-30T03:02:12.917" LastActivityDate="2017-05-31T14:54:44.940" Title="Does the Lomonosov Tablebase (and others) include extra material positions such as KQQvKQQQ?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;tablebases&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17682" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17681" CreationDate="2017-05-29T09:17:38.723" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Lomonosov Endgame Tablebase supports 7 pieces. That means it has all the positions you describe in your question. Otherwise, it's not a tablebase by definition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &quot;ridiculous&quot; positions you mention might not happen on the board but might still happen in the engine search. They're still important because pawns can promote, and a chess engine looks at lots of possibilities -- not just positions that actually appear on the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All 7-or-less endgames have been analyzed. However, some tablebase implementations leave out bare king endgames.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="11202" LastEditDate="2017-05-31T14:54:44.940" LastActivityDate="2017-05-31T14:54:44.940" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17683" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17681" CreationDate="2017-05-29T10:58:08.057" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Lomonossov tablebases include all 7-man positions with the exception of 6 pieces vs lone king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most material distributions you consider &quot;ridiculous&quot; are in fact required to evaluate &quot;interesting&quot; positions because of possible pawn promotions. This works recursively, so if you want to solve e.g. KPPPvKPP, you need (among others) the table KPPQvKPP first. To solve KPPQvKPP, you need (among others) the table KPPQvKPQ first, &amp;amp;c.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ultimately, you need KQQQvKQQ and all other 4-man vs 3-man tables to solve the endgame KPPPvKPP. So it is necessary to have all possible material constellations, even those who seem to be uninteresting.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12401" LastActivityDate="2017-05-29T10:58:08.057" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17685" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17856" CreationDate="2017-05-29T19:57:43.460" Score="3" ViewCount="3216" Body="&lt;p&gt;I downloaded the binary of Android Stockfish arm64-v8a and looked in the CPP source files. In main() there is all initialization, and then there is UCI::loop(), which catches standard input with getline() and writes back with sync_cout(). How can I write to the engine from a c# (xamarin) application? And is it necessary to make some additional initialization?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I found &lt;a href=&quot;https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1579074/redirect-stdoutstderr-on-a-c-sharp-windows-service&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt;,&#xA;which could be close to my problem, but maybe it is not. I don't want to spend three days just to see I'm doing complete nonsense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also I don't know how to recognize Stockfish's console. Is there only one console, no matter how many different libraries the program can use?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As I don't understand the technical part much, I'm including a screenshot of what I expect to be the Stockfish I should communicate with :-). If it is wrong from the beginning, please let me know.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/iNCVm.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/iNCVm.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT&lt;/strong&gt;: What file type is the stockfish-8-arm64-v8a, is it android native library or native shell executable or something else? Where to put the file, how to set it up (in Visual Studio 2015), how to call it from code? I have some code that I tried &lt;a href=&quot;https://stackoverflow.com/questions/44267734/how-to-run-compiled-binary-file-on-android&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; but still I can't make it work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11609" LastEditorUserId="11609" LastEditDate="2017-06-02T05:04:54.743" LastActivityDate="2017-06-18T16:07:03.533" Title="How to send uci messages from c# app to stockfish on android?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;programming&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17686" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17662" CreationDate="2017-05-30T00:26:08.810" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The plan I would adopt as Black is Nd7, followed by Nf6, followed eventually by N e4, supported by a B or P on f5. Black should try for an exchange of knights to get the Bishop pair against Bishop and Knight; right now White has an offsetting &quot;Knight pair.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another advantage of the N on d7 is that it can also be moved to b6 to counteract White's queen side maneuvers. Black has a better structural position but is slightly behind in development, meaning that he needs to worry about limiting White's piece play before trying to utilize his positional advantages.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2017-05-30T00:26:08.810" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17687" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17570" CreationDate="2017-05-30T00:58:56.293" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;White's best plan is Nd2, followed by Nb3 and Nc5. From there it attacks the pawn a6 as well as the key square e6. Black will have a hard time defending both places.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More to point, the Ne5 can move quickly to the kingside with Nd3 followed by Ne5 or Nf4. You don't want to play your pawn e4 because it takes away this &quot;stepping stone&quot; for the knight. Because the creation of &quot;bad bishop&quot; by the white squared pawns, this is one of the few positions in which a knight can move from one side to another faster than a bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2017-05-30T00:58:56.293" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17688" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17685" CreationDate="2017-05-30T01:28:35.673" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You're using the compiled Stockfish binary so you don't need to worry anything about C++. You only need to think about C++ if you're compiling the Stockfish source code yourself (but you're not).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The link you have is about calling a DLL in C# - this has nothing to what you want to do. The Stockfish program you have is independently compiled, and has nothing to do with Microsoft's DLL implementation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You're looking for this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://stackoverflow.com/questions/4291912/process-start-how-to-get-the-output&quot;&gt;https://stackoverflow.com/questions/4291912/process-start-how-to-get-the-output&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should start a new engine process, run it and communicate with the engine by UCI protocol.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I see you have started +100 bounty, but I think it's a &lt;strong&gt;mistake&lt;/strong&gt;. I believe my answer is accurate but I'm unable to debug your environment. Your problem is the unknown file path. Have you added a text file, and try to read it in your app? If you can't load a text file in your program, you can't start a chess engine. Please give a go.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Save a new text file to where you have the Stockfish engine&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Try to read the text file&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You may want to do it on a simulator. On your PC simulator, you can use path like &lt;code&gt;C:\Engine\SF_engine&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your technical difficulty has nothing to do with chess engine or UCI protocol, and thus off-topic here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2017-06-02T05:48:44.560" LastActivityDate="2017-06-02T05:48:44.560" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17689" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17662" CreationDate="2017-05-30T07:16:56.477" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The position is just in the Initial phase and there can be many ways or plans where Black can make good progress but the Key Strategic things which Black should keep in his mind is that &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Black should play the move f6 so that the White's Knights should not occupy the juicy e5 square .&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Black has the two Bishops so he should make the Game open . Now c5 , Bf5 and Qc7 Nd7  moves should be natural to support this . &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;As the Bishops primary position would be Bd6 and Bf5 Black should aim for playing in centre and towards K-side and allow White to play on the Q-side . &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastActivityDate="2017-05-30T07:16:56.477" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17690" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17679" CreationDate="2017-05-30T07:58:13.633" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I disagree with the other answer that it's not the book but the hours you put in - if the book is off-putting and difficult to follow, it will affect your motivation to put in the hours required.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;IM John Watson has a &lt;a href=&quot;http://theweekinchess.com/john-watson-reviews/the-end-game-comes-before-we-know-it&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;fantastic review&lt;/a&gt; of Dvoretsky's work which I recommend you read before committing either way. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I must emphasize that this is a terribly advanced work that I don't&#xA;  think is a very good way for the average player to study the endgame.&#xA;  The majority of the examples are complex and position-specific, and&#xA;  neither the average student nor even strong masters will follow or&#xA;  play over most of the hundreds of positions that are given extensive&#xA;  analysis, not to mention the subvariations derived from those&#xA;  positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He also contrasts this with Fundamental Chess Endings:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In my own teaching to average players I am still using Mueller and&#xA;  Lamprecht's Fundamental Chess Endings, which has a wonderful balance&#xA;  between Encyclopaedic coverage (I can find almost anything), examples&#xA;  that can be shortened at most points, and clear explanations that&#xA;  bring together endings of the same sort.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Get them both!&quot; they say and of course if you are financially so fortunate then you obviously can't go wrong with that, but if you are only going to get one, and are not IM level, I suggest get Fundamental Chess Endings first and then move on to Dvoretsky once you have mastered this (and have appetite for more). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1816" LastEditorUserId="1816" LastEditDate="2017-05-30T08:30:45.407" LastActivityDate="2017-05-30T08:30:45.407" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17691" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1872" CreationDate="2017-05-30T08:18:31.027" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The main strategic theme for White in Evans is White builds up a Powerful Centre and sacrifices some Pawns to create a lasting initiative &amp;amp; one objective of White is always restrict Black to castle . The Evans gambit is for the Players who are the Prime attackers and are bold enough to sacrifice material at all costs to maintain the initiative. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here in the above position White should castle first and depending on Black's best reply which is d5,Nf6,d*c3 White has too many ways to keep the momentum . &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's check some of the lines .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;if dc3 from Black then White can play Bf7+ and then Qd5+ nabs the Black Bishop and Black cannot castle anymore and his King stays in the centre .&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;if Nf6 then c*d4 and White's Pawn simply dominates the Centre kicking off the Bishop &amp;amp; the Knights.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If d5 then after ed5 the e-file from White gets opened . The Queen can come to h5 targeting the f7 pawn and Black King would be in pretty bad position with development quite incomplete and defend for the rest of the Game .&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would say this is quite a familiar position for the Evans Gambit practitioners you can refer 1-2 games of Kasparov/Fischer/Janowsky/Marshall/Anderson/Morphy to see how the games go on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastActivityDate="2017-05-30T08:18:31.027" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17692" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17679" CreationDate="2017-05-30T10:48:35.227" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The key difference between the two, I believe, is the use of key positions in Dvoretsky's Endgame Manual in Blue Print. Those become a &quot;must know&quot; subset of endgame knowledge and should be concentrated on first, and consist of around 200+ positions to study along with the excellent text explanations. I too have both books and use DEM mostly and FCE for references if I want more examples. There is also a considerable cross-pollination between the two with the same positions in both. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10233" LastActivityDate="2017-05-30T10:48:35.227" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17693" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-05-30T13:52:23.040" Score="-2" ViewCount="5403" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;5R2/8/6k1/8/4Q3/p7/P7/8 b - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If there is a king (black) and one pawn (black) with one queen (white), one pawn (white) and one rook (white) and the pawn (white) is blocking pawn (black). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can the king (black) start counting moves to claim a draw?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please help and add supporting evidence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13418" LastEditorUserId="4186" LastEditDate="2017-06-14T14:44:14.437" LastActivityDate="2017-06-14T14:44:14.437" Title="Number of moves till draw with a king" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;draw&gt;&lt;kings&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2017-05-31T11:35:12.020" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17694" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1416" CreationDate="2017-05-30T13:57:30.590" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've had good results against the computer by avoiding it's strength, which is tactics.  Try to keep the game closed and positional for that reason.  Also, book  opening lines are programmed into the computer, so avoiding them is a good idea.  As far as end games are concerned, I've found them weakest there, where the lines extend beyond their horizon.  Of course, I'm not speaking about the very highest settings where that wouldn't apply. If fact I've had my best results by heading for the ending with at least an equal position and outplaying them there. And since the computers are so materially oriented, I've been able to make successful sacrifices against them when the position warranted since they'll typically grab the material. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastActivityDate="2017-05-30T13:57:30.590" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17695" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1872" CreationDate="2017-05-30T16:40:30.810" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The only point of &lt;code&gt;4...Nxb4&lt;/code&gt; is to set a trap already noted in comments&#xA;to two of the answers:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Bc5 4. b4 Nxb4 5. Nxe5? Qf6 6. d4? (6. O-O Qxe5 7. c3 Bd6 8. f4? Qc5+) Bxd4! 7. Qxd4 Nxc2+ 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Interpolating 6 Bxf7+ doesn't help; the best White can do is bail out with &#xA;&lt;code&gt;6. O-O&lt;/code&gt;, but that's still not nearly enough compensation for the lost Knight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, if White plays the normal &lt;code&gt;5. c3&lt;/code&gt; instead, Black is basically forced&#xA;to play &lt;code&gt;Nc6&lt;/code&gt;, transposing to the Bc5 variation of the main line&#xA;&lt;code&gt;4...Bxb4 5. c3&lt;/code&gt; — so &lt;code&gt;4...Nxb4&lt;/code&gt; is no better than &lt;code&gt;4...Bxb4&lt;/code&gt;,&#xA;and may be worse if you prefer &lt;code&gt;5...Ba5&lt;/code&gt; in the main line, or if&#xA;White turns out to have a better move than &lt;code&gt;5. c3&lt;/code&gt; (perhaps &lt;code&gt;5. 0-0&lt;/code&gt;,&#xA;or an immediate &lt;code&gt;5. d4&lt;/code&gt; as &lt;strong&gt;xaisoft&lt;/strong&gt; suggests in a comment to &#xA;&lt;strong&gt;Andrew&lt;/strong&gt;'s answer).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8860" LastActivityDate="2017-05-30T16:40:30.810" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17696" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17693" CreationDate="2017-05-30T17:34:09.120" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You could start counting from ANY position.  It will be a draw if 50 moves elapse without a piece being taken or a pawn being moved.  You could even start counting from the opening position - both sides could just move their knights around randomly, and maybe move their rooks to where the knights used to be, for 50 moves.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The fact that the pawns are blocked in the position you show doesn't matter to the 50 move rule, except that it makes them less likely to move and thus reset the count.  Whether a pawn &lt;em&gt;could&lt;/em&gt; move or a piece &lt;em&gt;could&lt;/em&gt; be captured is irrelevant - what matters is whether that actually &lt;em&gt;does&lt;/em&gt; happen in the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although you can start counting, White has several ways to reset the count in the position you show.  They could capture the remaining pawn, and thus reset the count to 0.  With the pawn out of the way, they could later move their own pawn several times to keep resetting the count.  They could even move their own queen next to the Black king to force it to be captured, to reset the count - remember, ANY capture resets it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a USCF rule (14F4) that someone in sudden death with less than 5 minutes left, and a position where captures and pawn moves are unlikely, can ask the TD for assistance in counting moves.  Whether the TD agrees is up to his discretion.  In such a case, the pawns being locked might factor in to whether he agrees to help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(I'm ignoring that there's no White king in your diagram; I assume that to be an oversight and not part of the question.  Lack of a king means there's an ongoing illegal position, and that has its own rules.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2017-05-30T17:34:09.120" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17697" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16996" CreationDate="2017-05-30T20:10:10.523" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The best sources I can find reference a &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1073519&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Aivi Karu&lt;/a&gt;, who Keres played in correspondence chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Take note (from &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Keres#Early_life&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[Keres] played about 500 correspondence games, and at one stage had 150 correspondence games going simultaneously.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is likely this was a person he played in correspondence, but we may never know who he/she actually was.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also worthy of note, Keres was only &lt;em&gt;fifteen&lt;/em&gt; years old when he played this game!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10687" LastActivityDate="2017-05-30T20:10:10.523" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17698" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14770" CreationDate="2017-05-30T20:16:34.980" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You may find &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/blog/U4mtoEQAAEEAgZRL/strongest-chess-player-ever&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this post&lt;/a&gt; by the developers of the website &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://lichess.org/&lt;/a&gt; helpful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although they use &lt;a href=&quot;http://stockfishchess.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Stockfish&lt;/a&gt; as the engine, they set the search depths as such (note that they have eight levels of play):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;AI level 1: skill 3/20, depth 1, 50ms&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;AI level 2: skill 6/20, depth 2, 100ms&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;AI level 3: skill 9/20, depth 3, 150ms&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;AI level 4: skill 11/20, depth 4, 200ms&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;AI level 5: skill 14/20, depth 6, 250ms&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;AI level 6: skill 17/20, depth 8, 300ms&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;AI level 7: skill 20/20, depth 10, 350ms&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;AI level 8: skill 20/20, depth 12, 400ms&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have personally played and seen others play against the varying levels. Level 1 is almost joke worthy--the computer may move his queen completely into danger, completely miss checkmates, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, level eight is crushing; beating it requires repeated practice over the same line (at least, that is the only way I've seen people beat it).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10687" LastActivityDate="2017-05-30T20:16:34.980" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17700" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17693" CreationDate="2017-05-31T06:03:25.397" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, black can start counting to 50 moves. See Article 5.2e of the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=171&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE handbook&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The game may be drawn if each player has made at least the last 50&#xA;  moves without the movement of any pawn and without any capture (see&#xA;  Article 9.3).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this case, black may (but is not obliged to) claim a draw. For the sake of completeness, Article 9.6b also states the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Any consecutive series of 75 moves have been completed by each player without the movement of any pawn and without any capture. If the last move resulted in checkmate, that shall take precedence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the difference here being that, the game shall be declared drawn by the arbiter whether the players like it or not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, this is subject to white having a king on the board too...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7473" LastActivityDate="2017-05-31T06:03:25.397" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17701" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17659" CreationDate="2017-05-31T08:33:34.933" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Today's engines running on suitably powerful computers will most likely beat any top grandmaster.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ratings are essentially numbers assigned to players such that a player is expected to beat some other player (a draw being counted as a half-win) some fraction of the time, based on their difference in rating. An important point is that the absolute ratings are irrelevant: if every player in the world got a 1000-point boost to their rating, nothing fundamental would change.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The mathematical details imply that according to the rating model, no matter how big the difference in rating, the weaker player will still win some fraction of the time. In the case of Elo, we assume that even the lowest-rated player in the world has a 9% chance of beating Magnus Carlsen. This is clearly a flawed assumption, but it's the kind that almost every rating system makes; and it's not too bad anyway, it works well for the most part (i.e. when rating differences aren't too big), and even at the extreme ends, the best human players can still blunder.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, today's engines beat humans 100% of the time in a fair game (I wouldn't say there's explicit proof, but the fact that they don't even bother to hold such matches anymore says a lot, so let's just say this is true); thus it's completely meaningless to assign a FIDE rating to these silicon monsters: there is absolutely no difference whether a 2800 player meets a 3300-rated engine or a 4300-rated engine, as far as the Elo rating system is concerned. Even for an engine running on a desktop, if we assume that a top grandmaster could score some 5%, we'd still be looking at what statisticians call a tail event; rating systems (and statistics in general) are really bad at these.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So top computer engines have their own rating lists, no humans involved. But they still run on the Elo system, albeit apparently with a different 'base'. You can meaningfully compare engines here; a 100-point rating difference will probably correspond to a sensible winning percentage. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, the difference between the FIDE rating list and computer chess rating lists (CCRLs) are completely meaningless. While CCRL base ratings were probably chosen to be higher because most computers are simply better than the best humans, this base rating is just arbitrary (at least as far as I know); we could subtract 2000 points from every rating in the CCRL and add 2000 to every rating in FIDE, and both lists will continue to function the way they have.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems that the modern way to compare humans to computers today is to look at scores from matches where players are given a handicap. If I recall correctly, this is reminiscent of the pre-Elo days, when players' strengths were gauged by how they fared against the best players under a handicap!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Long story short: the high ratings are meaningful when compared with other engines in the same list. On the other hand, they are absolutely worthless for comparison against humans.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7473" LastEditorUserId="7473" LastEditDate="2017-05-31T09:15:14.040" LastActivityDate="2017-05-31T09:15:14.040" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17702" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17704" CreationDate="2017-05-31T12:08:22.127" Score="8" ViewCount="1405" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am reading a book about the Caro-Kann defence.&#xA;In this position the author suggests playing 5...Bd7. (Although they assert that Bg6 is not a bad move either). In fact, the whole idea of playing Qb6 early instead of e6 is so that the bishop can retreat to d7 in case of g4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I find this very confusing. The point of playing the Caro-Kann instead of the French defence is to not have a bad bishop at the price of having to &quot;waste&quot; a tempo with c6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But in this position not only did black &quot;waste&quot; a tempo with c6, they also had to move the bishop twice AND back inside the pawn chain.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So my question is: why would black want to do that? Why isn't this just a much worse position in a French-like structure considering that ...c5 will come in two moves instead of one, the bishop is inside the pawn chain, and white has got the move g4 for free which might be useful later?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;rn2kbnr/pp2pppp/1qp5/3pPb2/3P2P1/2N5/PPP2P1P/R1BQKBNR b KQkq - 9 5&#xA;1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. e5 Bf5 4. Nc3 Qb6 5. g4 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13184" LastEditorUserId="11202" LastEditDate="2017-05-31T15:03:57.083" LastActivityDate="2017-05-31T17:06:06.783" Title="Why is it a good idea to retreat the bishop into the pawn chain in this variation of the Caro Kann?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;french-defense&gt;&lt;caro-kann&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17703" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17702" CreationDate="2017-05-31T13:13:44.613" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The immediate point of Bd7 versus Bg6 is to prevent White from playing 6 e6 which could give Black's King a lot of trouble. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Generally, Black cannot entirely avoid White's g4 anyway (it's always a move to keep in mind in the advance variation).&#xA;However, the question is: Does that move actually help White in the long run? Yes, it gains the short-term advantage you mention (free tempo + space), but at the same time it also comes with the long-term disadvantage of fracturing White's kingside pawn structure. Black can then try to play around this and later free the Bishop via e8 &amp;amp; f7-h5 (after that pawn has moved to f6 to attack White's center).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13430" LastActivityDate="2017-05-31T13:13:44.613" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17704" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17702" CreationDate="2017-05-31T17:06:06.783" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;White made two moves, which are by far not typical in advance french. The first is Nc3, blocking the c-pawn, and the second is g4, which can be usefull one day but can be also quite weakening. Black will not blindly castle under mate attack, but will play in the center and on the c-file and if he manages to push h5 at right time, getting control over f5 square, white can get awful endgame. If I was White after Bd7, I guess I would like to have my pawn back on g2 while I would not see big advantage in having knight on c3. Anyway I would go for Nce2 with c3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11609" LastActivityDate="2017-05-31T17:06:06.783" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17706" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5975" CreationDate="2017-06-01T09:42:37.447" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Little is known about his rating, indeed, he has no FIDE rating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I dug deeper in the tournament that &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/12422/672&quot;&gt;lodebari found&lt;/a&gt;, at &lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/tournament_report.phtml?event16=68859&amp;amp;t=2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;the FIDE page for the  2012 Members Appreciation Blitz tournament&lt;/a&gt;. Apparently he scored 2.5/7 against a 1950 Elo average, beating a 1850 and a 1700, losing to two 1900s and some stronger players, and drawing to a 1670.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That doesn't look like a 2300-rated player to me. &lt;strong&gt;More like 1850.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="672" LastActivityDate="2017-06-01T09:42:37.447" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17707" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-06-01T12:52:19.837" Score="2" ViewCount="365" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yesterday I played a tournament game against a lower rated player. I was white. We entered a Sicilian sub-line of which I didn't know much. Soon, my opening advantage evaporated and I started feeling uncomfortable, even worse, although the engine insists that it is at least equal for me.&#xA;Because I was so pessimistic about my position, I went on to sacrifice the exchange in a complicated line I calculated beforehand. I knew it wouldn't work, since I had seen his response in advance. Nevertheless, I guess I hoped he'd go wrong somewhere. I lost soon thereafter, because I was down material with no compensation. I am convinced that my mistake was of psychological nature. Maybe I wanted to really show that I'm the stronger player by finishing him off with a combination? But yeah, it didn't really work. Maybe my pessimism also contributed to this, I don't know.&#xA;Is there anyone who has experienced a similar problem and can help me out?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12604" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-06-01T20:52:16.817" LastActivityDate="2017-06-02T18:24:10.337" Title="Pessimism in chess" Tags="&lt;psychology&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17708" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17707" CreationDate="2017-06-01T14:36:58.147" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's a very natural human instinct to go &quot;all-in&quot; when we feel cornered. Sometimes, that reaction actually succeeds because the enemy is taken by surprise.. sometimes all it does is make us lose faster (which might still feel better than continue suffering). There are many situations where it actually makes a lot of sense in chess: For example, if you are already down material, you are more or less forced to go on the offensive. If you don't, your opponent can simply grind you down and win the endgame with that extra piece or pawn. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;However&lt;/strong&gt;.. that is not what happened in your case. Instead, it sounds like you created your problem yourself. And I'd argue that, rather than &lt;em&gt;pessimism&lt;/em&gt;, you displayed the wrong kind of &lt;em&gt;optimism&lt;/em&gt;. You hoped that your opponent would not see the same moves that you saw. DON'T DO THAT. Ever. If you can see a move, always assume that your opponent can do the same. After all, if you are matched against each other, you will likely not be far away from each other in terms of rating/skill. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is always good in chess to be pessimistic about your opponent's moves. This is the &quot;MinMax&quot; way of thinking (if you want to know more, google it ;) ). It's the mindset to improve in the game, rather than just (maybe) swindle your way to a few victories you did not really deserve according to our silicon friends. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13433" LastActivityDate="2017-06-01T14:36:58.147" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17709" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17707" CreationDate="2017-06-01T17:47:17.540" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've had similar problems, generally with higher rated players though. I assume they see things I can't.  But the advice I've seen is to play the board and not make assumptions. If you're going to lose, it might as well be with your best play rather than defending against threats that may or may not be there. If they are and you can't see them, then you'll just learn thereby. Otherwise, you'll do better than you would with an ultra conservative approach. To give a specific example, I played in a simul against Tigran Petrosian many years ago and lost a piece trying to defend against imaginary threats.  Subsequently I relaxed, thinking I was lost anyway, and played better, just reacting to what I saw on the board. I even made a combination that won his Q for a R and B, although I still lost in the ending. But I thought I still learned a valuable lesson as a result, i.e. to play with confidence. In other words, I'm confirming your belief that attitude is very important. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastActivityDate="2017-06-01T17:47:17.540" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17710" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17707" CreationDate="2017-06-01T18:35:51.470" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You still make around 50% points in somewhat unpleasant position against weaker player by playing normal chess. I guess you don't make so much by naive assault. Otherwise it would be correct play under any circumstances. Prepare for these scenarios as well as for Sicilian or French. Think about them in training, when there is no stress involved. The result will be better when you prepare strategy for such situations with good mindset.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11609" LastActivityDate="2017-06-01T18:35:51.470" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17711" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17714" CreationDate="2017-06-01T23:53:39.370" Score="2" ViewCount="1454" Body="&lt;p&gt;Most computer chess games consider castling to be a king move. You click on the king and it shows an option to castle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/V7jgt.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/V7jgt.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What do the FIDE's rules say about this though? Is castling a king move, a rook move, both, or neither?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11432" LastEditorUserId="18475" LastEditDate="2019-04-21T02:46:13.183" LastActivityDate="2019-04-22T03:30:55.297" Title="Is castling a king move or a rook move?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;castling&gt;&lt;rooks&gt;&lt;kings&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17712" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26407" CreationDate="2017-06-02T03:24:47.647" Score="7" ViewCount="12267" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why is the rook worth 5 points while the bishop is only worth 3? Rooks only move straight, but bishops only move diagonally. Is there something that makes moving straight more to moving diagonally?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11432" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-09-18T11:50:33.613" LastActivityDate="2019-09-18T11:50:33.613" Title="Why is the rook worth 5 points while the bishop is only worth 3?" Tags="&lt;rooks&gt;&lt;pieces&gt;&lt;bishops&gt;&lt;point-value&gt;&lt;minor-pieces&gt;" AnswerCount="10" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="17713" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17712" CreationDate="2017-06-02T03:24:47.647" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Since Bishops only move diagonally, a Bishop can only go to a square of the same color as it started on. White Bishop can't go on black squares, and black Bishop can't go on white squares. However, one Rook has the possibility to access all squares on the chessboard. This is one reason why Rooks are worth more than Bishops.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Additionally, rooks can also control more of the board at once, especially on the edges. When in a corner, a Rook controls all the squares of a rank and a file. When a Bishop is in a corner, it's severely limited because its line of attack is only 7 squares diagonal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11432" LastEditorUserId="11432" LastEditDate="2017-06-04T18:47:42.620" LastActivityDate="2017-06-04T18:47:42.620" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17714" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17711" CreationDate="2017-06-02T03:31:24.003" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fide.com/FIDE/handbook/LawsOfChess.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE rules&lt;/a&gt; say this about castling:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;This is a move of the king and either rook of the same colour along &#xA;  the player’s first rank, counting as a single  move of the king&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2017-06-02T03:31:24.003" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17715" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17685" CreationDate="2017-06-02T05:32:30.997" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;When you're using C#, you can use any UCI engine in the same manner.  With C# you have to add an event handler to the &lt;code&gt;OutputDataReceived&lt;/code&gt; event (and optionally the &lt;code&gt;ErrorDataReceived&lt;/code&gt; event).  As a quick example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;ProcessStartInfo si = new ProcessStartInfo() {&#xA;    FileName = uciPath,&#xA;    UseShellExecute = false,&#xA;    CreateNoWindow = true,&#xA;    RedirectStandardError = true,&#xA;    RedirectStandardInput = true,&#xA;    RedirectStandardOutput = true&#xA;};&#xA;&#xA;myProcess = new Process();&#xA;myProcess.StartInfo = si;&#xA;try {&#xA;    // throws an exception on win98&#xA;    myProcess.PriorityClass = ProcessPriorityClass.BelowNormal;&#xA;} catch { }&#xA;&#xA;myProcess.OutputDataReceived += new DataReceivedEventHandler(myProcess_OutputDataReceived);&#xA;&#xA;myProcess.Start();&#xA;myProcess.BeginErrorReadLine();&#xA;myProcess.BeginOutputReadLine();&#xA;&#xA;SendLine(&quot;uci&quot;);&#xA;SendLine(&quot;isready&quot;);&#xA;SendLine(&quot;ucinewgame&quot;);&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And the methods alluded to above:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    private void SendLine(string command) {&#xA;        myProcess.StandardInput.WriteLine(command);&#xA;        myProcess.StandardInput.Flush();&#xA;    }&#xA;&#xA;    private void myProcess_OutputDataReceived(object sender, DataReceivedEventArgs e) {&#xA;        string text = e.Data;&#xA;        //Debug.WriteLine(&quot;[UCI] &quot; + text);&#xA;    }&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is an incredibly simplified example.  In my own code I have a semaphore in order to fully process each output line before moving on to the next one and several semaphores in the UCI start and &quot;isready&quot; handling.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For a full overview of the UCI protocol, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.saremba.de/chessgml/standards/pgn/pgn-complete.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;check out the specification&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12" LastActivityDate="2017-06-02T05:32:30.997" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17716" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17717" CreationDate="2017-06-02T06:42:25.790" Score="7" ViewCount="1426" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;https://database.chessbase.com/?lang=en&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;chessbase&lt;/a&gt;, 14..Qd8 is by far the most popular continuation in this position (196 games), even though Stockfish 8 seems to prefer 14..Ngf6 (1 game). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm struggling to understand the rationale for 14..Qd8, as the queen looks reasonable on a5 for the time being (pinning the pawn on c3, which may allow tactics on d4), while 14..Ngf6 develops a critical piece which allows the black king to castle. Admittedly, after 14..Ngf6, the white attack on g7 can build up quickly with ideas of exchanging knights and then Qg4 and Rh3-g3, but black has defensive resources to deal with it and I fail to see how 14..Qd8 helps in any case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 dxe4 4. Nxe4 Bf5 5. Ng3 Bg6 6. h4 h6 7. Nf3 Nd7 &#xA;8. h5 Bh7 9. Bd3 Bxd3 10. Qxd3 e6 11. Bf4 Qa5+ 12. Bd2 Bb4 13. c3 Be7 &#xA;14. Bf4 Qd8!? {+0.22 - most popular move}  &#xA;( 14... Ngf6 { -0.14: Engine likes this better} ) &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1816" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-06-02T11:56:57.637" LastActivityDate="2017-06-02T11:56:57.637" Title="Why is 14..Qd8 the most popular move in this variation of the Caro Kann?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;caro-kann&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17717" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17716" CreationDate="2017-06-02T06:54:25.420" Score="20" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is ctg format property, or bug, if you like. There were no games played with 14.Bf4 and as well there were no games played with 14...Qd8. The ctg tree just knows position after 14...Qd8. Certainly it happens via different move order. So in 196 games wasn't played 14...Qd8, but 196 games saw the position arising after 14...Qd8.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This position arises in 11...Bb4+ 12.c3 Be7 line after move 12.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I dislike this ctg thing as it can hide a lot of refutations in move order sensitive lines. &lt;strong&gt;It navigates you towards most played positions, it doesn't show you the most played moves&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11609" LastEditorUserId="11609" LastEditDate="2017-06-02T07:01:34.017" LastActivityDate="2017-06-02T07:01:34.017" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17718" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17712" CreationDate="2017-06-02T07:27:21.803" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The pawn point system is only a very rough guideline to judge a piece's value. &#xA;In the beginning of the game (as long as there are no (half) open lines for the Rooks to operate), a Bishop might very well be more valuable than a Rook. &#xA;The Rooks get better and better the less pieces there are on the board, because they are more mobile &quot;in vacuum&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not only can they potentionally reach all squares (while a Bishop can only access either black or white ones, which sucks for mating a King in the wrong corner), they are also less restricted by the board's borders: No matter where a Rook is placed on an empty board, it can ALWAYS move to 14 squares (7 on its line, 7 on its rank). A Bishop in a corner can only move to the 7 squares of the diagonal to the other corner. Even in the best case (when placed in one of the 4 center squares), they have access to at most 13 squares. Thus, it's usually a good idea to keep your Rooks around for a longer time than your Bishops. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13433" LastActivityDate="2017-06-02T07:27:21.803" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17719" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17712" CreationDate="2017-06-02T08:04:45.240" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;You need to understand that the point system is only a rough guideline meant to assist you in evaluating positions or in deciding on potential exchanges. Many factors, particularly the pawn structure, influences how valuable pieces are. Rooks tend to be better in open positions with fewer pieces/pawns on the board, bishops can get hindered in closed positions by pawns of the same color (&quot;bad bishop&quot;), etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Despite of all this, the 5/3 values for rook/bishop (or the piece valuation system in general) is surprisingly reliable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A rook is generally more valuable than a bishop because:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;it can reach all squares of the board, while a bishop can stay only on squares of the same color&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;it can mate in KR vs K, while you cannot win KB vs K.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;it covers more squares (can always move to 14 squares on an empty board independent on where it is placed, while with a bishop it can vary between 7 (corner) and 13 (center) squares)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The exact values &quot;5&quot; and &quot;3&quot; are basically found from experience and since there is a bit of a drawing margin in chess, the exact values don't really matter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One notable and very common exception to the rule is found in many (beginner's) opening play where a bishop and knight can be exchanged for a rook + pawn on f2 or f7. In these cases almost always having two light pieces is better even though you exchange 6 pawn units for 6 pawn units.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastEditorUserId="11629" LastEditDate="2017-06-02T19:17:07.323" LastActivityDate="2017-06-02T19:17:07.323" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17720" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17712" CreationDate="2017-06-02T08:08:17.890" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Rook is a higher piece value due to the Checkmate factor . A Rook &amp;amp; a King can Checkmate the Opponent's King but a Bishop cannot . The Rook occupies more Squares on a Chess Board than a Bishop does . Lets take an empty board &amp;amp; put the Rook on a1 Square and then the Bishop. The Rook has 14 Squares under its dominance and the Bishop occupies 7 . If it is put on a Central Square the Rook has still 14 and the Bishop has max 13 .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So you see that Rook is much more worthy than the Bishop . I am not comparing any position where the relative value may be higher or lower .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastActivityDate="2017-06-02T08:08:17.890" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17722" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17707" CreationDate="2017-06-02T08:44:30.210" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Playing with lower rated Players &amp;amp; Winning against them can be a serious topic.&#xA;Even I have played with lower rated Players and have been defeated . The lower rated Players have something all have in common . They will mostly in 90% cases will deviate from the main lines of Ultra Sharp variations like Sicilian , French , Caro Kann, Pirc and basically lines with e4 variation .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In d4 majority of the openings are harmless and it is somewhat impossible to make out an advantage in the openings unless you have a 2200 higher ELO . &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have read in Books how GMs tackle the lower rated opponents . Basically they allow the opponent to make the mistake and then they pounce upon it . They surely know that their Chess Skill is higher and eventually one mistake would cost the lower rated opponent dearly and make them loose the Game . In your approach you were first not confident of the opening line and then with fumbling attitude you sacrificed the piece with knowing the best response from your opponent . Basically you were trying to win by luck here thinking that because he stands less on the rating side he will do a mistake . &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My advise for you is :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Do not judge anybody by the rating .&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Practice with lower rated opponents online . It will help you to grasp their ideas and fortify your skill against them .&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If you are playing e4 then you can make a subset of your opening repertoire or narrow it down like for an example when someone play Caro Kann against me I play the Panov Attack . I am very uncomfortable in the other lines of Caro Kann or most probably I have not yet mustered .&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Nowadays with the advent of Computers , apps and other digital technology everyone has a great opening understanding . You cannot only just concentrate on Middle game or End game . You need to make a good opening choice else how can you stand well in the Middle game ! Your psychology will be optimistic &amp;amp; strong when you make your pieces stand on better Squares . &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastActivityDate="2017-06-02T08:44:30.210" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17723" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17416" CreationDate="2017-06-02T09:09:32.307" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think Na2 is the best though it takes the Knight away from the Centre of the board hindering basic Chess Principles but if you take a note then Black is ok on Centre and K-side and his weakness resides in the Queenside . &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So Na2 removes the Knight from b4 and the Bishop can dominate on light Squares like c6 where it can attack the d5 Square . Also the a6 Pawn will become weak once the Knight is lost .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastActivityDate="2017-06-02T09:09:32.307" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17724" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17707" CreationDate="2017-06-02T18:24:10.337" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&quot;I went on to sacrifice the exchange in a complicated line I calculated beforehand. I knew it wouldn't work, since I had seen his response in advance. Nevertheless, I guess I hoped he'd go wrong somewhere.&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This.&#xA;You did not play the board, you played the opponent's rating. You need to be circumspect and look at the board and play the best move you can. If you see a sacrifice opportunity and you see it does not work, look elsewhere. Don't play &lt;strong&gt;&quot;hope&quot;&lt;/strong&gt; chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Don't worry. You'll do it again, and lose. It takes a few iterations before you realize that playing good chess is actual work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10233" LastActivityDate="2017-06-02T18:24:10.337" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17725" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17712" CreationDate="2017-06-02T18:40:55.170" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The point values are based primarily on how many squares a piece can command.  Not only can rooks command more squares on an open board, but they can cover both colors, while bishops are restricted to squares of their own color. one on the black squares and the other on the white squares.  Incidentally, both pieces move &quot;straight&quot;, only the rooks do so horizontally or vertically while the bishops move diagonally.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastActivityDate="2017-06-02T18:40:55.170" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17726" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-06-02T18:44:04.763" Score="3" ViewCount="229" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have started to play Chess again after a few years. It is not difficult to reproduce an opening or sticking with a plan during the middlegame, but the most difficult to me is to keep track of enemy pieces threats on open rows/diagonals/columns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As an example during one game I've lost track of an open diagonal that has a bishop of the other player and no piece (white or black), and forget to take care of not letting pieces stay on that diagonal unprotected while I was thinking on something else (like a plan to stick with).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;My question:&lt;/strong&gt; Is there a tip or a known method of pros like &quot;memorizing/imagine colors&quot; or create a &quot;mental X mark&quot; inside all those squares that makes part of a enemy movement possibility?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes I get caught by those pieces that are full aggressive (not protecting anyone)...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user13443" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-06-06T07:38:01.953" LastActivityDate="2017-06-06T07:38:01.953" Title="Is there a method or tip to best memorize current enemy pieces' movements?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;learning&gt;&lt;board-vision&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17727" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17711" CreationDate="2017-06-02T18:45:44.757" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Castling is a combination move of both pieces.  The king should be moved first or both pieces simultaneously, since a rook move could stand alone and an opponent might make you stop your move at that point as being &quot;legal&quot;, not letting you complete castling.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastActivityDate="2017-06-02T18:45:44.757" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17728" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4925" CreationDate="2017-06-02T19:08:49.487" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess has been variously described as a game, an art, a science and a sport.  If you're playing for fun, it's a game.  If the aesthetic considerations predominate, it could be considered art.  But if winning is the primarily objective, for example in a match or tournament, you could consider it a sport in spite of the fact that little physical exertion is involved such as would be found in an athletic contest.  But this latter interpretation is not universally accepted, and purists tend to denigrate it. Chess is not in the Olympics for that reason but instead  has its own Olympiad.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastActivityDate="2017-06-02T19:08:49.487" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17729" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17726" CreationDate="2017-06-02T19:08:51.493" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;What you are talking about is called &quot;board vision&quot;. Googling &quot;chess board vision&quot; will get you a ton of stuff. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One thing that may help. On looking at an enemy piece (or one of your own) do not ask &quot;where is it?&quot; but ask directly &quot;what is it doing?&quot;. For example, that Bishop is controlling that diagonal, which is annoying because I would like to use some of those squares. The battle for control of an important square might involve pieces close to or far away from that square, but they should be linked in your mind as participants in the same struggle. Psychologists call this chunking. You can remember things about a group of pieces more easily than about the individual pieces. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastActivityDate="2017-06-02T19:08:51.493" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17730" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16565" CreationDate="2017-06-02T19:16:10.173" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;My suggestion would be to begin with endgame study.  This seems counter-intuitive -- &quot;Surely the place to begin learning chess is by studying the beginning of the game, the openings.&quot; This seems quite logical.  But someone said/wrote &quot;Until you can learn to manage a few pieces effectively in the endgame how can you hope to manage all 16 pieces you begin the game with against your opponents 16 pieces?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I'd suggest going to a local bookstore (or public library) with a good selection of chess books.  Or shop online.  Look for a book that begins with basic chess endings -- e.g. King vs King and Rook;  King and pawn vs King;  King vs King and two bishops...and so on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These basic endings are the place to start.  You'll learn how to make just one or two pieces operate effectively with your King and begin to gain some ability to size up quickly at least some endgame positions.  Some can be quite complicated as you work your way through endgame studies.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But once you begin to gain some understanding of the endgame you can begin to work on your middle game using insights learned from endgame theory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You may say, &quot;I'm already losing before I even get to the end game so what good will studying endgames do me?&quot;  That's true of almost all players at the start.  But persevere in endgame study and when you do get to the endgame with equal or better chances than your opponent you'll have some insight into how to move to win efficiently and effectively.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't mean that you should pay no attention to openings or the middle-game as you study the endgame.  But rather than playing through many lines of particular openings where you don't really understand the reasons for many of the moves, find a book with a discussion of opening principles and begin to evaluate moves in the opening on those general principles.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, some general principles of opening chess play are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1)  Fight to gain control of the center squares of the board or at least maintain equality.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2)  Don't move a piece twice during the opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3)  Develop knights before bishops.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4)  Don't move your queen in the opening moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are more opening principles so look for a book (or read online sources) to not only learn these principles but also to understand the reasons for them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You will also have to learn when there is good reason to ignore an opening principle.  For example, if you opponent has left a piece hanging and you can take it without incurring an equal or greater loss, well then you'll probably find it worth it to move a piece twice, or bring out a bishop earlier than you might have otherwise, to capture the hanging piece.  But only after studying the board and making certain there's not a trap or serious positional disadvantage you'll be stuck with if you make the capture.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So that's my advice.  Begin with the study of basic chess endgames and learn how to use just a few pieces effectively.  You'll feel you've really learned something not just by rote, but with comprehension.  And that can lay the foundation for further and deeper chess study.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In reality almost anyone who wants to better their game can gain useful chess skills by studying the endgame.  With more pieces on the board in the endgame the positions can be quite perplexing.  And there are complex endgames to learn with only a few pieces.  Without studying it first, put a black king on one side of the board and on the other side put the white king and a bishop and a knight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White king, bishop, and knight vs lone black king.  Should be an easy checkmate, right?  Give it a try playing both white and black yourself.  How many moves did it take (assuming when you played the black king you really tried to keep from being mated) to force the checkmate?  Or were you able to do it at all?  Basic endgame study will teach you what you need to understand to force checkmate in with king, knight and bishop against a lone opposing king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What if you tried white king with his two knights vs a lone black king?  How many moves would that take to force checkmate with the pieces set up on opposite sides of the board?  I won't make you torture yourself with that one, as &lt;strong&gt;it's impossible to force mate with king and two knights vs lone king&lt;/strong&gt;.  Note the word &quot;force&quot;.  I'm not saying that a poor black player couldn't get mated if the white player has his king and two knights, only that against a reasonably skillful black player white cannot &lt;strong&gt;force&lt;/strong&gt; checkmate.  This is another example of basic endgame knowledge.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Off the top of my head I can't suggest an endgame study book.  But start with one that covers basic checkmates in the endgame.  Most important, choose a writer who makes sense to you.  An impressive chess background doesn't necessarily mean a given master or international master is necessarily a good beginners teacher.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess, as one other respondent noted, is a very complex game and you can begin to appreciate the depth of the complexity in studying the tremendous variety of endgame positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I suspect you can find an old Fred Reinfeld book about both basic chess endings and chess opening principles though there are probably newer and better books available.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I hope this is some help and good luck.  ;-)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13444" LastActivityDate="2017-06-02T19:16:10.173" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17731" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17726" CreationDate="2017-06-02T20:06:36.470" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would think that with regular play, your &quot;sight&quot; of the board will improve.  It's like anything else in that practice will lead to improvement.  Also, playing a lot will enhance your sense of where things are on the board.  For example, in a fianchettoed position, you'll automatically sense that the enemy bishop is on the long diagonal. At least I've found those things to be true for myself, and I would think that they'd apply universally. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastActivityDate="2017-06-02T20:06:36.470" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17732" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16827" CreationDate="2017-06-02T20:20:11.677" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;First look at a chess manual to learn the basics about strategy, openings and endings.  It has been said that chess is 99% tactics (forks, pins, discovered attacks, etc.), so if you're only going to spend a limited amount of time studying, it would best be directed to those.  This has to be combined with some play as well as subsequent analysis of your games to learn from your mistakes.  This limited plan should more than suffice to make you competitive in a casual play environment.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastActivityDate="2017-06-02T20:20:11.677" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17733" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-06-02T21:13:14.760" Score="0" ViewCount="914" Body="&lt;p&gt;So, I looked on the lichess analysis board and played around with it for a while, and I couldn't find any reason why 2...c5 isn't considered an accurate response to 1 d4 d5 2 c4.  Does anyone know why this is?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12124" LastActivityDate="2017-06-02T21:26:13.733" Title="What's the problem with the Austrian Defense?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;1.d4&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2017-06-03T07:12:37.320" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17734" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17733" CreationDate="2017-06-02T21:26:13.733" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;After 3. cxd5, any sensical black response is met with 4. dxc5. The time it takes for black to regain those pawns is lost on white's development, e.g. 4... e6 5. e4! exd5 6. Bb5+ Nc6 (or Bd7 7. Bxd7 Qxd7 8. Nd2) 7. Nc3. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White's opened up the center - favorable because of black's daft, dithering development - and obtains a game with winning chances.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13147" LastActivityDate="2017-06-02T21:26:13.733" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17735" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17736" CreationDate="2017-06-02T21:33:35.720" Score="4" ViewCount="1739" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm playing the Scandinavian Defence with 3...Qd8 a lot and I really like that opening. But I can't seem to find the right plan. I just develop my pieces towards the center (I don't fianchetto my bishop on g7) and then hope my opponent blunders. Could you please tell me on what I can improve? I'm a 1200 FIDE rated player. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have already searched the web but the only thing I came up with, was that Scandinavian Defence is considered bad at high level. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also saw some master games but that doesn't really help as they all play 3...Qa5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13449" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-06-05T11:57:14.590" LastActivityDate="2020-08-05T03:27:13.870" Title="Plans in the Scandinavian Defence" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;planning&gt;&lt;scandinavian-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17736" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17735" CreationDate="2017-06-03T01:42:14.123" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you really must, because your friend bet a wager that he can beat you as black in this position, here are the imbalances, concrete and possible, that you must look out for (as white):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 d5 2. exd5 Qxd5 3. Nc3 Qd8&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Black's open d-file&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Active LSB&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Kingside pawn majority&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Still, this is not without its weaknesses:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;A delay in development. White can safely continue with d4, Be3, Qd2, O-O-O.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Black's reduced control of the squares on the e-file. Castle long and prompt to push his f-pawn somehow, followed by a minority attack g2-g4 (or g2-g4-g5).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Black's reduced control of the squares on the c-file. If black castles long, or the situation somehow else warrants it, break open the c-file, create an outpost on the c4-c5 square, and move a knight, bishop, or rook to this square where b7-b6 or b7-b5 has to happen. Now you'll have a new, but weakened structure to attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black will play to nullify white's knights with ...Bg4 (if Nf3), ...e6, ...Bc5, Ne7, and O-O, finally obtaining a solid position. If white castles short, black can launch a minority attack, creating holes which his knights can then infiltrate. He can place pressure on the d-pawn by restricting its advance, playing c7-c6, ...Rd8, and ...Nd5. If white plays c4, then the d-pawn has become weakened and serves as a target.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13147" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2017-07-10T16:11:30.387" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17737" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17735" CreationDate="2017-06-03T07:31:40.160" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would say that the only obvious target for black (meaning a plan that's almost build into the opening) is applying pressure to the white d pawn, assuming white does play d4. Then of course he should try to break with either c5 or e5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can recommend checking out IM John Bartholomew, he's got a Youtube channel and he's a huge fan of the Scandi Qd8 line, I understand he's also got some tutorial on the line.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12953" LastActivityDate="2017-06-03T07:31:40.160" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17738" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-06-03T07:38:37.233" Score="4" ViewCount="1106" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a Mac user and ChessBase is not available. Instead I purchased Hiarcs. I would like advise as to whether there's added value to ChessBase that should motivate me to install ChessBase on Parallels or even to buy a cheap laptop for this.&#xA;Note: my question is not related to engine usage as I don't believe that should matter so much, but rather for DB management, meaning availability of DBs, ease of management, etc... Any pointers would be appreciated!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12953" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T20:37:55.390" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T20:38:19.713" Title="Chessbase vs Hiarcs for DB management" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;database&gt;&lt;chessbase&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="17739" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17712" CreationDate="2017-06-03T15:13:39.270" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You ask a basic but significant question. The question can be answered in either of two ways.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the one hand, chess masters have found, roughly, that trading&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;a rook and a pawn for&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;two minor pieces (bishops and/or knights)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;tends (averaged over many games) to leave realistic winning chances on both sides; whereas trading&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;a rook for&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;two minor pieces and a pawn&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;seldom leaves realistic winning chances on &lt;em&gt;both&lt;/em&gt; sides unless a tactical combination is in view. By assigning the rook a value of 5 and the bishop a value of 3, the masters have given us a handy metric that roughly reflects a master's experience in the matter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, a rook can reach all squares on the board whereas a bishop can reach only half. &lt;em&gt;A rook can easily hide from a bishop by the trivial expedient of occupying a square the bishop can never reach;&lt;/em&gt; whereas a bishop cannot hide from a rook in this way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The two perspectives mesh. Either or both explains the valuation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(By way of analogy, consider that, in contract bridge, experience finds that an ace almost always takes a trick, a king usually takes one, a queen sometimes takes one, a jack can take one but usually doesn't, and a ten seldom takes one.  This is not hard to understand, since the ace is the highest card, but the rough metric bridge masters have developed from experience is to value an ace at 4 points, a king at 3, a queen at 2 and a jack at 1.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="315" LastActivityDate="2017-06-03T15:13:39.270" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17740" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17743" CreationDate="2017-06-03T19:13:34.330" Score="7" ViewCount="273" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm currently in a tournament and I'm losing terribly. The problem is that I never implement the strategic things I learned in books (reassess your chess, my system, etc...) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I just calculate some random moves and hope my opponent blunders which he never does. Because of that I drew a game against a much lower rated person than me. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, I often overlook 2-move tactics that win a pawn. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Should I create a checklist of things to look at for every move? What could this checklist contain? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I'm playing on lichess.org (blitz), I suddenly know everything and apply all of those things. I suspect, that I'm irrationally afraid of certain moves and then try to counter those moves. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13449" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-06-05T05:58:15.150" LastActivityDate="2017-06-05T22:24:02.313" Title="Can't apply strategical knowledge in tournament games" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17742" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16616" CreationDate="2017-06-04T04:47:34.480" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess engines use heuristics, i.e. they look at a position several moves ahead, and quantitatively evaluate the position using some criteria (the most straightforward example is to just count the pawns and pieces). The move that leads to the position with the highest score, assuming best play (according to the engine's heuristics) from both sides is the engine's best move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the evaluation of the position depends on the choice of heuristics. Different types of positions are best described by different heuristics. Different engines use different heuristics. Therefore, in an opening where several types of positions could arise, different engines may have different opinions on what the best move is. (I haven't tried this myself, but I'd bet the top 5 chess engines won't agree on 1.e4, 1.d4 or 1.c4)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7473" LastActivityDate="2017-06-04T04:47:34.480" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17743" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17740" CreationDate="2017-06-04T10:58:36.883" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Thinking Techniques that I give my students:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What new threat(s) has my opponent's last move created?  How can I answer it?(them?)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is my King safe?  Is my opponent threatening to checkmate me in the next few moves?  Can I checkmate my opponent?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What threats can I set up?  How?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Have I seen this position, or a similar one before?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If so:  who stands better, and what is the best plan for continuing?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If not:  what are the outstanding features and elements of this position, and what plan(s) and method(s) of achieving it are available?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What is my play?  What specific position would I like to obtain?  How can I achieve my goal?  How can I improve my position?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;How many good moves do I have?  Which one is best?  Can I capture material without penalty?  Can I develop a piece?  Can I employ any of the following tactical devices:  pin, fork, skewer, discovered attack, double attack, trap a piece, double check, etc.?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is it safe to move my piece to the square I'm thinking about?  (Blunder check.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Did I remember to start my opponent's clock and write down my move.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Notice that there is no mention of the positional elements.  Beginners should be more concerned with the tactical side and how to develop plans.  Strategic plans are formed based upon the position.  By studying games which have similar positions and learning how the masters continued should help you with strategic plans.&#xA;There is also plans which can be applied to completely different openings.  A knight sacrifice on f5 can be used in both the closed Benoni system and the open Dragon Sicilian.  By studying good annotated games, I mean the author saying in a simple language what (s)he is thinking, not pages of computer analysis, you will find great insight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12449" LastActivityDate="2017-06-04T10:58:36.883" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17744" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17745" CreationDate="2017-06-04T12:10:54.777" Score="7" ViewCount="283" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; r1b2r2/1p2bp1k/p3p2p/2qnN3/2B4Q/2P3R1/PP3PPP/2K1R3 w - - 4 20&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the diagram position, I was white.  I had sacrificed a bishop for a pawn for a huge attack on the black king.  I realized during the game that this was a critical position and spent 40 minutes trying to make the tactics work, but I ran low on time and ended up failing at the task.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How should one go about analyzing this position to come up with the right move?  Try to think about the position on your own before checking with an engine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8258" LastEditorUserId="8258" LastEditDate="2017-06-04T12:22:29.153" LastActivityDate="2017-06-05T21:34:34.350" Title="How would you analyze this critical position from my most recent game?" Tags="&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;attack&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17745" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17744" CreationDate="2017-06-04T17:48:58.200" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;These positions are good for a robotic approach, which is my favourite. I would try to come with candidate moves. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;First I would try to eliminate quickly (or find miracles in) Qxh6+ and Rg7+&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Then I would go for two more obvious checks, Bd3+ and Qe4+. I would try to get as much feeling about what's going on in these lines, find their problems to have chance to find (if necessary) some hidden properties of position (like Bd3+ is almost mate if we prevent black piece to go on f5.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Then I would go for mate threats, trying to quickly eliminate Rg6. From point 2 I should already know that Nxf7 might be a mate threat, even if I can miss this for now and come with the move later during capture searches.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I would go for captures and light threats, trying quickly to eliminate nonsense again. Probably here would be Qxe7, Rg8 and of course Nxf7, if not in the previous point. I guess Ng4 could stay hidden from my sight forever as the move came to my mind after writing the whole post. Engines wouldn't make such a mistake :-)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Depending on what would come from this search, which I think shouldn't take more than 5 minutes, I would try to sort candidates from the one I like the most. Well, Nxf7 is a big and obvious candidate. It threatens mate and after Rxf7 it is not even a sacrifice. So I would go for it, unless I would have even better feelings about checking lines Bd3+ or Qe4+. That is possible, as I would have already solid cover of these now. Ok, calculating Nxf7 is another story, you will do similar work like here. Find opponent's candidates, being careful, as your queen is hanging and you are a piece down. When I know only Rxf7 is serious, then I would go for Bd3+ and Qe4+ as a huge candidates. If I find some problem there, I would try to come with other candidates like Qg4. You probably don't search for all weird candidates in later moves of calculation, as your head could explode by doing that. That is a reason why we sometimes miss nice combinations. Always checks, mate threats and big captures and threats first in start position and then later, the less candidates.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/16615/to-what-move-depth-should-you-analyze-a-chess-position/16625#16625&quot;&gt;In my answer to this question&lt;/a&gt; you can see the most brutal combination I could have in my game, but wasn't found during the game either by me, or by my opponent. Was cool to hear how lucky I am, as the computer saw it immediately. You look for calm moves in the beginning, but find the 4th calm move in a row in such a firefight!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11609" LastEditorUserId="11202" LastEditDate="2017-06-05T21:34:34.350" LastActivityDate="2017-06-05T21:34:34.350" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17746" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17712" CreationDate="2017-06-04T18:41:10.340" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Im a bit surprised that nobody yet has mentioned that if you still possess both bishops they can in combination cover squares of both color. One Bishop plugs the holes that the other Bishop leaves. This is why it is often considered advantageous to have &quot;the bishop pair&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But a great deal depends on the scope that the pieces have in the particular position, especially if there are weak pawns that may come under attack, perhaps after initial manoeuvres. Also the mobility of the King, if you are in, or about to be in, an endgame. The king and a bishop can attack a pawn, and the rook cannot defend that pawn by itself. If the King joins the defense, perhaps the other bishop can chase it off.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Counting points is never more than a start. I always do it automatically when evaluating an exchange, but then the immediate question has to be, &quot;in this particular position, are there circumstances that might outweigh that judgement?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastActivityDate="2017-06-04T18:41:10.340" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17747" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14210" CreationDate="2017-06-04T19:03:42.937" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;My experience has been that playing blitz creates bad habits that carry over to my slower games, such as rushing my moves and missing obvious attacks by both players. And of course unless you're a real chess savant, it's impossible to analyze all the pertinent combinations within a short period, leading to superficial play.  Of course, your opponent is under similar constraints, so mistakes on both sides will abound.  If you want to play better at slower time controls, you must develop the ability to think deeply into the position, which blitz will never foster.  To play blitz well, you must have a firm grounding in the basics of chess first.  That can only be accomplished with study and serious play, which implies slower time controls and subsequent detailed game analysis as well as study of master games.  I'd start out with a chess manual to be sure I understood the basics and then progress from slow to faster play as you improve. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastActivityDate="2017-06-04T19:03:42.937" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17748" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16958" CreationDate="2017-06-04T19:17:24.197" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If this notation is needed to differentiate between 2 rooks on the &quot;d&quot; file, then it is valid,  If there's only one rook on the &quot;d&quot; file, it's not invalid, but redundant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastActivityDate="2017-06-04T19:17:24.197" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17749" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17001" CreationDate="2017-06-04T19:23:12.220" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;An isolated queen pawn can be both a strength and a weakness.  It's obviously a weakness in the sense that it can't be defended by other pawns but will require piece defense, potentially limiting their scope.  If it's far enough advanced, it can be a strength as would any other advanced pawn, for its promotion potential.  Since that would generally occur later in the game, its earlier liability will probably predominate until then.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-06T16:21:53.010" LastActivityDate="2020-03-06T16:21:53.010" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="17750" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14210" CreationDate="2017-06-04T19:26:14.227" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are different styles of playing blitz, and it is true that in most blitz games cheap tricks come into it sooner or later. But I have known players who approach it differently. Say as White they play an Exchange Lopez, trade all of the pieces and promote a King-side Pawn. In all situations, they try to play some favorite line with a strong strategic plan where they know exactly what they should be doing. This can be very hard to play against.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This would not suit everyones style, but it is a form of blitz that reinforces your approach to the regular game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastActivityDate="2017-06-04T19:26:14.227" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17751" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17740" CreationDate="2017-06-04T20:53:30.077" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, you answered your own question. Do a problem each day from the reassess your chess workbook by Silman. Your results will significantly improve.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's not enough to know the information. You have to be able to apply it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Look for any checks, captures, and threats*.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Apply an evaluation of the seven imbalances.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Decide which side of the board to play on.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Imagine a fantasy position.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Calculate the best move to achieve this fantasy position: it should not give him any counterplay.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*Most threats are imagined. But if he has a mate in two on the next move and you don't have a stronger threat, you should do something about that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Apply the four steps (including step 0) to positions and you will find the best positional move. It's probably too late to do this in the current tournament, but I sit for an hour and work through one problem from Silman's workbook a day. Alternatively, you can pick a grandmaster game and any random move, and try to guess it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Don't fret if the move is incorrect. If you verify with an engine that your move is stronger or at least as strong (as I have occasionally), it's because of your successful formulation of a plan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13147" LastActivityDate="2017-06-04T20:53:30.077" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17752" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17744" CreationDate="2017-06-04T21:06:47.763" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Black is in a difficult situation after 1. Bd3! f5 2. Qg4. e.g. 2... Bf6? 3. Qg6+ Kh8 4. Qxh6#&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's clear that black is actually a piece down, too: His LSB (light-squared bishop) is asleep. Next, notice that the f7-f5 pawn push won't offer black any protection because of the pin the white bishop has set. Lastly, white has an open g-file and a well-positioned rook on it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you pick up Silman's &lt;em&gt;Reassess Your Chess Workbook&lt;/em&gt; and do one problem each day with a time limit of an hour, these things will pop out like a dollar on the floor. I also recommend &lt;em&gt;Winning Chess Tactics&lt;/em&gt; by Seirawan. As a final, but essential read, Vukovic's &lt;em&gt;Art of Attack&lt;/em&gt; will fill your knowledge gaps with attacking ideas that instill fearlessness into your sacrifices.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13147" LastActivityDate="2017-06-04T21:06:47.763" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17753" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17740" CreationDate="2017-06-05T22:24:02.313" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;Should I create a checklist of things to look at for every move? What could this checklist contain?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are literally hundreds of &quot;thinking methods&quot; in evaluating a position to come up with a reasonable move. &lt;em&gt;all&lt;/em&gt; of them include basically the same several elements: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Material; Direct Threats; King safety; open lines; pawn structure/strong and weak squares; center and space; development and piece position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, we perform these assessments and based on those assessments we come up with candidates. Then we apply our own calculative powers and derive our game move and play it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10233" LastActivityDate="2017-06-05T22:24:02.313" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17754" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17726" CreationDate="2017-06-05T22:41:00.870" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;My question: Is there a tip or a known method of pros like &quot;memorizing/imagine colors&quot; or create a &quot;mental X mark&quot; inside all those squares that makes part of a enemy movement possibility?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, you are asking about visualization exercises. Link below:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.janmatthies.info/chess/cvt/cvt.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot; title=&quot;CVT&quot;&gt;CVT&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Helpful exercises for 'knowing' the chessboard. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, you probably need tactical training too. There are many sites for that and every server has exercises to test yourself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10233" LastActivityDate="2017-06-05T22:41:00.870" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17755" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17735" CreationDate="2017-06-06T01:25:14.310" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Fundamentally speaking, Black's position has no weaknesses, but is behind in development. Theory says if Black can solve his development, he will be equal. Magnus Carlsen has played this position as black (vs Fabiano, Tromsoe Ol, 2014, 0-1, 50), as have many other GMs, the likely reason because black has no weaknesses to speak of, and can draw equal. The Scandanavian Defense is deceptively resilient. So, in general, find good squares for your pieces. Black will play e6, complete his development and look for play where the game leads him. Since he has no weaknesses, White will be short of good targets. Since it is so early in the game, to elucidate on any plan this early is folly, as you have to take into account White's play and ideas. At 1200 level, mistakes will be made. Don't make the last one!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10233" LastActivityDate="2017-06-06T01:25:14.310" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17756" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17712" CreationDate="2017-06-06T10:23:20.583" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;From playing chess variants, we know that for Cylindrical Chess the strength of Rook and Bishop are practically equal. In this variant, both pieces have the same board mobility.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, the main reason for the diminished strength of the Bishop in Classical Chess is its restricted mobility on the board: On an empty board a rook can always reach 14 squares, while a Bishop can reach between 13 (placed in the centre) and 7 (placed in a corner) squares.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other factors (like the &quot;can-mate&quot; property or the &quot;king-restriction&quot; property) may play a role, too, but they are not decisive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3819" LastActivityDate="2017-06-06T10:23:20.583" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17757" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4924" CreationDate="2017-06-06T11:44:03.473" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The simplest answer is to restrict the enemy king's movements by &quot;walling off&quot;, not attacking, with the queen, move by move, driving it to the edge and then bringing up the king to help administer the mate.  You must remember to always leave the king at least one free square once it's in a corner to avoid stalemate.  This is basically the same method used with the rook and king, although the king and rook must be used together in that case to drive the king to the edge and finally into a corner for the mate. All this may sound confusing in the abstract, but if you try it I'm sure it will become clear quickly enough. I don't think trying to memorize a &quot;formula&quot; beyond what I've just suggested will be of any more benefit. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastEditorUserId="7657" LastEditDate="2017-06-06T12:33:28.817" LastActivityDate="2017-06-06T12:33:28.817" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17758" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-06-06T13:22:56.757" Score="3" ViewCount="147" Body="&lt;p&gt;ChessBase has never had a very intuitive interface, but it seems to just get worse and worse. I just got the latest version and I can't even figure out how to view the games in a database. I did find the &quot;next game&quot; and &quot;previous game&quot; buttons on the menu. How do I just view the games in the database in a list, so I can select one to view?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(That I even have to ask this question, seems idiotic. All the more so that I am a software developer.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8673" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T20:45:28.537" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T20:45:39.857" Title="How to view contents of database in ChessBase" Tags="&lt;chessbase&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="17759" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16565" CreationDate="2017-06-06T14:17:50.377" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The old maxim about developing your minor pieces toward the center and castling within a dozen moves or so still applies.  That's why 1. Nh3 isn't a good move.  It doesn't contribute to center control.  Castling not only helps safeguard your king but also connects the rooks.  Any basic chess manual will point all this out.  Control of the center is valuable to give you a base from which to maneuver your pieces and is also essential for a king-side attack.  The manual will also cover the ending and basic checkmates, so you have a goal to strive toward.  Practicing tactics will also contribute to your improvement, since that's how you win material.  Regular play and analysis of your games to find your mistakes will also benefit you along with study of annotated master games. But play alone will not be enough without some study  and understanding of the general principles which a manual will provide. As an old-timer, I'm not conversant with current chess literature, but in my youth I read beginner books by Al Horowitz and Fred Reinfeld which provided this information and which can be found on e-bay at nominal cost. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastActivityDate="2017-06-06T14:17:50.377" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17760" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13047" CreationDate="2017-06-06T14:29:48.307" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Aggressiveness and the initiative are important to have.  As White, you have the initiative by virtue of the first move.  Black will strive first of all to blunt this initiative to reach equality and then may try to win.  I've discovered over the years that mistakes of aggressiveness are not necessarily fatal, whereas defensive mistakes usually have more serious consequences.  Hence it may often be worth while to give up something to gain or keep the initiative, such as the cost of a pawn in an opening gambit. If you gradually can improve your position before beginning a strong attack, that can be equally successful.  A gambit isn't required.  Controlling the center is generally necessary before you can launch a successful attack against the castled king.  For that reason a premature attack by your opponent shouldn't succeed, barring any glaring mistakes on your part.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastActivityDate="2017-06-06T14:29:48.307" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17761" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16565" CreationDate="2017-06-06T17:06:33.747" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am sure this has been said before but I'd like to point it out once again.&#xA;Before you start studying tactics and openings, just make one thing sure: All of your pieces are defended! It seems so trivial but in my opinion most 'bad' players would play a lot better if they would keep this in mind.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12830" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-08-17T02:07:47.313" LastActivityDate="2020-08-17T02:07:47.313" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="17762" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17758" CreationDate="2017-06-06T17:37:45.120" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Might seem obvious, but you really should hit the help files in ChessBase for these kinds of questions. They are pretty thorough, and extensively hyperlinked.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Personally, I find it intuitive, and I too am a software engineer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10233" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T20:45:39.857" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T20:45:39.857" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="17763" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13047" CreationDate="2017-06-06T18:48:26.920" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are you actually serious about wanting to get better? To the point where you could play in tournaments for example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It sounds like you are not, because you don't want to learn openings. But it annoys you that other people in the company are better than you. How much does it annoy you? How much work are you prepared to put in?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just asking a casual question about whether it is better to attack or defend won't do it. Attacking is more fun, and that might be as far as you want to take it. Serious players will have personal styles and preferences, but will know that attacks must be prepared. That means understanding openings. If you are very serious you will need to learn them. If you are less serious you will need to know some general ideas, such as what is a weakness.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you have only been playing for a month you don't know yet how important chess may be to you. Play a bit more. Have fun. If you find that you do want to work a bit, you will probably be able to think of a better question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastActivityDate="2017-06-06T18:48:26.920" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17764" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-06-07T00:13:43.037" Score="0" ViewCount="332" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have noted in a number of games from Master players that sacrifices are rapidly played till both sides are reduced to just about equal in material and virtually the same pieces, at least in value.  Is this a deliberate act by both players?  It seems to be strategical by clearing the board of the garbage and getting to the heart of the matter, victory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13480" LastActivityDate="2017-06-08T09:42:57.690" Title="Tit for tat sacrifice" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17765" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17764" CreationDate="2017-06-07T02:30:27.657" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It sounds like you are referring to even trades which would reduce the game to an ending. This would more likely tend to lead to a draw than a victory. If one side makes a true sacrifice, that should lead to an advantage of some sort and ultimately a victory for that side if the sacrifice had been accurately calculated. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastActivityDate="2017-06-07T02:30:27.657" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17766" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17764" CreationDate="2017-06-07T03:50:46.657" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Maybe you are thinking of something like this, which is the most wonderful series of combinations and counter combinations. Well-played games should end in balance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;UK - USSR radiomatch&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;1946.??.??&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;2&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1/2-1/2&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;William Albert Fairhurst&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Salomon Flohr&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;D74&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;58&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.g3 d5 4.cxd5 Nxd5 5.Bg2 Bg7 6.Nf3 O-O 7.O-O&#xA;Nc6 8.e4 Nb6 9.d5 Nb8 10.Nc3 c6 11.Be3 cxd5 12.exd5 N8d7&#xA;13.Qb3 Nf6 14.Rfd1 Ne8 15.Nb5 Bd7 16.Nxa7 Na4 17.Nc6 bxc6&#xA;18.dxc6 Nd6 19.cxd7 Nxb2 20.Rxd6 exd6 21.Nd4 Rb8 22.Nc6 Rxb3&#xA;23.Nxd8 Rxe3 24.Nc6 Rc3 25.d8=Q Rxd8 26.Nxd8 Bf6 27.Nb7 Rc2&#xA;28.Nxd6 Nd3 29.Rf1 Rxa2 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Notice at the end that Nxf7 is answered by Rxf2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-06-07T08:02:52.670" LastActivityDate="2017-06-07T08:02:52.670" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17767" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17764" CreationDate="2017-06-07T11:57:57.253" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are a few potential answers to this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Pseudo sacrifices&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Positional sacrifices&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Speculative sacrifices for activity&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A pseudo sacrifice is one where a player deliberately gives up material, knowing they will recover the material in the next few moves. One example is given as follows:&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;1. e4 d6 2. Bc4 Nf6 3. Nc3 Nxe4 (OK this has lots of potential outcomes but the point is after 4. Nxe4 d5 will fork the bishop and knight, recovering one of the pieces)&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A positional sacrifice is one where a player chooses to go down on material, maybe without even a promise of the material being returned - one classic example is the Karpov game against Guyla Sax &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1068373&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1068373&lt;/a&gt; - this game illustrated the power of a bishop compared to a rook on an open board. Karpov was in no rush to recover the material, knowing his opponent's king being in the open was enough compensation.&#xA;Similar ideas include giving up a piece to open lines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The speculative sacrifice for activity was often employed by players like Tal who would happily give up a minor piece in exchange for open lines, easier development or just to create complexity. I would say the first two sacrifices are easier to understand and apply in practice but it's good to get a feel for this latter type, as it can save many lost positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.thequietmove.com/durham/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.thequietmove.com/durham/&lt;/a&gt; 17..Nxc4 is a nice example of another Pseudo Sacrifice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To develop a keen eye for these, tactical training and awareness of positional themes (e.g. Loose pieces drop off LPDO) are very helpful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12533" LastActivityDate="2017-06-07T11:57:57.253" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17768" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14210" CreationDate="2017-06-07T12:03:50.807" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's to do with the reward system.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you play 10 blitz games (e.g. on playchess), you'll be matched against similar players of similar strength and should expect a payoff of 50% (equal numbers of wins and losses with some draws).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the nature of blitz, you have limited time to digest and analyse the position.&#xA;Therefore you could attribute a win to luck, a draw to time and defeat to bad play. In reality, time is the biggest factor. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The best thing about playing a long play game where you have time to analyse is that in general you have time to digest and learn from where you went wrong or could have improved (even if you win). Therefore it's a learning experience which you develop from. After a blitz game you'll generally just go to the next one, digesting nothing and the whole thing begins again!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Happy playing. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12533" LastActivityDate="2017-06-07T12:03:50.807" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17769" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17764" CreationDate="2017-06-07T14:29:34.623" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I have noted in a number of games from Master players that sacrifices are rapidly played till both sides are reduced to just about equal in material and virtually the same pieces, at least in value.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't think that happens often at all. What does happen is that players &lt;em&gt;exchange&lt;/em&gt; pieces -- say white captures a piece, in return black takes a piece back, often the piece that just captured. That is perfectly normal, but it's not a sacrifice. A sacrifice is when you let something of yourself be captured and then you &lt;em&gt;don't&lt;/em&gt; capture anything back.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's natural for a game between two strong players to end up with more or less the same material; they're good enough to avoid moves that simply lose material outright.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is this a deliberate act by both players?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well, they would of course rather just capture pieces without having their own pieces captured in return, but the opponent doesn't want to go along with that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's normal to react to a piece that is threatened by &lt;em&gt;defending&lt;/em&gt; it -- so that the capturing piece can be captured back.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Generally &lt;em&gt;every&lt;/em&gt; move a master makes is a deliberate act, or they wouldn't be any good at the game. A decision to exchange a set of pieces is not to be taken lightly, apparently the master decided it was the best move to make in the given position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;It seems to be strategical by clearing the board of the garbage and getting to the heart of the matter, victory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't know what this means.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2017-06-07T14:29:34.623" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17770" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17758" CreationDate="2017-06-07T23:44:38.793" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Ok, I'll handhold you, but I have CB 13. I doubt it is much different.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When the program loads, you get a tree at the left side. Select Database Path/Bases. this should load a file list of the databases you have. Find the one with the largest number of &quot;Games&quot;. For me, it is Big database 2002, but I think I loaded that from a previous version. Otherwise, you can click the &quot;Board&quot; icon at the top and open a new board. At the top of the Board is an icon labeled &quot;Online&quot;. That will open a subwindow of games from the online database.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If that does not help, hit the help files.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also go to This Week In Chess and get weekly games from most major tournaments without annotations. I do this every month or so. It is roughly 4000 games a week.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Good luck. Help files are your friends.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;~Professional Software Engineer &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10233" LastActivityDate="2017-06-07T23:44:38.793" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17771" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17764" CreationDate="2017-06-07T23:46:12.633" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;I have noted in a number of games from Master players that sacrifices are rapidly played till both sides are reduced to just about equal in material and virtually the same pieces, at least in value. &lt;em&gt;Is this a deliberate act by both players?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In these kinds of games, the counter-sacrifice may be necessary because that player does not want to hand over an overwhelming initiative to the opponent. The fight for the initiative, which is of high importance in professional chess, cannot be overstated when playing at high levels.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10233" LastEditorUserId="10233" LastEditDate="2017-06-08T09:42:57.690" LastActivityDate="2017-06-08T09:42:57.690" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17772" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17411" CreationDate="2017-06-08T02:38:05.097" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just controlling the queening square might not be sufficient if your opponent can devise some back rank tactic using the pawn for support.  Then when a piece of his, say a rook or the queen, enters the last rank onto a square supported by the pawn, capturing that piece will result in recapture by the pawn with promotion. And if his piece isn't captured, it can then support the pawn promotion on the next move by now contesting the queening square that you controlled. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastEditorUserId="7657" LastEditDate="2017-06-08T17:51:19.173" LastActivityDate="2017-06-08T17:51:19.173" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17773" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17774" CreationDate="2017-06-08T07:16:08.553" Score="3" ViewCount="593" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm looking for a set of exercises (contained in a book, website, or chess engine) where I can practice what I know in regards to &lt;strong&gt;rook and pawn vs. rook&lt;/strong&gt; endgames. I could find a friend to randomly place pieces on the board for me, but I don't see what would be in it for her or him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Something ideal would be a website that displays a puzzle that I can solve, but the pawn would have to be on the a- or h-file and 7th rank. If I can set these parameters while randomizing the position of the rooks or king, that would be great.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Where can I find such a website, and if there isn't any, how can I create such an object? &lt;strong&gt;The object would set the pieces randomly on the board, with the exception of my selection.&lt;/strong&gt; So if I select the pawn to be on a7 and the king to be on a8, it will randomly place the other pieces elsewhere. I'm only interested in the following pieces being on the board: A pair of kings, a pair of rooks, and one pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13147" LastActivityDate="2017-06-15T05:58:03.667" Title="Where to find specific endgame practice exercises/puzzles/practice bots?" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;problems&gt;&lt;rook-endgame&gt;&lt;study&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17774" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17773" CreationDate="2017-06-08T07:47:47.327" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you're looking for a truly random position, I'd just roll an &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dice#Standard_variations&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;eight-sided die&lt;/a&gt; a couple of times to determine the column and row of each piece. (If the position is illegal, just reroll.) You can then enter the position into a chess program and play against the engine. &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.wizards.com/dnd/dice/dice.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Here&lt;/a&gt;'s an online dice roller in case you don't have physical ones, the one you're looking for is called the &lt;code&gt;d8&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you're looking to practice key positions in KRP vs. KR specifically, you'd probably be interested in John Nunn's &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1901983188&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Secrets of Rook Endings&lt;/a&gt;. I forgot how this book is organized exactly, but it contains almost all positions in this ending which are worth studying.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2017-06-08T07:47:47.327" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17775" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8410" CreationDate="2017-06-08T08:53:15.293" Score="2" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;3r4/6R1/1kp5/8/8/8/5K2/8 w - - 1 61&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. Ke3 Kc5 2. Rg4 Kb5 3. Ke2 c5 4. Rg3 Kb4 5. Ke1 c4 6. Rg4 Kb3 7. Rg7 c3 8. Rb7+ Kc2 9. Rb4 Re8+ 10. Kf2 Kd2 11. Rd4+ Kc1 12. Rc4 c2 13. Rc7 Rb8 14. Ke2 Kb2 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a situation where the king is cut off by one file from the pawn. The king has to make a timely jump to the second rank and prepare to exchange rooks. In the meantime, the king shall remain on the third or fourth rank. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When is the jump &quot;timely&quot;? In a king and pawn vs. king endgame, pawn on the fifth rank, the &lt;em&gt;key squares&lt;/em&gt; the king needs to reach in order to promote the pawn are b3, c3, and d3 (in this case): &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_and_pawn_versus_king_endgame#Case_4.2C_all_three_conditions_are_met&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;no matter whose move it is&lt;/a&gt;. White will threaten to exchange rooks when it is clear the black king cannot reach these squares because the white king will be &lt;em&gt;shouldering&lt;/em&gt;, i.e. in the way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is clear that 3. Ke2? was a losing move. The rook isn't even ready to be traded, so right away this move is premature. Instead assume that the rook was already on the back rank (Rg1 instead of Rg7). 3... c5 4. Rd1 Rxd1 5. Kxd1 Kb5 6. Kc1! And it's clear that the black king won't access b3, c3, or d3, because white wins the opposition: draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now let's assume that white stuck with his plan of exchanging rooks: 4. Rg1. 4... Kb4 5. Rd1 Rxd1 6. Rxd1 Kb3 and the ending is won for black. Note the hasty 6... c4?? loses to 7. Kc2. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for the rook, frontal checks with distant effectiveness must be performed (that is, checks with your rook on the back rank, far away from the enemy pawn). &lt;strong&gt;The defending rook must not leave this back rank.&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While the rook isn't delivering checks, he should be threatening to capture the pawn: Rc1 is the correct position. The correct maneuver is to check the king, separating him and the pawn by a file (Rb1+, Rc1; but not Rb1+, Ra1+? too many checks) -OR- causing him to hide behind the pawn (Rb1+, Rc1 - here he cannot advance the pawn, so you move the king upward with Ke5 and threaten to capture on c6). In both cases you threaten to capture the pawn, so he must use tempi in defending the pawn by moving the rook -OR- moving the king, in which the latter leads to perpetual check. Draw. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White could have troubled you with 4. Rg1 (threatening Rb1+ - though due to his misplaced king, still loses after 4... Rd5! Now 5. Ke4 isn't possible) but instead he's escorting you to his back rank: Slowly, but surely with 4. Rg3? which does, to put it bluntly, absolutely nothing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, the Philidor position is still reachable because the pawn is so far from promotion i.e. it has not reached the fifth rank yet. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So how should have this game proceeded?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1. Rg1 preparing to restrain the pawn from sole advancement. Now 1... Kc5 doesn't make any sense because of 2. Rc1+, where 2... Kd6? is a clear draw, and 2... Kb5 3. Rb1+ Ka5 4. Rc1 sees no progress as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black can try 1... c5, but this now allows 2. Ke3! Kb5 3. Rb1+ Ka4 4. Rc1 Rd5 5. Ke4!! Now the king, not ill-positioned as before, springs into action.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For further reading, please see Ending 59 of Jesus De La Villa's &lt;em&gt;100 Endgames You Must Know&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13147" LastEditorUserId="13147" LastEditDate="2017-06-08T09:12:00.600" LastActivityDate="2017-06-08T09:12:00.600" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17776" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17773" CreationDate="2017-06-08T09:45:39.573" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would go to Week In Chess, load the weekly games into Chessbase, and do some search filtering and play the game out at some point against a comp. When you fail (it will happen), then you can at least get an idea from the practical viewpoint of the players and review the completion of the game as played. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10233" LastActivityDate="2017-06-08T09:45:39.573" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17777" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16126" CreationDate="2017-06-08T11:42:59.377" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The simple answer to your question is yes. In fact the same is true of a king and rook versus king, the most basic mating material. That's why having an extra pawn in an ending is so valuable, since even if all the other pawns were swapped off, the lone remaining pawn could potentially be promoted to a queen (or even a rook) for a subsequent checkmate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-06-08T14:23:08.163" LastActivityDate="2017-06-08T14:23:08.163" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17778" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16101" CreationDate="2017-06-08T12:02:59.063" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;This personally makes no sense to me.  Gustafsson might have been referring to a specific situation with other pieces involved, but if you experiment with a lone queen versus the king on an open board, you'll see for yourself that it makes no difference. Perhaps in a situation such as with the white king on b1 and his pawn on b2, and the black queen checking from d1, then after the white king went to a2, the black queen could continue checking diagonally from a4 to d1 and back to a4 consecutively, with the white king rotating between a2 and b1, until the position had been repeated 3 times, but that's a specific situation.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastActivityDate="2017-06-08T12:02:59.063" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17779" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16086" CreationDate="2017-06-08T13:07:41.563" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you go on a journey, you  must know your destination.  If you haven't been able to checkmate the opposing king earlier in the game, which is the most likely scenario, then you'll have to reach a favorable ending to do so.  That means having some kind of sufficient material advantage at the end to accomplish that, which can be as little as a pawn.  If you can promote the pawn to a queen (even a rook suffices), then you'll have sufficient material to ultimately checkmate the enemy king.  Any manual will show you how to potentially promote a pawn, such as with king and pawn versus lone king, as well as indicating minimum mating material needed, such as king and rook vs lone king, or king and 2 bishops vs lone king,  or king, knight and bishop vs lone king for example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastActivityDate="2017-06-08T13:07:41.563" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17780" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15738" CreationDate="2017-06-08T14:17:34.583" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;If a position is repeated three times, not necessarily consecutively, with the same party to move, that's one definition of a draw, which was true in this case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastActivityDate="2017-06-08T14:17:34.583" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17781" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16546" CreationDate="2017-06-08T15:02:33.713" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are a number of books that stress strategical and positional play.  Some examples from my relatively limited library include &quot;Strategic Chess&quot; by Edmar Mednis, &quot;Positional Chess Handbook&quot; by Israel Gelfer, &quot;Positional Ideas in Chess&quot; by John Love&quot;, &quot;Winning Chess Strategies&quot; by Yasser Seirawan, &quot;Strategical Themes&quot; by Tom Unger, &quot;Dynamic Chess Strategy&quot; by Mihai Suba, &quot;Modern Chess Strategy&quot; by Ludek Pachman, and &quot;Judgement and Planning in Chess&quot; by Max Euwe. I'm sure there are numerous others which can be found by a search under those key words. These generally will cover games in depth by the masters and would seem to be a more reasonable route to follow than trying to find collections of a specific master's games that focused exclusively on strategy. And even collections of games of individual masters such as those you mention will most likely mainly have games that were won by positional superiority that ultimately led to a tactical material advantage or checkmate rather than games that were won though an opponent's blunder or by an early quick mate, a generally relatively rare occurrence in master games. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastEditorUserId="7657" LastEditDate="2017-06-08T17:16:25.743" LastActivityDate="2017-06-08T17:16:25.743" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17782" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16920" CreationDate="2017-06-08T18:11:31.793" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;After your opening development has been completed, look for tactics on each move, yours and your opponent's. Since tactics are so important, I wouldn't stop doing the problems. Since tactics won't always be available, you then try to improve your position by gaining space, preferably in the center if possible, while always looking for imbalances. If the center has become locked, these opportunities may be on a wing. If you can get a dominant position, opportunities for tactics to win material should start to become available. Of course if your opponent is as astute as you are, you may never gain an advantage, and if he doesn't either, a draw would be the likely result. Reading some books on chess strategy (e.g. &quot;Modern Chess Strategy&quot; by Ludek Pachman, &quot;Winning Chess Strategies&quot; by Yasser Seirawan and Jeremy Silman) might also be a good idea to gain some general knowledge about this subject.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastEditorUserId="7657" LastEditDate="2017-06-08T18:35:27.177" LastActivityDate="2017-06-08T18:35:27.177" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17783" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17785" CreationDate="2017-06-08T18:31:47.257" Score="-1" ViewCount="182" Body="&lt;p&gt;At the start I must admit that I am not the brightest chess player, so this just might be a stupid question but:  Calculated Chess moves have been determined to be infinite, as I am given to understand.  But of what use is this knowledge to the game, or player when the guestimate (this can probably be calculated) is half or even far less than half would constitute legitimate moves or moves that make no sense at all (a move because it can be moved to &quot;x&quot; without reason.  The question that should be quired is, &quot;how many legitimate moves are there in chess that lead to a legitimate conclusion 'win, draw, or forfeit'?&quot;  Who knows that actual legitimate moves that can be made which evolves into a legitimate conclusion?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13480" LastEditorUserId="13480" LastEditDate="2017-06-08T18:36:21.960" LastActivityDate="2017-06-09T17:19:58.517" Title="False calculation of chess moves" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;evaluation&gt;&lt;best-practice&gt;&lt;mathematics&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17784" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16920" CreationDate="2017-06-08T18:44:36.867" Score="-3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Pick up &lt;em&gt;Re-assess Your Chess 3e&lt;/em&gt; by Jeremy Silman. He'll teach you the seven imbalances to look out for which will dictate your plan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In short,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Evaluate the position using the seven imbalances.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Decide which side of the board to play on (queenside, center, or kingside).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Construct a fantasy (ideal) position for your pieces: Move your pieces to their ideal locations in your head, without considering the opponent's plan.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Calculate the moves required to reach this position. &#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If you find that it's not possible to reach this position because of some defense by the opponent, return to step 3. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If after several iterations you find there is no way to realize any fantasy position on that side of the board, return to step two.  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13147" LastActivityDate="2017-06-08T18:44:36.867" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17785" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17783" CreationDate="2017-06-08T19:08:56.753" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;From Shannon's Programming a Computer for Playing Chess:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;From these remarks it appears that to improve the speed and strength of play the machine must:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Examine forceful variations out as far as possible and evaluate only at reasonable positions, where some quasi-stability has been established.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Select the variations to be explored by some process so that the machine does not waste its time in totally pointless variations.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first can be done by evaluating all checks, captures, and threats - a true and tested method to avoiding blunders. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But notice &quot;some process&quot; in the second bullet point has to be set by you. There's an easy way to choose this, and it's also noted in Vukovic's &lt;em&gt;Art of Attack&lt;/em&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If the threat move is the same on two consecutive plies (with one ply in between them to account for the side to move), the threat move is a serious one and the search is extended.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Threat moves are moves that, if the other side were to (illegally) 'pass' on this move, they would be mated, material loss would occur, or some other favorable advantage would occur.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I attacked your queen with my knight, and your queen moves to some spot but is still attacked by my knight, that is a &lt;em&gt;serious&lt;/em&gt; threat move. Then we check the other possible squares that the queen can move to, and if any resulting position is unfavorable, then the position of my knight is superior and considerable for my next move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So what else?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If a side makes a move and it leads to a mating attack in one variation without compromising your position in all variations (one of the variations is a serious threat), it is a good candidate for your next move. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We can also turn this around.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If we attack the king and the defending side has to compromise his position (by making his surrounding squares weak, for example), that is a considerable candidate move. Because it's more forcing, this is of a higher category.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of the highest category is attacks on the enemy king with certainty of mate. Huge compromises like a queen sacrifice would have to occur to stave off this attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13147" LastActivityDate="2017-06-08T19:08:56.753" CommentCount="12" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17786" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2017-06-08T20:01:11.953" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The tag &lt;a href=&quot;/questions/tagged/education&quot; class=&quot;post-tag&quot; title=&quot;show questions tagged &amp;#39;education&amp;#39;&quot; rel=&quot;tag&quot;&gt;education&lt;/a&gt; should be replaced with &lt;a href=&quot;/questions/tagged/teaching&quot; class=&quot;post-tag&quot; title=&quot;show questions tagged &amp;#39;teaching&amp;#39;&quot; rel=&quot;tag&quot;&gt;teaching&lt;/a&gt; or &lt;a href=&quot;/questions/tagged/learning&quot; class=&quot;post-tag&quot; title=&quot;show questions tagged &amp;#39;learning&amp;#39;&quot; rel=&quot;tag&quot;&gt;learning&lt;/a&gt; according to &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.meta.stackexchange.com/a/445/10905&quot;&gt;this meta discussion&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10905" LastEditorUserId="10905" LastEditDate="2017-06-08T21:08:27.287" LastActivityDate="2017-06-08T21:08:27.287" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17787" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2017-06-08T20:01:11.953" Score="0" Body="Please do not use this tag. Instead, use the [teaching] or [learning] tags." OwnerUserId="10905" LastEditorUserId="10905" LastEditDate="2017-06-08T21:09:54.660" LastActivityDate="2017-06-08T21:09:54.660" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17788" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16920" CreationDate="2017-06-08T21:55:28.527" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are many ways of being good at chess. Don't try for all of them. Find a guru. Could be a modern player or an old-timer, but somebody whose games you enjoy. Someone that makes you say &quot;I wish I could play like that&quot; (But don't choose Tal unless you think you really think you COULD play like that.) Collect their games, especially the ones with their own notes, and play them over and over. Study the openings that they play, especially how they steer the game toward the sort of positions they (and you) want to play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is not a complete magic method, nothing is, but it can form a framework for studying.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastActivityDate="2017-06-08T21:55:28.527" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17789" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8410" CreationDate="2017-06-08T22:44:53.917" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately it is a VERY bad idea to try to learn endgame play from table bases. Almost any book written by a human being could explain this so that you would understand it after half an hour. It would be a half hour well spent because this situation is so common.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You need first to understand K+P vs K, so that you know when it is safe to exchange Rooks. But you have to do that anyway. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Given that, the defender can always draw if his King can safely reach the queening square, in your case c1. The defenders Rook should stay on the third Rank, to avoid situations where the attacker plays his King to the 6th, threatening mate. This is no longer a threat once the pawn has moved to the 6th, so at that stage the defender can play his Rook down the  board to give checks from behind. There are one or two cases where extra care is needed, which the book will explain, but the third-rank defense is the basic thing that can be remembered easily.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastEditorUserId="13012" LastEditDate="2017-06-08T23:51:07.447" LastActivityDate="2017-06-08T23:51:07.447" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17791" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-06-09T07:33:20.183" Score="5" ViewCount="641" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am creating a set of chess positions to be used [as a data set] &lt;strong&gt;for a project&lt;/strong&gt;. It's based on &lt;em&gt;supervised machine learning&lt;/em&gt;, but I need to have labeled data (see more &lt;em&gt;italicized&lt;/em&gt; text below) before any machine learning can be done. I wish to label each position as open or closed or possibly some combination of the two.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I started out with assigning each position to just &quot;open&quot; or &quot;closed,&quot; but this wasn't clear for a lot of the positions. Then I decided to go with a third label, semi-open/semi-closed, which is like the middle and in between open and closed. I’ve labeled most of the positions, but there are many positions that I still haven’t comfortably labeled with a distinct class.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know that open positions are characterized as having pawnless ranks, files, and diagonals, while closed positions have them clogged up with pawns. In open positions you can usually centralize your pieces, while closed positions give you a hard time moving an arbitrary piece to a random location on the board. There are many other related patterns, features, and qualities.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can easily go with my &lt;strong&gt;gut feeling&lt;/strong&gt; when assigning &quot;closed&quot; to a position that has 7 pawns on each side with each pawn blockading another, and &quot;open&quot; to a position that has pawns only on the flanks and in their starting squares. However, it's hard for me to classify some positions such as these two examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[White &quot;Position1&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Open/Semi/Closed/Etc&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;8/5Qpk/p6p/P1b5/4pPn1/2Pp3P/1P1BbqP1/R3R2K w - - 0 1 &quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[White &quot;Position2&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Open/Semi/Closed/Etc&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;3r1rk1/pp2pp1p/2p3pb/2P5/4P3/4nNPb/PP2P2P/R1RNK2B w - - 0 1 &quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What would you assign to the examples above &lt;strong&gt;and why&lt;/strong&gt;? For example: one position is more open than the other due to characteristic XYZ, or the second position should not be considered closed since there's an open file, and so on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Should I just ditch the whole binary-ish labeling (&lt;em&gt;classification&lt;/em&gt;) and instead assign a variable number (&lt;em&gt;regression&lt;/em&gt;) describing how open or closed a position is (e.g. 0% to 100% open?) Or is there still a way for positions to go into a few categories, which means that we can have &lt;strong&gt;&quot;rigorous&quot; definitions&lt;/strong&gt; of the categories of openness? And &quot;rigorous&quot; as in having few contradictions and preferably can be applied by a human without too much difficulty.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13498" LastEditorUserId="13498" LastEditDate="2017-06-09T23:14:14.430" LastActivityDate="2020-01-18T16:14:37.817" Title="How to determine if a position is open or closed in a &quot;rigorous&quot; fashion?" Tags="&lt;evaluation&gt;&lt;terminology&gt;&lt;mathematics&gt;&lt;closed-position&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17792" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17791" CreationDate="2017-06-09T09:04:23.310" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the end the distinction between open/closed position is subjective and as you noticed there will always be some overlap or positions that don't fit perfectly into either category.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What exactly do you need this for?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For me the typical closed position has blocked pawn chains, generally many pawns, few or no open files. Because of this, the play tends to be slow, positional.  Typical plans include undermining the pawn chains from the side or pawn storms/attacks against the enemy king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Conversely open position have fewer and mobile pawns, open files, more space for pieces and are generally more tactical.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2017-06-09T09:04:23.310" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17793" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17791" CreationDate="2017-06-09T15:57:40.043" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I echo user 1583209; why are you doing this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But just as an abstract exercise, how about this measure of open-ness?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Look at every piece on the board, and count the number of moves that it would have if there was nothing else on the board. Add this up for all pieces on both sides and call it $N_{empty}$.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now count the number of moves/captures that each piece actually has and add these. Call this total $N_{actual}$. The ratio $N_{actual}/N_{empty}$ is a measure of the open-ness of the position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think this is cute, and maybe as good as anything else, but why are we doing this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastActivityDate="2017-06-09T15:57:40.043" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17794" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1103" CreationDate="2017-06-09T16:43:51.880" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I may be a heretic, but I think planning is over-rated. Textbooks like to give examples where one player exploits control over a weak square to force an endgame that wins after 90 moves. Play through the games from any current GM tournament and count the number of games that go anything like that. My impression is about one in ten at most. The few nice examples get picked out for annotation because they are so &quot;instructive&quot;. Often they are between players with significantly different ratings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The annotated games and the textbooks tend to show you what to do AFTER YOUR OPPONENT HAS ALREADY MADE A POSITIONAL MISTAKE. A more common situation is &quot;You execute your plan-I execute my plan&quot; and ultimately the decision usually comes because one player overlooks a tactic. Teichmann said that chess is 99% tactics, but he is often misunderstood. Sometimes, between strong players, the strategy can almost be taken for granted. It is &quot;obvious&quot; what each player wants to do. The question is can they do it? This is where the &quot;little tactics&quot; typical of Smyslov, Karpov, Kramnik are so important, and their genius consists of integrating the planning with the little tactics. That is what Teichmann was talking about. One without the other does not work very well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastEditorUserId="13012" LastEditDate="2017-06-09T20:00:20.580" LastActivityDate="2017-06-09T20:00:20.580" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17795" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17783" CreationDate="2017-06-09T17:19:58.517" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Granted that there might be an infinitesimal number of possible moves in a chess game, in reality only a few really make sense on any given turn, so the vast majority can be excluded. Nevertheless, the tree of the total number of reasonable moves in a game would probably still be beyond calculation, but I can't think of any good reason to know what that possible number might be anyway.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastActivityDate="2017-06-09T17:19:58.517" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17796" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17791" CreationDate="2017-06-09T17:55:04.040" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As in openings, positions would be regarded as closed or open depending on whether they were blocked by pawns or not.  And as in the openings, these could be semi-open as well, which as you indicate would be an in-between type of situation. These distinctions are not necessarily fixed but can change depending on whether or not pawn exchanges are made to open up the position. In an open position, the pieces would have more freedom to roam and search for tactical combinations as opposed to a closed one where the opposing pieces couldn't come in contact right away and more maneuvering would take place behind the lines.  I would think that it would be more reasonable in your classifications to stick to these more general categories than to try to use percentages to describe what will be more or less fluid situations. I would categorize both of the positions shown as semi-open since Black has more open lines of attack and freedom of movement for his pieces in both as opposed to White. In fact, if it's Black's move, he has a pretty forced mate in position number 1 with &lt;strong&gt;1..., Qxg2+!; 2. Kxg2, Bf3+; 3. Kf1&lt;/strong&gt; (if 3. Kg3, Bf2#) &lt;strong&gt;Nh2#&lt;/strong&gt;.    And if Black moves first in position number 2, he forces mate with &lt;strong&gt;1..., Rxd1+!; 2. Rxd1&lt;/strong&gt; (if 2. Kf2, Be3#)&lt;strong&gt;,&lt;/strong&gt; &#xA;&lt;strong&gt;Nc2+;  3. Kf2 Be3#.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastEditorUserId="7657" LastEditDate="2017-06-10T02:19:40.353" LastActivityDate="2017-06-10T02:19:40.353" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17797" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17791" CreationDate="2017-06-09T18:42:05.663" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;If i had to create a generalization it'd be something like, when you have atleast two central pawns for each side and they are in contact with each other and can't be taken (say pawns on d4 e5 and e6 d5) that is a closed position. Positions ranging from there being 4 central pawns that are not in contact (e2 d3 and e6 d5 for example), to there being 2 central pawns (1 pawn for each side, like pawns on d4 and d6, or pawns on e4 and e5) are differing degrees of being semi closed. Positions with only 1 central pawn, or no central pawns on the board, I would consider open. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9627" LastActivityDate="2017-06-09T18:42:05.663" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17798" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1399" CreationDate="2017-06-09T22:06:44.813" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As others have mentioned, what you have shown are common tactics (the pin and the fork) which are used to win material, generally based on a double attack, only one component of which you can answer. There are other tactics as well, including the discovered attack, x-ray attack (skewer), deflection and overloading. Often tactics are conjoined in a combination.  It would be advisable to familiarize yourself with these from either an electronic or printed source, of which there are many available.  In addition to these tactical patterns, you should also familiarize yourself with the common checkmating patterns so you can recognize them when they arise.  These would include the Scholar's Mate, Fool's mate, Legal's mate, Philidor's Legacy (smothered mate), Morphy's Mate, Dovetail Mate, Epaulette Mate, and quite a few others, all of which can be found in the same sources as the tactics.  Then regular play helps you to see any of these when they are imminent so you can react in time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastActivityDate="2017-06-09T22:06:44.813" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17799" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17413" CreationDate="2017-06-10T01:52:44.413" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just use the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.tournamentdirector.co.uk/berger_pairings.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&quot;Berger&quot; Pairings/Tables&lt;/a&gt;. If there are an odd number of players, then a &quot;dummy&quot; player is added. When creating the pairings each round, whoever is playing the &quot;dummy&quot; player is simply receiving a bye. Then you run it again with colors reversed. If your program has no major issues, you should be able to manually enter people into your program, and the program should allow for people to be paired again with reversed colors.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13498" LastEditorUserId="13498" LastEditDate="2017-06-10T02:32:15.090" LastActivityDate="2017-06-10T02:32:15.090" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17800" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17454" CreationDate="2017-06-10T02:41:00.423" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I instruct beginners at our club, I use sports analogies.  For example, I say that when two football (soccer, basketball, etc.) teams of equal ability oppose each other, if one were to lose a player and no substitutes were available, then that team would be at a distinct disadvantage, since they'd have one less blocker, defender, receiver, etc. to contest the opponent and should most likely ultimately lose as a result.  For that reason, they should try not to fall behind in material while conversely trying to gain a material advantage themselves using tactics, which I explain. I use similar analogies for the opening stage, telling them that if their players (pieces) are still sitting on the bench (first rank) while the opponent's players are already on the field (the board), they cannot contribute to the battle and will fall behind from the start.  Another analogy pointing out the necessity for quick development in the opening would be to compare it to a race where they were starting out ten or more yards behind if they didn't get their pieces out as fast as their opponent, indicating that they would then have difficulty catching up.  All of these comparisons seem to help them understand the nature of chess.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastEditorUserId="7657" LastEditDate="2017-06-10T02:52:44.107" LastActivityDate="2017-06-10T02:52:44.107" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17801" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17802" CreationDate="2017-06-10T09:33:00.580" Score="1" ViewCount="320" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;rnbqk2r/p1pp1pbp/1p2p1pn/4P3/2BP4/5Q2/PPP2PPP/RNB1K1NR w KQkq - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is the rook sacrifice intended by the black to trap white's queen or is it just a misplayed move?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13334" LastEditorUserId="4186" LastEditDate="2017-06-14T12:18:12.243" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T20:07:47.723" Title="Is this rook sacrifice intended?" Tags="&lt;rooks&gt;&lt;queens&gt;&lt;sacrifice&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17802" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17801" CreationDate="2017-06-10T11:09:57.437" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;In general, it's very hard to trap a queen like that. After Qxa8 Nc6, the white queen can't escape immediately but it's not hard to devise an escape plan; with Bb5 White threatens to exchange the only defender of the a7 pawn, and at the same time winning another pawn on c6. So my conclusion is that Black's last move was a blunder.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2017-06-10T11:09:57.437" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17803" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17801" CreationDate="2017-06-10T12:15:47.670" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It may have been a misguided attempt to trap the queen, but since there is no immediate follow-up threat against her, she will have time to escape, in which case the sacrifice has to be considered a mistake. The queen may be out of play for a while during this extrication effort, giving Black the chance to gain in development, but that's unlikely to prove to have been sufficient compensation for the sacrifice. The recommended Bb5 move for White seems to be the quickest way to initiate the extrication.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastEditorUserId="7657" LastEditDate="2017-06-10T12:36:20.847" LastActivityDate="2017-06-10T12:36:20.847" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17804" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17801" CreationDate="2017-06-10T12:21:58.113" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's a poorly played trap and definitely a blunder. White would still be up material even if the queen is lazily given up for pieces (see mainline.) &lt;strong&gt;However,&lt;/strong&gt; white shouldn't be too impatient in freeing up the queen if it is decided that it should be kept (see sideline with checkmates.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The best plan for white is probably to escape using minor pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;rnbqk2r/pppp1pbp/4p1pn/4P3/2BP4/5Q2/PPP2PPP/RNB1K1NR b KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1...b6?? {Nf5 or Nc6 instead are playable} 2. Qxa8!+- Nc6 3.Nf3 {many other moves are playable} ( 3. Bg5?? Qxg5! 4. Qxc8+?! {Ne2 or Nd2 instead should be played} Ke7!-+ {the only move} 5. Qxc7 {Qb7 or Qa6 instead lead to the same checkmates} Qc1+!! (5... Bxe5?! 6. dxe5 {is not forced} Qc1+!) (5... Qxg2?? 6. Nd2!!+-) 6. Ke2 Nxd4+ 7. Kd3 Qxc2+ 8. Ke3 Nhf5+ 9. Kf4 {you can find two checkmate in threes from here})( 3. Bb5?! Nxd4 4. Qe4?! Nxb5 5. a4 {traps the knight}) O-O 4. O-O (4. Bb5) (4. Bg5) Qe7 5. Bb5 Ba6 6. Qxf8+ Qxf8 7. Bxa6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13498" LastActivityDate="2017-06-10T12:21:58.113" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17805" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1329" CreationDate="2017-06-10T13:45:10.213" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Search for a game of Cuban GM Leinier Dominguez, after  many moves he won the game and it was vs another GM, I just don't remember the opponent. I thought this will be a draw until I saw this game. I don't remember the opponents king to be in a bad position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems to be this game: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1499346&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1499346&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13512" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-07-29T11:37:07.883" LastActivityDate="2017-07-29T11:37:07.883" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17806" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16535" CreationDate="2017-06-10T17:20:48.960" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;A gambit is the giving up of material for time, generally a pawn in the opening.   Accordingly, you must maximize your use of the time advantage before your opponent catches up, when your pawn shortage will become a long-term deficit.  Since these types of games such as the Smith-Morra and the other gambits you have mentioned  become tactical very quickly and your opponent won't have time to analyze all the variations with probable resulting inaccuracies, they would seem to be particularly well suited to quick play.  In slower games, your opponent would be able to avoid these tactical pitfalls and emerge into an ultimately winning position after completing his development.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastActivityDate="2017-06-10T17:20:48.960" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17807" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17816" CreationDate="2017-06-11T08:19:35.923" Score="4" ViewCount="364" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Black &quot;DrZ214&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;8/5p2/6k1/3KP3/6Np/8/8/b7 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... f5 2.Nh2 f4 3.e6 Kf6 4.Kd6 Be5 5.Kd7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note: The board is from black's perspective. Black to move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;I was black and lost this endgame, starting with 1...f5.&lt;/strong&gt; I thought it would be good to push the pawn and gain a tempo against his knight. I calculated that if he played en-passant (2.exf6), I would take his pawn with my bishop (2...Bxf6), 3. Nxf6 Kxf6, then his king would get up ahead of my pawn and it would be a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He played 2.Nh2 instead, blocking my edge pawn. Then I played 2...f4 3. e6 Kf6 4. Kd6 Be5+ 5. Kd7, and I could tell I couldn't stop his pawn anymore. My darn bishop did not have enough room to get on a diagonal attacking e7.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sorry I don't have full game record. We just take photos at the end of the game, and at interesting positions that we feel are pivotal, like this one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So in hindsight, I could have tried a few other things like Kg5 or even Kf5, or else Bc3 to make some room for it. Even f6 might work? I feel like I should have at least been able to draw. Is there a winning move?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I tried entering this into some on-line tablebases, but it's a 7-piece endgame and they apparently aren't freely available.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8509" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-09-29T09:52:17.817" LastActivityDate="2018-03-21T13:48:58.553" Title="What should I play in this BvN endgame position?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17808" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17440" CreationDate="2017-06-11T11:35:22.597" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;i don't know you want a opening repertoire for positional or attacking one. I use to play mainly positional repertoire but for some blitz chooses attacking one. I followed some lectures of yassar serwain's from saint luis club , it is available in youtube . I also follow a pdf of gufeld's repertoire &lt;a href=&quot;https://e-nautia.com/erich.g/disk/LIBROS%20DE%20AJEDREZ%20EN%20PDF/An_Opening_Repertoire_for_the_Positional_Player.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Repertoire of Gufeld and another man&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And also following some advice from GM Arthur Yusupov . But at last I must say that if you do not rely on your repertoire then you cannot become a good player , and if you do not make a hard work on your openings then you cannot make a solid typical opening (most of the player don't like this type of opening which has been analysed , like with 48 moves or more!! ) like Lev poluguasky (Pronouncing wrong?!) , His openings homework was great , every player was scared to play with him , he is mainly known for his hardwork on openings (his favorite opening was sicilian najdorf , and he invented the opening Sicilian Najdorf Poluguasky variation , which is sharp like axe ) , if you make a hardwork on your opening you can be one like him . And at one stage he said by this hard work attitude  he can prepare any master player into world champion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12748" LastActivityDate="2017-06-11T11:35:22.597" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17809" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5816" CreationDate="2017-06-11T11:53:39.407" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can also play the London system, which has these categories you like to play and also you can try Rubinstein attack and the Pillsbury attack with knight to e5 pawn going to f4 and after captures the rooks file opens, the f6 knight has to move and the queen is free for a kingside attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12748" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-06-11T12:39:35.017" LastActivityDate="2017-06-11T12:39:35.017" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17810" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17813" CreationDate="2017-06-11T12:49:46.953" Score="4" ViewCount="165" Body="&lt;p&gt;Usually King's Indian players don't seem to be afraid to double the pawns on the c file if that means trading a knight for the dark-squared bishop. I was just wondering what are the plans that Black has in mind when doubling those pawns? For instance, if White castles queenside, how can Black use that pawn structure to its advantage?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;      [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;      [StartPly &quot;11&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;      1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 Bg7 4. e4 d6 5. Be2 O-O 6. Bg5 Na6 { E73 King's Indian Defense: Averbakh Variation, Modern Defense } 7. Qd2 e5 8. Nf3 Qe8 9. d5 Nc5 10. Qc2 h6 11. Be3 Ng4 12. Bxc5 dxc5 13. h3 Nf6 14. O-O-O&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13516" LastActivityDate="2017-06-11T17:28:29.133" Title="Doubling pawns on the c file in King's Indian" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;kings-indian&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17811" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17807" CreationDate="2017-06-11T14:12:50.347" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Bxe5 guarantees at least a draw for you. He doesn't have mating material and so he will have to fight for the draw. Although after NxB+ for white followed by Nxf7 his king will easily reach h1 to guarantee the draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2017-06-11T14:12:50.347" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17812" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17807" CreationDate="2017-06-11T15:08:24.687" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The pawn is White's only winning chance, so if you eliminate it by the suggested bishop capture, he has to try to hold the draw against your pawns. His lone knight isn't mating material. Your ..., f5 move just gave him a dangerous passer.  Unfortunately our opponents don't always go along with our plans. I'm not a rated Expert, but the subsequent White Nxf7 line seems to give Black chances to promote the h pawn, since the White king doesn't seem to be able to reach h1 if Black doesn't recapture the knight and instead maneuvers his king correctly, say initially to f5, followed by pawn to h3. It looks like White's then going to be too late to stop the pawn. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastEditorUserId="11629" LastEditDate="2017-06-11T18:33:08.783" LastActivityDate="2017-06-11T18:33:08.783" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17813" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17810" CreationDate="2017-06-11T15:15:01.843" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In that line you posted I'd imagine black would ideally try to blockade d6 with a piece, say via Ne8-Nd6, then begin pawn storming the queenside with a6-b5, or Rb8-b5, or something along those lines. The actual attack itself would be complex, whether to push c4 or b4 first for example, and may need additional piece development to prepare it, as well as accurate calculation to prevent white from being able to blockade the pawn storm. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as white attacking on the kingside, it's not so easy to attack into a fianchetto and would likely require a piece sac to break through. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't know the variation in question but that's how I'd play it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9627" LastActivityDate="2017-06-11T15:15:01.843" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17814" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17810" CreationDate="2017-06-11T17:28:29.133" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The most important thing IMO is that White has voluntarily traded his good Bishop. Black should be thinking of a good N vs bad B endgame, with Nd6 perfectly placed both for attack and defense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To steer toward such an ending, the general recipe is to threaten an attack, without making overly committal moves and certainly without sacrificing but not necessarily against the King. White then has a dilemma. If he reduces the attack by exchanging then he just brings that endgame closer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is not to claim that Black is actually better (although I would prefer Black in the diagrammed position) but they certainly should not fear this exchange. And, as has been remarked, it is not easy for White to attack that King position. Particularly without Bh6 available.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastActivityDate="2017-06-11T17:28:29.133" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17815" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17807" CreationDate="2017-06-11T18:11:02.743" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think there's no need to sacrifice the bishop immediately. You can always sacrifice it on e7 so you get the same endgame but the white king will not be so close to your pawns. Of course Be5+ loses but you could have tried Bb2( or Bc3). Now e7 loses the pawn to Ba3+(or Bb4+) and Bxe7 next move.6. Ng4+ Kg5 7. Kxe7 Kxg4 is of course winning. If White chooses Kd7 instead of e7 then again Ba3 transposing after e7. If the Knight moves Kf5 preparing Ke4 and f3 winning. Another way to achieve a similar setup is Bishop instead of King to f6. Now Ng4 is simply met by Bg5 and the critical test is e7 Bxe7 Kxe7 Kf5 to prevent Ke6. If Kf7 h3 seems dangerous with the idea of making a route for the King to g3 via h4. If Kd6 then Ke4 with the same idea as above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13521" LastActivityDate="2017-06-11T18:11:02.743" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17816" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17807" CreationDate="2017-06-11T19:08:35.637" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;The 7 man tablebase (for which there is a free android app) says that the position is won for black and it says it is mate in 21 moves (with perfect play from both sides) after 1... Kg5 which is the only winning move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To me this seems like the most logical move in the position. There is no danger of the white pawn queening anytime soon and Kg5 will attack the knight which will be forced to retreat to h2 or f2 trying to stop the h pawn. Knights are particularly bad at preventing h/a file pawns from advancing as the knights can easily run out of space on the side of the board. And with the white king far away you should have good chances to achieve this. Note that 1... Kf5 or Kh5 which would also attack the knight are not immediately as attractive as they run into potential checks by the knight (in a real game you should still consider these options of course). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After 1... Kg5 2. Nh2 or Nf2, black plays 2....Kf5 which (i) blocks the white king from helping the knight, (ii) prevents white from playing e6, (iii) eventually wins the pawn on e5 (e.g. if white play 2. Nh2 Kf5 3. Nf3 h3 and black has the tactics of Bxe5, Nxe5, h2).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your approach (1...f5) does not make much sense from a practical point of view. Either you are playing for a draw, in which you could easily force it by 1...Bxe5; and white does not have sufficient mating material. Or you play for a win, but then 1...f5 does not make sense either as white can (at least) capture the pawn en passant which will basically force you to exchange bishop for knight on f6 after which the white king is just in time to catch the h pawn (i.e. to reach the square h1). So it would be a poor winning attempt with added risk of losing. Generally if you want to win such endgames it is better to keep as many pawns on the board as possible. This is even more important in this example where you have the wrong bishop for the h-pawn: i.e. you could not win king + bishop + h-pawn against the bare king as long as the white king makes it to h1 in time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastEditorUserId="11629" LastEditDate="2017-06-12T08:36:23.317" LastActivityDate="2017-06-12T08:36:23.317" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17817" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17791" CreationDate="2017-06-11T20:28:30.837" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a chess player who currently studies computer science, I found this question very interesting so here's my thoughts on the topic. You already know how chess books categorize open and closed positions and you may also know that a semi-closed position is one with some of the characteristics of an open but not all. As you understand this makes the line between closed and semi closed positions not easy to be seen. So my recommendation is to use a number to describe the &quot;openness&quot; of a position(although 50% may be a problem). Now some things I thinks you might find useful for implementing you machine learning algorithm. Firstly, I will suggest you to take a look at this article &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess24.com/en/read/news/how-do-chess-engines-think&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://chess24.com/en/read/news/how-do-chess-engines-think&lt;/a&gt; in the section about position evaluation. Now, some parameters you might use:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Number of pawns(a position with no pawns is apparently wide open).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Number of pawn moves(assuming a position with three pawns each,there's a big difference if they are on f2,g2,f7 and f7,g7,h7 respectively and if they are on c4,d5,e4 and c5,d6,e5.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;As you see in 2 you may give an extra weight for pawn moves in the center. Generally it will be a good idea to give extra weight for anything open in the center. This will be more clear in 4.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Number of open and semi-open files. The ones in the center again should have an extra weight.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Open diagonals. Note that diagonals with one or more isolani should be counted almost as opens(As an example think about the Indian's bishop targeting d4 and b2 when the c pawn is not on c3). And you should of course take into consideration the length of the diagonal.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that essentially you don't judge the whole position, just the pawn structure. That's why count the available moves of every piece is a mistake. This just measures the mobility of the given piece and doesn't necessarily has something to do with the pawn structure. For example, in a position with no pawns a Knight on a1 has only two moves while in a closed King's Indian the f3 Knight has seven( only one is occupied by the King). Some of them drop the piece but they are legal moves nonetheless.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope that helps a bit!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13521" LastActivityDate="2017-06-11T20:28:30.837" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17818" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-06-11T23:07:53.563" Score="4" ViewCount="235" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let's say all the pawns are on one side of the board, either left, middle or right. (If there were two pawn groups far from each other, I imagine the Bishop would be much better than the Knight.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So what are some techniques or rules of thumb for these kinds of endgames? (Are tactics the same thing as techniques?) All I know so far is what I gathered from Wikipedia and my own experience.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If you have the Bishop, an enemy pawn promoting on the wrong color is harder to stop, so try to deal with it earlier. But I have no idea if your own pawn promoting on the wrong color is easier, harder, or makes no difference.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;A Bishop orthogonally adjacent to a Knight cuts off half of the Knight's moves (unless one of those moves is defended by another piece). A Bishop 3 squares orthogonally away from the Knight does the same thing.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The Knight is better when most pawns are on the same color as the Bishop. Apparently this is true whether or not the pawns are enemies or allies of the Bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;An edge pawn is harder to stop for a Knight. (Thanks to user1583209 from my &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/17807/what-should-i-play-in-this-bvn-endgame-position&quot;&gt;previous question&lt;/a&gt;.)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What I'm really hoping for is a some kind of rule of the triangle or rule of key squares as they exist in King and Pawn endgames.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8509" LastActivityDate="2017-06-12T05:42:14.560" Title="What are some techniques for BvN endgames?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;knights&gt;&lt;bishops&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17819" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17818" CreationDate="2017-06-12T01:25:09.597" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;With pawns on one side of the board the Knight is usually better but keep in mind that maybe this is not enough to win the game. Some simple rules to remember are that N+P vs B is drawn as the bishop will be sacrificed for the pawn. The same applies for B+P vs N although this is a little harder to defend. Another rule is that B+ a or h P vs King where the bishop is of the opposite color of the promoting square then it is a draw if the king can get to this square before his counterpart. Another thing to have in mind is that the knight is also better if there are pawns on both flanks but the enemy bishop is bad(same color as his pawns). Actually, it is more possible to win good N vs bad B with pawns on both flanks rather than N vs B with pawns only in one side.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13521" LastActivityDate="2017-06-12T01:25:09.597" CommentCount="11" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17820" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17818" CreationDate="2017-06-12T05:42:14.560" Score="5" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;In races when bishop can sacrifice itself for last pawn, it can stop one pawn for loooong time. Don't expect to build a knight bridge faster then the enemy king kills other side and promotes. You need rook pawn or two pawns (one to win a bishop, one to make a queen) for races. Good to have some idea about this rule. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Bad bishop itself doesn't lose often in blocked positions, bad handling of it does. Have in mind you don't need to guard all pawns. In f4 g3 h4 vs. f5 g6 h5 you must often give up on a g pawn as you need to cut the enemy king and be active. The remaining two can be protected from active swuares. Be patient. You can also give up on pawns that blocks your king. In Kc3 Bd6 d4 f4 h4  vs. Ka4 Ne6 d5 f5 h5 the f4 pawn is very good one not to care about. Guard h4 with bishop if needed, guard d4 with king and control opponent's king. The f4 don't need protection as after taking you move king to f3 and use 1.) if your opponent wants to race. Otherwise just sit and wait.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Surrounding the knight is used very often, often as indirect pawn protection. You would be surprised how easily the knight can be locked. On smaller areas killed, on bigger repetitioned to draw or just imprisoned with no way out. Imagine Bg1 Ke5 and enemy knight stupid enough to hunt pawn on b2. You win the knight after Nxb2 in few moves with Kd4.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Knight wants connected pawn formation.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Knight can stop last pawn only with king assistance, bishop can fight longer and against some pawns more in the center not far enough it can stop them forever without needing an assistance. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Good to have an idea about elementary 1:0, 2:0, 2:1 pawn ratios. For example Kf5 Nf3 g4 h5 vs. Kh6 Bc1 is draw! Knight also has big problems helping h+f pawns to promote, here rules are more difficult and big precision and patience needed. Also Kf5 Ne4 f3 g4 vs. Kh6 Bc1 g5 is easy draw as you never lose g5 pawn. When you need to protect it, you are on h6, when Nf7 is threatening, you go to g7.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If you are patient like a zen master and you can calculate like a computer, you can do miracles with bad bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Have in mind wrong bishop to rook's pawn always.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;On one wing both these pieces should be able to stop x+1:x majority to x being 3 and less. Not easily of course. Maybe horsie defending 3 vs 4 is lost with good corner bishop, but don't think so. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11609" LastActivityDate="2017-06-12T05:42:14.560" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17821" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16535" CreationDate="2017-06-12T12:22:01.623" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I played Morra at 1500- level, and Morra is very fun to play. I have big lead in development and opponent will make obvious tactical mistakes for me to take advantage of. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now I'm at 1800-2000 level and I stop playing Morra. The reason is that at this level, opponents book up to some extent. They won't make obvious tactical mistakes and my understanding in Morra and tactical skill isn't enough to carry out the initiative successfully. In many Morra variations, if your opponent isn't very well booked up, you'll probably have one shot at Nd5 sac, you miss it and they'll develop properly and you are just down a pawn. On the other hand, even if you make the right sac, it still requires lots of tactical skill to make it winning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I believe at 2000+, players will have better understanding of initiative and much better tactical skill. Then opponents' less obvious tactical error is punished properly and Morra becomes dangerous again.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At world top level, the reason that Morra disappeared is because you can't surprise you opponent anymore. Every GM game is in a database and your opponent can check your opening repertoire and prepare accordingly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In any case, if you play Morra, don't fall into the Siberian trap (the second time).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7002" LastActivityDate="2017-06-12T12:22:01.623" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17822" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-06-12T13:38:00.833" Score="5" ViewCount="93" Body="&lt;p&gt;All online services for playing chess that I am aware of allow the user to specify a time control with a single base time and an increment. I would like to find one that supports a multi-period control, so that more time could be added only after move 40, for example. Does anyone know of a service that does that? The idea is that a friend and I could practice using the controls that will actually be used in real life.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13524" LastActivityDate="2017-06-12T13:38:00.833" Title="Multi-Period Time Controls Online" Tags="&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;time-control&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="5" ClosedDate="2019-06-25T19:43:14.577" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17823" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17807" CreationDate="2017-06-13T00:00:01.493" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your account of your thinking tells that you were already anxious when you reached this position, but there was no need to be. There were at least three reasons to be optimistic, and with more experience you would have seen all of them immediately.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Although you saw the Pe5 as a strength and a threat, it is really a weakness. As others have said, you could just capture it to get a draw, but you ought to be trying for a win. If White ever allows you to play Kf5 you will attack that Pawn twice, and tie down both of his pieces.You played the only move on the board that turned that Pawn into a strength.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;As has again been said, Knights have great difficulty stopping Rook pawns. This a helpful bit of endgame trivia that deserves to be tucked away.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;An advantage of having the Bishop is that you can make waiting moves, and use zugzwang&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Im rather surprised that the tablebase gives only one winning move, but that sort of thing is a bit irrelevant to amateur games. The important thing is that only Black has any objective chance to win. An important practical point is not to let the WN capture the h-pawn, because even if you get the e-pawn in return, being one solitary pawn ahead would be a difficult win at best.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastActivityDate="2017-06-13T00:00:01.493" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17825" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-06-13T06:57:12.060" Score="4" ViewCount="1586" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there anything else except Scid / Scid vs PC that shows variations with arrows and also allows you to chose any variation simply by dragging the piece on the board?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12676" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-06-13T07:15:16.197" LastActivityDate="2018-07-17T21:25:31.110" Title="Chess GUI showing variations with arrows except SCID?" Tags="&lt;software&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="12" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17826" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17828" CreationDate="2017-06-13T15:53:06.663" Score="1" ViewCount="179" Body="&lt;p&gt;As clearly black cannot trap the white queen for longer. So, won't Nxd4 be the best move in this scenario? Letting the queen escape and take a piece for his lost rook. Nxd4 will be followed by either Nxc2 or Nxe6. What are the different ways in which white can counter this move?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Q1bq3r/p1ppk1bp/1pn1B1pn/4PpN1/3P4/8/PPP2PPP/RNB1K2R b KQ - 0 1&#xA;&#xA;1... Nxd4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13334" LastEditorUserId="4186" LastEditDate="2017-06-14T05:15:17.853" LastActivityDate="2020-01-23T21:01:56.680" Title="Can this knight move level the game?" Tags="&lt;knights&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17827" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17826" CreationDate="2017-06-13T17:40:25.590" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think if white really wanted to stop Nxc2 and Nxe6, white could play Bb3 (assuming black to move) to stop both options. Since trading is beneficial to white, this looks like a better position for white. However, I think that black can still keep the black queen locked up at a8:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why doesn't black play dxe6 first? This regains more material than Nxd4, and keeps the queen locked up. Some possible continuations:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1... dxe6 2.Qxc6 Qxd4 threatening 3... Qxe5+ 4. Be3 Qxb2&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1... dxe6 2.Nxe6 Kxe6&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1... dxe6 2.Nxe6 Bxe6 3. Qxd8 Rxd8 threatening 4... Nxd4 5. Kd1 Nb6+&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and black looks better than before.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13535" LastActivityDate="2017-06-13T17:40:25.590" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17828" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17826" CreationDate="2017-06-14T11:43:57.223" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a funny looking position, which I assume you probably reached out of a poorly played Dutch defense, something along the lines &lt;code&gt;1.d4 f5 2.Nf3 g6 3.Ng5 Bg7 4.e4 e6 5.Bc4 Nh6 6.Qf3 b6 7.Bxe6 Ke7 8.e5&lt;/code&gt; and so on... (or &lt;code&gt;1.d4 f5 2.Nf3 g6 3.Ng5 Bg7 4.e4 e6 5.Bc4 Nh6 6.Qf3 b6 7.e5 Ke7 8.Qxa8 Nc6 9.Bxe6&lt;/code&gt;) which are very weird looking...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With little analysis I think you convince yourself that black is completely lost here and Nxd4 doesn't come to rescue either. Simply put, white is a clear piece up, the queen isn't really trapped, black's king is a mess, and there's just not any piece coordination to create any counter-play whatsoever. As pointed out by &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/users/444/tmm&quot;&gt;TMM&lt;/a&gt; in the comments after Nxd4 white just retreats the bishop to b3 and protects everything, this is the simplest and best move. Or even Bc4 to preserve the bishop and even provoke Nxc2+ which leads to some fun tactics either mating the black king or trapping the queen, for example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Q1bq3r/p1ppk1bp/1pn1B1pn/4PpN1/3P4/8/PPP2PPP/RNB1K2R b KQ - 0 1&#xA;&#xA;1... Nxd4 2.Bc4 Nxc2+ 3.Kd1 Nxa1 4.Nxh7 Ke8 (4...Nf7 5.Bxf7 Kxf7 6.Qd5+ Ke8 7.Bg5 ) 5.Bg5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3594" LastActivityDate="2017-06-14T11:43:57.223" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17830" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17833" CreationDate="2017-06-15T02:35:15.730" Score="4" ViewCount="551" Body="&lt;p&gt;Below is the 1997 game of Deep Blue VS Garry Kasparov:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;r1bqkb1r/pp1n1pp1/2p1pn1p/6N1/3P4/3B1N2/PPP2PPP/R1BQK2R w - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The last move &lt;code&gt;7...h6?&lt;/code&gt; was played by Kasparov (black), after which Deep Blue played the knight sacrifice 8.Nxe6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Wikipedia says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The computer is aided by having this knight sacrifice programmed into its opening book. This move had been played in a number of previous high-level games, with white achieving a huge plus score. As an indication of how far computer chess has progressed in the 20 years after this match, modern programs deprived of their opening books are able to correctly evaluate Nxe6 as strongest; but at the time this was played it was considered probable based on other programs' performance that it was only the opening book that was responsible for this choice. The compensation white gets for the material is not obvious enough for the computer to see by itself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How would white compensate for their sacrificed knight?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13544" LastActivityDate="2017-06-15T09:45:28.803" Title="Knight sacrifice performed by Deep Blue against Garry Kasparov" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;sacrifice&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17831" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17837" CreationDate="2017-06-15T03:54:37.743" Score="4" ViewCount="1644" Body="&lt;p&gt;The following is a position that frequently arises in my games when I play the London System as White:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;  [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. Bf4 Nf6 3. e3 Bf5&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At this point I am unable to place my light-squared Bishop in its best square (d3) without allowing an exchange of Bishops which does not seem favorable to me as the White light squared Bishop is better than the Black (all White pawns in the center occupying black squares - especially after c3 which will also be played at some point).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yet, when browsing the database at &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;lichess.com&lt;/a&gt; the most frequent continution is &lt;code&gt;4. Bd3&lt;/code&gt; which invites exactly such an exchange. I' ve toyed with ideas of &lt;code&gt;Nf3&lt;/code&gt; followed by &lt;code&gt;Nh4&lt;/code&gt; in an attempt to drive off the Black Bishop (or exchange him with my Knight) but without much success.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How should White approach this Bishop exchange? Should it be avoided and, if not, how does the London System plans (for White) change after the light squared Bishop is lost?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2307" LastActivityDate="2017-06-15T10:01:04.807" Title="London System as White: exchange of the light-squared bishops" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;london-system&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17832" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17773" CreationDate="2017-06-15T05:58:03.667" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://repl.it/ImZP/1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;I made a program.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just run (button near the top) it until you get a legal position. Even if you add a black pawn, most of the time it should only take one try.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You could try downloading a python chess library that has a simple method which checks if the position is legal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13498" LastActivityDate="2017-06-15T05:58:03.667" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17833" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17830" CreationDate="2017-06-15T06:01:52.913" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;History of this line is interesting. People used to think it's good for white, maybe majority still do as well as openings books do. But in correspondence database I use there are four games with Nxe6 fxe6 and black scored two wins and two draws out of four games. The wins are from 2012 and 2013. I know a lot of white players avoiding the sacrifice these days as it is easy to lose even against much weaker opposition while it doesn't even have the objective quality. Black play is easier and more obvious. I don't like White's position, I like Black here. It is too closed without direct threats for such a material investment. I know mainly the defensive plans for black here as it is in my repertoire, ok white try to play on e-file, disrupt you with Ne5 and f7 fork threat, may want to play c5 with B/Qa5+ sometimes and even b2-b4-b5 as black is undeveloped for quite some time. It is positional sacrifice and very interesting one. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11609" LastActivityDate="2017-06-15T06:01:52.913" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17834" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17547" CreationDate="2017-06-15T09:22:53.347" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Scenario here does not call for any Strategic plan but it is a tactical shot of Deflection and Queen gets overloaded with B*g5 move . Black is in a precarious position with no offence but to resist for sometime . Black has 2 knights and King in centre with Rooks not even joined to each other . White on the other hand has its Bishops pointing towards Black and Rooks yet to join the party and the Queen is keeping a close watch on the 7th rank . &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even if the Tactical B*g5 would not have been possible White should win with normal moves . &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastActivityDate="2017-06-15T09:22:53.347" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17835" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17830" CreationDate="2017-06-15T09:45:28.803" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Honestly the Sacrifice of the Knight compensates with one pawn and a check of Bg6+ which forces the King to an unhealthy square of e7 . There is definitely an initiative which White has in the rest of the game but I will suggest that this move order is good for players like Mikhail Tal / Robert Spielmann / Rashid Nezhmetinov who has a daring style of play and sacrifice is their main weapon in major chess games . It is indeed difficult to answer and no fixed algorithm as how White will bring out the game and win it . Infact it could be Black who has better chances . &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;True Black is cramped with King in Centre but Black has all its pieces surrounded and White has nothing except a Bishop on g6 which takes off some squares but with good play Black should be able to neutralize White's attack .After Qc7 or Qa5 Black's king will be safe on d8 with no immediate attack from White . &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastActivityDate="2017-06-15T09:45:28.803" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17836" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17831" CreationDate="2017-06-15T09:59:46.660" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The best way to deal with the &quot;copycat&quot; is to switch to the Queen's Gambit with c4 with the idea of following up at the right time with Qb3 to take advantage of the weakness on b7.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2017-06-15T09:59:46.660" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17837" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17831" CreationDate="2017-06-15T10:01:04.807" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are many solutions to this problem . &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The first thing is that I feel that you have a problem without the light square Bishop . You must learn to play with Bd3 and look for games in chessgames.com how white scores the rest of the game . Rather than an opening it is more of a psychological problem . Playing London from White does not necessarily mean you have to do a K-side attack . The exchange of light square bishop prohibits the K-side attack . You need to change your plans .&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;You can play c4 -c5 and then bring out the Bishop .When you play c4 then Black plays e6 in most occasions this cuts off the Bishop on Q-side . When c5 then b6 from Black White can take advantage and play Bb5+ with Queen on a5 putting some pressure . Knight can jump to e5 in next moves .&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;You can develop the Bishop on e2 and after Nf3,Ne5 you play g4 ,h4 .&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastActivityDate="2017-06-15T10:01:04.807" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17838" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14959" CreationDate="2017-06-15T17:52:11.093" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Smirin resigned as Anand had one bishop, through which he could have easily advanced his pawns towards the other end and thus it's game over (one rook and a queen).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13550" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-06-15T19:31:31.447" LastActivityDate="2017-06-15T19:31:31.447" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17839" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2909" CreationDate="2017-06-16T09:54:07.497" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Question relates to more of a naming convention and interchanging Queen with Wazir . Wazir or the Minister or the General of the Army is all same here in Chess . &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The rules of the game have been quite similar to the ancient civilization . The King is actually powerful and has the ability to direct all instructions to win the game or battle . The King belongs to the Throne and without him the Kingdom is lost . If the Army General gets killed their may be a new appointment or without him also the battle can be won . e.g. in chess Pawn gets promoted to a Queen so a valiant soldier can be designated as a Queen.  If you watch some historical movies like Troy / Gladiator / Mahabharata  you would see that the Kings always stay behind and the main battle would be somewhat far from his radius . I do not disagree to the fact that Kings never participated from the front in battle fields but their always used to a small force of gallant soldiers who would protect him as like Castling in chess. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Technically the Chess Queen or the Wazir/ General can cover more squares on board which infers that the General like Hector/Achilles/Maximus/Arjun/Karna were more adept warriors and could kill many soldiers at once . &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the Question is quite clear as it is the Chess King who is technically powerless because it grounds one square at a time but in real as they were not better warriors than the Queen but had the ability to direct all orders and could instruct every piece to be sacrificed and fight till the end to save the King from getting checkmated .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastActivityDate="2017-06-16T09:54:07.497" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17840" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17801" CreationDate="2017-06-16T14:31:23.230" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;This rook sacrifice is a blunder. OK, you need to prove from a calculation standpoint also. Let's take the piece placement, and some basic common sense. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Black has two pieces developed on K-side. His best move is to castle.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;His Q-side is static except his intentionally mistaken move b6.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;To trap the mighty queen you need to make moves, which will consist of tempo-gaining moves, and continuously attack the Queen, which does not seem to have. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;After Q*a8 Nc6 stops the queen's retreat. Bb5 or d5 and ed5 Bd5 attacks the knight, and then it is not clear from black how he would trap the queen. In fact there is no such way. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So in short b6 seems to be a misplayed move. You can even check this out with an engine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T20:07:47.723" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T20:07:47.723" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="17841" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17801" CreationDate="2017-06-16T20:07:23.440" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Black moves his/her knight to block the Queen from getting out. Then white is forced to work without a Queen or waste time trying to free her while black can make some aggressive moves without fear of the Queen being in the way. IMO it is a trap, at the expense of a rook but it buys time to make some pretty serious moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13557" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T20:04:43.283" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T20:04:43.283" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="17842" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17843" CreationDate="2017-06-16T21:41:51.803" Score="2" ViewCount="196" Body="&lt;p&gt;With a human vs. computer, simply set Stockfish to &lt;code&gt;depth == 1&lt;/code&gt; and play it. Or, you can choose another (weaker) engine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With a human vs. human &lt;em&gt;online&lt;/em&gt;, is it possible to set the starting position? If so, what is the website?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13147" LastActivityDate="2017-06-17T04:27:41.670" Title="Is there a multiplayer Chess GUI that allows you to choose the starting position?" Tags="&lt;software&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17843" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17842" CreationDate="2017-06-17T04:27:41.670" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can play it in &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/editor&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://lichess.org/editor&lt;/a&gt;.&#xA;Chose your default opening, or just customize it, then click in 'Continue from here'.&#xA;You can chose if you want to play with with engine or with a friend.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13559" LastActivityDate="2017-06-17T04:27:41.670" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17844" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8907" CreationDate="2017-06-17T06:07:09.560" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sorry, but I absolutely disagree that you need to memorize move order in theoretical positions. You only need to memorize &lt;strong&gt;the ideas.&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once you know the ideas, you can calculate two, three, or more moves to attain the ideal position, because those calculations are based on &lt;strong&gt;not making the wrong move.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Outflanking, Counting, and the Opposition &lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;8/5K2/8/4pk2/4R3/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have not memorized a single move in how the winning variation ends, but one thing's for certain: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;White needs to get on the opposite side of the king if he's going to capture that pawn. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Black's king is like a bodyguard, preventing the white king from getting past him.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Black will control the queening square in seven moves. Black moves after me, so I have seven moves to capture the pawn, or the game will be drawn.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These ideas are known as &lt;em&gt;outflanking&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;counting&lt;/em&gt;, and &lt;strong&gt;the opposition&lt;/strong&gt;. Unless you have studied endgames, you won't have a clue about them (see point #3 further below).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now I can ask myself which moves accomplish these ideas. After 1. Ra4?? or (1. Rh4??) 1...e4! The black king remains where he's at, and he better: He's got the opposition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Re1?? Yep, this doesn't do it. The black king also keeps the opposition: 1...e4! 2. Rf1 Kg4 and the white king is late for his appointment. We can try to outflank: 2. Ke7 Ke5!! &lt;strong&gt;Opposition.&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only way to force the king to lose the opposition is to entice him forward: &lt;strong&gt;1. Re3!!&lt;/strong&gt; (or 1. Re2!) The black king will lose the opposition, despite attacking the rook. If he tries 1. Kf4 2. Re1 Kf5 (after &lt;strong&gt;1. Re3!!&lt;/strong&gt;), you'll notice that we're back to the original starting position, but with the rook on e1 now. With that extra tempo, we can now outflank: 3. Ke7 e4 4. Kd6 Kf4 5. Kd5 (The pawn is now under attack) e3 4. Kd4 and the pawn has been won.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black's only option is to give up the opposition, unfortunately. &lt;strong&gt;1. Re3!!&lt;/strong&gt; (or 1. Re2!) &lt;strong&gt;e4 2. Re1 Kf4&lt;/strong&gt; (2... Ke5 3. Kg6 leads to the above variation with kings on opposite sides) &lt;strong&gt;3. Ke6! Kf3 4. Kd5&lt;/strong&gt; (The pawn is now under attack) &lt;strong&gt;e3 5. Kd4 e2 6. Kd3&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;em&gt;We have done it!&lt;/em&gt; We have prevented black from controlling e1 in seven moves or less.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And notice a key difference between the variations where the black king was on f4 and g4: The rook was on f1 in the latter. White loses a move when the black pawn hits e2, because his rook is attacked. So in reality, white only had not six, but FIVE! (because of Re1-Rf1+ and Rf1-Re1) instead of seven moves in that losing (drawing) variation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt; King Centralization, Counting &lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;7K/7p/k1P5/8/8/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well, clearly it's a draw, just capture the black pawn, get some lunch at Subway, and go on with my day...except that's not the case. Black to move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt; WHAT?! &lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1... h5&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now this is interesting. Most amateurs would say it's lost despite the problem stating &quot;White draws&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At the end, they succumb to an engine and suddenly change their minds...I cannot stand the lack of emotional control of some people (ironically), but I digress...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But then I remembered the famous grandmaster Richard Réti's words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;‘I once heard a story where a reporter asked the famous master Jose Capablanca, “How many moves do you see ahead?” He jokingly said, “Fifty!” The reporter, not knowing much about chess, wrote that down in his notes and then proceeded to ask another famous master, Richard Réti, the same question. Réti said, “One! But always the right one.” There is something to be learned from this: &lt;strong&gt;You only need to see as deep as necessary to establish the best move for the position.&lt;/strong&gt;’ - &lt;em&gt;Page 39 of Winning Chess Tournaments by Robert M. Snyder (Lincoln, 2007)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well, the white king is threatening the pawn if he goes down, but he's also making an attempt to promote his if he goes sideways. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He can't do both, he must choose one or the other...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;WAIT! He can just move diagonally, and move down and sideways at the same time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It doesn't even matter if we can make it in time or not. We have no choice. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;2. Kg7! Kb6 3. Kf6!! f4&lt;/strong&gt; (Kxc6 4. Ke5 draws) We're getting closer to not just one, but both pawns. Black can also try 2... f4 3. Kf6 f3, but the choices are the same:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;This is the easier variation. Black promotes in three moves; if we promote in four (because White moves first) we are drawn. We are also only one tempo behind the pawn. If the king moves at some point, the pawn is ours! Thus &lt;strong&gt;4. Ke5!!&lt;/strong&gt; and now 4... f3 Kd6 promotes in time whereas 4... Kxc6 Kf4 gives us the required tempo. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It's clear that the king cannot reach the pawn anymore, but he is within the distance to help his pawn safely promote. 4. Ke6!! Kb6 (4...f2 5. c7 h1=Q 6. c8=Q is the same) Kd7 5. c7 h1=Q 6. Qc8+ 1/2-1/2&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These are my favorite positions: Once you know the theory, everything is easy. Most people will overthink it by analyzing, &lt;strong&gt;but the endgame is not about analysis&lt;/strong&gt;. It's about ideas. Analysis paralysis!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt; A Means to an End&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both of these positions have taught me how to play correctly. (They're also studies by Réti, and you can find them &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R%C3%A9ti_endgame_study#The_study&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R%C3%A9ti_endgame_study#Another_study_with_the_same_idea&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.) Because of the second one, I know it is absolutely ideal to centralize my king, because I have more options. (I wish I could bold that, but that's overdoing it.) King centralization is essential in the endgame, and I wouldn't have realized it without that study; I used it in one game so far, and won it without a sweat.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On a final note, &lt;em&gt;of course&lt;/em&gt; he's never encountered those &quot;theoretical&quot; positions - &lt;strong&gt;he hasn't tried to create them.&lt;/strong&gt; He doesn't know how, or he's trying to force a different position: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Attacking when it is better to wait, because the opponent would be in zugzwang.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Winning material when simplifying would be easier. Perhaps even trading the rook - AND a pawn - for just the opponent's bishop, but creating a won pawn endgame, would be better than material gain with complications (but it would certainly &lt;strong&gt;be more fun&lt;/strong&gt;, which it looks like what your student wants).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Making a simple mistake, &lt;strong&gt;because you don't know what you're doing.&lt;/strong&gt; Sorry, but if you don't know the ideas behind these positions, it will simply cost you points in tournament games. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt; Learning the Hard Way&lt;/h1&gt; &#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At the Chicago Open in 2017, all (ten) of my games were won (according to later analysis by Stockfish). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I had trained really rigorously for this tournament by reading up on positional play and tactics. I also gave some, but not too much, attention at the endgame. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I gave perhaps thirty minutes to the opening over a matter of weeks. It really isn't important at all; the opening is just a subset of the middle game, and its study is just important to avoid traps. &lt;em&gt;That's it.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Back on topic, my opponents could not touch me to save their life in the middle game. That training had really paid off, and I was able to convert my imbalances (space, pawn structure, bad bishops to good, etc.) easily. If you had given me my opponent's position, I'd say they're simply lost, because I wouldn't know what to do with them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But in six of those ten games, I did one of the three above points. I attacked prematurely. I complicated things. And I simply didn't know what to do in two of games, which I vividly remember LOSING: &lt;strong&gt;Rook and pawn endgames.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Coincidentally, those endgames are the ones I hated the most. I did not know the Philidor position (LOL). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now I've picked up &lt;em&gt;Secrets of Rook Endings&lt;/em&gt; by John Nunn and have devoted more time to Jesus De La Villa's &lt;em&gt;100 Endgames You Must Know&lt;/em&gt;. You couldn't pay me to get me to read a middle game book, because I'm simply not interested.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can know one endgame idea really well and force a draw - even win on your opponent's negligence - or you can know one opening really well and hope he doesn't survive the middle game. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And hope chess is ALWAYS a fast road to nowhere.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13147" LastEditorUserId="13147" LastEditDate="2017-06-17T22:08:37.573" LastActivityDate="2017-06-17T22:08:37.573" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17845" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8907" CreationDate="2017-06-17T14:57:04.977" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;From a Cat A player, on the contrary, it is the endgame that you have to be the most accurate in concrete analysis. If you are sloppy in your endgames (with fewer pieces), your middle games will suffer. Of course, you can get by playing principled chess as road signs to winning ideas, but you eventually have to hunker down and analyze accurately. A minor slip up/tempo misplay can throw away a win easily enough. At 1600-1700 levels, you only &lt;em&gt;really&lt;/em&gt; need De La Villa's book. Anything else is probably too much, and at those levels, misplays are common enough. So, to answer the question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;How can I teach the endgame to someone who feels it is “boring”?&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, let's go over his 4 'points', interesting as they are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1: &lt;em&gt;Boring and requires too much memorization&lt;/em&gt; - My guess he does not feel this way about opening play. So, treat endgame play like openings, and play training positions in tournament settings against him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2: &lt;em&gt;reference to a bad chess adage&lt;/em&gt; - there is a cure for that outside of trying to convince him this kind of thinking is exactly why he is not progressing. &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;Perhaps convincing him that middlegame play is there for two reasons: a) a successful attack on the king or b) material gain and transition into a winning endgame.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; By not knowing endgames, he essentially is removing half of his ability to score the full point.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3: &lt;em&gt;Endgame study takes too long&lt;/em&gt; - Here's your hat, what's your hurry. His impatience is a thing of ugly. &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;Chess is a lifestyle game and requires long periods of study and equal amounts of play&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;. He will never know everything about endgame play. &lt;em&gt;He must efficiently study those kinds of positions that are likely to occur in games.&lt;/em&gt; The most frequent are Rook plus minor piece endgames (~15%), R vs. R (~9%), 2R vs. 2R (~3-4%), B vs. N (~3%), and pawn endgames (~3%) [Fundamental Chess Endings - Muller/Lamprecht, 2001].&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4: &lt;em&gt;Not exciting&lt;/em&gt; - Well, that is on the teacher to convey this. All you. Since he is under your tutelage, it is up to you to assign work and impress on him how important it is. Simply make it a hard point he must progress through.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Good luck. Chess students can be real PITA's sometimes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10233" LastEditorUserId="10233" LastEditDate="2017-06-18T12:40:37.487" LastActivityDate="2017-06-18T12:40:37.487" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17846" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-06-18T03:45:08.197" Score="1" ViewCount="281" Body="&lt;p&gt;I started playing chess when i was 13,  year 2009. After a year and a half i reached 1850 peek ncfp(philppines) rating, i was 14 turning 15 that time. Due to personal reasons, I stopped playing chess when i was 16. Leaving my ncfp rating 1805. Now im turning 21. I started playing again. I stopped for nearly 5 years without playing. And just got back my interest in the game recently. The question is can i stil be at leastt ba national master or is it too late. I practiced almost everyday again and have a 1860 rating in chess.com. is it still possible for me to get into master level?? Because since i started playing. I dreamed to be a master. Its a broken dream for me that i want to continue. I have a hard time playing because i think that im left out with my batchmates from chess . Some of them are masters already. Thankss!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13563" LastEditorUserId="13563" LastEditDate="2017-06-18T03:57:09.867" LastActivityDate="2017-06-18T06:35:11.927" Title="HElp! Can i still reach master level?" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2017-06-18T14:02:52.150" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17847" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17846" CreationDate="2017-06-18T03:59:32.500" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, with enough study and practice, it's possible to become a master at any age. There's even a book titled &lt;a href=&quot;http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/0938650580&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&quot;Chess Master at any Age&quot;&lt;/a&gt;, written by a player who became a master at the age of 50.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9025" LastActivityDate="2017-06-18T03:59:32.500" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17848" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17846" CreationDate="2017-06-18T06:35:11.927" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you are not dead, you still have time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I think im stronger when i was young. But im having a hard time getting it back. What should i do?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Take shortcuts, cheat, drink at tournaments...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Come on, man. Take a deep breath and realize that there's nothing to be anxious about. It's going to happen as fast as it's going to happen. But you can get started on that process by opening a chess book, reading it, and applying what you learned over-the-board (and by yourself at home, playing against yourself).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any chess book that you learn even just one thing from was useful. Here's my list:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;100 Endgames You Must Know&lt;/em&gt; by Jesus De La Villa&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;Re-assess Your Chess&lt;/em&gt; by Jeremy Silman&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;Art of Attack&lt;/em&gt; by Vladimir Vukovic&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Those three are more than enough to get you started.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13147" LastActivityDate="2017-06-18T06:35:11.927" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17849" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8907" CreationDate="2017-06-18T08:25:01.437" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think endgames are the essence and soul of chess. One should focus on middle games and end games in the intermediate stage to improve to the elite level of 2000+ elo. Learning from books is an effective way but at times students do not enjoy it that much. They find it extremely tough to solve the positions and sometimes lose focus and concentration. This leads to a loss of interest and makes the player think that the endgames are boring. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The best way to deal with this situation is to study grandmaster and classical games and study the effects of an endgame position. One should set up a board and start playing the game from the opening. Once one reaches the endgame, one can put a clock and play against another player. This way there is a motivation to play that position and one can learn from actual games, not relying solely on prepared positions/theory. Although it is important to know the basics, but this is relatively simple and does not require much effort. Once one knows the basic points of endgame theory, one can easily follow this method of watching grandmaster games. Studying games of Capablanca, Carlsen, Botvinik,Anand, and Kasparov are some of the ways that one can learn end games from the masters. One can even analyse the position with different views and then check the original version of the game. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is important to note that endgames can essentially win crucial matches. Every advanced player will take his game till the endgame and will look to crunch the victory from there. Thus, it is imperative that we also know how to do the same. Learning via grandmaster games is a method that is effective and quite interesting. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user13482" LastActivityDate="2017-06-18T08:25:01.437" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17850" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4570" CreationDate="2017-06-18T08:31:31.483" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have been training a few students for the past year and a half now. I have been a player myself for the past ten years. Recently, I wrote a trainer's manual on chess. I feel that it is important for the trainer to instill a sense of confidence in the student's mind for chess. It is imperative to teach the correct rules and regulations of the game according to the latest tournament rules. For a complete beginner, it is necessary to make the student learn how to checkmate in one-two moves, the basic opening position and principles, the basic middle game principles, and some basic endgame checkmates(a single rook, two rooks, a pawn, a queen). It is also important to make the student aware about the happenings in the world of chess. Make the student know about the different world champions, different world tournaments, and the various chess events across the world. One can also start making the student participate in a few local events to get the confidence up. Trainers must also make use of practice play and must guide their students on their overall development of the game. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user13482" LastActivityDate="2017-06-18T08:31:31.483" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17851" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5069" CreationDate="2017-06-18T08:36:58.187" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess is a fun and interesting game to learn and play. It has many benefits for youngsters and thus it is important for the chess in schools to take shape. &#xA;Founding my own project, where I teach chess to underprivileged and blind children, I discovered the many benefits of chess for these children. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Chess builds up confidence and makes the players motivated.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;It also provides a recreation for the students who otherwise waste their time on television and video games.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;It provides a growth medium for the brain and is like a brain gym. In the future, the risk of Alzheimer can be prevented. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Chess makes the player positive and focused. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Chess also helps a player to excel in other school activities.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;It develops a strong personality for the player and helps the player to survive strong battles. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;It leads to a change in the thinking and pattern recognizing abilities. Improvement in both these areas are visible in most chess players. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user13482" LastActivityDate="2017-06-18T08:36:58.187" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17853" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8907" CreationDate="2017-06-18T12:51:32.800" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm going to add a second answer here that was triggered by another comment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you are floundering down in the 1400 - 1600 levels, you can't progress above that if you do not study endgames efficiently, because the competition you meet at the 1600 - 1800 level have some inclination that there is more to chess than a frontal assault on the king. These players typically figure out how to (relatively) effectively transition from the middlegame to a winning endgame, or avoid that transition into a losing one. Take any recent games from 1400 players and you find many examples. This transitional knowledge is largely experiential, meaning you can't &quot;teach&quot; it, but you have to experience through gameplay, know it is possible, and know that it is something you should be seeking out when the position warrants it. Vocal 1400 players don't do that - they are scared to death of the endgame because a) they have studied it too much, studied it wrong, studied the wrong stuff, and don't understand it b) they have studied it but don't apply it during their games as a transition mechanism for a position or c) Have a crappy attitude towards endgame play in general.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10233" LastActivityDate="2017-06-18T12:51:32.800" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17854" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-06-18T13:51:40.847" Score="-2" ViewCount="329" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was wondering, how does a normal training day look like for the higher-rated players? How much time do they allocate daily/weekly for opening and endgame preparation, tactical training etc? I assume that most of them know openings and endgames quite well, so what is that they try to improve, and how are they doing it? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13516" LastActivityDate="2017-06-20T04:52:36.140" Title="How do GMs and IMs prepare for tournaments?" Tags="&lt;training&gt;&lt;grandmaster&gt;&lt;preparation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17855" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5069" CreationDate="2017-06-18T15:43:10.933" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There really cannot be any educational value in just knowing the moves of the pieces, or memorizing how to mate with a Rook, or making random moves on your side while another kid makes random moves on the other.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The justification has to be that a good teacher who is also a chess enthusiast will find the game to be an inexhaustible source of teachable moments, and will use these to convey valuable lessons whether thay are on the syllabus or not. Very few studies of the benefits or lack of benefits ever seem to describe HOW the game was taught, and therfore offer no valid basis for any conclusions&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastActivityDate="2017-06-18T15:43:10.933" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17856" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17685" CreationDate="2017-06-18T16:07:03.533" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Finally I made it work with big help of @SmallChess and @Andrew. The first problem came with file &lt;code&gt;stockfish-8-armeabi-v7a&lt;/code&gt; with no extension and not much informations about. That's why I asked here. The answer by SmallChess was precise, I just couldn't make things work and I couldn't confirm it for very long time. I run into various problems, more or less easy to deal with, but this one took a lot of time:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I correctly copied the file to folder of my application, but I didn't have permission to run it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I had to change it with&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;string[] cmd = { &quot;chmod&quot;, &quot;744&quot;, Path.Combine(strToFolder, fileName) };&#xA;Java.Lang.Runtime.GetRuntime().Exec(cmd);&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and things started to be very easy from now, as Andrew's answer provides fully functional code, which would take also a lot of time to write with not much understanding of the problem, so big thanks to him too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11609" LastActivityDate="2017-06-18T16:07:03.533" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17857" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17854" CreationDate="2017-06-18T17:21:09.890" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;This question is too broad, everyone is training differently. There is also much more motivation on the side of strong young IMs than on side of weak GMs. A lot of colleagues just play, rarely train something, teach children, write articles, books, makes videos and try not to go much under 2500. They made a lot of hard training to get there, but are not working much anymore. Players of these strengths not overly motivated try to learn something from the additional chess work they do and I think the majority of them suffers as they recognize that such a chess work don't help them much to get better. But it probably helps them not to go down fast. And it certainly helps them get some money as this strength players often don't have hard everyday jobs. For me, team championships are all that matters and I try to be there always as well prepared as possible. I play tournaments too, but usually I prepare here much less and sometimes I just treat them like holidays. This is quite typical for my region, different parts of the planet will view things differently.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11609" LastEditorUserId="11609" LastEditDate="2017-06-20T04:52:36.140" LastActivityDate="2017-06-20T04:52:36.140" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17858" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-06-19T06:32:33.297" Score="4" ViewCount="558" Body="&lt;p&gt;How do I play in an attacking manner? I know it sounds silly, but whenever I play, I am usually on the defensive. My opponents attack, forcing me into a corner, and usually won. The few times I attack, the opponent easily rebuffs my attacks, since I often lose control of the situation trying to attack.&#xA;Plus, attacking moves do not come obviously to my mind. I find that my opponents usually move in a different manner than I expect them to.&#xA;In short, I'm usually good at tactics, but rather less so at strategy.&#xA;I'd like some advice.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;                    I played black. The game was over in two hours. I would like anyone's opinion on my game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 d6 4. dxe5 dxe5 5. Nc3 Qxd1+ 6. Nxd1 Be6 7. a3 O-O-O 8. Ng5 Rd7 9. Bb5 a6 10. Nxe6 fxe6 11. Bc4 Nd4 12. Ne3 b5 13. Bb3 Nxb3 14. cxb3 Nf6 15. f3 Rd3 16. b4 c5 17. Bd2 cxb4 18. axb4 Bxb4 19. Bxb4 Rxe3+ 20. Kf2 Rb3 21. Bc3 b4 22. Bxe5 Rf8 23. Rxa6 Ng4+ 24. Kg3 Kb7 25. Rxe6 Nxe5 26. Rxe5 Rxb2 27. Re7+ Kb6 28. Rxg7 b3 29. e5 Re2 30. Rb1 b2 31. e6 Re8 32. e7 Rb8 33. Rf7 Ka5 34. Rf8 Rb3 35. e8=Q Rxe8 36. Rxe8 Kb4 37. Rb8+ Kc3 38. Rxb3+ Kxb3 39. f4 Kc2 40. Rxb2+ Kxb2 41. f5 Kc3 42. f6 Kd4 43. f7 Ke5 44. f8=Q Ke6 45. Kf4 Kd5 46. Qe8 Kd6 47. Ke4 Kc5 48. Qd8 Kc4 49. Qd4+ Kb5 50. Kd5 Ka5 51. Kc5 Ka6 52. Qb4 Ka7 53. Kc6 Ka8 54. Qb7# 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;My analysis:&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;1-5:&lt;/strong&gt; Started off as the Italian game, though this variation is a bit unusual for me.&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;5... Qxd1&lt;/strong&gt; To throw him off balance, hopefully.&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;6-8:&lt;/strong&gt; To castle early, bishop placement intended to be safe.&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;9... a6&lt;/strong&gt; Taken from Morphy defense.&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;10.....&lt;/strong&gt; General move&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;11... Nd4&lt;/strong&gt; Planning for a fork on King and Rook.&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;12... b5&lt;/strong&gt; Driving away the bishop.&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;13...Nxb3&lt;/strong&gt; I prefer to exchange a Knight for a bishop.&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;14... Nf6&lt;/strong&gt; General development.&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;15... Rd3&lt;/strong&gt; in the futile hope of a pawn win.&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;16-19:&lt;/strong&gt; Thought I had a fair exchange.&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;20... Rb3&lt;/strong&gt; Threatening to take away the bishop.&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;21... b4&lt;/strong&gt; felt I had the momentum, wanted to press forwards.&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;22... Rf8&lt;/strong&gt; Defending my knight.&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;23... Ng4+&lt;/strong&gt; Thought I had a brilliant fork.&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;24...Kb6&lt;/strong&gt; To Avoid​ being skewered by 25. Ra8+&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;25... Nxe5&lt;/strong&gt; At least I had an even exchange.&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;26... Rxb2&lt;/strong&gt; Planning for pawn promotion.&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;27... Kb6&lt;/strong&gt; Wanted my king to be in the middle of the action, not limited to last rank.&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;28... b3&lt;/strong&gt; Furthering pawn promotion&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;29...Re2&lt;/strong&gt; To attack his pawn moving ahead.&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;30... b2&lt;/strong&gt;. To save my pawn, and also restrict the movement of the rook on front of me.&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;31... Re8&lt;/strong&gt;. To doubly attack his pawn.&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;32...Rb8&lt;/strong&gt; Wanted to support my almost promoted pawn. I had vague plans of bringing my other Rook onto the first rank, let his rook capture mine, and promote my pawn by taking his room.&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;33... Ka5&lt;/strong&gt; Hoping to connect my rooks and also move my king ahead.&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;34... Rb3&lt;/strong&gt; Continuation of my promoting plans. Failed to notice his promoting plans! Got reckless, I guess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;35 onward&lt;/strong&gt;: Doing my best to delay defeat.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;I wonder how he held off my promotion attempts with just one rook, and got his promotion​ done using the other. Two of my rooks could do nothing&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13565" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T17:04:54.990" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T17:05:37.730" Title="Attacking play in chess" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;attack&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="11" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="17859" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17858" CreationDate="2017-06-19T08:18:57.540" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;I assume that by &quot;attacking play&quot; you mean a direct attack (mating attack) against the enemy king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This question is too general to be answered unless all you want is a recommendation for study resources.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;whenever I play, I am usually on the defensive&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Need to see a specific game, but typically this happens if you neglect development, play too slowly or place your pieces in strange positions. Working on these might already help you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not every game/position lends itself to a direct attack. Sometimes it is better to play it slowly trying to gain small advantages. In the end chess is very concrete and whether an attack is successful will depend on many details. Some indications that it is time for an attack:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;there are &lt;strong&gt;few defenders&lt;/strong&gt; around the enemy king&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;your pieces are placed such (or can be placed such) that they &lt;strong&gt;aim at the enemy king&lt;/strong&gt;; this usually means open files/diagonals or ways to achieve open files/diagonals&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;opposite side castling&lt;/strong&gt;; such that if you open files on the side of the enemy king it does not affect your own king safety&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;a &lt;strong&gt;closed center&lt;/strong&gt;; particularly useful for pawn storms. This prevents your opponent from starting a counter-attack in the center and also can make it more difficult for defenders to move from one side of the board to the other&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;some openings&lt;/strong&gt; basically force you to go for an attack while in others it is rare that you would get any attack&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once you have decided that it is time for an attack, the question is how to do it? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Knowing/studying tactics is certainly useful. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Also you want to concentrate your forces for the attack (without neglecting your king's safety or without pieces standing themselves in the way). &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You want to open diagonals/files in order to get an attack going. If the enemy king is hiding behind pawns (as is often the case), you can try to break this open with a pawn storm. If you do this, you need to be careful not to give your opponent the option to block/close the pawn structure on this side which will make an attack much more difficult (unless you see that you will be able to sacrifice a piece for a winning attack) Often it helps your pawn storm/attack, if the enemy pawns are not all on the same row, but if one or another has moved already, creating a &quot;weakness&quot; in the position.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Studying master games for openings/positions that you play and see how they handle the attack (if they attack).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Plus, attacking moves do not come obviously to my mind&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you decide that attacks are not for you, there is nothing wrong to play quieter, positional chess, if you pick your openings accordingly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Regarding the example game&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is not what I would call an attacking game from either side. Around move 7 you achieved a somewhat boring symmetric position without weaknesses for either side. It is not a position suitable for what I'd call &quot;attacking play&quot;. The main priority should be to complete the development without worsening the pawn structure. Plenty of space in the position, so keeping bishops over knights is probably preferable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However you ran into: (i) 8 Ng5 which is somewhat inconvenient as it gives white at least the bishop pair and  in the game also left you with an isolated doubled pawn which eventually was lost. (ii) 9. Bb5 which pinned your knight on c6 and could have left you with another doubled isolated pawn on the c-file.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Around move 15 you were back at an equal position because white was so nice to give you the bishop pair (13 Ba2 would have been much better and you would always have to worry about the e6 pawn). I would have completed development with 15... Bc5, doubled rooks on the d-file and IMO your position should be perfectly fine. Instead you went for direct play on the queenside which did not really work (18...Bxb4 is the final mistake) and only helped white to develop his pieces. If you occupy the only open file, there is no point to open another open file (a-file) for your opponent's rook.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I believe the rook ending around move 30 is lost, though you could certainly have fought harder for a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At this level, it is reasonable to assume that your opponent can mate with king+queen. No need (and slightly impolite) not to resign, unless he was extremely short on time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Overall I would say that you lost the game because (i) you had your pawn structure worsened and (ii) you helped your opponent to gain counter-play. Just making normal developing moves should have given you at least an equal position after move 15.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Regarding your analysis of the example game&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1-5: Started off as the Italian game, though this variation is a bit unusual for me&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If Bc4 Bc5 is not played, this is called Scotch game, not Italian game. Correct is 3...exd4 as after 3...d6 white can develop a tempo by playing 4.dxe5 dxe5 5.Qxd8+ Kxd8 6.Bc4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;6-8: To castle early, bishop placement intended to be safe.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With queens off the board there is no real need to castle early, though long castle does make much sense because it automatically puts your rook on the open file. Bishop placement on e6 is not all that safe as it turned out. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;9... a6 Taken from Morphy defense&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the Ruy Lopez/Morphy defense the point is that you have to deal with potentially hanging pawn on e5 which you don't have here. 9...a6 seems a bit unnecessary as nothing is threatened except for Bxc6 (leaving you with weak pawns) which you don't prevent by playing a6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;15-26 ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Agree with your assessment. Mostly a miscalculated rather long semi-forced tactical line.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastEditorUserId="11629" LastEditDate="2017-06-21T20:18:33.127" LastActivityDate="2017-06-21T20:18:33.127" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17860" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17867" CreationDate="2017-06-19T08:38:05.687" Score="7" ViewCount="725" Body="&lt;p&gt;I had a winning position in a 10+5 OTB game, but I was low on time. I repeated position to gain some time. My opponent stopped the clock and claimed a draw. The arbiter was called, ans ww agreed that the position had been repeated three times. The game was judged a draw. I protested as I didn't think this rule apply to rapid chess. Who is correct?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7051" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-10-27T13:15:35.750" LastActivityDate="2020-10-27T13:15:35.750" Title="Does threefold repetition apply in a rapid game?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;threefold-repetition&gt;&lt;claim-draw&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="17862" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17858" CreationDate="2017-06-19T09:34:31.133" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;In short, I'm usually good at tactics&quot; - most of what you wrote up to that point kind of does contradict that: Your attacks are easily rebuffed, you cannot easily find attacking moves, and you fail to correctly predict your opponent's answers. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You have to understand that strategy and tactics go hand in hand. Good strategy uses tactical threats to force your opponent to make trade-offs, and good tactics are almost always prepared by strategically placing the pieces in supportive positions. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My guess is that what you were trying to say is that you are good at solving tactical puzzles where someone else already placed the pieces for you and you just have to find the mate in two or three. Now the question is how to get there, right? For this, try to expand the scope of the puzzles, e.g. try to find mates in 4 or 5, or try tactical problems where the goal is not to mate, but just to win a piece or even just a pawn. And do a lot of these puzzles, the more the better. To improve at &quot;attacking play&quot; you MUST practice how these attacks actually play out. Chess skill is mostly about learning and applying patterns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe counterintuitively, deepening your tactical understanding will improve your strategical play as well! The better you start recognizing the patterns from your tactical knowledge, the further you will be able to think ahead - hopefully further than your opponent. It works in both ways: On the defense, you might spot sooner that your position is weak to certain tactical motives - &lt;em&gt;before&lt;/em&gt; your opponent can actually line up his pieces to exploit this instead of when the attack starts and it's too late. On the offense, you might spot the weaknesses to certain motives in &lt;em&gt;his&lt;/em&gt; position and base your strategy around that (pressuring weak points in a way to force him to make concessions elsewhere because he needs to redirect his defenders).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I personally used the IdeaTactics app during an almost 10-year-long hiatus where I only did puzzles frequently while waiting for the bus etc., but did not play on-the-board at all. And I have to say that I am much better now that I started playing for real again, especially in the department of strategy! Of course, real games are good practice too, and you don't have to use this specific app (there are loads that do the same with the same quality). Good luck!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Comment to your analysis&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks for explaining your thoughts a little more! I have some thoughts about some of the moves, as well as your general strategy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1-4:&lt;/strong&gt; The opening is the Scotch, not the Italian Game (but who cares how it is called, this is just for clarification). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;5+6:&lt;/strong&gt; Good moves that delay his development.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;6:&lt;/strong&gt; While it generally is advisable to castle early, did you have in mind that the game tends to be a lot sharper when both players castled on opposite sides? Sometimes it is better to delay castling to see which side your opponent chooses. Since the queens are already off the board, your king is much safer from sudden mate attacks and can be allowed to remain in the middle for a few more moves. Castling here isn't bad, but it has implications. I would suggest 6.. Be7 first, development + coverage for g5).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;7:&lt;/strong&gt; Unfortunately, you don't give an explanation for Rd7. That move does nothing for your position at all except that it allows White a light pin on your knight in the next move. Where you scared about the possible fork on f7 and wanted to be sure? You didn't have to, because White had no way to attack f7 with another piece anytime soon (the queen was already gone and your bishop prevented his bishop to use the traditional Bc4. And Be2 can be met with Nf6 to control the h5 square while developing). To avoid the isolated doubled pawns, you probably have to play Re8, even though this loses the open d file for now (if Rd6, then Be3, threating Bc5).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;9-11:&lt;/strong&gt; Nothing to complain about.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;12+13:&lt;/strong&gt; The move b5 contradicts your plan from one move before: You force the white bishop to cover c2. Doubling his pawns on b3 might look nice, but it comes at the cost of opening your king's defense. Although, as mentioned, without queens you have a bit more freedom in that regard and your king is not threatened yet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;14+15:&lt;/strong&gt; Good moves, put pressure onto your opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;16:&lt;/strong&gt; Now your king is completely open. I see your idea, if White takes on c5, you can develop your bishop, free your rook on h8 and attack his knight. But, of course, he is smart enough to see it. Still, no harm &lt;em&gt;so far&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;17:&lt;/strong&gt; Again, you completely step away from your plan from one move before. Remember, you &lt;em&gt;wanted&lt;/em&gt; him to take on c5. Why destroy the bait now? Maybe you started feeling the lacking safety of your king, and indeed, he now has the option to pin your pawn with Rc1. You can however catch two flies with one hit: Kb7 not only moves your king out of the soon-to-be-open c file, but also covers the a6 pawn that will be undefended after the exchange on b4, which you can then still do next move with added safety. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;18-20:&lt;/strong&gt; The little combination looks fancy, but it is a terrible exchange in hindsight and the turning point of the game in my opinion. His knight was totally useless on e3 (virtually all of its forward moves are covered - even after it relocates to c2). Meanwhile, your bishop, even though still undeveloped at this point, isn't bad at all: It is a possible defender of d5, it can be used to attack his weak link on e3 some more (likely preventing him from castling) - while at the same time continue to put pressure on b4. Worse, the whole exchange frees White's own bishop to immediately pounce on d5. Your poor pawn structure was up to this point compensated by better piece activity, and you deliberately threw that compensation away. I'd still recommend Kb7 here. General rule of thumb: On the attack, you should not want to swap (unless you can force a mate/material winning combination by doing so) - after all, who is going to continue the attack when the attacking pieces are gone?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;21:&lt;/strong&gt; You felt like you had the momentum - big misconception. You just lost it without noticing, and have to start organising your defense now. You will lose either a6 or d5, but you won the pawn on b4 before, so that's okay. b4 does nothing for you, that bishop wanted to take on d5 anyways. Pressuring the opponent to do moves he intended anyways is not pressure at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;22+23:&lt;/strong&gt; Damn, if only your king had been on b7 already, then these moves would have been really cool and turned the game into a win once more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;24:&lt;/strong&gt; Unfortunately, you have to move your king. I agree that your choice of Kb7 is better than Kd7 despite losing e6 as it doesn't open the king to checks from the rook on h1.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;25-26:&lt;/strong&gt; Reasonable, his bishop was much stronger than your knight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Rest of the game:&lt;/strong&gt; Let's face it, at this point you have lost anyways because of this reserve pawns on the kingside. Still, one last misplay before it could come to that, the promotion race. After 32 e7, you both have a similar situation: One rook blocking the enemy pawn, one protecting the own one from the side. You even had the additional advantage that your defending rook attacked his pawn at the same time. So how comes that..&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;..he hold off your promotion attempts with just one rook?&lt;/strong&gt; Simple.. he never moved it away from the blocking position. To get past that block, you need at least one of your own rooks (to attack him from the side while covered by the pawn) and either the king or the other rook (to meanwhile defend the pawn). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;..and got his promotion​ done using the other?&lt;/strong&gt; With a little help from you. You did move your rook away from the blocking square. This greatly facilitates the described method: If he plays Rf7 and Rf8, with your rook still at e8, he only creates one threat (taking your rook with his) and you can simply take on e7 &lt;em&gt;with the attacked rook&lt;/em&gt;, nullifying the threat. But after you moved the rook to b8, Rf8 actually creates two threats: Taking on b8 and promoting on e8. You can't cover both with the same rook, as now &lt;em&gt;the attacked rook&lt;/em&gt; cannot take the pawn. The other rook is actually meaningless in this situation!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You could have resolved this particular problem earlier with 32 ..Rxe7, but you would have lost the resulting single rook endgame regardless. Maybe with slightly improved odds because your king would have been closer to the kingside compared to the continuation that happened in the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;General Strategy&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There were many good aspects in your play already, so don't give up hope! I also got a much better perspective on why you think you are lacking in the strategy department (correct observation). I think you still live too much in the here-and-now and do not consider longer lasting effects of your moves as much as you should. This goes hand in hand with how you evaluate the pieces (or don't). To you, you swapped two minor pieces (both 3 pawn units, so equal value) and got a pawn out of it (yay). What actually happened is that you swapped one vital of your own pieces for a useless piece of your opponent and a pawn, only to loose 2-3 pawns immediately afterwards as a consequence. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus my main advice is to push yourself to a different state of mind: &#xA;It is not important &lt;em&gt;what&lt;/em&gt; a piece is, or &lt;em&gt;where&lt;/em&gt; it is, what truly matters is &lt;em&gt;where it can go&lt;/em&gt;. That knight on e3 was bad because it couldn't go anywhere useful soon. Your move 6 ..Be6 was good because now the white bishop on c1 couldn't easily go to a useful square (f7) anymore. This extends not only to the squares that a piece can directly reach, but also those where it can reasonably be without hindrance (e.g. the Be3-Bc5 manoevre to counter 8..Rd6). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you look at squares rather than pieces, you can develop much better plans by going backwards: Think of the squares in your opponent's structure that you would like to control. Then backtrack and make a plan of how to get your pieces there. Your calculation skills seem to be quite decent, so you can make use of that. If you spot a structure that is vulnerable to some kind of tactic, think of how you can get your pieces into positions where you could actually execute said tactic. Or how your opponent can get stuff into position towards your own weaknesses, even before he starts doing it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, don't be impatient if your opponent finds the right answers to deflect your threats. That does happen. If both opponents play perfectly for the entire game, it will end in a draw. Don't try to force things when they are not there. And remember that chess is a game of tradeoffs: If your opponent replaced a piece to cover a square that you threatened to attack, that piece now does not cover other squares anymore. Maybe you can now attack there? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All of this comes from experience. If you lose again and again because you moved your pawns away from your king, your brain will get the message at some point (as long as you correctly assess your mistakes). So if you want to get better, play, play, play. And look at your games afterwards to see where you went wrong! The best way to do this is in a club with better players that can guide you (you can't put &lt;em&gt;all&lt;/em&gt; your games on StackExchange :P).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13433" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T17:04:28.737" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T17:04:28.737" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="17863" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17891" CreationDate="2017-06-19T09:37:21.560" Score="5" ViewCount="300" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am more than a novice in chess ( I got 5 points out of 9 in a local tournament) but I want to play really well. My biggest problem is I don't know what moves to make in the middle game, and can't fathom moves made by my opponents in the same time. &amp;nbsp; &amp;nbsp; &amp;nbsp; &amp;nbsp; &amp;nbsp; &amp;nbsp; &amp;nbsp; &amp;nbsp; &amp;nbsp;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Speaking generally, what can I do to improve my game? I just seem to run out of ideas on a game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13565" LastActivityDate="2019-12-14T22:44:44.133" Title="Improving my game" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17864" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17863" CreationDate="2017-06-19T10:03:18.387" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Don't worry, finding a good middle game plan is not easy for a beginner and takes some experience to develop as there is often more than one option to follow. It is not something you can generalize or something you can train like tactics puzzles.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The best way to improve is to find a stronger player to go through your games and discuss what you should have done (not move by move but in principal). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Essential for developing a plan is a correct evaluation of the current board position. Based on this evaluation you can develop a plan with the aim to improve your weaknesses or to play against your opponent's weaknesses. A few things to look for in a position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;good pieces and bad pieces (whose position you want to improve or which you want to exchange)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;weaknesses in pawn structure, giving you ideas for &quot;pawn breaks&quot; or for winning pawns&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;weak king -&gt; ideas for attack, or if it is your own king, need for defense&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;open files (which you usually want to occupy with heavy pieces)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Wikipedia has a good article on common &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pawn_structure&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;pawn structures&lt;/a&gt; with the typical plan/&quot;theme&quot; associate with it. Also, reading annotated games or watching commentaries of games is a good way to learn how master players think about a position and develop a plan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2017-06-19T10:03:18.387" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17865" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-06-19T10:30:00.523" Score="3" ViewCount="131" Body="&lt;p&gt;I used a chess pad to enter games. However, it lacks an undo feature and there is no way to correct an incorrectly entered position.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;What other program can do this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13570" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-06-19T19:00:28.443" LastActivityDate="2017-06-20T05:27:28.297" Title="Entering and saving chess games" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;software&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17866" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-06-19T15:47:37.453" Score="-3" ViewCount="134" Body="&lt;p&gt;I played black.&#xA;The game was over in two hours.&#xA;I would like anyone's opinion on my game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [Event &quot;Let's Play!&quot;]&#xA; [Site &quot; Chess.com&quot;]&#xA; [Date &quot;Jun 19, 2017&quot;]&#xA; [White &quot;PATELAKSHAY&quot;]&#xA; [Black &quot;JoshuaFischer007&quot;]&#xA; [Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA; [WhiteElo &quot;1354&quot;]&#xA; [BlackElo &quot;793&quot;]&#xA; [TimeControl &quot;1 in 1 day&quot;]&#xA; [Termination &quot;PATELAKSHAY won by checkmate&quot;]&#xA; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 d6 4. dxe5 dxe5 5. Nc3 Qxd1+ 6. Nxd1 Be6 7. a3 O-O-O 8. Ng5 Rd7 9. Bb5 a6 10. Nxe6 fxe6 11. Bc4 Nd4 12. Ne3 b5 13. Bb3 Nxb3 14. cxb3 Nf6 15. f3 Rd3 16. b4 c5 17. Bd2 cxb4 18. axb4 Bxb4 19. Bxb4 Rxe3+ 20. Kf2 Rb3 21. Bc3 b4 22. Bxe5 Rf8 23. Rxa6 Ng4+ 24. Kg3 Kb7 25. Rxe6 Nxe5 26. Rxe5 Rxb2 27. Re7+ Kb6 28. Rxg7 b3 29. e5 Re2 30. Rb1 b2 31. e6 Re8 32. e7 Rb8 33. Rf7 Ka5 34. Rf8 Rb3 35. e8=Q Rxe8 36. Rxe8 Kb4 37. Rb8+ Kc3 38. Rxb3+ Kxb3 39. f4 Kc2 40. Rxb2+ Kxb2 41. f5 Kc3 42. f6 Kd4 43. f7 Ke5 44. f8=Q Ke6 45. Kf4 Kd5 46. Qe8 Kd6 47. Ke4 Kc5 48. Qd8 Kc4 49. Qd4+ Kb5 50. Kd5 Ka5 51. Kc5 Ka6 52. Qb4 Ka7 53. Kc6 Ka8 54. Qb7#  1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13565" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-06-19T16:24:31.467" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T20:04:31.037" Title="One of my games" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2017-06-20T16:05:51.943" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17867" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17860" CreationDate="2017-06-19T16:33:46.783" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;TL;DR:&lt;/strong&gt; Claiming draws based on threefold repetition or the fifty-move rule is possible in rapid and blitz games as well. Contrary to RemcoGerlich's answer, it is not strictly necessary to record the moves to be able to claim a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Note: This is based on the version of the Laws coming into effect after 1 July, 2017. However, as I am not aware of changes afffecting my reasoning, the following also applies since at least 1 July, 2014.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In rapid and blitz games, the tournament rules apply unless a certain rule is abrogated by the Appendices A and B for rapid and blitz games, respectively.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Up to July 2014, &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/component/handbook/?id=124&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;the rules&lt;/a&gt; made this very obvious (A.4 for rapidplay):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Where supervision is inadequate the Competition Rules shall apply, except where they are overridden by the following Laws of Rapidplay:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[...]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This provision has disappeared from the rules, but it is clear that this interpretation still holds.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Claims of draw by threefold repetition are covered by Article 9.2.1 of the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/component/handbook/?id=207&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Laws of Chess&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;9.2.1 The game is drawn, upon a correct claim by a player having the move, when the same position for at least the third time (not necessarily by a repetition of moves):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;9.2.1.1 is about to appear, if he first writes his move, which cannot be changed, on his scoresheet and declares to the arbiter his intention to make this move, or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;9.2.1.2 has just appeared, and the player claiming the draw has the move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;9.2.2 Positions are considered the same if and only if the same player has the move, pieces of the same kind and colour occupy the same squares and the possible moves of all the pieces of both players are the same. Thus positions are not the same if:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;9.2.2.1 at the start of the sequence a pawn could have been captured en passant&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;9.2.2.2 a king had castling rights with a rook that has not been moved, but forfeited these after moving. The castling rights are lost only after the king or rook is moved.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's not forget the paragraph immediately preceding article 9.2.1, applying both to threefold repetition and the fifty-move rule:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;9.1.2.3 A claim of a draw under Article 9.2 or 9.3 shall be considered to be an offer of a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, if a claim is made in accordance with the rules and the position has in fact appeared on the board for the third time, the arbiter must declare the game drawn. &lt;em&gt;(I would argue even if the player does not write down the move he intends to make the arbiter should declare the game drawn. See below.)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that if the opponent of the player claiming the draw&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;agrees to the implicit draw offer&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;or agrees that a threefold repetition has, in fact, occured on the board,&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the arbiter may declare the game drawn without further inquiry.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;sub&gt;Really nitty-gritty nitpicking: If the claim has not been made in a formally correct way and the opponent agrees that a threefold repetition has occured or if both players wrongly agree the same position has occured three times, technically, the rules demand that the game is to be continued.&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If neither of these criteria are met, the claimant has the &lt;strong&gt;burden of proof&lt;/strong&gt;. In my opinion (other arbiters may disagree), the arbiter needs to be presented with &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burden_of_proof_(law)#Clear_and_convincing_evidence&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&amp;quot;clear and convincing evidence&amp;quot;&lt;/a&gt;, to use legal terminology, to determine the game drawn. Clearly, a correctly filled out scoresheet usually meets this standard of evidence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, the arbiter may also convince himself using other sources of information available to him. The following cases come to mind:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;As mentioned by RemcoGerlich, if the arbiter has been observing the game for a while (e. g. because it is the last game of the current round), he may conclude that a threefold repetition has occured. However, he may only intervene upon a correct claim of the players.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If the game is played on an electronic chess board, the arbiter may certainly use the information provided there. (Even in normal games, I sometimes deem it necessary to check a claim using the livechess software.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The arbiter may ask neutral, objective bystanders. However, he has to be sure about their objectivity and understanding of the game.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Regarding the provision &amp;quot;[...] if he first writes his move, which cannot be changed, on his scoresheet and declares to the arbiter his intention to make this move [...]&amp;quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many players and even arbiters will agree that following the procedure to claim a draw correctly can be quite complicated. The reason is that these rules ensure that &lt;strong&gt;the opponent will be distracted as little as possible&lt;/strong&gt;. This is why you may not claim the draw when your opponent has the move. You are required to write the move down on the scoresheet as an indication that you intend to play that move. In rapid games, you usually don't write moves down. However, I would argue that clearly communicating your intent to the arbiter in those cases may be considered sufficient for a claim. In the new rules, this is made explicit by article A.2:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Players do not need to record the moves, but do not lose their rights to claims normally based on a scoresheet. [...]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even in the past, this has been the usual interpretation of the rules, at least in the German-speaking chess community. A similar case appeared in the German Bundesliga back in 2009. The final decision (in German) can be found &lt;a href=&quot;http://srk.schachbund.de/downloads.html?file=files/dsb/srk/downloads/Entscheidung2009.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;. Even though the player claiming the draw (a grandmaster) had neither stopped the clocks nor written down the move on his scoresheet, the deciding body ultimately ruled that the player clearly conveyed his intent to claim a draw by making a certain move and declared the game drawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2715" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2017-06-19T16:33:46.783" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17868" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-06-19T17:59:58.240" Score="3" ViewCount="328" Body="&lt;p&gt;For example, could modern Stockfish theoretically, with the hardware at the time, be entered into the 1974 World Computer Chess Championship?  If so, would it be grandmaster level?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11326" LastActivityDate="2017-06-20T04:48:33.580" Title="On how old hardware can modern engines be run, and how strong are they?" Tags="&lt;computer-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17869" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17868" CreationDate="2017-06-19T20:59:37.307" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;could modern Stockfish theoretically, with the hardware at the time,&#xA;  be entered into the 1974 World Computer Chess Championship?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No. Modern Stockfish is not compatible with 1974 computer architecture.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Modern engines which can run on 64-bit Linux should be able to run on an early 90's Digital Equipment Corporation 64 bit Alpha PC running Unix with a suitable recompile and perhaps tweak of the code.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2017-06-19T21:16:33.373" LastActivityDate="2017-06-19T21:16:33.373" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17870" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17865" CreationDate="2017-06-20T01:13:40.573" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chesspad allows for deleting and adding new lines.&#xA;To delete, right click on move in movelist and select delete.&#xA;To add new variation, move back to move you want to add variation to, by either clicking or left arrow, and enter new move.&#xA;Right clicking any variation will give you the option to make this the main line.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12449" LastActivityDate="2017-06-20T01:13:40.573" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17871" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17868" CreationDate="2017-06-20T04:24:20.013" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Stockfish is a C++ source code chess engine, so it will work if you can compile it. However, the C++ language was invented &lt;strong&gt;after&lt;/strong&gt; the 1974 World Championship, so it wouldn't work even if you had the source code back in 1974.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No. Nothing would play at a grandmaster level on the 1974 hardware. Don't believe me? Limit your Stockfish to 100 nodes per move, and see what happens.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2017-06-20T04:48:33.580" LastActivityDate="2017-06-20T04:48:33.580" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17872" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17866" CreationDate="2017-06-20T04:30:26.577" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;First off, there's no question that there's no question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even if your question was &quot;can I have someone's opinion about my game,&quot; it would not be appropriate for StackExchange as questions should not be &quot;primarily opinion-based,&quot; nor &quot;with too many possible answers or that would require an extremely long answer.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Questions like this are better:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;What is the point of 5. Nc3, or is it purely a mistake?&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;What defensive technique should I have employed in the double rook endgame?&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13498" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T20:00:10.587" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T20:00:10.587" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="17873" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17865" CreationDate="2017-06-20T05:27:28.297" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.apronus.com/chess/wbeditor.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.apronus.com/chess/wbeditor.php&lt;/a&gt; is a free online tool where you can enter a chess game on an interactive chessboard and then save to PGN or to a bookmark link that leads back to the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3456" LastActivityDate="2017-06-20T05:27:28.297" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17874" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-06-20T08:18:36.390" Score="-2" ViewCount="771" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sorry if this question is waaay too long, but I just want professional chess players to know exactly what I think and help me. I'd appreciate it if anyone interested went through my question thoroughly to address my problems. Plus, the game's &lt;strong&gt;only 20 moves long&lt;/strong&gt;, so I hope you don't mind having a look at it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is one of the best (honestly) games I've played. Beating a player rated 300 points above me (before the match, he was 1529, and I was 1229)is unprecedented, for me.&#xA;But I've got a few problems. Firstly, I made it to move 10 comfortably only because the Slav defense was one of the &lt;strong&gt;few&lt;/strong&gt; openings I am familiar with, having studied it when I was 13. I don't know why some of the moves in the opening were done, I did them just because they were in the Slav defense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Next,  I struggled to find the right moves after move 10. Till move 14, I went about with vague plans of building an impregnable defense. You might notice that my pawns sort of inhibited my opponent's minor pieces &lt;em&gt;(that's my take on it, I'm welcome to other opinions).&lt;/em&gt;&#xA;In the remaining moves, I tried to reposition my pieces because it was the best I felt I could do. My defense might have looked secure to me, but I felt that it was as &lt;em&gt;stable as a deck of playing cards&lt;/em&gt;, and moving &lt;em&gt;even a single pawn to mount an attack&lt;/em&gt; would likely bring it &lt;strong&gt;crashing down&lt;/strong&gt; (I've learnt this the hard way).&#xA;Thing is, my opponent thought a lot on his move and lost on time. I want your advice on a couple of issues:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Was my idea of &lt;em&gt;repositioning&lt;/em&gt; my pieces​ from the 10th move onwards good? As in, did I gain anything by doing so? I didn't have any other ideas.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;How would you rate my defense? Were my ideas good? I was just implementing Fred Reinfeld's advice. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;What should I do in such situations(which I often come across in middle games), where no attack seems to present itself to me? I'm usually good at noticing forks, checks, captures and so on(forcing moves), but when there are none, I sort of run out of ideas. I often risk pushing a pawn to mount an attack, only to see my defense unravel!&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Plus, I can't predict my opponent's thoughts. What general rules must I follow, especially if my opponent's moves mystify me(as they seem to have no direct purpose).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If my moves weren't good (quite possible), please suggest an &lt;em&gt;alternative game plan&lt;/em&gt;. Mine was to &lt;em&gt;defend solidly and pounce on weaknesses&lt;/em&gt;. But defending is okay in the beginning, I have no idea how to carry on my plans in the middle game. I often resort to weak moves when I see no strong ones, just to keep moving. &lt;strong&gt;To repeat something that is obvious&lt;/strong&gt;, I find it hard to mount attacks due to my defensive choices. But then, what else can I do? And don't some famous players play defensively?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;To summarize, I want to know if my moves (10th onwards)were effective, and if they weren't, what I should have done. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I value &lt;em&gt;both general and specific advice&lt;/em&gt; equally!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I played &lt;strong&gt;black.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [Site &quot;Chess.com&quot;]&#xA; [Date &quot;Jun 20, 2017&quot;]&#xA; [White &quot;RDR22&quot;]&#xA; [Black &quot;JoshuaFischer007&quot;]&#xA; [Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA; [WhiteElo &quot;1508&quot;]&#xA; [BlackElo &quot;1337&quot;]&#xA; [TimeControl &quot;1 in 0 day&quot;]&#xA; [Termination &quot;JoshuaFischer007 won on time&quot;]&#xA; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. d4 d5 2. c4 c6 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. Nf3 e6 5. Bg5 h6 6. Bh4 Be7 7. e3 O-O 8. cxd5 exd5 9. Be2 Bf5 10. O-O Nbd7 11. a3 a6 12. b4 Qc7 13. Bd3 Bxd3 14. Qxd3 Rae8 15. Rac1 Bd6 16. Bxf6 Nxf6 17. g3 Re7 18. Rc2 Rfe8 19. Rfc1 Qd7 20. Kg2 g6  0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS: Did I get the tags right?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13565" LastEditorUserId="13565" LastEditDate="2017-06-20T09:10:07.090" LastActivityDate="2017-06-20T11:00:26.137" Title="What next? I'm stuck!" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;middlegame&gt;&lt;defense&gt;&lt;attack&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="11" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17875" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17874" CreationDate="2017-06-20T08:40:57.810" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You played fine, denying him play but he really lost on time before the game started.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4543" LastActivityDate="2017-06-20T08:40:57.810" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17876" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17874" CreationDate="2017-06-20T09:42:04.217" Score="4" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I made it to move 10 comfortably only because the Slav defense was one of the few openings I am familiar with, having studied it when I was 13. I don't know why some of the moves in the opening were done, I did them just because they were in the Slav defense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At your level you should really forget about any &quot;official&quot; openings and focus on learning general principals, common themes like pawn breaks, weak/strong pieces,... and how to evaluate a position. Based on this you will come up with a plan that either improves on your weaknesses or works against your opponent's weaknesses. This will be useful for opening/middlegame/endgame. There is really no point following blindly some moves because they are in the book without understanding the idea behind them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Regarding your game:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White played the opening rather timidly, posing no problems to you. 8. cxd5 exd5 helped black to free the bad bishop on c8. 9. Bd3 might have been more ambitious, aiming for the black king. 9. Be2 on the other hand gave you a nice square on f5 for your bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am not a Slav player but based on the position around move 10, I believe the natural plan for white is to play against the pawn on c6 by putting rook(s) on the c file and pushing the pawn to b5 (likely needs support from a pawn on a4). Black could work against this plan by&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;starting a counterattack on the kingside, making use of his more active pieces there or&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;by defending passively against the b5 break playing a6, perhaps the queen to d7, transferring a knight to d6, etc. Or prevent white from playing a4 by attacking the b4 pawn. Also, by just playing a6 you always get the option to take on b5 once (axb5) and get the open a file for counterplay. In that case you want your rook to be on a8.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White did not do much after move 10, exchanged a few pieces and played g3 which weakens the light squares (playing h3 would be better if you want to free the Nf3 from protecting the h2 pawn).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You doubled rooks on the e file, however you are not going to achieve anything there with just the rooks. You really need to play f5 and f4 (if necessary after g5) to weaken the white pawn structure. For this plan, it is not clear whether you want to have both rooks on the e file or perhaps one on the e and one on the f file.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Starting with 15. Rac1, you are in danger of running into tactics related to Nxd5 or Nxb5 (after b5 axb5)  because of the pin of the c6 pawn. Might want to move your queen out of this pin, e.g. to d7 or b8.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is unclear to me why you played 20...g6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To your specific questions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Was my idea of repositioning my pieces​ from the 10th move onwards good? As in, did I gain anything by doing so? I didn't have any other ideas.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Looks mostly like natural development to me. One could argue about the rook placement and the queen as per above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;How would you rate my defense? Were my ideas good?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You did not say what your &quot;ideas&quot; actually were. The moves were natural and mostly fine, but it was not really a challenging game/opening. Please replace the word &quot;defense&quot; with &quot;opening play&quot; in the question, as otherwise it suggests that you had to defend which you did not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What should I do in such situations(which I often come across in middle games), where no attack seems to present itself to me?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That is the tricky part of chess. In a position like this, where neither side has any real weaknesses and not much tactics going on, you can try to create weaknesses. This is often done by pawn breaks. For instance in the position you have, white wants to play b5 in order to either (i) capture on c6 (or on a6) which would leave you with a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backward_pawn&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;backward pawn&lt;/a&gt; on c6 which could easily be attacked; or (ii) if you capture twice on b5, leave you with doubled isolated pawns on the b file which would also be an easy target for the white rooks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In a similar fashion, black could try to work against the e3 pawn or against the white king by breaking open the white pawn structure with f4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Plus, I can't predict my opponent's thoughts. What general rules must I follow, especially if my opponent's moves mystify me(as they seem to have no direct purpose).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically in the same way that you are coming up with a plan for yourself, you should come up with a plan for your opponent... and then see if that plan poses any danger to you, etc If you can't figure out what purpose your opponent's move have (as in this case they indeed seem to have no purpose), there is nothing you can do but go through with your plan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If my moves weren't good (quite possible), please suggest an alternative game plan. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They were pretty decent moves for a player of your level. Alternative I suggested above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Mine was to defend solidly and pounce on weaknesses. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Solid it was, not sure where you pounced on weaknesses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;But defending is okay in the beginning, I have no idea how to carry on my plans in the middle game. I often resort to weak moves when I see no strong ones, just to keep moving. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As above, you are not defending here. The word &quot;defense&quot; in &quot;Slav defense&quot; (or any other chess opening name) has no meaning really. It is not good to play without plan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is essential to understand and evaluate a chess position in order to come up with a plan. Focus on learning about &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pawn_structure&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;pawn structures&lt;/a&gt; (see link for themes/plans), about weak/strong pieces, about pawn breaks, about backward/isolated/doubled pawns, about safe/unsafe king positions (potential for attack), etc&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Reading or watching annotated/commented games is a good idea as is having a better player go through your own games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;To repeat something that is obvious, I find it hard to mount attacks due to my defensive choices. But then, what else can I do? And don't some famous players play defensively?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, some players play more defensively than others, but still you are not going to win a game (most of the time) by just moving aimlessly around. Even defensive players, will need to find ways for counter play as otherwise they would just be overrun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastEditorUserId="11629" LastEditDate="2017-06-20T10:13:42.990" LastActivityDate="2017-06-20T10:13:42.990" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17877" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17874" CreationDate="2017-06-20T11:00:26.137" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;20...Ne4 is preferable, occupying the central light squares, but the position seems a little dead. Black might try getting white to trade on e4 and recapture with fxe5 (after f5), opening the f-file, with some play on the kingside. White has very little to do on the queenside it seems, so he's pretty much in a defensive posture, but it should easily be defended. Draw is a likely outcome.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10233" LastActivityDate="2017-06-20T11:00:26.137" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17878" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17866" CreationDate="2017-06-20T13:10:50.660" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;OK, I understand what you mean here. You want us to judge you as a player and point out your mistakes. You seek improvement by posting this game and want some expert comments. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;True, you must try posting questions which are more specific, and should relate to a particular chess idea or position, or else explanations get cringe-worthy, and become offbeat, but I do not see any problem in posting the entire game here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyways lets discuss the game and frame bullet points. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Your 7th move should have been f6 or h6 and not castle. You should have preserved your bishop instead of the knight.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I did not understand the move, 8) Rd7. You must try developing your minor pieces quickly.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;17th move c*b4 is a blunder. The b4-pawn can wait to be taken. You are opening up the queenside, and making his rook active. A better plan would have been to wait and play Be7 and then doubling up rooks on e-file. You should have navigated the knight to Q-side for attacking the weak pawns. Nd7-Nb6-Na4/Nc4.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;At move 23rd R*a6 from white you are practically over. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My Summary is black should have shown some patience, and not attacked every move. There is a chapter called maintaining the tension, which I believe you must watch on YouTube, and which will give you great benefits. You should attack where you are strong. You had the Centre e-file, and suddenly you opened up the Q-side. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This game from Black is somewhat a 1300-1350 Elo rated Player .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T20:04:31.037" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T20:04:31.037" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="17879" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17880" CreationDate="2017-06-20T14:19:53.497" Score="25" ViewCount="2891" Body="&lt;p&gt;I once watched a famous chess game that I can't find anymore and maybe someone could help me find it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The game I watched evolved somehow natural until one moment: player1 sacrifices its queen. The spectacularity in this move consists on the fact that from that point on player2 had only one possibility of moving every time player1 moved on its turn. The game evolves so that player2 is constantly kept in check until the player2 king reaches the other side of the table i.e. row 8. When the king reaches row 8 of the chess table, player1 checkmates player2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can anyone help me find this game? I once watched it online on YouTube explained and I was very impressed but somehow lost it. Maybe someone knows about this game based on this not very accurate description.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13582" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-06-20T17:07:50.677" LastActivityDate="2019-09-12T14:29:35.020" Title="Spectacular queen sacrifice game" Tags="&lt;sacrifice&gt;&lt;famous-games&gt;&lt;identify-this&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17880" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17879" CreationDate="2017-06-20T14:40:01.790" Score="31" Body="&lt;p&gt;This does sound like the famous game between &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1259009&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Edward Lasker (not the world champ) and George Alan Thomas&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Casual game&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;London ENG&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;1912.10.29&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Edward Lasker&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;George Alan Thomas&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 e6 2. Nf3 f5 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. Bg5 Be7 5. Bxf6 Bxf6 6. e4&#xA;fxe4 7. Nxe4 b6 8. Ne5 O-O 9. Bd3 Bb7 10. Qh5 Qe7 11. Qxh7+&#xA;Kxh7 12. Nxf6+ Kh6 13. Neg4+ Kg5 14. h4+ Kf4 15. g3+ Kf3&#xA;16. Be2+ Kg2 17. Rh2+ Kg1 18. Kd2# 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2019-09-12T12:10:14.053" LastActivityDate="2019-09-12T12:10:14.053" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="17881" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2017-06-20T17:09:29.627" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-06-20T17:09:29.627" LastActivityDate="2017-06-20T17:09:29.627" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17882" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2017-06-20T17:09:29.627" Score="0" Body="For questions about identifying e.g. a historical chess game or a problem based on partial information." OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-06-20T17:09:29.627" LastActivityDate="2017-06-20T17:09:29.627" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17883" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2909" CreationDate="2017-06-21T03:03:57.183" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The king in a chess game is far from powerless.  Of course it must be sheltered in the early going to prevent its being checkmated, but as the game progresses to an ending with the removal of the stronger pieces and it's safe and in fact necessary for the king to enter the fray, it's as strong as a knight or bishop.  In the early years of chess, the queen could only move one square diagonally, but when later revisions were made to speed up the game, its power was increased dramatically to its current level. As best I am able to determine, the queen gained power in concert with traditions of queenly rule in Europe. Perhaps this also reflected the perception of many men surrounded by strong females that women actually held the power, even if not wielded through the sword, relegating the king to a weaker status.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastActivityDate="2017-06-21T03:03:57.183" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17884" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17863" CreationDate="2017-06-21T15:07:56.023" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;To be concise, first you have to get quickly and soundly through the opening.  This implies getting your minor pieces out quickly, contesting the center and castling so that you've reached an even middle game.  Then you can start looking for tactics while avoiding your opponent's threats. He'll be doing the same, so you'll have to be alert to his tactics as well as his strategical intent.  Is he moving his pieces toward your king position?  You'll have to try to offset those plans by bringing your pieces to the same area.  In a balanced position, when tactics aren't available, you should strive to improve your position - by gaining space on the board, keeping your pawn structure intact, controlling open files, looking for holes in the enemy position to place advanced pieces like your knights, penetrating with your heavy pieces, e.g. rooks, to the 7th rank.  If you have controlled the center giving more mobility to your pieces, you can look for ways to direct them toward your opponent's king-side to try to ultimately storm that position tactically.  As Silman has proposed, look for imbalances on the board, such as unprotected enemy pieces and pawns, poor coordination among same, isolated, backward and doubled pawns, weak defense around his king, backward development, etc., to try to take advantage of.  Hopefully these suggestions don't seem too abstract, but these ideas can ultimately lead to concrete expression on the board.  Going over annotated games by strong players should also help elucidate these ideas and bring about the desired improvement in your game along with notating and reviewing your own games. And of course playing regularly is also important to see many positions and absorb beneficial patterns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastEditorUserId="7657" LastEditDate="2017-06-21T16:06:11.383" LastActivityDate="2017-06-21T16:06:11.383" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17885" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-06-21T20:54:59.270" Score="4" ViewCount="210" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Grand Chess Tour 2017 events use delay, not increment, according to &lt;a href=&quot;http://grandchesstour.org/sites/default/files/2017%20GCT%20Event%20Regulations.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;event regulations&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Have the organizers made an official statement as to why, or is there a consensus on what the unofficial reason is?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2590" LastEditorUserId="2590" LastEditDate="2017-06-21T21:15:28.560" LastActivityDate="2017-07-08T09:15:07.167" Title="Why does the GCT 2017 use delay?" Tags="&lt;time-control&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17886" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-06-21T21:31:00.437" Score="5" ViewCount="1289" Body="&lt;p&gt;Increment is FIDE's default for their tournaments, although their rules permit delay as well. Most internet chess servers also use increment exclusively.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As I understand it, delay is used by the USCF (for historic reasons?), and, for &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/17885/why-does-the-gct-2017-use-delay&quot;&gt;some reason&lt;/a&gt;, by the 2017 Grand Chess Tour.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why is increment preferred over delay by pretty much everyone but the USCF?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2590" LastActivityDate="2017-06-21T22:31:29.087" Title="Why is increment more popular than delay?" Tags="&lt;time-control&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17887" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17886" CreationDate="2017-06-21T22:31:29.087" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Very simple. Move quickly (faster than the increment) and you end up with more time. Over the course of a dozen or so quickly made moves you can build up enough time to allow for another serious think if required. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With delay you can never get more time. Once in zeitnot you are permanently in zeitnot.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2017-06-21T22:31:29.087" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17888" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-06-22T05:13:07.200" Score="0" ViewCount="272" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a beginner and someone who likes less pieces on board. I don't like complexity and have weak point for knights. My rating is 950 rn and has touched 1010 at best. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So far I have used the Stone defence when playing with white and the King's Indian defence when playing with black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Needless to say that defensive openings increase complexity. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is best opening for black and white for me ? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't mind pieces exchanging. I just want less pieces on board that helps my mind process faster.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13592" LastEditorUserId="10867" LastEditDate="2017-06-23T20:20:38.910" LastActivityDate="2017-06-26T17:33:10.607" Title="What is the best opening for a beginner who wants few pieces on the board?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;beginner&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17889" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17888" CreationDate="2017-06-22T06:38:15.900" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If your rating is around 1000, you should definitely abstain from the King's Indian for now. It is not a bad opening by any means, but it indeed is one of the more complex ones (requiring some sound strategic knowledge) .. too complex for your current skill level most likely, no offense. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That said, there is no &quot;best&quot; opening for beginners or anyone else, everyone has their own taste and has to find out themselves. You have to try different ones and make up your mind what works best for you. In general, focus more on learning the core principles of opening play (development of pieces, fight for the centre, etc.) rather than on memorizing exact variations. As long as your opponents don't play along (because they have no clue about the &quot;correct&quot; continuations), they are not of much use anyways.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should definitely have a look at the category of the open and semi-open games (everything where White starts with 1.e4) instead of the closed ones you tried so far. Each opening has its own sharp or quiet lines (and your opponent has a word to say on that too!), but 1.e4 openings generally have a tendency to be more on the sharp side and are usually advised to be learned first by beginners because they are more educative at this level (less strategic and more tactical on average). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the pinnacle of aggressive openings, there's the group of gambits. They do have some added complexity though because you have to be very accurate to maintain your lead in initiative (if your attack ever loses steam without getting the gambitted pawn back, you are in a bad spot) unlike the &quot;mainstream&quot; openings where a standard developing move usually doesn't lose on the spot (unless you fail to parry an urgent threat). Most of them are not &quot;sound&quot; enough to be played at GM level, but that does not have to concern you as you will rarely play against GMs. You have to do more preparation of variations than in other openings, so I suggest you don't start with gambits until after you tried the conventional openings for a bit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13433" LastActivityDate="2017-06-22T06:38:15.900" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17890" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-06-22T08:20:11.653" Score="5" ViewCount="857" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm rated on Chess.com in 1400 right now (elo). But sometimes my rating fluctuates between 1200 to 1500. As I searched on internet, I'm a beginner that is going to the intermediate level. Should I, as a beginner, practice a lot with the London system, or there is another solid opening for beginners? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13596" LastActivityDate="2021-05-13T14:47:30.850" Title="The London System" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;beginner&gt;&lt;london-system&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17891" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17863" CreationDate="2017-06-22T10:02:51.513" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you want to improve there's a lot of stuff you can do. In order of importance probably something like this. &#xA;5-10 tactics problems a day. &#xA;One old gm game a day preferably from a book with explanations given for the moves, or watch a few videos each day on youtube where the guy covers a gm game and gives plenty of explanation for each move. &#xA;Buy Silman's Complete Endgame Course and read a few pages each day.&#xA;Play long games on lichess (15-60 minute games) online then after the game review it and try to understand what mistakes you made during the game. You can use the game analysis feature, and engine analysis to do this. Then use the opening database there, set it to master games, and use the winning percentages to see some other ways you could have played the opening. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Doing these things will improve your ability to evaluate a position and expose you to new maneuvers and ideas you haven't seen before. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as knowing what to do you need to be able to evaluate the position on the board and have some knowledge or pattern recognition for typical ways to improve your position or worsen your opponents. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9627" LastActivityDate="2017-06-22T10:02:51.513" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17892" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17890" CreationDate="2017-06-22T10:08:20.477" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's fine to use the London system at any level. It's also fine to use other openings. It's not easy for someone to knock you out of the game immediately if you play it I suppose, thus it's more solid than some other openings with more immediately tactical lines. However don't be mistaken, every opening involves tactics, they are just pushed down the road a bit in the london.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9627" LastActivityDate="2017-06-22T10:08:20.477" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17893" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-06-22T11:05:21.807" Score="-5" ViewCount="192" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am fairly new to chess. I don’t know anything. The time I am taking interest in chess it is already proclaimed that this is the time of carlsen (except that yui person). &#xA;I wish to know about vishwanathan anand.  For one that he was predecessor and for two that I am an Indian so I have some sort of subconscious obligation to know about him. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I want to know from you guys,  The chess community. (I can get facts on Wikipedia but I can't understand the environment and energy of his era and niether will successive generation know about carlsen) &#xA; How was the rise and fall of V. Anand ? Why isn't he good now ? Doesn't he has more experience which should make him better player ! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13592" LastActivityDate="2017-06-24T13:46:30.507" Title="How was vishwanathan anand?" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;grandmaster&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="14" FavoriteCount="0" ClosedDate="2017-06-22T12:36:13.430" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17894" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17897" CreationDate="2017-06-22T11:43:59.607" Score="7" ViewCount="1639" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is a knight rebus. Each letter represents a different type of piece.&#xA;Uppercase letters are one color and lowercase letters are the other.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Determine the position. If possible, also determine the previous moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/6JVio.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/6JVio.png&quot; alt=&quot;Rebus&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;n&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;N&lt;/strong&gt; are kings and &lt;strong&gt;h&lt;/strong&gt; is pawn. What is the rest?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13597" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-09-15T02:59:23.657" LastActivityDate="2020-09-15T02:59:23.657" Title="&quot;Knight rebus&quot;-Decipher an encoded chess position" Tags="&lt;problems&gt;&lt;retrograde-analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="17895" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17893" CreationDate="2017-06-22T12:30:13.257" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here are some revelations. Firstly, chess is a sport. It's not called that by formality, it actually is a sport. It takes both physical and mental endurance to play the sport at a high level. This seems silly to anyone who has never seriously played a 6-hour game, but it does not to anyone who has been through that experience. Especially if you start dozing off at move 50 and make a blunder that pours half a day of work down the drain. Then you realize going to tournaments and doing this frequently at a much higher level must put a big strain on both body and mind.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your mental faculties and your body both deteriorate, starting when you are around 22 years old. Experience may seem very useful in chess, but opening theory is constantly developing while the rest of the game relies on pattern recognition and calculation. These skills do not improve beyond a certain point which a player like Anand has reached decades ago. Thus, experience plays a limited role in chess and does not properly compensate for the deterioration of your mind and body. At a certain point you need to put in many hours of practice every week just to keep your skills from deteriorating, all the while your body is deteriorating regardless. In a game like chess, this is not as noticeable as in the more physical sports of course, but it is nonetheless significant and thus it is exceptional that Anand has remained in the top 10 for such a tremendously long amount of time. This is the exception, not the rule.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So instead of wondering why Anand is falling off, I would wonder why he has been able to maintain such a superb position for such an incredible amount of time. It's the exact opposite of the proposed question, which indeed comes off as a bit ignorant as people have pointed out, considering that Anand is not just &quot;still good&quot; but rather &quot;still among the world elite which has been developing and growing constantly while he was getting older&quot;. It's amazing, really.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The rest of the question is a bit unclear. I have no idea how I could possibly know something about an elite player that cannot be found on the internet and I don't know what kind of specialty you expect surrounds players who sit behind a board and make good moves very consistently. Aside from the few rather strange fellows like Fischer and, to a lesser extent, Kasparov, most chess players are just people like you and me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8212" LastEditorUserId="8212" LastEditDate="2017-06-24T13:46:30.507" LastActivityDate="2017-06-24T13:46:30.507" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17896" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17894" CreationDate="2017-06-22T12:40:46.693" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes indeed, n corresponds to king, as we need two kings of a different color to have a legal chess position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, as you give, h = pawn, as otherwise we would have a pawn on the first or last rank, which would be illegal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Consider i.&#xA;It cannot be a queen, as both kings would be in check.&#xA;It cannot be a knight, as the &quot;i&quot; on a2 would give check. There is no legal way where &quot;knight a2 check&quot; is the last move.&#xA;It cannot be a bishop, as the &quot;I&quot; on a5 would give check. There is no legal way where &quot;bishop a5 check&quot; is the last move.&#xA;Therefore, i = rook.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We see that the king on c3 is in check by the rook on c1. Therefore, g cannot be a queen or a bishop, because there is no legal way to obtain the resulting position.&#xA;So, g = knight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &quot;K&quot; on b8 should not give check to the king on b6.&#xA;Therefore, k = bishop and t = queen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[However, the resulting position seems to be impossible to achieve too...&#xA;As far as I can see, the puzzle has no solution.]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit: the resulting position is indeed possible&lt;/strong&gt;, see the answer of Glorfindel.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4588" LastEditorUserId="4588" LastEditDate="2017-06-22T18:37:43.833" LastActivityDate="2017-06-22T18:37:43.833" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17897" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17894" CreationDate="2017-06-22T12:45:14.290" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;Assume the board is in it's usual position (the bottom row is the first row) then this is the solution:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;1B6/8/1k6/R7/1n6/2K5/r6p/q1r1n3 - - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and Black's last move was b2xc1R++.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;sub&gt;I could write an explanation here about I came to this result, but it would essentially be copying @Maxwell's answer. I didn't use it, though.&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2017-06-22T12:45:14.290" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17898" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17888" CreationDate="2017-06-22T21:21:28.493" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There may be nothing wrong with playing the KID as a beginner, if you are playing against other beginners who don't understand it any better than you. In fact, if you make it your regular defense, you will almost certainly understand it better than they do. Dont be misled by the name Kings Indian DEFENCE. Black has every intention of launching a counterattack at the first opportunity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is one drawback with playing the same opening all the time, which is that if you are always playing the same people, they can prepare some tricky line against you. But even in that case, you will be educating each other.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastActivityDate="2017-06-22T21:21:28.493" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17899" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17890" CreationDate="2017-06-22T22:52:08.600" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Be reassured, there are masters who have almost exclusively played the london system as white. It is an unambitious opening that does not strive for much advantage(though some proponents often claim that because the black player likely has little knowledge of the london system, it is often the case that white get's some positional edge), and instead you must suffice with an equal middle game, maybe with some pressure.&#xA;It is the opening associated with the chess players who do not want to learn much theory and skip this whole idea of an opening. The reason why it is called the london SYSTEM is because it is possible to play the same first 7 or so moves against anything, I think there may be some subtlety with move orders though. &#xA;Many people know the London as the boring opening, though as mentioned in the other answers, tactics are always present no matter what opening you chose. Also, I have not investigated a great deal in this but Simon Williams supposedly has this new way of playing the London system in a very agressive manner, so it may not be the case that you cannot get something crazy from the london. &#xA;However, when choosing this opening, make no pretensions that you will get to play games with tactical chaos more usually associated with gambits, e4, and etc. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3872" LastActivityDate="2017-06-22T22:52:08.600" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17900" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17888" CreationDate="2017-06-23T13:50:36.207" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You perhaps should worry more about just getting your pieces out onto good, safe squares than playing any formal opening system. Once you discover for yourself what types of formations you like (fianchettos? e4 opposed to d4?, other things), that will point you towards learning more about a formal system.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You're a beginner - just play and gain experience. Don't be in a hurry to learn opening &quot;theory&quot; (the most misused word in chess) and just play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2c. Cat A Player, USCF.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10233" LastActivityDate="2017-06-23T13:50:36.207" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17902" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17888" CreationDate="2017-06-23T16:29:58.730" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I used to play the Stonewall with white (which is not really a good opening) and the KID with black, even at rating around 2200. My main motivation was laziness, as you can to some extend play more or less the same moves independent of what your opponent does (aka &quot;system opening&quot;), so you don't need to learn lots of theory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, at your level, opening theory should not be a concern at all and lack of opening knowledge is most likely not the reason why you lose games. If you want to improve in chess, focus on:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;not blundering pieces/always being alert when your opponent blunders pieces&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;learning basic tactics&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;learning basic strategy&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This will be a lot more useful currently, than learning any opening lines by heart, since you are unlikely to understand the point of the moves yet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are happy with the &quot;openings&quot; you play now, it is fine to keep playing them, but for the time being I would not invest more time in learning a formal opening. If you are not too happy, you could just play the opening based on general principles, i.e. develop the pieces, occupy the center, castle, and take it from there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2017-06-23T16:29:58.730" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17903" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17509" CreationDate="2017-06-23T21:41:32.997" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In addition to given answers, there is a sacrifice on e6 that one should be aware of while playing e6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Say after black plays Be7 and Nbd7, then Bxe6 fxe6, Nxe6 attacking Queen at d8 and g7 pawn and getting 3 pawns(e6, f7, g7) for a piece and also opening the king side.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.365chess.com/game.php?gid=1992611&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Brajovic vs Rodic 1992&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The sacrifice is still on after black castles (say ... Be7, ... Nbd7, ... 0-0). Then after Bxe6 fxe6, Nxe6 the knight attacks Queen at d8 and Rook at f8, Ending up slightly better for white.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have won few games with this sacrifice in local tournaments. It can come as a surprise if not aware. Better cover up for it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7943" LastActivityDate="2017-06-23T21:41:32.997" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17904" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-06-25T17:35:00.930" Score="7" ViewCount="467" Body="&lt;p&gt;The variation goes(I will do it through the scotch gambit)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR b KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 exd4 4.Bc4 Bc5 5.c3 Nf6 6.cxd4 Bb4+ 7.Kf1 (7.Bd2)(7.Nc3)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I suppose the alternative is to play Bd2, but I believe that black manages to often hold a draw here because of theoretical repetition lines. White could of also played Nc3, though tricky, Black seems to be doing fine if they know the theory. Thus, it seems like Kf1 is played to avoid a draw. &#xA;However, if avoiding a draw is desired, why not simply play e5 instead of cxd4?&#xA;Is there really anything in this Kf1 variation or is it harmless? &#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ELBP9.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ELBP9.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3872" LastEditorUserId="4509" LastEditDate="2017-06-28T18:50:09.287" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T19:59:04.983" Title="What's the point of 7 Kf1(Krakow Variation) of the Italian game?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17905" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19114" CreationDate="2017-06-25T17:42:15.190" Score="1" ViewCount="311" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm using &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/niklasf/python-chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;python-chess&lt;/a&gt; to analyze a game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have my code like this, and I expect 3 boolean outputs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;print(&quot;is_castling: &quot; + unicode(board.is_castling(node.move)));&#xA;print(&quot;is_zeroing: &quot; + unicode(board.is_zeroing(node.move)));&#xA;print(&quot;is_capture: &quot; + unicode(board.is_capture(node.move)));&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But this is what I get.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;is_castling: False&#xA;is_zeroing: 4194304&#xA;is_capture: 4194304&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What am I missing here? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13619" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-03-04T21:41:48.047" LastActivityDate="2020-03-04T21:41:48.047" Title="Python-chess is_zeroing and is_capture operation outputs" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;programming&gt;&lt;python&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17906" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17905" CreationDate="2017-06-25T21:22:04.040" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The code for those routines fairly liberally uses bitwise-and (&amp;amp;) rather than boolean-and (and) for the logical expressions, so I assume integer values rather than booleans are being returned. I would guess that you would see something similar with is_castling if castling is possible; the False value is returned explicitly rather than being the result of an expression evaluation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12951" LastActivityDate="2017-06-25T21:22:04.040" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17908" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17937" CreationDate="2017-06-26T03:40:16.277" Score="2" ViewCount="545" Body="&lt;p&gt;At one point, I reached a Rook and pawn endgame in the Chicago Open. Winning this game would have landed me in the money. I ended up with a rook and connected a- and b- pawns, while my opponent had a rook and a c-pawn. I was able to push my opponent's king back to the eighth rank, but due to time trouble I actually lost both pawns (&lt;em&gt;lol what&lt;/em&gt;). Now my opponent had a c-pawn on the 3rd rank, so he needed five more pawn moves to promote.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I lost this endgame. But I'm reading the &lt;em&gt;Secrets of Rook Endings&lt;/em&gt; by John Nunn where he discusses this ending in deliberate detail, so I could have definitely drawn. I haven't gone over a single game from the tournament, because the ones that I lost were all due to silly mistakes; all of my games were won (with opponents LITERALLY begging for draws) and somehow I lost over half of them - mainly due to time trouble, but they shouldn't have been lost regardless.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can review that rook and pawn ending game if I wanted to and see which moves I made a mistake, but I'm simply too embarrassed. How can I get over losing won games?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13147" LastActivityDate="2017-06-29T09:59:06.003" Title="Emotionally getting over silly, stupid, mistakes" Tags="&lt;psychology&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17909" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17904" CreationDate="2017-06-26T07:14:19.733" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I guess it's a surprise weapon, no need to be excellent objectively. The position is around equal after Kf1 and black must deal with new situation, while white probably knows what to do next moves. Black must deal now with vulnerable bishop on b4 and two connected central pawns. He goes wrong, he can get into trouble. He goes right, the position will be normally playable for white. The point is not to allow the bishop b4 to be exchanged. This bishop can run to various tactics. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11609" LastActivityDate="2017-06-26T07:14:19.733" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17910" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17908" CreationDate="2017-06-26T15:00:53.477" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;No serious chess player has managed to avoid losing in a way similar to that which you described. Failing to play at ones usual ability is certainly disturbing when it happens, but it is part of being human; after all, humans can get tired, distracted, or fall into a panic due to time pressure, affecting their ability to play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Always remember this while you play: since you're human, you can make silly mistakes! If, during a game, you realize that you've made a silly mistake, you need to get your emotions in check no matter what. Just admit to yourself &quot;ok, I made a mistake&quot; and afterwards go on and try to salvage your position with a cool demeanor. DON'T BEAT YOURSELF UP DURING A GAME FOR THE MISTAKES YOU'VE ALREADY MADE! Letting your emotions take over while you're still playing will just end in a disaster.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After the game however, feel free to be as disgusted with yourself as you please, but if you still have games to play, it's better to take a deep breath, tell yourself that you played bad but will bring down the hammer of judgement on yourself after you're finished playing, and go on to play your games as if nothing happened.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you finally get some time to reflect over what happened in the game(s), you should once again try to be objective, and try to figure out the reasons why you made your mistake(s). Were you distracted? Were you careless, and if so why? Was it because you didn't know what to do in the position? What can you do to prevent the mistake(s) from happening in the future?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the specific case you brought up, I think you may be able to prevent yourself from losing in a similar manner in the future. Let me ask you this: Would you have lost the position due to time pressure if you had K+Q vs. K instead of K+R+2p vs. K+R+p? Probably not! Why? Because I assume that you know how to win K+Q vs. K like the back of your hand! Here I boldly assume that you weren't down to 5 seconds without increments (severe time scrambles without increments isn't really chess, it's more of a lottery imo), but rather that you had the time on the clock to actually perform your moves without dropping the pieces. If you lose a theoretical ending it's almost always possible to practice it afterwards until you know it as well as K+Q vs. K. That way you can play such endings perfectly, even under rather severe time pressure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To summarize: everybody makes stupid mistakes in chess, don't beat yourself up about it during actual games, and try to see whether there is an easy way for you to avoid making the same mistakes in the future by being objective in your criticism of yourself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8300" LastActivityDate="2017-06-26T15:00:53.477" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17911" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17509" CreationDate="2017-06-26T17:30:31.913" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;White's light squared bishop &quot;belongs&quot; on f3. By putting it on c4, White prevents the bishop from finding that diagonal, but attacks the c4-f7 diagonal instead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;E6 defends against the latter threat, against the pawn on f7. I would play this either before or after playing bd7 and Nc6. Depending on how the play goes after be6, I would consider castling queen side to get my king away from the influence of that bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2017-06-26T17:30:31.913" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17912" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17888" CreationDate="2017-06-26T17:33:10.607" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a beginner who doesn't like knights, I would play the (relatively) simple &quot;four knights&quot; openings that often lead to early exchanges of knights.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2017-06-26T17:33:10.607" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17913" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8907" CreationDate="2017-06-26T17:46:09.123" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think of the endgame as a &quot;countdown.&quot; That is, at the beginning, you need &quot;many&quot; moves to win (or resolve the game). In the endgame, you need only a few moves for resolution.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically, you want to teach your student to &quot;resolve&quot; his games in the clearest, simplest way. That's what endgames are for. The ones to begin with might be the ones where he could have &quot;simplified&quot; quickly into a won endgame and failed to do so, and had to win the &quot;hard&quot; way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2017-06-26T17:46:09.123" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17914" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2909" CreationDate="2017-06-26T17:53:07.170" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe that the origin of &quot;King&quot; and &quot;Queen&quot; units were the King's and Queen's &lt;em&gt;Guards.&lt;/em&gt; In either case, they were &quot;picked&quot; troops.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &quot;king&quot; is just the king and his personal bodyguard. These might be the best 500-1000 troops in the army, which would give them approximately the value of a &quot;piece,&quot; a slightly larger unit commanded by a  knight or bishop (but with inferior troops).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Queen's &lt;em&gt;guard,&lt;/em&gt; was an honorary unit consisting of the remainder of the best troops, basically the &quot;flower&quot; of the army. These troops were more numerous and better trained than the troops in units led by the other officials, which is why the queen's regiment was the most powerful.  As I remember, the &quot;three musketeers&quot; belonged to the &quot;queen's&quot; guard. The queen was the titular commander but her &quot;duties&quot; were actually taken over by a high-ranking (male) noble. A pawn that &quot;queens&quot; gets to become this noble (or to have a new &quot;queen's guard&quot; formed under him if the first one is still on the board).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastEditorUserId="17" LastEditDate="2017-06-26T18:00:42.930" LastActivityDate="2017-06-26T18:00:42.930" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17915" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5994" CreationDate="2017-06-26T18:14:13.210" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;These things typically happen because you get into a type of game that represent's A's strength and your weakness. That's true, even if you do better than A against random players, &quot;B,&quot; who don't fall into this pattern.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Find out how the B's outplay A. Maybe A outplays you tactically, and B outplays him positionally (or vice-versa). Then try to imitate the positions and tactics used by the B players, even if you don't feel comfortable with them. You should be able to do this &lt;em&gt;better&lt;/em&gt; than the B's since you outplay them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a proverb: &quot;Never change a winning game and always change a losing game.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2017-06-26T18:14:13.210" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17916" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17908" CreationDate="2017-06-26T21:40:47.783" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I do dispute your assertion that &quot;Winning this game would have landed [you] in the money.&quot; [maybe you did not realize the results are available on the web?] You lost your last 3 games, ended up at 3 points (45th of 94), and the lowest paying score in your section was at 5 points, according to the results published (link below). Unless some creative math was involved, not sure how you figured that one out. 4 points would get nothing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You have to come to grips with the reality that at the level you are at, you will make many, many mistakes. I make nearly as many, probably not just as crucial or game-changing, but they are there nonetheless.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You'd learn much by offering your games up for analysis to a titled player, and you probably study too much and play too little.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chessevents.com/2017/05/chicago-open-2017-standings-under-1500-section/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chicago Open 2017 U1500 Section Results&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10233" LastActivityDate="2017-06-26T21:40:47.783" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17917" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-06-27T01:28:52.190" Score="3" ViewCount="292" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am wondering if there are chess games or tournaments between engines, with a very small duration, like 10&lt;sup&gt;-5&lt;/sup&gt; seconds or 10&lt;sup&gt;-10&lt;/sup&gt; seconds (every game). If not, would it not be interesting?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13640" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-04-11T20:03:11.050" LastActivityDate="2021-04-11T20:03:26.613" Title="Very fast chess games-tournaments between engines" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;time-control&gt;&lt;time-management&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="17918" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17917" CreationDate="2017-06-27T05:54:22.197" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;At those timescales, communication between computers becomes a problem. For instance, it takes more than a millisecond (10&lt;sup&gt;-3&lt;/sup&gt; s) for me to ping my router. Even if you install a sort of timekeeper program on the computer itself, CPU clocks aren't reliable on such small timescales.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Instead, it might be more interesting to run them on slower hardware.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2017-06-27T05:54:22.197" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17919" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17928" CreationDate="2017-06-27T12:43:15.113" Score="1" ViewCount="240" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a lower rated (1200-1300) player, and I am quite hesitant while making sacrifices. In the current game I see that black's king is unprotected and a bishop sacrifice at f5 can open up an attack against the black king. Is this the best move in the current position?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/YRdeP.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/YRdeP.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Edited image&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13334" LastEditorUserId="11202" LastEditDate="2017-06-29T11:08:14.363" LastActivityDate="2017-06-29T11:08:14.363" Title="What will be the best move in this position?" Tags="&lt;middlegame&gt;&lt;sacrifice&gt;&lt;attack&gt;&lt;aggressive-play&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17920" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17917" CreationDate="2017-06-27T12:47:51.487" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;For ultra-low timescales the computers would at best have time for a 1 ply search. So you'd be figuring out the best &amp;quot;shallow search&amp;quot; evaluation function. Possibly bullet players would be interested in the parameters of such a search function because I suspect they differ from search functions designed to perform well for deep searches.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12273" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-04-11T20:03:26.613" LastActivityDate="2021-04-11T20:03:26.613" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="17922" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17904" CreationDate="2017-06-28T06:22:04.787" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The point of 7.Kf1 is more of a refrain from playing Bd2/Nbd2/Nc3 and allowing black to exchange off his dark-squared bishop: he wants to play against the bishop on b4. However, subsequent analysis shows that white gives up more than he gains; for example, black can take on e4 and survive the complications that follow after 8.d5, which is why this isn't the most popular variation for white.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As with most off-beat lines, this is a trappy variation; if black doesn't react correctly, and/or doesn't understand the position well enough, he will get into trouble. For example, in this case, when faced with this position over the board as black, the first thing you'll probably need to work out is whether 7...d5 would lose after 8.exd5 Nxd5 9.Qb3 intending 10.d5. If you decide against it, and play something timid like 7...Be7, intending to play slowly, white just goes Nc3, perhaps Bg5 and h4, and suddenly white's position looks pretty great.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the sake of completeness, to answer your question: 6.e5 is a well-known variation. White could, of course, try to win a theoretical battle, but this is neither a strictly better nor worse approach than trying to catch your opponent off-guard.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7473" LastEditorUserId="7473" LastEditDate="2017-06-28T09:32:50.587" LastActivityDate="2017-06-28T09:32:50.587" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17923" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17919" CreationDate="2017-06-28T07:00:26.987" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think so, yes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black cannot ignore the sacrifice as there is the threat of Bg6#. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Moving the queen away to make space for the king won't help: 1.. Qb6 (Qc7, Qa5) 2. Bg6+ Kd8 3. Nf7+ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Same for the bishop: 1.. Bxg5 2. Bg6+ Kd7 3. Qf7#&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or the pawn: 1..d6 (d5) 2. Bg6+ Kd7 3. Nf7 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So he probably has to take the bishop. You take back with your queen, threatening Qf7# now.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Same options (after 1. Bxf5 exf5 2. Qxf5):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.. Qb6 3. Qg6+ Kd8 4. Nf7+ &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.. d6 (d5) 3. e6 Bxe6 4. Qg6+ Kd7 5. Qxe7+ Kc7 6. Nf7 (4.. Bf7 5. Nxf7) (4.. Kf8 5. Nxe6+) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.. Bxg5 3. Bxg5 Qc7 4. Qg6+ Kf8 5. Rh3 and he won't be able to parry Rf3+&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.. Bxg5 3. Bxg5 Ne7 4. Qf6 Rf8 5. Qh6 Qc7 6. Rh3 is probably the way to go, but it will be very hard to defend for Black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Additional option: 2.. Nh6 3. Qg6+ Kf8 4. Rh3 without a good answer to Rf3+ too&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This looks like a lot of variations, but basically it all boils down to either the fork on f7 (if the king manages to escape to the queenside) or the manoeuvre Rh3-Rf3 (if the king stays at the wide open kingside) that he cannot properly parry because his pieces on the queenside are so out-of-play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13433" LastActivityDate="2017-06-28T07:00:26.987" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17925" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17917" CreationDate="2017-06-28T14:16:54.540" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You overestimate how fast computers are. At 10&lt;sup&gt;-10&lt;/sup&gt; seconds, you are close to the single machine instruction timescale. That is, &quot;how much is 2+2?&quot;, not &quot;evaluate a chess position&quot;, let alone play an entire game. At 10&lt;sup&gt;-5&lt;/sup&gt; you could do a pretty shallow evaluation. It would be an interesting programming exercise but in terms of chessplay quality I'm not sure it would mean much. My guess is that for a game between engines to be somewhat meaningful it would need to take several orders of magnitude longer than that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Throwing more CPUs or GPUs at the problem, you can greatly increase computing capacity, but I don't think that would help you play such fast games due to communication overhead and other factors. One thing you can do, however, is play many games in parallel. You could have a match on a supercomputer where two engines play thousands of games at the same time, and see which engine wins more. The entire match could be over in seconds of &quot;wall clock time&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12523" LastEditorUserId="12523" LastEditDate="2017-06-28T14:26:27.313" LastActivityDate="2017-06-28T14:26:27.313" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17926" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-06-28T14:24:05.073" Score="13" ViewCount="520" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why is it so common to have time controls like 2 hours for 40 moves plus 30 minutes for the rest of the game, as opposed to something simpler like 2.5 hours for the game? Is this just to &quot;force&quot; players to ration their time? Can't players be trusted to manage their own time? :-)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Disclaimer: I've never played under such time controls.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12523" LastActivityDate="2021-01-04T21:06:04.377" Title="Why have more than one time control per game?" Tags="&lt;time-control&gt;&lt;time-management&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17927" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17904" CreationDate="2017-06-28T15:28:40.953" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The point of Kf1 is to gain time or tempo for white. White has a large pawn centre and he has to depend upon it. Black's b4 bishop now becomes useless with nothing to attack and becomes vulnerable. After Kf1 if Black takes the e4-pawn with knight then d5 and then Qe2 the knight gets pinned. There can be plenty of lines which can be analysed. White's open files and diagonals are much more open and gives a promising attack. Objectively, black's best move for a HUMAN is d5 here but if he fails to play then white's attack can be ruthless enough for a win. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If instead of Kf1 Bd2 or Nc3 is placed then the bishop has something to attack and can be exchanged which favours black and he has a comfortable game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T19:59:04.983" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T19:59:04.983" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="17928" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17919" CreationDate="2017-06-28T16:34:28.250" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Almost certainly Bxf5 is a winning move, but it may not be what you want to play. I asked if exf6 was legal. If it is, play it. After Black recaptures play Bg6+ and your attack is just as strong without sacrificing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the diagram position, Blacks position is dreadful, probably lost. If you can win without taking risks, why not? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You are not sure if the sacrifice works. That is, you do not trust your analysis. Under those circumstances, should you sacrifice and risk losing? Generally speaking not, if you have a very good position and can see other ways to make progress. Generally yes if you think that your position is bad, and the sacrifice is a last shot.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But perhaps you should sacrifice anyway, just to find out how good your analysis is. Much depends then on the circumstances of the game, Friendly skittles? Last round of tournament? But if you find that it does not work, try to learn something. What did you not see? Why did you not see it? Is there something you should now remember to look for? Did you win, but only because your opponent defended badly? You should look at these things post mortem if you opponent is willing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastActivityDate="2017-06-28T16:34:28.250" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17929" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17908" CreationDate="2017-06-28T17:34:04.890" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, I'd say the obvious solution would be to try to avoid &quot;silly, stupid mistakes&quot;.  But that's easier said than done.  Playing a lot should help with the visual aspects.  After that would come understanding what you are doing.  Looking for tactics comes to mind first, both yours and your opponent's. If none are available, then you try to improve your position first.  If you're playing quick chess, then you may have to deal with time pressure too.  That's obviously going to impact the other things I've mentioned.  If you ultimately lose regardless of your best efforts, you just have to accept that and move on.  Chess isn't a quick study.  Capablanca said you have to lose 1000 games to improve.  Maybe that's a generalization, but the point is that you're going to make mistakes no matter how good you are.  If you lose this game, you'll win another.  You can't let a single loss color your whole outlook toward the game.  Just keep playing and learning, and things should naturally improve over time. I try to keep in mind that chess is just a game and isn't really that important in the great scheme of things.  Just enjoy it and let what will be be.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastActivityDate="2017-06-28T17:34:04.890" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17930" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17926" CreationDate="2017-06-28T18:50:17.407" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Time controls were beginning to be used in the mid 1800's, with clocks becoming a regular appearance starting in 1861.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The very first tournament where the double-sided chess clock was used was London 1883, which set a  minimum limit of 15 moves per hour, failure to do so resulting in forfeit of the game by the  player who has exceeded the limit. The games started at noon and the playing session would continue to 5pm, after which–should the game not yet be concluded–there was a two hour interval for supper followed by the adjournment (until 11pm, if necessary).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;https://kevinspraggettonchess.wordpress.com/2013/10/03/time-controls-frank-marshall-and-nuremberg-1906/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Kevin Spraggett&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Additionally, he mentions how there was no standard time control until later, when 40 in 2.5 hours, followed by 16 or 20 in an hour became commonplace. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While preventing players from thinking too long over individual moves was one of the reasons for the introduction of time controls, adjournments were also a consideration.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As @Saibot mentioned in a comment, deciding on a new time control isn't easy. Also mentioned in Spraggett's blog, players are reluctant to change the current time controls.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9025" LastEditorUserId="9025" LastEditDate="2017-06-30T04:22:21.153" LastActivityDate="2017-06-30T04:22:21.153" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17931" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8364" CreationDate="2017-06-28T19:47:04.407" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess is considered variously as an art, a science, a game and a sport.  I personally am attracted by its artistic and scientific elements.   I try to create beautiful games to satisfy my artistic temperament.  In the scientific realm, I'm interested in artificial intelligence and enjoy playing the computer for that reason to see what advances have been made in its development and what is its current level of ability.  I also try to keep the game aspect in mind and have fun when I play.  These preceding aspects are sufficient motivation for me to want to play. I'm not a highly competitive individual, and downplay the sporting aspect of the game.  This latter way of looking at the game would probably be necessary to be driven to get better at it. If one plays regularly and tries to apply the general principles for successful play, improvement would most likely occur naturally over the years anyway. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastActivityDate="2017-06-28T19:47:04.407" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17932" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8364" CreationDate="2017-06-28T20:02:57.923" Score="0" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In order to improve your game you must study the endgame before anything else; for, whereas the endings can be studied and mastered by themselves, the middlegame and the opening must be studied in relation to the endgame. - &lt;em&gt;Jose Raul Capablanca&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The fact that almost no dedicated amateur studies endgames seriously (as I found out in the Chicago Open) drives me to improve. It's no surprise that half of Capablanca's &lt;em&gt;Chess Fundamentals&lt;/em&gt; is comprised of endgame examples.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I play knowing that any rook and pawn endgame is mine, it gives me a confidence that allows me to focus on an astounding middlegame attack. I can willingly sacrifice pieces and other material, but I'll always come out ahead because I know how to play the endgame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If somehow my attack doesn't checkmate the enemy king in the middle game, I can focus on re-capturing material while my opponent catches up on development. By that time, I'll surely be up mentally, even if we're even in position. Because I know how to play the endgame, I'll be able to finish.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13147" LastActivityDate="2017-06-28T20:02:57.923" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17933" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17934" CreationDate="2017-06-28T20:36:59.643" Score="1" ViewCount="132" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here we have two scenarios where the stronger side has one passed pawn in a KPP vs. KP ending. The other pawns block each other.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Ending 83, the author states that rook's pawns, if they're not blocked, should be advanced as far as possible. But in Ending 85, he concludes that the stronger side always wins with a passed bishop's pawn (on the same wing) if the rook pawn has remained on the second rank (i.e. not advanced). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Should the rook's pawn be advanced or not?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13147" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-06-29T09:06:14.383" LastActivityDate="2017-06-29T09:06:14.383" Title="Jesus De La Villa's 100 Endgames book: Ambiguity" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;pawn-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17934" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17933" CreationDate="2017-06-28T21:57:39.463" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Those endgames are fundamentally different - one has rook pawns and a distant passed pawn (83); the second has rook pawns and a passed bishop pawn on the same wing (85).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason in the second case (85) is you may need a tempo move with the rook pawn on its original square. It's explained very clearly in the book.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10233" LastActivityDate="2017-06-28T21:57:39.463" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17935" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17919" CreationDate="2017-06-28T23:36:01.900" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I ran this through Stockfish on a decent computer for about 11 hours. You can see that after move 8 White has recouped the sacrificed piece and Black is down 4 pawns. This is decisive. However, the pawn on e7 is commanding and Black gives up a little more material. Now he's down 3 pawns and the exchange. Very ugly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[FEN &quot;rnbqk1nr/p2pb3/2p1p3/1p2PpNp/3P3P/2PB1Q2/PP3PP1/RNB1K2R w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Bxf5 exf5 2.Qxf5 Bxg5 3.Bxg5 Ne7 4.Qf6 Rh7 5.Nd2 d5 6.exd6 Qd7 7.dxe7 Qe6+ 8.Qxe6 Bxe6 9.Ne4 Rxe7 10.Bxe7 Kxe7 11.O-O Na6 12.Rfe1 Re8 13.Ng3 Kd7 14.Nxh5 Rf8 15.Re5 Bd5 16.g3 b4 17.Nf4 bxc3 18.bxc3 Nc7 19.Rb1 Kc8 20.a4 Rf6 21.Re7 Bf7 22.h5 Kd8 23.Re5 Nd5 24.Nxd5 Bxd5 25.Rb7 a6 26.Ra7 Bc4 27.a5 Bd3 28.g4 Rf4 29.Rg5 Bc4 30.Rg6&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2017-06-28T23:36:01.900" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17936" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8364" CreationDate="2017-06-29T09:19:22.590" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;To quote Judit Polgar&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Work hard and see yourself winning is very addictive&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(She said that at a presentation, probably not the exact words)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7002" LastActivityDate="2017-06-29T09:19:22.590" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17937" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17908" CreationDate="2017-06-29T09:59:06.003" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It looks like you took a good gamble trying to win. And there's no shame in that. Your gamble did not work out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, in this instance, the game might not have been as theoretically won as you thought it was, with all the pawns on the same side of the board, so don't beat yourself up over it too much.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would just go through the game with the computer and see if there was any specific move that caused its evaluation to jump in your favor. See what you missed, and why. Probably one or two neat moves/combinations will jump out at you, and you will recognize and pounce on them in future similar situations. Computer analysis also gives you confidence that your opponents aren't perfect, either.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know I was at my best when I focused on a mistake I made in a game and said, okay, I'm not going to make that mistake, or that sort of mistake, again. I'll know to check for that. For instance, I remember a particularly tough loss back in high school, to a future IM who was two years younger and 500 points higher than me. I won the exchange early, but he slowly snuck his way back into the game. It was tough to revisit the game, but when I did, I found a lot of clever tricks he used that I was able to pass on to future opponents. The big one I remember was: my rook was on e1, his pawn was on a2, his knight was on c3, and he played Nb1. Ouch.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your case I would read about how to draw when a pawn down, maybe with R&amp;amp;P vs R, and once you've nailed that (along with the &quot;Bridge&quot; position to win R&amp;amp;P vs R), you'll have learned a lot. Maybe you'll even be able to hold your own position down a pawn, until an opponent loses a pawn and suddenly worries more about what they lost than focusing on the current position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The bright side is that if you get a pawn down, your opponent may not be 100% sure of their winning position. They may be thinking &quot;What if I blow this?&quot; And that may allow you a way to get back in the game and get a half-point or even full point you don't really deserve. Gaining points you don't deserve, and losing points you do, tend to balance out in the long run.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So maybe you can't control heat-of-the-moment blunders beyond checking every move for crude attacks/undefended pieces, but you can control if you learn or nail down or internalize something that will be important later.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would frame a bad move as &quot;this loss motivated me to learn more about (endgame X). The loss hurt, but it will pay off in the long run.&quot; And if you are worried about blundering a winning position, have faith in yourself that you can and will study what went wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11202" LastActivityDate="2017-06-29T09:59:06.003" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17938" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17926" CreationDate="2017-06-29T13:42:33.023" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The reason, fundamentally, is that the average chess game lasts about 40 moves. therefore, in most cases, the game is over in 4 hours at most. If it goes beyond 40 moves, then it is over in 5 hours at most. It has nothing to do with adjournments, everything to do with game scheduling. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There hasn't been adjournment chess at the professional level in decades.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10233" LastActivityDate="2017-06-29T13:42:33.023" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17939" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17926" CreationDate="2017-06-29T14:38:47.277" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think these partitioned time controls evolved naturally during the history of tournament chess for two reasons.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;To limit psychological warfare.&lt;/strong&gt; Some chess players are.. let's say difficult. I can vividly imagine the first time when a participant of an important  match refused to make his next move (or even look at the board) because he was so angered that he blundered away a piece in the 10th move but also refused to forfeit and although it was very obvious that he would just let his time run out, there was no rule yet to stop the game right there and everyone had to wait for hours. Or people started to try and abuse the lack of such rule by simply waiting for an entire hour before making the first move simply to unnerve their opponents (who were pondering over which opening they would see etc.)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;To make matches more exciting for the spectators.&lt;/strong&gt; Remember, in private everyone can set their own time control however they like. But for tournament hosts it makes sense to split it into smaller pieces to create more tension. Also, especially casual or even first time spectators might be more at ease with this because it stresses that not every game lasts &lt;em&gt;this&lt;/em&gt; long.. you don't have to wait for full 5 hours &lt;em&gt;every&lt;/em&gt; time. The time after move 40 looks more like the overtime from other sports rather than &quot;regular&quot; time.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13433" LastActivityDate="2017-06-29T14:38:47.277" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17941" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4219" CreationDate="2017-06-29T15:56:42.993" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;A specific set of opening moves might be deemed to be the best at given time based upon previous play.  But opening theory is always evolving, and better moves might be found.  As long as you have a reason for your move, deviating from a prescribed set of opening moves might not be bad.  In fact, it might even be better.  Your opponent has to see what your purpose is.  If he doesn't, than your deviation could even give you an advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastActivityDate="2017-06-29T15:56:42.993" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17942" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-06-29T17:00:42.127" Score="4" ViewCount="319" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the typical KID black tries to play for a mating attack. Consequently, the dark squared bishop usually ended up sleeping on g7 or sometimes reroute itself to defended the d6 pawn which is critical in KID. (correct me if my understanding is wrong)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So my question is the following.&#xA;1. Should we trade our dark squared bishop for any of white's pieces, because it doesn't participate much in terms of checkmating White's king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13562" LastActivityDate="2017-07-01T12:31:01.563" Title="dark-squared Bishop in KID" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;bishops&gt;&lt;kings-indian&gt;&lt;bad-bishop&gt;&lt;kingside&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17943" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17942" CreationDate="2017-06-29T22:04:00.013" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;My understanding is that the dark squared bishop on g7 in this opening is a strong defensive piece and should be preserved there if possible.  White I know will typically try to trade off this bishop to enhance his own kingside attacking chances, by playing his dark squared bishop to e3 and supporting it with his queen on d2 so he can penetrate with this bishop to h6 to trade off black's g7 bishop.  Doing so will then weaken the dark squares around the black king, giving white better attacking chances there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastActivityDate="2017-06-29T22:04:00.013" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17944" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="59" CreationDate="2017-06-29T22:11:51.043" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, it is possible, and any basic chess manual will demonstrate the method.  As mentioned above, the king must be driven into a corner the color of your bishop.  To those who say it occurs too rarely to bother to learn, I might mention that I was able to steer a rated game into such an ending, knowing that with my understanding of how to do it I could force mate, which I was able to do well within the allotted 50 moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastActivityDate="2017-06-29T22:11:51.043" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17945" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17946" CreationDate="2017-06-30T01:19:47.873" Score="7" ViewCount="973" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've had this question on my mind for a while, and I searched around and found a previous question (&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/q/1122/7147&quot;&gt;Should you let your opponent know if they have forgotten to press their clock?&lt;/a&gt;) that touched on the subject.  In that previous question, it was asked if one should remind one's opponent if they forget to press their clock.  The general consensus in the answers seemed to be, yes, remind them - and I always have done so, myself.  My question, though, is - at what point do you stop?  I've played against a number of opponents who've had the habit of forgetting to press the clock after almost every move.  After reminding them the third or fourth time, it starts to get annoying, and it distracts from my own concentration on the game if I have to continually watch to make sure my opponent deals with their clock as they're supposed to.  At what point does one just give up, and sit there and let their clock run until they figure it out?  At what point is it no longer poor sportsmanship to refrain from warning them?  If I've already reminded someone four times in one game to press their clock, does it make me a bad sport if I just sit there without speaking (or gesturing towards the clock, which is what I normally do) and without making a move, and let their clock run out when they do it the fifth time?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And actually, now that I'm thinking about it - am I actually committing a rules infraction myself, by communicating with my opponent so frequently about their clock?  I've always wondered about that, too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7147" LastActivityDate="2017-07-03T08:15:29.417" Title="How many times should I let my opponent know they forgot to press their clock?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;etiquette&gt;&lt;chess-clocks&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17946" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17945" CreationDate="2017-06-30T02:00:07.200" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Its a matter of opinion, and much more likely to occur at the beginner or amateur levels of chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I believe it is best to show the high levels of sportsmanship and notify them immediately for the first couple of times they forget to press there clock.&#xA;If they continue to forget to press the clock, start by waiting 1 minute, followed by 2 and 3 etc. … If it's becoming a serious problem and your position (clock and board) is sufficient, I would consider going for a walk to look at other games in attempt to drill the point home.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Drilling deeper into the matter, when players don't press their clock, they are costing yourself and themselves XX seconds from increments and can cause problems when playing games with multi time control periods.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11147" LastEditorUserId="8472" LastEditDate="2017-07-03T08:15:29.417" LastActivityDate="2017-07-03T08:15:29.417" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17947" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5343" CreationDate="2017-06-30T09:20:55.263" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I haven't seen a proof that the maximum number of non-pawns is 26. It seems intuitive, but let's try and nail it down.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the starting position, no pawns can be promoted without captures.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the question is, what is the maximum amount of promotions one capture can create? Say a pawn goes from column x to column y.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the pawn doing the capture may now be passed&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;an opposing pawn on column x may now be passed&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;a friendly pawn on column y may now be passed&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So each pawn capture means a maximum of 3 pawns that can promote.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But there is a special case! What if there are doubled pawns in 2/3? They are dealt with as follows: if a previous capture moved them there, then it created fewer than 3 passed pawns, because they were not passed before this move. In the case of 2, the capturing x-pawn blocked them. In the case of 3, the opposing y-pawn blocked them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So each capture means at most 3 pawns can promote. 1 means 3 promotions, 2 means 6, 3 means 9, and 4 means 12. But that would leave no further pawns to promote.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, to find a maximal case, we can just follow the link in the game, or play your game out so we promote all pieces to bishops. I have to admit I didn't fully check your game, but the idea seems right.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11202" LastEditorUserId="11202" LastEditDate="2017-06-30T22:27:10.653" LastActivityDate="2017-06-30T22:27:10.653" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17948" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2732" CreationDate="2017-06-30T15:19:32.577" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to this &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_clock#Time_controls&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia article&lt;/a&gt; (a different article than was linked in the question...), the Bronstein time adjustment is always added back at the end.  The first clock I had that implemented this was the original Saitek digital clock, and it implemented it this way (same as the other clocks that were described in the question).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7147" LastActivityDate="2017-06-30T15:19:32.577" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17949" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6525" CreationDate="2017-06-30T15:57:02.573" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I agree with @PhilipRoe. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Modern defense is a sound opening and OP's setup is sound against the defense. So if you keep losing, it's because the opponent is stronger, not because of the opening. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, Nimzowitch once said, if you fear one particular opening the other colour uses, you should play that opening yourself (when using that colour)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7002" LastActivityDate="2017-06-30T15:57:02.573" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17950" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17942" CreationDate="2017-06-30T20:27:49.577" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;From a purely positional point of view, the Bg7 should only be exchanged for White's dark-squared Bishop, or in a case of emergency for another attacking piece, if absolutely necessary, or if the gain of material presents itself. Bg7 protects your king position and the weakened squares on f6/h6 (due to g6), and e5 central square, and by extension, d4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't play the KID, but those are my 'feelings' about that particular piece in that particular setup.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Good luck.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10233" LastActivityDate="2017-06-30T20:27:49.577" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17951" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17945" CreationDate="2017-06-30T21:32:01.150" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;If it's in a tournament, you're under no obligation to tell them.  They'll learn quickly enough through hard experience.  I would liken that to telling them to take back a bad move.  In a casual game, good sportsmanship would favor continuing to make some indication that they hadn't punched their clock, but that would be up to you. And I believe you're right that you're not supposed to talk to your opponent in a tournament game anyway.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastActivityDate="2017-06-30T21:32:01.150" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17952" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15168" CreationDate="2017-07-01T01:31:50.440" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Capablanca was the best defensive player of his time (if not of all time). He excelled at games where he beat back an (overextended) opposing attack, and went on to win. He was a good attacking player, but no better than many of his peers, and inferior to Alekhine at playing White. It was at &quot;defense&quot; where he excelled, and that's why he won a greater percentage of such games than other masters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most of the above types of games were played as Black. There was one famous exception where he was playing Ruy Lopez against Marshall who unveiled his signature Marshall Attack. Capablanca defeated a &quot;prepared variation,&quot; one of the greatest bugaboos of chess masters, by playing &quot;defense.&quot; This is a testimony to his defensive ability, which is more often demonstrated playing Black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastEditorUserId="17" LastEditDate="2017-08-08T17:09:11.260" LastActivityDate="2017-08-08T17:09:11.260" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17953" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17954" CreationDate="2017-07-01T07:46:21.897" Score="1" ViewCount="75" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think this happened in Kasparov game but I am not sure about that. It was minor piece endgame with quite blocked queenside. Black took pawn on the kingside (h4 maybe) and white, instead of 'obvious' pawn recapture, moved his knight, temporarily sacrificing pawn, but kept the position open. I guess it was N vs. B endgame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11609" LastActivityDate="2017-07-01T08:38:18.133" Title="From which top class game is the endgame motive?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;master-games&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17954" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17953" CreationDate="2017-07-01T08:24:32.643" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;You are probably thinking of the game &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1067121&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Karpov - Kasparov &lt;/a&gt; form  round 9 in their first World Championship Match in 1984-85. This match was later called off after 48 games before a winner was declared.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The situation you describe appeared after black's 46th move in this game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;World Championship Match&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Moscow&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;1984.10.05&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;9&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Anatoly Karpov&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Garry Kasparov&quot;]&#xA;[Startply &quot;92&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 c5 4.cxd5 exd5 5.g3 Nf6 6.Bg2 Be7 7.O-O&#xA;O-O 8.Nc3 Nc6 9.Bg5 cxd4 10.Nxd4 h6 11.Be3 Re8 12.Qb3 Na5&#xA;13.Qc2 Bg4 14.Nf5 Rc8 15.Bd4 Bc5 16.Bxc5 Rxc5 17.Ne3 Be6&#xA;18.Rad1 Qc8 19.Qa4 Rd8 20.Rd3 a6 21.Rfd1 Nc4 22.Nxc4 Rxc4&#xA;23.Qa5 Rc5 24.Qb6 Rd7 25.Rd4 Qc7 26.Qxc7 Rdxc7 27.h3 h5 28.a3&#xA;g6 29.e3 Kg7 30.Kh2 Rc4 31.Bf3 b5 32.Kg2 R7c5 33.Rxc4 Rxc4&#xA;34.Rd4 Kf8 35.Be2 Rxd4 36.exd4 Ke7 37.Na2 Bc8 38.Nb4 Kd6 39.f3&#xA;Ng8 40.h4 Nh6 41.Kf2 Nf5 42.Nc2 f6 43.Bd3 g5 44.Bxf5 Bxf5&#xA;45.Ne3 Bb1 46.b4 gxh4 47.Ng2 hxg3 48.Kxg3 Ke6 49.Nf4+ Kf5&#xA;50.Nxh5 Ke6 51.Nf4+ Kd6 52.Kg4 Bc2 53.Kh5 Bd1 54.Kg6 Ke7&#xA;55.Nxd5+ Ke6 56.Nc7+ Kd7 57.Nxa6 Bxf3 58.Kxf6 Kd6 59.Kf5 Kd5&#xA;60.Kf4 Bh1 61.Ke3 Kc4 62.Nc5 Bc6 63.Nd3 Bg2 64.Ne5+ Kc3 65.Ng6&#xA;Kc4 66.Ne7 Bb7 67.Nf5 Bg2 68.Nd6+ Kb3 69.Nxb5 Ka4 70.Nd6 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1485" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2017-07-01T08:38:18.133" LastActivityDate="2017-07-01T08:38:18.133" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17955" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17942" CreationDate="2017-07-01T12:31:01.563" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is not a single opening called the Kings Indian Defence defined by Nf6,g6,Bg7. There are some very different developments, and if you play KID you must be comfortable with all of them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A. Black plays ..e5 and ..exd if permitted. The Bg7 is then a key player in a Q-side attack, probably involving an open b-file. See some famous Bronstein games. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B. Black plays ..c5 instead of ..e5 (eg against the Four Pawns Attack) Again the KB controls the dark squares and should be preserved. Sometimes not even given up for a Rook.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;C. Black plays ..e5 and White closes the center with d5. This is the case where Blacks ambitions are on the K-side. The KB has already played a role by encouraging White to close the center. It may become a liabiity in the endgame, and is often exchanged for Whites QB to allow the Black Knights and major pieces to penetrate the weak dark squares. If White avoids this, the KB may become a strong attacker itself via h6 and f4 or e3. If those squares are blocked, then f6, h4, g3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Correct handing of the KI Bishop is crucial but seldom simple.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastActivityDate="2017-07-01T12:31:01.563" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17956" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17825" CreationDate="2017-07-01T13:19:28.607" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/BnhR4.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/BnhR4.png&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;You can add a new variation by entering any legal move.  If the variation is not already listed, both will add it for you, Chessbase does ask beforehand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The arrows are drawn by holding down the &quot;alt&quot; key and dragging the mouse between squares.  The colored squares are made by holding down the &quot;alt&quot; key and clicking a square.  The default color is green, holding down the &quot;ctrl&quot; key changes it to yellow, and the &quot;shift&quot; key for red. All require the &quot;alt&quot; key to be held down.  To remove the markings, repeat the procedure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Winboard has a feature that automatically draws an arrow indicating the last move made.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All markings remain.  If you return to any move, any markings you made are still present.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although you can chose a variation by moving the piece, these programs allow you to use the cursor keys to obtain the same thing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12449" LastActivityDate="2017-07-01T13:19:28.607" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17957" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-07-01T13:22:02.913" Score="6" ViewCount="3575" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't know very much about chess beyond the rules but I enjoy programming and am trying to write a chess engine. I recently found this evaluation function: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Simplified+evaluation+function&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Simple Evaluation Function&lt;/a&gt;. What would be the best way to improve on what has been done there?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13669" LastActivityDate="2017-07-21T14:53:55.987" Title="How to write a chess evaluation function?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;evaluation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17958" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17957" CreationDate="2017-07-01T14:05:27.880" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT for comment&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The most important by far is the material count and PST already discussed in your link. You won't go anywhere unless your engine can count materials properly. Other than that, the common knowledge such as rook behind a passed pawn, castled king, pawn majority and mobility are important. Your human knowledge to chess should be sufficient.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;ORIGINAL&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The best way to improve it is to study the Stockfish source code. Read the comments, and study the implementation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Code your engine, make it work with a simple evaluation function. Gradually and slowly apply Stockfish's ideas to your own engine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's &lt;strong&gt;many&lt;/strong&gt; possible improvements. I can only list some of those. I will give you a link to the Stockfish source code below.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Two bishops advantage&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Interpolate between middle game and endgame scoring&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Bonus to pawn structures (the page only gives very simple PST values) &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Calibrate the values better with a statistical model&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Castled king&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Number of squares controlled&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Number of attacking squares near the enemy's king&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Asymmetric evaluation (Stockfish doesn't do that but some engines like Chess Genius does that)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Pieces attacked by the king&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Rook behind a pawn&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Pawn on the check colour as bishop&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Mobility bonus&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Enemy checks&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Rook on semi- or open file&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Insufficient defended squares&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Passed pawn that is not blocked&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Candidate passed pawn (pawn majority)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;......&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's take some random examples from Stockfish. Please examine the source code yourself for details.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/blob/69eb391cd779223c331fb0de80392cbd323055a9/src/evaluate.cpp&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/blob/69eb391cd779223c331fb0de80392cbd323055a9/src/evaluate.cpp&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;// RookOnFile[semiopen/open] contains bonuses for each rook when there is no&#xA;// friendly pawn on the rook file.&#xA;const Score RookOnFile[] = { S(20, 7), S(45, 20) };&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;// ThreatByMinor/ByRook[attacked PieceType] contains bonuses according to&#xA;// which piece type attacks which one. Attacks on lesser pieces which are&#xA;// pawn-defended are not considered.&#xA;const Score ThreatByMinor[PIECE_TYPE_NB] = {&#xA;  S(0, 0), S(0, 33), S(45, 43), S(46, 47), S(72, 107), S(48, 118)&#xA;};&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;// Scale down bonus for candidate passers which need more than one&#xA;// pawn push to become passed or have a pawn in front of them.&#xA;if (!pos.pawn_passed(Us, s + pawn_push(Us)) || (pos.pieces(PAWN) &amp;amp; forward_bb(Us, s)))&#xA;        mbonus /= 2, ebonus /= 2;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="8472" LastEditDate="2017-07-03T16:44:56.007" LastActivityDate="2017-07-03T16:44:56.007" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17959" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-07-01T14:23:45.043" Score="6" ViewCount="670" Body="&lt;p&gt;During a long chess game, it's difficult to maintain an emotional balance. In some positions we feel comfortable, and in other uncomfortable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But, do you have some tips to stay emotionally balanced? And more important, any tip to enjoy the game and maintain the competitivity ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13132" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T19:57:05.367" Title="Tips to enjoy a tournament" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;psychology&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17961" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-07-02T11:34:11.617" Score="0" ViewCount="380" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recently played the game where I was playing black and during end game I had queen and rook remaining and white had queen and two pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I thought since I had more material, it would be easy for me to win the game but white kept checking me with his queen which left me with no option to sacrifice the rook to avoid draw. But this action got me in a position of losing but fortunately I managed to escape with a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/livechess/game?id=2183712648&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.chess.com/livechess/game?id=2183712648&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]  &#xA;[Event &quot;Live Chess&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Chess.com&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2017.07.02&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;rasimibrahimoqlu&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;111YearsOld&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1/2-1/2&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;B40&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;1229&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;1101&quot;]&#xA;[TimeControl &quot;900+10&quot;]&#xA;[EndTime &quot;4:11:48 PDT&quot;]&#xA;[Termination &quot;Game drawn by stalemate&quot;]&#xA;[CurrentPosition &quot;7k/7P/5PK1/8/8/8/8/8 b - - 0 71&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e6 2.Nf3 c5 3.d4 Qc7 4.Bd3 h6 5.O-O a6 6.Re1 d6 7.d5 Bd7 8.dxe6 Bxe6 9.e5 b5 10.c4 b4 11.Bf4 d5 12.cxd5 Bxd5 13.Nbd2 Nc6 14.Ne4 O-O-O 15.Qc1 f6 16.Bxa6+ Kb8 17.Nxc5 Bxc5 18.Qxc5 fxe5 19.Qb5+ Ka7 20.Rac1 exf4 21.Nd4 Nge7 22.Rxe7 Qxe7 23.Nxc6+ Bxc6 24.Qxc6 Rd7 25.h3 Rhd8 26.Qa4 Rc7 27.Be2+ Kb8 28.Bf3 Rxc1+ 29.Kh2 Qa7 30.Qxb4+ Kc8 31.Bg4+ Rd7 32.Qxf4 Rc7 33.Qf8+ Kb7 34.Qb4+ Qb6 35.Qe4+ Ka7 36.Qa4+ Kb8 37.Bxd7 Qd6+ 38.g3 Qxd7 39.Qb4+ Kc8 40.a4 Rb7 41.Qf8+ Kc7 42.b4 Qxa4 43.Qxg7+ Kb6 44.Qxh6+ Ka7 45.Qe3+ Rb6 46.h4 Qxb4 47.g4 Qxg4 48.Qe7+ Ka8 49.Qd8+ Rb8 50.Qa5+ Kb7 51.Qb5+ Kc8 52.Qc6+ Kd8 53.Qd6+ Kc8 54.Qc6+ Kd8 55.Qd6+ Qd7 56.Qxb8+ Ke7 57.Qe5+ Qe6 58.Qg5+ Kd7 59.Qg7+ Kd6 60.Qg3+ Kd7 61.f4 Qe2+ 62.Kh3 Qe6+ 63.Qg4 Qxg4+ 64.Kxg4 Ke6 65.Kg5 Kf7 66.h5 Kg7 67.f5 Kh7 68.h6 Kh8 69.Kg6 Kg8 70.f6 Kh8 71.h7  1/2-1/2  &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How could I have won this endgame?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13680" LastEditorUserId="9025" LastEditDate="2017-07-02T16:04:31.360" LastActivityDate="2017-08-01T22:32:48.367" Title="How to win against queen with queen+rook, avoiding the draw with multiple checks" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17962" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17959" CreationDate="2017-07-02T11:52:29.067" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I find that first of all it pays to be well rested before I play.  Opening preparation for various contingencies helps inspire confidence.  Some anxiety before the game is natural, but once I start to play, that seems to dissipate.  I try to play quickly but soundly, not falling behind on the clock.  A sense of panic is less likely to occur if you don't feel pressed for time.  I initially look for obvious things, like unprotected pieces, then simple tactics, for both players.  If the position is very complex, I try to make sound decisions and not see imaginary threats.  If I can't see a combination, I don't try to defend against it.  If there's something there that I can't see, so be it.  I'll learn thereby and hopefully be better prepared for a future game.  I keep in mind that some losses are inevitable and are not the end of the world.  If I find that I have to stand up occasionally during a game to stay alert, I do that.  I try to keep in perspective that it's a game and not of overwhelming significance in the great scheme of things.  If you play regularly and try to apply the general principles throughout the game, progress is inevitable over time.  Chess is to be enjoyed, so I try not to let anything detract from that attitude.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastActivityDate="2017-07-02T11:52:29.067" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17963" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17961" CreationDate="2017-07-02T14:56:28.310" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In general, if you are materially superior, you should try to trade down into a winning ending. Your extra rook in this situation against your opponent's queen and two unconnected pawns should normally have been enough for you to win.  Unfortunately, in your game the queen was too far away to help support your rook, and you had to permit a draw on moves 52 through 55 by triple repetition. Giving up your rook instead at that point should have ultimately led to a lost king and pawn ending for you after you allowed the queen trade.  You were fortunate to get the draw then.  Your taking the &quot;g&quot; pawn on move 47 led to that particular situation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastEditorUserId="7657" LastEditDate="2017-07-02T15:46:36.257" LastActivityDate="2017-07-02T15:46:36.257" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17965" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17961" CreationDate="2017-07-02T22:15:45.707" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You were actually winning until &lt;code&gt;49. Rb8&lt;/code&gt; (then it's just a perpetual check). The easiest way out of the checks was running down the a-file with your king (at least to a5 or a4), because you &lt;strong&gt;must&lt;/strong&gt; use your queen for defense, one rook isn't enough.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another piece of advice is not to exchange queens when being 2 pawns down (I saw that you even offered it few moves before it actually happened). You have 100x bigger chance to draw the game in queen's ending than in a pawn's ending.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13055" LastActivityDate="2017-07-02T22:15:45.707" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17966" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8423" CreationDate="2017-07-03T00:19:48.877" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not sure if this question is still relevant … :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have looked up this information on &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess24.com/en/watch/live-tournaments/tataSteelMasters2015/13/1/1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chess24.com's broadcast page&lt;/a&gt; for that event. They are usually in direct contact to the organizers and their &lt;em&gt;Information&lt;/em&gt; tab is relatively reliable. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to that page the tiebreak rules were as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Points scored&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Direct encounter&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonneborn%E2%80%93Berger_score&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Sonneborn-Berger&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Most games played with Black&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Rating&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Keep in mind this is from a secondary source. If you want to be sure, ask the organizers. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8472" LastActivityDate="2017-07-03T00:19:48.877" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17967" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-07-03T02:28:27.347" Score="-2" ViewCount="194" Body="&lt;p&gt;Recently the U.S. mens' and womens' chess championships were concluded.  Is there any legitimate reason why in this enlightened age women still have to have their own championship?  Women are obviously as intelligent, not to mention as competitive, as men.  If it were a physical activity where strength were involved, it might begin to make sense, but since chess is a mental activity, what's the point of  having separate venues for men and women?  Judit Polgar, who to her credit would not participate in womens' tournaments, has proven the folly of this apparently sexist practice. Why aren't the powers that be paying attention?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastActivityDate="2017-07-03T08:05:39.013" Title="Why is there a women's championship" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2017-07-03T11:11:25.967" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17968" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17959" CreationDate="2017-07-03T04:38:26.260" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are quite a few things to do to improve your results as well as enjoy the tournament. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the physical side stay well rested and well hydrated during your game. Eat plenty but keep it healthy. When it's not your move walk around and look at other boards, resting your tired eyes and getting the blood circulating. Do a light exercise in the morning before your games even start. Lastly if you didn't sleep well maybe have some caffeine ready to go.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for mentality, don't worry about anything except having interesting, exciting games you can show your chess friends when you get back from the tournament. Win or loss, make sure you play what you think are the best moves, even if they get very complex. Don't look at your opponents rating just briefly glance enough to see your board color and the table you're playing at. Knowing their rating and letting it distract you won't let you make better chess moves over the board. Keep your entire focus on the game you are playing. Once you finish a game, win or loss, don't think about it too much and relax. You just played a physically exhausting game, recupe the best you can and focus on getting your energy back. As long as you tried your best that's all that matters. Results are just check marks for one side or another, what really matters is being brave and showing determination to play the best move you can see, and improving your understanding using those games once the tournament ends.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At least I try to do all these things when I play tournament chess, I've even come first in my section a number of times.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9627" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T19:55:02.043" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T19:55:02.043" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="17969" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17967" CreationDate="2017-07-03T08:05:39.013" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;As like there is 'Under 18', 'Zone', 'District', 'State', 'Country', 'Continent' people can be partitioned into different categories.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If there is no category, there will be same winners and any game will be boring to watch/play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is not superiority of any gender or category for the game of chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As bof said in comment it can be an effort to increase women's participation in organised chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And in general it is just a category(named female in gender) of players allowed to play for the championship.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5801" LastActivityDate="2017-07-03T08:05:39.013" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17970" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8608" CreationDate="2017-07-03T10:29:53.757" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://e2-e4.online/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;E2-E4 online pairing program&lt;/a&gt; is now available for everyone.&#xA;Previously it was used organizers for pairing and to show results in a real time in Russia - chessresults.ru project. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This program can be used on any kind of devices, but especially it designed for mobile devices. Arbiters/trainers with tablets can manage chess tournament much more effectively and faster.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are three pairing systems: Swiss (based on JaVaFo), Round-robin and Manual. To figure out all features, its better to see &lt;a href=&quot;http://e2-e4.online/manager-guide&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;documentation&lt;/a&gt; which isn't ready yet, but this lack will disappear soon. And if someone wants to translate program to your own language, so you are welcome :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13685" LastActivityDate="2017-07-03T10:29:53.757" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17971" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17959" CreationDate="2017-07-03T13:29:05.333" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;My tips to enjoy long game tournament matches:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I faced this situation many times.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I play short timed games(5-20 mins) more than long games. But in some tournaments we have to play long games. In that situation I will use opponent's time(not more than 5 mins) to think well that what will be his/her move and decide what will be the best respond move for me. It will work 80% for me. In that case I will walk around and sing some melody song(note: which only I can hear), drink little water and just see other board people face expressions(not the board to confuse with mine).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then after some time I will resume back to my board and get back to normal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hence I won't have pressure more than 5 minutes and I will get my mind relaxed often.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5801" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T19:55:24.943" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T19:55:24.943" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="17972" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-07-03T17:49:31.507" Score="7" ViewCount="620" Body="&lt;p&gt;Since the ChessBase website is rather unclear, I would like help regarding a few issues:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have a few questions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What is the main differences between the Big Database and the Opening Encyclopedia?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Does the Opening Encyclopedia require purchase of ChessBase separately, or is it a program in of itself?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Does either of these below products require a DVD player or is there a downloadable version?&#xA;ChessBase, Big Database, Opening Encyclopedia&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12953" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T20:31:35.443" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T20:31:53.493" Title="Chessbase products - difference" Tags="&lt;database&gt;&lt;chessbase&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="17973" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17972" CreationDate="2017-07-03T19:00:47.343" Score="1" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://shop.chessbase.com/en/products/big_database_2017&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Big Database&lt;/a&gt; is a large (6.8 million) collection of unannotated games. &lt;a href=&quot;http://shop.chessbase.com/en/products/opening_encyclopedia_2017&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Opening Encyclopedia&lt;/a&gt; has slightly fewer games (probably games of lower quality are left out), but also contains 6000 opening surveys, 85 000 annotated games, and opening articles from older issues of ChessBase Magazine.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It seems Opening Encyclopedia comes with ChessBase Reader 2013 included. This lets you access the whole content of the Opening Encyclopedia, but it doesn't have the full functionality of ChessBase 14. With the Reader you cannot modify the bases or add your own games and analysis. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;All the products you mention are available to buy and download from &lt;a href=&quot;http://shop.chessbase.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;ChessBase Shop&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1485" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2017-07-03T19:50:49.207" LastActivityDate="2017-07-03T19:50:49.207" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17974" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9925" CreationDate="2017-07-03T22:13:50.700" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some kids like to visualize boxes.  This is especially good when doing a pencil and paper activity x-ing all the spots a knight could jump.  Good for kids that don't get that an L can be backwards or any direction or how long the legs of the L are.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Draw a box around the knight through all the squares touching the knight (it can't go there but will jump through there).  Now draw a bigger box one step out through all the outer squares touching the ones in the first box (2 steps from the knight).  It can go to all the opposite color squares on the big outer box.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13690" LastActivityDate="2017-07-03T22:13:50.700" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17975" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9925" CreationDate="2017-07-04T01:00:12.693" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The player looks at an area of the board where an extra bishop would be helpful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Count three (long) squares from the knight in all four directions. Draw a diamond. The knight's sword is not sharp, so the corners go away.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now you have your portable bishop creator.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The knight is an esoteric object that casts a (circular) shadow of influence. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/NuO2C.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/NuO2C.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Knights are a known resource when the center of the board is closed. Their circle of influence can significantly increase the strength of pieces in hard-to-reach corners of the board. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In an open game like the one above, a knight still benefits from being in the middle. (Where does the white knight cast its shadow?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13147" LastActivityDate="2017-07-04T01:00:12.693" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17976" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17979" CreationDate="2017-07-04T01:24:51.043" Score="4" ViewCount="850" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Learning to trust your intuition is an important part of developing as a strong player. If you sacrifice and you are wrong, you will probably lose. On the other hand, &lt;strong&gt;if you do not sacrifice and you are wrong, you might be able to draw.&lt;/strong&gt; - &lt;em&gt;Mike Henebry&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have realized that I am a sharp player. I benefit quickly from lines where a mistake by either side can quickly end the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are some lines which...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;give sharp middle games?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;are easy to transition to?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;lead to open lines&lt;/strong&gt;?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lines like the Sveshnikov Sicilian that favor creative over principled play. Rules to be broken. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13147" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-07-04T20:21:52.497" LastActivityDate="2017-07-04T20:21:52.497" Title="How can I play sharp in positional openings (English, Closed Sicilian, Giuoco Pianissimo)?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;attack&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17979" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17976" CreationDate="2017-07-04T07:23:13.210" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;First of all, you must build an opening repertoire. One as White, one against e4, and one against d4. As a sharp player, I suggest you &lt;strong&gt;always&lt;/strong&gt; play 1.e4 as White, the Sicilian Defence against 1.e4, and the King's Indian against 1.d4. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you are white, I'm sure you won't get to play the English (since &lt;strong&gt;you&lt;/strong&gt; are the one to choose not to play it!). If he responds with Sicilian, make it open. If he responds with French or Caro and you really want to open lines, exchange pawns. If he responds with 1...e5, I suggest you to go to the Italian. Avoid Giuoco Pianissimo with the Evans Gambit or even the Italian Gambit! If he responds with anything else, build up a big pawn center and crush him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, when you are playing the Sicilian, I know that some of your opponents does not play d4 and give you the position you want (this is my own experience). Therefore, I have prepared a setup if he does not open the position. That is, Nf6, Bg7, e6, d6, g6, Nbd7, a6, b5, Bb7, Qb6/Qc7, Rc8/Rd8, c5-c4, Nc5, and so on. Break with d6-d5 if possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the King's Indian, if you haven't tried it, I'm sure you'll love it. It's closed, but extremely aggresive, since it's a race between Q-side and K-side. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To sum up, never rely on your calculation skills alone. You &lt;strong&gt;must&lt;/strong&gt; have a plan for every opening you play, and never hope for your opponent's mistake. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;A bad plan is better than no plan at all&lt;/em&gt; - Emmanuel Lasker, 2nd World Chess Champion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13692" LastActivityDate="2017-07-04T07:23:13.210" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17980" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17959" CreationDate="2017-07-04T13:26:29.190" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There can be many ways where you can enjoy a tournament depending upon the number of participants, the weather, which influences a lot especially in India, how many of your friends are playing, the number of rounds, the location and many others. These are technically not the original parameters, but definitely to some extent factors . &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The natural way to enjoy a tournament is to enjoy playing chess and observing the chess games of others. You need to love the game more and more, and watching a game between two players should be a treat. If you have friends talking about chess history, different openings, who is the best chess player, strengths and weaknesses, and exchanging of ideas can make you lively and should never tire you. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T19:57:05.367" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T19:57:05.367" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="17981" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17976" CreationDate="2017-07-04T20:17:48.517" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You may &lt;em&gt;think&lt;/em&gt; you are a sharp player and like going for tactics, but you really have to do a self-examination of your tournament games to identify your weaknesses and shore those up first and foremost, before you start assigning labels to yourself. And, I would say at your level, understanding and being able to identify tactics is the best bang for your buck for study time. Trusting your intuition is a learned behavior in chess - you develop it by playing, seeing many of positions under fire. Losing to simple tactics should get old quickly and repetition (i.e., work) will solve those holes in your game eventually. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Personally, I like the Kalashnikov Sicilian vs e4 if given the chance. It generally catches players out because they try to play it like the Sveshnikov and in general, is the wrong way to play against it. But at times I've gone from the Dragon, The Paulsen, the Sveningen, and a few other variations. I don't consider myself stylistically as a &quot;sharp&quot; player. I just try to play good moves in openings that I have some strategic understanding. If my opponent knows it better than me, I learn something. Against d4, I opt for the Dutch Defense which can give white players headaches and can get dirty looks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10233" LastActivityDate="2017-07-04T20:17:48.517" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17982" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17984" CreationDate="2017-07-05T14:05:53.033" Score="13" ViewCount="819" Body="&lt;p&gt;It seems that just every top GM is now playing the modern interpretation of the Italian Game (with c3 and d3) with an early a2 to a4 Pawn move, something that only a few years back was considered a waste of time in the best of cases. The first &quot;important&quot; game with this idea is, if I am not wrong, the Carlsen - Karjakin game from 2016 World Championship. So what is the point of this early Pawn a2 to a4 move? Just gaining space on the queenside?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-04T19:56:11.590" LastActivityDate="2020-03-04T19:57:01.870" Title="What's the point of early a2-a4 in the Modern Italian?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;pawns&gt;&lt;italian-game&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="17983" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17068" CreationDate="2017-07-05T16:25:01.163" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;As Larry Coleman Said, a premium membership on ChessTempo will allow you to do that. I would like to add that Lichess also implemented this feature in 2016. Without you knowing it, it repeats problems that you got wrong until you get them right. &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/blog/WDY6cCEAALYi5Xg2/puzzles-update?ref=WECl9SQAABW7y_74~WECl9SQAAODcy_72&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;See this blog post&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10862" LastActivityDate="2017-07-05T16:25:01.163" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17984" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17982" CreationDate="2017-07-05T17:25:39.427" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;White obviously doesn't want to give light square bishop for knight. He can waste two moves with Bb3-c2, which is the old main line. Or he can just create escape on a2, after which Na5 doesn't make much sense. It gains space while it doesn't have to be so bad to exchange the bishop after Be6, if it didn't make additional moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11609" LastActivityDate="2017-07-05T17:25:39.427" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17985" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-07-05T18:00:30.327" Score="2" ViewCount="435" Body="&lt;p&gt;I see that a few strong GMs are playing 6.h4 vs the Najdorf Sicilian. And I have also seen this move given a dubious (?!) value. Apart from its surprise value (always important in chess), I see it as a rather logical move if you want to play aggressively vs the Najdorf. What is, in your opinion, the main idea behind this variation? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastEditorUserId="8291" LastEditDate="2017-07-05T18:07:30.553" LastActivityDate="2019-10-06T14:27:12.730" Title="Is the 6.h4 Najdorf that bad?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;&lt;najdorf&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17986" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17985" CreationDate="2017-07-05T20:27:15.910" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I play the Najdorf with Black and would say that on move six White has tried almost everything: almost every legal move is a move and so are attempts like 6.h4, 6.a4 or the like.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That said, there are nevertheless basic principles and ideas that make some lines more sound (and played) than others. Historically the sharpest try to refute the Najdorf has been 6.Bg5 e6 7.f4, described in hundreds of chess monographs: however, the so-called Poisoned Pawn variation with 7...Qb6 8.Qd2 followed by either 8...Qxb2 or 8...Nc6 has somehow refuted the 6.Bg5 line as it has been worked out to a draw with correct play where White cannot really force the win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nowadays the current trends and sharpest tests go in the direction of the English attack (6.Be3 e5 7. Nb3 Be6 8.f3) or fianchetto lines (6.g3 or 6.h3, the Adam's attack) followed by a quick g4. Here the underlying idea is, no matter what line you choose, to long castle and play g4-g5 supported by the f or h pawns (in f3 or h3); meanwhile, Black is reacting with b5-b4-Rc8 almost all the times. This means that in order to play g4 White must support its pawn with either f3 or h3 (that are currently played as main lines, almost) to avoid any chance of tactics against the g4 pawn: in this respect h4 does not defend the g-pawn, nor does it attack any of Black's pieces, nor does it develop any (like 6.Be3 or 6.Be2 would, for instance). Nevertheless it is at the moment being tried at the GM level, the basic idea still being a pawn storm against the King side, but it is not yet a main line due to the fact that it does not pose any direct threat and gives Black the initiative with b5-b4 without the possibility of a quick g4-g5 (because White has wasted one move with 6.h4).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11726" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-10-06T14:27:12.730" LastActivityDate="2019-10-06T14:27:12.730" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="17987" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15662" CreationDate="2017-07-06T01:10:24.010" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;SPSMCDI (Superior minor piece, pawn structure, space, material, control [of key files, ranks, diagonals], development, initiative)&#xA;You can think of this as a phonetic acronym SUPPOSE MCDONALDS DIDN'T EXIST (SPSMCDI). just spell exist with an “I” instead of an “E”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13147" LastEditorUserId="3757" LastEditDate="2020-10-14T12:58:44.077" LastActivityDate="2020-10-14T12:58:44.077" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="17988" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="17989" CreationDate="2017-07-06T04:16:25.370" Score="5" ViewCount="605" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am reading a book on chess openings called &lt;em&gt;51 Chess Openings for Beginners by Bruce Albertson&lt;/em&gt; and the author uses notation like so:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol start=&quot;6&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;...†† Kxf7&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What does the &lt;code&gt;††&lt;/code&gt; mean? I know a single &lt;code&gt;†&lt;/code&gt; means &lt;em&gt;check&lt;/em&gt; however the author doesn't (to my knowledge) explain what the &lt;code&gt;††&lt;/code&gt; is meant to signify.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT&lt;/strong&gt;: here's a screenshot to provide some context of its usage &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/dCQhn.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/dCQhn.png&quot; alt=&quot;excerpt from chess book&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Qtdb6.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Qtdb6.png&quot; alt=&quot;the next page&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13665" LastEditorUserId="13665" LastEditDate="2017-07-07T04:09:54.903" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T19:53:41.647" Title="What does the †† notation mean?" Tags="&lt;notation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17989" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17988" CreationDate="2017-07-06T05:03:16.327" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;If † means check, then †† means a double check.  A double check is when two pieces give check at the same time.  For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[White &quot;NN&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;NN&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;7k/8/5Rpn/8/3Q4/8/8/7K w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;[SetUp &quot;1&quot;]&#xA;[CurrentPosition &quot;6nk/5N2/6K1/8/8/8/8/8 b - - 1 2&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Rf8++&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If this does not apply to the position in question, then you should know that †† is sometimes generically used to indicate a footnote.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2017-07-06T05:03:16.327" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17990" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17982" CreationDate="2017-07-06T05:29:03.700" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Besides giving the LSB an escape square on a2, this move is preferred than a2-a3 due to the fact that it discourages the push b7-b5, which is either to sacrifice the pawn and get an open file, or to have some queenside counterplay (usually, the kingside favors White in this opening since he has an extra move).&lt;br&gt;&#xA;In addition, a2-a3 is usually played to discourage a Knight or Bishop from using the b4 square, something that is better done via c2-c3 (since it also prepares a central breakthrough). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to keep the bishop on the strong diagonal while slowing down Black's queenside expansion, a2-a4 is definitely a strong choice. However, a2-a3 is probably better if you have a knight on c3 (instead of a pawn) since it keeps off Black from using the strong b4 square. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13692" LastActivityDate="2017-07-06T05:29:03.700" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17991" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-07-06T05:32:10.293" Score="2" ViewCount="183" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm looking for a word that represents the piece after the promotion. In a chemical reaction there are the reactants and the products. Is there an equivalent word for product in promotion?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(In case I haven't make it clear: after a8=Q, is there a word for that queen?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit&lt;/strong&gt;: I was looking for a generic term (preferably one word) for the resulting &lt;em&gt;piece&lt;/em&gt;, not a specific type like queen or knight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Summarizing some suggestions&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The following suggestions are from comments and answers (thank you all) at the time I'm editing this: &quot;promoted piece&quot;, &quot;promotee&quot;, and &quot;new piece&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13705" LastEditorUserId="13705" LastEditDate="2017-07-07T16:10:27.753" LastActivityDate="2017-07-07T16:10:27.753" Title="A word for the resulting piece of a promotion?" Tags="&lt;pawn-promotion&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="7" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17992" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17982" CreationDate="2017-07-06T10:04:25.327" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;a2-a4 does quite a few things.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;First it makes a Square for the Bishop on a2.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Restricts b5 from Black on most occasions.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;a3 move is quite a timid one which loses a tempo even if White decides to play a4 later on.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Sometimes the Black's Bishop is on b6 where a4 move attacks it.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;a2-a4 marks the beginning of Q-side play from White.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If you see games of Carlsen and Kasparov they have done Rook uplift to bring the Rook to the K-side.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-04T19:57:01.870" LastActivityDate="2020-03-04T19:57:01.870" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="17993" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17988" CreationDate="2017-07-06T10:07:09.523" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Single plus sign means a check. Here the king can move, or a piece can interpose (place itself in between the checking piece and the king) to prevent the check, or the checking piece can be captured.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Double plus means a double check. Here the king has to move only.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T19:53:41.647" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T19:53:41.647" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="17994" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17991" CreationDate="2017-07-06T10:39:13.337" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Since I don't reckon any terms describing such things, why don't we create them? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;New born Queen = Princess&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  A young Horse/Knight = Foal&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  A junior Bishop = Suffragan&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  A smaller Rook = Crow  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know I will face a lot of disagreement, and I'm not sure if people will ever use these stupid terms. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13692" LastActivityDate="2017-07-06T10:39:13.337" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17995" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15662" CreationDate="2017-07-06T10:50:10.247" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;My experience shows me that in order to apply chess strategies during the game, remembering them alone is often not the main issue. There is a gap between just remembering a strategy and being able to apply it during your game. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to improve your knowledge of imbalances, I suggest that you set up a few training positions from a book (or from your own games) and that you try to go through the list of imbalances in your particular position. You can even do that by looking at the book with the complete imbalances list if it helps. In the end, if you are unsure about some points on the imbalances list in your position, you can ask somebody (maybe a trainer or a friend) or even ask the computer to show you some example lines by playing moves on the board. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By setting up training positions this way, you will not only learn to remember the imbalances better, but more importantly you will understand them on a deeper level. This will allow you to apply them better in future games. Important is that you spend a sufficient amount of time on each position (e.g. 10 minutes) and that you don't already go to the next position after 2 minutes. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If a good chess player looks at a chess board, he doesn't go through a mental list of these imbalances. Instead he already has good working knowledge of them, such that he can focus on how to improve his position upon them. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13548" LastActivityDate="2017-07-06T10:50:10.247" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17996" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17991" CreationDate="2017-07-06T12:38:39.213" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is not clear what you are after, if you are looking for a generic term describing a piece that was added in the game during the play then you seem to be after something that is not embedded in the game. There is no such word and there cannot be any because if there was such a word it would suggest that the new piece is somehow different from an equivalent piece that was there at the beginning of the game. But that is not the case the piece into which the pawn is promoted is absolutely equivalent to another piece of the same name and colour. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Occasionally it may be useful to refer to a piece that has just been added (but this you seem not to want to do). There are several reasonable suggestions in the comments I will just add that the Laws of chess use &quot;the new piece&quot; for this purpose (as in &quot;... and the effect of the new piece is immediate&quot; or &quot;...when the player's hand has released the new piece on the square of promotion...&quot;, articles 3.7.5.3 and 4.7.3, respectively). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8844" LastActivityDate="2017-07-06T12:38:39.213" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17997" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17988" CreationDate="2017-07-06T13:20:47.653" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, after your update I come to the conclusion that these signs are used by the author to mark the omission of the notation of the respective move by White. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is not a common usage of them, and I have never seen it before. It &lt;em&gt;should&lt;/em&gt; be documented somewhere at the beginning or end of the book. But I'd not be surprised  if it's not, since it doesn't reflect a healthy common sense to use the check symbol of all things for this purpose to begin with..&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13433" LastActivityDate="2017-07-06T13:20:47.653" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17998" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-07-07T13:02:08.903" Score="4" ViewCount="147" Body="&lt;p&gt;In a clock simultaneous exhibition, would the exhibitor normally be given extra time to compensate for his/her walking time from board to board? The question was prompted by a scene in a movie (the &quot;Lewis&quot; mystery series) where the exhibitor would come to each board with the opponent's move already having been made and the exhibitor's clock running, make her move and then hit the clock and move on.  Although I realize there's a skill discrepancy, it would still seem to be a distinct disadvantage to the exhibitor otherwise, particularly in a large exhibition.  I have never seen or participated in a clock &quot;simul&quot; myself, which must be relatively rare. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-02-15T09:36:01.667" LastActivityDate="2018-02-15T09:36:01.667" Title="clock simultaneous exhibition" Tags="&lt;chess-clocks&gt;&lt;simultaneous&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="17999" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17998" CreationDate="2017-07-07T14:26:51.387" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The exhibitor usually gets more time. Not really to compensate for the time walking from board to board takes, but because he potentially has all of the clocks running at the same time!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The most famous clock simultaneous exhibitions were the ones in which Kasparov took on national teams, including those of the Czech Republic and Israel. According to &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.chessbase.com/post/is-garry-kasparov-out-of-his-mind-&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this old Chessbase article&lt;/a&gt;, Kasparov had three hours for 50 moves and the Czech GMs two and a half hours per 50 moves, with half an hour added after 50 moves (he won this 5.5-2.5 over two days).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Usually the difference is larger, but I can't find a source.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2017-07-07T14:26:51.387" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18000" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4827" CreationDate="2017-07-07T23:15:25.933" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I personally like 1. d4 Nf6 because there are much more openings and traps white can use on black if he does 1. d4 d5.(for example Queen's Gambit)&#xA;Plus, you can use the Budapest Gambit (which I really like) if the opening is 1. d4 Nf6&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13712" LastActivityDate="2017-07-07T23:15:25.933" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18001" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18030" CreationDate="2017-07-08T01:48:50.303" Score="-1" ViewCount="146" Body="&lt;p&gt;Towards the very end of this video that shows a talk or lecture by Mikhail Tal from 1988:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://youtu.be/5bb6e0gFdS4&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://youtu.be/5bb6e0gFdS4&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;during question and answer time from the audience, someone introduces himself as &quot;Nepomnyaschiy, engineer&quot;.  It's at about the 1:13:30 mark of the video.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this possibly some relation to Ian Nepomniachtchi, or is it just a coincidence?  (I'm assuming the name is an English phonetic transliteration, and could be spelled either way...)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I just happened to see this and was surprised, as I've never heard of anyone with that name before (then again, I don't live in or near Russia, so that might be why - not sure how common the name is...), and thought I'd ask about it just because it's an interesting question....&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7147" LastActivityDate="2017-07-13T16:03:21.547" Title="Is the person in this video any relation to Ian Nepomniachtchi?" Tags="&lt;famous-players&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2017-07-14T13:50:03.837" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18002" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17885" CreationDate="2017-07-08T09:15:07.167" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As literally everyone hated this pseudo-novelty, Grand Chess Tour reacted on some guy's tweet 'I see! I imagine the results are more decisive with the delay?'.&#xA;GCT answered that 'Yes and increment is confusing for spectators who aren't familiar with chess clocks', which is ridiculously wrong.&#xA;I had a much harder time explaining this strange delay rule to my non-chess-players colleagues than to explain them the simple increment one. I am not even sure I understand it properly myself, and I guess I am not the only one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another suggestion was that replacing increment with delay would limit the amount of time a game can last. But you could simply switch to 3min+2s if that is the real goal. I think the real goal behind that was to try to get the tournament to a format acceptable for TV broadcast, which is obviously what all tournament sponsors are dreaming of (money money).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But the most likely reason was to catch the players in situation they aren't familiar with and create time trouble, to make the games and results more spectacular and decisive. Again, that serves the goal of making the sport more exciting to the global audience to hope for TV broadcast.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See this &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess24.com/en/read/news/11-conclusions-from-the-2017-leuven-gct&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;article from chess24&lt;/a&gt; where they discuss on this (point number 4)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4424" LastActivityDate="2017-07-08T09:15:07.167" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18003" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4827" CreationDate="2017-07-08T21:08:00.747" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a recent book on 1.d4 d5 2.c4 c5 by Alexei Bezgodov. The idea is to liquidate the center pawns and get an open game. Inspired by the book I play it a lot as Black in my online blitz games with good results. Check out &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.newinchess.com/the-double-queen-s-gambit&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.newinchess.com/the-double-queen-s-gambit&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3456" LastActivityDate="2017-07-08T21:08:00.747" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18005" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5208" CreationDate="2017-07-09T02:59:09.813" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I joined lichess, &lt;a href=&quot;http://lichess.org&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;onlinechess/strategy&lt;/a&gt;. You can play on your browser or download the app on android. There are puzzles and different types of game play, with other players or AI. Rules, strategy, practice, watch others play. It's pretty cool, might be worth your time to check it out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user13716" LastActivityDate="2017-07-09T02:59:09.813" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18007" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18008" CreationDate="2017-07-09T19:42:28.540" Score="10" ViewCount="1304" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is taken from a rapid game where my opponent threw me by playing 8. g3, coming out of book in the 4. e3 Slav:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[StartPly &quot;17&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;  1. Nf3            Nf6           &#xA;  2. c4             c6            &#xA;  3. d4             d5            &#xA;  4. e3             Bf5           &#xA;  5. Nc3            e6            &#xA;  6. Nh4            Bg6           &#xA;  7. Nxg6           hxg6          &#xA;  8. g3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I didn't keep a gamescore (it was at work during a lunch break), but I remember at this point I could think of no constructive plan at all (I played 8...Bb4 and ended up playing 2 knights vs. 2 bishops with a cramped game).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is, &lt;strong&gt;what should black have played on move 8 and why?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T19:51:31.280" Title="How do I respond to 8. g3?! in the 4. e3 Slav?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;planning&gt;&lt;slav-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18008" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18007" CreationDate="2017-07-09T20:48:04.850" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;I see no reason to ?! mark. 8. g3 is good book move and standard way to limit opponent's play with open h-file. The most flexible move by far is 8...Nbd7 after it. After 9.Bg2 dxc4 should be good. But again, 4...Bf5 is no refutation of slow Slav and 5...Bg6 is in my opinion less challenging than 5...Be4, while there's nothing wrong with 8.g3. Don't expect you have guaranteed equality in this line. Once I played the NN vs. BB game in similar line and it is suffer, even if computer says it is OK. I was always somewhat worried about 4...Bf5 as white, but as black, I played 4...Bg4 every single time :-) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11609" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T19:51:31.280" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T19:51:31.280" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="18009" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18007" CreationDate="2017-07-10T08:25:52.877" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is nothing to worry about when an opponent makes a surprise move in the opening and you are unaware of it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;g3 is not a move that you would be blown away by it. Just follow basics to develop your pieces. Black has the open h-file. Nbd7 and then a centre break of e5 should follow next course. The bishop on f8 comes to b4 or d6 and knight comes to e4. I think black has a better piece activity and should have gone on to winning the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T19:51:17.920" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T19:51:17.920" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="18010" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-07-10T10:03:32.570" Score="1" ViewCount="251" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm wondering if a student can disappoint their chess coach if they lose to many games for a long duration of time or any other reasons. What have been your experience as a student or teacher?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3149" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T19:49:54.107" Title="Do chess coaches ever get disappointed with their students?" Tags="&lt;coach&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2017-07-15T22:49:56.490" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18011" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18010" CreationDate="2017-07-10T13:06:59.267" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I, as a teacher of elementary age students, don't get disappointed in the students' results.  I only get disappointed if the student doesn't try.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12449" LastActivityDate="2017-07-10T13:06:59.267" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18012" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18010" CreationDate="2017-07-10T13:10:59.537" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am not a Chess Coach though but surely a coach will get disappointed if the student commits the same mistake over a period of time, and does not show discipline enough to improve his weaknesses. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A coach will get disappointed if a student is unworthy to take any lessons and does not show interest in chess. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A coach may get disappointed if a brilliant student is unable to pay his fees on time. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As students are a reflection of their teacher's training, and learning, a coach will want his students to shine so that his name also shines along with them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There can be other different cases but the above ones are most common.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T19:49:54.107" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T19:49:54.107" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="18013" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-07-10T15:10:21.030" Score="0" ViewCount="2217" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can't find anywhere what the rating of the Mac's native Chess app is at each level. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a Chess app for Mac that shows the strength bar during the game? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10523" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-07-10T16:28:30.480" LastActivityDate="2017-08-12T16:27:52.433" Title="What is the native Mac Chess app's rating? Is there a good alternative?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;mac&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18015" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-07-10T20:52:11.853" Score="3" ViewCount="86" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would like to obtain a list of best games per tournament (World Chess Championships, Chess World Cup, ...).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By &quot;best&quot; I mean games that either have won a brilliancy prize, or games that are considered by some other participants in the tournament as a best/most beautiful game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13731" LastActivityDate="2017-07-11T15:03:26.570" Title="Where can I find lists of best games per tournament?" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;history&gt;&lt;database&gt;&lt;world-championship&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18016" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-07-11T00:31:39.937" Score="2" ViewCount="1134" Body="&lt;p&gt;A decade ago, it was clear that if you wanted to play against titled players, ICC was the best way to go. With the rising popularity of free chess servers such as lichess.org and chess.com, is ICC still the best place to play chess if you are looking for games with masters? Does chess.com have more masters/day that visit their site? I suspect that that there are significantly more titled players that play on chess.com these days but since I don't have an ICC account, I cannot verify. Anyone have any thoughts on this? Thanks. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3872" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T19:48:01.350" Title="What is the best chess site for strong players?" Tags="&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;online-blitz&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="2" ClosedDate="2017-07-13T12:04:52.260" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18017" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18041" CreationDate="2017-07-11T01:04:37.257" Score="6" ViewCount="3752" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am building a chess engine from scratch using bitboards and, so far I am able to generate pawns moves. But, I am stuck on what should I do after finding all possible moves for pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Right now the current function is generating QUIETS moves pushing pawns ONE or TWO squares. Later i will deal with en passant and validations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is, Am I doing right generating all pawns moves at once? And, I would like to know what is the right approach of storing the moves? What information need to saved and what data type should I use?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Here my code (C++):&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;#include &quot;moves.h&quot;&#xA;&#xA;//Pawns moves&#xA;Bitboard single_push(Color color, Bitboard pawns, Bitboard empty) { // EmptyBoardBB&#xA;   return color == WHITE ?  north(pawns) &amp;amp; empty : &#xA;                            south(pawns) &amp;amp; empty;&#xA;}&#xA;&#xA;// also used for en-passant &#xA;Bitboard double_push(Color color, Bitboard pawns, Bitboard empty) {&#xA;   return color == WHITE ?  north_north(pawns) &amp;amp; empty &amp;amp; Rank4BB : &#xA;                            south_south(pawns) &amp;amp; empty &amp;amp; Rank5BB;&#xA;}&#xA;&#xA;// Right now just testing pushing pawns 1-2 squares&#xA;Bitboard generate_pawn_moves(Color color, GenType type, Bitboard Us, Bitboard Them)&#xA;{&#xA;    Bitboard bb, empty;&#xA;    empty = ~Them;&#xA;&#xA;    if (type == QUIETS) &#xA;    {&#xA;        bb = single_push(color, Us, empty);&#xA;    }&#xA;&#xA;    return bb;&#xA;}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks in advance for any info that can take me on the right path.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13328" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-09-21T13:59:16.517" LastActivityDate="2020-08-18T20:03:26.260" Title="What's the right approach of storing moves generated using bitboards?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;programming&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="18018" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18017" CreationDate="2017-07-11T02:55:55.377" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessprogramming.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess Programming Wiki&lt;/a&gt; has all the resources you should need.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Since you have all the pawns represented, it makes sense to generate all their moves at once.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The way to store the moves is what you are most comfortable with.  The basic information you need is just the two squares involved.  Back in the old days, people would compress all the information into an integer.  Seven bits would represent the &amp;quot;from&amp;quot; square (0-63), and seven bits for the &amp;quot;to&amp;quot; square.  Most would include extra information to make it easier to actually make and store the move.  These include:  promotion piece (4), EP (1), EP possible (1 or 4), captured piece (4), castling (1 or 4).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I prefer the old methods of representing the board, since it's easier for me to visualize the board and methods.  However, Stockfish is one of the best engines and you can freely download its source.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12449" LastEditorUserId="24493" LastEditDate="2020-08-18T20:03:26.260" LastActivityDate="2020-08-18T20:03:26.260" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="18019" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18016" CreationDate="2017-07-11T07:04:32.750" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Honestly I believe that Chess.com is the best site for strong players and to gently and steadily climb up the ladder according to your rating. What I have witnessed in Chess.com is that there is a background algorithm which works for everyone and when you ask for a game it would exactly pair you up in a range which would be +400 &amp;amp; -400 rating points. You can even customize it according to your wish. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The benefit is if you are a 1800+ player, it would show up on the dashboard and other players would also be observing your game which is quite encouraging and you never get someone who would be too much below your rating. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Moreover, the site has infinite material resources about openings and middlegame understanding from top-level players, which makes it a great deal if you want serious progress. Even there are a lot of advertisements and strong players play there regularly, the UI is also superb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T19:48:01.350" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T19:48:01.350" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="18020" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18016" CreationDate="2017-07-11T15:01:42.327" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Playchess.com, hands down, the best by test. The best interface - essentially the same as ChessBase - whereas ICC is clunky, and Chess.com is increasingly for kids.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At Playchess, 2000 players play like 2000 players, and 1400's play like 1400's. I find the rating strengths fairly equivalent to OTB tournament strength.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10233" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T19:45:40.857" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T19:45:40.857" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="18021" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18015" CreationDate="2017-07-11T15:03:26.570" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess Informant quarterly subscription gives you the best of games played in that quarter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or, The Week In Chess is the raw scores of games with no commentary and no qualifications.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10233" LastActivityDate="2017-07-11T15:03:26.570" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18022" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18013" CreationDate="2017-07-11T17:47:44.550" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Mac Chess app engine is the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sjeng_(software)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Sjeng&lt;/a&gt; engine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.sjeng.org/indexold.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;old Sjeng website&lt;/a&gt; (because Apple Chess is using the old Sjeng) is says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;For standard chess, Sjeng's rating is probably about 2450 ELO&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And I'm assuming that is at its best.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for looking at each level, there isn't much of a way to know because, beyond the 3 moves ahead area, it starts counting in seconds, and in that realm it depends on the power of the computer. The more powerful the computer, the better it plays because it can look more moves ahead in that time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;TLDR - An estimated 2450 at it's best. It's not a very powerful engine, but it can still whoop most players on it's hardest difficulty.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13735" LastActivityDate="2017-07-11T17:47:44.550" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18023" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-07-12T10:31:00.140" Score="5" ViewCount="835" Body="&lt;p&gt;I always get nervous during a chess match and that really affects my performance. I can easily beat a 1400-1500 in a friendly match but when it comes to a tournament, I can't even win against 1300s. I also lose against people with whom I have won hundreds of times in friendly games. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any tips or suggestions?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13739" LastEditorUserId="10867" LastEditDate="2017-07-13T12:04:10.283" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T19:45:23.853" Title="How can I control my nerves during chess tournaments?" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;psychology&gt;&lt;problems&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18024" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18023" CreationDate="2017-07-12T17:14:15.723" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Try playing your casual games in tournament-like setting. Use the same time control, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7534" LastActivityDate="2017-07-12T17:14:15.723" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18025" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18023" CreationDate="2017-07-12T17:24:54.503" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;First of all, as @Jimmy360 stated, you should practice with tournament-like conditions. Apply the similar time controls, touch-move rule, threefold repetition, and all those 'boring' rules if you need to. This will surely make you nervous, however, it is a good practice, since tournaments will make you nervous anyway. When you get used to it, you will know how to relax, and furthermore, treat tournaments as friendlies!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another suggestion I can give is that play in &lt;strong&gt;lots&lt;/strong&gt; of tournaments. I know it isn't possible with limited time and money, however, &lt;a href=&quot;http://chess.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chess.com&lt;/a&gt; and other chess websites have made things easier. Just play in lots of online tournaments, and you will feel that things will get easier, and you'll get used to playing under tournament atmosphere.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, I suggest you to always think twice before making a move. This is what players of your level usually fail to do. Try inspecting your games; how often do you hang pieces, or fall to forks and pins? Well, the problem is, with the added stress due to it being a tournament, we tend to forget these 'little things' more easily. Therefore, every time you play in a tournament, try to sit back, relax, take a deep breath, double-check every move, and most importantly:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt; Enjoy the game!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13692" LastActivityDate="2017-07-12T17:24:54.503" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18026" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="889" CreationDate="2017-07-12T21:03:52.433" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I play the French and the Gruenfeld against 1.d4. Both are counterattacking, that's what the French really is anyway a counter attack. So a French player will feel at home in the Gruenfeld despite its more open nature.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13741" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-07-20T18:35:25.667" LastActivityDate="2019-07-20T18:35:25.667" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="18027" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18023" CreationDate="2017-07-12T21:39:15.517" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you are losing to 1300's then you are clearly not blunder-checking your moves, perhaps because of nerves. Make that your first priority in your next tournament and your results are bound to improve. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, &quot;If I do that move what is my opponent's best reply?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2017-07-12T21:39:15.517" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18028" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18023" CreationDate="2017-07-13T08:19:42.103" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;OK, so here is an environment-related situation. What happens is your nerves crumble in the tournament hall. It is a respective scenario people face in public speaking or when children are trying to clear a mathematics paper in their school. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But there can be another way around also. Maybe against the people you play, they do not take the games seriously, and they play in a juvenile spirit, and in tournaments they focus more, and you focus less. It would be wise if you play the friendly games with a similar feeling of the tournament with equal time controls. The second thing please leave the rating aside. OK, I understand that rating is something you cannot ignore, but taking someone lightly will cost you  One of the most harmful things in Sports/Chess that when you practice casually and take tournaments seriously which should be discarded. Practice seriously and then you would see the tournaments will give the best results.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There was an instance I had read, and would like to share from Bobby Fischer's play. During the 1960's in one of the playing halls, Bobby was playing a match and suddenly the lights went off. The entire hall was in chaos but Bobby was sitting there trying to find the best move even in the dark situation. He did not join the other players, and everyone was amazed at Fischer's utmost concentration. These small things make a player better than the best among us all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T19:45:23.853" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T19:45:23.853" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="18029" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="889" CreationDate="2017-07-13T10:16:26.427" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;How about the Old Indian (1.d4, Nf6 2.c4, d6)? It is not popular at the highest levels, but I have forgotten why not, and so will most of your opponents. Of course, White might not play c4, but Im sure you did not expect an easy answer.&#xA;It can make a lot of sense to play a slightly inferior opening that you understand very well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastActivityDate="2017-07-13T10:16:26.427" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18030" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18001" CreationDate="2017-07-13T16:03:21.547" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Family name Непомнящий (&lt;em&gt;Nepomnyashchy&lt;/em&gt; or however you spell it in English) is of course not one of the most common in Russia but it is definitely not one of the rarest.&#xA;There are about 20 more or less promiment persons with this name on &lt;a href=&quot;https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9D%D0%B5%D0%BF%D0%BE%D0%BC%D0%BD%D1%8F%D1%89%D0%B8%D0%B9&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Russian Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;. So it is very unlikely that the person in Youtube video is somehow related to Ian Nepomnyashchy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8214" LastActivityDate="2017-07-13T16:03:21.547" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18031" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-07-13T19:19:41.803" Score="4" ViewCount="1325" Body="&lt;p&gt;In &lt;em&gt;Chess Psycholoyg: The Will to Win&lt;/em&gt;, William Stewart recommends playing the Stonewall Attack as white. This recommendation is one of a set of openings that are very similar and are therefore suitable for player's who don't want to memorise a lot of opening theory. (The other openings are the French Defence against 1. e4, and the Schallopp Variation of the Slav Defence against 1. d4.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the Stonewall Attack, Stewart describes the classical structure (1. d4 d5 2. e3 Nf6 3. Bd3 c6 4. f4 Nbd7 5. Nbd2 e6 6. Ngf3 Bd6 7. 0-0 0-0 8. Ne5 ...), how to play against 2. ... c5 (e.g. 1. d4 d5 2. e3 c5 3. c3 Nc6 4. dxc5 e5 5. b4 a5 5. Bb5), how to play against an early 2. ... Bf5 or 3. ... Bf5 (e.g. 1. d4 d5 2. e3 Bf5 3. c4 ...), and he recommends adapting to the King's Indian Defence with a Zukertort set-up (e.g. 1. d4 Nf6 2. e3 g6 3. Nf2 Bg7 4. b3 d6 5. Bb2 0-0 6. Be2 Nbd7 ...). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is missing, since the book is not intended as an opening handbook, is what to play after 1. d4 f5. Is it best to continue the normal Stonewall set-up or is it better to deviate, like in the case of the King's Indian Defence? (The best response may even be a totally different anti-Dutch approach, but that's a different question.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10867" LastActivityDate="2019-12-27T17:46:34.957" Title="How can a Stonewall Attack player respond to 1. ... f5?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;dutch-defense&gt;&lt;stonewall-attack&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18032" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18031" CreationDate="2017-07-14T05:43:23.027" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The game 1/2‒1/2(40) Dietze, Sebastian (2129) – Lorenz, Mark (2250) / Regionalliga NW 0506 (7.1), Bayern 2006, gave me a hint on how to proceed: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 f5 &#xA;2. f4 Nf6 3. e3 b6 4. Nf3 Bb7 5. c3 e6 &#xA;6. Bd3 Be7 7. O-O O-O  8. Nbd2 d5 9. b3 Ne4 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After ... f5 I believe its necessary to stop that pawn with 2 f4; ... Nf6 was the best continuation according with an opening report, and following the same kind of white moves e3 / c3 / Bd3 to form a wall of pawns and positon the bishop to attack on diagonal b1–h7. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Dietze played 6 Bc4 which I saw as a move different of what you have shown us, therefore I preferred Bd3 and worked out the continuation with the help of a chess engine. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I see a balanced position, similar as the positions you have shown us and with a potential advance in the queen side.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1766" LastEditorUserId="1766" LastEditDate="2017-07-14T06:13:14.750" LastActivityDate="2017-07-14T06:13:14.750" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18034" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-07-16T02:18:35.877" Score="0" ViewCount="373" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm interested to test that the atom syntax highlighter for pgn files -- &lt;a href=&quot;https://atom.io/packages/language-pgn&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://atom.io/packages/language-pgn&lt;/a&gt; -- can handle the full range of possible files.  Is there a suite of difficult test files somewhere?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also related might be this question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/15575/what-are-all-of-the-possible-tags-for-pgn&quot;&gt;What are all of the possible tags for PGN?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2119" LastActivityDate="2017-07-21T15:45:03.163" Title="Where can I find a whole bunch of complicated PGN files?" Tags="&lt;pgn&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18035" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18034" CreationDate="2017-07-16T09:22:50.467" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chessgames.com&lt;/a&gt; might be a good place.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another one is &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.top-5000.nl/pgn.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.top-5000.nl/pgn.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13619" LastActivityDate="2017-07-16T09:22:50.467" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18036" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18037" CreationDate="2017-07-16T09:46:47.760" Score="1" ViewCount="203" Body="&lt;p&gt;I asked this question in stockfishchess.org support but didn't get any response. So I'm trying to get some answers from you all. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please find the output of communication with the engine &lt;a href=&quot;http://support.stockfishchess.org/discussions/problems/8262/assets/8699536f356332751f589175b63647d95716c3fa/output.txt&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;. (It has only 8 steps.) The last best move (&lt;code&gt;bestmove c5d4 ponder f3d4&lt;/code&gt;) is not for white, but for black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Am I doing something wrong here or has engine confused for some reason? Appreciate your help to understand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Original question link: &#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://support.stockfishchess.org/discussions/problems/8262-engine-suddenly-changed-the-side&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://support.stockfishchess.org/discussions/problems/8262-engine-suddenly-changed-the-side&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13619" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2017-07-16T13:23:04.110" LastActivityDate="2017-07-16T13:23:04.110" Title="Stockfish: Engine suddenly changed the side?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;uci&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18037" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18036" CreationDate="2017-07-16T11:55:27.720" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The reason is very simple:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;position startpos moves e2e4 d7d6 d2d4 e7e6 g1f3 c8d7 f1d3 h7h6 e1g1 c7c5 f1e1 e8f8&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is invalid. The position before &lt;code&gt;e8f8&lt;/code&gt; is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/G49pu.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/G49pu.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;e8f8&lt;/code&gt; is invalid because Black has a bishop on f8. Stockfish can't play the move, so it just skip it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To Stockfish, the diagram position is the position it's thinking. The best move is &lt;code&gt;...cxd4&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2017-07-16T13:22:25.203" LastActivityDate="2017-07-16T13:22:25.203" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18038" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18040" CreationDate="2017-07-16T13:08:15.190" Score="9" ViewCount="1867" Body="&lt;p&gt;Before posting this question I went through a lot of Q&amp;amp;As on this list.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/search?q=style&quot;&gt;https://chess.stackexchange.com/search?q=style&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I still have this question without solid answers. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: I know what a chess style is, and that different players can have their own styles. My question is on the &quot;why&quot; factor. Why do we have such styles defined? Are they defined just for the sake of analysis, or are they used for something? Are they useful for players? If yes how? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How can knowing your style or others' styles be important/useful to you? Can we use that to improve ourselves? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is not a direct question. I just need some answers as per your opinion. Appreciate your ideas.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13619" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-07-17T11:05:33.883" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T19:40:16.213" Title="Why chess styles?" Tags="&lt;style&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18039" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18038" CreationDate="2017-07-16T16:20:36.280" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, I think that knowing what type of style suits you best would be helpful in winning.  If you are good at tactics, playing an open game like the Giuoco Piano where the pieces come in contact sooner would be more desirable than playing a closed one like the Queen's Gambit where a lot of maneuvering would go on before the game opened up and became more tactical. Similarly, knowing your opponent's style would be helpful in deciding what type of opening to use against him.  If he's a strong tactical player and begins with 1.e4, if tactics isn't your forte, you may want to consider something like the French or Caro-Kann rather than playing 1..., e5 and facing the Giuoco Piano, Ruy Lopez  or some gambit like the King's or Scotch.  Against 1.d4, a positional player would stick to the normal closed Queen's Gambit Declined defenses rather than something like the Budapest Gambit that opened up the game. I might add that playing open games is normally recommended for a novice to improve his tactical skills before moving on to closed games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastActivityDate="2017-07-16T16:20:36.280" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18040" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18038" CreationDate="2017-07-16T22:05:49.687" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess is not a game that solely exists in 64 squares.  Much of chess exists in our minds, and the constructs we use to process those 64 squares into beautiful and powerful games.  Naturally, some approaches work better than others.  Kasparov's approach to chess in his mind is, needless to say, quite a bit better than my mental approach to chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, as with any game, we try to learn how to grow.  We study things like end game puzzles and openings to refine our conscious approach to the game.  However, a tremendous amount of human processing goes on subconsciously.  We need ways to refine those subconscious methods as well.  This gets into the feel of the game, or the spirit of the game.  For this, we study &quot;styles.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The funny thing about the subconscious is that it's always working.  If you teach your subconscious to think a particular way about a particular chess position, it doesn't file those neural circuits away as &quot;for Chess purposes only.&quot;  It finds ways to use them in your daily life.  The dual of this is true as well.  Your subconscious will draw on how you handle your daily life to play chess.  If there was only one way to live life, there might be only one style of chess worth playing.  However, there's more ways to live life than I can count, and each brings a different set of tools to the chessboard.  The best learn how to bring their Chess life and their external life into harmony, so that they can use both in all circumstances.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So we study styles to see things that have worked for other people in their lives.  Then, we adapts those styles to work within our own lives.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6885" LastActivityDate="2017-07-16T22:05:49.687" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18041" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18017" CreationDate="2017-07-17T06:48:43.063" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Q1: Should I generate all pawn moves at once?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes. There's no reason not to do that. But... your code wouldn't work because you're returning a bitboard in your function. You should instead return a list, Stockfish does that:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/blob/master/src/movegen.cpp&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/blob/master/src/movegen.cpp&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;ExtMove* generate_pawn_moves(const Position&amp;amp; pos, ExtMove* moveList, Bitboard target);&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The function &lt;code&gt;generate_pawn_moves&lt;/code&gt; takes a position object and append new pawn moves into a list (&lt;code&gt;ExtMove*&lt;/code&gt;). You shouldn't just return a bitboard because:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It's not a convenient data structure for looping over moves (you'll need to loop over moves while doing your engine search)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It doesn't tell you where you pawn starts and thus you can't undo a move&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;By squeezing all the pawn moves into a single integer, you lose important information. For example, if you have a pawn on c4 and e4 and you can capture on d5. You need to save c4-d5 and e4-d5, not just d5.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your function should look like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;void generate_pawn_moves(List *moves, Color color, GenType type, Bitboard Us, Bitboard Them);&#xA;{&#xA;    if (type == QUIETS) &#xA;    {&#xA;        for (... all single push ...)&#xA;           moves++ = &amp;lt;single push move&amp;gt;&#xA;&#xA;        for (... all double push ...)&#xA;           moves++ = &amp;lt;double push move&amp;gt;&#xA;    }&#xA;    else&#xA;    {&#xA;        for (... all captures ...)&#xA;           moves++ = &amp;lt;captures move&amp;gt;&#xA;    }&#xA;}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You will need to allocate enough memory for the &lt;code&gt;moves&lt;/code&gt; pointer, there're other ways to do that but C++ discussion is off-topic here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Later on, you'll need to do a search (otherwise why'd you generate the moves?). Like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  for (auto move : moves)&#xA;  {&#xA;       &amp;lt;make the move to the internal board&amp;gt;&#xA;&#xA;       ..... search and evaluate the position after the move ....&#xA;&#xA;       &amp;lt;undo the move&amp;gt;&#xA;  }&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You see, you'll need to undo the move and it's only possible if you know where your pawn starts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Q2: What do I need to save a move?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's take a look at Stockfish.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/blob/master/src/types.h&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/blob/master/src/types.h&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;/// A move needs 16 bits to be stored&#xA;///&#xA;/// bit  0- 5: destination square (from 0 to 63)&#xA;/// bit  6-11: origin square (from 0 to 63)&#xA;/// bit 12-13: promotion piece type - 2 (from KNIGHT-2 to QUEEN-2)&#xA;/// bit 14-15: special move flag: promotion (1), en passant (2), castling (3)&#xA;/// NOTE: EN-PASSANT bit is set only when a pawn can be captured&#xA;///&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Destination&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Origin&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Promotion&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;En Passpant&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Castling&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-09-21T13:59:45.693" LastActivityDate="2019-09-21T13:59:45.693" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="18042" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18038" CreationDate="2017-07-17T08:33:14.337" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The sole purpose of coining the term &quot;chess style&quot; is to categorize the way top players think. It is also used for adapting and making it so lower-level players can copy the way they feel like doing it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Style is important even in chess because it is your natural thinking process and acts like a mirror. It helps you to improve more by making the style as a reflection to your own personality when you see the mirror. It acts like a rhythm to a music where you can determine the future moves when you act upon it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T19:40:16.213" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T19:40:16.213" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="18043" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18044" CreationDate="2017-07-17T11:26:41.163" Score="2" ViewCount="866" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found on the Web some information what centipawns are. But how exactly programs calculate this loss? How can I recognize if one move will bring less centipawn loss that an another? Assuming both would not lead to a loss of a chess piece. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13744" LastActivityDate="2017-07-17T11:36:03.290" Title="How are centipawns calculated?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;programming&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18044" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18043" CreationDate="2017-07-17T11:36:03.290" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think that's your question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Q: How does a chess engine evaluate a chess position and give centipawns score?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't want to bore you with technical details, let me give you simple explanation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Chess engine is able to evaluates a chess position and give a score&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The score can depend on many factors, including but not limited to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Material&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Pawn structure&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Mobility&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;King Safety&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Evaluation&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Evaluation&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Chess engine searches as many moves as possible and compare the moves by evaluation score. The best move is the move that gives the best score.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Now we know a chess engine can give a score. For convenience, they scale the scores to centipawns. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2017-07-17T11:36:03.290" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18046" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18052" CreationDate="2017-07-17T12:38:49.760" Score="7" ViewCount="9794" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are there some free chess game databases where it is possible and allowed to download games? Is it possible to use this information for my own purposes? For example, would be allowed to make a machine learning app that learned from the downloaded games?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13744" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-10-07T20:46:13.777" LastActivityDate="2020-11-18T13:43:53.873" Title="What are the biggest free chess databases? Is it legal to download games from them?" Tags="&lt;database&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="18047" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18050" CreationDate="2017-07-17T13:19:18.817" Score="4" ViewCount="583" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to build a program that makes and reads PGNs. What is valid PGN? What arguments are valid in the header?&#xA;What values are mandatory, what can be omitted?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can I find somewhere rules for composing PGNs?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13744" LastActivityDate="2017-07-17T18:48:52.397" Title="What is valid PGN?" Tags="&lt;pgn&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18048" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-07-17T13:44:47.233" Score="6" ViewCount="1815" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been playing the Smith-Morra Gambit (e4 c5 d4 cxd4 c3) against the Sicilian defense for about 2 years. I have a tournament coming up in 3 days and I am beginning to doubt if the Smith-Morra would suffice. I like attacks and do not enjoy slow maneuvering play (which is why I do not play queen's pawn). Is there any reason I should change my response to the Sicilian? It seems like 3 days is not enough time to learn the thousands of variations in the Sicilian. And even I understand good play by black means that I am down a pawn for good.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;FYI, I have an FIDE rating of 1398 and it seems to me that my opponents will be rated average of 1600.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13768" LastEditorDisplayName="user1108" LastEditDate="2017-07-17T14:14:22.400" LastActivityDate="2017-07-24T04:41:12.577" Title="Is the Smith-Morra gambit still worth playing at a ~1600 level?" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;&lt;attack&gt;&lt;smith-morra-gambit&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18049" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18048" CreationDate="2017-07-17T14:28:58.923" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm rated around 1850 FIDE (approx as converted from the UK system). I play the Morra and it does me just fine - I've drawn against 2000+ players with it and do well against similar rated opponents. So if you enjoy it, play it - professionals excepted that's why we play chess!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7726" LastActivityDate="2017-07-17T14:28:58.923" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18050" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18047" CreationDate="2017-07-17T14:44:09.777" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;PGN is not a rigorous file format. Everything in the wikipedia link (posted by @Ghotir) applies, but nothing is &quot;mandatory&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The most common headers are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Event&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Site&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Date&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Round&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;White&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Black&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Result&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But they are not mandatory. For example, you can get away by not specifying the player names.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most chess programs only require you to define a header, but it can be anything. You have to define something because that's how chess programs parse the file - it expects the &lt;code&gt;[&lt;/code&gt; character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your PGN parser &lt;strong&gt;must&lt;/strong&gt; be robust and handle invalid PGN scenarios. I personally deliver PGN softwares, and I know what I'm talking about. Common PGN errors:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;o&quot;, '0' in castling (e.g: &quot;o-o&quot;, &quot;0-0&quot;). Correct is &quot;O-O&quot;, but many people confuse the letters.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;{&quot; instead of &quot;[&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;1-o&quot; or &quot;1-O&quot; instead of &quot;1-0&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2017-07-17T14:44:09.777" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18051" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18048" CreationDate="2017-07-17T14:47:35.090" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The gambit is perfect for amateurs, the gambit is tricky and could be deadly if Black underestimate White's attacking potential.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've personally used it to beat players around FIDE 2000, so it's fine for you to try.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2017-07-17T14:47:35.090" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18052" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18046" CreationDate="2017-07-17T14:51:48.140" Score="11" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://ficsgames.org/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;FICS database&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://database.lichess.org/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Lichess database&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.top-5000.nl/pgn.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Million base 2.2&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.pgnmentor.com/files.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;PGNMentor&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it possible to use this information for my own purposes&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Absolutely! Nobody has the copyright. Enjoy your machine learning adventure!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2017-07-17T14:51:48.140" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18053" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18055" CreationDate="2017-07-17T18:29:18.243" Score="5" ViewCount="1040" Body="&lt;p&gt;Disclaimer: I'm a very, very green player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After the first 4 moves, all of which seem natural given my understanding of basic opening principles (control the center, develop your knights, etc.), I notice 5. c3 is the most common move, according to &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.365chess.com/opening.php?m=9&amp;amp;n=1802&amp;amp;ms=e4.e5.Nf3.Nc6.Bb5.Bc5.O-O.Nf6&amp;amp;ns=3.5.5.6.5.993.1017.1802&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; database:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5&#xA;2. Nf3 Nc6&#xA;3. Bb5 Bc5&#xA;4. O-O Nf6&#xA;5. c3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure why, though. In particular, it seems really passive. Is it for an eventual d4? If not, what do you see as the reason for this being so common? I would think, e.g., 5. Nc3 would be more common. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10779" LastActivityDate="2017-07-26T07:54:42.863" Title="Why is 5.c3 the most common move in the Ruy Lopez, Berlin defence, Beverwijk variation?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;1.e4&gt;&lt;ruy-lopez&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18054" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18047" CreationDate="2017-07-17T18:48:52.397" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The PGN (Portable Game Notation) format has its origins in a text document from 1994. It contains a specification and copious examples.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The best location to read the original text transformed into a web-optimized format is at &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.saremba.de/chessgml/standards/pgn/pgn-complete.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this link&lt;/a&gt;. The Colophon near the beginning discusses the different iterations the original text went through before finding its way to that website.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Different PGN readers have implemented various aspects of this format and taken liberties of their own. Still, this is the closest you'll find to an official standard.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="29" LastActivityDate="2017-07-17T18:48:52.397" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18055" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18053" CreationDate="2017-07-17T19:29:31.540" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not really familiar with this variation, but c3 is a typical move in the Ruy Lopez for a couple of reasons: one, which you already mentioned, is to support d4 (and in this variation, d4 has the added benefit of forcing the black bishop to retreat). The other is to open c2 as a retreat for the bishop, which has a tendency to get pushed back by pawns and then threatened with being traded for a knight. In the Ruy Lopez, the b1 knight is often developed via d2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12523" LastActivityDate="2017-07-17T19:29:31.540" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18057" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18048" CreationDate="2017-07-17T19:39:10.117" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;My experience has been that even stronger players don't like playing against the Smith-Morra because it takes them out of their &quot;book&quot;.  When the clock is ticking and they have to solve opening problems over the board that they might not be all that familiar with, that's a great equalizer. It takes them out of their comfort zone.  If someone's playing the Sicilian, it's a good bet that they know the standard lines. I like using the Grob against mid-range players for the same reason.  In a tournament where I had beaten and drawn Experts in the first 2 rounds, I played a Sicilian against a category 1 player in the 3rd round who used a Smith-Morra and won after I got lost in the complications, ruining what had been a good tournament for me.  If you're playing against category 1 or better players, that might be a different story, but at the level you indicate, I see no problem with using it, particularly since you have a good working knowledge of it as you indicate.    &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastActivityDate="2017-07-17T19:39:10.117" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18058" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18048" CreationDate="2017-07-17T20:29:17.350" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1814884&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1814884&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think it's safe to say that the Smith-Morra is playable at the 1600 level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3270" LastActivityDate="2017-07-17T20:29:17.350" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18059" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18048" CreationDate="2017-07-17T21:13:11.807" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been playing the Smith Morra Gambit for about 5 years and am rated around 2000 FIDE currently. &#xA;I regularly play the Morra(it is my only response against the Sicilian), and my performance with it is usually 100 or more points above my rating. Thus, the Morra definitely can be played against stronger opposition. &#xA;However, if you are serious about continuing the Morra throughout your chess career, you must buy Mayhem in the Morra by Marc Esserman. Any serious morra player has this book. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3872" LastActivityDate="2017-07-17T21:13:11.807" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18060" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18031" CreationDate="2017-07-18T07:39:12.710" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a former Stonewall/Bird/Dutch player, I would suggest the anti-Dutch Bg5.  This is annoying for black, and you solve the problem of your worst piece.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chesscollection?cid=1029579&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chesscollection?cid=1029579&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Transposing into a Colle is not good as the king side attack is blunted by the f5 pawn.  The suggested method is to break with f3/e4 and saddle black with a weak e pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT:  diagram to help with 2. Bg5&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 f5 2. Bg5 h6 3. Bh4 g5 4. Bg3 f4?  5. e3&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black really weakens the kingside and many attacks are available. The best move is 2. ... Nf6 where you can exchange your bad bishop and ruin black's pawn structure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12449" LastEditorUserId="12449" LastEditDate="2017-07-20T06:23:32.043" LastActivityDate="2017-07-20T06:23:32.043" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18061" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16874" CreationDate="2017-07-18T09:34:55.013" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Online:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Lichess&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessclub.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Internet Chess Club&lt;/a&gt; provide an online functionality to play blindfold chess and you can try to make a suggestion on their forums to organize a blindfold tournament. &lt;br&gt;&#xA;This will probably be unofficial though and I do not now if that fills your expectations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Local:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As @JossieCalderon said in his comment, you don't lose anything to make a suggestion in your local chess club about organizing a blindfold tournament.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;You can even start by making an attempt through social media and see if enough people who want to participate appear.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Good luck :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;PS:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/team/blindfold&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Lichess blindfold team&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13764" LastEditorUserId="13764" LastEditDate="2017-11-29T16:37:20.827" LastActivityDate="2017-11-29T16:37:20.827" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18062" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15344" CreationDate="2017-07-18T15:57:34.297" Score="3" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Stop the Engine&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Open Configure page&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Set MultiPV option equal to 3&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/VUP2b.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/VUP2b.png&quot; alt=&quot;Open Configure page&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qeeR3.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qeeR3.png&quot; alt=&quot;Set MultiPV option eual to 3&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13776" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2021-01-17T17:49:39.927" LastActivityDate="2021-01-17T17:49:39.927" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="18063" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18070" CreationDate="2017-07-18T17:14:49.433" Score="2" ViewCount="205" Body="&lt;p&gt;Consider a move where a bishop takes a pawn and gives check but without any defense, so the King can take the bishop. &#xA;In many openings there is a opportunity in the first moves to do so.&#xA;Can this give an advantage to the sacrificing player?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13744" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-07-19T09:34:08.637" LastActivityDate="2017-07-19T09:34:08.637" Title="Is a loss of two pawns worth the negation of opponents castling?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;castling&gt;&lt;sacrifice&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18064" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18065" CreationDate="2017-07-18T20:47:53.123" Score="7" ViewCount="4451" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my logic, triple check not possible. Because I assume there is a move with two pieces at once needed. The only move I know is castling. The King can not give a check.&#xA;So is triple check impossible?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13744" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-07-19T07:18:58.150" LastActivityDate="2019-08-04T20:35:06.087" Title="Is triple check possible?" Tags="&lt;check&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18065" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18064" CreationDate="2017-07-19T01:37:00.723" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;Triple check is impossible, unless you want to count an x-ray attack as the third check.  A queen and rook attacking on the same file is normally thought to be one check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12449" LastActivityDate="2017-07-19T01:37:00.723" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18067" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18085" CreationDate="2017-07-19T03:37:38.420" Score="2" ViewCount="468" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have been taking lessons from a coach since two months and I also played my first OTB tournament two months ago. Since then I have played around ten tournaments with an average of one or two tournament every weekend.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even though I have learnt a lot from every single tournament by analyzing my games with the coach, and I myself know I am more knowledgeable and experienced now then when I played my first tournament my rating has just fluctuated between 1000 and 900 throughout.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is does the rating increases in jumps in general or is it like a steady increase where you increase rating points gradually playing every tournament? If its a steady increase, then I am sure I am not doing something right.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I am 900 something after two months, is it a realistic goal to aim for 1500-1600 in the next 10 months, with coaching and playing 1-2 tournament per week?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9849" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T19:09:49.333" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T19:09:49.333" Title="Does rating increases in bulks or is it a steady increase?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;rating&gt;&lt;tournament&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="18068" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18067" CreationDate="2017-07-19T07:08:01.977" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Usually, in the beginning, the rating increase jumps quickly.  Just not hanging pieces could be a multiple hundred point increase.  As the rating increases, the rating increases become smaller.  This is because there is a smaller amount to learn, and technique improvement brings little gains.&#xA;Playing in this many tournaments doesn't really give you time to find and reduce your mistakes.  A coach can find your errors, but you won't be able to correct them within a week.  1600 is a realistic goal, and you should be able to reach 1800 within 5 years.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12449" LastActivityDate="2017-07-19T07:08:01.977" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18069" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18071" CreationDate="2017-07-19T07:18:05.040" Score="11" ViewCount="17915" Body="&lt;p&gt;I saw this in many online games, but I do not understand how it works. With every move we can gain time, but what is it dependent on how much we get? Can please somebody explain the system behind it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13744" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T19:10:44.417" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T19:10:44.417" Title="What is the &quot;increment&quot; in chess?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="18070" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18063" CreationDate="2017-07-19T07:41:41.773" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As mentioned in a comment, sacrificing a bishop for a pawn is a completely different thing than sacrificing two pawns, even when they have equal &quot;pawn values&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most importantly: If you sacrifice material to prevent the opponent's king from castling, your objective is to lure him out into the open and checkmate him as soon as possible (before your opponent has the chance to coordinate his now numerically superior forces). Giving two pawns for this purpose might or might not be worth it (greatly depends on the specific situation) - their absence might open additional lines for your pieces to attack the opponent's king, so their loss might actually turn out to help you. Sacrificing a bishop on the other hand counteracts your chances to deliver a quick mate: You weakened the squares around the king, &lt;strong&gt;but you also weakened your ability to attack these squares&lt;/strong&gt;. Again, it all depends on the situation. If you can force a mate anyway with, say, your queen and a knight, it's all good. But then the question should be a different one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is it worth to sacrifice a bishop for a concrete mating attack? Hell yeah!&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is it worth to sacrifice a bishop just to prevent the opponent from castling, without a concrete mating combination? Most likely not.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13433" LastEditorUserId="13433" LastEditDate="2017-07-19T08:05:08.660" LastActivityDate="2017-07-19T08:05:08.660" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18071" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18069" CreationDate="2017-07-19T07:44:32.513" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;Take a look at Wikipedia's &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_control#Compensation_.28delay_or_increment_methods.29&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;time control&lt;/a&gt; article:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Fischer delay (or time increment)&lt;/strong&gt;, invented by Bobby Fischer. When it becomes a player's turn to move, the delay (or increment) is added to the player's remaining time. For example, if the delay is five seconds and the player has ten minutes remaining on his clock when his clock is activated, he now has ten minutes and five seconds remaining.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And in the usage of chess servers:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On chess servers (like Internet Chess Club and Free Internet Chess Server) the time control is usually expressed with a formula: time+increment. Where time is a fixed amount of time (in minutes) assigned at move 0 for the entire game, and increment (in seconds) is the amount added after each move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When the increment is 0 the time control turns into a sudden death: so a 5+0 game is a game with sudden death at 5 minutes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When the increment is bigger than 0 the time control is a Fischer delay: e.g. a 2+12 is a game with Fischer delay with 2 minutes + 12 seconds each move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A game can even have a time set to 0: the clock is set to 0 and started after the first move with the increment only on both sides, and each move each player is granted only the increment: a 0+10 is a game where after the first move each player has 10 seconds to move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;To sum it up:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Time increment gets added to your current time to compensate for a probable delay (for humans is the reaction time and for servers may compensate for latency etc.). If you are fast enough to play your move before the increment ends, the extra time gets added to your current time thus augmenting your remaining time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13764" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2017-11-29T16:36:37.523" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18072" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18069" CreationDate="2017-07-19T11:54:04.073" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I second &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/18071/7792&quot;&gt;John Moutafis' answer&lt;/a&gt;. The increment here is always the time which is basically for a few secs like 3, 5, 10, 15, 30 or may be even longer in some cases.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, why this increment and how this works. When two players play a game with a time limit on the clock, the time decreases.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, playing in Chess.com with a time of 5 mins each for both players. So total time is 10 mins. Within this stipulated time, each player can think of the moves. Now, because of this limited time, both players have to be careful not to lose the game on time and make sure they play the best moves from their own side. Now, as we all know, chess requires thinking, so either player can run out of their clock if they tries thinking too much deep. Even you will see that 1000s of games are being lost by top players because of time deficiency. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hence, if you have an increment on your clock, you would see that during endgames, the players take a refuge and they are able to play better and never become nervous due to the time factor. Understanding how the increments happen is on every move each player gains a respective number of secs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's assume that the game lasted for 40 moves each for either player and then one resigns. So 40x3 (increment time value in secs) = 120 secs or 2 mins extra both players get on their clock which makes the game a bit longer and the players were able to perform better. At least I would suggest playing with some time increments in any chess website and you would feel the difference yourself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastEditorUserId="7792" LastEditDate="2017-07-19T16:42:47.383" LastActivityDate="2017-07-19T16:42:47.383" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18073" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18067" CreationDate="2017-07-19T12:05:33.913" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Rating is definitely more of a steady increase thing but takes jumps initially. Please have a look at the FIDE Calculator. There is a K-Factor which determines it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please check the both as initial ratings as well as rating change calculator .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/calculators.phtml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://ratings.fide.com/calculators.phtml&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T19:09:33.573" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T19:09:33.573" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="18074" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18078" CreationDate="2017-07-19T12:22:34.067" Score="5" ViewCount="479" Body="&lt;p&gt;We are trying to organize chess event but the restaurants and coffee shops we asked complain that the sound made by pressing the chess clocks might disturb people.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We could organize the event in a chess club, but coffee shops are better since you can order stuff and have some fun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We're not going to buy clocks, We're going to borrow whatever chess clubs have for this event. Is it possible to solve this issue?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1105" LastActivityDate="2017-07-25T05:29:42.063" Title="Soundless chess clocks" Tags="&lt;chess-clocks&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18075" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18074" CreationDate="2017-07-19T13:12:51.277" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are some nice apps. For example you can use the &quot;lichess&quot; app. Just silent your phone and have fun. I have never used real chess timers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13744" LastActivityDate="2017-07-19T13:12:51.277" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18076" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18119" CreationDate="2017-07-19T13:24:35.730" Score="8" ViewCount="1748" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are there some statistical values for the worth of castling? Are there some numbers, for example in centipawn that can represent the value of castling? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13744" LastEditorUserId="18475" LastEditDate="2019-11-28T23:49:13.943" LastActivityDate="2020-05-06T21:09:40.780" Title="How important is castling? How much is it worth?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;castling&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="12" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18077" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18076" CreationDate="2017-07-19T14:59:47.547" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you think of castling as an efficient way to play, say, Ke1-f2-g1 and Rh1-f1, then castling takes one tempi vs. three tempi to castle by hand. Therefore castling is worth &lt;strong&gt;three tempi&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2017-07-19T14:59:47.547" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18078" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18074" CreationDate="2017-07-19T15:07:56.510" Score="5" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;We are trying to organize chess event but the restaurants and coffee shops we asked complain that the sound made by pressing the chess clocks &lt;strong&gt;might&lt;/strong&gt; disturb people.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I believe that your problem is the attitude of the owners rather than any equipment. I would speak with the owner or staff and explain that the sound made isn't loud at all, certainly when compared to the sounds of people talking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.industrialnoisecontrol.com/comparative-noise-examples.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;industrialnoisecontrol.com&lt;/a&gt;, 60 decibels is the volume for:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Conversation in restaurant, office, background music, Air conditioning unit at 100 feet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Whereas the clocks may be at something like 20 decibels:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Whisper, rustling leaves&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2017-07-19T15:07:56.510" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18079" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18064" CreationDate="2017-07-19T15:15:02.857" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Triple check is possible in &lt;a href=&quot;/questions/tagged/xiangqi&quot; class=&quot;post-tag&quot; title=&quot;show questions tagged &amp;#39;xiangqi&amp;#39;&quot; rel=&quot;tag&quot;&gt;xiangqi&lt;/a&gt;, aka chinese chess. There is even the possibility for quadruple check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Unique to xiangqi is a triple check, which arises in three combinations. In the first case of a cannon, a chariot or soldier, and a horse, the horse moves to give check, uncovering a double check from the chariot and the cannon. In the second, rarer case of a chariot or soldier and two horses, the chariot moves to give check, uncovering a double check from the two horses. In the third case of two cannons and two horses, one cannon may uncover a double check from the horses and act as a screen for the other cannon. Quadruple check is also possible, arising with two horses, a chariot, and a cannon. Triple and quadruple check cannot be blocked.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xiangqi&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2017-07-19T15:15:02.857" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18080" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18017" CreationDate="2017-07-19T16:51:47.287" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I really appreciate the response from our contributors, but still there is a question unanswered floating on air. How do I implement the “MOVE” structure? Based on &lt;a href=&quot;https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Bitboards&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Bitboard&lt;/a&gt; approach?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In reality, there is no a common ground among chess engines. Some programmers will tell you go with a structure and store any move’s detail within, but, on the other side, others will tell you, go simple with just one data type (Integer, String, etc). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To be honest, in simple English means, USE whatever flavor you feel comfortable with and, not a subject related to best performance. So, based on that assumption, I will provide you how to implement both cases. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To make this simple, let’s break down what kind of information is needed to encode a move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Index of square destination&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Index of square origin&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Type of move (quiet, captures, evasions, en passant,  castling, …)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Structure Approach&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/FrBTk.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/FrBTk.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you decide to go with a structure approach, you will have something similar to this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;struct Move {&#xA;    Int from;&#xA;    Int to;&#xA;    Int moveType;&#xA;};&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That will work if we have an enum for our moveType:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;enum MoveType {&#xA;    QUIET, CAPTURE, EVASION, ENPASSANT, CASTLING  &#xA;};&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The structure approach will do the work and, then you just need to create an array with that structure to store the list of generated moves. And that’s it; you have your container to store moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Single Data Type Approach&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Suppose we decide to go with Integer type. How we can store the move information in one single integer? The response is, &lt;a href=&quot;https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/General+Setwise+Operations&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Bit manipulation&lt;/a&gt; (Duh!, we are using bitbaord representation).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The idea is really simple, let’s use partial portion of the Integer to store the “square origin”, and next to it, use it to store the “square destination” and last, insert the “Move Type” (call it flag if you want).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If we have an Integer that holds 16 bits, we can dissect it into the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;0000 0000 0000 0000 – index of square origin&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;0000 0000 0000 0000 – index of square destination&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;0000 0000 0000 0000 – move type (flag)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We can use the first 6 bit to store the square origin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;0000 0000 0011 1111 – 6 bit for square origin&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We can do the same with the rest. At the end you will have something like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;0000 0000 0011 1111 – index of square origin&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;0000 1111 1100 0000 – index of squire destination&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;0011 0000 0000 0000 – move type (flag)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To put this into a better context, let assume we have a structure that represent each square:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;enum Square {&#xA;SQ_A1, SQ_B1, SQ_C1, SQ_D1, SQ_E1, SQ_F1, SQ_G1, SQ_H1,&#xA;SQ_A2, SQ_B2, SQ_C2, SQ_D2, SQ_E2, SQ_F2, SQ_G2, SQ_H2,&#xA;SQ_A3, SQ_B3, SQ_C3, SQ_D3, SQ_E3, SQ_F3, SQ_G3, SQ_H3,&#xA;SQ_A4, SQ_B4, SQ_C4, SQ_D4, SQ_E4, SQ_F4, SQ_G4, SQ_H4,&#xA;SQ_A5, SQ_B5, SQ_C5, SQ_D5, SQ_E5, SQ_F5, SQ_G5, SQ_H5,&#xA;SQ_A6, SQ_B6, SQ_C6, SQ_D6, SQ_E6, SQ_F6, SQ_G6, SQ_H6,&#xA;SQ_A7, SQ_B7, SQ_C7, SQ_D7, SQ_E7, SQ_F7, SQ_G7, SQ_H7,&#xA;SQ_A8, SQ_B8, SQ_C8, SQ_D8, SQ_E8, SQ_F8, SQ_G8, SQ_H8&#xA;};&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Imagine you have a pawn sitting on f2 and you need to move it to f4, and there is an enemy pawn on e4. This will raise the en passant flag, isn’t it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/wzulk.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/wzulk.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, we need to encode our pawn move from f2 to f4 and flag it as enpassant availability.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Pseudo code will be like this:&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;move = enpassant-flag + destination + origin;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now we need to translate this to bit manipulation (shifting bits).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;unsigned int move;&#xA;&#xA;//insert square origin using 6 bits&#xA;move  = (origin &amp;amp; 0x3f &amp;lt;&amp;lt; 6); -the hex to mask 6 bits.&#xA;&#xA;// insert square destination using also 6 bits&#xA;move = (destination &amp;amp; 0x3f);&#xA;&#xA;//insert the flag&#xA;move = ((flag &amp;amp; 0xf) &amp;lt;&amp;lt; 12);&#xA;&#xA;// now putting everything together…&#xA;Move make_move(Square from, Square to, unsigned int flag) {&#xA;    Return move = ((flag &amp;amp; 0xf) &amp;lt;&amp;lt; 12) | (destination &amp;amp; 0x3f) | (origin &amp;amp; 0x3f) &amp;lt;&amp;lt; 6;&#xA;}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now you can call the method as follow:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;moveList  = make_move(SQ_F2, SQ_F4, ENPASSANT);&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I hope this information will be useful to the public :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13328" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-09-21T14:00:53.107" LastActivityDate="2019-09-21T14:00:53.107" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="18081" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18076" CreationDate="2017-07-19T17:02:55.863" Score="-3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The rule is you have to castle in the first 10 moves, otherwise you will leave your king unprotected.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most amateur players launch an aggressive attack and leave the king sitting there without any protection. If you study games from professional players, you will notice that they castle early in the opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13784" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-11-29T09:36:12.700" LastActivityDate="2019-11-29T09:36:12.700" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="18082" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16874" CreationDate="2017-07-19T17:05:43.870" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_Chess_Olympiad&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Blind Chess Olympiad&lt;/a&gt; is the most important event for blind chess. there are several youtube videos where you can sneak out a bit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13784" LastActivityDate="2017-07-19T17:05:43.870" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18083" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18084" CreationDate="2017-07-19T18:13:30.573" Score="3" ViewCount="2089" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was thinking about some rules and I came up with a really nice question. Is it possible to castle with a pawn promoted to a rook?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the rules are followed-neither the king or the new rook has moved and king doesn’t move out of or through check-to me it seems to be a legal move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it possbile, how would this castling look like? I suspect that the king would go to e3, and the new rook would go to e2, starting from the below diagram.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/4P3/8/8/8/8/8/4K3 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e8=R&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13744" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditorDisplayName="user1108" LastEditDate="2020-08-30T22:17:06.547" LastActivityDate="2020-08-30T22:17:06.547" Title="Is castling possible with a pawn promoted to a rook?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;castling&gt;&lt;pawn-promotion&gt;&lt;loopholes&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="18084" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18083" CreationDate="2017-07-19T18:48:20.957" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, according to FIDE's &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=207&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Laws of Chess&lt;/a&gt;, castling has to be done along the first rank.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;§3.8.2:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3.8.2 by ‘castling’. This is a move of the king and either rook of the same&#xA;colour along the player’s first rank, counting as a single move of the&#xA;king and executed as follows: the king is transferred from its&#xA;original square two squares towards the rook on its original square,&#xA;then that rook is transferred to the square the king has just crossed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3.8.2.1   The right to castle has been lost:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3.8.2.1.1 if the king has already moved, or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3.8.2.1.2 with a rook that has already moved.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3.8.2.2   Castling is prevented temporarily:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3.8.2.2.1 if the square on which the king stands, or the square which it must cross, or the square which it is to occupy, is attacked by one&#xA;or more of the opponent's pieces, or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3.8.2.2.2 if there is any piece between the king and the rook with which castling is to be effected.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1485" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2017-07-19T18:54:32.250" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18085" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18067" CreationDate="2017-07-19T20:24:59.493" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Rating increases usually occur in plateaus rather than linear.  That's because as you get stronger and play stronger opponents, there's more to know.  If you have native talent, e.g. are very adept at tactics, your early rating increases will be greater than those later on as you face stiffer competition.  If you are motivated, have good training, apply what you've learned, play regularly and analyze your games, with a stronger player if possible or coach as you indicate you are doing, and also have some natural aptitude, it's not unrealistic to aim for a 1500 rating within a year.  Does playing two tournaments per weekend give you enough time to analyze the games in depth?  Too many games might be counterproductive if not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastActivityDate="2017-07-19T20:24:59.493" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18086" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18074" CreationDate="2017-07-19T20:47:35.277" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I direct a chess club in a library where many of our members play quick chess.  They press the clocks softly, and there is no noise.  If one is slamming the timer, then yes, I agree, that could be disturbing.  But just let everyone know that that's unacceptable, and that should solve the problem.  Also I think there might be a misunderstanding on the shop owners' part.  If you demonstrate to them that the clocks can be used quietly, they shouldn't object. Also, some of our players use the timers on their phones, which are absolutely silent. Maybe the owners are just using the sound issue as an excuse for some other reason that they don't want you there&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastActivityDate="2017-07-19T20:47:35.277" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18087" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-07-19T21:35:17.090" Score="4" ViewCount="212" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to few popular sites, my &lt;em&gt;tactics&lt;/em&gt; rating is consistently about 400 points above my &lt;em&gt;game&lt;/em&gt; rating (say, 2200 vs 1800).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, partially it could be a fault of the process: when a tactics engine gives you a position, you &lt;em&gt;know&lt;/em&gt; that there is some tactics. On the other hand, I almost always find combinations while observing other people play, in real time - and miss quite many while playing myself. It seems that I become too preoccupied with the plan, or something like that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any ideas how it can be healed?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3774" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T19:06:30.450" Title="How to bring tactics skills into the actual play?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;training&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18088" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18087" CreationDate="2017-07-19T23:28:26.717" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;As you have noted yourself, an important difference between solving tactics and finding tactics during a game is that you know that there is something interesting when solving tactics. There are a couple other important differences.&#xA;In a game, it comes down to your ability to discern a critical position from an ordinary one that only requires positional consideration. In long time controls, it is advisable that you &lt;strong&gt;treat every position as a tactical puzzle&lt;/strong&gt;, at least for some amount of time. Of course some positions you know are not critical, but spending a little bit of time checking every move will help you be more tactically aware. And of course, you got to watch out for your opponent's tricks too.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I will ignore the question relating to having a 2200 tactics compared to 1800 elo because the scale may be different between the two and an 1800 rated player could have a range of tactical ability anyways. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3872" LastActivityDate="2017-07-19T23:28:26.717" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18089" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8233" CreationDate="2017-07-20T00:09:41.933" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;On chess24 I am much higher rated, around 2400+ (currently around 2440). On lichess I am around 2200. On chess.com the same.&#xA;I am FM, and my FIDE is around 2200, for reference.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13788" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-07-20T07:09:42.400" LastActivityDate="2017-07-20T07:09:42.400" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18090" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18087" CreationDate="2017-07-20T01:27:26.747" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Maybe because you become unaware of tactical indicators in your own games. Unprotected pieces, double attack, overprotection, intermediate moves/checks, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10233" LastActivityDate="2017-07-20T01:27:26.747" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18091" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18087" CreationDate="2017-07-20T02:00:52.650" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;My explanation is that the tactical rating has nothing to do with your chess rating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess rating is measured by playing a chess game, not by solving chess puzzles. Those sites offering rating almost always overestimate your ability because:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;They don't know how to do it statistically (you really need a PhD statistician to do it properly)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;They want to make you happy&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T19:03:47.150" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T19:03:47.150" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="18092" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-07-20T02:34:03.030" Score="2" ViewCount="368" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;8/8/8/8/8/pNnbPPpN/RBppPbrP/pkKPrqQR b - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was introduced to a challenge a few weeks ago with the above position. The challenge is to move the Black Knight such that it must always be three squares in the third row from the right, the point is to capture &lt;em&gt;all&lt;/em&gt; pieces with the Black Knight. The order of the other pieces doesn't matter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While an answer is awesome, what I'm mainly interested in is, is this really a thing?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13789" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-12-16T20:29:03.723" LastActivityDate="2020-12-16T22:01:10.267" Title="The Black knight challenge" Tags="&lt;problems&gt;&lt;knights&gt;&lt;captures&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="18093" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8233" CreationDate="2017-07-20T08:41:59.080" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess24 ratings are quite overstated compared to other server ratings. You would always have a +100-200 Elo higher compared to other websites. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T19:07:21.043" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T19:07:21.043" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="18094" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-07-20T08:52:31.683" Score="0" ViewCount="512" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm working on a function that can forecast whether, for a given position, I can be checkmated by the opponent. I have this function, already in Stockfish:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;bool Position::is_mate() const {&#xA;&#xA;  MoveStack moves[MAX_MOVES];&#xA;  return in_check() &amp;amp;&amp;amp; generate&amp;lt;MV_LEGAL&amp;gt;(*this, moves) == moves;&#xA;}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This tells me that I am already being checkmated. Ideally, I would like to write a function:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;bool Position::is_trap() const {&#xA;  for all of the opponent's legal moves&#xA;    if move i results in is_mate()&#xA;      return true&#xA;&#xA;  return false&#xA;}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both of these functions will be in position.cpp.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Subsequently, I want to generate a list of all legal moves that will result in is_trap() being true (all legal moves that will result in me being checkmated in the next turn). In movegen.cpp I have:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;template&amp;lt;&amp;gt;&#xA;MoveStack* generate&amp;lt;TRAP&amp;gt;(const Position&amp;amp; pos, MoveStack* mlist) {&#xA;&#xA;  assert(pos.is_ok());&#xA;  MoveStack *last, *cur = mlist;&#xA;  // Generate all legal moves&#xA;  last = generate&amp;lt;MV_LEGAL&amp;gt;(pos, mlist);&#xA;&#xA;  // If a legal move isn't a trap, remove it&#xA;  while (cur != last)&#xA;    for (i = 0; i = MAX_MOVES; i++)&#xA;      pos-&amp;gt;do_move(mlist[i].move);&#xA;      if (!pos.is_trap())&#xA;          cur-&amp;gt;move = (--last)-&amp;gt;move;&#xA;      else&#xA;          cur++;&#xA;      pos-&amp;gt;undo_move(mlist[i].move);&#xA;&#xA;  return last;&#xA;}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a more efficient way of doing this? Thank you for your help!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13791" LastActivityDate="2017-10-07T04:20:47.297" Title="Stockfish - Function that predicts checkmate" Tags="&lt;stockfish&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18095" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18087" CreationDate="2017-07-20T09:02:07.043" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There can be a few reasons behind this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Maybe you are solving the tactics based on a theme which does not reflect in your style of play.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Nowadays, tactics can be categorized based upon the openings, and the middlegames. You may be practising middlegame positions based upon QGD, and playing Sicilian where the board dynamics do not match.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Please do not look at the board constantly during a tournament game, and it is advisable to sometimes look here and there, looking at other people's games which would distract you for some moments and then give you a fresh look into your position.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Tactics arise when pieces are in touch with each other, or have contact. When pieces are in contact, make yourself a little more aware and careful, which would help you in finding the better moves.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T19:06:30.450" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T19:06:30.450" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="18097" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18094" CreationDate="2017-07-20T11:27:20.403" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't understand why this is an issue. What you're asking is just chess engine search. Nothing more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Generate all possible moves to a list&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Make a move to the position&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Search the new position with Stockfish (the &lt;code&gt;search&amp;lt;&amp;gt;&lt;/code&gt; function)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Check the returned negamax value if the move leads to forced mate&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Undo the move&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Get the next move from the list, go back to (2) and repeat &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2017-07-20T11:27:20.403" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18098" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18076" CreationDate="2017-07-20T11:49:02.447" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess has one particular tactic or theme which cannot be ignored and that is king safety. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since the rule is that if the king is lost, or checkmated, the game is lost; so the value of king is the most essential. I do not say that castling is the only answer to a safe king since there are many noteworthy games which have been won without castling, but castling is a standard procedure in many openings, and middlegames, since the king goes inside the high walls protected by its own soldiers, and gets the rooks connected. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The value of Castling increases because beside the King the Queen and the minor pieces are developed somewhere else in the Game . What I mean is playing with White the King's Bishop is developed on b5,c4,e2 or g2 mostly . The Knight is developed frequently on f3,e2 or a3 sometimes and we put our e and d pawns on e4 and d4 in most cases . The Queen leaves the stand from d1 and gets developed to some other Square .Now when it happens if the King remains in Centre it becomes exposed and susceptible to attack . No minor pieces are there to protect it .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When the King remains in the Castle then the Knight on f3 , the Pawns on f2,g2 and h2 serve as a barrier and the Rook stays besides as if the King is riding on a high elephant . Sometimes with the g pawn on g3 the Bishop stays on g2 . The King is protected and then the Forces can be coordinated on a particular area of the board for an attack . So Castling makes just too much sense .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T19:03:20.907" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T19:03:20.907" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="18100" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18083" CreationDate="2017-07-20T13:08:44.837" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;This question really needs a diagram with this position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/8/4P3/3p4/2p3p1/1pP1kPPp/1P5P/R3K2R w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White to mate in 3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tim Krabbé and Max Pam found the loophole in the rules that you are asking about -- when they composed this problem in 1972, the promoted rook did indeed enable castling, as the rules only talked about a rook that hadn't moved yet! The rule was changed because of this problem.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The solution is beautiful as there are three different castlings involved:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;1.e7 Kd3 2.e8=R gxf3 3.0-0-0#.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;1.e7 Kxf3 2.e8=R d4 3.0-0#.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;1.e7 Kxf3 2.e8=R Kg2 3.0-0-0-0#!.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastEditorUserId="924" LastEditDate="2017-07-20T13:20:19.603" LastActivityDate="2017-07-20T13:20:19.603" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18101" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18023" CreationDate="2017-07-20T13:29:02.153" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've had similar problems.  When I analyzed the situation, I concluded that I was giving the result too much importance, tying my worth as an individual to it for example.  I've been able to largely overcome this by realizing that it doesn't have that much significance in the infinite scheme of things.  It's only a game, and our skill at it will be determined by how much we learn.  That can be a lengthy process.  Losing in fact is a learning experience that will over the long term help us improve, so look at defeats in that context.  Look at each game as a chance to learn something new.  Chess is not a quick study for most people.  The great Capablanca said that you have to lose 1000 games to become good, if that helps keep it in perspective. In other words, try to make playing a positive experience in itself and don't let the outcome be the most important part of playing. You can have winning as the goal, but not to the extent that it destroys your joy in playing. Enjoy the process rather than the outcome.  Progress will inevitably come with time regardless. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastActivityDate="2017-07-20T13:29:02.153" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18102" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18087" CreationDate="2017-07-20T18:21:19.707" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You're right that knowing a problem exists is the first step on the road to the solution, as opposed to a game situation when you aren't always aware that you're at a critical juncture.  You have to treat every game situation initially as if there's a tactic present and convince yourself that there isn't before moving on. &#xA; I've experienced the same problem that you have of missing tactics in my own game whereas I see them when I observe someone else's game.  As you imply, I think that has something to do with the fact that you're in the middle of some plan in your own game and don't stop to see if there's something else you might have missed.  As Emanuel Lasker once said, &quot;When you see a good move, look for a better one&quot;.  Maybe pausing during your game occasionally to look away so that you see the position with fresh eyes when you look back at it might help.  That would be akin to your looking at another game position where you haven't followed the sequence leading up to it and see a tactic, as you say happens. Or maybe consider it parallel to how a computer generates a move, assessing each new position as it occurs.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastActivityDate="2017-07-20T18:21:19.707" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18103" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18076" CreationDate="2017-07-20T22:36:10.527" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would check this by trying some experiments with a chess program to see how it evaluates positions.  For example you could put in a position where one side is not castled and then the same position, if it is possible given the position, with the same side castled and compare the evaluations.  You could do a similar test with the original position where the one side is not castled, but is able to castle, versus the same position but where the one side is not able to castle - because the king or rook already moved.  Of course the evaluations would depend on the initial positions.  If the positions are closed and not much is going on, you'd probably get a more stable value for castling from the experiments.    &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user11382" LastActivityDate="2017-07-20T22:36:10.527" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18104" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18113" CreationDate="2017-07-20T23:15:49.323" Score="3" ViewCount="794" Body="&lt;p&gt;Given that 1.d4 is said to produce better results than 1.e4 and about half of all 1.e4 games involve the Sicilian Defense, could a simple idea like avoiding trading the d pawn for black's c pawn in the Sicilian be used to produce better 1.e4 results?  Perhaps after 20 or 30 moves the d pawn will come in handy after all!   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user11382" LastEditorDisplayName="user11382" LastEditDate="2017-07-20T23:35:49.310" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T19:00:51.123" Title="Can white do better versus the Sicilian Defense by avoiding an early d4?" Tags="&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;&lt;pawns&gt;&lt;center&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18105" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18074" CreationDate="2017-07-21T03:05:50.377" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the easiest solution to the problem is to use a digital clock with capacitive touch sensitive buttons (such as the ZMart clocks, or the Chronos clocks that include the touch sensitive buttons), so there is no mechanical switch to make any noise.  I personally don't care for such clocks (with no physical switch I'm often not quite sure I've pressed the button), but they are absolutely silent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7147" LastActivityDate="2017-07-21T03:05:50.377" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18106" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18104" CreationDate="2017-07-21T04:55:23.387" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;All the main lines against the Sicilian are the open Sicilian.  This opening of the center gives white better attacking chances against black's lack of development.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Larsen claims that playing d4 is a positional mistake, allowing black to exchange a less valuable wing pawn for a center pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Spassky played the closed Sicilian with great results.  And there are many anti-Sicilians which claims to give white the advantage.  The Grand Prix is the most fun, but I personally prefer the KIA.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The main difference between the open and closed Sicilians is the number of moves before the attacking begins.  The open offers more tactics right from the start.  The closed allows both players to finish developing before any attack really develops.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The real answer is that neither is necessarily good for white.  Since every line of the Sicilian is so heavily analyzed, the advantage goes to the player with the better knowledge and comfort in the positions. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12449" LastActivityDate="2017-07-21T04:55:23.387" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18107" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-07-21T05:59:21.540" Score="2" ViewCount="475" Body="&lt;p&gt;For position you never played, book probability is perfectly fine for me. The question starts when you already played position x-times. I'm looking for function that will update book probabilities with your style. Obviously if you play 1.d4 in 97 games out of 100 games, probability of playing 1.e4 runs close to 0%. On the other hand, if you played some late position just once, it's nowhere close to 100% you will repeat the move. I could probably make some  workaround myself, but this looks like problem data scientists must have already solved, as it is applicable to virtually any discipline where you want to predict someone's behavior.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit: I think there should be one parameter &amp;lt;0;1&gt; measuring how seriously we take book probabilities and how seriously we take players games. With one extreme being ignoring book and one being ignoring player's games.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11609" LastEditorUserId="11609" LastEditDate="2017-07-21T10:20:29.583" LastActivityDate="2017-08-07T15:20:12.737" Title="Estimating probability of player playing move in the opening" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;programming&gt;&lt;mathematics&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="16" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18108" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18104" CreationDate="2017-07-21T09:32:02.247" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you see in Chessgames.com then you can see the below openings e4 c5 Nf3 d6 which is pure Sicilian Najdorf in the Opening Explorer then you would be seeing the winning percentages of White &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/explorer?node=32069&amp;amp;move=3&amp;amp;moves=e4.c5.Nf3.d6&amp;amp;nodes=21720.32033.32034.32069&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Najdorf Winning Percentage &lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now you can see that with d4,c3,Nc3,Bc4 white has the maximum percentage win even though the most number of games are with d4. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can delay d4 if you find convenient for yourself and make some other move. What I feel is that you do not have a liking for Open Sicilian and want to deviate. So it is not a difficult choice either. There are other lines where different ideas also come into picture and honestly these Lines are easier to understand than open Sicilian . &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T19:00:51.123" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T19:00:51.123" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="18109" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18104" CreationDate="2017-07-21T11:14:41.080" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You are certainly far from being the first person to raise the question. Alekhine, in his Collected Games, recommends in the notes to one game that White should play 3.Be2, but in all of his other games he actually plays 3.d4. There is a book called the Chameleon Sicilian by Andy Soltis that points to certain advantages of 2.Ne2, retaining the options of d3 or d4 depending on how Black responds. For example, if Black expects d3, and combines ..e6 with ..g6, then d4 becomes very strong. On the other hand, if ..d6, then d3 leads into lines where Black usually goes for ..d5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One of the remarkable things about Chess is the balance inherent in the initial position. Typically White keeps a small but tangible advantage (&quot;normal opening advantage&quot;) for about 20 moves, and nothing much has ever changed that. One could define the statistically best moves but in practice psychological comfort is more important. (and high winning percentages sometimes attach to the moves that strong players adopt versus weak opponents.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As has been pointed out, avoiding d4 can cut down on the amount of book learning that is needed, but that cuts both ways. Strong Sicilian players just need to know one good reply to each of Whites offbeat attempts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastActivityDate="2017-07-21T11:14:41.080" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18110" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17957" CreationDate="2017-07-21T14:47:47.967" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would like to add up a couple things to support the good answers you    have already.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Stockfish never applies evaluation function for positions where king of&#xA;either side is in check.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Evaluation is based on the state of your Middle Game and End Game.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Also a smooth transition between the phases of the game using a fine &#xA;grained numerical game phase value considering type of captured&lt;br&gt;&#xA;pieces so far. This is called &lt;a href=&quot;https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Tapered+Eval&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&quot;Tapered Eval&quot;&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here a snippet of my own evaluation for middle gale&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;EvalPhase middle_game_evaluation(&amp;amp;pos) {&#xA;  int ev = 0;&#xA;  ev += piece_value_mg(pos) - piece_value_mg(colorflip(pos));&#xA;  ev += psqt_mg(pos) - psqt_mg(colorflip(pos));&#xA;  ev += imbalance_total(pos);&#xA;  ev += pawns_mg(pos) - pawns_mg(colorflip(pos));&#xA;  ev += pieces_mg(pos) - pieces_mg(colorflip(pos));&#xA;  ev += mobility_mg(pos) - mobility_mg(colorflip(pos));&#xA;  ev += threats_mg(pos) - threats_mg(colorflip(pos));&#xA;  ev += passed_mg(pos) - passed_mg(colorflip(pos));&#xA;  ev += space(pos) - space(colorflip(pos));&#xA;  ev += king_mg(pos) - king_mg(colorflip(pos));&#xA;  return EvalPhase(ev);&#xA;}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13328" LastEditorUserId="13328" LastEditDate="2017-07-21T14:53:55.987" LastActivityDate="2017-07-21T14:53:55.987" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18111" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18034" CreationDate="2017-07-21T15:45:03.163" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As an author of some PGN-processing software, I would also be interested in having access to a general test suite but I am not aware of any, unfortunately, and all I can offer is some advice based on experience.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would be wary of throwing a large database of games at an application in order to test it before you have developed reasonable confidence with its fundamentals. In the early stages, at least, I find it most effective to create a lot of small examples, each of which tests an individual feature. That way, errors are relatively easy to spot because they don't get lost in a mass of output. Once I have got rid of the basic errors I would then look at combining a small number of both related and unrelated features in individual tests to make sure that there is no unexpected interference between the associated functionality. Only late on would I switch to large datasets to make sure there are no issues with scaling up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also highly recommend re-running all the existing tests each time a new feature is added. I have been amazed how often I have unexpectedly broken something seemingly unrelated as the code has developed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Apologies if these principles are already well known to you!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12951" LastActivityDate="2017-07-21T15:45:03.163" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18113" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18104" CreationDate="2017-07-22T12:49:50.510" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you're strong at tactics, after you've played 1.e4, playing an early d4 to open up the game puts the burden of defense on Black to defend against these. Generally when you've played 1.e4 in an opening, your goal should be an early if sound d4 as well.  The same is true for Black after 1..., e5, i.e. to seek an early ..., d5 when sound. Playing a Closed Sicilian gives Black more time to build up a defense. And since Black generally plays a lot of early pawn moves in the Sicilian, that also gives White a time advantage which he can try to exploit tactically by an early opening-up of the game.  But as someone else has pointed out that Larsen had claimed, the standard &quot;d&quot; pawn for &quot;c&quot; pawn trade is giving up a center pawn for a less valuable off-center pawn, which can be positionally suspect. If you're well versed in the Sicilian lines and good at tactics, playing the standard early follow-up d4 would still seem to me to be the better course of action though.  Conversely, the Closed Sicilian may be better suited to someone who is not as strong tactically but plays a strong positional game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastActivityDate="2017-07-22T12:49:50.510" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18114" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18038" CreationDate="2017-07-22T19:42:03.327" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The answer to why different players have different styles is already in the question: because they are different. As in all aspects of our lives, in a game of chess we have options, and in the same way that different people approach their life in different ways, so do the chess players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For most of the casual and even some tournament players, knowing the style of their opponent is useless: they play the game in the same way against all of their opponents. In higher levels however, knowing the style of the opponent may benefit you since you can change the nature of the position in your opponent's detriment: one usually does not want to play sharp and tactical games against a younger player or a player famous for their attacking abilities, and similarly one would not want to enter dull and even positions against a strong positional player. In this regard, I would not say that they are defined for the sake of analysis, but on the converse, analyzing a player's games will give you an idea of their style (and hence grant you an advantage).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hence, style can mostly be characterized by personal preference. Knowing one's style can help you when choosing new openings and lines, ideally you would want them to suit your style. It can also help during a game, in case one detects that the best moves lead towards a position that does not suit one's style, it would be desirable to muddy the waters (if one tends more towards tactical games) or to exchange pieces or fix the pawn structure (if one tends more towards positional games).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Using these advantages to improve one's game would be to know our limitations and weaknesses, and work on them (like most of the top players do). However, this is a somewhat subjective answer, since other players would simply choose to enter tactical variations when faced against a quiet opening, or in the converse to play solid against wild openings. Even if I prefer the first option, the second is a completely viable strategy (as evidenced by some of the best players having an extremely limited repertoire that they know in great depth).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Disclaimer: for illustrative purposes, only two styles have been mentioned above, and a short comparison has been made. There are obviously many different styles, and this is in no way an exhaustive list.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3890" LastActivityDate="2017-07-22T19:42:03.327" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18115" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18121" CreationDate="2017-07-23T00:52:06.563" Score="9" ViewCount="28206" Body="&lt;p&gt;My great fail is that &lt;strong&gt;I cannot learn opening&lt;/strong&gt; or initial play. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Normally I only play when I can connect to my mobile app (&lt;em&gt;Chess Free&lt;/em&gt; on &lt;em&gt;iOS&lt;/em&gt;), and play at a very low level (adjusted as a single bar), and repeat that level until I have some domain of it. Unlike a human player or a friend, that sort of games cannot teach me which are the errors I am repeating consistently (some adaptive app?). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've tried puzzles, but they are so artificial, I can't learn how to start with them. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I normally can defeat some people in apps such as &lt;em&gt;chess.com&lt;/em&gt;, but very fast I reach a level superior than my real one, when I do not defeat anybody, and I don't get how to improve. After that the app download me again into trivial opponents, and the same repeats over and over.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I don't increase my level, and I've been stuck in that from years, without any advance when facing real players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which I would like is to freeze the difficult level, and play let's say 100 times with players at my very exact, and me being the person to decide when it is time to move onto better players, let's say by raising 50 points only?.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or equivalently, is there some app playing with strong focus on a specific selectable opening, let's say for example, the Dutch defense, and the game could go in turn of such opening? Making me able to play 100 times an specific opening, before increasing the level of such opening and/or before changing such opening?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11648" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-10-27T03:40:24.540" LastActivityDate="2021-04-25T14:57:58.377" Title="Is there any good app for learning openings?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;learning&gt;&lt;beginner&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="18116" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18115" CreationDate="2017-07-23T02:04:00.593" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You might want to try my chess opening apps. They are written for improving your openings. The app teaches you opening theories for each ECO opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(I'm the author).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/encyclopaedia-chess-openings/id1165950660&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/encyclopaedia-chess-openings/id1165950660&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;  &lt;a href=&quot;https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/mega-database-encyclopedia/id1180482163&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/mega-database-encyclopedia/id1180482163&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Chessable website offers useful opening training. They don't have an app, but you should be able to run it directly on your browser.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2017-07-26T05:09:48.537" LastActivityDate="2017-07-26T05:09:48.537" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18117" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8097" CreationDate="2017-07-23T07:03:24.520" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I use ChessPartner 6.0.4.3&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;r.click in the Internet Console and choose Properties&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Autoseek Cmd: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;getgame\n&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/KyYx7.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/KyYx7.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Login script:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;set chanoff 1&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;set silence 1&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;set tell 0&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;set formula !computer &amp;amp; !abuser&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;set notakeback 1&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;set tolerance 0&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;set autoflag 1&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;set style 12&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13810" LastActivityDate="2017-07-23T07:03:24.520" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18118" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12251" CreationDate="2017-07-23T14:38:44.747" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;One estimate of the length of a game of chess with all random moves might be 90 moves. This is the length of an average game as used by Shannon (40 moves), with 50 more moves added until the 50-move rule takes effect (at which point the game can be drawn if one player requests it).&#xA;The first 40 moves will certainly simplify the board, as pawns can only move forward, and must start to capture other pawns and pieces. There may also be some promotions of pawns into queens or other pieces, and the pieces in general will be &quot;thinned-out&quot; from random captures. After this, pieces will continue to move, and still with no purpose. After 50 moves of no captures and no pawn promotions, either side can claim a draw. If we assume that a random player might also request a draw at a random moment (once being allowed to do so), then such a request is inevitable, and the game will end.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13813" LastActivityDate="2017-07-23T14:38:44.747" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18119" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18076" CreationDate="2017-07-23T14:53:16.900" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The answer is a round &lt;strong&gt;no&lt;/strong&gt; (sadly, this answer is highly subjective).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason for this, however, it is not because castling is dependent on the position. The argument that castling cannot have a value because it can lead to getting mated or because it can lose you the game is essentially flawed since for this same logic a queen cannot have a value because saving a queen can also lead to get mated or lose you the game. My reasoning for this lies on the following statistic of &lt;a href=&quot;http://vizual-statistix.tumblr.com/post/78821780083/when-i-started-this-blog-one-of-my-first&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;utilization of squares by chess Grandmasters&lt;/a&gt;. It is quite obvious that using both white and black, Grandmasters tend to castle in almost every game: &lt;code&gt;g1&lt;/code&gt; as white and &lt;code&gt;g8&lt;/code&gt; as black have almost always a value greater than &lt;code&gt;1&lt;/code&gt;, meaning that the king is usually tucked in the corner for safety. Thus I would say that castling is, in average, a borderline indispensable tool that ensures the king safety.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Protecting one's king and checkmating the opponent's is the objective of the game, meaning that there is no need to assign a numerical value to the king because losing it means that the game is lost. Similarly, taking away one's option to castle severely hinders the safety of the king and, as seen above, is used virtually in every game. Hence castling cannot have a numerical value assigned since virtually every strategy to defend one's king uses it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3890" LastEditorUserId="3890" LastEditDate="2017-07-24T13:06:47.143" LastActivityDate="2017-07-24T13:06:47.143" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18120" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5135" CreationDate="2017-07-23T14:57:41.020" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The answer to this question is most probably highly influenced by the style of play (i.e. perfect play, grandmaster-level, intermediate level, junk-play, or pure-random moves).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In high-quality play between chess engines (grandmaster level) I believe the ratio is about 35% (White wins), 41% (Draw), and 24% (Black wins). This is based on referenced information from Wikipedia.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13813" LastActivityDate="2017-07-23T14:57:41.020" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18121" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18115" CreationDate="2017-07-23T19:52:05.147" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;In terms of apps, other than the good suggestions made so far, I definitely recommend most of &lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/dev?id=8196632901699712832&amp;amp;hl=en&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&quot;Chess King&quot;&lt;/a&gt; apps, and specifically for openings:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.chessking.android.learn.openinglab&amp;amp;hl=en&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess Opening Lab (1400-2000)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.chessking.android.learn.openingblunders&amp;amp;hl=en&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess Opening Blunders&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These apps have a theory section, where various types of openings are discussed (closed, open, etc) and a practice section where you get to solve small problems specific to each opening (which you will be able to choose from). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On another note, from your description I gather your difficulties may not be necessarily opening related, but a tad more fundamental. So what you can always consider, specially at a beginner's level, is to learn basic principles about opening up the game, and not necessarily memorizing specific known opening lines. What this entails usually can be roughly summarized with the following points:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Deciding on your own style of play: open positions (e.g., 1.e4), closed position (such as 1.d4, more positional style) or the various other semi-open/closed ones. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Piece development: whatever strategy you have in mind, you first need units to execute it with, so prioritize piece development at the beginning, get out the minor pieces, occupy the centre, ...&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;King safety: the cliche is that you should always castle as early as possible, which is not a bad advice, but in general what matters is that you &lt;em&gt;consider&lt;/em&gt; your king safety, and not naively undermine its importance. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Create useful space: Big part of development phase is to occupy parts of the board (often the centre) that are most accessible to your pieces (specially the minor pieces). For example, if you ignore occupying the centre of the board with your central pawns, you will have a lot of difficulties to establish centralized knights. This is often a very difficult aspect of the opening phase, as it is non-trivial and different for each opening. But think simple, you want to have active knights and bishops, so always ask yourself during your play: what structure do I need in order to post my knight here or there, or in order to have this or that diagonal open for my bishop.  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Improve piece coordination: Your pieces (specially minor ones at the start) need to speak to each other, and opening theories in short provide optimized recipes to this end while refuting/limiting your opponent's play (but this is another discussion). Meaning, you have to think in terms of your collective pieces if you want to execute some plan or strategy. Amateur players tend to just opt for small tactical plans that they execute with 1 or 2 pieces: e.g., a queen and a bishop, a knight and a bishop (e.g., a bishop of f4 and a knight on b5, a typical attack on c7). Such small size attacks are often easy to parry once spotted, so try to involve as many pieces as you can for your attacks, this will make it harder and harder for your opponent to hold off. You may ask: but so when are the aforementioned &quot;small&quot; types of attacks useful: well, think about them in this way: on the one hand, these are small maneuvers that allow you to potentially perturb your opponent's desired setup and on the other hand, they can be seen as forceful means of rerouting your pieces to better posts. Forceful here suggests that the rerouting is without loss of tempo. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;On the more practical side of things, and more related to the first point on style, you have to give different structures sufficient trials until you fully understand an opening to its nitty gritty details, details that may only at a higher level become relevant, but the good thing is the better you understand a line, the easier it will be for you to adapt if your opponent tries to refute something or deviate abruptly.&#xA;So pick up a theme of a opening you like, and play it as much as you can until you master it, then try something else, and the same routine again. This way, very soon you will have a rough idea of what to play vs many different openings, e.g. you will have a basic system vs e4, d4, and ... Again there's no recipe for what I referred to as &quot;your basic system&quot;, because what it really means is that you will know in what terms to assess different openings and on your own out of the principles you pick up along the way, you will naturally come up with good responses. &#xA;Let me give two basic examples: Catalan (c4, d4, g3) players really like their bishops, hence the double fianchetto that often results from this line (idea being to preserve the bishops and reduce opponent choices of exchanging them), but to actually know how to leverage the two bishops takes a lot of experience and positional understanding in order to know e.g., how and when to break the centre, do I play Rc1 before c4, do I take back with knight or pawn on d4 if they take ..., and a great deal of tact, as otherwise a good opponent will easily find ways to force trade of bishops. Another opening like the Dutch: primary emphasis of the Dutch is to control the light squares on d5, e4 and the latter without having to play d5, so you preserve the possibility of playing d6 if you so desire, or if the position demands for it. With this in mind, white wants to counter these very reasons, and regain better grip over central d5,e4 squares, so first thing white annoyingly and smartly does is to give up the dark square bishop for the strong knight on f6 (which is a good re-enforcer of d5,e4 squares), e.g., 1.d4 f5 2.c4 Nf6 3.Nc3 e6 4.Bg5 Be7 5.Bxf6...  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Pawn structure: its importance cannot be emphasized enough: pawn moves are the most committal moves in chess, mainly because pawns move irreversibly. This means that you need to make sure to what pawn structure you want to commit and not naively reduce your choices of expansion or defense. That's why the English opening is so powerful: it's one way of being conservative about your pawn structure, in order to have more options in reaction to what your opponent goes for. Other example, in sharp Sicilian positions, an experienced player on the black side knows not to impulsively move either the h,g and f pawns impulsively to fend off white's push, instead you have to wait until you really have to play h6,h5, g6 and so on (these are very tempting defensive moves when white is coming at you with all they have, which is the case in sharp Sicilian lines). The sooner you commit, say to g6, the earlier you've created an unamenable target weakness for your opponent to aim for. To showcase, here's a beautiful game by Kasparov (black) vs Adams:&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Michael Adams vs Garry Kasparov - 2005&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.Be3 e6 7.Be2 Qc7 8.Qd2 b5 9.a3 Bb7 10.f3 Nc6 11.O-O-O b4 12.axb4 Nxb4 13.g4 Be7 14.g5 Nd7 15.h4 Nc5 16.Kb1 Rb8 17.h5 O-O 18.g6 Bf6 19.Rdg1 Ba8 20.Bg5 Be5 21.gxh7+ Kxh7 22.Nb3 Nxc2 23.Nxc5 Na3+ 24.Ka2 Qxc5 25.Na4 Nc2 26.Kb1 Qa3 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Notice Kasparov's king-side pawns until the end ;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyways, the list goes on of course and by no means should you take the above points as complete, but hopefully they do give you some pointers and I have to stop at some point :) &#xA;But what is important for you to take away, is the ways you can think about the opening phase without ever having to sit down and memorise lines, instead, from now on whenever you see a new opening being played, try to look at it with the above points in mind. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3594" LastEditorUserId="3594" LastEditDate="2017-07-23T23:24:52.433" LastActivityDate="2017-07-23T23:24:52.433" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18122" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18048" CreationDate="2017-07-24T04:35:25.457" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes. The Smith-Morra will suffice if you're playing 1600s. If you lose, then your problem is likely not because of the opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Smith-Morra gambit is for bottom feeders. You can still be 2000 FIDE and play it. But that's probably the rating threshold where you should switch to a more mainline opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've actually seen an 1800 rated player beat a grandmaster online on ICC with the Smith-Morra Gambit!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, it depends on what you use chess for; the smith-morra gambit is absolutely working at a 1600 level, it's not like a grandmaster can lose to 2000s by playing the Smith-Morra gambit, although he'd (or she'd) probably have to switch for when playing 2200s.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to be titled, you have to play the main lines (because then you'll never have to switch again, but also there's no risk because it has basically been proven to be sound). I absolutely love Quality Chess's motto: &quot;Tired of getting bad positions? Try the main lines!&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.s. A good line for black against the smith morra gambit would be the Siberian trap line. Even if white doesn't fall for the Nd4 trap, black can still get a safe position (and the computer evaluates it as 0s).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: I just realized that this was too late to post, because you wanted to know if you could use it in your upcoming tournament. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13817" LastEditorUserId="13817" LastEditDate="2017-07-24T04:41:12.577" LastActivityDate="2017-07-24T04:41:12.577" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18123" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18038" CreationDate="2017-07-24T04:50:36.433" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Because of two reasons I can think of:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Chess isn't always about a single perfect move (especially in the opening!), there tends to be 1 or 2 or 3, even 10 other moves that are exactly the same level of strength. Specifically speaking of the opening, styles of the positions you reach can differentiate based off what you play.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;We do it because people naturally prefer or do favorable in one specific type of position over another. Some players are natural born attackers and very talented at it, so they will play openings that are more geared towards attacking; they will play into their strengths and have a better intuition of what to play. Other players are more positional and have a talent for identifying maneuvers and plans, so they will prefer 'slower' lines like the Closed Ruy Lopez.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, to the last question, yes, we can try to identify our styles and our talents in chess to improve our openings and get a better feel for what positions we should reach.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13817" LastActivityDate="2017-07-24T04:50:36.433" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18124" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8327" CreationDate="2017-07-24T06:42:05.887" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Of course, lichess is extremely inflated. Just look at Penguingim1's bullet rating; it is like 3100. In fact, it was almost 3200 at one point. Yet, in real life, Penguingim1 is only rated 2450 or so USCF (which is higher than FIDE).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There isn't really a good or direct translation, but perhaps you can estimate. I would say a rough conversion factor between lichess and FIDE would be like 1 FIDE unit = 1.19 classical lichess units. For example, I know one guy who is 1800 FIDE but 2150 on lichess classical. If you multiply 1800 by 1.2, you get 2160; very darn close! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.s. I agree that higher rated chess players don't play much chess online. Just look at the player leaderboards on lichess; there isn't 1 single GM in the top 10s for lichess, but every single player top 100 FIDE is GM titled.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13817" LastActivityDate="2017-07-24T06:42:05.887" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18125" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18038" CreationDate="2017-07-24T12:32:51.470" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Personality, in any aspect of life, is a complicated thing. To speak of style is a way to reduce personality to a small number of options (romantic, classical, scientific, etc..) in order to simplify description/discussion, but it will often be an oversimplification, and therefore unreliable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Perhaps I make a move that allows an unclear attack in response that I am really rather afraid of, but I tell myself that it would not be in my opponents style. If s/he is a good player, they will do their best to arrive at an objective judgement regardless of style, but style will probably influence what they actually play. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastActivityDate="2017-07-24T12:32:51.470" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18126" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-07-24T15:54:48.753" Score="0" ViewCount="721" Body="&lt;p&gt;If somebody playing with you propose a takeback, how often will you accept it? Do you know if takebacks are allowed on tournaments?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13744" LastActivityDate="2017-07-25T05:24:26.007" Title="Do you accept takebacks?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2017-07-25T16:21:15.403" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18127" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18126" CreationDate="2017-07-24T16:07:27.877" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Regarding tournaments, according to the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/FIDE/handbook/LawsOfChess.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE rules&lt;/a&gt;, takebacks are not permitted.  Section 4.6:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;When, as a legal move or part of a legal move, a piece has been released on a square, it&#xA;  cannot be moved to another square on this move. The move is then considered to have&#xA;  been made:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(The rest of section four has more rules about touching a piece, moving a piece, capturing a piece, and the like - but the gist of the answer is there: once a move is made, it has been made.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Regarding casual games... that's entirely up to you.  In general, I prefer touch move and no takebacks regardless of the game - but sometimes, if it was a very good game, it's nice to say, &quot;sure, you win... but what would have happened if...&quot; and play it out a different way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7897" LastActivityDate="2017-07-24T16:07:27.877" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18128" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18126" CreationDate="2017-07-24T16:35:01.887" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Only on local tournaments in friendly atmosphere, with very weak opposition in first rounds, where my risk is minimal and nobody cares. Even if I liked showing respect to some world class player, unexpectedly blundering, maybe offering conditional take back, where he can no longer win the game, you must understand that you are breaking rules and you can hurt other participant seriously with that. That's place where you don't want to be. I won every game easily where I allowed takeback.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11609" LastActivityDate="2017-07-24T16:35:01.887" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18129" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18038" CreationDate="2017-07-24T18:49:49.427" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;Style&quot; is just a very terse way to express a complex idea.  By having a common language regarding chess &quot;styles&quot; you can quickly quantify and communicate an idea with other players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It aids in analysis and communication between people who enjoy the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is similar to &quot;theory&quot; in music.  You don't have to know the language of musical theory, but if you do, you can communicate with other musicians and critics very quickly regarding what is otherwise a difficult thing to express.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12728" LastActivityDate="2017-07-24T18:49:49.427" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18130" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18126" CreationDate="2017-07-24T22:31:51.403" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'll generally accept takebacks when playing online if I suspect the move isn't what my opponent actually intended, and have actually been known to request them under the same circumstances (I can't tell you how many times I've tried to castle on the Lichess mobile app, and ended up just making a king move instead by accident, just because of how the user interface works).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I never propose takebacks in over-the-board play, and generally wouldn't agree to an opponent's takeback proposal unless it's a very casual &quot;just playing to while away some time&quot; type of game - when playing over-the-board, it's unlikely to make a move that isn't what you actually intended.  While I haven't really thought about it to any extent, I think my boundary line for this would probably be, if the game is serious enough that a clock is involved, then it's serious enough for both players to be held to all the rules...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7147" LastActivityDate="2017-07-24T22:31:51.403" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18131" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18087" CreationDate="2017-07-25T03:34:05.257" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You have to have a strategically better position in order to 'force' tactics. Focus on strategy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tactics are how you win games, but Strategy is how you prove that your pieces and pawns are more impressive than your opponent's. Don't just think in terms of 'okay I'm going to play Nd4 to threaten a fork', but instead 'I'm going to play Nd4 to reroute to b3 so that I can push c5 and my knight will be on c5 putting a lot of pressure on critical points b7 and d7. Even if these threats are met, I will have a slight advantage after I bring all my pieces to the center.'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13817" LastActivityDate="2017-07-25T03:34:05.257" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18132" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="889" CreationDate="2017-07-25T03:49:06.217" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, I think the Tarrasch defense is pretty 'french-like'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 d5 (1...e6 2.c4 (2.Nc3 d5 3.e4 Bb4) 2...Nf6 3.Nc3 d5 4.Nf3 c5) 2.c4 e6 &#xA;3.Nc3 c5 *&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you can see, the gradual c5 thrust is universal against pretty much all d4 setups. You can play this way against the London System, you can play this against the Queen's Gambit (which is strictly the Tarrasch defense), you can even play this against the Stonewall attack, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Enjoy! )) P.s.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1378589&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1378589&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13817" LastEditorUserId="13817" LastEditDate="2017-07-25T03:57:33.257" LastActivityDate="2017-07-25T03:57:33.257" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18134" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18126" CreationDate="2017-07-25T05:24:26.007" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I always accept takebacks, always, except in tournaments when the tournament is touch move or touch clock.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13817" LastActivityDate="2017-07-25T05:24:26.007" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18135" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18074" CreationDate="2017-07-25T05:29:42.063" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the ruckus of players moving pieces and (talking) would be louder than the clocks beeping. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is literally not an issue, and the idea of being irritated by little sounds is a new modern liberal agenda. It is bull. Almost nobody is naturally irritated unless they have a respectable genetic condition. They just pretend.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is no issue to solve, just take a clock and demonstrate it to the owner; demonstrate that it wouldn't bother anybody. Another guy said it well; the clock sounds are at 20 decibels while the talking is at 60 decibels. Also only half (or less) will have sounds, right?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you really need to, most clocks should have a function where you can turn the sound off.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13817" LastActivityDate="2017-07-25T05:29:42.063" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18136" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18115" CreationDate="2017-07-25T14:14:23.793" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would suggest &lt;a href=&quot;http://chessable.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chessable&lt;/a&gt;.  I don't know if they have an app - but I use their site from my phone daily, and find it very well laid out.  (You can sign up for free.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chessable uses spaced repetition to teach you an opening, which makes it a lot easier.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are quite a few books already on the site, and more coming every month.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Difficulty level varies by book: some are designed for newcomers to the game; some are designed for a MUCH more advanced level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7897" LastActivityDate="2017-07-25T14:14:23.793" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18137" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-07-25T15:52:43.500" Score="3" ViewCount="399" Body="&lt;p&gt;As black, I like to return my dark square Bishop to the King after castling short. I want to develop my skills in defending that position. In what openings does it occur?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And how should one in general search for such a nameless(?) concept or strategy? Is there for example a database where one can search for Bf8 in the ten first moves?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13829" LastEditorUserId="13829" LastEditDate="2017-07-25T18:01:28.930" LastActivityDate="2017-07-27T14:52:15.433" Title="What are good defenses of black King with Bishop on f8 or g7?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;castling&gt;&lt;bishops&gt;&lt;defense&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18140" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18137" CreationDate="2017-07-25T18:19:58.193" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Ruy Lopez and the Philidor have variations with this move so the rook can put pressure on the e pawn.  Since the plan is to restrain and attack the e pawn, these maneuvers often become a fianchetto.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chessbase does allow a search like this.  It also has a search for just some of the pieces, that is, you can place a king of g8 and a bishop on f8, and the program will search all games which has at least that configuration.  I'm sure that various free databases, such as SCID, chesspad, x/winboard, and arena, have this pattern search.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12449" LastActivityDate="2017-07-25T18:19:58.193" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18141" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18137" CreationDate="2017-07-25T18:24:55.647" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are a lot of openings where Black &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fianchetto&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;fianchettos&lt;/a&gt; his king's bishop, and it ends up on g7. Versus 1. d4 you have the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King%27s_Indian_Defense&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;King's Indian Defense&lt;/a&gt; and the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gr%C3%BCnfeld_Defense&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Grünfeld Defense&lt;/a&gt;; if White opens 1. e4 you can respond with the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirc_Defence&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Pirc Defense&lt;/a&gt;. The &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_Defense&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Modern Defense&lt;/a&gt; is usable against both.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Without&lt;/em&gt; playing g6, Black has to move his rook on f8 (after castling short) and retreat the bishop to f8. That's far less common, though there are some (side)lines in the Sicilian and the Ruy Lopez where this happens.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2017-07-25T18:24:55.647" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18143" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13324" CreationDate="2017-07-26T07:44:04.713" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, assuming that you define a 'correct rating' by a FIDE rating, I'd say that chess.com is up there, although not necessarily for the bullet pool. However, for the slow time control pool, chess.com is extremely similar to FIDE and maybe even more similar to USCF. On chess.com, you start at 1200 which is quite similar to an average scholastic rating. Furthermore, lots of cheaters on chess.com deflate the ratings a little bit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.s. lichess.org is extremely inflated. 1800 FIDE basically equates to around 2250 on lichess (classical time control). On the other hand, 1800 FIDE equates to around 1850 on chess.com (again, classical time control).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Did I approach your question right? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13817" LastActivityDate="2017-07-26T07:44:04.713" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18144" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18053" CreationDate="2017-07-26T07:54:42.863" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Even without the bishop on c5, White plays c3 all the time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Historically speaking, the elixir for e4 players was to try to establish the classical pawn duo on e4 and d4. Therefore, they developed a lot of theory in the king's pawn opening, that all revolve around fighting for this pawn duo.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The approach is, of course, to play c3 so that when you play d4, you're prepared to recapture the pawn with the c3 pawn, instead of with the f3 knight or the queen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Historically speaking, it has been decided that the Ruy Lopez is the best way to fight for this d4 and e4 pawn duo, because the Ponziani (1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. c3) runs into some problems after 3...d5, neutralizing the center right away (which Bb5 doesn't allow) (Black has to know some theory, though. There are actually a lot of traps in the Ponziani!).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now why is this e4 and d4 pawn duo better than say... Nc3? Well, the knight on c3 is actually quite passive. The knight belongs on g3, which is why the Ruy Lopez consists of a very common maneuver, that is, Re1 to prepare Nd2-Nf1-Ng3 (or Ne3!). Furthermore, having a pawn duo for white is always considered to make a difference between having an advantage and being equal. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lastly, because the bishop is on c5 which it usually doesn't go to (goes on e7 or sometimes g7), the c3-d4 pawn break becomes even more attractive, hitting the bishop with tempo. However, some of the Bc5 lines are quite sharp and so White has to study some theory (it's called the Archangel!), and not always does white play c3-d4, but rather d3 (solidifying e4), followed by Nc3, Bg5, and Nd5. This is usually only when Black plays Bb7, though (and by playing d3, that would shut off a bishop on b7).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Enjoy!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: I forgot to mention that White also plays c3 so that the bishop can retreat to c2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13817" LastActivityDate="2017-07-26T07:54:42.863" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18145" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13324" CreationDate="2017-07-26T07:54:50.747" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;My Lichess blitz rating is very close to my FIDE classical rating. But is that &lt;em&gt;correct&lt;/em&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The FIDE rating is based on slow (six hour), over the board games, in my case usually in team matches, one per match weekend, where I make sure I am well rested and then try to play to the best of my abilities. For instance, if I suspect a trade to a better endgame is available, I will calculate it and go for it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand my online blitz games are purely for fun, with a glass of whisky at the end of the day when I am dead tired. I play the first move I think of with major preference for just throwing stuff at his king and flashy sacrifices. I avoid all endgames as they're boring.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems more coincedence than correctness.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2017-07-26T07:54:50.747" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18146" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18064" CreationDate="2017-07-26T08:08:55.360" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;No.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even if you could like take a pawn en passant and open up two lanes in 1 move, only 1 lane will be mathematically relevant to checking the king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See, you can attack the king from a ton of directions, but all checking moves can mathematically only make 1 or 2 lanes/diagonal opened and thus relevant for delivering a check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess notation for diagrams use + for a single check and ++ for a double check, but I've never seen a +++ character for a triple check. They simply don't exist.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13817" LastActivityDate="2017-07-26T08:08:55.360" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18147" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16874" CreationDate="2017-07-26T08:20:12.463" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't see why they wouldn't allow you to participate in something just because you aren't an elite.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.americanblindchess.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.americanblindchess.org/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If this is what you're looking for, maybe the membership information can help you? I skimmed through it a little and it looks like you contact this Hadley school to place you in a blindfold chess correspondence (and real-time) club. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe they host tournaments there!!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13817" LastActivityDate="2017-07-26T08:20:12.463" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18148" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18152" CreationDate="2017-07-26T11:49:27.953" Score="1" ViewCount="96" Body="&lt;p&gt;What are the big events that big players visit? Do every big Tournament has an effect on the players rating?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13744" LastActivityDate="2017-07-26T21:14:42.573" Title="What are the main tournaments in the chess world?" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;tournament&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2017-07-27T08:46:55.117" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18151" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-07-26T15:10:42.867" Score="2" ViewCount="157" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are there any free Android apps to create chess videos? They must allow us to draw arrows on the board, highlighting squares or pieces as we discuss the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11261" LastEditorUserId="18475" LastEditDate="2019-04-08T09:11:06.607" LastActivityDate="2019-04-08T09:11:06.607" Title="Android apps to create chess videos" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;android&gt;&lt;chess-videos&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2019-06-25T19:41:29.783" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18152" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18148" CreationDate="2017-07-26T21:14:42.573" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you wish to know about tournaments for top players, I would direct you to &lt;a href=&quot;http://2700chess.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;2700 chess (scroll down under the list of players)&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you consider a &quot; big tournament&quot; an open tournament with let's say 100 participants (and maybe 1 or 2 of them are top players), then do a search in some comprehensive chess calendar, e.g.: &lt;a href=&quot;http://chess-calendar.eu&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chess-calendar.eu&lt;/a&gt; or &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/calendar/tournaments.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE's calendar&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not just the biggest tournaments affect player's FIDE rating, almost every small tournament can do that, too (all FIDE needs is some... money).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore the only exceptions I can think of are friendly matches and alternative chess tournaments (Fischer's chess, Basque chess etc.).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13055" LastActivityDate="2017-07-26T21:14:42.573" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18153" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-07-26T22:13:19.103" Score="5" ViewCount="1180" Body="&lt;p&gt;Zobrist hashing is very good method save position but it is not good to read position - is any good alternative to this algorithm which allow to store and restore position with minimum of bits.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For sure FEN is good to store position but it no the best representation using bits. I found that I can store position with use 202 without move count and half move count which is not need for position analysis (or not very important).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Zorbist use 64 bits as I remember.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8406" LastActivityDate="2018-10-26T19:00:44.120" Title="What is alternative to Zobrist hashing?" Tags="&lt;programming&gt;&lt;chess-algorithms&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18154" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18163" CreationDate="2017-07-27T11:04:11.023" Score="1" ViewCount="177" Body="&lt;p&gt;It seems like Lilienthal's &lt;strong&gt;37. Rc1&lt;/strong&gt; prevents black from placing his Rook on &lt;strong&gt;Rb1&lt;/strong&gt; and give chessmate helped by the black &lt;strong&gt;Nc3&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the obvious way to chessmate for black here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Game:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Andre Lilienthal vs Mikhail Botvinnik 0-1&lt;br&gt;&#xA;USSR Championship (1945), Moscow URS, rd 12, Jun-20 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Link:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1032107&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1032107&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11748" LastActivityDate="2017-08-01T12:06:48.820" Title="Why did Lilienthal resign after (37. Rc1) in Lilienthal vs Botvinnik (USSR Championship, 1945)?" Tags="&lt;resigning&gt;&lt;botvinnik&gt;&lt;lilienthal&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18155" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18159" CreationDate="2017-07-27T11:15:03.587" Score="0" ViewCount="366" Body="&lt;p&gt;Have they reached their peak rating and find it unmotivating to pursue any further?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Are they lacking financial security?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Are they tired of travelling?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11748" LastActivityDate="2017-07-27T11:51:33.747" Title="Why do many players resign from chess in a relative young age? And become coaches or writers instead?" Tags="&lt;psychology&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18156" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4455" CreationDate="2017-07-27T11:30:53.760" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;For a chess board: I recommend lichess study/analysis board or import function, chessbase reader, apronus, chess.com analysis board, SCID (Great resource by the way! Free, has a database, and you can spar the engine. It is like Chessbase but free), Peshka 6 (don't know much about it, its a russian interface where you can buy stuff on chessking and put it on peshka), or Lucas chess. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I personally use lichess [&lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/editor]&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://lichess.org/editor]&lt;/a&gt; because you can import games, they have a live master-game database, and if you have an account then you can play or make studies which can be used as like a way to store games into cloud!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For recording: I recommend oCam [&lt;a href=&quot;http://ohsoft.net/eng/]&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://ohsoft.net/eng/]&lt;/a&gt; If you're making instructional (expository) videos about famous chess games or opening/endgame studies. oCam allows you to crop your video recording screen  resolution to however you like, therefore you can make it so that the video only records the chess board alone and not your screen. If you can't get oCam for whatever reason, you can also try Bandicam if you don't mind the 10 minute time limit + the watermark.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I recommend OBS [&lt;a href=&quot;https://obsproject.com]&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://obsproject.com]&lt;/a&gt; (Open Broadcaster Software) if you want to stream yourself playing chess. You can adjust boundaries too on this program, but it is more to work with. Anyway this is the type of software that almost all (if not all) streamers use! It has a function that allows you to stream automatically live as you record.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For editing videos: You can try Wondershare Video Editor [&lt;a href=&quot;https://m.en.softonic.com/app/wondershare-video-editor-win]&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://m.en.softonic.com/app/wondershare-video-editor-win]&lt;/a&gt;. Even the free version should have enough permissions to allow you to edit a good portion of your videos, however it has a nasty watermark. To fix this, you can use oCam to record and your wondershare video and then play your wondershare video without exporting it, it just means you'd have to sit and record it. Otherwise just use windows movie maker or Lightworks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.s. For some reason, Camstudio is now riddled with adware and viruses, and also Screen toaster is now unavailable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13817" LastEditorUserId="13817" LastEditDate="2017-07-27T11:39:39.747" LastActivityDate="2017-07-27T11:39:39.747" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18157" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5028" CreationDate="2017-07-27T11:31:48.910" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;AFAIK sufficient mating material is considered as such if a &quot;helpmate&quot; can be demonstrated in any number of moves. Put another way, it is as if the player that ran out of time is out of the game, and now the other player controls both sides. If a checkmate position can be reached this way, that other player wins the game, otherwise it's a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13845" LastActivityDate="2017-07-27T11:31:48.910" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18158" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="552" CreationDate="2017-07-27T11:34:12.393" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Kasparov did just (beginning of 2017) publish a new book on this topic. He comments on the whole IBM fair play issue in the book.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the book Kasparov also reflects on why IBM placed Russian speaking security guards at his hotel and why a specific change was made to Deep Blue on the very same morning that the final game was to be played. And exactly a game play change related to the very opening that Kasparov had discussed with his team about the night before the final game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Se also:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.kasparov.com/deep-thinking-ai/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.kasparov.com/deep-thinking-ai/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11748" LastActivityDate="2017-07-27T11:34:12.393" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18159" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18155" CreationDate="2017-07-27T11:51:33.747" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;A lot of chess players make a living off of chess coaching. You can't make enough money by playing tournaments unless you're like top 100 in the world. Therefore I assume that some people must have to resort to writing books and coaching people in order to make enough money. Considering that they resign at a young age, they must plan this out. On top of that, I would assume that maybe when you combine family life (if you're a father or mother) with coaching, having a small normal job, and a tireness from travelling, then you'll never have time to play at tournaments.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, I would say that no, they haven't reached their peak, that's not why. Just look at Mark Dvoretsky, he is only an IM, but he could definitely be a GM if he wanted. It is because of personal choices, financial reasons, and convenience reasons. Or, maybe they just love teaching but hate playing in serious competitions due to stress. Besides, tournaments can cost tons of money.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess is considered the second most stressful sport behind skydiving.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13817" LastActivityDate="2017-07-27T11:51:33.747" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18160" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18161" CreationDate="2017-07-27T12:13:10.653" Score="2" ViewCount="619" Body="&lt;p&gt;I hate playing against the London because it allows 800 FIDE rated players to survive for 50+ moves. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, I play the Grunfeld against d4, the Sicilian Najdorf against e4, and the triangle against most Nf3 systems. I also play the Ruy Lopez and the most mainline e4 lines there are for white. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So do you have a strong, venomous system that combats the London move order? I looked at 1. d4 Nf6 2. Bf4 c5 which I like for Black, but they can play 2. Nf3 first. Any recommendations? I accept fianchettos and systems where the light squared bishop gets developed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks in advance!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13817" LastActivityDate="2020-02-20T23:58:34.020" Title="Can you recommend a dynamic, concrete, or easy-to-play line against the London System?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;london-system&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18161" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18160" CreationDate="2017-07-27T12:49:35.303" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to modern theory, playing the QGD as if you were white is the best option.  (That is, of course, just to sell more useless books.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I play an early Bd6 to challenge this system, but the problem I experience is when they don't trade the bishops.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The logical plan is to play the KID.  The bishop will be &quot;biting on granite.&quot;  When the time is right, pushing the e pawn will gain tempos on the Bf4 and Nf3, and since this system mostly develops the Bd3, a fork is possible.&#xA;Another popular theory is to exchange on d4 and plan for a minority attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;None of these seem dangerous, but you can use their development system to expect certain moves.  You know that they won't be attacking with c4 and you know that they will place a knight on f3 (and later on e5.)  An early Bg4 to avoid the bad bishop, and, since they aren't attacking your center, this bishop won't need to be protecting b7.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also possible is to develop your bishop before establishing the triangle formation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These won't prevent long games, but it may provide you with positions that you are more comfortable with.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12449" LastActivityDate="2017-07-27T12:49:35.303" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18162" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18186" CreationDate="2017-07-27T13:50:19.577" Score="14" ViewCount="1349" Body="&lt;p&gt;Do you just grind them, or do you save some of the chess tactics that you miss?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do you ever annotate your chess tactics?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do you try to remember certain patterns and main ideas? Do you categorize your tactics by forks, pins, zugzwang, etc.?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How do you recommend we train tactics puzzles? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13817" LastActivityDate="2018-11-30T14:19:33.953" Title="How do you solve chess tactics?" Tags="&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;attack&gt;" AnswerCount="8" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18163" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18154" CreationDate="2017-07-27T14:13:05.173" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;White resigned simply because the c3 knight is poison due to a mate in 3 starting with Re1.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore black can just play hxg4 hxg4 then undermine the e5 knight with g5. Notice that the e5 knight gets trapped. There is no way out of both these mating conundrums and these knight trap schenanigans (schevenigen lol!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is the diagram if we give White a free move. That's right, Black had the move in this game and he will smash with hxg4 followed by trapping the knight on e5 (after g5), but even if White moves first, Black is still smashing!!!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[FEN &quot;8/ppk3p1/1r6/3pN2p/2p2PP1/2n1r2P/P2R4/K1R5 w - - 0 0&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Rxc3 (1.Rdc2 (1.gxh5 Re2 2.Rxe2 Nxe2 3.Rc2 Nxf4 4.h4 Kd6) 1...Ne2 2.Rf1 (2.Re1? Nd4) h4 &#xA;3.g5 Re4) 1...Re1+ 2.Rd1 Rxd1+ 3.Rc1 Rxc1# &#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, I checked this position with a computer (Stockfish 8, depth 28) just to make sure I was right, and the initial position here before Rxc3 scores as -5.4 (if Black moves as in the game) and -3.2 if White moves here. Now here is the position if it is Black to move, as in the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[FEN &quot;8/ppk3p1/1r6/3pN2p/2p2PP1/2n1r2P/P2R4/K1R5 b - - 0 0&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1...hxg4 2.Nxg4 (2.hxg4 g5 3.Nf7 (3.Nxc4 dxc4 4.Rdc2 gxf4 5.Rxc3 Rxc3 6.Rxc3 Kd6 &#xA;7.Rxc4 Ke5 8.Ra4 f3) 3...gxf4 4.Ng5 Rg6) 2...Re2 3.Rxe2 Nxe2 4.Re1 Nxf4 5.Rh1 &#xA;(5.Rf1 Nxh3) 5...c3 6.a3 d4 &#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If White doesn't play right, then Black just immediately wins material or mates. If White plays right, then Black gets a winning rook endgame because of his massive advantage in pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At the end of the day, he probably resigned 20 or so minutes after making that move just based off the endgame. Remember, Mikhail Botvinnik was like the most heavy duty Russian chess dude out there. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess was serious business to him and the Russians trained in endgames more than other people did. Botvinnik actually tackled a line of the Semi-Slav (a line of the Semi-Slav Botvinnik I think??) for 100 hours worth of preparation! These top players gave Chess their 110%.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13817" LastEditorUserId="13817" LastEditDate="2017-08-01T12:06:48.820" LastActivityDate="2017-08-01T12:06:48.820" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18164" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-07-27T14:25:14.173" Score="-2" ViewCount="256" Body="&lt;p&gt;If we downloaded a gigantic database of chess games into our brains (intelligence downloads), then would we play at a stronger level than the world's leading top players?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What about if we downloaded a 7-piece tablebase into our heads? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And also I was thinking the size of the game database would be 6.5 million games, and all grandmaster games or at least above 2400.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13817" LastActivityDate="2017-07-28T09:18:09.797" Title="What if we downloaded a gigantic database of chess games into our brains (intelligence downloads)?" Tags="&lt;database&gt;&lt;psychology&gt;&lt;computer-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18165" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18164" CreationDate="2017-07-27T14:34:44.433" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;If that database contained purely grandmaster games, and we were fast enough to process all of that information, then you could technically replicate the moves of any grandmaster and become &lt;em&gt;equal&lt;/em&gt; to their skill level. However, if faced with a board layout not in the database, you would have to use your own intuition. That, unfortunately, must be learnt and cannot be downloaded.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you downloaded games from chess computers too, you could play at a higher level than any human, however new board states would again throw you off since you would have to process the board yourself and not rely on the database.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I guess the answer is that if you downloaded a database of all grandmaster and computer games you could theoretically beat any grandmaster as long as you repeat a game in which the side you are playing as won. Any divergence into a new line will make the database obselete.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for the tablebase, you would have to hold your ground against your opponent until there were 7 pieces left, and then you would be able to spot the best move for the rest of the game. The issue here is that with 7 pieces left, most grandmasters are nearly flawless in their endgames anyway, and unless you enter the endgame with a small advantage you will be pretty much equal, even with machine skill.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10887" LastEditorUserId="10887" LastEditDate="2017-07-28T08:45:03.900" LastActivityDate="2017-07-28T08:45:03.900" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18166" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18137" CreationDate="2017-07-27T14:52:15.433" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Good defenses?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Against e4, well there are lines such as the sicilian hyperaccelerated dragon, the accelerated dragon, and the traditional dragon. There is also the modern 1...g6 which is usually okay, and also the pirc which is suboptimal. As for systems where the bishop retreats, you can commonly find that in the Breyer System (a line in the Ruy Lopez). In the breyer as well as other lines in the Ruy Lopez, Black plays Re8 followed by Bf8, g6, and Bg7.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want a solid defending position, then you should try the Breyer system. Look it up )). Just know that you may not reach it too often, but the way that Black plays into it is always 'good', if that makes sense. Otherwise try the pirc or the traditional dragon maybe, both are actually quite fun to defend. But objectively the Breyer is one of the best systems for black; it is extremely theoretically healthy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Against d4, both the Grunfeld and King's Indian setups are good for what you're looking for. I play the Grunfeld by the way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, there is a line in the English (and also the larsens! 1. b3) where Black retreats the bishop to f8, but doesn't fianchetto via g6. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It goes 1. c4 e5 2. Nc3 Nf6 3. g3 d5 4. cxd5 Nxd5 5. Bg2 Nb6 6. Nf3 Nc6 7. 0-0 Be7 8. d3 0-0 9. a3 Re8! (preparing to guard e5) 10. b4 Bf8. I enjoy this position for Black too. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13817" LastActivityDate="2017-07-27T14:52:15.433" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18167" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-07-27T16:34:59.487" Score="1" ViewCount="107" Body="&lt;p&gt;I analyze my tournament games with my chess coach on the computer and in the end I have a PGN file which contains all the variations, mistakes, and tactics i missed. The question is am i suppose to play the game all over again on the board trying all the variations etc, or just studying them on the computer screen enough? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9849" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T18:56:03.893" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T18:58:23.923" Title="After analyzing games with a coach should we play them again on the board?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;learning&gt;&lt;tournament&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="18168" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17527" CreationDate="2017-07-27T18:28:01.200" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;Pawns promote to 'their' piece (Rook pawn to a rook, etc) is a feature of Tamerlane Chess, a 14th century variant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm unaware of any recorded games of this variant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13848" LastActivityDate="2017-07-27T18:28:01.200" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18169" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18162" CreationDate="2017-07-27T19:10:51.663" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well this is the sort of thing that changes from one person to another: there's no unique/best way of going about it. Almost everything you say are in general good recommendations. &#xA;At least from my personal experience, most important is to find a routine for solving puzzles on a regular basis. Each puzzle contains at least a key idea that you can take away, mainly in terms of the structure and the weakness in it to be exploited in the tactic. Doing these on a regular basis fills up your bag of ideas as they often push you to think outside the box, but be patient, it takes time for them to residue and to lurk into your play in a natural way. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another important aspect of puzzle solving is the fact that it is also by definition a calculation exercise, either before or after you've spotted the key idea. So it is strongly recommended to patiently&lt;sup&gt;1&lt;/sup&gt; solve puzzles without an analysis board, instead solve them entirely in your head, even if it requires a depth of 4-5 moves, and sometimes a bit more. This will improve both your speed and precision of calculation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, in terms of organization, almost all sources of chess tactics nowadays, be they books or websites&lt;sup&gt;2&lt;/sup&gt; offer categorized puzzles, in terms of checkmates, pins, double attacks, endgames, and so on, or options to do them all mixed in. So just find a rhythm for doing as many of them as possible, whenever you feel fresh.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;sup&gt;&lt;sup&gt;1&lt;/sup&gt;: Most importantly, don't try the first idea you see, once you spot a potential solution, check further to see if you cannot find a better one. Most puzzles often have only one solution (or one accepted one), so you have to think optimally in each step of the way. In other words there's definitely grinding involved :)&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;sup&gt;&lt;sup&gt;2&lt;/sup&gt;: Just to name a few sources worth considering: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess24.com/en&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;chess24&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;chess.com&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;lichess.org&lt;/a&gt; all offer a wide range of tactics trainers, with small differences between them. &lt;/sup&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3594" LastActivityDate="2017-07-27T19:10:51.663" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18170" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18162" CreationDate="2017-07-27T21:23:22.973" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I never return to old tactics unless it is masterpiece. I don't sort them by motives, just calculating the best move and go on. I think mainly the calculation itself is important and if there is some new motive, you just remember it. I solve hard positions, taking time. Some strong players like plenty of easy positions, even repeatedly solving same positions. To me this looks like a waste of time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11609" LastActivityDate="2017-07-27T21:23:22.973" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18171" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18162" CreationDate="2017-07-27T22:13:14.343" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Look for checks, captures, and threats.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Look for any undefended pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Visualize where a tactic is possible.&lt;/strong&gt; Can I pin the knight by moving my bishop here, and will it not leave my position vulnerable? Or, can I force the queen to move to this square, so I can checkmate/produce a royal fork/get him to resign/etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13147" LastActivityDate="2017-07-27T22:13:14.343" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18172" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18167" CreationDate="2017-07-28T00:05:43.893" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Once you have thoroughly analyzed your game, it completely depends on your preferences.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What I usually do is first analyze it on my own on the chess board, trying to come up with the critical positions and evaluating the position on my own. I then use a computer to check the analysis, specifically if the variations I thought as possible replies or alternative options were sound. Finally, I play the game again over the board and share my analysis with my coach.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While the very last option is not indispensable since you have already done the work previously, I found it useful: exposing one's ideas help to clarify them and the critical evaluation of the coach and the rest of the students in the class usually brings up alternative interesting variations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3890" LastActivityDate="2017-07-28T00:05:43.893" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18173" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-07-28T02:59:18.377" Score="6" ViewCount="509" Body="&lt;p&gt;Despite these endings being theoretical draws, I have heard that people play on because of significant winning chances. My question is which one has more chances? I would guess the bishop, but I do not know. Is it difficult to draw against the rook and knight?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3872" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-07-28T09:40:01.820" LastActivityDate="2017-07-29T11:34:39.697" Title="(Rook + Knight vs Rook) vs (Rook + Bishop vs Rook)?" Tags="&lt;rook-and-minor-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18175" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18167" CreationDate="2017-07-28T07:02:08.647" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is always a good habit of moving pieces over the board. The best players in the world practice it, and they also recommend it. Sometimes, I can understand that in a busy world you may not have the time and space to occupy yourself and arrange the pieces OTB. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as games are concerned, it depends whether you are learning a specific opening or a variation, then it always useful that you practice your winning games or the games where you have learnt a lot. GM Igor Smirnov says that before you play a tournament, you must have a look into your own games where you had a good win. It not only exuberates your confidence but gives you a strong determination to win the game. Kasparov also says that you must memorize some of the games related to a specific opening which you play. It helps you to remember patterns and best moves in a particular opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T18:58:23.923" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T18:58:23.923" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="18176" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18164" CreationDate="2017-07-28T08:19:03.683" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It would hardly help, because &lt;strong&gt;chess is not a game of knowledge&lt;/strong&gt;. It's a game of skill. It wouldn't be much different from &quot;downloading&quot; video of all football games ever and expecting to play like Messi.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To play strong chess, you need to be able to find the best move in a position you've never seen before, that usually has never been played before.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, pattern recognition is a big part of it -- but you'll still need to know &lt;em&gt;why&lt;/em&gt; those patterns work, &lt;em&gt;why&lt;/em&gt; moves were played and others weren't, and be apply to apply that knowledge to new positions. Just knowing the old games instead of having them in a database isn't that much help. And there are still lots of positions where pattern recognition &lt;em&gt;isn't&lt;/em&gt; the important thing, but rather exact calculation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tablebases are different matter, because they contain &lt;em&gt;everything&lt;/em&gt; when the number of pieces is small enough, and the moves they contain are perfect. If this player reaches a winning position that is in the database, he'll always win it. That's much better than human players manage. But he'll have to reach those positions first...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastEditorUserId="924" LastEditDate="2017-07-28T09:18:09.797" LastActivityDate="2017-07-28T09:18:09.797" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18178" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18164" CreationDate="2017-07-28T09:11:57.757" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think it'll help, unless you download the Stockfish engine (but not the database). You can't win a game by just checking the database, you'll need the understand the moves. There's no point with a 7-men tablebase if you miss a simple tactic in a new position not in the database.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm convinced I can defeat a FIDE 1400 player, even if the player is allowed to search the database during the game. I'm happy to allow my opponent unlimited access to 7-men tablebase. That wouldn't make any difference.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2017-07-28T09:11:57.757" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18179" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18173" CreationDate="2017-07-28T09:30:36.063" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;TL;DR:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rook_and_bishop_versus_rook_endgame&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Rook + Bishop&lt;/a&gt; offers significantly more winning chances against a lone Rook (38%) than Rook + Knight (only a few %).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Full answer:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'Secrets of Pawnless Endings' by John Nunn mentions the following about the ending with the Knight:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[the stronger side] has far fewer winning chances than in the ending of R+B v R and in practice the ending is often agreed drawn immediately. Top-level wins are very rare, but there was one famous example in &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1070866&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;J.Polgar-Kasparov, Dos Hermanas 1996&lt;/a&gt; being one of the exceptions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The chapter about R+B v R mentions 74 games of which 28 (38%) were won by the stronger side.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The book I already mentioned, and 'Fundamental Chess Endings' by Lamprecht and Müller, cover these endings. For the Bishop ending, they both explain the main defensive techniques, the so-called &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rook_and_bishop_versus_rook_endgame#Cochrane_Defense&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Cochrane defense&lt;/a&gt; and the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rook_and_bishop_versus_rook_endgame#Second-rank_defense&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Second Rank defense&lt;/a&gt;, and some key positions (discovered by Philidor in the 18th century already) which can be won by the stronger side, e.g. &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rook_and_bishop_versus_rook_endgame#Philidor_position&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this one&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The endgame with the Knight is easier to hold in general. The defending side needs to prevent their King being forced to the edge; if that does happen, the chances of winning are actually greater than with the Bishop. An advantage for the defending side is that the Knight is worse in protecting its own King from checks by the defending Rook. If the defending King is confined to the edge, his rook should either pin the Knight or give annoying checks; this resembles the Cochrane defense in the Bishop ending. Some winning positions were published by Centurini in the 19th century.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In general, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.shredderchess.com/online-chess/online-databases/endgame-database.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;endgame databases&lt;/a&gt; are very helpful, at least for analyzing winning positions. For draws, they are trickier to use, because they don't tell you how &lt;em&gt;difficult&lt;/em&gt; it is to hold a certain position. Especially the Bishop ending contains many 'marginal' positions which can only be held with secure play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-07-29T11:34:39.697" LastActivityDate="2017-07-29T11:34:39.697" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18180" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18167" CreationDate="2017-07-28T12:22:11.017" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I agree that moving the physical pieces impresses upon the mind more thoroughly than by electronic means. We think and conceptualize in 3 dimensions, so it is only beneficial you should learn and study in the same manner. I know I get much more out of reviewing master games on a physical set than pumping through them on my computer in ChessBase. It takes longer, but it's not a race.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The wrong thing would be to think you learned everything from that one session and file the analysis away. Come back and review it frequently and you will make more discoveries.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10233" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T18:55:30.183" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T18:55:30.183" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="18181" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18162" CreationDate="2017-07-28T12:38:09.470" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Training chess tactics should be done by theme. This means solve a set of tactics that are based on a similar theme, like Double Attack, Discovered Check, Absolute Pin, Relative Pin, Skewers, etc. This impresses upon the mind the ideas of that particular kind of tactic and gets your brain looking for it as a matter of course. After, you will find yourself 'seeing' these tactics (i.e., imagining) in your games or at least considering them as a means to an end in your positions. This is the creativity you cultivate in your chess game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10233" LastActivityDate="2017-07-28T12:38:09.470" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18182" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18184" CreationDate="2017-07-28T15:53:42.293" Score="13" ViewCount="4807" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am trying to get Stockfish's evaluation of a board position(which is in PGN format) using command line.&lt;br&gt;I know it accepts board position in FEN format, but is there any way i can provide PGN format?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;If no, how can i convert PGN format to FEN?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Is there any tool in Python which can help me out?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13854" LastEditorUserId="3594" LastEditDate="2017-07-29T14:28:58.770" LastActivityDate="2021-04-21T21:08:03.410" Title="Stockfish evaluation of a position from PGN" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;programming&gt;&lt;pgn&gt;&lt;fen&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18183" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18185" CreationDate="2017-07-28T16:50:16.790" Score="1" ViewCount="186" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was solving puzzles and I failed this one.&#xA;The correct answer was &lt;code&gt;fxe4 fxe4 Bxh5+&lt;/code&gt;.&#xA;Why can the knight not just move to &lt;code&gt;f6&lt;/code&gt; and be safe there?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;fxe4 Nf6 exd5 fxd5&lt;/code&gt; is in my opinion more preferable for black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [Title &quot;1...Nf6?&quot;]&#xA; [fen &quot;rnbqk2r/ppp3pp/3b4/3p1p1n/3Pp3/1P2PPP1/P1P1B2P/RNBQK1NR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13744" LastEditorUserId="3594" LastEditDate="2017-07-29T14:33:39.980" LastActivityDate="2017-07-29T14:33:39.980" Title="Why doesn't 1.fxe4 Nf6 work for black in this puzzle?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;puzzles&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18184" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18182" CreationDate="2017-07-28T17:36:39.673" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes there are easy ways to do this. I'm going to briefly show you one quick way of doing it in python, using the &lt;a href=&quot;https://pypi.python.org/pypi/python-chess&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;python-chess&lt;/a&gt; module.&#xA;If the in-code comments are not enough, feel free to ask for clarifications or possible extensions of the code:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To showcase a working example, I've taken a game between &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1333302&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Adams and Kasparov&lt;/a&gt;, you can download the PGN from the hyperlink. And our engine is the latest Stockfish available taken from the &lt;a href=&quot;https://stockfishchess.org/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;official website&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lets call it &lt;code&gt;PGNeval.py&lt;/code&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;import chess&#xA;import chess.uci&#xA;import chess.pgn&#xA;import sys&#xA;&#xA;arguments = sys.argv&#xA;pgnfilename = str(arguments[1])&#xA;&#xA;#Read pgn file:&#xA;with open(pgnfilename) as f:&#xA;    game = chess.pgn.read_game(f)&#xA;&#xA;#Go to the end of the game and create a chess.Board() from it:&#xA;game = game.end()&#xA;board = game.board()&#xA;&#xA;#So if you want, here's also your PGN to FEN conversion:&#xA;print 'FEN of the last position of the game: ', board.fen()&#xA;&#xA;#or if you want to loop over all game nodes:&#xA;#while not game.is_end():&#xA;    #node = game.variations[0]&#xA;    #board = game.board() #print the board if you want, to make sure&#xA;    #game = node         &#xA;&#xA;#Now we have our board ready, load your engine:&#xA;handler = chess.uci.InfoHandler()&#xA;engine = chess.uci.popen_engine('...\stockfish_8_x64') #give correct address of your engine here&#xA;engine.info_handlers.append(handler)&#xA;&#xA;#give your position to the engine:&#xA;engine.position(board)&#xA;&#xA;#Set your evaluation time, in ms:&#xA;evaltime = 5000 #so 5 seconds&#xA;evaluation = engine.go(movetime=evaltime)&#xA;&#xA;#print best move, evaluation and mainline:&#xA;print 'best move: ', board.san(evaluation[0])&#xA;print 'evaluation value: ', handler.info[&quot;score&quot;][1].cp/100.0&#xA;print 'Corresponding line: ', board.variation_san(handler.info[&quot;pv&quot;][1])&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lets test it with the aformentioned game PGN, our command is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;python PGNeval.py adams_kasparov_2005.pgn&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And here's the output I get:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;FEN of the last position of the game:  br3r2/5ppk/p2pp3/4b1BP/N3P3/q4P2/1PnQB3/1K4RR w - - 4 27&#xA;best move:  Qxc2&#xA;evaluation value:  -10.87&#xA;Corresponding line:  27. Qxc2 Rfc8&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3594" LastEditorUserId="3594" LastEditDate="2017-07-28T21:38:05.890" LastActivityDate="2017-07-28T21:38:05.890" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18185" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18183" CreationDate="2017-07-28T18:01:35.687" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Because after &lt;code&gt;Nf6, e5&lt;/code&gt; is a double attack on the &lt;code&gt;d6&lt;/code&gt; bishop and the &lt;code&gt;f6&lt;/code&gt; knight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The puzzle aside, given that black's dropping the piece anyway, may as well go for something practical, like &lt;code&gt;Nxg3, hxg3, Bxg3+...&lt;/code&gt; and take 2 pawns for the piece, with some positional compensation as the king will be misplaced, but objectively white should of course be easily winning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [Title &quot;Puzzle&quot;]&#xA; [fen &quot;rnbqk2r/ppp3pp/3b4/3p1p1n/3Pp3/1P2PPP1/P1P1B2P/RNBQK1NR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1.fxe4 Nf6 (1...fxe4 2.Bxh5+) (1...Nxg3 2.hxg3 Bxg3+) 2.e5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3594" LastActivityDate="2017-07-28T18:01:35.687" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18186" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18162" CreationDate="2017-07-28T19:19:25.527" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is an article about tactics training at ChessTempo.com&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.apronus.com/chess/trainingtactics.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.apronus.com/chess/trainingtactics.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It deals with some of the issues raised in the question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3456" LastActivityDate="2017-07-28T19:19:25.527" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18187" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18192" CreationDate="2017-07-29T20:05:41.273" Score="4" ViewCount="474" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm an avid player of the &lt;a href=&quot;/questions/tagged/caro-kann&quot; class=&quot;post-tag&quot; title=&quot;show questions tagged &amp;#39;caro-kann&amp;#39;&quot; rel=&quot;tag&quot;&gt;caro-kann&lt;/a&gt;, yet I recently came across the Fantasy Variation for the first time. Although I won, I wanted to post my game for review:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Bad_Bishop&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. f3 Qb6 4. Nc3 dxe4 5. fxe4 e5 6. Nce2 {I knew we came out of book here, but I didn't know how to exploit it. I ended up trading pawns as my e-pawn was hanging} exd4 7. Nxd4 Bc5 8. c3 (8. Nde2?? {This simple line is interesting, as it shows the pressure on white's game even at an early stage} Bf2+ 9. Kd2 Qe3#) Nf6 9. e5 Bg4 {This move helps develop my queenside, as well as trading down against the isolated d-pawn} 10. Be2 Bxe2 11. Ngxe2 Nd5 12. Rf1? {White begins a kingside attack when his king is still stuck in the middle} O-O 13. h4 Nd7 {I wanted to open the centre and attack white's king. This move aims to either win the e-pawn, or provoke e6} 14. e6 fxe6 15. Nxe6 Rxf1+ 16. Kxf1 Be3? {My eyes lit up when I saw the possibility of a knight fork on e3, but there is no way to force it. My thinking here was just to lay a cheapo trap and hope for the best} 17. N2d4 (17. Bxe3?? Nxe3+) N7f6 (17...c5 {Immediately after playing 17...N7f6 I saw 17...c5 instead, but I don't think it works here} 18. Nxg7 Kxg7?! 19. Qg4+) 18. g4? Bxc1 {OK, it turns out 16...Be3 wasn't so poor, as I can remove the defender of g4 and win a pawn} 19. Qxc1 Nxg4 20. Qg5 {From this stage of the game, white is treatening mate, so almost all of the following moves have to be checks} Nde3+ 21. Ke2 Qxb2+ 22. Kd3 g6 23. Qe7 {I missed this move, as I thought white would play 23. Rg1} Qxc3+ {Forced, intending to trade queens and win a pawn} 24. Ke4 (24. Kxc3 Nd5+ {White should have opted for an inferior endgame rather than letting his king be pulled up the board}) Nf2+ 25. Ke5 (25. Kf3 Nd5+ {This shows the difficulty white is in. He either faces mate or large material losses}) Nc4+ 26. Kf4 (26. Kf6 Ne4#) Qe3#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My questions are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;How could black have played better?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I played 16...Be3 as a 'cheapo', which my opponent didn't fall for. What would have been better than 16...Be3?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastEditorDisplayName="user1108" LastEditDate="2017-09-17T07:57:42.553" LastActivityDate="2018-02-27T19:31:04.723" Title="Please critique my game (Caro-Kann, Fantasy variation)" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;caro-kann&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18189" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18190" CreationDate="2017-07-30T03:15:37.770" Score="8" ViewCount="665" Body="&lt;p&gt;this is a recent online game I played. I'm usually about an 1800 USCF player, but I had this very disappointing loss to a 1400 level player. Stronger players might look at this sub-par game and wonder how an 1800 could play so weakly, so no, it's not my best chess achievement! I've added my annotations and thoughts during the game, and would appreciate if some players could offer advice on my gaps in my strategy and positional understanding. Also, please don't just dump out engine analysis!&#xA;Thanks!!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Me&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[whiteelo &quot;1800&quot;]&#xA;[blackelo &quot;1425&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 {1. e4 e5 is generally one of the holes in my white&#xA;repertoire.  I haven't found any good resources on playing the Italian game for&#xA;white, so most of my knowledge is based on master games and experience.} 3...&#xA;Be7 {I rarely face this move in practice, and I have no special preparation for&#xA;it, so I decided to meet it by expanding in the center.} 4. d4 {In retrospect, I&#xA;have concerns that this setup leaves my centre too vulnerable, and I'm imaging&#xA;that 4. d3 serves me better.} 4... d6 5. O-O (5. dxe5 {I'm wasn't sure wheather&#xA;or not is wise to continue in this fashion.  My development seems slightly&#xA;beter, but I'm not the tpye of player to allow early queen exchanges.} 5... dxe5&#xA;6. Qxd8+ Bxd8 7. O-O) (5. Nc3 {Also seems like a logical move, strengthening my&#xA;centre.}) 5... Nf6 {I am already beginning to sense that my e4 and d4 squares&#xA;are way too loose, especially with ...Bg4 coming.} 6. Re1 {Sadly, I played this&#xA;move to defend my e4 pawn, feeling that I didn't have time in the current&#xA;position to develop my c1-bishop and b1-knight.  Perhaps 6. Nc3 was a much more&#xA;principled choice.} 6... Bg4 {This move now comes with a lot of force, and it&#xA;suddenly feels difficult to break the pin and defend the d4 square.} 7. d5 {This&#xA;seems like a very questionable decision to me, but I felt that it was necessary&#xA;to avoid losing a pawn.} (7. Be3 {I rejected this move immediately.} 7... Nxe4)&#xA;(7. c3 exd4 8. cxd4 Bxf3 9. Qxf3 {This looks too weakening to me, but should I&#xA;be considering this to play on the g-file?}) 7... Nd4 8. Nbd2 {My feeling during&#xA;the game was that this move is forced.} 8... O-O 9. h3 {Pushing the h-pawn gives&#xA;me a permanent kingside weakness that matters later in the game, although it&#xA;didn't occur to me at this point in time.} 9... Nxf3+ (9... Bh5 10. g4) (9...&#xA;Bxf3 10. Nxf3) 10. Nxf3 Bd7 {This move surprised, but it seems that black is&#xA;shifting his focus to breaking up my centre with moves like ...c6.} (10... Bh5&#xA;{I expected black to continue with this move, followed by a plan involving&#xA;...Ne8 and ...f5.}) 11. Nh2 {I played this move quickly and felt that it was&#xA;vital for me to break with f2-f4 at some point.  With the central pawn structure&#xA;however, it seems that white should be seeking play on the queenside while black&#xA;should be playing on the kingside.  Maybe I'm wrong, but I'm wondering if this&#xA;was a strategic turning point in the wrong direction.  Maybe I should be playing&#xA;for b2-b4 and c2-c4-c5 instead.} 11... Qc8 12. Bf1 {I played this move in order&#xA;to prevent any tricks on h3 and meet ...c6 with c4.  After a second look, I'm&#xA;wonder if ...Bxh3 is ever a concern anyways.} 12... c6 13. c4 Ne8 {Expanding&#xA;with ...f5 seems like a better idea than breaking up the centre with ...c6, so&#xA;I'm surprised black didn't play this already.} 14. f4 {Once again, it's unclear&#xA;whether or not playing on this side of the board favours me.  Meanwhile, I've&#xA;been neglecting the development of my c1-bishop, and hardly any of my pieces are&#xA;off the back rank.} 14... f5 {I was expecting something more along the lines of&#xA;14...f6 since 14...f5 allows me to open the e-file for my rook.} 15. exf5 ({I&#xA;spent a short time analyzing.} 15. c5 cxd5 {I thought that black's attack on the&#xA;c5-square would prove to be a problem.} 16. cxd6 Bxd6 17. fxe5 Bc5+ 18. Be3&#xA;Bxe3+ 19. Rxe3 dxe4 20. Rc3 Bc6 21. Bc4+ {This line actually doesn't look too&#xA;bad for white, but I feel that there isn't enough compensation for the pawn.&#xA; Again, maybe I'm missing something big in this line.}) 15... Bxf5 {It's hard&#xA;for black to deal with the e-file weakness, but at the same time, my queenside&#xA;bishop and rook are useless pieces.} 16. fxe5 dxe5 17. Rxe5 Bd6 {Black's&#xA;regrouping moves start coming with tempo due to the loss in time that I&#xA;incurred by capturing the e5-pawn.} 18. Re1 Qc7 19. Nf3 {I was targeting the d4&#xA;square, so I didn't decide to play 19. Ng4.} 19... Nf6 20. Nd4 Bc5 21. Kh1 {Why&#xA;didn't I play a simple developing move like Be3?  During the game, I played Kh1&#xA;immediately.} (21. Be3 Bd7 (21... Bxd4 22. Qxd4 Rad8 23. Bf4 Qd7 24. d6 {And&#xA;white also seems in control.}) 22. Ne6 Bxe3+ 23. Rxe3 Bxe6 24. dxe6 {Looks&#xA;dominating for white.}) 21... Ne4 {But I suddenly gave gaping weaknesses on the&#xA;dark squares due to my struture and lack of development of the c1-bishop.  This&#xA;forces 22. Rxe4 I believe.} 22. Rxe4 Bxe4 23. Ne6 Qd6 24. Nxf8 {I thought for a&#xA;long time to make this move, hoping to find some play against g7, but I don't&#xA;think there was anything.} ({Looking back, I realize that I never considered&#xA;this move.} 24. Nxc5 {probably due to the loss of material.  Since my dark&#xA;squares are so weak, it makes more sense that black's dark squared bishop is&#xA;more powerful than any other rook or minor piece on the board.}) 24... Rxf8 25.&#xA;a3 {This is a ridiculous move to me, but I thought my only play was in&#xA;disturbing the bishop with b4. It's a little difficult to suggest an alternative,&#xA;but maybe 25. Bd2 so I can meet 25...Qg3 with 26. Qg4.  Although now, at the&#xA;time of writing this, I realise that black simple mates white with 26.  Rxf1+&#xA;27. Rxf1 Bxg2#} 25... Bb6 26. c5 {Total desperation, but this move makes no&#xA;difference in the dark-square domination.} 26... Qxc5 27. Be2 Qf2 28. Bf3 Rxf3 0-1&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, sorry, I'm new to this site. Not sure how to format the PGN for the viewer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13861" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-07-30T08:52:32.260" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T16:52:07.787" Title="How did I go wrong?! Embarassing Loss" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;learning&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18190" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18189" CreationDate="2017-07-30T06:12:05.233" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Enclose the game with the {} icon pre-formatted text.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Me&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[whiteelo &quot;1800&quot;]&#xA;[blackelo &quot;1425&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 {1. e4 e5 is generally one of the holes in my white&#xA;repertoire.  I haven't found any good resources on playing the Italian game for&#xA;white, so most of my knowledge is based on master games and experience.} 3...&#xA;Be7 {I rarely face this move in practice, and I have no special preparation for&#xA;it, so I decided to meet it by expanding in the center.} 4. d4 {In retrospect, I&#xA;have concerns that this setup leaves my centre too vulnerable, and I'm imaging&#xA;that 4. d3 serves me better.} 4... d6 5. O-O (5. dxe5 {I'm wasn't sure whether&#xA;or not is wise to continue in this fashion.  My development seems slightly&#xA;better, but I'm not the type of player to allow early queen exchanges.} 5... dxe5&#xA;6. Qxd8+ Bxd8 7. O-O) (5. Nc3 {Also seems like a logical move, strengthening my&#xA;centre.}) 5... Nf6 {I am already beginning to sense that my e4 and d4 squares&#xA;are way too loose, especially with ...Bg4 coming.} 6. Re1 {Sadly, I played this&#xA;move to defend my e4 pawn, feeling that I didn't have time in the current&#xA;position to develop my c1-bishop and b1-knight.  Perhaps 6. Nc3 was a much more&#xA;principled choice.} 6... Bg4 {This move now comes with a lot of force, and it&#xA;suddenly feels difficult to break the pin and defend the d4 square.} 7. d5 {This&#xA;seems like a very questionable decision to me, but I felt that it was necessary&#xA;to avoid losing a pawn.} (7. Be3 {I rejected this move immediately.} 7... Nxe4)&#xA;(7. c3 exd4 8. cxd4 Bxf3 9. Qxf3 {This looks too weakening to me, but should I&#xA;be considering this to play on the g-file?}) 7... Nd4 8. Nbd2 {My feeling during&#xA;the game was that this move is forced.} 8... O-O 9. h3 {Pushing the h-pawn gives&#xA;me a permanent kingside weakness that matters later in the game, although it&#xA;didn't occur to me at this point in time.} 9... Nxf3+ (9... Bh5 10. g4) (9...&#xA;Bxf3 10. Nxf3) 10. Nxf3 Bd7 {This move surprised, but it seems that black is&#xA;shifting his focus to breaking up my centre with moves like ...c6.} (10... Bh5&#xA;{I expected black to continue with this move, followed by a plan involving&#xA;...Ne8 and ...f5.}) 11. Nh2 {I played this move quickly and felt that it was&#xA;vital for me to break with f2-f4 at some point.  With the central pawn structure&#xA;however, it seems that white should be seeking play on the queenside while black&#xA;should be playing on the kingside.  Maybe I'm wrong, but I'm wondering if this&#xA;was a strategic turning point in the wrong direction.  Maybe I should be playing&#xA;for b2-b4 and c2-c4-c5 instead.} 11... Qc8 12. Bf1 {I played this move in order&#xA;to prevent any tricks on h3 and meet ...c6 with c4.  After a second look, I'm&#xA;wonder if ...Bxh3 is ever a concern anyways.} 12... c6 13. c4 Ne8 {Expanding&#xA;with ...f5 seems like a better idea than breaking up the centre with ...c6, so&#xA;I'm surprised black didn't play this already.} 14. f4 {Once again, it's unclear&#xA;whether or not playing on this side of the board favours me.  Meanwhile, I've&#xA;been neglecting the development of my c1-bishop, and hardly any of my pieces are&#xA;off the back rank.} 14... f5 {I was expecting something more along the lines of&#xA;14...f6 since 14...f5 allows me to open the e-file for my rook.} 15. exf5 ({I&#xA;spent a short time analyzing.} 15. c5 cxd5 {I thought that black's attack on the&#xA;c5-square would prove to be a problem.} 16. cxd6 Bxd6 17. fxe5 Bc5+ 18. Be3&#xA;Bxe3+ 19. Rxe3 dxe4 20. Rc3 Bc6 21. Bc4+ {This line actually doesn't look too&#xA;bad for white, but I feel that there isn't enough compensation for the pawn.&#xA; Again, maybe I'm missing something big in this line.}) 15... Bxf5 {It's hard&#xA;for black to deal with the e-file weakness, but at the same time, my queenside&#xA;bishop and rook are useless pieces.} 16. fxe5 dxe5 17. Rxe5 Bd6 {Black's&#xA;regrouping moves start coming with tempo due to the loss in time that I&#xA;incurred by capturing the e5-pawn.} 18. Re1 Qc7 19. Nf3 {I was targeting the d4&#xA;square, so I didn't decide to play 19. Ng4.} 19... Nf6 20. Nd4 Bc5 21. Kh1 {Why&#xA;didn't I play a simple developing move like Be3?  During the game, I played Kh1&#xA;immediately.} (21. Be3 Bd7 (21... Bxd4 22. Qxd4 Rad8 23. Bf4 Qd7 24. d6 {And&#xA;white also seems in control.}) 22. Ne6 Bxe3+ 23. Rxe3 Bxe6 24. dxe6 {Looks&#xA;dominating for white.}) 21... Ne4 {But I suddenly gave gaping weaknesses on the&#xA;dark squares due to my structure and lack of development of the c1-bishop.  This&#xA;forces 22. Rxe4 I believe.} 22. Rxe4 Bxe4 23. Ne6 Qd6 24. Nxf8 {I thought for a&#xA;long time to make this move, hoping to find some play against g7, but I don't&#xA;think there was anything.} ({Looking back, I realize that I never considered&#xA;this move.} 24. Nxc5 {probably due to the loss of material.  Since my dark&#xA;squares are so weak, it makes more sense that black's dark squared bishop is&#xA;more powerful than any other rook or minor piece on the board.}) 24... Rxf8 25.&#xA;a3 {This is a ridiculous move to me, but I thought my only play was in&#xA;disturbing the bishop with b4. It's a little difficult to suggest an alternative,&#xA;but maybe 25. Bd2 so I can meet 25...Qg3 with 26. Qg4.  Although now, at the&#xA;time of writing this, I realise that black simple mates white with 26.  Rxf1+&#xA;27. Rxf1 Bxg2#} 25... Bb6 26. c5 {Total desperation, but this move makes no&#xA;difference in the dark-square domination.} 26... Qxc5 27. Be2 Qf2 28. Bf3 Rxf3 0-1&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The Italian game is easy to play, but difficult to get any advantage.  The Max Lange Attack is a better opening.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Be7 is the Hungarian.  It is best to open the center, or castle first, as black's pieces are passive.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;dxe5 allows black to equalize.  Nc3, d5, and c3 are the best moves.  The problem with d5 is that the closed center helps the weaker side, even though this does gain space.  I would play Bb5 then d5 becomes a threat.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Nc3 is the correct move.  Even Qd3 would be better.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Opening the g-file doesn't help before black castles.  Although it fails in this position, Bb5 and sacing the d4 pawn to open the center is often good.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Be2 is better.  Due to the Nxd4 threat, e4 is secure.  The LSB is a bad bishop, so Nxe2+ isn't all that good.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;h3 is normally a weakening move, especially if the kings have castled on opposite sides.  c3, kicking the knight, is a safer move.  If you notice, this isn't the weakening move, f4 is.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Bd7 saves black's good bishop.  Bh5 may be bad after g4 and clamping down on f5.  Black would, in effect, be playing without a bishop when white breaks open the queenside.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Yes, white should be playing on the queenside.  Even if you have to play f4, you must take care to recapture with a pawn to prevent e5 from becoming a hole.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Bxh3 isn't a threat yet, because black doesn't have enough material to conduct an attack.  After an f5 break, black will have a rook attacking and may have enough.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;c4 maintains the &quot;cramping&quot; pawn, but I prefer dxc6 first.  The pressure on d6 if better than the space advantage.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Absolutely right.  g4 clamping down on f5 is an interesting move.  Be3 must be played soon, however Bd3 to, not stop f5, but to recapture on e4 with a piece is playable.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;...f6 allows 15. f5 and a blockade on the white squares.  Does it look like either black bishop will do anything?&#xA;15(var). The final position: you're down a pawn, e5 is really weak, and black has a protected passed pawn. The position look lost to me.  On move 17, instead of fxe5, Qxd5+ keeps the material even, but black, being better developed, has a better game.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I agree.  On move 17, you should play dxc6 first.  With the d-pawn gone, playing Bd6 is bad due to Rxe8.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Although your dark squares are weak, my first thought is the play Rxf5.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;This is the best move, not for control of d4, but Ng4 loses a protector of the dark squares.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I just answered your questions.  If you want deeper notes just ask.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12449" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T16:50:12.637" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T16:50:12.637" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="18191" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18189" CreationDate="2017-07-30T06:13:43.110" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;From a theoretical/concrete point of view:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That late Kh1 is definitely your losing move of the game (only counting what your opponent exploited; you had other bad moves earlier in the game as well like Nd4 itself because of Bh2+, which he didn't exploit). I understand the idea; you want to unpin the knight and everything. So instead of Kh1, if you want to unpin the knight then you should play Be3 (the engine recommends b4 by the way but Be3 is almost just as strong at +0.80 for White). This makes more sense because not only you're developing your last piece, but also the c5 bishop is a CRITICAL POINT. We can categorize CRITICAL POINTS by a handful of guidelines:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Pieces or pawns with the same number of attackers and defenders on it.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Unprotected pieces&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The king is always a critical point&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In caters where there are weaknesses and stuff, squares and where pieces are scattered or lack harmony.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The bishop on c5 is a critical point because it is unprotected, and by playing Be3 which x-rays the bishop on c5, it gives Black problems to solve. For example, you are already threatening Nxf5 (the f5 bishop is another example of a critical point). I think the engine recommends b4 because it is the absolute concrete way to exploit this critical point.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My chess coach told me that out of 90 of his students in his life time, only 12 followed the concept of critical points and used them. They all became masters, and most everyone else who didn't follow and use critical points never got a title. Critical points are a very important concept in chess for trying to put pressure in a position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another important concept is critical constructions. These are basically files or diagonals or ranks where there are 2 pieces of opposition or like a lot of pieces on that one file. This is good for taking forks in the account as well as pins and interference tactics and stuff.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So yeah, critical points = for positional play, and critical constructions = for tactical play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What i'm getting at, is that with the king on h1, it becomes more of a critical construction. Ne4 was good by Black, of course, and the threat is Nf2+, forking. Kh1 makes the 1st rank more of a critical critical construction, when instead you could have met the critical construction on the c5-g1 diagonal with simply Be3 (or the engine idea b4).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yeah then after that, it is very hard to defend. People crack down when they defend... (i.e. Nxf8 which loses because of the strong threat of Qg3 threatening Qxh3#. But with the knight on e6, you attack the c5 bishop so that you can take c5 and meet Qxh3+ with Kg1. The knight on e6 also just covers a lot of squares and can be used as a defensive resource in other means, such as blocking files).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So yeah Kh1 was your main problem because it put you in a position where you had to sacrifice an exchange only to give Black an abnormally strong attacking position, one that is totally defenseless if you're made of carbon and not silicon. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From a practical point of view:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You could have definitely punished Black's early Be7 better. Be7 is really passive and stupid because of d4, which is what you did, and good job for that (Bc5 prevents d4, well OF COURSE :P). But when you castled, instead you could have played d5 instead of castling when he played d6 (because the knight has to retreat to b8 or b4 since there is no e7 square for the knight, since the bishop takes it up). After castling, you're fine but Bg4 makes it kind of tricky and creates you some problems; it screws up certain attractive plans related to attacking the kingside, that you might have wanted to set up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13817" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T16:50:52.613" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T16:50:52.613" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="18192" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18187" CreationDate="2017-07-30T08:32:26.857" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;On move 6, I'm not really sure why White didn't just play Nf3. After that, Black should play exd4 Qxd4 followed by (after Qxd4 Nxd4) just Bc5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After Nce2, well surely exd4 makes sense, but I think Nf6 should have been considered, attacking the e4 pawn. Notice that anytime dxe5? is played then you have Bc5, with that mate threat that you already diagrammed (Bf2+ Kd2 Qe3#), so therefore you didn't have to give up the tension so early with dxe4. Nf6 develops and attacks e4 which is a critical point (a critical point is an unprotected piece/pawn or a piece/pawn with the same number of defenders and attackers on it. A critical point can also be a king or just like in the caters somewhere where you have weak squares and stuff. Attacking critical points is a key concept in torturing opponents or putting pressure in strategic chess).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, I think Be3 is a medium good move... You are establishing a piece on the enemy's third rank or your sixth rank, which can be so strong in some middlegame positions that it is worth sacrificing an exchange for that piece and a pawn or something. The only other move I can think of is Re8, because there is a critical construction on the e-file with 2 knights on the e-file. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A critical construction is a rank, file, or diagonal where there are 2 or more pieces in opposition or just like a lot of pieces (regardless of color) on the same rank/file/diagonal. Critical constructions are very good for finding important tactics or defensive tactical resources that can involve double attacks, skewers, interference, etc. Therefore I think Re8 instead of Be3 makes a lot of sense. You are creating a lot of tension on the two knights and activating the rook.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is a sample line. 16...Re8 17. Nxc5 Nxc5 18. Nd4 Qa6+ 19. Kg1 (all other moves like Kf2 and c4 are just a worse version) Qd3 20. Bd2 (Qxd3? Nxd3 and now you are attacking 2 critical points which is the b2 pawn and c1 bishop, and you can take advantage of the critical construction on the second rank with Re2. On top of that, your knights easily get to the sixth rank or other strong squares) Ne4 21. Be1 Qe3+ 22. Kh1?! (Kh2 is just more accurate) Bxf2 23. Qxf2 and this should win, and all of White's lines were backed up by an engine. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.s. On move 18 you missed ...c5, removing the defender of e6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.s. I think understanding critical points is something you mind as well learn anyway, and a technically possible answer to how you could have played this better. I think the opening was fine but you should have played Nf6 instead of exd4, because Nf6 develops while attacking a critical point which is e4, and you have a strong critical construction on the c5-g1 diagonal and tactical pattern if dxe5 which allows Bc5 and stuff.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13817" LastActivityDate="2017-07-30T08:32:26.857" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18193" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-07-30T09:42:42.273" Score="4" ViewCount="702" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am looking for quality materials such as books, magazines and video series to help me to study Max Lange Attack. I'll be grateful if you recommend one and share the link.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9030" LastActivityDate="2017-09-16T22:34:46.193" Title="Max Lange Attack - Materials to Study" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;books&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18194" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18193" CreationDate="2017-07-30T11:02:54.107" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsLWP611jOM&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsLWP611jOM&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrkyE78II-M&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrkyE78II-M&lt;/a&gt; are decent.  There are other videos on youtube, but most of them are cheap opening traps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A Startling Chess Opening Repertoire by Chris Baker only has one chapter and just covers the basics.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Winning With the Giuoco Piano and the Max Lange Attack by Andrew Soltis is better, but still only good for people under 2000.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12449" LastActivityDate="2017-07-30T11:02:54.107" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18195" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18197" CreationDate="2017-07-30T12:22:48.083" Score="3" ViewCount="310" Body="&lt;p&gt;On the picture, you see the move that was offered by the analyzer.&#xA;My move was Na5. Forking the Queen and the bishop, so I can negate white's attack on f7 and defending the undefended pawn b7, so the queen can not take it.&#xA;However, the analyzer labels it as a blunder and offers Nd4. Why it's better? Why is my turn a blunder, where can I lose here material?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/DSLib.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/DSLib.png&quot; alt=&quot;https://www.dropbox.com/s/y253n6n2d9ayequ/Screenshot%202017-07-30%2014.14.00.png?dl=0&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13744" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-04T17:24:08.223" LastActivityDate="2020-03-04T17:24:08.223" Title="Why an analyser labels this move as a blunder?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="18196" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18195" CreationDate="2017-07-30T12:28:34.263" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your move 1...Na5 is a blunder because there was an opportunity to win material.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The suggestion 1...Nd4 is best because you win a rook, e.g. 1...Nd4 2.Qxb7 Nxc2+ 3.Kf1 Nxa1&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2017-07-30T12:37:56.293" LastActivityDate="2017-07-30T12:37:56.293" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18197" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18195" CreationDate="2017-07-30T12:43:37.073" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;1...Na5 isn't a losing blunder, Black definitely has a much better position after 1...Na5 2.Qc3 Nxc4 3.Qxc4 Nxd5. Black's lead in development and White's weak position (e.g. the g3 square and the king on e1) should be decisive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, 1...Nd4 is a even stronger move because the c2 square is under attack and can't be defended. White can resign immediately after 1...Nd4, whereas White could resist a bit longer after 1...Na5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You had a winning position, but you weren't able to find the most decisive killing move. Whether this was a &quot;blunder&quot; is debatable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2017-07-30T12:43:37.073" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18199" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18195" CreationDate="2017-07-30T17:34:23.237" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In addition to other answers, applications consider a move blunder when there is a much better move. By much, I mean like 150-200 centipawns. (100 centipawn equals to 1 pawn)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9030" LastActivityDate="2017-07-30T17:34:23.237" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18200" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-07-30T21:57:57.837" Score="5" ViewCount="183" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why is it called the &lt;em&gt;Max&lt;/em&gt; Lange attack and not simply the Lange attack? After all, we don't have openings called the Richard Reti opening or the Wilhelm Steinitz defense or the Frank Marshall attack. Is the Max Lange the only opening with a first and last name?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2299" LastActivityDate="2017-07-31T08:20:57.290" Title="Why is it called the Max Lange attack?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;terminology&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="12" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18201" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18205" CreationDate="2017-07-30T22:34:02.617" Score="9" ViewCount="1048" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've recently played some games as Black that opened like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[White &quot;Opponent&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Me&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;*&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;B01&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[CurrentPosition &quot;rnb1kbnr/ppp1pppp/8/3q4/2P5/8/PP1P1PPP/RNBQKBNR b KQkq c3 0 3&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 d5 2.exd5 Qxd5 3.c4  *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;c4 seems to be a very uncommon move as opposed to Nc3.  But it doesn't seem bad at first glance - it allows the knight to go behind the pawn when Nc3 is later played, and grabs some central/queenside space.  It also forces the queen to move (although 3.Nc3 would also have done that.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How do I refute this variation?  Or is it perfectly playable?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My opponent and I both have USCF ratings in the 1500s, if that matters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2020-08-21T05:56:21.960" Title="Scandinavian Defense with 3.c4" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;scandinavian-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18203" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18204" CreationDate="2017-07-31T04:16:45.900" Score="3" ViewCount="1005" Body="&lt;p&gt;How many pieces would be needed in a chess set where all possibilities for promoted pieces are included if pawns are no longer used after they promote?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user11382" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-03-12T17:28:45.137" LastActivityDate="2020-03-12T17:28:45.137" Title="What is the minimum number of pieces needed in a chess set to account for all possible promoted pieces?" Tags="&lt;pawn-promotion&gt;&lt;pieces&gt;&lt;mathematics&gt;&lt;chess-set&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18204" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18203" CreationDate="2017-07-31T04:23:57.447" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let's count.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Starting set&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;2 rooks&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;2 bishops&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;2 knights&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;1 queen&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;1 king&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;(8 pawns)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Max promotions&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;8 rooks&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;8 bishops&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;8 knights&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;8 queens&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Total&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In total you would need 40 pieces and 8 pawns for each color, so 96 units for black and white together.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edited to bullet format to &amp;quot;look&amp;quot; better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12449" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2017-07-31T10:20:54.300" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18205" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18201" CreationDate="2017-07-31T04:34:28.533" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is what I try to accomplish as white, but I play Nf3 first.&#xA;Although your can't take advantage this early, there are good moves depending on your temperament.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Qe4+ forces Qe2, else a pawn hangs, and the trade of queens.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Qa5 pins the d-pawn which gives you the opportunity to get in c5 (e5 is more drawish) and get a central majority.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With a normal game continuation, that is Qa5 =&gt; Nf6..., the d-pawn is slightly weaker as white can't play c3 to support it.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just the opinion of a 2000 player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12449" LastActivityDate="2017-07-31T04:34:28.533" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18206" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18200" CreationDate="2017-07-31T08:20:57.290" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, they don't have an explicit protocol on whether to use the first name, the last name, or both the first and last name. Though admittedly, the Lange Attack sounds more right than the Max Lange attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a completely different story for how an opening gets its name. There are a couple openings that are named after people that didn't even play the opening or come up with the opening itself. Furthermore, there are openings named after animals or whatever; the Sicilian dragon, the Halloween gambit, the English opening, the French defense, the Hedgehog, the King's gambit, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It might be based on the individual. They try to come up with a formal name of a variation based on the person's name, but to some people, it is more formal to use only the last name or the other way around (Grandmaster Tarjan instead of Grandmaster James or Grandmaster James Tarjan). On top of that, if you are lesser known or not famous, then it is considered more formal to use both the first and last name.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You have the Ruy Lopez, but not many other openings that use the first name. It is likely a result of the guy's preference. Again, an individual story for every opening, and it is cultural and normal to use only the last name, but there is ought to be a line that uses the first and last name too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13817" LastActivityDate="2017-07-31T08:20:57.290" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18207" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-07-31T08:25:49.010" Score="3" ViewCount="685" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm looking for an opening expert or an experienced Sveshnikov player that knows the answer to this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Sveshnikov has been increasingly popular and it has also proven to be very good for draws. However, is there a line that like grants an unclear line that will give White a chance to fight for an advantage?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also which line is considered better for avoiding a draw, the Bxf6 first line or the Nd5 line?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13817" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-07-31T09:53:08.377" LastActivityDate="2017-09-08T21:05:23.167" Title="Can White get a theoretical advantage against the Sveshnikov Sicilian in today's theory?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;&lt;sveshnikov&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18208" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18195" CreationDate="2017-07-31T09:01:28.477" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;A blunder doesn't mean you're worse. If you're white and you play a move that goes from +10 to +7, then it will classify that move as a blunder. Same for if you're +3 and your move makes you +1.5; it will call it a blunder.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Na5 only wins a bishop (and a better position) for a knight and Nd4 wins a pawn with a K+R fork by attacking the queen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13817" LastActivityDate="2017-07-31T09:01:28.477" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18209" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18211" CreationDate="2017-07-31T12:05:11.757" Score="4" ViewCount="6214" Body="&lt;p&gt;How do you calculate your Tournament Performance Rating?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can think about two different ways to answer my question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Do you know the formula for calculating your TPR (FIDE or USCF)?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Can you link me to a FIDE TPR calculator and then a USCF TPR calculator? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I recall that rating change calculators have this TPR function.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13817" LastEditorUserId="10295" LastEditDate="2017-07-31T12:22:41.993" LastActivityDate="2018-03-25T11:35:41.640" Title="How do you calculate your Tournament Performance Rating?" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;mathematics&gt;&lt;performance&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18210" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18167" CreationDate="2017-07-31T12:21:55.947" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Number one, you should ask your coach if you haven't :).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Secondly, I think it is a really good idea to go over the PGNs if you approach it as if it were an OTB game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I say load the PGN and pretend you're playing one side as if it were a long OTB game. Then after moves have been made, read the annotations and back it up with engine analysis. I think this is good enough. You don't have to memorize anything unless it is an opening trap or an opening line. Otherwise, if it is deep in the middlegame, then you don't have to memorize unless u want to build a game database and store it in your head, studied, all by memory, but thats debatable and probably not super helpful unless you've reached the position a lot and you need a recipe. Anyway that's a topic for a different thread.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yeah, just read through it, study the chess board, play it like OTB, and most importantly take it slowly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13817" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T18:55:47.737" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T18:55:47.737" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="18211" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18209" CreationDate="2017-07-31T13:03:40.087" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;TPR calculators and expected rating change.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://englishchess.org.uk/Juniors/tournament-performance-calculator/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://englishchess.org.uk/Juniors/tournament-performance-calculator/&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.uschess.org/content/view/13146/836/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.uschess.org/content/view/13146/836/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically Performance rating is the average of your opponent's ratings with an adjustment based on the score of the game.  For each win, you add your opponent's rating + 400, a draw is just your opponent's rating, and a loss is your opponent's rating - 400.  There is an exception for a perfect score, then the adjustment is 800.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12449" LastActivityDate="2017-07-31T13:03:40.087" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18212" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18201" CreationDate="2017-07-31T14:50:09.367" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;As suggested by @FredKnight, I would play 3...Qe4+&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[StartPly &quot;5&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 d5 2. exd5 Qxd5 3. c4 Qe4+ 4. Qe2 (4. Be2 Qxg2 5. Bf3 Qg6) Qxe2+ 5. Bxe2 c5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the final position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;White's b- and d-pawns are restrained&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Although White has developed the bishop, it is not a good piece yet&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think the evaluation is dynamic equality here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastEditorDisplayName="user1108" LastEditDate="2017-07-31T15:21:00.380" LastActivityDate="2017-07-31T15:21:00.380" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18213" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18201" CreationDate="2017-08-01T07:27:52.603" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;c4 is definitely worth taking a look at, and the best continuation as suggested by all is Qe4+ from black . &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If white decides not to exchange queens and plays Ne2, then the c4 pawn is chucked off which may/may not serve as a gambit depending upon the player .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Be2 is already mentioned above and it also withdraws a pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The best move is Qe2 from white and black should exchange the Queens in this line. If Black is playing Q*d5 in the 2nd move then he must be prepared for an endgame. If you are a good endgame player then you should consider playing it else I would recommend the best playing line is Nf6 as black does not lose tempos against the queen. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I mean this one 1)e4,d5 2)e*d5,Nf6 . This line is the best attacking for black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-05T19:28:41.760" LastActivityDate="2020-03-05T19:28:41.760" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="18214" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18218" CreationDate="2017-08-01T08:07:47.173" Score="5" ViewCount="1727" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've received the following PGN text that I suspect invalid:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;8.f4 &#xA;    {0.22/17 0 last book move}&#xA;8...e5 &#xA;    ( 8...b5 &#xA;       ( 8...Qb6 &#xA;           ( 8...Qc7 9.a3 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What exactly the position the moves come from is unimportant. Please note the PGN text has &lt;strong&gt;four&lt;/strong&gt; 8th Black moves (&lt;code&gt;8...e5&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;8...b5&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;8...Qb6&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;8..Qc7&lt;/code&gt;), and two of them (&lt;code&gt;8...Qb6&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;8..Qc7&lt;/code&gt;) are &lt;strong&gt;under&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;code&gt;8..b5&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I suspect this is a mistake because the alternative Black moves should be represented like the diagram:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/nQpsv.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/nQpsv.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I generated the diagram with the Scid vs PC software. Please note the alternative Black moves are written in parallel. For example, &lt;code&gt;8...Qb6&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;8..Qc7&lt;/code&gt; &lt;strong&gt;are not&lt;/strong&gt; included inside the &lt;code&gt;8...b5&lt;/code&gt; bracket.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some softwares (e.g. Scid) are able to read it, but some fail (e.g. ChessX). My own PGN implementation can't handle the nested structure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Q&lt;/strong&gt;: Is the PGN text I posted valid? What does the PGN specification say?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDITED:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The game is &lt;a href=&quot;http://smallchess.com/Others/MaybeInvalid.pgn&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;. Open the game in a text editor, and you will see the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;e5 &#xA;    { 0.22/17 237 } &#xA;    ( 8...b5 &#xA;        ( 8...Qb6 &#xA;            ( 8...Qc7 9.a3 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2017-08-02T02:39:12.537" LastActivityDate="2017-08-02T02:39:12.537" Title="Valid PGN variations?" Tags="&lt;pgn&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18218" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18214" CreationDate="2017-08-01T14:14:12.800" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Good question. This nested notation (also called: recursive annotation variation, RAV for short) is uncommon but valid[*]. In the example you provide, most online PGN readers have no problem parsing and accounting for all the variations and subvariations. So the way to read it is as follows: the nested structure is composed of independent variations, only if there's a closing parenthesis then it is an actual subvariation (so a specific branch out of a previous variation). An example from your PGN: &lt;code&gt;8... Qc7&lt;/code&gt; is a variation, &lt;code&gt;(9.Qe1...)&lt;/code&gt; is a subvariation and &lt;code&gt;(10.Bf3...)&lt;/code&gt; is a subsubvariation. So the nesting is: &lt;code&gt;(8... Qc7 (subvariation (subsubvar...) ))&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Various libraries/modules may not have a built-in parsing system to tackle such PGN structure[**], so you may have to extend this on your own. For further reading, Tim Harding also explains the nested notation and its lack of implementation rather more succinctly &lt;a href=&quot;http://portablegamenotation.com/LittlePGN.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;, I briefly quote:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;An RAV (Recursive Annotation Variation) is a sequence of movetext&#xA;  containing one or more moves enclosed in parentheses. An RAV is used&#xA;  to represent an alternative variation. The alternate move sequence&#xA;  given by an RAV is one that may be legally played by first unplaying&#xA;  the move that appears immediately prior to the RAV. Because the RAV is&#xA;  a recursive construct, it may be nested. ... &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Some software may find it&#xA;  hard to handle nested variations too. Palview3 was the first&#xA;  freely-available PGN software, that I am aware of, that could create&#xA;  with variations in HTML pages, and it is restricted to two levels of&#xA;  notes (three levels counting the actual moves of the game). For most&#xA;  purposes, this is sufficient. Most Java Viewers can only show the&#xA;  actually played moves, except as text notes, but playing through a&#xA;  Palview3 web page is close to the experience of playing it through in&#xA;  a program like ChessBase: a major advance for chess webmasters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That said, nowadays, there are various online pgn-readers that already do this, some examples (so if you paste your PGN onto either of these, it can be fully read and displayed). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/analysis-board-editor&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.chess.com/analysis-board-editor&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chesstempo.com/pgn-viewer.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://chesstempo.com/pgn-viewer.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.apronus.com/chess/wbeditor.php&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.apronus.com/chess/wbeditor.php&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You may find additional information on the standards of PGN &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.saremba.de/chessgml/standards/pgn/pgn-complete.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;. I will get back to you if I find other potentially useful elements.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[*]: just to make sure, I also quickly parsed the text to make sure all parentheses are properly closed. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[**]: for example, the &lt;code&gt;chess.pgn.read_game&lt;/code&gt; method from &lt;code&gt;python-chess&lt;/code&gt; fails to fully read this PGN, it only sees the main variation upto move &lt;code&gt;8... e5.&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3594" LastActivityDate="2017-08-01T14:14:12.800" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18219" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="310" CreationDate="2017-08-02T01:20:49.543" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm a Candidate FIDE Master and I've tried the Scandinavian Defence, and Modern Variation, in the last 2 years. Against weaker opposition my results were very good. Black equalises easily, and quickly, and has very active pieces. The c4 move by white, taking the centre, is hardly a serious problem for the prepared player. After all, many defences concede the centre to white, only to counterattack it later. It is a concept introduced to chess 150 years ago by the Hypermodern School in chess, of which, Aron Nimzovitch was the chief exponent. Defences of this type are the French, the Pirc, the Modern Defence, the Alekhine Defence, and are all played by strong European GMs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To say that the Scandinavian defence is inferior is laughable,but there is a small problem,in my opinion,to be honest.If you need to win on a specific game with black and face a good opponent,if as white they play very solidly,it is hard to obtain a promising position and the majority of games at higher level end up in draws. Black gets winning chances only if the players with white press too much for the win,underestimating the position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13887" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T17:13:23.647" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T17:13:23.647" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="18220" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18222" CreationDate="2017-08-02T07:26:26.627" Score="5" ViewCount="224" Body="&lt;p&gt;The danish existentialist philosopher &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C3%B8ren_Kierkegaard&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Soren Kierkegaard&lt;/a&gt; lived from 1813 to 1855.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He writes in one of his &lt;a href=&quot;http://sks.dk/ee/txt.xml?hash=k76&amp;amp;zoom_highlight=schakspil#k76&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;journals&lt;/a&gt; (21st of May 1839):  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;Original Danish&lt;/strong&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Jeg lever i denne Tid omtrent som en Brik i Schakspil maa være&#xA;  tilmode, naar Modspilleren siger: den Brik kan ikke røres – som en&#xA;  ørkesløs Tilskuer, da min Tid endnu ikke er kommen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Translation by google:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I live at this time just like a piece of chess must be, Allowing the opponent to say: that piece cannot be moved - like an idle&#xA;  spectator, because my time has not yet come&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Alternative translation:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I feel as if I were a piece in a game of chess, when my oppenent says&#xA;  of it:That piece cannot be moved! like a useless bystander, since my&#xA;  time has not yet come.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11748" LastEditorUserId="11748" LastEditDate="2017-08-02T08:57:00.430" LastActivityDate="2017-08-02T20:23:51.220" Title="Did the Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard play chess?" Tags="&lt;history&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18221" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18092" CreationDate="2017-08-02T20:05:37.840" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;As @Glorfindel pointed out, this is a knight's tour.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One sequence is Nc3-a2-c1-b3-a1-c2-a3-b1-d2-f3-h2-f1-e3-g2-e1-d3-b2-d1-f2-h3-g1-e2-g3-h1.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;8/8/8/8/8/pNnbPPpN/RBppPbrP/pkKPrqQR b - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Nxa2 2. null Nxc1 3. null Nxb3 4. null Nxa1 5. null Nxc2 6. null Nxa3 7. null Nxb1 8. null Nxd2 9. null Nxf3 10. null Nxh2 11. null Nxf1 12. null Nxe3 13. null Nxg2 14. null Nxe1 15. null Nxd3 16. null Nxb2 17. null Nxd1 18. null Nxf2 19. null Nxh3 20. null Nxg1 21. null Nxe2 22. null Nxg3 23. null Nxh1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How did I create the sequence? I used &lt;a href=&quot;http://math.oregonstate.edu/%7Emath_reu/proceedings/REU_Proceedings/Proceedings2004/2004Ganzfried.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Warnsdorff’s Rule&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Always move to an adjacent, unvisited square with minimal degree.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Where the degree is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the number of unvisited squares that are adjacent to a given square&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the case of ties, I calculated ahead and made sure that the knight didn't get stuck.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-12-16T22:01:10.267" LastActivityDate="2020-12-16T22:01:10.267" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="18222" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18220" CreationDate="2017-08-02T20:23:51.220" Score="4" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Did the Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard play chess?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The answer is a resounding &lt;strong&gt;maybe&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Firstly, he has no games established in Fritz database. Of course this doesn't mean he didn't play chess, just that there isn't evidence recorded in the database.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;However&lt;/strong&gt; it must be remembered that chess was invented in the 6th century and is one of the most popular and famous board games of all time. It is reasonable to assume that he either played casually at least once or knew enough about the game to inform his writing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2017-08-02T20:23:51.220" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18223" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14012" CreationDate="2017-08-02T20:43:52.600" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;When you add comments, they exist on the current game only. If you want to comment on the position (independent of any individual game), you can do that by adding a mask.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The tree window shows you statistics on the current position (moves played, etc). Masks allow you to add additional information on top of that. Here is a resource to help get you started:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://sourceforge.net/p/scid/wiki/HowToUseMasks/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://sourceforge.net/p/scid/wiki/HowToUseMasks/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13893" LastActivityDate="2017-08-02T20:43:52.600" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18224" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15855" CreationDate="2017-08-03T10:50:04.310" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The only symmetries that leave the game unchanged are rotations, reflections and central inversion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are 2 reflections (vertical being swapping king and queen, horizontal being black moves first) and 4 non-trivial rotations (90, 180, 270 and 360 degrees). Doing nothing (i.e. a rotation of 0) is the group theory identity element.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The board can also be centrally inverted. Think of having a double sided board that you flip over. So a1 becomes h8, a8 becomes h1 etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are interested in studying symmetry in a mathematical context, please investigate group theory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2017-08-03T10:50:04.310" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18225" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15855" CreationDate="2017-08-03T19:39:48.597" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Bad_Bishop forgot the third reflection, if the board was upside-down, the game would remain the same..&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the beginning, there was only a grid, no colored squares.  The blackening of alternating squares was probably introduced to help see the legal diagonal movements.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The story I heard for first move was giving white the first-move advantage as black was thought to be a lucky color at the time.  I assume black and white were used at they were the easiest colors to produce.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a fairly strong player, altering the color(s) or flipping horizontally would make no difference.  Although having a neon set would bother me, but not alter my chess ability.  Another problem is a great variance in the piece shape.  You can't just make the queen look like (that girl from Avatar) and expect me to treat her like that piece.  Just to exaggerate this point, switch the king and queen pieces and see how many times you revert them back to their originals.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12449" LastActivityDate="2017-08-03T19:39:48.597" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18226" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-08-03T19:49:07.690" Score="2" ViewCount="530" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am using SCID; the built-in ECO list is very incomplete and sometimes just weird. The &lt;em&gt;Caro-Kann: Accelerated Panov Attack&lt;/em&gt; for example is called &lt;em&gt;Caro-Kann: English Variation&lt;/em&gt;, the &lt;em&gt;Carls-Botvinnik Defense&lt;/em&gt; hasn't even a name, and many sub-variations are just missing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I want to build my own list to use it in SCID.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I like the &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/ornicar/scalachess/blob/7e65fa3beb00fa5f4ff3bafce48dd35835d61f44/src/main/scala/opening/FullOpeningPart1.scala&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;lichess opening list&lt;/a&gt;, but it is based on FEN positions, not on moves, and SCID needs the latter. I looked at the related questions here, and searched on Google, but couldn't find a good text file with moves and correct opening names.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How should I proceed? Maybe there is already such a file and I just haven't found it, or I can use FEN positions in SCID instead of moves?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8472" LastActivityDate="2017-08-03T21:00:55.417" Title="How to create a useful ECO list?" Tags="&lt;scid&gt;&lt;eco&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18227" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18226" CreationDate="2017-08-03T20:10:09.880" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I maintain one here that you might like to take a look at to see if it is any use for your purposes:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;ftp://ftp.cs.kent.ac.uk/pub/djb/pgn-extract/eco.pgn&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;PGN for ECO descriptions with moves&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12951" LastActivityDate="2017-08-03T20:10:09.880" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18228" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18226" CreationDate="2017-08-03T21:00:55.417" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have created this list, but I'm not sure how well it matches your naming convention: &lt;a href=&quot;http://cricketchess.pcriot.com/opg/index.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://cricketchess.pcriot.com/opg/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a programmer, I can tell you it is very difficult to match an opening to PGN but much easier to match it to a FEN. In the case of the Caro-Kann, Accelerated Panov (and other openings as well), it is worthy to note that the opening goes by other names: &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caro%E2%80%93Kann_Defence#Other_lines&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caro-Kann_Defence#Other_lines&lt;/a&gt;&#xA; (B10, Modern; English Variation, Accelerated Panov: 1.e4 c6 2.c4).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I found that opening also called &quot;Caro-Kann, Anti-Caro-Kann&quot; for instance in my Android app.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10687" LastActivityDate="2017-08-03T21:00:55.417" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18229" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-08-04T04:39:14.317" Score="1" ViewCount="974" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am currently attempting to make a basic chess engine in Python (Learning some basic concepts), but for some reason the engine is suicidal and does not detect the scholars mate. I am using python-chess for the board because I am lazy, but I think the issue is my implementation of negamax? I've read on chessprogramming wiki but still can't figure out the issue.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is the code on GitHub: &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/AggressiveBee15/LousyEngine&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://github.com/AggressiveBee15/LousyEngine&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13768" LastEditorUserId="13768" LastEditDate="2017-08-04T13:14:13.903" LastActivityDate="2017-08-04T13:14:13.903" Title="What is the problem with my negamax implementation?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;programming&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="11" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18230" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18229" CreationDate="2017-08-04T05:15:59.067" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I didn't run your code, but by just looking:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You should return the score when &lt;code&gt;score &amp;gt;= beta&lt;/code&gt;. This is consistent to Wikipedia:&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/IPAgu.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/IPAgu.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note when alpha &gt;= beta, Wikipedia returns the score, not beta.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Your code doesn't detect checkmate? I don't see how your engine can report Scholar mate without detecting checkmate.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Minor issue. The condition should be &lt;code&gt;&amp;gt;=&lt;/code&gt; not &lt;code&gt;&amp;gt;&lt;/code&gt;, but that shouldn't change anything.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What outputs did you get from: &lt;code&gt;print('New good move ...&lt;/code&gt;?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2017-08-04T05:15:59.067" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18231" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23528" CreationDate="2017-08-04T17:17:08.153" Score="8" ViewCount="937" Body="&lt;p&gt;Many world champion games are drawn, and people in the general public think that is disappointing. Not to debate that opinion here, but the question seems to be out there. So what would a rule change look like to get rid of most of the drawn games in tournaments? Especially those agreed upon rather than those forced. What has been proposed?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What consequences would come from giving zero points to both players who draw? Or to punish the party who proposes a draw by a reduced score? Draws can be forced, and the players could &quot;agree to force&quot; a draw, so it's not apparent to me how it would work out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13829" LastEditorUserId="13829" LastEditDate="2017-08-05T07:13:41.987" LastActivityDate="2019-01-16T01:33:56.193" Title="What rule changes are proposed to minimize the incentive to draw a game?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;draw&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18232" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18231" CreationDate="2017-08-04T18:56:18.253" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Rudolf Spielman's book I have once read his proposal to introduce the following rules for scoring a single game:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) mate to opponent: 7-0&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) opponent king left alone 6-1&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) stalemate to opponent king 5-2&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4) draw by repetition 4:3 for black, 3:4 for white&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With this scheme the score of each game is never equal for both partners so somebody always wins. In particular White is discouraged from a draw by repetition because he gets less than Black in this case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3456" LastActivityDate="2017-08-04T18:56:18.253" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18233" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18231" CreationDate="2017-08-04T19:18:34.890" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Tried systems are to award 3 points for a win and 1 for a draw, not being able to offer a draw before move 30, and only being able to draw with the consent of the arbiter.  There has been a long discussion about giving black 0.6 points versus white's 0.4, due the the advantage of the first move.  There is also Fischer's suggestion of not counting draws in matches.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have suggested on splitting the point in a ratio derived by the difference in rating.  For people with &amp;lt;= 75 points difference, the point is split evenly.  75-150, the point is split 0.6-0.4, weaker and stronger player respectively.  There could also be a variance based upon which color was played.  This should give the stronger player more incentive to play for a win, however it also gives the weaker player more reward for playing for the draw. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12449" LastActivityDate="2017-08-04T19:18:34.890" CommentCount="14" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18234" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18231" CreationDate="2017-08-04T21:28:18.817" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;So what would a rule change look like to get rid of all the drawn&#xA;  games in tournaments?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It wouldn't look like anything to do with chess because the question is one which displays ignorance of the laws of chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are many situations where a draw is automatic -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) Stalemate&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) Insufficient mating material&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) Five fold repetition&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4) 75 moves without a capture or pawn move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All of these instantly end the game according to the latest FIDE Laws of chess and in these cases the result is a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What consequences would come from giving zero points to both players&#xA;  who draw?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This shows tremendous disrespect to players who fight long hard games which end in draws because the players are evenly matched.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2017-08-04T21:28:18.817" CommentCount="18" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18235" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18231" CreationDate="2017-08-04T21:51:35.103" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can incentivize any behavior by providing the appropriate reward function. It is hard to select proper rewards (and even harder to persuade other people to adopt them). One example would be to give a slight edge for a win: 1.25 for win, 0.5 for a draw. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another approach to make draws less likely is to start from a list of predefined very unbalanced positions. For example in checkers which had very high percentage of draws on the highest level, the game started not from the start but from a random position from a predefined list. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="703" LastActivityDate="2017-08-04T21:51:35.103" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18236" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2506" CreationDate="2017-08-05T06:50:58.660" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The average length of chess games depends highly on the reflection time schedule since decisive errors happen very often under time pressure. Cf. &lt;a href=&quot;https://ingram-braun.net/public/research/parlour-games/article/statistics-length-chessbase/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://ingram-braun.net/public/research/parlour-games/article/statistics-length-chessbase/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5756" LastActivityDate="2017-08-05T06:50:58.660" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18237" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9638" CreationDate="2017-08-05T12:28:10.533" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Positional play is the attempt to make make a small improvement in your position with every move. In the most simplistic sense this would involve making your worst piece more active, bringing pressure to bear on an important square, improving pawn structure or denying your opponent the opportunity to improve his position. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you watch a chess engine working you can see and feel how it accumulates a positional advantage with almost every move. It feels like being slowly strangled. Tactics emerge naturally from a strong positional advantage. I would often spend far too long looking for tactics before the position warranted it. Now I may sense the possibility of tactics but be unclear of the outcome. Often all that's needed to make a tactic work is making one more strong positional move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13905" LastActivityDate="2017-08-05T12:28:10.533" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18238" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9638" CreationDate="2017-08-05T17:59:55.090" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Basically positional chess is everything that isn't tactical.  Open lines, outposts, pawn structure, piece activity, and many others are examples.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;[White &quot;2000&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;2000&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 g6 5. Nxc6 bxc6 6. Qd4 Nf6 7. e5 Qa5+ 8.&#xA;Qc3 Qxc3+ 9. Nxc3 Nd5 10. Nxd5 cxd5 11. Be3 Bg7 12. O-O-O Bxe5 13. Rxd5 d6 14.&#xA;Bb5+ Bd7 15. Rhd1 Bxb5 16. Rxb5 {White has more active pieces and open files.&#xA; The real weakness is that a7 can't be protected well.  Now black makes a&#xA;tactical mistake.} 16... O-O 17. c3 a6 18. Rb7 e6 19. f4 Bg7 20. Rxd6 Bh6 21.&#xA;Kd2 a5 22. Ke2 a4 23. Rdd7 {Due to the doubled rooks on the seventh, black can&#xA;never activate his pieces.} 23... a3 24. b3 Rac8 25. c4 {Now black's bishop has&#xA;nothing to attack on the queenside and is biting on granite on the kingside.}&#xA;25... Bg7 26. Bd4 Bh6 {Although white's bishop is better, every trade brings&#xA;white closer to a won endgame.} 27. Kf3 Rfd8 28. Bf6 Rxd7 29. Rxd7 Bf8 30. Rd8&#xA;Rxd8 31. Bxd8 *&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;2000&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;2000&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 e5 2. e4 exd4 3. Nf3 Nc6 4. c3 d3 5. Bxd3 d6 6. O-O Be7 7. Be3 Nf6 8. h3&#xA;O-O 9. Nbd2 Re8 10. Qc2 h6 11. Rfe1 Bf8 12. Nd4 Ne5 13. Bf1 c5 14. Nf5 {Nb3 to&#xA;stop black from playing d5 is the correct move.} 14... d5 15. f4 Bxf5 16. exf5&#xA;Nc6 17. Nf3 Qc7 18. Bd3 {Black controls more of the center and white's king side&#xA;is weakened, but white has everything protected.  Is there a combination?} 18...&#xA;c4 19. Bf1 Rxe3 {The weakness of the dark squares allows black a vicious&#xA;attack.} 20. Rxe3 Bc5 21. Qd2 Qxf4 22. Nd4 Nxd4 23. Kh1 Ne4 *&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These games, played by 2000 rated players, show some of the positional elements and how to exploit them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They aren't the best, but the first ones I thought would show some themes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1012733&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1012733&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1012683&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1012683&lt;/a&gt; are nice examples of Alekhine using positional elements.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12449" LastEditorUserId="12449" LastEditDate="2017-08-05T21:06:38.763" LastActivityDate="2017-08-05T21:06:38.763" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18239" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9638" CreationDate="2017-08-05T20:00:56.733" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are many aspects of positional play that are always mentioned. Put Rooks on open files, put knights on outpost squares, keep your pawns neat and tidy. But that is not enough to win if your opponent shows similar good sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A very important aspect of positional play is knowing which of your pieces to exchange and which to keep. Sometimes this leads to decisions that seem contradictory. Elizabeth Pahtz does a nice DVD on this topic for Chessbase&#xA;and you can get a free preview by going to &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.chessbase.com/post/elisabeth-paehtz-how-to-exchange-pieces&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this article on the Chessbase site&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this she shows a very instructive game Smyslov-Reshevsky where making the favorable exchange is more important than preserving the pawn structure. Positional play is not always risk-free play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2019-01-07T12:44:03.397" LastActivityDate="2019-01-07T12:44:03.397" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="18240" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18243" CreationDate="2017-08-06T09:15:05.003" Score="16" ViewCount="2770" Body="&lt;p&gt;When watching the Sinquefield cup on &lt;a href=&quot;http://grandchesstour.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://grandchesstour.org/&lt;/a&gt;, it is possible to try different moves qnd see how the computer evaluates the position after your suggested move. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most moves will impair your position if it is not considered the best move by the computer. But for some moves (quite often) you instantly get an increased chance of winning, perhaps half a pawns advantage. I don't understand this: If a single move has a potential for significantly improving the players position, should this not already be reflected in the current standing before the move? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my mind, any move not considered the best move by the computer, should lead to an impaired position, while the best move should just at best keep the standing even, not actually improve the players position. Logically, if the computer knows this move will improve the players position, then shouldn't it already appear at the current position to improve the players position, saying that &quot;with the best play, you are half a pawn up&quot;? Alternatively, is this just a result of how the website is implemented at grandchesstour.org?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13910" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-03-29T04:14:59.593" LastActivityDate="2020-03-29T04:14:59.593" Title="Why can a chess move improve the chance of winning, according to the computer?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;websites&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="18242" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18240" CreationDate="2017-08-06T10:24:07.280" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is no inconsistency. When you make a move, the computer no longer has to search the previous position. It can now focuses all processing power into the new position, and thus the evaluation might change. The game tree could be very different.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is just like how we play chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2017-08-06T10:24:07.280" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18243" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18240" CreationDate="2017-08-06T13:38:33.380" Score="29" Body="&lt;p&gt;If the computer was capable of evaluating every line of play right to the end of the game, the evaluation would never change. Indeed, the evaluation of every move would be either &quot;win&quot;, &quot;lose&quot; or &quot;draw&quot;. This is essentially what happens in endgame tablebases.&lt;sup&gt;*&lt;/sup&gt; If computers could do this for every position, every game against a computer would consist of the computer either resigning without making a move, offering you a draw in the initial position or being annoyed that you hadn't resigned or accepted that draw offer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, computers cannot evaluate that far because it would take impossibly long, both because games can be very long (hundreds of moves, in principle) and because there are many possibilities at each move.  So, computers have to take a number of shortcuts. This includes trying to figure out quickly what the most important candidate moves are (taking an unprotected piece is probably a great move; hanging your queen is probably an awful move; ...) and also stopping the search after several moves and using some heuristics instead of more searching to try to figure out if the resulting position looks good or not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The problem is that these shortcuts can go wrong.  The computer might decide that hanging a piece is bad when it's actually a genius sacrifice. It might decide that a position has stabilized when really it hasn't. It might just not have enough power to see far enough into the future to see the real point of a particular move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's a simple example, though it's no longer very realistic.  Suppose you're about to checkmate me but I have a series of ten checks I can make to delay you.  If I only look ten moves in advance, I'll think I'm doing OK: maybe I'm even a pawn up, so my evaluation is &quot;After ten moves, I'm still a pawn up, so I'm good. Score&amp;nbsp;+1&quot; I play my first check, you respond, and now I see that it's mate in ten and resign. This is the so-called &quot;horizon effect&quot; which modern programs try to avoid (e.g., by looking deeper along lines that have a lot of forced moves) but it illustrates the general principle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the engine can see, say, ten moves into the future, then it's seeing farther into the game as each move is made.  At the initial position, it can see what the board will look like at move 10; after one move, it can see to move 11 and so on. (Again, this is a simplification, since computers don't, these days, look a fixed distance into the future, but it gives you the general idea.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The example you've given is just a less dramatic version of the examples I've given. As more moves are made, the computer can see deeper into the game, so it can give a more accurate evaluation.  Another way to see this is in terms of information: as more moves are played, the computer has more information. It used to be guessing about what your response to 1.e4 would be, but now it knows that you've play the Sicilian, and so on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;sup&gt;*&lt;/sup&gt; There's a slight nuance here in that you actually need to count the number of moves to the win to avoid repeating positions. For example, consider the endgame of KQ vs&amp;nbsp;K. Every move that doesn't stalemate or surrender the queen wins, so you need a mechanism to drive towards checkmate, rather than just randomly moving and saying, &quot;Wow, I'm totally going to win this&amp;nbsp;&amp;ndash; almost every move wins!&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2789" LastActivityDate="2017-08-06T13:38:33.380" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18245" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18248" CreationDate="2017-08-07T03:28:17.280" Score="3" ViewCount="244" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've taken up correspondence chess again, and planning has always been one of my biggest weaknesses. It's still something with which I struggle. Besides analyzing specific variations, how do correspondence players keep track of the plans they want to execute, or prevent their opponent from carrying out, during a game?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, in a recent game, I knew I needed to not let my opponent put his rook on the 7th rank, as he would likely win another pawn, which I let happen a few moves later.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9025" LastActivityDate="2017-08-09T14:43:47.180" Title="How do correspondence players keep track of ideas during games?" Tags="&lt;correspondence-chess&gt;&lt;planning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="7" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18246" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18247" CreationDate="2017-08-07T09:01:17.267" Score="10" ViewCount="5989" Body="&lt;p&gt;Does every situation (except where the Queen team gets mated or the Queen is captured immediately) result in a win for the Queen team? Or can the Rook team, by perfect play, force a stalemate?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13744" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-08-07T15:54:18.270" LastActivityDate="2017-08-07T15:54:18.270" Title="Is always possible to win King + Queen vs. King + Rook?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;rooks&gt;&lt;queens&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18247" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18246" CreationDate="2017-08-07T09:03:43.267" Score="16" Body="&lt;p&gt;Mate is always possible, except in the cases you've outlined already. From &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Pawnless_chess_endgame&amp;amp;oldid=787502347#Queen_versus_rook&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A queen wins against a lone rook, unless there is an immediate draw by stalemate or due to perpetual check (Nunn 2002a:49) (or if the rook or king can immediately capture the queen). ... With perfect play, in the worst winning position, the queen can win the rook or checkmate within 31 moves (Müller &amp;amp; Lamprecht 2001:400).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastEditorUserId="1196" LastEditDate="2017-08-07T15:20:47.260" LastActivityDate="2017-08-07T15:20:47.260" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18248" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18245" CreationDate="2017-08-07T09:08:41.443" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I write a short description in my notebook for each move I make, unless it is a trivial move (e.g. a forced recapture, an opening move I know already or an endgame that I know already).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I try to imitate the style used in &lt;em&gt;Logical Chess&lt;/em&gt; by Irving Chernev.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2017-08-07T09:08:41.443" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18249" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18107" CreationDate="2017-08-07T15:20:12.737" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Intuitively we should look at the player's games for early moves and book moves for later. This is because as we get further in a game, the number of possibilities increases, therefore the sample size of player games decreases. In this scheme, we are assuming that the player in question behaves as the average player does in the long run given the positions they usually seek from the opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You could use a rule of using the player's games if there are more than 5 to use, and using other players games otherwise.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2017-08-07T15:20:12.737" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18250" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18231" CreationDate="2017-08-07T16:44:33.423" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;One way to get rid of draws is to have all games be Armageddon games. Basically, when you play under these rules, a draw is counted as a win for one player, and the other player is given a time advantage as compensation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13928" LastActivityDate="2017-08-07T16:44:33.423" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18251" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18064" CreationDate="2017-08-08T01:28:09.980" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The check itself defined as a player's king is under threat of capture by attacking piece(s) on next opponent's turn. According to standard chess rule, the pieces which can be counted as checking the king are pieces which &lt;strong&gt;able to move directly to the king's square.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These conditions counted as double check instead of triple check, assumed the pieces are attacking in one move:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) Rook &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battery_(chess)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;battery&lt;/a&gt; with queen/bishop/knight/pawn (second rook at the same file/rank not counted).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) Queen-bishop battery with rook/knight/pawn (whoever supporting piece at the same diagonal not counted).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These conditions counted as single check instead of double:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) Queen-rook battery (or two rook battery).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) Queen-bishop battery.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, &lt;strong&gt;triple check is impossible in standard chess&lt;/strong&gt; due to &lt;em&gt;multiple checks must be executed in only one move&lt;/em&gt;, which allows maximum of 2 pieces capable to attack the opponent's king directly at the same time (attacking pieces are neither subject to be captured nor interposed by other opponent's pieces).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12134" LastActivityDate="2017-08-08T01:28:09.980" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18252" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18064" CreationDate="2017-08-08T10:53:23.033" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Triple check is possible in the chess variant known as &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cylinder_chess&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Cylinder Chess&lt;/a&gt;. In this position, 1.Ra8 discovers check from the queen and bishop, so it's triple or maybe quadruple check, depending on whether you count one or two checks from the rook, which is attacking the black king from two directions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;4k3/8/8/8/R3K3/8/8/3Q1B2 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Ra8+&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2299" LastActivityDate="2017-08-08T10:53:23.033" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18253" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18189" CreationDate="2017-08-08T14:58:52.023" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The big blunder of the game is 14.f4?. There may have been less-ideal moves before that one, as the other answers have suggested, but the f4 push is the move that swung the game in your opponent's favor.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When White has a pawn chain of e4-d5 and Black meets it with d6-e5, as you see in openings like this one or the King's Indian, a lot of middle-ranked players will go for that f4 push, thinking that blowing open the center helps them. They're often wrong. Pushing f4 leaves the e4-pawn without another pawn to support it, which your opponent immediately exploited by playing f5. It also weakens the dark squares around your king and leaves you vulnerable to opposing pieces on the a7-g1 diagonal, which also happened in the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lesson: if your opponent's position is cramped, it might seem tempting to open up the center, but it can also allow his pieces to gain activity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13930" LastActivityDate="2017-08-08T14:58:52.023" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18254" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18189" CreationDate="2017-08-08T15:20:54.903" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't disagree with others comments but these are the points that scream out to me:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You didn't play a good opening but were let off by your opponent's strange Bd7 decision and are now fine. Your queen-side is completely undeveloped so as a matter of absolute urgency we need to complete our development so you ... move an already developed piece from a good square to a worse one? Not just bad but baffling. Develop!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After some reasonable reactive moves you have a free hand again on move 14. Your queen-side is crying out for development but now you play the move f4. The move's fine on positional grounds but there's a huge problem playing it here. How can you be so insensitive to the fact that all your pieces are undeveloped? Four of them are on their starting squares and the knight on h2 is hardly any better. Any opening of the position must favour Black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Rxe5 was your last chance to develop something but you grabbed a pawn instead. After 19 .. Nf6 Black's position is very promising with a direct assault imminent. It's probably too late but you have another chance to develop a piece and ... you move the knight again ... away from your king ... and walk into a pin for good measure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You seem to have no sense of urgency about developing your pieces. The sad final position with your Rook, Bishop and Queen still unmoved illustrates this. Make developing an absolute priority otherwise you're just playing with half your army.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2415" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T16:51:06.753" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T16:51:06.753" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="18255" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18231" CreationDate="2017-08-08T15:42:24.407" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The 3-1-0 system (3 for a win, 1 each for a draw) has been used but IMO it unfairly penalizes the player of Black. At strong GM level it's difficult to win with Black if the opponent only wants a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My suggestion is to modify the 3-1-0 method by giving Black 1.5 for a draw. This is equivalent to changing the normal 1-0.5-0 system by only giving White 1/3 for a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It wouldn't be at all suitable for Swisses but for the invitational all-by-all events I think it would be very positive. There would be much more onus on players with White to play for wins and risk-taking players would be rewarded. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2415" LastActivityDate="2017-08-08T15:42:24.407" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18256" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18259" CreationDate="2017-08-08T15:52:32.150" Score="6" ViewCount="458" Body="&lt;p&gt;My club has recently been playing the variant &lt;a href=&quot;http://etchessera.com&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Etchessera&lt;/a&gt;.  For those unfamiliar, this variant allows you to build an army consisting of a King and up to 39 points worth of pieces according to the following system:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Pawn - 1pt&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Knight - 3pt&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Bishop - 3pt&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Rook   - 5pt&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Queen  - 9pt&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While I realize that the relative point values are often listed differently, and can change based upon what other pieces remain, we were wondering if there should be a clear winner between the standard chess army and one consisting of 4 queens and 3 pawns.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/zs0b5.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/zs0b5.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Through our own games, the match-up appears to still be about equal provided the classic army plays defensive openings and forces a few trades.  However, my club is a very small sample size and I was looking to see if this has ever been explored elsewhere.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13936" LastActivityDate="2017-08-08T19:48:58.337" Title="(4 Queens + 3 Pawns) vs (Entire Standard Army)" Tags="&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;point-value&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18257" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18256" CreationDate="2017-08-08T16:37:15.873" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the specific position you show, I can well believe that the classical army&#xA;has an advantage: I've read that a second Queen tends to be redundant&#xA;and thus worth less than the first, so I'd expect a third and fourth&#xA;Queen to continue the pattern, assuming that the opponent's King&#xA;is not in immediate danger.  But if you can array your fantasy-draft&#xA;army anywhere you want in the first few rows you can win by force&#xA;even with fewer than 39 points:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;q3qr1k/b4q2/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w - - 0 0&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Nf3 Qaxf3&#xA;2. gxf3 Qxf3&#xA;3. d4 Qxf2+&#xA;4. Kd2 Qee3#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It even works with Re8 instead of the Qe8 &#xA;(though the mate takes a few moves longer).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8860" LastEditorUserId="8860" LastEditDate="2017-08-08T19:48:58.337" LastActivityDate="2017-08-08T19:48:58.337" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18258" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18791" CreationDate="2017-08-08T17:41:59.627" Score="13" ViewCount="472" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the fastest possible game that ends in a King vs King endgame? Please post a game and tell me the number of half-moves you've achieved. By some simple logic, I can prove that this number is greater than 32 half-moves. There are 30 pieces to be captured, and the first capture can only be made on the 3rd half-move or later.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An example of such a game could be this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 d5 2. exd5 c6 3. dxc6 Qa5 4. cxb7 Qxa2&#xA;5. bxa8=Q Qxa1 6. Qxa7 Qxb2 7. Qxb8 Qxb1 8. Qh5 Qxc2&#xA;9. Qxh7 Qxc1+ 10. Ke2 Qxd2+ 11. Kf3 Qe1 12. Qxh8 Qxf1&#xA;13. Qxg7 Qxg1 14. Qxg8 Qxh1 15. Qxf7+ Kd7 16. Qxf8 Qxh2&#xA;17. Qxe7+ Kxe7 18. Qxc8 Qxg2+ 19. Ke2 Qxf2+ 20. Kxf2 Kd6&#xA;21. Qd7+ Kxd7&#xA;1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;achieving the result in 42 half-moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13928" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-05-28T22:03:05.657" LastActivityDate="2020-05-28T22:03:05.657" Title="Fastest King vs King endgame" Tags="&lt;problems&gt;&lt;records&gt;&lt;mathematics&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18259" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18256" CreationDate="2017-08-08T18:17:56.850" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;A clarifying comment says &quot;Pawns can be placed in any of the first 3 rows. &#xA;Any other piece must be placed in the back row. White moves first unless &#xA;black used less points to construct their army.&quot;  So the position I gave&#xA;earlier doesn't work, but since Black is allowed to move first with fewer than&#xA;39 points there's still a forced win:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;1b1qkqq1/8/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR b - - 0 0&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Qxf2+ Kxf2 &#xA;2. Qh4+ g3 &#xA;3. Qgxg3+ hxg3 &#xA;4. Qxg3#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8860" LastActivityDate="2017-08-08T18:17:56.850" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18260" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18261" CreationDate="2017-08-08T19:48:40.510" Score="2" ViewCount="316" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've attached a screen shot of my game. It is Black’s turn to move. Their king was under check, but not checkmate, as the website didn't show mate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/NqQVH.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/NqQVH.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After awhile, Black had to resign due to not being able to make any valid move.  Analyzing the game with a computer results in the move 41. gxh3 being suggested.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How is that possible?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13940" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T20:10:53.630" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T20:10:53.630" Title="The chess.com engine didn’t show a checkmate" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;pawns&gt;&lt;en-passant&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="18261" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18260" CreationDate="2017-08-08T20:08:45.353" Score="17" Body="&lt;p&gt;As White's previous move was pawn on h2 to h4 then pawn g4xh3 is a legal en passant capture.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For more info - see Rule 3.7.d of &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=171&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;the laws of chess&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13942" LastEditorUserId="10295" LastEditDate="2017-08-09T08:41:16.493" LastActivityDate="2017-08-09T08:41:16.493" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18262" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18265" CreationDate="2017-08-09T04:10:04.547" Score="2" ViewCount="815" Body="&lt;h2&gt;What I need&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there any software/engine/website (preferably free) that can analyze a given game (or PGN) of mine and tell me:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Whether my moves were excellent, good, bad or terrible.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Possible variations at different positions.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Reasons why a &lt;strong&gt;bad move&lt;/strong&gt; was bad, and suggestions for a better move.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;What I found&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The thing I found closest to that is the &lt;strong&gt;computer analysis&lt;/strong&gt; option on Chess.com , which tells me how many of my (and my opponent's) moves were good, bad and awful, and also suggests better moves in place of my errors. However, despite being rather good, it seems (to me) that it analyzes only the games I play on the site.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Any suggestions?&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13565" LastEditorUserId="13565" LastEditDate="2017-08-09T07:27:25.770" LastActivityDate="2017-09-07T07:50:50.697" Title="Game Analysis Software" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18263" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18258" CreationDate="2017-08-09T08:00:02.820" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;41 Half moves, not a real game&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first possible capture is indeed on the third half-move. After that, a perfect game would be purely captures. By counting the moves which don't involve a capture, you can show how close to a perfect king v king you got. Giving check is bad, unless the opposing king can take a piece while moving out of check (unlikely, if none of the pieces are moved)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The following is a game I created to challenge this puzzle, and it includes 11 half moves which do not take a piece. The other 30 half moves are all captures. My solution is one half move faster than the OP's proposed solution (42 half moves):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 d5 2. exd5 Qxd5 3. Qh5 Qxg2 4. Qxh7 Qxh2 5. Qxh8 Qxh1 6. Qxg8 Qxg1 7. Qxg7 Qg6 8. Qxf7+ Kd7 9. Qxf8 Qxc2 10. Qxc8+ Kd6 11. Qxb8 Qxb2 12. Qxa8 Qxa2 13. Qxa7 Qxa1 14. Qxb7 Qxb1 15. Qxc7+ Ke6 16. Qxe7+ Kxe7 17. f3 Qxc1+ 18. Kf2 Qxd2+ 19. Be2 Qxe2+ 20. Kg3 Qxf3+ 21. Kxf3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Now in 36 half moves:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;1. c4 d5 2. cxd5 Qxd5 3. Qc2 Qxa2 4. Qxh7 Qxb2 5. Qxg7 Qxb1 6. Qxg8 Rxh2 7. Rxa7 Rxh1 8. Rxa8 Rxg1 9. Rxb8 Rxg2 10. Rxb7 Rxf2 11. Rxc7 Qxc1+ 12. Kxf2 Qxd2 13. Rxc8+ Kd7 14. Qxf7 Qxe2+ 15. Kg3 Qxf1 16. Qxf1 Kxc8 17. Qxf8+ Kd7 18. Qxe7+ Kxe7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By using the queens and rooks I was able to take pieces from either side of the King. When only using the queen, I had to move the queen across to the other side without giving check, so using rooks aswell removed this problem.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10887" LastEditorUserId="10887" LastEditDate="2017-08-09T17:20:10.797" LastActivityDate="2017-08-09T17:20:10.797" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18264" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18262" CreationDate="2017-08-09T09:29:41.290" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The old Fritz 5.32 was (and still is free). You can download it from here &lt;a href=&quot;http://freechess.50webs.com/fritz.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://freechess.50webs.com/fritz.html&lt;/a&gt;. You will probably need to have Windows 7 and run in compatibility mode for XP to get this old program to run but it is still quite powerful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want free chess software then &lt;a href=&quot;http://freechess.50webs.com/index.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://freechess.50webs.com/index.html&lt;/a&gt; is an excellent place to start.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2017-08-09T09:55:16.780" LastActivityDate="2017-08-09T09:55:16.780" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18265" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18262" CreationDate="2017-08-09T09:40:50.977" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;LiChess.org is free and easy, but you have to register. Almost every interface can give you what the computer thinks is best. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www-lucaschess.rhcloud.com/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www-lucaschess.rhcloud.com/&lt;/a&gt; is a good program for beginners, but at more advanced levels the computer seems to hang.&#xA;Lucas chess has a game analysis.&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/e52xL.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/e52xL.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The output shows current evaluation, best move, your score relative to the best score, and, under indexes, average centipawn loss with other stats.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The program comes with many adjustable parameters.  The main problem, other the the hanging engine, is that it is difficult to find which function you want.  They do have links to many videos showing how to use their program.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If after watching the videos you still have problems, we could start a thread about this problem.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12449" LastActivityDate="2017-08-09T09:40:50.977" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18268" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-08-09T11:17:32.010" Score="3" ViewCount="471" Body="&lt;p&gt;This position occurred in a game of quantum chess recently:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/E9OX4.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/E9OX4.png&quot; alt=&quot;White to move&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Is trying to take the king with the queen worth the risk?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My reasoning for this is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If the bishop is on a2, white can take the king and win the game.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If the bishop is on f7, the queen cannot capture the king, the rook on b1 is safe, and black is able to move the rook on f5 out of danger.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What line would follow if the king capture fails? Would it be more beneficial to ignore the possible check and take the rook on f5? What would the best line be from there?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Confused?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can check out &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/q/18278/10887&quot;&gt;the rules for Quantum Chess&lt;/a&gt;, or read the &lt;a href=&quot;https://quantumfrontiers.com/2016/02/15/quantum-chess/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;post&lt;/a&gt; written by creator Chris Cantwell.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10887" LastEditorUserId="10887" LastEditDate="2017-08-16T13:04:30.647" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T16:23:11.343" Title="Is attempting to capture the king advisable in this position?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;chess-variants&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18269" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15175" CreationDate="2017-08-09T14:16:16.473" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The engine is only looking ahead one move. Most of these blunders are giving check, but are poorly constructed. It seems that the engine is programmed to think that giving check is always good, but does not check to see if its pieces are defended.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10887" LastActivityDate="2017-08-09T14:16:16.473" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18270" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18245" CreationDate="2017-08-09T14:43:47.180" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Although it's been many years since I participated,  I used to play postal chess by snail mail.  For each game I would write down and keep analysis of significant lines each time I moved so I didn't forget them in the interval. I would also write notes concerning what ideas I had in general for the position.  I also tried to keep the number of games to a manageable amount to avoid confusion, generally 6 to 12 games at a time. I always had good results with this method.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastActivityDate="2017-08-09T14:43:47.180" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18271" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18277" CreationDate="2017-08-10T04:06:18.883" Score="23" ViewCount="6747" Body="&lt;p&gt;James Damore has been in the news recently because of controversy over &lt;a href=&quot;https://drive.google.com/open?id=0Bzs0YgkhhIN4YjF6NFBVZkNKa2s&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this document&lt;/a&gt; he wrote while he was an employee of Google's.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The article I had originally read mentioned that he was a chess player, so I searched Google for &quot;James Damore chess&quot; and found this article from &quot;heavy.com&quot; (which I had never heard of). The article stated that he was a FIDE Master, and cited &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.gorelab.org/James_Damore__CV.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;his resume&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[ edit1: &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Daily_Wire&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;The Daily Wire&lt;/a&gt; has echoed this statement that &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.dailywire.com/news/19474/breaking-fired-google-employee-says-hell-likely-hank-berrien&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Damore is a FIDE Master&lt;/a&gt; ]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[ edit2: &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FrontPage_Magazine&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;FrontPage Magazine&lt;/a&gt; has done &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/267519/google-gulag-daniel-greenfield&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;the same&lt;/a&gt; ]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I could not find Damore's FIDE profile, so it seems that he is not even FIDE-rated, let alone a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIDE_titles#FIDE_Master_.28FM.29&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Master&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems to me that there are several possibilities:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;He &lt;em&gt;is&lt;/em&gt; a FIDE Master, but somehow the record is missing from the FIDE database. This seems unlikely to me.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The resume is not actually his resume (fabricated by someone who is not him). This also seems unlikely since &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.gorelab.org&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;the website&lt;/a&gt; on which the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.gorelab.org/James_Damore__CV.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;resume&lt;/a&gt; is hosted looks like it is the official website for MIT's GORElaboratory.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;He lied on his resume and said that he is a FIDE Master, when in reality he is not. This, unfortunately, seems the most likely possibility, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.uschess.org/msa/MbrDtlMain.php?12876403&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;especially since this USCF profile with his name shows a rating of 1817&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;My question is: has anybody heard of James Damore in the context of chess? Is he really a FIDE Master?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4263" LastEditorUserId="4263" LastEditDate="2017-08-10T22:47:54.603" LastActivityDate="2017-08-16T00:01:13.210" Title="Is James Damore a FIDE master?" Tags="&lt;fide&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="12" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18272" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18271" CreationDate="2017-08-10T06:59:39.013" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;I checked on the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.uschess.org/msa/MbrDtlMain.php?12876403&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;USCF website&lt;/a&gt;. There is a James A Damore with a rating of 1817 and no titles. This James is registered in Illinois and last played in the Chicago Open 2005.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2017-08-10T06:59:39.013" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18273" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18271" CreationDate="2017-08-10T07:07:20.197" Score="18" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe James Damore &lt;strong&gt;lied&lt;/strong&gt; about his resume, and not just about chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.businessinsider.com.au/james-damore-removes-phd-studies-linkedin-2017-8?r=US&amp;amp;IR=T&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.businessinsider.com.au/james-damore-removes-phd-studies-linkedin-2017-8?r=US&amp;amp;IR=T&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If he had the courage to lie about PhD in his profile (that's a very &lt;strong&gt;serious&lt;/strong&gt; misconduct), why wouldn't he lie about being an FM master?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can't think of a reason why his FIDE profile is not available, and his USCF rating is just a little over 1800. Hard to imagine we can't find a single FIDE-rated tournament crosstable with his name (he's a young guy and he had to play serious chess games to get an FM title).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;James Damore is &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; an FM. He had cheated the media and Google.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;PS:&lt;/strong&gt; Note that the media simply downloaded the resume like we did. They had no idea this guy played well below the FM 2300+ rating. Journalists aren't chess players. They didn't have the experience verifying a chess player, but they did quickly send an enquiry to Harvard for his PhD (something they understood).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/SUhfY.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/SUhfY.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2017-08-10T14:15:12.763" LastActivityDate="2017-08-10T14:15:12.763" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18274" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18275" CreationDate="2017-08-10T09:32:18.603" Score="20" ViewCount="5781" Body="&lt;p&gt;I play a lot of online blitz, and frequently my opponent would offer a rematch after a game. Although I sometimes accept, I usually am more interested in analyzing the game to see if I can learn from my mistakes, so I usually decline.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Reading some of the comments posted on chess.com, it seems that some players take offence at this, even going so far as to block opponents who don't accept their rematch request.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why do players think they are entitled to a rematch? Am I breaking some unwritten etiquette? If I keep declining these requests, will I find myself out of opponents?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1816" LastActivityDate="2017-08-15T19:14:20.423" Title="Why do some players consider it rude not to accept a rematch in online blitz?" Tags="&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;etiquette&gt;&lt;online-blitz&gt;&lt;sportsmanship&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18275" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18274" CreationDate="2017-08-10T10:59:06.767" Score="18" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;They may have made a fatal mistake and think that in another game they can win.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It happens sometimes. You could make a mistake, or miss a mating pattern, and suddenly you've lost the game although you thought you were in the lead. In this case, many people may ask for a rematch because they think that they &lt;em&gt;should&lt;/em&gt; have won and want to redeem themselves. If you decline this request, they may see it as claiming a &quot;cheap win&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They may also get offended by you declining their request because they might see it as &quot;running away&quot; from them, a more able player. This is almost insulting because they may see it as acknowledging that they &quot;should have won&quot;, but running away with the victory regardless.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;They could be Rating Farming.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If your opponent beat you by a large margin, they may ask for a rematch in order to secure a couple of easy wins against you, especially if you have a higher rating than them. Declining this rematch is denying that possible rating boost and could be taken the wrong way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both of the above reasons depict your opponents in a rather negative way, however I think that anyone who blocks another user on the basis that they won't accept a rematch request may not be the best sportsman. The thing is, if they are asking for a rematch because they like your playing style, or want to learn from you, they aren't going to block you if you decline, are they?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Perhaps it's me, perhaps not, but I think that anyone who blocks others for not accepting a rematch is either trying to get easy wins for rating or annoyed / in a bad mood about their own play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Being frustrated about making mistakes, if allowed to affect your play, will lead to more mistakes and more frustration. Frustrated players make rash decisions and are more likely to take out their anger on their opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't think you are breaking any unspoken code of online chess, I just think that some of the chess players out there lack a certain amount of maturity. Take them to a real tournament where you are face to face with your opponent and perhaps they'll learn some tips.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10887" LastEditorUserId="10887" LastEditDate="2017-08-10T13:58:31.613" LastActivityDate="2017-08-10T13:58:31.613" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18276" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18274" CreationDate="2017-08-10T11:41:55.650" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Concerning the last question, &lt;strong&gt;no&lt;/strong&gt;, you will not run out of opponents.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've been playing on chess.com for about seven years, and when I play blitz I'm almost exclusively interested in having a bit of fun. If you have ever had a small match of a few games against someone online, you quickly realize that many of the games resemble a lot since it is common to play the pet lines that you each enjoy. These repetitive games can quickly reach positions that you know the assessment of, taking away the fun and unpredictability of the game. Because of this, I rarely play the same opponent twice, never ask for a rematch and systematically decline all rematch offers. I don't know if I have been blocked by any players, but there is always someone on the other end of the board to play when I try to.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I must say that I may not be your typical online chess player. I rarely take the games as a depiction of my actual strength as a chess player, although I am extremely competitive and do not wish to lose any games. Because of this, most of the time any time scramble, flagging or piece hanging occurs, either on my side or my opponent's side, I take it as being a part of the game mode that I'm playing. It is not a personal offense or unsportsmanlike to use these &quot;techniques&quot; (although &quot;tricks&quot; is probably a more accurate description of what they are) to win a game, it's part of the fun being able to spot unorthodox winning combinations that rely on the position on the board as well as the amount of time there's left on the clock. Not everyone agrees with this viewpoint, and some may be offended if you beat them in an unorthodox way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3890" LastActivityDate="2017-08-10T11:41:55.650" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18277" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18271" CreationDate="2017-08-10T12:57:49.340" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;James Damore is &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; a FIDE Master, simply chech the &lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/advseek.phtml&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Ratings&lt;/a&gt; website and search for &lt;em&gt;James Damore&lt;/em&gt;. As &lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/advaction.phtml?idcode=&amp;amp;name=damore&amp;amp;title=&amp;amp;other_title=&amp;amp;country=%25&amp;amp;sex=&amp;amp;srating=0&amp;amp;erating=3000&amp;amp;birthday=&amp;amp;radio=name&amp;amp;line=asc&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; shows, there are no results.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Notice that there are no possible technicalities for why James Damore is not in the system (things like FIDE lost his paperwork or the possibility that James Damore had a FIDE Master title but then cancelled his FIDE membership or similar) since FIDE keeps track of every single membership even when they are cancelled, so if James Damore ever had a FIDE membership (which you have to have if you are a FIDE Master), he should be in the system.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3890" LastEditorUserId="3890" LastEditDate="2017-08-10T15:04:58.430" LastActivityDate="2017-08-10T15:04:58.430" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18278" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-08-10T13:52:14.323" Score="26" ViewCount="22187" Body="&lt;p&gt;The game Quantum Chess, as seen in the video where Paul Rudd defeats Hawking, has no &quot;set of rules&quot; written down. You either have to do the in-game tutorial, watch a video on the game and pick them up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;So what are the rules of Quantum Chess?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This refers to the game (currently only available on steam) created by Chris Cantwell.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10887" LastEditorUserId="10887" LastEditDate="2018-01-22T14:07:24.833" LastActivityDate="2021-04-21T20:50:13.413" Title="What are the rules of Quantum Chess?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;chess-variants&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="13" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18279" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18278" CreationDate="2017-08-10T13:52:14.323" Score="25" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The board and pieces&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Quantum chess is played on a regular 8x8 chess board with standard pieces.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Pieces have rings around them, filled in with colour. These rings show the probability that the piece is in that square.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Modifications to existing chess rules&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A player is not required to move their king out of check and the game concludes when there is a 100% probability that one of the kings has been taken. As a result there is no checkmate.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;All promotions result in a queen as of 10/8/17, since underpromoting has not been implemented into the game.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Movement&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;All pieces move as usual in normal circumstances.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;On any given turn, the player can make one quantum move instead of a normal move.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Quantum moves&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Quantum moves are notated with the ^ symbol. (e.g: N^d4)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When quantum moving a piece, it can make up to two normal moves.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The probability of the piece moving is equal to the probability that the piece has not moved, resulting in a superposition of multiple board states.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A quantum move cannot be used to take a piece.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Pawns cannot make quantum moves.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Rjs9r.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Rjs9r.png&quot; alt=&quot;Quantum move of Knight&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Superposition&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;When any quantum move is made, that piece exists in multiple places simultaneously. This is represented by multiple copies of the piece displayed, with appropriate meters to show the probability of finding the piece in that square. There is only one piece, but it can exist in one of multiple places.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If a piece &quot;takes&quot; one of the copies of another piece in superposition and has  100% probability of being available to take it, the piece is taken if it was in that square. Since there is a probability of the piece being in other squares, those copies of the piece remain, however there is now a chance that the piece has already been taken and is no longer on the board.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/K1RQC.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/K1RQC.png&quot; alt=&quot;Taking superposed pieces.&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If a piece &quot;takes&quot; one of the copies of another piece in superposition and it is not certain that the piece was available to take it, a measurement occurs. A measured piece will collapse onto one square using a random selection. The probability of it collapsing onto a particular square is the same as the probability that is was moved there. All pieces that are entangled with the measured piece will also be measured and may have their outcome influenced by the measurement of the piece(s) that they are entangled with.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/3Ldcs.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/3Ldcs.png&quot; alt=&quot;Measurement resulting from quantum capture.&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A pawn can be put into superposition if it takes a piece which is in superposition. If the piece was there, the pawn could take it. If not, moving diagonally was an illegal move. The probability of the pawn being on the new square is the same as the probability that a piece was there to be taken.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/8Le3r.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/8Le3r.png&quot; alt=&quot;Pawn superimposed by taking a piece in superposition.&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A pawn can also be superimposed by moving two spaces forward, through a square which may contain a piece. This results in entanglement.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/INMgN.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/INMgN.png&quot; alt=&quot;Pawn becoming entangled with a bishop.&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Entanglement&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Entanglement occurs when a piece attempts to move through an instance of a piece in superposition. The probability of the moved piece existing in its new square is the same as the probability that the obstruction was not there to block it.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If a piece is entangled with another piece and is measured, both pieces are affected by the results of the measurement accordingly.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Special circumstances&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The following &quot;rules&quot; are combinations of rules from above, however they are worth mentioning as useful tactics:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Quantum Trading&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It is possible to trade probabilities of pieces, leading to complex trading. For example, it is possible to trade knights in a way which leaves one player with a 2/3 chance of having a knight, and the other with a 1/3 chance of having a knight. The first player is more likely to have benefited from this trade, however it is uncertain until measured.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Schrödinger's King&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If the king is in superposition and one of the instances is taken, the probability that that player has lost is equal to the probability that the king was in that square. Since it is not certain that they have lost, play continues.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;This means that it is possible for a player to win a game with a probability that they have already lost by fully capturing the opposing king.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/taVll.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/taVll.png&quot; alt=&quot;Using quantum moves to escape checkmate.&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Ghost capture&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;This is a result of a pawn taking a piece in superposition. If there is one other state of the taken piece still on the board and a piece attacking it, ghost capture can take place. If the attacking piece must move through the square where the pawn would be if it hadn't moved in order to attack the superimposed piece, two outcomes can occur:&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The measurement confirms that the piece had not moved, so an attack is impossible and the opposing player gains &quot;half a piece&quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The measurement shows that the piece has moved and has already been taken, so the opposing player loses &quot;half a piece&quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/tYXbz.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/tYXbz.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Attempted ghost capture of opposing queen using rook.&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Quantum Castling&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If there is a probability that a piece is between the king and rook, the probability of castling is equal to the probability that the piece was not there. A measurement may take place if two pieces end up on the same square.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If there is a probability that the rook may have moved, castling can occur with the probability that the rook is available to castle. The king and rook are now entangled since the castling move depends on whether the rook was on the correct square.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Double Castling&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;After a quantum castle, the king can castle the other way if the rook is available, with the probability of castling being the probability that the king is there.&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In this example, both sides have castled both ways:&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/2hyb9.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/2hyb9.png&quot; alt=&quot;Double castled mayhem.&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10887" LastEditorUserId="10887" LastEditDate="2018-01-22T14:17:07.627" LastActivityDate="2018-01-22T14:17:07.627" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18280" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18274" CreationDate="2017-08-10T14:14:29.233" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;To add something else to the other answers: I almost always offer a rematch and almost always accept a rematch but I sometimes need to run away to the toilet or to talk to someone at home or whatever else that needs attention. It is absurd to expect the readiness to accept any rematch.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3456" LastActivityDate="2017-08-10T14:14:29.233" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18281" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-08-10T14:47:17.967" Score="5" ViewCount="578" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Blitz under FIDE rules, Player A makes and completes an illegal move by pressing the clock. Player B states that Player A's move is illegal, does not make a move, but quickly presses his own clock, as if giving Player A the opportunity to correct the move as common in a standard non-Blitz game. Almost immediately, before any other action by either player, Player B realizes that the rules of Blitz apply, stops the clock, and claims the match.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to Player A, the claim is now &quot;in his time&quot;, so is no longer valid. Is this a correct interpretation of the rules?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13964" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-09-26T13:13:28.090" LastActivityDate="2018-09-26T13:13:28.090" Title="Can you claim an illegal move in Blitz after pressing your clock (but without making a move)?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;blitz&gt;&lt;illegal-move&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18282" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18189" CreationDate="2017-08-10T14:55:01.137" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In short I would say that you made more pawn moves than piece moves which is never advisable. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Your Q-side fails short of development .&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The Queen/Bishop on c1/Rook on a1 did not move until the end of the game.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The f4 pawn move on move 14th was just a blunder. You must develop pieces  instead of being just too ambitious.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I will say this sort of games should be encouraged more in this forums where you would constantly learn more insights from others.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T16:52:07.787" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T16:52:07.787" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="18283" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18281" CreationDate="2017-08-10T17:03:26.457" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is correct. You cannot continue to play (press the clock) and claim a win in blitz. Furthermore in the new rules pressing the clock without making a move counts as an illegal move and so loses (if your opponent claims). This is really just another twist on the old error of taking your opponent's king when he leaves it en prise which again results in you losing for an illegal move instead of your opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In other words, if your opponent makes an illegal move in blitz just claim the game. If you start doing other move-like things (touching a piece, pressing the clock) your claim goes away.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The problem in your case is the same, by the way. An illegal move is only punishable once it is completed by pressing the clock. When you pressed the clock you removed the evidence for the illegal move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2017-08-10T17:03:26.457" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18285" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-08-10T22:31:14.223" Score="5" ViewCount="729" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is common advise that a chess player trying to improve should limit their blitz chess. Online chess is filled with people playing blitz and bullet and I often have trouble finding players to play longer time controls. Is there a chess site with a lot of rapid players? I'm thinking that unfortunately, chess.com is the best option, but sometimes I feel like it takes too long to pair up, and the opposition is not so strong. I've heard that ICC isn't too good for long time controls either. Anyone have any information?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3872" LastEditorUserId="4263" LastEditDate="2017-08-10T22:53:56.593" LastActivityDate="2017-11-18T06:10:11.040" Title="Which chess site has the most rapid players?" Tags="&lt;online-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18286" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18285" CreationDate="2017-08-10T22:55:24.057" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The vast majority of online chess games played on any site are played with very short time controls. Because of this fact, if you want to play longer games, you will have to wait longer, on average, than you would for a game shorter time control. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are looking for quality chess games and you want relatively &lt;strong&gt;long time controls&lt;/strong&gt; and decently &lt;strong&gt;high-rated players&lt;/strong&gt; then you can try limiting your searches to high rated players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can select custom rating ranges on &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;lichess&lt;/a&gt; and on ICC. This will allow you to, for example, filter out lower-rated opponents if you want a strong opponent. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another possibility is to play in the long-time-control tournaments that most popular chess sites have on a regular basis. Both ICC and lichess have regular tournaments with relatively long time control. The advantage of this is that once the tournament starts, usually the wait time between games is not that long. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4263" LastActivityDate="2017-08-10T22:55:24.057" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18287" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18288" CreationDate="2017-08-11T01:05:08.127" Score="1" ViewCount="99" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've started to code my own little engine recently and am now working on a perft function which simply sees how many moves there are.&#xA;Trying to get correct results I searched online for the correct amount of possible positions after e.g. 4 moves.&#xA;Now according to these sources: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://youtu.be/6Y_FaQhqX2c?t=5m46s&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://youtu.be/6Y_FaQhqX2c?t=5m46s&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It should be 197281 possible positions after 4 moves, and I can reach that in my code!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But switching a bit around in my code to get some optimization which seemingly shouldn't change anything, I get a different number: 197742&#xA;Now I would think that is wrong but I have found different sources again, claiming that is in fact correct:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://youtu.be/Km024eldY1A?t=5m33s&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://youtu.be/Km024eldY1A?t=5m33s&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, which one is it? 197742 or 197281 possible positions after 4 moves?&#xA;I was a bit uncertain whether this belongs here or on StackOverflow.&#xA;I went with this one, I hope that's alright.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: apparently I can't post more than two links due to my low reputation&#xA;I'll post the links in comments&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks in advance&#xA;Folling&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13981" LastActivityDate="2017-08-11T01:11:32.563" Title="Possible chess positon after X ply?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;programming&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18288" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18287" CreationDate="2017-08-11T01:11:32.563" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The chess programming wiki is correct:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Perft+Results&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Perft+Results&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;197281 is the number. I remember I used Stockfish to generate the same number while debugging my code.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2017-08-11T01:11:32.563" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18289" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18291" CreationDate="2017-08-11T02:40:38.433" Score="10" ViewCount="1334" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recently came across &lt;strong&gt;1.d4 Nc6&lt;/strong&gt; while playing a game and I was immediatly tempted to play &lt;strong&gt;2.d5&lt;/strong&gt;, and so I did it, then my opponent continued the game with &lt;strong&gt;Ne5&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After the game I went to an online database to check some reference on this opening, I saw it is called the Mikenas Defense, and to my surprise &lt;strong&gt;2.Nf3&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;2.e4&lt;/strong&gt; are by far the most common responses to it, while &lt;strong&gt;2.d5&lt;/strong&gt; occurs only in 5% of the games. I'm a ~1400 player and I'm still learning the basics of openings theory, I can understand that both of these moves help white to develop its pieces, but can't they be naturally developed after &lt;strong&gt;2..Ne5&lt;/strong&gt;(which seems to be the most played move after &lt;strong&gt;2.d5&lt;/strong&gt;) with something like &lt;strong&gt;3.e4&lt;/strong&gt;? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 Nc6&#xA;2. d5 Ne5&#xA;3. e4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13862" LastActivityDate="2020-10-17T08:44:50.010" Title="Why 2.d5 is much less common than other responses to the Mikenas Defense(1.d4 Nc6)?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="11" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18291" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18289" CreationDate="2017-08-11T04:01:39.150" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just the opinion of a 2000 player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 Nc6 2. d5 Ne5 3. f4 Ng6 4. e4 e6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The idea of this opening, and others like the Alekhine and the Two Knights Tango, is to lure the white pawns forward to make them easier to attack.  Black gets a very cramped game, but it is playable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 Nc6 2. Nf3 d5 3. c4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The main purpose of Nf3 is to prevent black's knight from using that square.  After normal moves, black will find that blocking the c-pawn advance is considered bad.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One of the general objectives in openings is to control the center.  White can attack black's center with the c-pawn, yet black can't support this with his own pawn.  This leads to a small increase in white's advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12449" LastActivityDate="2017-08-11T04:01:39.150" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18293" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18296" CreationDate="2017-08-11T08:49:19.207" Score="3" ViewCount="312" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the right way to claim a draw in the last two minutes?&#xA;Also, is there a procedure to claim a draw after losing on time (I mean if you have a position where you can go for a win if you had time)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13187" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-08-11T08:50:36.570" LastActivityDate="2017-08-11T11:48:14.003" Title="Requesting draw in last two minutes" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;draw&gt;&lt;blitz&gt;&lt;claim-draw&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18294" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18262" CreationDate="2017-08-11T10:47:34.887" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I find &lt;a href=&quot;https://stockfishchess.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;stockfish&lt;/a&gt; pretty good. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Runs on Windows and Linux.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13990" LastActivityDate="2017-08-11T10:47:34.887" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18296" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18293" CreationDate="2017-08-11T11:48:14.003" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The first point to note that this kind of draw claim only applies when there are no increments. Since digital clocks are almost universal in advanced and normal chess countries it should (I stress &quot;should&quot;) rarely arise.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note also that FIDE proposes to ban analogue clocks and insist on increments in FIDE rated tournaments from 2021, so then the problem should disappear entirely.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are three cases which can arise:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) No increments but one or more digital clocks is/are available. In this case the recommended course is for the arbiter to give both sides a 5 second increment, give the claimant's opponent an extra 2 minutes, offer the claimant's opponent a draw which he can decline or accept in the normal way and the game continues to one of the three normal conclusions of win, draw or loss.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) The player makes a claim that his opponent is not trying to win the game by normal means but just shuffling the pieces quickly to try and win on time. In this case the arbiter will watch the game and if he judges this is correct he will award the draw. He may do this (award the draw) even after the flag has fallen but the claim cannot be made after the flag has fallen and if it is made with just a few seconds left the arbiter will not be able to come to a conclusion and the game will be lost on time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) The player makes a claim that his opponent cannot &quot;win by normal means&quot;. This is different from &quot;win by any means&quot;. For instance if the player is a queen up and crushing his opponent then his opponent might have enough material to win via helpmate but would almost certainly lose if the claimant had enough time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another possibility would be if the game was still in the middlegame when, clearly, anything could still happen. In this case the claim would be rejected immediately, the opponent would be given an extra 2 minutes and offered a draw which he could accept or decline. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These are straightforward cases. More problematic would be where the claimant has a rook against a rook and pawn in a theoretically drawn position. This would be the opposite extreme. In this case the arbiter would ask the players to continue and watch the game again possibly until the flag falls. He would then have to judge whether or not the claimant had displayed the required theoretical knowledge to hold the draw. Clearly if the claim is made with just a few seconds on the clock this is not going to be possible and the game is going to be lost. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This same principle applies to all endgame cases where best play would result in a draw but the opponent can win if the player lacks the required theoretical knowledge, even lone king against king and rook's pawn. It should be a trivial draw but the claimant must demonstrate during his time remaining that he has that theoretical knowledge.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once your flag has fallen no claim can be made even if it is mate in 2. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2017-08-11T11:48:14.003" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18297" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18268" CreationDate="2017-08-12T13:16:35.267" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Interesting!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Based on probability lets say we the bishop being in a2 is equally probable as being in f7 (principle of superposition, quantum chess rules). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Taking queen with king is blocked if bishop is in f7, which means there is no move occurring in all possible boards. As it is said in the question, rook is moved out of danger. Probability that this occurs is 0.5 and the loss in the game is black becomes stronger than now as the rook is out of danger.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the bishop is in a2, moving the queen is allowed. White wins, as question states. Probability is again 0.5 and there is no loss for white. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the rook is taken instead of moving the queen, again black loses the rook irrespective of where the positioned bishop is. This has a probability of 1. In this situation if bishop is in a2, king is in open check and has to move to g1 or h1, either ways white is way too stronger as it has now 0.5 probability for check mate in consequent step. If the bishop is in f7, king is not in open check and black can play at 50% chance rook b7 as queen can't take rook has 50% and in third move rook takes queen 50% giving 0.125 probability for black to gain hand. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On conclusion moving queen has 0.5 probability to win the game and 0.5 probability to lose the strong hold and give black more power.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Whereas taking rook has 0.5 probability to win in next move, and less probability that black gains more power.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is by the way a crude analysis, for just two more consequent steps, as it is quantum chess, anything can happen as the total number of boards increases $2^n$  times for n steps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14003" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T16:23:11.343" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T16:23:11.343" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="18298" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18013" CreationDate="2017-08-12T16:27:52.433" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Hiarcs has a great Mac version with a 3200+ rating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12953" LastActivityDate="2017-08-12T16:27:52.433" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18299" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18300" CreationDate="2017-08-12T16:28:05.733" Score="0" ViewCount="121" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/XMjy2.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My move was Kxc3. The move was labeled as a blunder. Why?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13744" LastActivityDate="2017-08-12T20:14:20.787" Title="Why the analyzer propose this move?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18300" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18299" CreationDate="2017-08-12T20:14:20.787" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Simply put, Kxc3 loses a piece or the exchange after Rc8.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[fen &quot;1n3rk1/5pp1/4p2p/8/q1N1QP2/Pnp4P/1PK2PP1/3R1R2 w - - 0 0&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Kxc3 Rc8 2. Rd6 {or any move} Na5 3. Rd4 Qb3+ 4. Kd2 Nxc4+&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12449" LastActivityDate="2017-08-12T20:14:20.787" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18301" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-08-12T22:11:48.080" Score="2" ViewCount="76" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are there some windows applications that can view online games? Ideally they should allow custom moves and analysis. Something similar to Chess24 or FollowChess app on android? Only no web browser solutions please. Preferably free license.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11609" LastEditorUserId="11609" LastEditDate="2017-08-13T06:50:14.933" LastActivityDate="2017-08-13T06:50:14.933" Title="Windows application to view online broadcast games" Tags="&lt;online&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="6" ClosedDate="2019-06-25T19:40:52.853" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18302" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18268" CreationDate="2017-08-13T05:09:39.053" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;If this was a normal game and the white bishop was on f7, white would have, among other options, a mate in 7 starting with Ba2+.  This also collapses the bishops into one so he doesn't have to worry about which of the bishops is real.  So you might think that white could simply do this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But it's not quite that simple.  Since this is quantum chess, black could play Rf^g7, which has a 50% chance of blocking the check, attacking the queen, and getting the rook out of danger.  White could respond with Bxb1, and now black is in a quandary - if he plays Rxa7 and it works, that proves that his rook is on g7 and not on f5 and white can play Bxh7 and win the game, and if it doesn't work, that proves his rook is on f5 and not on g7 and white can play Qxh7 winning the game.  (If I understand the measurement rules correctly, white will know which of these has happened.)  So, black can't capture the queen.  If he simply moves his king, white can simplify with Qxg7 followed by Bxf5 with an endgame up a bishop and a pawn (in which black will likely clone his king on the dark squares to prevent the white king from safely advancing... and with potential multiple kings it prevents any sort of meaningful opposition... hmm, maybe simplification isn't as good as I thought.  But even without simplification, white has won one of the rooks, which is huge.)  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If after Ba2+ Rf^g7 Bxb1, black tries something similar to the series of quantum checks I describe later, by starting with R^d2+ Kg3 R^h3+, it doesn't work because of the pin.  White can disarm the attack by trying Bxh7, which has a 3/4 possibility of winning outright, and if it doesn't it still measures and fixes the position of black's rook on f5.  Black can play R^g7 again, but the position is not the same, and after Bxf5 black loses half a rook and has no quantum checks available.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But black also has the option of Rb^g7.  This potentially attacks the white queen, and now white must retreat the queen or correctly guess the location of the rook.  But if white guesses wrong, it's a disaster and he loses the queen.  So if white wanted to guess, he should have just done so right away, when it didn't involve losing his queen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, maybe Ba2 isn't the way to go for white.  Let's look at the seemingly simple gxf5.  It wins a rook.  Black seems to be toast - but, he has some tricks.  He can start with R^f1 which may or may not be check, and either taking it or ignoring it gives white a 50% chance at an immediate loss.  So, white must respect the threat, and retreats with Kg3.  Black can then put a quarter-rook on h3 with R^h3.  White responds with Kxh3, and black puts 1/8 rook on h1 with R^h1.  White retreats again with Kg3, and black plays R^g5, placing 1/16 of a rook on g5.  Now white's king has nowhere that is completely safe.  White can try B^g4 to create additional interference - now, black has only a 1/32 chance of Rxg3 winning.  But 1/32 is way better than nothing.  While black may have better moves, he can force this after gxf5, meaning black has &lt;em&gt;at least&lt;/em&gt; a 1/32 chance of winning after gxf5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black could also attempt to attack the queen instead of the king.  After gxf5 R^b7 Qc5 R1^b5 Qf8, black can attempt Rg7, entangling with the f7 bishop.  White can now attempt Qg8 with a 3/4 chance of winning, but there's a 1/4 chance that the g7 rook is real, resulting in Rxg8 Bxg8 (we know it's the a2 bishop because of the entanglement) Kxg8 and now you have a 3 pawn vs 2 endgame.  In normal chess this would likely win for white, but here it's a tossup.  So that line overall has about a 7/8 chance of winning for white.  But this line isn't forced.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2017-08-13T05:09:39.053" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18303" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-08-13T06:49:48.997" Score="6" ViewCount="293" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm aware that sometimes in the endgame, one player is able to create a fortress and is fine with just shuffling their pieces to a draw. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, in the midgame, with nearly all the pieces still on the board, is it ever advisable to NOT attack or just shuffle your pieces around? What I envision is perhaps a highly closed position where you would need to sac multiple pieces just to create an opening. In this situation, is it preferable to draw? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14008" LastActivityDate="2017-08-14T08:54:41.073" Title="Midgame zugzwang?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;zugzwang&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18304" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-08-13T07:40:56.853" Score="1" ViewCount="80" Body="&lt;p&gt;For critical positions in your opening repertoire: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;How many PLY do you recommend to let the engine run on a single move (referring to a roughly equal position, about +0.15-0.2)  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;How much time does it takes to reach this (obviously depends on various factors, just trying to gauge the reality of other chess players today, non-super users)?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12953" LastEditorUserId="10295" LastEditDate="2017-08-13T10:56:45.407" LastActivityDate="2017-08-13T15:31:03.210" Title="Time/PLY to let engine run for opening analysis" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;software&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18305" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18303" CreationDate="2017-08-13T09:28:00.807" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think you partially answered the question yourself. I can think of 3 scenarios.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In very closed positions like &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1497429&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this game of Nakamaura against Rybka&lt;/a&gt; neither side may be able to improve the position, forcing players to shuffle pieces around. You might even think of slightly more open position, such as a position with blocked pawn chains and one open file, where all entrance squares for the heavy pieces on that file are covered/defended.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Some opening lines can end in a position where a player is forced to accept draw by threefold repetition or worsen his position.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Also in very symmetric/drawish positions it might be difficult to achieve anything without making concessions.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2017-08-13T09:28:00.807" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18306" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18304" CreationDate="2017-08-13T09:41:41.963" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;How many PLY do you recommend to let the engine run on a single move&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This will depend on many factors such as the actual position, how you use the engine for opening analysis, etc &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the engine gives a decent advantage (let's say +-2 or so), there is usually not much point in having it calculate down to mate. Other than that opening analysis with an engine is tricky and should certainly not be automated. Engines are useful for pointing out tactical mistakes in openings and can be useful in evaluating midgame/endgame positions that result from some opening lines. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However at least currently you cannot expect engines to give you the absolute best line from say move 5 in any opening. In many openings engines give an evaluation of +0.6 or so even though experience shows that positions are perfectly playable for both sides.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also human interaction is needed to evaluate how playable the position is for a human: e.g. you might have an equal position where you are required to find 10 only moves or so; this is not what you want to get into.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;How long does it take you time-wise to reach this?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Depends on position, computing power and perhaps other factors.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2017-08-13T09:41:41.963" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18307" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18303" CreationDate="2017-08-13T09:56:26.523" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is the famous &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1102400&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Immortal Zugzwang Game&lt;/a&gt;, Saemisch vs. Nimzowitsch, where White ended up in a near-zugzwang situation in the middlegame. In the final position, White, even being a Knight ahead, couldn't move a single piece without severe consequences:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;6k1/3q2p1/p2bp2p/3p1r2/1p1Pp3/3bQ1PP/PP1B1rB1/1N2R1RK w - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2017-08-13T09:56:26.523" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18308" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18304" CreationDate="2017-08-13T15:31:03.210" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is no definite answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;That really depend on how seriously you think you are. Serious player would let a machine run for a whole day for just a single position. Casual players would just run it for about a minute. If your position is quite and equal, you might get the similar moves, so extra computing power would be useless.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Again, that could be a minute or that could be a day.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please note running the machine for hours is generally waste of time if you don't know what you're doing. Serious players don't analyze every position deeply, they know when to do it and when not to do it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2017-08-13T15:31:03.210" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18309" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18289" CreationDate="2017-08-13T18:47:59.390" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;D5 is fine to play, but it is commital and a bit lacking in mobility. I probably wouldn't play it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nf3 does a good job preventing a quick e5, and e4 claims the center nicely. Neither are too commital and leave room for all kinds of options.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9627" LastActivityDate="2017-08-13T18:47:59.390" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18310" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18303" CreationDate="2017-08-14T01:24:27.240" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Another famous example is &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1012683&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1012683&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Alekhine&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Nimzowitsch&quot;]&#xA;[StartPly &quot;50&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 Bb4 4. e5 c5 5. Bd2 Ne7 6. Nb5 Bd2 7. Qd2 O-O 8. c3 b6 9. f4 Ba6 10. Nf3 Qd7 11. a4 Nbc6 12. b4 cxb4 13. cxb4 Bb7 14. Nd6 f5 15. a5 Nc8 16. Nb7 Qb7 17. a6 Qf7 18. Bb5 N8e7 19. O-O h6 20. Rfc1 Rfc8 21. Rc2 Qe8 22. Rac1 Rab8 23. Qe3 Rc7 24. Rc3 Qd7 25. R1c2 Kf8 26. Qc1 Rbc8 27. Ba4 b5 28. Bb5 Ke8 29. Ba4 Kd8 30. h4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12449" LastEditorUserId="11629" LastEditDate="2017-08-14T08:54:41.073" LastActivityDate="2017-08-14T08:54:41.073" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18311" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18312" CreationDate="2017-08-14T15:25:44.640" Score="-1" ViewCount="183" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure if I remember correctly, but I think there used to be an option on Chess.com for learning chess from people on the Net (I'm not referring to the Lessons or Tactics or Drills options). I think the option was named 'Coaches', though I might be mistaken.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So was there ever such an option on Chess.com? It doesn't seem to be there, now (I use the Chess.com &lt;strong&gt;app&lt;/strong&gt;, though. Maybe the app doesn't have the option?). I'd like some information from fellow users of Chess.com. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If such an option is not available on Chess.com (or the app), could someone name a site where I can find people who can teach chess over the Net?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13565" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-08-14T16:53:58.830" LastActivityDate="2019-09-16T10:51:08.433" Title="Are there any options for learning chess from people on the Internet?" Tags="&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;coach&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18312" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18311" CreationDate="2017-08-14T15:37:26.033" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can find a lot of coaches in different languages on &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/coaches&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.chess.com/coaches&lt;/a&gt; and also on &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/coach&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://lichess.org/coach&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10182" LastEditorUserId="10182" LastEditDate="2017-08-14T15:44:30.277" LastActivityDate="2017-08-14T15:44:30.277" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18313" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="20109" CreationDate="2017-08-14T17:52:33.413" Score="4" ViewCount="807" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is easy enough to use a chess engine to &quot;annotate&quot; a game to the extent of pointing out mistakes and blunders: when the evaluation function drops by greater than a certain amount, the move is deemed bad enough to merit a &quot;?&quot; or a &quot;??&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Has anyone tried to develop a program to add exclamation marks to good/brilliant moves? In the eyes of a chess engine, those moves would usually be the best move for the position, but just being the best move does not make a move brilliant, because the best move may be obvious. Exclamation marks are added to moves that are hard to find by humans, which is somewhat subjective. But I imagine one could come up with some rules or heuristics, at least for things such as recognizing sound sacrifices. Or maybe there is a way to train the system using a library of annotated games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wouldn't expect such a tool to be better than a good human annotator, but I find the question interesting from an artificial intelligence perspective.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12523" LastActivityDate="2018-03-11T19:23:37.767" Title="Automated annotation of good moves" Tags="&lt;annotation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18316" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18313" CreationDate="2017-08-15T17:07:28.800" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/paste&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Lichess&lt;/a&gt; has an excellent import tool with computer aided analysis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After uploading a game and analyzing with Stockfish, you can download an annotated PGN of the game. It adds alternate lines and annotated symbols (?! for inaccuracy, ?? for blunder, etc.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/sqYh1.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/sqYh1.png&quot; alt=&quot;Computer analysis&quot;&gt; In the PGN, move&#xA;23. Qf3 looks like: &lt;code&gt;23. Qf3?? { (3.13 → 0.10) Blunder. Best move was Qg4. }&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's an example &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/QSZqZ5Kf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;game&lt;/a&gt; I uploaded and analyzed. Use the tabs/links below the game &quot;FEN &amp;amp; PGN&quot; &gt; &quot;Download Annotated&quot; to export the annotated PGN.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/aWz2z.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/aWz2z.png&quot; alt=&quot;Image showing link to download&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10687" LastActivityDate="2017-08-15T17:07:28.800" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18317" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18313" CreationDate="2017-08-15T17:58:47.887" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is not an answer, but an extended comment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A great question, and a very interesting functionality proposal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't know if such a tool exists - however if I were to implement it I'd consider analysing the same position using different strength settings. For example, if the move is only found by the top strength, it is a good candidate for &lt;code&gt;!!&lt;/code&gt;. It is more or less easy to implement, but may require some effort tuning up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3774" LastActivityDate="2017-08-15T17:58:47.887" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18319" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18274" CreationDate="2017-08-15T19:14:20.423" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Several mistakes here:&#xA;1: Chess.com - you are probably being trolled by 10-year old brats. Lots of children on that site.&#xA;2: Entitled to a rematch? No. If you don't want to play the opponent again, then simply decline. However, it is in a sense 'fair' to do a rematch to even out the color selections. In your mind, play games in &quot;pairs&quot; and be prepared to play 2 vs each opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Besides, if your challenges are within 200 rating points of yourself, then the games should be competitive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd examine why you want to stop and analyze a blitz game mid-stream of playing games. that is non-productive in my estimation. Since your games are recorded automatically, simply play a handful of games then revisit them. You will have a different perspective on the game when you get around to analyzing it post-mortem.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10233" LastActivityDate="2017-08-15T19:14:20.423" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18320" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18322" CreationDate="2017-08-15T22:28:23.920" Score="0" ViewCount="908" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm a beginner and I don't know any openings - what are the best openings for beginners?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14027" LastEditorUserId="14027" LastEditDate="2017-08-20T21:12:52.537" LastActivityDate="2017-08-20T21:12:52.537" Title="Simple Openings for Beginners?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;beginner&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2017-08-16T10:03:22.797" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18321" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18320" CreationDate="2017-08-15T23:02:58.517" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are easy openings, then there are the ones you're going to see.  Your question implies you are a near-beginner. Even so, by now, you have seen:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The Ruy Lopez. This is probably THE kingside opening to learn. You'll need it on both sides of the board.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The Queen's Gambit. This is THE queenside opening. Again, you'll need it on both sides of the board.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The Sicilian. Selected by Black in response to e4. You don't have to play it but you better be ready for it.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The Fried Liver Attack. You'll see it in blitz. Be ready. As black you'll learn to hate the f7 pawn. He's a weakling.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That being said, don't try to memorize tons of moves. This is a waste of time. I recommend you get familiar with the first few moves and major variations and learn what the variations are about. Thereafter, stick with good opening practices such as developing pieces and castling. Because as sure as I type this, you're going to see someone play something weird on move 3 and you're going to have to deal with it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2017-08-15T23:02:58.517" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18322" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18320" CreationDate="2017-08-15T23:47:07.400" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm going to ignore the &quot;simple&quot; openings and recommend to you good openings for beginners. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is pretty common for chess instructors to recommend &lt;code&gt;1 e4&lt;/code&gt; openings to beginners because they tend to be more dynamic and therefore helps beginners improve in their tactical ability. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My following recommendations are in the spirit of fostering tactical and attacking ability. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Against &lt;code&gt;1e4 e5&lt;/code&gt;, I recommend the &lt;strong&gt;Italian Game&lt;/strong&gt; because you will often get the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_Knights_Defense,_Fried_Liver_Attack&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Fried Liver Attack&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &#xA;which will help your tactical ability as well as win you many games. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Against &lt;code&gt;1e4 c5&lt;/code&gt;, you could play the &lt;strong&gt;open sicilian&lt;/strong&gt; though it has a lot of theory if you choose to stick to it. I recommend the &lt;strong&gt;Smith Morra Gambit&lt;/strong&gt; which may not be completely sound, but it will give you great attacking chances.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As Black, you will face &lt;code&gt;1e4&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;1d4&lt;/code&gt; most often. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt; has a lot of theory and white can play many things, so I would recommend either the &lt;strong&gt;caro kann or french defense&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Against d4, the &lt;strong&gt;King's Indian Defense or the Benoni&lt;/strong&gt;. Those two openings are pretty much the only way for black ensure a dynamic and tactical game against d4. You could try the Dutch defense, but I find it less tactical and difficult for beginners to play with.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3872" LastEditorUserId="10295" LastEditDate="2017-08-16T10:25:40.623" LastActivityDate="2017-08-16T10:25:40.623" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18324" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-08-16T05:29:34.980" Score="3" ViewCount="1381" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've learnt chess only about 1 month ago. Of course, my first game was terrible. But with reading some tips I've proceeded a little. Learning basics of few openings (like Spanish, Vienna and Urusov) increased my level and so did learning a bit about tactics (I can do a fork or a pin when possible) but now I don't know what to do? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Should I read books on opening Theory? Or on endgame? I don't know how to make a plan. Sometimes in the mid-game, I don't see a good move. There is no great attack against me and also I did not make an attack but I'm not sure how to launch one so sometimes I tend to do a random move or just proceed to get my peaces more connected and controlling more place but I feel lost. So what would be your advice?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it better to focus on tactics and so? (Which resources do you recommend? text? app? etc ) or the ability to make a plan? (resource?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you in advance&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14028" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T18:54:57.027" Title="What should a beginner focus on to improve his level?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;beginner&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18325" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18324" CreationDate="2017-08-16T07:56:53.713" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;A bit of everything, really.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Observe&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Subscribe to a few youtube channels, turn up to tournaments, do something where you can analyse players who are better than you and try to understand their moves. This will give you a general idea of how to play, but won't teach you much compared to just &lt;em&gt;playing&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Openings&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Try to learn some basic opening ideas and maybe even a few more lines. Learning specific openings is only useful when you play exactly those openings, so you could either learn every opening in theory, or learn the main ones and a few opening techniques which would work across many openings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Opening ideas&quot; Includes things such as piece development and centre control, but also subtle things too:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Learning the ideas behind openings means, rather than memorizing long theoretical variations it is important to know where to put your pieces and make a pawn formation and build a long term plan accordingly. Every opening is unique and has its own ideas, some openings require fast and aggressive ideas and motifs and some openings it is important to play slow and just maneuver your pieces to a good square.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/article/view/basic-opening-ideas&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;This post by GM arunabi&lt;/a&gt; is a great material that looks into opening ideas.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Middlegame&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Try to  brush up on things like positional play and trading. Learn a little about pawn structure and when to castle. You can set up your board to the end of an opening line and play against someone else or a computer to acheive this. Watching GM games on YouTube helped me a lot, since you begin understand how trading works and how the value of pieces can change. @Bad_Bishop wrote &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/15231/10887&quot;&gt;an amazing answer&lt;/a&gt; to my question about trading minor pieces which you should read.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Endgame&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/drills/endgame-practice&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Practise a few endgames&lt;/a&gt; and start to calculate best moves in difficult endgames. Playing an endgame as the losing side and trying to draw may even be more beneficial to your learning. You can easily do this by playing against a computer and starting in a losing position. You can take these positions from famous games, your own games, or random games from a &lt;a href=&quot;https://database.chessbase.com/?lang=en&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chess database&lt;/a&gt; where there was a clear winner, and starting ten or so moves from the end.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Review&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you have records of your games, go and find out where your mistakes were. After every new game you play, run back through it and find where the turning points of the game were. Try to pinpoint mvoes which caused the play to shift. Identify the tactics used and go and learn those, so you can spot them next time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The most important part is to keep playing games and reviewing them to find your own weaknesses. Once you find them, stamp them out and repeat.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10887" LastEditorUserId="10887" LastEditDate="2017-08-16T08:19:48.563" LastActivityDate="2017-08-16T08:19:48.563" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18326" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18324" CreationDate="2017-08-16T13:21:23.920" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;A beginner should focus on simple yet powerful techniques which is a life-long algorithm for chess from novices to Professionals .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Focus on the entire board after every move. This sounds easy, but on many occasions, even the best players falter.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Should practice puzzles for pattern recognition.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Should focus on the opening aspects and the principles. He/She should select easy openings and should avoid Sicilian/KID and other complex openings.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Learn from chess videos. Free chess videos from  Matojelic, King Crushers, and many others from YouTube encourage deeper insight of the game and they make the top games look so easy. It exuberates confidence and lessen the scariness of GMs.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Should play/practice online chess with better players.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T18:54:57.027" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T18:54:57.027" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="18327" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18324" CreationDate="2017-08-16T16:37:29.760" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It sounds as if you are well aware of what you need to do next. There are many ways to set about it and you need to find the ones that work for you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One excellent move is to find yourself a guru. A strong player (from any era) who games you admire. Get hold of a collection of their games, preferably with their own notations, and play over those games, again and again and again.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Two books that I like. &quot;Rethinking the Chess Pieces&quot; by Andy Soltis, and &quot;Simple Chess&quot; by Michael Steen. These will give you things to think about in the situations where right now you don't know what to think about.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastActivityDate="2017-08-16T16:37:29.760" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18329" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18324" CreationDate="2017-08-16T17:30:07.050" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Do a mix of everything:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Tactics&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Solving tactics puzzles on websites like chesstempo, lichess,... and many others is the easiest and best way. Make sure to understand the idea behind each puzzle, whether it is a &lt;em&gt;fork&lt;/em&gt; a &lt;em&gt;pin&lt;/em&gt;, etc. Chesstempo is good in this respect as it will show you (after you solve or after you fail to solve) the theme(s) of the puzzle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Endgames&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At this point you should focus on simple topics like mating with king+queen, king+rook, basic pawn endgames. Lots of books written on endgames, but the basic ones you should be able to find online as well. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Opening&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The importance of openings is often overestimated by beginners. I'd recommend not to focus on any specific opening, but instead learn and follow basic principles such as: occupy the center by pawns, develop pieces (bishop, knight) to active squares, don't move pieces twice in the opening, castle. Chances are that if you follow these guidelines you are going to follow (more or less) an &quot;official opening&quot;. Don't learn any opening lines by heart so far. It is unlikely that your typical opponent is playing an opening for more than a couple of moves and also at this point in time you are not in a position to punish your opponent for deviating from the accepted best line, because you do not understand the ideas behind the openings yet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Middlegame / developing a plan&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is the most difficult part. Once you stop blundering pieces in one move and falling into basic tactical traps, this is one of the most important ways to improve.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finding a good plan requires lots of experience which you will gain through playing and analyzing your games. Essential to developing a plan is an evaluation of the current and of potential future positions. There are many factors that go into such evaluation, such as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;material (learn about the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_piece_relative_value&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;value of the pieces&lt;/a&gt;); this is usually the most important factor&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;activity of pieces (good pieces usually have lots of space to move and can attack enemy pieces; poor pieces are often hindered in movement by other pieces, particular by their own pawns)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;king safety (how many defenders, particularly pawns around your king)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;open lines (it is usually advantageous to occupy these by your rooks/queen)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;weaknesses, particularly &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isolated_pawn&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;isolated&lt;/a&gt; and/or doubled/tripled pawns can often be a good target for attack; also think of how you could create such weaknesses&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Start by evaluating the position on the board for your and your opponent's side. This should give you ideas for a plan. For instance if you find that one of your pieces does not do much, think of ways to activate it. This could be for instance through moving the piece somewhere else, but also through opening lines using pawn moves. Likewise for the other factors. Did your opponent neglect king safety? Perhaps it is time for an attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Learning all this by yourself is very hard. Ideally you'd have a stronger player look through your (or other people's) games and discuss the evaluation of positions (and resulting plans) with you. If you don't have somebody to do that, second best would be to read annotated master games or watch commented games (chess24, youtube...) on the internet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Playing / analyzing&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Play lots of games at longer time controls (avoid blitz) giving you enough time to think about your moves. If you do this online (e.g. on lichess) you have your game automatically saved. Once you finished a game, run a computer analysis (can be done on lichess among others) on it which will point out major mistakes. Analyze the mistakes look at the recommended best move and try to avoid the same mistake next time you play. Repeat...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2017-08-16T17:30:07.050" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18331" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17890" CreationDate="2017-08-16T19:53:37.797" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recommend you watch simon williams videos on youtube about London system. You can do analysis by yourself and if you want allot of deep detail then buy his dvd&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12767" LastActivityDate="2017-08-16T19:53:37.797" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18332" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18411" CreationDate="2017-08-16T23:49:45.657" Score="18" ViewCount="1561" Body="&lt;p&gt;Computer chess engines have gotten better since Deep Blue beat Kasparov in 1997.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Did the algorithms get better, or were the improvements mostly due to the same algorithms running faster thanks to faster hardware, etc.?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the former, are these algorithmic improvements public?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And if so, what were the improvements? Where can I read about them?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14033" LastEditorUserId="14033" LastEditDate="2017-08-26T00:50:24.307" LastActivityDate="2018-11-16T04:04:37.380" Title="How did the engines improve since Deep Blue?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;programming&gt;&lt;computer-chess&gt;&lt;chess-algorithms&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18334" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18332" CreationDate="2017-08-17T02:28:55.447" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can't speak for the algorithm used for Deep Blue, but I'm going to try and explain the improvements in chess programming.  Speed is the greatest improvement.  Deep Blue used multi-processor dedicated computers, so a comparison isn't really possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/&lt;/a&gt; is a great source, but it's hard to navigate.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are 3 main functions that are tweaked to improve a chess engine are the evaluation, move generation, and search functions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Evaluation is the hardest to program, as there are many exceptions to the rules.  With hard drive space getting cheaper, the eval function allows for more exceptions to be evaluated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Move generation, along with making and unmaking a move, consumes a lot of memory because it has to be preformed so many times.  The most common generation functions are mailbox, bitboard, 0x88, 8x8, extended boards (10x10, 10x12), and a predetermined move array/table  (*I use an indexed move table).  Current opinion is that bitboards are the faster, and using magic bitboards speed this by up to 30%.  Dr. Robert Hyatt, professor and creator of cratfy chess engine, claims no significant speed increase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The early search function was the primitive min-max functions.  Basically were you try to maximize the score of the side to move and minimize the opponent's score.  Alpha-Beta was the first improvement.  They reduced the number of moves being searched by transposition table, cut-off values, aspiration windows, and history heuristics.  These are depth-first searches.  There is also the internal iterative deepening search which tries to search the &quot;best&quot; move(s) the deepest hoping that searching other moves will prove to be fruitless.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;NOTE:  My index table.&#xA;GNUChess and Jester both use an index array to generate their moves.  They initialize the engine by filling array with possible moves.  The take the six pieces and compute the legal moves that are available from each square.  So each piece had a [64][8] array.  I took this idea and compressed it to two indexes and a table.  The table holds a value which tells if the 16 moves are possible, one index holds the offset of the move, and the other holds the mask.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;offset[] = {-8, -1, 1, 8, -9, -7, 7, 9, -17, -15, -10, -6, 6, 10, 15, 17};&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;mask[]   = {1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, ...};&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then the generation of a sliding move is as easy as looking up the validity of it's mask in it's allowable offsets against the move table.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12449" LastActivityDate="2017-08-17T02:28:55.447" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18335" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18311" CreationDate="2017-08-17T09:57:13.767" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Internet Chess Club is a subscription-based chess server. They have a list of accredited coaches (&lt;a href=&quot;https://store.chessclub.com/teachers&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Coaches&lt;/a&gt;) who you can book for online lessons (shared board and talk via Skype). Fees vary from $50-$100 for grandmasters down to $20-$30 for FMs or IMs. They also tend to be lower for coaches in poorer countries.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Apart from being a member for many years I have no commercial connection with ICC. I've never actually used the services of a coach but the system seems to work well enough.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2415" LastEditorUserId="2415" LastEditDate="2017-08-17T10:03:05.890" LastActivityDate="2017-08-17T10:03:05.890" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18336" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18332" CreationDate="2017-08-17T10:59:17.480" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Did the algorithms get better?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Obviously, yes a little bit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;or were the improvements mostly due to the same algorithms running faster&#xA;  thanks to faster hardware and software?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Minor nit: If the algorithms got better then that is the software getting better so there is no &quot;or&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore%27s_law&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Moore's Law&lt;/a&gt; tells us that processor speed will double roughly every 18 months. That means it has doubled roughly 13 times in 20 years. That makes modern processors somewhere in the region of 8,000 times faster. So, far and away the biggest improvement in engine performance is due to faster hardware.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If the former, are these algorithmic improvements public?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;And if so, what were the improvements? Where can I read about them?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well, it wasn't the former, it was the latter. Nevertheless the improvements are mostly open source and freely visible by &lt;a href=&quot;https://stockfish.s3.amazonaws.com/stockfish-8-src.zip&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;downloading the sources for engines like Stockfish&lt;/a&gt;. Perhaps also worth giving the &lt;a href=&quot;https://stockfishchess.org/download/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;general Stockfish download link&lt;/a&gt; since the specific source code link will likely expire when version 9 comes out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2017-08-17T10:59:17.480" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18337" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-08-17T12:38:07.910" Score="3" ViewCount="259" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the most obvious move, (or simple sequence of moves) long overlooked by opening theory in the last 50 years or so, completely changing the evaluation of a well-known position? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: Well, I mean those cases in which &quot;an unknown amateur from Siberia wrote to the famous chess magazine that White is losing, because after the simple 12...Nxc3, White cannot take back, because of the discovered check...&quot; Are those just urban legends, or they did actually happen? I am curious...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastEditorUserId="8291" LastEditDate="2017-08-17T16:54:44.003" LastActivityDate="2017-08-18T17:15:29.233" Title="Opening theory overlooking simple moves?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;theory&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18338" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18337" CreationDate="2017-08-17T16:44:35.657" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I doubt very much that you can find anything that is both obvious (to the human eye) and new and strong, but a good candidate for the most drastically re-evaluated simple move might be 3..Nf6 against the Lopez.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastActivityDate="2017-08-17T16:44:35.657" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18339" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18337" CreationDate="2017-08-17T23:15:12.783" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are thousands of small evaluation changes, but there's only a few complete turnarounds busting main lines considered good for decades. Two examples come to my mind. First is correspondence game Voss-Zhak 2010, 30.Re6 winning, refuting the old main line of moscow gambit. Also 22.Kf1 from Giri-Shirov 2014 (found earlier in correspondence games) made old main line Sveshnikov almost lost for black. Both these recent games changed theory evaluations seriously.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11609" LastActivityDate="2017-08-17T23:15:12.783" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18340" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18343" CreationDate="2017-08-18T03:18:19.837" Score="5" ViewCount="394" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a recent OTB tournament game I lost to a player of the same strength as me (1800). My feeling is that I played poor positional chess and continuously failed to capitalize on his suspect play. Any comments/critiques on strategy or tactics are greatly appreciated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks Everyone&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;Local Tournament&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;????.??.??&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;3&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Me&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Opponent&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;1800&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;1800&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;] &#xA;[CurrentPosition &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.Nc3 { My idea with the Nc3/e3 move order is to discourage dxc4 lines... } 3...dxc4 4.a4?! { I feel like this move was played because I wanted to enter my comfort zone. This is a psychological mistake, I think I should've taken the center immediately, right?! } ( 4.e4 b5 5.a4 b4 6.Na2 Nf6 7.e5 Nd5 8.Bxc4 { Looks reasonably strong for white. } ) 4...Nf6 5.Nf3?! { I'm doing it again. Why not just play 5.e4? I would be taking away black's chance to develop ideally with ...Bf5. } 5...Bf5 { Much to my opponents satisfaction, we've now reached a main line. For some reason, I felt more comfortable reaching this main line (that I in fact don't know extremely well) than I did playing 4.e4 or 5.e4. } 6.e3 { My feeling is that 6.Nh4 leads to more interesting play, but I know 6.e3 is theory. } 6...e6 7.Bxc4 Bb4 8.O-O h6?! { Now I believe black is wasting tempo, and I should poised to punish his play. My opinion is that spending a move on h6 to give an extra square for the bishop isn't worth the time. } 9.Qb3!? { I'm thinking that I will have play on the b-file by driving away the bishop on b4. } ( 9.Ne5 { Perhaps this is another viable choice? The knight seems more active on e5 and this is a typical idea in the slav. } ) 9...a5 { I was expecting 9...Qe7, which also defends b7. } ( 9...Qe7 10.Bd2 { And bring the rooks to the center. What's white's plan in this position? I'm not sure it's clear to me. } ) 10.Na2 Na6 { I thought I could easily win a pawn with 11.Bxa6, but I got taken aback by the rook coming to b6. } 11.Bd2? ( 11.Bxa6 Rxa6 12.Nxb4 Rb6 13.Bd2 Qd6 ( 13...Qe7 14.Nxc6 { Here I thought white would be a little better, but 13...Qd6 was the move that concerned me. } ) 14.Ne5! { This is the move that I failed to see. White is simply winning. } ) 11...Nd5! { Here, I realized that I allowed black to fully equalize. } 12.Bxb4 { Trading my bad pieces for his good ones seemed like my best chance here. } ( 12.Bxd5 { Runs into } 12...Qxd5! { And I still think black is equal. } ) 12...Naxb4 13.Nxb4 Nxb4 14.e4? { This is a very bad decision in my opinion. It's both a positional and psychological mistake. I'm trying to complicate matters here and create some sort of winning chances that aren't even here. My idea is to take on e6. } 14...Bxe4 15.Bxe6 O-O { This is the move that I failed to consider. Now I'm simply left with an isolated pawn and not enough control over the d5-square. } ( 15...fxe6 16.Qxe6+ Qe7 17.Qxe7+ Kxe7 18.Rfe1 $16 ) ( 15...Qe7 16.Rfe1 fxe6 ( 16...Qxe6 17.Qxe6+ fxe6 18.Rxe4 $14 ) ( 16...Bxf3 17.Bxf7+ $18 ) 17.Rxe4 $16 ) 16.Bg4 Qd5 ( 16...Bxf3 17.Bxf3 Qxd4 { I figured my best chance was to meet this with } 18.Rfd1 Qf6 19.Rd7 { And try to create counterplay. } ) 17.Qxd5 { I'm honestly not sure if avoiding an exchange gives me any better chances in this type of isolated pawn position. I didn't want to give him extra tempi though. } 17...Bxd5 18.Ne5 { Now I want to eliminate his bishop at all costs. } 18...Rad8 19.Rfd1 { Fighting in slightly worse positions seems like one of the hardest tasks in chess. Now I have to spend my time trying to find ways to liquidate my weak d-pawn at all costs. } 19...Rfe8 20.Ra3 { Finding it hard to develop this rook on the first rank, I lifted it. I don't know what else there even is here. } 20...Be6?! { Why would he play this? I was happy to liquidate his powerful light squared bishop. } 21.Bxe6 Rxe6 22.f4 Red6? ( 22...f6 { I think he can just play this and invade my 2nd rank with an easy game. } ) 23.Nc4!? { I thought that trading my d-pawn for the a-pawn was my best chance. } 23...Rxd4 24.Rxd4 Rxd4 25.Nxa5 b6 26.Nb3 Rd3 { No he's threatening Nc2, and it seems that I'm forced to place my knight on a1. } 27.Na1 Rxa3 { I was thinking that he might try to keep chances with his rook on the board, but maybe this gives me time for regrouping. } 28.bxa3 Nd5 29.g3 Kf8 30.Nb3 Ke7 31.Kf2 Kd6 32.a5 { Undoubling my pawns seems like it has to be the only try. } 32...bxa5 33.Nxa5 Nb6 34.Ke3 Kd5 35.Kd3 c5 36.Nb7 { Perhaps instead I should be advancing with 36. g4 or 36. f5 in order to restrict his chances of creating breakthroughs on the kingside. } 36...c4+ 37.Kc3 Na4+ 38.Kc2 f5 39.Na5 { I didn't know what else there was. } 39...g5 40.Nb7 gxf4 41.gxf4 { Now he has created a path on e4 for his king to win a pawn. At this point, I stopped recording moves because my time was very low. I still feel like I can draw this somehow, but I ended up losing the game. The a-pawn and c-pawn were traded, and black won my f-pawn. Then I for some reason didn't use my knight actively in defense of the f-pawn, and let it advance too far, losing the game. It's hard to play so many moves in a slightly worse position without cracking at some eventual point. I feel like there were many missed opportunities by both sides to punish the other. If it matters for anything, my opponent was young (maybe 10-12 years old), and we had 90 minutes for the game. }  0-1 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13861" LastEditorUserId="9025" LastEditDate="2017-08-18T06:59:07.927" LastActivityDate="2017-08-22T15:34:07.780" Title="Slav Defense/Loss to 1800 player: how to improve?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;learning&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18341" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18340" CreationDate="2017-08-18T07:07:47.667" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just one point, in the variation of move 11, you find 13...Qe7 wrong due to Nxc6, but you didn't look at this one move earlier.  Instead of 12. Bd2, 12. Nxc6 retains your extra pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/179/how-do-i-add-a-replayer-to-my-post&quot;&gt;How do I add a replayer to my post?&lt;/a&gt; is one of the links about using the replayer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12449" LastActivityDate="2017-08-18T07:07:47.667" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18342" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18340" CreationDate="2017-08-18T08:57:17.400" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your analysis is pretty much to the point. I am not a 1. d4 or Slav player, but the opening looks fine to me. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically you liked the (sham) sacrifice starting with 14 e4 so much that you ignored the fact that black is not forced to take (15... fxe6). This whole line basically weakened your d4 pawn which is difficult to defend afterwards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As it is quite obvious around move 20 that you are going to lose the d4 pawn sooner or later, you should have come up with some ideas for counterplay, perhaps along the e-file, and also I would have kept more pieces on the board increasing your chances. If you are down material you need to play actively. Your position at move 26 is the very opposite of that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;27&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;a5 would allow you to avoid getting the doubled pawn. Black cannot try to win material with 27 ... Nc2 because of the passed pawn.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At some point around move 33 you achieved an equal position which you should not lose. It is not easy to play because black's king is more active and your knight on the rim, but if you can activate your king and get the knight to more active squares (perhaps via c4 or b3 since you got stuck shuffling the knight between b7-a5 later) there should be no danger. Having the remote a pawn vs the c pawn should slightly favor you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastEditorUserId="11629" LastEditDate="2017-08-18T12:02:14.300" LastActivityDate="2017-08-18T12:02:14.300" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18343" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18340" CreationDate="2017-08-18T09:09:32.480" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I play the Slav with both colours. If you want to improve your play, check out &lt;em&gt;The Slav Defense: move-by-move&lt;/em&gt; by IM Lakdawala. My comments are in the replayer:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;Local Tournament&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;????.??.??&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;3&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Me&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Opponent&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;1800&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;1800&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;] &#xA;[CurrentPosition &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.Nc3 (3.Nf3 {This is more popular as it prevents the Winawer counter gambit, 3...e5}) 3...dxc4 4.a4?! {I don't think this is dubious. You can play 4.e4 in Geller gambit style, but you end up in a mainline Dutch position, which is white's best try against the Slav} 4...Nf6 5.Nf3?! {Again 5.Nf3 isn't dubious. You get a mainline Dutch, which is a decent opening. If you had played 1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.Nc3 dxc4 then you would also have the choice of 5.Ne5 to recover the pawn, which is becoming quite popular} 5...Bf5 6.e3 (6.Nh4 {Nh4 is playable, but is most effective after black locks the bishop out of the pawn chain with ...e6}) 6...e6 7.Bxc4 Bb4 8.O-O h6?! {8...Nbd7 would have been in book, but 8...h6 doesn't weaken anything either} 9.Qb3!? (9.Qe2 {Your move misplaces the queen. She thematically belongs on e2 to support e4-e5}) 9...a5 ( 9...Qe7 10.Bd2 { This shows why the queen is misplaced on b3 instead of e2 to support e4-e5.} ) 10.Na2 Na6 11.Bd2? ( 11.Bxa6 Rxa6 12.Nxb4 Rb6 13.Bd2 Qd6 ( 13...Qe7 14.Nxc6 { Doesn't this just lose material to 14...Rxb3 15.Nxe7 Kxe7?} ) 14.Ne5! { OP said: This is the move that I failed to see. White is simply winning. } (14...Rxb4 15.Bxb4 axb4 {This looks fine to me.})) 11...Nd5! { If the queen were on e2, then a pawn fork would be in the air} 12.Bxb4 12...Naxb4 13.Nxb4 Nxb4 14.e4? { I don't see what was wrong with developing the rooks to d1 and e1 } 14...Bxe4 15.Bxe6 O-O 16.Bg4 Qd5 17.Qxd5 {In general, the player who playing against the isolani should keep queens on the board, as it scares the king away from becoming a defender} 17...Bxd5 18.Ne5 18...Rad8 19.Rfd1 { I would seriously consider giving up the pawn to play for the initiative, e.g  19.Rfe1 with an aim to penetrate to e7} 19...Rfe8 20.Ra3 { This isn't so bad, as long as the rook ends up on e3 or f3 to attack the king } 20...Be6?! { Why would he play this? Ans: Black is trading off when playing against an IQP. Now he can double rooks and win that pawn soon} 21.Bxe6 {21.Bf3, keeping pieces on the board was better} Rxe6 22.f4? {This doesn't help white at all, as it creates an extra weakness and doesn't activate the a3-rook.} Red6? {22.Red6 isn't a bad move, as it wins material} 23.Nc4!? 23...Rxd4 24.Rxd4 Rxd4 25.Nxa5 b6 26.Nb3 Rd3 { I think Black should have played 26...Rxf4. The position would be resignable for white.} 27.Na1 Rxa3 { Keeping rooks on the board would give white counterchances, so trading was good. The endgame can only be won by black } 28.bxa3 Nd5 29.g3 Kf8 30.Nb3 Ke7 31.Kf2 Kd6 32.a5 32...bxa5 33.Nxa5 Nb6 34.Ke3 Kd5 35.Kd3 c5 36.Nb7 36...c4+ 37.Kc3 Na4+ 38.Kc2 f5 39.Na5  39...g5 40.Nb7 gxf4 41.gxf4   0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Summary:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You seem to get muddled with the many choices in the Slav. You can play the mainline Dutch, Geller gambit, Nh4 or Ne5, but not all in one system. Stick to one system and learn it well&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The queen belongs on e2, not b3, to support e4-e5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When playing against an isolated pawn, try to keep pieces on the board. You spent so much time worrying about black's light square bishop that you missed the chance to aim your pieces at the kingside&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Passive defence with the rooks didn't work because of the knight on b4. This is a key outpost for Black. I would have sacrificed the pawn to gain piece activity with Ra3-d3 or f3&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastEditorDisplayName="user1108" LastEditDate="2017-08-18T11:49:45.583" LastActivityDate="2017-08-18T11:49:45.583" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18344" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2223" CreationDate="2017-08-18T15:12:37.087" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are games of infinite chess being played on chess playing websites which helps lend clarity to this question, and requires the existing answers to be amended and/or revised.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Contrary to some statements in the existing answers, much of the game playing strategy in classical chess is still valid in infinite chess. In particular (1) winning a game depends heavily on achieving control of the squares between White's and Black's pieces, (2) pieces should be developed quickly, by placing them in the ideal square once, and without wasting tempo by moving the same piece more than once, (3) do not bring out strong pieces too early, as they can easily be threatened while the opponent develops his pieces, and strong pieces themselves cannot attack without themselves being threatened, (4) do not sacrifice pieces without a clear and tangible benefit such as achieving a positional advantage, and (5) don't capture pawns or attack if you haven't completed development.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is new in infinite chess, is that flank attacks need to be considered (attacking the opponent from behind) and defending from such attacks. Also new patterns to achieve checkmate must be devised as trapping the king at an edge or corner is not possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, as stated in one of the answers, the central issue of infinite chess being &quot;mathematical in nature&quot; is an opinion. People who have developed the skills to consistently win games deserves equal if not more attention than the ancillary mathematics. Magnus Carlsen is more famous and prominent than the mathematicians who study chess, just as players who excel in winning in infinite chess have developed a more exceptional talent than people who investigate the ancillary concepts and math.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13813" LastEditorUserId="13813" LastEditDate="2017-08-18T17:41:25.330" LastActivityDate="2017-08-18T17:41:25.330" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18345" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18337" CreationDate="2017-08-18T17:15:29.233" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Joe Gallagher says of 22... Kf8 in &lt;em&gt;Starting out: the king's indian&lt;/em&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Vaisser relates how for many years this move was thought to lose because of some erroneous analysis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of 25...Qf8 he writes:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;This came as a great shock for Vaisser. According to theory at the time Black was supposed to play 25...Ra6 and lose&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Vaisser&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Bauer&quot;]&#xA;[Startply &quot;50&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 Bg7 4. e4 d6 5. f4 O-O 6. Nf3 c5 7. d5 e6 8. Be2 exd5 9. cxd5 Re8 10. e5 dxe5 11. fxe5 Ng4 12. Bg5 Qb6 13. O-O Nxe5 14. Nxe5 Bxe5 15. Bc4 Bf5 16. Nb5 a6 17. d6 axb5 18. Bxf7+ Kxf7 19. Rxf5+ gxf5 20. Qh5+ Kf8 21. Bh6+ Bg7 22. Bxg7+ Kxg7 23. Qxe8 c4+ 24. Kh1 Qxd6 25. Re1 Qf8 (25...Ra6 26. Re7+ Kh6 27. Qf8+ Kg5 28. Qg8+) 26. Qe5+ Kg8 27. Qd5+ Kh8 28. Qe5+ 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2017-08-18T17:15:29.233" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18347" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-08-18T19:31:11.263" Score="2" ViewCount="377" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are there engines are especially recommended for strategic/positional analysis? I'm especially looking to use the engine in complex, opening position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12953" LastActivityDate="2017-09-23T14:21:50.133" Title="Engine with emphasis on strategic/positional analysis" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18348" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-08-19T02:05:05.857" Score="7" ViewCount="467" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was playing with a friend and we come to the following position (me white):&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/yaPoC.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/yaPoC.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My friend played &lt;code&gt;b5&lt;/code&gt; but computer analysis says that this is a mistake and he should have played &lt;code&gt;a5&lt;/code&gt;. Now, I don't see why is that better? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can anyone help me please understand why? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14028" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-08-24T19:33:14.277" LastActivityDate="2017-08-24T19:33:14.277" Title="Why is `a5` a better move in this position?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;middlegame&gt;&lt;bishops&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18349" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-08-19T02:54:32.810" Score="2" ViewCount="346" Body="&lt;p&gt;In one my of my game, the following position appeared (me white):&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/1Okxl.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/1Okxl.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Computer analysis says that I should have played &lt;code&gt;Nf3&lt;/code&gt; (exposing my queen being captured by the bishop). In the proposed scenario by the computer, the opponent will play &lt;code&gt;h3&lt;/code&gt; (capturing my knight) and so I can capture his bishop with my queen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But another scenario could occur, the opponent will capture my queen with the bishop and I can then play &lt;code&gt;Nf7&lt;/code&gt; (something like the fried liver) and the opponent moves his queen and I can capture the rook (Or he can capture my queen and I capture the bishop with the rook but in this case he can then move his queen to prevent the somewhat-similar-to fried liver attack). But In such case, I think the opponent is in a better situation: He got my queen and I got a pawn and a rook (or a pawn and a bishop), He can no more castle but he has much more material so he can do well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So why does the computer says that this is a better move? I tried &lt;code&gt;h3&lt;/code&gt; to attach the opponent bishops but computer says this is not a good move!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An explanation for why such an analysis is valid is highly appreciated&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14028" LastEditorDisplayName="user11382" LastEditDate="2017-08-19T07:46:00.170" LastActivityDate="2017-08-19T09:27:26.673" Title="Why is exposing my queen for capture better in this position (According to computer analysis)?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;knights&gt;&lt;queens&gt;&lt;pins&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18351" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18349" CreationDate="2017-08-19T03:34:45.980" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your description of the computer's suggestions doesn't quite match the position, but if you mean the computer suggests Nxe5, that is correct, as Bxd1 leads to a variation of &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%A9gal_Trap&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Legal's Mate&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Nxe5  Bxd1&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Bxf7+ Ke7&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Nd5#&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If, instead,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Nxe5 dxe5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Qxg4&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and white has won a pawn, and has a big lead in development.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9025" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-08-19T09:27:26.673" LastActivityDate="2017-08-19T09:27:26.673" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18352" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18355" CreationDate="2017-08-19T06:16:04.750" Score="0" ViewCount="863" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've downloaded the Play Magnus app, and want to record the games (the PGN) I play. There is an option like 'Export game as PGN'(something like that) which allows me to copy the PGN to the clipboard while the game is in progress, but I don't seem to be able to save the PGN of the completed game since a different screen comes up. Can someone help me figure out how to copy the PGN of the &lt;strong&gt;completed game?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13565" LastActivityDate="2017-11-26T05:39:10.170" Title="Recording games on the Play Magnus app" Tags="&lt;pgn&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18353" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18348" CreationDate="2017-08-19T08:36:17.900" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, you need to see that in the original position, Black has already a close to winning advantage. Especially the pin on f3 is nasty; it's hard for White to defend the knight now that the bishop is 'offside' and Black can easily attack it with another piece (Qf6).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both moves (a5 and b5) share the same idea: gaining space on the queenside, with tempo. The move a5 doesn't attack anything but threatens to trap the bishop. The move b5 has a deep tactical refutation involving a (temporary) queen sacrifice:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;r2qkbnr/pp3pp1/2pp3p/4p3/B2nP1b1/2NP1N2/PPP2PPP/R1BQ1RK1 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... b5 2. Nxd4!! Bxd1 3. Nxc6 bxa4 4. Nxd8 Bxc2 5. Nc6 Bxd3 6. Rd1 Ba6 7. Nd5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and White has more than enough compensation for the pawn; center control, space advantage, advantage in development and a better pawn structure. (Immediate tactics on c7 look promising but aren't.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black is better off trying to hold on to the queen, but he'll have trouble protecting his king from the dangerous bishop-knight battery:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;r2qkbnr/pp3pp1/2pp3p/4p3/B2nP1b1/2NP1N2/PPP2PPP/R1BQ1RK1 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... b5 2. Nxd4!! Bxd1 3. Nxc6 Qh4 4. Bxb5 a6 5. Ba4 Bxc2 6. Bxc2 Be7 7. Ba4 Kf8 8. Nd5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is an unbalanced position with chances for both sides; in any case, much less than Black started out with.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2017-08-19T08:36:17.900" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18354" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18348" CreationDate="2017-08-19T08:40:07.507" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;After 1...a5, Black has a good attack and can win the exchange. After 1...b5, White doesn't have to retreat, but can create a material imbalance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;r2qkbnr/pp3pp1/2pp3p/4p3/B2nP1b1/2NP1N2/PPP2PPP/R1BQ1RK1 b kq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1...a5 (1...b5 2. Nxd4 Bxd1 3. Nxc6 Qh4 4. Bxb5 Bh5 5. Nd5 Kd7 6. Nxa7+ Kd8 7. Nc6+ Kc8 8. Nb6+ Kb7 9. Nxa8 Kxa8) 2. a3 {Forced. This gives the bishop an escape square} b5 3. Bb3 Qf6 {Adding pressure to the pinned f3-knight} 4. Ne2 {An attempt to break the pin and bring a defender to g3} Nxf3+ 5. gxf3 Bh3 6. f4 {Forced} (6. Re1 Qxf3 {This leads to mate}) Bxf1 7. Qxf1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2017-08-19T08:40:07.507" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18355" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18352" CreationDate="2017-08-19T14:43:36.243" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Unless I'm misinterpreting the question, this should be possible:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As soon as the game ends (e.g. &quot;You defeated Magnus!&quot; appears at the bottom, if you win for instance), &lt;strong&gt;don't click the arrow at the bottom&lt;/strong&gt; (this is what I assume is the different screen that comes up) but instead &lt;strong&gt;click the list icon in the top right corner&lt;/strong&gt;. Click &quot;Export game as PGN-File&quot; and the completed game should be copied to the clipboard.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user14053" LastActivityDate="2017-08-19T14:43:36.243" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18356" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9711" CreationDate="2017-08-19T19:25:30.190" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.mobialia.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Mobialia&lt;/a&gt; is a decent modern FICS client that works on the browser.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="749" LastActivityDate="2017-08-19T19:25:30.190" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18357" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18358" CreationDate="2017-08-20T07:06:56.643" Score="4" ViewCount="6395" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is this chess variant in India and we call it 'Supply'. Its a 2 vs 2 game with 2 boards and 2 players of a team take alternate colors. The standard rules of chess apply, but with one twist. If your team member captures a piece on his board he can give it to you and since you are your teammate's opponent's color, you can introduce that piece on your board and continue playing, while introducing the piece on your board. There are few rules like no checking and no pawn promotion by putting it on the last rank. The first team to get checkmated loses. This mod of chess is really fun. I don't know if people play this outside India, and what it is called. I would like to play it online with my friends. Do you know any place online where I can play this variant?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14065" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-17T02:25:23.623" LastActivityDate="2020-08-17T02:25:23.623" Title="Where can I play this 2v2 chess variant online?" Tags="&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;online-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="18358" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18357" CreationDate="2017-08-20T08:24:12.707" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;In America, we call this variant Bughouse, although most players allow place mate. Most online chess playing sites do have this variant.  &lt;a href=&quot;http://lichess.org&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Lichess&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://chess.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chess.com&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://chessclub.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chessclub&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://freechess.org&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;freechess&lt;/a&gt;, and &lt;a href=&quot;http://chess.net&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chess.net&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another variant is crazyhouse.  Here when you capture a piece, it changes color and becomes one of your drop pieces.  Unfortunately this also allow place mate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12449" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-17T02:17:59.910" LastActivityDate="2020-08-17T02:17:59.910" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="18359" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18360" CreationDate="2017-08-20T16:50:07.400" Score="5" ViewCount="638" Body="&lt;p&gt;Assuming: Queen=9, Rook=5, Bishop=3, Knight=3, Pawn=1&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The below position is evaluated at +411 for White but he still loses by force (mate in 9, pawn promotes to a bishop just for the fun of it)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is that the maximum possible material advantage while still losing? Can you find a position with more than 411 material advantage and still lose?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/mJKXR.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/mJKXR.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14069" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-03-12T19:07:28.630" LastActivityDate="2020-03-12T19:07:28.630" Title="Biggest Possible Material Advantage But Still Losing" Tags="&lt;problems&gt;&lt;mathematics&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="7" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18360" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18359" CreationDate="2017-08-20T17:17:04.060" Score="8" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;QQQQQbBk/QQQQQBQB/QQQQQRBK/QQQQQQQQ/QQQQQQQQ/QQQQQQQQ/QQQQQQQQ/QQQQQQQQ b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Bxg7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm getting +518 for this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That could be improved to +520 if we allow a black pawn on the 8th rank instead of the bishop, since this position is obviously already impossible for a number of other reasons.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit:&#xA;Found a better one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;QQQQQQNk/QQQQQQNp/QQQQQQKN/QQQQQQQQ/QQQQQQQQ/QQQQQQQQ/QQQQQQQQ/QQQQQQQQ b - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is +530.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3270" LastEditorUserId="3270" LastEditDate="2017-08-20T20:04:11.433" LastActivityDate="2017-08-20T20:04:11.433" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18361" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18373" CreationDate="2017-08-21T01:35:16.950" Score="2" ViewCount="115" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recently lost an OTB game against a strong player (USCF) as white in the Guicco Pianissimo and have a few questions about it, especially 14. d4!?. Feedback/criticism are appreciated greatly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks everyone&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Local Tournament&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;????.??.??&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;4&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Me&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Opponent&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;1800&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;2300&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nf6 4.d3 { I generally enjoy playing these positions for white. } 4...Bc5 5.O-O d6 6.c3 a6 7.a4 Ba7 8.Nbd2 O-O 9.b4!? { Do I really have enough time to play this expansive move here? Perhaps it's better to continue by focusing on development. } ( 9.Bb3 { Followed by Nc4 and Be3 is probably the best way to get the dark-squared bishop into the game. } ) 9...Ne7 10.Bb3 Ng6 11.Nc4 b5! { With my pawn on b4, it seems like this advance blocks my position much more severely than it would otherwise. } 12.axb5 axb5 13.Ne3 { Here, I'm not entirely sure if e3 is the best square. } ( 13.Na5 { this move creates some queenside threats, but I'm worried that the knight will become out of play. } ) 13...Nf4 { A nice outpost, since I can't really play } 14.d4!? { Open the position straight away, or wait? I felt that I almost had no strategic ideas left besides playing this move, but perhaps I should attempt to improve my position beforehand. } ( 14.Qc2 Bb7 { I didn't like this method, because I felt paralyzed by the pressure on the e4 square. } ) ( 14.Re1 { Perhaps I should continue preparatory moves like Re1, Qc2/Qd2 and Bb2, anticipating the opening of the position. } ) 14...Qe8 ( 14...Nxe4 15.Qc2 { Doesn't work due to } 15...Nxc3! { So, how would I have actually been able to proceed after 14... Nxe4? } ) 15.dxe5? { I feel that relieving this tension is a mistake. Re1 looks interesting, keeping a lot of tactical ideas alive in the center. } ( 15.Re1 Nxe4 16.Qc2 Bb7 17.Nf5 { Looks like a respectable position. } ) ( 15.Nd5 N4xd5 16.Bxd5 Nxd5 17.exd5 { Also looks interesting, with black's misplaced queen and undeveloped c8-bishop. } ) 15...dxe5 16.Nd5?? { Now here I'm missing a tactic that I should not miss. Being exhausted isn't a perfect excuse, but I was quite physically exhausted during this game. At this point, I also realize that playing Bb2 far in advance would have eliminated these tactics on the a-file. } ( 16.Nd5 ) ( 16.Bb2 { Might still hold an equal battle } 16...Nxe4? 17.Bd5 Nxd5 18.Qxd5 { Forking } ) 16...N4xd5 17.exd5 Bxf2+! 18.Rxf2 Rxa1 19.Ra2 { I don't know what else I can do here besides try to trade the strong rook. } 19...Rxa2 20.Bxa2 Bg4 21.h3 Bh5 22.g4 Bg6 23.d6 cxd6 24.Qxd6 Qd8 ( 24...Qa8 { Makes things easier. } ) 25.Qxd8 Rxd8 26.Kf2 Ne4+ 27.Ke3 Nxc3 28.Bb3 Rd3+ { And the bishop falls. } ( 28...Rd3+ 29.Kf2 Ne4+ )  0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13861" LastEditorUserId="9025" LastEditDate="2017-08-21T06:33:19.380" LastActivityDate="2017-08-21T20:48:20.903" Title="Misplaying (?) the Guicco Pianissimo; is 14. d4 correct?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18362" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13730" CreationDate="2017-08-21T05:46:34.650" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;That is very interesting, as after over 45 years of playing chess I was watching a 5 minute speed game and in time pressure, the White player promoted a pawn, but to a Black queen instead of a White one and quickly pressed the clock. The opponent grabbed the Black queen and ran it straight down the file to the opposite side and delivered a bank rank mate with the illegal queen. The first player, the promoter of the pawn, was confused and still did not realize what he had done. The other player, always a cheater of all sorts, claimed the queen was his and refused to give up since he lost on time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We did not have the rules at that time, so I claimed the Queen belonged to the player who promoted despite being the wrong color because the clock had already been pressed. However, the rule is very clear.  The other two problems are that it was a speed game and that USA rules sometimes differ from FIDE rules.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14071" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-01-27T22:12:20.670" LastActivityDate="2020-01-27T22:12:20.670" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="18363" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18366" CreationDate="2017-08-21T07:31:02.237" Score="19" ViewCount="6709" Body="&lt;p&gt;Garry Kasparov was born in 1963 in Baku, Azerbaijan, at the time part of the USSR, Soviet Union.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/28/chess-champion-garry-kasparov-croatian-citizenship&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;news&lt;/a&gt; he has also acquired Croatian citizenship. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In his comeback tournament in the summer of 2017 he still used the Russian flag.&#xA;However I did see a Croatian flag together with the Russian one on the poster behind him at the signature sessions between the matches.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But why did Garry Kasparov not play under the flag of Azerbaijan?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11748" LastEditorUserId="13431" LastEditDate="2017-08-21T16:38:49.877" LastActivityDate="2018-01-25T16:17:48.363" Title="Why did Garry Kasparov not play under the flag of Azerbaijan in his comeback tournament in the summer of 2017?" Tags="&lt;kasparov&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18364" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18359" CreationDate="2017-08-21T09:15:24.923" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just for reference: The maximum number that is actually achievable in a real game is of course when one side promotes all its pawns to queens and gets mated by a single pawn. The value would then be 9*9+2*5+4*3-1 = +102&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One possible mate:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;8/8/8/8/8/RRN4k/QQQQB1pN/QQQQQ1BK w - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastEditorUserId="11629" LastEditDate="2017-08-21T17:11:15.860" LastActivityDate="2017-08-21T17:11:15.860" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18366" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18363" CreationDate="2017-08-21T09:37:03.260" Score="32" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;But why did Garry Kasparov not play under the flag of Azerbaijan?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because &lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/card.phtml?event=4100018&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;his FIDE registration is with Russia&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If he wants to change his registration to Azerbaijan then the following also have to happen -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) He has to have a valid claim like residency, nationality or birth, so birth would do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) Azerbaijan chess federation have to agree.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) An administration fee has to be paid to FIDE and possibly a &quot;transfer&quot; fee also. Because Kasparov is a highly rated GM this would be very large. I think when Caruana transferred from Italy to US it was more than $50,000.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The section of the FIDE handbook which describes the rules is &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=13&amp;amp;view=category&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2017-08-21T09:37:03.260" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18367" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-08-21T10:15:02.670" Score="2" ViewCount="190" Body="&lt;p&gt;Larry Christiansen has played and analysed his four games against Chessmaster. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At the 8th move, he shows a different possible continuation and says that &lt;code&gt;e6&lt;/code&gt; (shown below) is forced for black. I don't see why black would be any worse if another move is played, so why is this forced? For instance, is &lt;code&gt;g6&lt;/code&gt; not possible?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. Nf3 c5 2. e3 Nc6 3. c4 Nf6 4. d4 d5 5. cxd5 Nxd5 6. e4 Nf6 7. d5 Nxe4 8. dxc6 Qxd1+ 9. Kxd1 Nxf2+ 10. Ke1 Nxh1 11. Bb5 b6 12. c7+ Bd7 13. Ba6 e6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8209" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2017-08-21T12:12:58.417" LastActivityDate="2017-08-21T12:12:58.417" Title="Why is e6 &quot;forced&quot; in this position?" Tags="&lt;theory&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18368" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18367" CreationDate="2017-08-21T12:11:54.513" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;White has some nasty threats involving the loose a8-rook and c7 pawn. After 13...g6:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[StartPly &quot;26&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Nf3 c5 2. e3 Nc6 3. c4 Nf6 4. d4 d5 5. cxd5 Nxd5 6. e4 Nf6 7. d5 Nxe4 8. dxc6 Qxd1+ 9. Kxd1 Nxf2+ 10. Ke1 Nxh1 11. Bb5 b6 12. c7+ Bd7 13. Ba6 g6 14. Bb7 Rc8 {Saving material} 15. Bf4 {Defending the passed pawn} Bg7 {Carrying on with the planned fianchetto} 16. Bxc8 Bxc8 17. Nc3 {White will be able to take the trapped h1 knight soon or even play Ra1-d1-d8#}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, playing 13...e6 allows the black king to attack the c7 pawn, preventing white cramping down like this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;N.B. Not checked by an engine. These are just my first impressions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2017-08-21T12:11:54.513" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18369" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18372" CreationDate="2017-08-21T15:16:20.530" Score="3" ViewCount="340" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/training/63516&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;This puzzle&lt;/a&gt; starts on move 19 of the below game. In order to get the puzzle correctly, it seems that you have to believe that black would not take the rook with 20.. gxf6. But I don't understand why this is – it's true that black will expose their king and breakup their pawn structure, but this seems like a small price to pay for taking the rook.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I ran it through the chess engine and it didn't seem to show any obvious traps that black would run into by taking the rook.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. e4 dxe4 3. f3 { D00 Blackmar-Diemer Gambit: Gedult Gambit } Nc6 4. c3 Nf6 5. a3 e5 6. Be3 exd4 7. cxd4 exf3 8. Nxf3 Bg4 9. Bb5 a6 10. Bxc6+ bxc6 11. O-O Bd6 12. Qc2 Bxf3 13. Rxf3 Qd7 14. Nc3 O-O 15. Bg5 Be7 16. Raf1 Qxd4+ 17. Kh1 h6 18. Rf4 Qb6 19. Bxf6 Bxf6 20. Rxf6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11962" LastActivityDate="2017-08-28T13:21:26.040" Title="Why wouldn't black take the rook here?" Tags="&lt;puzzles&gt;&lt;rooks&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18371" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18363" CreationDate="2017-08-21T18:29:22.993" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;He has an RF (Russian Federation) citizenship or, at least, he did at some point. In fact, he was the head of a minor party in RF which even held a few seats in the RF parliament at some point.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14081" LastActivityDate="2017-08-21T18:29:22.993" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18372" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18369" CreationDate="2017-08-21T19:39:37.950" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;After 20 ... gxf6 21 Ne4 black is in serious trouble. The threat is 22 Nxf6+ followed by 23 Qh7 mate, and in avoiding this she will have to make serious concessions. An example and not unreasonable line:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;????.??.??&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;*&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;r4rk1/2p2pp1/pqp2R1p/8/8/P1N5/1PQ3PP/5R1K b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1...gxf6 2.Ne4 Rfd8 3.Nxf6+ Kf8 4.Qh7 Ke7 5.Re1+ Kxf6 6.Qxh6+ Kf5 7.g4+ &#xA;Kxg4 8.Qg7+ Kh4 9.Re4+ Kh5 10.Re5+ Kh4 11.Qg3# *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a  just below 1900 player I can't claim to be able to see all the variations, but over the board Ne4 is obvious enough to give me enough worries not to take the rook.To see all the glorious details stick it in an engine. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7726" LastActivityDate="2017-08-21T19:39:37.950" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18373" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18361" CreationDate="2017-08-21T20:48:20.903" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I haven't played the Italian game in some time, but my thoughts are in the replayer below:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;  1. e4             e5            &#xA;  2. Nf3            Nc6           &#xA;  3. Bc4            Nf6           &#xA;  4. d3 {You said you like these kinds of positions. Given that the first game of yours I analysed started with 1.d4, it may be advisable to stick to a smaller opening repertoire, e.g. always starting with 1.e4. Either way, I think you played the opening fine}             Bc5           &#xA;  5. O-O {5.Be3 is common in the Italian game, hoping for 5...Bxe3 6.fxe3, strengthening the centre and giving an open file for the rook. But it is a bit double edged, as sometimes black can play Ng4}            d6            &#xA;  6. c3             a6            &#xA;  7. a4 {7.d4 is the key advance that you have prepared for, so I'm not sure why you didn't play it} (7.d4 exd4 8.cxd4 Bb6)            Ba7           &#xA;  8. Nbd2 {The queenside bishop and knight are the worse pieces in the game for you. If you had played 7.d4, then the c3 square may have been available for the knight and the bishop could come to e3 or g5}          O-O           &#xA;  9. b4             Ne7           &#xA; 10. Bb3 {It might be an unconventional square for the bishop in the Italian game, but you shouldn't be moving the same 2 pieces over-and-over again. I don't know what your Bb3 and Nc4 plans aimed to achieve} (10.Bb2)            Ng6           &#xA; 11. Nc4            b5            &#xA; 12. axb5           axb5          &#xA; 13. Ne3 {13.Ne3 isn't such a bad move, as long as either Bb2 or Nc2 are played to defend the a1 rook. 13.Na5 doesn't achieve much as the c6 square can't be occupied}           Nf4           &#xA; 14. d4             Qe8           &#xA; 15. dxe5           dxe5          &#xA; 16. Nd5            N4xd5         &#xA; 17. exd5           Bxf2+         &#xA; 18. Rxf2           Rxa1          &#xA; 19. Ra2            Rxa2          &#xA; 20. Bxa2           Bg4           &#xA; 21. h3             Bh5           &#xA; 22. g4             Bg6           &#xA; 23. d6 {This loses a pawn. I would try 23. Qe2} cxd6 (23...cxd6 24.Nh4 Qc6 25.Nxg6 hxg6 26.Bb2 Qe4 27.Bc1 Ra8 28.Bb3)           &#xA; 24. Qxd6 {This loses 2 pawns. Preferable is 24. Nh4} Qd8 (24...Qa8 25.Nxe5 Rd8 26.Qb6 Rd1+ 27.Kf2 Rxc1 28.Kg3 Rxc3+ 29.Kh4 Rc2 30.Nxg6 hxg6)&#xA; 25. Qxd8           Rxd8          &#xA; 26. Kf2 {I don't know why you advanced the king into check. I would have tried to activate the dark square bishop with 26.Bg5}           Ne4+          &#xA; 27. Ke3            Nxc3          &#xA; 28. Bb3            Rd3+          &#xA; 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Summary&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You didn't misplay the opening other than not playing the d4 break&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I'm guessing that you have quite a wide repertoire seeing as you pay both 1.e4 and 1.d4. This is fine, but you may want to focus on just one&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You moved the same pieces (queenside knight and light square bishop) rather than developing the dark square bishop&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Towards the end there were multiple tactical blunders such as 26. Kf2, rather than 26. Bg5. The game would have still been tough, but those tactics partly stem from never developing the dark square bishop&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2017-08-21T20:48:20.903" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18374" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-08-22T00:54:12.637" Score="1" ViewCount="601" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to write a program to stop a chess game if Stockfish decides that checkmate is unavoidable for a player as a learning exercise. I downloaded Stockfish for Mac and it gives what it thinks is the best move but I can't figure out how to get it to show those more specific notes&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user14084" LastActivityDate="2017-08-22T17:37:58.093" Title="How do I get Stockfish to show notes like it does on Lichess?" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;programming&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;notation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18375" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18374" CreationDate="2017-08-22T01:07:29.823" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Stockfish is an UCI chess engine, so you shouldn't mess up with the engine. You will need to write a new chess GUI.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Useful links:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/chess-engines-amp-gui-uci&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/chess-engines-amp-gui-uci&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/1095/how-do-i-use-the-analysis-output-of-a-uci-engine&quot;&gt;How do I use the analysis output of a UCI engine?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/15704/what-is-the-optimal-way-to-use-stockfish-programmatically&quot;&gt;What is the optimal way to use Stockfish programmatically?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/5945/how-to-get-position-evaluation-with-uci&quot;&gt;How to get position evaluation with UCI?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2017-08-22T01:07:29.823" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18378" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8962" CreationDate="2017-08-22T10:37:13.777" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;http://kirill-kryukov.com/chess/longest-checkmates/#3+3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;longest checkmates in chess&lt;/a&gt;, the longest DTM (depth-to-&lt;em&gt;mate&lt;/em&gt;) for KRP vs KRP is &lt;strong&gt;112 moves&lt;/strong&gt;, starting from this position with white to move:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;8/7P/1K5R/8/1r1k4/8/4p3/8 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The analysis ignores the 50 move rule.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Additionally, according to the &lt;a href=&quot;https://syzygy-tables.info/?fen=8/8/8/1P3p2/8/8/2R2r2/k1K5_b_-_-_0_1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Syzygy tablebases.&lt;/a&gt;, the maximum KRP-KRP DTZ is 122 ply.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;DTZ 122 Ply&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;8/8/8/1P3p2/8/8/2R2r2/k1K5 b - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-12-16T06:29:04.800" LastActivityDate="2020-12-16T06:29:04.800" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="18379" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18340" CreationDate="2017-08-22T15:34:07.780" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You are a bit too harsh with yourself in the opening phase:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;4.a4&lt;/strong&gt; is not the most aggressive line, but it remains a totally reasonnable choice&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;5.Nf3&lt;/strong&gt; is the right move. Instead, your suggested 5.e4?! fails to 5...e5! and then:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Taking the pawn with 6.dxe5 Qxd1+ 7.Nxd1 Nxe4 or 6.dxe5 Qxd1+ 7.Kxd1 Ng4 forking f2 and e5 is great for Black.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The creative 6.Bxc4 exd4 7.Nf3!? dxc3 8.Bxf7+ Ke7 is not enough (I think this is an old Euwe-Alekhine game) &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastActivityDate="2017-08-22T15:34:07.780" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18380" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18384" CreationDate="2017-08-22T15:40:15.360" Score="4" ViewCount="1350" Body="&lt;p&gt;Once, I played a game against an amateur player, who played really well. When I asked him where he'd learnt to play that well, he merely said that &lt;em&gt;he had used Stockfish to reach that level and had had no formal coaching.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I got Stockfish and Komodo, the best chess engines, I believe, along with Arena as a GUI. While I clearly see that the engines are really, really good at chess(they beat me easily), in what ways can I use them to improve my game?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To make my question concrete: &lt;strong&gt;what are the ways in which a weak amateur chess player can use chess engines to improve his/her game?&lt;/strong&gt; So, not an expert and not a top player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;My thoughts&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure of what the answer could be, but maybe it could include something like &lt;em&gt;using engines to develop a sound knowledge of openings?&lt;/em&gt; That needn't be the answer, though, it's only my speculation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13565" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2017-08-24T00:59:17.400" Title="How to use engines to improve my game (weak amateur, not a top player)" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18381" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18374" CreationDate="2017-08-22T17:30:02.193" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can't. Stockfish is just a chess engine and engines dont have such functionality. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Those notes are created by Lichess application not by Stockfish. Lichess manipulates engine outputs to deliver sophisticated functionality.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you like you can develop an application of a chess engine for this kind of feature using Stockfish or any other engine. UCI protocol (which is a standard protocol for engines) can help you developing such application.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9030" LastEditorUserId="9030" LastEditDate="2017-08-22T17:37:58.093" LastActivityDate="2017-08-22T17:37:58.093" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18382" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18380" CreationDate="2017-08-22T20:23:22.780" Score="1" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Sparring against the machine&lt;/strong&gt;. Seeing as you have an opponent willing to play at any time, then you can get a lot of practice in. Most engines have a range of settings, 'personalities', and you can set up positions against them. E.g. if you want to practice mating with KQ vs. K, then an engine is a great opponent for that&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Analysing your games&lt;/strong&gt;. Engines give detailed variations to help you improve your game. For beginner players, engines are best at telling you when you made tactical blunders&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Tutorials&lt;/strong&gt;. Many engines come complete with tutorials, videos, exercises etc.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2017-08-22T20:23:22.780" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18383" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18380" CreationDate="2017-08-22T20:25:02.163" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's super hard to get better using chess engine. Those are only tools to help you verify if your calculation is okay. So let's say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You can check if you saw all the variations that may happen after your sacrifice&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You can verify if you calculated that pawn endgame correctly&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;You can also analyze your games&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;BUT... (!)&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do not use engines if you want to improve. I swear. The best way, in my opinion (and not only mine) is to &lt;strong&gt;analyze your game YOURSELF.&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then, you need to draw conclusions. Then you'll know what you need to work on the most.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Endgames&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Openings&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Calculation&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some great player (don't recall who) said you can learn the most out of endgames. But it really depends how advanced you are, i.e. if you are a beginner - don't spend your time on openings too much. We would need to know more information to help you better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3895" LastActivityDate="2017-08-22T20:25:02.163" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18384" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18380" CreationDate="2017-08-22T22:03:03.080" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Endings&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Far and away the best way to use engines to improve your play and possibly the easiest is to improve your endgame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance: you are learning to mate with K+B+N v K. Set up the position on the board and play against the engine. You have 50 moves to deliver checkmate. The target is 33 for best play from the worst winning start position. Try several times with the engine display switched off. If you are struggling to do this then try once or twice with engine display switched on. This is a bit like cheating but this way the computer can help you correct your mistakes. Then go back to no engine display.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similarly, you are trying to defend K+R v K+R+P. Repeat as attacker. Again occasionally switch on the engine display to get help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Openings&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a bit more tricky and requires a lot more work on your part. You need to be able to give the engine your own opening book.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, build or get a pgn file with the opening lines you want to practice in the format your engine requires.&#xA;Second, set your opening book to be the opening book for the engine.&#xA;Third, play against the computer as both black and white so you get to know your opening both from your point of view and that of your opponent so you think also about his ideas. When you are following your &quot;book&quot; you should know because the computer should reply instantly. When you go out of &quot;book&quot; it will start thinking.&#xA;In your opening you might have opponent's moves that you are frightened of. Play them against the computer and see how it reacts so you can get good ideas how to play against them and not be afraid.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2017-08-22T22:10:00.810" LastActivityDate="2017-08-22T22:10:00.810" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18385" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-08-23T10:57:22.960" Score="11" ViewCount="2882" Body="&lt;p&gt;If your opponent eliminates all your options to move, you don't lose in chess, but is regarded an equal to your opponent. Isn't this peculiar? In most games and in real life hunt and war it is a winning strategy to eliminate the opponent's options to move. &lt;em&gt;&quot;Oh, you can't move now, can you, so it's obviously my turn again! (grinning)&quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there some history to this? Stalemate does make chess much more interesting, but was it kind of invented in order to be so, or how could it have evolved? Is there some Victorian age gentlemanship involved here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13829" LastActivityDate="2017-08-23T11:27:51.360" Title="What's the history behind stalemate not being a win?" Tags="&lt;history&gt;&lt;stalemate&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ClosedDate="2017-08-24T17:19:37.190" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18386" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18385" CreationDate="2017-08-23T11:27:51.360" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalemate#History_of_the_stalemate_rule&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt; has a history of the stalemate rule. Stalemate being a draw seems to have become more popular in the 15th century, in part due to Lucena&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Lucena (c. 1497) treated stalemate as an inferior form of victory (Murray 1913:461), which in games played for money won only &lt;strong&gt;half the stake&lt;/strong&gt;, and this continued to be the case in Spain as late as 1600 (Murray 1913:833). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2017-08-23T11:27:51.360" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18387" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-08-23T16:16:55.017" Score="6" ViewCount="2149" Body="&lt;p&gt;I started playing chess around 1 year ago, all I have done is watch some videos and play online, so my knowledge is pretty poor. I am coming to a new city and I was thinking about joining a chess club, although given my level I am a bit ashamed of doing so. I wrote them and they told me the club is pretty strong, but I can go and give it a try anyway, which only scared me more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since I have never played anyone with a fide rating I really don't know my strength, so I was wondering if pasting a game here would allow someone with a deeper knowledge to make a (very) rough estimation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Bc4  e6 3. Nc3 Ne7 4. f4 d5 5. exd5 exd5 6. Bb5+ Bd7 7.    Bxd7+ Qxd7 8. Nf3 Nbc6 9. O-O g6 10. d3 Bg7 11. Re1 O-O 12. Bd2 Nf5 13. Ng5 Ncd4 14. Rc1 Nh4 15. Rf1 Rae8 16. g3 Nhf5 17. Qg4 b5 18. Rfe1 Rxe1+ 19. Bxe1 Re8 20. Bf2 b4 21. Bxd4 Bxd4+&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's the game I just played (I'm black), for some reason I don't have an account on a website yet so the rest are not saved. Although I must admit I am very proud of that one, so maybe is not very representative (I can play more games and post them later if necessary). I just want a bunch of opinions so I can get an idea if I am close to the &quot;club level&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.D. The chess club is called Sk1968, in case someone knows how to check the members, so far I have not managed to do it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12045" LastActivityDate="2020-01-22T16:23:19.113" Title="Should I join a chess club?" Tags="&lt;elo&gt;&lt;clubs&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18388" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18387" CreationDate="2017-08-23T17:01:35.870" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;You should try it. Over the board chess is a very different experience, the social aspect is a lot of fun and the level of concentration required very different from online. Also there is no better way to improve your chess than discussing a game with your opponent afterwards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It appears you're talking about &quot;Skakklubben 1968&quot; in Århus, Denmark. It appears to have about 100 members! They probably have quite a few people showing up for their club evenings, which is fun and it means they're likely to have a lot of different skill levels playing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Danish ratings (not FIDE, but I suppose similar) can be found on www.skak.dk; in particular, for this club at &lt;a href=&quot;http://turnering.skak.dk/ClubAndMembers/ClubDetails/164&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this page&lt;/a&gt;. That's a very strong club indeed, with ten 2200+ players! But the bottom are around 1000-1200 or so, so that's OK.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But, in general, when starting at a chess club as an adult you may well have a hard time. Some people lose everything their first year! From playing online, you're not used to the kind of people who don't attack much, don't play opening theory much, don't know much about positional play try to stay solid, but grab their chance when you drop a pawn to a small combination and then just exchange everything and win with it. Stick with it, it's worth it! You'll eventually beat them easily if you just keep improving.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2017-08-23T17:01:35.870" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18389" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-08-23T17:18:09.197" Score="6" ViewCount="255" Body="&lt;p&gt;I remember a really interesting moment from the coverage of one of the past US chess championships (probably 2015 or before). Kamsky had just finished his game and was asked by Maurice Ashley for his opinion on one of the games in progress. So Maurice starts with how White has all this advantages, more space... certain squares etc. And Kamsky instantly replied&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;you must be playing a different kind of chess&lt;/strong&gt;. white has no plan at all. black just goes... [some moves] and that's it&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(of course I might have black and white mixed up above)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It was a striking illustration of how immediate and accurate the evaluation of an elite grandmaster can be. Does anyone remember this at all? I am trying to find the video clip or failing that, the position that the guys were discussing. I am pretty sure it was in the uschesschamps website at the time, but not anymore. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14100" LastActivityDate="2017-10-01T13:08:17.770" Title="Looking for a Gata Kamsky quote - 'you must be playing a different kind of chess'" Tags="&lt;grandmaster&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18390" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18387" CreationDate="2017-08-23T17:49:28.890" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Every chess club I know has players of different strength starting from beginners to (depending on the club) master players. Sk1968 seems to be no exception. The lower rated players might be in the majority kids, but in any case there should be somebody at comparable level to yours. Any level is &quot;club level&quot;, so don't be scared. Just hanging around a chess club you should be able to pick up lots of useful tips and improve your level quickly. In my experience chess clubs are rather welcoming to new players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is difficult to judge your level from a single game. In the game you posted, white played a bit passively, did not pose any problems to you and also made several small positional mistakes, without blundering anything.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You showed a good sense of where to put the pieces and therefore gradually improved your position until achieving a winning position. You found a good plan with the b5-b4 push removing the knight on c3 from the defense of e2. Out of four possible final moves you also found the correct move (Bxd4+) which wins a piece.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Taking all this into account I would put you well above the beginners (rating 1000) who tend to blunder pieces and put their pieces/pawns on weird squares. Based on this game I'd give you at least a 1600, but could well be a lot more. Need to see many more games for a more reliable estimate of your strength. In the end playing strength/rating is determined by many factors such as how good you are at endgames, at difficult tactics, when defending, in opening knowledge, etc. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2017-08-23T17:49:28.890" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18391" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18380" CreationDate="2017-08-24T00:59:17.400" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;what are the ways in which a weak amateur chess player can use chess engines to improve his/her game?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Null moves&lt;/strong&gt;: You can (with chessbase, at least), have the engine play a null move. Let's say you are staring at a position and it is your move. You are clueless as to what to do. You force the engine to play a null move for you and look at the resulting moves the engine would like to play (i.e., you basically give the engine 2 moves in a row). In this way, you see 'threats' that you need to consider parrying, and play your parrying move instead of the null move. Rinse and repeat. After a while you learn to identify threats more quickly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Opening Verification of recorded games&lt;/strong&gt;: Load the game in and review the opening for mistakes. Simple.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Middlegame improvement&lt;/strong&gt;: Replay a position from both sides in the middlegame just after the kings have castled and most of the pieces are developed.  Note what plans the computer tries and what plans of yours fail. Rinse and repeat, several times.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Endgames&lt;/strong&gt;: When you reach an endgame, you can replay critical positions from both sides and evaluate your play while learning how to handle such positions. Note what the computer tries and what fails for you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10233" LastActivityDate="2017-08-24T00:59:17.400" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18392" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18395" CreationDate="2017-08-24T14:04:02.940" Score="9" ViewCount="2491" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have googled for a little while and found &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&amp;amp;rct=j&amp;amp;q=&amp;amp;esrc=s&amp;amp;source=web&amp;amp;cd=3&amp;amp;cad=rja&amp;amp;uact=8&amp;amp;ved=0ahUKEwiuktnRg_DVAhUJPFAKHXwUDNAQFggwMAI&amp;amp;url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FTaikyoku_shogi&amp;amp;usg=AFQjCNFpMBva96MQDb1auqQXaZQ4-HW70g&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;pages&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&amp;amp;rct=j&amp;amp;q=&amp;amp;esrc=s&amp;amp;source=web&amp;amp;cd=5&amp;amp;cad=rja&amp;amp;uact=8&amp;amp;ved=0ahUKEwiuktnRg_DVAhUJPFAKHXwUDNAQFghFMAQ&amp;amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.chessvariants.com%2Fshogivariants.dir%2Ftaikyoku_english.html&amp;amp;usg=AFQjCNGOTrm5THbmRQT114pKY4c6Pt7c7A&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;and&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.revolvy.com/topic/Taikyoku%20shogi&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;pages&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;http://schnee.livejournal.com/1759360.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;of&lt;/a&gt; rules and explanations but no documentation. Are there &lt;strong&gt;any&lt;/strong&gt; documented games where the moves have been recorded? It's so ridiculous, I don't believe that anyone has ever been able to finish a game, let alone remember all of the piece movements.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/b9bam.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/b9bam.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10887" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-11-09T02:08:43.143" LastActivityDate="2020-11-09T02:08:43.143" Title="Has anyone ever played and recorded a full game of Taikyoku Shogi?" Tags="&lt;famous-games&gt;&lt;shogi&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18393" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11028" CreationDate="2017-08-24T16:57:32.863" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a website dedicated to the Chinese Dragon. It's updated monthly with recent theory. www.sicilianchinesedragon.com&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14112" LastActivityDate="2017-08-24T16:57:32.863" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18395" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18392" CreationDate="2017-08-25T13:23:50.387" Score="16" Body="&lt;p&gt;The answer is yes.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;According to &lt;a href=&quot;https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%A4%A7%E5%B1%80%E5%B0%86%E6%A3%8B&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;jawp article&lt;/a&gt;, a game of Taikyoku Shogi was played for Japanese TV show &quot;Tribia-no-Izumi&quot; (=Fountain of trivia), broadcast on 19th May 2004.  The game continued 32 hours 41 minutes and 3805 moves before the first player won.  This seems to be the first full-recorded game of the variant.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Also, there is &lt;a href=&quot;http://taikyokushogi.pv.land.to/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;a webpage&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;dedicated to Taikyoku Shogi with a playing webservice（大局FLASH, requiring Flash Player）.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9805" LastEditorUserId="10295" LastEditDate="2017-09-03T13:07:58.133" LastActivityDate="2017-09-03T13:07:58.133" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18396" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18397" CreationDate="2017-08-25T16:01:42.887" Score="29" ViewCount="3485" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am trying to write a simple chess program, and as part of this I am writing methods to find all valid moves. I can detect pins and have no trouble leaving out the moves that would result in the moving player being in check, except for one situation I am not sure about.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After an en passant capture, not only is the square previously occupied by the capturing pawn now vacant, but so is the square of the captured pawn. Is there any position at all where capturing en passant results in a discovered check &lt;strong&gt;on the king of the player that is capturing en passant&lt;/strong&gt;, not because the capturing pawn was pinned, but because the check was previously stopped by the captured pawn?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think this situation is simply not possible, at the very least I can't think of a position and series of moves that results in this situation; the fact that you have to capture en passant at the first opportunity means that either the pawn that should later capture en passant is pinned and can't advance to the fifth rank, or the check is blocked by a different piece anyway. Unfortunately I am having trouble ruling out there is some counter-intuitive position where this might happen. Could someone confirm my suspicions (or provide a counter-example)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="674" LastEditorUserId="674" LastEditDate="2017-08-26T11:38:31.543" LastActivityDate="2021-05-02T15:17:07.537" Title="When capturing en passant, is a position possible such that there is a pin over the square of the taken pawn, rather than the taking pawn?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;check&gt;&lt;en-passant&gt;&lt;pins&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="21" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18397" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18396" CreationDate="2017-08-25T16:12:45.640" Score="34" Body="&lt;p&gt;Really interesting question. I think the following shows that such a situation is sort of possible, depending on how you define the pin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[StartFlipped &amp;quot;0&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;7k/4p3/8/2KP3r/8/8/8/8 b - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... e5 2. dxe6?! {Illegal move!}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, 2. dxe6 is illegal. The check would go from being stopped by both pawns, to being stopped by neither.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3270" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-12-16T15:20:34.813" LastActivityDate="2020-12-16T15:20:34.813" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="18398" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18387" CreationDate="2017-08-25T19:35:14.143" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You should never be ashamed of playing or losing a chess game - each loss is an opportunity to learn something. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess clubs are the bread and butter of the social chess scene. You should prefer a club to any online playing if at all possible. Much can be learned from watching two stronger players review a game they played in-the-flesh or review one of your losses against a stronger player. Those opportunities just don't happen online, as everyone is in such a hurry to find the next game and the next rating points hustle. Not to mention that people online can be really rude and impatient.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Good luck.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10233" LastActivityDate="2017-08-25T19:35:14.143" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18399" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8968" CreationDate="2017-08-25T20:19:49.717" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm a Japanese native and have been a chess and Shogi player for a long time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Japanese word &lt;em&gt;sabaki&lt;/em&gt; basically means proper handling of some complicated task, thus can have different meanings in different fields.&#xA;In my opinion, the closest chess term is a &amp;quot;freeing move/maneuver&amp;quot;. For example, after 1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Bg5 Be7 5.e3 o-o 6.Nf3 Nbd7 7.Rc1 c6 8.Bd3, Black may play dxc4 9.Bxc4 Nd5 (Capablanca freeing maneuver). This looks similar to middlegame &lt;em&gt;sabaki&lt;/em&gt; in Shogi to my eyes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9805" LastEditorUserId="10867" LastEditDate="2020-12-23T21:25:47.617" LastActivityDate="2020-12-23T21:25:47.617" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="18400" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18396" CreationDate="2017-08-25T20:38:30.120" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's possible, but you need to check who's getting checked ( slight pun intended... :-) ).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's say it's black's move:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black moves a pawn two ranks, opening it up to an en passant move from a white pawn. If this move leads to a check on the black king it's an illegal move. If this leads to a check on the white king, white must respond be defending the king and so can't do an en passant move unless that move will protect the king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If no check is made, white can then make the en passant move. If this leads to a check on the white king it's an illegal move. If it leads to a check on the black king, black must respond by defending the king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14124" LastActivityDate="2017-08-25T20:38:30.120" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18401" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-08-25T20:55:51.200" Score="4" ViewCount="113" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just remembered a puzzle from a Horowitz game in which he played white against an Italian (I believe) player whose name started with &quot;M&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The black queen was defending f6, preventing Bxf6#. There was also a pawn about to promote on d7, and a rook stopping it on d8. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How can I find the game in which the position occurred? I can't recall Black player's name. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10917" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-04T22:18:00.657" LastActivityDate="2020-04-04T22:18:00.657" Title="Looking for a Horowitz game" Tags="&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;master-games&gt;&lt;famous-games&gt;&lt;download-games&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18402" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18421" CreationDate="2017-08-25T22:38:33.537" Score="4" ViewCount="1138" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recently imported a PGN file that I got from chesscafe.com into lichess.org, and was surprised to see arrows and circles on the board! Looking at the file, I figured that these graphical elements are encoded in comments like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;{[%csl Rd4,Gd5][%cal Rc8f5,Ra8d8,Re8c8] Black will try...}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;where %csl gives the color and locations of the circles and %cal gives the color, beginning, and end of each arrow.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This doesn't seem to be documented in any PGN spec I've seen, so I suppose it is an extension. My questions are: who introduced this extension, which other software supports it, and is it documented anywhere?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12523" LastActivityDate="2017-08-27T10:58:20.787" Title="PGN with arrows and circles" Tags="&lt;pgn&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18403" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18401" CreationDate="2017-08-25T23:04:56.850" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If the game exists in a database, you can search for all games where Horowitz plays white.  This search resulted in 151 games on chessgames.com.  To further narrow the field, you can have it search by positions with a white pawn on d7 and a black rook on d8.  This isn't a feature on any online database that I know of, but many databases do allow this. My database shows over 2100 games with these pieces, and is limited to games played after 1988.  Neither of these searches provided me with this game, although I restricted it further by saying that white won.  Maybe I should have checked players whose first name begins with 'M.'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12449" LastActivityDate="2017-08-25T23:04:56.850" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18405" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17738" CreationDate="2017-08-26T05:08:51.207" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;By far, ChessBase is the most popular one, it has been there for a long time. But there is other software that can do more or less what ChessBase can do, like Chess Assistant. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you compare software, you should consider comparing for example Fritz vs. Hiarcs or ChessBase vs. Chess Assistant, because Fritz or Houdini or Rybka are mainly engines with the capability of full game analysis and ChessBase is more of a database with special feature for the pros.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In terms of opening encyclopedia or other products, they could be read with almost any professional chess software. So, no problem here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, if you are not a professional chess player, any software like Hiarcs, Shredder or even Stockfish with a GUI could help you and you don't need to buy such expensive software.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14130" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T20:38:19.713" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T20:38:19.713" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="18406" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5820" CreationDate="2017-08-26T05:16:44.677" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;well, in terms of chess phase classification, move 20 is really middlegame not an opening, so the tree should be cut somewhere, I think that function should work when you want to see the first 5 or 10 moves of an opening, and then study other main lines, so that is basically a reasonable choice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14130" LastActivityDate="2017-08-26T05:16:44.677" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18407" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5858" CreationDate="2017-08-26T05:19:27.200" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;another simple way is to copy and past your game to a text file and save it as a .pgn , later on you can open it on any chess software.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14130" LastActivityDate="2017-08-26T05:19:27.200" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18408" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17972" CreationDate="2017-08-26T05:23:36.807" Score="0" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I should add that, in addition, those surveys are very useful for chess players at all levels. So, worth a try! Many chess databases are available on the web for free, but surveys are not!&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Any chess software like Frtiz, Komodo, Houdini can open and read the databases for you. Consider the fact that Fritz is like $50 while ChessBase is more than $100. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Yes, all of them are available via download!&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14130" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T20:31:53.493" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T20:31:53.493" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="18409" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-08-26T06:21:02.230" Score="2" ViewCount="284" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am trying to analyze the below middle game with White to move. I played Nxd3 to capture Black's queen. However, the engine analysis says that a better move is Rxa7.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;r5k1/r4pp1/3P3p/8/8/1p1qP1P1/1Np2P1P/R1R3K1 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I stick to my play, I expect the these moves-1. Nxd3 Rxa1 2. Rxa1 Rxa1.&#xA;White would gain a queen and a rook, while Black will gain two rooks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I follow the engines suggestion, I expect the these moves- 1. Rxa7 Qd5 2. Rxa8 Qxa8. White would gain two rooks, while Black will gain one rook.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From the perspective of white, wouldn't it be better to capture the Black queen? Black certainly seems to have a stronger position, but letting the Black queen go seems counterintuitive to me. I am certainly missing something and would appreciate your insights here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14131" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-17T03:18:56.550" LastActivityDate="2020-08-17T03:18:56.550" Title="Why is better for white to move Rxa7 instead of Nxd3?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="18410" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18409" CreationDate="2017-08-26T07:23:44.203" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;If ..Nxd3, Rxa1 Rxa1, Rxa1+ now the problem for white is the pawn on c2 is about to promote and if Kg2, c1=Q Nxc1, Rxc1 and now black is up a rook!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If ..Nxd3, Rxa1 and black waits with Kf1 here, it will end up in the same sequence of the c2 promoting and the knight has to be given up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3158" LastEditorUserId="3158" LastEditDate="2017-09-01T10:40:31.803" LastActivityDate="2017-09-01T10:40:31.803" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18411" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18332" CreationDate="2017-08-26T08:14:21.617" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;Maybe you can take a look at &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.talkchess.com/forum/index.php&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;TalkChess&lt;/a&gt;, a forum dedicated to computer chess. I found a recent thread that might be interesting for you: &lt;a href=&quot;http://talkchess.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=62868&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Progress in 30 years by four intervals of 7-8 years&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A couple of matches between (former) top engines are played on the &lt;em&gt;same hardware&lt;/em&gt;. The test suggests that in the recent years (2002-2017), the gain is mainly made by software improvements. In the test, Stockfish (2017) scored an impressive 94/100 against RobboLito (2009), while RobboLito, on its turn, crushed Shredder (2002) with 92/100.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An important remark: as parallel computing is not implemented in the older engines, the test was performed on a single core. As a result, the hardware gain by parallel machines is not measured. On the other hand, you could argue that parallel computing is also a software gain: it is not easy to design and implement an efficient and well-scaling parallelization for the search algorithm.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;https://stockfishchess.org/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Stockfish&lt;/a&gt; engine is open source, so the algorithmic improvements are public. A lot of documentation can be found on &lt;a href=&quot;https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4588" LastEditorUserId="4588" LastEditDate="2017-08-26T08:26:05.070" LastActivityDate="2017-08-26T08:26:05.070" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18412" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18425" CreationDate="2017-08-26T14:53:18.243" Score="3" ViewCount="906" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have an alpha-beta pruning chess AI that I have implemented using chessjs and chessboardjs. A friend of mine was playtesting it and came across the following position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;7r/ppp1k1rp/8/8/7K/4qb2/8/8 b - - 0 1&#xA;&#xA;1... Qh6#&#xA;(1... Rhg8 2. Kh3 Qh6# (2... Rh8 Qh6))&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the position, black has a clear mate in 1 with Qh6. However, my alpha-beta algorithm, which is set to depth 4, first evaluates Rg8 (as it is the first move in the game.ugly_moves() array from chessjs). With Rg8, black still has mate in two, with white playing Kh3 and black playing Qh6. Thus, alpha and beta will both equal the &quot;checkmate score&quot;, beta&amp;lt;=alpha satisfies, and the program returns, pruning the mate in one solution. Also, after playing Rg8, Kh3, black evaluates the board again, looking at Rh8 first, and yet again sees mate in two! (Either Kh2 or Kh4, then Qh6) and then the cycle continues (i.e. the AI plays Rg8, Rh8 until threefold repetition). Basically, in this position, I am always getting a draw instead of an obvious win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Below is my alpha-beta implementation of this algorithm, in Javascript:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;var minAI = function(depth, alpha, beta) {&#xA;  var options = game.ugly_moves();&#xA;  if (depth &amp;lt;= 0 || options.length === 0)&#xA;    return boardScore('b', game);&#xA;&#xA;  var bestMin = 99999;&#xA;  for (var i = 0; i &amp;lt; options.length; i ++)&#xA;  {&#xA;    game.ugly_move(options[i]);&#xA;    if (game.in_threefold_repetition())&#xA;    {&#xA;      game.undo();&#xA;      continue;&#xA;    }&#xA;    bestMin = Math.min(bestMin, maxAI(depth - 1, alpha, beta));&#xA;    beta = Math.min(beta, bestMin);&#xA;    game.undo();&#xA;    if (beta &amp;lt;= alpha)&#xA;      break;&#xA;  }&#xA;  return bestMin;&#xA;}&#xA;&#xA;var maxAI = function(depth, alpha, beta) {&#xA;  var options = game.ugly_moves();&#xA;  console.log(&quot;in maxAI&quot;);&#xA;  if (depth &amp;lt;= 0 || options.length === 0)&#xA;    return boardScore('b', game);&#xA;  var bestMax = -99999;&#xA;  for (var i = 0; i &amp;lt; options.length; i ++)&#xA;  {&#xA;    game.ugly_move(options[i]);&#xA;    if (game.in_threefold_repetition())&#xA;    {&#xA;      game.undo();&#xA;      continue;&#xA;    }&#xA;    bestMax = Math.max(bestMax, minAI(depth - 1, alpha, beta));&#xA;    alpha = Math.max(alpha, bestMax);&#xA;    game.undo();&#xA;    if (beta &amp;lt;= alpha)&#xA;      break;&#xA;  }&#xA;  return bestMax;&#xA;}&#xA;&#xA;var bestAI = function() {&#xA;  var options = game.ugly_moves();&#xA;  if (!options.length) return;&#xA;  var bestScore = -99999;&#xA;  var moveIndex = -1;&#xA;  var alpha = -99999;&#xA;  var beta = 99999;&#xA;  for (i = 0; i &amp;lt; options.length; i++)&#xA;  {&#xA;    game.ugly_move(options[i]);&#xA;    var moveScore = minAI(maxDepth - 1, alpha, beta);&#xA;    if (moveScore &amp;gt; bestScore)&#xA;    {&#xA;      moveIndex = i;&#xA;      bestScore = moveScore;&#xA;      alpha = Math.max(alpha, bestScore);&#xA;    };&#xA;    game.undo();&#xA;    if (beta &amp;lt;= alpha)&#xA;    {&#xA;      console.log(&quot;we've been beta blocked&quot;);&#xA;      console.log(alpha);&#xA;      console.log(beta);&#xA;      break;&#xA;    }&#xA;  }&#xA;  game.ugly_move(options[moveIndex]);&#xA;  board.position(game.fen()); &#xA;  if (game.in_checkmate())&#xA;    window.setTimeout(alert(&quot;checkmate!&quot;), 250);&#xA;}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And here is how I give the board a score for a player (either 'w' for white, or 'b' for black):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;var value = function(piece, player, i, j)&#xA;{&#xA;  if (piece === 'r') return (500 + &#xA;    (player === 'w' ? rookGridWhite[i][j] : rookGridBlack[i][j]));&#xA;  else if (piece === 'n') return (320 + &#xA;    (player === 'w' ? knightGridWhite[i][j] : knightGridBlack[i][j]));&#xA;  else if (piece === 'b') return (330 + &#xA;    (player === 'w' ? bishopGridWhite[i][j] : bishopGridBlack[i][j]));&#xA;  else if (piece === 'k') return (0 + &#xA;    (player === 'w' ? kingGridWhiteStart[i][j] : kingGridBlackStart[i][j]));&#xA;  else if (piece === 'q') return (900 + &#xA;    (player === 'w' ? queenGridWhite[i][j] : queenGridBlack[i][j]));&#xA;  else if (piece === 'p') return (100 + &#xA;    (player === 'w' ? pawnGridWhite[i][j] : pawnGridBlack[i][j]));&#xA;}&#xA;&#xA;var boardScore = function(player, game) {&#xA;  if (scoreDict[game.fen() + ' [' + player + ']'])&#xA;    return scoreDict(game.fen() + ' [' + player + ']');&#xA;  if (game.turn() === player &amp;amp;&amp;amp; game.in_checkmate())&#xA;    return -99999;&#xA;  else if (game.turn() !== player &amp;amp;&amp;amp; game.in_checkmate())&#xA;    return 99999;&#xA;  var scoreWhite = 0;&#xA;  var scoreBlack = 0;&#xA;  for (var i = 0; i &amp;lt; 8; i ++)&#xA;  {&#xA;    for (var j = 0; j &amp;lt; 8; j ++)&#xA;    {&#xA;      var square = game.board()[i][j]&#xA;      if (square &amp;amp;&amp;amp; square[&quot;color&quot;] === 'w')&#xA;        scoreWhite += value(square[&quot;type&quot;], player, i, j);&#xA;      else if (square &amp;amp;&amp;amp; square[&quot;color&quot;] !== 'w')&#xA;        scoreBlack += value(square[&quot;type&quot;], player, i, j);&#xA;      if (scoreWhite &amp;lt;= 1100 || scoreBlack &amp;lt;= 1100)&#xA;      {&#xA;        kingGridWhiteStart = kingGridWhiteEnd;&#xA;        kingGridBlackStart = kingGridBlackEnd;&#xA;      }&#xA;    }&#xA;  }&#xA;  var posScoreWhite = scoreWhite - scoreBlack;&#xA;  scoreDict.push({&#xA;      key:   game.fen() + ' [w]',&#xA;      value: posScoreWhite&#xA;  });&#xA;  var posScoreBlack = scoreBlack - scoreWhite;&#xA;  scoreDict.push({&#xA;      key:   game.fen() + ' [b]',&#xA;      value: posScoreBlack&#xA;  });&#xA;  return (player === 'w' ? posScoreWhite : posScoreBlack);&#xA;} &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &quot;grids&quot; referred to above are 2D position-value tables as given in the link below:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Simplified+evaluation+function&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Simplified+evaluation+function&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I reversed the arrays given in that link for black's evaluations, and used the kingGridStart arrays until an endgame condition is reached, in which case I use the kingGridEnd arrays.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am not sure how to go about fixing this. Did I understand why my alpha beta program is failing, or is there another reason I am not aware of? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14137" LastEditorUserId="4186" LastEditDate="2017-08-26T16:14:45.467" LastActivityDate="2017-08-27T13:46:11.303" Title="Alpha-Beta Pruning returns mate in two instead of obvious mate in one" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18413" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18412" CreationDate="2017-08-26T15:56:10.233" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, there are two problems with your algorithm:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;You don't treat draw (by whatever rule) in any way, meaning your AI will stubbornly run against a wall trying to keep the best possible position even if sacrificing a bit is likely to lead to a better outcome than draw.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;You treat all moves leading to mate as equal. But as you found out, they aren't, which should be reflected in your code. So the evaluation should be a discriminated union:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Number of Moves to mate, OR&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;heuristic evaluation of relative strength of players positions&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You might be able to map it to a single value, with abs(value) &amp;lt; MATE for the first, and BIG_VALUE - abs(value) for the number of moves to mate otherwise.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4186" LastEditorUserId="4186" LastEditDate="2017-08-27T13:46:11.303" LastActivityDate="2017-08-27T13:46:11.303" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18414" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8968" CreationDate="2017-08-26T20:05:35.353" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am not a Shogi- or Go player (only briefly looked at the games in the distant past), but I am an Aikido instructor. In this martial art the term 'tai sabaki' is one of the fundamental notions. While a literal translation is difficult, in Aikido (and other martial arts) it is described as 'changing the position of the body so as to cause an attack to fail'. It requires body movement out of the line of attack while at the same time gaining an advantageous position, enabling you to connect to the attacker, undermine his balance, and take him into a throw or an arm lock. I have also heard it explained as 'no longer being available to the attacker'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4598" LastActivityDate="2017-08-26T20:05:35.353" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18417" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18424" CreationDate="2017-08-27T00:34:53.773" Score="10" ViewCount="882" Body="&lt;p&gt;Usually the rook is stronger than the bishop. Are there situations (and obviously I'm not assuming equal material) in which the latter is stronger?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6989" LastEditorUserId="6989" LastEditDate="2017-08-27T06:55:00.920" LastActivityDate="2017-11-21T15:22:47.213" Title="When is a bishop stronger than a rook?" Tags="&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;rooks&gt;&lt;bishops&gt;&lt;material-balance&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="8" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18418" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18422" CreationDate="2017-08-27T01:06:48.303" Score="13" ViewCount="18269" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm a new player =I just started playing again after an over 10 year hiatus. I'm (sadly) in the 600s.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've been studying openings and I seem to do better in games where I can use the Italian game or Ruy Lopez. However, there's a strange game that I &lt;em&gt;continually&lt;/em&gt; lose a slow and painful game against and it's the family of plays that have the queen out causing havoc early. In particular, the [Wayward Queen Attack][1] has been at the heart of every game I've lost in the last 3 days.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I mostly contribute this to my lack of piece development out of fear of losing pieces to a queen. How should I counter it?&#xA;[1]: &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wayward_Queen_Attack&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wayward_Queen_Attack&lt;/a&gt; &amp;quot;The Wayward Queen Attack&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user14142" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-05T12:36:13.543" LastActivityDate="2021-03-28T01:31:21.800" Title="Countering The Wayward Queen Attack" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;queens&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="18419" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18423" CreationDate="2017-08-27T03:20:09.213" Score="1" ViewCount="941" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have an alpha-beta pruning chess AI that I have implemented using chessjs and chessboardjs. Below is my AI algorithm - it includes move ordering on the first two depths, using the boardScore value at that position as the heuristic, and a hash table of past minimizing and maximizing values for FEN strings at different depths, as a transposition table:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;var minAI = function(depth, alpha, beta) {&#xA;  if (minimaxDict[game.fen() + ' [ ' + depth + ' minimizing ]'])&#xA;    return minimaxDict[game.fen() + ' [ ' + depth + ' minimizing ]'];&#xA;  var options = game.ugly_moves();&#xA;  if (depth &amp;lt;= 0 || options.length === 0)&#xA;    return boardScore('b', game, depth);&#xA;  if (maxDepth - 1 === depth) //only perform move ordering on &quot;shallow&quot; iteration&#xA;    orderMoves(options, depth, false);&#xA;  var bestMin = 99999;&#xA;  for (var i = 0; i &amp;lt; options.length; i ++)&#xA;  {&#xA;    game.ugly_move(options[i]);&#xA;    if (game.in_threefold_repetition())&#xA;    {&#xA;      game.undo();&#xA;      continue;&#xA;    }&#xA;    bestMin = Math.min(bestMin, maxAI(depth - 1, alpha, beta));&#xA;    beta = Math.min(beta, bestMin);&#xA;    game.undo();&#xA;    if (beta &amp;lt;= alpha)&#xA;      break;&#xA;  }&#xA;  minimaxDict[game.fen() + ' [ ' + depth + ' minimizing ]'] = bestMin;&#xA;  return bestMin;&#xA;}&#xA;&#xA;var maxAI = function(depth, alpha, beta) {&#xA;  if (minimaxDict[game.fen() + ' [ ' + depth + ' maximizing ]'])&#xA;    return minimaxDict[game.fen() + ' [ ' + depth + ' maximizing ]'];&#xA;  var options = game.ugly_moves();&#xA;  if (depth &amp;lt;= 0 || options.length === 0)&#xA;    return boardScore('b', game, depth);&#xA;  var bestMax = -99999;&#xA;  for (var i = 0; i &amp;lt; options.length; i ++)&#xA;  {&#xA;    game.ugly_move(options[i]);&#xA;    if (game.in_threefold_repetition())&#xA;    {&#xA;      game.undo();&#xA;      continue;&#xA;    }&#xA;    bestMax = Math.max(bestMax, minAI(depth - 1, alpha, beta));&#xA;    alpha = Math.max(alpha, bestMax);&#xA;    game.undo();&#xA;    if (beta &amp;lt;= alpha)&#xA;      break;&#xA;  }&#xA;  minimaxDict[game.fen() + ' [ ' + depth + ' maximizing ]'] = bestMax;&#xA;  return bestMax;&#xA;}&#xA;&#xA;var bestAI = function() {&#xA;  var options = game.ugly_moves();&#xA;  if (!options.length) return;&#xA;  orderMoves(options, maxDepth, true);&#xA;  var bestScore = -99999;&#xA;  var moveIndex = -1;&#xA;  var alpha = -99999;&#xA;  var beta = 99999;&#xA;  for (i = 0; i &amp;lt; options.length; i++)&#xA;  {&#xA;    game.ugly_move(options[i]);&#xA;    var moveScore = minAI(maxDepth - 1, alpha, beta);&#xA;    if (moveScore &amp;gt; bestScore)&#xA;    {&#xA;      moveIndex = i;&#xA;      bestScore = moveScore;&#xA;      alpha = Math.max(alpha, bestScore);&#xA;    };&#xA;    game.undo();&#xA;    if (beta &amp;lt;= alpha)&#xA;      break;&#xA;  }&#xA;  game.ugly_move(options[moveIndex]);&#xA;  board.position(game.fen()); &#xA;  if (game.in_checkmate())&#xA;    window.setTimeout(alert(&quot;Checkmate!&quot;), 250);&#xA;  else if (game.in_draw())&#xA;    window.setTimeout(alert(&quot;Draw!&quot;), 250);&#xA;  else if (game.in_stalemate())&#xA;    window.setTimeout(alert(&quot;Stalemate!&quot;), 250);&#xA;  else if (game.in_threefold_repetition())&#xA;    window.setTimeout(alert(&quot;Threefold repetition!&quot;), 250);&#xA;  else if (game.insufficient_material())&#xA;    window.setTimeout(alert(&quot;Draw by insufficient material!&quot;), 250);&#xA;}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is my game running on maxDepth = 5 after 5 moves, without the transposition table hash being used. At the bottom of the picture are the setTimeout violations, which (though they aren't supposed to be used as timers) show the time it took for each move to be made.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/eQVoF.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/eQVoF.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;And here is my game with the transposition table hashing:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/zFVZB.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/zFVZB.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Comparing the two move calculation durations, it doesn't look like my transposition table is helping too much, and is sometimes slowing me down. Is my implementation of the transposition table incorrect? Is the move ordering algorithm hampering me in some way? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14137" LastActivityDate="2017-08-27T13:37:43.323" Title="Why doesn't my transposition table improve my move calculation time?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18420" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5904" CreationDate="2017-08-27T03:51:59.810" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Lynob, announcing check is not required in the USCF Official Rules or FIDE Laws of Chess. In fact, there is a statement specifying that it is not an obligation. The requirement was abandoned in the early 20th century. Before that, players would even say &quot;garde&quot; to alert an opponent that his queen was being attacked. How polite can you get? After all, it is purportedly a spirited competition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That said, old school or beginners alike may be hard put to suppress the impulse to announce check, but if said frequently an opponent may request intervention by a TD to admonish the offending player against verbal distraction. It's not prohibited in friendly games but even there it's no longer a vital fixture. Nor is it an abandonment of politeness so much as a logical extension of over-the-board etiquette. We don't want to be distracted ourselves and so we avoid distracting our opponents.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It might even be taken as a tad insulting considering that there are only two participants in a game that takes place on a playing field just 20 inches square. Given that check is the most serious forcing move that can possibly occur, it's a given that both players are expected to be paying keen attention to what's happening right before their eyes. One may see &quot;deeper&quot; than another, but they both see the same physical thing!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I admit, nonetheless, that players of any skill level do often enough fail to notice they are in check, so rapt are they in contemplation of potential future activity. In a rated tournament, the conventions require that if a player makes an illegal move instead of resolving check and then punches the clock, the opponent may immediately press his own clock button to restart the player's time and then politely inform him that he has overlooked check. The touched piece illegally moved would then be required, if possible, to intervene with the check. If not possible, there is no penalty and any move that alleviates check must be made before the player can again punch the clock.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14143" LastActivityDate="2017-08-27T03:51:59.810" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18421" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18402" CreationDate="2017-08-27T10:58:20.787" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The original PGN standard was created and published in 1994 by Stephen J Edwards. Here is a copy of his original standard: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.saremba.de/chessgml/standards/pgn/pgn-complete.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Portable Game Notation Specification and Implementation Guide&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here it mentions the use of &quot;%&quot; as an escape string:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;There is a special escape mechanism for PGN data. This mechanism is&#xA;  triggered by a percent sign character (&quot;%&quot;) appearing in the first&#xA;  column of a line; the data on the rest of the line is ignored by&#xA;  publicly available PGN scanning software. This escape convention is&#xA;  intended for the private use of software developers and researchers to&#xA;  embed non-PGN commands and data in PGN streams.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, % in the original specification was for &quot;the private use of software developers&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By 2001 this was already being used with Stephen Edwards dropping out from maintenance of the standard as remarked in this &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.enpassant.dk/chess/palview/enhancedpgn.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;supplement for enhanced PGN&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Steven Edwards, the author, appears unfortunately to be no longer&#xA;  involved with  PGN and there is now no defined means of arbitrating&#xA;  and implementing proposed  changes. There is also a huge body of&#xA;  software which implements the current  standard and would break in&#xA;  various ways if it were changed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The document's main proposal is the further definition of how &quot;%&quot; should be used for embedding commands in PGN. This was targeted at time commands:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;3.2 A generalised format for embedding commands in comments.&#xA;  3.2.1 Position An embedded  command may occur at any position in a standard PGN comment, ie  between { } . For example: {Optional leading&#xA;  comments [%clk 1:05:23] optional trailing comments} where  [%clk&#xA;  1:05:23]  is the embedded command string.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;3.2.2 Structure The command string is structured as follows.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A leading tag of [% A command name consisting of one or more&#xA;  alphanumeric characters. A space character. Either a single parameter&#xA;  or a comma delimited list of parameter values. A closing tag of ]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;%csl and %cal are relatively new commands following the 2001 extension definition. I found references to their use on the ChessTempo website in their &lt;a href=&quot;https://chesstempo.com/user-guide/en/pgnViewerCommentAnnotations.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Comment Markup Annotations Chapter 18. PGN Viewer BETA Version&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The PGN viewer supports some special markup that allows arrows, square&#xA;  highlighting and mini-board insertion to be rendered on the board or&#xA;  move list.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Arrows To have a move show arrows on the board when it is played, you&#xA;  can embed the following type of string into a comment on the move:&#xA;  [%cal Gc2c3,Rc3d4]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;the '[' and '] characters are the start and end of the arrow markup.&#xA;  The %cal indicates you are requesting a coloured arrow to be drawn.&#xA;  This example will draw two arrows a Green arrow from the c2 to c3&#xA;  squares, and a Red arrow from the c3 to d4 squares. The colour letters&#xA;  supported are R=Red, G=Green, Y=Yellow and B=Blue. Square Colouring To&#xA;  have a move highlight squares on the board when it is played, you can&#xA;  embed the following type of string into a comment on the move: [%csl&#xA;  Ra3,Ga4]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The %csl indicates you are requesting a coloured square. This example&#xA;  will highlight two squares, a3 will be highlighted Red, and a4 will be&#xA;  highlighted Green. The colour letters supported are the same as used&#xA;  by the arrow annotations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It looks like Chesscafe and lichess are following this beta version.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2017-08-27T10:58:20.787" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18422" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18418" CreationDate="2017-08-27T11:14:27.160" Score="19" Body="&lt;p&gt;First of all, despite the stigma attached to early queen moves Nakamura has played the white side of &lt;code&gt;1. e4 e5 2. Qh5&lt;/code&gt; several times in top level play, so it is a move you should treat with respect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The best approach is probably to play moves like &lt;code&gt;2... Nc6&lt;/code&gt; to protect the e pawn, &lt;code&gt;3... g6&lt;/code&gt; to kick away the queen, then &lt;code&gt;Nf6&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;Bg7&lt;/code&gt;, castles to get your king safe. Then if the white queen is still in the middle of the board try and attack it with your pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then you are in a normal game and if you blunder pieces because of your low rating then consider that your low rating is probably because of your poor tactical ability. To correct this you need to work on tactics. Learn about pins, forks, skewers, discovered attacks, etc. and do lots of puzzles to try and improve.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="26010" LastEditDate="2021-03-27T11:50:37.210" LastActivityDate="2021-03-27T11:50:37.210" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="18423" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18419" CreationDate="2017-08-27T13:11:10.790" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let's give a try:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Are you sure your &lt;code&gt;fen()&lt;/code&gt; is correct? Don't assume, check how many times your TB table is being used. If the &lt;code&gt;fen()&lt;/code&gt; is bugged, your TB would never be used. A possibility is that you add halfmove clock and fullmove number into FEN (please check).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Please note the &lt;code&gt;fen()&lt;/code&gt; function is very &lt;strong&gt;slow&lt;/strong&gt;. Your line &lt;code&gt;minimaxDict[game.fen() + ' [ ' + depth + ' maximizing ]']&lt;/code&gt; is &lt;strong&gt;wrong&lt;/strong&gt;, because you are asking the computer to compute the FEN position &lt;strong&gt;twice&lt;/strong&gt;. It's important to note computing an FEN position can only be done by looping through the whole board (64 squares). Everytime when we read a square, we must append a character to the existing (possibly immutable) memory array. Appending a character to memory is a &lt;strong&gt;super slow&lt;/strong&gt; operation, because the computer might need to allocate new memory. Please ask on Stackoverflow if you want clarification. This is a very &lt;strong&gt;serious&lt;/strong&gt; issue. Your TB implementation is meaningless unless you're sure &lt;code&gt;fen()&lt;/code&gt; is &lt;strong&gt;fast&lt;/strong&gt;, and no reallocation complexity.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Please note a much better implementation is &lt;strong&gt;zobrist&lt;/strong&gt; hashing. Why wouldn't you use it?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Please &lt;strong&gt;check&lt;/strong&gt;, double-check and triple-check if your TB is being used. Are you sure &lt;code&gt;if (minimaxDict[game.fen() + ' [ ' + depth + ' maximizing ]'])&lt;/code&gt; is true? Anything could happen in a program.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;How many times your TB value was returned in the search? 1%? 2%? Do you have a number?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Your TB has the depth information and min/max. I've never done it myself like this. Are you sure it makes sense?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2017-08-27T13:37:43.323" LastActivityDate="2017-08-27T13:37:43.323" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18424" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18417" CreationDate="2017-08-27T13:21:20.080" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The standard value for a piece that we learn early on (Queen=9 pawns, Rook=5 pawns, Bishop,Knight=3 pawns) is often a very good guidepost for people to make proper trades and find good tactical sequences. However, it should not be taken for granted that a rook will always be better than a bishop. Let's look at one extreme example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;       [fen &quot;rn5k/3p4/p1pP4/PpP5/1P6/8/5B1P/7K w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;       1.h4 {White wins by using the h-pawn as bait for the black king, and then infiltrate on black's queenside with the white king.} Kh7 2.Kg2 Kg6 3.Kf3 Kf5 4.Be3 Ra7 5.h5 Ra8 6.h6 Kg6 7.Ke4 Ra7 8.Ke5! {White places the king as close to the queenside as possible before sacrificing the h-pawn.} 8...Ra8 9.h7! {Luring the black king away from the defense of the f6 square.} 9...Kxh7 10.Kf6 Kg8 11.Ke7 Kg7 12.Kd8 Kf8 13.Kc8 Ke8 14.Kb7 Kd8 15.Kxa8 Kc8 16.Ka7 {Zugzwang! Black's king has to move, which means that the knight is lost.} Kd8 17.Kxb8 Ke8 18.Kb7 Kd8 19.Kxa6 Kc8 20.Ka7 Kd8 21.Kb8 {and white will win by promoting the a-pawn.}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here white's bishop was stronger than black's rook and knight together, and it's not difficult to realize why; the knight was completely paralyzed, and the rook couldn't get out because of that. Black's pieces were nothing more than a couple of sitting ducks, so to speak.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In general, a piece is only good if it is performing some specific task on the chessboard, such as attacking weaknesses in the enemy camp or defending weak points in one's own camp. If the piece just sits on the edge of the board like a bystander (as in the example above) then it's totally worthless.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The rook is often a very good piece; since it's a long range piece, it can often attack and defend at the same time, and it can easily switch targets if there are many open ranks and files for the rook to move along. The same can be said about the bishop, using diagonals instead of rank and files, but the bishop has a clear disadvantage when compared with the rook: it can only influence squares of one color! Let's look at an example where the rook dominates the bishop, from Grischuk-Radjabov, Corus 2003:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    [fen &quot;4k3/5R2/4K3/8/5p2/5P2/3b4/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;    1.Rc7! {White threatens checkmate in one move, which forces black's king to move.} 1...Kf8 (1...Kd8?? 2.Rd7+ {picks up the bishop for white.}) 2.Kf6 {Threatening mate in one move again. Note how white's rook covers c3 so that the bishop cannot check the white king.} 2...Ke8 (2...Kg8 3.Rg7+ Kf8 (3...Kh8? 4.Kg6 {and black is getting mated shortly.} 4...Bb4 5.Rc7 Kg8 6.Rc8+ Bf8 7.Ra8! {Zugzwang! Black's king has to move.} 7...Kh8 8.Rxf8#) 4.Rd7! {The white rook is hitting the black bishop, as well as it threatens mate in one yet again.} 4...Bc3+ 5.Kf5 {and white wins, since the black bishop is unable to defend the pawn on f4 due to the white rook covering the d2 square.}) 3.Re7+ Kd8 4.Re4! {White's rook cuts off the black king from the kingside, and therefore Radjabov decided it was time to resign in this position.} (4.Re4 Kd7 {For the sake of completeness, this is how white wins if black plays on:} 5.Kf5 Kd6 6.Rxf4! Bxf4 7.Kxf4 Ke6 8.Kg5! {and white has achieved a well known winning pawn ending.})1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this example we saw that the rook can make multiple threats at the same time and take away squares from the bishop. This because the rook had many open ranks and files to work on, which made switching targets very easy to accomplish for the rook. If the rook is tied down and restricted, it becomes way less impressive, as can be clearly seen in the following example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;   [fen &quot;1r6/2p1p1k1/p1B1P1p1/Pp3pPp/1P3P1P/2P5/5K2/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;   1.Ke3 Rd8 2.Bd7 {White doesn't let black get any activity whatsoever.} 2...Kf8 3.Kd4 Rb8 {There isn't much black can do.} (3...Rxd7+ 4.exd7 e5+ 5.fxe5 Ke7 6.e6 {is just a lost pawn ending.}) 4.Kc5 Ra8 5.Kd5! {Of course there are other ways to win, such as breaking with the c3 pawn to create a passer, but this nice use of zugzwang forces black to give up the c7 pawn without a fight.} 5...Ra7 6.Kc6 {and black's king has to move away from the e8 square due to zugzwang.} 6...Kg7 7.Bc8 Kf8 8.Bb7 Ke8 {Black's king can't get to d8 in time to defend c7.} 9.Kxc7 {and black will lose everything.}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here black has an open file for the rook, but the rook is kind of dominated by the extremely influential bishop on c6, who can block the rook's path whenever black plays ...Rd8 by placing itself on d7, while at the same time keeping the black king imprisoned on the kingside. White wins by walking the king up the board to attack the weak pawn on c7, and there is little black can do about it besides watch in horror as the position starts to crumble.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: I finally managed to think of an improved example of a bishop being stronger than a rook.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8300" LastEditorUserId="8300" LastEditDate="2017-11-21T01:21:30.673" LastActivityDate="2017-11-21T01:21:30.673" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18425" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18412" CreationDate="2017-08-27T13:28:33.543" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Add the depth information to the &lt;code&gt;99999&lt;/code&gt;. Let's look at Stockfish:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/blob/master/src/search.cpp&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/blob/master/src/search.cpp&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This block returns mate if &lt;strong&gt;mated_in&lt;/strong&gt; is true.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;if (!moveCount)&#xA;        bestValue = excludedMove ? alpha&#xA;                   :     inCheck ? mated_in(ss-&amp;gt;ply) : DrawValue[pos.side_to_move()];&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's check the &lt;strong&gt;mated_in&lt;/strong&gt; function:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/blob/master/src/types.h&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/blob/master/src/types.h&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please note Stockfish returns checkmate &lt;strong&gt;plus&lt;/strong&gt; depth. That'd solve your problem.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;inline Value mated_in(int ply) {&#xA;  return -VALUE_MATE + ply;&#xA;}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2017-08-27T13:28:33.543" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18426" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18418" CreationDate="2017-08-27T16:20:02.547" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have played against this opening in many blitz games online and I think it just amounts to unnecessary  loss of tempo for white because because black can play  1.Nc6&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;protecting the pawn and also developing the knight.&#xA;After white played Bc4 threatening mate on f7 black chases the Queen by playing g6, usually  the Queen moves to f3 still attacking f7 then you can develop your other Knight by playing Nf6 white usually replies with c3 preventing Nd4... black usually has a good game after that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10397" LastActivityDate="2017-08-27T16:20:02.547" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18427" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16382" CreationDate="2017-08-28T05:40:48.677" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I must quote some thoughts on bird opening from gufeld's book , &lt;p&gt;&quot;1 f4 d5&#xA;Avoiding the sharp play of the&#xA;From Gambit ( l . . .e5 ! ?), &lt;p&gt;Black is&#xA;ready to play against the Dutch&#xA;Defence by the first player.&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2 Nf3&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The attempt to prevent the fianchetto&#xA;of Black 's king' s bishop is&#xA;unsuccessful: 2 b3 Bg4 ! (hindering&#xA;the development of White's kingside)&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3 Bb2 Nc6 4 g3? ! (better is 4&#xA;Nf3 Bxf3 5 exf3 with only a minimal&#xA;advantage for Black) 4 . . . e5 ! ? 5&#xA;fxe5 f6 ! &lt;p&gt;with an attack for Black.&#xA;Kupreichik-Yusupov (Yerevan&#xA;1 982) continued 6 Bh3 Bxh3 7&#xA;exf6 Nxf6 8 Nxh3 J.c5 9 e3 d4 10.&#xA;e4 0-0 11. d3 Bb4+ 12. Nd2 Nd5 13.&#xA;Qh5 Ne3 14. Ke2 g6,&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt; when it was&#xA;hard to offer White any good advice.&lt;/b&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2 g6&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The most precise move order.&#xA;After 2 ••• Nf6 3 e3 g6 4 b4! White&#xA;can count on an opening initiative.&#xA;The text move prevents this plan&#xA;and allows Black smoothly to&#xA;fianchetto his king's bishop - the&#xA;best counter to the Dutch set-up.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12748" LastActivityDate="2017-08-28T05:40:48.677" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18428" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18506" CreationDate="2017-08-28T06:01:15.010" Score="5" ViewCount="544" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know that there's the Staunton, Zagreb, and Dubrovnik style chess pieces which have seemingly been standardized.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It also seems that there's a common generic style of chess piece that I've seen in plastic, glass, and wood.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I just don't know the name of it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've searched and searched for a resource that would list the different piece styles (or at least the most common ones) but I only seem to be able to find short lists.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So is there a resource out there or does anyone know off hand what some of the different piece styles are?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14149" LastEditorUserId="9030" LastEditDate="2017-09-12T04:50:22.893" LastActivityDate="2017-09-12T04:50:22.893" Title="Is there a resource that lists many of the different chess set styles?" Tags="&lt;chess-set&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18430" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8968" CreationDate="2017-08-28T08:31:52.907" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The chess-language equivalent of &quot;sabaki&quot; is something in between &quot;tactics&quot; and &quot;maneuver&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Madoka Kitao's books are great !&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastActivityDate="2017-08-28T08:31:52.907" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18431" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18432" CreationDate="2017-08-28T11:43:45.480" Score="10" ViewCount="1731" Body="&lt;p&gt;In some of the tournaments I've been to, there were pretty indecent people (some of whose licenses were revoked).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One of my friends had a terrible incident. At the end of the game, he was dominating and his opponent looked at him, told him that he resigned, they shook hands and reset the pieces. When the referee came, their opponent claimed that they agreed for a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even though the referees asked the other players, they just said they shook hands and reset the pieces together. Naturally, cameras showed the very same thing. At the end of the day, he was not able to prove the fraud and lost half a point from an already won game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A similar thing might be observed at the end of &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxc5ZqSQ9C8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Carlsen's defeat against Anand in Dubai&lt;/a&gt;. What prevents Carlsen from claiming that they agreed to a draw?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Moreover, unfortunately, these types of frauds do not only occur in local tournaments. For instance, there was the game &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCjn7m8FPqE&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Tal vs. Adamski&lt;/a&gt; where Tal's wife saved the day.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus, my question is somewhat two-folded. How should one resign properly, and proceed when the opponent tells that they resign?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8209" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-01-05T21:04:57.807" LastActivityDate="2021-01-05T21:04:57.807" Title="How should one resign properly?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;etiquette&gt;&lt;resigning&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="18432" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18431" CreationDate="2017-08-28T12:01:24.660" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the USA, we have to notate our games. This would likely prevent issues where an opponent claimed a draw fraudulently.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I played tournament chess for years and never knew of a single instance of the sort of fraud and cheating that you mention.  (My point is that I have not had to deal with it so others may have more germane experience.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT - good observation by @ghotir.  If you agree to a result, write the result, sign the scoresheets, and do not reset the board until this has been done. Even so you both have the scoresheets.  That's how it happens at tournaments.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2017-08-28T22:28:43.847" LastActivityDate="2017-08-28T22:28:43.847" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18433" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18369" CreationDate="2017-08-28T13:05:22.693" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;To complete Ian Bush's answer, I find this line pretty:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1...gxf6 2.Ne4 Rfd8 3.Nxf6+ Kf8 4.Qh7 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[4...Ke7 5.Re1+ +- Ian Bush] &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4...Qf2!? [taking advantage of White's weak back rank]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5.Ng8+! &#xA;[5.Qxh6+ Ke7 6.Qc1 Qd2 7.Qxc6 ought to be winning too, but it is not decisive yet] &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5...Ke6 &#xA;[5...Kf8 6.Nxh6+ Ke7 7.Qe5 Kf8 8.Re1 Qd4 9.Qe7+ Kg7 10.Nf5+; &#xA;5...Rxg8 6.Qe5+ and 6.Rxf2] &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;6.Qxh6+ f6 [The king cannot go to the f- nor the d-file because of Rxf2] 7.Qh3+ Kf7 8.Qb3+ and 9.Rxf2 since the Qb3 covers d1 !&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastEditorUserId="14079" LastEditDate="2017-08-28T13:21:26.040" LastActivityDate="2017-08-28T13:21:26.040" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18435" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18401" CreationDate="2017-08-28T15:22:58.270" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Could it be &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1056889&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Horowitz vs. NN&lt;/a&gt; (1939).  (I realize &quot;NN&quot; doesn't start with an M, and may or may not be Italian, and the pawn isn't on d7... but memory can be a funny thing.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This might be the position you're remembering:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;rnb1qrk1/pppp1ppp/5B2/b2BP2Q/8/2P5/P4PPP/RN3RK1 b - - 2 13&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I found this by putting in Horowitz playing as White in chessgames.com, then just sort of went through games in a pseudo-random order (start with &quot;M&quot;, hit anything remotely Italian, guess at others) until I found a likely candidate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7897" LastEditorUserId="7897" LastEditDate="2017-08-28T15:34:11.503" LastActivityDate="2017-08-28T15:34:11.503" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18436" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7875" CreationDate="2017-08-28T16:15:20.030" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's important to note that USCF rules differ from FIDE rules in this situation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to USCF rules 15B and 15C, both players may stop taking notation if either player has less than 5 minutes remaining.  However, if a player is not taking notation, they lose the right to claim a draw by the 50 move rule or the 3 move rule, and lose the right to claim a win on time if it is a non-sudden-death time control (because they cannot prove how many moves they have played.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to rule 15F, the players must resume taking notation if they meet a time control which results in both players again having over 5 minutes left.  In this case, they're also required to make &quot;all efforts&quot; to fill in all missing notation before they make another move.  If both players need to update their scoresheets, the clock should be stopped while they do so, but if only one player needs to do so, his clock runs while he does this.  If filling in the notation is impossible, they can construct a diagram of the position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2017-08-28T16:15:20.030" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18437" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19574" CreationDate="2017-08-29T00:29:52.337" Score="8" ViewCount="1002" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the point value of each chess piece in &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Losing_Chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Antichess&lt;/a&gt;?&#xA;I think they don't need to be negative values, because you're just going after the lower valued ones. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In particular, I wonder what the value of a king has in ntichess, since it has no value in regular chess. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13753" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-17T02:29:39.947" LastActivityDate="2020-12-22T20:28:54.560" Title="Antichess piece value" Tags="&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;point-value&gt;&lt;losing-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="18438" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18437" CreationDate="2017-08-29T04:53:23.620" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Antichess, which I call giveaway, values should be derived from their mobility just like in most chess (variants).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The pawn has the least mobility and therefore is the easiest to force to take.  The sliding pieces come next, although most people would claim that they it's easiest to force them to take, they are mobile enough to choose their path of destruction.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The knights are slightly better than the sliding pieces due to their awkward movement.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The king has to be slightly worse than a sliding pieces due to its limited range of movement of range.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my opinion, the values would be:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;pawn - 1&lt;br&gt;&#xA;king - 3&lt;br&gt;&#xA;queen, rook, and bishop - 4&lt;br&gt;&#xA;knight - 5  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12449" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-08-31T21:59:32.737" LastActivityDate="2017-08-31T21:59:32.737" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18439" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18431" CreationDate="2017-08-29T06:17:36.353" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can't imagine making additional actions to avoid something so ridiculous. Defending against something that never happens won't help you make chess friends. The probability of this happening is 0% and the probability of this happening to you is even bigger 0%. How many times do you think player can repeat such a behavior unpunished? What sense does it make for the player? Who is going to risk his career / good name this way? People capable of that will use engine assistance in the first place. It's just half a point at risk... &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11609" LastActivityDate="2017-08-29T06:17:36.353" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18440" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-08-29T11:19:03.447" Score="0" ViewCount="4508" Body="&lt;p&gt;Doing puzzles at lichess.org I stuck at raiting 1750 +- 50. I cant really go over 1800. So what are the first things one should check by solving puzzles? Are there some tricks how to solve puzzles?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13744" LastActivityDate="2017-08-29T20:50:32.777" Title="What is the best way to solve chess puzzles?" Tags="&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;puzzles&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18441" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18440" CreationDate="2017-08-29T13:45:58.357" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The correct way is to evaluate the positional strengths and weaknesses and find candidate moves based upon this evaluation.&#xA;Another player complained that by knowing it's a tactical puzzle, you should just check the most outrageous move first.  I complain that no one whispers in your ear that a tactic has appeared on your board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12449" LastActivityDate="2017-08-29T13:45:58.357" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18442" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18440" CreationDate="2017-08-29T13:47:47.357" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I had hit a plateau like you. Probably spent about two years at the same tactical rating level until I watched a video on chess.com (it's a series, actually, by IM dpruess &quot;Exercises to Become A Tactical Genius&quot;) that reshaped my thinking entirely. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What I used to do was analyze each of my pieces, one by one, and explore the possibilities of each piece. It was almost a guess-and-check type methodology. Often I'd get the puzzle correct, but I took so long at doing it that my tactical rating would only go up only one point. In a game, doing this, I'd surely lose on time before arriving at the correct combination. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The video I'm referring to got me thinking in terms of concepts first and only then explore those moves that would play to the concept that stuck out the most in the position. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My recommendation to you is to first familiarize yourself with &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/article/view/chess-tactics--definitions-and-examples&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;a complete list of tactical concepts.&lt;/a&gt; Then, when you are looking at your next tactical position, see if you can spot the concept or concepts that might be featured in the position so that you can look for ways to exploit that feature. For instance, if you notice a piece is pinned, see if any moves jump out at you that will make good use of that fact. In my experience, this technique will save you a lot of time because you'll find yourself only analyzing a small subset of possible moves and the odds that the right moves are in that subset will be high. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a word of caution, be prepared to see your tactical rating take a big dip while you get used to this new way of thinking, but I believe that once you get the hang of this way of thinking, you'll see your tactical rating shoot up. For instance, I found my rating plateau at 1900 for a couple of years, changed to this way of thinking and saw it drop to maybe 1800 and then shoot up to 2300. All the best to you. I hope this helps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8134" LastActivityDate="2017-08-29T13:47:47.357" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18443" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18440" CreationDate="2017-08-29T20:50:32.777" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I find it helpful to start by searching for forcing moves (where only one or two moves are legal, in case of a check, or nearly required, in the case of losing a queen), if for no other reason than it lowers the set of possibilities you consider before having to move on to a broader search.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thinking through the process of creating a puzzle, a major challenge would be ensuring that there weren't better moves, or a different solution. Where the puzzle isn't a recreation of a historical position, the creator likely worked backwards from the final step and constructed the board around the path to that step. Because of this, many puzzles end up being a train of forced moves, where you're looking for fork/skewer/pin tactics to get to the final solution.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This could feel too much like studying for the quiz, rather than improving your actual chess skills, but I would argue that starting your analysis of the board in an actual game should also start by analyzing any available forcing moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14156" LastActivityDate="2017-08-29T20:50:32.777" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18444" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18431" CreationDate="2017-08-29T23:20:14.093" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;1) When I resign, I usually do all of these: drop my king, say 'I resign', and stop the clocks, and offer a handshake. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) When my opponent says he resigns, I will not shake hands immediately, rather, I will stop the clocks and call the arbiter. After the arbiter comes, I will ask my opponent to state his resignation to the arbiter. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Quod Erat Demonstrandum. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13692" LastActivityDate="2017-08-29T23:20:14.093" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18445" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1960" CreationDate="2017-08-30T11:19:14.303" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I firmly think beginners should try all the 5 main common opening moves and try to understand the basic chess principles associated with these (e.g. 1.e4/1.d4/1.c4/1.Nf3/1.f4). Then they can pick their favourite opening move that suits their style (1.e4 for full on attackers, 1.d4 for more cautious attackers,1.c4 for any broad style, 1.Nf3 for systemised play and 1.f4 for the adventurous but less mainstream attackers!?) and specialise with those (or go ahead and even learn other openings once they understand the basics eg 1.b4/1.b3/1.g3).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyway, you must play any of these opening moves with good chess opening principles in mind and then you will be in position to play for winning advantages.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;General opening principles:&#xA;    Control the centre&#xA;    Develop pieces and pawns effectively (to good squares and quickly)&#xA;    Castle for king safety&#xA;    After castling, aim to have pieces developed with connected rooks &#xA;    Do not bring the Queen out early in the game&#xA;    Do not move the same piece or pawn twice or more in the opening&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Specific opening principles depend on each specific opening. &#xA;Here is a very quick and very brief introduction to some opening recommendations for White (with some illustrative game examples):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.e4 c5 Open Sicilian (see Fischer vs Sherwin 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 e6 3.d3 1-0)&#xA;or Bb5 anti Sicilian (see Fischer vs Olaffson 2..d6  3...Bd7 5.0-0 Nc6 6.Qe2 1-0)&#xA;1.e4 e6 French Defence (see Fischer vs Uhlmann French Winawer C15 1-0)&#xA;1.e4 e5 Guioco Piano (Italian game... see Fischer vs Rouse 2 Knights Lolli attack (d4) 1-0)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.e4 OTHER.....so many 1.e4 openings. Follow opening principles!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.d4 d5 2.Nf3 Nf6 Colle opening (see Colle vs O'Hanlon 1-0)&#xA;1.d4 Nf6 Colle opening!&#xA;1.d4 OTHER.....so many 1.d4 openings. Follow opening principles&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.c4 c5 English Symmetrical (see Fischer vs Spassky 1972 WChmp rd8_1-0)&#xA;1.c4 e5 Reversed Sicilian (see Botvinnik vs Portisch English 2 Knights 1-0)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.c4 OTHER...so many. Follow opening principles....&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.Nf3 d5   (see Reti vs Rubinstein 1.Nf3 d5 2.g3 1-0)&#xA;1.Nf3 Nf6 (see Fischer vs Lapiken_1956  1.Nf3 Nf6 2.g3 1-0)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.Nf3 OTHER ..so many..Follow opening principles&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.f4 e5 Birds opening From Gambit (accepted or declined...&#xA;see Larsen vs From From gambit accepted 1-0)&#xA;1.f4 d5 (see Lasker vs Bauer 1.f4 d5 2.e3 1-0)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.f4 OTHERS....so many.Follow opening principles&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this helps a little. Happy and good chess play :-)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="426" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T16:44:47.073" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T16:44:47.073" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="18446" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18447" CreationDate="2017-08-30T14:20:26.443" Score="43" ViewCount="7439" Body="&lt;p&gt;A friend of mine gave me this problem. It goes like this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In a normal game of chess, the white player checks the black's king with a rook and a bishop as in the following image.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;8/8/8/8/8/7k/8/3K1B1R b - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now the image seems a bit awkward. In the last move before the check, the white player will have moved either his rook or his bishop (but not both). Suppose that in the last move the white rook is moved, so the black king and white bishop would already be at the same position as they are now. So the black king was already checked by the bishop and hence it was impossible for the black king to remain in that position. Similarly, if the white bishop is moved in the last move, the black king would already be checked by the rook and hence it would be impossible for the king to stay in that position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But it is assured that this position can be reached without any breach of rules. Does anyone know how this can be done?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13900" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-04T22:32:38.673" LastActivityDate="2020-04-04T22:32:38.673" Title="How is this position possible in a normal game of chess?" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;problems&gt;&lt;retrograde-analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18447" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18446" CreationDate="2017-08-30T14:28:56.323" Score="50" Body="&lt;p&gt;Double check is only possible by using discovered check. So either the rook check or the bishop check was discovered by moving something in between on the previous move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't see how that's possible with the rook check, but it &lt;em&gt;is&lt;/em&gt; possible with the bishop -- if the board is shown with black at the bottom, contrary to what is usually done. Then there could have been a pawn in between the black king and the white bishop, it could have captured something on h8 and promoted to a rook.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;E.g.,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;3K1B1q/6P1/7k/8/8/8/8/8 w KQkq - 0 0&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.gxh8=R+&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2017-08-30T14:28:56.323" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18448" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18431" CreationDate="2017-08-30T15:51:06.120" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The real question here does not seem to be how to resign, but how to deal with cheaters. There are ways of dealing with cheaters which are not specific to chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After the fact, some might suggest a fistfight, :-) while others might suggest social shaming (i.e., making sure everybody in the club/tournament learns that the person is a cheater). You can also request not to be paired against the cheater in the future. Tournament directors are not required to accommodate your request, but they can consider it. Finally, you can file a formal complaint, although there better be evidence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Before the fact, you can either be &quot;paranoid&quot; about it (for example, by demanding that the director witness the resignation as someone else suggested), or you can relax and assume good faith knowing that cheating is very rare (unless you play in an environment very different from what I know!). Up to you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In any case, keeping score is always advisable, for a variety of reasons.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Back to the incident in question: the tournament director has a lot of discretion when dealing with &quot;ambiguous resignations&quot; (ambiguous is how they look to a TD in a &quot;he said, she said&quot; situation). Here's what Tim Just, editor of the USCF rulebook, had to say about it in his book, &lt;em&gt;Just Law&lt;/em&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If an ambiguous resignation is disputed promptly enough, then the game&#xA;  can simply continue. If the unclear resignation is not discovered&#xA;  until much later, then the waters get muddy. Some TDs like to award&#xA;  one point to the player who says they won the game and a half-point to&#xA;  the player who says they drew the same game—I am not a fan of this&#xA;  method, but it is widely used. TDs may be able to go over the game&#xA;  score and adjudicate the result based on the final position. If the TD&#xA;  cannot determine what happened, they may declare the game a draw or&#xA;  let the reported score stand. The worst option is for the TD to&#xA;  declare the game a double forfeit. I cannot recommend that. But&#xA;  players who get tied up in disputed resignations may want to be&#xA;  prepared for any of these TD decisions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(This is all in the context of USCF rules, of course. Your mileage may vary under other jurisdictions.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12523" LastEditorUserId="12523" LastEditDate="2017-08-30T19:40:17.733" LastActivityDate="2017-08-30T19:40:17.733" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18449" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12851" CreationDate="2017-08-30T20:34:07.137" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Continental Chess Association (USA) has the following rule for its biggest tournaments:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A table will usually be provided near the bathroom for players to&#xA;  temporarily check devices. If such a table is provided, players may&#xA;  not possess devices inside the bathroom. See rule 10 for penalties.&#xA;  Players whose games have finished and spectators are also not allowed&#xA;  to possess devices in bathrooms. Cellphone detecting wands will be&#xA;  used to spot check players who have exited bathrooms.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesstour.com/devices.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chesstour.com/devices.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12523" LastActivityDate="2017-08-30T20:34:07.137" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18450" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18452" CreationDate="2017-08-30T20:52:13.297" Score="3" ViewCount="574" Body="&lt;p&gt;This seems like a silly noob question...but I am a silly noob. Sitting at around 600 (and floating there in both tactics and in 30 minute games) I've noticed I give away material or extend the game considerably sometimes because I just don't &lt;em&gt;see the moves needed&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know that the trope I read all the time is &quot;tactics, tactic, tactics&quot;, and I have been doing tactics for around an hour or so a day in addition to my daily games. I've noticed significant improvement in my ability to see attacks and play smart - but my problem seems to consistently be missing important moves for pieces. Especially in regards to 2 and 3 move mates.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One thing I do is I look for pieces under attack, and start to evaluate moves from there. If no pieces are under attack, I look around the board at pieces that I can improve their positions on. My issue seems to be target fixation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;r4rk1/p1p4p/1p6/3pP3/P3nppq/1Q2PP2/4K1PP/R4BNR w KQkq - 0 0&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here, the actual move is to move the queen in for a &lt;em&gt;mate in 2&lt;/em&gt;, however my first instinct is to notice the queen is protecting a square I can put my knight on, and guarantee a capture of their rook at h1. I don't think I made a terrible move, however it appears I have trouble spotting these easy mates. Additionally, sometimes I fixate on the check and put pieces in peril unnecess&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a way I can scan the board more effectively? Or does it come down to just getting beaten down over and over again in tactics until I learn to see them?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user14142" LastEditorUserId="12449" LastEditDate="2017-08-31T10:58:11.307" LastActivityDate="2017-09-19T17:29:38.493" Title="Improving my ability to scan the board" Tags="&lt;tactics&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18452" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18450" CreationDate="2017-08-31T07:20:10.543" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Skill in chess is all about pattern recognition. You are doing the right thing with the extra tactics training, and as you said, you can definitely see improvement, right? Unfortunately, that is a slow process with no easy shortcut.. but don't worry, if you follow the path you are on, you will be able to spot a mate like in your example easily one day.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In fact, you already do see patterns (&quot;Enemy rook trapped by own knight and pawn, I can win it with my knight on f2&quot;), which is good. Your main problem is that your &quot;map&quot; of patterns is still very incomplete. And of course, it is only natural to focus on a pattern you see immediately and which is already favorable for you, instead of one that you don't know by heart yet. As said, the right priorities will come with time as you fill the blank spots on your map. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is a good idea and might accelerate this process a bit if you try to get into the habit of ALWAYS calculating all possible checks each move. Especially point blank checks with a queen are rarely a bad idea (this is a pattern too, one that you want to have higher in your priority list). In all honesty, your example isn't that obvious a mate to see at first glance as you might think. The king first looks to have a lot of space to flee to on the queenside. My instinct in a real game (where you don't get told that there's a mate in 2 now) would probably be something like: &quot;Let's see.. point blank check! Always good! Let's do that. Now, before I move, let's check his escape. d1 and d3 (pattern: point blank queen checks only offer 2 escape squares in the way a knight moves). Hm. Kd1 is an obvious mate (pattern: king at border, queen can move right next to him and is protected there), but d3 is kinda out in the open, which is bad when I only have 2 pieces to attack him further. But wait! The pawn on d5 covers c4 and e4! These are the escape squares from a queen check on d2, so this actually is mate, too! Cool.&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Long story short, when I start calculating Qf2+, I don't see the mate either, it only becomes obvious after a few seconds of calculation. Hopefully you can draw some hope from that - you are only missing some links, not the whole chain ;)&#xA;So, keep up your work, focus a bit more on calculating forcing moves (checks), and you should be fine. Good luck!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS: I am assuming the white king should actually stand on e2, otherwise your example makes no sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13433" LastActivityDate="2017-08-31T07:20:10.543" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18453" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18409" CreationDate="2017-08-31T13:30:47.677" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both rooks control White's back rank. If they are removed through:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Nxd3 Rxa1&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Rxa1 Rxa1&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then both pawns cannot be stopped at the same time by the single knight, guaranteeing Black a Queen-Rook endgame. Let's assume White plays Kg2 next:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Kg2 c1=Q&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Nxc1 Rxc1&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then the pawn at b3 will surely become a Queen. A worse move but still wins:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Kg2 b2&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Nxb2 c1=Q&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because Black still has a Queen and the rook versus White's only minor piece, the Knight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We also should notice White's passed pawn at d6. So even with d7:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;d7 c1=Q+&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Nxc1 Rxc1+&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Kg2 Rd1&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Rd1 prevents White from promoting:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;4&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;d8=Q+ Rxd8 &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10607" LastActivityDate="2017-08-31T13:30:47.677" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18454" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16455" CreationDate="2017-08-31T15:47:19.600" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You could have started with a tempo with:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;4&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Nf3 Qe7&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Nd5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which threatens Nxc7+ and winning a rook. Continuing with Black's best response:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;5&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;... Qd8&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Bf4 d6&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bf4 adds an attacker to the c7 pawn so d7 is forced. After this has happened, we are left with:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. d4 e5 2.dxe5 Qe7 3. Nc3 Qxe5 4. Nf3 Qe7 5. Nd5 Qd8 6. Bf4 d6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black wasted 6 moves basically to trade a pawn and advance the d pawn, which was forced. White however, has developed both Knights and a Bishop. White's development will continue with e4, posting the strong d5 Knight. If Black plays Nf6, then White further develops with Bc4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. d4 e5 2.dxe5 Qe7 3. Nc3 Qxe5 4. Nf3 Qe7 5. Nd5 Qd8 6. Bf4 d6 7. e4 Nf6 8. Bc4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that Black did not capture White's e4 pawn because though undefended, Black will lose the Knight to a pin with Qe2. If Black tries to defend with f5:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. d4 e5 2.dxe5 Qe7 3. Nc3 Qxe5 4. Nf3 Qe7 5. Nd5 Qd8 6. Bf4 d6 7. e4 Nf6 8. Bc4 Nxe4 9. Qe2 f5 10. Bg5 Qd7 11. Nd2 Be7 12. Bxe7 c6 13. Nxe4 fxe4 14. Qh5+ g6 15. Nf6+ Kxe7 16. Qg5 Qd8 17. O-O-O Bf5 18. Nxe4+ Kd7 19. Rxd6+&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and the Queen is lost as the King can no longer block the Rook from attacking the Queen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In eight moves (board 2), White has created a tempo, developed all minor pieces, has strong command of the center, and caused Black to be severely underdeveloped. White also has the option to castle King's side and Queen's side if the Queen moves. If Black does blunder (board 3), White's superior position will easily win the game with the right attacks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Though I agree that the midgame moves are improvements, I believe a strong position and attack in the &lt;em&gt;beginning&lt;/em&gt; is much, much better. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10607" LastActivityDate="2017-08-31T15:47:19.600" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18455" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13232" CreationDate="2017-08-31T19:01:21.733" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know this answer is coming late, but as someone who had the 3rd edition and upgrated to the 4th edition I can answer this definitely. The ONLY difference in the new edition is that diagrams have an indicator of who is to move, and glancing at the text below the diagram it's very easy to see who is to move if you can't already figure it out based on the particular ending you are studying, if you already have the 3rd and you want this &quot;feature&quot; just go through the book with a pencil and mark every diagram with W/B for who has the move, everything else in the book word for word is IDENITCAL, yes I went through each page and did not see ANY difference whatsoever. Those that said that updated versions where usually money grabs nailed this one completely. The publisher New In Chess was extremely deceptive selling this as a new version complete with a new book cover. This could have been done in a new printing, shame on New in Chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="983" LastActivityDate="2017-08-31T19:01:21.733" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18456" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18457" CreationDate="2017-08-31T21:37:43.950" Score="4" ViewCount="5875" Body="&lt;p&gt;Often times, players will trade their rook for the opponent's knight and bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This seems to have a slight advantage materialistically as a rook is worth 5 and a knight and bishop are worth 6 total. But from a strategic view, this seems quite unnecessary as it is very hard to coordinate the knight and bishop together (it takes &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/60/10607&quot;&gt;33+ moves to checkmate by themselves versus a King&lt;/a&gt;) let alone deal with a rook at the same time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Midgame though, they might have an advantage as with all (or most) of the pieces all over the board, the rook may have trouble navigating through the board. The bishop-knight pair though should be sound since the knight should just jump all over the board. Endgame though, I just don't see how a knight and bishop can overpower a rook.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So my question is, when is a bishop-knight pair generally stronger than a rook? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10607" LastActivityDate="2017-09-01T00:03:59.323" Title="When is a bishop and knight stronger than the rook?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;rook-and-minor-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18457" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18456" CreationDate="2017-08-31T21:54:51.023" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;N+B is generally considered to be superior to R+P, because of their greater coverage of squares and the ability to attack the same point twice rather than once. N+B is drastically better than a lone rook in a normal position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Except for positions with immediate tactics, the only time I can think of that a rook might be superior is in an endgame with passed pawns for both sides. Rooks excel in such circumstances.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3270" LastActivityDate="2017-08-31T21:54:51.023" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18458" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18456" CreationDate="2017-09-01T00:03:59.323" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;In an ending it will often come down to who has the weak pawns and if BN can cooperate. If the R-side has a weak pawn that can be attacked by both B and N, it will be lost. Coordinating BN to do that is a lot easier than chasing a lone K all over the board. If the BN-side has a weak pawn, just one piece is enough to defend it. This is the sort of reasoning that favors the BN.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, Mihail Marin, in &quot;Learn from the Legends&quot; shows a number of instances where Tal was successful with a very active R, and that chapter discusses the question nicely.To be effective, the R also needs partners to collaborate with.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastActivityDate="2017-09-01T00:03:59.323" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18459" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16455" CreationDate="2017-09-01T01:55:07.513" Score="1" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;[White &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 e5 2. dxe5 Qe7 3. Nc3 Qxe5 4. e4 Nf6 5. Nf3 Qe7 6. Bd3 {Bc4 looks more&#xA;active, but the e pawn is under pressure.  e5 followed by Bc4 seems best.} 6...&#xA;Qb4 7. O-O Be7 8. e5 Ng4 9. Nd5 Qc5 10. Nxe7 {This exchanges too quickly.} (10.&#xA;c4) 10... Qxe7 11. Re1 {The pawn is protected by the pin on the e file.} (11. h3&#xA;Nh6 12. Bxh6 (12. Bg5)) 11... O-O 12. h3 (12. Bxh7+) (12. Bg5) 12... Nh6 13. Nd4&#xA;Qh4 14. Re4 {The knight's not under attack, but this or Bxh6 is the best move.}&#xA;14... Qe7 15. Bxh6 gxh6 16. Qh5 (16. Nf5) 16... d5 17. Re3 (17. exd6 Qxd6 18.&#xA;Nf5 Bxf5 19. Qxf5 {Threatening Rg4+ and Qxh7#}) 17... f5 18. Rg3+ Kh8 19. f4 Nc6&#xA;20. Nxc6 bxc6 21. Qxh6 Qe6 22. Qxf8+ Qg8 23. Qxg8# *&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The game was well played.  You need to open more lines, create more weaknesses, and practice more tactics.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12449" LastActivityDate="2017-09-01T01:55:07.513" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18460" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18461" CreationDate="2017-09-01T10:46:49.607" Score="-1" ViewCount="1665" Body="&lt;p&gt;The question is general, not pinned to a particular position. But for example here is a self-fabricated position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;6k1/p4ppp/1r1r2n1/1N6/P7/3Q4/2P3PP/1K6 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Qxd6 Rxd6 2. Nxd6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13744" LastEditorDisplayName="user1108" LastEditDate="2017-09-01T12:34:44.020" LastActivityDate="2017-09-01T12:34:44.020" Title="Would you exchange your queen for two rooks?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;exchange&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2017-09-01T14:29:51.530" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18461" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18460" CreationDate="2017-09-01T11:29:24.947" Score="9" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Only a lonely queen fears two rooks&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;em&gt;The wisest things ever said about chess&lt;/em&gt; by GM Soltis, paraphrasing Fischer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The point behind the quote is that if there are more pieces on the board, the queen tends to outperform the rooks. If there are just pawns (no pieces) then the rook side tends to be better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Fischer showed that when there are minor pieces present - even just one pair - the queen has no reason to fear the rooks&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2017-09-01T11:29:24.947" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18463" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18468" CreationDate="2017-09-01T17:22:42.760" Score="6" ViewCount="7349" Body="&lt;p&gt;How do I perform the following related things? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Export/import PGN of games from Droidfish. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Import my games to Chess.com &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I found an option to export my games from Chess.com (&lt;strong&gt;Share PGN&lt;/strong&gt;) but I couldn't find any options for the rest of them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13565" LastActivityDate="2019-11-03T08:43:16.160" Title="Import and export of PGN" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;pgn&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18464" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18466" CreationDate="2017-09-01T22:48:39.407" Score="9" ViewCount="275" Body="&lt;p&gt;A main line in the King's Indian Defense is this 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 Bg7 4. e4 d6. However,  black could castle instead of d6:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot; &quot;]&#xA;1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 Bg7 4. e4 O-O&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this a more-or-less inconsequential move order inversion or does white need to be careful to avoid some pitfall?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Specifically, in the usual mainline I would play the Sämisch Variation (5. f3) and it does not feel quite right to play f3 there right away, but maybe it is? If not, what should one do as a Sämisch player, Be3 right away? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or, is this 4. ... O-O an error that white can try to exploit? If so, I assume the refutation ought to be 5. e5. But is this is good idea? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am most interested in answers geared towards Class A or B players, but will be grateful for any input.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12255" LastEditorUserId="4588" LastEditDate="2017-09-02T08:59:00.807" LastActivityDate="2017-09-04T16:31:06.400" Title="Modified move-order in the KID 4. ..0-0. What is the point and how to react?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;1.d4&gt;&lt;kings-indian&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18466" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18464" CreationDate="2017-09-02T11:23:12.650" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the vast majority of the cases, 4....d6 and 4....0-0 transpose into each other.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, with 4....0-0 black keeps the option of playing c6 and d5. Recently, this idea has been played by GM Jobava, known for his original approach in the opening: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1867294&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Lupulescu-Jobava&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1879649&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;So-Jobava&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1882674&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Vitiugov-Jobava&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;About the last game, &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/news/view/jobava-dazzles-in-denmark-5446&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chess.com&lt;/a&gt; comments &quot;Just giving away the g6-pawn. This reporter is at a loss&quot;. The engines do not approve Jobava's opening, but somehow he was able to create enough counterplay and to draw the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you play the Sämisch, it makes sense to start with 5.Be3, as Ng4 is not possible. Clearly, 5....d6 6.f3 would transpose to your repertoire. After 5....c6, white has two popular ways to seize the initiative and to obtain an advantage: 6.e5 Ne8 7.f4 d6 8.Nf3 (e.g. &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess-db.com/public/game.jsp?id=Parligras,%20Mircea-Emilian.2107139.174199296.28343&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Parligras-Fier&lt;/a&gt;) and 6.f3 d5 7.cxd5 cxd5 8.e5 Ne8 9.h4 (as in Vitiugov-Jobava). The former should result in a slight but stable advantage for white, while the latter leads to sharper play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;      [StartPly &quot;7&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;      [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;      1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.e4 O-O (4...d6) 5.Be3 (5.f3) c6 (5...d6 6.f3) 6.f3 (6.e5 Ne8 7.f4 d6 8.Nf3) d5 7.cxd5 cxd5 8.e5 Ne8 9.h4&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4588" LastEditorUserId="4588" LastEditDate="2017-09-04T16:31:06.400" LastActivityDate="2017-09-04T16:31:06.400" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18467" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22086" CreationDate="2017-09-02T23:31:53.343" Score="7" ViewCount="212" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am looking to search for combinations similar to the one in &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1067980&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Karpov - Taimanov, 1977&lt;/a&gt; - a knight check, is followed by opening of an 'h' file, and the rook comes with decisive effect because attacker's queen covers the diagonal. I am only learning CQL and any tips on how to get started on constructing a query would be much appreciated - &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;October Revolution 60th Anniversary&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Leningrad URS&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;1977.06.25&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;1977.??.??&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;1&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Anatoly Karpov&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Mark Taimanov&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;B32&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[PlyCount &quot;76&quot;]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot; &quot;]&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 a6 5. c4 e5 6. Nb3 Nf6&#xA;7. Nc3 Bb4 8. f3 O-O 9. Be3 d6 10. Rc1 b6 11. Bd3 Bc5 12. Qd2&#xA;Be6 13. Nxc5 bxc5 14. O-O Nd4 15. Nd5 Nd7 16. f4 Rb8 17. f5&#xA;Bxd5 18. cxd5 Qb6 19. Rf2 f6 20. Rc4 a5 21. Ra4 Ra8 22. Qe1&#xA;Ra7 23. b3 Rfa8 24. Rb2 Qc7 25. Bd2 Nb6 26. Rxa5 c4 27. Bf1&#xA;Rxa5 28. Bxa5 Qc5 29. Bxb6 Qxb6 30. Kh1 cxb3 31. axb3 g6&#xA;32. fxg6 hxg6 33. b4 Kg7 34. b5 f5 35. exf5 Nxf5 36. Rb3 Qd4&#xA;37. b6 Ra1 38. Rb1 Ng3+ {analysis: 39. hxg3 Ra8} 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="618" LastEditorUserId="10295" LastEditDate="2017-09-03T09:31:49.190" LastActivityDate="2018-07-20T21:16:10.527" Title="What is the CQL syntax for combinations where king is checked along a file, and the square near it is attacked by bishop or queen?" Tags="&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;cql&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18468" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18463" CreationDate="2017-09-03T12:45:19.273" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is the link for &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/analysis-board-editor&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chess.com import pgn (as text)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should do the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Copy the content of the PGN file into clipboard &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Open your PGN file in your favorite editor (e.g. notepad)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Mark the content of the PGN&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Copy the PGN content into the clipboard (e.g. using &lt;kbd&gt;CTRL + C&lt;/kbd&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Open &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/analysis-board-editor&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chess.com import pgn&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/4gIOk.png&quot; alt=&quot;chess.com import page&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;5&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Choose Load PGN&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Paste the PGN content from clipboard (e.g. using &lt;kbd&gt;CTRL + V&lt;/kbd&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Choose Load&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10295" LastEditorUserId="10295" LastEditDate="2017-09-03T12:54:10.993" LastActivityDate="2017-09-03T12:54:10.993" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18469" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18470" CreationDate="2017-09-03T17:03:31.833" Score="5" ViewCount="366" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the name of this variation: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.Bg5 Nbd7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14200" LastEditorUserId="10607" LastEditDate="2017-09-04T00:35:26.010" LastActivityDate="2020-08-05T22:41:44.520" Title="What is the name of this Sicilian Variation?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;&lt;najdorf&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18470" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18469" CreationDate="2017-09-03T17:22:01.890" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's an old main line of Sicilian Najdorf, and according to Wikipedia, it's the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sicilian_Defence,_Najdorf_Variation#Verbeterde_List:_6...Nbd7&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;De Verbeterde List&lt;/a&gt;, or Improved Strategem, due to recent efforts by Dutch players to revive it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9025" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-09-03T19:58:50.150" LastActivityDate="2017-09-03T19:58:50.150" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18471" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17440" CreationDate="2017-09-03T20:19:49.723" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The SOS (&quot;Secrets of Opening Surprises&quot;) books and articles (in New in Chess magazine) can be good references.  Once in the USATW I was paired up against a 2450 rated player.  I found references with a quick online search that he played the Caro-Khan.  I walked in the bookstore and looked in an SOS book and found a line Kasparov used in blitz a lot.  After 10 minutes of preparation I was armed  to get my well booked opponent out of his element and I won my best game of the tournament.&#xA;I've done such things with the Chess Informants a lot including preparation against Yermolinsky in the US Open.  I would say Chess Informant is best if you have the time and money.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2017-09-03T20:19:49.723" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18473" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18418" CreationDate="2017-09-04T02:52:00.680" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe that &lt;code&gt;2...Qe7&lt;/code&gt; is reasonable approach especially for beginner. It protects the e5 pawn; it protects the f7 square: less things to worry about. Black development plan would be something like this: &lt;code&gt;Nc6, g6, Bg7, Nf6, 0-0&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="307" LastActivityDate="2017-09-04T02:52:00.680" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18474" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18478" CreationDate="2017-09-04T15:21:01.273" Score="6" ViewCount="1339" Body="&lt;p&gt;Wikipedia says that the Sveshnikov Variation is :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 e5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While chesstempo says that is the Lasker-Pelikan Variation, and the Sveshnikov is strictly :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 e5 6.Ndb5 d6 7.Bg5 a6 8.Na3 b5.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14200" LastEditorUserId="14079" LastEditDate="2017-09-06T13:12:49.807" LastActivityDate="2019-01-02T16:52:14.390" Title="Is the Sveshnikov Variation a subvariation of the Lasker-Pelikan Variation?" Tags="&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18475" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18474" CreationDate="2017-09-04T15:44:27.353" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is IM Silman's review of &lt;a href=&quot;http://dev.jeremysilman.com/shop/pc/Sicilian-Sveshnikov-The-Move-by-Move-p3926.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Sicilian Sveshnikov: Move by Move&lt;/a&gt;, the emphasis is mine:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Cyrus Lakdawala’s latest book for Everyman also uses the Move by Move format, engaging the reader with a question and answer format that should make &lt;strong&gt;the Sveshnikov&lt;/strong&gt;  (1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 e5 6.Ndb5 d6 7.Bg5 a6 8.Na3 b5) accessible to a much wider audience that previous works on the subject.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the longer line is the Sveshnikov. The other lines are sub-variations, often with their own names.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wouldn't get too caught up about naming conventions. To quote Bruce Pandolfini in the &lt;em&gt;Chessmaster&lt;/em&gt; academy:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;But this is chess, that is names.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastEditorDisplayName="user1108" LastEditDate="2017-09-05T06:40:21.420" LastActivityDate="2017-09-05T06:40:21.420" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18476" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18193" CreationDate="2017-09-04T19:11:57.993" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Two other sources:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Dangerous Weapons: 1 e4 e5&lt;/em&gt; (2008) by Emms, Flear and Greet has a chapter on the variation with &lt;code&gt;8. fxg7&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Beating the Open Games&lt;/em&gt; (2007) by Marin also has a chapter on the Max Lange Attack. The nice thing about the latter book is that you can find an &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.qualitychess.co.uk/productimages/cms/pdf/opening/BTOG_Update.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;update for free&lt;/a&gt; at &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.qualitychess.co.uk/products/1/2/beating_the_open_games_-_2nd_edition_by_mihail_marin/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;the site of the publisher&lt;/a&gt;. The Max Lange Attack is discussed from page 35 in the pdf document. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1485" LastActivityDate="2017-09-04T19:11:57.993" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18478" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18474" CreationDate="2017-09-04T21:42:20.240" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is no central authority for opening names, and the ones used shift over time. So a definite answer to this question isn't possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bad_Bishop quotes &lt;em&gt;Silman's review&lt;/em&gt; of &quot;Sicilian Sveshnikov: Move by Move&quot;, which is a bit odd as the book itself treats all variations after 5...e5 (see the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.everymanchess.com/downloadable/download/sample/sample_id/126/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;PDF preview of the book&lt;/a&gt;, chapter &quot;Sixth Move Alternatives&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The same is true of &quot;The Sicilian Sveshnikov&quot; by Kotronias (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.qualitychess.co.uk/ebooks/GM18-Sveshnikov-excerpt.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;PDF preview&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But these are repertoire books for black; if you play 5...e5 and white wants to, he can basically force 6.Ndb5 d6 7.Bg5 a6 8.Na3 b5 as there are few serious alternatives for black. So if you play the Lasker/Pelikan, you play the Sveshnikov too, and vice versa. It's logical that they want to treat white's alternatives at move 6 too, so that the book is more widely useful. But then, why not call it &quot;The Lasker/Pelikan: Move by Move&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think the name &quot;Lasker/Pelikan&quot; is &lt;em&gt;obsolete&lt;/em&gt;, at least in English language chess publications. I've never seen it used in any book or periodical or website in at least twenty years, it's always Sveshnikov. You can easily find many books on the Sveshnikov, and I don't know any on the Lasker/Pelikan. Apart from that Silman review, but he has played chess for a long time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ECO (and thus the Informant) calls it the Lasker/Pelikan, but its codes and their names are set in stone since the 1960s. Those codes and their names have also ended up in many computer files of opening names, but as far as I can see it's not actually &lt;em&gt;used&lt;/em&gt; by anybody anymore.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's just the Sveshnikov.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastEditorUserId="924" LastEditDate="2017-09-04T21:47:54.933" LastActivityDate="2017-09-04T21:47:54.933" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18479" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16455" CreationDate="2017-09-05T01:39:06.047" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You're fine, because your queen on h6 attacks the pawn on c6, as well as a number of points on the kingside, and Black can't defend them all. His best is probably 21... Be6 (shields the pawn). Then you play, 22. Ba6  Rb8 23. Rb3 RxR 24. axb3. The c pawn is still en prise, and you threaten to move the B, uncovering an attack by your a rook on the Black a pawn as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2017-09-05T01:39:06.047" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18481" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18431" CreationDate="2017-09-05T01:51:29.573" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you keep a written record of games, the ending position can be reconstructed. Then the referee can reason from the board position whether a resignation or a draw is the more equitable result from the position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2017-09-05T01:51:29.573" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18482" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-09-05T18:17:34.957" Score="-1" ViewCount="393" Body="&lt;p&gt;White player wins much more often. Is there a kind of statistics of how much more often? Mentally it seems to be half a point per game. At the same time, it is very easy to lose a tempo during the game. Castling long often leads to King b1 as an extra defense, for example. One tempo is immediately decisive in a zugzwang endgame, but a tempo from the very first move when all the peaces are in a useless mess, should quickly be diluted after a few moves, I would think.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A tempo advantage is normally temporary, one has to immediately turn it into a lasting advantage in material or position. Like keep on checking. So how come the one tempo advantage of white on the first move shows so clearly on the scoreboard?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wonder if white's advantage says something generally (statistically) about the value of a tempo won during the game. If black wins a tempo in the midgame, shouldn't then black have the advantage as if he played white?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13829" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-09-29T14:01:42.597" LastActivityDate="2017-09-29T14:01:42.597" Title="What makes white's first move tempo advantage so valuable?" Tags="&lt;advantage&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2017-09-06T05:20:18.983" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18483" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18482" CreationDate="2017-09-05T19:15:01.257" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;At the amateur level games are often decided by tactics. From simply hanging a piece at beginner level through to more complicated tactics at club level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At the professional level players don't often lose material. If they are down material, they tend to have some compensation for this. Therefore professional players have learned to take advantage of every little thing, whether it is slightly more space, the bishop pair or just one tempo.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That is why white's first move advantage is important. It is one small advantage that a strong player will nurse over many moves until it becomes something more concrete, e.g. one more tempo becomes a small spatial advantage, which then becomes pressure on the king position, which later may result in a player losing a pawn etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2017-09-05T19:15:01.257" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18485" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18482" CreationDate="2017-09-05T19:31:43.010" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Having the first move often leads to another kind of advantage.  This could be a lead in development, space, better placed pieces, or just pressure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Due to the first move advantage, white scores 53% to black's 47%.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White moving the king to b1, for more safety, loses a tempo, but castling on the queenside gains a temp by having the rook on an open file.  In many Sicilians, white moves the king to h1 for safety, but pushing the f pawn activates the rook.  Giving one advantage for another.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In an endgame, there are many examples where the game is decided by one tempo, however they also teach you how to lose a tempo by triangulation with the king or by the bishop. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The main advantage of the tempo is by the pressure.  By using the extra tempo to apply pressure on your opponent, you will force them to make subpar moves, which may force them to make some concession.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1290698&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1290698&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1228798&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1228798&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1106540&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1106540&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12449" LastActivityDate="2017-09-05T19:31:43.010" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18486" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18446" CreationDate="2017-09-06T02:00:16.867" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the first position which you've given, there could have been a white pawn on b7 and a black piece on a8 prior to that with white to move. Then by capturing the black piece with the white pawn and promoting it to a rook, the position shown would have been reached, with black to move.  The board is typically shown from the white perspective with the pawns moving up the board. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastEditorUserId="7657" LastEditDate="2018-04-18T12:08:27.127" LastActivityDate="2018-04-18T12:08:27.127" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18487" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18450" CreationDate="2017-09-06T02:14:15.950" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Playing regularly, and playing a lot of games, will normally improve your sight of the board.  Constant practice is a method for improvement in chess as in other disciplines.  The more positions you see, the more familiar you will become with them and start recognizing familiar patterns.  In the position you have shown, you should immediately focus on the weak f2 square, and you should be looking for mate or a check first rather than just winning the rook, since ending the game quickly if possible should be a priority. The move 1..., Qf2+ leads to mate in two no matter where the white king goes, either to d1 or d3, by 2..., Qd2#. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastActivityDate="2017-09-06T02:14:15.950" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18489" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18490" CreationDate="2017-09-06T06:39:31.960" Score="-3" ViewCount="940" Body="&lt;p&gt;In a FIDE rated blitz (3+2) tournament (following the official FIDE rules), the following position occurred:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/1k5P/q7/8/8/8/6K1/6Q1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White played &lt;code&gt;1.h8Q&lt;/code&gt;. But since both queens were on the board, the White player had no choice but to take a White rook, flip it and then place it on the h8 square. He then pressed the clock to complete the move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Black player immediately stopped the clock, complained to the arbiter because the flipped rook wasn't a legal chess piece. Thus, the Black player argued his opponent had made an illegal move in the blitz game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The arbiter agreed and awarded the game as a win for Black due to the illegal move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Q1:&lt;/strong&gt; What does the FIDE rule say? Was the arbiter's decision correct?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Q2:&lt;/strong&gt; If it was indeed an illegal move under the FIDE blitz rule. What should the White player have done? How would the player promote to queen (not rook!) when the White queen was already on the board? All other chess boards (and the queens) were occupied.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-01-05T21:20:45.420" LastActivityDate="2021-01-05T21:20:45.420" Title="Illegal promotion in FIDE blitz game?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;fide&gt;&lt;pawn-promotion&gt;&lt;illegal-move&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="6" ClosedDate="2017-09-06T15:11:38.430" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18490" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18489" CreationDate="2017-09-06T07:25:38.483" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;The rules do not mention a flipped rook, nor is there any rule that says a move can be illegal due to how the piece is placed on the square. It's a legal move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That said, it's just a rook. The opponent could have said &quot;j'adoube&quot; and placed it correctly, or waited for the rook's first diagonal move and then claim illegal move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The player absolutely did have a choice: if a piece you want to promote to isn't readily available, that's a perfectly good reason to stop the clock and ask the arbiter to give you one. Rule 6.12.b:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;6.12.b&lt;/strong&gt; A player may stop the chessclock only in order to seek the arbiter’s assistance, for example when promotion has taken place and the piece required is not available. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That all other queens are in use is not the player's problem, but the arbiter's. Personally when I'm arbitering I always have one of each color in my pockets, and my games aren't even FIDE rated. An arbiter without spare material (also a spare clock or two) in a FIDE tournament is extremely incompetent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2017-09-06T07:25:38.483" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18491" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18474" CreationDate="2017-09-06T08:37:32.780" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;RemcoGerlich's answer is excellent: the Lasker-Pelikan and the Svechnikov are basically the same variation; it is defined by 5...e5 but the line until 8...b5 is the main continuation afterwards and the resulting position where White can choose between 9.Bxf6 and 9.Nd5 can be considered as its real tabyia. The name &quot;Lasker-Pelikan&quot; is outdated, almost obsolete, and nowadays &quot;Svechnikov&quot; is the way to call that variation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To complement the historical evolution, the variation was known as the &quot;Lasker-Pelikan&quot;, or just the &quot;Pelikan&quot; until the beginning of the 70's, when it was considered dubious and was not popular at all. Then youngsters like Svechnikov, Timoshchenko and Vladimirov gave the line a boost, but because they were no famous grandmasters (yet!) but just some obscure teenagers, Russian theoreticians named the line from the city they were coming from, Tcheliabinsk - for about 10 years 5...e5 became &quot;the Tcheliabinsk variation&quot; (or even sometimes &quot;the Tcheliabinsk-Novossibirsk variation&quot; !). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the eighties, Svechnikov became a strong grandmaster, kept being successful with his pet line and wrote a good reference book about it, so more and more people referred to the line as &quot;the Svechnikov Sicilian&quot; and that is the standard name ever since. Yakovich's, Rogozenko's, Kotronias' and Lakdawala's books about the variation all have the name &quot;Svechnikov&quot; in their titles.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Evgenny Svechnikov's own book about the line is actually entitled &lt;a href=&quot;https://books.google.fr/books/about/The_Sicilian_Pelikan.html?id=3HfpAQAACAAJ&amp;amp;redir_esc=y&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&quot;The Sicilian Pelikan&quot;&lt;/a&gt;. I think it was published in 1986 or 1987 in the USSR, what is sure is that the English translation went out in 1989. This title is a display of modesty by the author, since the names &quot;Svechnikov&quot;, &quot;Svechnikov-Vladimirov&quot;, and &quot;Tcheliabinsk&quot; were already much more in vogue than &quot;Pelikan&quot; in the eighties.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;Addendum Jan,2,2019:&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another early expert from the city of Chelyabinsk who contributed a lot to the develoment of this opening, Gennady Timoshchenko, just published his own &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.newinchess.com/sicilian-defense-the-chelyabinsk-variation&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;book&lt;/a&gt; about the variation, entitled &lt;em&gt;&quot;Sicilian Defence - the Chelyabinsk Variation&quot;&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Its &quot;&lt;em&gt;Part I The History of the Variation and Its Development&lt;/em&gt;&quot; includes a chapter &quot;&lt;strong&gt;About the Name of the Variation&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; that would be very interesting in regard to this question. Especially if we consider the author's contempt for Svechnikov's analyses !&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastEditorUserId="14079" LastEditDate="2019-01-02T16:52:14.390" LastActivityDate="2019-01-02T16:52:14.390" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="18492" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-09-06T17:27:42.677" Score="1" ViewCount="110" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have quite a bit of programming background, and even game programming background, but have never looked at a real chess engine before.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I recently stumbled on &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/1232/how-many-such-positions-are-there-chess-math-checkmate-puzzle&quot;&gt;this puzzle-question&lt;/a&gt;, which asks for the number of four-piece positions where the next move (whosever it is) will be checkmate. The number has to be somewhere between 400 (the count found by the OP) and 381,225,600 (the total count of four-piece positions), so it ought to be easy to enumerate them all by computer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd like to make a quick program like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;for white_king_pos in [0, 64):&#xA;  for black_king_pos in [0, 64):&#xA;    for white_piece_pos in [0, 64):&#xA;      for black_piece_pos in [0, 64):&#xA;        for white_piece_kind in {Q,B,N,R,P}:&#xA;          for black_piece_kind in {Q,B,N,R,P}:&#xA;            if next_move_wins_for(black) &amp;amp;&amp;amp; next_move_wins_for(white):&#xA;              count = count + 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What library should I use in order to make writing the &lt;code&gt;next_move_wins_for&lt;/code&gt; function as painless as possible?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(My program is so simple that I don't care about the library's choice of programming language. But FWIW, my fluent languages are C++, Python, and C.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edited to add: Same question for other ways of accomplishing the goal, e.g. tablebases. :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14163" LastEditorUserId="14163" LastEditDate="2017-09-07T16:48:54.347" LastActivityDate="2017-09-12T08:49:23.753" Title="Getting started in position-counting by computer" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;programming&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18493" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18501" CreationDate="2017-09-06T21:28:24.027" Score="11" ViewCount="2042" Body="&lt;p&gt;I enjoy playing &lt;code&gt;1.Nf3&lt;/code&gt; as an interesting transposition device, and for other reasons, but after &lt;code&gt;1...d5 2. c4&lt;/code&gt; don't find a proper answer to the advance variation, &lt;code&gt;2...d4&lt;/code&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. Nf3 d5 2. c4 d4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Main answers are :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;if &lt;code&gt;3. e3&lt;/code&gt;, Black can reply &lt;code&gt;3...Nc6&lt;/code&gt; and some exchange of knights are usually occuring and the black queen is coming right in the middle of the board.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;3. b4&lt;/code&gt; looks interesting but only if Black wants to play in a reverse-Benko/Blumenfeld gambit style. After &lt;code&gt;3...f6,&lt;/code&gt; I don't see a nice answer for White.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;3. g3&lt;/code&gt; looks the best (rightly so, it's played the most according to databases) but what is the White plan if any? Or at least ideas. Maybe because I'm not familiar with this setup.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Am I missing something ? What would you play as White on the third move?! Thanks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13069" LastEditorUserId="4588" LastEditDate="2017-09-13T09:17:18.973" LastActivityDate="2018-07-27T17:55:22.740" Title="White's reply against Reti advance (2...d4)" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;reti-opening&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18494" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18492" CreationDate="2017-09-07T01:40:23.350" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can do that easily in Python.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://pypi.python.org/pypi/python-chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://pypi.python.org/pypi/python-chess&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Create a FEN position based on your loops&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Make it white to move in the FEN&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Use the FEN position to create &lt;code&gt;Board&lt;/code&gt; (&lt;a href=&quot;http://python-chess.readthedocs.io/en/latest/core.html#board&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://python-chess.readthedocs.io/en/latest/core.html#board&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Use the &lt;code&gt;legal_moves&lt;/code&gt; function to generate all possible moves&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Use the &lt;code&gt;push&lt;/code&gt; function to make the move&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Use the &lt;code&gt;is_game_over&lt;/code&gt; function to check for checkmate&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Use the &lt;code&gt;pop&lt;/code&gt; function to undo the move&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Go back to &lt;code&gt;push&lt;/code&gt; until you have tried all legal moves&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Now make it black to move in the FEN and repeat step three&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;PS:&lt;/strong&gt; If you want to add tablebase support. There're two ways:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Use API provided from &lt;a href=&quot;https://syzygy-tables.info/apidoc?fen=4k3/8/8/8/8/8/8/4K3%20w%20-%20-%200%201&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://syzygy-tables.info/apidoc?fen=4k3/8/8/8/8/8/8/4K3%20w%20-%20-%200%201&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If you prefer to do it locally, download Syzygy files from &lt;a href=&quot;http://kirill-kryukov.com/chess/tablebases-online&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://kirill-kryukov.com/chess/tablebases-online&lt;/a&gt;. Use &lt;a href=&quot;http://python-chess.readthedocs.io/en/latest/syzygy.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chess.syzygy&lt;/a&gt; for probing.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2017-09-12T08:49:23.753" LastActivityDate="2017-09-12T08:49:23.753" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18495" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18262" CreationDate="2017-09-07T02:41:50.563" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Stockfish / Droidfish: just put the PGN files that you download to the file of Droidfish PGN. You can view and analyze games .. you can download PGN files in pgnmentor for a specific opening or specific player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14218" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-09-07T07:50:50.697" LastActivityDate="2017-09-07T07:50:50.697" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18496" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-09-07T07:28:25.623" Score="6" ViewCount="1709" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just bought a premium account at chessbase.com, including full access to tools like the &lt;a href=&quot;http://database.chessbase.com/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Live Database&lt;/a&gt;. I have to say, I'm a little bit disappointed by the features they provide.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is, is there a better online analysis/preparation tool that I can just open anywhere in a browser, or do I need to install the ChessBase program to get more features?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More specifically, this is one feature that I miss in the Live Database:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Find all games for a specific player, as either white or black, and for each position, see which moves they made (and the result of those games).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically, the possibility to filter the &quot;Live Book&quot; window on a specific player with a specific color.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I assume this can be done in the ChessBase program, although I have never actually tried the program.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also wonder, say I go ahead and buy the ChessBase program. Is it still necessary to have the premium chessbase.com account, or is that all included when I buy the program?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14220" LastActivityDate="2017-09-18T13:21:34.460" Title="Good online database, or do I need ChessBase?" Tags="&lt;chessbase&gt;&lt;preparation&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18497" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18493" CreationDate="2017-09-07T09:06:52.510" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;After 2...d4, we have a reversed Benoni. Consistent in this is playing:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;g3, Bg2, O-O. These moves secure the king before challenging the d4 pawn&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Re1, d3, e3. These moves challenge the d4-pawn and liberate white's pieces&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The move order depends on what black plays, but you can research the Benoni and double check that the same ideas apply with an extra tempo.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2017-09-07T09:06:52.510" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18498" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12242" CreationDate="2017-09-07T18:00:06.187" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;haha well, I was in inspired mode and played one of the MOST creative games of my career that brought me many compliments from genius creative GM as Benko (that watched the game LIVE) and few others too :-)  Not everybody can appreciate 'creative chess' or rather concrete chess with concrete ideas that created big problems and search for HARMONY (for a pawn gambit!)disturbing opponent's normal DVP, while fighting for big center etc and Josh was also shocked and even after the game didn't really appreciated what happened.. (he was 'too conservative' as a player and I could already feel he will never become a GM...) in one point I was with big edge close to winning, but did the old sin to enjoy the position too much and made a blunder... Greetings from Spain! Arthur www.olalachess.com &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14224" LastActivityDate="2017-09-07T18:00:06.187" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18499" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-09-07T23:17:42.563" Score="-5" ViewCount="157" Body="&lt;p&gt;Rather, has there ever been a significant chess player that avoided sacrifice or even equal exchanges at all costs?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Rather, has there been a significant player that was solely bent on maximum pawn and overall piece advantage, having only gains and no loss of pieces against his opponent?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14226" LastEditorUserId="3890" LastEditDate="2017-09-07T23:22:59.447" LastActivityDate="2017-09-08T11:10:01.973" Title="Has there ever been a successful FIDE or significant historical chess player, that refused to lose any and all pieces in his competitive gameplay?" Tags="&lt;positional-play&gt;&lt;style&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18500" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18499" CreationDate="2017-09-08T02:00:35.783" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, because such a player could never become a significant chess player :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you refuse to exchange in every type of position, you won't make it very far in chess (no matter how good you are).  There were definitely players that loved to attack and do tactics (such as Garry Kasparov and Mikhail Tal), but even these players exchanged pieces when it was the best option.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No champion can be only good at attacking - you have to be well rounded to a certain degree.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2017-09-08T02:00:35.783" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18501" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18493" CreationDate="2017-09-08T02:19:59.273" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;Focusing on the 3. g3 line, you have the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.365chess.com/opening.php?m=6&amp;amp;n=344&amp;amp;ms=Nf3.d5.c4.d4.g3&amp;amp;ns=1.85.60.110.344&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Advance Variation of the Réti&lt;/a&gt;. There is an extensive discussion of this line available &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ez-net.com/%7Emephisto/Understanding%20%20Reti/Basic%20reti%20-%20Explication%203/basicretiexplication3.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;, an offshoot of this page on &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ez-net.com/%7Emephisto/Understanding%20The%20Reti.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Understanding the Réti&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These are the main lines listed there:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Main line:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a. 3...Nc6 4. Bg2 e5 5. d3 Nf6 6. O-O&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;b. 3...Nc6 4. Bg2 e5 5.O-O&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;c. 3...c5 4. Bg2 Nc6 5. d3&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;d. 3...g6 4. Bg2 Bg7&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Critical line:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e. 3...Nc6 4. Bg2 g6 5. d3 Bg7 6. O-O&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason for the popularity of 3. g3 is that by advancing to d5, black has weakened their hold on the center, opening the way for control of the center diagonal with a fianchettoed bishop. As noted by &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/18497/912&quot;&gt;Bad_Bishop&lt;/a&gt; this is a reverse Benoni, with the crucial difference being that you have an extra tempo to play with. Alexander Delchev has a good book on the Réti, with 28 pages devoted to the reverse Benoni (&lt;a href=&quot;http://dev.jeremysilman.com/shop/pc/Modern-Reti-The-p3763.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;The Modern Réti&lt;/a&gt;). As Delchev notes, you're likely going to want to make the most of your extra tempo and play a very sharp game. Unfortunately, this counts against 3. g3 assuming Black counters with 3. ...Nc6!. If, however, black plays 3. ...c5 then you can counter with a strategy similar to the Benko (likewise for 3. ...g6). I'll start with an overview of the kingside fianchetto, and then delve into specifics.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;General Strategy for a Kingside Fianchetto&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The purpose of 3. g3 ... 4. Bg2 is to exert control on the central h1-a8 diagonal with the fianchettoed bishop. This bishop will become the lynchpin of your King's defense, since any move of a pawn in front of the king opens lines of attack, as well as a great tool for indirect control of the center in the hypermodern style. This bishop is very valuable and should not be traded without significant advantage as compensation. The e2 pawn is usually important to keep in place to help protect f3 and avoid pesky attacks from a knight (but this rule of thumb has many exceptions). A common strategy for trading off bishops is for black to double their queen behind their bishop on the c8-h3 diagonal and then push Bh3, attempting to pin the fianchettoed bishop to the rook on f1 (after castling) and trade with Bxg2. In the event of a queenside castle by black, you could wind up with a pawn attack on the h-file, aiming to break up the pawn structure of your fianchetto (this is the common line in the Yugoslav attack in the Sicilian Dragon). Since you're playing white here and already have a slight developmental lead, however, this strikes me as too slow to be practical.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You typically want to avoid a closed position to exploit the full power of your bishop's influence on the central diagonal. Usually you will attack queenside, with a pawn storm in slow games and careful maneuvering of minor pieces in quicker games. Given this, your pawn chain will generally extend from e2 to c4, giving you a structure similar to what you would find in the English, Reverse Dragon variation. Your big obstacle here will be how to open a file for your queenside rook, given that trading cxd5 is no longer an option. For this reason b4, leading to something like the Benko gambit, will be a popular choice in most of the lines following 3. g3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Black Plays 3. ...c5&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot; &amp;quot;]&#xA;1. Nf3 d5 2. c4 d4 3. g3 c5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With 3. ...c5 (as well as 3. ...g6) you win up in the reversed modern Benoni. This move serves two main purposes: it protects the pawn on d4 and allows development of the knight with Kc6 without blocking in the pawn on c7. You'll notice that black doesn't have a lot of control over the light squares -- this is something that will work to your advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You want to stick to your plan of development play Bg2 and d3, getting the pawn structure I mentioned above. The main line above makes these moves immediately, with 4. Bg2 and 5. d3. Going this route will generally lead to a slower game where you launch a pawn storm on the queenside.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The more aggressive option is the reverse Benko Gambit given by 4. b4, preparing the way to open a file for your queenside rook. This is usually accepted with 4...cxb4. With 5. a3 you force Black's hand, and will usually be met with 5. ...bxa3 6. Bxa3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot; &amp;quot;]&#xA;1. Nf3 d5 2. c4 d4 3. g3 c5 4. b4 cxb4 5. a3 bxa3 6. Bxa3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At this point you should see that you've gotten a considerable amount for that pawn. You have your rook on an open file, with another open file right next door on b, and you have developed your queenside bishop to possibly assist in a queenside attack (but likely not).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black's strategy at this point is usually going to involve 6. ...Nc6 followed by e5, at which point you'll be forced to trade bishops on f8. Your plan is going to involve finally completing the fianchetto with Bg2 and following up with d3 for the e2-c4 pawn chain -- extending towards your point of attack. See the linked page for more discussion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Black Plays 3. ...g6&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot; &amp;quot;]&#xA;1. Nf3 d5 2. c4 d4 3. g3 g6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Like 3. ...c5 this usually winds up in a variant of the reversed Modern Benoni, but a bit slower for Black. Given how sharp that defense is, the extra tempo can be exploited to great advantage. You're going to likely want to pursue a similar strategy involving a Benko-like push to b4, assuming that black eventually plays c5. Otherwise, it will likely transpose into the critical line (e) -- though Delchev disagrees that (e) is the line to worry about.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Black Plays 3. ...Nc6&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot; &amp;quot;]&#xA;1. Nf3 d5 2. c4 d4 3. g3 Nc6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is usually considered Black's best line. Your plan will stay largely the same. You'll follow with Bg2 and d3, leading to a queenside attack. I typically prefer to hold off on castling, so would probably opt for the sequence in the main line (a). The point of 4. ...e5 is obviously the same as the move of the pawn to c5 in the other variation -- to protect the pawn on d4. You might be tempted to attack with f4, but I'd (generally) avoid weakening your fianchetto with such a move. The central diagonal is still open for your fianchettoed bishop, but you'll have to pay attention to the c pawn since c6 is still on the table once the knight is moved -- weakening your bishop's control of the diagonal. Better to simply follow with 5. d3 or 5. O-O (with the move you don't make coming shortly after).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Suppose the sequence goes as follows: 4. Bg2 e5 5. O-O Nf6 6. d3. The move Delchev considers best for black here is 6. ...a5!, which pre-empts the Benko-like push 7. b4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot; &amp;quot;]&#xA;1. Nf3 d5 2. c4 d4 3. g3 Nc6 4. Bg2 e5 5. O-O Nf6 6. d3 a5!&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This sequence is actually what leads Delchev to reject 3. g3 as being too slow (he comes to a similar conclusion regarding 3. e3 which is also best responded to with 3. ...Nc6 and popularly continued with 4. exd4 Nxd4 5. Nxd4 Qxd4 6. d3 c6! which tends to cramp White's position and restrict its knight).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This line is one case where the e3 pawn seems advisable. See &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.365chess.com/game.php?gid=4057574&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this game between Kujawski and Kiolbasa to get an idea of how things might develop&lt;/a&gt;. The basic idea will be to follow with 7. e3, which is best answered by 7. ...dxe3! since allowing White to initiate the trade with something like 7. ...Be7 8. exd4 exd4 9. Na3 O-O 10. Nb5 aids your development by giving you the active knight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot; &amp;quot;]&#xA;1. Nf3 d5 2. c4 d4 3. g3 Nc6 4. Bg2 e5 5. O-O Nf6 6. d3 a5! 7. e3 dxe3 8. exd4 exd4 9. Na3 O-O 10. Nb5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, the Critical Line according to the linked page is 3. ...Nc6 4. Bg2 g6 5. d3 Bg7 6. O-O.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot; &amp;quot;]&#xA;1. Nf3 d5 2. c4 d4 3. g3 Nc6 4. Bg2 g6 5. d3 Bg7 6. O-O&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Delchev actually doesn't consider this, having concluded that the previous sequence involving 6. ...a5! as decisive against 3. g3. From my analysis, I think Black's best strategy here is to simply follow normal development. The pawn on d4 is awkwardly placed since it blocks the fianchettoed bishop. So, I'd figure this would continue with 6. ...Nf6 7. b4, preparing to pseudo-sac the b-pawn in order to open a file for the rook and establish an attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot; &amp;quot;]&#xA;1. Nf3 d5 2. c4 d4 3. g3 Nc6 4. Bg2 g6 5. d3 Bg7 6. O-O Nf6 7. b4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If 7. ...Nxb4 then 8. Qa4+ Nc6 9. Ne5 putting a lot of pressure on c6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot; &amp;quot;]&#xA;1. Nf3 d5 2. c4 d4 3. g3 Nc6 4. Bg2 g6 5. d3 Bg7 6. O-O Nf6 7. b4 Nxb4 8. Qa4+ Nc6 9. Ne5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black can go with either 9. ...O-O or 9. ...Bd7. Either way you capture 10. Nxc6 and eventually get Black's b-pawn or a nice lead in development and good initiative. For 9. ...O-O we have&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot; &amp;quot;]&#xA;1. Nf3 d5 2. c4 d4 3. g3 Nc6 4. Bg2 g6 5. d3 Bg7 6. O-O Nf6 7. b4 Nxb4 8. Qa4+ Nc6 9. Ne5 O-O 10. Nxc6 bxc6 11. Qxc6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Whereas for 9. ...Bd7 there are two branches,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot; &amp;quot;]&#xA;1. Nf3 d5 2. c4 d4 3. g3 Nc6 4. Bg2 g6 5. d3 Bg7 6. O-O Nf6 7. b4 Nxb4 8. Qa4+ Nc6 9. Ne5 Bd7 10. Nxc6 Bxc6 11. Bxc6 bxc6 12. Qxc6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot; &amp;quot;]&#xA;1. Nf3 d5 2. c4 d4 3. g3 Nc6 4. Bg2 g6 5. d3 Bg7 6. O-O Nf6 7. b4 Nxb4 8. Qa4+ Nc6 9. Ne5 Bd7 10. Nxc6 bxc6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you face the latter, I'd hold off on taking the pawn and develop your knight and rook with Nd2, Nb3, and Rb1.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Why does Delchev suggest 3. b4?&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Though my main focus has been exploring 3. g3 and trying to provide some insights into the dynamics of play with a kingside fianchetto, Delchev recommends 3. b4 as the best move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot; &amp;quot;]&#xA;1. Nf3 d5 2. c4 d4 3. b4!?&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;His reasoning is that it offers you the sharpest play and makes the most of the extra tempo. You essentially jump right into a Benko-like gambit and exert maximum pressure. Optimal play continues 3. ...f6! (as you note) then 4. e3 e5! where it gets tricky. You have to be bold. VERY bold (not for the faint of heart). 5. c5 positions White for another gambit and is best answered by 5. ...a5!.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot; &amp;quot;]&#xA;1. Nf3 d5 2. c4 d4 3. b4!? f6! 4. e3 e5! 5. c5 a5!&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From this point, the main lines break into 6. Nxe5, 6. Bc4, 6. Bb5+.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The move 6. Nxe5 leads to a forced draw after 6. ...fxe5 7. Qh5+ Kd7 8. Qf5+ Ke8 9. Qh5+:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot; &amp;quot;]&#xA;1. Nf3 d5 2. c4 d4 3. b4!? f6! 4. e3 e5! 5. c5 a5! 6. Nxe5 fxe5 7. Qh5+ Kd7 8. Qf5+ Ke8 9. Qh5+&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With 6. Bc4 you face 6. ...axb4! then play naturally continues 7. exd4 exd4 8. O-O Bxc5 and now Black has two pawns and more space.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot; &amp;quot;]&#xA;1. Nf3 d5 2. c4 d4 3. b4!? f6! 4. e3 e5! 5. c5 a5! 6. Bc4 axb4! 7. exd4 exd4 8. O-O Bxc5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems the line following 6. Bb5+ is the key. It leads to very sharp play, and while not necessarily to White's advantage, the knowledge imbalance should tip the scales in White's favor. The theory ends with 6. ...c6! 7. Bc4 Ne7!? 8. O-O!? axb4 9. Bb2, at which point Delchev concludes that White has compensation for the pawn and the attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot; &amp;quot;]&#xA;1. Nf3 d5 2. c4 d4 3. b4!? f6! 4. e3 e5! 5. c5 a5! 6. Bb5+ c6! 7. Bc4 Ne7!? 8. O-O!? axb4 9. Bb2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The critical line continues 9. ...dxe3 10. fxe3 Nf5 11. Qe2 Bxc5 12. d4 Ba7!:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot; &amp;quot;]&#xA;1. Nf3 d5 2. c4 d4 3. b4!? f6! 4. e3 e5! 5. c5 a5! 6. Bb5+ c6! 7. Bc4 Ne7!? 8. O-O!? axb4 9. Bb2 dxe3 10. fxe3 Nf5 11. Qe2 Bxc5 12. d4 Ba7!&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At this point the three branches considered by Delchev are 13. a3?! e4, 13. dxe5 Nd7!, and 13. Nbd2 Qe7 -- none of which are simple or clear cut. Engines can hold the line for Black, but things are complicated to say the least. From what I can tell, the idea is a continuation of the theme of this variation: make things sharp, make things complicated, and hope you know more about the opportunities and pitfalls of the variation than your opponent. For what it's worth, I play the Sicilian Dragon with the same strategy in mind. If my opponent knows the Yugoslav attack -- and they usually do if they're any good -- I believe they have a slight edge on paper. But the opening is so sharp and bookish (I believe the book line is settled for something like 22 moves) that unless I'm against another Dragon specialist they can rarely avoid some mistake that I know how to exploit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;The Bottom Line&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The line with 3. e3 is safe and slow, perhaps too slow (though I haven't discussed it in detail). At any rate, it isn't my style. 3. g3 has potential if you're able to exploit some of the gambit opportunities, but could be turned into a slower game in the 3. ...Nc6 line. 3. b4 is very aggressive and sharp, but an interesting option if that's your thing. I'd probably go with 3. g3 since I'm more familiar with that sort of pawn structure and I'm a big fan of keeping the pawn structure similar across my various openings/defenses. If, however, you're not comfortable playing with fianchettoed kingside bishops and aggressive gambits then it might be a bit much for you to jump right into.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="912" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2018-07-27T17:55:22.740" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="18502" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18499" CreationDate="2017-09-08T11:10:01.973" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;My brother and I used to play in this way as children. We thought that 'losing' any material (even in equal trades) was bad. Games were long, knights were powerful in the inevitably blocked positions and games were won by who could stay awake the longest. All of this sounds anathema to me now I'm a stronger player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In fact, exchanges are a vital part of the game. E.g. many attacks need open lines, which implies some pawn trades:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;No pawn exchanges, no file-opening, no attack&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;em&gt;The Wisest Things Ever Said About Chess&lt;/em&gt; by GM Soltis, quoting Aron Nimzowitsch&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2017-09-08T11:10:01.973" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18503" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-09-08T13:39:07.437" Score="2" ViewCount="402" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to store a collection of games (say 20) from a certain tournament as a &lt;em&gt;single unit&lt;/em&gt;, so when I open the file, I can view &lt;em&gt;all&lt;/em&gt; the matches of the tournament as one, instead of viewing each game separately(each game in a different file).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Arena does this automatically for engine tournaments (tournament files) , but how do I do it for OTB games whose PGN I have?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;As an example&lt;/strong&gt;, how do I save the matches of the ongoing Chess World Cup as one unit? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13565" LastActivityDate="2018-12-31T14:02:30.500" Title="Storing tournaments for use in Arena" Tags="&lt;pgn&gt;&lt;arena&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18504" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18207" CreationDate="2017-09-08T21:05:23.167" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let me answer your second question first: According to chesstempo db there are 6% less draws after 9.Bxf6 than after 9.Nd5, with White and Black each getting 3% more wins!&#xA;As far as a theoretical advantage: hoacin's comment is accurate.  Of course like all openings it is more about heading to the positions you like or are more comfortable with; thus many GMs would say that 3.Bb5 is the best move against the Sveshnikov.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2017-09-08T21:05:23.167" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18505" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18463" CreationDate="2017-09-09T07:34:03.627" Score="5" Body="&lt;h2&gt;Importing and exporting games to and from Droidfish&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hold down on the board, and a set of options appear:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Rvu6L.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Rvu6L.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Screen for import/export of games&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Click on &lt;strong&gt;Share Game&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;strong&gt;Clipboard&lt;/strong&gt; to share (export) PGN.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Click on &lt;strong&gt;Retrieve Position&lt;/strong&gt; to import PGN from your device. Alternatively, if you have the game on Clipboard, you can click &lt;strong&gt;Clipboard&lt;/strong&gt; and then choose to paste the game from Clipboard.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13565" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2017-09-09T08:16:37.320" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18506" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18428" CreationDate="2017-09-09T15:50:35.273" Score="3" Body="&lt;h2&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.historyofchess.co.uk/chessmen.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;The Illustrated Guide to World Chess Sets (Chessmen for Collectors)&lt;/a&gt; by &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.historyofchess.co.uk/author.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Dr Victor Keats&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A part from the books webpage:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Country by country each chapter of Chessmen for Collectors&#xA;  systematically charts the development of chess sets in chronological&#xA;  order, giving the collector an instant means of identification. The&#xA;  accompanying mass of illustrations (50 colour and 273 black and white)&#xA;  gives details of the diverse materials used - ivory, wood, porcelain,&#xA;  bronze - precise heights of pawns and pieces, their provenance and&#xA;  date.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/4iiz4.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/4iiz4.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Ivory Indian chessmen, chariots and juggernauts, late eighteenth century&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;sup&gt;&lt;i&gt;Ivory Indian chessmen, chariots and juggernauts, late eighteenth century &lt;/i&gt;&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Ivory Indian chessmen, chariots and juggernauts, late eighteenth&#xA;  century The text and illustrations together highlight the variation of&#xA;  style in English Staunton sets, Indian ivory sets, Spanish 'pulpit'&#xA;  chessmen and delicate French eighteenth-century sets, as well as&#xA;  highly unusual, 'one-off' sets from Africa and America. The whole&#xA;  amounts to a highly authoritative, wide-ranging reference work for any&#xA;  kind of chess collector.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Other minor sources&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This page lists some modern designs: &lt;a href=&quot;http://inspirationfeed.com/inspiration/industrial-inspiration/20-aesthetic-chess-set-designs/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://inspirationfeed.com/inspiration/industrial-inspiration/20-aesthetic-chess-set-designs/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This online store has a lot of differently themed chess sets: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chesshouse.com/collections/themed-chess-pieces&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.chesshouse.com/collections/themed-chess-pieces&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9030" LastEditorUserId="9030" LastEditDate="2017-09-09T19:46:12.423" LastActivityDate="2017-09-09T19:46:12.423" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18507" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-09-09T17:53:00.373" Score="2" ViewCount="457" Body="&lt;p&gt;I usually answer &lt;code&gt;1. e4&lt;/code&gt; with the Sicilian, then after &lt;code&gt;2. Nf3&lt;/code&gt; I play &lt;code&gt;2...d6&lt;/code&gt; hoping for a Najdorf or other open Sicilian lines. I have quite a hard time though with slow set up like &lt;code&gt;3. Bc4&lt;/code&gt; followed by &lt;code&gt;d3&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;Nf3&lt;/code&gt; (not necessarily in this order). I tend to lose against these set up (I just find them boring). &#xA;What plan would you recommend for Black? I feel like refusing to play &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt; early in the game should be punished but I don't see how. Thanks in advance!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13069" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-04T17:40:26.873" LastActivityDate="2020-03-04T17:40:26.873" Title="Answering slow Sicilian set up (including Bc4) as Black" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="18508" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18507" CreationDate="2017-09-09T18:59:31.887" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think that 3.Bc4 is so bad that Black should get an advantage. I believe that Adams played it several times with decent results, and it's not the worst way to avoid deep theory. But Black has easy equality.&#xA;You can play ..a6 (to which he will usually play a4) and ..e6. What then is that Bishop doing? Having played against it once or twice I agree that it's boring but there is not much you can do about it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-09-10T15:36:32.923" LastActivityDate="2017-09-10T15:36:32.923" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18509" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18507" CreationDate="2017-09-09T20:57:57.840" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's unfortunately no way to immediately punish this kind of play - it just leads to a slow Sicilian setup.  Here are a few ways you can play against it (after the move 3. Bc4):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;e6, Nf6, Be7, 0-0, Nc6, a6.  Now you have a few plans, but the main one is to push ...d5.  If White plays Bg5 to prevent this (since now your Nf6 is under attack), you just complete your development with Bd7 and Qb6.  It seems hard for you to do much, but remember that you are always poised to strike in the center should White move a piece away.  You could also prepare the move: Nd4.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Dark squared strategy: Nf6, Nc6, Bg4, g6, Bg7, 0-0.  The point of this setup is to control the central dark squares.  Nc6 and Bg7 control e5 and d4, while Bg4's role is to take out Nf3 (White's main defender of these squares).  Your plan would be to try and push b5 (Rb8, a6, etc) and also play Nd7 (opening up Bg7).  This kind of position seems easier to play than the above line, but it is also easier for White to execute a plan.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Those two setups are the main ones.  An important note: If you're a Najdorf player, do not play Nc6 until White has committed his pawn to d3.  If you play Nc6 too early, White could play d4 in one go.  Now you're stuck in an open Sicilian line with your Knight on c6 (normally in the Najdorf the Knight is better suited on d7).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This kind of game with 3. Bc4 can be quite boring to play, but at least you aren't required to memorize 20 moves of theory like in the 6. Bg5 main lines :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2017-09-09T20:57:57.840" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18511" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-09-10T05:47:14.477" Score="8" ViewCount="1671" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can someone derive how do we get the total number of 960 possible positions for Chess960?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14240" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-09-12T22:57:46.560" LastActivityDate="2020-12-05T09:38:55.413" Title="How to calculate the number of combinations for Chess960 positions" Tags="&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;mathematics&gt;&lt;chess960&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="18512" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18511" CreationDate="2017-09-10T06:21:10.930" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;This number is derived by using permutations (an arrangement of objects where the order they're arranged in matters).  We have a few variables:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;n = how many objects there are.&#xA;r = how many objects we are taking to arrange.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both n and r equal 8 (since there are eight pieces, and we will be arranging all of them).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;n = 8&#xA;r = 8&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The formula for Permutations:  &lt;code&gt;n! / (n - r)!&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, we have a certain number of duplicate objects (such as 2 Knights, 2 Bishops, and 2 Rooks):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;# Permutations = n! / ( (n - r)!(2!)(2!)(2!) )&#xA;&#xA;= 8! / ( (8 - 8)!(2!)(2!)(2!) )&#xA;&#xA;= 8! / ( (0!)(2!)(2!)(2!) )&#xA;&#xA;= 8! / ( (2!)(2!)(2!) )&#xA;&#xA;= 40320 / 8&#xA;&#xA;= 5040&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This shows that there are actually 5040 possible &quot;Chess 960&quot; positions.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, in the game &quot;Chess 960&quot; there are limitations for which squares certain pieces can go on.  For example, a Bishop can only go on one of four squares.  This causes the number to go down to 960 (decreasing by a factor of exactly 42).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/how-is-calculated-the-total-positions-in-chess960&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Link for more information&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastEditorUserId="10295" LastEditDate="2017-09-10T09:12:46.687" LastActivityDate="2017-09-10T09:12:46.687" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18514" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18511" CreationDate="2017-09-10T16:29:14.697" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;You're counting the same position a couple of times and not including the rule that the bishops have to be on opposite colors.  (And possible that the king must be between the rooks.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The actual number is 4 x 4 x (6 x 5) / 2 x 4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4 for the LSB&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4 for the DSB&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(6 x 5) / 2 for the two knights (halved due to account for the same type of piece being placed)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4 for the queen&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1 due to the king must be between the rooks  (Without this rule, it would be (3 x 2) / 2 or 1440.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12449" LastActivityDate="2017-09-10T16:29:14.697" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18515" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18517" CreationDate="2017-09-10T18:29:48.167" Score="5" ViewCount="1663" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Bishops are worth more than knights except when they are penned in.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is meant by penned in? Does that mean that they are blocked by other pieces?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14241" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-09-11T13:40:25.927" LastActivityDate="2017-09-11T13:40:25.927" Title="What does &quot;penned in&quot; mean in Chess?" Tags="&lt;terminology&gt;&lt;bishops&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18516" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18515" CreationDate="2017-09-10T18:50:02.293" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;From &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossary_of_chess#pin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;When a piece is attacked but cannot legally move, because doing so would expose the player’s own king to the attack; or when a piece is attacked and can legally move out of the line of attack, but such a move would expose a more valuable piece (or an unprotected piece) to capture. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is an example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;4k3/3q4/2B5/8/8/8/8/2R1K3 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The queen is pinned to the king by the bishop as the queen cannot legally move. This would expose the king to capture.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2017-09-10T18:50:02.293" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18517" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18515" CreationDate="2017-09-10T19:11:36.783" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe Brian Towers and user58697 are correct, and the author wrote/meant &lt;em&gt;pen&lt;/em&gt; instead of &lt;em&gt;pin&lt;/em&gt;. The &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pen&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;dictionary&lt;/a&gt; tells it's a small enclosure for animals, or an abbreviation for &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/penitentiary&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;penitentiary&lt;/a&gt;, which seems more appropriate. Still, it's the first time I encounter this word in a chess setting, so it's not common and the confusion is understandable. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While @Bad_Bishop provides the general (and, AFAIK, only common) use of the term &lt;em&gt;pin&lt;/em&gt; in chess, I believe the author of your quote meant something along the lines of&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Bishops are worth more than knights except when they are blocked by their own pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(which matches your thoughts on the subject). Ironically, those bishops are often called &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossary_of_chess#Bad_bishop&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;bad bishops&lt;/a&gt;, like the white one in the diagram below:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/5pp1/3bp2p/1p1p4/1P1P4/2B1P2P/5PP1/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One could argue that all pieces (including rooks and queens) have the same value when pinned (as in the common use of the word), but this is not entirely true; a pinned piece still prevents the opposing king from moving to certain fields, and a pinned bishop covers more squares than a pinned knight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-09-11T07:24:57.423" LastActivityDate="2017-09-11T07:24:57.423" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18518" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18515" CreationDate="2017-09-10T22:23:26.490" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I dont think that the OP mis-spelt. S/he really meant penned in and not pinned in.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Penned in is a phrase meaning to be confined in an enclosure. From the MacMillan dictionary online.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;same as pen&lt;br&gt;&#xA;We penned the sheep in for the night.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;to make it impossible for someone to get out of a place&lt;br&gt;&#xA;A van was parked behind me, penning me in.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;to make someone feel that they cannot escape from a situation.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The application in chess would be to situations where a Bishops mobility is blocked by other pieces, usually pawns, as in the post by @Glorfindel&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastEditorUserId="10295" LastEditDate="2017-09-11T07:53:08.993" LastActivityDate="2017-09-11T07:53:08.993" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18519" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-09-10T23:00:48.880" Score="1" ViewCount="190" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to encourage more games to be played with &quot;thinking&quot; chess instead of &quot;video game&quot; chess like in lightning and blitz.  When I play at super fast time controls, I tend to stop calculating at all and just push wood.  So my chess thought process becomes very sloppy, which makes those fast time control games pretty much useless to me in terms of improving my level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What if there was a clock mode where a minimum time was required to be spent by a player on a move like say 10 seconds and if this rule were violated then the game would be forfeited?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know that time delay and increment already exist, but I find there is too much temptation to gain time on the clock and move quickly.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I guess what I want is to find a clock mode that doesn't tempt me to turn off my calculating brain but where the games finish reasonably quickly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any thoughts on this idea?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8258" LastActivityDate="2017-09-12T11:17:14.730" Title="Would this clock time mode be useful at all?" Tags="&lt;time-control&gt;&lt;calculation&gt;&lt;time-management&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18520" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-09-10T23:22:58.430" Score="6" ViewCount="1647" Body="&lt;p&gt;Other than F.I.C.S., where can a friend and I analyse our games online together free where both of us can move the pieces on the board.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14249" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2017-09-10T23:55:11.723" LastActivityDate="2017-09-11T06:32:59.440" Title="Free online analysis board between two players (both players can move the board)" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18521" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18519" CreationDate="2017-09-10T23:26:50.887" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Perhaps this could be somewhat useful in practice games, but I don't see much point in having a minimum time control in real games. Some reasons (let's assume the minimum is 10 seconds but could be any number):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;sometimes you are doing forced moves (or known opening moves) where having to wait 10 seconds would be annoying&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;conversely, there are situations where you have to think a lot longer than 10 seconds, so here the minimum time would not help at all&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;you might run into the problem that you end up trying to make moves just after 10 seconds (particularly in time trouble), with the added annoyance that you now also have to keep track of when 10 seconds have passed&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Overall I think that you should rather try other methods like sitting on your hands, analyzing your games with respect to time spent on moves (and relation to blunders), etc. to improve your time management. An important factor in improving your chess is also to know when to spend more time and when you can make more or less automatic moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2017-09-10T23:26:50.887" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18522" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18519" CreationDate="2017-09-11T02:17:34.050" Score="-3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Back in the day they had 10 second tournaments.  Every ten seconds, a bell would ring, and you had to make your move during the bell sound.  A second before or after meant an immediate loss.  If this time control was popular enough to hold a tournament, I'm sure that your time control would be successful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12449" LastActivityDate="2017-09-11T02:17:34.050" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18523" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18520" CreationDate="2017-09-11T06:32:59.440" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Lichess.org&lt;/strong&gt; has a feature called &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/blog/V0KrLSkAAMo3hsi4/study-chess-the-lichess-way&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;studies&lt;/a&gt;. You can add your game as a &lt;em&gt;chapter&lt;/em&gt; in a study, invite your friends as contributors and make that study public or private. You have a (rather weak) engine analysis, a small database of chess games, and a chat. You can annotate your game, add alternative lines and so on.&#xA;The multi-chapter option makes that very useful for much more than game analysis. I'm using it primarily for opening studies.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is a screenshot from my &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/study/4Aqycynk&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Caro-Kann study&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/cAVmj.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/cAVmj.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not free, but also worth a mention: &lt;strong&gt;Chess24.com&lt;/strong&gt; has an analysis board for premium members. Very similar features, but there is only one game per analysis, not multiple chapters. The database is better (larger and properly cleaned up names, lichess is sometimes a bit annoying in that regard). You have to &lt;em&gt;start a broadcast&lt;/em&gt; (see screenshot), and then you can invite your friend who doesn't need a premium membership for that. The downside is that the chat vanishes once you stop the broadcast.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/gC4QH.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/gC4QH.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In both cases you can move pieces on the board, and all other participants can see and annotate these moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8472" LastActivityDate="2017-09-11T06:32:59.440" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18526" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16455" CreationDate="2017-09-11T13:28:11.010" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;16) Qh5 should have been delayed and Nf5 is even more forcing. How to consider this fact?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Whenever you play your move you must make sure about the strongest reply from your opponent: d5 is the freeing move which black was willing to play ASAP, and Qh5 allowed that. True, the queen on kingside makes it look scary, but Nf5 attacks the queen and the h6-pawn. In the entire game, the knight on d4 could not move on to a better square because other pieces occupied those squares. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T18:51:17.467" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T18:51:17.467" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="18527" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18528" CreationDate="2017-09-11T18:08:03.527" Score="4" ViewCount="2002" Body="&lt;p&gt;Many beginners open the game with moving their a or h pawns. &#xA;Is there any benefit at all with this opening? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14257" LastActivityDate="2017-09-19T17:12:08.963" Title="Is there any benefit at all to a rooks' pawn opening?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18528" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18527" CreationDate="2017-09-11T18:39:11.603" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;Apart from the fact that you can develop your rooks (which &lt;strong&gt;isn't good&lt;/strong&gt; so early in the opening, because your rooks might become vulnerable), the only other &quot;benefit&quot; I can think of is that &lt;code&gt;a4&lt;/code&gt; (more likely than &lt;code&gt;h4&lt;/code&gt;) can be useful after some transposition to a normal opening, e.g. stopping black from playing &lt;code&gt;b5&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That being said, black can comfortably choose (thanks to your gift of a tempo) an opening where &lt;code&gt;a4&lt;/code&gt; is useless.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The other move &lt;code&gt;1. h4&lt;/code&gt; is even more problematic because castling kingside is much more frequent than castling queenside and &lt;code&gt;h4&lt;/code&gt; weakens the pawn shield in front of your king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I don't think it's worth calling these possibilities benefits at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13055" LastActivityDate="2017-09-11T18:39:11.603" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18529" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18531" CreationDate="2017-09-11T19:24:12.833" Score="6" ViewCount="131" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know a player that is already a registered player of a National Chess Federation (NCF). Is he required to register separately with FIDE to obtain a FIN?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to [FIDE's rules,](&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=180&amp;amp;view=article%5D&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=180&amp;amp;view=article]&lt;/a&gt; I'd say no&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All NCFs are required to register their players with FIDE. The FIDE Regulations on Registration, Transfers and Eligibility shall apply. All players who already have a FIDE ID number before 1 January 2015 are considered to be registered.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I've been asked by a FIDE arbiter to tell the player the procedure (and that he has to pay 25€ for that). The player I'm talking about has been registered already in the NCF for 2016 and 2017.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1253" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-01-05T21:37:04.587" LastActivityDate="2021-01-05T21:37:04.587" Title="Should a member of a national chess federation register himself separatef for FIN?" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;fide&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="18530" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18527" CreationDate="2017-09-11T20:34:24.570" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;1.a3 is a semi-respectable opening called Anderssen's Opening, and since he beat Paul Morphy(&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1019048&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1019048&lt;/a&gt;) with it, it cant be so ridiculous. He used it to enter an English opening or a reversed Sicilian. I think Larsen once did the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is at least one trap. Black plays a reversed Scotch 1.a3 e5,2.e4 Nf6, 3.Nc3 d5, 4eXd Nxd4 5. Qh5. This move is playable, and very lively, on the fourth move of the regular Scotch, but it's not played much because of 5. Ndb5 which is not available here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Beginners would probably disapprove of 1.a3, on the grounds that it does not give them enough freedom of action to put their Rook en prise.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-09-16T18:53:26.837" LastActivityDate="2017-09-16T18:53:26.837" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18531" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18529" CreationDate="2017-09-11T20:46:23.853" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The section you quote from the FIDE handbook is very clear. It is the responsibility of the individual national chess federations to register their players. It is not the responsibility of the players. It is the responsibility of the national federations to pay the fee required by FIDE to FIDE.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That said some national federations will have more than one level of national federation membership for individuals. They will charge more for FIDE registered players than for non-registered FIDE players and recoup some or all of the FIDE registration fees that way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Different federations handle this in different ways and it is nothing to do with FIDE. It might be helpful if you said which national federation you are talking about.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: Doing some research I see that you are Italian. The Italian chess federation (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.federscacchi.it/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Federazione Scacchistica Italiana&lt;/a&gt; or FSI) has 3 levels of membership, junior (10 Euros), ordinary (25 Euros) and adult (42 Euros). You must be a member of the FSI to play chess in Italy organized by the FSI. Normally you join (and pay) for membership through your chess club. If you want to play in a congress but are not a member of the FSI (through a club or otherwise) then you have to pay the congress your FSI membership fee.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that the membership fees I have quoted are old and may be out of date.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2017-09-11T21:05:15.990" LastActivityDate="2017-09-11T21:05:15.990" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18532" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18527" CreationDate="2017-09-11T21:13:49.627" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;GM Hector once opened with &lt;code&gt;1. h4&lt;/code&gt; and (with a bit of luck) won the game:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Dinard open&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;1986.??.??&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Jonny Hector&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Paul Boersma&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. h4 Nf6 2. d4 d5 3. Nf3 c5 4. Bg5 cxd4 5. Bxf6 gxf6 6. Qxd4&#xA;Nc6 7. Qa4 Rg8 8. c3 Qb6 9. Qc2 Bf5 10. Qxf5 Qxb2 11. e3 e6&#xA;12. Qxh7 Rg4 13. Qd3 Qxa1 14. Qc2 Rc8 15. Nfd2 Nb4 16. Qd1 f5&#xA;17. cxb4 Qb2 18. Bb5+ Kd8 19. Ke2 Qxb4 20. Bd3 Rxg2 21. Nf3&#xA;Bd6 22. Nbd2 Ke7 23. Qa1 Bg3 24. Rf1 f4 25. e4 Rc3 26. exd5&#xA;Qc5 27. d6+ Kd7 28. Qb2 Qe3+ 29. Kd1 Qxd3 30. Ne5+ Kxd6&#xA;31. Nxd3 Rxd3 32. Qb4+ 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I thought one idea behind the move &lt;code&gt;1. h4&lt;/code&gt; was to play the Albin Countergambit with the extra attacking move &lt;code&gt;h4&lt;/code&gt;,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Title &quot;Reversed Albin&quot;]&#xA;[Startply &quot;12&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. h4 d5 2. d4 c5 3. e4 dxe4 4. d5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but according to my database this has actually never happened in a real game, so I might be mistaken.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The book &lt;em&gt;Groteske Schacheröffnungen: Wagnis mit Methode&lt;/em&gt; (1991, in German) by Stefan Bücher has a chapter about &lt;code&gt;1. h4&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1485" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2017-09-12T16:57:48.403" LastActivityDate="2017-09-12T16:57:48.403" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18533" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2017-09-11T22:12:47.927" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Macintosh, or Mac, is a personal computer from Apple that run the OS/X operating system.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9025" LastEditorUserId="9025" LastEditDate="2017-09-11T22:32:25.683" LastActivityDate="2017-09-11T22:32:25.683" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18534" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2017-09-11T22:12:47.927" Score="0" Body="Questions regarding using chess software on the Apple Macintosh." OwnerUserId="9025" LastEditorUserId="9025" LastEditDate="2017-09-12T11:18:50.267" LastActivityDate="2017-09-12T11:18:50.267" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18535" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18536" CreationDate="2017-09-12T08:17:19.047" Score="2" ViewCount="545" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to evaluate positions statically. So I've written a code which evaluates from a FEN string. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However it is a tedious to copy FEN and then paste for a complete game. So I wanted to know if it is possible to write such a code which can run with &lt;code&gt;WinBoard&lt;/code&gt; and which could evaluate the current position statically. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It does not need to generate moves,be able to play a game, deep evaluation ,quiescent search etc. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm also not interested in performing &lt;code&gt;King Safety&lt;/code&gt;/&lt;code&gt;Mate Threats&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the program should just give me only a number as output when loaded in &lt;code&gt;WinBoard&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a simple way to perform such a task or a simple enough engine I can modify to do this? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12944" LastEditorUserId="10295" LastEditDate="2017-09-12T13:05:09.170" LastActivityDate="2017-09-13T05:25:55.700" Title="How to write a simple chess engine to statically evaluate a position?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;programming&gt;&lt;evaluation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18536" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18535" CreationDate="2017-09-12T08:56:17.270" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why can't you just make a Winboard chess engine, but evaluate a position statically??&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You will need to follow the Winboard protocol:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.gnu.org/software/xboard/engine-intf.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.gnu.org/software/xboard/engine-intf.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although everybody uses alpha-beta/nega-max pruning, but Winboard doesn't know your code. All you need to do is just give an evaluation score from your static function.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your &quot;engine&quot; will wait for the &lt;code&gt;go&lt;/code&gt; Winboard command. Print thinking output like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;ply score time nodes pv&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;where score will be your static evaluation score. Your engine doesn't need to make a move, Winboard will wait forever for a move. You can always setup a new position in Winboard.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2017-09-12T08:56:17.270" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18537" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18519" CreationDate="2017-09-12T10:23:01.160" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Bronstein delay is similar your suggestion. It is formally described in the following way:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;6.3.2&#xA;  The time saved by a player during one period is added to his time available for the next period, where applicable. In the time-delay mode both players receive an allotted ‘main thinking time’. Each player also receives a ‘fixed extra time’ with every move. The countdown of the main thinking time only commences after the fixed extra time has expired. Provided the player presses his clock before the expiration of the fixed extra time, the main thinking time does not change, irrespective of the proportion of the fixed&#xA;  extra time used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(see the &lt;a href=&quot;http://rules.fide.com/images/stories/Laws_of_Chess_2017_-_PB_approved_v4.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE rules&lt;/a&gt; , approved in 2017)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only difference between your suggestion and the Bronstein delay mode (called &quot;time-delay mode&quot;), lies in that playing before one's extra time expires simply leads to forfeiting the remaining extra time. This rule might correspond to your idea of a clock mode, which does not tempt players to &quot;blitz out&quot; their moves, but allows them to finish their games reasonably quickly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other sources of information about Bronstein clock include:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/what-is-the-difference-between-delay-increment-and-bronstein-delay&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;ChessCom&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_control#Compensation_.28delay_or_increment_methods.29&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9082" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-09-12T11:17:14.730" LastActivityDate="2017-09-12T11:17:14.730" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18539" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18527" CreationDate="2017-09-12T17:22:56.473" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are benefits and drawbacks to each move in chess.  The benefits to h4 or a4 is that they grab space, control squares in the enemy territory, and increase the scope of the rook.&#xA;Some of the drawbacks to opening like this are:&#xA;1. They don't fight for the center&#xA;2. They impact castling options&#xA;3. They don't promote the development of the Bishops&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2017-09-12T17:22:56.473" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18540" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12480" CreationDate="2017-09-12T17:53:16.487" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Although it isn't chessbase 13, &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessable.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.chessable.com/&lt;/a&gt; is a site, designed to help you learn chess, that works in a similar manner to that described in the question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The student gets books (usually openings, but there are some endgames) and learns variations - but the default learning pattern is to be shown random positions from those variations, and &quot;guess the move&quot;.  (This isn't really a &quot;guess,&quot; since you learned the variation, but still...)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The base part of the site is free (and a number of books are free); there are other learning elements that are only available to paid members.  The &quot;library&quot; is growing, including works by several FMs, IMs, and even a few GMs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;TL;DR&lt;/strong&gt;: It's the same idea as the question, just not on as wide a database.  (One could argue this allows the student to focus on an area; one could also argue it's not as powerful.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;For full disclosure, I have nothing to do with the site itself, though I am a paying member: I've just had such luck with it I'm like a walking billboard.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7897" LastActivityDate="2017-09-12T17:53:16.487" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18541" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18507" CreationDate="2017-09-12T17:55:04.377" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are a couple antidotes to non-open Sicilians. 1. lock down on the dark long-diagonal 'typically with fianchetto' and often sinking a knight in on d4; combined with queenside expansion or 2. try to get d5 in; this is a strategic goal in most Sicilians and with the Bishop on c4 to tempo against White doesn't have the e4-e5 response.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2017-09-12T17:55:04.377" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18542" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18496" CreationDate="2017-09-12T18:04:51.810" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Take a look at chesstempo.  You can use their online database free up to so many moves and then they want you to pay to search deeper.  I used to use chesslab.com which was great for searching positions, but it uses a vulnerable version of flash -- if you can deal with that it is a nice resource.&#xA;chess-db.com claims the biggest database (which is not necessarily good, do you want the kids under 12 tournaments?).  The site is fast and has a lot of features.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastEditorUserId="14202" LastEditDate="2017-09-13T17:17:26.277" LastActivityDate="2017-09-13T17:17:26.277" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18543" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18496" CreationDate="2017-09-13T04:20:37.747" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chessbase is by far the best preparation tool - almost all of the top players use it for a reason (as well as most serious players in general).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wouldn't recommend using the online version though, for a couple of reasons.  As you have found, a few features seem to be missing.  In addition, having wifi access is required if you want to look someone up (which can be inconvenient if you're at a tournament and need to prepare for an opponent quickly).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The ChessBase program is the way to go.  I've been using it for around 10 years now and it's been great.  It's straightforward to look any player up in any database.  The program also supports the top chess engines (like Komodo, Stockfish), and allows you to save your games in databases.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The normal version would be fine.  The more premium versions give access to a few perks, but I think it's overrated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2017-09-13T04:20:37.747" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18544" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18535" CreationDate="2017-09-13T05:25:55.700" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The easiest way to accomplish the goal is to download Winboard with its own engine.  The GUI can be set to output the current evaluation.  You can recode the eval function to your own parameters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Evaluation&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Evaluation&lt;/a&gt; provides some resources about programming the eval function.  However, getting a well-documented source code for the eval function I find easier.  Avoid the higher engines like Crafty, but a simple one like &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.tckerrigan.com/Chess/TSCP/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.tckerrigan.com/Chess/TSCP/&lt;/a&gt; is easy to understand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Winboard is the best option, but you can create your own interface.  You could modify a PGN viewer to return an eval after every move or put the FENs into a PGN file and loop through all games.  You could download &lt;a href=&quot;https://www-lucaschess.rhcloud.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www-lucaschess.rhcloud.com/&lt;/a&gt; or another chess interface which can analyse a game and use its output.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the actual question, the chess eval is broken up into many factors.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The easiest is material:  just loop over the board and count the material.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Next is pawn structure.  Assign a penalty to isolated and doubled pawns.  A bonus for passed pawns.  (Pawns near the king is under king threats.)  This can be modified further by changing the penalty based on the distance from the center.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Next is the pieces in relation to the pawns.  A bonus for a rook on a open or half-open file.  A bonus for a bishop which isn't trapped behind its own pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Next is the pieces in relation to the center.  The closer to the center the piece is, the more it is worth.  This also includes a bonus for a rook on the seventh rank.  (Trapping the king would improve this score, but this would fall under king safety.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a bonus for having a bishop pair and the values of the minor pieces (the bishops and the knights) are adjusted based upon how closed the center is.  A bonus can be added for more mobility (either absolute or for each piece) and/or space control.  (Concentrated force(s) is a factor normally reserved for mating threats.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a short list.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12449" LastActivityDate="2017-09-13T05:25:55.700" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18545" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2017-09-13T09:18:41.160" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Reti Opening is an opening which has three main purposes:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;To play in the hypermodern fashion, controlling the d4-e5 squares.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;To act as a transpositional device, preventing Black openings where e7-e5 can be played.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;To play a reversed Black setup&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-09-13T12:03:15.627" LastActivityDate="2020-09-13T12:03:15.627" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="18546" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2017-09-13T09:18:41.160" Score="0" Body="the chess opening characterized by white's opening move 1. Nf3." OwnerUserId="4588" LastEditorUserId="4588" LastEditDate="2017-09-13T11:01:48.310" LastActivityDate="2017-09-13T11:01:48.310" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18547" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2017-09-13T12:10:29.053" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-09-13T12:10:29.053" LastActivityDate="2017-09-13T12:10:29.053" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18548" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2017-09-13T12:10:29.053" Score="0" Body="Questions related to chess diagrams." OwnerUserId="4588" LastEditorUserId="4588" LastEditDate="2017-09-13T13:02:29.213" LastActivityDate="2017-09-13T13:02:29.213" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18549" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2017-09-13T12:12:16.937" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-09-13T12:12:16.937" LastActivityDate="2017-09-13T12:12:16.937" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18550" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2017-09-13T12:12:16.937" Score="0" Body="chess played with relatively short time controls, ranging from 10 to 60 minutes for each side." OwnerUserId="4588" LastEditorUserId="4588" LastEditDate="2017-09-13T13:02:38.267" LastActivityDate="2017-09-13T13:02:38.267" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18551" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18496" CreationDate="2017-09-13T13:56:36.550" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;A really good preparation tool that I use is &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.365chess.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;365chess&lt;/a&gt;. Although it is not better than ChessBase since it offers less features and games, it is online and free, the only requisite to access their big database is to register an account. You can filter games by player, but searching by player and position is a bit awkward, you may need to first go to his games and play out the moves to reach the position you want.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3890" LastActivityDate="2017-09-13T13:56:36.550" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18552" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18493" CreationDate="2017-09-13T17:30:11.807" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe you should rethink your assertion: &quot;if 3. e3, Black can reply 3...Nc6 and some exchange of knights are usually occuring and the black queen is coming right in the middle of the board.&quot;&#xA;In the position with the Queen on d4 you can play Nc3 followed by Be3 pushing the queen out with tempo.   Therefore, I think you should consider the plan with e3 as you seem to not like the lines where b4 is ignored and Black creates the f6, e5, d4 pawn chain.&#xA;In GM Mihail Marin's excellent 3 book series on the English Opening there is much related to the Reti, and you can find in-depth coverage of there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2017-09-13T17:30:11.807" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18553" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2017-09-13T19:05:02.450" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-09-13T19:05:02.450" LastActivityDate="2017-09-13T19:05:02.450" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18554" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2017-09-13T19:05:02.450" Score="0" Body="the chess opening characterized by the position that arises after 1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.Nc3 e6. The same position can be reached by different move orders." OwnerUserId="4588" LastEditorUserId="4588" LastEditDate="2017-09-13T20:17:55.120" LastActivityDate="2017-09-13T20:17:55.120" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18555" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2017-09-13T19:15:01.453" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-09-13T19:15:01.453" LastActivityDate="2017-09-13T19:15:01.453" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18556" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2017-09-13T19:15:01.453" Score="0" Body="the chess opening characterized by the moves 1.e4 b6." OwnerUserId="4588" LastEditorUserId="4588" LastEditDate="2017-09-13T20:18:28.890" LastActivityDate="2017-09-13T20:18:28.890" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18557" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2017-09-13T19:24:02.083" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-09-13T19:24:02.083" LastActivityDate="2017-09-13T19:24:02.083" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18558" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2017-09-13T19:24:02.083" Score="0" Body="Emanuel Lasker was the World Chess Champion from 1894 to 1921." OwnerUserId="4588" LastEditorUserId="4588" LastEditDate="2017-09-13T21:29:36.197" LastActivityDate="2017-09-13T21:29:36.197" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18559" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-09-14T00:08:04.670" Score="-2" ViewCount="227" Body="&lt;p&gt;How many moves ahead did Carlsen see his Queen sacrifice in the final game, and how many moves ahead did the strongest chess program spot it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14269" LastActivityDate="2017-09-14T16:02:27.853" Title="What was the lookahead capability for Carlsen's Queen sacrifice?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="6" ClosedDate="2017-09-15T00:52:13.260" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18560" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18559" CreationDate="2017-09-14T07:23:26.960" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Assuming you are talking about &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1848607&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this game&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Short answer&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Carlsen probably &lt;em&gt;calculated&lt;/em&gt; the sacrifice only a few moves before actually playing it, when he was pondering over 46.Rc1 or 47.Qxf4. However, he must have had the pattern with Qh6+ in a corner of his mind for much longer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Detailed answer&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since Carlsen's position looked winning for a while, at least since the operation starting from 31.Bxd7 and ending with 37.Nxb3, he did not have to be calculating his own attacking possibilities very far ahead: his main goal during that phase (moves 38-46) was to consolidate his material advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think he calculated the variation that occured in the game until the end before grabbing the pawn with 47.Qxf4. Since allowing both Black's major pieces on his second rank looks risky, that's when he needed to be back up his choices with precise calculation. Moreover, he played the moves afterwards pretty fast. Of course, the calculation itself is very simple for players of that level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, it is very possible that he had the pattern Qh6+! in a corner of his mind for at least ten moves. With Rf5 and Ph5 on the board, and black having a weak back rank, Carlsen's pattern recognition must have scanned the kingside for possible mating ideas, and spotted a long time ago that a check on h6 would be decisive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as computers are concerned, they can find the mating line in a few milliseconds if you feed them the position after 46...Ra7, and they will confidently grab the f4-pawn and give a question mark to 48...Qf2. Before move 46, play doesn't have a forced character at all, so they cannot predict what will appear on the board, but their trees of variations must be full of mates starting from Rc8+ and Qh6 anytime the 8-th rank and the c1-h6 diagonal are cleared.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastEditorUserId="14079" LastEditDate="2017-09-14T16:02:27.853" LastActivityDate="2017-09-14T16:02:27.853" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18561" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18527" CreationDate="2017-09-14T09:56:25.910" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;1. h3&lt;/code&gt; has the potential to transpose into normal openings, as it is quite common to play &lt;code&gt;h3&lt;/code&gt; to prevent &lt;code&gt;...Bg4&lt;/code&gt; pinning a knight on &lt;code&gt;f3&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example this move order quickly becomes a four knights Italian game:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. h3 e5 2. e4 Nf6 3. Nc3 Bc5 4. Nf3 Nc6 5. Bc4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One other transposition possibility is that white can play the Grob, but that opening has a dubious reputation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. h3 e5 2. g4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2017-09-14T09:56:25.910" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18562" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18565" CreationDate="2017-09-14T19:28:27.787" Score="4" ViewCount="194" Body="&lt;p&gt;the program should display a PGN file, be fast to run, and absolutely be expected to be callable by the command line (passing the PGN file as an argument).&#xA;The reason is I began to create a concept map about an opening, and I can call from this map some EXE programs. I would like to display some games as examples of the nodes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I already searched, but till now I found nothing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1855" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-09-15T08:35:47.607" LastActivityDate="2017-09-15T08:35:47.607" Title="Windows chess program that can load PGN files per command line" Tags="&lt;windows&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18563" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18511" CreationDate="2017-09-15T01:36:58.660" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;The bishops must be on opposite colors and the king must be between the rooks for Chess960.  Each bishop can go on one of four squares, so 4x4.  Then the queen can go on one of the six remaining squares, so 4x4x6.  Now there are five squares for the knights, but the knights are interchangable, so there are 5x4/2 = 10 ways. So that makes 4x4x6x10 = 960.  Now there are three squares for the king and rooks, but since the king must go between the rooks, and the rooks are interchangable, there is only one distinct way for the rooks and king, so the total is 960.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14278" LastActivityDate="2017-09-15T01:36:58.660" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18565" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18562" CreationDate="2017-09-15T06:22:09.887" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are at least two Windows programs that you can start per command line: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.playwitharena.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Arena&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://scid.sourceforge.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;SCID&lt;/a&gt; (or &lt;a href=&quot;http://scidvspc.sourceforge.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;SCID vs PC&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Arena&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To open a PGN file in Arena, call it with:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Arena.exe -loadgamefile &quot;path/to/sample.pgn&quot;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are many more options listed in the help file under &lt;em&gt;Miscellaneous/Command Line Parameters&lt;/em&gt;. &lt;code&gt;analyze&lt;/code&gt; is particular useful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;SCID and SCIDvsPC&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both come with the same very small set of command line options. Again see the help file.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Open a PGN file with:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;scid.exe &quot;path/to/sample.pgn&quot;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Arena's command line support is far superior in my opinion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8472" LastActivityDate="2017-09-15T06:22:09.887" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18571" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18193" CreationDate="2017-09-16T22:34:46.193" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The book &quot;An Opening Repertoire for the Attacking Player&quot; by Raymond Keene and David Levy covers the Max Lange as the &quot;backbone of the repertoire&quot;. The book was published in 1984 and is now out of print but &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.amazon.co.uk/Opening-Repertoire-Attacking-Player/dp/0713445866&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Amazon lists several second hand copies&lt;/a&gt; available. I based my repertoire around this book in the 1980's and rated it highly. It is probably a bit out of date now but could give you an interesting aggressive way of looking at the opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2017-09-16T22:34:46.193" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18572" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18573" CreationDate="2017-09-17T06:25:22.780" Score="4" ViewCount="449" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a programming question related to chess syzygy endgame tables. I believe that it is better suited on chess stack exchange than on SO because it is too specific to chess and asks for a recommendation. Also I noticed that there are enough people with a lot of programming knowledge here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have a syzygy WDL endgame table (just for example I uploaded the &lt;a href=&quot;https://ufile.io/rpzsu&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;file KPPPPvK.rtbw&lt;/a&gt;) and for my own purposes I need to iterate over all FENs in this table and see the results for each position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a library (preferably with python interface) to do this? Most of the libraries that I have seen so far only allows to probe a table.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="703" LastActivityDate="2017-09-17T06:50:05.547" Title="How to iterate over all FENs in Syzygy table?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;programming&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18573" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18572" CreationDate="2017-09-17T06:44:32.337" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;To my knowledge the Syzygy tablebase doesn't have a function that magically returns all FEN positions from a file. I don't think it should because that's not what tablebase is designed for.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, there's nothing stopping you from constructing all possible FENs. You know from the file name you have four pawns in the endgame. All you need to is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Use &lt;code&gt;python-chess&lt;/code&gt; package&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Generate all possible FENs&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;For each FEN, use the Python package for probing&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please take a look at:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://talkchess.com/forum/viewtopic.php?start=0&amp;amp;t=61003&amp;amp;topic_view=flat&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://talkchess.com/forum/viewtopic.php?start=0&amp;amp;t=61003&amp;amp;topic_view=flat&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;for FEN generation. &lt;code&gt;Sven Schüle&lt;/code&gt; is an experienced engine programmer, so please study his code and adjust it if necessary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;// Usage example: fengen.exe [-m|--mirror] Q r n 2p &#xA;// See http://www.talkchess.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=61003 &#xA;#include &amp;lt;cstdio&amp;gt; &#xA;#include &amp;lt;cstdlib&amp;gt; &#xA;#include &amp;lt;cstring&amp;gt; &#xA;#include &amp;lt;cctype&amp;gt; &#xA;#include &amp;lt;algorithm&amp;gt; &#xA;#include &amp;lt;vector&amp;gt; &#xA;&#xA;// definitions for chess board representation &#xA;&#xA;typedef int Color; &#xA;enum { White = 0, Black, Empty }; &#xA;&#xA;typedef int Piece; &#xA;enum { NoPiece = 0, Pawn, Knight, Bishop, Rook, Queen, King }; &#xA;&#xA;typedef int Square; &#xA;enum { &#xA;    A1 = 0,B1,C1,D1,E1,F1,G1,H1, &#xA;    A2,    B2,C2,D2,E2,F2,G2,H2, &#xA;    A3,    B3,C3,D3,E3,F3,G3,H3, &#xA;    A4,    B4,C4,D4,E4,F4,G4,H4, &#xA;    A5,    B5,C5,D5,E5,F5,G5,H5, &#xA;    A6,    B6,C6,D6,E6,F6,G6,H6, &#xA;    A7,    B7,C7,D7,E7,F7,G7,H7, &#xA;    A8,    B8,C8,D8,E8,F8,G8,H8, &#xA;    FF = 0xff &#xA;}; &#xA;&#xA;Color opponent(Color c) { return c ^ Black; } &#xA;Square makeSquare(int file, int rank) { return 8 * rank + file; } &#xA;&#xA;struct Board { &#xA;    Color   color[64]; &#xA;    Piece   piece[64]; &#xA;    bool isPiece(Square s, Color c, Piece p) const { return color[s] == c &amp;amp;&amp;amp; piece[s] == p; } &#xA;    void set(Square s, Color c, Piece p) { color[s] = c; piece[s] = p; } &#xA;    void clear(Square s) { set(s, Empty, NoPiece); } &#xA;    Board() { for (Square s = A1; s &amp;lt;= H8; s++) clear(s); } &#xA;&#xA;    void printFEN() &#xA;    { &#xA;        int nEmpty = 0; &#xA;        for (int r = 7; r &amp;gt;= 0; r--) { &#xA;            for (int f = 0; f &amp;lt;= 7; f++) { &#xA;                Square s = makeSquare(f, r); &#xA;                if (color[s] == Empty) { &#xA;                    ++nEmpty; &#xA;                } else { &#xA;                    if (nEmpty &amp;gt; 0) { &#xA;                        fputc('1' + nEmpty - 1, stdout); &#xA;                        nEmpty = 0; &#xA;                    } &#xA;                    static char const pieceSym[] = &quot;.pnbrqk&quot;; &#xA;                    if (color[s] == White) { &#xA;                        fputc(toupper(pieceSym[piece[s]]), stdout); &#xA;                    } else { &#xA;                        fputc(tolower(pieceSym[piece[s]]), stdout); &#xA;                    } &#xA;                    nEmpty = 0; &#xA;                } &#xA;            } &#xA;            if (r &amp;gt; 0) { &#xA;                if (nEmpty &amp;gt; 0) { &#xA;                    fputc('1' + nEmpty - 1, stdout); &#xA;                    nEmpty = 0; &#xA;                } &#xA;                fputc('/', stdout); &#xA;            } &#xA;        } &#xA;        fputs(&quot; w &quot;, stdout); &#xA;        if (isPiece(E1, White, King) &amp;amp;&amp;amp; isPiece(H1, White, Rook)) fputc('K', stdout); &#xA;        if (isPiece(E1, White, King) &amp;amp;&amp;amp; isPiece(A1, White, Rook)) fputc('Q', stdout); &#xA;        if (isPiece(E8, Black, King) &amp;amp;&amp;amp; isPiece(H8, Black, Rook)) fputc('k', stdout); &#xA;        if (isPiece(E8, Black, King) &amp;amp;&amp;amp; isPiece(A8, Black, Rook)) fputc('q', stdout); &#xA;        fputs(&quot; - 0 1\n&quot;, stdout); &#xA;    } &#xA;}; &#xA;&#xA;// definitions needed to set up the initial position &#xA;// usually more simple than that but we need to iterate over each group of pieces of same type &#xA;&#xA;struct PieceInitDescr { &#xA;    int     nPieces; &#xA;    Square  initSqr[8]; &#xA;}; &#xA;&#xA;PieceInitDescr pieceInitDescr[2][1+6] = { &#xA;    { &#xA;        { 0, { FF,FF,FF,FF,FF,FF,FF,FF } }, &#xA;        { 8, { A2,B2,C2,D2,E2,F2,G2,H2 } }, &#xA;        { 2, { B1,G1,FF,FF,FF,FF,FF,FF } }, &#xA;        { 2, { C1,F1,FF,FF,FF,FF,FF,FF } }, &#xA;        { 2, { A1,H1,FF,FF,FF,FF,FF,FF } }, &#xA;        { 1, { D1,FF,FF,FF,FF,FF,FF,FF } }, &#xA;        { 1, { E1,FF,FF,FF,FF,FF,FF,FF } }, &#xA;    }, &#xA;    { &#xA;        { 0, { FF,FF,FF,FF,FF,FF,FF,FF } }, &#xA;        { 8, { A7,B7,C7,D7,E7,F7,G7,H7 } }, &#xA;        { 2, { B8,G8,FF,FF,FF,FF,FF,FF } }, &#xA;        { 2, { C8,F8,FF,FF,FF,FF,FF,FF } }, &#xA;        { 2, { A8,H8,FF,FF,FF,FF,FF,FF } }, &#xA;        { 1, { D8,FF,FF,FF,FF,FF,FF,FF } }, &#xA;        { 1, { E8,FF,FF,FF,FF,FF,FF,FF } }, &#xA;    }, &#xA;}; &#xA;&#xA;// data related to command line parameters &#xA;&#xA;int missing[2][1+6] = { &#xA;    { 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0 }, &#xA;    { 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0 }, &#xA;}; &#xA;&#xA;bool mirror = false; &#xA;&#xA;template &amp;lt;bool Mirror&amp;gt; &#xA;void enumerate(Board &amp;amp; b, Color c, Piece p) &#xA;{ &#xA;    Color cMiss = (Mirror ? opponent(c) : c); &#xA;    Color cStop = (Mirror ? White : Black); &#xA;&#xA;    PieceInitDescr const &amp;amp; d = pieceInitDescr[c][p]; &#xA;&#xA;    // setup initial pieces of given color and type &#xA;    for (int i = 0; i &amp;lt; d.nPieces; i++) { &#xA;        b.set(d.initSqr[i], c, p); &#xA;    } &#xA;&#xA;    if (p == King &amp;amp;&amp;amp; c == cStop) { &#xA;        b.printFEN(); &#xA;    } else { &#xA;        // generate all permutations of missing pieces for the given color and piece type &#xA;        int nPresent = d.nPieces - missing[cMiss][p]; &#xA;        std::vector&amp;lt;bool&amp;gt; v(d.nPieces); &#xA;        std::fill(v.end() - nPresent, v.end(), true); &#xA;        do { &#xA;            // remove missing pieces &#xA;            for (int i = 0; i &amp;lt; d.nPieces; i++) { &#xA;                if (!v[i]) { &#xA;                    b.clear(d.initSqr[i]); &#xA;                } &#xA;            } &#xA;            // recursive call &#xA;            Color cNext = (p == King) ? opponent(c) : c; &#xA;            Piece pNext = (p == King) ? Pawn : p + 1; &#xA;            enumerate&amp;lt;Mirror&amp;gt;(b, cNext, pNext); &#xA;            // restore removed pieces &#xA;            for (int i = 0; i &amp;lt; d.nPieces; i++) { &#xA;                if (!v[i]) { &#xA;                    b.set(d.initSqr[i], c, p); &#xA;                } &#xA;            } &#xA;        } while (std::next_permutation(v.begin(), v.end())); &#xA;    } &#xA;&#xA;    // clear initial pieces &#xA;    for (int i = 0; i &amp;lt; d.nPieces; i++) { &#xA;        b.clear(d.initSqr[i]); &#xA;    } &#xA;} &#xA;&#xA;int main(int argc, char * argv[]) &#xA;{ &#xA;    // scan parameters (illegal parameters are ignored for simplicity) &#xA;    for (int i = 1; i &amp;lt; argc; i++) { &#xA;        char const * arg = argv[i]; &#xA;        if (strcmp(arg, &quot;-m&quot;) == 0 || strcmp(arg, &quot;--mirror&quot;) == 0) { &#xA;            mirror = true; &#xA;        } else &#xA;        if (strlen(arg) &amp;lt;= 2) { &#xA;            int number  = (strlen(arg) == 1) ? 1         : arg[0] + 1 - '1'; &#xA;            char p      = (strlen(arg) == 1) ? arg[0]    : arg[1]; &#xA;            Color color = (p == toupper(p)) ? White : Black; &#xA;            Piece piece = NoPiece; &#xA;            switch (tolower(p)) { &#xA;                case 'p': piece = Pawn;     break; &#xA;                case 'n': piece = Knight;   break; &#xA;                case 'b': piece = Bishop;   break; &#xA;                case 'r': piece = Rook;     break; &#xA;                case 'q': piece = Queen;    break; &#xA;                // king must not be missing &#xA;                default: break; &#xA;            } &#xA;            if (piece != NoPiece &amp;amp;&amp;amp; number &amp;gt;= 1 &amp;amp;&amp;amp; number &amp;lt;= pieceInitDescr[color][piece].nPieces) { &#xA;                missing[color][piece] = number; &#xA;            } &#xA;        } &#xA;    } &#xA;&#xA;    // enumerate combinations of missing pieces &#xA;    Board b; &#xA;    enumerate&amp;lt;false&amp;gt;(b, White, Pawn); &#xA;    if (mirror) { &#xA;        enumerate&amp;lt;true&amp;gt;(b, Black, Pawn); &#xA;    } &#xA;    return 0; &#xA;}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2017-09-17T06:50:05.547" LastActivityDate="2017-09-17T06:50:05.547" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18574" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-09-17T19:09:37.660" Score="20" ViewCount="7273" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a 1400 rated player. We have 4 players in our club rated 2000+. If I sat down and played 100 games against one of them, I would lose 100 games. So, how does losing 100 games against one of these strong players EVER make me a better player? [sadly, none of them ever gives a post mortem].&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14294" LastActivityDate="2017-09-19T17:14:33.180" Title="Why do chess coaches encourage their students to play stronger players?" Tags="&lt;training&gt;" AnswerCount="9" CommentCount="7" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18575" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18574" CreationDate="2017-09-17T19:56:16.407" Score="24" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's partially who the opponent is, and partially how much better the opponent is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've gone from ~1750 to almost 1900 in the last year (approximate as ECF grades - 142-158 to those who understand ECF). In that time I've played a lot of players who are appreciably better than me. &lt;strong&gt;But not massively better&lt;/strong&gt;; most have been 1850-2100. That meant I could still give them a challenge, even if I was stretched to hold them for the whole game. In fact a major moment in that improvement was I when I had to play my first ~2050+ player in that period, I was sort of doing OK but a little worse, and then I suddenly realised he a had let me off the hook. This 2050 player had made a mistake! I can not explain quite how much confidence that gave me, and I went on to draw the game, and in fact missed a win along the way. The whole episode set me up for the season, and the game is below.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So that's the first point, good enough so that you see and understand their plans, and that they stretch you, but also not so good that it's wham, bang, thank you mam. The second point is that a lot of the players I have played in this period have been kind enough to go through the games with me. This helped me understand their expectations, and often showed me ideas that I had not even considered. This was coupled with has the 2100+ player at my (small) club helping me, The later in particular clarified my impressions of my opponents plans, helped me identify some of my tactical weaknesses and showed me what both of us had missed over the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So for you I suspect 2000+ is a bit rich. But look for players who are&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Around 100-300 higher than you &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Are kind enough to spend at least a few minutes afterwards going through the games &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;And then take the games to your trainer to check your opponent wasn't talking rubbish&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyway here's the game that I referred to earlier. It's at move 19 I had my epiphany.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;A Match in the League&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Ian Bush&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Somebody Scary&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1/2-1/2&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;148&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;178&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 c5 2.d4 cxd4 3.c3 dxc3 4.Nxc3 e6 5.Nf3 Bc5 6.Bc4 Nc6 7.O-O a6 8.Qe2 &#xA;    ( 8.e5 )&#xA;8...b5 9.Bb3 Nge7 10.e5 Ng6 11.Ne4 Be7 12.Nd6+ Bxd6 13.exd6 O-O 14.Bg5 f6 &#xA;15.Bd2 Nge5 16.Rac1 Bb7 17.Nxe5 fxe5 18.f4?! &#xA;    ( 18.Bc2 )&#xA;18...exf4 19.Bxf4 Qh4 &#xA;    ( 19...Nd4! )&#xA;20.g3 Qh3 &#xA;    ( 20...Nd4! )&#xA;21.Rfd1 Qf5 22.Bc2 Qf6 23.Qh5 g6 24.Qc5 Rab8?! &#xA;    ( 24...Rac8! )&#xA;25.Bb3 Rfc8 26.Qe3 Rf8 27.Rc5 Rbc8 28.h4 Na5 29.Rxc8 Rxc8 30.Bxe6+ dxe6 &#xA;31.d7 Rf8 32.d8=Q &#xA;    ( 32.Bg5! Nc4 33.Bxf6 Nxe3 34.d8=Q Rxd8 35.Rxd8+ )&#xA;32...Rxd8 33.Rxd8+ Qxd8 34.Qxe6+ Kg7 35.Be5+ Kh6 36.Bf4+ Kg7 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7726" LastActivityDate="2017-09-17T19:56:16.407" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18576" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18574" CreationDate="2017-09-17T23:37:22.000" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think any coach would say that you should only play opponents rated 600+ higher than you. Here's for example what Dan Heisman says, which I think makes a lot of sense:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Play mostly opponents 100-200 points higher than you - you need to be punished for your mistakes so you won't make them again...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;...but don't completely stop playing opponents 100-200 points lower than you - they are the ones whom you have to learn to beat consistently.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.danheisman.com/improvelearn.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.danheisman.com/improvelearn.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my opinion, it is also easier to stay motivated if you win at least some of the time. Playing much higher rated opponents from time to time is interesting, but I wouldn't do it exclusively.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12523" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2017-09-17T23:37:22.000" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18577" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18574" CreationDate="2017-09-18T08:50:03.080" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Ultimately you have to do the analysis of &quot;why did he do that&quot; in game and under time pressure. Having it explained to you immediately post game is counterproductive. You need the opportunity to go away and analyze the game and then if you still do not understand it come back and talk to your opponent or coach about it. That way you learn to do the analysis yourself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Consistently playing much stronger players gives you access to much richer learning experiences in this respect. If you remove the artificial objective of rating and aim to become a better player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14301" LastActivityDate="2017-09-18T08:50:03.080" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18578" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18574" CreationDate="2017-09-18T09:42:21.490" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You learn from defeats when your mistakes are punished and made plain for you to see. You learn nothing from victories where your mistakes go unpunished and your ego is given an unwarranted boost.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No coach, by the way, advises that you play against opposition which is 600 points higher rated. That said you can still learn a lot from games against them. Try, for instance, to play lines which give you problems when you face them to see how the stronger player handles them. Then you can take that new knowledge back into your games against lower rated opposition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2017-09-18T09:42:21.490" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18579" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-09-18T13:00:53.480" Score="4" ViewCount="400" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;] &#xA;&#xA;1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Nf3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here we reach slav defense main line and theory goes with 4...e6&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a way to avoid theory as black I used to play in blitz 4...g6, goes with bishop fianchetto and castle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As white I'm a d4 player and although not many people deviate 4...e6 with 4...g6 this could happen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Searching in professional games I didn't see many games with 4...g6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is: How white proceed after 4...g6? (there must be a reason why professionals rare play this move)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2984" LastEditorUserId="10295" LastEditDate="2017-09-18T13:07:51.097" LastActivityDate="2017-09-22T22:26:08.277" Title="unusual line slav defense" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;slav-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18580" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18579" CreationDate="2017-09-18T13:17:27.963" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I play both sides of the &lt;a href=&quot;/questions/tagged/slav-defense&quot; class=&quot;post-tag&quot; title=&quot;show questions tagged &amp;#39;slav-defense&amp;#39;&quot; rel=&quot;tag&quot;&gt;slav-defense&lt;/a&gt; and have not come across 4...g6 as the dark square bishop usually belongs on b4 (in the mainline Dutch), d6 (in the exchange) or maybe e7.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Having said that, this is how I would play&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[StartPly &quot;8&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. c4 c6 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. Nf3 g6 5. cxd5 cxd5 (5...Nxd5 {This transposes to the Grunfeld} 6. e4 Nxc3 7. bxc3) 6. Bf4 Bg7 {Aiming to play Qc1, Bh6 and trade dark square bishops} (6...Nh5? 7. Bxb8 Rxb8 8. Qa4+ {This wins a pawn}) 7. Qc1 (7. Qd2 Ne4 8. Nxe4 dxe4 9. Ng1 Qxd4)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;N.B. This analysis has not been checked by an engine&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2017-09-18T13:17:27.963" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18581" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18579" CreationDate="2017-09-18T13:18:04.867" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;https://chesstempo.com/game-database.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this database&lt;/a&gt;: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The next move for white will be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;5.e3&lt;/code&gt; with 40% of win, 46% of draw and 14% of lose. (3538 games were played like that)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;5.cxd5&lt;/code&gt; with 48.5% of win, 41.5% of draw. (344 games were played like that)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example for a game which start like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;1st Rottal Open 2017&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Pfarrkirchen GER&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;6.1&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2017.4.17&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Haba, Petr&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Riediger, Martin&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1/2-1/2&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]    &#xA;1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.Nc3 g6 5.cxd5 cxd5 6.Bf4 a6 7.h3 Bg7 8.e3 Nc6 9.Be2 O-O 10.O-O Bf5 11.Rc1 Ne4 12.Na4 Bd7 13.Qb3 b5 14.Nc5 Nxc5 15.Rxc5 e6 16.Bd6 Re8 17.Ne5 Nxe5 18.dxe5 f6 19.Bc7 Qe7 20.Bd6 Qd8 21.Bc7 Qe7 22.Bd6 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10295" LastActivityDate="2017-09-18T13:18:04.867" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18582" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18496" CreationDate="2017-09-18T13:21:34.460" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess Assistant = cheaper, more package combinations, superior analysis functions. Chessbase = Easier searches+saving+use+flexible membership, not buggy+superior support, uploads newest games on starter package, on-line latest games on all. As and ex-2100 chess player I find TONS within CA I relish but actually struggle and become frustrated with, whilst wishing for CB to reach those multiple+individual depths, if far more comfortable from a more reliable and quality+workable fact. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14307" LastActivityDate="2017-09-18T13:21:34.460" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18583" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-09-18T16:26:43.533" Score="8" ViewCount="1964" Body="&lt;p&gt;10 years ago I used to learn from an old version of Fritz on DVD. It was great. It had a teaching move while you played full games and it also had automated curriculum to teach you openings, endings, and tactics.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At this point in my life I've fully rejected all Windows and MacOS operating systems in favor of Linux. I'd like to have a chess learning experience like I did with Fritz, though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've signed up for Chessbase/Fritz online, but it doesn't seem to have any of the many learning features that I had a decade ago. Do I have any other good options?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm looking for a richer learning experience than just an engine analyzing my games post-hoc. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10550" LastActivityDate="2020-04-07T12:20:40.590" Title="Software-based training on Linux" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;training&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="8" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18584" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18574" CreationDate="2017-09-18T17:01:55.190" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Although I've never had serious coaching, most advice I have had revolves around making mistakes and attempting to learn from them. (Alongside structured opening and endgame theory etc)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is best done by playing, and inevitably by playing opponents graded higher than yourself - although 600 points higher is unnecessary and you are unlikely to learn much from players that much higher rated. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, if you regularly lose to a player rated higher than yourself - you may find a pattern of ways in which you are losing, for example, creating weak pawn structures for yourself, or slow development. Not only working out what is missing from your game, you may also see aspects of opponents games which you then bring into your own playing style.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've played for about 12 years now and the year in which I improved the most was when I was playing in a higher division against players averaging around 200-300 points higher than myself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also regarding opponents not giving post mortems, although useful, going through the game yourself to attempt to work out where you may have gone wrong or could improve can be just as useful than a player explaining how they beat you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14308" LastActivityDate="2017-09-18T17:01:55.190" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18585" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16222" CreationDate="2017-09-18T17:45:00.277" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure what is discussed in the examples above constitutes a pawn chain as Nimzo spoke of it. As such, Nimzo's advice to attack the base does not yet apply. A chain implies a fixed interlocking of pawns, where the base is the base and no other pawn can be promoted to the base. In the examples shown here, if you were to attack the &quot;base&quot;, the other side could reply with a pawn move that would potentially provide a NEW base. In the example above, if black replied 3...b5 attacking the &quot;base&quot; - white could reply 4. b3, wherein the real base does not yet exist since there is still pawn tension. In this case, there is no &quot;base&quot; to attack (yet) since the pawns are not in their final, locked position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14309" LastEditorUserId="14309" LastEditDate="2017-09-18T17:51:19.930" LastActivityDate="2017-09-18T17:51:19.930" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18586" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18574" CreationDate="2017-09-18T17:58:44.383" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think because by beating lower rated players you run the risk of ingraining bad habits. A higher rated player is apt to punish your play for doing something you shouldn't do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14309" LastActivityDate="2017-09-18T17:58:44.383" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18587" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-09-18T19:43:47.227" Score="11" ViewCount="1165" Body="&lt;p&gt;One of the FIDE rules states that if someone's flag falls, and &lt;em&gt;there exists a legal sequence of moves such that the other player mates the first player&lt;/em&gt;, then the position is a win for the second player. This got me thinking whether this rule can theoretically be hard to enforce for arbiters, i.e. whether it is possible that the arbiter cannot (easily) decide whether a game is winnable for one side or not: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Do there exist &quot;hard&quot; chess puzzles where the objective is to find a sequence of moves of &lt;em&gt;any&lt;/em&gt; length, with both sides helping, so that one side wins? So essentially helpmate puzzles, but without specifying the number of moves until mate? Or is it always rather straightforward to determine whether, from a given position, there is a sequence of moves leading to mate?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Perhaps one way to make the job for the arbiter difficult is to not keep track of previous moves, and then present a position to the arbiter (when the flag falls) where it is difficult to prove whether one side can legally castle or not, or take en passant or not etc. - if such positions can only be won when say en passant is available, the arbiter (or the second player claiming a win on time, rather than a draw) would have to construct a proof game to show that the game can indeed be won.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In any case: I cannot come up with examples which are hard helpmates of any length, but I am in no way an expert when it comes to helpmates. Any thoughts or comments are appreciated!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit&lt;/strong&gt;: This question is not about what is sufficient mating material, but about whether positions exist for which it is hard to decide if a mating sequence exists. This is more in the territory of artificially constructed helpmates/proof game problems than about simple, realistic adjournment situations for arbiters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="444" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-04T22:30:40.593" LastActivityDate="2021-05-02T15:50:38.807" Title="Helpmate of arbitrary length" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;problems&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18588" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16222" CreationDate="2017-09-18T20:10:21.990" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Indeed, this is Nimzovitchs advice that is being quoted, Before dismissing it as out of date it might be worth reflecting that Nimzovitch would still win your club championshio without breaking a sweat. And his reasoning still holds good. You want the opponents base to be somewhere that you can attack it. But progress often proceeds by first formulating general rules and then finding the exceptions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is an excellent discussion of this topic in John Watson's &quot;Modern Chess Strategy, Advances since Nimzovitch&quot;. And you don't need to know the conclusion. You need to consider the arguments on both sides.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastActivityDate="2017-09-18T20:10:21.990" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18589" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18574" CreationDate="2017-09-18T20:27:05.130" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am not sure how one coach's opinion makes it that all chess coaches are like that. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The best advice that I would give you as a coach would be &quot;Play as many Open tournaments as possible&quot; because in the Open category, you are likely to meet equal, weaker, stronger players and at the end of the tournament, you would have a lot of points to improve upon. Play with me on Chess dot com and I will be happy to give you a post-mortem of the game at the end of it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14311" LastActivityDate="2017-09-18T20:27:05.130" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18590" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18597" CreationDate="2017-09-18T21:49:05.287" Score="7" ViewCount="6349" Body="&lt;p&gt;Does anyone know a site where I can type the moves with keyboard, hide the board and only see the score sheet?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I want to play blindfolded. I used to play a lot but I want to play online.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2984" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-12-26T14:40:57.520" LastActivityDate="2019-12-26T14:47:09.637" Title="Online blindfold chess" Tags="&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;blindfold-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="18591" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18587" CreationDate="2017-09-18T22:09:06.617" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;One pawn is sufficient for helpmate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A bishop plus a knight is sufficient for helpmate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A king plus bishop can deliver helpmate if the other side has at least one piece which can limit the king's mobility without stopping the bishop check and without checking the other king, so knight or bishop of the other colour.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similarly a king plus knight can deliver helpmate if the other side has a bishop or a knight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A lone king cannot deliver mate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any major piece is sufficient for helpmate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Castling is irrelevant for helpmate. En passant is only relevant in blocked positions and players are obliged by 11.11 to help the arbiter in such situations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In any case: I cannot come up with examples which are hard helpmates&#xA;  of any length, but I am in no way an expert when it comes to&#xA;  helpmates.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Helpmates of arbitrary length are always trivial because it is either just a case of the mating side queening a pawn and mating or it is just a matter of one side getting rid of the right material and moving into position to be mated. What is difficult is helpmate in a set number of moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Perhaps one way to make the job for the arbiter difficult is to not&#xA;  keep track of previous moves&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is nonsense!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Article 8.1.1&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In the course of play each player is required to record his own moves&#xA;  and those of his opponent in the correct manner, move after move, as&#xA;  clearly and legibly as possible, in the algebraic notation (Appendix&#xA;  C), on the ‘scoresheet’ prescribed for the competition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As an arbiter when I see somebody not recording the moves I first ask them to bring their scoresheet up to date with all the moves. If they refuse I impose a time penalty. Repeated refusal results in loss of the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note also article 11.11 of the FIDE Laws of Chess:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Both players must assist the arbiter in any situation requiring&#xA;  reconstruction of the game, including draw claims.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2017-09-19T11:06:41.060" LastActivityDate="2017-09-19T11:06:41.060" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18592" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18590" CreationDate="2017-09-18T22:34:41.007" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess24.com allows you to play blindfold in a different way by just hiding the pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you want to move you drag an invisible piece in the normal way. When your opponent moves you see a line on the board connecting the starting and ending squares of the move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2017-09-18T22:34:41.007" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18593" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-09-19T01:16:59.623" Score="1" ViewCount="228" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I use scid to study an opening I do the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;start new game&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;play through the opening up to a position I am interested in&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;search database for &quot;current board&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am sure there must be a more efficient way to do this. Is it possible to save positions and use these saved positions in searches?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2018-03-23T19:56:45.100" Title="Saving opening tabiyas in scid" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;scid&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18594" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18599" CreationDate="2017-09-19T01:58:30.193" Score="1" ViewCount="618" Body="&lt;p&gt;My father likes to play chess but doesn't have any friends who would play with him. I suggested him playing it on tablet device but he doesn't like the touchscreen interface. He needs to touch the pieces. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Has anyone built a physical chess simulator (electricity powered, AI included) that will move the pieces on its own? I didn't find on googling.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT.&lt;/strong&gt; on further thinking I think it's hard to have such technology without using robots (one cannot just slide all the pieces - like Knights). May be if the board blinks lights below the piece it wants to move (with green light) and target location with another light (say red), then we can move opponents piece on the physical board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit 2&lt;/strong&gt; Found this!: [Novag Obsidian] &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sAvribpPvA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sAvribpPvA&lt;/a&gt; that kinda solves the problem. If you know better alternatives please post in answers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14314" LastEditorUserId="14314" LastEditDate="2017-09-19T02:43:12.250" LastActivityDate="2017-09-19T09:46:17.893" Title="What are some physical chess simulators?" Tags="&lt;chessboards&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18595" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18594" CreationDate="2017-09-19T02:09:16.693" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Do you mean?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qS5EPbsmCXs&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qS5EPbsmCXs&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/M6m22.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/M6m22.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't know how you'd get his robot, but it won't be affordable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Have you seen this page?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Robots&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Robots&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2017-09-19T02:09:16.693" CommentCount="11" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18596" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18285" CreationDate="2017-09-19T05:11:48.420" Score="1" Body="&lt;h2&gt;Chess With Friends&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is available as an app for android and iOS. There is a time restriction of 5 days per move. Falling foul of the time restriction forfeits the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The game has it's own ELO system independent of any official ones and it's not tremendously accurate (I am rated about 200 points higher than my real rating)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But it's matching system works really well and it picks opponents for me who are a good match for my skill level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am currently playing about 12 games simultaneously. Each night after dinner I will sit down and play one move in each game. If I miss a night because I'm busy or tired it's no big deal. Sometimes I won't be able to play a move because my opponent has not moved yet, but I will still spend a few minutes looking at the position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That style of play won't suit everyone, but the app is definitely worth a look.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a free version which has 100% functionality but has quite a lot of ads. The paid version is quite cheap and worthwhile in my opinion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11943" LastActivityDate="2017-09-19T05:11:48.420" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18597" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18590" CreationDate="2017-09-19T07:09:06.577" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;In addition to Brian's answer about &lt;a href=&quot;http://chess24.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chess24.com&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/blog/shootfilm/you-can-play-blindfold-chess-too&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;You can play blindfold chess too&lt;/a&gt; at  &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chess.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are the instructions how to activate blindfold on &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chess.com&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;Tools&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;Options&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;Designs&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;Board Colors&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Select &lt;code&gt;BlindAll&lt;/code&gt; from the drop down menu for pieces&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Then &lt;code&gt;apply&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More info can be found &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/blog/shootfilm/you-can-play-blindfold-chess-too&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10295" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-12-26T14:47:09.637" LastActivityDate="2019-12-26T14:47:09.637" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="18598" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18574" CreationDate="2017-09-19T08:48:37.670" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe it all comes down to the learning process. Having the possibility to play against players that are stronger than you is a strong asset that you should use most of the time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let me give you an example. You have 1400ELO. If you play against 2k+ you'll get destroyed every game. After that when you play against 1.6k and you are close to their level and learn the small differences of why you get beat. The other thing you do learn is how much of a difference there is between 1.6k and 2k+. It shows you how much you could learn and at what pace.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The important thing in this is seeing the differences and what you have to learn, just like at school/university at the first class you see the whole curriculum for the year. It sets your mind at peace and harmony and prepares it for the task at hand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this helps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14318" LastActivityDate="2017-09-19T08:48:37.670" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18599" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18594" CreationDate="2017-09-19T09:46:17.893" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;First of all you need to decide whether you want a &lt;strong&gt;standalone/traditional chess computer&lt;/strong&gt; which basically allows you to play only against the built-in AI or whether you want a more &lt;strong&gt;flexible solution&lt;/strong&gt; which allows you to play against humans over the internet or to play against or analyze with chess engines or database software on a PC.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;standalone/traditional chess computer&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This includes the Novag Obsidian you linked or Saitek Kasparov or many others. As far as I am aware these type of computers have been largely deprecated in favour of PC/tablet/internet solutions. Still you should be able to find one new or second hand. With these types of computers the AI moves are usually indicated by LED, either on the side of the board (row/column) or by LEDs for each square. Apparently there is one (Phantom Force Electronic Chess by Excalibur) which even moves the pieces on its own, but does not have great reviews.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you get one of these types of computers, make sure that the playing strength is sufficient for your purpose. Most of them can be beaten easily by somewhat experienced club players of say 2100 ELO or so.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;flexible solution&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The cheapest solution is to get a cheap board and pieces for around USD 20 and use a PC/laptop/tablet to run a chess program or to access an online chess site to play against computer or human players. Of course this would mean that you still have to transfer manually your and your opponent's moves between the physical board and the computer/tablet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can get rid of half the work, if you buy an electronic chess board (&quot;eboard&quot;) which you can connect to a PC. &quot;DGT&quot; is a major manufacturer of these boards and they ain't cheap. With such a board your moves are automatically transferred to the computer and/or online web site. You still have to manually move your opponent's piecesthough. There are several systems for indicating opponent moves. In any case you could take them from the PC/laptop/tablet screen, but there also exist chess clocks (DGT Pi) which can display moves or chess boards with LED (Revelation II). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Playing strength is not an issue at all with any of these since modern chess engines that you run on a PC/tablet/... are stronger than the strongest humans.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2017-09-19T09:46:17.893" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18600" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18590" CreationDate="2017-09-19T14:10:55.760" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;In addition to the other answers, &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;lichess&lt;/a&gt; allows you to do this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Select the menu (three stacked lines to the right of your profile name), select Preferences, select Game Display, and at the bottom turn on Blindfold Chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7897" LastActivityDate="2017-09-19T14:10:55.760" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18601" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18607" CreationDate="2017-09-19T15:21:35.017" Score="6" ViewCount="346" Body="&lt;p&gt;I came across &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/drills/practice/king-and-pawn-endgame-active-king&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this puzzle&lt;/a&gt; today: white to play and win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For those who don't know this, it's a &lt;em&gt;drill&lt;/em&gt; from chess.com: you have to play against the computer and win this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The thing is, I really have no clue of what I should be aiming for. Even when following a computer's recommendations, I don't understand the solution.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do you think this position can be explained with words or concepts? If so I'd love to hear about it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;8/5pk1/6p1/8/2K2PP1/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12364" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-03-12T18:28:10.463" LastActivityDate="2020-03-12T18:28:10.463" Title="Can someone explain this endgame puzzleto me with words?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;pawn-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="18602" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18601" CreationDate="2017-09-19T16:00:09.557" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the starting position, White's King is not helping the advance of his pawns. With any pawn move, the Black King is too close and can force at least a Draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The question becomes, which King move, Kd5 seems the most natural to me (and turns out to be the winning move) because you're moving your King closer to everything. You allow your King to start to attack his pawns and prevent black's King from escaping towards the center. (There are some puzzles where moving your King backwards (i.e. Kd3) is the hard to find winning move, but this isn't one)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After Kd5, Black doesn't have a good move. Kf6, allows White to move his King up the board (Kd6), blocking the Black King's advance and forcing a retreat back behind the pawns (Kg7). (The only pawn move instead of a retreat loses to white pushing his newly attacked pawn).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If instead, Black responded with Kf8, White still marches on with Kd6. Black is forced back to g7 (Black continuing along the back rank with Ke8 opens the door for White's invasion of the black pawn structure with Ke5 followed by Kf6).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Eventually, White's King forces his way to the back rank, and behind the pawn at the end of the chain (Kf8), forcing the Black King away from the pawn on f8 and winning the pawn and the game. Meanwhile, White's connected pawns support each other against a King or pawn advance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11105" LastEditorUserId="11105" LastEditDate="2017-09-19T17:36:34.940" LastActivityDate="2017-09-19T17:36:34.940" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18604" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18527" CreationDate="2017-09-19T17:12:08.963" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Rook pawn openings are not as inherently useful as they are detrimental.&#xA;The only value I can see for them is if your goal is to get the other player out of book as soon as possible. This goal implies that you are a better positional/tactical player than your opponent and that stranding him without a roadmap is all you would need to win; otherwise, you are stranding yourself as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14309" LastActivityDate="2017-09-19T17:12:08.963" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18605" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18574" CreationDate="2017-09-19T17:14:33.180" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;To expose poor play and mistakes. To punish. To push the player to play better moves and learn new ideas.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All the obvious stuff.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once you divorce yourself from your love of your rating, it's pretty obvious.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: FYI - 200 point difference is sufficient. You should not play players consistently rated 600+ points above you. 200 is a good threshold. The same goes for reverse - don't play players frequently rated 200+ points below you. If you have the choice, always &quot;play up&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10233" LastActivityDate="2017-09-19T17:14:33.180" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18606" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18450" CreationDate="2017-09-19T17:29:38.493" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;An initial assessment of material is always a good idea, followed by subsequent layers of assessment: possible tactics, pawns structure, piece activity, etc....&#xA;I usually look at my side as say to myself: Q-M-M-M-R-R (M being minor pieces - no other distinction at this point); then the opponents side: Q-M-M-R-R...In this case, I'm up a piece so trading down is my major strategy - any move I make should fall within this theme. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And yes, being beaten over and over again initially is a part of the process, sorry to say.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14309" LastActivityDate="2017-09-19T17:29:38.493" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18607" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18601" CreationDate="2017-09-19T17:31:37.193" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;To solve this you need to ask yourself 2 questions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) How could the position change so that Black can draw? White must try and avoid this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) How could the position change so that Black can no longer protect his pawn(s)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) Suppose White just pushes g5. Then Black can never be forced away from the defence of f7. Either the white king will move between e7 and e8 when the black king can just move between g7 and g8 (opposition doesn't matter) or white king will come to f6 when the black king can just oscillate between g8 and f8 and white can make no progress. White must avoid this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also if the f pawns end up on f7 (black) and f6 (white) and black can stop white's king getting to e7 then white will not be able to make progress. For example white king on d6 black king on e8 black to move plays Kd8 taking the opposition preventing white progress. On this side black has the space to always keep the opposition. White must also avoid this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) If white can achieve a position with the f pawn ahead of the g pawn with the king advanced to the e file one square ahead of the f pawn then black can be continuously zugzwanged into undefending his back pawn and white will win. This is because the white f pawn takes away a square from the black king and stops it triangulating when the white king triangulates.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The same applies if the g pawns come off, the f pawns are locked and the white king reaches the same position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another possibility is if the white king can reach the eighth rank and get behind the black pawns because his pawns will be more advanced.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, the way to start is with Kd5. The aim is to get the king to e7 and then push the f pawn to try and get it to f6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If black responds with Kf6 then after Kd6 from white black is in zugzwang and we get in Ke7 next move. Then white just pushes the f pawn up to f6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If black responds with Kf8 or Kg8 then white plays Kd6 and if black keeps his king on f8 and e8 keeping the white king out of e7 then white pushes the f pawn. If black exchanges then white can push up to f7 when black will be zugzwanged into allowing Ke7 when white will win. If black pushes his pawn to g5 then white must not push f6 immediately or black will gain the opposition and it will be a draw. Instead white should outflank the black king with Kc7 aiming for Kc8. Then white can gain the opposition and play f6 if black defends the eighth rank with Ke8. If black abandons the eighth rank with Kd6 then white moves along the eighth rank and takes the f pawn winning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A cunning ploy by black would be to reply to Kd5 with Kh6 with the aim of f5 if white continues on with Kd6. Then either white swaps pawns and black gets the opposition or white pushes g5+ and black comes round the back with Kh5 and they take each others' back pawn and it is a draw. White must instead reply to Kh6 with Ke5. Then black must play Kg7 to stop the white king coming in to f6. Now white plays Kd6 and we are back to plan A.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, the problem relies very heavily on zugzwanging black in positions where the advanced white f pawn takes away a key square from the black king and also the idea that once the white f pawn is advanced if black abandons the eighth rank then white takes it and wins the black f pawn and will queen well before black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2017-09-19T17:31:37.193" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18608" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18609" CreationDate="2017-09-19T18:08:35.083" Score="9" ViewCount="914" Body="&lt;p&gt;In chess, noting the more common countries I've played (Indian Russia, Australia, France, US,  China, Japan etc) I've noticed some similarities in their play style. Like how Japanese players, from what I've seen, play aggressive pawns; France and US play the more typical tactics, China doesn't play gambits, and overall isn't rich in strategy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While these may just be coincidence, Is there enough similarity within a nationality that it's notable?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12876" LastActivityDate="2017-09-27T09:45:03.523" Title="Do different nationalities have &quot;notably&quot; different play styles?" Tags="&lt;style&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18609" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18608" CreationDate="2017-09-19T18:55:10.020" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Consider this quote from &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_Chess_School&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;wikipedia&lt;/a&gt; regarding the Soviet Chess School:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The main contribution of the Soviet School of Chess was &lt;strong&gt;not the style&lt;/strong&gt; of players but their emphasis on &lt;strong&gt;rigorous training and study of the game&lt;/strong&gt;, i.e. considering chess a sport rather than an art or science.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Emphasis is mine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Given that chess is taught as a school subject in Russia, then this points to there &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; being trends in chess style by country.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Moreover there seems to be little evidence that openings named after regions are done so because of their popularity there. If this were the case, then Scandinavians would tend to play the &lt;a href=&quot;/questions/tagged/scandinavian-defense&quot; class=&quot;post-tag&quot; title=&quot;show questions tagged &amp;#39;scandinavian-defense&amp;#39;&quot; rel=&quot;tag&quot;&gt;scandinavian-defense&lt;/a&gt;, which has a different style to the &lt;a href=&quot;/questions/tagged/italian-game&quot; class=&quot;post-tag&quot; title=&quot;show questions tagged &amp;#39;italian-game&amp;#39;&quot; rel=&quot;tag&quot;&gt;italian-game&lt;/a&gt;. In fact, the Scandinavian is called such because it was first seriously analysed by &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scandinavian_Defense#History&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Scandinavian masters&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2017-09-19T18:55:10.020" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18610" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18622" CreationDate="2017-09-19T20:42:02.720" Score="17" ViewCount="6969" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to play chess with my wife, but we have different ranks (I am approximately 1900, and she is ~1500 (probably less based on comments)). Normally, our games are boring for me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I tried to balance the game by playing without the queen, but I still win the game. I am looking for some tactics to balance the game based on ranking difference?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14328" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-08-17T01:47:12.707" LastActivityDate="2020-08-17T01:49:16.820" Title="How to balance the game for uneven players" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;" AnswerCount="10" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="18611" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18610" CreationDate="2017-09-19T21:18:05.627" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;For several years I organized an odds-giving tournament for my club during the summer months with a sliding scale from pawn-and-move to queen based on rating difference. For good measure we added a time handicap as well. I do think that if you can beat your wife at Queen odds then the difference in your ratings must be much more than you say.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Equalizing the chances under those conditions, in a way that is fun for both of you, calls for extreme measures. Have you tried giving her the right to retract her move a certain number of times in each game?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-08-17T01:48:56.090" LastActivityDate="2020-08-17T01:48:56.090" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="18612" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18610" CreationDate="2017-09-19T21:21:49.883" Score="20" Body="&lt;p&gt;(Disclaimer: this is my first post on this network, and in all honesty both you and your wife could probably beat me at a game. But I do have years of experience of finding handicaps to make chess games more even and enjoyable.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Time advantage&lt;/strong&gt;: this probably depends on your situation. Some people are great at untimed and terrible at rapid, but tinkering about with time differences until you find a healthy compromise has the positive of being very flexible as it can be fine-tuned very precisely. I find the pressure is greatest on the stronger player when you use a time per move system rather than a time per game - and the weaker player can play untimed.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Further piece advantages&lt;/strong&gt;: I've never needed to go much beyond a queen handicap, but I imagine two rooks or a queen and minor piece would be the next step.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Blindfold chess&lt;/strong&gt;: you could try playing without being able to look at the board (while your wife can), if you've ever done blindfold chess before or feel you have enough experience/memory to try. A somewhat easier version might be to only allow you to look at the board while it's your turn, which only makes sense if you're using time controls.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Help her to improve&lt;/strong&gt;: it may be that the two of you playing against each other doesn't make sense with such a large difference in skill. How about you play practice matches where you offer her tips and guidance, allow her to undo any blunders and teach her until she is at a similar skill level?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14329" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-08-17T01:49:16.820" LastActivityDate="2020-08-17T01:49:16.820" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="18613" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18587" CreationDate="2017-09-19T22:00:20.427" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;A simple but partial counterexample, showing that if the history of the past moves is unknown, it can theoretically be impossible to decide whether one side can win or not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/k7/2p5/KpP5/pP6/P7/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If either side loses on time in this position with white to move, the other side would legally win if there is a legal sequence of moves to mate the opponent. However, it seems that white is in a stalemate position, and thus it's a draw. Unless black's last move was b7-b5, in which case cxb6 (en passant) would lift the stalemate and easily allow either side to win with the opponent's assistance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this situation, the immediate history of the position resolves the issue though - the arbiter could ask either player what was the last move, and use this information to draw the right conclusion. So perhaps there exist better counterexamples where drawing conclusions is even harder...   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="444" LastActivityDate="2017-09-19T22:00:20.427" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18614" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18610" CreationDate="2017-09-19T22:21:29.500" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The way I have always done this is with time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Start with 5 minutes each on the clocks, no increments. Then the winner gets one minute less and loser one minute more for each subsequent game until equilibrium is reached (players start to alternate wins). If it gets down to 9 v 1 and 9 still wins then the loser gets 9 min 30 seconds and the winner 30 seconds. I've never had it go beyond that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: I just got back from the Isle of Man prize giving and after tournament party. IM Lawrence Trent (~2400) was playing blitz / bullet with Caruana with 3 minutes to Caruana's 1 minute and losing in a proportion of about 2 to 1. He then took on Nakamura with 5 minutes to Nakamura's 45 seconds with similar results. So, this is the normal way of handicapping even at the highest levels.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2017-10-01T21:47:01.000" LastActivityDate="2017-10-01T21:47:01.000" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18615" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17576" CreationDate="2017-09-19T22:40:48.610" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the endgame engines will give one of three kinds of evaluation according to what they &quot;see&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) #31 - mate in 31. Material balance is irrelevant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) 0.0 - they see a forced draw. Material balance is irrelevant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) +2 or -1 or whatever - they don't see mate and they don't see a forced draw. They do see a material imbalance. Any concrete result is outside their move threshold and realistically any one of three results is possible. If the evaluation doesn't change much over a prolonged number of moves it shows that one side has a material advantage but can't use it to win as far as the computer can &quot;see&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Remember computers don't have judgement. They are just calculating machines. They can only tell you what they calculate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2017-09-19T22:40:48.610" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18616" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18587" CreationDate="2017-09-19T23:03:13.487" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Positions where a player would have adequate mating material but unable to achieve a helpmate are very rare.  In almost call such cases, both sides will have a very limited number of possible moves until either the game was over (due to stalemate, checkmate, or draw by repetition) or the position opened up enough that a helpmate could easily be achieved.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While one could have a position where both sides have a substantial number of moves and yet no mate would be possible, e.g. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;k1bB/8/2p1p1p1/1pPpPpP1/1P1P1P2/8/8/K1Bb w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[each side has promoted at least one pawn for a bishop]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One may have to study the board for a little while to determine whether there is any means of either breaking the pawn barrier or producing a checkmate with pieces that are stuck on one side of it, but I wouldn't expect that any deep analysis should be required.  Simply figure the range of squares that each piece could occupy without breaking the pawn barrier, and see if any piece could break the pawn barrier or if pieces could be arranged to create a checkmate.  In the situation above, checkmate can be seen to be impossible because none of White's pieces except the king can ever control any light squares, the two kings can't get close, there's no dark square the Black king could occupy which doesn't have at least two light escape squares, and there's only one Black piece that could block a light escape square.  Similar issues would prevent Black from mating White.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There may be some situations which would require a little care to determine whether a mate was possible, but analysis should be straightforward.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BTW, it's possible to achieve a position where White could have all his starting pieces, and be able to play hundreds of moves without a stalemate or threefold repetition, and yet be unable to achieve a helpmate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;nb2kBBN/2p1PRRN/1pP2PPQ/1P4PP/8/8/4P3/6K1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black can move his bishop back and forth and there's no danger of his becoming unable to do so, White can move his king all around the lower part of the board, and White may also push his e pawn four times.  White's king can never get in a position to capture anything, the pawn can neither capture nor give check, and no other pieces can do anything at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, there is one scenario where things might be complicated for an arbiter: if a position arises where the game will be drawn if it reaches a certain number of moves, the question of whether a helpmate can be executed before the game is drawn could be tricky to resolve since it would basically turn into a normal &quot;helpmate in N&quot; problem.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a further observation, it is possible, at least in contrived situations, for one side to have a helpmate available only if castling is possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;6Bk/5P1P/7P/8/8/1p1p1p2/pp1P1P2/brn1K2R w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White can only helpmate black by castling.  If White does anything else, Black's next move must be &lt;code&gt;...Ne2++&lt;/code&gt;.  After &lt;code&gt;O-O Ne2+&lt;/code&gt;, however, White can move &lt;code&gt;Kh2&lt;/code&gt;, escaping the check, and helpmate will become trivial.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2698" LastEditorUserId="2698" LastEditDate="2019-06-18T22:32:41.547" LastActivityDate="2019-06-18T22:32:41.547" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="18617" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18610" CreationDate="2017-09-20T00:53:50.937" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't believe chess really lends itself to such handicapping. She could have a time advantage but it probably wouldn't help since beginners lack ability, not time. More time spent analyzing inefficiently will not substantively help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would recommend you switch games, frankly. Shogi, a cousin of chess has a tried-and-true handicapping system. It's a great game, too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pieces in Shogi are weaker on the whole, somewhat more numerous, and never really leave the game - they switch sides. Thus a handicap of a piece in Shogi is less severe than a similar handicap in chess, and with more pieces, there is more freedom in the handicapping.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you can see in these links, this isn't ad hoc. They're serious about both players having a challenging game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handicap_(shogi)&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handicap_(shogi)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://eric.macshogi.com/shogi/handicap/handicap-intro.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://eric.macshogi.com/shogi/handicap/handicap-intro.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://users.cms.caltech.edu/~mvanier/hacking/gnushogi/gnushogi_13.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://users.cms.caltech.edu/~mvanier/hacking/gnushogi/gnushogi_13.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="13149" LastEditDate="2017-09-20T11:42:40.243" LastActivityDate="2017-09-20T11:42:40.243" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18618" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-09-20T10:37:15.150" Score="8" ViewCount="1262" Body="&lt;p&gt;One of the important factors to take into account is 'control' of squares, ranks, files and diagonals. But what exactly, does it mean when we say that a player 'controls' space? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason I ask is that many, many times, I have seen commentators say 'white plays Re1 to control the open e-file'. I was looking at a game some time ago, and sure enough, this comment was made. But when I looked at the postion, the only other square that the rook could occupy WITHOUT BEING CAPTURED was e2. It couldn't occupy any other square along that file, all of which were covered by black. So, how can you say that the rook was 'controlling' the e-file? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14294" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2017-09-20T17:56:07.543" LastActivityDate="2017-09-20T17:56:07.543" Title="What is 'control?'" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18619" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18625" CreationDate="2017-09-20T10:38:47.233" Score="7" ViewCount="661" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know daily tactics training is very beneficial.  However, what is the best way to do so?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lets say I have 15 minutes a day.  Is it better I do 3/4 puzzles in detail, spend 5 minutes on each analysing each move in and ensuring I get the puzzle correct or is it better to do 20-30 puzzles, each one based off only a few seconds of thought (however at the same time seeing many more positions)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, is it better to see many new tactics, like chess tempo, or to get a book and do the same 100 puzzles until you get them all right?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14335" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-09-20T12:02:44.063" LastActivityDate="2017-09-22T22:01:09.523" Title="Training tactics - doing more easy puzzles or fewer, but deep, puzzles?" Tags="&lt;tactics&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18620" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18618" CreationDate="2017-09-20T10:53:06.780" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Controlling squares or lines means that the other player cannot contest that square or line without taking a loss, such as in material.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let us consider an endgame:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;4k3/8/8/4K3/4P3/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;[StartPly &quot;1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Ke6 {[%draw full,d7,green][%draw full,e7,green][%draw full,f7,green]} Kd8 2. Kf7 {[%draw full,e8,green][%draw full,e7,green][%draw full,e6,green]} Kd7 3. e5 {[%draw full,e8,green][%draw full,e7,green][%draw full,e6,green][%draw full,d6,green]}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After 1. Ke6, the king controls the d7, e7 and f7 squares, as black cannot go to those squares, and so on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2017-09-20T10:53:06.780" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18621" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18618" CreationDate="2017-09-20T13:13:54.900" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The usage of the word &quot;control&quot; in chess actually does fit its &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/control&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;lexical definition&lt;/a&gt; pretty well:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;to exercise restraining or directing influence&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the rook on e1 in your example restrains the opponent's pieces to occupy squares on that file, he does have this influence. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At the same time, since he can't move very far, these pieces do have &quot;control&quot; of (most of) the e-file &lt;em&gt;at the same time&lt;/em&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Control&quot; is &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; binary, and you might have been confused by the assumption that it is. Between full white control and full black control of a square, there are many shades in between. E.g., in your example, both sides have some &quot;control&quot; over the e-file. They can't advance first, but they can punish the other side if it does. There are other cases where the control is more absolute and the controlling side can occupy the controlled squares whenever it wants to.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A piece doesn't even need to be able to occupy a square in its next move to exercise &quot;control&quot; over it! For example, a fianchettoed bishop often has some form of control over its diagonal, even while a friendly knight still sits in his way (because there always is the threat of it moving away). Or, in your example, the rook may still &quot;control&quot; the e-file with a white bishop on e2 (to a lesser degree. It mostly restrains the black queen).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another form of &quot;control&quot; is by bodyblocking the opponent's pieces from reaching some square(s). This is often meant in sentences like &quot;White's last pawn move allows him to control more space&quot; - the actual number of squares the pawn can control &lt;em&gt;directly&lt;/em&gt; is fixed(2), but it now might also restrain the opponent from occupying the squares behind it (depends on the context). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13433" LastEditorUserId="13433" LastEditDate="2017-09-20T13:37:26.893" LastActivityDate="2017-09-20T13:37:26.893" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18622" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18610" CreationDate="2017-09-20T14:55:35.360" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;In addition to other suggestions, you could consider a chess variant that may even the playing field.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Chess960&lt;/strong&gt; (&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess960&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess960&lt;/a&gt;) [previously called Fischer Random, but renamed to avoid potential conflict/discussion over Bobby Fischer who invented it], for example is a variant that randomizes the positioning of the back-rank pieces. Unlike other randomization variants, this one strongly attempts to keep everything else about the game the same. The rules of piece placement are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-The two sides are mirrored, as in regular chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-The king must be between the two rooks [this allows for castleing, which involves moving the king to the 'traditional' kingside or queenside castleing positions].&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-The two bishops must be on opposite colours.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This leaves 960 possible positions, which can be chosen at random through various means (check the wikepedia page for details).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The benefit of chess960 in this case, is that it eliminates &lt;em&gt;some&lt;/em&gt; of the advantage inherent in opening position theory.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the midgame, a typical Chess960 game looks like a regular chess game (except perhaps for some oddly placed pieces here or there). Ultimately it opens up like a regular chess game, but you can't memorize any opening lines. For a 1500-1900 match-up, opening theory likely makes a significant edge between the two of you. Of course, there is some small learning curve to starting to play chess960, but as you are both learning it for the first time, you will both have that curve together. Of course, a skill difference would still exist, so even with Chess960 it may be required to still give your wife a rook/ minor piece for the full handicap.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;A particular copyrighted variant that creates an even greater randomization aspect, is &amp;quot;Knightmare Chess&amp;quot; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.sjgames.com/knightmare/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.sjgames.com/knightmare/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;. This game introduces cards with various impacts on the game (&amp;quot;This turn your pawn can move twice, etc.&amp;quot;). The random element decreases the net impact of a skill differential somewhat, as luck plays a fairly large element.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14340" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-08-17T01:48:32.753" LastActivityDate="2020-08-17T01:48:32.753" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="18623" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18610" CreationDate="2017-09-20T14:59:35.800" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can try switching sides every 5 moves or so - a good workout for you too: to try and improve a poor position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14309" LastActivityDate="2017-09-20T14:59:35.800" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18624" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16891" CreationDate="2017-09-20T15:25:37.163" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my opinion, 0-0 and 0-0-0 are used to differentiate castling from ordinary king moves. The castling maneuver then stands out in the game notation, as opposed to say Kc8 which appears - on the surface anyway - to be an ordinary, one square, king move - until you look closer to see if the king is actually moving more than one square. It also helps to clearly indicate king-side (short) or queen-side (long) castling at a glance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think - at least as compared to things like ?! or !? it makes alot of sense.&#xA;Oddly, its the only carryover from the Descriptive (P-K4) to Algebraic (e4) notation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14309" LastActivityDate="2017-09-20T15:25:37.163" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18625" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18619" CreationDate="2017-09-20T15:26:20.557" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would say it really depends on your skill level. If, like me, you're a relatively weak player, playing lots of &quot;easy&quot; and &quot;medium&quot; puzzles is probably more beneficial. You want to train yourself to recognize patterns and interactions that are likely to come up in a game. In that case, seeing lots of different tactics is probably best.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you get stronger, the basic tactics from &quot;easy&quot; and &quot;medium&quot; puzzles will be almost always seen by both players (you still need to recognize them because if you miss your opponents simple fork, you're going to have a bad time). Focusing on harder puzzles will help you find those more complex patterns and tactics in your games. In this case, both lots of tactics and complete understanding of every puzzle is probably the desired outcome.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've listened to GMs talk about puzzles where they look at it for hours and when they have a &quot;solution&quot; they still don't actually know if it's solved until they consult an engine, the puzzle creator, or their coach. (Compared to a simple forced mate in X puzzle).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Additionally, it's all about where your strengths and weaknesses are. If you're really good at a particular type of tactic, de-prioritize continued training of that tactic and focus instead on your weaknesses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most people have a bias where they would rather do 5 puzzles they're good at and 1 they're bad at, which is fine if you're doing it purely for entertainment, but if you're trying to improve, reverse the ratio.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11105" LastActivityDate="2017-09-20T15:26:20.557" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18626" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9462" CreationDate="2017-09-20T17:02:31.267" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here are my thoughts - sorry, thought you were playing black. Hopefully still of value to you.....&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2...f6 was indeed bad...resulting in Nxe5 followed by Queen incursion. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4...dxe5 is bad, allowing queen trade and subsequent loss of castling privilege.&#xA;Losing the right to castle while every other piece is still on board is bad.&#xA;Queens alone being removed does not make it safe enough.&#xA;Can you see how white's early castling &quot;doubles down&quot; on black's inability to &#xA;castle - making that disadvantage stand out even more?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;6...Nh6 is also bad, inviting doubled pawns.&#xA;Although the trading of pieces WOULD suit the black uncastled king. &#xA;Is that bit of safety worth the doubled pawns? Is a question to try and answer. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;9...c6 is a lot of pawn moves so far and has weakened the dark squares around &#xA;the black king - AND white still has his dark squared bishop. &#xA;It appears as if 7...a6 was preparing for a later ...b5 (which WOULD &#xA;give the black white-squared bishop the nice long diagonal) except that 8...b5 doesn't work &#xA;here because of white's earlier 8. a4 &#xA;It looks like maybe black noticed this a little late and decided on 9...c6 instead. Yet this is the type of calculation to try before committing to moves.&#xA;Black shouldn't have felt compelled to make another pawn move in the vicinity JUST because he suddenly realized that ...b5 wouldn't work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;12...Nf7 just losses a piece outright. Black is now down a piece, therefore positional considerations like pawn structure or active/inactive piece are really not relevant for him now. Unless the lost piece provided an irresistible initiative that outweighed material, then positional considerations take a back seat to material and should not be considered on par with it. Once material balance is restored, positional factors regain their importance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As to your question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;How should I handle such conditions where my opponent Is just attacking my &#xA;attacking pieces?...Before putting your pieces into positions of attack, you should try to calculate whether your opponent can easily just chase them. If he can, perhaps a short term plan could involve a way to PREVENT him from easily chasing them?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14309" LastEditorUserId="14309" LastEditDate="2017-09-20T17:20:13.073" LastActivityDate="2017-09-20T17:20:13.073" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18627" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-09-20T17:51:39.333" Score="2" ViewCount="828" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a d4 player as white and I really don't like to memorize tatical lines in the opening altought I know most commons lines very well in the first 8 - 15 moves depend on the opening based on my practice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am looking for positional principles that can guide my play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do you have any line that you memorize few principles and you can guess some theory based on this considerations, or guide your play after your theory knowledge ends?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please point out what positional rules you follow.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(For example someone teached me that queen's indian is a fight for the control of e4 square. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I am playing with white and my theory knowledge ends or black play an unknown variation, I always check if I can break on e3-e4 and if I could usually is a good move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I am playing with black the same line and I reach a point where my theory knowledge ends and I don't know what to play, I always check if it is possible to overcontrol e4. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the positional principle: control of e4, helps me a lot in queens indian when my theory knowledge ends or my opponent make an unusual move&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another example that come in my mind is when you reach common positions of benoni, black will try to play c5-c4 and put a knight on d3, but if black play this allow white to play knight f3-d4-c6, and this fight guide my play in both sides of this variation, and after I understand that I became stronger in both sides of this variation&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A last example that I can give is the almost sure f5 by black in KID and petrosian variation of KID is a line that is not usually good for black force f5... Even fischer lose a beautiful game for tal insisting in playing f5 in this line... So this change in black's way to think the KID can be very annoying even for stronger players... I usually do so well with this variation based that black side of KID usually will force f5 and petrosian variation make it so difficult)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2984" LastEditorUserId="2984" LastEditDate="2017-09-22T19:40:42.387" LastActivityDate="2017-09-22T22:12:02.197" Title="Positional principles in chess openings" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18628" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18610" CreationDate="2017-09-20T19:54:20.147" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess doesn't seem to handicap as well as other games.  This is why my wife and I don't play chess together (even though we both play chess).  We play other games instead, where we are much more even (my greater rating in chess comes from years of being coached, not so much from natural ability).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If your wife is interested in learning, you can give her problems from a book, or play through endings (at her level, not yours), but both of these tend to leave the thinking on her end, while you are waiting patiently.  I currently just put a problem up on the demo board in our house for my wife and kids to solve, and field questions about it, and play online if I want a game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3009" LastActivityDate="2017-09-20T19:54:20.147" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18629" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16373" CreationDate="2017-09-20T21:21:02.743" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Anki help you to review and to keep in your memory tactics and other things, but for learning you need to work, after work anki is the tool. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Best regards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14348" LastActivityDate="2017-09-20T21:21:02.743" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18630" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-09-20T21:36:58.293" Score="3" ViewCount="582" Body="&lt;p&gt;How do you make Stockfish find all mates in 2 or 3 from a given position? I know I need to use Scid, but not much beyond that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14349" LastEditorUserId="10570" LastEditDate="2020-05-31T09:29:56.957" LastActivityDate="2020-05-31T09:29:56.957" Title="Getting Stockfish to find all mates-in-n" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="18631" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18610" CreationDate="2017-09-20T22:02:29.267" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let your wife make two moves for every move you get to make. The big rule is that the weaker player can't move the same piece more than once in one turn. It's extremely frustrating for the higher ranked player, but it is playable and you can still win the game so over all it is a lot more balanced. It also gets the weaker player to plan more, but weaker players do seem to get more sloppy with this rule set. It's an interesting way to even out the playing field, but it's probably not the best way for a new player to improve. Essentially this method is a way for a far weaker player to be able to give a more experienced player a hard game. You can also tweak these rules if you want; I'm not your bossperson do whatever you want. Just make sure that the stronger player isn't having too easy of a time. The stronger person is supposed to have it hard here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You might want to check out chess 2 as well. it's chess, but with different special rules based on what team/country/base choose, and an easier win condition. The tactics are all different so it's a lot harder for a more experienced player to play. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user14104" LastEditorDisplayName="user14104" LastEditDate="2017-09-22T22:23:39.190" LastActivityDate="2017-09-22T22:23:39.190" CommentCount="15" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18632" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9638" CreationDate="2017-09-21T04:10:19.510" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Positional play: positioning (  Bring ) ur pieces into the contact of strategically important squares .&#xA;Ok then what is strategically important squares?&#xA;Strategy: plan of action designed to achieve overall goal&#xA;Goal: checkmate?? In reality chess is drawish game( it's impossible to checkmate if both side play correctly cause it's like war between the countries with equal force)&#xA;Ok then what's our goal then only we can design the plan?!&#xA;Goal: activity (positive action for the pieces)ex 1.e4 e5 2.nf3&#xA;Every one follows with nf3 cause it limits opponents response and ur +ve  action n*e5  conclusion : goal :activity strategy : bring ur pieces to the squares that will give greater activity ( central squares, blockading squares,holes in ur opponent camp).U should overprotect that squares with all of ur pieces ...it will give  greater activity for ur  pieces..... Simple idea but strong: overprotection!!! In the fight for the strategically important squares .ex : fight for the e5 square if the  square control count is  5vs4 then U can move any of ur 5 pieces greater activity!!  But 4vs4 ur pieces are tied to that great squares but ur pieces  are tied....&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14352" LastEditorUserId="14352" LastEditDate="2017-09-21T04:20:37.727" LastActivityDate="2017-09-21T04:20:37.727" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18633" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-09-21T05:54:24.843" Score="2" ViewCount="1491" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is the so called Janowski variation of the QGD is the following &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[StartPly &quot;6&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 a6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's quite rare, even if sometimes played at top level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White usually plays &lt;code&gt;cxd5&lt;/code&gt; (right away or after &lt;code&gt;Nf3&lt;/code&gt;). Then, the bishop usually comes to &lt;code&gt;f4&lt;/code&gt; (in this case, Black tries to exchange its dark-squared bishop with &lt;code&gt;Bd6&lt;/code&gt;), sometimes &lt;code&gt;g5&lt;/code&gt; which may be the most interesting. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What would be the plan for White? This type of position tends to be dull, and I'd like to gain a small edge or a way to spice it up at least, avoiding to trade the whole board after 12 moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13069" LastEditorDisplayName="user1108" LastEditDate="2017-09-21T09:46:06.510" LastActivityDate="2017-09-22T18:25:54.723" Title="Plan against QGD Janowski variation (3...a6)" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;1.d4&gt;&lt;queens-gambit-declined&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18634" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18627" CreationDate="2017-09-21T06:12:23.930" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As TMM said, you won't get any edge with White without any memorization or tactical, not only positional understanding of the opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would recommand you though to look at the &lt;strong&gt;Reti opening&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;code&gt;1. Nf3.&lt;/code&gt; As a &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt; player, you won't be out of your territory and would be able to dodge normal Grünfeld type of positions, which is a sharp opening of course, and the Nimzo-Indian as well, which requires also a lot of work. These subtleties are based on move orders though and transpositional &quot;tricks&quot;. You have to know them !&#xA;The Reti should spare you some precious time but you won't get away from studying opening. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Against the KID, you should look at the Smyslov variation. You won't be crushed within 15 moves (or even less) as in the main lines. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13069" LastActivityDate="2017-09-21T06:12:23.930" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18635" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18608" CreationDate="2017-09-21T07:28:15.303" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Interesting question, I've noticed that as well. In a way, german and english players for instance tend to play solid and wacky stuff respectively, like in soccer. Just kidding :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Top GM of their countries play also an important role, &lt;code&gt;Trompovsky attack&lt;/code&gt; has been popularised by John Nunn and other strong GMs, encouraging english chess school to adopt it. &#xA;Strong german GMs like Jan Gustaffson usually play more solid openings. But there are exceptions of course.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13069" LastActivityDate="2017-09-21T07:28:15.303" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18636" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-09-21T08:28:10.677" Score="1" ViewCount="163" Body="&lt;p&gt;I noticed that in the freely available TWIC databases (and perhaps in other databases as well) there are sometimes different notations for the same move. Just now I am looking at the Ruy Lopez where in some games white plays 6. &lt;strong&gt;Re1&lt;/strong&gt; while in others it is &lt;strong&gt;Rfe1&lt;/strong&gt; (which are of course the same move). Incidentally white scores much better with &quot;Rfe1&quot; ;-) Anyway having different notations for the same move makes reading the statistics (white win / draw/ black win) much harder.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's why I was wondering how to get rid of such problems in the database. Also what other ways are there to clean up the database (e.g. removing duplicate games, ....)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastEditorDisplayName="user1108" LastEditDate="2017-09-21T09:30:02.707" LastActivityDate="2017-12-14T22:14:45.533" Title="Cleaning a database" Tags="&lt;database&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18637" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18610" CreationDate="2017-09-21T08:32:27.497" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;A solution I have employed with my girlfriend, who is interested in improving at chess, is to begin with the endgame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Setting up a winning late-game position such as a rook, bishop and three pawns vs a knight and two pawns provides a learning experience for the weaker player on how to leverage existing advantages and close out the game. More pieces can gradually be introduced to dilute the impact of the advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the stronger player, the goal is surviving as long as possible or attempting to get to a drawn position. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14354" LastActivityDate="2017-09-21T08:32:27.497" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18639" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18640" CreationDate="2017-09-21T11:18:32.787" Score="0" ViewCount="360" Body="&lt;p&gt;Black can not move his bishop and can not attack the white king  even if the white king captured the black pawn.&#xA;Can the white king capture the pawn ?&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/YbD13.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/YbD13.png&quot; alt=&quot;chess&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13871" LastActivityDate="2017-09-22T19:39:38.713" Title="Can white king capture defended pawn by pinned piece?" Tags="&lt;kings&gt;&lt;captures&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2017-09-23T01:11:17.830" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18640" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18639" CreationDate="2017-09-21T11:45:54.577" Score="1" Body="&lt;h2&gt;No.&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The king must not move to a square under attack by an enemy piece, no matter what, even if said attack is currently not allowed. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the rule allowed exceptions like this, the logic would chase its own tail: If White is allowed to play Kxf4 - &lt;em&gt;placing his king in danger of getting captured with the excuse that Black&lt;/em&gt; (supposedly) &lt;em&gt;can't actually take it next move&lt;/em&gt; -, then by the same logic, Black should be allowed to play Bxf4, too - &lt;em&gt;placing his king in danger of getting captured with the excuse that White cannot actually take it next move&lt;/em&gt; (because there is no next move as soon as White's king is captured)! But if Black is allowed to play Bxf4, then Kxf4 gets illegal again, because now the danger of recapture is real. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus, to avoid these headaches, White is not allowed to play Kxf4 in the first place.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13433" LastActivityDate="2017-09-21T11:45:54.577" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18641" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18660" CreationDate="2017-09-21T13:47:05.020" Score="3" ViewCount="3860" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've often heard people say that, to get to a FIDE rating of 1600, one doesn't need a coach, and that one can do it by oneself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd be glad if you could help me see what one can do to achieve that. Any advice, general or specific, would be welcome, if it helps me get to 1600.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is a game in which I came really close to winning, but was let down by my play, especially in the endgame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(&lt;em&gt;But I don't insist on you seeing it, if it's cumbersome.&lt;/em&gt; I'm looking for advice on how to get to a FIDE rating of 1600, and general advice could be very useful. I only feel that if you could see one of my games, it might help you give me more specific advice. &lt;strong&gt;But once again, I don't insist.&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I played Black.&#xA;(Some of the moves are numbered wrong, please correct them if possible.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [Event &amp;quot;Let's Play!&amp;quot;]&#xA; [Site &amp;quot; Chess.com&amp;quot;]&#xA; [Date &amp;quot;Sep 21, 2017&amp;quot;]&#xA; [White &amp;quot;PATELAKSHAY&amp;quot;]&#xA; [Black &amp;quot;JoshuaFischer007&amp;quot;]&#xA; [Result &amp;quot;1-0&amp;quot;]&#xA; [WhiteElo &amp;quot;1354&amp;quot;]&#xA; [BlackElo &amp;quot;793&amp;quot;]&#xA; [TimeControl &amp;quot;1 in 1 day&amp;quot;]&#xA; [SetUp &amp;quot;1&amp;quot;]&#xA; [Termination &amp;quot;PATELAKSHAY won by checkmate&amp;quot;]&#xA; [FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. e4 e5 &#xA; 2. Nf3 Nc6 &#xA; 3. d4 d6 {General opening moves till here} &#xA; 4. dxe5 dxe5&#xA; 5. Nc3 Qxd1+ {Wanted to force him to undevelop his knight}&#xA; 6. Nxd1 Be6 {Didn't send my Bishop further ahead, as I didn't want it rebuffed}&#xA; 7. a3 O-O-O {Comfortable to castle}&#xA; 8. Ng5 Rd7 {Quite wrongly, I thought that I was at risk of a fork} &#xA; 9. Bb5 a6 {I prefer rebuffing incoming Bishops. Makes my opponents lose momentum}&#xA; 10. Nxe6 fxe6 {No choice there}&#xA; 11. Bc4 Nd4 {Planning a hopeful fork on his King and Rook}&#xA; 12. Ne3 b5 {Pushing his Bishop back further} &#xA; 13. Bb3 Nxb3 {I am never sorry to exchange my Knight for a Bishop} &#xA; 14. cxb3 Nf6 {Development, and attack, too} &#xA; 15. f3 Rd3 {I wanted to bring my Rook deep into his ranks. Plus, it looked like a good attacking move. But I later noticed that it was easily rebuffed.} &#xA; 16. b4 c5 {Wanted to start attacking his pawns, supported by my Rook.} &#xA; 17. Bd2 cxb4 {Thought I'll keep the attack going.} &#xA; 18. axb4 Bxb4 {Felt I had to make a few exchanges, though against my usual idea of exchanging a Knight for a Bishop. Still felt my Rook was  influential.} &#xA; 19. Bxb4 Rxe3+ {Took forward my plans.} &#xA; 20. Kf2 Rb3 {Thought I had his pawn and Bishop forked.} &#xA; 21. Bc3 b4 {Felt I was pushing his Bishop away.} &#xA; 22. Bxe5 Rf8 {Wanted to protect my Knight and give my rook an open file (for later).} &#xA; 23. Rxa6 Ng4+ {Attack on mind, but not a clear one.} &#xA; 24. Kg3 Kb7 {Thought I could scare away the Rook. Bad idea, of course.} &#xA; 25. Rxe6 Nxe5 {I felt it weakened his attacking power.} &#xA; 26. Rxe5 Rxb2 {Planning for promotion, which looks easy(and turns out not to be so) .} &#xA; 27. Re7+ Kb6 {Bringing my King forwards, to help my Pawn(how, I wasn't yet sure) .} &#xA; 28. Rxg7 b3 {The quicker I promote it, the better, I thought.} &#xA; 29. e5 Re2 {Attacking his pawn} &#xA; 30. Rb1 b2 {To restrict his Rook from moving around} &#xA; 31. e6 Re8 {Felt that I had the game in the bag now, my Rooks supporting each other.} &#xA; 32. e7 Rb8 {This, I believe, was a game-ending blunder. My Rook cleared the way for the promotion of his own pawn, and did no good in its place.} &#xA; 33. Rf7 Ka5 {From now on, I'm battling to delay defeat. Nothing much to say.} &#xA;34. Rf8 Rb3 35. e8=Q Rxe8 36. Rxe8 Kb4 37. Rb8+ Kc3 38. Rxb3+ Kxb3 39. f4 Kc2 40. Rxb2+ Kxb2 41. f5 Kc3 42. f6 Kd4 43. f7 Ke5 44. f8=Q Ke6 45. Kf4 Kd5 46. Qe8 Kd6 47. Ke4 Kc5 48. Qd8 Kc4 49. Qd4+ Kb5 50. Kd5 Ka5 51. Kc5 Ka6 52. Qb4 Ka7 53. Kc6 Ka8 54. Qb7#  1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sent from my Android&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;My thoughts&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've thought of playing against computers (not engines) with increasing levels of difficulty. Of course, I'll welcome any other advice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13565" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2021-02-01T15:45:37.777" Title="How to get to 1600" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="7" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18642" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18641" CreationDate="2017-09-21T15:28:24.253" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;This advice is based on your game a commentary without analysis with an engine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Don't think that you are forced to make a certain capture&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your commentary to 10...fxe6 you said:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;No choice there&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But you could have created an interesting material imbalance with &lt;code&gt;10...axb5 11. Nxf8 Rxd1+ 12. Kxd1 Nf6 13. Nxh7 Rxh7&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Don't trade material when you have a pawn weakness&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you have those doubled, isolated e-pawns, you shouldn't trade down like you did with 13...Nxb3. I would advise that you learn the 4 principles of trading, which I briefly outline at the start of my answer to &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/15231/1108&quot;&gt;When and why should I trade minor pieces?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;You keep hemorrhaging pawns&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The best way to improve your game would be to think about the safety of your material. I'm talking about when you lose a pawn starting with &lt;code&gt;16...c5&lt;/code&gt;. by opening up the position when you have those weak e-pawns, you help white to develop and win one of them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Learn to conserve your energy&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't know whey you played all the way out to mate, but top players don't do that because it's a waste of time and energy. I would prefer to resign and spend the time immediately after the game to study where I went wrong. That way the motivation and the memory is still there to learn something valuable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this specific game, it all started going downhill after &lt;code&gt;6...Be6&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;8...Rd7&lt;/code&gt; when the pieces started to get jammed up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastEditorDisplayName="user1108" LastEditDate="2017-09-21T15:44:36.060" LastActivityDate="2017-09-21T15:44:36.060" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18643" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18641" CreationDate="2017-09-21T17:16:29.920" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I really wish that people would talk to each other more after the game. (When I have lived in England or France, this was very common; for some reason in the US it is not. In those countries they make tea/coffee available)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The purpose of a post-mortem is NOT to give the loser a chance for revenge. You need to be clear about what the purpose is. If you got hammered by a much stronger player, just ask their advice, otherwise here are some ways you might choose to go. (Simple one-move blunders are not very interesting, but do signal something to work on.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Errors in calculation. &quot;I didnt see that would be check. When did you see it?&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Planning. &quot;I was surprised that you let me have the open file. Were you not worried about that? Why not?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Judgement. &quot;Around here, I felt that I was better, but it didn't happen that way. How did you feel?&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Strategy. &quot;Perhaps I should have let you have that Pawn, and gone for a counterattack with my Rook. Shall we look at it?&quot; Do not get fascinated by some long lines that take you far away from the game. Do not allow spectators to take over. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Planning again. &quot;I wanted to get my Knight to c5, but you wouldn't let me. Did I have a better plan?&quot;. &quot;I really wanted to castle on the Queen-side, but I didn't dare&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Psychology. &quot;I coulnd't decide if Rxf6 was a threat. Would you have played it?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course you can go over the game with a machine, but machines dont answer this sort of question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Besides, if your opponent cooperates, its a nice thing to do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastActivityDate="2017-09-21T17:16:29.920" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18645" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18633" CreationDate="2017-09-21T17:43:45.843" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The plan you choose should not be too different than against other QGD positions.  If you normally play cxd5 and go for a minority attack, it is still valid.  Note, in some of those lines Black likes to play a5, which now loses a tempo.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;If you want to spice it up try &#xA;4.cxd5 exd5&#xA;5.Qb3 c6&#xA;6.e4!?  -- see &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1064618&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Schlechter vs. Janowski 1902 (1-0)&lt;/a&gt; for ideas.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastEditorUserId="4588" LastEditDate="2017-09-21T18:10:15.190" LastActivityDate="2017-09-21T18:10:15.190" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18646" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18633" CreationDate="2017-09-21T17:52:52.323" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Indeed, the line is relatively rare, but the move 3....a6 seems to become more and more popular the last couple of years. Even Magnus Carlsen has played it twice in blitz recently, against &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1819818&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Aronian&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1829264&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Grischuk&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The move 4.cxd5 is the most popular move and arguably the only way to fight for an advantage. After 4.Nf3, black has the choice to transpose to a favorable version of the QGA by 4....dxc4. As the knight is already on c3, black avoided the most critical lines of the QGA.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After 4.cxd5 exd5, in &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1875821&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Mamedyarov-Vallejo Pons&lt;/a&gt;, white went for the aggressive 5.Nf3 c6 6.e4!? dxe4 7.Ng5 Be7 8.Bc4. Now, 8....Bxg5 would be a mistake as white regains the piece by 9.Qh5, with a strong initiative. Instead, black played 8....Nh6, defended correctly after 9.Ngxe5 Nf5 and made a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another try to spice up the game is 5.Qb3!?, which was played recently by the Russian top GMs &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1817325&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Nepomniachtchi&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1874412&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Matlakov&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1882190&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Vitiugov&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1884786&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Svidler&lt;/a&gt;. After the logical 5....c6, white obtains a dangerous initiative after 6.e4 dxe4 7.Bc4 Qe7 8.a4! (to prevent ...b5), which was played by Svidler. In the three other games, after 5.Qb3, black continued with 5....Nc6. After 6.Nf3 Bb4 7.Bf4, white is probably slightly better, as the black knight on c6 is somewhat misplaced.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;      [StartPly &quot;6&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;      [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;      1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 a6 4.cxd5 (4.Nf3 dxc4) exd5 5.Qb3 (5.Nf3 c6 6.e4 dxe4 7.Ng5 Be7 8.Bc4 Nh6 (8...Bxg5 9.Qh5) 9.Ngxe4 Nf5) 5...Nc6 (5...c6 6.e4 dxe4 7.Bc4 Qe7 8.a4) 6.Nf3 Bb4 7.Bf4&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4588" LastEditorUserId="4588" LastEditDate="2017-09-22T18:25:54.723" LastActivityDate="2017-09-22T18:25:54.723" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18647" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18652" CreationDate="2017-09-21T17:54:27.240" Score="3" ViewCount="1038" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a long time 1.e4 player and short time 1.c4 player, I'd like to add 1.d4 but there are so many defenses.    I am considering the London system against things, while adding mainlines vs. all the various openings one by one.  Or is the Catalan a better start?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2018-07-06T13:57:45.477" Title="What's the best approach to adopting 1.d4?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18648" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12347" CreationDate="2017-09-21T18:01:11.587" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Hippo does not do well against a 3 pawn center.  For example, d4, e4, f4.  Then with Nf3, Bd3 and 0-0 White can play f5 breaking the position.&#xA;Tiger Hillarp Persson wrote a couple books on the Modern defense, where has a chapter on the Hippo.  In the book he warns against using it when White can get 3 pawns in the center and has great explanations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2017-09-21T18:01:11.587" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18649" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18647" CreationDate="2017-09-21T19:48:04.873" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You could also consider the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen%27s_Gambit&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Queen's Gambit&lt;/a&gt; (&quot;QGD&quot;) in addition to the Catalan. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One major difference with 1. d4 is that the pawn in question is supported by the White queen, whereas with 1. e4 the pawn is not supported. So you need to study how to adjust to that at the start of play. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, I have heard it said that 1. d4 tends to lead to more closed positions, although I don't know enough theory to explain why, or even if that is true overall. But it is also something to look into if you are considering adding 1. d4 to your repertoire. I do know from a bit of experience that many players from the black side are lulled into thinking 1. d4 is safer, but there are plenty of examples, including the QGD and the Catalan, where White can launch devastating attacks that come seemingly out of nowhere.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, I would strongly suggest that you study the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_Defence&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Dutch Defense&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/forum/view/chess-openings/what-is-the-best-counter-towards-the-dutch-defence&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;anti-Dutch strategies&lt;/a&gt; (to the extent that there are any), because the Dutch can be a really effective counter to 1. d4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, if you haven't already read it, check out &lt;em&gt;My System&lt;/em&gt; by &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aron_Nimzowitsch&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Aron Nimzowitsch&lt;/a&gt;. His advice on chess fundamentals has become standard, but he also relied on a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypermodernism_(chess)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;hypermodern&lt;/a&gt; chess style that was able to make good use of 1. d4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Good luck.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3968" LastEditorUserId="3968" LastEditDate="2017-09-22T20:52:45.393" LastActivityDate="2017-09-22T20:52:45.393" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18650" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18654" CreationDate="2017-09-21T20:18:42.030" Score="3" ViewCount="2750" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can someone please provide detail on how IM (International master) and GM (Grand master) norms are attained?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14365" LastActivityDate="2017-09-21T21:44:28.480" Title="How to earn IM/GM titles" Tags="&lt;elo&gt;&lt;fide&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18651" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18647" CreationDate="2017-09-21T20:19:43.643" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As you are probably aware of, &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt; is a totally different territory. In one word, the amount of possible replies is lower and there are also fewer move-by-move trickery, but &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt; is much more prone to transpositions, which makes it so interesting from my point of view. You'll have to know them. Some lines of the KID, Grünfeld or Benko are also very sharp of course, so be prepared.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should obviously start with the Queen's gambit and build a repertoire for the main lines.&#xA;If you have been a &lt;code&gt;c4&lt;/code&gt; player already, I advise you to play the Reti, which will teach you power of transposition btw. As I've explained in another post, you can dodge sharp positions with it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are too much to say, so I'll advise you to see the 15 videos that Christof Sielecki did (aka Chessexplained) on &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt; repertoire for White. These are excellent, and will introduce you to the main d4 openings and ideas. Here is the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ww5kyjKbhu0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;introduction video to &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt; repertoire for White&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13069" LastActivityDate="2017-09-21T20:19:43.643" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18652" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18647" CreationDate="2017-09-21T20:40:08.313" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you want to start playing 1.d4 you should as first thing have a look at some theory about the Queen's gambit declined, as it is the most natural (and historical) way to play 1.d4: even if you will not end up adopting it in your repertoire, it will give you a taste of the major ideas behind the queen's pawn opening (minority attack usually against c5-c6, occupation of c-d files) and a sense of where the pieces belong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After you do so you should start preparing for precise defences to play against (as in every opening although White has the first move, the order strongly depends on what Black plays next): in this respect you might have a look at any online database to find what is played most - but to spare the time, among all the most often played are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Slav defence&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;semi-Slav&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Indian defences (at least King's Indian and Grünfeld)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Or is the Catalan a better start? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I myself do play the Catalan (when given the chance to do so) and therefore by all means I suggest you to look into it: it is however a heavy theoretical opening (from both sides) but it does provide White with a slight edge throughout the whole game (at best play).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I am considering the London system against things&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The London system is somehow more &quot;natural&quot; to play and it is lately gaining a lot of respect at high level (Carlsen and Aronian above all play it very often): you may find quite a few GM games to take examples from.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In general, as any other opening in chess, you cannot have your way around without putting some study into a few specific lines; however, there is a lot of free content online that you may surf, especially the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCM-ONC2bCHytG2mYtKDmIeA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Saint Louis Chess Club&lt;/a&gt; channel contains a lot of opening videos suitable for any level (according to me very thorough).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11726" LastActivityDate="2017-09-21T20:40:08.313" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18653" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18610" CreationDate="2017-09-21T21:24:56.847" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Allow her to make a few do-overs for when she realizes she blundered within one move. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12574" LastActivityDate="2017-09-21T21:24:56.847" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18654" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18650" CreationDate="2017-09-21T21:44:28.480" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;First you should also know that these titles can also be won via &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=199&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&quot;Direct Title&quot;&lt;/a&gt;. For instance, in the current World Cup competition all the players who reached the last 16 are entitled to the GM title. Of course they were all already GMs, but other competitions also give the opportunity to win GM and IM titles outright.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;GM and IM norms can be obtained either by Direct Title or by performance of the required standard in a tournament which qualifies as a norm event. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance if there is a tie for world champion in any of over 65, over 50, under 20 or continental championship then players tieing for first each get a GM norm if they are not already GMs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For norm tournaments and the standard of play required there is a full description &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=198&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;GM norms require a &quot;GM performance&quot; and IM norms require an &quot;IM performance&quot;&#xA;These are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;GM performance is ≥ 2600 performance against opponents with average rating ≥ 2380.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;IM performance is ≥ 2450 performance against opponents with average rating ≥ 2230.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are complicated rules regarding the length and make-up of the tournament and the players played. For full details see the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=198&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;handbook reference&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is a simplified (and so inaccurate) summary:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The player must play at least 9 games&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At least two federations other than that of the title applicant must be included&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A maximum of 3/5 of the opponents may come from the applicant’s federation and a maximum of 2/3 of the opponents from one federation&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At least 50% of the opponents shall be title-holders excluding CM and WCM.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For a GM norm at least 1/3 with a minimum 3 of the opponents must be GMs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For an IM norm at least 1/3 with a minimum 3 of the opponents must be IMs or GMs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2017-09-21T21:44:28.480" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18655" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2550" CreationDate="2017-09-22T02:40:49.630" Score="-3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The average is the sum of list values divided by the number of list entries. Unfortunately, since list values do not contain equivalent information, averaging them does not reduce error. A 500 rating losing to grandmasters with a single draw denotes much greater proficiency than many wins against players who have only just learned how the pieces move (I refuse to embarrass people by citing names). I have found that when players know each other's rating, the lower rated player lets up while the higher rated fights like a demon (peruse any tournament crosstable).&#xA;  Ratings are manipulated by players who lose unimportant games and by organizations (CCF, dare to deny it!) who pin ratings because of accidental outcomes. Ratings are inappropriately used (by almost all organizers) to assign prize classifications. &#xA;  Average rating does not contain any information for the whole list. However, for a particular event, players tend to perform relatively in accordance with their ratings. This is not because the ratings are accurate, but because the players want them to be so (I want it, and I don't know any player who doesn't).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14366" LastActivityDate="2017-09-22T02:40:49.630" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18656" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2550" CreationDate="2017-09-22T03:03:33.790" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;If by average, you mean a number, then there is a number in the middle. If by average, you mean a player who wins half and loses half, it is not in the middle. Chess champions almost always win. To win half the time, you must be one of the best.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14366" LastActivityDate="2017-09-22T03:03:33.790" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18657" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18647" CreationDate="2017-09-22T04:22:32.670" Score="-5" Body="&lt;p&gt;d4 is the second best initial move because it frees a Bishop and the Queen while making e5 and c5 harder, but it does not stand on a winning line. Both you and your opponent will have many chances to make losing mistakes. Choice of opening rests with White, but after about 10 moves, both will have to deal with their opponent. You must play well to avoid losing. Your opponent must play poorly before you have any chance of victory. Pick an opening you like, and you may recognize your opponent's mistakes.&#xA;  Several following comments recommend following d-side openings in some order or another. Pick an order that is interesting and works for you. You will achieve your maximum playing strength because of who you are and how hard you work, not because you followed someone else's path. World champions accept worthwhile instruction, but they are not limited by it. Follow your path noting what others have accomplished, but keep remembering that your accomplishment must come from inside you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14366" LastEditorUserId="14366" LastEditDate="2017-09-22T04:39:07.977" LastActivityDate="2017-09-22T04:39:07.977" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18658" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18587" CreationDate="2017-09-22T04:39:28.040" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here's a famous helpmate problem where at first it is not clear&#xA;that White can win at all:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Helpmate in 10 (Gabor Cseh, StrateGems 2001)&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;8/5NR1/6PB/1P2P1P1/4P3/2p2p1p/pprp1p1p/kbqrbK2 w - - 0 0&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can White win this on time if Black (on the move) couldn't find a Queen or Rook&#xA;before their flag fell?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(solution at &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/forum/view/more-puzzles/best-help-mate-puzzles&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.chess.com/forum/view/more-puzzles/best-help-mate-puzzles&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8860" LastActivityDate="2017-09-22T04:39:28.040" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18659" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18662" CreationDate="2017-09-22T05:06:16.573" Score="4" ViewCount="3127" Body="&lt;p&gt;Since my &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/18418/countering-the-wayward-queen-attack&quot;&gt;last post&lt;/a&gt; I've successfully learned how to counter the wayward queen attack, and now I've run into an interesting opening that I don't immediately lose to, but I feel I can play against better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Typically as white I like to play the Queens Gambit. Being still new I stick to what I know. A VERY VERY common opening for black against the queens gambit in the 700-900 range (on chess.com) seems to be the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/openings/A40_Queens_Pawn_Opening_Horwitz_Defense&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Horowitz Defense&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[StartPly &quot;6&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 e6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Generally, I tend to continue with the queens gambit, moving &lt;code&gt;2. c4&lt;/code&gt;. My justification being an early deployment of his dark bishop would give check but theres plenty of (safe) ways to mitigate it and continue to develop my pieces. However, I feel there's strategy here I don't see. I haven't searched chessbase yet (will do that tomorrow) but I don't usually see this opening in club games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a better counter to it than &lt;code&gt;2. c4&lt;/code&gt;, are there specific master games I can study?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;thank you!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user14142" LastActivityDate="2020-08-07T02:14:34.693" Title="Countering the Horowitz Defense" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;queens-gambit&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18660" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18641" CreationDate="2017-09-22T06:16:11.593" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;A couple of things not pointed out in the other answers,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, 6. ... Be6 wasn't good, as it allows Nf3-g5xf6, doubling your e-pawns and giving him the two bishops. You're effectively playing a pawn down, and defending them for the rest of the game. Bd7 or Bc5, or even Bg4 look better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Next, 13. ... a5, followed by a4, forces the bishop to a2, allowing the fork on c2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, 23. ... Kb7 first, then 24. ... Ng4+, winning the bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To reach 1600 elo, you obviously need to be able to beat both higher and lower rated players. It takes hard work and study.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As recommended in many other places, you should be studying tactics, tactics and more tactics. When you reach master strength, you can scale back and just study tactics and more tactics. They will help you in every stage of the game. This should take about 40% of your studying time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Additionally, you should devote a bit of study to openings. Some authors &amp;amp; players suggest picking an opening system, such as the King's Indian Attack, or Stonewall attack, while others say you should always play e4, until you're expert strength or better. Regardless, I think the openings you play should fit your style, and give you a playable middlegame, more than anything. After every game, you should review your games and see where you deviated from book, so you know what to play next time. This could take about 20% of your study time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You also need to study endgames. Know the basic mating patterns. Work on pawn and rook &amp;amp; pawn endings, as those are the ones you'll face the most. This should also take about 20% of your study time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, the middlegame should take up the rest of your study time. That should involve working on making plans and calculating variations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you can find a coach, or another player of similar strength to work with, that will be helpful as well, to bounce ideas off each other and point out things you miss.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9025" LastActivityDate="2017-09-22T06:16:11.593" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18662" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18659" CreationDate="2017-09-22T09:26:07.190" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;Since you are playing the Queen Gambit, &lt;strong&gt;2.c4&lt;/strong&gt; is indeed the most logical way to continue. The main answers, 2...d5 and 2...Nf6, should fit in your repertoire anyway. The alternative is to go for &lt;strong&gt;2.Nf3&lt;/strong&gt; first.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Move order finesses&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black's move order bears three subtelties:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;You are offered a choice to switch to a French opening with 2.e4. This is probably your opponent's secret hope and since you are a 1.d4 player, you will probably not want to go down that road even though 2.e4 is of course a good move - unless you are fond of playing against the French defense.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;After 2.c4, Black can bring the game to original territory with 2...Bb4+. This is a decent line, but not overly dangerous, and you can handle it with general rules (develop, avoid doubled pawns, castle...) if reaching an equal position suits you. Or you can learn a bit of theory about it, although at 700-900 level there are a lot of more important stuff for you to study.&#xA;If you want to avoid it altogether, you can start with 2.Nf3. Then 2...d5 3.c4 is back to QGD, with an early Nf3, which might or might not suit you depending on your favorite line of Queen Gambit. Note that 3...Bb4+ remains a decent option for Black. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Dutch players often start with 1...e6 to provoque 2.c4 and reduce their opponent choice: after 1.d4 f5 White often goes 2.g3 or 2.Nf3 and plays c4 only a few moves later, or even plays subvariations like 2.Bg5 or 2.e4, but after 1.d4 e6 2.c4 f5 those options are lost. If you play an early 2.c4 against the Dutch anyway, you won't mind those shenanigans at all, otherwise 2.Nf3 might once again be the solution.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, some Black players also intend 2...b6 or other rare moves you should not be too worried about.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Conclusion&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1...e6 is a decent move that plans to reach normal positions while limiting your choice. Those move-order subtelties are interesting when building your repertoire, yet they should not worry you too much until you reach a level around 1800 or so.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The natural alternative for a Queen's Gambit player is between &lt;strong&gt;2.c4&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;2.Nf3&lt;/strong&gt;; both have pluses and minuses. If it fits your usual way of playing in the QGD, go for 2.Nf3 first before 3.c4 and go for standard, QGD-like development: that avoids 2...Bb4+ tricks and requires less specific work on opening lines that shouldn't be your biggest concern right now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastEditorUserId="14079" LastEditDate="2018-07-27T17:08:29.773" LastActivityDate="2018-07-27T17:08:29.773" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="18663" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14194" CreationDate="2017-09-22T11:16:26.867" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Its just like in mathematics when one doesn't need to be a university or college graduate student with a &quot;Batchelor of Science in Mathematics&quot; to be a &quot; mathematician. &quot; All that counts is &quot; New Idea,&quot; a workable or applicable &quot; mathematical ideas &quot; Ideas that works, mathematically. Same goes apply to aspiring &quot;chess theoretician.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14370" LastActivityDate="2017-09-22T11:16:26.867" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18664" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18659" CreationDate="2017-09-22T11:34:59.523" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you are happy playing the white side of a French Defence then I would play e4. If black is playing e6 because he wants to avoid some white QGD lines then this could make him unhappy. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2017-09-22T11:34:59.523" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18665" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17377" CreationDate="2017-09-22T12:51:46.987" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;One white opening which you can play against almost any black response is the Kings Indian Attack where you play the moves e4, Nf3, d3, g3, Bg2, 0-0 almost automatically before deciding how to proceed once you have seen black's response.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2017-09-22T12:51:46.987" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18666" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16940" CreationDate="2017-09-22T13:08:33.317" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;No. By definition an output window is for output from the program. You can only use input methods to input data. To do this just make the move you want on the board and see the computer analysis for that move in the output window. To do this for several different alternative moves create separate variations, one for each of your alternatives.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2017-09-22T13:08:33.317" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18667" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14194" CreationDate="2017-09-22T14:23:23.870" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What does it mean to be an opening theoretician, and how does one achieve this status?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_theory&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Those who write about chess theory, who are often also eminent players, are referred to as &quot;theorists&quot; or &quot;theoreticians&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So to be an opening theoretician you have to publish some opening theory. Being a famous player would help sales/credibility, but is no essential.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Apart from opening theoreticians are there middlegame and endgame theoreticians, too?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Absolutely! The same wikipedia article discusses chess theory across the phases of the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Why are most theoreticians from eastern Europe?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Based on an analysis of &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.unz.com/akarlin/world-map-chess-grandmasters/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;number of grandmasters per capita&lt;/a&gt;, more are located in eastern Europe, implying that chess is more popular/better promoted there. Therefore peripheral activities, such as publishing articles about theory, carving pieces for sale, making chess clocks etc. are more likely to thrive there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2017-09-22T14:23:23.870" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18669" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18683" CreationDate="2017-09-22T15:27:42.160" Score="6" ViewCount="6865" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the checklist that you generally follow before you make a move?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would generally look first for forcing moves (checks/captures), then moves that give me some positional edge.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It would be good to know what good players think during moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14365" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T18:49:11.033" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T18:49:11.033" Title="Checklist before you make a move" Tags="&lt;best-practice&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="18670" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18677" CreationDate="2017-09-22T17:19:36.597" Score="4" ViewCount="1651" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there a standardized method for generation of hash keys for chess positions. I want to implement hash key generation in my program, so wanted to know the best way to do it.&#xA;It would be great if someone can provide details on how the opening books do their hashing (.bin?).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14365" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2017-09-23T13:49:59.027" LastActivityDate="2017-12-04T06:18:24.757" Title="How to generate hash keys for chess positions" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;programming&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18671" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18641" CreationDate="2017-09-22T18:40:33.647" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;A 1600 rating is easily to get by doing one thing:&#xA;Study tactic puzzles! &#xA;The site chesstempo has tactics training or get books like &quot;1001 Winning Chess Sacrifices and Combinations&quot; by Reinfeld ( $2 on amazon: &lt;a href=&quot;https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/0879801115&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.amazon.com/1001-Winning-Chess-Sacrifices-Combinations/dp/0879801115&lt;/a&gt;).&#xA;If you want to get to 1800 add reading &quot;My System&quot; by Nimzowitsch and some basic endgame book.&#xA;From your game it looks like you need many basics which you will get from the &quot;My System&quot; book.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2017-09-22T18:40:33.647" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18672" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18639" CreationDate="2017-09-22T19:39:38.713" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is only one simple rule to remember:&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;Any move that lets your opponent to capture your king in the next turn is illegal.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By capturing the pawn you would let your opponent to capture your king in the next turn. Pinned situation of the bishop is not important as your opponent captures your king before you capture your opponents king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9030" LastActivityDate="2017-09-22T19:39:38.713" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18673" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18619" CreationDate="2017-09-22T22:01:09.523" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are several &quot;methods&quot; on how to study tactics.  One has you solve x number of puzzles in a certain amount of time.  Once you can do that you reduce the time allowed and repeat solving them.  You continue to reduce the time until you can solve that set in some small time allotment.&#xA;I found that working on very hard problems (typically in Chess Informants) until my head hurt was very beneficial; basically refusing to look at the answer until I really did exhaustive analysis in my head.&#xA;However, GM friend of mine recommends solve mate in 1 puzzles!&#xA;I think all of the above is the way to go.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2017-09-22T22:01:09.523" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18674" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18627" CreationDate="2017-09-22T22:12:02.197" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Consider what imbalances you can create with a particular opening and the strategic principals that go with the imbalance.  For example, Karpov often traded a bishop for a knight and then steered the pawn formation to favor knights.   You might consider the book &quot;The Ideas Behind the Chess Openings&quot; by Reuben Fine&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2017-09-22T22:12:02.197" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18675" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18579" CreationDate="2017-09-22T22:26:08.277" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The main reason 4...g6 is not played is because White can put his dark squared bishop out side the pawn chain (Bf4) followed by e3. Blacks fianchettoed bishop will not have good influence as d4 is firmly held.  Whites dark square bishop however will influence the queenside where White will be seeking an advantage.&#xA;You will see more games with g6 when White has played an early e3 blocking the bishop.  Smyslov played some nice games on the Black side of the Schlecter -- see his 125 Selected Games book.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2017-09-22T22:26:08.277" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18676" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18347" CreationDate="2017-09-22T23:01:31.680" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Rybka has a &quot;deep analysis&quot; feature but it is still too hard for engines to do this work.  You might notice it recommends a move and evaluates the position as +1 or something and then if you play down the line a move or two it changes its mind and it is suddenly +0.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2017-09-22T23:01:31.680" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18677" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18670" CreationDate="2017-09-23T00:47:13.917" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe you're talking about &lt;strong&gt;Zobrist Hashing&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;a technique to transform a board position of arbitrary size into a number of a set length, with an equal distribution over all possible numbers&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Zobrist+Hashing&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Zobrist+Hashing&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why Zobrist?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Rather than computing the hash for the entire board every time, the hash value of a board can be updated simply by XORing out the bitstring(s) for positions that have changed. That makes the hashing algorithm very efficient for chess engines.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2017-09-23T00:47:13.917" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18678" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18347" CreationDate="2017-09-23T00:59:38.403" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess engine is just a tool, your question is like asking which calculator your should use for learning mathematics.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An engine will just give you a score and a computer line, it tells you what you &lt;strong&gt;should&lt;/strong&gt; play but it doesn't tell you what you &lt;strong&gt;shouldn't&lt;/strong&gt; do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You'll need to work hard, and use the engine to aid your analysis. Consider to pay for a human chess coach.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2017-09-23T00:59:38.403" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18679" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18587" CreationDate="2017-09-23T01:23:36.427" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't remember where I first saw this kind of trick:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Could White (or Black) possibly win this?&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;8/1p4p1/1Pp3p1/k1P3p1/1pP3Pb/1P4p1/6P1/7K w - - 0 0&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, the Kingside is necessary!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;White mates in 19 (with Black's help)&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;8/1p4p1/1Pp3p1/k1P3p1/1pP3Pb/1P4p1/6P1/7K w - - 0 0&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Kg1 Ka6 2.Kf1 Ka5 3.Ke2 Ka6 4.Ke3 Ka5 5.Ke4 Ka6 6.Ke5 Ka5 7.Ke6 Ka6 8.Kf7! Ka5 9.Kxg6! Ka6 10.Kf7 Ka5 11.Ke7 Ka6 12.Kd7 Ka5 13.Kc7 Ka6 14.Kc8 Ka5 15.Kxb7 g6! 16.Ka8 Ka6 17.b7 Ka5 18.b8=Q Ka6 19.Qa7#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black could mate a few moves later after (say) 19.Qf4 Ka5 20.Qf2 gxf2 etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S. It turns out the I first noticed this trick in a help-stalemate&#xA;problem by Tivadar Kardos (see my comment below).  Looking at that &#xA;problem and some of his others suggests this improved setting of the&#xA;same idea:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;White's turn.  Could either side possibly win this? (NDE after T.Kardos)&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;5brk/4p1p1/3pP1P1/1B1P2p1/3p2p1/3P4/4K1P1/8 w - - 0 0&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8860" LastEditorUserId="8860" LastEditDate="2017-09-23T19:52:21.593" LastActivityDate="2017-09-23T19:52:21.593" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18680" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18681" CreationDate="2017-09-23T08:06:38.680" Score="18" ViewCount="1896" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have played some rapid and blitz games in my city,&#xA;it was not a tournament, but a friendly match, but there's&#xA;something that bother me almost always that I've played:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I move my piece and as my hand is still in the air moving&#xA;towards the clock, and even I have not hit it yet,&#xA;my opponent has already moved a piece. Is it legal?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14375" LastEditorUserId="12255" LastEditDate="2017-09-23T17:12:55.903" LastActivityDate="2017-09-23T17:12:55.903" Title="Is it legal to move a piece if your opponent has not hit the clock?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18681" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18680" CreationDate="2017-09-23T08:32:18.610" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Yes, it is.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's take a closer look: Article 1.1 of the FIDE rules states:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A player is said to ‘have the move’ when his opponent’s move has been&#xA;  ‘made’.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Article 4 clarifies how a move is supposed to be made. Specifically:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;When, as a legal move or part of a legal move, a piece has been&#xA;  released on a square, it cannot be moved to another square on this&#xA;  move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At that point a move has been &quot;made&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note, however, the provision in article 6.2:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A player must be allowed to stop his clock after making his move, even&#xA;  after the opponent has made his next move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even if your opponent already moved, you still have the right to press your clock.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2715" LastActivityDate="2017-09-23T08:32:18.610" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18682" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18669" CreationDate="2017-09-23T09:02:01.220" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;1) Checks&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) Captures&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) Threats (I'm threatening to check, capture, tactic like fork, skewer etc. on my next move or the move after)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4) Stop my opponent's plan&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5) Improve my position&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After everything else but must always be done is &lt;strong&gt;blunder check&lt;/strong&gt;! Even a check or capture can be a blunder. The saying &quot;Patzer sees a check, patzer plays a check&quot; is only about the patzer who forgot to blunder check his move. The first step to stop being a patzer is the final blunder check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some players would say that I have &quot;4) Stop my opponent's plan&quot; too far down and it is more important.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2017-09-23T09:02:01.220" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18683" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18669" CreationDate="2017-09-23T13:04:36.527" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;1) Did my opponent’s last move contain a threat? Is the threat real and something I need to respond to? Or am I able to ignore that move and continue with my plan?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) Do my pieces have sufficient protection? Do I have a piece that is hanging? Does my opponent have an under-protected piece?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) Is my king safe? What about the opponent’s king? Can I take advantage of my opponent’s king by, for example, preventing him from castling?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4) Did my opponent’s last move prevent the threat posed by my previous move?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5) Do I still need to develop my pieces?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;6) Can I bring my rooks to an open file or in general, make them useful? Can I double up rooks on an open file? Do I need to still open files for my rooks?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;7) Does my opponent have any weaknesses? What are the targets I should considering attacking (undefended pieces, under-protected pieces or squares, open king, etc.)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;8) How can I attack the target(s)? Any other weaknesses that can be exploited? What’s the plan?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;9) After looking away for a few seconds and revisiting the position with a completely clean, unbiased mindset, does the move I am about to make appear to be a mistake? Am I hanging a piece? Am I falling for a forced checkmate? Did I analyze all forcing moves (checks, captures, and threats)? Are my thoughts consistent with what I am calculating?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Taken from ChessUniversity.com, but is taught to students everywhere.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12449" LastActivityDate="2017-09-23T13:04:36.527" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18684" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18347" CreationDate="2017-09-23T14:21:50.133" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The engine &lt;strong&gt;Komodo&lt;/strong&gt; is supposed to be renowned for its positional bent, owing to its emphasis on evaluation over depth. GM Simon Williams mentions this in a YouTube video, and this is also reported on the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Komodo_(chess)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia page of the engine&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately the engine is proprietary and currently goes for $99.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3673" LastActivityDate="2017-09-23T14:21:50.133" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18685" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-09-23T14:28:22.173" Score="5" ViewCount="373" Body="&lt;p&gt;A coffeehouse style is what players who work hard to improve their skill at finding the objectively strongest moves in a position, having taken account of the objectively strongest moves available to the opponent, often disdain. Used by hustlers, by some recreational club players, and by many who play friendly blitz games, it is about playing what works in practice, in games with short or no time controls and which may be but are not necessarily played for money.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It includes playing moves that set traps that for some reason the opponent is likely to fall into. For example a classic example of a coffeehouse opening by Black is the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_Game,_Blackburne_Shilling_Gambit&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Blackburne Shilling Gambit&lt;/a&gt;, 1 e4 e5, 2 Nf3 Nc6, 3 Bc4 Nd4. If White plays 4 0-0, 4 c3, 4 Nc3, or 4 Nxd4, he can get an advantage, whereas Black hopes that he will play 4 Nxe5, grabbing the pawn, after which he gets walloped by 4 ... Qg5, perhaps in the line 5 Nxf7 Qxg2, 6 Rf1 Qxe4+, 7 Be2 Nf3 mate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But coffeehouse is not reducible to tactically trappy play and can be more subtle psychologically. For example if facing the line in the Alekhine Defence 1 e4 Nf6, 2 e5 Nd5, 3 c4 Nb6 White plays 4 a4, that move is not objectively weak but if it is played with a view to influencing Black to believe that White is weaker than he actually is, as if he were prone to lashing out aggressively with lots of pawn advances even when objectively unsound, it would be coffeehouse.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would appreciate recommendations of titles not just on trappy coffeehouse openings, but on any aspect of how to play strong coffeehouse.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One book on coffeehouse is John Healy's &lt;em&gt;Coffeehouse Chess Tactics&lt;/em&gt; (2010) and there is also John Emms's &lt;em&gt;The Survival Guide to Competitive Chess&lt;/em&gt; (2005). What other titles are there? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user14380" LastEditorDisplayName="user14380" LastEditDate="2017-09-23T15:18:11.563" LastActivityDate="2017-09-24T21:15:13.110" Title="What are some good books or articles on how to play coffeehouse chess?" Tags="&lt;psychology&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18686" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13067" CreationDate="2017-09-23T17:09:18.290" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;An essential feature of chess is that players are not allowed to &quot;pass&quot;.  Expiration of a time clock should not affect that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would suggest instead that if at any time White notices that Black's clock has fallen and White's clock has not (apply similar rules for the reverse situation), White may punch Black's clock (if White's clock isn't already running) and move for Black, then make his own response, and reset Black's clock to have a some small amount of time left.  The ability to compel a Black  to make even one a deliberately bad move would usually be a winning advantage, but if Black is otherwise in a vastly better position, Black might prevail even after the penalty is assessed.  If at any time both flags are down, the game will be drawn.  Further, if Black's flag is down and White wants a draw, White may claim one without having to wait for Black to move and then for his own flag to fall.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The present clock rules would be essentially equivalent to the above but with a zero-second reset (so Black's flag would remain fallen after each take-over move by White).  The one difference is that White is awarded a win if there is any sequence of legal moves by which Black could be checkmated, whether or not any sequence of moves checkmating Black could legally be carried out without the game being drawn because of a move limit or (much more rarely) a repeated position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In case the present board position would not offer White any particular useful opportunities for a take-over move, White might have the further option of setting Black's clock to a small amount of time and asking Black to move immediately.  If Black does so, White would retain the ability to make a later move for Black at a time of his choosing; if Black fails to do so, White could force Black's present move and a later one.  The only time White could &quot;store up&quot; the ability to make two moves for Black would be on a turn where Black had been told to hurry up and failed to do so.  If this rule exists, it would likely rarely need to be carried out (beyond White asking Black to hurry up) but in its absence situations could arise where e.g. Black's flag is down but there are no legal bad moves for Black.  In such cases, Black should not be able to force White to spend his take-over move by simply sitting on his hands until White does so.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2698" LastEditorUserId="2698" LastEditDate="2017-09-24T23:38:09.840" LastActivityDate="2017-09-24T23:38:09.840" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18687" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18965" CreationDate="2017-09-23T18:47:04.680" Score="1" ViewCount="286" Body="&lt;p&gt;How can I enumerate variations in CB with A) A1) A2) B) etc. to make them more readable?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Zo9SP.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Zo9SP.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12676" LastEditorUserId="12676" LastEditDate="2017-09-23T19:18:11.447" LastActivityDate="2017-10-28T21:53:51.427" Title="Chessbase 14 - How do I enumerate variations in it?" Tags="&lt;chessbase&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18688" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17045" CreationDate="2017-09-23T19:20:45.090" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your 2) ... e5 was bad because it weakens d6 and f6. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, for instance, Bg5 is now a much better move from white because of this. Also if white can arrange d6 and take control of the d6 square then you are completely lost. This was not even a remote possibility before your e5. Now it is something to worry about, a threat you have created against yourself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From this you can see that although your e5 move was bad white's 3) de was a shocker! He completely throws away the big advantage you gave him and after your reply he is even behind in development.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2017-09-23T19:20:45.090" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18689" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17038" CreationDate="2017-09-23T20:01:57.293" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In such positions each side tries to  break open the position to their advantage using &quot;pawn levers&quot;. These are pawn moves where one pawn moves forward and attacks an opposition pawn. Before this there is usually a period of each side arranging their pieces in order to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) try and make sure that when they play their pawn lever the position opens to their advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) try and either stop the opponent's pawn levers or arrange pieces so they don't get advantage from this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the position you show black has two pawn levers, c7-c5 (expanding and attacking on the queenside) and f7-f6 (attacking the center pawns and on the kingside).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White has one pawn lever f2-f4-f5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once you see this you also see that black's pieces are badly misplaced. The knight on c6 is blocking the c7-c5 lever and would be much better on d7. At the same time the bishop on b7 is a complete waste of a bishop blocked as it is by the pawn on d5. It would also prefer to be on d7 protecting the e6 pawn in anticipation of the f7-f6 pawn lever.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Meanwhile white's pieces are also misplaced. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) The knight on c3 needs to come to d2 to allow c3 to protect d4 in anticipation of black's c5 pawn lever.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) The knight on f3 is also misplaced because it blocks the f2-f4-f5 pawn lever.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nevertheless white looks to have the advantage because he has his center pawns pointing at black's castled king, he has more space particularly on the kingside, his pieces are much more ready for a kingside attack, black has several pieces tied up in cramped positions, stepping on each others' toes on the queenside.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the players had been aware of these considerations they would probably have played completely different moves. For instance, black would never have played the way he did and then follow up with d5 entombing his white squared bishop. Black would have replied to 9) e5 with Nd5 leaving d7 free for his other knight. White would never have played 9) e5 extending the view and power of the black bishop on b7. Instead he would have perhaps preferred 9) d5 trying to block it out and shut it down, etc., etc.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2017-09-23T20:01:57.293" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18690" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16806" CreationDate="2017-09-23T20:19:36.393" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I bought the 11th edition in the early 1970's. They didn't have PCs then. They didn't have chess programs and computer databases of games then. Modern chess databases are much, much, much better than an old, out of date MCO. All MCOs are very out of date. Don't waste your money. Don't let your mother waste her money.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If she is seriously going to a chess class where they give this kind of advice then ask for your money back and find a better chess class. Any one where they don't recommend buying an old opening book like MCO would be a better one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2017-09-23T20:19:36.393" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18691" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18685" CreationDate="2017-09-24T03:36:16.677" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Hikaru Nakamura wrote Bullet Chess; One Minute to Mate, perhaps not entirely what you had in mind. Ive not read it. Apparently, from Amazon reviews, some people liked it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastActivityDate="2017-09-24T03:36:16.677" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18692" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1055" CreationDate="2017-09-24T05:09:09.923" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There was a humorous analysis of the old line of the Berlin Defense (where Black plays .. bxc6 and then after e5 retreats with Nd6-b7) by the writer Assiac. It may have been in &quot;The Fireside Book of Chess.&quot; The tone of the piece was mocking, putting down how ugly &quot;modern&quot; chess theory was...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14390" LastActivityDate="2017-09-24T05:09:09.923" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18694" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18685" CreationDate="2017-09-24T08:52:33.660" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Maybe it's not exactly &quot;coffeehouse&quot; but Simon Webb's excellent &lt;em&gt;Chess for Tigers&lt;/em&gt; is all about finding what works rather than looking for objectively best moves. From page 2 of the 2nd edition:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Next time you sit down to play a match, ask yourself what is your aim in playing. Are you aiming to play the best moves? Or are you playing to win? There &lt;em&gt;is&lt;/em&gt; a difference. Many players aim merely to play the best moves, objectively speaking. They never succeed, of course, but that doesn't stop them trying. But chess is not a science — it's a game, a struggle between two mortals who make mistakes, deceive themselves and each other, get tired, allow themselves to be distracted, and altogether have no hope of attaining perfection at the chess-board. If you want to become a Tiger, you must forget about playing the best moves and concentrate on winning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2299" LastActivityDate="2017-09-24T08:52:33.660" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18695" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1055" CreationDate="2017-09-24T14:42:25.417" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Staunton: It seems utterly impossible for either player to save his game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastActivityDate="2017-09-24T14:42:25.417" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18696" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18593" CreationDate="2017-09-24T16:44:05.897" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm sorry if I don't understand your question correctly, but if you don't want to enter moves manually every time to reach a certain position you can simply create a database for all the openings\tabiyas you're interested in and add it to your bookmarks. So, whenever you need some position you open that database via the bookmark you created (it's much faster than going through open dialog box and looking for the file on your hard drive) and copy that position from there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Btw, you can also download eco.pgn file containing all the known openings here: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.cs.kent.ac.uk/people/staff/djb/pgn-extract/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.cs.kent.ac.uk/people/staff/djb/pgn-extract/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then, if you want to see the names of openings and variations that the file contains in your Game List you need to do the following: open eco.pgn as a text file in a plain text editor of your choice and replace &quot;Opening&quot; with &quot;White&quot; and &quot;Variation&quot; with &quot;Black&quot;. While doing so, don't forget to enable &quot;match case&quot; option. That's it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12676" LastEditorUserId="12676" LastEditDate="2017-09-24T16:59:37.767" LastActivityDate="2017-09-24T16:59:37.767" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18697" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18685" CreationDate="2017-09-24T21:15:13.110" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Any of the SOS books (Secrets of Opening Surprises) can be useful guides to lines effective in coffeehouse play.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2017-09-24T21:15:13.110" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18698" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-09-24T21:22:43.930" Score="2" ViewCount="1556" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am looking for a line as White against the King's Indian Defense to play in blitz.  With the short time I find it hard to play the lines where White might be winning on the queenside, but has to endure an attack on his king.  I've looked at the Smyslov line, but I don't understand what White is trying to do there.  I would consider pure English type lines or Reti if there is a good recommendation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-10-06T14:00:37.777" LastActivityDate="2019-10-06T14:04:06.743" Title="What is a good line against the King's Indian Defense for blitz play?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;kings-indian&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="18699" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18704" CreationDate="2017-09-24T22:14:21.700" Score="10" ViewCount="2103" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is possible in a chess game to have a dead position in which both players have all eight pawns, one bishop, and a king--20 pieces total.  If the two players' pawns are interlocked in &quot;zig-zag&quot; fashion and each player's bishop is the same color as his pawns, each player's army will be forever stuck behind his own wall of pawns, with no way to ever reach anything on the other side.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;4kb2/8/1p1p5/pPpPp1p1/P1P1PpPp/5P1P/8/4KB2 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the largest number of pieces that can be on the board in a legally-reachable position such that either:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The side on move has at least one legal move, but no sequence of legal moves would produce checkmate.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;It would be possible to play an arbitrary number of legal moves, but no sequence of legal moves would produce checkmate.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;No legal sequence of legal moves would produce checkmate or stalemate.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would guess that the first of those might be possible with as many as 28 pieces on the board, but most escape-proof positions rely upon immobilized kings to block opposing pawns, making it hard to allow anything other than pawns to move safely.  What are the actual limits?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2698" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-09-15T03:06:01.620" LastActivityDate="2020-09-15T03:06:01.620" Title="Maximum number of pieces on board in dead position" Tags="&lt;theory&gt;&lt;problems&gt;&lt;draw&gt;&lt;records&gt;&lt;dead-position&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18700" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18698" CreationDate="2017-09-24T22:22:50.517" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In general there is no easy way around the King's Indian: it is a highly theoretical opening that players must know how to play against.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;With the short time I find it hard to play the lines where White might be winning on the queenside, but has too endure an attack on his king&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well, if you know the opening lines well enough it really makes no difference what the time control is, as in any case the first 10-15 moves are (somehow) forced. This said, the standard main-main line (Mar de la Plata variation) for White against the King's Indian is indeed an attack against Black's Queen side (especially against c5 or by playing Be3-Nb5 pointing at a7) where White tries to move the focus elsewhere to counterattack what Black is carrying out on the King's side: in this respect the plan is conceptually easy, in the sense that especially in a blitz game you already know where your pieces go and what they must attack without having to actually think of a plan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I've looked at the Smyslov line, but I don't understand what White is trying to do there&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the Smyslov line is indeed one way to play it without all the hassle that the main line involves: White tries to make ...e5 somewhat more difficult (by pinning the f6 Knight) and to avoid the standard maneuver Ne8-f5 (as the Knight is pinned on the Queen). As such, Black usually tries to un-pin with h6-g5 and in that case it is White to start carrying an attack on the King's side against the prematurely exposed g-h pawns of Black's; the play anyway is to be studied line by line (do not take the above as a general recipe).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another attempt may be the Panno variation (fianchetto variation), where the structure g3-Bg2 makes it more difficult for Black to break open the King's side checkmating the White King very fast. There is a didactic video &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSAVnq40JdY&amp;amp;t&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; that may give you a taste thereof (but there is a lot of free GM content elsewhere too).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11726" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-09-25T13:49:20.807" LastActivityDate="2017-09-25T13:49:20.807" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18701" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18699" CreationDate="2017-09-25T02:28:19.457" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've come up with 23, in the following position, with promotions: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;????.??.??&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;*&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;nb2k3/2p5/1pP5/1Pp5/2P1p1p1/3pPpPp/3P1P1B/4KNBN w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9025" LastEditorUserId="9025" LastEditDate="2017-09-25T12:32:23.183" LastActivityDate="2017-09-25T12:32:23.183" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18702" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18698" CreationDate="2017-09-25T03:30:12.437" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You could try to take a look at the Exchange Variation. I have used it a few times in blitz and tournaments. It's easy to pick up and involves a few complications in the opening that if Black is not familiar with, may cause them to use up precious time.  Plus, it has the psychological advantage that most KID players are looking for a complex fight and this makes them play a very different kind of game, as it involves an early Queen exchange.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Granted, you have to like those kind of positions!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2569" LastActivityDate="2017-09-25T03:30:12.437" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18703" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18698" CreationDate="2017-09-25T07:35:43.653" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I merely depends on what kind of a blitz player you are. If your main point is to avoid learning complicated opening lines, you can try and play schemes with g3, e.g. 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nf3 Bg7 4.g3 d6 [you would also need to have an idea how to play against 4...d5] 5.Bg2 0-0 6.0-0 etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There &lt;em&gt;is&lt;/em&gt; a lot of theory in these variations, but it is more dispendable than in the main lines. Thanks to your kingside fianchetto you are not in danger of a direct kingside attack, so it is much easier to naviguate with general concepts (fight for the center!) and without specific knowledge.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastActivityDate="2017-09-25T07:35:43.653" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18704" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18699" CreationDate="2017-09-25T08:18:20.030" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;Funny task. I think I'm still pretty far from the maximum, but here is a suggestion with &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;23 men&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[title &quot;Challenge 3, 23 units&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;NRN1k1bn/QRKpPp2/PPpP1Pp1/2P3Pp/7P/8/7B/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;With black to move, an almost-dishonest trick to reach 25&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[title &quot;Challenge 3, BTM, 25 units&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;BRN1Nkbn/QRKpPp2/PPpP1Pp1/2P3Pp/7P/8/1r6/B7 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;27 with promoted units&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[title &quot;Challenge 3, Check, 27 unit, including promoted&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;QNBk1bnr/RBpPpKbr/PpP1Pp1p/1P3P1q/6P1/8/1R6/b7 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;explanation&lt;/em&gt;: &#xA;This is a dead draw because after the forced moves 1.gxh5 Bxb2, White could only play his king back and forth on f7 and g6 while Black's bishop explores the bottom half of the board.&#xA;wRb2 could be replaced by a wB or a wN (or a wQ with obvious adjustment of the nature of the upper-left-corner stranded pieces), or even by a fourth bB while preserving legality. This is so many &quot;degrees of freedom&quot; that I strongly feel that 27 is not the maximum, and someone will soon come up with (at least) 28...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;edit&lt;/em&gt;: indeed, Laska just scored a pretty 28 (or even 30 with &quot;the trick&quot;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastEditorUserId="14079" LastEditDate="2017-10-12T08:26:50.860" LastActivityDate="2017-10-12T08:26:50.860" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18705" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18698" CreationDate="2017-09-25T09:07:28.133" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;An effective blitz approach is to play the 150 Attack / Barry Attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This means not playing c4 on move 2. Instead play Bf4 then Nc3 and play the 150 (e4, Qd2, 0-0-0, Bh6, h4, h5, in some order followed by checkmate) in the case black doesn't play d5. In the case black does play d5 then play the Barry Attack with moves like e3, h4, etc. again with the idea of blasting open the h file and checkmating black's castled king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a crude attempt to take black away from standard KID lines and blow him out of the water if he doesn't know what he is doing and just plays stereotypical KID moves, perfect for blitz if you do some preparation first.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2017-09-25T09:07:28.133" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18706" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-09-25T10:27:54.880" Score="6" ViewCount="425" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm a software engineer, mostly working from home so I get to schedule my time however I want. I noticed few things recently.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I play more than 3 games a day, I can't work afterwords, I'd be mentally tired. I used to think that Chess makes me more productive and I kept playing every few hours a 5 min match to stay focused, but noticed that if the match is hard to win, I can't focus on work afterwards or if I was in time trouble.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm avoiding playing chess these days because of that and considering leaving the game. Is it just me or is what I described a common problem?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1105" LastEditorUserId="1105" LastEditDate="2017-09-25T13:28:11.147" LastActivityDate="2017-09-27T07:38:13.880" Title="Effect of chess on work" Tags="&lt;psychology&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18707" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18708" CreationDate="2017-09-25T10:35:03.610" Score="19" ViewCount="4379" Body="&lt;p&gt;Many players have the habit of spinning and flipping captured pieces, e.g. &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5lL1YrMl0U&amp;amp;t=12m50s&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Nakamura&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_V4kaLBm_VM&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Gelfand, Van Foreest&lt;/a&gt;, etc... However, when it is in my field of view, it distracts me and it brings me out of my concentration. Therefore, when playing a rated game and it's me to move, I would kindly ask my opponent to stop. And so far they always do, as they don't have the intention to distract me, it is just a habit of them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wonder, is there any mentioning of this in the FIDE rules?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What if my opponent would continue spinning a captured piece, ignoring my request to stop (which never happened so far)? Can I go to the arbiter?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Top players don't seem bothered, are they not distracted by it? Or is it &lt;em&gt;me&lt;/em&gt; who is too easily distracted by it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4588" LastEditorUserId="4588" LastEditDate="2018-09-18T16:31:15.957" LastActivityDate="2018-09-18T16:31:15.957" Title="Distracted by opponent's habit of spinning captured pieces" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;fide&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="18708" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18707" CreationDate="2017-09-25T10:46:05.837" Score="25" Body="&lt;p&gt;Article 11.5 of the &lt;a href=&quot;http://rules.fide.com/images/stories/Laws_of_Chess_2017.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Laws of Chess&lt;/a&gt; covers this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;It is forbidden to distract or annoy the opponent in any manner&#xA;  whatsoever. This includes unreasonable claims, unreasonable offers of&#xA;  a draw or the introduction of a source of noise into the playing area.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If your opponent distracts you in this way and refuses to stop when you ask him then you should definitely call the arbiter. The arbiter will ask your opponent to stop this behaviour and will keep an eye on your game. If your opponent ignores the arbiter's instructions then the arbiter will penalise him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that when top players do these potentially disturbing things they are careful to do so out of sight of the opponent so it does not actually disturb them. Gelfand spins his piece under the table where even he can't see it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="14378" LastEditDate="2017-12-08T19:36:23.017" LastActivityDate="2017-12-08T19:36:23.017" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18709" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18710" CreationDate="2017-09-25T17:43:17.320" Score="5" ViewCount="191" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there a chess program where you can create a position and the program creates a game, expecting the best possible moves to get there, or the most common?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A problem I would see is some positions might require a terrible move to get there, or have really extensive games to get to that point.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I feel like this could create creative attacks&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-Most common= most frequent move, such as how e4 is commonly responded with e5 even though stockfish rates c5 (Sicilian defense) as a higher value choice via the Aplha-Beta Pruning Algorithm.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-&quot;Best&quot; move= pretty much what stockfish/Komodo/ Houdini &#xA;Would choose as their algorithm chooses the highest value, safe move, as their programs can go deeper than our abilities&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12876" LastEditorUserId="12876" LastEditDate="2017-09-27T05:01:30.530" LastActivityDate="2017-09-27T05:01:30.530" Title="Backwards Chess Program" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;programming&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18710" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18709" CreationDate="2017-09-25T18:29:25.703" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think this is doable. However, it will depend on the number of pieces in the required position.&#xA;You see that many openings can be reached in multiple ways&#xA;&lt;code&gt;(X,Y,Z,...) -&amp;gt; P&lt;/code&gt;; where &lt;code&gt;X&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;Y&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;Z&lt;/code&gt; are the sets of moves that get you from the initial position to the required position &lt;code&gt;P&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This problem is NP-hard, because you can never know for sure which road was selected!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The best way for you is to study the positions of known games (which is most of the time is the case). Then search for &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;[1]&lt;/a&gt; the game and play it back from the beginning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14187" LastActivityDate="2017-09-25T18:29:25.703" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18711" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18706" CreationDate="2017-09-25T18:38:36.367" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have the same problem, and I think it's caused by two factors:&#xA;1- Bad time management.&#xA;2- Taking the games (win, loss) and rating seriously.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It happens to me that when I am winning and then I lose on time. I keep thinking of the game, even after I close the app. It's because I keep thinking that I should've played faster here or there. When I lose due to bad position or blunders, or if the position was equal, I run the analysis and keep thinking of the missed chances to win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I did like what you did. It's been a week or so that I haven't played chess games. I only solve puzzles and do lessons. No online full games. This keeps my mind working (refreshed by the distraction of a different activity) and I don't have to think of what went wrong!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14187" LastActivityDate="2017-09-25T18:38:36.367" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18714" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14985" CreationDate="2017-09-26T07:26:48.793" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;A .cbh file is not a complete database. A database in Chessbase format consists of multiple files.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To backup or transfer Chessbase databases between computers, you can either:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.chessbase.com/support-kb/content/details/318/Backups&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Backup in Chessbase&lt;/a&gt; to a .cbv file&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.chessbase.com/support-kb/content/details/288/Saving%20Games%20in%20PGN&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Save games in portable PGN&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14378" LastActivityDate="2017-09-26T07:26:48.793" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18715" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18706" CreationDate="2017-09-26T09:21:29.887" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I like playing some 1 0 chess once in a while for often 20-30 minutes.  I find it helps to actually relieve stress/nervous energy that I gathered when working.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's obviously different for many people though.  If you spend more effort on the game, it will tax you more.  I haven't really heard of it exhausting an individual for the rest of the day, however.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2017-09-26T09:21:29.887" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18716" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18717" CreationDate="2017-09-26T14:40:04.027" Score="4" ViewCount="2630" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are there any recorded examples of two chess games that were identical till the end? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the answer is no (which is most likely the case), what is the longest number of moves that have been identical in two independently played games on record? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user14405" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-03-16T13:31:07.647" LastActivityDate="2020-03-16T14:56:01.043" Title="Longest number of moves that have been identical in two independently played games on record" Tags="&lt;records&gt;&lt;famous-games&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="18717" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18716" CreationDate="2017-09-26T14:51:39.577" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;There are Several reasons for identical games:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The fact that we databases and computers allows us to find the &lt;em&gt;best&lt;/em&gt; move in known positions. (if both players knows the &lt;em&gt;theory&lt;/em&gt; in the same level - it might lead to a known draw).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hence some players might follow a known game between two great players, which might result with identical games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The fact that there are known traps, might lead to to the same trap (when one player knows the &lt;em&gt;theory&lt;/em&gt; and the other fall in the trap) &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this case, the game might end after the player fall in the trap.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In same cases, following a &lt;em&gt;theory&lt;/em&gt; might lead to a lose as in the below story about Vishy Anand:&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.redhotpawn.com/forum/only-chess/vishy-loses-in-6-movesthe-story.19148&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Vishy Anand loses in 6 moves after following a known game&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[White &quot;Zapata&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Anand&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.Nxe5 d6 4.Nf3 Nxe4 5.Nc3 Bf5?? 6.Qe2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Anand resigns&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The story goes: reaching the position after white's 5th move,Anand&#xA;  recalled the publication of the game Miles-Christiansen,in the&#xA;  Informator(a highly respectable chess journal),which went 6.Nxe4,Bxe4&#xA;  etc....Impressed with the ease with which black had drawn in that&#xA;  game,Vishy decided to try it himself.But,after 6.Qe2,black just loses&#xA;  a piece. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Now,how could both Miles and Christiansen have missed such an&#xA;  obvious move???? The answer is........they didn't!!&lt;strong&gt;That game had been&#xA;  agreed drawn in advance&lt;/strong&gt;.Something the Informator had not revealed.At&#xA;  the board,Miles did see that Qe2 was winning,but remained the&#xA;  gentleman,and avoided playing it.It is said,that he did spend some&#xA;  seconds polishing the e2 square with his finger,untill Christiansen's&#xA;  face had the appropriate shade of red,whereupon Miles took on e4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Two Identical games&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-maximum-number-of-identical-moves-in-two-different-official-chess-games-between-grandmasters#!n=12&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Here you can find&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Two identical games for the first 28 moves&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1225038&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;A Lopukhin vs Alexander Semeniuk (1975)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1224863&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yakov Estrin vs Hans Berliner (1965)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;48 Moves - Both Haugen (2523)-Fernandez (2437), 2010, and Bross (2587)-Efremov (2574), 2011, reached the same position after 48...Qd7+:&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/identical-chess-games-at-master-level&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;my source&lt;/a&gt; for the below Answer, in &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/identical-chess-games-at-master-level&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this link&lt;/a&gt; you can find more identical games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;Uxbridge Int Alekhine&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Uxbridge ENG&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2010.02.17&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;8&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Rudd, J.&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Gormally, D.&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1/2-1/2&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;B90&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;2286&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;2479&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;18&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;2010.02.13&quot;]&#xA;[EventType &quot;tourn&quot;]&#xA;[EventRounds &quot;9&quot;]&#xA;[EventCountry &quot;ENG&quot;]&#xA;[EventCategory &quot;2&quot;]&#xA;[Source &quot;Mark Crowther&quot;]&#xA;[SourceDate &quot;2010.03.01&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;] &#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 a6 6. Be3 Ng4 7. Bc1 Nf6 8.&#xA;Be3 Ng4 9. Bc1 Nf6 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another Game:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;ch-SUI&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Lenzerheide SUI&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2010.07.16&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;9&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Jenni, F.&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Kurmann, O.&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1/2-1/2&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;B90&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;2542&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;2449&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;18&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;2010.07.08&quot;]&#xA;[EventRounds &quot;9&quot;]&#xA;[EventCountry &quot;SUI&quot;]&#xA;[Source &quot;Mark Crowther&quot;]&#xA;[SourceDate &quot;2010.07.19&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;] &#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 a6 6. Be3 Ng4 7. Bc1 Nf6 8.&#xA;Be3 Ng4 9. Bc1 Nf6 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another Game:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;Moscow Dvorkovich Memorial&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Moscow&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2009.09.11&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;4&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Gansvind, Valeriya I&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Pisakov, Ilia&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1/2-1/2&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;B90&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;2226&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;2331&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;18&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;2009.09.08&quot;]&#xA;[EventType &quot;tourn&quot;]&#xA;[EventRounds &quot;13&quot;]&#xA;[EventCountry &quot;RUS&quot;]&#xA;[EventCategory &quot;4&quot;]&#xA;[Source &quot;ChessBase&quot;]&#xA;[SourceDate &quot;2009.11.03&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;] &#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 a6 6. Be3 Ng4 7. Bc1 Nf6 8.&#xA;Be3 Ng4 9. Bc1 Nf6 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10295" LastEditorUserId="10295" LastEditDate="2017-09-26T15:24:10.547" LastActivityDate="2017-09-26T15:24:10.547" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18718" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18647" CreationDate="2017-09-26T16:55:41.600" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recently switched from 1 e4 to d4 by following the repertoire book &lt;em&gt;A Strategic Chess Opening Repertoire for White&lt;/em&gt; by John Watson. It recommends 1 d4, 2 c4, 3 Nc3 against everything, so the first three moves are easy ;-)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After a while, I experienced some pitfalls and I started playing other variations as well. For example, I don't particularly like his line against the Grünfeld (exchange, Bg5, Rc1). In fact, the antidote is mentioned in one of the sidelines as an interesting idea by Svidler.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I'm not saying all of his choices are ideal, but this book will get you started. Also, it saves a lot of time, since you'll don't want to play the other stuff anymore (1 e4, 1 Nf3, 1 c4) :-)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14378" LastActivityDate="2017-09-26T16:55:41.600" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18719" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-09-26T17:30:23.467" Score="7" ViewCount="264" Body="&lt;p&gt;Last years Mega Database is full of rapid and blitz games taken from live broadcast boards. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it possible to filter them out? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there other bases that have games only from long time controls? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd prefer to review long games only, so interesting novelty from your favorite player won't turn to be a game played in blitz game...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11609" LastEditorUserId="10295" LastEditDate="2017-09-27T10:12:09.950" LastActivityDate="2018-06-25T12:16:16.987" Title="Database without rapid and blitz games" Tags="&lt;database&gt;&lt;blitz&gt;&lt;rapid&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18720" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13752" CreationDate="2017-09-26T21:23:58.323" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Xiangqi is very tactical, not positional, doesn't have chains or pawns for a long time. The difficulty to computers is the many positions available to the pieces,  and the board is 10 x 10.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think makruk or international chess is more more positional than xiangqi and shogi.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14424" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-11-22T21:40:44.743" LastActivityDate="2017-11-22T21:40:44.743" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18721" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-09-27T04:15:57.677" Score="-1" ViewCount="844" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have been following the controversy surrounding the pairings of Hou Yifan at the IOM chess tournament 2017. She was paired with 4 consecutive female players, this is following her last open swiss tournament outing in Gibraltar where she was paired with 7 female players from 10 pairings, including round 1 - 4 consecutive female-female pairing as in IOM 2017. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The question is can we not design a simple non-deterministic swiss pairing system that does not penalise the &quot;outliers&quot; of the female population of players? It is clear that rules make it more likely for Hou Yifan to be paired with women as there is an elo gap in mean the population of male elite GMs and female elite GMs and the lowest elo on the highest score and highest elo on lowest score pairing pattern used increases the likelihood of these gender-specific pairings. Any ideas?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Surely we can create opt out for gender pairings which occur consecutively?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12429" LastActivityDate="2017-09-28T23:22:01.770" Title="Why can't FIDE use a Non-Deterministic Gender Neutral Swiss Pairing system?" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;fide&gt;&lt;swiss-pairing&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="11" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18723" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18721" CreationDate="2017-09-27T07:15:12.000" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;The current algorithms are deterministic. I have no idea why you would want a &lt;em&gt;non&lt;/em&gt;-deterministic algorithm. The advantage of the deterministic ones we currently use is that they can be easily done by hand (and were done by hand until quite recently), so if a TD changes them manually that can be detected.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Gender of the players is not an input to the algorithm at all. It does not play a role whatsoever.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hou Yifan had a very unusual draw in this year's Gibraltar and the first four rounds of Isle of Man; but that's just a coincidence. Something like that has never been noticed with any other women or other tournaments or other years.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2017-09-27T07:15:12.000" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18724" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18706" CreationDate="2017-09-27T07:38:13.880" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you play Classical Chess, try not to play more than one or two each day. They can be very exhausting.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Try to play Blitz or Bullet, these time controls tend relieve the stress out of you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14406" LastActivityDate="2017-09-27T07:38:13.880" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18725" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18608" CreationDate="2017-09-27T08:51:04.787" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess is a very internationalized game where geographical borders have a very limited impact on playing styles. Every strong player from any part on the world will have studied games from Capablanca, Euwe, Fischer, Kasparov and Carlsen,  and that won't make their style more Cuban, Dutch, US, Russian nor Norvegian.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Moreover, in any big enough country, you will find very different players. Best Soviet grandmasters in the 60s where Stein, Petrosian, Smyslov, Taïmanov, Tal, Korchnoï and Spassky [&lt;em&gt;edit: and Geller, and Keres, and Botvinnik, and so many... I should have chosen another country as example!&lt;/em&gt;]: but for the fact they all were super-strong players, it would be very hard to point any similarity in between their 'styles' (if such a thing even exists). If anything, their openings were very different. Later, Karpov and Kasparov were very different players too, etc...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For a while, an excellent book published in a certain language or an excellent trainer exercing in a specific area may have had an influence on the development of players in the given area and on their choice of openings: for instance, you would meet the Tarrasch defense more often in Sweden (a Gedeon Stahlberg's legacy) and the King's Indian more often in Yugoslavia (following Svetovar Gligoric's and Boris Ivkov's example). In our era of widespread information, however, I don't think that national borders have any significative influence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastEditorUserId="14079" LastEditDate="2017-09-27T09:45:03.523" LastActivityDate="2017-09-27T09:45:03.523" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18727" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-09-27T23:18:19.433" Score="4" ViewCount="749" Body="&lt;p&gt;Each pawn, of which there are 8 white, can move 1 or 2 squares forward.&#xA;Each knight, of which there are 2 white can move forward and left or forward and right.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That gives 20.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But white can also resign, and in some tournament situations this might be sensible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But is resignation a move?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I sometimes attend quiz nights and this is a common question, and the answer is always said to be 20. I,  however, always say it is really 21 because of the resignation option. But, is resignation actually a move?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14432" LastActivityDate="2017-09-28T08:48:55.100" Title="How many initial moves are possible in Chess, 20 or 21?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18728" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18727" CreationDate="2017-09-28T01:09:11.220" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your question essentially reduces to asking whether resignation is considered a move or not. To be exact, you are asking about &lt;em&gt;legal&lt;/em&gt; moves, the topic of which is addressed in (and defined by) Article 3 of the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=171&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Laws of Chess&lt;/a&gt;. Resignation isn't mentioned there, so it's not a move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A heuristic argument: you are allowed to make a move and then resign immediately, i.e. if resignation was a move, you have effectively made two consecutive moves, which is not allowed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or more simply: since you can resign even when it's not your move, it follows that resignation is not considered a move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7473" LastActivityDate="2017-09-28T01:09:11.220" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18730" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13232" CreationDate="2017-09-28T08:48:39.140" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have the book on Chessable (popular site for reading chess books like this one):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessable.com/endgame-book/100-endgames-you-must-know/5193/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.chessable.com/endgame-book/100-endgames-you-must-know/5193/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/jTMne.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/jTMne.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The difference in edition come from improved annotations and error checking. That's common for all books (chess or not). If you already have the 3rd edition, there's no point to get the newer edition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please note the edition is not specified in the screenshot because it's always the latest edition. I'd recommend to get an ebook version (e.g. Chessable or other publishers). New In Chess updates their ebooks for free, you will get a free update when they release the 5th, 6th edition etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2017-09-28T08:48:39.140" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18731" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18727" CreationDate="2017-09-28T08:48:55.100" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to the FIDE &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=197&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;rating regulations&lt;/a&gt; -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol start=&quot;5&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Unplayed Games&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;5.1 Whether these occur because of forfeiture or any other reason, they are not counted. Any game where both players have made at least&#xA;  one move will be rated.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It looks like &quot;resigns&quot; is not a move. Games will only be rated if each side has moved at least one piece.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I believe this regulation was introduced after an incident in the last round of a big weekend tournament in England in the mid 1970's. Tony Miles was leading the competition and only needed a draw in the last round to guarantee sole first place. He met his opponent, Stewart Reuben, in the bar the night before and agreed a draw. The next day they played no moves and simply wrote on their scoresheets &quot;draw agreed&quot;. Tony Miles won first place and Stewart Reuben shared second with several other players. They were given their prize money and everybody was happy until somebody noticed they had played no moves. Then the organizer was unhappy. The result between Miles and Reuben was cancelled and they were required to repay their prize money. Now this practice is explicitly banned.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you look in the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=171&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Laws of Chess&lt;/a&gt; you see that the full title of article 3 is -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Article 3: The moves of the pieces&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From this you can also see that in chess moves are moves of pieces. &quot;Resigns&quot; is not a move of a piece and is therefore not a move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, the correct answer is 20. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2017-09-28T08:48:55.100" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18732" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18721" CreationDate="2017-09-28T09:57:21.667" Score="0" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The question is can we not design a simple non-deterministic swiss&#xA;  pairing system that does not penalise the &quot;outliers&quot; of the female&#xA;  population of players?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What you are saying is sexist and very offensive. You are saying that when Hou Yifan is paired against other female players she is &quot;penalised&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is correct and fair that the pairing systems are required to be gender neutral.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your suggestion that -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Surely we can create opt out for gender pairings which occur&#xA;  consecutively?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;offends against one of the basic principles laid down in the  &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=84&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;General handling rules for Swiss Tournaments&lt;/a&gt; in the FIDE Handbook - &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A. Pairing Systems&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;5 It is not allowed to alter the correct pairings in favour of any&#xA;  player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2017-09-28T09:57:21.667" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18734" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18735" CreationDate="2017-09-28T13:17:51.450" Score="5" ViewCount="1016" Body="&lt;p&gt;This was a recent game on chess.com. The &quot;Maximum&quot; analysis tool they have says my first mistake isn't until move 9, but I felt like I misplayed the opening even earlier. Indeed black's white squared bishop came back to haunt me. So: am I correct and if so, what could I have done better? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I include the entire game, complete with several embarrassing blunders (I'm still very new), for the sake of completeness. It may be worth nothing this was a blitz game. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 b6 {I don't see this response to e4 often, but I figure it allows me to control the center better.}&#xA;2. d4 Bb7&#xA;3. Nc3 e6&#xA;4. Nf3 Nf6&#xA;5. e5 Nd5 {I instantly regretted my pawn push here since, in particular, it opened up the long diagonal for my opponent's white squared bishop. Better was maybe 5. Be2 or Bg5?}&#xA;6. Nxd5 Bxd5&#xA;7. b3 Bb4+ {I was preparing for 8. c4, which as foiled.}&#xA;8. Bd2 Nc6&#xA;9. a3 Bxd2+&#xA;10. Qxd2 Bxf3&#xA;11. gxf3 O-O&#xA;12. O-O-O Qh4&#xA;13. h3 d5&#xA;14. exd6 cxd6&#xA;15. Rg1 d5&#xA;16. Rg4 Qf6&#xA;17. Be2 Rac8&#xA;18. Rdg1 g6&#xA;19. h4 e5&#xA;20. dxe5 Nxe5&#xA;21. Rg5 Nxf3&#xA;22. Bxf3 Qxf3&#xA;23. R1g3 Qh1+&#xA;24. Rg1 Qxh4&#xA;25. Rxd5 Rfd8&#xA;26. Rxd8+ Rxd8&#xA;27. Qe3 Rc8&#xA;28. Rd1 Qf6&#xA;29. Qe4 Qa1+&#xA;30. Kd2 Rd8+&#xA;31. Ke2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I resigned here. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10779" LastActivityDate="2017-09-30T13:00:12.233" Title="How could I have played this opening better?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;&lt;1.e4&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18735" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18734" CreationDate="2017-09-28T14:17:58.250" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some thoughts, mainly about your opening (to be fair, this game jumped right from opening to endgame in short order):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Your first four moves are very good, taking control of the center while developing.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;5. e5&lt;/strong&gt;. General rule of thumb: If you have pawns adjacent to each other and well-defended, you don't want to push one of them (&lt;em&gt;unless&lt;/em&gt; you have a good reason! And achieve something concrete with it, say, if you had a bishop on g5). The reason is that by doing so you lose a lot of flexibility. As a pair on the same rank, the pawns control a line of squares of both colors, with no obvious opening to attack by your opponent while at the same time retaining the potential of two different pushes by yourself as soon as you see an opening in the opponent's structure in return. If you move one of them without a clear target, you weaken your own line of defense (as you noticed yourself, the bishop diagonal is now open) and you also commit yourself to one attacking angle, which means that your opponent now doesn't have to worry about the other as much anymore (you cannot easily play d5, so your advance has essentially come to a halt and is not much of a threat to him anymore). Bg5 is a much stronger move here, Bd3 is fine too (development + protection of e4).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;6. Nxd5.&lt;/strong&gt; Actually makes a lot of sense, despite moving a developed piece a second time, as it offers a way to &quot;repair&quot; your pawn structure in the center. A pawn on c4 makes it only half as bad, since then the e4 pawn has regained hope of being mobile again with the support of his neighbour. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;7.b3.&lt;/strong&gt; But then you fail to execute that plan. Why not play 7. c4 straight away? The pawn will be defended adequately by your bishop on f1 and scare back the enemy bishop with a gain of tempo. Why do you need more support of c4? The only way black can attack it once more is by ...b5, and he cannot do so because of Bxb5. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;8. Bd2.&lt;/strong&gt; Makes sense.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;9. a3.&lt;/strong&gt; Allows Black to play 9...Bxf3 10. Qxf3 Bxd2+ and you are forced to retake with your king and strand it in the middle of the board behind a less than optimal pawn structure. Lucky that he played it the other way around.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Moves 10 &amp;amp; 11 are obvious.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;12. O-O-O.&lt;/strong&gt; Not the best choice, in my opinion. Your kingside might look just as weak as the queenside, but the doubled pawn actually offers some interesting possibilities, too. Many pieces have been exchanged already, so you don't actually have to worry about your king's safety after castling short: Bg2 fills the gap nicely (and can exploit the long diagonal where Black is actually weak now that his bishop is gone) and Black cannot bring in more pieces other than the queen anytime soon. Your f-pawn can support e5 from f4 to keep the center closed so that this stays this way and it may even attack on f5 in the future. You, on the other hand, might be able to use the half-open g-file to threaten his king. Black's counter plan will be to open files for his rooks. As this will happen on the queenside or center, castling long happens to have moved your king into future lines of fire. h1 would have been a much safer place to hide.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;13. h3.&lt;/strong&gt; Kinda unnecessary at this point in time, but it's alright, you want to make the rook more mobile.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;14. exd6.&lt;/strong&gt; Obviously, following my commentary on move 12, I don't like this move either. En passant looks fancy and all, but I think your strategy at this point should be to keep the center closed and use your (small, but hey) advantage on the kingside before he can break through on the queenside. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Rest of the game, in short, as it doesn't really concern the opening anymore: After opening the center, his rooks can join the fight, and your inferior pawn structure quickly shines through. Castling long proves to be absolutely inefficient in terms of king safety because of said whole-y structure.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13433" LastEditorUserId="13433" LastEditDate="2017-09-29T06:19:46.087" LastActivityDate="2017-09-29T06:19:46.087" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18737" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18738" CreationDate="2017-09-28T21:26:34.933" Score="2" ViewCount="214" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been playing chess for a while, but very casually.  I just joined a chess club and played my first tournament game.  Not having used a chess clock before, or ever having had to record my moves made things interesting!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I really want to get better and I've heard I should be analyzing my games.  Other than stepping through them and figuring out if I should have done something differently (given I lost, probably), is there something specific I should be doing?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is my game from tonight, any ideas/analysis would be very welcome.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 c5&#xA;2. d3 Nc6&#xA;3. Nf3 e5&#xA;4. Nbd2 Nf6&#xA;5. c4 Be7&#xA;6. Nb3 O-O&#xA;7. Be3 d6&#xA;8. h4 h6&#xA;9. Qd2 Ng4&#xA;10. O-O-O Nxe3&#xA;11. fxe3 a6&#xA;12. d4 exd4&#xA;13. exd4 cxd4&#xA;14. Nfxd4 Ne5&#xA;15. Qf4 Qc7&#xA;16. Nd2 b5&#xA;17. b3 bxc4&#xA;18. Bxc4 Nd3+&#xA;19. Kb1 Nxf4&#xA;20. g3 Ne6&#xA;21. Nd2f3 Rb8&#xA;22. Rc1 Qa7&#xA;23. Nc6 Qe3&#xA;24. Nxe7+ Kh8&#xA;25. Rhf1 Qxe4+ {I realized this was a mistake as soon as I made it}&#xA;26. Rc2 Nd4&#xA;27. Ne1 Nxc2&#xA;28. Nxc2 Qxc4&#xA;29. Ng6+ fxg6&#xA;30. Rxf8+ Kh7&#xA;31. Kc1 Qd3&#xA;32. Rd8 Bf5&#xA;33. Ne1 Qb1+&#xA;34. Kd2 Rxd8 {i resign}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14440" LastEditorUserId="14440" LastEditDate="2017-09-29T07:03:24.507" LastActivityDate="2017-10-03T18:15:15.510" Title="How should I analyse my game to get better?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;learning&gt;&lt;beginner&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18738" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18737" CreationDate="2017-09-28T22:10:25.043" Score="1" Body="&lt;h2&gt;Opening&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I feel that you are getting lost in the English Botvinnik system, seeing as you form the Botvinnik pawn triangle (c4-d3-e4) but then your piece placement is off (e.g. O-O-O instead of O-O). I suggest you visit my answer to &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/14468/1108&quot;&gt;Suggest a line for a player who does not want to be dragged into the Sicilian&lt;/a&gt; for more information.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, try not to move the same piece multiple times in the opening, as 6. Nb3 isn't constructive. I would try 6. Be2 and 7. O-O with a safe but cramped game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Material&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You concede the bishop pair (half a pawn) with 9. Qd2 instead of 9. Qc2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The move 15. Qf4 is the start of your tactical woes. This square should set off alarm bells because of both the potential for a knight fork and pin (...Bg5 may become playable). I would have looked at 15. Kb1.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Tournament etiquette&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Comfortably using notation and the clock comes with practice, but I don't understand why you carried on playing after 18...Nd3+.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2017-09-28T22:10:25.043" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18739" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18721" CreationDate="2017-09-28T23:22:01.770" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Surely we can create opt out for gender pairings which occur&#xA;  consecutively?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, we could.  We can make whatever rules we like, after all.  But I don't think we should.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Such a rule would have to come at the expense of some other pairing rule.  We currently have rules that players cannot play each other twice, that players with equal scores should play each other, that colors should be equalized, etc.  Which of the existing rules are less important than equalizing which gender a player will play?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Such a rule would also imply that playing females is somehow undesirable, or gives an inherent advantage or disadvantage compared to playing males with the same rating.  I don't think these are views FIDE wants to encourage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And any rule that makes things &quot;non-deterministic&quot; makes it harder for FIDE to verify that the pairings were not manipulated.  (If we did have such a rule, why would it not be deterministic?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;It is clear that rules make it more likely for Hou Yifan to be paired with women as there is an elo gap in mean the population of male elite GMs and female elite GMs and the lowest elo on the highest score and highest elo on lowest score pairing pattern used increases the likelihood of these gender-specific pairings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First of all, people with &quot;highest&quot; and &quot;lowest&quot; scores are very unlikely to play each other.  Perhaps you meant &quot;higher&quot; and &quot;lower&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Second, there are pairing rules about minimizing the number of people who get the same upfloat/downfloat as the previous round, or two rounds ago, so while this may be a factor for some players, it won't happen every round, or even every other round.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Third, in both Gibraltar and Isle of Man, she did not float (in either direction) in any of the rounds, so this was pretty much irrelevant.  It was sheer luck that she was paired with women.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2017-09-28T23:22:01.770" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18740" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18760" CreationDate="2017-09-29T08:35:57.780" Score="7" ViewCount="2622" Body="&lt;p&gt;If a strong engine (eg. Stockfish) plays with itself many times (say, 100 times), what will be the outcomes in terms of the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;What will be the proportion of draws? Will there be wins/losses? If so, what could determine wins? Will it tend to be predominantly white (because of opening advantage) or just random?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Will all the games played be along a narrow repertoire? Will there be diversity in games played?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user14405" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-09-29T13:07:09.540" LastActivityDate="2018-02-26T20:31:09.460" Title="What happens if a strong chess engine plays with itself many times?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;draw&gt;&lt;computer-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18741" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18744" CreationDate="2017-09-29T09:00:57.233" Score="9" ViewCount="2008" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's not a technically oriented question but rather a &quot;psychological&quot; one. &#xA;Personally, I don't especially like to play against my own lines especially sidelines. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I decided to play a precise line (ex : Malaniuk variation in the Scotch, but it does not matter here), it's because I consider it to be good, sound, enjoyable or whatever. But I have to play against it, I feel uneasy, like I'm playing myself. Am I the only one in this case ? Facing its own &quot;weapons&quot; could be an excellent way to improve though.&#xA;What would be your take on this ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13069" LastActivityDate="2017-09-29T09:32:39.707" Title="Facing its own weapons" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;psychology&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18742" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18741" CreationDate="2017-09-29T09:16:14.383" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;You are not alone in this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Don't play against your own weapons&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Botvinnik said a player should devise an opening repertoire so that he doesn't have to face the same variations with White that he is prepared to defend as Black, and vice versa. In this way he avoids the psychological limbo of trying to beat his own ideas.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Botvinnik followed his own advice. After adopting the Winawer variation as Black, he almost always played 3. Nd2 as White when facing the French. And when he devised his own line for the QGD for Black (1. d4 d5 2. c4 c6 3. Nc3 e6 4. Nf3 Nf6 5. Bg5 dxc4!?) he took care that when he was White he played 4. e3 or the Exchange Variation and never had to face the Botvinnik Variation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;em&gt;The Wisest Things Ever Said About Chess&lt;/em&gt; by GM Soltis&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastEditorDisplayName="user1108" LastEditDate="2017-09-29T09:30:16.750" LastActivityDate="2017-09-29T09:30:16.750" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18743" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18740" CreationDate="2017-09-29T09:22:49.023" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;With best settings and same opening moves, the results should be the same every time. Not very interesting. &#xA;Only variation that might occur is if search depth vary due to time limit and random dips in processing availability.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With different predefined openings white is expected to win up to 6% more often (&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-move_advantage_in_chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;opening advantage&lt;/a&gt;). This might vary from engine to engine and restrictions put on that engine (search depth/time).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you google it, there have been some Stockfish vs Stockfish games played and most of them seem to end in a draw. But I can't seem to find any extensive statistics.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14445" LastEditorUserId="14445" LastEditDate="2017-09-29T09:31:48.983" LastActivityDate="2017-09-29T09:31:48.983" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18744" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18741" CreationDate="2017-09-29T09:32:39.707" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;I actually like playing against opponents who attempt to play the same way that I play with their color. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The important part however is to not follow your favorite lines to the very end. As you said, there is a reason you consider them worthwhile. Instead, use your knowledge about which moves you consider &lt;em&gt;unpleasant&lt;/em&gt; when playing that variation. Chances are that your opponent, who apparently likes the style of a line you like, will dislike this deviation as well and will be just as uncomfortable as you. Keep calm, and you might be the one with the psychological high ground.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Playing against your own weapons also is a good way of sharpening them. Best case, one of your chess buddies plays the same variation. Then both of you can play a lot of practice games against each other starting with this variation with alternating colors and test possible ways your opponent might attempt to counter your strategy. I think you learn more by literally putting yourself in the opponent's skin and &lt;em&gt;really&lt;/em&gt; trying to find winning moves against your variation rather than by just assuming their moves while exclusively playing your own side in training, which might lead to some bias (&quot;hopefully he'll continue with this move in this line..&quot;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13433" LastActivityDate="2017-09-29T09:32:39.707" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18745" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2017-09-29T09:43:21.620" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-09-29T09:43:21.620" LastActivityDate="2017-09-29T09:43:21.620" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18746" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2017-09-29T09:43:21.620" Score="0" Body="For questions about the threefold repetition rule, which states a player can claim a draw if it's his/her move and a position has appeared / is about to appear which happened before at least twice." OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-09-29T09:43:21.620" LastActivityDate="2017-09-29T09:43:21.620" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18747" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2017-09-29T09:47:12.280" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;References:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Tim Krabbé has a number of chess records on &lt;a href=&quot;https://timkr.home.xs4all.nl/records/records.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;his website&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_world_records_in_chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia page on chess records&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-09-29T09:47:12.280" LastActivityDate="2017-09-29T09:47:12.280" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18748" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2017-09-29T09:47:12.280" Score="0" Body="For questions related to (world) records in chess, e.g. the longest game (in moves or in duration), highest obtained rating, longest mate in n puzzle, etc." OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-10-03T07:31:48.790" LastActivityDate="2017-10-03T07:31:48.790" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18749" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2017-09-29T09:54:46.900" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-09-29T09:54:46.900" LastActivityDate="2017-09-29T09:54:46.900" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18750" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2017-09-29T09:54:46.900" Score="0" Body="For questions about the Swiss Pairing method which is used in some (open) tournaments to determine who plays against whom." OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-09-29T09:54:46.900" LastActivityDate="2017-09-29T09:54:46.900" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18751" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2017-09-29T09:58:48.423" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-09-29T09:58:48.423" LastActivityDate="2017-09-29T09:58:48.423" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18752" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2017-09-29T09:58:48.423" Score="0" Body="For questions about the International Master (IM) title, awarded by the FIDE." OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-09-29T09:58:48.423" LastActivityDate="2017-09-29T09:58:48.423" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18753" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18669" CreationDate="2017-09-29T10:11:19.837" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The best &amp;amp; shortest checklist before making a move is &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Find out which opponent's move is most aggressive and coming in my territory or crossing half of the board.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Sometimes when you miss the above a volley of moves come in and seizes your initiative and render it to your opponent.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;From your side you can find out that any of your piece needs protection and king is safe.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can make a long list for yourself but practically it not feasible sometimes to remember all the steps but the above is the best suited for all formats of the game even in blitz.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T18:48:29.487" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T18:48:29.487" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="18754" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2017-09-29T10:43:30.530" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-09-29T10:43:30.530" LastActivityDate="2017-09-29T10:43:30.530" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18755" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2017-09-29T10:43:30.530" Score="0" Body="This is a special tag that is designed to be used only by the system for questions that have had all of their other tags removed. Do not add this tag to existing questions, it is reserved for use by the system to identify posts with no valid tags." OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-11-07T09:43:31.350" LastActivityDate="2017-11-07T09:43:31.350" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18756" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2017-09-29T13:08:50.923" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-09-29T13:08:50.923" LastActivityDate="2017-09-29T13:08:50.923" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18757" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2017-09-29T13:08:50.923" Score="0" Body="For questions about female chess players." OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-09-29T13:08:50.923" LastActivityDate="2017-09-29T13:08:50.923" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18758" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2017-09-29T13:12:16.707" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-09-29T13:12:16.707" LastActivityDate="2017-09-29T13:12:16.707" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18759" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2017-09-29T13:12:16.707" Score="0" Body="For questions specifically aimed at discussing the safety of a king in the opening and middlegame, e.g. after castling and related to pushing pawns in front of the king." OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-09-29T13:12:16.707" LastActivityDate="2017-09-29T13:12:16.707" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18760" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18740" CreationDate="2017-09-29T13:25:19.570" Score="12" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;has information on &lt;strong&gt;exactly&lt;/strong&gt; what you want. They are self-playing tests for improving the Stockfish code base.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/xVvwu.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/xVvwu.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The draw rate is roughly about &lt;strong&gt;60% - 70%&lt;/strong&gt;. There're lots of wins and losses. I believe white has more wins but it's not shown on the page.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess engines aren't perfect, they do make mistakes. If SF makes a bad move at move 20, the same algorithm might find the win a move later (21) because it can search deeper and further.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2017-09-29T13:38:30.743" LastActivityDate="2017-09-29T13:38:30.743" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18761" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-09-29T13:28:54.440" Score="-2" ViewCount="165" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just play 3 to 4 games in day(sometimes online) I am average chess player with rating 1400(rating is not  fide rating. It is rating given by chess.com). Will my rating increase with time? Or I need to join classes or chess clubs to improve my game? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13015" LastEditorUserId="13015" LastEditDate="2017-09-29T13:30:48.640" LastActivityDate="2017-09-29T13:40:45.953" Title="Will my rating increase?" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;online-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2017-09-29T18:09:16.423" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18762" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18761" CreationDate="2017-09-29T13:40:45.953" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;If your rating has stagnated (not changed in a long time) then you need to change your approach.  What you listed will definitely help.  Even if your rating is still improving, those things will make it improve faster... or they may make your rating decrease initially as you try new things.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also learn by yourself without classes and clubs by using online and printed resources.  However, an organized class may lead you to learn things you would not otherwise find on your own.  Likewise, learning on your own will help you focus on the things you like most about the game.  Do both.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At the end of the day - why do you play chess?  If to have fun - why do you care if your rating improves?  If to improve - why not invest yourself into classes, tactics trainers, and additional resources.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12728" LastActivityDate="2017-09-29T13:40:45.953" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18763" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-09-30T01:49:47.663" Score="5" ViewCount="239" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've recently joined chess.com at the suggestion from chess club.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Something I've always struggled to understand with chess is why certain moves are &quot;good&quot; and why others are &quot;bad&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I got thinking about this especially recently as I played around with the tactics on chess.com.&#xA;Some of the &quot;answers&quot; were obvious- of course you'd take the bishop with your king if it meant getting you out of check and there was no consequence for moving the king to that spot.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But there were other times where it seemed a bit murkier. It had you mess around with the king until you could take the rook. What if you don't want to take the rook?&#xA;And would that move only be good for that particular setup? You're never going to be in the exact same setup they give you in tactics. There's way too many combinations. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is a good move = something that will get you closer to checkmate?&#xA;Or is it more subjective, and good = ridding of a piece.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some excellent chess games have been played without removing a single piece from the board. What makes that good and others not good? How do you realize what a good move is?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13496" LastActivityDate="2019-11-26T13:57:13.743" Title="Are certain tactics always good or does it really depend on the game?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;theory&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18764" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8583" CreationDate="2017-09-30T07:47:49.817" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chessbase has made an implementation of Turing's engine available at the bottom of &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.chessbase.com/post/reconstructing-turing-s-paper-machine&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; post.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14451" LastActivityDate="2017-09-30T07:47:49.817" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18765" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18763" CreationDate="2017-09-30T09:18:31.183" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;TL;DR - Winning material is usually good but it's checkmate that wins a game of chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In chess there is only 1 primary aim, to checkmate your opponent before she checkmates you. ALL other aims are secondary. Thus a good move is one that makes you more likely to checkmate your opponent before she can checkmate you. End of story.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However great though that be it doesn't always provide a whole load of practical guidance when sat at the board with the clock ticking louder and louder. Thus as players of the game we employ a number of secondary objectives that experience has taught us will, with a good degree of probability, lead to the primary objective above, e.g. control the centre, develop your pieces, force your opponent to make weaknesses, win material, with your extra forces checkmate your opponent - it's only the last that counts, the others are just useful, but often very useful, stepping stones to that end.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To get to some of the more specific parts of your post, yes, the vast majority of times winning material is a good thing. To use the military analogy you now have more soldiers than your opponent, and more soldiers in a war is generally a good thing. Here's an example from a game I played at the club earlier this week:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[White &quot;Me&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;My Victim&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;r3q1rk/pp2p1bp/3p1p2/3P1PnQ/2P1B2R/1P2B3/P6P/2R4K w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Bxg5 Qxh5 2.Rxh5 fxg5 3.f6 h6 &#xA;    ( 3...Bxf6 4.Rxh7# )&#xA;4.fxg7+ Kxg7 5.h4 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why has my opponent resigned? Well ultimately it is because he believes I am a good enough player that one extra piece is enough for me, in the long run, to force checkmate against him. At the board he'll say &quot;Oh, I dropped a piece to Ian so resigned&quot;, but this is really a short hand for the above - Checkmate is the ultimate aim in chess, all others are secondary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However you are also right in saying that it does depend on the particular situation, and this is because while a great aim winning material doesn't win the game of chess, checkmate does. And thus occasionally a player will give up material because he or she thinks or has calculated that doing so will make it more likely that they will checkmate their opponent before their opponent checkmates them. Be very clear that this is the exception rather than the norm, but it's having to evaluate such possibilities that makes chess such a great game! As an example here's one of my favourite games of all time. Black gives up loads of material but it's all toward the end of queening one of his pawns, and with his new queen he will checkmate his opponent - and checkmate is how you win a game of chess!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;Student Olympiad, Marianske Lazne&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Marianske Lazne CSR&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;1962.07.??&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Eduard Gufeld&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Lubomir Kavalek&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;C64&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;64&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 Bc5 4. c3 f5 5. d4 fxe4 6. Ng5 Bb6&#xA;7. d5 e3 8. Ne4 Qh4 9. Qf3 Nf6 10. Nxf6+ gxf6 11. dxc6 exf2+&#xA;12. Kd1 dxc6 13. Be2 Be6 14. Qh5+ Qxh5 15. Bxh5+ Ke7 16. b3&#xA;Bd5 17. Ba3+ Ke6 18. Bg4+ f5 19. Bh3 Rhg8 20. Nd2 Bxg2&#xA;21. Bxg2 Rxg2 22. Rf1 Rd8 23. Ke2 Rxd2+ 24. Kxd2 e4 25. Bf8 f4&#xA;26. b4 Rg5 27. Bc5 Rxc5 28. bxc5 Bxc5 29. Rab1 f3 30. Rb4 Kf5&#xA;31. Rd4 Bxd4 32. cxd4 Kf4 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7726" LastActivityDate="2017-09-30T09:18:31.183" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18766" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18734" CreationDate="2017-09-30T13:00:12.233" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The game was totally correct but after the move 22..Qxf3 you could play 23.Rxd5 your f2 pawn is defended and opponents one pawn will down , and you could control the d file for that time which is very good . The opening was reasonable , but i think you need to prepare middlegame. For advice you can see the games of karpov and carlsen.  sites : &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chesscollection?cid=1011420&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chesscollection?cid=1011420&lt;/a&gt; ;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chesscollection?cid=1034176&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chesscollection?cid=1034176&lt;/a&gt; etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12748" LastActivityDate="2017-09-30T13:00:12.233" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18767" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-09-30T20:58:55.170" Score="-2" ViewCount="154" Body="&lt;p&gt;See image: &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/7x68s.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/7x68s.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;Why does this FEN code display incorrectly (it should describe the Portsmouth gambit)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/7x68s.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/7x68s.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="426" LastActivityDate="2017-09-30T21:26:39.670" Title="FEN notation problem" Tags="&lt;fen&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18768" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18767" CreationDate="2017-09-30T21:26:39.670" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;OK I seem to have solved this. In the .fen file do not use pgn tags!&#xA;Then the FEN code displays correctly. Of course FEN positions can be added or used in PGN files and then the pgn tags are needed&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/QT2Lc.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;![enter image description here&quot;&gt;]&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/QT2Lc.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;1&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See image..hope this may help others&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="426" LastActivityDate="2017-09-30T21:26:39.670" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18769" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-10-01T11:39:22.413" Score="2" ViewCount="256" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let's say I already know the rules of the games. What would be the next thing I should focus on? And then? Learning the most common openings? Unbalances?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I learned to play chess as a kid, played once in a while back then but then I have hardly played in 20 years. I've started to play again, and I'd like to improve. I don't want to be extremely good and I don't have a lot of time to invest, I'd just like to achieve a decent level and enjoy playing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd also appreciate a couple of book recommendations, pre-intermediate level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14457" LastActivityDate="2017-10-03T17:39:23.083" Title="Learning steps of a non-professional or play-for-fun player" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18770" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18769" CreationDate="2017-10-01T12:53:34.723" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Go to your local chess club. They will match you with opponents of an appropriate skill level. In addition, there will be people there willing to help you improve.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2017-10-01T12:53:34.723" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18771" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18389" CreationDate="2017-10-01T13:08:17.770" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I remember this - it was an impressive moment. I don't remember who the players were, but the game was probably from the Open section. Vague recollections of proposed kingside maneuvers for Black, involving ...Qg8-h7 or something likewise extravagant. I don't remember the result of the game or if Kamsky's ideas were played. And unfortunately, most of the videos on the CCSCSL livestream channel from before 2014 seem to be gone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12772" LastActivityDate="2017-10-01T13:08:17.770" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18772" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18669" CreationDate="2017-10-01T19:43:39.693" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are not so many books that talk about the thought process of selecting a move. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a section about this in Michael de la Maza's book &lt;em&gt;Rapic Chess Improvement: A Study Plan for Adult Players&lt;/em&gt; (Everyman Chess, 2002). Below is a summary. (See also &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.masschess.org/Chess_Horizons/Articles/2001-04_Sample_400_Points_Part_2.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this PDF&lt;/a&gt;.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Make a physical movement. (This may sound strange, but Michael de la Maza found this important for himself.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Look at the board with &quot;chess vision&quot;. (The book describes exercises to develop your &quot;chess vision&quot;. See also &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/article/view/chess-micro-drills&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Microdrills to Improve Your Chess!&lt;/a&gt; on Chess.com.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Understand what your opponent is threatening.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Write down your opponent's move on your score sheet.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If the opponent makes a serious threat, then respond. If not, calculate a tactical sequence. If no tactical sequence exists, implement a plan:&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Improve the mobility of your pieces.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Prevent the opponent from castling.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Trade off pawns.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Keep the queen on the board.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Write down your move.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Imagine the position after the intended move and use &quot;chess vision&quot; to check the position.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Make your move and press the clock.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Dan Heisman also describes a thought process in his book &lt;em&gt;The Improving Chess Thinker&lt;/em&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Write down your opponent's move.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Ask yourself: what are &lt;strong&gt;all&lt;/strong&gt; the things your opponent's move does? Look at checks, captures and threats, in that order.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What are all the positive things you want to do? This includes potential tactics.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What are all the candidate moves which might accomplish on or more of your goals.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Which of these candidate moves can you reject immediately because they are not safe? (Find checks, captures and threats that defeat the move.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Of the final candidate moves, which one is the best you can find in a reasonable amount of time?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10867" LastActivityDate="2017-10-01T19:43:39.693" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18773" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18769" CreationDate="2017-10-02T06:39:17.440" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Obviously, simply &lt;strong&gt;playing the game&lt;/strong&gt; is the best way to enjoy it and, at the same time, fill your brain with the patterns you need to improve.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to speed up that improvement process without spending a lot of time and while still having fun, the most efficient things are &lt;strong&gt;tactics puzzles&lt;/strong&gt; (there are tons of apps or websites out there) and &lt;strong&gt;joining a club&lt;/strong&gt; (hopefully there's at least one in your town). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Tactics&lt;/strong&gt; are widely considered to be the most important topic to practice at the beginner to intermediate level in order to get better at the game. Doing puzzles can be done very time-efficiently by using a couple of spare minutes here and a couple of spare minutes there (e.g while waiting for the bus) - you don't have to allocate special &quot;training time&quot;! At the same time, they will pump happiness hormones into your brain by using the psychology of reward stimuli (most apps/sites use some sort of point system to show your progress).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Visiting a &lt;strong&gt;club&lt;/strong&gt; on the other hand will use up some hours per week at a specific time slot - but most clubs try to place their meetings at an employment-friendly time in the evening, so it shouldn't interfere too much with your daily routine. And, of course, meeting with other people is the best way to have fun and enjoy the game! You can also learn a lot by having better players comment on your play. This sort of advice generally is less &quot;complete&quot; than the coverage a book might offer, but it will be specifically tailored to &lt;em&gt;your&lt;/em&gt; needs. And it will be a lot less dry, so more of it will actually stick in your memory (properly working with a chess book takes a lot of time - that you might not have - and can quickly develop into a chore). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13433" LastActivityDate="2017-10-02T06:39:17.440" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18774" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18769" CreationDate="2017-10-02T07:43:07.130" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;To complete other answers, I'd avise you to play &lt;strong&gt;15 min games or longer time control&lt;/strong&gt;, avoid blitz at the very beginning. Playing blitz is a very good way to practise opening though, and you speed thinking, but not right now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Speaking of openings, choose an opening that suits your style (be it a &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; opening) and stick to it. Play &lt;strong&gt;something sound that you intend to play in the long run&lt;/strong&gt;. For example, a lot of players try to dodge the Sicilian playing McDonnell Attack or Grand-Prix (a bit better than the latter). Those are not totally unplayable but you won't learn a lot and will be crushed against stronger players. &#xA;&lt;strong&gt;You shoud avoid the most theoritical openings&lt;/strong&gt;, because you'll spend most of you time and efforts remembering moves (or findind them over the board) rather than playing chess. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are a &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt; player, you'll learn (anyway!) the &lt;code&gt;Queen's gambit declined&lt;/code&gt;, to which you can add the &lt;code&gt;Trompovsky&lt;/code&gt; (very interesting opening).&#xA;If you are an &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; player and you're afraid of the open Sicilian, give a try to the &lt;code&gt;Rossolimo&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As black, against &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; and if you're willing to play the Sicilian, I'd recommand the &lt;code&gt;Taimanov&lt;/code&gt;.&#xA;Against &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt;, it's hard to tell, you have a bunch of choice. The &lt;code&gt;Nimzo&lt;/code&gt; is very interesting as well, theoretical of course but maybe not as much as the Grünfeld or King's indian.&#xA;But once again, it depends on your style. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13069" LastEditorUserId="13069" LastEditDate="2017-10-02T09:11:58.277" LastActivityDate="2017-10-02T09:11:58.277" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18775" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18776" CreationDate="2017-10-02T08:25:25.370" Score="6" ViewCount="1024" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is not the most famous anti-Grünfeld out there, but the move &lt;code&gt;3. d5&lt;/code&gt; is a bit unconfortable for a Grünfeld player, at least for me. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Main moves are &lt;code&gt;3...Bg7&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;3...c6&lt;/code&gt; challenging the &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt; pawn right away. But I don't see a clear follow-up in either case. &#xA;What would you recommand considering I'm not a King's indian player ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;rnbqkb1r/pppppp1p/5np1/3P4/2P5/8/PP2PPPP/RNBQKBNR b KQkq - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13069" LastEditorUserId="4588" LastEditDate="2017-10-02T09:58:45.463" LastActivityDate="2017-10-04T07:17:32.563" Title="Black's reply against anti-Grünfeld (3.d5)" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;1.d4&gt;&lt;grunfeld-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18776" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18775" CreationDate="2017-10-02T09:58:16.583" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;In &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.qualitychess.co.uk/products/1/103/grandmaster_repertoire_8_-_the_grunfeld_defence_volume_one_by_boris_avrukh/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Volume 1&lt;/a&gt; of his high-quality series on the Grünfeld for black, GM Avrukh recommends 3....b5!?, &quot;playing in the spirit of the Benko Gambit&quot;. On page 6 of the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.qualitychess.co.uk/ebooks/GrandmasterRepertoire8-Excerpt.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;PDF excerpt&lt;/a&gt;, you can find his analysis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, this may not be to everyone's taste. Instead, he also gives the line 3....c6 4.Nc3 cxd5 5.cxd5 d6 6.e4 Bg7 etc... &quot;with equal chances&quot;. To me, this seems a good way to play: black has several ways to develop his pieces on the queen side and to create counterplay (e.g. Nbd7-c5, e6) and it is not necessary to memorize any complicated lines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With 3.d5 white indeed avoids any Grünfeld structures, but it is relatively harmless and black can develop quite harmoniously.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;      [StartPly &quot;5&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;      [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;      1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.d5 c6 (3...b5) 4.Nc3 cxd5 5.cxd5 d6 6.e4 Bg7 7.Nf3 O-O 8.Be2 Nbd7 9.Be3 Nc5 10.Nd2 e6&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4588" LastEditorUserId="4588" LastEditDate="2017-10-04T07:17:32.563" LastActivityDate="2017-10-04T07:17:32.563" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18777" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-10-02T23:32:33.847" Score="3" ViewCount="1947" Body="&lt;p&gt;Throughout a fairly long chess career, I have always regarded 4.d3 after 1.e4 e5, 2.Nf3 Nc6, 3.Bc4 Bc5 as a good beginner's move but not threatening, and I have felt sure that most strong players shared this opinion. Quite suddenly, 3.Bc4 and 4.d3 have become the choice of very many top players. In the recent Isle of Man tournament there were days when the top boards looked like a junior scholastic tournament (but with very few examples on the lower boards). I don't see a big difference between these games and typical 19th century games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How did this happen? What has changed? Is there somebody out there who has been paying more attention than I have?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-10-03T07:32:10.303" LastActivityDate="2017-12-01T15:12:45.630" Title="What happened to the Giuoco Pianissimo?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;italian-game&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18778" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18777" CreationDate="2017-10-03T06:49:16.167" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I agree with you. Players of all level play the Italian, and especially the &lt;code&gt;4. d3&lt;/code&gt; line because they have read 2750+ players do so to avoid &quot;drawing&quot; (which is true at this level) lines aka Berlin Defense, as stated by Dag Oskar. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I see a bunch of 1500 rated players playing these lines, shuffling around trying to get something out of it, with no understanding of what is going on. I don't really see the point to be honest. This is true that the Italian has some bite if you know what you do, but the Giuco Piano/Pianissimo tend to generalize way too much. Personally, I tend to avoid it from move one &lt;code&gt;1...c5&lt;/code&gt; ;) because I want to play chess. I'll play &lt;code&gt;1...e5&lt;/code&gt; again when the Italian will be out of fashion. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13069" LastActivityDate="2017-10-03T06:49:16.167" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18779" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18780" CreationDate="2017-10-03T08:37:27.410" Score="10" ViewCount="2622" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to the rules, if a player touches a piece, he/she has to move that piece (if it's possible), and so on...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Imagine this situation, the opponent is not present on the board (far away), you touch a piece and the opponent (or somebody else) claims that you have to move that piece, can you deny it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, you can claim that I've said j'adoube or I adjust, and the opponent weren't here to hear it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My idea is, while the opponent is not present on the board, it is OK to touch the pieces, but does the rule have anticipated this situation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1824" LastActivityDate="2017-12-19T15:15:14.760" Title="Touch move rule when the opponent is not present on the board" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18780" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18779" CreationDate="2017-10-03T09:04:34.293" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;Article 4.3 of the FIDE Laws of Chess (the touch-move rule) also applies if the opponent is not present. But let's split your question up a bit:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Imagine this situation, the opponent is not present on the board (far&#xA;  away), you touch a piece and the opponent (or somebody else) claims&#xA;  that you have to move that piece, can you deny it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;In dubio pro reo. (When in doubt, for the accused.)&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unless there is any other evidence (e. g. the arbiter or a spectator observing you), if you deny having touched a piece, the arbiter should declare that there is not enough evidence to support your opponent's claim (the burden of proof is on the claimant).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not admitting that you touched a piece when you have in fact touched it, however, &lt;strong&gt;is one of the most immoral things you can do in a game&lt;/strong&gt; - exactly because of this issue.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;My idea is, while the opponent is not present on the board, it is OK to touch the pieces, but does the rule have anticipated this situation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would suggest a different approach that avoids all confusion: &lt;strong&gt;Call the arbiter to your board&lt;/strong&gt; and tell him you intend to correct the position of some pieces - that's what the arbiter is there for. If no arbiter is in sight, a more practical approach would be to say &quot;I adjust&quot; clearly while e. g. making eye contact with a neutral bystander to make sure you can prove you did not intend to move a piece.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2715" LastActivityDate="2017-10-03T09:04:34.293" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18781" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18782" CreationDate="2017-10-03T10:32:17.760" Score="20" ViewCount="7771" Body="&lt;p&gt;In a &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chesscademy.com/videos/the-king-in-the-center&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;video I'm watching&lt;/a&gt; (requires register), it has this setup.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;r3k2r/pp1qn1pp/2p2p2/8/3P4/5N2/PP2QPPP/2R1R1K1 b kq - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;[startflipped &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The instructor says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The king cannot escape, he cannot castle kingside or queenside,&#xA;because of the white's pressure on e7 [...]. Black wants to escape&#xA;this pressure by castling by hand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't understand why can't black castle. It won't castle &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castling#Requirements&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;from, through, or into check&lt;/a&gt;. Why is it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14457" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-12-13T18:08:34.337" LastActivityDate="2020-12-13T18:08:34.337" Title="Why can't the king castle in this position?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;castling&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="18782" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18781" CreationDate="2017-10-03T10:40:37.460" Score="42" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Executive summary:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black actually can castle, but if he does castle he will lose the knight and the game (due to material loss).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Detailed answer:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black and White have equal material.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The black knight is protected by two pieces: the king and the queen.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The black knight is attacked  by two pieces: the queen and rook.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the king castles, the knight will be protected only by the queen, and White will be able to win the knight which will lead to a big material advantage: a knight, which is worth about 3 points.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Castle by hand&quot; (meaning moving the king and the rook over several turns until they reach a castle position) will allow Black to keep protecting the knight. (E.g. By moving the king to F7 to protect the knight, followed by a rook to E8, etc.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10295" LastEditorUserId="3890" LastEditDate="2017-10-04T00:20:32.617" LastActivityDate="2017-10-04T00:20:32.617" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18783" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18785" CreationDate="2017-10-03T14:55:25.317" Score="5" ViewCount="311" Body="&lt;p&gt;While playing a tournament, I adjusting my pieces several times during my opponent's time. He claimed a win for the same. Can anyone explain how this rule works and why is it there?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14471" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-01-05T20:57:41.800" LastActivityDate="2021-01-05T20:57:41.800" Title="Is there a rule that doesn't allow adjustment during the opponents time?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;fide&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="18784" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18783" CreationDate="2017-10-03T15:46:24.207" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;In your case, the relevant rule is here : &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;4.2&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Provided that he first expresses his intention (for example by saying “j’adoube” or “I adjust”), only the player having the move may adjust one or more pieces on their squares.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[...]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;4.8&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  A player forfeits his right to claim against his opponent’s violation of Articles 4.1 – 4.7 once the player touches a piece with the intention of moving or capturing it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for why, I believe that adjusting your pieces while your opponent is thinking is very disruptive, especially if it happened several times during the game. It just breaks his focus. During your opponent's turn, you should let him focus as much as they want.&#xA;It could also be very unfair if you adjust your pieces while your opponent doesn't have much time, since you are using their time at their detriment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14477" LastActivityDate="2017-10-03T15:46:24.207" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18785" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18783" CreationDate="2017-10-03T15:52:06.593" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think this &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=171&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE rules&lt;/a&gt; section explains that:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Article 6.2&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;d. Only the player whose clock is running is allowed to adjust the&#xA;  pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to Article 4.2, a player should announce &lt;em&gt;&quot;j’adoube&quot;&lt;/em&gt; (I adjust) &lt;strong&gt;before adjusting pieces on the board&lt;/strong&gt;, providing only the player having the move may adjust one or more pieces on their squares (i.e. player in turn with clock still running).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In actual games usually the arbiter only issues verbal warning about adjusting pieces only in respective player's turn. But keep in mind you should avoid distracting the opponent, i.e. obstructing their view on the board when it's opponent's turn to make a move, since Article 4.8 applies if a player decides repeating disruptive behavior from his/her opponent, without announcing to adjust the pieces first:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A player forfeits his right to claim against his opponent’s violation&#xA;  of Articles 4.1 – 4.7 &lt;strong&gt;once the player touches a piece with the&#xA;  intention of moving or capturing it&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Related issue:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/8759/adjusting-in-ones-turn-only&quot;&gt;Adjusting in ones turn only&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12134" LastActivityDate="2017-10-03T15:52:06.593" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18789" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18769" CreationDate="2017-10-03T17:39:23.083" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here are some recommendations for your limited time:&#xA;Solving tactic puzzles is the best way to improve.  There are online sources for this but books with the best bang for your buck are: &quot;1001 Winning Chess Sacrifices and Combinations&quot; and &quot;1001 Brilliant ways to Checkmate&quot; both by Fred Reinfeld.&#xA;Then you need to learn strategic basics so read &quot;My System&quot; by Aron Nimzowitsch.  And of course you need basic endgame knowledge so &quot;Basic Chess Endings&quot; by Reuben Fine&#xA;Memorizing openings isn't going to make you a good player.  You can watch videos on youtube for openings but with your time constraints I would not recommend opening books.  I do recommend you get a book of games written by the player, some world champion that you like.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2017-10-03T17:39:23.083" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18790" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18737" CreationDate="2017-10-03T18:15:15.510" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can go over your game(s) with a chess engine to see what tactics you missed.  You should also find a better player to look at your games so they can tell you what you are missing strategically.  Finally, you could compare your opening moves to a database to see what other players did in that particular line.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2017-10-03T18:15:15.510" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18791" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18258" CreationDate="2017-10-03T22:42:05.867" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a famous task, originally tackled by Sam Loyd and only improved a century later.  See &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessvariants.com/problems.dir/twokingstask.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chessvariants.com/problems.dir/twokingstask.html&lt;/a&gt;, which gives the refinement by Ponzetto:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 d5 2.exd5 Qxd5 3.Bd3 Qxa2 4.Bxh7 Qxb1 5.Bxg8 Qxc2 6.Bxf7+ Kxf7 7.Rxa7 Qxc1 8.Rxb7 Rxh2 9.Rxb8 Rxg2 10.Qxc1 Rxg1+ 11.Rxg1 Rxb8 12.Qxc7 Rxb2 13.Qxc8 Rxd2 14.Qxf8+ Kxf8 15.Rxg7 Rxf2 16.Rxe7 Kxe7 17.Kxf2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For reference, here's the original Loyd solution:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;1. c4 d5 2. cxd5 Qxd5 3. Qc2 Qxg2 4. Qxc7 Qxg1 5. Qxb7 Qxh2 6. Qxb8 Qe5 7. Qxc8+ Rxc8 8. Rxh7 Qxb2 9. Rxh8 Qxa2 10. Rxg8 Qxd2+ 11. Kxd2 Rxc1 12. Rxg7 Rxb1 13. Rxf7 Rxf1 14. Rxf8+ Kxf8 15. Rxa7 Rxf2 16. Rxe7 Rxe2+ 17. Kxe2 Kxe7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[ &lt;strong&gt;ETA:&lt;/strong&gt; Incidentally, while the linked article leaves it as an open problem, it seems like it would be a very straightforward task to show that 16.5 is optimal; at least at first glance I don't see any lines that have captures by both sides on all four half-moves in moves 2 and 3, which would imply that some form of 'off move' along the lines of White's 3. Bd3 is a strict necessity within the first few moves. ]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4270" LastEditorUserId="4270" LastEditDate="2017-10-05T22:28:37.947" LastActivityDate="2017-10-05T22:28:37.947" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18792" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-10-04T07:20:54.800" Score="2" ViewCount="158" Body="&lt;p&gt;As stated in the title, are there any websites out there to play thematic games in Blitz (or quick time control) ? The idea is to practise a specific opening, starting from a precise position (arising after the exchange Grünfeld for example). I know a french website where it's possible but for corresponding games only.&#xA;Thanks in advance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13069" LastActivityDate="2017-10-04T09:46:58.070" Title="Website to practise thematic games [blitz]?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;websites&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18793" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18792" CreationDate="2017-10-04T09:14:15.330" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess24.com used to do this - &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess24.com/en/read/news/new-thematic-tournaments&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://chess24.com/en/read/news/new-thematic-tournaments&lt;/a&gt; . I don't know if these tournaments are still running.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2017-10-04T09:14:15.330" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18794" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18781" CreationDate="2017-10-04T09:35:59.050" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is one possibility when castling would be illegal - if king has moved earlier in the game - then the move would be illegal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14492" LastActivityDate="2017-10-04T09:35:59.050" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18795" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18792" CreationDate="2017-10-04T09:46:58.070" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Lichess has what you are looking for:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/3UVdg.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/3UVdg.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But you may have to check out when a specific opening theme may be scheduled in their tournament table. Also Lichess has a feature to start your own thematic tournament at any time of the day, but attracting players to the custom tournaments typically does not work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3158" LastActivityDate="2017-10-04T09:46:58.070" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18796" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5904" CreationDate="2017-10-04T12:07:32.927" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In informal games, it is customary to announce &quot;check&quot; when making a move that puts the opponent's king in check. However, in formal competitions check is rarely announced (Just 2014).&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rules_of_chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Rules_of_chess&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14494" LastActivityDate="2017-10-04T12:07:32.927" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18797" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18847" CreationDate="2017-10-04T19:45:40.090" Score="8" ViewCount="912" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.O-O&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In recent years, the move 4.O-O has taken over from 4.d3 almost entirely -- in my database of TWIC games, if I look at 2750+ games from the last year, I see 4.0-0 70 times and 4.d3 only 5 times. They mostly seem to transpose into the same positions. This seems to be relatively recent and might be a factor behind the recent popularity of 3.Bc4 (related to the question &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/18777/what-happened-to-the-giuoco-pianissimo&quot;&gt;What happened to the Giuoco Pianissimo?&lt;/a&gt; , I turned my comments there into this question).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What's the advantage of 4.O-O over 4.d3?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In case it helps, I seem to recall someone asking this elsewhere (maybe on Reddit?) and a helpful answer linked to some well known commentators explaining it (perhaps Svidler and Gustafsson?). I was at work and didn't watch the video, and I've forgotten where I saw it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastEditorUserId="21604" LastEditDate="2020-08-27T09:05:50.253" LastActivityDate="2020-08-27T09:05:50.253" Title="In the Giuoco Piano, why is 4.0-0 currently so popular at top level?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;italian-game&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="18798" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-10-04T20:14:05.573" Score="4" ViewCount="907" Body="&lt;p&gt;One of the properties of an elo rating system is that the sum of all elo changes is zero. When calculating the new FIDE elo ratings, the elo changes are added to the old ratings and the new ratings are rounded. However, doesn't the last step &lt;em&gt;create&lt;/em&gt; rating points?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Say, player A has 110 ratings points more than player B and both players have a K-factor of 10. When player A wins against player B, he gains 3.5 points, while player B loses 3.5 points (see &lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/calculator_rtd.phtml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE elo calculator&lt;/a&gt;). But after adding the elo changes and rounding the new ratings, player A will gain 4 points and player B will lose only 3. As a result, the zero-sum property is violated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An example of such a case can be found here: the elo calculations of &lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/individual_calculations.phtml?idnumber=1003623&amp;amp;rating_period=2015-12-01&amp;amp;t=0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;player 1&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/individual_calculations.phtml?idnumber=1004395&amp;amp;rating_period=2015-12-01&amp;amp;t=0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;player 2&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Am I overlooking something? If not, has this been noticed and pointed out before?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Wouldn't it be more correct if the elo changes are rounded &lt;em&gt;first&lt;/em&gt;, before adding them to the old rating? (In the example, -3.5 would be rounded to -4.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or is this effect so small that it can be neglected, compared to other effects like the inflow of new players, different K-factors, etc...?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4588" LastEditorUserId="4588" LastEditDate="2018-08-07T18:21:01.567" LastActivityDate="2018-09-08T20:16:46.750" Title="Mistake in FIDE elo calculation?" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;elo&gt;&lt;fide&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="18799" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18797" CreationDate="2017-10-05T05:57:03.217" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I see two reasons why to prefer castling over c3. First reason why I would go for 4.0-0 is that I would like to postpone playing c3 to make lines with d5 riskier. Imagine Marshall Ruy-Lopez, if the pawn was on c2, white would have very easy life, no weakness on d3, Nc3 possibility. And you can always play the c3 later if you like. The second thing may be desire to avoid playing c3 in early phase at all. White players tried to play a4 to create shelter for the bishop on a2, not minding exchange for opponent's bishop, avoiding classical Bb3-c2 plan. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11609" LastActivityDate="2017-10-05T05:57:03.217" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18800" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-10-05T06:43:27.273" Score="0" ViewCount="309" Body="&lt;p&gt;What are rationals/inherent preferences behind the following novelties performed by White? I'm open to those to either logically deduced them or explain the deviated lines through experience/practice playing them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;The traditional line:&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.d4 d5&#xA;2.c4 dxc4&#xA;3.Qa4+ Bd7&#xA;4.Qxc4 ...&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Novelty 1:&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.d4 d5&#xA;2.c4 dxc4&#xA;3.Bf4!?&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Novelty 2:&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.d4 d5&#xA;2.c4 dxc4&#xA;3.Nd2!?&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Novelty 3:&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.d4 d5&#xA;2.c4 dxc4&#xA;3.b4!?&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14506" LastEditorUserId="14506" LastEditDate="2017-10-11T17:30:10.247" LastActivityDate="2017-10-11T17:30:10.247" Title="Queens Gambit Accepted 3rd move Side Lines (White)" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;queens-gambit-accepted&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18801" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18800" CreationDate="2017-10-05T07:32:45.763" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Short answer&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3.Qa4+ and 3.Bf4 are reasonnable enough moves but not dangerous for Black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3.Nd2?! and 3.b4? are very dubious.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1. &quot;Traditional line&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't know why you name it that way, 3.Nf3 or 3.e4 are much more common than 3.Qa4+. By the way your &quot;novelties&quot; are certainly not that &quot;new&quot; either.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The idea of 3.Qa4+ is to regain the pawn at once. Its minus is that the queen goes out too early and will lose some tempi later on. Note that beside 3...Bd7, 3...Nc6 is possible too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;2. &quot;Novelty 1&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3.Bf4 is just a developing move, so it cannot be too bad. However, it doesn't adress the main issues in the QGA (fight for the center, for the light squares, for the Pc4...), so it should be pretty harmless for Black after, say, 3...Nf6 4.e3 c5!?, or 4...Bg4!?, or simply 4...e6 followed by a6,c5 in traditional QGA-style.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;3. &quot;Novelty 2&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I suppose 3.Nd2?! aims at taking back on c4 with that knight. Fair enough, but it becomes a real (double-)gambit after 3...Qxd4!? 4.Nf3 [or 4.e3 Qd7 5.Bxc4 e6 and White doesn't have enough for one pawn.] Qc5, and White has to prove his compensation. If Black is less adventurous, 3...Nc6 4.e3 e5 should already be advantageous for him: he has more influence in the center and White hasn't got his gambitted pawn back yet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;4. &quot;Novelty 3&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3.b4? sets a record: There is no faster way to give your opponent a passed pawn after only 5 plies. It also doesn't develop, doesn't make a threat and weaken your queenside.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If Black takes en passant, White will get a bit of compensation for his pawn but probably not enough. If black just develops with 3...Nf6 or 3...e6 (already hiting b4!), he enjoys a great position with as much of an advantage as you can dream for on move 3 as Black. The solid 3...c6 planning either 4...a5 attacking the weakness on b4 or 4...b5 securing an extra protected passed pawn also looks logical to me. 3...e5!? is a more aggressive option, and a tempting one as well since 4.de5 Bxb4+ 5.Bd2 Qd4 6.Bxb4 Qxa1 is probably just winning for Black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe White's idea is the trap 3...Nc6?! 4.d5 Nxb4?? [even here, 4...Ne5 should be okay.] 5.Qa4+ winning the knight, but well, that's just a cheapo and once Black avoids it he can be very happy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastEditorUserId="14079" LastEditDate="2017-10-06T08:28:12.623" LastActivityDate="2017-10-06T08:28:12.623" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18803" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5904" CreationDate="2017-10-06T00:42:57.070" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Especially in friendly games, a person should be polite.  Politeness, especially announcing &quot;check&quot; (or even &quot;discovered check&quot; when an opponent accidentally moves a pinned piece) goes a long way to contributing to everybody's enjoyment and their desire to continue playing the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14203" LastActivityDate="2017-10-06T00:42:57.070" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18804" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18836" CreationDate="2017-10-06T16:37:54.710" Score="2" ViewCount="410" Body="&lt;p&gt;It used to be a common problem for me to have very high calculating ability for the first few matches, and then I would make tons a blunders when I play the 10th or more. While for the most part memorizing lines, and having tactics become more inherent is allowing me to play more games, but I still can’t command the high level of analysis I would of at the beginning of the day.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So how do I keep from my brain exhausting?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“Do you drink water during that time? Do you snack or drink soda?”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the most part, no. I’m in the zone&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12876" LastEditorUserId="12876" LastEditDate="2017-10-06T17:22:16.673" LastActivityDate="2017-10-11T11:55:57.333" Title="How to play more chess without your brain tiring" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18805" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18808" CreationDate="2017-10-06T17:10:42.270" Score="2" ViewCount="208" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have been analyzing this endgame for a while now, but I can't seem to make any progress. The engine evaluation is -2.5, but I'm wondering if this is one of those weird evaluations that is wrong because black can never win. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black to move&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;8/8/8/1q4p1/p6k/B1R4P/K7/8 b - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14511" LastEditorUserId="4186" LastEditDate="2017-10-07T00:22:03.297" LastActivityDate="2017-10-07T17:57:58.540" Title="Can black make any progress in this end game?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;fortress&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18806" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18805" CreationDate="2017-10-06T17:21:15.553" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It would be perpetual since white can keep the rook on the 3rd file and guard it with the bishop, your best bet is to hope they blunder, which isn’t likely&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12876" LastActivityDate="2017-10-06T17:21:15.553" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18807" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18804" CreationDate="2017-10-06T18:46:43.003" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Since you answered my comment that you don't drink water, sodas or eat snacks during games, maybe you should give these a try.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Drinking water is very important since it keeps your body (and your brain) hyrdrated, keeping the electricity flowing and helping you focus.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Snacking and drinking soda can give you some carbs for bursts of energy. Several chess players eat pieces of chocolate to give them some energy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11122" LastActivityDate="2017-10-06T18:46:43.003" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18808" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18805" CreationDate="2017-10-06T19:37:49.190" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;It does look like a fortress. After 1...Qe2+ 2.Bb2 Qd2 White can wait with Ka2-b1-a2 or Bb2-a1-b2 depending on where the queen sits.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black cannot bring the king to d4 because of discovered checks, so the best try seems to be to travel to d5 and play a3 when the pieces are Qd2, Bb2, wKb1. Then Rxa3 Kc4 prevents the rook from coming back to c3 because of Qxc3 simplifying to a winning ​pawn ending.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Alas, White still can play Bc1 Qg2 Re3 Kb4 Ra3 and wait with Ra3-e3-a3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I believe it is a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastEditorUserId="14079" LastEditDate="2017-10-07T17:57:58.540" LastActivityDate="2017-10-07T17:57:58.540" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18809" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18805" CreationDate="2017-10-07T02:44:39.513" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I checked the tablebases, and removing the a3 pawn is a win for black, while removing the a3 and b5 pawns is a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I ran it through a couple of engines for a while, starting with Qd5+, Kb2, Qd2+. It did not appear to come up with anything. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9025" LastActivityDate="2017-10-07T02:44:39.513" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18810" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="20129" CreationDate="2017-10-07T05:17:26.713" Score="18" ViewCount="1552" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've heard it said that some Chess960 positions have a significant advantage for White, usually involving fast attacks against undefended pawns. However, since zugzwang positions do exist, it's theoretically possible that Black could have an advantage in some opening setups. Which leads to the question: are there any where he does? If not, are there any that give White less of an advantage than he has in normal chess?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12377" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-10-14T20:13:25.923" LastActivityDate="2019-10-15T06:42:35.050" Title="Are there any Chess960 positions where Black has the advantage?" Tags="&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;zugzwang&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="18811" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2732" CreationDate="2017-10-07T13:29:43.423" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;So, I noticed this as well.  I recently purchased a DGT3000 to replace my Saitek Game Clock II that had finally died.  With Bronstein timing, the Saitek did not add the increment to the initial time control (i.e. at move 0), but the DGT3000 does.  This seemed odd to me.  I play a lot of 2-12 Bronstein games (2 minute games with a 12 second increment).  I programmed one of the DGT's manual setting slots for a Bronstein 2-12 control and I was surprised to see 2 minutes and 12 seconds on my clock at the start of the game. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've been a USCF rated player since the 1970s.  I'm also a certified tournament director, and I've never seen a clock that handled the Bronstein control like this.  Yes, I understand the rules stated above 6.2. b and 5.1.b.  However, the problem in adding the delay to the initial time control violates Bronstein's own rule that the bonus can never increment the time to more than what was on the clock at the beginning of the move.  Finally, I would also point out that Bronstein controls seen on the online sites such as FICS, etc. don't do this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Fortunately, for the DGT, you can get around the problem by setting the initial control down by the increment.  In other words. a setting of 1:48-12 in reality yields the 2-12 game I'm after on the DGT.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14519" LastActivityDate="2017-10-07T13:29:43.423" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18813" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14459" CreationDate="2017-10-07T22:41:15.940" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It’s also possible within Chessbase’s Fritz UI, you just save the desired sequence of moves as a database and then define that database as the opening database for the engine match.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12953" LastActivityDate="2017-10-07T22:41:15.940" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18814" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-10-08T03:16:21.100" Score="5" ViewCount="284" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to know the names of the variations in the Ruy Lopez Chigorin, for example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.O-O Be7 6.Re1 b5 7.Bb3 d6 8.c3 O-O 9.h3 Na5 10.Bc2 c5 11.d4 Nd7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I look at the opening classification on &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessbase.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chessbase&lt;/a&gt; but it's not very detailed with names. Also &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.365chess.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chess365.com&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there anywhere else I can see names of variations?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14524" LastEditorUserId="4186" LastEditDate="2017-10-08T20:37:22.467" LastActivityDate="2017-10-13T16:54:27.687" Title="Is there an easy way to find out the name of a variation?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18815" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18814" CreationDate="2017-10-08T07:41:43.333" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I use Arena, a chess software with stockfish engine downloaded to it. So what you can do is play the variation on both sides and it will show you the name of the variation&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14526" LastActivityDate="2017-10-08T07:41:43.333" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18817" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18814" CreationDate="2017-10-08T13:46:13.533" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;My free, open-source software, &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.cs.kent.ac.uk/people/staff/djb/pgn-extract/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;pgn-extract&lt;/a&gt;, provides a file eco.pgn that provides names for ECO codes. This file can be used with pgn-extract to add ECO tags to game scores: see its -e flag. For instance, the tags it produces for the moves: 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.0-0 Be7 6.Re1 b5 7.Bb3 d6 8.c3 0-0 9.h3 Na5 10.Bc2 c5 11.d4 Nd7 * are: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[ECO &quot;C96&quot;]&#xA;[Opening &quot;Ruy Lopez&quot;]&#xA;[Variation &quot;closed, Keres (...Nd7) defence&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That might provides some degree of what you are looking for.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12951" LastActivityDate="2017-10-08T13:46:13.533" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18818" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18819" CreationDate="2017-10-08T18:17:43.063" Score="-5" ViewCount="515" Body="&lt;p&gt;Who are top-rated players (with 2600+ ELO) who are most notable in each of following styles?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Aggressive&#xA;Positional&#xA;Calculating&#xA;Technical&#xA;Practical&#xA;Intuitive&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13619" LastActivityDate="2017-10-08T18:25:15.687" Title="Top-rated players in each style" Tags="&lt;style&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="8" ClosedDate="2017-10-09T00:52:34.390" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18819" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18818" CreationDate="2017-10-08T18:25:15.687" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As addressed in my answer to &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/16790/1108&quot;&gt;What is chess style?&lt;/a&gt;, there is a website called &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesspersonality.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;ChessPersonality.com&lt;/a&gt; which gives a list of styles alongside suggested openings and top players you may want to study.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2017-10-08T18:25:15.687" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18820" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18258" CreationDate="2017-10-09T09:51:33.890" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Francois Labelle has studied this as part of the more challenging problem of finding a unique proof game which ends with KvK. His site www.wismuth.com contains a wealth of chess computational results. He has found one proof game leading to KvK in 19.5 moves, and has certainly got all the (non-unique) 16.5 games. A minor point worth noting is that any solution cannot end with a capture of a minor piece, or a forced capture, because there would be a prior dead position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8201" LastActivityDate="2017-10-09T09:51:33.890" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18821" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18814" CreationDate="2017-10-09T10:05:29.680" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not especially - see for instance the discussion at &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/9461/what-are-all-the-most-common-transpositions-between-the-caro-kann-panov-botvinni&quot;&gt;What are all the most common transpositions between the Caro-Kann Panov–Botvinnik Attack with 5...e6 6. Nf3 Bb4 and the Nimzo-Indian Defence?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 Bb4 4. e3 O-O 5. Bd3 d5 6. Nf3 c5 7. O-O cxd4 8. exd4 dxc4 9. Bxc4 &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. exd5 cxd5 4. c4 Nf6 5. Nc3 e6 6. Nf3 Bb4 7. Bd3 dxc4 8. Bxc4 O-O 9. O-O&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;both end up with the same position but argually one will be tagged as a Caro-Kann and one as a Nimzo-Indian.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14532" LastActivityDate="2017-10-09T10:05:29.680" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18823" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18699" CreationDate="2017-10-09T16:39:41.140" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;The three dead position challenges are (1) general (2) no finite mandatory stalemate (3) definitely no stalemate possible ever. (3)=&gt;(2)=&gt;(1).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Retro enthusiasts often sub-divide Task Records into 3 types:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;- Type A = no additional information in the stipulation&lt;br&gt;&#xA;- Type B = you are told who is on move (e.g. White here), but there is no check.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;- Type C = one player is in check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The posts so far have focused on OP's challenge (3). Here are a couple for challenge (1):  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[title &quot;Challenge 1, Type B, 31 units, Last move?&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;brnk1N1B/qnb1pBR1/rbKpP3/p1pP2NQ/P1P2p2/1p3P1p/1P5P/5R2 w - - 0 1&quot;]  &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White to move. Last move?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black's last move must have been b4-b3. If the prior position was dead, the game would have already terminated. So White's move before that was a2-a4 or c2-c4, and Black chose not to make the en passant capture, which would have kept the game alive. No en passant convention is required here: White's double pawn move is the only way the game could have reached the current position without dying already.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This position was built many years ago, to force a unique last move. Without that additional goal, it's easy to make a 32 unit dead position.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[title &quot;Challenge 1, Type B, 32 units&quot;]  &#xA;[fen &quot;bqn1KN2/rrk1pB2/nb1pPp1p/p1pP1PpP/PpP3P1/1P2N1R1/4Q3/1R4B1 w - - 0 1&quot;]  &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White to move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Moving on to challenge 3, Olivier Pucher had 27 pieces, Type C. I offer:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[title &quot;Challenge 3, Type A, 29 units&quot;]  &#xA;[fen &quot;qrn1KRRB/brk1pPN1/1p1pPp1p/1P1P1P1P/1p6/1Pp5/2P5/N5bB w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[title &quot;Challenge 3, Type C, 30 units&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;brn1KRRB/brN1pPN1/1bkpPp1p/p1pP1P1P/q1P5/1P6/1Q6/b4B2 w - - 0 1&quot;]  &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8201" LastEditorUserId="8201" LastEditDate="2018-02-18T13:14:20.397" LastActivityDate="2018-02-18T13:14:20.397" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18824" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18834" CreationDate="2017-10-09T19:56:32.103" Score="2" ViewCount="448" Body="&lt;p&gt;Positions in an opening can often be reached in a variety of (meaningful) ways, i.e. by &lt;em&gt;transpositions&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When classifying chess games (e.g. in databases or books) by , are there rules or other guidelines which of these transpositions to pick?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2017-10-10T11:26:43.177" LastActivityDate="2017-11-09T17:07:27.800" Title="Opening classification and transpositions" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;transpositions&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18825" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18826" CreationDate="2017-10-09T21:05:50.370" Score="8" ViewCount="311" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/tzoKI.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a spoken advice to capture with the pawns always towards the center. This situation let me think for a while. Is undoubling here not better?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13744" LastActivityDate="2018-01-30T15:55:21.560" Title="Capture towards the center vs. undoubling" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;pawns&gt;&lt;captures&gt;&lt;doubled-pawn&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18826" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18825" CreationDate="2017-10-09T21:21:21.027" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this particular position both ...ab6 and ...cb6 are reasonable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Generally speaking I would prefer to take toward the center because the doubled pawns are not weak at all when they have neighbours and the enhanced control of the center might prove useful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here however ab6 has the minus that it allows White counterplay thanks to the outside passed pawn after a4-a5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The evaluation of this position will depend on Black breaking through or not on the kingside, with ...Rf3 or ...g4. My intuition is that White should be able to hold. If that's correct, the best choice might very well be to limit counterplay with 1...cb6. But once again, this is merely due to the specifics of this particular position, and not because undoubling would be better than taking toward the center in general.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastEditorUserId="14079" LastEditDate="2018-01-30T15:55:21.560" LastActivityDate="2018-01-30T15:55:21.560" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18827" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-10-09T21:47:37.690" Score="4" ViewCount="350" Body="&lt;p&gt;The rule says:&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;Delivering a double-check is worth +5, and triple-checks are worth +15&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is a double check when I am &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;checking two players at one move&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;checking one player with a normal double check&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;checking a player that is already under check&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Counting that there is a &quot;triple check&quot; either the rule one or three should be true because you can not give a triple check to one player by only your move. However, I am not sure if there are points for the normal double-check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13744" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2017-10-09T22:35:36.057" LastActivityDate="2018-03-18T14:21:25.900" Title="What does double-check mean in four-player chess on chess.com?" Tags="&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;check&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18828" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18825" CreationDate="2017-10-09T22:51:39.520" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think Olivier is right to prefer axb6. The drawback of allowing White a potential passed pawn is not serious, unless it occurs at some late stage of an endgame. Until then it is just a backward pawn on an open file. But Black also has a great position on the other wing. A Fischer block with Rf3 must be taken seriously.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the general situation, you should ask, why are doubled pawns weak? Sometimes because they cannot protect each other, sometimes because the square ahead is open to blockade. Neither applies here, but they would exert great control over the center. Whether you are playing with doubled pawns or against them, you have to &quot;accentuate the positive&quot;. Remember that anything that cannot be attacked is not weak.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastActivityDate="2017-10-09T22:51:39.520" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18832" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18825" CreationDate="2017-10-10T11:07:56.247" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here all is about whether white a-pawn will be strong passed pawn or weakness on semi open file. Possible undoubling is just a side effect of more important consideration. If you can blow the kingside, make your center as solid as possible and wait a3 will become a serious weakness with white pieces tied to defense. If you can't, you will have to deal with huge distraction problem on the a-file, forcing you to leave attacking position. My first idea was clearly cxb6 but it's better to ask the engine :-) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11609" LastActivityDate="2017-10-10T11:07:56.247" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18833" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4702" CreationDate="2017-10-10T15:39:55.777" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;One exception :&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are playing &lt;strong&gt;supervized&lt;/strong&gt; blitz (like in the World Cup, for instance), then the &quot;Competition Rules&quot; apply and you can claim a draw through article 10.2. See Annex B.3 of the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=171&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Fide Handbook&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the given position, you could get a draw by stopping the clock, calling the referee, explaining clearly that you intend to move your bishop on the e1-b4 diagonal without giving it to the white King, take on e5 with Pf6 if White ever plays e4-e5, and that your opponent has no way to win by normal means.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In &lt;strong&gt;un-supervized&lt;/strong&gt; blitz, however, the Rapidplay Laws apply and, well, if your opponent wants to keep on playing it becomes a wrist race and you may end up losing on time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastActivityDate="2017-10-10T15:39:55.777" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18834" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18824" CreationDate="2017-10-10T16:11:28.887" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your question has two different nuances, that is, how to classify an opening and how to classify a game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Encyclopedia of Chess Openings' only aim is to classify the first moves of a chess game, it does not concern itself with how the game develops nor further transpositions. Even if a widely known position is reached after an unorthodox choice of moves, the ECO will classify the opening according to these first moves. A comprehensive list can be found both in &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.365chess.com/eco.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;365Chess&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_chess_openings&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;, the first provides easy access to the variation in question and the second provides the name and some contextualization for the variation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While the ECO has not an analogous encyclopedia for complete games, the widespread and common way of treating them in the literature is to find the last instance of a known tabiya and consider the game under its umbrella. This ignores the concrete opening, which is often useful since the game may be a relevant addition to the theory on that position, and thus the particular move order leading to it is irrelevant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3890" LastActivityDate="2017-10-10T16:11:28.887" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18835" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6261" CreationDate="2017-10-11T08:51:56.200" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Reasoning by hand about proof games is fine, but is more fun for positions which have been designed by humans to be solvable and to contain interesting features. Automatic verification is standard for all but the most complex of compositions, and is normally done by specialized engine, of which there are several available for free online.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;IMHO, the best proof game engine for OP's position is Natch. Running for 49.03 seconds, it found 2493 &quot;solutions&quot; for how to reach the position in exactly 10.0 moves. None of them contained the strings e1, a1 (or 0-0-0!) and so there is no way that White could have lost castling rights in the prior play. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Notes:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(1) The way that Natch reports consolidates results to reduce the length of the report, so there are rather more than 2493 actual proof games, but that doesn't affect the conclusion.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(2) What about other engines? Popeye is not the most performant for this kind of position, and Euclide would have terminated as soon as it found that there wasn't a unique solution. But both are excellent engines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8201" LastActivityDate="2017-10-11T08:51:56.200" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18836" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18804" CreationDate="2017-10-11T11:55:57.333" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Following the general rules for staying physically fit are probably a good idea.  Also getting enough sleep before a match. These things always helped me.  Fischer was noted for staying physically fit.  Also he drank apple juice during play.  Getting up and moving around also would seem desirable, since that keeps your blood pumping as well as providing a temporary distraction from your game, which should refresh your thinking.  There are human limits to endurance though no matter what you do.  I've noticed that as I age (I'm 80), I tend to fatigue sooner than I used too.  There's probably no cure for that. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastActivityDate="2017-10-11T11:55:57.333" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18837" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-10-11T16:17:42.477" Score="2" ViewCount="154" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would like to know &lt;em&gt;roughly&lt;/em&gt; if a top GM could win a given position against a top engine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a way of adjusting an engine's settings to simulate the strength of a top GM in order to make it play against a full specs engine? If so, which engines allow for these adjustments?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12734" LastActivityDate="2017-10-11T18:51:29.240" Title="Can one simulate a top GM strength?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;software&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18838" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12764" CreationDate="2017-10-11T17:59:59.487" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;2017 post update:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I tested both of them and they are almost the same and Identical in engine tests. just less than 10 percent difference in game win rate. I also tested many other engines against fritz which most of the time they win it easily. (engines like: Sugar , Houdini 6, Komodo 11, Stockfish 8, adnsacs). &#xA;I added the bullet games table here. Anyway even with longer time controls fritz loses.&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Klsyr.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Klsyr.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14463" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-05T19:36:48.563" LastActivityDate="2020-03-05T19:36:48.563" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="18839" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18837" CreationDate="2017-10-11T18:51:29.240" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Ubisoft's &lt;em&gt;Chessmaster: Grandmaster&lt;/em&gt; edition allows you to set games between artificial players. One is the engine itself and there are simulated top players, e.g. Anand. You can set the games from the starting position or from a set position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please see my answer to &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/12766/1108&quot;&gt;Looking for a good chess program with a couple of features&lt;/a&gt; for relevant screenshots.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2017-10-11T18:51:29.240" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18840" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18814" CreationDate="2017-10-11T19:14:20.887" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can go to &lt;a href=&quot;http://Lichess.org&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Lichess.org&lt;/a&gt; and in  toolbar in the top choose Tools. In that page there is a small icon which looks like book. You can chose which opening book you want to look up either the GM games or online games. The variation names are written there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The game you mentioned is 'C90 Ruy Lopez closed variation, closed defense' up to move 9. In the first move of white in move 9 it goes out of the opening book.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14463" LastActivityDate="2017-10-11T19:14:20.887" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18841" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-10-11T19:38:53.780" Score="-1" ViewCount="604" Body="&lt;p&gt;I use Arena for tournaments between chess engines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The interesting thing is that in different 64-bit multi-processor computers ranking is slightly different. I was expecting that they should be the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do you have any idea why this happens?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As an example Booot 6.2 64-bit loses most of the games on a low end new PC.&#xA;However in a stronger PC with newer 'Core i7' CPU it can even have the same score as Stockfish 8 (which most of the time is in top of tables).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14463" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-04T18:33:37.173" LastActivityDate="2020-03-04T18:33:50.027" Title="Difference in chess engine strength for ''high end 64-bit multicore PCs'' vs. ''low end multicore 64-bit PCs''" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;arena&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="18843" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18841" CreationDate="2017-10-11T23:01:09.463" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;How many games did you play? Unless your tournament had enough games, your conclusion wasn't statistically significant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's common misconception that Stockfish would play better chess than weaker engines in a short computer chess tournament. This is wrong and wrong. Stockfish's higher ELO means it's &lt;strong&gt;expected&lt;/strong&gt; to play better chess. Anything could happen in a short match or tournament.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Magnus Carlsen has the highest FIDE ELO, but that doesn't mean he wins everything. He'd lost to Bu in the 2017 World Cup in a &lt;strong&gt;2-games&lt;/strong&gt; mini-match, but do you really think Bu is a stronger chess player than the World Champion?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-04T18:33:50.027" LastActivityDate="2020-03-04T18:33:50.027" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="18845" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17894" CreationDate="2017-10-12T01:42:06.670" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a basic example of an orthodox retro form which has been taken to a new level over the last year by Ukrainian composer Andrey Frolkin and Canadian Jeff Coakley. I recently acquired a lovely landscape painting by Andrey's wife, Nina, which contains an embedded rebus by Andrey, who I bet authored the problem OP posted!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although Maxwell's excellent proof relied at a couple of place on the edge of the board preventing retro-movement, this is not actually necessary. Shift all the pieces one square to the right (except for h on h2), and the problem remains sound (and in my opinion slightly superior :D )!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Proof: first count the pieces.&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;      K N I G H T&#xA;Upper 1 1 1 0 0 0&#xA;Lower 0 1 2 2 1 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So N is king and by examining first and last ranks, H is pawn. Observe that whatever I represents, one instance is giving check to the enemy king. So any other checking unit implies a double check. So G is not a diagonal unit (bishop or queen), and K is not an orthogonal unit (rook or queen), since the resulting double checks are impossible. And I is not queen, or both kings would be in check!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So by elimination the queen is represented by T and we do have double check. So I can only be rook, and the position is achieved through promotion. Hence lower case is Black. G must be knight so by elimination K is bishop.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[title &quot;Frolkin? version Laska rebus: solution&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;2B5/8/2k5/1R6/2n5/3K4/1r5p/1q1r1n2 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and Black's last move was c2xd1=R++&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8201" LastEditorUserId="8201" LastEditDate="2017-10-12T07:45:50.207" LastActivityDate="2017-10-12T07:45:50.207" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18846" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-10-12T04:15:48.697" Score="0" ViewCount="693" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to evaluate the differences between Opening books. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example: Have Fritz 12 Book and Rybka Aquarium (CTG format). For many of the standard openings. I've tried with atleast main lines of &#xA;a. QGD &#xA;b. QGAcc&#xA;c. Nimzo Qc2 &#xA;d. Caro Capablanca &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So far couldn't find differences between these 2 - gone as deep as 17-20 moves in some lines. How do these 2 contrast? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Regards&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11644" LastActivityDate="2019-04-18T07:43:02.073" Title="Chess Engine Opening book" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;fritz&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18847" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18797" CreationDate="2017-10-12T05:18:25.780" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to a New in Chess Yearbook 124 article:&#xA;&quot;Recently, White has been playing this move order, intended to avoid lines that allow Black the possibility of a quick ...d7-d5(normally, this central break only works when White has played his pawn to c3).&#xA;4.c3 Nf6 5.d3 0-0 6.0-0 d5 is precisely what White is trying to avoid...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2017-10-12T05:18:25.780" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18848" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-10-12T05:34:29.720" Score="2" ViewCount="46427" Body="&lt;p&gt;During a game of chess, after several moves. Is it an automatic win as soon as you get your king all the way across the board? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was told this is a tournament rule. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14557" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2017-11-02T23:19:42.237" LastActivityDate="2021-05-02T15:07:23.077" Title="King move to other side" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;rules&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18849" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18848" CreationDate="2017-10-12T08:31:19.667" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, this is not a rule in chess. There are plenty of games where one king reaches its 8th rank, and the game continues, with all three results still possible. Here are the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=171&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Fide rules&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastEditorUserId="8300" LastEditDate="2017-11-02T18:02:49.817" LastActivityDate="2017-11-02T18:02:49.817" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18850" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15977" CreationDate="2017-10-12T08:37:22.493" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;In all the chess books I've read, &amp;quot;trébuchet&amp;quot; is actually one particular case of a full-point double-zugzwang: the most minimalist one you can get, with only one pawn for each player:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;8/8/8/3pK3/2kP4/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This pattern can be translated to 30 different positions, with the black pawn on any square in the b7-g7-g3-b3 rectangle. Whoever is on move will lose.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastEditorUserId="14079" LastEditDate="2021-05-06T08:22:08.290" LastActivityDate="2021-05-06T08:22:08.290" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="18851" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-10-12T10:09:42.207" Score="1" ViewCount="1002" Body="&lt;p&gt;Since chess engines in one way or an other rank alternative moves, it should be able to search for the worst move as well as the best. Have engines played each others trying to lose, and what has come out of that? Do they for instance set up for devastating tactics against themselves? &lt;em&gt;(It might be a style of chess that I recognize...)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13829" LastActivityDate="2017-10-12T10:40:09.877" Title="Game with computers choosing the worst possible moves" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;computer-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2017-10-15T08:41:19.337" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18852" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18851" CreationDate="2017-10-12T10:40:09.877" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes. Chess engines can be reprogrammed to play a bad move. This is not very hard, just pointless and waste of time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some possibilities:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Choose the worst move statically without even going into search&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Choose a move randomly from the move generator&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;For each legal move in the position, play it internally and the run a regular search. Choose the move that gives the worst score.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Reverse piece material sign, so that the engine would give away materials for free. For example, scoring +9 for giving away the queen without any compensation.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Similarly, play around the piece square table values.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A few years ago, someone made a chess engine &lt;strong&gt;Moron&lt;/strong&gt; for exactly what you descrbe.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://talkchess.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=47026&amp;amp;highlight=julien+loser&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://talkchess.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=47026&amp;amp;highlight=julien+loser&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2017-10-12T10:40:09.877" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18853" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1554" CreationDate="2017-10-12T11:50:34.060" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;An idea I heard from Nicolas Dupont is to combine retroanalysis with skilled play in the following structured way:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;- Regular retroanalysis is reflex(0).&#xA;- Reflexmate condition says that a mate in 1 if it's available must be taken. Call this reflex(1).&lt;br&gt;&#xA;- But there is also reflex(2) possible, where any available forced mate in 2 must be taken.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;- And reflex(n) can be defined for any n.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;- The limit as n goes to infinity is retrograde analysis against a background of arbitrarily skillful chess.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I think this is a really cool idea inherently, and it also brings retroanalysis back from the world of weird positions that no-one will ever see in a game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8201" LastActivityDate="2017-10-12T11:50:34.060" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18855" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-10-12T18:38:59.113" Score="0" ViewCount="131" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;I was asked to rephrase this question. Hope at least someone gets what I'm trying to mean here now.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A position can be equal but asymmetrical. If it is very sharp and complicated then at least humans cannot overlook all options and a win has gotten more likely. That one be one kind of factor to consider for constructing such a statistical measure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Would simply the width of the engine's positional tree be a useful measure? Would there be any interest in such a measure?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The players' personal inclination to draw as a matter of life long habit, or their need to win a point where a draw would still be a title loss, could be adjusted for in quantifiable and rational ways, since it is a statistic I'm asking for here, not a miracle prediction for one particular game yet to be played.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a list of what combinations of openings have ended in a draw at top level? Would that be of any interest when trying to predict the outcome of any game?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can all such things which appear to be of meaning for predicting  the outcome of games in general?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;(I can&lt;/em&gt;t believe it is so very hard to explain with ever more words these obvious thoughts to people here who are supposed to be interested in Chess of all things).*&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13829" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2017-10-14T13:38:17.003" LastActivityDate="2017-10-14T13:38:17.003" Title="Is there a measure of how likely it is that a position will end in a draw?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;draw&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="7" ClosedDate="2017-10-15T05:20:40.443" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18856" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-10-13T01:12:06.423" Score="2" ViewCount="539" Body="&lt;p&gt;Total beginner at chess. I am analyzing a game I played.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The computer says the blue line here is the best:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;r1bqr1k1/pp5p/2nb1p2/2p5/Q1Pp2pN/1P4B1/P3BPPP/4RRK1 b - - 0 1&#xA;&#xA;1... d3&#xA;(1... Kg7 2. Bxd6 Qxd6 3. Nf5 Bxf5)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why? If I move my pawn there, the bishop takes it without worries, it seems? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I instead moved King to g7, hoping to lure the white knight in a trap. If he went for a fork on f5 attacking my queen and king, I would take the knight with my bishop. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By going King to g7, his bishop would take my bishop on d6, then I would take his bishop with my queen, and then he would make his knight move to f5 for the fork. Then I would take knight with my bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ignoring the potentially better play, is this a bad move in and of itself?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14566" LastEditorUserId="4186" LastEditDate="2017-10-13T15:46:55.067" LastActivityDate="2020-02-15T08:22:33.597" Title="Why is pawn to d3 the best move here?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;beginner&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18858" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18855" CreationDate="2017-10-13T02:48:26.947" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;You have several questions which don't appear to be related. I'll answer you this one:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Q: If it is very sharp and complicated then at least humans cannot overlook all options and a win has gotten more likely. Would simply the width of the engine's positional tree be a useful measure? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes. There's a related concept known as &lt;strong&gt;positional complexity&lt;/strong&gt;. Of course, the more complicated the position it is, the less likely it should end with a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ailab.si/matej/doc/Using_Heuristic-Search_Based_Engines_for_Estimating_Human_Skill_at_Chess.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Using Heuristic-Search Based Engines for Estimating Human Skill at Chess&lt;/a&gt; has a definition for the complexity measure. Their definition is simple and straightforward. &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.researchgate.net/publication/220174548_Computer_Analysis_of_World_Chess_Champions&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Computer Analysis of World Chess Champion&lt;/a&gt; is a similar paper.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Chess DB has a &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess-db.com/public/research/qualityofplay.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;brief&lt;/a&gt; description&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://content.iospress.com/articles/icga-journal/icg0012&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Who is the Master&lt;/a&gt; defines several more measures, they call them &quot;conformance&quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Another related: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~regan/papers/pdf/Reg12IPRs.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Intrinsic Ratings Compendium&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you require technical explanation, please edit your question and I'll update my answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2017-10-13T09:22:03.587" LastActivityDate="2017-10-13T09:22:03.587" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18859" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18856" CreationDate="2017-10-13T04:32:39.180" Score="5" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;r1bqr1k1/pp5p/2nb1p2/2p5/Q1Pp2pN/1P4B1/P3BPPP/4RRK1 b - - 0 1&#xA;&#xA;1... d3&#xA;2. Bxd3 (2. Bd1 Bxg3 3. hxg3 d2 4. Rxe8+ Qxe8 5. Qb5 Qe5) Rxe1&#xA;3. Rxe1 Bxg3&#xA;4. Bxh7+ Kxh7&#xA;5. hxg3 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And Black wins the Bishop for two pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit - I ran this position through Stockfish and was surprised to learn that Black is already about 2.5 pawns &quot;up&quot; while material is even.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The initial variation is inferior to the one that follows from Seth's suggestion below. My suggested move makes it much easier for Black. After Seth's &quot;1. Bd1&quot;, there are no fireworks but it looks like Black improves his position with a dominating Queen in the center and a pawn on d2. Both players remained jammed up. If Black can activate his Rook and Bishop he's going to have a great game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2017-10-14T14:16:51.797" LastActivityDate="2017-10-14T14:16:51.797" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18860" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5583" CreationDate="2017-10-13T08:33:00.233" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Many people love the book &quot;Chess Mysteries of Sherlock Holmes&quot; by Raymond Smullyan, and mourn that there was no sequel.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mourn no longer: I have stumbled across another book along the same lines:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Sherlock Holmes Visits the Chameleon Chess Club: Further Adventures in Retrograde Chess Analysis&quot; by Bill Murden, with a forward by Raymond Smullyan. The author has made it available without copyright, and it can be downloaded at:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://archive.org/details/Watsons70AdventuresInRetrogradeChessAnalysis&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://archive.org/details/Watsons70AdventuresInRetrogradeChessAnalysis&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The author has the same ability to recreate effortless Holmesian dialogue, and the problems are a whimsical mixture of orthodox and fairy themes. Murden is particularly thorough in his logical solutions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The book was actually written many years ago, but has only recently been made available electronically by Fred Stahl, a friend of the late author.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8201" LastActivityDate="2017-10-13T08:33:00.233" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18861" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18856" CreationDate="2017-10-13T09:21:35.430" Score="4" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;By going King to g7, his bishop would take my bishop on d6, then I&#xA;  would take his bishop with my queen, and then he would make his knight&#xA;  move to f5 for the fork. Then I would take knight with my bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You are playing &quot;hope&quot; chess. This boils down to -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;If I play Kg7 then he will play the bad move BxB (because he is stupid) then I will play QxB and he will play the blunder Nf5 check (because he is really, really stupid) and I will play BxN and will go on to win the game easily.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One of the first steps to moving from being a complete beginner to just being a weak player is to stop playing hope chess. When you calculate variations, instead of counting on your opponent playing really stupid moves in reply to your bad moves assume your opponent will play the best moves. That way you are less likely to play bad moves in the first place.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As Tony Ennis points out d3 was a good move because it wins a piece for two pawns. The flip side of that coin is that your Kg7 was a bad move because it lets your opponent off the hook when he can play something like Bd3 blockading your dangerous passer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2017-10-13T13:10:31.317" LastActivityDate="2017-10-13T13:10:31.317" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18862" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4302" CreationDate="2017-10-13T09:48:42.383" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;For this purpose the best way is to type the game into MS Word (pasting from the PGN) and embed the diagrams. The diagrams can be best created using&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chessdiagrams.000webhostapp.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://chessdiagrams.000webhostapp.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14572" LastActivityDate="2017-10-13T09:48:42.383" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18863" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18814" CreationDate="2017-10-13T16:54:27.687" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;After Be7 the ensuing lines are called the Closed Ruy Lopez, and after Na5 and c5 this is the Chigorin Variation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14574" LastActivityDate="2017-10-13T16:54:27.687" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18864" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18587" CreationDate="2017-10-14T03:50:03.380" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here's an old problem built round the idea of finding a tricky helpmate:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[TITLE &quot;White to move. Last move? (A.Buchanan, StrateGems 2002)&quot;]  &#xA;[FEN &quot;Bb1k1b2/bKp1p1p1/1pP1P1P1/1P6/p5P1/P7/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hint: by FIDE Law A1.3, if a future mate is not possible, even cooperatively, the game is over, drawn &quot;in dead position&quot;. If the diagram position here is dead then the game is ended. But the prior position before the last move must have been alive though or the game would have ended then.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A1.3 applies &quot;symmetrically&quot;, asking whether &lt;strong&gt;either&lt;/strong&gt; player could deliver mate as a helpmate, and all the compositions so far in this thread focus on that. However off-hand I don't know of any composition which relies on the asymmetric rule (FIDE Law 6.9) associated with flag fall, where we only ask about &lt;strong&gt;one&lt;/strong&gt; player's ability to helpmate. So there's a creative opportunity here... :D  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hint: bK is mated on:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;e8&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8201" LastEditorUserId="8201" LastEditDate="2017-10-18T04:18:54.697" LastActivityDate="2017-10-18T04:18:54.697" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18865" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18856" CreationDate="2017-10-14T23:38:51.990" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The idea is to lure White's Bishop to d3, so that it will be vulnerable to a discovered attack on it.  The discovered attack happens when Black takes the Bishop on g3 with his own Bishop on d6, opening up the Queen to attack the now-vulnerable d3 Bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2017-10-14T23:38:51.990" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18866" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18867" CreationDate="2017-10-15T18:01:09.627" Score="3" ViewCount="822" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am interested in blind simultaneous chess, where one person plays (blind) vs multiple (non-blind) opponents.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What would be the best openings for either side? I would assume anything slow would be disadvantageous to the blind person.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14583" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-10-15T18:51:13.363" LastActivityDate="2017-10-15T18:57:43.960" Title="Best opening in blind simultaneous chess" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;blindfold-chess&gt;&lt;simultaneous&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18867" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18866" CreationDate="2017-10-15T18:50:17.983" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;Generally, the simul-giver needs to keep the games as different from each other as possible. That means the opening themselves are less important, as long as they are &lt;em&gt;different&lt;/em&gt; openings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The simul-takers can cooperate with each other; I recall the following story from &lt;a href=&quot;https://timkr.home.xs4all.nl/chess/lovest.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Tim Krabbé's website&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;It made me think of a story. A grandmaster once played a 10-board blind simul somewhere. Knowing the ropes of blind simuls, he varied his games right from the start, maybe opening two with 1.e4, two with 1.d4, one with 1.b3, and so on. To his suprise, all of his opponents played 1...b6. On the second move, five of them played 2...Bb7, and the other five 2...Ba6. On the third, three of the five players who had played 2...Bb7 now played 3...Bc8 and the other two played 3...Ba6, while three of the five who had played 2...Ba6 now played 3...Bb7, and the other two 3...Bc8. On move 4, the grandmaster saw bishops everywhere. After move 5, he excused himself and went to the toilet where he was happy to find a window big enough to let him through.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I would assume anything slow would be disadvantageous to the blind person.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That makes sense, because there are more pieces on the board. However, if those pieces occupy 'normal' positions, that's usually easier to remember/visualize (from my personal experience, which is limited to a single blindfold game at a time). So if you're taking part in a blindfold simul, and don't want to 'cheat' like in the above story, play a 'weird' opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-10-15T18:57:43.960" LastActivityDate="2017-10-15T18:57:43.960" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18868" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-10-16T02:19:41.517" Score="3" ViewCount="525" Body="&lt;p&gt;This board shows the black pieces on the bottom, but the white pieces are supposed to be there; I accidentally set up the board so that white's pieces are on the black side. I am looking to flip the board with the following FEN:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;# R2K1B1R/PPP2QPP/5N1N/1n2q3/8/1p3n2/pbpp3p/1kr4r w KQkq - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Board:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;R2K1B1R/PPP2QPP/5N1N/1n2q3/8/1p3n2/pbpp3p/1kr4r w KQkq - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How may I accomplish this without re-setting the pieces manually? I tried switching the rows, but I got:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;# 1kr4r/pbpp3p/1p3n2/8/1n2q3/5N1N/PPP2QPP/R2K1B1R w KQkq - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Board:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1kr4r/pbpp3p/1p3n2/8/1n2q3/5N1N/PPP2QPP/R2K1B1R w KQkq - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13147" LastActivityDate="2018-05-21T20:43:13.540" Title="FEN inverter website/page?" Tags="&lt;programming&gt;&lt;fen&gt;&lt;mathematics&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18869" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18868" CreationDate="2017-10-16T02:19:41.517" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Although one may try to place the first row as the eighth, the second row as the seventh, etc., the board will appear flipped (as shown above).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a horizontal flip (mirror-image over the x-axis) and does not look quite right. Switching the letters from lower-case to capital and vice-versa would switch the colors, but that's not the best solution. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Upon closer examination, a vertical flip (or mirror over the y-axis) of this horizontal flip would solve the problem: Reverse each sub-string delimited by a slash until you hit the second field, then leave it as is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The final product is the same FEN, except the first field is a reverse string of itself.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;# r4rk1/p3ppbp/2n3p1/8/3q2n1/N1N5/PPQ2PPP/R1B1K2R w KQkq - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Board:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;r4rk1/p3ppbp/2n3p1/8/3q2n1/N1N5/PPQ2PPP/R1B1K2R w KQkq - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13147" LastActivityDate="2017-10-16T02:19:41.517" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18870" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9237" CreationDate="2017-10-16T03:00:57.157" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here are a bunch, although they are supposed to be used with a defunct product called ChessVU: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.angelfire.com/games3/smartbridge/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.angelfire.com/games3/smartbridge/&lt;/a&gt;  Note the huge and deeply annotated middle-game database.  Edit: I have since tried some of these games out with SCID vs. PC, and it works great.  That middle-game tutorial seems to be a really great resource; and there are many other there, too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Follow-up: Many of these links are broken and/or pop up ads.  While it's still worth going through, I'd make sure to either use a sandbox, or a chromium variant.  Some of those same materials are here:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~goeller/urusov/links/opening_analysis.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess Openings: Opening Analysis on the Web&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some of these are annotated games, some are raw PGN, and some are other materials.  They are nicely broken down by opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This guy at &lt;a href=&quot;https://pathtochessmastery.blogspot.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://pathtochessmastery.blogspot.com/&lt;/a&gt; calls himself only &quot;ChessAdmin&quot;, and calls himself a Class C player.  On the right column of his blog, he has two databases you can download, one with 180 of his own games, and 77 games of masters, that he's commentated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's a small, older cache of annotated games, for those who are still using the discontinued Chessmaster software:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://forums.ubi.com/showthread.php/341421-Chessmaster-Grandmaster-Edition-Downloads-Forums&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chessmaster Grandmaster Edition Downloads | Forums&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14586" LastEditorUserId="14586" LastEditDate="2019-08-22T15:15:20.743" LastActivityDate="2019-08-22T15:15:20.743" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="18871" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18874" CreationDate="2017-10-16T03:26:13.627" Score="3" ViewCount="311" Body="&lt;p&gt;Where can I find resources on how to play these types of endgames?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've done a google search, but all I came up with was repeated results for a Fritz Trainer dvd, and a similar, unanswered, question on chess.com. Silman and Dvoretsky's endgame books do not cover them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm currently playing a correspondence game, and trying to come up with a plan before I blunder or drift into a worse position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9025" LastActivityDate="2017-10-22T00:51:12.270" Title="Rook and minor piece endgames, with pawns" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;rook-and-minor-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18874" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18871" CreationDate="2017-10-16T18:15:11.103" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;These kind of endgames often occur in practice, so even if it is difficult to give hard and fast rules about them, it is well worth spending some time studying them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The book &lt;a href=&quot;https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1857445554&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Practical Endgame Play - beyond the basic&lt;/a&gt; by Flear is quite decent and spends 4 chapters (111 pages) on the endgame Rook and minor piece vs Rook and minor piece. It is a relatively easy read.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1901983536&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Fundamental Chess Endings&lt;/a&gt; by Müller and Lamprecht (as mentioned in the comments) is an endgame book of high quality, but only has 9 pages on this particular type of endgame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another book I like is &lt;a href=&quot;https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/071348165X&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Endgame Secrets&lt;/a&gt; by Lutz. About half the examples in this book feature the material balance you ask about. This book is probably aimed towards stronger players as the analysis is very detailed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1485" LastActivityDate="2017-10-16T18:15:11.103" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18876" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18881" CreationDate="2017-10-16T20:06:06.353" Score="1" ViewCount="112" Body="&lt;p&gt;UCI output from engines is generally raw in the form of g1f3 and e2e4 representing Nf3 and Pe4. One engine I saw (lozza) sends its PV output with the piece names.  Others, like Stockfish, don't include the piece names in their PV.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How do I get the piece names to show in the PV? I am working on creating my first user GUI, so any help is appreciated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14595" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-10-16T20:35:17.523" LastActivityDate="2017-10-16T23:47:37.023" Title="Changing UCI output to include piece names" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;programming&gt;&lt;uci&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18877" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18868" CreationDate="2017-10-16T20:14:24.227" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The free chess GUI Arena does what you are asking and many other useful things for creating or studying chess problems.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It works with epd files, fen strings and pgn databases.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14595" LastActivityDate="2017-10-16T20:14:24.227" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18878" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-10-16T21:01:38.347" Score="10" ViewCount="938" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've heard multiple times the idea of counting attackers and defenders in estimating whether an attack/sacrifice will succeed. However, I think authors are quite loose in counting who is the attacker and who is the defender. And their decision is heavily influenced IMO by the outcome, ie they'll include more attackers and discard more defenders if the attack succeeds.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, the game Karpov - Georgiev 1994, white to move. I think it's obvious that white's Q, B, Ne4, Re2 are attackers, but do Nf3 and Re1 count? For black, all pieces/pawns around K count, Ba8 doesn't. How about Rd8, Nd7 and Qb8? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;bq1r1rk1/3n1pb1/1p1P2pp/2p5/P1B1N3/1Q3NP1/4RP1P/4R1K1 w - - 1 29&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: Source of the theory&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sokolov mentioned the theory in his book &quot;Sacrifice and Initiative in Chess&quot;. On page 91 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;However one theme that is repeated in almost all of these games is the attackers vs defenders ratio. Please keep this in mind! When you have an attack on a castled king and are planning to sacrifice a piece in order to destroy the opponent's defences, do a quick check on the number of your attacking forces vs your opponents defending forces. When you do this check, remember that as Steinitz already correctly claimed, the enemy king counts as a defender. Of course this theory does not always work, but it gives a very good initial indication of whether an attack may work.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So at least Steinitz and Sokolov had such theory, and I think Kasparov mentioned it as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7002" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2019-11-25T21:18:27.720" LastActivityDate="2020-03-06T16:43:16.843" Title="Counting attackers and defenders, which pieces count?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;sacrifice&gt;&lt;attack&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18879" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18876" CreationDate="2017-10-16T22:42:20.507" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;With the EGN (from, to) you can simply do a check up on what piece exist on the &lt;code&gt;from&lt;/code&gt; position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Say the engine gives you &lt;code&gt;a2a4&lt;/code&gt; you then simply check what exists on &lt;code&gt;a2&lt;/code&gt; and then generate information based on that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can do this cause your GUI will always have the same chess board as the engine. It's the engine that recieves a FEN string from the GUI anyways.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14600" LastActivityDate="2017-10-16T22:42:20.507" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18880" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18878" CreationDate="2017-10-16T22:56:10.177" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would like to first say that counting attackers and defenders will not accurately predict the success of your attack. And of course, in chess positions, the likelihood that a piece will participate in an attack as well as how much contribution a piece provides an attack is different for different pieces. So I would really not trust any rules on counting attackers and defenders. &#xA;Nevertheless, qualitatively looking around the board and seeing that your opponent has few defenders near their king can give you a signal that you may want to calculate ways to attack the opponent's king. But the key thing is that you have to calculate to see if an attack will work. Chess is 99 % calculation(an exaggeration). What do you think grandmasters are doing when they play 4 hour + games? &#xA;Thus, I think counting attackers and defenders serves to only motivates you to calculate whether or not you should think about a mating attack, or you should be worried about a mating attack. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3872" LastActivityDate="2017-10-16T22:56:10.177" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18881" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18876" CreationDate="2017-10-16T23:16:28.947" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You are expected to have your own internal chess board. If you don’t have one, you could parse the FEN you give to the engine and work out the pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2017-10-16T23:47:37.023" LastActivityDate="2017-10-16T23:47:37.023" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18883" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14741" CreationDate="2017-10-17T02:31:02.357" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In most Dutch games, Black labors mightly to get 1...e5 in (and prevent White from playing e4). If you're a Dutch player and someone plays 1. c4 on you, and you don't play 1...e5, you might have missed the point. (A good reminder that understanding the principles and ideas behind an opening is more important than memorizing the moves.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's a good primer from one of the [Classical] Dutch's modern advocates:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7Oex0bZd30&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7Oex0bZd30&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14601" LastActivityDate="2017-10-17T02:31:02.357" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18884" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-10-17T11:20:13.367" Score="5" ViewCount="578" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been trying to understand how the &quot;mask&quot; feature works in scid and how to use it for training opening lines. So far I did the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;open a &lt;em&gt;database&lt;/em&gt; of master games in scid&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;open the &lt;em&gt;tree window&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;while playing through an opening line, right click with the mouse on a move in the &quot;tree window&quot; and select &lt;em&gt;add to mask&lt;/em&gt; for all moves that interest me&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;in the same &quot;tree window&quot; right click on a move and select a &lt;em&gt;marker&lt;/em&gt; such as &quot;main line&quot;/&quot;dubious&quot;/&quot;Include&quot;. This step I only did very rarely.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;save the mask by left clicking &quot;tree window&quot;-&gt;&quot;mask&quot;-&gt;&quot;save&quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I did this whole procedure separately for my white and black repertoire, so I get two masks: &quot;whitemask&quot;/&quot;blackmask&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Am I on the right track with this procedure? What else could/should I do with the mask?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How do I use the mask? I noticed that &lt;strong&gt;sometimes&lt;/strong&gt; in the chessboard window, it shows me the possible alternative moves from the mask by arrows. However I did not figure out when it does this, or how to enable this feature (which I find quite useful). I'd like to play through an opening making moves for both sides, while having the arrows show me the possible moves according to my mask. How can I do this? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2019-04-08T14:34:15.350" Title="How to use masks in scid for opening training" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;training&gt;&lt;database&gt;&lt;scid&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ClosedDate="2019-06-23T09:12:28.390" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18885" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-10-17T20:34:04.747" Score="5" ViewCount="4160" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just cannot seem to find a link to a 6 man download endgame tablebase from syzygy.  If anyone could provide me with a link it would be greatly appreciated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14594" LastActivityDate="2017-11-16T21:49:56.450" Title="Where can I download a 6 man endgame tablebase" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18886" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18885" CreationDate="2017-10-17T20:55:57.830" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you really want to download 80+GB of data there is a torrent link here - &lt;a href=&quot;http://oics.olympuschess.com/tracker/index.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://oics.olympuschess.com/tracker/index.php&lt;/a&gt;. Also includes linkls for Nalimov, Scorpio and Gaviota.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Alternatively (and more work) Ronald de Man (syzygy developer) has published software for generating these tablebases (up to 6 man) on Github - &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/syzygy1/tb&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://github.com/syzygy1/tb&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2017-10-17T20:55:57.830" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18887" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5070" CreationDate="2017-10-18T08:52:29.773" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Another app supporting FICS is &lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=game.android.chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=game.android.chess&lt;/a&gt;. It's free and easy to use. You can challenge players, play tournaments or watch others playing a game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14609" LastActivityDate="2017-10-18T08:52:29.773" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18888" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-10-18T10:59:30.133" Score="3" ViewCount="578" Body="&lt;p&gt;In what way do major chess engines differ from one another?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do they all use the same algorithm and the same evaluation function, differing only in parameters/weights?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2017-10-19T23:40:58.980" Title="Differences between chess engines" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;programming&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18889" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18888" CreationDate="2017-10-18T11:37:18.933" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I'm confident both Houdini and Komodo are in C/C++, the best language for speed optimization.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I'd be very surprised if they don't use alpha-beta/nega-max. This is standard in chess programming.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I don't know about board representation in Houdini and Komodo, but bitboard is good and fast. Stockfish uses that, and I think it's common for all strong engines.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;ORIGINAL&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lot's of possibilities (I can't list everything):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;How to prune/reduce the search tree&lt;/strong&gt;?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;How to evaluate a chess position&lt;/strong&gt;?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What about quiescence search? Do you want to extend your search horizon?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Bitboard? Mailbox? How do you want to represent the internal board?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Multithreading support?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Programming language. C++? Java?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Operating systems optimisations such as large pages?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While all chess engines I'm aware of use alpha-beta/nega-max, their implementation could be significantly different.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No. They &lt;strong&gt;don't&lt;/strong&gt; all use the same algorithm and the same evaluation function. Visit &lt;a href=&quot;https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Home&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Home&lt;/a&gt;, and you'll appreciate the complexity in chess engine programming.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2017-10-19T23:40:58.980" LastActivityDate="2017-10-19T23:40:58.980" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18890" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18891" CreationDate="2017-10-19T09:10:54.250" Score="1" ViewCount="155" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this game Move # 32 Sherwin play Rxh7 and this move makes him lose the game, so why he didn't play Rxf6? is this mistake from him? or something I didn't get.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;White - Fischer Robert J (USA)&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Black - Sherwin James T (USA)&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 e6 3.d3 Nc6 4.g3 Nf6 5.Bg2 Be7 6.O-O O-O 7.Nbd2 Rb8 8.Re1 d6 9.c3 b6 10.d4 Qc7 11.e5 Nd5 12.exd6 Bxd6 13.Ne4 c4 14.Nxd6 Qxd6 15.Ng5 Nce7 16.Qc2 Ng6 17.h4 Nf6 18.Nxh7 Nxh7 19.h5 Nh4 20.Bf4 Qd8 21.gxh4 Rb7 22.h6 Qxh4 23.hxg7 Kxg7 24.Re4 Qh5 25.Re3 f5 26.Rh3 Qe8 27.Be5+ Nf6 28.Qd2 Kf7 29.Qg5 Qe7 30.Bxf6 Qxf6 31.Rh7+ Ke8 32.Qxf6 Rxh7 33.Bc6+  1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14617" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-04T17:20:04.450" LastActivityDate="2020-03-04T17:20:04.450" Title="Fischer vs Sherwin Game - 1957" Tags="&lt;history&gt;&lt;world-championship&gt;&lt;fischer&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="18891" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18890" CreationDate="2017-10-19T09:48:12.703" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Because the rook on b7 is en prise. It is attacked twice (by the rook on h7 and the bishop on g2) and only defended once (by the bishop on c8). Either way the game is lost.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2017-10-19T09:48:12.703" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18892" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-10-19T16:04:03.437" Score="1" ViewCount="155" Body="&lt;p&gt;Looking for pgn files that end in taking the most popular openings out of theory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Something like&#xA;1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. a3&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Where I can practice them in chessable.com&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9841" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2017-10-24T00:38:36.833" LastActivityDate="2017-10-24T08:22:18.430" Title="Out of theory pgns collection" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18893" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-10-20T01:17:34.160" Score="8" ViewCount="3000" Body="&lt;p&gt;In light of the ongoing TCEC tournament, I was thinking, how do they come up with the ratings of these computers? &#xA;Presumably, a 2000 rated chess engine should expect a score of about .5 against a human rated 2000. This perhaps makes it easy to verify if chess engines are really approximately the rating they say they are. However, this is problematic for higher rated programs like komodo, who is supposedly around 3250. Obviously, no humans play at this level. Furthermore, even 2800 rated computers do not play against humans(I doubt magnus plays against computers to help developers define their rating). It is even suspicious if engines play against grandmasters to determine their strength. So, I suspect that these engine ratings are determined by engines playing opponents of similar strength a long time ago, and most ratings come from engine vs engine games these days. But if this was true, I wouldn't expect that engine ratings are accurate in comparison to the human elo scale. Is there a way that they check that engine ratings are accurate? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3872" LastActivityDate="2017-10-20T02:36:54.093" Title="How accurate are chess engine ratings?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18894" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8876" CreationDate="2017-10-20T01:42:20.340" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It looks like the game ended after a5. In Van Perlo's Endgame Tactics (Page 397 - ISBN 978-90-5691-494-3) it is described as following:&quot;Here, at move 61, the game was interrupted, according to the rules applied at the time in the Hungarian Team Championship. The adjourned position was sent in for adjudication and the allgrandmasters committee declared the game a win for White.&quot;&#xA;He then give two main lines (main line with Kb8).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11434" LastActivityDate="2017-10-20T01:42:20.340" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18895" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18893" CreationDate="2017-10-20T02:23:13.580" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Computer chess engine ratings are &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; related to the FIDE rating list.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, the &lt;code&gt;MicroMax&lt;/code&gt; engine has around 1950 rating on CCRL:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.computerchess.org.uk/ccrl/4040/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.computerchess.org.uk/ccrl/4040/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I distribute an iOS app (&lt;a href=&quot;https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/chess-mini/id616424231?mt=8&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;ChessMini&lt;/a&gt;) for this engine. I wrote on the app description page: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The engine has a rating of Elo 2000 on the Computer Chess Rating Lists and is stronger than 70% of the human chess players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is true only if the CCRL chess rating is a close approximation to the FIDE rating list.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately, I've received several users complained that they were able to beat the app convincingly despite their FIDE ratings are much less than 1900. In fact, I have a FIDE rating around 2000 myself but the MicroMax engine has never beaten me. I think it's &quot;real&quot; rating on the FIDE scale is 1300-1400.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Forget about the human rating list, just look at the relative ranking&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Computer chess ratings are &lt;strong&gt;extraordinary accurate&lt;/strong&gt; (but no relationship to FIDE) because the sample size is only bounded by your processing power. You start an engine tournament, leave the computer running and goto bed... It's 24 hours chess like TCEC. You play as many engine matches as your computer can afford.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Computer engines get a rating by playing other engines. No human intervention. No grandmaster. Anybody with a laptop can do that:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Download &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.playwitharena.com/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Arena&lt;/a&gt; or &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/cutechess/cutechess&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Cutechess&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Download your favorite engines&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Start an engine tournament&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's it, it's so simple! You'll get estimated ratings for your engines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2017-10-20T02:36:54.093" LastActivityDate="2017-10-20T02:36:54.093" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18896" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-10-20T19:33:55.340" Score="-3" ViewCount="158" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the below position, black is about to play 1... Bf5, developing the bishop to eventually play Nd7-Nb6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a) Is 2. Nh4 a threat?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;b) In the game Karpov-Kasparov, White played 2. 0-0 (after 1... Bf5) Nd7 3. h3 Nb6 4. g4 Bd7. Should Karpov have played 2. h3 instead?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;rnb1r1k1/pp3pbp/6p1/q1pP4/8/2P1BN2/P2QBPPP/2R1K2R b K - 2 13&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13147" LastActivityDate="2017-10-21T21:25:13.913" Title="Is 1... Bf5 playable in this position?" Tags="&lt;grunfeld-defense&gt;&lt;development&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18898" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18896" CreationDate="2017-10-20T20:11:48.120" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;a) Is 2. Nh4 a threat?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No, because black can play 2. .. Be4 which makes the knight on h4 look a bit silly. Note that 3. f3 does not work because of 3. ... Bxd5 and if 4. Qxd5 Rxe3&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;b) In the game Karpov-Kasparov, White played 2. 0-0 (after 1... Bf5) Nd7 3. h3 Nb6 4. g4 Bd7. Should Karpov have played 2. h3 instead?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Probably it would lead to the same position since white will certainly want to castle sooner or later and black does not have many alternatives either.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why do you think Karpov should have played 2. h3?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2017-10-20T20:11:48.120" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18900" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-10-20T20:54:58.350" Score="7" ViewCount="668" Body="&lt;p&gt;As title above, is it true that GM William Lombardy was homeless in the last year or so of his life?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2019-04-24T20:04:48.690" LastActivityDate="2019-04-24T20:04:48.690" Title="Is it true that GM William Lombardy was homeless in the last year of his life?" Tags="&lt;grandmaster&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18901" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-10-20T21:00:27.003" Score="2" ViewCount="1525" Body="&lt;p&gt;As title above, is the Poisoned Pawn variation of the Najdorf considered some sort of refutation of 6.Bg5, and the reason why 6.Bg5 is rarely seen at top level these days?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastActivityDate="2017-10-21T14:03:35.777" Title="Is the Poisoned Pawn variation of the Najdorf (7... Qb6) considered some sort of refutation of 6.Bg5?" Tags="&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;&lt;najdorf&gt;&lt;poisoned-pawn&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18902" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-10-20T21:24:03.877" Score="8" ViewCount="15171" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is it true that Boris Spassky stood up and openly applauded at Fischer after the sensational round 6 win by Fischer in the 1972 World Championship match? (The QGD Tartakower), as portrayed in the 2014 &quot;Pawn Sacrifice&quot; movie?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastActivityDate="2018-06-09T10:18:50.230" Title="Did Spassky stand up and applaude at Fischer after the famous Tartakower game?" Tags="&lt;fischer&gt;&lt;boris-spassky&gt;&lt;1972-world-championship&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18903" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18915" CreationDate="2017-10-20T21:56:06.957" Score="13" ViewCount="2116" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;How do computers evaluate three-check chess positions where the first side to check the other side three times wins?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;How do they value the first and second checks?  &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;It looks like the position evaluations would be tricky but it also looks like three-check chess would be an easier game to solve than standard chess.  &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user11382" LastEditorDisplayName="user11382" LastEditDate="2017-10-22T17:05:22.653" LastActivityDate="2018-01-02T17:35:08.463" Title="How do computers play three-check chess?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;check&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18904" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18900" CreationDate="2017-10-20T22:30:30.460" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;He was evicted from his New York apartment more than a year ago for non-payment of rent. The New York Times covered the case in &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/15/nyregion/an-end-to-a-chess-grandmasters-eviction-battle-could-be-near.html?_r=0&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;an article March 14 2016&lt;/a&gt;. &#xA; This section would suggest that it was willful on Lombardy's part -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Mr. Lombardy did not appear for his initial June 2014 court date, nor&#xA;  several that followed, though on some occasions, his student Mr.&#xA;  Siudzinski, a 26-year-old filmmaker from Long Island, went in his&#xA;  place. Explanations for his absence included a burn on his hands,&#xA;  travel in Kansas to teach a chess student and general ailments&#xA;  including double-hip replacement and asthma. Both men have filed&#xA;  motions claiming a lack of accommodation for Mr. Lombardy’s&#xA;  disabilities.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In July 2014, a judge ruled in favor of the landlord, in part because&#xA;  Mr. Lombardy had not appeared in court. The next month, he did arrive&#xA;  to contest the new eviction notice, and Judge Anne Katz directed him&#xA;  to seek counsel through Manhattan Legal Services. Rubin Englard became&#xA;  his lawyer that December and began to work on a settlement. The&#xA;  landlord would have received $13,562.46, the balance of rent since the&#xA;  case started, with almost all of the money provided by social service&#xA;  programs. As the settlement progressed last spring, Mr. Lombardy&#xA;  rejected it and fired Mr. Englard (who did not respond to requests for&#xA;  comment).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.chessbase.com/post/william-lombardy-1937-2017&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;An obituary from Chessbase&lt;/a&gt; says this -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;William Lombardy died Friday, October 13th, at a friend's home where&#xA;  he was staying, in Martinez, California (approximately 50 kilometers&#xA;  northeast of San Francisco) of a suspected heart attack. Another&#xA;  friend, Joseph Shipman, confirmed the news to ChessBase and reported&#xA;  visiting with Lombardy at a cafe in the nearby town of Berkeley on&#xA;  October 6th:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Bill was in good spirits and looked good. We went over the key&#xA;  Caruana-Carlsen game from the Isle of Man tournament and his&#xA;  criticisms of Caruana’s play were on target. Although Lombardy was&#xA;  hospitalized for several months earlier this year, in recent months he&#xA;  was active and travelling, so news of his death came as a shock.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, it is not that he spent the last year living on the street as has been suggested in some quarters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2017-10-20T22:30:30.460" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18905" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18901" CreationDate="2017-10-21T03:44:08.167" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The problem with Bg5 is mainly that black will usually be better prepared than white in the messy poisoned pawn. He either doesn't play it or he knows it. On the other hand imagine Be3. There black is quite predictable as not following the main lines is too dangerous. White has a lot of good systems to try so he has much easier life. Objective quality is not that important part of decision process what to play as Be3 Najdorf, Bg5 Najdorf as well as Queen's Indian end virtually always in draw in correspondence games. To me Be3 Najdorf seems so unpractical for black that I would prefer dragon, Sveshnikov or classical over it. Knowing that with white, who would try so hardly to get the Bg5 mess against well prepared opponent?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11609" LastActivityDate="2017-10-21T03:44:08.167" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18907" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18901" CreationDate="2017-10-21T14:03:35.777" Score="0" Body="&lt;h2&gt;The poisoned pawn&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is somehow true that the 6.Bg5 e6 7.f4 Qb6 8.Qd2 Qxd2 has been extensively looked at and thoroughly studied, with the conclusion that at best play White cannot get a significative advantage out of the opening within, say, the first 20 moves; although this does not necessarily mean that no further resources for White can be found, probably White players at high level moved to other openings where it is more clear that White stands at least slightly better in the opening. An example of possible theoretical continuations for the Poisoned pawn may be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;rnb1kb1r/1p3ppp/pq1ppn2/6B1/3NPP2/2N5/PPPQ2PP/R3KB1R b KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Qxb2 2. Rb1 (2. Nb3 Qa3 3. Bxf6 gxf6 4. Be2 Nc6 5. f5) 2... Qa3 { White has three pieces already developed in the centre. } 3. f5 { the main line } (3. Rb3 Qa5 (3... Qc5? 4. Bxf6 gxf6 5. Nd5))  (3. e5 dxe5 4. fxe5 Nfd7 (4... h6 5. Bh4 Nfd7) 5. Ne4 h6 6. Bb5!? hxg5 (6... axb5 7. Nxb5 hxg5 (7... Qxa2 8. Nc7#) 8. Nxa3 Rxa3) 7. Rb3 Qxa2 8. Qc3) 3... Nc6 4. fxe6 fxe6 5. Nxc6 bxc6 6. e5 (6. Be2 Be7 7. O-O O-O 8. Rb3 Qc5+ (8... Qa5? 9. Nd5 Qd8) 9. Be3 Qe5 10. Bd4 Qa5) 6... dxe5 7. Bxf6 gxf6 8. Ne4 (8. Be2? { &quot;...the whole point of Black's strategy is to prevent Black's Queen returning to the centre and this is much more important than forcing Black's King to move&quot; (J. Nunn) } 8... Qd6 9. Qe3 Qc5! 10. Bh5+ Kd7 11. Qd3+ Kc7 12. Ne4 Qd4 13. Qxd4 exd4 14. Nxf6 Be7 $17) 8... Qxa2 (8... Be7 9. Be2 h5 { to avoid Bh5+ } 10. Rb3 (10. Bf3 Ra7 11. Rb8 Rc7) 10... Qa4 11. Nxf6+ Bxf6 12. c4 Bh4+ 13. g3 Be7 14. O-O) 9. Nxf6+ Kf7 10. Rd1 Qb2 { preparing Bb4 } (10... Kxf6? 11. Bd3 { with a super dangerous attack }) 11. Ne4 Bb4 12. c3 Qxd2+ 13. Rxd2 Be7 *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which can be found in &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.amazon.de/Complete-Najdorf-6-Bg5-John-Nunn/dp/1879479451&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;John Nunn: The Complete Najdorf 6.Bg5&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This said, &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.amazon.de/Sharpest-Sicilian-Black-Repertoire-1-e4/dp/9548782561&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Georgiev-Kolev&lt;/a&gt; show that there was one game (see below) where White did make some progress in the above lines, in particular &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;II Rapid&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Canada de Calatrava ESP&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2007.04.07&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;4&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Shirov,A&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Guliyev,N&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;2715&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;2545&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;B97&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.Bg5 e6 7.f4 Qb6 8.Qd2 Qxb2 9.Rb1 Qa3 10.e5 h6 11.Bh4 dxe5 12.fxe5 Nfd7 13.Ne4 Qxa2 14.Rd1 Qd5 15.Qe3 Qxe5 16.Be2 Bc5 17.Bg3 Bxd4 18.Rxd4 Qa5+ 19.Rd2 O-O 20.Bd6 Nc6 21.O-O f5 22.Bxf8 Nxf8 23.Nd6 b5 24.Bf3 Bd7 25.Nxf5 exf5 26.Rxd7 Nxd7 27.Bxc6 Rd8 28.Bxd7 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and according to their analysis the position after 21. 0-0! gives White the upper edge.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Poisoned pawn declined&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Given the above, Black can refute the poisoned pawn by playing 8...Nc6, that can be followed by either 9. 0-0-0 (allowing the trade of Queens) or else by, say, 9. Bxf6 gxf6 10. Nb3, and play continues with Black trying to make use of the central dark squares left weak by the absence of White dark-squared Bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Every other move except 8.Qd2&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White must not necessarily go into the poisoned pawn variation after having played 6.Bg5 and can as well choose to deviate themselves with 8.a3, 8.Nb3, 8.Qd3 (other moves are considered inferior by the theory), each of which turns the game into a completely different fashion again.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11726" LastActivityDate="2017-10-21T14:03:35.777" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18908" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-10-21T14:22:28.757" Score="3" ViewCount="973" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Ruy Lopez is one of the most popular chess openings for both sides after 1.e4, and despite this I feel like there are few good detailed resources for players of the white side wishing to play the main lines in the Ruy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What makes this seem so strange to me isn't just the relative underrepresentation in comparison to popularity of the opening, but rather that it seems like there are plenty of good resources for white against other major replies to 1.e4 (for instance, GM Negi has personally managed to produce well-received, complete repertoire books against the French, the Caro and the Sicilian (and the somewhat obscure Philidor defense)). Also, I have noticed that there are complete repertoire books in some of the mainlines in the Ruy, but these seem to be from black's point of view as far as I can tell.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is therefore: why aren't there more resources on the mainline Ruy from white's point of view? Is it difficult for authors to find good lines for white to recommend, making them hesitant to publish anything (for instance the Berlin giving players on the white side too much of a headache)? Or are there other reasons, like the mainline Ruy being more easy to play from the white side, making authors feel like you're supposed to figure it out by yourself as white?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8300" LastActivityDate="2020-01-22T23:36:40.487" Title="Resources on the Ruy Lopez for White - why so few?" Tags="&lt;books&gt;&lt;ruy-lopez&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18909" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18900" CreationDate="2017-10-21T19:29:45.467" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here's a defintion of homelessness from HRSA/Bureau of Primary Health Care, Program Assistance Letter 99-12, Health Care for the Homeless Principles of Practice:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;An individual may be considered to be homeless if that person is “doubled up,” a term that refers to a situation where individuals are unable to maintain their housing situation and are forced to stay with a series of friends and/or extended family members...A recognition of the instability of an individual’s living arrangements is critical to the definition of homelessness.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Under this definition, Bill Lombardy was homeless for the last 17 months of his life. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The New York Times' article is inaccurate with respect to its inexcusable omissions of key pieces of information. I should, know; I was Bill's POA for the case. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Citing his original housing court case (Index No. L&amp;amp;T 65365/2014, ST-DIL LLC v. William Lombardy), the case was brought against Bill using faulty evidence that even the Judge, herself, admitted in open court that she could not understand. Nor could the landlord's lawyer explain the &quot;evidence&quot; against Bill.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bill had me take the evidence used against him and show it to two CPAs, who could not make sense of it, either. It was an incomprehensible jumble of numbers. We plan to show this in our documentary about Bill and his legacy and the way he was mistreated by the courts. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After this miscarriage of justice, Bill requested that Housing Court appoint a forensic accountant to see if any sense could be made of the landlord's &quot;evidence.&quot; (citing from his Motion for Independent Forensic Accountant):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Let it be noted that said “rental bill” has no legend and the pages that are photocopied appear to have been folded over so that data is rather obviously missing. It is quite possible, given its ad hoc appearance, that the “rental bill” was spoliated. Indeed, Judge Milin questioned, in open court, the validity of the rather large sum allegedly owed, given the relatively low monthly legal rent required. To prevent any further confusion as regards legitimate “rent owed” or damages that I sustained, I motion for the New York County Housing Court to appoint an independent forensic accountant to evaluate the evidence of non-payment (that was submitted to the Housing Court as “valid” evidence) and to report his or her findings to the court.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When it was proved that Bill had not, in fact, been behind in his rent when the landlord started the case, the landlord quickly shifted its position and asked for the amount of rent due from the start of the case until that point in time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In his final years, Bill was earning his living by coaching out of state students who could well afford to pay for his living expenses. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bill would leave the state for months at a time to teach these students and would use money earned to pay his rent. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, because Bill was forced to stay in Manhattan as the case against him proceeded (for two years), he had to turn down lucrative job offers that would allow him to pay his rent. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From, the 2nd Amended Complaint: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What damages to my income did the landlord’s lawsuit cause me that the state courts exacerbated (through deliberate indifferences)? First, I was offered a job paying me $7,500 a month teaching chess to a student in Kansas but had to decline this lucrative job offer because of the landlord’s frivolous (and unsupported) lawsuit against me. I wrote to my assistant, David Siudzinski, in a May 6, 2015 email, noting the job offer: “I had a contract for Teaching Chess to a very talented and skillful young man. But becaue (sic) of the Suit, I have been unable to continue making a semblance of a living. Over the past year, I have lost monthly a sum between six thousand and seven thousand five hindred (sic) dollars—and counting.” (see Exhibit “10”)&quot; - &lt;em&gt;Note: spelling errors occurred in this and other documents because Bill was having problems with his eyes and he felt pressured to respond quickly to unvalidated legal assaults on his character&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Despite the court being unable to validate the &quot;evidence&quot; used against Bill, and despite the lawsuit (and court requirements) preventing Bill from earning his money to pay his rent, the court ruled against Bill and ordered his immediate eviction.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let me repeat that: the landlord had NO proof against Bill and, still, he was evicted!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The attorney the court appointed Bill unconscionably advised him to &quot;pay what was owed&quot; rather than buckle down and fight the obvious injustice. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I met and worked with Bill for five years. What transpired over the last few years of his life will be revealed in a shocking documentary, one that reveals the callous treatment of homeless people and tenants who cannot afford respectable legal representation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14631" LastEditorUserId="14631" LastEditDate="2017-11-01T04:39:10.850" LastActivityDate="2017-11-01T04:39:10.850" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18910" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18908" CreationDate="2017-10-21T20:45:27.533" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I personally think the task is too daunting.  There are so many defenses for Black to cover. Some sideline like the Worrall or the exchange Ruy Lopez are each full books on their own.&#xA;Secondly, the subtleties are highly abstract and difficult to explain in a book.  I think Karpov could write a book similar to his book on the English opening where he doesn't try to cover variations but instead just annotates a bunch of relevant GM games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2017-10-21T20:45:27.533" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18911" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18896" CreationDate="2017-10-21T21:25:13.913" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Of course it is absolutely playable -- Kasparov played it against Karpov!&#xA;2...h3 doesn't improve for White as the comments have noted.  As for Nh4 -- you are misplacing the Knight, besides Be4, Black could even play Bd7-b5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2017-10-21T21:25:13.913" CommentCount="16" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18912" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18871" CreationDate="2017-10-22T00:51:12.270" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Encyclopedia of .  These are big volumes.&#xA;here is a link to one for pawns: &lt;a href=&quot;https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/B007W8C4R0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.amazon.com/Encyclopedia-Chess-Endings-Pawn/dp/B007W8C4R0&lt;/a&gt; &#xA;But there are ones for Queen endgames, Rook + minor piece, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2017-10-22T00:51:12.270" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18913" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18902" CreationDate="2017-10-22T14:38:57.130" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The game itself was majestic, by far the best to date. Harry Golombek&#xA;  described it as &quot;a masterpiece through and through.&quot; Fischer was able&#xA;  to create and then remorselessly exploit vulnerable spots in Spassky's&#xA;  barricade, prizing his defenses apart before battering him with the&#xA;  rooks and queen, and without once leaving his own position at risk.&#xA;  Spassky was virtually in &lt;em&gt;zugzwang&lt;/em&gt; -- a term referring to an unusual&#xA;  position where a player would prefer not to have to move, since all&#xA;  possible moves will only make his position worse. Black's resignation&#xA;  position was quite pitiful, the king humiliatingly exposed to the&#xA;  world, like a naked man caught in the shower after the rest of his&#xA;  house has collapsed about him. &lt;strong&gt;The packed auditorium rose as one; a&#xA;  bemused, crushed Spassky joined in the applause, clapping for his&#xA;  opponent in recognition of the artistic creation to which he had&#xA;  fallen victim.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edmonds and Eidinow, &lt;em&gt;Bobby Fischer Goes to War&lt;/em&gt; (2003)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12772" LastActivityDate="2017-10-22T14:38:57.130" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18915" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18903" CreationDate="2017-10-22T23:36:36.257" Score="13" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/ddugovic/Stockfish&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://github.com/ddugovic/Stockfish&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Very active development, this is the Stockfish version used by lichess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What you need to do is search this macro:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;#ifdef THREECHECK&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Evaluation function:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/ddugovic/Stockfish/blob/master/src/evaluate.cpp&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://github.com/ddugovic/Stockfish/blob/master/src/evaluate.cpp&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Checks are given &lt;strong&gt;extra bonus&lt;/strong&gt; unlike normal chess:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    if (pos.is_three_check())&#xA;        score += ChecksGivenBonus[pos.checks_given(Us)];&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;pos.checks_given&lt;/code&gt; gives the number of checks already done. &lt;code&gt;ChecksGivenBonus&lt;/code&gt; is an array of bonus values.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The bonus values are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  S(444, 181),  // first check&#xA;  S(2425, 603), // second check&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;444&lt;/code&gt; is the bonus for opening/middlegame, and &lt;code&gt;181&lt;/code&gt; is the bonus for endgame. The bonus for the second check is much greater.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure positional evaluations in three-checks is tricky. I can see the parameters have changed, king safety improved, but the overall structure is identical to regular chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2017-10-23T02:08:24.540" LastActivityDate="2017-10-23T02:08:24.540" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18917" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-10-23T19:22:47.880" Score="1" ViewCount="344" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am particularly interested in the Torre Attack against the King's Indian formation.  What dvd or books, etc. are good, or is it best to dig up old games and Chess Informants?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastEditorUserId="4588" LastEditDate="2017-10-23T20:15:38.763" LastActivityDate="2017-10-23T20:15:38.763" Title="What are good sources to learn the Torre Attack?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;1.d4&gt;&lt;kings-indian&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18918" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18892" CreationDate="2017-10-23T19:33:38.840" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;A chess engine with a good opening book might be a better source to identify sidelines or novelties.  For example, with Rybka you can view the opening book with it's list of moves while putting the engine on infinite analysis and see what moves it is looking at that aren't in the book list.&#xA;You can even do &quot;deep position analysis&quot; which I think generates a pgn with a huge width of moves -- you could then trim out the book lines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2017-10-23T19:33:38.840" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18919" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10975" CreationDate="2017-10-23T19:50:32.293" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Actually it is worse than you say. Igor Khenkin has had a total of 5 FINs (FIDE ID numbers)! He has had the following FINs -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;62480 (January 1990, FINs first introduced)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4101430 (July 1990, oops! What happens if we have more than 99,999 FIDE rated players? Make FINs longer. Everybody's FIN changes)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2802350 (July 1993, Khenkin changes federation from RUS to ISR)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4135814 (January 1998, Khenkin changes back from ISR to RUS. Note he doesn't get his old number back)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4659600 (January 1999, still not happy he changes federation from RUS to GER)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note also that the situation with Shirov's FIN - 11600012 - is also worse than you suggest!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the January 1990 list when FINs were first introduced the player S. S. Alsharfi from South Yemen was given 71366. Six month later when the longer FINs were introduced his FIN was changed to 11600012. By the time of the January 1991 list South Yemen and North Yemen had merged into Yemen. This meant a new federation and so his FIN was changed again to 9400010 leaving 11600012 free.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Meanwhile Alexei Shirov's FIN history looks like this -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;82074 (January 1990 list - short FINs, he is playing for USSR)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4100220 (July 1990 - long FINs)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;11600012 (January 1992, FIDE recognizes the breakup of the USSR and Shirov becomes a Latvian player, with a new FIN. Except it is actually an old FIN previously held by the South Yemeni player)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2209390 (January 1995, Shirov moves from Latvia to Spain and gets a new FIN leaving 11600012 &quot;vacant&quot; for use by a Latvian player)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In October 2008 Latvian player Olegs Marutkins gets Shirov's old number.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;http://ratings.fide.com/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;current FIDE rating website&lt;/a&gt; goes back to 2001 and doesn't seem to have knowledge of FIDE ratings and FIDE rated players before then. Players who were inactive then and who have remained inactive do not appear. One example would be the current British chess problem solving champion, English player Ian Robert Watson. He was active from January 1978 through January 1984 with a rating varying between 2200 and 2215. He played before the era of FINs and doesn't appear in FIDE's records. He still plays local club chess and has &lt;a href=&quot;http://ecfgrading.org.uk/new/menu.php?file=player&amp;amp;PlayerCode=121212G&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;an ECF rating&lt;/a&gt; of 198 which is roughly equivalent to 2200.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However since 2001 the FIN changes with federation seem to have stopped. For instance Fabiano Caruana had the FIN 2020009 in 2004 when he played for the USA. When he changed federation in 2005 to Italy he retained the same FIN and again when he changed back to USA in 2015.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.olimpbase.org/index.html?http%3A%2F%2Fwww.olimpbase.org%2FElo%2Fsummary.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;OlimpBase&lt;/a&gt; is a good source of information. The FIDE rating website only has information from 2001 while OlimpBase has records going all the way back to 1967 when unofficial rating lists were first produced.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;FIDE first gave out FINs in January 1990 but they were only 5 digits long. Somebody worked out that this didn't give much room for expansion and so when the new list came out 6 months later everybody got a new, much longer FIN.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that OlimpBase has collected this early rating information which can be downloaded &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.olimpbase.org/Elo/data/elo1967-2001.zip&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;. They also have information for the period 2002 through 2009 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.olimpbase.org/Elo/data/elo2002-2009.zip&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;. This was what I used as the source for the information above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2017-10-23T19:50:32.293" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18920" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18928" CreationDate="2017-10-23T20:00:22.797" Score="3" ViewCount="310" Body="&lt;p&gt;Specifically, one FIDE rated player was born before all other FIDE rated players. Who was it and when was he born?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2017-10-25T06:53:18.977" Title="When was the oldest person ever to have a FIDE rating born?" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;fide&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18921" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18917" CreationDate="2017-10-23T20:14:51.140" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;One of the books of the &quot;Move By Move&quot; series is about the &lt;a href=&quot;https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1857446860&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Torre Attack&lt;/a&gt;. It's written by IM Palliser and published in 2012, so it's still relatively recent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Digging up old games is definitely a good idea when studying an opening, but you can also find interesting material from recent games. This year, Kramnik played the Torre Attack against the King's Indian a couple of times: in blitz (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1879804&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Kramnik - Vachier-Lagrave&lt;/a&gt;) and rapid (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1879651&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Kramnik - Nepomniachtchi&lt;/a&gt;), but also in classical time control (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1872036&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Kramnik - Radjabov&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4588" LastActivityDate="2017-10-23T20:14:51.140" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18922" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18892" CreationDate="2017-10-23T20:35:38.417" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not sure what you are trying to achieve, but you could also check out some computer chess competitions (e.g. the  Top Chess Engine Championship, TCEC) that don't use opening books.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2017-10-23T20:35:38.417" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18923" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9828" CreationDate="2017-10-23T22:52:08.727" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;A chess program is simply a user interface with a built-in engine. Some chess programs (user interfaces) allow users to replace the engine with a different engine changing the strength of play (assuming a statistically relevant ELO rating variance). There are several great free chess programs that run solid chess engines such as Level 100 (comes with Crazy Bishop engine).  Level 100 is the best free user interface/engine combo that I have used. Unfortunately, Level 100 does not allow users to replace the Crazy Bishop chess engine. There are some  $60+ chess programs such as Fritz, which allow users to load other engines.  I personally use Fritz 15 for its intuitive and customizable user interface. I swapped out the standard Fritz 15 engine for Stockfish 8.  As others have already stated, engine performance is greatly impacted by hardware.  If you are using an older machine, you will want to increase the thinking time of the computer (older computers take much longer to process alternatives). This should greatly mitigate the strength loss from using an older computer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14644" LastActivityDate="2017-10-23T22:52:08.727" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18924" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18892" CreationDate="2017-10-24T00:59:47.207" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chesstempo.com's database can help you with that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13147" LastActivityDate="2017-10-24T00:59:47.207" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18926" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18892" CreationDate="2017-10-24T08:22:18.430" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Since the question is about Chessable, I thought I'd pitch in :) If you use &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessable.com/explore/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chessable's Explorer Tool&lt;/a&gt; you will be able to navigate to a position such as &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and then see which options are available to you and their win rate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance 3. a3 scores 36% W, 22% D, 42% B, so if you are White, you can see it would not be a good opening to pick.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By browsing like this, you can find good options and add them to your repertoire and try to avoid complex theory. You can also turn the engine on that page and check the lines with the Engine for possible continuations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, in my opinion, if you want to play out of theory the best thing is to pick some openings that are known for their relative lack of theory and see if a complete book exists on it (free or otherwise). For instance, Fianchetto systems or the London System come to mind as ways to play where you can play without much theory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As Black, I've had a Master play things like the Pirc/Modern against me where they &quot;wait&quot; on the third rank for you. They did not seem to be playing theory but rather just a standard set of moves (fianchetto a bishop, play e6, etc.). I had a better position but since they took me out of theory into murky waters, eventually their time advantage paid off, and I lost. Presumably, this is what you are trying to do? :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Having said all that, this week we are releasing a new book by a renowned French chess coach that has relatively little theory and guides you to sound openings where your opponent can quickly get in trouble. So stay tuned and look out for it!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9027" LastActivityDate="2017-10-24T08:22:18.430" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18927" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15833" CreationDate="2017-10-24T08:27:59.880" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;In &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessvariants.com/historic.dir/hindustani.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Indian Chess&lt;/a&gt;, the game that was &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;played&lt;/a&gt; in the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries in India (not to be confused with its ancestor &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaturanga&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chaturanga&lt;/a&gt;), the rules allowed no castle, but :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The king can make a knight's move once in a game, known as Indian castling.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a consequence, g3 followed by Kg2 for White or ...b6 followed by ...Kb7 (the black king stands on d8 at the beginning of the game in Indian chess) were very common moves in the opening, since it was the fastest way to bring the king towards the corner where it will usually find the most safety.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, playing g3, b3 or ...b6, ...g6 could also be followed by a &amp;quot;normal&amp;quot; fianchetto with the camel (our bishop).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When Indian players started playing western chess (during colonization), they quite naturally used a lot of fianchettoes, since they are common in Indian Chess. As explained in user1583209's answer, that was the case for Moheschunder &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moheschunder_Bannerjee&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Bannerjee&lt;/a&gt; in his games against Cochrane around 1850, and &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/extra/earliest.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;The Chess Player's Chronicle&lt;/a&gt; used the term &amp;quot;Indian defense&amp;quot; to refer to 1.e4 d6 2.d4 g6 after him, about 30 years later though (1884). This is the first documented use of the appelation about that kind of defense with fianchetto - although &amp;quot;Indian Opening&amp;quot; appeared earlier to refer to 1.e4 e5 2.d3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The term &amp;quot;Indian Defense&amp;quot; as we understand it today (After 1.d4 Nf6, thus excluding Pirc-Ufimsev and other schemes with e4 and not c4 for White) established itself after WWI, its use being popularized by Savielly Tartakower and Hans Kmoch.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastEditorUserId="14079" LastEditDate="2020-09-23T09:28:34.523" LastActivityDate="2020-09-23T09:28:34.523" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="18928" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18920" CreationDate="2017-10-24T09:36:40.723" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've no proof him to be the earliest born of them all, but after browsing the earliest FIDE rating lists, my candidate would be Esteban &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.olimpbase.org/Elo/player/Canal,%20Esteban.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Canal&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Born in 1896, April the 19th, the Peruvian master was 75 when he entered the first published &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.olimpbase.org/Elo/Elo197107e.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;list&lt;/a&gt; in July 1971 with an Elo of 2270. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He beats grandmaster Friedrich &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.olimpbase.org/Elo/player/Saemisch,%20Friedrich.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Saemisch&lt;/a&gt; by five months.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastEditorUserId="14079" LastEditDate="2017-10-25T06:53:18.977" LastActivityDate="2017-10-25T06:53:18.977" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18929" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-10-24T10:12:18.173" Score="-1" ViewCount="428" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am currently participating in a chess competition and they have kept the timer as 30 seconds per move. If you cannot move within 30 seconds, the move gets passed on to the other player. Is this possible?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14648" LastEditorUserId="14700" LastEditDate="2017-11-01T20:34:36.530" LastActivityDate="2017-11-01T20:34:36.530" Title="Can a game be conducted with 30 second per move. And if the player finishes 30 seconds the move goes to the other player" Tags="&lt;online-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18930" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-10-24T13:24:14.760" Score="4" ViewCount="1061" Body="&lt;p&gt;How do people use chess software in large countries like China, India or Russia, if they don't speak English, and more importantly, if they don't know Latin letters? With unicode there's not big problem to localize software for these countries, but what about names and databases? Are there special databases for these regions, using their symbols?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11609" LastEditorUserId="11609" LastEditDate="2017-10-24T15:23:17.133" LastActivityDate="2017-10-24T15:23:17.133" Title="Game databases vs. various languages/character sets" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;database&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18931" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18930" CreationDate="2017-10-24T13:41:17.473" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;You don't need good English to play chess...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://tieba.baidu.com/p/5369964903&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://tieba.baidu.com/p/5369964903&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;is Baidu (China's larger search engine) page on chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/WDYPA.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/WDYPA.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do you see? The Chinese &lt;strong&gt;know&lt;/strong&gt; Nxf2, Qxe3+, Bg3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Chinese players don't need a new software because they can use Chinese in a chess software.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the screenshot, I have &lt;code&gt;Mikhail Botvinnik&lt;/code&gt; in Chinese in my ScidVsPC software.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/W2JuZ.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/W2JuZ.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2017-10-24T13:41:17.473" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18932" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18936" CreationDate="2017-10-24T14:10:50.297" Score="2" ViewCount="998" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm debugging my engine using Stockfish, and I suddenly notice a massive difference between mine and Stockfish.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Board and fen string&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+&#xA; | r | n | b | q |   | k |   | r |&#xA; +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+&#xA; | p | p |   | P | b | p | p | p |&#xA; +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+&#xA; |   |   | p |   |   |   |   |   |&#xA; +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+&#xA; |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |&#xA; +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+&#xA; |   |   | B |   |   |   |   |   |&#xA; +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+&#xA; |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |&#xA; +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+&#xA; | P | P | P |   | N | n | P | P |&#xA; +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+&#xA; | R | N | B | Q | K |   |   | R |&#xA; +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+&#xA;&#xA;Fen: rnbq1k1r/pp1Pbppp/2p5/8/2B5/8/PPP1NnPP/RNBQK2R w KQ - 1 8&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The results from Stockfish:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;go perft 2&#xA;a2a3: 34&#xA;b2b3: 34&#xA;c2c3: 34&#xA;g2g3: 34&#xA;h2h3: 34&#xA;a2a4: 34&#xA;b2b4: 33&#xA;g2g4: 34&#xA;h2h4: 34&#xA;d7c8q: 31&#xA;d7c8r: 31&#xA;d7c8b: 41&#xA;d7c8n: 41&#xA;e2g1: 34&#xA;e2c3: 34&#xA;e2g3: 34&#xA;e2d4: 34&#xA;e2f4: 34&#xA;b1d2: 34&#xA;b1a3: 34&#xA;b1c3: 34&#xA;c4b3: 34&#xA;c4d3: 34&#xA;c4b5: 34&#xA;c4d5: 35&#xA;c4a6: 33&#xA;c4e6: 35&#xA;c4f7: 32&#xA;c1d2: 34&#xA;c1e3: 34&#xA;c1f4: 34&#xA;c1g5: 32&#xA;c1h6: 31&#xA;h1f1: 34&#xA;h1g1: 34&#xA;d1d2: 34&#xA;d1d3: 34&#xA;d1d4: 34&#xA;d1d5: 35&#xA;d1d6: 28&#xA;e1f1: 34&#xA;e1d2: 34&#xA;e1f2: 28&#xA;e1g1: 34&#xA;&#xA;Nodes searched: 1486&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The result from my engine:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;a7a5: 43&#xA;a7a6: 43&#xA;b7a6: 1&#xA;b7b5: 43&#xA;b7b6: 44&#xA;b8a6: 44&#xA;b8d7: 44&#xA;c6b5: 1&#xA;c6c5: 44&#xA;c6d5: 2&#xA;c8d7: 40&#xA;d8a5: 42&#xA;d8b6: 42&#xA;d8c7: 42&#xA;d8c8: 4&#xA;d8d1: 2&#xA;d8d2: 2&#xA;d8d3: 2&#xA;d8d4: 2&#xA;d8d5: 2&#xA;d8d6: 2&#xA;d8d7: 42&#xA;d8e8: 44&#xA;e7a3: 42&#xA;e7b4: 43&#xA;e7c5: 43&#xA;e7d6: 44&#xA;e7f6: 43&#xA;e7g5: 43&#xA;e7h4: 42&#xA;f2d1: 43&#xA;f2d3: 43&#xA;f2e4: 43&#xA;f2g4: 43&#xA;f2h1: 43&#xA;f2h3: 43&#xA;f7e6: 1&#xA;f7f5: 43&#xA;f7f6: 43&#xA;f8e8: 4&#xA;f8f7: 1&#xA;f8g8: 43&#xA;g7g5: 42&#xA;g7g6: 43&#xA;g7h6: 1&#xA;h7h5: 43&#xA;h7h6: 43&#xA;h8g8: 44&#xA;&#xA;Nodes searched: 1486&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now I know my engine does something incorrect, but why does Stockfish do game notation as if it's white moving on perft 2? Since white starts at perft 1, shouldn't black move at perft 2?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does white move for every single depth?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14600" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-09-25T00:19:52.893" LastActivityDate="2020-04-28T04:11:08.790" Title="Stockfish perft displays reversed game notation?" Tags="&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;perft&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="11" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18933" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18930" CreationDate="2017-10-24T14:24:48.817" Score="6" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;How do people use chess software in large countries like China, India&#xA;  or Russia, if they don't speak English, and more importantly, if they&#xA;  don't even know Latin letters?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If they play FIDE rated chess then they are required to know the letters a-h. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are some excerpts from the FIDE Laws of Chess -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Article 8: The recording of the moves&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;8.1.1 In the course of play each player is required to record his own moves and those of his opponent in the correct manner, move after&#xA;  move, as clearly and legibly as possible, in the &lt;strong&gt;algebraic notation&#xA;  (Appendix C)&lt;/strong&gt;, on the ‘scoresheet’ prescribed for the competition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From Appendix C -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;C.2 Each piece is indicated by an abbreviation. In the English&#xA;  language it is the first letter, a capital letter, of its name.&#xA;  Example: K=king, Q=queen, R=rook, B=bishop, N=knight. (N is used for a&#xA;  knight, in order to avoid ambiguity.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;C.3 For the abbreviation of the name of the pieces, each player is&#xA;  free to use the name which is commonly used in his country. Examples:&#xA;  F = fou (French for bishop), L = loper (Dutch for bishop). In printed&#xA;  periodicals, the use of figurines is recommended.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;C.4 Pawns are not indicated by their first letter, but are recognised&#xA;  by the absence of such a letter. Examples: the moves are written e5,&#xA;  d4, a5, not pe5, Pd4, pa5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;C.5 The eight files (from left to right for White and from right to&#xA;  left for Black) are indicated by the small letters, a, b, c, d, e, f,&#xA;  g and h, respectively.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You see that a player may use the alphabet of his country for the abbreviations for the pieces but not for the files. According to the rules players are required to use a-h.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some time ago I asked one of the arbiters at a very large international chess festival who was tasked with entering the tournament games into pgn for sending to FIDE how often he had to deal with non-English alphabet entry for the files. He said that at lower levels (not Open) there were quite a few cases but in the Open none. Nobody was penalized for incorrect notation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Regarding the use of different alphabets for the abbreviations for the pieces one senior arbiter I spoke to said that for the pieces the player should either use his own alphabet or the English alphabet. It is not allowed to use a third alphabet. In the 1970's and 80's the English player Tony Miles used to use the Russian Cyrillic alphabet for the pieces when he wasn't playing Russians. This arbiter would not have allowed that. I think this is going too far.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;30 or 40 years ago most high level chess literature was in Russian. Nowadays it is English. Any ambitious chess player will need to be able to read English. I suspect as Google translate gets better this need will diminish.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess is like software engineering, like science. When I worked in Germany the C++ compilers used required you to write &quot;for&quot; loops not &quot;fuer&quot; loops. Of course programmers sometimes used German variable names and put comments in German but they needed to know enough English to write standard C++ code in English. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similarly scientific papers in non-English speaking countries are published in English if they are to be read internationally.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2017-10-24T14:24:48.817" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18934" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18932" CreationDate="2017-10-24T14:40:41.330" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The number of nodes from your perft results is identical to Stockfish (&lt;code&gt;1486&lt;/code&gt;), so I think your implementation is correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How you report the individual moves is &lt;strong&gt;unimportant&lt;/strong&gt;. The format is &lt;strong&gt;not part&lt;/strong&gt; of perft, you can report it any way you want, Stockfish can do it anyway it wants. There is no standard. There is no rule that you have to report the root moves or the leaf nodes. This is &lt;strong&gt;implementation&lt;/strong&gt; defined. In my own implementation, I'd just report &lt;code&gt;1486&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You just need to get the number correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2017-10-24T14:40:41.330" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18935" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-10-24T16:50:55.940" Score="-6" ViewCount="637" Body="&lt;p&gt;Has this type of situation been mathematically solved? Is there a solved endgame somewhere that probably describes this to a certain degree of statistical precision?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14652" LastEditorUserId="3890" LastEditDate="2017-10-24T16:53:48.433" LastActivityDate="2017-11-08T16:59:15.030" Title="Stockfish given indefinite computing power, could it beat grandmasters with only a king and 8 pawns, the GMs having all standard pieces?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;computer-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18936" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18932" CreationDate="2017-10-24T16:53:59.110" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Stockfish prints out the game notation for perft divide.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Say you generate all the first moves, store each move as a FEN string. You will then calculate all the moves for each FEN string you then created. Note that for each generated FEN string, you do not change which colour is to move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Obviusly you cannot store every FEN string generated, as that is a massive memory concern.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessprogramming.org/Perft#Divide&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.chessprogramming.org/Perft#Divide&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14600" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-04-28T04:11:08.790" LastActivityDate="2020-04-28T04:11:08.790" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="18937" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18935" CreationDate="2017-10-24T17:11:40.213" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;All anyone in this position needs to do is trade all the pawns. Then promote any leftover pawns or mate the opponent’s king with the pieces left over.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I’m not sure this has been “solved” but it is unlikely that this would be feasible for the computer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14654" LastActivityDate="2017-10-24T17:11:40.213" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18938" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18935" CreationDate="2017-10-24T17:55:07.413" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It will be enough advantage for a GM to even be up 2 rooks and a queen. They can force trades and easily go into a winning endgame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13334" LastActivityDate="2017-10-24T17:55:07.413" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18939" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18944" CreationDate="2017-10-24T18:00:29.217" Score="9" ViewCount="620" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is a sharp line for White against the Philidor Lion: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;] &#xA;1.e4 d6 2.d4 Nf6 3.Nc3 Nbd7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;with 4...e5&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The majority of games seem to be slow positional battles where Black is quite solid.  4.g4 looks interesting, but are there other aggressive ideas?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastEditorUserId="4588" LastEditDate="2017-10-25T18:46:56.107" LastActivityDate="2017-10-26T17:09:33.637" Title="What is a sharp line against the Lion?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;1.e4&gt;&lt;philidor-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18940" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18939" CreationDate="2017-10-24T19:17:42.903" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;As you mentioned, 4.g4 is interesting and not as stupid as it may look. If you don't like the positional maneuvering game, I think &lt;code&gt;4.f4&lt;/code&gt; could be try for you. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is one suicidal line that really isn't my taste, but for sure it is aggressive, at least till you get mated. It's &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;] &#xA;1.e4 d6 2.d4 Nf6 3.Nc3 e5 4.Nf3 Nbd7 5.Bc4 Be7 6.Ng5 O-O 7.Bxf7+ Rxf7 8.Ne6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;even some correspondence player advocated it for white, but I'm not sure I would prefer white's position here. Anyway, good to know such a line exists and is probably not complete nonsense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11609" LastEditorUserId="4588" LastEditDate="2017-10-25T11:20:52.140" LastActivityDate="2017-10-25T11:20:52.140" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18941" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-10-25T12:43:25.307" Score="8" ViewCount="513" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am looking for a historical summary on how the first Elo ratings came about. Apparently in &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.olimpbase.org/Elo/Elo197107e.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;the first official rating list from 1971&lt;/a&gt; there are already ratings in the range of 2200 to 2760. What are these based on? Did they actually run rated tournaments before this date, or did they calculate ratings based on the results in previous tournaments (which tournaments?)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, initially did all players start with the same rating (which)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2020-02-01T04:52:19.013" Title="How was the FIDE rating system introduced?" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;history&gt;&lt;fide&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18943" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-10-25T17:50:06.200" Score="3" ViewCount="147" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are there any annotations on the obscure Mighty Thor Gambit?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 e6 2.a3 d5 3.e5 c5 4.b4 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(which is different from The Wing Gambit:)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 e6 2.Nf3 d5 3.e5 c5 4.b4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At a tournament where it was played numerous players referred to it as &quot;The Mighty Thor Gambit&quot; but I've not seen that mentioned anywhere online.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-10-25T22:22:51.257" LastActivityDate="2017-10-26T09:22:11.357" Title="Is there any published research into the Mighty Thor gambit against the French Defense?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;french-defense&gt;&lt;gambits&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18944" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18939" CreationDate="2017-10-25T18:44:30.823" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;As Hoacin gives in his answer, after 1.e4 d6 2.d4 Nf6 3.Nc3 Nbd7, both 4.f4 and 4.g4 are strong moves. They are not only aggressive, but also objectively speaking one of the best options in the position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another way to spice up the game is the Shirov Gambit: 4.Nf3 e5 5.g4. If I'm not mistaken, he was the very first one to play this remarkable pawn sacrifice: against &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1568636&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;GM Azmaiparashvili&lt;/a&gt; in 2003. Later, GM Shirov used it again, winning some nice miniatures against &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1388160&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;IM Klinova&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1513130&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;GM Cyborowski&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to the &lt;a href=&quot;https://chesstempo.com/game-database.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Game Database of ChessTempo&lt;/a&gt;, 5.g4 is the second most popular move, after 5.Bc4.&#xA;There is analysis material on the gambit available, for example an article written by &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.gingergm.com/blog/shock-and-awe-pulverising-the-philidor-with-g4&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;GM Gormally&lt;/a&gt;.&#xA;One of the advantages of the Shirov Gambit is that you can play it against two popular move orders that lead to the Philidor: 3....Nbd7, 4....e5 and 3....e5, 4....Nbd7.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;      [StartPly &quot;5&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;      [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;      1.e4 d6 2.d4 Nf6 3.Nc3 Nbd7 (3...e5 4.Nf3 Nbd7) 4.Nf3 (4.f4)(4.g4) e5 5.g4 (5.Bc4) Nxg4 6.Rg1 Ngf6 7.Bc4 h6 8.Be3&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4588" LastEditorUserId="4588" LastEditDate="2017-10-26T17:09:33.637" LastActivityDate="2017-10-26T17:09:33.637" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18945" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19010" CreationDate="2017-10-25T23:06:31.040" Score="13" ViewCount="1082" Body="&lt;p&gt;You are required to find position such that:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) Any move made by White or Black leads to stalemate for both sides immediately.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) The position can be reached from the starting position of a chess game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14069" LastEditorUserId="3890" LastEditDate="2017-10-26T05:22:44.070" LastActivityDate="2020-04-19T02:09:36.250" Title="Mutual Stalemate" Tags="&lt;problems&gt;&lt;stalemate&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18946" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4250" CreationDate="2017-10-25T23:17:37.687" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The idea of whipping up a quick attack with threatening moves may not the best approach, unless Black creates weaknesses or wastes more time. For sure the Danish/Goring/whatever is not a forced win for White, and few masters would risk it against an equal opponent, who they expect to defend well. You will only get the chance to pile up on f7 against a weak opponent. Nevertheless its an idea to bear in mind. Black should not allow it and if he does allow it, White should probably go for it. And if Black does defend well, just make moves that improve your position, as always.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Strong Black players will often try to put you into a situation where you have no better alternative than just playing to get your pawn(s) back, and leaving you as the one with weaknesses. But by all means play some gambit games with a friend, taking turns to be the attacker. You will observe two fundamental chess concepts, material and mobility, struggling&#xA;against each other. Play through some well-played Evans Gambits by some of the late nineteeth century players, Steinitz, Anderssen, Blackburne, Chigorin,...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastActivityDate="2017-10-25T23:17:37.687" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18947" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18945" CreationDate="2017-10-26T00:58:11.630" Score="10" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;7k/6pP/6P1/4p3/8/1p2P3/pP6/K7 w - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a proposed solution, I wonder if we can find more patterns like this with more pieces on the board&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14069" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-19T02:09:36.250" LastActivityDate="2020-04-19T02:09:36.250" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="18948" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18943" CreationDate="2017-10-26T07:38:25.217" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am not aware of any published analysis nor commented games in this line.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that Black can almost forcefully transpose into a 'regular' wing gambit with 4...Nc6 5.Nf3 [5.f4, 5.bc5, and 5.Bb2 cb4 all look worse] cb4. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In case he is looking for more original play, 4...d4, 4/5...Qb6, 4/5...Qc7 all look interesting and try to demonstrate that a3 might not be the most useful move for White when Black refrains from taking on b4. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastEditorUserId="14079" LastEditDate="2017-10-26T09:22:11.357" LastActivityDate="2017-10-26T09:22:11.357" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18950" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-10-26T15:17:40.173" Score="10" ViewCount="705" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to reconstruct how Chess would have been played at various points in history in England, specifically at three points: around 1450, 1530, and 1610.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What rules would have been used at these dates? What kinds of boards and pieces might have been used? Who would have played and in what kinds of settings?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have read the confused Wikipedia articles and most of the first several pages of hits from Google, but can extract little of use from them and am hoping there's an expert here who can help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3811" LastActivityDate="2019-04-06T11:53:40.920" Title="How would Chess have been played in England in 1450-1600?" Tags="&lt;history&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18951" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18952" CreationDate="2017-10-27T00:10:10.353" Score="10" ViewCount="1124" Body="&lt;p&gt;I came across this puzzle that I couldn't solve and after looking at the solution I am still not sure what is going on here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[FEN &quot;5k2/p5pp/r7/2pB2p1/b1P5/6P1/4PP1P/R5K1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The best move apparently is Ra2. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The problem says &quot;white to play and win&quot;. The situation after Ra2 seems quite balanced to me and Stockfish is not detecting a clear advantage for white. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any views on this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12554" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2017-10-27T00:33:32.513" LastActivityDate="2017-10-29T01:12:24.200" Title="Euwe-Aljechin Amsterdam 1935 problem" Tags="&lt;problems&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18952" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18951" CreationDate="2017-10-27T00:52:10.800" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;After 1.Ra2, black's rook and bishop are both stuck; 1...Bb5, defending the rook on a6 while attacking the rook on a2 is no longer effective since 2.cxb5 defends the rook on a2. After this, black's play is completely shut down due to the pin on the bishop, while white is able to make improvements in his position. In particular, white can get a very strong passed pawn on the e-file which black can do nothing about.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is why the position is so-called strategically winning for white after 1.Ra2. Unlike other types of winning advantages, this one is of quite a long-term nature, and white would still need to show good general understanding and endgame technique to win the game in the end. Let's look at a couple of sample lines:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;5k2/p5pp/r7/2pB2p1/b1P5/6P1/4PP1P/R5K1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;&#xA; 1.Ra2! (1.Ra3? Bb5! {and black escapes the pin in an elegant manner; the bishop on b5 is temporarily immune due to the hanging rook on a3.}) {Paralyzing black's bishop and rook.} 1...g4 {Might as well try to stop white's pawns from advancing.} (1...Bb5?? {This is a terrible blunder now.} 2.cxb5 Rxa2 3.Bxa2 {and white is just a piece up.}) 2.e4 {Push the pawn! A strong and far-advanced passed pawn makes black's movements even more awkward than before.} 2...g5!? {Other defensive tries are available as well, but black wants to keep white down, and doesn't want to allow white's king access into black's position via f4.} 3.e5 h6 4.h4! {Black is given the chance to pick his poison} 4...Kg7 {The most resilient path.} (4...gxh4 5.gxh4 {and white's king is given access to black's camp via f4.} 5...Kg7 6.Kh2 Kf8 7.Kg3 h5 8.Kf4 Kg7 {What now? How does white proceed?} 9.Ke3! {White uses triangulation to put black on the move, thus gaining ground} 9...Kf8 10.Ke4 Kg7 11.Kf4 Kg6 {Black needs to stop white's king, but this allows a tactical trick:}   (11...Kf8 12.e6 Ke7 13.Kg5 {and black is getting squeezed to death.}) 12.Bb7! Rb6 13.Be4+ {and white wins the bishop on a4.}) (4...gxh3  5.f4! {and white creates two strong connected passed pawns. These are unstoppable, and will decide the game.}) 5.Kf1 Kf8 6.Ke1 Kg7 7.Kd2 Kf8 8.Ke3 Kg7 9.h5 {Finishing preparations before liquidation into a winning rook ending by placing king and pawns optimally.} 9...Kf8 10.Bb7! {The way to make progress!} 10...Rb6 11.Rxa4 Rxb7 12.Ra6 {Black's position is starting to crumble, and there is no way to defend all weak points anymore.}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So in conclusion, yes white is winning after 1.Ra2! but the win isn't trivial, and precision is still required afterwards to win the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8300" LastEditorUserId="8300" LastEditDate="2017-10-27T10:47:42.753" LastActivityDate="2017-10-27T10:47:42.753" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18953" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18951" CreationDate="2017-10-27T00:58:57.850" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;My Stockfish disagrees with your Stockfish. It's still grinding but the jig is up. The issue is that Black's Bishop and Rook are pinned down and defensive and White has a passed e-pawn that can be supported on the 6th rank.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, Black is nearly in Zugzwang.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[FEN &quot;5k2/p5pp/r7/2pB2p1/b1P5/6P1/4PP1P/R5K1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Ra2 g4 (1... Bb5? 2. cxb5 Rxa2 3. Bxa2) 2.h3 h5 3.e4 Ke7 4.e5 Kf8 5.hxg4 hxg4 6.Kf1 Ke7 7.Ke1 g6 8.Kd2 g5 9.Ke3 Kf8 10.Kd3 Kg7 11.Bb7 Rb6 12.Bc8 Rb4 13.Ke4 Rxc4+ 14.Kf5 a6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yeah, these moves are very robotic. Black's g4 is about as good as it gets. Ke7 and h5 are much worse for Black than g4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, why Ra2? After 1 ... Bb5, white has 2. bxb5 and the White's bishop defends the rook. So sneaky.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT - I let the computer play the game out, 5 minutes per move. It would not be easy to win this.  What I am seeing is that the initial analysis is generally good, but Stockfish gains a lot of clarity by playing it out. We see that White's &lt;em&gt;second&lt;/em&gt; move differs from the analysis above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[FEN &quot;5k2/p5pp/r7/2pB2p1/b1P5/6P1/4PP1P/R5K1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Ra2 g4 2.f3 gxf3 3.exf3 Ke7 4.h4 h6 5.Kf2 Kd6 6.Ke3 Ke5 7.f4+ Kf5 8.Kf2 g5 9.fxg5 hxg5 10.Bb7 Rb6 (10... Ra5? 11.Bc8+ Kf6 12.hxg5+ Kxg5 13.Bd7 Ra6 14.Rxa4 {and now black pays the price for allowing the pin}) 11.Bc8+ Ke4 12.Rxa4 Rb2+ 13.Kg1 gxh4 14.gxh4 Rb8 15.Be6 Rh8 16.Bd5+ Kd3 17.Kf2 Rxh4 18.Rxa7 Kd4 19.Kg3 Rh8 20.Kf4 Rh6 21.Rd7 Rh4+ 22.Kg5 Rh2 23.Bf7+ Ke4 24.Rd5 Rh8 25.Be6 Ra8 26.Rxc5 Rf8 27.Rd5 Ra8 {And now Stockfish announces a mate in 20+ moves, or something, lol}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2017-10-29T01:12:24.200" LastActivityDate="2017-10-29T01:12:24.200" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18954" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18955" CreationDate="2017-10-27T01:59:10.920" Score="0" ViewCount="107" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am trying to code a small chess engine, but I am confused with what the sign of the score means. This is my current minimax algorithm:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;INFINITY = 999999&#xA;def minimax(self, depth, color):&#xA;    if depth == 0:&#xA;        return (1 if color else -1) * self.evaluate()&#xA;    if color == WHITE:&#xA;        max_value = -INFINITY&#xA;        for move in board.generate_moves():&#xA;            board.push(move)&#xA;            score = minimax(depth - 1, not color)&#xA;            board.pop()&#xA;            max_value = max(score, max_value)&#xA;        return max_value&#xA;    else:&#xA;        min_value = INFINITY&#xA;        for move in board.generate_moves():&#xA;            board.push(move)&#xA;            score = minimax(depth - 1, not color)&#xA;            board.pop()&#xA;            min_value = min(score, min_value)&#xA;        return min_value&#xA;&#xA;def evaluate(self):&#xA;    score = 0&#xA;    if board.detect_checkmate():&#xA;        return INFINITY&#xA;    score += (piece_values[KING] * (piece_count(KING, WHITE) - piece_count(KING, BLACK))&#xA;            + piece_values[QUEEN] * (piece_count(QUEEN, WHITE) - piece_count(QUEEN, BLACK))&#xA;            + piece_values[ROOK] * (piece_count(ROOK, WHITE) - piece_count(ROOK, BLACK))&#xA;            + piece_values[KNIGHT] * (piece_count(KNIGHT, WHITE) - piece_count(KNIGHT, BLACK))&#xA;            + piece_values[BISHOP] * (piece_count(BISHOP, WHITE) - piece_count(BISHOP, BLACK))&#xA;            + piece_values[PAWN] * (piece_count(PAWN, WHITE) - piece_count(PAWN, BLACK)))&#xA;    return score&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See, what is important isn't the lousy evaluation function I have, I think it is about the sign the evaluation function returns. I am confused about the colors of the players and the maximizing player and minimizing player. Is it that if the engine is playing black, it is the maximizing player? Or is the white always the maximizing player?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13767" LastActivityDate="2017-10-27T02:21:41.787" Title="What does the sign of the score represent in chess engines?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;chess-algorithms&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18955" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18954" CreationDate="2017-10-27T02:09:01.377" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Evaluation sign should be the colour. Your implementation looks correct to me. I compared yours with:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Minimax&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Minimax&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What you did is conceptually identical to the pseudocode on the page. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2017-10-27T02:21:41.787" LastActivityDate="2017-10-27T02:21:41.787" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18956" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18951" CreationDate="2017-10-27T04:31:07.547" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the problem position, the black player is set to liberate his rook by playing his bishop to b5 as mentioned above. Significantly, the move of the rook to a2 is the only move that forestalls black's opportunity. The tactical resource involves the linking of the white bishop and rook and is an example of coordination of pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14672" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2017-10-27T10:53:29.667" LastActivityDate="2017-10-27T10:53:29.667" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18957" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-10-27T11:29:38.707" Score="6" ViewCount="154" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the league last night the following position came up:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Date &quot;2017.10.26&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Ian Bush&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Not Ian Bush&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1/2-1/2&quot;]&#xA;[StartPly &quot;28&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.e5 c5 5.a3 Bxc3+ 6.bxc3 Qc7 7.Nf3 Nc6 8.Bd3 c4&#xA;9.Be2 Bd7 10.O-O O-O-O 11.a4 f6 12.Bf4 f5 13.Bc1 h6 14.Ba3 Be8 15.Qb1 &#xA;    ( 15.Nd2 Qa5 16.Nb1 Nge7 17.Qc1 )&#xA;15...g5 16.Qb2 &#xA;    ( 16.Nd2 )&#xA;16...Bh5 17.Rfb1 Bxf3 18.Bxf3 g4 19.Be2 h5 20.a5 Nh6 21.Bd6 Qd7 22.a6 &#xA;    ( 22.Bc5 a6 23.Qc1 Nf7 24.Rb6 )&#xA;22...b6 23.Qb5 Nf7 24.Bc5 Qc7 &#xA;    ( 24...Ncxe5 $1 )&#xA;25.Bxb6 $1 axb6 26.a7 $2 &#xA;    ( 26.Qxb6 )&#xA;26...Nxa7 $2 27.Qa6+ Qb7 28.Qxa7 Qxa7 29.Rxa7 Rd7 30.Ra6 Rb7 31.Rbxb6 Rxb6&#xA;32.Rxb6 Kd7 33.Rb7+ Ke8 34.f3 Rh6 35.Rb8+ Ke7 36.Rb7+ Kf8 37.Rb8+ Kg7 38.&#xA;Rb7 Rg6 39.Kf2 Kf8 40.Rb8+ 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I played 15. Qb1 and after various adventures and a fun game it ended a draw. And Qb1 is Stockfish's choice in this position, followed by the related a5, Qd2 and Qc1, in human terms it agrees with my plan of blasting through the Queen side. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However on reflection in the cold light of day I'm wondering if 15. Nd2 (as indicated) may be better to first meet the positional threat he has of swapping off his bad bishop for my good knight via Bh5 (also relieving a little cramp in has camp). Yes I lose a tempo or two for my attack, but I'll get some of it back when he has to move his queen back from a5, and I gain the opportunity to sac a piece for 2 pawns on c4 so bringing a second minor piece into the attack - and so giving my white squared bishop at least some purpose in life, even if it is only self-immolation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So what do people think is better Qb1 or Nd2? Is this the kind of long term thing that computers aren't that great at? Or should I just trust the digital monster?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7726" LastEditorUserId="7726" LastEditDate="2017-10-27T11:40:24.487" LastActivityDate="2017-10-27T18:54:11.397" Title="Continue the Attack, Or Meet the Positional Threat?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18959" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18957" CreationDate="2017-10-27T18:54:11.397" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think you are asking the correct question at the wrong move.  12.Bf4 is probably questionable and after 12...f5 you need to think about countering Black's kingside expansion.  A move like 13.Ng5 looks strong, a possible line being 13...Rf8 14.h4 h6 15.Nh3.  Then you can reroute the Bishop, put the pawn on h5 and Nf4 with a bind.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is probably too late to thwart Black's light squared bishop with 15.Nd2 (which just looks ugly to me) as you are now having to deal with a kingside pawn storm but 15.Ne1 looks much better.  The idea is to play g3 and reroute the knight via g2 at some point. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2017-10-27T18:54:11.397" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18960" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18935" CreationDate="2017-10-27T22:26:01.000" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;So we have Stockfish with 8 pawns + king on one side, versus GM with all the pieces on the other?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You wonder if there is any chance of Stockfish winning that game?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sorry to disappoint you, but the answer is resounding no.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Human has 7 extra pieces -&gt; 2 bishops + 2 knights + 2 rooks + a queen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The easiest way for a human to win is to trade all of their pieces for computer's pawns -&gt; one piece sacrifices itself for one pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since we have 7 pieces, and computer has 8 pawns, after human sacrifices each piece for an opposing pawn, computer is left with a single pawn while human player has 8 pawns left.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At this point, human will just start rolling pawns to exchange the last remaining pawn. At that point human has 7 pawns + a king versus computer's lone king, which even a child can win effortlessly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Below is a small example game I played vs Stockfish:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;4k3/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQ - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e6 2. Bc4 Ke7 3. Bxe6 fxe6 4. Qg4 Kf7 5. Qxe6+ Kxe6 6. d4 Ke7 7. Bf4 Kd8 8. Bxc7+ Kxc7 9. Nc3 Kc8 10. Nb5 Kb8 11. Nxa7 Kxa7 12. Nf3 g6 13. Ne5 d6 14. Nxg6 hxg6 15. O-O-O Kb6 16. Rd3 Kc6 17. Rb3 b6 18. Rxb6+ Kxb6 19. h4 Kc6 20. Rh3 Kd7 21. Rg3 Ke6 22. Kd2 Kf6 23. Rxg6+ Kxg6 24. e5 d5 25. c4 dxc4 26. Kc3 Kh5 27. g3 Kg4 28. Kxc4 Kf5 29. a4 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Human player can win this in so many ways, but I have just mentioned a &quot;no brainer&quot; to illustrate just how hopeless is computer's position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastActivityDate="2017-10-27T22:26:01.000" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18961" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18995" CreationDate="2017-10-28T04:56:47.707" Score="4" ViewCount="210" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the below position, White is winning because Black cannot do anything. Black's b-pawn is the last fence barring White from checkmating the king rather easily.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;k1r4r/1p1nppbp/2b3p1/N7/4PP2/3PB2P/P3B1P1/1RR3K1 w - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are no immediate tactics available for white, but it is clear that white's rook should double up as that is the only thing left to do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Should the game be played on winning the b-pawn, or is there an easier way to win that I am missing? It is currently White to play. The engine Stockfish 6 doesn't show any captures on b7 happening within the next ten moves, but all play does seem to occur on the queenside.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are some good plans for White?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13147" LastActivityDate="2017-10-30T22:56:37.267" Title="What to do in a positionally won situation?" Tags="&lt;positional-play&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18962" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18961" CreationDate="2017-10-28T06:01:26.497" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think that White should expect to increase his (already large) advantage very quickly. You say there are no immediate tactics, and I don't see any either. But simple moves here are very strong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&#xA;1. Nxc6 gets the two Bishops in a position where they will dominate. 1..Rxc6 is forced because if ..1..bxc6 then Rc4. 2. Rxc6 bxc6 and now 3.e5 leaves Black just a pawn down with an awful position. Progress has definitely been made. All of Black's pieces are stuck doing even less than they were. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Over the next twenty or thirty moves you will keep Black tied down, bring your King to the queenside, and promote that rook pawn, so be happy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-10-28T08:26:52.063" LastActivityDate="2017-10-28T08:26:52.063" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18963" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-10-28T06:02:07.987" Score="1" ViewCount="390" Body="&lt;p&gt;I observed in many &lt;a href=&quot;http://tcec.chessdom.com/archive.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Tcec&lt;/a&gt; games of season 10 (and possibly repeats trough seasons) that white evaluation score of a position is always greater (not in terms of absolute value, but in terms of the &quot;&gt;&quot; math relation) than what their oponent thinks. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, the engines don't both evaluate the same position, they evaluate only their own moves, so to compare, I'm comparing with the previous and following move, in average. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can see for yourself that in the Tcec link at the beginning, down there is the &quot;Evaluation&quot; graph. And the white &quot;curve&quot; is over the black in most game most of the time. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What causes this phenomena? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is that after making a move the position is improved for our side and the evaluation changes accordingly? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't think, evaluation shouldn't depend so much on side to move. Is that a engine always do the things he likes, which the opponent maybe likes but maybe not and thus differing in the evaluation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10601" LastEditorUserId="10295" LastEditDate="2017-11-30T13:00:00.757" LastActivityDate="2017-12-30T13:41:07.770" Title="In engines vs engine game, both think &quot;optimistically&quot;: that they are in better shape than what their opponent thinks the evaluation score is" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;evaluation&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="8" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18964" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18963" CreationDate="2017-10-28T10:37:28.470" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is normal because White has the first move advantage. Most standard openings would give very slight advantage for White due to space advantage and better pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In fact, Stockfish would give you a slight advantage for White in the initial position. Try it yourself!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please take a look:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-move_advantage_in_chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-move_advantage_in_chess&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Z0SF9.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Z0SF9.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White has better winning statistics - both human chess and computer chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2017-10-28T10:37:28.470" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18965" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18687" CreationDate="2017-10-28T21:53:51.427" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Options &gt; Notation &gt; Structured Variations&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12676" LastActivityDate="2017-10-28T21:53:51.427" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18967" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18970" CreationDate="2017-10-29T02:48:28.807" Score="1" ViewCount="511" Body="&lt;p&gt;Does anyone know of a good (or not so) repertoire book on the Spanish with 5.d3 vs the main line and 4.d3 vs the Berlin? Is there such a thing on the market? I've already got Andrew Martin's DVD The ABC of the Ruy Lopez, but still I'd like to have something to read on the subject, something that would be a bit more thorough, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12676" LastEditorUserId="4588" LastEditDate="2017-10-29T07:43:40.980" LastActivityDate="2017-10-29T09:25:33.027" Title="Looking for a repertoire book on the Spanish with 5.d3 (4.d3 vs the Berlin)?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;books&gt;&lt;1.e4&gt;&lt;ruy-lopez&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18968" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-10-29T08:21:57.623" Score="2" ViewCount="336" Body="&lt;p&gt;What are some of the useful chess book review websites or YouTube channels out there? Or even people with chess blogs or Youtube channels which occasionally post book reviews. Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5653" LastActivityDate="2017-10-29T12:00:12.687" Title="Chess book reviews" Tags="&lt;books&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18969" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18967" CreationDate="2017-10-29T08:37:17.210" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess24.com/en/learn/advanced/video/the-6-d3-spanish-according-to-svidler/introduction-to-the-6-d3-spanish&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;video series&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess24.com/en/learn/advanced/ebook/the-6-d3-spanish-according-to-svidler&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;e-book&lt;/a&gt; by GM Svidler on the Ruy Lopez with 6.d3. Although he considers the move order 5.0-0 Be7 6.d3, his analysis is probably also useful for you, as after 5.d3 Be7, the most popular and logical move is 6.0-0.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4588" LastActivityDate="2017-10-29T08:37:17.210" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18970" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18967" CreationDate="2017-10-29T09:25:33.027" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.everymanchess.com/the-ruy-lopez-move-by-move&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;The Ruy Lopez: Move by Move&lt;/a&gt; by Neil McDonald contains both a d3- and a main line repertoire against the Ruy Lopez.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2017-10-29T09:25:33.027" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18971" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="18984" CreationDate="2017-10-29T09:29:40.777" Score="9" ViewCount="404" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a beginner player (rating on Lichess.org around 1550). While analyzing one of my own games (pasted below), Stockfish calculated that a Knight sacrifice at 10th move is a good idea. I tried playing through the position after the Knight sacrifice, and white is able to regain a minor piece after ~10 moves, and it possibly worsens Black's position after ~10 more moves (but I'm not so sure about that). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But, my question is: is it possible for a human player to recognize that a Knight sacrifice at move 10 in this game is going to benefit White? Is there a simple heuristic thought process that can help a player recognize that the position after 10. Nxe5 is beneficial for White?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(My chess knowledge level: trying to play without hanging pieces. No knowledge of openings or positional games or any formal theory)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The game is as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;White&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;1585&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Black&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;1354&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Qf6 { C40 King's Pawn Game: McConnell Defense } 3. Nc3 c6 4. Bc4 h6 5. O-O Be7 6. d4 d6 7. d5 c5 8. Nb5 Na6 9. c3 Qg6 { I am surprised that Stockfish thinks a Knight sacrifice Nxe5 is better here. Let me see how that line goes.... } 10. Re1 (10. Nxe5 dxe5 11. d6 Bh3 (11... Bd8 12. d7+ Bxd7 13. Nd6+ Kf8 14. Nxf7 Bc6 15. Nxd8 Qxe4 16. Nxc6 Qxc6 17. Qh5 Qc7 18. f4 e4 19. f5 Nf6 20. Qg6 b5 21. Bf4 Qd7 22. Bd6+ Qxd6 23. Qf7#) 12. Qf3 Be6 13. Bxe6 Qxe6 14. dxe7 Nxe7 15. Rd1 O-O 16. Rd6 Qc4 17. Na3 Qa4 18. b3 Qe8 19. Nc4 Ng6 20. Be3 Rd8) 10... Bh3 11. Bf1 Bf6 12. Qa4 Bd7 13. b4 c4 14. Bxc4 Ne7 15. Nxd6+ Kd8 16. Nxb7+ Kc8 17. Qxa6 Bg5 18. Nd6+ Kd8 { Here White missed a mate in 1 with Qa5 } 19. Nxe5 Qf6 20. Qb7 Qxd6 21. Nxf7+ Ke8 22. Nxd6+ { Black resigns. } 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user14405" LastEditorDisplayName="user14405" LastEditDate="2017-11-02T04:46:06.630" LastActivityDate="2017-11-02T04:46:06.630" Title="Game analysis: What would motivate a human player to sacrifice White Knight at move 10 in this game?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;sacrifice&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18972" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18968" CreationDate="2017-10-29T12:00:12.687" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The two web chess review sites I'm familiar with are &lt;a href=&quot;http://theweekinchess.com/john-watson-reviews&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;John Watson's reviews for TWIC&lt;/a&gt; (The Week in Chess) and the book review section of &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.gmsquare.com/Reviews/index.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Grand Master Square&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2017-10-29T12:00:12.687" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18974" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18961" CreationDate="2017-10-29T13:26:18.137" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, here's how Stockfish played the game out at 5 minutes per move. From the very start, Stockfish scored the position as decisive for White. After the game, we'll go over it to try to figure out how to play it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;&#xA;    [FEN &quot;k1r4r/1p1nppbp/2b3p1/N7/4PP2/3PB2P/P3B1P1/1RR3K1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;    1.Rc4 {Stockfish was looking at moving the 'b' Rook up until the last second of the allocated time, then switched to this.} e5 {This one is hard to understand, but it looks like Black wishes to prevent White from closing the center with 'e5'. Black's white-squared Bishop isn't long for this world and White's white-squared bishop will inherit the long diagonal... and this points right at the Black King.} 2.Rcb4 (2. Nxc6 Rxc6 (2... bxc6?? Ra4#) 3. Rxc6 bxc6 {This might tempt me, to get pieces off the board, but while it does produce a passed pawn, it does not win the b pawn. Maybe we can get more...}) Nb8 (2... exf4 3.Bxf4 Bf8 4.Nxc6 Rxc6 (4... Bxb4 Nxb4 {Stockfish is happy to trade the rook for two bishops.}) 5.Rxb7 Bc5+ 6.Kf1 Nb6 7.Rxf7 Rf8 8.Rxf8+ Bxf8 9.e5 ) 3.fxe5 Rc7 4.Bf3 Re8 5.d4 Bf8 {The diagonal is closed, time to find a new one.} 6.R4b2 Ba4 7.Nxb7 {I think at this point Black can consider resigning.} Rc3 8.Kf2 {White seems to be in a won position with 2 passers and no weaknesses.} Rc2+ {This is an indication of how poor Black's position is. Trading pieces is the last thing he should want, but he has to get the pressure off his King.} 9.Rxc2 Bxc2 10.Rb2 Ba3 11.Rxc2 Kxb7 12.Rc3 Bf8 {All of Black's pieces are on the first rank.} 13.Rb3+ Kc8 14.Bg4+ {Now Stockfish notes the Knight is only defended by the King and the King can be deflected. He goes for the Knight.} Nd7 15.Bd2 h5 16.Be2 Kd8 {With a rook and the bishops very active, White has mating chances. Black is relocating his King to a safer square.} 17.Rb7 {Nope. After 18. Bb5 White will win material} Kc8 18.Ra7 Re7 {prevents the pin that would have been inevitable} 19.Ra8+ {White is still exploiting the poor defense of the Knight} Kb7 20.Rd8 {Who is defending the Bishop on f8??} f6 21.e6 {...and the Knight falls.} Rxe6 22.Rxd7+ Kc8 23.Rf7 Ba3 24.Kf3 g5 25.Ke3 g4 26.hxg4 Re8 {avoiding the instantly fatal pin, but creating the pawn that is his doom} 27.gxh5 f5 28.Rxf5 Rg8 29.g4 Be7 30.h6 Kd7 31.Bb5+ Kc7 32.Ba5+ {This is the same dual-bishop tag-team that we would have seen had Black tried to save the Knight earlier} Kb8 33.h7 Rh8 34.Rf7 Bg5+ 35.Kd3 Bd8 36.Bxd8 Rxd8 37.Rg7 Rh8 38.Rg8+ Ka7 39.Rxh8 Kb7 40.Ra8 Kxa8 41.h8=Q+ Ka7 42.Qh7+ Kb8 43.Ba6 Ka8 44.Qb7#&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first thing is that White is up a pawn, a passed d pawn. If White can kill Black's b-pawn, this will look very promising as having two passers is powerful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the first thing is to pile up on the b pawn. We'll see in the game how Black ties himself up try to save it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The second thing centers around the poor position of the Black Knight and how the Bishop and Rook are poorly placed to defend it. The King tries but with Bishops raging across an open board, it isn't going to happen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I added comments to the game, scroll through.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2017-10-29T16:53:39.357" LastActivityDate="2017-10-29T16:53:39.357" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18975" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18971" CreationDate="2017-10-29T14:39:49.137" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If human player  can't calculate 10 moves ahead, the player might use his/her feeling based on the experience he got. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sacrifice like &lt;code&gt;10. Nxe5&lt;/code&gt;, get the initiative, open the game, and allow the d-pawn to start attacking. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The answer for the question is the sacrifice justified?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Might be objective (what a great computer chess engine will analysis)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Subjective - how will you use it against your current opponent &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is interesting that several chess engine gave different result for the move &lt;code&gt;10. Nxe5&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://analysis.cpuchess.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;cpuchess&lt;/a&gt; - using &lt;code&gt;GarboChess&lt;/code&gt; gave: &lt;strong&gt;-1.37&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/ko0W1SWS#18&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;lichess&lt;/a&gt;  - using &lt;code&gt;Stockfish&lt;/code&gt;  gave: &lt;strong&gt;+1.7&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.thechesswebsite.com/chess-analysis/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;thechesswebsite&lt;/a&gt; - gave &lt;strong&gt;-1.6&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note: Unfortunately I don't have access to any &lt;em&gt;professional&lt;/em&gt; chess engine right now. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10295" LastEditorUserId="10295" LastEditDate="2017-10-30T08:28:49.253" LastActivityDate="2017-10-30T08:28:49.253" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18976" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18971" CreationDate="2017-10-29T16:10:16.003" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm a lofty USCF &quot;B&quot; player. So take my words with a pound of salt.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would never think to play that move. But what does it allow?  The f-pawn is unblocked. After 1. f4 exf4 2. Bxf4, White has developed another piece and the Rook on f1 is looking at f7. Now White can think about d6, which doubles up on f7. Black has a threat of Bh3 and Qxg2#, but that won't happen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My Stockfish also chose that move. That does not mean a beginner should have found it. Moves like that require a degree of technical vision that would be uncommon in a person who isn't a master.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;r1b1k1nr/pp2bpp1/n2p2qp/1NpPp3/2B1P3/2P2N2/PP3PPP/R1BQ1RK1 w kq - 1 10&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Nxe5 dxe5 2.f4 Bg4 3.Qe1 O-O-O {If he takes the pawn, he won't be able to castle after the Bishop recaps} (3...exf4 4.Bxf4 O-O-O 5.Nxa7+ Kd7 6.Bb5) 4.fxe5 Kb8 5.Bf4 {Note the potential discovered check, and how this affects the f7 square. White's position is full of goodness} Ka8 {Run away! Run away!} 6.d6 {This pawn is a monster. Imagine when White supports it with a Rook...} Be6 {The d-pawn must be destroyed. Black is willing to pay the piper.} (6... Bg5 7.Bxf7 Qxf7 8. Bxg5 {discovering the Queen}) (6... Bf8 7. Qg3 Bh5 8. Rae1 {and here Black is so knotted up he wants to sacrifice the g-Knight on e7 but I would play Qxg3 though Stockfish says it is far worse}) 7.dxe7 Nxe7 8.Qe2 Bxc4 9.Qxc4 Qe6 {White has regained the sacrificed material and is having a splendid game.}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="14079" LastEditDate="2017-10-30T10:38:50.953" LastActivityDate="2017-10-30T10:38:50.953" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18977" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17825" CreationDate="2017-10-29T17:34:19.567" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I personally use Arena with Komodo but it doesn't have such arrows. Although you can try lichess.org's online analyser. It shows arrows per move and uses stockfish so it will be a pretty good choice if you aren't looking for a offline one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ctrl+ move a piece to a legal square makes an arrow&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13334" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-11-19T15:48:53.180" LastActivityDate="2017-11-19T15:48:53.180" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18979" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24343" CreationDate="2017-10-29T19:23:37.340" Score="9" ViewCount="1820" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can any chess engine tell you why a move is bad or good? For example, say a chess engine says the score against my opponent is currently +2 in my favor. I then make a move and my score drops to say 1.4. Can any engine tell me what I did wrong such that my score dropped from 2 to 1.4 (assuming I didn't hang a piece or pawn etc.) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems to me that having chess programmers make their programs even stronger is now pointless and it would be much more beneficial to the average chess player if they could have their programs instruct us why a move is bad (or good), assuming they currently cannot do this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="443" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T04:46:58.353" Title="Can a chess engine tell you why a move is bad or good?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;software&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18980" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18979" CreationDate="2017-10-29T20:02:53.427" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, I have seen programs that attempt to explain why a move is good or bad in language.  Chessmaster 9000 would do this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many engines will show you the best line for each move.  So it can tell you that if you play g6, it expects the game to go f5 gxf5 Nxf5, whereas if you play b6 it expects the game to go a5 bxa5 Bxa5.  Often from there you can see why the move was good or bad.  But sometimes it's still very subtle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a tool &lt;a href=&quot;https://hxim.github.io/Stockfish-Evaluation-Guide/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; where you can input a position and it will tell you exactly why Stockfish evaluates the position the way it does.  It only works for a static position (it doesn't look ahead at all), but it's still interesting.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastEditorUserId="12629" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T04:46:58.353" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T04:46:58.353" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="18981" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18929" CreationDate="2017-10-29T22:13:35.933" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sounds like an interesting variation and possible. 3 fold repetition would make a null move after 30 seconds followed by other null moves end in tie. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9841" LastActivityDate="2017-10-29T22:13:35.933" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18982" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18935" CreationDate="2017-10-29T22:58:18.467" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;After your question I was wondering if I can win stockfish in full power by having two more rooks and a knight and a bishop in  the starting position. It took me about 50 moves but it was not hard at all. You can try it yourself, just trade the pieces away. I think masters can win stockfish just by having two extra pawns or a piece more  compared to the stockfish.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14463" LastActivityDate="2017-10-29T22:58:18.467" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18983" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18979" CreationDate="2017-10-30T01:15:30.497" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;@D_M mentioned about Chessmaster, but it only reports very simple static features such as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Your queen is being attacked&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You lose a pawn in the computer line&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You win an exchange in the computer line&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do you know why Chessmaster did that? That's because the implementation was easy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Can any engine tell me what I did wrong such that my score dropped from 2 to 1.4 (assuming I didn't hang a piece or pawn etc.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;NO&lt;/strong&gt;. Chesmaster can't do that. No software can do that. We don't have the technology to do that. Traditional engine programming techniques can't do that. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To do what your describe, we need advanced mathematics/machine learning models. I'm not aware of anything like that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2017-10-30T07:42:09.800" LastActivityDate="2017-10-30T07:42:09.800" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18984" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18971" CreationDate="2017-10-30T09:05:27.690" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am quite certain that it is possible to find this move for a higher level chess player. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This has little to do with calculation depth actually. Yes, the engine is able to look 10 moves ahead and conclude that White is going to win his piece back in most or all positions resulting from the sacrifice. But for a human player, all that matters is if he can &quot;see&quot; (recognize) the right pattern. Concrete calculation only follows to make sure that this pattern is actually winning (and most of the work is done in the first 3 moves, instead of 10). Unfortunately, there is no easy heuristic blueprint (else we would all be GMs), most of this ability to &quot;see&quot; comes from experience. However, there are a few hints:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;First of all, White has the more active position (he has castled already, his pieces are much better developed (to active squares), and he has some space advantage), so he should generally put himself in the mindset of the attacker, not the defender.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Looking at the developed pieces in particular, the knight on b5 is very strong and puts pressure on c7 and d6 - and from the latter could attack f7 as well - which also happens to be in the scope of his bishop on c4. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;His queen and other bishop are ready to attack as well, but for now, there are pawns in the way. A friendly one blocks the file for the queen, and a hostile one defends f4 from the bishop. Nxe5 will help in both cases, but that alone does of course not justify a sacrifice.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Now the crucial part is to switch focus from &lt;em&gt;attacking&lt;/em&gt; d6 to &lt;em&gt;occupying&lt;/em&gt; d6. Important features that make this pawn advance really strong all by themselves (aside from the fact that passed pawns on the 6th rank are rarely a bad idea): Black's bishop on e7 will be attacked immediately, and Black has not castled yet, so d7+ is a very serious threat. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Additionally, all of White's pieces gain activity: The bishop on c4 gets freed, the queen gets additional scope along the d-file, the knight on b5 gets additional safety on c7 and without a black pawn on d6, the ones on c5 and e5 become very vulnerable to the other knight and bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, White's position would be overwhelmingly strong - if only the black pawn on d6 did not exist. A GM will probably see this immediately. For us normal folks, maybe that is the mental exercise you are looking for: &lt;strong&gt;If you &quot;sense&quot; that you have an advantageous position that possibly allows some tactics, check the &lt;em&gt;important&lt;/em&gt; pieces and pawns&lt;/strong&gt; (not the one on a6 obviously) &lt;strong&gt;of your opponent and judge the position with them missing. Once you have found a keystone, the actual calculation often is not that difficult. You just have to find a way to deflect the pawn/piece you identified as holding your opponent's position together, leading you to look out for moves like Nxe5&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now in this case, the real calculation would merely amount to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Bh3 counter attack - easily defended by Qf3, even adding pressure on f7 at the same time&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Bxd6 - you can simply retake, regaining your piece while maintaining a good attack&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Black retreats his bishop (e.g Bd8) - you can continue with d7+, and after Bxd7, d6 is open for the knight. At this point, you may have to calculate 2-3 additional moves, but really, if you have arrived here, you have done most of the work already. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Additionally, Tony Ennis' idea around f4 is worth having a look at, too.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Last but not least, you always have to consider that Black can refuse the sacrifice. Well, then Nxe5 either just won a pawn (probably the safer choice by Black) or has opened another attack angle after ...Qxe4 - you can now play Re1 with pressure along the opened e-file on an uncastled king.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a contrast, list of reasons why people tend to overlook opportunities like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;They are too occupied with the last move of Black (Qg6) that threatens Qxe4 and focus solely on the defense of that threat. End of list.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In all honesty, I still belong to that group too. Hindsight is 20/20. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13433" LastEditorUserId="13433" LastEditDate="2017-10-30T09:10:56.603" LastActivityDate="2017-10-30T09:10:56.603" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18985" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19513" CreationDate="2017-10-30T09:55:42.260" Score="0" ViewCount="1068" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recently looked into chess.com's four player chess. Its fun but had little success until now. I usually try and play moves to open my diagonal pieces but centre queen rushes always bring trouble. I am trying to adapt to a new style now. Any idea what sort of opening/strategy I should go for? Also any tips involving captures or trading pieces would be helpful. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14471" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2017-10-30T22:29:59.407" LastActivityDate="2017-12-24T11:40:45.500" Title="4 player chess tips" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;chess-variants&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18986" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18971" CreationDate="2017-10-30T11:06:44.480" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;As an FM Nxe5 is something that I would have considered in a tournament game, but would have missed in a blitz game. Many GMs would see this in a blitz game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black is behind in development with a king in center in a closed position. This is such a fleeting advantage for white that drastic measures must be considered.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The hard part is seeing Nd6-f7 after d7 clearance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Second hard part is that a human player might play 11. ... Bf8?! after d6. White is down a piece for a single pawn with no immediate mate visible, but black king is in center and black is ridiculously undeveloped.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So white should be winning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now you have to see that after tempting 12. f4 black looks completely busted&#xA;12. ... Qxe4 and now you have to see that 13. Bd5 is winning&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But again, black might play 12. ... Bd7 13. fxe5 0-0-0 this should be easily winning for white but they are still down a piece! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So calculating this position in my head at move 9. I would not be sure whether to play 14. Nxa7+ or 14. Rxf7 or 14. Bxf7 or maybe something else.&#xA;However, I would have to trust my instincts and prune this whole line as bad for black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With practice and study you develop a sort of spidery sense on what moves to consider. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The concerns that Annatar listed should happen near instantly at 2000+ level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9289" LastActivityDate="2017-10-30T11:06:44.480" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18987" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18929" CreationDate="2017-10-30T16:15:36.863" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;No. Then there would be no Zugzwang. Zugzwang would mean draw.&#xA;This type of time control removes a very important concept in chess and thus reduces the depth and beauty of the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14694" LastActivityDate="2017-10-30T16:15:36.863" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18989" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19009" CreationDate="2017-10-30T18:04:08.497" Score="1" ViewCount="1460" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my area, most kids including me grew up with a very popular house-rule: After all the pieces of either of the players are removed besides the king, the opposing player has 18 moves to checkmate him. If he can't do that, the game is a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The rule is popularly called 18-moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have spent some time googling and have not found this rule anywhere.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does anyone know a source for this rule and why it's so popular?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14257" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2017-10-30T22:15:48.897" LastActivityDate="2020-02-17T16:17:20.643" Title="What is the source of the house-rule 18-moves?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;rules&gt;&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;50-move-rule&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18990" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18979" CreationDate="2017-10-30T18:04:12.880" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;No.&#xA;Although Chessmaster as mentioned by everyone can tell you some basic things like if the following line will result in an exchange sacrifice or you may lose a pawn and so so.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But you can also analyse this yourself by playing down the lines. There are no chess engines nor I see any in the near future that can explain why the move is good/bad unless it will cost you material difference. As a engine may have played a move to improve his position in the future say like after 50 moves. There is no way it can explain to you why this move will result in a better position after 50 moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also major chess engines in the market like Stockfish etc. do not even bother to include such features as the level chess engines play at are completely different and very hard to analyse even if we are provided with explanation of every move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13334" LastActivityDate="2017-10-30T18:04:12.880" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18991" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-10-30T18:18:58.870" Score="2" ViewCount="83" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the name and detailed rules of the chess variant where the first person to lose all their pieces wins.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately, I'm not sure about the rest of the rules. Are there force captures, or checkmates, etc?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does anybody know the complete set of rules?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14257" LastEditorUserId="3890" LastEditDate="2017-11-11T04:48:33.663" LastActivityDate="2017-11-19T02:33:31.993" Title="What are the rules of chess variant?" Tags="&lt;chess-variants&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="10" ClosedDate="2017-11-19T02:33:59.287" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18992" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18989" CreationDate="2017-10-30T18:55:12.963" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I had one of like it too but it consisted of 20 moves. The most similar thing officially is the 50 moves rule, where if a pawn hasn't moved and nothing has been captured for the last 50 moves, it's a draw. I think this is the source of many of those house rules in an easier version.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14697" LastEditorUserId="8201" LastEditDate="2017-10-31T14:28:19.387" LastActivityDate="2017-10-31T14:28:19.387" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18994" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18963" CreationDate="2017-10-30T22:53:07.410" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It doesn't really matter what the absolute scores are, they really only serve to compare moves internally so only their relative values matter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With one exception: positions that are evaluated at a draw get 0.0 by all these engines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So this &quot;optimism&quot; factor is tuned to create a difference between a position that is merely equal and one that is a draw; if it's set to +0.1 for an equal position, then a position must be worse than -0.1 before taking a draw becomes preferable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The usual name for this is the &quot;contempt&quot; setting. The current TCEC Rules say that the engine's default setting is used, so it can be set by the programmers before the tournament, and updated versions of the program can be entered for later stages of the tournament.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think that in stage 1, an engine that has too many draws won't qualify for stage 2, so I'd expect some slightly higher than normal contempt, and this effect should be clearly lower in later rounds. But I'm a complete layman and this may be wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2017-10-30T22:53:07.410" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18995" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18961" CreationDate="2017-10-30T22:56:37.267" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Seems there is a simple endgame win here:  Take on c6 giving White a passed a-pawn; then d4, e5, Bf3 game over.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2017-10-30T22:56:37.267" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18996" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19000" CreationDate="2017-10-30T23:12:22.653" Score="3" ViewCount="652" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have recently stared to play chess variants, and I want become better at them. Are there any strategies for chess960 given that the piece placement is random each time?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14700" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2017-10-30T23:55:26.410" LastActivityDate="2017-10-31T09:31:31.527" Title="Chess960 tips and strategies" Tags="&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;chess960&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18997" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18979" CreationDate="2017-10-31T00:16:33.360" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The engine evaluation (&quot;2&quot;/&quot;1.4&quot;) is in fact very similar to how a human would evaluate a position. It is basically a sum of various factors such as &lt;em&gt;material&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;king safety&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;piece activity&lt;/em&gt;, etc. evaluated not for the current position but for the position some 20 moves ahead or so; assuming perfect play from both sides.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In principle one could try to monitor the change in all those factors separately (instead  of only their sum as engines do). For instance if a move leads to a lower value for &quot;king safety&quot; later on compared to the best move, one might be tempted to tell the learner something like: &lt;em&gt;Your last move made your king more vulnerable&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However I doubt that this would work in actual games, because:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the learner's move might in fact have other issues: for instance it might neglect development and only because of this the player might have to make concessions later on regarding his king's protection (assuming best play). &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;many factors might change at the same time, some going up some going down for instance. Trying to express this in words might be cumbersome, e.g.: &lt;em&gt;Your last move neglected king safety, but improved your piece's activity and you lost a pawn but occupied an open file&lt;/em&gt; Would this information be helpful to a learner?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because of this, I doubt that computer's will be able to teach you positional or intuitive play (based on principles) at least with current technology. Better to use classical methods such as other humans, reading/watching/listening annotated games, etc&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2017-10-31T00:16:33.360" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18998" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19006" CreationDate="2017-10-31T07:46:49.957" Score="2" ViewCount="1142" Body="&lt;p&gt;Currently, I do the following in order to improve my chess:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Play several (currently 9) correspondence chess games simultaneously on Chess.com.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Do tactics and puzzles regularly on Lichess.com and Chess.com.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Play occasionally against the computer (though not full strength) in rapid time controls (10|15).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I chose to play correspondence chess as it provides me a  considerably good amount of time to think, and hence play to my best.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also find that correspondence chess is easier to manage, as I don't have to be online throughout the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The thing is, correspondence chess moves so slowly, I feel that it would take me years to complete two dozen games (and hence improve my game).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;My questions&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So is it a good idea&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;to play faster time controls too (online),&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;or to increase the number of simultaneous correspondence chess games I play?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the second course of action is better, how many games should I (&lt;strong&gt;optimally&lt;/strong&gt;) play simultaneously to increase my performance?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the first is better, what time control is the most suited to my need?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Note&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Information that could be of some use to potential answerers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I've heard that Blitz and Bullet chess aren't really good for learners.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;My rating was between 1200 and 1300 in the rapid time control on Chess.com (before my data got erased).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;My training (puzzles) reading online Lichess reached 1903 before falling to 1842, after which I've been inactive for quite a while.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13565" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2017-11-02T01:03:47.760" Title="Which is better for an improving amateur to play even better: correspondence chess or faster time controls[both online]?" Tags="&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;correspondence-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="18999" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18998" CreationDate="2017-10-31T09:28:14.757" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Usually chess training patterns are specific to an individual. What worked for me may not work for you. But, here's what I have found out personally- I did not find correspondence games to be helpful to improve my long time control games (time controls like 60/10 or 30/30), because the time management aspect is way different! In correspondence style games, I used to think of variations for 15-20 minutes, which one can never ever afford in a long time control game. My aim was to improve my long time control games and the associated time management and hence I stopped playing correspondence games. Since time management is such an important part of the game, training for specific time controls is definitely the way to go. The aspect of improving the understanding of your game can be done by studying your own games (mistakes) and practice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3158" LastEditorUserId="3158" LastEditDate="2017-10-31T16:16:46.447" LastActivityDate="2017-10-31T16:16:46.447" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19000" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18996" CreationDate="2017-10-31T09:31:31.527" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Everything you have learned in classical chess but opening variations also applies in Chess960 : respective values of the pieces, king safety, development, center, activity, concrete calculations, open lines, pawn structure, endgame theory, initiative, etc. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All those concepts are essential to Chess960's strategy. This explains why the best Chess960 players are the best chess players: they don't need specific training or strategy to adapt to the game, as they would if they wanted to try bughouse or loser chess or 4-players chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastActivityDate="2017-10-31T09:31:31.527" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19001" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18998" CreationDate="2017-10-31T11:51:07.073" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Correspondence chess will do more to improve the quality of your game. That is, your moves will be a lot more thoughtful and deliberate, and so will your opponent's. When you lose, it will probably be due to a subtle mistake beyond your ordinary comprehension (have better players point out where and why you lost).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That said, &quot;fast&quot; games may do more to improve your &lt;em&gt;playing&lt;/em&gt; strength. There will be times when you will &quot;under the gun&quot; and make &quot;stupid&quot; mistakes under time pressure. In the short run, at least, minimizing such mistakes will do more to improve your rating. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2017-10-31T11:51:07.073" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19002" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18971" CreationDate="2017-10-31T12:02:54.327" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It was a temporary sacrifice. It enabled the knight on b5 to run amok through Black territory, and get both bishops for the two knights. Black ended up with an isolated e pawn, and vastly inferior mobility in the variation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White in this game played &quot;better&quot; than a beginner. Maybe it was his &quot;best&quot; game, but if he keeps it up, he'll be an intermediate at least.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Capablanca (a world champion) did a similar thing in one game, and won.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2017-10-31T12:02:54.327" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19003" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19005" CreationDate="2017-10-31T12:07:20.340" Score="46" ViewCount="14728" Body="&lt;p&gt;How short can a game be in which (after the first move) one player moves only their king, and yet checkmates their opponent?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is assuming that the players cooperate, i.e. this is a kind of &amp;quot;helpmate.&amp;quot; This generalizes a problem by Stanley Rabinowitz, 1596 Journal of Recreational Mathematics 1987. No peeking at his solution, please! :D&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8201" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-02-03T23:34:39.940" LastActivityDate="2021-05-02T03:55:57.960" Title="How fast can checkmate occur by just moving the king?" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;problems&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="19004" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19003" CreationDate="2017-10-31T13:07:37.723" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just to prove that this is possible, here's an opening bid of &lt;strong&gt;9&lt;/strong&gt; moves. It's ugly because black makes several time wasting moves, but white needs to get his king to somewhere where it can be mated and also remove black's pawn (I don't see how to get a mating position with 7 black pawns on their original squares), so it takes time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Ke2 Ke7 3.Kf3 Ke6 4.Kg3 Kf6 5.Qg4 Ke7 6.Qxd7+ Kf6 7.Qa4 Ke7 8.Kh4 Kf6 9.g3 Kg6#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Evargalo improved on this within five minutes, but I feel it doesn't do any harm to keep this answer too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastEditorUserId="924" LastEditDate="2017-10-31T19:40:11.780" LastActivityDate="2017-10-31T19:40:11.780" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19005" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19003" CreationDate="2017-10-31T13:11:30.040" Score="50" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is a starter solution in 7 moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can we do better?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.g3 e5 2.Bh3 Ke7 3.Bxd7 Kxd7 4.Kf1 Ke7 5. Kg2 Ke6 6.Kh3 Kf6+ 7.Kh4 Kg6#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If this is best, interestingly, the play is almost forced. The only variations are 4... Kd6 or 4... Ke7 in the line above. There is also 4... Ke6 and 5... Kf5, or 3. Kf1 Kd6/Ke8 4. Bxd7 Kxd7 5.Kg2 Ke6, etc. Only five possible move orders with such a minimal stipulation would be quite nice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-02-03T23:37:34.983" LastActivityDate="2021-02-03T23:37:34.983" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="19006" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18998" CreationDate="2017-10-31T14:07:08.943" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some combination of both.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Rapid/Blitz helps a lot on opening to middlegame play. You play a lot of games, see many variations and be familiar with your choice of opening and their middlegame plans. It will also help on typical endgame, eg how to draw with minor vs Rook, the Lucena, Phillidor, etc. By simply playing a lot, you improve on the mechanical part of the skill set. (Which is often undervalued by players who have already gone past this stage, hence the advice &quot;blitz is bad for improving&quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, don't only play fast games. Play games where you at least always have enough time to calculate forcing lines. After that, check the strategical ideas you know of. Strategical ideas come from tutor/book/post game analysis and experience. You can't invent it during a game, not before you are a GM. If you don't know it, having infinite time won't help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically IMO, play as many games as you can so that you can put the stuff you learned into practice, lots of practice. And analyse your games!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7002" LastActivityDate="2017-10-31T14:07:08.943" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19007" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19015" CreationDate="2017-10-31T14:21:43.913" Score="4" ViewCount="650" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have been playing Chess variants for a while now, and I would like to know how to improve my skills in bughouse and crazyhouse. Does anyone have any tips or strategies that would apply to either? Any input would be very helpful. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14700" LastEditorUserId="8201" LastEditDate="2019-12-28T15:43:24.617" LastActivityDate="2019-12-28T15:43:24.617" Title="What is the best way to improve Crazyhouse or Bughouse skills?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;bughouse&gt;&lt;crazyhouse&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19008" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18998" CreationDate="2017-10-31T16:22:11.020" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You seem to have the incorrect idea that playing chess is how to improve. That is a completely wrong idea. You play chess to DEMONSTRATE your skill, not improve it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The basic way to increase ability is to systematically analyze thematic positions. Correspondence chess is useful in this respect because you can spend hours analyzing the key positions. Of course, if you do not spend time analyzing while you are playing correspondence chess, then it is useless. The most famous school of chess, the Botvinnik School of Chess, that trained generations of Soviet players, such as Garry Kasparov, worked by sending positions to the students by mail and the students would have to analyze the positions and send back their work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would note that the effect of doing disciplined analysis has had a critical impact on the skill of many famous players. For example, in 1964-1965 Bobby Fischer wrote the book &quot;My 60 Memorable Games&quot; which is hundreds of pages of detailed analysis of his own games. Writing this book took Fischer from being &quot;just&quot; one of the world's best into a full class ahead of everyone else--a huge increase in strength. Also, Jan Timman wrote a book called the &quot;Art of Analysis&quot;. Before this book, Timman was just a strong grandmaster, but after he wrote the book he became a world championship candidate. Alexander Alekhine became the strongest player in the world after writing his book (&quot;My Best Games of Chess&quot;). There are other similar examples. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8673" LastActivityDate="2017-10-31T16:22:11.020" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19009" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18989" CreationDate="2017-10-31T17:05:44.353" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I grew up in Spain and we used a 20 &quot;move rule&quot; instead of 18.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We played exactly as you said, if a player is left with a single king, the other has to mate in 20 moves or less to win the game. However, this &quot;rule&quot; only applied in friendly matches and was never enforced in tournaments. Our coach made us play like this for several reasons:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It promotes critical thinking at an early stage, where you have to look for faster ways to checkmate your opponent than just queening your two remaining pawns and checkmate using the &quot;staircase&quot; method.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It avoids humiliating the opponent, since now promoting all the remaining pawns to minor pieces and playing around with the king is no longer an option. We were around 6 years old, so once you knew you had won  you wanted to enjoy it longer. This kind of demeaning behavior was discouraged.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It avoids elongating the game more than necessary. We trained without clocks, which could make us spend unnecessary time in trivial positions.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This practice then naturally extended to our friendly games, but we were well aware that this was not an official rule and that on tournaments the 50 move rule applied.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3890" LastEditorUserId="3890" LastEditDate="2017-10-31T19:12:49.177" LastActivityDate="2017-10-31T19:12:49.177" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19010" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18945" CreationDate="2017-10-31T17:06:42.907" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;We are looking for a diagram which can be part of a legal position with either White to move or Black to move. The further constraint is that any legal move by either side must result in diagram which is stalemate, whoever is on move. I am trying to maximize the number of pieces.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At least 30 pieces is possible:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[title &quot;Move by either player would be immediate mutual stalemate&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;brnbKRRN/qnk1pBN1/rb1pPpPp/p1pP1P1P/PpP5/8/1P6/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]  &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black g pawn captured the two missing (White) pieces to promote to dark-squared bishop, and also unblocked the g-file for the White pawn to advance. The only legal moves (whoever has the move) would be b3=, but the positions are dead, as would any which satisfy this challenge.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One tricky point is that if Black is on move, then White has many possible last moves, so by the en passant convention, Black is not permitted to capture bxa3ep or bxc3ep.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: As few as 8 pieces is possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[title &quot;Move by either player would be immediate mutual stalemate&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;5k1K/p3pP1P/4P3/P7/8/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]  &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If Black moved last it must have been Ke8-f8, Ke8xNf8 or Ke8xBf8. White has many more choices for last move. But in either case the position is legal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8201" LastEditorUserId="8201" LastEditDate="2018-04-27T09:28:27.643" LastActivityDate="2018-04-27T09:28:27.643" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19013" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5356" CreationDate="2017-10-31T18:03:23.510" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here's how I would motivate the beautiful stalemate rule to a beginner:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Suppose that you lose a rook, and a lot of pieces are traded off. Time to give up, right? No, you've still got a cunning resource which makes the game very exciting. Basically, you have to make a move every time it's you turn. If none of your pieces can move, then you haven't lost: instead it's a draw! You've saved the game from apparent defeat! How cool is that? Imagine your opponent's face!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Let's look at a few typical positions... etc.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8201" LastActivityDate="2017-10-31T18:03:23.510" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19014" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1749" CreationDate="2017-10-31T20:02:41.480" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe that it is very beneficial to play chess against yourself. If you play without bias and try to make the best move possible on both sides, you would be able to see exactly where your strengths and weaknesses lie. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14700" LastActivityDate="2017-10-31T20:02:41.480" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19015" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19007" CreationDate="2017-10-31T21:40:15.150" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Since there isn't much material out there to study, the best way is to play with better players.  Of course, studying tactic problems is great for chess and the variants. FICS (free internet chess server) is probably where the best Siamese (bughouse) players are.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It helps if you have some opening systems worked out (since in Siamese being ahead on the clock can be crucial).&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Published tips are here: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.freechess.org/Help/HelpFiles/bughouse_strat.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.freechess.org/Help/HelpFiles/bughouse_strat.html&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/blog/Sorsi/advanced-bughouse-tips&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.chess.com/blog/Sorsi/advanced-bughouse-tips&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2017-10-31T21:40:15.150" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19016" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19017" CreationDate="2017-10-31T22:52:32.873" Score="2" ViewCount="892" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have recently found out about a new chess variant called antichess. I was wondering how to get better at it. Are there any opening moves or strategies in antichess that might help beginners in this chess variant better learn the game? If so, please explain in detail. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14700" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-17T02:26:54.457" LastActivityDate="2020-11-21T08:43:17.993" Title="What are some ways to get better at Antichess?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;losing-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19017" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19016" CreationDate="2017-10-31T23:40:05.463" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;A strategy that I use when trying to get better at antichess is to open up your bishops. Once you to that, you are able to get your opponent in a pawn trap, making them continuously attack your pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user14708" LastActivityDate="2017-10-31T23:40:05.463" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19020" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13313" CreationDate="2017-11-01T00:22:52.537" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;A checkmate is when one player gets the other player into a check that the opposing player is not able to legally get out of. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14700" LastActivityDate="2017-11-01T00:22:52.537" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19021" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18929" CreationDate="2017-11-01T00:55:13.070" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is possible because with the move being given to the opposing player, they could take that move to their advantage and get you into a checkmate. I believe that this type of variation is interesting and very possible. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user14708" LastActivityDate="2017-11-01T00:55:13.070" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19022" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18985" CreationDate="2017-11-01T01:02:49.853" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;One tip that I have learned is to establish your knights. Since these pieces can't have their checks blocked, you could use this to your advantage when trying to get an opponent's queen and other pieces. Knight forks are probably the best way to win the game. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14700" LastEditorDisplayName="user14708" LastEditDate="2017-11-02T16:54:08.227" LastActivityDate="2017-11-02T16:54:08.227" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19023" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5356" CreationDate="2017-11-01T01:19:37.787" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The other answers imply that there is an &lt;em&gt;external reason&lt;/em&gt; for the rule to be what it is. No! The rules are artificial, so we can choose whatever rule we want (as long as we stick to them). Why does the knight &lt;em&gt;have&lt;/em&gt; to move in a 1,2 L-shape? No external answer either...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is an &lt;em&gt;internal reason&lt;/em&gt;: a) The game is won when &lt;strong&gt;checkmate&lt;/strong&gt; is given. b) To continue the game in his turn, a player &lt;strong&gt;must&lt;/strong&gt; make a move. c) In a stalemate position, a player &lt;strong&gt;cannot&lt;/strong&gt; move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It follows that in a stalemate, the game cannot proceed, so it ends; however, no mate was given, so nobody wins; i.e., it has to be a &lt;strong&gt;draw.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1656" LastActivityDate="2017-11-01T01:19:37.787" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19024" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18985" CreationDate="2017-11-01T02:08:07.270" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have never played 4 player chess but by analogy with other multiplayer games, I would try to avoid committing too early, and try to profit from opportunities that appear, above all avoiding being the “biggest threat” that all players will concentrqate on.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Line pieces are incredibly flexible and can attack out of nowhere. But knights and pawns take a long way to get anywhere and are not very frightening so early moves can be with these, although not enough pawn moves to weaken the structure.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A knight may then be able to mount some kind of a raid, and this is best when the opponent is already distracted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8201" LastActivityDate="2017-11-01T02:08:07.270" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19025" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19003" CreationDate="2017-11-01T02:21:39.027" Score="43" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;It's impossible to checkmate faster than 7 turns (handicap on black) or 8 turns (handicap on white).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Proof by elimination&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I'm going to argue from the perspective that white is helping and black is handicapped, since otherwise it would take 1 more move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Only Queen, Bishops and Rooks can be used by the black player to threaten the white king, as only they allow for discovered checks.&#xA;Also, black can only move one of the pawns on d7, e7 or f7, as any other pawn means there are no moves available for the black King on turn 2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Using 1 threat&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Black Bishop on c8&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Can corner on h3, requiring a Bishop to obstruct g3 (or a Bishop or a pawn to obstruct h4, though in that case g2 needs to be dealt with), since other figures can just move to block the check.&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The fastest way requires at least 7 moves by white [2 moves for pawns, 3 moves for King, 2 moves for Bishop]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Can corner on g4. This requires 5 obstructions on h4, h5, g3, f3 and either g5 or f4 (none of which are bale to move to block the check)&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;This requires at least 8 moves by white (likely more) [3 moves for King to reach g4, at least 5 moves to setup obstacles, can't use a black pawn as obstacle]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Can corner on f5. This requires 2 non-Knight obstacles on f4 and g5.&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;This requires at least 7 moves by white [3 moves for obstacles (no figure can move to g5 in one move), 4 moves to get King on f5]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Black Bishop on f8&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Can corner on a3. Similar to other Bishop on h3 (see above).&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Requires 1 more move by the King though, so at least 8 moves for white.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Can corner on b4. Similar to other Bishop on g4 (see above).&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Requires at least 1 more move (King detour or additional pawn move), so at least 9 moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Can corner on c5. Similar to other Bishop on f5 (see above).&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Requires 1 more move (extra pawn move), so at least 8 moves for white.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Black Queen&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Can corner on a5. This requires obstructions on a4 and b4, and white needs to capture c7.&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Requires at least 9 moves [2 moves to setup obstacles, 2 moves to capture c7, 4 moves for the King, and 1 more move to get a pawn out of the way].&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Can corner on h4. This requires obstructions on h3, g3 and either h5 or g4 (none of which are able to move to block the check).&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Requires at least 8 moves [3 moves for the King, at least 4 moves to setup obstacles and 1 more move (King detour or extra pawn move)].&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Can corner on g5. Similar to Bc8 cornering on f5 (see above).&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Requires at least 1 more move, so at least 8 moves total [+1 move King detour or extra pawn move].&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Can corner on d1. Requires that the white Rooks are positioned on c1 and e1, that c2 and e2 not be moved (basically requireing at least 1 move for the whole white back line), removing d2 from that file and capturing d7.&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Requires at least 11 moves [1 for each figure on the white back line, at least 2 for the pawn on d2 (e.g. capturing e5), and at least 1 more pawn move (so Bf1 can move)].&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Black Rook on h8&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Can corner on h3. This requires at least obstructions on g2 and g3 (which are unable th block the check), since the black King can threaten g4.&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Requires at least 9 moves [3 moves King + 1 move pawn to get King on h3, 1 move pawn + 1 move Bishop to obstruct g2 and g3, 3 moves to capture h7 with Knight or Queen].&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Can corner on h4. This requires an obstruction on g3 (by a non-Knight), capturing h7 and either another obstruction on g4 or a black pawn on f5.&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Requires at least 8 moves [3 moves King + 1 move pawn, 1 move pawn to obstruct g3, 3 moves Knight to capture h7].&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Cannot corner on h5&lt;/strong&gt;. This would requires capturing h7 and either g7 or g8 and obstacles on g4 and g5 (g5 would need to be a pawn, anything else would be able to block the check from the the black Rook or treaten the target of the last move of the black King. However, since it isn't possible for black to stay on h7 for 2 consecutive turns, it is impossible to move the white King and/or the white obstruction for g4 into place (assuming g5 is in position, Kh7 cannot move to h6 to continue blocking the threat from the Rook).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Black Rook on a8&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Can corner on a3. Similar to Rh8 cornering h3 (see above), gains a move (moving d2 allows both King and Bishop to move directly) and loses one (+1 distance for the King).&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Requires at least 9 moves total.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Can corner on a4. Requires obstacles on b3 and b4 (cannot use black pawn to threaten b4) and capturing h7.&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Requires at least 10 moves [1 move pawn, 4 moves King, at least 2 moves to capture h7, at least 3 moves to setup obstacles].&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Cannot corner on a5&lt;/strong&gt; (see Rh8 cornering h5 above).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Using 2 threats&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Queen and Bc8&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Requires capturing d7 or e7 (= at least 2 extra moves + possibly a pawn move).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Can corner on h3 (similar to Bc8). Requires either an obstacle on g3 (Bishop) or an obstacle on g2 (Bishop or Rook) and moving g2 at least to g6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Requires at least 10 moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[Variant A: 3 moves King, 3 moves pawns or detour King, 2 moves for Bg3, at least 2 moves to capture d7 or e7].&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[Variant B: 3 moves King, 3 moves pawn (g2 to g6), 1 move Bg2, at least 3 moves to account for capturing d7 or e7, 1 move King detour or extra pawn].&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Can corner on h4 (see &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/19005/14709&quot;&gt;@Evargalo's answer&lt;/a&gt;).&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Requires at least 7 moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Can corner on g4 (similar to Bc8). Requires obstacles on h5, f3 and g3 (black pawn can threaten f4).&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Requires at least 8 moves [3 moves King, at least 2 moves capturing d7 or e7, 2 moves pawns (g3 and f3), +1 move King detour or extra pawn].&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Can corner on g5. This requires an obstacle on h5, either an obstacle on f4 or a black pawn on e5, and capturing ant least one of d7 or e7.&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Requires at least 9 moves [2 moves to obstruct h5, 4 moves King, 1 move pawn, at least 2 moves to capture d7 or e7)].&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Can corner on f5. Requires a obstacle on e4.&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Requires at least 7 moves [4 moves King, 1 move pawn, at least 2 moves to capture d7 or e7].&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Queen and Rh8&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Can corner on h5. Requires capturing g7 and h7 and either capturing d7 (using black pawn on e5) or an obstacle on g4.&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;At least 9 moves [1 move pawn, 3 moves Queen to capture g7 and h7, 4 moves King, 1 move pawn g4].&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Can corner h3, h4 or g4 as if single threat by either of those figures (potentially requiring additional obstacles as the black King cannot cover both Queen and Rook), costing some moves to unlock the Rook and possible the Queen.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;All other dual threat combinations&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Can corner as if there was only a single threat, requiring some moves to unlock at least one of the figures and possibly requiring additional obstacles to cover the additional figure.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Best case solution require at least 7 moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Some 7 turn solutions not yet covered by others:&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Qg4 Ke7 3.Qxd7+ Kxd7 4.Ke2 Kd6 5.Kf3 Ke6 6.Kg4 Kd7 7.Kf5 Kd6#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.f4 d5 2.g4 Kd7 3.g5 Ke6 4.Kf2 Kf5 5.Kg3 Ke6 6.Kg4 Kd7 7.Kf5 Kd6#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.f3 d5 2.Kf2 Kd7 3.Kg3 Ke6 4.Kh3 Kd7 5.d3 Ke6 6.Bf4 Kf5 7.Bg3 Kg5#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14709" LastEditorUserId="14709" LastEditDate="2017-11-02T19:55:27.577" LastActivityDate="2017-11-02T19:55:27.577" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19026" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18950" CreationDate="2017-11-01T04:18:47.273" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think this is a fantastic excuse to contact Irving Finkel at the British Museum. See his wonderful YouTube videos. Yes he specialises in ancient board games but must surely know the British experts in more modern periods.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am curious why these three specific years interest you. My naive guess would be that not much is known to have changed during this period, but it would be great to have a chess rules timeline up to the present day.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8201" LastActivityDate="2017-11-01T04:18:47.273" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19027" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18985" CreationDate="2017-11-01T12:44:16.550" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;A tip that I have is to build a great defensive in the beginning. When they start to fight each other, use line pieces to take out other opponents.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user14708" LastActivityDate="2017-11-01T12:44:16.550" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19029" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1749" CreationDate="2017-11-01T14:09:04.693" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The best part of playing chess against yourself is when you are trying to learn a specific opening line where you are learn the moves of black and white from both sides. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Secondly, if you are able to dig any weakness of both camps by playing a certain opening. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T18:46:34.760" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T18:46:34.760" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="19030" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18777" CreationDate="2017-11-01T14:58:59.807" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess follows fashion trends too, especially when a top tier player dusts off an old almost forgotten opening or variation, and wins with it. Often a chess opening stops being played simply because people are tired of it, not because there's something wrong with it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14721" LastActivityDate="2017-11-01T14:58:59.807" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19031" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19039" CreationDate="2017-11-01T23:26:18.643" Score="4" ViewCount="411" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here's the position after 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.O-O b5 6.Bb3 Bc5&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;      [StartPly &quot;12&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;      [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;      1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.O-O b5 6.Bb3 Bc5&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are 2 main continuations for White: 7.c3 (the most obvious imho) and 7.a4. Actually there's also the modestly looking 7.d3 which is good, no doubt, but I'm not interested in the d3 system at the moment)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;What are the pros and cons of the the both moves/lines?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And what does White really achieve (or try to achieve) by attacking the pawn on b5? I understand it cannot be recaptured by the a-pawn, so Black would normally defend it with his rook or go Bb7. Second, I'd also like to understand why 7...b4 is bad from positional point of view.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, sometimes White precedes a4 with c3. So, instead of playing a4 right away he waits for 7...d6 and only then plays 8.a4 (again instead of the obvious to me 8.d4). &lt;strong&gt;What is the idea here?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;      [StartPly &quot;15&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;      [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;      1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.O-O b5 6.Bb3 Bc5 7.c3 d6 8.a4&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12676" LastEditorUserId="4588" LastEditDate="2017-11-02T18:31:08.460" LastActivityDate="2017-11-03T18:51:10.837" Title="Ruy Lopez 3...a6 &amp; 6...Bc5 setup - a4 vs c3+d4 idea for White?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;1.e4&gt;&lt;ruy-lopez&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19032" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18998" CreationDate="2017-11-02T01:03:47.760" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe that doing fast-paced games can allow you to be more successful in chess. Doing these types of games trains your minds to move faster during a normal game of chess, and gets you coming up with better strategies during a long paced game. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14700" LastActivityDate="2017-11-02T01:03:47.760" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19033" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15118" CreationDate="2017-11-02T01:08:23.963" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The game of chess is much different from the game of checkers. Chess grand masters are not necessarily checkers grand masters. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14700" LastActivityDate="2017-11-02T01:08:23.963" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19034" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8321" CreationDate="2017-11-02T01:47:44.380" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;If I could see that it would lead me to a mate, I would sack everything for a queen. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have played multiple games in which I won by sacking many of my pieces for a queen. The only thing that you have to worry about is if the player tries to go for a stalemate. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user14708" LastActivityDate="2017-11-02T01:47:44.380" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19035" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9838" CreationDate="2017-11-02T02:00:18.790" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This situation is called a stalemate. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Webster Dictionary defines a stalemate as &quot;a position counting as a draw, in which a player is not in check but cannot move except into check.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your situation, that would be considered a stalemate. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14700" LastActivityDate="2017-11-02T02:00:18.790" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19037" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9838" CreationDate="2017-11-02T06:59:16.807" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your description of the situation is too incomplete for us to answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If your king is &lt;strong&gt;not under check&lt;/strong&gt; where it stands right now, then the situation is called a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalemate&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;stalemate&lt;/a&gt;. The game is drawn.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If your king &lt;strong&gt;is under check&lt;/strong&gt; where it stands right now, then the situation is called a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Checkmate&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;checkmate&lt;/a&gt;. The game is lost for you, won for your opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, the appelation &quot;discovered check&quot; in the question's title is inappropriate here, it means something &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesscorner.com/tutorial/tactics/discovered/discovered.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;totally different&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastEditorUserId="14079" LastEditDate="2017-11-02T09:07:31.347" LastActivityDate="2017-11-02T09:07:31.347" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19038" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13647" CreationDate="2017-11-02T16:49:20.720" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The so called 'Master Strength' that you are talking about is achieved through a long period of practice. By practice, I don't just mean games, but tactical puzzles that help improve strategy and skill. I hope that I managed to answer your question. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user14708" LastEditorUserId="14700" LastEditDate="2017-11-02T16:51:29.927" LastActivityDate="2017-11-02T16:51:29.927" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19039" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19031" CreationDate="2017-11-02T20:24:28.873" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;After the logical 7.c3 d6 8.d4, black should play 8....Bb6, with the idea 0-0, Re8, Bb7/g4, building up pressure against white's center. Also after 8.a4 Bg4!, pinning the knight and protecting the rook on a8, black should be fine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, the main line is 7.a4, bringing the rook into play with an extra tempo. After 7....b4, white obtains the advantage by 8.Nxe5! Nxe5 9.d4 Bxd4 10.Qxd4, attacking the pawn on b4. Note the difference with 7.Nxe5, where black is fine after 7....Nxe5 8.d4 Bxd4 9.Qxd4 d6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Instead of 7....b4, the main line is 7....Rb8 and the game often continues with 8.c3 d6 9.d4 Bb6. This position can also be reached by 7.c3 d6 8.d4 Bb6 9.a4 Rb8. However, this move order unnecessarily gives black the extra option of 9....Bg4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Recently, during the international tournament of the Isle Of Man, two top-level games were played that are important for the current theoretical status of the Ruy Lopez Arkhangelsk.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the game &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1886520&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Fabiano Caruana - Gawain Jones&lt;/a&gt;, black followed the recommendation given in a &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess24.com/en/learn/advanced/video/svidler-s-archangel/svidler-archangel-intro&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;video series&lt;/a&gt; by Peter Svidler. However, during his home preparation, white found the refutation at move 23(!) and won the game (see reports on &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/news/view/isle-of-man-set-for-sprint-finish&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess.com&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.chessbase.com/post/isle-of-man-open-nothing-is-written&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;ChessBase.com&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Remarkably, the very next round, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1886547&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Magnus Carlsen repeated the same opening&lt;/a&gt; against Caruana. He deviated at move 14, but again Caruana had prepared a strong novelty. Nevertheless, Carlsen won (see reports on &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/news/view/carlsen-nakamura-to-play-for-isle-of-man-title&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess.com&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.chessbase.com/post/isle-of-man-open-magnus-carlsen-beats-fabiano-caruana&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;ChessBase.com&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit:&lt;/strong&gt; In both games, Caruana chose the move order 7.c3 d6 8.a4, allowing 8....Bg4. Although this probably has a reason, I have no idea why this move order would be more precise.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;      [StartPly &quot;12&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;      [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;      1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.O-O b5 6.Bb3 Bc5 7.a4 (7.Nxe5 Nxe5 8.d4 Bxd4 9.Qxd4 d6)(7.c3 d6 8.d4 (8.a4 Bg4) Bb6 9.a4 Bg4) Rb8 (7...b4 8.Nxe5 Nxe5 9.d4 Bxd4 10.Qxd4) 8.c3 d6 9.d4 Bb6&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4588" LastEditorUserId="4588" LastEditDate="2017-11-03T18:51:10.837" LastActivityDate="2017-11-03T18:51:10.837" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19040" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19041" CreationDate="2017-11-03T14:48:18.193" Score="7" ViewCount="1742" Body="&lt;p&gt;As title above, why are opening books so popular? I am sure that most players know that middlegame and endgame books are ultimately much more important for improving one's chess strength. That is not to say that openings are not important, but it seems to me that a good 80% or so of chess literature are opening / repertoire books, and that means that these are the most bought ones.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastActivityDate="2019-10-16T18:45:59.280" Title="Why are opening books so popular?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;books&gt;&lt;middlegame&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19041" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19040" CreationDate="2017-11-03T15:02:56.143" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think there are number of reasons why these are so popular:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It is easy to start learning openings. You can read about ideas and memorize some lines. It is not so easy to learn middle game or end game in similar fashion.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A lot of players want to get an edge from the start- hence the focus on openings.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;People enjoy reading them&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;They are easier to write than good middle game books (as indicated by different chess authors)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is questionable if middlegame or endgame books are more important. There is an argument to be made that you need something other than books to learn good middlegame / endgame skills. Openings on the other hand can be easily learned from books.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1193" LastActivityDate="2017-11-03T15:02:56.143" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19042" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-11-03T23:54:00.593" Score="7" ViewCount="2381" Body="&lt;p&gt;So, I've found the general advice that you should develop your knights before your bishops. &#xA;Reasons I think are:&#xA;1) The knights almost always go to the main squares (c3,c6,f3,f6) (or sometimes to d7 the black knight in the queen's gambit) but, generally, you know in advance that you are likely to want your knights there. However, the bishops you don't want to commit to a square and &quot;reveal&quot; your intentions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course this rule has a lot of exceptions, starting with the ruy lopez Bb5, italian game Bc4 are better for white than 3 Nc3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I've seen this rule for example &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.quora.com/In-chess-why-should-you-bring-out-your-knights-first-before-your-bishops&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;here1&lt;/a&gt;. In that quora question, 5 answers reference my intuition that i describe below. &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chesskid.com/article/view/knights-before-bishops&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Here&lt;/a&gt; also argues that while not universal, it is recommended normally. Other authority sources were founded using &lt;a href=&quot;http://exeterchessclub.org.uk/content/ten-rules-opening#Lasker-s_rules_for_the_opening&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this article&lt;/a&gt; , in that , it can be found that Emmanuel Lasker and Reuben both recommend it:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Bring out your knights before developing the bishops.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Intuition: is not to commit /reveal information by moving the bishop, and since the knight has almost only 1 great square in most openings (c3,f3,c6,f6) then there is nothing to hide and sooner or later it will be needed there, so just move right now. Keeps the bishop options open.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10601" LastEditorUserId="10601" LastEditDate="2017-11-04T21:47:35.433" LastActivityDate="2020-08-16T09:15:57.780" Title="Why develop knights before bishops?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;development&gt;" AnswerCount="9" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19043" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19042" CreationDate="2017-11-04T06:24:01.160" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would also add to what you wrote that you start with less valuable pieces, so you don't have to worry about them being exchanged. You wouldn't probably start with Rf3 if Bg4 pin was possible. Also bishop on c1 is active even from that square and it's often developed mainly because of the rook on a1. In quite some lines of Ruy-Lopez the rook is developed with a4 so bishop c1 doesn't even have to move. For example Zaitsev line. There's even more obvious example in Breyer Ruy-Lopez for black. You play like Be7 0-0 Re8 Bf8. Obviously you don't make moves with the bishop here to develop him, but to develop other pieces. It's long range piece worried about being exchanged for knight, they like to stay far from battlefield, using their rifle... &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11609" LastActivityDate="2017-11-04T06:24:01.160" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19044" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19042" CreationDate="2017-11-04T13:08:09.567" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think this might have some value for someone who is playing her very first chess games, but it has not to be taken too seriously, especially if we see GMs and World Champions play, as White, 1.e4 e5 2.Bc4, or 1.d4 Nf6 2.Bf4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's like the advices that say &quot;Castle as soon as you can&quot;... or &quot;Don't move the Queen too early&quot;. I hope you get the idea...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastActivityDate="2017-11-04T13:08:09.567" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19046" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19042" CreationDate="2017-11-04T20:18:41.050" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Another reason besides what you stated:  The Bishops can work from home.  What I mean by that is when the e/d pawns are out of the way the Bishops are already influencing enemy territory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2017-11-04T20:18:41.050" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19048" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4154" CreationDate="2017-11-04T21:12:10.210" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;All you need to do is to ask for permission from the other chess player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But first I would ask myself. Why do I need to tell him, that he or she is going to lose? Am I in a hurry? Do I want to lecture him? Does my ego needs to be fed?&#xA;What is the real reason?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once you found the genuine reason, than go ahead. Ask your opponent and reason it.&#xA;Some might take it as an insult, but if you are respectful and have a valid reason and not just being a nuisance than its fine, in this case there is nothing wrong if you ask. When I say nuisance , I mean for example : you start a 1 hour live chess game and you can see the that there will be a mate in 5, but there is still 30 mins left from his time. Why would you want to hurry the other player? Is there an emergency and you need to leave your chess game? Obviously it can't be such an emergency if you'd still have time to ask the opponent to resign. Or you just don't want to wait the other for half an hour while you know you won? Where is the respect towards your opponent and where is your responsibility of committing yourself to an hour of chess game? Now that is the nuisance. This also applies to other things in life.&#xA;If the other person reacts badly, you have might been just a nuisance or the other is taking it personally. You need to explain that you have no intentions of offending him/her. If you've done everything fine and the other is still not happy about it, that's fine too! You can't please everyone..&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14754" LastActivityDate="2017-11-04T21:12:10.210" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19049" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19042" CreationDate="2017-11-05T03:40:40.720" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Knights are better &amp;quot;skirmish&amp;quot; pieces than bishops. They are &amp;quot;powerful&amp;quot; (compared to pawns), but operate at short range. They typically need two moves to get to their best (strategic) locations(typically on the 5th or 4th ranks). So they need to get an early start.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bishops are &amp;quot;distance&amp;quot; pieces. I compare them to archers (and rooks to artillery). They can have a powerful impact on the board after only one move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-08-16T09:15:57.780" LastActivityDate="2020-08-16T09:15:57.780" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="19050" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19040" CreationDate="2017-11-05T03:48:23.507" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Because not everyone who is &quot;interested&quot; in chess is trying to optimize their chances of getting better. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A number of people treat chess games as if they were &quot;stories.&quot; They start reading a game/story, get bored, and either move on to another one, or two a past time altogether. They're interested in how things start, less interested in the middle or the end of it. That is, they lose interest when things get beyond a certain point.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2017-11-05T03:48:23.507" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19051" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13647" CreationDate="2017-11-05T03:59:47.823" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Games are lost in two ways; by outright errors, which lose immediately, and by &quot;slack&quot; (suboptimal) moves, which cause your position to erode over time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most &quot;good&quot; games (the ones free of obvious errors) are races. E.g. races to attack each others' kings or to queen your pawns. A better player, by definition, will win most races. A weaker player will lose a move here and there, play a &quot;good&quot; (solid) game, and still lose.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You are a master when you can keep up (win some races, draw most others) with masters. You also be able to edge out experts in most races, except on a bad day.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2017-11-05T03:59:47.823" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19052" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4154" CreationDate="2017-11-05T15:04:04.357" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't know why anyone should be offended by this. We are talking about correspondence chess here, even if you play it using a web server instead of through the postal service! The rules of correspondence chess (at least the USCF's) allow players to send &quot;conditional moves&quot; to save time:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Conditional or if moves: An attempt to save time and postage by offering a plausible continuation beyond the required response. Conditional moves are binding if the recipient accepts the continuations. The game must then follow the indicated continuation or any part accepted in sequence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One situation where conditional moves make a lot of sense is when there is a forcing line. Forced mates are just one particular example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just to give one notable example, according to Wikipedia, in the &quot;Kasparov vs the World&quot; game, &quot;The game lasted four months, with Kasparov playing &quot;g7&quot; on his 62nd move and announcing a forced checkmate in 28 moves.&quot; Did Kasparov insult the world? :-)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From a practical point of view, chess.com lets you specify conditional moves. Unlike in traditional correspondence games, your opponents don't get to see all the conditional moves you set, but if they reply along one of the lines you predicted, they receive your next move immediately (and if they don't know about the feature, might wonder how you can alway be available to move so quickly! :-). This allows you finish the game in &quot;autopilot&quot;. Personally, that's what I do instead of sending a message announcing the mate, but like I said, I don't think the latter is insulting, either. I only mention chess.com since it's what I know best, but perhaps other providers have similar features.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12523" LastActivityDate="2017-11-05T15:04:04.357" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19053" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18979" CreationDate="2017-11-05T20:39:58.643" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In addition to other answers, engines don't assess positions like humans, so they can't provide a good explanation why &lt;em&gt;they think&lt;/em&gt; your move is inferior (emphasis on they think, not necessarily).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But you can follow sidelines using engine suggestions and understand why it was inferior. At least this is what I do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could there be an engine which can do this? I guess yes, but from business point of view, probably, an infeasibly huge effort is necessary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9030" LastActivityDate="2017-11-05T20:39:58.643" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19054" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18979" CreationDate="2017-11-06T01:08:15.553" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the chess engine can &quot;tell&quot; you, but in an indirect way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What I would do is to play several different moves from the same position. The chess engine will (presumably) give you a different score for each one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This will allow you to &quot;rank&quot; the various moves. Perhaps a pattern will emerge. If not, you might want to get a (stronger) human player to explain the chess engine's rankings to you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2017-11-06T01:08:15.553" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19055" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19061" CreationDate="2017-11-06T01:53:49.977" Score="6" ViewCount="532" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not even sure what to call this one. I'm reading &lt;em&gt;Caro-Kann Defense: Advance Variation and Gambit System&lt;/em&gt; by Anatoly Karpov.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the first chapter karpov mentions a move order:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;e4 c6&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;d4 d5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;f3&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So far so good - the gambit system. Then he mentions black has a few continuations. The one that I'm not sure how to put on my board is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;...de &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;fe e5 &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've never seen the notations &lt;em&gt;de&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;fe&lt;/em&gt; used before. I thought they were for captures but it's very clear karpov is using normal capture notation (with 'x') throughout the book.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How do I understand this notation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user14142" LastActivityDate="2017-11-10T16:39:51.067" Title="Unfamiliar with this move notation" Tags="&lt;notation&gt;&lt;annotation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19056" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19057" CreationDate="2017-11-06T04:50:14.677" Score="1" ViewCount="1125" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd like to hold engine vs engine matches on my phone, and am looking for an app which could help me do this. Does Droidfish support matches between two different engines? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If not, could someone name an app available on Play Store (with a good UI) which, in addition to allowing the usual functions of game analysis and playing against engines, supports engine vs engine matches, the two engines being different? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In short, I want something like Droidfish, with an additional feature to hold engine vs engine matches, like one can on Arena.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13565" LastActivityDate="2017-11-06T05:03:08.800" Title="Good apps for engine vs engine matches" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;computer-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19057" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19056" CreationDate="2017-11-06T05:03:08.800" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.chess&amp;amp;hl=en&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.chess&amp;amp;hl=en&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess for Android has it, and it's the more or less industry standard for running engine matches on an Android mobile device.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure if Droidfish can do it, somebody else might answer you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2017-11-06T05:03:08.800" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19058" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19040" CreationDate="2017-11-06T06:37:09.080" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think it is because it is a lot easier to memorize some opening moves than it is to analyse positions.  People are lazy and want to be told what is slightly better for White or whatever.  And hey, they can survive the opening and look like they know how to play.  They might even win a game without having to think for themselves!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2017-11-06T06:37:09.080" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19059" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19042" CreationDate="2017-11-06T08:35:16.623" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Commitment (versus flexibility) indeed is the main reason for this piece of advice. In particular: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The first moves are (usually) all about fighting for control over the center. The knights are superior to the bishops in that regard because from their &quot;natural&quot; development squares, they have access to 2 of the central squares (e.g. &lt;strong&gt;a knight on f3 reaches both d4 and e5 - attacking and defending the center at the same time&lt;/strong&gt;), while the bishops can control at most one (e.g. &lt;strong&gt;Be3 reaches d4 and Bf4 reaches e5, so the bishop can only attack &lt;em&gt;or&lt;/em&gt; defend the center, but not both&lt;/strong&gt;) &lt;em&gt;unless&lt;/em&gt; they are fianchetto'ed, but that has the cost of two moves to develop instead of one. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Half of the options to develop the bishops in one move (Bf4, Bg5, Bc4, Bb5) makes them &lt;strong&gt;vulnerable to the opponent's pawns&lt;/strong&gt; (Be2, Bd2, Be3 and Bd3 are safe) which might cause you to lose tempo, while the developed knights are usually safe from pawn attacks after their first move.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;a bishop may attack a developed knight on the bishop's first move&lt;/strong&gt; (e.g. 2...Nc6 3. Bb5), &lt;strong&gt;a knight cannot attack a developed bishop on the knight's first move&lt;/strong&gt;. This slightly increases the value of developing the bishops only after a few moves.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;never forget that this is just a broad &lt;strong&gt;rule of thumb&lt;/strong&gt;, and there actually is a perpendicular one: To develop the pieces of one wing (typically kingside) before those of the other to enable you to castle as soon as possible. You will very often see the bishop on f1 to be developed before the knight on b1 (e.g. in the Ruy Lopez or Giuoco Piano), contradicting the rule to develop knights before bishops. From the fact that these two openings are by far more popular than the Four Knights, you can tell that these moves are very strong regardless!&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13433" LastActivityDate="2017-11-06T08:35:16.623" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19060" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19040" CreationDate="2017-11-06T09:25:02.163" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Opening books offer a much bigger return of investment than middle- or endgame books to a much bigger target group. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Middle- and endgame books are better for the relatively small group of people with a lot of time and ambition. They want to seriously invest time to seriously improve at the game (and potentially reach a 2000+ rating). For this goal, one needs to cover every important aspect of the game and &quot;dive deep&quot;, even if it's a chore sometimes. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;People with no or not much ambition will most likely never touch any chess book at all. They are probably the biggest group, but irrelevant to the publishers. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, people who don't have the time, but still some ambition will find that a good(!) opening book will serve them well enough (if it is focused on middlegame plans instead of memorizing lines). They may not learn all possible middlegame patterns (arising from any possible opening), but they will learn the typical middlegame patterns of their opening of choice, and that will probably cover about 70-80% of the games they play. They won't be as easily able to switch opening lines as part of preparation against some opponent, but as long as they get to play &quot;their&quot; opening, they will feel comfortable enough. Likewise, they will lose some endgames because they lack the theoretical knowledge, but again, this will most likely only affect a small percentage of their games. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An important point here is that if they &lt;em&gt;do&lt;/em&gt; invest a small amount of time to go to their local chess club's training sessions, opening books get even more efficient: Collective training is more likely to cover universal topics &quot;that everyone should know&quot; like common endgames for example, while opening theory will at most be dealt with very superficially (after all, everyone has to agree on the topic, and it's unlikely they will all like the same opening). This way, one can use the training sessions to fill the most important gaps not covered by the opening book, and use the opening book to fill the gaps of the training sessions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This third group will most likely not get as good as the first group, but &lt;strong&gt;good enough&lt;/strong&gt; for their taste, with considerably less effort. And I'd argue that it outnumbers the first group, and is thus more interesting for publishers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13433" LastActivityDate="2017-11-06T09:25:02.163" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19061" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19055" CreationDate="2017-11-06T10:21:54.517" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;de and fe are normal pawn captures. There is no contradiction in writing de and NxB and Nxe5. The &quot;x&quot; is optional.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It would be unusual and inconsistent to write 4. BxNc6 and 4. ... Nc6 in the following -&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 Nge7 4. BxNc6 Nc6&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but if we put it in fen then it works -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]    &#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 Nge7 4. BxNc6 Nc6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note what the latest FIDE Laws of Chess say about this -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;C.9 When a piece makes a capture, an x &lt;em&gt;may&lt;/em&gt; be inserted between:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;C.9.1 the abbreviation of the name of the piece in question and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;C.9.2 the square of arrival. Examples: Bxe5, Nxf3, Rxd1, see also&#xA;  C.10.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;C.9.3 When a pawn makes a capture, the file of departure must be&#xA;  indicated, then an x &lt;em&gt;may&lt;/em&gt; be inserted, then the square of arrival.&#xA;  Examples: dxe5, gxf3, axb5. In the case of an ‘en passant’ capture,&#xA;  ‘e.p.’ may be appended to the notation. Example: exd6 e.p.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Italics added for emphasis)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2017-11-06T10:38:12.750" LastActivityDate="2017-11-06T10:38:12.750" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19063" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-11-06T13:29:46.250" Score="6" ViewCount="1092" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am interested in playing correspondence chess online through the ICCF. It is my understanding that using computers is not only allowed, but almost mandatory. My question is: What all kinds of software are needed to be successful, and what are the best software packages to use in each category? I know you need an engine, a database, and some kind of analysis program, but which ones are best? I'd be interested in hearing about both freeware as well as commercial programs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks for any help!&#xA;Chris =)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14765" LastActivityDate="2018-01-07T17:53:10.997" Title="Recommended software for ICCF play?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;database&gt;&lt;correspondence-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19064" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19040" CreationDate="2017-11-06T15:33:26.240" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Opening and repertoire books are popular because if one doesn't have a good beginning how is a good, playable middlegame or endgame to be reached?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14721" LastActivityDate="2017-11-06T15:33:26.240" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19065" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19063" CreationDate="2017-11-06T18:32:11.760" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;For computer that I am aware of:&#xA;Chessbase,&#xA;Aquarium,&#xA;SCID,&#xA;(I am trying to get it to work with SCID vs. PC)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For Android that I am aware of:&#xA;Your Move Correspondence Chess&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.pereira.yourmove&amp;amp;hl=en&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.pereira.yourmove&amp;amp;hl=en&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For Android, I use the app mentioned.  Works great. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For computer, I use SCID vs. PC. I am hoping to configure it right.  If not I plan on switching to SCID strictly for ICCF play.  Regardless you will need to contact ICCF help desk to get the XFCC webservice url.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hopes this helps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14760" LastActivityDate="2017-11-06T18:32:11.760" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19066" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-11-06T18:36:56.387" Score="4" ViewCount="1419" Body="&lt;p&gt;As title above, why did Bobby Fischer play the 1992 rematch with Spassky after some 20 years of inactivity? Was it because he was in need of money? Or was it, as Fischer explained in the press conference, because it was the first offer to play at his conditions? Or are there other actual reasons for his unexpected comeback?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-01-19T19:06:41.027" LastActivityDate="2020-01-19T19:06:41.027" Title="Why did Bobby Fischer play the 1992 rematch with Spassky?" Tags="&lt;fischer&gt;&lt;spassky&gt;&lt;1972-world-championship&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19068" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-11-06T19:54:49.493" Score="3" ViewCount="799" Body="&lt;p&gt;Playing a lot of blitz online, from time to time I meet quite strong players who regularly use very dubious lines that can have some shock or practical value in blitz or bullet chess, such as these, as White:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Bc4 Nf6 3.Bxf7+&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or, as Black:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Bc5 3.Nxe5 Nc6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 Bg4 4.dxe5 d6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 d5 2.exd5 Qxd5 3.Nc3 Qe6+ with Qg6 and an early Nc6-b4 attack&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was wondering if all of this means that some players have their private analysis of some (objectively bad) lines for use in speed chess. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are you aware of other similar lines? As you can see, I don't mean Grob's Gambit or Cochrane's Gambit, but the very bad lines...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-12-10T17:37:49.070" LastActivityDate="2019-12-10T17:37:49.070" Title="Are there any &quot;underground&quot; openings or gambits?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;gambits&gt;&lt;online-blitz&gt;&lt;bullet-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="19069" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19068" CreationDate="2017-11-07T04:02:45.183" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are tons of first 4 moves that involve ridiculously unsound sacrifices, but most of these usually involve Bxf7+ and have no place in opening theory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These 'openings' are largely based on a gross overvaluation of castling rights: you can just slowly castle by hand, especially since the attacker usually has no other pieces developed yet (e.g. after 1.e4 e5 2.Bc4 Nf6 3.Bxf7+ Kxf7, the only developed piece is black's); if the defender loses, it's a result of being outplayed, and is no fault of the opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, such lines are hardly worth studying to defend against, and even worse to learn to use. Just fall back to basic principles (develop your pieces, do &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; play h6 without thinking it through...) when facing these, and you will emerge with a long-term advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7473" LastActivityDate="2017-11-07T04:02:45.183" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19070" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19066" CreationDate="2017-11-07T06:15:07.760" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;After beating Spassky in 1972, Fischer laid out terms that were deemed unreasonable for his title defense in the next world championship against Karpov. With no resolution, Fischer's title was forfeited and Karpov became the new WC by default. Fischer subsequently fades into obscurity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nevertheless, Fischer never accepted his title loss, and still considered himself to be the WC, having never actually lost a WC match. Thus, for what he considered to be his title defense, he plays a rematch against Spassky in 1992, with a prize fund of US$5 million.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Fischer wins the rematch, declares himself the undisputed world chess champion (a claim that isn't widely acknowledged, with Kasparov as the official reigning champion at the time), never plays competitively again, and the rest is history.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To explicitly answer your question: Fischer was trying to assert that he was the world champion, contrary to the official result that he had already lost his title in 1975. He also needed the money, which may or may not have been the more  significant factor.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2011/03/10/bobby-fischer-defense/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Kasparov, Garry K. &lt;em&gt;The New York Review of Books, Volume 58, Number 4 - The Bobby Fischer Defense&lt;/em&gt;. 10 Mar. 2011&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;    &lt;p&gt;It was therefore quite a shock to see the real live Bobby Fischer reappear in 1992, followed by the first Fischer chess game in twenty years, followed by twenty-nine more. Lured out of self-imposed isolation by a chance to face his old rival Spassky on the twentieth anniversary of their world championship match—and by a $5 million prize fund—a heavy and bearded Fischer appeared before the world in a resort in Yugoslavia, a nation in the process of being bloodily torn apart.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;    &#xA;    &lt;p&gt;[...] Fischer, who still called himself the world champion [...]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7473" LastEditorUserId="7473" LastEditDate="2017-11-07T18:14:15.667" LastActivityDate="2017-11-07T18:14:15.667" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19071" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18698" CreationDate="2017-11-07T07:51:13.260" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think a good way of preventing Black's kingside play is the Makogonov (or Makagonov) variation: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.e4 d6 5.h3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is more strategical than tactical, and most of the times prevents Black's ..f5 by playing g4 with White! Not to attack, but to restrain.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After 5..0-0 you can choose:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;either a setup with 6.Nf3,&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;or first develop the queen's bishop (6.Bg5), keeping the option open of playing Nf3 or Nge2.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the first setup, reply all games played by Chessexplained, he has a tremendous score with this variation, explaining plans while playing: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/user/Chessexplained/search?query=makogonov&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/user/Chessexplained/search?query=makogonov&lt;/a&gt;. I especially liked&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqNBR4wejCU&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqNBR4wejCU&lt;/a&gt; (playing on two wings),&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ca0tTOOhb6A&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ca0tTOOhb6A&lt;/a&gt; (explaining some theoretical ideas) and&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJk-NejbiHQ&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJk-NejbiHQ&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the second, more flexible, setup, read John Watson's &quot;A strategic opening repertoire for White&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Good luck!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14771" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-10-06T14:04:06.743" LastActivityDate="2019-10-06T14:04:06.743" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="19072" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19068" CreationDate="2017-11-07T09:39:53.507" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;In bullet chess (1 min or less), you basically don't have time for thinking and will pre-move or make moves instantaneously often making assumptions about your opponent's moves. In such situation playing the best moves becomes less important; basically you just need to move fast without blundering too much. Playing chess at such short times becomes more about bluffing and less about thinking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The practical value of dubious lines/moves can be two-fold:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;your opponent has to think (=losing valuable time) to refute the move&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;your opponent plays a standard (pre-move) which is not the best in this situation&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Due to the limited time it is difficult to refute such dubious lines even if you lose a minor piece. So there is little risk involved.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I doubt there is much private analysis involved.  I also doubt there is much value in trying this at longer times (3 min or more).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2017-11-07T09:39:53.507" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19073" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2017-11-07T10:27:45.977" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-11-07T10:27:45.977" LastActivityDate="2017-11-07T10:27:45.977" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19074" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2017-11-07T10:27:45.977" Score="0" Body="For questions about the different careers in chess, e.g. player or coach." OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-11-07T10:27:45.977" LastActivityDate="2017-11-07T10:27:45.977" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19075" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18941" CreationDate="2017-11-07T16:58:33.207" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Robert Howard's article &quot;A complete database of international chess players and chess performance ratings for varied longitudinal studies&quot; (Behavior Research Methods 2006, 38 (4), pp. 698-703) he writes:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The first FIDE rating list is dated December 1970 and was based on&#xA;  games in international tournaments in approximately the previous 2&#xA;  years.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I guess that Arpad Elo will describe this procedure in more detail in his book &quot;The Rating of Chessplayers, Past and Present&quot; that, unfortunately, I do not own.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14771" LastActivityDate="2017-11-07T16:58:33.207" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19076" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-11-07T17:50:16.633" Score="3" ViewCount="2589" Body="&lt;p&gt;Does anybody have Anki decks for tactics training? &lt;br&gt;&#xA;If anyone has such decks, can you share them with me?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am trying to improve my tactics and I heard that space repetition is one way to do that, so I want to have some decks to give it a shot. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've been searching for chess tactics decks but I couldn't find any. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14776" LastEditorUserId="10867" LastEditDate="2018-10-12T09:54:16.257" LastActivityDate="2020-11-20T23:11:25.070" Title="Anki Deck for Tactics Traning" Tags="&lt;tactics&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="19077" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19076" CreationDate="2017-11-07T18:45:01.110" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Truth is there isn't a lot out there for chess. The best I could find was this from the Ankiweb site - &lt;a href=&quot;https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/1176122148&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/1176122148&lt;/a&gt; There aren't many free decks for chess but it does guide you into how to make your own which you can do using puzzles that you find and like in books and the web.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For getting started with Anki Alex Vermeer's site has some useful stuff - &lt;a href=&quot;https://alexvermeer.com/anki-essentials/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://alexvermeer.com/anki-essentials/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2017-11-07T18:45:01.110" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19078" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-11-07T21:34:44.803" Score="4" ViewCount="198" Body="&lt;p&gt;After&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 a6 6. Be3 e5 7. Nf3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(which is trendy at top level in 2017) I am wondering why Black doesn't play 7...Ng4.   I only found a couple old games with 7...Ng4, and both ended in a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastEditorDisplayName="user1108" LastEditDate="2017-11-07T21:37:54.290" LastActivityDate="2017-11-08T10:06:58.367" Title="Why not Ng4 in Sicilian after Nf3?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;najdorf&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19079" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-11-07T22:52:22.383" Score="2" ViewCount="639" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are there any chess programs, which play gambits? I have two solutions in mind:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It tries to offer situations where one of your moves looks quite promising on the short term (3-5 moves), but later it turns out to be disastrous.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or the opposite:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It tries to reach positions, which look bad for you, but there's a single line (hard to find), which can save the day.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I guess the difficulty of writing such programs can be that it's not trivial to decide which lines are easy to be found by a human and which aren't. (And that also depends on the skills of the player, so some parameters would be required.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12559" LastActivityDate="2017-11-09T01:19:06.007" Title="Are there any 'romantic' chess programs?" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;gambits&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19080" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19078" CreationDate="2017-11-07T22:53:03.497" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If black wants to play Ng4 he could do this one move earlier (which is the normal way to do it), when after 6 .. Ng4, white has only two options to prevent his bishop from being exchanged:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;7 Bc1 which can lead to a repetition 7 ... Nf6 8. Be3 Ng4 ....&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;7 Bg5 which is usually answered by 7... h6 8 Bh4 g5 9 Bg3 Bg7 and black gains a very nice bishop on g7 and some space on the kingside&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Playing 7... Ng4 (after 6 ... e5 7 Nf3) could be answered by 8 Bg5 attacking the queen which was not possible before and also playing h6-g5 does not make sense anymore since the long diagonal is blocked. With the hole on d5 and the misplaced knight on g4, black's position&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2017-11-07T22:53:03.497" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19081" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-11-08T00:10:04.343" Score="2" ViewCount="221" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think there's a rule about this, but maybe it's a matter of etiquette. Nearly every player I've encountered puts the pieces they capture next to the board, but I've met some who like to store the pieces as soon as they capture them (maybe they are &quot;neat freaks&quot;? :-).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I found this a bit unsettling, but maybe it's just me? I must admit that I semi-consciously use the captured pieces for counting in the early parts of the game, when most of the pieces are still on the board. I also suppose that it could be inconvenient to have to ask the other player to dig out your dead queen in case of a promotion (that situation didn't arise in my experience, however).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12523" LastActivityDate="2017-11-08T03:51:32.717" Title="Should captured pieces remain visible?" Tags="&lt;etiquette&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19082" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19081" CreationDate="2017-11-08T03:51:32.717" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is certainly no explicit rule about this, and players often fiddle with captured pieces (e.g. Boris Gelfand can often be seen twirling a pawn by its head).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, pieces should remain accessible to your opponent in case of a promotion, particularly in blitz; at some events (usually the higher level), players are given an extra queen, but not all tournament organizers have that many extra queens!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Having said so, it looks like your question is in the context of a friendly game, presumably where the box/pouch is just next to the board. In that case, if you need to see the captured pieces as a counting aid, just ask!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7473" LastActivityDate="2017-11-08T03:51:32.717" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19083" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19079" CreationDate="2017-11-08T04:55:42.593" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://support.stockfishchess.org/discussions/questions/224-explanation-of-some-of-the-settings&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Stockfish&lt;/a&gt;, among several others (e.g. Fritz), has an aggressiveness parameter; you'll want to look in the 'Play Style' setting, or words to that effect, in the UCI.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A more aggressive engine has a higher propensity to make potentially unsound material sacrifices; it translates to positions where accurate play leads to an advantage, though assessing the ease of finding the refutation is beyond me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7473" LastActivityDate="2017-11-08T04:55:42.593" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19084" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8100" CreationDate="2017-11-08T05:25:03.467" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mvkuji08dMc&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;video&lt;/a&gt;  IM David Pruess explained the way chess player should learn tactic. I can summarize it in one sentence: &quot; The way you learn &lt;strong&gt;basic&lt;/strong&gt; patterns is &lt;strong&gt;memorizing&lt;/strong&gt; it &lt;strong&gt;not solving&lt;/strong&gt; them.&quot; And If you can share your deck with me, I will really appreciate that. I don't know how to PM you here&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14776" LastEditorUserId="14776" LastEditDate="2017-11-08T08:56:48.620" LastActivityDate="2017-11-08T08:56:48.620" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19085" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19078" CreationDate="2017-11-08T09:12:36.500" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;6...Ng4 doesn't look good at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Tactical flaw:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black is behind in development, so White should aim for direct play with 7.Bg5 and then:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;7...f6 8.Bc1 [8.Bh4] Be6 9.h3 Nh6 10.Bxh6 gh6 11.Nh4 [11.Be2] and Black has huge weaknesses on the light squares. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;7...Be7 8.Bxe7 Qxe7 9.Nd5 [9.Qd2, 9.Bc4] Qd8 10.Bc4 with a nice bind is probably the lesser evil for Black.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;7...Qb6 8.Qd2 [or 8.Bh4 Qxb2? 9.Nd5 and Black cannot block Nc7+] Qxb2 is too greedy: 9.Rb1 Qa3 10.Nd5 Qc5 11.h3, or 11.Be3 and 12.Nb6 winning material, or 11.Rb3 with a huge attack.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Strategic reason:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It the structure with a hole on d5, the fight for the white square is essential and probably more important than the bishop pair. White often plays Bg5xf6 in Boleslavsky, Najdorf and Svechnikov variations. Thus trading the knight for the Be3 is not a big achievement, especiallly at the cost of two tempi, even if White plays the simple 7.Qd2 Nxe3 8.Qxe3 Be6 9.0-0-0 or 9.Ng5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastEditorUserId="14079" LastEditDate="2017-11-08T10:06:58.367" LastActivityDate="2017-11-08T10:06:58.367" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19087" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-11-08T11:00:17.783" Score="5" ViewCount="1605" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the old days it was possible to beat computers basically by playing slow, closed positions with weaknesses that can be exploited in the long term, beyond the calculation depth of the engine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as algorithms are concerned, what has been done to improve on this weakness of computers? Or is it just the increased calculating power/depth that makes beating computers so much harder nowadays?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2019-12-29T10:54:58.917" Title="The end of anti-computer chess" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19088" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19087" CreationDate="2017-11-08T11:42:26.847" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Advances in the tactical acuity of the computer programs coupled with hardware improvements to CPU, memory, and disk storage,  plus the availability of robust opening book and endgame tables has made them all but unbeatable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't know if computers have strategic &quot;thinking&quot;, but their tactical prowess is such that it doesn't really matter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2017-11-08T11:42:26.847" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19089" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19087" CreationDate="2017-11-08T12:18:57.290" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The development of &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monte_Carlo_tree_search&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Monte-Carlo tree-search&lt;/a&gt; has been a key element to overcome &quot;horizon-effect&quot; issues for chess softwares in the mid-2000.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastActivityDate="2017-11-08T12:18:57.290" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19090" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19063" CreationDate="2017-11-08T16:21:33.293" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The best engine to use for analysis is most likely stockfish. Works with multiple procs, probably the strongest tactically. And as a bonus, it's free (but you should get a good UCI. I use Fritz UCI which is ok. An UCI that shows multiple lines of analysis at the same time is kinda mandatory). Imo using  an engine in correspondance chess is only interesting if you're strong enough to understand easily why the program makes the choices he makes. ie 2000+ fide at least. You will also notice some of their evaluation function flaws : for instance overvaluing lines which win a pawn but give opposite color bishops, for stockfish. Also sometimes giving more value to prophylactic moves than line opening moves, when in fact it's better to go for the lines opening immediately (it doesn't always realize how strong it can be because of horizons effects).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14778" LastActivityDate="2017-11-08T16:21:33.293" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19091" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18989" CreationDate="2017-11-08T16:28:42.200" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Clearly these house rules are made for kids and beginners to prevent pointless game stalling, with winning camp promoting 8 knights for instead.of checkmating, etc.. Would be annoying to end up in  KBN vs K with this rule in serious games, when you do know how to win it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14778" LastActivityDate="2017-11-08T16:28:42.200" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19092" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18935" CreationDate="2017-11-08T16:59:15.030" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The old time.of handycap chess is over except against weak players. Carlsen would lose 99% of his games with a knight handycap against a decent IM in serious games. In rapids or.in blitz, he'd win a bit more but would still have a hard time. And the same applies if Stockfish starts down a knight against Carlsen in long games, he'd win 1% or so, on rare blunders, and only if specidfifically reprogrammed to try to reach complex situations, avoiding too symetric openings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14778" LastActivityDate="2017-11-08T16:59:15.030" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19093" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9706" CreationDate="2017-11-08T18:50:18.133" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Smallchess berated me but didn't understand my post. I can't put a comment yet, so I will detail my example with more step by step explanations in this new post :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;bmna6 contains 4 bits at 1, for the squares b4, c5, c7, b8&#xA;bg1 contains one bit at 1, for square g1. If you put b := bmna6 OR bg1, you obtain a bitmap b with 5 bits, which is different from bmna6. So g1 is not attacked by the Na6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the king is on c7 instead, then bmna6 == (bmna6 OR bc7), so the king is in check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can do a AND and compare to 0, but afaIk the processing time to compare an unsigned int to zero is the same (on x64/x86 at least) as the processing time to compare to a positive unsigned int, and the OR and AND binary operators also have similar processing times. So the two methods are the same for processing time.&#xA; One advantage of doing a OR instead of a AND is that the resulting bitboard can be used again, for calculating paths to checks (ie to determine how a rook can give check in 2 moves, or a knight in 3 moves.. this can be very useful, for instance if coding a chess problem solver, or a SPG solver, etc..). While we already know the result of the AND in case of check, it's the bitboard giving the square where the check happens, which is bc7 in the second exemple, so no new information generated : we already know where the king is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, let's say that instead of wanting to test if the Na6 gives check, you want to test if it's able to capture something. Then you will use a AND between bmna6 and the bitboard of all the black pieces. It will give us a very useful bitboard : the list of squares where the Na6 can capture something. That is what Glorfindel's explanations actually show (but it's best suited for testing non specific captures, not checks, unless you play a fancy feeric variant where black has several kings or where black s pieces are undetermined, one of them possibly being the king).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, just to clarify, to check if a king in g1 is attacked by a knight on a6, with bmna6 being the predefined bitboard mask of the possible landing squares of a N on a6 and with bsqg1 being the bit map with a 1 only for square g1, you do a OR of bmna6 and bsg1, and if it's equal to bmna6(which isn't the case) then the king is in check by that knight.&#xA; Obv it's more complex for long range pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To generate and store moves, you need to define a chessboard class and a move class, with the infos that interest you for whatever your purpose is (usually the chessboard stores at least whose turn it is to play. You can for instance have him store the list of legal moves, have a method chessboard.play(move) which will both update the board, update the player whose turn it is, update the list of legal moves.. possibly keep an history of previous moves as well.. UP to you, really depends on what you want to do. You won't code exactly the same way wether you want to code an engine, a mere replayer, or a problem solver who also solves serial-movers..&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14778" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-09-21T13:50:23.587" LastActivityDate="2019-09-21T13:50:23.587" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="19095" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-11-08T21:36:36.220" Score="1" ViewCount="394" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the Saemisch King's Indian&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[StartPly &quot;10&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 Bg7 4. e4 d6 5. f3 O-O &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems current (2017) literature and practice promotes Black's play 6...c5.  What I am wondering is there something wrong with the Panno (6...Nc6 with a6, Rb8, b5) that got players to move to 6...c5 or is it just the current trend?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastEditorDisplayName="user1108" LastEditDate="2017-11-10T13:12:46.200" LastActivityDate="2017-11-10T13:20:46.040" Title="What is the state of the Panno variation of the King's Indian Defense Saemisch?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;kings-indian&gt;&lt;saemisch&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19096" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19079" CreationDate="2017-11-09T01:19:06.007" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Houdini may be worthwhile checking out.  See link.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cruxis.com/chess/houdini.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.cruxis.com/chess/houdini.htm&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;(4th paragraph down)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;The Chess Club Live Facebook page phrased it like this: &quot;If there&#xA;  ever was a computer descendant of the romantic players like Morphy,&#xA;  Anderssen, Spielmann, Marshall, Bogoljubow, Tal, Nezhmetdinov, Shirov,&#xA;  Morozevich it would be Houdini. Houdini is the current World number 1&#xA;  chess engine and plays in a very romantic style.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;I didn't notice when the quote was from because the last time in the TCEC Championship that Houdini was #1 was 2013.&lt;/em&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I use Houdini 5.  I can attest to the romantic style of play.  Quite a change when you are used to seeing how Komodo or Stockfish play.  Settings are relatively user friendly. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is a commercial engine but the developers do offer Houdini 1.5 for free.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14760" LastActivityDate="2017-11-09T01:19:06.007" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19097" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-11-09T05:48:23.607" Score="2" ViewCount="1013" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm a beginner and right now rated 1850  in on lichess training; so I'm a very novice player. I try to solve some training examples, and though sometimes I do not feel convinced by the solution given by the computer, I continue. &#xA; Here is an example where I felt the solution was absolutely wrong. Below are the pictures&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qisn8.png&quot; alt=&quot;solution&quot;&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qEchJ.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why did the computer save the queen rather than killing the knight on g3 with the pawn on h2? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I thought of this step when solving it but thought it was of no use. But the solution given left me wondering. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14788" LastEditorUserId="14202" LastEditDate="2019-01-22T16:34:28.380" LastActivityDate="2019-01-22T16:34:28.380" Title="Correctness of the lichess training solution (Puzzle:63063)" Tags="&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;lichess&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="19101" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19097" CreationDate="2017-11-09T13:29:48.417" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;In case of 16.hxg3, Black plays 16...Qxg3+ when White has only two legal moves:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;17.Kh1 Rf6 followed by 18...Rh6 is a quick checkmate.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;17.Qg2 Qxe3+ and after the check is parried Black can already take back his piece with 18...Qxd3 (with already three extra pawns as a reward), or continue the attack with 18...Rf6. He's completely winning in both cases.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This exercise is a typical case of a demolition sacrifice: you give your knight on g3 to rip the opponent king of its protective pawns and mount a decisive attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2017-11-09T15:11:07.400" LastActivityDate="2017-11-09T15:11:07.400" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19102" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19119" CreationDate="2017-11-09T13:33:56.273" Score="6" ViewCount="352" Body="&lt;p&gt;When annotating games, I sometimes want to add a comment which starts from a position that is different from the current position.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Like: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1. d4 d5 2.c4 { Our previous game went 1.e4 c5 ...}  &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;25. Bf3 { Here I remembered a similar position from a famous game: &amp;lt;some fen notation&amp;gt;}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When writing/printing this is no problem. But when I want to generate playable pgn for a website, this doesn't work. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Attempting this in pgn would look something like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&amp;gt;[White &quot;Game 1&quot;]&#xA;&amp;gt;[Black &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;&amp;gt;[Result &quot;*&quot;]&#xA;&amp;gt;1. d4 d5 2. c4 (1. e4 c5) *&#xA;&#xA;&amp;gt;[White &quot;Game 2&quot;]&#xA;&amp;gt;[Black &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;&amp;gt;[Result &quot;*&quot;]&#xA;&amp;gt;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 ([FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/ppp2ppp/8/4P3/2Pp4/5N2/PP2PPPP/RNBQKB1R b KQkq - 0 4&quot;] 4... Nc6 5. a3 Nge7 ) *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, this format is not accepted by my chess program (Chessbase) and also not according to the PGN standard. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does the PGN standard support something this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What should I do in order to manage to generate playable pgn for a website?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14789" LastEditorUserId="14789" LastEditDate="2017-11-10T09:45:24.510" LastActivityDate="2020-05-03T11:36:27.053" Title="Comment/variation with different starting position" Tags="&lt;pgn&gt;&lt;annotation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19103" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1661" CreationDate="2017-11-09T13:46:16.310" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;A first step for development of the King's Indian Defense was reached in the beginning of the 1930's. Until then it was thought that the huge space advantage in the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King&amp;#39;s_Indian_Defence,_Four_Pawns_Attack&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;four pawns attack&lt;/a&gt; gave White a free ride, but Max Euwe proved that Black's activity compensate for it in Benoni schemes with ...c5, ...e6, ...exd5. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the beginning of the 1950's, beside Bronstein, several other players made a huge contribution to the boom of the KID : Gligoric, Najdorf, Geller, Szabo, to name a few.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After the tournaments of &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mar_del_Plata_chess_tournament&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Mar del Plata 1953&lt;/a&gt; (won by Gligoric, and which gave its name to an important and attractive variation) and &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chess.pl?tid=79420&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Zurich 1953&lt;/a&gt; (with Kotov's immortal &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1084375&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;game&lt;/a&gt;), the opening gained its new status and became not only &quot;fashionable&quot; but also &quot;respectable&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, Garry Kasparov was the first player to use the King's Indian as its main defense during a &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mark-weeks.com/chess/90kk$$.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;World Championship match&lt;/a&gt; when he successfully defended his title against Anatoly Karpov in Lyon in 1990.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastEditorUserId="14079" LastEditDate="2017-11-13T09:49:47.777" LastActivityDate="2017-11-13T09:49:47.777" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19104" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19068" CreationDate="2017-11-09T14:44:52.080" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, there are quite a few dubious lines one could try out when there is nothing much at stake.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;1.d4 e5 2.dxe5 f6 comes to mind.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There was a &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.thechessmind.net/blog/2016/1/22/a-brief-review-of-the-sveshnikovs-a-chess-opening-repertoire.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;book on blitz openings&lt;/a&gt;, but those variations are &quot;fundamentally sound&quot; according to the reviewer. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14789" LastActivityDate="2017-11-09T14:44:52.080" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19105" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13349" CreationDate="2017-11-09T14:52:42.997" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess photographer is popular these days, but not a full-time career.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Operator of digital boards (think Lennart Ootes)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(Selling chess books, but it's debatable)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14789" LastActivityDate="2017-11-09T14:52:42.997" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19106" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19097" CreationDate="2017-11-09T15:44:55.843" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;lichess's puzzles are computer-generated, in the sense that they are selected by an algorithm from positions arising in games between humans. The solution expected is the engine's top choice. In particular, when the engine defends, it picks the best move according to the engine's evaluation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus, in this case, while the most testing move is 16.hxg3, it leads to a worse position (according to the engine's assessment) than 16.Qg2 (assuming best play by both sides), so the engine defends with the latter move instead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, if this puzzle was given to you by a human, the move given for white would be  16.hxg3, and you would need to show that you found 16...Rf6. But it's not, and the algorithm that generates these puzzles isn't smart enough to differentiate between the best defense, and the most testing response.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7473" LastActivityDate="2017-11-09T15:44:55.843" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19107" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-11-09T18:48:42.363" Score="5" ViewCount="472" Body="&lt;p&gt;Its seems to me nowadays computers simply play better, i.e. they consistently choose better moves. Where does human factor come into play, how can a human help engine to beat another engine?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or was Kasparov simply wrong?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: here's the podcast, most of it is politics, chess part is near the very end&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.samharris.org/podcast/item/the-putin-question&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.samharris.org/podcast/item/the-putin-question&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9460" LastEditorUserId="9460" LastEditDate="2017-11-10T11:07:15.510" LastActivityDate="2019-12-30T00:50:06.380" Title="Kasparov said human+computer beats just computer. What does human bring to the table in such teams?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19108" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17905" CreationDate="2017-11-09T19:33:19.067" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Making a few tests with this package in the shell, is-zeroing seems to work fine and returns a boolean :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;import chess&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;b=chess.Board()&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;b.push_san(&amp;quot;Nf3&amp;quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Move.from_uci('g1f3')&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;b.push_san(&amp;quot;Nc6&amp;quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Move.from_uci('b8c6')&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;b.push_san(&amp;quot;Ne5&amp;quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Move.from_uci('f3e5')&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;m=chess.Move(42,36)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;flag = b.is_zeroing(m)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;print(flag)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;True&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;m=chess.Move(49,41)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;flag=b.is_zeroing(m)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;print(flag)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;True&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;m=chess.Move(42,32)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;flag=b.is_zeroing(m)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;print(flag)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;False&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;print(&amp;quot;Nc6-a5 is not a capture nor a pawn move : &amp;quot; + str(flag))&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nc6-a5 is not a capture nor a pawn move : False&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Did you try with str(board.is_zeroing(node.move)) ?&#xA;To print both a string and a boolean in the same print, you need to turn the boolean intro a string.&#xA;By the way what version of python do you use? From searching a bit, it seems python 3+ already stores strings in UTF8 and doesn't have the unicode() function. So no idea how the unicode() function works. But if your program gives weird results for the is_zeroing function and if it's the same using str(), then you might have to look into the parameters you are sending to the is_zeroing() method (pseudo_legal move? board not corrupted?).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14778" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2017-11-09T20:01:35.203" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19109" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19042" CreationDate="2017-11-09T21:38:54.197" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Besides the fact of keeping options for the development square of your bishops, another reason lies in the fact that you prefer to use knights right away for center control because if you use bishop and have some reason to trade it against an opponent's knight, you lost the bishop pair.&#xA;Yet another reason though is the fact that the bishop can't control the center square on your side when developped on move 2. After 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3, the knight controls d4 and attacks e5. If black plays d6 for instance, you can play 3.d4. The bishop on c4 would only control d5, and the other bishop that could control d4 can t be developped yet.&#xA;It's more important in games with 1.e4 (open game, sicilian) but it's often true as well in 1.d4 games.&#xA;Of course in openings where both side decide to delay their control of the center, the move order may matter less. For instance after 1.c4 c5, besides the usual 2.Nc3 and 2.Nf3, 2.g3 is very playable as well (and if 2....Nf6 then 3.Nc3, but if 2...g6 then 3.Bg2 is ok).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14778" LastActivityDate="2017-11-09T21:38:54.197" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19110" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19115" CreationDate="2017-11-09T21:57:59.650" Score="4" ViewCount="1322" Body="&lt;p&gt;I really like to play openings that contain f4 (f5 as black) for a number of reasons.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It cannot be challenged with d pawn, which is initially protected by the queen.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When the king knight is developed, the f pawn is no longer blocked.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Unlike c pawn, it can be easily supported by castling kingside up to the board, and helps the development of the rook if exchanged.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;After king's pishop fianchetto, the diagonal is open and the bishop is very strong there.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Even if exchanged early, after castling kingside, the king rook has a semi-open file, which makes it stronger.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Enables Ng5 move, which can be nasty sometimes.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But usually this move is considered bad, or dubious at the best by grandmasters and engines. What is the reason?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;      [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;      [StartPly &quot;3&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;      1. e4 e5 2. d4 exd4 3. f4 Nc6 4. Nf3 Bc5 5. Bd3 Nf6 6. e5 Nd5 7. O-O O-O 8.&#xA;Kh1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;      [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;      [StartPly &quot;3&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;      1. e4 e5 2. d4 d6 3. f4 exf4 4. Bxf4 Nf6 5. Nc3 Nc6 6. Nf3 Bg4 7. Be2&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8209" LastEditorUserId="8209" LastEditDate="2017-11-09T22:05:31.710" LastActivityDate="2019-11-06T06:12:04.507" Title="Why is f4 considered as bad in the opening?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19111" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19110" CreationDate="2017-11-09T22:51:44.047" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Firstly, #4 is wrong as the bishop is still blocked by the knight and, in your examples, the e pawn.  Change this to &quot;adding support in the center.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are two weaknesses with moving the f pawn early.  It weakens the kingside, especially the g1-a7 diagonal, and it wastes time in the opening.  These allow for a quick attack on your king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, looking over many King's Gambits, the advantages outweigh the disadvantages, and you should get many good games with your system.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12449" LastActivityDate="2017-11-09T22:51:44.047" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19112" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19107" CreationDate="2017-11-09T23:03:11.130" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The general thought is that computers still have problems with calculating long-term plans and positional considerations correctly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are many examples of modern computers getting &quot;confused&quot; in closed positions where long-term planning is worth more than brute force thinking.  Many have a contempt factor which forces them to make a poor move rather than accept a draw against a weaker opponent.  Nakamura has exploited this algorithm in many famous games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For positional considerations, the reason for this weakness is the rarity of possibilities.  Except for some lines in the Ruy Lopez, Alekhine, and the Caro-Kann, capturing toward the center is the norm.  There are exceptions where capturing away from the center is better, mostly for attacking purposes.  Programming in the exceptions would cause an increase in the size of the program and slow down the speed.  However the computer does search far enough ahead the this is becoming less of a concern.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12449" LastEditorUserId="12449" LastEditDate="2017-11-10T19:37:26.130" LastActivityDate="2017-11-10T19:37:26.130" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19113" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19110" CreationDate="2017-11-10T01:02:40.870" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is not really possible to answer this generally as chess is more complicated and it really depends on what black is playing whether an early f4 is good or not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I guess, what you actually like is the combination of e4 and f4. There are many examples where f4 is perfectly playable, such as in some Sicilians, the French defence and other semi-open games. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In open games (1. e4 e5) playing an early f4 tends to be somewhat dubious at the highest level, but is of course perfectly playable at the club level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want a system opening with f4, why don't you play the King's Indian Attack, where &quot;f4&quot; is often ok whatever black does?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2017-11-10T01:02:40.870" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19114" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17905" CreationDate="2017-11-10T03:06:48.430" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The problem was that the moves were tested in the context of the new board (after the move). But the correct way is that they should be tested with the board they were played on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See the discussion here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/niklasf/python-chess/issues/169&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://github.com/niklasf/python-chess/issues/169&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13619" LastActivityDate="2017-11-10T03:06:48.430" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19115" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19110" CreationDate="2017-11-10T10:41:23.567" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is not an answer regarding the general merits of f4 or ...f5, but a specific analysis of the first example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;  [StartPly &quot;13&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;  1. e4 e5 2. d4 exd4 3. f4 Nc6 4. Nf3 Bc5 5. Bd3 Nf6 6. e5 Nd5 7. O-O O-O (7...Ne3 {Forking Queen and Rook} 8. Bxe3 {Forced} dxe3 9. Be2 {One way to prevent ...e2+}) 8. Kh1 *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the final position of the alternative variation, white is cramped, has lost the bishop pair and is passive due to the threat of ...e2+. I.e. playing f4 exposes the diagonal g1-a7 (and to a lesser extent the e1-h4 diagonal).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your second example has a similar tactical weakness on the e1-h4 diagonal:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;  [StartPly &quot;7&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;  1. e4 e5 2. d4 d6 3. f4 exf4 4. Bxf4 Nf6 (4...Qh4+ 5. Bg3 {Forced} Qxe4+ 6. Qe2 Nf6 {Black might as well develop a piece} 7. Nc3 Qxe2+ 8. Bxe2) 5. Nc3 Nc6 6. Nf3 Bg4 7. Be2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastEditorDisplayName="user1108" LastEditDate="2017-11-10T11:09:14.993" LastActivityDate="2017-11-10T11:09:14.993" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19116" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19107" CreationDate="2017-11-10T11:24:39.000" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;This has been tested in 2014. A strong version of Stockfish (ELO 3200) was pitted against Nakamura (2800) with an early version of Rybka (3000) to help him. The Rybkamura team lost.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/news/view/stockfish-outlasts-nakamura-3634&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.chess.com/news/view/stockfish-outlasts-nakamura-3634&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is evidence against Kasparov's claim.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7002" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-12-30T00:50:06.380" LastActivityDate="2019-12-30T00:50:06.380" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="19117" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19095" CreationDate="2017-11-10T13:20:46.040" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Panno is a sharp line that has received a lot of attention lately, particularly the variation below where White opens the centre favourably. The variation isn't refuted by any means, but Black players have found this variation to be uncomfortable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[StartPly &quot;12&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 Nf6&#xA;2. c4 g6&#xA;3. Nc3 Bg7&#xA;4. e4 d6&#xA;5. f3 O-O&#xA;6. Be3 Nc6&#xA;7. Nge2 a6&#xA;8. Qd2 Rb8&#xA;9. h4 h5&#xA;10. O-O-O b5&#xA;11. Bh6 Bh6&#xA;12. Qxh6 e5&#xA;13. dxe5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2017-11-10T13:20:46.040" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19118" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19042" CreationDate="2017-11-10T14:04:06.583" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think one aspect of the &quot;guideline&quot; or &quot;suggestion&quot; to develop the knight first is a subtlety aimed at the closed center. As we all know, knights(well positioned) work better in a closed position.&#xA;To a degree, white with 2. Nf3 Can be said to be waiting to see what black plays next which could decide the placement of the Bishop for white.&#xA;As far as these guidelines and GM play they know the how/when/why that these guidelines do not apply &lt;em&gt;in specific positions&lt;/em&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14707" LastActivityDate="2017-11-10T14:04:06.583" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19119" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19102" CreationDate="2017-11-10T14:07:57.850" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can't do this in PGN, not the way you want it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are some tricks that publishers (especially Everyman) use to create their &quot;PGN ebooks&quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;They split the book over many different PGN games. You'd say &quot;Here I remembered an earlier game that had a similar position; see X vs Y after this game.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;A variation that starts at move 1 has to start at move 1: &lt;code&gt;1.d4 ({Our previous game went} 1.e4 c5) 1... d5&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Null moves&lt;/em&gt; can be added as &lt;code&gt;--&lt;/code&gt;, to show threats and such: &lt;code&gt;1.e4 e5 2.Qh5 Nc6 3.Bc4 ({With the subtle threat} 3... -- 4.Qxf7#)&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;You can have several variatiations all starting with the same move, or all with the null move, as poor man's paragraphs.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If all else fails, just leave it as text. People still buy paper books so it can't be &lt;em&gt;that&lt;/em&gt; bad...&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that the variations I had, with a comment starting before the first move of a variation, may be something that not all software supports; I'm not sure. It used to be possible to enter comments like that with older versions of Scid but newer versions make it hard to get to the point where you are still in a variation, but before its first move. I think it's legal PGN though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2017-11-10T14:07:57.850" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19120" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-11-10T14:28:04.353" Score="5" ViewCount="1621" Body="&lt;p&gt;As title above, what was Bobby Fischer's actual chess strength during the 1992 re-match vs. Spassky, apart from all his already legendary past achievements?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-01-19T19:06:34.557" LastActivityDate="2020-01-19T22:40:19.337" Title="What was Bobby Fischer's actual chess strength during the 1992 re-match vs. Spassky?" Tags="&lt;fischer&gt;&lt;spassky&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19121" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19055" CreationDate="2017-11-10T14:33:53.547" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;As well as books, video presentations a lot of times presenters will say &quot;d e&quot; instead of saying &quot;d takes e&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am trying to provide you with another example of its usage...it appears rather commonly in spoken word as well as text.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14707" LastEditorUserId="14707" LastEditDate="2017-11-10T16:39:51.067" LastActivityDate="2017-11-10T16:39:51.067" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19122" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19120" CreationDate="2017-11-10T14:34:36.367" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;From &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fischer%E2%80%93Spassky_(1992_match)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Fischer's score of 17½ out of 30 (counting draws) against Spassky, rated 2545 at the time, gave him a performance rating of 2645, which would have put him at No. 12 in the world on the July 1992 list.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastEditorUserId="15223" LastEditDate="2020-01-19T22:40:19.337" LastActivityDate="2020-01-19T22:40:19.337" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="19124" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19125" CreationDate="2017-11-11T05:16:38.890" Score="5" ViewCount="406" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am writing a UCI chess AI/engine. It has the ability to draw and resign. How do I communicate this to the uci chess interface? what string shoud i send back to the GUI?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9841" LastEditorUserId="9841" LastEditDate="2017-11-11T13:37:24.023" LastActivityDate="2017-11-11T13:37:24.023" Title="how does a uci engine draw or resign?" Tags="&lt;draw&gt;&lt;uci&gt;&lt;resigning&gt;&lt;claim-draw&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19125" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19124" CreationDate="2017-11-11T05:58:18.643" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;UCI chess engines don't offer/accept a draw, nor resign a position. This is the GUI's responsibility.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You are welcome to add new uci options (&lt;code&gt;setoption&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;option&lt;/code&gt;) for your engine, but don't expect universe UCI support.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2017-11-11T05:58:18.643" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19126" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19128" CreationDate="2017-11-11T13:41:21.390" Score="2" ViewCount="571" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the opening, it's helpful for me as a beginner to remember some basic principles: develop your pieces, castle, knights before bishops (generally), don't move the same piece twice, etc. Are there similar, very basic rules of thumb that one can typically adhere to in the middle game and endgame? Or are middlegames and endgames so numerous and distinct that it really depends on the opening, e.g., in $X$, you want to do $y$ and $z$ but in $A$ you want to do $b$ and $c$?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10779" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T16:12:10.260" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T16:12:10.260" Title="Middle game and endgame principles" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;middlegame&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="19127" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-11-11T14:37:08.930" Score="2" ViewCount="1046" Body="&lt;p&gt;Lichess analysis board uses my own cpu so I am just curious if chess.com also uses my own cpu.I have tried searching but I can't find any information about it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14797" LastActivityDate="2017-11-12T03:46:36.807" Title="Does chess.com analysis board use my own CPU?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19128" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19126" CreationDate="2017-11-11T16:11:24.537" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are quite a lot of basic principles. Whole books have been written on the principles of strategic play, for example. Basis rules are useful and will get you on your way. For more advanced players it is actually more important to understand when to break the rules.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A couple of rules 'off the top of my head':&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A knight on the rim is dim, meaning that it's better to keep your&#xA;knights centralised than to put them on the edge of the board.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Loose Pieces Drop Off (LPDO), meaning that unprotected pieces are&#xA;vulnerable to (double) attack. So keep your pawns and pieces&#xA;protecting each other. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The side with less space should exchange pieces (and vice versa). &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The side with an advantage should attack, or he risks losing his advantage. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If you have a choice in captures with pawns (say h2xg3 or f2xg3), capture towards the center. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Try to avoid weaknesses in you pawn structure (isolated pawns, doubled pawns,&#xA;backward pawns). &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Invite everybody to the party, meaning activate all your pieces especially when attacking the enemy king. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Don't make pawn moves on the side of the board where you are weaker. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Etc, etc.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Remember that for every rule above there are a lot of exceptions. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the endgame:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Activate your king &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Improve your position to the maximum &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When you have the advantage, try to create a second or third weakness &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In rook endings activity (of king and rook) is usually more important than one or two pawns &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Opposite colored bishops endings have a large drawing tendency&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Knight endings have a lot in common with pawn endings&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In queen endings it's more important how far your passed pawn has advanced, than how many passed pawns you have.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Etc, etc.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When studying chess you will gather a lot of these rules.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14789" LastActivityDate="2017-11-11T16:11:24.537" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19129" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19127" CreationDate="2017-11-11T18:22:45.957" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, it does. It uses stockfish.js, the Javascript port of Stockfish, which can run on web browsers. You can see stockfish.js mentioned somewhere on the chess.com analysis board. Also, I can tell that the computer fan starts working harder when I run an analysis, and looking at the &quot;top&quot; command shows that the web browser is using 100% CPU.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12523" LastActivityDate="2017-11-11T18:22:45.957" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19130" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19127" CreationDate="2017-11-12T03:46:36.807" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes and no. Local board analysis definitely use your own CPUs, running the Javascript version of Stockfish. However, the deeper server analysis uses their own computing clusters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Same with Lichess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2017-11-12T03:46:36.807" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19131" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19107" CreationDate="2017-11-12T04:03:00.047" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Experienced&lt;/strong&gt; human correspondence chess players with a strong chess engine definitely play better chess than just the engine itself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you think about it, the human player could always simply follow the engine moves without any thinking.  However, you're not going to win the world correspondence title if you don't do your own analysis. You have an engine, but your opponent also have an engine! You just can't win a game unless you guide the engine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A strong &lt;strong&gt;International Correspondence Chess Grandmaster&lt;/strong&gt; know how to analyze a chess position with a chess engine. They can make a move on a board, and evaluate the new positions again with the engine. There is no way the engine by itself can beat this human+engine &lt;strong&gt;perfect&lt;/strong&gt; combination - tactics + long-term strategic thinking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Human can make some moves on the board, that simplifies the search process (searching at depth x is not equivalent to x+1)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Human understands drawn endgames. They can guide the engine not to choose a line that wins a pawn but draw 50 moves later in a rook ending&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Human can try the engine lines, play some training games, test the new positions etc. Chess engines can't do that by itself!&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2017-11-12T04:11:25.890" LastActivityDate="2017-11-12T04:11:25.890" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19132" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19133" CreationDate="2017-11-12T15:46:32.910" Score="2" ViewCount="293" Body="&lt;p&gt;I currently live in Sudan and I would like to play in the Loyal Open Championship. Details of this tournament can be found &lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/tournament_details.phtml?event=175562&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Apparently, there is no link to guide me through the registration process. Does the tournament accept random entries? And if so, how do I register, or ask for assistance on registration? I play in the FIDE Online Arena, but I am not rated, nor I ever played a FIDE tournament.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13544" LastActivityDate="2017-11-13T11:01:41.683" Title="How do I take part in an open FIDE tournament?" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19133" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19132" CreationDate="2017-11-12T18:04:30.127" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Head to the &lt;a href=&quot;http://chess-results.com/tnr313659.aspx?lan=1&amp;amp;wi=821&amp;amp;turdet=YES&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Youth and children Palace&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Loyal open&#xA;Organizer(s)    Kartoum Chess Federation&#xA;Federation  Sudan ( SUD )&#xA;Tournament director Khalid Osman&#xA;Chief Arbiter   Elatag,Khalid 12200409&#xA;Arbiter mohamed awad , Nazar Eltayeb&#xA;Time control    90 minutes, 30 sec&#xA;Location    Youth and children Palace&#xA;Rating calculation  Rating international&#xA;Date    2017/11/11 to 2017/11/17&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastEditorUserId="10295" LastEditDate="2017-11-13T11:01:41.683" LastActivityDate="2017-11-13T11:01:41.683" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19134" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1489" CreationDate="2017-11-13T02:01:50.497" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Don't know if you are still looking for books, but if you are there are a couple that fit your bill.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The method that was used in Bobby Fischer Teaches chess is called programmed instruction. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are two books that use that method. One is called &#xA;The Chess Tutor: Elements of Combinations and the other is called&#xA;The Genesis of Power Chess: Effective Winning Technique for Strategy and Tactics. Both are by Leslie Ault. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Leslie Ault was involved in the writing of Bobby Fischer Teaches chess as well. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10275" LastActivityDate="2017-11-13T02:01:50.497" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19135" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19143" CreationDate="2017-11-13T04:16:12.927" Score="0" ViewCount="195" Body="&lt;p&gt;Two of my engine's played against Garbo engine. (without a opening Book on my part.) Both lost :( Which played better? I need a comparative analysis. Both shared the same evaluation. frankenstein played much faster :(&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Site &quot;Chessrig app&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;garbo&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;frankenstein&quot;]&#xA;[Opening &quot;Mieses-Kotroc Variation, Center Counter&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Simmulation&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2017-11-13&quot;]&#xA;[TimeControl &quot;unlimited&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[Termination &quot;Checkmate by white in 75 moves.&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 d5 2. exd5 Qxd5 3. Nc3 Qd4 4. Nf3 Qd6 5. d4 Bg4 6. h3 Bh5 7. g4 Bg6 8. Ne5 Qe6 9. Bb5+ c6 10. Bc4 Qd6 11. h4 e6 12. h5 Bxc2 13. Qxc2 Qxd4 14. Qe2 Qd6 15. Bf4 f6 16. Ng6 e5 17. Nxh8 Ne7 18. Bf7+ Kd7 19. Rd1 Nd5 20. Bxd5 exf4 21. Be4 Na6 22. Nf7 Qxd1+ 23. Qxd1+ Ke8 24. Nd6+ Kd8 25. Qb3 Bxd6 26. Qg8+ Kc7 27. Qxa8 Bb4 28. Bxh7 Nc5 29. Qxa7 f3 30. a3 Nd3+ 31. Bxd3 Bd6 32. Ba6 Kd7 33. Qxb7+ Bc7 34. Ne4 Kd8 35. Qc8+ Ke7 36. Qxc7+ Kf8 37. Qd8+ Kf7 38. Bc4# 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.com/emboard?id=3708536&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot; title=&quot;game1&quot;&gt;game1&lt;/a&gt; analysis using chess.com&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Site &quot;Chessrig app&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;garbo&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;prospect&quot;]&#xA;[Opening &quot;Mieses-Kotroc Variation, Center Counter&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Simmulation&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2017-11-13&quot;]&#xA;[TimeControl &quot;unlimited&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[Termination &quot;Checkmate by white in 59 moves.&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 d5 2. exd5 Qxd5 3. Nc3 Qd4 4. Nf3 Qd6 5. d4 Bg4 6. h3 Bh5 7. g4 Bg6 8. Ne5 Qe6 9. Bb5+ c6 10. Bc4 Qd6 11. h4 e6 12. h5 Bxc2 13. Qxc2 Qxd4 14. Qe2 Qd6 15. Bf4 f6 16. Ng6 e5 17. Nxh8 Ne7 18. Bf7+ Kd7 19. Rd1 Nd5 20. Bxd5 exf4 21. Be4 Na6 22. Nf7 Qxd1+ 23. Qxd1+ Kc7 24. Qf3 Re8 25. Qxf4+ Kc8 26. Kd2 Re6 27. Bf5 Nc7 28. Re1 g5 29. Rxe6 gxf4 30. Re8# 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http:////www.chess.com/emboard?id=3708538&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot; title=&quot;game2&quot;&gt;game2&lt;/a&gt; analysis using chess.com&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9841" LastEditorUserId="9841" LastEditDate="2017-11-13T17:37:14.803" LastActivityDate="2017-11-14T08:14:53.093" Title="Please critique my Engine game" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;programming&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19136" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19137" CreationDate="2017-11-13T09:35:30.923" Score="14" ViewCount="3300" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm aware that the FIDE ratings list is only published once per month.  I'm interested in how often the ratings are recalculated internally to FIDE without being published.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are ratings adjusted match after match, or after every tournament? Even if the ratings are updated once a month, does FIDE count every match, or a whole tournament?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;An example to make my point clear&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Consider a three-player, single round robin tournament.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Player&lt;/strong&gt; &amp;nbsp; &amp;nbsp; &amp;nbsp; &amp;nbsp; &amp;nbsp;  &amp;nbsp; &amp;nbsp; &amp;nbsp; &lt;strong&gt;Elo&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Roanin Novel  &amp;nbsp;  &amp;nbsp;    2798&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Rigi Hains   &amp;nbsp; &amp;nbsp;    &amp;nbsp; &amp;nbsp; &amp;nbsp; 2745&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Dan H. Yvasin   &amp;nbsp; &amp;nbsp;      2784&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Results&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Round 1:&lt;/strong&gt; R. Novel (1) beat Rigi Hains (0)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Round 2:&lt;/strong&gt; Rigi Hains (0.5) drew with D.H. Yvasin (0.5)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Round 3:&lt;/strong&gt; D.H. Yvasin (1) drew with R. Novel (1.5)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;My question&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If FIDE was calculating the players' ratings, would it first update the players' ratings &lt;strong&gt;match by match&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;sup&gt;1&lt;/sup&gt;, or would their rating be adjusted by &lt;strong&gt;counting the tournament as a whole?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;sup&gt;2&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;sup&gt;1&lt;/sup&gt; In this case, rating changes after every match.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;sup&gt;2&lt;/sup&gt; Here we calculate the expected score of each player at the start of the tournament, and compare it with the &lt;strong&gt;final score only.&lt;/strong&gt; No rating changes occur between matches.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;The calculations (all assume K=10)&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Method 1 [Match by match] (Final ratings in bold)&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;After the first match, R. Novel is rated &lt;em&gt;2802.24&lt;/em&gt; and Rigi is rated &lt;em&gt;2740.76.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;After the second match, Rigi is rated &lt;strong&gt;2741.38&lt;/strong&gt; and Dan is rated &lt;em&gt;2783.38&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;After the last match, Dan is rated &lt;strong&gt;2783.65&lt;/strong&gt; and Novel is rated &lt;strong&gt;2801.97&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Method 2 [Whole tournament]&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Roanin Novel&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Initial expected score = 1.096 &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Actual score = 1.5&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Hence, new rating = &lt;strong&gt;2802.04&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Rigi Hains &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Initial expected score = 0.868&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Actual score = 0.5&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Hence, new rating = &lt;strong&gt;2741.32&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Dan H. Yvasin&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Initial expected score = 1.036&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Actual score = 1.0&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Hence, new rating = &lt;strong&gt;2783.64&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Conclusion&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;In such a short tournament, there doesn't seem to be a significant difference in the results of the two methods, but maybe there &lt;strong&gt;could be one in a longer tournament&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Which of them does FIDE use?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13565" LastEditorUserId="2789" LastEditDate="2017-11-13T16:48:47.587" LastActivityDate="2017-11-13T16:48:47.587" Title="Are Elo ratings adjusted after each match, or after each tournament?" Tags="&lt;elo&gt;&lt;fide&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19137" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19136" CreationDate="2017-11-13T10:54:02.720" Score="16" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Short answer: Neither&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Elo-ratings are not ajusted for calculation after each game, they are not adjusted after each tournament either. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For all games played during one month, each player is supposed to have his last published elo-rating. If I am 2300 on the 1st of November and we play together November the 29th, your rating will be calculated by considering that you have faced a 2300-player. Whether I have gained 50 points in a previous tournament from 5 to 12 of november, or lost 100 points from novermber 16 to 23, will only be relevant for my rating on December 1st, and for my opponents in December and thereafter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your example, the second method applies. But there won't be any ajustment after the tournament if one of your three players plays another tournament within the same month.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastEditorUserId="14079" LastEditDate="2017-11-13T11:05:16.253" LastActivityDate="2017-11-13T11:05:16.253" CommentCount="12" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19138" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16167" CreationDate="2017-11-13T16:40:48.723" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;This always used to puzzle me when I was starting out. Now I think of it like this. ..e5 increases the pressure that the fianchettoed Bishop exerts on d4, and White must decide what to do about it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;He can exchange pawns d4xe5. As already noted this is not very ambitious and leaves Black with fewer problems than he might have had.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;He can leave the tension as it is but to some extent that just puts the decision off. Black can also leave the tension unresolved, but eventually he usually exchanges e5xd4 and now the Bishop is fully in play.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;He can push d5, and now the Pawn structure is such that almost inevitably White will attack on the Q-side, and Black on the K-side. True, that Bishop is now confined and might become a liability in the endgame, but Black has created an inbalance that they find congenial4&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should only play the lines with ..e5 if you are happy with all of these outcomes. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastActivityDate="2017-11-13T16:40:48.723" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19139" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19148" CreationDate="2017-11-13T18:29:36.437" Score="5" ViewCount="1832" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a chess player ranked at around 1400. As white I play 1. e4 and am confident playing against most responses except for the Sicilian. I don't want to go into the main lines so I am studying the c3 Sicilian, but am realizing that there is a lot of theory I need to learn. A friend of mine recommended that I play a new opening altogether, 1 c4 that avoids a lot of theory. . &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is this, would it be easier to learn how to play 1 c4 instead? What are some of the openings I need to know? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7481" LastActivityDate="2019-09-18T18:18:09.917" Title="1. c4 vs c3 Sicilian" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;&lt;english-opening&gt;" AnswerCount="9" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19140" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19147" CreationDate="2017-11-13T18:38:40.817" Score="3" ViewCount="167" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am looking for a book recommendation on endgames. More specifically, I want to know how to avoid &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zugzwang&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;zugzwang&lt;/a&gt;, and what to do in case it arises.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you know of any book which has in-depth case study on endgames which end up in zugzwang, please give a suggestion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2463" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-10-14T19:44:34.947" LastActivityDate="2019-10-14T19:44:34.947" Title="Book recommendation on zugzwang" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;books&gt;&lt;zugzwang&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="19141" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19139" CreationDate="2017-11-13T19:04:51.253" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The move 1. c4 is the English opening and it certainly does not &quot;avoid a lot of theory&quot;. There is a lot more theory in the English than the Sicilian as much as anything because there are tremendous transpositional possibilities. You can start with 1. c4 and a few moves later you are playing a Queen's Gambit Declined or a Dutch or a Reti.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That said playing against fellow 1400 players they are very unlikely to know much theory against 1. c4 and your ignorance will be matched by their ignorance. Stronger, more experienced players are another matter altogether. They will have at least one response if not several prepared and you will find life very difficult.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2017-11-13T19:04:51.253" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19142" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19139" CreationDate="2017-11-13T19:44:25.827" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Don't let anything chase you away from 1.e4!  If you want to minimize your theory you can consider a couple other options:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 with 3.c3&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;1.e4 c5 2.f4 or 2.Nc3 and 3.f4 heading for Grand Prix Attack lines&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;1.e4 c5 2.d3 heading for King's Indian Attack&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;1.e4 c5 2.Nc3 heading for closed Sicilian&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;1.e4 c5 2.d4 heading for Smith-Morra Gambit&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;1.e4 c5 2.b4 heading for Wing Gambit.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At 1400 you should work on tactics so I recommend the Smith-Morra Gambit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastEditorUserId="7327" LastEditDate="2017-11-14T17:19:31.543" LastActivityDate="2017-11-14T17:19:31.543" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19143" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19135" CreationDate="2017-11-13T20:01:31.640" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would start by asking why your engine is making horrible tempo loss moves with the queen?  8...Qe6? in game one and 3...Qd4? in game two.  You need to consider &quot;developing with tempo&quot; somehow.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2017-11-13T20:01:31.640" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19144" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19139" CreationDate="2017-11-13T20:17:52.817" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is generally a poor idea to change your whole openings (even your first move!) just because of one line. There are a lot of ways handle the Sicilian, and the Alapin variation is a very decent choice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, there is a lot of theory after 1.e4 c5 2.c3. Scores of books and DVDS are devoted to that variation, and probably even more to the English opening. But it is very important to have in mind that:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;You do not need to know all the theory to get sound and interesting positions.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Your 2000- opponent won't know much theory either.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The Alapin is a solid variation for White. With some ideas about the plans and general rules (develop, castle, grab the center...) you won't be in any danger of being worse at move ten. And if you play well or if your opponent is imprecise, you might well get an advantage...&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Nothing stops you from actually learning a bit of theory, either now or later when you will already have some experience in this system. A good habit, for instance, could be, after each of your games, to check a grandmaster's game that followed the same line. Very soon, you will not be annoyed when your opponent goes for 1...c5 anymore, but be eager to try the last idea you saw...&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastEditorUserId="14079" LastEditDate="2017-11-14T08:07:40.157" LastActivityDate="2017-11-14T08:07:40.157" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19145" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19139" CreationDate="2017-11-13T21:14:42.853" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a line against the Sicilian on which, as far as I know, there is almost no theory. In some order it involves the moves e4, Nf3, c3, Bd3. It will probably induce your opponent to underestimate you, but you continue with Bc2 and d4 and he will be surprised to see that you have quite a nice game. It does not give you much of an advantage but you can play it on general principles and I think that is what you want. Also, it probably wont be the typical Sicilian sort of game that your opponent was looking forward to. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you have been building up a repertoire based on 1.e4, what you need at the moment is some kind of shield against ..c5. The shield should keep you safe while you improve to the point of playing, if you wish, main lines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastActivityDate="2017-11-13T21:14:42.853" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19146" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19140" CreationDate="2017-11-13T21:44:58.560" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you are in Zugzwang, by definition, there is nothing you can do, because any possible move leads to a disadvantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most typically Zugzwang appears in endgames with few pieces, particularly in pawn only endgames where is is used as a very common technique. I believe that if you study pawn endgames you should encounter it very often and get very familiar with it, so that you can keep it at the back of your mind when doing calculations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would not focus my endgame on avoiding Zugzwang as there are usually other things to take into account as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2017-11-13T21:44:58.560" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19147" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19140" CreationDate="2017-11-13T22:11:52.960" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't know any book that has a chapter or even a long section devoted specifically to zugzwang (of course that doesn't mean one doesn't exist) but the concept is pervasive throughout any book about endgames. I think any good endgame book would help; there are books for different levels and tastes, but just to give one example that I have handy, &lt;em&gt;Fundamental Chess Endings&lt;/em&gt; by Müller and Lamprecht mentions zugzwang 283 times!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12523" LastActivityDate="2017-11-13T22:11:52.960" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19148" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19139" CreationDate="2017-11-14T00:37:34.233" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think you should stop being afraid of your theory book, and concentrate on fighting your opponent in a &lt;em&gt;game&lt;/em&gt; of chess. Especially rated at 1400, you need to experience interesting tactical battles, attacking chess, and basic strategic ideas. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edmar Mednis wrote &quot;A number of students have told me that they like to play 1.e4 except against the Sicilian. Such a 'complaint' makes no chess sense to me. I mean, 1.e4 is for those who like active, attacking play. Because the Sicilian delays black's kingside development while ignoring white's active development, attacking players should jump for joy when they see Black play 1...c5.&quot; (Practical Opening Tips)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He then goes over some lines involving: 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 ... 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 ... 5.Nc3 ... 6.Bc4 against the main Black systems. Some of these Fischer used to play. The 2.c3 variation is also a good one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Don't be afraid of main lines. Get an interesting position on the board (that's all a main line is - a position so interesting lots of people have played it) and &lt;strong&gt;fight it out&lt;/strong&gt;. You will learn loads. Develop your tactics, and start to see the strategic ideas by playing the opening. Seek inspiration from your own games and those played by other people - not theory books.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(I had the same problem myself. I'm around FIDE 2050 now, and a 1.d4 player. All my life I've been afraid of the Slav. I got a book a few years ago advocating to play the main lines. So I plunged in with minimal preparation - my opponents never challenge me in a book line! But we get some interesting games, much better than the exchange Slav I relied on all this time.) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14813" LastActivityDate="2017-11-14T00:37:34.233" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19149" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19139" CreationDate="2017-11-14T04:55:36.770" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;One advantage of playing 1. c4 is that it may give you practice playing a quasi Sicilian opening as White. That is, if Black responds 1. ...  e5, you may head for a &quot;Sicilian&quot; with you on move. That will give you deeper insights into how to play this position, how Black is likely to respond, and the value of the first move in situations where one player has moved the e pawn two squares, and the other player, the c pawn two squares. I would especially do this with stronger players, considering the first move as a &quot;handicap.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2017-11-14T04:55:36.770" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19150" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19135" CreationDate="2017-11-14T08:14:53.093" Score="4" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It was obviously a fast game, and your search depth was too &lt;strong&gt;low&lt;/strong&gt;. Your engine liked moving the queen because it didn't see it'd be driven back a few moves later.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You need to define better piece square values table. If you do it properly, the engine should aim to control the center with a pawn or a piece, but not moving the queen out.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2017-11-14T08:14:53.093" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19151" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19139" CreationDate="2017-11-14T11:36:58.367" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I had exactly the same issue in the past. For me the solution was the closed Sicilian. You just need to remember some variations depending on what you opponent is playing. But the most moves are straight forward no matter what your opponent does.&#xA;The general composition is (only whites moves):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1.e4 2.Nc3 3.g3 4.Bg2 5.d3 6.Be3 7.Qd2 8.Nf3 9.0-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course you need to differ the sequence depending on what black is playing. Here some important notes:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If black is playing g6 and Bg7 you relay want to trade you Bishop&#xA;against his by playing Bh6 (after Be3 and Qd2 of course)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If black plays Nf6 instead of Ne7 you need to avoid Ng4 (exchanging your Be3) you need to make sure he cant by playing h3&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If black rolls his Pawns on Queen-side don't be afraid you can normally easy hesitate by some late(!) Pawn moves (a3 or b3).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You might want to roll your own pawns on King-side for this it might be helpful to develop your knight to e2 instead of f3 or play f4 before Nf3.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Your Bishop on g2 is a big threat for unprotected pieces on the long diagonal so be aware of some combinations where you can move your e5 Pawn and or you Knight on f3 for winning material.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here it needs to be mentioned that this will normally not give you a huge advantage from the opening but at least you should be equal and have attacking opportunities (King-side). Often you even have a time advantage because most players on 1400 are not familiar with this opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I hope that this helps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14815" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-09-18T18:15:26.300" LastActivityDate="2019-09-18T18:15:26.300" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="19152" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19139" CreationDate="2017-11-14T13:53:21.407" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have used Smith-Morra gambit against Sicilian successfully up to 2000+ level, so it is a sound opening. If you are afraid of Sicilian Theory I strongly recommend starting with it and playing a bit of Sicilian yourself. This is how I learned how to play and fight the Sicilian. Currently I have abandoned Smith-Morra in favor of more mainline approaches, as they may have some theory, but are mostly pleasant to play for white!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1193" LastActivityDate="2017-11-14T13:53:21.407" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19153" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19154" CreationDate="2017-11-14T15:13:48.910" Score="3" ViewCount="560" Body="&lt;p&gt;You had a long day and your batteries are drained. You would like to improve your chess though. How to do this in an appropriate or maybe even restorative way? Should you practice at all or do something else instead? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I found myself blundering away in games or tactical puzzles and moved away from it to look for better ways. How or what do you guys practice if your mentally exhausted? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: Thank you for your answers! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12972" LastEditorUserId="12972" LastEditDate="2017-11-21T08:25:10.760" LastActivityDate="2017-11-21T08:25:10.760" Title="How or what to practice when mentally exhausted?" Tags="&lt;training&gt;&lt;psychology&gt;&lt;best-practice&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19154" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19153" CreationDate="2017-11-14T17:09:11.657" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yoga.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Failing that watch your favourite TV programme.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2017-11-14T17:09:11.657" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19155" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19153" CreationDate="2017-11-14T21:12:33.527" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;When you are tired but want to study it is probably a good time to watch chess videos. You don't have to be sharp to absorb someone explaining some positional ideas, or get some exposure to theory.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Also, playing through recent GM games just to flag ones you want to look at when you are not tired can be a helpful way of keeping up on things.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2017-11-14T21:12:33.527" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19156" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19157" CreationDate="2017-11-15T02:18:34.547" Score="1" ViewCount="242" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you know the name of the chess variant I'm trying to describe, please leave it in an answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My friend and I have conceived an (most likely already thought up, nevertheless very fun) idea of chess where 2 moves take place at a time. The main rule we have that concerns checkmating in this variant is that you can move through check so long as you don't end up in check at the end of the second move. (This also means you  can move another piece before getting your king out of check)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How would one checkmate in this situation? An even situation would be optimal for the response, I know how one could checkmate with an inordinate amount of pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14822" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-17T20:37:00.543" LastActivityDate="2020-08-17T20:37:00.543" Title="How to checkmate in an altered version of chess" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;chess-variants&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="19157" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19156" CreationDate="2017-11-15T04:37:24.053" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is basically &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marseillais_chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Marseillais Chess&lt;/a&gt;, the main difference between it and your version is that a player can't move into and then out of, check. When a player gives check on the first move, he then loses his second move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Additionally, the most commonly played version is &amp;quot;balanced&amp;quot;, with white only making one move on the first turn, so as to not give White too much of an advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One would checkmate just as in regular chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9025" LastEditorUserId="9025" LastEditDate="2020-08-17T17:16:30.500" LastActivityDate="2020-08-17T17:16:30.500" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19159" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19160" CreationDate="2017-11-15T08:06:01.637" Score="1" ViewCount="885" Body="&lt;p&gt;Playing the &quot;Champion&quot; J2ME chess, I noticed that the bot (black) made the move &quot;Pg2-h1=Q.&quot; Is this a bug or just a rarely known rule like en passant and castling?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14826" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-06-14T13:08:37.030" LastActivityDate="2020-12-14T06:00:40.923" Title="Can a pawn move to the last row diagonally without a capture?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;pawns&gt;&lt;pawn-promotion&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="19160" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19159" CreationDate="2017-11-15T08:17:49.563" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Pawns only go diagonally when they capture. See the section 3.7 of &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=171&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess rules&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The software you mention probably has a flaw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastActivityDate="2017-11-15T08:17:49.563" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19161" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8804" CreationDate="2017-11-15T10:33:13.423" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;IMO &lt;a href=&quot;http://dev.jeremysilman.com/shop/pc/Sicilian-Taimanov-Move-by-Move-The-p3707.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Sicilian Taimanov, Move by Move&lt;/a&gt; is a good book.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Indeed, b5 and Bb7 is played in many variations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A major theme is when to play d6 and transition to the Scheveningen in reply to f4. It's always possible, but not always necessary to play d6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are surprising and active variations with moves like h5 and Ng4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;IME, many club players play cautiously against the Taimanov, with moves like a3 and f3. You'll easily get an equal game against such moves. I'm currently going through Emms' book again to learn how I can play for a win when the opponent plays like that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14378" LastActivityDate="2017-11-15T10:33:13.423" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19162" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14601" CreationDate="2017-11-15T14:02:42.233" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I wrote a program that can recognize positions from books and magazines and give you the FEN. Here is the web interface for &#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~abhishek/putz/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chessputzer&lt;/a&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can upload the image or paste directly from the clipboard. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Note&lt;/strong&gt;: it is designed for the the most common fonts used in print. It won't work for images from Chessbase etc. For that, use Fenbot. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My aim was to make it good enough to read blurry images from old chess books so it should be pretty tolerant of artifacts and such.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14100" LastActivityDate="2017-11-15T14:02:42.233" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19163" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19166" CreationDate="2017-11-15T19:22:46.790" Score="44" ViewCount="13971" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am currently playing in an ELO tournament. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Today, while I was playing, my opponent occasionally got up and walked around. At first, I did not care much. Then, I realized that some people were behind me, examining the game very carefully. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At the moment there was a critical position, my opponent was not at the board, and three or four guys came around, and began to speak among themselves. I looked for an arbiter but there was only one and he was sitting at the other end of the tournament room. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I made my move, and went to the arbiter. This is when the weird things happen. I told the arbiter that my opponent is never at the board, and there are some people coming when he's away. There are cameras everywhere, so he is free to check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I and arbiter were walking back, there were three people around the board, talking to each other and pointing at the game, and &lt;strong&gt;my opponent was also at the board, listening to them.&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I immediately said that I demand a rematch at the least, since this is not the first time. Arbiter spoke to my opponent and his response was &quot;he said that they were speaking about something else, I warned him, and this will not repeat again.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He also told me that if I don't sign the scoresheet, it counts as I did not play the game, and I cannot claim anything. So, I completed the game, signed the sheet, and told the arbiter that I will write this to FIDE.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have written a mail describing this situation. But I'm not sure if something will change. In case such situation happens again, how should I proceed?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8209" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-01-05T20:38:27.813" LastActivityDate="2021-01-05T20:38:27.813" Title="Arbiter ignored cheating, and I signed the scoresheet. Did I lose my right to object?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;cheating&gt;&lt;arbiters&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="9" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="19164" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19163" CreationDate="2017-11-15T19:55:04.003" Score="18" Body="&lt;p&gt;Writing to FIDE will make you feel better but is otherwise a waste of your time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's step through and see why.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, getting up and walking around is perfectly acceptable behaviour.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's what the FIDE Laws of Chess have to say -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;11.2.1 The ‘playing venue’ is defined as the ‘playing area’, rest rooms, toilets, refreshment area, area set aside for smoking and other&#xA;  places as designated by the arbiter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;11.2.2 The playing area is defined as the place where the games of a competition are played.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;11.2.3 Only with the permission of the arbiter can:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;11.2.3.1 a player leave the playing venue,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;11.2.3.2 the player having the move be allowed to leave the playing area.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;11.2.3.3 a person who is neither a player nor arbiter be allowed access to the playing area&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When it is your turn your opponent is allowed to get up and go anywhere in the &quot;playing&quot; venue. This includes the toilets, smoking area, refreshment area.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When it is your opponent's turn he is still allowed to get up and wander around the &quot;playing area&quot;, basically the room or rooms where the tournament is taking place.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Secondly, if the people watching your game were not players then they would only be allowed there if spectators were allowed, but this is normal practice. If, as spectators they behave &quot;badly&quot; - disturbing the players, discussing the game - then the arbiter can ask them to leave. He cannot penalize either of the players for this behaviour by third parties.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thirdly, if a player has a complaint against an arbiter's decision in a FIDE rated event then an appeals committee should be set up, normally 3 or more players, possibly the organizer, to hear the player's complaint and come to a decision. Only if this is unsatisfactory can you take it further, although &quot;further&quot; probably means your national federation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you receive a reply from FIDE it is likely to be to tell you to take up the matter with the event appeals committee or your national federation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2017-11-15T19:55:04.003" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19166" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19163" CreationDate="2017-11-15T20:16:38.003" Score="81" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to the 2017 version of the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessarbitersassociation.co.uk/Laws_of_Chess_2017_-_CAA_Interpretations.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Laws of Chess&lt;/a&gt;, rule 11.10 says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Unless the regulations of an event specify otherwise, a player may&#xA;  appeal against any decision of the arbiter, even if the player has&#xA;  signed the scoresheet (see Article 8.7).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2017-11-15T20:16:38.003" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19167" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5312" CreationDate="2017-11-16T00:00:06.913" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to H.J.R. Murray (in A History of Chess, 1913), the pawn promotion rule (specially named as 'shatpada' or six steps) is already found in the very first known ancestry of chess: chaturanga (an ancient indian four-handed dice game whose pieces were  King, Elephant, Chariot, Horse and Pawn for each one of the four armies). Chaturanga exists in this form at least since the 7th century of our era. The subsequent forms of games related to chaturanga, including our western chess, have employed several different ways to promote pawns through the centuries (only to queen - or similar, like vizir or counsellor; only if the pawn reaches the 8th row at selected ranks - for example not in the 'e', 'b' or 'g' files; only to a previously captured piece; only to the piece originally related to the rank; etc), but this feature has been always present.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/IT1tu.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;A History of Chess - Page 70&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/vbEkw.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;A History of Chess - Cover&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14829" LastActivityDate="2017-11-16T00:00:06.913" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19168" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19163" CreationDate="2017-11-16T13:41:25.110" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;A short answer to the title of your question would be that you do not lose the right to appeal against any of the arbiter's decisions by signing the scoresheet. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But also notice that you did not use your right to appeal anyway, therefore, you have, most likely, already lost it. Every tournament has an appeal committee and players wishing to appeal must do so usually within an hour of the end of the game or maybe within an hour of the end of the round or something like that, you can check with the arbiter. FIDE is not the appeal authority thus sending a letter to them did not serve any other purpose than to merely complain about the arbiter without having actually used all the means that were available to you. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What to do next time. If you suspect that your opponent is cheating - a very strong accusation that you should not make lightly, you could actually be penalized by FIDE for a false accusation - then talk to the arbiter as soon as possible and several times if necessary. However, notice that if you insist that your opponent is cheating then you will be required to make this claim in writing. There is a form that you need to fill in, sign it, and it will be sent to FIDE. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you complain to the arbiter, there is only so much they can do, however. While they will take your complaint seriously, they will not accuse your opponent of cheating without having a good reason, i.e. they will need to see some evidence of highly suspicious behaviour themselves. In practice this means that the arbiter will attempt to observe the player for the rest of the game (and possibly even in the next rounds) but you cannot expect the arbiter to forfeit the player on your request. In my view, based on your description of the situation, the arbiter did the right thing - they inspected the situation and they warned the player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your opponent talking to other people. This is somewhat tricky, although it is forbidden to take advice from anyone during the game players always talk to other people in the playing hall. This is very common and you do not want to forfeit everyone who you observe talking to someone. Being strict makes sense in some important tournaments and less sense in leisure tournaments. I am not saying that the arbiter should not act, they should. But most of the time it is difficult for them to establish how innocent the conversation was and what (if any) damage was done. Thus the appropriate course of action is to warn the players and perhaps keep an eye on them. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What you did not mention is that your opponent was a ten-year-old child and I guess the other three or four guys you mention were similarly aged children. In theory this does not matter, in practice, however, it is unrealistic to expect children to stay focused for a number of hours and not to talk to anyone. And you certainly do not want to forfeit the child for mere talking to someone (or even worse for others talking to him), no children would play chess then. With children, most of the time it is enough to warn them. And if you do not like them gathering at your board and talking to your opponent then tell them. Most children have respect from adults. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A personal story. Once I played a league and my opponent was not happy about losing his advantage in the game or something like that. He made a move, left the room and then I heard him complaining about the game to other people outside. Not a big deal but it was disturbing me. Thus I went out and told them to go to talk about it somewhere else where I couldn't hear them. They were very embarassed, problem solved. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8844" LastActivityDate="2017-11-16T13:41:25.110" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19169" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8229" CreationDate="2017-11-16T17:52:47.713" Score="4" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stewart Reuben's suggestion is to make use of article 11.3 a.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;During play the players are forbidden to make use of any notes, sources of information or advice, or analyse any game on another chessboard.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However it is a stretch to describe what is going on as &amp;quot;analysis on another chessboard&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can debate whether it's &amp;quot;analysis on another chessboard&amp;quot;.  But if the moves are being deliberately copied from another game, that other game is &lt;em&gt;clearly&lt;/em&gt; being used as a &amp;quot;source of information&amp;quot;, which is also prohibited.  A penalty can certainly be imposed if the arbiter is sure that this is what's happening.  If the arbiter suspects but isn't sure, moving the game would probably be a good solution.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, players can play identical moves due to similar opening preparation, so merely having identical boards is not indicative that this is happening (although you'd expect one board to get ahead of the other because not everyone plays at the same pace, even when they're in their opening preparation.)  But if a player has the move and, instead of contemplating their position, is looking at an identical chessboard and waits for that player to play, then immediately plays the same move, and that's repeated several times... that would be good enough for me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2017-11-16T17:52:47.713" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19170" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19177" CreationDate="2017-11-16T18:20:31.520" Score="3" ViewCount="822" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm talking about the two major alternatives apart from e4/d4, ie c4 and Nf3. It seems to me that a lot of the lines will transpose to a d4 type. Sometimes white plays d4 and transpose. Sometimes black plays d5 and white goes into a Queen's pawn defense with an extra tempo.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So is it possible to learn any of these openings without a solid understanding of 1.d4 first? I feel insecure that black can always trick me into a Queen's pawn opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also a related question. Is it possible to learn the English 1.c4 without first playing Sicilian as black myself?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7002" LastActivityDate="2017-11-17T08:12:54.307" Title="White's non-e4 opening, do they all need a solid understanding of 1.d4 first?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19171" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19170" CreationDate="2017-11-16T18:46:17.600" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are c4/Nf3 lines where White never plays d4 (such as the reverse Dragon or the King's Indian Attack). They are solid but not top-tier openings. Additionally, they do not feature much diversity of pawn structures, which can impede learning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Specifically after 1. c4 e5, this is less relevant because the game does not usually return to 1. d4 structures.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My advice to a player that is trying to improve would be to play 1. d4 for a while first, or learn enough of the d4 transpositions that there is no fear of being tricked.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If not trying to improve, then almost anything is a reasonable choice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3270" LastActivityDate="2017-11-16T18:46:17.600" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19172" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19170" CreationDate="2017-11-16T19:52:42.960" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can play the English/Reti without transposing to d4 lines.  Marin's three volume series on the English (Grandmaster Repertoire) is pure English/Reti and has lines against all responses.  You can then add d4 transpositions to suit your tastes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2017-11-16T19:52:42.960" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19174" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="20027" CreationDate="2017-11-16T22:53:36.320" Score="6" ViewCount="1283" Body="&lt;p&gt;Recently top GMs are playing a London system type setup with Nc3 before c4.  I can't imagine they are going for cheap tricks with Nb5, but I am not seeing a valid positional idea behind the move either.&#xA;For example Carlsen-Ding 2017 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;] &#xA;1.d4 Nf6 2.Bf4 g6 3.Nc3 d5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2017-11-17T00:41:11.627" LastActivityDate="2018-03-01T10:56:04.477" Title="London System with Nc3 -- what's the idea?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;london-system&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19175" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19174" CreationDate="2017-11-16T23:20:14.757" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's normal developing move after all. I doubt the knight stands there so badly. It keeps Bg7 stupid as c5 can now be hard for black to achieve. It controls d5 and e4. You probably don't see much point in white's play, but try to find what's black going to do. If you make weird looking move only to force opponent to do the same, your move is probably not so bad. I don't say it's briliant, but it doesn't look bad, too. The knight doesn't have to be there forever and black may be forced to make a lot of concessions too. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11609" LastActivityDate="2017-11-16T23:20:14.757" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19176" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8229" CreationDate="2017-11-17T06:40:51.177" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;From Chesslife, July 2016, &quot;The Chess Multiverse&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1156906&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1156906&lt;/a&gt;, After the fifth move, &quot;Barden was wondering how to continue at this point when he looked up--and noticed that the same position had appeared on a large demonstration board behind his opponent's back.&quot; &#xA;(&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1072644&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1072644&lt;/a&gt;)  Before his ninth move, Clarke noticed that his game was following the other and started to copy Filip's moves.  &quot;Barden added, on the English Chess Forum Website.  The reaction from the spectators and the tournament arbiter 'was just amusement.'&quot;  The Keres-Filip game was agreed to a draw after white's 16th move, so the other seven moves play were from the mind's of Barden and Clarke.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since the coping was for such a short number of moves the argument could be made that they were just following opening theory and the similarity was just a coincidence.  Although the use of other sources of information, that is another game was referenced, the arbiter isn't able to make any judgement unless one of the players makes a complaint.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The famous 1955 Gothenburg Interzonal incident is true, but it was the Argentinians who found this opening trap, and they just happen to be able to surprise their Russian opponents at the same time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12449" LastActivityDate="2017-11-17T06:40:51.177" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19177" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19170" CreationDate="2017-11-17T08:07:26.317" Score="1" Body="&lt;h2&gt;The English and/or Reti without knowledge of the Queen's Pawn openings&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As others said, there are some &quot;pure&quot; English lines that do not transpose into a Queen's Pawn opening. You are never truly &lt;strong&gt;forced&lt;/strong&gt; to play d4. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, it makes sense in a lot of situations. After all, even if you play in a hypermodern style, you'll still want to contest the centre sooner or later. Thus, never rule out to play d4 at a later move (or you somewhat cripple yourself). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The sweet thing is that &lt;strong&gt;you&lt;/strong&gt; are the one who decides when that d4 thrust will happen. Thus, if you want to avoid specific Black defenses to 1.d4, you can bide your time with 1.c4 or 1.Nf3 and only play d4 later on when they have become infeasible. That way, you don't have to worry about the huge and menacing 1.d4 complex all at once (don't be foolish to think that 1.c4 or 1.Nf3 will completely absolve you of the need to learn theory though!). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe a good idea is to start with a pure English/Reti setup, and add the Queen's Pawn openings to your repertoire over time by regularly analysing in which additional lines d4 might &quot;fit&quot; in your opinion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;The English without knowledge of the Sicilian&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The English and the Sicilian may look similar, but their character differs quite a bit (in most lines, anyway). For starters, if Black choses any other answer to 1. c4 but 1...e5 (like 1...c5, 1...Nf6 etc.), and that probably occurs in the majority of games, you are in completely un-Sicilian territory already.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even if 1. c4 e5 does happen, you don't really need specific knowledge from the Sicilian. Sure, the pawn structures may tend to look the same, but still the way both colours play around them will often differ a lot! In general, while the Sicilian is sharp and tactical, the English tends to be more quiet and positional. For example, it is very common in the Sicilian that the players castle on opposite sides and White starts attacking Black's kingside with his pawns. That sort of thing does not happen nearly quite as often in the English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my opinion, learning 1.c4 e5 does not require you to learn 1.e4 c5 (and vice versa). It's nice to combine them (I do), but by no means necessary. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13433" LastEditorUserId="13433" LastEditDate="2017-11-17T08:12:54.307" LastActivityDate="2017-11-17T08:12:54.307" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19178" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-11-17T08:47:39.283" Score="0" ViewCount="126" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/R7/4k3/3nP3/3p4/P2K4/1P6/8 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the best move for black?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9584" LastEditorDisplayName="user1108" LastEditDate="2017-11-17T15:30:13.247" LastActivityDate="2017-11-17T15:30:13.247" Title="Best move for black" Tags="&lt;knight-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19179" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19178" CreationDate="2017-11-17T08:59:42.510" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;At tournament level, Black can safely resign. If you wanna play some more moves, taking a pawn with 1...Kxe5 looks reasonnable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I see no trick with stalemate nor with the d-pawn, e.g. 1...Nf4 2.Ke4 [2.Kxd4+-] d3 3.Kxf4 d2 doesn't promote because of 4.Ra6+ Ke7 5.Rd6 +-&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1...Ne7 can be a trap [2.Kxd4?? Nc6+ with a probable draw (or not even, see Annatar's comment)] but it is easily beaten by 2.Ra6, 2.b4 or the simple 2.Rxe7.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastEditorUserId="14079" LastEditDate="2017-11-17T09:33:58.220" LastActivityDate="2017-11-17T09:33:58.220" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19180" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-11-17T09:37:48.527" Score="12" ViewCount="5447" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a beginner, I have been playing from time to time with friends since I was a child, but I never studied seriously. A couple of months ago I decided I want to become better, to play more seriously, understanding in a deeper way the game of chess. I have bought some books, I usually look videos on youtube and, of course, I play also online. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;How can one &lt;em&gt;study&lt;/em&gt; chess? I am looking for suggestions about &lt;em&gt;method&lt;/em&gt;. When reading a book, of course I set everything on the chessboard and I try to guess the right moves. But the point is that if I try the same puzzle a couple of days later I already forgot the solution. And I totally forget also the puzzle, meaning that I do not remember how to put the pieces in the initial position. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This it seems to me that I am wasting time, as I do not remember anything. I am really used to studying and learning (I do it for my job, as I am a mathematician working at university). I am really looking for method of learning. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At work, the best I can do is usually to write down stuff (theorems, proofs etc): the process of writing helps me in fixing stuff in my brain. Should I also write in chess?&#xA;I am not totally used to notation (I know how to read it but I am slow and it takes me quite a lot). Could drawing diagrams be an idea? But how, is there any kind of software that could help me? I want to explicitly remark that I do not care about time, I mean it is not important to me to become a better chess player &quot;in two weeks&quot; (I have read tons of post on this website asking for that), I am just looking for an efficient way of learning.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I thank you for your advice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14842" LastActivityDate="2017-12-01T00:50:07.140" Title="How to study chess?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;study&gt;&lt;diagram&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19181" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19180" CreationDate="2017-11-17T10:43:13.147" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;What works for one person might not work for another, but still a few thoughts....&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A beginner should focus on:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;not blundering pieces in one move&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;not falling for simple  tactics&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;have a basic idea about general principles&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;some simple mates such as king + rook vs king&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Regarding &quot;1&quot;, you should always stay alert on what pieces are attacked. In order not having to check the whole board after every move, you can go with an iterative approach, i.e. to note what changes the last move created to the situation of attacked pieces. Most of the time a move will only affect a tiny portion of the board. The moved piece will attack new squares from the destination square (but also stop attacking squares which it did from the original square). Also the move can open or close rows/columns/diagonals for other pieces. To give you an example, the first white move pawn from e2 to e4 will open diagonals for the white queen and bishop and also the pawn from e4 will attack squares on d5 and f5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With a board full of pieces it might help you to visualize the attacked squares as some kind of &quot;danger zones&quot; or &quot;fences&quot; or something like that, particularly for rooks and bishops which create horizontal/vertical and diagonal &quot;fences&quot; respectively. This method is not only useful for quickly seeing attacked pieces but also when it comes to mating in order to see how to take away squares from the enemy king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Regarding &quot;2&quot;. Just about any chess site has tactics puzzles and some of the better ones (e.g. lichess) also do &quot;spaced repetition&quot; (showing you the same puzzle again after a while).  When solving tactics puzzles it is very important to realize and undersand the &lt;a href=&quot;https://chesstempo.com/tactical-motifs.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;tactical motif&lt;/a&gt; (or motives) that is (are) involved. For a beginner, I find the tactics section on chesstempo.com particularly useful, because after you solve (or fail to solve) a puzzle it will show you the tactical motives for this puzzle as &quot;tags&quot;. You can then try to find them back in the solution. Also, it can be useful if you remove all the unnecessary pieces from the problem, so that you are left with the essence of the tactic, which is easier to remember, because you know what to look out for.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Regarding &quot;3&quot;: Occupy the center, develop pieces, don't waste time moving pieces twice (unless you have to), castle, improve piece activity... This is more about self-discipline than learning things (at least at the beginner level).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Regarding &quot;4&quot;: This you should be able to find in books. As with the tactics, you should not learn the actual moves by heart, but rather the pattern. For instance for the King+Rook vs King endgame you should remember that the idea is that the rook creates some kind of &quot;fence&quot; horizontally and vertically which the enemy king cannot cross. With the help of your own king you can make the area that the opponent king has available smaller and smaller. see &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/4886/how-do-you-checkmate-with-a-rook&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And the best would be to have a stronger player look at your games and point out things that should be improved.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2017-11-17T10:43:13.147" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19182" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19180" CreationDate="2017-11-17T10:51:31.413" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Don't worry too much about forgetting the concrete positions of the puzzles. Most of the club players I know (myself included) cannot even correctly replay their own rated games just from memory on the next day (only with a lot of &quot;wait, did he play this or this first? Hm, and this piece lands on that square at some point now...how did that happen again?&quot;). This is after working for hours on these moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What matters is &lt;strong&gt;learning the underlying patterns&lt;/strong&gt; behind the puzzles (either tactical motives or strategical plans). Unfortunately, learning them only comes from experience, read: A lot of repetition. You are at the start of that process, so it is natural that you still have trouble. Your method is the commonly recommended one though (besides &lt;strong&gt;playing a lot of practice games and analysing them afterwards&lt;/strong&gt;, nothing can replace that!), so keep it up and after a while you will begin to see the fruits of your work. My former Logic professor used to tell us that (formal) logic is a lot like chess: The basic rules are deceptivly simple, but combining them efficiently requires a lot of experience. You have to &lt;strong&gt;train your &quot;eye&quot;&lt;/strong&gt; over years of study.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are a &quot;writer&quot; learning type, it will definitely help to &lt;strong&gt;write things down&lt;/strong&gt; (you will get used to the notation). Many patterns are deeply linked with specific moves or squares.  If I merely write &quot;Bxh7+&quot;, any advanced player reading it will immediately have an image popping up in his mind (almost like a Pavlovian dog - we can't suppress it). This specific move is linked to a  &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_gift_sacrifice&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;classical sacrifice&lt;/a&gt;. The interesting thing is that this sacrifice is possible in various concrete positions, as long as certain conditions are met (obviously, the white bishop has to be able to take on h7, there has to be no black knight on f6 who defends h7, White's pieces, most importantly the queen, can quickly join the attack, Black's pieces can't interfere). Some similarities to mathematical proofs there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another thing that is very helpful is trying to &lt;strong&gt;join a local chess club&lt;/strong&gt; (maybe your university has one?). Not only does that offer an opportunity for practice, but also, invaluably, a lot of instant feedback (I guess you know from you background how beneficial learning with a tutor can be).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13433" LastActivityDate="2017-11-17T10:51:31.413" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19183" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19180" CreationDate="2017-11-17T11:42:27.267" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The number one best way to &lt;em&gt;study&lt;/em&gt; chess is to &lt;em&gt;play&lt;/em&gt; chess. This is particularly true for beginners. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Join a club if you haven't already done so and go down there regularly and just play games, friendly or otherwise, against other human beings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2017-11-17T11:42:27.267" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19184" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19178" CreationDate="2017-11-17T11:51:32.267" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Unless your opponent is really, really weak (and presumably you are even weaker since you've got a completely lost position) then &quot;resigns&quot; is the best move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to see if your opponent knows how to win the position then you could try Kxe5 when black will play Ra5, pinning the knight, exchange off the knight and then push the a and b pawns and queen one of them. Other moves by you are equally futile.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If your opponent was good enough to get this completely won position then he is probably also good enough to know that he just needs to exchange his rook for your knight to have a trivial win and there is little you can do to stop this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2017-11-17T11:51:32.267" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19186" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-11-17T14:14:33.883" Score="6" ViewCount="816" Body="&lt;p&gt;This question is about chess linguistics. Alekhine's gun is the pattern where the queen is placed behind two rooks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Who came up with the phrase?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is it clear which kind of gun they had in mind? &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In which language did the phrase originate? &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I always imagined &quot;gun&quot; in this context meant a piece of artillery such as a cannon, because surely the three heaviest chess pieces put together must be a heavy weapon! :-)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I see that several of the non-English Wikipedia articles about it use cognates of cannon, for example, &lt;em&gt;Cannone di Alechin&lt;/em&gt; (Italian) or &lt;em&gt;Canhão de Alekhine&lt;/em&gt; (Portuguese). But on the Spanish-speaking world, the situation seems more confused: there are more Google hits for &lt;em&gt;pistola de Alekhine&lt;/em&gt; than for &lt;em&gt;cañón de Alekhine&lt;/em&gt;, and I can't tell which could be considered more authoritative. Could this have been a mistranslation?&lt;br&gt;&#xA; On the other hand, the metaphor of threatening the player across the table with a pistol is also interesting, and I've also seen the queen behind the bishop called &lt;em&gt;Reti's rifle&lt;/em&gt;, so maybe there's more of a small arms tradition in chess phrases than I originally thought.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12523" LastEditorUserId="10921" LastEditDate="2017-12-23T13:30:43.940" LastActivityDate="2018-05-20T01:59:38.773" Title="What kind of gun is Alekhine's gun?" Tags="&lt;history&gt;&lt;terminology&gt;&lt;alekhine&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19188" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19192" CreationDate="2017-11-17T14:42:46.160" Score="1" ViewCount="468" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've just installed Stockfish 8 and in the engine output, I see it has started to put &lt;code&gt;!&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;?&lt;/code&gt; in various places (after certain moves and scores).  Example output:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    mover viewpoint     fewer / Multi-PV setting = 1 / more&#xA;exclude: none best +tail                                          &#xA;dep score   nodes   time    (not shown:  tbhits knps    seldep)&#xA; 24 +7.48   19.8M   0:12.09 Rd8+ Nd2 Nd5 Ne2 Nd7 Bd4 Rac8 Nc3 Nxc3+ Bxc3 Rc7 Ke2 Nb6 Rad1 Nd5 Be5 Rcc8 Ne4 f6 Bh3 Rc6 Bd4 b6 c3 h6 Kf2 Kf7 Rhe1 Ne7 Kf3 Nf5&#xA; 23 +7.42   14.4M   0:08.71 Rd8+ Nd2 Nd5 Ne2 b6 Bf2 Nc6 c3 Nce7 Nd4 b5 a3 Rab8 Kc2 a6 Rad1 Rbc8 Rhe1 h6 N2f3 Rd6 Kb1 g6 Kc2 Kg7 Nd2 Rd7 Ne4 Rdd8 Nf3 Nf5&#xA; 23 +7.25?  11.2M   0:06.78 Rd8+ Nd2?&#xA; 23 +7.16!  10.9M   0:06.62 Rd8+!&#xA; 23 +7.27!  10.7M   0:06.51 Rd8+!&#xA; 23 +7.34?  9.48M   0:05.73 Rd8+ Nd2?&#xA; 22 +7.27   7.93M   0:04.76 Rd8+ Nd2 Nd5 Ne2 b6 Bf2 Nc6 c3 Nce7 Nd4 b5 a3 Rab8 Kc2 a6 Rad1 h5 N2f3 g6 Ne5 Rbc8 Rhe1 h4 Nef3 hxg3 hxg3&#xA; 22 +7.30?  6.70M   0:03.99 Rd8+ Nd2?&#xA; 22 +7.22?  5.96M   0:03.56 Rd8+ Nd2?&#xA; 21 +7.15   5.11M   0:03.04 Rd8+ Nd2 Nd5 Ne2 b6 Bf2 Nd7 c3 N7f6 Bf3 a6 Kc2 b5 a4 Rac8 axb5 axb5 Bd4 Ne8 Rhd1 Nd6 Ra7 Nf5&#xA; 20 +7.14   2.80M   0:01.65 Rd8+ Nd2 Nd5 Ne2 b6 Bf2 Nd7 c3 Rac8 Kc2 N7f6 Bf3 a6 a4 b5 axb5 axb5 Bd4 Rd7 Bxf6 Ne3+ Kc1 gxf6 Nd4 b4 Bc6 Rdc7 cxb4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It did not do this previously.  What do these mean?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1539" LastActivityDate="2020-08-18T05:42:51.660" Title="Meaning of ! and ? in Stockfish output?" Tags="&lt;stockfish&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19189" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17231" CreationDate="2017-11-17T14:50:33.170" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Think about this. When pawns reach the other side they become Queens. Are the females? Or was this the first look on transgender people? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14849" LastActivityDate="2017-11-17T14:50:33.170" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19190" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19163" CreationDate="2017-11-17T16:46:58.083" Score="10" Body="&lt;h1&gt;Is it really that certain that your opponent cheated?&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The key facts that I extract from your question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Opponent chatted with others on a regular basis&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I often do this too, and I do not talk about the game at hand just other things. As such I would say this does not even imply something going wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;At some point the game was discussed, presumably too close to the board.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is of course not supposed to happen, however as you mention that your opponent was merely sitting at the board and did not seem to have asked for advice or anything, it is likely the audience that is doing something wrong. Even if your opponent benefitted from this (which may or may not be the case) there is no punishment listed for him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;What to do in practice&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you hear people discussing the game (especially common with less experienced audiences) give them a hint that they should not do this. A very simple statement should be enough:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Shh, we are still playing&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If this does not help, then the arbiter can warn/remove the audience, but refrain from claiming that your opponent was cheating unless your opponent was a clear active party in this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Precedent&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To help you focus on the game in further situations, I will bring in this unusual anekdote for which I unfortunately do not recall the players name.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A number of years ago a strong player (master/grand master) ended up in a tricky endgame and decided to consult a book about this on the toilet. The arbiter actually caught him, and gave him a warning. Afterwards he apologized and used his newly refreshed knowledge to win the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am not implying that this is normal, but just trying to provide reference for not focussing on trying to claim the win, as this is very rarely given for a first infraction.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14853" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2017-11-17T16:46:58.083" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19191" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19180" CreationDate="2017-11-18T04:43:26.570" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are some thoughts that are well expressed by Annatar that I would like to expand on a little.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess players use the term &quot;sight of the board&quot; as in &quot;he/she has a quick sight of the board&quot; to describe someone who can take in at a single glance&#xA;which pieces are attacked, what pawns are blocked, what forks and skewers are looming. Acquiring a quick sight of the board may be the most valuable advance that a beginner can make.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is widely held that the route to this is the art of &quot;Chunking&quot;, a term used by psychologists for increasing memory or processing by organising the available information into &quot;chunks&quot; of related stuff. That Knight seems to protect my Pawn but it is pinned by his Bishop. The Knight,Pawn and Bishop and whatever the Knight is pinned against form a chunk, and instead of remembering where they each stand, you remember their relationship. I think this is something that you could practice, while playing as well as when studying. It is a separate game of &quot;Spot the chunks&quot;. Eventually the chunks should get bigger, but never too big.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S.An empty square can be part of a chunk!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastActivityDate="2017-11-18T04:43:26.570" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19192" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19188" CreationDate="2017-11-18T15:53:46.867" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;OK I just realized that I upgraded Winboard at the same time and it's actually Winboard that is now adding the &lt;code&gt;!&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;?&lt;/code&gt;.  The meaning seems to be given on &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.gnu.org/software/xboard/engine-intf.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this page&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A question mark as the last character in the pv field should be used to indicate the reported score is from a fail low, and thus represents an upper bound only. Similarly, an exclamation point should be used to indicate a fail high / lower bound.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1539" LastActivityDate="2017-11-18T15:53:46.867" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19195" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19139" CreationDate="2017-11-19T12:43:41.750" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;At a rating of 1400 I wouldn't be worried so much about an opening repertoire because games at your level are very often decided by tactical blunders in the middle game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Consider that if you play an opponent in your rating range s/he will be probably be as lost as you are in complicated and varied openings. If your opponent's rating is much higher than yours, you are likely doomed whatever opening you choose to play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also you and your likely opponents are not (yet, hopefully) sophisticated enough to be capable to exploit fully opening inaccuracies, so sticking to general principles (do not create weaknesses, complete your development, and so on) should be enough to allow you to reach playable positions once the opening phase is over.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Instead of using time to study and memorize opening lines, I would recommend going over fully commented (grand)master games trying to make sense of the players' strategy and studying books about general chess strategy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, improving your endgames technique may be useful in a very concrete way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="446" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-09-18T18:18:09.917" LastActivityDate="2019-09-18T18:18:09.917" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="19196" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-11-19T12:54:34.350" Score="1" ViewCount="203" Body="&lt;p&gt;For some time now, blitz (in any of various formats) has been a very popular format of chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is obvious that in order to play blitz you need to have a chess clock and these have been around for about 150 years.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When did people start playing blitz games? It was right after chess clock were introduced or the habit took a long time to catch?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In particular, does anyone know when is the earliest reference of blitz? Not talking about the game's score or even the players' names, but just the earliest mention of games played at a fast time control.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="446" LastActivityDate="2017-11-19T14:35:37.850" Title="Origin of Blitz" Tags="&lt;history&gt;&lt;blitz&gt;&lt;chess-clocks&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19197" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-11-19T13:39:09.580" Score="-1" ViewCount="788" Body="&lt;p&gt;Please help because I can't find the revision logs on any website.  I want to download version 051117 but I literally cannot get any website to have it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14861" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2017-11-19T22:30:16.567" LastActivityDate="2017-11-19T22:30:16.567" Title="where are the revision logs for asmFish" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;uci&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19198" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19196" CreationDate="2017-11-19T14:35:37.850" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia Fast Chess&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Before the advent of digital clocks, five minutes per side was the&#xA;standard for blitz or speed chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Before the introduction of chess clocks in the mid-1950s chess club &amp;quot;rapid transit&amp;quot; tournaments had a referee who every ten seconds called out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Washington Divan (2445&#xA;15th St. NW) had regular weekly games and used a special clock that&#xA;beeped every ten seconds to indicate the time to move. Players had to&#xA;use their full ten seconds and move on the bell.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10295" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2017-11-19T14:35:37.850" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19199" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19197" CreationDate="2017-11-19T14:53:36.027" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/lantonov/asmFish&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://github.com/lantonov/asmFish&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;gives you all the revision logs for each and every single commit. The version 051117 is just the latest version registered on 05.11.17.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2017-11-19T14:53:36.027" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19200" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-11-19T15:58:40.713" Score="0" ViewCount="118" Body="&lt;p&gt;For the asmFish 2017 11 05 there is one option as a base bmi2 and popcnt.  What does base mean?  Is it just a weaker version of the correct one or is it the fully capable engine&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/lantonov/asmFish/tree/executables/Windows&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://github.com/lantonov/asmFish/tree/executables/Windows&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14861" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2017-11-19T22:29:46.587" LastActivityDate="2017-11-19T22:29:46.587" Title="What is a base chess engine?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;software&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19202" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19200" CreationDate="2017-11-19T22:29:09.100" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;code&gt;base&lt;/code&gt; version is for everybody, all Windows users. The &lt;code&gt;other&lt;/code&gt; versions are built for specific hardwares, and should outperform the base version if you have the hardware.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Try the &lt;code&gt;bmi2&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;popcnt&lt;/code&gt; versions, if they crash on you fall back to the base version.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2017-11-19T22:29:09.100" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19203" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-11-20T03:38:13.223" Score="5" ViewCount="593" Body="&lt;p&gt;Among the world champions, at least Capablanca and Tal have suggested that chessplayers sit closer to musicians than logicians.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2507" LastEditorUserId="2507" LastEditDate="2018-03-25T07:06:08.357" LastActivityDate="2018-03-25T07:06:08.357" Title="Between chess and music" Tags="&lt;talent&gt;" AnswerCount="10" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19204" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19203" CreationDate="2017-11-20T04:20:27.270" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Mark Taimanov, WC contender in 1971, was a world-class concert pianist.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sVg3MBLU4V8&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Here is a duet he played in 1957&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GpSt-I4WqY&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;One more. I don't know when it was played. This one shows he and his partner playing.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2017-11-20T04:25:35.960" LastActivityDate="2017-11-20T04:25:35.960" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19205" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19203" CreationDate="2017-11-20T13:32:07.147" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Former world champion &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasily_Smyslov#Opera_singer&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Vasily Smyslov&lt;/a&gt; was an opera singer who gave up opera for chess. Judge for yourself how good he was - &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAvrT52VXOI&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAvrT52VXOI&lt;/a&gt; .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More recently (and more mundanely) &lt;a href=&quot;https://vimeo.com/105559532&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Nigel Short on guitar accompanied Elizabeth Paehtz's vocals&lt;/a&gt; at a Kasparov supporters' rally before the 2014 FIDE elections.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2017-11-20T13:32:07.147" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19206" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19203" CreationDate="2017-11-20T15:56:36.363" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Magnus Carlsen can also sing! &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVS-NIkkUrA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVS-NIkkUrA&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3158" LastActivityDate="2017-11-20T15:56:36.363" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19207" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19209" CreationDate="2017-11-20T23:53:09.260" Score="3" ViewCount="671" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the highest number of pieces from one side that can be involved in a checkmate? &amp;quot;Involved in a checkmate&amp;quot; is defined below.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A non-king piece is involved in a checkmate 'if removing it from the checkmate position would change the position to one which is either not checkmate or is illegal'.  The king is involved in a checkmate if it is the only piece of the checkmating side that attacks one of the other king's escape squares.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user11382" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditorDisplayName="user11382" LastEditDate="2021-05-02T04:22:12.703" LastActivityDate="2021-05-02T04:22:12.703" Title="What is the highest number of pieces from one side that can be involved in a checkmate?" Tags="&lt;problems&gt;&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;records&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="19209" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19207" CreationDate="2017-11-21T00:14:57.167" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;My original thought was that the limit was nine pieces; one for each of the 8 squares the king can run to, plus one for check:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;8/2K5/8/3Pk3/2P2PPB/3P2P1/2N5/8 w - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But as someone mentioned in a comment, pieces can become &quot;necessary&quot; even if they aren't controlling one of those squares.  If the black pieces don't have to be &quot;necessary&quot;, then we can have a board where ALL the white pieces are &quot;necessary&quot; to make this be a legal checkmate, although seven of them are just preventing a check.&#xA;The rest do the actual job of checkmate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;3b1q1q/1N2PRQ1/rR3KBr/B4PP1/2Pk1r1b/1P2P1N1/2P2P2/8 b - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastEditorUserId="13565" LastEditDate="2017-11-23T05:55:51.530" LastActivityDate="2017-11-23T05:55:51.530" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19210" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19203" CreationDate="2017-11-21T06:44:45.567" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Perhaps it's because both music and chess requires patience, disciplined work and tons of efforts. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was also an amateur but serious musician and chess player, then I quit both of them for computer engineering. Sad. :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9030" LastActivityDate="2017-11-21T06:44:45.567" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19211" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19212" CreationDate="2017-11-21T11:05:29.857" Score="-2" ViewCount="440" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am looking for good and chess engine for endgame but unfortunately when I test engine with competitive chess players in online,it fails with calculation ability. Please recommend apart from fish family chess engines.Please note I have made ground search in google. thanks for your time&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user12419" LastEditorDisplayName="user12419" LastEditDate="2017-11-21T11:27:00.683" LastActivityDate="2017-11-28T08:50:48.893" Title="Can anyone recommend a free strong and good chess engine for endgame?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19212" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19211" CreationDate="2017-11-21T11:22:46.317" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Stockfish with Syzygy 6-man tablebase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2017-11-21T11:22:46.317" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19213" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19207" CreationDate="2017-11-21T13:59:08.737" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is a solution with all 16 white pieces, all mandatory for checkmate, without promoted units and without needing to protect the white king from checks. If you remove any white piece but the king, the position is still legal but not a checkmate anymore. Moving the wK to a random square (say, h1) would also destroy the mate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;QNr1R1b1/P1BpnP2/3P4/qP4Pr/Rn2kP2/1N4PB/2P2K2/8 w - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Last move is Nc6-b8# or d5-d6#.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastActivityDate="2017-11-21T13:59:08.737" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19216" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14210" CreationDate="2017-11-21T23:27:21.553" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think that all this talk about slow chess allowing one to find &quot;the best move&quot; is nonsense.  Read the book &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thinking,_Fast_and_Slow&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Thinking, Fast and Slow&lt;/a&gt;. I suspect that blitz chess trains one's intuitive chess mind while &quot;slow&quot; chess trains the analytical chess mind.   They're both valuable.   Magnus Carlson says that he always &quot;knows&quot; immediately what his next move should be.  When asked why it then sometimes takes him many minutes to make that move, he smiled and said that he had to analyze the board to prove to himself that this move was indeed the right one.   &quot;Almost always&quot;, he said, &quot;it is.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14882" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-11-22T21:39:23.993" LastActivityDate="2017-11-22T21:39:23.993" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19217" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19218" CreationDate="2017-11-22T09:41:58.917" Score="0" ViewCount="462" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recently copied the following curious position &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/19209/13565&quot;&gt;(from this answer)&lt;/a&gt; to clipboard, and tried pasting it in Droidfish.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;3b1q1q/1N2PRQ1/rR3KBr/B4PP1/2Pk1r1b/1P2P1N1/2P2P2/8 w - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, the situation involved a checkmate and when I tried pasting it, Droidfish displayed an error message (&lt;strong&gt;King capture possible&lt;/strong&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;My question&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So can't I load the FEN of any position involving a checkmate in Droidfish?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13565" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2017-11-22T10:39:09.297" Title="Can one import FENs of positions involving checkmate into Droidfish?" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;fen&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19218" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19217" CreationDate="2017-11-22T10:39:09.297" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Apparently the FEN is wrong. In the position it should be black to move next, so in the FEN there should be a &quot;b&quot; instead of &quot;w&quot;. The correct FEN would be: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3b1q1q/1N2PRQ1/rR3KBr/B4PP1/2Pk1r1b/1P2P1N1/2P2P2/8 b - -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2017-11-22T10:39:09.297" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19219" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19220" CreationDate="2017-11-22T14:01:47.580" Score="2" ViewCount="542" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm looking for a site that provides &lt;strong&gt;well-annotated openings&lt;/strong&gt;, giving at least the first 15-20 moves of major openings and allowing me to explore their main variations and lines (by clicking on the relevant moves on an online chessboard).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, if I am learning Queen's Gambit Declined, I'd expect it to display something along the lines of this (more detailed and expertly annotated, of course, and with a diagram)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1. d4&lt;/strong&gt; A popular  opening move, which gives White a solid position. &lt;strong&gt;1. ... d5&lt;/strong&gt; Black's reply is quite common, and preserves the symmetry of the situation. &lt;strong&gt;2. c4&lt;/strong&gt; This is the Queen's gambit - if accepted, it can provide White great momentum and development. &lt;strong&gt;2. ...e6&lt;/strong&gt; Black turns down the gambit  and prefers to keep the position interesting. &lt;em&gt;2. ...dxc4&lt;/em&gt; is not really got for Black as White can get the pawn back soon by [sequence of moves] followed by a bishop move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And if I play &lt;strong&gt;2. ...c6&lt;/strong&gt;, I'd expect something like this (but again more detailed and with a diagram to help.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;2. ...c6&lt;/strong&gt; This changes the opening to the Slav defense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;My question&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there any site online that provides &lt;strong&gt;detailed, annotated openings at least 15-20 moves deep&lt;/strong&gt; and allows me to explore &lt;strong&gt;variations and lines (also&#xA;annotated)&lt;/strong&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Note&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The site needn't focus on other parts of the game. I'm focusing on the opening for now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13565" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2017-11-22T14:12:57.003" Title="Sites which provide annotated openings (preferably interactive)" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;online&gt;&lt;annotation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19220" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19219" CreationDate="2017-11-22T14:12:57.003" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Chess_Opening_Theory&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikibook Chess Opening Theory&lt;/a&gt; has similar aims but I don't think it quite meets all of your requirements. Still, it's the website closest to meeting them that I can think of, so I hope it helps. Being a wiki, it's still evolving and of course one can always wonder about the expertise of the authors.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12523" LastActivityDate="2017-11-22T14:12:57.003" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19221" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19203" CreationDate="2017-11-22T23:32:14.207" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Judging if a move fits the position correctly or goes along well with the flow of the game, is likely similar to judging what note to play in the middle of a song. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9627" LastActivityDate="2017-11-22T23:32:14.207" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19222" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19180" CreationDate="2017-11-23T00:36:12.973" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are a number of ways to study, the most efficient route isn't always the one most people can commit to though. It's best to do something you can sustain consistently for a long time. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Generally chess study can be broken up into sub categories.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can solve puzzles. Generally tactics puzzles are best since they have an easy to understand answer, gaining material or checkmate for example. 303 chess tactics and 303 tricky checkmates both worked very well for me when I was weaker. There are also some sites with free tactics like chesstempo online. Repeatedly going through the books can be valuable but after 4-5 times it'll start having less efficiency in improving your game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's necessary to know some basic endgames and how to checkmate with only your king and a rook or a queen as a beginner, and deeper understanding of endgames will only improve your play. Silman's Complete Endgame Course is really all you'll need for endgame until a very high level and it's quite readable. There are probably some YouTube videos you could find for more advise about endgames if you wanted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For openings there are lots of books, but they are way too high level and hard to understand for a beginner. It's better to search something like general opening principles on youtube. Once you've learned the general principles you can maybe look up a couple youtube videos on an opening your interested in. However I'll warn you opening study is the biggest trap in chess, efficiency wise. It's fun, you get positive feedback by playing games and recognizing what's going on the first few moves, but at max it will only get you a slightly better position than using general principles, and any particular variation doesn't have a high chance of coming up in your game. Even if you get the slightly better position you still have to play a strong middle game and endgame to win. Also other players will deviate from &quot;theory&quot; and then you can't use what you learned.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Middle game study, this can be broken down a bit into tactics and strategy, but the puzzles take care of the tactics. Fir strategy there are numerous books, but the one that worked the best for me was the Amateurs Mind by Jeremy Silman. It's not a perfect book but covers important concepts like maximizing your pieces, restricting your opponents, timing and gets a little bit into pawn structures. His thinking method isn't necessary but it can help until you nail down the knowledge into your subconcious. The best way to learn middle games is to study annotated master and grandmaster games. It's challenging though because they are hard to understand until you are a strong player. Still even if you don't understand seeing various piece maneuvers and the flow of the game will improve you. Also I'm sure there's a lot on YouTube about this. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now as far as playing is concerned, I'd suggest one 10+ minute game a day. Probably lichess, chesstempo, or chess dot com would be the place to play, I'd recommend lichess. After your game look it over and think about where you went wrong and what you could have done better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To get the very fastest improvement it's best to hire a coach, but that can be pricey. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9627" LastEditorUserId="9627" LastEditDate="2017-12-01T00:50:07.140" LastActivityDate="2017-12-01T00:50:07.140" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19223" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="270" CreationDate="2017-11-23T00:37:01.457" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The White bishop is whites best piece after the queen as it’s the active bishop, and can also fianchetto the king side.  In which case can be worth up to 4.5points.  Also, Fischer has elected to capture a bishop rather than a rook, such is its strength esp at defending the king.  Likewise with the black side, the white bishop is often referred to as the problem bishop often getting blocked in or not being developed to a good square.  A lot depends a lot of a lot of things, I'm a very open player, and I protect my white bishop, its worth more than a knight, bishops are like my children and the white one my favourite. ;-)  watch some of Fischer's games, he is the main exponent of the white bishop and has even traded his queen for the opponents bishop! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14888" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T17:30:49.023" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T17:30:49.023" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="19224" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-11-23T05:41:48.340" Score="2" ViewCount="366" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am referring to main lines where the pawn sacrifice is accepted.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2017-11-25T08:13:18.987" Title="What is considered the current main line for Black against the Smith-Morra gambit?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;smith-morra-gambit&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19225" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19203" CreationDate="2017-11-23T06:34:59.973" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5bb6e0gFdS4&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5bb6e0gFdS4&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/extra/capablanca6.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/extra/capablanca6.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Instead of mathematicians I refer to logicians, so that I can imply the scientific mind per se. As for musicians, chessplayers make a difference through composing and performing at the same time, with the possible exception of opening theoreticians.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2507" LastEditorUserId="2507" LastEditDate="2017-11-23T06:42:40.460" LastActivityDate="2017-11-23T06:42:40.460" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19226" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19224" CreationDate="2017-11-23T09:06:19.863" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Most reference books will give the main line as&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1. e4 c5 2. d4 cxd4 3. c3 dxc3 4. Nxc3 Nc6 5.Bc4 e6 6.Nf3 d6 7.0-0 Nf6 8.Qe2 0-0 9.Rd1 e5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Followed by either 10.Be3, 10.h3, 10.Bg5, 10.a3 or even 10.b4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They usually evaluate this 'main line' as a dynamic equality.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Repertoire books often offer other ideas for Black (with...g6, or ...Ne7, or ...Bb4, or ...a6 and ...b5, or 3..e5 or refusing the gambit right away).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]    &#xA;1. e4 c5 2. d4 cxd4 3. c3 dxc3 4. Nxc3 Nc6 5.Bc4 e6 6.Nf3 d6 7.O-O Nf6 8.Qe2 Be7 9.Rd1 e5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastEditorUserId="14079" LastEditDate="2017-11-23T09:20:35.687" LastActivityDate="2017-11-23T09:20:35.687" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19228" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19203" CreationDate="2017-11-23T15:59:45.127" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It was Grandmaster Siegbert Tarrasch who wrote, &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Siegbert_Tarrasch&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&quot;Chess like love, like music, has the power to make men happy.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many, not all, good chess players have a musical bent because of the &quot;analogies&quot; between the two.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2017-11-23T15:59:45.127" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19230" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13752" CreationDate="2017-11-23T18:18:05.277" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Xiangqi is less &quot;connected&quot; than western chess. For instance, the five pawns cover only every &lt;em&gt;other&lt;/em&gt; file; they're not side by side. There is no &quot;queen&quot; that unifies both lateral and diagonal movement. And the defensive pieces are either limited to the palace (advisors) or to patrolling the surround countryside (elephants); they cannot be used to help attack the opposing king. Lastly, there is no pawn promotion, which means that it is hard to win if too many pieces have been exchanged.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because of the above &quot;disconnects,&quot; it is harder to  construct viable winning combinations, or even winning positions than in western chess. In the latter, for instance, with queening, the win of a pawn in an otherwise level position means winning the game. That's not necessarily so in Chinese chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2017-11-23T18:18:05.277" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19231" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8229" CreationDate="2017-11-23T19:24:24.123" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;In your question you are conflating two different things. The first thing described is your &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.chessbase.com/post/the-magical-che-experiment&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;first link about Derren Brown&lt;/a&gt; in which he plays as white game A, as black game B, and then, copies every move his opponent makes as white in game B, into game A, and vice versa exchanging colors. this effectively makes Derren just a &quot;telephone&quot; transmitting the moves between boards A and B, so, those 2 guys are playing a game between themselves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a catch: While your clock in the game you are &lt;em&gt;color&lt;/em&gt; sorta emulates the game where your oponent is &lt;em&gt;color&lt;/em&gt;, in reality it takes you some time, to react to the move played by &lt;em&gt;color&lt;/em&gt; and trasmit it into the other board. So you have to be quick, or else, you'll loose some seconds each move, wich if time trouble comes could be lethal, but if there is no time trouble for any of the oponents, then it's all good. So time control matters in this scam.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is, and should be, highly illegal and frowned upon. Because, for example, rating don't mean anything anymore: if you can find 2 oponents stronger than you, you are guaranteed, without even thinking or investing ANY effort, to have a score 1/2 in this match. Then, your rating goes up undeservedly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The second thing you described is copying a game that has already had happened in the past. That is totally legal and even good. Top players &quot;replay&quot; opening moves others did in literally all the games, begginers copy the scholars mate, etc. To punish this would be to punish knowledge, which goes against chess wisdom/philosophy. Also note at some point is extremely likely your oponent will deviate soon and it won't be anymore possible to copy anymore. Note this is called: &quot;getting out of book&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10601" LastActivityDate="2017-11-23T19:24:24.123" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19233" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19234" CreationDate="2017-11-24T08:10:37.807" Score="9" ViewCount="2674" Body="&lt;p&gt;I use Arena GUI together with stockfish in engine games. I want to download a 6-piece tablebase but that is just a lot of work (and perhaps unnecessary). If I download the tablebase (syzygy), does stockfish work with it or just waits for the board to have 6-pieces and then the tablebase makes its moves?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Here is what I mean in more detail&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Stockfish working with the tablebase&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I assume I have the following position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Note: currently I am not talking about the best moves, just an example)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;Computer Chess Game&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Stockfish 8&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Wais Kamal&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[SetUp &quot;1&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;2k4b/3r4/8/8/1Q1q4/8/4R3/2KB4 w - - 0 1 &quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Qxd4 Rxd4 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stockfish consults the tablebase about what happens after Qxd4 Rxd4 (without continuing to evaluate the rest of the line). If this line is winning it goes for it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Stockfish working alone&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stockfish continues to play the game until six pieces are left on the board, then the tablebase makes the moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which one of these actually takes place?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13544" LastActivityDate="2019-08-24T19:59:23.213" Title="Do Stockfish and the tablebase work together or independently?" Tags="&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;tablebases&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19234" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19233" CreationDate="2017-11-24T08:19:15.957" Score="16" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;play the game until six pieces&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stockfish doesn't do that, that's not what tablebase is for. Briefly, tablebase boosts engine search well &lt;strong&gt;before&lt;/strong&gt; six-men position reached on the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's do an exercise, add the board 5 pieces. Now you have 10 pieces on the board, and it's not something you can find in any tablebase. However, during the engine search &lt;strong&gt;whenever Stockfish trades down to 6 pieces&lt;/strong&gt;, it can instantly use the tablebase information. The tablebase information gives Stockfish whether's the position is a win/loss/drawn without ever going down to anything like 5 pieces. Therefore, the search is faster and more efficient.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The relevant code is &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/blob/master/src/search.cpp&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/blob/master/src/search.cpp&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;// Step 4a. Tablebase probe&#xA;if (!rootNode &amp;amp;&amp;amp; TB::Cardinality)&#xA;{&#xA;    int piecesCount = pos.count&amp;lt;ALL_PIECES&amp;gt;();&#xA;&#xA;    if (    piecesCount &amp;lt;= TB::Cardinality&#xA;        &amp;amp;&amp;amp; (piecesCount &amp;lt;  TB::Cardinality || depth &amp;gt;= TB::ProbeDepth)&#xA;        &amp;amp;&amp;amp;  pos.rule50_count() == 0&#xA;        &amp;amp;&amp;amp; !pos.can_castle(ANY_CASTLING))&#xA;    {&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;TB::Cardinality&lt;/code&gt; is by default 6. Stockfish checks how many pieces, if it's no more than 6 it consults the tablebase information. Otherwise, regular search. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="19935" LastEditDate="2019-08-24T19:59:23.213" LastActivityDate="2019-08-24T19:59:23.213" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="19235" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-11-24T21:11:37.117" Score="3" ViewCount="333" Body="&lt;p&gt;I read in a book (I no longer remember what book) that there are a few traps for White in the &lt;code&gt;1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 d5 4.Bf4&lt;/code&gt; variation vs the Grunfeld, and that the line is somehow popular among GMs, Black has no easy equality, etc. etc. Is anyone aware of what a few of these tricks / traps for White might be?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example please notice GM Kavalek's comments after Bf4 in this article:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.huffingtonpost.com/lubomir-kavalek/the-most-treacherous-defe_b_991426.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.huffingtonpost.com/lubomir-kavalek/the-most-treacherous-defe_b_991426.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-11-24T22:14:01.587" LastActivityDate="2018-01-24T09:03:21.073" Title="Traps and tricks for White in the 4.Bf4 variation vs the Grunfeld" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;grunfeld-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19236" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19235" CreationDate="2017-11-25T05:55:51.353" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BX9Ax29jZ1k&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BX9Ax29jZ1k&lt;/a&gt; is video 1 of 4 explaining this system.  Mike Virgo has the links to the rest of the series.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;One of the comments is:  &quot;It is a good video, however, Roman makes one mistake. at 15:45, he forgot to place pawn on h3 back to h2.﻿&quot;  Many minor errors show in most chess videos, so ensure you understand the moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12449" LastActivityDate="2017-11-25T05:55:51.353" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19237" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19235" CreationDate="2017-11-25T07:49:24.503" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are always tricks and traps, in every possible chess opening, not just the Gruenfeld.&#xA;It has to be noted, though, that 4.cd5 Nd5 5.e4 is much stronger than Bf4, white has tremendous performance with that at the highest level, namely the TCEC top engine chess competition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From what one might infer the Gruenfeld is an altogether dubious opening with perfect play(not so many KID lines).&#xA;Of course, if you miss the best continuations, the Gruenfeld might also score well for black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14893" LastActivityDate="2017-11-25T07:49:24.503" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19238" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19180" CreationDate="2017-11-25T08:00:36.527" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can only learn better chess from a teacher.&#xA;The better the teacher, the faster you will learn.&#xA;Nowadays, the strongest(and freely available at that) chess tutor is Stockfish, so just install some chess software, install Stockfish, and start playing/analysing games with it, while looking at its output. This will allow you to understand which moves are good and bad, and why some moves are to be avoided.&#xA;Take as many moves back as you wish, check different lines, this will only be of use.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Second good thing to do is to browse master games, browse as many as possible.&#xA;Of course, don't study the games of weaker players, they will only teach you bad/imperfect moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But before all, you should learn chess notation, no way around this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is no way to magically master the game in a few weeks, but you can significantly shorten the learning time by referring to stronger/more experienced tutors.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14893" LastActivityDate="2017-11-25T08:00:36.527" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19239" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19203" CreationDate="2017-11-25T08:08:07.957" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Every talent you have/learn develops also your chess skills, as it develops your brain.&#xA;For example, I am not a musician, but having studied 5 or 6 foreign languages definitely helps a lot with recognising patterns on the board.&#xA;Fischer said that chess has more in common with good memory rather than logical thought, but this is only true in half.&#xA;The human brain is like a computer, the faster processor/brain it has, the larger memory it needs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But that is all too philosophical...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14893" LastActivityDate="2017-11-25T08:08:07.957" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19241" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="270" CreationDate="2017-11-25T08:23:56.217" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are not such stats.&#xA;Komodo did some tests, showing better relative performance when the c1(dark-square) bishop is off the board, rather than removing the f1(light-square) bishop. But the difference was rather insignificant.&#xA;So it depends very much on the type of chess positions played.&#xA;I am not certain about attacking(never checked that, but in many positions the dark-square bishop is definitely stronger), but what concerns general chess play, kingside fianchetto(g3 and Bg2) is almost always the best possible opening setup, in a very wide range of openings, so keeping this bishop should be good.&#xA;The reason is of course such a bishop strengthens the king shelter, while at the same time x-ray-attacking a number of opponent pieces along the long diagonal(Nc6, Ra8, etc.) In comparison, a bishop fianchettoed on the queen side(Bb2) does attack opponent pieces on the long diagonal, but does not provide shelter to the friendly king, so it performs less convincingly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14893" LastActivityDate="2017-11-25T08:23:56.217" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19242" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-11-25T11:24:16.737" Score="0" ViewCount="216" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm a quiet and positional player rated in the 1400's and play exclusively online correspondence chess. I always play D4 with white as first move and usually C4 after that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One opening I come into quite often is D4 D5 C4 NF6&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After this what is the most solid play for white to get a strategic advantage for long term correspondence play?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14897" LastActivityDate="2017-11-25T17:48:14.957" Title="D4 D5 C4 NF6 Continuation" Tags="&lt;positional-play&gt;&lt;correspondence-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2017-11-25T20:03:51.557" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19244" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19246" CreationDate="2017-11-25T17:25:44.030" Score="5" ViewCount="1361" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am using the Arena GUI to run Stockfish. I set up the following position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;r2q1rk1/2p1bppp/p1n5/1p1pP3/3Pn3/1P3N1P/1P3PP1/RNBQR1K1 w - - 0 11&quot;]&#xA;[SetUp &quot;1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At a search depth of 16 half moves stockfish gives the following analysis:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Nc3 f5 exf6 Nxf6 Bg5 h6 Qe2 Qd6 Qe6+ Kh8 Qxd6 cxd6 Bf4 b4 Na4 Nd7 Bg3 Rc8 Rc1 Kh7 Re6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As it stands, the line above consists of 21 half moves. I thought it was a problem with the GUI so I ran the same position into stockfish from the command line and again it gives a line with 21 moves. How is this possible? Is it a configuration from the engine to search at a depth higher than the specified?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13544" LastActivityDate="2017-11-25T22:47:52.857" Title="Stockfish is cheating?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;depth&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19245" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19242" CreationDate="2017-11-25T17:48:14.957" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This opening &lt;strong&gt;1.d4 d5 2.d4 Nf6&lt;/strong&gt; is known as the &lt;em&gt;Marshall Defense&lt;/em&gt; of the Queen's Gambit Declined.  White can get an advantage with &lt;strong&gt;3.cxd5&lt;/strong&gt; resulting in an advantage, such as &lt;strong&gt;3...Nxd5 4.Nf3 Bf5 5.Nbd2 Nf6 6.Qb3 Qc8 7.g3&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However a lot of those lines involve wide open tactical play, and you are looking for a quiet positional alternative. Therefore simply &lt;strong&gt;3.Nc3&lt;/strong&gt; when Black can choose between several different openings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The main line Queen's Gambit Declined with &lt;strong&gt;3...e6 4.Bg5 Be7 5.Nf3&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The Slav with &lt;strong&gt;3...c6&lt;/strong&gt; can get tactical, so maybe play &lt;strong&gt;4.e3 Bf5 5.Nf3 e6&lt;/strong&gt; when &lt;strong&gt;6.Nh4&lt;/strong&gt; is popular, to get the advantage of two Bishops. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The Queen's Gambit Accepted &lt;strong&gt;3...dxc4 4.e3&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;strong&gt;4.e4&lt;/strong&gt; and you should easily regain the pawn.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The Grünfeld Defence &lt;strong&gt;3...g6&lt;/strong&gt; can also get quite tactical. &lt;strong&gt;4.Bf4 Bg7 5.e3 O-O 6.Rc1&lt;/strong&gt; is one way to steer the game away in a quieter direction.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7928" LastActivityDate="2017-11-25T17:48:14.957" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19246" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19244" CreationDate="2017-11-25T22:47:52.857" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Computers are really stupid, they can't evaluate a position that contains exchange threats.  When the program reaches the expected depth and there are exchanges present in the position, the computer performs a Static Exchange Evaluation, which is hard to program correctly, or it extends the search depth until the exchanges and other factors are eliminated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12449" LastActivityDate="2017-11-25T22:47:52.857" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19248" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14210" CreationDate="2017-11-26T07:23:58.893" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Because in blitz you (mostly) reproduce what you already know in terms of chess knowledge and don't learn anything else.&#xA;Things could be learned best in analysis mode.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14893" LastActivityDate="2017-11-26T07:23:58.893" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19249" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6474" CreationDate="2017-11-26T10:31:14.177" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I usually answer 1... c6 which is a pretty good option if White continues with 2.Bb2. then game might continue with 2... a5 3.a3 axb4 4.axb4 Rxa1 5.Rxa1 Qb6 and now White has to make a choice how to defend the b4-pawn. I think that his best option is to give this pawn immediately with something like b5 or e3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14467" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-11-26T11:12:50.750" LastActivityDate="2017-11-26T11:12:50.750" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19250" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19203" CreationDate="2017-11-26T15:35:53.987" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The 18th century French player &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fran%C3%A7ois-Andr%C3%A9_Danican_Philidor&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Philidor&lt;/a&gt; was a renown opera composer as well as the best chess player of his day. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to Jewish legend King Solomon, whose father was King David the great psalmist, was the inventor of the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14902" LastActivityDate="2017-11-26T15:35:53.987" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19251" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15356" CreationDate="2017-11-27T12:34:07.853" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think SmallChess is right and the Chess GUI is not supposed to send any more moves to a UCI Engine when the game is over by definition of UCI.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;UCI Engines do not analyse Chess Games, but only single Chess Positions, so saving, storing or analysing a complete Chess Game is up to the Chess UI and not the UCI Engine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14909" LastActivityDate="2017-11-27T12:34:07.853" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19252" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6474" CreationDate="2017-11-27T17:48:20.937" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;1.b4 is also known as the Sokolsky opening,and Sokolsky wrote a good book on it. It used to be thought that ..e5,2.Bb2 Bxb4 was the line that Black should NOT play, because it gave up the center. I used to play 1.b4 then, and got good results. I stopped (except for occasional outings) when it became generally known that ..e5 etc was a good line. Maybe you should play that, but it isn't quite as easy as people are saying. You have given up the center for piece activity, and you need to make energetic use of those pieces. If that does not appeal, then try a reversed Kings Indian Attack. (..e5,d6,Nf6,g6,Bg7)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The 1..c6 line is very interesting, but nothing for White to be afraid of after 2.c4!, eg 2..Qb6 3.Qb3!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastActivityDate="2017-11-27T17:48:20.937" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19253" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2017-11-27T17:59:08.733" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-11-27T17:59:08.733" LastActivityDate="2017-11-27T17:59:08.733" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19254" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2017-11-27T17:59:08.733" Score="0" Body="Questions related to the American chess grandmaster Bobby Fischer (Robert James Fischer, 1943 – 2008), who became world champion in 1972 and never defended his title." OwnerUserId="10867" LastEditorUserId="10867" LastEditDate="2017-11-28T13:35:40.117" LastActivityDate="2017-11-28T13:35:40.117" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19255" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2017-11-27T18:00:18.257" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-11-27T18:00:18.257" LastActivityDate="2017-11-27T18:00:18.257" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19256" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2017-11-27T18:00:18.257" Score="0" Body="Questions related to the Russian chess grandmaster Boris Spassky (born 1937), who was world champion from 1969 to 1972." OwnerUserId="10867" LastEditorUserId="10867" LastEditDate="2017-11-28T13:35:30.567" LastActivityDate="2017-11-28T13:35:30.567" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19257" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2017-11-27T18:02:18.360" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-11-27T18:02:18.360" LastActivityDate="2017-11-27T18:02:18.360" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19258" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2017-11-27T18:02:18.360" Score="0" Body="Questions related to the Soviet-born Hungarian chess grandmaster Andor Lilienthal (1911 – 2010). He belonged to the original group of grandmasters awarded the title by FIDE in 1950." OwnerUserId="10867" LastEditorUserId="10867" LastEditDate="2017-11-27T19:06:52.517" LastActivityDate="2017-11-27T19:06:52.517" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19259" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2017-11-27T18:04:45.743" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-11-27T18:04:45.743" LastActivityDate="2017-11-27T18:04:45.743" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19260" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2017-11-27T18:04:45.743" Score="0" Body="Questions related to the German chess grandmaster Friedrich Sämisch (1896 – 1975). Two opening lines are named after him: the Sämisch King's Indian and the Sämisch Nimzo-Indian." OwnerUserId="10867" LastEditorUserId="10867" LastEditDate="2017-11-27T19:04:00.197" LastActivityDate="2017-11-27T19:04:00.197" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19261" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6474" CreationDate="2017-11-28T08:43:27.573" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the 1.b4 e5 line, Stockfish reaches some 30-40 centipawns advantage for black, so this could hardly be an opening to recommend, bearing in mind that&#xA;it is &lt;strong&gt;white&lt;/strong&gt; who should have the edge in the opening.&#xA;If you want a quiet refutation, then just play 1...g6 and then fianchetto your king side bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14893" LastActivityDate="2017-11-28T08:43:27.573" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19262" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19211" CreationDate="2017-11-28T08:50:48.893" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Current top engines almost have no problems with endgames, with the exception&#xA;of some fortresses, so either one of the best 3 will do just fine.&#xA;Years ago it was possible to beat top chess engines even in simple pawn endgames, but not anymore.&#xA;Tablebases improve engine play with a small amount of elos, depending on time control and the set used. 5-men would add +5-15 elos, 6-men up to 30, so this is still something, but nothing to marvel at.&#xA;7-men would do fine job, but still only commercially available.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14893" LastActivityDate="2017-11-28T08:50:48.893" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19263" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14355" CreationDate="2017-11-28T10:04:28.613" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes! &lt;strong&gt;Lucas chess&lt;/strong&gt; gives the evaluation for all the moves you play. Download latest version.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14915" LastActivityDate="2017-11-28T10:04:28.613" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19265" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6093" CreationDate="2017-11-28T12:50:21.023" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Check out &lt;a href=&quot;http://chess555.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://chess555.com&lt;/a&gt; . It also includes Openings Explorer and you can get games for any position up to move 20.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14919" LastActivityDate="2017-11-28T12:50:21.023" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19266" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18810" CreationDate="2017-11-28T15:35:23.527" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;No starting position can have an advantage for black, but it may be that white may not be able to establish a positional advantage like in standard chess. Also, any attack that black can do can be executed by white also (or if not at least stopped by correct play).&lt;br&gt;&#xA;As for zugzwang, just as Evargalo said, it just not possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I play 960 quite a bit (though it may affect my opening) and have not encountered any such position. Therefore, it probably is just a myth that such positions exist.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14471" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-11-28T16:42:32.313" LastActivityDate="2017-11-28T16:42:32.313" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19267" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19280" CreationDate="2017-11-28T17:59:17.243" Score="1" ViewCount="265" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the below position, White chose to activate his Knight with Ne4. Of course, he will have to play g4 to prevent …f5, and that requires the moves Kh1 and Rg1. These were the moves played in the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;r2qrbk1/1pp3pp/2n1bp2/p2np3/8/PP1PPN2/1BQNBPPP/R4RK1 w - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the game, Black played Qd7-f7 and Rad8. Although this does put pressure on the b3 and d3 pawns, it cannot be sufficient to warrant a capture. This also weakens Black's hold on the a5 pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Instead, Black can play Nb6-d7-c5, attacking b3 and -- more importantly -- d3. This also places the knight on a better square, as it was doing nothing on d5. An alternative is also Nb6-d7 and f5-f4. What recourse does White have here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13147" LastEditorUserId="13147" LastEditDate="2017-11-28T18:31:30.943" LastActivityDate="2017-11-30T13:55:57.157" Title="Why wasn't this strategy chosen?" Tags="&lt;positional-play&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19268" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="239" CreationDate="2017-11-28T18:24:48.320" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The knight pin by Bg4 is annoying. Playing h3 costs a tempo in an open game. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13147" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2018-12-30T11:21:11.147" LastActivityDate="2018-12-30T11:21:11.147" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="19270" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12764" CreationDate="2017-11-28T20:08:20.587" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Fritz 16 is now available.  I have Fritz 15 and do not plan on getting 16.  You should buy the version you can afford, but Fritz is a great learning tool, be warned if you're not computer savvy Fritz is a difficult program.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14219" LastActivityDate="2017-11-28T20:08:20.587" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19271" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19203" CreationDate="2017-11-28T21:06:05.833" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;For the most part I see logic mainly used in chess theory, it can elaborate why a certain move can be beneficial even when it would be implemented beyond your calculations, such as color affinity, but that's about the only part that takes intense logic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The rest of the game has aesthetic appeal, I always imagine I am painting a picture, where each major piece is a different element and while certain art styles may incorporate different elements, such as abstract vs realism,the knight is harder to predict while the bishop is sharp and succinct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I haven't researched, but I feel it's a general consensus among many chess players that the game has an aesthetic appeal. You often hear players call checkmates &quot;beautiful&quot; or certain plays amusing and part of this may be predictability. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In music a strong move is to create something unexpected, like you can create a gentle increasing rhythm, which is anticipated by the opponent and in the song abruptly change with a sharp strike of the violin leading into a face paced &quot;attack&quot; with greater speed and intensity. Of course certain musicians can predict a shift so you work to create a melody that has balance, flow, and unexpected turns to wow the audience. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This beautiful rhythm, that is a game of chess, has personality, flow, direction, even logic, as in chess theory, becomes a mature, beautiful aspect of the piece, where the famed melodies, such as immortal game, are replayed and remembered. And while this may not explain it in the most fundamental way, I feel these are easiest to relate to.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Haven't you ever got a bit excited, humored, or had a spine tingling moment in chess? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12876" LastActivityDate="2017-11-28T21:06:05.833" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19272" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19273" CreationDate="2017-11-28T21:12:52.850" Score="5" ViewCount="919" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have a bunch of chess books that have been given to me on my favorite openings. I usually try to do a few games from them after I play my daily games and go over how I could improve with a chess engine. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However I feel like I am not getting the most from the books, and my coach hasn't really helped me yet understand how best to use them. Keep in mind I'm still a beginner, I'm hovering in the 800-900 range.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It comes down to I think a few things I don't get:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Many books I have just jump straight into games and talk about this or that variation, or another game, or their thoughts on the move. None of them discuss the ideas behind why those moves are good ideas, which I think is key in helping me understand. For example I watched a video of Karpov explaining some stuff on the Queens gambit that fundamentally improved my play because I was told the motivation behind the ideas. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I only have one program or chessboard available to me at any given time. Most books talk about variations &lt;em&gt;in the middle of discussing a mainline&lt;/em&gt;. This is hard for me because I follow that line, then have to reset my board to follow the mainline until the next variation. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How do you guys handle these two problems? I feel like it's just like math. Once I learned to read a math text I got so much more out of it and became better. I think I can greatly improve my performance by understanding how to study a chess book effectively. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user14142" LastActivityDate="2019-12-16T21:34:04.810" Title="Getting the most out of chess books" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;learning&gt;&lt;books&gt;&lt;study&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19273" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19272" CreationDate="2017-11-28T21:26:28.130" Score="5" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;None of them discuss the ideas behind why those moves are good ideas,&#xA;  which I think is key in helping me understand&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's correct, the explanations are key. Opening books that don't give the ideas behind the moves along with typical middlegame plans are almost worthless. You might as well throw them away. If they don't give much more than just the moves and evaluations then you would be better off with one of the many databases.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Most books talk about variations in the middle of discussing a&#xA;  mainline. This is hard for me because I follow that line, then have to&#xA;  reset my board to follow the mainline until the next variation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's very conscientious of you. Most of us would follow the variation in our heads partly because we can but mostly because we are lazy. Once you get good you will be able to do this too. If you become very good indeed then you will be able to play the whole game in your head.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2017-11-28T21:26:28.130" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19275" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19267" CreationDate="2017-11-28T22:56:56.543" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;White can play d4! And in the line you gave with Ne4, the idea of preparing g4 is not the only plan.  The knight can head to c5 himself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2017-11-28T22:56:56.543" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19276" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19272" CreationDate="2017-11-29T08:42:18.417" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can use software like &lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.petero.droidfish&amp;amp;hl=en_GB&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Droidfish&lt;/a&gt; (on Android) or &lt;a href=&quot;http://scidvspc.sourceforge.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;SCID vs PC&lt;/a&gt; to record multiple variations without losing your place. Another upside of this is that you can then store the variations as a PGN for later study and/or practice with a PGN player like &lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.pereira.ichess&amp;amp;hl=en_GB&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;iChess&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1816" LastActivityDate="2017-11-29T08:42:18.417" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19277" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19267" CreationDate="2017-11-29T09:30:30.473" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is not NN-NN, but Fischer-Andersson from 1970.&#xA;Fischer played Kg1 here.&#xA;The position is complex, but white definitely has the afdvantage due to his better/more compact pawn structure, although the pawns are unadvanced.&#xA;I guess Fischer chose the best plan, however, in general, the Nimzovich-Larsen Attack, starting with 1.b3, is a bit dubious.&#xA;In above game, Andersson played 3...Nf6, which is inaccurate, black should have continued with 3...g6 and then Bg7 instead, to neutralise the b2 bishop.&#xA;After played Nf6 and Be7, the white bishop on b2 already targets the knight on f6 and the g7 shelter square. In case the black bishop had been developed on g7, all those threats would not have existed.&#xA;Another very salient feature of above-posted position is that white has 2 central pawns, on e and d files, while black only 1, on the e file. Central pawns are very valuable, so the d3 white pawn is very strong, although unadvanced.&#xA;Andersson later made a positional blunder with d7-d5, and Fischer captured cd5, but that was theory at that time and maybe still is. Top GMs made an awful lot of positional mistakes at those times...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14893" LastActivityDate="2017-11-29T09:30:30.473" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19279" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="239" CreationDate="2017-11-29T09:43:42.793" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is more or less equal, so not good for white, who is striving for an advantage.&#xA;The c pawns are doubled, however, black has the bishop pair.&#xA;A doubled pawn is worth somewhere 25cps(centipawns, 1 hundredth of a pawn), while the bishop pair 50cps on average, double that, so the trade on c6 was not good at all, the white advantage evaporated.&#xA;Black is fully ok in above position, unless his opponent is Fischer, who has won many great games with the Exchange.&#xA;If white does not trade queens with d4, the best black plan is to play Qd6 and castle long, then start a king side pawn storm with f7-f6, g7-g5, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14893" LastActivityDate="2017-11-29T09:43:42.793" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19280" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19267" CreationDate="2017-11-29T10:26:58.190" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The game you refer to is &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1019452&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Bobby-Fischer - Ulf Andersson, Siegen 1970&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is famous for Fischer introducing the impressive plan Kh1,Rg1,g4,Rg3,Rag1 that has often been used since in hedgehog position, mainly for Black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;White chose to activate his Knight with Ne4. Of course, he will have to play g4 to prevent …f5&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Actually ...f5 is pretty hard for Black to engineer in that kind of position: he has to prevent Neg5 and Nc5, to provide support for his Pe5, and he won't be threatening ...e4 nor ...f4 any time soon. Note that the Re8-Bf8 dispositif is better suited for queenside play while keeping a solid f6-e5 center, the plans would be different in a position with Bb6 and Rf8 for instance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Fischer's g2-g4 is actually is much deeper plan than just securing the Ne4: it more generally grab space on the kingside (e4 but also f5 for a Knight, g3 for a rook) and threaten g4-g5 at a suitable moment to open the long diagonal for the Bb2 and the g-file for the rooks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Black can play Nb6-d7-c5, attacking b3 and -- more importantly -- d3. This also places the knight on a better square, as it was doing nothing on d5.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is reasonnable enough, but White can hold on b3 and d3 without too much trouble. In later years, Qb1-Bd1-Bc2 would even become fashionable, even if it probably wasn't in Fischer's mind back in 1970. This regrouping secures both pawns and adds pressure on the diagonals toward the kingside when the game opens up, most often with d3-d4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Moreover, after White's Ne4, it is not sure that Black Knight will reach c5 at all. Supposing it does, it would still be sensitive to tempo-gaining freeing move like b3-b4 and d3-d4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, I beg to differ about the Nd5. Although it is screening the pressure on the d-file, it is not &quot;doing nothing&quot;: control of b4, e3 and f4 stops White from trying the most agressive plans with b3-b4 or f2-f4. Generally speaking, central squares that your opponent's pawns can't control are considered good spots for your knights.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;An alternative is also Nb6-d7 and f5-f4.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This however is a very bad plan. Even if Black was granted four free moves to achieve it without White moving at all, it would result in passive pieces (Nc6,Nd7,Re8) holding to the backward pawn on e5 that will be firmly blocked (Ne4) and under fire (Bb2, Nf3, possibly Qa1 or Nc4). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And what do you try to gain with f5-f4 ? An attack on Pe3 ? For that purpose you wouldn't want to retreat your Nd5 to d7. Opening the f-file or the a7-g1 diagonal ?  Well, you have Re8-Bf8, not Rf8-Bb6. I see no reason for White to be afraid of f5-f4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastEditorUserId="14079" LastEditDate="2017-11-30T13:55:57.157" LastActivityDate="2017-11-30T13:55:57.157" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19281" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19272" CreationDate="2017-11-29T10:35:52.750" Score="4" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Keep in mind I'm still a beginner, I'm hovering in the 800-900 range.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do not read any opening book. Rather concentrate on tactics. For this I wold recommend for example the book &quot;Learn chess tactics&quot; from John Nunn.&#xA;Just an example there are many similar books that are good to, but this is the only one I know. Simple tactics do not have many deep variants so this problem would be solved too.&#xA;For the opening I would recommend just to consider the following: Save your King (do not get mated early), develop pieces, occupy the center. If your level has improved and your opponents do not fail on simple tactics, than you can go and learn deep opening variants.&#xA;Furthermore I wold recommend long calculation time (at the very least 15 minutes better is much more like 2h or even daily chess), so that you are able to calculate the tactics deep enough.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14815" LastActivityDate="2017-11-29T10:35:52.750" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19282" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4500" CreationDate="2017-11-29T15:53:47.030" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes.  Na3 wins this for white.  Black's king is forced back, white's king advances, captures the a4 pawn, and the writing is on the wall for black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14935" LastActivityDate="2017-11-29T15:53:47.030" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19283" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19272" CreationDate="2017-11-29T16:27:53.713" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Once you get to the point where you can finish a game without leaving a piece somewhere you opponent can just take it for free, start with a couple of collections of older games. &lt;em&gt;Logical Chess: Move by Move&lt;/em&gt; by Irving Chernev is a good place to start. The book is a collection of older master games, with an explanation given for every move. Follow that up with Chernev's &lt;em&gt;The Most Instructive Games of Chess Ever Played&lt;/em&gt;. After you finish those two books, the other books you have should be easier to follow and will make more sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4532" LastActivityDate="2017-11-29T16:27:53.713" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19284" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4925" CreationDate="2017-11-29T20:27:17.293" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I agree, many people will not regard it as a sport, but the exertion of the mind can in fact, under several definitions of sport, count. Ultimately, however, the meaning of sport is really subjective.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14940" LastActivityDate="2017-11-29T20:27:17.293" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19285" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19286" CreationDate="2017-11-29T21:19:14.520" Score="8" ViewCount="362" Body="&lt;p&gt;I reached this position when playing against ChessMaster's cyber personality Laura. The engine recommends the line starting with 25. Rg3:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Bad_Bishop&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Laura&quot;]&#xA;[StartPly &quot;48&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;  1. d4             Nf6           &#xA;  2. Nf3            c5            &#xA;  3. d5             d6            &#xA;  4. c4             Qa5+          &#xA;  5. Bd2            Qa6           &#xA;  6. Qc2            Bg4           &#xA;  7. Nc3            Nbd7          &#xA;  8. e4             Bxf3          &#xA;  9. gxf3           h6            &#xA; 10. h4             e6            &#xA; 11. O-O-O          Ne5           &#xA; 12. Be2            exd5          &#xA; 13. exd5           Be7           &#xA; 14. f4             Ned7          &#xA; 15. Rhg1           Kf8           &#xA; 16. Rg2            Ne8           &#xA; 17. h5             Bf6           &#xA; 18. b3             Qa3+          &#xA; 19. Kb1            Bxc3          &#xA; 20. Bxc3           Ndf6          &#xA; 21. Rdg1           Rg8           &#xA; 22. Bf3            Qa6           &#xA; 23. Qe2            Qb6           &#xA; 24. Re1            Qd8 25. Rg3 b5 26. cxb5 Nc7 27. Qd3 Rb8 28. Ba5 Qc8 29. a4 Qb7 *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To me 25. Rg3 is not intuitive and I did not consider it all in choosing a move. Granted, in the line that ChessMaster recommends, black throws away a pawn, but my question is, &lt;strong&gt;what is the purpose behind 25. Rg3 and why is it the best move?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastEditorDisplayName="user1108" LastEditDate="2017-11-30T07:48:49.070" LastActivityDate="2020-10-07T08:37:28.747" Title="Why does ChessMaster recommend 24. Rg3 in this position?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;candidate-move&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19286" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19285" CreationDate="2017-11-29T22:04:28.117" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;All of White's other pieces are placed well except the Bishop on f3.  If Black moved the a8 rook back and forth then White would probably like to play Rg3, Bg2-h3, and maybe Rg3-e3.&#xA;Simply put Rg3 increases the scope of the rook and the bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2017-11-29T22:04:28.117" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19287" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4500" CreationDate="2017-11-30T08:42:40.903" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The answer would depend on the side to move.&#xA;If it is white's turn, white wins with Nd2.&#xA;If it is black's turn, it is a draw, the black king picks up the loose g5 and h3 pawns and then the remaining material in insufficient for a win.&#xA;It is very dangerous to decide on games outcomes without knowing the side to move.&#xA;There are positions in which, depending on the side to move, each player can deliver his opponent mate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14893" LastActivityDate="2017-11-30T08:42:40.903" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19288" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19285" CreationDate="2017-11-30T09:12:27.553" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a very complicated position.&#xA;No obvious winning plans. White has the bishop pair and much more space, but the&#xA;f2,f4 and h5 pawns are all isolated, and black is very compact and defends everything.&#xA;Stockfish shows +300cps advantage, but is not able to convert until maybe move 25 or so, frequently even reaches fortresses.&#xA;So, I am not certain what this position is: it might be a white win(I hope so), but it might also be some kind of fortress position.&#xA;In order to be certain one way or another, one needs deep analysis, which might take a couple of days.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14893" LastActivityDate="2017-11-30T09:12:27.553" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19289" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18963" CreationDate="2017-11-30T09:20:39.917" Score="-3" Body="&lt;p&gt;That is simply not true.&#xA;In a lot of positions, black is 'more optimistic' than white.&#xA;Those are just 2 separate evaluating entities with their particular evaluation terms and understanding of the position.&#xA;I guess you simply happened to browse games, where white was more optimistic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14893" LastActivityDate="2017-11-30T09:20:39.917" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19290" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18963" CreationDate="2017-11-30T12:48:12.577" Score="0" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is that a engine always do the things he likes, wich the oponent maybe&#xA;  likes but maybe not and thus differing in the evaluation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, if you replace &quot;like&quot; with &quot;judge as the only correct move&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, &quot;Optimism&quot; goes in both ways: If White thinks that it stands better than Black thinks it does, then Black also thinks that it stands better than White thinks it does. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They may be a half-move away from each other in their evaluation, but modern engines are blunder-proof enough that their evaluation score usually doesn't just wildly jump around after each new move, so you can usually safely compare the average between White's evaluation of move N-1 and the one of move N+1 with Black's evaluation of move N.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The case that both sides are &quot;optimistic&quot; occurs much more often than the case that they are both &quot;pessimistic&quot; because usually, both sides employ the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimax&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Minimax-Algorithm&lt;/a&gt; in one way or the other. In theory, if one side plays perfectly, the evaluation score will &lt;strong&gt;never&lt;/strong&gt; actually improve for it on its own move: &quot;Perfectly&quot; entails that they will not be &quot;surprised&quot; to find a better move. If one exists, it will already be incorporated in the current evaluation and thus not change it. The only way that this evaluation score changes if the opponent makes a mistake. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Modern engines don't play perfectly (yet), but the idea is the same: If one engine plays a move, there are only two ways the other engine will judge it: It either agrees that this was the correct move (the difference between their evaluation scores stays the same), or it will disagree because it thinks there was a better move &lt;em&gt;that it used as the score for the position until now&lt;/em&gt; (the difference between the scores will increase in the &quot;optimistic&quot; direction). The third case that it disagrees &quot;the other way round&quot; (and the difference increases in the &quot;pessimistic&quot; direction) never happens, as that would mean that it until now intentionally used a score of a move that it judged non-optimal. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Engines never &quot;like&quot; the opponent's moves - they only judge whether or not they were mistakes. And as soon as both engines disagree over that, both will begin to think that the other has taken a path that is worse for them, causing what you call &quot;optimism&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What does indeed happen is reevaluation based on the now deeper search horizon, and that blurries the effect a bit again (maybe the engine to move saw something which the other couldn't see yet on its previous move, so the other actually does have to decrease its own score). But as said, most modern engines are able to avoid large jumps in their evaluation (because they realize that they missed something) for the most part, so the &quot;optimism effect&quot; is more influential. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13433" LastActivityDate="2017-11-30T12:48:12.577" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19291" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13522" CreationDate="2017-11-30T13:07:44.400" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;In 1949 information scientist Shannon produced an estimate that it would take 10^90 years to solve chess with 1 MHz computer. Computer power and storage technology has improved considerably since then (aka Moore's law), where computer power and storage capacity doubles every year. That taken into account, it would take approximately 300 years to come up with a computer, that would be 10^90 times more powerful than Shannon's 1 MHz machine. There are no forseeable restraints in computer development. For example Intel's 4004 was made with 10 micrometer photolithography technology whereas current i9s are made with 14 nm technology. When the cores are becoming both more powerful and smaller, it is easy to stuff more cores in a same physical size than the previous years half as powerful ancestors. In photolithography we have just entered ultraviolet wavelength category of below 10 nm, but there exists wavelenghts such as gamma rays, whose wavelength is 1 picometer (that is 10.000 more smaller). A hydrogen atom is 0,1 nm in size, but i.e. quarks are about 200 times smaller than 1 picometer (that is 0.43 x 10^−15 mm, &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.theguardian.com/science/life-and-physics/2016/apr/07/how-big-is-a-quark&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.theguardian.com/science/life-and-physics/2016/apr/07/how-big-is-a-quark&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14957" LastActivityDate="2017-11-30T13:07:44.400" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19292" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19300" CreationDate="2017-11-30T21:07:31.423" Score="5" ViewCount="952" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am approximately 1500 OTB (Lichess Classical 1750, chess.com 1540, internal rating in my club ~1500), and of course I would like to improve. Work and family are demanding, so naturally I would like to make the most of my limited study time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I do not think that I gain a lot by spending time on studying openings. On the other hand, I want to and like to play tactical lines in order to improve my tactical vision.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Currently I play 1.e4 as white (Evans Gambit, Fried Liver, Open Sicilian, Korchnoi Gambit, improvise on everything else), and as black I play the Qd8 Scandinavian against 1e4 and QGA against 1d4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wonder whether I should switch to more tactical lines as black, for example the Portugese Gambit against 1e4 as presented by Smerdon (&quot;Smerdon's Scandinavian) or recently Vincent Moret in &quot;My first chess opening repertoire for black&quot;. Moret also suggests the Albin Countergambit against 1d4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I do feel however, that these openings are far from trivial. For example in the Evans Gambit, a lot of good moves come quite naturally, whereas in the Portugese Gambit there are a lot of nuances and move orders to remember (should I put the queen on f5 or on h5?) etc., and if you make one bad move you are very quickly on the losing side. And there are lots of chances to make bad moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So in summary: To improve my tactical vision and my game in general, should an amateur like myself invest time in studying these sharp and aggressive &lt;em&gt;offbeat&lt;/em&gt; opening lines, or rather play more &lt;em&gt;solid lines&lt;/em&gt; and spend the time on studying the endgame and middlegame?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd be especially interested in stronger players experience, i.e. how they improved.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7687" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-04T17:01:09.090" LastActivityDate="2021-04-16T14:24:18.843" Title="Opening as a Beginner: Mainlines or Offbeaten path?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;learning&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;beginner&gt;" AnswerCount="8" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="19294" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19292" CreationDate="2017-12-01T00:00:47.077" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Definitely go with the sharp lines!  If you forget what to do or can't figure it out over-the-board then that is a learning opportunity -- you can go see what you missed after the game.  Tactical vision and calculating ability is what sets players apart.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I got to 2300+ mostly on tactics with a strong endgame.  The game should be learned backwards (ending first, opening last)!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2017-12-01T00:00:47.077" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19295" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19292" CreationDate="2017-12-01T00:59:49.140" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;To improve your tactics it's important to do tactical puzzles consistently, openings have little to do with tactical ability. If you want positional experience in open, closed, or semi-closed positions then switching openings might make some sense. Just be aware whatever you switch to, you will not know it as well so you will have worse results for awhile. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Looking at your openings, they are completely fine although they can lead to somewhat dry positions. If I had to suggest changing your play to get more exciting positions, I'd recommend something like the Slav defense, or the triangle system against d4, and the Caro-Kann against e4. This way you'll have somewhat more combative openings with better chances to create dynamic play, but you will still have positions similar to what you usually play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9627" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-04T17:01:58.353" LastActivityDate="2020-03-04T17:01:58.353" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="19297" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-12-01T05:46:33.087" Score="2" ViewCount="134" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recall playing a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_chess_variants#Multimove_variants&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;multimove variant&lt;/a&gt; special rules chess game where one player (say black) has all the usual pieces, while the other player has just a queen that can do two moves in one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the queen can strike one of black's pieces and return to its position as if nothing happened -- &quot;action at a distance&quot;!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It was such that if one player Alice was a bit more skilled than another Bob, then Alice could beat Bob whether playing white or black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anybody know of rules like these?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14974" LastEditorUserId="3831" LastEditDate="2017-12-01T07:42:58.527" LastActivityDate="2018-08-19T20:28:54.833" Title="Multimove variant rules with queen that does two moves in one" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;queens&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19298" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13522" CreationDate="2017-12-01T07:15:20.553" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;2000-3000 elos more to go until perfect play, so the current&#xA;top engines could at least double their strength.&#xA;Chess is actually closer to its infancy than to its later stages.&#xA;For example, current top engines would guess only one out of 5 &#xA;best opening moves.&#xA;Still a long way to go.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14893" LastActivityDate="2017-12-01T07:15:20.553" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19299" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1412" CreationDate="2017-12-01T07:19:09.730" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Because the king is not under attack.&#xA;Attacks are the single most salient feature of the game of chess.&#xA;How could you win without an attack?&#xA;Can you capture material without an attack?&#xA;Similarly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14893" LastActivityDate="2017-12-01T07:19:09.730" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19300" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19292" CreationDate="2017-12-01T08:14:53.623" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;In general, independently of playstyle, I'd advise every beginner who seriously wants to improve in the long run to favor &quot;popular&quot; openings over &quot;offbeat&quot; ones.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Offbeat openings&lt;/strong&gt; are (usually) considered offbeat for a reason. That is, usually there is some way for the opponent to &quot;defuse&quot; them. Of course, that doesn't mean they are unplayable, and at a ~1500 level, most opponents won't know about that way anyways. They will at most have learned some variations of the main openings and have no real clue about playing against the Evans, Albin, etc. gambits. If you are properly prepared, you can exploit that, and these offbeat openings will often net you more wins compared to the popular ones in the beginning. However, in the long run, you will run into more and more opponents who DO know them, and some years down the line you may face the dilemma that these openings slow down your progress. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Popular openings&lt;/strong&gt; on the other hand will usually be less impressive in the beginning, point wise. However, if you find one that you like, you will essentially have found a buddy for the rest of your life. Similar to the offbeat openings, they are (usually) popular for good reason. Having already lived under the microscope of thousands of master for decades, it's unlikely that they will suddenly be &quot;refuted&quot; (that risk is much higher in offbeat openings). Yes, the amount of theory may be frighteningly big, but so is the potential reward. After all, while many different lines mean that you have to have much more to learn, they also mean that you have much more to learn: You get a much broader scope of middle game positions you can potentially reach, and learning how to handle them is very beneficial for your overall chess skill. You don't have to know all little lines from the beginning (your opponents won't either), just start small and build up the tree move by move over time. Honed over the years, a popular opening is guaranteed to at some point surpass the results of offbeat openings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My personal approach is to play &lt;strong&gt;popular openings, but slightly offbeat lines&lt;/strong&gt; within these openings. That way, I still retain some surprise factor (and decrease the risk that an opponent &quot;out-prepares&quot; me), while still having the safety to play a very sound opening that I can fall back on. It's much easier to just switch to a different line at move 5 (that most likely uses at least some of the motives that I already know from my previous choice of line - not to mention that all side lines before move 5 stay the same) than to switch my entire opening at move 1 (that I will for the most part be completely unfamiliar with). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your case, I agree with the other answers. Sicilian (Najdorf/Sveshnikov), Slav and Caro-Kann are all fine choices. I mean, you can play stuff like the Portuguese gambit every now and then to have a little fun, that certainly doesn't hurt ... but I wouldn't devote a lot of time into it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13433" LastActivityDate="2017-12-01T08:14:53.623" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19301" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19292" CreationDate="2017-12-01T10:03:37.303" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here's my answer as an FM:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Scandinavian with Qd8 is a great choice if you want to avoid trappy theory while achieving &lt;strong&gt;normal&lt;/strong&gt; positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Negative to Qd8 Scandinavian is that white gets a very free game i.e. you are going to be defending as black for a while.&#xA;When you have time to study consider adding mainline Qa5.&#xA;&lt;em&gt;Disclaimer: I do not play Scandinavian as black but know IMs who do.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Avoid Portuguese Gambit unless you have the time to learn the lines. It leads to nonstandard positions which will not help you otherwise.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Keep Evans Gambit but for the times when you want quieter game play the Italian Opening. If you have an inclination for endgames consider Ruy Lopez Exchange variation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Consider Kings Indian Attack versus French and Sicilian. You can also play it against g6/b6/d6. Again this is &lt;strong&gt;practical advice&lt;/strong&gt; for someone &lt;strong&gt;pressed for time&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That leaves a problem on what to do as black vs Nf3/c4/d4 .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Personally, I am partial to Benoni-type of structures but they can be limiting.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Consider playing regular Kings Indian Defense! Sure there is a TON of theory but study only the ideas and structures(ie f5 break, defense of d6, Rook lift, how to attack on kingside) not the long lines. It will complement KIA as white as there are many ideas that transfer over.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If KID does not suit you, consider playing e6/d5/c6 type of structures.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So learn &lt;strong&gt;ideas/structures first&lt;/strong&gt; over concrete move orders&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ideally, you want to have both sharp and quiet openings in your toolkit but that can take time to build which you do not have.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My assumption from your question is that you are an adult who has little time but wants to improve.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9289" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-04T17:07:28.477" LastActivityDate="2020-03-04T17:07:28.477" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="19304" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19305" CreationDate="2017-12-01T15:03:39.837" Score="9" ViewCount="324" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let's say you see that player A on the board next to yours violates a rule such as touch-move or changes the move after releasing the piece, but their opponent, player B, doesn't notice. Can you say anything to player B, and if so, could B make a claim based on third-party testimony for a violation B didn't even see?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12523" LastActivityDate="2017-12-04T08:46:01.700" Title="Can you say anything if you see cheating at another board?" Tags="&lt;cheating&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19305" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19304" CreationDate="2017-12-01T15:24:45.327" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;You should not address player B directly, it is forbidden to talk to him about his game (it is actually forbidden to talk to him at all, but the spirit of the law is to prevent conversations about the game). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, you can (and should) tell the arbiter about what you have seen, and the arbiter will decide on the appropriate action.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastEditorUserId="14079" LastEditDate="2017-12-04T08:46:01.700" LastActivityDate="2017-12-04T08:46:01.700" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19307" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6474" CreationDate="2017-12-01T19:18:06.913" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;While I play Polish Opening, the same had happened to me as well, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I somehow get tricked and lose my games against this opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't know why most of them in chess.com opens either King's pawn or Queen's pawn always.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But here my opponent was more cautious maybe that made me pity, however I won the game as he lost his time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;To say, its look like fair most good variation considering Polish Defense,- &quot;Polish Opening Outflank Variation&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is the game &lt;code&gt;fen&lt;/code&gt; for look upon, so you could see one way of developing principle for &lt;code&gt;Polish Opening Outflank Variation&lt;/code&gt;,- &lt;code&gt;1.b4 c6&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Live Chess&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Chess.com&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2017.12.02&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;bram-stokers&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;KocouJo&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;954&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;920&quot;]&#xA;[TimeControl &quot;600&quot;]&#xA;[Termination &quot;game_result.won_on_time&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[CurrentPosition &quot;3B1b1r/1Q2pk1p/p4p2/1p4p1/4P2q/5KR1/P1r5/8 b - - 7 37&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.b4 c6 2.g4 d5 3.e3 g5 4.Bb2 f6 5.Nf3 Bxg4 6.Rg1 Bxf3 7.Qxf3 Qd6 8.c3 Qxh2 9.Rg2 Qh1 10.Qg4 Nd7 11.d3 Nh6 12.Qg3 Ne5 13.Ke2 Qh5+ 14.Kd2 Nf3+ 15.Kc1 Nf5 16.Qc7 Nd6 17.Nd2 Rc8 18.Qa5 Nb5 19.Rg3 Nxd2 20.Kxd2 a6 21.Qb6 Rc7 22.c4 dxc4 23.dxc4 Qh4 24.cxb5 Qxb4+ 25.Bc3 Qd6+ 26.Ke2 cxb5 27.Ba5 Rc2+ 28.Kf3 Qd5+ 29.e4 Qe5 (30.Rd1) 30.Qxb7 Qxa1 31.Qb8+ Kf7 32.Bd8 Qxf1 33.Qb7 Qxf2+ 34.Kg4 Qe2+ 35.Kh3 Qh2+ 36.Kg4 Qh4+ 37.Kf3  1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is another Game, at the end of game due to Time Constraint and some complexity opponent got detracted a bit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Live Chess&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Chess.com&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2018.02.01&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;bram-stokers&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Jed_NZ&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;A00&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;973&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;986&quot;]&#xA;[TimeControl &quot;600&quot;]&#xA;[EndTime &quot;4:13:25 PST&quot;]&#xA;[Termination &quot;bram-stokers won on time&quot;]&#xA;[CurrentPosition &quot;8/3R2kp/3PQ1p1/1p3p2/4pP1P/8/7P/1K6 b - - 0 38&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.b4 {[%clk 0:09:47]} e5 {[%clk 0:09:57]} 2.c3 {[%clk 0:09:39]} d5 {[%clk 0:09:53]} 3.d4 {[%clk 0:09:19]} e4 {[%clk 0:09:43]} 4.e3 {[%clk 0:09:13]} Nf6 {[%clk 0:09:37]} 5.Na3 {[%clk 0:09:05]} Bg4 {[%clk 0:09:34]} 6.Qb3 {[%clk 0:08:56]} a6 {[%clk 0:09:26]} 7.Nh3 {[%clk 0:08:41]} Bxh3 {[%clk 0:09:21]} 8.gxh3 {[%clk 0:08:36]} a5 {[%clk 0:08:53]} 9.Bd2 {[%clk 0:08:27]} axb4 {[%clk 0:08:44]} 10.cxb4 {[%clk 0:08:23]} Nc6 {[%clk 0:08:33]} 11.b5 {[%clk 0:08:17]} Nxd4 {[%clk 0:08:20]} 12.exd4 {[%clk 0:08:10]} Bxa3 {[%clk 0:08:01]} 13.Bb4 {[%clk 0:07:56]} Bxb4+ {[%clk 0:07:44]} 14.Qxb4 {[%clk 0:07:54]} b6 {[%clk 0:07:32]} 15.a4 {[%clk 0:07:44]} Nd7 {[%clk 0:06:52]} 16.O-O-O {[%clk 0:07:35]} Nb8 {[%clk 0:06:34]} 17.Be2 {[%clk 0:07:29]} c6 {[%clk 0:06:29]} 18.Rhg1 {[%clk 0:07:16]} g6 {[%clk 0:06:05]} 19.Rg5 {[%clk 0:07:04]} Qc7 {[%clk 0:05:52]} 20.Re5+ {[%clk 0:06:58]} Kd8 {[%clk 0:05:45]} 21.Bg4 {[%clk 0:06:48]} cxb5+ {[%clk 0:05:41]} 22.Kb1 {[%clk 0:06:33]} Rxa4 {[%clk 0:05:15]} 23.Rxd5+ {[%clk 0:06:29]} Ke8 {[%clk 0:04:57]} 24.Qxb5+ {[%clk 0:06:26]} Qc6 {[%clk 0:04:30]} 25.Bd7+ {[%clk 0:05:53]} Qxd7 {[%clk 0:03:13]} 26.Rxd7 {[%clk 0:05:46]} Nxd7 {[%clk 0:02:44]} 27.Qxa4 {[%clk 0:05:42]} Ke7 {[%clk 0:02:35]} 28.Re1 {[%clk 0:05:36]} f5 {[%clk 0:02:29]} 29.Qb4+ {[%clk 0:05:30]} Kf7 {[%clk 0:02:20]} 30.d5 {[%clk 0:05:22]} Ra8 {[%clk 0:01:43]} 31.f4 {[%clk 0:05:14]} Ra6 {[%clk 0:01:29]} 32.Qd6 {[%clk 0:05:07]} Ra7 {[%clk 0:00:47]} 33.Qe6+ {[%clk 0:05:00]} Kg7 {[%clk 0:00:45]} 34.d6 {[%clk 0:04:57]} b5 {[%clk 0:00:35]} 35.Rc1 {[%clk 0:04:52]} Nf6 {[%clk 0:00:06]} 36.h4 {[%clk 0:04:34]} Rc7 {[%clk 0:00:02]} 37.Rxc7+ {[%clk 0:04:27]} Nd7 {[%clk 0:00:00]} 38.Rxd7+ {[%clk 0:04:24]}  1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is one another &lt;code&gt;Blitz Game&lt;/code&gt; of 5 minutes time control per side, in which more inaccuracies or blunders can be denoted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Rated Blitz game&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;https://lichess.org/IkU6jNFS&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2018.02.18&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;-&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;BramStokers&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;timjim77&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;[UTCDate &quot;2018.02.18&quot;]&#xA;[UTCTime &quot;00:34:55&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;1500&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;1470&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteRatingDiff &quot;-191&quot;]&#xA;[BlackRatingDiff &quot;+8&quot;]&#xA;[Variant &quot;Standard&quot;]&#xA;[TimeControl &quot;300+0&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;A00&quot;]&#xA;[Opening &quot;Polish Opening&quot;]&#xA;[Termination &quot;Normal&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. b4 { [%eval -0.09] [%clk 0:05:00] } 1... e5 { [%eval -0.09] [%clk 0:05:00] } 2. c3 { [%eval -0.7] [%clk 0:04:56] } 2... d5 { [%eval -0.7] [%clk 0:04:57] } 3. Na3 { [%eval -1.41] [%clk 0:04:49] } 3... Nf6 { [%eval -1.41] [%clk 0:04:52] } 4. e3 { [%eval -1.37] [%clk 0:04:43] } 4... Bd6 { [%eval -1.4] [%clk 0:04:49] } 5. g4 { [%eval -3.09] [%clk 0:04:41] } 5... Bxg4 { [%eval -3.07] [%clk 0:04:45] } 6. f3 { [%eval -3.37] [%clk 0:04:35] } 6... Bh5 { [%eval -3.39] [%clk 0:04:42] } 7. Qe2 { [%eval -3.87] [%clk 0:04:28] } 7... e4 { [%eval -2.82] [%clk 0:04:40] } 8. Bb2 { [%eval -3.5] [%clk 0:04:20] } 8... exf3 { [%eval -2.32] [%clk 0:04:38] } 9. Nxf3 { [%eval -2.57] [%clk 0:04:18] } 9... O-O { [%eval -2.28] [%clk 0:04:32] } 10. O-O-O { [%eval -2.84] [%clk 0:04:16] } 10... Re8 { [%eval -2.64] [%clk 0:04:28] } 11. Bh3 { [%eval -3.2] [%clk 0:04:10] } 11... Nbd7 { [%eval -3.24] [%clk 0:04:16] } 12. Rhg1 { [%eval -3.0] [%clk 0:04:07] } 12... Ne5 { [%eval -2.81] [%clk 0:04:14] } 13. Qg2 { [%eval -3.26] [%clk 0:03:56] } 13... Ng6 { [%eval -1.85] [%clk 0:04:02] } 14. Nh4 { [%eval -4.31] [%clk 0:03:47] } 14... Ne4 { [%eval -2.77] [%clk 0:03:45] } 15. Rdf1 { [%eval -6.09] [%clk 0:03:38] } 15... Qxh4 { [%eval -5.67] [%clk 0:03:43] } 16. Rf4 { [%eval -11.49] [%clk 0:03:21] } 16... Bxf4 { [%eval -11.0] [%clk 0:03:31] } 17. exf4 { [%eval -12.4] [%clk 0:03:18] } 17... Qxf4 { [%eval -10.77] [%clk 0:03:25] } 18. Rf1 { [%eval -10.67] [%clk 0:03:10] } 18... Qxd2+ { [%eval -7.6] [%clk 0:03:08] } 19. Kb1 { [%eval -16.45] [%clk 0:03:05] } 19... Qxg2 { [%eval -16.38] [%clk 0:03:02] } 20. Bxg2 { [%eval -16.16] [%clk 0:03:01] } 20... Nd2+ { [%eval -15.89] [%clk 0:02:59] } 21. Kc2 { [%eval -15.88] [%clk 0:02:56] } 21... Nxf1 { [%eval -15.4] [%clk 0:02:59] } 22. Bxf1 { [%eval -15.32] [%clk 0:02:55] } 22... Ne5 { [%eval -11.32] [%clk 0:02:55] } 23. Kd2 { [%eval -16.17] [%clk 0:02:52] } 23... Nc4+ { [%eval -14.29] [%clk 0:02:54] } 24. Kc1 { [%eval -58.6] [%clk 0:02:46] } 24... Nxb2 { [%eval -13.51] [%clk 0:02:52] } 25. Kxb2 { [%eval -13.0] [%clk 0:02:45] } 25... a5 { [%eval -12.11] [%clk 0:02:48] } 26. b5 { [%eval -13.37] [%clk 0:02:43] } 26... a4 { [%eval -11.95] [%clk 0:02:46] } 27. h4 { [%eval -15.41] [%clk 0:02:36] } 27... Re1 { [%eval -15.39] [%clk 0:02:43] } 28. Bd3 { [%eval -14.78] [%clk 0:02:30] } 28... Bg6 { [%eval -13.52] [%clk 0:02:41] } 29. Bc2 { [%eval -15.4] [%clk 0:02:25] } 29... Re2 { [%eval -13.7] [%clk 0:02:39] } 30. Kc1 { [%eval -24.76] [%clk 0:02:04] } 30... Bxc2 { [%eval -16.9] [%clk 0:02:36] } 31. Nxc2 { [%eval -15.13] [%clk 0:02:02] } 31... c5 { [%eval -13.62] [%clk 0:02:30] } 32. b6 { [%eval #-13] [%clk 0:01:59] } 32... d4 { [%eval #-13] [%clk 0:02:27] } 33. cxd4 { [%eval #-14] [%clk 0:01:57] } 33... cxd4 { [%eval -59.7] [%clk 0:02:27] } 34. Nxd4 { [%eval #-9] [%clk 0:01:55] } 34... Rxa2 { [%eval #-11] [%clk 0:02:26] } 35. Nb5 { [%eval #-7] [%clk 0:01:53] } 35... Rc8+ { [%eval #-6] [%clk 0:02:21] } 36. Kb1 { [%eval #-5] [%clk 0:01:49] } 36... Rac2 { [%eval #-15] [%clk 0:02:17] } 37. Na7 { [%eval #-6] [%clk 0:01:46] } 37... Rc1+ { [%eval #-7] [%clk 0:02:14] } 38. Kb2 { [%eval #-7] [%clk 0:01:44] } 38... R8c2+ { [%eval #-6] [%clk 0:02:12] } 39. Ka3 { [%eval #-6] [%clk 0:01:43] } 39... Rc4 { [%eval #-7] [%clk 0:02:09] } 40. Nb5 { [%eval #-6] [%clk 0:01:37] } 40... h5 { [%eval #-7] [%clk 0:02:04] } 41. Nd6 { [%eval #-7] [%clk 0:01:34] } 41... Rxh4 { [%eval -67.33] [%clk 0:02:01] } 42. Nxb7 { [%eval #-4] [%clk 0:01:32] } 42... Rc3+ { [%eval #-3] [%clk 0:01:58] } 43. Kb2 { [%eval #-3] [%clk 0:01:28] } 43... Rb3+ { [%eval #-4] [%clk 0:01:57] } 44. Ka2 { [%eval #-3] [%clk 0:01:24] } 44... Rh2+ { [%eval #-2] [%clk 0:01:55] } 45. Ka1 { [%eval #-2] [%clk 0:01:18] } 45... Ra3+ { [%eval #-2] [%clk 0:01:54] } 46. Kb1 { [%eval #-2] [%clk 0:01:09] } 46... Rb3+ { [%eval #-2] [%clk 0:01:53] } 47. Kc1 { [%eval #-2] [%clk 0:01:06] } 47... a3 { [%eval #-3] [%clk 0:01:51] } 48. Nc5 { [%eval #-3] [%clk 0:00:59] } 48... Rc3+ { [%eval #-3] [%clk 0:01:49] } 49. Kd1 { [%eval #-3] [%clk 0:00:55] } 49... a2 { [%eval #-2] [%clk 0:01:47] } 50. b7 { [%eval #-1] [%clk 0:00:53] } 50... a1=Q# { [%clk 0:01:45] } 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please find another game in which end game been made bit convoluted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Live Chess&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Chess.com&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2017.11.11&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;bram-stokers&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;dillondownes&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;A00&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;936&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;884&quot;]&#xA;[TimeControl &quot;600&quot;]&#xA;[EndTime &quot;13:53:47 PST&quot;]&#xA;[Termination &quot;bram-stokers won by checkmate&quot;]&#xA;[CurrentPosition &quot;R1kr4/1pp1r2p/6p1/1P2N1P1/1b2P2P/1P2B3/4K3/8 b - - 3 27&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.b4 {[%clk 0:09:52]} d5 {[%clk 0:09:55]} 2.h4 {[%clk 0:09:40]} Nf6 {[%clk 0:09:52]} 3.f3 {[%clk 0:09:36]} Nc6 {[%clk 0:09:49]} 4.a3 {[%clk 0:09:28]} e6 {[%clk 0:09:47]} 5.d4 {[%clk 0:09:23]} g6 {[%clk 0:09:39]} 6.Nc3 {[%clk 0:09:20]} Bg7 {[%clk 0:09:37]} 7.g4 {[%clk 0:09:10]} e5 {[%clk 0:09:29]} 8.g5 {[%clk 0:09:04]} Nd7 {[%clk 0:09:25]} 9.dxe5 {[%clk 0:08:56]} Ndxe5 {[%clk 0:09:16]} 10.Rb1 {[%clk 0:08:38]} d4 {[%clk 0:08:59]} 11.Ne4 {[%clk 0:08:31]} Bf5 {[%clk 0:08:53]} 12.e3 {[%clk 0:08:14]} Bxe4 {[%clk 0:08:46]} 13.fxe4 {[%clk 0:08:11]} dxe3 {[%clk 0:08:43]} 14.Bxe3 {[%clk 0:08:08]} Qxd1+ {[%clk 0:08:37]} 15.Kxd1 {[%clk 0:08:06]} Nc4 {[%clk 0:08:25]} 16.Rb3 {[%clk 0:07:53]} Nd4 {[%clk 0:08:03]} 17.Bxc4 {[%clk 0:07:46]} Nxb3 {[%clk 0:08:00]} 18.cxb3 {[%clk 0:07:41]} O-O-O+ {[%clk 0:07:45]} 19.Ke2 {[%clk 0:07:35]} Bb2 {[%clk 0:07:33]} 20.a4 {[%clk 0:07:28]} a6 {[%clk 0:07:23]} 21.Bxf7 {[%clk 0:07:22]} Ba3 {[%clk 0:07:17]} 22.b5 {[%clk 0:07:14]} axb5 {[%clk 0:07:14]} 23.axb5 {[%clk 0:07:09]} Bb4 {[%clk 0:07:11]} 24.Nf3 {[%clk 0:07:06]} Rhf8 {[%clk 0:07:07]} 25.Ra1 {[%clk 0:06:59]} Rxf7 {[%clk 0:07:02]} 26.Ne5 {[%clk 0:06:55]} Re7 {[%clk 0:06:35]} 27.Ra8# {[%clk 0:06:51]}  1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9229" LastEditorUserId="9229" LastEditDate="2018-05-10T05:00:14.433" LastActivityDate="2018-05-10T05:00:14.433" CommentCount="2" CommunityOwnedDate="2017-12-01T19:18:06.913" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="19308" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19328" CreationDate="2017-12-01T20:20:48.363" Score="-1" ViewCount="171" Body="&lt;p&gt;Embedded game was the one which I'd played some months back. As part of analysis, if this steps could get commented,- &lt;code&gt;1.d4 f5 2.Nf3 d5 3.e3 a5 4.Be2 h5&lt;/code&gt; it will be better for a newbie to pick it up &amp;amp; play well. It gives good picture for one to have some diff. in opening principle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Queen Loss for Black is blundered &amp;amp; clumsy move which Black had played &lt;code&gt;12.* Qxg6&lt;/code&gt;. I hope its not kind of &lt;code&gt;Swindle&lt;/code&gt;. If it is not what it could named as.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And if this blundered move &lt;code&gt;28.cxd5&lt;/code&gt; not happened, then white would've not lost its Queen. Will it be positive for White to have win or still Black is better in a streak to win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After 13th move does white had played any other blundered moves, which is after my side Queen's end. What white would've done something precautions as pawns were upfront on castling side.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Particularly comment rather not considering blunders which I had&#xA;  mentioned, as the game maybe progressed considering better defense. Is&#xA;  I am right, else its not better played rather?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is fen for the game,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Live Chess&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Chess.com&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2017.08.03&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;kingggggggggggggg&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;bram-stokers&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;855&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;1172&quot;]&#xA;[TimeControl &quot;600&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;A80&quot;]&#xA;[Termination &quot;bram-stokers won by checkmate&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;[CurrentPosition &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/3P4/8/PPP1PPPP/RNBQKBNR b KQkq d3 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 f5 2.Nf3 d5 3.e3 a5 4.Be2 h5 5.O-O e6 6.c3 g5 7.Qc2 Nc6 8.Bd3 g4 9.Ng5 Qxg5 10.e4 f4 11.e5 f3 12.Bg6+ Qxg6 13.Qxg6+ Ke7 14.Qg5+ Kd7 15.Qf5 Be7 16.Qc2 h4 17.Na3 h3 18.gxh3 gxh3 19.Qd3 Nh6 20.Qxf3 Rg8+ 21.Kh1 Nf5 22.Qxh3 Nd8 23.b3 Nf7 24.c4 dxc4 25.bxc4 a4 26.d5 exd5 27.Qxf5+ Ke8 28.cxd5 Bxf5 29.Rg1 Be4+ 30.f3 Bxf3+ 31.Rg2 Rxg2 32.Nc4 Rg8#  0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9229" LastEditorDisplayName="user1108" LastEditDate="2017-12-01T20:41:09.993" LastActivityDate="2017-12-04T12:04:25.263" Title="ECO A80 Dutch Defense game for Analysis" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;dutch-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19309" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="239" CreationDate="2017-12-01T20:56:32.893" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let's see, what is the original question? The poster thinks that taking a knight with a bishop should be good if it results in the opponent getting doubled pawns. And the poster also specifically asks about bishop takes knight. I will address both parts of the question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, everything depends on the position. So it is difficult to give a general answer. However, I shall try. But keep in mind that chess does not have a general solution, only heuristics to go by. And sometimes they fail.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Doubled pawns&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Presumably because we &quot;know&quot; that doubled pawns are bad.  However, this does not have to be the case. As the poster already found out, because in the given example sometimes people play Bxc6, but they also play Ba4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is all about control.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pawns are the strongest when they are next to each other, in line. Like in the starting position. Why? They control all squares one row in front of them. Every pawn you move also creates some weakness. If I move my pawn from b2 to b3, the a3-square is weakened, because no pawn can defend it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Disadvantages of doubled pawns:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the pawn that captured now controls different squares than before&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;if the doubled pawns are isolated, they are really weak. The opponent can put a piece in front of the doubled pawns that can never be chased away by a pawn (same holds when the neighbouring pawn is already ahead: if Black plays b7-b5 in the example structure, the square c5 is very weak&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;they are in each other's way, so they move slower&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Advantages of doubled pawns:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;They control a lot of consequent squares. In the example they control b6, b5, d6 and d5.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A doubled pawn means a (semi-)open file. Which can be good for your rook.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A doubled pawn means a diagonal has been opened (like in the example: the c8-bishop now can be developed)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All in all, doubled pawns are good for defending, but not for attacking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Bishop takes knight&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The value of a bishop or knight depends on the position, of course. Roughly it can be said they are about equal strength. But they have different advantages.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A knight can jump over pieces, so it is a great blockading piece. And it is strong in closed positions. Also, it can reach any square of the board. However, a knight is a slow-moving piece. For instance, it takes several (six) moves to go from a1 to h8.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A bishop can make long moves. For instance, it takes only one move to go from a1 to h8. This means it works best in open (many diagonals) positions. However, it can only reach half of the squares. And if the bishop is blocked by a pawn chain, it can be passive and bad.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, the pair of bishops is considered to be a real asset. You have the advantages of the bishop, but not the disadvantage of only controlling half of the squares. Also, it is up to you to decide when to give up the bishop pair and convert to some other advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Back to the example&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To come back to the example: the move Bxc6 hands the bishop pair to Black. Since this is very early in the game, Black can handle accordingly and play with the two bishops (and try to open up the game). And the doubled pawns are not that weak.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another example of doubled pawns, where the bishop does take the knight is in the Nimzo-Indian defence. After &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.a3 Bxc3+ 5.bxc3 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These doubled pawns are a little bit different than the ones from the Ruy Lopez example. The most important detail: the c4-square is weak. No pawn can control it. A strategy for Black is to play against this pawn by playing d6, e5, c5, b6, Nc6-a5 end Ba6. But that is something for another time...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14771" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-08-12T11:41:33.297" LastActivityDate="2019-08-12T11:41:33.297" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="19310" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19308" CreationDate="2017-12-02T02:53:08.720" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Lets forget the game is a Dutch as you leave opening theory extremely quickly with amateur moves.  I recommend you learn basic principals which are available for free in many places such as this Susan Polgar video: &lt;a href=&quot;https://youtu.be/U9cIr7P9gkg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://youtu.be/U9cIr7P9gkg&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2017-12-02T02:53:08.720" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19313" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19292" CreationDate="2017-12-02T08:00:00.830" Score="-4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Take the Fischer games collection and play twice through it.&#xA;Then try to remember what openings he has played and reproduce them on the board.&#xA;There is no better openings guide than Fischer games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14893" LastActivityDate="2017-12-02T08:00:00.830" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19314" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19308" CreationDate="2017-12-02T12:05:19.510" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;My advice for white is in the comments to the FEN below:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Live Chess&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Chess.com&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2017.08.03&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;kingggggggggggggg&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;bram-stokers&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;855&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;1172&quot;]&#xA;[TimeControl &quot;600&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;A80&quot;]&#xA;[Termination &quot;bram-stokers won by checkmate&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;[CurrentPosition &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/3P4/8/PPP1PPPP/RNBQKBNR b KQkq d3 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 f5 2.Nf3 d5 3.e3 a5 4.Be2 (4.c4 {This threatens to win a centre pawn for a flank pawn. If Black plays 4...dxc4 then 5. Bxc4is an efficient developing move. Also, c3 is now an even better square for the knight.}) h5 5.O-O e6 6.c3 g5 7.Qc2 Nc6 8.Bd3 g4 9.Ng5 (9.Nfd2 {9.Ng5 drops a piece}) Qxg5 10.e4 f4 11.e5 (11.exd5 exd5 12.Re1+ {Closing the centre makes black's game simpler, which is bad when you are behind in material.}) f3 12.Bg6+ Qxg6 13.Qxg6+ Ke7 14.Qg5+ (14.Bg5+ {Brings another attacker in.}) Kd7 15.Qf5 {I don't know why you hang your queen here.} Be7 16.Qc2 h4 17.Na3 h3 18.gxh3 (18.g3 {This blocks up the kingside, meaning that no attack can proceed.}) gxh3 19.Qd3 Nh6 20.Qxf3 Rg8+ 21.Kh1 Nf5 22.Qxh3 (22.Rg1 {Trading down when up material makes more sense, as it diffuses black's attack. The h3 pawn will fall soon enough.}) Nd8 23.b3 {I don't know what this move aims to achieve.} Nf7 24.c4 dxc4 25.bxc4 a4 26.d5 exd5 27.Qxf5+ Ke8 28.cxd5?? Bxf5 29.Rg1 Be4+ 30.f3 Bxf3+ 31.Rg2 Rxg2 32.Nc4 Rg8#  0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2017-12-02T12:05:19.510" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19315" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19316" CreationDate="2017-12-02T12:22:09.233" Score="4" ViewCount="742" Body="&lt;p&gt;I played a skittles game (no clocks, arbiter etc.) against a beginner who did a lot of trash talking, which I didn't rise to. Here is an example of the conversation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Beginner&lt;/strong&gt;: I'm going to beat you easily!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Bad_Bishop&lt;/strong&gt;: I'd like to see that. I play at quite a high level. Do you want a refresher on the rules, such as &lt;em&gt;en passant&lt;/em&gt; and castling?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Beginner&lt;/strong&gt;: No, I know all that already&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Bad_Bishop&lt;/strong&gt;: OK&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Beginner&lt;/strong&gt;: I'll take white. They always win!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Bad_Bishop&lt;/strong&gt;: Hmmm...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Beginner&lt;/strong&gt;: [Part way through the game] How do knights move again?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Bad_Bishop&lt;/strong&gt;: In an 'L' shape&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Beginner&lt;/strong&gt;: [After being checkmated] OK, you won, but I took 2 pawns and a knight!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Bad_Bishop&lt;/strong&gt;: Hmmm. Do you want to play a different game?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My questions are, &lt;strong&gt;should I have handled this beginner's trash talk differently? How?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I didn't keep a scoresheet, but this is what I remember of the opening:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Beginner&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Bad_Bishop&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;  1. b3             d5            &#xA;  2. Na3            e5            &#xA;  3. Nb1            Bc5           &#xA;  4. d4             Bxd4          &#xA;  5. Kd2            Bxa1          &#xA; *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2018-02-24T18:03:46.680" Title="How do I respond to an arrogant beginner?" Tags="&lt;beginner&gt;&lt;etiquette&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="4" ClosedDate="2018-02-25T12:04:25.163" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19316" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19315" CreationDate="2017-12-02T12:34:24.650" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;A much better way of handling it -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Beginner&lt;/strong&gt;: I'm going to beat you easily!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Bad_Bishop&lt;/strong&gt;: Of course you are.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Beginner&lt;/strong&gt;: I'll take white. They always win!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Bad_Bishop&lt;/strong&gt;: [Emphatically] Always! [pause, then with a note of doubt in your voice] Even when you are black?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Beginner&lt;/strong&gt;: [After being checkmated] OK, you won, but I took 2 pawns and a knight!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Bad_Bishop&lt;/strong&gt;: You were just so, so unlucky. [As you push the black pieces over to his side and start setting up the white pieces on your&#xA;  side] My turn as white.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2017-12-02T12:34:24.650" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19317" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-12-02T19:30:26.263" Score="3" ViewCount="410" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the best or alternative ways to detect game phase by a chess AI? What is a good algorithm to use? &lt;a href=&quot;https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Game+Phases&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess programming wiki&lt;/a&gt; says to count material or pieces? What would be the expected piece or material counts to use?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have an idea to use average pieces on a file and its standard deviation but that’s intensive math to use? And I’m unsure of its applicability?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9841" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-12-03T17:57:16.120" LastActivityDate="2017-12-03T17:57:16.120" Title="Calculation for game phase" Tags="&lt;evaluation&gt;&lt;chess-algorithms&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19318" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19357" CreationDate="2017-12-03T00:56:41.170" Score="5" ViewCount="539" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have an opponent who is going into this as Black:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 a6 3.Nc3 d6 4.d4 cxd4 5.Nxd4 e5 6.Nf5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He usually follows with 6...Bxf5 and after 7.exf5 Nf6 I play 8.g4 with a sharp game.  I like the positions I get and score well; I am seeking objective assessments of this variation as I may be biased towards White.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-12-03T10:52:14.960" LastActivityDate="2017-12-07T22:58:07.850" Title="Assessment of O'Kelly Sicilian side line" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19319" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19317" CreationDate="2017-12-03T02:48:12.287" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a tricky question, and I'm sure there's no definitive solution.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lichess uses this definition (&lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/qa/102/how-are-the-mid-game-and-end-game-dividers-determined&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://lichess.org/qa/102/how-are-the-mid-game-and-end-game-dividers-determined&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Opening is obvious, starts on move 1.&#xA;&#xA;Mid-game is less obvious, and is still in testing. The long-and-short of the current heuristics are that the mid-game occurs when either:&#xA;- The position is adequately complex and enough pieces are developed.&#xA;- 2 sets of minor or major pieces have been taken off the board. (This is mainly useful for when the position is quite open)&#xA;&#xA;End-game is slightly more straight forward, when there are less than 7 minor and major pieces on the board the end-game has begun (so, perhaps 2 rooks and a bishop Vs 2 bishops and a knight). This is not technically where everyone would draw the line, but it's a good indicator that either 1. The end-game has begun 2. The end-game will begin soon.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stockfish uses interpolation between the middlegame and endgame. This is done by counting non-pawn materials (&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/blob/03a9b3bd8d79e1677f1c74cf7d8f8036795675c6/src/material.cpp&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/blob/03a9b3bd8d79e1677f1c74cf7d8f8036795675c6/src/material.cpp&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;// Map total non-pawn material into [PHASE_ENDGAME, PHASE_MIDGAME]&#xA;e-&amp;gt;gamePhase = Phase(((npm - EndgameLimit) * PHASE_MIDGAME) / (MidgameLimit - EndgameLimit));&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You will need to make a decision on what material counts you want to use.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Suggestions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If your engine supports opening book, you might want to use that&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You might use the move counts (it's in the FEN string) for opening vs middlgame&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Endgame is generally defined as number of X pieces and N pawns on the board (you decide what X and N should be). N&amp;lt;=3 is almost always an endgame. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Lichess's definitions have worked quite well practically.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2017-12-03T02:53:14.020" LastActivityDate="2017-12-03T02:53:14.020" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19320" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13913" CreationDate="2017-12-03T19:03:09.860" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I disagree with the other answers. I am computer scientist who works professionally in the area of artificial intelligence and am also a candidate master in chess and 3 dan in igo.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think it is unclear at this time whether Deep Mind's methods could be applied to chess, but I think it is possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Currently, the top chess-playing programs are increasingly relying on heuristics and attempting to use the AlphaGo architecture for chess would in some ways be in the same line of thinking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One key architectural feature of AlphaGo that would have to be altered is its method of identifying key squares (or heat maps), which is particular to igo-like games and is not directly applicable to chess. Some analog of this method would have to be developed to make the AlphaGo architecture relevant to chess. For example, we could have the concept of &quot;key pieces&quot; rather than key squares.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think the argument that the AlphaGo architecture is not relevant to chess because chess is more tactical is not a very good claim because ultimately both have search trees which are similar enough in shape that AlphaGo could definitely be adapted to chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8673" LastActivityDate="2017-12-03T19:03:09.860" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19321" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19318" CreationDate="2017-12-03T19:16:16.620" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Black's move &lt;code&gt;5...e5&lt;/code&gt; seems questionable to me. The move &lt;code&gt;6. Nf5!?&lt;/code&gt; is a little unusual but definitely playable. The only well-known player ever to have tried it was &lt;em&gt;Jacek Bednarski&lt;/em&gt;, who used to obtain a draw in one of his games in the Polish national championship back in the 1960s. Bednarski is best known for losing game #55 in Bobby Fischer's &quot;My 60 Memorable Games.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The move is a good line in a club setting because it is provocative and will take your opponent out of the book. It has good surprise value, and the resulting positions are not standard patterns which a player will be familar with, therefore, White will definitely have the edge in preparation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my opinion, Black is better off playing in a non-committal fashion with &lt;code&gt;6...Nf6&lt;/code&gt; and aiming for g6 later.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 a6 5. Nc3 e5 6. Nf5 Bxf5 7. exf5 Nf6 8.Bg5 Be7 9. Bxf6 Bxf6 10. Qd5 Qd7 11. g4 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White has a small but definite advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8673" LastEditorUserId="10295" LastEditDate="2017-12-07T15:03:10.153" LastActivityDate="2017-12-07T15:03:10.153" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19322" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1003" CreationDate="2017-12-03T19:56:36.010" Score="8" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Has anyone ever written a chess program that does have insights of its&#xA;  own? That learns the game on its own? That trains itself?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes.  Check out the &lt;a href=&quot;https://bitbucket.org/waterreaction/giraffe&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Giraffe&lt;/a&gt; chess engine written by Matthew Lai.  He wrote the chess engine as part of his Artificial Intelligence research for a masters degree in computer science.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There was a lot of discussion about this last year on the &lt;a href=&quot;http://talkchess.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=7&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;TalkChess&lt;/a&gt; chess programming forum.  I know because I am a chess engine author whose engine is roughly as strong as Giraffe.  However, I implemented my engine using traditional techniques whereas the author of Giraffe trained his engine using &quot;temporal-difference reinforcement learning with deep neural networks.&quot;  Matthew still had to implement traditional alpha / beta search to &lt;em&gt;dynamically&lt;/em&gt; evaluate a position- in other words, to look ahead many moves.  His innovation is in training the engine to evaluate a &lt;em&gt;static&lt;/em&gt; position.  In comparison, I wrote specific knowledge into my engine's static evaluation routine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wrote code to tune evaluation parameters using a particle swarm algorithm (see &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.madchess.net/thank-you/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Thank You&lt;/a&gt; page on my blog for links to technical discussion) that did yield positive results- a stronger engine.  However, this wasn't a task of getting the engine to &quot;learn&quot; so much as minimizing error in an extremely large space of evaluation parameters (the order of 10 ^ 150 discrete parameter combinations).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Matthew discusses his &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.talkchess.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=57557&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;dissertation&lt;/a&gt; on the TalkChess forum.  He works for Google on DeepMind now, if I remember correctly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, check out Thomas Petzke's &lt;a href=&quot;http://macechess.blogspot.com/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;blog&lt;/a&gt;.  He has written an extremely strong chess engine, iCE, and used genetic algorithms to improve the engine's static evaluation.  See his posts from 2013 and earlier, such as &lt;a href=&quot;http://macechess.blogspot.com/2013/03/population-based-incremental-learning.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Population Based Incremental Learning&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14988" LastEditorUserId="14988" LastEditDate="2017-12-03T20:08:40.773" LastActivityDate="2017-12-03T20:08:40.773" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19323" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19318" CreationDate="2017-12-03T20:30:07.650" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is an unusual way of playing the Sicilian compared to the standard Najdorf. There is probably nothing seriously wrong with it (i.e. black is not lost immediately), but unless black has something in mind with these particular moves, I don't see the point of preferring this over the normal Najdorf.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In particular:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;2. ... a6!?&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This move is usually aimed at preventing a white knight or bishop from going to b5. However it seems a bit premature and gives white two options he does not get in standard Sicilians, namely (i) to go for a Maroczy bind with 3. c4 or (ii) to play 3. c3, with the idea to follow up with 4. d4 cxd4 5. cxd4. The move a6 is not useful in either of these variations. Also, I believe that your move, 3. Nc3, is not ambitious enough as there is no need to protect the pawn on e4 yet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some players might prefer to play a6 before d6 in order to avoid all those boring positions after 3. Bb5+.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;5. ... e5?!&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The move 5. ... Nf6 would lead to the standard Najdorf starting position (reached through an unusual move order) which I'd like to discuss now. It is true that e5 is a typical move for black in the Najdorf, however, it is only played in variations where Nf5 is not attractive for white. Specifically (in the Najdorf after 5. ... Nf6), after white's main replies 6. Be2/Be3/h3/f3/g3, black can play 6. ... e5, because if the knight jumps 7. Nf5, black has at least 7...d5 with a better position and in some of the variations in addition also the good options  7....Nxe4 or 7. ... Bxf5 8. exf5 d5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand in the two other popular lines after 6. Bg5 or 6. Bc4, black usually does not want to let a knight jump to f5, because the &quot;refutations&quot; mentioned above don't work anymore. That's why in these two lines, black usually plays 6. ... e6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Back to the position you are asking about. In my opinion you are perfectly right to reply to 5. ... e5 with 6. Nf5 because black does not have any of the &quot;refutations&quot; mentioned above available and will have a hard time to push d5. If black captures on f5 with the bishop the light squares in the center become even weaker. In the line you mention, after 6...Bxf5 7.exf5 Nf6 8.g4 , I very much prefer the white position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2017-12-03T20:30:07.650" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19324" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19339" CreationDate="2017-12-04T00:46:14.347" Score="2" ViewCount="437" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am intermediate Chess player, I can make common plans, but when it comes to create long plans, I can't plan. Can I please get some help? Thanks&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15019" LastEditorUserId="15019" LastEditDate="2017-12-04T22:47:55.370" LastActivityDate="2017-12-06T20:24:05.603" Title="how to make long-range plans?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;planning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="9" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19325" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18670" CreationDate="2017-12-04T03:49:55.190" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here's how I update the Zobrist hash in &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.madchess.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;MadChess&lt;/a&gt;, my chess engine.  MadChess uses &quot;mailbox&quot; board representation (uses an int[] to represent pieces on the board), not bitboards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Board constructor:&#xA;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;// Create Zobrist position keys.&#xA;_piecesSquaresInitialKey = ULongRandom.Next();&#xA;_pieceSquareKeys = new ulong[13][];&#xA;for (int piece = 0; piece &amp;lt; 13; piece++)&#xA;{&#xA;    _pieceSquareKeys[piece] = new ulong[64];&#xA;    for (int square = 0; square &amp;lt; 64; square++)&#xA;    {&#xA;        _pieceSquareKeys[piece][square] = ULongRandom.Next();&#xA;    }&#xA;}&#xA;_sideToMoveKeys = new[] { ULongRandom.Next(), ULongRandom.Next() };&#xA;_castlingKeys = new ulong[16];&#xA;{&#xA;    for (int castlingRights = 0; castlingRights &amp;lt; 16; castlingRights++)&#xA;    {&#xA;        _castlingKeys[castlingRights] = ULongRandom.Next();&#xA;    }&#xA;}&#xA;_enPassantKeys = new ulong[64];&#xA;for (int square = 0; square &amp;lt; 64; square++)&#xA;{&#xA;    _enPassantKeys[square] = ULongRandom.Next();&#xA;}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is called every time a piece is added or removed from a square:&#xA;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;private void UpdatePiecesSquaresKey(int Piece, int Square)&#xA;{&#xA;    ulong pieceSquareKey = _pieceSquareKeys[Piece][Square];&#xA;    // XOR square piece key.&#xA;    CurrentPosition.PiecesSquaresKey ^= pieceSquareKey;&#xA;    #if DEBUG&#xA;    // Verify incrementally updated pieces squares key matches fully updated pieces squares key.&#xA;    ulong fullyUpdatedPiecesSquaresKey = _piecesSquaresInitialKey;&#xA;    for (int square = 0; square &amp;lt; 64; square++)&#xA;    {&#xA;        int piece = CurrentPosition.Squares[square];&#xA;        if (piece != Engine.Piece.None)&#xA;        {&#xA;            pieceSquareKey = _pieceSquareKeys[piece][square];&#xA;            fullyUpdatedPiecesSquaresKey ^= pieceSquareKey;&#xA;        }&#xA;    }&#xA;    Debug.Assert(fullyUpdatedPiecesSquaresKey == CurrentPosition.PiecesSquaresKey);&#xA;    #endif&#xA;}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This combines all the board state keys to produce a position key:&#xA;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;private ulong GetPositionKey()&#xA;{&#xA;    ulong sideToMoveKey = CurrentPosition.WhiteMove ? _sideToMoveKeys[0] : _sideToMoveKeys[1];&#xA;    ulong castlingKey = _castlingKeys[CurrentPosition.Castling];&#xA;    ulong enPassantKey = CurrentPosition.EnPassantSquare == Square.Illegal ? _enPassantKeys[0] : _enPassantKeys[CurrentPosition.EnPassantSquare];&#xA;    // XOR keys.&#xA;    return CurrentPosition.PiecesSquaresKey ^ sideToMoveKey ^ castlingKey ^ enPassantKey;&#xA;}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is called when all pieces are removed from the board (prior to setting up a new position from a FEN string):&#xA;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;private void Reset(bool PreserveMoveCount)&#xA;{&#xA;    // Reset position index, position, key, and stats.&#xA;    _positionIndex = 0;&#xA;    CurrentPosition.Reset();&#xA;    CurrentPosition.PiecesSquaresKey = _piecesSquaresInitialKey;&#xA;    if (!PreserveMoveCount)&#xA;    {&#xA;        // Reset nodes.&#xA;        Nodes = 0L;&#xA;        NodesInfoUpdate = UciStream.NodesInfoInterval;&#xA;    }&#xA;}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This generates a random unsigned long (64 bit integer):&#xA;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;public static class ULongRandom&#xA;{&#xA;    private static readonly byte[] _buffer = new byte[sizeof(ulong)];&#xA;    private static readonly Random _random = new Random();&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;    public static ulong Next()&#xA;    {&#xA;        _random.NextBytes(_buffer);&#xA;        return BitConverter.ToUInt64(_buffer, 0);&#xA;    }&#xA;}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14988" LastEditorUserId="14988" LastEditDate="2017-12-04T06:18:24.757" LastActivityDate="2017-12-04T06:18:24.757" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19327" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19329" CreationDate="2017-12-04T11:29:48.807" Score="4" ViewCount="2742" Body="&lt;p&gt;I calculate the informal Elo ratings of a small pool of players (~10-15 in number) of whom I'm a member, using a scientific calculator.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can I do the same with the Glicko rating system, &lt;em&gt;feasibly&lt;/em&gt;? (I'd prefer the Glicko-2 system, but even Glicko-1 would do.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Note&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it isn't possible, could someone name some online or offline program by which I could do that?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Edit&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've edited the question to make my implication clear: is it &lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;feasible&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt; to calculate the Glicko rating with the assistance of a scientific calculator?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13565" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2017-12-04T19:18:40.680" Title="Can one feasibly calculate the Glicko (preferably Glicko 2) rating of a player by just using a pen, a paper and a calculator?" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;glicko&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19328" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19308" CreationDate="2017-12-04T11:59:15.627" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just some broad strokes, mostly tactical, I think there were some more inaccuracies on a positional level:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Live Chess&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Chess.com&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2017.08.03&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;kingggggggggggggg&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;bram-stokers&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;855&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;1172&quot;]&#xA;[TimeControl &quot;600&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;A80&quot;]&#xA;[Termination &quot;bram-stokers won by checkmate&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 f5 2.Nf3 d5?! {Slightly weakens Black's pawn structure.} 3.e3 a5?! {Weakens pawn structure some more, and is a waste of time. Black should start developing his pieces.} 4.Be2 h5?! {Same as 3...a5.} 5.O-O e6 6.c3?! {d4 is not threatened, why defend it? The c-pawn should instead attack Black's centre by c4, maybe after Nbd2.} g5 {Looks menacing, but isn't. Black still has not developed a single piece so far!} 7.Qc2 Nc6 {Finally, some development. In move 7...} 8.Bd3?! {Moves an already developed piece instead of continuing to develop the queenside, and with no clear objective. The bishop doesn't actually do anything important on d3. If anything, it should go to b5 to assist a future Ne5.} g4 9.Ng5? {Drops a piece for no reason. Better: Ne5.} Qxg5 10.e4 f4 11.e5 f3?? {Drops the queen. Better: Develop the g8 knight to join the attack.} 12.Bg6+? {Misses Bxg5, drops the bishop instead.} Qxg6 13.Qxg6+ Ke7? {Allows Bg5+ with tempo. Better: Kd7.} 14.Qg5+? {Misses Bg5+.} Kd7 15.Qf5?? {Drops the queen. Better: gxf3, followed by Qf4 or Qg3.} Be7?? {Misses exf5.} 16.Qc2? {Relieves all pressure on the black king for no reason. Better: Qf7.} h4 17.Na3 h3 18.gxh3 gxh3 19.Qd3?! {Too passive. The queen should go to g5 to keep the black rook off of the now open g-file.} Nh6 20.Qxf3 Rg8+ 21.Kh1 Nf5 22.Qxh3 Nd8 23.b3 Nf7 24.c4 dxc4 25.bxc4 a4 26.d5 exd5? {Drops a piece. Better: Kd8 or Kd8, to break the pin while the bishop on c8 will defend e6.} 27.Qxf5+ Ke8 28.cxd5?? {Drops the queen. Better: e6.} Bxf5 29.Rg1?? {Allows the following mate. Better: Nb5, threatening Nxc7+.} Be4+ 30.f3 Bxf3+ 31.Rg2 Rxg2 32.Nc4 Rg8#  0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To recap: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Black handled the opening very poorly. Instead of developing, he pushed pawns for 6 entire moves. In the end, he wins because he blundered a little less (but still a lot!)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;White started developing (good), but in a way that was very passive. The c3-Qc2-Bd3 plan did not make a lot of sense, it attacked a protected pawn instead of the actual holes in Black's structure, like e5. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Remarkably, both players to manage to blunder away their queens with the opponent failing to spot this.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;White fails to use the advantage he had after taking the black queen, instead he drops his queen again and subsequently loses.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My advice for both players: &lt;strong&gt;Train tactics and avoid blunders!&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For White specifically: &lt;strong&gt;Don't just wait for your opponent to generate pressure, strike while he is still weak!&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For Black specifially: &lt;strong&gt;Don't just rush your pawns, develop you pieces to assist an attack!&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13433" LastEditorUserId="13433" LastEditDate="2017-12-04T12:04:25.263" LastActivityDate="2017-12-04T12:04:25.263" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19329" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19327" CreationDate="2017-12-04T12:24:04.347" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Of course it is possible! All the functions needed for the calculations are available on a scientific calculator, e.g. square root, log, value for pi, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glicko_rating_system&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia page&lt;/a&gt; should get you started.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.glicko.net/glicko.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Mark Glickman's page on the system&lt;/a&gt; should take you further.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This pdf has detailed descriptions and equations for Glicko-2 - &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.glicko.net/glicko/glicko2.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.glicko.net/glicko/glicko2.pdf&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Javascript code for implemeting Glicko-2 is available here - &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.npmjs.com/package/glicko2&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.npmjs.com/package/glicko2&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2017-12-04T12:24:04.347" CommentCount="14" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19330" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19338" CreationDate="2017-12-04T22:41:31.820" Score="5" ViewCount="956" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have been floating around the 800-900 tactical rating on chess.com for a while. A few things I've noticed&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;For a beginner I'm having giant swings in rating based on if I get a series that I can identify or not. It's not unusual in a single session for me to see a swing of up to 150 points between 820 and 970.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;For the tactics I fail on, I feel discouraged because repeating them doesn't teach me anything. Many of them have 3-5 steps that if I spend more than the alotted time I don't get any points, and if I fail I lose even more points.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't feel these types of tactics are instructive to tactical beginners.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a better source of tactics? I feel entirely discouraged with these giant swings where I feel like I'm getting it, but I'll miss a sacrifice or something two moves in and be completely obliterated in rating. My strategy of doing each tactic I fail 3 times to get the idea doesn't really help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What can I do here to improve? More tactics is obvious but how do I improve seeing so far down the road? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user14142" LastActivityDate="2019-04-07T05:29:04.697" Title="Practicing tactics" Tags="&lt;tactics&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19331" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19337" CreationDate="2017-12-05T03:14:18.723" Score="4" ViewCount="588" Body="&lt;p&gt;I understand that a modified version of FEN notation is needed to properly record a Chess960 game. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know that en passant is only slightly different, (an en passant possibility is only recorded if there are adjacent enemy pieces.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Reading through the Wikipedia article on X-FEN, I don't understand how to record castling. I ask because I am in the middle of creating a chess app, and I want to store game states with FEN.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can someone explain how castling is recorded in X-FEN notation? Thanks :D&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15042" LastEditorUserId="15042" LastEditDate="2018-04-16T15:12:55.397" LastActivityDate="2018-04-16T15:12:55.397" Title="How does X-FEN (Chess960 FEN) differentiate from traditional FEN notation?" Tags="&lt;fen&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19332" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19330" CreationDate="2017-12-05T03:25:59.773" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The site chesstempo.com has tactics training puzzles you can try, but you might benefit from a more structured approach.  1001 Winning Chess Combinations by Reinfeld is cheap and organizes the tactics by theme.  Encyclopedia of Middle Games is more advanced but also by theme and is a must in my opinion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2017-12-05T03:25:59.773" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19335" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14686" CreationDate="2017-12-05T06:37:39.530" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;My solution has been to use a chess font like &lt;em&gt;Chess Merida&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;Chess Cases&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With such a font for example the start position is written like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1222222223&#xA;4tMvWlVmT5&#xA;4OoOoOoOo5&#xA;4 + + + +5&#xA;4+ + + + 5&#xA;4 + + + +5&#xA;4+ + + + 5&#xA;4pPpPpPpP5&#xA;4RnBqKbNr5&#xA;7888888889&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And (assuming the line-height is set to the height of the font) it looks like this (Here using &lt;em&gt;Chess Merida&lt;/em&gt; as font):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/JWVrq.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/JWVrq.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I wrote this Python script which converts from fen to this format. Call this script (assuming you named it &lt;em&gt;fen2diag.py&lt;/em&gt;) with &lt;code&gt;python fen2diag.py &amp;quot;&amp;lt;the fen&amp;gt;&amp;quot;&lt;/code&gt; and it prints out the diagram string.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;import sys&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;def fen2diag(fen, borders=False):&#xA;    &amp;quot;&amp;quot;&amp;quot;&#xA;    Convert a fen to a diagram string used by fonts like&#xA;    'Chess Merida' and 'Chess Cases'.&#xA;    &#xA;    fen:        The fen. For example the fen for the startposition is&#xA;                'rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1'.&#xA;    borders:    If the returned diagram string shall have borders.&#xA;    &#xA;    Returns the diagram string.&#xA;    &amp;quot;&amp;quot;&amp;quot;&#xA;&#xA;    # We dont need anything except the piece positions.&#xA;    fen = fen[:fen.find(' ')]&#xA;&#xA;    # Transposition table for the black pieces.&#xA;    # White pieces are the same in both formats.&#xA;    t = {'k': 'l', 'q': 'w', 'r': 't', 'b': 'v', 'n': 'm', 'p': 'o'}&#xA;&#xA;    # If the current square is a white square or not.&#xA;    w = False&#xA;&#xA;    def todiagletter(fenletter):&#xA;        &amp;quot;&amp;quot;&amp;quot;&amp;quot;&#xA;        Return the diagram letter corresponding to the letter in the fen.&#xA;        &amp;quot;&amp;quot;&amp;quot;&#xA;&#xA;        nonlocal borders, w&#xA;        w = not w&#xA;        if fenletter == '/':&#xA;            # In the diagram font these are the characters for the diagram borders:&#xA;            # '1' upper left, '2' upper, '3' upper right,&#xA;            # '4' left, '5' right,&#xA;            # '7' bottom left, '8' bottom, '9' bottom right&#xA;            return '5\n4' if borders else '\n'&#xA;        else:&#xA;            # this code handles numbers in the fen, denoting empty squares.&#xA;            try:&#xA;                # this is a number between 1 and 8.&#xA;                n = int(fenletter)&#xA;&#xA;                # This will be a string denoting empty squares.&#xA;                # Would be eg. ' + + + +' for an empty eight rank.&#xA;                spaces = []&#xA;&#xA;                while n &amp;gt; 0:&#xA;                    # In the diagram font ' ' denotes a white square&#xA;                    # and '+' denotes a black square.&#xA;                    spaces.append(' ' if w else '+')&#xA;&#xA;                    w = not w&#xA;                    n -= 1&#xA;                w = not w&#xA;                return ''.join(spaces)&#xA;&#xA;            # this code handles piece letters in the fen.&#xA;            except ValueError:&#xA;                # a black piece&#xA;                if fenletter in t:&#xA;                    fenletter = t[fenletter]&#xA;&#xA;                # In the diagram font lowercase letters denote&#xA;                # pieces on white squares and uppercase letters&#xA;                # denote pieces on black squares.&#xA;                return fenletter.lower() if w else fenletter.upper()&#xA;&#xA;    diagram = ''.join(map(todiagletter, fen))&#xA;    if borders:&#xA;        return f'1222222223\n4{diagram}5\n7888888889'&#xA;    else:&#xA;        return diagram&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;if __name__ == '__main__':&#xA;    print(fen2diag(sys.argv[1], borders=True))&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These Diagram fonts also support squares marked with dots or stars, another type of border, round border corners, numbers/letters on the left/bottom borders denoting the rows/columns. I have not included this in the script. Feel free to update my code.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chessbase has also made a font family (starting with 'DiagramTT...') which supports even more stuff (like pieces turned by 180°) but this font maps things to different code points, also for black squares two letters are taken, one for the background and one for the piece.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15049" LastEditorUserId="15049" LastEditDate="2021-04-07T03:38:28.573" LastActivityDate="2021-04-07T03:38:28.573" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="19336" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2929" CreationDate="2017-12-05T08:25:40.337" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I was younger I used to investigate lines like :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 c5 4. exd5 exd5 5. dxc5 d4 6. Bb5+ Nc6 7. Bxc6+ bxc6 8.Ne4 Ba6 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My conclusion was that Black have some nice ideas but not full compensation&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastEditorUserId="14079" LastEditDate="2018-06-25T06:38:06.867" LastActivityDate="2018-06-25T06:38:06.867" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="19337" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19331" CreationDate="2017-12-05T08:33:11.097" Score="5" Body="&lt;h1&gt;Let's start at the beginning&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To understand X-FEN for castling in Chess960, it helps if you first understand castling in Chess960. Castling rules are slightly different in Chess960, hence there comes a need for X-FEN. I believe it's the major source for your confusion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Minor Note 1&lt;/strong&gt; X-FEN is used not just for Chess960 but for many other variants as well (Capablanca chess, Janus chess, Chess480, etc.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Castling in Chess960&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Castling in chess960 is done on two sides: &lt;strong&gt;the a-side and the h-side&lt;/strong&gt;, analogous to queenside and kingside castling respectively. The final positions after castling are the same in Chess960 and in standard chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The terms a-side and h-side are used as the initial board configuration is randomized, and what is &lt;em&gt;queenside&lt;/em&gt; in normal chess needn't be so in Chess960 (the same applies for kingside.).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Why FEN is insufficient for Chess960&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;FEN is sufficient for standard chess, as there are only &lt;em&gt;two initial squares for the rooks, on the a-file and the h-file&lt;/em&gt;.If a rook from the kingside somehow gets to say, the c-file, there is no question of allowing queenside castling with it as it isn't on the right square. (More on this in an example.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In chess960, the rooks have &lt;em&gt;many&lt;/em&gt; possible initial squares. In the course of a game, both the rooks could end up on the same side of the king. Now, if FEN is used, there is no way of clearly knowing which rook has the castling rights (without knowing the initial position) as either could be occupying the &lt;em&gt;legal&lt;/em&gt; square for castling. As a matter of fact, X-FEN assumes by default the &lt;strong&gt;outermost rook in such cases to have the castling rights,&lt;/strong&gt; but that needn't be the case always.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;An example to make my point clear&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/r5Cwh.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/r5Cwh.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;A situation involving X-FEN&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Standard Chess&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the above position occurred in a standard chess game, the FEN would simply be&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;rn2k1r1/ppp1pp1p/3p2p1/5bn1/P7/2N2B2/1PPPPP2/2BNK1RR w Kq - 4 11&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is because White can castle legally on the kingside, with the rook on the h-file. The rook on the g-file would play no role in castling, simply because that isn't on the &lt;em&gt;legal square for kingside castling&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Likewise, Black can castle only on the queenside, hence the FEN has a &lt;strong&gt;q&lt;/strong&gt; for the castling rights of Black. The rook on g8 is irrelevant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Minor Note 2&lt;/strong&gt; Precise readers might point out that the number of moves and half-moves required to arrive at the position shown, in a normal chess game, might not tally with the values given in the FEN. That is quite possibly true, but I stuck to the value given for the Chess960 game (for the same position) on Wikipedia, for simplicity's sake.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Chess960&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The situation changes if the game is Chess960, simply because the legal initial square for the white rook could be &lt;em&gt;either g1 or h1&lt;/em&gt;. We cannot be sure &lt;strong&gt;without knowing the initial position.&lt;/strong&gt; We cannot ascertain which rook has the kingside castling rights.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the FEN given above was used here, it would confer the castling rights on the rook on the h-file, as &lt;strong&gt;the outermost rook is assumed to be the one with the castling rights, by default&lt;/strong&gt;. It would also mean that Black can castle &lt;em&gt;only on the a-side&lt;/em&gt; (queenside, in other words).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a matter of fact, the &lt;strong&gt;initial position for this game&lt;/strong&gt; was actually&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;rnbnkq&lt;strong&gt;r&lt;/strong&gt;b/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBNKQ&lt;strong&gt;R&lt;/strong&gt;B w KQkq -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you notice the bold R's, you'll see that the legal square for the white  kingside rook (the one involved in h-side castling) is actually &lt;strong&gt;g1, not h1&lt;/strong&gt;. Similarly, the home square of the black 'kingside' rook is &lt;strong&gt;g8, not h8.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This means that using normal FEN not only confers the castling rights to the &lt;strong&gt;wrong white rook&lt;/strong&gt;, it also &lt;strong&gt;fails to indicate the ability of Black to castle kingside.&lt;/strong&gt; It's because normal FEN assumes the initial squares of the rooks to be on the a- and h-files only.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hence, to avoid the ambiguity caused by normal FEN, X-FEN records the position as&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;rn2k1r1/ppp1pp1p/3p2p1/5bn1/P7/2N2B2/1PPPPP2/2BNK1RR w &lt;strong&gt;G&lt;/strong&gt;kq - 4 11&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The G (in bold) shows that the castling rights on the kingside are &lt;strong&gt;with the rook on the g-file, not with that on the h-file.&lt;/strong&gt; This is the &lt;strong&gt;inner&lt;/strong&gt; rook. Similarly, it ensures that Black's castling rights on the kingside aren't ignored.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The queenside castling possibility for Black is recorded normally as there is no ambiguity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Summary&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Recording castling in Chess960 using X-FEN works as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Just like normal FEN, if the two rooks are on the &lt;em&gt;opposite sides of the king.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Still like normal FEN, if both rooks are on &lt;em&gt;the same side of the king&lt;/em&gt;, with the &lt;strong&gt;outermost rook having the right to castle.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Using the letter (capital for White, small for Black) of the file of the rook permitted to castle, when both rooks are on the &lt;em&gt;same side of the king&lt;/em&gt;, with the &lt;strong&gt;innermost rook having the right to castle&lt;/strong&gt;. In the above example, &lt;strong&gt;G&lt;/strong&gt; is used to indicate that the inner rook of White (on the g-file) has the right to castle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope that's clear, feel free to ask if there's any confusion!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Note: Special case&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the unusual scenario of &lt;strong&gt;three or more&lt;/strong&gt; rooks (due to underpromotion) being on the same side of the king, with the king yet to castle, there would be an &lt;strong&gt;outermost rook,&lt;/strong&gt; an &lt;strong&gt;innermost rook&lt;/strong&gt; and one or more rooks &lt;strong&gt;in between&lt;/strong&gt;. In such a case, the outermost rook is treated the same way as above, and &lt;strong&gt;any other inner rook&lt;/strong&gt; is identified by its file (depending on which has the right to castle).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the curious, here's the PGN of the entire example game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &amp;quot;SmirfGUI Computerchess Game&amp;quot;] [Site &amp;quot;CHESSBOX&amp;quot;] [Date &amp;quot;2005.06.19&amp;quot;] [Time &amp;quot;10:22:29&amp;quot;] [Round &amp;quot;Test&amp;quot;] [White &amp;quot;White&amp;quot;] [Black &amp;quot;Black&amp;quot;] [Result &amp;quot;*&amp;quot;] [Annotator &amp;quot;R. Scharnagl&amp;quot;] [SetUp &amp;quot;1&amp;quot;] [FEN &amp;quot;rnbnkqrb/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBNKQRB w KQkq - 0 1&amp;quot;] 1. h4 g6 2. g3 Bf6 3. a4 Qh6 4. Ra3 Bxh4 5. gxh4 Qxh4 6. Qh3 Qxh3 7. Rxh3 Ne6 8. Bf3 d6 9. Nbc3 Ng5 10. Rhh1 Bf5 11. O-O * &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Image and PGN courtesy Wikipedia&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13565" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2017-12-05T13:37:01.200" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19338" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19330" CreationDate="2017-12-05T09:14:45.650" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;First of all, don't worry about your rating. Particularly beginners will have large fluctuations in rating and in the end who cares about that number anyway?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Regarding tactics training, doing online puzzles is a very good way. Many websites offer these for free. I like the ones on lichess, because they are taken from real games and therefore tend to be a bit more realistic/messy than composed problems. However as a beginner you probably prefer cleaner problems focusing on just one or two motifs. But in any case, any good website will present you problem close to your level so that should not be a problem.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you solve these puzzles (or fail to solve), I suggest to not stop there, but analyze each puzzle a bit more. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Particularly you should figure out which &lt;a href=&quot;https://chesstempo.com/tactical-motifs.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;tactical motifs&lt;/a&gt; are relevant in this puzzle. Chesstempo can help you here, as once you solve (or fail to solve) a problem it will show you the motifs as &quot;tags&quot;. Make sure you can see all of the motifs in the solution.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another thing you can try is to take the starting position and remove all pieces from the board that are not necessary for the problem. This will give you a cleaner/clearer image of the tactics.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The aim of tactic training is to store certain patterns (positions of relevant pieces) in your brain and associate them with a tactic. You only store the relevant pieces, not the complete position, because this way the patterns are re-usable for many situations. As an example, a simple pattern could be: &lt;em&gt;two pieces on the same row, two squares apart&lt;/em&gt; (e.g. on d5 and b5). This pattern would be associated with a &quot;pawn fork&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you solve puzzles later, you can quickly check whether the problem matches any of the stored patterns. Often it will match more than one, giving you more than one candidate move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At this point it is time for concrete calculations in order to find the best move among the candidate moves and also to make sure that the tactics works (that there are no defenses). This involves for instance checking whether there are any additional pieces (compared to your stored pattern) that defend essential squares or whether the opponent has intermediate checks, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In summary my suggestion is to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;do tactics puzzles (online or on computer or from books) and &lt;em&gt;analyze&lt;/em&gt; them&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;try to find and name all the tactical motifs in the puzzle&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;remove pieces from the problem to get a clearer picture&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;memorize the relevant piece positions&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;re-check whether the tactic works&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2017-12-05T09:14:45.650" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19339" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19324" CreationDate="2017-12-05T13:59:59.713" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Taking into account your earlier version of this question (with number of moves to think ahead, etc), I think you might be a bit confused about the terms. Basically chess is played using two methods:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;tactics/calculation&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;positional play/strategy&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Tactics/calculation&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;... is when you actually calculate concrete variations, i.e. something like: &lt;em&gt;if I make this move, my opponent does this, to which I reply with this move, etc&lt;/em&gt;. When playing chess, in most positions you don't need to calculate very deep: perhaps 3 moves or less, or not at all. This is because most positions are rather quiet and you have a number of equally good moves available. Trying to calculate deep here would quickly exhaust your memory (e.g. if at each move you have say 3 possible moves to consider, then you already have 27 variations if you calculate 3 (half)-moves deep). Of course there are also positions where you need to calculate deep (say 10 moves), but if it is some forced line with few alternative candidate moves, it is not all that hard to do so.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyway, there are situation, where pure calculation does not help and you need another method to come up with moves, which brings us to...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Positional play/strategy&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;.. this is based more on intuition, experience, general principles and is much harder to train than tactics/calculation. To start with, you should familiarize yourself with common &lt;a href=&quot;https://chesstempo.com/positional-motifs.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;positional motifs&lt;/a&gt;. Don't need to learn all of them at once, but start with some easy important ones like &quot;piece activity&quot;, &quot;open file/file control&quot;, &quot;king safety&quot;, &quot;isolated pawns&quot;, &quot;good pieces/bad pieces&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When playing a game of chess, try to take into account these factors, e.g. think what pieces are badly placed, check whether you can occupy an open file, etc. This will lead naturally to meaningful plans. If you run out of plans, learn a new positional motif and see whether this helps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the opening/middle-game, the plan is often determined by the pawn structure and you can read about it in: &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pawn_structure&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;the wikipedia article&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The tricky part comes, when you have several positional motifs available and need to decide for one or the other. For instance, &lt;em&gt;is it a good idea to go for a pawn storm, if this neglects my king's safety&lt;/em&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In order to train such positional ideas, ideally, you have a stronger player look over your games and point out strategical mistakes (or compliment you on your strategical play). Another option is to read or watch annotated games and see what plans they develop in different types of positions. Learning this plan making will take time and many games in order to gain experience on what works and what does not. But don't worry, for most beginner games, tactics/calculation is much more important than long term strategy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2017-12-05T13:59:59.713" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19340" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19330" CreationDate="2017-12-05T14:14:59.890" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've only made it to 1500 on chess.com, but here are some suggestions I found helpful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For &quot;tactics theory&quot;, you could consider reading a book such as &lt;em&gt;Winning Chess Tactics&lt;/em&gt; which goes over each basic tactical theme systematically.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also recommend CT-ART (available as a mobile app for $10 from the Google or Apple app store, or as desktop software from &lt;a href=&quot;https://chesskingtraining.com/ct-art/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess King&lt;/a&gt;). Level 10 (the easiest) in particular consists mostly of composed problems which focus on a single motif at a time. Practice it repeatedly until you can spot the basic motifs quickly. Level 20 is also great practice and it starts combining motifs a bit more. The higher levels are probably too hard at this point. I find that level 30 is already harder for me than chess.com's puzzles rated 1600.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One advantage of CT-ART over chess.com as a learning tool is that if you answer wrong, it shows you the refutation, and it gradually gives you hints as you try again.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Within chess.com itself, you can try using the analysis feature that becomes available after you answer the puzzle. It can help you figure out why certain moves don't work, especially when the move you tried was wrong and you can't see why no matter how hard you try, but also when you guessed correctly but aren't sure why some other move didn't work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12523" LastEditorUserId="12523" LastEditDate="2017-12-05T16:58:09.940" LastActivityDate="2017-12-05T16:58:09.940" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19342" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-12-06T12:47:17.913" Score="1" ViewCount="1979" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm interested in a software for a middle-casual player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It should have learning tools, rich graphics with modern screens support and some entertainment features, similar to ChessMaster. Chessmaster is good but seems to be outdated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Applications like Fritz are too heavy and UI has always been a second class citizen for them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3071" LastActivityDate="2017-12-06T13:36:26.010" Title="Is there modern chess software similar to ChessMaster series?" Tags="&lt;software&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19343" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19342" CreationDate="2017-12-06T13:36:26.010" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You should have a look at &lt;a href=&quot;http://lucaschess.pythonanywhere.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;LucasChess&lt;/a&gt; . It has a lot of interesting learning tools (i.e. Play like a Grandmaster) ,  40 (!!!) engines from 0 to 3300 ELO and a really nice UI. It is free and is actively developed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13025" LastActivityDate="2017-12-06T13:36:26.010" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19344" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13913" CreationDate="2017-12-06T14:19:58.670" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, well, well! &lt;a href=&quot;https://arxiv.org/pdf/1712.01815.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;DeepMind have published a paper&lt;/a&gt; in which they say they have programmed and trained a neural network computer to beat Stockfish.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With 1 minute thinking time per move their AlphaZero computer beat Stockfish by +25, =25, -0 with white and +3,=47,0- as black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They &quot;trained&quot; 3 separate computers to play chess, shogi and Go and beat their silicon rivals convincingly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is how the paper describes the training and evaluation -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Self-play games are generated by using the latest parameters for this&#xA;  neural network, omitting the evaluation step and the selection of best&#xA;  player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;AlphaGo Zero tuned the hyper-parameter of its search by Bayesian&#xA;  optimisation. In AlphaZero we reuse the same hyper-parameters for all&#xA;  games without game-specific tuning. The sole exception is the noise&#xA;  that is added to the prior policy to ensure exploration; this is&#xA;  scaled in proportion to the typical number of legal moves for that&#xA;  game type.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Like AlphaGo Zero, the board state is encoded by spatial planes based&#xA;  only on the basic rules for each game. The actions are encoded by&#xA;  either spatial planes or a flat vector, again based only on the basic&#xA;  rules for each game (see Methods).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;We applied the AlphaZero algorithm to chess, shogi, and also Go.&#xA;  Unless otherwise specified, the same algorithm settings, network&#xA;  architecture, and hyper-parameters were used for all three games. We&#xA;  trained a separate instance of AlphaZero for each game. Training&#xA;  proceeded for 700,000 steps (mini-batches of size 4,096) starting from&#xA;  randomly initialised parameters, using 5,000 first-generation TPUs to&#xA;  generate self-play games and 64 second-generation TPUs to train the&#xA;  neural networks. Further details of the training procedure are&#xA;  provided in the Methods.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Figure 1 shows the performance of AlphaZero during self-play&#xA;  reinforcement learning, as a function of training steps, on an Elo&#xA;  scale (10). In chess, AlphaZero outperformed Stockfish after just 4&#xA;  hours (300k steps); in shogi, AlphaZero outperformed Elmo after less&#xA;  than 2 hours (110k steps); and in Go, AlphaZero outperformed AlphaGo&#xA;  Lee (29) after 8 hours (165k steps).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;We evaluated the fully trained instances of AlphaZero against&#xA;  Stockfish, Elmo and the previous version of AlphaGo Zero (trained for&#xA;  3 days) in chess, shogi and Go respectively, playing 100 game matches&#xA;  at tournament time controls of one minute per move. AlphaZero and the&#xA;  previous AlphaGo Zero used a single machine with 4 TPUs. Stockfish and&#xA;  Elmo played at their strongest skill level using 64 threads and a hash&#xA;  size of 1GB. AlphaZero convincingly defeated all opponents, losing&#xA;  zero games to Stockfish and eight games to Elmo (see Supplementary&#xA;  Material for several example games), as well as defeating the previous&#xA;  version of AlphaGo Zero (see Table 1).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Their computer used a new form of chip called a &quot;TPU&quot; (&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tensor_processing_unit&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Tensor Processing Unit&lt;/a&gt;) developed by Google for machine learning tasks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They also claim their Monte Carlo tree search algorithm is better and more &quot;human like&quot; than the traditional alpha-beta search algorithms -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;We also analysed the relative performance of AlphaZero’s MCTS search&#xA;  compared to the state-of-the-art alpha-beta search engines used by&#xA;  Stockfish and Elmo. AlphaZero searches just 80 thousand positions per&#xA;  second in chess and 40 thousand in shogi, compared to 70 million for&#xA;  Stockfish and 35 million for Elmo. AlphaZero compensates for the lower&#xA;  number of evaluations by using its deep neural network to focus much&#xA;  more selectively on the most promising variations – arguably a more&#xA;  “human-like” approach to search, as originally proposed by Shannon.&#xA;  Figure 2 shows the scalability of each player with respect to thinking&#xA;  time, measured on an Elo scale, relative to Stockfish or Elmo with&#xA;  40ms thinking time. AlphaZero’s MCTS scaled more effectively with&#xA;  thinking time than either Stockfish or Elmo, calling into question the&#xA;  widely held belief that alpha-beta search is inherently superior in&#xA;  these domains&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are some of the games -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Stockfish &quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;AlphaZero&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 Nf6 4. d3 Bc5 5. Bxc6 dxc6 &#xA; 6. O-O Nd7 7. Nbd2 O-O 8. Qe1 f6 9. Nc4 Rf7 10. a4 Bf8 11. Kh1 Nc5 12. a5 Ne6 &#xA; 13. Ncxe5 fxe5 14. Nxe5 Rf6 15. Ng4 Rf7 16. Ne5 Re7 17. a6 c5 18. f4 Qe8 &#xA; 19. axb7 Bxb7 20. Qa5 Nd4 21. Qc3 Re6 22. Be3 Rb6 23. Nc4 Rb4 24. b3 a5 &#xA; 25. Rxa5 Rxa5 26. Nxa5 Ba6 27. Bxd4 Rxd4 28. Nc4 Rd8 29. g3 h6 30. Qa5 Bc8 &#xA; 31. Qxc7 Bh3 32. Rg1 Rd7 33. Qe5 Qxe5 34. Nxe5 Ra7 35. Nc4 g5 36. Rc1 Bg7 &#xA; 37. Ne5 Ra8 38. Nf3 Bb2 39. Rb1 Bc3 40. Ng1 Bd7 41. Ne2 Bd2 42. Rd1 Be3 &#xA; 43. Kg2 Bg4 44. Re1 Bd2 45. Rf1 Ra2 46. h3 Bxe2 47. Rf2 Bxf4 48. Rxe2 Be5 &#xA; 49. Rf2 Kg7 50. g4 Bd4 51. Re2 Kf6 52. e5+ Bxe5 53. Kf3 Ra1 54. Rf2 Re1 &#xA; 55. Kg2+ Bf4 56. c3 Rc1 57. d4 Rxc3 58. dxc5 Rxc5 59. b4 Rc3 60. h4 Ke5 &#xA; 61. hxg5 hxg5 62. Re2+ Kf6 63. Kf2 Be5 64. Ra2 Rc4 65. Ra6+ Ke7 66. Ra5 Ke6 &#xA; 67. Ra6+ Bd6 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Game&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA; [White &quot;Stockfish &quot;]&#xA; [Black &quot;AlphaZero&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 Nf6 4. d3 Bc5 5. Bxc6 dxc6 6. O-O Nd7 7. c3 O-O &#xA; 8. d4 Bd6 9. Bg5 Qe8 10. Re1 f6 11. Bh4 Qf7 12. Nbd2 a5 13. Bg3 Re8 14. Qc2 Nf8 15. c4 c5 16. d5 b6 17. Nh4 g6 18. Nhf3 Bd7 19. Rad1 Re7 20. h3 Qg7 21. Qc3 Rae8 22. a3 h6 23. Bh4 Rf7 24. Bg3 Rfe7 25. Bh4 Rf7 26. Bg3 a4 27. Kh1 Rfe7 28. Bh4 Rf7 29. Bg3 Rfe7 30. Bh4 g5 31. Bg3 Ng6 32. Nf1 Rf7 33. Ne3 Ne7 34. Qd3 h5 35. h4 Nc8 36. Re2 g4 37. Nd2 Qh7 38. Kg1 Bf8 39. Nb1 Nd6 40. Nc3 Bh6 41. Rf1 Ra8 42. Kh2 Kf8 43. Kg1 Qg6 44. f4 gxf3 45. Rxf3 Bxe3+ 46. Rfxe3 Ke7 47. Be1 Qh7 48. Rg3 Rg7 49. Rxg7+ Qxg7 50. Re3 Rg8 51. Rg3 Qh8 52. Nb1 Rxg3 53. Bxg3 Qh6 54. Nd2 Bg4 55. Kh2 Kd7 56. b3 axb3 57. Nxb3 Qg6 58. Nd2 Bd1 59. Nf3 Ba4 60. Nd2 Ke7 61. Bf2 Qg4 62. Qf3 Bd1 63. Qxg4 Bxg4 64. a4 Nb7 65. Nb1 Na5 66. Be3 Nxc4 67. Bc1 Bd7 68. Nc3 c6 69. Kg1 cxd5 70. exd5 Bf5 71. Kf2 Nd6 72. Be3 Ne4+ 73. Nxe4 Bxe4 74. a5 bxa5 75. Bxc5+ Kd7 76. d6 Bf5 77. Ba3 Kc6 78. Ke1 Kd5 79. Kd2 Ke4 80. Bb2 Kf4 81. Bc1 Kg3 82. Ke2 a4 83. Kf1 Kxh4 84. Kf2 Kg4 85. Ba3 Bd7 86. Bc1 Kf5 87. Ke3 Ke6 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White: AlphaZero Black: Stockfish&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA; [White &quot;AlphaZero &quot;]&#xA; [Black &quot;Stockfish&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. Nf3 Nf6 2. c4 b6 3. d4 e6 4. g3 Ba6 5. Qc2 c5 6. d5 exd5 7. cxd5 Bb7 8. Bg2 Nxd5 9. O-O Nc6 10. Rd1 Be7 11. Qf5 Nf6 12. e4 g6 13. Qf4 O-O 14. e5 Nh5 15. Qg4 Re8 16. Nc3 Qb8 17. Nd5 Bf8 18. Bf4 Qc8 19. h3 Ne7 20. Ne3 Bc6 21. Rd6 Ng7 22. Rf6 Qb7 23. Bh6 Nd5 24. Nxd5 Bxd5 25. Rd1 Ne6 26. Bxf8 Rxf8 27. Qh4 Bc6 28. Qh6 Rae8 29. Rd6 Bxf3 30. Bxf3 Qa6 31. h4 Qa5 32. Rd1 c4 33. Rd5 Qe1+ 34. Kg2 c3 35. bxc3 Qxc3 36. h5 Re7 37. Bd1 Qe1 38. Bb3 Rd8 39. Rf3 Qe4 40. Qd2 Qg4 41. Bd1 Qe4 42. h6 Nc7 43. Rd6 Ne6 44. Bb3 Qxe5 45. Rd5 Qh8 46. Qb4 Nc5 47. Rxc5 bxc5 48. Qh4 Rde8 49. Rf6 Rf8 50. Qf4 a5 51. g4 d5 52. Bxd5 Rd7 53. Bc4 a4 54. g5 a3 55. Qf3 Rc7 56. Qxa3 Qxf6 57. gxf6 Rfc8 58. Qd3 Rf8 59. Qd6 Rfc8 60. a4 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="9025" LastEditDate="2017-12-06T18:08:52.393" LastActivityDate="2017-12-06T18:08:52.393" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19345" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13913" CreationDate="2017-12-06T16:42:55.297" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The answer is Yes! Google just proved this yesterday, when AlphaZero beat the best chess program using only knowledge about the rules and pure self training with no human chess knowledge used. The accepted answer is wrong. The link to the article is here :&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.arxiv-vanity.com/papers/1712.01815v1/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;link&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15068" LastEditorUserId="15068" LastEditDate="2017-12-07T08:14:07.723" LastActivityDate="2017-12-07T08:14:07.723" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19346" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19351" CreationDate="2017-12-06T20:12:27.973" Score="-2" ViewCount="201" Body="&lt;p&gt;After playing a couple of games playing Sicilian against a computer (had no wifi) i’ve noticed that I have been able to create much better pawn structures than against players that would be similarly ranked. Why is this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ex PGN&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 c5 2.b3 d6 3.Bb2 Nf6 4.Bb5+ Bd7 5.Nc3 Bxb5 6.Nxb5 a6 7.Na3 Nc6 8.d3 b5 9.Qe2 b4 10.Bxf6 bxa3 11.Bh4 f6 12.Qd1 g5 13.Bg3 h5 14.f3 Bg7 15.c3 e6 16.Rc1 f5 17.Nh3 f4 18.Bf2 Bf6 19.Ng1 O-O 20.Qc2 h4 21.Qd1 Rf7 22.Qd2 Rb8 23.Ne2 a5 24.Qd1 h3 25.O-O Rh7 26.gxh3 Qd7 27.Be1 Rxh3 28.Rc2 d5 29.Nc1 dxe4 30.Rg2 e3 31.d4 Qd6 32.Qc2 Kh8 33.Ne2 Rd8 34.Kh1 a4 35.b4 cxb4 36.Ng1 Rh7 37.Qb1 b3 38.axb3 axb3 39.Qxb3 e5 40.Ra2 exd4 41.cxd4 g4 42.Qxa3 g3 43.Qxd6 Rxd6 44.d5 Ne7 45.Rg2 Nxd5 46.Re2 Ra6 47.Bxg3 fxg3 48.Rg2 Nf4 49.Rxg3 Ra2 50.h3 e2 51.Re1 Bc3 52.Rxe2 Nxe2 53.Rg2 Rg7 54.Rxe2 Rxg1+ 55.Kxg1 Rxe2 56.Kh1 Bd4 57.f4 Kg7 58.h4 Kg6 59.h5+ Kxh5 60.f5 Kg4 61.f6 Kg3 62.f7 Re1# &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12876" LastEditorDisplayName="user1108" LastEditDate="2017-12-06T21:17:37.993" LastActivityDate="2017-12-07T21:41:08.767" Title="Why do chess programs do bad against pawns?" Tags="&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;&lt;computer-chess&gt;&lt;pawn-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19347" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19324" CreationDate="2017-12-06T20:24:05.603" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are several books on &quot;planning&quot;, which is often synonymous with &quot;positional&quot; or &quot;strategic&quot; play.  Dvoretsky's books are good; check out this: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/article/view/ideas-on-planning-from-the-greatest-chess-coach&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.chess.com/article/view/ideas-on-planning-from-the-greatest-chess-coach&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are some basic suggestions:&#xA;Learn about the 'minority attack' which typically comes out of the Queen's Gambit Declined, and/or learn about the Ruy Lopez Exchange Variation.  These are long-range plans that comes right out of the opening.&#xA;Read a well annotated book of games from a great positional player, like &quot;Karpov's Best Games&quot; by Karpov,  or &quot;Smyslov's 125 Selected Games&quot; by Smyslov!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And my basic answer to your question is:&#xA;1. Imagine where you want your pieces (idea)&#xA;2. How can you get them there? (plan)&#xA;3. Calculate (tactics) &#xA;What can your opponent do about your plan?&#xA;Maybe his plan is faster and he can ignore you.  Maybe you have to pause your plan a move to slow him down...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2017-12-06T20:24:05.603" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19348" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19356" CreationDate="2017-12-07T00:23:01.923" Score="8" ViewCount="414" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the Norwegian Defense of the Ruy Lopez&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Ba4 b5 5. Bb3 Na5 6. O-O (6. d4 exd4 7. Nxd4 c5? 8. Bd5!)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Neil MacDonald suggests &lt;code&gt;6. O-O&lt;/code&gt; as a response. Why isn't &lt;code&gt;6. d4&lt;/code&gt; suggested in the book?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: &lt;code&gt;6... exd4 7. Nxd4 c5?&lt;/code&gt; does not work because of &lt;code&gt;8. Bd5!&lt;/code&gt; when White enjoys a comfortable lead in development. I ask what are the repercussions behind playing &lt;code&gt;6. d4&lt;/code&gt; possibly followed by &lt;code&gt;7. O-O&lt;/code&gt;. Is this variation sharper? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The author suggested &lt;code&gt;6. O-O&lt;/code&gt; as a solid choice compared to the sharper &lt;code&gt;6. d4&lt;/code&gt;, but I don't see what's so sharp about it. White is simply challenging Black in the center. I guess it gives less information away about the central pawn structure. Is that the answer?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13147" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-12-11T20:26:27.190" LastActivityDate="2020-01-29T19:51:03.703" Title="White's Response to the Norwegian Defense" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;ruy-lopez&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="19349" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19346" CreationDate="2017-12-07T01:58:14.990" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a semi-guess but perhaps its because computers make &quot;robotic&quot; moves where a human would maybe try and trip you up by playing an odd-ish move instead of the standard &quot;lemme consult the computer program&quot; type of idea. I think it was Kasparov who said computers win by &quot;brute force.&quot; Humans have more flair, more creative oddities.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15074" LastActivityDate="2017-12-07T01:58:14.990" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19350" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1003" CreationDate="2017-12-07T04:52:28.220" Score="20" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's worth revisiting this question in light of the recent &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/news/view/google-s-alphazero-destroys-stockfish-in-100-game-match&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;striking success of AlphaZero against Stockfish 8&lt;/a&gt;. A further evolution of DeepMind's &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AlphaGo_versus_Lee_Sedol&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;AlphaGo&lt;/a&gt; and AlphaGo Zero programs, AlphaZero finished with a staggering score of +28 =72 -0 against one of the strongest &quot;traditional&quot; chess engines on the planet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;AlphaZero taught itself to play through reinforcement learning, training its neural network architecture through series of games against itself. According to &lt;a href=&quot;https://arxiv.org/abs/1712.01815&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;the accompanying paper&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;The input features describing the position, and the output features describing the move,&#xA;  are structured as a set of planes; i.e. the neural network architecture is matched to the&#xA;  grid-structure of the board.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;AlphaZero is provided with perfect knowledge of the game rules. These are used during&#xA;  MCTS, to simulate the positions resulting from a sequence of moves, to determine game&#xA;  termination, and to score any simulations that reach a terminal state.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Knowledge of the rules is also used to encode the input planes (i.e. castling, repetition,&#xA;  no-progress) and output planes (how pieces move, promotions, and piece drops in shogi).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;The typical number of legal moves is used to scale the exploration noise (see below).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Chess and shogi games exceeding a maximum number of steps (determined by typical&#xA;  game length) were terminated and assigned a drawn outcome; Go games were terminated&#xA;  and scored with Tromp-Taylor rules, similarly to previous work (29).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;AlphaZero did not use any form of domain knowledge beyond the points listed above.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm sure one can raise questions about things like the differing hardware being used -- &quot;&lt;em&gt;AlphaZero&lt;/em&gt; ... used a single machine with 4 &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tensor_processing_unit&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;TPUs&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;em&gt;Stockfish&lt;/em&gt; ... played at [its] strongest skill level using 64 threads and a hash size of 1GB.&quot; -- but in any case AlphaZero's result is a remarkable one, and very much in the vein of the OP.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Revealing perhaps even more support for how little domain-specific knowledge was at play, in addition to beating Stockfish in chess, AlphaZero also trained at shogi to the point of besting the champion program Elmo, and of course also surpassed its predecessor AlphaGo Zero in Go.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's one of the games against Stockfish, a Berlin in which the material imbalance is eventually AlphaZero with the bishop pair against a knight and 4 pawns for Stockfish after &lt;code&gt;31.Qxc7&lt;/code&gt;. In that position, all of AlphaZero's pieces are on the back rank, with the bishops back on their original squares. Ultimately, after the queens come off the black pieces slowly maneuver to pick up white pawns, and that's curtains.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2017.12.04&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Stockfish&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;AlphaZero&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 Nf6 4.d3 Bc5 5.Bxc6 dxc6 6.O-O Nd7 7.Nbd2 O-O 8.&#xA;Qe1 f6 9.Nc4 Rf7 10.a4 Bf8 11.Kh1 Nc5 12.a5 Ne6 13.Ncxe5 fxe5 14.Nxe5 Rf6 &#xA;15.Ng4 Rf7 16.Ne5 Re7 17.a6 c5 18.f4 Qe8 19.axb7 Bxb7 20.Qa5 Nd4 21.Qc3 &#xA;Re6 22.Be3 Rb6 23.Nc4 Rb4 24.b3 a5 25.Rxa5 Rxa5 26.Nxa5 Ba6 27.Bxd4 Rxd4 &#xA;28.Nc4 Rd8 29.g3 h6 30.Qa5 Bc8 31.Qxc7 Bh3 32.Rg1 Rd7 33.Qe5 Qxe5 34.Nxe5 &#xA;Ra7 35.Nc4 g5 36.Rc1 Bg7 37.Ne5 Ra8 38.Nf3 Bb2 39.Rb1 Bc3 40.Ng1 Bd7 41.&#xA;Ne2 Bd2 42.Rd1 Be3 43.Kg2 Bg4 44.Re1 Bd2 45.Rf1 Ra2 46.h3 Bxe2 47.Rf2 Bxf4&#xA;48.Rxe2 Be5 49.Rf2 Kg7 50.g4 Bd4 51.Re2 Kf6 52.e5+ Bxe5 53.Kf3 Ra1 54.Rf2 &#xA;Re1 55.Kg2+ Bf4 56.c3 Rc1 57.d4 Rxc3 58.dxc5 Rxc5 59.b4 Rc3 60.h4 Ke5 61.&#xA;hxg5 hxg5 62.Re2+ Kf6 63.Kf2 Be5 64.Ra2 Rc4 65.Ra6+ Ke7 66.Ra5 Ke6 67.Ra6+&#xA;Bd6 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2017-12-07T05:16:34.313" LastActivityDate="2017-12-07T05:16:34.313" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19351" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19346" CreationDate="2017-12-07T10:09:28.870" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Several points regarding your question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Cannot compare computer and human rating&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your question you compare a computer with &quot;players that would be similarly ranked.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, the rating systems used in chess only describe the &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;relative&lt;/strong&gt; strength among players from the &lt;strong&gt;same pool&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;. So a FIDE rating only tells you how strong you are relative to other FIDE rated players. An online rating from say lichess only tells you how strong you are relative to other lichess players, a computer rating only tells you how strong the computer is relative to other computers. In order to get comparability, you would need lots of computer-human rated games, which is not done.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the computer may in fact play at lower absolute strength than you think based on its (computer) rating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Many factors determine absolute strength&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess is complicated enough that many factors determine &quot;absolute strength&quot;. One (human) player might be blundering pieces now and then, another might be very weak in positional play, etc. Still they could end up having the same rating. So it might be very well that one player lets you build a very nice pawn structure and still beat you now or then.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;There are many ways to cripple an engine&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are a programmer, aiming for the strongest engine is a well defined task. However in your case you obviously played against a weakened engine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are asked to reduce the strength of an engine, there are many ways to do this. You could just limit the search depth, which would make it vulnerable to tactics; or you could make the engine blunder pieces occasionally; or you could remove (or lower the weight) of one of the factors in the evaluation function. For instance if you remove the part which is relevant for &quot;king safety&quot;, the engine might neglect the safety of its king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems the programmer of your engine chose to reduce the relevance of &quot;piece activity&quot; and/or &quot;space control&quot;. However another programmer might have chosen another way to reduce the strength. That's why I am not sure that your findings should be generalized to all computer engines. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Regarding the sample game&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would not describe this as &quot;allowing to create a much better pawn structure&quot;. In fact at some point around move 12, you have a rather weak pawn structure with lots of weaknesses on the light squares, because your pawns are all on dark squares. Typically, if you have only one bishop left, you put the pawns on the squares of opposite color to that on which the bishop operates. This way the pawns are not in the way of your bishop and also you cover both, dark and light, squares with bishop+pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As mentioned above, to me the white side's play looked very passive. At some point the computer was moving his pieces only on the first and second rank, waiting for something to happen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastEditorUserId="11629" LastEditDate="2017-12-07T21:41:08.767" LastActivityDate="2017-12-07T21:41:08.767" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19352" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19348" CreationDate="2017-12-07T12:45:33.457" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you choose 6.d4 you must consider it either as a gambit or as a prelude to a queen sortie, since after 6...exd4 7.Nxd4?! Bb7 [not 7...c5? 8.Bd5!] 8.Nc3? c5! followed by c4 traps the Bb3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;7.Qxd4 is possible, but after 7...Bb7 you have to take 8...c5 into account again. (the immediate 7...c5? doesn't work because of 8.Qd5.) White queen will probably lose some tempi, and in the long run the open center may favour Black's bishop pair. For instance, 8.0-0 c5 9.Qe5+ Qe7 10.Qxe7 Nxe7 (10...Bxe7 12.Bd5!?) looks like Black is grabbing a pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;r1bqkbnr/2pp1ppp/p7/np2p3/4P3/1B3N2/PPPP1PPP/RNBQK2R w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 exd4 2. Nxd4?! (2. Qxd4 Bb7 (2...c5? 3. Qd5) 3.O-O c5 4.Qe5+ Qe7 5.Qxe7 Nxe7 (5...Bxe7 6.Bd5!?)) Bb7 (2...c5? 3. Bd5!) 3. Nc3? c5! 4. null c4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In case of 8.O-O, 8.c3 or other moves, you would have to demonstrate what the idea behind the gambit is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-12-11T20:19:07.383" LastActivityDate="2019-12-11T20:19:07.383" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="19353" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19354" CreationDate="2017-12-07T13:03:08.407" Score="32" ViewCount="7500" Body="&lt;p&gt;Very recently, the news came out that Alphabet's DeepMind research team have extended their machine learning engine to play both Shogi and chess. Apparently, after only a few hours of self-learning, meaning by only playing against itself given the rules of the games, its performance in chess has already &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess24.com/en/read/news/deepmind-s-alphazero-crushes-chess&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;surpassed that of top current engines such as Stockfish 8&lt;/a&gt;. &#xA;I personally don't know yet how exactly the matches were set up, as in under what condition Stockfish was set to perform, since if the calculation times are limited engines are able to perform very poorly. In any case, this is a very impressive achievement, because even if it turns out that one could have set up Stockfish more optimally, with few additional hours of training, AlphaZero would surpass again the level of play, meaning AlphaZero's fundamentally stronger than any current standard chess engine based on heuristic evaluation functions. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now in the light of this news, it would be great if someone could elaborate on the main differences in the workings of a machine learned chess engine compared to the standard engines we are all accustomed to using. More concretely: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Isn't the evaluation function that AlphaZero uses, trained by machine learning methods, at the end just another heuristic evaluation function? If yes, would it be fair to say that the fundamental difference between evaluation functions of the two engines, is the fact that Stockfish has an optimized evaluation function hand-tuned by humans, meaning the definition of the function to optimize is fixed, whereas for AlphaZero, the target evaluation function is constantly being redefined through additional training (for instance through self-play)? Making the latter a far more dynamic of an approach. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Ultimately, vaguely speaking, an engine like Stockfish, applies its evaluation function to the tree of possible moves, deciding which branches to keep and which ones to drop, then through a deeper &lt;em&gt;concrete&lt;/em&gt; analysis of each branch, again through its evaluation function, it figures out which branch yielded the highest value, and that becomes the principal variation (of course there are many advances techniques around this process to efficiently prune this large tree). Meaning, for each position, this extremely concrete routine has to be repeated for Stockfish to make a decision. In contrast, I imagine AlphaZero does something very different, namely, it does not rely on a concrete analysis of the tree of possible moves at a given position, instead its evaluation function essentially assigns a value to that position (which intuitively is similar to putting the current position in analogy to all the other positions that it has been trained for), without ever having to perform &lt;em&gt;concrete&lt;/em&gt; analysis in the way that Stockfish, or even a human player does. Is this at all a sound picture of the workings of AlphaZero or similarly trained machine learning engines?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;We know that the space of chess positions is large enough that any attempt at sampling all the positions in it would be even in &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_complexity&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;principle completely&lt;/a&gt; in vain (EXPTIME complexity), that would suggest that no amount of training through self-play would be enough to have explored all positions, so then how can the end result be good despite having potentially explored a small fraction of positions of the space via self-play? What is the key idea here at play? &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;My guess is that, AlphaZero has a very optimal way of comparing any given position, even if new, to a previously visited one in its training set, the closer the comparison, the more valid the evaluation one can draw from the comparison. For instance, when it played the move &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess24.com/en/watch/live-tournaments/alphazero-vs-stockfish/1/1/5&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Bg5 in game 5&lt;/a&gt;, it must have explored a similar structure during its training, i.e. it is able to recognize that this position is essentially equivalent to (a possibly completely) different one studied in its training, in analogy to how face recognition is achieved through machine learning, and as a result it concludes Bg5 should be the best move, as was in that (or those) other similar positions. Is this at all a correct guess? I have no idea how this &lt;em&gt;comparison&lt;/em&gt; is done, as surely it's not possible to store all trained position and parse through them each time. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;This is merely an attempt to get so insights into the workings of AlphaZero and how it comes to a decision given a position.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15078" LastEditorUserId="11629" LastEditDate="2017-12-08T12:19:10.087" LastActivityDate="2017-12-11T16:00:26.003" Title="Understanding AlphaZero" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;alphazero&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19354" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19353" CreationDate="2017-12-07T13:37:44.067" Score="19" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;How does AlphaZero select a move in the search?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is very obvious from the paper.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Each simulation proceeds by selecting in each state s a move a with low visit count, high move probability and high vale selecting ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What does that mean? AlphaZero has trained probabilities for each move (end of page 2 in the paper) from a deep neural network. During the search, it  picks a move proportional to that probability, and also nodes that have low count (to ensure the sampling space is explored). This is &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; a new concept, Monte Carlo Tree Search has been in the literature before Google existed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;------ (Very) Rough example ------&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We have a position, and we have two legal moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Move 1 is good and reasonable&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Move 2 puts your own king in danger for no compensation&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According the paper, a trained deep model might estimate the probabilities as (0.90, 0.10). Let's say AlphaZero uses 4 iterations in Monte Carlo. The iterations could look like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Iteration 1&lt;/strong&gt;: Pick move 1 because it has the highest probability. Do a simulation from move 1.&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;Iteration 2&lt;/strong&gt;: Pick move 1 because it has the highest probability. Do a simulation from move 1.&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;Iteration 3&lt;/strong&gt;: Pick move 1 because it has the highest probability. Do a simulation from move 1.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, we're at iteration 4. Although move 1 has the higher estimated probability but move 2 has not been searched (&quot;low visit count&quot; in the paper), now AlphaZero would pick move 2, and do simulation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both moves would be considered, but AlphaZero would put more computing resources on move 1 (good thing).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;AlphaZero would then pick the move with the best expected outcome.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;------------------ Your questions: ------------------&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Isn't the evaluation function that AlphaZero uses, trained by machine&#xA;  learning methods, at the end just another heuristic evaluation&#xA;  function?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The trained evaluation function is a deep neural network, it is &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; a set of heuristic rules, like what you see in Stockfish. Nobody understands fully about (not even the Google team) the trained network, it just works. This is how NN works generally.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;whereas for AlphaZero, the target evaluation function is constantly&#xA;  being redefined through the target evaluation function is constantly being redefined through additional training.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The evaluation function in AlphaZero is a set of trained neurons (bias + weights). The Google team used very powerful machines to train the parameters. Generally, the more resources you can invest in training a deep learning model, the better parameters you get.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(2). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stockfish uses alpha-beta, while AlphaZero uses Monte-Carlo. They are two very different algorithms. The alpha-beta algorithm assumes a lower/upper bound, while Monte-Carlo creates simulations from the root to leaf. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;to have explored all positions, so then how can the end result be good despite having potentially explored a small fraction of positions of the space via self-play? What is the key idea here at play?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Google didn't claim they had solved chess, not even their powerful machines could possibly enumerate all chess positions. But they didn't have to ... that's the point for machine learning, the model &quot;learns&quot; from the training set. In this case, the training set come from self-playing. The key idea is to play as many as good quality games against itself as possible and quickly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;For instance, when it played the move Bg5 in game 5, it must have explored a similar structure during its training,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't think AlphaZero encountered the exact same position in the training games. I think a quick read of Monte-Carlo is a good idea:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Monte-Carlo+Tree+Search&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Monte-Carlo+Tree+Search&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;AlphaZero was able to play the move by reaching sufficient depth. The algorithm estimates the expected probability of winning for each move, apparently, the move Bg5 gave the highest expected probability.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can think like, AlphaGo was able to search so well that it saw the probability of winning is highest after Bg5, while Stockfish didn't consider the move seriously (and thus lost).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2017-12-08T02:43:52.620" LastActivityDate="2017-12-08T02:43:52.620" CommentCount="13" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19355" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19829" CreationDate="2017-12-07T17:23:14.980" Score="1" ViewCount="297" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm looking for an Android chess app that satisfies the following criteria:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Provides a 3D view of the board and the pieces (required) &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Allows one to have an account, and invite friends to play matches online (required)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Allows export of PGN (optional)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could someone suggest such an app?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13565" LastEditorUserId="13565" LastEditDate="2017-12-08T06:00:07.517" LastActivityDate="2018-02-05T18:58:26.060" Title="Chess apps that provide a 3D view of the board and allow export of PGN" Tags="&lt;online-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19356" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19348" CreationDate="2017-12-07T20:04:40.367" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;6.O-O seems more flexible than the immediate 6.d4.  After 6.O-O, Black's e-pawn needs attention and he typically plays 6...d6. Most likely the moves will transpose, but it appears Black has more options after the immediate d4.&#xA;According to chesstempo.com database 6.d4 is the second most popular move after 6.O-O, but 6.O-O is by far the number 1 choice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2017-12-07T20:04:40.367" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19357" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19318" CreationDate="2017-12-07T20:48:50.820" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe White gets big advantage in the position you mentioned.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black has weak light squares, passive bishop and backward development. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Furthermore, there is no obvious plan for creating counterplay because White will finish development first, thus he will be the first one to start attacking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White does have doubled f-pawns, and &lt;code&gt;f5&lt;/code&gt; pawn is &quot;shaky&quot; but the hole on &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt;, firm grip on the light squares, space advantage, bishop pair and development advantage more than compensate for that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White should aim for fianchettoing White's light squared bishop, and try to quickly finish development. I also like your suggested &lt;code&gt;g4&lt;/code&gt; to grab more space and claim more light squares. In the end, Black should simply collapse under pressure your light square domination and development advantage create.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One sample line illustrates just how difficult it is for Black:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;rn1qkbnr/1p3ppp/p2p4/4pP2/8/2N5/PPP2PPP/R1BQKB1R b KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Nf6 2. g4 Nc6 3. Bg2 h6 4. h4 Rc8 5. g5 hxg5 6. hxg5 Rxh1+ 7. Bxh1 Nd7 8. Be3 Qa5 9. Qd5 Qxd5 10. Bxd5 Nb4 11. O-O-O Nxd5 12. Nxd5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Engine suggested &lt;code&gt;...Nc6&lt;/code&gt; as the strongest reply but I decided to stick with the fianchetto idea. After analyzing for a few moves, White emerged with an advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;rn1qkbnr/1p3ppp/p2p4/4pP2/8/2N5/PPP2PPP/R1BQKB1R b KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Nc6 2. g3 Nge7 3. Bg5 d5 4. Qh5 Qd7 5. f6 Nf5 6. O-O-O g6 7. Qe2 d4 (7...Nfd4 8.Rxd4 Nxd4 9. Qxe5+ Ne6 10.Nxd5) 8. g4 h6 9. gxf5 hxg5 10. fxg6 fxg6 11. Ne4 O-O-O&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White has development and space advantage, which is enough to create initiative. Light square domination and bishop pair bolster this advantage to the almost decisive one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have used engine in order to try and find best plan for Black to finish development and confront White's light square dominance, but as can be seen, White will always enjoy stable advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore I agree with your assessment and I do not think you are biased toward White's position. White does have a big, stable advantage in the position you mention.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Please note that I have performed brief analysis, maybe someone can offer detailed high quality analysis that finds even stronger plan for White. I also doubt that even the best play can equalize, or even save the position for Black in the long run.&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastEditorUserId="2042" LastEditDate="2017-12-07T22:58:07.850" LastActivityDate="2017-12-07T22:58:07.850" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19358" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-12-07T22:47:20.173" Score="5" ViewCount="642" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm working on an engine that implements the UCI protocol that is intended to play against other engines. Since the UCI protocol has no commands for offering or accepting draws, how does this work when games run into the 50-move or threefold repetition rules? Do engines just never offer a draw?  Then, would it not be possible for the game to just never end because there is no way to force a mate and neither engine will offer a draw?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15083" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-10-27T02:52:35.467" LastActivityDate="2020-10-27T02:52:35.467" Title="How do UCI chess engines handle the 50-move or threefold repetition rules when playing against other engines?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;draw&gt;&lt;uci&gt;&lt;50-move-rule&gt;&lt;threefold-repetition&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="19359" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19358" CreationDate="2017-12-07T22:48:45.807" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your engine doesn't need to offer a draw. This is the responsibility for GUI. A good GUI should stop the game for 50 moves or three-repetition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to run game matches, try: &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/cutechess/cutechess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://github.com/cutechess/cutechess&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2017-12-07T22:48:45.807" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19360" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-12-08T02:22:59.183" Score="39" ViewCount="22082" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have a possibly naive question about AlphaZero. I have seen it described as playing in a &quot;more human&quot; style than other computers, but whatever it does, it gains about 100 ELO points by doing it. Kasparov, and many others, have claimed that a strong human in collaboration with a computer will beat a strong computer (perhaps by about 100 ELO??). So an obvious question is, how would AlphaZero compare with a &quot;centaur&quot; combination?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Having only looked at a few games, what I notice is that most computers play wide open games that maximize their own mobility, but AlphaZero seems very concerned to limit the opponents mobility. In a human player I would describe this as a matter of style, not more or less human.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastEditorUserId="11629" LastEditDate="2017-12-08T12:28:22.197" LastActivityDate="2018-01-11T20:37:18.130" Title="How is Alpha Zero &quot;more human&quot;?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;elo&gt;&lt;alphazero&gt;" AnswerCount="11" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19361" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19360" CreationDate="2017-12-08T03:33:04.427" Score="36" Body="&lt;p&gt;Page 5 in the paper has your answer:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;... AlphaZero compensates for the lower number of evaluations by using its deep neural network to costs much more selectively on the most promising variations - arguably a more &quot;human-like&quot; approach to chess ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;selectively&quot; is the key word. What does that mean? Let's use this following position for our example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess24.com/en/read/news/london-classic-5-caruana-shows-how-it-s-done&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://chess24.com/en/read/news/london-classic-5-caruana-shows-how-it-s-done&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/cABLy.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/cABLy.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Moves&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a recent game won by Caruana in 2017 London Chess Classic. The White bishop is under attacked, and you know you have to move it. But &lt;strong&gt;where?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Possibilities (not losing a piece):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Bh4&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Be3&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Bd2&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Bc1&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What was Caruana thinking?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I felt like I would lose at some point, but when I saw, 25.Bc1 I suddenly &#xA;  started to get a bit more optimistic about my chances. I realised my &#xA;  position is bad, but at least I had a plan and that was really all I needed &#xA;  for some confidence in this position. When I saw this b3, c4 the position is&#xA;  double edged and I have some chances.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is &lt;strong&gt;human thinking&lt;/strong&gt;, and a &quot;human move&quot;. Caruana &lt;strong&gt;hadn't&lt;/strong&gt; considered Bh4, Be3 and Bd2 because they &quot;looked&quot; bad. He had been focusing &lt;strong&gt;only&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;only&lt;/strong&gt; on the Bc1 move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Humans play chess very &lt;strong&gt;selectively&lt;/strong&gt;, we discard unreasonable moves because we don't have time to examine all possibilities equally. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;We discard Bh4 because it release the tension on the h6 pawn&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;We discard Be3 because it blocks the two white rooks on the third rank&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;We discard Bd2 because it blocks the White queen to the king side&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's what AlphaZero trying to claim in the paper. They claim their algorithm, although slower than Stockfish, is able to &lt;strong&gt;selectively pick better&lt;/strong&gt; moves than Stockfish in the search. While Stockfish is faster, it wastes time on bad moves. AlphaZero is slower, but it's more precise (like what Caruana was doing).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, AlphaZero might spent 80% resources on Bc1, and 20% on all other bishop moves. Stockfish might give 25% for each move (Bh4, Be3, Bd2, Bc1).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2017-12-08T11:50:45.367" LastActivityDate="2017-12-08T11:50:45.367" CommentCount="11" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19362" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19330" CreationDate="2017-12-08T07:07:34.227" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Don't pay too much attention on your rating right now. As far as I can tell, you are having troubles identifying key &quot;motifs&quot;. Even if you do a hundred problems your tactical ability won't improve ( your pattern recognition might improve though).&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesstactics.org&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chesstactics.org&lt;/a&gt; &#xA;This site might be the thing that you are looking for. The author goes into detail explaining the reason for the occurrence of a particular tactic and how you can find them on the board.&#xA;Good luck.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15089" LastActivityDate="2017-12-08T07:07:34.227" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19363" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19358" CreationDate="2017-12-08T08:53:27.490" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Drawing is usually done by the hosting application / GUI. Stockfish even has a nasty bug producing totally ridiculous moves if you play on after move 50. BTW, UCI does not specify offering a draw, this is only provided by the Winboard protocol.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7651" LastActivityDate="2017-12-08T08:53:27.490" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19364" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19330" CreationDate="2017-12-08T09:38:59.143" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have 2200+ tactics on chess.com and I found two things to be the most useful:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Take your time. Really solve the puzzle, even if it takes time. You will naturally get quicker as you get more familiar with different tactics. Don't worry about the points.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessimo.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chessimo.com/&lt;/a&gt; is an absolute killer app for mobile (maybe for desktop as well), where they start with very easy tactics and repeat, repeat, repeat until you memorize them well. This is what took me from probably 1400 to 1800 in my tactical strength.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Bonus item- don't get discouraged and try to do it daily. I saw massive improvements after about 2 weeks rather than straight away.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1193" LastActivityDate="2017-12-08T09:38:59.143" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19365" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19360" CreationDate="2017-12-08T12:03:55.823" Score="17" Body="&lt;p&gt;Most strong engines emphasize looking very deeply, at the expense of having a superficial evaluation function. In the AlphaZero paper, they say that Stockfish looks at 70 million positions per second.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Human grandmasters look at very few positions indeed compared to engines, but they have a better feeling who is better in a given position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;AlphaZero looked at only 80,000 positions per second, so it spends much more time in its evaluation function.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's the sense in which they meant &quot;more human like&quot;, nothing more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2017-12-08T12:03:55.823" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19366" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19368" CreationDate="2017-12-08T12:17:59.017" Score="24" ViewCount="14512" Body="&lt;p&gt;I understand that AlphaZero has to use a different kind of hardware than regular Stockfish. I would expect that the hardware has a large effect on engine strength. That's why I wonder whether there have been any attempts made to provide comparable hardware to both. Also what would &quot;comparable&quot; mean here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Specifically I read that people complain about:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Stockfish being given only 1 GB of cache, and&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the time limit of 1 min/move (How would this disadvantage Stockfish?)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2018-09-14T12:25:40.657" Title="Hardware used in AlphaZero vs Stockfish match" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;computer-chess&gt;&lt;hardware&gt;&lt;alphazero&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19367" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19360" CreationDate="2017-12-08T12:26:14.720" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;AlphaZero already seems to play like a regular &quot;centaur&quot; -&gt; correspodence GM with an engine assistance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As an FM I'd get much more enjoyment of playing AlphaZero vs a regular engine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One comparison would be it plays like Karpov would with perfect tactics.  (Game 9 AlphaZero plays a piece down for 15moves which is very Tal like). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is not just style, AlphaZero gives an impression of understanding positions better than Stockfish.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;AlphaZero also does not suffer from Horizon Effect that ALL chess engines had suffered from until now.&#xA;Time and again it is able to correctly evaluate a position more moves down than Stockfish does.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's an example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;AlphaZero&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Stockfish&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2017.12.05&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Alphazero vs Stockfish: AlphaZero - Stockfish&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;https://lichess.org/study/EOddRjJ8&quot;]&#xA;[UTCDate &quot;2017.12.06&quot;]&#xA;[UTCTime &quot;05:53:49&quot;]&#xA;[Variant &quot;Standard&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;C11&quot;]&#xA;[Opening &quot;French Defense: Steinitz Variation #2&quot;]&#xA;[Annotator &quot;https://lichess.org/@/Spreek&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 e6 2. e4 d5 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. e5 Nfd7 5. f4 c5 6. Nf3 cxd4 7. Nb5 Bb4+ 8. Bd2 Bc5 9. b4 Be7 10. Nbxd4 Nc6 11. c3 a5 12. b5 Nxd4 13. cxd4 Nb6 14. a4 Nc4 15. Bd3 Nxd2 16. Kxd2 Bd7 17. Ke3 b6 18. g4 h5 19. Qg1 hxg4 20. Qxg4 Bf8 21. h4 Qe7 22. Rhc1 g6 23. Rc2 Kd8 24. Rac1 Qe8 25. Rc7 Rc8 26. Rxc8+ Bxc8 27. Rc6 Bb7 28. Rc2 Kd7 29. Ng5 Be7 30. Bxg6 Bxg5 31. Qxg5 fxg6 32. f5 Rg8 33. Qh6 Qf7 34. f6 Kd8 35. Kd2 Kd7 36. Rc1 Kd8 37. Qe3 Qf8 38. Qc3 Qb4 39. Qxb4 axb4 40. Rg1 b3 41. Kc3 Bc8 42. Kxb3 Bd7 43. Kb4 Be8 44. Ra1 Kc7 45. a5 Bd7 46. axb6+ Kxb6 47. Ra6+ Kb7 48. Kc5 Rd8 49. Ra2 Rc8+ 50. Kd6 Be8 51. Ke7 g5 52. hxg5 { 1-0 Black resigns. } 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;AlphaZero plays the king to center 16. Kxd2! in a middle game correctly judging that Black will not be able to take an advantage of it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is able to correctly evaluate a piece sacrifice 30. Bxg6! while regular engines are unable to see that they are lost for a number of moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;32&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;f5 is quite nice too.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are other examples such as exchange Sacrifice in Game 3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9289" LastActivityDate="2017-12-08T12:26:14.720" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19368" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19366" CreationDate="2017-12-08T13:12:40.250" Score="21" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;That's why I wonder whether there have been any attempts made to&#xA;  provide comparable hardware to both.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is Google you're talking about! So the answer is obviously &quot;No&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From &lt;a href=&quot;https://arxiv.org/pdf/1712.01815.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;the original paper&lt;/a&gt; hardware used for initialising and training -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Training proceeded for 700,000 steps (mini-batches of size 4,096)&#xA;  starting from randomly initialised parameters, using 5,000&#xA;  first-generation TPUs (15) to generate self-play games and 64&#xA;  second-generation TPUs to train the neural networks&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and hardware used for the games -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;AlphaZero and the previous AlphaGo Zero used a single machine with 4&#xA;  TPUs Stockfish and Elmo played at their strongest skill level using 64&#xA;  threads and a hash size of 1GB.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, AlphaZero used special hardware developed by Google. It used specialized Tensor Processor Units (TPUs) rather than general Central Processing Units (CPUs) as are available commercially.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is how Wikipedia describes the second generation TPUs they used -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The second generation TPU was announced in May 2017. Google stated the&#xA;  first generation TPU design was memory bandwidth limited, and using 16&#xA;  GB of High Bandwidth Memory in the second generation design increased&#xA;  bandwidth to 600 GB/s and performance to 45 TFLOPS. The TPUs are then&#xA;  arranged into 4-chip 180 TFLOPS modules&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They used 4 TPUs for the games, so a processing power of 180 TFLOPS.&#xA;Note TFLOPS = 1000 billion floating point operations per second.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For comparison Intel's latest most powerful chip is the Core i9 Extreme Edition processor which clocks in at 1 TFLOP. A top of the line I7 that you would find in a gaming machine would typically be about 100 GFLOPs (i.e. one tenth of a TFLOP).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think it's fair to say that AlphaZero was using an 800 pound gorilla of a hardware configuration compared to Stockfishes mouse.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2017-12-08T13:12:40.250" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19370" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16971" CreationDate="2017-12-08T22:14:07.063" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Because the black queen  will get lost anyway. Fire up your engine and see what happens after&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Qe4+ Kd8&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Rd1+ Kc7&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(2. ... Kc8?? 3. Qf5+ Kc7 (3. ... Kb8 4. Rd8+ Kc7 5. Qd7#) 4. Qd7+ Kb8 5. Qd8#)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(2. ... Bd6?? {is futile})&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(2. ... Qd2? {loses the Queen})&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Qe5+ Kc6 (3. ... Kc8?? {is the same #3}) (3. ... Bd6?? {is again futile})&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Qd5+ Kb5 (4. ... Kc7?? 5. Qc7+ Kb8 6. Qd8#)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Qxb7+ Kxc4 (5. ... Ka4?? 6. Qa6+ Qa5 7. Qxa5#) (5. ... Kxc5?? 6. Qd5#)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Rc1+ Qc3 {any king move loses the queen directly, hoping for 7. Rxb3+? Kxb3, &#xA;but}&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Qb3+ {the black queen is pinned and definitely lost.)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15103" LastActivityDate="2017-12-08T22:14:07.063" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19371" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19360" CreationDate="2017-12-08T23:24:53.110" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is as easy to jump on a bandwagon saying Alpha-Zero's play is 'more' human than previous computer chess programs as it is to jump on the opposite wagon and say Alpha-Zero's play is entirely 'alien'.  It's not clear that Alpha-zero's play is 'more human' especially given our human tendency towards anthropomorphism.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;Chess as a Struggle of the (human) Mind&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But in chess is this tendency true?  Magnus Carlsen &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.quora.com/Why-does-Magnus-Carlsen-think-computers-are-boring-to-play-chess-against&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;once spoke&lt;/a&gt; about how 'traditional' computers in general lack human creativity saying:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;Chess is all about the struggle between human minds. That’s what makes it exciting. Computer chess is mechanical, dry and bland. The moves are very strong, of course, but there is no style. If you try to play against a chess computer, not only will you lose with a very high certainty, but you will also be bored in the process.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Magnus Carlsen didn't see evidence of human styles of play in traditional chess computers. So lets examine if Alpha-Zero's recent accomplishment has undone this perspective and moved us towards something more reminiscent of ourselves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If by 'human-like' you mean play 'exhibiting behavior more likely to appeal to our sense of anthropomorphism' does Alpha-zero's style seem more human?  How do we really test this subjective myopic humans like to project upon non-human things?  Lets ask - does the algorithm 'selectively pick better' or exhibit 'more human creative choice' in its style of play?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The algorithm's creators indicate that unlike Stockfish which uses an Alpha-Beta search algorithm, Alpha-Zero employs a Monte-Carlo tree search (MCTS) algorithm which accepts as input a weighted parameters θ built up from previous outcomes ~ &lt;a href=&quot;https://arxiv.org/pdf/1712.01815.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Page 3. Mastering Chess and Shogi by Self-Play with a General Reinforcement Learning Algorithm&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the algorithm doesn't exhibit choice at all.  It actually engages in a random but probabilistic Monty-carlo search where the possible search paths available to it are increasingly prejudiced by previous outcomes.  Did Alpha-zero choose to optimize its style of play this way or was that the choice of its programmers?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Does Alpha-zero always have all possible moves available to it for consideration or are some moves prejudiced algorithmically in a way that mimics experience which can be interpreted by humans anthropomorphically? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Initially it had all moves available to it so its 'style' was entirely random.  However as it's search is increasingly and optimally constrained by previous success or failure its style is actually changing towards the mode its programmers have shackled it with.  Is this 'more human' though?  Compare this to Magnus Carlesen who will sometimes &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/news/view/magnus-carlsen-i-appreciate-creating-something-unique&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;choose less optimal moves because they are more creative&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Magnus Carlsen: “I appreciate creating something unique”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;Chess as a Struggle of the (alien) Mind&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Humans can chose the criteria that drives their own style of play (for example I often chose impulse and error in my own style).  Many see Alpha-zero's play in both chess and &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/10/alphago-zero-the-ai-that-taught-itself-go/543450/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;go&lt;/a&gt; as decidedly &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-41668701&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Alien&lt;/a&gt;.  Nick Hynes, a grad student at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) observes:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;“What we’re seeing here is a model free from human bias and presuppositions: It can learn whatever it determines is optimal, which may indeed be more nuanced that our own conceptions of the same.  It’s like an alien civilization inventing its own mathematics which allows it to do things like time travel...”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Likewise GM Peter Heine Nielsen &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/news/view/google-s-alphazero-destroys-stockfish-in-100-game-match&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;told Chess.com&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;After reading the paper but especially seeing the games I thought, well, I always wondered how it would be if a superior species landed on earth and showed us how they play chess. I feel now I know.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems that most react to Alpha-zero's emergent style of play as 'alien play', and not as 'more human'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Therefore there's reason to disagree with the answers above that say 'yes'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12077" LastEditorUserId="12077" LastEditDate="2017-12-18T13:34:21.200" LastActivityDate="2017-12-18T13:34:21.200" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19374" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19366" CreationDate="2017-12-09T13:21:27.040" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Visit Talkchess Forum to know more, there is where you will find some 3000 programmers. &#xA;This was all a scam. &#xA;Alpha played on 30 times bigger hardware than SF, 4TPUs vs 64 cores. &#xA;4TPUs is around 1000 cores or even more. &#xA;Alpha had simulated opening book, trained on countless top GM winning games. &#xA;SF had very little hash. &#xA;TC was fixed at 1 minute per move, which is again detrimental to SF, which has advanced time management. &#xA;TPUs lack the SMP inefficiencies with more cores, so the hardware advantage was even bigger. &#xA;Etc, etc., so basically, this was just a huge publicity stunt on the part of Google. &#xA;Currently, Alpha is around 2800 on single core, so 400 elos below SF, and will not advanced much in the future, as, from now on, it will need advanced evaluation it will not be able to discover. &#xA;Concerning the 4-hours issue, well, LOL, this was 48 hours ago, so now Alpha is at 5000 elo? &#xA;Come on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14893" LastActivityDate="2017-12-09T13:21:27.040" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19375" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19360" CreationDate="2017-12-09T13:34:38.130" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think there is anything 'human' about Alpha.&#xA;It just used much stronger hardware and played higher quality chess.&#xA;The good opening moves it finds(for example, to fianchetto king side with Bg2) are fully due to its simulated opening book. Concepts that impressed me and that I have formulated in 'The Secret of Chess': &lt;a href=&quot;http://davidsmerdon.com/?p=1970&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://davidsmerdon.com/?p=1970&lt;/a&gt; , which Alpha uses for the first time among top engines, are advanced longer chains, for example the d4-e5-f6 chain that trumped a whole piece in the Bg6 sacrifice game, and central backward-makers, as seen in the French Defence games between both engines.&#xA;Both concepts involve searching to great depths, and probably here Alpha was helped by its tremendous hardware.&#xA;Otherwise, I see nothing human about its play. Many of the games were, admittedly, beautiful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14893" LastActivityDate="2017-12-09T13:34:38.130" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19377" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19382" CreationDate="2017-12-09T16:19:14.127" Score="2" ViewCount="718" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there any ios app that can read .cbv files?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If not, how can I convert them to .pgn? I tried to follow &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/13737/7002&quot;&gt;this post&lt;/a&gt;, but the output is &quot;parse error&quot; to chess viewer (developed by everyman chess).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any suggestion?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7002" LastActivityDate="2017-12-10T01:54:59.547" Title="Read chessbase files (.cbv) on ios?" Tags="&lt;chessbase&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19378" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19366" CreationDate="2017-12-09T17:17:44.023" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think it's best if I elaborate on your second point with an example move in the game 1 between AlphaZero and Stockfish which also served to satisfy my curiosity today.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;the time limit of 1 min/move (How would this disadvantage Stockfish?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stockfish's performance is dependent upon both the time limit &lt;em&gt;and&lt;/em&gt; the hardware configuration, so just think of when someone doubles the CPU threads, then Stockfish needs less time (not necessarily half) to find the solution than it would with the first configuration.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/news/view/google-s-alphazero-destroys-stockfish-in-100-game-match&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;On the first report that was posted on Chess.com&lt;/a&gt; someone claimed that Stockfish was not playing optimally because he couldn't reproduce the same results using the same Stockfish on his computer. He said that on the position below (game 1 - move 11) Stockfish played Kg1-h1 (moved its king) which made no sense at all. On the other hand, stockfish on his computer showed a more developing move like Be3 (move the dark square bishop), lets look at the position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://raw.githubusercontent.com/abdolrezat/Stockfish/Figures/figures/move11.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://raw.githubusercontent.com/abdolrezat/Stockfish/Figures/figures/move11.png&quot; alt=&quot;Game 1 on move 11&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, it was a passive move and it seems that Stockfish should have played a more developing move. But he was wrong. Why? Because he ran Stockfish for 15 seconds, and if he had run it for an hour he would have gotten Kg1-h1 as the best move in that position. Stockfish changes it's decision when it analyses all the possible moves in more depth. Here's &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/news/view/google-s-alphazero-destroys-stockfish-in-100-game-match&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;what I originally said in my reply&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I ran the latest stockfish on the position (at move 11):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;At first, It gives b4 as the optimal move when the engine is running for about a minute. After that, it decides Be3 is better.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;But after 5 minutes on my hardware that runs on 1,400k nodes/s it will decide to go with Kh1 as the optimal move.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;In the paper, it is said that stockfish calculates 70,000k positions per second and is run for 1 minute per move, that's about 50 times my hardware, so I'll let mine run for 50 minutes... Kg1-h1 is still the choice for Stockfish.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Time limit is the key&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the above case, it probably didn't matter much if Stockfish ran for twice the time because the decision would have been the same, but on the next move it &lt;strong&gt;definitely would&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://raw.githubusercontent.com/abdolrezat/Stockfish/Figures/figures/move12.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://raw.githubusercontent.com/abdolrezat/Stockfish/Figures/figures/move12.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this position, Stockfish chose to move the pawn on the left side (&lt;strong&gt;a4-a5&lt;/strong&gt;). Let's say I have a computer that runs the Stockfish engine at a speed of 1,400k nodes per second, that's about 50 times lower than the Stockfish in the real game (&lt;a href=&quot;https://arxiv.org/pdf/1712.01815.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;In the paper&lt;/a&gt;, it says 70,000k n/s). So I can simulate the game if I run it for 50 minutes at each move. Okay.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I ran Stockfish analysis on the above position and I got the following results:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Stockfish started out suggesting some moves, but after 6 minutes on my computer (corresponds to &lt;strong&gt;7.2 seconds&lt;/strong&gt; on the Stockfish in the real game) &lt;strong&gt;it preferred a4-a5 just as the game went&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's good, but I kept it running for a complete 50 minutes in order to reach the computations of the Stockfish in the game that was allowed 1 minute:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;After 18 minutes the line changed back to &lt;strong&gt;Qc3&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Again, after 24 minutes the best move was &lt;strong&gt;Ne3&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;After 27 minutes, it suggested &lt;strong&gt;Ng1&lt;/strong&gt; all the way up to 56 minutes. After that, the optimal move was &lt;strong&gt;Nf3xe5&lt;/strong&gt; but it's past the 50 minutes mark I mentioned before (&lt;a href=&quot;https://raw.githubusercontent.com/abdolrezat/Stockfish/Figures/figures/120engineanalysis_LI.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;you can see the engine analysis for an hour and 22 minutes in this screenshot&lt;/a&gt;). &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The sad truth is that I believe Stockfish lost all its games because of the time limit. Stockfish gets a more in-depth search and evaluation as the time passes and in the game it wasn't allowed to use an opening book which makes it consider many moves in shallow depths. Note that in the actual game &lt;em&gt;a4-a5&lt;/em&gt; was played which shows that (assuming it could evaluate 70 million positions per second) the Stockfish in the game didn't spend more than 21.6 seconds on the move. Otherwise, it would have changed its decision to those three other moves in the actual game. The reason for this is still unclear to me since my Stockfish was also consuming less memory (about ~130MB of RAM compared to the 1GB mentioned &lt;a href=&quot;https://arxiv.org/pdf/1712.01815.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;in the original paper&lt;/a&gt;, assuming all of it goes to hash tables). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Conclusion&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The hardware that ran Stockfish, as I pointed out, was at the very best 18 times faster than mine (Update: on a single core) based on the move I analyzed. I'm not sure if AlphaZero could really make use of such hardware to train its networks in 4 hours, I can only assume it's too low for a game like chess. Besides, AlphaZero spent those hours on learning which also includes building solid openings (and as the paper points out, preferences over certain openings). On the other hand, Stockfish was handicapped on openings, and it did not evaluate 70 million positions per second for 60 seconds on each move. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a final note, all the things I said were based on my assumptions. Of course, the outcome of AlphaZero and the games were super interesting to me. However, I would have loved to see a game where the Stockfish play was just like what I get on my computer, too. That is, more time and an opening book allowed. It's also easy to get the outputs of Stockfish analysis on every move, and I wish they release it in order to show how well it performed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15115" LastEditorUserId="15115" LastEditDate="2017-12-22T09:38:00.493" LastActivityDate="2017-12-22T09:38:00.493" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19380" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-12-09T17:36:07.047" Score="6" ViewCount="842" Body="&lt;p&gt;How much stronger are human/computer teams vs. computers alone?  My understanding is that that advantage is enough to be decisive, especially in correspondence play, but just how large is it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7683" LastActivityDate="2018-12-30T14:16:52.010" Title="Human and computer vs computer alone" Tags="&lt;computer-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19381" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19399" CreationDate="2017-12-09T21:58:07.393" Score="6" ViewCount="230" Body="&lt;p&gt;Currently I pay for lessons, and I surely see value. I've gotten from the low 600s to being able to give USCF 1200s a run for their money. It's not much, but it makes me pretty happy. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I feel like a lot of coaching sometimes is just random topics with a lack of structure. I usually bring 5-7 games to my coach and we go over them, followed by extra things I should study to improve my weaknesses. I also bring up stuff I have read, for example in &lt;em&gt;How to Reassess your Chess&lt;/em&gt; to get clarification.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there anything more I can do to better utilize my coach?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user14142" LastActivityDate="2020-05-18T17:22:49.037" Title="Making the best use of a coach?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;study&gt;&lt;coach&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19382" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19377" CreationDate="2017-12-10T00:45:14.767" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;To my knowledge there is no such iOS app. Sorry. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Try the Chessbase Fritz to do the conversion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2017-12-10T01:54:59.547" LastActivityDate="2017-12-10T01:54:59.547" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19383" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19366" CreationDate="2017-12-10T02:00:29.240" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;One of the original authors of Stockfish answers the specific complaints you mentioned here:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Meanwhile Chess.com also received a lengthy comment from one of the&#xA;  original Stockfish authors, Tord Romstad, which we'll give in full:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;    &lt;p&gt;The match results by themselves are not particularly meaningful&#xA;    because of the rather strange choice of time controls and Stockfish&#xA;    parameter settings: The games were played at a fixed time of 1&#xA;    minute/move, which means that Stockfish has no use of its time&#xA;    management heuristics (lot of effort has been put into making&#xA;    Stockfish identify critical points in the game and decide when to&#xA;    spend some extra time on a move; at a fixed time per move, the&#xA;    strength will suffer significantly). The version of Stockfish used is&#xA;    one year old, was playing with far more search threads than has ever&#xA;    received any significant amount of testing, and had way too small hash&#xA;    tables for the number of threads. I believe the percentage of draws&#xA;    would have been much higher in a match with more normal conditions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;    &#xA;    &lt;p&gt;On the other hand, there is no doubt that AlphaZero could have played&#xA;    better if more work had been put into the project (although the &quot;4&#xA;    hours of learning&quot; mentioned in the paper is highly misleading when&#xA;    you take into account the massive hardware resources used during those&#xA;    4 hours). But in any case, Stockfish vs AlphaZero is very much a&#xA;    comparison of apples to orangutans. One is a conventional chess&#xA;    program running on ordinary computers, the other uses fundamentally&#xA;    different techniques and is running on custom designed hardware that&#xA;    is not available for purchase (and would be way out of the budget of&#xA;    ordinary users if it were).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;    &#xA;    &lt;p&gt;From another perspective, the apples vs orangutans angle is the most&#xA;    exciting thing about this: We now have two extremely different (both&#xA;    on the hardware and the software side) man-made entities that both&#xA;    display super-human chess playing abilities. That's much more&#xA;    interesting than yet another chess program that does the same thing as&#xA;    existing chess programs, just a little better. Furthermore, the&#xA;    adaptability of the AlphaZero approach to new domains opens exciting&#xA;    possibilities for the future.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;    &#xA;    &lt;p&gt;For chess players using computer chess programs as a tool, this&#xA;    breakthrough is unlikely to have a great impact, at least in the short&#xA;    term, because of the lack of suitable hardware for affordable prices.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;    &#xA;    &lt;p&gt;For chess engine programmers -- and for programmers in many other&#xA;    interesting domains -- the emergence of machine learning techniques&#xA;    that require massive hardware resources in order to be effective is a&#xA;    little disheartening. In a few years, it is quite possible that an&#xA;    AlphaZero like chess program can be made to run on ordinary computers,&#xA;    but the hardware resources required to &lt;em&gt;create&lt;/em&gt; them will still be way&#xA;    beyond the budget of hobbyists or average sized companies. It is&#xA;    possible that an open source project with a large distributed network&#xA;    of computers run by volunteers could work, but the days of hundreds of&#xA;    unique chess engines, each with their own individual quirks and&#xA;    personalities, will be gone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/news/view/alphazero-reactions-from-top-gms-stockfish-author&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.chess.com/news/view/alphazero-reactions-from-top-gms-stockfish-author&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3950" LastActivityDate="2017-12-10T02:00:29.240" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19384" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19381" CreationDate="2017-12-10T05:19:34.537" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think you are making good use of your coach from the sound of it.  Perhaps you are not studying the correct books for your rating.  And you should be heavy on puzzles and basic endgames; if your coach hasn't pushed you toward that there may be reason for concern.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastEditorUserId="14202" LastEditDate="2020-05-18T17:22:49.037" LastActivityDate="2020-05-18T17:22:49.037" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="19385" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19388" CreationDate="2017-12-10T12:09:47.333" Score="8" ViewCount="1195" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am very interested in how AlphaGo resp. AlphaZero works. It seems to me, the related Google Papers are very dense and not easy to read.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there any textbook or lecture that explains on a technical level how it all works? I.e. starting with neural networks/deep learning, Monte Carlo Tree Search until reaching at AlphaGo/AlphaZero?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have a master in computer science, but I never worked with artificial intelligence/machine learning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Right now it looks to me that all the related information are scattered around, and I don't have time to listen to (online) lectures about machine learning that contain maybe only 10% on what is relevant to understand AlphaGo...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can someone point me in the right direction?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7687" LastActivityDate="2018-01-10T16:04:00.863" Title="Lecture/Book on AlphaGo/AlphaZero" Tags="&lt;chess-algorithms&gt;&lt;alphazero&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19386" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1003" CreationDate="2017-12-10T13:53:03.727" Score="-4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want them to release the code, then we can talk.&#xA;It is not that easy to solve chess, Alpha will not solve it even in half a century.&#xA;Funnily, it still plays 1.d4. Why? Because it has been trained on human games and human theory gives highest performance rate for 1.d4. The poor thing does not know 1...c5 achieves a draw in precisely 8 moves. Now they want me to believe Alpha did not use a simulated opening book...&#xA;They say Alpha played openings great. Well, yes, with some exceptions. 1.d4 certainly does not speak well of the level of intelligence the program attained. Luckily, SF is even weaker in the opening stage. :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14893" LastActivityDate="2017-12-10T13:53:03.727" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19387" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19380" CreationDate="2017-12-10T14:05:52.143" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It pretty mcuh depends who the human is. Me + SF can almost always beat SF alone with longer thinking time. It does not take much insight to do that, as I know by heart precisely what moves in precisely what lines SF misplays and precisely what pawn structures it plays badly. Every second move or so, SF will make a mistake, of which the human might take advantage. 3 such mistakes/inaccuracies are sufficient to lose you the game. On the other hand, I will not blunder anywhere in the game as I could have if playing alone, as SF will assist me in tactics, so me + engine could theoretically win every single game. Of course, this will not happen, but this is just the theoretical side of it. &#xA;If the human player does not know the engine's weaknesses, then there is not much added value to the team.&#xA;For example, me + unknown engine versus unknown engine might end unexpectedly, even with a win for the unknown engine. In this case, the human might even be a burden, if he chooses not to follow the engine's recommendations.&#xA;In general, however, a team should always be not only stronger, but significantly stronger, it is always like that when the fight is 2 on 1 and the single entity is of comparable strength.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14893" LastActivityDate="2017-12-10T14:05:52.143" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19388" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19385" CreationDate="2017-12-10T14:09:58.650" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;@unutbu's link in the comment is a good introductory read.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Solid understanding for AlphaZero most likely require a quantitative degree (PhD?). Are you asking for a crash course in AlphaZero?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please note unless you invest &lt;strong&gt;significant&lt;/strong&gt; amount of your time, nothing I say will work. There is no book that can possibly cover everything. You will need to work very hard.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's give a try. Crash course for AlphaZero.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1.&lt;/strong&gt; Basic understanding in machine learning&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Countless number of books. But if you don't have time, I'd recommend Professor Andrew Ng's machine learning courses on Coursera. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your keywords: &lt;em&gt;training sets, test sets, stochastic gradient descent, learning rate, GPU, cost function, cross entropy&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;2.&lt;/strong&gt; Deep neutral networks&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You need to understand about neural networks. I'd recommend Professor Ian Goodfellow's deep learning book if you're serious. If you don't have time, please  again follow Professor Andrew Ng 's online course on Coursera. You don't have to go though all chapters (but you should!).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;YouTube has many quick introduction to neural networks, try them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your keywords: &lt;em&gt;neuron, layers, weights, bias, mini-batch, activation&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;3.&lt;/strong&gt; Monte Carlo Tree Search&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should understand what Monte Carlo is. Books about Monte Carlo is everywhere on Amazon. Read the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monte_Carlo_tree_search&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;wikipedia&lt;/a&gt; about MCTS if you don't have time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your keywords: &lt;em&gt;sampling, expansion, simulation, rollouts, backpropagation&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;3.&lt;/strong&gt; Reinforcement learning&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-REINFORCE-algorithm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-REINFORCE-algorithm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Policy_gradient_methods&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Policy_gradient_methods&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your keywords: &lt;em&gt;policy gradient, gradient descent, learning rate&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;5.&lt;/strong&gt; Chess board representation&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The paper itself is simplest. The model encodes the board state (e.g. pieces) as a series of one-hot encoding binary values.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;6.&lt;/strong&gt; MCTS vs alpha-beta&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/UgOts.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/UgOts.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2017-12-11T04:58:08.817" LastActivityDate="2017-12-11T04:58:08.817" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19389" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19385" CreationDate="2017-12-10T14:14:11.160" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bm7zah_LrmE&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;This presentation summarizes the journey to AlphaGo&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggqnxyjaKe4&amp;amp;list=PLe0J3_6vYq7vQjZQXLC0lauk9UFOehDXA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;This is a presentation of the underlying theory&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/reinforcement-learning&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;This is the book&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Plus, I guess, anything on deep convolutional neural networks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8844" LastActivityDate="2017-12-10T14:14:11.160" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19390" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19360" CreationDate="2017-12-10T15:02:07.820" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The way I understand neural networks, A0's real advantage is its superior evaluation of board positions. This evaluation incorporates both short term tactical knowledge (which in a sense serves as a multiplier of the number of positions examined) and a superior evaluation of strategic value.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15128" LastActivityDate="2017-12-10T15:02:07.820" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19391" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19360" CreationDate="2017-12-10T16:42:13.710" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to say thank you to all who have responded to this question, often with subtlety and insight. The chief difference in the responses, it seems to me, is in the interpretation of the word human.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;AlphaZero does not play human chess in the sense of oversights and miscalculations, but its &quot;thought&quot; process seem to correspond, in a heightened form, to how I think that most strong players think. You draw up, fairly quickly, a list of &quot;candidate moves&quot; that you would like to play, and for the strongest players this list is amazingly accurate, even playing something like a recognizably sensible game in one minute. The rest of the time is spent on asking, which of the moves on that list really work? Petrosian said that he felt most on form when the move he eventually played was the one he first thought of. We all know how satisfying it is when the move we most wanted to play turns out to be tactically playable. I can relate to the AlphaZero algorithm much more easily than I can to AlphaBeta search, which does not at all resemble what goes on in my head.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What seems most interesting is how the machine was able, by self-play, to &#xA;recognize the promising candidates. That is where the potential lies for real revolution. I wonder whether this is only possible for domains like chess and go, where the objectives can be clearly defined. But I find it striking that AlphaZero seems to display purposeful play, but Stockfish has no idea what is going on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastActivityDate="2017-12-10T16:42:13.710" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19392" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19360" CreationDate="2017-12-10T17:39:56.347" Score="6" Body="&lt;h2&gt;This is an incredibly interesting time to be alive.&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess computers starting from the 1970s have been minimax-tree based search algorithms using alpha-beta pruning.  These programs got stronger and stronger both because of advances in computer speed and parallelism and because of improvements in the heuristic eval function used to prune branches and select leaf nodes.  But people have long noticed how materialistic and boring computer play is, and many people (myself included) thought it was impossible to encode &quot;human&quot; intuition into software.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;But have you seen these games?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;AlphaZero is exhibiting incredibly beautiful play, including several examples of material sacrifice for long-term positional advantage.  This is reminiscent of some of the most beautiful games from human masters, but with unrivaled technical accuracy as well.  This is the first example I've seen in my life of something that's &lt;strong&gt;computer-generated and also has deep beauty&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;The Centaur Claim:&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've heard Garry say this many times, but it's just not true.  Or at least, it won't be true any longer with AlphaZero on the scene.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Imagine this: there is a piece sac that has 10,000 relevant continuations, where 5,000 of them are purely tactical (yet mostly unrelated to one another) and another 5,000 that are mostly positional (yet mostly unrelated).  How could a human sift through all of these variations without making a mistake?  If AlphaZero can now look at these highly creative moves, what contribution could a human possibly make?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;The Last Frontier:&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is one place left where brute-calculation will still beat deep neural nets: endgames.  There is no amount of intuition that will beat a tablebase.  But the endings that require a tablebase (because a search tree can't go deep enough to just calculate the right move) are pretty rare.  And you could just plug a tablebase into AlphaZero, but that would destroy the purity of a &quot;self-taught&quot; engine, right?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="373" LastActivityDate="2017-12-10T17:39:56.347" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19393" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19395" CreationDate="2017-12-11T07:36:43.970" Score="5" ViewCount="3987" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the following position, McDonald states that &lt;code&gt;14. d4!&lt;/code&gt; is the move that gives a large advantage to White. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;r1bqr1k1/2p2pp1/pbn4p/1p1np3/P7/1BPP1N2/1P3PPP/R1BQRNK1 w - - 0 14&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, &lt;code&gt;14. axb5&lt;/code&gt; wins not one but two pawns and without any unnecessary complications, such as opening the center up and allowing Black some freedom.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After using Stockfish to verify this, I wonder why (or how) GMs write mistakes in opening books, when they have engines to double-check. Why does this happen?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13147" LastEditorUserId="13147" LastEditDate="2017-12-11T09:04:49.790" LastActivityDate="2020-02-11T07:03:03.053" Title="Why, or how, can GMs make mistakes in opening books?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;ruy-lopez&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19394" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19393" CreationDate="2017-12-11T09:24:38.173" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Because often priority is to sell as much books as possible and write them in as short time as possible. What's the value for the author to spend plenty of time to get rid of couple of meaningless errors? It has virtually no impact on the overall value of the product. People don't use so robotic approach. Well, 95% of lines may be checked with the engine and 5% doesn't have to be because author could be tired or already watching movie during writing. As long as people do something, they make errors in it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11609" LastEditorUserId="11609" LastEditDate="2017-12-11T17:52:18.850" LastActivityDate="2017-12-11T17:52:18.850" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19395" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19393" CreationDate="2017-12-11T09:50:20.553" Score="31" Body="&lt;p&gt;In such a case, I would consider an editing blunder. Can you give the moves that lead to that  position ? I would not be surprised, for instance, if the comment was written with respect to the same line where ...Bb7 is played instead of ...Bb6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;r2qr1k1/1bp2pp1/p1n4p/1pbnp3/P7/1BPP1N2/1P3PPP/R1BQRNK1 w - - 0 14&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this position 14.axb5 leads to nothing but exchanges, but 14.d4 indeed looks very strong: 14...exd4 loses to 15.Rxe8 Qxe8 16.Bxd5, and if the Bc5 retreats then 15.dxe5 grabs a pawn with a discovered attack on the Nd5. White wins (at least) a good central pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Writing a book is a long process: you study a variation, finally the variation won't enter the book because you found an improvement earlier, you analyse a position, then another one that's very similar but not identical, you check one with the software but maybe you forgot the check the second, then you have to send a draft of a chapter to your editor, meanwhile you are writing the next chapter, and the editor wants you to reduce the material by one fourth, so you come back to your text, cut this and rephrase that, and at the end you have a few days (at most!) to proof-read the final draft before it goes to print... Even for the most organized writers, errors will happen at some point. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even without a computer, there is no doubt McDonald would find 14.axb5!+- in less than twenty seconds if given the diagram in the question. That's why I think this error is due to the production process rather than the chess process. It could be anything, from a comment meant for another section being copied-pasted to the wrong spot, to the typo Bb6/Bb7, or the wrong draft section sent to print.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is sure pretty annoying for you reader when you meet such a mistake&amp;nbsp;&amp;ndash; at least, it keeps your 'scientific skeptical awareness' in alert when reading. But the author will be the most pissed off by such an accident: not only the message he wanted to pass about a variation is spoiled, moreover his name is associated to a 'ridiculous' assessment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastEditorUserId="14079" LastEditDate="2020-02-11T07:03:03.053" LastActivityDate="2020-02-11T07:03:03.053" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="19396" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-12-11T10:26:28.563" Score="4" ViewCount="1004" Body="&lt;p&gt;The largest I could find was for Double Chess, with a 16x12 board. Is there a variant with a bigger board? It doesn't have to be a variant in which chess pieces follow their orthodox movement rules.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15138" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-10-23T20:50:25.993" LastActivityDate="2019-10-23T20:50:25.993" Title="Which chess variant has the largest board?" Tags="&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;chessboards&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="19397" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19396" CreationDate="2017-12-11T12:32:16.980" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taikyoku_shogi&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Taikyoku shogi&lt;/a&gt; should be a good candidate. It was created in the 16th century, so it's a variant that has actually been played. The board size is 36x36, and it has 209 different types of pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1485" LastActivityDate="2017-12-11T12:32:16.980" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19398" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19396" CreationDate="2017-12-11T12:38:03.370" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;From &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinite_chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;wikipedia &lt;/a&gt;(emphasis is mine):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Infinite chess&lt;/strong&gt; is any of several variations of the game chess played on an unbounded chessboard. Versions of infinite chess have been introduced independently by multiple players, chess theorists, and mathematicians, both as a playable game and as a model for theoretical study. It has been found that even though the board is unbounded, there are ways in which a player can win the game in a finite number of moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2017-12-11T12:38:03.370" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19399" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19381" CreationDate="2017-12-11T12:52:58.873" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Analysing one of your own games with a coach is one of the most important parts of work for a coach. To maximize the analyse-training effect you should always annotate your games before giving them to your coach. The reason for this is, that it makes it more easily for your coach to spot your weaknesses and therefore give you the right material to study. (very important if you don't live commentate all of your games in a meeting while going through them)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For your rating i would prefer a split of training time like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;65% tactics&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;10% openings&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;15% endgames&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;10% positional &amp;amp; strategical plans&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the beginning this will often look some random topics with a lack of structure, but normally it isn't. (the percentage ratio will change when you get better)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From my coaching experience the book &quot;How to Reassess your Chess&quot; is far too complex and difficult to understand for your level. (i would leave it aside)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also don't hesitate to ask your coach about topics you find uncomfortable. (e.g. how to play against this opening, how should i behave in positions like this one, etc.) -&gt; He will get a feeling in which topics you are good or need additional training.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For saving time you should do tactic puzzles always on paper/in your mind, because in tactic puzzles it often takes more time to set up the board than to find a solution.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10182" LastActivityDate="2017-12-11T12:52:58.873" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19400" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19353" CreationDate="2017-12-11T16:00:26.003" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I guess my question would be how the neural net &quot;learns&quot; what to do in a position it hasn't encountered.  Saying the actual AZ executes an MCTS using the bias + weights from the trained neural net just pushes it back a step to how the neural net calculates these values.  If it was through random self-play, with no human knowledge, then how does it decide how to weight a position it has never seen?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15141" LastActivityDate="2017-12-11T16:00:26.003" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19401" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-12-11T17:33:53.570" Score="13" ViewCount="1450" Body="&lt;p&gt;Following up from answers to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/19353/understanding-alphazero&quot;&gt;Understanding AlphaZero&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question would be how the neural net &quot;learns&quot; what to do in a position it hasn't encountered. Saying the actual AZ executes an MCTS using the bias + weights from the trained neural net just pushes it back a step to how the neural net calculates these values. If it was through random self-play, with no human knowledge, then how does it decide how to weight a position it has never seen?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15141" LastActivityDate="2017-12-12T11:46:19.650" Title="How does AlphaZero learn to evaluate a position it has never seen?" Tags="&lt;alphazero&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19402" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19404" CreationDate="2017-12-11T18:55:59.840" Score="10" ViewCount="1915" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have seen some commentary that implies that Stockfish did not have access to an opening book in its much-reported match with AlphaZero, but I cannot find a conclusive citation, and my inability to do so has me wondering if maybe Stockfish did have an opening book after all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/news/view/google-s-alphazero-destroys-stockfish-in-100-game-match&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;For example&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;GM Hikaru Nakamura...called the match &quot;dishonest&quot; and pointed out that&#xA;  Stockfish's methodology requires it to have an openings book for&#xA;  optimal performance. While he doesn't think the ultimate winner would&#xA;  have changed, Nakamura thought the size of the winning score would be&#xA;  mitigated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or, from &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/19378/2736&quot;&gt;a StackExchange answer&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Stockfish...wasn't allowed to use an opening book which makes it&#xA;  consider many moves in shallow depths.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's worth noting that even if Stockfish didn't have an opening book for the canonical 100 game match, page 6 of &lt;a href=&quot;https://arxiv.org/pdf/1712.01815.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;the paper&lt;/a&gt; shows that AlphaZero is dominant when you start from a variety of common openings. Nonetheless I wonder why they would handicap Stockfish this way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2736" LastActivityDate="2020-12-28T03:03:28.747" Title="Did Stockfish have access to an opening book in its games against AlphaZero?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;alphazero&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19403" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19360" CreationDate="2017-12-11T19:50:29.487" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Since humans lack ability to search deep, like traditional computer chess programs (fritz, stockfish et al), they create 'strategic principles' or thumb rules (center control, development, king safety) and concepts or tricks that are applicable in vast variety of situations in different ways, such as sacrifice, rooks connected, bishop pair, specific endings e.g how to corner the king with a rook and a pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think that alpha zero has independently reinvented many such concepts (percepts and concepts) and has also learnt tons of new ones - because its knowledge was not required to be built upon human evaluation functions and the strong minmax search which always assumes the opponent is a genius.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, such principles themselves conflict in some situations, that is why various opening plays and pitfalls are carefully studied - eg don't develop queen too soon.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, humans also notice that once you lose one piece (without exchange) you weaken your forces so they are extremely careful not to lose a piece without a compensation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think that Alphazero's play has liberated computer chess (and human chess) from the slavish fear of losing small material and overreliance on  opening books and piece values.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Alphazero games show things like the 'strategic principles' like center control, development, space, initiative are far more important if your opponent is sloppy. In other words, 'sacrifice' is not really sacrifice but trading off a piece for gain in initiative, position, directed move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Alphago (not the zero) relied on human evaluation, but alphazero sets up the entire chain of evaluation to 'search or simulation' as a single end to end process and comes up with totally new way of playing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you think about it, great masters of the past like Morphy, Fischer, Kasparov have been applauded for typically this kind of -counter-intuitive- play where they are not bounded by written-on-stone evaluation by take advantage of special situations that emerge. I think alpha zero's games have such 'wow' factor to it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why neural networks. While computer programs that use symbolic representation and discrete search can only use 'one' way of thinking, neural networks can parallelly process situations with alternate, conflicting evaluations and flip to the more valuable view in later layers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15143" LastActivityDate="2017-12-11T19:50:29.487" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19404" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19402" CreationDate="2017-12-11T23:40:08.663" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both Nakamura and the StackExchange answer were correct - Stockfish didn't use an opening book. I think Google did that to make a fair comparison as AlphaZero wasn't using an opening book as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I didn't see anything about opening book for Stockfish in the paper. I'm not the only one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://talkchess.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=65910&amp;amp;postdays=0&amp;amp;postorder=asc&amp;amp;highlight=stockfish+book&amp;amp;topic_view=flat&amp;amp;start=10&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://talkchess.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=65910&amp;amp;postdays=0&amp;amp;postorder=asc&amp;amp;highlight=stockfish+book&amp;amp;topic_view=flat&amp;amp;start=10&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as I read the paper, I didn't see a book for Stockfish mentioned, so I guess, match was bookless.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://talkchess.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=65909&amp;amp;highlight=stockfish+book&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://talkchess.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=65909&amp;amp;highlight=stockfish+book&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While this is indeed incredible, show me how it beats SF dev with good book and syzygy on equal hardware in a 1000 game match.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2017-12-12T04:11:02.603" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19406" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1960" CreationDate="2017-12-12T05:43:53.940" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recommend trying for the following setup for a solid opening as white against weak players: Nf3, g3, Bg2, O-O with a subsequent Re1&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This will protect your king early.  You can play these moves against a lot of different openings.  Be careful though about Black pushing their e pawn to attack your knight.  You'll want to prevent them from doing so.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I looked at the moves of a bunch of Bobby Fischer's games one time and noticed that he very often castled before his opponent.  Why not do it very early in the game so you can do it before your opponent?  Now it is not so simple that this will win the game for you.  In fact, it takes skill to be able to find good lines where you can castle earlier than your opponent in many openings.  But you could definitely do it quickly in the opening and it may just bring similar benefits.  It is such a simple idea and I believe it could be a good strategy against weak players.  This is the best thing I can come up with for an opening idea that will give you an edge over your friends.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One of the earliest openings I remember reading about and playing was the Reti Opening.  It starts out with 1. Nf3.  It's a bit different since many people play 1.e4 or 1.d4.  I stopped playing it pretty early on as I got caught up in 1.e4 openings.  But when the game is fresh and new, there is a certain pleasure in playing more unusual openings.  Plus there is less to focus on as it is a single opening instead of say the vast family of 1.e4 openings.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another idea is 1.e3 - this is a bit sneaky because it looks like it does not do much but it opens diagonals for the queen and bishop.  Of course 1.e4 does the same thing and is likely better because it controls the center but just starting out you could take it slow and also quickly get your opponent and you out of book where you can come up with your own moves after 1.e3 instead of following the moves from a book.  Okay, maybe 1.e3 won't give you an edge because it cedes space to Black but it will get you thinking on your own.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, two book recommendations for you are Play Winning Chess by Jeremy Silman and Yasser Seirawan and The Art of The Checkmate by Georges Renaud and Victor Kahn.  The first goes over general concepts like space and time.  The second book covers concrete examples of tactics.  These two books will help give you an edge over weak players.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user11382" LastEditorDisplayName="user11382" LastEditDate="2017-12-12T06:36:29.820" LastActivityDate="2017-12-12T06:36:29.820" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19407" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19409" CreationDate="2017-12-12T06:40:34.840" Score="11" ViewCount="2612" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've began going through, over the board, &lt;em&gt;1001 Winning Chess Sacrifices and Combinations - 21st century edition&lt;/em&gt;. This book is a great supplement to my last question on studying tactics, and I feel like I'm learning a lot from it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One of the problems I'm having with this particular book is right out of the gate the tactics for pins are &lt;em&gt;very&lt;/em&gt; difficult to see in a lot of cases for me.  Here is an example, problem 14:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;r4rk1/p2nqppp/Qpp5/3p4/3Pn3/2N1PN2/PP3PPP/2R2RK1 w Qq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To me one move was clear - &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Nxd5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This move clears the way for the rook to enter and pin the knight to the queen. It's &lt;em&gt;almost&lt;/em&gt; forced to take with the pawn to prevent the queen capture, the queen is on a pretty good square all things considered. Initially I had evaluated:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Qb7&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But disregarded it as a first move because even though the knight is pinned to the queen&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;... Rfb8 &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mitigates the attack immediately and forces the queen back - or so I thought. By having the rook perform the pin I'd be in better shape to mitigate that attack when I do 2. Qb7.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;... Rfb8&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Nxd5 Rxf7&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Nxe7+&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which seemed &lt;em&gt;too&lt;/em&gt; easy to be right for this tactic and leaves the game at even money, which from what it seems is never the goal of a pin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So from what I've gathered here I saw the pin at least. The problem I'm suffering from at the moment is how the solution plays out - the solutions don't really give &lt;em&gt;great&lt;/em&gt; justification and there's a lot of moves here to consider it &quot;solved&quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Qb7! Rfc8&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Nxd5! Qd6&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Rxc6!!&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From this I'm curious&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Why 1. ...Rfc8 and not Rfb8, attacking the queen? &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Why does black resign after Rxc6!!?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;How do I study from this tactic book effectively? I'm getting a ton of them wrong even though I'm seeing the tactic, I'm unable to make the same moves in the tactic for black to make everything &quot;play out right&quot;. I'm not sure when to consider a solution &quot;complete&quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm sorry if this is trivial, I'm working on fixing my over the board play by doing tactics and this book is &lt;em&gt;incredibly difficult&lt;/em&gt;. Difficulty is great because its challenging but I'm only on problem 14!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user14142" LastEditorDisplayName="user14142" LastEditDate="2017-12-12T06:46:49.860" LastActivityDate="2017-12-15T19:05:23.660" Title="Failing to understand a pin from a tactics book" Tags="&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;books&gt;&lt;pins&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19408" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19407" CreationDate="2017-12-12T07:57:06.050" Score="5" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Regarding the question - how to deal with very hard tactics?&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd suggest moving to an easier tactics book, where everything will be clear for you.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;After you will finish that book, move to a more advance book, and you'll find that your tactics abilities are much better.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Below you can find a couple of possible continues after Rxc6 which shows why black resigned:&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;r4rk1/p2nqppp/Qpp5/3p4/3Pn3/2N1PN2/PP3PPP/2R2RK1 w Qq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;1. Qb7! Rfc8&#xA;2. Nxd5! Qd6&#xA;3. Rxc6!! Qxc6&#xA;4. Ne7 Kf8&#xA;5. Nxc6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;r4rk1/p2nqppp/Qpp5/3p4/3Pn3/2N1PN2/PP3PPP/2R2RK1 w Qq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;1. Qb7! Rfc8&#xA;2. Nxd5! Qd6&#xA;3. Rxc6!! Rxc6&#xA;4. Qxa8 Nf8    &#xA;5. Qxc6 Qxc6&#xA;6. Ne7 Kh8&#xA;7. Nxc6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10295" LastEditorUserId="10295" LastEditDate="2017-12-12T08:24:36.513" LastActivityDate="2017-12-12T08:24:36.513" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19409" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19407" CreationDate="2017-12-12T07:58:05.627" Score="10" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;To me one move was clear -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Nxd5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But after 1...cxd5 2.Rc7, although the knight is pinned for a move, Black can easily unpin it by moving the queen to d6, d8, e6, or e8.  In fact, the knight is not even fully pinned - Black could move it to c5 and force a queen trade.  You've sacrificed the knight for a pawn, and get no lasting pin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Why 1. ...Rfc8 and not Rfb8, attacking the queen?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well, after 2.Qxc6 Black has lost a pawn.  And after that move the d5 pawn is threatened twice and not defended, so Black must play 2...Nxc3 if he wants to have a shot at saving it. But now he's traded off a well-placed knight, and after 3.Rxc3, d5 is isolated and still needs a defender, and White will gain solid control of the c-file and will be up a pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Rfc8 is shown here, not necessarily because it's Black's best move, but because in order to figure out how to proceed against it (and that Qb7 is a good move in the first place), you need to see the pin that Nxd5 exploits.  (And if this is based off an actual game, it might be the move actually played in the game.) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Why does black resign after Rxc6!!?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because he's down two pawns, and White will control the only open file.  There's a threat of Ne7+ which limits Black's options in the coming moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2017-12-12T07:58:05.627" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19410" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19366" CreationDate="2017-12-12T11:16:07.573" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;First paragraph more detail, second short and simple answer third paragraph my opinions on the situation&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With AlphaZero the hardware has 0 effect on the strength of its play. It may take longer but not because it’s thinking. It’s a neural network, which means you feed it info in a vector (a single column table) it does simple math thru a giant tensor (a 3 or more dimensional table) then it spits out the answer. &#xA;Stockfish needs time to be good because it checks possible positions to see if a move is beneficial, so the longer it looks at the problem the more position/moves it can check. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There isn’t really a comparable hardware setup. Because they have different needs, Stockfish needs to analyze more positions while AlphaZero just needs to make a move. And people are upset because AlphaZero's computer is technically much more powerful and they think they should be equal in that regard. But, AlphaZero doesn’t need that supercomputer after training.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my opinion it doesn’t matter what they give to either side, unless Stockfish has an unreasonable amount of time it will probably tie a few more games but in general a similar effect will happen. This is why I think this, Stockfish initially evaluates with pieces and their values while, Alpha played (probably) millions of games to realize what is important strategically. Which is why Alpha sacs a lot more than Stockfish would ever, but gains huge positional advantages.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15153" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-12-12T18:21:54.773" LastActivityDate="2017-12-12T18:21:54.773" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19411" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19401" CreationDate="2017-12-12T11:46:19.650" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;The evaluation function of a chess engine, whether instantiated as a neural net or explicit code, is always able to assign a value to any board position. If you give it a board position, even absurd ones that would never occur in a game, it will be able to spit out a number representing how favorable it is to one player or another. Since the number of board positions in chess is unmanageably gigantic, the training can only occur on an infinitesimal sample of the game tree. The engine is not simply recalling previously calculated values of board positions, but is performing calculations based on the arrangement of the pieces. For a non-neural-net example, part of a chess engine's evaluation might be to add up the value of each piece on its side and subtract the total value of the opponent's pieces. Then, one set of parameter that would be adjusted while training would be the value of each piece.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When the engine is untrained, the values assigned to a position might as well be random since the parameters of the evaluation function start out with (usually) random values. The goal of a training phase is to adjust the parameters of the engine so that it assigns high scores to board positions that are probable winning states for the player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From &lt;a href=&quot;https://arxiv.org/pdf/1712.01815.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;the paper on AlphaZero&lt;/a&gt; (page 3):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The parameters of the deep neural network in AlphaZero are trained by self-play reinforcement learning, starting from randomly initialised parameters. Games are played by selecting moves for both players by MCTS. At the end of the game, the terminal position is scored according to the rules of the game to compute the game outcome: −1 for a loss, 0 for a draw, and +1 for a win. The neural network parameters are updated so as to minimise the error between the predicted outcome and the game outcome, and to maximise the similarity of the policy vector to the search probabilities.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;[math symbols removed from quote]&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In summary, during training, AlphaZero played a game against itself. When the game is over, the result of the game and the accuracy of its predictions in how the game would proceed were used to adjust the neural net so that it would be more accurate during the next game. AlphaZero is not keeping a record of every position it has seen, but is adjusting itself so that it can more accurately evaluate any board it sees in the future.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5819" LastActivityDate="2017-12-12T11:46:19.650" CommentCount="14" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19412" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19407" CreationDate="2017-12-12T14:07:58.743" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the key pin in this tactic is not the knight against the queen, but the c-pawn against the rook. If 2...cxd5, 3.Rxc8+ Rxc8 4.Qxc8+, winning the Exchange and a pawn while also keeping the initiative.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That said, 1...Rfc8 is hardly forced. Maybe it was the move played in a real game, like D M said. FWIW, Stockfish suggests it is a mistake (not even in the top five moves!), as it increases White's advantage from +1.5 to +3.0. Still, White can at least gain a pawn with what Stockfish considers best play, for example 1...Qe6 2.Nxe4 dxe4 3.Ng5 Qd5 4.Nxe4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the line you originally considered, 1.Nxd5 cxd5 2.Rc7, the problem is that the black knight can unpin itself by attacking the white queen with 2...Nc5! Both the white queen and rook are now under attack; the trade of queens is forced, which leaves White down a knight for a pawn. In other words, the sacrifice made on move 1 was for nothing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12523" LastEditorUserId="12523" LastEditDate="2017-12-12T14:28:29.060" LastActivityDate="2017-12-12T14:28:29.060" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19413" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19414" CreationDate="2017-12-12T17:49:26.090" Score="8" ViewCount="398" Body="&lt;p&gt;After:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nd4 g6 5.Nc3 Bg7 6.Be3 Nf6 7.Bc4 O-O 8.Bb3 a5 9.O-O d6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It appears 10.Ndb5 is difficult for Black to play against.  I only found some games from 2008.  Is it still the case that Black is avoiding this line at high levels?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastEditorUserId="4588" LastEditDate="2017-12-14T16:53:58.617" LastActivityDate="2018-04-19T19:15:03.777" Title="Accelerated Dragon, Modern Bc4 Variation (B35) 10.Ndb5!" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;&lt;1.e4&gt;&lt;accelerated-dragon&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19414" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19413" CreationDate="2017-12-12T20:51:55.507" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The line 8.Bb3 a5 9.0-0 d6 still occasionally occurs in games of IMs and GMs, and the results are actually quite ok for black. For example, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1667437&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Hou Yifan-Yu Yangyi&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1670609&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Kudrin-Diamant&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1750258&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Vishnu-Vazquez Igarza&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1785731&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Saric-Damaso&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, at the highest level, it indeed seems that black is looking for alternatives. At the latest FIDE Grand Prix, Palma de Mallorca 2017, Gelfand tried 8....d5 against &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1891835&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Vachier-Lagrave&lt;/a&gt; and 8....d6 against &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1891866&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Vallejo Pons&lt;/a&gt;, but lost both games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A remarkable alternative is 8....Re8, first played by &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1733369&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Zvjaginsev&lt;/a&gt; in 2013. This move has been repeated in several GM games, e.g. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1773221&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Leko-Vitiugov&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1890765&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Sanal-Dubov&lt;/a&gt;.&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT:&lt;/strong&gt; In the first round of the Gashimov Memorial 2018, the theoretical discussion on 8....Re8 is continued in the game &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1918248&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Navara-Mamedov&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Recently, a new repertoire book has been published: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.thinkerspublishing.com/raja-panjwani-th-e-hyper-accelerated-dragon-2017.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;The Hyper Accelerated Dragon&lt;/a&gt; by IM Raja Panjwani. According to a book review on &lt;a href=&quot;http://chess.ca/newsfeed/node/963&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Canadian Chess Newsfeed&lt;/a&gt;, the author analyzes two variations against 7.Bc4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If White avoids the Maroczy (c2-c4), then the only other way to stop the ...d7-d5 equalizer is 7.Bc4, which is the subject of Chapters 2 and 3. Black could allow the game to transpose into a Yugoslav attack (Bc4, f3, Qd2, 000, and a kingside pawn storm) but Raja wants to avoid that, and offers two antidotes: 7...Qa5 (ch.2) and his own system (&quot;My System&quot;) which is a hybrid of the Dragon on the kingside (e7, f7, g6, h7/h5) and a Taimanov on the queenside (...a6, ...b5, ...e6). That's the subject of Chapter 3, and the excerpt in the game player below.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;      [StartPly &quot;15&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;      [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;      1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 g6 5.Nc3 Bg7 6.Be3 Nf6 7.Bc4 O-O 8.Bb3 a5 (8...d5)(8...d6)(8...Re8) 9.O-O d6&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4588" LastEditorUserId="4588" LastEditDate="2018-04-19T19:15:03.777" LastActivityDate="2018-04-19T19:15:03.777" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19415" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19416" CreationDate="2017-12-12T23:27:17.353" Score="6" ViewCount="283" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Schliemann's Defence or Schliemann–Jaenisch Gambit refers to the moves 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 f5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;f5 is of course a gambit move by black typically known as the Jaenisch Gambit when white plays the Ruy Lopez scenario. Questions is: Who was Schliemann? Is the name referring to a person or is this some creative term?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14241" LastEditorUserId="14241" LastEditDate="2017-12-13T23:52:31.103" LastActivityDate="2017-12-13T23:52:31.103" Title="In the Schliemann defense, who does Schliemann refer to?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;gambits&gt;&lt;ruy-lopez&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19416" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19415" CreationDate="2017-12-13T04:06:12.317" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to the section of the Wikipedia page on the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruy_Lopez#Schliemann_Defence:_3...f5&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Ruy Lopez&lt;/a&gt;, it's named after a German lawyer, Adolf Karl Wilhelm Schliemann (1817-1872), although it doesn't say why his name is attached to it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, the German Wikipedia page on &lt;a href=&quot;https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolph_Schliemann&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Adolph Schliemann&lt;/a&gt; (&lt;a href=&quot;https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&amp;amp;sl=de&amp;amp;u=https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolph_Schliemann&amp;amp;prev=search&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;English translation&lt;/a&gt;), indicates he was a strong master who contributed to the early theory of the line.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9025" LastActivityDate="2017-12-13T04:06:12.317" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19417" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19415" CreationDate="2017-12-13T12:33:46.397" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Russian Wikipedia says that Schliemann &lt;a href=&quot;https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%A8%D0%BB%D0%B8%D0%BC%D0%B0%D0%BD,_%D0%90%D0%B4%D0%BE%D0%BB%D1%8C%D1%84#%D0%90%D0%B4%D0%BE%D0%BB%D1%8C%D1%84_%D0%A8%D0%BB%D0%B8%D0%BC%D0%B0%D0%BD_%E2%80%94_%D1%88%D0%B0%D1%85%D0%BC%D0%B0%D1%82%D0%B8%D1%81%D1%82&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;was one of the first player who started to use Jaenisch Gambit in the Spanish Opening&lt;/a&gt; (aka Ruy Lopez). That is why it is often called Schliemann defense. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8214" LastActivityDate="2017-12-13T12:33:46.397" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19418" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="132" CreationDate="2017-12-13T20:51:19.767" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;1. g4&lt;/code&gt; ... &lt;code&gt;2. f3??&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a horrendous opening (especially in combination with the second move) because it severely undermines the ability to castle on the king's side, very aggressively throws a pawn into action where it has no defenders and isn't helping any cause in particular. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;g4&lt;/code&gt; allows to fianchetto the light-square bishop, as well as hide the dark square bishop behind it later, if needed, which is an odd, but somewhat redeeming quality, but as soon as it's followed by &lt;code&gt;2. f3&lt;/code&gt;, the light-square bishop is entombed and white have ZERO center control or active development for whole 3 tempi, allowing black to gain a MASSIVE center presence and advantage. And after &lt;code&gt;1. ...d5&lt;/code&gt; followed by &lt;code&gt;2. ...h5&lt;/code&gt; the &lt;code&gt;g4&lt;/code&gt; square now belongs to the black and sets a great entry point to a king-side attack. If white tried to take on &lt;code&gt;g5&lt;/code&gt;, black now has a semi-open file without ever moving the rook. Thanks for that! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Such a horrible game would typically go like this: &lt;code&gt;1. g4 d5  2. f3 e5  3. Bg2 h5&lt;/code&gt; - and black is 2+ points in the lead without having taken a single piece yet, according to any decent engine. White would need a major miracle and a blunder from black to have any chance to recover from that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GC6lJJKvl-4&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Hou Yifan throws game&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15129" LastEditorUserId="15129" LastEditDate="2017-12-14T22:26:01.733" LastActivityDate="2017-12-14T22:26:01.733" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19421" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19360" CreationDate="2017-12-14T03:05:07.500" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;One thing I feel the whole discussion has missed is that A0 can play chess, shogi and go, all very well and all from self-training. This is much more human. Furthermore, in go it has revealed deeply new ideas to the top players (as I understand it). Other engines are very task-specific, A0 seems otherwise. I'd like to see it play chess960.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15172" LastActivityDate="2017-12-14T03:05:07.500" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19423" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="132" CreationDate="2017-12-14T16:11:08.990" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;The other moves cited, especially 1.f3, are bad, but I would rather plead the case of the ugly Grob opening, 1.g4?.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pawns do not go back, so this double step weakening is much more committing than a one step pawn move. After, say 1...e5, White has not only lost time, he has also:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Self-destroyed the most natural shelter for his own king, reached by short castle.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;created weaknesses for himself, as Pg4 can and will be targeted by Bc8 or Ph5.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;got himself a disadvantage in the fight for the center.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If, in some kind of handicapped game, I could choose my opponent's first move in order to maximize my chances, I would rather force him to play 1.g4 than anything else.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastEditorUserId="14079" LastEditDate="2020-06-19T07:23:50.163" LastActivityDate="2020-06-19T07:23:50.163" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="19424" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-12-14T18:48:52.300" Score="6" ViewCount="878" Body="&lt;p&gt;In December 2008, the German magazine &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/outrage-over-ivanchuk-the-great-chess-doping-scandal-a-595819.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Der Spiegel&lt;/a&gt; reported on Vassily Ivanchuk's refusal to provide a urine sample for a doping test. This type of refusal is &quot;treated as a positive test result&quot; (according to the article), but &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fide.com/component/content/article/1-fide-news/3704-decision-of-the-fide-doping-hearing-panel&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE decided that there was no need for a penalty&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am not aware of other similar stories in chess. So has any professional player ever been temporarily banned from playing because of a positive doping test?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10867" LastActivityDate="2019-10-04T01:03:09.620" Title="Has any chess player ever been banned because of doping?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;fide&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19425" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19424" CreationDate="2017-12-14T19:15:06.533" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The short answer is &quot;No&quot;. The long answer is &quot;Don't be silly!&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;About a year ago I asked elsewhere if the English GM Mickey Adams (the only English player at the time comfortably over 2700) had to go through the WADA style rigmarole of informing the chess anti-doping officials of a time and exact location for every day of the year where he could be found if they wanted to test him as required by FIDE's anti-doping policy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A prominent member of the FIDE Qualification Committee replied &quot;I'm not saying you're wrong, but that's news to be. Where can I find it?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This 73-page FIDE document - &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/FIDE/handbook/FIDEAntiDopingRules.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Anti-Doping Rules based on Wada’s Models of Best Practice for International Federations and the World Anti-Doping Code&lt;/a&gt; - from 2015 spells out in painful detail what FIDE's &quot;intentions&quot; are.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I sent him the link this was his response -  &quot;I think the International-Level part refers only to things that FIDE Anti-Doping can do if they want to and in practice don't, but still worth knowing.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, at the moment FIDE has a suitable IOC-friendly policy on the books but they are only likely to actually implement it if the vast Olympic money bags are opened for chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2017-12-14T19:15:06.533" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19427" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18636" CreationDate="2017-12-14T22:08:22.553" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;PGN files aren't databases, they're just lists of games. It's an exchange format, not a database format.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can load them into a real database, like Scid or Chessbase. Those have their own internal representation of chess games that is separate from PGN. If the same move can be written in several ways, they'll all be interpreted the same way by the database software when it reads the PGN.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Database software is probably better for doing analysis than working with raw PGN files too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Alternatively, if you really want PGN files, import them into a Scid database and then export them to PGN again, that should make them consistent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastEditorUserId="924" LastEditDate="2017-12-14T22:14:45.533" LastActivityDate="2017-12-14T22:14:45.533" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19428" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8789" CreationDate="2017-12-14T22:38:49.700" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here's a game from 1912 between Edward Lasker and George Alan Thomas. All blacks moves are forced.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;rn3rk1/pbppq1pp/1p2pb2/4N2Q/3PN3/3B4/PPP2PPP/R3K2R w KQ - 20 11&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Qxh7+ Kxh7 Nxf6+ Kh6 Neg4+ Kg5 h4+ Kf4 g3+ Kf3 Be2+ Kg2 Rh2+ Kg1 Kd2# 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In answer to your question, I'm sure there's an even better hypothetical board position, but this was a really game played by competent players all be it in a casual setting. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sources:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://youtu.be/QIiaeY76VY8?t=3m45s&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://youtu.be/QIiaeY76VY8?t=3m45s&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1259009&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1259009&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15181" LastActivityDate="2017-12-14T22:38:49.700" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19429" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-12-15T00:33:32.003" Score="-5" ViewCount="138" Body="&lt;p&gt;What black piece can you capture? This is homework from school.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/8/2n5/1p6/4r3/1Kb5/3p4/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15182" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditorDisplayName="user1108" LastEditDate="2020-04-04T22:34:11.957" LastActivityDate="2020-04-04T22:34:11.957" Title="What black piece can you capture?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;problems&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19431" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19429" CreationDate="2017-12-15T01:26:15.647" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;This question needs some context.  All the pieces are black.  In order to capture, a piece of an opposing color needs to occupy the square of the captured piece.  The king can not be captured, only placed in checkmate or stalemate.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since there are no opposing piece, one correct answer could be &lt;code&gt;none of the pieces.&lt;/code&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the question supplies a white piece and location, then the question can be answered.  For example if it was white to move, and there was a white bishop on d3 and a white king on d5 then the question would have some educational value for a beginning student.  What captures could be made in that situation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15183" LastEditorUserId="15183" LastEditDate="2017-12-16T02:37:11.213" LastActivityDate="2017-12-16T02:37:11.213" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19432" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19429" CreationDate="2017-12-15T09:15:08.680" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;If the king is white you can capture the bishop on c3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14870" LastActivityDate="2017-12-15T09:15:08.680" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19433" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19434" CreationDate="2017-12-15T10:33:57.760" Score="28" ViewCount="4636" Body="&lt;p&gt;How is the life of a professional chessplayer with ELO around 2500? I mean, someone who is no doubt strong, but hardly a top GM? How does he make a living these days, if he hasn't another job?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastEditorUserId="9025" LastEditDate="2019-09-19T15:11:27.990" LastActivityDate="2019-09-19T15:11:27.990" Title="How is the life of a professional GM with ELO around 2500?" Tags="&lt;grandmaster&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19434" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19433" CreationDate="2017-12-15T11:15:58.443" Score="27" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know a few GMs in 2500-2600 range who would be considered professional -&gt; ie chess provides the primary means of earning income for them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is very hard work with wages not matching the effort/skill spent:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Being the primary player for medium club team (European/Middle East/Far East)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Teaching (preferably within said club as it guarantees steady supply of clients) &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Being an personal assistant/coach to another player &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Playing for hire for a stronger club in say Bundesliga lower boards&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Actually getting some prize money in medium sized tournaments &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Books provide a tiny bit of income, but mostly are used for name/brand building for the next item&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Selling training coarses - again only a few can make a living from this&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A growing but still insufficient means of income is streaming, a few personalities can pull it off&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Playing in special norm tournaments, in Eastern Europe GMs get about 250-350Euros for a week long tournament, where IMs/FMs/untitled have to pay 100-300 Euros to compete for GM norms.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That said most GMs around 2500 have other means of living besides chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9289" LastActivityDate="2017-12-15T11:15:58.443" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19435" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19407" CreationDate="2017-12-15T19:05:23.660" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You did well to recognize that Whites advantage has something to do with his control of the c-file and that to make anything out of that he has to open the c-file up. But when you say that one thing was clear, you were wrong, and it should not have taken so long to realize this. I suspect that you were drawn to Nxd5 &quot;because thats the sort of move that you get in tactics books&quot;. This would be a very poor way of reasoning in a game. There you might still find Nxd5 tempting, but you would be less surprised that it did not work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Probably you had another expectation because the position was in a book; you were expecting to gain a large advantage. When you looked at Qc6, either you did not realize the simple threat of Qxc6, or else you thought that was not enough.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It does seem that the solution was not well explained (not everyone has a high opinion of Reinfelds books). If you want to take it easy for a bit, I understand that there are some quite good chess books for kids, although Ive never looked into this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastActivityDate="2017-12-15T19:05:23.660" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19436" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19429" CreationDate="2017-12-15T21:55:40.533" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If we make the following two assumptions&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It is white's move&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A piece can be captured&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then clearly the only piece the king is adjacent to is the bishop, so that must be the piece. However, this bishop appears to be protected by the pawn. This must not be the case, because the bishop is the only possible piece to capture. Thus we can conclude the bishop is not on C3, but rather F6 and the board is simply inverted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the game continues &lt;code&gt;1) kxf6 e8=Q 2) kg7 rd6 3) kh7 ng5+ 4) kg7 qf7++&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="598" LastActivityDate="2017-12-15T21:55:40.533" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19437" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19442" CreationDate="2017-12-16T04:06:31.703" Score="7" ViewCount="1211" Body="&lt;p&gt;My understanding is that Alpha Zero's algorithm was fixed after the &quot;learning&quot; phase, so would it come up with the same move for every position? Was the variability in the match entirely due to a Stockfish setting, or did Alpha Zero also display an element of randomness in its move selection?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1816" LastActivityDate="2019-05-07T21:13:30.443" Title="What was the source of randomness in the Alpha Zero vs Stockfish match?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;computer-chess&gt;&lt;alphazero&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19439" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19440" CreationDate="2017-12-16T10:29:49.047" Score="3" ViewCount="362" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the below position, taken from the end of the game &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1001165&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;McDonnell-Bourdonnais&lt;/a&gt;, black must win. Is there a way that white can survive for six moves?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I only know some ways that white can survive for five moves as follows.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;3b2rk/3P2pp/8/p7/8/2Q5/PP1pppPP/3R3K w - - 0 1&#xA;&#xA;1. h4                         exd1=Q+&#xA;2. Kh2                        f1=Q&#xA;3. Qc4                        Qfxc4 &#xA;4. g4                         Qcxg4&#xA;5. a3                         Qdxg1#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The White pawn must move to give the space for the king, since the queen and rook cannot prevent the black pawns from promoting to queens. Because of the Bishop on e4, white queen must defend h4. She can go b4, c4, d4, h3, f6 or g7. But it seems that nothing works.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15199" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-14T01:11:04.900" LastActivityDate="2020-04-14T01:11:04.900" Title="Is there a way that white can survive for six moves in this position?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;checkmate&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="19440" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19439" CreationDate="2017-12-16T11:33:01.503" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;No. According to my Stockfish, this is a forced mate in 5, whatever White tries to prevent it, and you're giving one of the (relatively) best lines. Black threatens a back rank mate by promoting one of his pawns, and the rook and queen cannot stop that. Moving the g-pawn doesn't really help, so 1. h3 and 1. h4 are the best tries.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;3b2rk/3P2pp/8/p7/8/2Q5/PP1pppPP/3R3K w - - 0 1&#xA;&#xA;1. h4 (1. Qxd2 f1=Q+ 2. Rxf1 exf1=Q#) (1. h3 exd1=Q+ 2. Kh2 Bh4 { threatens Qg1# } 3. Qc1 Qxc1 4. a3 Qg1#) exd1=Q+ 2. Kh2 f1=Q 3. Qd4 ( 3. Qc4 Qxc4 4. g4 Qcxg4 5. a3 Qdg1# ) Bc7+ 4. Qf4  Bxf4+ 5. Kh3 Qh1#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-12-16T22:14:32.353" LastActivityDate="2017-12-16T22:14:32.353" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19441" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-12-17T07:45:41.083" Score="7" ViewCount="1780" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm referring to the French Defense (C11 ECO code) game where Alpha Zero played 30. Bxg6 ! , sacrificing a bishop for a better position. After Alpha Zero's move 30. , I couldn't find any good moves for Black. However, after the earlier move by White 28. Rc2, Houdini suggests after many hours the reply 28... Qe7 instead of 28... Kd7 which was played by Stockfish. And if 29. Ng5 , then 29... Bh6. All in all, analysis with the Houdini chess engine strongly suggests that 28... Qe7 is a much better move than 28... Kd7 for Black. &#xA;Am I missing anything?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The position after 28. Rc2 is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;3kqb1r/1b3p2/1p2p1p1/pP1pP3/P2P1PQP/3BKN2/2R5/8 b - - 3 28&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;=====================&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Added: Dec 18, 9am&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I'm doing an infinite analysis on 4 threads using Houdini 6, with 2 Gb of hash memory. After 4 hours and a depth ~= 33, Houdini still prefers 28. ... Kd7 for Black, with an evaluation of +0.15 .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Eventually, Houdini 6 had 28. ... Ba3 as its first choice for Black. Moving the Bishop from the f8 square to the a3 square allows the Black Queen and rook to connect on the back rank. It also allows moving the Queen to the f8 or g8 squares...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Perhaps Alpha Zero's play is too deep, some of the time, to get reasonnably accurate evaluations in a few hours. Or, to simulate Alpha Zero's play could take an inordinate amount of time per move...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S. I upgraded to Houdini 6 today, and at 4 hours of infinite analysis with it, it's a lot less than the time spent analyzing before the upgrade.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15204" LastEditorUserId="2042" LastEditDate="2017-12-18T18:20:11.593" LastActivityDate="2018-12-15T06:02:45.547" Title="Alpha Zero vs Stockfish, French Defence, is this move for Black better?" Tags="&lt;computer-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19442" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19437" CreationDate="2017-12-17T13:04:27.903" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've noticed AlphaZero played 1.d4 and 1.Nf3 in &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chess.pl?tid=91944&amp;amp;crosstable=1&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chess.pl?tid=91944&amp;amp;crosstable=1&lt;/a&gt;. Possibilities:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Mutlithreading (any software engineer can tell you it's not deterministic)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Monte Carlo Tree Search (the algorithm draws random paths, so it can't be deterministic)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please note while the model's parameters are &quot;fixed&quot; (your own words), the actual move might be different. We don't have the source code for AlphaZero, but multithreading and MCTS are likely two major casues.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2017-12-17T13:04:27.903" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19443" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19433" CreationDate="2017-12-17T13:11:59.553" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Australia has some grandmasters, but no top GM (2700+). The country's legenary GM, Ian Rogers, is a renowned chess journalist. You can see his chess reports all over the Internet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The other grandmasters either have a job or actively make a living by coaching. &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Illingworth&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;GM Max Illingworth&lt;/a&gt; is a professional chess coach.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't think anybody in Australia is able to make a living by just playing chess, grandmaster or not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2017-12-17T13:56:54.223" LastActivityDate="2017-12-17T13:56:54.223" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19444" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4353" CreationDate="2017-12-17T15:29:31.207" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Don't use apt-get because it doesn't give the latest Stockfish version. Do this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;wget https://stockfishchess.org/files/stockfish-10-linux.zip&#xA;unzip stockfish-10-linux.zip&#xA;chmod +x stockfish-10-linux/Linux/stockfish_10_x64&#xA;./stockfish-10-linux/Linux/stockfish_10_x64&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2019-01-25T03:07:04.263" LastActivityDate="2019-01-25T03:07:04.263" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="19445" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-12-17T18:40:35.567" Score="0" ViewCount="1426" Body="&lt;p&gt;The best free chess program SCID vs Pc is installed and the latest chess engines are installed. After watching video Jeremy Silman, to play for first low level then intermediate and then Master level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How to configure the SCID vs. PC to select a Particular chess engine , to play Low level or intermediate or then Master level ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15206" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2017-12-18T03:23:46.793" LastActivityDate="2018-01-17T03:43:56.890" Title="How to play against an engine using scid for a particular level?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19447" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19445" CreationDate="2017-12-18T02:58:41.250" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Manage your engines in &lt;strong&gt;Tools&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Fbgtv.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Fbgtv.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Select your engine in &lt;strong&gt;Play&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/1sqD8.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/1sqD8.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Configure the engine, then select your skill level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/oJuL5.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/oJuL5.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2017-12-18T02:58:41.250" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19448" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19441" CreationDate="2017-12-18T09:58:51.107" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is quite possible that Qe7 holds black's position better than Kd7.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Qe7 at least gets white to pay attention to a4 pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That said, black is still worse, as that poor bishop on b7 is boxed in forever.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So A0 would be able to evaluate when it is worth giving up a4 pawn and be able to press on for many moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At best black(Stockfish) grovels on for a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9289" LastActivityDate="2017-12-18T09:58:51.107" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19449" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19450" CreationDate="2017-12-18T10:41:17.357" Score="20" ViewCount="6624" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let's say I'm playing a game that has technically begun (white has moved) and then the board is disturbed: say a minor earthquake shakes the pieces off the table or something.  Clearly no-one has interfered so there is no cheating, but what happens next?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the moves are logged, can the pieces be returned to their previous positions and the match resumed?  Or must the match be aborted and the board reset?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm mostly interested in the international tournament rules but I'm interesting in hearing of 'house rules' as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15213" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-01-05T21:10:48.703" LastActivityDate="2021-01-05T21:10:48.703" Title="If a chess board is disturbed, can the game continue?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;chessboards&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19450" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19449" CreationDate="2017-12-18T11:08:28.373" Score="28" Body="&lt;p&gt;From the FIDE Laws of Chess, article 7.6:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If, during a game, it is found that any piece has been displaced from its correct square the position before the irregularity shall be reinstated. If the position immediately before the irregularity cannot be determined, the game shall continue from the last identifiable position prior to the irregularity. The game shall then continue from this reinstated position. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Put into practice:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If the moves are logged, then it's trivial to determine the &quot;last identifiable position&quot; and the game can be resumed as if nothing happened.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If they are not logged (or the two scoresheets differ), the arbiter can attempt to find the &quot;last identifiable position&quot; by asking both players. If they both remember the exact same position, then the game can continue from that position.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If that fails too (because the players don't remember or disagree), there is at least one &quot;last identifiable position&quot; that can always be determined,  the starting position. So yeah, the game is essentially reset in that case. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Article 7.1 applies basically the same rule to the readjustment of the clock, if there is one (with some more wiggle room for the arbiter):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If an irregularity occurs and the pieces have to be restored to a previous position, the arbiter shall use his best judgement to determine the times to be shown on the chessclock. This includes the right not to change the clock times. He shall also, if necessary, adjust the clock’s move-counter. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13433" LastEditorUserId="13433" LastEditDate="2017-12-19T06:58:29.467" LastActivityDate="2017-12-19T06:58:29.467" CommentCount="14" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19451" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24583" CreationDate="2017-12-18T17:53:19.663" Score="3" ViewCount="93" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've had the Chronos GX for a while now. However, I don't use it much anymore because I need a count up setting. In other words, I'd like it to start at 0 and have it count up as time is spent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The regular Chronos has the &lt;code&gt;UP-1&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;UP-2&lt;/code&gt; settings. The GX seems to lack those. Or am I missing something?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.metrowestchess.org/community/Knowledge/Digital_Clocks/Clock_Chronos/Chronos_GX_Digital_Game_CLock/Chronos_GX_Manual.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;The GX user manual&lt;/a&gt; doesn’t give me much hope.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15217" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-05-26T23:10:31.443" LastActivityDate="2020-05-30T19:23:52.770" Title="Does the Chronos GX have a count up setting?" Tags="&lt;chess-clocks&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="19452" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19366" CreationDate="2017-12-18T21:16:53.113" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Running on comparable hardware would be required if Google's end goal was to build a superior chess engine, but this exercise wasn't really about chess. Chess is just a convenient way to demonstrate the AI's ability to learn complicated tasks from scratch. If it can perform well against some vaguely reasonable configuration of Stockfish, it's checked the box. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I predict the Google team will not spend much more effort on chess; instead, they will move on to other problems that AI has never been able to accomplish.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15219" LastActivityDate="2017-12-18T21:16:53.113" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19453" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-12-19T01:25:24.880" Score="2" ViewCount="448" Body="&lt;p&gt;I play a lot on ICC, and I notice they offer a few days of rated blitz and other time controls.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd like to play more rated games, however I'm afraid of how easy it is to cheat online. It seems like there is nothing stopping someone from having a laptop with them and making moves by running the game through stockfish. They could screw up just enough to evade &quot;bot behavior&quot; detection.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are these types of games worth playing at all? Or should I just stick to going to the club once a week for classic games?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user14142" LastActivityDate="2017-12-21T22:11:13.250" Title="Are online USCF tournaments worth playing?" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;uscf&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19454" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18779" CreationDate="2017-12-19T15:15:14.760" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Article 4.3 of the FIDE Laws of Chess states:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;4.3 Except as provided in Article 4.2, if the player having the move touches on the chessboard, &lt;strong&gt;with the intention of moving or capturing&lt;/strong&gt;:&#xA;  ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So if you touch the piece in such a way (for example pushing it with your pen or your little finger) that it is clear that you don't have the intention of moving or capturing it, it should be OK.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14979" LastActivityDate="2017-12-19T15:15:14.760" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19455" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19464" CreationDate="2017-12-19T17:06:17.533" Score="30" ViewCount="17161" Body="&lt;p&gt;Does there exist such an algorithm where, if given infinite processing power, a computer could play chess perfectly, i.e., it can generate perfect moves from any position?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If so, where can I find the pseudo-code for it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15232" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-08-25T09:47:14.307" LastActivityDate="2020-08-25T20:24:08.940" Title="If given infinite processing power, is there an algorithm that would play chess perfectly?" Tags="&lt;chess-algorithms&gt;" AnswerCount="8" CommentCount="18" FavoriteCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="19456" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19455" CreationDate="2017-12-19T17:50:27.597" Score="25" Body="&lt;p&gt;See &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endgame_tablebase&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endgame_tablebase&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With infinite computer power, one could build such a table for the starting position and &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solving_chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot; title=&quot;solve chess&quot;&gt;solve chess&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In practice, only positions with up to seven &amp;quot;men&amp;quot; (pawns and pieces, counting the kings) have been solved using current supercomputers, so we are very far from solving chess. The complexity of the problem increases exponentially with the increase in the number of pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12523" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-08-25T09:49:31.977" LastActivityDate="2020-08-25T09:49:31.977" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="19458" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19455" CreationDate="2017-12-19T20:40:31.723" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I will ignore the possibilities of draws or infinite sequences of moves for simplicity. Once the algorithm is understood, it is not particularly difficult to extend it to those cases.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, some definitions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Any move that wins the game for the player who makes that move is a winning move.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Any move that loses the game for the player who makes that move is a losing move.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Any move that leaves the other player with at least one winning move is also a losing move. (Since the opponent can take that move and force a loss.)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Any move that leaves the other player with only losing moves is also a winning move. (No matter what move your opponent makes, you will win.)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;A perfect strategy means always making winning moves if any remain and resigning when one has only losing moves remaining.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, it's trivial to write a perfect strategy. Simply explode all possible move sequences and identify winning/losing moves. Ignoring stalemate, this will eventually identify every move as either a winning move or a losing move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, the strategy is trivial. Look at all your possible moves. If any winning moves remain, take one and win. If only losing moves remain, resign, since your opponent can force you to lose.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is not difficult to adjust the strategy to include the possibility of a stalemate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Update&lt;/strong&gt;: Just in case it's not clear how this identifies every move as a winning more or a losing move, consider:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Every move that results in a win is a winning move.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Every move that results in a loss is a losing move.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Every move that results in the opponent having only winning or losing moves is either a winning or a losing move.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Call &lt;code&gt;n&lt;/code&gt; the number of moves in the longest possible chess game. (We are ignoring unbounded sequences for now, though including them is not difficult.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;There are no moves with &lt;code&gt;n&lt;/code&gt; prior moves we need to consider.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Every move with &lt;code&gt;n-1&lt;/code&gt; prior moves is either a winning move or a losing move since &lt;code&gt;n&lt;/code&gt; moves ends the longest game.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Thus every move at depth &lt;code&gt;n-2&lt;/code&gt; is followed by only winning moves or losing moves and thus is itself a winning move or losing move.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;And so on back to the first move.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10422" LastEditorUserId="10422" LastEditDate="2017-12-19T21:05:14.567" LastActivityDate="2017-12-19T21:05:14.567" CommentCount="11" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19459" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16052" CreationDate="2017-12-19T21:16:52.270" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In short, no, a priori the Catalan opening is not a gambit, because unlike the Queen's gambit, in Catalan &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt; is played &lt;em&gt;after&lt;/em&gt; white's &lt;code&gt;c4&lt;/code&gt;, which means white is &lt;em&gt;first&lt;/em&gt; to decide whether to take on &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt; immediately or let black take on c4. Whereas, to clarify the contrast, in the Queen's gambit, &lt;code&gt;1. d4 d5 2. c4&lt;/code&gt; black is the side with the tempo to decide whether or not to take on &lt;code&gt;c4&lt;/code&gt;, thus, white is clearly sacrificing a pawn. This observation is also consistent with your examples.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the case white leaves the matter unresolved, and allows black to take on &lt;code&gt;c4&lt;/code&gt; (for instance in your examples), then sure white has decided to play in the style of queen's gambit, with &lt;code&gt;g3&lt;/code&gt;. If you wanted, you could call it &lt;em&gt;a delayed queen's gambit accepted with &lt;code&gt;g3&lt;/code&gt;,&lt;/em&gt; but in fact it more commonly goes by the name of &lt;em&gt;Open Catalan&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Terminology discussions aside, let's now delve a bit deeper into the role of &lt;code&gt;c4&lt;/code&gt; in the Catalan and Open Catalan. I admit, I personally love the opening myself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Often times names are assigned for a good reason, in the case of the Catalan, the fact that this queen's pawn opening, with &lt;code&gt;g3&lt;/code&gt;, has a name for itself, is because the subsequent positions are very different than most sidelines of the queen's pawn with or without &lt;code&gt;g3&lt;/code&gt;. That difference lies largely in the type of pawn structures that emerge from the Catalan. The Catalan, similar to the English opening, is very much about being conservative in the choice of pawn structure, i.e., not committing too early in the opening to a given pawn formation and keeping some options open so that ultimately, the optimal structure can be opted for purely reactively, given what black has decided to go for themselves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unlike the English opening in general, the Catalan, first of all, takes away the option of any early &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt; by black, as after all it's a &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt; opening, secondly and more importantly, it puts a special emphasis on the light square bishop, with the &lt;code&gt;g3&lt;/code&gt; Fianchetto, providing a natural development square for it. This is very important, white will base most of its subsequent decisions on enabling that &lt;code&gt;g2&lt;/code&gt; bishop as much as possible, whereas generally, in most queen's pawn variations, the light square bishop is &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; the central minor piece that gives a strategic direction in white's developing play, in fact there's a lot of conflict around where that bishop ought to be, &lt;code&gt;e2, d3, b5, b3,...&lt;/code&gt;, and the conflict eventually gets resolved either purely reactively, or by another strategic decision not revolving mainly around the light square bishop (for instance, white may want to go for a certain pawn break or take away an important black piece, or cause a pawn structure damage, for instance taking the black knight on c6 when black can only recapture with the b pawn), which will decide the fate of our light square bishop. It is worth taking the time to think over this observation from a strategic point of view (start by comparing the bishop in the Catalan with the bishop in any other queen's pawn opening).&#xA;A small takeaway here is, if in the Catalan, black managed to easily force a trade off of the &lt;code&gt;g2&lt;/code&gt; bishop, something has probably gone wrong for white (even if slightly).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To close the loop of discussions and connect closely to your &lt;code&gt;c4&lt;/code&gt; question: white primarily plays &lt;code&gt;c4&lt;/code&gt; with the intention to challenge the long diagonal and extend the scope of the &lt;code&gt;g2&lt;/code&gt; bishop, even at the cost of not being able to recapture the pawn. The justification is really in the same spirit as the queen's gambit, namely, if black chooses to accept the &lt;code&gt;c4&lt;/code&gt; pawn, they will have permanently weakened the g2-b7 diagonal, and they will have to invest at least 2-3 tempi (&lt;code&gt;a6, c6, b5,...&lt;/code&gt;) if they intend to keep the pawn (if not, it's easily recaptured via either &lt;code&gt;Qa4, Qc2, Na3, Nbd2,...&lt;/code&gt;), and therein lies the compensation: white will have a huge advantage in development, which allows you to really lash out and attack black's structure from any angle you want, posing more and more problems to black and never allowing them to finish development properly, unless they accept some kind of setback.&#xA;I'm so happy to see you are looking into Kramnik's games for insights into the Catalan, he really is the go-to player when it comes to fundamental understanding of positional openings like the Catalan. So without further ado, let's take some more of his examples. Below we have two different examples of black taking on &lt;code&gt;c4&lt;/code&gt; and trying to hold on to it:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [Title &quot;Vladimir Kramnik vs Anish Giri 2014 (1-0)&quot;]&#xA; [fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.Nc3 e6 5.g3 dxc4 6.Bg2 b5 7.Ne5 a6 8.O-O Bb7 9.b3 cxb3 10.axb3 Be7 11.Bb2 O-O 12.Qc2 Nfd7 13.Nd3 Qb6 14.Ne4 a5 15.Ndc5 Bc8 16.Qc3 b4 17.Qe3 Na6 18.Rfc1 Nc7 19.Nxd7 Bxd7 20.Nc5 Be8 21.Ra2 Qb5 22.Qd3 Qxd3 23.Nxd3 Nd5 24.Ne5 Ra6 25.Bf1 Nc3 26.Bxc3 bxc3 27.Rxc3 c5 28.dxc5 Bf6 29.f4 Bb5 30.Bg2 Ra7 31.c6 Be7 32.Be4 f6 33.Nf3 Rd8 34.e3 e5 35.fxe5 fxe5 36.Rc1 a4 37.bxa4   &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Notice the position at exactly move 9, black lacks so much in development, ideally, once they've castled, they'd like to play moves like &lt;code&gt;Nbd7 Rc8 Qc7&lt;/code&gt; and push &lt;code&gt;c5&lt;/code&gt;. It's exemplary how Kramnik continues thereafter to exploit the weakened dark squares (irreversibly caused after black played &lt;code&gt;b5/a6&lt;/code&gt; to protect &lt;code&gt;c4&lt;/code&gt;) to pressurize &lt;code&gt;a5&lt;/code&gt; and post a knight on &lt;code&gt;c5/e5&lt;/code&gt;. By move 27, black has two isolated pawns both under attack by white's rook, and a knight dominating black's bishop pair, the rest is a matter of technical conversion (of the better activated and coordinated pieces). Another example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [Title &quot;Vladimir Kramnik vs Alexander Morozevich 2007 (1-0)&quot;]&#xA; [fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1.Nf3 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.g3 d5 4.d4 dxc4 5.Bg2 a6 6.Ne5 Bb4+ 7.Nc3 Nd5 8.O-O O-O 9.Qc2 b5 10.Nxd5 exd5 11.b3 c6 12.e4 f6 13.exd5 fxe5 14.bxc4 exd4 15.dxc6 Be6 16.cxb5 d3 17.c7 Qd4 18.Qa4 Nd7 19.Be3 Qd6 20.Bxa8 Rxa8 21.Bf4 Qf8 22.b6 Ne5 23.Bxe5 Qf3 24.Qd1 Qe4 25.b7 Rf8 26.c8=Q Bd5 27.f3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this game, the critical moment is really around move 11: notice that in principle we can say both sides have quite weakened their respective queen-sides (weakened dark squares, back pawns &lt;code&gt;a6, c6&lt;/code&gt;,...), the key difference lies on the one hand, in the comparison of the &lt;code&gt;b4&lt;/code&gt; bishop with the &lt;code&gt;g2&lt;/code&gt; bishop. The latter is directly staring at black's weaknesses, the former is staring at the irrelevant &lt;code&gt;b4-e1&lt;/code&gt; side-diagonal for the &lt;em&gt;rest&lt;/em&gt; of the game. On the other hand, the story of the whole game: having provoked black into committing to a pawn structure, white has preserved options to challenge the structure in any way they want, and also to resolve their own weaknesses (as is typical for white to play &lt;code&gt;b3&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;a4&lt;/code&gt;, resolving these pawns and precluding them from becoming targets to black). From move 10 onward, comes the &quot;lash out&quot; phase I was speaking about, pushing &lt;code&gt;b3, e4&lt;/code&gt; and even sacrificing the knight! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course from the black side, there are a couple very different options in handling the Catalan, and by no means should the discussions above reflect that &quot;the Catalan&quot; is much better for white. Instead, it really comes down to style: Catalan is an extremely positional opening, where you want to get a quick development going, without having to trade off your minor pieces easily and without having to commit too early to a fixed pawn structure. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3594" LastEditorUserId="3594" LastEditDate="2017-12-19T21:22:30.750" LastActivityDate="2017-12-19T21:22:30.750" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19460" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19470" CreationDate="2017-12-19T21:17:55.993" Score="7" ViewCount="2969" Body="&lt;p&gt;See here: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/19455/does-there-exist-an-algorithm-that-would-play-perfect-chess-if-given-infinite-pr?newreg=d4fad04da836482f9e275532d3ad5740&quot;&gt;Does there exist an algorithm that would play perfect chess if given infinite processing power?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With infinite power, we could trivially recursively check every board state for winnability, and gradually work back towards knowing the winnability of the opening position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At that point we would be able to definitely state whether perfect play leads to a White Victory, Black Victory, or Draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't know what the maximal tablebases currently are, but it seems like if you have a perfect tablebases for N-pieces, then exhasutively testing a single N+1 piece position shouldn't be &lt;em&gt;that&lt;/em&gt; hard, and you would in the process also cross out a bunch of other N+1 positions. So the difficulty isn't specifically in evaluating positions at the next N, it's merely &quot;there are a lot of those, and exponentially more of the next layer&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But we also have a LOT of brute-force computing power available.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How long would it take Google or Amazon to add another layer to our endgame tables, if they chose to?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How long would it take to just SOLVE chess, if humanity chose to?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15234" LastActivityDate="2018-09-09T15:11:29.497" Title="How far from solving chess are we?" Tags="&lt;tablebases&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19461" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-12-19T21:25:04.010" Score="2" ViewCount="782" Body="&lt;p&gt;Given sufficient analysis time, say 24h per move on an decent computer, can current top chess engines (including Stockfish) eventually &quot;see&quot; that move 19 by Alphazero is actually good, and even suggest that move? And in general elevate the play so as to discover many Alphazero key moves in the others games as well (which could have neutralized Alphazero)?&#xA;Games here: &lt;a href=&quot;https://arxiv.org/pdf/1712.01815.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://arxiv.org/pdf/1712.01815.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15235" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-12-22T07:24:40.163" LastActivityDate="2020-03-07T00:34:00.490" Title="Alphazero-Stockfish game 10 move 19" Tags="&lt;computer-chess&gt;&lt;alphazero&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19462" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19463" CreationDate="2017-12-19T21:41:00.793" Score="13" ViewCount="1581" Body="&lt;p&gt;After watching many chess games, I've noticed that many players castle right after their opponent castles. Is this a coincidence? Or is there an unspoken benefit of this? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: And by &lt;em&gt;right after&lt;/em&gt; I also mean &lt;em&gt;right before&lt;/em&gt;. I.e. games where both castling taking place one turn apart.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15236" LastEditorUserId="15236" LastEditDate="2017-12-22T03:15:03.790" LastActivityDate="2018-01-04T17:34:03.407" Title="Why is it common to castle right after the opponent castles?" Tags="&lt;castling&gt;&lt;patterns&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19463" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19462" CreationDate="2017-12-19T21:51:07.013" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Castling is a certain 'committing' move; if you castle kingside, your king is stuck there until the late middlegame / early endgame, and you cannot easily launch a pawn storm on that side. The first allows your opponent to castle queenside and know he/she can launch a king attack (but possibly allowing your attack as well); the second allows your opponent to castle kingside and know his/her king is relatively safe.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, the castling move doesn't threaten anything (like capturing an undefended piece, or a fork), so if you castle, the opponent doesn't have to defend and has time to castle as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A final thing to note is that castling can occur as early as move 4, and really late (move 20 or later is not that uncommon), but in most games it happens between moves 6-12&lt;sup&gt;*&lt;/sup&gt;. This makes the probability that both castling moves (if both players castle) happen right after each other much higher than if castling would happen throughout the entire game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;sup&gt;*&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;sub&gt;: I'm just making an educated guess here; I'm very interested in the actual statistics.&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2017-12-19T21:51:07.013" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19464" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19455" CreationDate="2017-12-19T22:26:06.450" Score="65" Body="&lt;p&gt;Does an algorithm exist?  Yes.  According to &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zermelo%27s_theorem_(game_theory)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Zermelo's Theorem&lt;/a&gt;, there are three possibilities for a finite deterministic perfect-information two-player game such as chess: either the first player has a winning strategy, or the second player has a winning strategy, or either player can force a draw.  We don't (yet) know which it is for chess.  (Checkers, on the other hand, &lt;a href=&quot;http://science.sciencemag.org/content/317/5844/1518?ijkey=jVmVcXy2%2FNTnY&amp;amp;keytype=ref&amp;amp;siteid=sci&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;has been solved&lt;/a&gt;: either player can force a draw.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Conceptually, the algorithm is quite simple: construct a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_tree&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;complete game tree&lt;/a&gt;, analyze the leaf nodes (the game-ending positions), and either make the winning initial move, resign (if the opponent has a forced win), or offer a draw (if the position is a draw).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The problem lies in the details: there are approximately 10&lt;sup&gt;43&lt;/sup&gt; possible positions, and an even larger number of moves (most positions can be reached in more than one way).  You really need your infinitely-powerful computer to take advantage of this, since a computer that can take advantage of this algorithm either can't fit in the known universe, or won't finish computation until sometime after the universe ends.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15237" LastEditorUserId="15237" LastEditDate="2020-08-25T20:24:08.940" LastActivityDate="2020-08-25T20:24:08.940" CommentCount="24" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="19466" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19462" CreationDate="2017-12-20T01:24:40.393" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;A couple reasons:  1. It is the natural flow of developing.  Just as one side gets their pieces out so does the other and when clear to castle they often do so and so does the other.&#xA;2. Often one side waits for the opponent to commit their king and once it is committed so then they commit theirs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2017-12-20T01:24:40.393" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19467" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19473" CreationDate="2017-12-20T01:40:47.043" Score="2" ViewCount="304" Body="&lt;p&gt;After&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 g6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nc6 5.Nc3 Bg7 6.Be3 Nf6 7.Bc4 Qa5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does White have to castle here? If so, what is wrong with 8...Qb4?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-12-20T08:49:15.077" LastActivityDate="2017-12-20T10:54:21.740" Title="What's the verdict with Qa5 in the Accelerated Dragon?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;accelerated-dragon&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19468" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19455" CreationDate="2017-12-20T05:31:29.890" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;To directly address the question: yes there is such an algorithm. It is called minimax. (The endgame tablebases are generated by using this algorithm (backwards!), but the plain old simple minimax algorithm is all you need). This algorithm can play any two player zero sum game perfectly. Find pseudocode here:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimax&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimax&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;note that variants of this algorithm are used by modern computer chess programs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This algorithm basically generates the move which will minimize the opponent's chances, i.e., it would choose a move for White that is +2 instead of +1. Then, it generates the opponent's move which will maximize his chances, i.e., it would choose a move for Black that is -2 instead of -1.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14456" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-08-25T09:51:31.450" LastActivityDate="2020-08-25T09:51:31.450" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="19469" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19460" CreationDate="2017-12-20T06:28:02.843" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;We are very very far from solving chess. We would need a 32 man tablebase for that. Currently, we have a 7 man tablebase. Each increase of 1 step, requires exponentially more computing power and storage space. Short of some incredible break-through in storage or computing power, solving chess is many many years in the future. I don't see it happening in this century. Your question reminds me of the old story about the peasant asking for 1 rice corn for the first square on the board, 2 for the next, 4 for the next, and 8, and so on. This illustrates nicely the problem of exponentiality. Try calculating the total weight of the rice the peasant was asking for! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15068" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2017-12-21T19:19:19.837" LastActivityDate="2017-12-21T19:19:19.837" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19470" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19460" CreationDate="2017-12-20T06:36:10.080" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;Currently most of the 7-piece Lomonosov tablebases have been created. the only ones that weren't, were the K vs. K + 5 pieces. Those took about 6 months using the Lomonosov supercomputer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Based on &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/7879/9025&quot;&gt;this answer&lt;/a&gt;, creating the 8-piece tablebases could take 100x the time it took to create the 7-piece, give or take an order of magnitude. Extrapolating, that would mean it could take 5/50/500 years, and probably on the lower end, 5-50 years for a supercomputer, and likely longer for Google or Amazon.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After a certain point, however, storage becomes a problem, as the number of game-tree possibilities surpasses the number of atoms in the universe. (see &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shannon_number&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;the Shannon Number&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9025" LastActivityDate="2017-12-20T06:36:10.080" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19471" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19455" CreationDate="2017-12-20T07:27:26.710" Score="20" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you really had &lt;em&gt;infinite&lt;/em&gt; processing power, such an algorithm would be actually &lt;strong&gt;trivial&lt;/strong&gt; to write. As chess has a &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.webcitation.org/5oFLE7Mgx?url=http://archive.computerhistory.org/projects/chess/related_materials/text/2-0%20and%202-1.Programming_a_computer_for_playing_chess.shannon/2-0%20and%202-1.Programming_a_computer_for_playing_chess.shannon.062303002.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;finite&lt;/a&gt; number of possible states, you could in theory just iterate through them all until you find a path of perfect play. It would be horribly inefficient, but if you have &lt;em&gt;infinite&lt;/em&gt; processing power, it wouldn't matter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2929" LastActivityDate="2017-12-20T07:27:26.710" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19472" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19483" CreationDate="2017-12-20T08:34:26.743" Score="4" ViewCount="356" Body="&lt;p&gt;In &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/q/19136/13565&quot;&gt;this question&lt;/a&gt; I brought up two rating systems and wondered which is used by FIDE.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Briefly, they are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Method 1&lt;/strong&gt; Ratings are updated (recalculated in other words) after every match.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Method 2&lt;/strong&gt; Ratings are recalculated after a specific period of time, say after a tournament or once a month.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I found out that FIDE uses method 2 (recalculates ratings once a month).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;My question&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Why doesn't FIDE recalculate ratings after every match?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there some kind of statistical problem with that? I don't mean to be partial to either method, but there must have been a compelling reason for FIDE to choose method 2 over method 1, and I'd like to know what that is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I always thought recalculating the ratings match after match would make the system more accurate, but I'm not an expert, so I can't be sure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13565" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2017-12-21T07:52:31.947" Title="Why doesn't FIDE recalculate ratings match after match?" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;elo&gt;&lt;fide&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="9" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19473" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19467" CreationDate="2017-12-20T10:54:21.740" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In master level games (2400+ for both) 8. 0-0 is the only move. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White scores rather too well (34% wins) after 0-0, with black having 15% wins.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Including lower rated players white scores 38% wins vs 28% wins for black after 8.0-0. Thus this is very playable at lower levels.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now about 8. ... Qb4 it appears dubious at higher levels but worth the shot in a regular game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The sole high level game Solak (2566) vs. Djukic (2402) Serbian Ch 2007 proceeded as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Solak, Dragan&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Djukic, Zeljko&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2007.08.29&quot;]   &#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;2566&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;2402&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nc3 g6 3. Nf3 Bg7 4. d4 cxd4 5. Nxd4 Nc6 6. Be3 Nf6 7. Bc4 Qa5 8.  O-O Qb4 9. Qe2 Ng4 10. Nd5 Qd6 11. Qxg4 Bxd4 12. Bxd4 Nxd4 13. Rad1 Qc5 14. e5  Ne6 15. b4 Qc6 16. Bb3 h5 17. Qh4 g5 18. Qe4 a5 19. a3 axb4 20. axb4 b5? 21.  Nf6!+ exf6 22. Bd5  1-0 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and white converted his exchange, overall very uncomfortable game for black even without blunder.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also 9. Bb3 seems good for white too as 9. ... Nxe4 appears bad:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Hofmann, Brigitte&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Kratochvilova, Magdalena&quot;] &#xA;[Date &quot;1973.06.??&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 g6 5. Nc3 Bg7 6. Be3 Nf6 7. Bc4 Qa5 8.  O-O Qb4 9. Bb3 Nxe4 10. Nxc6 dxc6 11. a3 Nxc3 12. Qf3! Ne2+ 13. Kh1! Qh4 14.  Qxf7+ Kd8 15. Qxg7 Bh3 16. Qxh8+ Kc7 17. Qe5+ 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similar play proceeds after 10. .... bxc6&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So if 9. .... Nxe4 is not playable then 8. ... Qb4 is questionable&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9289" LastActivityDate="2017-12-20T10:54:21.740" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19474" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27" CreationDate="2017-12-20T13:22:39.683" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Having tried almost all known software and tools to analyze my games, &lt;br/&gt;&#xA;decodechess.com gives a learning experience that's not seen anywhere else. It's more than just annotations of the style you were looking for, but actual explanations! Really cool stuff, worth trying and they run a generous free trial and are looking for feedback. &#xA;Here's a screenshot of their cool tab system:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/93w8P.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/93w8P.png&quot; alt=&quot;Decodechess explanations&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15252" LastEditorUserId="15252" LastEditDate="2018-01-04T15:55:07.477" LastActivityDate="2018-01-04T15:55:07.477" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19475" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19477" CreationDate="2017-12-20T13:30:06.797" Score="3" ViewCount="1146" Body="&lt;p&gt;I like to play the King's Indian Defense (KID) and I know little to nothing about the Pirc. So, on 1.d4 I always go for 1. ... Nf6 but I don't know what to do to avoid 2.Nc3 g6 3.e4 d6 ending up in a Pirc. Do I have to change a move order somehow or there's simply no other way than studying how to tackle this Pirc position with black?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15253" LastEditorUserId="14202" LastEditDate="2017-12-20T16:33:29.667" LastActivityDate="2018-01-15T00:37:37.490" Title="How to avoid Pirc in favor of KID" Tags="&lt;kings-indian&gt;&lt;pirc-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19477" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19475" CreationDate="2017-12-20T18:39:12.253" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, you cannot force white to play c4 and end up in a KID. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, if you want to avoid the Pirc, you have several options after 1. d4 Nf6 2. Nc3. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;... d5 is the most popular and you usually end up in easy to play positions. E.g. you can fianchetto your bishop to g7, attack the center with c5, etc.. You need to be prepared for the Hübsch/Blackmar-Diemer Gambit after 3. e4, but that is nothing to be afraid of.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;... c5 to attack the center immediately&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;... e6 which can transpose into the French defense&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastEditorUserId="11629" LastEditDate="2018-01-15T00:37:37.490" LastActivityDate="2018-01-15T00:37:37.490" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19478" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19472" CreationDate="2017-12-20T19:10:54.087" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The ECF only update grades once every 6 months and their main reason is practicality. If they were to update grades after every game, it would require team captains and tournament organizers to submit game results immediatley after the game was played. In reality, results are only submitted a few days or weeks after the game, making instant grade updates difficult. With regional leagues it is even worse, with many leagues only submitting the entire grading period's result in bulk once at the end of the period.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I suspect Fide has a similar reasoning. Most Fide rated games are not between super grand masters in highly visible professional tournaments, but amongst amateur players on a club or school level relying on volunteers to make it work. It would be impractical to expect of these individuals to comply to a rigid regime of correctly submitting game results continuously - the number of mistakes and complaints would be enormous. By only updating grades monthly, they allow up to a month's leeway on results submission.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1816" LastEditorUserId="1816" LastEditDate="2017-12-21T07:52:31.947" LastActivityDate="2017-12-21T07:52:31.947" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19479" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19455" CreationDate="2017-12-20T21:07:56.437" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Suppose you have three functions: &lt;code&gt;win_state&lt;/code&gt; , &lt;code&gt;get_player&lt;/code&gt;, and &lt;code&gt;next_states&lt;/code&gt;. The input for &lt;code&gt;win_state&lt;/code&gt; is a game state, and the output is -1 if white is in checkmate, 0 if it’s a draw, 1 if black is in checkmate, and &lt;code&gt;None&lt;/code&gt; otherwise. The input for &lt;code&gt;get_player&lt;/code&gt; is a game state, and the output is -1 if it’s black’s turn and 1 if it’s white’s turn. The input for &lt;code&gt;next_states&lt;/code&gt; is a list of possible next game states that can result from a legal move. Then the following function, when given a game state and a player, should tell you what game state to move to for that player to win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;def best_state(game_state,player)&#xA;  def best_result(game_state):&#xA;     if win_state(game_state):&#xA;        return(win_state)&#xA;     else:&#xA;         player = get_player(game_state)&#xA;         return max([best_result(move)*player for move in next_states(game_state)])*player&#xA;  cur_best_move = next_states(games_state)[0]&#xA;  cur_best_outcome = -1&#xA;  for state in next_states(game_state):&#xA;     if best_result(state)*player &amp;gt; cur_best_outcome:&#xA;           cur_best_outcome = best_result(state)*player&#xA;           cur_best_move = state&#xA;return(best_move)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15221" LastActivityDate="2017-12-20T21:07:56.437" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19480" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19475" CreationDate="2017-12-20T22:05:09.297" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;after 1.d4,Nf6 2.Nc3 one can use 2...d5. Since White cannot easily play c4, he cannot apply pressure on the d pawn (as in queen's gambit for example). As a result, Black has a very easy opening. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15252" LastActivityDate="2017-12-20T22:05:09.297" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19481" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19460" CreationDate="2017-12-21T01:40:36.980" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not only are we far from solving chess, in all likelihood chess will never be solved. There are more possible positions in chess than atoms in the known universe, so not only would in take forever (literally) to traverse the tree, but it would be impossible to store. At current cpu speeds, even with infinite storage, the universe would die of heat death before the computer could solve chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14456" LastActivityDate="2017-12-21T01:40:36.980" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19482" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19485" CreationDate="2017-12-21T01:54:43.220" Score="13" ViewCount="2151" Body="&lt;p&gt;If I get two engines to play against each other with the same colours, will the same game result every time? If not, where does the randomness in engine play come from? (Neglecting the opening book, where if I'm not mistaken the book can tell the engine to pick between two moves at random since they're equally good.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm assuming that there is randomness because in the Alphazero vs. Stockfish match, we didn't get the same game happening many times in a row. However I don't understand why. Presumably the only way to do this is to get the engine to play a subpar move some of the time, which sounds like seppuku. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastActivityDate="2017-12-21T15:21:26.857" Title="Randomness in engine play" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19483" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19472" CreationDate="2017-12-21T07:11:49.747" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I do not know what the true answer is but here are a couple of points. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The FIDE ratings started to be calculated sometimes in the 80's and published twice a year. This on its own explains why they were not calculated in real time (it just was not feasible with the technology at the time, well, it was feasible but too costly). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is quite natural that FIDE did not want to change the system in place, they started publishing the ratings every month but otherwise kept the original system in place. One good reason for this is to keep what works well. Another good reason is the comparability of the ratings across time. If you changed the system to update the ratings in real time then the ratings before and after the change would not be exactly comparable (although the differences would very likely be negligible). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Recalculating the rating after every game is not necessarily more accurate. This depends on what your objective is. A player's performance in every single game depends on several factors like his skill (you can call it strength), his fitness perhaps, luck, etc. It depends which of the factors you actually want to measure. If it is the player's skill then that is a rather long term thing and it makes more sense to average the player's results over some period of time (or a number of games) to eliminate fluctuations that are purely due to luck. It is a non-trivial problem and does not have an obvious solution. I am almost certain that a perfect solution does not exist. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8844" LastActivityDate="2017-12-21T07:11:49.747" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19484" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19455" CreationDate="2017-12-21T10:53:01.253" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not only is there an algorithm to play perfect chess, it is possible to write a short program that will (given infinite resources) play &lt;em&gt;any deterministic perfect-knowledge finite-duration two-player game&lt;/em&gt; perfectly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The game engine does not even need to know the rules of the game it is playing. All it needs is an opaque representation of a &quot;game state&quot; and functions that (a) given any game state, provide a list of legal next game states and (b) given a game state, decide if it is a win for player 1, a win for player 2, a draw, or it is not an end state.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Given those functions a simple recursive algorithm &quot;solves&quot; the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This fact has been alluded to in previous answers by chessprogrammer (minimax) and by Acccumulation (who provides a version of the program in python).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wrote such a program over 20 years ago. I tested it by playing noughts-and-crosses (tic-tac-toe if you are American). Sure enough it played a perfect game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course this will fall over quickly on any imaginable computer for any serious game. Because it is recursive it is effectively building the entire game tree on the stack, so you will get a &quot;stack overflow&quot; (pun very much intended) before you get anywhere near analysing the 10^123 states of chess referred to in other answers. But it is fun to know that in principle this small program would do the job.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For me this also says something interesting about AI: however much &quot;intelligence&quot; you think is exhibited by Deep Blue, or Go Zero, or indeed by a human playing Chess or Go there is a sense in which these games have trivial, exactly computable optimal solutions. The challenge is how to get a good though not optimal solution in a reasonable time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15282" LastEditorUserId="15282" LastEditDate="2017-12-23T19:38:22.493" LastActivityDate="2017-12-23T19:38:22.493" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19485" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19482" CreationDate="2017-12-21T14:11:49.103" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Regarding the AlphaZero vs Stockfish match, this question has already been covered &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/19437/what-was-the-source-of-randomness-in-the-alpha-zero-vs-stockfish-match&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; by &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/users/825/smallchess&quot;&gt;SmallChess&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;AlphaZero aside (which employs a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monte_Carlo_tree_search&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;specialised Monte Carlo&lt;/a&gt;&lt;sup&gt;1&lt;/sup&gt; routine in its exploration of the lines of play), which is made to be &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simple_random_sample&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;non-deterministic&lt;/a&gt; by construction, for the usual heuristics based chess engines, such as Stockfish and others (though there are other engines that have MC-based routines, AFAIK &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.chessbase.com/post/rybka-s-monte-carlo-analysis&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Rybka used to have such feature&lt;/a&gt;), the source of randomness is generally just a consequence of technical aspects in the implementation, rather than intentional randomness being introduced algorithmically in the engine's decision making. Abstractly speaking, one reason for that is the fact that the engines aren't running in a purely sequential manner (executing one task after the other). Instead, to render the engines more efficient, they perform parallel searches in various branches of the tree of possible moves. They do so via what is called &lt;em&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multithreading_(computer_architecture)&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;multi-threading&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt; (or &lt;em&gt;-processing&lt;/em&gt; but that is a bit different). So multiple threads of the CPUs are &lt;em&gt;concurrently&lt;/em&gt; executing operations to search the tree (and cache the evaluations of visited positions), so imagine each thread being assigned a subtree. The problem with this kind of implementation is that the overall execution of the threads becomes highly dependent on all sorts of conditions (waiting times, RAM swaps, ...), so in the end a principal variation may be chosen without having allowed all other threads to finish their search. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This indeed happens often because the engine is set to make a decision under a certain amount of time, so time management alters the behaviour. You can also revert this statement by saying: knowing the algorithm and implementing deterministic threading routines are not sufficient to reliably predict the state of the program after any time t. Of course if one always allows all threads to finish their search, and there haven't been concurrency issues during that execution (for instance a thread trying to access a certain cache that isn't accessible), then the behaviour will indeed be fully reproducible given everything else is the same&lt;sup&gt;2&lt;/sup&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;sup&gt;&lt;sup&gt;1&lt;/sup&gt;: Together with the fact that through additional training (for instance self-play) its neural network keeps evolving (re-adjusted parameters), or if you will its evaluation function doesn't have a constant, fixed definition (unlike heuristics based engines). &lt;/sup&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;sup&gt;&lt;sup&gt;2&lt;/sup&gt;: Even then, as you said, at the opening level, with an opening book, there are sometimes intentional random decisions made by the engine as to which variation to choose. Similarly, outside of the opening phase, there can be moments where multiple variations have close to equal evaluations (within the resolution chosen for the Eval), then based on the design, it may end up choosing one randomly. Finally, at the level of engine settings you have to be careful as well, for instance the depth of search and ponder times chosen for each engine (and whether they can further calculate during each other's ponder times). &lt;/sup&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3594" LastActivityDate="2017-12-21T14:11:49.103" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19486" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19482" CreationDate="2017-12-21T14:52:03.953" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Thanks to @Phonon covering my previous answers in details. I'd like to add one more point: &lt;strong&gt;time control&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only deterministic time control is by &lt;strong&gt;number of nodes&lt;/strong&gt;, but this is uncommon. The much more common time control - &lt;strong&gt;fixed number of seconds&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;strong&gt;game time&lt;/strong&gt; are generally not deterministic. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's try an example. Run stockfish on your terminal. Type:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;go movetime 20000&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This command instructs the engine to make a move after 20 seconds. My results:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;info depth 23 seldepth 32 multipv 1 score cp 6 upperbound nodes 24325860 nps 1216171 hashfull 999 tbhits 0 time 20002 pv g1f3 d7d5&#xA;bestmove g1f3 ponder d7d5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The move was 1.Nf3. Next, I killed my Stockfish, started a new one. Again, 20 seconds. I got:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;info depth 23 seldepth 32 multipv 1 score cp 20 nodes 26185280 nps 1309067 hashfull 999 tbhits 0 time 20003 pv d2d4&#xA;bestmove d2d4 ponder g8f6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's 1.d4! Same position, both 20 seconds search!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do you see? Both 20 seconds for the move, but due to fluctuation in the Linux operating system my second run had deeper search (26185280 &gt; 24325860).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please note this little experiment wasn't even multithreaded (number of threads = 1). Multithreading would make things even more non-deterministic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stockfish was given one minute per move in the Google AlphaZero match. Number of threads was 64. Stockfish's decisions in the match &lt;strong&gt;couldn't&lt;/strong&gt; possibly be deterministic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2017-12-21T15:21:26.857" LastActivityDate="2017-12-21T15:21:26.857" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19489" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19558" CreationDate="2017-12-21T19:01:11.060" Score="4" ViewCount="897" Body="&lt;p&gt;Article 7.4.1 of FIDE Laws of Chess states - &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If a player displaces one or more pieces, he shall re-establish the&#xA;  correct position in his own time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What normally happens when this happens as a player makes his move and presses his clock is that the opponent presses the clock without making a move so that the player puts the knocked over pieces back in place before himself pressing the clock.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But 7.8.1. now says - &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If the player presses the clock without making a move, it shall be&#xA;  considered as an illegal move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What should the opponent do when the player knocks over pieces as he presses the clock? Particularly at blitz or rapid if he doesn't want to lose because of an illegal move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-04-12T21:16:23.703" LastActivityDate="2019-04-12T21:16:23.703" Title="What should the opponent do when the player knocks over pieces as he presses the clock?" Tags="&lt;fide&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="19491" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19453" CreationDate="2017-12-21T22:11:13.250" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;First of all, the vast majority of people are not cheating.  If they were, 1200 would be a master rating, and it's not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Second, in a USCF rated game, you're not anonymous.  The games are connected to your real name and your USCF membership.  There might be some people willing to cheat anonymously who would be less willing if it could be traced back to them personally, and possibly put their offline membership at risk, rather than simply forcing them to make a new online account.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Third... yes, some people cheat.  If you do play against Stockfish (with or without added mistakes) once or twice, so what?  It won't be most of the time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Fourth, if you're worried about cheaters affecting your rating, it appears that online play currently only affects your USCF &quot;Blitz&quot; rating, not your &quot;Regular&quot; USCF rating.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In summary:  If you think it would otherwise be a good idea, there's no reason to let the prospect of cheaters dissuade you.  (Although skipping club to play online would just be silly in most cases.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2017-12-21T22:11:13.250" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19492" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19489" CreationDate="2017-12-22T00:33:15.520" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Indeed this can be a tricky matter to handle, specially in extreme time trouble.&#xA;Pressing the clock quickly again so your opponent adjusts their fallen pieces is fine in general as in most cases the player (or possibly both) will quickly re-adjust everything and nobody will mind, but every now and then you will face opponents trying to call you out on any potentially broken rule in order to claim the game. So to be on the safe side, in such circumstances, you should &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; press your clock but instead &lt;em&gt;pause&lt;/em&gt; the clock and call the arbiter to explain the situation (this is almost always what you should do when your opponent is at fault regarding any rule). The arbiter then relaunches the opponent's clock telling them to re-adjust under their own time (and possibly a warning). This is essentially article 7.3: (&lt;em&gt;this is the exact article, except I've substituted &quot;he&quot; and &quot;his&quot; by &quot;they&quot; and &quot;their&quot; respectively, as to make the statement agnostic to gender, it's shameful how the FIDE laws are written with such disregard!&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;7.3 If a player displaces one or more pieces, they shall re-establish the correct position on their own time. If necessary, either the player&#xA;  or their opponent shall stop the clocks and ask for the arbiter’s&#xA;  assistance. The arbiter may penalise the player who displaced the&#xA;  pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Though I admit this scenario happens very rarely, at least in my experience, as most (courteous) players understand immediately that they have to set their pieces properly once you've quickly pressed your clock again, so there's no conflict. But if you see it's just a messy situation and your opponent couldn't care less about playing properly, then pause and call the arbiter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3594" LastEditorUserId="3594" LastEditDate="2017-12-22T00:39:28.637" LastActivityDate="2017-12-22T00:39:28.637" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19495" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-12-22T04:53:21.093" Score="2" ViewCount="669" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I run the engine (UCI interface), I usually feed the last position from the game using &lt;code&gt;position fen ...&lt;/code&gt; command and get the best move back. The FEN encodes the possibility of the castlings, en passant moves and keeps the move count since the last piece capture or pawn move to enforce to 50-move draw rule.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How can the engine detect the 3-fold repetition and avoid it while playing the game? I've seen a few occasions when the engine is about 5-6 pawns ahead (a clear victory), but draws because it keeps repeating giving check to the opponent's king again and again.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Clarification: I DON'T program my own engine (well, I do, but this is totally unrelated to this question). In this question I use existing engine, think StockFish or Fruit or anything else you like. This existing engine is given the FEN and returns the &quot;best&quot; move it can think of. Sometimes this leads to a 3-fold repetition in a clearly won positions. How can I tell the StockFish, that it has already made this move before and should do better?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15296" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-09-23T21:41:24.027" LastActivityDate="2019-09-23T21:41:24.027" Title="How the engine can detect the 3-fold repetition using FEN input?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;draw&gt;&lt;fen&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ClosedDate="2018-01-02T17:21:59.590" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="19497" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19495" CreationDate="2017-12-22T06:15:36.480" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forsyth%E2%80%93Edwards_Notation&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forsyth%E2%80%93Edwards_Notation&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;FEN does not represent sufficient information to decide whether a draw by threefold repetition may be legally claimed or a draw offer may be accepted; for that, a different format such as Extended Position Description is needed.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;QED.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15296" LastActivityDate="2017-12-22T06:15:36.480" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19498" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19461" CreationDate="2017-12-22T11:04:21.903" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Current top engines running for 24hours would change their evaluation and find some improvements but would not be able to find ALL the key moves that A0 did.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Old style&quot; engines problems are twofold:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;their eval functions are worse than A0(because of humans adjusting heuristics). This is somewhat similar to why &quot;blank-state&quot; A0 beats AlphaGo which was &quot;seeded&quot; with human games. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Their search algorithms suffer from horizon effect(&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horizon_effect&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horizon_effect&lt;/a&gt;) that A0 was able to exploit in the examples given.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's take Game 10 in question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;AlphaZero&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Stockfish&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2017.12.05&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Nf3 Nf6 2. d4 e6 3. c4 b6 4. g3 Bb7 5. Bg2 Be7 6. O-O O-O 7. d5 exd5 8. Nh4 c6 9. cxd5 Nxd5 10. Nf5 Nc7 11. e4 d5 12. exd5 Nxd5 13. Nc3 Nxc3 14. Qg4 g6 15. Nh6+ Kg7 16. bxc3 Bc8 17. Qf4 Qd6 18. Qa4 g5 19. Re1 Kxh6 20. h4 f6 21. Be3 Bf5 22. Rad1 Qa3 23. Qc4 b5 24. hxg5+ fxg5 25. Qh4+ Kg6 26. Qh1 Kg7 27. Be4 Bg6 28. Bxg6 hxg6 29. Qh3 Bf6 30. Kg2 Qxa2 31. Rh1 Qg8 32. c4 Re8 33. Bd4 Bxd4 34. Rxd4 Rd8 35. Rxd8 Qxd8 36. Qe6 Nd7 37. Rd1 Nc5 38. Rxd8 Nxe6 39. Rxa8 Kf6 40. cxb5 cxb5 41. Kf3 Nd4+ 42. Ke4 Nc6 43. Rc8 Ne7 44. Rb8 Nf5 45. g4 Nh6 46. f3 Nf7 47. Ra8 Nd6+ 48. Kd5 Nc4 49. Rxa7 Ne3+ 50. Ke4 Nc4 51. Ra6+ Kg7 52. Rc6 Kf7 53. Rc5 Ke6 54. Rxg5 Kf6 55. Rc5 g5 56. Kd4 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a game worthy of Tal from Alpha0! White is making a positionally based long term sacrifice of a piece and pawn. Ie nice idea but surely a computer would defend this. However human intuition turns out wrong here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At move 19. we are at least 30 ply (15 full moves) from Stockfish giving back the piece. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is no way for regular engines to fully search 30ply deep in the middle game without improvements in their pruning algorithms.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As an experiment I run 30 threads(15 cores) on latest Stockfish 8 at 25kn/s for some time with various hash sizes. So my machine was 1/3 of Google's -&gt; ie I have to run it at least 3 times longer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even at move 32. Stockfish was thinking it was better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What was interesting that within 1 second of me making the move Stockfish was suggesting as good the eval dropped and Stockfish realized the move was bad. This could be the limits on its hash size or just the horizon effect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A0 will hopefully provide inspiration for regular engines to incorporate new techniques.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My hope is something like Stockfish Zero which would use 1000s of crowdsourced GPUs to train the network then only requiring  a single high end GPU to play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9289" LastActivityDate="2017-12-22T11:04:21.903" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19499" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19455" CreationDate="2017-12-22T14:19:44.403" Score="1" Body="&lt;h2&gt;Use a look-up table&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes. It's easy. You don't even need infinite processing power. All you need is a look-up table that contains, for each possible board position, the best move to play in that position. Here is the pseudo-code:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;def play-move(my-color, board-position):&#xA;    return table-of-best-moves[my-color, board-position]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;The catch&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only catch is that this look-up table would have to be very, very large—perhaps larger than the Milky Way galaxy—and it would take a long time to construct it—perhaps longer than the current age of the universe, unless there's some undiscovered regularity in chess that makes it much simpler than we can see right now. But if you had this look-up table, the subroutine to choose a perfect move every time could be implemented in as little as one CPU instruction.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, given our current knowledge of chess, there's no way to be sure that perfect play guarantees that you won't lose. For example, if perfect play guarantees a win for White, then Black would lose even if Black plays perfectly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15303" LastActivityDate="2017-12-22T14:19:44.403" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19501" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1003" CreationDate="2017-12-22T18:51:54.190" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;And there is AlphaZero. Celebrate a whole new generation of chess engines&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="46" LastActivityDate="2017-12-22T18:51:54.190" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19503" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-12-23T10:21:29.260" Score="3" ViewCount="235" Body="&lt;p&gt;How many knights would be necessary to mate opponent's king on large finite boards like &lt;strong&gt;billion times billion squares&lt;/strong&gt;? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are they fast enough to surround opponent's king in very limited &lt;strong&gt;constant&lt;/strong&gt; count for various finite board sizes, or would you need some &lt;strong&gt;f(board size)&lt;/strong&gt; of them, let's say millions for our board? Would there be a difference if attacking side could use it's king too?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's not clear how geometry works here but it looks like that when king starts running, it's pretty fast and only two knights are fast enough to followhim. On the other hand, knights can build setups giving additional time for some distant colleague to join slowly. We start with king in the center and knights in one corner and 50 moves rule doesn't apply... &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11609" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-10-27T03:38:24.277" LastActivityDate="2020-10-27T03:38:24.277" Title="Knights necessary to mate king on large finite board" Tags="&lt;puzzles&gt;&lt;mathematics&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19504" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19512" CreationDate="2017-12-23T20:15:30.593" Score="3" ViewCount="577" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a relatively new player (less than 1 year, ungraded) but I feel I have made good progress so far. I am playing competitively with players in the 1300-1500 region and would like to continue my improvement.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Middle game is my strong point for sure, I am able to muddle through some common openings and get into a complex middle game quickly, as that is where I am strongest. But I can't get over the hurdle that more experienced players seem to be able to instinctively recognise if an endgame is won, drawn or lost.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I want to spend my efforts in understanding common endgame patterns and how to handle them. Here is an example of a position I found myself in recently as white. My opponent felt it was a draw but it took me a long time to agree.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/5kp1/5p1p/4p3/nB1pP3/1b1P1P1P/5KP1/2N5 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;My question&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other than simply playing more games and gaining more experience, are there any patterns I should be looking for in an endgame such as the example given, so I can more easily determine if a position is won/drawn/lost?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note: I see a number of similar questions being asked, and the general responses tend to be &quot;practice more, here's a book/website of endgame positions for you to analyse&quot;. I'm looking more specifically for people who can explain endgames in a bit more detail, I'm not afraid of a bit of maths.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11943" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-12-23T20:54:52.850" LastActivityDate="2017-12-24T08:49:08.973" Title="How to analyse an endgame quickly?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;beginner&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19506" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-12-23T23:13:24.990" Score="4" ViewCount="116" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is an example &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess-tst.000webhostapp.com/chess.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://chess-tst.000webhostapp.com/chess.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The task is to rearrange the diagrams in order (use drag&amp;amp;drop).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do you think this activity could be useful for exploring and revision of chess tabias at the beginner\pre-intermediate level? As a part of opening preparation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15319" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-12-24T11:14:17.183" LastActivityDate="2017-12-24T11:14:17.183" Title="Rearrange chess diagrams (from an opening) in order. Useful as a puzzle?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;puzzles&gt;&lt;training&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19507" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19506" CreationDate="2017-12-24T00:22:40.600" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I like it!  I think this is a good way to study an opening line through active learning.  It's too easy for me sometimes to just skim through a line in a book and then forget it when I can use it in an actual game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8258" LastActivityDate="2017-12-24T00:22:40.600" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19508" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19504" CreationDate="2017-12-24T02:22:31.813" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are all kind of endgames, so it is a bit difficult to generalize, but still there are a few things that are relevant in many cases.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just like in the middle game you can evaluate the position based on for instance:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;material (this is often the most important)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;piece activity&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;weaknesses in pawn structure&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unlike in the middle game &quot;king safety&quot; is often irrelevant as with reduced material it is difficult to get mated and in fact the king often plays an active role in defending/attacking pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If material is equal (as in this example), in many cases you can only win by promoting a pawn. The goal is then simply to create a &lt;em&gt;passed pawn&lt;/em&gt; and push it to the other side of the board. To do this, you can either capture opposing pawns or make use of a pawn majority (basically, with the support of your own pawns to walk passed the opponent's pawns). So you should focus on how to create a passed pawn (and of course how to prevent your opponent from doing the same).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In order to improve your endgame technique you should also familiarize yourself with the most common endgames, such as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;mating with K+Q vs K, K+R vs K, K+BB vs K&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;winning or defending K+P vs K&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;various endgames with pawns on both sides&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;K+R and pawn(s) vs K+R (and pawn(s)). This is a very common endgame, but also very difficult to play properly. Perhaps too difficult at your current level.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also you should know typical themes that appear in endgames like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;zugzwang&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;corresponding squares&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;triangulation&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;stalemate&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With this in mind, regarding your example, you note that:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;material is equal&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;opposite colored bishops (which tend to be more drawish)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;symmetric pawn structure &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;blocked pawn chains&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;pawns on squares of the same color as the opponent's bishop (i.e. they can be attacked by either player. If the pawns were on the same color as the players' bishops, the position would be even more drawish as pawns would be even harder to attack and there would be an additional defender for the pawns (the respective bishop).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;weak pawns on d3, g2 and g7&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In order to win this position either side would need to create a passed pawn. Because of the symmetrical pawn structure it is difficult to achieve this by pawn breaks except for special situations like &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tC9vzjILkEw&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt;. This leaves as the only option to somehow create a passed pawn by capturing enemy pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How to do this? The most likely candidates for capture would be the weak pawns on d3, g2, g7, however these are easily defended by the king and if necessary the other pieces such as the knight on c1. Also note that it is not really possible to activate the kings (i.e. march the black king to somewhere around c3 or the white one to a more active square), because (i) white/black would have lots of time to attack and win the g7/g2 pawn and subsequently all the other pawns in the chain and (ii) the knight+bishop block the entrance on the a-b-c files (white covers the squares c4, b4, a3, b3 and black the squares c3, b3, b2, a2).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So it seems fairly impossible to just capture the weak pawns and also it seems impossible to create another weakness or passed pawn on the kingside through a pawn break. The last thing I'd check is if there is a possibility for a sacrifice (e.g. white could sacrifice a piece for two pawns on d4. However with the pawns being rather far from the promotion square it seems unlikely to succeed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An agreed draw would be natural in this position, however at your level there is nothing wrong with playing on in order to practice and it is not impossible to make mistakes in this position. A plan for white could be to play g3 followed by f4 which could lead to another weak pawn on e5 (after capture fxe5 fxe5). Still with correct play it should be a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastEditorUserId="11629" LastEditDate="2017-12-24T08:49:08.973" LastActivityDate="2017-12-24T08:49:08.973" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19512" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19504" CreationDate="2017-12-24T04:37:49.040" Score="1" Body="&lt;h2&gt;Introduction (if tldr; skip to analysis)&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm afraid there isn't really a simple answer to this, though it's a very sound question to ask as endgames really are different than the other phases of the game. The main reason for this is that endgames tend to be extremely concrete, meaning principled approaches to them are not always guaranteed to work. For examples, a principle one is often told about is to keep your pawns on squares of opposite color to your bishop, as to not hinder the scope of your bishop's activity. That sounds reasonable of course, but whether it's really a good idea or not will depend on the &lt;em&gt;context&lt;/em&gt; and on all the intricate details of the position at hand, namely, how advanced and scattered the pawns are, the relative position of the kings, interplay of minor pieces, rook activity, number of targets in the position, and so on. This is to say that, sure there are endless principles to learn about endgames, but they're always to be taken with caution. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One may ask why this is so specific to endgames, at least more so than other phases of the game, intuitively, that's because naturally in endgames there will be less pieces, therefore less ways to create play or compensate for small mistakes (in contrast to the middle-game, where e.g., there are usually enough pieces to parry weakened squares, or to create play elsewhere as to divert attention away from the weakened side). As a result, one small mistake in the endgame may either ruin your advantage or even cost you the game. So one has to resort more often to sheer calculation rather than intuition or feeling. This is also why even at the highest level, one regularly sees players ruining their endgames or admitting afterwards that they had no clue how to assess the position. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Analysing your example&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example the position you've given, it's a NB-vs-NB. Had there been simply the bishops, it would be very clear why it's drawish, because of opposite colored bishops (a principle that is generally true). But the addition of knights makes it very complex, because now the interplay of these minor pieces is very different: first observation to make is whether the bishops are equally enabled to zone out the opponent's knight. You notice black's bishop has completely cut your knight out of play, and any chance of re-routing the knight, say via &lt;code&gt;e2-g3-f5&lt;/code&gt; will be met with &lt;code&gt;g6.&lt;/code&gt; On the other hand, black has placed all their pawns on dark squares, so the king is bound to defending them against your bishop, starting from the &lt;code&gt;g7&lt;/code&gt; back-pawn. The weakness on &lt;code&gt;d3&lt;/code&gt; really breaks the symmetry though, as black has no equivalent weakness. But that's not enough (at least at first glance) as black has no clear means of increasing pressure on it, or creating a zugzwang situation by exploiting it as all of black's bishop entry points to your king-side are covered by your king. More precisely, &lt;code&gt;Bd1&lt;/code&gt; will be met by &lt;code&gt;Ke1&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;Bc2&lt;/code&gt; by &lt;code&gt;Ke2.&lt;/code&gt; So that doesn't work. What instead looks more worrisome is the knight potentially penentrating your fortress and getting behind your pawns. For example, an immediate &lt;code&gt;Bc2&lt;/code&gt; followed by &lt;code&gt;Nb2&lt;/code&gt; to &lt;code&gt;d1.&lt;/code&gt; Because a priori you don't really want to let the knight to get to &lt;code&gt;e3,&lt;/code&gt; even if it's still holdable, it looks hell scary to allow. So we need to come up with something to prevent all this. If you don't find an active idea and sit still it's going to be very hard (even a bad plan will be better than no plan at all). Luckily, here it's still rather simple as there's no dilemma of choice, basically all you can do is to try and undermine black's pawn chain, in order to create a weakness and balance things up again. So let's look at a possible variation (comments added):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [Title &quot;Bc2 Nb2 variation&quot;]&#xA; [fen &quot;8/5kp1/5p1p/4p3/nB1pP3/1b1P1P1P/5KP1/2N5 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1...Bc2 2.Ke2 {Ba3 is possible of course, but then you allow Nc3 and that's another variation altogether, as you need to account for the king marching to g3} Nb2 3.Kd2 Ba4 4.Ne2 {preparing f4 to undermine the pawn chain by creating a weak spot on e5 after takes takes, just a tad safer than the immediate f4, though it may be possible} Nd1 5.f4 Nf2 {Ne3 is less attractive as Ne2 covers g3. So Nf2 is the only sensible choice, threatening Bb5 } (5...Ne3 6.g3 {and Nc1+ does nothing}) 6.fxe5 fxe5 7.Bd6 {You see f4 has made all the difference, our bishop is suddenly creating play} Ke6 8.Bf8 Bb5 {if Kf7 you can repeat} 9.Bxg7 Nxd3 10.Bxh6 Nc5 {perfect coordination of black's minor pieces, e4 falling next} 11.Ng3 Bc6 12.Ke2 Bxe4 {taking with the bishop to avoid an opposite color situation} 13.Nxe4 Nxe4 14.g4 {no tempo to spare, have to start pushing our own passed pawns to restrict black's king to that side. This is still not a trivial endgame.} Nc3+ 15.Kd3 Kd5 16.g5 e4+ 17.Kc2 Ke6 18.g6 Kf6 19.g7 Kf7 20.Kb3 {key move to go after the vulnerable pawns now, d3 drops the knight and e3 met with Bxe3} Ne2 21.Kc4 d3 22.Kd5 Ng3 23.Ke5 Kg8 {no useful moves left} 24.Kd5 {Draw! anything other than repeating ends in an immediate simplification and trade of remaining pawns.}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Looking back at the position we started from, we've come a far way to be able to reassure ourselves that black's &lt;code&gt;Bc2-Nb2&lt;/code&gt; variation is stoppable by &lt;code&gt;Ne2&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;f4,&lt;/code&gt; and that was just one variation! You see, it looks drawish, it feels drawish, but to convince oneself that it is indeed a draw, it's far from trivial and only through concrete considerations of these variations one can really be sure, for instance no one &lt;em&gt;just knows&lt;/em&gt; that our &lt;code&gt;g&lt;/code&gt; pawn push would be fast enough at the end of that variation &lt;em&gt;without&lt;/em&gt; having calculated. I hope this has been the sort of analysis of the endgame you were looking for. Very rarely in a middle-game one has to go through such long variations in order to make a decision, but in endgames often there's no other way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Recommendations&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some recommendations such that you can form a program for yourself (the list won't be exhaustive): &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;As boring and repetitive as it sounds, read a basic book on endgames and you'll be subjected to all sorts of &lt;em&gt;common&lt;/em&gt; situations, where you'll learn how to maneuver with rooks, bishops, knights and their combinations. You'll learn how and when to cut off the king, how to trap pieces, how to push passed pawns covered by knight, a bishop, a rook. How to force draws in endgames that are known to be trivially drawn etc. You won't have to memorise everything per se, but rather pick up the key ideas and ways of reasoning about these positions. For instance how to play the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philidor_position&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Philidor positions&lt;/a&gt; (where does your rook belong, when do you start giving checks and from which rank, then all of that from the side that has the pawn), similarly for the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucena_position&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Lucena position&lt;/a&gt; and many others. These are sorts of endgames that if you simply don't sit down to study for yourself, you'll end up messing them up regularly. A very good book to get started is: &lt;a href=&quot;https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/9056916173&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&quot;100 Endgames You Must Know: Vital Lessons for Every Chess Player&quot; by Jesus de la Villa&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Take the time to carefully study your own endgames after your games. First gather some ideas, then check the corresponding variations (mentally for as much of them that you can), and at the end go through your calculations with an engine. The routine is very similar to learning mathematics for example, nobody learns anything by immediately picking up the solution manual (here the engine). By the end of such study, you should have learned what kinds of questions you need to ask yourself in various endgames. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Solve lots and lots of endgame tactics next to other tactics or puzzles that you do. This will sharpen your technique (and fill up your bag of ideas), both in saving hard positions and in conversions. Again, mental calculation to be prioritized. There are many sources for this, specially these days. A good start would be &lt;a href=&quot;https://chesstempo.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chesstempo&lt;/a&gt; or &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;lichess&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Study the games of strong players: follow their post-game analysis, go through their games and try to understand their decisions, watch the endless online content that is produced on a daily basis by strong players, as they play they will be explaining their reasoning, (couple of names: Yasser Seirawan, &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/user/chess24media/search?query=peter%20svidler&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Peter Svidler&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/user/Chessexplained/videos&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;ChessExplained&lt;/a&gt;). This will add a new flux of digested knowledge in your way, and the goal will be to learn how they reason and asses positions under different circumstances (you will learn things that you may never necessarily find in books).  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Preferably play longer time control games in order to have chance to think during your endgames. Start getting into the mindset of anticipating the kinds of endgames your middle-game decisions will lead you to (only then can you come to the conclusion of what pieces or pawns will give you the best chances). Don't expect everything that you learn and study to influence your play immediately, chess is a very hard game, and these things always take time and dedication to residue naturally into your play. There are no easy ways. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With such a program and a consistent work routine, you will both improve your assessments of endgames, your calculations in them, and most importantly, become efficient in thinking about them. After some time, looking back at your example game here, you will very quickly convince yourself, with half the calculation we went through earlier, that such endgame ought to be drawn. Sure a lot of calculations will still be required, as is for everyone, but the difference will be that you'll have a better idea what aspects of the position you may need to pay a close attention to and what the key ideas are both for you and your opponent (for instance, you'll quickly know that if you're to stand any chance you need to start challenging black's pawn chain, and that you need some active plan to keep black's king out of play). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3594" LastActivityDate="2017-12-24T04:37:49.040" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19513" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18985" CreationDate="2017-12-24T05:04:46.017" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;1700+ 4-player chess rating here (solid, but not amazing). A few tips:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;A solid foundation and well-developed pieces quite often beat out a successful queen rush. At higher rated games you see rushes less and less, because even when successful you're sacrificing a lot of development. Just learn to live them.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Be extremely careful of checks from your left opponent. Since the other two players essentially get two free moves against you, a single check can decimate your position.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Play conservatively. Trading pieces is very seldomly the right choice (especially don't trade bishops for rooks, as they're worth the same amount of points and have fairly equal use with the diagonals being so much more important now). Be sure to leave as few weaknesses in your position as possible, as players tend to pounce on the weakest player.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Most games have elements of end-game pawn rush. It's good to be in the best position for this.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Practice spotting mates. There are some rather silly-looking ones, especially involving double-checks. As long as your position is reasonably solid, giving up your queen to get a checkmate on your left or right opponent is usually worth it. It's usually best if your opposite opponent survives, as end-game in the middle is difficult.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;There's fairly wide range of viable opening moves and strategies. As long as your pawn-structure is sound, you have a lot more leeway to play around than in normal chess.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Knights are mostly defensive units used to hold your position together. As games are much more fluid and dynamic in 4p-chess attacking is mostly done using pieces that can get in and out fast. Knights should usually not be a priority in your openings. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15324" LastEditorUserId="15324" LastEditDate="2017-12-24T11:40:45.500" LastActivityDate="2017-12-24T11:40:45.500" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19514" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19503" CreationDate="2017-12-24T05:22:02.663" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not rigerous, however:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In lateral movement two knights move as fast as one king.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;We know from end-game theory that two knights are not able to force the king into positions.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;.. thus I'd say it's very unlikely that unlimited knights+king would be able to mate a king that has a free direction to run in (unlimited board). If it's possible to corner it however (limited board and unlimited moves), unlimited knights are certainly enough, as they could simply divide up the board and slowly decrease the available space.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15324" LastActivityDate="2017-12-24T05:22:02.663" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19515" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19506" CreationDate="2017-12-24T09:25:15.493" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Nice fresh idea! I would not use it exclusively for opening training, but whatever works for your target group. Could be fun for younger players I guess. A few problems I see with this approach:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When doing the exercise I was basically only looking for small changes from the previous diagram. I mean, for me it did not matter at all that I was looking at a chess board. It could as well have been a series of paintings (with incremental changes) or anything else. If people solve it the same way as I did, I doubt that they get much out of the puzzle for chess.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I found looking through nine diagrams already quite time consuming, so I guess getting very deep (say 20 moves) is not very pracical.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Including side lines seems impossible unless you create a puzzle for each side line, however in that case you would lose the connection between them (i.e. that at move x you have options a, b and c...).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;IMO, beginner players should focus on learning general opening principles, the reason behind making those moves and typical plans in certain pawn structures. Your approach seems to train learning lines by heart, which I don't find useful, because they'd be lost immediately once they are out of book. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Perhaps puzzles like these could be more useful for tactics or for basic endgames!? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or perhaps, for slightly advanced players, it could be useful to have something like this, not move-by-move, but only showing relevant positions (tabiyas) skipping over intermediate moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2017-12-24T09:25:15.493" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19519" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19526" CreationDate="2017-12-25T11:51:24.610" Score="9" ViewCount="2747" Body="&lt;p&gt;From what I can gather, one studies what the opponent has been playing, and prepare responses for their favourite lines. The problem is, there's no guarantee the opponent will play a given opening. For example, suppose I'm playing against Kramnik with white. Kramnik is the person who famously defeated Kasparov with the Ruy Lopez Berlin, so I prepare something special for 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 Nf6. But then in the actual game, all I can control is the first move. After 1. e4, it's conceivable that Kramnik plays 1...d5,  1...Nc6, or 1...e6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My guess would be that GMs have some kind of plan mapped out for &lt;em&gt;every&lt;/em&gt; possible response - but that sounds like a formidable amount of lines to remember, especially with opening lines running 15+ moves deep.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastEditorUserId="15223" LastEditDate="2018-12-27T12:13:20.327" LastActivityDate="2018-12-27T12:13:20.327" Title="How does opening preparation work at GM level?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;grandmaster&gt;&lt;preparation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="19520" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19580" CreationDate="2017-12-25T12:01:33.540" Score="8" ViewCount="1018" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a follow-up question to &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/19482/randomness-in-engine-play/&quot;&gt;Randomness in Engine Play&lt;/a&gt;. SmallChess's answer indicates that in one instance, Stockfish searched a given number of nodes after 20s, and a different number in the other 20s, hence there is randomness.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The question: if each node is a given position, how does Stockfish decide which node to search first? Take for example the first half-ply. White has 20 possible first moves, so there are 20 nodes. I demand that Stockfish play a move after searching five nodes. Does this mean that Stockfish might only have evaluated 1. a4, 1. a3, 1. b4, 1. b3 and 1. c3 before it has to make a move? A systematic search like this would mean Stockfish hasn't evaluated the most common first moves however.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I imagine that, later in the game, there'd be a massive jump in the number of nodes per half-ply. That would mean that Stockfish would sometimes decides to make a move even though it hasn't finished evaluating every node in the half-ply. How would it know that it's searched the most promising nodes?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastActivityDate="2018-01-04T11:59:46.633" Title="How does an engine decide which node to search first?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19521" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="94" CreationDate="2017-12-25T12:09:57.500" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Top players don't play sharp gambits such as this one much because they involve lots of forced lines. These lines are easy to calculate for an engine. The result is that you no longer play against your opponent - you're pitting your engine / memorization skills vs. theirs, and not your chess ability vs. theirs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.chessbase.com/post/romantic-chess-in-modern-times&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Romantic chess in modern times&#xA;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastActivityDate="2017-12-25T12:09:57.500" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19522" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19524" CreationDate="2017-12-25T19:03:00.117" Score="-1" ViewCount="193" Body="&lt;p&gt;On &lt;a href=&quot;http://chess.kivij.info/performance_calculator.shtml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this website&lt;/a&gt;, I came across three ways of calculating performance rating:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Performance rating (the proper method)&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Performance rating (FIDE)&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Performance rating (Linear approximation)&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm familiar with the last two methods, but I was wondering how the first kind of PR is calculated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does it use some iterative algorithm? If so, what is it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd be glad for the details of the method involved.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13565" LastActivityDate="2017-12-25T22:20:15.577" Title="How is this kind of performance rating calculated?" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19523" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19522" CreationDate="2017-12-25T19:33:20.377" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, in many cases FIDE and the 'proper' performance are pretty close to each other or the same. But fide performance is an approximation to a strict mathematical performance. In this case the 'proper' refers to a strict mathematical definition of performance. You can typically see the big differences in some special cases. For instance try to input 1 in the score and 2000 in the rating field. Essentially you have an infinite high performance, since your score is 100% and the calculator also shows infinity. Now Fide has a cut off in cases like this and you will see the performance as 2800. To be honest in cases where somebody scores 100 %, it's in my opinion a bit meningless to calculate performance. There are also a few other areas where the two methods differ a lot , try to input 0 and 2000 and in a strict mathematical since your performance is negative infinity. There are various ways to calculate the mathematical performance, when it's different than 0 or 100%, iterative being one way, but I believe there are other ways to do it &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15068" LastEditorUserId="15068" LastEditDate="2017-12-25T19:59:23.863" LastActivityDate="2017-12-25T19:59:23.863" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19524" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19522" CreationDate="2017-12-25T22:20:15.577" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The ELO rating is based on the assumption that the expected score of a player A against an opponent B is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;E_A = 1/ (1 +  10^((R_B - R_A)/400))&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;where R_B and R_A are the ratings of B and A, respectively. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, what could be done is that based on the data you give a rating average is computed and the score (per game) that was obtained is computed, this is plugged in for E_A and R_B, respectively. Then, one solves for R_A. [Given that only the global score is entered, whatever is done should be based on the average.]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In other words the hypothetical rating is computed that would yield an expected score matching the actual score obtained. This is how I would interpret the description on the site. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This does however not match what the site does or there are numerical errors.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Maybe they use a different formula for the expected score. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To get a definite answer you might need to contact the maintainer of the site. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12255" LastActivityDate="2017-12-25T22:20:15.577" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19525" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19527" CreationDate="2017-12-25T22:27:26.553" Score="1" ViewCount="231" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there any fundamental difference (in algorithms etc.) between Alphazero training by playing against itself and when playing a match against Stockfish? &#xA;Or were the match games basically treated as training game with the only diferrnce that half of the moves were coming from outside?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, did they use the same hardware during training and match?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2017-12-26T02:52:12.350" Title="Alphazero Learning vs Playing mode" Tags="&lt;alphazero&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19526" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19519" CreationDate="2017-12-25T22:48:43.320" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not a GM myself, but my understanding is that there is more than one way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First of all any decent GM would have notes (nowadays on computer) with all the opening lines they play. These notes might include some new ideas, but would at least give an assessment of the known lines such as &quot;drawish, unclear, big advantage...&quot; Before a game they would consult these notes for the openings their opponent plays. This helps to refresh their memory and also: Depending on the tournament situation and/or the opponent's strength they could select more equal lines or more aggressive ones or perhaps trying out a new.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another way to prepare for an opponent is to analyze their games and find positions or opening lines your opponent does perform poorly in. For instance if your opponent is not so good at complicated tactics, you would aim for an opening which favors tactics.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lastly, if it is a major important tournament such as a WC match  a player might even prepare a completely new opening repertoire as a surprise weapon.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2017-12-25T22:48:43.320" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19527" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19525" CreationDate="2017-12-26T00:27:44.340" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;AlphaZero trained itself by self-playing. It used the gradient descent algorithm for convergence (equation 1 in the paper). Please note the training phase had &lt;strong&gt;nothing&lt;/strong&gt; to do with Stockfish.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Later, Google matched the &quot;fully trained&quot; AlphaZero against Stockfish. It's like you practice chess with yourself for four months, participated in a tournament then won all your games!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hardwares were different in training and playing:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Training proceeded for 700,000 steps (mini-batches of size 4,096) starting from randomly initialised parameters, using 5,000 first-generation TPUs (15) to generate self-play games and 64 second-generation&#xA;  TPUs to train the neural networks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;... in chess, shogi and Go respectively, playing&#xA;  100 game matches at tournament time controls of one minute per move. AlphaZero and the previous AlphaGo Zero used a single machine with 4 TPUs...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2017-12-26T02:52:12.350" LastActivityDate="2017-12-26T02:52:12.350" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19529" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19519" CreationDate="2017-12-26T03:03:48.770" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;Professional chess is hard.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Yes. Professional elite players prepare as many opening lines as they can. They have seconds who are dedicated to opening preparation (generally on a computer). The most well paid players such as Magnus Carlsen has a &lt;em&gt;team&lt;/em&gt; of seconds. Read more about chess seconds &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.thehindu.com/sport/other-sports/world-chess-championship-role-of-the-seconds/article5313784.ece&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The seconds are paid for improving the master's opening preparation. Those guys are generally grandmasters. They would use database, recent trends, common sense etc to make preparation. Some players such as Maxime Vachier-Lagrave are easy to predict. MVL has been a consistent Najdorf players for years.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Of course, nobody can prepare every single possible response in chess. However, the more a GM prepares the better competitive advantage he has. Chess is a relative game - you don't need to play perfectly, you just need to play better than your opponent.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;No preparation is perfect. All players must sooner or later make a new move. However, the more prepared you are the less likely you're the first player &quot;out of book&quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;All professional chess players need to know extraordinary number of possible opening variations. Sometimes they don't remember the exact lines, but they know similar lines or ideas. Then, we would think over the board.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Most prepared lines are used later on against someone else.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2017-12-26T03:11:33.037" LastActivityDate="2017-12-26T03:11:33.037" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19530" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-12-26T07:48:47.683" Score="2" ViewCount="173" Body="&lt;p&gt;I understand that chess is pretty complex regarding the game tree complexity (Shannon number) or number of possible positions. If we were trying to solve chess (whuch I know is impossible for practical reasons), however we might not be interested in all positions. For instance I remember reading that for the 7 men tablebase they excluded positions where one side had a bare king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there an estimate for the complexity of chess if clearly won positions are excluded?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2017-12-26T21:00:37.627" Title="Complexity of critical positions" Tags="&lt;tablebases&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19531" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19530" CreationDate="2017-12-26T09:26:16.327" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's hard to see if a position is clearly won or not, especially when just counting material:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;3N2rk/4K1bb/4nn2/8/8/8/7q/qqqqqqqq w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Nf7#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or the various positions with pawn chains all over the board, which can't be broken by rooks or a bishop of the wrong color.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I doubt exclusion of clearly won positions is going to make much of a difference in terms of complexity; it's even likely to make it &lt;em&gt;more&lt;/em&gt; complex.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2017-12-26T09:26:16.327" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19533" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19530" CreationDate="2017-12-26T18:55:02.687" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm guessing that by complexity, you mean an estimate for the number of legal positions that aren't 'clearly' lost by some measure (otherwise the answer is exponential, despite the addition of your constraint), as if to build a tablebase that can play through non-trivially lost/won positions (ignoring the technicalities of the missing tablebase problem that would arise...).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One estimate of the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Km024eldY1A&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;number of 'sensible' chess games&lt;/a&gt;;  3^(40*2) ~ 10^40 seems reasonable; however, this answer doesn't work in this setting, because of the way your question is phrased.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I claim that our hypothetical 32-man, 'non-trivial' tablebase is composed mostly of positions arising from games that would have otherwise been drawn. I argue as follows: 60% of grandmaster games are draws; let's say (an arbitrary guess) that a third of this are agreed draws i.e. 20% of games at move 30. Another arbitrary assumption: let's say material is equal at these positions at move 30, 3 pawns and 3 pieces having been exchanged. Each side has to trade off 9 more pawns/pieces to get to bare kings. Assuming an exchange every 4 or 5 moves, again with 3 'sensible' moves in each position, the number of games concluding in this manner would be approximately 3^(30*2) * 0.2 * 3(40*2) = 0.2 * 3^160 ~ 10^80, which dwarfs the estimated number of 'sensible' chess games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This highlights the significance of exponential growth: the percentage of &#xA; agreed draws doesn't really matter (as long as it's not zero), and neither does 'clearly' won/lost positions in the setting of a '32-man' tablebase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My main point is, a fairly reasonable estimate to your required answer would still be of the form n^m where n is the average number of 'sensible' moves in a position, and m is the expected number of half-moves to get down to bare kings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, to be precise, the number of positions (double/triple/multiple-counting transpositions) is closer to m*(n^m).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now of course, if you include trivially drawn positions, things become really tricky, but we have to draw the line somewhere...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7473" LastEditorUserId="7473" LastEditDate="2017-12-26T19:05:28.540" LastActivityDate="2017-12-26T19:05:28.540" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19534" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19530" CreationDate="2017-12-26T21:00:37.627" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The problem every time you have such enormous number of configurations, is that any &quot;simple-minded&quot; description of configurations to discard will remove an insignificant portion of the total.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the case at hand, there are trillions upon trillions of positions with a bare king (for instance), but they represent a small fraction of a percent of all positions. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You still have to deal with the bulk of configurations that make chess hard, so the difficulty of the original problem is still there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1656" LastActivityDate="2017-12-26T21:00:37.627" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19536" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19520" CreationDate="2017-12-27T06:13:49.003" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;This problem is rather similar to some coding problems.  Stockfish already has multiple pre-computed move sets.  It represents the state of the chessboard using multiple bitboards, which it then uses to evaluate the  board positions using a categorical(checks, tempos, checkmates) and statistical representation(piece values).  Almost immediately, it uses an advanced alpha-beta search algorithm. In order to not analyze the same position several times, a transposition table is used. This is essentially memorization applied to the search function, which is a fundamental in many graph-theory programming problems.  Thus, it actually uses a rather simple algorithm.&#xA;Here is some research done before:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Step 1. Initialize node&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Step 2. Check for aborted search and immediate draw. Enforce node limit here. (This only works with 1 search thread, as of Stockfish 2.3.1.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Step 3. Mate distance pruning. Even if we mate at the next move our score would be at best mate_in(textssrightarrowtextply+1textssrightarrowtextply+1, but if alpha is already bigger because  a shorter mate was found upward in the tree then there is no need to search further, we will never beat current alpha. Same logic but with reversed signs applies also in the opposite condition of being mated instead of giving mate, in this case return a fail-high score.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Step 4. Transposition table lookup. We don’t want the score of a partial search to overwrite a previous full search. We use a different position key in case of an excluded move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Step 5. Evaluate the position statically and update parent’s gain statistics&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Step 6. Razoring (is omitted in PV nodes)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Step 7. Static null move pruning (is omitted in PV nodes). We’re betting that the opponent doesn’t have a move that will reduce the score by more than futility_margin(depth) if we do a null move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Step 8. Null move search with verification search&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Step 9. ProbCut.  If we have a very good capture and a reduced search returns a value much above beta, we can (almost) safely prune the previous move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Step 10. Internal iterative deepening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Step 11. Loop through moves.  Loop through all pseudo-legal moves until no moves remain or a beta cutoff occurs&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Step 12. Extend checks and also dangerous moves&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Step 13. Futility pruning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Step 14. Make the move&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Step 15. Reduced depth search (LMR). If the move fails high will be re-searched at full depth.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Step 16. Full depth search, when LMR is skipped or fails high.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Step 17. Undo move&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Step 18. Check for new best move&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Step 19. Check for split&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Step 20. Check for mate and stalemate&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Step 21. Update tables. Update transposition table entry, killers and history&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I shall attempt to explain what the professor's research is talking about.  Stockfish creates a search tree of the legal move.&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Kd9I5.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Kd9I5.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;Then, it begins to evaluate whether each move is good or bad, and how good or bad it is, by executing a shallow search field first, and then using the resulting alpha/beta cutoff values as start values for a deeper search.  Stockfish also prioritises pieces.  For instance, knights would be prioritised at the centre, so if a knight and bishop get forked at the centre, it will move the knight, unless there are other significant gains by moving the bishop.  While this may seem complicated, this execution is approximately log(number of possible moves), hence making it rather fast still.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15357" LastActivityDate="2017-12-27T06:13:49.003" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19537" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9706" CreationDate="2017-12-27T21:29:36.987" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;My last chess engine used bitboards to store position information. It represented moves as a vector of simple move structures that looks something like this: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;struct move_info {&#xA;    char move[2];        //origin and destination squares (0 - 63)&#xA;    bool side;           //side moving LIGHT=0 or DARK=1&#xA;&#xA;    char piece;          //king=0, queens=2,rooks=4,bishops=6,pawns=8&#xA;    char captured_piece; //king=0, queens=2,rooks=4,bishops=6,pawns=8&#xA;    bool capture;        //is this move a capture&#xA;&#xA;    bool canCastle_off[4];&#xA;    bool isCastle[4];&#xA;&#xA;    bool passant_capture;   //is this move a capture using en passant&#xA;    char enPassant;         //if the pawn is pushed two places, set en passant square, along with the square the pawn is on for capture porpoises&#xA;&#xA;    bool promotion;&#xA;    char promotion_piece;&#xA;};&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then to make the move it would take the move info in a node of the moves vector and update all bitboards. Essentially this means there is a 'position' represented by bitboards, and a list of moves that effect that position. Note that this engine was written when I was a much less experienced programmer. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm currently working on a new chess engine which will have a class named 'Position' which carries all needed information for a single position in bitboards. Then, I'll create a linked list of positions for the game tree. I think this will be more efficient then having a list of 'moves'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this helps a bit, if it does and you want more detail, shout out :)  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15364" LastActivityDate="2017-12-27T21:29:36.987" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19538" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15959" CreationDate="2017-12-28T01:22:16.723" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Looking at engines playing on TCEC.chessdom.com/live.php I would say that we have to add about 300 to 500 Elo points to Engine's Elo rating to view engine's Elo as &quot;human&quot; rating, for comparison. Example: Engine's Elo + 500 = Engine's Human Elo (to compare with humans). Monsters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15367" LastActivityDate="2017-12-28T01:22:16.723" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19539" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19540" CreationDate="2017-12-28T06:13:24.540" Score="6" ViewCount="1578" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there a strong Losers chess variant engine? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I had a look at stockfish, but it doesn't support Losers chess, seemingly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(to be used on a Linux platform)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1375" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-17T02:40:14.733" LastActivityDate="2020-08-17T02:40:14.733" Title="Losers Chess variant engine" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;linux&gt;&lt;losing-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19540" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19539" CreationDate="2017-12-28T13:35:30.133" Score="7" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/ddugovic/Stockfish&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://github.com/ddugovic/Stockfish&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;has what you want. Not an offical version, but should be stable for production.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/a67Kx.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/a67Kx.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2017-12-28T13:35:30.133" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19541" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14210" CreationDate="2017-12-28T13:51:02.200" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess is a game of insight. Short time controls don't encourage insight. Therefore, blitz and bullet aren't chess. Or so goes one popular line. ;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd say blitz has its pluses, but only after you have mastered the long game. Magnus is good at blitz because he is good at &quot;real chess,&quot; and not the other way around.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd also add that engaging in blitz marathons shares the dynamic of addictive gambling. You're in it for the rush rather than the quality of play. Careful not to get sucked into it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15371" LastActivityDate="2017-12-28T13:51:02.200" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19542" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6508" CreationDate="2017-12-28T19:24:28.857" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure how Go ratings compare to chess, but random play is about -3500 &lt;a href=&quot;https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1QhYWYQvXBhI5eHJm45fvf97CaV2rRmgrATwVgBFGKoU/edit#gid=806323235&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;there&lt;/a&gt;. Since the branching factor for chess is lower I'd expect the random player elo to be higher, maybe somewhere between -2000 and -500.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13668" LastActivityDate="2017-12-28T19:24:28.857" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19543" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19539" CreationDate="2017-12-28T20:32:15.690" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sjeng supports losers chess too since &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.sjeng.org/news.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;release 9&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12554" LastActivityDate="2017-12-28T20:32:15.690" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19545" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19548" CreationDate="2017-12-29T15:48:31.407" Score="3" ViewCount="884" Body="&lt;p&gt;What are the best repertoire books, from White's point of view, with the English Opening? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-03-07T00:00:31.687" LastActivityDate="2020-03-07T00:00:31.687" Title="What are the best repertoire books for White with the English Opening?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;english-opening&gt;&lt;repertoire&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19546" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2017-12-29T19:01:25.553" Score="0" ViewCount="142" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been looking for a good response to a d4 opening.  All the repertoires I've studied are against e4?  Any suggestions, thanks&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14219" LastActivityDate="2017-12-29T19:43:41.883" Title="What is a good defensive repertoire against a d4 opening?" Tags="&lt;chess-variants&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2017-12-30T20:38:40.097" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19547" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19546" CreationDate="2017-12-29T19:43:41.883" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Queen's Gambit Declined. Get &quot;Playing 1.d4 d5 - A Classical Repertoire by Nikolaos Ntirlis&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastActivityDate="2017-12-29T19:43:41.883" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19548" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19545" CreationDate="2017-12-29T21:04:18.550" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the Grandmaster Repertoire series, there are three books covering the English opening from white's perspective, written by GM Marin in 2009 and 2010: &lt;a href=&quot;https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1906552045&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Volume 1&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/190655238X&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Volume 2&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1906552592&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Volume 3&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More recently, in 2016, &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.everymanchess.com/opening-repertoire-the-english&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;IM Cummings&lt;/a&gt; wrote a repertoire book based on e3 systems, rather than fianchettoing the bishop with g3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Update:&lt;/strong&gt; In 2018, a new repertoire series from white's point of view is published: The Modern English, written by GM Georgiev and IM Semkov. In &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.newinchess.com/the-modern-english-1-c4-e5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Volume 1&lt;/a&gt;, the authors discuss 1.c4 e5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4588" LastEditorUserId="4588" LastEditDate="2018-09-26T17:33:09.803" LastActivityDate="2018-09-26T17:33:09.803" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="19549" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17890" CreationDate="2017-12-29T22:39:27.737" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am rated 1200-1300 on blitz on chess.com. I only use London with white and I absolutely love it. I got the Ginger GM DVD from Simon Williams, and I have rewatched each chapter numerous times. There are so many nuances in the opening, and it does require intense study to understand the opening approach based on KID, QID, Sicilian, Benoni and Dutch defenses. I can crush unsuspecting opponents easily with traps in 15-20 moves, however better opponents will be more of a challenge. I do not find it boring and I love improving with it. I went from 800 to 1200 in six months.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15382" LastActivityDate="2017-12-29T22:39:27.737" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19551" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19087" CreationDate="2017-12-30T06:59:28.657" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Engines like Stockfish (Alphazero may be a different matter) are still not good at finding the best positional moves.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After doing an extensive study of the Fischer game collection, with the help of Stockfish, I just published a &lt;a href=&quot;https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/B078NSTR3K&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;book on the theme&lt;/a&gt;: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While going through the positional test suite, including 112 test positions, I had to ascertain that Stockfish still fails to solve around one third, but maybe even close to half of the puzzles. With the tactical set, Stockfish has no problems at all, all solved. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Make the conclusions yourselves how weak actually Stockfish is and how strong Fischer. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, you might just want to forget anything about alleged engine superiority in chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Edit&lt;/em&gt;: Here comes the FEN:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [title &quot;Exercice position&quot;]&#xA; [fen &quot;r4rk1/2q1bpp1/pn3n1p/1pp1pP2/6P1/1BP4P/PP1N1P2/R1BQR1K1 w - - 0 17&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14893" LastEditorUserId="14079" LastEditDate="2018-02-07T12:43:33.683" LastActivityDate="2018-02-07T12:43:33.683" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19552" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9663" CreationDate="2017-12-30T07:04:56.010" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a suite of 2400 test positions in PGN format &lt;a href=&quot;https://sites.google.com/site/gaviotachessengine/download&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;available from the gaviota chess engine website&lt;/a&gt;. (look for &quot;gaviota-starters.pgn.zip&quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See also: The &lt;a href=&quot;https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Test-Positions&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Test Positions page on the Chess Programming Wiki&lt;/a&gt;, and this &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.talkchess.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=50619&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;collection of PGN and EPD openings posted to the CCC forum&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15389" LastActivityDate="2017-12-30T07:04:56.010" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19553" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19555" CreationDate="2017-12-30T10:20:04.500" Score="20" ViewCount="4580" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the first round of the World Blitz Championship in Riyadh. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1904956&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Magnus Carlsen played Ernesto Inarkiev&lt;/a&gt; and the game ended strangely.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;[StartPly &amp;quot;53&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Event &amp;quot;World Blitz Championship&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Site &amp;quot;Riyadh KSA&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Date &amp;quot;2017-12-29&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Round &amp;quot;1&amp;quot;]&#xA;[White &amp;quot;Magnus Carlsen&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Black &amp;quot;Ernesto Inarkiev&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Result &amp;quot;1-0&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. a3 Nc6 3. b4 cxb4 4. axb4 Nxb4 5. d4 d5 6. c3 Nc6 7. exd5 Qxd5 8. Na3 Bf5 9. Nb5 Rc8 10. Nxa7 Nxa7 11. Rxa7 e5 12. Nf3 exd4 13. Nxd4 Bd7 14. Nb5 Qxd1+ 15. Kxd1 Bc6 16. Bd3 Bc5 17. Re1+ Ne7 18. Ba3 Bxa3 19. Rxa3 Rd8 20. Nd4 Kd7 21. Ra7 Rhe8 22. Kc2 Kc7 23. Rb1 Rb8 24. f3 Nd5 25. Nxc6 Kxc6 26. Bb5+ Kb6 27. Rxb7+ Ne3+?? {An illegal move by Inarkiev; he leaves his King in check} 28. Kd3?! {Carlsen plays on; Inarkiev now calls an arbiter}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As can be seen above, after Carlsen played 27 Rxb7+, Inarkiev made the illegal move 27...Ne3+, leaving his own king in check. At this point Carlsen could have claimed a win because of an illegal move, however, he played 28 Kd3.   At this point &lt;em&gt;Inarkiev&lt;/em&gt; called an arbiter and claimed a win because Carlsen made an illegal move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as I read the arbiter first ruled in favor of Inarkiev. Later it was offered to continue the game from the position &lt;s&gt;before the illegal move&lt;/s&gt; on the board, i.e. after 28. Kd3 (which was lost for black), which Inarkiev declined, after which Carlsen was declared the winner.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What rules (if any) cover a situation like this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also I've seen claims that Inarkiev has pulled this &amp;quot;trick&amp;quot; before. If true, when and where was that?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-01-05T21:48:11.427" LastActivityDate="2021-01-05T21:48:11.427" Title="The illegal moves in Carlsen-Inarkiev" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;blitz&gt;&lt;carlsen&gt;&lt;illegal-move&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="19554" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19557" CreationDate="2017-12-30T11:17:05.940" Score="2" ViewCount="435" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was looking at many players' ELO over time graphs and noticed something interesting. Usually players stay in the same 200-300 bracket through very long periods of time (I'm talking decades here) despite staying active and playing. My intuition would be that experience would have some positive correlation with ELO but it looks like it's not the case. I know many research has been done on this topic but I have never seen this question explored.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;To recap: Is there a known positive correlation between experience (games played) and ELO improvement? If there is no such correlation (as I found to be the case through my limited observation), what are the possible explanations?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15379" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-12-30T18:44:15.150" LastActivityDate="2020-01-18T01:16:27.810" Title="ELO rating and experience" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;elo&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19555" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19553" CreationDate="2017-12-30T12:15:04.177" Score="25" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What rules (if any) cover a situation like this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3.10.2 of the FIDE Laws of Chess defines when a move is illegal -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;3.10.2 A move is illegal when it fails to meet the relevant requirements of Articles 3.1 – 3.9&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Articles 3.1 - 3.9 basically describe the moves of the pieces. Inarkiev's move was illegal because it breached 3.9.2 -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;3.9.2 No piece can be moved that will either expose the king of the same colour to check or leave that king in check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3.10.3 defines when a position is illegal -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;3.10.3 A position is illegal when it cannot have been reached by any series of legal moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After Inarkiev made his illegal move the position was illegal because his king was in check and it was not his turn. After Carlsen made his (perfectly legal) move the position was legal again because Inarkiev was in check and it was Inarkiev's turn. Inarkiev was wrong to stop the clocks and claim an illegal move. The first arbiter made a mistake. Presumably Inarkiev said that Carlsen had made an illegal move and the arbiter took his word for it without checking - very unprofessional.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Article 7.5.1 defines when an illegal move has been completed (different from &quot;made&quot;) and what should happen next in standard play games -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;7.5.1 An illegal move is completed once the player has pressed his clock. If during a game it is found that an illegal move has been&#xA;  completed, the position immediately before the irregularity shall be&#xA;  reinstated. If the position immediately before the irregularity cannot&#xA;  be determined, the game shall continue from the last identifiable&#xA;  position prior to the irregularity. Articles 4.3 and 4.7 apply to the&#xA;  move replacing the illegal move. The game shall then continue from&#xA;  this reinstated position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The same definition for the completion of an illegal move applies to rapid and blitz however the way the illegal move is handled is different unless certain strict conditions apply.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In blitz illegal moves are handled like this (i.e. &quot;Competition Rules apply&quot;) only if -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;B.3.1 The Competition Rules shall apply if:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  B.3.1.1 one arbiter supervises one game and&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  B.3.1.2 each game is recorded by the arbiter or his assistant and, if possible, by electronic means.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With 69 games they would need 69 or more arbiters. I don't believe they had that so according to B.4 Rapid rules apply -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;B.4 Otherwise, play shall be governed by the Rapid chess Laws as in&#xA;  Article A.2 and A.4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The relevant article is A.4.2 -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A.4.2 If the arbiter observes an illegal move has been completed, he&#xA;  shall declare the game lost by the player, provided the opponent has&#xA;  not made his next move. If the arbiter does not intervene, the&#xA;  opponent is entitled to claim a win, provided the opponent has not&#xA;  made his next move. However, the game is drawn if the position is such&#xA;  that the opponent cannot checkmate the player’s king by any possible&#xA;  series of legal moves. If the opponent does not claim and the arbiter&#xA;  does not intervene, the illegal move shall stand and the game shall&#xA;  continue. Once the opponent has made his next move, an illegal move&#xA;  cannot be corrected unless this is agreed by the players without&#xA;  intervention of the arbiter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, the sequence of events was -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Inarkiev makes an illegal move   &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Neither the arbiter nor Carlsen spots it and Carlsen makes a legal move.   &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Inarkiev incorrectly tries to claim the game.   &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The arbiter who deals with it incorrectly believes Inarkiev without checking and awards the game to Inarkiev.   &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The Chief Arbiter correctly overturns the decision and rules that Inarkiev must make a move in the position in which he made his incorrect claim.   &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't know if the Chief Arbiter did this but in his position I would also award Carlsen an extra minute on the clock in accordance with article B.2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;B.2 The penalties mentioned in Articles 7 and 9 of the Competition&#xA;  Rules shall be one minute instead of two minutes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: Checking on the FIDE web site I see that they have published the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fide.com/FIDE/handbook/wrbc_regulations_2017_open.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;regulations for the World Rapid and Blitz Championships&lt;/a&gt; which confirm that Rapid rules apply in the case of illegal moves -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;6.14 Tournaments will be played according to the rules of the inadequate supervision of the Rapid play Laws of Chess (FIDE Handbook,&#xA;  E.I.01B Appendices, art. 1 to 4). In addition, if a player displaces&#xA;  the pieces during the game: for the first time he receives a warning&#xA;  but for the second time he will be forfeited.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT2: Perhaps I should just also point out for anyone reading this after 1st Jan 2018 that FIDE are unhappy with the &quot;one illegal move loses in rapid and blitz&quot; rule and this is changing from 1st Jan 2018. The &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=208&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;new rules&lt;/a&gt; have a new article A.4.2 -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A.4.2&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If the arbiter observes an action taken under Article 7.5.1, 7.5.2,&#xA;  7.5.3 or 7.5.4, he shall act according to Article 7.5.5, provided the opponent has not made his next move. If the arbiter does not&#xA;  intervene, the opponent is entitled to claim, provided the opponent&#xA;  has not made his next move. If the opponent does not claim and the&#xA;  arbiter does not intervene, the illegal move shall stand and the game&#xA;  shall continue. Once the opponent has made his next move, an illegal&#xA;  move cannot be corrected unless this is agreed by the players without&#xA;  intervention of the arbiter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This basically says that in the case of an illegal move in &quot;unsupervised&quot; rapid and blitz the rules regarding when an illegal move is spotted and handled remain the same (if neither the players nor the arbiter spot it and stop the game then the game continues) but the penalties are as in standard play with a time penalty and restored position in case of a first offence and losing the game in case of a second offense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2017-12-30T13:13:49.353" LastActivityDate="2017-12-30T13:13:49.353" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19556" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19554" CreationDate="2017-12-30T12:31:56.993" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not a scientific answer, but several points that seem obvious to me:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Just as with many activities, in order to maintain your level in chess you need a bit of practice. Or said differently, if you stopped playing you would end up playing at lower level.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If we define &quot;experience&quot; as the knowledge how to deal with certain situations on the chess board, gaining &lt;em&gt;new experiences&lt;/em&gt;   through playing will get more and more difficult, because you might end up playing most of your games based on your &lt;em&gt;known experiences&lt;/em&gt;. Also if you end up gaining a new experience it might be so specialized knowledge that you will never encounter the same situation again in a game (so cannot use it to increase ELo). So eventually playing more games will not teach you anything new, but will only help you to refresh your knowledge.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The Elo system gives the relative strength of players only. So in fact it might be possible that all players are constantly improving their absolute strength while staying at the same Elo rating.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;A bracket of 200-300 Elo point is a pretty big difference in playing strength.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Playing strength depends on lots of factors such as age/fitness, opening/endgame knowledge, tactics, time invested in chess, .... Experience gained through playing might easily by canceled by any of the others.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2017-12-30T12:31:56.993" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19557" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19554" CreationDate="2017-12-30T12:33:08.310" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you are asking why players don't improve despite decades of playing the simple answer is that the more time you spend practicing and reinforcing your mistakes the more ingrained they become and the more likely it becomes that your level will hardly change..&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The principle teaching of the Soviet School of chess as described by Dvoretsky and others is that the key to improvement lies in annotating your own games. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Only by critically examining the (bad) moves you make can you identify the kind of mistakes you typically make and only then can you take positive steps to correct them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a very active thing to do. It involves putting your brain into gear. Just putting your game into an engine and seeing where the evaluation changes by a big margin and noting the engine suggestion doesn't count. That is just passive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: Analyzing and annotating your own games to identify mistakes with the idea of avoiding those mistakes in the future, something the Soviets practiced in the Botvinnik era, is also one of the centerpieces of Axel Smith's award-winning 2013 book, &quot;Pump up your Rating&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is his summary of this technique -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) Analyse your games with a friend; avoid using an analysis engine&lt;br&gt;&#xA;2) Annotate the game in ChessBase, and highlight your mistakes&lt;br&gt;&#xA;3) Check the analysis with an engine, and update the annotations&lt;br&gt;&#xA;4) Write down the mistakes in a text file&lt;br&gt;&#xA;5) Collect all the mistakes in a List of Mistakes, where they are sorted into various categories&lt;br&gt;&#xA;6) Make conclusions about typical mistakes, and how they should be avoided in the future&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Axel Smith also gives examples of some of his own mistakes and how he used this technique to identify them and correct them in his play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2018-01-01T11:16:57.037" LastActivityDate="2018-01-01T11:16:57.037" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19558" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19489" CreationDate="2017-12-30T18:10:07.163" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;This question seems to have generated a lot of heat but not so much illumination. As IA Petr Harasimovic suggests in one of his comments I think I know the answer although it is nowhere near as simple as he suggests. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let me start by quoting from the preface to the FIDE Laws of Chess -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The Laws of Chess cannot cover all possible situations that may arise&#xA;  during a game, nor can they regulate all administrative questions.&#xA;  Where cases are not precisely regulated by an Article of the Laws, it&#xA;  should be possible to reach a correct decision by studying analogous&#xA;  situations which are regulated in the Laws. The Laws assume that&#xA;  arbiters have the necessary competence, sound judgement and absolute&#xA;  objectivity. Too detailed a rule might deprive the arbiter of his&#xA;  freedom of judgement and thus prevent him from finding a solution to a&#xA;  problem dictated by fairness, logic and special factors. FIDE appeals&#xA;  to all chess players and federations to accept this view.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This seems to me to be one of those cases and I originally asked the question to find out what others thought.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's start with the question of the &quot;illegal move&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Suppose player A while making his move and pressing the clock knocks over some pieces. His opponent, player B, immediately presses the clock back so that A can restore the position on his own time. In view of 7.8.1 is this an illegal move?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After some thought the answer is obviously &quot;No&quot;. 7.8.1 applies when it is B's turn and the only correct possibilities for B are to resign, claim a draw or make a move. In this situation the position on the board is not the position in the game and so it would be very wrong for B to make a move and press the clock. If he cannot make a move then it cannot be wrong for him to press the clock although it may be undesirable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Player B has two legitimate courses of action. One is to press the pause button and call the arbiter and the other is to press his clock to allow A to correct the position on his time. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which one is the better option depends on the situation. There are problems with both courses of action.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If B just presses the clock then when A has put the pieces back he will also press the clock and both players will have had an additional increment to which neither was entitled. In standard play with say, 90+30 (90 minutes for the moves with a 30 second increment), this is much more serious than in say, 3+2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If B presses the pause button and calls the arbiter then he will give him an additional 2 minutes (1 minute in blitz). Whether this is good or bad depends on the situation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In a 3+2 game the problem with this approach is that it will take time for the arbiter to come, it will take more time to explain the situation to the arbiter and yet more time while the arbiter adjusts the clocks. This additional thinking time (for that is what it is) is very large compared to the increment and probably to the total thinking time left for the players. This will very likely advantage one player much more than the other. This advantage could decide the game but in any case is likely to be much greater than the additional 2 second increment that each player gains if B just presses the clock.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As an arbiter what would I like you to do if this happens in your game when I am the arbiter?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In a standard game with something like 90+30 please press the pause button and call me. In a normal situation I will adjust the clocks and you can continue once the position is restored. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In an extreme situation, say you have 30 minutes left and your opponent is playing on increment I will tell you to play on without adjusting your clock since this extra thinking time would immediately advantage your opponent. Instead I will come back in 20 minutes time and if the game is still in progress I will give you your additional 2 minutes then when you are about to need it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In a rapid competition I would give the same advice / request.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In a 3+2 blitz or similar I would suggest you just press the clock. In such a situation I think this gives the &quot;best&quot; results. There is the least disturbance to the players, the additional 2 second increment is tiny compared to the additional thinking time available if the arbiter is called and so is much less likely to change the course of the game in an unfair way. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2017-12-30T18:10:07.163" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19559" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8925" CreationDate="2017-12-31T01:04:06.353" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can select your starting rating on &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/register&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;the register page&lt;/a&gt; by changing the skill level options.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, if you select &quot;expert&quot; your starting ratings will be 1800 (at least when I tried it).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, to answer your question, &quot;How is it decided what is the initial value of the elo rating of a new member?&quot;, it is decided by what option the user chooses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13527" LastActivityDate="2017-12-31T01:04:06.353" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19561" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="670" CreationDate="2017-12-31T14:10:08.330" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;White is clearly winning with a piece up and strong passed g5 Pawn... You should aim for a winning endgame and also attack Black's King if Black avoids trades. Combine these two plans and act accordingly. I'd say Qf4 with idea Qe5 / Qd6. Black's only threat is Pawn to a4, a3, etc. but once the Queen is on d6  you are more than ok, with maybe Rh1 - h6 idea to follow soon, crushing Black position once and for all. (g3 Rook is defending c3 Knight, so I'll leave it where it is). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastEditorUserId="8291" LastEditDate="2017-12-31T14:15:28.140" LastActivityDate="2017-12-31T14:15:28.140" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19562" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13477" CreationDate="2017-12-31T18:05:36.753" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have been often in your situation. I hate to read reams of pages explanations before getting to the point. I don't have the time nor the patience. I am often frustrated by my attempts in figuring out by exploring on my own, the interface, IMHO, is not friendly. However, for the case in point I may have been lucky and I hope this will help you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wanted to search for a certain board position in my database. I used the command filter games as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Open one game with that position or otherwise create that position on the board,&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Assuming you opened that position in a game, you are now in the Home menu; click Copy Position,&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Now go back to the database where you are doing the search and click Filter Games,&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Click Position in that window and the click Copy board, now you have that position in the Filter Games window&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Click OK &#xA;A list of all the games in the given database having that position will appear.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I hope this is useful. Happy 2018 everyone!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15401" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-12-31T22:15:01.860" LastActivityDate="2017-12-31T22:15:01.860" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19563" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7914" CreationDate="2017-12-31T20:32:42.133" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sicilian is a good opening and it is double edged. Unless I read books, I was not able to play with anyone. I guess Richter-Rauzer is missed in the previous comments, which is possibly a part of open Sicilian I presume&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 d6 6.Bg5 e6 7.Qd2 a6 8.O-O-O Bd7 9.f4 h6 10.Bh4 Be7 11.Be2 Qc7 12.Bf2 Rc8 13.Nb3 b5 14.Bf3 Na5 15.Nxa5 Qxa5 16.Kb1 b4 17.Ne2 e5 18.Nc1 O-O&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is fun to play it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10055" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2017-12-31T22:16:35.160" LastActivityDate="2017-12-31T22:16:35.160" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19565" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7914" CreationDate="2018-01-01T05:34:56.023" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The dragon indeed requires remembering many sharp lines. Try the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedgehog_(chess)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;hedgehog formation&lt;/a&gt; . Play early a6 and e6 to limit white possibilities. I personally play this and i don't remember any lines just general ideas key squares maneuvers e.t.c&lt;br&gt;&#xA;It works well against virtually anything white might play (maybe excluding 2. c3 )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15379" LastActivityDate="2018-01-01T05:34:56.023" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19566" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7803" CreationDate="2018-01-01T08:08:18.533" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;FIDE has long given up on trying to standardize opening names. In 1935 they published a booklet (in French) which attempted to do this, but it had little to no impact. The Latvian Gambit (&quot;Gambit leton&quot; in French) is an ancient opening that was previously known as the Greco Counter Gambit. For some reason the new name for the Latvian Gambit took hold; most of the other proposed new names did not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Today, as always, opening names are simply a matter of tradition and convention and may vary between countries and writers. For example, in Eastern Europe the Benko Gambit is usually called the Volga Gambit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/extra/fidehistory.html#Section_7:_Attempts_by_FIDE_to_openings_&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/extra/fidehistory.html#Section_7:_Attempts_by_FIDE_to_openings_&lt;/a&gt; for more info.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15404" LastActivityDate="2018-01-01T08:08:18.533" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19567" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19545" CreationDate="2018-01-01T13:35:08.390" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;For many years the standard work on the English was the four volume series written by John L Watson - &quot;English I: ...P-K4&quot;, &quot;English II: ...N-KB3&quot;, &quot;English III: ...P-QB4&quot;, &quot;English I: ...Other Lines&quot;. Written in descriptive notation and republished a few years ago by Harding Simpole.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2018-01-01T13:35:08.390" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19568" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18162" CreationDate="2018-01-01T21:28:14.910" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;In his award winning book, Pump up you Rating, Axel Smith advocates something he calls the &quot;Woodpecker Method&quot;. This is named after Hans Tikkanen (Tikkanen is Finnish for woodpecker) who first used the method to obtain 3 GM norms in 7 weeks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are a number of important principles in the method.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First you solve large numbers (larger numbers (1000s) for professional players, smaller numbers (100s) for amateurs) of tactical problems sorted by motif. When you have completed them you have a short break (a day or two) and then work through them again. You do this 4 or 5 times in a similar way to spaced repetition but without the same longer spacing between repetitions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you have done this you repeat with mixed motifs, so you don't automatically know what type of thing you are looking for and maybe include problems with no solution.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Second, the way you solve them is disciplined and has some rules. These are -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) You do them against the clock, either something like 15 minutes per problem or 45 minutes for a set of 3. If your flag falls and you haven't written down at least a move for each problem you were supposed to solve then you &quot;lose&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) Even if you can't solve the problem you must choose a move, as you would have to do in a real game, and like in a real game you solve them in order. You are not allowed to go back.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) Award yourself points. Smith gives a couple of scoring systems.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4) Calculate the variations through to the end. This is important when you do the repetitions. Don't just note the solution move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The use of the clock and the points system is important to help you measure progress. You can use these to set targets which you must reach before going on to a new set of exercises.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The source for the tactical exercises is not important. What is important is that the solutions are given with extensive annotations so that you can check your calculations of logical defences and promising tries that don't quite work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2018-01-01T21:28:14.910" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19569" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7914" CreationDate="2018-01-02T12:13:50.887" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Look I would like to categorize the Sicilian opening and I believe that after reading this you should feel somewhat comfortable. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;First you must avoid Sicilian Dragon when you are new to the Sicilian. The Dragon requires a lot of extra courage to play and because White's K-side attack is just too fast black somewhat fumbles in the opening itself if he does not know how to counterattack. Black's g6 pawn can be hooked early by White for tearing the K-side attack.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Second Sicilian Kan/Najdorf/Scheveningien/Richter-rauzer/Taimanov are kind of transposable. If you are playing this line then you ought to know all the above variations. There are lot of exceptions to these though but they can be ignored as of now . In majority of the Vast games played in the above line the basic principle if that black will attack in the Q-side and in the center &amp;amp; black needs to stall White's attack in the K-side. If black has that dare then only he should attempt these lines .&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Third the best Sicilian to start with is Sveshnikov. It removes the complexity and does not need sharp opening theory. It is easy to understand and black can have a good fair game. Most important is that it an entirely different line and Sicilian Pelikan is one more branch of this line. Black can choose this opening and white cannot transpose it into any other Sicilian opening. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Fourth you should be aware of some other Sicilians also like Rossolimo/Alapin/Smith Morra/Grandprix Attack. Actually these lines depend upon white what he would play in the second or third move and Black cannot avoid the opening knowledge preparation. So these lines are indispensable.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Fifth if you want to know the Najdorf kind of Sicilian then try understanding the Scheveningien. It is the best and it will give you the entire insight of Sicilian games as a whole.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T18:45:25.417" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T18:45:25.417" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="19570" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18903" CreationDate="2018-01-02T17:35:08.463" Score="11" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I have been working on the aforementioned code of Stockfish for three-check chess, so I will try to summarize the most important &lt;strong&gt;evaluation changes&lt;/strong&gt; (in terms of Elo gain) we made &lt;strong&gt;compared to standard chess&lt;/strong&gt;. As was mentioned before, apart from these changes the evaluation is very similar to normal chess, with only some parameter tweaks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Bonus for the number of checks&lt;/strong&gt;:&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In the middlegame, one check is worth about 2/3 of a minor piece, whereas the value of two checks is around 3 minor pieces, but such positions usually are highly dynamic, so they are hard to evaluate statically.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In the endgame, checks are not worth that much, since material is much more important. One check is worth about a pawn, two checks correspond to a bit less than a minor piece.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Much higher bonuses/penalties for safe/unsafe king positions&lt;/strong&gt;, e.g., for the number of attacking pieces or for holes in the pawn shelter.&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The &lt;strong&gt;king safety evaluation&lt;/strong&gt; is also scaled &lt;strong&gt;depending on the number of checks&lt;/strong&gt; the opponent has already given, so that king safety is more important if he is close to giving the third checks.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Piece values slightly differ from standard chess.&lt;/strong&gt; Pawns are worth a bit less in the middlegame, since dynamic factors like open files are comparatively more important, and rooks are more valuable in endgames, since they can easily threaten to give check if only few pieces are on the board.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Regarding the second part of the question, I think that &lt;strong&gt;evaluation is tricky in closed positions&lt;/strong&gt;, because it then is hard to evaluate imbalances regarding the number of checks and material. If the position is highly tactical, then the search should usually be able to resolve inaccuracies of the evaluation.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Solving three-check chess&lt;/strong&gt; most probably is easier than for standard chess, because games tend to be shorter. One important point is the game theoretical value with optimal play. If white can force a (relatively short) win, then a proof might be feasible, but if it is a draw with optimal play, then the required proof tree would probably be much too big.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15415" LastActivityDate="2018-01-02T17:35:08.463" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19571" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19572" CreationDate="2018-01-03T13:05:16.407" Score="3" ViewCount="745" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/l6VIV.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is Qxe8 reasonable?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I always wanted to trade off a queen against two rooks and the engine likes this idea, but am I leaving my pawns unprotected in this situation? &lt;br&gt;&#xA;It would be hard to protect those with rooks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13744" LastEditorUserId="8201" LastEditDate="2019-12-14T11:27:07.917" LastActivityDate="2019-12-14T11:27:07.917" Title="Is a queen for two rooks reasonable in this position? What are the disadvantages?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;queens&gt;&lt;rooks&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="19572" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19571" CreationDate="2018-01-03T13:23:37.577" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a losing position for White. Normally, trading for a queen against two rooks is reasonable but Black has an extra knight here...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The best objective move sequence would be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1.Qxe8 Rxe8 2.Rxe8+ Kf7 3.Re2 Qb6+&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White's position after 3...Qb6+ is absolutely hopeless - the rooks have no useful squares. White has &lt;strong&gt;no&lt;/strong&gt; counterplay, &lt;strong&gt;no&lt;/strong&gt; attacks, &lt;strong&gt;no&lt;/strong&gt; chance for Black to make a mistake. Very easy win for Black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If this were a GM game, the White player would have resigned. Here, your best swindle move is &lt;strong&gt;1.Qd3&lt;/strong&gt;. By keeping the queen on the board, you --might-- be able to generate a miracle comeback.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A possible line:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1...Nxf4?? 2.Rxe8! Nxd3 3.Rexf8# checkmate!&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The above line is not impossible in a blitz game. But it wouldn't have happened if you played 1.Qxe8.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Don't&lt;/strong&gt; follow the computer analysis. Computer lines are meaningless in a lost position. You will need to try a human move. Don't trade your queen for the rooks. You need it to give troubles for the Black players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2018-01-03T13:28:42.890" LastActivityDate="2018-01-03T13:28:42.890" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19573" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19571" CreationDate="2018-01-03T13:29:42.120" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this particular position Qxe8 is the best possible chance even though white is still in a bad shape.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White is down a piece and any other queen move(Qf3/d4/d3) would simply drop f4 pawn after Rxe1 and N(R)xf4 and leave no counterplay for white.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The general rule of thumb is that 2 rooks are worth a queen and a pawn in an endgame. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Queen can be worth more if rooks are disconnected, while two rooks can be worth more if queen's pawns are isolated. Two rooks can support a single advanced pawn rather well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once again, generally you'd be happy to give up a queen for two rooks provided you are not dropping anything else within the next few moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Vice versa if have a chance to win a queen for two rooks, you better make sure your queen can wreck some extra damage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9289" LastActivityDate="2018-01-03T13:29:42.120" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19574" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18437" CreationDate="2018-01-03T14:57:19.227" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my opinion, this is a very difficult question, since the &lt;strong&gt;piece values&lt;/strong&gt; in antichess are not as static as in normal chess and usually &lt;strong&gt;highly depend on the game phase and position&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, there are some &lt;strong&gt;rules of thumb&lt;/strong&gt; which pieces tend to be stronger or weaker, see, e.g., &lt;a href=&quot;http://poincare.matf.bg.ac.rs/~andrew/suicide/StanGold/theory.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://poincare.matf.bg.ac.rs/~andrew/suicide/StanGold/theory.htm&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also try to derive the piece values from the results that are obtained in &lt;strong&gt;automated parameter tuning&lt;/strong&gt; for antichess engines. E.g., there is a paper on automated learning of piece values for chess variants, also including antichess/suicide, which you can find at &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ke.tu-darmstadt.de/publications/reports/tud-ke-2008-07.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.ke.tu-darmstadt.de/publications/reports/tud-ke-2008-07.pdf&lt;/a&gt;. They got only negative piece values for antichess, so their engine probably was not strong enough to find that it can be good to have more pieces. Due to the simplified evaluation function they used (with basically only piece values), the result is not unexpected, I think.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In 2016, I added antichess to the &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/ddugovic/Stockfish&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Stockfish fork with support for multiple chess variants&lt;/a&gt; that is also used on &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/analysis/antichess&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;lichess&lt;/a&gt;. Over time we improved the search and the evaluation function and repeatedly ran an automated optimization (with &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simultaneous_perturbation_stochastic_approximation&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;SPSA&lt;/a&gt;) of the piece values. When the evaluation function was very simple and the playing strength rather low, the optimal piece values were all negative. As the search and evaluation got more sophisticated and playing strength improved, the optimal piece values changed and some moved towards zero or even to positve values.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Today, it seems to be the strongest antichess chess, and the piece values mostly agree with intuition of strong human players. &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/ddugovic/Stockfish/blob/f86406f7531680efa73a7af541c3051334c71338/src/types.h#L351-L356&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;You can find the current piece values in the code&lt;/a&gt;. Since there are several other evaluation terms (piece-square table, mobility bonus, etc.) that are influenced by the presence of pieces, these values are not completely representative, though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is a summary of my interpretation of &lt;strong&gt;Stockfish's piece values&lt;/strong&gt; (also trying to consider the influence from other evaluation terms):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;pawns&lt;/strong&gt; are usually bad, since they are very restricted in their movements and are easy targets for forcing captures. I would give them a value of &lt;strong&gt;-1&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;knights&lt;/strong&gt; are quite dangerous, but for a strong player they can also be very useful pieces. According to Stockfish, the knight's value is about &lt;strong&gt;-1 in the middlegame&lt;/strong&gt;, and &lt;strong&gt;+2 in the endgame&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;bishops&lt;/strong&gt; are usually very dangerous in the opening/middlegame, since the opponent can often get rid of all pieces if you have to start taking pieces with your bishop. Their value is about &lt;strong&gt;-3 in the middlegame&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;+2 in the endgame&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;rooks&lt;/strong&gt; tend to cause the same issues as bishops in the middlegame, but are usually very strong in the endgame. Their value is &lt;strong&gt;-5 in the middlegame&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;+2 in the endgame&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the &lt;strong&gt;queen&lt;/strong&gt; can be useful in the opening due to her high mobility and the ability to quickly attack and capture pieces that are covered by the opponent, which might force him to take back in an unfavorable way. In the endgame the queen attacks too many squares and is usually bad. The piece value estimate is &lt;strong&gt;0 in the middlegame&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;-2 in the endgam&lt;/strong&gt;e.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the &lt;strong&gt;king&lt;/strong&gt; is a strong piece because it can move to many squares, but only locally. In this way, it can be used to avoid zugzwang and to put up local threats without attacking squares in the opponent's camp. The piece value is something like &lt;strong&gt;+2 in the middlegame&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;+3 in the endgame&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You might find that the results disagree with some the rules of thumb I linked above. That only confirms that it is hard to break down the evaluation of pieces in antichess positions to a few numbers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15415" LastActivityDate="2018-01-03T14:57:19.227" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19575" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19579" CreationDate="2018-01-03T16:28:32.833" Score="6" ViewCount="2606" Body="&lt;p&gt;I bought a laptop, a Dell, model XPS 13. I found a technical review which mentioned the Fritz test:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Fritz is a chess benchmark that tests the computing capabilities of the CPU with various chess moves. The Intel Core i7-8550U managed to get 10.675 million moves per second. For comparison, one of the most powerful computers, Deep(er) Blue, was able to squeeze out 200 million moves per second. In 1997 Deep(er) Blue even beat the famous Garry Kasparov with 3.5 to 2.5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But then I found this link that claims that even an iPhone 5s would be almost better than Deep Blue.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am now confused, are Deep Blue and Deeper Blue different? Are algorithms more efficient today?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15265" LastEditorUserId="9025" LastEditDate="2018-01-03T16:49:10.810" LastActivityDate="2018-01-05T02:23:08.187" Title="Is Deep Blue outdated?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;computer-chess&gt;&lt;chess-algorithms&gt;&lt;kasparov&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19577" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19571" CreationDate="2018-01-03T23:30:43.847" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In order to get a good assessment of a position, you should consider as many factors as there are: material, tactical, positional, dynamical, permanent, structural, technical, king's safety, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These factors have different weight. And in the given position, the clearly dominant feature is the material disequilibrium (as usual): black is a full knight ahead and such a big material advantage is decisive. Some other minor considerations have little weight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But in general, two Rooks are better than a Queen, unless the rooks coordinate poorly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, in conclusion: White is lost because is a piece down, and probably the best move it has is Qxe8.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12220" LastEditorUserId="20776" LastEditDate="2019-12-13T22:03:33.290" LastActivityDate="2019-12-13T22:03:33.290" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="19579" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19575" CreationDate="2018-01-04T06:20:29.123" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;IBM claimed the machine could search for &lt;strong&gt;200&lt;/strong&gt; million moves per second, while Stockfish in the recent AlphaZero match could &quot;only&quot; search for &lt;strong&gt;80&lt;/strong&gt; million per seconds on a modern multi-core machines. But... it was unclear how exactly IBM derived the number. There's &lt;strong&gt;no&lt;/strong&gt; universe definition on how an engine calculates number of moves per second. How it's done is implementation dependent. It's not always possible to compare engines by number of moves searched per seconds. There was a somewhat related discussion on Rybka:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://talkchess.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=30992&amp;amp;start=0&amp;amp;postdays=0&amp;amp;postorder=asc&amp;amp;highlight=report+engine+speed&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://talkchess.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=30992&amp;amp;start=0&amp;amp;postdays=0&amp;amp;postorder=asc&amp;amp;highlight=report+engine+speed&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Deep Blue is &lt;strong&gt;out-dated&lt;/strong&gt;, it was made before this century. Please note I was too young for the project, so my understanding might not be 100% correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Deep Blue had a &lt;a href=&quot;https://ac.els-cdn.com/S0004370201001291/1-s2.0-S0004370201001291-main.pdf?_tid=5d1895a2-f113-11e7-9812-00000aab0f6b&amp;amp;acdnat=1515045293_500e97d5c6638853ee1744b2cffc72f3&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;paper&lt;/a&gt;. I just had a quick 10 minutes look. Let's give a try:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;2018, nobody uses human grandmaster games for tuning&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Deep Blue didn't focus  on deep search as much as modern engines like Stockfish (&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Blue_(chess_computer)#Aftermath&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Blue_(chess_computer)#Aftermath&lt;/a&gt; supports my argument)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Deep Blue was running on a dedicated machine. We don't do that in 2018.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;IBM had 32GB hash table, we can do better than that in 2018&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Deep Blue didn't have something known as null move pruning. (page 5 in the paper). I'm very confident all modern engines use it. It's a simple technique.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Deep Blue didn't use late move pruning (I failed to see in the paper)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Deep Blue used MPI for parallel search. This doesn’t happen anymore.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Deep Blue was running evaluation on hardware, make no sense in 2018. If Stockfish did that, you wouldn't be able to use the engine on an iPhone.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Deep Blue had very basic move ordering (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.talkchess.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=64021&amp;amp;postdays=0&amp;amp;postorder=asc&amp;amp;topic_view=flat&amp;amp;start=10&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.talkchess.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=64021&amp;amp;postdays=0&amp;amp;postorder=asc&amp;amp;topic_view=flat&amp;amp;start=10&lt;/a&gt; by Alvaro Cardoso supports my argument)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Deep Blue had a 5-piece tablebase. Stockfish has 6.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Deep Blue pruned less than modern engines.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The algorithms was hardware specific (e.g. generating moves). We don't do that anymore in 2018. We have efficient 64 bits operations.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2018-01-05T02:23:08.187" LastActivityDate="2018-01-05T02:23:08.187" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19580" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19520" CreationDate="2018-01-04T11:59:46.633" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://rebel13.nl/rebel13/ideas.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://rebel13.nl/rebel13/ideas.html&lt;/a&gt; explains this well.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The basic idea is to order the moves based upon what the program thinks is the best move without searching.  This score is usually based upon mobility, piece-square value, center control, history, attacking potential, captures, and other elements the programmer thinks is important.  Just as humans base their candidate moves based on intuition and history, the computer searches the highest scoring move first.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the computer is limited to only five nodes, then yes, the computer will only search the five highest scoring moves.  This time limit factor could cause to computer to miss a mate-in-one if it was scored poorly.  The first method to correct for this was to establish fail-safes.  These would cut short a search if the position became noticeably worse or significantly better.  The hope was to allow for more time to search more variations that might use the time better.  Other search algorithms, iterative deepening,  have improved the time management as they have a shorter length before they enact a fail-safe.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12449" LastActivityDate="2018-01-04T11:59:46.633" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19581" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19462" CreationDate="2018-01-04T15:59:32.427" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Once the first castling took place, the castled rook can easily face the king on the other side. This is a potential threat, which should be neutralized in advance. One way of handling this threat is by responding with castling, which explains the frequent cases in which castling is a consecutive move on both sides of the board. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that another way to neutralize such a threat in advance would be protecting the vulnerable squares between the opponent's rook and the threatened king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15252" LastActivityDate="2018-01-04T15:59:32.427" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19582" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19462" CreationDate="2018-01-04T17:34:03.407" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;GM Ben Feingold recently published a &lt;a href=&quot;https://youtu.be/_J6Sppj5dRk&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;lecture to Youtube on Castling vs. Non-Castling positions&lt;/a&gt; which helps to answer your question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;When one player castles and the other doesn't, it creates an imbalance in the position. The non-castling player is trading King safety for some amount of tempo/activity. The castling player now has the opportunity to attack a less safe King.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason you often see two players castling in succession is that the players are attempting to maintain the balance in the position. Also, they may be ensuring that they have the time/opportunity to castle. If they delay, their castled opponent may be able to apply sufficient pressure to make castling either impossible or imprudent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11105" LastActivityDate="2018-01-04T17:34:03.407" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19584" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3958" CreationDate="2018-01-04T20:32:08.350" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Obviously, checkmate, the agreed upon stalemate was &quot;AFTER&quot; the 16th move. The opponent was mated on the 16th move, so checkmate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15433" LastActivityDate="2018-01-04T20:32:08.350" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19585" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2409" CreationDate="2018-01-05T02:25:17.190" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a very sensible question for a beginner to ask, but as you progress beyond being a beginner, as I hope you do, you will come to realize that it has no answer.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastActivityDate="2018-01-05T02:25:17.190" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19586" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-01-05T22:05:27.380" Score="5" ViewCount="366" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was recently given a retrograde analysis problem to solve. Even though I've managed to at least intuitively get close to an answer, I don't know how to put it in the form of an acceptable proof. For example, I can see that the a5 bishop must be a promoted piece, but I don't see how it could have escaped White's pawn structure, unless f2 square was originally free and is now occupied by a Black pawn. But for the knight question, I don't see a clear way of distinguishing it. I am hoping that someone could show how to tackle such problems on a firm footing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &amp;quot;r2qk2r/1ppbp1p1/1pn2n2/b2pP3/3P4/2N3P1/PPP5/R2QK2R w - - 0 1  &amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We are told that neither kings have moved yet, that there's a pawn on f2 square, and a White knight on either the f3 or f4 square.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Prove the f2 pawn's color and whether the White knight belongs on f3 or on f4.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15078" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-09-15T03:22:00.047" LastActivityDate="2020-09-15T03:22:00.047" Title="Prove the pawn's color and the knight's position" Tags="&lt;problems&gt;&lt;retrograde-analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="19587" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19590" CreationDate="2018-01-05T22:15:22.633" Score="4" ViewCount="367" Body="&lt;p&gt;Suppose I'm playing in a small, 6-round tournament. I win the first five rounds, which also guarantees at least a share of 1st regardless of the results of the last round. What are the ethics of play in the last round? Say the opponent comes to the board and offers a draw before making a move. He judges he's not likely to beat me, so a draw is a good result for him. He's of the opinion that since the result doesn't matter to me, I might as well accept. Should I accept? What if the opponent plays a few moves, and offers a draw in a position I assess as better for me, but still has a lot of play left in it? What if the opponent offers a draw in a position in which he is dead lost?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I take the draw, I insulate myself from a potential blunder. I also guarantee I win the tournament, not just share first. However by not beating my opponent, I give him an undeserved half-point and more prize money, and it's not fair for my opponents in the first five rounds who had to play me when I was incentivized to win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there some kind of convention for this kind of situation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastActivityDate="2018-01-06T01:18:19.077" Title="Ethics of play in the last rounds of a tournament" Tags="&lt;ethics&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19588" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19591" CreationDate="2018-01-05T22:24:51.240" Score="1" ViewCount="221" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the last round of the Candidates of the 2013 World Championship, there were two players left in contention. Kramnik (black vs. Ivanchuk) needed to outperform Carlsen (white vs. Svidler). In the event, Carlsen lost, so Kramnik only needed to draw, but he also had a lost position and resigned shortly afterwards. Carlsen went on to win the tournament and the title.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now suppose that Ivanchuk hates Carlsen and really doesn't want Carlsen to win. Could he have offered a draw to Kramnik? That would be match manipulation of a sort - he's effectively making Kramnik champion. However I don't see how an outsider can stop him from offering a draw in a winning position, unless they offer him advice during the game (&quot;you're in a winning position! Don't offer a draw!&quot;) which should be illegal. Afterwards he can always claim that he didn't think he was winning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there some kind of rule that prevents this kind of scenario? Strictly speaking, a Carlsen-hating Ivanchuk could also have thrown the game (&quot;I just happened not to see that my queen was &lt;em&gt;en prise&lt;/em&gt;&quot;), which would've forced Carlsen to win. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastActivityDate="2018-01-06T09:59:13.957" Title="Candidates 2013: could Ivanchuk have drawn?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;ethics&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19589" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19586" CreationDate="2018-01-05T22:49:29.653" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;In both parts we know one to be true, which means it suffices to disprove one possibility for each and that settles the proof.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Part one:&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;Let's start by assuming the pawn on &lt;code&gt;f2&lt;/code&gt; is white and work our way up to see if we hit any inconsistencies. So here's our diagram:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [title &quot;Assuming f2 pawn is white&quot;]&#xA; [fen &quot;r2qk2r/1ppbp1p1/1pn2n2/b2pP3/3P4/2N3P1/PPP2P2/R2QK2R w - - 0 1 &quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First trivial observation is the fact that the black bishop on a5 is a promoted piece as the original dark square bishop could never have escaped from &lt;code&gt;f8&lt;/code&gt;. This means either the &lt;code&gt;h&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;f&lt;/code&gt; pawn has promoted on &lt;code&gt;g1&lt;/code&gt; into a bishop that is now on &lt;code&gt;a5&lt;/code&gt;. Having a white pawn on &lt;code&gt;f2&lt;/code&gt; also implies that the &lt;code&gt;g3&lt;/code&gt; pawn isn't the &lt;code&gt;h&lt;/code&gt;-pawn having made a capture on &lt;code&gt;g3&lt;/code&gt; or else the promoted bishop could never have escaped white's kingside and reach &lt;code&gt;a5&lt;/code&gt;, thus, &lt;code&gt;g2-g3&lt;/code&gt; is played at some point, and it was on &lt;code&gt;g2&lt;/code&gt; when black made the promotion (else no escape route). This in turn means the promoted black pawn must have been the &lt;code&gt;h&lt;/code&gt;-pawn. But how did it get passed the &lt;code&gt;h&lt;/code&gt; pawn? We know that white is down three pieces, the two bishops and the &lt;code&gt;h&lt;/code&gt;-pawn. Additionally, we know that one piece was captured on &lt;code&gt;b6&lt;/code&gt; and one on &lt;code&gt;g1&lt;/code&gt; (for black's h-pawn to promote). Now both &lt;code&gt;b6&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;g1&lt;/code&gt; are dark squares, but 'h2' pawn couldn't have been captured on either, nor could have the &lt;code&gt;f1&lt;/code&gt; bishop as it is a light square piece. Therefore, white must also have a promoted piece, as nothing else accounts for the missing captured piece, for instance a knight (or any other non-pawn) being captured on &lt;code&gt;g1&lt;/code&gt; by the &lt;code&gt;h7&lt;/code&gt; pawn and the &lt;code&gt;h2&lt;/code&gt; having promoted into a knight. So clearly the &lt;code&gt;h&lt;/code&gt; pawn hasn't been captured but has instead been promoted. But therein lies the conflict: one of the &lt;code&gt;h&lt;/code&gt;-pawns must have made &lt;em&gt;at least&lt;/em&gt; two captures to get passed the other &lt;code&gt;h&lt;/code&gt;-pawn. It couldn't have been the white pawn as black has only lost one piece so far, but it cannot be the black &lt;code&gt;h&lt;/code&gt;-pawn either, because it must have then made 3 captures, 2 to get passed the white &lt;code&gt;h&lt;/code&gt;-pawn and one last capture on &lt;code&gt;g1&lt;/code&gt; to promote into the &lt;code&gt;a5&lt;/code&gt; bishop. Knowing a capture on &lt;code&gt;b6&lt;/code&gt; has also taken place, this accounts for a total of 4 captures, but white has only lost 3 pieces at most. Thus, neither &lt;code&gt;h&lt;/code&gt;-pawns could have legally promoted given that the &lt;code&gt;f2&lt;/code&gt; pawn is white, so our starting assumption must be wrong. &lt;strong&gt;We conclude the &lt;code&gt;f2&lt;/code&gt; pawn must be a black pawn.&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;Notice that throughout the analysis, the position of the knight either &lt;code&gt;f3/f4,&lt;/code&gt; would have made no discernible difference on the resolution of the &lt;code&gt;f&lt;/code&gt;-pawn's conflict, so we were safe to do the analysis independently. The reverse is not true, namely, the knight's position is very much dependent on the fact that the pawn on &lt;code&gt;f2&lt;/code&gt; is black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Part two:&lt;/strong&gt; Knowing now that the &lt;code&gt;f2&lt;/code&gt; pawn is a black pawn, let's take the most restrictive case and assume the knight is on &lt;code&gt;f3&lt;/code&gt; and perform a similar analysis to see if we hit any walls. So here's the corresponding diagram:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[title &quot;Assuming the knight is on f3&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;r2qk2r/1ppbp1p1/1pn2n2/b2pP3/3P4/2N2NP1/PPP2p2/R2QK2R w - - 0 1 &quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is the most restrictive consideration as it forces the &lt;code&gt;f7&lt;/code&gt; pawn to have made at least 2 captures to reach &lt;code&gt;f2,&lt;/code&gt; because the white knight is assumed to be on &lt;code&gt;f3&lt;/code&gt;, which means that &lt;code&gt;f7&lt;/code&gt; pawn must have just made a capture on &lt;code&gt;f2&lt;/code&gt; from &lt;code&gt;e3&lt;/code&gt; (that it reached from yet another capture). So far we have accounted for 4 white pieces having been captured and the &lt;code&gt;h7&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;h2&lt;/code&gt; having promoted for black and white respectively. The only&lt;sup&gt;1&lt;/sup&gt; way the latter could have happened is if the &lt;code&gt;h7&lt;/code&gt; pawn (i) made two captures to go around the white &lt;code&gt;h&lt;/code&gt;-pawn, or (ii) made only one capture from &lt;code&gt;h3&lt;/code&gt; (so taking something on &lt;code&gt;g2&lt;/code&gt;) while white's &lt;code&gt;h2&lt;/code&gt; pawn still untouched. (i) is impossible by just considering the piece count, because so far there has been one capture on &lt;code&gt;b6&lt;/code&gt;, two captures by &lt;code&gt;f7&lt;/code&gt; pawn and two by the &lt;code&gt;h7&lt;/code&gt; pawn, and that is already more captures than the number pieces white has lost. So only option is (ii): we know that the &lt;code&gt;h7&lt;/code&gt; pawn must have captured a non-pawn piece on &lt;code&gt;g2&lt;/code&gt; (as the &lt;code&gt;g3&lt;/code&gt; white pawn couldn't have been from either the &lt;code&gt;h&lt;/code&gt; pawn which promoted, or the &lt;code&gt;f2&lt;/code&gt; pawn as black only lost one piece and that was the original &lt;code&gt;f8&lt;/code&gt; bishop on its original square). This in turn implies that &lt;code&gt;g2-g3&lt;/code&gt; must have been played by white before &lt;code&gt;h7&lt;/code&gt; captured on &lt;code&gt;g2&lt;/code&gt;. But that means the promoted black bishop could not have escaped white's kingside via the &lt;code&gt;g3-e5&lt;/code&gt; diagonal anymore, therefore, it must have escaped from the &lt;code&gt;f2-d4&lt;/code&gt; diagonal instead, which settles the fact that the &lt;code&gt;f7&lt;/code&gt; pawn couldn't have captured a pawn on &lt;code&gt;f2&lt;/code&gt; (from &lt;code&gt;e3&lt;/code&gt;), or else the bishop could never have reached &lt;code&gt;a5&lt;/code&gt;, had there still been a pawn on &lt;code&gt;f2&lt;/code&gt; just presumably captured by black's &lt;code&gt;f7&lt;/code&gt; pawn.&#xA;Now here's the dilemma: what on earth happened to white's &lt;code&gt;f2&lt;/code&gt; pawn in all this? Can we logically account for it knowing black just took a non-pawn piece on &lt;code&gt;f2&lt;/code&gt; and there's a white knight lying on &lt;code&gt;f3&lt;/code&gt; (starting assumption)? It definitely couldn't have been the piece that the &lt;code&gt;f7&lt;/code&gt; pawn captured to reach the &lt;code&gt;e-file&lt;/code&gt; either as white only made one capture and that was on &lt;code&gt;f8&lt;/code&gt;, so &lt;code&gt;f2&lt;/code&gt;-white-pawn couldn't have magically been on the &lt;code&gt;e&lt;/code&gt;-file. Trivially, it couldn't have been captured on &lt;code&gt;b6&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;g2&lt;/code&gt; either. It couldn't have been promoted either as it would have forced black's king to move (disallowed in the starting description). So &lt;code&gt;f2&lt;/code&gt; pawn couldn't have been promoted, or been accounted for by any of the four captures performed by black, but somehow it isn't on the board, thus, we can conclude that we've reached an inconsistency again, meaning there's no logical set of events that would legally reach the position given above with the knight standing on &lt;code&gt;f3&lt;/code&gt; which was our original assumption, &lt;strong&gt;so the knight must be on &lt;code&gt;f4.&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Come to think of it, there's a much shorter way of realising that the knight cannot be on &lt;code&gt;f3&lt;/code&gt; without focusing on the fate of the white &lt;code&gt;f2&lt;/code&gt;-pawn: quick recap of captures: we know a dark square piece has been captured on b6, two non-pawn pieces captured one on e-file and one on &lt;code&gt;f2,&lt;/code&gt; one non-pawn piece also captured on &lt;code&gt;g2&lt;/code&gt;. But how many non-pawn pieces has white lost? The two bishops and another non-pawn (we cannot know which because we don't know what piece the &lt;code&gt;h2&lt;/code&gt; pawn promoted into) on the &lt;code&gt;e&lt;/code&gt;-file. That's 3, so there's no other non-pawn left for black to have just captured on &lt;code&gt;f2&lt;/code&gt; (we already know it couldn't have been a pawn on &lt;code&gt;f2&lt;/code&gt; captured). And that's another formulation of the same inconsistency. Notice that if we are to assume that the non-pawn captured on &lt;code&gt;f2&lt;/code&gt; was a piece that resulted from the promotion of the &lt;code&gt;f2&lt;/code&gt;-pawn, then it implies that the &lt;code&gt;f2&lt;/code&gt; pawn reached &lt;code&gt;f7&lt;/code&gt; with a check and was not captured by anything thus allowed to promote, but that's impossible as we know neither kings have moved yet, in other words, if the &lt;code&gt;f2&lt;/code&gt; pawn were to ever promote it must have gone passed the &lt;code&gt;f7&lt;/code&gt; square without being captured, which is impossible. Anyhow, let's end with the final correct diagram:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [title &quot;Solution&quot;]&#xA; [fen &quot;r2qk2r/1ppbp1p1/1pn2n2/b2pP3/3P1N2/2N3P1/PPP2p2/R2QK2R w - - 0 1 &quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you're interested in these kinds of discussions, have a look into the books of Raymond Smullyan, I even recall similar puzzles in one of his books but I have no copies at my disposal at the moment to check for you, maybe someone else can verify.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;sup&gt;&lt;sup&gt;1&lt;/sup&gt;: as the white pawn couldn't have made two captures to go around the black &lt;code&gt;h&lt;/code&gt; pawn, because white has only made one capture in this game and that has been the &lt;code&gt;f8&lt;/code&gt; bishop on its original square. &lt;/sup&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3594" LastActivityDate="2018-01-05T22:49:29.653" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19590" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19587" CreationDate="2018-01-06T01:09:05.683" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;USCF rule 14B6 states that &quot;it is unethical and unsporting to agree to a draw before a serious contest has begun&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, according to USCF rule 20L, manipulating results is not only prohibited, &quot;severe sanctions&quot; are called for, which might even include revocation of the offenders' USCF memberships.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to rule 20J, even discussing the possible results with your opponent is improper.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You are not, however, required to ignore the crosstable.  There's nothing wrong with taking a draw to ensure a tournament prize - provided you don't collude with your opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastEditorUserId="12629" LastEditDate="2018-01-06T01:18:19.077" LastActivityDate="2018-01-06T01:18:19.077" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19591" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19588" CreationDate="2018-01-06T09:59:13.957" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Other than the catchall rule mentioned by D M, Article 11.1: &lt;em&gt;The players shall take no action that will bring the game of chess into disrepute.&lt;/em&gt;, I don't think there is a rule that prevents such scenario directly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also I believe that it is pretty much impossible to set up such rule, because there are too many possibilities. Also it would be very difficult to enforce it. Think of the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You would have to prove intent, which seems rather difficult.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Games at this level are rarely played out to a completely won position. It would have been easy to either make a small blunder to equalize the position, or just to claim that you evaluated the position incorrectly as draw.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The outcome of one game can affect many things. Apart from the direct points, it might also affect tie-break scores or the Elo rating (which could be relevant for instance for participation in the candidate tournament). Whatever the outcome of the game somebody will always be unhappy and could claim that the result is match manipulation.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If there was such a rule every time you make a blunder you would be under suspicion of match manipulation.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Last round quick draws in tournaments are pretty common as are not-fought-to-the-end games in team competitions (if it secures a win for the team for instance). Seems like match manipulation to me as well, and not much is being done to prevent it.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2018-01-06T09:59:13.957" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19592" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12374" CreationDate="2018-01-06T15:52:39.480" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess has become a very young and fashionable sport. To become a good player you need to - First dilute chess complexity for your kid...go step by step.let him get interest. Like 8 Queen puzzle, pawn game only..or let him learn freely.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Start early , Take it as Fun , focus on developing interest with easy tools&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Never force to practice , keep stress totally out .&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Talk theory don’t teach theory. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Ensure getting good result since start..good means genious approach in play, toughness to win.  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Working more Hrs gives more result &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Every child is unique , don’t compare speed of learning. Ultimately depth of learning matters &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Play with stronger opponents  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15446" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-01-06T17:13:08.743" LastActivityDate="2018-01-06T17:13:08.743" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19593" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12374" CreationDate="2018-01-06T18:31:56.443" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have grown up loving chess from 4 years old playing a video-game(for Windows DOS), which a lot of old school animations.&#xA;The game is called &quot;Battle Chess&quot;.&#xA;You can play here: &lt;a href=&quot;https://classicreload.com/battle-chess.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://classicreload.com/battle-chess.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15447" LastActivityDate="2018-01-06T18:31:56.443" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19594" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-01-07T21:43:02.243" Score="3" ViewCount="172" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm Reading this tutorial and there are 2 definitions that confuse me :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Square+Mapping+Considerations&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Square+Mapping+Considerations&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What's is the Least significant File and Least Significant Rank ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15424" LastActivityDate="2018-01-07T23:25:20.703" Title="What's is the Least significant File and Least Significant Rank?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19595" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19594" CreationDate="2018-01-07T22:52:57.343" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;LSF and LSR are two ways to encode a chess board coordinate into a single integer number. LSF does that by { a1, b1, c1, ... } while LSR encodes by { a1, a2, a3 ... }.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2018-01-07T22:52:57.343" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19596" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19594" CreationDate="2018-01-07T23:25:20.703" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to the web site you cited:&#xA;    LSF squareIndex = 8*rankIndex + fileIndex (rank &amp;lt;&amp;lt; 3 | file)&#xA;    LSR squareIndex = 8*fileIndex + rankIndex (file &amp;lt;&amp;lt; 3 | rank)&#xA;(It also shows two bitmaps showing you both cases.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These just index each square either continuing along the ranks first or the files first.  Using the rank first, lsr, you align the board more to what you imagine the chessboard to be.  Using lsf, you generate pawn attack faster.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My opinion is to use lsr with the starting square being a8.  This allows for faster FEN and GUI conversions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12449" LastActivityDate="2018-01-07T23:25:20.703" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19597" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-01-09T01:09:49.373" Score="2" ViewCount="434" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/CMBs4.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/CMBs4.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;PQ9912&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The advertisements for this clock say that it has a pre-set count up feature, but I cannot find it, nor does the instruction manual say anything about it. Does anyone know if this clock has a count up feature and if so, how to use it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15464" LastActivityDate="2018-03-21T23:59:43.037" Title="LEAP PQ9912 Chess Timer - count up option" Tags="&lt;chess-clocks&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19598" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19385" CreationDate="2018-01-09T14:34:33.270" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't have enough reputation to comment, but &lt;a href=&quot;https://medium.com/applied-data-science/alphago-zero-explained-in-one-diagram-365f5abf67e0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;AlphaGo Zero Explained In One Diagram&lt;/a&gt; is pretty good.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also really like &lt;a href=&quot;http://web.stanford.edu/~surag/posts/alphazero.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; tutorial.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that the first link doesn't describe when to create (expand) nodes. That part can be a little confusing. &lt;a href=&quot;http://ml4dummies.blogspot.com/2018/01/some-confusion-i-encountered-while.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;This&lt;/a&gt; link may help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15467" LastEditorUserId="15467" LastEditDate="2018-01-10T16:04:00.863" LastActivityDate="2018-01-10T16:04:00.863" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19599" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19600" CreationDate="2018-01-09T15:33:03.850" Score="7" ViewCount="1219" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [fen &quot;8/3k1ppp/2p2n2/r2p4/p2Pp3/4P3/PP2BPPP/4K2R w - - 0 1 &quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At this position Stockfish has recommended &lt;code&gt;Kd2&lt;/code&gt;, and noticing how the black bishops are off the board the king seems safer centralizing itself, but ultimately when do you decide to advance/center the king and especially over advancing pawns or getting major pieces in better positions?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12876" LastEditorUserId="3594" LastEditDate="2020-02-03T09:58:39.023" LastActivityDate="2020-02-03T09:58:39.023" Title="When to move/centralize king?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;&lt;kings&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19600" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19599" CreationDate="2018-01-09T16:02:09.297" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The general rule of thumb is that&lt;/strong&gt;: if the queens are off the board then it's generally safe to keep the kings central in order to use them as active pieces (specially in endgames) instead of tucking them away into a safe corner. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But that's just a general rule, and like any other rule in chess it is to be taken with caution, because at the end of the day everything still depends on the precise context (i.e. concrete assessment of main lines). Easiest cases to assess are when there are not many open files and diagonals towards the king, because otherwise, well-coordinated minor pieces can tactically exploit an exposed king's position to either win material or win tempi. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your example, &lt;code&gt;Kd2&lt;/code&gt; is very natural because it &lt;em&gt;successfully&lt;/em&gt; achieves two goals: it centralizes your king (so bringing it equally close to weak points such as &lt;code&gt;b2&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;f2&lt;/code&gt;) and it activates your rook. I emphasize &lt;em&gt;successfully&lt;/em&gt;, because concretely speaking, there are currently no direct threats which prevent you from playing &lt;code&gt;Kd2.&lt;/code&gt; If instead you castle (assuming it's legal in this position), sure the rook gets activated, but the semi-open &lt;code&gt;b&lt;/code&gt;-file (e.g. &lt;code&gt;...Rb5&lt;/code&gt; though currently prevented by the bishop on &lt;code&gt;e2&lt;/code&gt;) will eventually bound your rook to the defense of the &lt;code&gt;b2&lt;/code&gt; pawn, potentially followed by &lt;code&gt;a3&lt;/code&gt;, and that's a healthy initiative for black with a dangerously advanced &lt;code&gt;a&lt;/code&gt;-pawn. But with the king on &lt;code&gt;d2,&lt;/code&gt; your king starts covering your queenside (&lt;code&gt;Kc3-Kb4&lt;/code&gt;, or &lt;code&gt;Kc2&lt;/code&gt;), enabling your rook to create counter-threats. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3594" LastActivityDate="2018-01-09T16:02:09.297" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19601" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-01-09T19:33:41.210" Score="3" ViewCount="251" Body="&lt;p&gt;Whites turn the analyzer suggests that my best move is Nxe5 &lt;img src=&quot;https://www.chess.com/dynboard?fen=rnbqk2r/ppp3bp/3p1p1p/4p3/2B1P3/2NP1N2/PPP2PPP/R2QK2R%20w%20KQkq%20-%202%207&amp;amp;board=brown&amp;amp;piece=classic&amp;amp;size=3&quot; alt=&quot;Nxe5&quot;&gt;&#xA;I really don't see why as I would just be trading away my knight for a pawn I don't see why this would be a good move&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15472" LastActivityDate="2018-01-09T20:02:28.367" Title="Chess dot com says this was my best move yet I don't have a clue why" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19603" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19601" CreationDate="2018-01-09T20:02:28.367" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;Black has an undeveloped queenside, a weak bishop on g7, lots of weaknesses on the light squares and consequently a very weak king position. This suggests potential tactics.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The point of 1. Nxe5 is that it opens the way for the white queen to h5. Together with the white bishop on c4 this should remind you of &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scholar%27s_mate&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Scholar's mate&lt;/a&gt; or variations of it. Even though you don't end up with immediate mate here, the position with the white queen and bishop entering black's position looks extremely dangerous for black and moves like Nxe5 or potentially moving the knight to other squares should certainly be considered.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Concretely, whichever way black captures the knight on e5 (dxe5 or fxe5), white can regain material by 2. Qh5+ Kd7 (2...Kf8 or 2...Ke7 are answered with 3 Qf7 mate) 3. Qg4+ Kc6 (or Ke8) 4. Qxg7 and end up with a winning position due to the extremely weak black king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If black does not capture the knight on e5, white still has a decisive advantage due to threats like Nf7 and its dominance on the light squares. Also white is up a pawn, though that is not essential here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2018-01-09T20:02:28.367" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19604" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19599" CreationDate="2018-01-09T21:28:13.600" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;TL;DR&lt;/strong&gt; There is no real guideline. When the kings come out is a matter of intuition, i.e. experience.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;When you need to activate the king - and when it's premature - is a matter of &quot;king feeling&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;King feeling&quot; is a subtle sense of knowing when it is safe to bring your king out of it's protective shell. This is not a matter of calculation ... and it's not a matter of applying rules&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the following game, black plays unconventionally. Instead of closing the position with 1...e5, he centralises his king:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;3r3r/p2nkp2/1p2p3/3P2pp/4Bq2/5P1Q/PP3P1P/2R1R1K1 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Shirov&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Karpov&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;  1. Ne5            dxe6          &#xA;  2. f5             Rc7+          &#xA;  3. Kd6            Rxa7          &#xA;  4. fxe4           e7            &#xA;  5. Nxf3+          Kf1           &#xA;  6. Rde8           Qd7+          &#xA;  7. Ke5             *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source for quote and example game: &lt;em&gt;The wisest things ever said about chess&lt;/em&gt; by GM Soltis&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2018-01-09T21:28:13.600" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19605" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1707" CreationDate="2018-01-10T13:23:31.710" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;While the accepted answer gives the correct evaluation of the position and a useful link, I think it is important to detail a little bit more the strategy in this interesting rook endgame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First of all, it is important to notice that Black &lt;em&gt;cannot&lt;/em&gt; keep the white king cut away from the pawns. Offering rook exchanges and hiding behind the white rook, the king will make its way until d2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;8/8/8/3k3p/3P3K/2P3R1/8/7r w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1.Rh3 Rg1 2.Kxh5 Rg8 3.Rf3 Kc4 4.Kh4 Rg7 5.Rg3! Rf7 6.Kg4 Rf8 7.Rf3 Rg8 8.Kf4 Rf8! 9.Kg3 (9.Ke3 Re8)  (9.Ke4 Re8! {and the king has to go back}) Rg8 10.Kf2 Re8 11.Re3 Rf8 12.Ke2 Rd8 13.Kd2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Actually, if the white king could rather reach the upper part of the board in front of its pawns (say, e5 or d6), he would win, but as shown in the sub-variation above, Black can prevent this with frontal checks since the white rook has to stay on the third rank protecting its pawn on c3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When the white king reaches d2, White has a strong threat of Re5-c5+, kicking the black king out of its blockading position. To save the draw, Black &lt;em&gt;must&lt;/em&gt; react and prepare a check on the second rank, grab the Pc3 and reach a well-known KRPKR theoretical endgame:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;3r4/8/8/8/2kP4/2P1R3/3K4/8 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1...Rh8! 2.Re5 Rh2! 3.Ke3 (3.Re2 Rh3) Kxc3 4.Rc5 Kb4 5.Rc8 Rh3 6.Ke4 Rh4 7.Ke5 Rh5 8.Kf4 Rh4 9.Ke5 Rh5 10.Kf6 Rd5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After 4.Rc5 the black king is cut one file away from the white pawn and White is aiming for a winning Lucena position. There are two possible defenses for Black: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a. frontal checks, which works when the pawn has not crossed the half of the board: Re8-d8-e8 etc harrassing the white king. White can prevent that with 5.Rc8!?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;b: lateral checks, which works when the 'long side' of the pawn is available, i.e. when the defensive king is cut on the 'short side': it is the case here, so black can secure the draw by checking from the h-file 5...Rh3 6.Ke4 Rh4 7.Ke5 Rh5 etc. White cannot make any progress.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus the king being cut on the short side is the decisive factor. Indeed, if in the starting position we move the central pawns one file to the right, White is totally winning:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;8/8/8/4k2p/4P2K/3P2R1/8/7r w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1.Rh3 Rg1 2.Kxh5 Rg8 3.Rf3 Kc4 4.Kh4 Kd4 5.Rg3! Rf7 6.Kg4 Rf8 7.Rf3 Rg8 8.Kf4 Rf8 9.Kg3 Rg8 10.Kf2 Re8 11.Ke2 Rh8 12.Rf5! Rh2 13.Kf3 Kxd3 14.Rd5 Kc4 15.Rd8 Rh5 16.Kg4 {The black rook lacks a i-file.} Re5 17.Kf4 Rh5 18.e5 {White progresses and will reach a Lucena position soon.}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastEditorUserId="14079" LastEditDate="2018-03-13T08:50:18.627" LastActivityDate="2018-03-13T08:50:18.627" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19606" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19607" CreationDate="2018-01-10T14:08:54.700" Score="0" ViewCount="150" Body="&lt;p&gt;I live in Maharashtra, India, and can't find any tournaments (that don't take a lot of entry fee) to participate in, and I really want to. There are some clubs near me, though. What I wanted to ask is that will chess clubs notify me regularly about tournaments (I want to participate in ANY tournament I can, that doesn't cost TOO much in entry fee, and is not TOO far from me) that I can participate in?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15477" LastActivityDate="2018-01-10T19:49:21.450" Title="clubs -&gt; tournaments?" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;clubs&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19607" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19606" CreationDate="2018-01-10T14:30:05.597" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, chess clubs usually inform their players about tournaments organized in the vicinity. Anyway, you can ask any particular club about its policy before joining it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastActivityDate="2018-01-10T14:30:05.597" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19608" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8220" CreationDate="2018-01-10T16:28:00.227" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In your second plan, you say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Black can block White's d pawn, but White can always force a win due to Black knight's limited mobility and zugzwang.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That is White's hope for sure, but it should not happen. For instance, in the line you give, 18...Nf6?? is very collaborative: why not 18....Nd6 with a clear draw ? Your knight is not going to be zugzwanged since White cannot control c4, b5, e4, f7, e8, c8 and b7 at the same time. If the white king aims for f5, simply Kf6 will stop him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[White &quot;Villain (2200)&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Hero (2000)&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;2B3k1/5pp1/4p3/8/3Pn3/4P1PP/6K1/8 b - - 0 3&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;3... Nd6 4.Ba6 Kf8 5.Bd3 Kg8 6.Kf3 Kf8 7.e4 Kg8 8.d5 exd5 ( 8...Kf8 9.e5 ) 9.exd5 Kf8 10.Ke3 Kg8 11.Kd4 Kf8 12.Kc5 Ke7 13.Kc6 g6 ( 13...f6 14.Kc7 Ne8+ 15.Kc6 ) 14.Kc7 Ne8+ 15.Kc6 f5 16.g4 ( 16.h4 Nd6 17.Bc2 Ne8 18.g4 {White gets a h-passer, but the g-pawn gives enough counterplay for Black.} fxg4 19.Bxg6 Nd6 20.Bd3 g3 21.Bf1 Nf5 22.h5 Kf6 {is drawn as well}) fxg4 17.hxg4 g5 18.Bg6 Nd6! ( 18...Nf6? 19.d6+ Kd8 20.Bf5 Ng8 21.Kd5 Nf6+ 22.Ke6 Nd7 23.Kf7 Ne5+ 24.Kf6 Nc4 25.d7 ) 19.Bd3 Ne8 20.Bg6 Nd6 21.Kc5 Nb7 22.Kd4 Kf6 23.Bd3 Nd6 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Admittedly, earlier in your line, White could aim for a passed h-pawn instead of exchanging with g4. And 8.d5?! doesn't look very smart either. But the position should be drawn anyway.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyway, this &quot;second plan&quot; looks like the most natural: ask white to demonstrate how he plans to makes progress, exchanges pawns and block the passer on a dark square.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastEditorUserId="14079" LastEditDate="2020-01-07T09:18:48.563" LastActivityDate="2020-01-07T09:18:48.563" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="19609" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19606" CreationDate="2018-01-10T19:49:21.450" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, even if the club does not formally inform you of tournaments, you would most likely learn about them by talking to other players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also most clubs would organize club only tournaments and other small local tournaments that are difficult to learn about from the internet. Besides, you might be able to participate in team league competitions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2018-01-10T19:49:21.450" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19611" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19396" CreationDate="2018-01-11T17:41:47.253" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Another contender is Kubikschach.   A 3-dimensional variant played on an 8x8x8 board (512 squares total)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15491" LastActivityDate="2018-01-11T17:41:47.253" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19612" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19360" CreationDate="2018-01-11T19:51:23.807" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;More human in the sense that the moves it plays seem to coincide more or less with an human approach : play for long-term advantage, positional sacrifices, piece activity. There is an apparent convergence with human chess knowledge and accepted strategic principles refined over the centuries (e.g. it &quot;discovered&quot; many same openings). This is remarkable given the fact that AlphaZero has not been seeded with human-constructed chess knowledge.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But the similarities end here. AlphaZero takes it to the next level and does it better, and in ways humans have never conceived. AlphaZero possesses &quot;superhuman&quot; capabilities to quote the paper : &quot;AlphaZero achieved a superhuman level of play [...]&quot; (&lt;a href=&quot;https://arxiv.org/pdf/1712.01815.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://arxiv.org/pdf/1712.01815.pdf&lt;/a&gt;). In addition it doesn't have the weaknesses inherents to humans beings: concentration issues, fear, tiredness, feelings, intuition, etc. that limit humans. And its silicon brain allows for tactical combinations beyond human capabilities when necessary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15493" LastEditorUserId="15493" LastEditDate="2018-01-11T20:37:18.130" LastActivityDate="2018-01-11T20:37:18.130" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19613" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4679" CreationDate="2018-01-12T09:32:29.763" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The queen is stronger early on in the game, as a rule, on a very crowded board. Queen strength doesn't vary much as the game progresses, but rooks become significantly more useful as pawns start coming off the board and lines start opening up. So if both sides still have their entire armies except for a queen for one, both rooks for the other, the queen will probably be better because it's more agile, while the rooks tend to get blocked by things.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15499" LastActivityDate="2018-01-12T09:32:29.763" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19614" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4679" CreationDate="2018-01-12T10:14:38.290" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a general rule, &lt;strong&gt;two Rooks tend to be stronger than a Queen&lt;/strong&gt;. Typical endgames like 2R+5P vs Q+5P are much better for the rooks who will coordinate to attack the opponent's weakest pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, some factors can favor the queen:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Open kings&lt;/strong&gt; : the queen is very strong in direct mating attacks. It can checkmate with minimal support, fork king and unprotected pieces along different lines, or simply secure a perpetual check when needed. If the kings are weak and the game is wild, the high mobility of the queen can thus prove more useful than the rooks. (of course, it is even better if only your opponent's king is weak...)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Knights&lt;/strong&gt; : as a general rule, the more minor pieces are on the board, the better for the side with the queen: minor pieces reduce the space available for the rook (e.g., by controling entry squares on the open files), make it more probable to build an attack against the opponent king (see point 1), and can protect weak points to diminish the numerical advantage of the rooks. Knights in particular coordinate better with the queen than with the rooks, so a material balance like (QN vs RRN) or (QNN vs RRNB) might not be disavantageous at all.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;General strategic pluses&lt;/strong&gt; : beside the Q vs RR factor, all other strategical rules remain important as in any chess game: weak pawns, passers, coordination, activity (especially open files), tactical threats or a few tempi will change the evaluation of a position with this material balance as often as with any other.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastEditorUserId="14079" LastEditDate="2018-01-22T13:57:18.570" LastActivityDate="2018-01-22T13:57:18.570" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19615" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19618" CreationDate="2018-01-12T15:27:09.807" Score="4" ViewCount="2581" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/8/8/3pk3/1K6/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even with White to move, the game is lost. OK, but according to what rule/principle?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With 1. Kc3 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I'm able to get first to one of the key squares (c3,d3,e3)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I get the diagonal opposition with the black King&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I can occupy the black's promotion square before the black's King&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In spite of all that, the ending is lost. Is it because I can't keep the oposition?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;p.s.&#xA;The point of all this is to be able to evaluate this basic position only by applying rules, not having to calculate the concrete variations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15253" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-01-12T16:11:34.843" LastActivityDate="2019-12-19T21:55:12.680" Title="Why is this King and Pawn ending lost for White?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;pawn-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19616" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-01-12T15:40:05.843" Score="1" ViewCount="568" Body="&lt;p&gt;I started playing the Colle system as white about 3 months ago. I have played 9 league games with it and lost every one! The sequence of moves that cause me the most problems is 1.d4 d5 2.Nf3 Nf6 (note that black already has two units hitting &#xA;the vital e4 square) 3.e3 Bf5 4.Bd3 Ne4. This might well be a bad move by black, but I have no idea how to play against it. Trying to dislodge the knight with f2-f3 would entail me having to move my f3-knight again and the pawn move would weaken my kingside.The only plan I use at the moment is to play Nbd2, c3 and Qc2 to force black to exchange. But that gets rid of my important d3-bishop and stymies any notion of continuing with a king-side attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14294" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-01-12T16:07:26.337" LastActivityDate="2018-01-16T12:47:28.673" Title="How do I play the Colle System as white?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;colle-system&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19617" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19615" CreationDate="2018-01-12T15:54:42.467" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The diagonal (or horizontal) opposition doesn't do anything for you here because it doesn't help you prevent the black king from controlling the promotion square. If you slide down the c file, keeping the diagonal opposition, the black king just slide down the e file until it reaches e2, and then the pawn can simply march forward. And if you move your king to the d file, the black king can get the vertical opposition, forcing you to move out of the way until again it reaches e2 or c2, controlling the promotion square.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You could draw if you could get to the d file with the opposition, and without the pawn having extra tempos, but that would require black to blunder, for example 1.Kc3 Ke4 2.Kc2 Kd4?? 3.Kd2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I guess the bottom line is that &quot;not all oppositions are created equal&quot;, and often you do need to look at concrete variations anyway. Opposition is a tool, but what really matters here is getting control of the promotion square.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12523" LastActivityDate="2018-01-12T15:54:42.467" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19618" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19615" CreationDate="2018-01-12T16:10:28.810" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you want to evaluate this ending with general rules, the rule of key squares is a good way to deal with it. However, this rule doesn't say &quot;whoever reaches a key square first will get the result he is aiming for&quot;, it says &quot;if the offensive king (here, Black) reaches one of the key squares, he will win.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here after 1.Kc3 Ke4 2.Kd2 Kd4 you cannot prevent Black's king to reach one of the three key squares, so you lose.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/8/8/3pk3/1K6/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Kc3 Ke4 2.Kd2 Kd4 3. Kc2 (3. Ke2 Kc3) Ke3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-12-19T21:55:12.680" LastActivityDate="2019-12-19T21:55:12.680" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="19619" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19615" CreationDate="2018-01-12T16:11:01.657" Score="6" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The point of all this is to be able to evaluate this basic position only by applying rules, not having to calculate the concrete variations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well, the basic rule of (single) pawn endings is that if the side with the pawn manages to get their king on one of the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_and_pawn_versus_king_endgame#Pawns_other_than_rook_pawns&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;key squares&lt;/a&gt; (and the pawn can't be taken on the next move), it's a win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I'm able to get first to one of the key squares&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It doesn't matter that you're the first one to get there, that's probably where your mistake lies.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2018-01-12T16:11:01.657" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19620" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19616" CreationDate="2018-01-12T16:23:50.477" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;It would be easier to answer would you show us some of your games where you tried the f3-plan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5.Ne5 or 5.0-0 aiming for a quick f2-f3 indeed make sense. However, I would argue that the most logical answer is to quit your Colle schemes (after all, Black has a strong grip on e4...) and switch to 5.c4 (or 5.0-0 first, followed by 6.c4)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After 4...Ne4 Black has played twice the same piece and reduced his control of d5. The early development of Bc8 has also left b7 unprotected, which may become a target to a later attack by Qb3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After the approximative line 5.c4 e6 6.Nc3 (6.Qb3!?, 6.Qc2!?, 6.0-0) c6 7.Qc2 Black cannot maintain his e4-outpost:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;7...Bb4 8.0-0&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;7...Nxc3 8.Bxf5 exf5 9.bxc3 and Black center will collapse to a later cxd5 and c3-c4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;7...Nd6 might be best but Black has lost some time. You can try to exploit this by giving a pawn with 8.Bxf5 Nxf5 9.0-0 followed by e3-e4, or play more conservatively with 8.b3. White must be slightly better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastEditorUserId="14079" LastEditDate="2018-01-13T08:52:40.907" LastActivityDate="2018-01-13T08:52:40.907" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19621" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19615" CreationDate="2018-01-12T16:52:14.447" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The reason why he can't stop you from reaching the key squares is because he cannot prevent you from gaining the opposition (while your pawn is still behind you).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15504" LastActivityDate="2018-01-12T16:52:14.447" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19622" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19615" CreationDate="2018-01-12T18:52:00.487" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;A simple rule of thumb for king and pawn endings is that when the king is in front of the pawn then it is a win. The reason is that king will be able to gain opposition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9321" LastActivityDate="2018-01-12T18:52:00.487" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19623" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1707" CreationDate="2018-01-12T21:38:57.793" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a very late answer, but if you check 7-piece Lomonosov tablebases, it shows the original position is a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/analysis/standard/8/8/8/3k3p/3P3K/2P3R1/8/7r_w_-_-_0_1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Here is a link to the proof.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13928" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-01-02T11:55:25.913" LastActivityDate="2020-01-02T11:55:25.913" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="19624" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19616" CreationDate="2018-01-13T10:39:22.160" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Bf5 disrupts your plan to play Bd3 and eventually push e4, but it comes at some cost. The b7 square is no longer protected and black's bishop has left the queenside, so that's a good place to focus your attention. You should abandon your c3 plan and play c4 followed by Qb3 and work on the queenside.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black is essentially playing a reverse London system, and a good plan against that system is to do exactly what I'm suggesting here, but here you're a move up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess is a concrete game and a good player must be flexible. Black has pre-empted your original plan, but all moves leave a weakness somewhere and you should always look to see if it's something you can exploit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stubbornly sticking to a plan that has already been countered will lead to the sort of frustration and poor results that you say you've been experiencing. Instead use it as an opportunity. He's taken something away, but what has he given you in return?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Consider the analogy of an army with the task of seizing a castle. You have a plan of storming the front gate. When you arrive at the castle, however, you see that they have relocated most of their defenders to shore up the front. Would you just shrug your shoulders and continue with your plan, or would you think &quot;If they've increased their presence here then the other side of the castle must be weak, so maybe I should change my plan and attack there instead.&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15504" LastEditorUserId="15504" LastEditDate="2018-01-16T12:47:28.673" LastActivityDate="2018-01-16T12:47:28.673" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19627" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-01-13T19:15:40.370" Score="-3" ViewCount="379" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don’t have a picture to upload. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15512" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-01-13T22:51:01.763" LastActivityDate="2021-02-06T08:56:10.917" Title="In verbally describing a move, can you simply say: “B4f to Q5e?”" Tags="&lt;notation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19628" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19627" CreationDate="2018-01-13T19:22:52.163" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Since the standard algebraic notation dictates that we write Bf4 and Qe5 instead of the other way around, you normally just say &quot;Bishop (to) f4&quot;, &quot;Queen (to) e5&quot;, and so on. If we have a pawn capturing something, say &quot;fxe5&quot;, it's normal to say &quot;f takes e5&quot; or &quot;f e5&quot; for short; if instead a piece takes something, say &quot;Nxe5&quot;, it's normal to say &quot;Knight takes (on) e5&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In general, you should never change the order when speaking from how letters are written in notation. As noted in the comments, some people tend to use very compact notation describing moves, i.e. &quot;fe&quot; instead of &quot;fxe5&quot; when there is no ambiguity, and you may hear some people therefore say &quot;f e&quot; instead of &quot;fxe5&quot;, for instance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: I just realized that I misunderstood your question, and will therefore add an addendum to answer your specific question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the case you have a bishop on f4, and it takes a queen on e5 (I strongly suspect this is what you're asking about), you just say &quot;Bishop takes (on) e5&quot;; as long as there is no ambiguity in what you're describing you don't have to mention from which square the bishop moved, and it's never necessary to declare which type of piece the bishop took.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit 2: As noted in the comments, if there is no ambiguity (often there will not be) people may say &quot;[Piece] takes [Other piece]&quot; when a capture occurs; in the given example it would become &quot;Bishop takes Queen&quot;. As noted, this can be practical when describing a sequence of captures on the same square.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8300" LastEditorUserId="8300" LastEditDate="2018-01-14T06:38:52.757" LastActivityDate="2018-01-14T06:38:52.757" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19629" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-01-14T08:40:19.823" Score="8" ViewCount="343" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/4wTzj.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I need help Identifying this.&#xA;My grandfather was in ww2 and at one point in the navy he went to Russia and met a Russian Naval Officer to whom he traded for this set, and the officer said he got it from his grandfather, but I'd like some true speculation on it please.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15518" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-01-14T18:18:49.083" LastActivityDate="2021-03-15T03:42:28.547" Title="I need help Identifying where exactly this set came from" Tags="&lt;chess-set&gt;&lt;identify-this&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19630" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19629" CreationDate="2018-01-14T19:01:21.917" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here's the same set on ebay. More pictures of yours would be helpful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.ebay.com/itm/Vtg-Ceramic-Duncan-Medieval-Style-32Pc-Chess-Set-Hand-Painted-Faces-Detailed-74/263416351119?hash=item3d54d6898f:g:GaoAAOSw4A5Y0WX2&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.ebay.com/itm/Vtg-Ceramic-Duncan-Medieval-Style-32Pc-Chess-Set-Hand-Painted-Faces-Detailed-74/263416351119?hash=item3d54d6898f:g:GaoAAOSw4A5Y0WX2&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Perhaps the seller can help you learn more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you Google for &quot;ceramic duncan medieval chess&quot;, you'll get a lot of hits.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2018-01-14T19:01:21.917" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19631" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9325" CreationDate="2018-01-15T06:51:55.113" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Take a look at Diplomat Chess  &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diplomat_chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diplomat_chess&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15529" LastActivityDate="2018-01-15T06:51:55.113" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19632" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="883" CreationDate="2018-01-15T20:08:41.957" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've done a lot of research on this ending, as I was a little downcast to see so few good resources showing the technique. I've summarised my findings in two articles on my page:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The ending is broken down into two elements - &#xA;1. Winning from the Philidor position &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.thequietmove.com/queen-v-rook-ending-philidor/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.thequietmove.com/queen-v-rook-ending-philidor/&lt;/a&gt; and&#xA;2. How to get to the Philidor position from an open board &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.thequietmove.com/queen-v-rook-getting-to-philidor/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.thequietmove.com/queen-v-rook-getting-to-philidor/&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note you really have to know the Philidor win or rely on tactics and this ending is super-tough! Happy chessing&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12533" LastActivityDate="2018-01-15T20:08:41.957" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19633" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-01-16T00:24:12.040" Score="14" ViewCount="19649" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there a database of chess probpems that have the game or positions PGN and or FEN?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15536" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-04T22:28:30.557" LastActivityDate="2020-04-04T22:28:30.557" Title="Chess Problem Database with PGN or FEN" Tags="&lt;problems&gt;&lt;database&gt;&lt;pgn&gt;&lt;fen&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="19635" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19636" CreationDate="2018-01-16T12:12:10.427" Score="8" ViewCount="1065" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm watching a video on weak/strong squares. I think that I understand the concept, but not exactly why they are important in this game (Carlsen-Karjakin):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/6hJzu.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/6hJzu.png&quot; alt=&quot;weak squares carlsen-karjakin &quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The video explains how Carlsen maneuvered to outnumber Karjakin in number of pieces that can go into those squares. This includes exchanging his two bishops for Karjakin's two knights, in a game that a result of these changes, is opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is, why are these two squares so important? Specially &lt;code&gt;b5&lt;/code&gt; is quite far from both sides' kings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS: Carlsen indeed moves his knight to &lt;code&gt;b5&lt;/code&gt; later on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/DOM4i.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/DOM4i.png&quot; alt=&quot;development&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14457" LastEditorUserId="167" LastEditDate="2018-01-16T14:43:46.510" LastActivityDate="2018-01-16T14:43:46.510" Title="Why are these weak squares important in this situation?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;&lt;carlsen&gt;&lt;karjakin&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19636" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19635" CreationDate="2018-01-16T13:00:19.237" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;The final position is a very typical position of &lt;strong&gt;weak bishop against strong knight&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The knight has good outposts on d5 and b5, where it is supported/protected by white pawns and cannot be challenged by any black pieces unless black sacrifices an exchange (rook for knight). Also the white knight is very mobile and can basically go wherever it wants.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In contrast, black's bishop is very passive and bound to the protection of the d6 pawn. It is hindered in activity by its own pawns and cannot attack any white pawn (because most all of them and all relevant ones are on light squares).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Furthermore black has very weak pawns which are relatively easy to attack/win. Of course care needs to be taken, because black occupies the only open file, but other than that only white has winning chances.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;My question is, why are these two squares so important? Specially b5 is quite far from both sides' kings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The kings are both relatively safe and don't matter in this position. Basically to repeat what I wrote above: b5 and d5 are important because:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;white can put a &lt;strong&gt;protected&lt;/strong&gt; knight there which &lt;strong&gt;can not be challenged&lt;/strong&gt; (unless black sacrifices material&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;if there is a knight on d5 or b5 it not only covers lots of squares, but also attacks the weak pawns (b6, d6, f4)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;thanks to the knight and white pawns on c4 and e4, black cannot exchange his weak pawns on b6 and d6&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the knight on b5 or d5 is very mobile and can easily move in case it is needed somewhere else&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the point/plan for white as stated in the video is to leave black with his weakest minor piece and conserve a white knight to take advantage of these weak squares. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similar ideas appear in some lines of the Sicilian Najdorf, where white sometimes manages to exchange a dark squared bishop on f6 for a black knight, thereby reducing the number of black pieces that can cover the typical Najdorf hole (weak square on d5), while remaining with two knights and a light squared bishop all of which can take advantage of the weak light squares.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2018-01-16T13:00:19.237" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19637" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-01-16T13:03:07.073" Score="1" ViewCount="82" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have following this tutorial &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessbin.com/post/Chess-Piece-Representation&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chessbin.com/post/Chess-Piece-Representation&lt;/a&gt; to build simple chess engine right now .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;at the very first step of Chess Piece Class there are many things confuse me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;why do we need many values to evaluate a chess piece for example :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;pieceValue , pieceActionValue, AttackingValue, DefendingValue.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and is there any standard numerical values for evaluating chess pieces ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15424" LastActivityDate="2018-01-16T13:52:53.390" Title="Notes on Chess Piece Class" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19638" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19637" CreationDate="2018-01-16T13:52:53.390" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess engine algorithms are implementation dependent, thus there is no such thing as &quot;standard numerical values&quot;. Unfortunately, you will need to come up with your own values. However, you can apply some common sense such as the piece value for a queen must be higher than a rook. If you're confused, please take a look at the TSCP source code. It's a very simple chess engine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Everything you mention is standard in chess. When you play chess, you do look the attacking/defending pieces, right?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please take a read on:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Evaluation&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Evaluation&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Modern chess engines such as Stockfish has &lt;strong&gt;many&lt;/strong&gt; more evaluation terms. The difficulty in coding a evaluation function is the main motivation for machine learning (neural networks).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2018-01-16T13:52:53.390" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19639" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19633" CreationDate="2018-01-17T09:17:07.713" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://gorgonian.weebly.com/pgn.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://gorgonian.weebly.com/pgn.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://exeterchessclub.org.uk/downloads&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://exeterchessclub.org.uk/downloads&lt;/a&gt; (in chessbase format)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Exeter has many other valuable resources.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12449" LastEditorUserId="14079" LastEditDate="2018-02-16T09:41:33.573" LastActivityDate="2018-02-16T09:41:33.573" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19640" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18827" CreationDate="2018-01-17T13:54:35.570" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Double Check in 4 man chess basically means  checking  two kings in one move.&#xA;Same goes for triple check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS. It's not worth the points so don't go for it unless you win because of it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14471" LastActivityDate="2018-01-17T13:54:35.570" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19641" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19643" CreationDate="2018-01-17T14:00:43.277" Score="7" ViewCount="272" Body="&lt;p&gt;Variant chess is a relaxing break from standard chess. But in my chess club we are usually discouraged from playing such chess. I have  not seen any visible problem in my games. Can anyone tell me why variant chess is supposed to be bad for your game?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14471" LastEditorUserId="3594" LastEditDate="2019-10-09T12:25:53.330" LastActivityDate="2019-10-09T20:18:51.937" Title="Variant chess effect" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;chess-variants&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19643" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19641" CreationDate="2018-01-17T16:17:24.173" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well it's not necessarily &lt;em&gt;bad&lt;/em&gt; for your game, but it can easily lead to confusion because the evaluation and the gameplay in general in chess variants are very different compared to standard chess. As a result, because you are in a completely different mindset, routinely playing these variants &lt;em&gt;may&lt;/em&gt; make your understanding or judgement over standard chess games a bit rusty. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;tldr:&lt;/strong&gt; Obsessively playing a variant may make your standard chess feel a bit rusty, and also consume a lot of time that you would otherwise be spending to study standard chess (say endgames...), specially if you are a serious club player. On the flip-side, playing variants can &lt;em&gt;potentially&lt;/em&gt; make for good training of your calculation skills and attacking techniques/instincts, to name a few. But all in all, a healthy dose of them can be a lot of fun in fact, specially among friends :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To explain a tad on what I mean by different mindset or gameplay: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's take &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/variant/crazyhouse&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;crazyhouse&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt; as our first variant of choice: In this variant, any piece you capture from your opponent goes to your pocket (and vice versa), which means that during your turns you can either make a normal move according to the rules of chess, or insert a piece into play from your pocket. First consequence is the fact that there will be no endgame emerging from this variant of chess, because the pieces keep getting reshuffled around and re-enter the game. On the other hand, any gambit opening becomes unplayable, becomes you'd be giving free pawns that your opponent can place now anywhere they need! Finally, how you assess a given position would have to take into account all the variations branching out from different piece insertions. So naturally, when returning to standard chess, you'll be left with a strange feeling at first, but I wouldn't necessarily argue that playing crazyhouse will have a negative effect on your play. Because if anything, it does teach in a very direct way how to exploit weaknesses by immediately setting an attack using your pocket pieces (for instance you'll get a lot of chances to practice different checkmating techniques such as the smothered-mate). Simple example below:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [title &quot;Checkmate in 2: white to play (pocket: 1 pawn, 1 queen)&quot;]&#xA; [fen &quot;r1bk3r/ppppbppp/1p1N4/2n5/1pQ1N3/8/PPP2PPP/R1B1KB1R w KQ - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Solution:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt; &lt;code&gt;1.Q@e8+ Rxe8 2.Nxf7#&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/variant/threeCheck&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Three-check chess:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is more of a extreme example where even though usual checkmating is still valid, the game becomes all about avoiding checks no matter what, because one can also win by giving 3 checks to the opponent king. So you will be exposing and sacrificing all sorts of good material just to prevent a check (and conversely to give checks) that in standard chess wouldn't be a problem to face. So again, you see the mindset with which you will play and assess positions will be widely different from standard chess (see example below). All to say that, hopping back and forth between variants and standard chess, will at first leave you with confusing feelings when returning to standard chess and your evaluation will become a bit shaky, but after some playing you will quickly re-adjust again and it all comes back again of course ;)  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [title &quot;Three-check variant, typical mis-play example:&quot;]&#xA; [fen &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 h6 {`h6` would be a somewhat acceptable move to play had it been standard chess, to prevent Ng4, but in three-check it's a disaster of a move, because multiple forced wins in 6 moves follow for white from here! Try to find it one.}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Solution:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt; One possible solution: 4.Bxf7+ Ke7 (4...Kxf7 loses in 2, with e.g., Nxe5+ and Qf3+ last 2 checks) 5.Nh4 Nb4 {black's only attempt to delay the incoming two last checks by forcing a check with Nxc2+} 6.Ng6+ Kd6 7.d4 Nxc2+ 8.Qxc2 c6 {doesn't matter which move, the last queen check is unavoidable} 9.Qxc6+ {game over by 3 checks.}&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3594" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2019-10-09T13:26:24.233" LastActivityDate="2019-10-09T13:26:24.233" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="19645" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19647" CreationDate="2018-01-17T20:16:57.307" Score="21" ViewCount="5879" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know, I know, this sounds like a ridiculous question, but bear with me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As an example of my lack of understanding, let's take the advanced variation of the French defense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [title &quot;Advanced variation of the French Defense&quot;]&#xA; [fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.e5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The opening books say something like &quot;white advances their e-pawn to &lt;em&gt;gain space&lt;/em&gt; in the center&quot;. Now, try as I might, I simply can't see where the extra space is that white has gained!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They can't use the &lt;code&gt;f6&lt;/code&gt; square or the &lt;code&gt;e6&lt;/code&gt; square as these are covered by pawns, knight and bishop. They can't use the &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; square as that is covered by black's &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt; pawn. So where on earth is the &lt;em&gt;extra space&lt;/em&gt; that white is supposed to have gained?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14294" LastEditorUserId="3594" LastEditDate="2020-03-10T13:34:29.320" LastActivityDate="2020-03-10T13:34:29.320" Title="What is 'space' on a chessboard?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;space&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="19646" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19645" CreationDate="2018-01-17T20:22:11.263" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Two things could be meant by space:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;White has more space (basically one row more than black) to maneuver his own pieces &lt;strong&gt;behind&lt;/strong&gt; his pawns, let's say around d2, e2, d3, e3. Compare this to black who has very little &quot;space&quot; at this point of the opening.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;While's pawns on d4 and e5 attack squares in the opponent's half of the board, particularly the pawn on e5 limits the development options for black. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2018-01-17T20:22:11.263" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19647" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19645" CreationDate="2018-01-17T20:53:26.847" Score="23" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's not a ridiculous question. Before discussing your precise example, let's cover some basic grounds:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Purely from an optimal play perspective: having more space translates into having more activity and thus more options for your pieces, and that's really the key point here. The more space your pawn structure provides, the more maneuvering possibilities you will have to re-route your pieces around the board to ever more optimal posts. Moreover, controlling more space also means eyeballing or covering your opponent's important squares, related to concepts such as &quot;dark/light square control&quot; in chess strategy. So it's really about the relative amount of space both sides control. For a trivial example, go to very basic cases, such as first moves, &lt;code&gt;1.e4&lt;/code&gt;: what is the point very naively speaking? Not only it activates some of your pieces, but it also potentially takes away options from black, namely, it stops black from establishing a pawn on either &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;f5,&lt;/code&gt; therefore we say white is a tempo up, because it gets the first say in space control and thus partially dictates the types of subsequent positions.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;As for general ways of defining it, not necessarily restricted to optimal play in chess strategy, you can e.g., define space in terms of the number of possible legal moves you have, or the number of squares that are under attack by your pieces, so on and so forth, all compared to the other side. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [title &quot;French defense example:&quot;]&#xA; [Fen &quot;rnbqkbnr/ppp2ppp/4p3/3pP3/3P4/8/PPP2PPP/RNBQKBNR b KQkq - 0 3&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your example, there are very clear differences in terms of piece-activity thanks to the advanced white pawns on &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt; in contrast to black's lesser advanced central pawns of &lt;code&gt;e6&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;white has activated both bishops, whereas black's &lt;code&gt;c8&lt;/code&gt; bishop is facing a wall. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;white has enabled both knights to be posted centrally on &lt;code&gt;c3&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;f3&lt;/code&gt;, whereas black's &lt;code&gt;f6&lt;/code&gt; square has been taken away, so the knight is bound to go via the &lt;code&gt;e7&lt;/code&gt; square, but you have both options of &lt;code&gt;f3&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;e2&lt;/code&gt;!&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;white's queen has a total of &lt;code&gt;6&lt;/code&gt; legal possible moves at its disposal, black's queen is restricted to only &lt;code&gt;3!&lt;/code&gt; Specially &lt;code&gt;Qf3&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;Qd3&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;Qg4&lt;/code&gt; all very useful and common moves for the queen, all of which are symmetrically impossible for black, because of the lesser space created by the central pawns (which in turn also disabled the &lt;code&gt;c8&lt;/code&gt; bishop in taking away the &lt;code&gt;g4&lt;/code&gt; square from white's queen!)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Last but not least, although both sides have committed to their central &lt;code&gt;e&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;d&lt;/code&gt; pawns, black's prospect are further limited by the fact that in order to eventually create healthy space for their pieces, they're forced to undermine white's pawn chain with &lt;code&gt;f6&lt;/code&gt; at some point. Meaning black's further pawn development is also being limited here, but white's are not. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now all is not lost, because space alone doesn't dictate the outcome of the game and all still depends on how you decide to use that space, but the moral here is that having more &lt;strong&gt;space&lt;/strong&gt; means having more &lt;strong&gt;choices&lt;/strong&gt;, both in terms of possible &lt;strong&gt;moves&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;em&gt;and&lt;/em&gt; possible &lt;strong&gt;strategies&lt;/strong&gt; to pursue. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3594" LastActivityDate="2018-01-17T20:53:26.847" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19648" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19645" CreationDate="2018-01-17T23:34:35.483" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Look at the ranks. The player with the pawn on &quot;x&quot; rank has &quot;x&quot; amounts of space. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, in the French, Advance variation (1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. e5) White has five ranks of central space, whereas Black has four.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White therefore has more central space in this position. Black's plan is to undermine this center so he can re-claim the space and induce weaknesses in White's position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13147" LastActivityDate="2018-01-17T23:34:35.483" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19649" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19645" CreationDate="2018-01-18T09:52:18.727" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a quick and dirty definition and to sum up the above written:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The player who has more possible moves when being on his turn than his opponent has more &quot;space&quot;. The larger the difference, the more significant is his &quot;space advantage&quot;.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;If &quot;space&quot; (as possible, so legal, moves) equals zero for one player, he lost the game when in check at the same time, otherwise (no check) the game is a draw by stalemate. If a players has only one possible move it is &quot;Zugzwang&quot;.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15556" LastActivityDate="2018-01-18T09:52:18.727" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19650" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-01-18T12:00:29.393" Score="3" ViewCount="224" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is another very difficult subject for me that I can't even begin to understand [ incidentally, although I've been playing chess for over 50 years, my current ELO rating is only 1300, hence these questions.]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The idea of 'compensation' comes up all the time in master games. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;How do you calculate it? &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It seems to be a comparison between material and position. But what positional element is the material equivalent of a pawn; the exchange; a piece; even the queen? &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Can the idea of compensation even be adequately quantified at all? &lt;br&gt;&#xA;Given a position where, for example, one player sacrify a pawn to improve the position of a knight, would two GM's, say, Carlson and Giri, even agree as to whether the player has adequate compensation for the pawn, given their vastly different playing styles? &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14294" LastEditorUserId="10295" LastEditDate="2018-01-18T15:59:35.977" LastActivityDate="2018-01-18T16:04:50.170" Title="How do you 'calculate' compensation in chess" Tags="&lt;theory&gt;&lt;sacrifice&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19651" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19650" CreationDate="2018-01-18T12:08:47.597" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Introduction:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your goal in the chess game, is to win. &#xA;Having more &lt;em&gt;points&lt;/em&gt; is good, only when it helps you win the game (e.g. check-mate your opponent)&#xA;If sacrificing material improve your chances to win the game, then it is the right thing to do. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compensation_(chess)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Compensation in Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Compensation includes:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Better pawn structure.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The &quot;two bishops&quot;, which refers to having bishops of both colors while your opponent does not. Almost all modern players consider having both bishops as an advantage, although historically there has been great debate as to how much of an advantage they constitute. The two bishops are most likely to show their power in the endgame.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Better piece activity and/or better development (common in gambits).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Having the enemy king open to future attack, either due to a loss of pawn cover or being trapped in the center of the board is often excellent compensation.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Passed pawns are often decisive in the endgame.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Connected and/or protected passed pawns are even more deadly.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Control over key squares, diagonals, files, or ranks.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Summary:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are several types of compensation.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The answer to &lt;em&gt;Is the sacrifice worth the compensation?&lt;/em&gt; might depend on two factors:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is the compensation very straight forwards? (if so - it is clear to be good)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The specific player profile  (e.g. some players prefer open positions, and some closed positions) - if the new position after the sacrifice will be more suitable for the player - he'll have clear plan how to continue/win &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10295" LastEditorUserId="9025" LastEditDate="2018-01-18T16:04:50.170" LastActivityDate="2018-01-18T16:04:50.170" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19652" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-01-18T15:01:58.643" Score="-3" ViewCount="371" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the longest opening line or variation, starting from the first move, that you memorized?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastActivityDate="2018-01-18T19:07:18.450" Title="Longest opening variation that you can memorize?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2018-01-18T20:47:20.163" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19653" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-01-18T15:12:48.777" Score="5" ViewCount="1172" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=197&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Section 8 of the FIDE Rating Regulations&lt;/a&gt; provides the following table&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/8zv1Z.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/8zv1Z.png&quot; alt=&quot;p and dp&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I understand that dp=800 and dp=-800 are arbitary caps at the top and bottom of the table. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, in relation to the other scores, what's the formula for the conversion of p into dp, and vice-versa?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As noted in the comments, the regular Elo formula almost works but does not quite work. Does anyone know what the formula is for the adjustment made in the tails?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15559" LastEditorUserId="1752" LastEditDate="2018-11-01T07:09:44.190" LastActivityDate="2018-11-01T07:09:44.190" Title="How to calculate the FIDE Percentage Expectancy Table" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;elo&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="19654" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19652" CreationDate="2018-01-18T15:38:26.883" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;As black Sicilian Dragon &#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6&#xA;5. Nc3 g6&#xA;I don’t care to do more since at that point many variations can diverge heavily, but I expect 6. Be3 Before fianchettoing my bishop. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As white Ruy Lopez, Rio Gambit line&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 Nf6 4. O-O Nxe4&#xA;5. Re1 Nd6 6. Nxe5 Nxe5 7. Rxe5+ Be7 8. Bf1&#xA;This is just a fun one&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And generally since there wasn’t any obvious objective a few things to add if you were looking for data or a suggestion (even though there is a high chance you out rank me)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;• English Opening and King’s Indian are very powerful opening I plan on studying due to the success of AlphaZero&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;•Learning gambits are great for improving your ability to calculate attacks and general aggressive intuition&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;•My favorite way to practice openings is with friends or against Stockfish ai on Arena chess since you get similar variations, particularly I’ve found ~2200 range to be great for popular Sicilian lines&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;•Mainstream opening traps aren’t worth it to study (unless to avoid) since those situations are so well known they are often avoided, some obscure ones like when Bobby Fischer coined his famed opening trap&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I believe it’s better to study opening theory as opposed to specific lines since it provides a stronger, flexible ideology for how to open, and with thousands of games it’s fairly common to remember them anyways&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12876" LastEditorUserId="12876" LastEditDate="2018-01-18T19:07:18.450" LastActivityDate="2018-01-18T19:07:18.450" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19655" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19653" CreationDate="2018-01-18T15:46:06.687" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's basically just table 8.1a with the columns switched. E.g. the entry in table 8.1b with rating difference 92-98 and expected score (for the higher rated player) of .63, corresponds with the entry (.63, 95) in table 8.1a.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;That&lt;/em&gt; table is based on the expected score formula mentioned &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elo_rating_system#Mathematical_details&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If Player A has a rating of R&lt;sub&gt;A&lt;/sub&gt; and Player B a rating of R&lt;sub&gt;B&lt;/sub&gt;, the exact formula &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logistic_curve&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;(using the logistic curve)&lt;/a&gt; for the expected score of Player A is &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;E&lt;sub&gt;A&lt;/sub&gt; = 1 / (1 + 10 &lt;sup&gt;(R&lt;sub&gt;B&lt;/sub&gt; - R&lt;sub&gt;A&lt;/sub&gt;) / 400&lt;/sup&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but it's also possible to directly generate table 8.1b from this formula. For example, a rating difference of 92 points (in A's favor) leads to E&lt;sub&gt;A&lt;/sub&gt; = 0.6294.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The inverse formula, calculating the rating difference which corresponds to a certain expected score, is R&lt;sub&gt;B&lt;/sub&gt; - R&lt;sub&gt;A&lt;/sub&gt; = 400 log&lt;sub&gt;10&lt;/sub&gt;(1 / E&lt;sub&gt;A&lt;/sub&gt; - 1).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-10-31T07:32:52.333" LastActivityDate="2018-10-31T07:32:52.333" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="19656" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-01-18T15:57:25.037" Score="4" ViewCount="413" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm curious as to whether there are compositions of chess puzzles/problems where the solution really emphasizes the boundedness of the board. Put differently, cases where the solution would be impossible on an infinitely large board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15078" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-04T21:58:04.837" LastActivityDate="2021-05-01T19:20:02.390" Title="Puzzles that highlight the finiteness of the chessboard" Tags="&lt;problems&gt;&lt;mathematics&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19657" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19670" CreationDate="2018-01-18T16:19:54.777" Score="4" ViewCount="592" Body="&lt;p&gt;Who was the weakest player to ever beat the mature Bobby Fischer in a tournament or match game? I understand that it's a bit hard to define the &quot;mature&quot; Fischer indeed, since he was incredibly strong even as a teenager, but I mean roughly, let's say, from the early 1960s on, e.g. not counting his very early years. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastActivityDate="2019-12-26T16:11:38.880" Title="Weakest player to ever beat the mature Bobby Fischer?" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;fischer&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19659" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19653" CreationDate="2018-01-18T16:57:30.337" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;As stated in 12.1 the formula above gives a close approximation to tables 8.1a and 8.1b. However it does not explain the precise construction of the table.  Take fore example Rb-Ra = -736. According to the table 8.1b, the resulting expectation equals 100%. But according to the formula, the expectation is 98,57%. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15561" LastActivityDate="2018-01-18T16:57:30.337" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19661" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19700" CreationDate="2018-01-18T17:01:43.213" Score="1" ViewCount="1143" Body="&lt;p&gt;Where did Bobby Fischer live in New York in his younger years? Is anyone able to locate the street address where he lived? Is it 1059 Union Street in Brooklyn from the famous 1951 Helms letter to his mother?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2019-11-20T20:40:05.403" LastActivityDate="2019-11-20T20:40:05.403" Title="Where did Bobby Fischer live in New York?" Tags="&lt;fischer&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19662" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19656" CreationDate="2018-01-18T17:03:58.947" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Now that's a refreshingly different kind of question :) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's probably easier to compose such a problem than to search for one, but that said, there's one that comes to mind: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [Title &quot;White to play and win&quot;]&#xA; [fen &quot;8/5N1k/8/7b/1b5N/1K6/1B6/8 w - - 0 2&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Hint:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt; You want to keep all 3 pieces as white in order to win. Try to set up a trap on the &lt;code&gt;b4&lt;/code&gt; bishop by setting up a discovery on the black king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Solution:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt; 1.Ng5+ Kh6 {only possible attempt to keep material} 2.Bc1 {Double threat: discovery on the king and threatening to take on b4, the trap is set} Ba5 {Any other move drops the bishop to a discovery check} 3.Ka4 Bb6 {only move again} 4.Kb5 Ba7 5.Ka6 Bb8 6.Kb7 {bishop falls.} &#xA; From move &lt;code&gt;3.Ka4&lt;/code&gt; it had become clear where this is going: the white king keeps shouldering the bishop until it hits a wall and cannot escape anymore. Now on an infinite board, this trap would have been impossible as the king and bishop dance would have continued endlessly. &#xA; &#xA; &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/oTDC4.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3594" LastEditorUserId="3594" LastEditDate="2018-01-19T15:55:11.230" LastActivityDate="2018-01-19T15:55:11.230" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19664" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19645" CreationDate="2018-01-18T19:04:25.577" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Consider the situation before and after &lt;strong&gt;3.e5&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Before this move, White has the squares e2, e3, d2 and&amp;nbsp;d3 where he can put his pieces safely behind his pawns, and Black has e7, d7 and&amp;nbsp;d6, so White has one more &quot;safe&quot; square than Black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After the move, White still has the same four squares (as you point out in the question, e4&amp;nbsp;isn't a safe square) but Black only has e7 and&amp;nbsp;d7. Perhaps you'd prefer to say that Black has lost space but White now has two more &quot;safe&quot; squares than Black, so he has gained space relative to Black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2789" LastActivityDate="2018-01-18T19:04:25.577" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19667" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19668" CreationDate="2018-01-19T08:27:33.283" Score="2" ViewCount="690" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know that it is possible for a chess engine to evaluate a position as mate in X moves, when in fact there exist a mate in smaller number of moves. But can the reverse situation happen?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example the engine evaluated a position as mate in 8 moves, but actually the best possible mate is in 9 moves (or 10 or 13).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To be more concrete the engine is stockfish.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="703" LastActivityDate="2018-01-20T18:41:08.853" Title="Is it possible for stockfish to tell that mate is in X moves, when mate is in X + Y moves?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19668" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19667" CreationDate="2018-01-19T09:08:17.633" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, it isn't possible because, before Stockfish says it is Mate in 8, it views the position from the aspect of the losing side, i.e, the evaluation is the best that can be obtained by the losing side. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In other words, Mate in 8 is what happens if the losing side plays the possibly best defense. If the losing side plays sub-optimally, it could lose faster, but 8 moves is the longest possible postponement of Checkmate&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15570" LastActivityDate="2018-01-19T09:08:17.633" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19669" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-01-19T09:51:43.740" Score="-1" ViewCount="445" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have created a GUI that communicates with a Stockfish 8 engine by passing it a FEN string. Everything works nice but on some specific FEN strings, Stockfish crashes. I don't have any clue why...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One of the FEN strings on which Stockfish crashes is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;r2k1b1r/pp4p1/4QnPp/3p1B1P/2pPp3/3qP2N/5PKR/3nB3 b KQkq - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15571" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-01-22T10:31:53.823" LastActivityDate="2018-01-22T10:31:53.823" Title="Stockfish crashes on fen string" Tags="&lt;stockfish&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19670" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19657" CreationDate="2018-01-19T09:52:01.763" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Summary&lt;/strong&gt;: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Cesar Munoz from Ecuador is the last untitled player to beat Fischer, in 1961. Kovacevic is the last non-grandmaster to do that in 1970, but obviously he was already very strong. Janosevic in 1967 was a grandmaster but not the most famous of them. And Spassky in 1992 was not &lt;em&gt;that&lt;/em&gt; strong anymore...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Detailed answer&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From 1960 onwards, Bobby Fischer lost 100 chess games that are registered &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chess.pl?yearcomp=ge&amp;amp;year=1960&amp;amp;playercomp=either&amp;amp;pid=19233&amp;amp;player=&amp;amp;pid2=&amp;amp;player2=&amp;amp;movescomp=exactly&amp;amp;moves=&amp;amp;opening=&amp;amp;eco=&amp;amp;result=2nd&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can browse this list to pick whom you consider &quot;the weakest&quot; winner. About a half of the games were played in simultaneous displays so they don't qualify as &lt;em&gt;tournament or match game&lt;/em&gt;s. The answer might also depends whether you include blitz and rapid tournaments.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Fischer lost a couple of games to non-grandmasters in 1960 (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1044531&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;IM Bernardo Wexler&lt;/a&gt;) and 1961 (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1044124&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Cesar Munoz&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C%C3%A9sar_Mu%C3%B1oz&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;The unknown Ecuadorian caused a sensation in the preliminaries of the Leipzig Olympiad when he beat Bobby Fischer.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt;), but if we limit ourselves to 1963 onwards, my suggested answer would be &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1044632&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Dragoljub Janosevic&lt;/a&gt; in Skopje, 1967. It seems any other person who beat Fischer after 1963 was a world-class grandmaster (technically Kovacevic was still an IM in 1970 when he beat Bobby Fischer in Bled, but he was already of GM-strength).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragoljub_Jano%C5%A1evi%C4%87&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Janosevic&lt;/a&gt; was a (less famous) grandmaster not far from his peak in 1967 who also won games against Tal, Petrosian, Larsen, Bronstein and an aging Botvinnik, there is also an argument to be made that the weakest person to beat the mature Fischer would actually be former world champion Boris Spassky in Belgrade, 1992, when his level of play had already gone down.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastEditorUserId="14079" LastEditDate="2019-12-26T16:11:38.880" LastActivityDate="2019-12-26T16:11:38.880" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="19671" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19669" CreationDate="2018-01-19T11:03:58.820" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Very simple, your FEN is absolutely invalid. You shouldn't give castling rights in a position that you kings have already moved. This won't work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2018-01-19T11:03:58.820" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19673" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19667" CreationDate="2018-01-20T18:41:08.853" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think it helps to realise that the engine does not make assumptions for mistakes during its calculation, instead it only considers &lt;em&gt;best-play&lt;/em&gt; by both sides for as far as it can see (depth, time, etc). This would be the only objective way of going about it, and that's how it assigns its principal variation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In general positions, the normal working of the engine is to continuously go through ever more lines to higher depth, and adapt accordingly its evaluation of the main variations. But, when it comes to there being mating sequences among the principal variation candidates, the key difference stems from the fact that all mating variations are by definition &lt;em&gt;forcing&lt;/em&gt; sequences, i.e., the engine gives such variations a &quot;mate in X&quot; evaluation only after having exhausted the full set of possible replies (more technically, within the allowed depth, it has managed to reach the endpoints of all those branches, and they have ended in checkmates). Thus by construction, it cannot have mis-evaluated there being at least &quot;a mate in X&quot; when in fact there's only a mate in &quot;X+Y&gt;X.&quot; And as for cases where it keeps finding shorter mates, that's because it is still performing truncations in its exploration of the tree, so even though it may have already found one branch with a forcing mate-sequence (thus at least one winning move), the other unexplored branches (other potential winning moves) may have led to more efficient mates, given more analysis time it will eventually check them and realise a shorter mate. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3594" LastActivityDate="2018-01-20T18:41:08.853" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19674" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-01-20T18:50:40.267" Score="8" ViewCount="1109" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are tons of questions about the longest forced mate on here and other chess forums. Usually the answers are the 2 Knights forced mate and another one that evidently takes 549 optimal moves. Ultimately those discussions often devolve into debate about the 50 move rule.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However as a novice player it often boggles my mind when, in real games, players are able to recognize unavoidable checkmate on a non-empty board dozens of moves in advance. Hence, what I am wondering about is: what is the longest forced mate optimally played in documented competition? In other words, in competitive play (international, national, league, etc.), what comes to mind as the furthest time (in moves) from checkmate when resistance is futile? Something a la &quot;that's mate in 15.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: I imagine that this situation usually brings about resignation, so I should clarify that I'm not interested in if it was ever played out, but rather what the maximum number of moves was in advance of checkmate when this futility was ensured.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10238" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-12-16T13:23:25.800" LastActivityDate="2020-12-16T13:23:25.800" Title="What is the longest forced mate optimally played in documented competition?" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;famous-games&gt;&lt;forced-move&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19675" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19693" CreationDate="2018-01-20T19:18:15.543" Score="6" ViewCount="3220" Body="&lt;p&gt;The best free, downloadable chess database I've found is Kingbase (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.kingbase-chess.net&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.kingbase-chess.net&lt;/a&gt;). It only has games since 1990. I also have the Android Chessbase Online app, which also appears to only have relatively newer games. The only source I know of that has historical chess games is www.chessgames.com (but I don't think you can download the entire database into something like SCID). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why are these older games so hard to come by?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3431" LastActivityDate="2021-03-06T20:39:50.360" Title="Why is it so hard to find a free downloadable chess database with older/historical chess games?" Tags="&lt;database&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19676" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19674" CreationDate="2018-01-20T20:19:05.010" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;To present a starting point, there is &lt;strong&gt;mate in 10&lt;/strong&gt; in the famous &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1132699&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Steinitz-von Bardeleben&lt;/a&gt; game. Black stormed off after 25. Rxh7+, from which point it is mate in 10:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[StartPly &quot;49&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.c3 Nf6 5.d4 exd4 6. cxd4 Bb4+ 7. Nc3 d5 8.exd5 Nxd5 9.O-O Be6 10.Bg5 Be7 11.Bxd5 Bxd5 12.Nxd5 Qxd5 13.Bxe7 Nxe7 14.Re1 f6 15.Qe2 Qd7 16.Rac1 c6 17.d5 cxd5 18.Nd4 Kf7 19.Ne6 Rhc8 20.Qg4 g6 21.Ng5+ Ke8 22.Rxe7+ Kf8 23.Rf7+ Kg8 24.Rg7+ Kh8 25.Rxh7+ 1-0 (25...Kg8 26. Rg7+ Kh8 27. Qh4+ Kxg7 28. Qh7+ Kf8 29. Qh8+ Ke7 30. Qg7+ Ke8 31. Qg8+ Ke7 32. Qf7+ Kd8 33. Qf8+ Qe8 34. Nf7+ Kd7 35. Qd6#)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2018-01-20T20:19:05.010" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19677" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23096" CreationDate="2018-01-20T23:48:06.253" Score="2" ViewCount="444" Body="&lt;p&gt;It seems to be pretty well established since the days of (the second) Deep Blue vs. Kasparov match that top machines can beat top humans at playing chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, Kasparov &lt;a href=&quot;https://techcrunch.com/2016/11/01/how-combined-human-and-computer-intelligence-will-redefine-jobs/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;seems to claim&lt;/a&gt; that the best combination is human+machine, assuming the right decision-making process.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm wondering if there's any evidence to back up this claim that a human+machine combination would be stronger than a machine on its own, or in other words, whether human reasoning can contribute something valuable to playing chess beyond what the top machines are capable of?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, have there been matches along these lines (human+computer vs. computer) that might shed light on this claim/question?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15582" LastActivityDate="2018-12-01T16:16:50.540" Title="Human–machine stronger than machine?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;computer-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19679" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-01-21T11:38:30.553" Score="10" ViewCount="580" Body="&lt;p&gt;In a recent game I swapped off a knight for 3 pawns:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;County Match&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Deepest Darkest Southern England&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2018.01.20&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;English Player&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Ian Bush&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[StartPly &quot;41&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.c4 Nf6 2.Nf3 g6 3.g3 Bg7 4.Bg2 O-O 5.O-O d6 6.Nc3 c5 7.a3 Nc6 8.Rb1 Bf5 &#xA;9.d3 Nd7 10.Nd5 Nb6 11.Ne3 Bd7 12.b4 Qc8 13.b5 Nd4 14.Nxd4 Bxd4 15.a4 Bh3 &#xA;16.a5 Bxg2 17.Kxg2 Bxe3 18.Bxe3 Nd7 19.Bh6 Re8 20.Qd2 Nf6 21.h3 Qf5 22.e4 &#xA;Nxe4 23.dxe4 Qxe4+ 24.Kh2 Qxc4 25.Rfe1 Rad8 26.Re3 f6 27.Rbe1 e5 28.Rd3 &#xA;Re6 29.Rc3 Qxb5 30.Qd5 Rde8 31.Rb3 Qc6 32.Qxc6 bxc6 33.Rb7 R6e7 34.a6 Kf7 &#xA;35.Be3 Ke6 36.f4 Rxb7 37.axb7 Rb8 38.Rb1 a5 39.fxe5 fxe5 40.Kg2 a4 41.Kf2 &#xA;a3 42.Ke2 a2 43.Ra1 Rxb7 44.Rxa2 c4 45.Kd2 d5 46.Kc3 Rb3+ 47.Kd2 d4 48.Bf2&#xA;Kd5 49.Ra5+ Ke4 50.Rc5 c3+ 51.Kc1 d3 52.Rxc6 d2+ 53.Kc2 Rb2+ 54.Kd1 Rb1+ 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've started here as this was the plan after Qf5, and I played this way as I thought it a good way to get winning chances - it was a match and as it all looked fairly even wins were the order of the day. But Stockfish really doesn't like it, putting me down ~1.5 pawns, and I don't really understand why. Can somebody turn the &quot;thoughts&quot; of the metal monster into human terms for me?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7726" LastEditorUserId="7726" LastEditDate="2018-01-21T11:44:25.517" LastActivityDate="2019-01-10T09:33:18.460" Title="Three Pawns for a Knight - Why Doesn't Stockfish Like it?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19681" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-01-21T17:12:56.037" Score="2" ViewCount="230" Body="&lt;p&gt;I often get into stupid blunders, get myself into pins and threats that I don't see on time etc.&#xA;How can I avoid that ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user15591" LastActivityDate="2019-12-27T14:55:29.783" Title="How can I &quot;see the board&quot;?" Tags="&lt;psychology&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19682" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19685" CreationDate="2018-01-21T17:46:46.313" Score="2" ViewCount="519" Body="&lt;p&gt;I used it sometimes and when I read about c3 Sicilian I found out that it isn't a good response to c3, why ? It seems like you develope a piece and add pressure on d4. I thought about it as good move.&#xA;Thanks in advance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15592" LastActivityDate="2018-01-21T19:46:05.930" Title="Is Nc6 good response to c3 Sicilian?" Tags="&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19683" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19679" CreationDate="2018-01-21T18:19:06.763" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Counting material is only one portion of evaluating a position. Stockfish considers space, piece mobility and activity, king safety, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All of that produces an evaluation of the position, and for this one SF grades it (using LiChess) as about +2.2 (depth 31).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I note that before your knight sac Stockfish thinks you were already down by about 1.2, despite roughly equal material. That bishop on h6 controlling your weakened dark squares, for example, is clearly worth more than your knight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for your decision to sac the knight, from a practical point of view it seems a reasonable choice in a bad situation, because if you simply move your queen to e6 or e5, as SF suggests, white has a clear and natural plan of f4 followed by eventually opening up that file, and your clumsy rooks will not be nimble defenders.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;SF suggests for white an immediate b6 after your queen takes on c4, and with that you will not get the pawn storm as you did in the game. White will have an open line to invade with his rooks (which one depends on your reaction to b6) and his extra piece will tell.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15504" LastEditorUserId="15504" LastEditDate="2019-01-10T09:33:18.460" LastActivityDate="2019-01-10T09:33:18.460" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="19684" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19681" CreationDate="2018-01-21T18:36:18.037" Score="2" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Learn chess geometries and patterns. For example,&#xA;if two of your pieces stand on squares of opposite colors (or along a diagonal with one square between), then the pieces cannot be forked by a knight; and if the pieces will remain there for several turns, then they will remain mostly immune to that threat.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Learn more chess geometries and patterns. For example, a bishop is often an eventual threat to attack any foe that stands on its diagonal, even if, say, two pawns standing on the diagonal currently block the attack. If the bishop remains on the diagonal for several turns, then a player can &lt;em&gt;see&lt;/em&gt; the potential, eventual threat, all along the diagonal.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Learn further chess geometries and patterns. For example, if your opponent has only one bishop, if you have chosen a square of the opposite color on which to place your rook, then the problem that the bishop might eventually capture the rook is less worrisome.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Observe that items 1, 2 and 3 are all &lt;em&gt;positional&lt;/em&gt; in nature. An opponent of intermediate ability—say, ELO 1500—may &lt;em&gt;see&lt;/em&gt; less of the board than you think; but if he or she has positioned his or her men on squares on which it is hard for you to develop threats against them, it can seem as though the player sees the board in a way you do not.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Know where your hanging (unguarded) pieces are—knights, bishops, rooks and queen. Pay special attention. Whenever you have an unguarded piece, the opponent might develop a tactic against it. That's okay. No chess player can guard all pieces at all times, but if you cannot hold the entire position in mind at once (I cannot, either), then you can at least hold certain features of it in mind. Hanging pieces are often an important feature.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Avoid wasting tempos. When you make a pointless move, this usually affords your opponent valuable time to exploit weaknesses in your position. When all your moves are purposeful, by contrast, your position might still suffer weaknesses—even weaknesses of which you are unaware—but your purposeful moves may deny the opponent the opportunity to exploit the weaknesses insofar as that your moves have forced the opponent to defend rather than attack.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Much of my answer is indirect, but you can &lt;em&gt;see&lt;/em&gt; the board better when you have arranged the board such that there are fewer things on the board that are necessary for you to see. This is what positional play is about.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="315" LastActivityDate="2018-01-21T18:36:18.037" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19685" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19682" CreationDate="2018-01-21T19:21:56.723" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm assuming you mean 2 c3 Nc6.&#xA;It's helpful to give specific moves or positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you do mean 2.. Nc6, historically white has been very successful with the natural (and stockfish-recommended) 3 d4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the LiChess masters database, for example, it shows that after d4 white has won a whopping 48% of the time while losing only 18%.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From looking through the top games in that database, black's pressure on d4 is insufficient and the knight ends up being misplaced on c6, with white typically using it as a tactical target with a later Bb5 as black attempts to untangle his position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15504" LastActivityDate="2018-01-21T19:21:56.723" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19686" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19682" CreationDate="2018-01-21T19:46:05.930" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;With 1. e4 c5 2. c3 white is aiming to create a strong center with pawns on e4 and d4 (after capture cxd4 cxd4). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;... Nc6 does not prevent white from playing d4 and the knight on c6 might later be kicked away by white playing d5. In any case after 1. e4 c5 2. c3 Nc6 3. d4 cxd4 4. cxd4 white occupies the center and is ready to develop his bishops. Black on the other hand is not fighting much for the center yet and still needs to make space for his bishops..&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More principled replies to 2. c3 are 2.... Nf6 or d5 that take advantage of the fact that white cannot develop his knight to c3 anymore. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After 2... d5 3. exd5 Qxd5 black has a centralized queen which is not easy to attack (because c3 is played) and the game might develop into a typical isolated queen pawn game. If white choses to play 2...d5 3. e5, black gets a better version of the advance French, where the bishop on c8 is not blocked by a pawn on e6 yet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After 2... Nf6 the game typically continues 3. e5 Nd5 where white gets a pawn chain on dark squares similar to the French, but black has an easy game attacking the chain with d6, Nc6.... and developing naturally. The same positions can also result from the Morra gambit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another option is to play 2.... e6 which might very well transfer into the French defense (but that's likely not something you are happy with if you are a Sicilian player).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2018-01-21T19:46:05.930" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19687" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-01-21T20:22:10.297" Score="21" ViewCount="6370" Body="&lt;p&gt;It’s White to play and checkmate in two moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This puzzle was created by Frank Healey, and published in 5 Family Herald on 7/17/1858.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;7R/1B1N4/8/3r4/1K2k3/8/5Q2/8 w - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15594" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-04T22:05:52.843" LastActivityDate="2020-04-04T22:05:52.843" Title="White to play and checkmate in two moves" Tags="&lt;problems&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="19688" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19687" CreationDate="2018-01-21T20:48:14.180" Score="34" Body="&lt;p&gt;Use the fact that the rook is pinned, and that the king has few squares left;&#xA;I'm thinking that 1.Rd8 Kd3 (only possible move) 2.Nc5# should be the solution. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[White &quot;NN&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;NN&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;7R/1B1N4/8/3r4/1K2k3/8/5Q2/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Rd8 Kd3 2.Nc5#  &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8300" LastEditorUserId="12031" LastEditDate="2018-01-22T09:45:08.563" LastActivityDate="2018-01-22T09:45:08.563" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19691" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19692" CreationDate="2018-01-22T01:55:53.243" Score="2" ViewCount="322" Body="&lt;p&gt;As I mentioned in previous questions I'm currently following &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessbin.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this tutorial&lt;/a&gt; for building my chess engine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The code was written in C#, but mine is in C++ and I'm in  the phase of finalizing the board / piece / moves / valid moves representations without testing the logic just making sure the syntax is ok.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I'm confused as to what should I do now, just continue writing without testing or there is a good way to test an incomplete chess engine?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/hamedomarkhaled/thePrestigeChessEngine&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Here&lt;/a&gt; you can take look at what I have done so far and your comments / recommendations are appreciated  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15424" LastEditorUserId="9025" LastEditDate="2018-01-22T16:03:59.943" LastActivityDate="2019-09-22T10:45:11.090" Title="Tips for debugging and progressing a chess engine's implementation" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;programming&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19692" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19691" CreationDate="2018-01-22T02:30:51.307" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I glanced at your code:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You should test your code with &lt;strong&gt;perft&lt;/strong&gt;. Google it if you're not sure what it is.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Please make sure your code works before coding the engine search. If you unable to generate moves properly, nothing in your search will work.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Consider to use an array rather than a switch statement for piece values.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Consider to code your squares as an integer, not as a C++ class&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Consider to collapse your WHITE and BLACK implementation together. C++ template would do that for you. Please take a look at Stockfish codebase if you're unsure.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I don't see you're making &lt;strong&gt;en passant&lt;/strong&gt; in the code. Are you sure you have that covered?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-09-21T14:08:46.997" LastActivityDate="2019-09-21T14:08:46.997" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="19693" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19675" CreationDate="2018-01-22T02:37:43.703" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I invite you do it yourself...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/student-t/ExtractPGN&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://github.com/student-t/ExtractPGN&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is my Python repository for web crawling chess games. I use it to extract PGN chess games from Chessgames. This is an example of the games I extracted:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://smallchess.com/Games&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://smallchess.com/Games&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's trivial to change the code such that you extract all games from chessgames (&lt;strong&gt;entire database&lt;/strong&gt;) into a single PGN file. I believe you're a programmer, so that shouldn't be an issue for you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2018-01-22T02:37:43.703" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19695" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19697" CreationDate="2018-01-22T03:35:17.180" Score="12" ViewCount="2803" Body="&lt;p&gt;So many people I know (or have played chess with) have never heard of &lt;em&gt;En passant&lt;/em&gt; and will call me out for cheating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;En passant is a move in chess. It is a special pawn capture that can only occur &lt;strong&gt;immediately&lt;/strong&gt; after a pawn makes a double-step move from its starting square, and it &lt;em&gt;could have&lt;/em&gt; been captured by an enemy pawn had it advanced only one square. The opponent captures the just-moved pawn &quot;as it passes&quot; through the first square. The result is the same as if the pawn had advanced only one square and the enemy pawn had captured it normally.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Read more on &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/En_passant&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;En passant&lt;/em&gt; at Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I find that it is overall an uncommon move, I hardly ever have the opportunity to use it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why aren't people taught the move when they first learn chess? (I didn't know about it until I'd been playing for multiple years)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Read more on &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/En_passant&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;En passant&lt;/em&gt; at Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15599" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-08-28T20:20:23.217" LastActivityDate="2019-09-21T18:04:03.213" Title="Why is en passant hardly heard of?" Tags="&lt;en-passant&gt;&lt;teaching&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="19697" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19695" CreationDate="2018-01-22T06:37:44.330" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is taught together with the rest of the rules of the game. You playing for years without knowing about it has nothing to do with that, either you learn the rules or you don't, you won't self-discover them no matter how many years you play, specially not when your playing pool is limited solely to your friends who may not know certain rules either. So you not knowing about it doesn't make for a case that it's poorly taught. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now chesswise, I think it's quite clear why it's a relatively rare type of move given that it can only be played when there are still pawns at starting position and when moved two squares, constraints make events rare. That said, its potential as a move is still rather frequently employed, for instance to stop your opponent's desired queenside pawn expansion, following is a typical example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [Title &quot;En passant being employed&quot;]&#xA; [fen &quot;r1bq1rk1/pp1nbppp/4pn2/2pp4/P2P1B2/2P1PN2/1P2BPPP/RN1Q1RK1 b - - 0 8&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1...a6 2.a5 b5 (2...b6 3.axb6) 3.axb6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black plays a6 to prepare b5 and their desired setup is to have the a6-b5 pawns which provides important light-square control and creates space on Black's queenside. White on the other hand, prevents it by simply playing a5, with the underlying tactical idea being to capture with en passant in case black tries to expand with b5. If black did play it regardless, then after white takes, black's left with a weakened a6 pawn. So with a5 we stop both b6 and b5 for good.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15078" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-09-21T18:04:03.213" LastActivityDate="2019-09-21T18:04:03.213" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="19699" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19702" CreationDate="2018-01-22T13:06:45.590" Score="-1" ViewCount="115" Body="&lt;p&gt;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 f6 3.Nxe5 fxe5 4.Qh5 And in this position what move for black is better, Ke7 or g6 ? I know that such position will never occur in game between good players because after Nxe5, fxe5 is bad move because of the queen attack. But on one of YouTube chess channels in this position move g6 was said is better, but there wasn't explanation, is it so and why ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15592" LastEditorUserId="15592" LastEditDate="2018-01-22T13:48:08.163" LastActivityDate="2018-01-22T14:15:20.907" Title="What move is better in this position, Ke7 or g6?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;opening-traps&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19700" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19661" CreationDate="2018-01-22T13:20:53.653" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;In 1955, his address was 560 Lincoln Place, Brooklyn.  Source: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://tartajubow.blogspot.com/2015/09/bobby-fischer-lived-here.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://tartajubow.blogspot.com/2015/09/bobby-fischer-lived-here.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15611" LastActivityDate="2018-01-22T13:20:53.653" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19701" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19687" CreationDate="2018-01-22T13:32:01.263" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Move the rook onto the same row as the king, king moves to the only possible square, checkmate by moving the bishop to a6?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Rh4, Kd3 2. Ba6#&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15612" LastActivityDate="2018-01-22T13:32:01.263" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19702" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19699" CreationDate="2018-01-22T14:15:20.907" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;4...g6 is technically better, because it only loses a rook at once due to 5.Qxe5 Qe7 6.Qxh8, leaving White with a winning position, while after 4...Ke7 5.Qxe5 Kf7 6.Bc4+ Black will have to give even more material to postpone checkmate: 6...d5 7.Bxd5 Kg6 8.Bxb7 Bxb7 9.Qf5 Kh6 10.d4 g5 11.h4 +-&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As said by the OP, 2...f6? and 3...fxe5? are the bad moves in this line.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastActivityDate="2018-01-22T14:15:20.907" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19703" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19687" CreationDate="2018-01-22T14:18:07.177" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ybDFn.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ybDFn.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black is not in check, but still only has one move:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/0z2uF.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/0z2uF.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Check mate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/CI7O4.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/CI7O4.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15617" LastEditorUserId="15617" LastEditDate="2018-01-22T14:23:41.270" LastActivityDate="2018-01-22T14:23:41.270" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19704" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19705" CreationDate="2018-01-22T19:50:35.977" Score="2" ViewCount="743" Body="&lt;p&gt;As title above, What's the best answer to 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.a3? Assuming that I, as Black, am a Nimzo-Indian Player, there is no hope for a Nimzo now. Would you go for 3...d5 (QGD with no particularly useful a3 move by White), or for a Benoni-like structure with 3...c5? (allowing 4.d5), or for a Queen's Indian structure with 3...b6? Or something else? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastActivityDate="2018-01-22T23:03:48.853" Title="What's the best answer to 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.a3?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;1.d4&gt;&lt;nimzo-indian&gt;&lt;queens-gambit-declined&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19705" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19704" CreationDate="2018-01-22T20:08:21.027" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;This really comes down to what you're comfortable with. Both the Benoni and the QGD are good options, precisely because of the reason you mention: a3 isn't really useful for White in those openings, so you'll be playing lines with a tempo up. According to &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/explorer?node=75552&amp;amp;move=3.5&amp;amp;moves=d4.Nf6.c4.e6.a3&amp;amp;nodes=10703.11482.11470.75542.75552&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;chessgames.com&lt;/a&gt;, Black is already better. &lt;em&gt;Which&lt;/em&gt; line (3... d5 or 3... c5) is better is just a matter of personal preference.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3... b6 is of course playable, and Black scores 50%, but it allows White to transpose to one of the main lines of the Queen's Indian with 4. Nf3. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2018-01-22T20:08:21.027" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19706" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19704" CreationDate="2018-01-22T23:03:48.853" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to chessTempo.com's database for over 2200 rated player games 3...c5 scores best for Black with 43% wins for Black and only 20% wins for White.&#xA;By-the-way, there is another alternative you didn't mention which is 3...d6&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2018-01-22T23:03:48.853" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19707" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19708" CreationDate="2018-01-22T23:13:58.950" Score="0" ViewCount="180" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugK2nqeUKP0&amp;amp;t=65s&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Gary Kasparov complains in Johannesburg simultaneous exhibition&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is Gary right to be angry? Should you state the rating while playing in a simul? Isn't simul supposed to be a fun place where everyone gets to play their favorite player? Are there such rules in simul?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1105" LastActivityDate="2018-01-23T02:24:15.413" Title="Should you state your rating if you want to play in a simul?" Tags="&lt;simultaneous&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19708" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19707" CreationDate="2018-01-23T02:24:15.413" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;First off, Kasparov is not a big fan of losing.  That's an important detail.  I wont weigh in too much on his personality, but if you look at the comments on that video, there are quite a few strong opinions about what kind of person he is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't know what the rules were for that simul, but if they were the same as the Kasparov's &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.kasparovagent.com/simul.php&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;current website&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Players must be true amateurs who have 1999 ELO points or less, no exceptions. No player who has ever held a Rating of 2000 or over is permitted--it is contrary to the spirit of the simul and to the agreement. No coaching or computer assistance is permitted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So if the organizers in Johannesburg were operating under these rules, then indeed they were out of line.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you watch the whole thing, it looks like the under 2000 rule may not have been in place back then, but he did specifically ask the coordinators to tell him who the strongest player was.  It appears they did not take into account a coach helping these players during the simul, and so they pointed elsewhere.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In some sense, it does make sense.  At the GM level, you are always playing to your opponent.  You have to know something about them.  He was playing on assumptions about the capabilities of his opponent, and those assumptions turned out to be false.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, you are right about this event being something that's supposed to be fun.  I know I generally agree with it, but not everyone does.  Kasparov does seem to care that a player can walk away claiming &quot;I beat Kasparov&quot; when Kasparov was not playing his best at the time.  Instead, he was playing a version of Kasparov designed to do &quot;something else,&quot; whether that's saving time for other boards or trying to teach the amateurs something about chess.  We don't know what his purpose for being at the event was, but we do know he values his name and he values his record.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6885" LastActivityDate="2018-01-23T02:24:15.413" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19710" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19715" CreationDate="2018-01-23T04:24:03.467" Score="6" ViewCount="649" Body="&lt;p&gt;This question is for aspiring rules lawyers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The FIDE's &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=208&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;new laws of chess,&lt;/a&gt; effective Jan. 1, 2018, patch ambiguities and other subtle problems. I like the new laws. When it comes to game mechanics, I hope that the new laws remain permanently, so may I now ask a totally pedantic technical question regarding a ridiculous but (as far as I know) legal situation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Under the new laws, suppose that&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;you have made 50 moves since the last pawn move or capture,&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I have made 49 moves since the last pawn move or capture, and&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;it is my turn to move.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Suppose that my 50th move checkmates you. Ridiculously however, suppose that—simultaneous with my move—I claim a 50-move draw. Do I read the laws right: this game is a draw?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Before answering, you might compare law 9.3.1 against law 9.6.2. The new laws are more carefully worded than the old laws were, so I am unsure that the effect in question is a mere unintentional artifact of unfortunate wording. I &lt;em&gt;suspect&lt;/em&gt; that the effect might be deliberate, rather.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can you shed any light in the matter?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, I am not asking why a checkmating player would choose to waive the checkmate in favor of a draw, but am only probing an odd corner of the laws' logic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See also &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/12613/does-checkmate-over-ride-50-move-violation&quot;&gt;this related question and answer&lt;/a&gt; from before the recent changes in the laws.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;UPDATE&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It turns out that my question is a duplicate of the linked question, if you look at it the right way.  Morever, an answer to the linked question quotes Geurt Gijssen, an authoritative source. Gijssen answers the question indirectly by answering the inverse question. If I read Gijssen correctly, then a player can indeed claim a 50-move draw while checkmating, &lt;em&gt;and in that case the draw claim would take precedence.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Weird, eh?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One could question the relevance of Gijssen's comments, since Gijssen (if I recall) retired before the most recent revision cycle, except that the revision seems to come to address questions Gijssen himself had considered or raised.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This sort of question is interesting if one is, for example, programming a computer interface for online chess play, for the programmer must implement the law in question the one way or the other. Just leaving it ambiguous would probably not be a reasonable option in that context.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also note that players reading the rule in this very question thread are reaching opposite conclusions regarding the rule's meaning in the present case. Academic questions like this can be significant from a rules-logical perspective (as anyone who has programmed game rules into a computer might verify), even if the situation the question targets might never arise during over-the-board play. No game rule &lt;em&gt;wishes&lt;/em&gt; players to reach opposite conclusions regarding its meaning, does it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Two computer programs with different understandings of the rules might deadlock, if set to play one another, for example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;FURTHER UPDATE&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The answers have been really interesting, at least to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An actual arbiter in this thread has now persuaded me to the opposite conclusion. He has persuaded me that the checkmate would take precedence, after all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately, one probably cannot but conclude that the rule is ambiguous in the sense that the rule evidently supports reasonable, experienced players to reach opposite conclusions regarding the rule's meaning in this instance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="315" LastEditorUserId="315" LastEditDate="2018-01-23T14:32:58.097" LastActivityDate="2018-01-23T14:32:58.097" Title="Simltaneous checkmate and draw claim on the 50th move" Tags="&lt;fide&gt;&lt;50-move-rule&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" ClosedDate="2018-01-23T18:02:42.440" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19711" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19710" CreationDate="2018-01-23T05:53:59.130" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It appears that 1.4.2 and 5.1.1 on that page would take precedence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1.4.2 The opponent whose king has been checkmated has lost the game.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;5.1.1 The game is won by the player who has checkmated his opponent’s king. This immediately ends the game, provided that the move producing&#xA;  the checkmate position was in accordance with Article 3 and Articles&#xA;  4.2 – 4.7.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9025" LastActivityDate="2018-01-23T05:53:59.130" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19712" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19710" CreationDate="2018-01-23T08:13:00.463" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Laws of Chess say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;9.3 The game is drawn, upon a correct claim by the player having the move, if&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;a) he  writes his  move on  his  scoresheet  and  declares  to  the &#xA;  arbiter  his  intention to make this move, which shall result in the&#xA;  last 50 moves having been made by each player without the movement of&#xA;  any pawn and without any capture, or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;b) the last 50 consecutive  moves  have  been  made  by  each  player&#xA;  without the movement of any pawn and without any capture.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So you don't claim the draw WHILE you checkmate but BEFORE you make the checkmate move. Therefore there is no checkmate, but the game is drawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you don't claim the draw but execute your checkmate move, your opponent cannot claim a draw by 9.3.b) because the game is finished by your checkmate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14979" LastActivityDate="2018-01-23T08:13:00.463" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19713" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5363" CreationDate="2018-01-23T08:24:11.950" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The question asked in the title is different from the question asked in the body.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it is required that every best option is check, but it is allowed for the players to have non-checking alternatives, then I offer the following. Every best option for White, i.e. every White move which enables White to mate in time against any Black defence (not just checks), is check. White has other moves available which are not check, but they fail to mate in time. Every best option for Black, i.e. every Black move which gives White only one move-sequence which enables White to mate in time, is check. Black has other moves available which are not check, but they either enable White to mate sooner, or give White a choice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;J. Rotenberg, Problemiste 2012, 1st pr.; PDB 1298074. #11&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;3Bn1N1/qrrpbppn/1Pppp1p1/2QR1Nk1/3PKR2/8/b2p2P1/8 w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Nfxe7+ exd5+ 2.Nxd5+ Nef6+ 3.Ndxf6+ d5+ 4.Nxd5+ Nf6+ 5.Ndxf6+ d5+ 6.Nxd5+ Re7+ 7.Ndxe7+ Bd5+ 8.Nxd5+ Re7+ 9.Ndxe7+ f5+ 10.Nxf5+ Qe7+ 11.Nfxe7#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's Rotenberg's original problem of which the above is a correction.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;J. Rotenberg, Europe Echecs 1978; Morse, 1st ed., 835; PDB 1298046. #11&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;3Bn1N1/qrrpbppn/1Pppp1p1/2QR1Nk1/3PKR2/1b6/6P1/8 w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Nfxe7+ exd5+ (1... cxd5+ 2.Nxd5+ Nef6+ 3.Ndxf6+ d5+ 4.Nxd5+ Nf6+ 5.Ndxf6+ d5+ 6.Nxd5+ Re7+ 7.Ndxe7+ f5+ 8.Nxf5+ Re7 9.Qxe7+ Qxe7 10.Bxe7+ ~ 11.Rh4#) (1... f5+ 2.Rdxf5+ exf5+ 3.Rxf5+ Kg4 4.Rf4+ ~ 5. Qc3+ Kh2 6.Rh4+) (1...e5 2.Rxe5+ dxe5 3.Qxe5+ f5+ 4.Rxf5+) 2.Nxd5+ Nef6+ (2... f6 3.Ndxf6+ {and mate in 9}) 3.Ndxf6+ d5+ 4.Nxd5+ Nf6+ 5.dNxf6+ d5+ 6.Nxd5+ Re7+ 7.Ndxe7+ Bd5+ 8.Nxd5+ Re7+ 9.Ndxe7+ f5+ 10.Nxf5+ Qe7+ 11.Ndxe7#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The sideline after 1... cxd5+ is not best for Black because it gives White the duals 9.Qxe7+ Qxe7 10.Bxe7+ and 9.Bxe7+ Qxe7 10.Qxe7+. And it also gives Black non-checking options which force White to take the full 11 moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The sideline after 2... f6 is not best for Black because it enables White to mate in 9.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The above observation, and the choice of sidelines, are by Morse.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately this problem is cooked. PDB notes a shorter win in 9.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it is required that every White move and every Black move is forced, I don't know the answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10380" LastActivityDate="2018-01-23T08:24:11.950" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19715" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19710" CreationDate="2018-01-23T12:01:05.710" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would let the checkmate stand but the true answer is that it does not matter. The player has the right to offer a draw at any time and the claim according to article 9.3 is also a draw offer. You are concerned with a peculiar situation where player A wants a draw and does not want to win, for whatever reason, while player B does not want to draw (even at the cost of a loss). Therefore, the question you really ask is whether claiming a draw according to article 9.3, if the intended move delivers a checkmate, can secure you the draw. Abstracting away from the possibility that you can choose any other legal move and claim on that basis, the answer to that question is that yes, there is a way. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can claim the draw as you proposed and if the arbiter rejects the claim because the checkmate stands then you simply let your time run out and the game is a draw because the opponent cannot checkmate you by any series of legal moves. This is since you have committed to play the checkmating move thus there is no way how the opponent could checkmate you as they are going to be checkmated on next move. A catch is that not all arbiters may be comfortable with this interpretation and they may declare the game lost for you even though they shouldn't. But this situation will never happen anyway, right? It is purely of academic interest. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would let the checkmate stand for two reasons.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Consider this variation on your question, you claim the draw as you proposed but the intended move does not deliver a checkmate but rather captures a pawn. Again, as you point out, the move has not yet been made, hence, the pawn is never captured. Still the claim should be rejected. To assess the validity of the claim you need to consider the position as if the move had been played. I would apply this reasoning to the checkmate situation. If there is a checkmate after the intended 50th move, the validity of the claim cannot be assessed since the game will have finished. Of course, you can choose another move and claim the draw. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Article 9.6.2 explicitly says that the checkmate takes precedence, therefore, I would apply it to article 9.3.1 too (not 9.3.2 since the game would have already finished once the checkmate is on the board). The crux is whether article 9.3.1 omits to mention this precedence intentionally. If this was so then what would the intention be? The intention would have to be to allow the player to secure a draw instead of the win and this is pointless as I explained earlier. Therefore, this difference in the wordings is not intentional, in fact, article 9.3.1 does not require it while article 9.6.2 does. In the situation described in 9.6.2 the player does not have the option not to claim, the amendment protects the stronger player here. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It does not really matter though. Imagine 50 moves without a capture or moving a pawn have already been played. Then the player can either claim according to 9.3.1 as you proposed or they can claim according to 9.3.2 even though they could deliver a checkmate next move. In the latter case it is an unambiguous draw. It does not make much sense to obtain to different results depending on which way you claim the same thing (yes, I am undermining my earlier arguments) but either way you get something out of it that does not make much sense. But again, no one forces you to claim a draw with a checkmating move. In fact, this may trigger a punishment according to article 12.9 for putting chess in disrepute. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am afraid you misunderstand Geurt Gijssen's answer. He did not answer your question at all, he said that the player having the move would not make the claim, because it does not make sense, and the opponent is not allowed to make the claim, because it is not their move. It does not follow from his answer that he would agree with the claim if the player really made it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8844" LastActivityDate="2018-01-23T12:01:05.710" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19716" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19725" CreationDate="2018-01-23T12:17:24.110" Score="3" ViewCount="414" Body="&lt;p&gt;Except for the variations where there is a capture or fork possible for the defending side, is a position possible where this kind of endgame will last more than 50 moves? Is somewhere a calculation in moves done what is the worst possible situation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13744" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-10-27T02:51:50.700" LastActivityDate="2020-10-27T02:51:50.700" Title="Is a forced draw by 50 moves possible with Bishop and Knight endgame?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;knight-endgame&gt;&lt;50-move-rule&gt;&lt;bishop-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="19717" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12613" CreationDate="2018-01-23T14:17:47.053" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The FIDE later &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=208&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;updated&lt;/a&gt; the laws, after which a duplicate question was inadvertently &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/q/19710/315&quot;&gt;asked&lt;/a&gt; (by me) on this site. The answers to the duplicate are interesting, considerate and &lt;em&gt;contradictory.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This suggests that, unfortunately, there may exist no common understanding as to what the rule in question actually means.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The irony is that players with opposite interpretations of the rule can perhaps agree that the answer you are now reading were wrong, insofar as each opposite player believes the rule in question to be unambiguous, but unambiguous in opposite ways!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="315" LastActivityDate="2018-01-23T14:17:47.053" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19719" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19720" CreationDate="2018-01-23T15:14:53.450" Score="6" ViewCount="2137" Body="&lt;p&gt;Firstly, I'm very very bad at chess. I've known &lt;em&gt;how&lt;/em&gt; to play for most of my life, but I've never been good, so I'm trying to get good by playing against easy computers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I commonly end in draws with situations like the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;3k4/8/1N6/2P2Q2/4R3/R5B1/P3K1P1/5B2 w - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm &lt;em&gt;really&lt;/em&gt; not convinced this is a real draw. I have both Rooks and my Queen left, so I should be able to box the King in easily. But maybe I'm wrong, maybe it's impossible for me to win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So if I'm wrong, I'd like to know why. If not, why does the computer consider this a draw?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15628" LastEditorUserId="2789" LastEditDate="2018-01-23T17:50:08.097" LastActivityDate="2018-01-24T08:40:17.223" Title="How is this scenario a draw?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;draw&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19720" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19719" CreationDate="2018-01-23T15:23:19.637" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;With black to move, he is not in check but he also has no legal moves. There is no square where his king can go without putting himself in check, and that would be an illegal move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That situation is called &lt;strong&gt;stalemate&lt;/strong&gt; (&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalemate&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;), and it is an immediate draw by the rules of the game. You've boxed him in too well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As to why stalemate is a draw see &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/1412/why-is-stalemate-a-draw&quot;&gt;Why is stalemate a draw?&lt;/a&gt; , and there are also a lot of further questions if you search the site for &quot;stalemate&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastEditorUserId="15599" LastEditDate="2018-01-24T08:40:17.223" LastActivityDate="2018-01-24T08:40:17.223" CommentCount="11" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19723" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19724" CreationDate="2018-01-23T22:19:26.037" Score="0" ViewCount="114" Body="&lt;p&gt;Generally are there any distinguishable patterns you look find in the opening that you recognize as weak, or exploitable. Or generally any openings that provide the over-bearing sense of duty on a piece? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12876" LastEditorUserId="12876" LastEditDate="2018-01-23T22:25:13.163" LastActivityDate="2018-01-24T06:37:39.930" Title="What are the most common squares to be overworked?" Tags="&lt;positional-play&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19724" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19723" CreationDate="2018-01-23T22:49:31.280" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Prior to castling, f2/f7 are the most exploitable squares in the game, because they are defended by only one piece: the king. That's why so many king-stuck-in-the-center games are rounded off by a piece sacrificing itself on those squares.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the queenside, the c2 and c7 squares also have problems, because of a tactical sequence like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1. Bf1-b5+ Qb6xb5&#xA;2. Nd5-c7 (forking the queen with either a king on e8, or a rook on a8)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But these tactics happen less often than tactics on f2-f7, because the queen is usually a better defender than the king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13930" LastActivityDate="2018-01-23T22:49:31.280" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19725" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19716" CreationDate="2018-01-24T02:00:09.393" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;It takes at most 33 moves to win this endgame from any position (excluding positions where bishop or knight can be captured). See &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bishop_and_knight_checkmate&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bishop_and_knight_checkmate&lt;/a&gt; and references there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, no, a forced draw is not possible in this endgame. However if the defending side is playing perfectly (e.g. an engine with tablebase), it could be very hard to win this for a human within 50 moves if you start from one of those 33-moves-to-mate positions. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastEditorUserId="11629" LastEditDate="2018-01-27T19:37:46.350" LastActivityDate="2018-01-27T19:37:46.350" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19726" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19729" CreationDate="2018-01-24T03:15:37.390" Score="5" ViewCount="283" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is the Jaenisch/Schliemann Gambit being played or it has become out of fashion? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS: I am a club player (FIDE ~1800) and occasionally use it to success. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11644" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-01-24T18:42:56.283" LastActivityDate="2018-01-25T08:32:40.857" Title="Jaenisch/Schliemann Gambit" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;gambits&gt;&lt;ruy-lopez&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19728" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19723" CreationDate="2018-01-24T06:37:39.930" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the French Defense, Tarrash variation, `1.e4,e6 2.d4,d5 3.Nd2, Nf6 4.e5,Nfd7 White must carefully guard d4 and e5 as Black will play c5, &amp;amp; Nc6, &amp;amp; possibly Qb6. One scheme for White is Bd3 &amp;amp; Ndf3 &amp;amp; Ne2  &amp;amp; c3 (not necessarily in that order) &amp;amp; be willing to play ef6 if Black plays f6 (which can result in a weak Black pawn on e6).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15633" LastActivityDate="2018-01-24T06:37:39.930" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19729" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19726" CreationDate="2018-01-24T08:10:58.473" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It depends what level you're talking about.  At the top level with super GMs, it's more or less out of fashion in serious games.  They either choose the Berlin or some other main line (like the Closed Spanish).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the -2000 section though, it's still a viable opening.  If you know it well enough then it's a good weapon to catch your opponents off guard.  I would recommend learning another line to play against the Spanish though, so that you can alternate between it and the Jaenisch.  If someone were to spend a serious amount of time preparing for you, they could cause some problems.  If you have multiple lines though, it makes preparation much more difficult.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I looked up the Jaenisch's stats in the Mega Database, and it actually stores fairly well.  White only scores slightly over 50%, and this is a normal stat for most main lines.  Also, some top level guys have played it before (Aronian, Radjabov, Carlsen, Ivanchuk).  While they don't play it regularly, it's still a testimony to the viability of the Jaenisch. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastEditorUserId="12873" LastEditDate="2018-01-25T08:32:40.857" LastActivityDate="2018-01-25T08:32:40.857" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19731" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19733" CreationDate="2018-01-24T15:13:38.330" Score="5" ViewCount="258" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;rnbq1rk1/p3ppbp/3p1np1/1ppP4/2P2B2/2N2N1P/PP2PPP1/R2QKB1R b KQ - 0 8&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the above position, Black gets a solid initiative and easy play on the weak White queenside pawns after &lt;code&gt;1.cxb5 (1. Nxb5? Ne4!)&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But White can decline with &lt;code&gt;1.e3&lt;/code&gt;, intending &lt;code&gt;2.Be2&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;3.O-O&lt;/code&gt;. Should Black respond with &lt;code&gt;1...Nbd7&lt;/code&gt;, waiting for White to take the pawn?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13147" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-01-24T18:42:20.663" LastActivityDate="2018-01-24T18:42:20.663" Title="What if White declines the Volga Gambit?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;gambits&gt;&lt;benko-gambit&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="8" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19732" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19726" CreationDate="2018-01-24T15:58:23.160" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure how many times it needs to be played by players of what caliber in what period of time to be considered &quot;in fashion&quot;, but chess.com's database shows one game in 2017 where this was played and both players were rated over 2500.  For 2016 it shows ten such games, including several 2700-level games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2018-01-24T15:58:23.160" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19733" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19731" CreationDate="2018-01-24T16:18:09.533" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The position you've shown looks at first glance to be a poor side-line of the Benko (Volga) gambit for white, both the timing of &lt;code&gt;h3&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;Nc3&lt;/code&gt; seem out of place. For instance let's reach that position (somewhat sensibly) by the following line: (annotated)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [title &quot;A path to OP's Benko gambit sideline&quot;]&#xA; [fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA; 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 c5 3.d5 b5 4.Nf3 g6 5.Bf4 Bg7 6.h3 {h3 is well unnecessary here, in Benko the c8 bishop doesn't target the g4 square anyway, and if the f6 knight wants to re-route to e5 it doesn't have to go via g4, but d7. Thus, h3 is a waste of a tempo when white is already behind in development} (6.Nbd2 O-O 7.e4 {is much more to the point if you don't want to accept the gambit}) (6.e3 {yet another possibility, Nbd2 Be2 O-O are in queue unless black does something active} d6 {black cannot allow d6}) d6 7.Nc3 O-O 8.e3 {this is your suggestion: it doesn't really work here as you c3 knight is misplaced if you don't want to accept the gambit, now b4 comes with a tempo and your knight will end up either on the rim or hindering your own pieces} (8.Nxb5 {seems to be the most sensible choice, not damaging your pawn structure and not offering black to play a6 getting rid of its weak pawn and activating the bishop via a6-f1 diagonal.} Ne4 9.Nd2 {Not giving black chance to take on b2} Qa5 {pinning the knight and preventing Nc3 and preparing to take on b2 again} 10.Qc2 {sure visually it doesn't look great for white, but we're holding for the moment.}) (8.cxb5 a6 {accepts the gambit again but allows for the usual follow-up with a6-bxa6-Qb6 etc}) b4 {when the knight is on d2, b4 is less dangerous because you'll still be able to challenge it with a3 in time} 9.Ne2 Ne4 {g7 bishop alone is dominating the position, white lacks in development and dark square control, without any real other compensation to speak of} 10.Nd2 Nxd2 11.Qxd2 a5 {I think at this point black's advantage is quite clear.}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To conclude the above analysis in short key takeaways:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;This is generally not a desirable Benko line for white. &lt;code&gt;6.h3&lt;/code&gt; seems well out of place, white should be pushing to complete development (so that you can quickly start challenging black's queen-side or creating play in the center, none of which is possible with your king still on &lt;code&gt;e1&lt;/code&gt;.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;7.Nc3&lt;/code&gt; is not the way to go if you don't want to accept the gambit, you're allowing &lt;code&gt;b4&lt;/code&gt; without any repercussions for black, and your knight will be mis-placed. &lt;code&gt;7.Nbd2&lt;/code&gt; is a much better try. If you want to stick to &lt;code&gt;7.Nc3&lt;/code&gt; then it's best to start considering accepting the gambit, either &lt;code&gt;8.Nxb5&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;8.cxb5&lt;/code&gt; each with their own merit and far more playable than &lt;code&gt;8.e3.&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;After &lt;code&gt;8.e3 b4&lt;/code&gt; white is objectively behind: the knights seem out of coordination, the bishop on &lt;code&gt;f4&lt;/code&gt; is staring at a wall, there are no clear pawn breaks for white, the queen-side is permanently weak and there are no quick ways of creating counter-play on the king-side as we're far behind in any attempt to challenge the &lt;code&gt;g7&lt;/code&gt; bishop (&lt;code&gt;Qd2-Bf4&lt;/code&gt; battery is not possible with &lt;code&gt;e3&lt;/code&gt;, nor is there any re-routing for the bishop to return to &lt;code&gt;d4-g7&lt;/code&gt; diagonal). This also answers your &lt;strong&gt;main&lt;/strong&gt; question: Black should not respond by &lt;code&gt;Nbd7&lt;/code&gt; after &lt;code&gt;8.e3&lt;/code&gt;, instead &lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;8...b4&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; is the &lt;strong&gt;main&lt;/strong&gt; move to consider, exploiting the mis-placed &lt;code&gt;c3&lt;/code&gt; knight while increasing your grip on the dark squares, leaving no real ways for white to challenge the &lt;code&gt;g7&lt;/code&gt; bishop (note &lt;code&gt;b4&lt;/code&gt; is also stopping any future attempts at &lt;code&gt;Bd2-Bc3&lt;/code&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Small recommendation (for the white side): avoid the &lt;code&gt;Bf4&lt;/code&gt; side-lines, none of them are really interesting for white, in fact in many of the Benko variations the bishop belongs to its original &lt;code&gt;c1&lt;/code&gt; square for a long time as &lt;code&gt;b2&lt;/code&gt; is continuously under pressure. Instead consider the &lt;code&gt;5.Qc2&lt;/code&gt; variation if you don't want to accept the gambit, which can roughly go as follows: &lt;code&gt;5.Qc2 Bg7 6.e4 d6 7.Be2 O-O 8.O-O&lt;/code&gt;. I think after going through some of the possible side-lines of this variation, you can convince yourself that this is a much more sound continuation for white. Alternatively, accepting the gambit is known to yield the best play for white, namely lines such as &lt;code&gt;5.cxb5 a6 6.bxa6 Bxa6 7.Nc3&lt;/code&gt; (black does have a different kind of compensation now, but by accepting the gambit we've prevented &lt;code&gt;b4&lt;/code&gt; altogether and revived chances to challenge the dark-squares) &lt;code&gt;7...Bg7&lt;/code&gt; and many ways for white to continue.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Welcome to ask additional questions, either regarding the analysis or more related to the black side of the Benko gambit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3594" LastActivityDate="2018-01-24T16:18:09.533" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19734" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19736" CreationDate="2018-01-24T16:30:50.113" Score="14" ViewCount="3063" Body="&lt;p&gt;a3/h3 are frequently used to prevent the bishops from pinning the knights.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I always have a hard time deciding whether to play them or not. Playing them loses moves and tempo while not playing can also sometimes become annoying (for example, if the knight is pinned after the bishop has already moved OR worse, if the bishop cannot come back to remove the pin).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can the experts here help the rest of us with some thumb rules and/or examples? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15636" LastEditorUserId="15636" LastEditDate="2018-01-25T13:28:06.940" LastActivityDate="2018-01-25T13:28:06.940" Title="How to decide when is a3/h3 needed?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;pawns&gt;&lt;knights&gt;&lt;bishops&gt;&lt;pins&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19735" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19734" CreationDate="2018-01-24T18:41:02.307" Score="3" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Never&lt;/strong&gt; do it in front of your castled king (or on the wing where you want to castle), if the opponent hasn't castled yet or castled on the other wing. Doing so weakens your king's fortress and is an open invitation for a storm by the b- or g-pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Generally, in open games (after 1. e4 e5), and especially with Black, the loss of tempo involved in a (preemptive) a3/h3/a6/h6 will be heavier than in closed games. Actually, I have a hard time thinking of main line openings where this move is played to prevent the bishop from coming to b4/g4/b5/g5. &lt;strong&gt;That alone should be a reason not to play it.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Playing it &lt;em&gt;after&lt;/em&gt; the opponent moved the bishop (e.g. 3... a6 in the Ruy Lopez, 4. a3 in the Sämisch variation of the Nimzo-Indian) is usually less of a problem, because it forces the bishop to retreat or be exchanged with the knight, giving you the bishop pair.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2018-01-24T18:41:02.307" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19736" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19734" CreationDate="2018-01-24T20:19:49.410" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let's stick to one color, white here, and everything we'll say will generally hold true for black as well. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Rule of thumb:&lt;/strong&gt; On the one hand, you generally don't want to move your king-side pawns (such as &lt;code&gt;h3&lt;/code&gt;) when you've castled short, unless you have to, and we will expand on what &quot;have to&quot; entails here. The immediate exception to that is when you decide to fianchetto your king-side bishop, e.g., in the Catalan where then you play &lt;code&gt;g3&lt;/code&gt;. On the other hand, your queen-side pawns (assuming you've castled short) are to be used more actively to either gain space or prevent an spatial expansion by your opponent.  (&lt;em&gt;the rule is naturally to be taken with caution, chess rarely lends itself to these kinds of generalizations&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The more common cases are when a bishop is pinning your knight on &lt;code&gt;g4&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;h3&lt;/code&gt; is an immediate way to try and challenge the bishop, asking it where it wants to go. But there are cases where &lt;code&gt;g4&lt;/code&gt; is not being exploited for a pin but rather as an intermediate square to re-route a knight (to &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt; for instance). In either case, if the pin is problematic to deal with, which may be so if you've already made a commitment with your light square bishop and it cannot return to &lt;code&gt;e2&lt;/code&gt;, or if the knight re-routing would be an improvement for your  opponent, then you really want to play &lt;code&gt;h3&lt;/code&gt; in a &lt;strong&gt;prophylactic&lt;/strong&gt; way to prevent all of that. Here's an example in the Benko gambit:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [Title &quot;Benko gambit declined - preventive example&quot;]&#xA; [fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 c5 3.d5 b5 4.Nf3 g6 5.Qc2 Bg7 6.e4 d6 7.h3 {Stopping any future knight re-routes to e5 via g4, and specially securing e3 for the c1 bishop. Bg4 is altogether less of a concern here in comparison}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And below you find two prophylactic examples of &lt;code&gt;a3&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;h3&lt;/code&gt; where they are purely strategic and intentional:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [title &quot;a) Nimzo-Indian b)London system - (deliberate examples)&quot;]&#xA; [fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1.d4 Nf6 (1...d5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.Bf4 e6 4.e3 Be7 5.Nbd2 O-O 6.h3 {this is largely to secure the h2 square so that we can preserve our dark square bishop for instance against Nh5.}) 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.Qc2 O-O 5.a3 {white by choice, not forced, plays a3 to resolve the pressure on c3 in order to finish development more deliberately, with choices such as Bg5 becoming easier to make} Bxc3+ 6.Qxc3 b6 7.Bg5     &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then there are &lt;strong&gt;reactive&lt;/strong&gt; cases where &lt;em&gt;tactically&lt;/em&gt; one may not have a choice but to challenge a piece on &lt;code&gt;g4&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;b4&lt;/code&gt; respectively, in which case although there's no doubt your opponent would be forcing your hand into playing &lt;code&gt;h3&lt;/code&gt; (&lt;code&gt;a3&lt;/code&gt;), but you will have to include that move and accept a small set-back. Extreme cases are when a mate is threatened, e.g., a queen on &lt;code&gt;h5&lt;/code&gt; and knight on &lt;code&gt;g4.&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Why moving the castled-side pawns would generally be a set-back?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Main reason for that is two-fold: First, as obvious as it may sound, you'd be permanently committing to a pawn structure, second and tightly related to the first, you'd be creating targets for your opponent. The latter may be, to name a few, in the form of weakened dark squares, for instance if there's a dark-square battery on the &lt;code&gt;c7-h2&lt;/code&gt; diagonal that you'd want to preferably deal with by playing &lt;code&gt;g3&lt;/code&gt;, but having previously played &lt;code&gt;h3&lt;/code&gt; may make that difficult and &lt;code&gt;g3&lt;/code&gt; would expose &lt;code&gt;h3&lt;/code&gt; &lt;em&gt;and&lt;/em&gt; &lt;code&gt;g3&lt;/code&gt; itself to potential sacrifices. Another type of target would be, a pawn push on the king-side by your opponent, challenging &lt;code&gt;h3&lt;/code&gt; with &lt;code&gt;g4&lt;/code&gt; attempting to undermine your king-side pawns and open a file towards your king. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;strong&gt;takeaway&lt;/strong&gt; here can be generalized: pawn moves in chess are always a commitment, the later you have to commit to them, the more pawn structures you can opt for, and conversely, the sooner you commit to one, be it willingly or forced by your opponent, the earlier you create targets for your opponent. Targets are not always weak pieces/pawns (such as back pawns, or isolated ones), but they can also be strategic targets that can be exploited in your position, prime example being weakened-black/white-squares, or more abstractly, your pawn-breaks in the position can become limited, and the few remaining ones can more easily be prevented/delayed by your opponent, which ultimately means you will have a hard time undermining your opponent's structure and creating active play. This is closely related to space control in chess, which you can read more about &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/19645/what-is-space-on-a-chessboard/&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;. With all of this in mind, now you can see for example why the English opening is generally is hard to face: it is extremely versatile in pawn structures it can lead to, consequently, the opponent has a harder time to resolve the dilemma of which plan to opt for! Instead, &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt; openings are more committal by definition (as we start by moving a central pawn already), so we can more reliably establish &lt;em&gt;systems&lt;/em&gt; against them&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now let's take an extreme example where our rule of thumb is being perfectly illustrated:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [title &quot;Michael Adams vs Garry Kasparov, Linares 2005&quot;]&#xA; [fen &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.Be3 e6 7.Be2 Qc7 8.Qd2 b5 9.a3 Bb7 10.f3 Nc6 11.O-O-O b4 12.axb4 Nxb4 13.g4 Be7 14.g5 Nd7 15.h4 Nc5 16.Kb1 Rb8 17.h5 O-O 18.g6 Bf6 19.Rdg1 Ba8 20.Bg5 Be5 21.gxh7+ Kxh7 22.Nb3 Nxc2 23.Nxc5 Na3+ 24.Ka2 Qxc5 25.Na4 Nc2 26.Kb1 Qa3 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Notice how Kasparov pushes with &lt;code&gt;a6-b5-b4&lt;/code&gt; on the queen-side in order to launch his attack on white's long castled king and yet &lt;em&gt;never&lt;/em&gt; moves any of his king-side pawns until the end as to avoid giving white &lt;em&gt;any&lt;/em&gt; entry-points or targets. Notice how Adams had to play earlier &lt;code&gt;a3&lt;/code&gt; in order to prevent &lt;code&gt;b4&lt;/code&gt; as it would force his &lt;code&gt;c3&lt;/code&gt; knight to be mis-placed in turn weakening the &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; support. And having committed to &lt;code&gt;a3&lt;/code&gt; is precisely the target Kasparov used with &lt;code&gt;b5-b4&lt;/code&gt; to open the &lt;code&gt;b&lt;/code&gt;-file, which he then exploited beautifully. This is a cherry picked example, but it's very appropriate here because all of our previous points culminate in one game! More generally, Sicilian players are accustomed to this type of pawn structures (i.e., knowing not to commit their king-side pawns and just push as fast as possible on the queen-side). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3594" LastActivityDate="2018-01-24T20:19:49.410" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19737" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19738" CreationDate="2018-01-24T20:42:37.587" Score="3" ViewCount="449" Body="&lt;p&gt;A single knight or bishop usually isn't enough to force checkmate. However, I know there are certain positions where the defending side has his king in front of a rook pawn where a win can be forced.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I have two questions related to this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What is the longest forced win where the winning side has only a knight or bishop?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Are there any nontrivial (i.e., not mate in 1) forced wins that don't involve the losing side having his king trapped in front of a rook pawn?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12377" LastActivityDate="2021-05-02T21:20:39.287" Title="Longest forced win with just a Knight or Bishop" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;knights&gt;&lt;bishops&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19738" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19737" CreationDate="2018-01-24T20:56:46.417" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;http://kirill-kryukov.com/chess/longest-checkmates/longest-checkmates.shtml&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this website&lt;/a&gt;, the longest checkmate for K+B vs. K+P is a simple mate in one, e.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/8/8/8/8/8/p7/k1K1B3 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The K+N vs. K+P case is slightly more interesting, the following position is mate in seven:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/8/8/8/p7/8/N7/k1K5 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Nb4 a3 2. Nc2+ Ka2 3. Nd4 Ka1 4. Kc2 Ka2 5. Ne2 Ka1 6. Nc1 a2 7. Nb3#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can play these endgames with online tablebases, e.g. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.shredderchess.com/online-chess/online-databases/endgame-database.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this one&lt;/a&gt; from Shredder.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2018-01-24T20:56:46.417" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19739" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19734" CreationDate="2018-01-24T22:53:02.543" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;NEVER&lt;/strong&gt; say never. Rules of thumb are just that. White very commonly plays h3 at an early stage in many variations of the Ruy Lopez, even before Black has committed his K. What often makes this safe is that Black may have already disarranged his own Q-side pawns by ..a6 and ..b5, so he is unlikely to castle over there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I remember learning this rule of thumb for White in the Lopez. Do not play d4 if Black can answer with ..Bg4, because then your center will be under attack. But if Black plays ..Bg4 early, go with d3, because then your center is not under attack and you can manoeuvre ..Nd2-f1-e3 with tempo against the misplaced (?) Bishop if you have not played h3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The answer to your question is that h3 (or any other move) is good if it forms part of an integrated plan. Rules of thumb like the ones quoted by Glorfindel or Phonon or myself are useful if they start your planning off in a good direction, but the thing about plans is that you must be prepared to change your mind (and perhaps change it back again). To reinforce a point made by Phonon, I have always admired (but not always remembered) the advice of James Mason,&quot;You have 48 pawn moves. Spend each one as if it was the last dollar between you and starvation&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Reasons &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt;  to play h3 in the Lopez;&#xA;1. It encourages a charge by the Black g-pawn (but is that anything more than just a bit scary? Does Black have backup?)&#xA;2. It weakens f4 to occupation by an enemy Knight because g3 will now hang the h-pawn (Is that Knight currently anywhere near f4?)&#xA;3. It may lose time for executing a desirable manoeuvre elsewhere (but does that matter if the manoeuvre is merely delayed and cannot actually be prevented?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Who said that h3 was &quot;provincial timidity occasioned by metropolitan excitement?&quot;, Staunton?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Reasons &lt;strong&gt;for&lt;/strong&gt; playing h3 in the Lopez; 1.To prevent Bg4 (if this was really a threat)&#xA;2. To prevent Ng4 and secure stability for a B on e3, 3.To remove back-rank anxieties 4. To keep more pieces on the board (if Black is already cramped. 5. to prepare g4 (if you are the one ready with a pawn-storm.) 6. As a waiting move (If Black is trying not to commit to some decision but you want them to reveal it) 7. To drive off an attacking Knight before reinforcements arrive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There can be many more and often they are in conflict. What you must do is try take all of these into account (and combine them with decisions about your c-pawn, for example) until you have a harmonious plan (Much of this will eventually become instinctive, as part of your &quot;chess vision&quot;, the pieces will look neat and organized.)&#xA;Then try to remain consistent with that plan (accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative) until circumstances change; be very alert for that moment. If your plan does not work, recognize that you have been outplayed by a better planner (unless you just missed a Knight fork). The focus of a postmortem should not be &quot;Was this a good move?&quot; but &quot;was this a good plan?&quot; Rules of thumb are invaluable as reminders in the early stage of planning. Ask, What is the usual situation? How might this be different?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastEditorUserId="13012" LastEditDate="2018-01-24T23:21:07.427" LastActivityDate="2018-01-24T23:21:07.427" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19740" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19741" CreationDate="2018-01-25T14:21:12.840" Score="0" ViewCount="138" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;B1b2rk1/p3pp1p/6p1/q1Pp4/3b1B2/2n4P/P2Q1PP1/2R1K2R b K - 0 17&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stockfish rates this position as -2.94, so Black is clearly winning. Or is it so clear? After 1... Bxf2+ 2. Qxf2 Ne4+ 3. Bd2 Nxf2 4. Bxa5 Nxh1 5. Bxd5, White obtains the Bishop pair in an open position and a passed pawn. This is not the winning move. (Actually, there are two: The alternative is 1... Qxc5.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I cannot fathom how Black is better. Sure, material is even in terms of points, the White LSB is locked in and eventually Ba6 will be played, but when is &lt;em&gt;eventually&lt;/em&gt; and how?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13147" LastActivityDate="2018-01-25T15:53:44.637" Title="What is the winning move here and why?" Tags="&lt;tactics&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19741" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19740" CreationDate="2018-01-25T14:42:43.483" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;Bxf2+&lt;/code&gt; gives away all your advantage because of the precise line you mention. The correct move is &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt; (to protect your bishop with tempo, note &lt;code&gt;1...e5 2.O-O exf4 3.Qxd4&lt;/code&gt; doesn't work because of &lt;code&gt;Ne2+&lt;/code&gt; fork), followed by &lt;code&gt;Ba6&lt;/code&gt;, preventing castling and attacking the trapped &lt;code&gt;a8&lt;/code&gt; bishop. Notice &lt;code&gt;Bc6-Bd7-Bg4&lt;/code&gt; doesn't really save the bishop as shown below: (covering some side-variations as well, rather called for as it's a very concrete position)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [title &quot;1...e5&quot;]&#xA; [fen &quot;B1b2rk1/p3pp1p/6p1/q1Pp4/3b1B2/2n4P/P2Q1PP1/2R1K2R b KQq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1...e5 (1...Qxc5 {also a good move with similar threats except the queen discovery} 2.O-O Ba6 3.Rfe1 Rxa8 4.Be3 Bxe3 5.Rxe3 d4 {easily winning: two pieces and a pawn for the rook, together with a passed pawn and dominant knight}) (1...Ba6 {The immediate Ba6 is not good enough probably but it's a fun line, the idea with Ne2+ forking bishop and knight while still taking on a8.} 2.Qxd4 Ne2+ 3.Qd2 Qxd2+ 4.Kxd2 Rxa8 5.Be3 Nxc1 6.Rxc1 {still a pawn up but it's opposite colored-bishop so always big drawing chances.}) 2.Bh6 Ba6 3.Bc6 (3.Bxd5 Rd8 4.Bf3 Bxf2+ {wins on the spot for black}) (3.Bxf8 Bxf2+ {however white recaptures loses on the spot} 4.Kxf2 Ne4+) Rc8 4.Bd7 Rxc5 5.Bg4 Bxf2+ 6.Qxf2 Ne4+ {and you're winning the house.}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3594" LastEditorUserId="3594" LastEditDate="2018-01-25T15:53:44.637" LastActivityDate="2018-01-25T15:53:44.637" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19742" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2017" CreationDate="2018-01-25T15:09:59.740" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is an open problem, but historically:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Since 1851, compiled statistics support this view; White consistently wins slightly more often than Black, usually scoring between 52 and 56 percent. White's winning percentage is about the same for tournament games between humans and games between computers;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/z97Hhm.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/z97Hhm.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the recent games played by AlphaZero against Stockfish:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;With White AlphaZero [vs. Stockfish] scored a phenomenal 25 wins and 25 draws, while with Black it “merely” scored 3 wins and 47 draws. It turns out the starting move is really important after all!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/UvtF3m.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/UvtF3m.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, if the performance of AlphaZero is evidence of what the best current possible play is, white does indeed have an advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It would be interesting to see the statistics on white/black wins of AlphaZero playing against itself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess24.com/en/read/news/deepmind-s-alphazero-crushes-chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://chess24.com/en/read/news/deepmind-s-alphazero-crushes-chess&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-move_advantage_in_chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-move_advantage_in_chess&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15647" LastActivityDate="2018-01-25T15:09:59.740" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19744" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1236" CreationDate="2018-01-25T17:00:17.557" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Fischer never, ever denied it.  What he said was he doesn't play chess anymore, and when a reporter told him what Nigel said, he responded &quot;He can say what he wants&quot;.  Not playing anymore means currently; that game happened prior to that interview, so it wouldn't be a lie.  The fact that he didn't outright say that Nigel was lying seems... A little Fischy to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15649" LastActivityDate="2018-01-25T17:00:17.557" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19745" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1112" CreationDate="2018-01-26T00:21:15.930" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;I tried writing a crude pairings/results simulator, to see whether taking a bye could increase a top player's score.  When generating pairings, the program ignored pairing history and color (which I realize can matter, but I didn't want to have to program it to go back and redo pairings if there was a conflict - this is a crude simulator, not an actual pairings engine!)  But it was able to handle pairing people in a scoring category with the usual top half/bottom half method, as well as the all-important &quot;pairing up&quot; of the top person from the lower category with the bottom person from the higher category if there was an odd number of players in the higher score category.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I assumed a uniform ratings distribution through whatever ratings range I selected.  I used the &quot;Standard winning expectancy&quot; formula at the bottom of page 11 in &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.glicko.net/ratings/rating.system.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this document&lt;/a&gt;.  I did not account for fatigue.  I assumed a draw probability of half of the probability that the higher-rated player would lose (for example, if the expected score was 0.75 according to the formula, I assumed a win would happen 70%, a draw 10%, and a loss 20%.  For even matches with 0.5 expected score it would be 40% - 20% - 40%.)  I set the program to run 100000 tournaments at a time, to get a good average. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Swiss gambit pretty much always decreased a high-rated player's overall score regardless of the number of players, rounds, or rating spread (unless I set the draw probability parameter to zero, which is unrealistic.)  At best it had only a small negative effect on the final score.  Although the player's performance in later rounds was indeed better due to weaker opponents, that performance did not quite overcome the nearly half-point lost.  The top players were better off playing in all the rounds.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, in a simulation of an 8 round 200 player tournament, with player ratings ranging from 200 to 2000, the 2000-rated player had an average score of about 6.35 if they did not take a bye.  If they took a first-round bye, the average was only about 6.24.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, for some small tournaments with large point spreads and a certain number of players, although the average score dropped, the probability of placing first actually increased.  For example, in a 5 round 32 player tournament with players rated from 200 to 2000, taking a first round bye decreased the average score from 4.23 to 3.95, but increased the probability of taking clear first from 33.2% to 34.7%.  I'm not sure if these are artifacts of an imperfect pairing engine, though; the exact pairings matter more in such situations.  In &lt;em&gt;most&lt;/em&gt; of my simulations the decrease in score corresponded with a lower probability of taking first (and the decrease was somewhat larger than the increase shown here.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Interestingly, although it also wasn't effective compared to playing all the rounds, it seems that taking a half-point in the second or even third round often gave a slightly better score than taking one in the first round, especially when the ratings spread was large (in the 8 round 200 player example, they scored about 6.26 by taking the bye in the second or third round, as opposed to 6.24 by taking it in the first round.)  The first round has a top half player against an easy opponent; why skip a game you'll almost certainly win, instead of skipping the next one where your opponent may have something of a chance?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, overall:  The average score decreases when using the Swiss gambit.  The odds of winning the tournament &lt;em&gt;might&lt;/em&gt; go up in certain specific scenarios, but I'd need a better program to say for sure, and if there is any such effect it's sensitive to the &lt;em&gt;exact&lt;/em&gt; number of players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2018-01-26T00:21:15.930" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19746" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19747" CreationDate="2018-01-26T05:59:31.033" Score="2" ViewCount="566" Body="&lt;p&gt;My usual middlegame strategy is to gain an advantage, however small (say a pawn), and convert it to a win in the endgame. I position my pieces and plan attacks accordingly, so that I can grab the small advantage I need. I don't actively hunt for the opponent's king, and prefer to first gain an advantage, so I can exchange pieces and win. So the entire game grinds on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That said, I don't (usually) miss a checkmate if my opponent blunders in the middlegame. On the whole, though, I prefer taking the game to the endgame, even if my advantage is significant (~3 points).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I've seen players who actively attack the king in the middlegame itself. They position their pieces in such a manner that they threaten checkmate, and seem to plan to finish up the game in the middlegame. They try to take advantage of the castled king's reduced mobility, and checkmate him. The success of this strategy depends, it seems (based on what I've seen), on both the opponent's skill level as well as on luck.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;My question&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wonder, as a &lt;strong&gt;general rule&lt;/strong&gt;, what should one's middlegame strategy be: should one actively &lt;em&gt;hunt&lt;/em&gt; the opponent's king in the middlegame itself, looking for a checkmate, or try to gain an advantage which can be converted to a victory later?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13565" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2018-01-27T23:38:56.100" Title="Should one actively search for a checkmate ('hunt the King') in the middlegame?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;middlegame&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2018-01-30T00:14:28.587" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19747" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19746" CreationDate="2018-01-26T08:17:45.960" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is no overarching middlegame strategy that trumps all other strategies.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both middlegame strategies listed are viable general strategies to play for, &lt;strong&gt;if the position allows it&lt;/strong&gt;. What makes a difference are your own preferences; if you love tactics and mating attacks then you should probably go for middlegame positions that allow you to play in that manner, and similarly if you like calmer positions you should probably go for positions that aren't as sharp. Objectively speaking there isn't really much saying that one playing style is better than the other.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8300" LastActivityDate="2018-01-26T08:17:45.960" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19748" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19746" CreationDate="2018-01-26T10:06:47.573" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;As Scounged mentioned, there is indeed no specific strategy that trumps all others.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, note that the middle game can be seen as the tipping point of the game.  It is usually what defines who wins the game in the end.  My playstyle would be to balance both attack and defense, but ultimately, it is based on preference, when it comes to positions that seem equal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15357" LastActivityDate="2018-01-26T10:06:47.573" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19749" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19751" CreationDate="2018-01-26T13:21:28.173" Score="0" ViewCount="107" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;rnbq1rk1/ppp1ppbp/5np1/2Pp4/3P4/2N1PN2/PP3PPP/R1BQKB1R b KQ - 0 6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the above position, White has ineffectively surrendered control of the d5 square with 1. c5?. All of his pieces are not developed onto the queenside and he is unable to make use of his space advantage. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Would a good plan be for Black to play ...a5, preventing b2-b4 (which supports the c-pawn) and Bg4, Nd7, Re8, c6, Qc7, and eventually e7-e5?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13147" LastEditorUserId="13147" LastEditDate="2018-01-26T19:37:45.180" LastActivityDate="2018-01-26T19:37:45.180" Title="What is a good plan for Black when White surrenders the center?" Tags="&lt;center&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19750" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19746" CreationDate="2018-01-26T14:10:33.297" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is no general rule. Most of the time, the middlegame strategy will  depend on the position you get out of the opening. Personal preferences can play a role as well, but typically players would pick an opening based on their preference for a certain middlegame (which results from that particular opening). It is not a good idea trying to force your preference onto any position you get.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance in open positions it is often not a good idea to force a pawn storm on the enemy king. Conversely in very wild position piece activity and attacking things might be more important than calm quiet play or perhaps winning a pawn somewhere.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, if the position allows for various playing styles, you would go with whatever you are more comfortable with. However actually checkmating rarely happens in the middlegame (of games between reasonably advanced players).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2018-01-26T14:10:33.297" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19751" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19749" CreationDate="2018-01-26T14:50:36.980" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In positions like this (while the a1 rook is undefended), a typical plan  is to play immediately 1...b6 and reply to 2 b4 with 2...a5, the idea being that white cannot defend the b4 pawn with a3. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In order to analyze the consequences of this plan, I'd check the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;bxc5, dxc5 would give black's bishop the long diagonal and should be preferable for black&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;cxb6 axb6 (or cxb6) does not seem so clear to me, because the light squares on the queenside get weak. Assessment might depend on whether black can take advantage of the half-open a file and/or can put his queenside pieces to good squares without giving white too much play on the light squares.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;...b6 2. b4 a5 3. b5 Does not look attractive for black&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So it seems that black does not get anywhere on the queenside, which leaves the pawn break with e5 as the most reasonable alternative. The idea would be to either open the long  diagonal for the bishop (if white captures on e5) or to create a weak pawn on d4 (if black captures exd4, exd4).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is not much white can do to prevent black from playing e5 sooner or later. The next white moves are pretty much predictable (develop pieces, castle, push pawns on queenside...). The question is how black wants to prepare e5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;... a5 is probably a good idea because it hinders white's natural plan of pushing the queenside pawns&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;c6 vs Nc6: the pawn on c6 would protect d5 which could be important after white captures dxe5; The knight on c6 looks a bit unnatural, particularly if white manages to create a pawn storm. On the other hand from c6 a knight could put pressure on the d4 pawn.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Bg4: with all white pawns on dark squares, this bishop could be strong. You might not want to exchange it too soon.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Re8: probably a good square for the rook&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Taking into account all this and potential tactics such as white sacrificing a pawn on c6 (if black plays Nbd7), etc, I believe the best options are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Re8, Nc6, e5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Re8, c6, Nbd7, e5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;c6, Nfd7, e5 (but black might delay his development too much here)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ALl of these could be combined with Bg4 depending on how much you value bishops vs knights. Personally I'd go with the Re8, c6, Nbd7, e5 plan&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2018-01-26T14:50:36.980" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19752" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19754" CreationDate="2018-01-26T18:50:46.127" Score="3" ViewCount="3226" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have downloaded the latest version of Stockfish, and I am running it on the command line.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a hidden command 'd' which displays the current board.&#xA;Also, the &quot;debug on&quot; command is not implemented, even though it is part of the UCI protocol.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a list somewhere of all commands, all &quot;un-implemented&quot; commands, and/or command line switches for Stockfish?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have already downloaded and read the UCI protocol.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Before someone sugests it, I would like to write my own GUI, so downloading arena and just running it isn't an option.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15657" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-08-17T23:03:17.223" LastActivityDate="2019-08-17T23:03:17.223" Title="Is there a list of hidden/deleted Stockfish commands?" Tags="&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;uci&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="19754" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19752" CreationDate="2018-01-27T00:36:03.450" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Look at the source code:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/blob/master/src/uci.cpp&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/blob/master/src/uci.cpp&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;   // Additional custom non-UCI commands, mainly for debugging&#xA;      else if (token == &quot;flip&quot;)  pos.flip();&#xA;      else if (token == &quot;bench&quot;) bench(pos, is, states);&#xA;      else if (token == &quot;d&quot;)     sync_cout &amp;lt;&amp;lt; pos &amp;lt;&amp;lt; sync_endl;&#xA;      else if (token == &quot;eval&quot;)  sync_cout &amp;lt;&amp;lt; Eval::trace(pos) &amp;lt;&amp;lt; sync_endl;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your &quot;d&quot; command is there, and others.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2018-01-27T00:36:03.450" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19755" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19766" CreationDate="2018-01-27T08:36:48.210" Score="2" ViewCount="144" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have heard that Emanuel Lasker, during the great historical tournament in 1904 (in Cambridge Springs), had to face some specific which was imposed on him. I am wondering what could be meant by that? Was there any kind of handicap with which he had to deal with? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most of the sources I could find on the internet do not mention any kind of special specific for Lasker.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15663" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-01-27T19:15:59.410" LastActivityDate="2018-01-30T10:17:34.533" Title="Specific for Lasker during 1904 Cambridge Springs tournament" Tags="&lt;history&gt;&lt;lasker&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19756" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19746" CreationDate="2018-01-27T23:38:56.100" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;To say that choosing to attack the King should be based on personal style or the nature of the position is certainly true but not all that helpful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The best book on this is the Art of Attack in Chess by Vukojic. He explains what he calls the preconditions for the attack. Presence of attackers, absence of defenders, mobility, weak points...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These things need to be in place before the attack happens. The player with a taste for attack must first bring about the preconditions, and if they cannot do so, they should not attack. They should not even persist in trying to create the preconditions. Play through some of the games where Tal decided not to attack and ask why not. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastActivityDate="2018-01-27T23:38:56.100" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19757" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19755" CreationDate="2018-01-28T12:01:46.763" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I flipped through part 1 of Kasparov's Great Predecessors book (which covers the lives and games of Steinitz to Alekhine) but couldn't find anything on a handicap Lasker faced in Cambridge.  All I could find was that he lost to Pillsbury, who was declining but managed to make a short comeback.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe Lasker had something going on in his personal life or issues with travel internationally.  Back then, if another player managed to evenly challenge the world champion in chess (Lasker at the time), a match for the title tended to follow.  Lasker could have been experiencing pressure and a need to do well in order to cement his place as the best player in the world.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Still, this is all merely speculation.  If he did experience a handicap then it's odd I couldn't find it in Kasparov's book, since his series is one of the foremost authorities on chess history.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastEditorUserId="14079" LastEditDate="2018-01-29T08:46:38.057" LastActivityDate="2018-01-29T08:46:38.057" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19758" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-01-28T13:19:00.680" Score="4" ViewCount="668" Body="&lt;p&gt;I listed some books on eBay but had little interest (few pageviews/few bids etc.) meaning that I would make an untenable loss on them (I'm not selling them for profit, but I want a reasonable price for them).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've sold other products on eBay before, so I'm not after advise on how to sell more effectively there. My question is, what are the 'best' (i.e. most profitable) ways to sell chess books online?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2020-02-01T16:45:10.873" Title="What is the best way to sell old chess books?" Tags="&lt;books&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19759" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19758" CreationDate="2018-01-28T14:36:40.053" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I sold mine on Craigslist and for an acceptable price given their age. I named my price and took nothing less. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2018-01-28T14:36:40.053" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19760" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21317" CreationDate="2018-01-28T15:27:05.573" Score="5" ViewCount="875" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let an &lt;em&gt;ambiguous&lt;/em&gt; rule be defined to be a rule experienced, reasonable, well-informed opponents&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;are unsure how to interpret in a circumstance (however unlikely the circumstance may be) that can legally arise during play, or&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;are sure how to interpret, except that each opponent interprets the rule oppositely.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Answers to earlier questions (&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/q/12613/315&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/q/19710/315&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;) have found the FIDE's 50-move rule to remain ambiguous &lt;em&gt;according to the foregoing definition.&lt;/em&gt; I do not say that the rule remains ambiguous according to alternate definitions of ambiguity, but according to the foregoing definition I ask: is the 50-move rule the sole remaining such plausible ambiguity in the FIDE's &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=208&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;laws of chess,&lt;/a&gt; or are there others?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If there are others, what are they, please?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;FACTS VERSUS OPINION&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To clarify, I do not seek opinions, but seek rather insights and facts. Players indeed have opinions or my question would not exist, but I do not ask what those opinions are. Rather, I ask the fact-based question of which rules have found (or can find) themselves to be objects of opposite interpretation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I do not ask which interpretation is right.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="315" LastEditorUserId="315" LastEditDate="2018-01-28T15:57:28.117" LastActivityDate="2018-04-06T09:02:22.807" Title="What ambiguities remain in the laws of chess?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;fide&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19761" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19758" CreationDate="2018-01-28T15:31:45.067" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you live in the UK I would suggest the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.ecforum.org.uk/viewforum.php?f=40&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;English Chess Forum&lt;/a&gt;. They have a &quot;For Sale&quot; thread. That way you are advertising to a dedicated audience. If you live in another country I would suggest you look for an equivalent forum in your country.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would add that opening books devalue very quickly. A 10 year old opening book probably has value as a doorstop or paperweight only, unless it is a rare ancient first edition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2018-01-28T15:31:45.067" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19762" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19767" CreationDate="2018-01-28T18:13:03.653" Score="4" ViewCount="230" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the main line of the Scotch Four Knights&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 exd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 Bb4 6.Nxc6 bxc6 7.Bd3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What's wrong with 7...Bxc3 ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems this move is played very rarely, but, when I play White, I would not like to face it, because of the horrible pawn structure White gets, with isolated doubled pawns and another isolated pawn. For example, see the position after the normal moves 7...Bxc3 8.bxc3 d5 9.exd5 cxd5.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course I see that White gets the Bishops pair and an open b-file, and he can also play Ba3 preventing Black from castling. But is this enough to compensate for the bad pawns? Or is there something else that I don't see? What should be the plan for White after 7...Bxc3 ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15668" LastActivityDate="2018-01-29T12:16:11.460" Title="Exchange in the Scotch Four Knights" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19763" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19762" CreationDate="2018-01-28T18:57:43.753" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think you got it basically right. White gets the bishop pair which in an open position like this, is a real advantage. Also black currently does not have any good squares for his pieces. Lastly, it is difficult for black to take advantage or to attack the doubled isolated pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White's dark squared bishop could go to g5 where the pin of the knight is kind of annoying or to a3 where it might hinder black from castling.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Regarding your proposed continuation, I believe that after 7...Bxc3 8.bxc3 d5, white can play 9. e5 asking the knight where it wants to go. Also after black's d5 the a3-f8 diagonal gets weak and the bishop on a3 will be really strong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2018-01-28T18:57:43.753" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19764" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19760" CreationDate="2018-01-28T22:50:21.140" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both opponents have resigned in OTB game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15671" LastActivityDate="2018-01-28T22:50:21.140" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19765" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19755" CreationDate="2018-01-29T08:02:49.880" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The only specific about Lasker and Cambridge Springs 1904 I found is the fact that he practically didn't  play serious chess for about 4 years (last tournament Paris 1900 which he won with unbelievable 14,5 pints out of 16 and in 1901 and 1903 four games in sum against Janovski and Chigorin....). This missing practice was probably the reason why he lost two games in the early phase of the Cambridge Springs tournament (see also &lt;a href=&quot;https://kevinspraggettonchess.wordpress.com/2011/04/12/tidbits-on-cambridge-springs-1904/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://kevinspraggettonchess.wordpress.com/2011/04/12/tidbits-on-cambridge-springs-1904/&lt;/a&gt; ).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8083" LastActivityDate="2018-01-29T08:02:49.880" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19766" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19755" CreationDate="2018-01-29T09:14:28.337" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;From 1902 to 1907 Emanuel Lasker was &lt;a href=&quot;http://www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/Biographies/Lasker.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;living in the USA&lt;/a&gt; and concentrating more on algebra than on chess. His paper &lt;a href=&quot;https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF01447495&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Zur Theorie der Moduln und Ideale&lt;/a&gt; was published in March 1905 in &lt;em&gt;Mathematische Annalen&lt;/em&gt; and will lead to the famous &lt;a href=&quot;http://mathworld.wolfram.com/Noether-LaskerTheorem.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Noether-Lasker theorem&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;It seems he also worked on some papers in the field of philosophy, but I know less about it.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess was not his main preoccupation during those years, and his participation in Cambridge Springs tournament in 1904 was a short chess parenthesis in his mathematical works.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is no indication that Lasker was playing with any handicap in that tournament, beside lack of practice and training, and this seems very unplausible to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A few years later, Lasker will go back to &quot;wasting his wonderful mind&quot; on chess, according to a famous &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessmaniac.com/albert-einstein-and-chess/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Einstein&lt;/a&gt;'s quote that may be less apocryphical than most Einstein's quotes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastEditorUserId="14079" LastEditDate="2018-01-30T10:17:34.533" LastActivityDate="2018-01-30T10:17:34.533" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19767" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19762" CreationDate="2018-01-29T10:49:21.503" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;7...Bxc3 is not that horrible, but a bit passive: anyway, you could postpone that exchange until White castles, since he probably won't dare to avoid the doubled pawns with Bd2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, after 7...Bxc3 8.bxc3, I don't agree that 8...d5 is &quot;the normal continuation&quot; at all. After 9.ed5 cd5 10.Ba3, Black won't be able to castle and faces huge difficulties. When you surrender the bishop pair, you better place your central pawns on squares the opposite colour from your remaining bishop; also, you don't want to open the game too fast.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;8...0-0 is logical, avoiding all that Ba3-nonsense. 9.e5 Re8 is not to be feared, and Black will develop solidly with ...d6, ...Re8, ...c5 and ...Bb7 (or ...Bd7-c6), trying to put pressure on e4, since he has no way of attacking the weakened pawns on the queenside (a2, c2, c3).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White's plan is more active. He can support his Pe4 and prepare a breakthrough with e4-e5. His plan may go 0-0, Bg5 (in case of ...h6, go back to h4, don't exchange), Qd2 (or Qf3-g3), Rae1, f4 and e5, opening files and diagonals. Alternatively, he may engineer e4-e5 without f2-f4, with support by the bishop from f4 or g3. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note than the Bg5-Nf6-Qd8 pin is especially annoying since Black has no dark square bishop to break it, and damaging your king's shelter with ...g7-g5 or ...gf6 is not really what you want to do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All in all, White has a small but clear advantage, and Black has a solid but passive position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastEditorUserId="14079" LastEditDate="2018-01-29T12:16:11.460" LastActivityDate="2018-01-29T12:16:11.460" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19769" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19777" CreationDate="2018-01-29T18:30:54.623" Score="8" ViewCount="478" Body="&lt;p&gt;Many online sources (such as &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_(chess)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;) state that the endgame of amazon (piece that moves like Queen and knight) and chancellor (piece that moves like rook and knight) is a draw. I did some experimenting but could not find such a position. Now Wikipedia says that a draw can be &lt;strong&gt;forced&lt;/strong&gt; with a fortress that forces the stronger side to give perpetual check without giving such a position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples of positions I've tried are (the queen represents amazon and the rook represents chancellor):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Centralized king&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;8/8/8/3kr3/8/8/8/KQ6 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Qb4+ Ke6 2. Qf4 {Forces the chancellor into a pin} Kd6 3. Kb2 {Waiting move, and now the king must leave the chancellor} 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Cornered king&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;kr6/8/8/8/8/8/8/KQ6 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Qe4+ Ka7 (1... Rb7 2. Qe8+ Ka7 3. Qc6+ Ka8 4. Qc8+ Rb8 5. Qc7#) 2. Qc5+ Rb6 (2... Ka8 3. Qc7#) 3. Ka2 {Any king move is followed by Qxb6#} 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;King on rim&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;4k3/4r3/8/8/8/8/8/KQ6 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Qb8+ Kf7 2. Qd6+ Kf8 3. Kb2 Kg8 4. Qxe7+ Kh8 5. Qf6#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All three of these examples lead to trivial wins for White. Could someone post a fortress in this endgame, if such a fortress exists at all?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13928" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-11-16T22:56:49.003" LastActivityDate="2019-11-16T22:56:49.003" Title="Amazon vs Chancellor endgame" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;fortress&gt;&lt;unorthodox-pieces&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="19770" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19773" CreationDate="2018-01-29T23:41:36.037" Score="1" ViewCount="162" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;rn2kbnr/ppp1pppp/8/3q4/3P4/8/PP2PPPP/1RBQKBNR w Kkq - 0 5&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If white doesn't play Ra1 then black can play Qxa2. But the engine says this is an inaccuracy, and that the best line is e2-e3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15684" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-01-30T07:41:37.990" LastActivityDate="2018-01-30T09:12:17.647" Title="Engine recommends a move that (I think) loses a pawn" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19771" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19772" CreationDate="2018-01-30T01:12:32.120" Score="7" ViewCount="2591" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess is one of many games I find highly stressful to play competitively. These games share one trait: I have plenty of time to think about what to do before making a move. On the one hand that's great since it makes the game independent of reflexes. On the other hand I have plenty of time to stew over how I might be making a massive blunder. This means I tend to be very nervous throughout a tournament. My heart rate can actually surge long before I sit down at the board, and stay high throughout the game. Comparatively, in games like tennis or &lt;em&gt;Street Fighter&lt;/em&gt;, I can start a round nervous, but once I'm playing muscle memory takes over.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess is uniquely good and bad: if I lose, it's because I made a mistake somewhere; however that itself is a stressful thing - I can't blame bad luck.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are good ways to deal with stress?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastActivityDate="2020-05-28T16:23:04.223" Title="Dealing with stress in competitive play" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19772" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19771" CreationDate="2018-01-30T08:33:08.250" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/article/view/chess-psychology&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;This article about Chess Psychology&lt;/a&gt; might help you reduce the stress you are feeling when playing chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Psychology is an integral element of chess. To win a game (tournament,&#xA;  match) one needs to be strong not only in chess, but in the&#xA;  psychological sense as well. Every chess player can recall moments&#xA;  when he/she could not recover from a terrible loss (or draw) and kept&#xA;  losing points in other rounds. Or were surprised by a twist of the&#xA;  game and could not adjust to it. The chess elite pay a special&#xA;  attention to psychological preparation. For example, in 2008 the&#xA;  participants of the FIDE Grand Prix have been asked: “How do you&#xA;  handle chess failures?”  I can relate to the views of Gashimov,&#xA;  Cheparinov, Bacrot, Jakovenko and Akopian. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;An improving chess player should not only study, practice, but also&#xA;  work on his psychology. Let’s consider two important aspects of chess&#xA;  psychology:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Your state of mind during the tournament (match) in general&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Your state of mind during a certain game&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A regular tournament implies 1 or 2 games per day without any weekends&#xA;  or rest days. Therefore, if you have lost or failed to convert a&#xA;  totally won position and keep bugging yourself for it, there is a high&#xA;  chance you will end up in trouble again and waste a lot of nervous&#xA;  energy along the way. Your emotional discomfort may show in different&#xA;  ways. For example, if you are willing to strike back at all costs, you&#xA;  may easily forget about the objective evaluation of the position and&#xA;  start playing adventurously. Or you could get your mental batteries&#xA;  uncharged by worrying and lose due to lack of energy. Thus, it is very&#xA;  important to know how to deal with losses. Try to get over it as soon&#xA;  as possible. Do a quick blunder check, fix your opening, and forget&#xA;  about it until the end of the event. Take a good rest and concentrate&#xA;  on the next game. Remember that each loss is just a lesson. If you&#xA;  treat losses this way, it will be easier to handle defeats. After the&#xA;  tournament, however, you should analyze your games carefully and&#xA;  determine your chess weaknesses so that to know on what to work in the&#xA;  future. This is absolutely critical for one’s chess improvement.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A chess game is a confrontation between two partners. The struggle is&#xA;  going on not only at the board, but between their identities. Mistakes&#xA;  are inevitable, and the one who manages to keep his cool has higher&#xA;  chances of winning. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;First of all, you should feel confident at the board. I mean real&#xA;  confidence, concentration, being sure you can play well, right&#xA;  posture, not some freaky “death stares” or “arm-wrestler’s&#xA;  handshakes”. If your opponent feels you are faking it, he will become&#xA;  more motivated to win. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Secondly, never blame yourself for blunders (“ok, I’m a bit better&#xA;  now, but I would have won already had I played 25.Nf6…”) during the&#xA;  game. Otherwise you may become so obsessed with it you will make&#xA;  matters even worse. Take the game as it is, re-consider the evaluation&#xA;  of the position and try to play on calmly, as if nothing unexpected&#xA;  has happened. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Thirdly, it’s a great idea to try to lure your opponent into the type&#xA;  of positions he likes least of all. He will both be irritated (and&#xA;  that increases the probability of making a mistake) and outplayed&#xA;  (since he generally doesn’t know how to handle such positions). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Never resign too early and keep defending bitterly and tenaciously. A&#xA;  lot of totally lost positions have been saved even against world class&#xA;  players. When you are on the other side of this situation (i.e.&#xA;  winning), never relax until the game score sheet is signed in your&#xA;  favor. Otherwise you may see your lovely 1-0 turn into ½-½, or even&#xA;  into an ugly 0-1.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;These are the main rules of chess psychology, not to mention “the Dark&#xA;  Side” – how to suppress your opponent and make him lose comfort and&#xA;  confidence. Since I am neither practicing nor advocating the usage of&#xA;  such foul play, we won’t be discussing it in this article.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10295" LastActivityDate="2018-01-30T08:33:08.250" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19773" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19770" CreationDate="2018-01-30T09:12:17.647" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;In short: White can sacrifice the pawn on a2 and will gain a quicker development of his pieces. The technical term for this is &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/19650/how-do-you-calculate-compensation-in-chess&quot;&gt;compensation&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In detail: In the current position, both sides have not developed their pieces. Getting out the minor pieces and castling should have priority. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are no obvious weaknesses. In some lines (e.g. if white's bishop &#xA; is on f4 or g5 and e3 has been played) white should watch out for Bb4+. Also black has an easy way to simplify/equalize the position further by playing Nc6 followed by e5 or alternatively to attack the center with c5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because of this it is essential to &lt;strong&gt;act quickly&lt;/strong&gt;. The white dark-squared bishop probably wants to stay on c1 or d2 for the time being because of the potential threat of Bb4+ (or even Qa5+ exchanging the queens). So the most natural development moves in the position are Nf3 or e3 (making space for the bishop on f1). Either move is decent, but e3 has the advantage that the bishop can quickly go to c4 where it attacks the queen on d5 (or a2 if black takes the pawn).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Looking at the concrete line 1. e3 Qxa2 2. Bd2, you note that white has made two development moves while black has won a pawn but the black queen is somewhat far from the action and in fact is in danger of running out of squares: white is threatening for instance Qc2, Bc4 which would win the queen).  Likely black would have to make another queen move retreating the queen to d5 or e6, losing even more time for development. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2018-01-30T09:12:17.647" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19774" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19760" CreationDate="2018-01-30T12:42:58.463" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is purely academical, but there is an ambiguity whether the position after 1.Nf3 Nf6 2.Ng1 Ng8 is the same as the position at the beginning of the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Indeed, article 9.2.2 of the &lt;a href=&quot;http://fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=208&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;laws of chess&lt;/a&gt; states that:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Positions are considered the same if and only if the same player has the move, pieces of the same kind and colour occupy the same squares and the possible moves of all the pieces of both players are the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Indeed, the second and third requirements are met. The problem is with the first one. After 1.Nf3 Nf6 2.Ng1 Ng8 there is no doubt that white &quot;has the move&quot; since her opponent's move has just been made, and law 1.3 defines &quot;having the move&quot; as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A player is said to ‘have the move’ when his opponent’s move has been ‘made’.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But who &quot;has the move&quot; in the starting position ? If we follow textually the rules of chess and the definition above, noone &quot;has the move&quot; in the starting position, since noone's opponent's move has been made.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Law 1.2 just says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The player with the light-coloured pieces (White) makes the first move&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This confirms that the possibilities after 1.Nf3 Nf6 2.Ng1 Ng8 are exactly the same as in the starting position, but doesn't define &quot;having the move&quot; in the starting position. So, can we say that the two positions are identical in respect to article 9.2.2 ? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well, that's where the ambiguity lies.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Obviously, this problem can only be relevant if someone claims for a threefold repetition when reaching a position 'identical' to the starting position. Which shouldn't happen too often. And such a claim might be denied anyway for lack of affrontment. So I suppose this should not prevent us to play chess with a free mind.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastActivityDate="2018-01-30T12:42:58.463" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19775" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19771" CreationDate="2018-01-30T12:47:10.150" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The stress you feel comes from the adrenaline that your body produces to help you fight or run away. So the best way to handle this physical reaction is by physical things. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, before the game try and go for a brisk walk of at least 20 minutes. This will help to burn up some of the adrenaline. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Second, during the game don't stay stuck to your chair, try and get up from time to time, look at other games, go and get a glass of water, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Third, do deep breathing exercise to help calm yourself. Breathe in slowly and completely for a count of between 4 and 8, hold the breath for a count of 4 to 8, breathe out slowly and completely again for a count of between 4 and 8.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, try and be in good physical shape to begin with. Physical preparation was an important component of the old Soviet school of chess and is advocated and practiced by coaches and many top players today. &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09pjldq&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Gary Kasparov even mentioned it on Sunday when he was on the BBC radio programme &quot;Desert Island Discs&quot;&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-11-24T17:21:13.677" LastActivityDate="2019-11-24T17:21:13.677" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="19776" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19781" CreationDate="2018-01-30T14:57:02.700" Score="5" ViewCount="771" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the main idea of the Morozevich variation in the French vs. the Tarrasch variation? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nd2 Be7&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In other words, how can Black benefit from the slightly unusual development of the Bishop before the Knight?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastActivityDate="2018-01-30T21:08:49.977" Title="What is the main idea of the Morozevich variation in the French vs. the Tarrasch?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;french-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19777" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19769" CreationDate="2018-01-30T16:53:22.563" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a great question and a fun problem to mull over. Indeed the way it's written on &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empress_(chess)#Value&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;wikipedia&lt;/a&gt; one gets the impression that amazon-vs-empress fortresses are trivial and easily attainable for the weaker side, where in fact it's very difficult to even come up with dummy examples where the empress stands any chance of holding (so not surprising not to see a example diagram there). In other word, most amazon vs empress (also known as &lt;em&gt;chancellor&lt;/em&gt;) endgames are in fact winning for the side with the amazon (intuitively, the amazon has diagonal routes towards the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empress_(chess)#Movement&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;weak points in the empress' safezone&lt;/a&gt;), not even requiring the assistance of the king in order to dominate the empress+king duo. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Some intuition:&lt;/strong&gt; You want to have the king of the side with the amazon to be well cornered by both the empress and the king, or at least for it to be in a different quadrant of the board compared to the amazon and near the opponent king (so all cases where the amazon and the king are somewhat central is highly likely to be winning already). The reason for this setup is that it allows you to defend &lt;em&gt;certain&lt;/em&gt; checks with an &lt;strong&gt;empress-fork&lt;/strong&gt; thus forcing the draw, while covering some key squares with the empress that otherwise would be exploited by the amazon to push the king towards the center and reach a winning situation again. One of the better scenarios for the amazon side would be: to &lt;strong&gt;pin&lt;/strong&gt; the empress while having &lt;strong&gt;spare waiting&lt;/strong&gt; moves with their king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Note that in the diagram editor here the rook and queen will denote the empress and amazon respectively. Additionally, certain moves that would be illegal in standard chess thus disallowed by the diagram editor here, as we're using rook and queen instead of fairy pieces, would be mentioned in the annotations.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's funny, if you just try to randomly set up any amazon vs empress ending, they're &lt;em&gt;almost always&lt;/em&gt; losing for the empress-side. Now even though it is still possible to find some clear setups where the empress holds, it's important to note that fortresses of this kind constitute a minute fraction of the state-space of all legal amazon vs empress endgames. This observation is well corroborated by the statistics &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessvariants.com/misc.dir/endgames.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;provided here&lt;/a&gt; for KA vs KC (C for Chancellor/empress): If you look at the third row in that table with the percentage breakdown, only &lt;code&gt;0.001052 %&lt;/code&gt; of all legal KA vs KC configurations comprise fortresses, with most other draws being by &lt;em&gt;perpetual.&lt;/em&gt; The latter types of examples are simpler to showcase specially if it's the empress' side to move, whereas fortresses with the amazon side to move are highly non-trivial. Below some examples for both types of draws are showcased (annotated): &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Fortress and perpetual examples:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [title &quot;empress+king fortress example#1 - black to move&quot;]&#xA; [fen &quot;k7/8/K7/6q1/R7/8/8/8 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA; [StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1...Kb8 {the only amazon moves either force the draw immediately or lose on the spot because of the Rb6# threat. So only attempt is to move the king and try to escape but 2.Rb6+ Kc7 3.Rb5+ forces the draw with a fork. Thus, white is holding here.} &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [title &quot;empress+king fortress example #2 - black to move&quot;]&#xA; [fen &quot;k7/6q1/K7/1R6/8/8/8/8 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA; [StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1...Qa1+ {Again all key squares c7-b7-a7 are well covered, and any check on the 6th row loses immediately, so black's only other attempt is Qa1+} 2.Ra5 Qf6+ (2...Qf1+ 3.Kb6+ Kb8 {and black even gets mated here: 4.Rc6+ Ka8 5.Rc8#}) 3.Kb5+ Kb8 {and 4.Rc6+ forking and forcing the draw}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now to show you how sensitive these fortresses are, let's take example#2 again with the added difference that the amazon is now in a position to pin the empress on the &lt;code&gt;f1-a6&lt;/code&gt; diagonal, and that suffices to break the fortress and win: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [title &quot;Losing variation of example#2: Amazon pins can be deadly!&quot;]&#xA; [fen &quot;k7/8/K7/1R6/8/8/7q/8 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA; [StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1...Qe2 {pinning and the Zugzwang's set: both remaining king moves are losing} 2.Ka5 (2.Kb6 Qc4+ 3.Ka6 Qa4+ 4.Ra5 Qb4#) Qc4+ 3.Ka6 Qa4+ 4.Ra5 Qb4# (1...Qa2+ 2.Ra5 {setting up a discovery on the king while covering c4} Qe6+ (2...Qe2+ 3.Kb6+ Kb8 {4.Rc6+ Kb8 5. Rc8# mate.}) 3.Kb5+ Kb8 {and the 4.Rc6+ fork forces the draw.})&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, here's one trivial perpetual example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [title &quot;Example#3 - perpertual, empress-side to move:&quot;]&#xA; [fen &quot;7q/8/6k1/8/4K3/5R2/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1.Rf4+ Kg7 (1...Kg5 {leads to similar perpetuals}) 2.Rf5+ Kg6 {black can avoid the repetition but only at the cost of trading the remaining pieces.} (2...Kg8 {is followed by 3.Re7+ Kf8 4.Rc8+ winning the amazon}) 3.Rf4+&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Other variations that look tempting:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's one that resembles a fortress but it probably isn't. The ideal scenario for the empress side would be something like &lt;code&gt;1...Qf8&lt;/code&gt; after which the empress would try to check the king endlessly as it cannot hide behind the amazon anymore. But white doesn't have to play &lt;code&gt;1...Qf8&lt;/code&gt;, instead, staying on the long diagonal with a waiting move probably wins, e.g., &lt;code&gt;1...Qf6.&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [title &quot;Example#4: other attempts worth considering&quot;]&#xA; [fen &quot;8/8/8/5q2/8/2k5/1R6/K7 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA; [StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1...Qf8 {Any amazon check results in a fork forcing a draw, so we have to either make king moves or waiting amazon moves.} (1...Qf6 2.Kb1 {any rook move also loses on the spot, e.g. 2.Rb1+ Kc2+ 3.Ka2 Qe6+ 4.Ka1 Qa6+} Qf1+ 3.Ka2 Qc1+ 4.Ka3 Qxb2#) &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Notice that any such pin with the king stuck in the corner is always losing, for instance:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [title &quot;Example#5: Pin exploitation to dominate the empress&quot;]&#xA; [fen &quot;8/8/8/3k4/3q4/8/1R6/K7 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA; [StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1...Qg1+ 2.Ka2 (2.Rb1 Qa7+ 3.Kb2 Qa4+ 4.Kc1 Qa2+ {winning the empress}) Qc1+ 3.Ka3 Qa1+ 4.Ra2 Qb1+ {winning the empress}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3594" LastEditorUserId="10380" LastEditDate="2019-06-17T16:48:44.777" LastActivityDate="2019-06-17T16:48:44.777" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="19778" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19784" CreationDate="2018-01-30T19:17:19.783" Score="3" ViewCount="692" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why does the &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/tags/kings-indian/info&quot;&gt;tag wiki&lt;/a&gt; for King's Indian say that most of Black's attacks focus on the kingside? I have found that most of my games result in play on the queenside due to my dark-squared bishop, and sometimes I gain semi-open a- and b-files for my rooks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13147" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-01-31T06:20:51.617" LastActivityDate="2018-01-31T06:20:51.617" Title="Why is Black supposed to attack on the kingside in the King's Indian?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;kings-indian&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19779" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19778" CreationDate="2018-01-30T19:36:51.467" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't know if it's true that &quot;most&quot; games result in Black attacking the kingside.  The tag claims &quot;often&quot;, which seems to be true.  For example, my openings database has over a thousand games that started like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;????.??.??&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;*&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 Bg7 4. e4 d6 5. Nf3 O-O 6. Be2 e5 7. O-O Nc6 8. d5 Ne7&#xA;9. Ne1 Nd7 10. Nd3 f5 *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black is beginning a kingside attack here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2018-01-30T19:36:51.467" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19780" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19776" CreationDate="2018-01-30T20:24:20.190" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm away from my books right now, but John Watson, in (I think) the third edition of Play The French, describes it as &quot;a high class waiting move&quot;. You want White to commit a little bit more before deciding whether to play ...c5 (as you might after 4. e5 or 4. Bd3) or ...Nf6 (as you might after 4. Ngf3). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a nice game I played on the Black side.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chesstempo.com/gamedb/game/3500004&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://chesstempo.com/gamedb/game/3500004&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://streathambrixtonchess.blogspot.com.es/2013/08/penarth-2013-last-round-drama.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://streathambrixtonchess.blogspot.com.es/2013/08/penarth-2013-last-round-drama.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15689" LastActivityDate="2018-01-30T20:24:20.190" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19781" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19776" CreationDate="2018-01-30T21:08:49.977" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;3...Be7&lt;/code&gt; is mainly an attempt to side-step some of the other well-known theoretical variations, while making white to first commit another developing move before deciding how to continue. For instance, the usual &lt;code&gt;3...Nf6&lt;/code&gt; often leads to &lt;code&gt;4.e5 Nfd7&lt;/code&gt; and black has already committed the knight to &lt;code&gt;d7&lt;/code&gt; while white has all three attractive options of &lt;code&gt;Bd3,&lt;/code&gt; &lt;code&gt;f4&lt;/code&gt; (further discussed in the 2nd diagram) and &lt;code&gt;Ngf3.&lt;/code&gt; Instead with &lt;code&gt;3...Be7&lt;/code&gt; first, many more alternatives survive, such as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;All diagrams contain annotations.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [title &quot;3...Be7 possible follow-ups in Tarrasch variation&quot;]&#xA; [fen &quot;rnbqk1nr/ppp1bppp/4p3/3p4/3PP3/8/PPPN1PPP/R1BQKBNR w KQkq - 2 4&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 4.Ngf3 Nf6 5.e5 Nfd7 {You see by simply having delayed Nf6 by one move and kept an option such as Nh6 open, white's choice of 4.e5 5.f4 is already less attractive} (4.e5 Nh6 {taking advantage of the early Nd2 blinding the h6 square for white so the knight can now re-route via h6-f5. This maneuver is also often employed in f4 variations of the French.} 5.Bd3 c5) (4.Bd3 c5 5.c3 cxd4 6.cxd4 dxe4 7.Nxe4 Nf6) (4.Ngf3 Nf6 5.e5 Ne4)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So in the above side-lines not only has black kept some additional options open with &lt;code&gt;3...Be7&lt;/code&gt; but it has also made a couple of key variations less attractive for white, such the usual &lt;code&gt;f4&lt;/code&gt; lines in the Tarrasch (which is also briefly touched upon on the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Defence#Tarrasch_Variation:_3.Nd2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;wikipedia page of French Defense&lt;/a&gt;), for example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [title &quot;classical 3...Nf6 and the f4 variation - compared to 3...Be7 :&quot;]&#xA; [fen &quot;rnbqkbnr/ppp2ppp/4p3/3p4/3PP3/8/PPPN1PPP/R1BQKBNR b KQkq - 1 3&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 3...Nf6 (3...Be7 4.e5 c5 5.c3 Nc6 {You see the difference now more clearly: 4.e5 is no longer with tempo, thus allowing black to start undermining the central pawn chain with c5 one move earlier, followed by Nc6, practically never allowing white an easy route towards the previously mentioned main variation.}) 4.e5 Nfd7 5.f4 {notice the knight's already on d7} c5 6.c3 {nothing really challenged white's f4 play}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3594" LastActivityDate="2018-01-30T21:08:49.977" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19782" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18950" CreationDate="2018-01-30T21:48:04.117" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I see that you already have a lot of information in the Wikipedia page and in the answer you got to the similar question in the history forum. Maybe your problem is that this is too much information for you, so I hope to be helpful in telling you just one thing, which is the most important thing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a turning point in the European history of chess. This is something that happened sometime between 1475 and 1500 (the exact year is not known) in the south of Europe (probably in Spain, but there is no consensus). This event is a change in the rules of movement of the Queen and the Bishop. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Until 1475 people everywhere in Europe played a version of chess (let's call it Middle-Age Chess) where the Queen (then called fers or visir) could move only one step diagonally, and the Bishop (then called Elephant) could move two steps diagonally. The other pieces moved as today (except for little details such as castling rules). This game was very slow because the two armies needed many moves to make contact, since the only long range piece was the Rook. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Starting from 1500 people everywhere in Europe started to play a new version of the game where the Queen and the Bishop have their modern movement (let's call this game Modern Chess, because, except for some little detail, it was basically the same game we play today). This new game was much faster, and, for this reason more fun and incredibly successful. The new rules quickly spread everywhere in Europe, and the old game was soon forgotten. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The change happened sometime between 1475 and 1500, more or less the same time when many other important events gave Europe its modern form (invention of the press, the discovery of America, unification of Spain, and more).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From this you can see that in 1450, in England people played Middle-Age Chess, while in 1530 they played Modern Chess, a very different game. In 1530, Modern Chess was a novelty, instead in 1610 the game was very well established, and by this time, many &quot;scientific&quot; books of analysis of the game and its strategy were already written. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15668" LastActivityDate="2018-01-30T21:48:04.117" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19783" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="823" CreationDate="2018-01-30T21:54:17.240" Score="2" Body="&lt;h2&gt;GNU Chess&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.gnu.org/software/chess/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.gnu.org/software/chess/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;GNU Chess works in a terminal. You enter your move, get the response. No board. Only the command line interface.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10730" LastActivityDate="2018-01-30T21:54:17.240" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19784" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19778" CreationDate="2018-01-30T22:07:22.800" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a general principle that says that, in positions with a blocked center, every side must attack in the direction where his own pawn chain points to. For example, in the KID, sometimes White has pawns in e4 and d5 (White's pawn chain) and Black has pawns in d6 and e5 (Black's pawn chain). So we see that White's pawn chain points to the queenside, while Black's pawn chain points to the kingside.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The most efficient break move hits at the base of the opponent's pawn chain. So, for example, the base of White's pawn chain is the e4 pawn, so the most efficient break move for Black is f5 (and this is a kingside attack). The base of Black's pawn chain is the d6 pawn, so the most efficient break move for White is c5 (and this is a queenside attack).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If Black does not play e5, and he plays c5 instead, the argument above does not apply, and Black's strategy changes. Even if Black plays e5 and White decides to exchange with dxe5, opening up the center, then the situation is completely different. The KID is not a one-plan opening, it is very rich, I wish I could understand it better! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another example of the aforementioned principle is given by the French Defense, where sometimes White has pawns in d4 and e5, and Black has pawns in d5 and e6. In this case White attacks on the kingside, and Black attacks on the queenside. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15668" LastEditorUserId="15668" LastEditDate="2018-01-31T00:02:12.450" LastActivityDate="2018-01-31T00:02:12.450" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19785" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19815" CreationDate="2018-01-31T02:44:22.463" Score="10" ViewCount="415" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to the Wikipedia article of &lt;em&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic:_The_Gathering#Luck_vs._skill&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Magic: The Gathering&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt;, creator Dr. Richard Garfield has compared the evolution of the game from luck to skill as being similar to that of chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;According to Dr. Garfield, Magic has and would likely continue decreasing its degree of luck as the game matured. The &quot;Mulligan rule&quot;, as well as card design, past vs. present, are good examples of this trend. He feels that this is a universal trend for maturing games. Dr. Garfield explained using chess as an example, that unlike modern chess, in predecessors, players would use dice to determine which chess piece to move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, the article on &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess&lt;/a&gt; doesn't mention dice in its history. Did predecessors to modern chess indeed use dice? And if so, was it removed as part of a maturation of design to emphasize skill over luck, as Dr. Garfield  suggests?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8358" LastActivityDate="2020-11-05T10:59:32.550" Title="Did predecessors of modern chess use dice to determine which piece to move?" Tags="&lt;history&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19786" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19787" CreationDate="2018-01-31T02:49:01.297" Score="1" ViewCount="745" Body="&lt;p&gt;So I'm not actually making a Chess app, but I am trying to hook up an engine that uses a protocol almost exactly the same as UCI. I can get it working quite easily on a macOS app. Now, the hard part is integrating an engine like Stockfish into an iOS app. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can't use std input/output nor can you fork a process, so how should one manage the protocol for communicating moves to a UCI interface? I've managed to include the engine C++ library and can communicate via UCI commands in the debug console but I have no idea how to simulate std input into the engine from iOS. Should I look for hooks within the engine to call directly and simulate the game loop in Swift?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I apologize if this is the wrong community for this question, but UCI specific questions go over the head of most SO users so I thought I might try here. There are a plethora of iOS chess apps so I'm genuinely curious how people are integrating their engines into their apps. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15690" LastActivityDate="2018-01-31T15:32:57.630" Title="Connecting UCI engine with iOS?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;uci&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ClosedDate="2018-01-31T22:32:31.177" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19787" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19786" CreationDate="2018-01-31T03:02:27.513" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Simple. Inter-thread communication. Specific implementations could be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Internal UCI queues&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Find the UCI loop function then hook it up (e.g. UCI::loop in Stockfish).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Redirect the standard input/output into pipes&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Few points:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It's not a good idea to do your works with Swift, because Swift has poor support for C++. I prefer Objective-C as it works with C++ at the source level.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Redirecting is &lt;strong&gt;recommended&lt;/strong&gt; if you're confident. All my iOS apps use that. You just need to send your UCI commands to a redirected pipe, while the engine receives them from the standard inputs (redirected). This is not a place for discussing unix programming, please ask Stackoverflow. It works.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2018-01-31T15:32:57.630" LastActivityDate="2018-01-31T15:32:57.630" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19790" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19771" CreationDate="2018-01-31T12:22:43.827" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Dealing with stress in competition is one very important aspect of a well-rounded preparation strategy. I think that the most crucial point in answering your question is actually contained within the question itself:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;These games share one trait: I have plenty of time to think about what to do before making a move. On the one hand that's great since it makes the game independent of reflexes. On the other hand I have plenty of time to stew over how I might be making a massive blunder.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'll assume that either you are faster than Magnus Carlsen at thinking, or that you tend to play longer games. Since most of us do not think about chess faster than Carlsen, I'll go with the &quot;longer game&quot; option. This makes things quite a bit easier than if you were playing Blitz, Bullet, Lightning, or Armageddon games. There is enough time on the clock for you to do a self-assessment, get a grip on yourself and direct your thoughts appropriately - &lt;em&gt;if you know the tricks of how to do so.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are a few things that I've found to be helpful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Breathe properly.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most of us, when stressed, will naturally hyperventilate (breathe too quickly). We then blow out a lot more of the CO2 in our blood than we normally would, out into the atmosphere. Our bodies actually use the concentration of CO2 in our blood to gauge how much oxygen we're getting, so it thinks that because we have a low CO2 level, it means our tissues don't need that much extra oxygen &lt;em&gt;even though we do&lt;/em&gt;. What happens next? Our body sends even less oxygen to our brain than before, because our hyperventilating has tricked it into thinking we don't need it! We then stress out even more because our brain is now lacking even more oxygen. This cycle goes on and on, and our performance suffers more and more because of it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How do we fix this problem? We need to find a way to allow our CO2 levels to come back up so that our body transports more oxygen to the brain.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many people who need to perform at their peak have adopted a strategy developed by the military that goes by many names: For the sake of what we're doing today, we'll call it &quot;Box-breathing.&quot; It is incredibly simple, and if we apply it when we're stressed, it can get our physiology back to doing what it should have been doing all along. I personally have found this technique to work even better if you focus on keeping good posture and relaxing your neck muscles.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The technique:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://cuc2013.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/squarebreathe1.png&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Use Box breathing before, during, and after your games. Give yourself reminders until doing so becomes a habit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Take care of your physical condition&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess is a sport, and participants of a sport need to take care of their bodies. Think about the heart muscle; if you're in average shape, it will pump nearly 4000 times in an hour to deliver oxygen and nutrients to your brain and body, and to take waste products and CO2 away. Your heart rate is intimately connected with other aspects of your physiology such as breathing rate and stress level. What would happen if your heart could pump the same amount of blood to your tissues during a chess game, but beat fewer times while doing it? Your stress level would go down to an even more manageable level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How do you achieve this fitness? By exercising your heart muscle. The Mayo Clinic recommends that we all reduce our time spent seated, get a bare minimum of 30 minutes per day of physical activity, do strength training twice a week, and get at least 150 minutes of moderate aerobic training, or 75 minutes of vigorous aerobic training in a week. This guideline is a &lt;em&gt;minimum&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Indeed, I recommend testing yourself once a month with some easily standardized test such as the 12-minute Cooper's Test: You run for 12 minutes, and write down how far you went. Then, set a goal for next month, and train accordingly. Focus on small, consistent improvements in physical fitness - it will certainly show in other aspects of your life, too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another recommendation is to cut out refined sugars, simple carbohydrates, and processed foods from your diet; replace them with things like green, leafy vegetables, and drink plenty of water. Not only will it help you in your fitness goals, but it will also keep your blood sugar consistent, and keep you from getting heart palpitations and high stress at the most inopportune times.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stick to a manageable eating schedule, and see what works for you during periods of stress. Bring something appropriate with you to tournaments.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, make sure to get enough sleep. It will make your chess practice more efficient due to the fact that you move information from short-term to long-term memory while you sleep. It will also help to clear your body of toxins. It works even better if you consume one cup of water before going to bed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Don't think about a blue elephant&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Gotcha! I'll bet you thought about a blue elephant even though I told you not to. Don't worry; we all do. Interestingly, the fear of failure works in a similar way. There is a healthy way to hate losing, and there is an unhealthy way. The healthy way is to let it be a motivating and directing factor to mold your practice in an appropriate way. The unhealthy way is to stew over making a massive blunder, thus interfering with your decision-making in game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In game, I highly recommend going back to &quot;Box breathing,&quot; and once you've gotten yourself in a better frame of mind, go back to your game plan. This, of course, means that you must make sure to have a plan going into every game, both for how you will take care of your psyche, and how you will play with the pieces and chessboard. This leads directly to point #4 which is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;4&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;No matter what the tournament is, your primary goal should always be to improve.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You've done your preparation, you're healthy, you're well-rested, you're breathing properly, and you're ready to go. &lt;em&gt;All you can fairly expect from yourself is to do your best.&lt;/em&gt; There will be time to analyze your games after the tournament is over, and improve for the next one. No matter what good moves or blunders you may make through the course of the game, keep your focus on the present: Don't disregard your plan for flashy moves that are tempting, but after calculation show that they don't actually improve your position or further your plans in any way; don't lose your cool when your opponent plays an unexpected move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do your calculations, move your pieces, and play your best. On tournament day, keep your focus on playing good chess, and save your game analysis for whenever you get enough time to do so peacefully. If you start getting the urge to beat yourself up over a loss, or unduly congratulate yourself for a win, give yourself permission to do that in another time or place. Right now, you're in a tournament. Observe your opponents' strategies and consider how to defeat them. Play your own strategies and focus on your strengths. If you've properly done the previous three points, you will be in a good position to do so. Give yourself gentle reminders as necessary, or even better, recruit someone else to come with you, bring drinks, snacks, and be a support for you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I hope this helps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In summary:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Breathe properly&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Take care of your physical condition&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Don't think about a blue elephant&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;No matter what the tournament is, your primary goal should always be to improve&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15695" LastActivityDate="2018-01-31T12:22:43.827" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19791" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-01-31T14:35:07.003" Score="1" ViewCount="1623" Body="&lt;p&gt;How do chess engines actually evaluate a position? I am looking for a technical answer, not a general summary of how minimax works, I already know how minimax and alpha-beta, etc, work, so please do not reiterate generalities. I am interested specifically in the evaluation function.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My understanding is that the evaluation of a position is the same as evaluation of the leaf of the decision tree given best play by both sides. So, the problem then is how is each leaf evaluated? Obviously, whatever algorithm is used must be very fast because millions of leafs are evaluated. So, if this is right, then evaluation simply reduces to how a leaf position is evaluated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The two methods for leaf evaluation that I know of are material balance and king safety. However, I suspect that it must be more complicated than this, otherwise evaluations would not have such fractional values. For example, there are many positions where both sides have the same material and perfectly safe kings. So, in those cases we would expect an evaluation of &quot;0.00&quot;. However, in actuality the engine I use (Rybka) &lt;em&gt;never&lt;/em&gt; has such an evaluation (unless it is a draw). It's evaluation of such positions is always something like &quot;0.13&quot; or &quot;-0.05&quot; or &quot;0.07&quot;. So, obviously it is doing something more than just material+king safety. How does it come up with the number?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8673" LastActivityDate="2018-01-31T15:21:17.277" Title="How do engines evaluate a position (actual algorithm)?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2018-02-02T05:24:41.907" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19792" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19791" CreationDate="2018-01-31T15:21:17.277" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess algorithms are complicated, but I'm sure static evaluation gets applied before reaching the leaf nodes. For example, it's very common to reduce or even eliminate a branch if it loses materials.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The best way to learn positional evaluation in chess is the Stockfish source code. There's simply nothing better than that. &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/blob/master/src/evaluate.cpp&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/blob/master/src/evaluate.cpp&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If you don't like reading C++ code. There's a page here: &lt;a href=&quot;https://hxim.github.io/Stockfish-Evaluation-Guide/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://hxim.github.io/Stockfish-Evaluation-Guide/&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;function middle_game_evaluation(pos) {&#xA;  var v = 0;&#xA;  v += piece_value_mg(pos) - piece_value_mg(colorflip(pos));&#xA;  v += psqt_mg(pos) - psqt_mg(colorflip(pos));&#xA;  v += imbalance_total(pos);&#xA;  v += pawns_mg(pos) - pawns_mg(colorflip(pos));&#xA;  v += pieces_mg(pos) - pieces_mg(colorflip(pos));&#xA;  v += mobility_mg(pos) - mobility_mg(colorflip(pos));&#xA;  v += threats_mg(pos) - threats_mg(colorflip(pos));&#xA;  v += passed_mg(pos) - passed_mg(colorflip(pos));&#xA;  v += space(pos) - space(colorflip(pos));&#xA;  v += king_mg(pos) - king_mg(colorflip(pos));&#xA;  return v;&#xA;}&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stockfish evaluates a position by linearly add each individual term. That includes piece values, square values, pawn structures, mobility, passed pawns etc. Nothing special here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;How to get those values, known as &lt;strong&gt;parameter tuning&lt;/strong&gt;? Nobody knows for sure, we have to adjust the parameters, play many games, look at the results. Sounds dumb? Yes, it is, but that's what all chess programmers do. Google's AlphaZero is no exception.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2018-01-31T15:21:17.277" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19793" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19798" CreationDate="2018-01-31T15:26:14.260" Score="10" ViewCount="2893" Body="&lt;p&gt;Does Magnus Carlsen have any openings/opening variations named for him?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The last world champion I know of to have an opening variation named for him was Anatoly Karpov (e.g. Caro-Kann, Karpov Variation or Karpov Variation in the Ruy Lopez).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10687" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-02-01T09:22:00.770" LastActivityDate="2018-06-21T19:29:05.400" Title="Does Magnus Carlsen have any openings/opening variations named for him?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;carlsen&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19794" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19796" CreationDate="2018-01-31T17:58:25.963" Score="0" ViewCount="192" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1rr3k1/p3p1b1/b2p2pB/q2P1p2/4P3/1PNn1PK1/P1RQN1PP/7R b - - 0 23&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the above position (reached after 1. Bxh6?) Stockfish points out that Black has a winning move, going from 0.00 to -2.25.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I cannot find the tactic. Here are some details I have pointed out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Checks: Black can check with Be5+ or f4+.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Captures: Black can capture the knight on c3 if a defender is removed: There are three attackers and three defenders on the square. The Black knight on d3 is protected by the bishop and is not hanging, so it cannot be captured. White can capture the g7 bishop, an attacker of c3, on the next move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Threats: White cannot take the pawn with the knight after 1... f4+ because that removes a defender of c3. White cannot take with the king either because that interferes with the queen's defense of h6, and thus Bxh6 is possible (skewer). The intermezzo 2. Nxf4 does not work because of 2... Bxc3, attacking the queen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Please only provide hints and not the actual winning move.&lt;/strong&gt; What are the tactics (such as deflection, coercion, attraction, etc.) that Black should look for?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13147" LastEditorUserId="13147" LastEditDate="2018-01-31T18:06:38.483" LastActivityDate="2018-02-01T19:12:03.523" Title="How does one find the tactic here?" Tags="&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;kings-indian&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19795" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19794" CreationDate="2018-01-31T18:56:47.333" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Have you considered how the white bishop can lose contact with the White queen on d2?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8258" LastActivityDate="2018-01-31T18:56:47.333" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19796" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19794" CreationDate="2018-01-31T19:00:24.433" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I see you looking at &quot;forcing&quot; moves such as checks and captures.  This is probably a good place to start.  One of the best features about &quot;forcing&quot; moves (especially checks) is that the opponent is limited in their possible responses. Both checks you have available, for example, allow only six possible responses; that's way easier to calculate than the 36 or so moves he'd otherwise have.  A capture allows for more &lt;em&gt;possible&lt;/em&gt; responses than a check, but most of them are obviously bad if they don't regain the material, so that also limits the required calculations.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, for each candidate move, go through each of their responses, one by one, and see if you have a good reply to it.  You've started this with a couple of moves; finish it for those moves, and if they don't appear to be correct, move on to the other forcing moves.  If you still cannot find it, look for other candidate moves (such as ones that create threats.) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(I'm not going to provide an actual hint because I see someone else already did, and you probably don't want two.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2018-01-31T19:00:24.433" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19797" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19794" CreationDate="2018-01-31T20:05:16.947" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You are almost there with your analysis. Tactical motives you should look out for are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;overloading, interference, distraction, skewer&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2018-01-31T20:05:16.947" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19798" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19793" CreationDate="2018-01-31T20:22:14.173" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the old days variations were named after players who did serious theoretical work and/or played one line consistently over a longer period. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As openings got more and more analyzed it got increasingly more difficult to find new variations comparable to those old masters. Nowadays the top players might find a novelty around move 20 or so. If you want, you could call those lines &lt;em&gt;variation&lt;/em&gt; and credit them to the player. I am sure some websites do just that, but personally I see a big difference between say the Najdorf variation and those side lines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So yes, probably somebody somewhere called something a Carlsen variation, but whether you consider it a variation is up to you. Also, perhaps it needs some more time until a line is called variation and maybe in 10 years people will agree to call a line Carlsen variation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2018-01-31T20:22:14.173" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19799" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19802" CreationDate="2018-01-31T20:44:03.197" Score="2" ViewCount="611" Body="&lt;p&gt;When playing online, you have the option to &lt;em&gt;premove&lt;/em&gt; (enter the next move, before it is your turn). I am wondering whether there are (generally useful, not contrived) situations where say you have 20 moves to mate with perfect play, but with little time you might be better off going for a longer mate in 30 moves which you can largely premove.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As an example: For the simple endgame rook+king vs bare king, I am aware of two techniques:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;gradually decreasing the available space for the enemy king in both horizontal and vertical directions. This can be done without giving check and requires the king to protect the rook most of the time&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;gradually decreasing the  available space for the enemy king in one direction only (horizontal or vertical) by giving check from the side when the kings are in opposition&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I believe the first method is quicker, however the second might be easier to premove (not sure).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2018-02-01T05:57:06.963" Title="Premove techniques" Tags="&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;online-blitz&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19800" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19801" CreationDate="2018-02-01T01:59:07.223" Score="4" ViewCount="2034" Body="&lt;p&gt;Depending on the GUI, I have noticed some use polyglot files for their opening books and others use .ctg(chess opening tree) for their opening books.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there an advantage or disadvantage to either or is it based solely on the programmer's preference with no real advantage or disadvantage?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14760" LastActivityDate="2018-02-01T07:10:58.613" Title="Polyglot Opening Books vs. Chess Opening Tree" Tags="&lt;computer-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19801" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19800" CreationDate="2018-02-01T03:00:55.870" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Let's take a look what they are&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Polyglot is an open source format. It is free to use, free to distribute, the file format is in &lt;strong&gt;public domain&lt;/strong&gt;. You won't land yourself into any potential legal disputes with Polyglot, as long as you follow the GPL license for the source code.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;CTG file format is owned by Chessbase. It's a closed format, and is not open for you to modify. The file format is &lt;strong&gt;proprietary&lt;/strong&gt;. You might land yourself into possible legal disputes if you try to do something stupid. You --might-- need Chessbase's explicit permission if you want to embed it into your own application. Check with your lawyer.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;People use Polyglot because:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It's free. The source code is there for everyone.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;They don't know how to read the Chessbase opening file format&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Open source chess engines don't use CTG. They generally use Polyglot or nothing. I believe it's illegal to embed a proprietary software (you need code to parse the CTG file) into an open source program.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;People use CTG because:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It's a more powerful file format than Polyglot. The Polyglot format is really a binary compression of (position, moves, weights). For example, it &lt;strong&gt;doesn't&lt;/strong&gt; have the number of games for each position.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Polyglot is designed for computer chess engines, it sits nicely with engine code, but lacks good support for chess GUI. CTG format is designed for both chess engines and chess GUI.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;CTG is a more popular format than Polyglot. Most opening book makers use the Chessbase software.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Polyglot was developed on the UNIX operating system, the source code is much harder to compile on Windows. But most chess book makers use Windows!&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;There's an experimental CTG loader from &lt;a href=&quot;http://scidb.sourceforge.net/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;scidb&lt;/a&gt;, and the related Java implementation somewhere else. However, the implementation in scidb is quite difficult to pull out (not abstracted in software engineering terminology). The Java implementation is useless if your application is not written in Java.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If both CTG and Polyglot were open source and free, there wouldn't be any reason for Polyglot to exist. CTG &gt; Polyglot.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2018-02-01T07:10:58.613" LastActivityDate="2018-02-01T07:10:58.613" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19802" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19799" CreationDate="2018-02-01T05:57:06.963" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Almost always the 30 move option is better.  There are 2 key reasons:&#xA;   - You only lose 0.1 seconds per premove (on most servers), compared to 0.5 - 1.0 seconds.&#xA;   - Your opponent loses more time since you limit their thinking period by moving instantly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my opinion, this is the primary reason why a situation like K+R vs K largely favors the K+R player in bullet.  The side with the K+R can &lt;em&gt;always&lt;/em&gt; premove, since the lone King cannot create any threats/checks/etc.  Meanwhile, the lone King often fails in premoving because the Rook controls squares/gives checks/etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you're slightly lower on time in a sudden death game (say 15 seconds to 20 seconds), you could win just by premoving with the Rook, and trying to purposefully disturb the enemy King.  If your opponent can only premove half the time, that's a whole 0.9 seconds they're losing &lt;em&gt;every move&lt;/em&gt;.  In 10 moves they have lost around 5 seconds (assuming only a 50% success rate in premoving), while you've lost 1 second.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, if the time gap is more significant (5 seconds to 20 seconds, for example), premoving is not enough &lt;em&gt;on its own&lt;/em&gt;.  The trick is to premove while slowly trapping the enemy King.  The strategy of how you box the King is irrelevant, since time in the key.  As long as you premove every move and gradually push the King to one of the sides, it can be enough to win the game.  By premoving each move, you're essentially turning 5 seconds into 50 moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, only experienced bullet players (2300+) can premove &lt;em&gt;every&lt;/em&gt; move while always making real progress.  Thus, it wouldn't be uncommon to see a 2300 blow a win in a K+R vs K with only 5 seconds against 20 seconds.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The key is always premove and try to make some kind of progress; don't worry about the technique you use to box the King.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2018-02-01T05:57:06.963" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19803" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19771" CreationDate="2018-02-01T11:35:35.730" Score="7" Body="&lt;h1&gt;Equanimity (detachment with results)&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The other answers are good, but I feel that they miss one fundamental, critical aspect of Stress Management in any field or situation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It can be captured in one word: &lt;strong&gt;Equanimity&lt;/strong&gt;. Or, in other words, &lt;strong&gt;detachment with results&lt;/strong&gt;. You should try to make yourself &lt;strong&gt;as unconcerned as possible&lt;/strong&gt; with the result of your game / match / tournament.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is by far the &lt;strong&gt;most&lt;/strong&gt; effective way of dealing with stress in any situation, whether related to chess or otherwise. Furthermore, if this is not done, that is, if there is a lot of attachment with, and concern about the results, no amount of breathing or walking will reduce the stress with any degree of significance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The following three verses from the Bhagvad Gita (a Hindu scripture) perfectly summarise the attitude that you need to have. They frequently help me in dealing with stress / anxiety / concern in my own life.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;कर्मण्येवाधिकारस्ते मा फलेषु कदाचन | मा कर्मफलहेतुर्भूर्मा ते सङ्गोऽस्त्वकर्मणि || 2.47 ||&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;English Translation: &lt;strong&gt;You have a right to perform your prescribed duties, but do not consider yourself entitled to the fruits of your actions.&lt;/strong&gt; Never consider yourself to be the cause of the results of your activities, nor be attached to inaction.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Swedish Translation: Din omsorg gälle gärningen allena,&#xA;       och ej din gärnings frukter; — låt ej dessa&#xA;       förleda dig att handla, eller fjättra&#xA;    din höga själ i dådlöshetens band!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;दु:खेष्वनुद्विग्नमना: सुखेषु विगतस्पृह: | वीतरागभयक्रोध: स्थितधीर्मुनिरुच्यते || 2.56 ||&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;English Translation: One whose &lt;strong&gt;mind remains undisturbed amidst misery, who does not crave for pleasure, and who is free from attachment, fear, and anger,&lt;/strong&gt; has a steady intellect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Swedish Translation: i smärtans stund, och lockas ej av njutning; han bindes ej av lidelsernas bojor, av fruktan, hat och vrede, och han kallas en helig man och en ståndaktig själ.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;य: सर्वत्रानभिस्नेहस्तत्तत्प्राप्य शुभाशुभम् | नाभिनन्दति न द्वेष्टि तस्य प्रज्ञा प्रतिष्ठिता || 2.57 ||&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;English Translation: One who &lt;strong&gt;remains unattached under all conditions, and is neither delighted by good fortune nor dejected by misfortune&lt;/strong&gt;, he is a sage with perfect knowledge.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Swedish Translation: Vad hända må av ljuvligt eller lett, är dock hans ande fri på varje håll, och känner varken lystnad eller avsky; — han eger verklig jämnvikt i sin själ.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Swedish translations from: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/48854/pg48854-images.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/48854/pg48854-images.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15636" LastEditorUserId="15636" LastEditDate="2020-05-28T16:23:04.223" LastActivityDate="2020-05-28T16:23:04.223" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="19804" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19794" CreationDate="2018-02-01T19:12:03.523" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I first noticed that the knight on e2 seems to be overloaded, defending both the knight on c3 and the f4 square.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;f4 looks interesting, because there are 2 ways your bishop can control that square, potentially pinning a piece that lands on it to either white's king or queen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't want to analyze more than that, you asked about how we would approach finding tactics. Look for overloaded pieces, pinning squares, discovered checks, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user15710" LastActivityDate="2018-02-01T19:12:03.523" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19805" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-02-01T20:40:42.520" Score="1" ViewCount="211" Body="&lt;p&gt;Good afternoon everyone,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*This is my first post on this forum, so if I placed this in the wrong section, please let me know.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I used to play regularly back in high school and stopped once I started college. I found my passion again and finally started training/studying again in the past few months and noticed there was a tournament coming up not too far away from where I live.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It’s the 7th Annual Reno Larry Evans Memorial (&lt;a href=&quot;https://sites.google.com/site/renochessclub/lem/tournament#EntryInstructions&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://sites.google.com/site/renochessclub/lem/tournament#EntryInstructions&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I personally feel my chess has improved (definitely personal opinion), but I haven’t had the opportunity to play OTB in a while, so the majority of my games have been online.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My USCF rating back in early 2008 was the following (this was based on 46 games):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Regular: 1,376&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Quick: 1,352&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Blitz: Unrated&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My Lichess rating from the past few days have been:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Classical: 1,748&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Rapid: 1,722&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Blitz: Unrated&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;I completely understand that online ratings are definitely inflated&lt;/strong&gt;, so I’m assuming my rating is much lower than the 1,700s. I was considering entering into the tournament and it looks like I would fall under the “D” Section. And this leads to my questions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I regularly play 30+0 games and am definitely more comfortable with longer times compared to shorter blitz games. This tournament is 40 moves/2 hours, SD/1 hour, 5 second delay. From your experience is this a drastic change?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If I apply for the tournament now, would I be in the “D” Section even if I haven’t played in a tournament in over a decade?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If I apply under the “D” Section now, join a chess club and in the 2 months prior to the competition get a rating over 1,400 would I automatically be placed in the “C” Section?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I’m assuming I need to be a USCF member before I apply, correct? If so, how long is the process?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Do you think if I prepare for the tournament for the next two months (reviewing end-game/middle-game, tactics, and at least one game per day), I will do well? $150 entry fee is on the larger end for me, so want to be sure I justify it for the wife.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know this was quite a lengthy first post, but its has been a while and want to understand the topic before committing. I appreciate any feedback or suggestions. Thank you!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15711" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-02-01T21:57:16.027" LastActivityDate="2018-03-03T23:19:21.930" Title="Tournament (After 10 year hiatus...)" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19806" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19805" CreationDate="2018-02-01T21:04:10.757" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Regarding your questions: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2+1 hours is a big difference to 30-0, which is basically rapid chess. With 30-0 you'd rarely think at a move more than a minute or so. At your level this should be enough to avoid obvious blunders, but the longer time control allows you to invest say 10-30 minutes or so at a complicated position in order to really delve into the position and to calculate longer forced lines or develop long term plans. Might be worth playing some games at the longer time control prior to the tournament.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd ask questions 2 or 3 to the organizer unless it is specifically stated in the tournament regulations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;USCF membership seems to be required. It says, &lt;em&gt;New memberships/renewals available at site.&lt;/em&gt; so that should not be a problem.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Too many unknowns to say how you will perform.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2018-02-01T21:04:10.757" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19807" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19760" CreationDate="2018-02-01T21:21:08.373" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Another guy mentioned &quot;Both opponents have resigned in OTB game.&quot; as an answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I want to comment on that but I don't have enough points.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I want to say that this is not a matter of law, but a matter of fact.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2 opponents can not resign at the same time. In fact, 1 of them will have resigned first, and that first resignation will mean that the other player is the winner.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I can see how it could become a question of ambiguous fact. One possibility is that the black player may mark his scoresheet as 1-0 (therefore resigning in law), while the white player also marks on his scoresheet 0-1 (also resigning). The two players themselves may not even be aware of who resigned first, but there will be in fact a first resigner.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since the only question here is the facts, this can not be &quot;an ambiguity in the laws of chess&quot;. The laws are clear, but when the facts are unclear, it can be difficult to apply the laws for sure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user15710" LastActivityDate="2018-02-01T21:21:08.373" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19808" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19805" CreationDate="2018-02-01T22:35:19.903" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I regularly play 30+0 games and am definitely more comfortable with longer times compared to shorter blitz games. This tournament is 40 moves/2 hours, SD/1 hour, 5 second delay. From your experience is this a drastic change?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;40/2 SD/1 d5 is a rather drastic change from even G/60, let alone G/30.  And it's not just the fact that you have more thinking time in a particular game that matters.  Two games that each last 6 hours means twelve hours of chess in one day.  Given that some rounds start at 7pm, that means you could be playing until 1 am.  Fatigue can be a factor.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If I apply for the tournament now, would I be in the “D” Section even if I haven’t played in a tournament in over a decade?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, unless you choose to play up.  USCF ratings don't expire even if the membership does.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If I apply under the “D” Section now, join a chess club and in the 2 months prior to the competition get a rating over 1,400 would I automatically be placed in the “C” Section?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It depends on when exactly your rating goes up.  &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.uschess.org/msa/MbrDtlMain.php?12743305&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;According to the USCF&lt;/a&gt;, &quot;Official ratings lists are generated on the 3rd Wednesday of each month and become official on the 1st day of the next month.&quot;  The tournament starts on March 31, and the third Wednesday in February is February 21, so I think any ratings change wouldn't affect your section unless it occurred before February 21.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I’m assuming I need to be a USCF member before I apply, correct? If so, how long is the process?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You need to be a USCF member to play; I'm not 100% sure whether you need the membership to register for the tournament, but it seems likely.  The process shouldn't be too long.  The online form for USCF membership is currently &lt;a href=&quot;https://secure2.uschess.org/webstore/member.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;, and it's mostly just basic information (the one thing you might not remember is your old ID number, but there's a link to the search page from that form, so you can look it up if needed.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Do you think if I prepare for the tournament for the next two months (reviewing end-game/middle-game, tactics, and at least one game per day), I will do well?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's impossible to say for sure.  It depends on your expectations, among other things.  In a six-round tournament, just one game can be the difference between a slightly good result and a slightly bad result, or a slightly good result and an awesome result.  But you do have recent games (it's not like the tournament is the first time in 10 years you'll be playing chess), and you do have previous over-the-board experience (even if it's old.)  You'll generally know what to expect, and that helps.  I'd be cautiously optimistic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2018-02-01T22:35:19.903" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19809" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-02-02T08:31:49.710" Score="2" ViewCount="1129" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's my first question on the chess stack exchange (actually I asked this question to stack overflow but my question was closed 'off topic'), and English is not my first language. So please understand if my explanation is not clear.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm a programming novice. I can use some of C (actually I forgot even basics of C), python, IDL just for scientific calculations, or for graphing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm a moderate custom map maker for Starcraft 1. Yes, old fashioned game. Till lately only algorithm I need to make an custom map in Starcraft was trigger, which consists of condition(if~) and action(do~). There was no more complex algorithm like loop or like that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, recently there were much advance in the technology of making custom map with the popularization of EUD trigger.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EUD stands for Extended Unit death Trigger. There is an action in Starcraft trigger named 'Set Death'. The point is, you can set the death value of certain unit (of certain player) outside the allowed range. That makes possible to access and change other game data, like unit attack range or unit appearance(though extreme exploitation were limited in Starcraft:Remastered)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And one map maker (and programmer) made a programming language named epScript in which you can program a custom map and that would compile your script into Starcraft triggers and automatically embed them in a map.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And he wrote some lectures about how to use the language and compiler and the example he chose was the Chess. &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/phu54321/euddraft/wiki&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://github.com/phu54321/euddraft/wiki&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So you can play Chess in Starcraft Battlenet. (Well it was possible before when EUD was enabled but it was a result of such a lot of labor.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However unfortunately he has stopped midway and I have some reasons to believe that for a while he'd not complete his lectures. So I'd like to continue and complete the chess map for two person, and besides, I wanna apply the principle to make a variant of chess, Kriegspiel, which is one of my favorite board game. &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kriegspiel_(chess)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kriegspiel_(chess)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyway, before that, I want to make chess (PvP). But as I said, I'm novice in programming, so I'm not accustomed to make algorithms to realize chess mechanism. So like, I'm not sure how to make script for disabling king to go into a checked cell.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there some webpages that lists algorithms for chess making , not language-dependent? I don't want AI algorithm for chess.(well after I finish the job, if I have enough time I may invest some time for that to enable PvC. And maybe for Kriegspiel too..?) I just want algorithms to implement chess rules. Thanks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15714" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2018-02-02T09:25:55.077" LastActivityDate="2018-02-02T11:16:49.307" Title="Algorithm for implementing chess rule" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;computer-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2018-02-02T21:12:40.443" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19810" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19809" CreationDate="2018-02-02T09:25:36.770" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You're asking code for validating a chess position. There're a &lt;strong&gt;lot&lt;/strong&gt;, tons and tons libraries. However, I don't think there's anything that you can compile for StarCraft. Consider:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Learn chess yourself. Make sure you know the rules well.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;There's &lt;strong&gt;nothing&lt;/strong&gt; you can just grab for your project. You'll need to do it yourself. If speed is not important, you could encode the chess board as a 8x8 two-dimensional arrays. Simple programming. Loop throught the arrays for moves, slow but it'll work for sure.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If speed is important, consider bitboard implementation. Please google bitboard for chess.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some references:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/niklasf/python-chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://github.com/niklasf/python-chess&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/official-stockfish&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://github.com/official-stockfish&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/jhlywa/chess.js/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://github.com/jhlywa/chess.js/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and many many more. Decide your programming language. Your question is too broad for us to answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2018-02-02T11:16:49.307" LastActivityDate="2018-02-02T11:16:49.307" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19811" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16930" CreationDate="2018-02-02T12:38:07.137" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;As mentioned, it's against the rules.  But if you just want to learn and have fun, just play against a computer in the first place.  Why even involve another human being?  You'll get the same practice benefits you want without any ethical concerns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastActivityDate="2018-02-02T12:38:07.137" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19813" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16930" CreationDate="2018-02-02T14:44:01.783" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you want to do this, you &lt;em&gt;must&lt;/em&gt; play on a site whose rules explicitly permit it. FICGS(www.ficgs.com) expects that its players, who call themselves 'centaurs', will use computer assistance to the maximum. I tried it for a while. Anyone who is not a geek will find it very tiring.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastActivityDate="2018-02-02T14:44:01.783" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19815" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19785" CreationDate="2018-02-03T12:19:06.543" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Richard Eales addresses this question in &lt;em&gt;Chess: The History of a Game&lt;/em&gt; (p.30):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;On one last matter, whether or not the early Indian chess was played&#xA;  with dice, there is simply no evidence on which to base a general&#xA;  conclusion. Al-Biruni saw dice being used in the four-handed game&#xA;  (throw two to move the chariot, three for the horse, and so on), but&#xA;  this is a practice which continually crops up in the history of&#xA;  pre-modern chess, particularly when gambling was involved. The&#xA;  &lt;em&gt;Chatrang-namak&lt;/em&gt; described &lt;em&gt;chatrang&lt;/em&gt; as a game of pure skill but the dice were not unknown in Islam, and certainly reappeared more&#xA;  frequently in medieval Europe. There is no clue preserved in the&#xA;  structure of the game to betray whether the 'original' chess was&#xA;  played with dice or not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So it seems that this question is one on which we should remain agnostic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12772" LastActivityDate="2018-02-03T12:19:06.543" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19816" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18810" CreationDate="2018-02-03T12:25:21.170" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you accept statistical data taken from games played between computers as evidence, then the answer may be &lt;strong&gt;yes&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.computerchess.org.uk/ccrl/404FRC/opening_report_by_white_score.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; link for the data.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At the time of writing, White scores below 50% in 155 of the 960 positions. A sample of the scores from the RNKBBRNQ starting position is shown below.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Lm01X.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Lm01X.png&quot; alt=&quot;Statistics for RNKBBRNQ starting position&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that the average ratings for both sides are equal, so distortions in expected result due to playing strength should be negligible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12772" LastEditorUserId="12772" LastEditDate="2018-02-08T11:02:32.083" LastActivityDate="2018-02-08T11:02:32.083" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19817" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16930" CreationDate="2018-02-04T00:47:02.870" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;As others stated I think it depends on the server's rules.  If the server allows it then of course it isn't unethical.  If the server specifically states that you can't then its unethical.  You agree to their terms by playing on their server.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you are sparring against the engine you will be influenced on how to make the next move in your current game.  Doesn't mean you had intentions of cheating just means, you analyzed the position and if you play to win, regardless if a prize is involved or not, you will naturally go against the move that isn't good to play because you sparred against, essentially, a super grand master and you want to win.  That isn't fair play to your opponent on a server that has rules against using a computer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My suggestion would be, if you are on a server that has rules in place against using computers during play, make notes in your game where you want to analyze and analyze the game AFTER the match is over.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14760" LastActivityDate="2018-02-04T00:47:02.870" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19819" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19821" CreationDate="2018-02-04T17:25:52.783" Score="6" ViewCount="232" Body="&lt;p&gt;As opening principles say, you shouldn't push too many pawns in the opening. Instead, you should concentrate more on piece development. However, I have good example where it worked the other way around. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;1984&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Emil Joseph Diemer&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Tomas Heiling&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 Nf6 2.f3 d6 3.e4 g6 4.g4 Bg7 5.g5 Nfd7 6.f4 c5 7.d5 b5 8.c3 a6 9.h4 Nb6 10.h5 e6 11.h6 Bf8 12.a4 exd5 13.a5 N6d7 14.exd5 Be7 15.c4 f6 16.cxb5 fxg5 17.f5 gxf5 18.Qh5+ Kf8 19.Nf3 Rg8 20.b6 Bb7 21.Nc3 Nf6 22.Nxg5 Nxh5 23.Ne6+ Ke8 24.Nxd8 Ng3 25.Nxb7 Nxh1 26.Bf4 Rg6 27.O-O-O Nf2 28.Re1 Kd7 29.Nb5 Ne4 30.Rxe4 Rg1 31.Re1 Rxf1 32.Rxf1 axb5 33.Rg1 Kc8 34.Nxd6+ Bxd6 35.Bxd6 Nd7 36.Rg8+ Kb7 37.Rg7 Kc8 38.Rxh7 Rxa5 39.b7+ Kxb7 40.Rxd7+ Kc8 41.h7 Ra1+ 42.Kc2 Kxd7 43.h8=Q Kxd6 44.Qd8+ Ke5 45.d6 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why did Emil win? He didn’t follow opening principles. Instead he did 17 consecutive pawn moves at the beginning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15592" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-05-19T00:21:03.810" LastActivityDate="2019-05-20T12:59:05.610" Title="A question about piece development" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;pawns&gt;&lt;famous-games&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="19820" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-02-04T19:46:39.813" Score="1" ViewCount="325" Body="&lt;p&gt;Anyone familiar with the program pgn-extract to possibly help with a little troubleshooting?  I have tried to look through manual of the program and I am coming at a loss with addressing the issue.  I have tried using pgn-extract program commands -C, -N, -V with no affect. Here's the following line from my .bat file.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qz4u7.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qz4u7.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.cs.kent.ac.uk/people/staff/djb/pgn-extract/help.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.cs.kent.ac.uk/people/staff/djb/pgn-extract/help.html&lt;/a&gt; for manual reference.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Objective-I am trying to clean up a .pgn file that was created by combining multiple .pgn files together via either dos commands.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;copy *.pgn newfile.pgn&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;copy /b *.pgn newfile.pgn&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Issue-.pgn code errors.  In both attempts at combining multiple .pgn files I get similar errors.  See screenshots.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;improper header spacing examples(text editor used is Brackets).  This is causing a variance in multiple GUI's calculation of total games in the database.  Preferred fix would be to use pgn-extractor to clean the pgn file by properly placing the header of the next game in the proper position below the previous game so the GUI can correctly count total games.  I know how to manually fix this but I'm also building a separate opening book that will have a thousands of games in and in case this issue happens with that, would like to find a fix beforehand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/H6iX7.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/H6iX7.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/6Qmir.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/6Qmir.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14760" LastActivityDate="2019-11-15T14:42:50.777" Title="pgn-extract program troubleshoot" Tags="&lt;pgn&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19821" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19819" CreationDate="2018-02-04T19:53:23.113" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;Several reasons I can see:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In closed positions like you have here, piece development is not as important as in open positions.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;To me it seems that black played his King's Indian set up, more or less ignoring what white is playing, which generally is not a good idea.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Black should/could have attacked the center in the beginning more aggressively, thereby gaining space for his piece play. For instance 2. ... d5 would be natural (though likely he would have faced some version of the Blackmar-Diemer gambit). 5.... Nh5 would make any progress for white on the kingside very difficult.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Until around move 16 black played OK and should not be worse. White has gained lots of space, but, if black plays 16... axb5 he does not have any weaknesses, while white's pawns are soon getting weak (a5 and g5 are hanging, ...)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Around move 19, black has a clear advantage and should not have tried to hang on to the extra pawn but instead gone for active play, developing pieces, e.g. 19... Nf6 looks good.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Black might have missed the knight fork on e6 (i.e. might have missed that white is not forced to move the queen after 21...Nf6). Because of this, the whole plan with Bb7, Nf6 loses strength, because it just helps white to develop the knight to c3 (while the bishop on b7 is still not all that great).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;28...Kd7 is the final blunder, though admittedly white's Nb5 is not that easy to see&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So in summary I'd say: Black played too passively and missed some tactics.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2019-05-20T12:59:05.610" LastActivityDate="2019-05-20T12:59:05.610" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="19822" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-02-04T20:20:08.153" Score="10" ViewCount="768" Body="&lt;p&gt;For the last 3 months or so I've been unable to concentrate and play chess to the level that I am used to. I'm rated 2050.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've been suffering from the following symptoms:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Being completely unable to see the board in it's entirety. I've done silly things like put my queen &lt;em&gt;en prise&lt;/em&gt; because I just didn't see that an enemy rook is on the same file&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Being distracted whilst playing. I have this odd habit of working hard to gain a winning position, then my mind drifts to some music that I like. Inevitably I throw my advantage away&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Playing 'hope chess', i.e. I may analyse just one variation a few moves deep and conclude it is good for me. Of course I miss my opponent's best move&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is, &lt;strong&gt;how can I get out of the rut?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastActivityDate="2019-12-28T23:32:34.820" Title="How can a &gt;2000 player stop making basic errors?" Tags="&lt;training&gt;&lt;psychology&gt;&lt;losing&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19823" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19825" CreationDate="2018-02-04T21:36:47.677" Score="5" ViewCount="2462" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 d5 2.exd5 Qxd5 3.Nc3 Qe5+ ( 3... Qe6+ )&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the best reply to this ? I know that it isn't very good move for black, but I met it few times. I thought that Be2 is the best because other moves block bishop and it is bad later in the game. Am I right ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15592" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-02-05T07:53:07.500" LastActivityDate="2018-02-05T07:53:07.500" Title="What is the best reply to Qe5+/Qe6+ in Scandinavian?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;scandinavian-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19824" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19823" CreationDate="2018-02-04T21:47:05.900" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Keeping the queen in the center vulnerable to attack cannot be Black's best option. Be2 is the obvious move for reasons you gave. Black can't exploit it, and while e2 is not the best of squares for the bishop, it's still development.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;David Letterman played the 3...Qe6+ line against Kasparov in &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1070486&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;a televised game&lt;/a&gt;. Kasparov played 4. Be2, and after 4...Nc6 5. d4 Qg6 5. Nf3 Qxg2 6. Rg1 Qh3 he had a massive lead in development. This is the line I'd go for against Qe6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3...Qe5+ is just as bad since a future Nf3 will gain another tempo. 3...Qe5+ 4. Be2 c6 (or where is black going to put the queen after Nf3?) 5. Nf3 Qc7 and white again has a massive lead in development.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastActivityDate="2018-02-04T21:47:05.900" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19825" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19823" CreationDate="2018-02-04T22:43:03.167" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, Be2 is the best move to play against both Qe6+ and Qe5+.  There are a few reasons for this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1)  Be2 does not block any of your Kingside pieces from developing, allowing you to castle quickly and then attack Black's misplaced Queen.  While Be2 does block one of your pieces (your White Queen on d1), this is fine because you shouldn't be developing the Queen early anyways.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) Be2 does not allow Black to exchange their misplaced Queen off.  This allows you to use the Black Queen as a tempo-gainer (i.e., later in the game you can develop your pieces with tempo by attacking it).  If you played Qe2 instead of Be2, it would give Black an opportunity to get rid of their bad Black Queen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2018-02-04T22:43:03.167" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19826" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19820" CreationDate="2018-02-04T23:42:53.103" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don’t know if pgn-extract can do that, but you might want to try sed. Use sed to do a global replacement for [Event, insert a new line to the beginning of the string.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2018-02-04T23:42:53.103" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19827" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19820" CreationDate="2018-02-05T10:34:04.217" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am the author of pgn-extract. It would be easier to address the specifics of what you are trying to do via the personal email address included with the pgn-extract documentation. I would be happy to help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;David&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12951" LastActivityDate="2018-02-05T10:34:04.217" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19828" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-02-05T17:15:33.667" Score="-1" ViewCount="95" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;rnbqk2r/ppp1ppb1/3p1npp/8/2PPP3/2N5/PP1B1PPP/R2QKBNR b KQkq - 1 6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Normally, White plays (after 0... h6) 1. Be3 Ng4 2. Bc1, when Black has gained tempi but weakened his kingside.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Suppose White plays 1. Bd2 instead. Instantly I see that I can play 1... Nc6, and I don't want to play 1... c5 because the bishop on d2 aids the defense of White's queenside. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My biggest concern with 1... Nc6 is 2. d5 Nd4 3. Bxh6 Bxh6 4. Qxd4. Do I have enough compensation for the bishop pair? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And are there better moves than 1... Nc6 or 1... c5? Maybe I can play 1... c5, 2... e5, gaining central space and eventually gaining an outpost should White play f2-f4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13147" LastActivityDate="2018-02-06T08:44:16.763" Title="What are some good plans for Black in this position?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;kings-indian&gt;&lt;hypermodernism&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19829" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19355" CreationDate="2018-02-05T18:58:26.060" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess.com is probably one of the world's most popular online chess platforms. It has an app and a website (which offers many more features, such as a &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/blog/webmaster/new-3d-boards--so-much-more/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot; title=&quot;beta 3D view&quot;&gt;beta 3D view&lt;/a&gt;). In both, you can export game PGNs and have an efficient friends system in which you can challenge people to play. There are also many other beneficial features- free lessons from master players, tactics training, vision training and numerous drills to improve endgame play, as well as Stockfish analysis. Hope this answers your question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15615" LastActivityDate="2018-02-05T18:58:26.060" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19830" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19831" CreationDate="2018-02-05T20:26:12.133" Score="0" ViewCount="301" Body="&lt;p&gt;I played a game today in the Sicilian Defence. I was White. I was surprised to see the move 5. ... e5 ! Is this playable in the Sicilian?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[StartPly &quot;5&quot;]&#xA;[Title &quot;Is 5. ... e5 playable?&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 e5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My intuition tells me that this move weakens the d6 square so much and White can develop an attact quite easily. The continuation&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[StartPly &quot;5&quot;]&#xA;[Title &quot;Is 5. ... e5 playable?&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 e5 6. Ndb5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;is obvious. White seizes control of the b5 square aiming for the weak d6 square. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I believe that Black should answer 5. ... e6 taking away the important d5 square from White. Has anyone seen the ... e5 variation before?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15738" LastActivityDate="2018-02-07T01:34:54.160" Title="Continuation in the sicilian" Tags="&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19831" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19830" CreationDate="2018-02-05T20:46:50.520" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is the Sveshnikov Variation of the Sicilian. It is a fairly popular line even at the highest level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You are right, that 6. Ndb5 is the critical move. The game usually continues from there: 6. ... d6 7. Bg5 a6 8. Na3 b5&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black has somewhat weakened d5 and the pawn on d6 is weak, but in exchange he has expanded on the queenside and is threatening a fork on b4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastEditorUserId="14079" LastEditDate="2018-02-06T13:47:36.380" LastActivityDate="2018-02-06T13:47:36.380" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19832" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19822" CreationDate="2018-02-05T21:12:27.960" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;General Play&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Building habits is a good way to get out of the rut.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Depending on the the time it could be fundamental to analyze the board and the opponents move to gain a general sense of the direction and goals of each side, of course this is most likely acknowledged by you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A way to reduce blunders is to manage time, which imposes how you multitask.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If anything, multitasking isn't as much about the ability to effectively tackle on each individual thing, but of being well acquainted with certain aspects so you can focus on certain parts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Certain sports such as football have many dynamic aspects, but certain things practiced heavily become more natural, such as throwing/ catching, which allow you to focus more on field awareness, position,and the oncoming defenders.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Following this it may be helpful to practice tactics by playing a bunch of chess tactics on chess.com, lichess, etc, or playing chess engines that follow similar moves so you can expand on your knowledge of the systematic processes in opening. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Generally following/ or making a system before playing may help too (analyzing undefended pieces in your side, blundercheck, etc)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Listen to Music&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another thing is it could be useful to listen to music while playing. I personally listen to jazz, classical, or lofi hip-hop while playing. Something calm and relaxing so I'm not as impatient, and aggressive when I play. Something without lyrics is awesome, and can help tame part of your wandering mind.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Though I do expect the use of headphones would be banned in tournament play. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Time Management&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You also have to take into account the type of chess you are playing&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Classical Chess&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;Using FIDE standard for Classical Chess, which allows an hour and a half for the first 40 moves and another half an hour for the rest of the game, you have a large amount of time to calculate. In this variation major blunders are pretty much absent at higher level play, as the players are able to completely analyze their moves, anticipate responses, calculate lines and attacks, and even delve into intrinsic theories of the board/ color/ control/ etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Rapid Chess&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;With 10 minutes to an hour you have a fair amount of time to analyze your moves and board. I personally find this variation ends with who has the stronger end game moves, so with standard opening principles I like to spend half of the time in mid-game setting up a strong, preferably 2 rook, or rook and bishop ending with a faster king centralization&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Blitz&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;Blitz is 10 minutes or less, commonly played with 2,3 or 5 minute variations. With 5 you may not have a large amount of time to analyze the opponent's goals and motive, but you should still get a general sense of why they make each move. Personally a quick blundercheck in mid-game, 2-5 seconds, and you should be good, just check common moves like how the position could be exploited (fork, discovered attack, skewer) and structure (pawns, defended pieces).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the 2 and 3 minute variations it is common to find weaker, less analyzed moves, with stronger players still rarely making blunders. The key to this is memory and intuition, with a large history of chess allowing you to find similar positions, piece combinations, and ideas. This variation is heavy on tactics with both sides waiting for the other to make a blunder or a weaker, exploitable move. The harder part is implementing strategy, but with study of the piece combinations, and chess theory you can practice powerful, unexpected attacks that could force the opponent out of their comfort zone. So using this the key to making less mistakes in this variation is practice, and with the above allusion to football, make tactics inherent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12876" LastEditorUserId="12876" LastEditDate="2018-02-06T16:19:08.403" LastActivityDate="2018-02-06T16:19:08.403" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19833" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-02-06T03:54:07.213" Score="2" ViewCount="422" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a beginner playing white and it's my turn to move. What is the best possible move in response to this fork?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [title &quot;Game position after fork:&quot;]&#xA; [fen &quot;r1bqr1k1/ppp2p2/2n1pn1p/3p2p1/1b1P1N1B/2N1P3/PPPQBPPP/R3K2R w KQ - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15150" LastEditorUserId="15078" LastEditDate="2018-02-06T12:37:49.693" LastActivityDate="2018-03-22T01:49:37.193" Title="Best practical chances after g5 forking knight and bishop" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;beginner&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19834" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19833" CreationDate="2018-02-06T06:37:54.863" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;My Elo: 1900 on Lichess. My vote would be to take the pawn with the bishop here. That way at least you would have damaged the king side pawn structure and get an semi-open h-file, which might be useful going forward. Because of the fork, you cannot avoid losing one of your pieces anyway.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3158" LastEditorUserId="3158" LastEditDate="2018-02-07T04:21:07.100" LastActivityDate="2018-02-07T04:21:07.100" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19835" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19828" CreationDate="2018-02-06T08:44:16.763" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would castle and Kh7.  This does allow for white pawn storm more effectively, but I feel that black's counterplay comes quickly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The pawn sacrifice is interesting, although I prefer to play 3...Rxh6.  Black would have total control of the dark squares and white has a bad bishop.  Either side white castles on would give black attacking chances due to the open line for either the rook or the DSB.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black's most active piece is the DSB, therefore c5 is a good move in most cases.  If white castles on the kingside, the standard attacking plans involve the f5-f4 push.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12449" LastActivityDate="2018-02-06T08:44:16.763" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19836" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19833" CreationDate="2018-02-06T09:53:41.917" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The position is lost since you lose a piece for at most a pawn and no real compensation if black knows what to do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the &lt;em&gt;best possible move&lt;/em&gt; in such situation you could consult a computer which would give you a move that it thinks is best based on its evaluation function. Likely it would still evaluate your position as -3 or so.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyway, if you are playing against a human, you don't want the objectively best move here, but the move (or line) that gives you &lt;strong&gt;the most practical chances&lt;/strong&gt; or a move/line that gives your &lt;strong&gt;opponent more chances to go wrong&lt;/strong&gt;.  Some people call this &quot;hope chess&quot; which should normally be avoided, but in emergency situations could be your only hope.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Generally speaking this often means that in lost positions like this you:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;avoid simplification of the position, i.e. avoid the exchange of pieces&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;try to complicate the position for instance by having more than one center of action&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;try to set tactical traps&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;go for a direct mating attack&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;aim for getting stalemated (only works rarely and only in endgames)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the position at hand, I believe the most practical chances would give you an attack on the black king.  A few factors help you here: Black has weakened the pawn structure in front of his king, a large part of black's forces are concentrated on the queenside far away from the king. Your plan should be to move as many forces as possible to the kingside and to open a file or two for your rooks. Also acting quickly would be essential before black can make use of his extra piece.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Apart from winning a piece, black also has Ne4 which is very unpleasant because of the pin of the knight on c3; and e5 which frees black bishop on c8 and threatens to open the center against the uncastled white king. There is not much white can do to prevent these, or any attempt would basically mean passive play which is not what is needed here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With this in mind you can think of how to achieve your goals and analyze concrete lines. Keep in mind that there is no (objective) right or wrong here, so I just give a few thoughts without saying that one line is better than the other.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Bxg5 hxg5 You win a pawn, but material is not important in this situation. Also your knight ends up being attacked and you lose another move having to move the knight. Also you don't have any good square for the knight: on h5 it gets exchanged, on d3 you run into Ne4 and on h3 it is on the rim and stands in the way for your attack.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;g3 with the idea that if black takes on h4 or f4 you can retake gxf4 or hxh4 getting an open g file for your rook and potential attacks on the king.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Nh5 hoping for Nxh5  2. Bxh5 gxh4 which would have removed one black defender from the kingside and created a half-open g file. Potentally you could transfer your queen via e2-f3 (or g4) to the kingside.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Bd3 hoping that some tactics might turn up along this diagonal.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;g4 aiming for eventually playing g5, either supported by a rook from g1 or (if black takes gxf4 2. exf4) by a pawn from f4.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Bg3 and the continuation given by Evargalo&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Disclaimer: All of the above is for a position where your opponent still has to convert the advantage not for a position where you are lost because of a mating attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastEditorUserId="11629" LastEditDate="2018-02-06T19:43:38.050" LastActivityDate="2018-02-06T19:43:38.050" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19838" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19833" CreationDate="2018-02-06T13:28:55.557" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Disclaimer&lt;/em&gt; :  in any case you are lost if your opponent plays reasonnably enough.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Assuming that you don't want to resign at move 10, my suggestion would be to continue with 10.Bg3 gf4 11.Bf4. Black's king is slightly weakened, you hit h6 and plan to continue with 0-0-0,f3,g4,h4,g5 to try and open his kingside as much as possible. In positions with opposite castles, material is not the single most important criteria, king security and initiative matter too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If Black plays passively or conservatively, say 11...Kg7, then 12.f3 prevents Ne4, and with Bd3 and g4-g5 you may be able to muddy waters enough to induce later mistakes by Black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If he plays actively and purposefully, with 11...Ne4 (or even 10...Ne4) 12.Qd3 e5!, not worrying about the Ph6 and intending ...Bf5, well, you hardly have anything to hope for...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastEditorUserId="14079" LastEditDate="2018-02-07T08:26:29.110" LastActivityDate="2018-02-07T08:26:29.110" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19839" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6491" CreationDate="2018-02-06T16:58:26.697" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Spassky did not play it &quot;often&quot; and you'll notice he also didn't play it in any of his 3 world championship matches.&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessplayer?pid=21136&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessplayer?pid=21136&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black can very quickly equalize, for example 2...Bc5 or 2...exf4 3.Nf3 d5. Among many others. Black can also try to maintain his opening advantage with lines like 3.Nf3 d6, among others. In fact black has so many options to be well prepared as white you need to know nearly a dozen different primary variations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So these are the factors that make it impractical:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) Black can equalize easily (professionals usually want more with the white pieces).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) It requires more preparation than other openings (this is troublesome for amateurs who don't have all day to work on their openings).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) Black is in the driver's seat regarding the type of position that will be played (stale or dynamic).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15742" LastEditorUserId="4588" LastEditDate="2019-12-05T12:37:38.523" LastActivityDate="2019-12-05T12:37:38.523" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="19840" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-02-06T17:46:43.003" Score="-3" ViewCount="140" Body="&lt;p&gt;I used to play chess a lot when I was younger (started when I was 2), but then a few years ago I stopped at around 10. I recently picked it up again and wanted to see how good I still am, so I took an online test. It says I'm rated 1746. I turn 16 in about a month. Is my rating good for my age?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15743" LastActivityDate="2018-02-06T18:34:04.503" Title="Is my rating good?" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2018-02-06T23:21:36.637" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19841" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19840" CreationDate="2018-02-06T18:21:26.813" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;That depends on the test you took, and on the person you ask. A Grand Master will teill you that 1746 is bad, a beginner will tell you that it is good. Best way to evaluate your chess skills is to play games and tournaments against humans.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14979" LastActivityDate="2018-02-06T18:21:26.813" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19842" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19822" CreationDate="2018-02-06T18:29:18.317" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have a FIDE 1996 rating and I had the same problem you have now. What fixed for me was to play many slow games G/30 minimum and G/60 ideal, and then have Shredder do a quick blunder check on these games. I slowly learned where I am most likely to make silly mistakes. I also changed my game mindset. Rather than try to get a winning position I chose to aim for a solid position all the time with small improvements, nothing too greedy. I chose to win games by exploiting my opponent's mistakes and not because I blew him out of the water with amazing moves. I consistently get winning positions 90% of the time. Now my problem is to efficiently win these won positions. Good luck. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11178" LastActivityDate="2018-02-06T18:29:18.317" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19843" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19840" CreationDate="2018-02-06T18:34:04.503" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;When people ask if they are &quot;good&quot;, the question becomes, good compared to what?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Assuming your USCF rating would really be 1746 (which is hard to say from an online test), that would not put you in the top 100 US players age 15.  You would need a rating of 1931 to make that list, currently.  But it would get you the 26th spot on the top US girls age 15 list.  It would put you in the top 4% of junior players, about the top 35% of adults, and about top 10% overall.  It beats my current rating by two points.  If you had played in my high school league, you probably would have won almost every game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, the best way to find out how good you are isn't to take a test - it's to play games!  It's one thing to be able to spot a mate in 3 when you're told there's something special about the position; it's quite another to see it when you're playing a game or to cause such a position to happen in the game in the first place.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2018-02-06T18:34:04.503" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19844" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19833" CreationDate="2018-02-07T01:32:00.547" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Seeing the position, it seems like you are lost, as you certainly lose a piece to the fork. Assuming you do not want to resign at this point, I recommend playing Bxg5 hxg5 Nd3, followed by h4 to try and open the position and incite your opponent to make a mistake.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15745" LastActivityDate="2018-02-07T01:32:00.547" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19845" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19830" CreationDate="2018-02-07T01:34:54.160" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a well-known variation of the Sicilian - the Sveshnikov (B33). Black weakens squares on the d-file, but he gets queenside tempi in return. The main line continues 6... d6 7. Bg5 a6 8. Na3 b5 9. Bxf6 gxf6 10. Nd5 f5, where many games have been played and have gone both ways.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15745" LastActivityDate="2018-02-07T01:34:54.160" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19846" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19847" CreationDate="2018-02-07T01:47:55.760" Score="4" ViewCount="270" Body="&lt;p&gt;While solving puzzles on ChessTempo, I came across this puzzle:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/8/1p6/p1p3p1/P1P1B1K1/1P2kP2/5n2/8 w - - 9 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Kf5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I played the intended correct answer,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/8/1p6/p1p3p1/P1P1B1K1/1P2kP2/5n2/8 w - - 9 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Kf5 g4 2. fxg4 Nxe4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question now, is this final position drawn, thus invalidating the puzzle?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I tried some lines but they all seemed to draw. Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/8/1p6/p1p3p1/P1P1B1K1/1P2kP2/5n2/8 w - - 9 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Kf5 g4 2. fxg4 Nxe4 3. Ke5 Kd3 4. Kd5 Nf6+&#xA;5. Kc6 Kc2 6. Kxb6 Kxb3 7. g5 Ne4 8. Kxa5 Kxc4 {Tablebase draw} 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13928" LastActivityDate="2018-02-13T00:19:14.297" Title="Is this tactics puzzle flawed?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19847" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19846" CreationDate="2018-02-07T02:37:25.533" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes this seems to be a drawn endgame, most variations actually end up in a queen vs queen+knight situation which is generally a drawn endgame (one example below). But that doesn't mean the puzzle is &lt;em&gt;flawed&lt;/em&gt; because as far as I know chesstempo puzzles are just about finding the &lt;em&gt;best moves&lt;/em&gt; a priori, thus not always about a winning line. Good tactics trainers (such as chesstempo, lichess...) usually only say which side is to move, and the objective of the puzzle is actually part of the puzzle itself (that is, whether one is to play to mate, play to win material, or play to draw etc.) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this particular position black has to come up with the best moves in order to hold the game it seems.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [title &quot;One possible continuation, 1/2-1/2&quot;]&#xA; [fen &quot;8/8/1p6/p1p3p1/P1P1B1K1/1P2kP2/5n2/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. Kf5 g4 2. fxg4 Nxe4 3. Ke5 Kd3 4. Kd5 Ng5 5. Kc6 Kc3 6. Kxb6 Kb4 7. Kc6 Nf7 8. Kb6 Ng5 9. Kc6 Kxb3 10. Kxc5 Kxa4 11. Kd6 Kb4 12. c5 Ne4+ 13. Ke5 Nxc5 14. g5 a4 15. g6 a3 16. g7 a2 17. g8=Q a1=Q+ 18. Kf5 Qf1+ 19. Kg6 Qg2+ 20. Kh7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3594" LastActivityDate="2018-02-07T02:37:25.533" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19848" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19833" CreationDate="2018-02-07T03:24:08.303" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The position is completely lost. Computers don't evaluate swindle potential. I would try Nd3, because a half-open g-file has some value and the pawn (after ...gxh4) is quite weak. Meanwhile you hit the annoying bishop that is pinning your Knight. ...Bxc3; bc3 gh4; f3 (immediate e4 embarrassed by ...Nxe4) and hope your opponent makes a serious error.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="921" LastActivityDate="2018-02-07T03:24:08.303" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19849" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-02-07T07:52:37.190" Score="3" ViewCount="417" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm looking for an android app for a variant of chess which is called Kriegspiel. (&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kriegspiel_(chess)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kriegspiel_(chess)&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't expect any PvP app but I'd satisfied with PvC app. (OK; I know it's harder to make PvC) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And if somebody knows fairly good computer software for Kriegspiel please recommend it to me. I know one software, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.kriegspiel.co.uk/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.kriegspiel.co.uk/&lt;/a&gt; but just in case if there is a better software.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15714" LastActivityDate="2018-08-23T11:37:01.670" Title="Is there a Kriegspiel android app?" Tags="&lt;chess-variants&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19850" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19087" CreationDate="2018-02-07T09:34:28.253" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have explained my strategy in detail in the book. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Close the position,&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Avoid immediate tactics, &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Use concepts engines don't understand, like compactness of the pawn structure, unsheltered king with closed center, &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a very wide range of other sophisticated concepts&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;Blitz 2m+2s&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Microsoft&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2018.02.06&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Lyudmil Tsvetkov, owner&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Stockfish 9 64 POPCNT&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[Annotator &quot;owner&quot;]&#xA;[SetUp &quot;1&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pp1p1ppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. e4 {0} Nf6 {2.40/22 12} 2. Nc3 {3} Nc6 {1.75/21 7} 3. Nf3&#xA;{2} d5 {1.97/20 3} 4. exd5 {2} Nxd5 {2.15/22 5} 5. Nxd5 {1} Qxd5 {2.09/22 3} 6.&#xA;d4 {2} Bf5 {1.92/23 3} 7. c3 {2} Be7 {2.01/20 4} 8. Bd3 {2} O-O {2.02/21 3} 9.&#xA;Bxf5 {3} Qxf5 {2.17/19 2} 10. O-O {2} Rfe8 {2.09/22 3} 11. Be3 {2} Bf6 {2.23/&#xA;23 22} 12. Qb1 {2} Qd5 {2.07/22 0} 13. Qd3 {3} Rad8 {2.19/20 4} 14. Rfe1 {6} g6&#xA;{2.32/21 7} 15. Bd2 {5} Ne5 {2.30/19 3} 16. Nxe5 {3} Bxe5 {2.25/22 2} 17. b3 {&#xA;16} b5 {2.18/21 6} 18. Qf1 {0} h5 {2.42/22 19} 19. Rad1 {0} Bf6 {2.70/24 11}&#xA;20. Rxe8+ {2} Rxe8 {2.89/23 2} 21. Be3 {0} Rc8 {2.86/24 5} 22. Qd3 {6} Qf5 {3.&#xA;01/25 0} 23. Qxf5 {0} gxf5 {3.17/23 3} 24. Rc1 {5} Kf8 {3.24/25 9} 25. c4 {14}&#xA;bxc4 {2.46/22 1} 26. Rxc4 {4} Rxc4 {2.79/25 0} 27. bxc4 {1} f4 {3.07/24 4} 28.&#xA;Bxf4 {2} Bxd4 {3.31/24 4} 29. Be3 {2} Bb2 {4.06/29 9} 30. Bxa7 {3} Ke7 {5.02/&#xA;30 12} 31. Kf1 {9} Kd7 {4.44/28 4} 32. Ke2 {1} Be5 {5.18/28 7} 33. h3 {3} Bd6 {&#xA;4.98/23 2} 34. g4 {7} hxg4 {6.03/26 6} 35. hxg4 {1} Ke6 {6.35/26 2} 36. Kd3 {2}&#xA;f6 {7.18/25 3} 37. Be3 {8} f5 {7.21/21 0} 38. gxf5+ {4} Kxf5 {10.49/27 0} 39.&#xA;c5 {3} 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;Blitz 2m+2s&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Microsoft&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2018.02.05&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Stockfish 9 64 POPCNT&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Lyudmil Tsvetkov, owner&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1/2-1/2&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;D94&quot;]&#xA;[Annotator &quot;owner&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;111&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;2018.??.??&quot;]&#xA;[TimeControl &quot;120+2&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 {0.55/22 17} d5 {2} 2. c4 {0.51/22 8} c6 {3} 3. Nf3 {&#xA;0.54/23 8} Nf6 {2} 4. e3 {0.31/24 16} g6 {2} 5. Nc3 {0.59/21 3} Bg7 {2} 6. Be2&#xA;{0.45/23 6} O-O {2} 7. O-O {0.35/21 3} Bg4 {3} 8. a4 {0.53/21 5} a5 {0} 9. b3 {&#xA;0.47/22 7} e6 {11} 10. Ba3 {0.44/28 0} Re8 {2} 11. h3 {0.39/25 4} Bxf3 {3} 12.&#xA;Bxf3 {0.33/24 1} Bf8 {5} 13. Bb2 {0.42/22 2} Na6 {0} 14. Qc2 {0.34/21 3} Nb4 {3&#xA;} 15. Qb1 {0.35/22 13} Nd7 {23} 16. Na2 {0.24/28 0} f5 {11} 17. Nxb4 {0.31/24&#xA;11} Bxb4 {1} 18. g3 {0.66/19 2} Nf6 {3} 19. Kg2 {0.38/25 23} Ne4 {14} 20. Qd3 {&#xA;0.17/26 0} Qg5 {10} 21. Rh1 {0.48/22 10} h5 {2} 22. h4 {0.67/17 1} Qh6 {10} 23.&#xA;Rhc1 {0.57/22 3} Rf8 {0} 24. Qc2 {0.57/26 5} Rf7 {3} 25. Rh1 {0.49/25 13} Raf8&#xA;{2} 26. Be2 {0.40/20 3} Kh7 {0} 27. Bd3 {0.39/22 2} Qg7 {9} 28. Qd1 {0.39/25 3}&#xA;Qh6 {2} 29. Bc1 {0.39/26 6} Qg7 {2} 30. Qc2 {0.39/25 0} Rd7 {4} 31. Bb2 {0.39/&#xA;27 2} Rfd8 {4} 32. Rhc1 {0.39/23 3} Nf6 {4} 33. Be2 {0.39/20 4} Rg8 {9} 34. Bf3&#xA;{0.39/20 2} Qh6 {5} 35. Qe2 {0.39/20 2} Rdg7 {8} 36. Rf1 {0.39/22 2} Rd7 {9}&#xA;37. Rac1 {0.39/23 3} Kh8 {4} 38. Rh1 {0.39/23 2} Kh7 {4} 39. Bc3 {0.55/19 1}&#xA;Bxc3 {0} 40. Rxc3 {0.41/24 1} Ne4 {5} 41. Rd3 {0.41/21 2} Ra8 {6} 42. Rb1 {0.&#xA;41/22 1} Ra6 {3} 43. Qb2 {0.40/23 3} Rb6 {3} 44. Qc2 {0.36/21 3} Rb4 {5} 45.&#xA;Rf1 {0.12/23 2} Kg8 {9} 46. Rdd1 {0.12/21 1} Rf7 {0} 47. Be2 {0.12/25 2} Qf8 {&#xA;17} 48. Bd3 {0.11/35 0} Qd6 {3} 49. Ra1 {0.11/25 2} Rg7 {7} 50. Rab1 {0.11/24 2&#xA;} Kh8 {0} 51. Rfe1 {0.11/26 3} Qb8 {12} 52. Qb2 {0.11/21 2} Rf7 {2} 53. Rg1 {&#xA;0.11/27 2} Kh7 {3} 54. Qc2 {0.11/27 2} Qd6 {2} 55. Rgc1 {0.11/27 2} Rf8 {5} 56.&#xA;Qd1 {0.11/27 4} 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Above the pgns for my first handicap win and my first draw with SF 9.&#xA;Anticomputer chess still works, but you need more time to beat the very top without handicap.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe someone is interested in such games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14893" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-12-29T10:54:58.917" LastActivityDate="2019-12-29T10:54:58.917" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="19851" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-02-07T13:39:21.447" Score="0" ViewCount="467" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is going from #26 through +60 to +9. Thats all engines best moves with deep analysis. Schould it not be a forced checkmate if I will follow the engine evaluation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/HJWgk.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/cjbUk.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/cjbUk.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13744" LastEditorUserId="13744" LastEditDate="2018-02-07T14:16:11.767" LastActivityDate="2018-02-10T13:19:37.177" Title="Why doing the Engine suggested move worsen my position?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19852" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19851" CreationDate="2018-02-07T14:13:25.150" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Many engines are notoriously bad at &quot;remembering&quot; their own variations from 3 moves ago and try to reinvent the wheel each move, so to say.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For me, the Lichess Stockfish calculates&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Mate in 22 for 1. Ra8&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Mate in 21 for 2. Kxc4&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Mate in 14 for 3. Rc8 (Black screwed up in his last move it seems)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Mate in 18 for 3. Kc5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Mate in 19 for 3. Rg8&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;+64 for 3. Kd5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With search depth of 35 each time. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Looks like your analysis at move 3 did not go deep enough and recommended the &quot;wrong&quot; move Kd5 (which still wins, of course). Note that until a depth of around 30, I only got +50 to +60 evaluations too. My bet is that on your phone Stockfish could not reach the depth where it flips back to showing the mate. After making the move, it started to realize that it lost the track to the mate and began readjusting the evaluation (to +10).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13433" LastActivityDate="2018-02-07T14:13:25.150" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19853" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19851" CreationDate="2018-02-08T10:12:08.907" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Engines do not calculate &lt;em&gt;every single variation&lt;/em&gt; up until their depth.  It would take far too long to do this at a depth of, say, 20 moves.  After only the first four moves in chess, there over a billion positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Engines choose what variations to calculate based off their evaluation algorithms (how they evaluate positions).  For example, assume it gets to a position in its calculations where the opponent has 5 possible moves.  If it evaluates that 3 of these moves are +10 for the computer, it could entirely skip these variations and only calculate the remaining 2.  This saves large amounts of time and processing power.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus, if an engine calls &quot;mate in X&quot;, that is really just its best guess.  It's possible the engine incorrectly thought some variation was bad for the opponent, and thus chose not to calculate it.  However, maybe it turns out this variation actually prolonged the game a few more moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An engine's evaluation algorithm is based on a number of factors regarding &lt;em&gt;the current position in its calculations&lt;/em&gt;.  Black could have had a move that &quot;looked&quot; worse to the engine (based off its evaluation algorithm), causing it not to calculate the resulting variation.  Concretely though, this move could have been &lt;em&gt;objectively&lt;/em&gt; the best, as it prolonged mate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason an engine often changes its evaluation from &quot;mate in X&quot; to something like +60 is that, after &quot;going down the rabbit hole&quot; as far as it can, it then checks over and refines its previous calculations.  It wouldn't make sense to refine/perfect its calculations first, as this is like the cherry on the cake.  Analyzing to a high depth is of highest priority - refining its previous calculations is almost always secondary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2018-02-08T10:12:08.907" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19854" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-02-08T15:37:29.150" Score="4" ViewCount="3368" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can anyone tell me whereabouts I can download a 6 man Nalimov endgame tablebase? I've seen some websites with 6 man Nalimov (case in point: &lt;a href=&quot;http://contentdb.emule-project.net/view.php?pid=1630&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://contentdb.emule-project.net/view.php?pid=1630&lt;/a&gt;). However, so far all I have come across is dead links. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can someone able to point me to some working link(s)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15755" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-02-09T17:51:50.017" LastActivityDate="2018-02-10T05:25:12.877" Title="Where to download a 6 man Nalimov endgame tablebase?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;tablebases&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19856" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19854" CreationDate="2018-02-08T16:53:57.943" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;From the ICCF site:&#xA;Players who wish to have access to the 7 men tablebases may purchase any of the following programs: ChessOK Aquarium 2017, Houdini Aquarium 2017, Houdini PRO Aquarium 2017, Chess Assistant 17 with Houdini 5  and Chess Assistant 17 PRO with Houdini 5 PRO.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Free Android application&#xA;One more way to access 7-man tablebases without having a key is to use Android application.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Search for Lomonosov Tablebases or use &lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.convekta.android.lomonosovtb&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.convekta.android.lomonosovtb&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Alternatively, if players only want access to 6 men tablebases they may visit this page to use the 6-piece Nalimov tablebases: &lt;a href=&quot;http://chessok.com/?page_id=361&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://chessok.com/?page_id=361&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2018-02-08T16:53:57.943" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19857" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-02-09T12:28:58.173" Score="1" ViewCount="5150" Body="&lt;p&gt;I played a total of 261 games against the Play Magnus app at different ages. My overall score is 144 wins, 99 losses and 16 draws. My last game was against the 10-year-old Magnus. Prior to the start of the game I was rated 1248. I won the game and my rating increased by an astonishing 133 points, so I was wondering what is the rating system used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most weird is that I sometimes draw against a far higher rated Magnus and lose rating points (I once drew 26-year-old Magnus and lost 18 rating points when I was rated only 1486). Is there any explanation for that, or is it a bug in the app?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13544" LastActivityDate="2019-05-04T13:15:32.357" Title="What rating system does the Play Magnus app use?" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2019-05-04T14:58:32.777" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19858" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19822" CreationDate="2018-02-09T14:35:51.607" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;From the way the question is written it seems like these flaws in your chess are uncharacteristic, and that you recently noticed that they've suddenly become way more apparent than before. The first point about putting pieces en prise does indeed seem uncharacteristic for any player &gt;2000 Elo, unless we're dealing with very short time controls. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For a beginner, putting a piece or two en prise during a game is to be expected, but for someone of expert strenght it's indicating that something is going on. Most likely it has to do with momentary lapses of concentration, and it is very difficult in general to know why these happen. Has something happened in your life recently that puts you under a lot of stress? Then that is very likely the culprit affecting this area of your game, and you should work on improving your personal life in order to get rid of these annoying mistakes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The second part, about getting winning positions and then not being able to convert them, is not uncharacteristic for a ~2050 Elo player in my opinion. Strong players tend to be remarkably resilient, and they will not yield an inch unless you force them to. Keeping this in mind, it becomes clear that it is very dangerous to think of your position as &quot;winning&quot;. That way of thinking makes it much more likely that during a game you will start relaxing too early thinking the position will win itself, and consequently letting your opponent off the hook. Instead, I believe it is much more appropriate to always keep in mind that &lt;strong&gt;your position is nothing without you!&lt;/strong&gt; Without you there to accurately improve it, your position will most certainly deteriorate, no matter how good it is to begin with. Don't forget this; do not relax until the game is over!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The part about &quot;hope chess&quot; should be taken care of if you remember that your opponent is not supposed to be your friend during the game. If they can avoid it, they will never actively cooperate with your plans. However, if the hope chess has increased in the last couple of months it could be caused by the same thing that is causing you to drop pieces. Stress has a way of making people mentally exhausted, and this will inevitably lead to chessplayers 'letting go' the moment they think they see a solution to their problems, unwilling to strain themselves mentally even further by double-checking to make sure the plan is air tight. In this case the solution to the issue should be to work on improving your personal life to eliminate mental exhaustion as a factor in your game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8300" LastActivityDate="2018-02-09T14:35:51.607" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19859" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19822" CreationDate="2018-02-10T01:08:48.520" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would take quite seriously the possibility of taking medical advice. Our chess ability, measured objectively by rating, is a very sensitive measure of our mental health is several ways.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some years ago my thyroid gland became underactive (hypothyroidism) which leads to a slowing down of mental processes. This went undiagnosed for two years, because being normally quite a bright chap I was just a bit more normal. My rating fell during this period by at least 200 points. I knew that I was playing badly and felt furious about it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After treatment had begun I was playing in a tournament and I recall exactly when the cloud lifted. I looked at my opponents k-side attack, and suddenly realized that g5 was not a threat. Quite suddenly, I was analyzing accurately again.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am not offering a diagnosis of your condition, but this very similar experience of mine was in fact symptomatic of something quite serious.&#xA;The fact that you post here indicates that you are quite worried about it. I think you need to talk to a doctor. A good one will not think that complaining about your loss of chess skill is frivolous.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastActivityDate="2018-02-10T01:08:48.520" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19860" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-02-10T04:51:20.230" Score="1" ViewCount="856" Body="&lt;p&gt;In a blitz game, when my king is checked, I make an illegal move that checkmated the opponent and pressed the clock. Then my opponent captured my king and claimed victory. Capturing the king is not a legal move. Who wins?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15767" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-01-05T21:12:33.607" LastActivityDate="2021-01-05T21:12:33.607" Title="Capturing the king in a blitz game" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;kings&gt;&lt;blitz&gt;&lt;captures&gt;&lt;illegal-move&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="19861" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19854" CreationDate="2018-02-10T05:25:12.877" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://kirill-kryukov.com/chess/tablebases-online/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://kirill-kryukov.com/chess/tablebases-online/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just to show where I got the links from.  Site came from Arena's Chess GUI's homepage.  Site states they had permission from  Eugene Nalimov &amp;amp; Andrew Kadatch.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.playwitharena.com/?User_Files%2C_Engines:Axon%2C_EloStat%2C_Nalimov:Nalimov_Tablebases&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.playwitharena.com/?User_Files%2C_Engines:Axon%2C_EloStat%2C_Nalimov:Nalimov_Tablebases&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Found the link initially.  Very informative for computer chess in general.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Nalimov+Tablebases&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Nalimov+Tablebases&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14760" LastActivityDate="2018-02-10T05:25:12.877" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19862" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19860" CreationDate="2018-02-10T09:27:15.177" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If the opponent presses the clock he has finished an illegal move and you may claim a win. If he does not press the clock he may claim a win because of your illegal move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14979" LastActivityDate="2018-02-10T09:27:15.177" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19863" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8711" CreationDate="2018-02-10T10:05:41.503" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;During chess book examples and exercises, try to find all the variations and find out the best ones. Try to memorize the useful variations. Find a book with lots of exercises. Set them up on a board and go through them. You will eventually get familiar with all the common situations and be able to punish your opponent for their blunders. Also, don't rush through all the chapters if you have not completely understood them. Re-read them again and again until you get the idea.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15675" LastActivityDate="2018-02-10T10:05:41.503" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19864" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19860" CreationDate="2018-02-10T11:05:08.197" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a good question indeed and a somewhat bizarre situation, which is not fully covered by the Laws. As you mention the opponent has completed an illegal move and you claim that. The relevant parts of the Laws are articles &lt;code&gt;A.4.2.&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;B.2&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;7.5.5&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The easy case is if your opponent has made an illegal move (that has been claimed) before. In that case they lose the game. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If this is a first illegal move your opponent has made in this game, however, then the arbiter will give you one minute extra time, the opponent's last move is taken back and they have to play any other move that is legal. This is where things become complicated. Your opponent has been checkmated and thus there is no legal move they can play. According to article &lt;code&gt;5.1.1&lt;/code&gt; they should lose the game but only if the move producing the checkmate was legal, which it was not. Therefore, since your opponent cannot make any legal move, the game cannot continue but it has not finished and there is no result. Quite bizarre indeed. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The following is a somewhat bizarre solution to a bizarre situation. If the opponent is satisfied with a draw they could ask the arbiter to watch the next move and then make a move that leaves both kings in check. Then the arbiter will declare the game drawn according to article &lt;code&gt;A.4.4.&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the opponent does not want a draw then the only solution that satisfies the Laws is that both players agree to correct the illegal move that caused the checkmate. This is allowed by article &lt;code&gt;A.4.2&lt;/code&gt;. If they don't agree the Laws do not tell you what to do. In such situation, I, as an arbiter, would rule to correct that move nonetheless without penalizing the player who made it (i.e. you) since it was the opponent's responsibility to make a claim. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Current Laws of Chess are &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=208&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8844" LastEditorUserId="8844" LastEditDate="2018-02-10T13:16:12.920" LastActivityDate="2018-02-10T13:16:12.920" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19866" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19851" CreationDate="2018-02-10T13:19:37.177" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Stockfish (at a search depth of 99 moves) evaluates the initial position as actually a mate-in-19.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;2n5/1p6/1P3k2/R1K1p1p1/2p1PpPp/5P1P/8/8 w - - 4 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Ra8 Ne7 Kxc4 Nc6 Kc5 Ke7 Rc8 Nd8 Kd5 Ne6 Kxe5 Kd7 Kd5 Ke7 Re8+ Kxe8 Kxe6 Kf8 e5 Kg7 Kd6 Kg8 e6 Kf8 Kd7 Kg8 e7 Kf7 e8=Q+ Kf6 Kd6 Kg7 Ke7 Kh6 Kf8 Kh7 Qh5#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The next position is a mate in 18 moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;R7/1p2n3/1P3k2/2K1p1p1/2p1PpPp/5P1P/8/8 w - - 6 2&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Kxc4 Nc6 Kc5 Ke7 Rc8 Nd8 Kd5 Ne6 Kxe5 Kd7 Kd5 Ke7 Re8+ Kxe8 Kxe6 Kf8 e5 Kg7 Kd6 Kg8 e6 Kf8 Kd7 Kg8 e7 Kf7 e8=Q+ Kf6 Kd6 Kg7 Ke7 Kh6 Kf8 Kh7 Qh5#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The final position is mate in 17 moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;R7/1p6/1Pn2k2/4p1p1/2K1PpPp/5P1P/8/8 w - - 1 3&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Kc5 Ke7 Rc8 Nd8 Kd5 Ne6 Kxe5 Kd7 Kd5 Ke7 Re8+ Kxe8 Kxe6 Kf8 e5 Kg7 Kd6 Kg8 e6 Kf8 Kd7 Kg8 e7 Kf7 e8=Q+ Kf6 Kd6 Kg7 Ke7 Kh6 Kf8 Kh7 Qh5#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You probably didn't give the engine sufficient time to find the mate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another important fact to note is that the Lichess app uses the javascript version of Stockfish. The problem with this version is that it cannot make use of hash tables. So when the engine evaluates a position and then left to evaluate another position resulting from a move in the initial position, it evaluates the position as if it was restarted before evaluation. I am pretty sure if you give the engine some time to evaluate the second and last positions it will come up with the mate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13544" LastActivityDate="2018-02-10T13:19:37.177" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19867" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19860" CreationDate="2018-02-10T17:29:51.373" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It depends whether USCF or FIDE rules apply, and may depend on whether an illegal move was previously claimed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Under the USCF blitz rules listed in my &lt;em&gt;US Chess Federation's Official Rules of Chess 5th Edition&lt;/em&gt;, an illegal move results in a penalty of two minutes.  There is a variation listed, however, where an illegal move results in forfeiting the game.  In this case, capturing the opponent's king is listed as a way of claiming a win, rather than being its own illegal move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The FIDE rules changed for 2018.  It used to be that in blitz, an illegal move would allow the opponent to claim a win.  However, this rule was changed, and now blitz is similar to normal chess in that a &lt;em&gt;second&lt;/em&gt; illegal move by a player will result in a forfeit, and the first one merely results in a penalty.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for which player can be penalized, it seems to be the player who took the king.  See rule 1.4.1, which says &quot;'capturing' the opponent’s king is not allowed.&quot;  See also &lt;a href=&quot;http://arbitri.lombardiascacchi.com/Chesscafe/2006_05.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this article&lt;/a&gt; in which an arbiter says &quot;As far as I can see, the player who completed the first illegal move is now entitled to claim the illegality.&quot;  However, this article is from 2006 and isn't quite an identical situation; I can't guarantee that an arbiter today would rule the same way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastEditorUserId="12629" LastEditDate="2018-02-10T19:50:18.610" LastActivityDate="2018-02-10T19:50:18.610" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19868" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19870" CreationDate="2018-02-10T17:56:08.353" Score="-1" ViewCount="119" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was wondering what is the minimum number of moves it takes to win (checkmate) as I would like to accomplish this in a game of chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15775" LastEditorUserId="14202" LastEditDate="2018-02-11T00:02:27.030" LastActivityDate="2018-02-11T00:02:27.030" Title="How many moves is it possible to win in?" Tags="&lt;winning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19870" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19868" CreationDate="2018-02-10T19:40:51.957" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;That's very, very, very dependent on your opponent. There really is no number you can give for a definite way to get a &quot;auto-checkmate&quot; (if that's what you're looking for) as every opponent has different preferences and playing style. Like @Scounged stated, black can win in two moves. For white, the technical fastest way to win is in three moves (here's one variation: 1. e4 f6 2. Bc4 g5 3. Qh5#) but again, your opponet probably isn't that bad. A very popular fast checkmate against beginners is known as &quot;Scholar's Mate&quot; or more commonly known as the &quot;Four Move Checkmate&quot;. It goes something like this: (1. e4 e5 2. Bc4 Bc5 3. Qh5 Nf6 4. Qxf7#).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now of course, every chess game is uniqiue to it's own. There is no definite number of turns it takes to get a checkmate. On average, they say that it is 40 moves. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you would like to practice recognizing checkmate patterns and opportunities, I would suggest going to Chess.com or Chessable.com as they have quite a wide variety of material to improve your chess skills.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15747" LastActivityDate="2018-02-10T19:40:51.957" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19871" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19874" CreationDate="2018-02-10T23:37:06.340" Score="-2" ViewCount="94" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]   &#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]  &#xA;[ICCause &quot;2&quot;]  &#xA;[ICEcause &quot;4&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.Nxe5 Nxe4 4.Qe2 Qe7 5.Qxe4 Nc6 6.d4 b6 7.d5 Nxe5 8.Bf4 Nf3+ 9.gxf3 Bb7 10.Nc3 f5 11.d6 cxd6 12.Qxe7+ Bxe7 13.O-O-O O-O 14.Bc4+ Kh8 15.Rhg1 g6 16.Nd5 Bh4 17.Rge1 Bxf2 18.Re7 Bxd5 19.Bxd5 Rad8 20.Bxd6 Bh4 21.Re5 Bg5+ 22.Kb1 Bf4 23.Bxf8 Bxe5 24.Re1 Bxh2 25.Be7 Rc8 26.Bf6#  1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15778" LastEditorUserId="9025" LastEditDate="2018-02-11T06:40:06.823" LastActivityDate="2018-02-11T10:23:07.077" Title="Was there anyway better to play this endgame?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19873" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19876" CreationDate="2018-02-11T09:51:05.120" Score="7" ViewCount="360" Body="&lt;p&gt;In &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/article/view/the-extremely-important-manipulation-of-pawn-structures&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this article&lt;/a&gt; on pawn structure, the author uses this game as example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;Prague 2008&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;????.??.??&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;David Navara&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Vladimir Kramnik&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;[SetUp &quot;1&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;rnbq1rk1/pp2bppp/2p5/2npP3/3N1P2/2NB4/PPP3PP/R1BQ1RK1 b - - 0 9&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[CurrentPosition &quot;rnbq1rk1/pp2bppp/2p5/2npP3/3N1P2/2NB4/PPP3PP/R1BQ1RK1 b - - 0 9&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;9...Nxd3 10.Qxd3 f5! 11.Nb3 Na6 12.Be3 Nc7 { Defends d5 (making ...c5 possible) and, at the right time, move the knight to e6. } 13.Ne2 b6 14.Nbd4 Ba6 15.Qd2 Qe8 16.c3 c5 { The d4-knight is pushed back to the cold, dark, hellish vistas that occurs when you realize that you’ve been thoroughly outplayed. } 17.Nf3 Rd8 18.Rfd1 Ne6 { and Black has created a dream for Black. Here’s the rest of the game: } 19.a4 h6 20.a5 Qb5 21.Ng3 bxa5 22.Qc2 g6 23.Qa4 Qxa4 24.Rxa4 d4 25.cxd4 cxd4 26.Nxd4 Bc5 27.Rxa5 Nxd4 28.Rxa6 Nf3+ 29.Kf2 Bxe3+ 30.Kxf3 Rxd1 31.Kxe3 Rfd8 32.Rxg6+ Kh7 33.Ra6 R8d3+ 34.Kf2 R1d2+ 35.Ne2 Rd7 36.e6 Rb7 37.Ke3 Rdxb2 38.Nd4 R2b6 39.Rxb6 Rxb6 40.e7 Rb8 41.Nxf5 a5 42.Nd4 a4 43.Nc6 Re8 44.Kd4 Kg7 45.Kc4 Kf7 46.Kb4 Ra8 47.Ka3 Ra6 48.Nb4 Rd6 49.Kxa4 Kxe7 50.Kb5 Rd2 51.g4 Rxh2 52.Kc5 Ke6 53.Kd4 Rh4 54.f5+ Kf7 55.Ke5 Rxg4 56.Nd5 Ra4 57.Nc3 Rb4 58.Ne4 h5 59.Ng5+ Kg8 60.f6 h4 61.Kf5 Rb5+ 62.Kg6 Rxg5+ { , 0-1 }  0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then, when explaining why &lt;code&gt;10... f5!&lt;/code&gt; is a good movement, he says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The idea is that White’s knights have no long-lasting support points&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What does this mean? how does the pawn on f5 achieve or help to this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14457" LastActivityDate="2018-02-12T12:51:51.600" Title="What does &quot;knights have no long-lasting support points&quot; mean in this game?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;pawns&gt;&lt;pawn-structure&gt;&lt;kramnik&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19874" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19871" CreationDate="2018-02-11T10:23:07.077" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is not much of an endgame here. Black played the opening poorly, blundered a piece and white only had to convert the position with an extra piece which he did reasonably well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Generally, in a clearly winning position, it is a bit meaningless to ask for better ways to play, or at least you need to specify what you mean by &quot;better&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want the objectively best play you should have a computer engine analyze your game. This will tell you the best continuations, which is very roughly speaking, the shortest way to mate for the winning side or the longest way to mate for the losing side.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However as a human player that is not what you usually want in such situations. If you are on the losing side, you are basically hoping for mistakes from your opponent and you do everything to help him doing that (see also &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/19833/best-practical-chances-after-g5-forking-knight-and-bishop&quot;&gt;this recent question and answers&lt;/a&gt;), even if that means playing an objectively worse move. As such, in a lost position you:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;avoid simplification of the position, i.e. avoid the exchange of pieces&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;try to complicate the position for instance by having more than one center of action&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;try to set tactical traps&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;try to create imbalances which are often more difficult to play (e.g. being a piece up is often an easier win than being an exchange plus a pawn up)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;go for a direct mating attack&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;play quickly, hoping to get your opponent in time trouble&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;aim for getting stalemated (only works rarely and only in endgames)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Conversely, if you have a winning position with material advantage (white here) you often:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;aim to simplify the position, by exchanging pieces&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;avoid complications, e.g. by keeping the position closed to some extent&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;keep your king safe&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;slowly convert your advantage without rushing it&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Regarding your game. The first main blunder by black is 6...b6. At this point black needs to play immediately 6...d6 in order to get the sacrificed piece back, taking advantage of the pinned knight on e5 while the white queen is unprotected. 6...b6 allows white to just defend his queen after which he is a piece up. Even worse, with 6...b6 black self-pins the knight on c6  and white could reply 7. Nc3, protecting the queen (thus winning a piece as above) and in addition creating the annoying threat Nd5 which attacks the black queen, threatens Nxc7+ and if the black queen leaves the e file you have deadly discovered checks with the knight on e5. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With 7. d5 white gives away all the advantage, losing his extra piece.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With 8. ...Nf3 black returns the favour. Most likely he was hoping to win the white queen, but did not take into account that the queen is protected after 9. gxf3. Now we have a clearly winning position for white and if white just makes normal moves, develops pieces, exchanges pieces, protects his pawns, there is not much that black can hope for. Creating complications after the queens get exchanged will be difficult because there is little material left and white does not have any major weaknesses. In what follows white made no major mistakes, but from a practical point of view, I would have played it more calmly/less tactical. Specifically:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;ol start=&quot;11&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;d6!? This opens the diagonal for the bishop on b7. Why not just exchange queens, castle long, develop the bishop from f1, put the rooks on the open e-file and play it safe. There is not much active that black can do.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;ol start=&quot;13&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;0-0-0?! This allows 13. ... Bxf3 where black wins an exchange. So essentially white changes from playing with an extra piece to playing two pieces against a rook which is still winning but much more difficult to convert. Perhaps white should have left the king in the center on d2, where it is difficult to attack. The weak pawn on f3 could be protected with the bishop or sacrificed if you are going for active play.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;ol start=&quot;13&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;... 0-0? Black's best chance was to go for the Bxf3 line mentioned above.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;ol start=&quot;15&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Rhg1 Not a mistake, but 15. Bd5 would exchange black's strongest pieces and after 15...Bxd5 16. Nxd5, white would end up with a very strong knight and black with a very weak bishop on e7, which could be exchanged if needed, further limiting any potential counterplay.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;15...g6 Still black could have taken on f3.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;ol start=&quot;17&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Rge1 natural enough move to occupy the open file, but Bxd6 could be a very good alternative, winning a pawn and threatening Be5+ with (almost) mate&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;ol start=&quot;19&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;...Rad8 Too passive. If black hopes to get anything out of the game he should at least occupy the open e file by playing Rae8.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;ol start=&quot;20&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Bxd6. Here Bh6 would win an exchange because of the threat Bg7++.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;ol start=&quot;21&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Re5 a strange square for a rook. The discovered attack on the f8 rook is not dangerous and if you wanted to do that you could as well have done this with 21. Re2 which avoids any attacks on the rook as in the game. Generally, if the opponent has only one bishop, it is often a good idea to put your pieces on squares of opposite color to those on which that bishop operates. There is nothing wrong with 21. Re5, but from a practical standpoint it unnecessarily complicates the position.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;ol start=&quot;24&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Re1 As above, nothing wrong with this move, but it somewhat complicates the position. You have to calculate all kind of intermediate moves (like Bxb2, Bg3....). Easier would be to just move away the attacked bishop with 24. Bh6&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2018-02-11T10:23:07.077" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19875" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19873" CreationDate="2018-02-11T12:57:32.280" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is not that the pawn on f5 achieves/helps this. As far as I understand Silman, what he means is that black can play 10...f5, which &lt;strong&gt;gives white a protected passed pawn&lt;/strong&gt; and which &lt;strong&gt;weakens the square e6&lt;/strong&gt;, because white's knights will eventually be driven away when black plays c5, etc&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Look at the position after 18.... Ne6 for instance. Black has achieved everything he wanted: blocked the passed pawn with his knight, gained space in the center through his pawns on c5 and d5, has a very strong bishop on a6.... The white knights on the other hand have no good squares  to go to and also the other pieces of white don't do much.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Consider the opposite situation, where the white knights could not be driven away (i.e. where they have long-lasting support points). For instance if white had a (protected) pawn on c5 in the initial position, black would have a very hard time after f5 because the knight on d4 attacks f5, c6 and hinders black from blocking the passed pawn by placing a piece on e6. It also hinders black from play on the queenside (because the c6 pawn might be weak or hanging). Furthermore the second white knight could be moved to e3 further adding to the pressure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So essentially what Silman is saying is that Kramnik can play 10...f5 which is against the principle of not giving your opponent protected passed pawns, because in this situation here, white cannot make use of this asset. The knights will be kicked away and black's play on the queenside is more valuable than the protected passed pawn, which often only pays off in an endgame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastEditorUserId="11629" LastEditDate="2018-02-12T12:51:51.600" LastActivityDate="2018-02-12T12:51:51.600" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19876" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19873" CreationDate="2018-02-11T13:21:30.577" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's just another way of saying the knights will not be able to find permanent posts in this position because of black's central pawns. &lt;code&gt;f5&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt; are pinning down all the key light squares and the &lt;code&gt;c5&lt;/code&gt; push to challenge the knight is unavoidable for white. In short, white cannot create useful space for the knights in this position (Notice that by move &lt;code&gt;21.Ng3&lt;/code&gt;, the knights on &lt;code&gt;f3-g3&lt;/code&gt; are well out of play as black's putting pressure on the centre and queen-side while white cannot create any immediate play with the knights on the king-side). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All of that adds up to the knights being a tad less useful than black's bishops in this position, bearing in mind black has no problem blockading the passed pawn. Black will try to play around White's fixed structure with the pawns on &lt;code&gt;f4-e5&lt;/code&gt; (also blocking the bishop out of play). Notice that white's light square control is equally important here: &lt;code&gt;14...Ba6&lt;/code&gt; stops any plan of playing &lt;code&gt;c4,&lt;/code&gt; Kramnik's &lt;code&gt;Na6-Nc7-Ba6&lt;/code&gt; maneuver is really beautiful. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The author's statement is made within the context of this position, and is not a general one. But generally, what you can intuitively imagine is that the equivalent of &quot;&lt;em&gt;open diagonals&lt;/em&gt;&quot; for bishops is &quot;&lt;em&gt;permanent central posts&lt;/em&gt;&quot; for knights. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3594" LastActivityDate="2018-02-11T13:21:30.577" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19877" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19884" CreationDate="2018-02-11T17:40:08.787" Score="6" ViewCount="1198" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is anyone familiar with the .wdl and .dtz formats for the 6 man tablebase that are available?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I already confirmed that both aren't needed, however they both store different information. Goal is to determine which one would fit what I want to do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-I know there are other forums out there for this.  I'm a new member on one of them but trying to see if anyone here is familiar with this is all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14760" LastActivityDate="2019-06-28T05:26:43.237" Title="Syzygy 6 man Tablebase Files Question" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;tablebases&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19878" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19895" CreationDate="2018-02-11T18:57:20.697" Score="2" ViewCount="412" Body="&lt;p&gt;Inspired by &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/q/19734/13565&quot;&gt;this question&lt;/a&gt;: when should one play Bxc6, capturing the Knight, in Ruy Lopez?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Related&lt;/strong&gt;, but hopefully not a duplicate: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/q/239/13565&quot;&gt;this question&lt;/a&gt;, but it focusses on why Bxc6 isn't a popular move, while I ask what factors and ideas to consider while making the move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;To elaborate&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the early stages of Ruy Lopez, Black's Knight is en prise for several moves and White's Bishop can capture it. However, this capture sometimes occurs and sometimes doesn't.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I haven't found a clear reason why White sometimes makes the capture and sometimes doesn't. It would help to know the what factors to consider before making the move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;In short&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd like to know the general ideas and motivating factors behind the capture (Bxc6), and when to, as well as when not to, make the capture (as White).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13565" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2018-02-13T01:51:37.257" Title="When to (and when not to) play Bxc6 (i.e. BxN) as White in Ruy Lopez?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;ruy-lopez&gt;&lt;exchange&gt;&lt;doubled-pawn&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19879" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19878" CreationDate="2018-02-11T19:45:38.927" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruy_Lopez,_Exchange_Variation&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruy_Lopez,_Exchange_Variation&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;Links gives some pro's.  Specifically endgame Pawn structure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I haven't had much success with this variation.  I wonder if losing the bishop pair outweighs weakening Black's Pawn structure is a reason I haven't had much success(the link mentions about these two issues).  I fail at taking advantage of that and unsure why I do so but I still like the idea because of the move d4 after the exchange appeals to me.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14760" LastActivityDate="2018-02-11T19:45:38.927" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19880" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19878" CreationDate="2018-02-11T20:31:50.437" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is just a matter of taste.  There are pluses and minuses to the move, but the strategic idea is gaining a better pawn structure.&#xA;I have played the Exchange 4.Bxc6; the Deferred Exchange 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.Bxc6; and the Double-Deferred Exchange 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.0-0 Be7 6.Bxc6.  All have unique flavors and Black has to know the ideas in each or risks a very bad game.&#xA;The Exchange variation was used with success by Fischer.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2018-02-11T20:31:50.437" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19881" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19873" CreationDate="2018-02-11T20:36:55.437" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can see as the game progresses and Blacks d5 pawn goes away, he still controls e4, thus depriving Whites knights of that square.  I think the comment is a bit mistimed in his article and can see why you are confused by it, because e4 is already deprived by the d5 pawn so f5 doesn't at that moment independently contribute to that end.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2018-02-11T20:36:55.437" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19882" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19885" CreationDate="2018-02-11T20:51:16.957" Score="3" ViewCount="1139" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know that 2 rooks vs 2 minor pieces is a win for the rooks (at least from the endgame tablebases), but I found nothing about the winning strategy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, consider a KRR-KBB endgame with opposite colored bishops. It seems to me that the natural way for the rooks to win is to drive the enemy king to a corner, and then exchange the rook for the &amp;quot;good&amp;quot; bishop, which has the color opposite to the corne. This transforms it into to a KR-KB endgame with the opposing king is trapped in the &amp;quot;bad&amp;quot; corner so the side with rook wins.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How good good or bad is this strategy?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15783" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-29T19:59:11.453" LastActivityDate="2020-08-29T19:59:11.453" Title="2 rooks vs 2 minor pieces in a pawnless endgame" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="19883" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8711" CreationDate="2018-02-11T21:47:00.247" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Two ways I do it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I use an Android app called Chessify for studying purposes only.  It is a chess ocr(optical character recognition) app.  It is a great study tool.  There are other ones out there.  I just prefer Chessify.  Take a picture of the board and either save to the device or send the FEN file to your device for study.  Works great on books and electronic screens(useful for ebooks, youtube videos that have images of the board).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I also have a small board specifically for study.  I at times need a break from electronics.  Currently I am reading, &quot;The Amateur's Mind&quot; by IM Jeremy Silman and the small board I have is perfect for study.  Sit with the book and go through the games over the board.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14760" LastActivityDate="2018-02-11T21:47:00.247" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19884" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19877" CreationDate="2018-02-12T00:06:38.183" Score="2" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;WDL gives win/draw/loss for a position&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;DTZ gives distance to zero for the 50-moves draw rule&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both files are &lt;strong&gt;needed&lt;/strong&gt;, absolutely. Chess engines assume both files are there, and would only check one of those at run time. It's your responsibility to make sure you have both files. There's a good opportunity your engine will crash if you don't.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You're giving yourself trouble if you leave out one. &lt;strong&gt;Download them both or do nothing&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2018-02-12T00:06:38.183" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19885" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19882" CreationDate="2018-02-12T03:01:34.193" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;First of all I believe that this endgame must be really rare in practical games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Playing around with the tablebase of rook+rook vs bishop+bishop, I noticed the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the weaker side quickly runs out of checks&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the rooks cover quite some squares, leaving little space for the bishops&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;it is not difficult for the rook side to avoid getting pinned &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;with the help of all three pieces (two rooks + king) it is easy to drive the enemy king to the border&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;once the king is at the edge of the board, you just threaten the typical mate with two rooks, to which there is no defense really (if a bishop is placed to protect against a check from the side, you can easily win this bishop using the other rook&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;in many cases it also happens that you can win a bishop through a pin before the king is pushed to the side of the board&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I suggest that you play this endgame against an engine to see for yourself. It does not seem particularly difficult that you would need any method. Just checking the king and pushing him to the border in the usual way is winning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd expect that playing against two knights or bishop+knight should be even easier because of the shorter range of the knights.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2018-02-12T03:01:34.193" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19886" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19891" CreationDate="2018-02-12T07:00:34.940" Score="1" ViewCount="212" Body="&lt;p&gt;In little over a month I am planning on playing an unrated tournament.  Since it is unrated I am assuming the skill level could possibly be from novice to strong.  Due to the entry fee being very low I don't expect masters to be playing. My own play level, for discussion's sake, is amateur.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What openings would be recommended to study in preparation?  I would like to build a repertoire for this event.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14760" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-02-12T20:39:58.123" LastActivityDate="2018-02-12T20:39:58.123" Title="Openings Recommendations to Study for Unrated Tournament" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;repertoire&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="10" ClosedDate="2018-02-12T16:09:24.687" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19887" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-02-12T10:22:46.250" Score="0" ViewCount="823" Body="&lt;p&gt;I’ve not been playing chess that long, but I do not understand why chess.com and lichess have this thing called the book. This allows people to cheat in my ‘book”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I used it for a while on lichess until it dawned on me I was learning nothing and became reliant on it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some people I play against use it and the book is useless whenever it can’t find a match for your position. Are there any tips to disrupt somebody using the book?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12834" LastEditorUserId="12523" LastEditDate="2018-12-02T14:17:19.003" LastActivityDate="2018-12-02T14:17:19.003" Title="How to play against somebody using the book" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;correspondence-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="9" ClosedDate="2018-02-12T17:39:30.720" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="19888" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-02-12T13:09:03.077" Score="3" ViewCount="422" Body="&lt;p&gt;We would like to organise a simultaneous exhibiton at our chess club, but as we only have the room booked for 2.5hrs, we fear that it might not be over in the given time. I've heard about clock simuls, but I haven't found any &quot;rules&quot; on how to set the time control for each player. I'm assuming that the exhibitor should have a lot more time than the challengers (as he needs to spend time at different boards while all his clocks might be running simultaneously) but I don't know how much time would be fair to set (given that the simul should last for 2hrs, for example). Do you have any suggestions?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13516" LastActivityDate="2018-02-13T12:27:16.573" Title="Clock simul time control" Tags="&lt;time-control&gt;&lt;simultaneous&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19889" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19887" CreationDate="2018-02-12T13:20:10.957" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The rules set by chess.com and lichess are basically the same (see &lt;a href=&quot;https://support.chess.com/customer/en/portal/articles/1444879-fair-play-on-chess-com-what-you-need-to-know&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/qa/258/all-about-cheating-questions-and-answers&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt;):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Use of computer programs or chess engines is not allowed for any kind of games. Use of (paper/e-book) opening books and games databases &lt;strong&gt;is allowed&lt;/strong&gt; for correspondence/DailyChess games only.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So you cannot prevent your opponent from using an opening book. If you are uncomfortable with your opponent using help for the opening, there are a few things you can do:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;ask them not to use opening books&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;try to play unrated games where players might be more eager to experiment (i.e. play without opening books)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;don't play correspondence games, but longer standard time controls&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;go for sidelines that are not in the book (though that will not be good for improving your chess)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However IMO, correspondence chess is a special form of chess and the whole point there is that players get plenty of time in order to analyze the game on a board, in order to consult books, or even to use engines in some of the correspondence chess tournaments. Trying to restrict this seems kind of artificial to me. I mean, if you considered correspondence chess as just a regular game with extended time control (i.e. no external help whatsoever allowed), there is not much you gain from say having an hour per move or having a week for a move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2018-02-12T13:20:10.957" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19890" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19888" CreationDate="2018-02-12T15:13:50.087" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A chess simultaneous display is where a strong player takes on more than one opponent simultaneously. Sometimes this is done with clocks but more usually without, &lt;strong&gt;when people must move when the simul giver arrives at their board&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;https://waters.me/chess/chess-simul-advice-on-giving-and-taking-part/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess Simul – Advice on giving and taking part&lt;/a&gt;, emphasis is mine&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would suggest using a single (normal) clock for all games. If a player (not the simul giver) has not ended their game after that time limit expires, then they lose on time. In this system, the simul giver cannot lose on time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would also advise that there is an arbiter present to prevent unreasonable delays when the simul giver comes to a player's board. In some simuls, a player is allowed three passes when the simul giver arrives at their board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user1108" LastEditorDisplayName="user1108" LastEditDate="2018-02-13T12:27:16.573" LastActivityDate="2018-02-13T12:27:16.573" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19891" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19886" CreationDate="2018-02-12T15:40:57.550" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would personally stick to learning a few e4 and d4 variations and maybe the English Opening, though I didn't see it much at lower level play. I am also adding some fun, fairly solid variations if you wanted try the more obscure openings&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Ruy Lopez&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;1. e4 e5&#xA;2. Nf3 Nc6&#xA;3. Bb5&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A personal favorite of mine, especially the Rio Gambit Accepted line 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 Nf6 4.O-O Nxe4, but in general it can create early control of the center and can lead to a strong position with an active bishop or forcing black to double pawns&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not my preference, but I used to see a lot of the &lt;strong&gt;Giuoco Piano&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;e4 e5  2. Nf3 Nc6  3. Bc4 Bc5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and the &lt;strong&gt;Giuoco Pianissimo&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;e4 e5  2. Nf3 Nc6  3. Bc4 Bc5 4. d3&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wouldn't stress studying this one&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Sicilian Defense&lt;/strong&gt; &#xA;1. e4 c5&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's rare for me not to see this opening. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Sicilian Sveshnikov&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;1.e4 c5&#xA;2.Nf3 Nc6 &#xA;3.d4 cxd4 &#xA;4.Nxd4 Nf6 &#xA;5.Nc3 e5 &#xA;6.Ndb5 d6.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It gives a menacing knight position to white, but allows you to prepare your pieces for development and gains a general grasp in the center&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Sicilian Dragon&lt;/em&gt;&#xA;1. e4 c5&#xA;2. Nf3 d6&#xA;3. d4 cxd4&#xA;4. Nxd4 Nf6&#xA;5. Nc3 g6&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can create very aggressive and constricting pawn marches for white and a fianchettoed bishop and free queen for black. This is very aggressive and loads of fun to play&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;English Opening&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;1. c4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A very flexible and reliable opening if you are well studied into it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;King's Gambit&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;  1. e4 e5  2. f4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A sacrificed pawn for quick development. What's not to like&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A few others you could also look into are the Pirc Defense, Indian-Defenses, Queen's Gambit, Caro-Kann&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12876" LastActivityDate="2018-02-12T15:40:57.550" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19892" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19898" CreationDate="2018-02-13T00:00:50.557" Score="40" ViewCount="4858" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the following endgame is a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;7k/5BpP/3K2P1/8/8/8/8/4q3 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My reasoning: I'm playing white. I will only move my king, always. Black's king cannot move. If the queen decide to capture any of my pieces, I will take back, so that won't work. And the queen alone cannot checkmate me, but black cannot bring a piece to help, so it looks like it is a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there any flaw in my reasoning, and if yes, what is the flaw? Is this endgame really a draw?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8235" LastEditorUserId="15078" LastEditDate="2020-01-31T11:19:10.300" LastActivityDate="2020-01-31T11:19:10.300" Title="Is this endgame (sort-of Q vs K) a draw?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;draw&gt;&lt;fortress&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19893" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19846" CreationDate="2018-02-13T00:19:14.297" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I agree that this game seems to be a draw. And this fact DOES make the puzzle flawed, according to the rules of ChessTempo.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The rules of problems depend on the website. On some websites, the problem simply requires to find the best move. In those cases, the best move can be a winning move, or it can be a move that draws or equalizes an apparently lost position. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But on ChessTempo, the rules are different, the player is required to find a move that wins, and this is defined as giving a won endgame, or an advantage of at least two pawns. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, if this position is really drawn (as it seems), then this puzzle is wrong, and should be reported to the administrators of the site.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15668" LastActivityDate="2018-02-13T00:19:14.297" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19894" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19892" CreationDate="2018-02-13T00:25:39.077" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;You're right, at the first sight it looks like a draw: Black's king is kept out of play and the Queen cannot checkmate alone. Black's only idea for a win would be to sac the Queen on h2 and try to promote the other pawn, but that's obviously impossible because of the White Bishop still in play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, there's a trick: White can be put in zugzwang by Black's Queen, which could force him to move the Bishop and lose material. For instance, if the Queen manages to push White's King to a8 with the Queen on c7, White need to move (and lose) the Bishop. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bearing that in mind, White should try to keep his King on the d8, d7, or e7 squares, so that he can move the Bishop to e8 in case of zugzwang. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13516" LastActivityDate="2018-02-13T00:25:39.077" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19895" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19878" CreationDate="2018-02-13T01:51:37.257" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;4 Bxc6 became popular after Fischer made extensive use of it. He followed up with 5.O-O and although this is no longer fashionable at GM level, a lot of lesser players are uncomfortable. White can choose to develop an attack against the King (because the center is closed to counterattacks)  or play for a favorable ending, and can keep the options open for quite a long time. So, if you have Black, do you seek exchanges to avoid the attack, or do you decline the exchanges to avoid the ending? You constantly have to make that choice. The variation with 5.d4 usually leads directly to a Queen trade (5.d4 exd 6.Qxd4 Qxd4 7. Nxd4 and is played if White definitely wants the ending.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The point about Bxc6 is not that it gains a large advantage, but that White gets to decide what sort of game it will be. Those doubled Pawns are not weak, because they are hard to attack, but they make it very difficult for Black to create a passed Pawn. If you feel at ease in the resulting positions and if you study typical plans, then Bxc6 can almost always be a good move. However, the game that results is often dry and technical, so you had better enjoy that kind of thing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I recall what Blackburne said about opening with 1.c4 &quot;I do not play this because I like it, but because my opponent likes it less.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastActivityDate="2018-02-13T01:51:37.257" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19897" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19892" CreationDate="2018-02-13T04:32:19.340" Score="24" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to the Lomonosov tablebases, it's mate in 40 for black. While the queen can't force mate by herself, she can force a zugzwang. In this case, when the bishop is forced to move to e8. Then, it's a matter of giving checks until the queen forks the king and bishop. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One of the longest variations given is as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;7k/5BpP/3K2P1/8/8/8/8/4q3 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Kd7 Qb1 2. Be8 Qb8 3. Bf7 Qb7+ 4. Kd6 Qc8 5. Kd5 Qc7 6. Kd4 Qc6 7. Ke5 Qd7 8. Ke4 Qd6 9. Ke3 Qe5+ 10. Kd3 Qf4 11. Kc3 Qe4 12. Kb3 Qd4 13. Ka3 Qd6+ 14. Kb3 Qc5 15. Kb2 Qe3 16. Kc2 Qa3 17. Kd2 Qf3 18. Kc2 Qe3 19. Kb2 Qd3 20. Ka2 Qc3 21. Kb1 Qd2 22. Bb3 Qb4 23. Ka2 Qa5+ 24. Kb2 Qb6 25. Kc3 Qxg6 26. Bc4 Qd6 27. Bd3 g5 28. Be4 Qc5+ 29. Kd3 g4 30. Bh1 Qa3+ 31. Kd2 Qb2+ 32. Kd3 Qb1+ 33. Ke3 Qxh1 34. Kf4 Qe1 35. Kxg4 Qe3 36. Kh4 Qg1 37. Kh3 Kxh7 38. Kh4 Kg6 39. Kh3 Kf5 40. Kh4 Qg4# 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9025" LastEditorUserId="9025" LastEditDate="2018-02-13T13:50:02.713" LastActivityDate="2018-02-13T13:50:02.713" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19898" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19892" CreationDate="2018-02-13T11:42:00.047" Score="22" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here's a simpler way to see why it's winning for black: You're right that the queen cannot checkmate the king by itself, but it can &lt;em&gt;stalemate&lt;/em&gt; the king [*] (an example pointed out by Ionut Deaconu) and that's all we need here as that would force the bishop to move. Once the bishop moves it's clear that material loss is unavoidable as either the bishop [**] or the &lt;code&gt;g&lt;/code&gt;-pawn will drop. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[*]: Take any queen vs king situation (relevant here as the bishop cannot move and thus unable to prevent the queen from shouldering the king to a stalemated situation).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[**]: The idea here is that with a cornered king there's no way for the bishop to move to a square guarded by its king while still protecting the &lt;code&gt;g6&lt;/code&gt; pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Below a dummy example is showcased:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [title &quot;Stalemate the king to win, example&quot;]&#xA; [fen &quot;7k/5BpP/3K2P1/8/8/8/8/4q3 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. Kd5 Qe3 2. Kd6 Qe4 3. Kd7 Qe5 4. Kc6 Qd4 5. Kc7 Qc5+ 6. Kd7 Qb6 7. Ke7 Qc6 8. Kd8 Qd6+ 9. Kc8 (9. Ke8 Qc7 10. Kf8 {Alternatively any bishop move drops the g6 pawn. E.g., 11. Be6 Qc6+ 12. Ke7 Qe4} Qd8+ 11. Be8 Qd6+ 12. Kf7 Qf6#) Qe7 10. Kb8 Qd7 11. Ka8 Qc7 {King stalemate reached} 12. Bg8 Qc6+ 13. Kb8 Qxg6 {The win is trivial now.}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Additional clarifications in regard to the question asked by &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/users/13516/ionut-deaconu&quot;&gt;Ionut Deaconu&lt;/a&gt; in comments:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Why 4.Kc6? You cannot push me to the corners after 4.Be8. If you want&#xA;  to try a zugzwang I can play Bf7 back.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The diagram above focused on the case where white tries to survive only by king moves (as is of particular interest to the OP). White can of course try to keep the king near the bishop on &lt;code&gt;f7&lt;/code&gt; and make waiting bishop moves in order to avoid their king from being cornered altogether. However, this is to no avail as the queen will first start off by &lt;strong&gt;disconnecting&lt;/strong&gt; the king from the bishop and only then proceed to &lt;strong&gt;shouldering&lt;/strong&gt; the king towards a corner and achieve the king-stalemate scenario. The disconnect is easily achieved by maneuvering along the &lt;em&gt;dark&lt;/em&gt; squares to enter the 7th row and then push the king out. Illustrative variations are shown below: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [title &quot;Variation in regard to questions in comments:&quot;]&#xA; [fen &quot;7k/5BpP/3K2P1/8/8/8/8/4q3 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. Kd7 Qe5 2. Be8 Qd5+ 3. Ke7 Qc5+ 4. Kd7 Qa7+ 5. Ke6 (5. Kd8 Qb7 6. Bf7 Qc6 7. Ke7 Qc7+ 8. Ke6 Qd8 {and we reach the wanted scenario again. For the rest see the main variation.}) (5. Kd6 Qb7 6. Bf7 Qc8 7. Ke7 Qc7+ 8. Ke6 Qd8 {Again the wanted scenario is reached, the rest is similar.}) Qc7 6. Bf7 Qd8 {The hard part, which is the disconnect, has been achieved once this scenario is reached, the rest is trivial now again as there are no more useful waiting bishop moves there to deal with. The rest of this variation may be done more optimally.} 7. Kf5 Qf6+ 8. Ke4 Qg5 9. Kd4 Qf5 10. Ke3 Qe5+ 11. Kd2 Qd4+ 12. Kc1 Qc3+ 13. Kd1 Qb2 14. Ke1 Qc2 15. Kf1 Qd2 16. Kg1 Qe2 17. Kh1 Qf2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3594" LastEditorUserId="3594" LastEditDate="2018-02-13T13:30:29.413" LastActivityDate="2018-02-13T13:30:29.413" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19900" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9186" CreationDate="2018-02-13T15:39:13.900" Score="-4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Buy Chessbase 14 and the latest 2018 Database and in partnership with some free engine, like Stockfish, to have 3400 assistance to every chess question. Alternatively, there are wide selections of far less expensive books, say from someplace like Chess Direct, to cater for your general 1800 improvement and in particular of any opening you feel troubled with.&#xA;In this computer day and age, there is no end to the software support available.&#xA;Good lucky, and do try to stretch away for your present grade.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15795" LastActivityDate="2018-02-13T15:39:13.900" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19901" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-02-13T18:53:54.960" Score="2" ViewCount="444" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've decided to give endgame study high priority, and I'm studying Dvoretsky's Endgame Manual, though also glancing around in other books. The issue is, that I'm finding Dvoretsky's exercises really, really difficult, and I can easily spend an hour or so on a single exercise and still miss something. This goes even relatively simple looking pawn endings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would like to know, from players who consider themselves as strong endgame players, if it sounds reasonable to indeed spend so much time per exercise? Or maybe, a more recommended course of action would be to spend 10-15 min on each exercises, look at the solution and try to internalize what the thought process should have been to get it right?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12953" LastActivityDate="2018-02-14T11:20:23.187" Title="Endgame study - how much time per exercise" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;study&gt;&lt;pawn-endgame&gt;&lt;studies&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19902" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-02-14T03:06:39.177" Score="2" ViewCount="685" Body="&lt;p&gt;Im new to programming chess engines. I have implemented a transposition table, search tree, and alpha-beta pruning, an can analyze ~80000 boards per second. However, even with alpha-beta search, when I increase the depth of the search by 1, it analyzes approximately 20 times as many boards and takes 20 times as long. Therefore I can only search 5 to 6 moves deep, which is clearly terrible. How is it that top engines can analyze 20+ plays deep? Even if I could analyze 100x as many boards each second, that would still only get me 1.5 more plays deep, so I don't think my board analysis speed is that big a factor.&#xA;Also, are there any books that you would suggest for a good introduction to chess programming?&#xA;Thanks in advance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15799" LastActivityDate="2018-02-19T14:46:04.310" Title="How Do Top Engines' Achieve Large Search Depth" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;beginner&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19904" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19906" CreationDate="2018-02-14T10:25:31.350" Score="2" ViewCount="75" Body="&lt;p&gt;Fairly new to chess, but have fallen in love and want to increase my strategies and techniques. All the reading and videos I’ve read and watched tend to overcomplicate to the point I get lost in the details.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any suggestions on materials that keep strategy/technique teaching extremely simple and easy to understand would be greatly appreciated!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Approximately, how much can a player improve their winning percentage by reading and watching books and tutorials, versus, learning through playing repeatedly and learning from the mistakes made? Just curious to hear different opinions on this...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks in advance for any positive feedback provided!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Cheers&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15804" LastActivityDate="2018-02-14T11:51:42.790" Title="Suggestions for Newb in search of improving mid and end game strategy" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;online-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19905" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19901" CreationDate="2018-02-14T11:20:23.187" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you're an expert player (&gt;2000 Elo) there is nothing wrong with taking your time on each exercise; you will get most of them eventually if you put in some serious effort.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, if you're rated 1700-1900 Elo (or even lower) you will most likely fail on most exercises in the Dvoretsky book, even if you spend lots of time on them. In this case you could spend 10-15 minutes on an exercise, and if you feel like you haven't found the solution you can setup the position on a chess board and start moving the pieces around to see whether you can find the solution this way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Dvoretsky's endgame manual is an excellent endgame book (arguably the best general endgame book out there), but it's aimed at players who are already quite strong. There are other great endgame books on the market that are accessible to players at a lower level; I'd recommend &lt;em&gt;Silman's complete endgame course&lt;/em&gt; by IM Jeremy Silman, and &lt;em&gt;100 endgames you must know&lt;/em&gt; by GM Jesus de la Villa. Both of these are structured in a radically different way from Dvoretsky's book, but they are easier to follow and will give you more bang for your buck as a lower rated player. Dvoretsky's book can wait; it will still be there when you've gotten strong enough to take full advantage of it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8300" LastActivityDate="2018-02-14T11:20:23.187" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19906" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19904" CreationDate="2018-02-14T11:51:42.790" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In order to improve you need to 1) &lt;strong&gt;study theory&lt;/strong&gt;, 2) &lt;strong&gt;play games&lt;/strong&gt; and 3) &lt;strong&gt;analyze those games&lt;/strong&gt;. Repeat until you are world champion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Specifically to these steps....&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Study theory&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a beginner your biggest concern should be tactics. Start training yourself to always be aware of which pieces/squares are attacked, so that you don't blunder pieces in one move. You don't need to scan the whole board each and every time to check this. Use a gradual approach: since a move will only affect part of the board, update (in your memory) the information depending on which new squares/pieces are attacked (and which are not attacked anymore). For the long-range pieces (rook, bishop, queen), it might help if you imagine their range as some kind of &quot;shooting range&quot;/no-go zone,... whatever helps you to visualize it. For instance for a rook on h4 don't imagine that it attacks the squares g4, f4, e4, ..., a4, but imagine it as a piece which covers all of the 4th rank (giving it options to capture everywhere on this rank but also options to move everywhere on this rank). As you improve this will come naturally.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also at this stage you want to learn and practice simple tactics, such as pawn and knight forks, pins, etc. There are many websites (lichess, chesstempo...) giving you tactics puzzles depending on your strength. For a beginner I recommend chesstempo, because each puzzle is tagged with the tactical motive(s). When solving puzzles (or fail to solve) make sure you recognize these motives in the respective puzzle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Besides tactics, you need to learn some basic principles for the opening such as: develop pieces quickly, occupy the center, keep your king safe/castle, attack something.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also learning some basic endgames such as mating with queen, rook, bishops, King+pawn vs king, ... will teach you a lot.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Don't bother learning any opening theory yet, because you are not in the position to understand the ideas behind the openings and will not be able to take advantage if your opponent plays a move you did not learn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Play games&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Avoid short time controls which don't give you enough time to think. I'd recommend at least 20 minutes or more. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Analyze&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you play online (e.g. on lichess) you have the option to automatically have the game analyzed by a computer engine. Do this and look for the main mistakes/blunders (where the evaluation jumped a lot). Understand why that was a bad move. Try to find a better move and compare with the computer suggested move. This will only teach you tactical mistakes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Figuring out positional/strategic problems in your play is much more difficult and just about impossible if you are on your own. Ideally you'd have another, better player look over your games and point out some problems with your strategy. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For passive learning of strategy, reading/watching annotated games could be an option. Nowadays there are lots of streamers out there commenting while playing games online. Some of the chess24 streamers seem suitable for beginners.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ideally you'd join a chess club where you can play, get tips from other players, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2018-02-14T11:51:42.790" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19907" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-02-14T12:07:48.947" Score="1" ViewCount="356" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm looking for some software that will print the moves as&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1. e4 e5    &#xA;2. Nf3 Nc6  &#xA;3. Bb5 Nf6 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Instead of &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1.e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 Nf6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;etc. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11862" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-02-16T09:12:17.070" LastActivityDate="2018-02-16T09:12:17.070" Title="Is there any software that will print a .pgn file in scoresheet layout" Tags="&lt;pgn&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19908" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19909" CreationDate="2018-02-14T12:18:57.323" Score="1" ViewCount="178" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/CaYM0.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/CaYM0.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could the black king move to C5?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15805" LastActivityDate="2018-02-14T12:48:09.233" Title="Could the black king move to C5?" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19909" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19908" CreationDate="2018-02-14T12:19:50.673" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, it is checkmate. Even if Pb4 is pinned, it still controls square c5, preventing the black king to move there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Check rules 3.9.1 and 3.9.2 of the &lt;a href=&quot;http://fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=208&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;laws&lt;/a&gt; of chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;3.9.1 &#xA;  The king is said to be 'in check' if it is attacked by one or more of the opponent's pieces, &lt;strong&gt;even if such pieces are constrained from moving to the square occupied by the king because they would then leave or place their own king in check&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;3.9.2&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  No piece can be moved that will either expose the king of the same colour to check or leave that king in check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(emphasis mine)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1...Kc5 is illegal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastEditorUserId="14079" LastEditDate="2018-02-14T12:48:09.233" LastActivityDate="2018-02-14T12:48:09.233" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19910" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19907" CreationDate="2018-02-14T13:18:54.050" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Scid can export to pgn, LaTeX and HTML. During export you have the option ''Column style (one move per line)? Yes/No''&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I just tried it and it works for all three export formats. That's for scid version 4.6.4 on linux.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2018-02-14T13:18:54.050" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19911" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-02-14T14:38:38.627" Score="3" ViewCount="739" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are of course lots of tactical trainers out there, but I'm wonder if there are any that focus solely on the basic skill of spotting loose or hanging pieces. It is of course a trivial exercise when given enough time: one could just look at each piece in turn and see if it's being attacked/defended. Under time pressure, it's a different story: I often lose under time trouble not even due to a tactic but due to leaving a piece simply hanging.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm amazed that when I show a position to an expert, within a fraction of a second they have already spotted all the loose and hanging pieces, whereas I might take at least several seconds to do the same, and sometimes even miss some!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What I'm envisioning is something that shows a position and says &quot;click on all the loose pieces&quot; and the goal is to solve as many of these as possible within a certain amount of time. In other words, something like the Lichess coordinate training tool (&lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/training/coordinate&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://lichess.org/training/coordinate&lt;/a&gt;) but for loose pieces instead of coordinates.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12523" LastActivityDate="2020-03-04T16:54:02.650" Title="Tools specifically for training at finding loose pieces?" Tags="&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;beginner&gt;&lt;training&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19912" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19911" CreationDate="2018-02-14T16:20:24.307" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't know of any such tool. A paid membership at ChessTempo might allow you to filter problems for the &lt;a href=&quot;https://chesstempo.com/tactical-motifs.html#hangingpiece&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;hanging piece motif&lt;/a&gt;. Not exactly the type of tool you imagine, but something comparable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However I would argue against the usefulness of a tool that you describe for the following reason.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I play chess (and I presume most other players beyond beginner level as well), I do not scan the board after every move for attacked pieces, which is what you are trying to train. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Instead I ask myself: &quot;&lt;strong&gt;What did the last move change with regard to attacked pieces?&lt;/strong&gt; There are only a few things that change if you move a piece:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the piece will &lt;em&gt;attack new squares&lt;/em&gt; from its new position&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the piece will &lt;em&gt;stop attacking some squares&lt;/em&gt; that it used to attack on its old position&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;moving the piece can &lt;em&gt;open lines/diagonals&lt;/em&gt; for other pieces to attack something&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;moving the piece can &lt;em&gt;block lines/diagonals&lt;/em&gt; for other pieces&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, a move can also interrupt you from defending a piece or can create all kinds of multi-move tactics. You don't need to learn a new way of thinking to include these, as you advance in chess: just rephrase/generalize the question to: &quot;What did the last move change with regard to the position?&quot; Anyway, for the time being let's stick with attacked pieces which is what your question is about.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you look a bit more careful you will soon recognize some features of chess pieces which make answering the question easier. For instance if you move a rook horizontally, it will still attack squares along the line that you moved it, however all the squares that it attacked vertically change. Similarly for the bishop: if you move it along one diagonal, it will essentially only change things along the other (perpendicular) diagonals.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, you can take into account the range of pieces to quickly assess whether something is getting attacked. For instance pawns are very short range and it is very easy to see whether they attack anything. Similarly if your opponent does some moving around far away from any action, behind his pawn chain (e.g. castling), chances are that this does not attack anything new.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So my recommendation would be to go with an &lt;strong&gt;incremental approach&lt;/strong&gt;, storing the attacked pieces (later you will add all possible tactics/strategies) in your memory and update your memory after every move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-04T16:53:47.623" LastActivityDate="2020-03-04T16:53:47.623" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="19913" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19919" CreationDate="2018-02-14T18:19:06.987" Score="0" ViewCount="160" Body="&lt;p&gt;Something I've noticed is even older chess puzzles never seem to age, somehow they even seem more masterful and demanding then the puzzles created today, but what if the solution for a puzzle is refuted by a program such as AlphaZero, or when quantum super computers are made, stronger engines, &lt;em&gt;different engines&lt;/em&gt;?Will there be any shift with established puzzles, or do we just get to enjoy new theory and &lt;em&gt;different&lt;/em&gt; puzzles?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12876" LastActivityDate="2018-02-15T12:18:13.993" Title="Could chess puzzles change with the introduction of stronger engines?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;puzzles&gt;&lt;chess-ai&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19914" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15504" CreationDate="2018-02-14T21:02:53.450" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;While this is an old question, I thought that the concept presented in this blog might be useful: &lt;a href=&quot;http://scionsoftware.com/blog/write-tests-by-playing-chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://scionsoftware.com/blog/write-tests-by-playing-chess&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The idea is that you would play a chess game on a GUI and have a mechanism to capture the state of the chess board by serializing to a file.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You could name those files per the test cases and feed them into whichever test method you define: IsCheckmate; IsLegal; IsDraw&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One of the main reasons you would want to use a natural UI to create these test cases, outside of ease of creation, is that enough conditions also rely on move counts: castling, en passant, draw conditions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2440" LastActivityDate="2018-02-14T21:02:53.450" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19915" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-02-14T21:33:55.850" Score="4" ViewCount="447" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's White to move. What was Black's last move, and what could have happened before that?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;8/8/8/8/8/3P2P1/3P2Pk/2KR3N w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15810" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-09-14T04:37:15.443" LastActivityDate="2020-09-14T04:37:15.443" Title="What was Black's last move?" Tags="&lt;problems&gt;&lt;retrograde-analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="9" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="19916" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19915" CreationDate="2018-02-14T22:03:01.903" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is only one black piece left, so the last move was with the king. Black's last move was obviously Kg1-h2.&#xA;The king could not have come from h3, because there is no way the white pawn could have given check from g2 (its initial position). All other squares around h2 are occupied by white pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since the black king came from g1, it was in check from the rook on d1 before the last move. Obviously the rook could not have moved to d1 from somewhere on the d file because the pawn on d2 blocks the way. So there are two possibilities how the rook could have given check:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;discovered check, i.e. a white piece moved away  form e1 or f1 making space for the attack on the black king on g1&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;long castle&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for &quot;1&quot; None of the pieces currently on the board could have moved away from the 1st row (i.e. from e1 or f1) to give way for the check. However if &lt;strong&gt;a white knight moved from f1 to h2 giving check&lt;/strong&gt; that would be a discovered check and the black king captured this knight on h2. Obviously this is the only option for a discovered check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for &quot;2&quot;. If white castled long, that means that the white king never moved (castling rules) before, meaning the white king was always on e1. Then the question is: How did the black king get to g1? With the white king on e1, the black king could not have entered via f1 or f2. Neither it could have come via g2 (where there is still the original white pawn). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This would mean that it came via &lt;strong&gt;h2&lt;/strong&gt;. But is that possible? In order to get to h2, it would have to come from h3 (not possible because of the original never-moved pawn on g2) or from &lt;strong&gt;g3&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However the black king could never have entered via g3, because the square was either i) attacked by a pawn from f2 or ii) occupied by that same pawn from f2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That leaves as the only option, as last moves 1. Nf1-h2+ Kxh2&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Going back one move further, what was the last move of black before Nf1-h2+? There are two possibilities: it could be a move by the king or it could be a move by a piece which got captured on h2 by the knight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's analyze both options.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Black moved the king in move 0&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the last move was by the black king it could not have come from f1, g2, h1 (which are blocked by white pieces) and neither could it have come from f2, because there is no way the knight on h1 could have given check. That leaves only h2 as possible option. So assuming the king came from h2, where it was in check, the last white move must have been Ne3-f1+. So the moves are now 0. Ne3-f1+ Kh2-g1 1. Nf1-h2+ Kxh2. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That is not the end of the story yet, because looking at the position before 0. Ne3-f1+ you note (basically for the same arguments as before, that the last move of black must have been Kg1-h2. On g1 the king would have been in check. This check (for the same arguments as presented before) could only have been a discovered check by the knight on e3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So we have a situation where the black king is shuffling between g1 and h2 while the white knight is moving between f1 and e3. How can this infinite loop be broken? The only way to break this is, if there was a black piece at some point on f1, which blocked the check from the rook. This black piece on f1 got captured by the white knight when the black king was on h2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Black moved a piece to h2 in move 0&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If black must moved another piece that  got captured on h2, this piece can be a black pawn, knight, rook, or queen. It can not be a black bishop, because it could not have moved to h2 (because g3 and g1 were occupied by pieces).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Summary&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Two possible solutions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;0. .... N/Q/R/pawn h2&#xA;1. Nf1xh2 Kg1xh2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Initial position: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;white: pawns on d2,g2,g3; Nh1; Ne3; Kc1; Rd1; &#xA;black: Kh2; some piece on f1&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;-n. Nx piece f1+ Kh2g1&#xA;[any number of repeating moves with the knight shuffling between f1 and e3 and the king between g1 and h2]&#xA;-1. .... Kg1h2&#xA; 0. Ne3f1+ Kh2g1&#xA; 1. Nf1h2 Kg1xh2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastEditorUserId="11629" LastEditDate="2018-02-15T10:34:01.590" LastActivityDate="2018-02-15T10:34:01.590" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19918" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19902" CreationDate="2018-02-15T01:48:55.823" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's hard to answer (I voted to close for &quot;too broad&quot;), you'll need to do some research. Some possibilities:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Your TT table implementation is slow&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You're not saving positions properly to the TT&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;How you make the hash key for TT table is very slow&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You might want to try null-move pruning&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You made a debug build for your engine&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Your evaluation function is too &lt;strong&gt;simple&lt;/strong&gt; for effective pruning. Are you just counting materials?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You're not sorting the moves&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When a top engine says 20+ deep, it doesn't mean it searches everything up to 20+ deep. It could mean quiescence search or something else. In any case, most of the search tree would be discarded.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2018-02-15T01:48:55.823" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19919" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19913" CreationDate="2018-02-15T01:57:27.440" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Our modern chess engines are already perfect for solving tactical puzzles. @Bad_Bishop's example is an easy problem for Stockfish.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you're talking about artificial deep chess &lt;strong&gt;problems&lt;/strong&gt; (not puzzles), even AlphaZero might have problems. Some chess engines (e.g. Houdini) has a &quot;tactic&quot; mode for those problems.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;No&lt;/strong&gt;. Nothing much will change with stronger engines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2018-02-15T01:57:27.440" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19920" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19913" CreationDate="2018-02-15T08:57:04.460" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Most probably a wide majority of cooked puzzles from history are already within the grasp of today's computers (and even of computers from, say, 2005), and that's why new softwares shouldn't bring any major changes, but it doesn't mean that they wouldn't bring some marginal corrections.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A funny example is given by Tim Krabbé in &lt;a href=&quot;http://timkr.home.xs4all.nl/chess2/diary_17.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;entry 324&lt;/a&gt;, &quot;&lt;strong&gt;A cooked, correct study&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;, of his chess diary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/8/7r/3N4/8/8/7P/R3K2k w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White to play and win -&#xA;E. Pogosyants, EG 1978&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From the human point of view, the single solution is the composer's intention: 1.Ne3 Rxh2 2.0-0-0#.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From the tablebase point of view, since castling is not implemented (at least, such was the case in 2006, it might have changed...), this solution is impossible. However, there is also a single winning move: 1.h4! after which the KRNKR endgame is a mate in 33. Less poetic, sure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tim Krabbé:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;So this is a study with two solutions. A human solution that is beyond the grasp of the tablebase, and a tablebase solution that is beyond the grasp of humans.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The main but pointless point is that the puzzle &lt;em&gt;has&lt;/em&gt; changed because of the computer assessment. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastEditorUserId="14079" LastEditDate="2018-02-15T12:18:13.993" LastActivityDate="2018-02-15T12:18:13.993" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19921" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19915" CreationDate="2018-02-15T10:14:05.740" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Building on user1583209's answer, here is a complete sequence of moves to show how the black king managed to trap himself in the corner in the first place:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/8/8/8/2N1N3/3k2P1/3P2P1/2KRq3 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Ke2 2. Nc3+ Kf1 3. Ne4 Kg1 4. Ne3 Kh2 5. Nf2 Qg1 6. Nh1 Qf1 7. Nxf1+ Kg1 8. Nh2+ Kxh2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another possibility:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/8/8/7q/2N1N3/3k2P1/3P2P1/2KRq3 b - - 0 1&quot;]    &#xA;&#xA;1... Ke2 2. Nc3+ Kf1 3. Ne4 Kg1 4. Nf2 Kf1 5. Nh1 Kg1 6. Ne3 Qf1 7. Nxf1 Qh2 8. Nxh2+ Kxh2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Third example by user1583209 without blocking piece:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/8/8/7q/2N1N3/3k2P1/3P2P1/2KR4 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Qh6 2. Kb2 Qh7 3. Ra1 Qh6 4. Kc1 Qh7 5. Nf2+&#xA;Ke2 6. Nh1 Kf1 7. Ne3+ Kg1 8. Nf1 Qh6 9. Kb2&#xA;Qh7 10. Rd1 Qh6 11. Kc1 Qh2 12. Nxh2+ Kxh2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13433" LastEditorUserId="13433" LastEditDate="2018-02-15T13:35:53.040" LastActivityDate="2018-02-15T13:35:53.040" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19922" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19924" CreationDate="2018-02-15T14:14:03.927" Score="14" ViewCount="1681" Body="&lt;p&gt;Recently my chess tutor used a word which in hindsight is very interesting: harmony. He mentioned I should not just develop my pieces in the opening, but develop them harmoniously. Since then, I've noticed this word pop up again and again in various books. At the time, I took it to mean &quot;make sure they are defending each other and working toward a common and well-defined goal&quot;, but I didn't really press for clarification.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, in our next lesson, I'm going to ask him about this, but in the interim, I am hoping you can give your favorite examples of harmonious positions/development, as well as non-harmonious positions/development, including why they are harmonious/non-harmonious. In particular, is my above understanding of harmony correct or is it sometimes more subtle than that?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10779" LastEditorUserId="3594" LastEditDate="2020-01-19T20:09:11.090" LastActivityDate="2020-01-19T20:09:11.090" Title="Examples of harmony?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;&lt;beginner&gt;&lt;minor-pieces&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19923" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19922" CreationDate="2018-02-15T16:00:38.463" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would suggest the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1067175&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;16th game&lt;/a&gt; of the 1985 WC match between Karpov (White) and Kasparov (Black).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Look after move 21:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;2rqr1k1/5p2/p2b1n1p/3P1bp1/Np6/1P1n1BB1/P2Q1PPP/1N1R1RK1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although they don't create immediate threats, all black pieces work together, achieving complete control of all parts of the board until the fourth rank. Even squares deep in White territory are dominated by the pieces: c3,d3,c2,b2. There is excellent coordination (only Bf5, Ph6 and Pa6 are not protected) and complementarity (for instance, important squares such as c5,e5,e4 are controled three times).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, I would define Black position has very harmonious. As a contrast, notice White minor pieces: the knights are quicked away from the center and the bishops are in front of their pawns, restricting their movements: not harmonious!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White doesn't have useful moves and soon found himself in near zugzwang.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Generally, your description of chess harmony sounds correct. I would suffer to give anything else than an intuitive definition of this concept.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2019-05-18T17:00:49.977" LastActivityDate="2019-05-18T17:00:49.977" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="19924" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19922" CreationDate="2018-02-15T16:18:32.987" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Admittedly, it's hard to make general abstract statements of any kind about chess (e.g. to say what &quot;harmonious play&quot; means) as it is a highly complex and concrete game. So everything said about it must be taken with some grain of salt, and with that in mind, here are some thoughts that will hopefully help you: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's draw an analogy with music: (-&gt; used for synonym here)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;harmony -&gt; consonance -&gt; unison of notes&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Somewhat similarly in chess this sequence translates into:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;harmony -&gt; consistency -&gt; synergy of pieces&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Consistency&lt;/strong&gt;: &quot;Having a bad plan is better than having none&quot; by Yasser Seirawan (I'm paraphrasing). This quote really captures the essence: you need to have a strategy planned out which gives your play a sense of direction, otherwise your pieces would be moving around purposelessly all over the board which ultimately leads to redundancies (lost tempi), self-induced weaknesses, low value pieces (non-optimally developed), and so on. So always try to play with a plan in mind, as far fetched as it may seem, and make your decisions in consistence with that plan. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now to clarify what strategy entails here, one would have to put it into context, but in general it goes without saying that it takes into account not only what you plan to achieve but also what your opponent is aiming for, so it's always adaptive. A strategy/plan in the opening and middlegames could be anything, for instance:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Establishing a minor piece on a certain square - e.g. knights on permanent posts. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A queen-side, central or king-side pawn expansion - e.g. sharp Sicilian type of positions&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Forcing the trade of a bad piece - e.g. the caged c8 bishop in many queen's pawn games&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Pawn breaks: plans to open up the game by undermining/challenging an advanced pawn (chain) - e.g. e5 - c5 type of breaks in many queen's pawn games again&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Gaining control over an open file or diagonal - e.g. being a tempo up in doubling your rooks and claiming the open file. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Enabling a certain piece - e.g. fianchetto'ed bishops.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the list goes on.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Synergy&lt;/strong&gt;: or more simply coordination, means how to &lt;em&gt;collectively&lt;/em&gt; coordinate your pieces towards achieving your planned strategy, after all chess is a team sport among your pieces. Given a target in mind, having a good coordination means you're enabling the right pieces efficiently (minimal tempi investment) while countering your opponent's preventive pieces of that plan. Slightly unlike strategizing, achieving a good coordination requires concrete (calculating actual lines) and tactical (using all the resources in the position) assessment of the position at hand. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So synergizing your pieces in accordance to a plan/strategy can be labelled as &lt;em&gt;harmonious play.&lt;/em&gt; Harmony is precisely what opening theory provides us: openings revolve around very clear ideas (take any opening: Sicilian, Benko gambit, Nimzo, ...) and in a way provide also the recipes for how to achieve those ideas (concrete lines and side-lines). So learning from them you can form a mindset for how to develop your pieces harmoniously.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now some examples: (in what follows I'll be mainly focusing on a schematic analysis of the ideas, as opposed to a purely concrete one). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Example #1&lt;/strong&gt;: Sicilian Najdorf, in this example white's main plan revolves around (i) establishing a minor piece, preferably a knight, on the permanently (cannot be challenged by pawns) weakened &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt; square (ii) while not allowing black to expand on the queen-side. Once can argue that (ii) is in fact a side-plan that actually enables (i), as you will see later in the game.&#xA;Coordination: To achieve (i) we need to remove the defenders of that square (&lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt;), namely the &lt;code&gt;f6&lt;/code&gt; knight and the potential &lt;code&gt;e6&lt;/code&gt; bishop, develop or re-route the knights so they can simultaneously eye &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt;. The two defenders will have to be negated by our bishops (&lt;code&gt;Bg5&lt;/code&gt; for &lt;code&gt;f6&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;Bc4&lt;/code&gt; for &lt;code&gt;Be6&lt;/code&gt;). (ii) on the other hand, is achieved by a timely &lt;code&gt;a4-a5&lt;/code&gt; push, to permanently stop black from establishing a pawn on &lt;code&gt;b5&lt;/code&gt; or a knight on &lt;code&gt;b6,&lt;/code&gt; nor even allow them to semi-open the &lt;code&gt;b-file&lt;/code&gt;  with &lt;code&gt;b6.&lt;/code&gt; (Diagrams annotated with additional remarks): &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [title &quot;M. Vachier-Lagrave vs I. Nepomniachtchi 1-0, Sinquefield Cup 2017&quot;]&#xA; [fen &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.Be2 e5 {First critical moment: Black has finally made their intentions clear with a very committal e5 - all e6 or g6 variations are irrelevant now} 7.Nf3 {Instead of Nb3 because white wants to be able to re-route to d5 either via c4-e3 or c4-b6} Be7 8.Bg5 {developing the bishop to immediately challenge the f6 knight guarding the d5 square} Nbd7 9.a4 {Stopping b5} O-O 10.Nd2 {Re-routing to c4 while waiting for the d7 knight to move before capturing on f6, we don't want to allow a knight recapture.} Nc5 11.Bxf6 Bxf6 12.Nc4 Be7 13.a5 {Completely stopping any b5 or b6 ideas with a5 and Nc4} Rb8 14.Nb6 Nd7 15.Ncd5 {with a5 critically re-enforcing b6, a knight on b6 and d5, black has no way of establishing a knight on either f6 or b6} Nxb6 16.Nxb6 Be6 {last resort to stop Nd5} 17.Bc4 {immediately challenged - notice the coordination between white's pieces up to this point, almost perfect!} Qc7 {Freeing d8 square to re-route the dark-squared bishop in order to capture the knight before landing on d5.} 18.Qd3 Bd8 19.c3 Qc6 {preparing Bxb6, note black doesn't mind recapturing with the f-pawn on e6 as that would provide black with some well needed light-square control} 20.Bd5 {important intermediate move: first pushing the queen away from the defense of d6 pawn, then capturing on e6 to force black to re-capture with the queen. These are all the tactical/concrete aspects we were talking about earlier.} Qe8 21.Bxe6 Qxe6 22.Nd5 {Mission accomplished: you can argue that white has already won the main strategic battle of the game.} f5 {an important pawn break: to primarily undermine the defense of d5 while also creating play on the king-side} 23.O-O Rc8 24.Rfd1 fxe4 25.Qxe4 Qf5 26.Qe2 Kh8 27.c4 {the knight in untouchable. In what follows we have a beautiful conversion of this positional advantage into a win.} Bh4 28.g3 Bg5 29.Ra3 Rce8 30.h4 Bd8 31.b4 Qg6 32.h5 Qf5 33.Ne3 Qe6 34.Rad3 Be7 35.Nd5 Bd8 36.Rf3 Rxf3 37.Qxf3 Kg8 38.Kg2 e4 39.Qe2 Qe5 40.Ne3 Bg5 41.Rd5 Qf6 42.Nf5 Re6 43.c5 dxc5 44.Qc4 Qf7 45.Rxc5 h6 46.Rc8+ Kh7 47.g4 Re7 48.Qd4 Re6 49.Qd5 g6 50.hxg6+ Kxg6 51.Rf8 Qxf8 52.Qxe6+ 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Example #2&lt;/strong&gt;: Catalan by Kramnik, a lot of the ideas in the Catalan revolve mainly around the g2 fianchetto'ed bishop, that is, we want to on the one hand, prevent black from finding ways to exchange our g2 bishop, and on the other hand, further enable the bishop by challenging the g2-b7 diagonal. The g2 bishop similar to the g7 bishop for black in the Benko gambit, is what gives us a sense of direction in our play. Now let's watch Kramnik in action:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [Title &quot;Vladimir Kramnik vs Anish Giri 2014 (1-0)&quot;]&#xA; [fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.Nc3 e6 5.g3 dxc4 6.Bg2 b5 7.Ne5 {Adding pressure on c6} a6 {There's a tactical idea involved here: white would be doing themselves a dis-favour if they took on c6 here, as 8.Nxc6 Qb6 9.Nxb8 Bb7 would actually enable black to quickly challenge the g2 bishop forcing an undesired e4, while having got rid of the c6 weakness} 8.O-O Bb7 9.b3 {challenging the light-square control, in order to prepare Nd3. Note that white's queen-side pawns are often absorbed in challenging black's queen-side pawn expansion in these types of positions} cxb3 10.axb3 Be7 11.Bb2 O-O 12.Qc2 Nfd7 13.Nd3 Qb6 14.Ne4 {both knights coordinating towards the control of c5 square: as long as we control c5 the c6 weakness stands for black, a clear target for white} a5 15.Ndc5 Bc8 16.Qc3 b4 17.Qe3 Na6 18.Rfc1 {immediately re-enforce c5 after black's renewed challenge.} Nc7 19.Nxd7 Bxd7 20.Nc5 Be8 {let's step back and look at the position: Both semi-open a and c files contain black back-pawns, the c5 control has completely disabled black from getting rid of the c6 weakness, with a passive bishop on e8 black has no means of challenging white's g2 bishop,... we can safely say: white has won the main strategic battle of the game.} 21.Ra2 Qb5 22.Qd3 {The rest is Kramnik's beautiful conversion of this clear positional advantage} Qxd3 23.Nxd3 Nd5 24.Ne5 Ra6 25.Bf1 Nc3 26.Bxc3 bxc3 27.Rxc3 c5 28.dxc5 Bf6 29.f4 Bb5 30.Bg2 Ra7 31.c6 Be7 32.Be4 f6 33.Nf3 Rd8 34.e3 e5 35.fxe5 fxe5 36.Rc1 a4 37.bxa4   &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3594" LastActivityDate="2018-02-15T16:18:32.987" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19925" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19922" CreationDate="2018-02-15T19:21:11.493" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;As in music, harmony is difficult to define, but two things come to mind.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One is the advice given &quot;Talk to your pieces&quot;. Ask them if they feel like they belong to a team. If one of them says, &quot;No I don't&quot; then ask them why not and try to fix it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The other is something said to me once by a very strong player &quot;Try to make sure that each of your pieces is well-placed on its present square and has another good square to go to. In the two examples given by Phonon, that was true at almost every stage of the winners game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2019-05-18T17:01:01.320" LastActivityDate="2019-05-18T17:01:01.320" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="19926" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19927" CreationDate="2018-02-15T20:08:24.057" Score="3" ViewCount="939" Body="&lt;p&gt;Black to move in a game I just played. My rival and I were wondering about castling. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Exactly:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;White bishop in D6 threatens B8. Is legal for black to make long (queen) castle? (Black king and rooks have not moved)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If white bishop were in E5 threatening H8, would be legal short (king) castle?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [title &quot;-&quot;]&#xA; [fen &quot;r3k2r/pp1nnp2/2pB2pp/3p1p2/3P4/2N3PB/PPP1PP1P/R3K2R b KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="322" LastEditorUserId="322" LastEditDate="2018-02-16T11:18:30.350" LastActivityDate="2018-02-16T11:18:30.350" Title="Is castling legal in this position?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;castling&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2018-02-18T09:49:53.650" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19927" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19926" CreationDate="2018-02-15T20:19:06.557" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes black is allowed to castle here. The castling would be invalidated if one of the squares along the path the king has to cross (&lt;code&gt;e8&lt;/code&gt; to &lt;code&gt;g8&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;e8&lt;/code&gt; to &lt;code&gt;c8&lt;/code&gt;) was under attack by an opponent piece. In your position, for example if the bishop was on &lt;code&gt;c7&lt;/code&gt;, or a knight was on &lt;code&gt;e6&lt;/code&gt; then castling wouldn't be allowed. Whereas the bishop on &lt;code&gt;d6&lt;/code&gt; eyeing &lt;code&gt;b8&lt;/code&gt; only concerns the rook's path to complete castling, so long castling remains legal. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similarly, if the bishop was on &lt;code&gt;e5,&lt;/code&gt; by the same logic short castling would still be allowed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [title &quot;Position&quot;]&#xA; [fen &quot;r3k2r/pp1nnp2/2pB2pp/3p1p2/3P4/2N3PB/PPP1PP1P/R3K2R b KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1...O-O-O&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3594" LastActivityDate="2018-02-15T20:19:06.557" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19928" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19926" CreationDate="2018-02-15T20:19:15.107" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, it is legal. The King cannot move through check, however, the King will pass through both d8 and c8, which are both legal moves. The rook has no such limitation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11105" LastActivityDate="2018-02-15T20:19:15.107" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19929" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19907" CreationDate="2018-02-15T20:49:44.880" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've just discovered that Fritz (which I have) also has a &quot;Print Scoresheet&quot; option. Thanks to everyone who answered.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11862" LastActivityDate="2018-02-15T20:49:44.880" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19930" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19931" CreationDate="2018-02-16T03:27:52.960" Score="20" ViewCount="3804" Body="&lt;p&gt;Using stockfish_8_x64 with Arena 3.5.1, I see a weird pick by Stockfish.  Start here: &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/T5BOT.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/T5BOT.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Position&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White, Stockfish, to move.  It plays bb6-g1,losing the bishop and the win.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also strange:  the same engine does not make this weird move in the Tarrasch program.  Playing with KBN against K, I've seen Stockfish often blunder away the advantage in these endgame setups.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any clue how this could be happening, or why it would happen only with Arena?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT:  SmallChess answer is correct.  The problem was a residual, non-zero value in the position &quot;number of half-moves&quot; setting.  See my reply to his posting for more information.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15817" LastEditorUserId="15817" LastEditDate="2018-02-17T03:26:52.433" LastActivityDate="2018-12-10T20:02:25.280" Title="Stockfish blunders away a piece" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;blunder&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19931" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19930" CreationDate="2018-02-16T03:37:36.873" Score="27" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; a blunder, expected behaviour from the engine. Everything worked as intended. Try to copy the FEN string out, and you'll know.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although the position looked winning, White didn't have enough moves to force checkmate before the 50 moves rule. Stockfish, knowing the position was a dead draw immediately asked for simplification.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The position you had is 100% equal, there was &lt;strong&gt;no way&lt;/strong&gt; to win it. It's a draw. What Stockfish did was not wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the Tarrasch program didn't send out the 50 moves counter to Stockfish, you'd never get the problem on Tarrasch. If that was the case, it was an error in Tarrasch because the 50 move counter is part of the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Solution?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Setup a new board with the same position but reset the 50 moves counter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2018-02-16T05:57:30.993" LastActivityDate="2018-02-16T05:57:30.993" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19932" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19933" CreationDate="2018-02-16T12:05:36.840" Score="8" ViewCount="303" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was in a three%day turn bame, I played almost played a line that would have led me to this position. Black’s central pawns seem to be an advantage, although White being up the exchange scared me. Who has the advantage in this position, and why?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is White’s turn.&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/koT9C.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15818" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-09-13T19:46:19.153" LastActivityDate="2019-09-13T19:46:19.153" Title="Who has the advantage in this position?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;&lt;advantage&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="19933" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19932" CreationDate="2018-02-16T13:15:31.627" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;This position is not easy to assess. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Indeed, white has a rook, but black has a bishop and two pawns for it, which is roughly equal material-wise.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also there are no open files, so white's rook do not have a straightforward way to enter black's position. The best white could currently do is to try to create counterplay against the pawn on e6 and create a blockade on the dark squares, preventing black from advancing the pawns. Since black does not have a dark squared bishop that should be reasonably easy to achieve. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a long term plan, white can transfer his king to the queenside (e.g. to b2) and open some lines with g4, which does seem somewhat dangerous for black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Still I think black is doing perfectly fine so far as the position is still closed, there are potential threats against g2 and the pawns are ready to run.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Overall I'd say the position is roughly equal (but interesting!).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2018-02-16T13:15:31.627" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19936" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19937" CreationDate="2018-02-16T22:14:16.163" Score="5" ViewCount="346" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the shortest game with the largest material imbalance? This of course means that one side will have 9 queens, 2 rooks, 2 bishops, 2 knights, and a king, and a bare king on the other side. From some experimenting, I got this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.h4 g5 2.hxg5 h6 3.gxh6 Rh7 4.g4 Rg7 5.h7 Rg6 6.h8=Q Bh6 7.g5 f5 8.f4 e6 9.e4 d5 10.d4 c5 11.c4 b5 12.b4 a5 13.a4 Qe7 14.exf5 Bb7 15.fxe6 Bc6 16.cxd5 Bb7 17.bxc5 Bc8 18.axb5 Bb7 19.c6 Bc8 20.Rxa5 Ra7 21.b6 Rd7 22.Qe5 Nf6 23.b7 Kf8 24.c7 Rd6 25.f5 Kg8 26.Nc3 Bd7 27.c8=Q+ Kh7 28.Qc4 Nc6 29.b8=Q Be8 30.Bd2 Qf8 31.e7 Qg7 32.Bg2 Bf7 33.e8=Q Re6 34.dxe6 Bg8 35.d5 Nb4 36.d6 Nc6 37.d7 Nb4 38.d8=Q Nc6 39.e7 Nb4 40.Qdd7 Na6 41.Qed8 Nc5 42.e8=Q Nd3+ 43.Qcxd3 Ng4 44.f6 Ne3 45.f7 Nf5 46.f8=Q Qf7 47.Qfb4 Rg7 48.g6+ Kh8 49.gxf7 Ne7 50.Q3d6 Kh7 51.Q6xe7 Kh8 52.f8=Q Kh7 53.Qed5 Rf7 54.Bh3 Kh8 55.Q7xf7 Bg7 56.Ke2 Kh7 57.Ke3 Kh6 58.Kf4 Kh7 59.Q8xg8+ Kh6 60.Qgxg7#  0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This can of course be improved though, as I was essentially moving pieces around randomly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13928" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-12-14T23:48:40.267" LastActivityDate="2020-12-14T23:55:45.810" Title="Shortest sequence of moves to create biggest material imbalance" Tags="&lt;problems&gt;&lt;records&gt;&lt;material-balance&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19937" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19936" CreationDate="2018-02-16T23:53:08.943" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;I got this, which is much shorter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. a4 a5 2. b4 b5 3. c4 c5 4. d4 d5 5. e4 e5 6. f4 f5 7. g4 g5 8. h4 h5 9. bxa5 Bd6 10. axb5 Be6 11. dxc5 Nf6 12. cxd5 O-O 13. fxe5 Rf7 14. exf5 Ra6 15. gxh5 Rb7 16. hxg5 Rbb6 17. bxa6 Nc6 18. axb6 Qe7 19. dxc6 Kh8 20. cxd6 Ng8 21. a7 Qf6 22. gxf6 Ne7 23. b7 Bd7 24. e6 Ng8 25. c7 Kh7 26. f7 Kg7 27. e7 Kf6 28. h6 Ke5 29. f6 Kf5 30. a8=Q Kg6 31. b8=Q Ba4 32. c8=Q Bb5 33. f8=Q Bc4 34. d7 Bd5 35. d8=Q Be4 36. f7 Bf5 37. e8=Q Bd7 38. h7 Bc6 39. h8=Q Bb7 40. Qcxb7 Kf5 41. fxg8=Q#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's one move above the lower bound, but I feel that this is optimal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As @Evargalo suggested, here is @user1583209's proof of optimality from their comments.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;I have a proof now: Start by labeling the columns/files by numbers, i.e. a=1, b=2...h=8. Then for each pawn calculate the sum of the respective files. So in the initial position this sum is 1+2+3...+8=36. Now, if a pawn captures, it changes its file by &amp;quot;1&amp;quot; (either plus or minus 1). In order to achieve a solution in 40 moves, we have to queen the pawns on each of the squares on the 8th rank. This means that in the final position the sum of files (for pawns+promoted pawns now) needs to be 36 again. However we also need to do 15 captures with these pawns.&#xA;Each capture changing the file sum by 1, it is impossible to end up with 36 as sum, basically because 15 is an odd number.  (If you have x captures to the left and y captures to the right you end up with equations: x-y=0 and x+y=15 which has no integer solution) That proves that it is impossible to achieve a solution in 40 moves and the solution with 41 moves given by orlp is optimal.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15806" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-12-14T23:55:45.810" LastActivityDate="2020-12-14T23:55:45.810" CommentCount="14" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="19938" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19941" CreationDate="2018-02-17T01:25:44.680" Score="1" ViewCount="140" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some players have trouble converting a winning position, perhaps even blowing it. As the strength increases, these &quot;winning&quot; advantages become smaller and more subtle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How does one &quot;finish&quot; in chess? Is it about defense, or having a strong attack?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13147" LastActivityDate="2019-01-21T17:58:23.627" Title="Players that have trouble finishing" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2018-02-18T23:57:30.710" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19939" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19938" CreationDate="2018-02-17T02:06:02.933" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Id' reckon converting an advantage into an actual win has a lot to do with keeping in mind that a position is worth nothing unless you are there to steer it accurately towards victory. Otherwise it's very easy to be visited by 'the ghost of the won position', which would try to convince you that you can relax before the game is over, trying to trick you into making unneccessary mistakes which would diminish your advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you write &quot;finish&quot; I interpret that as &quot;converting a big advantage into a win&quot;. Is this a correct interpretation? If so, then it all depends on the position at hand; if your opponent played an unsound sacrifice for an attack you may have to defend, while if your opponent played too passively you may have to attack to accurately steer the game towards its logical conclusion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8300" LastActivityDate="2018-02-17T02:06:02.933" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19940" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-02-17T11:52:40.930" Score="5" ViewCount="231" Body="&lt;p&gt;How do I win this endgame?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;2R5/pr6/3kp2p/4n1p1/5B2/P4P2/2P1K1PP/8 w - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More specifically, I want to know whether I should trade off pieces, and in case of a trade, which pieces I should keep on the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I considered three options here:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;A&lt;/strong&gt; Keep all the pieces on the board.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;This could be done by 1.Bg3 Kd5 2.Rh8 etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;B&lt;/strong&gt; Trade off the rooks.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;This could be achieved by 1. Rd8+ Rd7 2. Rxd7 Nxd7 etc.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;1...Nd7 is bad because of 2.Kd3 Kc6 3. Rh8!?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;C&lt;/strong&gt; Trade off the light pieces.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;This can be done by 1.Bxe5 Kxe5 2.Rh8 etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My further questions are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is the rook ending in C a draw? If it is possible to win it, how would it be done? &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Which endgame is better/easier to play A or B? &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I guess that A and B are both winning for White. How are the winning strategies in both cases, i.e. how to win them?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In general, in Rook + Bish vs Rook + Knight endings, who wants to trade of the rooks?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15830" LastEditorUserId="4186" LastEditDate="2020-03-06T20:28:22.803" LastActivityDate="2020-03-06T21:14:06.173" Title="Which pieces do I have to keep on the board, to win my endgame?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="19941" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19938" CreationDate="2018-02-17T14:22:57.807" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;All players have trouble finishing, also GM's, only at a different level.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance, there are many examples of winning (especially rook) endgames that where drawn by top players. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is never easy to win a winning position, and it is always possible to blunder. In fact, it is one of the most difficult things in chess to win a winning position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Why?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because there are many possible reasons why a winning position can be lost or drawn.&#xA;The most common reason are big blunders, where the player loses material. &#xA;But there are also more sophisticated examples of how a winning position can be lost, for instance if the attacker has a winning position, but he ignores counterplay of his opponent. Another example is, that the position is strategically winning, but the player doesn't know the winning strategy, for example if he has a big lead in development, but he doesn't open the position, or if he is in an endgame, and he trades the wrong pieces, so that the win turns into a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Furthermore it is not easy to tell whether an advantage is big enough to win and how exactly to do this. This is one of the skills that make a strong players. I recommend you  to read the chapter &quot;Winnability&quot; of the book &quot;What it takes to become a chess master&quot; of Andrew Soltis, if you have access to this book.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;So how can you improve your ability of converting a winning position in a win?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First of all, there are some well known technical principles for converting an advantage into a win:&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;Avoid blunders/counterplay! (most important)&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;If possible, try to understand where your opponents counterplay could come from, and try to avoid it. (This is not always possible.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Never rush!&lt;/strong&gt; &#xA;If your opponent has no counterplay, then you don't need to rush. For example, before you attack, bring up all your reserves!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are other principles, but these two are most important. Follow these principles, and try to constantly improve your position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A good exercise is to chose a winning position and try to win it against a strong player/stockfish.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15830" LastEditorDisplayName="user7637" LastEditDate="2019-01-21T17:58:23.627" LastActivityDate="2019-01-21T17:58:23.627" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="19942" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-02-17T14:33:35.263" Score="-2" ViewCount="297" Body="&lt;p&gt;In a swiss system chess tournament, how long should a round last? If a player exceeds his time who will be the winner?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15831" LastEditorUserId="9025" LastEditDate="2018-02-18T03:35:37.783" LastActivityDate="2018-02-18T09:15:57.560" Title="Swiss system chess tournament" Tags="&lt;time-control&gt;&lt;swiss-pairing&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19943" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19940" CreationDate="2018-02-17T15:47:32.390" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Endgame D, after exchanging rooks AND minor pieces, is a trivial win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Endgame C, with rooks, looks winning as well but might require more tactful play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Endgame B, without rooks, is quite an easy win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Endgame A, with R+B, is winning. The best strategy will probably involve a rook exchange...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Question 4: generally, the side with the bishop wants to keep rooks and the side with the knight wants to keep queens. There are a lot of exceptions though, including cases like this one with material imbalance (an extra pawn).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From the diagram, the logical continuation should be 1.Bg3 Kd5 2.Rd8 Nd7!, keeping rooks. White should win nonetheless. The plan (loosely explained) will be: centralisation, threats against h6/g5, helping the c-pawn forward. A bit of concrete thinking is needed too, because you don't want to allow too much counterplay against your somewhat loose queenside pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastActivityDate="2018-02-17T15:47:32.390" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19944" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-02-17T19:38:21.327" Score="4" ViewCount="275" Body="&lt;p&gt;Consider a chess variant which plays exactly (*) as chess except that the players have a special option for first move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White can, instead of moving a pawn/knight as its first move, sacrifice any of its pawns (removing it from the board) to reorder its pieces (within the first rank).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then, Black has almost the same option: it can reorder the pieces instead of moving a pawn/knight, but a sacrifice of a pawn is optional.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Would it be advantageous for White/Black to pursue this option instead of a regular opening move?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which would be the best options for sacrificed pawn and permutations of pieces?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(*) For castling: if the king is between the rooks, castling follows the rules of Chess960/Fischer Random Chess. If it isn't, castling is forbidden.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15832" LastActivityDate="2018-03-20T12:25:57.927" Title="Sacrifice a pawn to reorder the pieces" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;chess-variants&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19945" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19940" CreationDate="2018-02-17T20:20:07.457" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As is evident from the comments, tactics often trump strategy. For example, although I agree with Evergalo's general comments,in his variation 3.Kd3! wins immediately because of the mate threat. In fact, after 2.Bg3, The threat of Rd8 is enormously strong (..Rd7 3.Rh8)&#xA;The move that loses most slowly seems to be 2..Kd7, but then 3.Rh8 (forcing the Knight to a poor square) Nf7 4.Ra8 and the a-pawn is about to fall (Bf2!) This very nicely illustrates the power of the Bishop in open positions, a pin, a mate threat, switching from one wing to the other. But Bishops blocked by their own Pawns are easily outshone by a Knight. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Reaching this position in a game I would realise that I am a Pawn ahead, and that if I could exchange all the pieces it would be an easy win. But I would not like the ending after Bxe5 because I would not see a way to exchange the Rooks and I also have some vulnerable Pawns. I would see that Black has more weak Pawns than I do, and they are easier to attack than mine, and they are all on the color of my Bishop, so I would probably retreat to g3 quite quickly. Even so I would be a bit surprised by how nicely the tactics work out. A stronger player would already see the tactics and base his decision on them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One little-noted advantage that the Bishop has over a Knight, is that if, perhaps after a change in the Pawn structure, exchanges become desirable, then exchanges are often more easily forced by the Bishop. In other words the player with the Bishop has more chance to dictate WHEN exchanges occur. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-03-06T21:14:06.173" LastActivityDate="2020-03-06T21:14:06.173" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="19947" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19942" CreationDate="2018-02-18T09:15:57.560" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Swiss system has nothing to do with time controls. It is a tournament pairing system based on the principle that in each round players with so far similar results are paired together, and that each player has approximately as many games with white and black. Details can be found in &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss-system_tournament&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14979" LastActivityDate="2018-02-18T09:15:57.560" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19948" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19940" CreationDate="2018-02-18T10:26:02.550" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Capturing the knight enables you to play Rh8. So I'll trade minor pieces and keep rooks on board. I don't think there is any need for any deep calculation here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15839" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-04T17:19:11.130" LastActivityDate="2020-03-04T17:19:11.130" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="19949" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19944" CreationDate="2018-02-18T11:56:00.783" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;A few thoughts, but as I expressed in the comment, I don't think this question will have a single good answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Based on general opening principles in regular chess, I would &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; sacrifice a central pawn, because that might reduce control on the center.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Secondly, in order to speed up development, I would sacrifice a pawn that already opens lines or diagonals for the development of rooks/bishop/queen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Based on my experience playing Fischer random/chess960, I found positions quite convenient where the bishops are on a1, b1, g1 or h1, so that they immediately attack something once the pawns moved away.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Combining all this, one possible position could be &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;8/8/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPP1/BBKRQNNR w - - 1 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here I go for an atack on h7, g7, and also all pieces could support any operations in the center of the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2018-02-18T11:56:00.783" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19952" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="777" CreationDate="2018-02-18T14:11:32.860" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Thanks for the question, and for the very competent answers. It's not pedantry: it's a genuine corner-case for chess-engine programmers and retrograde analysis enthusiasts. A couple of years ago I asked international arbiter Stewart Reuben (FIDE rulebook committee chairman) who confirmed that the rule works as James Tomasino surmised: i.e. if, because of some pin or check, an en passant capture was never possible, then that position is considered to be the same as later copies.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8201" LastActivityDate="2018-02-18T14:11:32.860" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19954" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-02-19T02:50:52.457" Score="1" ViewCount="254" Body="&lt;p&gt;IM Jeremy Silman responds to the question, &quot;What kind of study program did you use?&quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I mostly looked at endless master games (while simultaneously eating copious amounts of ice cream), sometimes going over several hundred in a single day (only stopping when I was slaphappy and drooling). Most young players I talk to don’t go over nearly enough master games, but now that databases are available there’s simply no excuse for this. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does one simply just take in the patterns that the masters play? How can one learn like this? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Wouldn't it be better to look at maybe ten games in a scrupulous manner?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13147" LastActivityDate="2018-02-20T18:05:37.503" Title="How does one look at hundreds of master games a day?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" ClosedDate="2018-02-21T22:09:03.973" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19955" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19954" CreationDate="2018-02-19T03:24:56.157" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;That depends on what you want from the games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are looking for deep human style analysis, it is of course not possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are interested in shallow computer automated analysis (like lichess evaluation graph), then it’s possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are interested in opening theories, it’s possible again. For example, a French player would skip Ruy Lopez games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Professional players generally don’t study chess games randomly. They would have an objective like rook endgames with two pawns down. Good database search would be useful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please define what you want from the games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2018-02-19T03:24:56.157" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19957" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-02-19T14:41:42.933" Score="6" ViewCount="263" Body="&lt;p&gt;My father taught me chess at a young age. I am still not very good, though. Now, we have started again playing against one another and analyze positions. He remembered a book, which he possessed but lost, and is desperate to find it again. Hopefully one of you will help me identify it. Here is what I know:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;old book, from the 70s or before &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Russian author, or at least Slavic-sounding name&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;included the very beginning of chess, legal moves, main principles etc for total beginners &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;introduced different mini-games, including the 'game of 8 pawns', played only with the pawns (no king, the goal is to reach promotion)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the cover included some white and green, and some chessboard but angled 45 degrees&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sorry, this is all my ageing father can remember. He says it is the best chess book he has ever read.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9588" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-09-26T13:11:47.823" LastActivityDate="2019-02-25T15:55:47.010" Title="Looking for a specific chess book" Tags="&lt;books&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="19958" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19902" CreationDate="2018-02-19T14:46:04.310" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am not a specialist about programming chess engines, but the notions of depth is a little bit misinterpreted. &quot;Depth&quot; is somehow the maximal value reached by the engine during his search but the engine is absolutely not searching in every position with a depth of 20 moves. Modern engine uses heuristics to determine line of play and reducing the number of positions to analyse.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't precise way to do so but I can imagine that line of play with too much imbalance are not completely analysed by the engine, for example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One point as well is about the evaluation function of your algorithm, if the function is too time-consuming then the algorithm would run longer as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One thing is about the transposition table (TT), you need to check if the TT is not becoming too large which would result into some memory issues.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I really believe that the number of positions to analyse at each step is strongly bound by the way of choosing which position to analyse or not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think you know the chessprogramming wiki, but there is a lot about improving searching on &lt;a href=&quot;http://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Search&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Search&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I hope I've helped you :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7357" LastActivityDate="2018-02-19T14:46:04.310" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19959" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15504" CreationDate="2018-02-19T14:55:47.327" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't know any unit-testing database for chess engine (in general), and yes, writing exhaustive unit test is almost impossible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can maybe explore alternative testing technic like property-based testing (QuickCheck in Haskell, I don't know the F# environment but it certainly exists something like that for F#), which can automatically generate a large amount of &quot;position&quot; and test them using property defined by you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this will help a bit :) !&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7357" LastActivityDate="2018-02-19T14:55:47.327" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19960" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19315" CreationDate="2018-02-19T17:53:57.763" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;From experience, I would have done something like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Beginner:&lt;/strong&gt; I'm gonna beat you easily!!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Bad_Bishop:&lt;/strong&gt; Maybe, maybe not, anything can happen in chess ;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Beginner:&lt;/strong&gt; I'll be white. They always win!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Bad_Bishop:&lt;/strong&gt; They don't win &lt;strong&gt;all&lt;/strong&gt; the time ;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Beginner:&lt;/strong&gt; [After being checkmated]Ok, you won, but I took 2 pawns and a knight!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Bad_Bishop:&lt;/strong&gt; True, but did you learn anything from this game, that's what's important. :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15847" LastActivityDate="2018-02-19T17:53:57.763" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19961" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19954" CreationDate="2018-02-19T18:00:01.640" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Hundreds of games in one day is a HUGE amount to be scrutinizing in detail.&#xA;However, what might be good to do is go through the games fairly quickly, but be looking for pawn structure patterns, or tactical setups, or something else specific.&#xA;That way you can go through 100 games easily without blowing your brain ;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15847" LastActivityDate="2018-02-19T18:00:01.640" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19963" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19966" CreationDate="2018-02-19T20:11:41.937" Score="-1" ViewCount="281" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have a slow connection and I always face connection problems when playing bullet games. My lag (according to lichess) averages 400 milliseconds. However, when I ping Google's IP address 8.8.8.8 it shows a lag of 245 milliseconds.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So why do these two numbers differ? Are chess moves larger in size than what is needed to ping an IP address?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13544" LastActivityDate="2019-06-27T09:43:54.630" Title="What is the average size of a move in kilobytes" Tags="&lt;lichess&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2018-02-20T03:13:08.110" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19964" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19954" CreationDate="2018-02-19T22:39:17.653" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Maybe Silman literally did not mean it that way. He is also known for his tongue-in-cheek attitude:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Q: What attracts you to chess?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A: The money and the women.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is most likely that he looked at many games and took away one lesson, tactic, strategy etc. from them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13147" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2018-02-19T22:39:17.653" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19965" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19969" CreationDate="2018-02-20T00:05:37.233" Score="9" ViewCount="22354" Body="&lt;p&gt;In his process of learning Chess and getting stronger and stronger each second AlphaZero learned openings. Some were played often at the beginning, but lost in AlphaZero's popularity over the time (e.g. French Defence). You can find four examples here: &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.chessbase.com/post/the-future-is-here-alphazero-learns-chess&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;The future is here – AlphaZero learns chess&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I read somewhere that AlphaZero played (and so: evaluated) 12 openings. I would like to see a list of them, perhaps with the graphs (not only the 4 mentioned above).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks in advance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4537" LastActivityDate="2019-03-20T11:28:40.383" Title="List of how AlphaZero evaluates openings" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;alphazero&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19966" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19963" CreationDate="2018-02-20T00:19:47.613" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The move itself is small (depending if the Chess-software is sending only the move or additional data (e.g. a FEN of the position)) this is sginificantly less than 150 bytes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Depending on how moves are transfered one moves takes about 500 to 800 bytes. You should check the size of the package sent by your ping: If you ping 8.8.8.8. you should get something like&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_seq=0 ttl=60 time=12.638 ms&#xA;64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_seq=1 ttl=60 time=12.814 ms&#xA;64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_seq=2 ttl=60 time=15.309 ms&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The lag might change during daytime or even seconds depending on the load or setup of your provider. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More important seems to me that the ping to 8.8.8.8 lags with you for 245ms - this is way too much (I e.g. get 12ms). So probably your provider is too slow.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4537" LastEditorUserId="4537" LastEditDate="2019-06-27T09:43:54.630" LastActivityDate="2019-06-27T09:43:54.630" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="19967" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19977" CreationDate="2018-02-20T00:27:34.567" Score="5" ViewCount="687" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]    &#xA;  1. e4             e5            &#xA;  2. Nf3            Nc6            &#xA;  3. Bc4            Bc5           &#xA;  4. c3             Nf6          &#xA;  5. d4             exd4&#xA;  6. e5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've faced this line as black a couple of times. Unfortunately all I know about this line comes from Burgess's &lt;em&gt;The Mammoth Book of Chess&lt;/em&gt;, where he treats this in a couple of sentences: he says it can be highly effective at club level, and that black needs to find the counter-thrust 6...d5 to get a satisfactory position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is, what does black do after 6...d5 7. Bb3? One of my opponents confidently played that against me. I was out of book, played 7...Ng4, and he developed a strong initiative. Now that I check the position with an engine, the engine suggests 7...Ne4 8.cxd4 Bb4+ 9.Bd2 Nxd2 10.Nbxd2 Bg4 and evaluates as a very small advantage to black. However engine analysis is just a bunch of lines, not very human-comprehensible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can anyone familiar with this line give me some pointers on how to treat this position?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastEditorUserId="15223" LastEditDate="2018-02-20T00:56:41.950" LastActivityDate="2019-04-29T07:27:47.853" Title="The Giuoco Piano after 4.c3 Nf6 5. d4 exd4 6. e5" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19968" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19965" CreationDate="2018-02-20T00:28:20.543" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Check &lt;a href=&quot;https://arxiv.org/pdf/1712.01815.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;the paper itself&lt;/a&gt;, in particular page six. There are indeed 12 openings, some of which AlphaZero kept playing, others which it played for a while and then discarded.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastActivityDate="2018-02-20T00:28:20.543" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19969" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19965" CreationDate="2018-02-20T00:33:57.963" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can find the complete table in their paper. See table 2 in the arXiv version linked below:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Mastering Chess and Shogi by Self-Play with a General Reinforcement Learning Algorithm &lt;a href=&quot;https://arxiv.org/pdf/1712.01815.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://arxiv.org/pdf/1712.01815.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How to read them:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The plots show the proportion of times alphazero played a given opening during its self-training games as a function of training time. So e.g., you can see that its interest in employing the French defense peaked after 2 hours, but past that, it abruptly drops to near 0, indicating that after 2 hours+ training it realised the emergent lines from that opening are non-optimal compared to other choices, such as the Caro-Kann defense (which had a promising plateau after 2 hours but eventually dropped too, plot shown below).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Then below the diagrams, you see how it fared against Stockfish in 100 game matches for each line. Finally, alphazero's principal variation for each opening is also indicated below the plots. &lt;em&gt;Please see the table's caption in the paper for any other details.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Overall, the English opening stands out: it kept employing it consistently throughout its training. Ultimately, the pattern suggests a tendency towards more versatile openings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Caro-Kann diagram from table 2: [Ref]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/a8gVf.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/a8gVf.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[Ref]: Silver, David, et al. &amp;quot;Mastering Chess and Shogi by Self-Play with a General Reinforcement Learning Algorithm.&amp;quot; arXiv preprint arXiv:1712.01815 (2017)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3594" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2019-03-20T11:28:40.383" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="19970" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19971" CreationDate="2018-02-20T02:01:41.890" Score="4" ViewCount="1604" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am looking for a link to download all 5 pieces gaviota endgame tables (which can give me DTM values).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A few links from google search (&lt;a href=&quot;https://sites.google.com/site/gaviotachessengine/Home/endgame-tablebases-1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;like this&lt;/a&gt;) lead me to the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.olympuschess.com/egtb/gaviota/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;site which does not exist&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="703" LastActivityDate="2018-02-20T02:29:44.833" Title="Where can I download gaviota endgame tables?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;tablebases&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19971" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19970" CreationDate="2018-02-20T02:29:44.833" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.cygnitec.com/tablebases/gaviota/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://chess.cygnitec.com/tablebases/gaviota/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Use wget recursively: &lt;a href=&quot;https://serverfault.com/questions/25199/using-wget-to-recursively-download-whole-ftp-directories&quot;&gt;https://serverfault.com/questions/25199/using-wget-to-recursively-download-whole-ftp-directories&lt;/a&gt; for all the files.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2018-02-20T02:29:44.833" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19972" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19975" CreationDate="2018-02-20T03:42:18.637" Score="8" ViewCount="1049" Body="&lt;p&gt;This question is about standard games under USCF rules (if FIDE is different, I'd like to know).  Say that one side makes an illegal move-specifically, castling through check.  Neither player notices.  Five moves later, the same side that made the illegal castle makes a now legal move to create checkmate.  During analysis, the losing side recognizes that the castling was illegal.  I believe that once the checkmate position is reached, it is too late to correct the illegal move, even though it is within the last ten moves. Is that correct?  Would the answer be different if the checkmate was created using the rook that was used in the illegal castling?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15849" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-17T02:24:27.433" LastActivityDate="2020-08-17T02:24:27.433" Title="Illegal Move Missed-Too Late?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;illegal-move&gt;&lt;uscf&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="19973" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="20104" CreationDate="2018-02-20T04:50:20.553" Score="15" ViewCount="1474" Body="&lt;p&gt;I saw this beautiful, subtle &amp;amp; accessible problem a couple of days ago, and wanted to share it with you folks. (It's by the ground-breaking endgame theorist who e.g. invented the &quot;Troitsky line&quot; in KNNvKP analysis.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[title &quot;A.A.Troitsky - Bohemia 1910&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;1B6/bp3ppp/BR1pPp2/RPp1kP2/bpK5/3P2P1/1PP3PN/5nrr w - - 0 1&quot;]  &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White to play and mate in 2?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The forward play is pretty obvious. But, as is common in retrograde analysis, you need to justify the forward play by figuring out what was Black's last move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even if/when a speedybrain supplies a full answer, I hope that you can still enjoy solving the puzzle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8201" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-04T22:25:55.433" LastActivityDate="2020-04-04T22:25:55.433" Title="Beautiful retrograde analysis problem by Alexsey A. Troitsky" Tags="&lt;problems&gt;&lt;retrograde-analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19974" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19976" CreationDate="2018-02-20T06:39:23.713" Score="3" ViewCount="391" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a programming question related to chess endgame tables.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as I know syzygy tables allow me to get WDL and DTZ information for a given position. Is it possible to somehow (without access to chess engine) extract DTM information of a position from these tables?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Based on what I understood from &lt;a href=&quot;http://python-chess.readthedocs.io/en/latest/syzygy.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;python chess&lt;/a&gt; documentation, that minimaxing the DTZ will give you a win, but it does not guarantee the quickest win:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Minmaxing the DTZ values guarantees winning a won position (and&#xA;  drawing a drawn position), because it makes progress keeping the win&#xA;  in hand. However the lines are not always the most straightforward&#xA;  ways to win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="703" LastActivityDate="2018-02-20T09:40:33.460" Title="Is it possible to get DTM of a position from sygyzy tables?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;tablebases&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19975" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19972" CreationDate="2018-02-20T07:10:14.483" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;The FIDE rules say this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;7.5     If &lt;strong&gt;during a game&lt;/strong&gt; it is found that an illegal move has been completed, the position immediately before the irregularity shall be&#xA;  reinstated. If the position immediately before the irregularity cannot&#xA;  be determined, the game shall continue from the last identifiable&#xA;  position prior to the irregularity. Articles 4.3 and 4.7 apply to the&#xA;  move replacing the illegal move. The game shall then continue from&#xA;  this reinstated position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So you can't claim an illegal move after the end of the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, you can't checkmate using an illegal move:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;5.1  The game is won by the player who has checkmated his opponent’s king. This immediately ends the game, provided that the move producing&#xA;  the checkmate position was in accordance with Article 3 and Articles&#xA;  4.2 – 4.7.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't know about USCF rules, but I suppose they are similar.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14979" LastActivityDate="2018-02-20T07:10:14.483" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19976" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19974" CreationDate="2018-02-20T09:40:33.460" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;No&lt;/strong&gt;. It's &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; possible. People use Gaviota tablebase if they want to do DTM or the old Nalimov.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Syzygy tablebase is the most popular tablebase algorithm because it doesn't do DTM, better compression. You can't get both - information and size.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2018-02-20T09:40:33.460" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19977" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19967" CreationDate="2018-02-20T10:47:52.053" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;(Answering my own question since I got some help from an expert)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bb3 is a weak move, since the game will soon be focused around the d4-square. White should have played 7. Bb5, pinning the knight. Playing Bb3 instead yields an inferior version of what happens next.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e4 is the best post for the knight - it's a central square, and it's defended as well. Now white has to play 8. cxd4 or he'll be down a pawn. Black responds with Bb4+. The aim of this move is to force a minor piece to d2, which interferes with the queen defending d4. After 8...Bb4+ 9. Bd2 Nxd2 10. Nbxd2, black plays Bg4 pinning the knight and making it very difficult for white to defend the d4-pawn. If white plays 9. Nbd2 instead black can just continue with Bg4 and leave the c1-bishop to stew.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now white's position starts to get unpleasant. In addition to Nxd4, black threatens 11...Bxf3, ruining white's pawn structure (11. a3? Bxf3 12. Qxf3? Bxd2+ 13. Kxd2 Nxd4 wins a pawn since 14. Qxd5?? Nxb3+ wins the queen). White has to play 11. Ba4, which shows why 7. Bb5 occupying the diagonal sooner was the correct move. Black's position is still preferable: white's knights are pinned, and after 11...O-O 12. Bxc6 (forced) bxc6, black is ready to play ...c5 contesting the center. In the final analysis position below, black has more space, the initiative, and the bishop pair.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;] &#xA;     1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Bc5 4. c3 Nf6 5. d4 exd4 6. e5 d5 7. Bb3?! Ne4 8. cxd4 Bb4+ 9. Bd2 (9. Nbd2? Bg4) Nxd2 10. Nbxd2 Bg4 11. Ba4 (11. a3? Bxf3 12. gxf3 Ba5) O-O 12. Bxc6 bxc6 13. O-O c5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As to what happens after 7. Bb5 ... that's another question entirely =)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastEditorUserId="15223" LastEditDate="2019-04-29T07:27:47.853" LastActivityDate="2019-04-29T07:27:47.853" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="19978" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19973" CreationDate="2018-02-20T11:20:54.227" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Nice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt; Black has 8 pawns, so his bishops are original, so Black hasn't just played d6 or exf6. If Black has just moved a piece, it must've moved from a square where it was already checking; this is impossible. So Black has just moved the pawn now on c5. Why not c6-c5? The problem is that White can't give Black a penultimate move; wNh2 can't retract to retro-release bRh1 because wN would move from a square where it was checking. Black is missing only 2 units, so White played axb &amp;amp; h2xg3, so may not retract f2xg3. Bc7-b8 doesn't relieve Black's retrostalemate. White's only way to give Black a penultimate move is retro -1 ... c7-c5 -2 Rc6-b6 retro-releasing bBa7.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Except that&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt; with a black pawn on c7, the pawns on c7, d6, f6 and g7 lock the bBa7 out and prevent it retracting to f8. So before bBa7 can retract to f8, bPd6 must retract to d7. This entails retracting bBa4 to c8. This entails moving wK. Seeing as wPd3 can't go back until wBb8 is home on c1, moving wK entails moving bK, which entails retracting f4-f5. So retro -1 ... c7-c5 -2 f4-f5 Kf5-e5 -3 Kd4-c4 Bb3-a4 and now bBb3 and bPd6 can go home, wRb6 can retract to c6, bBa7 can go home to f8 and finally it unravels.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10380" LastEditorUserId="10380" LastEditDate="2018-02-20T11:51:04.457" LastActivityDate="2018-02-20T11:51:04.457" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19980" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19954" CreationDate="2018-02-20T18:05:37.503" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Only after one has reach a certain strength and knowledge level can you get anything from zipping through a bunch of games in a day.&#xA;For example, lets say you did a thorough study of the French Exchange Variation (1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.exd5 exd5)&#xA;You learned basic lines ideas, etc.  Now, you can look at a ton of games in that line and you should be able to spot the new ideas or novelties, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This kind of thing is done mostly by seconds to the elite players who have to be aware of all new ideas.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2018-02-20T18:05:37.503" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19981" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19973" CreationDate="2018-02-20T18:24:20.547" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Pawn still being &lt;code&gt;d2&lt;/code&gt; allows us to complete the answer: &lt;code&gt;c7-c5&lt;/code&gt; must have been Black's move. Please see the added discussions below.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Some initial thoughts:&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To get started, by a trivial process of elimination we can boil the choices down to only two black candidate moves:&#xA;&lt;code&gt;c6-c5&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;c7-c5.&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;Now we have to resolve the dilemma by stepping further back and figuring out what aspect of the position allows to distinguish between the two.&#xA;It seems to me that the &lt;strong&gt;main twist lies in how the queen-side came to be&lt;/strong&gt;, that is: which events and in which order took place for the two rooks to end up on&#xA;&lt;code&gt;b6&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;a5&lt;/code&gt;, the bishop on &lt;code&gt;a4&lt;/code&gt; and the two pawns on &lt;code&gt;b4&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;b5.&lt;/code&gt; Some initial observations:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It seems the only route for the king to get to &lt;code&gt;c4&lt;/code&gt; is via &lt;code&gt;c3&lt;/code&gt;, which puts a constraint on when &lt;code&gt;axb4&lt;/code&gt; took place.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Moreover, &lt;code&gt;Kc4&lt;/code&gt; must have been played after &lt;code&gt;Ba4,&lt;/code&gt; as otherwise, if the king is on &lt;code&gt;c4&lt;/code&gt; the bishop can never reach &lt;code&gt;a4.&lt;/code&gt; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Easier points: &lt;code&gt;Ra5&lt;/code&gt; is played after &lt;code&gt;axb4&lt;/code&gt; (not to say immediately after), &lt;code&gt;Ba6&lt;/code&gt; is played before &lt;code&gt;axb5&lt;/code&gt; (because the capture closes all paths to &lt;code&gt;a6&lt;/code&gt;) and &lt;code&gt;Ba4&lt;/code&gt; is played once &lt;code&gt;axb5&lt;/code&gt; has taken place. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Point 2 suggests that the king must have the square &lt;code&gt;c3&lt;/code&gt; available in order for the bishop to reach &lt;code&gt;a4&lt;/code&gt;. This would imply that &lt;code&gt;axb5&lt;/code&gt; capture happens first, the bishop gets to &lt;code&gt;a4&lt;/code&gt; then &lt;code&gt;axb4&lt;/code&gt; takes place.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If 4 is true, then how the heck can the rook get to &lt;code&gt;a5?&lt;/code&gt; :) If we can't resolve this, i.e., find a sequence of events that allow the above points together with the rook reaching &lt;code&gt;a5,&lt;/code&gt; then point 4 contains a mistake/contradiction.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Slightly different consideration would be: to assume the white bishop is for the moment on &lt;code&gt;d7&lt;/code&gt; for instance, so neither captures on &lt;code&gt;b4&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;b5&lt;/code&gt; have taken place yet. The white rooks are on &lt;code&gt;a6&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;b6,&lt;/code&gt; (that they've reached e.g. via &lt;code&gt;f4-c4-a6/b6&lt;/code&gt;) and the black knight (to be captured on &lt;code&gt;b5&lt;/code&gt;) is on &lt;code&gt;c7&lt;/code&gt;. We consider &lt;code&gt;axb4&lt;/code&gt; to happen first (assume it captures a white knight): then the rook gets to &lt;code&gt;a5,&lt;/code&gt; the bishop goes to &lt;code&gt;a6&lt;/code&gt; via &lt;code&gt;d7-b5,&lt;/code&gt; then  the knight goes to &lt;code&gt;b5&lt;/code&gt; which leads to &lt;code&gt;axb5&lt;/code&gt; which in turn frees &lt;code&gt;a4&lt;/code&gt; for the black bishop, so &lt;code&gt;Ba4&lt;/code&gt; takes place. Everything seems fine at first glance, but in all of that, how the heck will the white king reach &lt;code&gt;c4?&lt;/code&gt; :) &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Quick recap:&lt;/strong&gt; according to point 5., we cannot resolve how the rook gets to &lt;code&gt;a5&lt;/code&gt;, whereas if we follow point 6., the rook problem is resolved but we cannot(?) account for how the king reaches &lt;code&gt;c4&lt;/code&gt; eventually.&#xA;I believe if we can solve this dilemma of the queen-side, the distinction between whether &lt;code&gt;c6-c5&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;c7-c5&lt;/code&gt; is correct will follow immediately. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;A follow-up to complete the answer&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A possibility that resolves the aforementioned queen-side problem:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Point 6 would actually work if white king had the &lt;code&gt;d3&lt;/code&gt; square available in order to allow the black bishop to get to &lt;code&gt;a4&lt;/code&gt;. More precisely, these are the sequence of events:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;7&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;We are considering the case &lt;code&gt;axb4&lt;/code&gt; happens before &lt;code&gt;axb5,&lt;/code&gt; the rooks are on &lt;code&gt;a6&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;b6,&lt;/code&gt; the white bishop is on &lt;code&gt;d7&lt;/code&gt;, the white pawn is still on &lt;code&gt;d2&lt;/code&gt; so the king sits on &lt;code&gt;d3.&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;7 implies that &lt;code&gt;c1&lt;/code&gt; bishop is still locked in and gets to reach &lt;code&gt;b8&lt;/code&gt; very late. &lt;code&gt;axb4&lt;/code&gt; frees &lt;code&gt;a5&lt;/code&gt; for the rook, so &lt;code&gt;Ra5&lt;/code&gt; takes place immediately after. Then &lt;code&gt;d7&lt;/code&gt; bishops returns to &lt;code&gt;a6&lt;/code&gt; via &lt;code&gt;b5&lt;/code&gt; after which &lt;code&gt;axb5&lt;/code&gt; happens (for instance capturing a knight, which could without any loss of generality have come from &lt;code&gt;c7&lt;/code&gt; to &lt;code&gt;b5&lt;/code&gt;). After &lt;code&gt;axb5,&lt;/code&gt; the black light square bishop  gets to &lt;code&gt;a4&lt;/code&gt;, e.g., via &lt;code&gt;b3&lt;/code&gt; directly. Now the king can hop to &lt;code&gt;c4,&lt;/code&gt; allowing &lt;code&gt;d2-d3.&lt;/code&gt; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Now comes another crucial step: in the previous points we've assumed the black bishop is just sitting on &lt;code&gt;a7,&lt;/code&gt; that means that if the &lt;code&gt;c1&lt;/code&gt; bishop is to ever reach &lt;code&gt;b8,&lt;/code&gt; the &lt;code&gt;a7&lt;/code&gt; bishop must be able to move freely along the &lt;code&gt;a7-f2&lt;/code&gt; diagonal, which in turn implies the black &lt;code&gt;c&lt;/code&gt; pawn cannot be on &lt;code&gt;c6&lt;/code&gt; as that would not only impede the rook from moving and freeing the &lt;code&gt;a7&lt;/code&gt; bishop's diagonal but also trap the white bishop on &lt;code&gt;b5&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;d7&lt;/code&gt;. Thus, the pawn must be on &lt;code&gt;c7&lt;/code&gt;, which allows &lt;code&gt;Rc6&lt;/code&gt; and the aforementioned bishop maneuver, followed by a simple sequence (after &lt;code&gt;kc4&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;d2-d3&lt;/code&gt;) to get the two bishop to &lt;code&gt;a7&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;b8,&lt;/code&gt; e.g., black bishop to &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt; and then &lt;code&gt;c3&lt;/code&gt; to let the white bishop to pass first, i.e., white bishop to &lt;code&gt;e3-a7-b8&lt;/code&gt;, then the black bishop returns to &lt;code&gt;a7&lt;/code&gt;, the rook on &lt;code&gt;c6&lt;/code&gt; returns to &lt;code&gt;b6&lt;/code&gt; and black plays &lt;code&gt;c7-c5.&lt;/code&gt; Summary of that last dance of bishops: &lt;code&gt;1. Rc6 Bd4 2. Be3 Bc3 3. Ba7 Bd4 4. Bb8 Ba7 5. Rb6 c7-c5&lt;/code&gt;. It must be noted that the pawn still being on &lt;code&gt;d2&lt;/code&gt; does not interfere with the occurrence of any of the other events other than that of the dark squared bishops, which has been already resolved. Thus, it can safely be considered without leading to contradictions.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In short, previous attempt in point 4 and 5 was deemed to be impossible as the rook on &lt;code&gt;a5&lt;/code&gt; could never be accounted for in those variations. Instead following up on the approach in point 6 in conjunction with the idea of the pawn still being on &lt;code&gt;d2&lt;/code&gt; before the exchanges on &lt;code&gt;b4&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;b5&lt;/code&gt; have taken place and naturally in turn the moves &lt;code&gt;Ra5&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;Ba4,&lt;/code&gt; we seem to have found the only way the current queen-side situation could be reached, which required the black &lt;code&gt;c&lt;/code&gt; pawn to be still on &lt;code&gt;c7&lt;/code&gt; throughout.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15078" LastEditorUserId="15078" LastEditDate="2018-02-20T23:31:51.860" LastActivityDate="2018-02-20T23:31:51.860" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19982" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19315" CreationDate="2018-02-20T20:28:17.363" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;IMO this is a subjective question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Personally, I would start capturing his pieces one by one by forcing moves making sure I have a overwhelming material advantage before I make his king run all over the board, only to be choked in the center.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12588" LastActivityDate="2018-02-20T20:28:17.363" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19983" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19793" CreationDate="2018-02-21T10:41:11.493" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Also, after Karpov, Kasparov has a variation in the Queen's Indian (1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 b6 4.Nc3) and Kramnik has a weird variation in the Sicilian (1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 e6 3.c4)&#xA;I didn't find anything for Anand and Carlsen, though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15861" LastActivityDate="2018-02-21T10:41:11.493" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19985" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19967" CreationDate="2018-02-21T21:45:15.360" Score="2" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;] &#xA;     1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Bc5 4. c3 Nf6 5. d4 exd4 6. e5 d5 7. Bb5 Ne4 8. cxd4 (8. Nxd4 {Is the Scotch Gambit.  Considered good for white in most lines.}) Bb4+ 9. Nbd2 Bg4 10. a3 Bxf3 11. Bxc6+ bxc6 12. Qxf3 Nxd2 13. Bxd2 Bxd2+ 14. Kxd2 {white has good pressure down c-file}&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both are good lines, however too much to explain here.  But the doubled pawns are compensation for the two bishops, if black can keep them, and the weak dark squares are a nightmare for black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12449" LastActivityDate="2018-02-21T21:45:15.360" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19986" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-02-22T14:57:49.723" Score="-5" ViewCount="146" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;Rated Rapid game&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;https://lichess.org/PuymBQf1&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2018.02.22&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;-&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;chess_lover_2001&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;potema&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;[UTCDate &quot;2018.02.22&quot;]&#xA;[UTCTime &quot;14:38:35&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;1133&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;1390&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteRatingDiff &quot;+21&quot;]&#xA;[BlackRatingDiff &quot;-19&quot;]&#xA;[Variant &quot;Standard&quot;]&#xA;[TimeControl &quot;900+3&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;B00&quot;]&#xA;[Opening &quot;St. George Defense&quot;]&#xA;[Termination &quot;Normal&quot;]&#xA;[Annotator &quot;lichess.org&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 a6 { B00 St. George Defense } 2. d4 b5 3. c4 c6 4. b4 e6 5. c5 Bb7 6. e5 Ne7 7. Nc3 a5 8. Bd3 axb4 9. Ne4 Nd5 10. Nf3 h6 11. Bb2 Qa5 12. O-O g5 13. Nd6+ Bxd6 14. exd6 f5 15. Ne5 Na6 16. Qh5+ Kd8 17. Nf7+ Kc8 18. Nxh8 Kb8 19. Qe8+ Ka7 20. Qxd7 Nf4 21. Nf7 Nxd3 22. Ne5 Nxb2 23. Nxc6# { White wins by checkmate. } 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15778" LastEditorUserId="13544" LastEditDate="2018-02-22T17:53:15.920" LastActivityDate="2018-02-22T18:28:59.583" Title="What would be the estimate of the ratings of white and black in this game? Keep in mind, it's a rapid game" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ClosedDate="2018-02-22T20:40:10.487" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19988" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19986" CreationDate="2018-02-22T18:28:59.583" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;As above in the comments, it is impossible to estimate the rating based on a single game only. The reasons for this are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The rating number itself is &lt;em&gt;statistical and relative&lt;/em&gt;, i.e. it tells you something about the level relative to other players. Basically if you play against players of the same rating 1000 games, you would score half the points. Of course each individual game could be a win for either player or a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Playing strength and therefore rating depends on many factors (e.g. tactics, positional/strategy/...., playing style: active/passive....). Also you might very well have situations where a lower rated player is scoring particularly well against a higher rated player because their relative playing styles are such that it favors one player.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That being said, based on the game, I note that black has weak positional understanding (creating too many weak squares, blocking his own pieces....) and is not aware of general principles like develop pieces, don't make too many pawn moves... All of this is typical for a beginner player rated around 1000. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The white player was playing much more normally, developing pieces, occupying the center, castling, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a positive note, neither player did an &lt;em&gt;easy&lt;/em&gt; piece blunder. Black blundered mate in 1 with 22...Nxb2, but might have thought that he could recapture on c6 which he cannot because of the pin. White probably did not calculate the consequences of 22...Nb8 (which was not played) when the position is not all that simple (but of course still winning for white). Not blundering pieces is not typical of a 1000 rated player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Given that the lichess ratings are based on hundreds of games, I would trust them to some extent. Of course these ratings only tell you the relative strength among players on lichess and can not be converted to FIDE ratings (which describe the relative strength with respect to FIDE rated players). When attempting to convert I'd give them an error margin of plus minus 200 points or so.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So all in all, I'd estimated these players to be between 900 and 1300 for black and between 1200 and 1600 for white, but as mentioned this is very rough.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2018-02-22T18:28:59.583" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19989" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19992" CreationDate="2018-02-23T00:19:23.810" Score="3" ViewCount="178" Body="&lt;p&gt;After 1. e4 Nf6 2. Nc3 d5 3. e5 Ne4 4. Nce2 Nc5, black intends to undermine White's center with ...Ncd7 and ...c5. The e5-e6 pawn sac is not available at the moment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is a good way to keep the opening sharp, or steer (or develop) the position into those reached by 4. ...f6 (the main line here runs 5. d3 Ng5 6. Bxg5 fxg5 7. h4)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13147" LastEditorUserId="14079" LastEditDate="2020-09-10T10:48:48.550" LastActivityDate="2020-09-10T10:48:48.550" Title="How to avoid the French in the Alekhine, Scandinavian Variation?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;alekhine&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="19990" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19993" CreationDate="2018-02-23T00:43:52.230" Score="6" ViewCount="866" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have noticed that, among opponents of Elo strength about 1300 (USCF class C to D), many play the opening and midgame almost as well as a 1400- to 1500-strong player but seem suddenly to drop to, say, 1100 strength as the endgame approaches. The 1300-strong player who blunders away endgame after endgame is a familiar character in the world of chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Without an excessive investment of the player's time, what are some ways a typical 1300-strong player can improve his or her endgame?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="315" LastActivityDate="2018-02-26T08:47:48.633" Title="How can an Elo 1300 player improve his or her endgame?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19991" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19990" CreationDate="2018-02-23T00:43:52.230" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here are two relatively simple endgame-related principles from which a typical Elo 1300-strong player could profit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;PAWNS ON SQUARES BISHOPS CANNOT REACH&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When some but not all bishops have been captured, the 1300-strong player can learn to push his or her pawns to squares of the color the bishops cannot reach.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is an example from an actual game. The Black player's Elo strength is about 1300.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/pb3kp1/2p1p2p/2P1Kp1P/1P2pP2/P3P1P1/2B5/8 b - - 2 33&quot;]&#xA;[Title &quot;Black to move, the board seen from Black's perspective.&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this game, White had been playing tactically until Black unwisely let the dark-squared bishops be exchanged. Foreseeing a won endgame, White stopped playing tactically, quickly exchanged rooks and queens along the open d-file, and soon reached the diagrammed position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Material is equal, but White's bishop&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;enjoys freedom of movement and&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;sees enemy pawns on squares it can target.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black probably never realized that his game was already lost. Indeed, Black probably left the board without understanding what had just happened to him, because he did not grasp the principle of pawns on squares bishops cannot reach. White won a game Black should probably have drawn. Black never knew why.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now you know why. Next time in such a situation, you can do better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If your strength is about Elo 1300, then you might add an easy 20 to 25 points to your strength merely by recongnizing&amp;mdash;before the endgame arrives&amp;mdash;how the colors of the squares on which the pawns stand can advantage the one player or the other once the endgame arrives.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;KINGS BEFORE PAWNS&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Players at an Elo strength of 1200 often fail to hurry their kings toward the fifth or, better, sixth rank when the endgame arrives. Some 1300-strong players too fail in this way. In the example, Black might have salvaged a draw if his king were further forward.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is actually a complicated point, because sometimes it is preferable to push a &lt;em&gt;pawn&lt;/em&gt; toward the &lt;em&gt;seventh&lt;/em&gt; rank as soon as possible, temporarily leaving the king far behind. Admittedly, better players (Elo 1800+) disagree among themselves as to the general desirability of such pawn sprints, but even when a sprint is tried and even at the Elo-1300 level, the sprinting pawn tends to distract the opponent long enough for the king to be brought up a little later, so the principle still applies.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most good players agree in any case that leaving pawns at home while the king hurries forward is often a prudent endgame practice, especially if all relevant pawns are on the same wing but sometimes even when pawns on both wings are in play. Once the king has centralized itself, preferably at least on the fifth rank, pawns can march as opportunity allows.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Kings before pawns: a little reflection on this principle can add another 5 or 10 points to one's strength in the 1200-to-1300 range.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;COMPUTERS&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Computers can calculate or tabulate absurd numbers of exact endgame variations a human master would never attempt. Therefore, it can be hard to learn proper endgame play when one's opponent is a computer. Playing Black, a computer might salvage a draw or even a victory in the diagrammed position, not only taking the game but also cheating White of the position's teaching value. For this reason, a 1300-strong player might prefer human opposition against which to practice endgame principles like the principles this answer discusses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="315" LastActivityDate="2018-02-23T00:43:52.230" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19992" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19989" CreationDate="2018-02-23T00:49:14.343" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The 4...Nc5 line clearly differs from the mainline you've given, since the knight on c5 will not be traded on g5 with black's pawn structure getting somewhat compromised. However it seems like the immediate knight retreat has some drawbacks since white can just play d4 immediately and kick the knight around a bit; note that after 4...Nc5 5.d4! Nd7 white can suddenly play the pawn sacrifice 6.e6! with a nice position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Looking in my opening database I see that the most common move for black after 4...Nc5 5.d4! is 5...Ne6. In this position it seems like white has a pleasant choice of several good alternatives. For instance, 6.Be3 develops a piece and makes it a bit more difficult for black to play ...c5, while 6.f4!? seeks to gain even more space and to further kick the black knight around.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically, after 4...Nc5?! 5.d4! it seems like white gets a phenomenal position with a space advantage typical of the french defense, but without any drawbacks since black's knight loses so much time on its journey around the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8300" LastActivityDate="2018-02-23T00:49:14.343" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19993" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19990" CreationDate="2018-02-23T08:57:19.043" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some advices:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Look at grandmasters' endgames with comments&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Replay their games and try to understand their moves and the evaluation of commentators. There are several good books, I think Evgenny Shereshevsky's excellent classic &quot;&lt;strong&gt;Strategy in the Endgame&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; is understandable at 1300-level. At least most of it, and you can keep the most difficult examples for later when you will have developed a better understanding of general principles. Some books about Bobby Fischer's endgames have been well commented too. I suppose there are good videos/DVDs on the market as well. Avoid anything overly complicated right now, like John Nunn's works; Mark Dvoretsky's and Karsten Muller's ones are very good but too hard at 1300 elo - keep them for later.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Start with pawn endgames&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The rules there are somewhat more clear-cut (there is basically one single goal: queening one of your pawns first), and they are mandatory if you want to understand more complex endgames later on, because several concepts are similar and because they may transpose to pawn endgames in case of exchanges.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Do not try to swallow too much theory&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Endgame theory can be surprisingly complex, it is a dry matter to memorize, and pratical endgames is what you should be looking for. At 1300 elo, I assume you already master the basic mates KQK, KRK and KBBK. KBNK is fun to look at but not super useful in practice, learn it if you enjoy it but don't force yourself if you don't.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would still encourage you to learn KPK well enough to be able to evaluate any position with KPK in less than thirty seconds, and be sure about the next best move. Have a look at KPKP theory (counting in pawn races, opposition, trebuchet) and at KRPKR (Philidor, Lucena), but already here you merely want to get familiar with the ideas, not to remember everything.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Some &lt;strong&gt;training websites&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;like chesstempo or lichess offer endgame exercices and adapt their difficulty to your performances in solving them. If you have fun doing some once in a while (I sure do), do it! Usually the free registration is enough to get access to five or ten exercices per day - just the right amount for effective training !&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Stay away from tablebases&lt;/strong&gt; (and more generally from chess engines). &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You may use them to have a look at the evaluation of a given position &lt;em&gt;if you have already studied it by yourself or with a book/video&lt;/em&gt; and want to check your conclusions. But going through variations generated by tablebases is disheartening enough : sometimes they lack logic, or make you feel that simple things are overly complicated because they try to minimize distance to mate, and they come without explanations (or explanations limited to even more complicated variations)... &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If you &lt;strong&gt;play endgames in your own games&lt;/strong&gt;, study them afterwards. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The best way is: first alone or with your opponent, then &lt;em&gt;write down your main conclusions/interrogations&lt;/em&gt;, and then review the endgame with a stronger player / a coach / a reference book if the position is a theoretical one / a software if really you have nothing better available. Finally, compare with your first notes, that's when you will make huge progress about your thinking process !&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Good luck !&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastEditorUserId="14079" LastEditDate="2018-02-26T08:47:48.633" LastActivityDate="2018-02-26T08:47:48.633" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19994" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17711" CreationDate="2018-02-23T12:00:47.550" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/EDyPE.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/EDyPE.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a purely separate thought on&#xA;the stupidity of the current rule&#xA;consider the following hypothetical case: &#xA;White can castle, but both the f- and h-files are open.&#xA;White plays Rf1, suddenly realises he has missed a much&#xA;stronger move and quickly moves his king to g1 . As the rule&#xA;stands his opponent or, as happened in a recent Soviet event,&#xA;the arbiter can insist on a rook move. White calmly plays the&#xA;winning Rh1-h8. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7415" LastActivityDate="2018-02-23T12:00:47.550" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19995" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4803" CreationDate="2018-02-24T01:01:18.910" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;lichess is a good place for simuls: &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/simul&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://lichess.org/simul&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15874" LastEditorUserId="3757" LastEditDate="2020-12-30T12:31:58.720" LastActivityDate="2020-12-30T12:31:58.720" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="19996" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="19997" CreationDate="2018-02-24T02:23:29.623" Score="0" ViewCount="1557" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have accounts on both of these websites, but I don't know the difference of how they do the rating. Can anybody tell me at least a difference between lichess and chess.com rating?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15874" LastActivityDate="2018-02-24T11:54:18.517" Title="How does lichess rating compare with chess.com rating?" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2018-02-24T14:44:36.820" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19997" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19996" CreationDate="2018-02-24T11:54:18.517" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would say lichess is about +200&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15879" LastActivityDate="2018-02-24T11:54:18.517" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="19998" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-02-24T13:47:27.733" Score="3" ViewCount="265" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;8/8/8/2k2N2/2n1K3/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this position a draw?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15881" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-01-31T01:52:50.530" LastActivityDate="2021-01-31T01:52:50.530" Title="What should be White’s move here in which each side has just a king and a knight?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;draw&gt;&lt;knights&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="19999" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19998" CreationDate="2018-02-24T13:56:25.633" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Most people agree that this is a draw due to insufficient material, but FIDE and some chess websites say that a mate is possible.  Once you could also claim insufficient losing chances, but with increment clock, this rule has vanished.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To eliminate any possible mate, I would try to lose the knight.  The best move is Nd6 and chase the black knight until the draw is agreed upon.  An equally good move is Ne3 with the same objective.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12449" LastActivityDate="2018-02-24T13:56:25.633" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20000" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19990" CreationDate="2018-02-24T15:23:02.723" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a big fan of ChessKing's material for mobile devices.  Perfect for tablet size devices that you can study.  Their applications range from opening, mid to endgame and tactics and more.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The catch is you have to pay for the app to get the full complete courses but they do allow you to try it for free. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm an Android user so here's the Google Play site if your interested.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/dev?id=8196632901699712832&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://play.google.com/store/apps/dev?id=8196632901699712832&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14760" LastActivityDate="2018-02-24T15:23:02.723" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20001" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19315" CreationDate="2018-02-24T15:46:40.330" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;If it is an online server you played the person on, avoid playing the user.  There are better beginners to spend your time playing with out there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it is in the club, hard for me to say.  Avoiding the player at the club, regardless of how the player acts,  may give an unwanted reputation change but maybe not.  Maybe people would be understanding, not sure.  I typically in interactions like that(be it chess play or not) I assume conservatively and avoid the trash talking, take everything they say as a joke and brush it off.  You gain nothing doing anything else as far as I am concerned. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They are obviously insecure about their game that they resort to trying to affect your mental game play by trash talking instead of making good moves on the board. Only the moves on the board win. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have no tolerance for that type of etiquette/sportsmanship. As a lower level/rated player myself we should be grateful a higher level player agrees to play with us.  We only get better when we play people who are better than we are.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14760" LastActivityDate="2018-02-24T15:46:40.330" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20002" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19315" CreationDate="2018-02-24T18:03:46.680" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;This isn't about chess. It is about manners. I would explain to the youngster than this isn't Call of Duty. Trash talking is not acceptable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Young man, are you aware you're being rude to me?&quot;&#xA;&quot;uh, what&quot;&#xA;&quot;There is no trash talking in chess. There are only moves and they speak for themselves.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2018-02-24T18:03:46.680" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20004" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19998" CreationDate="2018-02-25T06:52:13.693" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you have used up your clock time in this position, you have lost the game since a mate is possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you have some time left and with increment clocks it is easy to make 50 moves and claim a draw (the opponent will normally agree to a draw long before).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are not in increment mode and have less than 2 minutes left, you may claim a draw and every arbiter will agree to it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14979" LastActivityDate="2018-02-25T06:52:13.693" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20005" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4893" CreationDate="2018-02-25T09:34:22.473" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;FWIW When the ARM was new, I wrote an optimised ARM exhaustive search program with a material only position evaluation after ply 1.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I used tricks with optimised machine code, iterative deepening, alpha-beta windowing on sorted moves (almost all positions had value 0, so got near-optimal alpha-beta pruning) - and hash tables which reduced the branch factor to much less than the theoretical square root for alpha-beta, typically around 4 at the worst part of the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In a competition against the standard programs at the time, my E6P program got into terrible positions, but with an extra ply or two exhaustive search compared to pro software at the time (ie typically 6 ply exhaustive + quiescent search in the worst stage, with up to 12 ply as the game simplified), it kept wriggling out of actually losing, despite the confidence of its opponents. Almost all the games went to adjudication after many hours because the opposing programs couldn't actually win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Later I optimised it for StrongARM, where it moved to 10 ply. This version could easily beat all the non-chess players, though obviously it lacked any strategy awareness, so the famous comment applied: yes, they are chess moves - but it isn't chess!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This was quite a few years ago, but I am tempted to try exhaustive again with a more strategic position evaluation at ply 1 - and with an Intel XEON theoretically 10,000-100,000x faster (and with 30k times more hash table memory) than a 4MIPS ARM2 Acorn Archimedes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Admittedly not mainstream, but fun to play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15888" LastActivityDate="2018-02-25T09:34:22.473" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20006" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4893" CreationDate="2018-02-25T11:23:46.663" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The question is: Do you mean 15/30 ply of exhaustive search, or a nominal depth/iteration of 15/30 of a modern chess engine like Stockfish?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you meant the latter, 15 ply does not necessarily mean much. Modern chess engines heavily prune and reduce moves that are supposedly bad, so it might be that a sacrifice that seems to be bad at first sight, at a nominal depth/iteration of 15 is actually only searched to a depth of e.g. 5-10. At depth/iteration 30, the move probably is still searched only to a reduced depth, but then it might be an effective depth of 15-20, which could be sufficient to find that the sacrifice is actually good, and as soon as the engine discovers that the move is promising, it will decrease the reduction, so that the move is searched to a depth closer to 30 ply (or even deeper due to extensions and quiescence search). So yes, I think it can make a difference, even if the combination is within the nominal horizon of 15 ply. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you were referring to an exhaustive search, then I think an engine with a depth of 15 would be very strong provided that it has a good evaluation function and some kind of quiescence search (after the leave nodes at depth 15). Due to diminishing returns, I think the gain by doubling the depth would be much less than what you would get for a match between two modern engines with depth 15 vs. depth 30. But that is of course only theoretical, since an exhaustive search to depth 15 would take several orders of magnitude longer than what engines usually take to reach depth/iteration 15, so such an experiment would only be feasible at lower depths.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15415" LastActivityDate="2018-02-25T11:23:46.663" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20008" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-02-25T17:42:52.580" Score="-2" ViewCount="993" Body="&lt;p&gt;Starting from the starting position, how many moves deep have we analyzed the possible continuations?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15896" LastActivityDate="2018-02-26T00:25:58.260" Title="To what depth has chess been solved?" Tags="&lt;theory&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2018-02-26T03:23:54.897" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20009" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20008" CreationDate="2018-02-25T20:44:06.220" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess doesn't work like that. It isn't &quot;solved&quot; from the start position. It is &quot;solved&quot; from the end.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Currently chess has been &quot;solved&quot; for all positions where there are 7 or fewer pieces on the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2018-02-25T20:44:06.220" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20010" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20008" CreationDate="2018-02-26T00:25:58.260" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are you talking about Perft (&lt;a href=&quot;https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Perft%20Results&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Perft%20Results&lt;/a&gt;)? Take a read on the article.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Don't use &quot;solved&quot;, that's why you're getting negative votes, use &quot;Perft&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To my knowledge, we have searched every single possibility up to depth of 15. Nobody has done 16 yet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2018-02-26T00:25:58.260" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20011" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="20012" CreationDate="2018-02-26T13:30:27.037" Score="2" ViewCount="806" Body="&lt;p&gt;I find myself in positions like this a lot when playing the Ruy Lopez:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 &#xA;2. Nf3 Nc6&#xA;3. Bb5 d6&#xA;4. O-O Bg4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I try to kick the bishop out with  5. h3, they back up to h5 and I'm in the same spot I was, essentially. What tends to end up happening is after my queen comes out, they take on f3 and I end up with doubled pawns, which makes me pretty uncomfortable on my King's side. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So what's the best way to deal with this pin? Or are doubled pawns a typical consequence of playing this line? Maybe I could have done something earlier? According to the chess.com database, this isn't a super common line anyway. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10779" LastEditorUserId="13433" LastEditDate="2018-02-26T14:05:16.050" LastActivityDate="2020-01-22T00:01:45.067" Title="How to deal with the pinned knight on f3 in the Ruy Lopez (as white)?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;ruy-lopez&gt;&lt;pins&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20012" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20011" CreationDate="2018-02-26T14:51:56.873" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Black cannot exploit the pin with ...Nd4: not at once because the Nc6 itself is pinned, not later because c2-c3 is on your plan anyway. This means that you should not panic and can concentrate on developing before taking measures about the Bg4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should not be afraid of a ...Qf6 either. After the later sequence ...Bxf3, Qxf3, Qxf3, gxf3, your king is secure thanks to the queen exchange, and the bishop pair is much more important than the temporary doubled pawn that you would get rid of by pushing f3-f4, gaining influence in the center in the process.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you follow a Ruy Lopez plan anyway: c3, d3, Nbd2, Re1, Nf1 you have various ways of breaking the pin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;First, you can move your queen when the second knight is on d2. Plus: it is faster. Minus: your queen don't have so many great square to go to, since on c2 it is a bit passive and that square is better left for a possible retreat of the Bb5.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Second, you continue, after Nf1, with h3 (check whether the opponent can reply ...h5 when his rook is still on h8) and after ...Bh5, Ng3. It is part of your plan anyway (reinforce e4 so you can push d3-d4, possible knight-hops to f5 or h5) and it embarass Black's light-squared bishop. After an eventual ...Bxf3 Qxf3, you gain the bishop pair with excellent chances to build an initiative on the light squares.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastEditorUserId="14079" LastEditDate="2018-02-26T16:17:56.167" LastActivityDate="2018-02-26T16:17:56.167" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20013" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20011" CreationDate="2018-02-26T14:53:04.890" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not an expert on the Ruy Lopez, but it seems that its downsides outweigh the upside of potentially creating a doubled pawn on f3. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After 5. h3 Bh5, you are in fact not quite in the same spot: From h5, the light squared bishop can't assist to defend the light squares on the queenside anytime soon, so you can put &lt;em&gt;your&lt;/em&gt; pin on the c6-knight to good use. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The weakness of c6 also allows you to easily get rid of the doubled-pawn threat because your queen can relocate with tempo (either by checking on c6, or d8 as soon as the d-file is opened).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 &#xA;2. Nf3 Nc6&#xA;3. Bb5 d6&#xA;4. O-O Bg4&#xA;5. h3 Bh5&#xA;6. c3 Nf6?!&#xA;7. d4 {Threatening 8. d5.} a6 (7...exd4 8. cxd4 {Isn't prettier. Now a following Qc2 hits c6 and e4.})&#xA;8. Bxc6 bxc6&#xA;9. dxe5 dxe5 (&#xA;9. Qa4 {Another possibility.} Qd7 (9...Bxf3 10. Qxc6+ {Winning a pawn.})&#xA;10. dxe5!? Bxf3 (10...dxe5? 11. Nxe5)&#xA;11. exf6 {Hard to assess, maybe this line is a bit too risky.})&#xA;10. Qxd8+ Rxd8&#xA;11. Nxe5 Nxe4 &#xA;12. Nxc6 {Looks fine.}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, Black doesn't have to play Nf6, but any other move except 6...Qd7 or 6...a6 (e.g. 6...Be7) won't change anything essential. Black still has to deal with the pin somehow. 6...Qd7 only replaces it with another pin, while 6...a6 still allows the Qa4 manoeuvre. I'd be pretty comfortable with the situation as White.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13433" LastEditorUserId="13433" LastEditDate="2018-02-26T15:18:44.920" LastActivityDate="2018-02-26T15:18:44.920" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20014" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="20015" CreationDate="2018-02-26T15:11:17.620" Score="6" ViewCount="2779" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've played the London System for about 3 months and am liking it alot, however I have run across several games where Black played a weird, but good, move early in the opening, c5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;example:&#xA;&lt;code&gt;1. d4 d5 2. Bf4 c5&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here, c5 is threatening to take on d4, a key position in the London System.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How does one play with a threatening move such as this with the London System, or what style of play has generally come of this move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My last question, when Black plays c5, does this generally spell the end for typical London System lines, if played out with typical responses?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15847" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-03-07T00:00:38.820" LastActivityDate="2020-03-07T00:00:38.820" Title="How to reply to an early c5 in the London System?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;london-system&gt;&lt;refuted&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20015" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20014" CreationDate="2018-02-26T17:07:31.273" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;How you respond depends on your tastes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you like tactical play then 3. e4 is the Morris Gambit. This is basically the Albin Counter Gambit with colours reversed and an extra tempo. It can lead to very exciting play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are more conservative and prefer a quiet life then 3. e3 is the normal move when play can quickly return to more normal lines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2018-02-26T17:07:31.273" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20017" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-02-27T13:19:42.163" Score="4" ViewCount="937" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would like input from actual experience of improving calculation and visualization: can anyone testify to achieving actual and significant improvement in ability to calculate and visualize as a result of deliberately doing exercises set to train this skill? If so, if you could describe the delta of improvement (before, after), and the time it took, that would be appreciated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My own definition of significant improvement would mean going from missing move possibilities that lie 4-5 moves down the road, to actually seeing them as almost as easily as if the position was on the board now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12953" LastEditorUserId="12953" LastEditDate="2018-02-27T13:26:01.343" LastActivityDate="2018-02-27T15:55:24.270" Title="Calculation and visualisation exercises - do they work?" Tags="&lt;training&gt;&lt;calculation&gt;&lt;visualization&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20018" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20017" CreationDate="2018-02-27T14:26:45.180" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have heard that solving chess puzzles is not exactly the greatest thing to do to help improve your chess game. That being said though, I myself have seen a major improvement once I started working puzzles on a regular basis. I would say that some of this is talent-based, however you can teach yourself pretty much anything you put your mind to.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My advice is this: Don't work yourself too hard with puzzles, if you do, you'll start making mistakes and bad habits. If you over do it, then you will become bored quickly, do just enough so that you improve a little, but don't try to make a giant leap in improvement in a short amount of time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15847" LastActivityDate="2018-02-27T14:26:45.180" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20019" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20017" CreationDate="2018-02-27T15:55:24.270" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;My performance rating was four to five hundred points above my actual rating in tournaments where I prepared primarily with calculation/visualization exercises; while tournaments without tactical training showed a performance rating closer to actual.&#xA;So, I would say these exercises definitely make you sharper.  There are permanent gains over time but I think you have to continue to use the ability or it will atrophy to some extent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2018-02-27T15:55:24.270" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20020" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18187" CreationDate="2018-02-27T16:49:59.007" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;On move 5, capturing with the knight is what I would've done. On move 6 as white, I would have pushed d5, ..cxd5 7. exd5 leading to an obviously good position for white. Move 8. defending with the bishop would put a counter attack on both attacking pieces and making an exchange in the center of the board means the black queen would run with free development. Using this you can point out some errors with black as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15778" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-02-27T19:31:04.723" LastActivityDate="2018-02-27T19:31:04.723" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20022" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="20024" CreationDate="2018-02-27T17:05:03.197" Score="15" ViewCount="567" Body="&lt;p&gt;De Firmian's &lt;em&gt;Modern Chess Openings&lt;/em&gt; is a good book. I like it. However, the book teaches right lines of play. It teaches few wrong lines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Should one not also study wrong lines&amp;mdash;the blunders, the pitfalls, in otherwise good openings&amp;mdash;to learn why the right lines are right?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If so, then how can one go about studying the wrong lines?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[TITLE &quot;Example: Sicilian Defense, Accelerated Dragon variation&quot;]&#xA;[STARTFLIPPED &quot;1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c5&#xA;2. Nf3 Nc6&#xA;3. d4 cxd4&#xA;4. Nxd4 g6&#xA;5. Nc3 Bg7&#xA;6. Be3 Nf6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If an example helps, then see the defense diagrammed above. De Firmian gives Black the right moves in the right sequence, which is nice; but his book apparently lacks space to explain also why Black should not, say, venture Nf6 earlier than move 6. I believe that de Firmian knows why not, but his book is not conveying this knowledge to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This tells me that I am probably using the book improperly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Merely memorizing the right moves seems insufficient. I wish also to grasp why wrong alternatives are wrong. By what method can I study wrong moves for this purpose? How do you do it, please?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(If you answer, then please feel free to give whatever example you like. You need not speak of the Accelerated Dragon. I have arbitrarily diagrammed the Accelerated Dragon merely to put a concrete opening on the board for purpose of illustration, in case this helps.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="315" LastEditorUserId="315" LastEditDate="2018-02-27T17:13:46.133" LastActivityDate="2018-09-10T12:16:06.717" Title="Wrong lines of play to illuminate right lines" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;opening-traps&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20023" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20022" CreationDate="2018-02-27T19:44:59.460" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;In essence this is why databases are used. No book has room for such data. &#xA;Basically if someone leaves your preparation, you need to pause and ask &quot;what is wrong with that move&quot;, or when studying lines ask yourself &quot;what about x&quot;.  Of course the more you know the less you have to think over the board -- so yes, study the refutations to inferior replies, etc.&#xA;Using a chess engine can help too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2018-02-27T19:44:59.460" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20024" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20022" CreationDate="2018-02-27T20:30:49.400" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;A healthy approach towards learning openings is to retain the key ideas involved, and not to necessarily memorise move by move unless it's an extremely precise sequence in a very theoretical line (as is often the relevant case at high level chess). It's a bit analogous to how one would learn physics, by understanding the principles, drawing connections between them, learning to how reason with them and so on, such that ultimately, you can reconstruct theorems in your head, as opposed to memorising them symbol by symbol.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now in chess, &lt;em&gt;understanding the ideas&lt;/em&gt; in the opening phase simply starts by asking yourself questions when you're exploring an opening: for example: &quot;what is the point of an early &lt;code&gt;h6&lt;/code&gt; here? what I am preventing and why is it with such priority?&quot; or &quot;what is &lt;code&gt;Qc2&lt;/code&gt; achieving in this situation? can't I achieve the same with &lt;code&gt;Qd3&lt;/code&gt;?&quot; or &quot;Could I not have played &lt;code&gt;Nf6&lt;/code&gt; first without loss of tempo?&quot;  and so on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In trying to answer those questions for yourself, you will automatically uncover the pitfalls, or the wrong/less optimal alternative moves, without necessarily seeing them listed in a book. Now of course one can never exhaustively do so, as there are simply too many variations in each opening or certain very hard to grasp ideas involved, and that's why there are thick books written on almost every opening, but that said, the essential part of any improvement you are going to make, will result from the struggle of trying to understand a position on your own. It is this struggle that will form your mindset for how to reason about openings in general, one that will continuously evolve for as long as you study chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now in order to find the answers to the type of questions I had mentioned earlier, you need to consider two important aspects: &lt;strong&gt;a)&lt;/strong&gt; a general strategy in mind for what the opening is trying to achieve, &lt;strong&gt;b)&lt;/strong&gt; a concrete assessment of the variations involved such that the strategy in a) can be efficiently implemented, i.e., avoiding redundancies or other loss of tempi, not creating weaknesses or easy targets, and worst case avoiding blunders. This is the part where engines can immensely simplify the task. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both are equally important. Luckily, the bulk of opening theory we have stems from human play and not computers, meaning players at some point attempting to tackle a certain move differently by emphasizing a set of key new ideas. &lt;em&gt;Luckily,&lt;/em&gt; because it means we have a chance of understanding them if we manage to trace the original ideas. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your example: the essential part of the Dragon variation for black in the Sicilian is the fianchetto'ed bishop on &lt;code&gt;g7.&lt;/code&gt; Simply put, unlike most other Sicilian variations where the dark-squared bishop has very little active scope (instead being developed as a purely defensive piece), the Dragon is an alternative that provides more active prospects for the bishop, with a safe developement (fianchetto - making it hard to trade/challenge the piece) and with a follow-up that emphasizes undermining white's dark square control. This is a rough sketch that goes along the point a) we were discussing above. Now more along point b), namely the more concrete aspects of the opening, contains the answer to your &lt;code&gt;Nf6&lt;/code&gt; question: by not playing &lt;code&gt;Nf6&lt;/code&gt; too early you i) entertain the possibility of potentially developing the bishop to &lt;code&gt;g7&lt;/code&gt; with tempo, as it will directly eye the &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt; knight and ii) you prevent the option of an immediate &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt; from white.  As you show, &lt;code&gt;Bg7&lt;/code&gt; forces a reaction such as &lt;code&gt;Be3&lt;/code&gt; and then you include &lt;code&gt;Nf6&lt;/code&gt; (rendering immediate &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt; less critical after &lt;code&gt;Nxc6&lt;/code&gt;, see diagram) Whereas with for example &lt;code&gt;5...Nf6&lt;/code&gt; (so before the bishop), you allow white an easy path to playing &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt; closing down the long diagonal and dislocating your &lt;code&gt;f6&lt;/code&gt; knight. The comparison is illustrated below:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [title &quot;Importance of early Bg7 in Dragon&quot;]&#xA; [fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 g6 5. Nc3 Bg7 (5...Nf6 6. Nxc6 bxc6 7. e5 Ng8 {without tempo, white is free to develop aggressively, no tempo invested on Be3 or on the defense of e5} (7...Nd5 {with 5...Bg7 and Be3 included, this is a good gambit, with about equal play} 8.Nxd5 cxd5 9.Qxd5 Rb8 10.e6! fxe6 11.Qe5 {forking black's rooks : this tactical shot wouldn't be available after 5...Bg7}) 8. Bc4 Bg7 9. Qf3 e6 {rather forced} 10. Bf4 {white is objectively better as they have fully developed, they have the better minor pieces with central control, they have induced important dark square weaknesses in our position by forcing e6. Instead, black is critically under developed and without any real active prospects.}) 6. Be3 Nf6 7. Nxc6 bxc6 8. e5 Ng8 {the knight is retreated with tempo as e5 is under attack. Sure it's a bit slow, but black has a healthy pawn structure, a target on e5, and a relatively easy development to follow. Two main variations exist here, 9. Bd4 Qa5 and 9. f4 f6, see Kasparov-Ivanchuk 2002 for a nice example. }&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So you see, by bearing in mind that with a tool such as the Dragon black intends to play actively and eventually for the initiative, and going through the respective variations of &lt;code&gt;5. Bg7&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;5. Nf6&lt;/code&gt; we've come to the conclusion that &lt;code&gt;Bg7&lt;/code&gt; &lt;em&gt;is&lt;/em&gt; the key move here for black in order to not lose pace with white's development/play while keeping active prospects open (make sure to go through the Ivanchuk game I mentioned in annotations). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In fairness, there are much simpler examples to use for the purpose of our discussions. Let's choose a line in the queen's gambit exchange variation (see annotations for discussions):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [title &quot;example #2: queen's gambit exchange variation&quot;]&#xA; [fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. d4 d5 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. cxd5 exd5 5. Bg5 c6 6. Qc2 {One wonders, why Qc2 so early? as opposed to e3 for example. In the exchange variation, black often struggles to create active play, and one reason is the c8 bishop which has a hard time of becoming useful. Qc2 is played early to take away the only remaining active bishop move, namely, Bf5!} (6. e3 Bf5 {black has developed their only potentially poor piece in this variation, as it went unchallenged by white.})&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In short, in the exchange variation white is committal about the centre early on (&lt;code&gt;cxd5&lt;/code&gt;) and continues to play actively with &lt;code&gt;Bg5&lt;/code&gt; forcing &lt;code&gt;c6&lt;/code&gt;, followed by the simple usual setup of &lt;code&gt;e3-Bd3-Ne2-f3&lt;/code&gt; setting up &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; push (once castled of course) and a potential minority push on the queen-side. Concretely speaking, you want to achieve all this while not allowing black to develop easily or to create active play. So you start looking more carefully at the position, and only then realise the importance of nuanced moves such as &lt;code&gt;Qc2.&lt;/code&gt; You may argue, why can black not play &lt;code&gt;g6&lt;/code&gt; immediately after &lt;code&gt;Qc2&lt;/code&gt; in order to revive the &lt;code&gt;Bf5&lt;/code&gt; idea while preparing to fianchetto the &lt;code&gt;f8&lt;/code&gt; bishop? whether or not a case can be made for that idea, the important thing is that this process of asking these kinds of questions and trying to find the answers to them on your own is how you should learn openings and how you eventually form a mindset for how to think about them in general such that you can even start developing your own systems for facing various things.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3594" LastEditorUserId="3594" LastEditDate="2018-03-08T12:51:40.383" LastActivityDate="2018-03-08T12:51:40.383" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20025" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="20028" CreationDate="2018-02-28T16:36:11.513" Score="1" ViewCount="182" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/3gmFJ.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/3gmFJ.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example in the first row and second column, Stockfish vs Houdini, the result is 27-25+7-3=-16. I understand that 27 signifies Stockfish's number of wins+ draws, similarly 25 signifies that of Houdini. But what does &quot;7-3&quot; signify? and how is the result -16? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And what does the blank in Row 1, column 7 mean? similarly in (6,11), (7,1), (7,10), (7, 12), (10,7), (11,6), (11, 12), (12,7), (12,11). Do they signify that those matchups have never happened? If so Where should I look for if I want comparison of such matchups?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This question may be weird, but please at least guide me where should I ask these questions if not the answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15921" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-02-28T20:34:16.493" LastActivityDate="2018-03-01T00:11:08.870" Title="I wanted to understand the chess engine comparison. What does this result matrix show?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20026" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20025" CreationDate="2018-02-28T19:15:33.423" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe the answer to the meaning of the numbers is at the top of the list above that matrix.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/QbV0e.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/QbV0e.png&quot; alt=&quot;column descriptions&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;As for the blank spots, yes I believe those are for games which did not occur.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15847" LastActivityDate="2018-02-28T19:15:33.423" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20027" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19174" CreationDate="2018-02-28T20:33:32.017" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you want to know whether the knight is badly placed on c3, you have to think about your plan. Normally, in d-pawn openings you want to play c4 to attack Black's hold on the center on d5. Here, this is not White's plan. Instead:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;White may want to play h4-h5 and attack Black on the kingside. This means White may want to follow up with Qd2 and 0-0-0.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Another idea is the play a gambit with e4. If Black takes dxe4, the knight isn't so bad on c3.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The badly placed knight on c3 is a small price to pay for &quot;getting it out of the way&quot;, since it wouldn't do much for the attack elsewhere (it's block in the queen's best square on d2, and a3 is an even worse square).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You are right that according to conventional chess wisdom, you shouldn't play like this. But this kind of system is not conventional! Highly creative players like Jobava play this way (In fact, this setup is named after Jobava). Check out some of his games &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/blog/IndreRe/jobava-attack-as-the-main-weapon&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7500" LastActivityDate="2018-02-28T20:33:32.017" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20028" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20025" CreationDate="2018-03-01T00:11:08.870" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;@muclux is right on the results. Check his comment. I'll answer what &quot;16&quot; mean.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Scroll further down on the page.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/g3xym.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/g3xym.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The number is the &lt;strong&gt;rating change&lt;/strong&gt;. Stockfish lost 16 rating point to Houdini, similarly Houdini won 16 points from Stockfish (convince yourself by going to the Houdini vs Stockfish cell).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2018-03-01T00:11:08.870" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20029" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19174" CreationDate="2018-03-01T10:56:04.477" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;A black player who wants to play the King's Indian, but encounters the London instead, often chooses a system with the move ...d6. For instance, the book &quot;Fighting the anti-King's Indians&quot; by Yelena Dembo advocates such a system. The pawn on d6 restricts white's bishop on f4, and common white plans such as putting a knight on e5. This system scores very well for black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With the move order 2.Bf4 3.Nc3, white threatens to play 4.e4, transposing into a Pirc. The move Bf4 isn't common in that, but Be3 and Bg5 are and they are often followed by a later Bh6 by white, so this system can transpose into a reasonably normal Pirc. That's an opening black may not want to play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So black plays ...d5 to prevent e4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a result, Nc3 is in a slightly strange square, but Black has been prevented from playing his very favourable ...d6 setup and now has to make the slightly unusual combination of ...d5 and ...g6 work somehow. This is a little explored situation and the players are on their own. The best player is likely to win. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's what Carlsen wants, as he is the best player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2018-03-01T10:56:04.477" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20030" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5969" CreationDate="2018-03-01T13:58:38.030" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Actually, I am the author of a website tool that answers the question to some extent. You can load your own PGN file and train yourself against it as a one-time exercise with no progress tracking. You can replay the exercise by revisiting the dynamic link that encodes all the chess data.&#xA;This &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.apronus.com/chess/puzzle/?p=0&amp;amp;N=0&amp;amp;w=tjcapqstivohi-tjcapqsticozsgp-tjcapqssinp-tjcapqssizoxe-tjcapqssixa-tjcapqspHdiva-tjcapqspHdicove-tjcapqspHyibocshp-tjcapqspHyinajuftkiqreu-tjcapqspHyinajuftdaeO-tjcapqspHyinampyp&amp;amp;h=%3Cb%3ERefute%20the%20original%20Hanham%20Variation%20of%20the%20Philidor%20Defense%3C%2Fb%3E%0A&amp;amp;m=9&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;sample link&lt;/a&gt; shows a demo. The task is to play White against the Hanham concept in the Philidor defense, which is considered refuted by opening theory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wrote the tool for myself and never found the time to provide a user guide but it should work for everyone once you learn how to operate it. I can help with any questions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3456" LastActivityDate="2018-03-01T13:58:38.030" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20031" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5969" CreationDate="2018-03-01T15:00:37.390" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://sourceforge.net/projects/chessx&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;ChessX&lt;/a&gt; might be something you are looking for, it has a training mode that uses a PGN file that you give to it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15847" LastActivityDate="2018-03-01T15:00:37.390" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20034" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-03-02T01:15:38.963" Score="4" ViewCount="188" Body="&lt;p&gt;Fritz Online will play all the way to the point where there's mate in one move.  In other words, if you are white and Fritz is black it will stop playing (moving) at the point any black move will be followed by mate on the part of while.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is fine, I can read the Fritz console in the lower right and it will say something like &quot;White mates&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The problem is that I want my kids to play with Fritz Online and this modality is disorienting to them.  They want to see the game play through to the actual end and get the satisfaction of completing the mate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a setting that will cause Fritz Online to play through to the end just like any regular chess program?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15928" LastActivityDate="2018-12-22T15:02:50.653" Title="Fritz Online will not finish game?" Tags="&lt;fritz&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20035" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1749" CreationDate="2018-03-02T17:33:26.240" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Composing chess problems is &quot;playing chess against one's self&quot;. Trying to find interesting and novel behaviour in the arrangements of pieces. It can be exciting and frustrating, and the feeling when the plan finally comes together into a real position is incredible. The competitive aspect, if one wants it, is that other composers are also searching for cool stuff.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8201" LastActivityDate="2018-03-02T17:33:26.240" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20036" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21838" CreationDate="2018-03-03T01:05:46.080" Score="5" ViewCount="21672" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've watched a couple of games where people play against stockfish level 8 on lichess, and they pretty much lose all the time. Is it possible for someone to beat a level 8 computer in any time between 3+0 and 15+0?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15874" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2018-03-03T09:28:49.040" LastActivityDate="2019-05-15T19:56:04.573" Title="Is it really possible to beat a stockfish level 8 computer in any time that is between 3+0 and 15+0?" Tags="&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;lichess&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="11" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20037" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19892" CreationDate="2018-03-03T18:29:22.257" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;If black takes the bishop when it's on f7, white wins. If the king is on f7, the bishop on e8, and the queen on the a1-h8 diagonal, then black wins. The bishop has to be protecting the g6 pawn, otherwise, black takes that pawn and wins. If anything else, it's a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: the starting position is in black's favor&#xA;FEN: 7k/3K1BpP/6P1/8/8/8/8/4q3 w - - 0 1&#xA;PGN:[Variant &quot;From Position&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;7k/3K1BpP/6P1/8/8/8/8/4q3 w - -&quot;]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15874" LastEditorUserId="15874" LastEditDate="2018-03-04T22:46:59.583" LastActivityDate="2018-03-04T22:46:59.583" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20038" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-03-04T03:23:11.927" Score="9" ViewCount="324" Body="&lt;p&gt;For each legal chess position there exist a shortest sequence of moves from the starting position to that position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which position requires the most moves to reach? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15806" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-09-15T02:58:11.547" LastActivityDate="2020-09-15T02:58:11.547" Title="Which chess position requires the most moves to reach?" Tags="&lt;problems&gt;&lt;records&gt;&lt;retrograde-analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20039" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20038" CreationDate="2018-03-04T09:17:58.657" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;This was published about in the &lt;a href=&quot;https://timkr.home.xs4all.nl/chess2/diary.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;latest entry of Tim Krabbé's Chess Diary&lt;/a&gt;. Harry Goldsteen has put some research into this and came up with a position which is reachable only in 185 moves:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[StartPly &quot;371&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.a4 g5 2.Ra3 g4 3.h3 g3 4.Rh2 gxh2 5.Nf3 h1=R 6.d3 d5 7.Kd2 e5 8.Nh2 a5 9.Ke3 d4+ 10.Kf3 e4+ 11.Kg3 e3 12.Qd2 exd2 13.Rb3 d1=B 14.Bf4 b5 15.Nd2 bxa4 16.Rb7 Be6 17.Ne4 Ba2 18.Nd6+ Kd7 19.Nc8 Kc6 20.Nb6 Kb5 21.Be5 Bb1 22.Bf4 a3 23.Be5 a2 24.Bf4 a1=B 25.Be5 { As in the 183- and 184-move games, White makes many waiting moves. Black ´leads´, as Goldsteen puts it - he must play optimally, although some changes in move-order are possible for him, too. } 25...Kb4 26.b3 Kc3 27.Nd5+ Kd2 28.Nb6 a4 29.Nc8 a3 30.Nb6 a2 31.Nc8 Bb2 32.Nb6 a1=B 33. Nc8 Bc1 34.Nb6 Bc3 35.Nc8 Bcb4 36.Nb6 c5 37.Na4 c4 38.Nb2 c3 39.Kf3 cxb2 40.c3 Bdc2 41.Ke4 Ne7 42.Bc7 Nd5 43.Be5 Ne3 44.Bc7 Nd1 45.e3 h5 46.Be2 Qh4+ 47.Kd5 Na6 48.Bg4 hxg4 49.Kc4 g3 50.Rb5 gxh2 51.Rb7 Re1 52.Rb5 h1=R 53.Rb7 Nc5 54.Bh2 Ne4 55.Rb5 Ng3 56.Rb7 Rhf1 57.Rb5 Nh1 58.g3 { Now White has created the smallest possible box in which Black´s promoted Rooks and Bishops manoeuver like tar through a sieve. } 58...Ke2 59.Rb7 Kf3 { The black King makes room for the white Rook so it can go to g2. In the next phase, the black Rooks must leave the box, otherwise the white Rook cannot pass. } 60.Rb5 Bfc5 61.Rb7 Re2 62.Rb5 Ba2 63.Rb7 Bcb1 64.Rb5 Rc2 65.Rb7 Re1 66.Rb5 Ree2 67.Rb7 Bd2 68.Rb5 Be1 69.Rb7 Rc1 70.Rb5 Bc2 71.Rb7 Ra1 72.Rb5 Bcb1 73. Rb7 Rc2 74.Rb5 Rc1 75.Rb7 Bc2 76.Rb5 Bab1 77.Rb7 R1a7 78.Rb5 Ba2 79.Kd5 Ra1 80.Kc4 Bab1 81.Kd5 R1a6 { Now the white Rook can enter via a5. } 82.Ra5 f5 83.Ra1 Ba2 84.Rc1 Bcb1 85.Rc2 Qh5 { Or Qg4; the Queen must be able to reach e2 in one move. } 86.Re2 Bd2 87.Re1 Bc2 88.Rg1 Bab1 89.Rg2 { The Rook has arrived. } 89...Ra1 90.Kc4 Ba2 91.Kb5 Rc1 92.Kc4 Bab1 93.Kb5 Ra1 94.Kc4 Ba2 95.Kb5 Be1 96.Kc4 Bcb1 97.Kb5 Rc2 98.Kc4 Re2 99.Kb5 Bc2 100.Kc4 Rc1 101.Kb5 Bab1 102.Kc4 Ra1 103.Kb5 Rha8 104.Kc6 Bd2 105.Kb5 Re1 106.Kc4 Rg1 107.Kb5 Ba2 108.Kc4 Bcb1 109.Kb5 Rc2 110.Kc4 Bc1 111.Kb5 Re2 112.Kc4 Ree1 113.Kb5 Ref1 114.Kc4 Bc2 115.Kb5 Bd2 116.Kc4 Rc1 117.Kb5 Bab1 118. Kc4 Ra1 119.Kb5 Ba2 120.Kc4 Be1 121.Kb5 Bcb1 122.Kc4 Rc2 123.Kb5 Ke2 { The black King must enter the box now; his first goal is a3. } 124.Kc4 Kd2 125.Kb5 Kc1 126.Kc4 Re2 127.Kb5 Kd2 128.Kc4 Bc2 129.Kb5 Rc1 130.Kc4 Bcb1 131.Kb5 Rc2 132.Kc4 f4 133.Kb5 Kc1 134.Kc4 Rcd2 135.Kb5 Bc2 136.Kc4 Kb1 137.Kb5 Ka1 138.Kc4 Bab1 139.Kb5 Ka2 140.Kc4 Ka3 141.Kb5 Ba2 142.Kc4 Bcb1 143.Kb5 Rc2 144.Kc4 Rc1 145.Kb5 Bc2 146.Kc4 Ra1 147.Kb5 Bcb1 148.Kc4 Rc2 149.Kb5 { Only now can the black Queen treacle into the box. } 149...Qe2 150.Kc6 Qd2 151.Kd5 Qc1 152.Kc6 Re2 153.Kd7 Qd2 154.Kc6 Bc2 155.Kb5 Rc1 156.Kc6 Bcb1 157.Kd7 Rc2 158.Kc6 Qc1 159.Kd7 Rcd2 160.Kc6 Bc2 161.Kd7 Qa1 162.Kc6 Bcb1 163.Kb5 Rc2 164.Kc6 Bd2 165.Kd7 Bc1 166.Kc6 Ree1 167.Kd7 Rce2 168.Kc6 Bd2 169.Kd7 Bc2 170.Kc6 Qc1 171.Kd7 Bab1 172.Kc6 Ka2 173.Kd7 Ka1 174.Kc6 Ba2 175.Kd7 Bcb1 176.Ke8 Qc2 177.Kd7 Bc1 178.Ke8 Rd2 179.Kd7 Ree2 180.Ke8 Rfe1 181.Kd7 Rgf1 182.Bg1 f3 183.Rh2 Ba3 184.Ke8 Bcb4 185.Kd8 Ba5+ { and the diagram has been reached. }&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is the current record, but&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Goldsteen does not have proof that 185 is unsurpassable - in fact, he thinks it is likely that it &lt;em&gt;can&lt;/em&gt; be surpassed.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-03-04T09:35:35.960" LastActivityDate="2018-03-04T09:35:35.960" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20040" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="20056" CreationDate="2018-03-04T10:11:12.370" Score="5" ViewCount="484" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Premise&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have always enjoyed playing recreational chess, so I know the basics and some general tactics / strategies. It was only recently though that I have gone more hardcore, so to speak, with my analysis. Namely, I'm taking the &quot;big data&quot; approach by looking at the freely available game logs (which contain hundreds of thousands of games). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I realize there has already been expert machine-learning analysis done with this data and some of it published. However, I'm doing this just because I like chess and I like to dabble with programming. I don't expect to win any Nobel prizes, but I do expect to have fun along the way. Basically I think it's cool to test out the theories or rules of thumb for their effectiveness. Like I said, I'm trying to be humble/realistic about my model specification, and there are probably some things I cannot capture from the data. Some variables/features are easier to formulate than others; which brings me to my question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to figure out if I can create a variable (aka feature) for which player has more &quot;space.&quot; Let's say we have this position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ME1kk.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ME1kk.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White is said to have a space advantage here. Maybe it's my lack of expertise, and I'm not sure exactly what &quot;space&quot; is being referred to here; I see a few different things going on. The following are my three attempts to explain &quot;space.&quot; (bear in mind I am aiming to reduce &quot;space&quot; to something quantitative, hence the nerdy-sounding explanations)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;White's pieces have a shorter average distance to the end of the board than black's. White's pawn is all the way on the 5th rank, while black's pieces are closer to his starting position&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;White has more available moves. Black is looking rather cramped, some of his pieces are getting in the way of each other.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;White controls more squares. White's light square bishop controls a longer diagonal than black's, and so forth.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is the confusing part for me, because I could easily rationalize any of the above items as being &quot;space.&quot; Citeris paribus, we could expect a correlation between some of these things, but eventually I have to settle on a precise definition of &quot;space&quot; if I'm to transform chess logs to a quantitative variable. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question:&lt;/strong&gt; Is there a precise definition ( be it in the literature or an unspoken but widely understood axiom) of the concept of &quot;space?&quot; Perhaps none of my attempts to explain space are close, and there is a 4th better definition. Either way, please feel free to weigh in.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Note:&lt;/strong&gt; All I'm asking is a precise definition. You do not have to reduce your definition to the quantitative (unless you want to!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/19645/what-is-space-on-a-chessboard?rq=1&quot;&gt;What is &amp;#39;space&amp;#39; on a chessboard?&lt;/a&gt; the accepted answer to this post hints at my 2nd definition: &quot;space in terms of the number of possible legal moves you have.&quot; Is that the overall consensus though?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15939" LastEditorUserId="15939" LastEditDate="2018-03-04T11:40:22.627" LastActivityDate="2020-11-25T07:12:59.503" Title="Formulating a Precise Definition of &quot;Space&quot; in Chess" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;programming&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20041" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="20044" CreationDate="2018-03-04T10:55:14.427" Score="10" ViewCount="2514" Body="&lt;p&gt;I read somewhere that if you're around 80 points better than another player, statistically you should get around twice as many points against the same opposition. This impressed me because it's not how we generally think about ratings. I worked out that Magnus Carlsen is about 64 times the player I am, which sounds about right.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is, can anyone verify this using the mathematics of the Elo system?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4543" LastActivityDate="2018-12-19T23:14:37.410" Title="Is 80 points FIDE equivalent to twice as good a player?" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20042" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20041" CreationDate="2018-03-04T11:25:34.607" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;This can't be true. I (rated ~1900) expect to score 100% against a 1000 player. I don't think a 1980 rated user is able to score 200% against the same opposition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In table 8.1b in the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fide.com/component/handbook/?id=197&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE rating regulations&lt;/a&gt;, you'll find the expected scores corresponding to a rating difference. A rating difference of 80 corresponds to an expected score of 0.61, which is much lower than twice the 0.5 expected score for equally rated players. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only point in the table where a rating difference of 80 corresponds to a doubled expected score is at the very end. Against opposition rated 500 points &lt;em&gt;higher&lt;/em&gt; than you, your expected score is 0.04; against opposition rated 580 points higher it's only 0.02. The expected score formula is explained &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elo_rating_system#Mathematical_details&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;on Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If Player A has a rating of R&lt;sub&gt;A&lt;/sub&gt; and Player B a rating of R&lt;sub&gt;B&lt;/sub&gt;, the exact formula &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logistic_curve&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;(using the logistic curve)&lt;/a&gt; for the expected score of Player A is &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;E&lt;sub&gt;A&lt;/sub&gt; = 1 / (1 + 10 &lt;sup&gt;(R&lt;sub&gt;B&lt;/sub&gt; - R&lt;sub&gt;A&lt;/sub&gt;) / 400&lt;/sup&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-03-04T20:54:05.920" LastActivityDate="2018-03-04T20:54:05.920" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20044" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20041" CreationDate="2018-03-04T13:09:53.747" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;Given the equation that models the expected score (already posted by Glorfindel), it is mathematically impossible for player &lt;strong&gt;A&lt;/strong&gt;, rated &lt;em&gt;X&lt;/em&gt;+80 to score twice as much as player &lt;strong&gt;B&lt;/strong&gt; (rated &lt;em&gt;X&lt;/em&gt;) against the same opposition (rated &lt;em&gt;Y&lt;/em&gt;). The closest you can get is if &lt;em&gt;Y&lt;/em&gt; is very high, in which case the odds of winning are vanishingly small but &lt;strong&gt;A&lt;/strong&gt; has 58% higher chances than &lt;strong&gt;B&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you change the rating difference to 120 points, then the assertion can be true, again given that &lt;em&gt;Y&lt;/em&gt; is much higher. For example, if &lt;em&gt;X&lt;/em&gt;=1000 and &lt;em&gt;Y&lt;/em&gt;=2000, player &lt;strong&gt;A&lt;/strong&gt; is expected to score 0.006 and player &lt;strong&gt;B&lt;/strong&gt; 0.003. Also if &lt;strong&gt;A&lt;/strong&gt; plays against &lt;strong&gt;B&lt;/strong&gt;, the expected scores are 0.67 to 0.33, so in that sense you can say that a 120-point rating difference makes a player &quot;twice as good&quot;. If we consider a less extreme value for &lt;em&gt;Y&lt;/em&gt;, say 1400, then the expected scores are 0.166 for &lt;strong&gt;A&lt;/strong&gt; and 0.091 for &lt;strong&gt;B&lt;/strong&gt;, where &lt;strong&gt;A&lt;/strong&gt; scores almost but not quite twice as much as &lt;strong&gt;B&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12523" LastActivityDate="2018-03-04T13:09:53.747" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20045" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20041" CreationDate="2018-03-04T13:39:55.873" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It depends on the FIDE ratings of the players. If Person A is rated 1300 and Person B is 1220, A is not twice as good as B.  Conversly, Carlsen is rated 2843 FIDE, and I would argue he is at least twice as good as a 2763 player (if they played 10 matches, each match 10 games long, Carlsen would almost definitely win 9/10 to 10/10 matches).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason for this is that it becomes harder to keep increasing as you get a higher rating. 99% of chess players are below 2200, even though there's an extra 600 points above. The trend on a graph of rating vs #players is not linear; it is closer to an exponential decay function. There are vast number of players under 1400, but only an extremely select few over 2800 at a time (usually 5 players max).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess is a game where most people can go to roughly 1800ish with hard and dedicated work. However, only people with true talent can continue past that point.  Then, once hitting 2000, an even smaller number of people can continue forward.  This phenomena becomes stronger as you climb up the rating latter, which explains why such a small percent can ever make it to GM level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a result, if Person A and Person B are in a high rating bracket, Person A being 80 points higher indicates he truly has an additional &quot;special something&quot;. Meanwhile, if A and B were in a low rating bracket, A being 80 points higher could be attributed to something like playing in a few more tournaments.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT - Carlsen example fixed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastEditorUserId="12873" LastEditDate="2018-03-04T21:15:31.577" LastActivityDate="2018-03-04T21:15:31.577" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20046" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="20048" CreationDate="2018-03-04T13:54:18.343" Score="5" ViewCount="340" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ohMNs.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ohMNs.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there any percent chance for the white to win?&#xA;Seems like greed for the opposite queen on behalf of sacrificing his pieces has cost him this game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The view is from the white player's end.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14098" LastEditorUserId="16057" LastEditDate="2018-03-22T17:10:41.173" LastActivityDate="2018-03-22T17:10:41.173" Title="Can White win in this game (Q vs R+N+P)?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20047" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20046" CreationDate="2018-03-04T15:50:18.760" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;If, as you claim, it's viewed from White's side, then the black pawn is almost promoted and according to &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.shredderchess.com/online-chess/online-databases/endgame-database.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Shredder&lt;/a&gt;, White will even &lt;em&gt;lose&lt;/em&gt; in 13 moves or less.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/uTzlw.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/uTzlw.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;sub&gt;(no time right now to analyze/post variations, sorry)&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2018-03-04T15:50:18.760" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20048" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20046" CreationDate="2018-03-04T15:51:56.743" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, there is no chance for white to draw, let alone win, this game. In fact, if you enter this into an endgame tablebase it will tell you that it is mate in 13 moves with perfect play from both sides. One possible line is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;8/4K3/8/4Q3/8/4nk2/3p4/4r3 w - - 0 1&#xA;&#xA;1. Qh5+ Ng4+ 2. Kd6 d1=Q+ 3. Qd5 Qxd5+ 4. Kxd5 Rd1+ 5. Kc5 Ke4 6. Kc6  Ne5+ 7. Kc5 Rd2 8. Kb5 Kd4 9. Kb6 Rb2+ 10. Kc7 Kd5 11. Kd8 Kd6 12. Kc8 Rb1 13. Kd8 Rb8++&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even if you don't have a tablebase, the position is quite obviously won for black. White's only hope in this position would be if he could capture the black pawn or if there was perpetual check. Neither of this is possible here, basically because all black pieces are working together and can protect each other and (and this is &lt;strong&gt;important&lt;/strong&gt;), black is threatening a discovered check/pin which helps to prevent perpetual checks: basically if white checks with the queen black's knight can block the check, while at the same time giving check himself, thereby gaining a tempo for queening the pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you moved the white king away from this pin, it might very well be draw by perpetual check. For instance the same position with the white king on b8 is a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2018-03-04T15:51:56.743" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20049" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20040" CreationDate="2018-03-04T16:12:14.653" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;From a human, chess player perspective, &lt;em&gt;space&lt;/em&gt; is something you talk about in opening/middlegame (rarely in endgames), when there are many pieces on the board. In most normal openings it is typically determined by how far up the board you moved your pawns, particularly the central pawns. Think about something like the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.365chess.com/eco/C02_French_advance_variation&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;advance French variation&lt;/a&gt;, where white has more space, because he has got a pawn on the 5th rank, while black did not move any pawn beyond the center of the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By moving the pawns further than your opponent, you gain more &quot;space&quot; for operating your pieces, i.e., the number of possible moves should increase. Conversely your pawns might very well limit your opponent's options, not necessarily the number of legal moves, but the number of moves that don't lose material. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you want to do this automatically, I believe that checking how far the pawns moved is not a good measure for space, because you would have to distinguish between central pawns and others, and also some pawn structures might be more effective in creating space than others.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Number of legal moves, could be a measure, but I would suspect that this might not be very sensitive, because even in your example the difference might be small.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you don't mind the calculation overhead, I would suggest &lt;strong&gt;number of legal moves that do not lose material immediately&lt;/strong&gt; as a measure. This would take care of the fact that the player with less space is limited in developing options, because attractive developing squares like (for black) f6, c6, d6, e6, might be under attack by pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd also experiment with ignoring moves on the 1st/8th rows.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2018-03-04T16:12:14.653" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20050" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9801" CreationDate="2018-03-04T18:59:11.423" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would recommend lichess, as it's just completely free to do chess tactics whenever you want and everything else.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://lichess.org/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15874" LastActivityDate="2018-03-04T18:59:11.423" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20051" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19998" CreationDate="2018-03-04T19:11:25.870" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's 99.99% a draw. The only reason why it's not 100% a draw is that if one side is just being lazy, they could be checkmated by the other side.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The mate would be the king in the corner, the knight right beside it, the other side's king 2 square in front of it, and the other side's knight on the only other square where it can check the enemy king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;FEN: 6nk/5N2/6K1/8/8/8/8/8 w - -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;URL: &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/editor/6nk/5N2/6K1/8/8/8/8/8_w_-_-&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://lichess.org/editor/6nk/5N2/6K1/8/8/8/8/8_w_-_-&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(did the position on lichess)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15874" LastEditorUserId="15874" LastEditDate="2018-03-04T22:25:15.683" LastActivityDate="2018-03-04T22:25:15.683" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20053" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20040" CreationDate="2018-03-05T05:33:37.670" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I define space as a mixture of mobility and squares controlled.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[fen &quot;rbk3br/2p2p2/1pP2Pp1/pP4Pp/P6P/8/4R2K/4R3 w - - 0 0&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black is completely lost due to his lack of space.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[fen &quot;8/2p2p2/1pP1kPp1/pP1rr1Pp/P6P/2K5/4R3/4R3 w - - 0 0&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black is just as cramped, but his greater mobility and more active king gives him a much better game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT:  From &quot;Elements of Positional Evaluation&quot; by Dan Heisman.  Section 3.3 Space&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So to better understand space, we must once more return to mobility.  What is important to realize is that space depends on mobility; that is, mobility &quot;defines&quot; space.  This means that no matter how the pieces are situated, the player with more space is really the one with more actual and actual global mobility, despite what the pawn structure may seem to indicate.  For example, in a closed position where White's pawns seem more advanced, if Black's pieces, through open files or diagonals, can &quot;point&quot; through and around the pawn mass in some way that gives Black the superior actual mobility, then it is he who may seem to obtain the space advantage.  This is additionally made posible because pieces are not legally bound to stay behind either side's pawns.  Indeed, an over ambitious early push of a pawn mass somethimes leaves one's pieces scattered to the defensive at some later time because the opposition was not effectively reduced in total actual mobility and god behind the advanced pawns.  So, whereas space is an existing and useful term, it does not qualify as a basic element.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12449" LastEditorUserId="12449" LastEditDate="2018-03-11T00:06:08.683" LastActivityDate="2018-03-11T00:06:08.683" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20054" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20040" CreationDate="2018-03-05T16:40:41.853" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;One definition that I've seen, I believe it was in Larry Evans' book, &lt;em&gt;New Ideas in Chess&lt;/em&gt;, but it may have been another book, is that the amount of space one controls can be determined counting the number of squares you directly attack on your opponents side of the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the position shown, white's space count is 8, and black's is 2. White is directly attacking b5, c5, d5, e5, f5, g5, c6, and e6, while black is only attacking d4 and f4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9025" LastActivityDate="2018-03-05T16:40:41.853" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20056" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20040" CreationDate="2018-03-05T17:16:28.920" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Considerations such as yours for a definition of &quot;space&quot; have long been a part of computer chess, and I suggest looking to &lt;a href=&quot;https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Space&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;that literature&lt;/a&gt; for ways to approach a precise, quantitative definition. The ideas you already outline in your list touch on things like &lt;a href=&quot;https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Mobility&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;piece mobility&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Square%20Control&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;control of squares&lt;/a&gt; (and in particular, &lt;a href=&quot;https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Center%20Control&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;the center&lt;/a&gt;) that generally go into the evaluation by engines of who has, in some sense, more space.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You write, of your distinct starting points, &quot;I could easily rationalize any of the above items ... we could expect a correlation between some of these things, but eventually I have to settle.&quot; I would stress that &lt;strong&gt;you don't actually have to choose&lt;/strong&gt; from among these as though they are distinct, opposing alternatives. Rather, just as engine evaluations take myriad considerations about material, space, king safety, etc. for a given position and boil it all down to a single numerical value, the same can of course be done for just the &quot;space&quot; component of things, making a composite score that simultaneously reflects e.g. the relative mobility and the relative square control of the two sides. Again, I would recommend looking at how these things are actually implemented in engines, and to go from there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="167" LastActivityDate="2018-03-05T17:16:28.920" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20057" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6194" CreationDate="2018-03-05T18:04:40.283" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the Jan 2018 Laws (and indeed the previous version too, but that's history) the rule is replaced with:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;9.6.1 [The game is drawn if] the same position has appeared, as in 9.2.2 [Draw by Repetition] at least five times.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And the game ends immediately, like mate, pat, dead position &amp;amp; 75 moves. So this issue is resolved. I do feel that, little by little, the FIDE Laws are improving.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8201" LastActivityDate="2018-03-05T18:04:40.283" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20058" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-03-05T22:19:34.060" Score="5" ViewCount="1723" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there a chess engine which you can use regardless of the game's rules? For example, I want to create my own chess version in which queen will also be able to move as knight, or just a 10x10-square version of chess. I am wondering, is there an engine in which I can put &quot;my rules&quot; in, and then not only it will be able to play, but also it will beat any human in that version?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know that Stockfish is open source, but how easy would it be to edit it according to &quot;your rules?”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If not, when it is expected to happen? I mean during the next 5 years, or after 20 years.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15949" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-10-02T22:17:22.293" LastActivityDate="2019-10-02T22:17:22.293" Title="Custom chess (game) engine" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;rules&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="20059" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20058" CreationDate="2018-03-05T22:33:10.987" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am not aware of any such thing existing. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To some extent it is possible to program an engine that can take custom rules. However, naturally, you would have to decide &lt;em&gt;beforehand&lt;/em&gt; on what kind of customizations you want to allow: e.g. customizing the movement of pieces, the board size.... &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for your second request (it will beat any human in that version), this is impossible with traditional chess engines, because they rely heavily on evaluation functions which are specific and finely tuned to the specific variant of chess. For instance (just one example), if you let the queen move like a knight it would change its material value to some unknown number.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The second part could probably be solved in alpha zero type of chess engines, but those are not available yet for the general publice, as far as I am aware.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2018-03-05T22:33:10.987" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20060" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20058" CreationDate="2018-03-05T22:50:15.477" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure if there is one already out there, but here are some issues to consider.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An engine has two main tasks: generating positions, and evaluating positions. It shouldn't be too hard in principle to create an engine that allows modifications to the rules and generates the positions; the search algorithm itself is pretty generic. The evaluation of the position is trickier since it tends to based on heuristics such as piece value, space, king safety, etc. which have been developed over the years for standard chess. The existing heuristics would likely be suboptimal for your variant, so you'd need to come up with them yourself if you don't want your engine to be too naive about strategy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An engine such as Google AlphaZero doesn't need the heuristics because it can &quot;discover&quot; them by training, playing many times against itself. That would be an interesting way of implementing engines for chess variants, but I don't think it's readily available. Maybe some more lightweight machine-learning alternatives exist.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A caveat of traditional engines such as Stockfish is that they have been heavily optimized to save memory and time, and some of these optimizations might make drastic rule changes difficult. But if this is just for fun and research, a simpler, less optimized engine seems feasible and could be developed pretty quickly by a motivated programmer (shouldn't take years).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12523" LastActivityDate="2018-03-05T22:50:15.477" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20061" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20058" CreationDate="2018-03-05T23:01:29.943" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, there is. The FairyMax engine is quite flexible, it changes how it plays chess from a configuration text file. Please take a look at the official version:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://home.hccnet.nl/h.g.muller/fmax.ini&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://home.hccnet.nl/h.g.muller/fmax.ini&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do you see Capablanca chess, where the board is bigger? Do you see all those variants?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some links:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.open-aurec.com/wbforum/viewtopic.php?f=19&amp;amp;t=53353&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.open-aurec.com/wbforum/viewtopic.php?f=19&amp;amp;t=53353&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.open-aurec.com/wbforum/viewtopic.php?f=2&amp;amp;t=53826&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.open-aurec.com/wbforum/viewtopic.php?f=2&amp;amp;t=53826&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You'll need to learn how to use the file. Please ask on the Winboard forum for any further assistance (I don't think there is proper documentation, you just need to ask). Pay close attention to H.G.Muller, he is the man who did all of that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stockfish doesn't allow easy transition to a variant. It's still possible but you'll need to battle at the source code level. Not simple. Nothing will change unless you rewrite Stockfish from scratch. Use Winboard/Fairymax, &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; Stockfish. Winboard/Fairymax is the best variant engine available.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2018-03-05T23:01:29.943" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20062" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="20064" CreationDate="2018-03-06T00:46:01.533" Score="3" ViewCount="606" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm looking for a chess opening that would result in something similar to the following end-positionings: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A nice open diagonal for the bishops.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/lmy0jm.png&quot; alt=&quot;2 bishops attacking right side&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or maybe the other way:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/p5A0gm.png&quot; alt=&quot;2 bishops attacking left side&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, what are the strengths &amp;amp; weaknesses?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2873" LastEditorUserId="7792" LastEditDate="2018-03-06T12:51:33.740" LastActivityDate="2018-03-06T15:44:28.283" Title="Which opening will develop both bishops like the following diagrams?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;bishops&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20063" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20062" CreationDate="2018-03-06T01:10:08.153" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;Danish Gambit is a possibility. There is &lt;strong&gt;no free lunch&lt;/strong&gt;, no strong players will allow you develop your bishops like what your described without any compensation. You will need to gambit two pawns for this line.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danish_Gambit&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/o1zzk.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/o1zzk.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2018-03-06T01:36:01.107" LastActivityDate="2018-03-06T01:36:01.107" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20064" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20062" CreationDate="2018-03-06T01:18:17.937" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;As far as putting your light-squared bishop in d3 with an open diagonal is concerned, you could look at the London system as an example. The difference with respect to your first diagram is that the dark-squared bishop goes to f4 and the b, c, and d pawns stay one square behind.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Getting your pawn to d5 in the opening can be difficult because Black has to allow it; in many queen's pawn openings black replies ...d5 on move 1 or 2. One example where Black doesn't is the king's indian defense, but in that one Black quickly takes control of the a1-h8 diagonal which can stop you from opening it safely (you could start with 1.b3 to take that diagonal first, but then you are unlikely to be able to complete the rest of your plan).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In short, I think it's unlikely that you'll be able to develop in such a way. Five out of your first seven moves are pawn moves and Black has lots of ways to interfere with your plan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(I see now an answer that does get the bishops where you want to, but at the cost of two pawns. Not sure if that's a price you are willing to pay.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12523" LastActivityDate="2018-03-06T01:18:17.937" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20065" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-03-06T02:37:09.103" Score="5" ViewCount="185" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;R3nk21B1K4/4r3/4P3/3Pb3/8/3P4/8/1B1K4 w - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White to play and ?, D.Antonini 09/2017&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wouldn't qualify this position as a study, at least according to modern canons for study composition, as there are a few duals (interversion ones) and a few other defaults. I prefer to present it as a practical endgame position worth having a look at.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore I won't even give a specific statement : white to play, and it's up to you to figure out if they can win or only draw. I must warn you it's rather difficult to analyse this position accurately. There is one concealed idea (and programs won't be able to help much figuring it out).  But I'm sure you'll feel pretty happy once you manage to figure it all out - if you do (but with brillant chess composers like Noam Elkies around, I'm sure some of you will manage to).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14778" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-05-28T21:51:18.253" LastActivityDate="2020-05-28T21:51:18.253" Title="Endgame analysis : white to play and..?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;problems&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="9" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20067" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19679" CreationDate="2018-03-06T02:48:41.047" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, sometimes knight are useful to fork pieces and stuff, but 3 of your pawns for a knight, in this position, is bad because now black has two connected passed pawns that could be put into good use during the endgame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15874" LastActivityDate="2018-03-06T02:48:41.047" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20068" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20065" CreationDate="2018-03-06T09:14:28.603" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;First thoughts:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We are obviously looking for a win for White. Making a draw is no challenge, you just have to exchange either the rook or your bishop even if you lose all three pawns in the process. 1.d4, 2.Bg6, 3.Bxe8 is a straitforward draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If we do nothing dramatic, Black can blockade with ...Kg7 and ...Bd6, when he cannot be worse. So let's go for direct play trying to exploit the pin on the 8th rank: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.d4 Bd6 (or 1...Bd4 when 2.Bg6 might be the best try but the hand wants to play 2.d6 Rxe6 3.d7 Bf6 (or Bb6) and Black seems to draw thanks to ...Kg7 or ...Rd6+ - looks like a good line in which one can look for pretty ideas...) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.Bg6 Kg7 (Black can also wait with his bishop, but White will try to bring in his king and maybe create a zugzwang of some sort) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3.Bxe8 (3.Rxe8 Rxe8 4.Bxe8 Kf8 is a dead draw) and with the rooks on the board White may well be able to break the blockade.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well, there is probably a win hiding somewhere in those lines, but it is not an easy one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastActivityDate="2018-03-06T09:14:28.603" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20069" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20062" CreationDate="2018-03-06T15:44:28.283" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is quite meaningless to discuss openings for one side only. Any opening between reasonably advanced players is always a struggle for an advantage and black has many ways to interfere with your plans.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Taking your first diagram for instance as an example, with the same number of moves (7), black could for instance achieve the following setup:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;rnbq1rk1/ppp3bp/3p1np1/3Ppp2/2P5/1P1BP3/PB3PPP/RN1QK1NR w KQkq - 0 14&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which looks perfectly fine to me. White's bishops are not all that much threatening anymore and black has good control of central squares and potential for a king side attack. You can get a similar setup for your second example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you do want to play an opening without having to care what black does (a so called &lt;em&gt;system opening&lt;/em&gt;), I suggest to look into the &lt;strong&gt;Colle-Zuckertort&lt;/strong&gt; system&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;8/8/8/8/3P4/1P1BPN2/PBPN1PPP/R2QK2R w KQkq - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or &lt;strong&gt;King's Indian Attack&lt;/strong&gt; like structures, both of which might appeal to you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2018-03-06T15:44:28.283" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20070" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20058" CreationDate="2018-03-06T19:10:33.013" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just a random pointer. There is a 15-year old commercial Windows program called &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zillions_of_Games&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Zillions of Games&lt;/a&gt; that allows one to define arbitrary board games (using a simple scripting language), and includes an AI that plays them (or at least tries to). I have never used it myself, but a friend of mine was a fan and thought that the AI was not bad for what it did. (though surely not Stockfish-level).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The site seems to be still online, and at least the demo can be downloaded.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12957" LastActivityDate="2018-03-06T19:10:33.013" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20071" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-03-06T21:31:01.653" Score="5" ViewCount="546" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was looking at Fritz Online (&lt;a href=&quot;https://fritz.chessbase.com/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://fritz.chessbase.com/&lt;/a&gt;) engine's parameters/performance. Here is screen relating to one of made moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/yJdit.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/yJdit.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It means that there was a general depth equals to 15 but some branches were even explored to depth 39. Engine was analysing at average speed 530k positions per second. It lasted 5 sec. so ~2.6M nodes were evaluated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's consider branching factor 3 at each level. Then there are 3^15=14M leaves to evaluate (not taking into account internal nodes). As we see in case of branching factor 3 we have more nodes to analyze (14M) than it really took place (2.6M) (not even considering branches explored deeper than 15). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Branching factor in chess is aproximately 35. I'm aware there are many, many sophisticated techniques to prune branches in search tree. But really from 35 to less than 3? How it's possible that more than 90% of branches are pruned?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Two remarks:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Provided parameters/performance come from phase between opening and middlegame. This is NOT taken from ending where branching factor is significantly lower.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Depth 15 is not something unusual. In most cases program performed analysis to depth between 13 and 16 in couple of seconds.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8707" LastActivityDate="2018-03-10T03:57:00.213" Title="Do chess engines really prune more than 90% of branches?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;depth&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20072" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18069" CreationDate="2018-03-06T21:36:54.973" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Nobody mentioned that you have to be quick enough. So if the increment (or delay or bonus) is 5s, the effect is when your turn comes and you move within the increment value of 5s, you gain 5s. If you make a move after that 5s has passed, nothing gets added.&#xA;Example, your, say at 17th turn,  you have 4:07 left on your clock. You starts to think and after 2s, when your clock is left with 4:07-:02=4:05 you move. Your clock increases to 4:10 from 4:05. On the other hand, if you make the move after 6s, when the clock is at 4:01, it remains at 4:01.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why the term 'delay'? Not sure. The effect is not same if the clock starts with a delay of 5s. So if you move within that, the clock remains same and if not it starts counting down. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15954" LastActivityDate="2018-03-06T21:36:54.973" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20073" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-03-07T13:01:28.590" Score="2" ViewCount="103" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have Fritz 14 SE on Windows. If I set it to analyse a game or position, when I come back it has thrown away my game/position and is analysing some other position, which I think it has got from the internet. This does not happen if I disconnect my computer from the modem, but that is a nuisance. Does anyone know how to stop this? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11862" LastActivityDate="2018-03-07T13:01:28.590" Title="Stopping Fritz from throwing away my position" Tags="&lt;fritz&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2019-06-23T09:15:06.940" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20074" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-03-07T15:57:51.770" Score="8" ViewCount="441" Body="&lt;p&gt;While I know taking making any notes during a game is against the rules (and &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.facebook.com/wesleyso/posts/10152886311127857&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wesley So was disqualified for this&lt;/a&gt;), does this include denoting the time usage after each move?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12953" LastEditorUserId="15969" LastEditDate="2018-03-08T13:55:28.070" LastActivityDate="2018-03-08T13:55:28.070" Title="Taking notes of time usage during game" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;time-management&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20075" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20074" CreationDate="2018-03-07T16:11:20.927" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;FIDE rules allow you to record the time:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;8.1.4     The scoresheet shall be used only for recording the moves, the times of the clocks, offers of a draw, matters relating to a claim and&#xA;  other relevant data.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=208&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=208&amp;amp;view=article&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;USCF rules also allow you to record the time:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;20C. Use of notes prohibited. The use of notes made during the game as&#xA;  an aid to memory is forbidden, aside from the actual recording of the&#xA;  moves, draw offers, and clock times, and the header information&#xA;  normally found on a scoresheet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;U.S. Chess Federation. United States Chess Federation's Official Rules of Chess, Sixth Edition (Kindle Locations 1925-1927). Diversified Publishing. Kindle Edition. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12523" LastActivityDate="2018-03-07T16:11:20.927" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20076" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17712" CreationDate="2018-03-07T16:25:44.027" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would like to add another example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;A rook can isolate a lonely king from a portion of the board by forming a barrier. A bishop cannot; for that same task you need 2 bishops.&#xA;That means, roughly, 1R~2B&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;2 rooks can form a barrier that blocks a knight.&#xA;2 bishops cannot; for that same task you need 3 bishops.&#xA;In this other scenario we have, roughly, 2R~3B&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Averaging 1. and 2., we see that the quotient R/B lies between 1.5 and 2.&#xA;Which seems to be in accordance to the theoretical values R~5P vs B~3P.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15958" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-03-07T17:32:42.760" LastActivityDate="2018-03-07T17:32:42.760" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20077" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19396" CreationDate="2018-03-07T20:36:42.950" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Suppose we only allow chess pieces (so excluding all shogis) and only a 2-dimensional board. Then there are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Double Chess (II) (Hayward, 1916) (16 files x 12 ranks = 192 squares)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Fortress chess (16x16 minus 8x2 off the centre of each side = 192 squares)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Four-handed chess (many variants use a board 14x14 minus 3x3 off each corner = 160 squares)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;s: David Pritchard. The Encyclopedia of Chess Variants. pub. Games and Puzzles Publications.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10380" LastActivityDate="2018-03-07T20:36:42.950" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20078" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9801" CreationDate="2018-03-08T04:17:26.600" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Garry Kasparov's MasterClass at &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.masterclass.com/classes/garry-kasparov-teaches-chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.masterclass.com/classes/garry-kasparov-teaches-chess&lt;/a&gt; has some great examples.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user11382" LastActivityDate="2018-03-08T04:17:26.600" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20079" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9801" CreationDate="2018-03-08T06:07:04.470" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://innokuo.altervista.org/chesshero.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess Hero&lt;/a&gt; is a good program with computer analysis, but you have to provide your own pgn file(s).&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Any pgn reader will display pgn files, but a chessbase reader allows for special question-based training.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12449" LastActivityDate="2018-03-08T06:07:04.470" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20081" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="20086" CreationDate="2018-03-08T18:31:27.423" Score="1" ViewCount="284" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was following a tutorial for making a chess engine and in that, while writing the alpha beta pruning function the tutorial before checking for all possible moves generated , checks weather the current side is in check or not. If in check the depth was increased and i couldn't understand the reason. I am fairly new to chess engine programming and have searched about this but couldn't find anything relevant.&#xA;Any help will be much appreciated.Thanks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is the code for alpha beta pruning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;function AlphaBeta(depth, alpha, beta)&#xA;{&#xA;    SearchController.nodes++;&#xA;    if (depth &amp;lt;= 0)&#xA;    {&#xA;        return Evaluate();&#xA;    }&#xA;&#xA;    //fiftyMove rule or if a position is Repeated&#xA;    if ((IsRepeated() || GameBoard.fiftyMove &amp;gt;= 100) &amp;amp;&amp;amp; GameBoard.hisPly != 0)&#xA;        return 0;&#xA;&#xA;    if (GameBoard.ply &amp;gt; MAXDEPTH - 1 )&#xA;        return Evaluate();&#xA;&#xA;    //this is the line i am talking about&#xA;    var InCheck = SqAttacked(GameBoard.pieceList[Kings[GameBoard.side] * 10] , GameBoard.side ^ 1 );&#xA;    if (InCheck)  {&#xA;        depth++; //&amp;lt;---------HERE&#xA;    }&#xA;&#xA;    var score = -INFINITE;&#xA;&#xA;    GenerateMoves();&#xA;&#xA;    var Move = NOMOVE, MoveNum = 0, BestMove = NOMOVE;&#xA;    var legal = 0; // To see weather any legal moves are possible&#xA;    var start = GameBoard.moveListStart[GameBoard.ply], end = GameBoard.moveListStart[GameBoard.ply + 1];&#xA;&#xA;    for(MoveNum = start; MoveNum &amp;lt; end; MoveNum++)&#xA;    {&#xA;        Move = GameBoard.moveList[MoveNum];&#xA;&#xA;        if (!MakeMove(Move))&#xA;            continue;&#xA;&#xA;        legal++;&#xA;&#xA;        score = -AlphaBeta(depth - 1, -beta, -alpha);&#xA;&#xA;        TakeMoveBack();&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;        if (score &amp;gt; alpha)&#xA;        {&#xA;            if(score &amp;gt;= beta)&#xA;                return beta;&#xA;&#xA;            alpha = score;&#xA;            BestMove = Move;&#xA;        }&#xA;&#xA;        console.log('For move : ' + PrMove(Move) + ' Score : ' + score );&#xA;    }&#xA;&#xA;    if (BestMove != NOMOVE)&#xA;    {&#xA;        StorePvMove(BestMove);&#xA;    }&#xA;&#xA;    if (legal == 0)&#xA;    {&#xA;        if (SqAttacked(GameBoard.pieceList[Kings[GameBoard.side] * 10] , GameBoard.side ^ 1))&#xA;        {&#xA;            return MATE - GameBoard.ply;&#xA;        }&#xA;        else return 0;&#xA;    }&#xA;&#xA;    console.log(&quot;&quot;);&#xA;    console.log(&quot;Best Move at Height : &quot; + depth + ' Move : ' + PrMove(BestMove) + ' Score : ' + alpha);&#xA;    return alpha;&#xA;&#xA;}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15971" LastEditorUserId="9025" LastEditDate="2018-03-09T04:43:45.243" LastActivityDate="2018-03-09T04:43:45.243" Title="Why do we increase depth of search for a mate detection in alpha beta pruning?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;chess-ai&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20082" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2018-03-08T18:49:35.387" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2018-03-08T18:49:35.387" LastActivityDate="2018-03-08T18:49:35.387" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20083" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2018-03-08T18:49:35.387" Score="0" Body="Questions related to computer chess that involve artificial intelligence (e.g. machine learning)." OwnerUserId="10867" LastEditorUserId="10867" LastEditDate="2018-03-09T12:44:18.983" LastActivityDate="2018-03-09T12:44:18.983" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20084" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2018-03-08T18:52:04.257" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2018-03-08T18:52:04.257" LastActivityDate="2018-03-08T18:52:04.257" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20085" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2018-03-08T18:52:04.257" Score="0" Body="Questions related to Aaron Nimzowitsch's book 'Mein System' (1925 – 1927; 'My System'), which is considered one of the early works on hypermodernism in chess. Use this tag with the [aaron-nimzowitsch] tag." OwnerUserId="10867" LastEditorUserId="10867" LastEditDate="2018-03-09T12:44:23.407" LastActivityDate="2018-03-09T12:44:23.407" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20086" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20081" CreationDate="2018-03-08T23:14:52.940" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can see more than one reason for that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One reason is that after a check there are very few moves available: usually there are 30 moves available, but after a check there are usually at most 4 or 5. So that move doesn't count as a full ply if you want to measure the size of the resulting tree, and in the same search time you can go deeper.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another reason, and I think it is the most important, is that a check is a forcing move, and consequences of a forcing move must be considered more deeply. So it is good to go deeper after a check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that in this way, the program will tend to analyze all forced sequences of consecutive checks very deep, in this way it can easily find all perpetual checks and many forced mates. So this is can be very useful.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15668" LastActivityDate="2018-03-08T23:14:52.940" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20087" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20081" CreationDate="2018-03-09T00:26:33.443" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is known as &lt;strong&gt;Quiescence Search&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Quiescence+Search&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Quiescence+Search&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The purpose of this search is to only evaluate &quot;quiet&quot; positions, or&#xA;  positions where there are no winning tactical moves to be made. This&#xA;  search is needed to avoid the horizon effect. Simply stopping your&#xA;  search when you reach the desired depth and then evaluate, is very&#xA;  dangerous. Consider the situation where the last move you consider is&#xA;  QxP. If you stop there and evaluate, you might think that you have won&#xA;  a pawn. But what if you were to search one move deeper and find that&#xA;  the next move is PxQ? You didn't win a pawn, you actually lost a&#xA;  queen. Hence the need to make sure that you are evaluating only&#xA;  quiescent (quiet) positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2018-03-09T00:26:33.443" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20088" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="20090" CreationDate="2018-03-09T09:00:13.693" Score="3" ViewCount="147" Body="&lt;p&gt;I came across this in the PGN standard on &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.saremba.de/chessgml/standards/pgn/pgn-complete.htm#c9&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this site&lt;/a&gt;, section 17, for alternative piece identifiers (emphasis mine):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;English language piece names are used to define the letter set for identifying chesspieces in PGN movetext. However, authors of programs which are used only for local presentation or scanning of chess move data may find it convenient to use piece letter codes common in their locales. This is not a problem &lt;strong&gt;as long as PGN data that resides in archival storage or that is exchanged among programs still uses the SAN (English) piece letter codes: &amp;quot;PNBRQK&amp;quot;.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Followed by a table of symbols for different languages.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first part seems to suggest that one can use identifiers from other languages to represent the pieces if one so wishes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, the highlighted part seems to contradict that, saying that, ultimately, the PGN should use the English identifiers and not those of any other language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It appears that a mistake in my understanding caused this contradiction, so I'd be glad if someone could please clarify it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;My question&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can one use symbols from languages other than English for representing pieces in a PGN file?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Would something like this work (using the piece identifiers in German)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &amp;quot;Casual game&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Site &amp;quot;Hogwarts&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Date &amp;quot;2018.03.09&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Round &amp;quot;1&amp;quot;]&#xA;[White &amp;quot;Malfoy, Draco&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Black &amp;quot;Weasley, Ronald&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Result &amp;quot;*&amp;quot;]&#xA;[TimeControl &amp;quot;1/15+1&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot; &amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Sf3 Sc6 3. Lb5 Sf6 4. O-O Sxe4 *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13565" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2018-03-09T10:48:07.687" Title="Can one use alternative identifiers (from languages other than English) for chesspieces in PGN?" Tags="&lt;pgn&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20089" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20088" CreationDate="2018-03-09T10:42:56.267" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The specification you have in your link has no practical meaning as the format is not enforced consistently. Steven J. Edwards introduced the format, but he didn't have authority to control how programmers implement PGN.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Most PGN parser would only support the English language.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've been distributing PGN parsing softwares for years, but I don't think I'll add foreign language support. I assume anyone who is intelligently capable of playing chess would be able to read English piece identifiers. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2018-03-09T10:48:07.687" LastActivityDate="2018-03-09T10:48:07.687" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20090" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20088" CreationDate="2018-03-09T10:43:26.640" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I read it like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The standard is to use the English piece names. Of course, we can't stop authors to adapt this standard in their own programs (sometimes, it might make sense). But pretty please, do always stick to the English names for any data that might be shared between multiple programs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, if I write a program to automatically scan games from old German chess magazines, it makes no sense to let my program try to parse the standard PGN piece names. I'd use German piece names instead, and this is fine in the environment of my own program. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But as soon as I want to store the PGN files in a database, I must translate them to English piece names or my database browser or whatever other program won't be able to read them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13433" LastActivityDate="2018-03-09T10:43:26.640" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20092" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-03-09T13:07:37.567" Score="4" ViewCount="1110" Body="&lt;p&gt;I read in an internet blog that when analyzing my games with an engine, it is often useless to copy the principal variation to my annotations, because (they say) it is well known that the principal variation is almost always wrong. By this, they mean that the principal variation often does not contain the best moves from both sides, as one would expect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am thinking about this and I am trying to understand what they really mean and why is it so. I can see two reasons:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) If I analyze at 20 plies depth, then the fifth move in the principal variation was probably analyzed only at 10 plies depth, so it is less reliable than the first move. This probably does not apply very much to tactical positions, where, thank to quiescence search, positions are analyzed deeper when needed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) The engine is optimized to find the best move, but it doesn't care to find the best principal variation. This can be relevant when alpha-beta pruning is combined with aspiration window heuristic and incremental search. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Imagine that the engine first analyzes at 10 plies, and it finds that the best move is evaluated at +0.50 and the other moves are all less than +0.20. When increasing the search depth to 18 plies, the engine can analyze the best move with an aspiration window between +0.20 and +0.40, asking the search to find the exact value only if lies in the interval, or a cutoff value if it lies outside.  If the search finds that the best move is valued more than +0.40, the engine only has to verify that the other moves are valued less than 0.40 and this can prove that the candidate best move is actually best without figuring out the actual value of the best move, nor the exact principal variation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the example, to prove that the best move is valued more than +0.40, at some point of the principal variation some second best move from the side to move can be sufficient to prove that the variation is better than +0.40, so the principal variation will contain that second best move, and the absolute best move for that position does not need to be determined.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See below for a more clear example of this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My questions are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) Do you think I understand the reasons for the sentence &quot;The principal variation is almost always wrong&quot;, or is there some other important reason that I am missing?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) When analyzing my games with Stockfish or another popular engine, is there a way to turn off the optimizations I discussed above, and force the engine to compute the actual precise value of the best move, and a precise principal variation?       &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let me give a concrete example, otherwise what I wrote above is not so clear. This new example is super simplified, just to show the principle. Consider this case:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;1k3r2/pp6/3p4/8/8/n5B1/5PPP/5RK1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Bxd6+ Kc8 2.Bxa3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here it is clear that the best move is 1.Bxd6+, since no other move wins a piece. Assume the engine suspects from previous analysis that 1.Bxd6+ is the only move that wins a piece. It analyses 1.Bxd6+ with an aspiration window in the interval from +1.00 to +2.00, asking for the exact value of the moves if it lies in the interval, or a cutoff it the moves wins at least two pawns. After every possible Black's reply (1...Ka8, 1...Kc8) it tries the move 2.Bxa3 first,  evaluates it at +4.00, goes out of the window and returns this cutoff (without any need to try 2.Bxf8 at all). At the end, the engine happily concludes that 1.Bxd6+ is worth at least +4.00. Then the engine tries the other possible first moves by White, does not find anything worth so much, and correctly concludes that 1.Bxd6+ is the best move by White. But it returns an incorrect evaluation of +4.00 and an incorrect Principal Variation 1.Bxd6+ Kc8 2.Bxa3. The program never needed to find the exact evaluation to find the best move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The thing I would like to write in my annotations is, instead, that this move has an evaluation of +6.00, with Principal Variation 1.Bxd6+ Kc8 2.Bxf8&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the fact that the engine is optimized only to find the best move, gives problems if I want to use it for analysis. And the mistake can be big.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know that this example will not manage to confuse Stockfish, it was just an illustration, but I think this kind of problems can really happen, and probably this is what the blog post mentioned above wanted to say.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15668" LastEditorUserId="15668" LastEditDate="2018-03-10T15:50:52.777" LastActivityDate="2018-03-10T15:50:52.777" Title="The principal variation is always wrong!" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20093" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20092" CreationDate="2018-03-09T14:04:49.037" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is difficult to say anything about it without reading the blog post.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Regarding your thoughts:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Evaluations of +0.2, +0.26, +0.32 are for all practical purposes the same and basically mean that the position is equal. If you use another engine you will very likely find different numbers around zero.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Computer engines are not good for deciding on one opening variation over another, since in practical play there are more important factors than what the computer thinks is a centipawn advantage. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Above all, for practical play you want to pick a variation that you are &lt;em&gt;comfortable playing&lt;/em&gt;. Also in many cases you want to avoid variations where you are forced to make 20 precise moves in a row (or be lost otherwise) while your opponent has a large margin for potential errors. Depending on the tournament situation sometimes you might also pick more drawish lines over risky double-edged lines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, all in all, using a computer engine for opening preparation in the way you suggest does not make much sense. It is better to use a database of human games, which will tell you how successful humans are in various variations, how risky (draws vs. decided games) it is, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A computer engine is still useful for checking how to punish non-theory moves or for finding novelties (typically only done by top players).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2018-03-09T14:04:49.037" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20094" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="20096" CreationDate="2018-03-09T14:06:22.493" Score="2" ViewCount="412" Body="&lt;p&gt;If a pawn has just moved  two squares ahead, one records the square right behind it in the part of FEN for recording en passant possibility, regardless of whether there is a pawn of the opposite color ready to make the capture.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, the FEN for the position after 1. e4 is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/4P3/8/PPPP1PPP/RNBQKBNR b KQkq e3 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;My question&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why is this done? It sounds superfluous, since an en passant capture can be made only on the very next move of the opponent's, so recording it as such when there is no pawn in position to make the capture seems unnecessary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there some historical or technical reason for this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13565" LastActivityDate="2018-03-10T00:39:28.313" Title="Why is en passant possibility recorded in FEN regardless of whether there is a pawn ready to make the capture?" Tags="&lt;history&gt;&lt;fen&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20096" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20094" CreationDate="2018-03-10T00:39:28.313" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Easier for everybody. No need to check enpassant possibility.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2018-03-10T00:39:28.313" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20097" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20092" CreationDate="2018-03-10T03:26:58.780" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;No. I &lt;strong&gt;don't&lt;/strong&gt; think so. The point of aspiration windows to introduce better alpha-beta cutoffs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your example, if your search gives +4.00 &lt;strong&gt;within&lt;/strong&gt; your aspiration window that would be the best evaluation from your engine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;concludes that 1.Bxd6+ is worth at least +4.00.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No. +4.00 &lt;strong&gt;is&lt;/strong&gt; the score, there is no such thing as &quot;worth at least&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We only talk about &quot;at least&quot; when the score is &lt;strong&gt;outside&lt;/strong&gt; the window. In this case, you'd have to do a new search with a wider window. Aspiration windows doesn't make your score less reliable, it makes the search quicker by introducing more cutoffs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Principal variation is the moves that the engine considered the best. Of course, it's not the only way to play a position. To me, &quot;The principal variation is almost always wrong&quot; is not making any sense. There're many ways to play chess.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;You shouldn't because aspiration windows is not causing you any problem. But if you insist, you could disable the aspiration margin in the source code, and then recompile from source.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do you get the point? If you fail at your aspiration window, you'd have to do a new search. Otherwise, everything works. Please discard the &quot;principal variation is always wrong&quot; theory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2018-03-10T03:33:38.847" LastActivityDate="2018-03-10T03:33:38.847" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20098" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20071" CreationDate="2018-03-10T03:51:47.380" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes. Chess engines prune moves quite extensively. Chess programming is all about pruning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When an engine says &quot;search up to depth 15&quot;, it really mean depth as in &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iterative_deepening_depth-first_search&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;iterative deepening depth-first search&lt;/a&gt;. It &lt;strong&gt;doesn't&lt;/strong&gt; mean that the engine attempts to search everything up to depth 15. No good chess engine would search everything to depth 15.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's complicated, but most of the bad moves should be reduced by depth (or even eliminated), and some critical lines variations extended beyond depth 15.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;90% pruning is not uncommon, in fact it'd be more like 99.999999999999999999% according to your definition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2018-03-10T03:57:00.213" LastActivityDate="2018-03-10T03:57:00.213" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20100" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-03-10T20:49:29.347" Score="6" ViewCount="431" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a beginner player (~1400 rating on lichess). I was studying a famous match between Dubois and Steinitz shown below (analysis done by Stockfish on lichess.org). My doubts are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) At what move does the game become &quot;bad&quot; for White? Is it the &lt;code&gt;9. Nxg5&lt;/code&gt; move? Or is it some move further downstream? After Black plays &lt;code&gt;12...Nd4&lt;/code&gt; was there any possible move that would have saved White?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) Why doesn't the Stockfish engine pick up the fact that Black is winning until the very last moment when White plays &lt;code&gt;13.Nc3&lt;/code&gt; ? According to engine analysis, &lt;code&gt;8...h5&lt;/code&gt;is an inaccuracy for Black, &lt;code&gt;9.Nxg5&lt;/code&gt; is a mistake for White, and &lt;code&gt;10...hxg3&lt;/code&gt; is a mistake for Black! More surprisingly, till &lt;code&gt;12...Nd4&lt;/code&gt; the engine considers White slightly better (or rather neutral) at +0.3, and in the White's next move it suddenly says checkmate is unavoidable and suggests  &lt;code&gt;13.Ne6&lt;/code&gt; to be better for White. But even with &lt;code&gt;13.Ne6&lt;/code&gt;, black can still play &lt;code&gt;13...Nf3+&lt;/code&gt; and so on, and win the game. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;https://lichess.org/OtJ2x5RY&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;London 1862&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Serafino Dubois&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Wilhelm Steinitz&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;C50&quot;]&#xA;[Opening &quot;Italian Game: Giuoco Pianissimo, Normal&quot;]&#xA;[Termination &quot;Normal&quot;]&#xA;[Annotator &quot;lichess.org&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Nf6 4. d3 Bc5 { C50 Italian Game: Giuoco Pianissimo, Normal } 5. O-O d6 6. Bg5 h6 7. Bh4 g5 8. Bg3 h5?! { (-0.08 → 0.50) Inaccuracy. Best move was Na5. } (8... Na5 9. Bb3 Nxb3 10. axb3 a6 11. c3 O-O 12. Nbd2 Ba7 13. Nc4 Be6 14. Ne3 Kg7 15. b4) 9. Nxg5? { (0.50 → -1.08) Mistake. Best move was h4. } (9. h4 Na5 10. Nbd2 Bg4 11. Bb3 Nxb3 12. axb3 Bxf3 13. Nxf3 g4 14. Ng5 Qe7 15. c3 O-O-O) 9... h4 10. Nxf7 hxg3? { (-0.83 → 0.38) Mistake. Best move was Qe7. } (10... Qe7) 11. Nxd8 Bg4 12. Qd2 Nd4 13. Nc3?? { (0.31 → Mate in 7) Checkmate is now unavoidable. Best move was Ne6. } (13. Ne6 Ne2+ 14. Qxe2 Bxe2 15. Nxc7+ Kd7 16. Nxa8 Bxf1 17. Bb5+ Ke7 18. Nc3 Bxd3 19. Bxd3 gxf2+) 13... Nf3+ 14. gxf3 Bxf3 15. hxg3 Rh1# { Black wins by checkmate. } 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user14405" LastEditorUserId="8201" LastEditDate="2018-03-13T18:05:14.740" LastActivityDate="2018-03-13T18:05:14.740" Title="In the Dubois-Steinitz match (1862), at what point does the match become irreversibly lost for White? And why does the engine not pick it up early?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;grandmaster&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20101" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1719" CreationDate="2018-03-10T21:37:55.203" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;You must be thinking of this classic Korolkov study (I-II Prize &amp;quot;64&amp;quot; 1937, according to Chernev's &lt;em&gt;Chessboard Magic!&lt;/em&gt;; P1288537 in PDB).  It's not a problem, nor in 7 moves, but seems to match the rest closely:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;White to play and win (Korolkov 1937)&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Fen &amp;quot;4N3/2PP2P1/6b2/2bN2R1/6pk/p7/K1pn4/8 w - - 0 0&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Rh5+ Kxh5 2.Nf4+ Kh6 3.g8=N+ Kh7 4.Ngf6+ Kh6 5.Nxg4+ Kh7 6.Nef6+ Kg7 7.Ne6+ Kf7 8.d8=N+ Ke7 9.c8=N#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the starting diagram Black threatens mate with, appropriately, a checking Knight promotion: c1N+ and either Ndb3# or Bd4+ and mate.  If Black diverges from the main line then White usually promotes a Queen with check; exceptions are 1...Kg3 2.Rh1 and 4...Kh8 5.Nxg6#.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is possible that youur friend showed you the problem without the first two moves, thus making you think that it was a mate in 7.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8860" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-09-03T11:33:55.543" LastActivityDate="2020-09-03T11:33:55.543" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="20102" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-03-10T22:45:09.557" Score="2" ViewCount="556" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been starting to write down my chess matches in a scorebook, but would like to find a site where I can transcribe the match and then replay move by move by game to help me analyze what I did well and where I made mistakes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I remember accidentally finding this kind of a SAAS a while ago, but I never bookmarked it, and don't even know what to search for anymore.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can anyone give me some pointers what to search for, or recommend a site that can provide this kind of service?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15984" LastActivityDate="2018-03-11T12:35:21.777" Title="What service can be used to save and replay/analyze a chess match?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;notation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20103" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20102" CreationDate="2018-03-10T23:58:13.277" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Lichess.org allows (free) registered players to upload games and have stockfish analyse them.  The site lets you adjust what score difference the computer will consider an inaccuracy, mistake, and error.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many (almost all) chess forums allow you to post a game and ask the other players to comment on the games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12449" LastActivityDate="2018-03-10T23:58:13.277" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20104" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19973" CreationDate="2018-03-11T09:22:47.173" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Short answer: last move was -1. c7-c5, and before that -1...Rc6-b6, the white bishop returns to c1 and -d2-d3 unlocks the cage, enabling -Kd3-c4 and everything unlocks. -1. c6-c5 doesn't work because the white bishop will definitely end up trapped behind the black bishop in the northern dark squares and can't get out - -c6-c7 will leave the two bishops on d8/e7/f8 and not a7/b8 because of tempo concerns (retro-opposition), and they can't leave.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Notice the use of minus signs, white moves noted with ..., and I said the white bishop &quot;returns&quot; to c1 - I'm &lt;em&gt;retracting&lt;/em&gt; moves from the diagram position, which makes this kind of problem much easier.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Long answer: Now how to explain this without fluff or skipping too many &quot;obvious&quot; details? From a pedagogical point of view, I will insist on talking about this problem using &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;retractions&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; rather than the usual forward chess moves; it's easier and far clearer to play moves &lt;em&gt;backwards from the diagram&lt;/em&gt; than it is to create some arbitrary position, assert that it's legal then play forward moves to reach the diagram. It also ensures we don't miss anything - easier to check every possible retraction from the diagram than to check that every possible chess position leading to the diagram has ends with a certain move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Those who already understand retraction can probably see the cage themselves, skip the first two bolded points and jump right to the section -1. c7-c5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Pawn captures, basics of retraction explained&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Standard approach is to look at pawn structure. Each side has 14 units and 8 pawns. White's captures were hxg3 and axb, black's were exf6 and axb. So from the diagram, we can't magically retract (take back) an uncapture immediately.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, the fact that all bishops are on the board and each side has their full 8 pawns means we can't retract exf6, d7-d6 or ...d2-d3 without the corresponding bishop being at home. (In the forward direction, it means that the pawn move was played while the bishop was at home and hadn't yet moved.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A side can retract themselves into check but the other side must retract immediately to remove the check (once again this is seen in reverse - in the forward direction, one side checks and the king moves away.) For instance -1. c6-c5 Kb3-c4 would be possible, except that black can't remove the check from Ba4. -1. Kf4-e5 is impossible as white needs to retract -1...hxg3 to answer (pawn structure.) -1. Ne3 is impossible as one cannot deliver check by retracting (in the forward direction, that would be black moving away from check.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;What is a retrocage?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Usually, once all pieces have enough freedom of retraction, the position shouldn't pose any legality problems. We therefore want to retract moves with the goal of freeing as many pieces as possible. By considering all retractions (it's not hard once you're used to it, like seeing legal chess moves), we notice a few things:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The kings can't retract at the moment.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The southeast (bottom-right) corner unlocks with retracting a knight move, impossible for now because of the kings.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The west (left) side, specifically the 8 pieces in a rectangle except bBa7 and wRb6, is a cage that unlocks only with -Bb3-a4, which is again impossible because of the kings.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So to unlock the position, we need to free the kings by giving them a retraction. So a bishop has to go home to c8, f8 or c1 to enable a pawn retraction to (respectively) d7, e7 or d2. The black light bishop is trapped on a4, so that leaves just the two dark bishops.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Position is legal: -1. c7-c5&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We retract for example -1. c7-c5 Rc6-b6 -2. Be3-a7 Bb8-a7 -3. Bh6-e3 Be3-a7 -4. Bg5-h6 Bc1-e3 -5. Bh6-g5 d2-d3 (the white dark bishop came home) -6. Bg5-h6 Kd3-c4 and the cage unlocks. The white king moving frees everything, as explained above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;En passant is legal: -1. c6-c5? is impossible&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The crux of the matter. If we try to retract this, then the two dark bishops are locked in step on the 6 dark squares in the north. They can't pass each other, nor can they lose a tempo since there are no other legal retractions except -c7-c6, which incidentally commits the bishops to the dark squares to the left or right of c7. There are only 3 cases:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Both bishops on the left (bBa7/wBb8). This is impossible - the bishops can't lose tempo, and with the bishops in such a position (i.e. right now, the only chance) it's white to retract, not black.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Both bishops on the right (bBd8/wBf8). Once -c7-c6 is retracted, the bishops are trapped in these squares. The only way to let them out is to retract e7xf6 (impossible; the black bishop can't find itself on the right of the white one to be at home on f8), or to retract -d7-d6 (also impossible; the black light bishop on a4 can't come home before the cage is unlocked.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Black bishop on the left, white bishop on the right. The same problem as in (2), we can't get either bishop home as they're each trapped on the wrong side of the pawn wall.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With no other way to unlock the position, we conclude that -1. c6-c5 is impossible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Conclusion:&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;Therefore -1. c7-c5 was the last move (no other possibilities), so en passant is provably legal and forward mate is 1. bxc6 e.p.+ Bb5 2. Raxb5#.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15989" LastActivityDate="2018-03-11T09:22:47.173" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20105" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20102" CreationDate="2018-03-11T12:35:21.777" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;For an online tool, lichess is good. You can enter your game and have it analysed by a computer engine. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The analysed game will have annotations in plain language (&quot;mistake/blunder/inaccuracy&quot;) and of course contain the computer evaluation score after each move. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once you have a game analysed on lichess, they have another good feature called: &quot;Learn from your mistakes&quot;. Here it will ask you at every mistake/blunder to find a better move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another feature which might help you is called &quot;chess insights&quot;, basically statistics of your games (e.g. which opening did you score best, etc).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can do much the same (and more) offline using a chess database software. Scid is a popular free one, chessbase a popular non-free one. However as a beginner you might find the lichess features sufficient and more easy to use. In any case you can import/export between lichess and chess databases.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Particularly for a beginner it is difficult to properly analyze a game. Computers will tell you about tactical mistakes, but finding problems in strategy/positional play using computers will be just about impossible on your own. Therefore I would suggest to find a stronger player look over your games and give you tips. Ideally you'd join a chess club, but if that's not an option you could also post your games in online forums. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another way to improve is to read or watch commented games, particularly those in the openings you play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2018-03-11T12:35:21.777" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20106" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="20107" CreationDate="2018-03-11T15:27:07.950" Score="12" ViewCount="3734" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was given the below position in the US chess magazine. Author said this position is &quot;hopeless for black&quot;. Lichess engine says 1.5 advantage for white.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why? I understand &quot;piece points&quot; are only a rule of thumb, but I also don't have any other heuristics to judge why white side is better. I assume that even though white is down material, she has a &quot;positional advantage,&quot; but I don't know how to objectively discern why that is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why would people say white has an advantage here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 g6 4. c3 a6 5. Ba4 Bg7 6. d4 b5 7. Bb3 exd4 8. cxd4 Nge7 9. d5 Na5 10. Bd2 Bxb2 11. Bxa5 Bxa1 12. Nc3 Bxc3+ 13. Bxc3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The real question I meant to ask is this: why are all &quot;these positional things&quot; (space, development, castling rights, etc) worth a &lt;em&gt;material sacrifice&lt;/em&gt; of 3 pawn points!? I know these principles are good, but how am I supposed to personally know they're &lt;em&gt;that&lt;/em&gt; good that I should be willing to sacrifice a major piece for a minor piece?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8486" LastEditorUserId="8486" LastEditDate="2018-03-19T23:50:10.243" LastActivityDate="2018-03-20T08:38:19.343" Title="How to objectively explain a positional advantage is worth a sacrifice (re: a specific example)" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;material-balance&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="7" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20107" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20106" CreationDate="2018-03-11T15:57:38.893" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;White has a lot of compensation for the sacrificed exchange, specifically:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;more space&lt;/strong&gt;: the white central pawns are perfectly placed to limit the movement of the black knight and bishop&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;play on the dark squares&lt;/strong&gt;: black has considerably weakened the dark squares on the king side and does not have a dark-squared bishop anymore; White can easily take advantage of that by operating on these squares with bishop, knight and queen.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;lead in development&lt;/strong&gt;: Basically white only needs to activate the rook, while black really struggles to free himself. Also black will be forced to move the rook on h8 (castling seems too dangerous), losing another move for development and leaving the king in the center for some more time where it will be under attack.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This suggests that white can make use of these elements, before black can recover.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Somewhat concrete lines:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black's rook h8 is under attack and has to move. Three options:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;1...0-0 looks very dangerous for black. White could just play something like Qd2, Qh6, Ng5 and if necessary h4, h5. I don't see what black could do to avoid getting mated soon. Note that black cannot play something like f6 soon because of the discovered check from the b3 bishop.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;1..Rg8 or 1..Rf8. Here white has basically two ideas, which can be combined in various ways. a) play d6 which prevents black from playing d6 himself (freeing the bishop on c8) and allows white to activate the queen (via d6-f6). Also, with the white queen on d6 and the white bishop on f6, white would basically bind four black pieces (Qd8, Ne7, Ke8, Rf8) to very passive positions. b) play Ng5, which hints at an attack on f7 and also on re-routing the knight via h7 to f6.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So overall, yes the position is pretty hopeless for black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Regarding your general quesion (&lt;em&gt;Why are these things worth three pawn points? And how do I know when they are worth that much?&lt;/em&gt;):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should realize that material is only one of many factors relevant for judging  a position. Admittedly, in many games, players have somewhat symmetric positions, are developed equally well, etc and in this case, material becomes a major factor. So yes, in quiet normal positions material is often very important.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However in highly unbalanced positions like the one in your example, material count becomes less important and is easily trumped by activity. There is no strict rule to know when this is the case. In fact this is among the more difficult aspects of chess and can basically only gained by experience. I would strongly discourage you from trying to assess such unbalanced positions by summing points for &quot;piece activity&quot;, &quot;weak king&quot;... Chess just does not work this way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Computers do something like this in their evaluation function, but they do this for &lt;em&gt;many&lt;/em&gt; (lots) positions &lt;em&gt;many&lt;/em&gt; moves down the line (not only the current position) and then it does make sense. Furthermore computers have a more fine-grained number for &quot;space&quot;, &quot;piece activity&quot;, etc. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyway, humans lack the power to do all this and basically need to rely on experience, intuition and (occasionally) calculating some more or less forced concrete lines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a very rough guideline (don't follow this strictly) you can sacrifice:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;a pawn&lt;/strong&gt;: to gain a lead in development/piece activity or central control, for at least a short amount of time, often with a potential to regain the pawn easily if needed (see e.g. Queen's gambit). Sacrificing a pawn is not a major deal as many positions are still a draw +- a pawn.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;up to three pawns or an exchange&lt;/strong&gt;: if you get a major long term positional advantage through it; often you end up with a very strong minor piece vs. a not-so strong rook (e.g. in somewhat closed positions). Here you really need to have something concrete. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;more than three pawns or an exchange&lt;/strong&gt;: rarely, typically in direct mating attacks only&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastEditorUserId="11629" LastEditDate="2018-03-20T08:38:19.343" LastActivityDate="2018-03-20T08:38:19.343" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20108" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20106" CreationDate="2018-03-11T16:09:40.393" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;By material, white is down three pawns. (R+P vs B)  -3&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White has the bishop pair, which is ~pawn            1&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White has more space ~ 1/2 pawn                      1/2&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White has great lead in development ~pawn            1&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black's king stuck in the middle ~pawn               1&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the positional advantages outweigh the material deficit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black's best moves are f6 and Rg8.  Both concede a pawn and, most likely an exchange due to the weakness of the dark squares(Ng5-h7-f6+).  Black will need at least four moves to castle to the queenside, and that leaves him still facing pressure down the half-open files.  The most important factor is that it's more difficult to defend than to attack, which increases white's value.  These elements shows that white is easily up by at least the value of a pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12449" LastActivityDate="2018-03-11T16:09:40.393" CommentCount="12" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20109" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18313" CreationDate="2018-03-11T19:23:37.767" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chesstempo has this function now. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ref:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://beta.chesstempo.com/blog/9/good-move-annotations&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://beta.chesstempo.com/blog/9/good-move-annotations&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user14405" LastActivityDate="2018-03-11T19:23:37.767" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20110" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20106" CreationDate="2018-03-12T00:56:12.477" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;This answers your question by showing the pull White has. White's advantage is real. But I think it is important to notice how resilient a defender can be. This is a great example of how difficult it can be to win a &quot;won&quot; game. I am pretty sure Stockfish could beat me from either side of the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The following is Stockfish 6 playing each side of the board, 5 minutes per move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[FEN &quot;r1bqk2r/2ppnp1p/p5p1/1p1P4/4P3/1BB2N2/P4PPP/3QK2R b Kkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1...Rf8 2.Ng5 Ng8 3.h4 d6 4.Nxh7 Qe7 5.f3 Bd7 6.Nxf8 Qxf8 7.Qc1 f6 8.Bd2 Kd8 9.Ba5 Ke8 10.Qxc7 Nh6 11.O-O Qe7 12.Qb7 Rc8 13.Qxa6 Nf7 14.Qb6 Kf8 15.Re1 Qe5 16.Qf2 g5 17.Bd2 Kg8 18.hxg5 fxg5 19.f4 gxf4 20.Bxf4 Qg7 21.e5 dxe5 22.Bh2 Ng5 23.d6+ Kh7 24.Qh4+ Qh6 25.Qxh6+ Kxh6 26.Rxe5 Nh7 27.Bf4+ Kg6 28.Kf2 Bf5 29.Ke3 Nf6 30.Kd4 b4 31.Re7 Nd7 32.Bd2 Nb8 33.Kd5 Kf6 34.Bxb4 Nd7 35.a4 Nb6+ 36.Kd4 Nd7 37.Be1 Rc1 38.a5 Rc8 39.Bc4 Nb8 40.Bc3 Kg6 41.Kd5 Kg5 42.Rg7+ Kh5 43.Rc7 Rd8 44.Be2+&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;...and at this point Stockfish rated the position at +20. I wanted my computer back ;-)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2018-03-12T00:56:12.477" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20111" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="20114" CreationDate="2018-03-12T09:26:47.957" Score="3" ViewCount="682" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have recently started playing crazyhouse on chess.com. For my normal chess games, I download my chess games in PGN format. Then open them up in chessbase 13 and from within chessbase load up the UCI-compatible stockfish engine to analyse the games. Ideally, I would like to store my crazyhouse games in chessbase too and call up an engine supporting crazyhouse. But for some reason, chessbase doesn't like crazyhouse PGN files. My first question is whether there is a way to analyze crazyhouse games in Chessbase? If not, is there a database program that can handle both normal chess and crazyhouse games? It should also allow loading of UCI-compatible chess engines. I do not need all the advanced database features of chessbase. More important to me is a single consolidated software to store and analyze my games in normal chess and crazyhouse.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12002" LastEditorUserId="8201" LastEditDate="2019-12-28T04:54:29.927" LastActivityDate="2019-12-28T04:54:29.927" Title="Analysing Crazyhouse Games" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;crazyhouse&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20113" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20111" CreationDate="2018-03-12T12:11:56.320" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you accept to give up the use of a graphical interface, you can analyze your games with python-chess-annotator:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/rpdelaney/python-chess-annotator&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://github.com/rpdelaney/python-chess-annotator&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is a python script that uses an UCI engine to analyze a game in a pgn file. It will give you in output a pgn file with the annotations. It works with every chess variant supported by python-chess, and Crazyhouse is supported. You can use Stockfish Crazyhouse to analyze.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15668" LastActivityDate="2018-03-12T12:11:56.320" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20114" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20111" CreationDate="2018-03-12T21:13:40.187" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.gnu.org/software/xboard/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;XBoard&lt;/a&gt;/&lt;a href=&quot;http://hgm.nubati.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;WinBoard&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://pychess.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;PyChess&lt;/a&gt; both work well with &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/ddugovic/Stockfish&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Stockfish for crazyhouse&lt;/a&gt;. I mostly use XBoard for analyzing crazyhouse games and positions (when I do not use lichess, e.g., to run Stockfish more efficiently locally instead of in the browser or to test experimental Stockfish versions).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Software for standard chess like ChessBase does not work with variants.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15415" LastEditorUserId="15415" LastEditDate="2018-03-12T21:42:05.700" LastActivityDate="2018-03-12T21:42:05.700" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20115" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20100" CreationDate="2018-03-12T21:16:54.163" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Playing the game on lichess.org, I only need to wait for a few dozens of seconds to reach the following analysis for White ninth move: &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ziFco.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;9. Nxg5&lt;/strong&gt; is an interesting counter-attack move that ultimately fails to bring an advantage but white is not lost. After &lt;strong&gt;12. ... Nd4 13. h3! Ne2+ 14. Qxe2 Bxe2 15. Ne6&lt;/strong&gt; White survives.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since &lt;strong&gt;13. h3!&lt;/strong&gt; saves White, &lt;strong&gt;13. Nc3??&lt;/strong&gt; is indeed a fatal blunder. &lt;strong&gt;13. Ne6??&lt;/strong&gt; also yields a mate in 7 for black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4572" LastActivityDate="2018-03-12T21:16:54.163" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20116" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="20117" CreationDate="2018-03-13T17:33:07.120" Score="6" ViewCount="1451" Body="&lt;p&gt;As seen in Aronian vs Kramnik on day 3,  the opening was e4 which Levon Aronian rarely plays. It later turned into the Berlin variation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The article &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/component/content/article/1-fide-news/10747-round-3-an-historic-day-at-the-berlin-candidates-chess-tournament.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;from FIDE says&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Francesco Tristano, a classical and experimental pianist from Luxembourg, made the ceremonial first move for the round. By chance, it was in the game between Aronian and Kramnik, and he started with 1 e4, a move that Aronian almost never plays. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Why did FIDE allow Francesco Tristano to open for white in Chess Candidates tournament 2018?&lt;/strong&gt; What if the person chooses a &quot;relatively&quot; bad opening like f3 or h3?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;source: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f86OTmsnI1c&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f86OTmsnI1c&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2463" LastEditorUserId="2463" LastEditDate="2018-03-13T17:58:50.960" LastActivityDate="2018-03-13T21:37:34.510" Title="Why did FIDE allow some random guy to open for white in Chess Candidates tournament 2018?" Tags="&lt;candidates&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20117" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20116" CreationDate="2018-03-13T18:30:20.537" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is very common in top tournament that a local celebrity or other people who like attention such as politicains, people from FIDE, etc, make the &lt;em&gt;ceremonial first move&lt;/em&gt;. This is purely for the photographers, and of course it is perfectly fine to take back this move and make your own move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the game you mention however Aronian chose to stick with 1. e4 which is of course also an option. I don't think that Aronian was in any way influenced by the choice of Francesco Tristano, i.e. he would have played 1. e4 anyway.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastEditorUserId="11629" LastEditDate="2018-03-13T19:21:59.327" LastActivityDate="2018-03-13T19:21:59.327" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20118" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20116" CreationDate="2018-03-13T21:37:34.510" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;Having a celebrity make the ceremonial first move of a chess match is a PR thing, similar to a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceremonial_first_pitch&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;ceremonial first pitch&lt;/a&gt; in baseball. It got interesting &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.chessbase.com/post/che-for-peace-with-mikhail-gorbachev&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;when Mikhail Gorbachev made the ceremonial first move in an exhibition match between Anatoly Karpov and Judith Polgar in Lindsborg, Kansas, in 2005,&lt;/a&gt; and then insisted that Karpov leave the move 1.g4 on the board:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;President Gorbachev arrived at 4 p.m. and they were ready to start. Anatoly had white in the first game. Therefore, President Gorbachev would make the first move for Anatoly. As he arrived at the board, he told the audience that this is a wonderful match between two great champions. “I am going to cause some difficulties for the older player”, he said, then proceeded to play 1.g4 without asking Anatoly. Both Anatoly and Susan looked up at President Gorbachev in shock. Anatoly thought that the President was joking as Anatoly mentioned that he would like to make another first move. But the President was firm in saying there is no take back in chess. Then the players started their first game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This was probably the only time Karpov ever played Grob's Attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2299" LastActivityDate="2018-03-13T21:37:34.510" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20119" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="329" CreationDate="2018-03-14T02:51:49.990" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Rather than relying on any one suggestion you might want to do a bit of them all. A good start is being able, after you are given the name of a square, to say without hesitation what color it is. To make things more precise, it helps to recall, for example, that b5 is the square that the Lopez bishop goes to. What other squares are important in your favorite openings?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastActivityDate="2018-03-14T02:51:49.990" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20120" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="20130" CreationDate="2018-03-14T10:55:47.430" Score="3" ViewCount="1043" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've noticed that the engine (Stockfish 9) evaluates positions as significantly better for white if the evaluation is performed while white is on the move. The difference is sometimes more than half a point.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Someone else has noticed this phenomenon, and anyone has an idea what the reason is (It's not run time, as I've let the engine evaluate above 26 PLY in both cases).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To clarify: The intention here is NOT the same position, just switching who's on the move. I will examplify by the start position. Imagine evaluating it and the engine gives +0.7 and gives the 1. e4 e5. Then you make the move 1.e4 and let the engine evaluate again, and now it gives only +0.2 and recommends 1.. e5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12953" LastEditorUserId="12953" LastEditDate="2018-03-14T11:25:55.270" LastActivityDate="2018-06-25T13:55:00.910" Title="Engine evaluating changing after making move suggested by engine" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;evaluation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20121" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20120" CreationDate="2018-03-14T11:21:51.377" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's nothing surprising here. Chess engine is not perfect, as you make a move the evaluation will likely change:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The engine now sees something not seen before&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The engine can now search deeper&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The engine's hash table has relevant entries&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This's just how we play chess. Our positional assessment change as we make moves. If that's not the case, there's no need to play the game - we shout out win/loss/draw without making a move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hint: If you're using your engine for your game, you'll need to make some moves to get better assessment. Kramnik did that for his win against Aronian:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The computer doesn’t show it at the beginning, but then once you put it in he starts to like it a lot. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess24.com/en/read/news/berlin-candidates-3-a-kramnik-immortal&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://chess24.com/en/read/news/berlin-candidates-3-a-kramnik-immortal&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sorry, chess is a hard game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2018-03-14T11:35:57.530" LastActivityDate="2018-03-14T11:35:57.530" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20122" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-03-14T13:39:31.233" Score="25" ViewCount="4111" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the position below, I'm promoting my pawn. The app says promoting to a Queen is incorrect, but a Rook &lt;em&gt;is&lt;/em&gt; correct? In this setup it doesn't make sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/1P6/3N4/8/8/3k4/r7/4KN2 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.b8=R 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16020" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-14T01:17:50.907" LastActivityDate="2020-04-14T01:17:50.907" Title="Why underpromote in this KNNP-KR endgame?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;problems&gt;&lt;pawn-promotion&gt;&lt;rooks&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="9" FavoriteCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20124" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20122" CreationDate="2018-03-14T14:17:17.600" Score="46" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you promote to a queen with 1. b8Q, black has: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1...Re2+ 2. Kd1 Rb2&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;attacking the queen and hinting at mate with Rb1++. If white takes the rook 3. Qxb2 it is stalemate. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because of the mate threat white does not have any other good square for the queen either (no good check and no square that would defend b1). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you promote to a rook, black does not have this defense, because after 3. Rxb2 it would not be stalemate. The resulting endgame (King, rook and two knights vs king and rook) should be a reasonably easy win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also you need to know that if the queen gets exchanged for the rook (e.g. after 1. b8Q Re2+ 2. Kd1 Rb2 3. Qb5+ Rxb5 4. Nxb5) , the endgame (king and tow knights vs king) is draw. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the same reason white cannot postpone the promotion because black has (at least) a draw if he can give his rook for the pawn (e.g. after 1. [random non-pawn move by white] Rb2 2. [random move] Rxb7).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lastly, any other underpromotion (to knight or bishop) does not work either, because black will win the piece on b8 in the above line after 2. ... Rb2 because of the mate threat on b1.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the only way to play for a win is by promoting to a rook.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastEditorUserId="11629" LastEditDate="2018-03-14T14:29:27.660" LastActivityDate="2018-03-14T14:29:27.660" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20125" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20122" CreationDate="2018-03-14T14:18:13.553" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;http://tb7.chessok.com/probe&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Lomonosov 7-man Endgame Tablebase&lt;/a&gt; show that after promotion to a queen, Black can play  1. ... Re2+ 2. Kd1 Rb2! (sacrificing the rook) Qxb2, the Black king is stalemated. If White doesn’t take the rook, then Black will take the queen and draw the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/1P6/3N4/8/8/3k4/r7/4KN2 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. b8=Q? Re2+ 2. Kd1 Rb2! 3. Qxb2 (3. Kc1 Rxb8)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, promoting to a rook avoids the stalemate and wins the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/1P6/3N4/8/8/3k4/r7/4KN2 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. b8=R! Re2+ 2. Kd1 Rb2 3. Rxb2 Kc3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14760" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-03-12T20:06:20.373" LastActivityDate="2020-03-12T20:06:20.373" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="20126" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9711" CreationDate="2018-03-14T14:35:55.133" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;A nice looking FICS client can be accessed from the browser at :&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.freechess.club/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.freechess.club/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also download a desktop application.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user14405" LastActivityDate="2018-03-14T14:35:55.133" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20127" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="329" CreationDate="2018-03-14T15:06:25.517" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm an Android user so I can only speak of Androids but there are chess memorization mobile apps.&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/search?q=chess%20board%20memorization&amp;amp;c=apps&amp;amp;hl=en&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://play.google.com/store/search?q=chess%20board%20memorization&amp;amp;c=apps&amp;amp;hl=en&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would guess that there are apps for Apple as well that are similar if you are a Apple user.  I just don't have a way to give you search results since I'm not a Mac user.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14760" LastActivityDate="2018-03-14T15:06:25.517" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20128" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5251" CreationDate="2018-03-14T21:54:47.393" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The max rating of a system is going to depend on the details of the system and who the participants are.  There's not just one &quot;Elo&quot; formula, and the details can be important.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Under &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/component/handbook/?id=197&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE ratings regulation&lt;/a&gt; 8.54, &quot;A difference in rating of more than 400 points shall be counted for rating purposes as though it were a difference of 400 points.&quot;  This allows a rating to become arbitrarily high, regardless of the strength of the opponents - you can always get at least one rating point by winning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Under the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.uschess.org/content/view/7520/393/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;USCF correspondence chess&lt;/a&gt; ratings system, &quot;Rating differences that exceed 350 points are figured as 350 points.&quot;  So, similar to the FIDE system, points could continue to be gained even with a large ratings difference, allowing a rating to become arbitrarily high.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, under the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.glicko.net/ratings/rating.system.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;USCF rating system&lt;/a&gt; for OTB play, ratings are stored as floating points instead of integers, and there isn't a maximum allowable difference listed, allowing someone to gain a fraction of a point for a win against someone far below them.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The question then becomes: how often could the human get a point off the computer?  If the human could, on average, get one point every 10,001 games (either a win or two draws), the computer's rating would stabilize at 1600 points above the human.  If the human could get a point every 1,001 games, the computer's rating would stabilize at 1200 points above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And if this ever moved out of the theoretical, then once it became clear that this computer is perfect, GMs would begin to copy its moves, especially in the opening but probably going into what would ordinarily be the middlegame.  I think we'd start seeing draws much more often once this happens - it's much easier to draw if you're essentially playing it against itself for the first 20 moves, and you &lt;em&gt;know&lt;/em&gt; the line to that point isn't losing.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2018-03-14T21:54:47.393" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20129" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18810" CreationDate="2018-03-14T22:00:11.113" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;It happens that &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/article/view/whats-the-most-unbalanced-chess960-position&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;someone tried&lt;/a&gt; to evaluate all 960 positions with an engine. Several positions got a score of 0.00, but none of them offered any advantage for black. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, those conclusions are only the evaluations of Stockfish at 40 plies depth. It is a strong hint, but no definite proof, that Black is fine  in the huge majority of 960-chess starting positions, but not better in any of them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This result matches with the intuition that in a symmetric, non-developed position, with all pawns on the 2d and 7th rank, there is always something useful to do if you are on move: in other words, there cannot be mutual zugzwang.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastEditorUserId="14079" LastEditDate="2018-07-30T09:42:23.703" LastActivityDate="2018-07-30T09:42:23.703" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="20130" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20120" CreationDate="2018-03-15T11:12:41.300" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;So, basically the answer is like this:&#xA;Let's say the engine analyzes the start position at 30 PLY and recommends 1. e4 with a score of +0.7 for white. Once I made the move 1. e4 and let the engine analyze the new position to the same depth (29 PLY) it would well evaluate the position differently and give it a score of only +0.2. The reason for this is that the engine now examines more of the leafs starting with 1. e4 than it did from the start position (since it now disregards all branches starting with other first moves), and thus performs a deeper analysis (more leaves) of this branch even though it goes no further in number of moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12953" LastEditorUserId="11629" LastEditDate="2018-03-15T11:57:22.627" LastActivityDate="2018-03-15T11:57:22.627" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20131" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="329" CreationDate="2018-03-15T14:17:56.453" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;On Chess.com you can use the mobile app, then click the three bars (menu) and then click 'vision'; this is basically a game where you look at blank board and it says 'g8' then you hit g8 with your thumb then it goes 'c3'etc etc. You are doing this against time you get a score and all at the end of the time but it does help memorizing the spaces, I've found. After you know the board the pieces algebra comes easier.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15719" LastEditorUserId="15719" LastEditDate="2018-03-15T14:51:21.007" LastActivityDate="2018-03-15T14:51:21.007" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20132" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="329" CreationDate="2018-03-15T14:39:07.240" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chesseye.alexander-fleischer.de/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://chesseye.alexander-fleischer.de/&lt;/a&gt; has a training tool just for this purpose.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12449" LastActivityDate="2018-03-15T14:39:07.240" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20133" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-03-15T20:04:42.063" Score="1" ViewCount="585" Body="&lt;p&gt;My friend played this game as white and wants to know how this is a stalemate. I do not know much about chess and both of us would like to know more about this rule. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;k7/2Q5/8/P2P4/1R6/8/2P3PP/6K1 w - - 0 1&#xA;&#xA;1.Rb6 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16037" LastEditorUserId="12523" LastEditDate="2018-03-17T20:16:18.973" LastActivityDate="2018-03-21T09:58:58.947" Title="How is this stalemate?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;beginner&gt;&lt;stalemate&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20134" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20133" CreationDate="2018-03-15T20:21:30.583" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Stalemate&lt;/strong&gt; is defined as the player's whose turn it is to not be in check, &amp;amp; cannot make a legal move (black's only piece, the king, can only move to squares where it will be in check, which is illegal). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By playing &lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;Rb6&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; (or possibly &lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;Rxb6&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;), your friend walked into that exact situation. Essentially, she blocked off all the squares the King could move to, which is stalemate (&amp;amp; the result is a draw). It might have been a mistake, or it could have been the best move given the situation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Additional discussion beyond the original question&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If there was a black queen on b6, your friend capturing (&lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;Rxb6&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;) was the best move, because they would have to get out of check. They can capture with the queen, the rook, or the pawn, but all three lead to stalemate (a draw is all they can hope for here). If they try to move the king out of check, black takes their queen and has a tiny advantage going into the endgame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Interestingly, if there was a black bishop on b6 threatening the king, the best move would be to move the king and give up the queen. A rook plus several pawns will eventually overpower a lone bishop in the endgame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If your friend captured anything other than a queen or bishop on b6, that was a blunder that forced stalemate from a winning position. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If there was no black piece on b6, your friend also had the game basically won. They could have finished it with:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;1.Rb8#&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; (Rook moves to the dark square up and to the left of the Queen, and checkmate) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another option: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;1.Qb8#&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; (Queen moves to the same square, and checkmate) among other moves. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The last two cases are perfect examples of how chess can punish or reward you in one move; you can be totally winning and then end up with what is essentially a tie because you messed up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16038" LastEditorUserId="16038" LastEditDate="2018-03-21T09:58:58.947" LastActivityDate="2018-03-21T09:58:58.947" CommentCount="11" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20136" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21140" CreationDate="2018-03-16T13:28:11.600" Score="3" ViewCount="207" Body="&lt;p&gt;What are the best online or print sources for historical games? I am generally looking for pre-1930s games NOT by world champions, and, in particular, looking for games by some of the prominent women chess players of the time (Mary Rudge, Nellie Showalter, Harriet Worrell, etc.).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2569" LastActivityDate="2018-03-17T14:49:47.110" Title="Online or Print Sources for Historical Games" Tags="&lt;history&gt;&lt;database&gt;&lt;women&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20137" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20136" CreationDate="2018-03-16T15:55:53.423" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The website &#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chessgames.com&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;is usually good for historical games. In particular, it has many games from the players you mention.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15668" LastActivityDate="2018-03-16T15:55:53.423" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20138" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20133" CreationDate="2018-03-17T01:05:23.107" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, Black's king only has the squares a7, b7, and b8 available to it. Since the queen is guarding all three squares and black doesn't have any other pieces, it's stalemate. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you don't know what stalemate means, either read desertdogv's comment or go to here: &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalemate&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalemate&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15874" LastActivityDate="2018-03-17T01:05:23.107" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20139" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-03-17T09:31:44.573" Score="3" ViewCount="10491" Body="&lt;p&gt;AlphaZero has defeated Stockfish with all novelties and brilliant strategic sacrifices. But some people were disputing its win, because Stockfish was running on weak hardware (1 GB RAM), not access to opening book, not having free time control, maybe not have endgame table base, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This setting by DeepMind is understandable from a scientific perspective though. It is to test intuitive/strategic play by deep learning technique vs. counting/tactical play by brute force search. However, this leaves chess lovers with many questions like what is the true strength of AlphaZero? What is the true advantage of strategic/positional sacrifice play? Were Morphy, Tal, and others correct and Stockfish wrong? Or full version Stockfish is still the best?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One work around is to replicate the Stockfish version that played AlphaZero, to see how strong it is compared to the full version and other engine and human. Thus we could infer the Elo rating of AlphaZero and answer most questions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, did anyone test it? Is anyone interested in testing it? Maybe Stockfish developers, because Stockfish's pride is at stake? Or is there other way to approach the problem?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Note that Stockfish had good 64 threads CPU and could evaluate 70 million positions/second.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The Stockfish Elo rating provided in the paper is the full version, thus this replication is needed.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://arxiv.org/abs/1712.01815&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;The paper&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16048" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2018-12-13T23:30:42.807" Title="What is the Elo rating of Stockfish version that played AlphaZero?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;alphazero&gt;&lt;hardware&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="20140" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-03-17T13:24:34.720" Score="5" ViewCount="267" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm a chess teacher/coach for a couple of children (age 14-18) at my local (not very big) chess club (we're all member of this club). Due to various constraints on my and their part, all the time I get to see them regularly is a single session of 30 minutes per week. (I do watch and comment on their games or jointly analyze them once in a while, but this isn't exactly regular)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Some background on my current teaching methods&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm teaching them 'Stap 4' (step 4) using the 'Stappenmethode' (step method) by Rob Brunia and Cor van Wijgerden, de-facto &lt;em&gt;the&lt;/em&gt; teaching method in the Netherlands for quite some time. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For people unfamiliar with the method, 'Stap 4' corresponds to advanced tactics (Double attacks on fields that are again some double attack, advanced 'luring', particular sacrifice mates, etc.) and introductory strategy (a bit of intermediate end-games, pawn structure and attacking the king). The method provides lesson outlines and other advice for the teacher and a book with diagram problems (puzzles) for the students to practice the material from the lessons. The problems are 5 ply deep on average. Every 'step' can be concluded by a written exam and a diploma that consists of solving a set of diagram problems under a time-limit (as usual for exams). (The diplomas aren't a requirement for anything, but they're nice for the kids to have)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;...and on my teaching skills&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think I'm decent at teaching small groups of (sufficiently) motivated students, which my students are. Most of my teaching experience (in addition to teaching chess for about 5 years at my chess club) is from being a student assistant helping in tutorial sessions at my university and tutoring fellow students in high-school. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think I'm decent at explaining things related to topics at which I have expertise (perhaps my activity on &lt;a href=&quot;https://cs.stackexchange.com/users/65339/discrete-lizard&quot;&gt;Computer Science&lt;/a&gt; can convince you of this) I'm not very good at maintaining 'order in the classroom' and related educational skills, but these are fortunately almost never needed with my current group of students.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd like to think I'm a honest (perhaps too honest at times) and enthousiatic teacher, but I also think that I'm the least qualified person to judge me! (unfortunately, I'm the only person on this site who &lt;em&gt;can&lt;/em&gt; judge me, so it'll have to do)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All in all, I don't think my teaching skills are a problem, but do let me know if you disagree.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;The problem&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The kids I'm teaching aren't chess geniuses, but I think most of them are bright enough to pass the exam, given they're properly prepared. I'm not a chess genius either, but capable enough to teach them. (My actual ELO is pretty low as I mostly play at the club instead of rated tournaments, but you may put me around ~1900 ELO with decent knowledge of strategical elements)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My problem is that 30 minutes is pretty short, in fact a lot shorter than the authors of the method advice. In particular, the authors stress the importance in the teacher's manual of letting the students practice 'special games' related to the lesson's topic (e.g. endgames starting at a certain position) against each-other. I simply don't have the time to do this. (I do manage to squeeze in a simultaneous game of an endgame or such of them versus me once in a while)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most of the time is spent with me explaining the material of the lesson, covering about half the examples provided in the teacher's manual and commenting on the (incorrectly solved) problems they handed in as homework. Sometimes, I put the method aside for a lesson to discuss their recent games instead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;What I tried&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've stressed to my students that the limited time means that they should take their homework very seriously (which most appear to do), but I'm still worried they fail the exam due to insufficient preparation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've tried to offer additional online practice using &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;lichess&lt;/a&gt; (the 'study' feature in particular), but this has turned out to be too time intensive for me. I've considered letting them play each-other online, but the difficulties this gives me for me to comment and 'control' their match (such as halting their play, letting them take back moves or look at variations, or just talking to them) made me think this wouldn't work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, what additional material/practice for outside the class or more effective teaching methods for our limited time in class can you suggest to me? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16001" LastEditorUserId="16001" LastEditDate="2018-03-17T20:14:00.090" LastActivityDate="2018-03-17T20:14:00.090" Title="How to teach (intermediary) chess to small groups with little time" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;teaching&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21140" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20136" CreationDate="2018-03-17T14:49:47.110" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In addition to a handful of games at chessgames.com, you may find the following links useful:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;About 35 games played in first international women's chess tournament held in 1897 can be found &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessarch.com/archive/0041_Ladies/index.shtml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;. Games are in digitized form, in algebraic notation. The sources of each game (chess magazines of the time) are mentioned at the end of each game. You might be able to find these chess magazine pages at the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessarch.com/index.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess archeology website&lt;/a&gt; or by searching for the name of the &lt;a href=&quot;https://archive.org/search.php?query=british%20chess%20magazine&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chess magazines on archive.org&lt;/a&gt;. Using a similar approach, if you know the year in which the women players you are interested in played the tournaments, you can dig the games out from the archived magazines. These games will be in old notation, though.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A nice &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/blog/batgirl/about-women-and-chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;series of articles on women in chess&lt;/a&gt; published in a chess.com blog; contains a few annotated pgn games by women players (including the players you asked in the question).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, in reply to a comment you mentioned above (where do chessgames.com get their games from?), you will find the following answer in the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/chesshelp.html#getgames&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FAQ page of chessgames.com&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;The database has been constructed over a period of many years from PGN files obtained from free, public domain sources. Primary among these sources are:&#xA;* University of Pittsburgh FTP - one of the oldest and most complete archives of chessgames online.&#xA;* La Regence - archive of recent chess games, organized by ECO code.&#xA;* Britbase - archive of British chess games from the 1920's to present.&#xA;* Rusbase - the Russian cousin to Britbase.&#xA;* The Week in Chess (TWIC) - Mark Crowther's world famous source for brand new chess games.&#xA;* Lars Balzer's Homepage - A very well maintained list of places on the internet where you can download chess games.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user14405" LastActivityDate="2018-03-17T14:49:47.110" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21141" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21144" CreationDate="2018-03-17T16:48:21.650" Score="-1" ViewCount="151" Body="&lt;p&gt;At a 2-day tournament, rounds can have two hours - sometimes three - before the next match. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is a good way to spend this time? Should it involve chess? Carlsen, for example, spends his off-days during the WCC by playing tennis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13147" LastActivityDate="2018-03-17T17:36:52.447" Title="What to do in between chess matches?" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2018-03-18T11:15:41.233" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21142" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20133" CreationDate="2018-03-17T16:59:16.510" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Stalemate is a checkmate without check. The king is not being attacked but it cannot go anywhere. It is a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If Black had other pieces (or pawns), he may move them - passing the move to you - and then checkmate is surely imminent by 1. Qb7#. If all of Black's pieces cannot move anywhere, the game is a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13147" LastActivityDate="2018-03-17T16:59:16.510" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21143" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-03-17T17:18:01.223" Score="2" ViewCount="160" Body="&lt;p&gt;I once had a book on the sharp Wilkes-Barre variation of the Two Knights Defense written in the 1970s in which there were a few moves which were said to be clearly winning for one side in which a computer analysis of the position said otherwise. The situations were unusual, for example the last position in the analysis would have three threats in it and the conclusion would be that one side is clearly winning. Then the computer would find a move responding to all three threats and say that the other side has the advantage.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So my question is 'What are some books on chess openings that show how a computer rates the top move choices after analyzing each for a certain amount of time?'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user11382" LastEditorDisplayName="user11382" LastEditDate="2018-03-19T01:10:56.377" LastActivityDate="2018-03-19T01:10:56.377" Title="What are some chess books on openings which include computer analysis?" Tags="&lt;books&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21144" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21141" CreationDate="2018-03-17T17:36:52.447" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The most important advice in this situation is probably that you should avoid straining yourself mentally whatever you do. Try to rest inbetween rounds and clear your head, and if you want to spend your free time on chess it should absolutely not be you trying to challenge yourself with difficult positions before the next round; solving difficult chess exercises inbetween rounds will only serve to give you mental fatigue, which will seriously impair your chances in the next round.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is up to each individual to decide what to do between rounds, but good activities may include casual walks, listening to some nice music, talking to friends, etc. Even some chess activities can be done if they're not mentally straining; for instance one may play some casual blitz/bughouse games, or solve some &lt;strong&gt;extraordinarily easy&lt;/strong&gt; tactical exercises before the next round as a warm-up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some things that should be avoided between games is stressful activities, difficult chess exercises, and over-eating (if there is a lunch break between rounds, for instance). Stressful activities and difficult chess exercises will wear you down before the next game, while over-eating will also result in your body taking unnecessary strain from digesting food, which could potentially throw your body off balance before the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, in essence, between rounds you should focus on letting yourself recover from the previous game so that you are in as good a shape as possible for the coming rounds, maximizing your chances of success.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8300" LastActivityDate="2018-03-17T17:36:52.447" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21145" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20140" CreationDate="2018-03-17T19:50:33.970" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If the course authors give guidelines regarding the amount of time (number of hours) the course should take or that each lesson should take then you would be unwise to drastically reduce this. For instance if the recommendation is that a particular lesson should take 2 hours and your lessons are 30 minutes then you should cover that lesson in 4 of yours.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That means that you should not have an identical structure for each of your 30 minute lessons. Some weeks most of the 30 minutes will be taken with teaching and demonstration and other weeks most may be given over to practicing their 'special games' based on the current lesson.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This approach really shouldn't be a problem for either your target age range or for you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One further point. You mention your chess strength but don't say anything about your teaching abilities. When it comes to teaching children chess teaching ability is far more important than chess ability.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A master (national, international, grand or otherwise) who is an incompetent teacher will be useless as a chess teacher whereas an excellent teacher who is a weak chess player will still do a very good job.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2018-03-17T20:01:22.110" LastActivityDate="2018-03-17T20:01:22.110" CommentCount="11" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21146" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21143" CreationDate="2018-03-17T23:20:53.133" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Many of the newer endgame books will make use of at least the tablebases.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nunn was the first to use computers to assist in analysis in writing one of his endgame books. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9025" LastActivityDate="2018-03-17T23:20:53.133" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21147" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21149" CreationDate="2018-03-18T00:44:48.773" Score="8" ViewCount="1022" Body="&lt;p&gt;How often does each side win in Rook, Bishop and Knight versus Queen endings?  It is a 6-piece endgame so the evaluation of each position is known but I could not find statistics on this endgame after searching for a while.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/8/8/3k4/3N4/2q5/5K2/R5B1 w - - 0 46&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user11382" LastEditorDisplayName="user11382" LastEditDate="2018-03-18T01:10:48.397" LastActivityDate="2018-03-19T09:33:31.257" Title="How often does each side win in Rook, Bishop and Knight versus Queen?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21148" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21143" CreationDate="2018-03-18T05:10:57.580" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If I recall correctly, The Wilkes-Barre is Traxler (correct me).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I once analyzed it quite deeply, and the only way white can hope for a win after 5. Nxf7 is 5...Bxf2+ 6. Kxf2 (6.Kf1 is also a tricky draw.) Nxe4+ 7. Ke3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or he can simply play 5. Bxf7+ and be a healthy pawn up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can do this analysis yourself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15769" LastActivityDate="2018-03-18T05:10:57.580" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21149" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21147" CreationDate="2018-03-18T06:04:30.367" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The best resource I know for endgame statistics is the ICGA spreadsheet at &lt;a href=&quot;https://ilk.uvt.nl/icga/games/chess/endgames.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://ilk.uvt.nl/icga/games/chess/endgames.php&lt;/a&gt;. The spreadsheet posted there contains pretty much all 6-man endgames. So for example KRBNKQ is found in row 277 (assuming White has RBN), with the following percentages:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;       wtm    btm   &#xA;W win 51.35  9.45       &#xA; draw 45.13 49.27&#xA;B win  3.52 41.28&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the result is highly dependent on who has the move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT&lt;/strong&gt;: Clarifications (1) This is a &lt;em&gt;tablebase&lt;/em&gt; based on computer analysis of all possible positions with these 6 pieces. It does not refer to actual games played over the board. (2) The spreadsheet refers to &quot;non-broken positions&quot; which approximates to &quot;legal positions&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8201" LastEditorUserId="8201" LastEditDate="2018-03-19T09:33:31.257" LastActivityDate="2018-03-19T09:33:31.257" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21150" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19633" CreationDate="2018-03-18T11:46:49.647" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some large chess puzzle databases with links:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Free open source collection of 1,743,871 Problems at &lt;a href=&quot;https://chessblunders.org/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;chessblunders.org&lt;/a&gt;, collected from more than 6 million games from professional tournaments.. They have an API for access to database. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Taken from the website &lt;a href=&quot;http://wtharvey.com/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&quot;wtharvey&quot;&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://wtharvey.com/m8n2.txt&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Mate in 2&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://wtharvey.com/m8n3.txt&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Mate in 3&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://wtharvey.com/m8n4.txt&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Mate in 4&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;From the website &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://sites.google.com/site/edusadier/theartofdirectmateintwomoves&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;the art of mate in 2&lt;/a&gt;&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Nearly ~&lt;a href=&quot;https://sites.google.com/site/edusadier/home/Mate%20en%20Dos.zip?attredirects=0&amp;amp;d=1&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;152000 puzzles&lt;/a&gt; in pgn format&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You will also find four pgn files of ~ 500 puzzles made by &quot;Argentine problemists&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Browsable collection of problems at &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.yacpdb.org/#search/ODg4ODg4ODgvLy8vLy8vLy8vLy8vMS8xLzEvMA==/1&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yet another chess problems database&lt;/a&gt;&quot;. There are ~420000 problems. Not sure whether it can be downloaded programmatically. In the &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.yacpdb.org/#about&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;About&lt;/a&gt;&quot; page, you will find more links, some of which are broken.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user14405" LastEditorDisplayName="user14405" LastEditDate="2018-03-18T12:06:09.237" LastActivityDate="2018-03-18T12:06:09.237" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21152" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-03-18T16:25:58.857" Score="0" ViewCount="295" Body="&lt;p&gt;Suppose there are only two pieces on the board, black king and white king. Black king is at g7 and white king is at e5. It's Black's turn to move. So in this case white has the opposition. Black now plays Kg6.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Can white reach any of the last three squares f8 or g8 or h8. If the answer is &quot;no&quot;, then what's the advantage of having diagonal opposition ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16053" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-03-18T16:59:19.773" LastActivityDate="2018-03-19T02:51:05.447" Title="Advantage of Diagonal Opposition" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;kings&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21153" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21152" CreationDate="2018-03-18T16:40:49.453" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The advantage of opposition can be seen when there is a pawn on the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And the point is that Diagonal Opposition can be easily converted to Horizontal or Vertical Opposition which is quite useful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15769" LastActivityDate="2018-03-18T16:40:49.453" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21154" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21152" CreationDate="2018-03-19T02:51:05.447" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Diagonal opposition can be thought of as a means to an end. No matter where your opponent's King moves, you can get direct opposition sooner or later. Examples from your position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1...Kf7 2. Kf5 (White gets the direct opposition).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1..Kg6 2. Ke6 (White gets the direct opposition).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1...Kg8 2. Ke6 Kh8 3. Kf6 Kh7 4. Kf7 (White gets the direct opposition).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As per your question regarding f8, g8, and h8, White could not reach the squares even if he had direct opposition in a similar position. Put White's King on e6, and Black's King on g6 (Black to move). You'll find that Black can defend the 3 squares, despite White having the opposition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The purpose of opposition is that it forces your opponent to move his King out of the way, letting you pass in one way or the other. Note that the way your opponent moves his King out of the way is &lt;strong&gt;up to him&lt;/strong&gt;, so he could protect f8, g8, h8 indefinitely by keeping his King there. However, that would let your King pass his by playing Kf5, Kg4, Kh4 (and reaching the h-file, if that was your goal).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2018-03-19T02:51:05.447" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21155" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21147" CreationDate="2018-03-19T07:34:31.187" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The endgame with just those 6 pieces is pretty rare, so I doubt there would be enough games in any database to make good stats. Just judging from the material imbalance though, White is in no danger of losing (unless he blunders his Rook).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Without any blunders, White just has to make sure Black cannot sacrifice his Queen for White's Rook and one minor piece (since K+B vs K is a draw). Then, White can maneuver his pieces and set up one trap after another (pins and forks against the Black King and Queen) until eventually winning the Queen. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The problem Black faces is that he has to watch out for tactics from all 3 of White's pieces, which just so happen to move in all different directions (Rook = vertical, Bishop = diagonal, Knight = L-shape). Meanwhile, Black can only really attack with his Queen, and the Queen alone is not enough to cause serious tactical threats (White just has to watch out for skewers and a few pins from one piece).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2018-03-19T07:34:31.187" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21156" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19633" CreationDate="2018-03-19T15:34:48.513" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can also buy Harold Van der Heidjen's endgame study database. It contains more or less all the endgame studies he could gather from the old classic (Saavedra, Ponziani etc..) to the most recent from every publications  and composing tournaments out there. And everything in between (Troitsky, Rinck, Platov brothers, Kubbel, Kasparyan, etc..).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Back when I bought it in 2004 it contained 58000 chess endgame studies, but the most recent versions have most likely over 100k.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14778" LastActivityDate="2018-03-19T15:34:48.513" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21157" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-03-19T17:47:18.357" Score="-5" ViewCount="2827" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have only king left with two pawns but they are blocked. By how many moves an opponent has to checkmate me?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16063" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-03-20T09:34:28.847" LastActivityDate="2018-03-20T09:34:28.847" Title="If I have only a king left and two blocked pawns, how many moves does my opponent have to mate?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;checkmate&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2018-04-09T16:09:15.707" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21158" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21157" CreationDate="2018-03-19T18:05:45.070" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is no such limit. In the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fide.com/component/handbook/?id=171&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;official rules, §9.3&lt;/a&gt;, it is stated that there's a limit of &lt;strong&gt;50 moves&lt;/strong&gt; during which a pawn must move or a piece/pawn must be captured. If that doesn't happen, you can claim a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have heard that there are some circles a stronger limit is imposed when the weaker side has only a &lt;strong&gt;lone king&lt;/strong&gt; (so, not two pawns), but those are unofficial rules and we can't say much about that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2018-03-19T18:05:45.070" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21159" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21162" CreationDate="2018-03-19T18:16:01.513" Score="13" ViewCount="2019" Body="&lt;p&gt;A situation where the movement of the opponent's pieces gets more and more restricted as the attack develops. The opponent can't make moves easily without losing something.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14109" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-03-19T19:09:08.823" LastActivityDate="2018-03-20T01:34:50.340" Title="What term is used to describe the following situation?" Tags="&lt;terminology&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21160" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21159" CreationDate="2018-03-19T19:10:09.440" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;It sounds like you are describing near &quot;zugzwang&quot;.  &quot;Zugzwang: a situation in which the obligation to make a move in one's turn is a serious, often decisive, disadvantage&quot; &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zugzwang&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zugzwang&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Bind&quot; is another term often used to describe restriction.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2018-03-19T19:10:09.440" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21161" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21163" CreationDate="2018-03-19T19:21:41.527" Score="3" ViewCount="219" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would like to do a simple project by looking at the pieces at play when checkmate occurs.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have been scouring the internet for a dataset of standard chess games from which I can retrieve the final board representation, where a checkmate has been played to it's conclusion. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At this point, any board representation would have to be fine, although I'm not trying to generate moves or anything, thus &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Board_representation_(chess)#Array_based&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;array based&lt;/a&gt; would be ideal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd need to have the graphical representation (i.e., like a screenshot a way to load up the games to view them), so I could organize by hand. Well, by sight, actually.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If anyone has any ideas, I'd be grateful. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Monica&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16064" LastEditorUserId="3594" LastEditDate="2018-03-21T15:48:59.757" LastActivityDate="2018-03-21T15:48:59.757" Title="Data set of board representations at checkmate?" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;programming&gt;&lt;database&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21162" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21159" CreationDate="2018-03-19T20:01:37.187" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;As @Ywapom notes, Zugzwang is often used to the describe the &lt;em&gt;end&lt;/em&gt; of this situation, like the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1102400&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Immortal Zugzwang Game&lt;/a&gt; where Sämisch suffers this fate against Nimzowitsch.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the progress itself, it's perfectly normal to use non-chess specific terminology here, e.g. you could say White was &lt;em&gt;slowly getting strangled&lt;/em&gt; by Black in the game above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-03-19T21:00:28.703" LastActivityDate="2018-03-19T21:00:28.703" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21163" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21161" CreationDate="2018-03-19T21:38:27.493" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;To get you started, here's one way you could do this on your own in Python with the &lt;a href=&quot;https://pypi.python.org/pypi/python-chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;python-chess module&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In the example we're loading a simple pgn-file for illustration (which you generalize to reading pgns from a loaded database using the same module) and extracting its final position as a &lt;a href=&quot;http://python-chess.readthedocs.io/en/latest/core.html#board&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;bitboard&lt;/a&gt;.  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Then we check if it's a checkmate position, if true, you can extract the pieces on the board as a &lt;a href=&quot;http://python-chess.readthedocs.io/en/latest/core.html#chess.SquareSet&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Square Set&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;From that, you can then transform the data in any form, e.g. as lists or arrays of the piece symbols and corresponding squares (shown below), or however else it suits your follow-up purposes best.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's the snippet for that:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;import chess&#xA;import chess.pgn&#xA;import sys&#xA;&#xA;arguments = sys.argv&#xA;pgnfilename = str(arguments[1])&#xA;&#xA;#Read pgn file:&#xA;with open(pgnfilename) as f:&#xA;    game = chess.pgn.read_game(f)&#xA;&#xA;#Go to the end of the game and create a chess.Board() from it:&#xA;game = game.end()&#xA;board = game.board()&#xA;&#xA;if board.is_checkmate():&#xA;    print &quot;checkmate found: &quot;&#xA;    print board&#xA;&#xA;    white_pieces = [(board.piece_at(sq),sq) for sq in chess.SquareSet(board.occupied_co[1])]&#xA;    black_pieces = [(board.piece_at(sq),sq) for sq in chess.SquareSet(board.occupied_co[0])]&#xA;&#xA;    print &quot;white pieces: &quot;&#xA;    for el in white_pieces:&#xA;        print el[0].symbol(), &quot; on &quot;, chess.SQUARE_NAMES[el[1]]&#xA;&#xA;    print &quot;---------------------&quot;&#xA;    print &quot;black pieces: &quot;&#xA;    for el in black_pieces:&#xA;        print el[0].symbol(), &quot; on &quot;, chess.SQUARE_NAMES[el[1]]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which gives the following output for the downloaded PGN of &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1076122&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this game between Alexander Alekhine vs Oscar Tenner&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;r . . q . . . r&#xA;p p p . . B p p&#xA;. . . . . . . .&#xA;. . B . k R . n&#xA;. . . . P . . .&#xA;. . . P . . . .&#xA;P P P . . . P P&#xA;R . . b . . K .&#xA;white pieces:&#xA;R  on  a1&#xA;K  on  g1&#xA;P  on  a2&#xA;P  on  b2&#xA;P  on  c2&#xA;P  on  g2&#xA;P  on  h2&#xA;P  on  d3&#xA;P  on  e4&#xA;B  on  c5&#xA;R  on  f5&#xA;B  on  f7&#xA;---------------------&#xA;black pieces:&#xA;b  on  d1&#xA;k  on  e5&#xA;n  on  h5&#xA;p  on  a7&#xA;p  on  b7&#xA;p  on  c7&#xA;p  on  g7&#xA;p  on  h7&#xA;r  on  a8&#xA;q  on  d8&#xA;r  on  h8&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Additional details and ways of extension:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Conventionally, capital and small symbols are used for white and black pieces respectively. For a better display of the board, you can use the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_symbols_in_Unicode&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Unicode symbols for chess pieces&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://docs.python.org/2.7/howto/unicode.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;encode them appropriately&lt;/a&gt; (depending on your python installation or possibly OS) for printing. In our example above, you could have immediately retained the Unicode of each piece instead of its symbol, &lt;code&gt;board.piece_at(sq).unicode_symbol()&lt;/code&gt; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Given a PGN-formatted database (e.g., using &lt;a href=&quot;http://theweekinchess.com/twic&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;TWIC PGNS&lt;/a&gt;), you can easily load it by reading it in python and extracting the starting/ending line indices of each game[*] in the database, and in a loop over all games, you pass each game as a PGN file to &lt;code&gt;chess.pgn.read_game&lt;/code&gt; and the rest follows similarly as in the snippet above.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Feel free to ask in comments if you have any questions about the snippet and other ways of extending it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[*]: All this depends on the database you're trying to work with, but once the formatting known, then you can e.g., parse games based on a keyword that occurs at the start of each game in the database, for instance in the TWIC ones, there's always a line with &lt;code&gt;Event ..&lt;/code&gt; in the headers of the PGN, or even the empty lines between the games. However you go about it, once you know the starting and ending line indices of a game within the file, you can pass it to &lt;code&gt;chess.pgn.read_game&lt;/code&gt; as a file-like object with &lt;code&gt;cStringIO.StringIO&lt;/code&gt; in python. It's not the most efficient way necessarily, but it does the trick. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3594" LastActivityDate="2018-03-19T21:38:27.493" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21164" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21159" CreationDate="2018-03-20T01:34:50.340" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;If &lt;em&gt;every single one&lt;/em&gt; of the opponent's moves loses something, then he is considered to be in zugzwang. However, if he has a position where it's simply difficult to find a satisfactory move, then he would be considered &lt;em&gt;suffocated&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;cramped&lt;/em&gt;, or even &lt;em&gt;squeezed&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's no official/accepted term for general restriction of your opponent's pieces, but any of the 3 I mentioned above are expressions which are commonly used. However, zugzwang is the official/accepted term for a position where all moves lose.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2018-03-20T01:34:50.340" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21165" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21169" CreationDate="2018-03-20T09:03:41.213" Score="2" ViewCount="89" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ZnFKl.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ZnFKl.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am stuck for a move as White. Is there any way to go for a check-mate? I would take the black rook with my rook at d1 but would that be a bad decision? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16072" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-03-20T09:33:40.093" LastActivityDate="2018-03-20T10:28:13.783" Title="How can I continue in this situation?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21166" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21165" CreationDate="2018-03-20T09:24:42.770" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You don't have a checkmate plan. Let's talk about it when you are able to queen a pawn. 1.Rxd8 is a reasonable move here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2018-03-20T09:24:42.770" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21167" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21168" CreationDate="2018-03-20T09:49:01.403" Score="13" ViewCount="3080" Body="&lt;p&gt;When a capture can be made by two rooks, or two knights, etc., how does the notation clarify which piece makes the capture?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, if two pawns, one at e4 and one at c4, capture a pawn at d3, the notation will say exd3 or cxd3, sure.  But if two knights capture the same piece, how is that notated?  Or for two rooks, or queens?  In the case of the knight, it would only say Nxd3, but that doesn't clarify which knight took the piece.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16067" LastEditorUserId="13431" LastEditDate="2018-03-20T14:41:24.003" LastActivityDate="2018-03-20T20:13:10.490" Title="How is notation done for similar pieces capturing the same piece?" Tags="&lt;notation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21168" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21167" CreationDate="2018-03-20T09:59:23.237" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your two knights are on d2 and f2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Ndxe4, Nfxe4,&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your two knights are on f2 and f6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;N2xe4, N6xe4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your three knights are on d2, f2 and f6 (you promoted a pawn)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Ndxe4, Nf2xe4, N6xe4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="2789" LastEditDate="2018-03-20T20:13:10.490" LastActivityDate="2018-03-20T20:13:10.490" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21169" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21165" CreationDate="2018-03-20T10:28:13.783" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's too early to be thinking about forcing a checkmate. Instead, you should focus on centralizing your pieces and getting them to work together. Your Rook on h1 and Knight on b5 are out of play, and aren't constructively helping your Rook on d1 fight in the center (and attack against Black's King).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You could exchange on d8, but keep in mind that with less pieces on the board, it will be more difficult to attack the Black King. I think a better move would be to play Nc3. This gets your Knight out of danger, and on c3 the Knight does the following: 1) It protects your King, 2) It protects the a4-pawn, 3) It blocks the c-file so Black's Rooks can't invade on it, 4) The Knight on c3 can leap to the e4-square at any moment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After moving your Knight to c3, I would suggest getting Rh1 into the game. At this point your 3 pieces will be working together, and you have good chances to mount an attack against the Black King (assuming that remains your goal).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2018-03-20T10:28:13.783" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21170" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21167" CreationDate="2018-03-20T10:31:26.083" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Assume you have Knights on e5 and c5. If Nc5 captured on d3, you would write:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1...Ncxd3&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If Ne5 captured on d3:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1...Nexd3&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The key is using the column letter to distinguish pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the pieces are on the same column, such as Knights on e4 and e6, then you would distinguish via their row numbers. Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If Ne4 captured on g5, you would write:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;N4xg5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If Ne6 captured on g5, you would write:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;N6xg5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you have the choice of distinguishing between column letter and row number, choose column letter. This isn't required by any means, but it tends to be the convention.  Example -- Rooks on e6 and g4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If Re6 captured on g6, you should write:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Rexg6 (not R6xg6).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2018-03-20T10:31:26.083" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21171" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21201" CreationDate="2018-03-20T11:44:22.120" Score="9" ViewCount="930" Body="&lt;p&gt;Something I have wondered about recently is the maximum number of passed pawns that is theoretically possible. What is the answer, and the fastest way to achieve that result?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-04-29T17:00:01.613" LastActivityDate="2021-04-29T17:00:01.613" Title="What is the maximum number of passed pawns in a position?" Tags="&lt;theory&gt;&lt;problems&gt;&lt;pawns&gt;&lt;records&gt;&lt;passed-pawn&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21172" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21171" CreationDate="2018-03-20T11:58:42.170" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;16 passed pawns in 26 moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[startply &quot;52&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. b4 a5 2. b5 Na6 3. bxa6 b6 4. Ba3 c6 5. Bb4 axb4 6. a4 b5 7. a5 c5 8. d3 c4&#xA;9. Nd2 Qc7 10. Nb3 cxb3 11. c4 d5 12. c5 d4 13. Qd2 e5 14. Qc3 dxc3 15. d4 e4&#xA;16. e3 Bh3 17. Bd3 exd3 18. gxh3 h5 19. Ne2 h4 20. Ng3 hxg3 21. h4 g5 22. h5 g4&#xA;23. h4 g2 24. f4 Qe5 25. fxe5 f5 26. e4 f4 *&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12449" LastEditorUserId="12449" LastEditDate="2018-03-23T07:51:54.517" LastActivityDate="2018-03-23T07:51:54.517" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21173" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21179" CreationDate="2018-03-20T14:10:13.800" Score="14" ViewCount="1778" Body="&lt;p&gt;I do not understand the diagrammed position. Do you?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[title &quot;A. Grischuk vs. V. Kramnik, FIDE Candidates 2018&quot;]&#xA;[startply &quot;8&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. c4 e6 2. Nc3 d5 3. d4 Nf6 4. Nf3 c5 5. e3 dxc4 6. Bxc4 a6 7. Bb3 b5 8. e4 cxd4 9. Nxd4 Bb7 10. e5 Ne4 11. O-O Nxc3 12. bxc3 Nc6 13. a4 Bc5 14. axb5 axb5 15. Rxa8 Bxa8 16. Nxb5 O-O 17. Qxd8 Rxd8 18. Bf4 h6 19. h4 Ne7 20. Rd1 Rb8 21. Bc4 Bc6 22. Nd4 Be4 23. h5 Nd5 24. Bxd5 Bxd5 25. Be3 Rc8 26. Re1 Bc4 27. Nf3 Ba3 28. Bd4 Bd3 29. Nd2 Bb2 30. Nf1 Rc4 31. Re3 Bf5 32. Ng3 Bh7 33. Kh2 Bc1 34. Re2 Bf4 35. Kh3 Ra4 36. Kg4 Bc1 37. Kf3 Bd3 38. Re1 Bb2 39. Ke3 Bc2 40. Kd2 Bb3 41. Rb1 Ra2 42. Kd3 Ba4 43. Ne4 Ba3 44. Ke3 Bc2 45. Re1 Bb3 46. g4 Bd5 47. Kd3 Be7 48. Rb1 Ra8 49. f4 Bh4 50. Rh1 Bd8 51. Rb1 Bc7 52. Ke3 Kh7 53. Nd6 Kg8 54. Rb5 Bc6 55. Rb4 Bd8 56. Bb6 Bh4 57. Bd4 Bg2 58. Rb2 Bc6 59. Rb6 Bg2 60. Rb2 Bc6 61. Rb3 Bg3 62. c4 Bh2 63. f5 exf5 64. Nxf5 Kh7 65. Bb2 Re8 66. Nd6 Re7 67. Rb8 f6 68. Rc8 Bh1 69. Nf5 Rb7 70. exf6 Rb3+ 71. Bc3 gxf6 72. Kd2 Bf4+ 73. Kc2 Rb8 74. Rxb8 Bxb8 75. Ne7 Be4+ 76. Kd2 Bf4+ 77. Ke2 Kg7 78. Nf5+ Kf7 79. Bd2 Be5 80. Bxh6 Ke6 81. Be3 Bxf5 82. gxf5+ Kxf5 83. h6 Kg6 84. c5 f5 85. Kf3 Kf7 86. Bf4 Bd4 87. c6 Ke7 88. c7 Kd7 89. h7 Kc8 90. Ke2 Kd7 91. Kd3 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the idea behind 4... c5? Why form a hostile bloc of two black against two white pawns on the c and d files? Once the bloc is formed, how does one decide whether&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;to capture toward the c file (as Black soon does),&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;to capture toward the d file (which, inscrutably, neither player wishes to do), or&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;not to capture at all?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This kind of position is opaque to me. I do not understand it. I am aware of no principles by which one can treat it. I perceive no relevant pattern in a bloc of four pawns. Please advise.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would gladly read an answer at any level but would find most useful an answer pitched at about Elo 1350 or USCF class C.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Source for the game: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/news/view/candidates-tournament-r8-grischuk-outwits-kramnik&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess.com.&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="315" LastEditorUserId="2789" LastEditDate="2018-03-20T18:34:16.257" LastActivityDate="2018-03-21T01:37:00.223" Title="Understanding the Tarrasch defence to the Queen's gambit" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;pawn-structure&gt;&lt;candidates&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21174" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21173" CreationDate="2018-03-20T15:26:09.877" Score="10" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What is the idea behind 4... c5? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically the same ideas as behind playing c4 in the Queen's gambit: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;challenging the center,&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;potentially exchanging the c-pawn for a valuable central pawn, &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;opening the c file for a rook, &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;giving the knight a square on c6 (which is often a better square for the knight if the pawn has moved to c5 already)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;potentially threatening to leave white with an isolated queen pawn (see below)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Why form a hostile bloc of two black against two white pawns on the c and d files?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why not? &quot;Hostility&quot; is not something you should be afraid of when playing chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Once the bloc is formed, how does one decide whether ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is no strict rule here and various captures and no-captures have been tried and tested by good players. A typical motive you need to be aware of in these positions is the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isolated_pawn#Isolated_queen_pawn&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;isolated queen pawn&lt;/a&gt; (IQP), i.e. a player might be left with a pawn on the d-file and without any pawns on the c and e files which could support it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An IQP leads to somewhat asymmetric play, with one player trying to block and put pressure on this potentially weak pawn, while the other player (the one with the IQP) is trying to take advantage of his better piece play that is a result of the pawn structure and also has ideas related to advancing the IQP.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If there is no IQP on either side, the positions resulting from this opening are often very symmetric, potentially boring, and it is difficult to find a good plan in them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I'd say the decision on how to capture is basically determined by what kind of game you want:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;with an IQP; asymmetric, unbalanced game with clear plans for both sides&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;without an IQP; symmetric, equal position, with unclear plans&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2018-03-20T15:26:09.877" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21175" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21176" CreationDate="2018-03-20T21:26:06.580" Score="2" ViewCount="937" Body="&lt;p&gt;So I have a game board as follows where my opponent moved their bishop to be openly captured by my queen. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/exuO4.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/exuO4.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there any reason for me to not take the bishop? I can’t foresee any immediate counter moves but I don’t know if there is a trap a few moves ahead. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/uuYSk.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/uuYSk.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16079" LastActivityDate="2018-03-21T01:28:24.640" Title="Is this a trap?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21176" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21175" CreationDate="2018-03-20T21:35:40.977" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's not a trap, just a blunder. There's no way for White to take advantage of your slightly exposed queen or the unprotected knight on d4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2018-03-20T21:35:40.977" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21177" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21175" CreationDate="2018-03-20T21:56:25.433" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Imagine the position with the move &lt;code&gt;Qxg5&lt;/code&gt; already played. Is there anything White can do to you that you would not like?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Look for checks, captures and threats. The only check is &lt;code&gt;Bb5+&lt;/code&gt;, which can be met by &lt;code&gt;...Nxb5&lt;/code&gt;, so no need to worry about that. White doesn't really have any dangerous captures or threats either, since if anything you can take on g2 next.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since there's no reason not the take the bishop, take it and be a piece up!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7500" LastActivityDate="2018-03-20T21:56:25.433" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21178" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21175" CreationDate="2018-03-21T01:28:24.640" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;No traps here, just a free piece. I'm guessing your opponent missed your Queen could take the Bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A good way to figure out if something is a trap is to ask &quot;What will have changed if my Queen is on g5 instead of d8&quot;? Is there some kind of tactic against the Queen on that square (perhaps a discovered attack on it)? Was the Queen doing something important on d8 that it will not do anymore (such as defending the c7-pawn)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The answers to both of these questions is no -- White has no tactics against a Queen on g5, and there is no way for White to take advantage of the Queen being missed on d8.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2018-03-21T01:28:24.640" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21179" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21173" CreationDate="2018-03-21T01:37:00.223" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Black's idea is to try to neutralize White's center pressure by making the situation appear equal. One idea for both sides is to take the c-pawn after their opponent has moved the King's Bishop. For example, if White plays Bd3, Black may play ...dxc4, causing White to lose a tempo by having to move the Bishop again.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This mutual dilemma makes development tricky, as both sides need to develop the King's Bishop in order to castle. What often happens is that White resolves the tension with his c-pawn and Black's d-pawn, and then both sides continue with normal development. The main line from the diagrammed position (after 4...c5) is as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;5&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;cxd5 (resolving the tension) exd5 6. g3 Nc6 7. Bg2 Be7 8. 0-0 0-0&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At this point, Black's c-pawn and White's d-pawn tend to be exchanged soon. This results in a position where Black has an isolated pawn, but in return gets slightly more active pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One of the main goals (for Black) of the Tarrasch is to reach such an isolated d-pawn position, since in return for an isolated pawn Black gets good activity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the game you posted, Kramnik decided to take on c4 before White moved his King's Bishop. If he wanted to play a pure Tarrasch setup, he would have waited with ...Nc6 or ...a6. The reason he took on c4 immediately is that he wanted to transpose to a QGA setup.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2018-03-21T01:37:00.223" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21180" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21181" CreationDate="2018-03-21T02:42:58.863" Score="2" ViewCount="157" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[title &quot;A. Grischuk vs. V. Kramnik, FIDE Candidates 2018 (Mar 19, 2018)&quot;]&#xA;[startply &quot;140&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. c4 e6 2. Nc3 d5 3. d4 Nf6 4. Nf3 c5 5. e3 dxc4 6. Bxc4 a6 7. Bb3 b5 8. e4 cxd4 9. Nxd4 Bb7 10. e5 Ne4 11. O-O Nxc3 12. bxc3 Nc6 13. a4 Bc5 14. axb5 axb5 15. Rxa8 Bxa8 16. Nxb5 O-O 17. Qxd8 Rxd8 18. Bf4 h6 19. h4 Ne7 20. Rd1 Rb8 21. Bc4 Bc6 22. Nd4 Be4 23. h5 Nd5 24. Bxd5 Bxd5 25. Be3 Rc8 26. Re1 Bc4 27. Nf3 Ba3 28. Bd4 Bd3 29. Nd2 Bb2 30. Nf1 Rc4 31. Re3 Bf5 32. Ng3 Bh7 33. Kh2 Bc1 34. Re2 Bf4 35. Kh3 Ra4 36. Kg4 Bc1 37. Kf3 Bd3 38. Re1 Bb2 39. Ke3 Bc2 40. Kd2 Bb3 41. Rb1 Ra2 42. Kd3 Ba4 43. Ne4 Ba3 44. Ke3 Bc2 45. Re1 Bb3 46. g4 Bd5 47. Kd3 Be7 48. Rb1 Ra8 49. f4 Bh4 50. Rh1 Bd8 51. Rb1 Bc7 52. Ke3 Kh7 53. Nd6 Kg8 54. Rb5 Bc6 55. Rb4 Bd8 56. Bb6 Bh4 57. Bd4 Bg2 58. Rb2 Bc6 59. Rb6 Bg2 60. Rb2 Bc6 61. Rb3 Bg3 62. c4 Bh2 63. f5 exf5 64. Nxf5 Kh7 65. Bb2 Re8 66. Nd6 Re7 67. Rb8 f6 68. Rc8 Bh1 69. Nf5 Rb7 70. exf6 Rb3+ 71. Bc3 gxf6 72. Kd2 Bf4+ 73. Kc2 Rb8 74. Rxb8 Bxb8 75. Ne7 Be4+ 76. Kd2 Bf4+ 77. Ke2 Kg7 78. Nf5+ Kf7 79. Bd2 Be5 80. Bxh6 Ke6 81. Be3 Bxf5 82. gxf5+ Kxf5 83. h6 Kg6 84. c5 f5 85. Kf3 Kf7 86. Bf4 Bd4 87. c6 Ke7 88. c7 Kd7 89. h7 Kc8 90. Ke2 Kd7 91. Kd3 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm looking at yesterday's game between Grischuk and Kramnik, and I'm trying to understand (disclaimer: I'm a weak recreational player) where did Grischuk make the difference. Is it right to say that Kramnik blundered on move 70? Or was the game lost earlier? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Game from &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/news/view/candidates-tournament-r8-grischuk-outwits-kramnik&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess.com&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12113" LastActivityDate="2018-03-21T22:29:05.100" Title="Was this Kramnik's mistake?" Tags="&lt;blunder&gt;&lt;candidates&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21181" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21180" CreationDate="2018-03-21T04:30:34.783" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I entered the position in ChessBase and got Komodo 9 to analyze it -- it says 70...Rb3+ was Black's best move by far, only giving White a +0.64 advantage (which means the engine thinks White is &quot;64% of a pawn&quot; better). The reason Rb3+ is a good move is that Black needs counterplay -- if he sits and does nothing, White will win easily (due to being up 2 pawns).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, at that point the game was close to drawn, but White still had good chances to press and win (which he did).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black's mistake was playing 76...Bf4+, giving White a winning advantage. Instead, he should have played 76...Bf3, attacking White's g4-pawn. Playing 76...Bf4+ allowed White to play 77. Ke2, stopping Black from playing Bf3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's important to note though that Kramnik's mistake isn't close to a blunder -- rather's it's a small inaccuracy that lost the game (at GM level this can happen). It's easy to analyze a game with an engine and criticize the play of even the top players in the world.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT - I checked again on the engine, and Black should play 75...Bf3 instead of 75...Be4+ 76. Kd2 Bf3, since that just brings White's King one square closer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastEditorUserId="12873" LastEditDate="2018-03-21T22:29:05.100" LastActivityDate="2018-03-21T22:29:05.100" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21182" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21183" CreationDate="2018-03-21T09:44:23.933" Score="2" ViewCount="411" Body="&lt;p&gt;What kind of semi-open file is better for your rook?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One where your pawn is on it, or one where the opponents pawn is on?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14241" LastActivityDate="2018-03-21T10:11:12.043" Title="What kind of semi-open file is better for your rook?" Tags="&lt;rooks&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21183" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21182" CreationDate="2018-03-21T10:11:12.043" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Generally when you read/hear something like &quot;to put the rook on a semi-open file&quot; it means a file where the opponent's pawn is on. The reasoning behind this is just &lt;em&gt;piece activity&lt;/em&gt;, i.e. to maximize the available squares for the rook and also to attack something (the opponent's pawn on that file).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only time where it makes sense (on general principles) to put a rook on a semi-open file where your own pawn is on, is if you want to support a passed pawn, typically with the rook from behind the pawn. However this situation would not be referred to as &quot;putting the rook on a semi-open file&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS: Of course there are situations (like the latter example above), where it could make sense to put the rook on a semi open file where your own pawn is located. However I understood your question as asking about the &lt;strong&gt;general principle&lt;/strong&gt; that &lt;em&gt;rooks are supposed to be good on semi-open files&lt;/em&gt;. In that  case it would always be the semi-open file with your opponent's pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2018-03-21T10:11:12.043" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21184" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21189" CreationDate="2018-03-21T12:29:53.523" Score="5" ViewCount="459" Body="&lt;p&gt;It seems to me to be a very solid structure that can play very good in the endgame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: pawns on c2, c3, d2, d3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13744" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-03-21T14:02:16.113" LastActivityDate="2018-03-21T15:35:52.603" Title="Are connected doubled (4 pawns on 2 files) a weak structure?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;pawns&gt;&lt;pawn-structure&gt;&lt;doubled-pawn&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21185" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12974" CreationDate="2018-03-21T12:51:03.783" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There have been a lot of interesting points made here. I had been playing postal chess using books only and around 1988 it became clear that most of my opponents were using computers. I had some talent for chess growing up and I used it to play before I ever read a chess book.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course having a lot of resources will make you play well in the opening, often giving you an advantage over anybody that is not prepared the way you are.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would venture to say, talent for chess is not much different in the 2000s. People that have a simple interest in chess, play it just as entertainment are not much different than people 50 years ago with the same vision. Some people do try to study, and are only able to retain some much knowledge and can only work with facts in certain ways.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At the higher level, I would guess because of all the materials available, the more talented players could develop into top players more quickly with dedication. I think you can see this in all sports. There is also a point where your talent seems to fade out a bit, like in your 40s.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Top pool players, a game whose decisions are similar to chess, find themselves affected by age, health, and other factors. There are players in their 60s and beyond that are quite good, but they dedicated their every waking moment to their skill and remain good in most situations. For a champion, that is what it takes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;50 years ago, it was not possible to imagine the kinds of resources available today. If you owned 1000 chess books and had read a lot of it, you already had some advantage, even if you were not a top player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Players that have dedication and talent should be helped to reach their goals. Players that are playing to have a good time of just find interest in the game should be encouraged to enjoy it as much as they can take in. Better players should be able to recognize which players are their competition and act accordingly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I see and have experienced a bit too much ego dealing with people that had a stronger interest and investment that me. That hasn't changed much. I revel in the fact I am just a hack at pool, and I wear the fact I am out to have a good time and bang the balls around. I am just a coffee-house player, and although a lot of what I thought was weaker players now know the openings better, its just as easy to trick them into bad positions by bearing down on their game, even in good positions, since they are likely to make as many errors as I am.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16086" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2021-02-08T14:03:08.767" LastActivityDate="2021-02-08T14:03:08.767" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21186" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14677" CreationDate="2018-03-21T12:52:07.403" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I once had this position in one of my games as White:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;r3qrk1/1bp3np/p3p3/1p1pPpp1/3b1P2/2PBP2P/PP4PB/R2Q1RK1 w - - 0 20&#xA;&#xA;1. exd4 (1. cxd4)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I played exd4, undoubling my pawns, but also considered cxd4, which would have resulted in a picturesque &quot;pawn diamond&quot;. Stockfish gives nearly the same evaluation to both moves, so maybe I should have gone with the diamond just so I could said I really played it instead of almost played it! :-)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12523" LastActivityDate="2018-03-21T12:52:07.403" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21187" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17807" CreationDate="2018-03-21T12:56:12.083" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This looks like a win for black. After 1.__ Kg5, black is already threatening Kf5 picking up the pawn. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.Ne3 is a bad reply because of 2.__ h3 3.Nf1 {forced already} 4.Kf4 e6 5.fxe6+ Kxe6 6.Bb2  . Now, the moves Bc1-Kf3-Kg2 is unstoppable. eg: 6.Kf7 Bc1 7.Kg6 Kf3 8.Nh2+ Kg3 9.Nf1 Kg2 .&#xA;But white has a trump here. (I agree it is more complicated than what I thought first). Black will need better tactics to win!&#xA;6.Kf7 Bc1 7.Kg6 Kf3 8.Kh5 Kg2 9.Kg4 (or Kh4). Now black has to lose a tempo if necessary in order to win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a) 9.Kg4 Bd2 10.Kh4 Be1+ 11.Kg4 Bf2 {The path taken by the bishop is interesting. A nice zig-zag. This position can be reached in other ways. This sequence looks more beautiful to me.}&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;b) 9.Kh4 Bh6 {lose of tempo} 10.Kg4 Bd2 and continue as in variation a.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The remaining move that deserves consideration is 2.Nh7 .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.Nh7 Kf5 3.Nf3 h3 and the pawn on e5 is gone. eg: 4.Kd6 Bxe5+ 5.Nxe5 h2 . Note that 4.Nh4+ Kg4 drops the knight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you for the question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14678" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-03-21T13:48:58.553" LastActivityDate="2018-03-21T13:48:58.553" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21188" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21191" CreationDate="2018-03-21T13:34:57.853" Score="11" ViewCount="2037" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was watching Karjakin vs Kramnik at the FIDE Candidates Tournament 2018, Round 9, and simultaneously observing the chat feed at &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess24.com/en/watch/live-tournaments/fide-berlin-candidates-2018/9/1/4&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;chess24.com&lt;/a&gt;, where people unanimously glorified the move &lt;code&gt;25. Bh4&lt;/code&gt;. Why was it considered such a good move?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;FIDE Candidates Tournament 2018&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2018.03.20&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Sergey Karjakin&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Vladimir Kramnik&quot;]&#xA;[StartPly &quot;49&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. c4 e6 2. Nc3 d5 3. d4 Nf6 4. cxd5 Nxd5 5. e4 Nxc3 6. bxc3&#xA;c5 7. Rb1 Be7 8. Nf3 O-O 9. h4 cxd4 10. cxd4 Nc6 11. h5 f5&#xA;12. exf5 Qa5+ 13. Bd2 Qxf5 14. Bc3 h6 15. Bd3 Qg4 16. Kf1 e5&#xA;17. d5 e4 18. dxc6 exf3 19. gxf3 Rxf3 20. Be2 Rxf2+ 21. Kxf2&#xA;Bc5+ 22. Kf1 Qf4+ 23. Bf3 bxc6 24. Be1 Be6 25. Bh4 Rf8 26. Kg2&#xA;Kh8 27. Rc1 Rf5 28. Rc3 Rd5 29. Bxd5 Bxd5+ 30. Rf3 Qg4+&#xA;31. Bg3 Bd6 32. Rh3 Be7 33. Qe2 Be4 34. Qf2 a5 35. a4 c5&#xA;36. Rh1 Bf6 37. Re1 Bc6 38. Ree3 c4 39. Qe2 Qxh5 40. Qxc4 Bd7&#xA;41. Rd3 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16057" LastEditorUserId="16057" LastEditDate="2018-03-21T18:03:15.147" LastActivityDate="2018-03-21T18:03:15.147" Title="Why is White's &quot;25. Bh4&quot; considered a great move in Karjakin vs Kramnik at FIDE Candidates Tournament 2018?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;candidates&gt;&lt;kramnik&gt;&lt;karjakin&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21189" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21184" CreationDate="2018-03-21T14:02:06.817" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is a solid structure indeed, avoiding one of the most important weaknesses of doubled pawns, which is that they're generally hard to protect. Also, they're less easy to block than just a c- and d-pawn, since the backward pawns can attack enemy pieces on the blocking squares.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, this structure only influences the b-, c-, d- and e-files, while a 'regular' connected pawn structure influences 6 files. Such a structure is also more likely to be able to force breakthroughs. Everything depends on context, as &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/21184/are-connected-doubled-4-pawns-on-2-files-a-week-structure#comment30456_21184&quot;&gt;user1583209 notes&lt;/a&gt;, but in general it's better &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; to have doubled pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2018-03-21T14:02:06.817" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21190" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21188" CreationDate="2018-03-21T14:12:11.333" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;White wants to move his King to g2, but if he does so right away then Black can play ...Qg5+. By playing Bh4, White covers the g5-square, allowing his King to seek haven on g2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, playing Bh4 activates the Bishop (it was extremely passive on e1), and allows White to connect his 3 major pieces after playing Kg2. Overall, just a great multi-purpose move in a position that seems chaotic to handle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2018-03-21T14:12:11.333" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21191" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21188" CreationDate="2018-03-21T14:13:15.533" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;The reason behind &lt;code&gt;25. Bh4&lt;/code&gt; is very concrete, namely: With &lt;code&gt;Rf8&lt;/code&gt; coming next for black, white's bound to play &lt;code&gt;Kg2&lt;/code&gt; to unpin and cover &lt;code&gt;f3&lt;/code&gt; but without preparing it with &lt;code&gt;Bh4&lt;/code&gt; it leads to the following forcing variation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [title &quot;25. Kg2 without Bh4&quot;]&#xA; [fen &quot;r5k1/p5p1/2p1b2p/2b4P/5q2/5B2/P7/1R1QBK1R w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. Kg2 Qg5+ 2. Bg3 Rd8 3. Qxd8+ Qxd8 4. Rb8 Bc8 5. Bg4 Qd5+ 6. Kh2 Bd6 7.Rxc8+ Kh7 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This line forces white to give up the queen for the two pieces, and it is definitely still among the winning variations for white but for practical reasons I reckon Karjakin intended to keep his queen on the board and avoid that variation for good, which he perfectly achieves with &lt;code&gt;25. Bh4&lt;/code&gt; as it stops both &lt;code&gt;Qg5+&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;Rd8&lt;/code&gt; and sets up &lt;code&gt;Kg2.&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3594" LastEditorUserId="3594" LastEditDate="2018-03-21T14:33:49.420" LastActivityDate="2018-03-21T14:33:49.420" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21192" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21184" CreationDate="2018-03-21T14:15:25.397" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The structure itself isn't weak, since as you mentioned all of the pawns are solid and protecting each other. The problem is that you can't do much offensively with these pawns. Take the following example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black has his c-, d-, e-, f- pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White has the pawn structure you mentioned.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Notice how White is unable to block Black's f-pawn. Also, how is White supposed to do anything in the center? He can only really use his front 2 pawns in an attack, while the back 2 have to sit and wait.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It depends on the position though. Maybe you don't want to move any of your pawns, and controlling the squares around that 4-pawn block is more important.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2018-03-21T14:15:25.397" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21193" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21197" CreationDate="2018-03-21T14:58:25.070" Score="4" ViewCount="686" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a variation of the Ruy lopez that I have recently played and made two sacrifices and ended up with a very good game, and I wanted to know if anyone else could or have tried it? Here is the move order:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Ba4 b5&#xA;5. Bb3 Na5 6. Bxf7+&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then the continuation that was played was&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Ba4 b5&#xA;5. Bb3 Na5 6. Bxf7+ Kxf7 7. Nxe5+ Ke8 8. Qh5+ g6&#xA;9. Nxg6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and black resigned. This was all played with a 2+0 time control so I saw this nice little gambit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15778" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-03-21T22:36:20.537" LastActivityDate="2018-04-03T02:09:56.947" Title="Has anyone had positive results using the Ruy Lopez Norwegian variation nightingale gambit?" Tags="&lt;gambits&gt;&lt;ruy-lopez&gt;&lt;sacrifice&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21194" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21184" CreationDate="2018-03-21T15:35:52.603" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The structure lacks mobility and is therefore inherently weak.  The c2 and d2 pawns can not advance if attacked. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2018-03-21T15:35:52.603" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21195" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="226" CreationDate="2018-03-21T17:16:20.343" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The very first time I played chess, I didn't know any openings and chose the Ruy Lopez due to mental intimidation then later found out its name and I play the scotch more often.  It doubles up the pawns and removes the defender of the e pawn plus developing so it's very logical.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15778" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T15:30:24.793" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T15:30:24.793" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21197" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21193" CreationDate="2018-03-21T19:58:52.363" Score="3" Body="&lt;ol start=&quot;4&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;... b5 is quite uncommon in the Ruy Lopez. I was initially sceptical, but the gambit seems to be quite interesting, or at least not easily refutable. On amateur level, it seems to score pretty well, if you have a look at for example the database on lichess. However, amongst stronger players in long games black scores significantly more points. I would definitely try it in Blitz, but not in a long game. Ultimately, it seems, it's objectively at least equal or worse for the sacrificing party (as with almost every gambit). &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My evaluation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;little practical utility (literally nobody plays 4. ... b5, at least on my level)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;unsound&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;probably fun at blitz&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12604" LastEditorUserId="12604" LastEditDate="2018-03-21T20:05:38.310" LastActivityDate="2018-03-21T20:05:38.310" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21198" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21193" CreationDate="2018-03-21T22:15:11.573" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;5...Na5 is interesting and it's hard for White to refute. Both 6. Nxe5 and 6. Bxf7+ are tempting options, but the best move is simply castling with 6. 0-0. White's plan is to push in the center with d4, and Black's Knight is missed on c6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sample line after 6. 0-0:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;6...Nxb3 7. axb3 d6 (Black must protect the now undefended e5-pawn) 8. d4! exd4 9. Nxd4 (threatening to take on b5 due to the a-file pin) Bb7 10. Re1.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At this point, White has a nice edge. He has a good lead in development, and the Knight on d4 can jump to the f5-square at any point. While Black does have the two Bishops, his cramped position with barely any pieces out does not give him enough.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;MVL recently played 5...Na5 in a rapid game though, so it's definitely a viable move. I doubt most people could find 6. 0-0 over the board if they hadn't studied the line previously.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2018-03-21T22:15:11.573" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21199" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19597" CreationDate="2018-03-21T23:59:43.037" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I honestly don't know either, but as far as I can tell (and if someone else can verify this for me that would be great), this is essentially the same clock as the Wholesale Chess Advanced Digital Timer, except in blue.  If you google that clock and look at pictures, they seem identical, including having the same description of the various modes on the bottom of the clock, laid out in an identical format.  The on/off switch is located in the same place, both clocks have the same shape and the same buttons, and the same modes as far as I can tell (I did not do a mode-by-mode comparison, but they both have 38 pre-defined modes, one user-defined mode numbered 00, and they both allow you to save changes to a single pre-defined mode, labeled F).  Anyway, the Wholesale clock does not seem to have a count-up timer, so I strongly suspect this one does not either.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16097" LastActivityDate="2018-03-21T23:59:43.037" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21200" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19833" CreationDate="2018-03-22T01:49:37.193" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are three elements to chess. Space, time and forces. Since you are a man down, you can compensate with trying to gain more space and control and try to run their time down. Capturing the pawn grabs a pawn and messes up his space meaning it is extremely logical. 1.Bxg5 hxg5 2 Nh5 trying to gain initiative and rip open his position. White is also not so good because he isn't castled and the bishop will mess the pawn structure up. Try to complicate the position, create traps and avoid exchanges.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15778" LastActivityDate="2018-03-22T01:49:37.193" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21201" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21171" CreationDate="2018-03-22T05:23:11.463" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;EDIT: record is now 20.0 moves! (See below.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If we like pawns undoubled...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[title &quot;16 non-doubled passed pawns in 21.0 moves&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[startply &quot;42&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. g4 h5 2. g5 Rh6 3. gxh6 g5 4. h4 g4 5. b4 e5 6. f4 e4 7. Nf3 exf3 8. e4 f5 9. e5 Qg5 10. Nc3 a5 11. Ne4 fxe4 12. c4 a4 13. Qb3 axb3 14. a4 b5 15. a5 d5 16. c5 Bd6 17. cxd6 c5 18. Ra4 c4 19. d4 Na6 20. hxg5 Nc5 21. dxc5 bxa4 *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;   &#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If we like all our pawns doubled, there's just a small improvement possible...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[title &quot;16 passed pawns (all doubled) in 20.5 moves&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[startply &quot;41&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. a4 b5 2. a5 d5 3. c4 h5 4. Ra4 bxa4 5. c5 e5 6. g4 Bd6 7. cxd6 c5 8. e4 f5 9. Ne2 h4 10. Ng3 hxg3 11. h4 Rh5 12. gxh5 g5 13. Bc4 dxc4 14. d4 f4 15. Be3 Bf5 16. exf5 fxe3 17. f4 e4 18. d5 Qb6 19. axb6 a5 20. b4 g4 21. b5 *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But best of all, curiously, is if we mix doubled and undoubled...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[title &quot;16 passed pawns in 20.0 moves!&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[startply &quot;40&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 c5 2. f4 e5 3. f5 d5 4. Bf4 Be6&#xA;5. fxe6 exf4 6. e4 f5 7. e5 c4 8. Bd3 Bc5&#xA;9. dxc5 cxd3 10. c4 a5 11. b4 a4 12. Qb3 axb3&#xA;13. a4 b5 14. a5 h5 15. g4 Rh6 16. g5 d4&#xA;17. gxh6 g5 18. h4 g4 19. Ra4 Qg5 20. hxg5 bxa4 *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't think this can be beaten, and the other 20-move positions are quite narrowly defined: the captures from a file to h file must be R,Q,B,B,B,B,Q,R/N.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8201" LastEditorUserId="8201" LastEditDate="2018-03-26T16:06:35.447" LastActivityDate="2018-03-26T16:06:35.447" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21202" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12292" CreationDate="2018-03-22T14:29:50.247" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Despite this post being over 2 years old, the position seems to be very interesting and caught my attention. So here are my two-cents on it:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm rather surprised by white's follow-up moves in that game, I just don't see what is being gained! Instead, first thought that comes to my mind is to bring the &lt;code&gt;h3&lt;/code&gt; bishop into the game, which in fact in the actual game is left on &lt;code&gt;h3&lt;/code&gt; for at least 10 moves, then moved to &lt;code&gt;f1&lt;/code&gt; and eventually &lt;code&gt;e3-Be2&lt;/code&gt; is played, but in all that the light square bishop has played no role whatsoever to justify white for being up a piece. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So let's simply focus on that and try to revive the bishop with &lt;code&gt;Kf1&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;Bg2.&lt;/code&gt; Once our bishop is in play, the trade of black's bishop for our knight will likely be in our favour as we'd still have our two pawns, and two active pieces against the single rook, whereas in the game itself, once the bishop is brought into the game, white has already lost the &lt;code&gt;h2&lt;/code&gt; pawn and black's pawns are already storming down the board. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's an annotated diagram to study &lt;code&gt;Kf1-Bg2&lt;/code&gt; idea:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [title &quot;A different approach for white: reviving the bishop&quot;]&#xA; [fen &quot;N7/P3pk1p/3p2p1/r4p2/8/4b2B/4P1KP/1R6 w - - 0 34&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1.Kf1 Rxa7 2.Bg2 g5 {the early g-pawn push is mainly aimed at stopping white's h-pawn from advancing and attempting to undermine black's pawn chain. If black is allowed, g4 is next.} 3.Bc6 {Important move here: stops the Ra4 - Rf4+ - Rg4 maneuver, and leaves g2 as Luft for the king thus freeing the rook from the first row, more active prospects compared to g2, and temporarily untouchable on c6 as Ra6 can be answered by Be8+ and Nc7, all while maintaining control over the important long diagonal. } g4 (3...e6 4.Rb7+ Rxb7 5.Bxb7 {and if anything the draw is well in hand, as we've kept the knight next to the opposite color bishop situation.})  4.Nb6 {hard to find an immediate plan for black} Bd4 {prophylactic vs Nd5} (4...Bxb6 5.Rxb6 {and unlike the actual game we still have the h-pawn, our bishop is in play, and our rook in time to go behind the pawns} h5 6.Kf2 h4 7.Rb8 Ra3 8.Bd7 e6 9.Rh8 {forcing h3 with all the pawns on light squares, then we just have to stop f4 and black cannot make progress.} h3 10.Rh6 f4 11.Kg1 {side-stepping g3 with check, as that would probably be losing on the spot} Ra1+ 12.Kf2 Rh1 13.Bxe6+ Kg7 14.Rh4 Rxh2+ 15.Kg1 Rxe2 16.Bxg4 h2+ 17.Kh1 Rf2 18.Rxh2 {it's worth exploring some of these lines as they're very sharp and concrete therefore highly non-trivial.}) 5.Nd5 e6 6.Nf4 Rc7 7.Ba4 {Even Rb7 looks sufficient for a draw, but requires more calculation to make sure.} d5 8.h3 {if Be3, Ng2 works which is lucky. As for the rest: we've brought all pieces into play, pinned most black pawns to light squares, and managed to trade our h pawn, and big prospects of holding this position, and even winning it if black goes wrong.}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So in summary, it seems that by bringing the bishop into play immediately, we've managed to muster up an actual defense against the pawn storm, and even create active play, thus in fact making a case for being a piece up! This seems to be far more playable than the version of the endgame that transpired in the actual game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3594" LastActivityDate="2018-03-22T14:29:50.247" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21204" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-03-23T19:25:39.370" Score="3" ViewCount="545" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have been experimenting with the Team feature and tournament features in Lichess, but I just learned that it's not possible to have swiss, round robin or manual pairing in Lichess. A couple of months ago, I organized a rapid league in my chess club and it went really well, but after a few months, we stopped it due to financial problems. There were three leagues, A, B and C with one round-robin tournament each month (For A and B) while C had a swiss tournament. After each tournament, the top and bottom two shift groups and the winners of the Swiss get a place in B group. Learned so much from running the league. Recently I checked Lichess and fell in love with the beautiful interface (but sad at the lack of features for Swiss/RR tournaments), so, I wanted to ask if there's a good place to organize such a league online? I checked chess.com but it wants me to pay. Still researching!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5653" LastActivityDate="2021-05-06T21:03:25.430" Title="What are some of the chess sites that allow Round Robin or Swiss Tournament to be organized?" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;online&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21205" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8163" CreationDate="2018-03-24T04:45:48.903" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;em&gt;US Chess Federation Official Rules of Chess 5th Edition&lt;/em&gt; has a section (section 33, if you have a copy) that has some guidelines about prizes.  These are specifically described as recommendations and not rules.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A ratio of 10 to 1 between the top prize and the entry fee for serious tournaments is suggested (and perhaps even more if you want to attract top players.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It suggests that class prizes be at least the amount of the entry fee, and also suggests that the place prizes all be higher than the class prizes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastEditorUserId="12629" LastEditDate="2018-03-24T15:12:06.200" LastActivityDate="2018-03-24T15:12:06.200" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21206" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-03-24T05:06:41.660" Score="0" ViewCount="557" Body="&lt;p&gt;The last public ranking of chess centaurs was in &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.infinitychess.com/Page/Public/Article/DefaultArticle.aspx?id=83&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;2014&lt;/a&gt;, and only compares centaurs to each other. As of 2018, what would be the ELO rating of the best centaurs compared to the best humans and chess engines?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is similar to &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/15772/how-do-the-best-centaurs-compare-to-the-best-computers&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; question, but two differences:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It is specifically about if centaurs beat computers, which is a subset of this question&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The top answer is about a GM with a computer who does &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; have any training as a centaur, while we know that good centaurs have very different skills than good humans do.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16118" LastActivityDate="2018-03-24T14:12:39.043" Title="What would be the ELO of modern-day centaurs?" Tags="&lt;elo&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21207" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21206" CreationDate="2018-03-24T13:59:49.153" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess centaurs is not correspondence chess because centaur matches are played under the classical time controls. Unfortunately, centaurs is dead because the best strategy is just follow the engine moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In classical time controls, there's generally no advantage for human assistance. Humans are too slow, too clumsy etc ... we need more time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is 2018, centaurs matches are absolutely meaningless. They are like computer matches with dumb human intervention. Computer engines play stronger than human+computer unless the human player has sufficient time to digest the positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The answer to your question is the &lt;strong&gt;same ELO as the engine itself&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2018-03-24T14:12:39.043" LastActivityDate="2018-03-24T14:12:39.043" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21208" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2409" CreationDate="2018-03-24T19:03:40.030" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Dider gives an answer based on the maximum activity of the pieces when they are placed at the center of an empty board.&#xA;One could continue this analysis evaluating the activity at other locations of the board, building an 8x8 matrix for each piece. And comparing two extreme cases: empty board vs fully crowded board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The resulting matrices are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    Empty board (free piece)                Crowded board (blocked piece)   &#xA;    ------------------------                -----------------------------&#xA;Pawn    x  x  x  x  x  x  x  x          Pawn    x  x  x  x  x  x  x  x      &#xA;        1  2  2  2  2  2  2  1                  1  2  2  2  2  2  2  1      &#xA;        1  2  2  2  2  2  2  1                  1  2  2  2  2  2  2  1      &#xA;        1  2  2  2  2  2  2  1                  1  2  2  2  2  2  2  1      &#xA;        1  2  2  2  2  2  2  1                  1  2  2  2  2  2  2  1      &#xA;        1  2  2  2  2  2  2  1                  1  2  2  2  2  2  2  1      &#xA;        1  2  2  2  2  2  2  1                  1  2  2  2  2  2  2  1      &#xA;Pawn    x  x  x  x  x  x  x  x          Pawn    x  x  x  x  x  x  x  x      &#xA;mean = 7/4 squares                      mean=7/4 squares                &#xA;&#xA;kNight  2  3  4  4  4  4  3  2          kNight  2  3  4  4  4  4  3  2      &#xA;        3  4  6  6  6  6  4  3                  3  4  6  6  6  6  4  3      &#xA;        4  6  8  8  8  8  6  4                  4  6  8  8  8  8  6  4      &#xA;        4  6  8  8  8  8  6  4                  4  6  8  8  8  8  6  4      &#xA;        4  6  8  8  8  8  6  4                  4  6  8  8  8  8  6  4      &#xA;        4  6  8  8  8  8  6  4                  4  6  8  8  8  8  6  4      &#xA;        3  4  6  6  6  6  4  3                  3  4  6  6  6  6  4  3      &#xA;kNight  2  3  4  4  4  4  3  2          kNight  2  3  4  4  4  4  3  2      &#xA;mean = 21/4 squares, N~3P               mean=21/4 squares, N~3P             &#xA;&#xA;Bishop  7  7  7  7  7  7  7  7          Bishop  1  2  2  2  2  2  2  1      &#xA;        7  9  9  9  9  9  9  7                  2  4  4  4  4  4  4  2      &#xA;        7  9  11 11 11 11 9  7                  2  4  4  4  4  4  4  2      &#xA;        7  9  11 13 13 11 9  7                  2  4  4  4  4  4  4  2      &#xA;        7  9  11 13 13 11 9  7                  2  4  4  4  4  4  4  2      &#xA;        7  9  11 11 11 11 9  7                  2  4  4  4  4  4  4  2      &#xA;        7  9  9  9  9  9  9  7                  2  4  4  4  4  4  4  2      &#xA;Bishop  7  7  7  7  7  7  7  7          Bishop  1  2  2  2  2  2  2  1      &#xA;mean=35/4 squares, B~5P                 mean=49/16 squares, B~1.75P         &#xA;&#xA;King    3  5  5  5  5  5  5  3          King    3  5  5  5  5  5  5  3      &#xA;        5  8  8  8  8  8  8  5                  5  8  8  8  8  8  8  5      &#xA;        5  8  8  8  8  8  8  5                  5  8  8  8  8  8  8  5      &#xA;        5  8  8  8  8  8  8  5                  5  8  8  8  8  8  8  5      &#xA;        5  8  8  8  8  8  8  5                  5  8  8  8  8  8  8  5      &#xA;        5  8  8  8  8  8  8  5                  5  8  8  8  8  8  8  5      &#xA;        5  8  8  8  8  8  8  5                  5  8  8  8  8  8  8  5      &#xA;King    3  5  5  5  5  5  5  3          King    3  5  5  5  5  5  5  3      &#xA;mean=105/16 squares, K~3.75P            mean=105/16 squares, K~3.75P            &#xA;&#xA;Rook    14 14 14 14 14 14 14 14         Rook    2  3  3  3  3  3  3  2      &#xA;        14 14 14 14 14 14 14 14                 3  4  4  4  4  4  4  3      &#xA;        14 14 14 14 14 14 14 14                 3  4  4  4  4  4  4  3      &#xA;        14 14 14 14 14 14 14 14                 3  4  4  4  4  4  4  3      &#xA;        14 14 14 14 14 14 14 14                 3  4  4  4  4  4  4  3      &#xA;        14 14 14 14 14 14 14 14                 3  4  4  4  4  4  4  3      &#xA;        14 14 14 14 14 14 14 14                 3  4  4  4  4  4  4  3      &#xA;Rook    14 14 14 14 14 14 14 14         Rook    2  3  3  3  3  3  3  2      &#xA;mean=14 squares, R~7P                   mean=7/2 squares, R~2P              &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The board starts in a &quot;half-crowded&quot; state, and becomes less crowded as the game advances. &#xA;The numerical values found on books and publications lie between these extreme cases.&#xA;Looking at the high fluctuations, one can understand why so many people say that it all depends (heavily!) on the position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15958" LastEditorUserId="15958" LastEditDate="2018-03-25T02:56:26.730" LastActivityDate="2018-03-25T02:56:26.730" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21210" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18209" CreationDate="2018-03-25T11:35:41.640" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Section 1.48 of the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=198&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Title Regulations effective from 1 July 2017&lt;/a&gt; specifies how the performance rating is calculated. The average rating of the opponents is adjusted by a value determined by looking up the percentage score in a table.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, after Round 12 of the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candidates_Tournament_2018&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;2018 Candidates Tournament&lt;/a&gt;, Ding Liren had 6.5 out of 12 points, for a rounded percentage score of 54%. According to the table, this corresponds to an adjustment of +29. The rounded average rating of his opponents was&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(2763 + 2 * 2794 + 2 * 2809 + 2 * 2767 + 2 * 2784 + 2 * 2799 + 2800) / 12 ~= 2789,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so his performance rating at this point was 2789 + 29 = 2818, as you can see in this screenshot:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/WOygr.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/WOygr.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8206" LastActivityDate="2018-03-25T11:35:41.640" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21211" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-03-25T19:17:32.997" Score="3" ViewCount="368" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/NDVL9.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/NDVL9.png&quot; alt=&quot;Alekhine-Chatard Gambit Declined with 6..h6&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm looking for materials on how to play the Alekhine-Chatard Gambit Declined. Which books and references are available for this variation? I'm looking for possible good moves to play for when this  gambit is declined. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16120" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-04-06T18:16:43.930" LastActivityDate="2019-04-06T18:16:43.930" Title="Where can I find learning material on how to play the Alekhine-Chatard Gambit Declined?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;gambits&gt;&lt;french-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21212" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21214" CreationDate="2018-03-26T00:09:27.123" Score="56" ViewCount="11441" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm reading a very old chess book (&quot;The Chess Pocket Manual&quot; by G.H.D. Gossip, copyright 1894), and I find this passage in it's section on &quot;The Laws of Chess&quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;When a Pawn has reached the eighth square, the player has the option&#xA;  Of selecting a piece, whether such piece has been previously lost or&#xA;  not, whose name and powers it shall then assume, or of deciding that&#xA;  it shall remain a Pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a footnote on this that reads:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;This is the famous &quot; dummy &quot; Pawn rule laid down in case of a position&#xA;  where a player, compelled to take a piece, would thereby lose the&#xA;  game, whereas, by refusing promotion to his Pawn, he could draw it.&#xA;  Need less to add that such positions, although possible, are extremely&#xA;  improbable, and do not occur in the course of a lifetime to most&#xA;  players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When was this ever a rule?  I've never heard of this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it was a widely recognized rule at some point, when did it change?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7147" LastEditorUserId="12523" LastEditDate="2018-03-26T12:02:22.697" LastActivityDate="2020-10-09T16:15:20.947" Title="When (if ever) was it a rule that pawn promotion was optional?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;history&gt;&lt;pawn-promotion&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="12" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21213" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5660" CreationDate="2018-03-26T05:51:03.933" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just launched a remake of Kung Fu Chess at &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.kfchess.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.kfchess.com/&lt;/a&gt;. Check it out and let me know what you think!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16135" LastActivityDate="2018-03-26T05:51:03.933" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21214" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21212" CreationDate="2018-03-26T06:04:56.263" Score="54" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Dummy Pawns&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Today, it is little known that for forty years at the height of the British Empire, dummy pawns were the scourge of tournament play, and even grandmasters ran scared. (Possible exaggeration here.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The heresy raged from 1862-1904. See &lt;em&gt;Eminent Victorian Chess Players: Ten Biographies&lt;/em&gt; by Tim Harding. However, the origins of the dummy pawn goes back to at least 1832 and before.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Timeline of known events&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(+/- indicate events pro/con the dummy pawn concept)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1832 + the earliest known reference to the dummy pawn is printed in “A new treatise of chess” by George Walker&#xA;1847 + the first known chess problem with the dummy pawn in it occurs in the American Chess Magazine&#xA;1851 + arrival in London, first appearing in the “The Chess Player’s Chronicle,” and called “The Revolutionary”&#xA;1854 - an example by Alexander Petroff appears in “Règles du jeu des échecs” in which the concept was denounced&#xA;1860 - Howard Staunton in his &amp;quot;Chess Praxis&amp;quot; wrote &amp;quot;no one will consider [dummy pawns] worthy of serious consideration.&amp;quot;&#xA;1862 + International London Congress - provides an official rule for dummy pawns&#xA;1865 - William Pavitt, UK, explores the effects on chess composition in “The Chess World”. He describes it as &amp;quot;an exquisite stroke of chess legislation,&amp;quot; but still condemns the concept.&#xA;1870 + Baden Congress - takes same line as London Congress of 1862.&#xA;1876 - new edition of Staunton's &amp;quot;Chess Praxis&amp;quot; - his rules still say no dummy pawns&#xA;1879 - American Chess Journal - &amp;quot;a frivolous and undesirable innovation&amp;quot;&#xA;1880 + Fred Thompson, in “Pawn on 8 In Chess Problems,” advocates for them as aids in chess composition&#xA;1883 - London International Chess Congress bans dummy pawns&#xA;1883 + Francis C. Collins composes a s#2 allumwandlung for “The New Zealand Mail”&#xA;1889 + Steinitz - supports London 1862 decision, and reports that so have many Congresses&#xA;1894 + &amp;quot;The Chess Pocket Manual&amp;quot; describes the &amp;quot;famous Dummy Pawn rule&amp;quot;&#xA;1898 + a spectacular Sam Loyd #3 composition&#xA;1900 + a superb #4 by E. J. de Savornin Lohman&#xA;1895 - the legendary Hastings congress bans dummy Pawns &#xA;1903 - there is an unsupported statement that the reign of dummy Pawns ended in this year ([http://www.chess-poster.com/english/history/the_pawn.htm][1])&#xA;1904 - founding of British Chess Federation, which according to Harding published the rules that finally exiled the monstrous dummy pawns to history&#xA;1913 + leading problemist Thomas R. Dawson composes a classic study with 3 dummy pawn promotions by White&#xA;1996 + John Beasley publishes a dummy pawn promotion study in EBUR&#xA;2017 + dummy pawns gains new life in chess.com and Matplus.net forums&#xA;2018 + chess.stackexchange.com diagram editor (still) supports dummy pawns&#xA;2020 + Popeye &amp;amp; Jacobi problem engines (still) support dummy pawns&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See dummy pawns in action in our own heretical diagram editor below! (Except for the Ponziani game which is even more bonkers, and cannot therefore be animated correctly.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1832: A Concept Develops&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The origin of dummy pawns is mysterious and unknown. It most likely occurred in the early 19th century though. However, there is some sparse record of it. The earliest known reference to the dummy pawn is in 1832 from the book &lt;a href=&quot;https://books.google.com/books?id=cPXFJiXmSEAC&amp;amp;q&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;“A new treatise of chess”&lt;/a&gt; by George Walker.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On top of page 15, under the section “No. XX.,” pawn promotion is briefly described.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“When you have advanced the pawn to the extreme rank, or eighth square of the board, it immediately assumes the power of any piece you chuse [sic]. (The constitution of the game, would, of course, not allow of your demanding a second King, but you may have as many Queens, Knights, &amp;amp;c. as you can get. En passant, I may be allowed to add, that it is presumed from the wording of the law, &lt;strong&gt;you might not call for a pawn, and replace it at its own square; but might certainly, for argument's sake, leave it as its eight square, &lt;em&gt;as a Pawn,&lt;/em&gt; without exchanging it for an piece.)”&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The text we have put in bold does not say “dummy pawn” exactly, but the language is clear enough. Dummy pawn is the central subject.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1847: A Misty Appearance In America&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first known chess problem that uses the dummy pawn is from “The American Chess Magazine” in the year 1847. On &lt;a href=&quot;https://books.google.com/books?id=GKY7AQAAIAAJ&amp;amp;pg=PA165&amp;amp;dq=%22remain+a+pawn%22+1847&amp;amp;hl=en&amp;amp;sa=X&amp;amp;ved=0ahUKEwia0MTUlZ3pAhXLB80KHZSWAY8Q6AEIKjAB#v=onepage&amp;amp;q=113&amp;amp;f=false&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;page 113&lt;/a&gt; the following problem was shown with the attached question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;F. Leake - American Chess Magazine 1847, Can White force checkmate in five moves? &amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;2B5/8/1K1k4/4pP1N/3pP3/Pp1P4/p7/7R w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It says: “ A question of great importance - one which is not provided for in the laws of the game of Chess, and to decide which we know of no precedent- is here involved. Can White force Checkmate in five moves? That's the question.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If Black is obligated to promote to a piece, then there is a mate in 5: 1. f6! b2 2. Rb1 a1=B 3. Rxb2 Bxb2 4. Ng4/g7 ~ 5. Nf5/e8#. However, if Black may keep it as a pawn, then there is no mate in 5. There is a unique mate in 6 though: 1. f6! b2 2. Rb1 a1=Pawn 3. Kb7 Kc5 4. f7 Kb5 5. f8=Q Ka5,Ka4 6. Qb4#&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On pages 136-139 appears correspondence giving opinions as to whether or not there is a mate in 5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No: “(Skipped text) I presume that the question you raise is this: When a Pawn reaches the eighth square, is the player obliged to change it at once for a Piece, or has he the option of allowing it to remain dead on the eighth square? In my opinion, he is obliged to change it at once for a Piece ; he has no option but in the choice of the Piece so exchanged. The Twenty-third Law of Chess, according to Walker's Treatise, (1842,) is :— Directly the Pawn attains the eighth square, or extreme rank of the board, it must be replaced by a Queen, Rook, Knight, or Bishop, at the option of its owner; and this without regard to whatsoever Pieces he may already have on the board. Should you not replace the Pawn with a Piece, before your opponent move, he may take it off the board as forfeited. (Skipped text). Though you appear to think this a very nice question, I have but little doubt as to the nature of your decision, should you think proper to make one. And with all due deference to your well-earned reputation as a Chess-lawyer, I will venture to risk the opinion, that the &amp;quot; big wigs&amp;quot; in London will be surprised that you should regard the question as one unprovided for in the laws of Chess.&amp;quot; - Philo-Chess&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes: “(Skipped text) For myself, however, I incline to a different opinion. The Checkmate in this case cannot be forced in five moves, unless the Pawn, on reaching the &amp;quot;royal line,&amp;quot; loses its character as a Pawn, and immediately and necessarily becomes a Piece of some kind; or unless Black is compelled, by some law of the game, to replace the Pawn at once by some Piece. (Skipped text) It is obvious that the right of promotion is granted as a favor or privilege, and that upon the assumption that a Piece is of greater value than a Pawn. Why, then, limit this privilege, by confining the choice to a Piece? Why, especially, require the player, who is entitled to a reward for his skill and success in conducting his Pawn to the &amp;quot;royal line,&amp;quot; to submit to a positive disadvantage, by compelling him to exchange it for a Piece of inferior value to him? Finally and conclusively, the rule, strictly construed, is anti-republican-and this is a &amp;quot;free country!&amp;quot; Why should the Pawn have &amp;quot;greatness thrust upon him If he is satisfied with untitled merit, why not permit him to indulge his tastes for private station? Why elevate him, against his inclination, to a rank to which he does not aspire?“ - A.D.P.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The wonder is that this problem is much more sophisticated than any other dummy pawn problem that would be made for nearly two decades, until Pavitt came along with his 5-mover in 1865.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1851: A Boost In London&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The dummy pawn, 4 years later, once more made an appearance on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean in Edward Winter managed to find the first mention of a dummy pawn endgame study in England in &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chesshistory.com/winter/winter93.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;C.N. 7619&lt;/a&gt;. In the September 20, 1851 edition of “The Chess Players Chronicles,” the following &lt;a href=&quot;https://pdb.dieschwalbe.de/P1372387&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;problem&lt;/a&gt; called “The Revolutionary” appeared. This is where the dummy pawn truly started its reign.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Josef Kling &amp;amp; Bernhard Horwitz - The Chess Player 1851, Revolutionary Question XIX: How can White draw?&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;r7/1Pp5/2P3p1/8/6pb/4p1kB/4P1p1/6K1 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The solution, which was given in a week later, stated: “The solution of No. 19 is Pawn takes Rook, remaining a pawn. It may seem ridiculous to many chess-players, but we think candidly that, when first the rules were laid down, nobody thought of such a case, or else the rules would be a little more precise on that point.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the correspondence section of the 9/20 issue the editors also said “ We are of opinion that a pawn, when reaching his eighth’s square, is entitled to become any piece the player thinks best; and, naturally enough, if it prove disadvantageous to become a piece, it may still remain a pawn. (See Diagram 19.) This question among others, we thought, should have been discussed at the Tournament.”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1854: Spread In Europe &amp;amp; Rejection&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From 1851 onward, the idea of the dummy pawn seems to spread across Europe. One indication is the appearance of another dummy pawn problem, this one also being White to play and draw, that was created by the Russian composer Alexander Petroff and published in the 1854 French book &lt;a href=&quot;https://books.google.com/books?id=ArEUAAAAYAAJ&amp;amp;printsec=frontcover&amp;amp;dq=Regles+du+jeu+des+echecs+1854&amp;amp;hl=en&amp;amp;sa=X&amp;amp;ved=0ahUKEwizqfeI-ZzpAhURa80KHfO-AcgQ6AEIJzAA#v=onepage&amp;amp;q=petroff&amp;amp;f=false&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Règles du jeu des échecs&lt;/a&gt;. On page 97, the &lt;a href=&quot;https://pdb.dieschwalbe.de/P1372358&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;problem&lt;/a&gt; was given.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Alexander Petroff - Règles du jeu des échecs 1854, White to play and draw&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;rn6/pp2n3/2p5/P4k2/8/6p1/6Pp/7K w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. a6 Nd5 2. axb7 Nf6 3. bxa8 null&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, this problem is &lt;strong&gt;flawed&lt;/strong&gt; because Black can play 2... Nf4!, 3. bxa8 Nxg2 4. Kxg2 Kg4, and Black wins. White doesn't win even if they promote-3. bxa8=Q Nd3 4. Qxa7 Nf2+ 5. Qxf2 gxf2 6. g4+ Kxg4 winning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The French text, roughly translates, reads: “This subject, we must say that Mr. Petroff communicated to us the following problem, in which, supposing the best possible blows on the part of the blacks, the whites could not postpone the game, unless they were allowed to refuse any promotion to their pawn entered lady, that is to say to leave it pawn. (Diagram of the problem.) On this occasion, Mr. Petroff asks us to submit to the judgment of the European authorities in matters of gambling, if it would not be advisable to introduce into the regulations a clause which would allow the possessor of a pawn entered to queen, to renounce to any increase in its forces, leaving this pawn inactive and immobile, as a pawn, until it is taken or until the end of the game?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Skipped Text)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“For its part, the Society of Saint Petersburg Chess Lovers did not believe that it could accept this opinion (expressed in the form of doubt by Mr. Petroff himself), contrary to the fundamental principle of the game, which 'does not admit the existence of pawns to the strips of the chessboard originally occupied by the pieces.'&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This shows that the dummy spread like wild fire, relatively speaking for the times, and within 3 years it was already an outrage in at least France and Russia. It would take awhile for the English to get their turn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1860: Staunton, bastion of orthodoxy&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &amp;quot;dummy pawn rule&amp;quot; was not part of the official rules up to 1860. See &amp;quot;Chess Praxis&amp;quot; by Howard Staunton 1860. Staunton was a very influential player and author, and in this book codified the Laws of Chess, in a way which is still recognizable in the style of the FIDE Laws today. On page xi, in the Introduction he lists chronologically the many antecedents of his work from Ruy Lopez in 1561, to the 1850s.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*&lt;em&gt;Page 6, Queening a Pawn:&lt;/em&gt; “When a Pawn has reached the eighth or last square on its file, it immediately assumes the name and power of any Piece its player may select, except a King, whether such Piece have previously been lost or not; and, if the player does not select a Piece, such Pawn is always to be considered a Queen.”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On page xii, he had defined &amp;quot;Piece&amp;quot; to explicitly exclude pawn. The real fun comes later:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Chapter 4, &amp;quot;A Queened Pawn:&lt;/strong&gt; “On this subject great difference of &lt;em&gt;opinion&lt;/em&gt; prevails, but the rule laid down in the text is that universally observed in practice. In the middle ages, as we have previously explained, the Queen could only move one square at a time diagonally. She was, therefore, by far the weakest piece on the Board. And the ancient law, which required that every Pawn pushed on to the eighth square should become a Queen, was really a restrictive enactment, since it gave the promoted Pawn as little additional power as the conversion could offer. But the spirit of the modern game is to regard the Queening of a Pawn as the highest feat a player can accomplish, and to reward it with the greatest possible advantage. So that a player in the present day is not only allowed to select a second or third Queen with its enormously extended power, but may choose any other Piece that would be more advantageous in a particular position. Various modifications of this law have existed in different places and at different times. It has been held, for example, that the Pawn should only acquire the power of the Piece on to whose square it had been played, or of a Piece already lost. It  has also been proposed to limit the conversion to either a Knight or a Queen, as the latter comprises the power of Rook and Bishop; and the Pawn has sometimes been required to perform certain additional moves before becoming entitled to the privileges of a Piece. The most plausible of the regulations is that the Pawn should only supply the place of a Piece already lost, so as to avoid, what Philidor so violently denounced, plurality of pieces. But then comes the difficulty of providing for the case where a Pawn has reached the eighth square before any Piece has been lost. It has been proposed to leave such a Pawn, as it were, dormant, until a capture should have made among the Pieces a vacancy for it to supply. Ponziani, an advocate of this regulation, has given the following little game as an example of it.”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example of non-standard castling &amp;amp; promotion&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [Title &amp;quot;Ponziani scheme - White to move&amp;quot;]&#xA; [FEN &amp;quot;Bn1qk1nr/p1p2ppp/8/8/4P2b/5N1b/PPPP3P/RNBQ1rK1 w k - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;1. e4 e5 2. f4 exf4 3. Nf3 Be7 4. Bc4 Bh4+ 5. g3 fxg3&lt;/em&gt; 6. Kh1&amp;amp;Rf1 d5 &lt;em&gt;Italian style castling!&lt;/em&gt;&#xA;7. Bxd5 Bh3 8. Bxb7 g2+ 9. Kg1 gxf1 &lt;em&gt;without promoting&lt;/em&gt;&#xA;10. Bxa8 Bf2# &amp;amp; f1=R# &lt;em&gt;only now does pawn f1 promote to a rook&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“In this game the black Pawn, which attained the eighth square on its ninth move, neither gave mate nor check, because the player had lost no Piece into which it could be converted, and it was not in a situation to check as a Pawn. But as White chose to capture the Rook on his tenth move, Black plays down the Bishop with one check, giving another and mate, with the Pawn now become a Rook in place of that captured. There is so much of the absurd about such a finale as this that no one will consider it worthy of serious examination, and it is only mentioned as a matter of curiosity.”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1862: The Madness Becomes Official&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As described in the Edward Winter link in another answer, the dummy pawn rule was codified in the International Congress of London in 1862, despite Staunton's outrage. For a generation, the war raged between the two camps, echoing the chaos in the European political space at this time. English chess papers would bicker about it for decades to come, with numerous joke problems and articles,  with most condemning the dummy pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1865: Some Chess Composers Grumble&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In 1865, 3 years after the passing of the law allowing the dummy pawn, an early article by William Pavitt against the dummy pawn appeared in the &lt;a href=&quot;https://books.google.com/books?id=p3sEAAAAQAAJ&amp;amp;dq=double+dummy+pawn&amp;amp;source=gbs_navlinks_s&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;“The Chess World”&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pavitt gave &lt;a href=&quot;https://pdb.dieschwalbe.de/P1372941&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; simple mate in three he created that worked under normal promotion rules&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;William Pavitt - The Chess World 1865, Mate in 3&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;K7/2N5/2p5/k1P3R1/p4N2/P2P4/6p1/8 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Ng6! g1=Q 2. Ne5 Qc1 3. Nxc6#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, in essence, with the dummy promotion rule, the problem wouldn’t work as there is no mate in two. He showed &lt;a href=&quot;https://pdb.dieschwalbe.de/P1375024&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;a&lt;/a&gt; mate in 5 to show how the problem would have to be corrected to conform with the dummy pawn. (Note that this is a correction the original created by James Malcom as the original is incorrect).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;William Pavitt (corrected J. Malcom 2020), Mate in 5&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;8/K1N5/2p5/k1P5/p7/P2PP3/3p2pN/3B4 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Ng4 g1 2. Bf3 d1 3. Bd5 cxd5 4. Ne5 d4 5. Nc4#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pavitt showed these problems to give examples on how allowing the dummy pawn would greatly affect chess problems, and he condemned the concept as negative.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most chess composers in the chess problem world were eventually set against the dummy pawn due to how it would interfere with known chess problem and the needless work that would be needed to incorporate it in. An occasional exception, i.e. Christmas and trick problems that intentionally used it, was generally accepted for the humor. In fact, many problem tournaments specified to rules to disallow the dummy pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1870: Baden&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A typical data point from this dark time is the Baden Chess Congress of 1870, which adopted the 1862 rules (&lt;a href=&quot;https://docs.google.com/document/d/1b_Ji7QikOfIwaLBIFwas5QMRpYr2_dXIUf2D0dM3q2s/edit&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;source&lt;/a&gt;). An article covering this begins attractively:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“Unmoved by the shrill notes of the war trumpets sounding in their ears, the Chess players have commenced their mimic strife in Baden.“&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1876: Staunton&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the mean time, Staunton came out with another edition of his Praxis (&lt;a href=&quot;http://books.google.com/books?id=UpECAAAAYAAJ&amp;amp;pg=PA41&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;source&lt;/a&gt;). He did not mention the 1862 rules, but he did give the previously discussed 1854 example by Petroff.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1880: A Rare Friend To The Dummy&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, not everyone gave disdain to the dummy problem. A few chess composers thought that it should be allowed. An old article by Fredrick Thompson, published in 1880 in &lt;a href=&quot;https://books.google.com/books?id=A3wEAAAAQAAJ&amp;amp;pg=PA29&amp;amp;dq=%22pawn+on+8%22&amp;amp;hl=en&amp;amp;sa=X&amp;amp;ved=0ahUKEwiug-b2_IvpAhWLZs0KHWlfAJsQ6AEIJDAA#v=onepage&amp;amp;q&amp;amp;f=false&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;“Chess Player's Annual And Club Directory,”&lt;/a&gt; called on “Pawn On 8 In Chess Problems” gives an insight into the supporters of the dummy pawn. In his article. Thompson advocated for the dummy pawn to be allowed in chess problems.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Various reasons are given, the most interesting perhaps being this: “ The main objection to P on 8 is, that it breaks a fundamental law of Chess. So it would if pawn stood on square 1, but on square 8, in the enemy's territory, is quite another thing. As Staunton in his Praxis says—&amp;quot; The ancient idea supposed the Chess Board divided into two belligerent kingdoms.&amp;quot; Have common soldiers never mounted guard in the palace of a foreign potentate at the conqueror's behest? Ought pawn to be played to 8 at all if he may not remain there? His captain bids him stand sentinel as a private soldier, and it is not for the discomfited foe to say him nay. Ought pawn to attack a piece or check the King from square 7, if he has no business on 8?”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The logic is that if the pawn has power on the 7th rank as a pawn, why should can it not extend its rights as a pawn on the 8th rank?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A more straightforward reason is also given: “The present pawn-queening law bristles with innovations upon ancient usage. As Mr. Staunton wrote on March 18, 1865—&amp;quot;The old laws from which you quote, have been constantly modified of late years.&amp;quot; Fundamental law, forsooth! The law never had a bottom. No one will deny the use of pawn on 8 in problems if pawn on 8 is permissible in play. The &amp;quot; Competent authority &amp;quot; for the laws of Chess must be players, not problem composers, for the laws, of the game govern the problemist, not the problemist the laws of the game.”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lastly, he advocates for it as to prevent cooks in chess problem, to make possible otherwise impossible ideas realizable at last. He gives a &lt;a href=&quot;https://pdb.dieschwalbe.de/P1375185&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;problem&lt;/a&gt; to illustrate his defense of the dummy pawn, since it would be cooked without the pawn on c8, since without there would be a cook starting with 1. Qc8+.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Fredrick Thompson, Mate in 3&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;2PQ4/6p1/3P2B1/3Pk3/8/2N1N1P1/8/7K w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He ends with this: “ I claim, therefore, P on 8 in Chess strategy, and conclude this paper with a problem commenced in July, 1879. (Skipped text). Dropping the men one square down the board also produces a cook, in fact the dead pawn saves the problem from being relegated to the waste basket. I consider this one of the best compositions I have put together during a practice of thirty years, and I fail to see why it should be treated to Lynch-law, when the queening-a-pawn rule is to &amp;quot;reward it with the greatest possible advantage.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1883: London Congress&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another data point is the London International Congress of 1883, where the rules include:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“10. A Pawn reaching the eighth square must be named as a Queen or Piece, at the option of player, independent of the number of Pieces on the board. The created Queen or Piece acts immediately in its new capacity. Until the Pawn has been so named, the move is incomplete.”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is the first occurrence I've ever seen a usage of Piece to exclude the Queen! However, it's clear that dummy pawns are on the wane.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1883: Far Reaches-The Dummy Pawn’s Travels&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One example that can be found of how far the dummy pawn reached is a &lt;a href=&quot;https://pdb.dieschwalbe.de/P1372468&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;problem&lt;/a&gt; from the 3/10/1883 edition of the “New Zealand Mail.” New Zealand was then part of the British Empire, is so not so surprising that the dummy pawn got that far, but it is pretty far though!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Francis C. Collins - New Zealand Mail 3/10/1883, Selfmate in 2&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;1n3R1n/3p1p2/B1pP1Pp1/2B1K1P1/2r5/3k4/NR2p1Q1/8 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The point is that capturing the b8 knight fails because Black can then promote to a pawn and there is no selfmate after that.  The solution is 1. Rxf7!, such that after e1=P, the move. 2. Rxb8 forces 2... Nxf7#.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The solution, printed in the 4/21/1883 edition, says this: &amp;quot;This position has been composed by Mr. Collins in accordance with the British Chess Association’s 13th Law: —“When a pawn has reached the eighth square, the player has the option of selecting a piece, whether such piece has been previously lost or not, whose name and powers it shall then assume, or of deciding that it shall remain a Pawn.” This rule of the “dummy pawn” has never met with much favour amongst chess-players, and there are very few clubs or societies which observe it. We have received no correct solution to the problem (which is a most ingenious one), the result doubtless of the non-acquaintance by our friends of such a rule as the foregoing in any of the codes of chess laws.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This shows just how weak of an entity the dummy pawn has become and how very few looked upon it with favor.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1895: Hastings Congress&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the time of the famous Hastings Congress in 1895, dummy pawns are clearly gone from serious play. The Congress rules adopt exactly the same wording as London 1883. (All attendees were searched to make sure no dummy pawns were being smuggled into the venue.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1898: Sam Loyd #3&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In what is widely known as the last hurrah, no discussion of the dummy pawn period would be complete without the following beautiful &lt;a href=&quot;https://pdb.dieschwalbe.de/P1265742&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;problem&lt;/a&gt; by the American composer Sam Loyd.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Sam Loyd - American Chess Magazine, Mate in 3&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;N1Br4/2Pb1P2/3k4/1P2R3/1P2K3/B7/8/8 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. cxd8!  &#xA;(1. cxd8=Q/R? stalemate)&#xA;(1. cxd8=B? Bf5+)  &#xA;(1. cxd8=N? Bc6+)&#xA;threatening 2. f8=Q/B#&#xA;(1... Bf5+ 2. Rxf5 Ke7 3. f8=Q#)  &#xA;(1... Bc6+ 2. bxc6 Kxc6 3. b5#)  &#xA;(1... Bxc8 2. f8=Q+ Kd7 3. Qe7#)  &#xA;(1... Bxb5? 2. Re6#)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1900: An Ingenious #4&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But in fact Loyd's was only the penultimate hurrah. Two years later the brilliant but little-known E. J. Lohman &lt;a href=&quot;https://pdb.dieschwalbe.de/P1375151&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;produced&lt;/a&gt; this gem, which is as ingenious as Loyd’s #3. This is what should be known as the last hurrah of the dummy pawn, the pinnacle of the times when you could make a position and legally solve it by promotion to a dummy pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;E. J. de Savornin Lohman - De Amsterdammer 02/09/1900, Mate in 4&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;2B5/1pR1P3/1P1k4/8/2K5/5P2/8/8 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e8! Ke5 2. Rf7 Kd6 3. f4 Kc6 4. Rf6#&#xA;(1. e8=Q/R? stalemate!)&#xA;(1. e8=N+? Ke5 2. Rf7 stalemate!)&#xA;(1. e8=B? Ke5 2. Rf7 Kd6 3. f4 stalemate!)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1904: The Mischief Ends&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But it was only with the arrival of the British Chess Federation that the final nail in the coffin was driven home. There is still some lack of clarity as to the precise year this happened, but it was around 1904.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1913: ...And Yet&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nearly a decade after the dummy pawn was finally killed off in law, the famous fairy chess composer Thomas R. Dawson took some time to make a &lt;a href=&quot;https://pdb.dieschwalbe.de/P1372358&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;drawing study&lt;/a&gt; with it. White must create three dummy pawns in order the achieve the draw via self-stalemate!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Thomas R. Dawson - The Chess Amateur 1913, White to move and draw&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;6K1/6PP/3p2PP/3P1ppp/8/ppp5/qrp5/1rk5 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Kh8 Kd2 2. g8 Re1 3. g7 Re6 4. dxe6 Rb1 5. e7 b2 6. e8 Qxg8+ 7. hxg8 null 8. h7 null&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Afterward, the dummy pawn slowly faded into history, only mentioned now and then, until the dawn of the Internet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1996: A Lone Bright Spot&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In 1996, the dummy pawn had another brief period of relevance when John Beasley made a &lt;a href=&quot;https://pdb.dieschwalbe.de/P1372357&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;small study&lt;/a&gt; in which the only way for White to win is to promote to a pawn. It is the first known dummy problem in which White wins since the Loyd #3-nearly a century! I will leave to you figure out the reasons to avoid promoting.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;John Beasley - EBUR 1996, White to move and win&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;5r1K/2k1P3/3N1Bqp/N2Q1B1P/8/8/8/1R6 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;2017: Just For Fun&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Internet has allowed many to create and share their own dummy pawn problems. While there is no doubt many problems been created, perhaps the pinnacle of achievement was when Peter Wong created an entirely new problem in which White wins by promotion to a pawn!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The problem was &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.matplus.net/start.php?px=1513463660&amp;amp;app=forum&amp;amp;act=posts&amp;amp;fid=prom&amp;amp;tid=2097&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;shared&lt;/a&gt; on the Matplus.net forums in November, 2017, although. the composer has originally shared somewhere on chess.com.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The chess composer Geir Sune Tallaksen Østmoe managed to add a golden touch to Peter Wong in that it is in both sides best interest to promote to a pawn!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Geir Sune Tallaksen Østmoe &amp;amp; Peter Wong - Matplus 11/12/17, Black to move and White to win&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;5qnk/3pPB2/1p1p1N2/1pbK1NP1/1p1pP3/1P1P4/6p1/7R b - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;[startflipped &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. gxh1! exf8!&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White easily wins with an extra piece. The full solution and the refutations of each promotion can be viewed &lt;a href=&quot;https://pdb.dieschwalbe.de/P1372419&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also from the same forum, here are two possible 6-piece settings for dummy pawn draw:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;ichai - MatPlus 7/2/2020, White to move and draw&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;8/2P5/8/8/8/2r5/p1r5/K1k5 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. c8!&#xA;(1. c8=Q? Rb3)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And the current economy record-holder:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;A.Buchanan - MatPlus 13/5/2020, White to move and draw&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;7K/5rPp/7k/8/8/8/6p1/8 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. g8!&#xA;(1. g8=Q? g1=Q! 2. Qxg1 Rf8+ 3. Qg8 Rxg8+ 4. Kxg8 Kg6!&#xA;    (2. Qxf7 Qd4+ 3. Kg8 Qd8+ 4. Qf8+ Qxf8+)&#xA;    (2. Qf8+ Rxf8#)&#xA;    (2. Qg7+ Qxg7#)&#xA;    (2. Qxh7+ Rxh7#)&#xA;    (2. Qg5+ Kxg5)&#xA;    (2. Qg6+ Kxg6,hxg6))&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Will the dummy pawn rise again?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems unlikely that FIDE will introduce the dummy pawn for over the board play, although it would be cool if they did. For compositions, dummy pawn promotion, as the ultimate under-promotion, is paradoxical and dramatic: exactly what a problem chess move should be. However, introducing a 5th promotion option would render incomplete the vast range of allumwandlung studies, including solutions to the famous Babson task. So this novelty seems unlikely to happen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Where Can I Find Dummy Pawn Problems?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Currently, the largest known catalogue of dummy pawn problems is on the &lt;a href=&quot;https://pdb.dieschwalbe.de/index.jsp&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Die Schwalbe Chess Problem Database Server&lt;/a&gt;, known as the &amp;quot;Schwalbe PDB for short. Searching &amp;quot;K='dummy pawn' in the search function currently brings up a list of &lt;a href=&quot;https://pdb.dieschwalbe.de/search.jsp?expression=K%3D%27dummy_pawn%27&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;63 dummy pawn problems&lt;/a&gt;, from across the 19th-21st centuries. It is but a small sample of what exists out there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Extensive edits and additions were carried out by Rewan Demontay May 6, 2020.&lt;/em&gt;&#xA;&lt;em&gt;Some follow-up mods by Laska subsequently: let's keep building it!&lt;/em&gt;&#xA;&lt;em&gt;Addendum 8/31/2020-The history of the dummy pawn has been pushed back to 1832.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8201" LastEditorUserId="8201" LastEditDate="2020-10-09T16:15:20.947" LastActivityDate="2020-10-09T16:15:20.947" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21215" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21212" CreationDate="2018-03-26T08:03:09.013" Score="36" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/winter51.html#5791._Dummy_pawn&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Edward Winter&lt;/a&gt; cites Owen J. Clarkin (Ottawa, Canada) who quotes from The Modern Chess Instructor by W. Steinitz (New York, 1889) which in turn cites this example from Lowenthal's &lt;em&gt;Book of the London Chess Congress, 1862&lt;/em&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Dummy pawn motivation&amp;quot;]&#xA;[fen &amp;quot;r/1Pp5/2P3p1/8/6pb/4p1kB/4P1p1/6K1 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &amp;quot;0&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.bxa8=Q gxh3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If  White plays 1. bxa8 and promotes to a piece, then Black plays 1 ... gxh3 and it is mate next move. But if White plays 1. bxa8 with no promotion, then either White gets stalemated, or a drawn endgame is reached with White's white-squared bishop versus Black's black-squared bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10380" LastEditorUserId="10380" LastEditDate="2020-07-07T15:33:24.863" LastActivityDate="2020-07-07T15:33:24.863" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21216" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21217" CreationDate="2018-03-26T13:54:49.310" Score="2" ViewCount="533" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was watching some Fide Candidates post play conference and Grischuk mentioned that a certain move was suggested by &lt;code&gt;AlphaZero&lt;/code&gt;. So I was googling a little and have a stupid question. Where is &lt;code&gt;AlphaZero&lt;/code&gt;? I thought it is non-public and no-access engine and I really cannot find anything but an implementation of the algorithm on &lt;code&gt;github&lt;/code&gt; based on their published paper but from the page it seems it is not really the &lt;code&gt;AlphaZero&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So does anyone have more insight if &lt;code&gt;AlphaZero&lt;/code&gt; engine is somewhere available to use or even play against? How would Alexander Grischuk have access to it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16138" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-29T18:20:06.690" LastActivityDate="2020-08-29T18:20:06.690" Title="Availability of AlphaZero and A. Grischuk's idea in the Anti-Moscow Gambit vs L. Ding" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;alphazero&gt;&lt;novelties&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21217" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21216" CreationDate="2018-03-26T16:01:06.593" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, as far as I know DeepMind's AlphaZero chess program has not been publicly released in any form, and I don't know if they plan to do so at any point. The only games of AlphaZero vs Stockfish that have been publicly showcased are the 10 games that can be found either in their &lt;a href=&quot;https://arxiv.org/pdf/1712.01815.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;pre-print paper&lt;/a&gt;, on &lt;a href=&quot;https://deepmind.com/research/alphago/alphazero-resources/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;their website&lt;/a&gt; or the chess news outlets such as &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess24.com/en/watch/live-tournaments/alphazero-vs-stockfish&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;chess24&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I guess the comment you're referring to is the one made &lt;a href=&quot;https://youtu.be/9etcPf4seoc?t=15s&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;during the press conference&lt;/a&gt; by Alexander Grischuk after &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess24.com/en/watch/live-tournaments/fide-berlin-candidates-2018/4/1/1&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;his first game vs Liren Ding&lt;/a&gt;, where they played the Anti-Moscow variation of the semi-Slav Defense, an opening that has &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; occurred in any of the published sample games of AlphaZero vs Stockfish. So for all we know, as &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/users/167/etd&quot;&gt;ETD&lt;/a&gt; has also pointed out in comments, Grishuk is &lt;em&gt;jokingly&lt;/em&gt; labeling probably his &lt;code&gt;16.a4&lt;/code&gt; novelty (or possibly the whole sacrificial variation after &lt;code&gt;Nxf7&lt;/code&gt;) as an idea liked by AlphaZero but disliked by Stockfish. This is also pointed out in the chess24 &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess24.com/en/read/news/berlin-candidates-4-caruana-leads-after-thriller&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;report of the 4th round&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Grischuk essayed &lt;code&gt;16.a4&lt;/code&gt; in this variation where the main move is usually &lt;code&gt;16.Bg4&lt;/code&gt; (which became famous after the Topalov vs Kramnik &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/29TuQx7W&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;game in 2008&lt;/a&gt;):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [title &quot;Semi-Slav Defense: Anti-Moscow variation 16.a4&quot;]&#xA; [fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA; [StartPly &quot;38&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nf3 d5 4. Nc3 c6 5. Bg5 h6 6. Bh4 dxc4 7. e4 g5 8. Bg3 b5 9. Be2 Bb7 10. O-O Nbd7 11. Ne5 Bg7 12. Nxf7 Kxf7 13. e5 Nd5 14. Ne4 Qb6 15. Nd6+ Ke7 16. a4 (16. Bg4)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3594" LastEditorUserId="3594" LastEditDate="2018-03-26T16:09:23.667" LastActivityDate="2018-03-26T16:09:23.667" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21218" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-03-26T17:29:21.643" Score="-1" ViewCount="125" Body="&lt;p&gt;Forgive me if the answer is obvious, but I wondered about this for a while.&#xA;In a game where one player can calculate all possible moves (whether the amount is  more or less than atoms in universe or whatever) and another does not, would the first one always win?&#xA;In a game where both players can do that, would first-mover always win, or will the games always conclude in draw?&#xA;To calculate, 'see', all possible game progressions from the moments the game field is set, before the game even begins, does that mean what the game is beaten? &#xA;This seems like a logical conclusion, is it? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16143" LastActivityDate="2018-03-26T17:48:10.960" Title="Would a player or computer with infinite proccessing time be unbeatable?" Tags="&lt;calculation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="6" ClosedDate="2018-03-27T02:46:17.787" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21219" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21218" CreationDate="2018-03-26T17:48:10.960" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, a player who can calculate for infinite time can play a perfect game of chess, but this does not automatically mean that he always wins.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From the game theory perspective, we know that chess is a finite game, so it admits a perfect strategy. Anyway we don't know what is the result of that perfect strategy. There are three possibilities: the perfect strategy could be a win for White, or it could be a draw, or it is also possible that the perfect strategy would lead to a win for Black. (This last possibility is very unlikely, and nobody believes in it, but I think it has theoretically not been ruled out. It would be amazing if the perfect strategy were a win for Black, it would mean that the initial position of chess is just a big Zugzwang!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the perfect strategy from both players leads to a draw, then it means that your perfect players does not necessarily win every game. Some imperfect but good opponent could manage to draw some times. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, if the perfect strategy leads to a win for White, then your perfect player would always win with White, but as soon as he plays Black, he has a chance to draw some times against an imperfect but good opponent, and he could also lose sometimes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15668" LastActivityDate="2018-03-26T17:48:10.960" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21221" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21222" CreationDate="2018-03-26T21:18:04.567" Score="-3" ViewCount="355" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can white force a draw somehow from this position using only his knight and king? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qLrHU.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qLrHU.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16079" LastActivityDate="2018-03-29T17:15:01.457" Title="Forcing a draw with knight and king" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21222" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21221" CreationDate="2018-03-26T21:50:47.373" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;No. Even assuming it's White's move, Black can force mate in five moves according to the computer. But you don't really need to calculate that much since Black's material advantage is so overwhelming.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only hope would be a stalemate, but it is unlikely. To achieve that, the knight would have to be pinned or lost, but I don't see how you can force that: if it got pinned, Black could just unpin it in the next move if necessary, or simply capture it. Even trading the queen for the knight, the position would still be easily won by Black. Black only needs to make sure that if they take the knight, they don't cause an immediate stalemate (that would be Black's blunder, not something forced by White).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's one of the possible lines that end with mate in five:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;8/p7/6k1/2p5/6r1/2N4q/1K6/8 w - - 0 1&#xA;&#xA;1. Kc2 Rc4&#xA;2. Kd1 Qd3+&#xA;3. Ke1 Rxc3&#xA;4. Kf2 Rc2+&#xA;5. Ke1 Qe2#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12523" LastActivityDate="2018-03-26T21:50:47.373" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21223" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-03-26T23:13:43.027" Score="1" ViewCount="124" Body="&lt;p&gt;Question: In Blitz (5-min Chess) your opponent puts you in check. You then make a move that places your opponent in check. Can your opponent still take your King and claim victory (even though he's in check)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16146" LastActivityDate="2018-03-26T23:50:13.633" Title="Taking the King in Blitz Chess" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2018-03-27T16:53:35.910" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21224" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-03-26T23:43:53.977" Score="2" ViewCount="542" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am roughly 1400 USCF and when I play against 1. d4, I tend to avoid the theoretical stuff (Benoni, KID) and defenses such as the Nimzo and QID (mostly anything hypermodern). So I stick with the classical 1... d5 defenses mostly. But, as I am becoming a better chess player I am looking towards other openings; I have played the KID over some casual games and of all of the other d4 defenses, I play the KID intuitively pretty well. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, what is making me reluctant of it is defending against the Four pawns attack, Saemisch, and Averbakh lines (or anything where white plays a early Bg5) are a bit annoying. But I enjoy playing against the classical lines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What would be a good choice?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16148" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-03-27T07:59:26.230" LastActivityDate="2018-03-27T16:03:52.020" Title="What ELO is it good to learn and play the Kings Indian Defense OTB?" Tags="&lt;kings-indian&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21226" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21224" CreationDate="2018-03-27T01:11:22.210" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Elo points don't matter. Just play what opening you feel comfortable with most. If you play it well intuitively, then go ahead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13928" LastActivityDate="2018-03-27T01:11:22.210" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21227" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21221" CreationDate="2018-03-27T01:16:48.550" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is not possible to force a draw. Even if Black somehow lost both pawns and his rook, the resulting endgame is still won for Black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/8/6k1/8/8/2N4q/1K6/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Kc2 Qg4 2. Nb1 Qd4 3. Nc3 Kf5 4. Ne2 Qe3 5. Nc3 Ke5 6. Kb2 Qd3 7. Na4 Qb5+ 8. Ka3 Kd4 9. Nb2 Ke3 10. Nc4+ Qxc4 11. Kb2 Qb4+ 12. Ka2 Kd3 13. Ka1 Kc3 14. Ka2 Qb2#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13928" LastActivityDate="2018-03-27T01:16:48.550" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21229" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21224" CreationDate="2018-03-27T16:03:52.020" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can adopt it in OTB play at any time. The Kings Indian Defense is a very solid one, but like all openings it will take time and practice to familiarize yourself with many of the lines. I would suggest continuing to play in informal games to build up your exposure. If a position comes up that confuses you early on, take note of the board position and spend some time with it later reviewing it with an engine or against master-play databases to see common lines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The theory of the opening is very different from what you've been playing. If you haven't yet, I'd suggest looking into that aspect as early as possible and watch how it comes alive in players who have favored the opening like Fischer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="29" LastActivityDate="2018-03-27T16:03:52.020" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21230" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14434" CreationDate="2018-03-27T20:33:04.820" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;We could start guessing the approximate value of this hypothetical &quot;superpawn&quot; or &quot;enhanced pawn&quot; in terms of &quot;mobility&quot;, in the order of E~2P because of the definition (move up to 2 squares instead of only 1 square).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Next we adjust this initial guess by forming an 8x8 matrix, where each square has a number indicating how &quot;mobile&quot; is the analyzed piece (P=pawn, E=&quot;enhanced pawn&quot;) when placed at that square:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Pawn    xxxxxxxx&amp;lt;--last rank    Enhanced pawn   xxxxxxxx&#xA;        11111111                                22222222&#xA;        11111111                                22222222&#xA;        11111111                                22222222&#xA;        11111111                                22222222&#xA;        11111111                                22222222&#xA;        22222222&amp;lt;--first rank                   22222222&#xA;Pawn    xxxxxxxx               Enhanced pawn    xxxxxxxx&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here we have an average mobility of 2 squares for the enhanced pawn vs 7/6 for the normal pawn (who can only jump 2 squares when located at the initial rank). The relative power E/P appears to be 2/(7/6)=12/7~1.7 slightly below E=2P.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But there are normally other pieces that populate the board and limit the mobility. In a real game, we will find that at some locations our new &quot;superpawn&quot; is completely surrounded by other pieces and does not differ from a &quot;normal pawn&quot;. So the tentative number E=1.7P should be pushed somewhat lower.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In order for these numbers to be of any value, we should imagine certain tasks or situations and see how a particular piece or group of pieces performs.&#xA;A similar analysis has been made for the standard chess pieces. Some examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;1 Queen cannot corner and checkmate a lonely rival King, while 2 Rooks can.&#xA;That suggests 2R&gt;Q which is in accordance with the normally accepted values Q~9P, R~5P. (Or Q~10P R~5.5P).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;King+Rook can checkmate an enemy King, while kNight+Rook cannot (they need the aid of the King). So in this case K+R&gt;N+R, K&gt;N.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;But a kNight can cross a barrier formed by a Rook, while a King cannot. So there are opposite situations where N&gt;K.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;For some tasks K&gt;N, for other tasks N&gt;K. This behaviour is supported by the official point scales, which evaluate the difference of King vs kNight to be in the order of a pawn or fraction of pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;And where does our new enhanced pawn fit? He can cross the barrier of a rook, while a King cannot. That means that in some situations, he can outperform a King, E&gt;K (being K between ~3P and ~4P)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;But he cannot cross a barrier formed by 2 Rooks, while a Bishop can. So here is B&gt;E.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;And he cannot cross a barrier formed by 2 Bishops, while a kNight can. So here is N&gt;E.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If we build a big table with lots of tasks, we can count how many &quot;E&gt;K&quot; and how many &quot;K&gt;E&quot;, &quot;E&gt;B&quot;, &quot;B&gt;E&quot;...etc we have, and calculate an average.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A more powerful approach would be to access a big database of complete games, not just individual &quot;tasks&quot;.&#xA;As has been already mentioned in this site, with the aid of a game database it is possible to analyze the result of trading pieces. Applying this idea to our &quot;superpawns&quot;, with thousands of games we could answer questions like &quot;Is a superpawn really worth 2 pawns? Or is 2P&gt;E?&#xA;The player who loses 1E while taking 2P from the rival, does he normally lose? Or does he retain a reasonable expectation of winning?&#xA;What about 2E vs 3P? E vs B? 2E vs B? 2E vs N?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is often said that everything depends on the position, but with big (very big!) sets of data we could think that the variations of particular positions tend to cancel out and what remains after averaging is what we call &quot;piece value&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15958" LastActivityDate="2018-03-27T20:33:04.820" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21231" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-03-27T21:34:42.290" Score="4" ViewCount="204" Body="&lt;p&gt;On Oct 31, 2014, Tord Romstad &lt;a href=&quot;http://support.stockfishchess.org/discussions/questions/1327-alternative-moves&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;wrote&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The moves are not searched in descending order from best to worst. Stockfish has no idea which move is the second, third best, etc., and it doesn't have any centipawn scores for any moves other than the current best move. For the rest of the moves, the centipawn scores are unknown, all we have for those moves are upper bounds for the centipawn scores.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As an example, assume that we have a position with four legal moves A, B, C and D. What Stockfish knows about the centipawn values of the four moves after searching to a given depth would usually be something like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Move A (best move): 100 centipawns.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Move B: At most 50 centipawns&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Move C: At most 80 centipawns&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Move D: At most 0 centipawns&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because we only have upper bounds for moves B, C and D, we have no idea which of these three moves is the best.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a way to make Stockfish output the data described by Tord?&#xA;I would argue that it is valuable to not only know the best move, but also to have an idea of whether the best move is &amp;quot;much better&amp;quot; than the other moves or only &amp;quot;slightly better&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8904" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2018-04-17T21:02:23.610" Title="Output whether the best move is &quot;much better&quot; or only &quot;slightly better&quot; than the other moves" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;programming&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21232" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21231" CreationDate="2018-03-27T23:25:55.610" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think Stockfish gives you the information as it's not useful to anybody other than programmers for debugging. The best way is just run MultiPV=2, and subtract the best two moves. Is there any reason why you can't do that?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you insist you'll have to modify the source code yourself. It's not a very hard change. But why would you do that?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2018-03-27T23:25:55.610" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21233" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-03-28T01:20:44.560" Score="8" ViewCount="513" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am new to the site and would appreciate help in this area.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At my current stage (beginner) I have started to draw or sometimes even beat the computer at low levels (ex. chess.com level1,2,3, lichess.org level1,2). One of these sites has an interesting feature that helps me a lot, it is a set of 3 numbers like a score. Here is an example of a game where I play White and I am behind 2 pawns (-2pts in material):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;        +2.90 &#xA;        -1.78 &#xA;        -2.14 &#xA;        Stockfish.js 8 | depth=19&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which I interpret the following way: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Positional score shows max=+2.90, which means that there is a tactic opportunity involved (overloading? removal of defender?...etc I must find out!).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If I see the opportunity and play correctly, I can materialize the advantage and win an important piece (maybe win a rook, or take the queen in exchange of one of my rooks)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If I miss the opportunity, the next score will be -1.78 (second best move) or -2.14 (third best move).&#xA;That is, the momentary positional advantage will disappear and the score will revert to the material strength (2 pawns behind).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well, my problem is that I sometimes blunder and my score goes abruptly down to for instance -M2 [mate-in-2 for Black].&#xA;I lose the game :( because I did not realize that there was a mate danger (ex: last rank weakness or something like that).&#xA;The score of the site I am playing only shows the 3 best moves, not the &lt;em&gt;WORST&lt;/em&gt; moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am formulating this question here in the hope that someone knows other &lt;strong&gt;sites for beginners, with an engine that can be tuned to warn if there is a risk of blundering and being prematurely mated.&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;If I do not find such feature, well, I will have to be patient and continue with the learning process:). The frequency of blunders should decrease as I gain experience.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you for your help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15958" LastActivityDate="2021-05-10T22:45:41.253" Title="Chess engine with danger (mate) warnings for beginners?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;beginner&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21234" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21233" CreationDate="2018-03-28T03:34:28.310" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Showing only the worst moves for a position is not something you'll find. Computer engines are not appropriate for warning against risk of blunders. My suggestions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Take back a move against computer if you make a bad move&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Review your game&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You're asking the question because you're afraid of losing. There's no shame to lose against a computer. You learn more by going back your game (or takeback) then explicitly being warned.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2018-03-28T03:34:28.310" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21235" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21238" CreationDate="2018-03-28T09:16:16.770" Score="4" ViewCount="268" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am coding up a chess engine and using the alpha-beta algorithm for tree scanning. I ended up doing what they posted &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.ics.uci.edu/~eppstein/180a/990202b.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;int alphabeta(int depth, int alpha, int beta)&#xA;{&#xA;    move bestmove;&#xA;    if (game over or depth &amp;lt;= 0) return winning score or eval();&#xA;    for (each possible move m) {&#xA;        make move m;&#xA;        score = -alphabeta(depth - 1, -beta, -alpha)&#xA;        if (score &amp;gt;= alpha) { alpha = score; bestmove = m; }&#xA;        unmake move m;&#xA;        if (alpha &amp;gt;= beta) break;&#xA;    }&#xA;    return alpha;&#xA;} &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is stated that &quot;The code above always returns alpha, beta, or a number between alpha and beta.&quot; In my calcs this is not true and I need it in order to implement aspiration search. I have seen many variants of the algorithm and tried a few but sometimes the return value falls outside the desired interval [alpha, beta]. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Can anyone post C++ or pseudo-code of alpha-beta with that property? &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Is it possible to prove that ? &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Finally, it seems intuitive that the return value is an increasing function of alpha keeping beta fixed and similarly for beta. Is it true and is it provable? In my calcs this is not the case.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;How big must be the window of aspiration search in order to ensure we have not pruned out the principal variation? If the return value falls between  alpha and beta will that suffice?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16163" LastEditorUserId="16057" LastEditDate="2018-03-28T13:22:07.473" LastActivityDate="2018-03-28T13:36:54.170" Title="alpha-beta algorithm returns a value between alpha and beta inclusive?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;engines&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21236" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21237" CreationDate="2018-03-28T10:15:48.873" Score="2" ViewCount="1471" Body="&lt;p&gt;I get around x12 faster evaluation when I run Stockfish myself, so I checked my utilization when running local analysis (Chromium and Firefox) and saw that it just utilizes one thread and few megabytes of memory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I am looking for a solution to make it fully utilize my hardware. Any ideas?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;EDIT:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;TL;DR&lt;/strong&gt; Issue was user-agent specific, doesn't work on Chromium/Ubuntu.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9030" LastEditorUserId="9030" LastEditDate="2018-03-29T17:52:02.590" LastActivityDate="2018-03-29T17:52:02.590" Title="How to make Lichess local analysis utilize more cpu and memory?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;performance&gt;&lt;lichess&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2018-03-30T23:24:18.990" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21237" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21236" CreationDate="2018-03-28T11:27:12.867" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The menu for the analysis board has sliders for CPUs and memory (see screenshot below). Have you tried adjusting those? Maybe whether they actually work or not depends on which browser you are using. If they don't, I think this question would be best suited for the &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/forum/lichess-feedback&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Lichess feedback forum&lt;/a&gt;, since it might be a bug.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/8wDog.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/8wDog.png&quot; alt=&quot;Screenshot of Lichess analysis board menu&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12523" LastActivityDate="2018-03-28T11:27:12.867" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21238" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21235" CreationDate="2018-03-28T13:31:12.257" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;My usual reference is &lt;a href=&quot;https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Alpha-Beta#Implementation-Negamax%20Framework&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Alpha-Beta#Implementation-Negamax%20Framework&lt;/a&gt;, which I believe is correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your lecture slide, if &lt;code&gt;score &amp;gt; beta&lt;/code&gt; ==&gt; &lt;code&gt;alpha = score&lt;/code&gt; ==&gt; return alpha which is greater than beta. Thus, the claim looks incorrect to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You don't need to prove &quot;&lt;em&gt;increasing function of alpha&lt;/em&gt;&quot; because any score less than alpha is a bad move for you, so you would ignore it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Aspiration window width is a parameter and there is no definitive answer. You don't want it too big, or too small. You'll need to run tests...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2018-03-28T13:36:54.170" LastActivityDate="2018-03-28T13:36:54.170" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21239" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21240" CreationDate="2018-03-29T03:58:44.973" Score="39" ViewCount="18872" Body="&lt;p&gt;One of my opponents at &lt;a href=&quot;http://chess.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chess.com&lt;/a&gt; just stopped moving after falling into objectively losing position, refused to resign, and made me wait for 20 minutes to claim a win by time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've recently resumed my online chess activity and I have experienced this childish behavior of some online chess players several times already.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does chess.com's engine detect such unsportsmanlike behavior? Or is there a way to flag such users, so that they could be punished? What is the proper etiquette for us to proceed in such cases?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's the game position when my opponent stopped moving and refused to resign:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Me vs Malicious Player&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;8/7P/2k1p3/p3P3/Pp1K2P1/1P6/8/8 w - - 0 44&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16057" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-10-05T01:17:55.720" LastActivityDate="2019-10-05T01:17:55.720" Title="What are the actions one can do against chess.com players who stop moving when they are in an objectively losing position and refuse to resign?" Tags="&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;etiquette&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="7" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21240" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21239" CreationDate="2018-03-29T04:05:31.970" Score="38" Body="&lt;p&gt;The behavior you describe is bad sportsmanship and goes against the policies of chess.com. See the &lt;a href=&quot;https://support.chess.com/customer/en/portal/articles/1444922-fair-play-policy&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;chess.com fair play policy&lt;/a&gt; and this &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/blog/News/new-tools-for-fair-play-on-chess-com&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;blog post about the new abuse report system&lt;/a&gt; which includes an option specifically for &quot;poor sportsmanship / stalling in games&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12523" LastEditorUserId="12523" LastEditDate="2018-05-07T14:18:11.973" LastActivityDate="2018-05-07T14:18:11.973" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21241" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21239" CreationDate="2018-03-29T08:22:53.490" Score="47" Body="&lt;p&gt;Assuming you also have plenty of time on your clock, &lt;strong&gt;make a break&lt;/strong&gt;: have a drink, or check your mail, or pay a visit to the bathroom, or grab a book (even if it's an openings book, it doesn't count at cheating in that position ;) ), or go verify if your baby hasn't hurt herself with that knife she was trying to grab when you were too busy calculating your Bxh6! sacrifice to stop her. &lt;br&gt;Meanwhile, check every five minutes that the opponent hasn't played (the worst trick would be if he plays a meaningless move at some point and ends up winning on time). After your well-deserved 20' pause, collect your point, block this undelicate opponent to make sure you never play against him anymore, and look for another partner. You will win the next game as well thanks to your fresh mind after the 20' break.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In case you're a real chess lover who doesn't care about his virtual Elo rating, and really just want to start a new game as soon as possible, &lt;strong&gt;the alternative&lt;/strong&gt; is to resign yourself. I almost never do that because I &lt;em&gt;do&lt;/em&gt; care about my little rating points (&lt;em&gt;vanitas vanitatum, omnia vanitas&lt;/em&gt;) and because the pueril opponent might believe he has been smart when he gets gifted that pseudo-win, which might even encourage him to continue his misbehavour. But objectively, we shouldn't care at all what the abusing, unfair player is thinking - It's not our job to educate him, and we don't have the means to do it anyway.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastActivityDate="2018-03-29T08:22:53.490" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21242" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4434" CreationDate="2018-03-29T15:43:28.097" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Speaking from experience, I improved alot from just watching GingerGM's videos about the London System, Black(Philidor) Lion, and his Master Method Previews.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have also improved greatly from analyzing games via lichess.org's studies, esp. the games that I lost, and/or won by a narrow margin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm recommending &lt;a href=&quot;http://lichess.org&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Lichess&lt;/a&gt; because it is what allowed me to really improve my chess game from complete noob to amateur. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15847" LastActivityDate="2018-03-29T15:43:28.097" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21243" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21239" CreationDate="2018-03-29T16:52:16.937" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Pre-move &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;h8Q &lt;br&gt;&#xA;Qh7&lt;br&gt; g5&lt;br&gt;g6&lt;br&gt;g7&lt;br&gt;g8Q&lt;br&gt;Qhf7&lt;br&gt;Qxe6&lt;br&gt; Qgf7&lt;br&gt; Qee8++ &lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and go to sleep. Then file a complaint in the morning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15221" LastActivityDate="2018-03-29T16:52:16.937" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21244" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21221" CreationDate="2018-03-29T17:15:01.457" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Black has Rg2, Qh1. The only way that's not checkmate is if white interposes the knight, but then the knight is pinned and can be taken. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15221" LastActivityDate="2018-03-29T17:15:01.457" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21247" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21239" CreationDate="2018-03-29T22:28:03.623" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately there isn't much you can do to make the game end immediately. If you care about your online rating and don't want to do something like offer a draw, you'll have to wait. I'd suggest doing something else that you need to do with that time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After the game though, there is plenty you can do. The best course of action would be reporting the user to Chess.com, explaining how they made you wait 20 mins. For proof, you could take a screenshot of your game when your opponent has 15 minutes, and another screenshot when he runs out of time. This will show Chess.com it is the same position, and that your opponent just let the clock run down.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Additionally, you can block the user so that you never play them again. This will save you some time in the future, if you get paired again.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's Chess.com's link on how to deal with unfair players. They give instructions on how to report a player, as well as other things:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://support.chess.com/customer/en/portal/articles/1444879-fair-play-on-chess-com-what-you-need-to-know&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://support.chess.com/customer/en/portal/articles/1444879-fair-play-on-chess-com-what-you-need-to-know&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2018-03-29T22:28:03.623" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21248" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21239" CreationDate="2018-03-29T23:01:50.993" Score="20" Body="&lt;p&gt;I followed &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/21240/16057&quot;&gt;@itub&lt;/a&gt;'s suggestion and &lt;a href=&quot;https://support.chess.com/customer/portal/emails/new&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;filed a report&lt;/a&gt; against the particular user. Here's the answer I got from Chess.com support:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[...]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Certainly, this is not what we want on our site! I have sent this&#xA;  member to our investigative department for a close watch on this&#xA;  account. They will be monitored and if they continue this behavior, we&#xA;  will have to close their account!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Thank you so much for reporting! We appreciate it so much!!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[...]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Chess.com Member Support Staff&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since Chess.com also takes it seriously, I do suggest to report malicious users instead of not doing anything, so that in future they don't ruin online chess experience of your fellow mates as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16057" LastActivityDate="2018-03-29T23:01:50.993" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21250" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-03-30T10:36:35.787" Score="3" ViewCount="385" Body="&lt;p&gt;A lot of times I used to play trap games in chess; most of the times I won the game. But the my question is this: is it good strategy to play a trap game when facing a rated chess player?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16194" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-03-30T14:06:19.860" LastActivityDate="2018-05-12T17:26:43.907" Title="Are trap games a good plan versus rated chess players or not?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21251" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21250" CreationDate="2018-03-30T11:02:45.053" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I will assume that a &quot;trap game&quot; is an opening that contains a devastating trap if your opponent plays the wrong move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What happens if your opponent does not fall for the trap? As long as you can still have a good game, it's ok to play a trap game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2018-03-30T11:02:45.053" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21252" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7949" CreationDate="2018-03-30T19:23:43.233" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am not going to be negative, but realistic. At age 25, it is highly unlikely you will ever be a chess professional.  A professional not only has to travel worldwide and play in top tournaments, but also has to teach and do other chess things to make a living in chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To achieve a GM title, you will need to play dozens of tournaments each year against IMs and GMs to earn your three norms.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Go to YouTube and follow John Bartholomew. He is an IM working on his GM norms. He posts a short video after each round of the tournaments he plays. He has ups and downs and it has been a tough road for him and he still does not have his GM title yet. Will he ever achieve it? I don't know, but it is a LOT of work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't say this to discourage you, but to be realistic. There is only one way for you to find out. Try it and see what happens.  Best of luck!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16199" LastActivityDate="2018-03-30T19:23:43.233" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21253" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-03-31T00:43:17.723" Score="3" ViewCount="545" Body="&lt;p&gt;I noticed that my USCF quick rating is lower than my USCF regular rating.  At first I thought maybe it was because I was relatively weaker at faster time controls, but it seemed like the difference was too large to be just that.  This got me to looking at the ratings of everyone in my section (It was the open section, there was another section of sub-1200 and unrated) of my most recent dual-rated tournament.  On average, the pre-event quick ratings of the 50-ish players in this tournament were 170 points below their regular ratings (and that even includes one player who never played quick before and was therefore given a provisional quick rating equal to his regular rating.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It occurred to me that maybe I'm just in an area with local weirdness in the ratings, but that doesn't seem to be the case.  Wesley So has the highest regular rating in the nation, but his quick rating is 166 points lower than his regular.  The 100th best regular rating is 2474, but the 100th best quick rating is 2263, which is 211 points lower.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although I know the player pools of the two rating systems are not identical, it would seem that the pools have significant overlap - all are USCF members who play in tournaments.  Initial quick ratings are literally based on the regular rating, if the player was already regular-rated.  And both rating systems appear to use the same &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.glicko.net/ratings/rating.system.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;algorithm&lt;/a&gt; to calculate ratings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But despite that, quick ratings are significantly lower, apparently by nearly a full class.  Why are they so much lower, given the same algorithm and many of the same players?  And, assuming it's desirable that the ratings be similar, what could be done to correct this situation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2020-01-09T18:51:28.777" Title="Why are USCF quick ratings lower than USCF regular ratings?" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;uscf&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21254" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21255" CreationDate="2018-03-31T00:52:21.263" Score="4" ViewCount="403" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some time ago İ had a book on chess, that proposed new chess variant invented by some guy, in which a new chess piece was added. so instead the usual 8 by 8 board would get replaced by a bigger 9 by 9 board in which a new piece could be added. This piece would be like the queen but it would be able to jump like knight making it a lot more powerful than the queen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So my question is, what did you call this new piece that was proposed and who made it at what year? Any info on the subject is appreciated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user16203" LastEditorUserId="16057" LastEditDate="2018-03-31T14:41:53.253" LastActivityDate="2019-09-24T03:26:11.997" Title="Rejected game variant for adding a new chess piece" Tags="&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;minor-variations&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21255" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21254" CreationDate="2018-03-31T01:55:16.313" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was unable to find a variant with a 9x9 board that included this piece, but that doesn't mean such a variant doesn't exist.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Perhaps you slightly misremembered the powers of the piece. &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_Chess_(chess_variant)&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Modern Chess&lt;/a&gt; was invented in 1968 by Gabriel Vicente Maura, according to Wikipedia.  It has a 9x9 board and features a piece called the &quot;prime minister&quot; which combines the powers of the bishop and knight.  Unlike any piece in normal chess, it is capable of delivering checkmate without the help of another piece, if the opponent's king is in the corner.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's also possible you may be thinking of &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chancellor_Chess&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chancellor Chess&lt;/a&gt;.  This was  invented by Benjamin R. Foster in 1887, according to Wikipedia.  It has a 9x9 board and features a piece called the &quot;chancellor&quot;, which combines the powers of a rook and knight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you're sure that the piece was actually a queen and knight combined (and not a bishop and knight or rook and knight), then Wikipedia says this is called the &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_(chess)&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;amazon&lt;/a&gt;&quot;, and that it has also been called &quot;angel, ayanu, commander, crown prince, elephant, empress, general, giraffe, grand chancellor, maharajah, rettah, royal guard, superqueen, tetra queen, and wyvern&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2018-03-31T01:55:16.313" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21256" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21250" CreationDate="2018-03-31T06:41:35.470" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Playing traps is never a good plan if you want to improve yourself. It won't help you to improve your skills. Also experienced players won't buy it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9030" LastActivityDate="2018-03-31T06:41:35.470" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21260" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21250" CreationDate="2018-04-01T00:09:44.410" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my experience I feel the only way that I can play a 'ranked'(assuming considerable higher rating) than myself is to play wild, attacking lines in the hopes of trapping them to victory(assuming that is what you mean by 'trap games').  I usually tie this in with the term I've read, &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;&quot;hope chess&quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;.  Hoping your opponent doesn't see what you are trying to do for a win without having a plan when it fails.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Using positional strategy the ranked player is simply going to be beat me.  There's a reason they are ranked.  They have the understanding, knowledge and experience I have not obtained yet.  When I start getting around the 100 pt. rating difference and I'm on the low end I've only got about a 30% chance of winning so I'm putting my money on the wild, attacking games in the hopes of trapping them for a win by them blundering.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;While I do believe the best way to get better is to play people who are better than you&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;, I don't necessarily believe this is a good long term strategy with playing like this.  I would always bet a ranked player is going to see the traps more often than not and I would be concerned the position would be lost after the trap fails.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14760" LastActivityDate="2018-04-01T00:09:44.410" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21261" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-04-01T00:42:04.337" Score="7" ViewCount="7584" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can a white King move next to a black King to check it, if there is a white pawn protecting the white King, preventing the black King from taking the white King?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16214" LastEditorUserId="16057" LastEditDate="2018-04-05T14:54:29.237" LastActivityDate="2020-02-25T15:11:14.900" Title="Can a king be checked with another king when checking square is protected by the side which gives the check?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;check&gt;&lt;illegal-move&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" ClosedDate="2020-02-26T04:27:12.747" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21262" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21261" CreationDate="2018-04-01T01:30:52.340" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your movement is not valid because you are giving up your white King.&#xA;It does not matter if you counter-attack with the pawn after losing your king.&#xA;The match is won by the player who first takes the King.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are questions related to yours, for example &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/2348/can-a-piece-pinned-to-my-king-put-the-opponents-king-in-check&quot;&gt;Can a piece pinned to my king put the opponent&amp;#39;s king in check?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15958" LastEditorUserId="8214" LastEditDate="2018-04-04T22:35:49.653" LastActivityDate="2018-04-04T22:35:49.653" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21263" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21261" CreationDate="2018-04-01T05:12:10.197" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;Hi David and welcome to chess.stackexchange.com. This is a common question. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's illegal to move a king into check, or to leave it in check. This includes moving a king adjacent to the opposing king. If you have no legal moves then the game is over: if your king is in check then you are checkmated and you have lost, otherwise you are stalemated and the game is drawn. This is basic to chess, and doesn't require any particular Laws.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want chapter and verse, you can find it in the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=208&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Laws&lt;/a&gt; (which operate in all parts of the world apart from USA) Articles 1.4.1 &amp;amp; 3.9.2. While reading Article 1.4.1, you might also notice that it's illegal to capture the opponent's king. You might reflect that this is a curious rule in two respects (a) it can never apply in a legal position - because it would have been illegal for the opponent to have left his king in check! (b) it would never be a good move to capture the opponent's king - because then you could never checkmate it! You would be right in this reflection, but the rule is there to stop things get too crazy if an illegal move isn't spotted immediately.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To summarize: you can &lt;em&gt;never&lt;/em&gt; move so that your king is in check, even if the king is &quot;protected&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8201" LastEditorUserId="8201" LastEditDate="2018-04-01T16:31:11.660" LastActivityDate="2018-04-01T16:31:11.660" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21264" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13913" CreationDate="2018-04-01T05:49:11.123" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;To see AlphaZero in action, follow &lt;a href=&quot;http://lczero.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://lczero.org/&lt;/a&gt; or play at &lt;a href=&quot;http://play.lczero.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://play.lczero.org/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15122" LastActivityDate="2018-04-01T05:49:11.123" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21266" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21261" CreationDate="2018-04-01T05:54:54.303" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is an illegal move. Even if the White King is protected, you can never put your King en prise.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, if you were to play such a move and your opponent didn't call it ON THAT MOVE, an interesting scenario arises. Under the FIDE handbook, section 7.5.1, it says that if an illegal move happens during a game, the position before it will be reinstated. So, assume White moves his King to c6 (illegal) and Black didn't call it and moved his King to b6 (also illegal in this instance). If White THEN called Black for his illegal move to b6, the game would be reinstated to the position before White moved his King to c6 (the first illegal move that happened in the game).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Link to the FIDE Handbook:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=208&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=208&amp;amp;view=article&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastEditorUserId="12873" LastEditDate="2020-02-23T19:45:46.100" LastActivityDate="2020-02-23T19:45:46.100" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21267" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23293" CreationDate="2018-04-01T12:35:34.907" Score="11" ViewCount="481" Body="&lt;p&gt;In &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%C5%8Dbutsu_shogi&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;dobutsu shogi&lt;/a&gt;, the chick (Japanese pawn) promotes to a chicken (Gold general). In my experience this promotion occurs only rarely and I suspect after much blundering.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does the chick promotion rule in dobutsu shogi really matter? That is, does the game really change if chick promotion is dropped (and chicks become stuck on the last row instead)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By really change, I mean the classification of a position (winning, losing or drawing) changing, or the precise sequence of moves to force a win from a winning position changing materially.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9531" LastActivityDate="2019-01-12T15:00:29.980" Title="Does the chick promotion rule in dobutsu shogi really matter?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;shogi&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21268" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21271" CreationDate="2018-04-01T12:46:30.867" Score="6" ViewCount="1226" Body="&lt;p&gt;My analysis of the position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Materially, black is a pawn up.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;White's rooks and bishop are active.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;White has potential counterplay on Black's Kingside but I think it can be defended by the move Ng6.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Black's queen is active.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to my analysis, the position is quite equal and I don't find any reasonable justification for stockfish's score.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/frJQr.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/frJQr.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Bullet Game&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can you please explain why does stockfish prefer white here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11241" LastEditorUserId="11241" LastEditDate="2018-04-01T13:01:19.457" LastActivityDate="2018-04-01T16:00:34.803" Title="Why does Stockfish prefer White here?" Tags="&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21269" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21268" CreationDate="2018-04-01T14:08:34.613" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Since this is an opposite-colored bishop game, black has a light squared weakness on both sides, which could lead to an invasion on the light squares from white.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even though White doesn't have any pawns to protect the White King, it does provide semi-open files for the rooks to attack on, and the semi-open files lead straight to the black king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15874" LastActivityDate="2018-04-01T14:08:34.613" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21270" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21268" CreationDate="2018-04-01T14:40:23.087" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;The main feature in this position is the lack of defenses around black's king. After Rg1 followed by improving the bishop, either h5 or c4 to pressure f7, you are effectively attacking with an extra rook.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some sample attacks are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) Although a beginner's attacking formation, aligning a queen-bishop battery--by d4, Qd3, Bd1-c2, threatens a simple mate on h7.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) After an exchange sacrifice on g6, the weakness on the white squares are easily exploited after the bishop gets to c4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) After the Knight reaches f5, via Nf1-e3, the pressure on g7 and especially h6 is difficult to protect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The knight on g6 is the king's best protector, but, mainly due to it being on a white square, it is easily removed, and then black's kingside becomes exposed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12449" LastActivityDate="2018-04-01T14:40:23.087" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21271" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21268" CreationDate="2018-04-01T16:00:34.803" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The key is to see how quickly both sides can bring their pieces into the game. Only Black's Queen and Knight are active -- his Bishop and two Rooks are extremely passive and can only be activated after many moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Meanwhile, White's Rh2 is active and he can bring Ra1 into the game in one move (by playing Rg1). Qc2 seems passive, but it can be opened quickly by playing d4, and maybe even a pawn sac with e5. White can bring the Knight into the game by playing Nf3, and the Bishop can be activated on the same diagonal as the Queen, after a potential pawn sac with e5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, notice how by playing d4, White drives away one of Black's two active pieces. As an extra bonus, d4 also gives White full control of the center, and limits Black's Bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Based on all this, White has more than enough compensation for the h6-pawn (which can't even move without being taken), but not enough to be winning (just better).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2018-04-01T16:00:34.803" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21272" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4434" CreationDate="2018-04-01T23:16:00.830" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;My comment is derived from the trial and error of teaching my kids how to play/improve at chess and then applying the same discipline to myself.  I think the most important mechanism is to review actual games, particularly losses.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Try to find the 2-3 worst moves you make in each loss.  This can be done with a friend or coach, by yourself, or with a computer.  With a little introspection, I think at the beginner/intermediate level you can fairly quickly identify what types of errors are contributing most to losses.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For my youngest kid, the errors are simple dropped pieces (or missing an opponent's dropped pieces).  Gently noting these errors, I think, will self-correct over time.  I think the self-correction happens faster by noting them explicitly.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For myself, I noticed a series of games that I lost, when someone had a check/fork resulting in me losing the piece.  So I try - not always successfully - on every move to look for all the checks my opponent can do on me.  An interesting side effect, I am more interested in protecting my king, because it makes this calculation much easier.  But simply reducing (I can't say eliminating) this error, has boosted my chess play.  I mean every check/fork against me results in a loss, so if I trim out half of them, I'm winning a lot more games.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And for my older son, I've noticed that he's pretty good during the openings and end game, but during the mid-game, when things get complicated, his moves get sloppy.  So here, I tell him, slow down your analysis, take your time, you can figure it out but it takes effort.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyway just some examples - I basically think analysis of your lost games will point to where you are having problems (openings, endgames, not looking at opponenents' moves) and you proceed from there.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16223" LastActivityDate="2018-04-01T23:16:00.830" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21278" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4531" CreationDate="2018-04-02T14:44:50.020" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;Dan Heisman writes about this in one of his books.  He states that 90 % of children who start in 1st grade or kindergarten stop playing around 7th grade.  I have seen this in my work as Executive Director of the Wisconsin Scholastic Chess Federation.   Children at this age have had enough chess and want to explore other interests.  As an educator I do not think this is a bad thing.  Our objective in teaching chess at  a young age is to help them to learn to think differently and approach problems in a more thoughtful way.  If they play for 5 or 6 years, mission accomplished. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16230" LastActivityDate="2018-04-02T14:44:50.020" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21279" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2018-04-02T18:08:24.527" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2018-04-02T18:08:24.527" LastActivityDate="2018-04-02T18:08:24.527" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21280" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2018-04-02T18:08:24.527" Score="0" Body="Questions about the World Chess Championship 1972 between the defending champion Boris Spassky of the Soviet Union and the American challenger Bobby Fischer. The 21 games of the match were played in Reykjavik, Iceland, between 11 July and 1 September 1972, and ended with Fischer's victory." OwnerUserId="10867" LastEditorUserId="10867" LastEditDate="2018-04-03T04:43:04.760" LastActivityDate="2018-04-03T04:43:04.760" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21281" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2018-04-02T18:12:39.873" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2018-04-02T18:12:39.873" LastActivityDate="2018-04-02T18:12:39.873" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21282" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2018-04-02T18:12:39.873" Score="0" Body="Questions about the Russian-born chess master Aron Nimzowitsch or Aron Niemzowitsch (1886 – 1935), one of the leading figures of hypermodern chess. His 1925 book 'Mein System' ('My System') was very influential." OwnerUserId="10867" LastEditorUserId="10867" LastEditDate="2018-04-02T19:39:17.250" LastActivityDate="2018-04-02T19:39:17.250" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21283" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2018-04-02T18:14:43.537" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2018-04-02T18:14:43.537" LastActivityDate="2018-04-02T18:14:43.537" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21284" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2018-04-02T18:14:43.537" Score="0" Body="Questions about the Accelerated Dragon (ECO: B34–B39), a variation of the Sicilian Defence that begins with the moves 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 g6. " OwnerUserId="10867" LastEditorUserId="10867" LastEditDate="2018-04-02T19:38:35.450" LastActivityDate="2018-04-02T19:38:35.450" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21285" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-04-03T00:38:40.420" Score="2" ViewCount="265" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are some fairly obvious ways to set up a chess board that cannot possibly happen:  both kings simultaneously in check would be one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are some positions that &lt;em&gt;seem&lt;/em&gt; impossible in a normal game... for example, one side has all of it's original pawns in their original location and the other side has NONE of its pawns remaining - but with both sides displaying all pieces in their original positions (perhaps knights can do this, I don't know.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, seems like there may be some impossible positions &lt;em&gt;that are not at all obviously difficult.&lt;/em&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The question is if there are any known legal positions (preferably ones that  a normal human might think are the result of a game) that cannot be played into?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16232" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-05-28T22:04:46.513" LastActivityDate="2020-05-28T22:04:46.513" Title="Are there any legal positions known to be impossible to come to in a normal game?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;illegal-move&gt;&lt;retrograde-analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2018-05-23T18:21:50.563" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21286" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21285" CreationDate="2018-04-03T01:53:49.803" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Hi and thanks for the question. The words &quot;legal&quot; and &quot;illegal&quot; are actually defined in the FIDE rules. Basically, a legal position is one which can be reached by a sequence of legal moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, with this definition, I think that you are asking: are there illegal positions which aren't obvious? The answer is &quot;many&quot; Welcome to retrograde analysis! :D&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is already a chess.stackexchange question on this, so I suggest we continue the discussion there: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/15210/are-there-any-illegal-positions-that-are-difficult-to-spot&quot;&gt;Are there any illegal positions that are difficult to spot?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8201" LastActivityDate="2018-04-03T01:53:49.803" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21287" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21193" CreationDate="2018-04-03T02:09:56.947" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;7...Ke8?? is a blunder for black. Instead, 7...Ke7!? is a much better try with the idea of weathering the attack with moves like ...Nf6 ...d6 and ...Qe8 (not necessarily in that order). Hard to prove that white is winning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16233" LastActivityDate="2018-04-03T02:09:56.947" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21288" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-04-03T05:00:27.380" Score="-2" ViewCount="169" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am preparing for a tournament, so which opening should I use or prepare? How can I become strong in a specific opening line?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16194" LastEditorUserId="3444" LastEditDate="2018-12-09T10:38:20.137" LastActivityDate="2018-12-09T10:38:20.137" Title="What are the differences that a beginner should be aware of between opening with 1.e4 or 1.d4?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ClosedDate="2018-04-03T12:22:44.930" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21289" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21288" CreationDate="2018-04-03T05:45:05.217" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Tough to tell&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Benefits of Both&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;d4 is very strong controlling two central squares (e5 and c5)&#xA;e4 controls 1 (d5 since f5 doesn't help develop pieces it's not the best)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e4 opens up the white bishop and queen diagonals (Though queen's is easily blocked), while d4 opens up the bishop, d4 is also benefit by being naturally guarded by the queen. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Analysis of Both&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I personally find d4 to be better at gaining control of the center, especially with my favorite white opening, the queen's gambit. Since black can't attack the e pawn black is forced to develop slower since it can't openly attack the center. In this case, d4 is solid. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e4 on the other hand promotes more activity from other pieces by opening up the two diagonals (Though the queen's is almost never used). Yet, since this allows black to fight for the center I have found more exchanges, and I like using e4 for creative openings such as the Ruy Lopez, Rio Gambit, or learning the Sicilian lines seizing space as white while black has to open up space for his pieces to develop.This makes e4 a very good way to open the board, though this opens up many weakness for white often in exchange for black's lack of development.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;My Opinion&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At high level play, the Sicilian is threatening and at GM-level play e4 has a very low win rate compared to d4 (Refer to Stat's section). It lacks the solid control of the center and e4 promotes a large amount of counter-play, though in my opinion, it doesn't matter at the moment. It's nice to play both and find your own comfort and flexibility.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Recommended Openings&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are looking for lines to learn my top 3 for white (in order favorite-least) are: Queen's Gambit, English Opening, and for Black: Sicilian, Nimzo-Indian, and Modern Defense. These are solid and work great at tournament level play. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Stats&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess.com's Opening Explorer (&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/explorer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.chess.com/explorer&lt;/a&gt;) documents e4 as having (38% wins, 32% ties0, 30% losses) with 879,507 recorded games. d4 is recorded as having (39% wins,34% ties,27% losses) with 693,538 games archived. While this is a fairly close margin the major notable point is the 3% deviation of loss rates, but these ideas aren't imperative as they encompass all levels of play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The World Championship test&#xA;Another method to compare these two moves, using actual facts and information instead of general ideas, is to observe the world championships. In a world championship, the players prefer the move they consider more beneficial; the move they believe will offer them more opportunities to achieve victory (especially when playing white). The contenders have, of course, practiced time and again and every defeat signifies a major weakness. What is more, world championships constitute a great study sample simply because there is no other tournament where players demonstrate such seriousness and concentration. Let us examine the results of the modern chess era, meaning the most recent world championships, starting from the year 2000 when Kramnik became world champion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;In 89 games 1.e4 was used 25 times resulting in: only one win, three losses and 21 draws.&#xA;In 89 games 1.d4 was used 62 times resulting in: 18 wins, 6 losses and 38 draws.&#xA;1.e4    wins: 4%    losses: 12% draws: 84%&#xA;1.d4    wins: 29%   losses: 9%  draws: 61%&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.chessbase.com/post/1-e4-or-1-d4-which-is-the-better-move&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.chessbase.com/post/1-e4-or-1-d4-which-is-the-better-move&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At championship level play there is a drastic deviation between the openings, nearly 25%. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12876" LastEditorUserId="12876" LastEditDate="2018-04-03T06:16:17.330" LastActivityDate="2018-04-03T06:16:17.330" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21290" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21292" CreationDate="2018-04-03T06:17:17.893" Score="7" ViewCount="1231" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am building an app that allows the user to track openings in visual form. They will make moves on the board and the name of the opening and common next moves will be displayed. Now I need some data to do this. First is a database of games to search so I can work out the most common next moves. This I have done by downloading PGN files.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Secondly, I need data on the opening names. I understand there is an Encyclopaedia of Chess Openings which has named and categorised thousands of openings. Does anyone know if this encyclopaedia is available in machine readable form (eg an xml or db file)? Either free or for a small fee?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16234" LastActivityDate="2018-04-03T11:29:55.470" Title="Encyclopaedia of chess openings in machine readable form" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;eco&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21291" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15210" CreationDate="2018-04-03T09:31:11.877" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The final position in this sequence is legal. (See Baibikov, &quot;Length records in 'Last single moves?' problems&quot;, A15.) It is remarkable in being the lightest-known position in which the last 17 single-moves can be determined, neither king is in check and it is not specified whose move it is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It can be deduced from the board position that White moved last. While White got into position, Black needed to use up four turns pushing the h7 pawn. Therefore if Black had another turn, Black would have to make another pawn push, beyond the diagram position. Therefore the diagram position is legal with Black to move but illegal with White to move. Similarly, if the black pawn were put on h4 instead of h3, the position would be illegal because Black must have spent only 3 turns pushing the pawn, thus failing to give White enough moves to get into position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Dmitri Baibikov&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;8/Ppp4p/rp6/1k6/n7/KPP5/pPP4P/1b6 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[StartPly &quot;17&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. h3 {White must spend 4 turns moving this pawn to h6, so must not use the two-square option} Ka5 {unpinning Black's knight} 2. h4 Nc5 3. h5 Ne6 4. h6 Ng7 5. hxg7 h6 {Black must spend 4 turns moving this pawn to h3, so must not use the two-square option} 6. g8=N h5 7. Nf6 {Ne7? h4 8. Nc6+??} h4 8. Nd7 h3 9. Nb8&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White has 7 units, so Black has made 9 captures. White's a-pawn has always been on a2 or b3. So the black bishop on b1 is not the original c8 bishop, but one created by a promotion a2xb1=B. So this black pawn and the one now on a2 are Black's d and e pawns, which have made 3+4=7 captures to reach a2. Together with a2xb1 and a7xb6, this makes 9, accounting for Black's captures of all White's 9 missing units. (These include the c1 bishop. Thus White made the capture d2xc3 when that bishop was still at home on c1, to be captured later by a black pawn.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black has 8 units, so White has made 8 captures. White pawns have made at least 6 captures axb3, dxc3, exdxcxbxa, accounting for all but 2 of White's 8 captures. Black's a-pawn has always been on a7 or b6, so White captured e2xd3xc4xb5xa6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So White's f, g, h pawns can't have captured more than twice between them. One captured on g7 then promoted to wNb8, and two are missing. All Black's 9 captures were on the queenside, by pawns. So White's two missing pawns promoted so as to get to the queenside to get captured. Black's f, g, h pawns had nothing to capture and so never left their files, and the h-pawn is still on the h-file. So, for White's h-pawn to avoid Black's h-pawn and promote, it had to capture to the g-file. If neither White's f nor g-pawn captured, White's f-pawn couldn't have passed Black's f-pawn and so couldn't have promoted. So one of White's f and g-pawns captured, only once, and this means that all White's captures were by pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Suppose that White's latest capture (the one within the scope of my diagram) was not h6xNg7 but f6xNg7. Then White's earlier moves were by a pawn on the f-file. Black's f-pawn isn't in the diagram, so what happened to it? It had nothing to capture, so never left the f-file. It couldn't have promoted, because White's f-pawn was in the way. But it couldn't have got captured, because 6 of White's 8 captures were on the queenside and the other two were fxNg7 and hxPg (to let White's g and h-pawns promote).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So White's latest capture was h6xNg7. Now the kingside pawns that are on the board are on the same file, so the above difficulty doesn't arise. White played either fxPg or gxPf, then White's f and g-pawns and Black's remaining f or g-pawn promote without capture.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10380" LastEditorUserId="10380" LastEditDate="2018-04-05T07:12:37.000" LastActivityDate="2018-04-05T07:12:37.000" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21292" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21290" CreationDate="2018-04-03T09:52:09.237" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;SCID has &lt;a href=&quot;https://sourceforge.net/p/scidvspc/code/HEAD/tree/scid.eco&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;a text file&lt;/a&gt; that you can use. It begins like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;# scid.eco&#xA;#&#xA;# Encyclopaedia of Chess Openings file for Scid vs. PC&#xA;#&#xA;# Copyright (C) 1999- Shane Hudson and others.&#xA;# Last updated: Febuary, 2014&#xA;#&#xA;# In addition to standard ECO definitions, scid.eco allows for extensions:&#xA;# Each basic code can have a lower case letter extension (a-z), and an extra&#xA;# level (1-4). So the order of ECO codes for A00 is:&#xA;# A00, A00a, A00a1, A00a2, A00a3, A00a4, A00b, A00b1, ..., A00z4.&#xA;#&#xA;# You can convert this file to PGN format with the &quot;eco2pgn.py&quot; script,&#xA;# and to EPD with the &quot;eco2epd&quot; (use &quot;make eco2pgn&quot;).&#xA;&#xA;A00a &quot;Start&quot;  *&#xA;A00b &quot;Barnes Opening&quot;  1.f3 *&#xA;A00b &quot;Fried fox&quot;  1.f3 e5 2.Kf2 *&#xA;A00c &quot;Kadas Opening&quot;  1.h4 *&#xA;A00d &quot;Clemenz Opening&quot;  1.h3 *&#xA;A00e &quot;Ware Opening&quot;  1.a4 *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="417" LastEditDate="2018-04-03T11:29:55.470" LastActivityDate="2018-04-03T11:29:55.470" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21293" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15210" CreationDate="2018-04-03T11:25:53.723" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some positions which you might consider relevant are the answers to &quot;illegal cluster&quot; problems. An illegal cluster is an arrangement of units on squares which cannot be part of any legal position, but if you remove any unit from the illegal cluster, then the result is part of a legal position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's a particularly complicated one:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Dmitri Baibikov, The Problemist Mar 2010, R421v&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;B7/1np3p1/N1P1p3/RPr1K1p1/pnkp4/P1p5/B1P1P3/RN6 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Dmitri Baibikov specifies &quot;Add units so as to make an illegal cluster&quot;. In case you want to solve this problem, I put the answer in a spoiler block:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt; (Answer and analysis by Gerd Wilts. I have adapted his notation so as to notate forwards moves; he notated retractions. See &lt;a href=&quot;http://pdb.dieschwalbe.de/search.jsp?expression=probid=%27P1192196%27&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;P1192196 at PDB&lt;/a&gt;.)&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA; Add wRb2, wPg6, bQb3, bBd5, bNb8. &#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA; Retro 1. ... Nd6-b7 2. Bb7-a8 N~ 3. Bc8-b7 N~ 4. Bd7-c8 Nf1~ 5. Be8-d7 f2-f1=N 6. Bf7-e8 f3-f2 7. B~ f4-f3 8. B~ f5-f4 9. Be8~ ??? {Black's pawn can't be on f6 because it would check} 10. e7-e8=B f7-f5 11. f6xBe7 (critical position) Bf8-e7 12. Kf5-e5 e7-e6+.&#xA; White then uncaptures dxcR and unpromotes a R on h8, Black uncaptures bxc (B,Q) and hxg (Q,B). But getting from the diagram (after adding units) to the critical position, with Black to retract in both, White necessarily makes an even number of moves and Black an odd number, and neither side can change parity, so the first position is illegal. Removing bPa4 would legalise as White could change parity with Ra4. If we add bRb3 instead of bQ, then removing wPa3 would not legalise as after retracting n.Ra3+ Rb3, bRa3 could not escape to b2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the answer to the above problem is an illegal position which cannot be made legal by adding more units. (In any case no more White units can be added because White has 14 and black pawns on c3 and g5 captured the other 2; and not more than one Black unit, because Black has 14 and White's d-pawn now on c6 captured one.) But adding a different set of units might produce a legal position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10380" LastActivityDate="2018-04-03T11:25:53.723" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21294" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21295" CreationDate="2018-04-03T12:39:12.717" Score="6" ViewCount="2703" Body="&lt;p&gt;What are the main points, tactical or otherwise, backing up the Mason Attack?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I got the idea reading about the London System, but the Lichess engine calls it &quot;Mason Attack&quot;. It starts out as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/ppp1pppp/8/3p4/3P1B2/8/PPP1PPPP/RN1QKBNR b KQkq - 1 2&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I always try to achieve the following position, which I judge fairly solid and with good attacking chances on the King side (don't mind Black moves in this case -- it's just one of the many possible lines for Black):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;r2q1rk1/1ppb1ppp/p1nbpn2/3p4/3P4/2PBPNB1/PPQN1PPP/R3K2R b KQ - 2 9&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm asking since I've enjoyed great success with this opening, but I cannot find much research about it. As a very beginner I don't exactly know how to analyze openings with Stockfish since it always gives the best lines, which I rarely encounter in practical play. Example games of mine:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Site &quot;https://lichess.org/r2ujDJpt&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2018.04.03&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[UTCDate &quot;2018.04.03&quot;]&#xA;[UTCTime &quot;10:26:29&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 Nf6 { A45 Indian Game } 2. Bf4 e6 3. e3 d5 4. Nf3 c5 5. c3 Nc6 6. Nbd2 Qb6 7. Qc2 Bd7 8. Be2 cxd4 9. exd4 Be7 10. h3 O-O 11. g4 a5 12. g5 Ne8 13. h4 Bd6 14. Be3 Nc7 15. h5 a4 16. a3 Na5 17. g6 fxg6 18. hxg6 h6 19. Bxh6 gxh6 20. Rxh6 Kg7 21. Rh7+ Kf6 22. Rxd7 { Black resigns. } 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[UTCDate &quot;2018.02.23&quot;]&#xA;[UTCTime &quot;12:10:06&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. Bf4 { D00 Queen's Pawn Game: Mason Attack } Nc6 3. e3 Bf5 4. c3 Nf6 5. Nd2 e6 6. Ngf3 Bd6 7. Bg3 Bxg3 8. hxg3 Ne7 9. Ne5 Ng6 10. g4 Nxe5 11. gxf5 Nc6 12. fxe6 fxe6 13. Bd3 h6 14. e4 O-O 15. e5 Nd7 16. Rxh6 Qg5 17. Rg6 Qf4 18. Qe2 Nb6 19. O-O-O Na5 20. Rh1 Nac4 21. Rh8+ Kxh8 22. Qh5+ Kg8 23. Rxg7+ Kxg7 24. Qh7# { White wins by checkmate. } 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16235" LastActivityDate="2018-04-03T13:11:02.063" Title="On the Mason Attack" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;1.d4&gt;&lt;london-system&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21295" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21294" CreationDate="2018-04-03T12:59:43.960" Score="5" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What are the main points, tactical or otherwise, backing up the Mason Attack?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At least for normal (not top GM) players, the main points of the London system (never heard  the name Mason Attack before), is to just get out the pieces to natural squares and take it from there. White is not really aiming for an immediate advantage. Pieces are not exchanged which can potentially lead to more rich positions later on. This can potentially favor the stronger player as it avoids drawish limited material/symmetric positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you note, you can play this against just about anything that black does (so called &quot;system opening&quot;), which is another advantage for players who don't want to be bothered studying theory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Typical middlegame plans can be a kingside attack supported by queen/bishop along the b1-h7 diagonal, various pawn breaks (e.g. with e4, c4), or play on the queenside supported by the bishop on the h7-b8 diagonal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for analyzing this or any other openings with a computer engine: This is really only useful if you know the opening very well and are looking for novelties, etc, so basically only for players around GM level. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For more mortal players, time is spent better by following (preferably annotated/commented) games of top players in that opening and see what plans or ideas they develop. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can still use an engine to point out tactical errors in your own games including the opening phase, but they are not all that useful for finding the &quot;best&quot; move in the opening. To elaborate on this, openings  are still too complicated for engines to find the objectively best move, since basically any evaluation of normal opening positions will be around 0.0. As a human you are not looking for the objectively best move anyway, but for the line that gives you  positions that you are comfortable playing (and that are difficult to play for your opponent). There is no point going down a line that gives you a centipawn advantage if you have to make 20 accurate quiet (non-forced) moves or otherwise be lost.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastEditorUserId="11629" LastEditDate="2018-04-03T13:11:02.063" LastActivityDate="2018-04-03T13:11:02.063" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21298" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21211" CreationDate="2018-04-04T05:50:30.000" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;May I suggest a game I recently played over the board to equality?  Both my opponent and I are 1680-ish FIDE-rated.  I don't know the theory of this line yet, so moves were found over the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. Bg5 Be7 5. e5 Nfd7 6. h4 a6 {I went into a long think here, but a6 is necessary to prevent the knight from entering from the flank, if Black plays an early c5 now} 7. Bxe7 Qxe7 8. Qg4 f5 9. Qg3 c5 10. Nf3 Nc6 11. O-O-O cxd4 12. Nxd4 Nxd4 13. Rxd4 Nc5 14. Bd3 Nxd3+ 15. Qxd3 O-O 16. Qe2 Bd7 17. g4 Rac8 18. gxf5 Rxf5 19. Rg1 Bb5 20. Nxb5 axb5 21. Rdg4 Rf7 22. Qxb5 Qc7 23. Qe2 Qc5 24. f4 g6 {Rxf4 now is tempting, but Black would get checkmated via Rxg7+ Kh8 Rxh7+ Kxh7 Qh5#} 25. h5 Rxf4 26. hxg6 h6 27. R4g2 Kg7 28. Rh1 Re4 29. Qd2 Qe3 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And Chess History page has this &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/extra/french.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/extra/french.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11334" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-04-04T06:48:38.113" LastActivityDate="2018-04-04T06:48:38.113" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21299" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-04-05T05:12:34.567" Score="1" ViewCount="1508" Body="&lt;p&gt;I read this concept in a book but I didn't understand much about the concept. Can anybody explain this concept with an example?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16194" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-09-26T13:11:43.330" LastActivityDate="2018-09-26T13:11:43.330" Title="What are weak squares in chess; how can they help to mate another player?" Tags="&lt;theory&gt;&lt;books&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ClosedDate="2018-04-06T07:51:13.483" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21300" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21299" CreationDate="2018-04-05T06:24:18.183" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a very common example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;6k1/5p1p/5BpQ/8/8/8/8/6K1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do you see the weak dark squares around the king? Checkmate is possible because those squares are weak and can't be defended.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2018-04-05T06:24:18.183" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21301" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21299" CreationDate="2018-04-05T09:54:38.213" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;A weak square is a square of great great importance that is difficult to cover or get rid of.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since the square is difficult to cover, it can become a great outpost for opponent's (your) pieces, usually a knight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you manage yo get the right piece on that square, it helps you in any kind of possible attacks. Whether the attack will result in checkmate or 'only' material advantage depends on the position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It usually doesn't matter, whether there's a pawn on that square or not (as A. Nimzowitsch stated). You will have the same problems/advantages connected with it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only difference is that the pawn can be targeted for the sake of capturing it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Recap:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are 2 basic ways to take advantage of a weak square&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Occupy it to get good outposts for your pieces and to get control over certain parts of the board.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Attack and capture the weak pawn&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note: Usually 1 weakness isn't enough to win the game, the opponent will be able to protect it. The principle of 2 weaknesses says that you have to find at least another one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13055" LastActivityDate="2018-04-05T09:54:38.213" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21302" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-04-05T16:55:47.213" Score="16" ViewCount="9206" Body="&lt;p&gt;So I'm somewhat of a new player to chess and I'm currently reading a chess book which is explaining all the different terms. In one instance it describes what stalemate is; &quot;If your opponent has no legal legal moves and is not I)in check, then you have stalemate and not checkmate&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It then gives an example of stalemate and then a non stalemate example which it labels as checkmate. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/fEHbA.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The confusion that I have is why it labeled the second one as checkmate. Isn't checkmate when the king piece is in check and there is no legal moves it can make? Thus in the second example it isn't in checkmate because the king can still move around on the 8th rank and there is no immediate danger to it so it isn't in check either... Or does checkmate also include being trapped in a certain row, column or diagonal length with no other moves you can take except to move along those boxes?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16252" LastActivityDate="2018-05-29T18:46:41.957" Title="How is this checkmate?" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21303" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21302" CreationDate="2018-04-05T17:20:34.520" Score="18" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's not checkmate. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The 2nd diagram is an example of how to trap the king on the side of the board, while avoiding the stalemate situation in the first.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9025" LastActivityDate="2018-04-05T17:20:34.520" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21304" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21302" CreationDate="2018-04-05T17:23:39.817" Score="26" Body="&lt;p&gt;The position shown in board 2 is not a checkmate, as you correctly say. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The book is not completely clear here. The sentence &quot;Checkmate with Queen and King&quot; is only the task of an exercise: you have to set up the position you see on a real board, and move the pieces trying to checkmate the black king using the white Queen and King. The checkmate is not there yet, you have to play and find it. It is not immediate, it will take some moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15668" LastActivityDate="2018-04-05T17:23:39.817" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21305" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12368" CreationDate="2018-04-05T19:19:46.530" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;At the &lt;a href=&quot;http://chess-results.com/tnr281869.aspx?lan=1&amp;amp;art=2&amp;amp;rd=1&amp;amp;turdet=YES&amp;amp;flag=30&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;15th IBCA Chess Olympiad for Blind and Visually Impaired Chess Players 2017&lt;/a&gt;, the best player was the polish GM &lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/card.phtml?event=1122452&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Marcin Tazbir&lt;/a&gt; (2525 in April 2018).  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chess-results.com/tnr281869.aspx?lan=1&amp;amp;art=16&amp;amp;turdet=YES&amp;amp;flag=30&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Here&lt;/a&gt; is the list of the 10 best rated players in this event.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;GM  Tazbir Marcin   1122452 2514    POL POLAND &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Smirnov Alexey  4168437 2427    RUS RUSSIA&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;IM  Tuka  Oleg  14114453    2407    UKR UKRAINE&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;IM  Pakhomov&#xA;    Alexey  4129016 2350    RUS RUSSIA &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;FM  Dimic        Pavle  937428  2349    SRB SERBIA &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;FM  Babarykin    Stanislav  4101898 2332    RUS RUSSIA &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;IM  Meshkov Yuri      A.    4107101 2328    RUS RUSSIA &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;FM  Suslov    Evgeniy   24149411    2313    RUS RUSSIA &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;IM  Nikac    Predrag    908975  2308    MNE MONTENEGRO&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;FM Magnusson       Jorgen  1700880 2290    SWE SWEDEN&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11749" LastActivityDate="2018-04-05T19:19:46.530" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21306" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-04-05T19:24:38.283" Score="3" ViewCount="208" Body="&lt;p&gt;Answering this &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/12368/the-strength-of-blind-chess-players/21305#21305&quot;&gt;question&lt;/a&gt;, I was wondering how visually impaired or blind a player should be to participate at the &lt;a href=&quot;http://chess-results.com/tnr281869.aspx?lan=1&amp;amp;art=2&amp;amp;rd=1&amp;amp;turdet=YES&amp;amp;flag=30&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;IBCA Chess Olympiad for Blind and Visually Impaired Chess Players&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11749" LastEditorUserId="9025" LastEditDate="2019-09-19T15:12:02.203" LastActivityDate="2019-09-19T15:12:02.203" Title="Blind and Visually Impaired Chess Players" Tags="&lt;chess-olympiad&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21307" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-04-05T21:06:42.687" Score="2" ViewCount="144" Body="&lt;p&gt;Under FIDE law 9.3.1, a player to move may claim a 50-move draw by writing down the intended 50th move and making the claim.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Supposing this claim is otherwise valid;  if the move would checkmate then is the game drawn?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4223" LastActivityDate="2018-04-05T21:10:58.437" Title="Claiming a 50-move draw with a mating move" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;50-move-rule&gt;&lt;claim-draw&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2018-04-05T21:51:25.663" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21308" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21307" CreationDate="2018-04-05T21:10:58.437" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Mate ends the game immediately, but the mating move must be &lt;em&gt;made&lt;/em&gt;, not just written down. If the player only writes the move down and claims a draw in the correct way, it's a draw (but I doubt it'll ever happen in practice).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2018-04-05T21:10:58.437" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21309" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21310" CreationDate="2018-04-06T02:16:58.410" Score="9" ViewCount="831" Body="&lt;p&gt;Reading some recent posts about the 50 move rule made me realize that I've never seen an explicit order of actions for chess. By way of comparison, the order of actions in Monopoly is given &lt;a href=&quot;https://boardgames.stackexchange.com/questions/6563/what-are-the-order-of-actions-in-monopoly&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;(1) Throw the dice&#xA;(2) Move the indicated distance or to jail (if 3rd double in a turn)&#xA;    - collect $200 if land on or pass Go&#xA;(3) Resolve space&#xA;    - ownable properties&#xA;        = pay rent if owned and not mortgaged&#xA;        = buy it if unowned (optional)&#xA;        = auction property if still unowned (not optional)&#xA;    - non-ownable properties&#xA;        = resolve as indicated.&#xA;        = collect $200 if resolving puts you passing Go.&#xA;(4) Pass the dice or roll again, as appropriate.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A chess move combines three actions (shifting wood, writing move, hitting clock) and the game can end in various ways (mate, stalemate, dead position, agreement, 50 move rule, 3-fold repetition, 75 move rule, 5-fold repetition). For simplicity, let's put to one side for now resignation &amp;amp; irregularities e.g flagfall).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8201" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-01-05T21:15:26.047" LastActivityDate="2021-01-05T21:15:26.047" Title="What is the order of actions in chess under FIDE rules?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;stalemate&gt;&lt;50-move-rule&gt;&lt;threefold-repetition&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21310" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21309" CreationDate="2018-04-06T04:09:04.557" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=208&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Laws of Chess&lt;/a&gt; provide some guidance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Rule 6.2.1 says you must move the piece before hitting the clock:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;During the game each player, having made his move on the chessboard, shall stop his own clock and start his opponent’s clock (that is to say, he shall press his clock). This “completes” the move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to rule 8.1.2, you must move the piece before writing down the move, usually:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;It is forbidden to write the moves in advance, unless the player is claiming  a draw according to Article 9.2, or 9.3 or adjourning a game&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a little bit of flexibility as to when exactly you write down the moves, according to 8.1.3:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A player may reply to his opponent’s move before recording it, if he so wishes.  He must record his previous move before making another.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, you must move the piece before doing anything else.  Ordinarily, you would then hit the clock, and finally you would write down the move.  I am not sure if it would be a violation of 8.1 to write the move after moving the piece but before hitting the clock - technically, the move is not &quot;completed&quot; until the clock is hit - but it gives no benefit to do so.  In practice I've only seen it when someone forgets to hit the clock altogether.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Offering a draw is done after making the move but before hitting the clock, and claiming a draw is done by writing down the move but &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; playing it, and seeking the arbiter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The 5-fold repetition and 75-move rule may be claimed by the arbiter whenever applicable, so you can't really give them any set place in the order.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This gives us the following order:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;(1) If claiming a draw: &#xA;     - Write move (if this move is required for draw)&#xA;     - Stop clocks (not required, but wise)&#xA;     - Declare draw claim to arbiter&#xA;     - If claim is upheld, game is over&#xA;&#xA;(2) Make your move on the board&#xA;    - If this move results in checkmate, stalemate, or dead position, game is over&#xA;&#xA;(3) If offering a draw, offer draw to opponent&#xA;    - If opponent accepts draw, game is over&#xA;    - If opponent declines, or delays decision, proceed to (4)&#xA;&#xA;(4) Press clock&#xA;    - (Probably this could be done after (5), but this order is preferred)&#xA;&#xA;(5) Write move&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastEditorUserId="12629" LastEditDate="2018-04-06T16:16:15.957" LastActivityDate="2018-04-06T16:16:15.957" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21311" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-04-06T05:12:42.517" Score="0" ViewCount="468" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the zugzwang? I have read this term in chess book but the term not much clear to me. Anyone know to to use this and what are the advantage of this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16194" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-10-10T12:02:34.940" LastActivityDate="2019-10-10T12:02:34.940" Title="What is zugzwang in chess?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;zugzwang&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="9" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21312" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21311" CreationDate="2018-04-06T05:37:22.277" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Zugzwang, &lt;em&gt;compulsion-to-move&lt;/em&gt;, is where a player is forced to disadvantage their position, or obscure their strategy, tactics, or attacks by moving. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Example #1&lt;/strong&gt;   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; 8/8/8/3pK3/2kP4/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this position each King aims to protect its pawn, but if it's white to play, white is forced to move away since the pawn's movement is restricted and c6 is guarded by the pawn. Checkmate in 15 (WTM)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Example #2&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;3k4/3P2K1/8/8/8/7B/8/8 b - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a more active puzzle, but a checkmate in 9 for white (BTM)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;King c7&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1... Kc7 2. Bf5 Kb6 3. d8=Q+ Kc5 4. Qd3 Kb4 5. Qd4+&#xA;Kb3 6. Kf6 Ka3 7. Qc3+ Ka2 8. Qb4 Ka1 9. Qb1#&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;King e7&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1... Ke7 2. Bf5 Kd6 3. Kf6 Kc5 4. d8=Q Kc4 5. Ke7&#xA;Kc3 6. Qd3+ Kb2 7. Qc2+ Ka3 8. Qc3+ Ka2 9. Qb4&#xA;Ka1 10. Qb1#&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black is forced to move the king from d8 with e7 and c7 both leading to checkmates in perfect checkmates in 9&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Example 3&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;5Kbk/6pp/6P1/8/8/8/8/7R w - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White to move. Mate in 2. This one uses rh6 to lock the h7 pawn leaving only the bishop able to move, which forces it to abandon it's defense of the h7 pawn leading to rh7 checkmate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12876" LastEditorUserId="12876" LastEditDate="2018-04-06T08:43:05.227" LastActivityDate="2018-04-06T08:43:05.227" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21314" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21311" CreationDate="2018-04-06T07:27:04.700" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here are some zugzwang positions which have been shown in answers to earlier threads:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;4k3/8/3P1P/8/8/3p1p2/8/4K3 w - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First to move loses (posted by GloriaVictis at &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/15977/symmetric-zugzwang-positions&quot;&gt;this question on symmetrical zugzwangs&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;8/8/8/3pK3/2kP4/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &quot;trebuchet&quot; (posted by Evargalo in the same thread).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;3k4/3P4/4K3/8/8/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Posted by Simon Louchart in &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/1673/how-can-i-identify-zugzwang-opportunities&quot;&gt;this thread&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is a Q v RPP zugzwang: White to move can't win, but Black to move loses:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;KQkrpp position from John Beasley's collection of zugzwang positions&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;kr6/1pK5/pQ6/8/8/8/8/8 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Rc8 2. Kxc8 a5 3. Qxb7#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Seeing as a KBP v K position has been posted in another answer, here's an example of such a position which really is a zugzwang: White to move can't win, but Black to move loses:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;KBPk position from John Beasley's collection of zugzwang positions&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;kB6/8/1PK5/8/8/8/8/8 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Kxb8 2. b7 Ka7 3. Kc7 Ka6 4. b8=Q Ka5 5. Qb3 Ka6 6. Qa4#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10380" LastEditorUserId="10380" LastEditDate="2018-04-06T09:37:37.917" LastActivityDate="2018-04-06T09:37:37.917" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21315" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19760" CreationDate="2018-04-06T07:49:01.323" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm using &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=208&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;the rules of january 2018&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are many ambiguities left, and recently more have been introduced mostly by calling some things an &quot;illegal move&quot; that weren't considered illegal moves before, like using two hands to castle, seemingly without really considering all the implications of that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is in general legal to reply to an opponent's move before the opponent has pressed the clock, that's always been fine and allowed by the rules (mostly because of increments, it's important that the opponent still presses the clock, and then you press it).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So say player A castles using two hands, player B touches a piece to move it but then remembers what A does is wrong and he lets go of the piece. Then player A presses the clock.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Rule 4.1 says that you can't use two hands:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;4.1 Each move must be played with one hand only.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Rule 4.8 says you can only complain about that right then, not later when you've started to move:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;4.8 A player forfeits his right to claim against his opponent’s violation&#xA;of Articles 4.1 – 4.7 once the player touches a piece with the intention&#xA;of moving or capturing it.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now the new 7.5.4 says that once the move is completed (clock pressed) then it counts as an illegal move and will be penalised as such:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;7.5.4 If a player uses two hands to make a single move (for example in&#xA;case of castling, capturing or promotion) and pressed the clock, it shall&#xA;be considered and penalized as if an illegal move.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That penalty can be severe, like a game loss in case of a second illegal move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So which is it, is it irrelevant that the castling happened with two hands because a piece was touched and the game has moved on, or is it really bad and potentially a game loss?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In that moment when B has touched his piece but A hasn't pressed his clock yet, nothing can be fixed (because it's B's move, and how do you fix moving with two hands anyway), nothing can be claimed (because of 4.8). But A's clock is running and once he presses it he's completed an illegal move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2018-04-06T07:49:01.323" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21317" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19760" CreationDate="2018-04-06T08:51:46.210" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Good question!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=208&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;As of Jan 2018&lt;/a&gt;, the FIDE rules are a lot clearer than they used to be. I am particularly happy with 3.10 (which arrived in 2014 I think), which defines legal moves, illegal moves and illegal positions. (Curiously, &lt;em&gt;legal&lt;/em&gt; &lt;em&gt;positions&lt;/em&gt; are not defined, but I can we can safely induce what they must be from the other three definitions.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would like a term for what a legal move becomes when it is unplayable because the game has been terminated (through dead position, repetition, whatever... basically any cause of termination apart from mate &amp;amp; pat, when by definition no legal moves remain). But that's not really an ambiguity, just a lack of standard terminology.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One area of historical ambiguity has been largely cleared up: and that's the impact of castling and en passant rights on draw by repetition. Residual confusion is perhaps because the basis is different between castling and en passant. Castling rights depend purely on whether a king or rook has been moved or captured. There is no investigation of the possibility of actually castling. On the other hand, en passant status depends on whether the capture can actually be executed, or whether it is prevented by some direct or indirect pin or check. This distinction (which biologists might term &quot;genotypic&quot; versus &quot;phenotypic&quot;) is completely rational, but I think that some people expect castling and en passant to be handled in the same way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A final corner-case cobweb in this area remains: suppose king and rook have not moved, and then the rook is captured. Does the relevant castling right remain? 9.2.2.2 says &quot;The castling rights are lost only after the king or rook is moved.&quot; This could actually have an impact.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is the famous issue of checkmate on the 50.0th non-capturing, non-pawn move. To me it is clear that the player has the choice over the board to draw if they want to, just as a player is allowed to resign in a position which is clearly not lost, or offer a draw in a clearly won position. I don't see why an arbiter should feel the need to interfere in the first case, but not in the other two.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Two other lacunae, other posters have competently detailed, but I will list for completeness: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(1) Both players resign (race condition).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(2) No-one has the move at game start.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In summary, as a problemist, the main change I would still like to see in the FIDE Laws is the completion of the partition into (1) rules of play, which are defined mathematically, requiring no arbiter (2) over the board conduct, about embedding the mathematical object that is a game of chess into the real world, and where the arbiter's judgement rightly holds sway.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8201" LastEditorUserId="8201" LastEditDate="2018-04-06T09:02:22.807" LastActivityDate="2018-04-06T09:02:22.807" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21319" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2018-04-06T12:20:15.740" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Under &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=208&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Laws, Art 1.3 &amp;amp; 5.2.2&lt;/a&gt;, the game ends in a ‘dead position’ when a position has arisen in which neither player can checkmate the opponent’s king with any series of legal moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples of dead positions involve King vs King, King and Bishop vs King, King and Knight vs King. Note that King and two knights vs King is not a dead position, since there is a series of legal moves which is possible for Black to be checkmated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8201" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-09-13T12:03:10.837" LastActivityDate="2020-09-13T12:03:10.837" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21320" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2018-04-06T12:20:15.740" Score="0" Body="Neither player can checkmate the opponent’s king with any series of legal moves." OwnerUserId="8201" LastEditorUserId="8201" LastEditDate="2018-04-09T16:09:36.730" LastActivityDate="2018-04-09T16:09:36.730" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21321" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21302" CreationDate="2018-04-06T12:48:45.657" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you look at Board 2, and it is white's turn, consider what happens if you move the Queen to F7.  Or, if it is black's turn, and Black moves to E7, consider what happens if the queen moves to G7.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The answer is that Black will have only one legal move.  White can respond each turn by getting one step closer to Black, until White can force the checkmate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although, white needs to be careful about this.  By reducing Black's movement possibilities by one square each time, white could force Black into a position of placing the King in the corner and getting stuck.  That is fine, but white is then required to either checkmate immediately, or provide Black with a little bit of additional leeway to be able to move again, or else White will cause a Stalemate and white will lose the ability to win the game.  (At this point, if those are the only pieces on the board, such a Stalemate is the best that black could hope to accomplish.  However, Black can't force a stalemate from this position.  Black can only hope that White makes an error.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So Board 2 is not showing Checkmate, but that board may still be useful to think about for educational purposes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I agree that the book is not abundantly clear, as the way that the book phrases things could be interpreted to suggest that checkmate has been accomplished.  However, without question, checkmate has not yet been achieved in Board 2.  Board 2 is just showing a somewhat common situation where checkmate can be achieved relatively easily, and soon.  In this scenario, if there are no other pieces, white is unlikely to be thinking about defending itself, or how to reduce the number of pieces on the board.  Instead, white will be focused on how to obtain checkmate soon, as a realistic short-term goal.  Think of &quot;Checkmate with king and queen&quot; as a topic, or better yet, as an instruction, not as a description of what has already been accomplished.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note: Board 1 is not something I've seen very often.  In order to get into that position, Black would need to have been on B8, and the queen place the king into check by moving to B6, and Black move into the corner.  This is unlikely, because Black's usual best strategy in this type of scenario is to move as close to the center of the board as possible.  Instead, by going into the corner, Black allowed for an easy Checkmate.  Although, if white moves to B8 as one of those red arrows suggests, then white will lose the ability to win the game (assuming there are no other pieces), so white should definitely not do that.  I think the Red arrows are just trying to show relevant squares where white's queen can attack, thereby demonstrating black's inability to move to those squares.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Direct answers:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Isn't checkmate when the king piece is in check and there is no legal moves it can make?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Almost.  When you say &quot;it&quot;, the sentence looks like you're referring to the king.&lt;BR&gt;&#xA;Checkmate is when the king piece is in check, and there are no legal moves that the player can make.  (If the player can legally move a different piece, then it is not Checkmate.  Note that any legal move will require getting the King completely out of check.)  So if &quot;there is no legal moves&quot; that the king &quot;can make&quot;, but if a knight can get in the way of the piece that is threatening the king, then this is not checkmate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Thus in the second example it isn't in checkmate because the king can still move around on the 8th rank and there is no immediate danger to it so it isn't in check either...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You have assessed this correctly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Or does checkmate also include being trapped in a certain row, column or diagonal length with no other moves you can take except to move along those boxes?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No.  Such restrictions have nothing to do with checkmate.  If the king gets into the middle of the board, but then gets threatened and the player cannot eliminate that threat, then there can be checkmate even with the king being in a very different location.  (Since it takes some time to get the king to the middle of the board, this isn't very common.  When it does happen, often the player who is moving that king already has a rather unpowerful army remaining.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15661" LastEditorUserId="15661" LastEditDate="2018-04-06T12:54:36.800" LastActivityDate="2018-04-06T12:54:36.800" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21322" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15662" CreationDate="2018-04-06T15:16:30.073" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I organize my thoughts this way:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;First priority:&#xA;King safety/Obvious tactics and threats&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then:&#xA;Imbalances related to the board itself (that is, the battlefield)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Space //&#xA;Key Squares //&#xA;Pawn Structure&lt;/strong&gt; // -- (I put pawns in this category because I see them as part of the board, when considered together as a structure)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then:&#xA;Imbalances related to the pieces:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Overall Material //&#xA;Minor piece activity //&#xA;Development&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Imbalances related to the player:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Initiative //&#xA;Psychological factors&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16266" LastActivityDate="2018-04-06T15:16:30.073" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21323" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15662" CreationDate="2018-04-06T15:28:41.297" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;IMPORTS&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Imitative&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Material&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pawn structure&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;control of center&#xA;control of space&#xA;pawn weaknesses/strengths&#xA;    passed pawn&#xA;    doubled pawn&#xA;    isolated pawn&#xA;    backward pawn&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Open lines&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Rooks&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Threats/tacitics&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Safety of the king&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also IMPLODES was given in an old Chess Life article.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Don't remember Silman's elements, however I look first at combinations (including mating attacks), weak points to apply pressure, stopping opponent's plans, and, finally, improve most misplaced piece (including pawns to gain space).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12449" LastActivityDate="2018-04-06T15:28:41.297" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21324" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21302" CreationDate="2018-04-06T18:24:24.670" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You're right, the second diagram is not checkmate. I think the book was trying to show &lt;em&gt;how&lt;/em&gt; you should be playing the King + Queen vs King endgame (i.e., use your Queen to cut off Black's King from a safe distance).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When it said &quot;Checkmate with queen and king&quot; it was likely referring to the name of the endgame itself. I agree that the wording is pretty confusing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only way to be in checkmate is to have your King trapped and checked, like you stated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2018-04-06T18:24:24.670" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21325" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13627" CreationDate="2018-04-06T18:31:13.393" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The King can be checked by multiple pieces via a double check tactic. Consider the following position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White Queen on g4, White Rook on f5, Black King on d7.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White plays 1. Rf7+, and Black's King is checked by both White's Rook and Queen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For your algorithm, it would be checkmate if BOTH pieces cannot be blocked, taken, avoided, etc. Consider the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;e4 e6 2. Nc3 d5 3. exd5 exd5 4.d3 d4 5. Ne4 Nc6 6. Qe2 Bg4 7. Nf6#&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The final position is a double check and checkmate. Notice how both White's Queen and Knight can be taken or avoided, if you consider them individually. However, they cannot BOTH be taken/avoided/blocked, so Black is checkmated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2018-04-06T18:31:13.393" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21326" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21311" CreationDate="2018-04-06T18:35:27.237" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Zugzwang is a situation where every single one of a player's moves loses, but if he didn't have to move then he'd be fine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Consider this position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White King on d5, White pawn on e4, Black King on f4, Black pawn on e5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Whoever's move it is loses. If it's White's move then he must move his King away, and Black takes the e4-pawn. White does not want to move, but he's not allowed to skip a turn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2018-04-06T18:35:27.237" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21327" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16539" CreationDate="2018-04-06T19:12:32.653" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What would be a minimum set of parameters that needs to be specified in order to avoid ambiguity in pairings?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The minimum would be to have just one rule.  Do your first round pairings by sorting players according to their ID number... and then, in the second round, do it again.  If you don't have any rules about repeating colors, scores, or meeting the same player twice, there's no ambiguity possible.  If you don't want to flip a coin to see who gets White, just declare that the highest-rated player gets White.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This would, of course, be ridiculous and unfair.  But it would be unambiguous and minimal!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Now if all of these rules/parameters have been set, is there still any ambiguity left? Or conversely, is it possible to satisfy all rules or would some get precedence in case they contradict each other?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Assuming you have sane rules (not like the one I described above), there are pretty much going to be rules which have precedence over other rules.  If White wins more often than Black, there's no way you can have a color preference rule and a same-scores rule without one taking priority.  Under &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=170&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Dutch rules&lt;/a&gt;, there is a minimum set of &quot;absolute&quot; rules, and many more &quot;quality&quot; rules with specified precedence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;For instance FIDE specifies that no player should play three games in a row with the same color. But if there are only two players (who both have played the last two rounds with the black pieces) with 7 points left who are therefore going to be paired. What is going to happen then? Is the FIDE rule of three same-color games going to be violated or are they going to be paired with other players first?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The following is considered an &quot;absolute&quot; rule:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;non-topscorers with the same absolute colour preference shall not meet  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Assuming that 7 points is a &quot;topscorer&quot; (has over half the maximum possible points), then pairing the people with the same absolute color preference would not violate the absolute criteria.  And then, &quot;minimize the Pairing Score Difference&quot; has a higher priority than &quot;minimize the number of topscorers or topscorers' opponents who get a colour difference higher than +2 or lower than -2&quot; and &quot;minimize the number of topscorers or topscorers' opponents who get the same colour three times in a row.&quot;  So the answer is usually going to be that the rule of three same-colored games will be violated, so as to comply with the higher-priority rule that the pairing score differences be minimized.  (It's &lt;em&gt;possible&lt;/em&gt; that the various absolute rules would require another resolution, of course.  For example, if the two players with 7 points had already played each other, they wouldn't be able to play each other again.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Under the FIDE Dutch rules, with the exception of the coin flip at the beginning to determine colors, the pairings are &lt;em&gt;very&lt;/em&gt; deterministic.  They have rules like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;All the possible transpositions are sorted depending on the lexicographic value of their first N1 BSN(s), where N1 is the number of BSN(s) in S1&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which means the organizers can't ordinarily decide things like which possible transposition to take.  There's not any wiggle room.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The exception is if it's somehow impossible to comply with the absolute rules:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If it is impossible to complete a round-pairing, the arbiter shall decide what to do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only scenarios I could think of where this might happen is an extremely low turnout, or a mass walkout.  (If you have 8 rounds and 8 players, you can't avoid playing the same opponent twice.  Or, if everyone who played White quit  before playing, after the first round everyone would ineligible for the bye because they'd already had a forfeit win, and after two rounds you'd also have non-top scorers that all had the same absolute color preference.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2018-04-06T19:12:32.653" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21328" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21329" CreationDate="2018-04-07T17:48:57.657" Score="2" ViewCount="138" Body="&lt;p&gt;White to play and checkmate in two moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;5Kbk/6pp/6P1/8/7R/8/8/8 w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it possible? If so, please write a solution.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3796" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-04T22:27:16.453" LastActivityDate="2020-04-04T22:27:16.453" Title="Checkmate in two moves" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;problems&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2018-04-09T04:11:53.757" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21329" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21328" CreationDate="2018-04-07T18:05:24.500" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;1.Rh6&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This puts Black in Zugzwang.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If 1...gxh6, 2.g7#&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If Black moves the Bishop, 2.Rxh7#&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15668" LastActivityDate="2018-04-07T18:05:24.500" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21330" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21331" CreationDate="2018-04-07T18:52:30.957" Score="10" ViewCount="448" Body="&lt;p&gt;White to play and checkmate in two moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[title &quot;E.Umnov's chess problem, 1944&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;k7/5QK1/3n1pb1/1R1p1r2/5p2/8/1p6/4R3 w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3796" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-04T22:27:36.233" LastActivityDate="2020-04-04T22:27:36.233" Title="E.Umnov's chess problem, 1944. Checkmate in two moves" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;problems&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21331" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21330" CreationDate="2018-04-07T19:30:48.423" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;1.Re4, threatening 2.Ra4#. Black has many possible moves, but all of them allow either Ra4#, Qa2# Qb7#, or Rxe8# (did I miss any?).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(In the spirit of &quot;teaching a man to fish&quot;, if you can't solve a checkmate problem and decide to give up, you can always feed it to a chess engine and get an instant answer without having to wait for someone to reply to an online post. For example, try &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/analysis&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://lichess.org/analysis&lt;/a&gt; ).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12523" LastActivityDate="2018-04-07T19:30:48.423" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21332" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21330" CreationDate="2018-04-08T05:25:27.360" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Very nice - thanks for posting. The solution is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt; 1. Re4! threat 2. Ra4#&lt;br&gt;&#xA; 1. ... Nc8/Nb7/Nxe4 2. Q(x)b7#&lt;br&gt;&#xA; 1. ... Ne8+/Nxb5 2. R(x)e8#&lt;br&gt;&#xA; 1. ... Nc4 2. Qb7, Re8#&lt;br&gt;&#xA; 1. ... dxe4/d4 2. Qa2#  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that after 1. ... Nc4, there are two possible mates. This is not generally regarded as a defect because each of them can be found by itself in other lines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am really not an expert in these kinds of problems, but I guess the idea is that White begins with two units en prise, and must paradoxically offer up the third for sacrifice as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;General purpose chess engines can be used to tackle direct mates like this, but they may not pick up all the artistic points (e.g. tries, set play, duals, etc) and will not be applicable to helpmates, selfmates, retros, fairy problems, etc. Specialist problem engines exist, see &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_for_handling_chess_problems&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this Wikipedia page.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: Of course at one level, all the engines are pointless. The challenge is for the individual to solve the problem by themselves, without tech support. Direct mates in 2 are fairly simple to solve in this way, but the difficulty grows rapidly as the number of moves increases. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One key difference between solving a problem and playing a game of chess is that in the former, one knows that there is a solution, and that probably it's quite artistic. So part of the approach is to hunt for such cool effects. There are also deliberate red herrings which are part of the fun. E.g. a try is a false answer which &lt;em&gt;nearly&lt;/em&gt; works, but there is just one black move which defeats it. E.g. in the Umnov problem, how should Black respond to 1. Rxb2? The right move is often quiet and paradoxical - apparently giving something to the opponent, but in reality compelling the opponent to create a fatal weakness in their defence. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, one beauty of over-the-board chess is that there's no certainty of a winning move existing at all, certainly not within a specific time span. If it's a published position from a game then there is probably a unique move, but it's possibly quite flashy maybe involving a sacrifice to break through a defensive position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8201" LastEditorUserId="8201" LastEditDate="2018-04-09T07:57:32.993" LastActivityDate="2018-04-09T07:57:32.993" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21333" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21362" CreationDate="2018-04-08T21:41:16.117" Score="6" ViewCount="906" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've recently discovered that I really enjoy playing 1... g6 and that it tends to give me better results as black than opening with my d or e pawns.  However, a few times now the computer opponent I play against has opened with something like 1. g3 or 1. Nf3 and proceeded in hypermodern style instead of trying to occupy the center.  I've been playing 1... g6 anyway, but I feel like I don't really know what I'm doing then—I can set up a decently defensive position the same way I would against a classic attack, but I usually end up playing super passively, probably not putting enough pressure on white.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At the level of general principles, what should I look for when playing hypermodern vs. hypermodern?  (Or, as a frame challenge, are there reasons that I should try to occupy the center myself instead?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it helps for context, I play what I think is just above beginner level; I can hold my own against the app on my phone when it's set to ELO 1200 (though the app doesn't say if this is calibrated to compare to a FIDE ELO, a USCF ELO or something else).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am aware of &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/12668/a-consistent-grunfeld-repertoire&quot;&gt;this related question&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16290" LastEditorUserId="16290" LastEditDate="2018-04-19T22:46:12.350" LastActivityDate="2018-04-19T22:46:12.350" Title="What are the general principles for playing hypermodern against hypermodern?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;hypermodernism&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21334" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-04-08T22:52:18.077" Score="4" ViewCount="224" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can play 1. e4 as long as my opponent does not play 1... c5. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I have recently been succeeding in playing 1. d4 despite knowing little to no theory. The only exception is that I am booked up with regards to the King's Indian (as black). I frequently win using it, and even if I play against it I know the plans and strategy, and have no fear playing against 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Every time my opponent plays 1... c5 in response to 1. e4, I die a little inside. Should I give up 1. e4?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13147" LastEditorUserId="18475" LastEditDate="2020-02-17T14:54:28.823" LastActivityDate="2020-02-17T14:54:28.823" Title="Should I just avoid playing 1. e4?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;1.e4&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="10" ClosedDate="2018-04-09T00:30:35.997" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21335" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21336" CreationDate="2018-04-09T14:40:34.067" Score="11" ViewCount="964" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would like to make a collection of chess games that feature the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_gift_sacrifice&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;'Greek gift' sacrifice&lt;/a&gt;. There are &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chesscollection?cid=1010201&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;few games on chessgames.com&lt;/a&gt; annotated with this sacrifice. I could find blogs with individual examples of games with this type of sacrifice (example: &lt;a href=&quot;http://exeterchessclub.org.uk/content/greek-gift&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;1&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://chessimprover.com/the-greek-gift/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;2&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesskit.com/training/existing/knights/greek_gift/index.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;3&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.thequietmove.com/tactics-greek-gift/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;4&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/article/view/the-greek-gift-sacrifice-lives-on&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;5&lt;/a&gt;, and &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.ichess.net/blog/master-greek-gift-sacrifice-bxh7/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;6&lt;/a&gt;); however they are not in a readily downloadable format. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a collection of games that feature this sacrifice? If not, is there any way I can search for and get collections of games featuring this sacrifice using a chess database like SCID? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user14405" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-04-09T19:57:46.380" LastActivityDate="2018-04-10T11:12:30.450" Title="How can I get a collection of chess games with a 'Greek gift' sacrifice?" Tags="&lt;database&gt;&lt;bishops&gt;&lt;sacrifice&gt;&lt;greek-gift&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21336" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21335" CreationDate="2018-04-09T17:30:20.303" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;Something which might help here is &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.gadycosteff.com/cql/doc/introduction.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess Query Language&lt;/a&gt;. Just like SQL does for relational databases, CQL can search in a database of chess games for positions/games which match certain criteria.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I must say I have never used it myself, but it seems to be capable of amazing things, far more complex than what you're looking for. &lt;a href=&quot;https://timkr.home.xs4all.nl/chess2/cql.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Here&lt;/a&gt; is an old article showing a few beautiful studies Tim Krabbé was able to find with the help of CQL.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2018-04-09T17:30:20.303" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21337" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21340" CreationDate="2018-04-09T17:38:33.710" Score="4" ViewCount="258" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've played extensively online with a G/30 time control, and OTB at G/30 with a 5 second delay.  I'd like to start playing in tournaments though that have a time control of G/90 with a 30 second increment.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Should I approach the game any differently?  Obviously, I'd have longer to calculate, but are there any other types of differences to be aware of?  Or, are there different ways to prepare mentally?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3298" LastEditorUserId="3298" LastEditDate="2018-04-09T18:46:13.457" LastActivityDate="2018-04-12T17:32:03.433" Title="Adjusting to longer time controls" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;time-control&gt;&lt;time-management&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21338" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2018-04-09T20:00:54.390" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-04-09T20:00:54.390" LastActivityDate="2018-04-09T20:00:54.390" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21339" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2018-04-09T20:00:54.390" Score="0" Body="The Greek Gift is a bishop sacrifice for an attack against the enemy king, usually by White, and then characterized by the moves Bxh7+ and (most of the times) Ng5 and Qh5. This is otherwise known as the classical bishop sacrifise." OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-09-14T09:32:23.527" LastActivityDate="2020-09-14T09:32:23.527" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21340" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21337" CreationDate="2018-04-09T20:41:28.203" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I feel like the 90-minute (+ 30s increment) games are just perfect for getting better, but it might be caused by the fact that I'm used to it. Pretty much any longer time control will do the job.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But definitely, your choice to play with longer time controls is a good one. For me, a 30-minute game is a rapid game and even FIDE thinks so :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A ‘Rapidplay’ game is one where either all the moves must be completed in a fixed time of more than 10 minutes but less than 60 minutes for each player; or the time allotted plus 60 times any increment is of more than 10 minutes but less than 60 minutes for each player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The big difference will obviously be the &quot;redundant&quot; time for you. I think you can use that for improving in some techniques like double-checking and evaluating positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The idea is to use these methods extensively (and consciously) until they become part of your unconsciousness. I learned this idea from a book called Pumped Up Your Rating by Axel Smith.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some other advice:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Your brain can adapt to the time quickly and, especially if you're a &quot;time-trouble player&quot;, what might have seemed as a lot of time before is suddenly not that much... That doesn't mean you shouldn't think, just &lt;strong&gt;anyway be aware of the time situation on your clock.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Don't be hasty when your opponent starts playing quickly.&lt;/strong&gt; That applies generally, but in longer time controls it is more important than anywhere else. For example, you have no reason to become nervous when your opponent has 80 minutes left and you have &quot;only&quot; 55 minutes on your clock after 20 moves - it's quite a lot of time. Just stick to your time management.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I guess the last point falls into the category of mental preparation because you might feel pressure in such a case. So it's good to be prepared for that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The last thing I have on my mind is how you spend the time when it's your opponent's turn. In rapid games, players are usually used to sit at the board throughout the entire game, which is almost impossible in case of long games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It usually depends on the character of the player, some stand up from the games very often, some not. Just keep in mind that you shouldn't distract yourself too much when you're off the board as you don't want to build your concentration from the bottom-up again. I think you will have to try this yourself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13055" LastEditorUserId="13055" LastEditDate="2018-04-09T20:50:12.923" LastActivityDate="2018-04-09T20:50:12.923" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21341" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21342" CreationDate="2018-04-09T20:46:33.357" Score="3" ViewCount="171" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm using gnuchess to decide which move a program should make, and I'm using its output to control a robot arm (to execute the move on a real board).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, gnuchess outputs SAN (Standard Algebraic Notation), such as &quot;Nf3&quot;. To control the robot arm, it would be much more helpful to have a coordinate-based notation, such as &quot;g1-f3&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is there a way to get gnuchess to output coordinate-based notation? I know it can accept such notation as input (human-supplied move).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-or-&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is there existing software (or detailed algorithm) that takes&#xA; (a) a SAN move&#xA; (b) a .eps board&#xA;and produces:&#xA; (c) a coordinate-based move?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I use Linux, and here is how I get gnuchess to make its (SAN) move recommendation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Use gnuchess to decide on next move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;reads current position from file named $1 (.epd format)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;decides what move to make (as white), using gnuchess&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;prints out move&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;also stores resulting board in dgt.chess.nextpos (.epd format)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;rm -f dgt.chess.nextpos&#xA;&#xA;printf &quot;solveepd $1\nepdsave dgt.chess.nextpos\nquit\n&quot; |\&#xA;gnuchess |\&#xA;grep -a 'My move is' |\&#xA;sed 's/My move is : //'&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16297" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-04-10T06:39:28.577" LastActivityDate="2018-04-10T06:39:28.577" Title="Coordinate-style move output from chess engine, to control robot" Tags="&lt;programming&gt;&lt;notation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21342" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21341" CreationDate="2018-04-09T23:35:03.900" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't know how you would do that in gnuchess, but you could do little programming yourself in Python. This &lt;a href=&quot;https://pypi.python.org/pypi/python-chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Python package&lt;/a&gt; would do that for you. It's main page has what you want:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt; board.push_san(&quot;e4&quot;)&#xA;Move.from_uci('e2e4')&#xA;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt; board.push_san(&quot;e5&quot;)&#xA;Move.from_uci('e7e5')&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You have the move string and chess board. It shouldn't be hard for you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2018-04-09T23:35:03.900" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21344" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21341" CreationDate="2018-04-10T02:04:11.820" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The simplest I can think of is to generate all moves that would end on the destination square then scan the board to find the piece that moved there.  The difference is that pawn moves would have to be programmed to correct for the direction, ep, and double move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12449" LastActivityDate="2018-04-10T02:04:11.820" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21345" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21337" CreationDate="2018-04-10T02:08:07.033" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you have more time available, there are really just two options. One is to think about the same things as before, but to try harder. The other is to find new things to think about. In order to develop your game, the second option is to be preferred.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Long-term planning may be something that you never thought you had time for. Which pieces do I want to exchange? How would I like to change the pawn structure? Is there an endgame position I would like to get to?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you do these things they will affect your move calculations by introducing new motivations. Then you will need more time for those calculations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastEditorUserId="13012" LastEditDate="2018-04-10T18:44:08.197" LastActivityDate="2018-04-10T18:44:08.197" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21346" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21335" CreationDate="2018-04-10T11:12:30.450" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Thank you @Glorfindel . I didn't know about Chess Querry Language. It is indeed a wonderful tool. Going through basic syntax of CQL from their website, I came up with the following script and method that can pick out &quot;Greek gift sacrifice&quot; by either black or white from any &lt;code&gt;pgn&lt;/code&gt; database. I provide an example below using a UNIX system. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, download a pgn database of your interest (&lt;code&gt;example.pgn&lt;/code&gt;). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Second, using a text editor save the following script as a text file &lt;code&gt;greek_gift.cql&lt;/code&gt; with the extension &lt;code&gt;.cql&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;cql (input example.pgn)&#xA;flipcolor flip &#xA;next (Bh7&#xA;      kh7)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Keep the executable &lt;code&gt;cql&lt;/code&gt; program (downloaded from the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.gadycosteff.com/cql/doc/download.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;CQL website&lt;/a&gt;), the cql file &lt;code&gt;greek_gift.cql&lt;/code&gt; and the input pgn file &lt;code&gt;example.pgn&lt;/code&gt; in the same folder. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Open the terminal and navigate to the folder. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Execute the command  &lt;code&gt;./cql greek_gift.cql&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A new pgn file &lt;code&gt;greek_gift-out.pgn&lt;/code&gt; will be generated in the same directory. Note that this will contain games with Bh7 sacrifice by white as well as Bh2 sacrifice by black, followed by capture by the opponent king. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am not a programmer; please edit the script if anybody thinks there is an error. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user14405" LastActivityDate="2018-04-10T11:12:30.450" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21347" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-04-10T21:57:31.373" Score="4" ViewCount="987" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am an active player on four player team chess on chess.com (my Elo is currently 2095). I am planning to write something about theory of opening of this chess variant. Question is, do you know if something like this already exists ? I find nothing on the internet. Moreover, I am also a programmer and I have this project to code a CPU for this kind of chess, do you know if somebody has already coded one ? I think it will be very difficult to write one (essentially for the CPU to evaluate the position) so that's why I am looking for pre-existing code.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16307" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-04-11T05:38:18.653" LastActivityDate="2018-09-09T14:00:58.353" Title="Four player chess (team): is there some opening theory written somewhere?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;programming&gt;&lt;team&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21350" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21351" CreationDate="2018-04-11T01:25:07.397" Score="5" ViewCount="1661" Body="&lt;p&gt;Do the new chess AIs, such as Alpha Zero and &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/glinscott/leela-chess&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Leela Zero,&lt;/a&gt; play gambits?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By &lt;em&gt;gambit,&lt;/em&gt; I do not mean a merely nominal gambit like the mainline Queen's Gambit, but rather a genuinely speculative offer of opening material like Evans' Gambit, for example&amp;mdash;or like the gambit @Akavall gives below.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="315" LastEditorUserId="315" LastEditDate="2018-04-12T00:27:06.457" LastActivityDate="2020-05-31T09:51:48.487" Title="Do the new chess AIs play gambits?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;gambits&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21351" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21350" CreationDate="2018-04-11T02:59:31.057" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sure, this line of Queen's Indian came up:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;] &#xA;[White &quot;AlphaZero (Computer)&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Stockfish (Computer)&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Nf3 Nf6 2. d4 e6 3. c4 b6 4. g3 Bb7 5. Bg2 Be7 6. O-O O-O&#xA;7. d5 exd5 8. Nh4 c6 9. cxd5 Nxd5 10. Nf5 Nc7 11. e4 d5&#xA;12. exd5 Nxd5 13. Nc3 Nxc3 14. Qg4 g6 15. Nh6+ Kg7 16. bxc3&#xA;Bc8 17. Qf4 Qd6 18. Qa4 g5 19. Re1 Kxh6 20. h4 f6 21. Be3 Bf5&#xA;22. Rad1 Qa3 23. Qc4 b5 24. hxg5+ fxg5 25. Qh4+ Kg6 26. Qh1&#xA;Kg7 27. Be4 Bg6 28. Bxg6 hxg6 29. Qh3 Bf6 30. Kg2 Qxa2 31. Rh1&#xA;Qg8 32. c4 Re8 33. Bd4 Bxd4 34. Rxd4 Rd8 35. Rxd8 Qxd8 36. Qe6&#xA;Nd7 37. Rd1 Nc5 38. Rxd8 Nxe6 39. Rxa8 Kf6 40. cxb5 cxb5&#xA;41. Kf3 Nd4+ 42. Ke4 Nc6 43. Rc8 Ne7 44. Rb8 Nf5 45. g4 Nh6&#xA;46. f3 Nf7 47. Ra8 Nd6+ 48. Kd5 Nc4 49. Rxa7 Ne3+ 50. Ke4 Nc4&#xA;51. Ra6+ Kg7 52. Rc6 Kf7 53. Rc5 Ke6 54. Rxg5 Kf6 55. Rc5 g5&#xA;56. Kd4 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I got this game from chessgames.com: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1899423&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;game&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="307" LastActivityDate="2018-04-11T02:59:31.057" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21352" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21354" CreationDate="2018-04-11T08:02:06.827" Score="2" ViewCount="318" Body="&lt;p&gt;I played black in the game below and I am curious of the origin of this trap for the white Queen: move 12 Qxg7 - Rg8. That trap started at move 9 Qg3 - Nd4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Live Chess&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Chess.com&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2018.04.10&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;setyoaji&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;D3mniz&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;C00&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 {[%clk 0:05:03]} e6 {[%clk 0:05:02]} 2.e5 {[%clk 0:05:04]} c5 {[%clk 0:05:06]} 3.Nf3 {[%clk 0:05:01]} f6 {[%clk 0:05:09]} 4.exf6 {[%clk 0:04:59]} Nxf6 {[%clk 0:05:12]} 5.Ne5 {[%clk 0:04:59]} Bd6 {[%clk 0:05:00]} 6.d4 {[%clk 0:04:44]} cxd4 {[%clk 0:05:03]} 7.Qxd4 {[%clk 0:04:48]} Bxe5 {[%clk 0:05:07]} 8.Qxe5 {[%clk 0:04:51]} Nc6 {[%clk 0:05:08]} 9.Qg3 {[%clk 0:04:45]} Nd4 {[%clk 0:04:47]} 10.Bd3 {[%clk 0:04:41]} b6 {[%clk 0:04:26]} 11.O-O {[%clk 0:04:25]} Bb7 {[%clk 0:04:27]} 12.Qxg7 {[%clk 0:04:22]} Rg8 {[%clk 0:04:26]} 13.Qh6 {[%clk 0:04:15]} Rxg2+ {[%clk 0:04:27]} 14.Kh1 {[%clk 0:04:13]} Rg6+ {[%clk 0:04:30]}  0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is: is there a name for that game? Like the original game featured Légal playing against Saint Brie in Paris 1750.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/live/game/2737553041&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.chess.com/live/game/2737553041&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16313" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-04-11T08:18:06.923" LastActivityDate="2018-04-15T14:11:06.357" Title="Origin for this trap of the white queen" Tags="&lt;opening-traps&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21353" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21352" CreationDate="2018-04-11T08:23:33.827" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Congratulations on your win! I don't think this has a special name, besides the tactic you are using being called &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discovered_attack&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;'discovered check'&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One can hardly call the pawn on g7 a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossary_of_chess#Poisoned_pawn&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;poisoned pawn&lt;/a&gt;; it's just plain stupid (pardon my words) to grab a pawn like that in front of your castled king. A poisoned pawn variation ending in the loss of a queen does happen, but it's usually because the queen has no squares anymore, not because of a discovered check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-04-15T14:11:06.357" LastActivityDate="2018-04-15T14:11:06.357" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21354" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21352" CreationDate="2018-04-11T08:47:09.603" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let's face it (and this is not being mean), both players are beginner chess players and are naturally making lots of mistakes. For instance 7....Qa5+ would win the knight on e5. Also black had a forced mate starting with 14. ... Rxf2+ (with the idea to remove the pawn first which could intercept bishop checks) but chose to win the queen instead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course 12. Qxg7 was a losing mistake because after 12 ... Rg8 you will lose the queen (or the game if you let black take on g2). You could call this a mini-trap, but more typically you would call the pawn on g7 &lt;strong&gt;poisoned pawn&lt;/strong&gt;, because it kind of obviously should not be captured because of the resulting attack on g2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is well worth memorizing the pattern of Nf6, Qg7, Rg8 as you will encounter it in many games, in all four corners of the board (i.e. also with queens on b7, b2, g2). Also note, that in this setup the square/pawn h7 is protected, leaving the queen only one square to escape. So, if you memorize this pattern  you should memorize it together with two ideas: i) the rook might attack something along the g-file (or b-file if in other corners) and ii) the queen has little space (and in other situations that one escape square might not be available; e.g. occupied or under attack).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't think this pattern/&quot;trap&quot; has any specific name. After 13. Qh6 Rxg2+ 14. Kh1, white runs into a &lt;strong&gt;discovered check&lt;/strong&gt; which is very often deadly. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Apart from the forced check mate after 14...Rxf2+, you could also consider this as a mini &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windmill_(chess)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;windmill&lt;/a&gt;, i.e. you could win an extra pawn (on f2) in addition to the queen. But note that black cannot continue with the windmill (winning pawns on c2, b2, a2) because white can cover the bishop check with Rf3 and escape with the king to f1.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2018-04-11T08:47:09.603" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21355" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21333" CreationDate="2018-04-11T11:26:06.983" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Hypermodern openings allow for one player (originally Black, but  systems have also been developed for White) to develop fast into a confined space and attack the pawn centre erected by the opponent.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So there's a key question: what happens if the opponent &lt;em&gt;doesn't&lt;/em&gt; create an attackable pawn centre, and adopts a hypermodern system himself? In such a strategically symmetric positions, in the absence of genuinely better play from either side, I would expect that White would in the end tend to dominate, because Black has no strategic threats or counter-play, and White's initial initiative will persist.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So against equal or stronger positional opponents, Black might be better advised to become more proactive against White hypermodern systems (e.g. King's Indian Attack) which are often just the Black systems with an extra tempo. A player with a positional flair might still find the hypermodern mirror match-up attractive as Black though if he has the edge in positional thinking skills, and experience in understanding such configurations of pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8201" LastActivityDate="2018-04-11T11:26:06.983" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21356" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17240" CreationDate="2018-04-11T12:03:35.020" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The most common plans for Black in the Scheveningen set-up you describe (e6,d6,b5,a6,Be7,Bb7,Nf6,0-0), beside engineering ...d6-d5, are &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Build pressure against Pe4 : Bb7, Nf6, sometimes e5 to fix the target, sometimes Nc5.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Generate counterplay down the c-file, agianst Pc2,Nc3, sometimes Pb2 : b5-b4, Nd7-b6-c4 or Nc6-a5-c4 or N-e5-c4, Rxc3 exchange sac, Qc7/Qb6/Qa5. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both ideas combine nicely together: indeed, the main defender of Pe4 is the Nc3, and this piece can be shaken either by the b-pawn or by the exchange sac Rxc3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They do not rule out the d6-d5 plan either: for instance, after the sequence b4 axb4 Nxb4 the knight controls d5 once more. Also, if white prevents b4 with a3, themes like ...d5 ed5 Bxa3 bxa3 Rxc3 may appear.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes you will just exchange White's Nd4 and defend for a while against his kingside initiative. Other times your play will be flexible and adapt to your opponnent's actions. You can also be much more creative given the opportunity, as Kasparov showed in &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1067179&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;that WC game&lt;/a&gt; against Karpov where he played the weird looking plan Re7-Rce8-f5 with great success.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Generally, I recommend looking at games by &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1287630&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Kasparov&lt;/a&gt; or &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1120322&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Salov&lt;/a&gt; as guidelines in this variation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastActivityDate="2018-04-11T12:03:35.020" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21357" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17240" CreationDate="2018-04-11T16:08:08.840" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The reason why you are asking this question is your aversion to ..e5, so that should be examined. After all, it might be the answer. Older books like Rueben Fines &lt;em&gt;Ideas Behind the Chess Openings&lt;/em&gt; only discuss the negatives that follow from creating a weak backward d-Pawn and leaving d5 open to invasion. There are positive aspects too. For example an exchange with Whites f-Pawn can give a stable and aggressive post on e5 for a Black Knight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is a thought about the Sicilian that I find valuable. Black very often lags in development, because ..c5 itself is not a developing move, and Black often makes early moves with the Queen and the Queenside Pawns.&#xA;These moves aim to control a space, within which development can subsequently take place, while retaining flexibility about what that development will actually be. (N on d7 or c6, B on d7 or b7, Q on c7 or b6, R on c8 or d8)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While this is going on, White usually has to commit to some formation. If White develops in an agressive way, he has a chance to benefit from his lead in development, but Black knows in advance where the attack will come. If White is more conservative, the development advantage may not count for much. In many Sicilian systems, Black is playing wait and see.&#xA;(except for the Dragon, where Blacks moves are usually standard and predictable). The playability of ..d5 is one of the issues, but by no means the only one. It is central to the Maroczy bind with c4, but after White has prevented (immediate) ..d5, he has to find something else to do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Particularly in Scheveningen-like situations, Black retains as much flexibility as possible. Apart from ..e5 or ..d5, options include Queen-side invasion with ..Nc4 and play on the c-file. or a focussed attack on the Pawn at e4, with ..Nf6, Nc5, Bb7, using Pawns to drive away the White defenders. On some occasions, Black has played ..Kh8 and ..g5. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The possibilities are too varied to be discussed, and there is (as usual) no simple answer to your question. Try reading John Watson's &lt;em&gt;Chess Strategy since Nimzowitch&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastActivityDate="2018-04-11T16:08:08.840" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21358" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-04-11T16:25:28.953" Score="2" ViewCount="1210" Body="&lt;p&gt;Playing the Colle, if Black plays g6 and then Bg7 what is the best line for White?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16320" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-04-11T20:47:48.237" LastActivityDate="2018-04-12T14:43:29.013" Title="What is the best line of the Colle to play against KID set up by Black?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;colle-system&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ClosedDate="2018-04-14T23:15:33.450" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21359" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="188" CreationDate="2018-04-11T20:28:59.630" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This platform Chess.com has what you are looking for. Each games can be reviewed at your own pace with/without comments. So sign up for free, play a bit and run the post game analysis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.chess.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16313" LastActivityDate="2018-04-11T20:28:59.630" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21361" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21358" CreationDate="2018-04-12T14:43:29.013" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The English GM Simon Williams has just &lt;a href=&quot;https://twitter.com/ginger_gm/status/984434599739691008&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;tweeted this&lt;/a&gt; -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Just finished filming 'The Colle' a DVD for @ChessBase. I must say&#xA;  that the Colle with 1 d4 2 Nf3 3 e3 4 c3 5 Nd2 and 6 Bd3 is basically&#xA;  rubbish. But the 'Colle-Zukertort' with 4 b3 is another matter&#xA;  entirely... Learnt a lot filming this week.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That sounds reasonable to me. In other words you are wasting your time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In general the answer to the question &quot;Given that I always play opening X how should I use opening X to reply to opening Y by my opponent?&quot; is nearly always something along the lines of - &quot;You should not dogmatically play opening X in all circumstances. You should always play the position in front of you and try and find the best moves. If your opponent plays something against which your standard opening is rubbish then play something else.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Against the KID the Colle is a silly opening to play. The same could probably be said of the London. Classical lines involving putting your pawns on c4, d4 and e4 with a knight on c3 can't be bad but obviously there is a lot to learn. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to frighten your opponent and take him out of his comfort zone then something like the Barry / 150 attack should do the job. That is where you play d4, Bf4, Nf3 following up with e4 if your opponent doesn't play d5 and then aiming for Qd2, 0-0-0 and an early h4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I believe that along with the Colle DVD he has also been working on a DVD about the Torre attack. When these are released (probably take a couple of months for Chessbase to do their editing, tidying up and marketing) you might be interested. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Disclaimer: I have nothing to do with either Chessbase or Simon Williams although I have bought their DVDs in the past.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2018-04-12T14:43:29.013" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21362" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21333" CreationDate="2018-04-12T17:27:47.953" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you're learning and trying to get better (as opposed to just beat the computer), you will need to be able to play different kinds of positions (open, closed, semi-open, etc.), so I would recommend to try to play by occupying the center if your normal approach is to play in a hypermodern style. You may find that you begin to understand hypermodern principles and play on the flanks better from having to defend against, or otherwise counter, that style of play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At your level, it's probably easier to play an opening like the King's Indian Attack that are more about setting up your pieces and following a system. When you get better and face steeper (human) competition, you will need to be more flexible and daring, although, for right now, it sounds like you are asking all the right questions!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2569" LastActivityDate="2018-04-12T17:27:47.953" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21363" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21337" CreationDate="2018-04-12T17:32:03.433" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I agree with the other answers, but I want to point out a couple of things. With longer time controls, I agree that it is important to check and re-check your thinking. Your opponent will be doing the same thing, so the game itself will be more complex and the stakes will be higher. One piece of advice I have is that if you see a good combination or trick, a&lt;em&gt;lways assume your opponent sees it too&lt;/em&gt;! Short time controls means you can take a gamble and quite often your opponent does not notice tricky threats. When you have time to consider multiple responses to a move, more often than not, your plan will not work as planned.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On a different but related level, you might want to rethink your openings. If you have any intense gambits, I would reconsider using them. They can throw people off, but if you meet people who know what they are doing, they can make for a miserable few hours. You will also probably face more main lines of openings in longer play&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2569" LastActivityDate="2018-04-12T17:32:03.433" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21364" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8711" CreationDate="2018-04-12T20:19:33.110" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Okay, I've been a chess teacher for over 10 years.  Mostly juniors but some adult students as well.  Repetition is the key to learning tactics at your level.  I have some of Yusupov's books.  He wrote a number of them in this series.  They are quite good and cover a wide range of subjects.  I'm not sure I would recommend them for tactics though.  1001 Chess Combinations and Sacrifices would be good.  The books by Chandler, &quot;How to beat your Dad at Chess&quot; in particular, it has examples of every type of mating combination.  Good to know.  Perhaps Winning Chess Tactics by Seirawan and Silman.  Repeat the problems over and over to learn to recognize the pattern.  Good luck!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS-I forgot to mention, Chessable is a great site that encourages repetition learning.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16334" LastActivityDate="2018-04-12T20:19:33.110" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21365" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21333" CreationDate="2018-04-13T03:35:04.983" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Good question. I personally have tried as White to avoid advancing my center pawns and fiancheto one or both my Bishops, and control rather than occupy the center. For example I opened 1.b3. My experience tells me that Black can in fact set up a pawn center and have it solidly reinforced, thus equalizing. You get a center and now you have to be careful and watchful to not miss white's breaks (or even sacrifices) blowing up that center and leaving you with weak pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Choose some key squares that you want to completely control and center your game on that. For instance, let's say you want to have a pawn d5 and you focus on hindering the e4 square, not allowing White to advance his/her pawn to e4 easily. Then you'd like a knight on f6 and maybe a bishop on f5 (or g6). You may also put a rook on e-file. Similarly, you may put a pawn on e5 and control the d4 square with a knight on c6, a well-placed dark squared bishop, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is usually impossible in practice to have two pawns in the center (say both e5 and d5) and yet protect them completely. So, do not get greedy for central pushes, having one pawn that is solid is better than having two that are shaky.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you take into account whites c-d-e-f pawn pushes and subsequent exchanges and/or closings of the center, you should be fine. Usually a central control is a big advantage, and your opponent has to do something to free their pieces. If White does not want to advance his/her e and d pawns more than 1 square, how are they going to launch any serious initiative.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, in summary, if Whit does not want the center, go ahead and occupy it yourself. Build up a solid center with pawns protecting pawns and pieces boosting them. You'll enjoy more space behind your pawns than your opponent will behind theirs!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13438" LastActivityDate="2018-04-13T03:35:04.983" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21366" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21367" CreationDate="2018-04-13T14:25:06.417" Score="7" ViewCount="1008" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've seen 3 minute and 1 minute matches on Chess.com where the players move at insane speeds during the last few remaining seconds of the match. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm talking in milliseconds, I'd at least take that much of time to only recognize an event happening. So how do they even respond with a correct move?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How do they move so fast? Do they use some kind of special software or what?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16339" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-04-13T15:21:05.557" LastActivityDate="2020-01-03T19:51:58.157" Title="How do top players move so fast?" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;computer-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21367" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21366" CreationDate="2018-04-13T14:28:22.637" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;You're likely looking at &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Premove&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;premoves&lt;/a&gt;; the players know (or at least have a good guess at) what their opponent's move is going to be, so they can already 'ready' their own move by taking the piece and dropping or just moving it to the destination square. Of course, if the opponent makes another move, they have to cancel their move (if it's still possible; that depends on the client, and whether they're dropping or just moving) or they might make a huge blunder.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Premoving can lead to funny things like the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. Bg5 e6 3. Bxd8&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here, Black expects White to play a Queens Gambit with &lt;code&gt;2. c4&lt;/code&gt;, which is the normal move. If Black premoves &lt;code&gt;2... e6&lt;/code&gt; and notices the &lt;code&gt;2. Bg5&lt;/code&gt; too late, they will lose their queen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2018-04-13T14:28:22.637" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21368" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-04-13T16:01:22.933" Score="26" ViewCount="4491" Body="&lt;p&gt;All else being equal, if you have forced your opponent to move their king, thus preventing castling, would that be considered an advantage?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16265" LastEditorUserId="3444" LastEditDate="2018-04-15T16:44:34.370" LastActivityDate="2018-04-19T20:16:23.737" Title="Is preventing an opponent from castling considered an advantage?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;castling&gt;" AnswerCount="8" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21369" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21368" CreationDate="2018-04-13T16:23:21.603" Score="21" Body="&lt;p&gt;It'll depend on the rest of the position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it's relatively open, chances are you can keep the opponent's king in the center and launch an attack. This might well be a &lt;em&gt;decisive&lt;/em&gt; advantage; preventing castling on &lt;em&gt;both&lt;/em&gt; sides can be much harder than just one side or none at all. It's worth noting that 'artificial' castling (e.g. Ke8-f7, Rh8-e8 and Kf7-g8) takes three moves instead of one, though the rook might end up on a better file than after a regular kingside castling.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the center is closed and stable, players often don't even castle at all. A king's move to the second row might be enough to connect the heavy pieces. In such a position, being unable to castle is no disadvantage at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As @user1583209 notes, in the endgame, the center is usually the place to be for the king, making castling an unattractive option. In general, the fewer pieces on the board, the less of a disadvantage it is not being able to castle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="16344" LastEditDate="2018-04-14T13:25:17.367" LastActivityDate="2018-04-14T13:25:17.367" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21370" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21368" CreationDate="2018-04-13T17:11:30.527" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Some Reasons to Castle&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Two of the main advantages to castling is it brings the king to a harder square to attack, and it also moves to rook to the inside of the 1 or 8 rank, where it can connect to the other rook (as most pieces are likely developed at the moment) and this rook also can attack the center pieces, such as an uncastled king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Some Reasons Not to Castle or to Delay It&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are a couple positions where you wouldn't need to castle immediately, such as tempo, defending, and attacking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Tempo&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If your king isn't under any type of stress it may be advantageous to continue developing pieces, seizing the center, or setting up a position to threaten the other player's castled king (I wouldn't attempt attacking the uncastled king, after he does castle you may have many displaced, or overextended pieces).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Defending&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The other player may also be attacking pieces, similarly as before looking to have the tempo, such as pinning knights, or attacking center. In some of these cases it may be better to defend pieces, or unpin pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Attacking&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: Also noted by user “THB” you may not be immediate threat to castle, but in certain instances you may have the flexibility to decide which way to castle which means delaying can force your opponent to not commit to heavily on positioning pieces to attack a certain side, or castle opposite to the side attacked by the opponent. This also includes the queenside castling rook centralization which could be integral in maintaining tempo and attacking the center.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For attacking there are many opening traps, or blunders on the opponent that you can immediately take advantage of.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12876" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2018-04-19T14:29:09.333" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21371" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21368" CreationDate="2018-04-13T20:44:00.273" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;A basic rule (and not just in chess): options are good. Suppose your opponent has the option of castling. If they are in a position where castling is good, they will do so. If they are in a situation where it's bad, they won't (presumably, and you should be wary of planning your strategy around your opponent making mistakes). So unless there's absolutely no chance of your opponent being in a situation where castling is good, taking away their option to castle is an advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All else being equal, you should make the move that gives your opponent fewer options. If you have one move that forces your opponent to take your rook, and another move that gives your opponent the choice between taking your rook or your knight, generally speaking you should make the move that forces them to take the rook (a bullet game &lt;em&gt;might&lt;/em&gt; be an exception, if you think it's possible they might not otherwise see the rook option).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15221" LastActivityDate="2018-04-13T20:44:00.273" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21372" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21374" CreationDate="2018-04-13T21:08:25.630" Score="8" ViewCount="821" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the minimax algorithm, chess engines do a depth-first search as far as they can calculate ahead, and then evaluate all these final positions. Then, using these evaluations they work backwards one move at a time and assign values to the previous positions. Eventually they reach the current, starting position and give it an evaluation value.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, how would minimax chess engines evaluate a final position if it was in the middle of some exchange? For example, take the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Bxc6&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's say an engine's depth capacity was 7 ply (a move from either player), and it reached this position as one of the final positions in its calculations from the start of the game. It wouldn't be able to calculate further (and see Black could play 4...dxc6) and would have to evaluate this position now. To me, it seems it would have to assign this final position a +3 advantage for White, but I know that chess engines have a way around this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is, how do chess engines get around this scenario?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2018-04-14T03:41:26.737" Title="How do chess engines evaluate a position if the position is in the middle of an exchange?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;programming&gt;&lt;evaluation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21373" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21350" CreationDate="2018-04-13T21:19:40.823" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;From what we've seen of Alpha Zero, the answer appears to be yes. Its games showed it playing gambits where there was no immediate way to reclaim the material. Often, Alpha Zero's compensation was just long-term active piece play (or some positional edge). As an example, see the game posted by Akavall. In that game, Alpha Zero sacrifices a Knight, and just gets long-term compensation for almost the next 20 moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Alpha Zero plays more &quot;intuitive chess&quot; because it is a constructivist machine (it learned the game by playing with itself over and over again). None of its strategies were given by its human programmers, meaning that Alpha Zero must have learned &quot;active piece play&quot; is more important than mere material.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Comparatively, constructionist engines like Stockfish and Houdini (which just follow rules given by their human programmers) are unable to play more intuitively, since they're bound by these rules. The moves they choose are based off their evaluations of positions, and these evaluations must follow strict rules. For example, a Knight is worth &quot;3 points&quot;, space advantages of x amount are worth &quot;x points&quot;. This severely limits the intuitive capabilities of these engines, which is why they don't tend to play &quot;true&quot; sacrifices as often as constructivist engines like Alpha Zero.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2018-04-13T21:19:40.823" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21374" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21372" CreationDate="2018-04-13T21:30:46.567" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;A good chess engine won't stop after a predetermined number of moves, but will keep looking until the position is &quot;quiescent&quot;, which roughly speaking means that there are no pending captures or checks. See &lt;a href=&quot;https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Quiescence+Search&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Quiescence Search&lt;/a&gt; in chessprogramming wikispaces for a more detailed explanation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12523" LastActivityDate="2018-04-13T21:30:46.567" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21375" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21366" CreationDate="2018-04-13T22:23:03.837" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;In addition to @Glorfindel -part of the answer is also that top players really are &lt;em&gt;extremely fast&lt;/em&gt;. They recognizes the position and patterns faster than us mortal can blink. Some of the fastest chess is played with 15 seconds on the clock. That means that the whole match is over in less than half a minute.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A search for &lt;em&gt;Ultrabullet chess&lt;/em&gt; returns e.g.&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLVK7iryHJA&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLVK7iryHJA&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or here both players &lt;em&gt;berserks&lt;/em&gt; (meaning they only have half the time rounded e.i. 8 seconds) and play blindfolded:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://youtu.be/6ygQMw4rBHg?t=10m54s&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://youtu.be/6ygQMw4rBHg?t=10m54s&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here: &lt;a href=&quot;https://youtu.be/G2AMN9tHSB0?t=1h1m25s&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://youtu.be/G2AMN9tHSB0?t=1h1m25s&lt;/a&gt; 87 moves was made in 13.5 second. That is more than 6 moves/second.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When the chess is so fast it is difficult to tell if the clock had started counting when the move was made or if it was a premove made when the opponents clock was counting. Often you will hear players complain about lag, as even few ms of internet/server delay affects their play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13683" LastEditorUserId="13683" LastEditDate="2018-04-13T22:59:02.307" LastActivityDate="2018-04-13T22:59:02.307" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21376" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21372" CreationDate="2018-04-14T03:41:26.737" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;@itub is absolutely right. Generally, computer chess engine don't stop until the position is clear at least in terms of material captures. When you ask an engine to search for depth=10, it doesn't actually mean it searches variations up to depth=10.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Quiescence Search is important for minimizing horizon effect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2018-04-14T03:41:26.737" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21377" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21368" CreationDate="2018-04-14T08:54:18.500" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Short Answer:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, as you take away an option for them to move the King into a safer position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Long Answer:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Generally, yes. Castling is a quick way to develop Rooks and move the King into a safer position, and denying this option by forcing the King to move can seriously jeopardize the opponent's King safety and make them stuck in the center.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can follow this up with an attack and try to open up the center as much as possible, further exploiting this weakness. Thus, preventing the King from castling opens up a very good opportunity for an attack especially in the Middlegame or the Opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, there are some positions where preventing the opponent castling is ineffective. For example, in Endgames where King safety is less of a concern and the back rank is often free for the Rook to develop, preventing castling doesn't do too much. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/4dmtB.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/4dmtB.png&quot; alt=&quot;As you can see, the King isn&amp;#39;t too bothered by the lack of castling&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In addition, in closed games with tight pawn structures in the center, it's harder to exploit the King in the center by attacking. Although it might be troublesome for opponent to develop Rooks, it's less of an advantage to prevent castling.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/3aV39.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/3aV39.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All in all, it's usually considered a good advantage in Openings or open Middlegames as it allows for opportunities of attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9048" LastActivityDate="2018-04-14T08:54:18.500" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21378" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21368" CreationDate="2018-04-14T10:01:27.970" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Still being able to castle can be a life-saver:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1qrkr3/2p1p4/8/b7/1n6/8/4PP2/R3KB2 w Q - 0 1 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Whether white wins in two moves or black wins in a few simple moves in this (contrived) situation (white to move) depends on whether or not 0-0-0 is still allowed. Thus, &lt;strong&gt;all else being equal&lt;/strong&gt;, having prevented castling before the above situation is an advantage. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4149" LastActivityDate="2018-04-14T10:01:27.970" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21379" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21380" CreationDate="2018-04-14T16:35:57.943" Score="3" ViewCount="103" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have never taken part in an OTB tournament (Simply put, I am not FIDE rated), and I want to. But, I can't find any tournaments to play in. I am currently resident in Sudan. Is there a website where I can find all details of a tournament (location, start date, end date, requirements, etc...)?. Please do not recommend the FIDE website; I always go there and only find finished tournaments.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13544" LastEditorUserId="8201" LastEditDate="2018-04-15T07:09:00.133" LastActivityDate="2018-04-15T23:11:29.807" Title="Where can I find details of future tournaments?" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21380" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21379" CreationDate="2018-04-14T18:36:00.207" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;One of the options is &lt;a href=&quot;http://chess-results.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess Results&lt;/a&gt;, but even though there are some future events, probably most of the listed events will be already finished tournaments (like now).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But you can try it in the future. Just search by your federation and do the tournament selection:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/X1Z7Z.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/X1Z7Z.png&quot; alt=&quot;Search on chess-results&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another possibility is &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessmix.com/chess-tournaments/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;ChessMix Calendar&lt;/a&gt;. There seem to be a lot of events but the problem is that most of the search (&lt;strong&gt;almost everything&lt;/strong&gt;) is available only for subscribers (who paid the $25/year fee).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My next try would be &lt;a href=&quot;http://theweekinchess.com/chess-calendar&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;The Week in Chess (TWIC) calendar&lt;/a&gt;, althought it is not searchable at all and most of the events are located in Europe.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You might also consider giving a &quot;Like&quot; to some Facebook sites like &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.facebook.com/AfricanChessConfederation/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Africa Chess Confederation&lt;/a&gt; that announce some competitions every now and then.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13055" LastActivityDate="2018-04-14T18:36:00.207" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21381" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21379" CreationDate="2018-04-14T18:43:36.717" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;One other possibility is to give the Sudan Chess Federation an email, asking about any tournaments they will be hosting soon.  According to &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.thechesspedia.com/fide/directory/sudan/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this page&lt;/a&gt; their email is sudanchessfed@yahoo.com.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2018-04-14T18:43:36.717" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21382" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21368" CreationDate="2018-04-14T20:18:51.827" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Everyone seem to agree that preventing castling gives an advantage unless the position has few pieces and the king needs to be more active.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But the following video may prove interresting: youtube.com/watch?v=8T3WRf-yOs8 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Black is upposedly played by fischer, or someone posing as fischer and using a strong engine?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black moves many times his king in the first few moves of the game... and wins.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(There are actually several of those in a series of games against the same opponent).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They are indeed quite interresting as the many moves &quot;wasted&quot; (+ the castling) do not prevent this Fischer from winning against a top-of-the-world level of opponent, multiples times... &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is not at all a &lt;em&gt;proof&lt;/em&gt; that castling is not mandatory, but at the very least it makes one wonder if the castling is so important after all...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9745" LastActivityDate="2018-04-14T20:18:51.827" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21387" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21394" CreationDate="2018-04-15T08:51:47.643" Score="7" ViewCount="940" Body="&lt;p&gt;I will clarify my question with an example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A grandmaster plays a game against stockfish, with a material handicap for stockfish, and the advantage is not clear for either of the players. Throughout the game, the position is a dead draw. However, during the endgame, stockfish discovers a loss 50 moves later (100 ply). For the game, stockfish was set to resign the game if the evaluation of the opponent's position exceeds 900 centipawns for 5 moves (2 ply). Consequently, stockfish resigns the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Was this a wise decision? What if the human blundered? Did stockfish resign a game which probably could've been drawn?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13544" LastEditorUserId="13055" LastEditDate="2018-04-15T09:11:15.990" LastActivityDate="2018-04-16T22:57:55.863" Title="Is it wise to resign a game if the win is only apparent too many moves ahead?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;resigning&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21388" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21387" CreationDate="2018-04-15T09:09:47.087" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The time to resign is when think your opponent will win.  Against a beginner, I would never resign, because they will most probably blunder and lose.  Against a decent club player, I could resign after being a rook down in a lost position.  Against a GM, I would resign after the 12th move if I thought I had a bad position (it's a good learning possibility to see the technique).  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I find it insulting to not resign when your opponent has a won game. (An exception can be made for cases like &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1637420.&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;checkmating with a knight and bishop&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the case of a computer, it can only do as it's programmed to do.  (Although humans now stop the game when an endgame database position has been reached to prevent the human from making a mistake the the computer looks up in a book.  This is cheating if a human did it, why not the computer?)  I don't think that the computer should resign this early, but he late should the computer resign?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12449" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-04-15T09:26:53.773" LastActivityDate="2018-04-15T09:26:53.773" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21389" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21392" CreationDate="2018-04-15T11:00:22.507" Score="3" ViewCount="222" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;r1bqk1nr/pp2bppp/2npp3/8/2B1P3/2N1BN2/PP3PPP/R2Q1RK1 b kq - 3 8&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What could be the best possible response to 8. Be3 for black? Would it be pushing the e pawn by a square, or developing the knight to f6?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are the best possibilities in this continuation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8185" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-04-15T12:07:40.497" LastActivityDate="2018-04-16T22:50:32.653" Title="Sicilian Defense: Smith-Morra Accepted, Scheveningen Formation, 7.O-O" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;&lt;smith-morra-gambit&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21391" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21387" CreationDate="2018-04-15T11:35:09.130" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You're asking the &lt;strong&gt;wrong&lt;/strong&gt; question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stockfish chess engine should never resign in any scenario. There is absolutely &lt;strong&gt;no possibility&lt;/strong&gt; that Stockfish should resign a game. There's no resign command in the Stockfish engine protocol. Please don't even think about that. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Instead, you're talking about graphical user interface (GUI). Most GUI don't resign; if you think you've won the game just stop the application. Forcing a GUI to resign for &quot;... opponent's position exceeds 900 centipawns for 5 moves...&quot; is also reasonable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2018-04-15T11:35:09.130" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21392" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21389" CreationDate="2018-04-15T11:53:10.817" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I wouldn't go for &lt;code&gt;8...e5&lt;/code&gt; in this position. When black plays &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt; in Scheveningen/Najdorf and even in Smith-Morra gambit, it is usually connected with a win of tempo (attacking the knight on d4) or black is forced to do so because white is threatening &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt;. This simply isn't the case in the position above, as &lt;code&gt;9. e5&lt;/code&gt; won't do much harm.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, the &lt;code&gt;8...e5&lt;/code&gt; move can cause you a lot of trouble because of the weak d5 square and the &lt;code&gt;a2-g8&lt;/code&gt; diagonal. Therefore, I would suggest you leaving &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt; for future.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;8...Nf6&lt;/code&gt; is a much more logical developing move and I would play it. Not surprisingly, it stands as the move #1 in my database with a great statistic (72.1% for black). For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;r1bqk1nr/pp2bppp/2npp3/8/2B1P3/2N1BN2/PP3PPP/R2Q1RK1 b kq - 3 8&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;8...Nf6 9.Qe2 O-O 10.Rfd1 {and only then (when white threatens e5) play 10...e5 yourself} 10...e5 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another try for black is &lt;code&gt;8...a6&lt;/code&gt; (covering the b5 square), but I think there will be enough time for that after finishing the development (if needed at all).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: As @Evargalo noted in the comments, in the &lt;code&gt;8...Nf6&lt;/code&gt; line I gave above, you can also try &lt;code&gt;9...Ng4&lt;/code&gt; with the idea of blocking the e5 break by putting a knight on e5:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;r1bqk2r/pp2bppp/2nppn2/8/2B1P3/2N1BN2/PP2QPPP/R4RK1 b kq - 4 9&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;9...Ng4 10.Bf4 Nge5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The key idea of the manoeuvre is that black doesn't mind doubled pawns on the e-file, because he is pawn up and thanks to those pawns he can control the central squares &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other possibilities shown by @Evargalo are to deviate from standard set-ups in Smith-Morra gambit by playing &lt;code&gt;10...Qa5&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;10...Bd7&lt;/code&gt;, I guess they are at least as good as &lt;code&gt;10...e5&lt;/code&gt; so thanks to Evargalo for pointing them out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13055" LastEditorUserId="13055" LastEditDate="2018-04-16T12:46:53.253" LastActivityDate="2018-04-16T12:46:53.253" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21394" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21387" CreationDate="2018-04-15T16:03:46.360" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;For beginner players, who tend to blunder a piece or mate in one regularly, there is no point to resign early. Any game, even in (objectively) clearly lost position will help them to gain experience.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For more advanced players, the decision to resign will depend on various factors and cannot be generalized. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most importantly, an objectively clearly won/lost position can be of very different character. If it is a quiet, easy to calculate (e.g. endgame) position with few pieces on the board, and a clear easy to see winning plan, there is not much point to continue the game. On the other hand, if it is a wild position with lots of pieces and tactics, there are many chances for your opponent to go wrong and you would not resign immediately.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some factors to take into account before resigning:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Do I have any chances for active counterplay?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Do I have any chances for drawing (building a fortress, stalemate,...)?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is the position easily won for my opponent or is it rather a &quot;theoretical&quot; win, but difficult to do in &quot;practice&quot;? (e.g. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;How much time does my opponent have left?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Over the last couple of moves, did my opponent show that he understands how to play the position for a win?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similar things hold for the question: &quot;Should I offer a draw?&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastEditorUserId="11629" LastEditDate="2018-04-16T06:26:17.237" LastActivityDate="2018-04-16T06:26:17.237" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21395" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21387" CreationDate="2018-04-15T18:11:31.587" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;For a computer, unlike for a human, there's no fatigue associated with playing on, so there's no reason for the computer to benefit from resigning.  But, if the organizers of a computer-human match or tournament want to attract human players, they may want to make some concessions like computer resignations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Did stockfish resign a game which probably could've been drawn?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's impossible to say.  Was the position a known theoretical win that every GM knows how to convert, or was it a position that you pretty much need a tablebase to navigate?  It is certainly at least &lt;em&gt;possible&lt;/em&gt; for a computer programmed to resign in such situations to resign too soon.  Perhaps the parameters need to be tweaked so that a 900 centipawn for 5 ply position must be reached within the first 10 ply to trigger the resignation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2018-04-15T18:11:31.587" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21396" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21387" CreationDate="2018-04-15T19:24:14.533" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;People have been known to resign for a variety of reasons, but it is chiefly a question of good manners. You should not insult your opponent by wasting their time and you will make yourself look a bit of a fool. I think that most questions about the timeliness of resignation among human players come down to defining what is and what is not an insult. Suppose that in a moment of blindness I put my Queen where she will be lost to a Knight fork. I &lt;em&gt;probably&lt;/em&gt; don't resign until I see that my opponent has noticed, but as soon as they make the fork I &lt;em&gt;probably&lt;/em&gt; should. However, there is no foolproof algorithm to decide the question. Gawain Jones won a game in the British Championship after hanging his Queen for almost nothing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since computers cannot insult or be insulted they need an algorithm, and it is &lt;em&gt;very&lt;/em&gt; hard to come up with one. I think that quite often the operator/programmer resigns on the machines behalf.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastActivityDate="2018-04-15T19:24:14.533" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21397" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21379" CreationDate="2018-04-15T23:11:29.807" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Please do not recommend the FIDE website; I always go there and only&#xA;  find finished tournaments.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Despite your wish not to be directed to the FIDE website it is nevertheless the only place where all FIDE tournaments are displayed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The rules are that FIDE rated tournaments must be registered with FIDE at least 7 days in advance. Otherwise they are not eligible for rating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The tournaments registered with FIDE in Sudan are given here - &lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/tournament_list.phtml?moder=ev_code&amp;amp;country=SUD&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://ratings.fide.com/tournament_list.phtml?moder=ev_code&amp;amp;country=SUD&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This shows that there is only one tournament registered to be played in Sudan. It is a blitz tournament starting on 17th April. Note that is in the future. It has not started. It is not a tournament which has already finished.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That there is only one FIDE rated tournament registered to be played in Sudan in the future is a reflection of the pitiful state of chess in Sudan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For comparison take a look at the equivalent page for India - &lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/tournament_list.phtml?moder=ev_code&amp;amp;country=IND&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://ratings.fide.com/tournament_list.phtml?moder=ev_code&amp;amp;country=IND&lt;/a&gt;. There are 127 registered tournaments going out as far as February 2019.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The FIDE directory gives details of each federation. Those for Sudan are here - &lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/fide_directory.phtml?country=SUD&amp;amp;list=837&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://ratings.fide.com/fide_directory.phtml?country=SUD&amp;amp;list=837&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It gives the postal address, email address and phone number for the federation. It also gives the names and contact details for President, vice president, secretary and ratings officer for the Sudan chess federation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that registration of tournaments and submitting of results to FIDE are handled by the ratings officer. Try contacting him directly because he is the one person who should know what FIDE rated tournaments are taking place in Sudan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2018-04-15T23:11:29.807" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21398" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15826" CreationDate="2018-04-16T01:30:09.330" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Experiment with it. I would recommend, ironically, to not study it or analyze to games. You have to see its strengths and weaknesses for yourself, so that then later you can appreciate ideas ad maneuvers. To me initially every move in Sicilian was arbitrary. &quot;Why N goes to d7 here but to c6 there?! When do I ply b5 and put my bishop on b7, and when it lives on d7?&quot; I have started to play it in my online games and I am beginning to see things!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, be bold and accept catastrophes, and you'll be weathered soon :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13438" LastActivityDate="2018-04-16T01:30:09.330" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21399" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21350" CreationDate="2018-04-16T03:57:49.090" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Update 31 May 2020&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If left alone, the trained Leela nets play a &lt;a href=&quot;https://mytcecexperience.blogspot.com/2019/03/s14-bonus-match-leela-stockfish.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;very predictable set of openings&lt;/a&gt;. These openings, however, are not gambits - instead they go for the best &amp;amp; most solid lines that never lead to unbalanced positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, if you let Leela play against itself, there's a good chance you'll see Ruy Lopez Berlins every game (depends on the exact net).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastEditorUserId="15223" LastEditDate="2020-05-31T09:51:48.487" LastActivityDate="2020-05-31T09:51:48.487" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21400" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14771" CreationDate="2018-04-16T06:21:12.507" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I interpret the OP's &amp;lt;a position that have the longest legal optimal series of moves to achieve it?&gt; as a request for a position which, for the largest known n, can be reached in n moves but cannot be reached in fewer. I don't see any request for there to be a unique n-move sequence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Remotest possible chess position?&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;Kr6/8/1r6/8/8/1PPPPpPP/kpbrrP1R/qbrnrrbn w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One of the shortest known series of moves that reach this position is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[StartPly &quot;370&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. a4 c5 2. a5 c4 3. a6 c3 4. b3 d5 5. Bb2 cxb2 6. Na3 Kd7 7. Nc4 Kc6 8. Ne5+ Kb5 9. Ra5+ Kb4 10. Rb5+ Ka3 11. Nef3 Ka2 12. c3 d4 13. Qc1 e5 14. Kd1 e4 15. Kc2 e3 16. Kd3 g5 17. Ke4 g4 18. Kf4 d3 19. Qc2 dxc2 20. h3 c1=R 21. Rh2 Ra1 22. Rh1 Kb1 23. Rh2 Kc1 24. Rh1 Bf5 25. Rh2 Bb1 26. d3 f5 27. Nd2 exd2 28. Nf3 Nf6 29. Kg5 Bd6 30. Kh6 Nd5 31. Kg7 Ne3 32. Kf7 h5 33. Kg7 Ra4 34. Kf7 Ba2 35. Rb6 d1=B 36. Kg7 Bc2 37. Kf7 Bcb1 38. Kg7 Nd1 39. Kf7 g3 40. Kg7 gxh2 41. e3 h1=R 42. Be2 Nd7 43. Nh2 Nc5 44. Bg4 Ne4 45. Kf7 hxg4 46. Kg7 g3 47. Kf7 gxh2 48. Kg7 Re1 49. Kf7 Re2 50. Kg7 Rc2 51. Kf7 h1=R 52. Kg7 Re1 53. Kf7 Bh2 54. Kg7 Ng3 55. Kf7 Nh1 56. Kg7 Rah4 57. Kf7 Kd2 58. Kg7 Ke2 59. Kf7 Rc1 60. Kg7 Bc2 61. Kf7 Ra1 62. Kg7 Bab1 63. Kf7 Ra5 64. Kg7 Ba2 65. g3 Kf3 66. Rb4 Rb5 67. Kf7 Re2 68. Kg7 Bcb1 69. Kf7 Rc2 70. Kg7 Rc1 71. Kf7 Bc2 72. Kg7 Ra1 73. Kf7 Bab1 74. Kg7 Ra5 75. Ra4 bxa6 76. Ra1 Ba2 77. Rc1 Bcb1 78. Rc2 f4 79. Re2 Bc2 80. Re1 Bab1 81. Rg1 Ra1 82. Rg2 Ba2 83. Kf7 Rc1 84. Kg7 Bcb1 85. Kf7 Rc2 86. Kg7 Re2 87. Kf7 Re1 88. Kg7 Rg1 89. Kf7 Bc2 90. Kg7 Bab1 91. Kf7 Ra5 92. Kg7 Ra1 93. Kf7 Ba2 94. Kg7 Rc1 95. Kf7 Bcb1 96. Kg7 Rc2 97. Kf7 Re2 98. Kg7 Ree1 99. Kf7 Ref1 100. Kg7 Bc2 101. Kf7 Bab1 102. Kg7 a5 103. Kf7 a4 104. Kg7 a3 105. Kf7 a2 106. Kg7 a1=R 107. Kf7 Ba2 108. Kg7 Rc1 109. Kf7 Bcb1 110. Kg7 Rc2 111. Kf7 Re2 112. Kg7 Ree1 113. Kf7 Bc2 114. Kg7 Bab1 115. Kf7 a5 116. Kg7 a4 117. Kf7 a3 118. Kg7 a2 119. Kf7 a1=R 120. Kg7 Ba2 121. Kf7 Rc1 122. Kg7 Bcb1 123. Kf7 Rc2 124. Kg7 Ke2 125. Kf7 Kd2 126. Kg7 Kc1 127. Kf7 Rce2 128. Kg7 Kd2 129. Kf7 Bc2 130. Kg7 Bab1 131. Kf7 Ra1 132. Kg7 Ba2 133. Kf7 Rc1 134. Kg7 Bcb1 135. Kf7 Rc2 136. Kg7 Kc1 137. Kf7 Rcd2 138. Kg7 Bc2 139. Kf7 Kb1 140. Kg7 Ka1 141. Kf7 Bab1 142. Kg7 Ka2 143. Kf7 Ka3 144. Kg7 Ba2 145. Kf7 Bcb1 146. Kg7 Rc2 147. Kf7 Rc1 148. Kg7 Bc2 149. Kf7 Ra1 150. Kg7 Bcb1 151. Kf7 Rc2 152. Kg7 Qd5 153. Kf6 Qf3 154. Kf7 Qe2 155. Kg7 Qd2 156. Kf7 Qc1 157. Kg7 Rce2 158. Kf7 Qd2 159. Kg7 Bc2 160. Kf7 Rc1 161. Kg7 Bcb1 162. Kf7 Rc2 163. Kg7 Qc1 164. Kf7 Rcd2 165. Kg7 f3 166. Kf7 Bc2 167. Kg7 Qa1 168. Kf7 Bcb1 169. Kg7 Rc2 170. Kf7 Rc1 171. Kg7 Bc2 172. Kf7 Bab1 173. Kg7 Ka2 174. Kf7 Red2 175. Ke7 Ree2 176. Kd7 Rfe1 177. Kc7 Rgf1 178. Kb7 Bg1 179. Ka7 R4h6 180. Rh2 Rb6 181. Rg2 Rh7+ 182. Ka8 Rhb7 183. Rh2 Rb8+&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The construction was published in &lt;em&gt;Am Rande des Schachbretts&lt;/em&gt; in 1947 by Luigi Ceriani and Karl Fabel. &lt;a href=&quot;https://pdb.dieschwalbe.de/search.jsp?expression=PROBID=%27P0001951%27&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Here&lt;/a&gt; is a direct link to its entry in PDB.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10380" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2019-06-13T11:27:13.757" LastActivityDate="2019-06-13T11:27:13.757" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21401" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21350" CreationDate="2018-04-16T07:16:39.127" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Most chess engines don't play dubious gambits, or gambits with serious material loss(like the Halloween gambit.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I found two games where Stockfish and Houdini played each other to draws in the Evans Gambit at these links: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1732540&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1732540&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1732539&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1732539&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In fact, Komodo has played the King's Gambit against Stockfish!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Komodo (Computer)&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Stockfish (Computer)&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. f4 exf4 3. Nf3 Be7 4. Nc3 Bh4+ 5. Ke2 d6 6. d4 Bg4&#xA;7. Bxf4 Nc6 8. Qd3 Nge7 9. Kd2 Bf6 10. e5 Bf5 11. exf6 Bxd3&#xA;12. fxe7 Qd7 13. Bxd3 Nxe7 14. Raf1 O-O 15. Kc1 a6 16. h4 b5&#xA;17. h5 b4 18. Nd1 Nd5 19. Bd2 a5 20. Nh4 c6 21. Rf3 Nc7&#xA;22. Nf5 Ne6 23. d5 cxd5 24. Nde3 Nc5 25. Nxd5 Nxd3+ 26. Rxd3&#xA;Rae8 27. Rf1 f6 28. h6 g6 29. Nfe3 f5 30. Nc4 f4 31. Rxf4 Rxf4&#xA;32. Bxf4 Re1+ 33. Kd2 Re6 34. b3 Qd8 35. Kc1 g5 36. Rg3 Rg6&#xA;37. Be3 Kf7 38. Rf3+ Ke6 39. Ncb6 Rxh6 40. Bd4 g4 41. Rf1 Qh4&#xA;42. Nc7+ Ke7 43. Kb2 Qg5 44. a4 bxa3+ 45. Kxa3 Qg6 46. c4 a4&#xA;47. Ncd5+ Ke8 48. Re1+ Kd8 49. Re7 Qd3 50. Bc3 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Gambits do happen, just very rarely.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10134" LastActivityDate="2018-04-16T07:16:39.127" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21403" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6385" CreationDate="2018-04-16T18:38:26.297" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;Goldsmith Defense&lt;/code&gt; I do not know this one could be more aggressive, but I feel like kind of strategical. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The straightforward Answer to your Question could be, &lt;code&gt;King's Gambit&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;Polerio Gambit&lt;/code&gt;, I played this games in my chess online, this leads to much chaos in center of the board, so the game will be either wild or its of more precautionary moves which are time consuming. And still Knights are ready for Scottish as you specify, but will bring up complication and could open up Chess Mega Database and could've different name, based on how much knights out of four comes up in front.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is one sample game for &lt;code&gt;Goldsmith Defense&lt;/code&gt;. In this game, white had blundered and lost the Queen. I do not know how effective the other moves are, however I personally feel, its comparatively effective.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Live Chess&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Chess.com&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2018.04.16&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Joshyopl&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;BramStokers&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;992&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;1162&quot;]&#xA;[TimeControl &quot;600&quot;]&#xA;[Termination &quot;game_result.won_by_resignation&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;[CurrentPosition &quot;8/5kp1/p1pb4/6B1/3pq3/8/PPPK1n1r/R7 w - - 0 23&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 h5 2.Nc3 d6 3.d4 f5 4.Nf3 fxe4 5.Nxe4 Bf5 6.Bd3 Nh6 7.h3 Nc6 8.g4 hxg4 9.hxg4 Bxg4 10.Bb5 a6 11.Bxc6+ bxc6 12.Rh4 e5 13.Nfg5 Bxd1 14.Kxd1 exd4 15.Ne6 Qxh4 16.Nxc7+ Ke7 17.Nxa8 Qxe4 18.Bg5+ Kf7 19.Nb6 Ng4 20.Nc4 Nxf2+ 21.Kd2 Rh2 22.Nxd6+ Bxd6  0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9229" LastActivityDate="2018-04-16T18:38:26.297" CommentCount="3" CommunityOwnedDate="2018-04-16T18:38:26.297" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21404" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15662" CreationDate="2018-04-16T18:49:30.087" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;My mnemonic is (MPSMFSDI):&#xA;&quot;My Playing Skills Must Find Simple Dramatic Improvement&quot;-&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Minor pieces/&#xA;Pawn Structure/&#xA;Space/&#xA;Material/&#xA;Files and../&#xA;Squares/&#xA;Development/&#xA;Initiative/&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Though the how, what, why and where to APPLY these, in spite of owning Silman's books is far more difficult to implement, and I just can't seem to win any games using these methods.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16366" LastActivityDate="2018-04-16T18:49:30.087" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21405" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21389" CreationDate="2018-04-16T22:50:32.653" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the Smith Morra gambit it's almost never a good idea to play ...e5, since this gives White the d5-square. By moving Nc3 to d5, White's often able to start a rapid attack (which is the goal of the Smith Morra).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A better approach is developing the Knight to f6, like you said. Then, aim to castle quickly and get your King safe. After doing this, you'll want to develop Qd8 and Bc8, in order to connect your Rooks...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To develop the Queen, either move it to c7 or a5. If you want to move it to c7, make sure to play ...a6 first (in order to stop White from attacking your Queen with Nb5). Playing ...a6 is usually a good idea in general in the Smith Morra, since it also stops White from attacking your d6-pawn by playing Nb5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To develop Bc8, either move it to d7 or play ...a6 + ...b5, enabling you to move the Bishop to the b7-square.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you can accomplish this, you'll be a pawn up with a slightly better game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2018-04-16T22:50:32.653" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21406" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21387" CreationDate="2018-04-16T22:57:55.863" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's never wise to resign a game if the only way you can lose is from some long, forced combination. There's a significant chance your opponent could miss it. In fact, in a typical chess position even Stockfish would not be able to calculate 50 moves / 100 ply ahead (unless the position was a simple endgame with few pieces).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's only wise to resign if there's not a realistic chance of you not losing. In a situation where your opponent has to calculate a long forced variation, there's definitely a realistic chance he'll miss it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Comparatively, if you're down a Queen in a quiet position against an opponent equal or greater than your strength, there isn't any realistic chance you won't lose (unless your opponent is really low on time).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2018-04-16T22:57:55.863" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21407" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21408" CreationDate="2018-04-16T23:08:01.110" Score="5" ViewCount="1289" Body="&lt;p&gt;In order to calculate far ahead, minimax chess engines must perform alpha-beta pruning, where they don't calculate positions that are obviously winning or obviously losing. Without doing pruning, engines would have to deal with over a billion positions in the first 4 moves / 8 ply of the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is how do minimax engines perform alpha-beta pruning without evaluating the final positions? How does an engine know whether a position is completely won / lost without calculating as deep as it can go? For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;e4 e5 2. Nf3 d6 3. Bc4 Bg4 4. Nc3 Nc6 5. h3 Bh5 6. Nxe5 Bxd1&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At this point, White's two moves away from checkmate. Assuming the engine wasn't aware of the Legal's Mate, wouldn't it apply Alpha-Beta pruning and just stop calculating at this point, assuming the position is won for Black?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm aware of quiescence search, where the engine won't stop calculating until the position is considered &quot;quiet&quot;. In this position, White is able to play Bxf7+ and Black's King is in danger, so this position wouldn't qualify as a quiet position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But if an engine has to perform quiescence search everytime it needs to decide whether to perform Alpha-Beta pruning and stop calculating further, doesn't this defeat the purpose of pruning in the first place? Since you need to calculate ahead to check to see if you don't need to calculate ahead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: There are two answers to this question that I found very useful. Look at SmallChess' answer for info on issues with the depth-limit of engines' calculations. See RemcoGerlich's answer for an excellent description of what Alpha-Beta pruning is. When I wrote this question I didn't truly know what it was.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-01-08T18:10:37.673" LastActivityDate="2020-01-08T18:10:37.673" Title="How can minimax chess engines do alpha-beta pruning without reaching the final positions?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;programming&gt;&lt;calculation&gt;&lt;chess-algorithms&gt;&lt;minimax&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21408" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21407" CreationDate="2018-04-17T00:48:50.397" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;If a chess engine isn't aware of the mate, then it will be happy to play the moves as Black. By the time it sees the checkmate, it'd be too late. Game over. 1-0.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Fortunately, your scenario is quite simple. A good engine should have sufficient depth to see the mate. The iterative deepening depth-first algorithm will allow searches with increasing depth limits: d,d+1,d+2,d+3... I believe any decent chess engine should be able to handle it, it's not a very deep search.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While your example is simple, pruning does cause problems for tactical positison. Take a look at Chessbase's article:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.chessbase.com/post/houdini5tacticalmode&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.chessbase.com/post/houdini5tacticalmode&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;...Suppose there is a complicated position in which you just feel there must be a tactic. You could be right, but sometimes even the monster engines can miss it at first...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Tactical mode&amp;quot; is a fantasy term for applying passive pruning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2018-04-17T00:48:50.397" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21410" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-04-17T11:28:54.457" Score="4" ViewCount="111" Body="&lt;p&gt;Recently I delivered the mate shown below. Does it have a name?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;1r5r/2p3pp/2R5/1pkPpp2/2b1P3/2K2P2/6PP/R7 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7844" LastEditorUserId="13055" LastEditDate="2018-04-17T13:15:50.500" LastActivityDate="2018-04-17T13:15:50.500" Title="What is the name of this mating pattern?" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;terminology&gt;&lt;patterns&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21411" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21410" CreationDate="2018-04-17T11:43:24.347" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, it's rather unusual (but beautiful!) to mate a King in the middle of the board. Because it's rare, probably nobody (that I know of) has coined a term for it yet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2018-04-17T11:43:24.347" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21412" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21413" CreationDate="2018-04-17T13:11:47.417" Score="7" ViewCount="1756" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there a GUI that allows &lt;em&gt;null-moves&lt;/em&gt; as legal moves? Of course for engines the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Null-move_heuristic&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;null-move heuristic&lt;/a&gt; already is an established technique.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8904" LastActivityDate="2018-04-18T16:41:49.007" Title="Chess GUI that allows null-moves" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;programming&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21413" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21412" CreationDate="2018-04-17T13:44:22.673" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Fritz allows null move entry via CTL+ALT+0. There may also be a menu option to do this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Scid vs PC also allows this by capturing one king with the other or by using the keyboard to enter &quot;--&quot; i.e. hit the minus key twice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hiarcs also uses king takes king to enter a null move. There is also a menu option &quot;Insert/Null Move&quot; in the &quot;Edit&quot; menu, plus a keyboard shortcut of CTL+0&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2018-04-17T13:59:37.750" LastActivityDate="2018-04-17T13:59:37.750" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21414" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21423" CreationDate="2018-04-17T15:15:12.203" Score="2" ViewCount="134" Body="&lt;p&gt;After seeing a video of an analysis on the chess game in &lt;em&gt;A Game of Shadows&lt;/em&gt; between Sherlock Holmes and Moriarty, it made me wonder what their fictional ratings would be around. Other games like the Harry Potter chess puzzle and Einstein vs. Oppenheimer have also interested me, so what would I analyze to predict their ratings?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A few ideas I have had was to compare general rating trends, such as ratings when openings are mastered, when prominent use of strategy is used, the speed (I think it was a 5-min blitz in AGOS. Also looking at how far they calculate ahead, the rate they calculate, how they prepare for future threats, etc. I could also look into the history and check the openings used, and the general theories of the time and how much they diverge.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also note how these games are fictional and may not be perfect or even set up with the era in mind, but it still seems like an interesting thing to do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, if you have any other examples they are appreciated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12876" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-05-27T16:15:36.830" LastActivityDate="2020-05-27T16:15:36.830" Title="Way to Logically Predict Approximate Chess Rating in Pop-Culture Games" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;history&gt;&lt;fiction&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2018-04-20T22:35:35.200" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21415" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21414" CreationDate="2018-04-17T16:16:03.343" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Trying to estimate rating based on a single game is just about impossible or at least will come with a very large error margin. Even more so, if you don't know either players rating. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The ideas you have are all very valid, but will in the end only give you the difference between absolute beginners and reasonably advanced players. Opening knowledge, etc might be acquired at very different rating levels Lack of it can be compensated by say better tactical knowledge. Or said differently, you might have two players at the same rating level where one is a good tactician (and poor at openings) and the other particularly good at openings (and poor at tactics).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In a single game you are hardly going to be able to assess all the factors mentioned by you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When it comes to more advanced players who are reasonably good at everything, it will become even more difficult. A player of say 2200 strength will play more or less similarly to a GM, just that the GM is &lt;em&gt;on average&lt;/em&gt; better at all the points you mention.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another thing to take into account is that just looking at the moves you are not able to assess all the evaluation/thinking/calculation being done by the players, which will be more/in shorter time by stronger players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2018-04-17T16:16:03.343" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21416" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-04-17T17:22:03.790" Score="4" ViewCount="252" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have a grasp on tactics at this point, but when it comes to openings, I am lost. I follow the principles of developing my pieces toward the center with an eye towards castling. Beyond this, I don't understand what I am trying to accomplish if I pick a specific opening. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance, I have been watching some YouTube lectures on various openings like the Ruy Lopez. Usually these lectures videos enumerate a bunch of variations without giving me a lot of insight into why I would choose these moves, in the moment or in the long run.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Going back to the principles that I play in my own openings, it seems to me that the goal is to gain a positional advantage. That is, increase my options while decreasing my opponents. I am assuming no big blunders occur. But what does this mean beyond just trying to take control of the center? How do I connect my opening to a long-term checkmate goal? Is that even possible?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16065" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T16:58:13.950" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T16:58:13.950" Title="Is there any more purpose to various openings than to get a positional advantage?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21417" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21432" CreationDate="2018-04-17T18:04:32.650" Score="10" ViewCount="874" Body="&lt;p&gt;An opinion poll conducted by problem composer Roberto Osorio over 10 master-level chess players in the Argentine Chess Club produced 100% wrong answers! :-)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When the right answer is posted here, I will post a follow-up problem.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: OK here is the follow-up:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[title &amp;quot;R.Osorio - StrateGems 2007 &amp;quot;]&#xA;[fen &amp;quot;rnb2rqb/pppp4/6p1/7p/6n1/7k/PPPPPPNP/RNBQKBNR w - - 0 1&amp;quot;] &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is the position after White's 16th move. What was the exact sequence of moves?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8201" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-09-14T11:41:04.867" LastActivityDate="2021-05-02T04:17:57.633" Title="Can you mate with each of your 16 pieces on its original square?" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;problems&gt;&lt;retrograde-analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21418" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21417" CreationDate="2018-04-17T18:53:06.980" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd say&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt; yes, but you need to allow at least one pawn to promote (and return to its original square). E.g. promote the white a pawn to a queen, move it back to a2 and put a knight on a3. Then, move the black king to a4, black pawns to a5 and b4 and a black rook to b5. In the meantime, White can just play Ng1-h3-g1 etc. The move Na3-b1 will then be checkmate, and the white pieces will all be on their original square. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2018-04-17T18:53:06.980" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21419" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8291" CreationDate="2018-04-17T20:06:36.710" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Long ago question that is perhaps more interesting than was realised.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Give the problem to a human,and the reaction is, &quot;This has no solution, so the question is only worth asking if there is some amusing trick answer. What could the trick be?&quot; Computers cannot do this, at least not yet, without being given a list of possible tricks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Humans, therefore, think much more flexibly and creatively than computers.&#xA;Outside the box,if you will excuse the cliche. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastActivityDate="2018-04-17T20:06:36.710" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21420" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21416" CreationDate="2018-04-17T20:19:49.900" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is no point to obtaining a positional advantage of any kind by any means unless it brings you closer to the ultimate goal of checkmate. But often the road is long and tortuous, such as&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Deny important squares to your opponent&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Win a pawn&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Force exchanges by developing threats against his King&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Bring your King into the center&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Make them give up material to prevent your Pawn from promoting.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Use your extra material to force through another Pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Use that new Queen to force mate.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Somewhere in that sequence your opponent might resign. But yes you are quite right. The road from opening advantage to checkmate can take a long time to travel, and you may well not be able to see the end of it when you set out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastActivityDate="2018-04-17T20:19:49.900" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21421" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21416" CreationDate="2018-04-17T21:18:29.300" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;This answer may seem long, but to understand openings one has to understand some important positional concepts first.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Space&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Space in chess can be loosely described as the number of squares controlled by friendly pieces. Having more space is often a good thing for two reasons.&#xA;Firstly, it gives you a freer position and you will have more options than your opponent based on the fact that you have more space on the board to work with. Secondly, if you have more space it means that your opponent will have less space, which will make their position cramped and difficult to play since many of the opponent's pieces will need to occupy the same squares.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Piece activity&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Piece activity in chess can be summed up in the following question:&#xA;&lt;em&gt;What good are the resources you don't utilize?&lt;/em&gt;&#xA;An active piece is one that influences the board in a significant way, such as a centralized knight or a rook on the seventh rank. Active pieces are mobile, and can often perform many important aggressive and defensive tasks by themselves. They are often a great nuisance to the opponent, whose pieces are threatened and restricted by active pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Piece coordination&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Piece coordination is used to describe how well your pieces work together. For instance, two rooks on an open file are considered very powerful because they typically coordinate very well with each other; together they possess double the power of a single rook while at the same time they can defend each other from attack. Pieces who coordinate well are in general stronger than their sum parts, while pieces who coordinate badly are the exact opposite. Piece coordination is an important positional factor which will make or break your position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;King safety&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This one almost goes without saying; a safe king is less likely to get mated while an unsafe king is more likely to get mated. As simple as this concept is, it very important to pay attention to; many players have fallen for the trap of leaving their king slightly too unsafe at one moment, and have gotten destroyed as a result.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Material count&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The material count is the most simple and intuitive positional factor in chess, and it is easy to assess at any given moment of the game. Since it is so simple to use, many players tend to overestimate its importance, myself included. The thing to remember about the material count is that it is actually &quot;just&quot; a positional factor among others, and thus it can be trumped by other positional factors. While important (especially in the endgame, when few pieces are left, the one with the advantage in material count tends to have a great advantage), it is not necessarily the most important one; for instance, if you get checkmated due to poor king safety it doesn't really matter much that you have an extra queen compared to your opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Beginners are often advised to follow the basic opening principles, since they are quite simple and will help them coordinate their pieces reasonably well and fight for space, while also getting the king to relative safety early on. The long-term goal of this strategy is simply to get a playable position out of the opening, and for beginners this is a perfectly acceptable outcome of the opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Past the beginner stage, chessplayers will often start playing some theoretical opening lines to get an edge over their opponent.&#xA;Different opening lines are designed to try and get an edge by emphasizing different positional concepts; for instance many gambits tend to ignore material count to some degree in favour of piece activity and coordination (and often also reduced safety for the opponent's king), while other openings may place emphasis on getting a space advantage and letting the opponent suffer in a cramped position for the long haul.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To answer your question: I'd say that in order to connect your opening to a long-term goal, you first need to understand which positional concepts your opening is designed to emphasize. This can be easy or difficult depending on the opening you look at. As a novice player you could try to study your opening in terms of how well it adheres to the basic opening principles you know. The principles are sound and shouldn't be broken willy-nilly, so if they are broken there will be a good reason for it (if the opening line is sound, that is). This concrete reason will often have to do with one or more of the above-mentioned positional concepts in this post, but sometimes it is of a more concrete nature.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8300" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T16:57:20.323" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T16:57:20.323" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21422" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21431" CreationDate="2018-04-18T00:24:56.487" Score="2" ViewCount="1155" Body="&lt;p&gt;A lifelong 1.e4 player switching to 1.d4, na&amp;iuml;vely, I see little White can do to stop Black from achieving what seems to be an excellent position.  For example, from &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1067121&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Karpov v. Kasparov, World Championship, 1984&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[title &quot;Tarrasch Defense, Carlsbad Variation, Black to move&quot;]&#xA;[startply &quot;17&quot;]&#xA;[startflipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 c5 4.cxd5 exd5 5.g3 Nf6 6.Bg2 Be7 7.O-O O-O 8.Nc3 Nc6 9.Bg5 cxd4 10.Nxd4 h6 11.Be3 Re8 12.Qb3 Na5 13.Qc2 Bg4 14.Nf5 Rc8 15.Bd4 Bc5 16.Bxc5 Rxc5 17.Ne3 Be6 18.Rad1 Qc8 19.Qa4 Rd8 20.Rd3 a6 21.Rfd1 Nc4 22.Nxc4 Rxc4 23.Qa5 Rc5 24.Qb6 Rd7 25.Rd4 Qc7 26.Qxc7 Rdxc7 27.h3 h5 28.a3 g6 29.e3 Kg7 30.Kh2 Rc4 31.Bf3 b5 32.Kg2 R7c5 33.Rxc4 Rxc4 34.Rd4 Kf8 35.Be2 Rxd4 36.exd4 Ke7 37.Na2 Bc8 38.Nb4 Kd6 39.f3 Ng8 40.h4 Nh6 41.Kf2 Nf5 42.Nc2 f6 43.Bd3 g5 44.Bxf5 Bxf5 45.Ne3 Bb1 46.b4 gxh4 47.Ng2 hxg3 48.Kxg3 Ke6 49.Nf4+ Kf5 50.Nxh5 Ke6 51.Nf4+ Kd6 52.Kg4 Bc2 53.Kh5 Bd1 54.Kg6 Ke7 55.Nxd5+ Ke6 56.Nc7+ Kd7 57.Nxa6 Bxf3 58.Kxf6 Kd6 59.Kf5 Kd5 60.Kf4 Bh1 61.Ke3 Kc4 62.Nc5 Bc6 63.Nd3 Bg2 64.Ne5+ Kc3 65.Ng6 Kc4 66.Ne7 Bb7 67.Nf5 Bg2 68.Nd6+ Kb3 69.Nxb5 Ka4 70.Nd6 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And yet, in this game, White wins&amp;mdash;against &lt;em&gt;Kasparov,&lt;/em&gt; no less.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;THAT KASPAROV LOOKS BETTER&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Karpov, playing the white men, evidently grasps the virtue of 1.d4. I do not. Kasparov's defense looks sound to me. After only eight moves, Kasparov seems to have equalized. Indeed, insofar as Kasparov has the move, to me, if anything, Kasparov looks better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Kasparov seems to have gained the initiative, at any rate. Karpov has let him gain it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;WHAT KARPOV IS THINKING&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is not, &quot;How does Karpov win?&quot; A world champion like Karpov can surely win many games I could not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is, &quot;What is Karpov thinking?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I ask because the diagrammed position (after 9. Bg5) does not look to me especially good for White; and because, to the extent to which the position is indeed not very good, &lt;em&gt;I can fault no white move more than 1.d4.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can you?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;BAD PAWNS&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I do notice that, soon after the diagrammed position, Kasparov, Black, suffers an isolated d-pawn; but I also notice that Karpov, White, is then left to blockade his own e-pawn. Again, is not 1.d4 to blame?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Apparently, a concept regarding 1.d4 is missing to me.  To me, after only eight moves, White should be doing better than this.  And yet, playing White, Karpov nevertheless wins the game. Can you illuminate my na&amp;iuml;ve point of confusion?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I am a lifelong 1.e4 player switching to 1.d4, then I would like to understand &lt;em&gt;why&lt;/em&gt; one should wish to begin with such a potentially problematical move. At least, I would like to understand why one should, in the context of games like this one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="315" LastEditorUserId="315" LastEditDate="2018-04-18T00:37:30.463" LastActivityDate="2018-04-18T17:19:05.700" Title="Karpov's Queen's Gambit beats Kasparov. What is Karpov thinking?" Tags="&lt;kasparov&gt;&lt;queens-gambit-declined&gt;&lt;karpov&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21423" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21414" CreationDate="2018-04-18T00:46:04.047" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You will need statistics to estimate playing strength from a single game. It's of course possible, but you will be need to read journal articles.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ailab.si/matej/doc/Using_Heuristic-Search_Based_Engines_for_Estimating_Human_Skill_at_Chess.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://ailab.si/matej/doc/Using_Heuristic-Search_Based_Engines_for_Estimating_Human_Skill_at_Chess.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&quot;Using Heuristic-Search Based Engines for Estimating Human Skill at Chess&quot;&lt;/em&gt; is considered as a baseline for estimating human skills from a single game. The idea is simple; assume a computer engine plays much stronger chess than humans; we should be to use the difference in evaluations for statistical inference.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have personally implemented this paper for a chess company. The system is working.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2018-04-18T00:46:04.047" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21424" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21368" CreationDate="2018-04-18T02:24:39.603" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In general, it's advantageous to prevent your opponent from castling if you can, particularly in an open position where you might be able to get at the king in the center quickly.  In a closed position, that takes more time, so it might not be as critical. &#xA;And of course if the queens go off, then you're in an ending where it's generally better to have a centralized king and castling might be dispensed with entirely. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastActivityDate="2018-04-18T02:24:39.603" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21426" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1063" CreationDate="2018-04-18T03:03:45.707" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not only can a pawn put a king in check, it can also checkmate him as can be seen in several famous games. There's an old saying, that &quot;A cat may look at a king, but a pawn can checkmate him.&quot; Here's a position demonstrating just such a check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/1k6/p1PK2pp/6n1/8/P4B2/1P6/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-09-21T17:23:17.553" LastActivityDate="2019-09-21T17:23:17.553" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21427" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21422" CreationDate="2018-04-18T06:05:21.603" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Welcome to the world of the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isolated_pawn#Isolated_queen_pawn&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Isolated Queen Pawn&lt;/a&gt; (IQP for shorts)! This is a special type of position which can be reached from quite a few openings (also with reversed colours); the Tarrasch variation of the Queen's Gambit Declined, as in your game, the 2. c3 Sicilian, the Caro Kann, to name a few.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just like playing a violent kingside attack with lots of sacrifices (which I personally try to avoid), playing against an IQP is not for everybody. It may require a slightly cramped position and putting your pieces on unusual squares. If, like Karpov, you manage to contain the opponent's activity, exchange the right pieces while keeping the pawn blocked, you might end up winning the pawn or (like the game) use it to obtain another decisive advantage like good knight vs. bad bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not saying that White has a big advantage after move 9, but neither does Black; the position is balanced with chances for both sides. Also, this is far from the only position which can arise from 1. d4. I bet that you, playing 1. e4, have some positions you try to avoid as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2018-04-18T06:05:21.603" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21428" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21422" CreationDate="2018-04-18T07:11:41.303" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The position after move 9 is the main tabya of the Tarrasch defense. Your feeling that Black is better, or even that he has egalized, is imprecise : White has no weakness, active pieces, and Black's isolani is a long term target. The position is playable for both sides, its evaluation somewhere in between = and +=.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Actually, Kasparov himself stopped playing the Tarrasch after this world championship match ! But of course, this says more about his taste and style than about the quality of the opening itself: others, like Illescas, have made great use of this variation since.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to dig further into the theory of this opening, there are lots of books and DVD on the theme. But I think you will do better to first get familiar with typical 1.d4 games. This Karpov-Kasparov game is an excellent one, and you can easily find it with comments by each of the players (in &lt;em&gt;My Sister Caissa&lt;/em&gt; by Karpov or in &lt;em&gt;Dua Matcha&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;My Great Predecessors : Karpov&lt;/em&gt; by Kasparov, also in &lt;em&gt;Kasparov&lt;/em&gt; by Nikitin). Analysing commented games is the best way to develop your understanding of an opening and to get a feeling for your new repertoire.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastEditorUserId="14079" LastEditDate="2018-04-18T14:15:59.213" LastActivityDate="2018-04-18T14:15:59.213" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21429" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14030" CreationDate="2018-04-18T10:04:56.520" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The type of game that the Sicilian gives is precisely the type of play that typical 1.e4 players are looking for.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Open Sicilian gives open positions where white has more space and a development advantage, there is often opposite castling with competing pawn storms, and there are many thematic sacrifices. The game is sharp and exciting. The draw percentage is low.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The drawback? Black has no weaknesses, a slightly better structure and his fair share of the chances. The best player will win. White still has slightly better chances though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the statistics, which are close to 50%, you have to remember that the Sicilian is often chosen by players trying to win as black at all costs; so on average &lt;em&gt;black will more often be the stronger player&lt;/em&gt;. That makes the statistics misleading.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2018-04-18T10:04:56.520" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21430" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21412" CreationDate="2018-04-18T16:36:41.607" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The notion of null-move is implicit to orthodox chess problem theory, and all specialist chess problem software will support it.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Firstly there is the notion of threat. After White plays a move in a conflict format (direct or self mate) the first consideration if there is no check is what would happen if White moved again immediately. Then the Black moves which would avert the threat are the only defences which need to be considered.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The second notion applies to helpmates as well. This is set play, where it is assumed that the first player misses their first move. Often the play contrasts the mainline play thematically.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8201" LastEditorUserId="8201" LastEditDate="2018-04-18T16:41:49.007" LastActivityDate="2018-04-18T16:41:49.007" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21431" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21422" CreationDate="2018-04-18T17:19:05.700" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your question(s) seem to be related to 1.d4 in general. People have nicely answered issues with the Isolated Q Pawn, so I'll touch on other topics.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Compared to 1.e4 , queen's pawn openings do not attempt to take advantage of immediate complications in the center. In Roy Lopez, White is playing against e5 right from the beginning, move after move. King's Pawn Gambit plunges into tactical wilderness right from move two.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, with 1.d4 openings, white aims for a long-term  central control WITHOUT exposing, or committing, too  much. While one can consider King's pawn gambit (2.f4) as an attempt to sidetrack e5 pawn and then dominate the center with d4 later, this is usually not the permanent feature of this opening. Immediate threats and sharp lines overshadow this. &quot;One literally forgets pawn structures in some lines!&quot; With 1.d4 d5 2.c4 despite the symmetry things are totally different. White is not opening up their king. If dxc4 there are no immediate checks coming, or any way for black to sharpen the game. White will win the pawn back and now black has no d5 pawn. So white gets control of e4 square. The d4 pawn controls e5 and c5. This keeps Black's light bishop behind the pawn structure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Someone made a very important observation. White has almost no weaknesses. Kasparov is such an active player, always looking for chances to take the initiative, but in the game you quoted, he fails to do much, why? Because White's position is rock solid. Compare to Sicilian, where Black does get some counterplay on c-file and queen side right out of the opening. With 1.d4 openings black is usually forced to wait. Black cannot create initiative out of thin air! As you play more 1.d4 games, you'll notice that even in the calmest positions where black seems to be safe, it is not easy to realize that equality. It is easier for white to create game in the middle game. 1.d4 games are characterized with the pawn structures, and white usually has a great one. Only two chains of pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your worrying about e4 pawn getting blocked may be coming from your having played 1.e4 for long. That pawn can be played later in the middlegame or even endgame when it looks appropriate. If you have developed all your pieces what is then the need to move or exchange a central pawn? You can keep it as an asset, say when you want to advance in center and gain more space there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would recommend playing and experimenting, and thinking about differences between 1.e4 and 1.d4 openings. Do not study! Play and then go to books.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.d4 is a beautiful and strong weapon to have up your sleeve. Enjoy playing it!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13438" LastActivityDate="2018-04-18T17:19:05.700" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21432" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21417" CreationDate="2018-04-18T17:22:58.183" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;Obviously the last white move was 16. Nf3g1+.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I note that black needs at least 15 moves to place the pieces as they are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;4 moves to swap queen with rook as they are (various movements possible), &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;2 moves for the bishop (Bf8g7, Bg7h8),&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;2 moves for the knight (Ng8f6, Nf6g4 or Ng8h6, Nh6g4)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;1 move each for the two pawns (g7g6 and h7h5)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;5 moves for the king (any direct route)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Together with the information that it is black's 16th move, this means that &lt;strong&gt;all of black's pieces must have taken a direct route to their destination.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that black did not capture any white pieces, because white still has 16 pieces on the board. This means in particular that the pawns on g6 and h5 are the pawns from g7 and h7 respectively.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White has promoted the g pawn for a knight. Since black has still the original g pawn, and all pieces except for two pawns, this is only possible, if &lt;strong&gt;the white g pawn moved to g6, captured the black pawn on f7 and promoted on f8 for a knight&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The white pawn could only be promoted after the square on f8 was emptied, i.e. the order of moves is roughly: 1) white pawn moves to g6, 2) white pawn captures black pawn on f7, 3) black plays g7g6, and Bf8g7&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Before white captured g6xf7, the black e pawn must have been gone as otherwise (with e7, Qd8, Bf8 and Ke8 present), black would have been forced to recapture the white pawn on f7 since it is check (and the black king would have no squares to escape).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Counting the minimum number of white moves now until the position after blacks's 15th move (i.e. with white knights on f3 and g2)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;white's g pawn: 5 moves (g2g4, g4g5, g5g6, g6xf7 f7f8N)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;return the promoted knight from f8 to either f3 or g2: 3 moves&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;capturing the e7 pawn and returning the piece: &#xA;If this was done by the rook, it would take at least 8 moves. This would make the total (5+3+8&gt;15), so is not possible. So e7 was captured by a white knight, which returned. Both options (a) white knight from g1 capturing e7 and returning to g2 or f3 or (b) white knight from b1 capturing e7 and returning to b1 plus the move Ng1f3; would take 7 moves.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5+3+7=15, meaning that also white moved its pieces on shortest possible routes without any time for waiting moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for the rest, basically it comes down to check how to achieve the main plans in order, i.e.:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;capture the pawn on e7 with a knight and return the knight at least partially (so that the black king is able to get to e7); as mentioned this needs to be done before white captures gxf7&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;capture gxf7 and promote the pawn&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;return all white pieces to their final destination&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;During phase &quot;1.&quot; black is very limited in moves since the g pawn cannot move yet (has to wait for the white pawn to play gxf7). This leaves as the only possible first moves for black 1....h5 2...Rh6 ... 3...Rf6 4....Nh6. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These four moves are just enough time for white to capture the e7 pawn with the knight on b1 and to return the knight to c3 (making space for the king on e7, i.e. giving black additional &quot;waiting&quot; moves (waiting for white to push the pawn to g6 and play gxf7). Note that white has to capture the e7 pawn with the knight on b1, because trying to capture it with the knight on g1 would take one move longer and black would run out of waiting moves. So the first four moves are: 1. Nc3 h5 2. Nd5 Rh6 3. Nxe7 Rf6 4. Nd5 Nh6 5. Nc3 Ke7.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Phase two starts and white has to push the g pawn forward, because playing for instance 6. Nb1 black would run out of &quot;waiting&quot; moves and would not manage to regroup queen/rook/bishop in time. So, the next three and a half moves (6. g4 Ke6 7. g5 Kf5 8. g6 Kg4 9. gxf7 ) are basically black pushing the king on the shortest available route towards h3 and white pushing the g pawn forward. As mentioned black has to wait with playing g6 until white captures gxf7, so black can only push the king during this phase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The final phase (9....g6 10. Nf3 Bg7 11. f8=N Bh8 12. Ne6 Qg8 13. Nf4 Rf8 14. Ng2 Kh3 15. Nb1 Ng4 16. Ng1#) is basically just moving the pieces to their final squares. There are no alternative move orders possible. For instance white cannot play Nb1 earlier, because with 14. Ng2 he is just in time to block the bishop from attacking h3, allowing 14. ... Kh3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastEditorUserId="11629" LastEditDate="2018-04-19T08:14:18.527" LastActivityDate="2018-04-19T08:14:18.527" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21433" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21417" CreationDate="2018-04-18T18:13:06.050" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;The thoughts mentioned in user1583209's answer more or less summed up mine, but I couldn't find a way to get the king out in time without requiring extra moves. The final trick is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt; to have the b1 knight capture the e7 pawn; this opens the way for the black king. Black has just enough moves (thanks again @user1583209) he can make with his kingside:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. Nc3 h5 2. Nd5 Rh6 3. Nxe7 Rf6 4. Nd5 Nh6 5. Nc3 Ke7 6. g4 Ke6 7. g5 Kf5 8. g6 Kg4 9. gxf7 g6 10. Nf3 Bg7 11. f8=N Bh8 12. Ne6 Qg8 13. Nf4 Rf8 14. Ng2 Kh3 15. Nb1 Ng4 16. Ng1#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2018-04-18T18:13:06.050" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21434" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21435" CreationDate="2018-04-19T06:16:36.487" Score="24" ViewCount="4323" Body="&lt;p&gt;Once in 960 times, chess960 should just be the same as regular chess. Are there any known instances of this? Or is this selection automatically excluded and they just roll the dice again? So is it really &quot;Chess959&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: Found this: &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/forum/lichess-feedback/chess960-starting-position-518-is-like-regular-chess&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://lichess.org/forum/lichess-feedback/chess960-starting-position-518-is-like-regular-chess&lt;/a&gt;. An online player complains that he has faced the dreaded 518 two times. And why not? My golfing uncle hit two holes-in-1 during his career, and that’s got to be a lot less likely than 1 in a thousand!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I think that Chess960 can’t be that popular at top levels or there would be a celebrated example where GM X faced GM Y over a 518 Game Array.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8201" LastEditorUserId="8201" LastEditDate="2018-04-20T13:01:39.947" LastActivityDate="2021-01-19T00:58:28.747" Title="Chess960 or Chess959?" Tags="&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;chess960&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21435" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21434" CreationDate="2018-04-19T07:09:23.993" Score="21" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is no mention of excluding the regular starting position in Appendix F. of the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fide.com/component/handbook/?id=124&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Laws of Chess&lt;/a&gt;, so it's really Chess960 and not Chess959. I can imagine that there are chess programs or websites which do exclude the regular starting position, but this is against the official rules.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2018-04-19T07:09:23.993" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21437" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21368" CreationDate="2018-04-19T20:16:23.737" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Cost vs gain.&#xA;Simple. What do you pay to get the chance to prevent your opponent from castling? And ultimately, again, it all depends on whether you can take advantage of the opponent king's vulnerability in the follow-up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A weakness is a weakness if it can be exploited.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you sacrifice a pawn to give your opponent a check that will force them to move their king, but have no clear plan to follow that up, I would ask you to reconsider that decision.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13438" LastActivityDate="2018-04-19T20:16:23.737" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21438" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21434" CreationDate="2018-04-19T21:22:32.067" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a &quot;Chess959&quot; which advocates the removal of SP 518 (which is when the factors that lead to &quot;randomizing&quot; the chess pieces happen to have the same arrangement as the traditional layout.) The rationale for removal is that players have so much training in that one starting position that the game becomes less about who is the better, more reactive OTB chess player and more about who has prepared their opening lines. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Assuming both players are actively participating in Chess959 as opposed to 960, in the event of rolling SP 518, simply re-roll.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="598" LastActivityDate="2018-04-19T21:22:32.067" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21439" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-04-20T06:20:32.690" Score="1" ViewCount="55" Body="&lt;p&gt;pawns have only one privilage and that is to move 2 squares as their first move. So why was that too taken away?&#xA;at final moment of game when we try to save our pawns to revive a queen and opposition have its pawn in my half,I cannot move ahead because of this rule.&#xA;please give me explanation on why is this rule introduced at all?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16376" LastActivityDate="2018-04-20T06:20:32.690" Title="why was en passant introduced?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2018-04-20T08:14:00.703" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21440" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21416" CreationDate="2018-04-20T17:49:51.940" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This will be a short answer but give you your answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically in the opening you get your prices ready for the war in the middle game.&#xA;So it's best they are well placed on active squares so they control key squares and can help in any attack .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for playing different openings one reason might be playing something that matches your defensive/offensive or open position/closed positions style.&#xA;Otherwise it's just maybe to get a jump on your opponent by playing something different. Can't think of much else as to why different openings are played. Hope this was helpful :-)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14471" LastActivityDate="2018-04-20T17:49:51.940" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21441" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21445" CreationDate="2018-04-20T17:57:10.817" Score="2" ViewCount="83" Body="&lt;p&gt;So I'm participating in a chess tournament in a few days (FIDE rating) and I'm in a fix as to preparation methods. I'm doing as many puzzles as I can and preparing many openings. I'm also playing few precursor tournaments for practice. But is there any specific approach I need to take? Like I need a 1500 plus rating for my next year's pocket money so is there anything you need to do to get to get an extra edge over the competition?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14471" LastActivityDate="2018-04-21T06:10:33.460" Title="Preparations for chess tournaments" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;elo&gt;&lt;preparation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2018-04-21T10:25:59.687" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21442" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="808" CreationDate="2018-04-20T19:08:46.263" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe it's a draw given that the king and knight stick to each other. Someone has already mentioned the &quot;Nalimov Tablebases&quot;. Give it a try and explore the variations.&#xA;However, I just lost a game with the knight (the reason why I was searching for this question XD). I was really low on time and voluntarily moved my king to a square where my knight was pinned. After playing around with the Nalimov Tablebases, here are some tips for defending the draw:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Do not move your knight away from your king.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Be care of pins and skewers.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Try to stay at the center. (Someone pointed out that you can defend a draw with your knight on b1 and king on c1. But staying near the center allows more room for error).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16394" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-04-20T19:25:59.803" LastActivityDate="2018-04-20T19:25:59.803" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21443" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-04-20T21:51:57.267" Score="1" ViewCount="611" Body="&lt;p&gt;Salut&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I installed scid and set all necessities in order to make an analysis by stockfish, but I could not find the option to save the done analysis. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is just silly but I cannot find simply this function. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks for your answers! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/55xDO.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/55xDO.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*could you propose a method whereby I could make analyses of several games by an engine which also stores all analyses so that I could watch later to them? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4585" LastActivityDate="2018-04-20T22:45:50.657" Title="analyse and store a annotated game by stockfish in scid" Tags="&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;scid&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21444" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21443" CreationDate="2018-04-20T22:45:50.657" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the Game menu, there's a Save: Replace Game option.  If you choose this after doing your analysis, the analysis should be saved.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2018-04-20T22:45:50.657" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21445" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21441" CreationDate="2018-04-21T06:10:33.460" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sleep well and hit the gym. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Over the board is hard physically as well as mentally. And physical condition has big contribution to playing strength.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So in short, don't get tired before your opponent, be the last man standing. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9030" LastActivityDate="2018-04-21T06:10:33.460" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21446" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21416" CreationDate="2018-04-21T06:45:50.423" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Many openings have long-term positional ideas in mind, while others seek the initiative sometimes at a cost (gambits for example).&#xA;There are books like &quot;The ideas behind the chess openings&quot; by Ruben Fine, which might help you.&#xA;Philidor said &quot;Pawns are the soul of chess&quot; and indeed the pawn structure that comes out of the opening greatly determines what each side should be playing towards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2018-04-21T06:45:50.423" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21447" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-04-21T07:54:51.417" Score="6" ViewCount="593" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have a question that can probably also help others: how to train having 10 or 15 minutes? And I am not talking about ONLY 15 minutes per day. No. Imagine that you've done your tactics today, played one game (maybe even with long time control), analyzed games or read a book. And you thought you are done.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And suddenly in the evening/night you come across 10-15 minutes of free time. E.g. waiting for a film to start/delivery guy/a spouse and would like to use it for chess progress. I reject playing blitz during this time as I do not consider blitz games as training. What do you propose? Solve a study? Play endgames against a computer? Quick opening refresher? Maybe short movies on YouTube? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8637" LastEditorUserId="10867" LastEditDate="2018-05-23T12:54:37.470" LastActivityDate="2018-05-24T15:29:57.483" Title="Training in 10-15 minutes" Tags="&lt;training&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21448" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21447" CreationDate="2018-04-21T09:04:04.987" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;15 mins is enough to analyze one of your games. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I always analyze my games after playing, deep or not. Learning from your mistakes is a big opportunity. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9030" LastActivityDate="2018-04-21T09:04:04.987" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21449" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21447" CreationDate="2018-04-21T10:24:53.743" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would change your schedule a bit. When you have time for a longer session, analyze your games, read books and study the endgame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you know there will be some free 10-15 minutes in the evening, do the tactics only then (especially the easier ones that train your pattern recognition; if you try it with harder puzzles, you can get stuck).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another thing to consider is blindfold training (there are lots of apps nowadays for this). Even 5 minutes/day is good, IMHO.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Playing blitz is also an option even though it doesn't sound like a proper training. I think it can serve as a training if you don't fear trying new opening lines and ideas.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13055" LastActivityDate="2018-04-21T10:24:53.743" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21450" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21407" CreationDate="2018-04-21T18:42:58.443" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not an answer but an example of the question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Bled&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;1961&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;T. Petrosian&quot;]&#xA;[black &quot;L. Pachman&quot;]&#xA;[startply &quot;40&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Nf3 c5 2. g3 Nc6 3. Bg2 g6 4. O-O Bg7 5. d3 e6 6. e4 Nge7 7. Re1 O-O 8. e5 d6 9. exd6 Qxd6 10. Nbd2 Qc7 11. Nb3 Nd4 12. Bf4 Qb6 13. Ne5 Nxb3 14. Nc4! Qb5 15. axb3 a5 16. Bd6! Bf6 17. Qf3! Kg7 18. Re4 Rd8 19. Qxf6+! Kxf6 20. Be5+ Kg5 21. Bg7!&#xA;*&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here most computers would only examine forcing moves and not consider the &quot;quiet&quot; winning move. Since white is down material, most computers would eliminate Bg7 as a losing move, and by following the tree,  reject 19. Qxf6+!.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12449" LastActivityDate="2018-04-21T18:42:58.443" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21451" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21447" CreationDate="2018-04-22T05:06:24.023" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;It really depends on what area of the game you're focusing on improving. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to improve general tactical vision, do a bunch of &quot;cheap tactics&quot;. These are tactics that are easy and should take under a minute to solve, and doing many of them helps to improve your implicit tactical abilities during a game (you're able to see basic tactics quicker).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you're working on your precision, studies are a good choice. Another option is to play through one grandmaster game on the board, and try to understand the main ideas in the game. For example, looking at a Karpov game can improve your pattern recognition for techniques on squeezing the opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The point of studying chess is to make certain skills implicit knowledge... you should be able to subconsciously &lt;em&gt;know&lt;/em&gt; certain things during a chess game. Doing cheap tactics improves your implicit tactical skills, and doing a study/looking at master games improves your implicit pattern recognition abilities.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2018-04-22T05:06:24.023" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21452" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21447" CreationDate="2018-04-22T11:29:15.297" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;In these short time periods, we usually prefer doing something calm.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you've played a rapid/classical game that day, you can try to remember the game move by move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This has following advantages:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;It is a good memory exercise: Since chess positions involve too many constraints, they demand good memory. This is a good memory exercise from a chess perspective because it involves chess position themselves.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Helps you in visualization: Chess visualization exercises such as blindfold chess is recommended a lot these days. This exercise is quite similar to them and can help you achieve most advantages of blindfold chess.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;This will help you remember your past games, which is often recommended by top players. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11241" LastEditorUserId="11241" LastEditDate="2018-04-22T11:51:13.183" LastActivityDate="2018-04-22T11:51:13.183" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21453" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21407" CreationDate="2018-04-23T13:09:44.740" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You are confusing several concepts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Alpha-beta pruning&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Alpha-beta pruning is &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; &quot;where they don't calculate positions that are obviously winning or obviously losing.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's pruning branches where it doesn't matter what their evaluation is, because another move is already good enough to know that this direction won't work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance, the opening position. Let's say that the engine is trying to figure out the best starting move and first it has researched 1.d4 (using whatever method), and found that it evaluates to +0.15 for white.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now it starts evaluating 1.e4. There are many different replies. First it tries 1...e6. This evaluates to +0.2. Fine. Then it tries 1...c5. This evaluates to +0.1.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But wait! That means that black can do &lt;em&gt;at least&lt;/em&gt; +0.1, and so regardless of the score of all the other possible moves, 1.e4 &lt;em&gt;must&lt;/em&gt; end up worse than 1.d4. &lt;em&gt;So the other replies to 1.e4 are never evaluated.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That trick also works recursively deeper in the tree. That's alpha beta pruning. For the same move tree it finds the same evaluation as normal minimax search, but faster.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Pruning&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is also more general heuristic based pruning of possible moves. Heuristic means that the engine &lt;em&gt;guesses&lt;/em&gt; which moves probably aren't relevant. It's a trade-off between being able to search deeper and guessing wrong now and then. The big difference with alpha-beta pruning is that that only prunes branches that are absolutely certain not to matter, while this guesses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Other&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The rest of your question is about the problem of &lt;em&gt;where to stop&lt;/em&gt; -- about quiescence, horizon effects (evaluation bad because the engine wasn't able to look deep enough) and so on, but those are unrelated to alpha-beta search. You have to think about that with any search method.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2018-04-23T13:09:44.740" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21454" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21455" CreationDate="2018-04-23T22:04:07.833" Score="10" ViewCount="463" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to learn and play the Bird's Opening, Reverse Leningrad Variation, as White.  I'm having a hard time with some aspects of this opening which keep coming up.  I want to avoid a Stonewall-like setup (d4/e3/f4) as it's boring and doesn't fit my style.  It's a little difficult to find good information on this variation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One of the more common issues I keep dealing with is Black's ...Bc5 move, either before or after White's castling.  Here are some examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Before castling:  1. f4 d5 2. Nf3 e6 3. g3 Bc5 4. Bg2 Nf6 5. d3 O-O and I have to play either e3 or d4 in order to castle, it seems?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After castling:  1.f4 d5 2.g3 e6 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.Bg2 Be7 5.O-O O-O 6.d3 Nc6 7.c3 Bc5+ 8.Kh1 and now I have to deal with the possible ...d4 push.  I know the moves in this example aren't great, for example Black moving the bishop twice, but it just serves as an example of a type of scenario that keeps coming up in my games.  I don't want to allow the ...d4 push.  And the Bc5 can be chased back with b4 push, but it can stay on that diagonal, causing me problems.  And I really don't want to play d4 because I don't like that pawn formation.  (Or is White's d4 a normal part of the Reverse Leningrad variation of the Bird's?)  And also I don't like playing e3 because it seems weak.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know an e4 push for White is thematic in this opening.  But I often run into situations like this where I don't get a chance for that push, I'm more worried about things like Black's knight going to g4 and joining forces with the Bc5.  And e3 seems like too passive an approach to put a lid on that.  Of course if I get a chance to push h3 I can prevent ...Ng4, but often I have too much to deal with in the centre, and not enough time to get that push in.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not a very highly-rated player, but I study hard, and just want to understand the themes of this variation.  For players who use this variation a lot, how do you deal with Black's moves:  Bc5, d4 and Ng4?  (For Bc5 I don't mind moving Kh1, but should I let that bishop stay around?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Additionally, do you tend to push both c3 and d3, and put the QN on a3?  (These moves seem to be part of the main line, or at least considered book.)  If so, could someone also help me understand what the knight is doing on a3, anyhow?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are some key ideas and elements of this opening that I think I'm failing to understand.  Any help on any of these questions would be much appreciated.  (Sorry I didn't embed a chessboard in my post, as I haven't yet learned how to do that -- this is my first post here.)  Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16410" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2018-04-24T03:10:04.593" LastActivityDate="2020-08-04T03:53:47.883" Title="How to handle Black's Bc5 in Bird's Leningrad?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;birds-opening&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21455" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21454" CreationDate="2018-04-24T06:48:48.457" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Objectively ...Bc5 is not a great move in this line, the main reason being the reply d4, especially if you haven't played d3 yet. The stonewall with a Bg2-fianchetto is not the most aggressive set-up, but with one or two extra tempi it is worth going for it and follow-up with c4, Nc3, and then either prepare e4 or Ne5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In any case, if you choose a move order with 0-0 before d3, your opponent will be less tempted to throw in Bc5. He might be afraid of d2-d4 or e2-e3, have already put a pawn on c5, or played Be7 and not want to lose more tempi.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Assuming he plays Bc5 anyway and you don't want to go d4, you just sidestep with Kh1, keep an eye for ...Ng4 tricks (most often countered by Na3-c2, Qe1, or, well, d4, but sometimes you might want to stop it altogether with h3), and then play the standard Leningrad moves c3 and a4. If Black doesn't react you will grab queenside space with b4, possibly even trapping the bishop. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If Black goes a7-a5 to stop that, the manoeuvre Na3-c2 covers e3 and add control on b4 and d4. Bc1 is usually developped to d2. Your main plan afterwards should be e2-e4: without a pawn on c5, Black is in danger of getting pawnrolled in the center.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An eventual d5-d4 by Black, without a pawn on c5, is not very frightening. Don't take on d4 unless it wins a pawn. Instead of Nc2, Nc4 becomes another possibility. Same plans: e2-e4 (but don't forget about en passant captures - most often it is no problem because of the sequence: e2-e4 dxe3ep d3-d4 Bc5 moves, Bxe3), Ne5 invasions, h3-g4 expansion followed by Qe1-g3/h4 and possibly f5...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If Bc5 is played before you castle, well, there is always d4. But even without d4, if you are in a hurry to castle, a pawn chain d2-e3 will do. I suppose the most accurate is to continue your Leningrad plans before castling nor touching the central panws: c3, a4, b4 if allowed, Na3-c2, keping your options in the center: either d4, or d2-e3, or d3-e4, depending on Black's set-up. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, this is all general ideas and many subtleties may happen depending on the precise move order. But the rule of thumb is: don't be afraid of Bc5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One of those tricks: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.f4 d5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.g3 e6 4.Bg2 Nbd7 (4...Bc5 5.d4 (5.c3) (5.e3)) 5.O-O Bc5 6.Kh1 O-O 7.c3 a5 8.a4 c6 9.Na3 Qe7 10.d3 Ng4 (10...e5 11.fe5) 11.Nc2 (11.d4) (11.Qe1 {intending h3 or e4} Ne3? 12.Bxe3 Bxe3 13.d4 {and Na3-c2xe3 is a similar trap}) Nf2 (11...e5 12.fxe5 Ngxe5 13.Nxe5 Nxe5 14.d4) 12.Rxf2 Bxf2 13.e3 {and the Bf2 is trapped}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastEditorUserId="14079" LastEditDate="2018-04-25T08:34:32.763" LastActivityDate="2018-04-25T08:34:32.763" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21456" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9772" CreationDate="2018-04-24T10:03:02.253" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The LC0 (Leela Chess Zero) project,&#xA;an open source adaption of AlphaZero for chess, &#xA;shows the benefit of gpus, &#xA;floating point performance and memory bandwidth used in large neural networks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://lczero.org/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://lczero.org/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AlphaZero&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AlphaZero&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/lczero&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/lczero&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16414" LastActivityDate="2018-04-24T10:03:02.253" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21457" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20036" CreationDate="2018-04-24T12:51:08.863" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Stockfish 8 &lt;strong&gt;CANNOT&lt;/strong&gt; be beaten by a human in such fast time controls. Even strong GMs will face immense difficulty. It is definitely not impossible but it is highly improbable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16408" LastActivityDate="2018-04-24T12:51:08.863" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21458" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21463" CreationDate="2018-04-24T15:28:25.920" Score="6" ViewCount="544" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this position, what is a clear line in which Black escapes from perpetual check?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;2k5/7p/p1Q3p1/3pP3/1r2qP2/1P4PK/P7/8 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13147" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-06-12T19:06:28.530" LastActivityDate="2020-06-12T19:06:40.673" Title="How does Black escape perpetual check here?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;draw&gt;&lt;check&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21463" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21458" CreationDate="2018-04-25T09:44:58.513" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;It seems that the black king can escape via a5/&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;2k5/7p/p1Q3p1/3pP3/1r2qP2/1P4PK/P7/8 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1...Kb8 2.Qd6+ Kb7 3.Qd7+ Kb6 4.Qd8+ Kb5 5.Qb8+ Ka5 {Kc5? 6. Qd6 Kd4?? 7.Qxb4} 6.Qc7+ Rb6 7.Qc5+ Rb5 8.Qc7+ Kb4 {and you go for the hills.}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;edit:&lt;/em&gt; 5.a4+!, noticed by @jknappen, is problematic. The right solution is rather to bring the king to a7 before covering checks with ...Rb7, as in @InertialIgnorance 's answer which should become the accepted one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-06-12T19:06:40.673" LastActivityDate="2020-06-12T19:06:40.673" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21464" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21458" CreationDate="2018-04-25T20:43:38.430" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;To escape from perpetual check when up material in an endgame, a good strategy is to try to surround your King with your extra pieces. In this case, that would be your Queen and Rook, and maybe a few of your pawns. Sample line:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1...Kb8 2. Qd6+ Ka7 3. Qc7+ Rb7 4. Qc5+ Kb8  and now White has a few options:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a) 5. Qd6+ Kc8 6. Qc6+ Rc7 (7. Qe8+ Kb7) 7. Qa8+ Kd7 and Black escapes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;b) 5. Qf8+ Kc7 6. Qe7+ (6. Qd6+ Kc8 transposes to line a) Kb6 7. Qd6+ Kb5!! 8. a4+ Ka5 9. Qc5+ Rb5!!  and Black wins. White cannot take Rb5 with the a-pawn due to the threat of Qh1#&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I found all the moves myself up until move 7 in line b). Komodo came up with the brilliant idea of 7...Kb5, 8...Ka5, and 9...Rb5&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2018-04-25T20:43:38.430" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21465" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21467" CreationDate="2018-04-26T02:02:49.617" Score="6" ViewCount="448" Body="&lt;p&gt;FIDE rules seem to say that I have to claim draw (3-repetition and 50-move) &lt;strong&gt;before&lt;/strong&gt; I actually touch/move my piece. And if I move my piece first, and &lt;em&gt;then&lt;/em&gt; claim the draw, it doesn't count.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) Is this really what FIDE is saying?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) If so, why??? It's the (seeming) inconsistency which confuses me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why not either:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a) I cannot claim draw before I move, nor can I claim draw after I move&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a) I am able to claim draw before I move, and I am able to claim draw after I move (but before I hit my clock)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's the sentence from the rules:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;If the player touches a piece as in Article 4.3 without having claimed the draw he loses the right to claim, as in Article 9.2 or 9.3, on that move.&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is more context:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;9.2&#xA;&#xA;    The game is drawn upon a correct claim by the player having the move, when&#xA;    the same position, for at least the third time (not necessarily by a&#xA;    repetition of moves):&#xA;&#xA;        a. is about to appear, if he first writes his move on his scoresheet and&#xA;        declares to the arbiter his intention to make this move, or&#xA;&#xA;        b. has just appeared, and the player claiming the draw has the move.&#xA;&#xA;    Positions as in (a) and (b) are considered the same, if the same player has&#xA;    the move, pieces of the same kind and colour occupy the same squares, and&#xA;    the possible moves of all the pieces of both players are the same.&#xA;&#xA;    Positions are not the same if a pawn that could have been captured en&#xA;    passant can no longer be captured in this manner. When a king or a rook is&#xA;    forced to move, it will lose its castling rights, if any, only after it is&#xA;    moved.&#xA;&#xA;9.3&#xA;&#xA;    The game is drawn, upon a correct claim by the player having the move, if:&#xA;&#xA;        a. he writes his move on his scoresheet and declares to the arbiter his&#xA;        intention to make this move, which shall result in the last 50 moves&#xA;        having been made by each player without the movement of any pawn and&#xA;        without any capture, or&#xA;&#xA;        b. the last 50 consecutive moves have been made by each player without&#xA;        the movement of any pawn and without any capture.&#xA;&#xA;9.4&#xA;&#xA;    If the player touches a piece as in Article 4.3 without having claimed the&#xA;    draw he loses the right to claim, as in Article 9.2 or 9.3, on that move.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8486" LastActivityDate="2018-04-26T03:36:29.790" Title="50-move rule: FIDE wording seems weird" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;fide&gt;&lt;50-move-rule&gt;&lt;threefold-repetition&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21466" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4836" CreationDate="2018-04-26T02:17:04.830" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Reduce number of units from Noam's record of 18 to a new record of 15.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;(8+7 units, no promoted units necessarily on the board, pawn captures all achievable):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Minimal mutual smothered stalemate&amp;quot;]&#xA;[fen &amp;quot;5brk/4p1pb/4P1p1/6P1/6PB/6PK/6PP/8 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this the best possible?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's interesting that this solution is asymmetric. If you wrap both kings with pawns on opposite flanks, it requires 16 units.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: Inspired by a comment, I want to show more deeply that the position is legal. And if fact prove that, despite appearances &lt;em&gt;at least one promotion took place in the history of the game&lt;/em&gt;. Assume first that no promotions happened.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White c-h pawns could have reached their files with 8 captures, which is OK since Black has 7 units left.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What about the Black pawns? All but 1 Black unit were captured by White c-h pawns. BfP (&amp;quot;Black f pawn&amp;quot;) captured to g6, as this pawn couldn't have come from h7. Most efficient if BhP captured to g file, to be captured in its turn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White pawns made 1,2,2,3 captures on files d,e,f,g respectively. So Black b,c,d pawns would have to make a total of 5 captures to get far enough (to d &amp;amp; e files). Together with the 2 captures onto the g file, Black made at least 7 pawn captures. This is making the most efficient assumption that BaP was the one missing Black unit not captured by a WP.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black made 7 pawn captures, and White has 8 units remaining, so at first it looks OK. But none of these captures were on files a or b, where WaP &amp;amp; WbP began. One of those two WPs must have also got hit by a BP, but how? The only capture possible is of BaP.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, we have proved our original assumption wrong: at least one promotion happened in the course of the game. That might have been White or Black. E.g. WbP promotes on b1, or e.g. BbP captures only once, and promotes on c1.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As per @Laska&amp;quot;s given permission in the comments, here is a 35-move (optimal?) proof game created by @Rewan Demontay, of their position. The intention of it is that it was made to prove their retrograde analysis of the game history of their position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Nc3 h5 2. Ne4 h4 3. Ng3 hxg3 4. fxg3 Nc6 5. Kf2 a5 6. Kf3 a4 7. Kg4 Nh6+ 8. Kh3 Ne5 9. b3 Nf3 10. exf3 Rg8 11. Bd3 Ng4 12. fxg4 d5 13. Be4 dxe4 14. Qf3 e3 15. dxe3 Kd7 16. Qxb7 Ke6 17. Ne2 Kf6 18. Bb2+ Kg6 19. Bf6 Kh7 20. Bh4 Kh8 21. Nf4 Bf5 22. Rhf1 Bh7 23. Ng6+ fxg6 24. Rad1 c6 25. Rd5 cxd5 26. c4 axb3 27. cxd5 bxa2 28. Rf4 Qd6 29. Qb5 Qe6 30. dxe6 a1=Q 31. Qc5 Qa4 32. Qd5 Qxf4 33. exf4 Ra5 34. Qg5 Rxg5 35. fxg5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you can see, a &lt;strong&gt;promotion&lt;/strong&gt; is &lt;strong&gt;needed&lt;/strong&gt; as @Laska &lt;strong&gt;rightfully claimed.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: Thanks @Rewan. And here is a candidate &lt;em&gt;maximal&lt;/em&gt; mutually smothered checkmate:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Maximal mutual smothered stalemate&amp;quot;]&#xA;[fen &amp;quot;4brkq/3p1brb/3Pp1p1/4P1P1/1p1p4/1P1Pp3/BRB1P3/QKRB4 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Legal position with 26 pieces: 6 minor pieces captured &amp;amp; 4 promoted bishops. Some flexibility in the diagram: in keeping with the maximality I've chosen major pieces rather than knights in the back row. Also, kept the smothered kings out of the corners.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note the pawn moves d2-d3 and e7-e6 unlock the two cages.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is a proof game for the 26 unit position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. h4 a5 2. h5 a4 3. h6 a3 4. b3 g6 5. Bb2 Bg7 6. hxg7 axb2 7. a4 h5 8. a5 h4 9. Rh3 Ra6 10. c4 f5 11. Nc3 Nf6 12. Ne4 Nd5 13. cxd5 fxe4 14. Rc3 Rf6 15. f4 c6 16. a6 h3 17. a7 h2 18. a8=B h1=B 19. g8=B b1=B 20. d6 e3 21. Bc4 Bf5 22. Bd3 Be6 23. Qc2 Qa5 24. Qb2 Qe5 25. O-O-O Bg8 26. Bb1 Bh7 27. Ba2 O-O 28. Rc2 R6f7 29. Qa1 Qh8 30. Rb2 Rg7 31. Kb1 c5 32. Rc1 b5 33. g4 b4 34. g5 Bcb7 35. Bg2 Bd5 36. Be4 Bf7 37. Bc2 Be8 38. Bd1 Bd5 39. Nf3 Bdf7 40. Be4 Nc6 41. Bec2 Ne5 42. Nd4 cxd4 43. fxe5 e6 44. d3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8201" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-13T00:45:01.880" LastActivityDate="2020-08-13T00:45:01.880" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21467" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21465" CreationDate="2018-04-26T03:09:13.760" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;Hi thanks for the question! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes this is what FIDE are saying. If you are about to play the 50.0th move of the sequence, or to cause a position to occur for the third time, then you need to claim before you move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think this is because after you have moved the piece, your opponent is allowed to respond, without waiting for you to punch the clock. If you then say &quot;hey wait a minute&quot; then this could be disruptive when one or both players are in time trouble. Best make the draw claim when it's clearly your turn to take the next action, i.e. before the piece is moved.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am sure that people sometimes forget in the excitement though, which must be very frustrating!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8201" LastEditorUserId="8201" LastEditDate="2018-04-26T03:36:29.790" LastActivityDate="2018-04-26T03:36:29.790" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21469" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-04-26T16:25:10.520" Score="7" ViewCount="457" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a kind of a repost of a fascinating chess problem that appeared yesterday. The original poster got shy or something, and bafflingly deleted &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/q/21459/7297&quot;&gt;his own post&lt;/a&gt;, which was beginning to attract some good reputation and interest.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the mean time, I have found some information which I want to share. So I will pose the question and then give one answer. Feel free to improve!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So: background. It seems that someone showed the original poster a problem a year ago, but the poster couldn't solve it, and wasn't quite sure if there was a solution at all. The problem is a selfmate: White to move has to coerce an unwilling Black into checkmating him. The poster didn't know how many moves it would take. Normally selfmates do have a specific move limit: they aren't like studies.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;White to move and selfmate&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;kbQ5/pb6/P7/3B4/8/7p/7p/7K w - - 0 0&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a solution? If there is, what is it? And if there isn't, is the problem fixable?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8201" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-04-26T19:42:24.967" LastActivityDate="2020-09-27T23:14:15.777" Title="Is this selfmate solvable or fixable?" Tags="&lt;problems&gt;&lt;zugzwang&gt;&lt;opposition&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21470" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2018-04-26T16:28:04.687" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In chess, opposition is a tactical pattern most normally encountered in the endgame when two kings face each other on a rank or file, with only one square in-between them. In such a situation, the player not having to move is said to &quot;have the opposition&quot;. This is a kind of zugzwang. Other pieces can also exhibit opposition-type behaviour but only in very specific &amp;amp; rare circumstances.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8201" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-04-26T17:46:51.090" LastActivityDate="2018-04-26T17:46:51.090" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21471" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2018-04-26T16:28:04.687" Score="0" Body="In chess, opposition is a tactical pattern most normally encountered in the endgame when two kings face each other on a rank or file, with only one square in-between them. " OwnerUserId="8201" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-04-26T17:46:37.873" LastActivityDate="2018-04-26T17:46:37.873" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21472" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21469" CreationDate="2018-04-26T17:21:35.213" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;First the verdict on the posted problem. It has certainly no solution in up to 12 moves (checked by Popeye v4.79). And the author of the Gustav software which specializes in selfmates says that there is probably no regular solution to this problem. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another expert thinks that if White simply captures everything which moves, he can then push bK over to g3 and force Black to win by h3xg2#. That's like taking a long chess problem and solving it like an regular chess game with no limit to the number of moves. Yes it will work to win but it's not really in the spirit of things. That's not to diminish his ingenious approach, but it's just not what we would consider a solution.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The good news is that this problem turns out to be a recognizable example of the Broecker schema, invented in 1891 by Gustav Von Broecker. The German PDB database contains &lt;a href=&quot;http://pdb.dieschwalbe.de/search.jsp?expression=k=&amp;#39;broecker&amp;#39;&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;36(!) other problems&lt;/a&gt; which are all based on the same diagonal opposition of bishops. One early very clear example is the following:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;    [Title &quot;Broecker - London Chess Fortnightly 1892 - s#9&quot;] &#xA;    [fen &quot;kb4R1/1b6/P7/8/8/7p/6BP/6BK w - - 0 0&quot;] &#xA;&#xA;    1. Rf8 Bc6 2. Re8 Bd5 3. Rd8 Be4 4. Rc8 Bf3 5. Rh8 Be4 6. Bf3 Bd5 7. Be4 Bc6 8. Bd5 Bb7 9. Bc6 Bxc6#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;s#9&quot; is shorthand for &quot;selfmate in 9&quot; - i.e. White moves first and forces an uncooperative Black to checkmate White by Black's 9th move at the latest.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As the original poster had deduced, there is a key relationship between the square of the queen (or rook) on the 8th rank, with the number of squares separating the bishops. Either player must always make them match if they can, and if he fails to, the other player gets a chance to make them match instead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White wins because he is able to match by moving 1. Tf8 only. Black has many possible lines of play, but the longest he can hold out is 9 moves. One example solution is shown here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the original problem, the position is already a &quot;match&quot; with White to play. He is forced to break the match, and Black can always recreate it, so need never lose. It doesn't seem there is any way for White to use the additional power of the queen to change the parity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However the matrix has proved very rich over the years, as you can see from the database, and I am sure there's more that can still be mined. The longest problem known to be sound is the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;    [Title &quot;Rotenburg &amp; Trillon - Die Schwalbe 1980 - s#14&quot;] &#xA;    [fen &quot;k7/1b4R1/N7/7p/8/7p/6BP/6BK w - - 0 0&quot;] &#xA;&#xA;    1. Rf7! Bc6 2. Re7 Bd5 3. Rd7 Be4 4. Rc7 Bf3 5. Rh7 Be4 6. Bf3 Bd5 7. Be4 Bc6 8. Bd5 Bb7 9. Bc6 h4! 10. Bd5 Bc6 11. Rc7 Bb7 12. Rc1 Bc6 13. Rb1 Bb7 14. Bc6 Bxc6#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Again, here is a sample solution as Black has multiple choices, although White's move is unique at every point. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What's interesting about this one is that Black has a waiting move. This flips the parity, and so normally Black would be able to continue making matches, while White is breaking matches. However, White can flip the parity, by moving to the other side of the main diagonal. This can only be done while ensuring that b7 is never free for bK to enter. Either it must be occupied by bB, or attacked by wR.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8201" LastEditorUserId="8201" LastEditDate="2018-04-27T15:49:15.453" LastActivityDate="2018-04-27T15:49:15.453" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21473" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="811" CreationDate="2018-04-26T17:55:45.537" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;The answers currently here don't fully explain the motivation for the rule. One answer quoted this Wikipedia passage:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The motivation for &lt;em&gt;en passant&lt;/em&gt; was to prevent the newly added two-square first move for pawns from allowing a pawn to evade capture by an enemy pawn. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That is true, but it doesn't quite get to the heart of the matter: passed pawns are extremely powerful. A passed pawn is a pawn that can never be obstructed or captured by an opposing pawn. All else being equal, if one side has a passed pawn and the other doesn't, that side will usually win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Consider this pawn structure:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;8/p7/1p4p1/1PppPp2/8/2PP1P2/8/8 w - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White has a passed pawn on the e-file because there are no black pawns that can stop it from reaching the eighth rank and queening. Black will have to rely on his other pieces (not pictured) to stop the pawn from queening, which means those pieces won't be available to do anything else.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black's g-pawn, on the other hand, is not a passed pawn because white's f-pawn will eventually capture it if it tries to queen. That means white's pieces won't be tied down trying to stop the g-pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now look at black's a-pawn. It's not a passed pawn because it has to get past white's b-pawn before it can queen. However, if the a-pawn were allowed to advance two squares, and the en passant rule didn't exist, it &lt;em&gt;would&lt;/em&gt; be a passed pawn because black could move it to a5 without being captured. But, since the en passant rule does exist, attempting this would be a horrendous mistake because white would capture the pawn en passant and suddenly white would have a passed pawn on the a-file.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, in essence, the en passant rule allows you to advance your pawn to the fifth rank without fear that your opponent will simply bypass your pawn by moving two squares.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3079" LastEditorUserId="3079" LastEditDate="2018-04-27T03:57:26.157" LastActivityDate="2018-04-27T03:57:26.157" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21474" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21469" CreationDate="2018-04-26T20:50:41.603" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is there a solution?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't think so.  If the White queen goes to a square where it can interpose, then Black can just play BxB.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If, for example, White tries Qe8-d7 or Qe8-e6, hoping Black will move his b8 bishop and allow Qc8+, Black can simply &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; move the b8 bishop.  He could instead just move his light-squared bishop next to White's (White's queen cannot go from d7 or e6 to h8 to take advantage.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;And if there isn't, is the problem fixable?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The problem has a solution if White's queen or bishop start on another square.  For example, starting the queen on d7 or g8 would provide lots of places for the queen to go, but only one is correct.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another possibility is to add a white pawn on a4; moving the pawn loses a tempo and allows White to win.  (Although that's not a satisfying way to construct the problem, since it has more than one solution; White could play either a4 or Qh8 as the first move.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastEditorUserId="12629" LastEditDate="2018-04-26T21:20:25.610" LastActivityDate="2018-04-26T21:20:25.610" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21475" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19695" CreationDate="2018-04-27T04:37:24.643" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Quite frankly it's because most people don't care enough about chess to grasp the motivation behind the rule, so, because it comes into play so rarely, they forget the rule even exists. I would bet that at least half of the players at my local library's chess club (which is a very casual club) couldn't tell me what a passed pawn is or why it's important. It takes serious study for concepts like that to stick, and most casual players are content to be woodpushers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's also a tricky rule to master because it's so weird. I had to teach chess to a complete newbie a couple of weeks ago and at first I decided not to mention the en passant rule because he had enough on his plate as it was. In one of our games, though, he played a pawn advance that allowed me to capture en passant. I explained the rule to him and demonstrated the capture (then took it back; it wouldn't have been fair to exploit a rule he didn't know). Yet he made a couple more such moves that very day; the rule just wouldn't stick in his mind. So it wouldn't surprise me if a lot of people learned about en passant, but completely forgot it by the time you used the rule because it went in one ear and out the other to begin with.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3079" LastActivityDate="2018-04-27T04:37:24.643" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21476" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21233" CreationDate="2018-04-27T14:26:15.627" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Many engines have a &quot;teacher is watching&quot; feature which tell you if you make a bad enough move.  &lt;a href=&quot;http://lucaschess.pythonanywhere.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Lucas chess&lt;/a&gt; will provide a dialog which includes the options to make your move, the suggested computer move or provide a hint why your move is bad.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most engines which shows lines, also let you adjust the number of line to include all lines available.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12449" LastActivityDate="2018-04-27T14:26:15.627" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21477" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21483" CreationDate="2018-04-27T18:29:46.937" Score="6" ViewCount="669" Body="&lt;p&gt;Other than specific scenarios where the side with the rook can draw, is it always possible to win as the side with the queen in rook and queen endgames?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16427" LastEditorUserId="12523" LastEditDate="2018-04-28T13:44:39.530" LastActivityDate="2018-04-28T13:44:39.530" Title="Is a queen vs rook endgame always winning?" Tags="&lt;rook-endgame&gt;&lt;queen-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21478" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21477" CreationDate="2018-04-27T20:22:59.077" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pawnless_chess_endgame#Queen_versus_rook&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;, citing &lt;em&gt;Fundamental Chess Endings&lt;/em&gt;, such endgames are wins for the side with the queen, unless there's an immediate draw or win for the side with the rook.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, such endgames are complex enough that even a grandmaster may not necessarily win before 50 moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2018-04-27T20:22:59.077" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21479" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21480" CreationDate="2018-04-27T22:54:08.343" Score="3" ViewCount="357" Body="&lt;p&gt;Playing with test sets, several times I come across a behavior of the chess engines which I can't understand: Let's say I have the endgame&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/k7/3p4/p2P1p2/P2P1P2/8/8/K7 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which after an amazing 3 sec of analysis with asmFish9, I know it's at most a mate in 45 moves. The needed moves then continuously decrease until the result seems to stabilize to a mate in 32 moves (found already after 22 sec., with a 57-ply search). Now my question: since the engine knows the maximum number of moves needed for this position in order to force a mate is 32, why does this ply number continue to increase and increase if I let the engine search? As I write, after 27 min. of searching, the mate is still a mate in 32, but the ply depth has reached 100(!). Even if a ply was 1/2 move, I'd claim that the maximum ply depth to be searched would be 64 for a known mate in 32. What's going on here, why does the engine continue to go to depth? I'd find it more logical if it would just stop at 64 and rather search to the sides, in case a earlier mate exists.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16431" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-05-03T17:09:52.030" LastActivityDate="2018-05-03T17:09:52.030" Title="Why continue to increase search depth after mate is found?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;ply&gt;&lt;depth&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21480" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21479" CreationDate="2018-04-27T23:03:29.430" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;When an engine searches, it doesn't look at all possible moves. It has to do Alpha-Beta pruning, where it rules out moves it considers extremely bad, and doesn't even consider them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once the engine finds a move, one of the things it does is then go back to these moves that are probably bad, and reconsiders them. I'm guessing that the 100 ply search depth is dedicated to those sidelines, with the engine trying to find a better line than the one it originally suggested.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You're right though that this would be impossible, given the engine already found a mate in 32, or 64 ply. But engines don't care how good their original line is, they always try to find a better one (what else would an engine do in the meantime?). Maybe it's more logical to get an engine to stop searching in the scenario you mentioned with the quickest possible checkmate, but again it's not like it has anything else to do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When they perfect AGIs that can specialize in a variety of things at the same time, you'll probably see your logic implemented. But for now, mere AIs may as well search indefinitely.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2018-04-27T23:03:29.430" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21481" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13927" CreationDate="2018-04-28T04:46:19.453" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;And we can also discount the black knight on dl.&quot; &quot;Why?&quot; asked César. &quot;It could have come from squares b2 or e3.&quot; &quot;No, it couldn't. On either of those squares, that knight would have had the white king on c4 in check; in retrograde chess that's what we might call an imaginary check. And no knight, or any other chess piece for that matter, with a king in check is going to abandon that position voluntarily; that's simply impossible. Instead of withdrawing, it would capture the enemy king, thus ending the game. Since such a situation is impossible, we can deduce that the knight on dl could not have moved either.&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They neglect to consider the possibility that the knight came from e2, and was a pawn last move!  White has 4 pieces off the board (a bishop, a knight, and two pawns.)  Two captures were made by the a5 pawn, leaving the possibility of fxe2 (or fxe3) and exd1=N.  White's h and g pawns could have promoted to anything and gone to those squares.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If further analysis of the position makes it necessary for Black to not use all his captures on this, there's also the possibility that White's d4 pawn was originally a b-pawn, and the d1 knight was Black's e-pawn instead of the f-pawn.  This lets Black use one capture elsewhere.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2018-04-28T04:46:19.453" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21482" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19915" CreationDate="2018-04-28T05:40:41.617" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;For the King to be on h2, it must have previously been on either h3 to g1. Being on h3 would have been impossible, since the g2-pawn has been there the entire game. So, the King must have been on g1.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One could give a counterargument saying that Rd1 has been on the 1st rank for more than one move, since it appears stuck. However, this idea is refuted by the fact that White could have castled with 0-0-0.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But then if White castled queenside, his King must have been on e1 the entire game.... which poses the problem of how Black's King got to g1 in the first place. I'm stuck at this point.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: I didn't consider the possibility of White ALREADY castling, and then Black moves his King to e2. Maybe there's some White piece on the first rank that allows Black's King to move to g1 without being attacked by Rd1. Then, as user1583209 pointed out, a move like Nf1-Nh2+ Kxh2 would give us the final position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2018-04-28T05:40:41.617" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21483" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21477" CreationDate="2018-04-28T07:35:34.127" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The best resource I know for endgame statistics remains &lt;a href=&quot;https://ilk.uvt.nl/icga/games/chess/endgames.php&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;the ICGA endgame stats&lt;/a&gt;. The spreadsheet posted there contains pretty much all endgames up to 6 men. So for example KQKR is found in row 27 (assuming White has KQ), with the following percentages:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;       wtm    btm   &#xA;W win 99.01 65.51&#xA; draw  0.80  5.83&#xA;B win  0.19 28.65&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So as long as White has the move, KQ is almost certain to win. Black victories with Black to move are likely due to be immediate capture or skewer. (Pin or fork of the queen leads at best to a draw, of course.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Interesting to compare with KRBKR, row 107:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;       wtm    btm   &#xA;W win 41.25  5.09   &#xA; draw 58.70 94.06&#xA;B win  0.05  0.85&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With White to move, Black does much better than in KQKR, which is curious since all that has happened is that the queen has been &quot;unpacked&quot; into its &quot;constituent rook and bishop&quot;. With Black to move, the position is an almost certain draw: Black has lost the quick steals, but equally can protect himself from most of the situations where he might end up losing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note: (1) This is a &lt;em&gt;tablebase&lt;/em&gt; based on computer analysis of all possible positions with up to 6 pieces. It does not refer to actual games played over the board. (2) The spreadsheet refers to &quot;non-broken positions&quot; which approximates to &quot;legal positions&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8201" LastEditorUserId="8201" LastEditDate="2018-04-28T11:32:07.487" LastActivityDate="2018-04-28T11:32:07.487" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21484" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-04-28T12:40:33.877" Score="5" ViewCount="723" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am trying to use Fritz 16 to practice endgames. Unfortunately, Grandmaster (Fritz) is playing very poorly. For example, in the diagrammed position, if I play Black, Fritz gives me a quick threefold repetition after 1 Ke4 Nc6 2 Kf5 Na7. But when I play White, Fritz resigns after 1 Ke4 Nc6 2 Kd5 Na5 3 Ke5 Kg7 4 Bd5 Kg6 5 Kd4 Kf6 6 Kc3 Kf5 7 Bh1 Ke5 8 Bg2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[title &quot;White to move&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;7k/8/8/2P1n3/8/4KB2/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Ke4 Nc6 2. Kd5 (2. Kf5 Na7) Na5 3. Ke5 Kg7 4. Bd5 Kg6 5. Kd4 Kf6 6. Kc3 Kf5 7. Bh1 Ke5 8. Bg2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why is Grandmaster (Fritz) playing this ending so poorly? Do I need to change the settings? It doesn't make sense that the engine resigns with Black, but plays a draw by repetition with White.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any ideas? Are there settings I can change? I have triple checked that I have set the engine to Grandmaster level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16433" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-12-22T10:54:47.997" LastActivityDate="2019-12-22T10:58:01.730" Title="Why is Fritz 16 Grandmaster Playing Weak Endgames?" Tags="&lt;chessbase&gt;&lt;fritz&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21485" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14145" CreationDate="2018-04-28T15:39:12.277" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;As you do, I have the impression that the usage has changed within a lifetime, but I can’t be more precise than that. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I tend to use the generic “unit” as do many problemists. For non-pawns I use the term “officer”, but I am not sure if that includes the king. I am sure I slip into using the word “pieces” often but these days it’s a synonym for “unit”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8201" LastActivityDate="2018-04-28T15:39:12.277" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21486" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21484" CreationDate="2018-04-29T12:08:03.243" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Fritz's 2.Kf5 is a mistake because 2.Kd5 is the only winning move according to the tablebase. Maybe Fritz suffered from the horizon effect (couldn't see far enough ahead) which turned the win into a draw. After that, a draw by repetition doesn't seem unreasonable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Playing black, Fritz resigns but that's after seven moves, so the &quot;horizon&quot; is now closer, presumably close enough for Fritz to tell it lost (will lose the knight within a couple of moves with no way to stop the pawn).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't have Fritz, but from what I can tell &quot;grandmaster&quot; is one of its handicap levels (the strongest, but I'm guessing not as strong as running the engine at full strength). Handicapping an engine is not an exact science so maybe it does play this endgame in a way that's weaker than an actual grandmaster. See if there is any setting to play against the full strength engine. Also I think there is a way of getting Fritz to use a tablebase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12523" LastActivityDate="2018-04-29T12:08:03.243" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21489" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21502" CreationDate="2018-04-30T21:51:58.970" Score="12" ViewCount="847" Body="&lt;p&gt;Underpromotion is an interesting aspect of chess, but there are other possibilities that aren't allowed under modern rules.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One is the so called &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Promotion_(chess)#1862_British_Chess_Association_rule&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;dummy pawn&lt;/a&gt;&quot; as this question discusses:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/21212/when-if-ever-was-it-a-rule-that-pawn-promotion-was-optional&quot;&gt;When (if ever) was it a rule that pawn promotion was optional?&lt;/a&gt; where the goal would be to stalemate oneself.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another is promoting the pawn to a piece of the opposite color, where the goal could be to smother the enemy king with one of his &quot;own&quot; pieces, as in the Wikipedia example, or perhaps to cause one's own king to be stalemated with the help of the newly created enemy piece.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If both of these were allowed, promoting to a weak enemy piece would often serve the same purpose as a dummy pawn, so in such cases, suppose the dummy pawn is our default, if it works.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which of these situations would be less likely to occur? Would either of them be more likely to occur than underpromotion to a rook, bishop, or a knight?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16443" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-06-14T19:41:40.390" LastActivityDate="2020-11-18T05:22:25.597" Title="How likely is it that a non-orthodox promotion is optimal?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;pawn-promotion&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21490" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21489" CreationDate="2018-04-30T23:49:21.417" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Would either of them be more likely to occur than under promotion to a bishop? or a rook? or a knight?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm sure your scenarios wouldn't happen more often than promotion to a knight. Knight promotion is not impossible in competitive chess, whereas your scenarios most likely occur in chess composition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2018-04-30T23:49:21.417" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21492" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21506" CreationDate="2018-05-01T23:43:51.300" Score="19" ViewCount="2448" Body="&lt;p&gt;En passant is somewhat of a rare move in chess. Checkmating by en passant, however, is an even rarer occurrence. But suppose both sides had the same goal to help cause a checkmate to their opponent via en passant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the minimum amount of moves needed by both White and Black to give checkmate by en passant?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12824" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-04-07T14:29:01.960" LastActivityDate="2021-04-07T14:29:01.960" Title="Fastest possible checkmate by en passant" Tags="&lt;problems&gt;&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;records&gt;&lt;en-passant&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21493" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21494" CreationDate="2018-05-01T23:52:17.140" Score="1" ViewCount="346" Body="&lt;p&gt;My pawn is pinned by the enemy bishop, however if I push the pinned pawn 1 space my rook would then put the opposing king in check resulting in a simultaneous check with my opponent to move next   Can I move my pinned pawn in that situation? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16449" LastEditorUserId="15365" LastEditDate="2018-08-31T15:27:36.960" LastActivityDate="2018-08-31T15:27:36.960" Title="Simultaneous check" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2018-05-02T16:55:00.727" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21494" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21493" CreationDate="2018-05-01T23:56:00.640" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;No. Doing so would put you in check, and it would be the enemy's turn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can think of it this way, the enemy would have the first opportunity to take a king, so if the game was about taking kings, then you would lose in this situation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can never make a move that would allow the enemy to take your king, even if you put their king in check at the same time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12824" LastActivityDate="2018-05-01T23:56:00.640" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 3.0" />
  <row Id="21495" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8579" CreationDate="2018-05-02T00:00:39.670" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is actually interesting, as there is a certain counter-intuitive way to win. If you end up with a huge material advantage, in some positions you can force your opponent to checkmate you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13928" LastActivityDate="2018-05-02T00:00:39.670" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21496" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21492" CreationDate="2018-05-02T01:07:07.353" Score="16" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://madchess.wordpress.com/2012/06/17/shortest-legal-en-passant-mates/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this page&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;the shortest known mate by &lt;em&gt;en passant&lt;/em&gt; capture is in 5.5 moves&#xA;(that is, White mates on move 6), and was published by Benko in&#xA;&lt;em&gt;Chess Live &amp;amp; Review&lt;/em&gt; in 1976:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Pal Benko's 5.5 move e.p. helpmate&quot;]&#xA;[Fen &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w - - 0 0&quot;] &#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Qh5 Nc6 3. g4 d6 4. g5 Kd7 5. Bh3+ f5 6. gxf6#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8860" LastActivityDate="2018-05-02T01:07:07.353" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21497" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16486" CreationDate="2018-05-02T06:27:19.417" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;This variant is distinct from regular chess. Some positions you can win more quickly, and others more slowly. This comes about because stalemate is still a thing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[title &quot;White to move. (a) mate in 3 moves (b) unroyal: capture king in 2 moves&quot;]  &#xA;[fen &quot;7k/5P2/8/5K2/8/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]  &#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Solution:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(a) 1. Kf6 Kh7 2. f8=R Kh6 3. Rh8#&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(b) 1. Kg6 Kg8,Kg7,Kh7 2. fxKg8,KxKg7,KxKh7&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[title &quot;White to move. (a) mate in 1 move (b) unroyal: capture king in 3 moves&quot;]  &#xA;[fen &quot;8/8/8/5N2/K7/8/4p1pp/4Bbrk w - - 0 1&quot;]  &#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Solution:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(a) 1. Ng3#&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(b) 1. Bf2 e1=? 2. Ng3 ~ 3. NxKh1&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, does anyone here know a name for this variant of chess where there are no checks or checkmates, and you win by capturing the opponent's king? I'm calling it Unroyal Chess for the purposes of this post. &quot;Checkless chess&quot; is something different. It means that check is illegal &lt;em&gt;unless&lt;/em&gt; it ends the game with checkmate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8201" LastActivityDate="2018-05-02T06:27:19.417" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21498" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21492" CreationDate="2018-05-03T05:21:28.630" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Thanks for the subject! A natural, fun extension of the question is to ask what is the shortest &lt;strong&gt;Unique Proof Game&lt;/strong&gt; ending in e.p. checkmate. The idea with one of these is you are given just the end state diagram, and the total number of moves, and you must figure out the unique game leading to that point.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think the current record holder is the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[title &quot;Gerd Wilts &amp; Norbert Geissler - RML - 05/1996&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[startply &quot;14&quot;]  &#xA;&#xA;1. f4 e5 2. Kf2 Qh4+ 3. Kf3 Qf2+ 4. Kg4 h5+ 5. Kh3 h4 6. e4 d5+ 7. g4 hxg3ep# *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;   &#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Position after Black's 7th move.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I honestly don't know if this is the best possible: maybe there is another position with a shorter unique proof game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8201" LastActivityDate="2018-05-03T05:21:28.630" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21499" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8579" CreationDate="2018-05-03T05:35:18.040" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;It would be a different kind of game.  You'd still want to build up a material advantage to be able to force your opponent to checkmate you.  But you would almost always need more material than that which is required to checkmate your opponent.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It would also be more difficult to win material by threatening your opponent's king since your opponent would only need to defend when a move to get out of check is required.  Similarly you would need to worry about getting your king out of check but not about being checkmated.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More positions would likely be drawn than in standard chess so you could say the analysis is simpler in this sense.  Then again finding a win when one exists would be more difficult for a random position than in standard chess so the analysis is more complex in this sense.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user11382" LastEditorDisplayName="user11382" LastEditDate="2018-05-03T06:56:23.383" LastActivityDate="2018-05-03T06:56:23.383" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21500" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-05-03T05:37:47.567" Score="0" ViewCount="136" Body="&lt;p&gt;My rating in chess24 is 1560, is the rating based on my wins or any other criteria considered? I can see the scores change when I win or lose.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16460" LastActivityDate="2018-05-03T07:28:39.977" Title="Ratings criteria chess24" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21502" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21489" CreationDate="2018-05-03T06:59:44.523" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;Thanks for your great question. Here's what I think about the relative frequency of different joke promotions, in games and compositions. Many such compositions are helpmates or selfmates, but the rationale for promotion choice is already a bit peculiar in those, so in this topic we'll focus on games, direct mates or studies.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Regular promotions&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, a quick review of the frequency of legal promotions, as quoted in the Wikipedia page you pointed at:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Piece      %&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Queen  96.9&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Knight  1.8&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Rook    1.1&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Bishop  0.2&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Couple of points:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(1) A knight promotion is arguably not an under-promotion, in that the promoted piece gets immediate access to squares that the queen does not. The most common use of a knight promotion is in hot positions where a tempo is key.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(2) Rook and bishop are definite under-promotions: they may be used to turn a draw into a win by avoiding stalemating the opponent. But they might also be used (more in compositions than in real life) to turn a loss into a draw by entering a block position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(3) I doubt that the need for a bishop promotion is as high as 0.2%. There are certainly cases where it is the answer, but I suspect that these are dwarfed by those where B under-promotion was selected for fun. I have certainly seen GM Hikaru Nakamura do this for grins against computers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The Dummy Pawn&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The dummy pawn takes the idea of under-promotion to its logical extreme. In principle, it would mainly be used in games to turn a lost position into a draw, since (unlike bishop or rook) it doesn't rely on other pieces to be blocked. But positions have also been constructed where the dummy pawn can turn a draw into a win. Here, the defensive player would have two alternative lines, one drawing against a bishop, the other to draw against a rook. For all the drama, I don't know of any tournament where the dummy pawn rule of 1862 was actually played. There are some good compositions though, but returning to the frequency comparison, dummy pawn would come in at approximately 0.0%!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Enemy unit&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Moving on to promotions to enemy unit. There are numerous 19th century joke promotion problems relying on promotion to enemy officer. According to chess historian Mario Richter, one influence here was Bilguer's &lt;em&gt;Handbuch des Schachspiels&lt;/em&gt;, which was for many generations of chess players &lt;em&gt;the&lt;/em&gt; reference work on chess. Especially it refers to the paragraph defining the rule of promotion:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Gelangt [der Bauer] auf die letzte Reihe des Brettes, auf welcher anfangs die Offiziere des Gegners stehen, so muß der Besitzer ihn augenblicklich umwandeln und zu einem beliebigen Offizier machen. Hierbei kann man eine zweite Dame, einen dritten Springer u.s.w. wählen; nur versteht es sich, daß der Bauer nicht in einen zweiten König verwandelt werden darf.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(If the pawn reaches the last rank, which is occupied in the starting position by the enemy officers, it has to be immediately promoted to an arbitrary officer. In this way you can have a second queen, a third knight etc, but you cannot have a second king.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So Bilguer forgot to specify that the promoted officer should have the same colour as the pawn!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are many joke compositions involving promotion to enemy knight, bishop or rook. If one was looking for their movement capabilities, then these might be replaced by a  friendly dummy pawn instead, which cannot move at all. However, an enemy unit is that it cannot be captured by another enemy unit, in particular it blocks a flight square for the king. It can also serve to prevent stalemating the opponent, by giving him a new piece to move around.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is normally assumed that promotion to enemy rook can be followed by castling.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So in summary, I think the enemy officer is less useful than friendly dummy pawn for getting one's self stalemated, and more useful for avoiding stalemating the opponent. The relative frequencies would reflect this, approx 0.0% again.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Open Cases&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are two open cases where I know of no existing compositions:&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;(1) Promotion to enemy queen. How could it be in my interest to promote a pawn to enemy queen rather than enemy rook or bishop?&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;(2) Promotion to enemy pawn. This would require a new rule: how does a pawn on first row move? And by analogy with the rook, can it double-step?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Promotions to king, white or black are also found in problems, but let's follow Bilguer to exclude them from scope because the field of discussion here is already broad enough, and they would require an extension to the rules concerning how checkmate works against multiple kings.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8201" LastEditorUserId="8201" LastEditDate="2020-10-10T04:10:38.317" LastActivityDate="2020-10-10T04:10:38.317" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21503" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21500" CreationDate="2018-05-03T07:28:39.977" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;https://support.chess24.com/hc/en-us/articles/201200336-What-do-the-ratings-mean-&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this page&lt;/a&gt; on their site, &quot;A new member starts with a rating of 1800 and after a rated game that number changes. The change depends on the result of the game and your opponent's strength.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have no reason to assume this is incorrect or incomplete.  These are probably the only factors.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2018-05-03T07:28:39.977" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21504" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21479" CreationDate="2018-05-03T15:52:31.200" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I suspect it's an edge-case optimization that doesn't really matter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the point in spending time making your engine more efficient at searching once mate has been found? You've already found mate! Your job here is done.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The performance cost of having some additional check of &lt;code&gt;if(currentPly &amp;gt; matePly){...}&lt;/code&gt; called millions of times isn't worth the &quot;benefit&quot; of more efficient post-mate searches.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11105" LastActivityDate="2018-05-03T15:52:31.200" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21505" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5191" CreationDate="2018-05-04T09:44:11.210" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I played International chess in childhood rather well, now I play only Japanese shogi and Chinese xiangqi. Xiangqi has triple and even quadruple check and many new tactics connected with Cannon. Cannon can make double threat by moving other piece on the board, Cannon makes double pins, can protect or attack pieces like X-ray through two pieces, double checks are much more common than in chess. And xiangqi has more space for shifting pieces, penetration into an enemy camp. Xiangqi has flanking trio rule and so on. Other type of tactics based on the features of the movement of figures and is associated with the blockade. In chess, only a pawn is directly blocked. In xiangqi almost all pieces block each other, or are blocked by space features like river and palace.As well xiangqi has a lot of mating formulas based on the before mentioned facts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16467" LastActivityDate="2018-05-04T09:44:11.210" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21506" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21492" CreationDate="2018-05-04T11:14:02.707" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;The same question has also been &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/forum/general-chess-discussion/competition-create-the-shortest-game-with-ep-and-mate-pxp-ep-?page=1&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;discussed and answered in the lichess forum&lt;/a&gt;, and as mentioned by others already, the answer is &lt;strong&gt;11 half-moves for white&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;12 half-moves for black&lt;/strong&gt;. You might find some interesting examples and additional info there. Not knowing that this problem had already been solved before, I did a brute-force proof back then (see &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/forum/general-chess-discussion/competition-create-the-shortest-game-with-ep-and-mate-pxp-ep-?page=2#13&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;my post in the aforementioned thread&lt;/a&gt;), since that is feasible for 10-12 ply, i.e., disproving the existence of a solution up to 10 ply by an exhaustive search and finding solutions with 11 and 12 ply, respectively.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are displays for said games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e6 2. e5 g5 3. Nc3 Nh6 4. Qh5 Ke7 5. Ne4 f5 6. exf6#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. f3 e5 2. Kf2 Qf6 3. Kg3 h5 4. h3 h4+ 5. Kh2 Qxf3 6. g4 hxg3#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15415" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-01-15T15:02:04.403" LastActivityDate="2020-01-15T15:02:04.403" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21507" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5191" CreationDate="2018-05-04T15:50:09.227" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Great answers so far. There's a few factors that I want to add as a Westerner who has played occasionally in China.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(1) Stalemate doesn't exist. Power to the strong! The resource of pat which makes western endgames interesting right to the end doesn't exist in Chinese Chess.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(2) The analogies to western 50 move draw rule are very complicated and situational, and I've never got my head around them.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(3) Some of the pieces are quite weak compared to their western counterparts, but cannons and the superpower whereby two generals can't face one another on the same open file are uniquely powerful and it's always fun to play with these rules.  Quadruple checks rule!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(4) &lt;strong&gt;Finally and most importantly&lt;/strong&gt; over the last few years a new rule has revolutionized Chinese chess as it's played in the neighbourhoods. The 15 pieces for each side excluding the general are turned upside down at the beginning of the game and shuffled. They are then randomly placed on the same squares as the normal starting units, and then they all move like pawns, their identity only being revealed when they capture or are captured themselves. The general begins face up on his normal square. Even the owner is not allowed to peek to see what unit really is. This is like a cross between Fischer 960 chess and &quot;morphs&quot; from Magic the Gathering, and adds a lot of excitement to the game, particularly for the spectators who often crowd round the outdoors games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8201" LastActivityDate="2018-05-04T15:50:09.227" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21508" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21509" CreationDate="2018-05-04T16:09:43.520" Score="5" ViewCount="986" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was watching the Challengers championship recently and noticed that the commentators talking about Wesley So’s last game got annoyed that he was aiming for a draw and didn’t really have any fight in him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A draw was agreed after only 20 odd moves, and that got me thinking - if a top grandmaster were to aim for a draw against AlphaZero for instance, would they always manage?&#xA;Can a Grandmaster force a draw?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16427" LastActivityDate="2018-05-04T16:37:54.350" Title="Can a grandmaster always draw?" Tags="&lt;draw&gt;&lt;grandmaster&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21509" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21508" CreationDate="2018-05-04T16:37:54.350" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;No.  It may be difficult to win against a top GM who is playing for a draw, but it's by no means impossible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If GM's could &lt;em&gt;always&lt;/em&gt; draw at will, we could stop all championship matches once either player won a game, since the outcome would be decided.  But we don't do that, because the outcome is &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; decided after one player gets one win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2018-05-04T16:37:54.350" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21510" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9772" CreationDate="2018-05-04T18:21:46.100" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I see only benefits in using a GPU based chess engine and don't see any serious problems doing that. Maybe you have that issues try using a standard chess program, don't know much about the others. I just start up to write a chess programm from the first line on, as a second CUDA based program after I make some first programming tests on CUDA without specific sence. &#xA;Soon I can make some first performance tests and test games against other engines. Maybe during next week. I just start creating it but I'm already close finish it and most functions already finished.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16471" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-05-04T20:00:35.617" LastActivityDate="2018-05-04T20:00:35.617" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21511" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21239" CreationDate="2018-05-05T06:45:05.533" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Time for an update: Chess.com has just &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/blog/News/new-tools-for-fair-play-on-chess-com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;released&lt;/a&gt; a new formular for reporting abusing players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It includes a category &quot;poor sportsmanship / stalling in games&quot; that totally fits your situation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastActivityDate="2018-05-05T06:45:05.533" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21512" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-05-05T14:29:30.190" Score="0" ViewCount="130" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ZTOtX.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ZTOtX.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What do you think are the chances for the black to win?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14098" LastActivityDate="2018-05-06T10:29:41.590" Title="Who is winning is this game of chess?" Tags="&lt;online-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21513" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21512" CreationDate="2018-05-05T14:51:02.723" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Black is down in material by a couple of pawns and the black King is very weak.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unless there are any immediate tactics (doesn't look like there are, but haven't checked with an engine), white should win this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2018-05-05T14:51:02.723" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21514" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21512" CreationDate="2018-05-05T15:10:28.923" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's game over for Black. Down by material, mating attack, zero counterplay etc. The Black's rook is under attacked.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1...Rd6 2.e5 Qxe5 3.Qg4+ Qf5 4.Qxh5 winning easily&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1-0 unless White makes a horrible mistake.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2018-05-06T10:29:41.590" LastActivityDate="2018-05-06T10:29:41.590" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21515" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21516" CreationDate="2018-05-05T20:38:19.443" Score="10" ViewCount="631" Body="&lt;p&gt;The movie &quot;Revolver&quot; has a scene with a chess game: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eI1oSkX-Zag&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eI1oSkX-Zag&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is the game plausible?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16403" LastEditorUserId="86" LastEditDate="2018-05-08T03:53:31.397" LastActivityDate="2018-05-08T03:53:31.397" Title="Is the chess game from the movie &quot;Revolver&quot; a plausible game?" Tags="&lt;film&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21516" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21515" CreationDate="2018-05-05T21:40:54.937" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;The scenes we see in the movie are not completely coherent, some of the things we see are in the wrong order, and the initial chessboard seems to come from the same game, but it is not completely consistent with what happens later. Anyway, the combination they play, with the checkmate, looks like this. Of course the combination is quite simple, and it does not match with the idea they want to give in the movie (the two people are supposed to be tournament players, as we see from the scenes with the chess clocks), so for them this combination would be trivial, and the suspence we see in the last three moves is quite unjustified.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;r1b1r1k1/pp1nbppp/4p3/q2pP3/8/2RBBN2/PP2QPPP/5RK1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;1. Bxh7+ Kxh7 2. Ng5+ Bxg5 3. Qh5+ Kg8 4. Bxg5 Nxe5 5. Rh3 Ng6 6. Qh7+ Kf8&#xA;7. Qh8+ Nxh8 8. Rxh8# 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15668" LastActivityDate="2018-05-05T21:40:54.937" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21518" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1811" CreationDate="2018-05-06T10:24:32.193" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is, as I see it, one main point to argue for the French defence over Caro-Kann, and that is the advance variation. In the French, the advance variation is a sound line, but not the most challenging one. In the Caro-Kann, however, it is more challenging. The reason for why this is I think can be summed up in the following three points:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Black's light-squared bishop may become a target outside the pawn chain. While this isn't really a big problem most of the time, it gives white a target on the kingside to accelerate a pawn storm in some instances.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Black's counterattack against white's center is slower than in the french in the case when white plays the advance variation, since black has already spent a tempo playing ...c6.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;With the bishop outside of the pawn chain, black somewhat weakens the defence of the a4-e8 diagonal. This can have dire consequences if black is careless, since a bishop check from b5 can be deadly if black cannot reply with Bd7.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With this being said, both openings are sound and it comes down to a matter of taste in the end when choosing which one to play. The advance variation is not a refutation to the Caro-Kann by any means, and the Caro-Kann does have some advantages over the French defence in other regards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8300" LastActivityDate="2018-05-06T10:24:32.193" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21519" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21521" CreationDate="2018-05-06T11:45:13.217" Score="16" ViewCount="2706" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's White to move-can they force a win?. The left bottom is a1 as usual.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;4k2r/6p1/p4pKb/p2N3p/p7/p5Q1/p1n5/qrn5 w - - 9 9&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note for people who saw an earlier version: the position was edited (including a swap of the colors) for a more beautiful puzzle by Laska's suggestions. The answer has now been fixed accordingly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;History: I came up with this puzzle when I was a student, almost 20 years ago. It was published in the magazine of my local chess club, but nobody found the answer. A friend popularized it with his new chess-friends after he emigrated to Canada.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16483" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-09-14T04:38:49.587" LastActivityDate="2020-09-14T04:38:49.587" Title="Can white win in this almost 20 year old puzzle?" Tags="&lt;problems&gt;&lt;retrograde-analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="12" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21520" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21556" CreationDate="2018-05-06T12:24:51.453" Score="7" ViewCount="661" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the case where White has King and 3 Knights, and Black has just the bare King, it is known that White can force checkmate. But can White in fact pick any edge square in advance, and force the checkmate to occur with the black King on that square? For example, can White guarantee checkmating on &lt;code&gt;e8&lt;/code&gt;, if he so chooses?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's an &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/15696/16477&quot;&gt;answer to a related 3 Knights post&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;mentioning &quot;side mate&quot; as opposed to &quot;corner mate&quot;, without going further into it.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In the given example the bare king is not obliged to go to the non-corner edge square where the mate occurs.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Edit after answer accepting&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The question is answered in the positive: Any edge square can be chosen to become the mate square.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16477" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-03-12T17:45:05.547" LastActivityDate="2020-03-12T17:45:05.547" Title="Checkmating the bare king with 3 knights – can the mate be forced on any edge square?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;knights&gt;&lt;knight-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="8" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21521" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21519" CreationDate="2018-05-06T13:47:10.820" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;The solution is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt; 1. Qc7 followed by Qe7, Qf7 or Qc8 mate (depending on Black's second move).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This works because&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt; Black can't castle because either his king or rook on h8 have moved already. As Brian Towers notes, the black a-pawns need to have captured 10 white pieces and/or pawns; there are enough pieces missing, &lt;em&gt;but&lt;/em&gt; capturing the white e-pawn (or to the right) doesn't bring you any closer to the a-file. So, one white pawn on the queenside must have been captured on another file; this is possible via promotion, but since there's just one black piece missing (a white-squared bishop) the promotion could have happened on the d-, e-, f-, or h-file. The pawn has either attacked the black king at f7 or d7, or it promoted on e8, forcing the black King to move in all cases. Or it promoted on h8, forcing the black rook to move. Another possibility, as @Laska noted, is that the e-pawn captures the black bishop on the d-file and is captured itself before promotion; however, we only need a single capture on the d-file, and the original white d-pawn must be captured too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="4223" LastEditDate="2018-05-17T06:29:31.973" LastActivityDate="2018-05-17T06:29:31.973" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21522" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21525" CreationDate="2018-05-06T14:37:30.393" Score="6" ViewCount="269" Body="&lt;p&gt;Specifically, in which FIDE rating list do players first appear with the Candidate Master title?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And which country (federation) had all the titles in that first list? Not that I'm suggesting a stitch up :-).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2018-05-07T10:14:08.797" Title="When was the FIDE title of Candidate Master first awarded?" Tags="&lt;fide&gt;&lt;titles&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21525" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21522" CreationDate="2018-05-07T10:14:08.797" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;This seems to be a quiz question, you probably know the answer but anyway ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first rating list that contains the Candidate Master title is April 2002 and all the players on that list with the said title are from England followed by Wales in the next rating list (July 2002). There are two relatively well known names among the first eleven people in history who held the CM title. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8844" LastActivityDate="2018-05-07T10:14:08.797" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21526" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21520" CreationDate="2018-05-07T13:32:17.507" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT: This answer in incorrect, Noam solved the problem in the accepted answer.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure if I'm supposed to delete this answer or to leave it as an unsuccessful attempt. If anyone can precise it in comments... &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After the question has been edited, I will try and demonstrate how White fail to mate on e8 starting from the same random position I used before (conveniently, it is not too far from e8).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The main point is that if you use a knight to block one escape square along the edge (say, d8), then you are basically reduced to mate in the hence created 'artificial corner' (here, e8) using a king and two knights. And just as in the KNNK ending, due to impossibility to attack the last black square (f8) and the last light square (e8) with the same knight, White fails and stalemates.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;6kN/8/4NK2/8/6N1/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Nf7 Kh7 2. Nfg5 Kh8 3.Kg6 Kg8 4.Ne5 Kh8 5.Nd8 Kg8 6.Ndc6 Kh8 7.Ngf7 Kg8 8.Kh6 Kf8 (8.Kf6 {the other plan: the king blocks in front and the two knights try to attack g8, then f8, then e8.} Kf8 9.Ng6 Kg8 10.Nge7 Kf8 11.Nfe5 Ke8 12.Ke6 Kf8 {and you cannot force the king to e8 and deliver mate.} 13.N7g6 Ke8 (13...Kg7 {escapes}) 14.Ng4 {and if it was White's turn the next move would be Nf6#, but this is stalemate.}) 9.Kh7 Ke8 10.Nd6 Kf8 11.Nf5 (11.Ng6 {mates on the wrong square}) Ke8 12.Nfd4 (12.Kg7 {stalemate}) Kf8 13.Ne6 Ke8 14.Nc7 {The knight can control either f8 or e8, but not both.} &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, if the square you have picked is in a corner, White succeeds. I feel like he would fail on g8, but I leave it for someone else to check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Previous answer: trying to mate on the original square of the knight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am not totally sure I understand what you are looking for, but is that it ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;6kN/8/4NK2/8/6N1/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Nf7 Kh7 2. Nfg5 Kg8 (2...Kh8 3.Kg6 Kg8 4.Nf6 Kh8 5.Nf7) 3.Ke5 Kh8 4.Kd4 Kg8 5.Nf6 Kh8 6.Nf7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White's knight starts on h8 and ends mating the black king on that very square. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastEditorUserId="14079" LastEditDate="2018-05-14T08:51:42.910" LastActivityDate="2018-05-14T08:51:42.910" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21527" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-05-07T14:51:42.830" Score="3" ViewCount="345" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am having an issue setting up scid vs pc. I see tons of tutorials and they all show a nice interface with the board, analysis, and other windows all visible on one view. However all I get get is the board showing and the current few moves. Everything else is on separate tabs. I have searched high and low through the menus and options and Google  searches but no answers.  I tried to upload the screenshot urls but only one will post, if I ad the second one it deletes the 1st one.  Thank you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/uwgsL.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/uwgsL.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16492" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-05-07T18:58:11.443" LastActivityDate="2018-05-07T21:57:04.473" Title="scid vs pc interface" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;scid&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ClosedDate="2018-05-23T21:03:13.743" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21528" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21527" CreationDate="2018-05-07T21:57:04.473" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Try setting Options -&gt; Windows -&gt; Dock Windows.  If I understand your problem correctly, that may fix it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2018-05-07T21:57:04.473" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21529" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19932" CreationDate="2018-05-08T05:07:34.270" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I´d say Black has at least a draw.  In case the queens get exchanged Black can bring his king to support e6 and if need be approach the king side to prevent a possible g4 break. He/she can bring their bishop to an active diagonal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand white must be super creative to activate their rooks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In case queens remain, other than the above ideas Black can sacrifice a pawn to have  the bishop eye the g2 pawn. This together with pressure from g file by rook must be enough to keep White on check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The position is rich in possibilities. Don't trust an engine on this! In practice Black has a more straightforward game to follow than White.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13438" LastEditorDisplayName="user7637" LastEditDate="2019-01-21T17:54:49.503" LastActivityDate="2019-01-21T17:54:49.503" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21530" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21546" CreationDate="2018-05-08T07:04:27.490" Score="10" ViewCount="1708" Body="&lt;p&gt;Whenever I see photos of professional chess games, the players are always dressed impeccably and it's uncommon to see someone even missing a jacket.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe this is a dumb question, but I don't understand why they dress so professionally, when they would be more comfortable (and perhaps perform better) in something else?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it to seem threatening to their opponents?  Is it to make themselves feel more confident?  Do tournament rules require it (but if so, why)?  Is there any history or tradition behind it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In case you've never noticed, I've included some images below.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://images.chesscomfiles.com/uploads/v1/news/433010.5e345c36.630x354o.79fac28899ad.jpeg&quot; alt=&quot;Aronian and Caruana&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Aronian and Caruana at the previous Candidates tournament&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Nz7Xd.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Anand and Carlsen&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Anand and Carlsen at the 2013 World Chess Championship&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16497" LastActivityDate="2018-05-11T10:57:41.770" Title="Why do grandmasters wear suits at tournaments?" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;history&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21531" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-05-08T13:35:28.380" Score="-1" ViewCount="123" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am playing with only a bishop (black squares) and king vs a lone king.&#xA;Is it possible for me to win?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16501" LastActivityDate="2018-05-08T14:19:16.373" Title="Is it possible to win with a black bishop and king vs a king?" Tags="&lt;bishop-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2018-05-08T23:15:16.787" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21532" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21531" CreationDate="2018-05-08T13:47:11.910" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;No. Even if you got your opponent's king to a corner and checked it with your bishop, your king can control only two of the three flight squares.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The most you could achieve is a stalemate, if your opponent helps. Therefore king and bishop vs king is considered a draw by insufficient material (&quot;dead position&quot; is the term used in the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=208&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Laws of Chess&lt;/a&gt;; see article 5.2.2). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12523" LastEditorUserId="12523" LastEditDate="2018-05-08T14:19:16.373" LastActivityDate="2018-05-08T14:19:16.373" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21533" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-05-08T14:55:31.290" Score="9" ViewCount="1447" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have heard from many a story in which a man who introduced the game of chess was hanged or killed by his king. What was the actual story and the the reason for killing the founder of chess?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16502" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-05-23T03:42:13.280" LastActivityDate="2020-05-23T21:55:33.140" Title="Why was the founder of chess killed?" Tags="&lt;history&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21534" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21533" CreationDate="2018-05-08T15:23:42.713" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;The exact origins of chess are not known, but there are several stories about it out there. At the top of my head I can think of at least four different ones that I've heard myself, and after reading your question I suspect that you've heard of one such story about the creation of chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One of these, which may or may not be the story you seem to have learnt about, is the one that follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A long time ago, a bored king asked one of his underlings to bring him some form of fresh entertainment. The underling thought for a while, and came up with the game of chess. After playing one game, the king was so pleased with what the underling had brought him that he said that the underling could ask for anything he desired as a reward for the invention of the brilliant game. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After contemplating for a while, the underling asked for a grain of rice for the first square of the chess board, two grains of rice for the second square, four grains for the third square, and so on for the remaining squares. The king agreed to the request, and when it was realized that the total amount of grains the underling had asked for was impossible for the kingdom to provide, the king got angry and ordered the execution of his underling for making a fool out of him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is important to note, however, that this story has no proven historical validity whatsoever.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8300" LastActivityDate="2018-05-08T15:23:42.713" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21535" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21538" CreationDate="2018-05-08T17:46:49.487" Score="2" ViewCount="202" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been practicing the Spanish Game so I can have better tournament results with it,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Spanish Game&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Spanish Game, Cozio Defense&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and I asked my friend to play the Cozio defense,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 Nge7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And the game that popped up was&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 Nge7 4. Nc3 g6 ({Center control}) 5.d4 exd4 6.Nd5 Nxd5 7. exd5 Qe7+ 8. Kf1 Ne5 {Either way I can't castle, but since I have space I'll keep my queen} 9. Qxd4 Bg7 {Pin the knight to the rook, and I have decent control over white squares and development so I didn't feel threatened that bad and nabbed the pawn} 10. Bf4 f6 {Really good spot to develop and incorporate bishop with some unfinished ideas of attacks} 11. Re1 O-O&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From here came a bunch of exchanges initiated by white that lead to a slow endgame and draw. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are the main ideas and advantages of this opening? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S I don't think Nxd5 was the strongest move from analysing it in an engine and noticing it in the game I had tempo on the e5 square. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and my comments on the moves didn't show in the pgn (I'm not quite sure how to annotate those), but the basic idea was I am a positional player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-I am playing White&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12876" LastEditorUserId="12876" LastEditDate="2018-05-09T14:01:44.520" LastActivityDate="2018-05-09T14:56:56.220" Title="Main Ideas behind Spanish Game, Cozio Defense" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21537" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21533" CreationDate="2018-05-08T21:52:38.153" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;That story seems to be a Hindu legend of the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambalappuzha_Sri_Krishna_Temple#Legend_of_the_Ambalappuzha_Paal_Payasam&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Ambalappuzha Sri Krishna Temple&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically the story goes:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The god Krishna, disguised as a sage, appeared in front of a king and challenged him to a game of chess (chaturanga?). The king accepted and asked him what prize he wanted if he won. He said he was a man of few needs so asked for a few grains of rice, the exact number being determined using a chessboard as following: one grain of rice would be placed on the first square, two on the second, and so on doubling the amount each time. The king was unhappy with his request and offered more riches, but he declined.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The game started, and the sage, being a god, obviously won. As the king started to pay the sage's prize, he realized that there wasn't enough rice in his kingdom to pay the prize. The sage transformed back into his god self and told the king the prize didn't have to be payed immediately. He would serve &lt;em&gt;paal-payasam&lt;/em&gt; (some sort of food made of rice) to pilgrims every day until the debt was payed off.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this story, no one dies, and it seems like this is the most correct version, as it's part of Hindu culture.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(There is also more information over at &lt;a href=&quot;https://hinduism.stackexchange.com/questions/16712/the-legend-of-chessboard-pala-payasam-story-of-ambalappuzha-sri-krishna-temple&quot;&gt;Hinduism SE&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13928" LastEditorUserId="16057" LastEditDate="2018-05-09T20:05:58.250" LastActivityDate="2018-05-09T20:05:58.250" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21538" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21535" CreationDate="2018-05-09T14:56:56.220" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Indeed, 6...Nxd5 is not the main line. I remember some games with 6...Bg7 7.Bg5 h6 8.Bf6 Kf8, which is supposed to be a normal line, playable for Black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your game continuation, 8.Be2, keeping castling rights, looks good, e.g. 8...Ne5 9.0-0 Bg7 10.Re1 0-0 11.Nxd4 d6 12.f4 with a better development.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastActivityDate="2018-05-09T14:56:56.220" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21539" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21541" CreationDate="2018-05-09T23:24:25.293" Score="0" ViewCount="121" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.imgur.com/tSv5f3Z.png&quot; alt=&quot;game&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this game white must win. Please help me. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16403" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-05-10T06:58:52.067" LastActivityDate="2018-05-10T06:58:52.067" Title="What's the best move by white in this game?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21541" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21539" CreationDate="2018-05-10T00:05:39.570" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The key move is the &lt;strong&gt;g3&lt;/strong&gt; move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If the e3 rook is unpinned, black has lot's of troubles&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If the b8 knight is under-protected, Qxb8 wins easily&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.g3 achieves both.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; 1.g3 Qc7 2.Rxd7 now wins (Qxb8 or Rxe8 coming)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black should resign.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2018-05-10T00:05:39.570" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21542" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21544" CreationDate="2018-05-10T19:48:10.240" Score="7" ViewCount="2204" Body="&lt;p&gt;If I have ten minutes’ spare time and want to use it to improve my chess, is my time better spent playing one blitz game or five bullets?&#xA;(I’m taking blitz to be 5min each and bullet to be 1min each)&#xA;(I’m ~1300 - 1400 rated)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16427" LastEditorUserId="16427" LastEditDate="2018-05-10T19:54:51.257" LastActivityDate="2020-04-16T22:12:54.400" Title="Are blitz or bullet games better for improvement?" Tags="&lt;best-practice&gt;&lt;time-management&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21543" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1960" CreationDate="2018-05-11T01:25:48.257" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, I would start with moving to e4. Next, just to free my rook, I would move my pawn on a2 to a4. After that, if your opponent has their bishop aiming for a2, move your pawn up to a5. Now your rook should be safe from being killed while moving to a3. The way I would move my rook on h1 would be to first move my pawn to g3. After that, I would move my bishop to g2. Then, move your knight to h3. Finally, castle! That way, you have freed your Bishop, Rook, and Queen; taken over the middle; and protected your king and kept your rook not trapped.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16488" LastActivityDate="2018-05-11T01:25:48.257" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21544" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21542" CreationDate="2018-05-11T09:07:52.647" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;What improves your chess is the time you spend &lt;strong&gt;thinking on chess&lt;/strong&gt; and solving chess problems (either during a game or when doing exercices).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a consequence, if your concern is to make progress, &lt;strong&gt;a 5' blitz is better than five 1' bullets&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;What you will play will look more like a real chess game; at 1300-1400 I suppose you seldom drop pieces in blitz, but often in bullet. Also, &lt;em&gt;maybe&lt;/em&gt; this will be the occasion to practice an opening you would use again, actually &lt;em&gt;thinking&lt;/em&gt; at one or two points in the game on &quot;What do I do next ? What are my plans ? What is my opponent intending ?&quot;. At least at two or three times in the middlegame you will slow down and calculate a few lines. Calculating is useful training. &lt;em&gt;Maybe&lt;/em&gt; you will still have thirty seconds or one minute to invest for an important decision in the rook endgame; in bullet the endgame is never reached, or butchered until a player gets flagged. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The fast, repetitive, mechanical play, which is almost mandatory in bullet because of time pressure (also in blitz, actually, but less so) is actually rather hampering your progress, because you keep making bad moves and teach yourself to play automatically, not calculating. Also playing for tricks and cheapos (&lt;em&gt;if he doesn't see this I will fork his queen...&lt;/em&gt;) is the wrong mindset for when you'll play real chess.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Anyway, don't expect too much progress from a 10' practice&lt;/strong&gt;. The blitz might or might not help &lt;em&gt;a tiny little bit&lt;/em&gt;, but you will need to invest more time and various training (play, analysis, exercices, books/videos on openings/middlegame/endgame, etc.) if you want to achieve significative progress. The bullets, if anything, are counterproductive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastEditorUserId="14079" LastEditDate="2020-04-16T22:12:54.400" LastActivityDate="2020-04-16T22:12:54.400" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21545" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21542" CreationDate="2018-05-11T10:45:07.730" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;For the 1300-1400 level, none are useful if you want to improve. More often than not, blitz and bullet (especially the latter) just develop bad habits, such as moving too quickly or having little patience for in-depth analysis. If you want to work on improving in 10 minutes, I'd suggest doing a few tactics, solving a study, or playing through a master game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Blitz is only useful for &lt;em&gt;some&lt;/em&gt; players after crossing the 2000-2200 barrier. The reason for this is that blitz can help develop more intuitive and quick thinking. Most importantly, an expert/master knows that blitz chess is different from long games, and so they can ideally not let their blitz habits interfere with their long game habits.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bullet on the other hand isn't useful for any level of player. It's only purpose is for having fun. You can't develop any good habits with only 1 minute to think for an entire game. It's likely most of the calculations you do will be very flawed and inaccurate, and then this can &quot;leak over&quot; on to your long games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2018-05-11T10:45:07.730" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21546" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21530" CreationDate="2018-05-11T10:57:41.770" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;The pictures you posted are of the top GMs in the world (Anand, Carlsen, Aronian, Caruana). These GMs almost exclusively play in elite invitational tournaments, normally with around 8-10ish players. As a result, these tournaments likely have a strict dress code because the organizers want to maintain the high prestige of the event.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, the Bilbao tournament is a double round robin with 4-6 of the top players in the world. It's regarded as a very strong tournament, solely based off these 4-6 players. So, imagine if the players showed up wearing casual clothes, like shorts and t-shirts. The players may be regarded by fans as &quot;less professional&quot;, which will severely damage the reputation of the tournament.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another reason top GMs dress in suits is that they are being endorsed, or want to be endorsed (look at Carlsen's shirt in the photo you posted -- he's advertising for Arctic Securities). If a company was looking for a chess player to advertise their brand, they'll prefer the player that looks better/more professional.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Conversely, most average GMs in open tournaments do not dress in suits. This is due to the 2 reasons mentioned above, except flipped. The prestige of open tournaments do not depend on how a select few players dress, since open tournaments have hundreds of players. Also, average GMs are not going to be endorsed by big companies, so they have no incentive to dress up (unless they want to).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2018-05-11T10:57:41.770" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21547" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-05-11T14:58:56.607" Score="5" ViewCount="154" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here are examples from the January 2002 FIDE ratings file -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;   4603745  Kabisch, Thilo                         GER     2256   12   06.01.63 i    &#xA;  13701940  Kabov, Sergey                          KAZ     2140    0   28.06.67      &#xA;    931900  Kacarevic, Dejan                       YUG     2068    0   13.10.79 n    &#xA;   4136497  Kachanov, Alexander                    RUS     2091    0   02.07.59 n    &#xA;   4140729  Kachar, Vladimir                       RUS     2363    0   19.01.41 n    &#xA;  13600613  Kacheishvili, Giorgi             g     GEO     2584   25   10.02.77      &#xA;   4623614  Kachiani-G., Ketino (IM)         wg    GER     2460   17   11.09.71 w    &#xA;   4138996  Kachkin, Konstantin                    RUS     2134    0   21.04.78 n    &#xA;   4167678  Kachkina, Ekaterina                    RUS     2079    0   03.11.86 wn   &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The flags value is the last field. The value &quot;i&quot; indicates that the player is inactive, &quot;w&quot; that the player is female.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Interesting to note that Kachiani-G., Ketino has &quot;(IM)&quot; after her name as well as titles field &quot;wg&quot;. Presumably this is meant to show that she was both an International Master and a Woman Grand Master.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2018-06-10T18:20:52.390" Title="In early FIDE ratings files what does a flag value of &quot;n&quot; indicate?" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;fide&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21549" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21547" CreationDate="2018-05-11T17:43:06.757" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Going through the January 2002 list, I notice that these &quot;n&quot; marks seem to concentrate on certain countries.  Everyone from Russia, Yugoslavia,  Cuba, and Latvia seem to have this &quot;n&quot; mark.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you look at the April 2002 list, you'll notice that now everyone from the Philippines also has an &quot;n&quot;.  Perhaps the &quot;n&quot; stands for &quot;nation&quot; and designates something about the player's country.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2018-05-11T17:43:06.757" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21550" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21519" CreationDate="2018-05-11T18:25:32.357" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;As the tags suggests, the problem is a retrograde problem. If Black may no longer castle, there is an easy solution-1. Qc7 and mate on the second move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Black pawns on a6-a2 must have taken 10 white pieces or pawns. White has 3 pieces left, so the pawns could have taken 5 pieces and the pawns from a2 to d2. So one of the other pawns (e2-h2) must have been taken too. That only could have happened if one of those pawns promoted. But with the Black king on e8 and the black rook on h8, this is impossible, taking in account that the Black pawns are on f6, g7 and h5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Conclusion: the Black king and/or rook must have moved, so castling is illegal and 1. Qc7 wins.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16524" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-09-11T18:33:23.510" LastActivityDate="2020-09-11T18:33:23.510" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21552" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-05-11T22:18:22.673" Score="3" ViewCount="1618" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have studied the London opening system on lichess.org. What really clicked with me are the systems two main ideas: (1) develop a defensive structure which (2) allows you to crash black's kingside castle by pushing pawns with rooks behind them (and very often crush your opponent).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What you have is plan A, which is to crash black's king side, and if black doesn't castle you return to plan B, which is to improvise from a very strong defensive posture. The main point is that you have plan A with a very specific way to win in mind.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am /not/ asking about opening principles. I am asking about the specific ideas of the Ruy Lopez. I understand how it gets your pieces out fast, is aggressive, and allows for a fast castle. But what approach or strategy does the Ruy Lopez aim for? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my own games, the best idea I have is to position my rook in the center file (because I can castle quickly) and try to open up the center and use a discovered attack on the king or queen by exposing my rook. But is this 'classical'? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16065" LastActivityDate="2018-05-16T13:22:44.930" Title="What is the long-term idea of the Ruy-Lopez opening?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;ruy-lopez&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21553" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14655" CreationDate="2018-05-12T00:18:04.527" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can only adjust your plan to your opponent when you have multiple moves that are equally or almost equally good objectively, since sometimes one of these moves might seem better than the others against a particular opponent. But making an objectively poor move in the hopes that your opponent will not find the refutation is asking for punishment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By far the primary means of adjusting one's style to one's opponent is selecting the opening. For example, the Sicilian Defense and the French Defense are both good choices objectively, but you might have reason to believe your opponent will perform worse against the Sicilian than the French. But if you know the French better than the Sicilian, you should probably choose the French, or else your choice of opening might hurt you more than your opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This isn't the sort of thing most players really need to worry about until they become quite strong (master level). Usually in a tournament game you should just make the moves you're most comfortable with and play the moves that seem objectively best.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3079" LastActivityDate="2018-05-12T00:18:04.527" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21554" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21250" CreationDate="2018-05-12T02:02:59.343" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am not fond of opening traps. If an opening you like to play happens to have a trap in it, that's fine; by all means exploit the trap. What I don't like is going out of one's way to learn a variation just because it has a trap in it. For example, the Queen's Gambit Accepted with 3.e3 has this well known trap:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 d5 2.c4 dxc4 3.e3 b5 4.a4 c6 5.axb5 cxb5 6.Qf3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;...and now black's only option to save his rook is to give up his knight. It's a lovely little trap, and if you like 3.e3 no matter how black responds, then by all means you should learn the trap. But you shouldn't play 3.e3 just because you hope your opponent falls for the trap; I personally prefer 3.e4 to try to grab the center, but that's just my personal preference.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't like winning via an opening trap because there isn't really any skill involved other than memorization. If you start winning a large portion of your games through opening traps, your rating will go up... and then you will face opponents who know your traps and you won't know how to beat them, because you didn't learn any actual skills on the way up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Trying to draw or even win a lost game with a swindle is a different matter. I occasionally do this, and it's fun when it works (though your opponent will have a different opinion!), but I only do this if I would otherwise resign.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3079" LastActivityDate="2018-05-12T02:02:59.343" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21555" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21250" CreationDate="2018-05-12T09:50:45.473" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Each and every ranked player knows about most of the traps and defences, while playing to each other (as the both players know the trap) traps are useless, that's why you see in professional matches also, high rated players start by developing pieces. If you want to give a good fight to a ranked player it is better that you not use that trap because it is sure that he might have seen it somewhere and will know how to use it for his profit....&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16529" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-05-12T11:03:41.870" LastActivityDate="2018-05-12T11:03:41.870" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21556" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21520" CreationDate="2018-05-12T11:12:18.213" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here's how to forcibly checkmate the bare King on f8 or e8&#xA;(&lt;em&gt;added later&lt;/em&gt;: or on g8 or h8) once it's been cornered on h8.&#xA;First put Kg6 and Nd7, so the other Knights can roam freely&#xA;as long as they don't accidentally checkmate or stalemate&#xA;the cornered King; then:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;h8 to f8 (or g8 or h8)&quot;]&#xA;[Fen &quot;7k/3N4/2N3K1/4N3/8/8/8/8 w - - 0 0&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Nf7+&#xA;(1. Kh6 Kg8 2. Ne7+ Kh8 3. Nf7#) Kg8&#xA;2. Nde5 (2. Ne7#) Kf8&#xA;3. Kh7 Ke8&#xA;4. Nd6+ Kf8&#xA;5. Nd7#&#xA;(5. Ng6#)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and likewise:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;h8 to e8&quot;]&#xA;[Fen &quot;7k/3N4/2N3K1/4N3/8/8/8/8 w - - 0 0&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Nf7+ Kg8&#xA;2. Nde5 Kf8&#xA;3. Nh6 Ke8&#xA;4. Nf5 Kf8&#xA;5. Nfe7 Ke8&#xA;6. Nd5 Kf8&#xA;7. Nce7 Ke8&#xA;8. Kg7 Kd8&#xA;9. Kg8 Ke8&#xA;10. Nc8 Kd8&#xA;11. Ncb6 Ke8&#xA;12. Kg7 Kd8&#xA;13. Nc6+ Ke8&#xA;14. Nc7# (14. Nf6#)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To answer the question &lt;strong&gt;Glorfindel&lt;/strong&gt; asks in a comment:&#xA;White can start the same way, then set up the Knights on c5/d5/e5&#xA;to form a gauntlet and use the wK to push bK to the a8 corner:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;h8 to a8&quot;]&#xA;[Fen &quot;7k/3N4/2N3K1/4N3/8/8/8/8 w - - 0 0&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Nf7+ Kg8&#xA;2. Nde5 Kf8&#xA;3. Nh6 Ke8&#xA;4. Nf5 Kf8&#xA;5. Nfe7 Ke8&#xA;6. Nd5 Kf8&#xA;7. Kh7 Ke8&#xA;8. Nd4 Kd8&#xA;9. Ne6+ Ke8 (9... Kc8 10. Nc5)&#xA;10. Nc5 Kf8&#xA;11. Kh8 Ke8&#xA;12. Kg8 Kd8&#xA;13. Kf8 Kc8&#xA;14. Ke8 Kb8&#xA;15. Kd8 Ka7&#xA;16. Kc7 Ka8&#xA;17. Nb4 (17. Kb6 Kb8 18. Ne7)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and then use the previous analysis to force mate on any of a5/a6/a7/a8&#xA;(or b8/c8/d8), or push the King further to a1, etc.  So once the lone King&#xA;has been securely cornered it can be checkmated on any prescribed square&#xA;on the board's edge.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8860" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-05-15T08:21:27.070" LastActivityDate="2018-05-15T08:21:27.070" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21557" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21552" CreationDate="2018-05-12T15:14:30.897" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;What you said about how fast White castles and can open center (and give a check) are the tactical resources that white uses to achieve their strategic goals. Of course in modern day every minimally educated player knows the tenets of opening stage and will not allow a mate in 15 by letting White open up the center and bring all minor pieces and take on f7 and mate!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, what is the longterm strategy? Well, I am not an expert in 1.e4 opening generally, but, can tell from many games I have seen in Ruy Lopez that white is aiming to &#xA;1) Restrict Blacks's choices in the opening. Notice how Black can't really dictate anything in the opening, Black's pieces have basically one square to choose from. White later plays h3 to take g4 away from the bishop on c8.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) Obtain a mobile center (possibility of being able to push pawns (d4) to open the center) -- think pawns on c3 and d3 and e4 -- this is in contrast with 1.d4 openings where later the center locks with white's pawn ending in d5 and the game &quot;slows down&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) While preventing Black from freeing their position, white exports another knight to the king side, maneuvers the bishop from b5 to b3, or c2, and gets ready to assault an attack on the king side by occupying f5/h5 with a knight, pushing d4 to open the center and activating the bishops, and even maybe bringing rooks to g file or even the third rank. I must admit I was horrified by Ruy Lopez personally, and never could equalize as Black. (Now I exclusively play Sicilian against 1.e4)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course this is a particular line I have in my mind, and many variations are out there with maybe drastically different strategies.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Added: See answers to &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/226/why-is-the-ruy-lopez-such-a-common-opening&quot;&gt;Why is the Ruy Lopez such a common opening?&lt;/a&gt; (I am surprised how right I was!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13438" LastEditorUserId="13438" LastEditDate="2018-05-12T15:25:06.487" LastActivityDate="2018-05-12T15:25:06.487" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21558" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21250" CreationDate="2018-05-12T17:16:55.250" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;em&gt;occasional&lt;/em&gt; trap game is entertaining and can even be illuminating but, at normal time controls, experience suggests that such traps seldom prosper against opponents stronger than FIDE 1800.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is a typical example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[title &quot;Krystl (1795) v Travnicek (1975), Czechia, 1997&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. g4 d5 2. Bg2 Bxg4 3. c4 Nf6 4. cxd5 Nxd5 5. Qb3 Be6 (5... Nb6? 6. Bxb7) 6. Qxb7 Nb6 7. Nc3 Qd7  8. d3 c6 9. Qxd7+ Bxd7 10. Be3 e6 11. Bd4 c5 12. Be5 Nc6 13. Bc7 Rc8 14. Nb5  Nb4 15. Nd6+ Bxd6 16. Bxd6 Bc6 17. Nf3 Nc2+ 18. Kd2 Nxa1 19. Rxa1 Kd7 20. Bg3  f6 21. Rc1 Rhd8 22. Rxc5 Bxf3 23. Rxc8 Bxg2 24. Rc7+ Ke8 25. Rxg7 Rd7 26. Rg4  Bd5 27. b3 a5 28. Rg8+ Kf7 29. Rb8 Bb7 30. e4 e5 31. f4 f5 32. Bf2 Nc8 33. fxe5  fxe4 34. d4 Ke6 35. Ke3 Kd5 36. Be1 Kc6 37. e6 Rd5 38. Bh4 Kc7 39. e7 Bc6 40.  Bg3+ Nd6 41. Bxd6+ Kxd6 42. e8=Q Bxe8 43. Rxe8 Rh5 44. Kxe4 Rxh2 45. a4 Re2+  0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Counterexamples exist but good counterexamples are hard to find.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[title &quot;Jovanovic (2330) v Milanovic (2480), online, 2005&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. d4 exd4 3. f4 Nc6 4. Nf3 Bc5 5. Bd3 Nf6 6. O-O Qe7 7. a3 a5 8. Nbd2  O-O? 9. e5 Ng4 10. Bxh7+ Kh8 11. Ng5 d6 12. Bd3 dxe5 13. Qe1 exf4 14. Qh4+ Nh6  15. Nde4 Ne5 16. Bxf4 Ng6 17. Qg3 Nxf4 18. Rxf4 Bd6 19. Nxd6 Qxd6 20. Qf2 Qd5  21. Qh4 c5 22. Rf6 Kg8 23. Bh7+ Kh8 24. Rxh6 gxh6 25. Qxh6 Qxg5 26. Qxg5 Kxh7  27. Rf1 f5 28. Rf4 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Trap games remain a part of the game of chess and a part of chess lore&amp;mdash;a minor part, but a part nevertheless. At the lower ratings, trap games even serve a salutary purpose insofar as they serve to teach their victims to sidestep the traps!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At the lower ratings at which the traps actually work, the occasional trap game can be fun to play for both sides; but at the higher ratings, even games like the diagrammed Jovanovic v Milanovic (in which Black plays not very but only somewhat badly) rarely occur.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At any rating, if trap games are too often tried, trap games tend to warp and stunt a player's understanding of the game of chess. The player who plays a trap game must be prepared to lose if his or her trap is detected, so even at the lower ratings, more than occasional use can hardly be recommended.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And at the higher ratings? Sorry, but over FIDE 1800, experience appears to contradict the trap game. The attempt just doesn't work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because opponents rated much higher will seldom lose in any case, the conjecture that a trap game might maximize one's meagre chances does seem reasonable, so your &lt;em&gt;question&lt;/em&gt; is a good one. However, the &lt;em&gt;answer&lt;/em&gt; seems to be this: over-the-board experience teaches that one can maximize meagre chances against much-higher-rated opponents by just playing good moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="315" LastEditorUserId="315" LastEditDate="2018-05-12T17:26:43.907" LastActivityDate="2018-05-12T17:26:43.907" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21559" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21552" CreationDate="2018-05-12T17:48:20.840" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The answer to this is way beyond my pay grade, but I may be able to say something that prepares you for a better answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You are not only comparing two very different opening systems (London System and Ruy Lopez), but you are comparing two different ideas of what an opening system is. The London system was once described by GM Julian Hodgson as the &quot;businessman's opening&quot;, ideal for those with little time for study, because once you have played d4 and Bf4 there is not much choice for the other pieces. It can be said without gross exaggeration that the London system can be learned in five minutes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Ruy Lopez is much more vague and much more ambitious. The vagueness is why no short answer is possible. The goal is to increase Whites mobility and control of space and to retain the option of where to strike. There are some standard manoeuvers such as c3 and d4,0-0 and Re1,Nb1-d2-f1-e/g3, a4, and others, but Black can often play a &lt;em&gt;big&lt;/em&gt; role in deciding the sort of game it will be. He can go for complicated counterattack with the Schliemann, the Open, or the Marshall. He can play more safely, with Steinitz/Steinitz Deferred or more classical approaches like the Chigorin, Keres, Breyer.. In fact one reason NOT to play the Lopez is all of the work required to prepare for everything that might happen. Mastering the Lopez is a lifetimes work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastEditorUserId="13012" LastEditDate="2018-05-16T13:22:44.930" LastActivityDate="2018-05-16T13:22:44.930" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21564" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-05-13T13:42:02.710" Score="7" ViewCount="438" Body="&lt;p&gt;Could someone please help me identify this chess set?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I purchased this from a flea market because I love the look of it. It now sits in my game room so the paint won't wear off.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have looked all over each piece using a magnifying glass and cannot find anything that would resemble a Makers Mark or other identifying marks.  The pieces are fairly heavy and feel like they are made of some type of metal yet a magnet does not stick to them.  I have pictures of each of the pieces so I could enlarge them to see better but even doing that I cannot find anything to help me identify this set.  Each of the pieces has a felt covering on the base.  I thought about removing one to see if there is anything to help me but am afraid of causing unnecessary damage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please let me know if I can provide any other information - not that I have much more - or any additional photos I can provide in helping with this question. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/12J3s.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/12J3s.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user16531" LastEditorDisplayName="user7637" LastEditDate="2019-01-22T13:33:27.620" LastActivityDate="2021-01-08T19:21:58.220" Title="Identify this chess set with heavy painted metal pieces" Tags="&lt;chess-set&gt;&lt;identify-this&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21565" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21569" CreationDate="2018-05-13T14:07:59.367" Score="4" ViewCount="392" Body="&lt;p&gt;I’ve noticed that in tournaments grandmasters are given a performance rating for how they played in that tournament. Can this be applied to individual games and how can I see mine when I play a game?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16427" LastActivityDate="2018-05-13T21:30:09.863" Title="How can I find my performance rating?" Tags="&lt;training&gt;&lt;performance&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21567" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21565" CreationDate="2018-05-13T16:21:07.847" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Performance rating doesn't make sense for a single game, it only makes sense if you play a bunch of games (at least 4 or 5) in a chess event. For example, in a round robin tournament with 4 players, where every player plays twice against every opponent (with White and Black), every player plays 6 games in total, and the performance rating will give useful information. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To compute your performance rating, for every game of the event you add the opponent's rating + 400 if you win, you add your opponent's rating if you draw, and your opponent's rating - 400 if you lose. Then you divide by the number of games you played.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can compare the performance rating with your own rating. If the performance rating of the event is higher than your own rating, it usually means you performed better than expected during the event. If it is lower than your rating, you performed worst than expected. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is only meaningful if the opponents and you have a relatively close rating. If some player's rating differ from your own more than 400 points, the results of the comparison are usually not so meaningful.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15668" LastActivityDate="2018-05-13T16:21:07.847" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21569" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21565" CreationDate="2018-05-13T21:30:09.863" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Under FIDE rules, the performance rating is calculated by taking the average of your opponent's ratings, and then adding a factor from a table based on performance.  Let's say you played 5 games, against people rated 1380, 1390, 1400, 1430, and 1900, and had 3 wins and 2 losses.  You scored 60%, or 0.6.  According to the table in section 1.49 of &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=198&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this document&lt;/a&gt;, in this case your performance rating would be adjusted upward by 72 points.  The average of your opponent's ratings was 1500, so your performance rating would be calculated as 1572.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The downside to this method is that the ratings averaging can be skewed by one opponent with a very high or low rating.  If you changed the 1900 opponent in the above example to a 2900 opponent and decreased the wins to 2, the performance rating would increase to 1628, even though you performed worse.  If you instead changed the 1900 opponent to a 1000 opponent and increased the wins to 4, the performance rating would go down to 1560, even though you performed better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The USCF &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.uschess.org/content/view/13317/898/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;ratings estimator&lt;/a&gt; calculates performance rating by calculating how a player at a particular rating would be expected to do against the given opponents, and comparing it to the actual result.  In the example above, a player rated 1563 would be expected to score 3 based on those opponents, so that's the performance rating.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The downside to this method is that there's not just a simple formula you can figure out in a few seconds.  The upside is that it's less prone to being skewed by one very high or low rated opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2018-05-13T21:30:09.863" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21570" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21571" CreationDate="2018-05-13T22:09:42.550" Score="20" ViewCount="9774" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why do masters open 1.d4 more often than they open with the English 1.c4?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;STATISTICS&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.365chess.com/opening.php&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;365chess.com,&lt;/a&gt; 1.d4 is five times as common. Moreover, even if one admits R&amp;eacute;ti's 1.Nf3 as an English variant (or &lt;em&gt;vice versa&lt;/em&gt;), counting R&amp;eacute;ti and the English together as a single opening family, 1.d4 remains twice as common.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to the aforementioned source, in master play, White scores slightly better (though indeed almost exactly the same) with 1.c4 as with 1.d4. R&amp;eacute;ti's 1.Nf3 fares slightly worse.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;MOTIVE&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I ask because, in my own games, the English opening wins for White more than 1.d4 does. That is, I win more with 1.c4 as White and, as Black, probably lose more when 1.c4 is played against me. My strength being a little below FIDE 1300, my games would hardly interest you, so I will refrain from burdening the question with patzer's samples of my own play. However, if the statistics are credited, masters perceive comparative virtues in 1.d4 I do not yet see; whereas, from my limited perspective, 1.c4 just &lt;em&gt;looks&lt;/em&gt; like the better move insofar as it leaves Black with three main options that all seem slightly weak:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Black can let White play a reversed Sicilian, granting an extra tempo to the reversed Sicilian queenside attack;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Black can transpose to a Queen's Gambit Declined or a Slav, only with fewer options for Black; or&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Black can symmetrically play 1...c5, allowing White the advantages symmetrical openings generally bring.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A fourth option occurs:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Black can respond to 1.c4 by playing one of the Indian systems. This seems no weaker than playing Indian against 1.d4 but, as far as I can see, seems no stronger, either.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can see that &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/21431/315&quot;&gt;1.d4 is not a bad move,&lt;/a&gt; but isn't 1.c4 just a better one?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;A GRANDMASTER'S OPINION&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Paul van der Sterren, a grandmaster, writes that 1.c4 and 1.Nf3 &quot;betray a rather more moderate attitude [than does 1.d4]. While not as yet physically occupying any central squares, White does start taking control over them. White prepares for a fight in the center but does not want to be the one to take the first step.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Van der Sterren writes as though the factors he mentions might be disadvantages. Are they disadvantages, though? And how moderate is 1.c4, really? In my limited experience, 1.c4 &lt;em&gt;seems&lt;/em&gt; fairly aggressive in actual play&amp;mdash;more aggressive than the Ruy Lopez, for example, at least in games I play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, the grandmaster will be right and the patzer (me) must be wrong, but for what reason?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Indeed, why &lt;em&gt;do&lt;/em&gt; masters open 1.d4 more often than 1.c4?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="315" LastEditorUserId="315" LastEditDate="2018-05-14T15:48:53.127" LastActivityDate="2019-10-31T01:33:59.887" Title="Why do masters open 1.d4 more often than 1.c4?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;english-opening&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21571" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21570" CreationDate="2018-05-13T23:33:22.737" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;This has nothing to do with 1.d4 being an objectively better move than 1.c4. The moves are just about as good as one another, and sometimes even transpose as you've noted. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But 1.d4 was historically considered to be one of the two best opening moves (together with 1.e4) for a very long time, and it is more in line with the basic opening principles that beginners are typically taught. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I'd reckon that it comes down to more players being introduced to 1.d4 early on in their chess career than 1.c4, coupled with the fact that old habits die hard (even for chessplayers).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, one point that speaks in favour for 1.d4 over 1.c4 is that 1.d4 hinders black from playing 1...e5. You've noted that 1.c4, e5 is a reverse Sicilian, but I think that it is important to remember that the Sicilian is an opening that Black chooses to enter. In the opening Black is fighting for equality, and this is the case for the Sicilian as well, so saying that 1.c4, e5 is an improved version of it for White is basically just another way of saying that White is fighting for an advantage when playing it. But this is just what you'd expect from any good opening for White.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd go so far as to say that this way of arguing for a move is a fallacy in some sense, since it could be used to try and justify almost any first move for White as the best one (for instance, 1.Nf3 must be very strong since 1.Nf3, d5 is a reverse Nimzo/King's/Queen's/Bogo/whatever Indian defence and thus comes with an extra tempo as compared with the normal Indian defences, which are considered to be good for black). I'm almost tempted to name this way of  reasoning &quot;The Reverse Sicilian Fallacy&quot; for future use, since I've seen it more than once when commentators try to describe the virtues of 1.c4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8300" LastActivityDate="2018-05-13T23:33:22.737" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21572" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21570" CreationDate="2018-05-14T04:18:45.937" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;One reason that the English openings (either starting with 1. c4 or 1. Nf3) work well at the lower levels is that players are unfamiliar with how to play against it. Most people are taught how to play against 1.e4 and 1.d4, but less attention is focused on teaching people to play against 1.c4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At the grandmaster level, all GMs knows how to play against the English. Thus, it loses almost all the surprise value that it had at the amateur level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, even though 1.c4 may score slightly better in master games, remember that you noted there are 5 times as many games in 1.d4. Thus, the statistics of 1.c4 are less reliable. If 1.c4 had as many games as 1.d4, I would guess 1.d4 scores slightly better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The English is not at all a bad opening, and for some players it suits their style much more. On principle though, 1.c4 doesn't control the center as much, while 1.d4 and 1.e4 do. This allows Black to play 1...e5! and theory says Black is fine. While this is a reversed sicilian, remember that the player playing the sicilian must fight for equality! A tempo up is great, but does it turn &quot;fighting for equality&quot; into an advantage? The answer to this depends on the type of player you are.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stick to playing the English if it works better for you. The average global statistics of a move don't matter much... what matters is what are &lt;em&gt;you&lt;/em&gt; most comfortable playing?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2018-05-14T04:18:45.937" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21573" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21570" CreationDate="2018-05-14T19:48:58.377" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;At face value, D4 just looks like the better move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Compare all the move options after 1) c4 vs 1) d4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) d4 allows the Queen extra movement (2 spaces) and the c4 pawn is protected (the queen can attack back on c4 if black takes it) for an additional space.  The bishop also gains 5 additional move possibilities.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) c4, in contrast, adds many fewer move possibilities.  The bishop has no additional range and the queen has equal additional range.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Furthermore, the added quality is greater for the d4 move.  Squares closer to the center are more important than squares to the sides and d4 attacks squares closer to the center than c4 does (d5/c5 vs d4/b4).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) c4 looks, on paper, like you are giving up win percentage for no compensation, really (assuming that more move possibilities and better center control result in an increased win %).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Traditionally, 1) e4 and 1) d4 are the most common moves because they are on paper the best possible options.  They are close to the same in power level as each other, with the advantage of e4 being more movement and the advantage of d4 being a more protected position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The other moves on the board typically are played less often because they are just strictly worse in terms of move possibilities added and safety.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One of the few advantages to be had from playing something other than d4 and e4 is that you might somehow surprise the opponent by maneuvering them into some opening you know better than they do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would assume that everyone who plays 1) c4 probably does it for one of these reasons:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) They believe they are a better enough player that they can win even while doing strictly worse moves &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;OR &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) They believe they can trick the opponent into playing something they aren't prepared to play &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;OR &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) They believe that they are a worse enough player that they have no chance to win while doing the best possible moves and they are just trying to increase general randomness, a thing that generally helps the underdog.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16546" LastActivityDate="2018-05-14T19:48:58.377" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21574" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="285" CreationDate="2018-05-15T14:36:40.320" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;1.d4 2.Nf3 is the main line for me. I use to play 150 attack and Barry attack very frequently in my games. They are very good openings and best thing about it is that you attack without any weaknesses. That's great isn't it.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;But these two attacks are played by me only when the opponent responds with 1.d4 Nf6 2.Nf3 g6. The g6 move tell us that black is going to develop his bishop fianchetto and play a King's Indian.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;For other lines you must go through Graham Burgess' &quot;Cunning chess opening repertoire for White&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16552" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-05-15T15:26:05.113" LastActivityDate="2018-05-15T15:26:05.113" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21575" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21576" CreationDate="2018-05-15T20:37:27.767" Score="5" ViewCount="383" Body="&lt;p&gt;This time an easy puzzle I made up today. White mates in three.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;7k/4Kp2/P4Np1/6R1/8/R6P/8/8 w - - 1 0&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16483" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-04T21:58:29.413" LastActivityDate="2020-11-08T09:48:23.603" Title="Easy mate in three" Tags="&lt;problems&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21576" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21575" CreationDate="2018-05-15T21:36:49.020" Score="10" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;7k/4Kp2/P4Np1/6R1/8/R6P/8/8 w - - 1 0&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Rh5+ gxh5 {if Kg7, Rh7#}&#xA;2. Rg3  h4&#xA;3. Rg8#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9025" LastActivityDate="2018-05-15T21:36:49.020" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21577" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4154" CreationDate="2018-05-16T07:44:02.083" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is it really insulting to tell your opponent how you are going to checkmate him so he could resign fast? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would say no, it's not insulting to announce your plans in correspondence chess. (However, you may not demand resignation.) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Presumably, if your opponent is playing on in a lost position, either he does not know how you are going to checkmate him, or he thinks that you won't actually play those moves. Showing him that there is a mate, and that you do see it, can save some time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In chess by mail, you can even send official conditional moves stating where you will move next if the opponent replies a certain way - and being by mail instead of through a server, the opponent can obviously see those conditional moves. Far from being unethical, this is encouraged.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You'd better be fairly sure about your moves, however. If you tell your opponent your plans, and they aren't perfect, you may have just helped him to find the weakness.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The above only applies to correspondence-style chess. A live game is different, and you should not announce your plans in a live game unless it is casual and your opponent is OK with it. In live chess, it's more likely that you'll have focus that can be broken; in correspondence-style, you're normally doing many other things between moves and not continually focusing on the game. And in live chess, you have less time in general, and can't take notes to refresh your memory if you get distracted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2018-05-16T07:44:02.083" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21578" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21575" CreationDate="2018-05-16T09:53:37.027" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Herb's solution works perfectly, but since you indicated in a comment that you were expecting for another one, maybe that's it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &amp;quot;7k/4Kp2/P4Np1/6R1/8/R6P/8/8 w - - 1 0&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Rag3 Kg7&#xA;2. Rh5 g5&#xA;3. Rgxg5#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is a simple suggestion to fix the cook and make this solution the only one:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &amp;quot;7k/4Kp2/P4Np1/6R1/7P/R7/8/8 w - - 1 0&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Rag3 (1.Rh5? gxh5 2.Rg3? {stalemate}) (1.h5 Kg7) Kg7&#xA;2. Rh5 g5&#xA;3. Rgxg5#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastEditorUserId="21604" LastEditDate="2020-11-08T09:48:23.603" LastActivityDate="2020-11-08T09:48:23.603" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21580" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21253" CreationDate="2018-05-16T19:31:58.377" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;This may be partially due to ratings floors.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When a player hits his rating floor, his rating cannot go lower if he loses, but his opponent's rating can still go higher.  This adds ratings points into the system.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is an absolute rating floor of 100 which nobody can go below. (For every event you play in and quarter-point you win over the board, this is raised by 1, to a maximum of 150.) Rating floors exist at every 100 points from 1200 to 2100, and these can be achieved by getting a rating at least 200 points above the floor. There's a rating floor at 2200 which can be earned by getting the Original Life Master title. And finally, if a player earns $4000 or more in an under-2000 section, their rating floor is set high enough so they become ineligible to win the prize again.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Regular and quick ratings both have ratings floors, but they are independent from each other. Most events with very large prizes are probably not quick-rated. And I don't think the Original Life Master title can be earned with a quick rating. This probably means that fewer people are at a floor with their quick rating, and that if they are, the floor is lower than it might otherwise be.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To add rating points to the system, it is insufficient for a player to simply be at the floor - he must actually play games.  I would hypothesize that more regular-rated games are played than quick-rated games, especially at the 1200+ level where floors come into play.  I would also hypothesize that older players are more likely to be at a floor (because they won a large prize sometime on their life, because they once managed to raise their rating beyond its ordinary level, or because their skills are not what they once were) and that older players in particular play more regular games than quick games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And if younger people play relatively more quick games, that may be another reason why quick ratings are lower.  Younger players are more likely to start with a very low rating but be rapidly improving.  When a player's ability improves, his rating lags behind, and his opponents will tend to lose rating points.  This tends to have a deflationary effect on ratings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2018-05-16T19:31:58.377" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21581" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-05-17T07:07:21.660" Score="-1" ViewCount="157" Body="&lt;p&gt;How can black mate in 4 moves?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;6k1/p5rp/3p1PR1/3Pp2Q/qBK1Pp2/5P2/2P5/r5R1 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Black to mate in 4 moves&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16568" LastEditorUserId="16057" LastEditDate="2018-05-18T16:17:28.113" LastActivityDate="2018-05-18T16:17:28.113" Title="How can black mate white in 4 moves in this game" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21582" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21581" CreationDate="2018-05-17T08:24:45.173" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;This does not seem too difficult.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt; Due to the threats against the black king, black is basically forced to check at each move. Also, obviously you don't want to allow the white king to escape via c3 or d3 towards e2 or d2 where it would be relatively save. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With this in mind, the solution comes almost naturally:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt; 1... Qxc2+ 2. Bc3 (2. Kb5 Qe2+ (or Qd3+) 3. Kc6 Ra6++ (or Qa6++)) Qe2+ 3. Kb4 (3. Kb3 Qa2+ 4. Kb4 Qa4++) a5+ 4. Kb3 Qa2++ One thing you need to check is that the more natural 1... Qxc2+ 2. Bc3 Ra4+ does not lead to mate in 4 (but only to mate in 5)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastEditorUserId="11629" LastEditDate="2018-05-17T23:09:03.720" LastActivityDate="2018-05-17T23:09:03.720" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21583" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="189" CreationDate="2018-05-17T10:12:03.443" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/member/smarterchess&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;NM Matt Jensen&lt;/a&gt; has done similar research in &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/article/view/chesscom-rating-comparisons&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;2014&lt;/a&gt;, in &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/blog/smarterchess/chesscom-rating-comparison-2015&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;2015&lt;/a&gt; and later in &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/blog/smarterchess/chess-rating-comparison-2016&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;2016&lt;/a&gt; using data from &lt;a href=&quot;https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfCw_Mx0MMSpfYyf7jBqYjPAd5TVEnSEOQbs5xhWezvuqqODg/viewform?c=0&amp;amp;w=1&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;survey&lt;/a&gt; with over 370 surveyees. The survey shows the correlation between &lt;strong&gt;Chess.com&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;Lichess.org&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;USCF&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;FIDE&lt;/strong&gt; ratings in Bullet, Blitz and Rapid/Classical categories.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The results can be found on &lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1GcVG_slcTUJfi0sQMeaxes_jwYFBrfWaR1ejSSOH-SM/edit#gid=0&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Google Sheets&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;. Here's the line chart showing the correlation between ratings:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/mULCH.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/mULCH.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16057" LastEditorUserId="16057" LastEditDate="2018-05-17T10:25:29.173" LastActivityDate="2018-05-17T10:25:29.173" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21584" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="189" CreationDate="2018-05-17T13:03:19.117" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I took the raw data from the source linked to by gdrt and looked at some pairwise correlations, but not all. There are too many pairs to consider and not enough data for most of them, so I focused on chess.com blitz ratings vs classical FIDE/USCF ratings, which were the most abundant. I also looked at chess.com vs lichess blitz. You can find them at this &lt;a href=&quot;https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1P31eoZ5ziMdzq3Hqz9mg6CcRRHRm-XM7wvJlxjwB2MM/edit#gid=901214141&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Google sheet&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In general there is clear correlation between the ratings, with r&lt;sup&gt;2&lt;/sup&gt; 0.7-0.8, but the standard deviation of the residuals is about 200. That means that to have a 95% confidence on a prediction obtained from the regression model, the error bar is roughly +/- 400! (Two standard deviations.) The correlation between chess.com and lichess blitz is slightly better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can find all the equations in the link above, but since the original question was specifically about predicting FIDE rating from chess.com, I'll also post that one here:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;fide = 0.7360*chess.com + 458&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Again, this is classic FIDE vs chess.com blitz, and the error bar is about 400 points so don't expect a very accurate estimate!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/V0lCV.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/V0lCV.png&quot; alt=&quot;FIDE vs chess.com correlation&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12523" LastEditorUserId="12523" LastEditDate="2018-05-18T16:42:25.250" LastActivityDate="2018-05-18T16:42:25.250" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21585" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21570" CreationDate="2018-05-17T14:23:00.807" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not an answer, but I thought I could share my experience.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am no expert but do play 1.d4 almost exclusively. The reason I avoid 1.c4 is 1.... e5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ok, it is reverse Sicilian with White a tempo up. But, that tempo up will be decisive factor only if Black, naively, enters sharp variations of the (reverse) Sicilian. For example, imagine game proceeding to a reverse dragon, then White being a tempo will mate first!!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, remember that there are positional variations of the Sicilian that the 1.e4 side can opt for. Thus, Black aiming for such a set-up is just fine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another reason I won't play 1.c4 is that after 1.... c5 I will have to give up my (beloved) d4 pawn if I am going to push it two moves, to a flank pawn of Black's.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13438" LastActivityDate="2018-05-17T14:23:00.807" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21587" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5173" CreationDate="2018-05-18T14:39:30.890" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Grunfeld is a really strategically unique opening, and what I mean by that is that it is hard to find the same ideas in other openings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As others already mentioned, the idea behind this opening is that you are giving up the center but in exchange you get a very nice activity for your pieces, especially for the Bishop on g7 to start with:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/UnhEa.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/UnhEa.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;That Bishop is really powerful !&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Against the main line, you probably want to play c5, Nc6, Ng4 etc. These moves put a good pressure on White's pawn center (I know this is not a real position from the Grunfeld defense !):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/OHPSP.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/OHPSP.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;I know this is not a real position from the Grunfeld defense !&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To finish with the endgame, there is a saying &quot;you should not play the Grunfeld if you are afraid of a white passed pawn on d5&quot;. Indeed, even if many Grunfeld endgames are playable, they can be slightly uncomfortable. On a more generic standpoint, it seems to me that many Grunfeld endgames at top level end up in theoretically drawn positions where White is one pawn up. thus many ways for White to press a little bit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a video I have made to help intermediate players grasp the ideas of the Grunfeld defense: &lt;a href=&quot;https://youtu.be/1kY-XJQYA3A&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://youtu.be/1kY-XJQYA3A&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2076" LastActivityDate="2018-05-18T14:39:30.890" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21590" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21591" CreationDate="2018-05-19T06:29:15.300" Score="0" ViewCount="439" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;5rk1/2Q2ppp/p7/2P5/1p6/1B5P/Pq2nPP1/3R1K2 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White, to move, gives checkmate in two moves. Can anyone find the solution?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16588" LastEditorUserId="25131" LastEditDate="2021-03-04T14:36:02.820" LastActivityDate="2021-03-08T06:03:07.600" Title="White gives checkmate in two moves" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;problems&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21591" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21590" CreationDate="2018-05-19T06:39:36.160" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The solution is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt; 1.Qxf7+.  If Kh8, then Qxf8#.  And if Rxf7, then Rd8# - the rook cannot block because it is pinned by the bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastEditorUserId="8201" LastEditDate="2021-03-08T06:03:07.600" LastActivityDate="2021-03-08T06:03:07.600" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21592" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-05-19T08:05:57.503" Score="0" ViewCount="323" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;7Q/p1p1b1B1/6r1/2p3kp/4Bp1q/7P/PPP2PP1/6K1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/JgUdn.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;source&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this problem, it’s White to move and mate in two. What is the solution?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16588" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2020-05-26T06:34:22.407" LastActivityDate="2020-06-01T09:33:23.800" Title="How does white mate in two?" Tags="&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;problems&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21593" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21592" CreationDate="2018-05-19T09:29:46.470" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is a solution in three moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;7Q/p1p1b1B1/6r1/2p3kp/4Bp1q/7P/PPP2PP1/6K1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Bh6+ Rxh6 2. Qg7+ Rg6 3. Qxg6# *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16589" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-12-23T21:21:59.520" LastActivityDate="2019-12-23T21:21:59.520" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21594" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18868" CreationDate="2018-05-19T13:01:03.693" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I disagree with Jossie's solution.  If you follow that method, and flip the initial game board, you'd end up with queens on the wrong colors.  Doing a vertical flip and switching the colors is the method I use.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Detailed efficient methods of performing these board flips (as well as rotations) can be found &lt;a href=&quot;https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Flipping+Mirroring+and+Rotating&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;UPDATE:&#xA;As Jossie has since pointed out, his solution is correct for the question asked.  My solution is for when you need to transform a board (oriented with white at the bottom and black at the top) in which it's black's turn, to one in the same orientation, but seen as if it was white's turn.  An example of when you'd use my solution is converting a database of boards to one where they're all being represented with the same orientation, and same player to move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16593" LastEditorUserId="16593" LastEditDate="2018-05-21T20:43:13.540" LastActivityDate="2018-05-21T20:43:13.540" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21595" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1608" CreationDate="2018-05-19T15:59:09.580" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is usually easy to see the positive aspects of a move. It is because of them that you are considering it. What you have to force yourself to look for are its negative aspects. So...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What aspects of my position are weakened by this move? What piece or square is left unprotected? What piece of mine is blocked? What piece of my opponent is opened up?&#xA;What options have been lost?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastActivityDate="2018-05-19T15:59:09.580" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21596" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-05-19T22:00:49.580" Score="3" ViewCount="163" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have been trying to figure out when a tournament for FIDE will be near but I can't find any in the U.S. Does FIDE not come to the U.S?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15778" LastActivityDate="2018-05-19T23:51:56.683" Title="FIDE tourney location" Tags="&lt;fide&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21597" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21596" CreationDate="2018-05-19T22:11:38.990" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Of course FIDE have tournaments in the US.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can find them on the FIDE website here - &lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/tournament_list.phtml?moder=ev_code&amp;amp;country=USA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://ratings.fide.com/tournament_list.phtml?moder=ev_code&amp;amp;country=USA&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2018-05-19T22:11:38.990" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21598" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21596" CreationDate="2018-05-19T23:51:56.683" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Most open tournaments in the US are fide rated.  Besides the fide site you can check the USCF site: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.uschess.org/tlas/upcoming.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.uschess.org/tlas/upcoming.php&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2018-05-19T23:51:56.683" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21599" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19186" CreationDate="2018-05-20T01:59:38.773" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Alekhine's gun is a formation in chess named after the former world chess champion Alexander Alekhine. This formation was named after a game he played against Aron Nimzowitsch in Sanremo 1930, ending with Alekhine's decisive victory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user16579" LastActivityDate="2018-05-20T01:59:38.773" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21600" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-05-20T05:15:18.693" Score="3" ViewCount="156" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this endgame position, how can black be mated in 4 moves? Being a beginner, I am finding it difficult&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/8/6R1/8/8/4K2p/7k/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16568" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-05-01T15:25:32.470" LastActivityDate="2020-05-01T15:25:32.470" Title="How can white mate black in 4 moves?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;checkmate&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21601" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21600" CreationDate="2018-05-20T08:34:50.200" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Use the king to keep the black king in the corner and force Black into zugzwang:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/8/6R1/8/8/4K2p/7k/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Kf2 Kh1 2. Re6 Kh2 (2... h2 3. Re1) 3. Rh6 Kh1 4.Rxh3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2018-05-20T10:02:35.793" LastActivityDate="2018-05-20T10:02:35.793" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21602" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11008" CreationDate="2018-05-20T12:31:24.447" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Elo is a relative scale that measures the winning probability between two players. The scale itself is arbitrary and there are many variations but here is no upper limit as such if the game is complicated enough and has enough room for improvements in game play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the game of Go a top professional has Elo rating around 6800 (KGS system), but a good AI engine can reach far beyond that. For example the Leela Zero Go engine has a current rating of 11,000+ (May 2018, after training on 7.5 million self-played games), and it is still improving. The game itself has enough complexities so how much further we can push up the Elo rating will be limited by the speed of the computer used and how much computer resources we use to train the AI. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16597" LastActivityDate="2018-05-20T12:31:24.447" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21603" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-05-20T14:24:12.590" Score="0" ViewCount="191" Body="&lt;p&gt;What are suggested coding snippets to add pieces to pure algebraic notation (this would change g1f3 to Nf3) when using the chess.js and chessboard.js (javascript) interface.  Stockfish uses this type of raw notation and I would like to change it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Answers such as the ones from the link below are not helpful. for example: the computer knows the names of the pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/18876/changing-uci-output-to-include-piece-names&quot;&gt;Changing UCI output to include piece names&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16599" LastActivityDate="2018-05-22T01:06:51.883" Title="convert stockfish pv output to show piece names" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;programming&gt;&lt;notation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2018-05-23T21:03:27.887" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21604" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1303" CreationDate="2018-05-21T01:59:14.837" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can build whatever scale you want... but as has been said, ratings are already calculated so that a particular ratings difference will produce a particular expected score.  Adjustment will probably just skew things, especially if the adjustment is to the degree you suggest and based solely on the rating numbers (as opposed to, say, the fact that your 800s rating was &lt;em&gt;provisional&lt;/em&gt;, and it went up significantly in the few tournaments it took for your rating to become established.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think you overestimate how uncommon it is for a 2650 to beat a 2820 or so.  If there is a 170 point gap in ratings, the lower person is expected to score about 27-28%.  Although much of that score is from draws, the lower player does win sometimes. To find out how often, I looked at a database with 127K games in it.  I filtered it for games in which a 2800+ played someone 2650 or below.  There were 230 such games.  Of those, 16 were won by the weaker side.  That's about 7%.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or perhaps you underestimate how hard it is for a 1500 to beat a master.  I don't have a database of lower rated players vs masters, but I looked at the USCF games history of a 2309 rated FM from my state. He's played 48 games against people rated under 1500 since they started keeping track in late 1991, and lost &lt;em&gt;zero&lt;/em&gt;.  He's played 104 games against people rated 1500-1699 and lost 4.  Against people rated 1700-1999, he's lost 33 of 589, or about 5.6%.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, I'm mixing USCF and FIDE ratings by comparing the two, but nevertheless I would say that a 1500 beating a master is actually a bigger upset than a 2650 (which is almost enough to be in the world's top 100 list) beating a 2820.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But you didn't ask about that, so I'll set it aside now. You asked about possible formulas. One formula that might be in the spirit of what you seem to intend (heavily weighting the amount of the upset based on the opponent's rating, and affecting all areas of the rating scale) is: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;A = D * 2^((R/300)-5)&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;A&quot; is the adjusted amount of the upset, &quot;D&quot; is the difference in the ratings, and &quot;R&quot; is the opponent's rating.  The 2 means the adjusted upset doubles for a given amount of opponent's rating (if it was a 3 it would triple instead), and the 300 represents the amount needed to make that change. (The 5 is just for scale.)  So, by this formula, for every 300 points the opponent is rated, the adjusted amount of the upset doubles.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Personally I think that's &lt;em&gt;way&lt;/em&gt; too steep (a difference in 1500 opponent's rating points means it's adjusted by a factor of 32, and I don't think you can ever say a 10 point difference is the same as a 320 point difference) but it seems to fit what was wanted. This formula would make a 2650 beating a 2820 slightly better than a 1500 beating a 2200, and would make an 1800 beating a 1950 better than an 800 beating a 1300.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2018-05-21T01:59:14.837" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21605" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21607" CreationDate="2018-05-21T04:04:44.057" Score="3" ViewCount="218" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://arxiv.org/pdf/1712.01815.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;AlphaZero paper&lt;/a&gt; which introduced the engine which allegidly outperformed stockfish mentioned the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;These programs evaluate positions using features handcrafted by human&#xA;  grandmasters and carefully tuned weights, combined with a&#xA;  high-performance alpha-beta search that expands a vast search tree&#xA;  using a large number of clever heuristics and domain-specific&#xA;  adaptations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In particular I am interested in a claim about &lt;strong&gt;features handcrafted by human&#xA;grandmasters&lt;/strong&gt;. The paper didn't provide any examples, neither it references anything here. To make the question less ambiguous, let's narrow the scope of programs to just a couple of &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.computerchess.org.uk/ccrl/4040/rating_list_all.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;best performing&lt;/a&gt; families of engines (stockfish, sugar, komodo, houdini)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So my question is: what kind of hand-crafted features do top performing family of engines use to evaluate a position?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="703" LastActivityDate="2018-05-21T04:20:09.133" Title="What kind of hand-crafted features do top performing family of engines use to evaluate a position?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;evaluation&gt;&lt;alphazero&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21607" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21605" CreationDate="2018-05-21T04:20:09.133" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The paper is right. Traditional chess engines use a set of tedious hand-crafted features for positional evaluation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd say nothing surprising, to name a fews (I can't name everything):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Mobility bonus&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Outpost bonus&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Attack bonus&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Rook on the seventh rank&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Material advantage&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Minor pieces behind pawn&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/blob/master/src/evaluate.cpp&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/blob/master/src/evaluate.cpp&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you take a look at the source code, it's quite complicated. Difficult programming for something that is understood even by chess beginners.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What about &lt;strong&gt;replacing&lt;/strong&gt; the entire file with a deep neural network? Training a network is easier than tweaking those numbers in the file.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2018-05-21T04:20:09.133" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21608" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21603" CreationDate="2018-05-21T20:43:15.660" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sorry I don’t know any JavaScript but here is the basic code (in pseudo code) for the problem:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;SELECT CASE Board(Move(1),Move(2))&#xA;CASE “N”&#xA;      Move &amp;lt;== “N” + Move(3) + Move(4)&#xA;CASE “P”&#xA;      Move &amp;lt;== Move(3) + Move(4)&#xA;CASE “K”&#xA;      Move &amp;lt;==“K” +  Move(3) + Move(4)&#xA;CASE “R”&#xA;      Move &amp;lt;==“R” +  Move(3) + Move(4)&#xA;CASE “Q”&#xA;      Move &amp;lt;==“Q” +  Move(3) + Move(4)&#xA;CASE “B”&#xA;      Move &amp;lt;==“B” +  Move(3) + Move(4)&#xA;END SELECT&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is assuming there is a 2D array holding the board named “Board” and a string “Move” holding the move about to be played.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this has helped.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16427" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2018-05-22T01:06:51.883" LastActivityDate="2018-05-22T01:06:51.883" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21609" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21610" CreationDate="2018-05-21T22:20:19.097" Score="2" ViewCount="207" Body="&lt;p&gt;How is it possible to move c4 to b3?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/fp8rK.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/fp8rK.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;...&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user16607" LastEditorUserId="16057" LastEditDate="2018-05-23T13:13:44.603" LastActivityDate="2018-05-23T13:13:44.603" Title="Is capturing on empty square with a pawn legal?" Tags="&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;computer-chess&gt;&lt;en-passant&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2018-05-22T00:20:10.437" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21610" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21609" CreationDate="2018-05-21T22:38:08.717" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;This type of capturing with pawn called &lt;strong&gt;capturing en passant&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's the rule explained on &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess#En_passant&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;When a pawn advances two squares from its starting position and there&#xA;  is an opponent's pawn on an adjacent file next to its destination&#xA;  square, then the opponent's pawn can capture it en passant (in&#xA;  passing), and move to the square the pawn passed over. This can only&#xA;  be done on the very next move, otherwise the right to do so is&#xA;  forfeit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16057" LastActivityDate="2018-05-21T22:38:08.717" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21611" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-05-22T03:37:53.827" Score="2" ViewCount="181" Body="&lt;p&gt;How can I find all games played by 2 specific players?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example: Nigel Short and Magnus Carlsen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there some official FIDE database or something like that?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd like an easy way to see things like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Their overall score against each other&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A list of the games that make up this score, each with a link to the PGN of the game, showing date and tournament location etc&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Most recent game played&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user16609" LastActivityDate="2018-05-23T01:02:03.117" Title="How can I find all games between 2 specific players?" Tags="&lt;database&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21612" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21611" CreationDate="2018-05-22T03:52:43.537" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Try &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chessgames.com&lt;/a&gt;. Just write &quot;Short&quot; and &quot;Carlsen&quot; in the search box.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chess.pl?yearcomp=exactly&amp;amp;year=&amp;amp;playercomp=either&amp;amp;pid=&amp;amp;player=short&amp;amp;pid2=&amp;amp;player2=carlsen&amp;amp;movescomp=exactly&amp;amp;moves=&amp;amp;opening=&amp;amp;eco=&amp;amp;result=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chess.pl?yearcomp=exactly&amp;amp;year=&amp;amp;playercomp=either&amp;amp;pid=&amp;amp;player=short&amp;amp;pid2=&amp;amp;player2=carlsen&amp;amp;movescomp=exactly&amp;amp;moves=&amp;amp;opening=&amp;amp;eco=&amp;amp;result=&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Response to @Ywapom, Chessgames is quite good for top chess players like Carlsen. However, it can be incomplete for non top players. I'd suggest the expensive Mega Chessbase database.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2018-05-23T01:02:03.117" LastActivityDate="2018-05-23T01:02:03.117" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21613" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-05-22T04:17:29.710" Score="4" ViewCount="220" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there some fixed rule how teams for leagues are paired? Is it deterministic once team gets its starting number?&#xA;If for example two teams must play in early rounds (e.g. A, B from same club), is it always done by giving them appropriate starting numbers or are some leagues where rounds are done manually? Are there more pairing standards?&#xA;Do some leagues have an odd number of teams and would it change something?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11609" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-05-22T08:18:07.350" LastActivityDate="2019-08-21T12:44:55.553" Title="Team championship pairings" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;team&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21614" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-05-22T04:21:46.270" Score="6" ViewCount="284" Body="&lt;p&gt;When reading books like &lt;em&gt;Sorcerer's Apprentice&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;Life &amp;amp; Games of Mikhail Tal&lt;/em&gt;, often a position is shown followed by a list of moves, then another key position, then more moves, and another position, and some reasoning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How should I read this part?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Should I set up the position on a board or on my PC or just try to imagine it in my mind? After reading through the moves I often feel like I haven't gained any knowledge.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user16609" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-05-22T08:11:38.380" LastActivityDate="2019-10-22T14:24:38.110" Title="How should I read chess books that show games or parts of games?" Tags="&lt;books&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21615" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21614" CreationDate="2018-05-22T08:11:12.310" Score="4" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Should I set up the position on a board or on my PC or just try to imagine it in my mind?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, depending on what you have available, this is the best option. Imagining it in your mind ('blindfold chess') will help with your calculation skills; in a real game of chess, you do see a board but you are not allowed to move the pieces to analyse the position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Using a real board for playing along with the book is easier and recommended for non-advanced players. A chess program will have the benefit that it can tell you other moves to look for, or if you want to analyze a sideline which is not covered in the book.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;After reading through the moves I often feel like I haven't gained any knowledge.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Exactly. It's then just like reading a dictionary; you understand the words but you'll never &lt;em&gt;learn&lt;/em&gt; them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2018-05-22T08:11:12.310" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21616" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21613" CreationDate="2018-05-22T08:17:44.947" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;My answer is based on my experience with the Dutch competition, both for chess and (where relevant) other sports.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is it deterministic once team gets its starting number? If for example two teams must play in early rounds (e.g. A, B from same club), is it always done by giving them appropriate starting numbers or are some leagues where rounds are done manually?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, it's deterministic, although some exceptions could be made for teams who participate in other competitions (e.g. for teams in the national competition who also participate in European team competitions; the match for that team could be postponed to a day outside the normal competition schedule).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Do some leagues have an odd number of teams and would it change something?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This regularly happens at the lowest level of the competition; in this case, one of the pairing numbers corresponds to no team at all and the opponents of that team don't have a match that round. Because every team plays the same number of rounds, a bye (free match points) usually isn't awarded.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2018-05-22T08:17:44.947" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21617" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21614" CreationDate="2018-05-22T08:39:42.160" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;It depends on what you want to get out of the book.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you're reading for enjoyment, read the text, try to see the point behind the nice sacrifices, and relax.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But for study, you need to do something else: set up the position on a board, put the book away, then &lt;em&gt;try to understand the position on your own&lt;/em&gt;. What are important features of the position? What is each side trying to achieve? Are there any tactics or threats? What's the best move?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Then&lt;/em&gt; play through the moves in the book. Try to understand them, how do they related to what you thought each side was trying to achieve? What was it you missed? Why are these moves best?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically, for study, treat every diagram you ever see as an exercise. &lt;strong&gt;The improvement in your chess skill will be directly proportional to the amount of work you put in&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course one doesn't always feel like doing that, and that is fine too (I love just browsing chess books). Just don't expect much real improvement then.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2018-05-22T08:39:42.160" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21618" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21613" CreationDate="2018-05-22T10:35:37.100" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;A lot of questions with many different answers depending on the type of competition. Leagues can be either Swiss or round robin. I suspect most leagues are round robins but by no means all are.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Perhaps the most interesting league from the viewpoint of pairings is the the UK's 4NCL (originally 4 Nations Chess League). There 4 main divisions with subdivisions and both Swiss and round robin pairings are used according to numbers. If you are genuinely interested then the examples from this league are worth investigating. The rules are here - &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.4ncl.co.uk/1718_rules.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.4ncl.co.uk/1718_rules.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is there some fixed rule how teams for leagues are paired?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No. There is no one fixed rule. If there are roughly the same number of rounds as teams then a round robin (all-play-all) pairing system would be used which does have fixed rules. If there are many more teams than rounds then some form of Swiss is used. Sometimes the league might be split into two time-wise with several subdivisions paired with one system (rr or Swiss) for the first half and then rejoined depending on results into separate sections which may again be paired in different ways. Again there are rules but some are fixed and some mutable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More information on Swiss rules are available on the FIDE website &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=18&amp;amp;view=category&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For round robin tournaments Berger tables are used. The only reference I have for these is the &lt;a href=&quot;http://arbiters.fide.com/images/stories/downloads/2018/Arbiters-Manual-2018-v1.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Arbiters Manual&lt;/a&gt; These start on page 66.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is it deterministic once team gets its starting number?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For round robin, yes. For Swiss, no.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If for example two teams must play in early rounds (e.g. A, B from&#xA;  same club), is it always done by giving them appropriate starting&#xA;  numbers or are some leagues where rounds are done manually?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It depends entirely on the circumstances. For a round robin it is easier to do this by assigning start numbers appropriately but it is not essential.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Do some leagues have an odd number of teams and would it change&#xA;  something?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course some leagues have an odd number of teams. For round robins, where the Berger tables are used, one team has a zero-point bye each round. For Swiss systems &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.ecforum.org.uk/viewtopic.php?t=1466&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;triangular matches&lt;/a&gt; are used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As I said at the beginning the UK 4NCL is interesting and complex with a full range of pairing and worthy of study if you are really interested in this sort of thing. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You might find Division 3 North of particular interest because it has a relatively large number of teams. The discussion on this (2017-18) season on the English Chess Forum is &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.ecforum.org.uk/viewtopic.php?f=13&amp;amp;t=9160&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; . The arbiter's job was complex. &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.ecforum.org.uk/viewtopic.php?f=13&amp;amp;t=9160&amp;amp;start=15#p208195&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;This post&lt;/a&gt; shows one of the interested parties posting the ingenious pairing rules that were decided on by the arbiter to solve the problems posed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2018-05-22T10:35:37.100" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21619" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7821" CreationDate="2018-05-23T07:45:47.910" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Any top human would be annihilated under those conditions. Even a mobile phone can destroy any human in a ten game match even under those conditions.&#xA;The only hope would be those conditions plus give the human an exchange odds in every game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16613" LastActivityDate="2018-05-23T07:45:47.910" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21620" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-05-23T10:32:06.800" Score="11" ViewCount="22816" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am new to chess. I read about &lt;strong&gt;FIDE&lt;/strong&gt; so my question is: How can I&#xA;can play in a FIDE tournament or become a FIDE-rated player?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there any online process for that, or something else? Right now I only know&#xA;about FIDE and not much about their process. Someone told me about FIDE but he was not very clear about them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16194" LastEditorUserId="9025" LastEditDate="2018-05-25T16:35:13.700" LastActivityDate="2020-12-02T05:07:32.447" Title="What is the process for becoming a FIDE rated chess player?" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;fide&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21621" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21620" CreationDate="2018-05-23T14:56:47.660" Score="10" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;How can I can play in a FIDE tournament&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In exactly the same way you would a non-FIDE rated tournament. First enter. Then play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;How can I can become a FIDE-rated player?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To get a FIDE rating you need to score at least one draw against at least 5 FIDE rated opponents in FIDE rated tournaments with a performance rating of at least 1000 over a period of not more than 26 months.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2018-05-23T14:56:47.660" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21625" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-05-23T19:37:55.280" Score="0" ViewCount="158" Body="&lt;p&gt;How can white mte black in 4 moves in this game. This might be easy but I am a beginner.&#xA;(&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/r5n6R.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://i.stack.imgur.com/r5n6R.png&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/JNgko.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16568" LastActivityDate="2018-05-23T20:12:38.337" Title="How can white mate black in 4 moves in this particular game." Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21626" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21625" CreationDate="2018-05-23T20:12:38.337" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The king has no escape squares and, as is often the case in these puzzles, every move must be a check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;&#xA;[FEN &quot;r1br4/1p3qp1/p1kb3p/2NN1p2/1PPQ4/8/P5PP/R4RK1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. b5+ axb5 2. cxb5+ Kxb5 3. Rfb1+ Kc6 4. Rb6#&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12449" LastActivityDate="2018-05-23T20:12:38.337" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21627" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21639" CreationDate="2018-05-23T20:42:41.157" Score="5" ViewCount="1617" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is an FIDE candidate master (CM) considered a master? For example, if two opponents are each rated 2250 by the FIDE and each is a CM, is their game considered a master game?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In ordinary English, the title &lt;em&gt;candidate master&lt;/em&gt; would seem to say, &quot;not yet a master,&quot; but I do not know what chess convention thinks of it. This is why I ask.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="315" LastActivityDate="2018-05-24T18:27:11.030" Title="Is a candidate master considered a master?" Tags="&lt;fide&gt;&lt;titles&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21628" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21627" CreationDate="2018-05-23T22:25:36.843" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;A FIDE candidate master is considered a master. However, usually when referring to master games, only those with a rating of 2200 or above are taken into account.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13544" LastActivityDate="2018-05-23T22:25:36.843" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21629" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22124" CreationDate="2018-05-24T07:19:12.863" Score="13" ViewCount="981" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is a more difficult problem which involves using the king to prevent castling than the following problem?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White to play and win:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;r3k3/5p2/2K2P1P/b1N1P2P/8/8/4n3/8 w q - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user11382" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-05-24T12:30:40.207" LastActivityDate="2021-05-02T16:28:58.757" Title="Using the king to prevent castling" Tags="&lt;problems&gt;&lt;castling&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21630" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-05-24T07:38:12.303" Score="2" ViewCount="234" Body="&lt;p&gt;How can white mate black in 4 moves in this position? This might be easy but I am a beginner.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;7k/7N/6K1/8/7p/7B/8/8 w - - 1 0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16568" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-04T22:35:29.303" LastActivityDate="2020-04-04T22:35:29.303" Title="How to mate a king already in the corner with a knight and a bishop?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;checkmate&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21633" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21630" CreationDate="2018-05-24T09:56:36.147" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;Normally, when mating with bishop and knight, the black king needs to be in a corner of the same color as the bishop. So this is actually the wrong corner, but thanks to the black pawn, it's still possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1. Be6 is the first thing I would try, as it confines the king to the corner; with the king on h6 and the knight on g6 it would be mate. However, the pawn will promote too soon (with check) which spoils this plan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So let's try to move the king first: 1. Kh6 Kg8. Now 2. Be6+ forces the king back in the corner with tempo: 2... Kh8 and now the knight arrives in time: 3. Nf8 h3 4. Ng6 mate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;7k/7N/6K1/8/7p/7B/8/8 w - - 1 0&#xA;&#xA;1. Kh6 (1. Be6 h3 2. Kh6 h2 3. Nf8 h1=Q+) Kg8 2. Be6+ Kh8 3. Nf8 h3 4. Ng6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-05-24T11:10:17.167" LastActivityDate="2018-05-24T11:10:17.167" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21635" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-05-24T15:41:49.600" Score="-5" ViewCount="119" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can I mate black in 4 moves in this game&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/IDBVm.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16568" LastActivityDate="2018-05-24T16:27:09.960" Title="Can I mate black in 4 moves in this game" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21636" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21635" CreationDate="2018-05-24T16:09:09.557" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe yes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;2r2k2/p4p1p/3pbQnN/3q2Pp/8/2B4P/PP6/K3R3 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Qg7+ Ke7 {Ke8 plays out the same}&#xA;2. Qxf7+ {the Bishop is pinned} Kd8&#xA;3. Bf6+ Ne7&#xA;4. Qxe7#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9025" LastActivityDate="2018-05-24T16:09:09.557" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21637" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21635" CreationDate="2018-05-24T16:25:20.393" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is your third time requesting this type of answer.  I suggest that you either learn to play better or input the position into a computer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;&#xA;[FEN &quot;2r2k2/p4p1p/3pbQnN/3q2Pp/8/2B5/PP5P/K3R3 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Qg7+ Ke8 2. Qxf7+ Kd8 3. Bf6+ Ne7 4. Qxe7#&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12449" LastEditorUserId="12449" LastEditDate="2018-05-24T16:27:09.960" LastActivityDate="2018-05-24T16:27:09.960" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21638" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21629" CreationDate="2018-05-24T18:18:43.740" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The answer to your puzzle is 1. Kb7 followed by 2. h7 (unless Black throws in a spite check with 1...Rb8+ or 1...Ra7+).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastEditorUserId="12873" LastEditDate="2020-02-19T09:19:06.133" LastActivityDate="2020-02-19T09:19:06.133" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21639" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21627" CreationDate="2018-05-24T18:27:11.030" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the strict realm of FIDE, a 2200 &lt;em&gt;FIDE rated&lt;/em&gt; CM is not a master. This is because FIDE's official master title is the FM (2300 &lt;em&gt;FIDE rating&lt;/em&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, in the US and Canada, a 2200 &lt;em&gt;national rating&lt;/em&gt; earns the NM (national master) title. So, if a player had a 2200 FIDE rating but a 2100 national rating, in the strict sense they would not be considered a master. To be a master you must meet the requirements of FIDE or your country's federation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most chess players aren't aware of these arbitrary rating thresholds though, and it's likely they would consider anyone with a 2200 rating in whatever system a master (even though this may not be officially true).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2018-05-24T18:27:11.030" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21640" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21620" CreationDate="2018-05-24T18:36:11.343" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;To get a FIDE rating, all you need to do is play in a few FIDE rated tournaments. Many big open tournaments with lots of players are FIDE rated, so those would be a good bet. You can find these tournaments by just searching on Google &quot;Chess Tournaments in x&quot; where x is the region you live.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is no online sign-up process necessary. Once you play 9 FIDE-rated games and score at least 3/9 (unless the rules have changed) then you'll have a FIDE rating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2018-05-24T18:36:11.343" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21641" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-05-24T23:15:02.307" Score="2" ViewCount="316" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am around my 30s and my ELO is 1350. I have attended many national tournaments, but I have very few international tournament experiences, &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/19163/arbiter-ignored-cheating-and-i-signed-the-scoresheet-did-i-lose-my-right-to-ob&quot;&gt;one of which did not go very well&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I love my job, but I also enjoy playing chess very much. Specifically, I love the atmosphere of the tournaments.&#xA;Since I am not a citizen of the country I currently live in, I am not able to attend most of the national tournaments, and that leaves me with some international tournaments to attend with my online FIDE ID.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am not looking to be a professional chess player, but I just want to be a challenge for mid-level players, whose ELOs are around 1500s.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Given the fact that attending an international tournament costs one time and money, my question is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Am I being a stargazer (or simply put, a fool) by attending&#xA;  international tournaments, or can I somehow improve my game to compete with players around the world?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please note that I am &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; looking for something that is obviously out of my reach, such as having a full-time job and standing at top 5% in an international tournament. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8209" LastActivityDate="2018-05-25T00:09:25.507" Title="What age is too old for becoming a good international tournament player?" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;psychology&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2018-05-25T16:32:35.040" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21642" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21641" CreationDate="2018-05-24T23:41:27.523" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am older than you and my ELO going up every year - sometimes very slow - sometimes very fast - no matter who play chess live longer as scientists as the best runners :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am sure you will not learn chess by playing tournaments - you can learn chess by training - you will improve skills faster if you train more self and analyze more games. You will finally play better tournaments.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Playing games is slow method of training better is puzzles, learning ending games, openings, middle games, watching and reading master games analysis, analysis of skill weakness and errors.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Looking games of other players is also good - you can study much more position than playing. You can train little playing long chess games - or fast to learn openings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To improve skills replace playing with training.&#xA;Trainers can improve you skill too but if you train self (everyday).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It will improve you skills in five years I think - who knows you can become 2000 ELO player if you have enough passion and self training skills :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should think like Magnus Carlsen when was 12 years - check where is your limits - tournaments is only exams of your skills - tournaments should played regular too to see own weakness.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8406" LastEditorUserId="8406" LastEditDate="2018-05-25T00:09:25.507" LastActivityDate="2018-05-25T00:09:25.507" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21643" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-05-25T05:08:09.663" Score="6" ViewCount="1379" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am new to chess and I am very confused by all the opening choices.  What openings can I adopt for tournament play that require minimal study time?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16194" LastEditorUserId="14202" LastEditDate="2018-05-31T19:30:22.083" LastActivityDate="2020-05-04T05:10:52.357" Title="What chess openings require less study?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21644" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4477" CreationDate="2018-05-25T11:54:08.337" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Playing the English opening, you will soon find that there is much more room for creativity in this opening than in many openings starting with d4 or e4.&#xA;You have many possible ideas:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;playing a reversed sicilian with the white pieces&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;prepare a specific &quot;anti-something&quot; line against your opponent. For instance, you can avoid the Nimzo-Indian and the Grunfeld defense if you want to&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;there is also the possibility to play very quiet lines, where the center pawn structure remains undecided for a long time:&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/BhWtz.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/BhWtz.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here, this position is very quiet for now, but can soon become very explosive. The big questions being:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;will White push d4 and when ?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;will Black push d5 and when ?&#xA;as you have probably guessed, there is not one single good answer to this question and that is also why the English opening leaves more room for creativity.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are interested, I have summarized the main strategic ideas of the English opening on the following video:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://youtu.be/wsxYf7fV76c&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://youtu.be/wsxYf7fV76c&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2076" LastActivityDate="2018-05-25T11:54:08.337" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21645" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21643" CreationDate="2018-05-25T12:23:55.020" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you are new to chess, you should &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; be concerned with openings at all. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Several reasons for this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;As a beginner player you are much more likely to lose a game because you blunder a piece or because of some other simple tactics than because of lack of opening knowledge.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It is essential to have a decent understanding of chess before you start studying openings. This will allow you to learn an opening together with its typical plans (and not just learning moves by heart.) If you do this, you will know how to punish an incorrect move of your opponent and also how to continue the game in the middle game (when you are on your own). Contrary, if you just learn moves by heart you will not know what to do if your opponent plays a move that is not in your memory.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You have not developed a style yet, so would not be sure which opening suites you best.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What should you be doing now?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Focus on tactics, i.e. solve tactics puzzles. First and foremost avoid blundering pieces in one move. When solving tactics puzzles make sure that you always recognize the pattern(s) that are used in the puzzle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Get a feel for how the pieces move. I am sure you know how they move, but you need to be able to quickly assess a position, seeing what is attacked, where pieces can move, etc, without having to consciously think about each and every move. This is also sometimes called &quot;board vision&quot; and it will improve as you play or train chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Learn some basic general principles like &quot;piece activity, king safety, central squares control, ...&quot;. Reading/watching annotated/commented games and recognizing these principles in the games of master players will help you a lot. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Studying basic endgames can be instructive as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2018-05-25T12:23:55.020" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21646" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9059" CreationDate="2018-05-25T14:37:42.287" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Maybe the last chapter (Chapter 21) of great book from &lt;strong&gt;Peter Romanovsky&lt;/strong&gt;, the soviet middle-game technique have good answers to this question.&#xA;The name of the chapter is &quot;&lt;em&gt;How Players think during the gam&lt;/em&gt;e&quot;.&#xA;He very carefully and exactly define the elements of thoughts as &lt;em&gt;Spirit of the position&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;Variations&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;Post-Variation positions&lt;/em&gt;. After that he exemplified each concept in real games and describe how every player think and how they may have mistake and select bad choices for the next move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16627" LastActivityDate="2018-05-25T14:37:42.287" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21647" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12379" CreationDate="2018-05-25T15:38:46.713" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;there is another very interesting in &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.albertochueca.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.albertochueca.com&lt;/a&gt; and in addition he offers a very good chess guide...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16629" LastActivityDate="2018-05-25T15:38:46.713" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21650" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="885" CreationDate="2018-05-26T09:42:42.733" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &quot;worth&quot; or &quot;value&quot; of any piece is always situational.  The concept of sacrifice includes compensation for the side losing material.  That compensation may not be a material return, but something else like weakening enemy king safety, for example.  Therefore, I prefer to consider a piece's &quot;strength&quot; as its usefulness in a given situation, rather than a number.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Generally, bishops become stronger than knights into the endgame, when the position is more open.  Knights can be stronger than bishops in the opening and middle game when positions could be more closed and cramped.  These ideas guide my considerations of B/N exchanges.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A pinned piece has a reduced value since its movement options become limited or negated altogether.  (If a bishop or undeveloped rook are considered &quot;bad&quot; so too would a pinned pawn be bad and not as strong)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the endgame, the king's &quot;value&quot; has been approximated to 4 pawns.  (I don't recall the source).  Usually in the endgame, you try to quickly centralize your king to strengthen him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A pawn that promotes effectively adds only 8 pawns of value for the side promoting (+9 for the new queen, -1 for the removed pawn).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any piece near the center is stronger (can move to more squares and/or more directions).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An edge pawn can only capture on/protect one square.  It isn't as strong as pawns on files b-g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16636" LastActivityDate="2018-05-26T09:42:42.733" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21651" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12379" CreationDate="2018-05-26T14:15:20.000" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/coach&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://lichess.org/coach&lt;/a&gt; also has a long list of coaches. I found my coach there and I'm happy with the result. We use Skype for audio and the Lichess study feature to share positions in real time, which is very convenient.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12523" LastActivityDate="2018-05-26T14:15:20.000" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21652" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4477" CreationDate="2018-05-26T19:59:10.527" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In his book on &lt;em&gt;Flank Openings&lt;/em&gt;, Raymond Keene made this point. In a conventional opening where both players initially focus on the center, if they play equally well the position may burn out into a draw. If the initial struggle takes place on the flank, even if it does burn out, there is still the other flank to play on. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To take advantage of this possibility, you must make sure that your forces can readily transfer from one flank to the other. This is usually easier for the player who has gained more space.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastActivityDate="2018-05-26T19:59:10.527" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21653" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5186" CreationDate="2018-05-26T22:16:25.707" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think it's covered by 12.3b as it does make a sound, even though it may only be audible to the person using it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;12.3 b. Without the permission of the arbiter a player is forbidden to have a mobile phone or other electronic means of communication in the playing venue, unless they are completely switched off. &lt;strong&gt;If any such device produces a sound, the player shall lose the game&lt;/strong&gt;. The opponent shall win. However, if the opponent cannot win the game by any series of legal moves, his score shall be a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16639" LastActivityDate="2018-05-26T22:16:25.707" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21654" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21657" CreationDate="2018-05-27T01:06:27.380" Score="6" ViewCount="346" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why does Caruana push 11.h3 against Aronian?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[startflipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[startply &quot;20&quot;]&#xA;[title &quot;F. Caruana v. L. Aronian, FIDE Candidates 2018&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.O-O Be7 6.Re1 b5 7.Bb3 O-O 8.d3 d6 9.Bd2 Bg4 10.c3 d5 11.h3 (11.exd5 Nxd5 12.h3) Bh5 12.Qe2 Rb8 13.Bg5 dxe4 14.dxe4 h6 15.Bc1 Bg6 16.Nbd2 Nh5 17.Nf1 Bc5 18.g3 Kh7 19.Kg2 Qe7 20.Bc2 Rfd8 21.b4 Bb6 22.a4 Nf6 23.Nh4 Qe6 24.Bd3 Bh5 25.g4 Bxg4 26.hxg4 Nxg4 27.Nf5 Nxf2 28.Bc2 g6 29.N1e3 gxf5 30.exf5 Qf6 31.Qxf2 e4 32.Rh1 Rd6 33.Bxe4 Rg8+ 34.Kf1 Ne5 35.Qf4 c6 36.axb5 Rg5 37.bxa6 Qd8 38.f6+ Ng6 39.Rxh6+ 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Caruana's 11.h3 does nothing I can see but to kick Aronian's bishop back to h5, seemingly a better square.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yet Caruana wins the game, against &lt;em&gt;Aronian,&lt;/em&gt; no less. So has Caruana's 11.h3 actually somehow helped?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;LUFT?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is Caruana's sole purpose to make &lt;em&gt;Luft&lt;/em&gt; without loss of tempo?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But this seems doubtful. Why make &lt;em&gt;Luft&lt;/em&gt; so soon? Aronian still has both bishops, after all; so, if the purpose is &lt;em&gt;Luft,&lt;/em&gt; then how can Caruana already know that the h-pawn will have been the right pawn to push? (In the event, if &lt;em&gt;Luft&lt;/em&gt; is what Caruana wants then he soon gets plenty of it. Aronian trades the bishop for all three of Caruana's kingside pawns!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;PAWN STORM?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Perhaps Caruana is dreaming of an eventual g4 and a pawn storm against Aronian's black king. But from &lt;em&gt;this&lt;/em&gt; position? I see no sign of it. Do you?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm stumped.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;MOTIVE BEHIND THE QUESTION&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Though Caruana's game against Aronian does indeed interest me, my question has a broader purpose. Opponents sometimes play moves like Caruana's 11.h3 against me. I do not understand h3 (or h6) when they play it any more than when Caruana does.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I understand kicking a &lt;em&gt;knight&lt;/em&gt; by h3. I also understand kicking a bishop by &lt;em&gt;a3,&lt;/em&gt; insofar as the king is not near. But kicking a bishop by h3? If one does not mean to follow with g4, then why bother?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would like to understand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;COMPUTER ANALYSIS&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you wish to know, Stockfish slightly prefers 11.exd5 Nxd5 12.h3, which is not wholly dissimilar to Caruana's play, so apparently Stockfish understands Caruana's thought. Unfortunately, I do not understand it. If you can illuminate the push of the rook pawn in a position of this kind, I would appreciate it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="315" LastActivityDate="2018-05-27T15:12:42.277" Title="Why does Caruana kick Aronian's bishop?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21655" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21233" CreationDate="2018-05-27T03:56:23.400" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you want to be able to see the evaluation for the worst moves, you could download stockfish, run it, and enter: &lt;code&gt;setoption name MultiPv value 499&lt;/code&gt;. To then evaluate a position, you would use the &lt;code&gt;go&lt;/code&gt; command, such as &lt;code&gt;go movetime (ms)&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;go depth (depth)&lt;/code&gt;, or &lt;code&gt;go infinite&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The MultiPv option just allows you to view as many principal variations as you want, and for a sufficiently large number this is just all of the pvs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16641" LastActivityDate="2018-05-27T03:56:23.400" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21657" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21654" CreationDate="2018-05-27T06:28:50.867" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You are right, h3 has no immediate purpose. But that's not the point. The idea behind playing h3 is to set up many resources that &lt;em&gt;may be used in the future&lt;/em&gt;. I'll list these resources below:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A) Luft. Sometime long down the road, the king may need a luft to prevent a back rank mate. Yes, Caruana doesn't know if moving the h-pawn will be the ideal luft in every possible situation, but usually moving the h-pawn works best. You also mentioned that Caruana would soon have plenty of Luft because Aronian trades his bishop for the three kingside pawns. This is also true, but Caruana had no way of knowing this ahead of time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B) &lt;em&gt;Possibly&lt;/em&gt; playing g4. Notice how Black's knight on f6 is tied to the defence of the d5-pawn. One day, White may play g4-g5, booting the knight from its post and winning d5. This doesn't work in the current position (why else would Caruana play 12.Qe2 instead of 12.g4?), but again it's about the possible future. In some future position, Caruana &lt;em&gt;may&lt;/em&gt; find the g4 idea useful. It's likely he will never use it, but &lt;em&gt;it doesn't hurt to have the option ready should the need arise.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In summary of points A) and B), h3 is meant to set up resources that Caruana might use in the future. He may never use these resources, but it's good to have them ready just in case. Playing h3 doesn't hurt his position, so why not?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's also two more reasons behind playing h3:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;C) The bishop on h5 is arguably worse than on g4. On h5, the bishop can only go to g6, where it will be blocked in by White's e4-pawn (provided White can protect the pawn). On g4, the bishop would have been able to retreat along the c8-h3 diagonal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;D) As user1583209 pointed out, by playing h3 White has the option to suddenly break the pin with g4 at any moment. This may be a very useful resource, if White's knight needs to be freed up to do something immediately. Without inserting h3, Black would be able to capture on f3 if White played h3 later on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastEditorUserId="12873" LastEditDate="2018-05-27T07:42:24.640" LastActivityDate="2018-05-27T07:42:24.640" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21660" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-05-28T07:57:30.160" Score="4" ViewCount="736" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the last few years, the Petroff defense had almost disappeared from the super-grandmaster scene with Top players preferring to play the Berlin. However, in this year itself, the Petroff has seen some sort of a renaissance with Fabiano Caruana in particular playing it 4 times in the Candidates tournament itself. Top players like Nakamura have also played it a few times recently(particularly the US Championship) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is, &lt;strong&gt;Why is the Petroff being played more recently?&lt;/strong&gt; Has there been any novelty that has been uncovered and everyone's just analyzing it more and more?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11891" LastActivityDate="2018-05-28T19:19:13.090" Title="Why has the Petroff Defence become more popular?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;petroff-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21661" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21662" CreationDate="2018-05-28T08:34:14.300" Score="18" ViewCount="7351" Body="&lt;p&gt;Stockfish gives +6.6 to the following position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/WaYS1.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/WaYS1.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The recommended move by stockfish is Rc1 which maintains +6.6 advantage but if I exchange the queens right away (Qxd6), stockfish gives me +5. What's the reason behind the difference (in stockfish points) between two positions?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can understand by Rc1 we put pressure on c7 but black can exchange the queens and later can defend the pawn too. Also, as a rule of thumb, I don't usually exchange queens off the board if I can take advantage of the position. But here it seems the queens are going to be exchanged anyway.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can find the full game &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/aURpU6fj/white#40&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11241" LastEditorUserId="11241" LastEditDate="2018-05-28T09:25:36.633" LastActivityDate="2020-06-05T00:59:47.007" Title="Why is exchanging the queens bad in this position?" Tags="&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;" AnswerCount="8" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21662" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21661" CreationDate="2018-05-28T09:43:18.010" Score="28" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think it is because 21.Rfc1 wins the c7 pawn. If black responds with a queen trade, she can't defend the pawn on c7 because white's bishop can attack a defending rook on c8 or d7.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[White &quot;NN&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;NN&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;3r3r/2p1kppp/B2qp3/2Qp4/6b1/PP2P3/3N1PPP/R4RK1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Rfc1 Qxc5 2. Rxc5 Kd7 3. Rac1 {and the pawn falls}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That said, the position is completely winning either way and exchanging off the queens is a practical decision that reduces risks and keeps everything under control. White has an extra piece and a passed pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastEditorUserId="12031" LastEditDate="2020-06-04T11:45:59.073" LastActivityDate="2020-06-04T11:45:59.073" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21663" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21661" CreationDate="2018-05-28T14:34:07.653" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;The reason why a computer makes this type of suggestion i a completely winning position, where a human would choose another completely winning continuation, is because the computer is not human, and does not have a general intuitive understanding of the concept of completely winning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It bases its evaluation of lines on concrete calculations, and then it notes its evaluation of the resulting position in the form of a numerical value which is often related to the material balance at the end of the line. When evaluating a line, the computer makes no practical considerations whatsoever and it doesn't care at all how difficult a position is to play when presenting a continuation as optimal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, for humans, the difficulty of playing a position is an important consideration to make. Therefore, in the position you provided, you made a move which no human would ever even think of criticizing you for making while Stockfish noted it as a &quot;mistake&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While you may note that white is completely winning and the conversion to a victory should be a simple task after trading queens and simplifying the position, Stockfish notes that there is a way to win even more material by playing 21.Rfc1 and will therefore criticize your move, even though the win is not made any more difficult by playing your move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8300" LastActivityDate="2018-05-28T14:34:07.653" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21664" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21661" CreationDate="2018-05-28T14:39:49.043" Score="24" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is true that Rfc1 wins the c7 pawn, but even if that where not the case, Rfc1 is significantly better technique than initiating the exchange yourself. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The black queen is pinned against the king, so there is no risk of black evading the queen exchange. Stepping out of the pin will just waste a tempo, because then you'll still be able to exchange. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you exchange, you improve position of the black king, which enables him to play c5 next, improving his pawn structure. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If he exchanges, he improves the position of your rook and the c7 pawn stays backward. That is positionally much preferable. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All this doesn't matter much, because you are a piece up anyway. But without the extra piece it is exactly this type of precision leading to slightly better positions that wins games. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2018-05-28T14:39:49.043" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21665" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21660" CreationDate="2018-05-28T14:49:33.910" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Possibly it's the evasion of the evasion of the evasion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;GMs evade the Ruy mainlines by playing the Berlin, then they evade the Berlin by playing the Italian and now they might just start to evade the Italian by playing the Petroff. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My hope is that they'll evade the Petroff by playing the King's Gambit. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2018-05-28T14:49:33.910" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21666" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21661" CreationDate="2018-05-28T15:48:44.143" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't have enough points to comment, but please note that if Stockfish actually thought it was a bad move, you would have an annotation like &quot;?!&quot; and a comment like &quot;Inaccuracy&quot; or &quot;Mistake&quot;.  The fact that there is no such annotation means that, although the positional evaluation is lower, it is not considered an error.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9196" LastActivityDate="2018-05-28T15:48:44.143" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21667" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21661" CreationDate="2018-05-28T15:50:12.577" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Rc1 is preferable over an intimidate queen trade because white's queen is active, and black's queen is passive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Moving the white queen to a7, a5 or b7 to defend the bishop loses the activity. Therefore, by playing Rfc1, white can activate one more piece. In case black goes for the trade, now queens are off the board, and white has a very active rook on c5, ready to support the passed pawn on a-file.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But as others mentioned, both moves are winning. Only difference is that Rfc1 has a slightly more active game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8209" LastActivityDate="2018-05-28T15:50:12.577" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21668" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21661" CreationDate="2018-05-28T19:11:54.523" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Playing Rfc1 essentially gives White two extra tempi. Consider the following lines:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A) 21.Qxd6 Kxd6 22.Rfc1&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B) 21.Rfc1 Qxc5 22.Rxc5 Kd6 23.Rac1&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only difference between the lines is that, essentially, the a1-Rook in line A) has been transferred to c5 in line B).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These two extra moves allow White to win the c7-pawn. Continuing line B):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;23...Rd7 24.Rc6+ Ke7 25.Rxc7&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Whereas if we continue line A):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;22...c5! and White isn't winning the c-pawn immediately.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a final note, Black doesn't have to exchange queens in line B), and can protect the c7-pawn by playing 21...Rd7. However, then after 22.Bb5 Rd8 23.Qxc7 White wins the pawn anyway.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastEditorUserId="12873" LastEditDate="2020-06-05T00:59:47.007" LastActivityDate="2020-06-05T00:59:47.007" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21669" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21660" CreationDate="2018-05-28T19:19:13.090" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Nowadays theory has become so convoluted at the super-GM level that top players want to avoid the main lines more and more. The petroff is a good option, since it hasn't been analyzed and played by super-GMs to such a huge extent. In addition, there's nothing fundamentally wrong with the Petroff (objectively, it may just be &lt;em&gt;slightly&lt;/em&gt; worse than 2...Nc6).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, the fact that Caruana played the Petroff 4 times in the Candidates doesn't necessarily signify a resurgence of the opening. He probably just prepared it specifically for that tournament, and the same goes for Nakamura in the US championship.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2018-05-28T19:19:13.090" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21671" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2018-05-28T20:10:25.117" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-05-28T20:10:25.117" LastActivityDate="2018-05-28T20:10:25.117" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21672" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2018-05-28T20:10:25.117" Score="0" Body="For questions about the lichess.org website. Please note that we are NOT Lichess support; some questions are simply not answerable by us." OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-05-28T20:10:25.117" LastActivityDate="2018-05-28T20:10:25.117" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21673" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-05-29T09:23:47.227" Score="4" ViewCount="166" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why sacrificing a pawn in this situation, &lt;code&gt;19... h5&lt;/code&gt; is slightly more preferable by engine over more materialistic &lt;code&gt;g6&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;Kh8&lt;/code&gt;? This is in fact what Ding chose to play actually. Obviously, this is to protect from &lt;code&gt;20. Bh6&lt;/code&gt;, but I myself try not to give away pawns when I have reasonable alternatives.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why protecting dark squares was so important for Blacks even in the presence of the dark-squared bishop?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;6th Norway Chess 2018&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Stavanger NOR&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2018.05.28&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;1.3&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Nakamura, Hikaru&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Ding, Liren&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1/2-1/2&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;A18&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;2769&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;2791&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;73&quot;]&#xA;[StartPly &quot;38&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;2018.05.28&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.c4 Nf6 2.Nc3 e6 3.e4 d5 4.cxd5 exd5 5.e5 Ne4 6.Nf3 Bf5 7.d3 Nxc3 8.bxc3 c5 9.d4 Qa5 10.Bd2 Nc6 11.Be2 Be7 12.O-O O-O 13.a4 Rac8 14.Ra2 a6 15.Rb2 c4 16.Ne1 b5 17.axb5 axb5 18.Bg4 Bxg4 19.Qxg4 h5 20.Qxh5 b4 21.Qg4 Rfe8 22.Nf3 Qa3 23.Rc2 b3 24.Rcc1 Qa2 25.Qf5 Ra8 26.Bg5 Qe2 27.Qd7 Bxg5 28.Nxg5 Ne7 29.e6 f6 30.Nf7 Ng6 31.Nh6+ gxh6 32.Qf7+ Kh8 33.Qxf6+ Kh7 34.Qf7+ Kh8 35.Qf6+ Kh7 36.Qf7+ Kh8 37.Qf6+&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16057" LastEditorUserId="16057" LastEditDate="2018-05-29T11:17:58.093" LastActivityDate="2018-05-31T00:57:20.880" Title="Why sacrificing a pawn was more preferable over more materialistic moves in Nakamura vs Ding in Altibox Norway Chess 2018?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;sacrifice&gt;&lt;norway-chess&gt;&lt;nakamura&gt;&lt;ding&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21674" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2018-05-29T09:25:20.297" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2018-05-29T09:25:20.297" LastActivityDate="2018-05-29T09:25:20.297" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21675" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2018-05-29T09:25:20.297" Score="0" Body="Questions related to the Chinese Grandmaster Ding Liren." OwnerUserId="16057" LastEditorUserId="16057" LastEditDate="2018-05-29T13:53:00.933" LastActivityDate="2018-05-29T13:53:00.933" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21676" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2018-05-29T09:26:53.060" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2018-05-29T09:26:53.060" LastActivityDate="2018-05-29T09:26:53.060" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21677" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2018-05-29T09:26:53.060" Score="0" Body="Questions related to the Japanese-American Grandmaster Hikaru Nakamura." OwnerUserId="16057" LastEditorUserId="16057" LastEditDate="2018-05-29T13:53:39.073" LastActivityDate="2018-05-29T13:53:39.073" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21678" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2018-05-29T09:31:16.143" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2018-05-29T09:31:16.143" LastActivityDate="2018-05-29T09:31:16.143" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21679" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2018-05-29T09:31:16.143" Score="0" Body="Questions related to the prestigious (usually Category XXI - XXII) annual closed chess tournament Norway Chess and the games played within the tournament." OwnerUserId="16057" LastEditorUserId="16057" LastEditDate="2018-05-29T13:39:57.320" LastActivityDate="2018-05-29T13:39:57.320" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21681" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="246" CreationDate="2018-05-29T16:41:29.690" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;My answer comes years late but differs from the others.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A bishop can often reach a square from which it can control, restrict or bind an opposing knight.  See the diagram, which gives an unspectacular but typical example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[startflipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[startply &quot;58&quot;]&#xA;[title &quot;S. Mamedyarov v. M. Carlsen, Wijk an Zee, 2018&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.Qc2 d5 5.cxd5 Qxd5 6.e3 c5 7.Bd2 Bxc3 8.Bxc3 cxd4 9.Bxd4 Nc6 10.Bc3 O-O 11.Nf3 Rd8 12.Be2 Qe4 13.Rc1 Qxc2 14.Rxc2 Nd5 15.Ne5 Bd7 16.Nxc6 Bxc6 17.Bd2 Ne7 18.f3 Rac8 19.e4 f6 20.Be3 a6 21.Kf2 Bb5 22.Rhc1 Rxc2 23.Rxc2 Bxe2 24.Kxe2 Nc6 25.b4 Rc8 26.Rc5 b5 27.f4 Kf7 28.a3 Ne7 29.Rxc8 Nxc8 30.Bc5 Ne7 31.Bxe7 Kxe7 32.Kf3 Kd6 33.Ke3 e5 34.f5 Ke7 35.g4 Kf7 36.h4 Kg8 37.Kf3 h6 38.h5 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White moves 30.Bc5. In this particular game, Black is Magnus Carlsen, so Black has foreseen the trouble and has advanced his king into a position from which the king can help to rescue the knight from its bind. The point, however, is that the knight is indeed in a bind. The bishop has done this to the knight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Admittedly, knights can take away squares from bishops, too, but a bishop can often escape by advancing past the knight out of the knight's range.  On average, bishops have the upper hand over knights in positions like these.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nor are positions like these rare.  Such positions are common, in fact.  Indeed, such a position occurs again earlier in the same game.  (Easy exercise: find the position.  The same white bishop restricts Black's &lt;em&gt;other&lt;/em&gt; knight for six full moves.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This bishop-versus-knight dynamic, in which the bishop has slightly the better of the struggle, is a significant reason to regard the bishop as being&amp;mdash;on average&amp;mdash;slightly stronger than the knight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The knight can of course reach all squares of the board.  This is a significant point in the knight's favor, but the bishop has other, subtle advantages.  For instance, a bishop can three-step.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Consider: a knight can move away from its square and back in two moves but, interestingly, cannot do so in three moves.  A bishop by contrast can indeed use three moves to return to the square from which it starts.  In an endgame, this three-step dynamic can allow the player with a bishop to put his opponent, who has a knight, in &lt;em&gt;Zugzwang.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is also the bishop pair.  One of the other answerers opines that non-expert players can seldom effectively use the bishop pair.  Actually, there is some truth in that opinion, but I have (occasionally) seen non-expert games decided by a pair of bishops, so you have that factor to consider as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the edge of the board, bishops are often happier than knights.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A bishop and a pawn can mutually protect one another&amp;mdash;yet, with a quick push of the pawn, the position can be converted into one in which the pawn covers squares of one color and the bishop squares of the other.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All factors considered, on average, the bishop is probably very slightly the better piece.  But yes, of course, as others have pointed out, it depends on the specific position at hand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="315" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T15:25:42.213" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T15:25:42.213" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21682" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21661" CreationDate="2018-05-29T17:51:59.237" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Lots of people are pointing out that Rfc1 wins you c7, but this is proof of more general advice&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Employ &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zwischenzug&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Zwischenzug&lt;/a&gt; where possible&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Zwischenzug mean &quot;intermediate move&quot;; it's the idea of placing your opponent in more pressure before making an obvious move. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The most clear examples involve being in a position to take an opposing piece, lets say a rook. Instead of taking it right away, you might be able to put your opponent in check first, developing a piece. Then, after your opponent has answered the more pressing concern of check, now you can go ahead and take their rook. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this example, you've pinned black's queen. Nice work. Now, there's no immediate move black has to get out of it. You &lt;em&gt;could&lt;/em&gt; go ahead and take black's queen, black captures back, then you play on like usual. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Instead&lt;/em&gt;, what Stockfish is proposing is that you place black in a more uncomfortable position before making the trade. There are only a few responses to Rfc7; none of them are very good for black. So why not go ahead and force one of those &quot;not very good moves&quot;, especially if it lets you develop a rook? The queen exchange isn't going anywhere, and you can use it to leverage an even larger advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&quot;To take is a mistake&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, that's one of those over-generalized &quot;rules&quot; which only applies in certain cases, but this is one of them!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The idea is that you never want to sacrifice the momentum or positioning gained in an exchange &lt;em&gt;if you don't have to&lt;/em&gt;, and often, the person initiating an exchange loses both of those. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm obviously not saying that taking a piece is always (or even usually) bad; if black's queen weren't pinned, you should obviously capture it. But right now, &lt;em&gt;you don't have to take it&lt;/em&gt;. It's not going anywhere. Consider these outcomes:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You take the queen and black recaptures with their rook, threatening white's bishop. Now white can move their bishop to d3, which encourages black to play g6, or they can move their bishop elsewhere, encouraging Rhd8. So now black's either developed a rook and strengthened their king-side pawns, or developed a battery on a semi-open file. In exchange, white's lost development on their bishop. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White should still win on material, but they didn't have to give black that positional advantage. If white moves Rfc7, then black captures the queen, white recaptures with their rook. The queens are off the board &lt;em&gt;and&lt;/em&gt; white developed a rook; advantage white. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, if black doesn't make the trade you've still got the advantage, and if black removes the pin on their queen, you can just grab it then. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Qxd6 says &quot;I'm trading queens because I'm up on material&quot;, but Rfc7 says to black &lt;strong&gt;&quot;You can initiate the trade and I'll develop a rook for it, or you can squirm a little first and I'll do it when I'm ready.&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16035" LastActivityDate="2018-05-29T17:51:59.237" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21684" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21685" CreationDate="2018-05-30T10:50:40.800" Score="4" ViewCount="184" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was making live broadcast recent days and I'm quite surprised how it technically worked. We were downloading whole new PGN file every 5 seconds with format shown it the code below. Is this how things work by default, is this standardized way of accessing tournament games?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it typical for major actions that access to games can be licensed/encrypted to avoid traffic from unknown entities?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For actions with many boards and many watchers like Olympiad online traffic downloading whole new PGN every second is just unimaginable for me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;Nomina?ní turnaj&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2018.05.29&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;5.1&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Babula, Vlastimil&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Plat, Vojtech&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;2556&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;2556&quot;]&#xA;[LiveChessVersion &quot;1.4.6&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;D96&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 {[%clk 1:30:55]} d5 {[%clk 1:30:54]} 2. Nf3 {[%clk 1:31:03]} Nf6&#xA;{[%clk 1:31:00]} 3. c4 {[%clk 1:31:10]} c6 {[%clk 1:29:19]} 4. Nc3&#xA;{[%clk 1:30:57]} g6 {[%clk 1:28:47]} 5. e3 {[%clk 1:27:45]} Bg7 {[%clk &#xA;1:29:13]}&#xA;6. Be2 {[%clk 1:27:05]} O-O {[%clk 1:29:35]} 7. O-O {[%clk 1:27:11]} dxc4&#xA;{[%clk 1:25:13]} 8. Bxc4 {[%clk 1:27:06]} Nbd7 {[%clk 1:25:29]} 9. Bb3&#xA;{[%clk 1:13:22]} Nb6 {[%clk 1:22:11]} 10. h3 {[%clk 1:08:06]} Bf5&#xA;{[%clk 1:21:31]} 11. Nh4 {[%clk 1:02:41]} Be4 {[%clk 1:17:33]} 12. Nxe4&#xA;{[%clk 1:02:24]} Nxe4 {[%clk 1:17:59]} 13. Qc2 {[%clk 1:00:24]} Nd6&#xA;{[%clk 1:18:23]} 14. Nf3 {[%clk 0:58:11]} Rc8 {[%clk 1:18:48]} 15. Rd1&#xA;&#xA;....&#xA;&#xA;and so on&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11609" LastEditorUserId="8472" LastEditDate="2018-06-01T08:24:10.923" LastActivityDate="2018-06-01T08:24:10.923" Title="Standard for receiving live chess broadcast" Tags="&lt;programming&gt;&lt;pgn&gt;&lt;online&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21685" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21684" CreationDate="2018-05-30T11:17:43.570" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is very common for live broadcast. What's simpler than just sending a PGN file format?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;downloading whole new pgn every second is just unimaginable for me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not really. While I don't claim myself a HTTP expert, your browser doesn't really need to do a new download. Good browser implementation should have a cache of your most recent PGN file. Only the HTTP response would need to be sent back. Please take a look:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://stackoverflow.com/questions/20978189/how-304-not-modified-works&quot;&gt;https://stackoverflow.com/questions/20978189/how-304-not-modified-works&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2018-05-30T11:17:43.570" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21686" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21661" CreationDate="2018-05-30T11:32:43.497" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is &lt;strong&gt;NOT&lt;/strong&gt; bad. Possibility of a &lt;strong&gt;better&lt;/strong&gt; move, doesn't make the &lt;strong&gt;worse&lt;/strong&gt; move a &lt;strong&gt;bad&lt;/strong&gt; move. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Usually, when you're the attacking one, you don't want to exchange pieces. That's a general rule.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, if you have material advantage, you should rather try to exchange as many pieces as you can.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Given position is not worth analyzing, white is a piece up, it's game over already. HOWEVER, if you are less experienced player (I assume from the question) I think that exchanging queens is even &lt;strong&gt;BETTER&lt;/strong&gt;. Why? Because it will make it harder for black to come back to the game. Queens are dangerous!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Pragmatism for the win!&lt;/strong&gt; (for example, look at the game of Magnus Carlsen vs Fabiano Caruana: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessbomb.com/arena/2018-altibox-norway-chess/01-Carlsen_Magnus-Caruana_Fabiano&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.chessbomb.com/arena/2018-altibox-norway-chess/01-Carlsen_Magnus-Caruana_Fabiano&lt;/a&gt; - look how red it is! Did he played that bad? No, he played safe (in most cases)).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3895" LastActivityDate="2018-05-30T11:32:43.497" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21687" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5078" CreationDate="2018-05-30T14:56:04.490" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;A new answer like this to a four-year-old question is probably doomed to lie, unread, at the bottom of the answer column, yet four years late I have something different to add, so here goes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That computers have not killed the game is one of the great surprises in the history of chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Computers have perhaps damaged the game. Not a few masters have concurred on this. The kind of chess Tal once played against Botvinnik, for example, seems to be gone forever, a real loss to the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What many of the masters did not however expect was the rise of deliberately suboptimal opening play. Today, a grandmaster like Magnus Carlsen can &lt;em&gt;make a move both players know is not quite objectively best&lt;/em&gt; and can gain an advantage thereby, insofar as the move invalidates the opponent's preparation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Botvinnik's day, grandmasters seldom thought so; but today, even a grandmaster would rather not play against a memorized line a computer has developed. Thus, though one can reasonably argue that chess was&amp;mdash;on the whole&amp;mdash;a better game in the precomputer age, there is in chess a new tension between&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;pursuing a computer-generated line of your own and&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;disrupting the computer-generated line your opponent has memorized.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus, in grandmaster play, the &lt;em&gt;well-timed deviation&lt;/em&gt; from memorized lines has become rather an art.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In summary, many have said that chess was better in the precomputer age. Maybe chess was indeed better, but players have adapted in unexpected ways to keep the game alive and, in some ways, arguably, to make the game almost better than ever.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's funny how that has worked.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is a sample of the new style of play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[startflipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[startply &quot;8&quot;]&#xA;[title &quot;M. Carlsen v. F. Caruana, São Paolo, 2012&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e6 2.d3 (2.d4) d5 3.Nd2 Nf6 4.Ngf3 (4.g3) Nc6 5.c3 (5.a3) (5.e5) Bd6 6.Be2 O-O 7.O-O a5 8.Re1 e5 9.exd5 Nxd5 10.Nc4 Re8 11.Bf1 Bg4 12.h3 Bh5 13.g3 Nb6 14.Nxb6 cxb6 15.Bg2 b5 16.a4 b4 17.Be3 Bc7 18.Qb3 h6 19.Qc4 bxc3 20.bxc3 e4 21.dxe4 Bxf3 22.Bxf3 Ne5 23.Qe2 Nxf3+ 24.Qxf3 Qd3 25.Kg2 Qxe4 26.Bd4 Qxf3+ 27.Kxf3 b6 28.Rab1 Rac8 29.Re4 g6 30.g4 Kf8 31.h4 Rxe4 32.Kxe4 Re8+ 33.Kd3 Re6 34.Be3 Kg7 35.Rb5 Bd8 36.h5 Rd6+ 37.Kc4 Rc6+ 38.Kd5 Re6 39.Bd4+ Kf8 40.f4 Bc7 41.f5 Rd6+ 42.Ke4 Rc6 43.Rb1 Ke8 44.hxg6 fxg6 45.Rh1 Kf7 46.Kd5 Rd6+ 47.Kc4 gxf5 48.gxf5 Bd8 49.f6 Bxf6 50.Rxh6 Be7 51.Rxd6 Bxd6 52.Kb5 Ke6 53.Bxb6 Kd7 54.c4 Kc8 55.Bxa5 Kb7 56.Bb4 Bf4 57.c5 Ka7 58.c6 Kb8 59.a5 Ka7 60.a6 Ka8 61.Bc5 Bb8 62.Kc4 Bc7 63.Kd5 Bd8 64.Ke6 Bc7 65.Kd7 Ba5 66.Be7 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to de Firmian's &lt;em&gt;Modern Chess Openings&lt;/em&gt;, 14th ed., Carlsen as White enters an unusual line as soon as the second move and, on move number four, leaves the book altogether. I do not know what White's standard fifth move should be in so already unusual a position, but apparently, after four moves, Carlsen is still not yet satisfied that he has disrupted Caruana's preparation.  According to Stockfish, Carlsen chooses the third-best option for his fifth move, the move being suboptimal by a margin of more than a quarter of a pawn.  Yet Carlsen, finally satisfied with his opening disruption, still wins the game, for&amp;mdash;though Carlsen's opening is not unprecedented&amp;mdash;it is unusual enough that Caruana cannot easily have prepared.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would add this as a final note. If you are not a master or grandmaster, but are just an ordinary patzer like me, well, human chess coaches are expensive. By quickly spotting missed tactics in a player's recently finished games, a computer can inexpensively help a social, nontournament player to improve his or her play. A human chess coach is still better, I don't doubt, but the computer does fill a certain gap. I personally would have preferred precomputer chess on the whole but the computer has brought some compensating advantages. In the computer age, the game of chess is still okay.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Good question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="315" LastEditorUserId="315" LastEditDate="2018-05-30T15:43:16.547" LastActivityDate="2018-05-30T15:43:16.547" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21688" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21673" CreationDate="2018-05-30T15:23:26.880" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Blacks counter play is based on ...b4  If he plays a slow move White  can thwart b4 with Nc2 (which also stops Blacks Queen from entering on the a-file) and then attack on the kingside.  Some ideas are f2-f4-f5-f6, Rf1-f3-h3.  After Nc2 White can also take his time and just play Rf-b1 and Black is passive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2018-05-30T15:23:26.880" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21689" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4531" CreationDate="2018-05-30T22:59:44.837" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a kid who played a lot of chess from 3rd to 7th grade and then stopped I feel obligated to point out that many children stop not because of loss of passion or online chess or video games, but because they don't have the TIME it requires. Around 7th grade is when many children especially the smart ones like those who play chess start stressing about high school applications. Most kids when they reach 7th grade are at a place where chess requires studying. But they need that time for schoolwork. Also at that age kids start to think about their futures, for most of them there is no future in chess, so they start to pursue other things. I stopped after winning the highest score under 1800 at a big open tournament the week before school started. I had been studying for weeks before the tournament so after the tournament chess became something that I felt needed to spend hours on and something that stressed me out. Especially the prospect that as I got better I would need to put in even MORE time. So I decided to pursue school. By that point many of my friends dropped out or stopped playing so there was very little social aspect making it way less enjoyable. And there was no sense of team I once had. So I stopped playing altogether. Sometimes I think of going back, but I'm a bit afraid of hurting my rating, to tell the truth, and it would take months of studying now to get where I was then. I'm happy with where I got, but I think around that then I felt it was time to move on to a different stage in life. I started doing debate and track, but chess will always be special to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16667" LastActivityDate="2018-05-30T22:59:44.837" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21690" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21673" CreationDate="2018-05-31T00:57:20.880" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It comes down to what's worth more in the moment. By playing ...h5 Black gained one tempo (since White had to waste a tempo moving the queen back to g4). The question is: in that position is one tempo worth more than the h-pawn?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The answer is yes, because both sides are in a race. White is trying to checkmate Black's king before Black can make serious progress on the queenside. By giving up the lone h-pawn (which Black wasn't going to use in the near future anyway), Black gains one more tempo in this race. Later on when the game heats up and becomes sharper, it's clear that every tempo is important. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In normal positions it's not worth giving up a pawn for a tempo, but the position in the game was a &quot;do or die&quot; case. Either your attack is faster, or you lose on the spot.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, Black's dark-squared bishop is able to defend, but only for so long. So gaining a tempo still helps quite a bit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2018-05-31T00:57:20.880" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21691" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21698" CreationDate="2018-05-31T04:31:52.520" Score="7" ViewCount="237" Body="&lt;p&gt;My question is on the definition of the term &quot;study.&quot; If there is an interesting endgame position that occurs in a real game between two real players, and the position is later posed to somebody who has not seen the game, would it be technically incorrect to call this a &quot;study&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endgame_study&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia page&lt;/a&gt; seems to suggest this terminology as technically incorrect, but to me it makes the most sense to differentiate &quot;composed studies&quot; from &quot;studies.&quot; I'm happy for any input.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3884" LastActivityDate="2018-06-01T10:56:55.690" Title="Must chess studies be composed?" Tags="&lt;terminology&gt;&lt;study&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21692" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21691" CreationDate="2018-05-31T09:42:02.200" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are a number of rules for what constitutes a proper problem / study which are extremely unlikely to be satisfied by a position arising in a real game -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;there must be only one solution&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;there must be no superfluous pieces - i.e. if any piece is removed then the solution no longer works or is no longer unique&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes positions arise in a game which come close, usually when there is only one solution which is also rather difficult. Then the position is called &quot;study like&quot; but usually not all pieces on the board are essential.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2018-05-31T09:42:02.200" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21693" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4531" CreationDate="2018-05-31T19:20:57.003" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As someone who is also interested in and participates in other sports, and who is currently coaching youth baseball, let me first state that the issue of kids leaving is not unique to chess. Young athletes leave sports such as baseball, football, soccer, etc. It is said that 70% of kids leave youth sports by age 13.*&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That said ... In my opinion, this is not something for which there is a single answer. Factors involved include interest, opportunity, outside activities and needs, pressure, and social factors. I'll illustrate some of this via my personal experiences.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess was something that was of interest to me from an early age and I learned it at the age of 9. This was during the Fischer craze. I often played classmates during recess when weather forced us to stay inside. However, over time that fad faded and playing at school stopped. I continued playing at home against my step siblings for a while, but advanced to the point where I defeated them easily and they would no longer play against me. At that time, we lived in a relatively remote area and I had no one else to play against, so I (mostly) stopped playing for a few years. Even after we moved to a more populated area, there weren't many people I knew who played. So, for several years I didn't have opportunity to play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I got into high school, there was a chess club. I played there and began playing in rated tournaments. Inside the group, we enjoyed socializing with one another. However, outside our group, we were seen as nerdy outcasts, which people that age usually don't want (or at least didn't when I was that age). So, I'm sure there are teenagers who may be interested, but who don't play (at least publicly) for fear of becoming socially ostracized.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pressure and burn out are things I didn't have to deal with, but some kids do. I mention it here because it is often around high school that this leads players to quit. Kids who are pushed hard for several years to learn any skill often feel  overly pressured and eventually burn out. I have seen it coaching baseball, where kids are pushed by their parents and/or coaches to work hard at the game to become experts. Parents may want the kids to win scholarships and/or turn pro; some coaches will be overly obsessed with winning. Such pressure often turns kids off and leads to burn out and dropping out of the activity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The college I attended didn't have a chess club. Also, with studies and a part time job, I had little time for the game. Furthermore, I did not have much money for traveling to tournaments (the closest I knew of were a one hour drive) or paying entry fees. So I again stopped playing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the time I graduated college, chess was only a mild interest. I usually had a chess program on whatever computer I had and would play it occasionally. Otherwise, I didn't play much due to work, other hobbies, dating, and - at times - night school. I did read the occasional article about the game in mass media (such as Kasparov vs. Deep Blue), but that was about it for a few decades.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Historically, another factor might be the means of study available. When I was young, the only resources I had for improvement were rather dry books - coaching would have been done face-to-face then and we were nowhere near a coach (nor would my family have spent money on one). Now there are videos, online lessons, and books that are more interesting than those I remember starting and abandoning years back. Coaching can be done online. Hopefully more people will take an interest and stay involved in chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*Source: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXw0XGOVQvw&amp;amp;t=2s&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXw0XGOVQvw&amp;amp;t=2s&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="224" LastEditorUserId="224" LastEditDate="2018-05-31T23:07:09.923" LastActivityDate="2018-05-31T23:07:09.923" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21694" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21643" CreationDate="2018-05-31T19:31:47.060" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;The Ideas Behind the Chess Openings&quot;,&#xA;by Reuben Fine might help you.  If you understand the ideas you don't need to memorize a bunch of variations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2018-05-31T19:31:47.060" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21695" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21697" CreationDate="2018-06-01T07:29:29.003" Score="2" ViewCount="529" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this puzzle, &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/training/61639&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://lichess.org/training/61639&lt;/a&gt;, in this position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1k2n1rr/1b4q1/1p1p1p2/1PpPpQ2/2P1PnN1/2N4P/R5PK/R2B4 b - - 10 33&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the engine says that the best move for black is Rh5, I think it should be Bc8.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16676" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-06-05T14:52:51.030" LastActivityDate="2018-06-05T14:52:51.030" Title="Doubt about best move in lichess.org training puzzle" Tags="&lt;puzzles&gt;&lt;lichess&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21696" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21691" CreationDate="2018-06-01T07:40:57.307" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, let's look at the origin of the term &amp;quot;study&amp;quot;. In &lt;em&gt;art&lt;/em&gt;, a study is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a drawing, sketch or painting done in preparation for a finished piece, or as visual notes. Studies are often used to understand the problems involved in rendering subjects and to plan the elements to be used in finished works, such as light, color, form, perspective and composition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Wikipedia)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Endgame studies in chess got that name because they try to render a given theme or idea as clearly as possible, without distractions or irrelevant parts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A part of an existing drawing may be interesting, but it wouldn't be called a study.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's what Wikipedia says about endgame studies, emphasis mine:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Composed studies predate the modern form of chess. Shatranj studies exist in manuscripts from the 9th century, and the earliest treatises on modern chess by the likes of Luis Ramirez Lucena and Pedro Damiano (late 15th and early 16th century) also include studies. However, these studies often include superfluous pieces, added to make the position look more &amp;quot;game-like&amp;quot;, but which take no part in the actual solution &lt;em&gt;(something that is never done in the modern study)&lt;/em&gt;. Various names were given to these positions (Damiano, for example, called them &amp;quot;subtleties&amp;quot;); the first book which called them &amp;quot;studies&amp;quot; appears to be Chess Studies, an 1851 publication by Josef Kling and Bernhard Horwitz, which is sometimes also regarded as the starting point for the modern endgame study.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So in modern times they are as streamlined as possible and that is also when they started to be called studies.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for the link with computers, that is very interesting. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.arves.org/arves/images/PDF/WorkshopMEC_2012.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Here is a link to a Powerpoint presentation &amp;quot;Composing chess studies with the computer&amp;quot;&lt;/a&gt;, unfortunately in Dutch only, by the precise people you'd want to have talking about that: computer chess expert and AI professor Van den Herik and GM Jan Timman, also famous for his endgame studies.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They explain that theoretically it is possible to have a computer program that can decide whether a study is correct (single solution) and judge its quality, based on a list of desired qualities:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Successfully breaking heuristics&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Use of the weakest piece&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Using &lt;em&gt;all&lt;/em&gt; of the power of a piece&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Giving more esthetic value to critical pieces [I don't know what they mean]&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Using a single &amp;quot;heavy&amp;quot; piece instead of several &amp;quot;light&amp;quot; pieces&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Use of themes&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Avoidance of obvious stereotypes&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Strangeness and difficulty do not lead automatically to &amp;quot;beauty&amp;quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A computer could then assist a composer, or go through databases of games or endgame tablebases to find potential beautiful studies.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But, that program hasn't been invented yet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are tablebase positions that have single solutions (at least for a large part of the main line). They could qualify, but most people think they don't demonstrate a clear theme, for a human the moves look incomprehensible. Thus they fail as works of art.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2018-06-01T07:40:57.307" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21697" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21695" CreationDate="2018-06-01T07:55:12.003" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;No. After ...Bc8??, Ra8+ checks win for white.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2018-06-01T07:55:12.003" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21698" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21691" CreationDate="2018-06-01T10:56:55.690" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to the &lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/fide_directory.phtml?list=983&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Directory&lt;/a&gt; the associate member organisation responsible for governing chess compositions is the World Federation for Chess Composition (WFCC) Their website is &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.wfcc.ch/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;. Their handbook is published &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.sci.fi/~stniekat/books/hcc7.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Page 19 of the handbook has what they call the &quot;Codex&quot;. The introduction gives the meaning of this -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;This codex deals with general principles of chess composition&#xA;  activities such as composition, solving and publication. The codex is&#xA;  intended to be descriptive, rather than prescriptive, and it is also&#xA;  intended to offer constructive guidance in areas where there has been&#xA;  no central guidance before. It is not intended to be a body of&#xA;  established law which problemists must observe on pain of being&#xA;  condemned of heresy or worse; problemists are independent spirits, and&#xA;  it would be pointless for the PCCC to attempt to legislate in that&#xA;  way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Part One starts like this, which makes it clear that problems are composed and do not come from real games -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Part One: The Chess Composition&lt;/strong&gt;   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Chapter I - General Principles&lt;/strong&gt;   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Article 1 - Independence&lt;/strong&gt;   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Compositional Chess is an independent form of chess activity which&#xA;  consists of using features found in, or derived from, the game of&#xA;  chess as the material for the creation of artistic effects or&#xA;  constructional feats, in the form of chess compositions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Article 2 - Chess Composition&lt;/strong&gt;   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A chess composition consists usually of a position on the chess board,&#xA;  a stipulation in the form of words, and the solution. A chess&#xA;  composition is the result of an individual creative act of one or more&#xA;  authors.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is qualified by this footnote (and others) -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The use of a computer does not result in an authorship of the&#xA;  computer. Nor does the compilation or publication of a computer&#xA;  generated database constitute the publication of one or more chess&#xA;  compositions&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Further useful information can be found on the website of the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.theproblemist.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;British Chess Problem Society&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One particularly useful section is &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.theproblemist.org/how-to-solve-chess-problems&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;How to Solve Chess Problems&lt;/a&gt; written by Ian Watson the 2017 British champion (beating the former multiple World Champion, &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/news/view/world-chess-problem-solving-championships-5043&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;John Nunn&lt;/a&gt;!) On the page &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.theproblemist.org/how-to-solve-chess-problems/238-part-5-what-is-that-piece-for&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;What is that piece for?&lt;/a&gt; he says this -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;One of the most useful things that help you solve problems is that all&#xA;  the pieces are relevant – they all have to have a role. If they don’t,&#xA;  then the composer doesn’t include them – there are no superfluous&#xA;  pieces in a composed problem. That isn’t always useful, but very often&#xA;  is: suppose there’s a pawn a long way from the action – ask yourself&#xA;  how it could possibly be needed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2018-06-01T10:56:55.690" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21699" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9705" CreationDate="2018-06-01T11:54:52.940" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;When White plays 1. Nf3, this is an invitation to Black to occupy the center. In most cases White hopes that he will be able to counter-attack on Black's central pawns.&#xA;Against this move, you have two choices:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;accepting the challenge with Black: you play moves like 1... d5. If White is consistent with his plan, he could play 2. c4, to which you can (but are not forced to) answer with 2... d4 to grab some space and the fight begins&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/o3fjD.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/o3fjD.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Or, completely different idea, considering that White is not taking the responsibility to claim for an advantage and that you don't want to do so either, you choose to play a quiet symmetrical line. The game could go on with 1. Nf3 Nf6 2. g3 g6 3. Bg2 Bg7 etc.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are interested to know a bit more about this opening, I encourage you to have a look to my introduction video to 1. Nf3: &lt;a href=&quot;https://youtu.be/kfyB1W0ObyY&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://youtu.be/kfyB1W0ObyY&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2076" LastActivityDate="2018-06-01T11:54:52.940" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21700" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21721" CreationDate="2018-06-01T13:07:30.813" Score="4" ViewCount="959" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the theory for this opening for black?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Bc4 c6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've started playing the Bishop's Opening because it is something different, but I had not seen this counter play before.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems weak, because--although it has the advantages of an opening like Caro-Kann by grabbing control over the center--black immediately loses defense of his king pawn (Nc6 is unplayable). Despite this, it seems a solid opening for black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10687" LastActivityDate="2018-06-05T15:01:09.457" Title="What is the theory behind Bishop's Opening, Philidor Counter-Attack?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;bishops-opening&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21701" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21700" CreationDate="2018-06-01T14:04:10.910" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Black cannot play Nc6 at the moment, that is true. However, it doesn't look like White can exploit this immediately, either. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black will answer &lt;strong&gt;3 Nf3&lt;/strong&gt; by &lt;strong&gt;...d5&lt;/strong&gt;, gaining tempo on the Bc4 that he can then use to either defend e5 (d7 is open for the knight, at the very least) or counter-pressure e4 (which is equally weak as e5). The whole motive is similar to the classical center attack in the Italian (c3 + d4).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Trading the pawns (&lt;strong&gt;4 exd5 cxd5&lt;/strong&gt;) opens c6 for the knight again and doesn't look very attractive as it yields the center to Black. &lt;strong&gt;5 Bb5+&lt;/strong&gt; is toothless, Black will reply &lt;strong&gt;...Bd7&lt;/strong&gt; and then take back on d7 with his knight (or simply play Nc6 if the white bishop retreats now). Immediately retreating (by &lt;strong&gt;4 Bb3&lt;/strong&gt;) doesn't look very good either, Black will gain the initiative.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, White has other options for his third move. &lt;strong&gt;3 d4&lt;/strong&gt; is a similar attempt to attack e5. Black can reply &lt;strong&gt;3...d5&lt;/strong&gt; again, which leads to a very complicated position. But again, e4 is just as weak as e5 and swapping away e4 opens c6 for the knight. No clear advantage for any side.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Against &lt;strong&gt;3 Nc3&lt;/strong&gt; (prevents &lt;strong&gt;3...d5&lt;/strong&gt;, but doesn't attack e5), Black has time to play &lt;strong&gt;3...Bc5&lt;/strong&gt; , followed by &lt;strong&gt;4...d6&lt;/strong&gt; (e5 is safe) and he will achieve something similar to a Giuoco Pianissimo Reversed - which is not too bad, really.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, yeah: Totally playable in my opinion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Disclaimer: I'm not an actual expert in this opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13433" LastActivityDate="2018-06-01T14:04:10.910" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21702" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16115" CreationDate="2018-06-01T17:34:41.397" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;This type of thing is frequently suggested by people who don't understand chess and don't understand what makes chess appealing to serious players.  Adding any element of probability to chess is a serious no-no.  The determinism is the whole point.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16679" LastActivityDate="2018-06-01T17:34:41.397" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21705" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21643" CreationDate="2018-06-02T01:22:45.200" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Short answer: the Ruy Lopez, shown in the last of this answer's five diagrams, suits your requirements.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A longer answer follows.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Study helps all openings as far as I know, so I can only tell you which openings might want comparatively more or less study.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The London System, which seldom occurs in my games (so I do not personally know a lot about it), has the reputation of wanting comparatively little study.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[startflipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[startply &quot;5&quot;]&#xA;[title &quot;London System&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 Nf6 (1...d5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.Bf4) 2.Nf3 e6. 3.Bf4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The King's Gambit would not be my first recommendation to you (the Ruy Lopez, discussed later, is better), but attempting the King's Gambit, at least occasionally, is surprisingly instructive. I mention it here for this reason. The King's Gambit cannot be competently played without any study at all, but with moderate study becomes dangerous and double-edged without being overly formulaic.  (Not a few masters have regrettably concluded that the King's Gambit is probably slightly unsound, but this does not necessarily make the King's Gambit a poor opening in submaster play. Anyway, even masters sometimes play it.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[startflipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[startply &quot;3&quot;]&#xA;[title &quot;King's Gambit&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.f4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you try for the King's Gambit or for a more sober king's-pawn opening, but 1.e4 c5 happens, then you can steer into the Closed Sicilian with 2.Nc6, which is a quite different kind of game than the King's Gambit but is playable without excessive study.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[startflipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[startply &quot;3&quot;]&#xA;[title &quot;Closed Sicilian&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 c5 2.Nc3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Like many players, I usually prefer to play the other knight, 2.Nf3, in Sicilian games, but playing the other knight leads to just the sort of game you wish to avoid.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you try for the King's Gambit or for a more sober king's-pawn opening, but 1.e4 e6 happens, then you may be in some trouble. That is called the French Defense and, as far as I know, most lines that follow from it reward study. However, the Exchange Variation, diagrammed below, might be reasonable for you to attempt.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[startflipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[startply &quot;5&quot;]&#xA;[title &quot;Exchange French&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.exd5 (3.Nc3)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Probably a little better than the 3.exd5 of the above diagram, yet still not extremely theoretical, is 3.Nc3, which leads to a different kind of game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The King's Gambit is interesting as far as it goes, but even given 1.e4 e5 most players I know come to prefer less speculative openings. Arguably the most basic, principled such opening is the Ruy Lopez. At the master level, the Ruy Lopez greatly rewards study, but at submaster levels the Ruy Lopez is an inherently sound opening in which straightforward play usually leads to interesting games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[startflipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[startply &quot;5&quot;]&#xA;[title &quot;Ruy Lopez&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Much better chess players than I am prefer openings I have not even mentioned; so, to be clear, I make no recommendation for or against any of the above openings to the general player. The above openings are recommended to &lt;em&gt;you&lt;/em&gt; because you state that you prefer to minimize study time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I will say this, though. Unfortunately for you, the nature of chess is that, even for a nonmaster, a moderate quantity of opening study goes a long way. Opening study isn't everything, but a moderate quantity of opening study complements almost everything else a chess player tries to do, from midgame tactics to endgame targets. (Other answers recommend that you focus on tactics now and worry about openings a little later in your chess career. Those other answers are not wrong, but you seem to feel that you cannot even reach the tactical stage of a game of chess until you have chosen an opening! You are not wrong, either, so your question is a reasonable one in my view.) If someday you decide that you have more time and you decide to study openings a little more, why, many nonmasters find such study interesting. You might try it someday, at your discretion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Meanwhile, if you want a single anti-studying recommendation, then, in light of your stated requirements, go for the Ruy Lopez. If Lopez does not suit, and if you feel certain that you will never change your mind regarding study, then give the London a try. Good luck.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="315" LastEditorUserId="315" LastEditDate="2018-06-02T01:48:49.163" LastActivityDate="2018-06-02T01:48:49.163" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21707" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21643" CreationDate="2018-06-02T02:55:03.407" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I suggest the Stonewall.  The first 10 moves are the same in almost every opening.  The general middle game plans are easy to learn.  Since it is such a closed opening, the chance of you leaving a piece en prise is very low.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12449" LastActivityDate="2018-06-02T02:55:03.407" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21708" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21700" CreationDate="2018-06-02T19:28:42.087" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;2...c6 is one of Black's best replies to 2.Bc4, as it aims to play ...d5 and take advantage of White's bishop being developed so early. If White let's this happen, Black gains a big centre with tempo, and White loses any chances for an opening advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you noted though, the weakness of ...c6 is that Black cannot play 2...Nc6. Thus, the best way to play is to attack Black's e5-pawn (since Black cannot defend it with ...Nc6). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The theory isn't too developed, but here is how the main line runs (according to the MEGA database):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.e4 e5 2.Bc4 c6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Nf3 d5 5.exd5 cxd5 6.Bb5+ Bd7 7.Nxe5 Bxb5 8.Nxb5 Qb6 9.Qe2 Be7 10.d4!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Bc4 c6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Nf3 d5 5.exd5 cxd5 6.Bb5+ Bd7 7.Nxe5 Bxb5 8.Nxb5 Qb6 9.Qe2 Be7 10.d4!&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A few notes on the line:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;By playing 4.Nf3, White forces Black's hand. Either Black must passively defend the e5-pawn with 4...d6, and then White may continue with 5.d4! Or, Black plays 4...d5, and White succeeds in provoking Black to take action.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;White allows Black to get a big centre, but because Black is ill-prepared to defend his pawns, White wins the e5-pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The ending position is slightly better for White. He's up a pawn, but it isn't much... White's bishop is bad and the knight on b5 is misplaced.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastEditorUserId="14079" LastEditDate="2018-06-04T09:07:34.107" LastActivityDate="2018-06-04T09:07:34.107" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21709" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21710" CreationDate="2018-06-03T13:19:18.370" Score="3" ViewCount="130" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a casual chess player and I have recently identified a weakness in my play when it comes to positions where there is some &quot;tension&quot; on the board. By tension I mean that a series of capture and recapture can arise from the given position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have gone through a fair bit of tactical training and it made my mid-game play decent enough to sometimes gain a significant advantage but too often, I tend to lose this advantage when exchanging material. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See the example below where (please refrain from laughing) I played an impulsive Nxd5...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;r4rk1/ppqb1p1p/5Pp1/1Bpp4/1n1P4/2N1P3/PP4QP/R1B1K2R w KQ - 0 15&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I feel like I am missing some method to analyse this kind of &quot;tensed&quot; position and that it leaves to much space for my irrational-self to make decisions! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there any method/book/training that would teach me how to approach positions where a lot of captures/recaptures can occur?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12554" LastEditorUserId="12554" LastEditDate="2018-06-03T22:48:03.240" LastActivityDate="2018-06-04T00:10:17.373" Title="How can I improve my evaluation of exchange positions?" Tags="&lt;training&gt;&lt;captures&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21710" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21709" CreationDate="2018-06-03T13:55:04.277" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;A very good and old book is &lt;em&gt;Think Like a Grandmaster&lt;/em&gt; by the Grandmaster Alexander Kotov. He was first to put forth the idea of &lt;strong&gt;candidate moves&lt;/strong&gt;. Kotov recommended looking for several moves that seemed feasible – the so-called candidate moves – and then analyzing those moves one at a time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once you have found a good number of candidate moves, you may then begin to systematically analyze these moves. The idea behind candidate moves is to help structure one's analysis and prevent it from becoming jumbled.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finding the correct candidate moves is obviously one of the most difficult aspects of becoming a better chess player. You may start first by screening all possible checks and exchanges (including Nxd5). Then, you will gain experience and will recognize important patterns. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One of such &quot;patterns&quot; is the &lt;strong&gt;safety of the enemy king&lt;/strong&gt;. In the given position, with the pawn in f6, the king in g8 is very unsafe and a nice pattern would be to mat the black King wth Qg7! So, I would have selected 1.Qg5 as my first candidate move!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only answer is then 1.Qg5 Kh8, to counter 2.Qh6 with 2...Rg8. However, in this position, I recognize a new pattern Qxh7 and mate in the h-file with a rook in h4 for instance. So, I analyse 1.Qg5 Kh8 2.0-0!! to bring the rook h1 into action and nothing serious can prevent the plan Rf4, Qh6, Qxh7 and Rh4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another very good book is &lt;em&gt;The Critical Moment&lt;/em&gt; by the Grandmaster Iossif Dorfman. Chapter 2 is about &lt;em&gt;The exchange of material&lt;/em&gt; answering a crucial question: For which exchange should I aim?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11749" LastActivityDate="2018-06-03T13:55:04.277" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21711" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24813" CreationDate="2018-06-03T14:21:06.580" Score="12" ViewCount="1246" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am interested in the History of chess and looking at old FIDE ranking lists I am a bit puzzled by the lack of information about some very good players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance, in the list of July 1972:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Shmit, from Soviet Union, and ranked #95 in the world with 2480 Elo &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.olimpbase.org/Elo/player/Shmit.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.olimpbase.org/Elo/player/Shmit.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Zurakov, from Soviet Union, and ranked #275 in the world with 2415 Elo&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.olimpbase.org/Elo/player/Zurakov.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.olimpbase.org/Elo/player/Zurakov.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Abaharov, from Soviet Union, and ranked #285 in the world with 2410 Elo&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.olimpbase.org/Elo/player/Abaharov.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.olimpbase.org/Elo/player/Abaharov.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does anyone know them?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The complete list offers other examples&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.olimpbase.org/Elo/Elo197207e.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.olimpbase.org/Elo/Elo197207e.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am also looking to know more about a player called Donnelly, from Ireland, and ranked #416 in 1970 with FIDE rating of 2240 (a very decent rating at that time!)&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.olimpbase.org/Elo/player/Donnelly.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.olimpbase.org/Elo/player/Donnelly.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11749" LastEditorUserId="11749" LastEditDate="2020-04-20T06:23:02.720" LastActivityDate="2020-04-20T06:23:02.720" Title="Unknown old FIDE players" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;history&gt;&lt;fide&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21712" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21711" CreationDate="2018-06-03T15:03:13.370" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found one in Big Database 2016.  Anatoly Shmit, born 1941 in Latvia, with 157 games between 1959 and 1989, all played within the USSR.  Many strong Soviet players never got the chance to play outside the Soviet Union, and Shmit does not seem to have ever been awarded a FIDE title, although he was undoubtedly a very strong player, having beaten a number of well known players including Mikhail Tal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to chessgames.com, his name was more accurately Anatolijs Šmits.  He won the Soviet Junior Championship in 1960, and was Latvian Champion in 1969 and 1975.  He died in 1998, aged 56.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16679" LastEditorUserId="16679" LastEditDate="2018-06-03T15:08:51.537" LastActivityDate="2018-06-03T15:08:51.537" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21713" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-06-03T16:29:22.633" Score="-5" ViewCount="129" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the upcoming Caruana, Carlsen final, who will play with the white pieces?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does anyone know?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16688" LastActivityDate="2018-06-03T16:59:07.157" Title="In the upcoming Caruana, Carlsen final, who will play with the white pieces?" Tags="&lt;fide&gt;&lt;world-championship&gt;&lt;carlsen&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21714" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21713" CreationDate="2018-06-03T16:59:07.157" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Do you mean in the World Chess Championship 2018?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That will be a 12-game match, and not just a single game. The players will alternate colors, so they both will play 6 games with White.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15668" LastActivityDate="2018-06-03T16:59:07.157" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21715" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21711" CreationDate="2018-06-03T17:04:26.643" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Perhaps the others are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Vladlen Yakovlevich Zurakhov&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/player/vladlen_yakovlevich_zurakhov.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chessgames.com/player/vladlen_yakovlevich_zurakhov.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Jarullakh  Abakarov&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.365chess.com/players/Jarullakh_Abakarov&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.365chess.com/players/Jarullakh_Abakarov&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16689" LastActivityDate="2018-06-03T17:04:26.643" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21716" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21709" CreationDate="2018-06-04T00:05:12.540" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Pretend it's your opponent's move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The above advice will show you what tension can be ignored and what tension needs to be adhered to.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example in your given FEN -- if it were your opponent to move, &lt;code&gt;1...Bxb5&lt;/code&gt; would mean white loses castling rights (i.e. &lt;code&gt;2...Nd3+&lt;/code&gt; would be now be possible).  Thus the tension surrounding the light-squared bishops needs to be adhered to, assuming no stronger threats exists.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the White King were castled in the FEN, however, the tension surrounding the light-squared bishops can be ignored (i.e. &lt;code&gt;2...Nd3&lt;/code&gt; is now harmless).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Notice how &lt;code&gt;1. Nxd5&lt;/code&gt; would never comes up as a candidate move since pretending your opponent was to move forced White to recognize the tension surrounding the light-squared bishops.  Thus White would not play &lt;code&gt;1.  Nxd5&lt;/code&gt; since it did not deal with the tension surrounding the light-squared bishops (i.e. &lt;code&gt;1. Nxd5 Nxd5 2. Qxd5 (2. Bxd7 Qxd7 defends the knight) Bxb5&lt;/code&gt; loses a piece.).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7801" LastEditorUserId="7801" LastEditDate="2018-06-04T00:10:17.373" LastActivityDate="2018-06-04T00:10:17.373" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21717" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7932" CreationDate="2018-06-04T04:12:52.530" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;One chess opening you can use is the Hedgehog formation, it is very defensive if you are playing black. Black exchanges a pawn on c5 for a white pawn on d4 and then places his pawns on a6, b6 and e6. The bishops are placed on b7 and e7, then the knights are placed on d7 and f6, the queen is on c7 and the rooks on c8 and e8. This position is cramped, however it has great defensive capabilities.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;2r1r1k1/1bqnbppp/pp1ppn2/8/8/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16692" LastEditorUserId="27099" LastEditDate="2021-03-23T06:58:31.787" LastActivityDate="2021-03-23T06:58:31.787" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21718" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-06-04T07:30:06.193" Score="1" ViewCount="210" Body="&lt;p&gt;Please can anyone help me to find the name of this chess pieces' design? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qJw0s.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Chess pieces&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16693" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-06-04T07:41:45.223" LastActivityDate="2018-06-04T20:26:16.633" Title="What's the name of this pieces' design?" Tags="&lt;chess-set&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21720" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21718" CreationDate="2018-06-04T20:26:16.633" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The shape of the pieces is a standard &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Staunton_chess_set&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Staunton chess set&lt;/a&gt;. However, the marbled material makes it look rather unusual. I am not up on the rules about color use, but I have my doubts that it would be permitted in tournament use if one of the players objected.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="224" LastActivityDate="2018-06-04T20:26:16.633" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21721" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21700" CreationDate="2018-06-04T20:53:58.603" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Usually 2...Nf6 is played and only then 3...c6; this makes a difference.&#xA;2...c6 is rarely played and in response 3.Qe2 is strong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With 2...Nf6 White is encouraged to defend his e-pawn.  If 3.Qe2 Black can switch from 3...c6 to 3...Nc6/3...d6 lines and the Queen on e2 doesn't help ideas of playing for d2-d4.   Now with 1.e4 e5 2.Bc4 c6 3.Qe2 Nf6, White can play c3 and d4 without loss of time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastEditorUserId="14202" LastEditDate="2018-06-05T15:01:09.457" LastActivityDate="2018-06-05T15:01:09.457" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21722" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-06-04T21:22:46.467" Score="4" ViewCount="109" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my school days in the early 1980's I played in a few USCF-rated tournaments. Once school was over, I dropped out of tournament play and even dropped my USCF membership.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, to support my child who is playing in tournaments, I've re-joined USCF. I see that crosstables for tournaments seem to be available going back to 1990. Is it possible to get results from tournaments before then? If so, how?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="224" LastEditorUserId="224" LastEditDate="2018-06-04T23:17:41.780" LastActivityDate="2018-06-05T20:26:14.297" Title="Is it possible to get results/crosstables from USCF-rated events before 1990?" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;uscf&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21723" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21724" CreationDate="2018-06-05T05:06:58.637" Score="12" ViewCount="2564" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the longest (currently discovered) number of moves for a forced mate position where players will use both the 50-move draw rule and the 3-fold repetition rule if it will help them avoid losing?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By this, I mean an a game where the losing player attempts to make the game last as long as possible (or if possible, draw) and the winning player attempts to checkmate as fast as possible. Both players playing perfectly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For those interested this question covers&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/13178/What%20is%20the%20longest%20proven%20forced%20win%20(ignoring%2050%20&amp;amp;%2075%20move%20rules)?&quot;&gt;&amp;quot;What is the longest forced win with 3 to 6 pieces (ignoring 50 &amp;amp; 75 move rules)?&amp;quot;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16702" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-02-03T14:13:16.243" LastActivityDate="2021-02-03T14:13:16.243" Title="What is the longest proven forced win (including 50 &amp; 75 move rules)?" Tags="&lt;theory&gt;&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;problems&gt;&lt;computer-chess&gt;&lt;records&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="13" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21724" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21723" CreationDate="2018-06-05T08:41:45.367" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ott%C3%B3_Bl%C3%A1thy&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Otto Blathy&lt;/a&gt; is famous for his long mate problems. There are different records depending on whether you allow an illegal starting position, or promoted pieces, or minor duals in the solution, so your answer might be anywhere between 257 and 292 moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This &lt;a href=&quot;https://puzzling.stackexchange.com/a/555/40223&quot;&gt;answer&lt;/a&gt; on Puzzling.SE shows a construction in 271 moves that is not Blathy, but by &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.yacpdb.org/#97037&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Nenad Petrovic&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Nenad Petrovic, Zagreb 1969, Mate In 271&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;8/Bk3p1p/1P3p2/KP2n2p/1P1p4/1Pp2p2/B1P5/7B w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Bb1 h4 2. Ka4 Ka8 3. Ka3 Kb7 4. Ka2 Ka8 5. Ka1 Kb7 6. Ba2 Ka8 7. Kb1 Kb7 8. Kc1 Ka8 9. Kd1 Kb710. Ke1 Ka8 11. Bb1 Kb7 12. Kf1 Ka8 13. Kf2 Kb7 14. Ke1 Ka8 15. Kd1 Kb7 16. Kc1 Ka8 17. Ba2 Kb7 18. Kb1 Ka8 19. Ka1 Kb7 20. Bb1 Ka8 21. Ka2 Kb7 22. Ka3 Ka8 23. Ka4 Kb7 24. Ka5 f5 25. Ka4 Ka8 26. Ka3 Kb7 27. Ka2 Ka8 28. Ka1 Kb7 29. Ba2 Ka8 30. Kb1 Kb7 31. Kc1 Ka8 32. Kd1 Kb7 33. Ke1 Ka8 34. Bb1 Kb7 35. Kf1 Ka8 36. Kf2 Kb7 37. Ke1 Ka8 38. Kd1 Kb7 39. Kc1 Ka8 40. Ba2 Kb7 41. Kb1 Ka8 42. Ka1 Kb7 43. Bb1 Ka8 44. Ka2 Kb7 45. Ka3 Ka8 46. Ka4 Kb7 47. Ka5 f4 48. Ka4 Ka8 49. Ka3 Kb7 50. Ka2 Ka8 51. Ka1 Kb7 52. Ba2 Ka8 53. Kb1 Kb7 54. Kc1 Ka8 55. Kd1 Kb7 56. Bb1 Ka8 57. Ke1 Kb7 58. Kf1 Ka8 59. Kf2 Kb7 60. Ke1 Ka8 61. Kd1 Kb7 62. Kc1 Ka8 63. Ba2 Kb7 64. Kb1 Ka8 65. Ka1 Kb7 66. Bb1 Ka8 67. Ka2 Kb7 68. Ka3 Ka8 69. Ka4 Kb7 70. Ka5 f6 71. Ka4 Ka8 72. Ka3 Kb7 73. Ka2 Ka8 74. Ka1 Kb7 75. Ba2 Ka8 76. Kb1 Kb7 77. Kc1 Ka8 78. Kd1 Kb7 79. Ke1 Ka8 80. Bb1 Kb7 81. Kf1 Ka8 82. Kf2 Kb7 83. Ke1 Ka8 84. Kd1 Kb7 85. Kc1 Ka8 86. Ba2 Kb7 87. Kb1 Ka8 88. Ka1 Kb7 89. Bb1 Ka8 90. Ka2 Kb7 91. Ka3 Ka8 92. Ka4 Kb7 93. Ka5 f5 94. Ka4 Ka8 95. Ka3 Kb7 96. Ka2 Ka8 97. Ka1 Kb7 98. Ba2 Ka8 99. Kb1 Kb7 100. Kc1 Ka8 101. Kd1 Kb7 102. Ke1 Ka8 103. Bb1 Kb7 104. Kf1 Ka8 105. Kf2 Kb7 106. Ke1 Ka8 107. Kd1 Kb7 108. Kc1 Ka8 109. Ba2 Kb7 110. Kb1 Ka8 111. Ka1 Kb7 112. Bb1 Ka8 113. Ka2 Kb7 114. Ka3 Ka8 115. Ka4 Kb7. 116. Ka5 h3 117. Ka4 Ka8 118. Ka3 Kb7 119. Ka2 Ka8 120. Ka1 Kb7 121. Ba2 Ka8 122. Kb1 Kb7 123. Kc1 Ka8 124. Kd1 Kb7 125. Ke1 Ka8 126. Bb1 Kb7 127. Kf1 Ka8 128. Kf2 Kb7 129. Ke1 Ka8 130. Kd1 Kb7 131. Kc1 Ka8 132. Ba2 Kb7 133. Kb1 Ka8 134. Ka1 Kb7 135. Bb1 Ka8 136. Ka2 Kb7 137. Ka3 Ka8 138. Ka4 Kb7 139. Ka5 h2 140. Ka4 Ka8 141. Ka3 Kb7 142. Ka2 Ka8 143. Ka1 Kb7 144. Ba2 Ka8 145. Kb1 Kb7 146. Kc1 Ka8 147. Kd1 Kb7 148. Ke1 Ka8 149. Bb1 Kb7 150. Kf1 Ka8 151. Kf2 Kb7 152. Ke1 Ka8 153. Kd1 Kb7 154. Kc1 Ka8 155. Ba2 Kb7 156. Kb1 Ka8 157. Ka1 Kb7 158. Bb1 Ka8 159. Ka2 Kb7 160. Ka3 Ka8 161. Ka4 Kb7 162. Ka5 h6 163. Ka4 Ka8 164. Ka3 Kb7 165. Ka2 Ka8 166. Ka1 Kb7 167. Ba2 Ka8 168. Kb1 Kb7 169. Kc1 Ka8 170. Kd1 Kb7 171. Ke1 Ka8 172. Bb1 Kb7 173. Kf1 Ka8 174. Kf2 Kb7 175. Ke1 Ka8 176. Kd1 Kb7 177. Kc1 Ka8 178. Ba2 Kb7 179. Kb1 Ka8 180. Ka1 Kb7 181. Bb1 Ka8 182. Ka2 Kb7 183. Ka3 Ka8 184. Ka4 Kb7 185. Ka5 h5 186. Ka4 Ka8 187. Ka3 Kb7 188. Ka2 Ka8 189. Ka1 Kb7 190. Ba2 Ka8 191. Kb1 Kb7 192. Kc1 Ka8 193. Kd1 Kb7 194. Ke1 Ka8 195. Bb1 Kb7 196. Kf1 Ka8 197. Kf2 Kb7 198. Ke1 Ka8 199. Kd1 Kb7 200. Kc1 Ka8 201. Ba2 Kb7 202. Kb1 Ka8 203. Ka1 Kb7 204. Bb1 Ka8 205. Ka2 Kb7 206. Ka3 Ka8 207. Ka4 Kb7 208. Ka5 h4 209. Ka4 Ka8 210. Ka3 Kb7 211. Ka2 Ka8 212. Ka1 Kb7 213. Ba2 Ka8 214. Kb1 Kb7 215. Kc1 Ka8 216. Kd1 Kb7 217. Ke1 Ka8 218. Bb1 Kb7 219. Kf1 Ka8 220. Kf2 Kb7 221. Ke1 Ka8 222. Kd1 Kb7 223. Kc1 Ka8 224. Ba2 Kb7 225. Kb1 Ka8 226. Ka1 Kb7 227. Bb1 Ka8 228. Ka2 Kb7 229. Ka3 Ka8 230. Ka4 Kb7 231. Ka5 h3 232. Ka4 Ka8 233. Ka3 Kb7 234. Ka2 Ka8 235. Ka1 Kb7 236. Ba2 Ka8 237. Kb1 Kb7 238. Kc1 Ka8 239. Kd1 Kb7 240. Ke1 Ka8 241. Bb1 Kb7 242. Kf1 Ka8 243. Kf2 Kb7 244. Ke1 Ka8 245. Kd1 Kb7 246. Kc1 Ka8 247. Ba2 Kb7 248. Kb1 Ka8 249. Ka1 Kb7 250. Bb1 Ka8 251. Ka2 Kb7 252. Ka3 Ka8 253. Ka4 Kb7 254. Ka5 Kc8 255. Ka6 Kd8 256. b7 Nd7 257. Bxf3 h1=Q 258. Bxh1 d3 259. cxd3 f3 260. Bxf3 Ke7 261. b8=Q Nxb8+ 262. Bxb8 c2 263. Bxc2 Ke6 264. b6 Kf6 265. b7 Ke6 266. d4 h2 267. Bxh2 f4 268. b8=Q Kf7 269. Bxf4  Kg7 270. Bh5 Kf6 271. Qe5#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(&lt;em&gt;legal position, with promoted piece, with minor duals in the solution&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Those problems involve regular pawn moves, so the fifty-moves rule doesn't change their validity. On the other hand, all long (500+ moves) tablebase mates (as the first diagram in the answer linked above) show series of more than 50 moves without capture nor pawn moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally a beautiful &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessproblem.net/viewtopic.php?t=26&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;problem&lt;/a&gt; exploiting the 50-moves rule was composed by Noam Elkies, who comes sometimes on Chess.SE. I will refrain from giving the solution here for people who want to search (but I have already given away the main indication and lazy people can just follow the link).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;     [Title &amp;quot;Noam Elkies, 1991 - White to play and draw&amp;quot;]&#xA; [FEN &amp;quot;8/1p6/1p6/kPp2P1K/2P5/N1Pp4/q2P4/1N6 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-05T15:18:26.900" LastActivityDate="2020-08-05T15:18:26.900" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21725" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21564" CreationDate="2018-06-05T15:21:48.790" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some of the colors are a bit different, but that could be age or the nature of being hand painted. Also, you don't say how tall it is. That said, it looks very similar to a &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessusa.com/product/2U-012.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Crusaders vs. Saracens set&lt;/a&gt;, which has 5 inch tall kings. It is made of &quot;polystone&quot;, a material made from crushed stone and polyurethane which is supposed to be durable and provide a heavy feel.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="224" LastActivityDate="2018-06-05T15:21:48.790" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21726" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21736" CreationDate="2018-06-05T18:01:17.393" Score="1" ViewCount="270" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I first played chess I was terrible at it. I was like 5 or 6 years old back then. Now I understand the rules and stuff, but is there a specific or good age to play chess? An age when it's easy to understand?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16705" LastEditorUserId="315" LastEditDate="2018-06-06T19:29:34.083" LastActivityDate="2018-06-06T19:29:34.083" Title="Is there a good or a proper age to play chess?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ClosedDate="2018-06-06T21:11:40.800" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21728" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21722" CreationDate="2018-06-05T18:23:33.137" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I personally doubt it, since those were early computer days when I don't think that much of that information could be easily stored long term. I would however suggest contacting the USCF for definitive information. They have moved their headquarters since then, from NY to Tennessee, but it's possible that some records may have survived.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;USCF Telephone:  (888) 512-4377 (CHESS)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Customer Support&#xA;Monday through Friday - 9:00 A.M. until 5:00 P.M. (Central)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Facsimile: 256.851.0560&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Electronic Mail: customerservice@uscfsales.com&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastActivityDate="2018-06-05T18:23:33.137" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21729" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21722" CreationDate="2018-06-05T20:26:14.297" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't know if the tournament directors from those tournaments are still around and still have those records, but if so, contacting them might be the way to go.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2018-06-05T20:26:14.297" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21730" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11157" CreationDate="2018-06-05T23:18:49.947" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Xiangqi symbols are now in Unicode 11.0, in the block &lt;a href=&quot;https://unicode.org/charts/PDF/U1FA00.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess Symbols: U+1FA00–U+1FA6F&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="386" LastActivityDate="2018-06-05T23:18:49.947" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21731" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-06-06T00:56:41.060" Score="5" ViewCount="463" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was going through a &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessable.com/practice/book/1338&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chessable opening line&lt;/a&gt;, and it recommends black to play &lt;code&gt;6...d5&lt;/code&gt;, moving the d pawn immediately after it was &lt;em&gt;just moved&lt;/em&gt; in &lt;code&gt;5...d6 6.Nc3&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the reason behind moving the same pawn twice?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;r1bqk1nr/pp2bppp/2npp3/2p5/4PP2/2NP1N2/PPP1B1PP/R1BQK2R b KQkq - 1 6&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;6... d5 7. O-O Nf6 8. e5 Nd7 9. d4 cxd4 10. Nb5 O-O 11. Nbxd4 Nxd4 12. Nxd4 Nc5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Full line here:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. f4 Nc6 3. Nf3 e6 4. d3 Be7&#xA;5. Be2 d6 6. Nc3 d5?? 7. O-O Nf6 8. e5 Nd7&#xA;9. d4 cxd4 10. Nb5 O-O 11. Nbxd4 Nxd4 12. Nxd4 Nc5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1090" LastActivityDate="2018-06-07T19:54:33.810" Title="Strange pawn double move in McDonnell attack" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21732" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21734" CreationDate="2018-06-06T01:52:04.547" Score="12" ViewCount="3164" Body="&lt;p&gt;If a situation containing only pawns and kings is displayed is there a simple set of rules for determining if the position is won/drawn/lost?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know for single pawn and double pawn endgames this is true with rules like the opposition, rule of square, rook pawns etc.  My question is, does this extend into multipawn games or are they simply too complex and varied?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another way of putting the question might be: if you show two grandmasters a pawn only endgame; do they both immediately know the outcome, or are there some that they would need to play out?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16702" LastEditorUserId="16702" LastEditDate="2018-06-06T09:16:36.913" LastActivityDate="2018-06-07T10:49:24.000" Title="Are there rules for categorising all pawn-only endgames into won/drawn/lost?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;study&gt;&lt;pawn-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21733" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21731" CreationDate="2018-06-06T03:03:41.777" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think it's probably a mistake.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I checked a database, and the position that arises after 5.Be2 only appeared in it twice - once in a game from way back in 1883, and once in a game between two  players rated 2600+ in a 2011 rapid event.  5...d5 (rather than 5...d6) was played in both games, and Black won both.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the double pawn move isn't a mistake, then we can assume that White's intervening move, 6.Nc3, somehow changed the position to make d5 more favorable.  So how did Nc3 change the position?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The knight prevents White from playing c4 to challenge a pawn on d5.  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The knight could be a target on c3 if Black later advances the pawn to d4.  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;White cannot now move the knight to a3 or d2.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not convinced.  Black never played d4 in the line you showed, and c4 doesn't look like it's something to be feared.  And I don't see any reason why White playing Na3 or Nbd2 would make d5 less favorable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2018-06-06T03:03:41.777" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21734" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21732" CreationDate="2018-06-06T05:58:21.887" Score="18" Body="&lt;p&gt;Generally speaking, the side with the most pawns will win. The tempo provided by the extra pawn is usually enough to gain opposition and access to the key squares. Doubled pawns don't matter for this, unless they're blocked. The extra pawn can also limit the movement of the opponent's king, resulting in the possibility of a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangulation_(chess)&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;triangulation maneuver&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another recurring theme/rule is the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.ichess.net/blog/pawn-endgames-breakthrough-part-1/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;breakthrough&lt;/a&gt;. Grandmasters know the patterns for which a breakthrough is possible by heart.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But generally, multi-pawn endgames are just as complicated as other endgames. There is a Russian endgame study composer, &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolai_Grigoriev&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Nikolai Grigoriev&lt;/a&gt;, who is famous for his pawn endgame studies. They truly show the rich possibilities of chess with just kings and pawns. With so many beautiful studies available, you know that there can be no general rule to determine the outcome.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2018-06-06T05:58:21.887" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21735" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21732" CreationDate="2018-06-06T06:02:34.887" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;While there are general rules, these rules have many exceptions and nuances.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the following position with White to move, both sides have a passed pawn, but the fact that Black's passed pawn is so much better means White is dead lost:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;6k1/8/6p1/2p5/1pPpP3/pP6/2P3P1/2K5 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But it's precarious.  Remove Black's A-pawn from the starting position, and Black doesn't have a passed pawn, and doesn't win.  Remove his B-pawn, and the passed pawn isn't connected, and Black doesn't win.  Remove his C-pawn, and White has a second passed pawn, and Black doesn't win.  Remove his G-pawn, and White again has a second passed pawn, and Black doesn't win.  Remove his D-pawn, and Black &lt;em&gt;does&lt;/em&gt; win - but not if White's king started at b1 instead of c1.  There's no &quot;rule&quot; that can cover all these situations; you have to calculate them to at least some extent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2018-06-06T06:02:34.887" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21736" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21726" CreationDate="2018-06-06T09:28:14.370" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Like learning to speak the appropiate age will vary from child to child.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think 3 and older (My 10 year old brother taught me when I was 3). Children are naturally curious about any activity their parents/siblings do.  Just play chess in front of them and if they show interest show them how each of the pieces move.  At very young ages you will need to be extremely patient as some rules such as the knight movement and castling are quite difficult for young children to understand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16702" LastActivityDate="2018-06-06T09:28:14.370" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21737" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21732" CreationDate="2018-06-06T12:24:58.420" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is no general rule for multi-pawn endgames as they are much too complex. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However I believe that most of the pawn only endgames that appear in regular games are readily assessed correctly by grandmasters (or even just masters). Sure there are pawn endgame studies that might be tricky, but on average assessing a pawn endgame is much easier than an endgame with say rooks on the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In order to win a pawn endgame you have to promote a pawn (apart from rare situations where you mate with pawns only). So obviously one of the first thing to look for is the availability of &lt;strong&gt;passed pawns&lt;/strong&gt; or the options for &lt;strong&gt;creating passed pawns&lt;/strong&gt;. If there are, you would further assess the strength of those passed pawns: Can the king catch them? Are they protected? (This usually means that the king is bound  to a certain part of the board and could be used for operations in another part of the board.) Do you perhaps have more than one passed pawn? If both players have passed pawns; whose pawn is quicker?, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If there are no passed pawns, it means that (in order to win) you have to capture an enemy pawn with your king. Target pawns to be captured are often fairly clearly defined. Your opponent may defend passively, e.g. preventing you from getting close to the target pawn or he may actively try to capture one of your pawns and promote a pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In situations like this, it is often essential to count correctly, make  proper use of &lt;strong&gt;opposition&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;triangulation&lt;/strong&gt;. Fortunately the number of possible moves is limited in pawn endgames, simplifying the calculation of long lines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When assessing multi-pawn endgames, of course it helps if you know the rules of single pawn endgames (rule of square, rook-pawn,opposition, active king etc) since the multi-pawn endgame might turn into a single pawn endgame or effective single pawn endgames if pawn chains are blocked.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastEditorUserId="11629" LastEditDate="2018-06-07T10:49:24.000" LastActivityDate="2018-06-07T10:49:24.000" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21738" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15537" CreationDate="2018-06-06T14:43:33.750" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=208&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Official chess rules by FIDE&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Rule 3.9 is as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;3.9 The king is said to be 'in check' if it is attacked by one or more of the opponent's pieces, even if such pieces are constrained from moving to that square because they would then leave or place their own king in check. &lt;em&gt;No piece can be moved that will either expose the king of the same colour to check or leave that king in check.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16710" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-06-06T19:35:28.263" LastActivityDate="2018-06-06T19:35:28.263" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21739" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21726" CreationDate="2018-06-06T19:18:09.840" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can only answer according to my own experience.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The typical child can learn how each chessman moves at about 6.5 years old.  However, at this age, the typical child cannot firmly grasp simple chess concepts like&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;guarding a piece so that, if the piece is captured, the guard can recapture; and&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;why the first move of a mate in two might not be a check.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Confusingly, the typical 6.5-year-old child is able to develop pieces if taught to do so, which can lead adults to believe that the child understands chess better than the child actually does.  This is perplexing, because you can watch the child move knights toward the center and post bishops on plausible squares during the opening, but then you see the child do something that makes no sense like advancing the king to the third rank so that a pawn can &quot;guard&quot; the king (as though the king were a bishop or a knight).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To play chess with even minimal understanding, the typical child needs to reach about age 7.5 in my experience.  Moreover, if the child does not find chess interesting, then the age is about 8.5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Before age 7.5, many children enjoy playing chess even if they really have no idea what's going on.  They just like moving bishops diagonally, and so on, not because of bishop strategy and bishop tactics but merely because &lt;em&gt;diagonality&lt;/em&gt; is an interesting concept.  They get a little frustrated, though, when time to deliver a checkmate comes, because they usually just cannot complete even a simple checkmate except by luck.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are of course exceptions.  A few prodigies are able to learn chess at much younger ages, but such children are rare.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="315" LastActivityDate="2018-06-06T19:18:09.840" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21740" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19629" CreationDate="2018-06-06T20:00:42.413" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Other than colors, that looks identical to a set my mother made for me back in the 1970's or early 80's at a local ceramic studio. She made it from molded  greenware (unfired clay) and hand painted it. She made a few of these for other chess playing family members &amp;amp; friends, using different color combinations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While the story you state is nice, I'm sorry to say it seems likely to me that the set in your picture was made in a similar fashion to mine, instead of being acquired in trade from an officer in the Russian Navy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="224" LastActivityDate="2018-06-06T20:00:42.413" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21741" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6508" CreationDate="2018-06-06T20:21:55.720" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;Right at the bottom of the Computer Chess Rating List for the 40/4 time control is Brutus RND, an engine that simply selects random legal moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.computerchess.org.uk/ccrl/404/cgi/engine_details.cgi?print=Details&amp;amp;each_game=1&amp;amp;eng=Brutus%20RND#Brutus_RND&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.computerchess.org.uk/ccrl/404/cgi/engine_details.cgi?print=Details&amp;amp;each_game=1&amp;amp;eng=Brutus%20RND#Brutus_RND&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It has a rating of 205 (as of 6/6/2018). This is not a FIDE rating of course, but it is using the Elo system.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It has 0 wins, 242 losses and 64 draws. The draws are due to faulty programs that accidentally cause draws by repetition or occasionally stalemate, though they generally have a substantial material advantage when this occurs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;FIDE has a rating floor of 1000. Brutus RND would simply fail to establish a rating that high and would be unrated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If we ignore the FIDE rating floor, it is possible to have a negative rating under the Elo system.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One point to mention is that FIDE uses a table to calculate rating changes and if the rating difference is greater than 735, no change occurs when the stronger player wins. This means Brutus could never have a rating of -5000 or anything like that because it would need to lose points to spectacularly incompetent players that would not be capable of delivering checkmate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/component/handbook/?view=article&amp;amp;id=197&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.fide.com/component/handbook/?view=article&amp;amp;id=197&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We are left guessing here. 1000 Elo rated players would be able to get Brutus's rating down to 265, but since there are no players with worse ratings, we cannot say exactly how much further they could push Brutus's rating down if they did exist.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would guess that players that are 500 Elo or worse would have trouble delivering mate consistently, much like the faulty programs. Draws by 3-fold repetition or the 50 move rule are not automatic under FIDE rules and would only occur if Brutus claimed them. But a human could lose by running out of time, as well as drawing by accidental stalemate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I'm guessing somewhere in the -200 to 200 range if FIDE allowed ratings below 1000 and allowed Brutus to compete.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15031" LastActivityDate="2018-06-06T20:21:55.720" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21742" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6508" CreationDate="2018-06-06T21:59:09.650" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Worse than an absolute beginner who barely knows the rules of the game, because at least the beginner puts &lt;em&gt;some&lt;/em&gt; thought into choosing a move. Their moves may still be mostly random, but at least there's some evaluation of positions going on. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So this engine's rating would be at the lowest possible floor of whatever rating system you choose. It might eventually win or draw a game against an equally bad opponent, and then increase by a few points. However, you can expect the engine's rating to rapidly sink back to the minimum floor afterwards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Shannon's &quot;Programming a Computer for Playing Chess&quot;, he notes that the probability of random play beating Botvinnik is of the order of 10^-75. Thus, if this random computer were to play Botvinnik (or even a regular master) non-stop for a human lifetime, we can reasonably expect it to never win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, Shannon goes on to say that random play isn't the worst strategy; the worst strategy is deliberately playing moves that aid the opponent. While it's possible a complete beginner could do this, the chances are they'll try to play moves that improve their own position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2018-06-06T21:59:09.650" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21743" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21731" CreationDate="2018-06-06T22:09:11.617" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I checked the position on Stockfish and its 1st or 2nd recommendation is to play 6...d5 after 6.Nc3, so your Chessable opening line is sound.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason for playing 6...d5 is that White's c3-knight is misplaced. If you were to attack it by pushing ...d4, it doesn't have a good square to move to (normally, it would like to move to e2 but a bishop is sitting there).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason for not playing 5...d5 on the fifth move is that White doesn't have to bring his knight to c3. Instead, he can move it to d2, where it won't be attacked by your pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the line you posted, I think White went for the stuff with 8.e5 and 9.d4 in order to prevent Black from playing ...d4 at an opportune moment. The pawn structure that arose after 9.d4 is favorable for Black, since White's missing his centre pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2018-06-06T22:09:11.617" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21744" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21732" CreationDate="2018-06-06T22:16:17.117" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are a bunch of helpful rules on pawn endgames, but even a grandmaster wouldn't be able to call every pawn endgame won/drawn/lost. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some pawn endgames involve immense amounts of calculation, involving concepts such as pawn races, corresponding squares, and long-distance triangulation. Other pawn endgames are too complex, and are beyond the calculation abilities and evaluation skills of a grandmaster to objectively evaluate (for example, six pawns each arranged in weird structures).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That being said, grandmasters can probably evaluate 99% of pawn endgames that come up, since they're the simplest endgame and have many helpful rules. But in the remaining 1% of endgames, these rules are often broken and the situation becomes very counter-intuitive, even to a grandmaster.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2018-06-06T22:16:17.117" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21745" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21747" CreationDate="2018-06-07T01:30:07.983" Score="2" ViewCount="496" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. exd5 cxd5 4. Bd3 Nc6 5. c3 Nf6 6. Bf4 Bg4 7. Qb3 &#xA;Qd7 8. Nd2 e6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From this position what is black/white in broad terms attempting to do. What are some clear goals?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16702" LastActivityDate="2018-06-07T10:34:07.330" Title="What are the goals for white and black in the Caro Kann exchange variation?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;caro-kann&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21746" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21745" CreationDate="2018-06-07T05:47:02.543" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;White normally tries for a king-side attack with the support of a knight on the e5-outpost.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black has a long-term strategy of the minority attack.  Weakening the c3-pawn by advancing his own queen-side pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This position is the reverse of the Carlbad structure in the QGD - Exchange Variation.  Many good videos about the minority attack on youtube.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12449" LastActivityDate="2018-06-07T05:47:02.543" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21747" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21745" CreationDate="2018-06-07T10:34:07.330" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;From that position, both sides will finish development and most likely castle kingside. Then...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White's goals/plans:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Put pressure on the e-file in the interest of forming a kingside attack. This is often done by playing Rfe1 (or Rae1), followed by Ne5. White could then move the d2-knight to f3, bringing it closer to the kingside. After that White will try to continue building up the pressure around the kingside, perhaps even with a Rook lift (i.e., Re3).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another possible plan of White's is to play c4, accepting an isolated d-pawn in order to open up the game. This plan isn't so common, but it could work if Black's unprepared in the centre.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black's goals/plans:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Begin a minority attack on the queenside by playing ...Rb8, ...a6, ...b5, and eventually ...b4. By doing this, Black plans to exchange on c3, leaving White with a backwards pawn after White captures back.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black may also play ...e5, which is the converse of the aforementioned plan for White of playing c4. Black rarely plays the ...e5 plan though, mainly because White just has too much control over that square.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, an important defensive motif for Black often involves maneuvering his light-squared bishop to the g6 square. From here, it blocks the b1-h7 diagonal, neutralizing White's d3-bishop and safeguarding the Black king from attacks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2018-06-07T10:34:07.330" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21748" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-06-07T12:11:37.323" Score="6" ViewCount="2187" Body="&lt;p&gt;Historically stalemate has been handled in different ways. I wonder how different chess would be if it was a &lt;em&gt;win&lt;/em&gt; for the stalemating player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Has enough thought been put into this so that it's possible to give a clear answer? Would there be significantly less draws and more wins for white? More aggressive play? Would changes be seen already in the opening?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A related question that already has been asked is &lt;em&gt;why&lt;/em&gt; the actual rule is as it is. The &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/1420/16718&quot;&gt;accepted answer&lt;/a&gt; to that question talks mostly about history and the logic that has been given for the rule, but &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/1429/16718&quot;&gt;another answer&lt;/a&gt; goes into how endgame would be different with this variant instead. There it is a side issue for explaining something else, which has made someone suggest this is a duplicate question. I hope that the actual what-if question can get more thorough answers for itself than when it is a side issue of a related question. For example my issue about if changes would be seen already in the opening have not been brought up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The ideal answer for me would be if something like AlphaZero (without preconceived notions) had spent some time playing this variant, but I guess I'm out of luck on that?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16718" LastEditorUserId="16718" LastEditDate="2018-06-07T20:09:53.377" LastActivityDate="2018-06-07T21:09:30.403" Title="How different would chess be if a stalemate was a win?" Tags="&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;stalemate&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="1" ClosedDate="2018-06-08T09:44:57.327" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21749" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21748" CreationDate="2018-06-07T12:25:10.257" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;This would definitely give less draws, and more wins for both colours. The following very common draw themes no longer possible:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Bishop of wrong colour&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;KP+K, the losing K is in corner, pawn is on the same file&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;KP+K, the losing K controls the queening square (very common in tournament play)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;KQ+KP, where the pawn is a promoting bishop pawn or rook pawn&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Less margin for the losing side to come back for a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm very convinced Google won't waste money on a variant like this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2018-06-07T13:08:15.800" LastActivityDate="2018-06-07T13:08:15.800" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21751" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21731" CreationDate="2018-06-07T19:54:33.810" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Definitely not a good chessable line.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;If the idea is to play d5 then 5...d5 saves a tempo.  It's not like White has altered his position in a way that makes 6...d5 more desirable. &#xA;The line you gave is slightly to clearly better for White as Black has a bad Bc8 and less space.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2018-06-07T19:54:33.810" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21752" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9" CreationDate="2018-06-07T20:42:37.157" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;As some have already said, the move 1. Nc3 has the drawback ot blocking the c-pawn, which is often pushed in closed games.&#xA;Also, Black has the very concrete move 1... d5 that threatens 2... d4 and asks a serious question to White:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;should I prevent ...d4 by playing 2. d4 myself ? This is possible, but in this case why not playing 1. d4  2. Nc3 that is probably more flexible&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Or do I accept or even provoke 2... d4, trying to counter-attack on Black's big pawn center later on ? The game can typically continue with 1. Nc3 d5 2. e4 d4 3. Nce2 etc&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this opening Black has the upper hand in the center:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/VUdbH.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/VUdbH.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And usually White tries to attack on the Kingside with plans like Nh4 followed by f4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/PRnxq.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/PRnxq.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I discuss this opening and other ones as well in the following video, if you are interested to know more: &lt;a href=&quot;https://youtu.be/A-0EiR8b0Gk&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://youtu.be/A-0EiR8b0Gk&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2076" LastActivityDate="2018-06-07T20:42:37.157" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21753" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21748" CreationDate="2018-06-07T21:09:30.403" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Building on SmallChess' answer, KP vs K endgames that are normally drawn would be lost. This has very big ramifications, as there are many rook endgames where the side up a pawn can easily transpose into a (formerly drawn) KP vs K endgame. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The Philidor Endgame&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A normal K+R+3P vs K+R+2P on the same side of the board.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A K+R+4P vs K+R+3P where the extra pawn is a passed a-pawn. If the defending rook is behind the pawn, the endgame is considered barely drawn. However, the attacking rook might be able to exchange the extra a-pawn for a pawn on the kingside, reaching the aforementioend K+R+3P vs K+R+2P endgame.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This logic can also be applied to other endgames, such as K+Q+P vs K+Q. However, Rook endgames are the most common, and by making stalement = a win, many of these fundamental endgames are ruined.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once that has happened, it's often not difficult for the better side to transpose down into one of them (especially the Philidor).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So making Stalement a win would drastically lower the number of draws that happen when one side is &lt;em&gt;defending&lt;/em&gt; an endgame. However, there are many cases where no one was ever winning in an endgame (i.e., even material throughout), and most of these would probably result in draws still. The reason is that many draws in equal endgames arise from an &quot;impasse&quot; both sides create, where neither can make progress.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2018-06-07T21:09:30.403" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21754" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21755" CreationDate="2018-06-07T23:56:46.377" Score="4" ViewCount="220" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recently played a not-so-good tournament, my US rating is a little under 1900, and this is a game where I had a draw against a 1600 player that reminds me of how I played when I was 1700. My opponent showed up 45 minutes late and unfortunately I let that get to me psychologically, and started having a bit of an impatient attitude while playing. This caused me to make some positional mistakes that I shouldn't have been making. So I have a few questions in the game PGN, if you guys could answer those and point out anything else that's important, I'd appreciate it. Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA; [Event &quot;Michigan Amateur&quot;]&#xA; [Date &quot;6/2/2018&quot;]&#xA; [Round &quot;3&quot;]&#xA; [White &quot;Brandon O'Neil&quot;]&#xA; [Black &quot;Raymond Burwell&quot;]&#xA; [Result &quot;1/2-1/2&quot;]&#xA; [WhiteElo &quot;1896&quot;]&#xA; [BlackElo &quot;1600&quot;]&#xA; [ECO &quot;A13&quot;]&#xA; [Opening &quot;English Opening: Agincourt Defense&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. c4 e6 2. g3 f5 3. Bg2 Nf6 4. Nc3 Be7 5. Nf3 d6 6. d4 O-O 7. O-O c6 8. d5!? { I thought I could take advantage of black's slow development, but I ended up shutting in my bishop eventually. Should I be more patient and play something like 8.Qc2? I think 8.d5 could work if I follow up well. } (8. Qc2) 8... e5 9. Qb3? { Played quickly and impatiently. This move allows black to close the center, allowing me to shut in my bishop. Would 9.c5 be the best try? } (9. c5) 9... c5 10. e4 (10. Bh3 { Maybe if I followed this move with e4, I could try to trade my bad bishop, but is that really worth it with the weakening of my light squares? }) 10... Nxe4 11. Nxe4 fxe4 12. Nd2 e3 13. Qxe3 Bg5 14. Qc3 Bxd2 15. Bxd2 Qf6 16. b4 { Doesn't seem like this really accomplished anything. Maybe 16.f4 straight away? } (16. f4) 16... b6 17. a4 Na6 18. bxc5?! { It seems to me that this really helped black with his central influence. 18.b5 seems more limiting, and then I could follow with a5. } (18. b5 Nc7 19. a5) 18... Nxc5 19. a5 Bf5 20. f4 exf4 21. Qxf6 Rxf6 22. Bc3 Rff8 23. Rxf4 Bd3 { The after-effects of not playing 9.c5 start to show more. } 24. Rxf8+ Rxf8 25. axb6 axb6 26. Ra7 Rf7 27. Ra8+ Rf8 28. Rxf8+ { In hindsight, I should have realized how bad this ending is for me and repeated rook moves. } (28. Ra7) 28... Kxf8 29. Bf1 Be4 30. Kf2 Bxd5 31. Bxg7+ Kxg7 32. cxd5 Kf6 33. Bc4 { Bishop in front of the pawn (on c6) is probably a more solid setup. } 33... Ke5 34. Ke3 Nd7 { Already having trouble defending my central pawn. } 35. g4 Nf6 36. g5 Ng4+ 37. Kf3 Kf5 38. Bd3+ Kxg5 39. Bxh7 Nxh2+ 40. Ke4 Ng4 41. Kd4 Kf4 42. Bd3 Ne5 43. Bb5 Nf3+ 44. Kc4 Ke5 45. Bc6 { Seems like I'm safe now. } 45... Nd4 46. Kb4 Ke4 47. Bb7 Nc2+ 48. Kb5 Ne3 49. Kc6 Nc4 50. Kb5 Kd4 51. Bc6 Ne3 52. Kxb6 Nxd5+ 53. Kb5 Nc3+ 54. Kb6 Kc4 { My opponent wants to stubbornly play out this drawn ending, so the rest of these moves aren't too important. } 55. Bh1 Kd4 56. Bg2 Ne4 57. Bf1 d5 58. Ba6 Ke5 59. Ka5 d4 60. Kb4 Nd2 61. Bd3 Kf4 62. Ba6 Ke3 63. Bb5 Nf3 64. Ba6 Kd2 65. Bb5 Ne1 66. Kb3 Nc2 67. Ba6 Ne3 68. Bb5 Ke1 69. Ba6 Kf2 70. Bb5 Kg3 71. Kb4 Kf4 72. Ba6 Ke5 73. Bd3 Kd5 74. Ba6 Nf5 75. Bb7+ Ke5 76. Ba6 Nd6 77. Bd3 Kd5 78. Ba6 Ke4 79. Kb3 Ke3 80. Kb4 Ne4 81. Bb5 Nd2 82. Ba6 Ne4 83. Bb5 d3 84. Bxd3 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16725" LastEditorUserId="3594" LastEditDate="2018-06-08T00:28:09.207" LastActivityDate="2018-06-11T16:12:29.203" Title="Disappointing Drawn Game Analysis" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21755" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21754" CreationDate="2018-06-08T08:28:06.450" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;If your rating is 1900, this game must have been quite disappointing. But it also seems to me that Black played well above 1600-level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;7...c6 is a rare move, but not so bad that you should look for an immediate refutation. 8.Qc2, intending to open the center with e2-e4 (either fast or after b3-Bb2) is indeed very logical. If Black goes for d6-d5, he is one whole tempo down compared to the Stonewall with Be7 (which is already considered a bit passive for Black); then your plan could be Rb1,b4-b5, Bf4, Rfc1 with initiative on the Q-side. If Black refrains from d6-d5, you open the e-file with e2-e4, build pressure on e6 and fianchetto your dark squared bishop. Black only plan to finish development seems to be Na6-c7 and Bd7, but then he still have problems to solve: his queen has no great square and d6 is unprotected (can be targeted by Ba3, for instance).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I don't think 9.c5 would have acheved much more than what you got in the game. After 9...e4 the most plausible scenario is a complete swap of c- and d-pawns, after which your space advantage has vanished. 9.Qc2, 9.b3 or 9.e4 would be my main candidate moves here: you still have to complete development.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I don't believe in 10.Bh3. Sure, exchanging light-squared bishops is formally good, but it wastes time (Bg2 moves again and Bc8 has not used any tempo), weakens your king (because you've played g3, Black's eventual kingside attack with f5-f4 can be very dangerous even without a ...Bc8xh3 idea) and Black doesn't even have to allow it (he can also defend f5 with g6 and develop slowly, either with Na6-c7, Bd7 or Nh5-g7, Nd7-f6).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If I was Black, I would have given some thoughts to the pawn sac 10...f4 11.gf4 Nh5 12.fe5 Bg4, but White is clearly on top after 12.f5!&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;After 15 moves the position is almost equal, the bishop pair doesn't mean much with a closed center and you lack a knight to post on e4. 16.b4?! and 16.f4?! are both hurrying too much, you should slowly build some pressure with a3-b4-Rb1-Be3 with a slow, manoeuvering game.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Black should absolutely take 16...cb4 17.Qb4 Na6 and 18...Nc5, catching up in development and with the same excellent knight he got later. Similarly, after his erroneous 16..b6?, 17.bc5 is very tempting when he has to take back with a pawn. 17...dc5 would be good if the knight could reach d6, but it is just bad because you will target Pe5 and Pb6 (with a4-a5) long before. After the correct 17...bc5 18.Rb1, you have good chances of exploiting your lead in development, either with Qa5-c7 or f2-f4.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;17...cb4 18.Qb4 Na6 19.Qb2 Nc5 20.a5! is less clear than one move before, but it's still better for Black than what he did.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;After 17...Na6? you should absolutely go for it with 18.b5! Nc7 (18...Nb4 is a not-totally-convincing pawn sac after 19.Qb3) 19.a5! Bd7 (or Rb8 20.ab6 ab6 21.Ra7) 20.Ra2, etc... Note how bad Black's Nc7 and Bd7 are compared to his Nc5 and Bf5 in the game. 18.bc5? is maybe your worst move in this game.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;20.f4 is the typical pseudo-active move we all play when we feel something has gone wrong. But here I've nothing much better to suggest, maybe doubling on the a-file was more stubborn ?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I feel like after 20...Bd3!? Black will end up picking Pc4, say after 21.fe5 Qe5 22.Rf8 Rf8 23.Qe5 de5 24.ab6 ab6. Then you will possibly save a draw thanks to his own weak pawns (much like in the game). But compared to the game, you each have gained a passed pawn in the process, which makes the game sharper. Moreover, 20...ef4 is probably very imprecise because...&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;...Was 22.ab6! possible ? Looks like your passed pawn on the Q-side will turn the table.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The draw on move 28 would have been a fair result. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;30.Bd4 avoids Black's small combination and preserve your bishop pair. After 30.Kf2? you're in serious danger.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Was 36...Nxd5! possible ? With the extra pawn it looks like Black is winning.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The Bishop vs knight endgame with 2 vs 1 looks indeed drawn. You are a bit lucky at the end: in case of 41...Nf6 42.Bd3 Ne8 43.Bb5 Nc7 (attacking d5 and blocking b5 for the wK), you have just two squares to wait with the bishop, so that there is no zugzwang and your king can stay on d4: 44.Bc6 Kf4 45.Bb7 Kf5 46.Bc6, you never allow ...Ke5, draw.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;(Comments without engine, since I believe that's what you are looking for. But there may be some tactical flaws in the lines above...)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastEditorUserId="14079" LastEditDate="2018-06-11T16:12:29.203" LastActivityDate="2018-06-11T16:12:29.203" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21756" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21754" CreationDate="2018-06-08T10:15:00.907" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Any Dutch player (and any white player who is prepared to face the Dutch) will tell you that the position after white castles is the standard one and that the immediate aims for the two sides which define the course of the game over the next few moves are -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;White: force through e4 (and prevent black from playing e5 or f4&#xA;advantageously) &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Black: force through either e5 or f4 and prevent white's e4&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If either side achieves their aims they have &quot;won&quot; the opening. They will have the initiative with good prospects for an attack. Of course, with good play on both sides this doesn't happen and the struggle for the upper hand goes on into the middlegame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;.7. ...c6 is very unusual / bad because it does nothing to prepare e5 for black and nothing to fight against white's e4. It also blocks Black Nc6 which can be played later in some variations, perhaps after 7... a5, creating an escape square on b4 for the knight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;.8. d5 shows a complete lack of understanding since it gives black e5 for free. After this the position is at best equal for white. Dutch aficionados will tell you that black is better. He has achieved his dream position out of the opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;.8. Qd3 would have punished black because now the only way black can prevent 9. e4 is by 8. ...d5 which transposes to a bad Stonewall Dutch a move down and with the bishop misplaced on e7. All the dynamism has gone out of black's position. He has given up all hope of pushing e5, given away the e5 square to white's knight and has a dour prospectless middlegame ahead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS I hate the fact that I had to put some random character before 7, 8 and 8 in the last 3 paragraphs to stop the formatter turning them into an enumerated list. Bad enough in itself but it &quot;corrected&quot; the last &quot;8&quot; into a &quot;9&quot;! Let me choose when it is an enumerated list and when it is a list of moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2018-06-11T09:04:47.880" LastActivityDate="2018-06-11T09:04:47.880" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21757" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21758" CreationDate="2018-06-08T12:07:03.403" Score="1" ViewCount="120" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is follow up to my &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/21684/standard-for-receiving-live-chess-broadcast&quot;&gt;previous question about live broadcast format&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was looking at TWICs Live Games, but there is usually only &lt;strong&gt;Live&lt;/strong&gt; redirecting me to some higher level solution like Chess24 or to organiser's web. There is only occassionally &lt;strong&gt;PGN&lt;/strong&gt; link and it often holds games from previous rounds etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Can I get access to these low level live PGNs during round easily or&#xA;is it more about contacting organisers to get such a link?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is there some provider for such low level data, offering raw PGN content from live broadcast instead of some higher level solution?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11609" LastActivityDate="2018-06-08T14:22:01.647" Title="Where to find links to live PGNs from major tournaments?" Tags="&lt;online&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21758" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21757" CreationDate="2018-06-08T14:22:01.647" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Suppose you are running a big/important tournament. You want your games broadcast live on the internet. What do you do?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, you need the equipment - DGT boards and sets, cables, a laptop with an internet connection plus the associated software which will collect the information from the sets, put into pgn files and send to an IP address or email address at suitable intervals.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Second, you need either your own website set up to accept and display these games on the internet or you need an agreement with somebody like chess24.com that they will host your games on their site so people can follow them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once you understand that you also understand the answer to your questions. As you say in your intro TWIC tells you the answer. The pgn data is being sent to the organizer's website and/or an independent host like chess24.com. It is in not broadcast universally. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are only two ways to get the information.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Contact the organizers to get them to send you the files also (but why should they?)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Write a screenscrape program to extract the data from the hosting site.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2018-06-08T14:22:01.647" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21759" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-06-08T16:19:09.133" Score="2" ViewCount="212" Body="&lt;p&gt;Consider two simultaneous matches in which a GM plays against Players A and B, constrained by the rule that the GM must make identical board moves in both games. Players A and B can play as usual.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus, for example, if Player A takes one of the GM's pawns, but Player B does not, then the GM forever loses the ability to move that pawn on Player B's board as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The GM only wins by winning against both Players. We can also stipulate two versions, in one of which Players A and B can cooperate, and in the other of which they cannot.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Question: Could two average Players A and B always win against the GM in this setup? Would it matter if they are allowed to cooperate or not?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(I'm not necessarily looking for a mathematical demonstration of the answer, though if there is a simple winning strategy, that would be nice. I would be glad to hear from good players about what they think would happen.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16734" LastActivityDate="2018-06-10T08:22:46.403" Title="Simul in which the GM has to make identical moves" Tags="&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;simultaneous&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21760" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21759" CreationDate="2018-06-08T17:29:45.790" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;If I understand your proposal, I think that the constraint that you are imposing would make it too easy to defeat the poor GM. Let's imagine the following pair of games with the GM playing Black:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1. e4 e5&#xA;2. Qh5 Nf6&#xA;3. Qxf7#&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5&#xA;2. Qf3 Nf6&#xA;3. a3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Qxf7 on the first game is &quot;checkmate&quot; because even though Black would simply capture the queen in a normal game, they can't do it here because they can't make the same move on the second board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12523" LastEditorUserId="12523" LastEditDate="2018-06-08T17:41:10.200" LastActivityDate="2018-06-08T17:41:10.200" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21761" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22176" CreationDate="2018-06-08T18:15:35.990" Score="4" ViewCount="378" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/component/handbook/?id=197&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Rating Regulations&lt;/a&gt; say&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;For a game to be rated each player must have the following minimum&#xA;  periods in which to complete all the moves, assuming the game lasts 60&#xA;  moves. Where at least one of the players in the game has a rating 2200&#xA;  or higher, each player must have a minimum of 120 minutes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When increments are used this has resulted in the almost standard time control of all moves in 90 minutes with a 30 second increment from move 1. That way each player has 90 minutes plus 30x60 seconds for 60 moves = 2 hours.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If delay is used instead of increments what is the equivalent time control?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems to me that game in 90 minutes plus 30 second delay would not satisfy the requirement for a minimum of 120 minutes for 60 moves. Particularly in the opening players will play moves in under 30 seconds as so have less than 120 minutes for 60 moves. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To guarantee 120 minutes playing time for 60 moves and writing all the moves down would require game in 120 minutes plus 30 second delay.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have seen 40 moves in 100 minutes, then 60 minutes to finish the game plus 30 second delay from move 1 but this is more generous as each player will have a minimum of 160 minutes, not 120 minutes for 60 moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2018-06-08T19:02:03.110" LastActivityDate="2018-08-06T04:02:29.900" Title="What is the Bronstein (delay) equivalent of Fischer time control of game in 90 plus 30 second increment for FIDE rating?" Tags="&lt;fide&gt;&lt;time-control&gt;&lt;chess-clocks&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21762" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-06-09T04:32:15.570" Score="2" ViewCount="220" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]    &#xA;[Date &quot;6/8/2018&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Anonymous&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Me&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;2146&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;1874&quot;]&#xA;[Opening &quot;Semi-Slav Defense&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. c4 c6 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. Nc3 e6 5. cxd5 exd5 6. Bg5 Be7 7. Qc2 h6 8. Bf4 O-O 9. e3 Nbd7 10. Bd3 Re8 11. O-O Nf8 12. a3 Ne6 13. Bg3 Bd7 14. Ne5 Bf8 15. Bh4 Be7 16. Bg3 Nf8 17. b4 a6 18. Na4 Nh5 19. Rab1 Nxg3 20. hxg3 Bf6 21. Nf3 Ne6 22. Nc5 Qc7 23. Rfc1 Ng5 24. a4 Nxf3+ 25. gxf3 g6 26. b5 axb5 27. axb5 Rab8 28. Nxd7 Qxd7 29. bxc6 bxc6 30. Rxb8 Rxb8 31. Qxc6 Qxc6 32. Rxc6 Be7 33. Rc7 Kf8 34. Ba6 Rb1+ 35. Kg2 Bd6 36. Rb7 Ra1 37. Bb5 Rc1 38. Rd7 Rb1 39. Bc6 Be7 40. Bxd5 Rb6 41. Ra7 h5 42. Ba2 f5 43. Bc4 Rc6 44. Bd5 Rd6 45. Ba2 h4 46. gxh4 Bxh4 47. Bc4 Rc6 48. Rf7+ Ke8 49. Rh7 Rxc4 50. Rxh4 Ke7 51. Rh7+ Ke6 52. Rb7 Rc6 53. Rb5 Rd6 54. Kg3 g5 55. Rb1 Kf6 56. Rb5 Ke6 57. f4 g4 58. Re5+ Kf6 59. f3 gxf3 60. Kxf3 Ra6 61. Ke2 Ra2+ 62. Kd3 Ra4 63. d5 Ra6 64. Kc4 Rd6 65. Kc5 Ra6 66. Re6+ Rxe6 67. dxe6 Kxe6 68. Kc6 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My rating: 1874&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My opponent's rating: 2149&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Feel free to address these points or any other important bits of analysis throughout the game:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I've saw some recommendations after the game of 6...h6 7.Bh4 Bf5.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Perhaps I should play 7...O-O and Nbd7 straight away without 7...h6?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;12...Ne6?! seems like it gave me some problems. Nxf7 followed by Bg6 can now be considered. What else should I be doing? Perhaps 12...a5 was better? How about 12...Bd6?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is 14...Bf8 a waste? I wanted to open the e-file and was struggling to find a productive move.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;16...Nf8: I felt that my knight was misplaced due to the concerns with white taking on f7.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Perhaps instead of 17...a6, I should be advancing on the kingside as quick as possible. Is this good thinking?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Maybe 21...h5 instead of putting the knight back on e6?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Was 27...Bc8 more stubborn? I think white could still seize control of the a-file.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;After move 32, I felt that I was lost. The d5-pawn can't be held onto forever. Maybe an opposite colored bishops ending with 2 extra pawns would've been a bit more unclear than the rook ending? But I felt it was still quite winning for white.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16725" LastActivityDate="2018-06-11T18:27:52.480" Title="Where did I go wrong? QGD loss as black" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21763" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21762" CreationDate="2018-06-09T05:32:57.747" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'll go through the game and address your points.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;In the opening, you should have played 6...Bf5 (or 6...h6 then 7...Bf5, like you said). The reason for this is that in the Exchange QGD, your light-squared bishop is bad, while White's light-squared bishop is good. If White loses his light-squared bishop, playing the thematic b5 push of the minority attack becomes difficult. Back to the point: by developing your bishop to f5, White cannot bring his bishop to d3, or else you do the favorable exchange.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;7...h6 is a very subtle mistake, for a few reasons. First, in the exchange QGD White would &lt;em&gt;prefer&lt;/em&gt; to have his bishop on f4, not g5. The reason he doesn't play 6.Bf4 immediately is that you can answer with 6...Bd6! in one go. By playing 7...h6, you give White a &quot;second chance&quot; to play Bf4, and now you have to waste another move to counter with ...Bd6. The second reason 7...h6 is a mistake is that you can't play ...Ng6 in the middlegame, since the knight is not supported enough on g6 and White can just played Bxg6. In the Exchange QGD, playing ...Ng6 is &lt;em&gt;very important&lt;/em&gt;. It's far better than ...Ne6, since it blocks White's Qc2+Bd3 battery, and also attacks White's dark-squared bishop on h4 or f4.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;12...Ne6 is actually fine, given your options. After 13.Bd3, you should have played 13...g6, 14...Ng7, 15...Bf5. This is an important idea that lets you exchange light-squared bishops. Remember it, if you are only able to develop your f8-knight to e6 (normally, prefer the g6-square for the knight).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;14...Bf8 is normally a good idea, but because White has 15.Bh4 it's not so good here. A better plan would be playing 14...Rc8 and 15...c5. This undermines the e5-knight's support from the d4-pawn, and exploits the White queen's position on c2.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I don't think 16...Nf8 is that bad a move, given that you wanted to play ...Nh5. Playing ...Nh5 immediately would have dropped the knight due to Nxf7 Kxf7 Bg6+.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;17...a6 was absolutely fine. By playing ...a6, you force White to waste at least a tempo playing a4 (since without this move he can't play b5 now, due to ...a6). Also, if White wants to play a4 then he must protect the b4-pawn, or else you'll play ...Bxb4. So ...a6 really ends up forcing White to waste about two tempi countering it.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I like 21...h5! After playing ...h4 and exchanging everything, you end up with a queen on h4. Then, you can do a Rook lift with ...Re6 + ...Rh6, building a battery on the h-file. Another idea is even playing 21...g5!? followed by ...g4, forcing White's knight to move away, and then ...h5 and ...h4. The problem is that White can play 22.Bf5, but you can still play 22...g4 with an interesting game.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I don't like 27...Bc8 because it breaks the coordination of your Rooks. After 28.bxc6 bxc6 29.Ra1, you're facing a difficult defence. Backing up two moves, I think 25...Re7 is strong, simply protecting the d7-bishop. After 26.b5 cxb5! 27.axb5 Bxb5 28.Bxb5 axb5 29.Rxb5, your e7-rook and queen protect the b7-pawn (which is passed, to boot). Note that on 27.Nxd7 Qxd7 28.axb5, you can play 28...a5! with a dangerous passed a-pawn. This trick of side-stepping White's b5-push with ...a5 is how Karpov once tricked Korchnoi in a game.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;You're right, the endgame was lost. The d5-pawn was too weak to be held on to, and then White's just up two pawns. An opposite-coloured bishop ending without rooks wouldn't have helped much. Opposite-coloured bishops are only good against two extra pawns if you can set up a blockade on the colour complex of your bishops. With all White's pawns so close together, they form a veritable armada that can keep control over the dark squares.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastEditorUserId="12873" LastEditDate="2018-06-09T05:41:09.153" LastActivityDate="2018-06-09T05:41:09.153" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21764" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18902" CreationDate="2018-06-09T10:18:50.230" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Svetozar Gligoric, who was there, wrote in his book on the match:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;With thousands of spectators applauding Fischer's classical style win in the sixth game, Spassky did the same, while offering his hand to the challenger.  In order not to be touched by his opponent's gracious behaviour, 'I had to go away' said Fischer to friends afterwards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16679" LastActivityDate="2018-06-09T10:18:50.230" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21765" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21762" CreationDate="2018-06-09T11:10:10.773" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I completely agrees with most of Inertial Ignorance, however with the last three points I have to disagree.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Opening the h-file should only help white.  If you allow a gxh4 Bxh4, white wouldn't trade the minor pieces, but chase the bishop away with g3, and continue with Kg2, Rh1, Rh2, and RBh1.  With all this power on the h-file, your king will fee lots of pressure.  There is no escape to the queen side, as those files will be opened easily.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bc8 does disorganize you pieces, but it allows the your opponent's knight to shield your weakness.  This isn't a long-term solution.  However, instead of 25...Re7, I would suggest Rec8.  This gives more support to your weak c6-square and allows for Be8 allowing the bishop to support two weaknesses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even with a two pawn advantage, the ending can still be drawn.  Connected pawns on the 5th rank can be stopped.  Pawns one file apart can also be stopped.  The further seperated, the further advanced, and the more pawns there are the harder it is to draw the game.  However, you have the chance to create an outside passed pawn, and this restricts white's options and white has doubled pawns, so you had a good chance to draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit:  Allowing an engine to analyse 37...Rb1, which I was going to suggest, the computer gives e4 as the best repy.  This comfirms that the double pawns do hinder white and that the extra pawn gained by Bc6 and (eventually) Bxd5 doesn't give white any more winning chances.  The move e4 was given the evaluation of +0.75 while Bc6 was the fifth choice with an evaluation of +0.66.  However, computers are bad at endgames--or they were.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12449" LastEditorUserId="12449" LastEditDate="2018-06-09T11:21:44.017" LastActivityDate="2018-06-09T11:21:44.017" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21766" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21762" CreationDate="2018-06-09T19:55:39.813" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can look up the opening mistakes with a database and some players have already made comments here regarding them. Although I will comment if you play a quick Bf5 you always need to be prepared for Qb3 as the most complex response, if you can play qb6 then you are usually okay, but you should still calculate that out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my opinion 16.. Nf8 was a significant mistake, and before that you were doing fine. If you look at  the board after 16.. Nf8, it's the same position as what you had on move 12 except it's his move and his knight has moved forward to e5 and his bishop to relative safety on g3, whereas you moved your bishop to d7 which is not a significant improvement. After this move he is 2 tempi up, which is a huge strategic deficit for you. This whole bg3-h4 nonsense is him playing &quot;chicken&quot; with you. He is just seeing if he can get you to make a weakening move to avoid the draw. As the lower rated player you need to call him on his bluff and have him deviate away from the 3 move repetition, not you. As a rule only shy away from these kind of repetitions if you have an advantage or your opponent is much lower rated than you. Certainly don't move your knights forward and backwards without accomplishing anything. Bf8, g6, Ng7 Bf5 seemed like a decent game plan, it would have been a much better try. In that vein, not playing Bd7 seems like a better try as well since that just gets your bishop to f5 a move slower.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Luckily your opponent took big pressure off you playing Na4 instead of aiming for faster a4-b5 minority attack stuff, letting you back into the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Something like 23... Rad8 was better as that rook should be centralized and your bishop can retreat to c8 if needed without separating your rooks. Rac8 is also a conceivable alternative, trying to anticipate situations involving cxb5. His knight on f3 wasn't doing much, so there wasn't a reason to hunt it down and force a trade. Instead your knight was better on e6 to potentially take c5 if he ever started pushing his queenside pawns and the opportunity presented itself after say cxb5. Since the knight wasn't there he just steamrolled you with the queenside pawn attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The position is very bad after you lost c6, borderline lost, and you really were lost after losing d5. Kudos for trying to fight for an opposite color bishop draw though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Main lessons: 1) protect your precious tempi, don't waste them frivolously. They are game changing. 2) Gain greater awareness of middle game strategies in the qgd. The a4-b5 push is very common and you should learn the common ways black counteracts it ( allowing bxc6 and making sure it's possible to play Bxc6 in response, counter play on the kingside, or even c5 in a few cases I think, and maybe 1 more that I'm not remembering since qgd is not something I normally play). 3) learn more piece maneuvers in the Qgd like Nd7-re8-nf8-ne6-g6-ng7-bf5 among many others. That way you'll see some things you can do without wasting tempos. 4) Trading is good when your position is cramped but make sure you trade with your opponents useful pieces. Ng4-xf3 traded a piece that was doing work against his qside plans with a knight of his that wasn't involved in the main fight. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this didn't come across as harsh, gl in your future chess endeavors.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9627" LastActivityDate="2018-06-09T19:55:39.813" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21767" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21416" CreationDate="2018-06-09T20:50:05.643" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I had similar questions when I was younger. The answer your looking for involves something called pawn structure plans. The way the pawns are set up dictates what squares pieces will be strongest at. As the pawn set up changes so to does the value of various pieces. Understanding this gives you long term plans, and gets you into the game beyond just developing and controlling the center. Having pieces at better squares, and holding a long term positional advantage eventually leads to winning tactics. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's a bit of an advanced book, but pawn structure chess by Andy Soltis talks about this topic. Now chess is a very complicated game with lots of exceptions and special cases, so these are just general strategies that need to be adapted to what you face in a game, but at least they give a sense of direction and a way to evaluate things.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9627" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T16:57:48.967" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T16:57:48.967" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21768" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21759" CreationDate="2018-06-10T08:22:46.403" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It would be extremely rare for a single move to be good in 2 separate and random situations, or even possible. That being the case if the players were at least 1200 strength the gm would be crushed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9627" LastActivityDate="2018-06-10T08:22:46.403" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21769" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21643" CreationDate="2018-06-10T18:54:45.830" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a beginner, you shouldn't be studying specific openings, and you absolutely should not be trying to memorize opening moves.  Until you reach 1600 or so, you only need to follow basic opening principles.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Move your king or queen's pawn to let your bishops out.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Develop your knights and bishops (i.e. move them off their starting squares) - the general rule of thumb is knights before bishops, and kingside pieces first so you can castle quickly.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Don't move a piece twice unless to make a capture, and don't send your pieces off on an adventure while others are still on their starting squares.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Castle your king to safety within the first 10 moves.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Don't waste time moving side pawns.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Don't bring the queen or rooks out too early.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Pay attention to what your opponent does - you may need to break the above rules in order to respond to a threat.  Players of all levels get into trouble playing the opening on auto-pilot.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lists of opening guidelines usually also say &quot;Control the centre&quot;, but this is actually a fairly complex subject for someone new to chess to understand.   All you need to know is that moving at least one of your centre pawns 2 squares is usually good, both is great if you can get away with it, and your knights and bishops can easily be moved onto squares where they &quot;attack&quot; the centre.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Obviously, at higher levels, opening play is more complex than this, but you need to realise that, at low levels of chess, how you play the opening is not massively important.  Games will be decided by tactics and blunders, usually very simple ones.  If you play against other novices, they will not know openings either.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What you should really be studying is (in order of importance) tactics, endgames, and positional principles.  If you focus on this, and don't worry about the opening beyond the general guidelines above, you will see much more improvement than if you waste your time studying openings.  It really does not matter how you start a game if it ends on move 15 when you drop a piece or overlook a simple checkmate.  New players blame this on the opening, when in fact it has nothing to do with the opening and everything to do with tactics and elementary blunder checking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16679" LastEditorUserId="16679" LastEditDate="2018-06-10T19:00:58.567" LastActivityDate="2018-06-10T19:00:58.567" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21770" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12379" CreationDate="2018-06-10T19:07:21.990" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Depending which country you're in, your national chess federation or regional association may be able to give you contact details for coaches in your area.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If your local club doesn't, it might also be worth contacting other nearby clubs (if your club plays in a league, they should be able to give you contact details for the other clubs), as they may provide coaching or have members who give private tuition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16679" LastActivityDate="2018-06-10T19:07:21.990" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21771" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21773" CreationDate="2018-06-10T21:15:33.887" Score="4" ViewCount="469" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to implement a simple chess bot so I have been reading about this algorithm a lot. I can say I understand the basic idea of the algorithm but I can't clearly see how am I supposed to apply it on the board.&#xA;Let's say it's white turn, do i have to apply minimax on every possible move of all the white pieces ? And let's suppose the depth is greater than 1. Let's suppose I'm going to apply the algorithm on a pawn. As far as i understand I need to generate all the possible legal moves of my pawn, and for each move I'm going to apply (recursively) minimax again for the black side, at this point do I need to apply it on every single legal move of the black side? Is my understanding correct? If not would you please explain how is it supposed to work with an example?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16744" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-01-08T17:21:04.960" LastActivityDate="2020-01-08T18:06:35.300" Title="Minimax and alpha beta" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;minimax&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21772" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21771" CreationDate="2018-06-10T22:32:23.050" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Short answer:  Yes with minimax you have to search every move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Minimax is not used due to the exponentially growing search which quickly becomes too big to be useful.  Think O(n2) sort functions. &#xA;Many concepts are used to help reduce the number of nodes the search function.  Transposition Tables, fail-safe, branch pruning...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://web.archive.org/web/20071026090003/http://www.brucemo.com/compchess/programming/index.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://web.archive.org/web/20071026090003/http://www.brucemo.com/compchess/programming/index.htm&lt;/a&gt; is the Gerbil chess engine with good explanations. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Home&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Home&lt;/a&gt; is more general and discusses other algorithms, but is more technical and is closing soon. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12449" LastActivityDate="2018-06-10T22:32:23.050" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21773" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21771" CreationDate="2018-06-11T08:58:43.220" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let's say you wanted your engine to calculate 10 moves ahead. To do this, you must look at &lt;em&gt;each&lt;/em&gt; different combination of 10 moves from the current position, and evaluate &lt;em&gt;each&lt;/em&gt; of the final positions that you get from doing this. Then, you apply minimax by working backwards and assigning evaluations to the previous positions up the tree.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You are correct in thinking that you look at each move for each of your pieces, and then in each of the resulting positions do this from Black's side, and then from White's, etc. Keep doing this until reaching your depth limit (how far ahead you want the computer to calculate). If the depth limit is 10 moves, recursively do this until reaching 10 moves ahead. Then, evaluate the final positions (using an evaluation function you would write), and back-propagate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's hard to explain minimax just using text, so I'm going to post some resources below. These were extremely helpful, and allowed me to understand minimax and the algorithms associated with it (such as alpha-beta pruning, which significantly reduces the run-time of the minimax algorithm by pruning branches that are guaranteed to not affect the evaluation):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Minimax with alpha-beta pruning: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zp3VMe0Jpf8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zp3VMe0Jpf8&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Summary of minimax, with links to more resources/papers: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Minimax&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Minimax&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastEditorUserId="12873" LastEditDate="2018-06-11T09:06:57.763" LastActivityDate="2018-06-11T09:06:57.763" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21774" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21347" CreationDate="2018-06-11T13:13:50.243" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I doubt there is any existing theory for four player chess, because it is not widely played or analyzed.  I'm not sure if there even exists any serious investigation of the overall strategy or tactics of this variant, as it is mostly a novelty game played casually.  It's pointless to analyze openings when even the basic strategies of a game are largely unknown.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also suspect that the game itself is not really well suited to opening analysis in general, due to the increased size of the board and number of pieces.  This also makes writing an engine significantly more difficult.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16679" LastActivityDate="2018-06-11T13:13:50.243" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21775" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21776" CreationDate="2018-06-11T14:22:50.887" Score="7" ViewCount="1388" Body="&lt;p&gt;When running a game I played through the analysis engines, I get that my 12th move, &lt;code&gt;12.Ba3&lt;/code&gt;, was an inaccuracy (-0.3 -&gt; -1.3).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since my center pawns are on dark squares, I assumed my dark bishop was a &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/588/what-is-the-correct-definition-of-a-bad-bishop&quot;&gt;bad bishop&lt;/a&gt; and trading it by black's dark bishop, that can also pin my knight on c3, would be a good idea.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What was wrong with this move? Is a tactical error or a strategic one, and why?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/tb325.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/tb325.png&quot; alt=&quot;position&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Let's Play!&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Chess.com&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2018.05.15&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;me&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;other&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;C02&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;1472&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;1492&quot;]&#xA;[TimeControl &quot;1/604800&quot;]&#xA;[EndDate &quot;2018.06.11&quot;]&#xA;[CurrentPosition &quot;r1b1kb1r/3q1pp1/ppn1p2p/3pPn2/P2P4/BPN2N2/5PPP/R2QKB1R b KQkq - 2 12&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 e6 2.e4 d5 3.e5 c5 4.c3 Nc6 5.Nf3 Nge7 { C02: French Defense: Advance, Paulsen Attack, 5...Nge7 } 6.Bg5 Qd7 { (-0.51 → +0.17) Inaccuracy. A better move was 6... h6. } ( 6...h6 7.Bd2 7...Qb6 8.Qb3 8...Qxb3 9.axb3 9...cxd4 10.cxd4 10...Nf5 11.Ra4 ) 7.b3 h6 8.Bc1 cxd4 9.cxd4 b6 10.Nc3 a6 11.a4 Nf5 12.Ba3 { (-0.11 → -0.95) Inaccuracy. A better move was 12. Be2. } ( 12.Be2 12...Bb4 13.Bb2 13...O-O 14.O-O 14...Bb7 15.Rc1 15...Rfc8 16.Na2 16...Be7 ) 12...Nb4 { (-1.00 → +1.62) Blunder. The best move was 12... Bxa3. } ( 12...Bxa3 13.Rxa3 13...Qe7 14.b4 14...Nh4 15.Nxh4 15...Qxh4 16.a5 16...Qxd4 17.Qxd4 ) 13.g4 Nxd4 14.Nxd4 h5 { (+1.02 → +2.10) Inaccuracy. A better move was 14... Qc7. } ( 14...Qc7 15.Nce2 15...Qxe5 16.Bg2 16...Bc5 17.Qd2 17...Qd6 18.f4 18...a5 19.O-O ) 15.gxh5 { (+2.81 → +0.58) Blunder. The best move was 15. Ncb5. } ( 15.Ncb5 15...Qd8 16.Qd2 16...axb5 17.Bxb4 17...bxa4 18.Rxa4 18...Rxa4 19.bxa4 19...Bd7 ) 15...Bb7 { (+0.72 → +2.09) Inaccuracy. A better move was 15... Qc7. } ( 15...Qc7 16.Nce2 16...Qxe5 17.Bg2 17...a5 18.O-O 18...Ba6 19.Ng3 19...Bxf1 20.Bxf1 ) 16.Na2 Nxa2 17.Rxa2 Bxa3 18.Rxa3 Rc8 19.Ra1 { (+2.29 → +1.44) Inaccuracy. A better move was 19. b4. } ( 19.b4 19...Qe7 20.Qd2 20...Rxh5 21.f4 21...Qh4+ 22.Kd1 22...Kf8 23.Be2 23...Rh8 ) 19...Qe7 { (+1.36 → +2.49) Inaccuracy. A better move was 19... Qc7. } ( 19...Qc7 20.Be2 20...Qxe5 21.O-O 21...Qf4 22.Bg4 22...O-O 23.a5 23...bxa5 24.Rxa5 ) 20.Rg1 { (+2.56 → +1.50) Inaccuracy. A better move was 20. Be2. } ( 20.Be2 20...Qc7 21.Qd2 21...Qxe5 22.O-O 22...Qf6 23.f4 23...O-O 24.Qb4 24...Qd8 )  1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14457" LastEditorUserId="14079" LastEditDate="2018-06-11T16:07:45.603" LastActivityDate="2018-06-12T07:27:28.680" Title="Why would trading this bad bishop be a bad move?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;bishops&gt;&lt;bad-bishop&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21776" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21775" CreationDate="2018-06-11T15:02:55.727" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Tactics.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Trading dark-squared bishops is useful in the long run, but a4-Ba3 is a bit too slow to exchange the Bf8 that hasn't moved yet; Also you weakened the &lt;em&gt;dark&lt;/em&gt; square b4 in the process. Black can take advantage of the misplaced Ra3 to attack the weak pawn on d4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After 12...Bxa3 13.Rxa3 Qe7! {eyeing both a3 and h4}, any rook retreat or protection would allow 14...Qb4, when you cannot parry the simultaneous attacks on Nc3 and Pd4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;14.b4!? is slightly more stubborn but also lose a pawn to either 14...Nxb4 or 14...Nh4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The game continuation, 12..Nb4??, on the other hand, deprived Black's Nf5 of any retreat square that wouldn't block the Bb8-Nb4 connection. Your smart retort, 13.g4!, won a piece. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, earlier at move 10 you had a possibility to ensure the bishop trade without any weakening: 10.Ba3!? and trade on f8 once the Ne7 moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastEditorUserId="14079" LastEditDate="2018-06-12T07:27:28.680" LastActivityDate="2018-06-12T07:27:28.680" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21777" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21785" CreationDate="2018-06-11T18:24:08.867" Score="2" ViewCount="376" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;6/9/2018&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;2&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Me&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Opponent&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;1874&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;2332&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. c4 Nf6 2. g3 g6 3. Bg2 Bg7 4. Nc3 O-O 5. e4 d6 6. Nge2 c5 7. O-O Nc6 8. d3 a6 9. f4 Rb8 10. a4 Bd7 11. f5 Ng4 12. h3 Nge5 13. b3 b5 14. axb5 axb5 15. Be3 Nb4 16. d4 cxd4 17. Bxd4 bxc4 18. bxc4 Nbc6 19. Nd5 Nxd4 20. Nxd4 Nxc4 21. Ra7 Rb1 22. Qd3 Rxf1+ 23. Bxf1 Ne5 24. Qa6 e6 25. Nb6 Qg5 26. Qa3 Nc4 27. Bxc4 Bxd4+ 28. Kf1 Bc6 29. Ra6 Bxe4 30. g4 Qf4+ 31. Ke1 Qf2+ 32. Kd1 Bf3+ 33. Kc1 Qe1+ 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My rating: 1874&#xA;Opponent's rating: 2332&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Feel free to go over the following points or any other important pieces of analysis that I left out:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;At move 9, I feel that I could be committing to a faulty plan with f2-f4. After the game I've found something in a book of mine recommending something like 9. h3 Rb8 10. a4 followed by Be3 and d4. This seems like I'm allowing for less potential weaknesses and maintaining better chances, correct?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;f5 was quoted by my opponent as very weakening with regards to the e5 square. I have a pattern in my games of playing impatiently and trying to force things too quickly, which is definitely not how I should be thinking while playing an opening like the English.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The d3 square is falling under so much pressure after 12. Nge5.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;During the game I felt that 13. b3 was the most stubborn defense against black's central attack but it looks very very wrong to open the long diagonal so much, but was there anything better?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;14.axb5 opening the a-file can probably only be good for me.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Was 15.cxb5 more stubborn?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;19.Nd5 giving up the bishop doesn't seem right, but what else is there really?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It's hard for me to say precisely where, but perhaps there's a point somewhere around move 20 where I should consider playing Kh1.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;25.f6 surely seems better than Nb6 as I played in the game.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;After 26...Nc4! I felt lost.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, no computer analysis please unless there's something that can hardly be explained or justified without it. Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13861" LastActivityDate="2020-01-10T17:16:02.207" Title="English/KID loss as white to a 2300+ player" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;learning&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21778" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21762" CreationDate="2018-06-11T18:27:52.480" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, if you understand the ideas of this variation you will struggle less with your first 6 bullet points.&#xA;This line of the QGD has been played countless times and there are a ton of GMs games you can look over to get a sense of things.&#xA;White is playing a &quot;minority attack&quot; on the queen-side.  The idea is to trade pawns there and leave you with a weak pawn that he can pile up on and win.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;There are various ways Black tries to counter that.   You can suffer patiently and try to hold the position.  For example on move 23 you could have played 23...Nxc5 with the idea of Rad8 and Bc8.  But the fun way is for black to seek counterplay on the kingside, sometimes even sacrificing a Rook in e3!&#xA;I urge you to look over GM's games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2018-06-11T18:27:52.480" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21779" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-06-12T04:30:15.940" Score="1" ViewCount="1106" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm playing a game on chess.com and I want to move my Queen to h7. The website won't let me move it there. I tried moving it to other places but the only way I will let me move it is vertically. Is there a rule or something I'm missing, or is this a bug in the game?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/4CDfM.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/4CDfM.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16747" LastActivityDate="2018-06-19T00:40:43.800" Title="Why can I only move my Queen vertically?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;queens&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21780" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21779" CreationDate="2018-06-12T04:55:14.443" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Rook on &lt;code&gt;e8&lt;/code&gt; is pinning your Queen against the King. You cannot expose your King to check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2018-06-12T04:55:14.443" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21781" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-06-12T05:41:58.460" Score="3" ViewCount="3414" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you want to read about its opening strategy, it is down below the link. If you want to read about its middlegame strategy or basic play style, it is at the top &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I want to know how I can play more like Alpha Zero. I think if we can see the main ideas that Alpha Zero uses (like fianchettoing his bishop) and put them into our own games, we could understand chess better and play better overall. Listed below are some few styles I learned from Alpha Zero, and below that are questions to spark your imagination about the different styles to look for in Alpha Zero's plays.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;It tries to immobilize pieces.&#xA;Particularly the light square bishop is most of its games but it can be implemented on other pieces too. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;It prefers position over the material. &#xA;(Unlike other chess engines, Alpha Zero is fine sacrificing a material to get an advantage, such as sacrificing a pawn to immobilize a light-squared bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;It prefers fianchettoing his light-squared bishop and castling kingside. &#xA;This could be because most of the games were against The Queen's Indian Defence with Stockfish, but I still think it prefers this idea.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are some questions to spark your imagination!&#xA;Would you describe Alpha Zero plays positionally of aggressively or anything in between? &#xA;Does Alpha Zero prefer bishops or knights more?&#xA;Does Alpha Zero use his f-pawn to attack the center or does it reject this idea?&#xA;Does Alpha Zero Move his Queen to c2 often? I've seen it played in some of its games and I don't know the purpose why?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also suggest you look at this link:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/alpha-zero-vs-alpha-zero-10-lesser-known-alpha-zero-lines&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/alpha-zero-vs-alpha-zero-10-lesser-known-alpha-zero-lines&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This link shows the openings that Alpha Zero plays if it has the black and white pieces. You can see that it doesn't barge into the center. One theory, for this reason, is that it plays flexible moves like c4 that attacks the center and waits for his opponents to barge into the center so it could pressure the center. Since white already attacks the center, the black pieces which are now in the center will have a lot of tension and fall. Also, it is a more flexible move and the formation in which to attack the center could be changed by what your opponent plays. (we still don't know what is the best way to attack the center once we found our opponents reply, we need help on that. ) In this time, it seems like white is trying to get kingside safety. There are still much more openings to explore (d4 and e4) and see the main ideas for the white and black side. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyway, my point is that we got a lot to learn from this information and it is going to take a long while for me to sort this out. For the chess community, let's collaborate and learn from this beast that is also known as Alpha Zero.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16748" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-06-12T07:24:16.590" LastActivityDate="2018-06-14T00:27:31.373" Title="What is Alpha Zero's Play Style? (Including its Openings and its Middlegame)" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;engines&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;alphazero&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2018-06-13T19:53:46.177" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21782" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21781" CreationDate="2018-06-12T11:01:54.473" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I want to know how I can play more like Alpha Zero. I think if we can&#xA;  see the main ideas that Alpha Zero uses (like fianchettoing his&#xA;  bishop) and put them into our own games, we could understand chess&#xA;  better and play better overall.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't think AlphaZero is any useful for teaching us chess. While I understand your enthusiasm, you learn more from your local master than a supercomputer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Here are some questions to spark your imagination! Would you describe&#xA;  Alpha Zero plays positionally of aggressively or anything in between?&#xA;  Does Alpha Zero prefer bishops or knights more? Does Alpha Zero use&#xA;  his f-pawn to attack the center or does it reject this idea? Does&#xA;  Alpha Zero Move his Queen to c2 often? I've seen it played in some of&#xA;  its games and I don't know the purpose why?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is absolutely no way to infer from just 10 public games, but generally all modern engines prefer bishop a little better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;What we actually learn:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We haven't improved our chess playing strength from AlphaZero. What we learn is - machine learning works well with chess engine programming. Leela is a good example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've voted to close the question for too broad. If you can pinpoint your question to something more answerable, I'll modify my answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2018-06-14T00:27:31.373" LastActivityDate="2018-06-14T00:27:31.373" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21783" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2018-06-12T11:11:01.550" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-06-12T11:11:01.550" LastActivityDate="2018-06-12T11:11:01.550" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21784" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2018-06-12T11:11:01.550" Score="0" Body="For questions about the Alpha Zero chess engine, currently the strongest chess engine there is, using artificial intelligence rather than minimax algorithms." OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-06-12T11:11:01.550" LastActivityDate="2018-06-12T11:11:01.550" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21785" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21777" CreationDate="2018-06-12T11:29:26.060" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some elements :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;9.f4 is not a wrong plan per ipse. I would prefer to finish development with 9.h3 and 10.Be3 first, but 9.f4 is correct.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;11.f5 is very prematured. Your pair of pawns e4-f4 is good and controls central squares. You want to break it and attack with e4-e5 or f4-f5 &lt;em&gt;only when&lt;/em&gt; it offers you an initiative; with Black very solid and your development unfinished, there is no attack.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The weakness of the long diagonal after 13.b3 is manageable, but the move itself is useless. It seems you are planning d3-d4 that, after f4-f5, doesn't achieve anything but new weaknesses: having relinquished the e5-square, you will never claim a Maroczy-like space advantage. Moreover, having more space on the K-side and a lag in development, you do not want to open the center. 13.Be3, 13.g4, 13.Kh1, 13.Bg5 are all more useful moves.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;14.ab5 is no big deal. In the long run, only Black can benefit from the open a-file (the Bg7 is eyeing a1), but you have to play this move sooner or later anyway because otherwise your own a-pawn will become weak after an eventual ...bc4 bc4.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;15.cb5 is no better than what you did; You will most probably lose at least two of the three weak pawns b3,d3,b5. After 15...Nb4 15.d4 Ned3 16.Be3 might just hold everything together, but 15...Nd4 looks simpler: 16.Bb2 Nxb5 or 16.Nxd4 cd4 17.Ne2 Bb5 and Black's minor pieces rule the the board. 15.Bf4 avoids immediate material losses: 15...Nb4 16.Bxe5 Bxe5 17.Ra7, but giving away the dark-squared bishop is very sad.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;After move 16 you look just lost, one pawn falls and Black is much more active.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that you couldn't play a single attacking move after the pseudo-agressive f4-f5, and that Black won on the Q-side because he took time to develop (Rb8, Bd7 vs Ra1, Bc1) and enjoyed full control of dark squares (open diagonal for Bg7, Ne5, b4, d4 accessible...). &lt;strong&gt;The opening is not over once you have castled&lt;/strong&gt;, the fact the game is closed shouldn't give you a false sensation of security, and you should really consider very carefully pawn moves (a4,f5,b3) when you are not fully developed. Actually, you played 7 seven consecutive pawn moves just after castling and your Rf1 even got exchanged &lt;em&gt;before&lt;/em&gt; you could connect rooks !&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastEditorUserId="14079" LastEditDate="2018-06-12T14:59:51.780" LastActivityDate="2018-06-12T14:59:51.780" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21786" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-06-12T12:09:53.057" Score="4" ViewCount="273" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've seen two formats of &lt;code&gt;[%eval]&lt;/code&gt; syntax in PGN:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;[%eval 250,5]&lt;/code&gt; meaning white is +2.5 pawn up at depth 5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;[%eval +0.25]&lt;/code&gt; means white is 0.25 pawn up&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is any of those mentioned by some PGN standard? Which one is more popular?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7219" LastEditorUserId="7219" LastEditDate="2018-06-12T21:23:25.513" LastActivityDate="2018-06-12T21:23:25.513" Title="What is %eval syntax in PGN" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;pgn&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21787" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21786" CreationDate="2018-06-12T17:13:52.000" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The PGN standard is found &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.saremba.de/chessgml/standards/pgn/pgn-complete.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;; it does not mention the &lt;code&gt;[%eval]&lt;/code&gt; syntax at all. It specifies comments starting with &lt;code&gt;[&lt;/code&gt; and ending with &lt;code&gt;]&lt;/code&gt; but no format for what's inside; that means that program are free to export and import these comments the way they want, without necessarily being compatible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only other places where evaluation is mentioned in standard, §13.8 and especially &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.saremba.de/chessgml/standards/pgn/pgn-complete.htm#c16.2.5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;§16.2.5.6&lt;/a&gt;, centipawns are used (which would favor the first option):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;h3&gt;16.2.5.6: Opcode &quot;ce&quot;: centipawn evaluation&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The opcode &quot;ce&quot; indicates the evaluation of the indicated position in centipawn units. It takes a single operand, an optionally signed integer that gives an evaluation of the position from the viewpoint of the active player; i.e., the player with the move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It does not mention the ply depth at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2018-06-12T17:13:52.000" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21788" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21777" CreationDate="2018-06-12T21:46:55.363" Score="0" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;9.h3 is recommended by theory (Marin's 3 volume books on the English), but your first real inaccuracy is 11.f5 as you give up squares and time without gaining much.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;13.b3? is bad as you encourage 13...b5 which was not a threat!.  13...Nb4 was the threat, so you could have tried 13.Be3/f4 developing and if 13...Nb4 you can play 14.Nc1.  Ugly but you are in the game and not losing material by force as in the game.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2018-06-12T21:46:55.363" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21789" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-06-13T00:55:03.653" Score="3" ViewCount="279" Body="&lt;p&gt;This question is not about chess per se, but I am looking for a software that could generate random matchups through a list of 200ish options/people, then I could choose the winner and it would rank the outcomes with Elo rating (or something similar that would also work).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm currently using EloRater, but I have to manually generate random numbers from an external source to then create the matchups, scroll down through the list, find them, choose the winner, etc.  I am doing simulations and I need to do many, many matchups from a list. Thus, something that is user-friendly and speeds up the process would greatly help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think such software probably exists for chess. Does anyone of anything that could help me?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16752" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-07-05T08:14:08.747" LastActivityDate="2020-07-14T20:34:18.203" Title="Elo rating software with automatic random matchups" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;programming&gt;&lt;elo&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21790" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21796" CreationDate="2018-06-13T03:51:38.313" Score="2" ViewCount="260" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;6/9/2018&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Opponent&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Me&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;2217&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;1874&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. c4 c6 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. Nc3 e6 5. Bg5 h6 6. Bxf6 Qxf6 7. e4 dxe4 8. Nxe4 Bb4+ 9. Ned2 O-O 10. a3 Ba5 11. Qc2 Nd7 12. O-O-O c5 13. Ne4 Qf4+ 14. Kb1 cxd4 15. Rxd4 Nf6 16. Nd6 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My rating: 1874&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Opponent's rating: 2217&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This was an odd game with a quick blunder but I found myself not understanding much of the opening. Feel free to go over the following points or any other important pieces of analysis that I left out:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I understand from looking over some of the theory that it's best to play c5 sooner than later. 9...c5 would have been straight to the point or maybe even I could have played 10...Bxd2+ 11.Qxd2 c5.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Perhaps 10...Ba5 was a mistake because if white played b4 then he would have superior control over the c5 square&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Once again 11...c5? Or is playing Nd7 first plausible?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;White's queenside castling almost comes unexpected to me because of all the open space there. Should my plan still be to play c5 like I did in the game or should it shift to something else with perhaps a b5 push? I feel like white may be the one who is now better prepared to handle c5.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;13...Qf4+ seems a little odd, maybe Qe7 instead?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Maybe I can try holding with 14...b6 instead of taking so soon in the center? With the rook on d4 I find that my only actual safe square is b8.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Obviously 15...Nf6 seems to be a blunder and I should have pulled my queen out of harm's way immediately.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, no computer analysis please unless there's something that can hardly be explained or justified without it. Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13861" LastActivityDate="2018-06-16T18:31:07.587" Title="Strange 16-move semi-slav loss (black)" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21791" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21790" CreationDate="2018-06-13T07:51:03.870" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;9...c5 seems too early to me.  Castling into safety is better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;10...Ba5 is reasonable.  It's often played in the Marshall Gambit of the QGD.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I prefer Bd6 to maximize it's potential and to protect the center dark squares.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;11...Nd7 is fine.  I think c5 first is wrong as after 12. dxc5 Nd7 13. Rd1 (or 0-0-0) the threat of b4 forces you to give up your two bishop advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;12...b5 looks very interesting; opening the lines even at the cost of a pawn is worth it.  c5 is also fine,  I would consider e5, just to get my LSB to e6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;13...Qf4+ seems best, as it puts more pressure on white--especially the f3-knight.  13...Qe7 may have problems after 14. d5.  This requires much calculation with many nuances.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I definitely prefer 14...b6. The LSB needs to get active and out of the way to the rooks.  However, you must still watch for dxc5, with a discovered attack on the knight (after the bishop moves), and d5 with problems getting your pieces to an effective square.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On move 7, opening the center while behind in development is not recommended.  Qd8 is better on general principles, but hard to make OTB.  7...Bb4 is an option.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12449" LastActivityDate="2018-06-13T07:51:03.870" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21792" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-06-13T12:29:49.047" Score="14" ViewCount="1784" Body="&lt;p&gt;[EDITED to include followup - EDIT 2 to include definition of position]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is in part a genuine question on the FIDE Laws of Chess, and in part a small puzzle to solve.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Suppose that during a long time control tournament game under FIDE rules the endgame is reached. &lt;strong&gt;Black tries to make a move to reach the following position, but the flag falls before he manages to press his clock.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;8/8/8/8/k7/8/1K6/q2N4 w - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The arbiter is called. Naturally, the arbiter needs to know the details of exactly what happened in the last moments. The sequence of events is exactly as follows, no more and no less:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;White pressed her clock after moving, completing her last move.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Black placed the queen on a1 and released it.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Black's flag falls and white calls it.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The arbiter rules that white wins. (This is my understanding.) Why?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The main argument for giving a draw is that in the diagram, white can never checkmate black, so under 6.9 black might draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I disagree with this; I argue that under article 4.7, the actions black took were not enough to complete his move, so the diagram position was not reached and 6.9 doesn't apply. (Yes, I am saying that releasing the queen on a1 is not enough to be considered having made the move!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Edit 1 (light spoiler)&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the first part is fairly easy to figure out: to reach the diagram, black must have been trying to play ...a2-a1=Q. (The queen can't legally come from anywhere else.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The scenario is therefore that black placed the queen on a1, and the flag fell before the pawn on a2 was removed. Now comes the part about applying the FIDE Laws. There are two arguments for a draw:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Annatar &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/21794/15989&quot;&gt;makes the argument&lt;/a&gt; that invoking 4.3, black has &quot;moved&quot; the queen onto the board, and so must promote to a queen. By 6.9 therefore black can claim a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;RemcoGerlich &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/21795/15989&quot;&gt;cites a different article&lt;/a&gt;, 4.4.4, to justify that when promoting, &quot;the choice of the piece is finalised when the piece has touched the square of promotion&quot;, so again black has finalised the choice of a queen and under 6.9 a draw can be claimed. (This was the other argument I had in mind when posting the question.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My viewpoint is different. Looking at article 4.7.3, a promotion move is considered to have been made if &quot;the player's hand has released the new piece on the square of promotion and the pawn has been removed from the board&quot;. Black has not removed the pawn here, so the move has not been made.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then looking at 6.9 in more detail, it says &quot;the game is drawn if &lt;em&gt;the position&lt;/em&gt; is such that the opponent cannot checkmate the player's king by any possible series of legal moves&quot;. It refers to &quot;the position&quot;, which is not defined as such in the Laws, but I would interpret as the board position plus information such as side to move and castling rights. Now, despite that black has &quot;finalised&quot; the promotion to queen (I don't dispute that), the move has not actually been made, so I argue that &quot;the position&quot; remains the one with a black pawn on a2 and no queen on the board. And from here there does exist a helpmate (...a1=N/B/R, etc.) so I would conclude that white wins.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, to refine the question: &lt;strong&gt;which interpretation is correct? And have there been precedents for similar situations?&lt;/strong&gt; (e.g. Article 4.3, touch-move, about to play the only legal move with the piece - mate - but flag drops before releasing it.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;tl;dr&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Argument for draw: Under 4.3/4.4.4 black has indicated intention to promote to queen. Then draw under 6.9 assuming black &quot;obliged&quot; to promote to queen in all legal sequences.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Argument for white win: Under 4.7.3, the promotion was not made. Therefore under 6.9, &quot;the position&quot; means the one with a pawn still on a2. From this position black can underpromote for a helpmate, so white wins on time.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Which is right?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;EDIT 2: Further clarification&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the comments, IA Petr Harasimovic has helped to further clarify the issue and narrow down exactly where my disagreement with a draw lies. (A draw seems to be the intuitive outcome.) I take issue in particular with the term &quot;position&quot; referenced in 6.9 - nowhere in the FIDE Laws is this term defined (strangely enough). So my working definition is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The location of units on the board, plus side-to-move, castling&#xA;  rights, e.p. and 50-move information - a purely abstract notion, and&#xA;  no clock information. And for me, a position is changed only when a&#xA;  complete move is made - i.e. in full accordance with article 4 [and 3], and&#xA;  without reference to article 6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Quoted from a response to Laska's answer.) I mention when I consider a position changed as a kludge fix to avoid illegal moves changing the position in nonsensical ways. (I should also mention that article 3 is a given?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I feel that this might not be everyone's understanding of the term, and so to determine exactly what article 6.9 means I want to ask for clarification: &lt;strong&gt;What is the definition of a &quot;position&quot;?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also want to apologise for the amount of text this question has engendered - seems like it's not exactly straightforward.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15989" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-30T22:19:08.187" LastActivityDate="2020-08-30T22:19:08.187" Title="What is the result? (Rules + puzzle)" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;fide&gt;&lt;chess-clocks&gt;&lt;retrograde-analysis&gt;&lt;loopholes&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="21" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21793" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21792" CreationDate="2018-06-13T12:38:31.707" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, the solution to the first part of the puzzle is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt; that the position above can only be reached if Black's last (non-completed) move is a2-a1=Q+. Therefore, before this move there was a position in which White still has enough material to win (when both sides are cooperating); Black needs a minor promotion for that to work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-06-13T15:59:52.873" LastActivityDate="2018-06-13T15:59:52.873" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21794" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21792" CreationDate="2018-06-13T13:26:35.673" Score="4" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Yes, I am saying that &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;releasing the queen on a1&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;strong&gt;is not enough to be considered having made the move&lt;/strong&gt;!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4.7 explicitly states that: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt; When, as a legal move or part of a legal move, a piece has been released on a square, it cannot be moved to another square on this move. &lt;strong&gt;The move is considered to have been made in the case of&lt;/strong&gt;: (...) &lt;strong&gt;promotion&lt;/strong&gt;, when the player's hand has &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;released the new piece on the square of promotion&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; and the pawn has been removed from the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus, the &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt; pawn &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;cannot be moved to another square on this move&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus, the &quot;possible series of legal moves.&quot; from 6.9 HAS to start with this move (any other move could not be considered legal, as it would conflict with 4.7) and the game is drawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To further back up my opinion that Black HAS to &quot;move&quot; the queen, I invoke 4.3a:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Except as provided in Article 4.2, if the player having the move touches on the chessboard, with the intention of moving or capturing: one or more of his own pieces, he must move the first piece touched that can be moved&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All requirements are met:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Black touched the chessboard with a piece with the intention of moving (obviously)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;It's his own piece (it's a &lt;em&gt;black&lt;/em&gt; queen)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;the touched piece can be moved (there is one legal way to move it)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So he still has to make a move involving the queen in some way (to make his first legal move in the possible move sequence). And there is only one option for that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13433" LastEditorUserId="13433" LastEditDate="2018-06-14T08:49:58.850" LastActivityDate="2018-06-14T08:49:58.850" CommentCount="12" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21795" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21792" CreationDate="2018-06-13T14:25:27.840" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;There is still a pawn on a2, and it wasn't touched.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The queen can only be on a1 due to a promotion, but you don't state the pawn was ever touched, and you say that nothing more than that happened.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now the puzzle becomes extremely technical, and I don't think the FIDE laws are precise enough to decide. Of course we're talking about&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;6.9&lt;/strong&gt; Except where one of Articles 5.1.1, 5.1.2, 5.2.1, 5.2.2, 5.2.3 applies, if a player does not complete the prescribed number of moves in the allotted time, the game is lost by that player. However, the game is drawn if the position is such that the opponent cannot checkmate the player’s king by any possible series of legal moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since the pawn is on a2 still, the move ...a1=Q &lt;em&gt;was not made&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But is it still legal for black to make another move?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, I am sure that &lt;em&gt;if this were still an ongoing game, black would not be allowed to make any other move anymore&lt;/em&gt;. Namely,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;4.6&lt;/strong&gt; The act of promotion may be performed in various ways:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[...]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;4.6.2&lt;/strong&gt; removing the pawn and putting the new piece on the square of promotion may occur in any order.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;4.4.4&lt;/strong&gt; promotes a pawn, the choice of the piece is finalize when the piece has touched the square of promotion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because the queen touched the square, it is now a touched piece on the board, putting a piece on the board is a legal way to start a promotion, and the choice is finalized. So no other piece can be moved anymore and the choice stands (no solutions to this puzzle involving minor promotion, sorry).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What I am in doubt about is connecting this definition of legal move involving touched pieces to the one used in 6.9, to decide whether the game is lost or drawn. Rule 6.9 does not mention something like &amp;quot;the series of legal moves must start with a move by a touched piece, if applicable&amp;quot;, or so.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's quote the Preface as well, my favourite part of the rules:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Laws of Chess cannot cover all possible situations that may arise during a game, nor can they regulate all administrative questions. Where cases are not precisely regulated by an Article of the Laws, it should be possible to reach a correct decision by studying analogous situations which are regulated in the Laws. The Laws assume that arbiters have the necessary competence, sound judgement and absolute objectivity. Too detailed a rule might deprive the arbiter of his freedom of judgement and thus prevent him from finding a solution to a problem dictated by fairness, logic and special factors.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My judgment is that they &lt;em&gt;can&lt;/em&gt; be interpreted to be the same meaning of &amp;quot;legal move&amp;quot;, and that it is in the spirit of the laws to do interpret the rules like that here (with the queen on the board, arguing for a win based on a move other than ...a1=Q is unreasonable in my opinion). The alternative would be to give white a win based on a series of legal moves that black wouldn't be allowed to actually play, in my view that would be worse.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore I say that the result is a &lt;strong&gt;draw&lt;/strong&gt; as after ...a1=Q white has no series of legal moves to checkmate black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2018-06-13T14:57:42.883" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21796" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21790" CreationDate="2018-06-13T15:44:40.727" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Considering c5:  Yes at some point Black needs to break in the center with c5 or e5 but you need to prepare such breaks.  You are behind in development at move 12 and should consider that before moving a pawn twice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While 14...cd4 spends another move and brings White's rook to a threatening square.&#xA;In general you made too many pawn moves. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2018-06-13T15:44:40.727" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21797" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-06-13T16:23:33.357" Score="0" ViewCount="78" Body="&lt;p&gt;My rook was targeting the opponent's king but her knight was in between &#xA;I moved my knight to the check place checked by same knight &#xA;Can I move my king to that place&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16755" LastActivityDate="2018-06-13T16:53:50.243" Title="Move my king to check" Tags="&lt;chess-variants&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2018-06-13T20:50:14.297" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21798" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21797" CreationDate="2018-06-13T16:53:50.243" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;My rook was targeting the opponent's king but her knight was in between&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is what is called an &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pin_(chess)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;(absolute) pin&lt;/a&gt; in chess, i.e. the knight is pinned by the rook and cannot move, because it would put the king in check (which is not allowed).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I moved my knight to the check place checked by same knight&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The way I understand it, what you mean is something like: &lt;em&gt;I moved my knight to a square attacked by the pinned knight.&lt;/em&gt; Of course this is perfectly legal as there are no restrictions put on the movement of your knight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Can I move my king to that place&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No, you cannot move your king to a square attacked by an enemy piece, even if the piece is pinned. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you think of &quot;winning in chess&quot; as &quot;who captures the enemy king first&quot;, all of this makes sense. Specifically, the pinned knight would move first to capture your king, just before you could capture her king (which is now under attack since the knight has moved).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you search a bit on stackexchange you will find many questions regarding this problem, such as: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/2348/can-a-piece-pinned-to-my-king-put-the-opponents-king-in-check&quot;&gt;this question&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2018-06-13T16:53:50.243" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21799" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-06-13T18:18:16.457" Score="2" ViewCount="41" Body="&lt;p&gt;Do you know of any site where multitable game is available? I just want to play to +3 table. In lichess.org, this is not available.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16403" LastEditorUserId="315" LastEditDate="2018-06-13T18:33:35.070" LastActivityDate="2018-06-13T18:33:35.070" Title="Site for Multitable Chess?" Tags="&lt;online-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="4" ClosedDate="2018-06-13T18:48:07.507" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21800" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21771" CreationDate="2018-06-14T00:35:18.570" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, you'll have to search all moves in minimax as it's a framework for determining the evaluation score. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In alpha-beta, you might skip some moves by pruning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2018-06-16T07:38:35.163" LastActivityDate="2018-06-16T07:38:35.163" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21801" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21808" CreationDate="2018-06-14T14:34:16.223" Score="2" ViewCount="147" Body="&lt;p&gt;Evaluation of exchange sacrifice: How good is White's compensation after the exchange sacrifice on move 19?  Seems the position is about even to me but Black might have more issues to solve.  I am thinking it is Whites best winning chance as opposed to having just liquidated the queen-side pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.c4 Nf6 2.Nc3 g6 3.g3 Bg7 4.Bg2 O-O 5.e4 d6 6.Nge2 c5 7.O-O Nc6 8.d3 a6 9.h3 Rb8 10.a4 Ne8 11.Be3 Nd4 12.Rb1 Bd7 13.b4 Ne2 14.Nxe2 cxb4 15.Rxb4 b5 16.cxb5 axb5 17.Qb1 Nc7 18.Rc1 Na6 19.Rb5 Bb5 20.axb5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastEditorUserId="9025" LastEditDate="2018-06-15T16:14:55.620" LastActivityDate="2018-06-15T16:14:55.620" Title="English opening exchange-sacrifice compensation" Tags="&lt;english-opening&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21802" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21804" CreationDate="2018-06-14T20:58:51.963" Score="0" ViewCount="280" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ISRwC.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As per subject, why Qd1 is the best move and all other moves for queen like Qd2 and Qd3 are not? I understand that it’s important to cover d column but why 1 and not 2 or 3?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also why Rd1 is not a good move? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1371" LastActivityDate="2018-06-14T21:03:12.460" Title="Why Qd1 is the best move?" Tags="&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;online-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21803" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21802" CreationDate="2018-06-14T21:00:06.563" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Qd1 wins a piece attacking both d6 and h5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11609" LastActivityDate="2018-06-14T21:00:06.563" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21804" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21802" CreationDate="2018-06-14T21:00:09.637" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Qd1 hits the bishop on d6 and the knight on h5. One of those will be won.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Btw, I think this a famous game between Larry Christiansen and Anatoly Karpov. Famous, of course for this early blunder. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1069116&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Here, you can see the whole game and maybe find out more about the players.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastEditorUserId="4362" LastEditDate="2018-06-14T21:03:12.460" LastActivityDate="2018-06-14T21:03:12.460" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21805" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21801" CreationDate="2018-06-15T02:31:49.133" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would say that the rook sac was correct. Retreating to b3 just allows bxa4, attacking the rook with tempo and creating a very strong passed pawn that has a lot of support. The fianchetto'd bishop on g7 even controls it's queening square. Giving up a rook for a bishop and pawn, and creating a passed pawn of their own is the best option for white.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9627" LastActivityDate="2018-06-15T02:31:49.133" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21806" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21801" CreationDate="2018-06-15T04:14:18.833" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;That's not an easy question. At this point in the game the compensation must come in terms of concrete continuations. Simply relying on intuition is not enough. Ok, well, white has got the two bishops and the passed pawn. But are there objective plans to push forward? This has to be analyzed deeply to provide a deterministic answer. Otherwise it will be eyeballing only.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are ideas of Nd4 aiming for c6. Idea of e5 push to immediately utilize the light-colored bishop. But as I said, one must come up with concrete follow-up after ...Nc7&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13438" LastActivityDate="2018-06-15T04:14:18.833" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21807" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5969" CreationDate="2018-06-15T08:37:45.573" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a new offering from ChessTempo.com!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://beta.chesstempo.com/opening-training&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://beta.chesstempo.com/opening-training&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Welcome to the Chesstempo opening training tool. The opening trainer&#xA;  allows you create and manage your opening repertoire, and then train&#xA;  against your repertoire using spaced repetition to optimise your&#xA;  learning. The opening training also integrates with our play chess&#xA;  online feature, allowing you to get feedback after each game on where&#xA;  you deviated from your opening repertoire, or extend your repertoire&#xA;  to account for an opponent line from your game not already covered in&#xA;  your repertoire.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3456" LastActivityDate="2018-06-15T08:37:45.573" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21808" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21801" CreationDate="2018-06-15T09:32:08.317" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This exchange sacrifice would be good if you could coordonate your pieces in order to support the passed b-pawn. In this given position, however, it looks like you are one tempo short and the pawn will be a target: 20...Qa5 and then &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;21.Nd4 [21.Nc3 is quite the same] Bxd4 22.Bxd4 Rxb5 and Black should win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;21.b6 Nc5 22.Bxc5 dc5 23.b7 [I see nothing else to hold on the pawn] Qa7 [or 23...e5 to prevent the opening of the g2-b7 diagonal] 24.e5 Bxe5 and the big passer gives practical chances but Black is clearly for choice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Probably White would have reached a much better version of the game with 18.Nd4!? instead of 18.Rc1.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastEditorUserId="14079" LastEditDate="2018-06-15T15:40:21.450" LastActivityDate="2018-06-15T15:40:21.450" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21809" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21792" CreationDate="2018-06-15T13:35:37.500" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I will provide a different perspective on this problem than the other answers. This is meant to be a puzzle on the laws after all so here is a couple of alternative scenarios. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since nowhere in the question you say that all preceding moves were legal the move &lt;code&gt;a2-a1Q&lt;/code&gt; is not the only possible move. I can easily imagine moves like &lt;code&gt;Qc1-a1&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;Kb5-a4&lt;/code&gt; resulting in the same position (although you say the Queen was put on &lt;code&gt;a1&lt;/code&gt; so not the latter). If that was the case then the arbiter would rule to return the game to a position before the illegal move was made and the game would continue from there. They would also adjust the time on the clock as they deemed appropriate. Theoretically, though, white could lose the game for having made a second illegal move. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or there might have had been a white piece on &lt;code&gt;a1&lt;/code&gt; that was captured during the promotion in which case the promotion would be an illegal move. Then the move would be taken back and black would be required to make a move with his King. However, since they ran out of time and it was their fault (no reason for time compensation), the game would be declared lost on time for them since underpromotion would still be possible and white would have two pieces anyway.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8844" LastActivityDate="2018-06-15T13:35:37.500" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21810" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21792" CreationDate="2018-06-15T18:48:53.043" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am not surprised that such an excellent loophole exists in the FIDE laws, or that Remellion was the one to find it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To summarize: bPa2 was never removed, although the move could only end with that action. Moreover, the clock was never pushed. So by 6.2.1 the move was not complete. The key question is whether an illegal, unfinished move has any impact on position evaluation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In a FIDE tournament, such a question is resolved by one respected person's opinion: the arbiter's. Different arbiters might in principle have different opinions in different games, but that does not detract from their legitimate authority.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But here in chess.stackexchange, we promote reason over opinion. And, when reason gives out, we admit that the question has no answer. Instead, I think this interesting novelty should be sent to the FIDE Rules Committee. The Laws are improving over time, and this may be of help and interest to them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I do want to say why I (a problemist mainly focusing on retros) think it's more coherent to rule that White has lost. This is because it's an important principle, not properly articulated until it comes into question as here, that moves are atomic. Except in joke problems, a move either happens or it doesn't, and until it is complete, it never happened. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An arbiter in a tournament may choose to extrapolate what &quot;must happen next&quot; in the move, but breaking atomicity in this way creates more problems than it solves. Let me illustrate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A subtle question is &lt;em&gt;why&lt;/em&gt; the arbiter extrapolates. Is it because he wants to complete the move so that 6.9 can be applied at the beginning of White's move? Or is it because he applies 6.9 immediately, in the middle of Black's move? In either case, there is an unhappy implication:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;8/8/8/8/8/2k6/p7/q1K5 w - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the arbiter is allowed to intelligently extrapolate to the end of the move before applying 6.9, why shouldn't the same apply to checkmate? Here the clock has fallen. But if the arbiter is allowed to extrapolate to the end of the move, then bPa2 will be removed, there will be checkmate, and under 6.2.1 there is no need for Black to hit the clock! So Black wins.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;8/8/8/2p5/8/k1P5/p7/K7 w - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Alternatively, if the arbiter can start evaluating under 6.9 in the middle of a move, then why should the same not apply to the dead position rule 9.6? In this case, with no clock issues, if Black touches bPc5, the game is immediately over, because under touch move rules the draw is inexorable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These absurd situations result from undermining the principle of atomicity. The real solution is for the Laws to state the protocol for different actions in a turn. 90% of the job is done, but arbiter's discretion, although a practical necessity, is no substitute for a high-level sequence of play that exists for any other serious table game (bridge, monopoly, go, magic the gathering etc). Atomicity is a key simplifying principle in such a protocol.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;The FIDE definition of &quot;position&quot; appears in 9.2.2 (draw by repetition). It aligns with what Remellion proposed, and because it includes player to move, I feel it can't be invoked in the middle of a move. Petr effectively came down on the same side of the fence by commenting that: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;...by putting the Queen on a1 the player committed to making the a2-a1Q&#xA;  move (there is no other move the player can make according to the&#xA;  Laws), hence, I think that the commitment has to be honoured (as long&#xA;  as the move is legal) and the position that is being examined must&#xA;  include that move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So we are looking at Case 1. The problem now is to explain why an arbiter would &quot;honour a commitment&quot; to move when it results in a 6.9 draw, but not when it results in checkmate. Maybe some &quot;advantage rule&quot; like in football exists but has never been mentioned? And this implies the arbiter evaluate the position comprehensively before he decides whether to &quot;play on&quot; until the end of the move. All very vague and unsatisfactory. It's not fair on the arbiter to be put in such an individious position, when the loophole could easily be cleared up so no opinion is needed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8201" LastEditorUserId="8201" LastEditDate="2018-06-17T02:33:54.887" LastActivityDate="2018-06-17T02:33:54.887" CommentCount="14" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21811" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12518" CreationDate="2018-06-16T12:29:33.760" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You could use &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/bhlangonijr/chesslib&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot; title=&quot;chesslib&quot;&gt;chesslib&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/bhlangonijr/chesslib/blob/master/README.md&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;README&lt;/a&gt; file there is an example of how to load and walk through all the moves from all the games in the PGN file: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    PgnHolder pgn = new PgnHolder(&quot;/opt/games/linares_2002.pgn&quot;);&#xA;    pgn.loadPgn();&#xA;    for (Game game: pgn.getGame()) {&#xA;        game.loadMoveText();&#xA;        MoveList moves = game.getHalfMoves();&#xA;        Board board = new Board();&#xA;        //Replay all the moves from the game and print the final position in FEN format&#xA;        for (Move move: moves) {&#xA;            board.doMove(move);&#xA;        }&#xA;        System.out.println(&quot;FEN: &quot; + board.getFen());&#xA;    }&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16764" LastActivityDate="2018-06-16T12:29:33.760" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21812" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21790" CreationDate="2018-06-16T18:31:07.587" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;12...b5! is the correct pawn break here. You see this theme in the Caro-Kann as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16767" LastActivityDate="2018-06-16T18:31:07.587" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21813" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21814" CreationDate="2018-06-17T11:46:32.607" Score="5" ViewCount="540" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have always been curious about how I can determine whether the bishop is better on e7 or on d6 playing with Black (of course when c5 and b4 are not possible or satisfactory).&#xA;I will provide some games of mine:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/syeqf.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/syeqf.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance, in this position the bishop has to retreat either to e7 or d6. The difference in the valoration is not huge but the bishop on e7 has a greater advantage for black (0.7) whereas on d6, where I think the bishop is more active as it controls the central square e5, the computer says Black only has an advantage of 0.4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this postion which is more similar to the point I am referring to, Black can choose both of the squares but putting the bishop on e7 is slightly better. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/PStVo.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/PStVo.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All I want to know is what is the nuance between them that makes the assessment of the positon vary a little. I have provided these two games but I would really appreciate advices for ANY similar situation regarding the squares e7 and d6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16771" LastActivityDate="2018-06-18T01:49:50.563" Title="Placing the bishops on the right square" Tags="&lt;bishops&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21814" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21813" CreationDate="2018-06-17T15:03:40.810" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;In both diagrams, the bishop is better on e7, because the d-file is likely to become an open file, and the bishop would block the rook's activity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first example has the future activity of the bishop to consider.  As the bishop isn't going to exchange on f4 or needed to protect an e5 push, its activity will have to come after moving to f6.  Here it will exert pressure on white's queen side.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The second example has breaking the pin as a consideration.  Without the bishop on e7, the queen would be tied to the defense of the f6-knight.  If the pin remained, Ne5 would be a strong move as the capture is now more dangerous--providing another attacker upon f6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a general rule, the more squares the bishop can attack on the opponent's half of the board, the more active it becomes.  However, especially as black, the more passively placed king's bishop is needed for other reasons, mostly defensive needs.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12449" LastActivityDate="2018-06-17T15:03:40.810" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21816" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21813" CreationDate="2018-06-18T01:16:41.097" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd add that the bishop on d6 would be restricted by white's pawn on g3 in the first diagram - whenever white has a fianchettoed king bishop, ceteris paribus, it's better to put it on e7 than d6&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16768" LastActivityDate="2018-06-18T01:16:41.097" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21817" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19441" CreationDate="2018-06-18T01:45:00.420" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you analysed for hours on end with Houdini, chances are its recommendation is stronger than what Stockfish played. There are two main reasons:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) Stockfish didn't have hours to think during the game with AlphaZero.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) Stockfish isn't especially renowned for how well it evaluates positions. Its main strength is how deep it can look ahead in such a short time. Larry Kaufman himself said that Komodo would be superior to Stockfish if it weren't for Stockfish's speed (I'm paraphrasing). Since the diagram you posted is very positional and involves quiet maneuvers, Stockfish must rely on its evaluation abilities more. In this domain, Houdini could very well be equal (or possibly better).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You're right though that AlphaZero's play is too deep for a normal engine like Stockfish/Houdini to fully understand. Through machine learning, AlphaZero developed an extremely intelligent intuition, which cannot usually be matched by brute-force calculation (especially in such a strategic position that you posted).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2018-06-18T01:45:00.420" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21818" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21813" CreationDate="2018-06-18T01:49:50.563" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;A bishop on d6 blocks Black's queen from protecting the d5-pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A bishop on e7 doesn't block Black's queen from doing this. Also, the e7-bishop breaks any pins White may set up by playing Bg5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your first diagram, playing ...Bd6 might be met with c4!, attacking the d5-pawn and now your queen cannot defend it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the second diagram, you want the bishop on e7 to break the pin, allowing your queen to move away without having to take back on f6 with your pawn if White plays Bxf6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2018-06-18T01:49:50.563" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21819" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-06-18T05:12:24.743" Score="5" ViewCount="588" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I analyze the 8...Bg4 Petrov it always seems like Black gets an easy equality. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Garry Kasparov - Patrick G. Wolff&#xA;New York/London simultaneous 1984&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. Nxe5 d6 4. Nf3 Nxe4 5. d4 d5 6. Bd3 Be7 7. O-O Nc6 8.&#xA;Re1 Bg4 9. c4&#xA;   9. c3 f5 10. h3 &#xA;      (a) 10. Qb3 Rb8 11. Nfd2 Bh5 12. Nf1 (12. f3 Nxd2&#xA;13. Nxd2 O-O 14. Qc2) 12... O-O 13. Ne3 Nxf2 =&#xA;      (b) 10. Qc2 O-O 11. Nfd2 Bd6 =+&#xA;      (c) 10. Nbd2 O-O =&#xA;   10... Bh5 11. Qb3 Rb8 =&#xA;   9. Bxe4 dxe4 10. Rxe4 Bxf3 11.Qxf3 Nxd4 12. Qd3 Ne6 =&#xA;9... Nf6 10. cxd5 (10. Nc3 Bxf3 11. Qxf3 Nxd4 12.&#xA;Qg3 dxc4 13. Bxc4 O-O 14. Bg5=) 10... Bxf3 11. Qxf3 Qxd5 12. Qg3 !? (12. Qxd5&#xA;Nxd5 13. Nc3 Ndb4 14. Be4 Nxd4 15. Be3 Ndc2 16. a3 Nxa1 17. axb4 Nb3 18. Bd5&#xA;O-O 19. Bxb3 Bxb4 20. Rc1 $11) 12... Qxd4 13. Nc3 O-O =+&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Kasparov ended up outplaying Wolff in the middlegame, but out of the opening Wolff was at least equal. All the other lines seem to quickly end in equality as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is playing 3.d4 the only try for an advantage in the Petrov? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8673" LastEditorUserId="8673" LastEditDate="2018-06-19T13:00:32.150" LastActivityDate="2018-06-19T14:37:46.530" Title="Petrov Defense, 8...Bg4 easy equality for Black?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;petroff-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21820" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21819" CreationDate="2018-06-18T07:28:27.140" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, it is not &quot;easy equality&quot;. It is &quot;complex fight where Black has good chances for equality, with theoretical debate still going on&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyway, 3.d4 won't be the only try for an advantage in the Petrov. 3.Nxe5 is still the main field where White looks for advantage. He can deviate from this game Kasparov-Wolff in several ways, including &lt;strong&gt;5.Qe2&lt;/strong&gt; (recently renewed by Carlsen and Kramnik), &lt;strong&gt;5.Nc3&lt;/strong&gt; (the main try for an imbalanced position, see Karjakin-Caruana, 1-0, in this year's Candidate tournament), or later &lt;strong&gt;8.c4&lt;/strong&gt; (a lot of heavy-weight fights involving Anand, Kramnik, Leko or Naiditsch in the 2000-decade). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastEditorUserId="14079" LastEditDate="2018-06-19T14:37:46.530" LastActivityDate="2018-06-19T14:37:46.530" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21821" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9758" CreationDate="2018-06-18T11:59:08.187" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the main mistake people make when playing the KIA is to play for the kingside attack regardless of the position, and assuming that they are automatically going to get Fischer-Myagmarsuren by playing the same moves as white each time, regardless of what black does.  If you look at modern GM games in the KIA, these kind of attacks are a rarity because everyone has seen the old Fischer and Benko crushes from the 60s and knows how to defend against them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Others have pointed out that 15.e5 is a mistake, and the subsequent attempt to play for a non-existent kingside attack which black fends off quite easily.  White is better centralised and has the two bishops, and black's queenside pawn structure is a bit loose, so opening the position with 15.exd5 makes more sense.  After the e-file opens up, the e6 square also looks very weak.  Off the top of my head, 15.exd5 exd5 16.Ng5 looks quite annoying for black to face.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16774" LastActivityDate="2018-06-18T11:59:08.187" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21822" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9758" CreationDate="2018-06-18T12:37:03.053" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The result of this game has nothing to do with the opening. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would like to point a nice combination you could have played and that is quite typical for KIA: give a piece to open the opponent castle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At move 22, instead of retreating the knight with 22.Nf3 you can get a complex attack with:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;22.hxg6!? hxg5 23.Qh5 threatening mate on h7, and then&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;23...Bh8 24.Bxg5 Qd7 25.Rxd5!&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;23...Rfe8 24.Bxg5 Q-a.l. 25.Qh7+ Kf8 26.Bh6 followed by Qh8&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;23...Rxf4! 24.gf4 (24.Qh7+ Kf8)  gf4 with a mess.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In diagram:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Nf3 g6 2.d3 d5 3.Nbd2 Bg4 4.g3 Bxf3 5.Nxf3 e6 6.Bg2 Nf6 7.O-O Bg7 8.c3 O-O 9.Qc2 Nc6 10. Bf4 b5 11.e4 Ng4 12.Rad1 f5 13.Rfe1 fxe4 14.dxe4 Nf6 15.e5 Nd7 16.h4 a5 17.a3 a4 18.Bh3 Nc5 19.Ng5 Qe7 20.Qe2 Rab8 21.h5 h6 22.Nf3 gxh5 (22.hxg6!? hxg5 23.Qh5 Bh8 (23...Rfe8 24.Bxg5 Qd7 25.Qh7+ Kf8 26.Bh6) (23...Rxf4!) 24.Bxg5 Qd7 25.Rxd5!) 23.Nd4 Qe8 24.Nxc6 Qxc6 25.Qxh5 Qe8 26.Qg4 h5 27.Qg5 Ne4 28.Qh4 c6 29. f3 Nc5 30.g4? Rxf4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastActivityDate="2018-06-18T12:37:03.053" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21823" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21833" CreationDate="2018-06-18T18:40:18.403" Score="3" ViewCount="106" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;6/10/2018&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;4&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Opponent&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Me&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;2383&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;1874&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. c4 e5 2. Nc3 Nf6 3. Nf3 Nc6 4. e3 Be7 5. Qb3 O-O 6. Be2 d6 7. d3 Rb8 8. O-O Bg4 9. a3 Nd7 10. Qc2 f5 11. h3 Bxf3 12. Bxf3 Nf6 13. b4 Qd7 14. Bd2 g5 15. b5 Nd8 16. d4 Nf7 17. Rad1 g4 18. hxg4 Nxg4 19. Bxg4 fxg4 20. Ne4 Qf5 21. Rc1 exd4 22. exd4 Ng5 23. Nxg5 Bxg5 24. Qxf5 Rxf5 25. Bxg5 Rxg5 26. Rfe1 Rf8 27. Re7 Rf7 28. Re8+ Rf8 29. Rce1 Rg7 30. Kh2 h5 31. Kg3 Rgf7 32. Rxf8+ Kxf8 33. Re4 Rf6 34. a4 Kf7 35. a5 b6 36. a6 Rf5 37. Re2 Rf6 38. f3 gxf3 39. gxf3 Rf5 40. f4 Rf6 41. Rh2 Kg6 42. Kf3 Rf5 43. Ke4 Rf6 44. Rg2+ Kf7 45. Rh2 Kg6 46. Rh1 Re6+ 47. Kd5 Rf6 48. Rh4 Rf7 49. Kc6 Rh7 50. d5 Kf5 51. Kb7 c5+ 52. Kb8 Ke4 53. Ka8 Kf5 54. Rxh5+ Rxh5 55. Kxa7 Rh1 56. Kxb6 Ra1 57. Kb7 Kxf4 58. a7 Ke4 59. a8=Q Rxa8 60. Kxa8 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My rating: 1874&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Opponent's rating: 2383&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I felt that I played strongly in this game but faltered due to a lack of understanding in the endgame. Any critique on the middlegame is also appreciated. Feel free to address any of these points or anything else that is important that I did not mention:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;After 7...Rb8, my plan is to develop the bishop to g4 and eventually expand with f7-f5. Is this the right thinking? Perhaps my bishop doesn't belong on g4, or perhaps I could achieve my plan quicker without spending time on ...Rb8 and ...Bg4.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;After 10...f5 11.h3 I am losing the bishop pair due to 11...Bh5 12.Nxe5!; was there a better way around this?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;14...g5!? was what I felt was the only way forward. Would I be better off preparing this with something like ...Kh8 and ...Rg8?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;After playing 17...g4, again perhaps I'm pulling the trigger too quickly.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Instead of 20...Qf5, should I consider 20...d5?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Maybe I could've played 21...Rbe8 and sat for a little longer before starting to liquidate this position.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;For some odd reason I felt compelled to play 35...b6 in light of white eventually creating some sort of a pawn breakthrough, but perhaps this isn't a worry with rooks on the board? Keeping my original pawn formation could be important later.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;My opponent said 39...Rg6+ was definitely drawing because the kings can't really go away from the f-pawn. Allowing 40.f4 may have been the critical mistake. After that I'm not sure the best defense against white's king march.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;And I missed the 54.Rxh5+! trick in advance.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also please no computer analysis unless something cannot be justified without it. Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13861" LastEditorUserId="14079" LastEditDate="2018-06-19T12:10:01.067" LastActivityDate="2018-06-19T16:29:28.563" Title="Loss as black in 4.e3 English / rook ending" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21824" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9758" CreationDate="2018-06-18T20:39:27.260" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;How is Black supposed to defend after 13. Ng5? The idea is that it knocks out Black's defense of the d5 square, hence the a2-g8 and h1-a8 diagonals because if Black plays something like 13... Re8 14. Nxe6 Rxe6 15. exd5 White wins material.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The answer the original question is that Black lets you take their stuff and you don't just take it to the bank.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;       r2q1rk1/p1p3bp/2n1p1p1/1p1p1p2/4PBn1/2PP1NP1/PPQ2PBP/3R1RK w - - 0 13&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1. Ng5 e5 2. Ne6 Qd6 3. Nxf8 exf4 4. Ne6 fxg3 5. hxg3 dxe4 6. dxe4 Qxe6 7. exf5 gxf5 8. Qb3 Qxb3 9. axb3 Nge5 10. f4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It’s just a sample variation, but hopefully it can be seen that Black's vulnerabilities on the h1-a8 diagonal can be exposed if White choose to play smashmouth chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16779" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-04T16:29:00.483" LastActivityDate="2020-04-04T16:29:00.483" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21825" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19957" CreationDate="2018-06-18T23:48:22.987" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The first thing I would suggest is going to an old book site, like Abebooks.com and putting in chess titles or keywords that come to mind.  They show covers with the old books they have for sale.  A key thing you left out, soft cover or hard back?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Check &quot;Comprehensive Chess Course series&quot; of books by Lev Alburt and his coauthor Palatnik, Sam.  They comment in one of them about rules for the &quot;pawn game&quot;. He apparently references the Soviet Chess Program or schools as the source of the game.  One Title of the series: The King in Jeopardy: The Best Techniques for Attack and Defense (Comprehensive Chess Course Series)&#xA;Alburt, Lev, Palatnik,Sam.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have seen the cover you are describing in my searches for books but I do not remember who it was I was searching.  I commonly look for Chernev and Botvinik so it may be one of theirs.  I will keep looking.  I too have a favorite book I learned from &quot;Fireside Book of Chess&quot; by Reinfeld.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16778" LastEditorUserId="16778" LastEditDate="2018-06-19T00:26:12.820" LastActivityDate="2018-06-19T00:26:12.820" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21826" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21779" CreationDate="2018-06-19T00:40:43.800" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;As pointed out, your Queen is in what is called an &quot;absolute&quot; pin.  It absolutely cannot move off of the file, in this case the &quot;e&quot; file because the black Rook is controlling the squares on that file up to the point of your King.  It appears that your only choices in the position you are in, if it is white to move, would be 1. Qxe8+ expecting the response 1....Bxe8 or 1...fxe4.  Also you could move 1.Be3 (to block the Rook's pin) expecting the response to be either 1....Rxe4 allowing you to recapture 2. Bxe4 or less likely 1...dxe3 which would leave the King un pinned but the Queen still under attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A second form of pin is &quot;relative&quot; pin where the piece behind the directly attacked piece is something other than a King.  In other words, something you value but not something that would create an illegal move if it were moved.  Imagine in the setting above that the White Queen were a Bishop and the White king were a Queen.  You would not want to move the Bishop to expose the Queen which is much more valued.  The Bishop is therefore in a relative pin (to the queen).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this helps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16778" LastActivityDate="2018-06-19T00:40:43.800" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21827" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21819" CreationDate="2018-06-19T00:46:00.353" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I hope I am not going to get into trouble for posting a piece of a free newsletter by GM Alex Colvic on the subject you asked about.  This is the entire email from April 28,2018.  Alex's answers the emails at the address alex@alexcolovic.com&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The main advantage of the Petroff over the Berlin is that it is more practical. The Petroff arises already on move 2, thus avoiding very important White options after 2...Nc6 such as the Scotch, the Italian and also the Ruy Lopez with 4 d3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The return of the Petroff is of course thanks to Fabiano Caruana's success with it at the Berlin Candidates. Usually considered a boring opening aimed only at playing for a draw, Caruana actually managed to win quite a few games with it: two at the Candidates (against Kramnik and Grischuk) and also one in the Grenke Classic against Vitiugov.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another positive aspect of the Petroff is that there are only a few critical lines against it. In what has traditionally been called the main line, after 3 Ne5 d6 4 Nf3 Ne4 5 d4 d5 6 Bd3, Caruana's choice has been the move 6...Bd6, instead of the previously considered more solid 6...Nc6. The reason for his choice is that after 6...Nc6 7 0-0 Be7 8 Nbd2, a move previously considered harmless, manages to pose unpleasant problems to Black in a symmetrical position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Worth noting here is that the Chinese players have their own way of treating this line. They introduced the move-order 6...Bf5 7 0-0 Be7 (or 6...Be7 7 0-0 Bf5). One of the ideas of this move-order is to be able to play ...Nd6, exchanging the light-squared bishops.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Caruana demonstrated that Black is theoretically OK in the main line with 6...Bd6 and that is probably the way to go.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The second critical attempt is 3 Ne5 d6 4 Nf3 Ne4 5 Nc3. Here taking on c3 is most popular, though there is something to be said for the retreat 5...Nf6, when White doesn't have the active plan with c4 at his disposal. After 5...Nc3 6 dc Be7 7 Be3 Nc6 Black usually castles queenside and should be fine. But this position is deceptively simple, as White can find small ways to keep the pressure on, demonstrated by Caruana's only loss in Berlin to Karjakin. Black has also plans with short castling in this line, as Hou Yifan played against Caruana himself and almost beat him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The third attempt is to play 3 d4. Now both moves, 3...ed and 3...Ne4 are possible. Caruana's choice was the latter, and after 4 Bd3 (Grischuk and Vitiugov played 4 de in the above-mentioned games) d5 5 Ne5 (5 de is another possibility) Nd7 Black again is theoretically fine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The interesting part with the Petroff now is that it comes back after a certain period of being not very popular. This means that the old lines and recommendations are ripe for re-evaluation. The improved engines will suggest new moves (check out 5...Qd7 in the game Vitiugov-Caruana) and new ideas and variations will appear. This is the usual process when an opening &quot;comes back&quot; after some time spent on the sidelines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is how modern theory evolves. The latest engines start suggesting moves and ideas and they inject new life in the old openings, once considered boring or harmless.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Perhaps it is time to take up the Petroff!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Have a great weekend,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Alex&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16778" LastActivityDate="2018-06-19T00:46:00.353" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21828" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-06-19T03:44:12.813" Score="5" ViewCount="405" Body="&lt;p&gt;For example Carlsen is currently the world number 1 and favourite to win a match against any other player in the world. Is he also favoured to win a match against Caruana + Mamedyarov + Ding Liren acting in consultation? How much stronger would a team of top GMs be compared to a single GM?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it matters: standard classical time controls (shorter time controls makes it hard to consult teammates after all), the team of GMs are side-by-side, and they're playing electronically with the opponent in another room (so opponent cannot eavesdrop on their conversation). The team know each other and prepare in advance, and so does their opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastEditorUserId="15223" LastEditDate="2018-06-19T07:27:44.563" LastActivityDate="2018-06-20T14:28:45.430" Title="How much stronger is a team of GMs compared to a single GM?" Tags="&lt;elo&gt;&lt;super-grandmaster&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2018-06-23T12:55:16.867" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21829" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9758" CreationDate="2018-06-19T04:49:18.753" Score="0" Body="&lt;ol start=&quot;15&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Ng5! looks almost winning to my eye.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The e6 pawn is a very serious weakness. Playing 15.e5 makes it harder to pressure that weak pawn, while 15. Ng5 (with ideas of Bh3 and the like) ties Black down. I don't see any way for Black to defend&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16768" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-04-04T13:52:47.550" LastActivityDate="2021-04-04T13:52:47.550" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21830" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21828" CreationDate="2018-06-19T05:37:08.813" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are no studies I know of on the topic of X GMs vs 1 GM, so I'll answer based off my own reasoning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, let's assume the chance of a GM making a mistake on any move is 10% (when playing against a fellow GM). With 3 GMs, the chance of them all making a mistake on any move = 10%*10%*10% = never going to happen in one game. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The exception to this math is a position where all GMs are expected to falter due to the position's complexity. Assume the chance of each GM making a mistake in such a position is 90%. Now the chance of the team making a mistake = 90%*90%*90% = 72.9%. These odds aren't great for the team, but they're still &lt;em&gt;much&lt;/em&gt; better than the odds of one lone GM making a mistake.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The logic discussed above can be applied at lower levels too, such as seeing subtle positional ideas. One GM may not have a good chance at seeing intricate ideas, but with three GMS the x%*x%*x% logic works well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, there's the issue of the time it takes for the 3 GMs to consult, due to arguments that may arise. If the GMs are split on which move to play, they'll spend a good amount of time trying to convince the &quot;other side&quot; that their move is better. This isn't such a big deal, since the GMs would only argue in very subjective positions, which aren't very common.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, there's one last aspect to consider. For any GM to play at a higher level than normal, they would need x amount of time to think (let's assume this is 20 minutes per move). In a standard game, the team would only be able to think for about 5-7ish minutes per move. 3 GMs thinking for 5-7 minutes would not reach the &lt;em&gt;potential&lt;/em&gt; of one GM thinking for 20 minutes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In conclusion, a team of GMs would drastically reduce the number of mistakes they make (both large and small). However, they wouldn't be playing at a level far higher than a normal GM (higher, but not far higher). I would put the Caruana + Mamedyarov + Ding Liren team at around 2880 strength (fair level above Carlsen). The reason is that they are the top players in the world, and make mistakes much more rarely than average GMs. Thus, the &quot;mistake-limiting&quot; effect of the team wouldn't help as much, but would still help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2018-06-19T05:37:08.813" CommentCount="11" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21831" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21823" CreationDate="2018-06-19T12:23:32.620" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;About the rook endgame:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;At move 33, the game is not over but it should lead to a draw with best play.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;You played it very passively, which is not what rooks are good at. A psychological trap must have played a role here: &quot;I feel it must be a draw, so I will just try to hold it&quot;. Very often rook endgames are drawish because you pick your opponent's pawns while he picks yours, not because you just sit and wait. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Instead of 33...Rf6 (what for ?), Kg7-g6-g5 looks natural.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;35...b6 is not mandatory (sure, in a pawn endgame you would have to be careful about a c5-b6 break), but it is not a mistake either. In the game, White exploited the weakness on a7, but you could have avoided that.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;After the pawn exchange on f3, pawn endgames are now better for you because of the outside passed pawn. You should have exploited this with 39...Re6!? when 40.Rxe6 Kxe6 41.Kh4 Kf5 42.Kxh5 Kf4 43.Kg6 Kxf3 44.Kf5 Ke3 45.Ke6 Kxd4 46.Kd7 Kxc4 47.Kxc7 d5 48.Kb7 d4 49.Kxa7 Kxb5 50.Kb7 d3 51.a7 d2 52.a8Q d1Q 53.Qa6+ is just a draw. (&lt;em&gt;This a long line, so you better check it with engine, even if it seems quite straitforward to me&lt;/em&gt;) and 40.Rh2?! Kg6 is definitely not a winning try for White.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;39...Rg6+ indeed looks like a draw too, but even allowing f4 doesn't put you in danger yet.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;42...Re6, controling the central file, doesn't seem to work because of 43.f5! Kxf5 44.Rxh5 Kg6 45.Rh8, heading for the weakness on a7.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;However, you could have stoped the white King triumphant march to the queenside with 43...Kf6 (planning Kf6-e6-f6 ad vitam aeternam, or possibly d6-d5+ when the king is on e6). I don't think White could have tried much, for instance 44.Rh1 Ke6 45.Rg1 h4 45.Rg7 Rh5 46.Rxc7 h3 is clearly too slow.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;After you let the wK reach c6, you are in trouble. I might miss some defensive ressources but I think White is winning.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastEditorUserId="14079" LastEditDate="2018-06-19T14:39:52.853" LastActivityDate="2018-06-19T14:39:52.853" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21832" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21828" CreationDate="2018-06-19T15:01:22.513" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think a team of GMs are not significantly stronger than a single GM.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My reasoning is: Thinking is fast while communicating is slow and error-prone. It takes dramatically more time to explain an assessment to another GM and while trying to explain some things will be omitted/forgetted. In the end a team of GMs will spend considerably more time to produce a quality move and that move may not be significantly better to justify spending extra time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Plus, more teammates the team have, there will be more communication channels (grows quadratically respect to number of teammates) and this will make communication less and less efficient.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An alternative approach to overcome inefficiencies:  Let the team to be formed as 1 player (the best player) and N advisors advising player when they believe they can significantly improve players move, otherwise they don't interrupt. Ideally advisors should excel the best player in a particular area of chess. For example Adviser 1 is the best endgame player and advisor 2 is Sicilian expert and so on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also the team can switch player in the middle of the game to avoid player to get tired and play weaker especially in long games. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9030" LastActivityDate="2018-06-19T15:01:22.513" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21833" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21823" CreationDate="2018-06-19T16:29:28.563" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let me try to cover your bullet points:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;After 7...Rb8, ...Bg4 idea:  First I don't see the connection of Bg4 with pushing your f-pawn.  Your pawns are on dark squares so trading your light square bishop is not a great idea either.  How about 8...h6 with the idea of 9...Be6 and 10...d5.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;After 10...f5 11.h3 I am losing the bishop pair:  You didn't properly calculate your Bg4 idea.  What did you think was going to happen with Bg4?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;14...g5!?: this is fine.  White floundered the last few moves so attacking is good.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A 17...g4:  I would strongly consider 17...e4!  You have 2 knights and no light square bishop so closing the center with a space gain and tempo looks correct.  You can follow with c6, or h5 and g4.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Instead of 20...Qf5, should I consider 20...d5?  I would definitely calculate d5, but why open the whole board for the battle when you have space by his king.  I like throwing pieces to the king-side.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Maybe  21...Rbe8:  21...exd4 is where you start going wrong with the idea of liquidating.  Why do you want to liquidate?  At this point you should be asking yourself &quot;What does White want to do?&quot;  The answer is liquidate! Nc3 is probably his next move. I'd be look at ...Bh4 here. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;compelled to play 35...b6: First, lets go back to move 26 where you should have played 26...Kf7 and have no worries.  You can't let him double rooks on the open file for free.  Of course 35...b6 is horrible.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2018-06-19T16:29:28.563" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21835" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-06-19T21:22:38.910" Score="0" ViewCount="3006" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the best chess database out there (quality vs. price). Do you recommend online or offline chess database. Any experience with chessbase, chessok, chesstempo or openingmaster?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16786" LastActivityDate="2019-01-08T03:09:49.763" Title="Where can I find a good chess database?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;database&gt;&lt;online&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2019-01-08T13:07:14.277" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21836" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20036" CreationDate="2018-06-20T01:04:56.273" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;IMHO playing against Stockfish level eight is a lost cause when playing against its full 16 quad core processors and basically unlimited flash storage, no matter the time constraints. Magnus Carlson stated a couple of years ago that he always lost against that computer program. The lichess version is but a shadow of its real self.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16788" LastActivityDate="2018-06-20T01:04:56.273" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21837" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21835" CreationDate="2018-06-20T02:22:32.867" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The TWIC (This Week In Chess) database is your best bet. It's free, has millions of games (many of which are recent and up to date), and is of a high quality.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's the link:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://theweekinchess.com/twic&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://theweekinchess.com/twic&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you get there, scroll down to the &quot;TWIC Downloads&quot; table and download all the PGN or all the CBV files.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After downloading everything, merge all the games into one database in ChessBase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then, you can make this database your reference database (if you don't know how to do this, look up a YouTube tutorial on ChessBase's official channel).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2018-06-20T02:22:32.867" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21838" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20036" CreationDate="2018-06-20T02:30:34.137" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Assuming Stockfish level 8 is full strength Stockfish, it's &lt;em&gt;possible&lt;/em&gt; to beat it but &lt;em&gt;extremely unlikely&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In very rare cases, Stockfish will incorrectly evaluate a complicated position, unless given a minute or two to think. If a human were to get in such a position in a 3 0 game, Stockfish could make a fatal blunder.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, the chances of the human making a mistake first is far greater.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Making the time control longer than 3 0 favors Stockfish, since it has more time to think if it's misevaluating something.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If Stockfish level 8 is only 2200-2400 (I've read this on some online sources), then beating it is more realistic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2018-06-20T02:30:34.137" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21839" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21848" CreationDate="2018-06-20T02:56:24.853" Score="0" ViewCount="1469" Body="&lt;p&gt;So, I want to download a 5-man tablebase (I have no disk space for a 6-man one) and set it up so that it works with Stockfish in Arena GUI. Where can I download the tablebase, and how do I install it in Arena GUI?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13544" LastActivityDate="2018-06-23T02:51:03.470" Title="Where can I download and how do I set up a 5-man tablebase in Arena GUI?" Tags="&lt;tablebases&gt;&lt;arena&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21840" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-06-20T05:23:45.577" Score="3" ViewCount="312" Body="&lt;p&gt;From theory I've encountered on the Catalan, I've understood that when black goes b7-b6 before first playing c7-c6, a good plan for white is to capture on d5. WI've understood that the rational for this might be that after black signaling that they might fianchetto, there's no longer a reason to keep not allow the exchange of the black e pawn, as their light squared bishop is anyway coming out, and that it's better for white that black recaptures with the e pawn than the c pawn (I'm guessing as after black later pushes the c pawn the hanging d- and c pawns might that become weak). However, I find it difficult to then come up with a follow up plan. What more breaks are there for white? Usually, when I still have my c pawn, I go for the e2-e4 break, but that seems less attractive in a case when there's no c pawn and I'd be landed with a isolated d pawn. Thoughts?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;    &#xA;    [FEN &quot;rnbq1rk1/p1p2ppp/1p2pn2/3p4/2PP4/5NP1/PP1NPPBP/R2QK2R w KQ - 0 8&quot;]&#xA;1. Nf3 d5 2. d4 Nf6 3. c4 e6 4. g3 Bb4+ 5. Bd2 Bxd2+ 6. Nbxd2 O-O 7. Bg2 b6 *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12953" LastActivityDate="2018-08-05T21:20:40.037" Title="Catalan opening - plans for white after exchanging on d5" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;planning&gt;&lt;catalan&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21841" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21840" CreationDate="2018-06-20T06:36:47.280" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The idea of exchanging on d5 when Black goes for an early ...b6 is usually connected with play on the c-file: Nc3, Bf4, Rc1, maybe Qa4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this particular position, after ...Bxd2 Nbxd2, this plan is not available and the pawn exchange is much less promising. Here, you can stand with the main plan of preparing e2-e4 (with 0-0, Qc2, Rd1), or look for an opportunity to exploit the dark squares (Ne5, e3, and someday either f4, Ndf3 or c4-c5).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If memory serves, 6.Qxd2 is a bit more promising than 6.Nbxd2 in this line. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastEditorUserId="14079" LastEditDate="2018-08-05T21:20:40.037" LastActivityDate="2018-08-05T21:20:40.037" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21842" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21828" CreationDate="2018-06-20T14:28:45.430" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There was a public exhibition with a very similar scenario to what you describe. It was called &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessvibes.com/?q=reports/carlsen-beats-the-world-photos-added&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Carlsen vs The World&lt;/a&gt;&quot; and took place in 2010. The world was represented by internet viewers, who could vote on moves proposed by Nakamura, Polgar and Vachier-Lagrave. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In that scenario having three top GMs provide moves proved a handicap, as there was no consistent plan behind the moves. Judit Polgar said: &quot;It was like cooking with too many chefs, who all wanted to use different spices.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1590754&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Carlsen crushed &quot;The World&quot; pretty decisively.&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In a scenario in which they can actually discuss the moves and choose something consistent together, that would certainly be much less of a problem. But I still think that coordinating plans, calculations and responsibility would be quite difficult and it is unclear to me whether there would actually be an improvement in strength. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2018-06-20T14:28:45.430" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21843" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21840" CreationDate="2018-06-20T14:30:43.447" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In double queen-pawn structure where x.cxd5 exd5 has occurred (sometimes called the Carlsbad structure) there is always the possibility of a &quot;minority attack&quot;. This is more common in the QGD than in the Catalan but it is simply about the pawn islands.  As you alluded to Black could end up with &quot;hanging pawns&quot; if he plays for c7-c5.  If he doesn't, White will pile up on the c-file and push his 'a' and 'b' pawns hoping to isolate a black pawn and win it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your particular position you have traded dark-square bishops, so an eventual e2-e3 puts all your kingside pawns on dark-squares creating a very solid structure while you pressure d5 and the queen-side.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2018-06-20T14:30:43.447" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21844" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-06-20T16:58:29.200" Score="4" ViewCount="356" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to try some reinforcement learning techniques (borrowed from AlphaZero, etc.) and so I need a chess environment in order to run games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I code in python, so I found &lt;a href=&quot;https://pypi.org/project/python-chess/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;python-chess&lt;/a&gt; but unfortunately it is too slow to generate a large amount of games. Playing 100 games with random moves (average length of ~400 moves for a random game) takes 8 seconds, which doesn't scale to higher orders of magnitude well. My profiling shows that over 99.9% of the time taken is with the library as opposed to other code, so I can't optimize any further.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there already an existing chess environment that is faster than this in python?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15765" LastActivityDate="2018-08-20T04:01:36.143" Title="Chess environments for reinforcement learning" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21845" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21846" CreationDate="2018-06-20T20:13:24.607" Score="7" ViewCount="1365" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;8/3k4/8/3K4/3P4/8/8/8 b - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Black to move)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a theoretical win since White has the opposition and the king is in front of the pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have downloaded the Windows version for Stockfish 9 and followed the UCI protocol.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stockfish:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Stockfish 9 64 by T. Romstad, M. Costalba, J. Kiiski, G. Linscott&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Input:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;uci&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stockfish:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;id name Stockfish 9 64&#xA;id author T. Romstad, M. Costalba, J. Kiiski, G. Linscott&#xA;&#xA;option name Debug Log File type string default&#xA;option name Contempt type spin default 20 min -100 max 100&#xA;option name Threads type spin default 1 min 1 max 512&#xA;option name Hash type spin default 16 min 1 max 131072&#xA;option name Clear Hash type button&#xA;option name Ponder type check default false&#xA;option name MultiPV type spin default 1 min 1 max 500&#xA;option name Skill Level type spin default 20 min 0 max 20&#xA;option name Move Overhead type spin default 30 min 0 max 5000&#xA;option name Minimum Thinking Time type spin default 20 min 0 max 5000&#xA;option name Slow Mover type spin default 89 min 10 max 1000&#xA;option name nodestime type spin default 0 min 0 max 10000&#xA;option name UCI_Chess960 type check default false&#xA;option name SyzygyPath type string default &amp;lt;empty&amp;gt;&#xA;option name SyzygyProbeDepth type spin default 1 min 1 max 100&#xA;option name Syzygy50MoveRule type check default true&#xA;option name SyzygyProbeLimit type spin default 6 min 0 max 6&#xA;uciok&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Input:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;position fen 8/3k4/8/3K4/3P4/8/8/8 b - - 0 1&#xA;go depth 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stockfish:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;info depth 1 seldepth 1 multipv 1 score cp -4276 nodes 5 nps 2500 tbhits 0 time 2 pv d7e8&#xA;bestmove d7e8&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why is the evaluation -4276?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16674" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-06-20T20:28:02.760" LastActivityDate="2018-06-20T20:28:02.760" Title="Why does Stockfish give a negative score in a theoretical win for white?" Tags="&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;evaluation&gt;&lt;uci&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21846" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21845" CreationDate="2018-06-20T20:26:57.663" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Because Black is to move, and for &lt;em&gt;Black&lt;/em&gt; the position is evaluated as being 42.76 pawns behind.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2018-06-20T20:26:57.663" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21847" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21858" CreationDate="2018-06-20T21:07:07.703" Score="2" ViewCount="372" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;6/10/2018&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;5&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Me&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Opponent&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1/2-1/2&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;1874&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;2000&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 g6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Bg7 5. c4 Nf6 6. Nc3 Nc6 7. Be3 O-O 8. Be2 d6 9. O-O Bd7 10. Rc1 a5 11. f4 a4 12. Bf3 a3 13. b3 Qa5 14. h3 Nxd4 15. Bxd4 e5 16. Be3 Bc6 17. Qxd6 exf4 18. b4 Qd8 19. Bxf4 Qb6+ 20. Qc5 Qxc5+ 21. bxc5 Rfd8 22. Nd5 Nd7 23. Bc7 Re8 24. Bd6 Bd4+ 25. Kh1 Ra5 26. Bg4 Nxc5 27. Bc7 Ra4 28. Bb6 Rxe4 29. Bxc5 Rxg4 30. Ne7+ Kg7 31. Nxc6 bxc6 32. hxg4 Bxc5 33. Rb1 Rxc4 34. Rb7 Rxg4 35. Rfxf7+ Kh6 36. Rxh7+ Kg5 37. Rbc7 Rc4 38. Rcd7 Rc1+ 39. Kh2 Bg1+ 40. Kh1 Be3+ 41. Kh2 Bg1+ 42. Kh1 Be3+ 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My rating: 1874&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Opponent's rating: 2000&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I felt that I had a big initiative throughout this game and failed to convert it and ended up in a worse position in the end. Feel free to address the following points or any other analysis that is important.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I played 11.f4 with the intention of maintaining control over e5 and keeping open the option of eventually breaking with e4-e5 or f4-f5. Perhaps 11.b3 is a better first move to slow down a5-a4? Perhaps black can also consider ideas with ...Ng4.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;12.Bf3 kind of feels like a wasted move at the moment but I felt it would eventually play a role in supporting a knight on d5, perhaps 12.h3 is more straightforward in this position.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I felt happy with 14.h3, considering Nd5 next.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I instantly felt that my opponent made quite an error with 15...e5.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;17.Qxd6 looked safe, but perhaps I was better off with 18.Qxf4 or 19.Qxf4 rather than 19.Bxf4?!, allowing 19...Qb6+.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I didn't like 20.Kh1 Rad8 21.Qe7 Rfe8 when I have too much trouble hanging on to the b4 pawn and have to resort to Qc5, so I just played 20.Qc5 right away.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;After 22.Nd5 I felt I still had a nice initiative and I really don't understand where I could've improved between now and 29...Rxg4. Maybe I could slow down and not allow 24...Bd4+? And after 26.Bg4 Nxc5 I really felt that I was losing grip.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I was a bit low on time and didn't see much better than 29.Bxc5.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In hindsight, perhaps I should've been a little more patient than 33.Rb1 and try slowly improving my position, perhaps it's still roughly equal though.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;My opponent generously offered a draw after 42...Be3+ but I felt he was the one who could play on.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, please no computer analysis unless it's absolutely vital to explaining something. Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13861" LastActivityDate="2019-12-14T22:44:05.923" Title="Why couldn't I win this Maroczy Bind (vs 2000)?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21848" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21839" CreationDate="2018-06-20T23:17:55.030" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://sites.google.com/site/gaviotachessengine/Home/endgame-tablebases-1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://sites.google.com/site/gaviotachessengine/Home/endgame-tablebases-1&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;This tablebase was installed with arena 3.5.1&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://contentdb.emule-project.net/view.php?pid=1629&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://contentdb.emule-project.net/view.php?pid=1629&lt;/a&gt; has Nalimov 5-man tablebases separated into the various 4-man configurations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://kirill-kryukov.com/chess/tablebases-online/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://kirill-kryukov.com/chess/tablebases-online/&lt;/a&gt; has online databases, but you must install eMule to download. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12449" LastActivityDate="2018-06-20T23:17:55.030" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21849" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21844" CreationDate="2018-06-21T02:31:58.490" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Generating high volume of data directly in an interpreting Python environment is a bad idea. Furthermore, the &lt;code&gt;python-chess&lt;/code&gt; package is not made for high performance; the package is not a wrapper for native C/C++.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to generate hundreds and thousands of games quickly, you don't have any reason for avoiding native coding such as C++. Take the Stockfish code base, modify it for making games. That was what the &lt;code&gt;Leela&lt;/code&gt; project had done, and it worked!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please consider going into C++. Mutlit-threading if you haven't done it already.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2018-06-21T02:31:58.490" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21850" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-06-21T06:31:52.300" Score="3" ViewCount="1930" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am at the age of 32 and my current rating is 1600. Is it too late to be professional in chess? I love chess from my whole heart, what should I do?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16792" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2018-06-21T13:53:23.993" LastActivityDate="2018-06-24T03:36:30.837" Title="Am I too late to be a professional in chess?" Tags="&lt;careers&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2018-06-24T12:25:37.627" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21851" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21850" CreationDate="2018-06-21T06:49:38.993" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you mean &quot;professional&quot; as &quot;making a living&quot; (earning money) -- your chances are quite slim. You need to hold a title (GM, IM, WM, CM, etc) to play money-earning tournaments or to be considered as a professional chess coach.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Besides that, since the invention of the chess computers, the chess (as a game) is currently in decline, less interest from the people, less money involved, etc. You'll be fighting for your chance with the already established people and there are just too many of them to fill the available spots.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What should you do? -- Just have fun. Learn to play better, play with people, enjoy chess as much as you can. It's just a game after all =)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15296" LastActivityDate="2018-06-21T06:49:38.993" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21852" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21850" CreationDate="2018-06-21T07:15:21.630" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Assuming you want to be paid enough to live I am afraid it IS too late. Younger minds are easier to be taught. You develop much faster when you're younger. But hey, that's a good news! Professional chess players spent long years, lots of money for coaches, tournaments etc. Now, 99% of them earn pennies - how frustrating!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a very brutal truth, chess is a beautiful game that requires a lot of work, austerity, time and in return there's... the satisfaction. I am very happy that I got to know chess and dedicated my young years to it. Chess taught me really a lot. But I would advice against dedicating the whole life (professional). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, if you want to make money with chess, in my humble opinion, the best way is to teach kids - it doesn't require that much chess skill, rather more of a pedagogical attitude. I am pretty sure you are able to do that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3895" LastActivityDate="2018-06-21T07:15:21.630" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21854" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-06-21T15:30:59.457" Score="1" ViewCount="196" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am working on a statistical chess project that needs to evaluate many (about 20-30) different positions per turn. They do not need to be deep but fast.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a possibility to use engines (stockfish is preferred because I am familiar with its evaluation system) that receives a fen as an input and gives me a fast evaluation of the position (probably with a given deepness, e.g 10) as output.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It should run in a web browser. So I assume the &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;official Stockfish&lt;/a&gt; is not suitable, because it is written in C++.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I found &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/nmrugg/stockfish.js/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/exoticorn/stockfish-js&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt;, but there is no hint how to use them, so I would appreciate for some hints if I should use them. Does somebody has experience with this implementations? Could you advise me something else?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13744" LastActivityDate="2018-06-21T16:04:39.303" Title="Is there a way to get MANY and FAST (but not deep) position evaluations in javascript?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;programming&gt;&lt;evaluation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21855" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21854" CreationDate="2018-06-21T16:04:39.303" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Stockfish JS is a Javascript port of the Stockfish engine. It should be useful for your project. You might want to learn the UCI protocol.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hint:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Use Stockfish JS. Consider:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Send MultiPV for a position. You will get an evaluation for the moves.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;OR &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;For n legal moves, play them one by one. Ask Stockfish for an evaluation on each of those possibilities.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The second approach is slower but more accurate. If you just want shallow search, try the first one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you could multithread, do it. If you could run positions independently, do it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2018-06-21T16:04:39.303" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21856" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21850" CreationDate="2018-06-21T16:14:50.043" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Most chess &quot;professionals&quot; teach.  You might be qualified to teach kids the rules.  There are plenty of bad chess players that make a living teaching kids.  So, if you go that route you can work on your game and scrape a living teaching.  And maybe one day you might actually be qualified to teach, but you are unlikely to even make master.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2018-06-21T16:14:50.043" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21858" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21847" CreationDate="2018-06-21T17:50:57.560" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You couldn't win mostly due to the mistake on move 19, but you still had chances.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;I played 11.f4 with the intention of maintaining control over e5 and keeping open the option of eventually breaking with e4-e5 or&#xA;  f4-f5:&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That statement is not enough of a plan, and your following moves don't support either idea.  That pawn cannot move backwards and you might wish it were on f3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;12.Bf3, perhaps 12.h3&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Again you are not playing with any plan, but Bf3 supports e4 and is probably a better square for the Bishop&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;I felt happy with 14.h3&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why? How does 14.h3 help your position?  I can't help thinking there is something wrong with your position.  Your rooks aren't connected and the long dark-square diagonal is loose, but I don't know that Black can take advantage of that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;error with 15...e5.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes that is dubious, and I think Black could have improved his rooks before trading knights in the center.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;17.Qxd6 looked safe, but perhaps I was better off with 18.Qxf4 or 19.Qxf4 rather than 19.Bxf4?!, allowing 19...Qb6+.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or 19.Qd8, which looks to give you a big advantage!  19...Rfxd8 20.Bxf4 Rd4?! 21.Ne2 +/-&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;After 22.Nd5 I really don't understand where I could've improved&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well, what did 26.Bg4 achieve but to weaken your e-pawn?  How about, 26.Rcd1 Bxc5 27.Bc7 Ra4 28.Bg4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;33.Rb1&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why help Blacks rook get in the game?  Also, every pawn trade makes it harder to win the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2018-06-21T17:50:57.560" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21859" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21847" CreationDate="2018-06-21T17:51:34.280" Score="-1" Body="&lt;ol start=&quot;27&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;e5! Bxe5 28. Ne7+! should do it :)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: I am wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16768" LastEditorUserId="16768" LastEditDate="2018-06-21T18:41:44.213" LastActivityDate="2018-06-21T18:41:44.213" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21860" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20036" CreationDate="2018-06-21T19:05:57.570" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This book lists blitz/rapid games won by a human against Stockfish:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/B0768G8R2C&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.amazon.com/Human-Versus-Machine-Stockfish-Komodo-ebook/dp/B0768G8R2C/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;My winning games against Stockfish and Komodo. This is for real. I&#xA;  have played over 50 thousand engine games, of which more than 10&#xA;  thousand against Stockfish, and a large number against Komodo, so I&#xA;  have my fair share of wins. Read the book to learn what openings are&#xA;  suitable to handle the machines, how to impose your style of play, and&#xA;  how to approach the game in a tactically relevant way. The games are&#xA;  amply commented and diagrammed. You thought competition between humans&#xA;  and machines has already ended? Not at all, it has just started!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3456" LastActivityDate="2018-06-21T19:05:57.570" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21861" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19793" CreationDate="2018-06-21T19:29:05.400" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The following variation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 c5 2.Nc3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Qxd4 Nc6 5.Qd2!? Nf6 6.b3!?&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Was recently introduced by Carlsen in &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1918363&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Carlsen - Wojtaszek, Gashimov Memorial april 2018&lt;/a&gt;. It's currently becoming popular with other grandmasters and &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chesspublishing.com/content/5/index.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess Publishing has started referring to it as the Carlsen Variation&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it turns out to be more than a fad for this season, I think that name will stick. Nobody played it before and the world champion introduced it to win a game in a top tournament.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2018-06-21T19:29:05.400" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21862" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21868" CreationDate="2018-06-21T21:08:00.310" Score="5" ViewCount="425" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to an engine, a mate in X moves = +infinity, since it is a forced win for it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also according to an engine, a mate in X+Y moves = +infinity, since it's a forced win (just more moves, but an engine doesn't care about this).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Due to the pruning in the minimax algorithm, if the engine first examines the &quot;mate in X+Y moves&quot; branch, it will see it's a forced win and then prune all the other branches.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Due to this pruning, it wouldn't examine the mate in X moves branch.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, engines like Stockfish always rank a mate in X moves above a mate in X+Y moves. I refuse to believe these engines &lt;em&gt;always&lt;/em&gt; know intuitively which branch to look at first (if this was the case, then the engines would first look at the mate in X moves branch first, and then prune the rest, which would make sense).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Given this, how do engines always rank a forced win/mate in X above a forced  win/mate in X+Y, if they sometimes look at the latter first?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2018-06-22T17:06:13.807" Title="How are chess engines able to rank a Mate in X above a Mate in X+Y?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;evaluation&gt;&lt;calculation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21863" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21850" CreationDate="2018-06-21T22:33:01.363" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sorry to put this bluntly, but you have absolutely no chance whatsoever of becoming a professional &lt;strong&gt;player&lt;/strong&gt; if you are rated only 1600 at age 32.  This is not a realistic ambition.  People improving from 1600 to grandmaster level in their 30s and beyond is something that simply never happens.  It's very rare to reach grandmaster level if you are only 1600 at the age of 18, never mind 32.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16679" LastActivityDate="2018-06-21T22:33:01.363" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21865" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21867" CreationDate="2018-06-22T11:26:58.097" Score="10" ViewCount="2079" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/NYgRk.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/NYgRk.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is not bishop to e2 better? Why does the kingside has to be weakened like this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks everyone for your answers. You all argue that the knight must remain on f4 so h4 prevents kicking it out. However, I just found another game in which h4 is played and this time there is no keeping the knight on f4. Could someone tell me what else happens here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/p9LyO.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/p9LyO.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16771" LastEditorUserId="16771" LastEditDate="2018-06-23T12:54:57.543" LastActivityDate="2018-08-27T18:44:12.790" Title="Why h4 is the best move here?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21866" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21865" CreationDate="2018-06-22T11:36:50.400" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;With h4 you prevent g5, which would kick your knight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13025" LastActivityDate="2018-06-22T11:36:50.400" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21867" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21865" CreationDate="2018-06-22T16:54:16.570" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;You're trying to analyze the very equal position with no significant tactical potential. Depending on minor tweaks of your engine settings, you may get a few &quot;good&quot; moves, including &lt;code&gt;Be2&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;Ba3&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;c5&lt;/code&gt; -- all approximately equal. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Computers at lichess have limited resources, hence they spot only obvious stuff, and have a limited precision when evaluating moves. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you move &lt;code&gt;h4&lt;/code&gt; -- you're down about 0.1 pawn, I would not lose a sleep about that, &lt;code&gt;Be2&lt;/code&gt; is good enough and you should not worry what stupid engine says =)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Disclosure&lt;/strong&gt;: I'm actually running one of the lichess analysis boxes, so I took a deep dive into the details. Here's what I found:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;From your screen shot, you're running analysis on your local iPad, which is slow and may take some time to arrive to the good result. It would be much preferable to run the server side analysis, much faster and more precise.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I have found the game in question among your games and analysed it using various engines available. Most of the engines recommend &lt;code&gt;c5&lt;/code&gt; as the best continuation for White. However, for the lichess analysis we use a very conservative settings of Stockfish (&quot;Analysis Contempt&quot; is turned Off), this changes the focus from the active attacking moves to the &quot;safe&quot; defensive ones. And &lt;code&gt;h4&lt;/code&gt; is one of those nice safe moves.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As I have said earlier, it all depends on the minor tweaks of the engine parameters, the score difference is negligible and &lt;code&gt;h4&lt;/code&gt; is no better and no worse than a few other moves -- play what you like and don't worry about what computer says.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Answering the second part of your question, here's my analysis:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Hunta.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Hunta.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;Bd3&lt;/code&gt; seems to be &quot;the best&quot;, with &lt;code&gt;h4&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;Be3&lt;/code&gt; sharing the second place. Actually, while analysis was running, 4 or 5 top pretenders constantly swapped their places, sometimes &lt;code&gt;h4&lt;/code&gt; was on the top. Probably, if I run the analysis deeper, there will be a few moments when any of the top 5 moves will be declared &quot;the best&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All in all, the analysis is not exhaustive, and it does not guarantee to give you the &quot;absolute best move&quot;. The main purpose of the analysis was to spot your mistakes (8. h3? was clearly a mistake, losing 0.5 pawn), and propose something better, not necessarily the best.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's the analysis @ depth 24, &lt;code&gt;h4&lt;/code&gt; is way below.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/2Ywn2.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/2Ywn2.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15296" LastEditorUserId="15296" LastEditDate="2018-06-23T15:56:22.943" LastActivityDate="2018-06-23T15:56:22.943" CommentCount="14" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21868" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21862" CreationDate="2018-06-22T17:06:13.807" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Engines don't use &quot;infinity&quot;, usually they provide the value of position in centi-pawns, a queen will cost about 1000 centi-pawns and the price of the king is something about 30000 centi-pawns. When you are close to the mate, you get the evaluation at around 30000 minus about 1 queen for every move to reach the mate, to make it reasonable to sacrifice the queen for delaying the mate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;mate in 1&quot; becomes 29000, &quot;mate in 2&quot; becomes 28000 an so on, so engine has quite clear picture which move to make.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And reaching &quot;mate in 10&quot; only makes the engine to prune all branches that evaluate in anything less valuable, so &quot;mate in 8&quot; still stays on the table.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15296" LastActivityDate="2018-06-22T17:06:13.807" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21869" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21865" CreationDate="2018-06-22T17:32:34.440" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a novice, it's hard for me to see why 1. Be2 g5 2. Nd5 is putting White at a major disadvantage, but I do feel it puts White on the defensive. Black has gained space and potentially a kingside attack, but may be overextending. White's knight is centralized, and black may trade it away leading to a centralized pawn structure for White with a potential target pawn aiding the Black's light bishop and weakening White's. White needs to protect their center while anticipating heavy kingside pressure in terms of pawn pushing backed by rooks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Compare that to 1. g5, where White seems to be restricting Black's expansion. This may allow White to develop into a stronger attack without worrying about the kingside pressure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm unsure about responding to g5 by moving the knight to the h-file. I don't see any benefits to White's position there. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16804" LastActivityDate="2018-06-22T17:32:34.440" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21870" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4105" CreationDate="2018-06-22T21:16:32.490" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;A weak square is a square that can no longer be protected by one of your pawns, or more generally, a square that can no longer easily be protected by one of your pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ZSVlU.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ZSVlU.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this example, the highlighted d5 square is weak for Black because they will never be able to control it with one of their pawns (this is actually a familiar sicilian pawn structure)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The concepts of weak squares are useful even to World Champions. In the following position, Botvinnik managed to exploit his opponent's weak squares in a few moves only:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/6PUCy.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/6PUCy.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I describe how in this explanatory video about weak squares: &lt;a href=&quot;https://youtu.be/AZG4PU_ejK0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://youtu.be/AZG4PU_ejK0&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2076" LastActivityDate="2018-06-22T21:16:32.490" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21871" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21865" CreationDate="2018-06-22T22:45:12.053" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;As mentioned, it's all about keeping the Knight on f4.  That outpost needs to be maintained and ...g5 is stopped by h4! Yes, g4 is weakened but to quote Bobby: &quot;You have to give up squares to get squares&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also note that if Black plays ...h6 hoping to play ...g5 you can play h5 and that knight is not going anywhere.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Piece activity can be more important that weak squares or even weakened structures.  You can go over the Kasparov - Short world championship match an see how Short took on doubled pawns, etc. but was compensated by good pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2018-06-22T22:45:12.053" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21872" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21839" CreationDate="2018-06-23T02:51:03.470" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cruxis.com/chess/manual/end_game_table_base_support.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.cruxis.com/chess/manual/end_game_table_base_support.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is from the developers of Houdini's site.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14760" LastActivityDate="2018-06-23T02:51:03.470" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21873" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21874" CreationDate="2018-06-23T14:45:46.383" Score="2" ViewCount="242" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[STARTPLY &quot;8&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 Nc6 4. c3 Nf6 5. Bg5 h6 6. Bxf6 gxf6 7. Bb5 a6 8. Ba4 b5 9. Bb3 a5 10. O-O b4 11. a3 bxc3 12. Nxc3 exd4 13. Nxd4 Ne5 14. Re1 h5 15. h3 d5 16. Nxd5 f5 17. f3 Bc5 18. Ba4+ Bd7 19. Bxd7+ Qxd7 20. Nf6+ Kd8 21. Nxd7 Kxd7 22. Qc1 Bxd4+ 23. Kh2 Bf2 24. Rd1+ Ke7 25. Qxc7+ Ke6 26. Rd6# 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I do not clearly understand the suggestion by Lichess computer analysis. What is the problem with the move 5.Bg5 if there is one ? Lichess computer analysis suggests me that 5.Bb5 was better, but my idea behind Bg5 was to defend e4 pawn and if you go for Bb5 you sacrifice the pawn and I do not see what compensation I have for it (I played for white). Thanks in advance. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15592" LastEditorUserId="13544" LastEditDate="2018-06-25T09:46:59.793" LastActivityDate="2018-06-25T09:46:59.793" Title="Is Bg5 a mistake or inaccuracy there?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;philidor-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21874" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21873" CreationDate="2018-06-23T14:57:08.187" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both 5.Bb5 and 5.Bg5 are reasonable here. Lichess wasn't running multiple move analysis, but it didn't mean the move 5.Bg5 was bad.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5.Bb5 doesn't lose a pawn as 5...Nxe4 6.dxe5 dxe5 7.Qxd8+ Kxd8 8.Bxc6 bxc6 9.Nxe5 is better for White.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2018-06-23T14:57:08.187" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21875" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18583" CreationDate="2018-06-23T16:42:52.683" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Have you taken a look at &lt;a href=&quot;http://lichess.org&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;lichess.org&lt;/a&gt; ? It has a solid web interface, Android/iPhone applications, plenty of chess games/variants, analysis move, there are a few trainings, starting from the basics and ending with pretty advanced stuff, finally there are puzzles taken from the actual chess games, where you have to win the game someone won (or lost) before.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15296" LastActivityDate="2018-06-23T16:42:52.683" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21876" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21850" CreationDate="2018-06-23T18:25:30.600" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm kind of with the others that have stated it is too late.  Only because of the examples of the top players and how basic research shows how long they've been playing and the talent they've shown their entire career in chess.  They are the examples of what it takes so to put it bluntly, if you aren't on that same path then there's a strong chance that when you are in your 30's and your not there, may not happen.  Becoming a teacher of chess is probably more obtainable goal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Think of how the game has changed.  You have to be prepared for the increased difficulty in the game due to chess engines and AI.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are some areas I think are good to consider for your own life and your ability to accomplish them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Become a FIDE member&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Score the required norms in FIDE registered tournaments and the norms can be defined by the specific tournament so you may not know what that &quot;norm&quot; is until the tournament.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Pay for the expenses of those tournaments.  Entry fees, lodging, food, transportation.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Reach the 2500 rating to become a grand master.  The money that takes to jump from where you are at, my prediction could be steep, specifically with preparation so you can beat the competition out there because you are not the only one dreaming to become a professional chess player.  A 900 rating jump is not a mole hill to climb in the world of chess. The complete expenses of the tournaments to get your rating up.  The chances are low that you going to get much return financially in the process in the beginning.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The personal time that is needed to invest into getting to that point, do you have?  Do you have obligations in your life that are more important than chess?  Most people do.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not meaning to squash your dreams but there's quite a bit to take in to become a professional chess player.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's no shame in being in your 30's and a rating of 1600 or teaching chess to people.  You never know, you could be a part of the process for someone else to be one of the top ranked players.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However if you choose to seek becoming a professional player I do hope the best.  Here's a link to FIDE's for Title Regulation effective July 1st of 2017 to give you more detailed answers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=198&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=198&amp;amp;view=article&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14760" LastActivityDate="2018-06-23T18:25:30.600" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21877" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18630" CreationDate="2018-06-23T18:52:52.277" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Could not be any simpler, run &lt;code&gt;stockfish&lt;/code&gt;, turn on &lt;code&gt;MultiPV&lt;/code&gt; option to view all variation, not the only one, then run analysis and you'll get your output, for example for all mate-in-2 I could do this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;$ stockfish&#xA;Stockfish 09-06-13 64bit by Tord Romstad, Marco Costalba and Joona Kiiski&#xA;uci&#xA;id name Stockfish 09-06-13 64bit&#xA;id author Tord Romstad, Marco Costalba and Joona Kiiski&#xA;&#xA;option name Use Debug Log type check default false&#xA;option name Use Search Log type check default false&#xA;option name Search Log Filename type string default SearchLog.txt&#xA;option name Book File type string default book.bin&#xA;option name Best Book Move type check default false&#xA;option name Contempt Factor type spin default 0 min -50 max 50&#xA;option name Mobility (Middle Game) type spin default 100 min 0 max 200&#xA;option name Mobility (Endgame) type spin default 100 min 0 max 200&#xA;option name Passed Pawns (Middle Game) type spin default 100 min 0 max 200&#xA;option name Passed Pawns (Endgame) type spin default 100 min 0 max 200&#xA;option name Space type spin default 100 min 0 max 200&#xA;option name Aggressiveness type spin default 100 min 0 max 200&#xA;option name Cowardice type spin default 100 min 0 max 200&#xA;option name Min Split Depth type spin default 7 min 4 max 12&#xA;option name Max Threads per Split Point type spin default 5 min 4 max 8&#xA;option name Threads type spin default 8 min 1 max 64&#xA;option name Use Sleeping Threads type check default true&#xA;option name Hash type spin default 32 min 1 max 8192&#xA;option name Clear Hash type button&#xA;option name Ponder type check default true&#xA;option name OwnBook type check default false&#xA;option name MultiPV type spin default 1 min 1 max 500&#xA;option name Skill Level type spin default 20 min 0 max 20&#xA;option name Emergency Move Horizon type spin default 40 min 0 max 50&#xA;option name Emergency Base Time type spin default 200 min 0 max 30000&#xA;option name Emergency Move Time type spin default 70 min 0 max 5000&#xA;option name Minimum Thinking Time type spin default 20 min 0 max 5000&#xA;option name Slow Mover type spin default 100 min 10 max 1000&#xA;option name UCI_Chess960 type check default false&#xA;option name UCI_AnalyseMode type check default false&#xA;uciok&#xA;position fen 8/k1K5/2R5/8/8/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&#xA;setoption name MultiPV value 100&#xA;go depth 10&#xA;info depth 1 seldepth 3 score cp 8313 nodes 311 nps 155500 time 2 multipv 1 pv c6c1&#xA;info depth 1 seldepth 3 score cp 8313 nodes 311 nps 155500 time 2 multipv 2 pv c6c2&#xA;info depth 1 seldepth 3 score cp 8313 nodes 311 nps 155500 time 2 multipv 3 pv c6c3&#xA;info depth 1 seldepth 3 score cp 8313 nodes 311 nps 155500 time 2 multipv 4 pv c6c4&#xA;info depth 1 seldepth 3 score cp 8313 nodes 311 nps 155500 time 2 multipv 5 pv c6c5&#xA;info depth 1 seldepth 3 score cp 8313 nodes 311 nps 155500 time 2 multipv 6 pv c6b6&#xA;info depth 1 seldepth 3 score cp 8313 nodes 311 nps 155500 time 2 multipv 7 pv c6d6&#xA;info depth 1 seldepth 3 score cp 8313 nodes 311 nps 155500 time 2 multipv 8 pv c6e6&#xA;info depth 1 seldepth 3 score cp 8313 nodes 311 nps 155500 time 2 multipv 9 pv c6f6&#xA;info depth 1 seldepth 3 score cp 8313 nodes 311 nps 155500 time 2 multipv 10 pv c6g6&#xA;info depth 1 seldepth 3 score cp 8313 nodes 311 nps 155500 time 2 multipv 11 pv c6h6&#xA;info depth 1 seldepth 3 score cp 8313 nodes 311 nps 155500 time 2 multipv 12 pv c7c8&#xA;info depth 1 seldepth 3 score cp 8303 nodes 311 nps 155500 time 2 multipv 13 pv c7d6&#xA;info depth 1 seldepth 3 score cp 8303 nodes 311 nps 155500 time 2 multipv 14 pv c7d7&#xA;info depth 1 seldepth 3 score cp 8303 nodes 311 nps 155500 time 2 multipv 15 pv c7d8&#xA;info depth 1 seldepth 3 score cp 0 nodes 311 nps 155500 time 2 multipv 16 pv c6a6 a7a6&#xA;info depth 2 seldepth 3 score mate 2 nodes 989 nps 494500 time 2 multipv 1 pv c6b6 a7a8 b6a6&#xA;info depth 2 seldepth 3 score mate 2 nodes 989 nps 494500 time 2 multipv 2 pv c6d6 a7a8 d6a6&#xA;info depth 2 seldepth 3 score mate 2 nodes 989 nps 494500 time 2 multipv 3 pv c6e6 a7a8 e6a6&#xA;info depth 2 seldepth 3 score mate 2 nodes 989 nps 494500 time 2 multipv 4 pv c6f6 a7a8 f6a6&#xA;info depth 2 seldepth 3 score mate 2 nodes 989 nps 494500 time 2 multipv 5 pv c6g6 a7a8 g6a6&#xA;info depth 2 seldepth 3 score mate 2 nodes 989 nps 494500 time 2 multipv 6 pv c6h6 a7a8 h6a6&#xA;info depth 2 seldepth 3 score mate 2 nodes 989 nps 494500 time 2 multipv 7 pv c7c8 a7a8 c6a6&#xA;info depth 2 seldepth 3 score cp 8308 nodes 989 nps 494500 time 2 multipv 8 pv c6c1 a7a6&#xA;info depth 2 seldepth 3 score cp 8308 nodes 989 nps 494500 time 2 multipv 9 pv c6c2 a7a6&#xA;info depth 2 seldepth 3 score cp 8308 nodes 989 nps 494500 time 2 multipv 10 pv c6c3 a7a6&#xA;info depth 2 seldepth 3 score cp 8308 nodes 989 nps 494500 time 2 multipv 11 pv c6c4 a7a6&#xA;info depth 2 seldepth 3 score cp 8308 nodes 989 nps 494500 time 2 multipv 12 pv c6c5 a7a6&#xA;info depth 2 seldepth 3 score cp 8303 nodes 989 nps 494500 time 2 multipv 13 pv c7d6 a7b7&#xA;info depth 2 seldepth 3 score cp 8303 nodes 989 nps 494500 time 2 multipv 14 pv c7d7 a7b7&#xA;info depth 2 seldepth 3 score cp 8303 nodes 989 nps 494500 time 2 multipv 15 pv c7d8 a7b7&#xA;info depth 2 seldepth 3 score cp 0 nodes 989 nps 494500 time 2 multipv 16 pv c6a6 a7a6&#xA;info depth 3 seldepth 4 score mate 2 nodes 1858 nps 929000 time 2 multipv 1 pv c6b6 a7a8 b6a6&#xA;info depth 3 seldepth 4 score mate 2 nodes 1858 nps 929000 time 2 multipv 2 pv c6d6 a7a8 d6a6&#xA;info depth 3 seldepth 4 score mate 2 nodes 1858 nps 929000 time 2 multipv 3 pv c6e6 a7a8 e6a6&#xA;info depth 3 seldepth 4 score mate 2 nodes 1858 nps 929000 time 2 multipv 4 pv c6f6 a7a8 f6a6&#xA;info depth 3 seldepth 4 score mate 2 nodes 1858 nps 929000 time 2 multipv 5 pv c6g6 a7a8 g6a6&#xA;info depth 3 seldepth 4 score mate 2 nodes 1858 nps 929000 time 2 multipv 6 pv c6h6 a7a8 h6a6&#xA;info depth 3 seldepth 4 score mate 2 nodes 1858 nps 929000 time 2 multipv 7 pv c7c8 a7a8 c6a6&#xA;info depth 3 seldepth 4 score cp 8308 nodes 1858 nps 929000 time 2 multipv 8 pv c6c1 a7a6 c1b1&#xA;info depth 3 seldepth 4 score cp 8308 nodes 1858 nps 929000 time 2 multipv 9 pv c6c2 a7a6 c2c1&#xA;info depth 3 seldepth 4 score cp 8308 nodes 1858 nps 929000 time 2 multipv 10 pv c6c3 a7a6 c3c1&#xA;info depth 3 seldepth 4 score cp 8308 nodes 1858 nps 929000 time 2 multipv 11 pv c6c4 a7a6 c4c1&#xA;info depth 3 seldepth 4 score cp 8308 nodes 1858 nps 929000 time 2 multipv 12 pv c6c5 a7a6 c5c1&#xA;info depth 3 seldepth 4 score cp 8303 nodes 1858 nps 929000 time 2 multipv 13 pv c7d6 a7b7 c6c1&#xA;info depth 3 seldepth 4 score cp 8303 nodes 1858 nps 929000 time 2 multipv 14 pv c7d7 a7b7 c6c1&#xA;info depth 3 seldepth 4 score cp 8303 nodes 1858 nps 929000 time 2 multipv 15 pv c7d8 a7b7 c6c1&#xA;info depth 3 seldepth 4 score cp 0 nodes 1858 nps 929000 time 2 multipv 16 pv c6a6 a7a6&#xA;info depth 4 seldepth 4 score mate 2 nodes 3184 nps 1061333 time 3 multipv 1 pv c6b6 a7a8 b6a6&#xA;info depth 4 seldepth 4 score mate 2 nodes 3184 nps 1061333 time 3 multipv 2 pv c6d6 a7a8 d6a6&#xA;info depth 4 seldepth 4 score mate 2 nodes 3184 nps 1061333 time 3 multipv 3 pv c6e6 a7a8 e6a6&#xA;info depth 4 seldepth 4 score mate 2 nodes 3184 nps 1061333 time 3 multipv 4 pv c6f6 a7a8 f6a6&#xA;info depth 4 seldepth 4 score mate 2 nodes 3184 nps 1061333 time 3 multipv 5 pv c6g6 a7a8 g6a6&#xA;info depth 4 seldepth 4 score mate 2 nodes 3184 nps 1061333 time 3 multipv 6 pv c6h6 a7a8 h6a6&#xA;info depth 4 seldepth 4 score mate 2 nodes 3184 nps 1061333 time 3 multipv 7 pv c7c8 a7a8 c6a6&#xA;info depth 4 seldepth 4 score mate 3 nodes 3184 nps 1061333 time 3 multipv 8 pv c6c1 a7a6 c1c5 a6a7 c5a5&#xA;info depth 4 seldepth 4 score mate 3 nodes 3184 nps 1061333 time 3 multipv 9 pv c6c2 a7a6 c2c5 a6a7 c5a5&#xA;info depth 4 seldepth 4 score mate 3 nodes 3184 nps 1061333 time 3 multipv 10 pv c6c3 a7a6 c3c5 a6a7 c5a5&#xA;info depth 4 seldepth 4 score mate 3 nodes 3184 nps 1061333 time 3 multipv 11 pv c6c4 a7a6 c4c5 a6a7 c5a5&#xA;info depth 4 seldepth 4 score mate 3 nodes 3184 nps 1061333 time 3 multipv 12 pv c6c5 a7a6 c5d5 a6a7 d5a5&#xA;info depth 4 seldepth 4 score cp 8303 nodes 3184 nps 1061333 time 3 multipv 13 pv c7d6 a7b7 d6c5 b7b8&#xA;info depth 4 seldepth 4 score cp 8303 nodes 3184 nps 1061333 time 3 multipv 14 pv c7d7 a7b7 c6d6 b7a7&#xA;info depth 4 seldepth 4 score cp 8303 nodes 3184 nps 1061333 time 3 multipv 15 pv c7d8 a7b7 c6d6 b7a7&#xA;info depth 4 seldepth 4 score cp 0 nodes 3184 nps 1061333 time 3 multipv 16 pv c6a6 a7a6&#xA;info depth 5 seldepth 7 score mate 2 nodes 4801 nps 1200250 time 4 multipv 1 pv c6b6 a7a8 b6a6&#xA;info depth 5 seldepth 7 score mate 2 nodes 4801 nps 1200250 time 4 multipv 2 pv c6d6 a7a8 d6a6&#xA;info depth 5 seldepth 7 score mate 2 nodes 4801 nps 1200250 time 4 multipv 3 pv c6e6 a7a8 e6a6&#xA;info depth 5 seldepth 7 score mate 2 nodes 4801 nps 1200250 time 4 multipv 4 pv c6f6 a7a8 f6a6&#xA;info depth 5 seldepth 7 score mate 2 nodes 4801 nps 1200250 time 4 multipv 5 pv c6g6 a7a8 g6a6&#xA;info depth 5 seldepth 7 score mate 2 nodes 4801 nps 1200250 time 4 multipv 6 pv c6h6 a7a8 h6a6&#xA;info depth 5 seldepth 7 score mate 2 nodes 4801 nps 1200250 time 4 multipv 7 pv c7c8 a7a8 c6a6&#xA;info depth 5 seldepth 7 score mate 3 nodes 4801 nps 1200250 time 4 multipv 8 pv c6c1 a7a6 c1c5 a6a7 c5a5&#xA;info depth 5 seldepth 7 score mate 3 nodes 4801 nps 1200250 time 4 multipv 9 pv c6c2 a7a6 c2c5 a6a7 c5a5&#xA;info depth 5 seldepth 7 score mate 3 nodes 4801 nps 1200250 time 4 multipv 10 pv c6c3 a7a6 c3c5 a6a7 c5a5&#xA;info depth 5 seldepth 7 score mate 3 nodes 4801 nps 1200250 time 4 multipv 11 pv c6c4 a7a6 c4c5 a6a7 c5a5&#xA;info depth 5 seldepth 7 score mate 3 nodes 4801 nps 1200250 time 4 multipv 12 pv c6c5 a7a6 c5d5 a6a7 d5a5&#xA;info depth 5 seldepth 7 score cp 8313 nodes 4801 nps 1200250 time 4 multipv 13 pv c7d6 a7b7 d6c5 b7b8 c5b6&#xA;info depth 5 seldepth 7 score cp 8313 nodes 4801 nps 1200250 time 4 multipv 14 pv c7d7 a7b7 c6d6 b7b8 d6a6&#xA;info depth 5 seldepth 7 score cp 8313 nodes 4801 nps 1200250 time 4 multipv 15 pv c7d8 a7b7 c6d6 b7b8 d6a6&#xA;info depth 5 seldepth 7 score cp 0 nodes 4801 nps 1200250 time 4 multipv 16 pv c6a6 a7a6&#xA;info depth 6 seldepth 7 score mate 2 nodes 6642 nps 1660500 time 4 multipv 1 pv c6b6 a7a8 b6a6&#xA;info depth 6 seldepth 7 score mate 2 nodes 6642 nps 1660500 time 4 multipv 2 pv c6d6 a7a8 d6a6&#xA;info depth 6 seldepth 7 score mate 2 nodes 6642 nps 1660500 time 4 multipv 3 pv c6e6 a7a8 e6a6&#xA;info depth 6 seldepth 7 score mate 2 nodes 6642 nps 1660500 time 4 multipv 4 pv c6f6 a7a8 f6a6&#xA;info depth 6 seldepth 7 score mate 2 nodes 6642 nps 1660500 time 4 multipv 5 pv c6g6 a7a8 g6a6&#xA;info depth 6 seldepth 7 score mate 2 nodes 6642 nps 1660500 time 4 multipv 6 pv c6h6 a7a8 h6a6&#xA;info depth 6 seldepth 7 score mate 2 nodes 6642 nps 1660500 time 4 multipv 7 pv c7c8 a7a8 c6a6&#xA;info depth 6 seldepth 7 score mate 3 nodes 6642 nps 1660500 time 4 multipv 8 pv c6c1 a7a6 c1c5 a6a7 c5a5&#xA;info depth 6 seldepth 7 score mate 3 nodes 6642 nps 1660500 time 4 multipv 9 pv c6c2 a7a6 c2c5 a6a7 c5a5&#xA;info depth 6 seldepth 7 score mate 3 nodes 6642 nps 1660500 time 4 multipv 10 pv c6c3 a7a6 c3c5 a6a7 c5a5&#xA;info depth 6 seldepth 7 score mate 3 nodes 6642 nps 1660500 time 4 multipv 11 pv c6c4 a7a6 c4c5 a6a7 c5a5&#xA;info depth 6 seldepth 7 score mate 3 nodes 6642 nps 1660500 time 4 multipv 12 pv c6c5 a7a6 c5d5 a6a7 d5a5&#xA;info depth 6 seldepth 7 score cp 8308 nodes 6642 nps 1660500 time 4 multipv 13 pv c7d6 a7b7 d6c5 b7a7 c6b6 a7a8&#xA;info depth 6 seldepth 7 score cp 8308 nodes 6642 nps 1660500 time 4 multipv 14 pv c7d7 a7b7 c6d6 b7b8 d7c6 b8c8&#xA;info depth 6 seldepth 7 score cp 8308 nodes 6642 nps 1660500 time 4 multipv 15 pv c7d8 a7b7 c6d6 b7b8 d6d7 b8a8&#xA;info depth 6 seldepth 7 score cp 0 nodes 6642 nps 1660500 time 4 multipv 16 pv c6a6 a7a6&#xA;info depth 7 seldepth 8 score mate 2 nodes 9342 nps 1557000 time 6 multipv 1 pv c6b6 a7a8 b6a6&#xA;info depth 7 seldepth 8 score mate 2 nodes 9342 nps 1557000 time 6 multipv 2 pv c6d6 a7a8 d6a6&#xA;info depth 7 seldepth 8 score mate 2 nodes 9342 nps 1557000 time 6 multipv 3 pv c6e6 a7a8 e6a6&#xA;info depth 7 seldepth 8 score mate 2 nodes 9342 nps 1557000 time 6 multipv 4 pv c6f6 a7a8 f6a6&#xA;info depth 7 seldepth 8 score mate 2 nodes 9342 nps 1557000 time 6 multipv 5 pv c6g6 a7a8 g6a6&#xA;info depth 7 seldepth 8 score mate 2 nodes 9342 nps 1557000 time 6 multipv 6 pv c6h6 a7a8 h6a6&#xA;info depth 7 seldepth 8 score mate 2 nodes 9342 nps 1557000 time 6 multipv 7 pv c7c8 a7a8 c6a6&#xA;info depth 7 seldepth 8 score mate 3 nodes 9342 nps 1557000 time 6 multipv 8 pv c6c1 a7a6 c1c5 a6a7 c5a5&#xA;info depth 7 seldepth 8 score mate 3 nodes 9342 nps 1557000 time 6 multipv 9 pv c6c2 a7a6 c2c5 a6a7 c5a5&#xA;info depth 7 seldepth 8 score mate 3 nodes 9342 nps 1557000 time 6 multipv 10 pv c6c3 a7a6 c3c5 a6a7 c5a5&#xA;info depth 7 seldepth 8 score mate 3 nodes 9342 nps 1557000 time 6 multipv 11 pv c6c4 a7a6 c4c5 a6a7 c5a5&#xA;info depth 7 seldepth 8 score mate 3 nodes 9342 nps 1557000 time 6 multipv 12 pv c6c5 a7a6 c5d5 a6a7 d5a5&#xA;info depth 7 seldepth 8 score cp 8318 nodes 9342 nps 1557000 time 6 multipv 13 pv c7d8 a7b7 c6d6 b7b8 d6d7 b8a8 d8c7&#xA;info depth 7 seldepth 8 score cp 8313 nodes 9342 nps 1557000 time 6 multipv 14 pv c7d6 a7b7 d6c5 b7a8 c5b6 a8b8 c6c7&#xA;info depth 7 seldepth 8 score cp 8313 nodes 9342 nps 1557000 time 6 multipv 15 pv c7d7 a7b7 c6d6 b7b8 d6b6 b8a8 d7c7 a8a7&#xA;info depth 7 seldepth 8 score cp 0 nodes 9342 nps 1557000 time 6 multipv 16 pv c6a6 a7a6&#xA;info depth 8 seldepth 11 score mate 2 nodes 11643 nps 1455375 time 8 multipv 1 pv c6b6 a7a8 b6a6&#xA;info depth 8 seldepth 11 score mate 2 nodes 11643 nps 1455375 time 8 multipv 2 pv c6d6 a7a8 d6a6&#xA;info depth 8 seldepth 11 score mate 2 nodes 11643 nps 1455375 time 8 multipv 3 pv c6e6 a7a8 e6a6&#xA;info depth 8 seldepth 11 score mate 2 nodes 11643 nps 1455375 time 8 multipv 4 pv c6f6 a7a8 f6a6&#xA;info depth 8 seldepth 11 score mate 2 nodes 11643 nps 1455375 time 8 multipv 5 pv c6g6 a7a8 g6a6&#xA;info depth 8 seldepth 11 score mate 2 nodes 11643 nps 1455375 time 8 multipv 6 pv c6h6 a7a8 h6a6&#xA;info depth 8 seldepth 11 score mate 2 nodes 11643 nps 1455375 time 8 multipv 7 pv c7c8 a7a8 c6a6&#xA;info depth 8 seldepth 11 score mate 3 nodes 11643 nps 1455375 time 8 multipv 8 pv c6c1 a7a6 c1c5 a6a7 c5a5&#xA;info depth 8 seldepth 11 score mate 3 nodes 11643 nps 1455375 time 8 multipv 9 pv c6c2 a7a6 c2c5 a6a7 c5a5&#xA;info depth 8 seldepth 11 score mate 3 nodes 11643 nps 1455375 time 8 multipv 10 pv c6c3 a7a6 c3c5 a6a7 c5a5&#xA;info depth 8 seldepth 11 score mate 3 nodes 11643 nps 1455375 time 8 multipv 11 pv c6c4 a7a6 c4c5 a6a7 c5a5&#xA;info depth 8 seldepth 11 score mate 3 nodes 11643 nps 1455375 time 8 multipv 12 pv c6c5 a7a6 c5d5 a6a7 d5a5&#xA;info depth 8 seldepth 11 score mate 6 nodes 11643 nps 1455375 time 8 multipv 13 pv c7d8 a7b7 c6d6 b7b8 d6b6 b8a8 d8c8 a8a7 c8c7 a7a8 b6a6&#xA;info depth 8 seldepth 11 score mate 6 nodes 11643 nps 1455375 time 8 multipv 14 pv c7d6 a7b7 d6c5 b7a7 c6c7 a7a8 c5b5 a8b8 b5b6 b8a8 c7c8&#xA;info depth 8 seldepth 11 score mate 6 nodes 11643 nps 1455375 time 8 multipv 15 pv c7d7 a7b7 c6d6 b7b8 d6b6 b8a8 d7c7 a8a7 b6d6 a7a8 d6a6&#xA;info depth 8 seldepth 11 score cp 0 nodes 11643 nps 1455375 time 8 multipv 16 pv c6a6 a7a6&#xA;info depth 9 seldepth 11 score mate 2 nodes 13599 nps 1359900 time 10 multipv 1 pv c6b6 a7a8 b6a6&#xA;info depth 9 seldepth 11 score mate 2 nodes 13599 nps 1359900 time 10 multipv 2 pv c6d6 a7a8 d6a6&#xA;info depth 9 seldepth 11 score mate 2 nodes 13599 nps 1359900 time 10 multipv 3 pv c6e6 a7a8 e6a6&#xA;info depth 9 seldepth 11 score mate 2 nodes 13599 nps 1359900 time 10 multipv 4 pv c6f6 a7a8 f6a6&#xA;info depth 9 seldepth 11 score mate 2 nodes 13599 nps 1359900 time 10 multipv 5 pv c6g6 a7a8 g6a6&#xA;info depth 9 seldepth 11 score mate 2 nodes 13599 nps 1359900 time 10 multipv 6 pv c6h6 a7a8 h6a6&#xA;info depth 9 seldepth 11 score mate 2 nodes 13599 nps 1359900 time 10 multipv 7 pv c7c8 a7a8 c6a6&#xA;info depth 9 seldepth 11 score mate 3 nodes 13599 nps 1359900 time 10 multipv 8 pv c6c1 a7a6 c1c5 a6a7 c5a5&#xA;info depth 9 seldepth 11 score mate 3 nodes 13599 nps 1359900 time 10 multipv 9 pv c6c2 a7a6 c2c5 a6a7 c5a5&#xA;info depth 9 seldepth 11 score mate 3 nodes 13599 nps 1359900 time 10 multipv 10 pv c6c3 a7a6 c3c5 a6a7 c5a5&#xA;info depth 9 seldepth 11 score mate 3 nodes 13599 nps 1359900 time 10 multipv 11 pv c6c4 a7a6 c4c5 a6a7 c5a5&#xA;info depth 9 seldepth 11 score mate 3 nodes 13599 nps 1359900 time 10 multipv 12 pv c6c5 a7a6 c5d5 a6a7 d5a5&#xA;info depth 9 seldepth 11 score mate 6 nodes 13599 nps 1359900 time 10 multipv 13 pv c7d8 a7b7 c6d6 b7b8 d6b6 b8a8 d8c8 a8a7 c8c7 a7a8 b6a6&#xA;info depth 9 seldepth 11 score mate 6 nodes 13599 nps 1359900 time 10 multipv 14 pv c7d6 a7b7 d6c5 b7a7 c6c7 a7a8 c5b5 a8b8 b5b6 b8a8 c7c8&#xA;info depth 9 seldepth 11 score mate 6 nodes 13599 nps 1359900 time 10 multipv 15 pv c7d7 a7b7 c6d6 b7b8 d6b6 b8a8 d7c7 a8a7 b6d6 a7a8 d6a6&#xA;info depth 9 seldepth 11 score cp 0 nodes 13599 nps 1359900 time 10 multipv 16 pv c6a6 a7a6&#xA;info depth 10 seldepth 12 score mate 2 nodes 15888 nps 1324000 time 12 multipv 1 pv c6b6 a7a8 b6a6&#xA;info depth 10 seldepth 12 score mate 2 nodes 15888 nps 1324000 time 12 multipv 2 pv c6d6 a7a8 d6a6&#xA;info depth 10 seldepth 12 score mate 2 nodes 15888 nps 1324000 time 12 multipv 3 pv c6e6 a7a8 e6a6&#xA;info depth 10 seldepth 12 score mate 2 nodes 15888 nps 1324000 time 12 multipv 4 pv c6f6 a7a8 f6a6&#xA;info depth 10 seldepth 12 score mate 2 nodes 15888 nps 1324000 time 12 multipv 5 pv c6g6 a7a8 g6a6&#xA;info depth 10 seldepth 12 score mate 2 nodes 15888 nps 1324000 time 12 multipv 6 pv c6h6 a7a8 h6a6&#xA;info depth 10 seldepth 12 score mate 2 nodes 15888 nps 1324000 time 12 multipv 7 pv c7c8 a7a8 c6a6&#xA;info depth 10 seldepth 12 score mate 3 nodes 15888 nps 1324000 time 12 multipv 8 pv c6c1 a7a6 c1c5 a6a7 c5a5&#xA;info depth 10 seldepth 12 score mate 3 nodes 15888 nps 1324000 time 12 multipv 9 pv c6c2 a7a6 c2c5 a6a7 c5a5&#xA;info depth 10 seldepth 12 score mate 3 nodes 15888 nps 1324000 time 12 multipv 10 pv c6c3 a7a6 c3c5 a6a7 c5a5&#xA;info depth 10 seldepth 12 score mate 3 nodes 15888 nps 1324000 time 12 multipv 11 pv c6c4 a7a6 c4c5 a6a7 c5a5&#xA;info depth 10 seldepth 12 score mate 3 nodes 15888 nps 1324000 time 12 multipv 12 pv c6c5 a7a6 c5d5 a6a7 d5a5&#xA;info depth 10 seldepth 12 score mate 6 nodes 15888 nps 1324000 time 12 multipv 13 pv c7d8 a7b7 c6d6 b7b8 d6b6 b8a8 d8c8 a8a7 c8c7 a7a8 b6a6&#xA;info depth 10 seldepth 12 score mate 6 nodes 15888 nps 1324000 time 12 multipv 14 pv c7d6 a7b7 d6c5 b7a7 c6c7 a7a8 c5b5 a8b8 b5b6 b8a8 c7c8&#xA;info depth 10 seldepth 12 score mate 6 nodes 15888 nps 1324000 time 12 multipv 15 pv c7d7 a7b7 c6d6 b7b8 d6b6 b8a8 d7c7 a8a7 b6d6 a7a8 d6a6&#xA;info depth 10 seldepth 12 score cp 0 nodes 15888 nps 1324000 time 12 multipv 16 pv c6a6 a7a6&#xA;info nodes 15888 time 12&#xA;bestmove c6b6 ponder a7a8&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15296" LastActivityDate="2018-06-23T18:52:52.277" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21878" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20139" CreationDate="2018-06-23T19:10:50.873" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Stockfish version that played agaist AlphaZero was significantly compromised in several different aspects:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;There was no opening book available&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Time control was 1 minute/move, which throws out of the window various optimizations re: using more time thinking about difficult moves&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Stockfish had &lt;code&gt;threads=64&lt;/code&gt; set, but the actual hardware had only 8 CPU cores, that effectively slowed things down quite a lot&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The hardware was quite different -- an average $1k PC (Stockfish) against a bunch of specialized hardware that might cost millions and is not accessible to anyone&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;There are more, but these are main points.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Answering your question, there's no way to measure how much rating Stockfish had in a very handicapped conditions it had to run.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nonetheless, winning over Stockfish is quite an achievement, no matter how handicapped it was and how much was the difference in hardware cost.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;UPDATE: in the recent article &lt;a href=&quot;https://deepmind.com/blog/alphazero-shedding-new-light-grand-games-chess-shogi-and-go/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&quot;AlphaZero: Shedding new light on the grand games of chess, shogi and Go&quot;&lt;/a&gt; the rating for Stockfish was drawn as a line at &lt;strong&gt;3500&lt;/strong&gt;. Besides that, the article provides the new games played with a reasonable time control for SF as well as opening books.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15296" LastEditorUserId="15296" LastEditDate="2018-12-13T07:02:11.823" LastActivityDate="2018-12-13T07:02:11.823" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21879" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21840" CreationDate="2018-06-23T22:31:29.440" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Often in the Catalan rather than fighting for pawn breaks, you fight for piece activity. You want your pieces to be more active and constantly applying pressure to black while they have to passively defend. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;cxd5 does a nice job of neutering the potential of the black bishop if it decides to go to b7, since it'll just be staring at d5 all day. Also your bishop will constantly be applying pressure to blacks d5 pawn. The knight on d2 is slightly misplaced, but it can go to f3 or b3 as needed. The knight on f3 has the naturally strong e5 square. The rook heading to c1 applies powerful pressure on blacks c pawn, which became a backwards pawn after b6 cxd5 got played. If black ever gets frustrated from passivity and plays c5 to break free, you have your choice between taking and fighting against hanging pawns, or waiting and continuing to amp up pressure and seeing how black changes the pawn structure (with c4, cxd, or trying to maintain the tension). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you continued your variation 8. cxd5 exd5 9. o-o Bb7 10. Rc1 , you would reach similar positions to the ones in these example games. &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/J7zbIFSu&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://lichess.org/J7zbIFSu&lt;/a&gt; , &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/0Vx36nsY&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://lichess.org/0Vx36nsY&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you can see, these higher rated black players don't sit their passively as white pressures them with superior piece play, and instead try to generate play with c5, going for the hanging pawn structure. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should not be trying to play e4 here in most cases. Focus on the piece play, and if black goes for it, fight against the hanging pawns. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9627" LastActivityDate="2018-06-23T22:31:29.440" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21880" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21873" CreationDate="2018-06-23T22:51:34.967" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;5.Bg5 isn't that bad of a move, but it's not best because you have to give up your dark-squared bishop after 5...h6. Since some of your dark squares are weak (e.g., f4 and d4), keeping this bishop is necessary to defend the squares.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5.Bb5 is a better move because you're threatening to play 6.d5 and 6.dxe5 (these threats stop Black from taking on e4). If Black answers with 5...Bd7, you can go into this line: 6.d5 Ne7 7.Bxd7 Qxd7 8.Nbd2. Now you've got the e4-pawn protected, and have exchanged off your bad light-squared bishop for Black's good light-squared bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2018-06-23T22:51:34.967" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21882" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8348" CreationDate="2018-06-24T10:14:58.137" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chessity has been my favorite site for a couple of years now. At first I sort of dabbled with the free materials they offered, mostly theme based problems. About a year ago I read a book called &quot;Peak&quot; which opened my eyes to the realities of effective training, and eventually I became a premium member at Chessity. There are so many ways to train on their site, and they WILL take you out of your comfort zone, which is one of the prerequisites of effective training. I'm glad to say hard work and their well thought out training programs are really paying off, it's feels great to demolish people who used to give me problems. I love the site, though I don't always want to do the work. As Jan Gustaffson said, &quot;Chess is a constant struggle between my desire not to lose and my desire not to think&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16817" LastActivityDate="2018-06-24T10:14:58.137" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21883" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8348" CreationDate="2018-06-24T10:45:08.560" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Any tactics trainer will be better than none, and honestly I would not worry too much about finding the perfect solution for you. Most tactics trainers out there are pretty decent and should suit most people's needs. That being said I like the one of &lt;strong&gt;lichess&lt;/strong&gt;, for the following reasons:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;gives you problems suited to your level (adapts to your tactics rating strength)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;takes the problems from real games, which potentially could be more messy/realistic than a composed/streamlined problem&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;uses &quot;spaced repetitions&quot;, i.e. if you fail to solve a puzzle, it will present you the same puzzle again after a while&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;website works well (design/speed)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Perhaps other websites offer the same features, but since I also play games on lichess, using its tactics trainer makes most sense to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2018-06-24T10:45:08.560" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21884" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-06-24T11:29:39.427" Score="-5" ViewCount="217" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess is dying. That much should be obvious. As predicted by Capablanca and as concluded by Bobby Fischer.... These are not random cranks, these are two of the best players of all time, and here are some of the words they have used to describe the game they devoted their life to: &lt;em&gt;solved&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;dead&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;terrible&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;boring&lt;/em&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course this destiny of chess is something that a lot of people playing right now are desperate to ignore and pretend isn't true, because if it were (and it is), what would that say about their own pathetic devotion to this game? All those years wasted on a board game about to whither away.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, recognizing that this bias exists, I hope we can scare some of the butthurt deluded posters away, so that the objective and sensible people remain to answer the following question of mine:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;What is next&lt;/strong&gt;? What comes &lt;em&gt;after&lt;/em&gt; Chess? Capablanca chess, Fischerrandom chess, or maybe something else? What will take over? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And, &lt;strong&gt;when&lt;/strong&gt; will it happen? My best bet is that considering the advance of Alpha Zero, that there is going to be an immense surge of chess &quot;players&quot; who win by purely memorizing tactics given to them by Alpha Zero. So, the death of chess will surely be sped up now. Maybe within a decade or two? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16819" LastActivityDate="2018-06-24T13:20:56.123" Title="What will replace chess?" Tags="&lt;chess-variants&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ClosedDate="2018-06-24T14:09:25.953" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21885" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21884" CreationDate="2018-06-24T13:20:56.123" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Nothing will replace chess, it will be played by millions around the globe for the centuries to come. The theory and approaches might evolve a bit, like endgame tables have changed the tournament rules in the past, but otherwise, for 90% of the players nothing has changed and nothing will change, it's still a square board and 32 pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;decade or two?&quot; -- yeah, right. The tic-tac-toe was &quot;solved&quot; by most people even before they learn to read, and it's still here and will be here forever.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15296" LastActivityDate="2018-06-24T13:20:56.123" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21887" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-06-24T14:19:28.680" Score="0" ViewCount="181" Body="&lt;p&gt;How does a GM make his opening repertoire and how does he calculate his moves in advance.Can he calculate 20 moves in advance base on his opening?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16792" LastActivityDate="2018-06-24T18:39:40.260" Title="How does a GM calculate opening and how many moves in advance?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2018-12-26T22:31:50.317" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21888" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21887" CreationDate="2018-06-24T14:34:23.870" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;GMs have all the common opening memorized, sometimes to a very deep level.  In this regard, they are not calculating at all. Once they are out of their book, the depth of calculation is based upon the complexity of the board. When there aren't many pieces on the board, they don't always calculate so much as know that a certain situation is a win if they following certain principles.  In the middle game, 8 moves would be common, but the GM knows how to quickly remove from consideration variations that don't look promising. When they calculate deeper it is because they don't waste energy on bad variations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2018-06-24T14:34:23.870" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21889" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21887" CreationDate="2018-06-24T14:39:05.093" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;They don't calculate the common openings, they know them by heart, at least the main lines, and the possible refutations, should the opponent deviate from the main line.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the less common openings, they might remember things not as deep as the often playable ones. Still, it's like 10-15 plys for something obnoxious and could be as much as 20-30 plys for the most common ones.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15296" LastActivityDate="2018-06-24T14:39:05.093" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21890" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21887" CreationDate="2018-06-24T17:55:25.530" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;When Richard Reti was asked how many moves ahead he calculated, his answer is said to have been &quot;One, sometimes two&quot;. This is probably correct, if by &quot;calculate&quot; you mean examine all alternatives and be sure of the result.&#xA;This is not what grandmasters do. What they actually do, nobody knows, not even them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastActivityDate="2018-06-24T17:55:25.530" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21891" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-06-24T18:33:40.613" Score="5" ViewCount="205" Body="&lt;p&gt;you have to play a game with the following rule : white can initially play two moves, then one move each side as usual, and a draw counts as a victory for black. Which side do you choose ? (say differently, do you think this variant favors white or black ?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Same question with three initial moves for white. Maybe this is already solved?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16820" LastActivityDate="2018-07-01T01:55:08.920" Title="two or three initial moves = win?" Tags="&lt;chess-variants&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21892" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21887" CreationDate="2018-06-24T18:39:40.260" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It depends, strong grandmasters might know tremendous amounts of lines by heart. Weaker GMs who no longer drill openings will forget majority of lines sooner or later but they will still be very good at recognizing strategic patterns and in making practical decisions. They will still know how to lure much weaker opposition into mess they will understand better while they will be able to limit seriously power of younger guys with better theoretical knowledge by sidestepping dangerous lines and limiting possible home preparation dangers. It's not that much about calculating in openings I guess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11609" LastActivityDate="2018-06-24T18:39:40.260" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21894" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21891" CreationDate="2018-06-24T22:04:43.870" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Since I'm a 1.d4 player, my first two moves as White would be 1.d4 and 2.c4. After that position, Stockfish gives an evaluation of +0.59 if Black plays ...e6. I would definitely enjoy playing this as White since the threat of playing e4 at any time prevents the Nimzo and Dutch. Black best option is to settle for a QGD one tempo down by playing ...d5 on the next move, but this would be very comfortable for me. So I'd probably choose White, but it's not an easy decision.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That being said, it's not close to winning for White. An extra move just guarantees a pleasant edge.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With three initial moves, I would go for 1.e4, 2.d4, 3.Nf3. Stockfish gives a +0.99 evaluation, and it would be very tough for a human to defend as Black in a practical OTB game. This seems on the verge of winning for White, but still not a definite win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2018-06-24T22:04:43.870" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21896" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21891" CreationDate="2018-06-25T01:28:17.173" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's a common knowledge that White have about 55% probability of winning the game over Black, for the equal strength opponents. Having one extra move at the beginning will give maybe extra 5%, maybe less. And one more move will probably add another 5%, bringing the probability of winning (given everything else being equal) to about 63-65%.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since most of my games are not drawn, I would definitely go for an extra move(s) at the beginning, but statistically speaking, for the equal opponents with high draw ratio, this would be not advisable, they lose a lot of half-points for the 10% more wins.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, here it is, if the opponents have more than 20% draw ratio, this new strategy has no advantage. If the percentage of draws is smaller than 20% -- a few extra moves will definitely help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;After some deliberation&lt;/strong&gt;...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The effect of having a few extra moves will also greatly depend on time control the games are played with. The most impact it will have on the shorter games, with less pronounced effect for 30+ minute games or longer, that tend to end up in draw more often.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15296" LastEditorUserId="15296" LastEditDate="2018-06-25T09:35:37.927" LastActivityDate="2018-06-25T09:35:37.927" CommentCount="12" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21897" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2929" CreationDate="2018-06-25T03:18:11.980" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;My opponent played the following gambit against me in a correspondence game:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nd2 dxe4 4.Nxe4 Nd7 5.Bd3 Ngf6 6.Qe2 c5 7.Nxf6+ Nxf6 8.dxc5 Bxc5 9.Nf3 O-O 10.Bg5 e5 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I accepted the gambit 11.Nxe5 and he continued 11...Re8.  After 12. O-O-O Qb6 and a lot of analysis I followed the narrow path to an easy game:  13.Bc4 Be6 14.Bxf6 Bxc4 15.Qxc4 Qxf6 16.Nxf7 Qxf7 17.Qxc5 Qxa2 18.Qd5+ Qxd5 19.Rxd5.  Over the board it would have been easy for me to miss.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stockfish gives 11...Qa5 as a better try, but then I think black will be playing for a draw.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, like Sid mentioned in general, this is only a gambit if white plays it.  Chess engines show castling as a better choice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16823" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-06-25T09:06:08.840" LastActivityDate="2018-06-25T09:06:08.840" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21898" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18719" CreationDate="2018-06-25T12:16:16.987" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here's a sample PGN header (player names are skipped to protect the innocent):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[WhiteElo &quot;2027&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;2370&quot;]&#xA;[BlackIsComp &quot;Yes&quot;]&#xA;[TimeControl &quot;180+0&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;1999.12.31&quot;]&#xA;[Time &quot;23:02:00&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteClock &quot;0:03:00.000&quot;]&#xA;[BlackClock &quot;0:03:00.000&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;D00&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;100&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's no consensus, which fields are supposed to be included, but as a safe bet, I'd recommend to look for &quot;WhiteClock/BlackClock&quot; as well as for &quot;TimeControl&quot; -- at least one of them is usually present, if not both at the same time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;TimeControl&quot; is basically easier to parse, but since it might be not included, you might want to process White/BlackClock as well, just to be safe.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15296" LastActivityDate="2018-06-25T12:16:16.987" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21899" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20120" CreationDate="2018-06-25T13:55:00.910" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Try to set 'contempt' to 0. Had the same problem, this solved it for me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16827" LastActivityDate="2018-06-25T13:55:00.910" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21900" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9134" CreationDate="2018-06-26T09:06:03.800" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are a few good approaches to your problem:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Upload your game to &lt;a href=&quot;http://lichess.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;lichess&lt;/a&gt;, you'll get your computer analysis for free.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The software used to analyse games on lichess is &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/niklasf/fishnet&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;fishnet&lt;/a&gt;, you may freely download it and try to figure out which parts can be used for your purpose.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;CRAFTY -- this is well known chess engine, freely available everywhere, that can analyse your whole game. Once you have &lt;code&gt;crafty&lt;/code&gt; started in the command line mode, just give it an &lt;code&gt;annotate my_game.pgn wb 1-999 0.5 2 5&lt;/code&gt; command, the parameters are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;my_game.pgn -- your game file, &quot;wb&quot; -- if you want the analysis for White and/or Black, &quot;1-999&quot; -- the move range to analyse, &quot;0.5&quot; -- the score threshold, if the score change below that, the analysis is not printed -- this is used to make the engine to react to every small problem or to big blunders only, &quot;2&quot; is analysis time per move (in seconds), &quot;5&quot; -- the number of variations output.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15296" LastActivityDate="2018-06-26T09:06:03.800" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21901" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-06-26T10:07:02.600" Score="3" ViewCount="92" Body="&lt;p&gt;Intuitively I would think that this line should just be a better (for black) version of the usual Mar Del Plata KID, seeing that the white c pawn is less advanced and the knight is somewhat passively placed on d2, and that black therefore should simply go on with the usual f5 push. However, in the few practical games I've had, this has not worked out for me so well, and I see the engine is actually recommending c6 (after many logical next moves from white), which strikes me as a tad odd position ally. Is there somehow something in this position that makes the f5 plan less attractive than in the Mar Del Plata?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;r1bq1rk1/ppp1npbp/3p1np1/3Pp3/4P3/2PB1N2/PP1N1PPP/R1BQ1RK1 w - - 1 9&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 g6 2. d4 Bg7 3. Nf3 d6 4. c3 Nf6 5. Nbd2 O-O 6. Bc4 Nc6 7. O-O e5 8. d5 Ne7 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12953" LastEditorUserId="12953" LastEditDate="2018-06-26T10:34:30.920" LastActivityDate="2018-06-26T10:34:30.920" Title="Plans for black in Pirc when white responds to e5 with d5" Tags="&lt;kings-indian&gt;&lt;planning&gt;&lt;pirc-defense&gt;&lt;modern-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21902" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21901" CreationDate="2018-06-26T10:26:20.940" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Engines don't like philosophy behind KID and if they are forced to play KID, they play c6 there all day long too. Here it's quite similar. You can play for both plans but I see nothing wrong with the f5 ideas. It seems to be much better version of main line KID.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11609" LastActivityDate="2018-06-26T10:26:20.940" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21904" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-06-26T12:29:16.250" Score="-7" ViewCount="1463" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was playing a game on &lt;a href=&quot;http://lichess.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;lichess&lt;/a&gt;, and afterwards asked for a computer analysis, where instead of my perfectly fine move &lt;code&gt;XX&lt;/code&gt; the computer insisted on another better move &lt;code&gt;YY&lt;/code&gt;, why is that, how can I understand why this another move is better and why I should not play the move I have originally chosen?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't see the evaluation score, just the message &quot;Best move is &lt;code&gt;YY&lt;/code&gt;&quot;, how can I get evaluations and compare my move with the proposed one?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have tried other chess programs and some of them have recommended my move &lt;code&gt;XX&lt;/code&gt; as the best, so it cannot be a total mistake, still lichess analysis does not agree. What should I do and where should I look to understand what's going on?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15296" LastEditorUserId="15296" LastEditDate="2018-06-28T05:26:47.830" LastActivityDate="2018-06-28T05:26:47.830" Title="LICHESS analysis, why did it propose this outrageous move?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;lichess&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2018-06-28T05:14:49.833" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21905" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21904" CreationDate="2018-06-26T12:29:16.250" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;TL;DR: Unless your move was marked as &quot;Mistake&quot; or &quot;Blunder&quot; with the significant material loss, you should not worry much about that.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't mean you have to ignore everything that computer says, but there are different ways to play chess, and your way may be not as bad as computer thinks. Here are a few points you might want to keep in mind.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The computer analysis is a very time and resource consuming process. What you get on lichess is a bit conservative (&quot;Contempt&quot; parameter is quite low), quick (limited time) assessment of your game, that's supposed to shed the light on the moves where you have lost 0.5 pawn or more. It's deliberately tuned down to avoid risky variants you might be trying to play -- hence the difference in position evaluation.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&quot;We need to go deeper...&quot;, once you've got a questionable move as better alternative, you may want to analyse this particular position at full depth. Assuming you're already in analysis window, choose the particular position and move slider to start the analysis on the local computer (see the pic.)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/eFZIu.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/eFZIu.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once the computer analysis has started, you'll see the number of PV lines in the upper right corner about the game notation (PV lines are NOT visible when you just scroll through your game, you have to turn the analysis ON).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Two most important pieces of information you get here are position scores and moves beyond the one played/proposed. The score difference in this case is negligible (less than 0.1 pawn), making top 3 moves approximately equally good, with one of them slightly better than others. Let the analysis run, it usually takes a minute or more, see how the top lines are changing their position and scores.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once analysis reaches depth 22, it stops. This is considered &quot;deep enough for most purposes&quot;. If you want to go deeper, click blue &lt;code&gt;+&lt;/code&gt; sign next to the &quot;Depth 22/22&quot;. Going beyond depth 22 takes quite a time, try to used that on a relatively fast PC, not on your tables or phone, unless you want to wait for hours.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, here are some common patterns:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Move &lt;code&gt;XX&lt;/code&gt; might be not better or worse than move &lt;code&gt;YY&lt;/code&gt;, with the deeper analysis you'll see the scores getting equal.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Move &lt;code&gt;YY&lt;/code&gt; might appear in the variations as the one of the next moves, being an answer to the threat that's not really visible right now.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Move &lt;code&gt;XX&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;YY&lt;/code&gt; have approximately equal evaluation and constantly change places in the &lt;code&gt;best variation&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15296" LastActivityDate="2018-06-26T12:29:16.250" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21906" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21924" CreationDate="2018-06-26T14:56:37.693" Score="52" ViewCount="20664" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have been teaching my 6 year old daughter chess for past 2 years. She plays reasonably well. She often defeats level 25 in Chess Lv 100 app and sometimes Level 6 in Chess.com app. So I am guessing her ELO rating might be around 1200.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am trying to encourage her to think a little more and be more patient before making an instinctive move. I must have told her a 100 times and shown her effects of not thinking when we analyse the game after she is done. But she continues the same way and does too many errors which she can easily avoid if only she had thought for 5 seconds more. What else can I do to make her understand this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;UPDATE&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have got a lot of answers and useful pointers. Here is a quick summary of suggestions and some of my thoughts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;General&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I think some people thought that I train my daughter without her will. May be because of the way I framed the question, English is not my first language. Anyways that is not the case. Whatever is to be done is to be done while understanding a 6 year old's psychology and while ensuring that she continues loving the sport&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Every 6 year old (or for that matter a 60 year old) is not the same. So there is no perfect solution that a 6 year old will surely do x or will surely not do y. Even blanket solutions for an average 6 year old kid wouldn't work if it is already established that you are not dealing with an average 6 year old. We have to research/identify/adjust solutions which suit us best.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Solutions like &amp;quot;just keep letting her make mistakes and she will one day understand&amp;quot; have one risk of bad habits getting formed which are extremely difficult to do away. I have seen it happening with kids in other sports. However it also works out fine in many instances.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I think &amp;quot;having fun playing&amp;quot; is not the only motivation. Sure it is the most important one but not the only one. Also various motivations feed into one another. For example, if a kid wins a trophy, he/she will have more fun playing and training which leads to a virtuous cycle. So in the end, it all boils down to striking a right balance between training and having fun. For a 6 year old, probably 90-95% has to be fun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Best solution is probably to nudge a kid in the right direction but in such a way that kid doesn't feel nudged. It is obviously easier said than done. It has to done in a very subtle and patient way. In my opinion, it is not enough for the kid to enjoy the process. Coach/Teacher/Parent has to enjoy it too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Biggest takeaways for me are&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I shouldn't just be asking her to think more. I have to break down &amp;quot;thinking&amp;quot; more. Feed her questions which I would ask myself before playing a move&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I now give more time to analysis of the game after her game with bot is over. We also use a manual chessboard to show where game could have gone if she or the bot had played other move. That engages her better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Trying to understand her point of view better. Sometimes a moves looks very wrong prima-facie. But I am glad to find that there is a rationale behind it. Sure, it is half-baked and not thoroughly thought out. But that will get fixed if we keep at it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;We play together with higher bot levels. That is fun for me as well as her and is a good way to feed her questions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Have more variety in play. open ended puzzles, close ended puzzles, blitz, regular, analysis, digital, manual, lower level bot, higher level bot, another human.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Videos if available in your language and Chess Clubs which can provide a good sparring partner should help a lot.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16834" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-19T14:56:00.137" LastActivityDate="2020-12-15T09:39:42.047" Title="How should I make a 6 year old think more?" Tags="&lt;beginner&gt;&lt;psychology&gt;&lt;children&gt;" AnswerCount="14" CommentCount="20" FavoriteCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21907" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21906" CreationDate="2018-06-26T15:39:44.017" Score="65" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What else can I do to make her understand this&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Wait a few years. A 6 year-old's mental capacity is very limited. The good news is that at that age and for several years to come her mental capability is increasing rapidly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Trying to teach a 6 year old the same way you teach a 12 year old is stupid whether it is maths you are teaching or chess. At 6 the emphasis should be on enjoyment if you still want her to be playing chess at 12.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2018-06-26T15:39:44.017" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21908" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21911" CreationDate="2018-06-26T17:10:52.390" Score="4" ViewCount="368" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;6/15/2018&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;6&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Opponent&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Me&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;2248&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;1874&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Nf6 4. d3 Be7 5. O-O O-O 6. Bb3 d6 7. c3 Bg4 8. h3 Bd7 9. Nbd2 Na5 10. Bc2 c5 11. Re1 Qc7 12. Nf1 Rfe8 13. a3 b5 14. Ne3 g6 15. b4 Nb7 16. d4 cxb4 17. cxb4 Bf8 18. Bb2 Bg7 19. Rc1 Qb8 20. Bd3 Nd8 21. Rc2 exd4 22. Nxd4 Ne6 23. Nxe6 Rxe6 24. Qa1 Qd8 25. f4 Nh5 26. Bxg7 Nxg7 27. Nd5 Rc8 28. Rxc8 Bxc8 29. Bxb5 Bb7 30. Bc4 Qh4 31. Rf1 Ne8 32. Qd4 Bxd5 33. Bxd5 Re7 34. b5 Qg3 35. a4 Qa3 36. Rf3 Qc5 37. Qxc5 dxc5 38. Rc3 Nf6 39. Rxc5 Nxe4 40. Rc6 Kg7 41. a5 Nf6 42. Bc4 Rd7 43. Kh2 Nd5 44. Kg3 Ne3 45. Be2 Nf5+ 46. Kf2 Nd4 47. Ra6 Nxe2 48. Kxe2 Rd5 49. b6 axb6 50. axb6 Rb5 51. Kd3 Rb2 52. Kc3 Rb5 53. Kc4 Rb2 54. Kc5 Kf8 55. Kc6 Rc2+ 56. Kd7 Rd2+ 57. Kc7 Ke7 58. b7 Rc2+ 59. Rc6 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My rating: 1874&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Opponent's rating: 2248&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I feel like I lost this game as a result of gradual positional mistakes. Feel free to address any of the following points and suggest improvements in my play, or any other important details in the game:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;7...Bg4 turns out to be a bit of a waste because in playing 8...Bd7 I felt that I didn't want the bishop sitting on h5 or g6. I think the best choice was an immediate 7...Na5 followed by ...c5.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;After 12...Rfe8 I was planning to switch my bishop over to the long diagonal but I still felt a bit hindered by the fact that I played Bc8-g4-d7.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I question the move 13...b5. Perhaps I should've stuck to my plan of ...Bf8, ...g6, and ...Bg7. Here I was thinking about a b5-b4 break but I'm thinking that is a bit premature.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;15...Nb7 I felt was wrong. This isn't a good square for my knight and I probably just stick it on c6, and I don't need to worry about keeping space for my light-squared bishop.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Perhaps 17...Rac8 was worth considering?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;19...Qb8 feels kind of ugly. If I had played ...Rac8 earlier, ...Qb8 may not have been so bad.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Perhaps 21...exd4 was wrong. I know in Ruy Lopez structures black is supposed to hold this tension on e5 usually, but I think I saw ghosts and thought I had something with ...Ne6.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;After 24.Qa1 I felt my position was getting close to losing.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I think I avoided 28...Qxc8 because I didn't want to give my opponent a tempo with Rc1-c7.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;36...Qc5 felt like all I had because I didn't want to lose the a-pawn. Was keeping queens on the board a better idea with something like ...Qc1-c7?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;My opponent says I was perhaps wrong to trade knight for bishop with 47...Nxe2, although I thought I was losing regardless.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The rook ending with the b-pawn most certainly seems lost, whereas with an a-pawn it would have been drawn.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, please no computer analysis unless it's absolutely necessary to justifying something. Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13861" LastActivityDate="2019-12-25T18:14:02.437" Title="Loss to a master, where did I go wrong? Two knights 4.d3 (black)" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21909" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21906" CreationDate="2018-06-26T17:29:30.463" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;The simplest and the most effective might be the &quot;count to 5 before making the move&quot; rule. Works like a charm, but doing it all the time will definitely take the fun out of the game. Probably you may advise her to think a bit longer when she's about to make a mistake or allow take back a move when playing together.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's very empowering to feel that &quot;Aha!&quot; moment, when you get the winning combination or snatch a piece, but you need to be careful to keep games interesting, and if playing fast helps to keep the attention -- well, let her play fast. It's quite difficult for kids to concentrate for the long time, so maybe until she hits the glass ceiling at around 1500ELO, just let her play and enjoy the game as much as she could. Longer attention span will come later.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, it might help a bit to throw in occasionally a few simple tactical puzzles to help developing the intuition and let her enjoy the &quot;victory&quot; without going through all the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15296" LastActivityDate="2018-06-26T17:29:30.463" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21910" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5344" CreationDate="2018-06-26T18:02:17.260" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;While probably all 960 positions are a draw with best play, some positions give White the possibility of entering a position that forces Black to play exact, in order to not get in material disadvantage. In other words, White can make immediate threats that must be countered correctly. You can see this page for the motives you have to look out for:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/study/UQTwIHXt&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://lichess.org/study/UQTwIHXt&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These are not the only starting positions with that motive but they are prototypical.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16835" LastActivityDate="2018-06-26T18:02:17.260" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21911" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21908" CreationDate="2018-06-26T22:02:16.760" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;8... Bd7 was a poor move. Bg4 is understandable as white often plays h3 to prevent it, but if you're going to play it at least follow through with Bh5. Bd7 only serves to give white a free tempo to play h3, which he already wanted to do, and to place your bishop on an inferior d7 square. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;11... Qc7 was a bit of a lazy move. What does it accomplish? Something like 11.. b5 to gain space seems a lot more worthwhile. Even Nc6 to further clamp down on d4 after having played c5 would be better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;12.. Rfe8 seems good.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;13.. b5 seems good, you're doing what you should have done 2 moves ago. Sure it's a bit weaker now that he has played a3 and b4 comes in more strongly but still a good way to contest for space on the queenside. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;14.. Bf8 felt more natural to me, but i understand you want to deny f5. I just don't think it's that scary here and if he goes for d5 instead you've wasted a move. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;15.. Nb7 definitely feels a lot more awkward than Nc6. Were you planning to play Nxc5 incase he takes? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;16.. c4! Keeping the position closed since your pieces are more weakly placed and gaining space on the queenside was your best decision here I think. As things stand you created a powerful diagonal for his bishop if it can get to b2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;19... Qb8 is a bit ugly, but your real problem was you didn't try to free your rook with a5 on move 20. You already shut it off from the rest of the noard, it's your duty to find it a bit of activity where it's stuck and fight back against your opponent a little.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes 21... exd4 was wrong. Your pieces are very badly placed, you trapped your rook on a8, you moved your knight to the back rank and your d7 bishop is only  active towards the sides of the board, so opening the center even more is a bit of a crazy thing to do. Getting your knight better placed with 21 .. Nc6 and follow it up by looking to free your a8 rook with an opportune a5 would have been a much better choice. Remember, don't open things in the center when your opponent has better piece placement. Not to mention your d6 pawn became very weak after that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After Qa1 a potential a5 just becomes even stronger. You are just missing this idea, which has been a good move for many of your turns. If you have to you can always play Nh5 or Ne8 to break the pin, Qd8 is unnecessary and loses a tempo.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;29... Bb7 it's nice to see you finally got this bishop to a decent square. Giving up a pawn was worth it, but too little to late.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;31.. Ne8 this is the kind of move you can play with a closed center, but with an open one it's far too passive and slow. Nh5 was a better try, though you're still lost. Be careful about exchanging central pawns, it really changes the nature of the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, trading the Queens really didn't leave you with good chances, though to be fair you were lost either way. At least you got some good endgame experience out of it which is valuable from a training perspective. It was rough because your king was far away from his passed pawn, and with no central pawns, and pawns on both sides of the board his bishop was superior to your knight. Not to mention his pawns were already far advanced.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well at least you fought hard, good game. Hopefully this game will give you some good opportunities  for growth. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9627" LastActivityDate="2018-06-26T22:02:16.760" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21912" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18189" CreationDate="2018-06-26T22:11:47.897" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think 5.O-O is already a bit inaccurate - it's premature to castle here.  5.Nc3 is the way to go.  It's better to delay castling so that, if necessary, white can chase off a black bishop with h3/g4 and then castle queenside.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After 5.Nc3, if Black wants to play ...Bg4, he has to do it immediately, because otherwise after 5...Nf6 white plays 6.h3 followed by O-O and a4, and has no problems at all.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After 5... Bg4, there is no knight on f6, so white can kick the bishop immediately with 6.h3 - after 6...Bxf3 7.Qxf3, black cannot capture on d4 because of the mate threat on f7.  6...Bh5 is met by 7.d5, and if 7...Nd4, 8.g4 Nxf3+ 9.Qxf3 Bg6 10.Bb5+ causes black some problems.  So Black probably has to do something like 7...Nb8.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All of these are much better for white than the game continuation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16679" LastActivityDate="2018-06-26T22:11:47.897" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21913" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21906" CreationDate="2018-06-26T23:10:56.873" Score="14" Body="&lt;h1&gt;Short Answer&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just keep doing exactly what you're doing: practicing with her and reviewing the game later and pointing out the main mistakes. Let time do the rest.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Long Answer&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is amazing that your 6 years old daughter is already at this level. First of all, congratulations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Before going into a suggestion on how to make her improve further, I think it is very important to point out that &lt;strong&gt;you must be careful to not press her too much&lt;/strong&gt; and the &quot;too much&quot; could be less than you're thinking. If you're trying to push her to 1400 but the process becomes not fun, you risk dropping her to 0 instead, if she gets upset with all the pressure and stops playing altogether.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, for the teaching part, recall that there is not an agreement among specialists on what is the best way to teach things (talking generally, not specifically about chess). People dedicate their lives studying how to teach, and there are surely a lot of progress but certainly no definite recipe. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That said, what I'd suggest for a 6 years old is just to keep playing. Keep practicing, and reviewing the games (especially since you already do that with her successfully). I'd say you're just in the right track. Experience itself is a great way to learn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't have a reference immediately, but it's usually considered best to make the student learn by himself instead of just throw the knowledge at him/her. So trying to be too &quot;theoretical&quot; might not work well. You said yourself that &quot;I've said it a lot of times&quot;. This is a known problem, teachers say things many times in class but students don't learn. Especially because we don't want to risk her getting upset about it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, by continuing playing, in a way that is not stressful, I'm sure she will start realizing by herself her mistakes (especially if pointed out in the game review). Let time do the rest.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8235" LastActivityDate="2018-06-26T23:10:56.873" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21914" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21906" CreationDate="2018-06-26T23:52:07.957" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;Firstly, I would like to say that her performance is really impressive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Second, I would like to say not to go hard on her, since she might lose the interest and probably feel as if she's being forced to play. The only thing common in most top chess players is that they really enjoy the game and really want to push their abilities despite it being a very limited game. In short, they really love the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Regarding her playing fast, I would suggest a little parent-kid exercise. You two should sit together and try playing against some decent level bot. During the game, you should ask her to describe the lines she's thinking of to you. I would suggest doing this in a very casual manner. Your kid is displaying a quite common psychology pattern which other kids show which is avoiding thinking at times, therefore this exercise must be conducted in a way so that she gains an appreciation for detailed thinking. Keep doing this until she has a self-realization about benefits of thinking a bit before taking actions. I've seen that kids have a lot of &quot;realization stages&quot; in those years where they gain maturity about certain things.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also do a similar exercise for the analysis stage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would also suggest adding blindfold training to her routine. She might not be ready for it yet, but you guys can give it a start. I've seen blindfold players have an amazing mental representation of the board and can easily keep many piece-constraints in their mind with continuity. Visual players usually have to &quot;re-generate&quot; these piece-constraints after some stage. This might help also help her since my guess is that she feels a bit lazy to generate those constraints again and again. I've personally experienced it myself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, don't worry too much, she has good cognitive abilities. Try getting her involved in other areas too math etc. I often have a feeling that doing other &quot;puzzling&quot; activities has complemented my chess but I'm not sure if it is usually the case with everyone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11241" LastActivityDate="2018-06-26T23:52:07.957" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21915" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21906" CreationDate="2018-06-27T08:49:49.917" Score="24" Body="&lt;p&gt;Math educator here. It's very difficult for children at this age to think much ahead in their heads. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to Piaget's theory, they don't even reach &quot;concrete operational&quot; stage at this age, which roughly means thinking by manipulating objects. According to Piaget, this is stage is between 7-11 years. It seems your daughter already reached this one. But probably it will take a few years until she can think many moves ahead, or think by abstract concepts. This next stage is called &quot;formal operations&quot;. More recent research indicates that many kids only reach this at 16 years of age or later, and some may never reach it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I suggest taking one chess position at a time, and trying out different ways of play from that point. She will quickly see which move leads to which consequence. Let her manipulate oversized chess pieces, or try a live chess game, she'll most likely enjoy that. I loved Battle Chess as a kid, if you don't mind mild violence. So play at this age is VERY important, as others have noted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And I must agree with Hamsterrific, be very careful not to push her too much or she'll lose interest.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I suggest reading the books of Laszlo Polgar on this subject.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16837" LastActivityDate="2018-06-27T08:49:49.917" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21916" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-06-27T14:00:14.477" Score="1" ViewCount="115" Body="&lt;p&gt;How do I develop tactical ability and what procedures help to develop it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How can I improve my chess?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16792" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2018-12-29T21:43:39.470" LastActivityDate="2018-12-29T21:43:39.470" Title="Can someone explain to me how I can develop my tactical ability, and what type of practice I should do?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2018-06-28T14:18:13.160" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21917" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21916" CreationDate="2018-06-27T15:39:13.857" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Depending of where you are right now, there are a few steps, you may feel free to skip, if you think you've already good at that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Get a good beginners' book, that explains basic stuff, pins, forks, discover checks and everything. Work on this book for a week, until you grasp the few general concepts most combinations are based on.  Solve all puzzles and answer all questions from that book, those might be &quot;too easy&quot;, but it has to be done.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Get some application on your phone, become a member on &lt;a href=&quot;http://lichess.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;lichess&lt;/a&gt;, maybe some other web sites, that offer chess puzzles for you to solve. Most important are applications, because they are more interactive and have a few crucial features that most web sites don't.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Get solving.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Track your progress.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Things you have to look for in apps/websites that will make your live easier:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Adaptive puzzle level, that tracks your score and does not bore you with simple problems, and at the same time does not start from 2200+ level hardcore stuff.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Various puzzles, including &quot;mate-in-XX&quot;, and more broad &quot;find the best move...&quot; type of things. From where I sit, ALL problems have to be of the second kind, where you don't know if you're looking for a mate or just little material, like in the real game.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Preinstalled engine, that allows you to play any puzzle from any move, see what computer response is, learn from it. Sometimes puzzles can be not very obvious and / or have more that one variation you have to think about.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The ability to get a hint, and the ability to continue solving the puzzle once you made a mistake. Apps are a bit better in this aspect, than web sites.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What would I recommend? From the web sites -- &lt;a href=&quot;http://lichess.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;lichess&lt;/a&gt;, they don't have pre-canned bunch of stale puzzles, they analyse the fresh games and make new puzzles from every blunder or mistake people make -- it's very refreshing, and with their 3+ million game database they'll never run out of puzzles.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;iPhone/iPad apps -- don't know, maybe others will chime in.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Android -- I used &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.timleg.chesstactics&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess Tactic Puzzles&lt;/a&gt;&quot; (totally free) and &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.lrstudios.android.chess_problems&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess Tactics Pro&lt;/a&gt;&quot; (contains ads) -- these are two different apps from the different authors. Both include built-in engine for the analysis. &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.lichess.mobileapp&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;lichess&lt;/a&gt;&quot; (free) has an app as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15296" LastActivityDate="2018-06-27T15:39:13.857" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21918" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21908" CreationDate="2018-06-27T16:33:37.557" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1. Try to have a plan.&lt;/strong&gt;  That way you won't develop your pieces just to get them off the back rack.  Bc8-g4-d7??  This is where you went wrong (also, I'd play 16...c4).&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;2. Look at GM games.&lt;/strong&gt;  I can't think of any slow Two-Knights games where Black put his Bishop on d7.  If you looked over GM games in the lines you play you will develop a sense for where the pieces go.  I don't think the B@d7 is not much better than the B@c8.  You could have considered Be6 which &lt;em&gt;is&lt;/em&gt; seen in games; or just leave the Bishop on c8 for now and play like you did with Na5 -- maybe the bishop belongs on b7.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2018-06-27T16:33:37.557" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21919" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21906" CreationDate="2018-06-27T18:04:49.643" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;After each move, have her write down a list of moves she thinks you'll make. The highest on the list your actual move is, the better. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If she's having trouble visualizing lines in her head, get bases with pictures of the pieces for them to sit on. Have her move just the piece, then look at the board. If need be, have her walk over to the other side and see the board from &quot;your point of view&quot;. She can then move the piece she thinks you'll move, etc. When she's done moving the pieces, she can move all the pieces back to their bases, then move the piece and the base of her &quot;final decision&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15221" LastActivityDate="2018-06-27T18:04:49.643" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21920" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2569" CreationDate="2018-06-27T18:19:47.897" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I use the general principles that I use in normal chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Find the weak squares and plan around those squares.  Here b7 starts off weak and, of course, the squares around the king--if castled or not.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Find good squares for your pieces.  The bishops are the hardest to develop, so start with them.  Here the LSB has only one out, therefore that one's easy to find the good squares.  The DSB is harder as it could be useful on h2-b8 or on a1-h8.  On the h2-b8, it seems that a pawn would block one of the bishops, therefore the other diagonal is better.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Control the center.  Placing pawns there and controlling with the pieces is always a good idea.  I would think in terms of playing c4 and d3 to complement my LSB.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;King safety.  The king should be tucked away in the corner to protect itself from danger.  With the aforementioned pawn moves, the queen side seems a little airy, but it's easier than moving the queen out of the way to castle on the king side.  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm just curious, but what 960 opening did you study.  There are 960 possible starting positions, so there's not likely any fixed opening except for the one that is the standard chess setup.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12449" LastActivityDate="2018-06-27T18:19:47.897" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21921" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21906" CreationDate="2018-06-27T22:54:48.813" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Have you tried linking playfulness with some video explaining strategies and mental thinking? Just like cartoons, when they teach you lessons, it could be chess strategies in a fun way :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16846" LastActivityDate="2018-06-27T22:54:48.813" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21922" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21906" CreationDate="2018-06-28T07:06:00.067" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;@Hockeyfan19 wrote a comment that I think deserves to be an answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Chess puzzles&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Puzzles naturally encourages a more reflected way of thinking.  There is one correct answer, and if you think long enough, you will find it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Puzzles should be concrete, &quot;Mate in 2&quot;, not &quot;Moves and wins&quot;.  In the later it is hard to know if you have found the right answer or not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would also like to repeat what most answers have already said: Don't push too hard.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9188" LastActivityDate="2018-06-28T07:06:00.067" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21923" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21916" CreationDate="2018-06-28T07:15:23.077" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would recommend chesstempo.com . This site had the best tactical puzzles I have seen, and I've seen quite a few as a 2200+ player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9627" LastActivityDate="2018-06-28T07:15:23.077" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21924" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21906" CreationDate="2018-06-28T08:10:04.953" Score="28" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;From my 15 years experience as a chess teacher - and then chess dad.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Stop telling her to think longer !&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is the wrong thing to do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;First, it is useless: as you have noticed, even telling her so 30 times didn't improve her thinking process. Obviously, she is quite smart, so she must have totally understood your point about playing too fast. She got it, she just can't, or doesn't want to, wait more before making her moves yet. &lt;em&gt;That's good&lt;/em&gt;. On the opposite, I've seen kids who knew what move they would do but just waited one more minute before playing because their teacher told them they need to take more time: &lt;em&gt;that's wrong&lt;/em&gt;, and that's not what you want for your daughter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Although a teenager or an adult merely improves in chess by thinking, a child improves more by playing. It feels stupid and frustrating to us to lose a game after a blunder, like hanging a piece, that we know we would have avoided if we had thought just a little bit more about our move, but for a child, this is less painful: I had fun playing, the result is soon forgotten, let's start a new game. At 6, making mistakes (not only in chess) is part of the learning process, and the kid who plays some great moves and some blunders has much more potential than the one who applies a standard thinking routine, carefully checks possible captures at each move but has no creative idea. If anything, the first one will have more fun, love chess more, and keep enjoying it!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, all the grandmasters I know were big fans of blitz when they were kids (and most of them still enjoy it).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Tell her more about what to think about!&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Why did she play Ne5 so fast? Because she saw Ne5 was an interesting move, she has an idea that such a move should be profitable, and because &lt;em&gt;she didn't stop to check anything else&lt;/em&gt; before grabbing the knight in her hand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;When you study a position together, or solve an exercise, insist on what &lt;em&gt;you&lt;/em&gt; are thinking about and helps you find the best move: Why did my opponent play this move? What does he wanna do? Are there possible checks? Possible captures? Is there a piece that is not active? Insist on what you think about &lt;em&gt;after&lt;/em&gt; you have found an idea, or when you have a move in mind that your hand really wants to play: What will the opponent play after I do this move? Does the piece I am about to move already have a function where it stands? Will it be secure where I want to put it? When your daughter will consider (some of) these questions in her own games, her playing rhythm will slow down naturally, while &lt;em&gt;improving&lt;/em&gt; her self-confidence (on the opposite, telling her she plays too fast or she made a bad move because she didn't think might damage this important self-confidence-possibly leading to a much worse evil, the Zeitnot disease so many adults struggle with.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Maybe it won't be useful at once. Maybe she doesn't really mind losing a piece once in a while because she has been careless. That's okay. She will grow and at some point, she will want to remove blunders from her play. What matters is that when this moment arrives she will have the right tools to slow down and check more things. But if for the time being she is more interested in learning mating patterns, well, let her be, that's great too and no less helpful for her future chess development!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;However, I would be careful about not giving her a strict &amp;quot;thinking routine&amp;quot; (see the second bullet point above), like &lt;em&gt;at each move&lt;/em&gt;, first do this, then that, then check this, then count until 10, then do your move. This is too mechanical, and you don't want to feed a machine with an algorithm to follow but to help a brain to develop to address some problems. And that brain will develop thinking methods thanks to all the smart input you feed it with, but they should be its own solutions, probably too complex to be described in chronological order, and not something mechanical. Actually, not every grandmaster thinks exactly in the same way, and no human has a strictly precise algorithm for choosing his move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In other words, feed her with questions, not with answers!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;TL;DR&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Playing too fast is just the symptom, don't fight the symptom. Time management is actually much more difficult than chess at age 6, so by telling her to play more slowly, your facing her with an harder (and much less fun) problem than the real one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The real problem is what to feed her reflexion with: you have to tell her more about what to look at, what to think about, or try to explain to her how you would think in a given position (as an example for guidelines, but not has a model to copycat).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastEditorUserId="2946" LastEditDate="2020-12-15T09:39:42.047" LastActivityDate="2020-12-15T09:39:42.047" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21925" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21906" CreationDate="2018-06-28T09:00:41.930" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;As pointed out in the other answers already, there is little possibility that a 6 year old understands the concept of thinking about moves of the opponent as we adults do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I am trying to encourage her to think a little more and be more patient before making an instinctive move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many children lose interest pretty quickly. Forcing them to play more slowly will result in them waiting for the time to finish and then just making random moves (often worse as if they were allowed to play as they want).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The best you can do is try and show her how it is done and she will catch up some day and use it in her own play as well. What I would also suggest is not only talking at the end of the game. You want her to think before the move, so show her how you think before she (or you) makes the move!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What else can I do to make her understand this&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A method that I have seen applied is &lt;em&gt;animistic thinking&lt;/em&gt;. Instead of talking about the pieces as objects, try to talk about them as &lt;em&gt;persons&lt;/em&gt;. For example the king is feeling &lt;em&gt;alone&lt;/em&gt;, when no pieces (his &lt;em&gt;friends&lt;/em&gt;) are around him. Or pieces could get &lt;em&gt;bored&lt;/em&gt; if they are just moving back and forth. Many children can relate to these emotions better than to concepts of mate, repetition, or loss of initiative.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However success of this approach is not guaranteed and it greatly depends on the child and how you present the &lt;em&gt;feelings&lt;/em&gt; of the pieces. Some children are not really empathetic and have troubles relating the &lt;em&gt;feelings&lt;/em&gt; of the pieces to necessary actions. Others get too strongly attached to their pieces and might make irrational moves because of that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16758" LastActivityDate="2018-06-28T09:00:41.930" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21926" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21906" CreationDate="2018-06-28T12:31:12.033" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;So, this is not a chess answer per se but an answer in general about how I found it effective to teach multiple steps to children so they will think ahead in the future.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The biggest problem is, you analyze after the game the moves she made and what effects those decisions have. That's way to long to be concrete, it has no reference point to hook onto for a child's brain. You're telling an interesting story, but it's nothing something hooked into a behavior reward/punish system that will improve the learned pathways.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The moment she makes a &quot;mistake move&quot; or &quot;strategic move&quot; pause the game and show a red card with frowny face when it's a mistake move, and show a green card with smiley face when it's a strategic move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then ask her at that moment after showing the card, what moves she had planned for that strategy. Don't ask motivation for that move, just ask her what she had planned ahead. Then use her strategy to explain further about weaknesses or positive alternatives she now has.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This way it's actively hooked into the action of making the move, there's a direct connection to the reward/punish centers in the brain and the neuron's will adapt to this behaviour/punishment signal.&#xA;It takes the brain 2 weeks to learn and mature a concept that it becomes ingrained and the neuron don't die off. So make sure to practice the behavior of thinking, explaining, correcting regularly in those first two weeks, after that you could slowly start expanding with pattern recognition etc..&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16850" LastActivityDate="2018-06-28T12:31:12.033" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21927" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21996" CreationDate="2018-06-28T14:30:52.013" Score="2" ViewCount="303" Body="&lt;p&gt;I saw a DVD with GM Roman Dzindzichashvili, where he recommended, when white avoids the Dzindzi-Indian by playing 3. e4, that black adopt a Benoni setup but with the important difference of playing going Ne7 instead of Nf6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;rnbqk1nr/pp3pbp/3p2p1/2pp4/2P1P3/5N1P/PP3PP1/RNBQKB1R w KQkq - 0 7&quot;]&#xA;1. d4 g6 2. c4 Bg7 3. e4 c5 4. d5 d6&#xA;5. Nf3 e6 6. h3 exd5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White I find this this attractive when indeed black manages to take control of the central dark squares and then play Ne7-f5-d4, I find that white with exact play can make black's position quite uncomfortable. This is especially so when white does the following:&#xA;1. When white recaptures cxd5 instead of exd5 (in the exd5 case the white king is more exposed, giving black dynamic possibilities) when the f5 square is not as definitely under white's control, certainly so when the light squared bishop goes do d3. Roman recommends black playing for an f5 break in these positions, but seems to me to be super-risky.&#xA;2. Prevent Bg4 and thus Bxf3 by playing h3&#xA;3. Going for a quick Bf4 before black gets to play Nd7, pressurizing d6 and intending e4-e5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My questions is: Is it possible to state in general terms that when plays cxd5 and h3 and a quick Bf4 --&gt; play Nf6, otherwise play Ne7? Someone who has another take on this question?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12953" LastEditorUserId="14079" LastEditDate="2018-07-04T13:00:35.533" LastActivityDate="2018-07-07T08:29:42.803" Title="Modern defense Benoni setup with Ne7" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;modern-benoni&gt;&lt;modern-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21928" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2141" CreationDate="2018-06-28T14:53:43.223" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a practioner of the Modern myself, I must say I believe this is a clear over-simplification. The line with 3.. c5 is sometimes not the optimal. For example, when white plays 3. Nf3 then 3.. c5 which invites 4. dxc5 as per the below makes for a game that's not easy to play for black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;rnb1k1nr/pp1pppbp/6p1/2q5/4P3/N1P2N2/PP3PPP/R1BQKB1R b KQkq - 1 6&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 g6 2. d4 Bg7 3. Nf3 c5 4. dxc5 Qa5+&#xA;5. c3 Qxc5 6. Na3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here, it's better to stay flexible and play 3.. d6, and then if white plays 4. Nc3, it's possible to play 4.. a6, or of course to transpose to the Pirc with 4. Nf6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12953" LastActivityDate="2018-06-28T14:53:43.223" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21929" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18153" CreationDate="2018-06-28T16:08:15.130" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you are looking for a way to restore the original position back, you need something totally unlike Zobrist, because the main goals when constructing a hashing algorithm are absolutely opposite to what you want:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;A hash should fit into the computer representation of an integer (32 bits or 64 bits, or, maybe in the future, 128 bits). Anything beyond that slows down things considerably.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Hashes for the similar positions (which tend to arise during the game at the approximately same time) should be as different as possible to avoid hash collisions that, again, impact the performance.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, basically, you don't have enough bits for the full representation, and even if you had, the use of easy-reversible conversion will harm the quality of the hashing and will slow down the engine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not sure, why you need this, but if you need to store positions somewhere, I'd recommend to use a &lt;code&gt;dictionary&lt;/code&gt; or a &lt;code&gt;map&lt;/code&gt;, that maps the Zobrist value to the FEN string or something similar. Maps have O(1) access time, so it's going to be quite fast, and you're only limited by the amount of memory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15296" LastActivityDate="2018-06-28T16:08:15.130" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21930" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18846" CreationDate="2018-06-28T17:19:59.060" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's very unlikely you'll be able to compare opening books just by playing against them. Main lines will be approximately same in all books, what you really want to see is how &quot;wide&quot; these books are, do they contain only a few main lines, or plenty of variations as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The easiest way to do that would be to convert the books back to the readable (PGN?) format and see how many different games are included for a particular opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Might be easier to do that using some software than comparing by hand. Even better if the software can read the books directly, this way you don't lose any information while converting books to .PGN format, but you'll have to be able to program for that to happen, because I don't know any ready-to-use software for the books comparison.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15296" LastEditorUserId="15296" LastEditDate="2019-04-18T07:43:02.073" LastActivityDate="2019-04-18T07:43:02.073" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21931" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21906" CreationDate="2018-06-28T18:16:31.593" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You are putting the cart before the horse.  You want to teach your daughter deduction before allowing her to think.  That's like trying to teach someone grammar before letting her acquire her first language.  Children learn by patterning and osmosis and they are classes above adults in that facility.  You want to sabotage her progress here by making her act like an adult.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Don't.  If you think you have to teach her something specific, play against her.  Once you don't get to make your point because she beats you before you can do it, get her in a chess club.  And be prepared to have to work on finding her friends and an atmosphere where playing is still fun for her.  Women in chess are quite more rare than women in engineering schools and there rarely is a dearth of mediocre males perfectly willing to sneer at females in order to establish their not-so-natural superiority.  The typical age difference is not going to help with that, either.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Playing computers may be less socially challenging but computer play of comparable strength or somewhat above is much less didactic when done too much than playing humans of comparable strength or somewhat above since the patterns of play just map better to human learning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Against a computer, expressing a &quot;plan&quot; is very much pointless since a computer will mindlessly jump into the human's first mistake and completely reverse course much more willingly than a human invested in plan and defense.  So any preconceived plan is likely to collapse for incomprehensible reasons anyway.  Actually working &quot;plans&quot; involve very long-term goals and patterns and shifts of balance that are really not well describable verbally anyway.  Most certainly not in the language of a 6-year old.  Do you want her to become a good player or a good commentator?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user16855" LastActivityDate="2018-06-28T18:16:31.593" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21932" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-06-28T20:07:26.600" Score="5" ViewCount="350" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm just a beginner at chess and am just starting to get into the king's gambit but there seems not to be much information on this line probably because I'm not very good and the same with my opposition. I'm used to this line&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5&#xA;2. f4 exf4&#xA;3. Nf3 g5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and so on but recently I have been running into this&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5&#xA;2. f4 exf4&#xA;3. Nf3 Nc6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have run through this on Stockfish but I'm curious if anyone could explain the theory behind the next move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16857" LastEditorUserId="9025" LastEditDate="2018-06-28T21:27:38.173" LastActivityDate="2018-07-09T10:05:08.410" Title="Kings gambit for white" Tags="&lt;beginner&gt;&lt;kings-gambit&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21933" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21938" CreationDate="2018-06-28T23:45:29.803" Score="11" ViewCount="1632" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit&lt;/strong&gt; This question is not a duplicate, as mentioned in my comment. The linked supposedly-duplicate question addresses neither my below question #1, nor question #3, nor question #2 except tangentially mentioned in an answer. The linked question is about sufficient mating material whereas my question is about cases where material may be sufficient but nevertheless checkmate is impossible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=208&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;laws of chess&lt;/a&gt; say&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1.5.&lt;/strong&gt; If the position is such that neither player can possibly checkmate the opponent’s king, the game is drawn (see Article 5.2.2).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;5.2.2.&lt;/strong&gt; The game is drawn when a position has arisen in which neither player can checkmate the opponent’s king with any series of legal moves. The game is said to end in a ‘dead position’. This immediately ends the game, provided that the move producing the position was in accordance with Article 3 and Articles 4.2 – 4.7.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[Articles 3, 4.2-4.7 basically deal with making legal moves.]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is interesting because it seems possibly non-obvious whether this condition applies (though presumably rare in actual games!). I think this must have been investigated before. I'm wondering:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(1) How computationally difficult is it to determine that &lt;strong&gt;no sequence of legal moves ends in checkmate&lt;/strong&gt;? Is there a better algorithm than brute force?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(2) Do you know of interesting examples of positions where it is hard for a human to tell whether this condition applies?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(3) Are there any examples of historical games where this law was not followed due to players and officials not realizing the condition held? Especially interesting if the game did not end in a draw due to time expiring for one player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Inspired by &lt;a href=&quot;https://old.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/8ulfrt/using_fide_rules_if_white_runs_out_of_time_in/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://old.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/8ulfrt/using_fide_rules_if_white_runs_out_of_time_in/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(edit) See also &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/5028/what-is-sufficient-mating-material&quot;&gt;this closely related question&lt;/a&gt; where the accepted answer has a couple more examples where there is sufficient material to mate, but it is impossible from that position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16859" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2019-03-07T17:01:54.380" Title="When checkmate is impossible in a position" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;rules&gt;&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;chess-algorithms&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="9" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21934" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-06-29T02:43:26.170" Score="2" ViewCount="274" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;6/16/2018&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;7&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Me&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Opponent&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;1874&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;2286&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. e5 Nfd7 5. f4 c5 6. Nf3 Nc6 7. Be3 Be7 8. Qd2 O-O 9. Be2 f6 10. O-O fxe5 11. Nxe5 cxd4 12. Nxc6 bxc6 13. Bxd4 c5 14. Bf2 Rb8 15. Rab1 Qa5 16. a3 d4 17. Ne4 Qxd2 18. Nxd2 Rxf4 19. Rfe1 Rf6 20. Bg3 Rb6 21. Nc4 Ra6 22. Ne5 Rb6 23. Nc4 Rc6 24. Na5 Rb6 25. Bc7 e5 26. Bc4+ Kf8 27. Bxb6 axb6 28. Nb3 Bb7 29. Bb5 Rg6 30. Bxd7 Rxg2+ 31. Kf1 Rxh2 32. Nc1 Bh4 33. Nd3 Bf3 34. Nf2 Rxf2+ 35. Kg1 Rg2+ 36. Kh1 Bg3 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My rating: 1874&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Opponent's rating: 2286&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I felt that I was much better in this game and let some big tactics slip in the end. I have a few questions and few annotations here. Feel free to address the following points or anything else that jumps out as important throughout the game:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I know that 9.Be2 is a common move, but at some point I felt that 9.dxc5 or 10.dxc5 should have been played to sidestep this pressure that black exerts with 9...f6 and 10...fxe5. I also found a repertoire book for white recommending 9.dxc5.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;11.fxe5 looked like it was dropping a pawn with the threats of ...d4 forking or ...Bc5 pinning the white queen.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;12.Nxc6 seems like the only way out, but seems to gradually strengthen black's center. So, this points to 10.O-O as possibly dubious.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I couldn't find anything better than 16.a3 (can you?). In many scenarios after ...d4 I could either drop the a2 pawn or the f4 pawn after an exchange of queens, and I figured I'd have counterplay on the h2-b8 diagonal if the f4 pawn falls.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;19.Bg3 seemed not as strong to me due to black's ability to exchange rooks, and I also wanted to exert some pressure on the e-file.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;After 20...Rb6, black's rook seems like it's starting to run out of squares. Perhaps black should consider giving back the pawn with 20...e5 21.Bc4+ Kh8 22.Bxe5 Nxe5 23.Rxe5, simultaneously eliminating white's powerful bishop.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;With 23.Nc4, I couldn't find much better than a repetition, and was wondering if my higher rated opponent would risk the game in order to avoid it.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I felt that 24.Na5 through 28.Nb3 were more or less forced moves.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I felt 29.Bb5 was strong to encourage an exchange of bishops with ...Bc6, but my opponent went for 29...Rg6!?.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I think 30.Bxd7 was a blunder. I think I saw a defense that wasn't there. This is a common thing for me to do in the past, seeing a defense that wasn't there (whether I'm on the attacking or defending side). I'm pretty sure I have the ability to calculate/use intuition to see how dangerous taking this knight is, but I felt in this situation it may have been more of a psychological mistake as well as I had an advantageous position against someone 400 points higher than me. Afterwards, he said he thought I was winning before this.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;With 32.Nc1 I wanted to somehow hold everything together with Nd3 and also purposely block in the b1 rook to avoid some eventual skewer tactics. Everything else I was calculating ran into some other problem. Maybe 32.Kg1 instead?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;And after 32...Bh4 I sadly realized that 33.Rxe5 runs into 33...Rh1+ 34.Ke2 Re1+ winning the rook.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;And after 33...Bf3 I felt completely lost.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, please no computer analysis unless it's absolutely necessary to explaining something. Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13861" LastActivityDate="2020-09-29T02:53:02.627" Title="French (white) loss to a master - where could I have improved?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21935" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21933" CreationDate="2018-06-29T06:14:40.167" Score="-4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, this is really 3 questions, not sure I am answering everything here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But there is an 'algorithm' for this problem, but it is NP complete, that is basically brute force in essence although you can make some Optimizations. This is basically the table base generating algorithm. Of course with large number of pieces this becomes difficult to apply, even for a single position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This Rule is basically there, so you can claim a draw in positions that are obviously drawn such as bishop and king vs lone king with no pawn and similar positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15068" LastEditorUserId="15068" LastEditDate="2018-06-29T10:17:07.470" LastActivityDate="2018-06-29T10:17:07.470" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21936" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24911" CreationDate="2018-06-29T10:48:00.100" Score="3" ViewCount="371" Body="&lt;p&gt;In a game of &quot;Sort of Almost Chess&quot;, the variant from Mr. Betza that replaces one of the queens with a Marshall (the Rook+Knight compound, also known as the Chancellor, or the Empress in Fairy Chess circles), this surfaced as a possible endgame that was narrowly avoided by a slightly controversial promotion by Black. The Marshall and Queen are represented in the diagram as Knight and Bishop, respectively (given that they can both move as rooks).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    [Date &quot;2018.06.26&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;-&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;NN&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;James&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;?&quot;]&#xA; [FEN &quot;7B/8/6K1/8/8/1k6/6P1/n7 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Given that Black's to move, I'm wondering if it's possible for either side to get a win from this position. A Black Queen (the promotion that actually took place instead of this position) is a forced win for Black with careful play, and Marshall vs. Marshall is almost certainly a draw, but the similar yet different power of the pieces here makes it a complex problem.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user16860" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditorDisplayName="user16860" LastEditDate="2019-11-16T22:56:16.900" LastActivityDate="2019-11-16T22:56:16.900" Title="Marshall vs. Queen Endgame" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;unorthodox-pieces&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21937" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21934" CreationDate="2018-06-29T12:38:51.440" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;11 Nxe5 looks bad to me ... White has a spatial advantage and is strongpointing d4. Nxe5 reduces the spatial advantage by allowing an exchange of knights and weakens d4. Fortunately the opponent did not capitalize correctly and played cd allowing Nxc6! but after an exchange of knights and then cxd4 I think your opening has gone wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also didn't understand why you played Qd2 and then Be2 and O-O. Why was Qd2 the most important move to play there?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2415" LastActivityDate="2018-06-29T12:38:51.440" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21938" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21933" CreationDate="2018-06-29T14:41:40.050" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;What you're asking goes by the name of &quot;Dead Reckoning&quot; in the domain of problems and retro problems.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(1) There isn't an algorithm I know of except the one mentioned by zaifrun: brute force. The reason is because you can find pretty amazing positions...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(2) Check out many problems relying on Dead Reckoning at &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.anselan.com/chess.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Andrew Buchanan's website&lt;/a&gt;.&#xA;Also there are problem databases (&lt;a href=&quot;https://pdb.dieschwalbe.de/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;like this one&lt;/a&gt;) where you can run a search for 'DR' in the stipulation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A concrete example I recall is &lt;a href=&quot;https://pdb.dieschwalbe.de/search.jsp?expression=PROBID=&amp;#39;P1003981&amp;#39;&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this one&lt;/a&gt;, which I reproduce here. By Andrew Buchanan, in StrateGems 2002. White to move; what was the last move in this position? (The position is dead but the last move made must have been from a legal and live position - so it's uniquely determinable.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Bb1k1b2/bKp1p1p1/1pP1P1P1/1P6/p5P1/P7/8/8 w - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(3) Even grandmasters have technically made moves in a dead position! See &lt;a href=&quot;http://wismuth.com/chess/illegal-moves.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;François Labelle's page&lt;/a&gt; for examples.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15989" LastEditorUserId="15989" LastEditDate="2018-06-29T14:48:05.227" LastActivityDate="2018-06-29T14:48:05.227" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21939" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21934" CreationDate="2018-06-29T19:27:12.637" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As is often the case in chess, he who makes the last mistake loses.  This game is full of mistakes on both sides but over-the-board battles are not easy!&#xA;Your 30.Bd7 did you in;  Black was getting desperate here.  30.g3 and Black has to play 30...Bc6 to keep his e-pawn.  Then you swap Bishops and maneuver your knight to e4, and White is clearly better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2018-06-29T19:27:12.637" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21940" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21906" CreationDate="2018-06-29T19:58:37.537" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Learning is a combination of logic and memory.  All problems can be reduced to search.  Thus, problem-solving boils down to exploring some solution space, and optimization problems involve finding some solution which is better than a solution you already have, up to some time budget.  Being able to jump directly into a promising region of the solution space is much faster than having to traverse there step by step.  This is what happens when you remember the result of a complex calculation, and in computer science, we call it &quot;memoization&quot;.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Grandmasters play strong chess because they can compute far more positions than masters.  And they can do this not because their brains work faster, but because they have made good trade-offs between time and space.  Their brains have saved the results of previous board states and sequences so that they can shortcut to the outcomes of certain lines of attack, thereby allowing them to push deeper into the solution space in the same amount of time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But memory is a funny thing: you can only remember something if you have seen it already.  Thus, the best way to build up a memory of good moves and strategies is to &lt;em&gt;see&lt;/em&gt; a lot of good moves and strategies.  Not only that, but our brains are very good at throwing away data, as they must, so that they don't overflow each day.  How does our brain decide what to keep and what to throw out?  We don't know for sure, but it's pretty obvious that emotionally charged events get saved, and boring ones get thrown away.  So how do you remember the good board states and move sequences in chess?  One way is to create an emotional event: either a clever sub-victory, or a painful defeat.  And here is the crux of the matter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You want your daughter to avoid the defeats by thinking harder and only playing good moves.  But your daughter is learning optimally on her own.  Defeats are actually helping her remember how &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; to play, which helps her build up the rules and memories for quickly pruning bad branches of the search tree!  You see it as wasteful, but only because you have never tried to train an artificial neural network on your own.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We know how to teach machines to learn, but our methods are both very crude and very precise.  They are crude because they take thousands of times more data points than humans require, but they are more precise because the answers they give are far more consistent and well-defined than humans can generally provide.  Each one is a different engineering trade-off.  A computer would need to play thousands of times more games than your daughter to achieve the same level of competence from scratch.  So stop thinking about those blunders as wasted learning opportunities and start viewing them for what they really are: essential manipulation of her bio-computer learning machine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At this stage of the game, she is building up an internal mental model of how the chess universe works.  And the fastest way to do that is to explore quickly and blindly, so she can set up a rough scaffolding.  Yes, she will make mistakes.  Yes, she will model some things incorrectly.  Yes, she may even form some bad habits that she later needs to break.  If there is a more efficient way to learn something complex from scratch, no computer scientist alive has demonstrated it in a working program.  But I would argue that the most valuable thing for her at this stage is to play as many games as possible, as quickly as she is comfortable, so she gets to see the &quot;big picture&quot;, which you yourself have already built up over many years.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is frustrating for you, because you are looking at a map of the world and she is looking at a giant blank canvas with a few dots filled in.  You can tell her exactly where the mountain ranges and rivers and lakes are, but she must earn this knowledge herself, the hard way, in order to build up that model.  If you spoon-feed her precise data points, she will only own those data points.  She needs to follow the paths to victory on her own, mapping out the walls and dead-ends, so that she sees the map as fully as you do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Creating sub-problems is great.  That lets her focus on a small room in the chess universe, and explore it in detail.  But you need a good mix of barnstorming and 40,000' surveying to build up a good mental model of the problem space.  Otherwise, &lt;em&gt;relax&lt;/em&gt;, and count your lucky stars that your daughter enjoys playing chess as much as she already does.  The best thing you can do as a father is to continue to make the game as enjoyable as possible, so that she practices as much as she is able.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When she gets stuck or reaches a plateau, she will probably ask for help.  And then you can go over chess books and study the game more formally.  But she is SIX!  Let her play.  Let her be a kid.  Her brain is doing a fantastic job already.  Give it some credit and watch the miracle of human intelligence in action.  If you think she is learning slowly, download any of the open-source ANN projects and teach one to recognize hand-written letters, or identify shapes in pictures, etc.  That is more boring than watching paint dry.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16868" LastActivityDate="2018-06-29T19:58:37.537" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21941" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-06-30T05:53:09.353" Score="1" ViewCount="431" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why is it that I can not improve in chess? When I lose a game, I feel very angry. I am always trying to improve so I played a lot, but I can not see any improvement. Please suggest me something.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16792" LastEditorUserId="10867" LastEditDate="2018-08-12T03:52:19.853" LastActivityDate="2018-08-12T03:52:19.853" Title="Why I can not improve in chess &amp; why I can not see the things?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ClosedDate="2018-07-02T07:24:53.420" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21942" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21941" CreationDate="2018-06-30T06:34:33.550" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You should stop playing a lot of games, but&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Try to think harder when you play one, start from 15min games or slower, because playing 5min blitz or faster won't help you at all.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Once the game is over, use the computer analysis (cheap) or a chess coach (expensive, but feedback quality is much higher) and go over the game and learn from the mistakes you and your partner made.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Get some tactical training (plenty of web-sites and applications, google for &quot;chess tactics&quot;).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This should get you going up to 1500-1600 and maybe a little beyond.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15296" LastEditorUserId="15296" LastEditDate="2018-06-30T06:40:49.143" LastActivityDate="2018-06-30T06:40:49.143" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21943" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21944" CreationDate="2018-06-30T07:42:34.910" Score="3" ViewCount="155" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is my initial position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/UqYuZ.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/UqYuZ.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I exchanged my pawn to get queen at this position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/84WTt.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/84WTt.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now to complete the tactics, the engine is accepting only this move which results in a stalemate&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/pHZfK.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/pHZfK.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would have dominated black with my queen and bishop but the tactics did not allow to do so which implies losing queen is better. But I don't understand why.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am trying to understand why is Q5f the best move for white.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15405" LastEditorUserId="15405" LastEditDate="2018-06-30T08:37:40.580" LastActivityDate="2018-06-30T08:37:40.580" Title="Can someone explain why should white lose his queen in the following tactics?" Tags="&lt;tactics&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21944" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21943" CreationDate="2018-06-30T07:56:07.807" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;At this position you pretty much lost already - except if you can save yourself into a stalemate. That is exactly what is happening in your example. Qf5 forces black to make a decision between one of the following choices: He can either move his king or his pawn, or he can take your queen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If he chooses to move the king out of check or block the check with his pawn, white is free to take the black queen. While it is not an easy victory, playing with a queen against two bishops and a pawn can still be won.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If however black chooses to take white's queen, then white will be trapped in a stalemate, resulting in a draw. Getting half a point is better for white than losing (and getting no points). Given the imbalance of the material, there is also no way that white can win this endgame (against a reasonable well playing black player).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Explanation for the stalemate:&lt;/em&gt; After the white queen is taken, white only has his king left. But the king can't move anymore. The square d4 and d2 are controlled by black's (black) bishop. d3 and e2 are controlled by the black bishop on b5 and e4, d3 (again), f4, f3, f2 are all under the control of black's queen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16758" LastEditorUserId="16758" LastEditDate="2018-06-30T08:34:01.587" LastActivityDate="2018-06-30T08:34:01.587" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21945" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21950" CreationDate="2018-06-30T13:42:10.210" Score="3" ViewCount="226" Body="&lt;p&gt;So I played many games online where I am winning but then lose on time. Sometimes the game is drawn (when there is no sequence of legal moves that would produce checkmate) and sometimes I lose (when there is such a sequence). The decision the website takes happens instantly. I am wondering, how do they determine whether the game is a draw or not? If they use brute force, then the decision would take longer to arrive at.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13544" LastActivityDate="2018-07-01T11:41:23.403" Title="How do I determine whether a game is a draw or not in case of timeout?" Tags="&lt;online-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21946" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21945" CreationDate="2018-06-30T14:04:19.020" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;This comes from python-chess:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;def is_insufficient_material(self):&#xA;    &quot;&quot;&quot;Checks for a draw due to insufficient mating material.&quot;&quot;&quot;&#xA;    # Enough material to mate.&#xA;    if self.pawns or self.rooks or self.queens:&#xA;        return False&#xA;&#xA;    # A single knight or a single bishop.&#xA;    if popcount(self.occupied) &amp;lt;= 3:&#xA;        return True&#xA;&#xA;    # More than a single knight.&#xA;    if self.knights:&#xA;        return False&#xA;&#xA;    # All bishops on the same color.&#xA;    if self.bishops &amp;amp; BB_DARK_SQUARES == 0:&#xA;        return True&#xA;    elif self.bishops &amp;amp; BB_LIGHT_SQUARES == 0:&#xA;        return True&#xA;    else:&#xA;        return False&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15296" LastEditorUserId="15296" LastEditDate="2018-07-01T11:41:23.403" LastActivityDate="2018-07-01T11:41:23.403" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21947" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21941" CreationDate="2018-06-30T21:14:14.977" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Everything is a matter of dedication, but with the correct techniques.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should not feel angry, but glad! Your opponent just gave you the opportunity to figure out what are your weakness, so you can fix it! :D&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, you are probably playing a lot of fast games. DON'T DO THAT!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess is a game of thinking. You need time for that. That's why chess is naturally a slow-paced game. Everything is so fast nowadays... Slow down a bit. :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Prefer to play slow games (30min at least - 1h+ ideal). Let your speed build up naturally, at your own pace.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, I &lt;strong&gt;strongly&lt;/strong&gt; recommend that you study the basics &lt;strong&gt;deeply&lt;/strong&gt;. Most players (specially beginners) have a lot of &quot;holes&quot; in their knowledge (and don't know that), but they think they have a &quot;playing style&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stop trying to &quot;win fast&quot; using traps and studying lots of openings and variations. That's remembering, not playing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are a few concepts that you &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;MUST&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; know by heart to play good chess in every move:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) Find &lt;strong&gt;all&lt;/strong&gt; possible:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;C&lt;/strong&gt;hecks&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;C&lt;/strong&gt;aptures&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;T&lt;/strong&gt;hreats (Pins, forks, etc.). &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And I mean &lt;em&gt;ALL&lt;/em&gt; of them. Don't consider if it's good or bad yet. That's how the Masters find such great tactics and sacrifices! It's the &lt;strong&gt;CCT&lt;/strong&gt; technique.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) Find the &lt;strong&gt;Least Active Piece&lt;/strong&gt; (the one that dominates the least squares), and think about what is the best square to put it, where it will have it's &lt;strong&gt;Maximum Activity&lt;/strong&gt; (controls the most squares possible). That's the &lt;strong&gt;LAP=&gt;MA&lt;/strong&gt; technique. &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;Piece Activity&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; is the most important of all concepts, because all the others come from it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) Now you reorder the moves you found from the most forced (aggressive) on the top of the list, going down to the least forced (passive) move. That's the &lt;strong&gt;Candidate Moves List&lt;/strong&gt; technique.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4) To be better organized and don't get lost doing that, look at one piece at a time, in descendant order of power/importance: King, Queen, Rooks, Bishops, Knights, Pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5) If you are in the opening, keep in mind it's main goals: &lt;strong&gt;Develop&lt;/strong&gt; the pieces, &lt;strong&gt;Control&lt;/strong&gt; the Center, &lt;strong&gt;Protect&lt;/strong&gt; the King. That's the &lt;strong&gt;DCP&lt;/strong&gt; technique.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;6) In the endgame, &lt;strong&gt;pawns are everything&lt;/strong&gt;. Remember that each of them is a potential Queen! Don't try to chase the opponent's King, because in an open board, with few pieces to help, he can escape easily, and you will waste time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;Important!&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; - Do all of that to your &lt;strong&gt;opponent first!!&lt;/strong&gt; (like if it's his turn again). Only after that, you calculate for your own side. That's a great secret, hard to find anywhere, and is the best way to avoid those embarrassing blunders.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The deeper (more moves ahead) you can calculate, the better. About 3 is good, 5 is great (you will hardly need more than that) and 7 is about Master level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Plus: When you are going to study a game (the ones you &lt;em&gt;lost&lt;/em&gt; are the most important), a book, or a video, use all those techniques combined with the &quot;Guess the move&quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;In a book, cover the moves list an try to figure out the next move.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;In a video, pause it after every move, and try to find the next move.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Try as hard as you can, on every single move, always for &lt;em&gt;both&lt;/em&gt; sides. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you think you found the best move, write it down on a paper and include &lt;strong&gt;WHY&lt;/strong&gt; you think it's the best move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Only then you can see what was the next move made.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Did you guess it right? Great! Go to the next one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Did you guess it wrong? Don't go further before you find out and completely understand &lt;em&gt;why&lt;/em&gt; your move wasn't the best.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You will see that all those techniques combined are enough to bring you (at least) close to the Master level! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I spent 15+ years to find that out... Oh if I had someone to teach me just that when I was beginning... Only now I'm getting at 2000's.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You won't need to remember lots of variants of lots of openings. They will just start to &lt;em&gt;feel&lt;/em&gt; right. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Try all those techniques in every move, since the very first one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Try them everyday to solve chess tactics problems! You will see how things will suddenly start to make sense! And you will hardly make blunders if you use them correctly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, there is no &quot;chess pill of success&quot;, but you won't get much closer than that... :) You have to take your time to learn how to use all of that properly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I hope that helps. Forgive my bad english... I'm from Brazil.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9258" LastActivityDate="2018-06-30T21:14:14.977" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21949" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18115" CreationDate="2018-07-01T00:38:24.790" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you have an Android device, I think &amp;quot;Chess Openings Trainer&amp;quot; might be what you're looking for (unfortunately, it's only available on Android at the moment). You can download it safely from the Google Play Store.&#xA;This app helps you create openings, build a repertoire, and train against it. Moreover, the graphical interface is very intuitive and easy to use. You can even import PGN files from third party software. And the best of all, it also integrates the latest Stockfish engine to help you find the best moves for your openings!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16882" LastEditorUserId="16186" LastEditDate="2021-04-25T14:57:58.377" LastActivityDate="2021-04-25T14:57:58.377" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21950" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21945" CreationDate="2018-07-01T01:39:22.103" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;As far as I know, every chess website simply looks at the opponents material to determine if they have mating material or not. It doesn't matter even if mate is possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The ruleset you are referring to are the FIDE rules, and for simplicity chess websites do not use these rules because the percentage of positions where self-mate is possible is too low.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4393" LastActivityDate="2018-07-01T01:39:22.103" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21951" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21891" CreationDate="2018-07-01T01:55:08.920" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;2 extra moves for white is not even close enough for white to be winning, I would take black with draw odds any day.&#xA;Advantage of white is already only around 30 points elo difference. 2 more moves might make it 100 but thats very little chances of a draw is so high.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We have had 3-4 move odds with humans + engines vs engines and it quickly becomes apparently by playing certain openings as black that the advantage quickly disappears, the best the human player can still get is a draw in a worse position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How many moves white would need to win is an open problem, I think the best lowest proven bound is like 12?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4393" LastActivityDate="2018-07-01T01:55:08.920" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21952" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21980" CreationDate="2018-07-01T05:54:49.330" Score="2" ViewCount="229" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's Black's move in the diagram.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In a recent correspondence game I managed to win an exchange at a cost of weakening my kingside a little bit. In the diagrammed position the g-pawn is missing and the White queen is lurking around. You also see the dark-squared bishop as a potentially aggressive resource for white. Seeing all of this coming my question was:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1. What are the right squares for the king?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;2. Should I push my h-pawn to h6? (I will probably have to play e6 to protect f5, so, Bg5-f6 is a threat.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;3. Do I put my rook on g-file?&lt;/strong&gt; In the actual game I did, but that ended up smothering my king in the corner and for a long time to come gave tactical traps to my opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a general guide for how to defend such weakened structures? Like how to cover up for a missing h-pawn, or g-pawn, or f-pawn?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks for your time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[fen &quot;5rk1/2q1ppbp/p1p5/2N1Pp2/8/2PP2Q1/P1P3PP/1rB2RK1 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1...Qxe5 2. Qxe5 Bxe5 3. Nd7 Bxc3 4. Nxf8 Bd4+ 5. Kh1 Be3&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;FYI: I can't take on e5 due to the exchange followed by knight fork :(&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13438" LastEditorUserId="13438" LastEditDate="2018-07-06T03:29:19.213" LastActivityDate="2018-07-06T03:29:19.213" Title="What is the right defensive set-up for the King-Bishop_Rook trio in the diagrammed position?" Tags="&lt;pawn-structure&gt;&lt;defense&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21953" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21952" CreationDate="2018-07-01T12:31:17.183" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You forgot to say who has the move in the given position. This is always important. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, here if White has the move, he can attack with 1.Bh6, and he will be up a piece. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So we can assume that Black has the move. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In that case he had better play 1...Kh8 to avoid White's attack with 2.Bh6. This move also frees Black's bishop, so White should probably defend the pawn with 2.d4 and Black will probably need to play 2...Rg8. This already answers a couple of your questions (the king needs to go to h8, and the rook will go to g8). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I leave the other points to better players...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15668" LastActivityDate="2018-07-01T12:31:17.183" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21954" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21952" CreationDate="2018-07-01T19:39:43.697" Score="2" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[fen &quot;5rk1/2q1ppbp/p1p5/2N1Pp2/8/2PP2Q1/P1P3PP/1rB2RK1 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1...Qxe5 2. Qxe5 Bxe5 3. Nd7 Bxc3 4. Nxf8 Bd4+ 5. Kh1 Be3&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Due to the pin on the 1st rank, black wins a piece with a won game.  Although the end game is difficult, it's better than passively hiding.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Since we're close to an end game, the right place for the king is in the center.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If more pieces were on the board, I would go with a plan of Kh8; e6; h6; Kh7.  This would limit the white dark square bishop.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The rook on the g-file doesn't accomplish anything.  No other piece can assist in any attack.  The only active place would be on b1 via b8, after you protect against a knight fork on a6.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A general rule-of-thumb is that when under attack to return material to weaken the attacking force.  One that I use is to return material to simplify into a won end game.  That is, if I have a queen and pawn versus a rook, I exchange the queen for the rook to get a won pawn end game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most books are written for the fun part of chess--the attack.  However, by assessing the needs of the position, you can find defensive moves.  Here the most important element is to stop Bh6 and mate next.  Kh8 must be played; f6 looks too artificial and just kills your pawn structure.  The next step would be to both protect f5 and fix the weakness on e5 (the weakness is not the pawn but that it blocks the bishop), but white's first move is most likely d4 to protect e5, which makes a new threat on a6--it was protected earlier by a queen fork.  (BTW, we'd like to keep the pin on e5 until we can fix it with e6, so protecting the a-pawn would be done by a5, even though Qa5 seems to win an pawn.  Finally, h6 and Kh7, if you can manage these move, would restrict white's bishop further.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This seems like a long post, but I barely scratched the surface.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12449" LastEditorUserId="12449" LastEditDate="2018-07-01T20:13:57.393" LastActivityDate="2018-07-01T20:13:57.393" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21955" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21957" CreationDate="2018-07-01T20:14:05.037" Score="6" ViewCount="1222" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is it unsportsmanlike to underpromote a pawn to improve my chances? Sometimes I reach a won endgame where underpromoting my pawn will result in a slower but easier final checkmate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Old example, easiest to understand: I was far better practiced at K-R vs K than K-Q vs K so I promoted a lone pawn to a rook. Improvising K-Q vs K would have had too high of stalemate chance for my taste.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Recent example: I deliberately underpromoted a pawn to a rook rather than a queen while having a queen. This makes mate in 9 moves worst case rather than 8 and again reduces the accidental stalemate odds dramatically.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I barely care about my opponent not resigning when he should. Primary reason: I once played out a losing game, sacrificing my last piece to push the ending int B-N endgame. My opponent said I should resign as he had a book endgame. I said, &quot;Yes, but I don't think you can do it.&quot; Fifty move rule got him: B-N is tight and he was out of practice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8063" LastActivityDate="2018-07-04T21:30:24.940" Title="Is it unsportsmanlike to underpromote to improve my chances?" Tags="&lt;pawn-promotion&gt;&lt;sportsmanship&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21957" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21955" CreationDate="2018-07-01T20:37:53.573" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;If, as you say, you are &quot;improving your chances&quot;, then it's not unsportsmanlike.  Even if your opponent misunderstands, he doesn't really have much to complain about - if he doesn't want to play on he is free to resign.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I barely care about my opponent not resigning when he should.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Good, because demanding that your opponent resign IS unsportsmanlike.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2018-07-01T20:37:53.573" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21958" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21906" CreationDate="2018-07-02T08:08:21.003" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I gave my kid a couple of colored stones and told her to put a colored stone onto every field she can move to. Then she has to elaborate on every single identified move, before taking the colored stone away. She is always motivated enough to place the colored stones. After that, it is very easy for me to say: &quot;Hey, you are not done thinking, because there are still colored stones on the board&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This technique works very well when there are only a few pieces left on the board. Beware though! She is still a 6 year old kid (mine is too). &lt;strong&gt;I&lt;/strong&gt; get bored and eventually frustrated when using this technique. She gets there a lot sooner. Apply with caution. :-)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No seriously, this method is only really suited to ensure you do not forget any alternatives. I use it because it visualizes this fact. I let her use that information however she likes. With many pieces on the board this means she will just ignore it and do whatever she thinks is best. With less than 10 pieces on the board I sort of make her use the stones, so that she learns. She actually defeated me a couple of times, b/c she uses her stones and I played sloppy. Whenever she feels she needs to think in more detail, she uses the stones now, without me saying or doing anything. I suppose one day I'll have to take away the stones and make her do it all in her head...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16894" LastActivityDate="2018-07-02T08:08:21.003" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21959" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21976" CreationDate="2018-07-02T12:34:11.403" Score="5" ViewCount="986" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would like to know what factors I need to take into account in a general position before pushing a central pawn, exchanging it if possible or simply moving another piece.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As usual, I will provide an example of one of my games. Please try to give advices for this particular position as well as other suggestions for any other situation (I know it is difficult to generalize but try to tell me what to avoid and what to look for). In cases like the one below, I always feel I have not the foggiest idea of what to move and in this case, I should have moved d4.&#xA; If my opponent had pushed one of their central pawns I still am at loss. I do not know if the benefits for my opponent of pushing them are better than the disadvantages. As I mentioned earlier, I cannot tell if I should exchange that pawn or push my thereatened pawn.&#xA;Hopefully, someone can help me out to never be at loss again (or at least, in few cases).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Mzlil.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Mzlil.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also attach the link to the game in case someone needs it:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/DgwDB1ji/white#16&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://lichess.org/DgwDB1ji/white#16&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16771" LastActivityDate="2018-07-06T14:54:09.933" Title="Pushing central pawns" Tags="&lt;pawns&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21960" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21955" CreationDate="2018-07-02T13:13:06.320" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's ok, top players do it too. But be prepared to face the consequence when the underpromotion doesn't work out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1879525&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1879525&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Move 77... f1=N by Nakamura)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7002" LastActivityDate="2018-07-02T13:13:06.320" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21961" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21971" CreationDate="2018-07-02T19:06:10.087" Score="6" ViewCount="255" Body="&lt;p&gt;As you know, in Chess960, the first and eighth rows are symmetric and consist of the normal pieces which have be permuted. The only constraints are that the King is between the two Rooks and the Bishops should have different colors. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In King of the Hill, the start from the standard position and we can win by either checkmating the opponent's King or by bringing our own King in the Hill (which consists of d4, e4, d5 and e5) by a legal move in normal chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question:&lt;/strong&gt; what if we combine these two variations?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The rule would be that we start from a position in Chess960 and we keep the winning possibility of King of the Hill. To ask more precise sub-question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Are there some starting positions where the Whites or Black have a huge advantage? Or even worse, a forced win?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If yes, could it be more pertinent to shift the &quot;hill&quot;? For example, by letting it to be b4, c4, b5 and c5).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="411" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-06-03T01:58:42.433" LastActivityDate="2020-06-03T01:58:42.433" Title="King of Chess 960" Tags="&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;chess960&gt;&lt;king-of-the-hill&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21962" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21959" CreationDate="2018-07-02T23:04:07.153" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The example position would fall in the camp of hyper-modern theory.  This is where one side occupies the center with pawns and the other side attacks the center from a distance with pieces only to strike in the center when suitable.&#xA;In general you want to think of pawns in relation to pieces.  Does advancing hinder the enemy pieces and help yours?  What squares do you gain or weaken?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With pawns side by side you create a nice front, and in the position given there is nothing weak.  The pawns are dynamic and well guarded.  It is Black that wants to provoke their advance so they can leave holes or become over-extended and weak.  So, unless there is something of forcing benefit to White in pushing a pawn I would continue to develop pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If pushing did not convince me, I would consider prophylactics:  Black can consider 3 pawn moves that attack the center - d5, f5, and e5.  I would analyse lines trying to thwart these moves.&#xA;In the present position d5 looks reasonable, but only concrete analysis can tell if it is good enough for a clear advantage.&#xA;I would probably play Qd2 here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2018-07-02T23:04:07.153" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21963" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21967" CreationDate="2018-07-03T09:47:39.143" Score="1" ViewCount="274" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have had some success with this gambit in blitz, does it have a name?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 exd4 4. Ng5 h6 5. Nxf7 Kxf7 6. Bc4+ Ke8 7. Qh5+ Ke7 8. Qf7+ Kd6 9. Bf4+ Kc5 10. Qd5+ Kb6 11. Qb5#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16702" LastActivityDate="2018-07-03T15:55:49.120" Title="Does this opening gambit have a name?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;gambits&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21964" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21963" CreationDate="2018-07-03T09:53:41.503" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;C45 : Scotch Game #3&quot; according to the lichess.org&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After &lt;code&gt;6. Bc4+&lt;/code&gt; Black should have replied &lt;code&gt;6. ... d5&lt;/code&gt; and win the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15296" LastEditorUserId="13433" LastEditDate="2018-07-03T11:25:36.727" LastActivityDate="2018-07-03T11:25:36.727" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21967" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21963" CreationDate="2018-07-03T15:55:49.120" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;I think it is the &quot;Silent-Tiger variation of the Scotch Gambit&quot;!&lt;/strong&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From Wikipedia:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;After 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 exd4, the most important continuations&#xA;  are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;    &lt;p&gt;4.Nxd4 (Main line)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;    &#xA;    &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;    &lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;      &lt;p&gt;4...Bc5 (Classical Variation)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;    &lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;    &lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;      &lt;p&gt;4...Nf6 (Schmidt Variation)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;    &lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;    &lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;      &lt;p&gt;4...Qh4!? (Steinitz Variation)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;    &lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;    &lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;      &lt;p&gt;4...Qf6&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;    &lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;    &lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;      &lt;p&gt;4...Nxd4?!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;    &lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;    &lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;      &lt;p&gt;4...Bb4+?!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;    &lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;    &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;    &lt;p&gt;4.Bc4 (Scotch Gambit)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;    &lt;p&gt;4.c3 (Göring Gambit)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;    &lt;p&gt;4.Bb5&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2018-07-03T15:55:49.120" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21968" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-07-03T16:15:16.273" Score="0" ViewCount="239" Body="&lt;p&gt;Whenever I talk chess legends with some Americans I know, they love to hype up Fischer and call him the greatest ever and what not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While I appreciate Fischer's talent for chess, and he is certainly one of my top 5 players as well, I do not understand this love that Americans in particular have for Fischer, who, as a person, was as anti-American as it gets, and in general a vile human being.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Didn't he profess his support for Nazi Germany? So why do Americans show this bias for a person that actually hated Americans? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16905" LastActivityDate="2018-07-03T20:45:31.043" Title="Why do Americans hail Fischer when he was anti-American and idolized Hitler?" Tags="&lt;fischer&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2018-07-04T17:30:50.630" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21971" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21961" CreationDate="2018-07-03T20:06:47.533" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Since I wrote a &lt;a href=&quot;https://gist.github.com/ianfab/9724ca4f26d86870ba45e66e7de02cb8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;script&lt;/a&gt; to analyze atomic chess960 starting positions with &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/ddugovic/Stockfish&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;multi-variant Stockfish&lt;/a&gt; some time ago, I slightly adapted it to be able to also run it for king of the hill (and other variants). A run on all 960 starting positions to depth 18 (taking ~1 hour on a single thread) resulted in a maximum score of +155 centipawns for white for position 657 &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/analysis/kingOfTheHill/brnbkrnq/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/BRNBKRNQ_w_KQkq_-_0_1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;brnbkrnq/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/BRNBKRNQ w KQkq - 0 1&lt;/a&gt;. This indicates that white in some positions has a relatively clear edge, but there at least seems to be no easy forced win, although strictly disproving the existence of a forced win is of course infeasible. The analysis could be repeated with deeper/longer searches to get more indications.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Based on my experience and Stockfish's evaluations, I think that king of the hill (and the 960 version of it) is one of the more balanced variants, so I do not necessarily see the need for additional measures to balance it. However, if someone is interested in investigating that, one could modify Stockfish to support the shifted versions and re-run the analysis to get some data.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15415" LastEditorUserId="15415" LastEditDate="2018-07-03T20:29:19.130" LastActivityDate="2018-07-03T20:29:19.130" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21972" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21968" CreationDate="2018-07-03T20:45:31.043" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Fischer had psychological problems. He was American and hated the US. He was jewish and hated Jews. He was clearly paranoid from a pretty early age, but it got much worse after he stopped playing. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is hard to see an antisemitic Jew as evil. I think it is more reasonable to feel some empathy for his mental problems. And we can all count ourselves lucky that his mental health held up long enough for him to create a large number of chess masterpieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2018-07-03T20:45:31.043" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21973" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21564" CreationDate="2018-07-03T21:53:21.707" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;That's a very nice set for display, but if you are interested in playing and maybe even getting better at it as you indicate, you should also investigate obtaining a standard &quot;Staunton&quot; design set since they are the ones normally used in regular play. That provides for uniformity regardless of who and where you play.  If you're unfamiliar with that design, just google it. Inexpensive sets are available for this purpose ($10 or less). Good luck with your journey. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastActivityDate="2018-07-03T21:53:21.707" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21974" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21927" CreationDate="2018-07-04T00:03:38.480" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Like all positions in chess, it's incredibly difficult to come up with general terms and common rules for openings. The particulars of each situation must be judged separately.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That being said, the idea that Dzindzichashvili is recommending is a good one - Ne7 stays flexible (and keeps your bishop open) and allows you to quickly strike at white's center with f5 (a crucial pawn break against d5-e5 structures). As you said, this pawn break can be double edged because you are creating a critical hole in your position: e6. So only consider it if there is no chance for white to sink a knight or bishop onto e6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now to respond to the line you are suggesting: I would argue that this plan still works in this line as well. Moreover, striking in the center while you are castled and your opponent is not seems principled as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. d4 g6 2. c4 Bg7 3. e4 c5 4. d5 d6 5. Nf3 e6 6. h3 exd5 7. cxd5 Ne7 8. Nc3 (8. Bf4?? Bxb2) O-O 9. Bf4 f5!? 10. e5 dxe5 11. Bxe5 Nd7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I agree that you're still in a cramped position, and you obviously have to be careful about the d pawn pushing forward. But let's look at the dynamic positives here as well. The center has blown up and white still needs 2 moves to castle. You have a queenside majority that can instantly start pushing with a6-b5. And you have the ultimate blockader on d7 already setup. So there's no worries there. There are also interesting opportunities for f4 followed by Nf5. These are the types of explosive lines you are signing up for when you allow your center to gain a huge center as early as move 3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Side note: If you truly want to trade off your light squared bishop, then your best bet is to play 5. Bg4 instead of e6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3884" LastActivityDate="2018-07-04T00:03:38.480" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21976" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21959" CreationDate="2018-07-04T17:39:38.653" Score="4" Body="&lt;h2&gt;Why are central pawns important?&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To answer that, I'll make a quick digression and talk about an underlying fundamental idea : how can pieces be used to their fullest potential? For that, they need to be placed on the square that best fits them. In general, the best squares for pieces are the central squares. There, they reach maximum activity (approximatively number of possible movements), and they target squares in the enemy's side on both wings which stretches out enemy defenses. However, placing pieces in the center too early is dangerous because pawns could chase them away ; a pawn is less useful than a piece, thus the trade would favor the side trading the pawn for the piece. What pawns can chase away pieces on central squares? Central pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This introduces the broader concept of &lt;strong&gt;space&lt;/strong&gt; ; controlling more squares, or many key squares, forces enemy pieces to passive positions so they can stay safe. Meanwhile, your own pieces get more squares to maneuver towards the enemy King, whose own pieces will have trouble defending because of their crippled movement.&#xA;Moving central pawns to control central squares is a basic way of achieving a spatial advantage ; enemy pieces cannot land to the center, but yours can, and may further be supported by these very pawns to deter trades.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Spatial advantage itself is a static advantage, it will remain for a long time, until around when pawns delimiting that space disappear. Thus, you should consider how your own piece will find activity on the long-term. However, pushing pawns bring static weaknesses like weak squares or backward pawns. It's a strategic trade-off : you believe the opponent's pieces won't be able to coordinate around these weaknesses because they lack space to move. Of course, this is just the strategy outline, verifying by calculation is the only way to make sure it's a good idea.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One thing is required to gain space though : &lt;strong&gt;the center must be mobile, pawns must be free to move forward&lt;/strong&gt;. It doesn't mean that a good pawn center is a mobile one (White's blocked c4-d5-e4 center in the KID is very strong), nor that pawns should be pushed whenever possible. But as long as the possibility remain, you can disrupt enemy pieces with a timely central pawn advance, to force them into passive positions or cut their communication with one another. A mobile center is thus both a static asset (space advantage) and a dynamic asset (pawn breaks).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, like others have pointed out, a classic pawn center isn't just a strength. It can itself be targeted. For instance, if the opponent manages to make the pawns advance forward on his own terms, he could access uncontrolled central squares, or pile up on a backward pawn, or target the base of the pawn chain, and so on... . That's the idea behind fianchettos : placing the bishops on safe squares where they'll apply constant pressure on the opposing pawn center to make it eventually move. This approach is not without faults : fianchettoing bishops takes time, and failure at breaking the pawn center would doom the bishops to passivity. Remember the pawn center is strong even without advancing. When the opponent uses their own pawn breaks, ask yourself whether your pieces would be more active with your current center or after advancing a pawn.  Would a pawn exchange actually help your own pieces? Would space still be efficiently controlled? Understanding these strategic concepts will greatly help you figure out if you should move a central pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that this also translates to wing pawns, except pushing them is more situational. The squares they control aren't frequently as crucial as central squares. Think twice before spending a move on pushing them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;About your game&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your pawn center may control the center efficiently, but it has two weaknesses : &lt;strong&gt;the &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt; pawn and the &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt; square&lt;/strong&gt;. The pawn cannot be protected by another pawn without moving. If your pieces don't protect it enough, you'll have to push it, and that will add weak squares on &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;c5&lt;/code&gt; to the already weak &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt; square.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Meanwhile, Black doesn't have 3, but 4 pawn breaks : &lt;code&gt;c5&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;f5&lt;/code&gt; and ... &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt;. As pointed out by Stockfish, Black could play &lt;code&gt;9... d6&lt;/code&gt; followed by &lt;code&gt;10 ... e5&lt;/code&gt; to challenge &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt;, an idea that is also seen in the Nimzo-Indian. This is arguably the most threatening pawn break on the short term because it precisely targets &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt;, supported by the &lt;code&gt;g7&lt;/code&gt; Bishop and the &lt;code&gt;c6&lt;/code&gt; Knight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Otherwise, you have a slight space advantage, no pawn or piece has been traded, and both Kings are castled. That means you can spend some tempi moving your pieces to their ideal positions without risking too much (unless tactics - double check your candidate moves). Where they should go however, depends on your preferred strategy. Here are a few to try : &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&quot;&lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt; is my weak spot, so I'll overprotect it first!&quot;.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Overprotection, a term first coined by Aaron Nimzovitch, is the idea of defending potential weak points in advance / prophylactically. Once the opponent puts them under pressure, you retain some freedom of movement and can adapt at your pace to his setup, instead of reacting. One way to implement it would be &lt;code&gt;9. Ne2&lt;/code&gt;, but the Knight doesn't have the best prospects here, or on &lt;code&gt;f4&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;g3&lt;/code&gt; where it could go later. The game could continue &lt;code&gt;9... Nb4 10. Bb1 f5&lt;/code&gt; where Black now pressures &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; instead. Moving the Knight created weaknesses where there weren't&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&quot;&lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt; is hard to protect, but I've developed all my minor pieces and control the center well. I can definitely push forward for EVEN MORE SPACE!&quot;.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Indeed, after &lt;code&gt;9. d5 exd5 10. exd5&lt;/code&gt; , White transforms his central pawn front into a (&lt;code&gt;c4-d5&lt;/code&gt;) pawn chain. A key idea with pawn chains is to overprotect the top of the chain, namely &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt;. It's supported by &lt;code&gt;Nc3&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;c4&lt;/code&gt;, and indirectly &lt;code&gt;Qd1&lt;/code&gt;. Furthermore, the &lt;code&gt;Bd3&lt;/code&gt; protects &lt;code&gt;c4&lt;/code&gt;, a support point of &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt;. On top of that, it takes &lt;code&gt;c6&lt;/code&gt; away from the &lt;code&gt;d7&lt;/code&gt; Knight and blocks the &lt;code&gt;b7&lt;/code&gt; Bishop! It's looking good so far, but can Black exploit &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;c5&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt;? Concretely, after &lt;code&gt;10... Ne5 11. Nxe5 Bxe5 12.f4 Bg7 (Bxc3 13. bxc3 Nf5 14. Bxf5 gxf5 15. Bd4) 13. f5!&lt;/code&gt; , White opens lines on the kingside and activates all his pieces before Black has time to counterattack in the center. In particular, the &lt;code&gt;b7&lt;/code&gt; Bishop is looking poor.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&quot;I've got a good center, and my minor pieces are out, but not my Rooks. Let's get them into play!&quot;.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess is a team game, play with all your pieces. It's hard to see when the &lt;code&gt;a1&lt;/code&gt; Rook will enter the fray with tempo, so getting it out first to reinforce the center provides it at least some use. Plus it supports the &lt;code&gt;c3&lt;/code&gt; Knight, and won't be targeted by the &lt;code&gt;g7&lt;/code&gt; Bishop anymore. It also allows &lt;code&gt;Bb1&lt;/code&gt; without interfering with Rooks. For example, &lt;code&gt;9. Rc1 d6 10. Bb1 e5 11. d5&lt;/code&gt; , or &lt;code&gt;9. Rc1 f5 10. e5 (Qd2!?) d6 11. Ng5 Qd7 12. f4&lt;/code&gt; shows White retaining their spatial advantage while reorganizing their forces. Note that &lt;code&gt;9. Re1&lt;/code&gt; serves the same goal, but is weaker because it doesn't blend well with the other pieces, plus the &lt;code&gt;f1&lt;/code&gt; Rook already had better prospects than the &lt;code&gt;a1&lt;/code&gt; Rook. He could take initiative with &lt;code&gt;9... Nb4 10. Bb1 d5 11. cxd5 exd5 12. e5 c5&lt;/code&gt; , which would activate his pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tying this back to the original problem, in this position (9th White move), White isn't forced to push his pawns, they're already plenty strong. For instance, &lt;code&gt;9. e5 Nf5&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;9. c5 bxc5 10. dxc5 Ne5&lt;/code&gt; aren't coherent ideas with White's positional assets. In the &lt;code&gt;9. Rc1&lt;/code&gt; lines, White doesn't push a pawn until the opponent has committed in the center. Nevertheless, pushing &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt; first does look good here. Pawn breaks are important moves to always consider, and in particular, are one way to demonstrate an advantage from creating an ideal center, like in the KID 4 Pawns Variation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16910" LastEditorUserId="16910" LastEditDate="2018-07-06T14:54:09.933" LastActivityDate="2018-07-06T14:54:09.933" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21977" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21955" CreationDate="2018-07-04T21:30:24.940" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here's a game with pawn promotion to a Knight for checkmate.  Nothing unsportsmanlike when one plays to win as far as I am concerned.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Zvonimir Mestrovic vs Svetozar Gligoric&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/RiMAvMwD&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://lichess.org/RiMAvMwD&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14760" LastActivityDate="2018-07-04T21:30:24.940" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21979" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="189" CreationDate="2018-07-05T15:49:52.213" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is roughly the conversion for different sites. CC stands for Chess.com, and Li stands for LiChess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1000 FIDE-&gt;1200 USCF-&gt;1100 CCBlitz-&gt;1250 CCRapid-&gt;1450 LiBlitz-&gt;1500 LiClassic&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1200 FIDE-&gt;1350 USCF-&gt;1300 CCBlitz-&gt;1450 CCRapid-&gt;1600 LiBlitz-&gt;1700 LiClassic&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1400 FIDE-&gt;1500 USCF-&gt;1450 CCBlitz-&gt;1600 CCRapid-&gt;1725 LiBlitz-&gt;1850 LiClassic&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1600 FIDE-&gt;1700 USCF-&gt;1600 CCBlitz-&gt;1725 CCRapid-&gt;1850 LiBlitz-&gt;2000 LiClassic&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1800 FIDE-&gt;1900 USCF-&gt;1850 CCBlitz-&gt;1825 CCRapid-&gt;2050 LiBlitz-&gt;2150 LiClassic&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2000 FIDE-&gt;2075 USCF-&gt;2050 CCBlitz-&gt;1900 CCRapid-&gt;2200 LiBlitz-&gt;2250 LiClassic&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16914" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-07-05T17:08:38.993" LastActivityDate="2018-07-05T17:08:38.993" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21980" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21952" CreationDate="2018-07-05T22:57:15.730" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Most answers are addressing the tactics in the specific position so lets say White's pawn is already on d4;  Now you don't have tactical defensive resources around Qxe5 and we can answer your general questions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Yes, the king should go to h8.&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;You don't want to sit in the pin and you have to deal with Bh6 threat.  white doesn't have enough forces to target the h7 pawn and his knight is going to take a while to assist any kingside activity.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Yes, Rg8.&lt;/strong&gt; Your rook becomes much more active on the g-file! and can possibly deploy to g6 or g4 etc.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;No, you don't need a pawn on h6 and yes you need to defend f5 with e6 at some point.  Bg5-f6 is nothing if your king is on h8 and rook on g8.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2018-07-05T22:57:15.730" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21982" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-07-06T03:47:06.727" Score="3" ViewCount="201" Body="&lt;p&gt;My question is a bit ambiguous and not that specific (it wouldn't be if I could remember more details):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm looking for a Najdorf game played against Lazaro Bruzon (or against Lenier?) probably around 10 years ago. Black sacrificed a rook for the black-squared bishop and then black dominated all the black squares. I think white played the English attack (Be3) and black replied e5. I also remember that the rook went to c4 and then e4 to capture the bishop in e3, if I'm not wrong. Can someone help me find this game?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16920" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-07-06T08:43:19.003" LastActivityDate="2018-07-08T00:50:16.537" Title="Exchange sacrifice to dominate black squares in Najdorf" Tags="&lt;master-games&gt;&lt;najdorf&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21983" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9028" CreationDate="2018-07-06T08:44:00.740" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I understand that you're using Stockfish directly and not through a GUI. In that case, you should use the command: go depth nnn&#xA;Where &quot;nnn&quot;  stands for your desired depth.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example: go depth 20&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I hope this helps&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15252" LastActivityDate="2018-07-06T08:44:00.740" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21984" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7798" CreationDate="2018-07-06T08:48:01.000" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would recommend a few analysis tools. See which works best for you:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;lichess.org/analysis&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;decodechess.com&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;chess.com/analysis-board-editor&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15252" LastActivityDate="2018-07-06T08:48:01.000" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21985" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="599" CreationDate="2018-07-06T12:52:10.920" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm surprised no-one mentioned illegal moves or touch-move rules - which are pretty much the biggest difference between OTB (tournament) and online play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Obviously the software won't let you make an illegal move, like moving a piece into the wrong square or ignoring a check. If you make an illegal move in a blitz game OTB you could forfeit the game altogether. Also, if touch-move is enforced and you touch a piece, this is the piece you have to move, if you can do so legally.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15271" LastActivityDate="2018-07-06T12:52:10.920" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21986" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18647" CreationDate="2018-07-06T13:57:45.477" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've personally been stuck on the same problem when I tried to learn d4 seriously. There are many solid systems for Black, with many reasonable looking moves on both sides, and move order or transposition problems. IMO, playing opening preparation is one of the best way to memorize it, so it's frustrating when the opponent plays a valid but totally different system.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My solution for that has been to learn d4 openings from the earliest, solid enough deviations up to the longest analysed variations. I started a month ago so I haven't progressed much, but up until now I've learned a lot about BDG (Blackmar-Diemer Gambit), and I'm starting to learn about Stonewall Attack, Richter-Veresov Attack and Colle System.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The point is that this way, I can steer the game into an opening I've prepared early on, which gives me more opportunities to gain experience in it while avoiding famous Black systems. In particular, BDG covers 1... d5, and Stonewall Attack covers basically everything else. Once I've gained enough experiences with these openings, I'll move on to others that go a few plys further, and so on, eventually covering the big openings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The problem with that approach is that it's very slow, and commits me to learn openings that didn't really interest me in the first place, even though the openings themselves are nice to play. If you want to quickly learn a famous opening, the best is probably to buy a book talking about it, study the proposed lines and positions, and then play it online while adapting to other systems Black may choose.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you'll excuse the self-promoting, I have started a &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/study/5WOny7ar&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Lichess study&lt;/a&gt; following the method I've described, which I update every few days with new variations from books, games (including my own), and mostly computer analysis. It's very empty right now though, with only a lot of material on the BDG, but you could also start a study of your own and fill it with what you've learned through games or exploring variations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16910" LastActivityDate="2018-07-06T13:57:45.477" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21987" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="599" CreationDate="2018-07-06T15:21:32.613" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Before talking about my experience, I'll just say that I grew up playing OTB first at a young age, then started playing online. From your question, I also assume you haven't played OTB at a tournament yet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Online games with long time controls are quite different to OTB. Staring a long time at the screen, on the same position, strain the eyes, and concentration can drop with the temptation to open a new tab during opponent's turn, or start some music. OTB, at most, sitting for a very long time can be uncomfortable, and keeping a straight back is hard once the game has gone on for long. Nevertheless, it's easier to keep concentration OTB than online.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With rapid and blitz games though, the difference is smaller. One key thing in OTB though is the feeling of hitting the clock in zeitnot, which is much more stressing than moving a piece online. Same for casual games, but like it was pointed out, it's easier to set up variants (try 4 man Blitz, it's great :))&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The biggest difference between both though is that you're more physically involved OTB. In terms of comfort, you can settle down however you want in front of your computer, but you can't bring more than some food OTB at tournaments. Moreover, you see and touch the piece physically OTB; moving the mouse has a duller sensation because it's been held for a while in the same position. In tournaments, there's also the striking silence rythmed by hit clocks, it's very impressive the first time you experience it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For all these reasons, I believe there's a big difference between playing online and OTB. Online is more convenient. OTB has a stronger, more unique feeling to it. If you can, try experiencing an OTB tournament for yourself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16910" LastEditorUserId="16910" LastEditDate="2018-07-06T22:37:29.120" LastActivityDate="2018-07-06T22:37:29.120" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21988" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4138" CreationDate="2018-07-06T15:32:19.643" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/SamRagusa/Batch-First&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Batch First&lt;/a&gt; is a JIT compiled chess engine written in Python, compiled using Numba, which would allow easy C++ interfacing and even easier Python interfacing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While Batch First itself is an engine not API, it heavily uses and relies upon the &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/niklasf/python-chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Python-Chess&lt;/a&gt; package, which is an awesome API.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The JIT compilation of Batch First, and use of NumPy arrays for representing boards, allows a more practical Python interface (at least an order of magnitude faster) for actual use in a chess engine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The core of the engine is a zero-window k-best-first search algorithm used to evaluate ANNs in batches.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Full disclosure, I am the author of the Batch First engine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16593" LastEditorUserId="16593" LastEditDate="2018-07-07T02:18:54.190" LastActivityDate="2018-07-07T02:18:54.190" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21989" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21990" CreationDate="2018-07-06T15:39:09.687" Score="1" ViewCount="155" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm a maker and I'm doing my own chess board. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I want the board to be able to sense where are the pieces located, so my idea is to use magnetic sensors and magnetic pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would like to just ask a simple question: In the existing magnetic chess sets that one can find everywhere, is the board magnetic and the pieces just contain metal or the opposite (each piece has a magnet and the board is just a metal layer)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could somebody who has a magnetic chess set check?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16923" LastActivityDate="2018-07-07T21:43:41.270" Title="Magnetic chess question" Tags="&lt;chessboards&gt;&lt;pieces&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21990" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21989" CreationDate="2018-07-06T15:41:11.597" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Magnetic chess sets have a metallic board and small magnets in each of the pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2018-07-06T15:41:11.597" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21991" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="21995" CreationDate="2018-07-06T15:55:25.817" Score="4" ViewCount="1036" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've built a chess engine in Python which I've been testing against StockFish through the use of the &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/niklasf/python-chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Python-Chess&lt;/a&gt; package.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Testing against StockFish seems/is problematic, and as a result I'm looking for suggestions of engines to test against.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are two major issues with testing against StockFish (the first much more significant than the next)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;StockFish is partially used in generating the training data for the engine's evaluation function.  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;StockFish is extremely good, and even given extremely little time will perform well.  This makes it difficult to see the changes in the engine's strategy which resulted from a change in the engine's code&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The engines I'm hoping to play against need to have no serious bugs or problems, and ideally would play at levels similar or a bit below a human master, without spending too much time running them.  UCI engines are prefered so that my engine can easily communicate with them through the Python-Chess API (note that this doesn't mean my engine supports UCI).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it helps anyone to have some context, my engine is &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/SamRagusa/Batch-First&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Batch First&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16593" LastEditorUserId="16593" LastEditDate="2018-07-07T02:40:50.647" LastActivityDate="2018-08-16T18:36:50.153" Title="Reasonable engines to test against (Not StockFish)" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;uci&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21992" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21991" CreationDate="2018-07-06T16:26:18.600" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://computer-chess.org/doku.php?id=computer_chess:wiki:lists:chess_engine_list&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://computer-chess.org/doku.php?id=computer_chess:wiki:lists:chess_engine_list&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Arasan&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;GreKo&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Crafty&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Rodent&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Toga etc&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2018-07-06T16:26:18.600" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21993" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21932" CreationDate="2018-07-06T16:55:17.470" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I remember reading about it in an old Chessbase Magazine edition (circa 2010 I believe). They examined a game where White played &lt;code&gt;Bb5&lt;/code&gt; at the right time, pinning the Knight then later exchanging it for weak queenside pawns, kinda like in the Ruy Lopez. I've used this idea fairly often, at least it's another option to &lt;code&gt;Bc4&lt;/code&gt;, the normal development move that might later run into &lt;code&gt;...Be6&lt;/code&gt; in this case, and it's not like exchanging and playing on the queenside is forced then.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If Black also develops their &lt;code&gt;f8&lt;/code&gt; Bishop, &lt;code&gt;c3&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;b4&lt;/code&gt; also take space on the queenside, threatens &lt;code&gt;b5&lt;/code&gt; to kick the &lt;code&gt;c6&lt;/code&gt; Knight, and restrict both the Bishop and the Knight's activity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In any case, there's nothing wrong with taking the center with &lt;code&gt;4.d4&lt;/code&gt;. As the &lt;code&gt;f1&lt;/code&gt; Bishop might want to go to &lt;code&gt;b5&lt;/code&gt; later, the first question to answer is how should the queenside be developed? &lt;code&gt;c3&lt;/code&gt; reinforces &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt; and allows a &lt;code&gt;Qb3-Bc4&lt;/code&gt; battery, but &lt;code&gt;Nc3&lt;/code&gt; brings the Knight to a more active position (controls &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt; in particular) than &lt;code&gt;Nd2&lt;/code&gt; where it would block the &lt;code&gt;c1&lt;/code&gt; Bishop. Take back the pawn with &lt;code&gt;Bxf4&lt;/code&gt; at some point (if &lt;code&gt;...g5&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;h4&lt;/code&gt;), and at this point, it should be clear where your light-squared Bishop can or should go.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At that point, White has completed development and has the center, whereas Black has trouble finding active play for his pieces. White should have a slight, lasting advantage, which should be converted in the long term. The rest is up to what themes you want to play around, but keep in mind the &lt;code&gt;Bb5&lt;/code&gt; idea.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16910" LastEditorUserId="16910" LastEditDate="2018-07-07T22:47:45.080" LastActivityDate="2018-07-07T22:47:45.080" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21994" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21991" CreationDate="2018-07-06T17:12:13.053" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;To complement the list given by @SmallChess, you can find at &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.computerchess.org.uk/ccrl/4040/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.computerchess.org.uk/ccrl/4040/&lt;/a&gt; an ELO ranking of many chess engines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the 2300-2600 range (&quot;similar or a bit below a human master&quot;), and amongst open-source engines, you have : &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;K2 0.87 (2580 ELO)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Jazz 840 64-bit 4CPU (2552 ELO)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Maverick 1.5 64-bit (2522 ELO)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Winter 0.1.1 64-bit (2492 ELO)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Lozza 1.18 64-bit (2452 ELO)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Topple 0.1.1 64-bit (2360 ELO)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I haven't tested these engines myself, but they seem to fit your criterias.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Update&lt;/strong&gt; : If you're looking more for engines in the 2000-2300 range, then these engines might suit you better : &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Absolute Zero 2.4.7.2 64-bit (ELO 2294)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;CT800 1.30 64-bit (ELO 2253)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Zevra 1.8.4 r650 64-bit (ELO 2236)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;ZCT 0.3.2451 (ELO 2210)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Tunguska 1.0 64-bit (ELO 2133)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Cinnamon 2.0 64-bit (ELO 2054)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16910" LastEditorUserId="16910" LastEditDate="2018-07-06T17:51:31.257" LastActivityDate="2018-07-06T17:51:31.257" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21995" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21991" CreationDate="2018-07-06T21:21:21.867" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Since your engine supports UCI, I would suggest checking out &lt;a href=&quot;http://lichess.org&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;lichess.org&lt;/a&gt;. You can make a BOT account there and test against several other BOTs and people as well! Also, you can get your BOT rated in different time formats!!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I must warn you that most of the BOTs on lichess some version of StockFish or other strong engine but you can find ample other BOTs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Among strong BOTs (apart from Stockfish ones), I would suggest checking out:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/@/LeelaChess&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;LeelaChess&lt;/a&gt;: A neural net based BOT.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/@/UCIbot&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;ASMFish&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are many more BOTs on lichess, you can view them here on &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/team/lichess-bots&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;lichess BOT team&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also find many not so strong self-implemented engines that you might like testing against, for example &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/@/TrolliumBot&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11241" LastActivityDate="2018-07-06T21:21:21.867" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21996" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21927" CreationDate="2018-07-07T08:29:42.803" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;After further analyzing these lines and also looking into &quot;regular&quot; (non 1.. g6) Benoni lines, I realize this plan of an early Bf4 is challenging to black no matter what, but I definitely feel there are lines where I would prefer my knight on f6 rather than e7. This is especially so seeing as Ne7 more or less commits black to the plan of pushing f5, and aside from the fact that white can respond with e4-e5 after which black lives on the edge, white can also simply let the black pawn on f5 remain, as below.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. d4 g6 2. c4 Bg7 3. e4 c5 4. d5 d6 5. Nf3 e6 6. h3 exd5 7. cxd5 a6 8. Nc3 b5 9. Bf4 Ne7 10. Bd3 O-O 11. O-O f5 12. Re1 fxe4 13. Rxe4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would much rather prefer to try to stabilize the king's side and instead seek counter play on the queen's side, and in such a situation it seems preferable to have the knight on f6 rather than on e7 for two main reasons: 1. to be able to put the rook on e8, unblocked by the knight, countering e4-e5 ideas by white. 2. if white does play e4-e5, after the capture dxe5, the knight on e7 can be hit by d5-d5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here we see how black can expand on the queen's side and adequately meet black's central push, by a nice Qd8-c7-c5 maneuver.&#xA;    [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;    1. d4 g6 2. c4 Bg7 3. e4 c5 4. d5 d6 5. Nf3 e6 6. h3 exd5 7. cxd5 a6 8. Nc3 b5 9. Bf4 Nf6 10. Bd3 O-O 11. O-O Re8 12. Re1 c4 13. Bc2 Qc7 14. e5 dxe5 15. Nxe5 Qc5&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With the knight on e7, however, this becomes much more awkward. Re8 is not included in this variation as it makes no sense, of course. Here we see how the Qd8-c7-c5 maneuver fails:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. d4 g6 2. c4 Bg7 3. e4 c5 4. d5 d6 5. Nf3 e6 6. h3 exd5 7. cxd5 a6 8. Nc3 b5 9. Bf4 Ne7 10. Bd3 O-O 11. O-O c4 12. Bc2 Qc7 13. e5 dxe5 14. Nxe5 Qc5 15. d6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To be hones, ALL these lines seem like living on the edge for black, but maybe that's the mindset one must have when playing the Benoni structures. Of course, white is likely not to play the best moves at all times and could also run into trouble.. Still, I think playing black here is much more difficult and dangerous, and certainly so when going for these Ne7 plans. I think GM Roman Dzindzichashvili oversimplified here when recommending Ne7 as simply a better option for black in these 1.. g6 lines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12953" LastActivityDate="2018-07-07T08:29:42.803" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21997" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20058" CreationDate="2018-07-07T08:46:22.090" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://home.hccnet.nl/h.g.muller/CVfairy.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Fairy-Max&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.eglebbk.dds.nl/program/chess-index.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Sjaak II&lt;/a&gt;, and &lt;a href=&quot;https://sites.google.com/site/dshawul/home&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Nebiyu Alien&lt;/a&gt; all allow configuration of new variants to some extent, and already out-of-the-box support a large variety of chess variants. They can e.g. be used with the &lt;a href=&quot;http://hgm.nubati.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;XBoard/WinBoard GUI&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since you explicitly mentioned Stockfish, I would like to add that I recently started to develop the fork &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/ianfab/Fairy-Stockfish&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Fairy-Stockfish&lt;/a&gt; that is quite flexible with regard to the addition of new variants. It is still in an early stage of development, so it is not as flexible as the aforementioned alternatives yet, and the addition of new variants can not yet be done via a configuration file (UPDATE 2019/09: &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/ianfab/Fairy-Stockfish/blob/master/src/variants.ini&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;user-defined variants via a configuration file&lt;/a&gt; are supported now), but via a &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/ianfab/Fairy-Stockfish/blob/master/src/variant.cpp&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;configuration-like file in the code&lt;/a&gt;. The main limitation is that only board sizes equal to or smaller than 12x10 are supported. Its main advantage is that its playing strength is quite high compared to other chess variant engines, since it is based on Stockfish. You can also play some of the variants online against it on &lt;a href=&quot;https://pychess-variants.herokuapp.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;pychess-variants&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The variant you mentioned where the queen can also move as a knight is called &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessvariants.com/diffmove.dir/amazone.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;amazon chess&lt;/a&gt; and is already supported by Fairy-Stockfish. By a 10x10 version of chess, are you referring to something like &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Grand chess&lt;/a&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15415" LastEditorUserId="15415" LastEditDate="2019-09-02T09:33:40.470" LastActivityDate="2019-09-02T09:33:40.470" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21998" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-07-07T15:33:36.653" Score="4" ViewCount="2351" Body="&lt;p&gt;I wanted to know how are the &lt;strong&gt;values for piece square table&lt;/strong&gt; are determined for simplified evaluation function in &lt;strong&gt;chess A.I engines&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/hxGdi.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/hxGdi.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://medium.freecodecamp.org/simple-chess-ai-step-by-step-1d55a9266977&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://medium.freecodecamp.org/simple-chess-ai-step-by-step-1d55a9266977&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16924" LastActivityDate="2018-07-09T05:41:03.307" Title="In chess engines (A.I) how are the values for Piece-Square Tables for simplified evlaution function determined?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;computer-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="21999" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21998" CreationDate="2018-07-07T19:27:04.400" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;They're mostly based on mobility, and have been modified by repeated test cases.  Knights have more squares available when on the center 16 squares(8) than in the corner(2), therefore the central square have a higher value.  After the computer plays many games, these values are adjusted based upon how well the pieces actually preformed on the various squares.  Beginners are taught that the more centralized piece is better placed, and the computer is taught this basic rules via these tables. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Extra table talk&lt;/strong&gt;:  King Tropism is a table, usually written dynamically, that indicates king safety.  It adds up the score of the squares around the king based upon how many times their attacked and defended.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Chess based table&lt;/strong&gt;:  The table being static is a poor valuation tool.  The b5 square is normally a good place for the bishop.  However, when there's no knight on c6, the bishop is useless on b5.  In the French defense, where there's pawns on d5 and e6, the bishop is less than useless as it gives black both a target and the opportunity to exchange his bad bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12449" LastActivityDate="2018-07-07T19:27:04.400" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22000" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21989" CreationDate="2018-07-07T21:43:41.270" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;A magnetic chess set would just be magnets in the pieces and a metal board. If you want to link it to a program to track the pieces, you'd have to track the original positions (initial setup, or later game positions), and from there you could track where pieces were, what moved, and extrapolate what piece moved. That would be a question for Code Review SE, or if there is an EE stack&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16925" LastActivityDate="2018-07-07T21:43:41.270" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22001" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21932" CreationDate="2018-07-07T23:16:27.873" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://drive.google.com/open?id=12b2b-36pMWDd7fQHSCCEvXf1cGOV7ddK&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://drive.google.com/open?id=12b2b-36pMWDd7fQHSCCEvXf1cGOV7ddK&lt;/a&gt; is an excerpt from McDonald's book &quot;King's Gambit&quot;.  There are two lines which are suggested.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12449" LastActivityDate="2018-07-07T23:16:27.873" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22002" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21991" CreationDate="2018-07-08T00:32:15.690" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is a list of computer chess engine rankings.  Elo's are provided.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.computerchess.org.uk/ccrl/4040/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.computerchess.org.uk/ccrl/4040/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14760" LastActivityDate="2018-07-08T00:32:15.690" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22003" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21982" CreationDate="2018-07-08T00:50:16.537" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found it! It was Lazaro Bruzon vs Vassily Ivanchuk, 11/2005. Here's the link to the game (totally recommended!): &#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1366555&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1366555&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you for the help!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16920" LastActivityDate="2018-07-08T00:50:16.537" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22004" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22010" CreationDate="2018-07-08T19:58:38.957" Score="6" ViewCount="431" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can a GM title be given to someone after he dies? For example can Rashid Nezhmetdinov receive a GM title for his contribution to Chess?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1105" LastEditorUserId="4588" LastEditDate="2018-07-09T08:55:25.607" LastActivityDate="2018-07-09T08:55:25.607" Title="Can a GM title be given to someone after he dies?" Tags="&lt;grandmaster&gt;&lt;titles&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22005" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22004" CreationDate="2018-07-08T20:12:21.307" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Grandmaster (or GM) title is awarded to players who fit two criterias :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Their ELO rating is above 2500.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;They have achieved 3 GM norms. A GM norm is achieved when a performance of 2600 is reached at the end of the tournament. Moreover, all tournaments don't qualify for GM norms : there must be at least 3 GMs in attendance with a minimum rating of 2200, the tournament must allow for at least 120 mins of thinking time per match (including increments), there must be a FIDE referee, etc...&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The title of International Master (or IM), Women Grandmaster (WGM) and Women Internation Master (WIM) are also obtained through a similar process, though the level required is lower. For instance, the required ELO rating for an IM title is of 2400.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More details can be found in &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=198&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;the FIDE handbook&lt;/a&gt;, in particular in sections 1.4 though 1.7.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, to answer your question, the title cannot be given posthumously if the person hasn't achieved these results during their lifetime, no matter how much they contributed to the game of chess. It's hard to believe a dead person would make a GM norm.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16910" LastEditorUserId="16910" LastEditDate="2018-07-08T20:19:20.143" LastActivityDate="2018-07-08T20:19:20.143" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22006" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22007" CreationDate="2018-07-08T22:45:00.383" Score="10" ViewCount="3320" Body="&lt;p&gt;I made a check with a pawn that was subject to an en passant movement. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The check led to a checkmate, but the rules at chess.com didn't count it as a checkmate but let the opponent make his move. He took the pawn with his pawn with an en passant movement. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seemed a bit strange to me because, I thought that in this case the check mate would be valid, and I wonder what happens in the case the opponent plays some other piece, does the checkmate become valid? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or he is obliged (no other move allowed) to make the &quot;en passant&quot; movement even in the possibility he is not aware of the en-passant type of movement? (In this case I suppose the game is won, anyway)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My idea is that the rule is wrong in this case, the check mate should be counted as valid even if the idea of the en passant is that the movement ends at the time the opponent plays, but I think in this case the king is dead. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/4jKaT.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/4jKaT.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/VJpTU.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/VJpTU.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user12125" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-08-28T20:18:32.930" LastActivityDate="2020-02-05T18:57:29.957" Title="En Passant Checkmate" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;en-passant&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22007" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22006" CreationDate="2018-07-08T23:52:08.790" Score="29" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is not checkmate if the other player has any legal move that gets them out of check. Capturing the checking piece is one such way; whether the capture is en passant or not is irrelevant for the purpose of this question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this case, an en passant capture is the only legal move. If the other player didn't know the en passant rule, I suppose they might lose on time unless they figure out what's going on first. Using a website such as chess.com one might be able to discover the rule accidentally, since clicking on a piece normally highlights all the possible moves for that piece.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Regarding your question of &quot;what happens in the case the opponent plays some other piece&quot;, that would be an illegal move. A site such as chess.com simply won't allow it. In an over-the-board tournament, the consequence may vary: in blitz, the player who makes the illegal move loses; in long games, the move gets retracted and a time penalty is applied, at least for a first offense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12523" LastEditorUserId="12523" LastEditDate="2018-07-09T00:03:28.360" LastActivityDate="2018-07-09T00:03:28.360" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22008" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22004" CreationDate="2018-07-09T03:47:01.543" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a small chance that a person did qualify but died before FIDE made it official.&#xA;Although Umlin gave the standard answer for how to achieve the GM title, there is an exceptions.  Winning a championship tournament, such as Senior World or even u18, gives you an automatic GM title.  This is to ensure that a GM always wins the tournament.  (It would look silly for an untitled player to win such a strong tournament.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12449" LastActivityDate="2018-07-09T03:47:01.543" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22009" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21998" CreationDate="2018-07-09T05:41:03.307" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;@Fred_Knight Well done.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm addressing OP's comment to Fred.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;How are the values determined ? What method or algorithm is used to&#xA;  determine the values for Piece square table ? Is it some numbers based&#xA;  on our assumptions for a particular piece&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Normally, engine authors determine the values by trial-and-error or/and parameter tuning. But, not here!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Have you notice the values are &lt;strong&gt;an increment of 0.5&lt;/strong&gt;? They are just guesses based on simple chess understanding. The blog writer was typing in 0.5,1.0,1.5,2.0,-0.5... into the table, for educational purposes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2018-07-09T05:41:03.307" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22010" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22004" CreationDate="2018-07-09T08:33:29.790" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, it is possible. FIDE can award the title of &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grandmaster_(chess)#Honorary_grandmasters&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;honorary grandmaster&lt;/a&gt;, based on a player's past performances and/or other contributions to chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most of the honorary grandmasters were still alive when they were awarded the title. However, there are two examples where the title was awarded posthumously: &#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolf_Mari%C4%87&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;GM Rudolf Maric&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karoly_Honfi&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;GM Karoly Honfi&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4588" LastEditorUserId="4588" LastEditDate="2018-07-09T08:50:14.567" LastActivityDate="2018-07-09T08:50:14.567" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22011" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21932" CreationDate="2018-07-09T10:05:08.410" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would strongly suggest that you consider 3.Bc4 instead of 3.Nf3. Do not be afraid of Black's queen check, you will simply move your king to f1. This is how Fischer played the King's Gambit. IM Timothy Taylor recently published a book on the King's Bishop's Gambit, if you can get a copy. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16817" LastActivityDate="2018-07-09T10:05:08.410" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22012" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-07-09T13:47:43.980" Score="6" ViewCount="788" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are many openings with long variations, more or less forced, in their body of theory which are recognized as playable by both sides : Marshall Attack and Schliemann Defense in the Ruy Lopez, Botvinnik Variation in the Anti-Meran Semi-Slav, most systems of the KID, Traxler Counterattack in the Italian Game, English Attack in the Sicilian Najdorf, and many more...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But which opening variation has been analysed the deepest of all? Also, has one or more variations been analysed right to the endgame, and has it brought up a definite evaluation of the variation, perhaps of the opening too?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The opening line should ideally have either been analysed by recognized theoreticians in whichever material, or been used enough in practice by high level players (or computers) to support its validity. I'm not looking for whole games which used a very long opening line, unless the opening also ends up in a position with a proven outcome, like a solved endgame or perpetual check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16910" LastEditorUserId="16910" LastEditDate="2018-07-10T09:50:36.163" LastActivityDate="2018-07-10T09:50:36.163" Title="What is the longest variation analysed in opening theory?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;theory&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="4" ClosedDate="2018-07-10T15:14:54.207" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22013" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22014" CreationDate="2018-07-09T17:48:11.627" Score="0" ViewCount="288" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was just wondering if others have experienced big differences between players Elo and their national rating?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Currently I am playing a tournament outside of my own country. The tournament is Elo rated and expected scores etc are of course then based on Elo. My own Elo is very close my my national rating, around 2050 both of them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, in this tournament, a big swiss, I mostly face players around 1600-1700 Elo and they play incredible strong for such a rating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After the games I ask what their national rating is, and for all of them it's around 2000-2100, which makes more sense. But then the expected scores that are calculated using Elo is hugely in favour of them. It seems the Elo system, is not really accurate in this situation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Have other people experienced such a huge difference between national and Elo rating?&#xA;For one opponent the difference was even around 600!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I guess this situation occurs because very few tournaments in this country are Elo rated leading to the two ratings to be wildly out of sync.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately, for me this has the effect of pretty much being mathematical doomed to lose a lot of rating in such a tournament. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15068" LastEditorUserId="15068" LastEditDate="2018-07-10T05:02:09.883" LastActivityDate="2018-07-12T20:30:00.933" Title="Experience of big difference between Elo and national rating?" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;elo&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22014" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22013" CreationDate="2018-07-09T19:04:35.363" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;As you suspect this can easily happen, if only very few tournaments are Elo rated, and the players are still developing in strength. The problem is often exacerbated by the lower k-factor in Elo, which means that Elo changes more slowly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Despite not really being an up and coming player anymore, my Elo is still catching up to where it should be according to my national rating and, alas, I expect that to continue for quite some time. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2018-07-09T19:04:35.363" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22015" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-07-09T20:24:19.377" Score="0" ViewCount="56" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is normal for an experienced player to allow his low rated opponent a takeback in casual chess. Does this apply for FIDE rated OTB tournaments, &lt;strong&gt;provided both players agree&lt;/strong&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13544" LastActivityDate="2018-07-09T20:24:19.377" Title="Is takeback legal in OTB chess?" Tags="&lt;otb-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2018-07-09T21:14:08.383" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22016" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22017" CreationDate="2018-07-10T21:29:35.167" Score="0" ViewCount="175" Body="&lt;p&gt;I always encounter such a position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;[StartPly &quot;11&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. Nf3 e6 3. h3 Nf6 4. e3 Be7 5. Bd3 O-O 6. c4 Nbd7 7. c5 c6 8. b4 b6 9. Bd2 a5 10. bxa5 bxa5 11. O-O Ne4 12. Bxe4 dxe4 13. Nh2 Nf6 14. Qe1 a4 15. Bb4 Ba6 16. Nc3 Bxf1 17. Nxf1 Rb8 18. a3 Ra8 19. Qd1 Qc7 20. Nxa4 Rfd8 21. Nb6 Ra7 22. Nd2 Nd5 23. Nxe4 Nxb4 24. axb4 Rxa1 25. Qxa1 f5 26. Nc3 Bf6 27. Qa2 Kf7 28. g3 g6 29. Kg2 Qb7 30. Ne2 Qc7 31. Nf4 Rb8 32. Qxe6+ Kg7 33. g4 fxg4 34. hxg4 Bxd4 35. exd4 Qxf4 36. Qd7+ Kh6 37. f3 Qd2+ 38. Kg3 Qxb4 39. Kf4 Rf8+ 40. Kg3 Qe1+ 41. Kg2 Qe2+ 42. Kg1 Rxf3 43. Qxc6 Rf1#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stockfish recommends 6.. dxc4, while I played Nbd7. Why makes dxc4 better? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13544" LastActivityDate="2018-07-12T20:27:37.980" Title="When should I take on c4?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;queens-gambit&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22017" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22016" CreationDate="2018-07-10T21:55:12.260" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is really a matter of taste over &quot;better&quot;.  I like the tempo gain that dxc4 gives.  Usually the pawn is on c4 before Bf1-d3, but when Bf1 develops, as in your game, it loses time capturing on c4.  Additionally, the Bishop sucks on c4 and will likely move yet again.&#xA;Black will have time to play c5 with a nice game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2018-07-10T21:55:12.260" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22018" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22016" CreationDate="2018-07-10T23:58:34.240" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I agree with Ywapom's answer. Will only add that it's better to keep the tension for a while and only take once you think white can favorably go c4-c5 or cxd5. Thus I'd prefer going ...c5 first and only later taking on c4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16768" LastActivityDate="2018-07-10T23:58:34.240" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22020" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-07-11T22:12:21.753" Score="1" ViewCount="189" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm currently experimenting &lt;code&gt;1...e5&lt;/code&gt; against &lt;code&gt;1.e4&lt;/code&gt; aiming at the Petrov but I sometimes encounter Bishop's opening &lt;code&gt;2. Fc4&lt;/code&gt; to which I reply &lt;code&gt;2...Nf6&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If White play &lt;code&gt;3. Nc3&lt;/code&gt;, I have some ideas, but if they play &lt;code&gt;3.d3&lt;/code&gt;, it's another story since after &lt;code&gt;3...Nc6&lt;/code&gt;, White can play &lt;code&gt;4.Nf3&lt;/code&gt; that leads to a positional Two Knight's. &#xA;And playing &lt;code&gt;3...Bc5&lt;/code&gt; leads to a Guoco Pianissimo which I want to avoid at all cost. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there some interesting lines here for Black considering the above ? Even if it's slighty inferior. Thanks&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;rnbqkb1r/pppp1ppp/5n2/4p3/2B1P3/3P4/PPP2PPP/RNBQK1NR b KQkq - 0 3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13069" LastActivityDate="2018-07-13T15:17:22.370" Title="Bishop's opening - avoiding positional lines as Black after 2...Nf6 3. d3" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;bishops-opening&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22021" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22020" CreationDate="2018-07-11T23:22:04.617" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The typical response is 3...c6, and eventually ... d5. With the nice pawn center and active pieces you can certainly get something sharp/tactical from that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16768" LastActivityDate="2018-07-11T23:22:04.617" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22022" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22020" CreationDate="2018-07-12T01:37:08.410" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would play d5 in this position.  It attacks white's center and gives you a lead in development.  The only problem is that it's the reverse Scotch Opening, which means the more aggressive Max Lange Attack isn't possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12449" LastActivityDate="2018-07-12T01:37:08.410" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22023" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22020" CreationDate="2018-07-12T02:45:23.580" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;3...c6 is in my opinion by far the best move here. Usually white would continue with something like 4.Nf3 Be7 5.O-O (5.Nxe5 Qa5+) d6. 5...d6 is a more solid choice but 5...d5 is another option if you want to blast open the center quicker. For a nice game with 5...d6 played, take a careful look through Gelfand - Yusupov, Munich 1994.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13861" LastActivityDate="2018-07-12T02:45:23.580" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22024" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-07-12T02:54:42.637" Score="6" ViewCount="1813" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm rated about 1900 USCF and have been stuck between 1800-1900 for a few years not really knowing how to break through to 2000+. I have a good amount of positional understanding and solid foundation in tactics, i.e. I've gotten quite good at solving tactics problems.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That being said, I lose a lot of games due to poor evaluation, time pressure, and erratic blunders. I think that essentially everything in chess goes back to the skill of calculation, including things like time pressure, which is due to inefficient calculation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So then, how do I further improve my calculation? More visualization exercises? Playing blitz until I can't see straight? Mental exercises? I feel like my visualization is already decent, as I can successfully play 3 blindfolded games at the same time (that's the most I've tried at least). I just don't understand what I've been missing out on that improves my calculation. And if it matters, I'm 20 years old.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13861" LastActivityDate="2018-07-17T17:06:28.300" Title="Calculation skills to 2000 and beyond" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;calculation&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="12" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22025" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22024" CreationDate="2018-07-12T12:11:01.133" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you can play three games blind-folded, it is unlikely that your problem is calculation. I dare say that there aren't many 1900 USCF players that can do that. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You say you &quot;lose a lot of games due to poor evaluation, time pressure, and erratic blunders&quot;. That also doesn't cry out &quot;calculation problems&quot; to me. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my experience ratings first and foremost reflect positional understanding. Calculation skills make a much smaller difference, at least above a certain threshold.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To be clear, positional understanding isn't knowledge as much as a good feeling for the position. I.e. whether you can precisely estimate how good your position really is and quickly come up with sensible moves and plans.&#xA;If you are lacking in that department you tend to calculate a lot without achieving much. That results in time pressure and blunders just as surely as having calculation deficits. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I would rather recommend a book like &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.qualitychess.co.uk/products/2/155/grandmaster_preparation_-_positional_play_by_jacob_aagaard/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Positional Play by Jacob Aagaard&lt;/a&gt;. If you can easily solve the problems in this book, you can always go back to pure calculation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, there is a big difference between training calculation and training tactics. Solving tactics depends on seeing motives, training calculation depends on the ability to think far ahead without confusing yourself. So if you do go back to pure calculation, maybe you should try the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.qualitychess.co.uk/products/2/157/grandmaster_preparation_-_calculation_by_jacob_aagaard/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Calculation&lt;/a&gt; book by Aagaard, or similar books by Dvoretsky. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2018-07-12T12:11:01.133" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22026" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22020" CreationDate="2018-07-12T20:20:14.993" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your best bet is playing 3...c6. It typically leads to unbalanced positions, and is objectively fine for Black. Your plan is to push ...d5, posing White with problems in the centre. A sample line:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3...c6 4.Nf3 d5 5.exd5 cxd5 6.Bb5+ Bd7 7.Bxd7+ Nxd7, and Black is completely fine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2018-07-12T20:20:14.993" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22027" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22024" CreationDate="2018-07-12T20:24:47.987" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Practice, practice, practice. Go on ChessTempo or Chess.com and do as many tactics exercises as you can. Performing calculations over and over gradually builds your intuition. When your intuition improves, your implicit calculations abilities improve (meaning you'll be able to play better without consciously trying).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to go further, pick up the Grandmaster Preparation Calculation book. It's excellent, and designed to train players to improve calculation and intuition. The book is useful for anyone trying to reach up to GM level, but it's also fine for your goals.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2018-07-12T20:24:47.987" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22028" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22016" CreationDate="2018-07-12T20:27:37.980" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you're going to take on c4, wait until White's moved his light-squared bishop. This forces White to waste a tempo taking back since he'll be moving the bishop twice. So in that position, what Stockfish says to do is fine. After taking, you'd aim to follow up with ...c5 soon, with the aim of liquidating the centre.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That being said, you don't have to take on c4 in the first place. Another move in the position you posted is playing 6...b6, stopping any c5 ideas from White and preparing to push ...c5 yourself. A sample line:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;6...b6 7.0-0 Bb7 8.Nc3 Nbd7 9.b3 c5! with a level position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2018-07-12T20:27:37.980" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22029" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22013" CreationDate="2018-07-12T20:30:00.933" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It depends on how many FIDE rated tournaments are in one's area. What I've found is most of my opponents (and me myself) have ELO/FIDE ratings roughly 100-150 points below their national ratings. If an area has enough FIDE-rated tournaments, then ELO is generally regarded as the &quot;true level&quot; of a player. For your case, ELO ratings should be taken with a grain of salt due to the lack of FIDE-rated tournaments.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2018-07-12T20:30:00.933" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22030" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22006" CreationDate="2018-07-12T20:32:32.427" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;If White had a pawn on f4 instead of f5, would it be considered checkmate? The answer in both cases is no, since in both cases White can validly capture Black's g-pawn. There is no legal difference between performing a regular capture or capturing via en passant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If your opponent wasn't aware of the en passant move, then you'd probably win the game via the clock :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2018-07-12T20:32:32.427" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22031" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22024" CreationDate="2018-07-13T00:41:46.570" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;1900 uscf is still too low of a rating for positional understanding to mean anything. Most likely your tactics are still too weak. 2200 should not be a problem for players with sufficient tactical abilities but weak positional understanding.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4393" LastActivityDate="2018-07-13T00:41:46.570" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22032" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22020" CreationDate="2018-07-13T15:17:22.370" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Don't be fooled by the 3...c6 answers.  3...c6 4.Bb3 d5 5.Qe2 and Black is not mixing it up.&#xA;If you want to avoid slow play strike immediately with 3...d5&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2018-07-13T15:17:22.370" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22033" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14998" CreationDate="2018-07-14T00:35:13.620" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a developer currently working on software to compute endgame tablebases. The real bottleneck with calculating positions is not memory per se but the working memory and computing cycles needed to calculate a network for an exponentially-growing set of positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The number of positions grows exponentially according to the number of men on the board; this means that the working memory needed (whether it be RAM or hard drive reads, which are less expensive and more scalable but significantly slower) increases proportionately to &lt;code&gt;A^N&lt;/code&gt; where &lt;code&gt;A&lt;/code&gt; is a scaling constant (somewhat less than 64) and &lt;code&gt;N&lt;/code&gt; is the number of men in the tablebase. The Lomonosov Supercomputer used &lt;a href=&quot;https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Lomonosov+Supercomputer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;92 TiB of RAM&lt;/a&gt;, which is sufficient for a 7-man tablebase; as dfan said in his comment, the jump is too big.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Furthermore, as more nodes are added to the tablebase the number of calculations increases faster than linearly to the number of nodes. For instance, accessing data in a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_search_tree&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Binary Search Tree&lt;/a&gt; (BST) is proportional to &lt;code&gt;ln(M)&lt;/code&gt; where &lt;code&gt;M&lt;/code&gt; is the number of nodes in the tree; since &lt;code&gt;M = A^N&lt;/code&gt;, to access each node of the tree once, &lt;code&gt;A^N * ln(A^N)&lt;/code&gt; operations are needed. There are several steps in the &lt;a href=&quot;https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Retrograde+Analysis&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;tablebase retrograde evaluation algorithm&lt;/a&gt; that scale similarly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In short, memory increases exponentially and the number of operations increases &lt;em&gt;faster than exponentially&lt;/em&gt; as more men are added. Computing has not advanced this far in (at the time of writing) 6 years.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Edit&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since this answer is getting a lot of traffic and I re-read my answer, I feel the need to add some clarification. Endgame tablebases are created with retrograde analysis, so deterministically calculating the outcome of one position requires knowledge of enough possible successor positions. As we know, this graph mushrooms quickly. While retrograde analysis is definitely parallelizable, one needs an enormous amount of working memory. However, it is common practice to allocate only 10s of GB of RAM to a single processor, so positions must be communicated over a network. This would require a lot of bandwidth, and multiple processors contending to make changes to the same table state would create synchronization problems that add overhead. Positions must be stored in RAM because disk read latency is horrendous (on the order of milliseconds instead of nanoseconds for cache or microseconds for RAM). It's possible some amount of pipelining or caching could amortize poor latency, but this is still a hard problem to solve at the required scale.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tl;dr even with a big supercomputer, modern computer architecture is not amenable to this type of problem.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8334" LastEditorUserId="8334" LastEditDate="2020-11-16T06:17:23.073" LastActivityDate="2020-11-16T06:17:23.073" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22034" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22024" CreationDate="2018-07-14T05:29:05.753" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'll tell you what I did to go from 2000 to 2200. At least 10 chess tempo tactics a day, completing these endgame books (silmans complete endgame manual, dvoretsky's endgame manual, endgame strategy by shereshevsky), went over a few thousand gm games (1-2 guess the move games a day on chesstempo and 6 games a day on 2700chess.com from classical time control games), and played and analyzed at least 1 15+ minute game a day.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you're 1900 you likely haven't seen enough middle game or endgame patterns (plans and piece maneuvers ), your evaluation abilities aren't strong enough (feeling who is better in a given position), your tactics aren't up to par, you may have trouble recognizing critical moments, and there are probably holes in your black preparation against e4, d4, or c4. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The regimen above will greatly help fix these issues, but it'll take about 3 hours a day. Good luck. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9627" LastActivityDate="2018-07-14T05:29:05.753" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22035" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22036" CreationDate="2018-07-14T07:59:30.103" Score="-1" ViewCount="74" Body="&lt;p&gt;Who are the best chess players of the past and present who create complicated positions and emerge as winners?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14658" LastActivityDate="2018-07-14T11:01:12.473" Title="Chess players and compicated positions" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2018-07-14T18:53:33.383" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22036" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22035" CreationDate="2018-07-14T11:01:12.473" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The most famous is Tal, he had a miniature against grandmasters about twice a year.  Nakamura was a great tactical player, but he now plays more conservatively.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12449" LastActivityDate="2018-07-14T11:01:12.473" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22037" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22024" CreationDate="2018-07-14T20:23:00.180" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am in a similar situation, so I can't really give advise from the perspective of someone who has been to the mountain top, and seen the promised land, but.. I suspect the key here is that to immerse oneself in chess, pursuing knowledge and skill, trying to find answers to questions etc, rather than this or that study program.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12953" LastActivityDate="2018-07-14T20:23:00.180" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22040" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13855" CreationDate="2018-07-15T23:33:14.443" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The move K-h8 R-f4 could manage a Draw. In time, as the w/b pawn ratio is increased, white’s win is a likelihood.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16963" LastActivityDate="2018-07-15T23:33:14.443" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22041" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22043" CreationDate="2018-07-16T04:57:35.560" Score="4" ViewCount="472" Body="&lt;p&gt;The gamepigeon app is declaring I lost (I am black). This simply does not make sense since it is white's turn and they are in check. The game abruptly ends. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this erroneous logic? How can I lose if I am not in check?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/3lSEi.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/3lSEi.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16965" LastActivityDate="2019-05-23T13:26:23.843" Title="Is this a stalemate?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;draw&gt;&lt;stalemate&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22043" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22041" CreationDate="2018-07-16T05:45:01.377" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a &lt;strong&gt;bug&lt;/strong&gt;. The GamePigeon app was written by non-chess programmers, their focus is not on chess. They're not specalized in chess apps, chess is just one of the many things they do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2018-07-16T05:56:48.680" LastActivityDate="2018-07-16T05:56:48.680" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22047" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-07-16T19:07:35.180" Score="4" ViewCount="310" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am looking for a Kasparov quote on boldness. I would like to be something along the lines of this: &amp;quot;I do less tactical training as tournament time approaches. Instead, I do more bold, daring things.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13147" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-12-16T06:36:16.713" LastActivityDate="2020-12-16T06:36:16.713" Title="Kasparov quote on boldness" Tags="&lt;kasparov&gt;&lt;quotations&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22049" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-07-17T16:56:36.107" Score="8" ViewCount="230" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have heard of &lt;a href=&quot;https://echiquier-medocain.fr/open-des-vins-2018/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this tournament&lt;/a&gt; in France, where the winners receive prizes in wine.&#xA;Now I was wondering if there are any other unusual or funny chess tournaments around the world? If yes, which can you recommend or where could one find a list of them?&#xA;Thanks in advance!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16975" LastActivityDate="2018-09-05T18:26:59.600" Title="Does anyone know of unusual and fun chess tournaments around the world?" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22050" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22024" CreationDate="2018-07-17T17:06:28.300" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;This sounds like a combination of problems.&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;If you are losing due to &quot;erratic blunders&quot; and &quot;time pressure&quot; you are either lacking focus or are thinking incorrectly (or as you say &quot;inefficient calculation&quot;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;You should read &quot;Think Like a Grandmaster&quot; by Kotov&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This book teaches you how to enumerate candidate moves and tackle branching variations in the most efficient way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;I lose a lot due to poor evaluation&quot;.  And it is your difficulty in evaluating positions that is probably leading to your time pressure.  Blitz and tactic puzzles are not going to help your evaluation skills.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;You need to read over GM games annotated by the players&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Getting GM insight into how they evaluate their games will do wonders for your game!&#xA;I recommend &quot;Symslov's 125 Selected Games&quot;, &quot;Zurich International Chess Tournament, 1953&quot;.  &quot;Fire on Board&quot; by Shirov, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2018-07-17T17:06:28.300" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22051" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22041" CreationDate="2018-07-17T18:02:41.930" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, the app was wrong to declare the game over at that point. But it is a losing position for black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;6Q1/8/7R/8/4P3/1P3K2/P4P1n/7k w - - 0 0&#xA;&#xA;1. Rxh2 Kxh2 2. Qg2#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Notably, white needs to be careful, as most king moves immediately lead to stalemate and a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think I also understand what the bug in the app is. It's been programmed to check every position to see if there is a side with no legal moves. If there is, that side is declared the loser. That's what it sees here - no legal moves for black, so black loses. Never mind that it's not even black's turn (so it doesn't matter if he has moves or not), that it couldn't possibly be black's turn because white is in check, or that in general, &quot;no legal moves&quot; can be a stalemate just as well as a loss.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8094" LastEditorUserId="8094" LastEditDate="2019-05-23T13:26:23.843" LastActivityDate="2019-05-23T13:26:23.843" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22052" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22049" CreationDate="2018-07-17T22:59:42.957" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;This one, held by the Marshall Chess Club in New York City, might fit:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;New Year’s Ridiculousness Insane Person Championship!&#xA;  15-SS, G/25 d5. $1,432 Gtd: $499-222-77-76-1, U2287: $164, U1974: $144, U1626: $131. Idiocy Prize: $118 to player scoring best in tournament with 1.g4 and/or 1…g5. EF: $45; Non-MCC Mbr: Additional $25 Mbr fee. GMs Free, $39 reduced from prizes. (Re-entry: $29.99.) Reg: 11:15-11:45am. Rds: 12-1:15-2:30-4:15-5:30pm each day. Max 5 byes, request at entry. Proper attire appreciated. Register online: www.marshallchessclub.org/register. 23 W 10th St / NYC / 212-477-3716.&#xA;  When&#xA;  Sun Dec 30, 2018 12pm – Tue Jan 1, 2019 8pm Eastern Time&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12523" LastActivityDate="2018-07-17T22:59:42.957" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22053" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-07-18T01:24:48.097" Score="3" ViewCount="322" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have been playing e3, Ke2, Kd3 openings in the bughouse chess variation on chess.com. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I got to 1800 pretty easily. I'm looking for other openings to play. As a side note, pushing down a4-a5-a6 is actually pretty strong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4393" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-09-16T14:03:16.403" LastActivityDate="2018-09-16T14:03:16.403" Title="What's a fun troll bughouse opening?" Tags="&lt;bughouse&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22054" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-07-18T03:36:10.703" Score="3" ViewCount="207" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have been around 1700-1900 rating (glicko 2) for a while. I have been losing on tactics when there aren't many pieces left.(mid-end game) My positional thinking is alright, and my endgame skills are alright. I play king's pawn with white and caro-cann + queen's indian for black. Also I have big strikes. On a good day I can win 5 in a row, on a bad day I lose 5 in a row. How can I improve my rating?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14319" LastActivityDate="2018-07-18T11:18:19.087" Title="1900 rating with no progress" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2018-07-18T11:39:04.050" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22055" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-07-18T05:13:22.023" Score="3" ViewCount="563" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just started preparing Endgame using Dvoretsky Endgame Manual. I am wondering if there are more books online about Pawn Endgames that I can use side by side either as an additional study material or solving book. Thanks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5653" LastActivityDate="2018-07-19T02:14:37.427" Title="Book recommendations on Pawn Endgame for intermediate and advanced level players?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;books&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22056" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22055" CreationDate="2018-07-18T07:52:47.280" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Chess Endgame Training&lt;/em&gt; by Bernd Rosen features 16 sections on different types of endgame, with 5 of them focused on pawn endgames. Each section has around 16 puzzles to solve featuring different themes : zugzwang, space advantage, pawn break, and so on. Some were quite tricky to solve (I'm ~1850 FIDE) and the author's lines and insights were helpful, even though I already knew basic endgames.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;FYI, I haven't read Dvoretsky's Endgame Manual so I can't guarantee you there's no redundancy, but I'd say it's unlikely. Rosen also divided material by section and within sections, which helps focus on particular themes for practice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16910" LastActivityDate="2018-07-18T07:52:47.280" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22057" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22053" CreationDate="2018-07-18T08:11:12.787" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sacrificing a piece on f7 (via Nf3-g5-f7 or e4, Bc4, Bxf7) creates a hole on f7 which can later be filled by a parachuting piece. This can be quite effective particularly if you have paratroopers ready from your partner's game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2018-07-18T08:11:12.787" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22058" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5384" CreationDate="2018-07-18T08:56:28.723" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Castling has always worked well for me, but the pawns in front of the King should never be moved, even for a fianchetto. It gives the opponent targets for sacrifices and weakens the control of key squares near the King. A pawn or a piece would then have to be dropped defensively later to patch the holes ; it will waste a turn and let the opponent attack, which isn't something you want in bughouse.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16910" LastActivityDate="2018-07-18T08:56:28.723" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22059" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22055" CreationDate="2018-07-18T09:14:28.493" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you can find it &lt;em&gt;The Final Countdown&lt;/em&gt; by Hajenius and Van Riemsdijk, also Muller and Lamprecht with &lt;em&gt;Secrets of Pawn Endings&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;The Final Countdown&lt;/em&gt; is a little book from the 90s that discusses pawn endings and things like key squares, and corresponding squares. It has about 50 exercises at the end.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Secrets of Pawn Endings&lt;/em&gt; is very comprehensive and has exercises with solutions for every chapter. It covers all sorts of concepts and also goes into different thinking methods.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An older book is Comprehensive Chess Endings, volume 4. I haven't read it so I don't know what it contained in the way of exercises, but Averbakh's series was well regarded when it was in print.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have Fishbein's book, but I haven't read it. If I had to choose one, I'd say you probably can't go wrong with &lt;em&gt;Secrets of Pawn Endings&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4324" LastEditorUserId="4324" LastEditDate="2018-07-19T02:14:37.427" LastActivityDate="2018-07-19T02:14:37.427" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22060" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-07-18T10:49:23.280" Score="1" ViewCount="340" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know the basics and some basic tactics in chess, but I want to learn new and advanced tactics. Can anybody tell me any source for that?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16973" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2018-07-18T12:02:05.367" LastActivityDate="2018-08-05T15:47:34.217" Title="From where to start learning new tactics?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22061" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22054" CreationDate="2018-07-18T11:18:19.087" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Do tactics regularly (possibly every day). Below 2000 rating is probably the best thing you can do, especially if you have a weak point there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ideally you want to practice for ~20-60 minutes (depending on how committed you want to be) on problems that do NOT give away the theme of the tactic involved (e.g. &quot;exchange sacrifice&quot;, &quot;overload&quot;, etc).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another thing you can do is to review your games, and if you lose due to tactics try and figure out which was the best response to parry that blow. In any case reviewing your own games is the key to improve (first review them on your own, and once you're finished go through them with an engine).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, I think you might want to watch other people playing, especially ranked 200-400 higher than you, and then review those games as well. I find it very useful because I usually understand the reasoning behind moves I didn't think about during my own games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="279" LastActivityDate="2018-07-18T11:18:19.087" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22062" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14974" CreationDate="2018-07-18T11:59:40.917" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Ben Johnson produces a weekly chess podcast called &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.perpetualchesspod.com/new-blog/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;The Perpetual Chess Podcast&lt;/a&gt;&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The format is roughly an hour long interview with a personality from the chess world. As well as top grandmasters he also interviews educators, writers, chess politicians and publishers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Recent interviewees include GMs Irina Krush, David Navara, Josh Friedel and Paco Vallejo, author GM Genna Sosonko, co-founder of Chessbase Frederic Friedel and chess politicians running in the upcoming FIDE presidential elections GM Nigel Short and IM Malcolm Pein.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2018-07-18T11:59:40.917" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22063" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5253" CreationDate="2018-07-18T13:11:06.033" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://syzygy-tables.info/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://syzygy-tables.info/&lt;/a&gt; allows to look up 7-men endgame positions. It does not give DTM information for 6- and 7-men endgames, only DTZ50+. On one hand, it is compliant with 50-move rule, OTOH, DTZ50-optimal play can be ugly (if it is possible to push a pawn or sacrifice a piece, it will).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also available for download: &lt;a href=&quot;https://tablebase.lichess.ovh/tables/standard/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://tablebase.lichess.ovh/tables/standard/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16979" LastEditorUserId="16979" LastEditDate="2018-08-19T17:53:55.210" LastActivityDate="2018-08-19T17:53:55.210" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22064" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19877" CreationDate="2018-07-18T13:59:28.843" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;So called &quot;DTZ&quot; syzygy tables are a supplement to WDL ones; without WDL, they're mostly useless.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stockfish/Cfish will work with WDL only, but then it might be unable to win a difficult won (as per tables) position. &quot;Outside&quot; the tables, that is, as long as you only analyze positions with more pieces than your tables have, &quot;DTZ&quot; syzygy tables are not required.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16979" LastActivityDate="2018-07-18T13:59:28.843" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22065" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15740" CreationDate="2018-07-18T14:18:08.810" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Stockfish has an undocumented, non-standard command &quot;d&quot; which prints, among other things, the DTZ value. Some interfaces, for example, Arena, let the user give commands to the engine manually.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16979" LastActivityDate="2018-07-18T14:18:08.810" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22066" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-07-18T14:38:19.150" Score="2" ViewCount="54" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Europe, each country organizes a team league, which are known highly competitive like Bundesliga in Germany or Top 12 in France as an example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there similar competition in North America (Canada, US) inside the states?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3480" LastActivityDate="2018-07-18T18:32:05.233" Title="Team League North America" Tags="&lt;team&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22067" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22066" CreationDate="2018-07-18T16:52:34.237" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes there is a chess league in the US, but it does not have the sponsorship you see in Europe. Check the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.uschess.org&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;USCF&lt;/a&gt; website, and this more specific site &lt;a href=&quot;http://uschessleague.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://uschessleague.com/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastEditorUserId="14202" LastEditDate="2018-07-18T18:32:05.233" LastActivityDate="2018-07-18T18:32:05.233" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22068" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22060" CreationDate="2018-07-18T16:59:02.120" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are a lot of sites with random puzzles, but if you want to be systematic I recommend &quot;Encyclopedia of Chess Middlegames: Combinations&quot;&#xA;This is a large book of puzzles organized into 16 categories.  These types of puzzles also appear in any Chess Informant -- which also has endgame puzzles.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2018-07-18T16:59:02.120" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22069" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22055" CreationDate="2018-07-18T18:34:32.073" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Encyclopedia of Chess Endings, Volume 1, Pawn Endings&#xA;by Aleksandar Matanovic&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The ECO books are thick and considered the standard reference books for all phases of chess.  They have a wide range of very specific books from the pawn ending you seek to anything like Rook vs. Minor Piece Endings, or Queen and Pawn endings.&#xA;The drawback of these books is that they don't have detailed explanations of the lines, but they are meant to be comprehensive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastEditorUserId="14202" LastEditDate="2018-07-18T22:52:33.407" LastActivityDate="2018-07-18T22:52:33.407" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22070" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-07-18T19:00:12.020" Score="1" ViewCount="604" Body="&lt;p&gt;I find myself having to use checklists of really simple stuff (like going over all captures, checks, threats, tactical themes, changes after a move) quickly in order to avoid very basic oversights from happening. Having to resort to this is of course quite discouraging, and I'm asking myself if the necessity to do so disappears as one grows stronger. So, do strong players (let's say rated 2200 and above) use such checklists?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12953" LastEditorUserId="12953" LastEditDate="2018-07-18T19:21:29.913" LastActivityDate="2018-07-19T08:11:47.727" Title="Blunder checklist for strong playrs" Tags="&lt;psychology&gt;&lt;blunder&gt;&lt;best-practice&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22071" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22070" CreationDate="2018-07-18T19:45:27.580" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;1) Material presence&#xA;2) Direct threats. This includes any and all captures, even if they do not lead to anything conclusive - some could be used as in-between moves.&#xA;3) King Safety&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That alone is enough to avoid blunders. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These are the first three steps of the Karpov Method.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13147" LastActivityDate="2018-07-18T19:45:27.580" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22072" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22073" CreationDate="2018-07-18T19:46:28.357" Score="3" ViewCount="451" Body="&lt;p&gt;Isn't 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 d6 (Old Indian Defense) a more flexible move-order than 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 (King's Indian Defense)? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't see why any Black player who wants to play the King's Indian would avoid the former move order.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13147" LastActivityDate="2020-08-04T01:26:50.833" Title="King's Indian move order" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;1.d4&gt;&lt;old-indian&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22073" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22072" CreationDate="2018-07-18T20:37:10.410" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's actually a &lt;em&gt;less&lt;/em&gt; flexible move order. The bishop will go to g7 in either case, but now black can't go ...d5 in one go. Only play this if you want to put the bishop on e7 (the Old Indian Defense)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16768" LastActivityDate="2018-07-18T20:37:10.410" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22074" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22055" CreationDate="2018-07-18T22:04:41.453" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Reuben Fine's Basic Chess Endings is a classic -  Benko's revision corrects errors in the early edition&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16981" LastActivityDate="2018-07-18T22:04:41.453" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22075" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22055" CreationDate="2018-07-18T23:24:21.587" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Alex Fishbein's King and Pawn Endgames has made me feel comfortable seeing only pawns on the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The book is filled with almost 300 positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have only gone through the first 60 and I already feel ages ahead of my ability. No longer do I have to look at a King and Pawns only endgame in horror. I actually have ideas about what to do (king in the middle, forcing the enemy king onto a bad square, gaining tempo, etc.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have brilliantly developed an intuition for the king. I tend to move my king towards the middle in late middlegames.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13147" LastActivityDate="2018-07-18T23:24:21.587" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22076" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22077" CreationDate="2018-07-19T07:45:48.757" Score="7" ViewCount="460" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why is 4.e3 Bxc3+ almost never played in the Nimzo-Indian, with idea of 5.bxc3 c5, considering that this is a relatively feared move after 4.e3 c5 5.Nf3 Bxc3, et cetera (Huebner Variation), so that a lot of White players switched to 5.Ne2 to avoid this system in recent times? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[title &quot;Nimzo-Indian Defense with 4. e3 Bxc3+&quot;]&#xA;[startply &quot;7&quot;]&#xA;[startflipped &quot;1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 Nf6&#xA;2. c4 e6&#xA;3. Nc3 Bb4&#xA;4. e3 Bxc3+&#xA;5. bxc3 c5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Same question from a different perspective: is one tempo that important in a relatively closed position? (e.g. 4.a3 Bxc3+ is generally considered a good game for Black). Then why shouldn't it be after 4.e3 Bxc3?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastEditorUserId="315" LastEditDate="2019-03-31T13:02:21.157" LastActivityDate="2020-08-16T09:19:29.230" Title="Why not 4.e3 Bxc3+ in the Nimzo-Indian?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;nimzo-indian&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22077" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22076" CreationDate="2018-07-19T08:08:10.787" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this case, one tempo is important due to the concrete nature of the current position. White doesn't have to use it to play Nf3:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4.e3 Bxc3 5.bxc3 c5 6.Bd3, and if Black plays in the style of the Huebner with 6...Nc6 then White has 7.Ne2! and now 7...d6 8.0-0 e5 9.Ng3! gives White an edge (Stockfish says around +0.60). His knight controls the key e4- and f5- squares, and an f4 push is coming soon. This position is a major improvement for White over the normal Huebner system, where instead of playing Ne2-Ng3, White plays Nf3-Nd2 (to avoid Black's threat of playing the ...e4 fork). A knight on g3 can become an active attacker on the kingside, while a knight on d2 just blocks in the c1-bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that if Black refuses to play in the style of the Huebner (6...Nc6, 7...d6, 8...e5) then White plays an early e4 push and gets a crushing position in the centre.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2018-07-19T08:08:10.787" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22078" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22070" CreationDate="2018-07-19T08:11:47.727" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Disclaimer: Every person has their own way of approaching these situations, but I think my experience is similar to the experience of most other (stronger) players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In an implicit way everyone uses a checklist as you do. Weaker (or more unexperienced) players, maybe need to mentally go through all the points in order, whereas stronger (or more experienced) players are able to do so automatically at every move. When my opponent moves a piece, I automatically check which of my squares and pieces are now attacked and create a threat to me. Similarly I also check which squares are now less defended and if that opens an opportunity for me. Similarly I check for king's safety, tactical motives and other opportunities. This is however not explicitly checking if there is, for example, a fork attack pending, but more the realization that two pieces are in a position where a fork attack might happen (regardless if it is currently possible or not).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nevertheless I sometimes take some time to evaluate the whole situation on the board. This includes tactical motives but rather focuses on strengths and weaknesses of my position and my opponent position, ideally leading to a plan that can later be executed. Here I often fall back to a checklist, looking for common features such as weak pawns, inactive pieces or open lines and diagonals.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As advice for you, there is no shame in trying to avoid blunders. If you have to look explicitly for tactical motives, then do it. With time you will get used to the most common patterns and find them more easily and quickly. Maybe you will also be able to find these patterns &quot;by heart&quot; (that is without having to look for them).  But even if not, your opponent will never know and your strength doesn't come from the way that you look for blunders, but how effectively you can identify them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16758" LastActivityDate="2018-07-19T08:11:47.727" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22079" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22084" CreationDate="2018-07-19T09:57:28.693" Score="2" ViewCount="1022" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am building a chess board where I have one LED for each column and row, so I can represent moves by iluminating the orogin coordinate (e2) and the destination coordinate (e4)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However chess algebraic notation is simplified and the origin and destination coordinates need additional info to be calculated (like the board and the rules for each piece)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am looking for some library or function that does this convertion (any language is fine).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically I need this function to translate my board coordinates to a chess engine notation and viceversa.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16923" LastActivityDate="2018-08-19T04:00:42.713" Title="Algebraic to coordinate notation converter" Tags="&lt;computer-chess&gt;&lt;notation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22080" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22060" CreationDate="2018-07-19T11:52:00.440" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chesstempo.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chesstempo.com&lt;/a&gt; is an excellent site for learning and practicing chess tactics. You can use it for free and the puzzles will adjust based on your success rate from easy to puzzles grandmasters get wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Be sure to read the comments when you get a puzzle wrong as it often reveals some tactic type that you may have never seen before.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They also have a glossary of tactic types.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16702" LastActivityDate="2018-07-19T11:52:00.440" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22081" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22079" CreationDate="2018-07-19T12:11:09.637" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/niklasf/python-chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://github.com/niklasf/python-chess&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Parses and creates SAN representation of moves.&#xA;&#xA;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt; board = chess.Board()&#xA;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt; board.san(chess.Move(chess.E2, chess.E4))&#xA;'e4'&#xA;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt; board.parse_san('Nf3')&#xA;Move.from_uci('g1f3')&#xA;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt; board.variation_san([chess.Move.from_uci(m) for m in [&quot;e2e4&quot;, &quot;e7e5&quot;, &quot;g1f3&quot;]])&#xA;'1. e4 e5 2. Nf3'&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do you see &quot;g1f3&quot; translates to &lt;code&gt;Nf3&lt;/code&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2018-07-19T12:11:09.637" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22082" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22060" CreationDate="2018-07-19T12:42:55.830" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have tried some of the existing sites that provide exercises. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are searching for common tactical position, &lt;a href=&quot;https://chesstempo.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chesstempo&lt;/a&gt; is sure one of the best options with ilimitated free exercises.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are searching for incredible checkmates, sacs etc, &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chess.com&lt;/a&gt; has a nice trainer, the problem is it is not free.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You have also &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;lichess&lt;/a&gt;. The exercises at this site are taken from blitz games of the players. They use stockfish to generate them. Some of them are doubtful, but a punctuation system is doing his task. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to become a good player in long games (90+30) I recommend you to do lots of exercises at chesstempo, but lichess exercises are nice for tricks and so and totaly free.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user16971" LastActivityDate="2018-07-19T12:42:55.830" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22083" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9751" CreationDate="2018-07-19T13:50:53.347" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can prefix the path with &quot;syzygy:&quot; (without quotes), at least, if there is only one path and you don't care about any other table type.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16979" LastActivityDate="2018-07-19T13:50:53.347" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22084" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22079" CreationDate="2018-07-20T03:27:13.573" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Java:  &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/bhlangonijr/chesslib/tree/master/src/main/java/com/github/bhlangonijr/chesslib&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://github.com/bhlangonijr/chesslib/tree/master/src/main/java/com/github/bhlangonijr/chesslib&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;C++:  &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/alexmdc/chesslib&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://github.com/alexmdc/chesslib&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Python:  &lt;a href=&quot;https://pypi.org/project/python-chess/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://pypi.org/project/python-chess/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;C:  &lt;a href=&quot;https://sourceforge.net/projects/sankit/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://sourceforge.net/projects/sankit/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These are all able to return long algebraic notation.  Stockfish is reported to also.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9684" LastActivityDate="2018-07-20T03:27:13.573" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22085" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22072" CreationDate="2018-07-20T04:28:54.937" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Playing 2...d6 allows for the Old Indian Defence and King's Indian Defence, while 2...g6 allows for the Grunfeld and King's Indian Defence. Both have some degree of flexibility, so it depends which openings you are fine with playing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, against either 2...d6 or 2...g6, White can play 3.Nc3 (threatening e4). At that point, you would have to choose what opening you're doing to play (so the flexibility ends here). In the 2...d6 3.Nc3 position, 3...e5 leads to the Old Indian and not playing it will lead to a KID (or KID-like structure). In the 2...g6 3.Nc3 position, 3...d5 leads to the Grunfeld and not playing it leads to the KID.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The main reason to use one move order or the other is if you know your opponent doesn't like facing one of the two openings you can deploy. For example, if your opponent likes to go into the Classical King's Indian with Nf3 but detests facing the main line Grunfeld, he might play 3.f3 after 2...g6. Then, you can revert to the KID and your opponent is stuck in the Samisch. Comparatively, if you had played 2...d6, your opponent would go 3.Nc3, 4.e4, 5.Nf3 (since he doesn't fear a Grunfeld happening), reaching a variation of the KID he likes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2018-07-20T04:28:54.937" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22086" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18467" CreationDate="2018-07-20T17:55:06.877" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm still working out the full answer, but this is a start:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;flipcolor {wtm check ng3 Pg2 Ph2 Kh1 r attack (q g1) not {square $x in h3-8 a on $x} result 0-1}&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This gets down to 13 games from over 2 million and includes the Karpov - Taimanov game. I still haven't figured out a way to deal with the rook, but&#xA;this gets a game list small enough to look through. The not square bits could be taken out to expand the search to a couple hundred games, that was just looking for the h file to not be blocked by black pieces for the later rook move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I used the above in the latest scid vs pc codebase, which has cql support by adding cql() to the beginning and running it in the cql search vs what is Chessbase Big Database 2017 updated to last month.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4324" LastEditorUserId="4324" LastEditDate="2018-07-20T21:16:10.527" LastActivityDate="2018-07-20T21:16:10.527" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22087" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22094" CreationDate="2018-07-20T19:37:29.420" Score="6" ViewCount="1200" Body="&lt;p&gt;As far as I know, to calculate the average centipawn loss, we calculate S&lt;sub&gt;1&lt;/sub&gt; - S&lt;sub&gt;0&lt;/sub&gt; for every move, where S&lt;sub&gt;1&lt;/sub&gt; is the evaluation (in centipawns) of the position before the move and S&lt;sub&gt;0&lt;/sub&gt; is the evaluation (in centipawns) of the position after the move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's take this position as an example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Site &quot;https://lichess.org/kuvnBssO&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2018.07.20&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;-&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Kulkid&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;WaisKamal&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;2016&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;2107&quot;]&#xA;[Variant &quot;Standard&quot;]&#xA;[TimeControl &quot;30+0&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;D44&quot;]&#xA;[Termination &quot;Normal&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;[SeUp &quot;1&quot;]&#xA;[StartPly &quot;67&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. c4 Nf6 3. Nc3 e6 4. Nf3 dxc4 5. e3 { D44 Queen's Gambit Declined: Vienna Variation, Quiet Variation } Be7 6. Bxc4 O-O 7. Bd3 Nbd7 8. O-O b6 9. Re1 Bb7 10. a3 Bxf3 11. b4 Bxd1 12. Rxd1 c5 13. Bb2 cxd4 14. exd4 Qc7 15. Ne2 Rac8 16. Rac1 Qb7 17. Rb1 Rc7 18. f3 Rfc8 19. Ng3 h6 20. Ne4 Nxe4 21. Bxe4 Qb8 22. Bd3 Bf6 23. Ba6 Rd8 24. Be2 b5 25. Kf2 a6 26. Bc1 Nf8 27. Be3 Rdd7 28. Rdc1 Rxc1 29. Rxc1 Qd8 30. Rd1 Bxd4 31. Bxd4 Rxd4 32. Rc1 Rd2 33. Re1 Ng6 34. Ke3 f5 35. Kf2 Nf4 36. Kg3 Nxe2+ 37. Kf2 Qd4+ 38. Kf1 Qg1# { Black wins by checkmate. } 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The given position is a mate-in-one (Qd4#). I missed this mate, and instead played f5, resulting in a position with an evaluation of mate-in-6. How will my centipawn loss be calculated for this move?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13544" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-07-20T21:21:42.540" LastActivityDate="2018-07-22T05:31:02.857" Title="How is average centipawn loss calculated when a mate is missed?" Tags="&lt;evaluation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22088" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2018-07-20T19:38:15.897" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2018-07-20T19:38:15.897" LastActivityDate="2018-07-20T19:38:15.897" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22089" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2018-07-20T19:38:15.897" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2018-07-20T19:38:15.897" LastActivityDate="2018-07-20T19:38:15.897" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22090" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-07-20T21:25:42.057" Score="1" ViewCount="194" Body="&lt;p&gt;How to score a chess move, which techniques are used to figure out how good a move is?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16986" LastActivityDate="2018-07-21T12:36:19.130" Title="Algorithms to score chess moves" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;candidate-move&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ClosedDate="2018-07-31T08:58:19.857" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22091" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22090" CreationDate="2018-07-21T01:44:19.230" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Initially the score based on a piece square value, which tends to centralize the pieces and give a bonus for castling.  Some elements can add additional bonuses--such as, a capture, a check, or other forcing move.  This value is how moves are sorted to be used by the search function.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The search function plays moves until a certain value is reached; be it a certain depth, score, or elapsed time.  The final position is normally a quiet one to get a more reliable evaluation.  This final score is added up by such elements as material, pawn structure, king tropism, space...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By looking at computer chess codes, this was the standard algorithms used to calculate moves, but with the success of AlphaZero, there is more of what we call intuition used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9684" LastActivityDate="2018-07-21T01:44:19.230" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22092" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8771" CreationDate="2018-07-21T12:15:33.823" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The best I could come up with is 7 moves, I don't believe it could take much longer, because with 4 queens there's not as much freedom as with 2, I cannot put black king in the middle of the board when capturing black queens while keeping king in check:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;3q4/q7/q7/q7/8/8/8/k1K4Q w - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And I made it nice as you asked -- the first move it not a capture! =)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15296" LastEditorUserId="15296" LastEditDate="2018-07-25T23:01:52.247" LastActivityDate="2018-07-25T23:01:52.247" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22093" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22090" CreationDate="2018-07-21T12:36:19.130" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Firstly, I would like to point out, you cannot figure out how &lt;strong&gt;good&lt;/strong&gt; is the move, because no move can improve position, only make it worse. And the winner is usually the one who managed to &quot;destroy&quot; his position less than the opponent. So the questions should be: &quot;how &lt;strong&gt;bad&lt;/strong&gt; a move is&quot;... =)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Secondly, I believe you cannot actually &lt;code&gt;score&lt;/code&gt; a move. You can only score the original position and the resulting position and subtract the former from the latter  to find out how worse it became.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The position evaluation is quite big and complicated topic by itself. There are two ways -- static evaluation, when you just add up all pieces and some extra points for open lines, centered pawns and other things considered to be &quot;good&quot;, and dynamic evaluation, when you start building a move tree, as far as you could, statically evaluate positions after a few moves and use min/max to derive the evaluation for the current position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are interested, there are quite a few open source chess engines, starting from 100 lines of code, written in C, C++, Python and other languages, so you may easily choose the one you like and see how it works, maybe change a few lines and see what happens.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15296" LastActivityDate="2018-07-21T12:36:19.130" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22094" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22087" CreationDate="2018-07-21T12:50:49.950" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I cannot vouch for every engine available, but the general approach is, the mate is evaluated to something close to 15-bit integer, 32765 centipawns, and you get minus 1000 centipawns for every move-to-mate (to make it reasonable for the engine to sacrifice the queen (~900 cp) to delay the mate).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your particular case, the original evaluation was &lt;code&gt;327.65&lt;/code&gt; pawns, the mate-in-6 became something like &lt;code&gt;327.65 - 10.00 * 6 = 267.65&lt;/code&gt; -- the numbers are not exact, and different engines may use slightly different approaches, but this one is the most common, I believe.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15296" LastActivityDate="2018-07-21T12:50:49.950" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22096" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-07-22T03:08:20.020" Score="4" ViewCount="340" Body="&lt;p&gt;My brother and I made this 15 by 15 squares chess board that uses two sets of pieces minus a pawn and king for each color.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/CdzMK.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/CdzMK.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;15x15 board (still coloring in black squares)&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We have already played a game and find it extremely fun and interesting, but a lot to manage in our heads as there are so many options.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We decided that we might need to change some of the rules - like how pieces move or how they are initially set up.  Right now we have each side set up as following.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P&#xA;R N B R N B Q K Q B N R B N R &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We figured this provided a fair amount of protection, but is there a better layout? For instance, should queens be on one side of the king?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Queens remain very powerful, but bishops massively increase in power compared to the other pieces since they can cover so much distance.  Rooks are difficult to move out as usual which is fine, but knights and pawns are pretty hard to get into the middle game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We had a few ideas to fix this issue. We thought we will have pawns be able to move either 1, 2, &lt;em&gt;or 3&lt;/em&gt; spaces on their first turn.  We are also considering giving knights a larger ‘L’ shape (not sure exactly what shape - suggestions welcome).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And then there is castling to figure out.  We had an idea to give the king the ability to either castle with the nearest rook when he can under usual conditions when no pieces are blocking... or with the furthest rook if he can under usual conditions when no pieces are blocking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I’m asking for advice on set up and rules that maximize fun gameplay and strategy. Any creative suggestions are welcome, but I’m also looking for some real logic to back up most ideas. Try to notice potential flaws with having a giant board and how to fix them by modifying set up and rules.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16993" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2018-07-22T09:14:13.693" LastActivityDate="2018-07-24T14:55:14.807" Title="15x15 squared board" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;rules&gt;&lt;chess-variants&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="0" ClosedDate="2018-07-26T10:30:20.857" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22097" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22096" CreationDate="2018-07-22T03:40:43.523" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I agree that giving the knights and pawns extra movement power to compensate for their current short range.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As the board is (almost) doubled, the pawn movement ability should also be doubled.  Allow them to move either 1 or 2 squares and, in addition, 3 or 4 on their respective first move.  The rules for en passant would have to be adjusted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The knight is trickier.  I think that the knight always changing color squares should be adhered, so the natural additions would be a 3x2 or a 4x3 pattern.[1]  The latter allows for the natural king-rook fork while the other allows the queen-rook fork.  They both seem to allow too many forks due to the extreme power given to the knights. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[1]  As the correct movement of the knight is described as 1 square forward and one square in the same direction diagonally, The suggested move would be the same but allowing 2 or 3 squares diagonally, respectfully.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9684" LastActivityDate="2018-07-22T03:40:43.523" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22098" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22087" CreationDate="2018-07-22T05:31:02.857" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;When calculating average centipawn losses for a game, a program does not necessarily need to directly use the centipawn output from the engine.  If it did, then if the engine evaluates mate as 32765 centipawns, missing a single mate in 1 could incur about the same centipawn penalty as &lt;em&gt;losing a queen every move for the entire game&lt;/em&gt;. That's just too harsh, even for a game-losing mistake.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The engine itself will report how many moves until mate along with any evaluation score, and any program or website that calculates average centipawn loss can interpret this output as it likes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess.com's computer analysis gives an &quot;Avg. Diff&quot; stat, which is the average pawn loss for the game - multiply this by 100 and you get average centipawn loss.  I experimented with it a bit, and it appears that they've implemented a limit of 1000 centipawns as the most you can be considered to have lost in a single move for the purposes of calculating this stat.  It will use this 1000 centipawn value in missed mate situations, including in your situation where you played a move that mates in 6 moves instead of 1.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my opinion, 1000 centipawns is a good limit to prevent the average from being skewed too much by one move, although personally I still wouldn't give such a harsh penalty to imprecisions in a game that remains won or lost for the same side. A move that allows you to mate your opponent in 6 moves instead of 5 should not be the same as a move that misses the win altogether.  If I were writing the program, such inaccuracies would be maybe 100 centipawns instead of 1000.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2018-07-22T05:31:02.857" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22099" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22376" CreationDate="2018-07-22T11:44:47.507" Score="3" ViewCount="2444" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are there any known early tactical traps in the so-called Jobava Attack (1.d4 d5 2.Nc3 Nf6 3.Bf4) for both sides? Leaving out the Barry Attack (early g6 by Black).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastActivityDate="2018-08-27T15:11:45.643" Title="Traps in the Jobava Attack" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;london-system&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22100" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-07-22T11:47:53.963" Score="2" ViewCount="293" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are there any estimates sales rankings for chess books? How much do a bestselling chess book generally sell?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-09-26T13:11:24.243" LastActivityDate="2019-12-16T16:46:15.603" Title="Sales rankings for chess books?" Tags="&lt;books&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22101" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22100" CreationDate="2018-07-22T12:15:30.913" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Amazon publishes best sellers lists by category, and &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/books/4406/ref=pd_zg_hrsr_books_1_4_last&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here is the one for chess&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is obviously not perfect since it's just for Amazon (although they do have what one might call a significant share of the market), and it doesn't tell you anything about how much does a bestselling book generally sells, but I hope it's better than nothing. Also if you look at the page for a specific book, it tells you its ranking among books in general. For example, for &lt;a href=&quot;https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/0553263153&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess&lt;/a&gt; it says &quot;#3,480 in Books&quot; as of this writing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12523" LastActivityDate="2018-07-22T12:15:30.913" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22102" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22103" CreationDate="2018-07-22T17:38:35.470" Score="5" ViewCount="464" Body="&lt;p&gt;To be more clear, here is a fragment of a game:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;4k3/R7/6r1/3KP3/8/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Ra2 Rg5 2. Ra7 Rg6 3. Ra2 Rg5 4. Ra7 Rg6 5. Ra4 Rg5 6. Ra2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=171&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Laws of Chess&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;5.5.1 d.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  The game may be drawn if an identical position is about to appear or has appeared on the chessboard at least three times (see Article 9.2).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The position &lt;strong&gt;of the pieces&lt;/strong&gt; occurred three times. However the &lt;strong&gt;board position&lt;/strong&gt; only occurred twice. In the first two occurrences, it was white to move. In the final position, it is black's turn. Can I claim a draw by threefold repetition in this situation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13544" LastEditorUserId="18475" LastEditDate="2019-03-28T06:03:57.867" LastActivityDate="2019-03-28T06:03:57.867" Title="Does threefold repetition take into account the side to move?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;threefold-repetition&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22103" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22102" CreationDate="2018-07-22T17:49:58.820" Score="16" Body="&lt;p&gt;You quote an extract from the FIDE Laws of Chess which includes the simple instruction &quot;see Article 9.2&quot; yet you don't bother to &quot;see Article 9.2&quot; where your question is answered -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;9.2.1 The game is drawn, upon a correct claim by a player having the move, when the same position for at least the third time (not&#xA;  necessarily by a repetition of moves):&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  9.2.1.1 is about to appear, if he first writes his move, which cannot be changed, on his scoresheet and declares to the arbiter his&#xA;  intention to make this move, or&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  9.2.1.2 has just appeared, and the player claiming the draw has the move. &lt;strong&gt;Positions are considered the same if and only if the same player&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;  &lt;strong&gt;has the move, pieces of the same kind and colour occupy the same&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;  &lt;strong&gt;squares and the possible moves of all the pieces of both players are&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;  &lt;strong&gt;the same.&lt;/strong&gt; Thus positions are not the same if:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  9.2.2.1 at the start of the sequence a pawn could have been captured en passant&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  9.2.2.2 a king had castling rights with a rook that has not been moved, but forfeited these after moving. The castling rights are lost&#xA;  only after the king or rook is moved.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note in particular &quot;Positions are considered the same if and only if the same player has the move&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-03-14T13:45:23.683" LastActivityDate="2019-03-14T13:45:23.683" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22104" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22100" CreationDate="2018-07-23T01:40:52.023" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Obviously, how much money book selling is a business secret. Nobody will tell you, you will never get the information.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I do work with book publishers, they can comfortably pay my invoices with good profit margin. Furthermore I sell few database apps on the app store (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.smallchess.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;www.smallchess.com&lt;/a&gt;), while I'm not a publisher I make non-trivial returns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Selling chess books won't be make another Jeff Bezos, however, it's still a profitable business. In fact, selling books give better returns than being a 2700+ grandmaster. Unless you're like in the top 20 of the world, selling a good book (or running a business) makes more money.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why? While the chess marker is much smaller than say football, the chess market is dominated by high-income earners. Chess books buyers have good purchasing power, because if they don't they would have better things to do than chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well known book writers rely on commissions from their books for living.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2018-07-23T01:52:10.430" LastActivityDate="2018-07-23T01:52:10.430" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22108" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22110" CreationDate="2018-07-23T18:34:12.090" Score="0" ViewCount="98" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just played a chess ga,e whose link is:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/mn8mcGT7/white#15&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://lichess.org/mn8mcGT7/white#15&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;And I reached this position after the seventh move of Black.&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/uWl6q.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/uWl6q.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I want to know why it is wrong to defend the piece with the bishop and is the right thing to do that with the white queen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16771" LastActivityDate="2018-07-23T19:39:27.817" Title="Doubt about defending piece" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22110" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22108" CreationDate="2018-07-23T19:39:27.817" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;You should always be skeptical about the &quot;inaccuracy&quot; annotations you get from Lichess (or similar sites) because it runs an extremely quick analysis; the small differences in evaluation that get called inaccuracies may go away when you let the engine run deeper. (Blunder annotations, on the other hand, are much more likely to be meaningful.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While the engine initially liked Qc2 best, after letting the analysis of your position run to &quot;completion&quot; (depth 25) with 5 lines, the situation changes. Your results may vary because it's not even completely deterministic, but here's what I got:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/8Q4L9.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/8Q4L9.png&quot; alt=&quot;Screenshot of detail of lichess.org analysis board&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you can see, the &quot;best&quot; move now is to castle! But the first four moves are practically tied, between +0.7 and +0.6, and the two moves you mentioned, Qc2 vs Bd2 are now both at +0.6. At some points while the analysis was running, Bd2 was actually ahead. And I'm sure if you let it run longer (there's the &quot;infinite analysis&quot; option for that), they may trade places yet again.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In practice, they are both good moves as far as the engine can tell you, so you have to decide based on human factors or personal preference. For example, castling looks like it might lead to losing a pawn. Stockfish doesn't mind it, maybe because it can &quot;see&quot; the compensation (or how to recover it several moves later), but you might not be comfortable risking it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12523" LastActivityDate="2018-07-23T19:39:27.817" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22111" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22115" CreationDate="2018-07-23T19:54:54.623" Score="0" ViewCount="139" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have not been able to tell why my computer sometimes tell me that advancing a pawn from its original square in order to kick an opponent piece is right and other times wrong.&#xA;Take for instance, this game whose link is in case someone needs it: &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/JdqqGV0Aekw4&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://lichess.org/JdqqGV0Aekw4&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/JMJXc.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/JMJXc.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this case it is Ok to play a6 to kick out the knight.&#xA;However, in this position:&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Se9er.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Se9er.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt; I played the obvious Nf3.&#xA; However, it seems that kicking out the bishop with a3 would be a great mistake. &#xA;I feel that sometimes kicking out these annoying pieces gets me in a less superior position whereas other times it is best kicking them out before castling or proceeding with the development of pieces and that is something that really confuses me. &#xA;I would appreciate if someone could really give some kind of rule of thumb or at least some things to consider before doing those pawns advances.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16771" LastEditorUserId="16771" LastEditDate="2018-07-23T22:05:35.897" LastActivityDate="2018-07-23T23:01:09.873" Title="Moving a pawn to attack a piece on the 5th or 4th rank" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22113" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4639" CreationDate="2018-07-23T21:18:50.163" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;4...g6 just gives you a bad version of a Grunfeld where Black has played the pointless weakening move ...e6, blocking in the light squared bishop.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It doesn't fit with Black's strategy in the QGD, which is to hold onto d5 with ...e6, exchange pieces, and carefully neutralize white's opening advantage.  The kingside fianchetto belongs to the alternate strategy of allowing white to occupy the centre and then trying to obtain immediate counterplay by attacking it on the dark squares with Bg7 and ...c5 or ...e5, as in the Grunfeld and King's Indian.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both approaches are viable, but work best when you commit to one or the other, rather than trying to mix them by playing ...e6 and ...g6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16679" LastActivityDate="2018-07-23T21:18:50.163" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22114" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22111" CreationDate="2018-07-23T22:13:09.260" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the second example, after a2-a3, black does not have to retreat his dark squared bishop but can instead play ...Qxd4 when after axb4 Black can follow up with Qxd3.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8258" LastActivityDate="2018-07-23T22:13:09.260" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22115" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22111" CreationDate="2018-07-23T23:01:09.873" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;Nf3&lt;/code&gt; protects the pawn on &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt;, which otherwise will be taken by queen during the next move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15296" LastActivityDate="2018-07-23T23:01:09.873" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22118" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-07-24T14:16:07.457" Score="8" ViewCount="408" Body="&lt;p&gt;How do people &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;really&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; improve at chess?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I often hear people say that any of the following will improve a player's ability:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Doing tactics puzzles&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Playing more games&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Playing bullet games&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Playing longer games&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Playing correspondence games&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Memorizing openings&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Analyzing own games&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Reading chess books&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes I hear a specific example like &quot;I've been doing tactics puzzles since last year and it has improved my understanding significantly&quot;, and then I ask for their lichess name, and I check it, and their rating has been extremely steady for the last 3 years.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Often these kinds of suggestions seem at first to be anecdotal, but even anecdotes would be true. These are worse than anecdotes because they are not based in reality.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there some scientific study of GMs and their history to find out exactly the key points that made them great? Or some study of kids over time with different training techniques and comparison of rating changes to see what works and what doesn't?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as I can tell, the thing GMs have in common is that they all had strong chess coaches when they were kids and became very strong players by the time they were 15 or younger.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user17003" LastActivityDate="2018-07-25T20:52:20.973" Title="Studies on how people really improve at chess?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ClosedDate="2018-07-26T10:30:56.713" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22119" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22096" CreationDate="2018-07-24T14:55:14.807" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;A fun rule could be to allow the King to castle two times:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;First in the standard way in the standard array&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Second with the corner rook in the same direction&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the second castling, the restriction is the usual one except for the King who has made no other move than the first castling.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3819" LastActivityDate="2018-07-24T14:55:14.807" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22120" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-07-24T18:27:04.483" Score="3" ViewCount="655" Body="&lt;p&gt;I often play the following variation with black when I play blitz. Somehow it refuses the known lines of the Spanish.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;It looks like that black is going to be destroyed but almost always I win when I play this opening.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.O-O b5 6.Bb3 Be7 7.Re1 O-O 8.c3 Nxe4!?   &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The main idea is that IF white accepts the sacrifice, he/she is going to suffer a pawn storm who will paralyze the queen side.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Almost always (I mean over 95% of the times) the game continuous like this:   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.O-O b5 6.Bb3 Be7 7.Re1 O-O 8.c3 Nxe4!? 9.Rxe4 d5 10.Re1 e4 11.Nd4 Ne5   &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And after this continuation, black has strong attack.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I really liked the idea that I found something &lt;em&gt;different&lt;/em&gt; to play when I am facing the Spanish (By the way, is 8... Nxe4 a &quot;new&quot; idea?), but I think it is possible to get crushed in a game which is not blitz.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;So my question is:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is 8...Nxe4 a move which gives black something good in general?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2021" LastActivityDate="2018-07-25T16:41:25.043" Title="Is this knight sacrifice a good idea?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;ruy-lopez&gt;&lt;sacrifice&gt;&lt;opening-traps&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22121" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22120" CreationDate="2018-07-24T18:43:34.497" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is really a question for the engines, but it's hard to believe&#xA;that Black has enough compensation here for his creatively sacrificed&#xA;material.  White could also return a fraction of the material with&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;10 Nxe5!? dxe4 11 Nxc6 Qd6 12 Nxe7+ Qxe7 13 d4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and be just up B+N for R; or return a bit more material in your main line with&#xA;12 Qh5 followed by 13 Nc6!? which seems to end up with White having an&#xA;extra pawn, which is a bigger advantage than White normally gets from&#xA;this opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8860" LastActivityDate="2018-07-24T18:43:34.497" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22122" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22120" CreationDate="2018-07-24T20:54:40.763" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think black is totally lost here, after d5, Nxe5 seems to be winning easily for white.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even in your position, after f4 and Nc6 and taking on e7, white seems to be up a piece for no compensation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4393" LastActivityDate="2018-07-24T20:54:40.763" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22123" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22120" CreationDate="2018-07-24T23:40:35.370" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;The sacrifice is quite dubious.  Besides the answers with 10.Nxe5, 10. Rxe5 is simply two knights for a rook and there is no attack for Black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2018-07-24T23:40:35.370" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22124" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21629" CreationDate="2018-07-25T04:51:08.380" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;In &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retrograde_analysis#The_retro_strategy_convention_(RS)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this famous problem&lt;/a&gt; by H. Hultberg (1944), the white king &lt;strong&gt;castles&lt;/strong&gt; to prevent Black from castling:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;r3k2/1p1p2p1/2pP3p/8/8/5R2/PPPP4/4K2R - - - 0 0 &amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White to mate in two moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to chess problem conventions, castling is presumed to be legal unless it's provably illegal. In this position, you can prove that at least one player has lost the right to castle, but you don't know which one. (If the white rook on f3 came from a1, the white king must have moved to let it out. If the rook on f3 is a promoted piece, it must have visited a8, e8, or f8 before escaping the 8th rank, so the black king or rook must have moved.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.Rhf1? fails to 1...O-O-O.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.O-O! and 2.Rf8#, as Black is now unable to castle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2299" LastEditorUserId="2299" LastEditDate="2020-09-11T08:50:07.193" LastActivityDate="2020-09-11T08:50:07.193" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22125" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22147" CreationDate="2018-07-25T05:16:52.580" Score="1" ViewCount="551" Body="&lt;p&gt;Recently, Timur Gareyev displayed tremendous prowness by playing many boards blindfolded. What is the best strategy to visualize each and every board?&#xA;I already know the basics, like splitting the board into 4 parts, adopting different techniques for each stage of the game (opening, middlegame, and endgame), trying to visualize the board, and recognizing patterns or ideas.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How do I scale it up for many boards?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16912" LastEditorUserId="13544" LastEditDate="2018-07-30T00:55:00.193" LastActivityDate="2018-07-31T09:49:44.720" Title="What is the best strategy for simultaneous blindfold chess?" Tags="&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;simultaneous&gt;&lt;blindfold-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22126" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22128" CreationDate="2018-07-25T08:20:21.473" Score="4" ViewCount="1339" Body="&lt;p&gt;For what do you need to know the number of full moves? You still can't recreate every move in the game with FEN anyways, so I don't see the point of the full move counter. Is there any rule that depends on it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17010" LastActivityDate="2018-07-25T15:33:54.620" Title="What's the point of the full move counter in FEN?" Tags="&lt;fen&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22128" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22126" CreationDate="2018-07-25T08:50:56.893" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;You may want to record a fragment of a real game starting from move number 24, for example. Then you specify the FEN after the first 23 moves and set the full move number to 24.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3456" LastActivityDate="2018-07-25T08:50:56.893" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22129" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22126" CreationDate="2018-07-25T15:33:54.620" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;One rule that depends on the move count is the time control.  If you have a time control of 40/120, you need to know which move it is to know when the players get more time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2018-07-25T15:33:54.620" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22130" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22120" CreationDate="2018-07-25T16:41:25.043" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;As other already pointed out, black doesn't have enough compensation and white can even give back some material to have an easy game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But even in the last line where you keep the material and black plays Ne5, you can play d3 to free yourself up, and black cant really capture that pawn, at least not right away due to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;r1bq1rk1/2p1bppp/p7/1p1pn3/3Np3/1BP5/PP1P1PPP/RNBQR1K1 w - - 2 12&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d3 (1... exd3 2. Rxe5) Nxd3 2. Nc6 Qd6 3. Nxe7+ Qxe7 4. Qxd3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15224" LastActivityDate="2018-07-25T16:41:25.043" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22131" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22118" CreationDate="2018-07-25T20:52:20.973" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The closest thing there is to a long term study from child to gm of training techniques would be the polgar sisters. I'd advise searching for information on them to answer your question. Also I'm sure old soviet literature is full of ways to train chess GMs, they specialized in that for many years and had quite a few methods they thought optimally trained young players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anecdotally I can tell you from 2000 to 2200 I trained 2 hr 45 minutes on average each day, studying at minimum 10 chess tempo tactics, 3 recent gm games, a gm game of guess the move on chesstempo, and 1 15+ minute game on ICC a day with about an hour spent afterwards studying related games and opening lines. I also participated in an endgame club for about 4 months that year, read through Dvoretskys Endgame Manual, and Endgame Strategy by Mikhail Shereshevsky. At the beginning of that year (first 3 months) I also read through Winning Chess Middlegames by Ivan Sokolov. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the first 10 months I gained maybe 50 rating points over 3 tournaments. I gained 150 points in 2 tournaments in the last two months. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think this level of training could probably net 400 points in a year at lower levels, so long as young trainees were given optimum resources to practice with. Often times people use books that are either not suited to their level, don't address their weaknesses, or simple aren't very good. Also people have a tendency to play a lot of blitz or do things they find easy, but not the optimal things for improving their strength.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;/end anecdote&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9627" LastActivityDate="2018-07-25T20:52:20.973" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22132" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22060" CreationDate="2018-07-25T20:56:35.750" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;A good source for newer players would be 303 tricky chess tactics by Wilson and Albertson. I'd recommend going through it multiple times until you can comfortably do about 50 problems a day with no mistakes. That's when you've really maximized what you can learn from that book. Once you can do that chess tempo would be the place to go for more advanced tactics.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9627" LastActivityDate="2018-07-25T20:56:35.750" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22137" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12470" CreationDate="2018-07-27T20:36:08.900" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is the Zermelo's theorem from game theory, which says that a finite 2 person game always has a solution (draw or a winning strategy for black or white).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://Zermelo&amp;#39;s%20theorem%20on%20Wikipedia&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zermelo%27s_theorem_(game_theory)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7357" LastActivityDate="2018-07-27T20:36:08.900" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22138" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12470" CreationDate="2018-07-27T22:01:50.020" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Humans tend to draw because feeling fear - more fear if you play weaker. It lead to panic defensive, passive chess, blockades and poor game - which is opposition to rich and balanced, tactical, aggressive, positional, active chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Never accept draws to learn how to play even you will lose you will become stronger :) Carlsen not give up many draw positions and wins many of &quot;draw&quot; position which often is draw but opponent can not play enough accurate to win draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It will bring you much richer experience and fruitful games than building walls or waiting for draw which not works.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Simple answer 50% of draws Stockfish with other engines (no statistics for itself).&#xA;Stockfish 9 64-bit 4CPU 3441    +17 −17 72.5%   −156.5  49.5%   1198&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Whatever Leela playing itself (AI) only %5 draw (maybe play bad).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://lczero.org/stats&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://lczero.org/stats&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8406" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-04T20:30:18.847" LastActivityDate="2020-03-04T20:30:18.847" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22141" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22145" CreationDate="2018-07-28T13:11:50.583" Score="4" ViewCount="249" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a French Defense opening player from both sides. I don't like exchange line of the French Defense. They are drawish positions and my brain gets bored resulting in a positional or small mistake.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have never played it at a 90+30 FIDE rated games, and I know the engine says this is not good at all. Anyhow I have played c5 with black several times on blitz, and I still do it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The level of the players I play against rounds the range 1650-1900. There are some tricks if white don't plays well. Sometimes, especially for the players with lower rating. d4 or d5 pawns get pinned and become a trouble.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Should I stop playing it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;rnbqkbnr/pp3ppp/4p3/2pP4/3P4/8/PPP2PPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq c6 0 4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think I should have played this following line some dozens of times, having good results with black at blitz at a level 1650-1800. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2018.07.29&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;-&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;*&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. exd5 c5 4. dxe6 Bxe6 5. Bb5+ Nc6 6. Nf3 Qa5+ 7. Nc3 O-O-O *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Less frequent, but sometimes they fall, I recover the pawn, and there is misdevelopment. eg:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2018.07.29&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;-&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;*&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. exd5 c5 4. dxc5 Bxc5 5. dxe6 Bxf2+ 6. Ke2 Qxd1+ 7. Kxd1 &#xA;Bxe6 *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At some of the games I played -note it is blitz- they have clear they wanted an exchange and they just do not try to profit white's advantages. Then I like to have my pawn at c5 and accept the exchange and avoid the gambit variation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2018.07.29&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;-&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;*&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. exd5 c5 4. Nf3 exd5 *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user16971" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-07-30T13:56:07.810" LastActivityDate="2018-07-30T13:56:07.810" Title="Evaluation of this alternative to French exchange lines" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;gambits&gt;&lt;french-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22142" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22141" CreationDate="2018-07-28T18:50:57.917" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't see the point of saccing a pawn for no reason. The exchange french can lead to sharp positions, in fact as white I play exchange french when trying to win as well. Perhaps you need to study the opening a bit more before jumping to conclusions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would castle long, and pawn race on opposite sides of the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4393" LastEditorUserId="4393" LastEditDate="2018-07-28T19:04:02.127" LastActivityDate="2018-07-28T19:04:02.127" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22143" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22141" CreationDate="2018-07-28T20:52:52.773" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;My initial reaction is that as white I'm going to play Bb5+ followed by de and ef+ if you let me. I might even be prepared to sacrifice the bishop on b5. Your king is going to be very exposed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2018-07-28T20:52:52.773" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22144" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12622" CreationDate="2018-07-29T11:11:45.193" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The website is working. You need to download the latest java version on your computer. The arena is an excellent platform to practice. I don’t think any titles can be bought. You have to work hard to get to the AGM level as well. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user13482" LastActivityDate="2018-07-29T11:11:45.193" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22145" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22141" CreationDate="2018-07-30T09:36:04.300" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;This gambit looks extremely dubious since you give a central pawn, White has played only developing moves and she has no weakness.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Besides the unassuming 4.Nf3, insisting on an exchange French, you could be worried about:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;4.Nc3, transposing into the rare Marshall French (3.Nc3 c5?! 4.ed5). It is considered to favour White. The very slight plus side for you is that since White has played 3.ed5, he might not be too familiar with this line.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;4.c4, when after 4...ed5 the very open position means that the extra tempo will probably be valuable.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;4.de6, grabing the pawn in exchange for a single developing tempo. After 4...Be6 5.Nf3 there is no doubt that Black's compensation is unsufficient.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;4.Bb5+, probably the most critical, accepting the challenge. After 4...Bd7, any of 5.Nc3, 5.a4 a6?! 6.Bc4 and 5.Qe2 make sense.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All in all, you can use this line in online blitz in you like to (but I wouldn't). However I consider it totally unsuitable for 'serious' chess with rapid or classical time controls.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastActivityDate="2018-07-30T09:36:04.300" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22146" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22102" CreationDate="2018-07-31T09:33:33.697" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;You cannot claim a draw by repetition because the position hasn't occurred three times. As you noted, only that particular arrangement of pieces has occurred three times, but a position is more than just an arrangement of pieces (it involves whose turn it is).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2018-07-31T09:33:33.697" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22147" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22125" CreationDate="2018-07-31T09:49:44.720" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;This question involves the human mind's memory, so to start, let's play a quick game. Look at the line below for 1 second, and then look away immediately.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;G R T A O H V I L P&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now try to recall as many of the letters as you can.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now do the same thing for the next line (look for 1 second):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Fish Table Plate Water Mouse Cookie Scroll Piece Fan Ball&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Recall as many of the words as you can.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The number of letters you were able to remember is probably close to the number of words you remembered. This is because human minds chunk many small things into bigger things, if given the opportunity. Words are just letters being chunked together. Note though, that if you didn't know what &quot;Cookie&quot; is, chances are you wouldn't have remembered it (since your mind wouldn't have had the opportunity to chunk C,O,O,K,I,E into one word).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This process can be applied to chess positions. You want to give your mind more opportunities to chunk pieces (&quot;letters&quot;) into positions you can memorize (&quot;words&quot;). The key to doing this is pattern recognition; training your mind to immediately recognize positions (or immediately chunk certain arrangements of pieces together). Pattern recognition is just like learning new words in a language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The best way to improve pattern recognition abilities is to look at many chess positions, over and over and over. Solving puzzles is a great way to do this since your mind is actively thinking about positions, allowing them to be stored and accessed easier from long-term memory. This not only helps your chess playing abilities, but also how well you can hold many positions in your head. If you can immediately see arrangements of pieces and know that they're a certain position (like C,O,O,K,I,E means &quot;cookie&quot;), then all you're really doing is holding big words in memory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2018-07-31T09:49:44.720" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22148" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22154" CreationDate="2018-08-01T01:17:53.863" Score="2" ViewCount="214" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm looking for any feedback on positional ideas I've missed on a recent KID game I played (as black). We were both about 1900 Elo, although I was slightly higher rated. I've obviously already analyzed it with an engine, pointing out a few of my missed tactical shots in the game in these annotations. But this was a very complicated game, so I would like any and all feedback on better lines and/or positional ideas for either side.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot; &quot;]&#xA;1. c4 Nf6 2. Nc3 g6 3. e4 d6 4. Be2 Bg7 5. d4 O-O 6. Rb1 a5 { Trying to shut down the obvious b4 plan by white. The more natural c5 is slightly better, but I had already decided on going for a classical KID with an e5 break. } 7. Nf3 e5 8. Bg5 (8. dxe5 dxe5 9. Qxd8 Rxd8 10. Nxe5 Nxe4 11. Nxe4 Bxe5 $17) 8... Nc6? { Mistakenly assuming that white's only play was d5, and completely missing that this move loses an exchange. } (8... h6 {The move I'll play next time I see this position. } 9. Be3 (9. Bh4 g5) 9... Ng4 10. Bc1) 9. dxe5 dxe5 10. Qxd8 Rxd8 11. Rc1? { This mistake fails to capitalize on my poor play. } (11. Nd5 Nxd5 12. cxd5 f6 13. dxc6 fxg5 14. Nxg5 bxc6 { Engine-like best play temporarily holds on to all material but completely ruins all chances of black fighting for a win. }) 11... h6 12. Be3 Ng4 (12... Nd4!? 13. Nxe5 Nxe2 14. Kxe2 Nxe4 15. Nxe4 Bxe5 { Wins the two bishops and retains active pieces. }) 13. Bd2 Be6?! (13... Nb4!? 14. a3 Na6 { This maneuver keys in on the weak c5 square. But making repeated knight moves means the queenside development is lacking. }) 14. O-O Nd4!? { Acquiring a passed pawn almost by force. The knight lands on a beautiful square and cannot be kicked away. } 15. Nxd4 exd4 16. Nb5 Rd7?! {An awkward move - I thought I was better here, but my opponent comes at me with a lot of pressure.} (16... Rac8?! 17. Bxa5 d3! 18. Bxg4 Bxg4 19. f3 Be6 20. b3 Rd7 { I'm unconvinced by the computer line which makes no sense to me. }) 17. f4!! { An extremely strong reply and a move I had completely missed. With f5 coming, the knight can be left stranded on g4 in many lines. } 17... f5!? { Gives white a passed pawn with e5, but I figured black's would be stronger. } (17... c6 18. f5)  (17... Re8 18. f5 Bxf5 { The computer move to stop f5. }) 18. c5!? { A very interesting pawn sacrifice that turns the knight (and eventually c1 rook) into incredibly active pieces. } (18. exf5 Bxf5 19. c5) 18... fxe4 19. c6! bxc6 20. Rxc6 d3!! { There's no time to cower from each other's threats. Black is pushing through in the center and white is crashing through on the queenside. } 21. Bd1 Bf5? { Immediately after deciding that I had to play actively, I falter with a slow move. I needed to keep up the active play with the brilliant Bd5! } (21... Bd5!! 22. Bxg4 (22. Rxc7 Rxc7 23. Nxc7 Bd4+ 24. Kh1 Nf2+ 25. Rxf2 Bxa2!!)  (22. Rxg6 Nf6 23. Nc3 Kh7 24. f5 Bf7 25. Rg3) 22... Bxc6 23. Bxd7 Bxd7) 22. h3 Nf6 23. b4?? { I truly have no idea why this move was played. } 23... axb4 24. g4 Rb8!? { Attack - counterattack. } (24... Rxa2?? 25. Bb3+) 25. Nxc7 Rc8 26. gxf5 Rdxc7 (26... gxf5 27. Bb3+ Kh7 28. Rfc1 {The reason you have to immediately take the pinned knight.}) 27. Bb3+ (27. Ra6 gxf5 28. Bb3+ Kh7) 27... Kh7 28. Ra6? (28. fxg6+ Kxg6 29. f5+ Kh7 { The line I expected. Does the bishop pair and active rook make up for black's 2 passed pawns? }) 28... gxf5 29. Kf2?? { An interesting idea - allowing the king to become a blockader and the rook to use the open g file. But it's ultimately way too slow. White is down 2 pawns and must show compensation. } (29. Be6 Re8 30. Bxf5+ Kh8 31. Bxb4 { The line I expected. While material is balanced, I felt that black's two central pawns should rule the day. }) 29... Rc6 30. Rxc6 (30. Ra7 R8c7 31. Rxc7 Rxc7 32. Be6 Rc2 33. Bxf5+ Kh8 { I was sure I had enough to win in this line. }) 30... Rxc6 31. Be3 Bf8! { Trading bishops and ensuring that black's king can rely upon the dark squares. } 32. Rd1 (32. Bd4 Bc5 33. Ke3 Bxd4+ 34. Kxd4 Nh5 35. Ke3 Rg6 { An interesting sideline I was trying to evaluate. }) 32... Bc5 33. Rg1 Bxe3+ 34. Kxe3 Rd6!! { Giving up the open file, but preparing Nd5+ after which the game is immediately decided. } 35. Rg2 (35. Rc1 Nd5+ 36. Bxd5 Rxd5 37. Rc4 d2) 35... Nd5+ 36. Bxd5 Rxd5 37. Rg1 d2 { Simplification. From this move onwards, I saw to the end. } 38. Ke2 d1=Q+ 39. Rxd1 Rxd1 40. Kxd1 Kg6 41. Kc2 Kh5 42. Kb3 e3! { And the white king must return to stop the queening e pawn. } 43. Kc2 Kh4 44. Kd3 Kxh3 45. Kxe3 Kg3 {White surrenders.} *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In particular, I'm curious about what people think about: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;14... Nd4 - is it too premature to start thinking about passed pawns as soon as the queens are off?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;16... Rd7 - this awkward move was very hard to make. Is black just worse here, even with the passed pawn?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;ol start=&quot;18&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;c5 - sacrificing a pawn, but drumming up a lot of counterplay on the queenside. I felt that this move was a blunder during the game, but the pressure I came under seems to prove that it was not.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;ol start=&quot;23&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;b4 - What's the point of this move?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;ol start=&quot;29&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Be6 - Is my assessment of this sideline accurate? Does black have enough to win?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Looking forward to your analysis! Hopefully others find this game instructive; I certainly learned a lot playing (and subsequently analyzing) this middlegame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3884" LastActivityDate="2018-08-02T07:25:00.943" Title="Analysis of my recent King's Indian Defense game" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;&lt;middlegame&gt;&lt;kings-indian&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22149" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22150" CreationDate="2018-08-01T02:04:42.560" Score="7" ViewCount="497" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can't understand how Taimanov (playing White) resigned in the following position against Karpov from the Moscow team leagues in 1973:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/m1dCT.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/m1dCT.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After 40.Rc2 or 40.d5 the position seems to be equal. I know Taimanov was notorious for getting into time trouble. Did he just forfeit on time?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8673" LastActivityDate="2018-08-01T04:35:08.320" Title="How did Taimanov lose this game to Karpov?" Tags="&lt;history&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22150" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22149" CreationDate="2018-08-01T04:35:08.320" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the book &quot;How Karpov Wins&quot; by Edmar Mednis it is stated on page 174 that &quot;White overstepped the time limit and lost&quot;. The book seems to be fully available on Google books and has a lot more analysis of the match.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://books.google.com.au/books?id=x8MV0uoAJp0C&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://books.google.com.au/books?id=x8MV0uoAJp0C&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16234" LastActivityDate="2018-08-01T04:35:08.320" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22151" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22148" CreationDate="2018-08-01T06:38:03.527" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;14...Nd4: it's never too early to think about passed pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;16...Rd7: I think black is fine here, but I would consider Nf6 with a counterattack on e4 or d3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;18&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;c5: I would consider e5, shutting down the B-g7, or Bxg4 to win a tempo and play c5 next move.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;b4: This is a question for your opponent.  I prefer a4, fixing the weakness on a5, or Bb3+, controlling d5 and allowing the other rook to enter the game.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Be6: The assessment is correct as 32... Nd5 wins outright.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the first variation, 10. Nxe5 is incorrect.  Better is 10. Bg5 with the threat of Nd5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've suggested this before: post the game on lichess.org.  It's free to join, the analyses will be better, and this forum isn't really meant for this type of question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note:  I'm only a 2000, so my superficial opinions may not be any better than yours.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9684" LastActivityDate="2018-08-01T06:38:03.527" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22152" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22153" CreationDate="2018-08-01T08:15:40.567" Score="2" ViewCount="242" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm a club player that never really figured out the importance of studying master games. Since I want to improve my middlegame understanding I read that Bronstein's Zurich 1953 is an excellent place to start. However, going through the games takes 1-2 hours/each and I was wondering if some games illustrate the key concepts better than the other.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15253" LastActivityDate="2018-08-01T11:01:50.213" Title="What are the most instructive Zurich 1953 games?" Tags="&lt;middlegame&gt;&lt;master-games&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ClosedDate="2018-08-01T15:02:04.157" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22153" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22152" CreationDate="2018-08-01T11:01:50.213" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are of course classics like the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1084375&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Averbakh-Kotov game&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But generally you get out of chess study, what you put into chess study. So you should play through games that interest and fascinate you. It should be fun, not something were you try to minimise the time spent from the outset. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For me, that meant for a long time wild tactical games. I played for example through the games in Bronstein's &quot;Sorcerer's Apprentice&quot;, Tal's &quot;My Life and Games&quot;, Christiansen's &quot;Storming the Barricades&quot; and Aagaard's &quot;Attacking Manual&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I do own Zürich '53, but I don't think I ever spent much time on it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But if you already own the book and want to proceed, I would recommend restricting yourself to well annotated, decisive games that feature openings from your repertoire. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2018-08-01T11:01:50.213" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22154" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22148" CreationDate="2018-08-01T21:58:00.833" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;14... Nd4 - is it too premature to start thinking about passed pawns ...?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;...Nd4 is highly desirable for a number of reasons!  Besides the fact that White is inclined to capture an give you a passed pawn, you get more space, extend your dark square bishop and free your c-pawn to cover the d5 hole.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;16... Rd7 - this awkward move was very hard to make. Is black just worse here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nothing wrong with Rd7 that I can see.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;c5 - sacrificing a pawn, but drumming up a lot of counterplay on the&#xA;  queenside. I felt that this move was a blunder during the game, but&#xA;  the pressure I came under seems to prove that it was not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;18.c5?? a terrible blunder!  White gives you connected passers in the middle of the board for what -- a chance to get back the crappy pawn on c7?  This is the losing move in my opinion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Besides those questions let me comment:&#xA;I don't agree with a lot of your annotations &#xA;for example, why is 17.f4 a double exclam?  At best it is !? of course after 17...f5 (which is standard) White should have played 18.e5&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I do agree 13...Be6?! is poor, but favor 13...f5 over your suggested Nb4. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2018-08-01T21:58:00.833" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22155" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22156" CreationDate="2018-08-01T22:44:01.523" Score="-2" ViewCount="129" Body="&lt;p&gt;So I was playing chess at ICC where I am a member. I lost the game and I usually like to offer congratulations and a handshake to the winner. So on this occasion I said handshake and she, the other player, replied, foot shake.Isn't this a strange reply or was it just a joke of some kind that I didn't fully grasp ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17050" LastActivityDate="2018-08-01T23:49:18.757" Title="Strange reply after winning game" Tags="&lt;online-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2018-08-02T09:26:02.600" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22156" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22155" CreationDate="2018-08-01T23:49:18.757" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Consider it being a joke and move on. There's a lot of strange people on chess servers, there's people who speaks poor English, there's people who tend to harass or offend other players for their amusement...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you come to the chess server to play, ignore the comments from others and just play. There's no point talking to strangers, unless they offer a sound advice of some kind (that's pretty rare occasion).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once done with the game, say &quot;thank you&quot; or anything you like and move on. Life's too short to spend time pondering on meaningless comments.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15296" LastActivityDate="2018-08-01T23:49:18.757" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22158" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22148" CreationDate="2018-08-02T07:25:00.943" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is a little awkward to comment while knowing that you have already checked the game with an engine, so you may be aware of tactical flaws in our suggestions, but does 23.g4!? wins material ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bf5 is trapped, and after 23...e3 24.Bb3 Kh8 25.Bxe3 Be4 26.Rxc7 seems to collect two pawns. 23...Rb8 is much less strong than in the game since 24.a4 (probably best), 24.Na3 and even 24.Nxc7 are available.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastActivityDate="2018-08-02T07:25:00.943" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22159" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22160" CreationDate="2018-08-02T08:26:59.310" Score="2" ViewCount="363" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yesterday I reached this position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;rnbqk1nr/ppp3bp/3pp1p1/5p2/2PPP3/2N2N2/PP3PPP/R1BQKB1R w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Bg5 (1. exf5)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White to play, I played Bg5.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Lichess told me in the analysis that was inaccurate although latter on, it pointed this move out as one of the best moves.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;At first, he recommends me to move exf5 in the 6th move and in the next moves for White.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I would like to know why it is convenient to make this capture since I do not see any benefits in capturing this pawn at any time.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The link of the game is: &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/PyqeZZnQ/white#10&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://lichess.org/PyqeZZnQ/white#10&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16771" LastEditorUserId="18475" LastEditDate="2019-12-28T14:35:05.307" LastActivityDate="2019-12-28T14:35:05.307" Title="Why is it better to capture the f pawn?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;pawns&gt;&lt;captures&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22160" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22159" CreationDate="2018-08-02T12:13:40.770" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;If the black captures in return (there's not much choice for black), you either get an open vertical &lt;code&gt;e&lt;/code&gt; or a nasty attack on the black King by &lt;code&gt;Qh5+&lt;/code&gt; and so on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But don't worry. &lt;code&gt;Bg5&lt;/code&gt; is also not so bad move =)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15296" LastActivityDate="2018-08-02T12:13:40.770" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22161" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22163" CreationDate="2018-08-02T18:53:59.393" Score="6" ViewCount="566" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a Magnus Carlsen fan, it was a bit disappointing for me to see him finish clear second in Biel 2018, one and half points after Mamedyarov, after starting the tournament with two wins - and it could have been two points - had not the much lower-rated Georgiadis blundered in a drawn endgame. Although not a bad performance &lt;em&gt;per se&lt;/em&gt;, I was wondering what were the worst tournament performances of reigning World Champions? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2018-08-10T13:19:29.073" LastActivityDate="2018-08-10T13:19:29.073" Title="Worst tournament performances of reigning World Champions" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;world-championship&gt;&lt;carlsen&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22162" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22161" CreationDate="2018-08-02T20:53:00.380" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;For Carlsen that was probably &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chess.pl?tid=90303&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Norway Chess 2017&lt;/a&gt;, where he finished second to last on -1.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2018-08-02T20:53:00.380" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22163" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22161" CreationDate="2018-08-02T21:11:57.340" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Looking through this list of strong &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_strong_chess_tournaments&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;tournaments&lt;/a&gt;, among those that stand out are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AVRO_1938_chess_tournament&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;AVRO 1938&lt;/a&gt;, where Alekhine finished 6/8.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tilburg_chess_tournament#1996&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Tillburg, 1996&lt;/a&gt;, where Karpov finished 6/12.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bilbao_Chess_Masters_Final&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;1st Grand Slam Masters Final (2008)&lt;/a&gt;, where Anand finished in last (6th) place.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9025" LastActivityDate="2018-08-02T21:11:57.340" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22164" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22159" CreationDate="2018-08-02T21:22:01.883" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In general it is dubious to put too much faith computer evaluations of less than a pawn in determining the &quot;best&quot; move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this position however I think serious thinking is required.  &lt;strong&gt;Let's think like a human:&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;Black has made a lot of pawn moves and is therefore behind in development.  In such cases it is usually good to open the position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Okay that suggests exf5, Now you need to &quot;think like a Grandmaster&quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;6.exf5 &#xA;(a) 6...exf5 &#xA;enumerate candidate moves: (a1)7.Nd5 (a2)7.Bg5, etc.&#xA;Things get complicated but you can see ideas based on Nd5 combined with Qe2+ and Bg5 can lead to difficulties for Black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(b) 6...gxf5 (b1)7.Ng5 Nf6 8.Qe2!? (b1.1) 8.Qa4+ (idea 9.Qb3)...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems 6.exf5 looks promising, now does 6.Bg5 look as good?  Well the computer gives 6...Bf6?! 1.5 to White so that doesn't make 6.exf5 better; and it says after 6...Ne7 7.exf5 gxf5.  Hmmmm, on 6.exf5 it liked 6...ef5 -- because now exf5 allows Nd5.  So we can force gxf with Bg5... is that what we want?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;rnbqk1nr/ppp3bp/3pp1p1/5p2/2PPP3/2N2N2/PP3PPP/R1BQKB1R w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. exf5 (1. Bg5 Ne7 (1...Bf6?) 2.exf5 gxf5) gxf5 (1...exf5 2. Nd5) 2.Ng5 Nf6 3.Qe2!? (3.Qa4+ null 4.Qb3) &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Looking at these positions which are you more comfortable playing?  That is the practical question.  6.exf5 might be a fraction of a pawn better if you are a computer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-12-28T13:52:16.320" LastActivityDate="2019-12-28T13:52:16.320" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22167" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="588" CreationDate="2018-08-03T11:58:13.717" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;a Bishop is bad if:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;it is blocked by its own pawns&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the position is closed&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, it is good when:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;it has a wide shooting range (ideally both wings can be targetted at the same time&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The position is opened&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It is not hindered by its own pawns/pieces&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/vGw1c.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/vGw1c.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2076" LastEditorUserId="9025" LastEditDate="2018-08-03T16:34:20.427" LastActivityDate="2018-08-03T16:34:20.427" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22168" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22169" CreationDate="2018-08-03T16:29:01.250" Score="6" ViewCount="261" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the book &quot;Chess Bitch&quot; by Jennifer Shahade I have read that Sonja Graf has written an autobiography in Spanish. Can anyone help me locate the book? It could be in Spanish, German, English or Russian.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3456" LastActivityDate="2018-08-06T07:12:50.547" Title="Autobiography by Sonja Graf" Tags="&lt;books&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22169" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22168" CreationDate="2018-08-03T17:54:38.673" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;She wrote two autobiographical books while in Argentina: &quot;Así juega una mujer&quot;, Buenos Aires 1941 and &quot;Yo soy Susann&quot;, Buenos Aires 1946. Susanna was her real first name.&#xA;Bibliographic data in WorldCat:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.worldcat.org/title/asi-juega-una-mujer-impresiones-y-recuerdos-de-la-carrera-ajedrecistica-de-la-autora-y-psicologia-de-los-ajedrecistas/oclc/55440304&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.worldcat.org/title/asi-juega-una-mujer-impresiones-y-recuerdos-de-la-carrera-ajedrecistica-de-la-autora-y-psicologia-de-los-ajedrecistas/oclc/55440304&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.worldcat.org/title/yo-soy-susann-relato-intimo-y-autobiografico-impresiones-reales-recuerdos-y-confidencias-amorosas-historia-de-la-vida-en-si-misma-con-su-ensenanza-y-su-verdad/oclc/65716357&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.worldcat.org/title/yo-soy-susann-relato-intimo-y-autobiografico-impresiones-reales-recuerdos-y-confidencias-amorosas-historia-de-la-vida-en-si-misma-con-su-ensenanza-y-su-verdad/oclc/65716357&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And this page contains photos of both books (scroll down): &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.tabladeflandes.com/gabriel/gabriel-capo-16.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.tabladeflandes.com/gabriel/gabriel-capo-16.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5756" LastEditorUserId="5756" LastEditDate="2018-08-06T07:12:50.547" LastActivityDate="2018-08-06T07:12:50.547" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22170" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="588" CreationDate="2018-08-04T08:27:01.343" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;A bad bishop is one where many of its own pawns are on the same color as it. This definition is very strict, and there's very little subjectivity involved.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An inactive bishop is one that lacks activity. This definition is much less strict, allowing some subjectivity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As per your question, a bishop trapped by its own pawns would be both bad and inactive, while a bishop trapped by its own pawns would just be inactive (we need info on the color squares of its own pawns to say whether it's &quot;good&quot; or &quot;bad&quot;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It should be noted that a bishop can be &quot;good&quot; and &quot;inactive&quot;. Good meaning its own pawns are on the other color complex as it, but inactive since it lacks activity (possibly due to the opponent's pawns blocking it in).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2018-08-04T08:27:01.343" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22171" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-08-04T12:48:34.060" Score="2" ViewCount="326" Body="&lt;p&gt;In order to calculate effect on national rating, should it be enough to choose the relevant k coefficient (assuming this is what makes for the discrepancy between national rating and FIDE rating) and plug it in here: &lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/calculator_rtd.phtml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://ratings.fide.com/calculator_rtd.phtml&lt;/a&gt; ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Furthermore, is there a resource out there to find k coeffients per country (I'm located in Israel, so if anyone knows that specifically, even better).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12953" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-06-19T18:47:32.723" LastActivityDate="2019-06-19T18:47:32.723" Title="Calculation of national rating" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;elo&gt;&lt;fide&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22172" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22171" CreationDate="2018-08-04T23:12:36.383" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In order to calculate effect on national rating, should it be enough&#xA;  to choose the relevant k koefficient (assuming this is what makes for&#xA;  the discrepancy between national rating and FIDE rating) and plug it&#xA;  in here: &lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/calculator_rtd.phtml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://ratings.fide.com/calculator_rtd.phtml&lt;/a&gt; ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No. For the simple reason that countries use different methods for their rating/grading system. Some use an elo system others don't. England, for instance, uses a completely different system.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you go to the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ecfgrading.org.uk/new/menu.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;ECF grading website&lt;/a&gt; and click on help, on the left hand side of the page, then towards the bottom of the help there is a section describing how the ECF calculate their grades. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;HOW ECF GRADES ARE CALCULATED&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  The basic method of calculation is as described in the next few paragraphs. For juniors, however,&#xA;  there are differences as described further down.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Points are allocated in respect of each game. For a win you score the&#xA;  opponent's grade plus 50, for a draw the opponent's grade, and for a&#xA;  loss the opponent's grade minus 50. &quot;Grade&quot; means his grade current at&#xA;  the time of grading. There is a proviso that if your opponent's grade&#xA;  differs from yours by more than 40 points it is assumed to be exactly&#xA;  40 above (or below) yours. This applies whatever the result.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If an opponent (or the player himself) is ungraded, a &quot;starting grade&quot;&#xA;  is estimated, using all available information. See Estimating a&#xA;  starting grade for an ungraded player below. Note that FIDE ratings&#xA;  are ignored. An opponent who has only a FIDE rating will be treated as&#xA;  ungraded.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In the interval between the end of a grading period and publication of&#xA;  the new grades, the &quot;current&quot; grade for calculation purposes is the&#xA;  new, as yet unpublished, grade.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The grade is calculated by dividing the total number of points scored&#xA;  by the number of games played. If there are 30 or more games in the&#xA;  most recent 12 months, then the grade is based on these games alone.&#xA;  If there are not, it is based on the most recent ** 30 games played;&#xA;  or on all the games played in the last 36 months if that is less. In&#xA;  no case does calculation go back more than 36 months. Where games are&#xA;  brought forward from a previous period, they are not recalculated. The&#xA;  number of points scored for a game always remains the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;** &quot;Most recent&quot; has a special meaning here. In principle the program counts backwards till it reaches 30 games. But there are certain&#xA;  disadvantages (see Appendix) to applying this naïvely. Instead, if the&#xA;  30th game falls part way through a 6-month period, the program will&#xA;  take as many games from that period as it requires in order to make up&#xA;  the 30; but they will be notional games calculated at the average&#xA;  score for the whole 6-month period.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;How is &quot;most recent 30&quot; interpreted if a game has been reported late&#xA;  and graded in the &quot;wrong&quot; period? Answer: the game will be listed&#xA;  under the grading period in which it was reported and calculated, and&#xA;  it will go into that period's grade with a notional playing date of&#xA;  1st January (or 1st July as the case may be). This notional date will&#xA;  be used, where necessary, to determine the game's position in the&#xA;  backward count to 30.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Rounding&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Grades are calculated to the nearest whole number (halves&#xA;  go up). Rounding is done once, at the end. A grade, once rounded and&#xA;  published as a whole number, is henceforth deemed to be that whole&#xA;  number.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You say -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I'm located in Israel, so if anyone knows that specifically, even&#xA;  better&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Really? Do you play chess in Israel? Do you have an Israeli rating? Can you read Hebrew? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm guessing some of the answers must be &quot;No&quot; since otherwise you would be better placed than 99.9% of forum members to find out the information for yourself and are only asking out of sheer laziness.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My ICF rating is in the 1800's and my k factor is 12.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Boris Gelfand's ICF k factor is 10 as you can see from the calculations for his Israeli rating from his games played abroad (i.e. converting his opponents' FIDE ratings to ICF and then using them to calculate changes to Gelfand's Israeli rating). &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.org.il/Players/Player.aspx?Id=4&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;This link&lt;/a&gt; takes you to Gelfand's ICF rating page and then you will have to click on  משחקים בחו&quot;ל (middle / fourth of the box links underneath his main details).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is the same &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.org.il/Players/Player.aspx?Id=192624&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;page for Liel Levitan&lt;/a&gt;, the European Schools girls U7 champion. Her Israeli rating is 1445 and her k factor is 14. Again, on the page click on משחקים בחו&quot;ל to get to the calculation page.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess.org.il/Players/PlayersRanking.aspx&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Israeli rating list&lt;/a&gt; (but I don't understand why you couldn't get this for yourself if you are living and playing in Israel?) You can find players of different strengths and ages and check their k factors. I know the ICF website is hard to navigate. I found the old one from about 5 years ago much easier. It used to give the calculations, including k factor, for every game, not just the foreign ones, so including the Israeli ones.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you can see from the &lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/calculator_rtd.phtml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Ratings Change Calculator&lt;/a&gt; you cannot type in any k factor. That means that in general you cannot use this for ICF ratings and for other federations only if they use the same k factors. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2018-08-06T11:02:09.737" LastActivityDate="2018-08-06T11:02:09.737" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22173" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22060" CreationDate="2018-08-05T15:47:34.217" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Seirawan's books are really informative and fun to read.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He has a Tactics book. It's great and it teaches tactical patterns is a very fun way, and I noticed myself winning with the same tactics I saw in the book a few days after reading them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user17003" LastActivityDate="2018-08-05T15:47:34.217" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22174" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-08-05T22:37:10.853" Score="3" ViewCount="220" Body="&lt;p&gt;I need help identifying this chess set, I got it from my father and he says it is from Poland and on the broken board it says it is made of crystal bohemia.&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/dgEyE.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/dgEyE.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;some of the black side paces&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/1V9WL.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/1V9WL.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;A black side pawn and some white side paces&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Q3JsR.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Q3JsR.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;The box for the game&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/HaJnT.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/HaJnT.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;The broken board&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17076" LastActivityDate="2019-06-26T10:14:23.410" Title="I need help Identifying this chess set" Tags="&lt;chess-set&gt;&lt;identify-this&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22175" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22177" CreationDate="2018-08-06T02:05:48.137" Score="1" ViewCount="342" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been playing ChessAcademy's android app for a while when I'm bored: thought it could improve my chess to be solving their tactic challenges (not sure if it's working though..).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One pattern I often fail to notice is the smothered mate. Today, I failed again to notice it while focusing on capturing pieces instead and leveling the score.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The challenge (and solution) is that one:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;3r3k/6pp/p3Qn2/P3N3/4q3/2P4P/5PP1/6K1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Nf7+ Kg8&#xA;2. Nh6+ Kh8&#xA;3. Qg8+ Rxg8&#xA;4. Nf7#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I failed by thinking of a move that would only turn the piece advantage to my side:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;3r3k/6pp/p3Qn2/P3N3/4q3/2P4P/5PP1/6K1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Nf7+ Kg8&#xA;2. Nxd8 Qxe6&#xA;3. Nxe6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Obviously the solution strategy is better, but I failed to see it (as I had in other challenges that included a smothered mate). So I was wondering what &quot;signs&quot; could I be looking for that a smothered mate is possible? I know it might sound a little obvious, but maybe if I start by just trying to notice some small patterns I'll fail less on those tactics and later be able to find more complex moves that set up a smothered mate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12017" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T15:40:38.673" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T15:40:38.673" Title="How to be more aware of smothered mate opportunities?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;checkmate&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22176" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21761" CreationDate="2018-08-06T04:02:29.900" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;That players will typically not use the full extent of the delay is not relevant. The minimum time requirement refers to the least upper bound of the possible amounts of time the players could theoretically take. Thus, G/90 d30 satisfies the requirement, although it is a very uncommon control.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13524" LastActivityDate="2018-08-06T04:02:29.900" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22177" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22175" CreationDate="2018-08-06T10:26:42.380" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's a variety of mates that could be called smothered mate, but for what I'd call the &quot;standard&quot; one (sometimes called &lt;em&gt;Philidor's Legacy&lt;/em&gt;), like the one in your example, notable signs are (with white mating black as an example):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The black king is in the h8 corner (maybe it just moved there after being checked by the white queen).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The white queen and knight control f7.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The f7 pawn is typically absent but g7 and h7 are still there (g7 and h7 could also be pieces, as long as they don't cover f7 or g8).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The white queen is on the a2-g8 diagonal.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;There's a black rook on the 8th rank to do the smothering. (It wouldn't work with the black queen!)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This can be generalized to long castling, but it is less frequent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some tactical trainers (or books!) let you practice tactics by theme. I don't know anything about Chessacademy, but one example I know is the tactics in chess.com which has this feature and has a &quot;smothered mate&quot; category (but they use the term loosely!). Maybe after seeing many smothered mates in a row your recognition of them will become more automatic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12523" LastEditorUserId="12523" LastEditDate="2018-08-06T18:57:01.767" LastActivityDate="2018-08-06T18:57:01.767" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22178" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22180" CreationDate="2018-08-06T20:46:48.267" Score="7" ViewCount="207" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;] &#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.Nc3 Nc6 4.g3 Nxe4!? &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some games have followed 5.Nxe4 d5 6.Nc3 d4 7.Nb1 e4 8.Ng1 for example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastEditorUserId="9025" LastEditDate="2018-08-06T21:27:34.407" LastActivityDate="2018-08-07T00:36:08.407" Title="What is the theoretical assessment of this 4 knights gambit?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;gambits&gt;&lt;four-knights&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22179" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22099" CreationDate="2018-08-06T23:59:28.137" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I once had someone play 3...Nc6, which is dubious but not immediately disastrous. But after 4.Nb5, any response other than 4...e5 and White has a decisive advantage. This is almost the mirror image of the knight attack against the two knights Italian game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12523" LastEditorUserId="12523" LastEditDate="2018-08-27T14:29:28.367" LastActivityDate="2018-08-27T14:29:28.367" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22180" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22178" CreationDate="2018-08-07T00:36:08.407" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;At depth 19, Komodo gives an equal evaluation (+0) after 8.Ng1 (and according to Komodo all moves were best leading up to that point after 4...Nxe4). However, it says that 8.Nh4 gives White a +0.32 advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's hard to judge the theoretical assessment just by an engine's evaluation from the 8th move, but there are only a few games played in my database so there's not much to go on. Overall it seems absolutely playable for Black and funner to play from his side of the board. But objectively White probably has some slight advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2018-08-07T00:36:08.407" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22181" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22171" CreationDate="2018-08-07T11:21:37.463" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;What I can recommend myself is to &quot;backtrack&quot; the k coefficient based on historical rating changes. For example, if you know that after a certain game your national rating changed by X points, and you know what rating you and your opponent had before the game, then you could plug that data into the FIDE calculator and try for different values of k to find out what k factor your national rating is based on (assuming it's one of the values that FIDE allows in the dropdown in the calculator).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Otherwise, it's of course also possible to do the same by using the actual ELO equation which is easily Googled or found on Wikipedia.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One word of caution, though: the pre-game rating of the players may be  slightly different compared to the last time rating were published, let's say if ratings are published at the beginning of each month and the game took place mid-month after the players had already played a few games and rating changes took place.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12953" LastActivityDate="2018-08-07T11:21:37.463" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22182" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18798" CreationDate="2018-08-07T18:09:04.263" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Thanks for all the comments!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As Slepz noted, rounding away from (or towards) zero would fix the zero-sum property of the elo rating system.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Moreover, as mentioned by itub, by using decimal numbers for both elo change and elo storage, one could solve any rounding issues and make the elo calculations more precise. To me, this seems the most elegant solution, as an elo rating is a continuous variable rather than a discrete one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4588" LastActivityDate="2018-08-07T18:09:04.263" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22183" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-08-08T08:32:08.493" Score="2" ViewCount="86" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I enter my games into ChessBase, I would like to also enter the time usage. I noticed that there is a possibility of right-clicking on the notation and choosing &quot;move time&quot;, but this feature suffers from two problems:&#xA;1. The default time is 1:40 h and if they game was played on a different time control, this needs to be altered on each and every move.&#xA;2. There are buttons for time usage at the bottom, but the options are limited to max 9 minutes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm thinking I'm maybe missing something here and there's a different way to go about things. Any recommendations of how to go about recording time usage in ChessBase? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also - once recorded, is there a way to see a report (maybe a graph) illustrating the time usage per move?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12953" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T20:42:22.947" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T20:42:22.947" Title="Recording- and displaying time usage in ChessBase" Tags="&lt;chessbase&gt;&lt;time-management&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ClosedDate="2019-06-23T09:09:35.427" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22184" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22102" CreationDate="2018-08-08T16:46:42.777" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can claim draw if the position shows up 3 times, but it must be the same side's turn. It doesn't have to be in a row.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15874" LastEditorUserId="8201" LastEditDate="2019-03-14T15:41:55.230" LastActivityDate="2019-03-14T15:41:55.230" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22187" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-08-09T08:59:34.780" Score="2" ViewCount="1167" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am trying to bundle together a couple of games on my own website. I would love to have an interface like &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/ofWXRFGy&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Lichess's analysis page&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qXGqk.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qXGqk.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can turn on the Stockfish engine, try out different moves and then save it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since everything is written in Javascript and HTML, I tried downloading the complete HTML of Lichess's analysis page. Opening the saved page again shows missing board background, Stockfish not working, buttons not showing up. I just can't get it to work. I know Lichess uses chessground.js for their layout engine but that is even more obscure with hardly any examples that show how to even display a full pgn. Does anyone know where I can get a Lichess-analysis-page quality package to display some PGNs while allowing for move exploration and Stockfish integration? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12002" LastEditorDisplayName="user4378" LastEditDate="2018-08-10T10:37:26.977" LastActivityDate="2018-08-10T17:11:45.353" Title="How to package PGN in Lichess analysis page format" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;pgn&gt;&lt;lichess&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22188" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22191" CreationDate="2018-08-09T10:19:22.660" Score="6" ViewCount="488" Body="&lt;p&gt;Assume that the fifty-move rule does not require a player to claim a draw. Instead, the game is automatically declared a draw if no pawns have been moved and no pieces have been captured in the last 50 moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hence, we don't need to maintain the entire game history to detect threefold repetitions. We only need to maintain a history of the last 100 positions. Out of these 100 positions, half of them are white-to-play and the other half are black-to-play. Hence, only 50 of these 100 positions could possibly be the same as the current position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, out of these 50 candidate positions if each position is repeated twice then we only have 25 distinct positions which could possibly be the same as the current position. Hence, the upper bound on the maximum number of moves that could result in a threefold repetition is 25.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, it's very unlikely (dare I say impossible?) that there's a position with 25 possible moves that would lead to a threefold repetition. I believe that the actual number is much smaller. We may never know the exact number. Nevertheless, can you prove that the upper bound is lower than 25?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;NB. I'm asking this question because I'm developing a neural network that plays chess. Hence, I'd like to reduce the size of the input to the neural network as much as possible. Providing a history of 25 positions to the neural network is a lot.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1109" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-03-15T20:30:43.987" LastActivityDate="2020-03-15T20:30:43.987" Title="What's the maximum number of moves that can result in a threefold repetition from an arbitrary position?" Tags="&lt;mathematics&gt;&lt;threefold-repetition&gt;&lt;50-move-rule&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="12" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22189" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22187" CreationDate="2018-08-09T11:35:15.547" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;My guess is that just saving the HTML, Javascript, etc. didn't work because the Lichess site also has a server component. If you want to go down that road (which seems like a lot of work!), Lichess is open source; see &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/ornicar/lila&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://github.com/ornicar/lila&lt;/a&gt; .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But maybe you could let lichess.org do the hard work and embed the Lichess view of the games in your website. That is supported: see &quot;Embed a chess analysis in your site&quot; and &quot;Embed a chess game in your site&quot; at &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/developers&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://lichess.org/developers&lt;/a&gt; . Unfortunately, I don't think it supports Stockfish and analysis within the embedded widget itself, but it does have a link to go to the full version on lichess.org.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12523" LastActivityDate="2018-08-09T11:35:15.547" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22190" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22188" CreationDate="2018-08-09T12:11:19.187" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Maybe I don't understand your question very well. Obviously, there can be a threefold repetition with the first occurence of the repetition being 50 (or 49 so that the 50-moves rule doesn't apply) moves ago and the second occurence happening 25 moves ago. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are lots of cases when you can reduce the input to the neural network, for instance each time a pawn is move or a capture is made or castle rights are lost the  count is reset to one position. But the upper bound remains 25.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Check positions after moves 1, 26 and 50 in this fantastic game, a fighting draw:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;] &#xA;1.e4 e5 {first occurence} 2.Ba6 Ba3 Bb5 Bb4 Bc4 Bc5 Bd3 Bd6 Be2 Be7 Bh5 Bh4 Bg4 Bg5 Bf3 Bf6 Nh3 Nh6 Be2 Be7 Ba6 Ba3 Bb5 Bb4 Bc4 Bc5 Bd3 Bd6 Ng1 Nc6 Be2 Be7 Bh5 Bh4 Bg4 Bg5 Bf3 Bf6 Qe2 Nb8 Bh5 Be7 Qd1 Ba3 Be2 Bb4 Ba6 Bf8 Bf1 Ng8 {second occurence} Nc3 Nc6 Ba6 Ba3 Bb5 Bb4 Bc4 Bc5 Bd3 Bd6 Be2 Be7 Bh5 Bh4 Bg4 Bg5 Bf3 Bf6 Nh3 Nh6 Be2 Be7 Ba6 Ba3 Bb5 Bb4 Bc4 Bc5 Bd3 Bd6 Ng1 Nd4 Nb1 Ng8 Ba6 Ba3 Bb5 Bb4 Bc4 Bc5 Bd3 Bd6 Be2 Nc6 Bb5 Bf8 Bf1 Nb8 {third occurence}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks to @RemcoGerlich comment, I understand now that your question was very different. Here is a game situation where 12 different moves can lead to a threefold repetition. I think it is the upper bound; as explained by Remco in a comment to your question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;] &#xA;1.e4 e5 a4 Nh6 Qh5 Ng8 Ba6 Nh6 Qd1 Ng8 Qg4 Nh6 Bf1 Ng8 Bb5 Nh6 Qd1 Ng8 Qf3 Nh6 Bf1 Ng8 Bc4 Nh6 Qd1 Ng8 Nh3 Nh6 Bf1 Ng8 Bd3 Nh6 Ng1 Ng8 Na3 Nh6 Bf1 Ng8 Ra2 Nh6 Nb1 Ng8 Nc3 Nh6 Ra1 Ng8 Ra3 Nh6 Nb1 Ng8 Qh5 Nh6 Ra1 Ng8 Ba6 Nh6 Qd1 Ng8 Qg4 Nh6 Bf1 Ng8 Bb5 Nh6 Qd1 Ng8 Qf3 Nh6 Bf1 Ng8 Bc4 Nh6 Qd1 Ng8 Nh3 Nh6 Bf1 Ng8 Bd3 Nh6 Ng1 Ng8 Na3 Nh6 Bf1 Ng8 Ra2 Nh6 Nb1 Ng8 Nc3 Nh6 Ra1 Ng8 Ra3 Nh6 Nb1 Ng8 Ra1 Nh6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now any of the 12 moves Qh5, Qg4, Qf3, Ba6, Bb5, Bc4, Bd3, Ra2, Ra3, Na3, Nc3 or Nh3 would lead to a threefold repetition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastEditorUserId="14079" LastEditDate="2018-08-09T13:44:01.070" LastActivityDate="2018-08-09T13:44:01.070" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22191" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22188" CreationDate="2018-08-09T21:02:54.817" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;Twelve moves is the maximum:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;5K1k/6p1/6pp/8/8/8/b7/Q7 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Qxa2 Kh7 2. Qa3 Kh8 3. Qa4 Kh7 4. Qa5 Kh8 5. Qa6 Kh7 6. Qa7 Kh8 7. Qg1 Kh7 8. Qf1 Kh8 9. Qe1 Kh7 10. Qd1 Kh8 11. Qc1 Kh7 12. Qb1 Kh8 13. Qa2 Kh7 14. Qa3 Kh8 15. Qa4 Kh7 16. Qa5 Kh8 17. Qa6 Kh7 18. Qa7 Kh8 19. Qg1 Kh7 20. Qf1 Kh8 21. Qe1 Kh7 22. Qd1 Kh8 23. Qc1 Kh7 24. Qb2 Kh8 25. Qa3 Kh7 26. Qa4 Kh8 27. Qa5 Kh7 28. Qa6 Kh8 29. Qa7 Kh7 30. Qg1 Kh8 31. Qf1 Kh7 32. Qe1 Kh8 33. Qd1 Kh7 34. Qc1 Kh8 35. Qb1 Kh7 36. Qa2 Kh8 37. Qa3 Kh7 38. Qa4 Kh8 39. Qa5 Kh7 40. Qa6 Kh8 41. Qa7 Kh7 42. Qg1 Kh8 43. Qf1 Kh7 44. Qe1 Kh8 45. Qd1 Kh7 46. Qc1 Kh8 47. Qb1 Kh7 48. Qa1 Kh8&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Moving the Queen to a2, a3, a4, a5, a6, a7, b1, c1, d1, e1, f1 or g1 all lead to threefold repetition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As @RemcoGerlich explained the Black pieces have to reset for the positions to be the same.  Black is resetting after every other move (on moves 2, 4, ..., 48) in the example above which is the quickest possible.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thirteen moves would require the Black pieces to reset at least 26 times however Black can reset at most 25 times in 50 moves.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user11382" LastEditorDisplayName="user11382" LastEditDate="2018-08-11T16:07:14.163" LastActivityDate="2018-08-11T16:07:14.163" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22192" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22188" CreationDate="2018-08-09T23:39:37.433" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;NB. I'm asking this question because I'm developing a neural network&#xA;  that plays chess. Hence, I'd like to reduce the size of the input to&#xA;  the neural network as much as possible. Providing a history of 25&#xA;  positions to the neural network is a lot.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are simpler ways to check for 3-fold repetition than feed the game history to a neural network -- you should not do that, it's very odd design decision, and in my opinion you'd better focus on getting NN playing chess better than solving the edge cases that can easily be dealt with in just a few lines of code.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15296" LastEditorUserId="15296" LastEditDate="2019-07-11T10:29:47.823" LastActivityDate="2019-07-11T10:29:47.823" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22193" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22187" CreationDate="2018-08-10T03:24:05.910" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was able to scrap the Lichess analysis page into independent components, and then recycled the Javascript code for other use.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately, it was not simple. You will need to be a competent programmer, able to read HTML/avaScript code say on Google Chrome debugger. The process took me a week of hard works to compete.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not aware of any easy way to achieve what you want to do. Saving a page certainly won't work. Good news to you is that the source code for lichess is open, I recommend you take it a look on Github.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My recommendation is that unless you have strong incentive for the efforts, why not just put a Lichess link on your website?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2018-08-10T03:24:05.910" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22194" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2018-08-10T11:01:55.200" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2018-08-10T11:01:55.200" LastActivityDate="2018-08-10T11:01:55.200" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22195" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2018-08-10T11:01:55.200" Score="0" Body="Questions about the Norwegian chess grandmaster Magnus Carlsen (born 1990) and his games. Carlsen became world champion in 2013." OwnerUserId="10867" LastEditorUserId="10867" LastEditDate="2018-08-10T16:46:33.747" LastActivityDate="2018-08-10T16:46:33.747" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22196" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22187" CreationDate="2018-08-10T12:29:23.600" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you embed your game with frame tag you won't be able to interact with stockfish. &#xA;If you want stockfish working at your website you should run it from your server, despite the deep calcles can be done at client-size. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't know if it will be too much complex, but &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;stockfish is also an open project and you can download the code&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt; and try to host it connected with any chess game free program. Then at your site you could try to write your own nice features as lichess team does, and offer them to your clients. &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/ornicar/lila&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Lichess code&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt; is open and you can use their code to figure out how to do it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Alternatively if you only wish to show your analysed games at the site you can use &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/api#operation/apiGamesUser&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;lichess api&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;You migth be able to export all your games you have analysed with the query parameters evals and analysed. You won't have stockfish running but the data of the analysis you did at the site. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user16971" LastEditorDisplayName="user16971" LastEditDate="2018-08-10T17:11:45.353" LastActivityDate="2018-08-10T17:11:45.353" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22197" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4994" CreationDate="2018-08-10T21:00:59.600" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chessable.com has a video and e-book that cover this line for Black.  The author (a GM) recommends a very quiet positional approach for Black which I really like.  But other players with Black may want a sharper repertoire.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17096" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-08-11T08:58:40.773" LastActivityDate="2018-08-11T08:58:40.773" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22198" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-08-10T23:39:11.520" Score="1" ViewCount="1084" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm new to chess. Just played a game, my king was on d2, opponents queen was on e1, and my rook was on h1. But the program did not allowed me to capture the enemy queen with my rook, it only allowed to move my king to safety.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why couldn't I capture the queen with my rook?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17097" LastEditorUserId="9025" LastEditDate="2018-08-11T04:54:03.273" LastActivityDate="2018-08-11T15:52:29.867" Title="Can't capture queen?" Tags="&lt;online-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22200" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22006" CreationDate="2018-08-11T04:54:30.627" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you take the privilege of being able to move the pawn 2 squares, you must also accept the qualification that the pawn can be captured en passant. These two rules work together. Your footsoldier leapt past an enemy footsoldier who could stab you on the way past (&quot;en passant&quot;) so yours was dead before he landed if the enemy took this option. A dead soldier can't check.&#xA;&quot;Stabbing on the way past&quot; is a retrospective choice, but once the pawn has been confirmed as having safely landed ( by a different move from the enemy ) it is just like any other pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17098" LastEditorUserId="17098" LastEditDate="2018-08-11T05:01:53.783" LastActivityDate="2018-08-11T05:01:53.783" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22201" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-08-11T05:37:38.593" Score="1" ViewCount="171" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think that every opening has a particular aim and object.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Can someone tell me the the aim and object of the kings pawn opening?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16792" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-08-11T08:57:22.473" LastActivityDate="2018-08-11T12:51:23.700" Title="What is the main aim and object of the kings pawn opening?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ClosedDate="2018-08-11T09:33:52.520" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22202" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22201" CreationDate="2018-08-11T07:13:18.930" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Generally the goal of the opening is to develop the pieces (knights and bishops in particular) to active squares and to gain space for operation of the pieces (usually achieved by occupying the center with pawns). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If we are talking about the kings pawn opening, i.e. any opening that starts with 1. e4, there is little to say besides:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;white aims to occupy the center with a pawn on e4&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;white makes space for the development of the light squared bishop on f1 (and potentially the queen)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that the game after 1.e4 could develop in all kinds of ways of very different character. Many of these openings have their own name (Sicilian, Ruy-Lopez, French, Caro Kann...), their own aims and objectives. Really I'd struggle to call a single move like 1. e4 an &quot;opening&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also often you will find that proper openings like those mentioned above will be listed by their name while the name King's Pawn Opening is reserved for all the rest, i.e. for games that don't follow any of the established openings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastEditorUserId="11629" LastEditDate="2018-08-11T12:51:23.700" LastActivityDate="2018-08-11T12:51:23.700" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22203" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22204" CreationDate="2018-08-11T07:23:15.543" Score="10" ViewCount="1278" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a ~1500 player on chess.com (so I'm in the online beginner-intermediate range).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a book titled &quot;Chess: 5334 Problems, Combinations and Games&quot; by &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%A1szl%C3%B3_Polg%C3%A1r&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Lazlo Polgar&lt;/a&gt;, father of Judit, Susan and Sofia. From amazon:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Chess analyzes more than 5,000 unique instructional situations, many taken from real matches, including &lt;strong&gt;306 problems for checkmate in one move, 3,412 mates in two moves, 744 mates in three moves&lt;/strong&gt;, 600 miniature games, 144 simple endgames, and 128 tournament game combinations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mate in one and two problems aren't usually too difficult to solve with experience. But my question is, does the difficulty of the problem matter? Isn't pattern recognition a crucial part of studying chess? I feel like I can get a lot more from simple mate in one (or two) problems then just &lt;em&gt;solving them&lt;/em&gt;, and going to the next problem right away.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, these simple situations seem to be really beneficial, if I think about them as positions I want to achieve in real games, and if I try to analyze the position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or maybe I am dead wrong about this, and I should concentrate on doing problems, that are &lt;em&gt;difficult to solve&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any opinions?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17099" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2018-08-11T14:36:40.023" LastActivityDate="2018-09-03T20:23:36.867" Title="Can solving lots of mate in one (or two) problems be beneficial?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="8" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22204" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22203" CreationDate="2018-08-11T08:49:15.657" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's a wide array of opinions as to the debate on whether simple problems done repetitively, or more challenging problems are better for improvement at tactics. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My personal opinion is that both have their place and both improve different essential things. Getting those simple problems down cold is very good for pattern recognition and board vision, but the more challenging problems improve tactical analysis abilities, problem solving skills, and help prepare a player for tournament situations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for whether your collection of thousands of mate in 1 or 2's would be very helpful, I'd say that mating patterns are certainly important to practice but I don't know if you really need to train with quite so many. It certainly wouldn't hurt, but you might have faster growth practicing with the mating problems on chesstempo. They have them tagged and you can create your own sets of problems if you're a member.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9627" LastActivityDate="2018-08-11T08:49:15.657" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22205" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4994" CreationDate="2018-08-11T12:22:04.723" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are a couple of opening books that dedicate a chapter to the Alatortsev variation: &lt;a href=&quot;https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1901983374&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;The Queen's Gambit &amp;amp; Catalan for Black&lt;/a&gt; (2001) by GM Janjgava and &lt;a href=&quot;https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1904600808&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;The Queen's Gambit Declined&lt;/a&gt; (2007) by IM Rizzitano. The former is a repertoire book based on the move order 3.Nc3 Be7, while the latter is not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Besides the Alatortsev variation, there are also different ways to avoid 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.cxd5 exd5 5.Bg5. Two of them are shown in some very recent repertoire books, both published in 2018: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;4....Nxd5 is analyzed in &lt;a href=&quot;https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/619718818X&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Play 1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6!&lt;/a&gt; by GM Kornev&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The Nimzo-Indian move order is chosen in &lt;a href=&quot;https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/9492510235&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;The Modernized Nimzo-Queen's Gambit Declined Systems&lt;/a&gt; by GM Pavlovic&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4588" LastEditorUserId="4588" LastEditDate="2018-08-11T14:29:24.153" LastActivityDate="2018-08-11T14:29:24.153" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22206" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22203" CreationDate="2018-08-11T13:07:27.473" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't know this particular book, but IMO, tactics training is much better done with a computer/website, which will tell you immediately where you went wrong, without you having to look up the solution manually. Also, any decent online tactics training tool would automatically adapt the problem to your strength and also, if you fail to solve a problem, will present you the same problem again after a while.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is certainly useful to practice &lt;em&gt;mate in x&lt;/em&gt; kind of problems, however I would not obsess about it. Most games are probably won because one player achieved and converted a positional or material advantage rather than by a direct mating attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd rather solve a mix of all kind of problems, ideally from real life games, rather than from compositions or few material problems. This would also avoid the artificial situation that you know beforehand what to look for. In a real game nobody is going to tell you that it is mate in 3 either.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2018-08-11T13:07:27.473" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22207" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22210" CreationDate="2018-08-11T13:23:28.537" Score="12" ViewCount="1340" Body="&lt;p&gt;From reading everything I've found so far, I know that Syzygy uses both win/draw/loss files and distance-to-zero files, but I haven't found any information on the internal file format that these files use. I'm looking for the low level nitty gritty explanation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17100" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-09-21T13:38:19.157" LastActivityDate="2019-09-21T13:38:57.350" Title="How does Syzygy store its information?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;tablebases&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22208" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22198" CreationDate="2018-08-11T13:25:10.193" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;To illustrate what was discussed in the comments above...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If we can exclude computer bugs, or other problems (there were no other pieces on g1, or f1 were there?), the situation you describe is only possible if:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the last black move was a promotion of a pawn to a queen on e1 (this pawn could have come from e2 or by capture from f2), and...&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;a black rook or queen was positioned on h2, g2 or f2&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One example of such situation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;2k5/8/8/8/8/8/3Kp1r1/7R b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... e1=Q+&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The technical term for this situation is &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_check&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Double Check&lt;/a&gt; and the only response to a double check is a king move as capturing one piece would still leave your king exposed to a check from the other piece.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the example above, the only legal moves are 2. Kd3 or Kxe1. If the black queen on e1 was protected by another piece (e.g. by a black bishop from g3), the only legal move for white would be 2. Kd3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastEditorUserId="11629" LastEditDate="2018-08-11T15:52:29.867" LastActivityDate="2018-08-11T15:52:29.867" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22209" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-08-11T20:34:11.700" Score="2" ViewCount="221" Body="&lt;p&gt;I read both of the answers to &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/5392/what-are-blacks-possible-plans-in-the-exchange-variation-of-the-queens-gambit&quot;&gt;this question&lt;/a&gt;, and although one answer hints that black can launch a kingside attack in the Exchange variation, it offers no games demonstrating such a kingside attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are some games demonstrating a kingside attack from the black side of the Queen's Gambit Declined (Exchange variation)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2614" LastEditorUserId="4588" LastEditDate="2018-08-13T09:08:45.677" LastActivityDate="2018-09-29T14:04:41.903" Title="What are some good attacking games from the black side of the Queen's Gambit Declined (Exchange variation)?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;queens-gambit-declined&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22210" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22207" CreationDate="2018-08-12T00:34:46.377" Score="16" Body="&lt;p&gt;Since there is no single comprehensive publication this is based on the &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/syzygy1/Cfish/blob/master/src/tbprobe.c&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;probing code&lt;/a&gt;, the &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/syzygy1/tb&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;generator&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessprogramming.org/Syzygy_Bases#Forum_Posts&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;various explanations&lt;/a&gt; from Ronald de Man (the author of the generator).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When probing pretty much any tablebase (aka huge compressed hash map):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The position is normalized ...&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;... mapped to an integer index.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The index is looked up in a table that identifies which &quot;block&quot; it belongs to.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The block is decompressed until the information for the index can be retrieved.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then there usually is some code &quot;outside&quot; of probing, at least to resolve en passant captures.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Starting with the outside code for WDL. Syzygy tables use an optimization based on the following observation: If a position has a capture that achieves a particular value (e.g. is winning), then the position itself has at least that value (e.g. is winning). In this case the table can store an arbitrary lower value, whichever is best for compression, and this can be easily corrected by checking the subtables for captures.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To get a DTZ, a WDL probe needs to be done first. If the position is drawn, then DTZ is 0 and the table can store anything, whichever is best for compression. If the best move was a capture (which we can remember from the WDL probe), then the DTZ is +/-1 or +/-101 depending on the WDL, and the table can again store anything, whichever is best for compression.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pawnful tables contain 4 subtables, one for each file of the &quot;leading pawn&quot; (after normalization).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;WDL (sub)tables are two-sided, i.e. they essentially contain two seperate tables for each side of the endgame (unless the material is symmetric).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;DTZ tables store only one side to move. So a brief 1-ply search may be required to compute the DTZ for the other side.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(1) About the normalization: There are multiple ways this could be done and it is not easy to tell in advance which one will lead to the best compression. The generator just tries different permutations. The final order of the pieces is stored in the header of the table file.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(2) Some combinatorics. The challenge is not to have large gaps for impossible positions. Although it is quite tricky, I don't think Syzygy does anything special here. Conceptually, pieces or groups of pieces are placed on the board in the order specified in the header.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(3) Compressed values are stored in blocks. The block size is specified in the table header. The table mapping indexes to blocks is sparse, so it allows jumping very close to the correct block and then requires a brief forward or backward scan to find the exact block. A block can store values for at most 65536 positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(4) Syzygy tables use custom compression based on &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.larsson.dogma.net/dcc99.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;RE-PAIR&lt;/a&gt;. An important feature is that it actually allows taking advantage of the opportunities to store arbitrary values that were identified above. Decompression is very fast and can stop as soon as the value for the desired index is available.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Optionally, DTZ tables can require another step f(wdl, stored value) = real value. This extra DTZ map is referenced in the table header and is itself a table with 8-bit entries. (Intrestingly this turned out to be insufficient for 7-piece endgames, even with pawns, so there is now another flag that enables 16-bit entries).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For DTZ values, if the generator determined that all values for a table are less than 100, precise half-move counts are not required to guarantee perfect play. Instead it sets a flag in the table header and rounds half-moves to full-moves to save space.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also clearly there is no need to store the sign, or an additional offset of +/-100 for cursed endgames because this can be inferred from the WDL value.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since decompression is very fast, there is no need for a cache. Instead engines can rely on the operating systems page cache to store (still compressed) blocks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The 6 piece tables contain WDL and DTZ information for 3,787,154,440,416 &lt;a href=&quot;https://kirill-kryukov.com/chess/nulp/results.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;unique positions&lt;/a&gt; in 150 Gigabytes, so ~0.3 bits per position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All in all Syzygy tables improved upon previous tablebase formats in at least 3 of these areas, making it a very compact and fast format. Amazingly the generator is quite fast as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And of course using DTZ50 is a pragmatic choice, because this is just enough information to reliably make progress and allows perfect play (wrt. outcome) both with and without the 50-move rule. However based on the changes to Cfish that are published so far (RdM is now working on DTM tables), many of the techniques will apply to DTM as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3122" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-09-21T13:38:57.350" LastActivityDate="2019-09-21T13:38:57.350" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22211" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14263" CreationDate="2018-08-12T01:02:37.163" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just this week the 7-piece Syzygy table for this endgame was published and is now available online, together with some basic statistics about this endgame. It &lt;a href=&quot;https://syzygy-tables.info/?fen=6k1/8/3pP1R1/3P4/8/1K6/8/3r4_b_-_-_0_1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;gives&lt;/a&gt; a maximum DTZ of 136 (in a position that happens to match your criteria).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So in any case 136 is a lower bound for the maximum DTC.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To get from DTZ to DTC for paths leading through this position we just need to check: (1) It is indeed a conversion (by capturing the black pawn), instead of just a pawn push. (2) The phase was not entered by a non-capturing pawn push.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For (1) see the DTZ-mainline:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;6k1/8/3pP1R1/3P4/8/1K6/8/3r4 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Kf8 2. Rf6+ Ke8 3. Kc4 Rc1+ 4. Kd3 Rd1+ 5. Ke4&#xA;Re1+ 6. Kf4 Rf1+ 7. Kg5 Rg1+ 8. Kh6 Rh1+ 9. Kg7&#xA;Rg1+ 10. Rg6 Rd1 11. Rg5 Ke7 12. Rf5 Rg1+ 13. Kh6&#xA;Rd1 14. Kg5 Rg1+ 15. Kf4 Rf1+ 16. Ke4 Re1+ 17. Kd3&#xA;Rd1+ 18. Ke3 Ke8 19. Ke4 Re1+ 20. Kf4 Rg1 21. Rh5&#xA;Rd1 22. Ke4 Re1+ 23. Kf5 Rf1+ 24. Kg5 Rg1+ 25. Kf6&#xA;Rf1+ 26. Rf5 Rd1 27. Rf2 Rd4 28. Ra2 Rf4+ 29. Kg5&#xA;Rd4 30. Ra1 Rd2 31. Kf5 Rd4 32. Ra7 Rd1 33. Ra4&#xA;Ke7 34. Ke4 Re1+ 35. Kd3 Rd1+ 36. Kc4 Rc1+ 37. Kb4&#xA;Rb1+ 38. Kc3 Rc1+ 39. Kd2 Rc5 40. Rd4 Ra5 41. Ke3&#xA;Ra3+ 42. Rd3 Ra1 43. Rb3 Re1+ 44. Kd2 Re5 45. Rb5&#xA;Rg5 46. Kc3 Kf6 47. Kb4 Rg1 48. Ka5 Ra1+ 49. Kb6&#xA;Ke7 50. Ra5 Rb1+ 51. Kc6 Rc1+ 52. Kb5 Rb1+ 53. Kc4&#xA;Rc1+ 54. Kd3 Rd1+ 55. Kc3 Rc1+ 56. Kd2 Rc8 57. Kd3&#xA;Rc7 58. Ra1 Rb7 59. Rh1 Rb5 60. Rh7+ Kf6 61. Rf7+&#xA;Kg6 62. Kc4 Rc5+ 63. Kd4 Ra5 64. Rc7 Ra1 65. Rc6&#xA;Rd1+ 66. Kc4 Rc1+ 67. Kb3 Rb1+ 68. Kc2 Ra1 69. Rxd6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For (2) it helps that white is giving check, so the last move was:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A capture on g6. But that would have started the phase.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Rf6-g6+. But e7 would have been better.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Rh6-g6+. But Rf6 would have been better.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Admittedly it might still be possible that there are entirely different positions, stringed together by pawn pushes, that achieve a higher DTC (total DTZ).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3122" LastEditorUserId="3122" LastEditDate="2018-08-12T01:36:36.537" LastActivityDate="2018-08-12T01:36:36.537" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22212" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8771" CreationDate="2018-08-12T02:01:03.403" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;This max-DTZ position is mate in 8, but probably also a dead-end because it seems hard to improve starting here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;7q/4q1q1/8/8/3q2Q1/1K6/8/1k6 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Qf5+ Qde4 2. Qf1+ Qe1 3. Qd3+ Ka1 4. Qa6+ Qa5&#xA;5. Qxa5+ Qa3+ 6. Qxa3+ Kb1 7. Qa2+ Kc1 8. Qc2#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3122" LastActivityDate="2018-08-12T02:01:03.403" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22213" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22203" CreationDate="2018-08-12T05:47:08.810" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have this book somewhere, but it's been a long time since I looked at it, and I don't recall having gotten past the mate in three puzzles.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I believe the point of the book was to start off by building the pattern recognition. I do remember that the puzzles would typically be grouped with others having a similar pattern, and that the longer ones built on the shorter puzzles.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's not a bad idea to do difficult problems, but it does help to have a good foundation in at least some of the patterns, so you have an idea of what to look for in candidate moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9025" LastActivityDate="2018-08-12T05:47:08.810" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22214" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22203" CreationDate="2018-08-12T08:04:07.150" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are a few aspects you need to keep in mind.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;solving any chess puzzles helps in your development&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;solving puzzles must be challenging, but still make you happy, not bored and sleepy&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;there are puzzles from real games -- these are good ones, and there are composed puzzles, where author intentionally obfuscated the main line with a few &quot;good&quot; looking side lines and created a brain teaser instead of instrument to learn something valuable. avoid the latter ones, it's fun to impress your friends, but generally is just a waste of time.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;what you want to strive for -- get any &quot;mate-in-2&quot; solved within 5 seconds, and &quot;mate-in-3&quot; within a minute.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;solve as much as you can -- this will allow you to learn those basic patterns, see the potential positions in your real games and actually make those mates happen in your games.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and yeah&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;6&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;solving from the book is the process a magnitude slower than using specially written software or web sites. unless your book is &lt;strong&gt;very&lt;/strong&gt; good, use apps and web.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15296" LastActivityDate="2018-08-12T08:04:07.150" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22215" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22209" CreationDate="2018-08-12T08:50:14.867" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Perhaps not a very well known game, but &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1106817&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Bobotsov-Petrosian&lt;/a&gt; is definitely highly instructive how to play the Exchange variation of the QGD: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;First, black exchanges a couple of minor pieces, as he lacks space&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;By putting a knight on d6, black stops white's play on the queen side&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Then, black starts a king side attack&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit:&lt;/strong&gt; A similar approach can be found in the game &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1070466&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Portisch-Kasparov&lt;/a&gt;, another very instructive game from black's point of view.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4588" LastEditorUserId="4588" LastEditDate="2018-09-29T14:04:41.903" LastActivityDate="2018-09-29T14:04:41.903" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22216" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22256" CreationDate="2018-08-12T10:25:58.997" Score="2" ViewCount="227" Body="&lt;p&gt;The position is analyzed in many endgame works, but to my knowledge hasn't been given a name as other similar endgames (e.g. &quot;Vancura's position&quot;) have.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Two of the most authoritative works, Nunn (2008) and Dvoretsky (2011), don't give it a name or cite a first analyst. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;K7/P4k2/8/8/8/8/4R3/1r6 w - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Dvoretsky, M. (2011). Dvoretsky's endgame manual. SCB Distributors.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Nunn, J. (2008). Secrets of rook endings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1752" LastActivityDate="2018-08-18T00:58:32.393" Title="Does this rook endgame have a name or known original analyst?" Tags="&lt;terminology&gt;&lt;rook-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22217" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22203" CreationDate="2018-08-12T14:37:43.630" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Seirawan's tactics book is much more beneficial and fun to read than this kind of puzzle book.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The book tells an interesting story and shows the key elements of common mate-in-x positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Those puzzle books like the one you're talking about don't seem to build pattern recognition (unless you see the exact position in a game), and you're more likely to miss the mate in a similar position in a game and then realize right after or later that the key elements were the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user17003" LastActivityDate="2018-08-12T14:37:43.630" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22219" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-08-12T17:44:56.243" Score="0" ViewCount="245" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am playing a game against the computer on chess.com. The computer made a move that looks absurd, so I would like to make it do another move instead and analyse the game. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How to do it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I tried to share the game with you, but when I hit the &quot;share&quot; button I cannot get a link to that particular moment into the game. Anyway I did Qxd7, Ka8 which is check mate after Qa7. I don't understand why the computer does not want to do Kxb6&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/0lyGu.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/0lyGu.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17106" LastActivityDate="2018-08-14T00:19:46.013" Title="How to force the computer to play another move on Chess.com?" Tags="&lt;online-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22220" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22221" CreationDate="2018-08-12T22:43:02.767" Score="2" ViewCount="219" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm writing a story where because of the character's vanity says &quot;you can have pawns but I don't need them, they are beneath me.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In such a game who would have the advantage?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17108" LastActivityDate="2018-08-13T11:50:41.963" Title="Pawns VS pawnless?" Tags="&lt;chess-variants&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22221" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22220" CreationDate="2018-08-13T03:23:43.590" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is pretty much hopeless for the player without pawns. The plan for the opponent is simple: exchange as many pieces as you can, then start a pawn storm.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I tried a couple of times, and after removing the white pawns, I can easily beat Stockfish as black. Unless your character plays only against beginners, they won't stand a chance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2568" LastActivityDate="2018-08-13T03:23:43.590" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22222" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22220" CreationDate="2018-08-13T06:29:22.747" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The expression looks related with a strong atack with pieces, so &quot;they are beneath me&quot; can mean the character is playing a decisive atack with no pawns involved and is going to win the game -or think with his vanity he is gonna do it-.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user16971" LastActivityDate="2018-08-13T06:29:22.747" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22224" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22220" CreationDate="2018-08-13T11:50:41.963" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I agree that it is hopeless to play without pawns unless it is against a very weak player. I just want to add some semi-quantitative measure of how strong the handicap is. According to Stockfish, the starting position where White has no pawns is evaluated as -8.0 (not surprising perhaps, since the evaluation function uses a pawn scale and the material disadvantage is eight pawns). This is nearly as bad as having no bishops (-8.4), but not as bad as having no queen (-11.5). It is, however, worse than missing one rook (-5.5 or -5.7). The normal starting position evaluates as +0.4 due to the first-move advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For more context you could read the Wikipedia article about &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handicap_(chess)#Rating_equivalent&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chess handicap&lt;/a&gt;. Giving away pieces when playing against weaker players is a historically common practice, and the article discusses the various handicap levels, how they relate to ratings, historical games, etc. While there's no discussion of the &quot;no pawns handicap&quot; (I'd never heard of it either), you can see where rook, bishops, or queen handicap fall on the scale.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12523" LastActivityDate="2018-08-13T11:50:41.963" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22226" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22219" CreationDate="2018-08-14T00:19:46.013" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Judging from the position, you were not playing the strongest computer level. Weaker levels simulate human blunders by deliberately making weaker moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why not just go back a move? There should be an undo button.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2018-08-14T00:19:46.013" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22227" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22228" CreationDate="2018-08-14T08:33:08.257" Score="2" ViewCount="297" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yesterday I played a game chess whose link is: &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/rnLeeqMD/white#30&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://lichess.org/rnLeeqMD/white#30&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;The computer tells me that in the 16th move,when I played 16.f4, I made an inaccuracy. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ZbnJA.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ZbnJA.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My reasons for playing f4 are the next ones:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-if Black captures the pawn, the file f file will be open for the rook. Besides the d6 pawn will be become weak and susceptible to be attacked right away via Bf4 and Nb5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-If Black does not capture the pawn, I can still exchange my pawn so the file gets open. However, in both cases, I allow my rook to go to f3 to later move to h3 where along with the other bishops it would exert comsiderable pressure on the kingside.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-My bishops amd Queen point to the kingisde so I think I should attack that part of the board. Maybe my white bishop square is not the best but it does not look probable that my e4 pawn can easily be exchanged or sacrificed so this bishop can effectively go to d3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-Because Black’s knight has not moved yet I do not want to give any time to Black for them to make that move. So a move like f4 forces Black to move another thing. &#xA;Exactly for this, I am surprised that the computer suggests taking a slow course of action by preparing a rupture via a3-b4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The other suggestions I am given such as playing f3 do not convince me much because although it protects the e pawn, it blocks the white bishop whoch already had a bad outlook on the square it is. Playing h3 is I think too slow although it prevents a junp from the knight to g4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could someone tell me what I got wrong in my analysis?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16771" LastEditorUserId="16771" LastEditDate="2018-08-14T08:45:31.533" LastActivityDate="2018-08-14T14:07:37.610" Title="Why is playing f4 here not correct?" Tags="&lt;pawns&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22228" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22227" CreationDate="2018-08-14T09:34:02.140" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;White has a big advantage in this position because of her space advantage and her bishop pair. All Black's minor pieces are very passive with no good square to aim for.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After 16.f4?! ef4 17.Bf4 Ne8 (or 17...Qe7, side-stepping any Nb5 attack), intending Nb8-d7-e5 White is still much better but Black has a great outpost on e5 for one of her knights, and the open h8-a1 diagonal for her bishop. Probably White will need to swap at least one piece, which is a minor but definite success for Black. Also, in the long run, the backward Pe4 may become blocked and weak.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If White cannot exploit the opening on the position with a direct thrust (such as Nb5 or e4-e5), she better refrains from 16.f4?! altogether.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, a good constructive plan could be to prepare g2-g3 and f2-f4, intending to take back with Pg3 in case of ...ef4 : That way White would keep control on e5 and a dynamic pawn pair e4-f4 that will constantly threaten to advance further.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastEditorUserId="14079" LastEditDate="2018-08-14T14:07:37.610" LastActivityDate="2018-08-14T14:07:37.610" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22229" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22230" CreationDate="2018-08-14T10:59:49.823" Score="3" ViewCount="390" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was on the chess.com app this morning doing the daily puzzle and it wanted me to play Re2. This is questionable to me, because it just delays the mate, but I figured I might have missed something. Then what really perplexed me is that Black then plays Qg7. It appears to me that Black is sacrificing his queen for no reason when he has a mate in 2. I don't see how White has time to mount an attack on Black or come back to defend in time. What am I missing? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;5r1k/1pQ4p/3nB1p1/3P4/5p2/1P5P/rq5P/4R1RK w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Re2 Qg7 2. Qxg7+ Kxg7 3. Rxa2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17118" LastEditorUserId="19465" LastEditDate="2020-01-05T02:29:06.730" LastActivityDate="2020-01-05T02:29:06.730" Title="Why was this move in a puzzle?" Tags="&lt;puzzles&gt;&lt;beginner&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22230" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22229" CreationDate="2018-08-14T11:19:28.090" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;If black plays QxR then white plays Qc3+ with mate to follow. Black's Qg7 stops the mate. With the black queen on b2 white cannot play Qc3. The Re2 move is to divert the black queen&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;5r1k/1pQ4p/3nB1p1/3P4/5p2/1P5P/rq5P/4R1RK w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Re2 Qxe2 2. Qc3+ Qe5 3. Qxe5+ Rf6 4. Qxf6#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="19465" LastEditDate="2020-01-05T00:27:40.413" LastActivityDate="2020-01-05T00:27:40.413" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22231" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22237" CreationDate="2018-08-14T12:34:47.077" Score="7" ViewCount="1947" Body="&lt;p&gt;Understatement of the week: Grandmasters are good at chess. I am not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was wondering because of this how likely it would be through complete random play to beat a grandmaster, and whether or not it was more likely for me to beat one through random play than out of my own skill set. (I am about 1400 FIDE, and therefore probably actively discount a lot of moves which would actually be quite good. &#xA;So my questions are: &#xA;1. How likely am I to beat a GM through random play?&#xA;2. Is this more likely than through my own skill?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16427" LastActivityDate="2019-12-11T22:58:48.960" Title="How likely am I to beat a grandmaster through random play?" Tags="&lt;grandmaster&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22232" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22231" CreationDate="2018-08-14T12:46:49.220" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;The chance is &lt;strong&gt;absolutely zero&lt;/strong&gt;. Not just against grandmasters, but against anybody.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In fact, it would be hard to win a game with random play against someone actively &lt;strong&gt;trying to lose&lt;/strong&gt;, after all you would just as likely remove your pieces from the vicinity of the opponent's king than play the checkmating move, if the opponent finally managed to get to a position where mate is possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Everybody who knows the rules and has some sort of goal in mind plays much better than random play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2018-08-14T12:46:49.220" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22233" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22231" CreationDate="2018-08-14T12:47:28.690" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't understand... Losing to a random player by checkmate is very hard. There is no way a GM would lose to a random player. No chance. You are more likely to win the world championship than the random player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2018-08-14T12:47:28.690" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22234" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22209" CreationDate="2018-08-14T13:32:13.403" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;A suggestion :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1145663&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Boensch-Vaganian, 1983&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bring the Bishop to d6, move the kingside pawns forward, try to dominate square e4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastActivityDate="2018-08-14T13:32:13.403" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22235" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22231" CreationDate="2018-08-14T14:11:40.400" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let's try to quantify why random moves are so bad. In an average chess position there might be 35 legal moves. Often there is only one good move in a position, but sometimes there are several. Let's say, to keep the math simple, that 10% of moves are &quot;good&quot;, and if you always play a &quot;good&quot; move, you can beat a GM. Let's say that a typical game in which you beat a GM takes 40 moves. Therefore your probability of playing such a winning game at random is 10&lt;sup&gt;-40&lt;/sup&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now let's imagine that you have 10 billion people each play 100 thousand random games. That's a total of 10&lt;sup&gt;15&lt;/sup&gt; games. That's still almost nothing compared to the 10&lt;sup&gt;40&lt;/sup&gt; games that it would take to have a reasonable chance of having &lt;em&gt;one&lt;/em&gt; win against a GM!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Note that it is not nearly as unlikely as having a monkey type the entire works of Shakespeare at random. It would be maybe like typing the &lt;em&gt;first line&lt;/em&gt; of the works of Shakespeare at random! Still, pretty unlikely. :-)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12523" LastActivityDate="2018-08-14T14:11:40.400" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22236" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-08-14T17:39:16.833" Score="15" ViewCount="5358" Body="&lt;p&gt;Recently I was playing an online game when I moved my king with the intent of castling. However, I apparently didn't get it far enough over, and when I &quot;let it go&quot;, the king was placed in a square adjacent to the one it had left and the rook stayed in the corner.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I made a comment in the players' chat along the lines of &quot;That was meant to be a castle.&quot; The other player even replied with something like &quot;Yeah, I figured.&quot; However he proceeded to take advantage of the situation, eventually winning what had been an even game up to that point.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately, this is not the first time this has happened to me. In fact it seems to happen disturbingly often, and I've only played a few dozen online games over the past few months. Also, I've seen some puzzling moves from opponents that I now think might have been due to trouble with the equipment, rather than just poor play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the game above, I considered asking for a draw right after the error, especially since my opponent acknowledged that it was a technical problem, not poor play. However I wasn't sure of the etiquette for this, and also had time considerations to worry about. Would it have been considered bad form to ask for a draw? To decline one if it is asked for from an opponent in such a circumstance?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="224" LastActivityDate="2018-08-15T22:51:27.120" Title="Is there any etiquette about how to proceed when a technical problem leads to a misplay in an online game?" Tags="&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;etiquette&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="4" ClosedDate="2018-08-17T09:09:50.123" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22237" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22231" CreationDate="2018-08-14T17:42:14.723" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elo_rating_system&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;ELO system&lt;/a&gt; is very good at predicting what percent win chance that a player has to beat another player. There is a table that we can consult to see the exact percent chance that one player has to beat another. Let's take a look.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Uwmkz.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Uwmkz.png&quot; alt=&quot;ELO statistics&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A quick summary of the table is...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Difference of 0 rating points = 50% chance of higher rated player winning&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Difference of 100 rating points = ~65% chance of higher rated player winning&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;200 is ~75%&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;300 is ~85%&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;400 is ~92%&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;500 is ~96%&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;600 is ~98%&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;700 is ~99%&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;735 is 100%&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Grandmasters tend to be around ELO 2500-2700 FIDE. Let's assume that a typical grandmaster is 2600.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With that in mind, let's take a shot at answering your questions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;1) Can you (FIDE 1400) beat a grandmaster?&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The difference in rating between you and the grandmaster is 1200 points. So according to the statistics, no. You'd have to be 735 ELO points away from the grandmaster or closer to stand a chance. So you'd need to be ELO 1865 to have a 1% chance of winning (winning 1 time every 100 games).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;2) Can a player playing randomly (let's assume ELO 100) beat a grandmaster?&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now we are talking about a rating difference of 2500 points. Definitely not within our 735 point threshold. The answer here is definitely &quot;no&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17122" LastActivityDate="2018-08-14T17:42:14.723" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22238" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22236" CreationDate="2018-08-14T17:51:12.833" Score="30" Body="&lt;p&gt;That's called a mouse-slip, and it's part of playing online. Watch some of Carlsen's online play (e.g. &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJlOlufG-JM&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJlOlufG-JM&lt;/a&gt;) and you'll see even he mouse-slips on occasion. Common etiquette seems to be to continue playing out the game and try to be more precise next time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17123" LastActivityDate="2018-08-14T17:51:12.833" CommentCount="13" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22239" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22236" CreationDate="2018-08-14T21:10:25.497" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;The most standard response you'll see is &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/22238/16035&quot;&gt;what Michael said&lt;/a&gt;. However, for what it's worth, I've had that happen to me as well and if you ask, occasionally the other player will scoot a piece around until you fix your move. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It doesn't take too much effort to plan it out so their piece is in its original spot once you've finished your &quot;castle&quot; (for example, they could move a bishop 2 squares over, you move your king off the back row, they move their bishop one square back, you move your rook over, they move their bishop back to its original spot, you move your king to it's standard castle position, then play continues). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It messes up the time a little and potentially impacts a draw, but that's seldom been relevant in my cases. Having said that, you're also asking your opponent to deliberately make a sub-par move and trust you won't exploit it, not to mention pass on a winning opportunity. Lots of players won't do that for you, but it shouldn't hurt to ask. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've also had a few opponents slip up before and offered to let them fix it a few times now. In the dozen or so times I've offered that to my opponent, they've never taken advantage of me for it; they've &lt;em&gt;always&lt;/em&gt; just made the move they promised. Likewise, in the dozen or so times someone's offered that to me, they've always operated in good faith as well. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Again, this isn't the most common response, but there are some players out there who'd much rather play a good game than an easy one. For what it's worth all these matches were Elo ~1600; I don't know how that affects the competitiveness of the matches. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16035" LastEditorUserId="16035" LastEditDate="2018-08-15T15:00:20.917" LastActivityDate="2018-08-15T15:00:20.917" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22240" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22242" CreationDate="2018-08-14T22:31:43.283" Score="2" ViewCount="164" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are there positions where a zugzwang helps the zugzwang'ed player? For instance, white forces black to make a move that gives black an advantage. Is that possible?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11432" LastActivityDate="2018-08-15T00:24:11.333" Title="Helpful Zugzwang?" Tags="&lt;zugzwang&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22241" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22240" CreationDate="2018-08-14T23:07:41.037" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;No.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you look up the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zugzwang&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;meaning of &quot;zugzwang&quot;&lt;/a&gt; you will see something like&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Zugzwang (German for &quot;compulsion to move&quot;) is a situation found in&#xA;  chess and other games wherein one player is put at a disadvantage&#xA;  because they must make a move when they would prefer to pass and not&#xA;  move. The fact that the player is compelled to move means that their&#xA;  position will become significantly weaker. A player is said to be &quot;in&#xA;  zugzwang&quot; when any possible move will worsen their position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, by definition if there is only one legal move and it makes your position better then it is not zugzwang.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2018-08-14T23:07:41.037" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22242" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22240" CreationDate="2018-08-15T00:24:11.333" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;Like Brian Towers wrote, a zugzwang by definition can't be helpful to the recipient, but if we go past the terminology and look at your second question: &quot;white forces black to make a move that gives black an advantage. Is that possible?&quot;, the answer is yes. You can even force the other player to checkmate you; there's even a class of chess problems called &lt;em&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selfmate&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;selfmates&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12523" LastActivityDate="2018-08-15T00:24:11.333" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22243" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22236" CreationDate="2018-08-15T01:30:57.510" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;On lichess.org you can ask for takeback even in rated games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your case is very reasonable for such request.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my experience the option is usually available, but here is an explanation of when it is and not available.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If you go to &quot;Preferences&quot; - &quot;Game behavior&quot; you are given a choice to&#xA;  allow takebacks &quot;never&quot;, &quot;always&quot; or &quot;in casual games only&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Even if you set your preferences to allow takeback always, you will&#xA;  not have the option in games where your opponent does not allow them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Oh, and I believe there is no option of takeback in tournament games,&#xA;  but I'm not a 100% sure about that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/qa/2557/why-in-some-games-does-the-takeback-button-work-and-others-not&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://lichess.org/qa/2557/why-in-some-games-does-the-takeback-button-work-and-others-not&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="307" LastEditorUserId="307" LastEditDate="2018-08-15T22:51:27.120" LastActivityDate="2018-08-15T22:51:27.120" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22244" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22245" CreationDate="2018-08-15T07:09:27.453" Score="3" ViewCount="863" Body="&lt;p&gt;What are the rules when the clock for both players has reached 0?&#xA;Are these rules different for digital clocks (where the clock shows who was the first player to flag) and analog clock where it might be unclear who flagged first?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've had some games in blitz where both myself and my opponent were at 1 second and after my opponent moved, his flag fell and he pushed his clock flagging me as well. When wanting to claim the game my opponent claimed that I should have stopped the clock while I still had time on my clock and since now both of us were flagged the game was a draw. The arbiter agreed with this, but I can't find anything about this situation in the Fide rules.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17125" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2018-08-15T09:27:29.687" LastActivityDate="2018-08-15T09:27:29.687" Title="What happens when both players are out of time in Blitz?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;blitz&gt;&lt;chess-clocks&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22245" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22244" CreationDate="2018-08-15T07:44:43.290" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=171&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=171&amp;amp;view=article&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;6.11&lt;br&gt;&#xA;a. If both flags have fallen and it is impossible to establish which flag fell first then:&#xA;the game shall continue if this occurs in any period of the game except the last period.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;b. the game is drawn if this occurs in the period of a game in which all remaining moves must be completed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only ambiguity is when the claim was made.  If your flag fell after you claimed the win--assuming that you had a possible win--you should have won.  The standard, tactful action is to call the game a draw, but the rules suggest that one should be declared the winner.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9684" LastActivityDate="2018-08-15T07:44:43.290" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22247" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22216" CreationDate="2018-08-15T11:43:49.750" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/22216/does-this-rook-endgame-have-a-name-or-known-original-analyst/22256#22256&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Herb Wolfe's answer&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt; checks some of the books quoted by the poster -and some others- where this endgame was mentioned, but any particular name was assigned to the position, being just included at Lucena/Philidor chapters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The analysis don't look very deep, that migth be the reason why it has not a huge interest on GM analysis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is how stockfish wins against himself with white:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;K7/P4k2/8/8/8/8/4R3/1r6 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Rc2 Ke7 2. Rc8 Kd6 3. Rb8 Ra1 4. Kb7 Rb1+ 5. Kc8 Rc1+ 6. Kd8 Rf1 (6... Rh1 7. Rb6+ Kc5 8. Rc6+ Kd5 (8... Kb5 9. Rc8 Ra1 (9... Rh8+ 10. Kc7 Rh7+ 11. Kb8)) 9. Ra6) 7. Ke8 Ra1 8. a8=Q *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However white wins because of black's king position. If the king starts on e7, it is drawn because white's king can't get away from a-column:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;K7/P3k3/8/8/8/8/3R4/1r6 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Rc2 Kd7 2. Rh2 Kc6 3. Rh8 Kc7 4. Rb8 Rd1&#xA;5. Rb2 Rd8+ 6. Rb8 Rd1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it is black's turn, white wins in a similar way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;K7/P4k2/8/8/8/8/4R3/1r6 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Rb3 2. Rc2 Ke6 3. Rc8 Kd6 4. Rb8 Ra3 5. Kb7&#xA;Rb3+ 6. Kc8 Rc3+ 7. Kd8 Rh3 8. Rb6+ Kc5 9. Rc6+&#xA;Kb5 10. Rc8 Rh8+ 11. Kc7 Rh7+ 12. Kb8&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user16971" LastEditorDisplayName="user16971" LastEditDate="2018-08-18T00:58:32.393" LastActivityDate="2018-08-18T00:58:32.393" CommentCount="13" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22248" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-08-15T15:45:59.583" Score="4" ViewCount="293" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Qw390.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Qw390.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why is 12. b4 played by a GM? Why doesn't he just capture the bishop? And how can he forsee so far in the future? Am I missing something?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12967" LastActivityDate="2018-08-18T05:08:30.093" Title="How can a human figure out best move in this position?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22250" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22248" CreationDate="2018-08-15T16:07:34.393" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you take the bishop by pawn or queen -- you'll get an equal position with approximately even chances.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After &lt;code&gt;b4&lt;/code&gt;, and exchanging pawns for a bishop, there's a good attack on queen side, with &lt;code&gt;Rfb1&lt;/code&gt;, then black queen has to find the safe place, and &lt;code&gt;Qc6&lt;/code&gt; with quite good chances to win a piece.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15296" LastEditorUserId="15296" LastEditDate="2018-08-15T17:00:53.723" LastActivityDate="2018-08-15T17:00:53.723" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22251" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22248" CreationDate="2018-08-15T16:12:29.230" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I assume the last move was b2-b4.  The idea is 1...Bxb4 2.Rfb1 threatening to trap the queen with axb4.  So Bishop somewhere (2...Be7).  Now can we trap that queen or something? 3.Rb5 queen a6 is only open square which allows Rook discovery...but I don't see a win here. hmmm, 4.Rc5 Qb7 (4...b5!?) 5.Rc7 Qb8 6.Bg3!?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Okay this line is total junk as pointed out in comments and the answer&#xA;  is far simpler.  Black has problems with the unprotected Rook on a8&#xA;  and it can't find a home on b8 because Bg3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastEditorUserId="14202" LastEditDate="2018-08-15T16:48:51.500" LastActivityDate="2018-08-15T16:48:51.500" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22252" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22248" CreationDate="2018-08-15T18:49:42.427" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;This position is close enough to the beginning of the game that&#xA;the grandmaster may have already analyzed it at home.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even at the board it is reasonable to analyze the forcing sequence&#xA;12 b4 Bxb4 13 axb4 Qxb4 14 Rfb1 Qe7 (Qd6? 15 Bg3) 15 Qc6 Rb8 16 Rxa7.&#xA;Now we can pause to evaluate. White has recovered one of the sacrificed &#xA;pawns and has a very active position, while Black hardly has&#xA;a reasonable move: both Knights are pinned to the Queen, and&#xA;any move by Rb8 or Bc8 drops material.  White threatens 17 Bg3,&#xA;attacking the trapped rook, which Black can't free with b5 because&#xA;after 17 Bg3 Rb6? White can play 18 Qxb6 anyway.  If 16 . . . Ne5&#xA;White at least has 17 dxe5 Qxa7 18 exf6 winning two pieces for the Rook.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(I'm analyzing this from the diagram, and may well have missed something.&#xA;But I'm no grandmaster, and never got as high as 2300 USCF before I played&#xA;tournament chess 25+ years ago.  So for an actual grandmaster&#xA;this kind of analysis should be routine once the GM had made the &#xA;leap of imagination to consider 12 b4!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8860" LastActivityDate="2018-08-15T18:49:42.427" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22253" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22248" CreationDate="2018-08-15T19:36:10.033" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Maybe before justifying the pawn sacs one should answer more convincingly why taking on c3 would not have pleased White. The answer is the backward pawn on c-file and future pressure against it by rooks from c-file. Black cannot be happier if the Queens get exchanged on c3 as well. So, taking the bishop back on c3 would have yielded nothing for White. b4 is half out of desperation as it is of creativity!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Augment to this the forcing sequence delineated by the other answers here, and you see that b4 is not as much of an abnormal move as it may look initially.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13438" LastActivityDate="2018-08-15T19:36:10.033" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22256" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22216" CreationDate="2018-08-16T06:25:16.233" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've looked in several books, including Nunn's earlier edition of &lt;code&gt;Secrets of Rook Endings&lt;/code&gt; (1992), Muller and Lamprecht's &lt;code&gt;Fundamental Chess Endings&lt;/code&gt;, and &lt;code&gt;Silman's Complete Endgame Course&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;None of them have give it a name or source, although Silman refers to it as a &quot;Lucena&quot; but notes that it's not a true Lucena, since it's a rook pawn. It does tend to get grouped together with the Lucena and Philidor positions and the bridge and Karstedt maneuvers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9025" LastActivityDate="2018-08-16T06:25:16.233" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22257" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22270" CreationDate="2018-08-16T07:08:10.107" Score="21" ViewCount="8867" Body="&lt;p&gt;Should you always play with your &quot;best&quot; skills no matter how (un)skilled your opponent is?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a situation where intentionally not playing to the best of your abilities is a good strategy? Like, let's say you're playing against a chess noob. You don't need to waste moves defending your army because your opponent probably won't even notice the hanging pieces. You can checkmate your opponent faster by doing things that are usually considered bad strategies, such as moving your queen out too early in the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Additionally, I saw in the Chess.com mobile app that its &quot;best move&quot; hints change relative to the computer opponent's level. Seems like you should play against newbies differently than how you play against grandmasters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is purposely &quot;not trying your best&quot; sometimes advantageous?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11432" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T16:24:13.793" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T16:28:34.167" Title="Should you always try your best (play as if your opponent is a grandmaster)?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;" AnswerCount="15" CommentCount="8" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22258" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22257" CreationDate="2018-08-16T09:16:27.767" Score="26" Body="&lt;h2&gt;Is it a good strategy to always play like a grandmaster?&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Obviously yes, but unfortunately 99% of chess players are unable to do this even if they wanted to. ;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Is it a good strategy to knowingly play moves that you know (or strongly suspect) to be mistakes?&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Mistake&quot; in the sense that there is an answer that screws you if your opponent finds it. &#xA;Because either they find it (short term downside) or it works out and you just reinforced a flawed pattern in your brain (long term downside). Blundering your pieces left and right is not a sound strategy, not even against &quot;noobs&quot; (after all, you still need to have some material left to actually mate).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Is it a good strategy to knowingly play moves that you know (or strongly suspect) to not be best (but still okay)?&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In many situations, there are multiple candidate moves and it may have some benefit to play the move you judge second or third instead of the &quot;best&quot; one. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes it's better to settle for a small but safe strategical advantage (that you are confident to transform into a win against a &quot;noob&quot; anyways) instead of a potentially big advantage that needs a lot of precise tactical play to hold (with the additional risk that you miscalculated somewhere). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Keeping the game less complicated when ahead gives the better player some meta advantage (he's less likely to blunder, and as long as he doesn't, he will eventually win), which might make an otherwise suboptimal move the most advantageous.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or vice versa, sometimes it may be worth it to go for a move that gives your opponent some advantage in one aspect of the game, while you only get a smaller one in some other aspect. Most gambits come to mind, for example. What matters is that you still should not play clear mistakes, only slightly &quot;worse&quot; moves where you do get some compensation. Sacrificing a pawn for initiative that's probably worth less than a pawn, or even sacrificing a piece for a mate attack is fine. Sacrificing initiative by moving out the queen too early for some hit-or-miss chance to apply the Scholar's mate is not a good strategy, because if they find a good answer, you end up with no compensation at all; and if they don't, they are so inexperienced that any healthy opening would probably have won easily (and quickly!) as well without using a strategy that is useless against better players (again: either short or long term disadvantage).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Making the game more complicated when things are even gives the better player some meta advantage (he's more likely to find a better way through the jungle), which might make an otherwise suboptimal move the most advantageous.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, these kinds of strategies are used by grandmasters as well, so ironically you are still playing like them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Is it a good strategy to knowingly play moves that you are not sure about (they may be good, they may be bad)?&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Often, this cannot be avoided, of course (your skill sets limits to calculation depth and positional judgment). Thus everyone has to do it to some degree. It's not a &quot;good&quot; strategy though. Ideally you should always try your best to evaluate a given position. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13433" LastEditorUserId="13433" LastEditDate="2018-08-16T09:46:50.367" LastActivityDate="2018-08-16T09:46:50.367" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22259" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22257" CreationDate="2018-08-16T10:58:55.963" Score="19" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, you should not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are serious games, these are less serious games, there are chess lessons with kids. If you play all games at your maximum strength:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;kids are going to hate you, because they don't like losing.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;people is going to hate you, because spending 5-10 minutes thinking about every move in a casual game makes everyone bored to the death.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;in a very short period of time you'll &quot;burn out&quot;, you'll hate the game and you'll never play it again.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, unless you're playing for the world title or in a very serious tournament, try to make it fun. Don't intentionally blunder or give away pieces (though this might be required sometimes when dealing with kids =), but play risky, adventurous games, so even if your opponent loses, (s)he does it with a smile and tells you: &quot;Thank you for a wonderful game!&quot; afterwards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After all, chess is just a game...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15296" LastActivityDate="2018-08-16T10:58:55.963" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22260" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22257" CreationDate="2018-08-16T11:03:28.590" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Depending on how &quot;best&quot; means. Say you play Sicilian Dragon the best against e4 but also have decent knowledge in French. Your opponent always play as white 1.c4 but never 1.e4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now you two meet at the last round of a major tournament while you two are tied for first. Whoever wins this game gets the trophy. He now opens 1.e4. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Should you go into Sicilian Dragon where he's obviously heavily prepared or do you go French?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7002" LastActivityDate="2018-08-16T11:03:28.590" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22261" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22284" CreationDate="2018-08-16T11:14:05.267" Score="4" ViewCount="362" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have reached 2000 rating in rapid at lichess. I am a student, so I have to keep up with my schoolwork. I get around 1/2 to 1 hour on chess on each weekdays and 2hrs on weekends. My question is, if I want to get better, do I have enough time to get a higher rating or it's unlikely for me to improve? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you in advance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14319" LastActivityDate="2018-10-12T10:33:17.600" Title="How should I continue?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="13" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22262" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22261" CreationDate="2018-08-16T11:25:06.813" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;You have plenty of time, but, please, concentrate on your study first, chess comes the second.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have a few friends, well... people I know, like you. They all heavily invest their time in their education and possible employment opportunities. They all still play quite strong, but don't consider chess anything but hobby.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15296" LastActivityDate="2018-08-16T11:25:06.813" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22263" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22257" CreationDate="2018-08-16T11:56:37.540" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;While it's a different game, this &lt;strong&gt;is somewhat&lt;/strong&gt; done in at least one game where two opponents play tactically with pieces on a board with no hidden knowledge, which makes me think it would apply to chess as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A few years ago, a computer (AlphaGo) beat a world-class Go player (Lee Sedol) for the first time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One thing many Go experts picked up in, was that AlphaGo's approach favoured a more certain win (even if only by a much smaller margin or less 'dramatically'), over a bigger win. So it might well prefer a play that was less &quot;optimal&quot; than most human masters or grandmasters would choose, if it concluded that it would give a more sure 50.1% chance of an eventual win (even if by just one counter), for example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;(A chess equivalent/analogy might be a calculation (in machine play terms) that following 'ordinary' grandmasters quality play would give a player an estimated 63.1% chance of an 'ordinary' and 'good' win, but allowing the play to degenerate and drag out into much slower and apparently even 'pointless' or 'incomprehensible' endplay actually gives a 63.2% chance eventually of a very narrow win, even though this is a course that (almost) no human player would pursue. Note that this is my own understanding and analogy, so I could be a bit wrong, but hopefully it gives the idea.)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This also makes it difficult to answer the question, because it raises the question of what the &quot;best&quot; move should actually be defined to be.  Perhaps not necessarily the one that grandmasters think it is?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17133" LastEditorUserId="17133" LastEditDate="2018-08-16T12:12:28.157" LastActivityDate="2018-08-16T12:12:28.157" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22264" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22339" CreationDate="2018-08-16T12:14:49.557" Score="1" ViewCount="109" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can the solution to the famous Secretary Problem be applied to the search function of a chess engine? Rejecting the first 37% moves and choosing the best one after that,or maybe even just checking the first 63% of the moves and choosing the best one so far?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17129" LastEditorUserId="17129" LastEditDate="2018-08-21T12:08:48.913" LastActivityDate="2018-08-22T18:30:53.453" Title="Can an Optimal Stopping strategy be applied to search functions?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;programming&gt;&lt;statistics&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22265" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22257" CreationDate="2018-08-16T12:30:24.247" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you play a strategy that can be countered more easy but can also lead to a faster victory against someone with lower expected skill, that's just normal risk and reward for me. You increase your chance of defeat for a faster victory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Playing worse, or even losing is useful, if you want someone to play more games with you. Like when you teach someone or if you for any other reason want others to play with you instead of not doing it any more because of frustration. In that case, choosing a nonoptimal strategy in a single game is part of a larger strategy over multiple games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17134" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T16:25:08.320" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T16:25:08.320" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22266" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22257" CreationDate="2018-08-16T13:43:33.720" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;If your goal is simply to win chess games, then yes; you should always play like a grandmaster (to the best of your abilities) even against less skilled opponents &#xA; (again, this is if your goal is simply to win. Really putting the squeeze on a novice is a great way to make that person lose interest in chess). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You said against novices that :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;You don't need to waste moves defending your army because your opponent probably won't even notice the hanging pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To this I say a few things. First of all, a chess strategy that assumes &quot;your opponent probably won't notice&quot; is pretty flawed. While you may have a high chance of success against novices, people tend to develop the strategies they use the most often. If you repeatedly leave hanging pieces, you'll slowly find yourself checking for hanging pieces less often. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In addition, if you've misjudged the quality of your opponent and blunder away a free knight early, you've begun that game down on material. Blundering a piece away isn't so bad when you're up substantial material, but that's a decision made on the quality of your opponent's position, not the quality of your opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lastly, again, &quot;people tend to develop the strategies they use the most often.&quot; The more games you play sub-optimally, the fewer games you play optimally. I know that's obvious, but you have to consider that in the long term, your skills won't be developed if you avoid using them. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;You can checkmate your opponent faster by doing things that are usually considered bad strategies, such as moving your queen out too early in the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's potentially true, but the goal of the game isn't to checkmate your opponent as quickly as possible. With the exception of a few notable games, it's not important if you beat your opponent in 4 moves or 100, so why risk the game? For example, you could try &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scholar%27s_mate&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Scholar's mate&lt;/a&gt; against a novice and probably win most of the time. However, if your opponent is familiar with this, now you've played a sub-optimal opening for pretty much no reason.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Additionally, I discovered in the Chess.com mobile app that its &quot;best move&quot; hints change relative to the computer opponent's level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is likely because chess engines view time as a precious resource. When you ask for the &quot;best&quot; move and the computer knows it's playing a novice, it's not going to delve as deep into lines, because it doesn't have to. This does undercut my answer a little, but keep in mind computer play and human play is very different. A computer has a harder time allocating time for future moves, and so you'll find it trying to shave precious seconds off where possible in case it needs them later. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A more interesting question though, is &lt;strong&gt;Should I make the best move available every time?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Interestingly, the answer to &lt;em&gt;that&lt;/em&gt; question is no. That's because chess is a strategy game, and a large part of strategy is evaluating your opponent. When outmatched, you'll sometimes see grandmasters start with a traditionally weaker opening. This is because they've prepared it; they've analyzed most of the opening lines, and they know their opponent probably hasn't. As such, they might be able to leverage a small advantage that's less obvious to their opponent right away.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In addition, there's some interesting psychology behind making sub-par moves. In particular, &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikhail_Tal&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Mikhail Tal&lt;/a&gt; was notorious for deliberately ignoring the best move available. However, he had the skill required to back up these moves, so players quickly became &lt;em&gt;very&lt;/em&gt; cautious when he gave them an &quot;obvious&quot; response. That often led to them making their own sub-par moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Tal's style of play was so intimidating that James Eade listed Tal as one of the three players contemporaries were most afraid of playing against (the others being Capablanca and Fischer). However, while Capablanca and Fischer were feared because of their extreme technical skill, Tal was feared because of the possibility of being on the wrong side of a soon-to-be-famous brilliancy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/forum/view/chess-players/can-michael-tal-get-a-hippopotamus-out-of-a-swamp-and-still-beat-gm-vasiukov&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;plenty of stories&lt;/a&gt; of Tal making &quot;bad&quot; moves which confused or concerned his opponents enough to give him an advantage, but that's similar to the &quot;weaker opening&quot; point as well; Tal knew his advantages weren't strictly based in material. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When evaluating their own play, your opponents will likely assume you'll make optimal moves. If you do, they'll have a line prepared and it's truly a battle of who has better chess strategy. But when you throw in a few moves they didn't expect, they have to reevaluate their own line and they have to try and understand what you're thinking. Tal was an expert at this; his habit of making unexpected moves made it harder for his opponents to evaluate deep lines. If done correctly, this can give you a larger advantage than the material or positioning you've offered.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16035" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T16:25:28.903" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T16:25:28.903" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22267" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22264" CreationDate="2018-08-16T13:49:52.570" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;No. What if recapturing your queen for an exchange is your first &#xA;candidate move?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2018-08-16T13:49:52.570" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22268" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21991" CreationDate="2018-08-16T18:36:50.153" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Try &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/fernandotenorio/Tunguska&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://github.com/fernandotenorio/Tunguska&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;And let me know if your Python engine beat mine! =D&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11328" LastActivityDate="2018-08-16T18:36:50.153" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22269" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22257" CreationDate="2018-08-16T18:51:44.753" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Should you always try your best? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Simply put some things are not worth it. Sometimes you run into a position that would take too much time to play for no reward. Sometimes you need your opponent to teach you want to do in certain positions because you have no idea. In those cases it's usually best to resign.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Really, you need to figure out how hard you &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;should&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; go and how hard you're &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;willing&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; to go for every game. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A word of warning, every single action you make starts to build a habit; if you play too carelessly against a noob it will effect your chess game against stronger opponents. It might not be worth the extra effort to play &quot;nice&quot; when you have to unlearn some of the habits you've already developed and then relearn them later when you have to play against Magnus Carsen - that's 100% who you're playing against I already know lol.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You gotta know when to fold 'em.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user14104" LastActivityDate="2018-08-16T18:51:44.753" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22270" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22257" CreationDate="2018-08-16T20:47:45.160" Score="17" Body="&lt;p&gt;It seems to me the real question here is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Should you always play as if your opponent is a grand master?&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You seem to have defined &quot;playing your best&quot; as playing the moves you would make against a grand master, and any other moves, even when played against other opponents, as being lesser. But the rules of chess do not prohibit using your knowledge about your opponent to your advantage, and so I would argue that the 'best' way to play is the moves that are most likely to win &lt;em&gt;against your current opponent&lt;/em&gt;. So, when playing someone with less experience, changing your strategy accordingly is still &quot;trying your best&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for whether you should always play as if against a grand master, that depends on your goals. If you want to be sure to win, the grandmaster strategy seems best. A novice would have to be extremely lucky to find a vulnerability in it and exploit it effectively. If your goal is to 'smoke' the novice and checkmate as quickly as possible, then your best strategy is probably as you said, to take risks, banking on your opponent not knowing how to punish you for them, and to be aggressive, banking on being able to slip away if you get in trouble. If you play as if against a grand master while actually being against a novice, you'll waste time protecting against moves your opponent won't make.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17140" LastActivityDate="2018-08-16T20:47:45.160" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22271" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22257" CreationDate="2018-08-17T07:54:58.583" Score="2" Body="&lt;h2&gt;No when you want to teach something specific&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A complete novice (in any game) does not know some of the strategies that lead to a win (in chess to a checkmate) and you need them to become aware of them. It doesn't even have to be an immediate win, but a specific moves combination or gaining specific position in order to get a strong advantage. If you want to teach a person to be aware of this position, you need to expose them more often than you would in a normal course of a game. So you tend to build your strategy upon reaching this specific position rather than winning itself. It doesn't mean though that you should give up defending your pieces or just leaving easy picks (unless it's an intentional sacrifice to show a trap one might fall into) - it teaches bad habits rather than anything else. But you still use moves that could be considered &lt;strong&gt;bad&lt;/strong&gt; if you play towards win &lt;em&gt;only&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Yes if you play a general game&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No matter how skilled your opponent is, if you don't intend to teach something specific, but rather give a general practice, play as if your opponent is a grandmaster. &lt;strong&gt;Use handicap to even your chances&lt;/strong&gt;. Explain that you do this to even your chances as the opponent might feel down for loosing despite you have removed one or two of your own pieces before the game even started.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You may give different versions of a handicap. Recently I played with a nephew who is still very novice. He &quot;invented&quot; a &quot;great&quot; strategy with just one flaw - it was ignoring I can move pieces as well ;-) I agreed for him to use this strategy and not use any of the pieces he was going to beat with his strategy nor defend them in any way under a condition the only moves he does with his knight (that was supposed to beat 3 of my pieces including the queen) were in this specific order. He could use any other piece in the meantime but knight had to take pieces in the exactly agreed order whenever he moved it. As you can imagine I did all my efforts to, despite being bound to this agreement, take as many other pieces as I could and get as close to winning as possible. I really had to challenge myself and the kid played one of his best parties (in terms of how much he analysed each move) - he made less casual moves than ever before. He eventually managed to complete the &quot;3-moves-3-picks&quot; strategy in something like 20 or more moves and only when he realised he is going to lose anyway and at that moment can no longer do anything about it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The benefit was he had to focus on slightly less pieces (3 of mine were actually out of the game) so the game was somewhat easier for him to analyse but he knew I will put all my best efforts to make it a hard time for him ;-)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other option is to limit the time you have for the game or burden yourself playing with more than one unskilled opponent at the same time (simultaneous exhibition)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand - I still remember the first game I won against my father without any handicap from his side. It was a real &lt;em&gt;pride&lt;/em&gt; for me. Not even closely comparable to that when I was winning a handicapped game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17144" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T16:28:34.167" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T16:28:34.167" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22272" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22049" CreationDate="2018-08-17T09:58:03.480" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;https://praguechess.cz/poradane-akce-detail.php?id_akce=43&amp;amp;langue=en&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess Train&lt;/a&gt; tournament is an 11-round rapid tournament that is held on a moving train. In five days it travels from Prague to Prague, visiting different cities each day. This year it goes to Poland, including Warsaw and Krakow.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Each day the train travel is from 10:00 to 14:00, with the two rounds of rapid during that time; the afternoon and evening are then free for sightseeing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2018-08-17T09:58:03.480" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22273" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22274" CreationDate="2018-08-17T11:48:35.517" Score="4" ViewCount="154" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]    &#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Bc5 4. c3 Nf6 5. d4 exd4 6. cxd4 Bb4+ 7. Nc3 Nxe4 8. O-O Bxc3 9. bxc3 d5 10. Ba3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Steinitz Variation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We play this in regular tournaments and it is very interesting. White gives the sacrifice of Bishop and also blocks Black's ...O-O. When we studied this line it contains lot of interesting variations. In modern times most players are not playing this variation, why?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11904" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2018-08-17T12:30:38.800" LastActivityDate="2018-08-17T12:59:11.847" Title="Giuoco Piano, Steinitz Variation" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;italian-game&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22274" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22273" CreationDate="2018-08-17T12:52:54.020" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;This line looks unsound.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White's plan seems to be to threaten to win back the piece by &lt;strong&gt;10...dxc4 11. Re1&lt;/strong&gt; (pinning the knight), teasing Black into weakening his king's position further by &lt;strong&gt;11...f5&lt;/strong&gt; to defend e4, which then leads to a very complicated situation that White hopes to manage better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, Black is fine if he just lets go of the knight, since he's still a pawn up. Obviously, his kingside is very weak, but he can move out his queen with tempo (by attacking e4) and castle long. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;11...Be6 12. Rxe4 Qd5 13. Re1/Re2/Qe2 etc. 0-0-0&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The black king is safe and c4 is actually well protected. White doesn't have enough compensation left for that pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To back this up, according to the Lichess online database, White has a win rate of 62% if Black plays &lt;strong&gt;11...f5&lt;/strong&gt; (71 games), but only one of 27%/38% respectively if the answer is &lt;strong&gt;11...Qd5&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;strong&gt;11...Be6&lt;/strong&gt; (11/8 games). &lt;strong&gt;11...Bf5&lt;/strong&gt; also seems to work (35%, 20 games). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's just not enough to make the variation appealing for grandmasters (who probably consider the refutation too obvious), and if none of them play a line it will hardly become very popular. It's a nice Blitz surprise weapon though, as you can see the majority of players from a database leaning towards fast games will choose 11...f5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13433" LastEditorUserId="13433" LastEditDate="2018-08-17T12:59:11.847" LastActivityDate="2018-08-17T12:59:11.847" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22275" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22257" CreationDate="2018-08-17T16:30:53.253" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a lower level player, I go a little farther away from this then most others seem to.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In general, I assume that my opponent will find the best move I can think of (that isn't anywhere near grandmaster strength, honestly, but that's the best I can do).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At times, I am willing to do the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Make a slightly inferior move (according to a grandmaster) that puts me in a position I play better (for me, that means endgame, for others, it may mean tactics or positional play)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Make an opening move that the book says is inferior, but it would take a higher level opponent to exploit it (that way, my opponents stop playing grandmaster moves they learned in a book)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If my opponent is in time pressure, play a sacrifice I don't think they can find a way out of in their remaining time&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If I believe my opponent is obviously weaker, play a move that will end the game quicker so I get some more rest time before the next round (I'm taking a chance here, but the reward of being fresh for the next game is more than enough for the risk of my opponent actually finding the best play this game)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If losing, set a trap for my opponent and see if I can get back in the game (losing quicker is better than losing slower anyway, and maybe I can get a draw out of it)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3009" LastActivityDate="2018-08-17T16:30:53.253" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22276" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22257" CreationDate="2018-08-17T17:08:30.873" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;No.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My friend and I would often play chess, just as something to do while we're hanging out.  One day, I paused and started analyzing the board.  He said, forget it.  Let's do something else.  Where's the Frisbee?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He wasn't afraid of losing.  He was a much, much better player than me.  It's just not the type of game he wanted to play that day. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17150" LastActivityDate="2018-08-17T17:08:30.873" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22277" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22257" CreationDate="2018-08-17T19:17:20.757" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Should you always play your best:&lt;/strong&gt; Yes&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;Does that mean playing like your opponent is a grandmaster:&lt;/strong&gt; Sometimes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess is a game.  You get to decide what the purpose of playing that game is.  It's &lt;em&gt;entirely&lt;/em&gt; up to you.  I can't tell you why you should play chess, Kasparov can't tell you why you should play chess, your wife can't tell you why you should play chess (okay, maybe you should listen to your wife).  It's all up to you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now the &quot;always play your best&quot; argument is typically given to lower ranking players to encourage them to not play sloppy.  It's easy to get dependent on cheap strategies which don't work at higher levels of play.  If you don't &quot;play your best,&quot; you risk such dependency.  If you always play as though the other player is a grandmaster, you avoid this issue.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now I will note that one does not just play a grandmaster on the board.  Grandmasters study the personality of their opponent at every single chance they get.  They aren't trying to beat the king on the board.  They're trying to beat the person.  Thus, if you see your opponent has a personality glitch that may cause them to make a bad move, &lt;em&gt;abuse it&lt;/em&gt;!  That's the best way to win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But what if your goal is not to win?  Chess is just one part of life.  There's a lot more out there.  One of the other answers points out that if you do nothing but slaughter novices left and right, they stop wanting to play with you.  Did you care about them spending time with you?  If you did, then you probably shouldn't slaughter them.  You shouldn't play like a grandmaster was across the table.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But you also don't want to be sloppy.  You can't just go make stupid moves because then you aren't challenging yourself.  Then, when the grandmaster does come along, you're hosed because you're out of practice playing carefully.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A hybrid solution, which I highly recommend is, &lt;strong&gt;&quot;Play to maximize your learning.&quot;  Don't play risky moves just because you can get away with them.  Play risky moves &lt;em&gt;to practice playing in difficult situations&lt;/em&gt;.  Handicap yourself to challenging yourself.&lt;/strong&gt;  Play just bad enough to get into a position where their skill level plus the handicap you give them is &lt;em&gt;just&lt;/em&gt; enough to force you to play your best -- to play like there was a Grandmaster on the other side of the table.  Hang a rook, not because you think you can get away with it, but because you believe that, with a 1 rook advantage, your particular opponent will actually challenge you and force you to play your best.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or, perhaps less drastically, if you're used to playing an open aggressive style of chess, consider putting yourself into closed detailed analytical positions just to see how you handle them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then every game you play teaches you about yourself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And, as an added bonus, you are intentionally putting your opponent into a position where they stand a chance to win &lt;em&gt;if&lt;/em&gt; they play their best.  And that makes for better opponents.  Soon you may find they learn enough to surprise you!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6885" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T16:26:03.957" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T16:26:03.957" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22279" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22257" CreationDate="2018-08-17T21:40:03.060" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;If I am in an inferior position against a player I deem no better than I am, instead of playing what Fritz will call the best move later, I'll probably look to set traps. In a similar situation, the Grandmaster (playing another Grandmaster) might just resign, if the position is bad enough, or reconcile himself to playing for a draw. Setting the opponent up for a trap is probably not a GM's best plan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="921" LastActivityDate="2018-08-17T21:40:03.060" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22280" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22261" CreationDate="2018-08-18T01:35:15.203" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;With the time you say you have to spend on chess, of course it's possible to improve. You should remember that chess should never come first though, and it's just a game you enjoy. If you're not aiming to be a professional, don't spend hours on end every day studying it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's a list of chess literature I think would benefit you, at your skill level:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Grandmaster Preparation series by Jacob Aagard. If you can work through all the books in it (I believe there are 5) you'll definitely improve.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;My Great Predecessor series by Garry Kasparov. He annotates games of all the world champions (as well as many other strong players), and it's incredibly instructive. I also learned a huge amount of chess history from the series.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other than that, it's good to continue playing online and doing tactics training. Even if you did only 1/2 hours per day of reading/playing/tactics, you'll start to see improvement. Also, since school should come first, I'd recommend not exceeding 1/2 hours per day, unless you're absolutely set on becoming a GM / professional (which I don't recommend).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2018-08-18T01:35:15.203" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22282" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22257" CreationDate="2018-08-18T05:01:39.287" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Always try your best no matter who you're playing. You never know if someone is underrated and better than they seem. Also, even if someone isn't that good of a player, you playing recklessly gives them more chances than they should have.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only reason for playing differently against lower rated players is to finish the game slightly faster, but this is a poor reason. You can play safely without wasting too much time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In general, I find that when I (subconsciously) play carelessly against low-rated players, I end up playing worse. This sometimes leads to the game being closer than it should be, which &lt;strong&gt;makes the game longer than it would have been&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As an interesting aside, I also find that, on the odd occasion I have played a grandmaster, I tend to play &lt;em&gt;extra safe&lt;/em&gt;, again subconsciously. This also makes my play worse, since I'm not playing like I would have. So the strategy that yields best results is to play against everyone the same, if possible ignoring their playing strength. If I could consistently do this, I'd probably go up 50-100 rating points (and I'm around 2200).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2018-08-18T05:01:39.287" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22283" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22248" CreationDate="2018-08-18T05:08:30.093" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's actually a very nice idea. The point is that after:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;12.b4 Bxb4 13.axb4 Qxb4 14.Qc6!, White is getting plenty of queenside activity, and is going to win the a7-pawn since Black's rook will have to move to b8. White will still be down a pawn, but will have tremendous queenside activity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the point of 12.b4 is that it allows White's queen access to the c6-square, while still winning Black's bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that after 12.b4, Black must play 12...Bxb4, or else he just loses his queen since it's trapped.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for how the GM could have foreseen this, it takes a combination of natural talent and countless hours of practicing calculation to ingrain patterns into the mind. Although I wouldn't say this combination is close to GM calibre, maybe 2200 level at best.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2018-08-18T05:08:30.093" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22284" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22261" CreationDate="2018-08-18T12:42:09.463" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;You are young&lt;/strong&gt; and with your skill, &lt;strong&gt;you may reach a master title&lt;/strong&gt; in some years if you have talent and &lt;strong&gt;you study a bit in an efficient way&lt;/strong&gt;. That can be good for your cv and good for your life and satisfaction.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You must know the difficulty to climb from 1800 to 2000 may be as hard as from 2000 to 2100, or from 2100 to 2150, or from 2275 to Fide Master etc. It is so hard because imagine you play 5 games with 2200 ELO against 5 players rated 2000, you draw 4 and you win 1; you are gonna lose some of your points! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Players that plan to reach FM title use to study with the assistant of a good trainer on a club&lt;/strong&gt;. That doesn't mean to study more than the 5/10  hours/week you are currently spending on it, but to &lt;strong&gt;planify correctly what to study&lt;/strong&gt; -benefitial opennings, weakness, ...-. And you will need to play federated games, of course, so if you gonna seriously for a performance of your ELO, chess will take most of your afternoons on weekends -game plus some time to prepare it against specific opponents-.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you plan to do a maths degree, it migth be valuable to have a high level and play for your university and study there. You will also meet people wich is always nice when you are new on a site. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If this is not going to happen soon, you can continue studing a bit, &lt;em&gt;books as &quot;My system&quot; of Nimzhovic&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;do some tactics&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;play some correspondance&lt;/em&gt; and not only rapid games, &lt;em&gt;analyze your mouvements&lt;/em&gt; when the game is finished, &lt;em&gt;watch videos&lt;/em&gt; of your favorite opennings, try new ones,....&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I haven't seen you playing, but if you were going for GM/professional skill, you should be trained by a master and take some more of your valious time spent studing your lovely mathematics, and I guess that is not what you have on mind.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can take as an example about how hard is &lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/card.phtml?event=2268795&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;the best chess player of my little spanish region ever&lt;/a&gt;. He did 3rd on national spanish championship on 2016, but he has not reached GM -he has been very close, but unfortunately he has still not got it-. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I followed his facebook profile while playing an international open. He was rated 2480 if I remember well -and I think he has yet the normes, he just needed 20 points to get the title-. He complained, after drawing against a 18 years old russian rated 2250, something like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;Today I played against a 18 years old russian. He played 30&#xA;  consecutive book moves of a line I knew well, where there is only a&#xA;  chance for black to draw it.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user16971" LastEditorDisplayName="user16971" LastEditDate="2018-10-12T10:33:17.600" LastActivityDate="2018-10-12T10:33:17.600" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22286" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22257" CreationDate="2018-08-18T14:51:33.093" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Timur Gareyev, a 28-year-old grandmaster set a world record for playing 48 games at once. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the article about him it was noted he would play sharp gambits to bring the game to a quick conclusion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Strategy varies.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13147" LastActivityDate="2018-08-18T14:51:33.093" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22287" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-08-18T19:00:11.563" Score="3" ViewCount="1640" Body="&lt;p&gt;Alphazero is an amazing chess engine, one of the best in the world. It also has a more &quot;human&quot; playing style than other engines. Furthermore, understanding this engine might be vital to improving the way we play chess. Of course, one might argue that engines play the best move using brute force calculations and combinations. Human just can't do that. However, I argue that there are some clear strategies of alphazero. These are just some of them. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;fianchettoing bishops &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;controlling space and giving opponents no moves(pawns)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;forcing the opponent to create creating weaknesses (checkmate threats) and taking over the holes in the position. (when pawn g6 is played to stop mate, the dark squares are a weakness. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are much more than these strategies. I have not yet seen how Alphazero defends, for example. Also, I would request u to go to this link (&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/alpha-zero-vs-alpha-zero-10-lesser-known-alpha-zero-lines&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/alpha-zero-vs-alpha-zero-10-lesser-known-alpha-zero-lines&lt;/a&gt;). This link shows the openings when alphazero plays both white and black. It would be nice if somebody could add understanding of it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know this post seems outdated, but Alphazero is so ahead of its time. It is still the best engine! I think we should understand it and help the chess community. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17163" LastEditorUserId="15296" LastEditDate="2018-08-19T13:36:33.357" LastActivityDate="2018-08-19T14:05:13.750" Title="What are the strategies of Alphazero?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;alphazero&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2018-08-22T14:29:34.270" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22288" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-08-18T19:18:18.623" Score="3" ViewCount="912" Body="&lt;p&gt;If Magnus Carlsen, for example, faced Stockfish with the time control 1move/day, how well would Magnus do against Stockfish? It seems with so much time per move, tactical oversight disappears. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3872" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2018-09-24T10:16:09.673" LastActivityDate="2020-02-07T21:20:38.090" Title="How would top grandmasters fare against engines in correspondence chess?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;correspondence-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22292" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-08-19T12:44:49.153" Score="26" ViewCount="8095" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm so confused about this. I googled it and read about knight's tours, however they all start from illegitimate positions. I want to know if a knight can move through all squares from its original position (e.g. b8, g8, b1, and g1).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17167" LastEditorUserId="10887" LastEditDate="2018-08-20T12:10:09.187" LastActivityDate="2018-08-21T07:39:12.037" Title="Can a knight move through all squares from its original position?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;knights&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="9" FavoriteCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22293" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22292" CreationDate="2018-08-19T12:51:42.907" Score="57" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Yes, it can&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Uj6gB.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Uj6gB.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This particular &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knight%27s_tour#History&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;knight's tour&lt;/a&gt; is closed, meaning that it starts and finishes in the same square. Therefore, the knight can start at any square on the board and finish on the same square, since it just starts at a different point along the cycle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10887" LastEditorUserId="10887" LastEditDate="2018-08-21T07:39:12.037" LastActivityDate="2018-08-21T07:39:12.037" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22294" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22287" CreationDate="2018-08-19T14:05:13.750" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think there are any &quot;strategies&quot; in the human definition of &quot;strategy&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you use the &quot;common&quot; computer engine (basically, min/max tree search), you can always check how and why the engine arrived to some particular position evaluation, but still, this is usually limited to 10-12 half-moves, beyond that it's still hard for people to grasp what was the threat, or what is the forced mate or why this particular line evaluated higher than another line: &quot;Mate in 20?&quot; -- &quot;Yeah, I saw that one a few moves back&quot; =)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you talk about AZ or any similar NN-based software, it becomes practically impossible to reason about the moves. Once the training is over, all you get is the bunch of multi-dimensional matrices, which, once multiplied/added, give you some answer that leads to some policy chosen in this particular position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And this behaviour is not specific to chess only. Same things happen in image recognition, pattern analysis, language processing or any area where NN are in favour last few years. You get the results, but not the explanation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, right now, I would not recommend to blindly follow any of the AZ patterns, because no one has a clue, er... clear understanding, why and when those patterns should be followed. It might be as minor as &quot;if black pawn is on h6, fianchetto bishop on b2 (or g2, or both)&quot; -- we'll never know. Not in the nearest future, at least.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15296" LastActivityDate="2018-08-19T14:05:13.750" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22295" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22308" CreationDate="2018-08-19T15:51:35.070" Score="-1" ViewCount="287" Body="&lt;p&gt;If the knight moves then is it possible to give check mate? I have already given one check. I was playing a game of &quot;3 check&quot;. How can I get two more checks? Is it not possible?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;3 check is a mode in chess where you have to give 3 checks. Here in this game I gave one check before. At move 16 the black side made a mistake. Would it have been  possible to give two more checks if the black side hadn't made that mistake? Black also has two checks left.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/live/game/3016880533&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.chess.com/live/game/3016880533&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Live Chess - Three-Check&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Chess.com&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2018.08.19&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;RuhanUR&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;PAM_Andrei&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;A00&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;1060&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;794&quot;]&#xA;[TimeControl &quot;300&quot;]&#xA;[EndTime &quot;8:26:19 PDT&quot;]&#xA;[Termination &quot;RuhanUR won by checking the opponent king for the 3rd time&quot;]&#xA;[Variant &quot;Three-Check&quot;]&#xA;[CurrentPosition &quot;r2q1r1k/pp2b2Q/8/2p1p3/6bP/1P4Pn/P1P2P2/R1B2R1K b - - 0 21 +3+1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Nc3 {[%clk 0:04:56]} e6 {[%clk 0:04:57]} 2.Ne4 {[%clk 0:04:44]} c5 {[%clk 0:04:54]} 3.Nd6+ {[%clk 0:04:43]} Bxd6 {[%clk 0:04:51]} 4.g3 {[%clk 0:04:35]} Nc6 {[%clk 0:04:46]} 5.Bh3 {[%clk 0:04:34]} Nf6 {[%clk 0:04:43]} 6.d3 {[%clk 0:04:18]} O-O {[%clk 0:04:41]} 7.Nf3 {[%clk 0:04:01]} e5 {[%clk 0:04:26]} 8.Bf5 {[%clk 0:03:51]} g6 {[%clk 0:04:22]} 9.Bxg6 {[%clk 0:03:26]} fxg6 {[%clk 0:04:18]} 10.Ng5 {[%clk 0:03:18]} Nd4 {[%clk 0:04:05]} 11.O-O {[%clk 0:02:56]} Be7 {[%clk 0:03:59]} 12.e3 {[%clk 0:02:51]} Ne6 {[%clk 0:03:54]} 13.Nxh7 {[%clk 0:02:49]} Nxh7 {[%clk 0:03:51]} 14.e4 {[%clk 0:02:38]} Neg5 {[%clk 0:03:47]} 15.b3 {[%clk 0:02:16]} d5 {[%clk 0:03:45]} 16.h4 {[%clk 0:01:56]} Nh3+ {[%clk 0:03:31]} 17.Kg2 {[%clk 0:01:38]} dxe4 {[%clk 0:03:29]} 18.Kh1 {[%clk 0:01:08]} exd3 {[%clk 0:03:24]} 19.Qxd3 {[%clk 0:01:04]} Bg4 {[%clk 0:03:06]} 20.Qxg6+ {[%clk 0:00:54]} Kh8 {[%clk 0:03:00]} 21.Qxh7+ {[%clk 0:00:47]}  1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Go to move 16. What if my opponent hadn't made a mistake, then how could I have won?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16705" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2018-12-31T11:26:35.783" LastActivityDate="2018-12-31T11:26:35.783" Title="Is it possible to give two more checks here?" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;chess-variants&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22296" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-08-19T19:19:57.993" Score="6" ViewCount="469" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=171&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE rule E.8&lt;/a&gt; on temporary adjournment (my emphasis),&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Except in the cases mentioned in Articles 5, 6.9, 9.6 and 9.7, the game is lost by a player whose recording of his sealed move:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;a. is ambiguous, or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;b. &lt;em&gt;is recorded in such a way that its true significance is impossible to establish&lt;/em&gt;, or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;c. is illegal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The items a. and c. above are pretty clear. An illegal move is, well, illegal (e.g. moving a pawn backwards, moving one's king into check), and an ambiguous move is one that does not fully indicate the piece to be moved and its destination, such as &quot;I move my bishop back&quot;, &quot;castling&quot;, or &quot;I'm gonna queen a pawn&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the meaning of clause b. above? My instinct says that it refers to a move that is unambiguous on its face, but that is not sufficiently identified &lt;em&gt;as&lt;/em&gt; the player's sealed move, but it is unclear how that would &lt;em&gt;also&lt;/em&gt; not qualify under E.8.a as an &lt;em&gt;ambiguous&lt;/em&gt; move, and I found an &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessvariants.com/fidelaws.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;older version&lt;/a&gt; of the rules which states the following (emphasis mine):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;10.16&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;At the resumption, the game is lost by a player whose recording of his sealed move:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(a) is ambiguous; or &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(b) &lt;em&gt;would result in a false move the true significance of which is impossible to establish&lt;/em&gt;; or &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(c) would result in an illegal move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This version seems to emphasize that this rule is intended to prevent &quot;false&quot; moves as opposed to ones that are merely &lt;em&gt;ambiguous&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;illegal&lt;/em&gt;. E.g. the player's sealed move might be perfectly unambiguous and 100% legal, but it might still be unacceptable because it is somehow &quot;false&quot;. It also implies that a move that is &quot;false&quot;, but not ambiguous or illegal, may be permitted if its &quot;true significance&quot; can be established, but that seems impossibly unclear.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What kind of specific misconduct or poor play does this rule forbid?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14122" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2018-08-19T20:15:16.523" LastActivityDate="2018-09-10T08:16:10.197" Title="What is a move that &quot;is recorded in such a way that its true significance is impossible to establish&quot;?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;fide&gt;&lt;sportsmanship&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22297" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19297" CreationDate="2018-08-19T19:36:39.030" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If this variant did exist, the original position is won by white:  1. Qxd7+ Qxe8.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;&#xA;[FEN &quot;rnbqQbnr/ppp1pppp/8/8/8/8/8/8 w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9684" LastActivityDate="2018-08-19T19:36:39.030" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22298" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19297" CreationDate="2018-08-19T20:22:03.400" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;A variant that I have played for a while years ago is: white has just the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monster_chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;king and the four central pawns&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt; (cdef), but is allowed two moves per turn. All usual rules, including en passant and promotion, apply. Check and checkmate are defined via &quot;the player that takes the opposing king wins&quot;. The variant is surprisingly balanced, with black probably at a slight advantage (but with a lot more possibilities for blunders). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Given that this variant is playable as it is, I suppose that anything involving a double-moving queen would be ridiculously overpowered for its side.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The white king in this variant can 'make a nearby piece disappear' as you mentioned. It takes a few games to understand the strategies for the two sides: against someone of comparable level who has never played this variant, a player with some experience can often ask them to pick a side, beat them, propose a rematch with sides switched, and then proceed to beat them again. :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12957" LastEditorUserId="12957" LastEditDate="2018-08-19T20:28:54.833" LastActivityDate="2018-08-19T20:28:54.833" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22299" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22296" CreationDate="2018-08-19T20:25:01.950" Score="4" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;an ambiguous move is one that does not fully indicate the piece to be&#xA;  moved and its destination, such as &quot;I move my bishop back&quot;,&#xA;  &quot;castling&quot;, or &quot;I'm gonna queen a pawn&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No. You obviously haven't reached &quot;Recording of the Moves&quot; and clarifications given in the glossary. A move, to be a move, has to be written in algebraic notation. None of the expressions you have written qualify as moves let alone ambiguous moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the player had rooks on a7 and c7 and he wrote Rb7 then that would be ambiguous.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What is the meaning of clause b. above?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the person trying to read the move can't work out what the move is because part or all of it is illegible then that would qualify. In general this a catch-all clause that basically says you can't work out what the move is for some reason other than ambiguity. Complete absence would also do. i.e. the player seals a blank sheet of paper.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2018-08-19T20:35:23.950" LastActivityDate="2018-08-19T20:35:23.950" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22300" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22303" CreationDate="2018-08-20T00:28:28.750" Score="1" ViewCount="191" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I load up an engine (like Stockfish), it reaches a higher depth quicker if I only leave one line of analysis open. If I leave multiple lines open, it runs slower. Why is this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2018-08-20T04:50:50.960" Title="Why do engines run faster if you only have one line of analysis open?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;calculation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22301" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22300" CreationDate="2018-08-20T00:30:30.740" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;With only one line of analysis open, engines are able to prune the other sub-par lines (since you don't want to know anything about them). By leaving multiple lines of analysis open, the engine must fully evaluate each of them, and can't prune any of them (even if they're guaranteed to be worse than the best line showed at the #1 spot).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2018-08-20T00:30:30.740" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22302" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5675" CreationDate="2018-08-20T03:06:26.030" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Black can play for a win against the Exchange French by aiming to castle queenside.&#xA;After 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.exd5 exd5 4.Bd3 Nc6!? 5.c3 Black has a high class 'waiting' move that actually develops a piece. 5...Bd6!&#xA;Now if White plays 6.Nf3 Black has 6...Bg4 with castling queenside to follow, whereas 6.Ne2 can be met by the pestilential 6...Qh4! with dynamic equality.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But what to do if White plays 4.Nf3 instead? An interesting idea would be to try 4...Bg4, still aiming to castle on opposite sides. If White develops his light squared bishop now you can proceed with ...Nc6, similar to the lines above. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The critical test is 5.h3 and if Black plays 5...Bh5 then 6.Qe2+ with Qb5+ and pawn snatching a possibility. However, against the kind of players who would play the Exchange French I'd be very comfortable in such a wild, gambit line and it's in any case a fairly sound one where the development compensation is pretty clear. The whole line scores okay for Black in actual play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyway, you wanted something that unbalances the position and isn't boring and this way of playing certainly achieves that without conceding too much of an edge.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17174" LastActivityDate="2018-08-20T03:06:26.030" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22303" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22300" CreationDate="2018-08-20T04:50:50.960" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;That's normal, commonly known as multiPV analysis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Without getting into too much technical details, analysing N number of principal variations require running the engine N times, one for each PV. We need to do that so we can estimate a precise score for each PV.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2018-08-20T04:50:50.960" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22304" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22288" CreationDate="2018-08-20T12:14:30.357" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;short answer: the computer would still win&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;long answer: a human player has much more time to think, well. but a chess-computerprogram would also have much more time to calculate much more variants. (and every good &quot;classical&quot; chess-computerprogram would use this time to evaluate as many variants as deep as possible). so the skill-difference would become linear bigger whilst you give them more time to think (assuming the players can use this time really prolific productively). the limits will be reached for a human when he wants to think deeper about more variants. for computers the limits a much broader because a computer would never be confused when it analyzes millions of positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17177" LastActivityDate="2018-08-20T12:14:30.357" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22305" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22309" CreationDate="2018-08-20T14:12:43.560" Score="-3" ViewCount="222" Body="&lt;p&gt;Say I somehow make an illegal move, what happens? If I realize, can I then take it back, and make it legal? If so, how?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16705" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-02-03T15:22:16.543" LastActivityDate="2020-02-03T15:22:16.543" Title="What happens if I realize that I made an illegal move?" Tags="&lt;illegal-move&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="7" FavoriteCount="0" ClosedDate="2018-08-21T12:44:45.550" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22306" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="89" CreationDate="2018-08-20T15:01:28.303" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I used to read chess books in the 1960's. Then DN was the only commonly understood system.  I didn't go looking for chess books again until this year 2018.  Now everything is in AN.  I have a book published in the 1970's bought recently second hand it actually uses both.  I recently found some chess magazines in Spanish from the 1990's they all use AN. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For me DN is much more intuitive...not really intuitive ...just common sense.  There are two people sitting at the board, so there really ARE two perspectives.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;WW&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17181" LastActivityDate="2018-08-20T15:01:28.303" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22307" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22305" CreationDate="2018-08-20T18:24:00.807" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In blitz I believe if you make an illegal move and your opponent doesn't notice it, and then completes their move, the position stands as valid.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastEditorUserId="14202" LastEditDate="2018-08-20T22:57:56.220" LastActivityDate="2018-08-20T22:57:56.220" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22308" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22295" CreationDate="2018-08-20T20:04:34.730" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Black's decisive mistake was 19...Bg4, up to there he was winning. You can analyze three-check chess games online on &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;lichess&lt;/a&gt;, or using &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/ddugovic/Stockfish&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;multi-variant Stockfish&lt;/a&gt; offline with a GUI supporting chess variants (e.g., WinBoard/XBoard, PyChess, CuteChess, etc.).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I imported your game to lichess and triggered the automatic analysis, see &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/uUVDe8ei#38&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://lichess.org/uUVDe8ei#38&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15415" LastActivityDate="2018-08-20T20:04:34.730" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22309" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22305" CreationDate="2018-08-20T20:21:36.133" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is possible for a position to change in such a way that an illegal move becomes legal. As one example, if a move would result in your king being in check, then it is illegal, but if you make one (or more) move(s) so that later the same move would not result in check, then it becomes legal. The following diagram presents one such situation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;q1k5/8/8/8/8/8/1Q6/1K6 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Qa2 Kb7 2.Ka1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the beginning position of the above construction, the white king cannot move to a1, since that would be check. However, if white first moved their queen onto a2, then they would be able to move their king to a1 later.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="224" LastEditorUserId="224" LastEditDate="2018-08-21T13:33:43.777" LastActivityDate="2018-08-21T13:33:43.777" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22310" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21306" CreationDate="2018-08-21T02:54:02.617" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Searching the web, I haven't found anything directly answering your question. However, the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ibca-info.org/rules-of-chess.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;rules supplements for blind chess&lt;/a&gt; apply to games between a sighted player and one who is &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_impairment#Legal_definition&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;legally blind&lt;/a&gt;. Thus it seems a safe inference that one would need to be legally blind to participate in IBCA events.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="224" LastActivityDate="2018-08-21T02:54:02.617" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22312" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22316" CreationDate="2018-08-21T08:16:56.960" Score="87" ViewCount="45473" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was watching &lt;a href=&quot;https://youtu.be/roBJYinLCPc?t=322&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;the match between Ian Nepomniachtchi vs Hikaru Nakamura&lt;/a&gt; and Nakamura used both hands to castle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why is it illegal to castle using both hands? What's wrong with that?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16705" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-05-28T22:15:04.953" LastActivityDate="2021-01-29T06:28:02.217" Title="Why is it illegal to castle with both hands?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;castling&gt;&lt;illegal-move&gt;" AnswerCount="11" CommentCount="7" FavoriteCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22313" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22312" CreationDate="2018-08-21T09:27:21.737" Score="34" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know in general the rules say the hand you move your piece with has to be the one that hits the clock. If you castled with two hands which one would you use to hit the clock? This might be part of the reason for the rule saying you can only castle with 1 hand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9627" LastActivityDate="2018-08-21T09:27:21.737" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22314" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22261" CreationDate="2018-08-21T11:34:08.503" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Go find a club and quit making excuses. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Being 2100 on lichess without a FIDE rating is like saying you're division 1 in FIFA 18 without ever having played for a real-life team. Go find a club, because no one cares about lichess. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once you start playing at a club, your chess will improve at a speed you couldn't imagine, and you will make a lot of friends. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You will grow as a person and learn about yourself. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Good luck.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13147" LastActivityDate="2018-08-21T11:34:08.503" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22315" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22312" CreationDate="2018-08-21T11:38:06.207" Score="15" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;why is it illegal to castle with both hands?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because the rules say so.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;From the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=208&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Laws of Chess&lt;/a&gt; -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;7.5.4 If a player uses two hands to make a single move (for example in case of castling, capturing or promotion) and pressed the clock, it&#xA;  shall be considered and penalized as if an illegal move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2018-08-21T11:38:06.207" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22316" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22312" CreationDate="2018-08-21T12:56:17.543" Score="64" Body="&lt;p&gt;The official procedure to castle is (&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rules_of_chess#CITEREFSchiller2003&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Schiller 2003:19–20&lt;/a&gt; from Wikipedia):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;first move the king with one hand and then move the rook with the same hand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By using both hands the player can save time, as would by as using different hands for moving (like promoting a pawn to queen) or moving with a hand and hitting the clock with the other.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17197" LastEditorUserId="17197" LastEditDate="2018-08-22T07:00:50.697" LastActivityDate="2018-08-22T07:00:50.697" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22317" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22312" CreationDate="2018-08-21T14:06:05.170" Score="58" Body="&lt;p&gt;Disclaimer: this is probably not the answer, but it makes for interesting thinking. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This reminds me of a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/string_bet&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;string bet&lt;/a&gt; in poker. String bets are illegal, because they can be used to gain information – “I’ll see your $5”&amp;hellip;  &amp;lt; watches opponent’s face&amp;gt; &quot;&amp;hellip;  and raise you $20”. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By moving the king first, you are making what would otherwise be an illegal move (moving the king by more than one square) and cannot “string bet”. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you were to move the rook first, you might observe your opponent’s face, then quickly choose to move the king, claiming that you had intended to castle all along.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12803" LastActivityDate="2018-08-21T14:06:05.170" CommentCount="12" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22318" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-08-21T14:42:59.533" Score="19" ViewCount="2841" Body="&lt;p&gt;Bobby Fischer said that standard chess is dead and I believe him. Current players rely too much on engine-moves and theory in the openings and quite far in the middle-game without any real calculations, but memory. For instance, Carlsen had memorized engine-moves far into the middle game against GM Sergej Karjakin when playing white, which I find unfair.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess960 allows for 960 different positions to begin the game and no GM would be able to analyze every start to the current extent. Thus, Chess960 would rely on raw talent and calculations. Why isn't it the standard nowadays?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12730" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-07-08T19:12:10.280" LastActivityDate="2020-07-08T19:12:10.280" Title="Why isn't Chess960 the standard?" Tags="&lt;chess960&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22319" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22318" CreationDate="2018-08-21T14:57:58.990" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;99% of the chess players will never reach 1500 rating, so for them the standard chess is quite good enough. Chess960 is interesting variation along with &quot;atomic&quot; chess and others, but the niche is quite small and I'd say it's dead as well as its inventor.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15296" LastActivityDate="2018-08-21T14:57:58.990" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22320" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22312" CreationDate="2018-08-21T15:18:12.240" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's because you can't save yourself time by moving with more than one hand like that. Imagine one minutes where people did that. Castle would be over powered for time management reasons. Therefore, you castle with one hand, and the problem is avoided.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user14104" LastActivityDate="2018-08-21T15:18:12.240" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22321" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22295" CreationDate="2018-08-21T15:38:31.133" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;After 16. h4, there is no way for you to win this position, as black has a forced win in 4 moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;16&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;..Nh3+ is not a mistake by black, in fact it is winning. After your move 17. Kg2, black wins the game with 17. ..Rf2+ 18. Rxf2 Nf4+ 0-1.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you look at Fabian's link, you can see that black has a forced win in 5 as early as move 15.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, to answer your question: No, it is not possible for you to give 2 more checks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17202" LastActivityDate="2018-08-21T15:38:31.133" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22323" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22318" CreationDate="2018-08-21T16:59:20.097" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;To start with, standard chess in its current form has been the standard for a well over a century. It is well known and well established. It also enjoys a fair amount of popularity. It is widely seen as a test of intellectual prowess (even if that prowess often fails to transfer to other fields) in which luck has no effect in the game (even if that's not 100% accurate).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Assuming the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess960&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia article&lt;/a&gt; about Chess 960 is accurate, Fischer announced his variant to the world in 1996. Thus 960 is still relatively  new and unknown. While I've been playing chess off and on for 45 years, I've still never played Chess 960, nor even watched one game. I suspect that if you asked the average person on the street what Chess 960 is, they wouldn't be able to provide an accurate answer. I also believe that a lot of people wouldn't like a game in which the pieces start in different positions every time; especially one they've already known which always starts with the pieces in the same positions. Additionally, luck can play a part in the game, which takes away from the purity of intellectual prowess that attracts some to chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Overall, this is my way of saying that standard chess remains popular; I'm certain it has more broad popularity than Chess 960. Also, it is a more established history than 960. Time will tell whether 960 increases in popularity, stays an interesting variant of the standard game, or turns out to be a fad. However, given standard chess' head start, I believe it will continue to remain the standard for the foreseeable future.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, as noted by &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/22319/224&quot;&gt;lenik's answer&lt;/a&gt;, chess is enough of a challenge for most of us who play it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="224" LastEditorUserId="224" LastEditDate="2018-08-23T14:13:14.053" LastActivityDate="2018-08-23T14:13:14.053" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22324" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22318" CreationDate="2018-08-21T17:51:13.623" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;For one thing, this would make tournaments and rankings a bit difficult because the games are not identical.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How would you rank someone who won many games with more active starting positions compared to one who won other games with more passive starting positions? One player might be better at one type of game, while another, better at a different type. (Of course one &lt;em&gt;can&lt;/em&gt; say this is actually a good thing...)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, adding to what &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/22323/17184&quot;&gt;GreenMatt wrote&lt;/a&gt; (that the current one has been around for much longer), Chess is popular not only because it's an interesting game, but because it's popular - &lt;em&gt;everyone&lt;/em&gt; is playing it. There are other interesting games, and I assume you'll find some fans of those games who will tell you they're better than Chess. But popularity is self fulfilling. Just like (other) marketing. You'd have to convince many people to switch in order to convince many people to switch. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17184" LastEditorUserId="17184" LastEditDate="2018-08-21T18:01:07.283" LastActivityDate="2018-08-21T18:01:07.283" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22325" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6296" CreationDate="2018-08-21T19:05:04.880" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe, perhaps naively, that Chess960 will become more popular over time and eventually become the successor to classic chess. Perhaps not in our lifetimes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I look at the rules of castling in Chess960 just as I look at the rule of en passant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When the game of chess evolved, and players began moving pawns two squares instead of one, it changed the texture of the game... or it would have, had it not been for the en passant rule.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The same is true of Chess960's castling rules. It preserves the inherent texture of the game. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you look at a middlegame of Chess960, it is usually indistinguishable from a position that might have come from classic chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is one of the genius parts of Fischer's invention... it does not change the game. It merely removes one of the most onerous aspects of the game (rote memorization). The essence is the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16385" LastActivityDate="2018-08-21T19:05:04.880" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22326" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22312" CreationDate="2018-08-21T20:39:00.077" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In chess, whenever you touch a piece, you MUST move that piece. If you were to begin castling using two hands, and then removed your hands, it would be unclear which piece you would be required to move. This is why it must be done with one hand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17210" LastActivityDate="2018-08-21T20:39:00.077" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22327" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22312" CreationDate="2018-08-21T20:58:39.863" Score="31" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess rules are all about sequence.  If you use two hands, you don't know which happened first.  So you always use one hand.  First, you make your move, then you hit the clock.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As others have pointed out, the rook move alone could be one or two moves.  Maybe, you were just moving your rook, maybe you were castling.  The King move, however, does determine the one and only move.  There is no other King move that allows the King to move two squares.  By moving the King first, then moving the rook, there are no questions as to the real move.  The Rook, while being part of the move, is forced.  Because this is a sequence, you have to use one hand to play it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a side note, if you could use both hands, and you were playing with a clock, you could move the rook and hit the clock with one hand, and move the king with the other hand, and then there would be a sequence argument whether the king had moved before or after the clock hit, and thus whether it was a rook move or a castle.  By requiring one hand to do all three (king, then rook, then clock), there is no question as to what went on.  The king moved two squares first.  That defined the move.  Then the rook moved (with the same hand), then the clock was hit after the board was in a valid situation.  No arguments.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3009" LastActivityDate="2018-08-21T20:58:39.863" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22328" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22336" CreationDate="2018-08-21T21:09:29.283" Score="29" ViewCount="8121" Body="&lt;p&gt;Fide has a rule saying that if one player is rated more than 400 points higher than his opponent, their difference should be set to 400 when calculating rating gain/loss. That means no matter how weak the opposition is, a GM (or anyone) will receive minimum 0.8 rating points for winning. What is the reason behind this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To me it just seems like a giant weakness in the rating system, making any strong GM able to get as high rating as he wants just by playing weak opponents. Wouldn't it be better if the gain approached 0 when the difference increased (like the basic formula for calculating rating actually does)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: As most of the answers don't really seem to get the point, I will add an example which points out the problem:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One of the top 10 players in the world (say Magnus Carlsen), wants to increase his rating to 3000. He has a good friend who has 1200 in rating, and who is willing to play a match of 200 games (2 each day for 100 days) against him. His friend will of course play his best, so this is by no means considered cheating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;https://wismuth.com/elo/calculator.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://wismuth.com/elo/calculator.html&lt;/a&gt;, Magnus will have way more than 99 % chance of winning a single game, but for simplicity, let's say he has 99 % chance of winning a game (which is an understatement). If we then forget about draws (for simplicity), Magnus would be expected a score of 198/200. That means a rating gain of 0.8*198 - 9.2*2 = 140 rating points. That is if he scores as expected. And he used less than 1/3 of a year, and is extremely close to 3000 already. What if he does it again? (And again?) Even if he plays really poorly and loses 5 and draws another 5 out of the 200 games, he will gain 85 rating points. That is by scoring FAR below expected.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If there was no rating difference cap, playing an expected result (say 198/200), would by definition give a rating gain/loss of 0. So who came up with the idea of making a loop-hole for any top GM to become extremely high rated?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course it would be looked at as bad sportmanship to do something like this, and I doubt any of the top players of the world would consider doing so, but that doesn't justify the possibility being there. In a serious sport with a serious rating system there shouldn't be these kind of loop-holes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can anyone find any arguments justifying this rule?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17136" LastEditorUserId="17136" LastEditDate="2018-08-22T09:04:18.113" LastActivityDate="2018-08-22T23:29:39.400" Title="Why is there a minimum rating gain when you win?" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;fide&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="12" FavoriteCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22329" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22328" CreationDate="2018-08-21T22:32:01.567" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;It all evens out when an underrated opponent defeats the GM. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Assume the GM only plays weak opponents, so he gets a considerably large rating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then when he gets inevitably famous (he's a GM) people are going to look up his playing history and notice a discrepancy. This guy is only good because he plays patzers!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So when an underdog defeats him (this underdog being several hundred points stronger than he is on paper) the GM's rating will shift towards a truer description.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT&lt;/strong&gt; As a response to your edit, you do realize everyone around the world can see Carlsen's playing history, right?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Don't you think this would affect his image somewhat...I don't know...NEGATIVELY?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You're just asking a theoretical question that doesn't have a basis in real life. That's why you're not getting the answer you want: &lt;strong&gt;there is no solution.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13147" LastEditorUserId="13147" LastEditDate="2018-08-22T23:29:39.400" LastActivityDate="2018-08-22T23:29:39.400" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22330" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22328" CreationDate="2018-08-21T23:31:04.777" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;The rule makes total sense to me as statistics for rating is not so accurate when the difference in playing strength is too much. Capping to 400 minimises the statistical damage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No GM would risk a hefty rating penalty by playing only weak tournaments. Too much risk for very little gains. A single tactical oversight (GM is human too!!) could be deadly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2018-08-21T23:31:04.777" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22331" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22312" CreationDate="2018-08-22T00:01:38.480" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;It would permit a rather interesting ambiguity on the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many have mentioned that the king has to move 2 spaces first, so that there's only one possible valid thing to do.  So let's assume we do this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With one hand, move the king two spaces.  Once the king is in place (proving you intend to castle), the other hand grabs the rook and moves it.  Meanwhile, the first hand goes to hit the clock.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is possible that the first hand hits the clock before the rook is moved.  Now you have a really funny situation where your hands are still moving pieces &lt;em&gt;while it is the opponent's turn&lt;/em&gt;!  Needless to say, this could be a big deal, especially if the winning move is to take that rook.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To avoid this case, one needs rules which ensure that all pieces are in their final position before the clock is pressed.  Whatever rule FIDE chose, this is the key requirement placed on that rule.  Hands off the board when it's not your turn!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If we use &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%CE%A0-calculus&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;pi caluclus&lt;/a&gt; we can define a process where the clock press must occur after both moves are complete, regardless of which hand does what.  So in theory, one might define a different rule which permits two-handed operation.  However, in real life practical situations, such definitions are unreasonable. They work great with transistors and wires, and less well with human hands.  Instead, we simplify the process by not allowing things to happen in parallel.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6885" LastEditorUserId="6885" LastEditDate="2018-08-22T00:14:52.287" LastActivityDate="2018-08-22T00:14:52.287" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22332" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22328" CreationDate="2018-08-22T00:53:51.487" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;For starters, eight-tenths of a point really isn't that much of a ratings gain, especially for someone rated 2600 or more. At that rate, it would take 100 wins (without an upset loss) against these lower rated players just to gain 80 points. Given that a GM would mostly have to limit him/herself to the 3 to 6 round weekend tournaments that most of us lower rated players primarily participate in, it would take a while to gain those 80 points. Also, some tournaments might not allow a GM into the lower rated sections. Additionally, the prize money would be almost insignificant for a player at that level. As noted in &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/22329/224&quot;&gt;Jossie Calderon's answer&lt;/a&gt;, such a point grab would invite challenges from other GM's looking for a big point gain. All in all, it just doesn't seem like a smart way to gain points.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As I see it, this isn't about guaranteeing a minimal increase for a GM. It's more about capping the gain for a lower rated player and minimizing the loss for the higher rated player if somehow some patzer manages to upset a GM, or a seriously underrated player beats the GM.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="224" LastActivityDate="2018-08-22T00:53:51.487" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22333" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22328" CreationDate="2018-08-22T05:22:55.473" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;The higher rated player should get something for winning a game, and 0.8 seems to be the least to award the winner and still get recognition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_Bloodgood&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_Bloodgood&lt;/a&gt; exploited the this system to achieve a rating of 2759.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9684" LastActivityDate="2018-08-22T05:22:55.473" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22334" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22312" CreationDate="2018-08-22T08:45:49.910" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a very important rule for castling with one hand. In the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=171&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Fide Handbook&lt;/a&gt; it is rule 4.1.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;4.1 Each move must be made with one hand only.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The rule applies for all parts of the move, including capturing, castling and promoting.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now for the reasoning, of why a move needs to be executed with exactly one hand: In case that you are making an invalid move there are specific rules on how to proceed after taking back the invalid move. As a general rule you have to move the first piece that you touched (rule 4.3.a). In case that you use both of your hands for castling, it would be pure luck to say that you need to do another king or rook move. Instead the order is clear. You first touch the king (and move it two squares). Then you touch the rook and move it to the other side of the king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And why do you have to move the king first? Again it is to reduce any ambiguity. If you'd move the rook next to the king (without touching the king) you already completed a legal move. Castling now would be very weird as for the only time in chess a completed move could still be extended. Your opponent therefore could already make his move and you could still go: &quot;I'm not finished yet, please take back your move&quot;. (In an extreme case you could wait for all the time on your clock before announcing that you are castling).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For these reasons it is important that you execute the castling in two steps (first king, then rook). The additional rule that you can only use one hand is not of practical importance as long as both parts of the move are clearly distinguishable. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16758" LastEditorUserId="16758" LastEditDate="2018-08-22T11:38:35.390" LastActivityDate="2018-08-22T11:38:35.390" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22335" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22337" CreationDate="2018-08-22T12:10:12.367" Score="4" ViewCount="660" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there a (simple) algorithm for setting up a swiss tournament? I've searched around a little, but can't find anything specific.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Alternatively, is there any good and free software available for setting up swiss tournaments? All of those I've tried have very few options and little functionality available.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17136" LastActivityDate="2021-01-30T17:51:04.887" Title="Swiss-pairing algorithm" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;swiss-pairing&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22336" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22328" CreationDate="2018-08-22T12:18:17.690" Score="19" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Fide has a rule saying that if one player is rated more than 400&#xA;  points higher than his opponent, their difference should be set to 400&#xA;  when calculating rating gain/loss. That means no matter how weak the&#xA;  opposition is, a GM (or anyone) will receive minimum 0.8 rating points&#xA;  for winning. What is the reason behind this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is an historical anomaly. Currently, apart from your first ever rating, every game is rated individually. This means that you can never lose rating points by winning a game (LRPBWAG). It wasn't always so.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't remember exactly when the change happened, 2008 I think, but before this ratings were calculated per tournament. What happened was that your rating was calculated using your score for the tournament, the average of your opponents' ratings and your expected score against them. This opened up the possibility of winning the tournament but losing rating points because some low rated players in the tournament, who you crushed, lowered the average rating for the tournament so much that even though you scored well against similarly rated players as yourself your rating went down.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The original solution to this was to limit the difference to 350 points. Later this was changed to 400. Now that games are rated individually it could be scrapped.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There was an &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.chessbase.com/post/elo-oddities-the-tortoise-and-the-hare&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;article on Chessbase&lt;/a&gt; 6 years ago discussing this point between Jeff Sonas, Ken Thompson and John Nunn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Part of John Nunn's contribution is worth quoting -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The original rating rules had no 350-point rule. It must be remembered&#xA;  that in 1970 the rating list was very small and it was never envisaged&#xA;  that it would be extended substantially. Only top tournaments were&#xA;  rated (and these were invariably all-play-all events) and all&#xA;  calculations were done by hand. The 'Losing Rating Points For Winning&#xA;  A Game' problem didn't really arise. The top players always skipped&#xA;  the first round or two of an Olympiad, and in any case any weak&#xA;  opponents would be unrated, so the games simply didn't count.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;But times changed, the rating list expanded and started including more&#xA;  and more weaker players. Open tournaments appeared, and the LRPFWAG&#xA;  problem started to become significant. I don't remember exactly when&#xA;  the 350-point rule was introduced to deal with this, but I believe it&#xA;  was around 1980. Later, in 1988 or 1989, Karpov was unhappy about&#xA;  losing points when he had won a tournament, arguing that the aim of&#xA;  taking part in a tournament was to win it, and if you have achieved&#xA;  that then you shouldn't lose points through not having won by a large&#xA;  margin. For a time the 'Karpov rule' was in effect, that you couldn't&#xA;  lose points for winning an event. This was later scrapped.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Rating games individually is a fairly recent innovation, and for the&#xA;  vast bulk of the lifetime of the Elo system it was done on a&#xA;  tournament basis (because it made the calculations easier, especially&#xA;  for all-play-all events). The current rule is in a way a hangover from&#xA;  the earlier times, but I think there is some logic in it, although one&#xA;  can argue over the exact details. Rapidly improving young players, for&#xA;  example, can be massively underrated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2018-08-22T12:18:17.690" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22337" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22335" CreationDate="2018-08-22T12:25:51.487" Score="6" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;is there any good and free software available for setting up swiss&#xA;  tournaments? All of those I've tried have very few options and little&#xA;  functionality available.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.vegachess.com/tl/index.php/Home_page_English.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Vega&lt;/a&gt; is a swiss pairing program which has been approved by FIDE. It is free if you install it on Linux and if you install it on Windows it is free up to 30 players in the tournament. It is a lot more user friendly than other programs you have to pay for and is excellent for amateur use.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only drawbacks for professional use are the 30 player limit if used on Windows and the lack of a website for publishing the pairings and results. The program allows you to prepare HTML files for uploading to your own (or the tournament) website but it does not come with a standalone website like Chess-results.com which comes with Swiss Manager.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2018-08-22T12:25:51.487" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22338" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="351" CreationDate="2018-08-22T14:50:33.053" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;7-men Syzygy tables are available for download:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;ftp://ftp.chessdb.cn/pub/syzygy/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;ftp://ftp.chessdb.cn/pub/syzygy/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mirrors:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://tablebase.sesse.net/syzygy/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://tablebase.sesse.net/syzygy/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://tablebase.lichess.ovh/tables/standard/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://tablebase.lichess.ovh/tables/standard/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As of August 2018, only latest development Stockfish (and some of its derivatives) supports them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16979" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T17:00:54.890" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T17:00:54.890" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22339" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22264" CreationDate="2018-08-22T18:30:53.453" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The secretary problem is very different from chess move evaluation for several reasons.  First and foremost, the number of chess moves in a given position is finite and usually fairly small (~30 moves in a position).  The second reason is that the cost of choosing a sub-optimal employee is quantifiable and the second best secretary is okay.  In many chess positions there is only one move that is at all reasonable, every alternative will lose the game immediately.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In many chess engines, the most computationally expensive part of determining the best move is generating legal moves.  In the secretary problem, the number of applicants is known.  In chess, once we know the number of legal moves, we have already done some of the heaviest lifting.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, chess engines already prioritize candidate moves very quickly, the real strength of the engine is selecting the best move out of 2 or 3 moves that have risen to the top of the list.  Chess engines will continue to evaluate all of the legal moves in a position, but they might only go 2 or 3 ply deep for the moves that are less likely to be good moves while searching 40+ ply deep for the moves that are under active consideration.  This is called pruning and its development is one of the main improvements in newer chess engines over the earliest chess engines.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12" LastActivityDate="2018-08-22T18:30:53.453" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22340" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="75" CreationDate="2018-08-22T19:17:43.477" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I personally like the Grob opening, especially for blitz.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It goes:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;g4&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And, just an example of a continuation:&#xA;.. d5 2. Bg2 Bxg4 3. c4 e6 4. Qb3&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also like using the same idea as black playing against 1. e4. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;e4 g5 2. d4 Bg7 3. Bxg5 3. c5 4. Be3 Qb6&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The computer evaluation isn't always sound, but in practical play (in blitz), it works pretty well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17136" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-08-17T01:50:33.023" LastActivityDate="2020-08-17T01:50:33.023" CommentCount="0" CommunityOwnedDate="2018-08-22T19:17:43.477" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22341" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22342" CreationDate="2018-08-23T02:47:36.620" Score="5" ViewCount="694" Body="&lt;p&gt;Situation: there's a piece between the king and an opponent’s piece. If this piece were not there, it would be a check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I were to try and move the protecting piece somewhere and leave the king exposed, that move would be not allowed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could I move this protecting piece, even though when it's lifted the king is in check, but when the piece lands, the king is protected again?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17228" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-02-23T18:49:03.750" LastActivityDate="2020-02-23T18:49:03.750" Title="Can I move a piece protecting the king if it keeps protecting on its new location?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;illegal-move&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22342" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22341" CreationDate="2018-08-23T03:39:05.937" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, that's legal.  For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;6k1/6r1/8/8/8/6R1/8/6K1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;[SetUp &quot;1&quot;]&#xA;[CurrentPosition &quot;6k1/6r1/8/8/8/8/6R1/6K1 b - - 1 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Rg2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The rook can move along the g-file.  This is known as a &quot;partial pin&quot; - the rook is somewhat limited in its movement (and can't go to a3, for example) but it can still move if it still protects the king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2018-08-23T03:39:05.937" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22343" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19849" CreationDate="2018-08-23T11:37:01.670" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is an app called Dark Chess:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.onecwireless.darkchess.google.free&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Dark Chess for Android&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know it's not exactly the variation you asked for, but I thought it could be useful in some way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15365" LastActivityDate="2018-08-23T11:37:01.670" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22344" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8922" CreationDate="2018-08-23T13:59:58.173" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In case you're interested, there is an Android app for that and you can play with the engine:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.coderect.chessrect&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Mini Chess&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15365" LastActivityDate="2018-08-23T13:59:58.173" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22346" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12206" CreationDate="2018-08-23T16:12:45.980" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Due to the huge upsurge in rated players, and the lesser skill level required to become one, we see a player becoming rated every other day. If USCF did not implement this imbalance, Fabiano Caruana might get rated at 3000+ as rating is being 'added' into the system for every new rated. This imbalance 'subtracts' rating from the system to keep it more or less even.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So if a new player gets rated at say 1800, due to less of rating the 1800 he has added to USCF will eventually drain out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14471" LastActivityDate="2018-08-23T16:12:45.980" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22348" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-08-24T06:01:17.973" Score="2" ViewCount="3548" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am building a simple Android application for hosting Chess tournaments, I am having some difficulty implementing a Swiss paring algorithm, I need link to an article or a paper that explains how I can achieve that. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would also like to know any ideas that can help me.&#xA;I am following the rules in this Article &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fide.com/component/handbook/?id=83&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Swiss Pairing Rules&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am particularly having problem ensuring that &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;For each player the difference between the number of black and the number of white games shall not be greater than 2 or less than –2. &#xA;Each system may have exceptions to this rule in the last round of a tournament.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;No player shall receive the same colour three times in a row.&#xA;Each system may have exceptions to this rule in the last round of a tournament.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;In general, a player is given the colour with which he played less games.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If colours are already balanced, then, in general, the player is given the colour that alternates from the last one with which he played.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10397" LastActivityDate="2018-08-24T14:06:50.053" Title="Swiss Pairing Algorithm" Tags="&lt;chess-algorithms&gt;&lt;swiss-pairing&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22349" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22348" CreationDate="2018-08-24T09:39:56.087" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Jeremy Bierema has written a Swiss pairing program and &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/BieremaBoyzProgramming/bbpPairings&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;put it on Github&lt;/a&gt;. You could look at the code there which is in C++.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At any stage in the tournament you have to have a list of forbidden pairings. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first, obvious entries are pairings that have occurred previously. The second, banning 3 whites in a row, is ww v ww since one of them will have to be white giving www. Similarly bb v bb is forbidden. Then the white/black imbalance, so 2 v 2 and -2 v -2 are forbidden since in each case one player will end up with a 3 or -3 imbalance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, for each player you need to keep track of previous opponents, colour sequence and colour imbalance. This gives you the information to know which pairings are forbidden. In the last round you should also perform the forbidden pairing check for colours and pair with this in mind if possible. If not then you can ignore colour restrictions in the last round only.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &quot;previous opponent&quot; forbidden pairings are cumulative. The &quot;colour&quot; forbidden pairings change from round to round as the players' colour sequences and imbalances change.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2018-08-24T09:39:56.087" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22350" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20034" CreationDate="2018-08-24T11:24:58.953" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just tested it and it may have been fixed. It let me complete the mating move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just in case, the site is &lt;a href=&quot;https://fritz.chessbase.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://fritz.chessbase.com/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15365" LastActivityDate="2018-08-24T11:24:58.953" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22351" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21204" CreationDate="2018-08-24T11:46:00.807" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is an online option:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.swips.eu/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://chess.swips.eu/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But beware that the free version has the following limitations: up to 20 players in only one category, up to 5 rounds with only one tiebreak method.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15365" LastActivityDate="2018-08-24T11:46:00.807" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22352" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22318" CreationDate="2018-08-24T13:36:50.450" Score="24" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess players identify with their openings, all chess clubs have that one guy who always plays stodgy London stuff with white, the maverick with all his dodgy gambits and the youth player with 25 moves of Najdorf theory memorized for the day he finally gets to play it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Opening books are by far the most sold type of chess book, and the number of titles is much larger than that of other types of book. People write hundreds of pages of grandmaster level analysis on a line that starts on move 6 and still lots of amateurs buy the books.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When an amateur watches a grandmaster game live, he uses knowledge of the opening played to understand what is going on. If they play a King's Indian and the center is locked, one of them is going to attack on one wing and vice versa. If it's a closed Ruy Lopez, we know there's probably a slow maneuvering game coming up, et cetera.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Playing memorized opening theory gives the amateur the feeling that for that part of the game at least, he is playing at grandmaster level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In other words, &lt;strong&gt;chess players &lt;em&gt;like&lt;/em&gt; opening theory&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastEditorUserId="924" LastEditDate="2018-12-28T14:06:43.760" LastActivityDate="2018-12-28T14:06:43.760" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22353" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22348" CreationDate="2018-08-24T14:06:50.053" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's a Python library called &lt;strong&gt;PyPair&lt;/strong&gt;, that allows to easily generate the pairings, a short example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Players = { 1:&quot;Tim&quot;,&#xA;            2:&quot;Jeff&quot;,&#xA;            3:&quot;Kristi&quot;,&#xA;            4:&quot;Jacob&quot;,&#xA;            5:&quot;Doug&quot;,&#xA;            6:&quot;Karen&quot;,&#xA;            7:&quot;David&quot;}&#xA;&#xA;to = Tournament()&#xA;&#xA;for player in Players:&#xA;    to.addPlayer( player, Players[player] )&#xA;&#xA;pairings1 = to.pairRound()&#xA;&#xA;print pairings1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yields the output:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;{1: [1, 7], 2: [2, 6], 3: [3, 5]}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You may check &lt;a href=&quot;http://jeffhoogland.blogspot.com/2014/11/pypair-python-library-for-pairing-swiss.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;PyPair: A Python Library for Pairing Swiss Tournaments&lt;/a&gt; -- the blog post, or deep dive into the &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/JeffHoogland/pypair&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;github page&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The more complex example is available &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/JeffHoogland/pypair/blob/master/test.py&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15296" LastActivityDate="2018-08-24T14:06:50.053" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22355" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22356" CreationDate="2018-08-25T01:17:22.433" Score="3" ViewCount="854" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/qgvWa0ly&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://lichess.org/qgvWa0ly&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I (black) was losing and ready to resign soon. As far as I can tell, there should be no stalemate or 50 move rule applicable. I had offered a draw earlier, but it was declined. Can the opponent accept the draw later after first declining? That wouldn't be fair.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17254" LastActivityDate="2018-08-28T00:25:09.640" Title="Why was this game drawn on lichess?" Tags="&lt;draw&gt;&lt;lichess&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22356" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22355" CreationDate="2018-08-25T01:52:39.463" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;In a chess there's a 3-fold repetition rule, if the same position appears 3 times, a player can call a draw. Your opponent allowed a 3-fold repetition, hence, the game was drawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;3k4/8/p1PK2p1/1p4P1/1P6/P7/8/8 w - - 11 57&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit: clarifying in light of comments:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that the draw does not happen until claimed by a player, and since you didn't claim it, your opponent must have. Why would they claim a draw in a winning position where they had more time on their clock? On lichess.org, you can control the &quot;claim draw on threefold repetition automatically&quot; setting. Yours is set to &quot;when time remaining &amp;lt;30 seconds&quot;, but the opponent's must have been set to &quot;Always&quot;. Players who normally play under faster time controls sometimes use the &quot;Always&quot; setting to ensure predictable draws under time pressure. You got lucky in this situation because your opponent didn't recognize the 3-fold repetition, and their winning chances were undone by their settings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15296" LastEditorUserId="17254" LastEditDate="2018-08-28T00:25:09.640" LastActivityDate="2018-08-28T00:25:09.640" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22357" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22366" CreationDate="2018-08-25T05:55:03.973" Score="4" ViewCount="402" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is it allowed to use a score sheet booklet for notations (with a recording of previous games), as opposed to a single &amp;quot;stand alone&amp;quot; sheet?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Reasons for not allowing this may, of course, be due to the possibility of cheating, for example, by having opening line reminders on previous pages and making use of them during the game. On the other hand, one may also have such notes in one's pocket, and I don't believe there's a prohibition against this, only against the usage thereof.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12953" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-11-14T01:28:29.250" LastActivityDate="2020-11-15T13:53:30.707" Title="Are score sheet booklets allowed to be in use?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;scoresheet&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22358" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22357" CreationDate="2018-08-25T08:09:43.633" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Generally speaking the answer is &quot;No&quot;. The reason being this section of the FIDE Laws of Chess -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;11.3.1 During play the players are forbidden to use any notes, sources of information or advice, or analyse any game on another chessboard.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In practice it will depend on the competition. If it is your local chess league or internal club competition where everybody knows everybody then probably no problem. However if it is a large congress then if the arbiter sees you doing this or your opponent does and complains to the arbiter then you will be asked to put the scorebook away and use the provided scoresheet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is not normally a punishment for a first offence. Repeated offences against this rule can lead to defaulting the game as happened to Wesley So when he repeatedly looked at notes he had written to himself not with chess moves but inspirational advice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note also Article 8.3&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;8.3 The scoresheets are the property of the organiser of the competition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For serious FIDE rated tournaments the scoresheets will be collected each round, the games entered on a computer and the PGNs published. For norm events these PGNs must be sent to FIDE. For these events your scorebook is not acceptable and you will be asked to use the scoresheet provided.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2018-08-25T11:46:09.077" LastActivityDate="2018-08-25T11:46:09.077" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22359" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22360" CreationDate="2018-08-25T12:10:42.420" Score="5" ViewCount="736" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why is 5.c4 considered playable against the Sicilian Kan, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i.e. after 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 e6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 a6 5.c4, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but hardly seen against the Sicilian Taimanov? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i.e. after 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 e6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nc6 5.c4?!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-09-11T00:33:05.430" LastActivityDate="2020-09-11T00:33:05.430" Title="Why is 5.c4 playable vs. Sicilian Kan, but hardly seen vs. Sicilian Taimanov?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;&lt;sicilian-taimanov&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22360" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22359" CreationDate="2018-08-25T16:03:35.733" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;As the knight is already developed on c6, black can immediately create counterplay in the center: 4....Nc6 5.c4 Nf6 6.Nc3 Bb4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Clearly, 7.Bd3 (the mainline after 4....a6 5.c4 Nf6 6.Nc3 Bb4) is not possible now, as black wins a piece by 7....Nxd4.&#xA;Instead, white has to defend the pawn on e4 in another way. Both after 7.f3 and 7.Qd3, black has the strong reply 7....d5, after which white has to be careful to maintain equality.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The best move is probably 7.Nxc6, which has been played by several grandmasters. However, this is already a slight concession by white and black should be fine after both 7....bxc6 (e.g. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1070741&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Kramnik-Kasparov&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1820245&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Karjakin-Grischuk&lt;/a&gt;) or 7....dxc6 (e.g. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1773058&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Dubov-Radjabov&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that the position often arises via the English opening: 1.c4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 e6 6.e4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;      [StartPly &quot;7&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;      [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;      1.e4 (1.c4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 e6 6.e4) c5 2.Nf3 e6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nc6 (4...a6 5.c4 Nf6 6.Nc3 Bb4 7.Bd3) 5.c4 Nf6 6.Nc3 Bb4 7.Nxc6 (7.Bd3 Nxd4)(7.f3 d5)(7.Qd3 d5) bxc6 (7...dxc6)&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4588" LastEditorUserId="4588" LastEditDate="2018-08-27T09:15:02.687" LastActivityDate="2018-08-27T09:15:02.687" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22362" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-08-26T03:35:25.477" Score="3" ViewCount="798" Body="&lt;p&gt;I find it strange that the dominant time controls for online blitz is 3 min and 5 min instead of something with delay like 3 increment 2. Fide blitz tournaments have increment too. Any insight on this trend?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3872" LastActivityDate="2018-08-29T07:46:45.360" Title="Why increment isn't popular online blitz?" Tags="&lt;online&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ClosedDate="2018-08-28T21:36:09.363" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22364" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22362" CreationDate="2018-08-26T14:02:53.487" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The main reason, I think, for online blitz sessions not including increment/delay is the possibility of premoving. You can't premove in OTB chess, so you will use the increment for the 'motion' time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Personally, I feel 3+0, where you have to keep good track of your clock, is more challenging than 3+2, where you just have to liquidate to a winning endgame using your time more freely and then play on the increment until checkmate. In sudden death games, you can flag your opponent if you are losing, so once they get a winning position it is not game over :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13544" LastEditorUserId="13544" LastEditDate="2018-08-26T14:25:13.520" LastActivityDate="2018-08-26T14:25:13.520" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22365" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22362" CreationDate="2018-08-26T15:12:58.690" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;A possible reason is cheating. Easier to manually cheat on increment time than in a short time. I have been playing a lot of online games lately and I have seen this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You play on your computer and use a secondary device (phone) to cheat. Increment makes it easier in shorter time control. One way to tell is to observe sudden rating increase for the offending player if you check their profile (ie, I use lichess).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17260" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-08-29T07:46:45.360" LastActivityDate="2018-08-29T07:46:45.360" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22366" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22357" CreationDate="2018-08-26T15:19:56.727" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to an &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessarbitersassociation.co.uk/Laws2018.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;annotated version&lt;/a&gt; of the FIDE rules, it's banned in some tournaments, which presumably means it's not banned in &lt;em&gt;all&lt;/em&gt; tournaments.  The relevant annotation says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Article 11.3.1 has resulted in some tournaments banning the use of scorebooks.  Where these are allowed arbiters should ensure that players do not refer to earlier games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've never played in a FIDE tournament, but I've played in USCF tournaments. The relevant USCF rules are similar to the FIDE rules. A tournament can prohibit using scorebooks, but in my (amateur) experience they don't; probably many tournament directors are happy to not have to provide as many scoresheets.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;USCF rule 15A (similar to FIDE rule 8.1.1) states that you are to record your moves &quot;on the scoresheet prescribed for the competition&quot;.  This is clear, but it's also only relevant if the competition prescribes a scoresheet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;USCF rule 20B (simiar to FIDE rule 11.3.1) states you are forbidden to &quot;make use of&quot; notes or recorded matter - it doesn't prohibit having them in a place where you can't see them. Generally a notation booklet will be open in such a way that you only have the current game visible, and not any previous games. Browsing notes on previous pages would of course be cheating, but it would also be fairly obvious to your opponent and any bystanders.  The only legitimate reason to flip a page after the game has started is if you get to move 50 or so, and by that time any opening notes would be rather useless.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While USCF rule 15G (similar to FIDE rule 8.3) does state that the scoresheets are property of the sponsoring organization, I've never had a tournament ask me to rip a page out. I get the feeling that this rule is mostly there so a player can't refuse to show it during a dispute, and it allows the arbiter/TD to insist that the opponent be able to use it to fill in his own sheet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And finally, the USCF sells these score books on their website, calling them &quot;A must for the 'organized' tournament player!&quot;. Presumably, they would not do so if it was ordinarily illegal to actually use them for their intended purpose.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2018-08-26T15:19:56.727" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22367" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-08-26T16:54:51.163" Score="0" ViewCount="53" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to analyze chess games. Is there any reliable chess engine that is free&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17261" LastEditorDisplayName="user11382" LastEditDate="2018-08-26T22:17:34.277" LastActivityDate="2018-08-26T22:17:34.277" Title="Are there any free chess engines that can be used to analyze online or in a mobile phone?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2018-08-27T09:20:37.287" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22368" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22367" CreationDate="2018-08-26T17:10:39.433" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Please specify your mobile platform in your question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the iOS platform, I recommend my own apps for doing that. www.smallchess.com.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Otherwise, there're lots of possibilities. If you can narrow your focus, I'll edit my answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2018-08-26T17:17:35.090" LastActivityDate="2018-08-26T17:17:35.090" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22369" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22362" CreationDate="2018-08-26T17:16:30.293" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Online chess without increment is more popular because it's quicker to finish. It's also much more exciting as anything can happen as time goes to zero.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2018-08-26T17:16:30.293" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22371" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6162" CreationDate="2018-08-26T22:10:24.127" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Top chess players have various sources of income, but if you are interested in prize money only there is a website tracking this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chessearnings.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;How much do top chess players make in prize money?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17265" LastActivityDate="2018-08-26T22:10:24.127" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22372" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22373" CreationDate="2018-08-27T00:45:22.663" Score="2" ViewCount="755" Body="&lt;p&gt;These days many online chess websites offer a board evaluation rating, often a bar, sometimes a number, sometimes both, as is the case here (see two red circles):&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/6HQWT.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/6HQWT.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;Black will take a pawn soon, so the evaluation is -0.9 pawns to white.  Note that there are two components to the score.  First, there's a raw score due to some sort of piece scoring system.  Second, there's a positional evaluation scoring element that considers future moves and future pieces that might be taken.  Seems clear, right? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not exactly.  Consider, near the end of the game, a pawn can get converted into a queen.  Using the most popular piece-ranking systems, a pawn=1 can switch to a queen=~9 via this process.  Therefore, if a player is a pawn ahead, and players play well, eventually, on average, one can expect that this might get promoted to a queen.  Perhaps if you averaged it would be 3 (wild guess) considering that most other pieces can't get promoted.  Anyway, one can see that the second term in the ranking scoring system has a look-ahead variability in that lopsidedness will increase in positive feedback fashion such that a 1 is much higher the further an engine looks ahead.  This positive feedback would exist even without promotions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is just how many moves these engine look ahead in ranking static boards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17268" LastActivityDate="2018-08-29T16:49:05.463" Title="How many moves out do the static board evaluations use?" Tags="&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;evaluation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22373" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22372" CreationDate="2018-08-27T03:22:49.043" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It varies, but in this case it looks to be about 10 full moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your screenshot, to the right of the circled -0.9, you can see some small text that says &quot;Depth: 20&quot;. This is the number of half moves that the engine is supposedly looking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In practice, this number is not exact.  The engine will not examine every variation to that depth (for example, it's not likely to seriously examine Bh3 in your position), and if a variation has tactical things going on at the end, it might extend how far it looks at that variation beyond that number.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;lopsidedness will increase in positive feedback fashion such that a 1 is much higher the further an engine looks ahead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes, but it's not always correct that a +1 will increase if you look farther ahead.  It may decrease.  There are many endgames which are theoretical draws despite one side being one, or even two, pawns ahead.  Consider this position, from a game where I briefly thought I was going to get my first-ever win against a master:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[White &quot;Me&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Opponent&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;7k/r6P/4K3/5P1R/8/8/8/8 w - - 17 82&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stockfish (without a tablebase) evaluated this as +2.31 because of the two advanced pawns, but it's a draw - playing f6 results in Ra6+ Kf7 Rxf6+ Kxf6 stalemate, and there's no other good way to progress.  (Oh well, drawing against a master isn't bad either.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastEditorUserId="12629" LastEditDate="2018-08-29T16:49:05.463" LastActivityDate="2018-08-29T16:49:05.463" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22374" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22372" CreationDate="2018-08-27T06:33:29.167" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The answer is looking right at you. Below engine name (&quot;Stockfish 9+&quot;) it says: Depth 20 -- that is current evaluation depth.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/b9CtK.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/b9CtK.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And whatever you wrote about the pawn promotion -- that's very nice thinking, but unless there's a clear promotion within the next 15-20 moves, the engine would not consider it, until it's clear that promotion can be really done, give the both sides play at their best.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15296" LastActivityDate="2018-08-27T06:33:29.167" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22375" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22372" CreationDate="2018-08-27T07:43:43.520" Score="4" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Note that there are two components to the score. First, there's a raw&#xA;  score due to some sort of piece scoring system. Second, there's a&#xA;  positional evaluation scoring element that considers future moves and&#xA;  future pieces that might be taken.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is wrong. The &quot;piece scoring system&quot; is &lt;em&gt;part&lt;/em&gt; of the positional evaluation that is considered at the end of possible lines. It doesn't matter what the pieces are now, it matters what they will be in the future. Therefore the -0.9 is equal to the score after the best move black can currently do, 2...dxe4. It's also equal to the score after the best move white can answer to that, moves other than 3.d3 apparently scored worse. This is called the &quot;minimax algorithm&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At the time static evaluation is done, it looks only at that exact position and doesn't look ahead more moves. The looking ahead part is done by then.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pawns get different scores depending on where they are. I &lt;em&gt;think&lt;/em&gt; that most engines compute some score that says how &quot;endgameish&quot; a given position is, and if it's more endgameish then a pawn gets a bigger bonus for being far advanced, but that's actually guesswork on my part.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2018-08-27T07:43:43.520" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22376" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22099" CreationDate="2018-08-27T15:11:45.643" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here are some mistakes you should avoid while playing the so-called Jobava Attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3...c5 is one good answer, and as you can see 4.Nb5 is not working here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The video below also shows many tactics in the middlegame, after other continuations like 3...c6 and 3...e6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After 14...Rfc8?! 15.Nf5 the best response is taking the knight and accepting a shattered pawn structure. Otherwise white is much better (+1.3 in the least: &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/analysis/standard/r1r3k1/3bqppp/p3pn2/np1p2B1/3P4/P1NB3P/1PPQ1PP1/3RR1K1_b_-_-_1_17&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://lichess.org/analysis/standard/r1r3k1/3bqppp/p3pn2/np1p2B1/3P4/P1NB3P/1PPQ1PP1/3RR1K1_b_-_-_1_17&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;      [StartPly &quot;5&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;      [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;      1. d4 d5 2. Nc3 Nf6 3. Bf4 c5 4. e3 (4. Nb5? Qa5+&#xA;5. Nc3 cxd4 6. Qxd4 Nc6 7. Qa4 Qxa4 8. Nxa4 Nb4 (8...e5)) cxd4&#xA;5. exd4 a6 6. Bd3 Nc6 7. Nge2 e6 8. Qd2 b5 9. O-O Be7 10. a3 Bd7 11. h3 O-O 12. Rfe1 Na5 13. Rad1 Qb6 14. Ng3 Rfc8?! (14... Rfe8!) 15. Nf5 Qd8? (15...exf5) 16.Nxe7+ Qxe7 17.Bg5&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can find a more detailed video explanation here:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://youtu.be/5joSsNpJ9qw&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://youtu.be/5joSsNpJ9qw&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Related games:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/OfUGrtY6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://lichess.org/OfUGrtY6&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1838817&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1838817&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1857787&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1857787&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15365" LastActivityDate="2018-08-27T15:11:45.643" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22377" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22379" CreationDate="2018-08-27T18:38:50.150" Score="2" ViewCount="288" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are the &lt;em&gt;FIDE Rules for Chess&lt;/em&gt;. This for different types of chess. Are there also official rules for &lt;em&gt;Simultaneous exhibition&lt;/em&gt; chess? Where can I find them?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4509" LastActivityDate="2018-08-28T10:41:07.157" Title="Simultaneous exhibition rules" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;simultaneous&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22378" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21865" CreationDate="2018-08-27T18:44:12.790" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am writing this answer in order to explain my thoughts about the second position I provided.&#xA; I have come to the conclusion after playing similar positions that h4 is played in order to weaken my rival’s kingside. That is why they have to play right away h5. Otherwise, my h pawn will have to be exchanged by the g pawn, opening a file for my rook. &#xA;Although admittedly this does weaken my own kingside, there seems to be no danger and probably, I will eventually castle queenside.&#xA;The sinequan reason for playing h4 though is that my rival has played g6 in order to fianchetto his bishop and so a weakening can be induced in my opponent pawn structure.&#xA;In case someone has concluded something different feel free to correct me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16771" LastActivityDate="2018-08-27T18:44:12.790" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22379" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22377" CreationDate="2018-08-27T19:11:05.233" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think FIDE would be involved in regulating such events because they are not rated.&#xA;I found this interesting PDF with some notes, although I think they could be improved. For example, it is not clear if the player loses the game after three passes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The exhibitor plays the white pieces on each board.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Do not touch any chessman until the exhibitor arrives at your board. When the exhibitor is standing in front of your board, make your move (within 5 seconds) while the exhibitor is observing. The exhibitor will make a move on your board before going on to the next board.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Participants, but not the exhibitor, must abide by the touch move rule. The exhibitor’s move is not final until he or she touches a piece on the next board.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Each player is allowed three passes when the exhibitor arrives at his or her board. Using a pass means that the exhibitor will skip your board, but you will need to make a move (or use another pass) when the exhibitor comes back after visiting the other boards.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Participants may not receive assistance from other players or bystanders during their games.&#xA;Exception: participants may sign up as a pair and play on one board.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Participants must take notation.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If the exhibitor has any other rules, those will be announced at the start of the exhibition.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.dentonisd.org/site/handlers/filedownload.ashx?moduleinstanceid=18731&amp;amp;dataid=18362&amp;amp;FileName=Simul_Rules%5B1%5D.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Simul Rules&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15365" LastEditorUserId="4509" LastEditDate="2018-08-28T10:41:07.157" LastActivityDate="2018-08-28T10:41:07.157" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22380" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4385" CreationDate="2018-08-27T19:40:34.133" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recently found that chess.com also has a free option to analyze an entire game (by pasting a PGN), although paid accounts can analyze in more detail.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/analysis-board-editor&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.chess.com/analysis-board-editor&lt;/a&gt; (right panel, second tab)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The analysis process will intercalate comments idicating better moves if necessary. In the end, you will see a summary like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Strength        White   Black&#xA;-----------------------------&#xA;Excellent          41   38&#xA;Good               13   13&#xA;Inaccuracy (?!)     1    5&#xA;Mistake (?)         2    0&#xA;Blunder (??)        0    0&#xA;Forced              0    0&#xA;Best Move       66.7%    50.9%&#xA;Avg. Diff        0.14    0.19&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15365" LastActivityDate="2018-08-27T19:40:34.133" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22381" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22393" CreationDate="2018-08-28T10:23:12.643" Score="4" ViewCount="250" Body="&lt;p&gt;I got to this position, while playing this game: &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/dT3d9Dp4&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://lichess.org/dT3d9Dp4&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here I feel the need to develop my bishop. I thought of Bf4 but I feared g5, after  which I will lose a tempo. Be3 always make me think of a pawn fork on d4 or e4. I feel Bd2 is too passive. What frustrates me most is that developing the bishop might not even be necessary at this position. How will I know what to do? Is developing the bishop necessary?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Startply &quot;12&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 Nc6 2.d4 e6 3.Nf3 h6 4.Bd3 d5 5.O-O Nge7 6.Nc3 a6  &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17281" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2018-08-29T17:57:09.933" LastActivityDate="2018-08-29T20:23:04.473" Title="Must I develop my bishop on next move?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22382" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22381" CreationDate="2018-08-28T11:33:23.600" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You don't &lt;em&gt;have&lt;/em&gt; to develop your Bishop on the next move. &lt;code&gt;Bf4&lt;/code&gt; does look ok, however. &lt;code&gt;Re1&lt;/code&gt; also looks good as it will support the &lt;code&gt;e&lt;/code&gt; pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2018-08-28T11:33:23.600" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22383" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22381" CreationDate="2018-08-28T11:58:58.167" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You &lt;em&gt;should&lt;/em&gt; develop your bishop at some early point in the game, because your aim is to assign every piece the best responsibility as possible. But you don't have to do it now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You don't have to be afraid of g5 because it would weaken your enemy's kingside (for example, it wouldn't be safe for him to castle on that side). Besides, you are ahead in development.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bd2 is also a good development option for the bishop. Developing doesn't imply an active move or attacking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15365" LastActivityDate="2018-08-28T11:58:58.167" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22384" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22203" CreationDate="2018-08-28T15:37:36.913" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is one aspect to this that the other answers only touch upon but not really discuss: mate-in-2 problems are constructed to have non-standard solutions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's precisely why it's beneficial to solve such problems! Not to build pattern recognition by solving lots of problems quickly, there are indeed better resources you can use for this purpose, but to practice your wide and slow search. In principle it is possible to solve any mate-in-2 problem by mentally constructing the whole search tree 3 ply deep (white moves, black moves, white mates).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For beginning and intermediate players it might be more important to learn common patterns and narrow the search. But the stronger you get, the more you need to practice looking for non-standard moves both in training and during your own games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1485" LastActivityDate="2018-08-28T15:37:36.913" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22385" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22381" CreationDate="2018-08-28T16:06:16.580" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Don't develop just to develop.  You need a plan, and you need to understand the position.&#xA;First, your d-pawn is under assault and there is a reason for the saying &quot;Knights before Bishops; so why not consider Nf3?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black has played a lot of pawn moves and the Ne7 blocks his development.  Where is he going to go next?  I would look to castle and play Re1 -- the Bishop on c1 doesn't know what it wants to do yet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2018-08-28T16:06:16.580" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22386" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22387" CreationDate="2018-08-28T20:03:16.237" Score="1" ViewCount="269" Body="&lt;p&gt;If player A, who has a bare king, plays against player B who has around 9 pieces left on the board, and player B timer runs out (let's say player A's timer has 3 seconds remaining), who wins the match? Theoretically speaking, player A has no way to win the game but by player B's timer running out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17285" LastEditorUserId="15365" LastEditDate="2018-08-28T22:52:00.933" LastActivityDate="2018-08-28T22:52:00.933" Title="Time ran out against bare king" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22387" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22386" CreationDate="2018-08-28T20:28:31.100" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's a draw.  FIDE rule 6.9 states (emphasis mine):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Except where one of Articles 5.1.1, 5.1.2, 5.2.1, 5.2.2, 5.2.3 applies, if a player does not complete the prescribed number of moves in the allotted time, the game is lost by that player. &lt;strong&gt;However, the game is drawn if the position is such that the opponent cannot checkmate the player’s king by any possible series of legal moves.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since the player with the bare king cannot checkmate the opponent by any legal sequence of moves, the game is drawn if his opponent runs out of time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2018-08-28T20:28:31.100" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22388" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22049" CreationDate="2018-08-28T23:30:00.340" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Please don't miss the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.wthr.com/article/london-hosts-underwater-chess-championship&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Underwater Chess Tournament&lt;/a&gt; in London :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.cnews.fr/videos/france/2018-08-26/une-partie-dechecs-sous-leau-792169&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.cnews.fr/videos/france/2018-08-26/une-partie-dechecs-sous-leau-792169&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is a short &lt;a href=&quot;https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=299361017539491&amp;amp;id=107637365950776&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;video&lt;/a&gt; of the competition. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastEditorUserId="14079" LastEditDate="2018-09-05T18:26:59.600" LastActivityDate="2018-09-05T18:26:59.600" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22389" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22381" CreationDate="2018-08-29T01:58:31.720" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The old rule about knights before bishops was because it's not always clear where the bishop should go right away.  In this position, you've already castled while it will take black two more moves to get to that point.  Accordingly, I would  get your rook to e1 first before developing the bishop, open up the center with exd5 while the black king still remains there and develop a strong attack against it.  Then your queen bishop could play a more active role, perhaps at f4.  As someone has mentioned, black's playing ..., g5 would weaken his kingside, so shouldn't be of great concern. Alternately you could play a French Advance type of move with e5 here to gain space in the center and then continue developing, since black has blocked his &quot;c&quot; pawn with the queen knight and can't attack the base of your pawn chain with ..., c5 immediately. Your queen bishop could potentially be of use then on e3 to add support to your d4 pawn if needed. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastEditorUserId="7657" LastEditDate="2018-08-29T11:56:51.427" LastActivityDate="2018-08-29T11:56:51.427" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22390" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22341" CreationDate="2018-08-29T02:24:27.183" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, you can move as you've described since you haven't broken the pin, which remains in effect.  You just can't move the piece so that the king becomes exposed, which would be an illegal move.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastActivityDate="2018-08-29T02:24:27.183" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22392" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22381" CreationDate="2018-08-29T12:57:16.283" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just always have a plan and take initiative. Study opening,middlegame and endgame phases. White is doing just fine on the position. Black is playing passive. Rook or bishop development is good.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17293" LastActivityDate="2018-08-29T12:57:16.283" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22393" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22381" CreationDate="2018-08-29T20:23:04.473" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;since you are ahead in development, it will benefit you to open the center, or prepare for that, so Rook to e1 seems to be good altenative, &#xA;it will benefit you to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1- have a plan&#xA;2- develop based on that plan,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so, here I would play Re1 and wait to see where balck is going to castle, and then go after his knig, or open the  center if it remains there,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS: another suggestion would be to play e.d5 immediately, the idea behind it is to try to open up the game ASAP and not let black develop harmoniosuly &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14130" LastActivityDate="2018-08-29T20:23:04.473" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22394" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1236" CreationDate="2018-08-29T20:30:19.600" Score="-3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think it was Fischer, using an engine. He played the first seemingly absurd moves to avoid theory (&amp;quot;chess is just memorization&amp;quot;), and then used the engine to crush Short. In 2001 Short was a much stronger player than Fischer, so Bobby could defeat Nigel only with an engine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-12-26T19:45:40.070" LastActivityDate="2020-12-26T19:45:40.070" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22395" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-08-29T21:56:30.657" Score="-1" ViewCount="804" Body="&lt;p&gt;My move resulted in us both being in check. Is this legal?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17295" LastEditorUserId="15365" LastEditDate="2018-08-31T13:15:22.280" LastActivityDate="2018-08-31T13:15:22.280" Title="Is it legal for a move to put both sides in check?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ClosedDate="2018-08-30T11:46:21.663" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22396" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22395" CreationDate="2018-08-29T22:03:32.183" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;No. You shouldn't have any position where both kings are in check. Your move was illegal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2018-08-29T22:03:32.183" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22397" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22395" CreationDate="2018-08-30T04:57:40.560" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;No. Proof by contradiction. First we assume the premise that in the current position both White and Black are in check. Then we prove a contradiction (specifically that one player made an illegal move). Because the premise leads to a contradiction, the premise must be false; i.e., it cannot be the case that in a legal position both players are in check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Assume for definitiveness (but without loss of generality) that Black is the player that made the last move that resulted in both players being in check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let P2 be the position that resulted from Black's move (i.e., in which both players are in check).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let P1 be the position one half-move earlier, i.e., just prior to Black's last move. I.e., in P1 it is Black to move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One of the two following statements must be true:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In P1, Black is in check.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In P1, Black is not in check.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For each of these two cases, we show that Black's move in P1 was illegal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Case 1: Black is in check in both P1 and P2. In this case, Black's move was illegal because he was already in check but his move did not get him out of check. (Either (a) there was at least one legal move that would have allowed him to escape check but he didn't make that move or (b) he was in checkmate and the game should have ended instead of Black making a move.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Case 2: Black is not in check in P1 but is in check in P2. In that case Black's last move is illegal because it resulted in him being in check (i.e., he &quot;moved into check&quot;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus, in every possible position P1 (with Black to move), it cannot be the case that a legal move by Black results in both players being in check simultaneously.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, an analogous argument works if it is White who made the last move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17203" LastActivityDate="2018-08-30T04:57:40.560" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22398" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22395" CreationDate="2018-08-30T07:06:43.467" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, because of the basic rule that says you can't put or leave yourself in check. From the FIDE Laws of Chess:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;3.9.2&lt;/strong&gt; No piece can be moved that will either expose the king of the same colour to check or leave that king in check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That the other king is also in check isn't relevant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2018-08-30T07:06:43.467" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22399" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8315" CreationDate="2018-08-30T13:25:24.403" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd rather be more cautious and answer this question taking into account the time control used in the game because, as you will see, there are some concessions that regulations grant when the players have less time to think.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;If each player’s thinking time is at least 60 minutes:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The move in question is indeed illegal, as others have commented. End of story. Even though nobody notices the irregularity for a while, as the rules indicate (emphasis mine):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;7.5.1 An illegal move is completed once the player has pressed his clock. &lt;strong&gt;If during a game it is found that an illegal move has been completed, the position immediately before the irregularity shall be reinstated.&lt;/strong&gt; If the position immediately before the irregularity cannot be determined, the game shall continue from the last identifiable position prior to the irregularity. Articles 4.3 and 4.7 apply to the move replacing the illegal move. The game shall then continue from this reinstated position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;End of story&lt;/em&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There might be a rare exception in case the game has ended (by checkmate or resignation) without the mutual check (or any other irregularity) being noticed, and the players have signed their scoresheets. I am not sure what happens if the illegal move is noticed after that because:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5.1.1 The game is won by the player who has checkmated his opponent’s king. This immediately ends the game, provided that the move producing the checkmate position was in accordance with Article 3 and Articles 4.2 – 4.7.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5.1.2 The game is won by the player whose opponent declares he resigns. This immediately ends the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Rapid chess&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When all the moves must be completed in a fixed time of more than 10 minutes but less than 60 minutes for each player; or the time allotted plus 60 times any increment is of more than 10 minutes but less than 60 minutes for each player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my opinion, the problem is more clearly described in other questions  (both marked as a duplicate of this one):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/22395/is-it-legal-for-a-move-to-put-both-sides-in-check&quot;&gt;Is it legal for a move to put both sides in check?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/21493/simultaneous-check&quot;&gt;Simultaneous check&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Surprisingly, &lt;strong&gt;the rules specifically mention the situation of a mutual check:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A.4.4 &lt;strong&gt;If the arbiter observes both kings are in check&lt;/strong&gt;, or a pawn on the rank furthest from its starting position, &lt;strong&gt;he shall wait until the next move is completed.&lt;/strong&gt; Then, if an illegal position is still on the board, he shall declare the game drawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Otherwise, it is understood that the game can continue. For reference: A position is illegal when it cannot have been reached by any series of legal moves. (article 3.10.3)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, if this actually happens in a real game, the use of the word illegal to describe the move after the game has ended is arguable, because the move was illegal at its time, but now it is part of a legal game supported by the rules!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For other irregularities, the procedure is similar:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A.4.2 If the arbiter observes an action taken under Article 7.5.1, 7.5.2, 7.5.3 or 7.5.4, he shall act according to Article 7.5.5, provided the opponent has not made his next move. If the arbiter does not intervene, the opponent is entitled to claim, provided the opponent has not made his next move. If the opponent does not claim and the arbiter does not intervene, &lt;strong&gt;the illegal move shall stand and the game shall continue. Once the opponent has made his next move, an illegal move cannot be corrected unless this is agreed by the players without intervention of the arbiter.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To be completely precise, these Rapid rules do not apply if certain conditions are met. According to A.3.1, the Competition Rules shall apply to Rapid chess (i.e. the illegal move cannot stand) if:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A.3.1.1 one arbiter supervises at most three games and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A.3.1.2 each game is recorded by the arbiter or his assistant and, if possible, by electronic means.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Otherwise, the Rapid chess rules do apply and the illegal move has a chance to stand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, I have to mention that these Rapid chess rules &lt;strong&gt;also apply to Blitz&lt;/strong&gt;, when all the moves must be completed in a fixed time of 10 minutes or less for each player (or the allotted time plus 60 times any increment is 10 minutes or less).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15365" LastActivityDate="2018-08-30T13:25:24.403" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22400" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-08-30T16:10:27.930" Score="3" ViewCount="110" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ElOTe.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ElOTe.png&quot; alt=&quot;62...g5?&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I (a 2300 player) would never consider 62...g5 in this position giving White a protected passed pawn.  Nakamura either thought it was a drawing method, or the toughest defense, but Carlsen showed there is a clear winning plan for White. 62...g5 strikes me as a clear mistake but are other moves easier for White to win against?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am trying to understand this decision by a 2800 player, thanks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2018-08-30T17:04:39.217" Title="What was Nakamura thinking with 62...g5 against Carlsen in Senquefield Cup 2018 rd. 9?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22401" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22400" CreationDate="2018-08-30T17:04:39.217" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let's say that Naka doesn't push g5 and instead waits (with for instance Rb7). Then it is white who can play g5+, taking advantage of the pin on the 6th rank. If black plays Kg6, then Kg4 and h5+ is unstoppable. It is clear that white is making progress. If black instead plays Kh5, then gxf6 hxf6, Rxf6 and black has lost a pawn and his king is completely stuck in a box. Rf5+ might be a possibility (taking on e5), black still cannot move the a pawn (due to an immediate Ra6 getting behind it), and again white has clearly made progress.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I believe Naka was sure that these lines were easy wins for white. Better to make the committal, but potentially holdable, g5 move, and try and hold the position with a static pawn structure, than sit and wait only to lose in a few moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3884" LastActivityDate="2018-08-30T17:04:39.217" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22402" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22404" CreationDate="2018-08-30T17:10:13.170" Score="0" ViewCount="6734" Body="&lt;p&gt;Whenever I verse players in Live Chess (30 minutes) on &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess.com&lt;/a&gt;, sometimes I am able to threaten their queen because they brought it out too early in the game. In the opening/beginning to midgame, if I threatened their queen with a simple move, and they forgot to move it away or block the attack, and I take their queen on the next move, they resign. Why?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17301" LastActivityDate="2018-08-30T17:30:02.833" Title="Why do players resign after accidentally giving their opponent a free queen?" Tags="&lt;queens&gt;&lt;resigning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22403" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22402" CreationDate="2018-08-30T17:29:00.067" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;After losing the queen for nothing, the game is essentially lost, so many players resign instead of wasting their time playing a lost position till the end. Others choose to play on, either hoping that you will blunder even worse or run out of time. People are free to choose.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Losing the queen is just one example; in general, people resign when they think the situation is hopeless.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12523" LastActivityDate="2018-08-30T17:29:00.067" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22404" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22402" CreationDate="2018-08-30T17:30:02.833" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Material (i.e. basically who has more and better pieces) is a very important factor in the objective evaluation of a chess position. The queen is the strongest piece on the board, roughly equal to two rooks or three minor pieces (knights or bishops).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you really drop a queen in an otherwise equal position you are going to lose 99.9% of the time. Rarely you have situations where you have compensation for being a full queen down, like for instance you have a very strong mating attack or perhaps the queen is bound to protecting a pawn from queening, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If there is no such compensation it is very reasonable to resign. There is not much point (and not much fun) playing a queen down. In fact most slightly advanced players would resign being a minor piece (knight or bishop) down in otherwise normal position (no attack, etc going on).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2018-08-30T17:30:02.833" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22405" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22411" CreationDate="2018-08-30T18:10:10.240" Score="9" ViewCount="827" Body="&lt;p&gt;I noticed that FIDE stands for &quot; Fédération Internationale des Échecs&quot;. Shouldn't it be in English as 'World Chess Federation'? I noticed, though unrelated, that it is the same for SI Units (System Internationale). Did it start in France? What is the history of the foundings of FIDE? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I noticed that the headquarters is in Athens, Greece. Why? If the International Federation of Chess can't be in English, shouldn't it at least be in Greek? Where did France come in?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17301" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2019-01-17T07:49:58.353" LastActivityDate="2019-01-17T07:49:58.353" Title="Why is the FIDE name in French?" Tags="&lt;history&gt;&lt;fide&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="12" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22406" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22405" CreationDate="2018-08-30T18:17:06.210" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;FIDE was founded in Paris, France, on July 20, 1924. It should be the main reason for its name.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can read about its foundation and early years here:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIDE#Foundation_and_early_years_(up_to_1939)&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIDE#Foundation_and_early_years_(up_to_1939)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15365" LastActivityDate="2018-08-30T18:17:06.210" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22407" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22413" CreationDate="2018-08-30T22:12:47.660" Score="11" ViewCount="1287" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Dutch Defence is a fairly popular response to 1. d4. So shouldn't 1. f4 (Bird's opening), viewed as a Dutch plus a tempo, be at least as popular?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17302" LastEditorUserId="3594" LastEditDate="2020-03-23T21:31:03.857" LastActivityDate="2020-08-04T05:16:41.463" Title="Why isn't Bird's Opening at least as popular as the Dutch Defence?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;pawn-structure&gt;&lt;dutch-defense&gt;&lt;birds-opening&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22408" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22407" CreationDate="2018-08-31T00:17:20.410" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The problem is that many players who don't know much, if any, of the theory and history behind the Bird, think it's unsound, especially due to the From Gambit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Additionally, there aren't any world class players who have used it regularly since Bent Larsen. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9025" LastActivityDate="2018-08-31T00:17:20.410" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22409" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22405" CreationDate="2018-08-31T01:02:48.957" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;As noted in the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_lingua_francas&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia list&lt;/a&gt; of &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lingua_franca&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;linguas franca&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_lingua_francas#French&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;French&lt;/a&gt; was the international language of diplomacy for over 150 years. As a result, many international organizations, especially those based in, with roots in, or with significant membership in Europe, have used French for their name, official documents, etc. FIDE is one such organization, especially since it was founded during the time that French was the lingua franca.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="224" LastEditorUserId="224" LastEditDate="2018-08-31T09:42:34.100" LastActivityDate="2018-08-31T09:42:34.100" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22411" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22405" CreationDate="2018-08-31T07:50:24.677" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the first half of the XXth century, French and English were the main international languages. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;During and immediately after the first congress in Paris, 1924, the French acronym for &quot;Fédération Internationale des Echecs&quot; was actually &lt;strong&gt;FIE&lt;/strong&gt;, and it was referred in the English-speaking world as &quot;International Chess Federation&quot; or &lt;strong&gt;ICF&lt;/strong&gt;. But already the following year, at the Congress in Zurich, French-speaking members (and possibly Italy) made a point that &quot;fide&quot; meant &quot;trust&quot; in Latin, thus the 'D' was added for the name to symbolize the confidence of its members in the institution, and &lt;strong&gt;FIDE&lt;/strong&gt; became the official acronym in both languages (and worldwide).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;E.Winter's Chess Notes have a very interesting &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/extra/fidehistory.html#Section_2:_Foundation_of_the_history&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;article&lt;/a&gt; about the birth of FIDE:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;‘FIDE was founded in 1924’ say the history books, yet, technically speaking, that could be disputed. Certainly the Fédération Internationale des Echecs was formed that year, but its Statutes systematically referred to it as ‘FIE’, and not ‘FIDE’:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But it doesn't give the reason of the later change:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;But later in the year, for reasons as yet unclarified, ‘FIDE’ became the official acronym. If ‘FIDE’ appeared in print in 1924, we have yet to find it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I remember reading that the Latin meaning was the motivation for switching to &quot;FIDE&quot; in some chess-history book in French, but I will have to dig further to source it properly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastEditorUserId="14079" LastEditDate="2018-08-31T12:06:58.877" LastActivityDate="2018-08-31T12:06:58.877" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22413" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22407" CreationDate="2018-08-31T08:27:13.463" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;A good opening for Black seldom is a great choice for White even with a tempo up. Grandmaster Alex Yermolinsky discusses reasons for this in his book &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://theweekinchess.com/john-watson-reviews/an-exceptional-chess-book&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;The Road to Chess Improvement&lt;/a&gt;&quot;. One of the main reasons is that the opening goals are not the same for both sides in the opening, and schemes that are suitable for defense or counterattack are much less valuable for assuming the initiative.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Famously, when grandmaster Vladimir Malaniuk, a great proponent of the Dutch Leningrad with Black, had some issues with his White repertoire, someone suggested to him that he should start with 1.f4. His retort was definitive:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;That extra move's gonna' hurt me!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a side note, the Dutch is not &lt;em&gt;that&lt;/em&gt; popular, especially at the highest level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastEditorUserId="14079" LastEditDate="2019-02-26T11:00:05.790" LastActivityDate="2019-02-26T11:00:05.790" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22414" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2600" CreationDate="2018-08-31T08:56:45.487" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think it is important to stress that people writing a book about the Blackmar-Diemer Gambit will adopt a very different point of view than people studying the theory of the Dutch defense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Blackmar-Diemer Gambit, in spite of having some hardcore aficionadoes, is a dubious opening. When you study it or write a book about it, you are looking for lines where White can get some initiative and is not clearly worse. Hence, a tense position with some pitfalls for Black or an unclear position with some compensation for the pawn is exactly what you wish for.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would say the position after 1.d4 d5 2.e4? de4 3.Nc3 f5?! 4.Bf4!? is exactly that: White obviously has some compensation for his pawn with a lead of two moves in development and Black being slightly weakened by f7-f5. My bet is that the objective evaluation is about equality, but one could also argue for a slight edge for either side - I haven't seen Scheerer's analysis but in any case he has no reason not to be enthousiastic about White's perspectives here. At the very least, since there is no forcing play going on, it is pretty sure that Black doesn't have a direct refutation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Playing Black, I would never consider 3...f5 here: there are so many easier ways (3...Nf6, 3...e5, 3...Bf5) to handle the BDG, with good prospects for an advantage, that entering such an unclear line is totally unpractical.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the Dutch, by contrast, Black is often playing with some preparation (otherwise it is too dangerous) and he is pretty happy to reach an equal or double-edged position. That's why, from a theoretical point of view, 1.d4 f5 2.Nc3 d5 3.e4 de4 4.Bf4 is not met very often. White has many other options to try and get some initiative, e.g. 3.Bf4 immediately.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastEditorUserId="14079" LastEditDate="2018-09-02T12:53:12.173" LastActivityDate="2018-09-02T12:53:12.173" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22415" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22416" CreationDate="2018-08-31T13:30:16.783" Score="17" ViewCount="1530" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have often seen in blitz games that when a player captures a piece and then hits the clock with the piece. Is that a legal move or is the player required to place it on the table and hit the clock with the hand?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similarly, in the case of promotion, can a player hit the clock with the pawn after it is removed from the board after a promotion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also have seen players hold a piece in their hand during play, typically awaiting a promotion (with queen in hand) or just holding a piece?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there any official rules that govern hitting the clock with a piece or even holding a non playing piece during play?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Update: I know it is a bit late, but I the ultimate reason for asking relates to classic chess clocks where the buttons are somewhat small and stiff where pressing the buttons multiple times with your hand, especially in blitz games can get quite painful. &#xA;More recent clocks have bigger and softer buttons so it is not really an issue if using one of those.&#xA;This is where hitting the button with a piece is much easier on the hand. Does this have any affect on the final answer?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17305" LastEditorUserId="17305" LastEditDate="2018-11-23T19:08:54.697" LastActivityDate="2020-01-23T01:41:00.820" Title="Is it legal to hit the clock with piece, captured or otherwise?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;chess-clocks&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22416" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22415" CreationDate="2018-08-31T13:50:22.150" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;I feel this is legal. I'm using FIDE rules.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is the rule that describes what happens with a capture:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;3.1.1&lt;/strong&gt; If a piece moves to a square occupied by an opponent’s piece the latter is captured and removed from the chessboard as part of the same move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's nothing there about what happens to the captured pieces, other than they are removed from the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, of course somebody will argue that this rule exists:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;6.2.3&lt;/strong&gt; A player must press his clock with the same hand with which he made his move. It is forbidden for a player to keep his finger on the clock or to ‘hover’ over it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And there it says &quot;with the same &lt;em&gt;hand&lt;/em&gt;&quot;. But you also have to remove the captured piece with that hand, and once you've done that you have to press the clock, and there is no requirement to let go of the piece. I argue that this rule is intended to be used against people who move a piece with one hand and press the clock with the other, not against using the piece that you happen to have in your hand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, there is an opportunity for bad behaviour, by hiding pieces in your hand so that the opponent doesn't notice he is behind in material (IMO that's that opponent's fault, look at the board not at the removed pieces), or worse, hiding the piece that the opponent wants to promote to. Or by simple distracting the opponent by constant fiddling with pieces in your hands.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But there are already rules against distracting the opponent, there is also the umbrella rule against &quot;bringing the game of chess into disrepute&quot;, and when you want to promote but don't immediately spot the piece it is always acceptable to stop the clock, call an arbiter and have him fetch the piece for you. That is enough ammo to use against bad behaviour.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2018-08-31T13:50:22.150" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22417" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22407" CreationDate="2018-08-31T16:40:03.967" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It helps to think about it at a very basic strategic level: With white you're supposed to play for the initiative and not induce a weakness on move 1... &lt;code&gt;1.d4&lt;/code&gt; for example is a safe first step towards claiming the centre, while creating active squares for the queen, &lt;code&gt;b1&lt;/code&gt; knight and activating the &lt;code&gt;c1&lt;/code&gt; bishop, all while stopping black from any immediate &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt; attempt (i.e., directly challenging black's options in claiming the centre for themselves). Whereas &lt;code&gt;1.f4&lt;/code&gt; does none of those except for stopping &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt;, while also permanently weakening the kingside. Central pawns (&lt;code&gt;d&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;e&lt;/code&gt;) are safer commitments because they're advancements on files where the king doesn't belong. Same cannot be said for &lt;code&gt;f&lt;/code&gt; pawn in general. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All these apply to black playing the Dutch (&lt;code&gt;1...f5&lt;/code&gt;) as well, and explain why it is not as commonly adopted as other sounder systems vs &lt;code&gt;1.d4&lt;/code&gt;. As a rule of thumb (so to be taken with a grain of salt), the &quot;good&quot; openings are those that tend to be less committal (starting from the moved pawns, hemmed-in pieces and induced weaknesses...) and offer more flexibility in the middlegame (in terms of transpositions for instance).  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3594" LastEditorUserId="3594" LastEditDate="2019-03-05T11:32:12.930" LastActivityDate="2019-03-05T11:32:12.930" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22418" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-08-31T22:00:21.427" Score="2" ViewCount="493" Body="&lt;p&gt;After 1.c4 c5 2.b4 cxb4 it seems White can continue in typical gambit fashion with a number of moves (3.a3, d4, ...) yet I have never seen a game with this gambit.  Did anyone strong ever try this?  Is there a clear refutation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.c4 c5 2.b4 cxb4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastEditorUserId="4588" LastEditDate="2018-09-01T06:45:53.520" LastActivityDate="2018-09-02T21:25:09.280" Title="How bad is the English Opening Wing Gambit?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;gambits&gt;&lt;english-opening&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22419" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22418" CreationDate="2018-08-31T22:20:47.680" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;With your c pawn on c4 it seems pointless unless you shift the b4 pawn with a3. Otherwise black's pawn just stops you developing your b knight and you've given away a pawn for no compensation and made your position worse. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What makes this completely unlike the Benko Gambit is that Black's d pawn is still at home on d7 from where it can move to d6 to blunt the bishop on a3 if white gambits with a3. Or it can stay on d7 if black doesn't take the pawn on a3 or the a pawn is not offered on a3. If this were a reverse Benko then the d pawn would be on d4 vulnerable to attack, needing to be defended by e5 and/or Nf6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As it is Black can just defend the b4 pawn with e6 or e5 because Qa4 would not be check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2018-08-31T22:20:47.680" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22421" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22418" CreationDate="2018-09-01T07:20:47.063" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.365chess.com/opening.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Database of 365Chess&lt;/a&gt;, the English Wing Gambit has not been tried by a grandmaster in a rated game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although there might not be a clear refutation, the gambit seems to be somewhat dubious. Compared with most gambits, white does not obtain a quick development. Compared with the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wing_Gambit&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Sicilian Wing Gambit&lt;/a&gt;, white acquires less control in the center. Compared with the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benko_Gambit&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Benko Gambit&lt;/a&gt;, black's central pawns are still flexible (which was already pointed out by Brian Towers).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After 1.c4 c5 2.b4, the most principled reply is to accept the gambit by 2....cxb4. Now, white has two logical continuations: 3.a3 (Benko style) and 3.d4 (trying to occupy the center). Regardless of white's third move, black can play 3....e6 and 4....d5, after which white doesn't have enough compensation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Instead of accepting the gambit, black is also more than fine after 2....Nf6, as he will regain the pawn after 3.bxc5 e5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;      [StartPly &quot;3&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;      [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;      1.c4 c5 2.b4 cxb4 (2...Nf6 3.bxc5 e5) 3.d4 (3.a3 e6) e6 4.e4 d5&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4588" LastEditorUserId="4588" LastEditDate="2018-09-02T21:25:09.280" LastActivityDate="2018-09-02T21:25:09.280" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22422" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22423" CreationDate="2018-09-01T09:28:24.677" Score="4" ViewCount="140" Body="&lt;p&gt;Perfect play as in, it leads to checkmate in the least moves possible. Not just forced mates.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17129" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2018-09-01T11:20:42.930" LastActivityDate="2018-09-01T11:20:42.930" Title="Is there a database of endgame positions with known perfect play?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;database&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22423" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22422" CreationDate="2018-09-01T10:05:37.933" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, it is call Lomonosov table : &lt;a href=&quot;http://tb7.chessok.com&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;link&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is all the positions with 7 or less pieces and the whole answer is known.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7357" LastActivityDate="2018-09-01T10:05:37.933" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22426" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15317" CreationDate="2018-09-02T05:08:01.973" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The below answer is incorrect because it includes newspapers and magazines. If you go under &quot;Advanced search&quot; and do the same search string, you can see that the results reported on the main page include magazines and newspapers. After omitting these, google search does not give a number of results. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It stands to reason that there will be a large number of newspaper and magazine accounts about football. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11177" LastActivityDate="2018-09-02T05:08:01.973" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22427" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22438" CreationDate="2018-09-02T14:03:53.140" Score="1" ViewCount="220" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 c5 &#xA;2. Nf3 d6&#xA;3. d4 cxd4 &#xA;4. Nxd4 Nf6 &#xA;5. Nc3 Nc6 &#xA;6. Be2 e6 &#xA;7. Be3 Be7 &#xA;8. O-O O-O&#xA;9. f4 Bd7 &#xA;10. Nxc6 Bxc6 &#xA;11. e5 dxe5 &#xA;12. fxe5 Nd7 &#xA;13. Bd4 Qa5 &#xA;14. Bd3 Bc5. &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Questions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) Black played Sicilian Classical on move 5. What is the idea behind Sicilian Classical?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) White is interested to play Be3 with the idea of protecting Nd4 and keeping an attack on b6 so that Queen can not come there. But Black may play ...Ng4 and attack Bishop on e3. So for this reason White plays Be2 first to avoid ...Ng4. Is this logic okay by White?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) After 6 ... e6 White plays 7. Be3 keeping his previous logic in mind. Then after development both sides castle and White goes for 9. f4 attack with the idea of opening Rook file and controlling e5 square. Then White plays 10. Nxc6 and then 11. e5 to attack f6 Knight. So Black plays dxe5 and then White plays fxe5. Then Black plays ...Nd7 and attacks e5 pawn for which White plays 13. Bd4 to protect as well as keep an attack on long diagonal and kingside of Black. Then Black plays 13. Qa4 with further attack on e5 pawn. Then White played 14. Bd3 with the idea of 14. ... Nxe5 15. Bxh7+ Kxh7 16. Qh5+ Kg8 17. Qxe5 regaining the pawn. But Black played 14. Bc5 and further now White's kingside attack is slowly nullified by Black. Is e5 attack by White is logical?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11904" LastEditorUserId="4362" LastEditDate="2018-09-03T10:56:49.680" LastActivityDate="2018-09-04T08:03:07.550" Title="Sicilian Classical" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22428" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22431" CreationDate="2018-09-02T16:26:40.257" Score="7" ViewCount="1736" Body="&lt;p&gt;I played this game recently at a tournament, and lost pretty decisively. I thought about it a bit, and I think it's representative of something that happens somewhat often in my games when I play the Najdorf: I get really cramped and white launches a successful Kingside attack. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More concretely:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is my assessment correct - that misplaying the Najdorf and not creating enough space led to my loss?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Are there any particular moves that stand out as blunders?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;How could I have played this differently?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Game as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 c5 &#xA;2. Nf3 d6&#xA;3. d4 cxd4&#xA;4. Nxd4 Nf6&#xA;5. Nc3 a6&#xA;6. Be3 e6 {I don't know any theory past this point.}&#xA;7. f3 Be7 &#xA;8. Qd2 Bd7 {Premonitions of a Kingside attack, but I feel safe at the moment}&#xA;9. Bc4 O-O&#xA;10. O-O-O Ne8 {I was trying to launch a Kingside attack myself, and get my knight to a better square eventually}&#xA;11. g4 Nc7&#xA;12. h4 Bxh4 {Maybe I was too greedy here - it ended up allowing him to clear out some clutter and really get his pieces working together}&#xA;13. g5 Bg3&#xA;14. f4 e5&#xA;15. Nf5 Bxf5&#xA;16. exf5 exf4&#xA;17. Bxf4 Bxf4&#xA;18. Qxf4 Re8&#xA;19. g6 hxg6&#xA;20. fxg6 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I resigned here. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10779" LastActivityDate="2018-09-05T01:27:02.470" Title="Feeling cramped in the Najdorf" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;&lt;najdorf&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22429" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22428" CreationDate="2018-09-02T16:58:09.470" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;My observations.&#xA;12. ...Bxh4. The flood gate of h file is opened in opposite side castling.&#xA;Knight on b8 is not activated.&#xA;Unclear plan of ...Ne8&#xA;...e5 looks weak as Bishop on c4 becomes very active.&#xA;...Re8 again looks week.&#xA;... hxg6 looks weak as the h file becomes open.&#xA;... h6 could have closed the file and cramped the position which becomes difficult for White to attack.&#xA;Even when Rook is on f8, if for g6 Black can play h6 and if gxf7+ Black can play ...Kh8 and the position is still closed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11904" LastActivityDate="2018-09-02T16:58:09.470" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22430" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22428" CreationDate="2018-09-02T19:06:22.880" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;My first thought is that &quot;10...Ne8: I was trying to launch a Kingside attack myself, and get my knight to a better square eventually,&quot; is the key mistake. White has just castled Queenside and is very much in a better position on the Kingside (nevermind that you just had to reduce the activity of one of your pieces before you even began). Encouraging activity there is just asking for white to checkmate you quicker.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Instead, you want to be attacking on the Queenside to try and checkmate white first. The usual plan involves playing ...b5 and ...b4 (possibly getting tempo each time!) gaining space aimed at white's castled position. That space might look less useful because it's away from the centre, but your pieces will still feel freer because they can head towards a useful target and accomplish something. With a sensible development of the Queenside knight, your Queen developing on the Queenside (Qa5, maybe? There are some tactics associated with this that you have to watch out for but it's still a great place to have her) and bringing the Kingside rook to the c-file to assist as well, that'll bring enough force aimed at white's king to make white nervous and give you a good game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This isn't a surefire win, of course, and it'll take a lot of practice games to get an intuition for how black's attack is supposed to develop. But you won't get that intuition from a game like yours where the Queenside attack never started at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12269" LastActivityDate="2018-09-02T19:06:22.880" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22431" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22428" CreationDate="2018-09-02T22:07:25.267" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let's forget for a moment that it's a Najdorf.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You were cramped because you never gave yourself space. Instead, you spent a lot of time wandering around with your knight and bishop and opening lines against your own king. You didn't develop. You didn't counter-attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When White castled on the opposite side to you, they were making a simple declaration: I will checkmate you unless you checkmate me first.  This is absolutely typical in the Najdorf and it requires Black to carefully balance counter-attack and defence. Attacking on the queenside usually requires ...b5 (kicking the bishop with tempo), ...b4 (kicking the knight with tempo) and ...Rc8 (aiming at the king).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's a good &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JuLYgClRe-Q&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;lecture by Jonathan Schrantz&lt;/a&gt; at the St Louis Chess Club that covers a lot of the Najdorf-specific ideas. ...b5 and ...d5 are the big breaks that you need to try to get in.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2789" LastActivityDate="2018-09-02T22:07:25.267" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22432" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22428" CreationDate="2018-09-02T22:30:23.203" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;One of the main themes in the Najdorf is: &lt;strong&gt;White attacks on the King side&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;Black attacks on the Queen side&lt;/strong&gt;. You never started you attack on the Queens side. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is an example of Kasparov game with successful Queen side attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Linares&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Linares ESP&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2005.03.08&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;12&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Michael Adams&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Garry Kasparov&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;B90&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;52&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.Be3 e6 7.Be2&#xA;Qc7 8.Qd2 b5 9.a3 Bb7 10.f3 Nc6 11.O-O-O b4 12.axb4 Nxb4 13.g4&#xA;Be7 14.g5 Nd7 15.h4 Nc5 16.Kb1 Rb8 17.h5 O-O 18.g6 Bf6 19.Rdg1&#xA;Ba8 20.Bg5 Be5 21.gxh7+ Kxh7 22.Nb3 Nxc2 23.Nxc5 Na3+ 24.Ka2&#xA;Qxc5 25.Na4 Nc2 26.Kb1 Qa3 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="307" LastActivityDate="2018-09-02T22:30:23.203" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22433" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-09-03T03:21:24.373" Score="1" ViewCount="779" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fide.com/FIDE/handbook/chess_olympiad_regulations.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this PDF document on FIDE rules for the Chess Olympiad&lt;/a&gt;, which is a team tournament, but the scoring rules were mentioning too briefly (an annex D was mentioned but I couldn't find that).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So my question is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Assuming that there are X teams competing in the tournament&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;And that each team has Y players&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the standard way to organize such a tournament (regarding scoring)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If there are too many teams, how to define which team goes against which?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How are ties solved?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8235" LastActivityDate="2018-09-03T18:20:26.507" Title="What is the standard way to calculate scores in team tournaments?" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;team&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22434" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22433" CreationDate="2018-09-03T10:51:19.150" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the standard way to treat a team tournament is like a normal tournament, only with teams instead of players. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So there is &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss-system_tournament&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;swiss system pairing&lt;/a&gt; if there are too many teams for a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Round-robin_tournament&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;round robin&lt;/a&gt;. A win gives you 1 point, a draw 1/2 and a loss 0. Sometimes that 2 points for a win, 1 for a draw and 0 for a loss, but that's equivalent. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The number of board points, i.e. the sum of points each player of a team has made, is usually used as a tie-breaker. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It used to be the case that the olympiad had board points as scoring system. But that doesn't make much sense for a team event and also leads to pretty boring tournaments, so it was changed in 2008. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2018-09-03T10:51:19.150" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22435" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22433" CreationDate="2018-09-03T18:20:26.507" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If I understand the question correctly, you would have to do a swiss style pairing and play by teams. The way our high school leagues organize the chess meets and tournaments is by high school with teams of 8 people (but this can be changed for your convenience of course). The players are put in an order of rank or their skill which determines their board number. For example if I am the best player from my high school, I will be board one, and so on until board 8. A high school is paired against another high school and board 1 plays their board 1 and so on. I think the way we do it is board 1 is worth 12 points (meaning whichever school's board wins gets the 12 points and the losing board gets 0) and board 2 is 11 points and so on until board 8. A draw will mean a split of points. The points for the school are tallied up once all 8 boards are done with their games and the school with more points wins that round.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17316" LastActivityDate="2018-09-03T18:20:26.507" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22436" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22203" CreationDate="2018-09-03T20:09:36.683" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's a famous book - good choice. If you enjoy it, by all means do the whole thing. A good standard to aim for is to be able to very quickly spot the solution to a real-life mate-in-one -- like instantly. (Composed problems or &quot;studies&quot;, for longer mates, are another story, but that book doesn't go there.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Instructors disagree how much time to spend on a particular problem before giving up and/or checking the answer. Personally I think for problems of this sort and for your level, you should try for 10-30 seconds and then look at the answer. Then revisit the same position again after a week or month, and see what happens.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Side story: I analyzed with Susan Polgar for a few minutes once, with some other professional-level players (ie, GMs and strong IMs). Her accuracy and speed were remarkable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2942" LastActivityDate="2018-09-03T20:09:36.683" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22437" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22203" CreationDate="2018-09-03T20:23:36.867" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;This particular book is about training your pattern recognition. Lazlo has designed it specifically so that the earlier patterns repeat in later patterns. This makes it so that the patterns become intuitive and you see mates and tactics without having to calculate them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The method of building more complicated mates out of simpler one's works really well for most people. I am sure there are some who would get bored by this, but likely going through these problems will prove beneficial for you. The idea is to expose you to more and more patterns and increase your intuitive repertoire.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This sort of tactical training will free up your mental power for other calculation so it can improve other areas of your game as well. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="390" LastActivityDate="2018-09-03T20:23:36.867" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22438" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22427" CreationDate="2018-09-04T08:03:07.550" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The logic to play Be2 to prevent Ng4 and to then play Be3 is sound. For the first 9 moves it looks very playable for white.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;10.Nxc6 however is not a good idea. It activates the passive black bishop on d7 and is connected to the bad idea to play e5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;11.e5 is just a mistake as far as I can see. The pawn on e5 is too weak and you are bound to lose it. You could try to defend it with 13.Bf4, but in that case it seems to be possible to play Qb6+ and take on b2. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Look at &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1482367&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this game&lt;/a&gt; where 17 year old Magnus Carlsen slowly outplays World Champion Vishy Anand in a very similar setup. He does achieve a very strong attack and a winning position, even if he goes on to lose in the end. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2018-09-04T08:03:07.550" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22439" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22428" CreationDate="2018-09-04T09:31:01.227" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am by no means an expert on the Najdorf (my experience is entirely on the white side, and some time ago), but it looks like you lacked the urgency and dynamism that such a double-edged line requires, and didn't know what your plan should be (no, Black should not be attacking on the kingside after white plays O-O-O) or even how to inconvenience White at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A few moves jump out at me as being either inaccurate or outright wrong:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;8...Bd7.  Maybe theory knows better than me, but this looks like it just gets in the way on d7.  That bishop wants to go on b7 if you ask me.  I'd want d7 for the knight (which noticeably stays on b8 for the whole game).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;10...Ne8.  This is an odd move, and the strategic plan behind it is wrong - Black is never attacking on the kingside in this type of position.  That knight is covering the d5 break and eyeing e4 (making it harder for white to throw the f-pawn up the board, which he later does with impunity).  You shouldn't be moving it away until White's g-pawn gets rolling, and then d7 would be preferable to e8 (another reason not to put the bishop there).  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And, as others have mentioned, 12...Bxh4 is a suicidal move that just opens up lines against your own king.  The pawn is worthless - this is not a position for pawn-counting.  Someone is getting checkmated before move 35.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Really, you needed to get some kind of counterplay on the queenside and centre, for instance, at some point pushing b5-b4 to kick the Nc3 away and playing ...d5.  Black's central strike is often the antidote to white's kingside shenanigans in the open sicilian.  You never played ...b5 at any point, even though the presence of a bishop on c4 makes it basically a free move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure what to suggest, really.  Everything about this game suggests that the Najdorf is really not the opening you should be playing, and I'd recommend you take up 1.e4 e5 instead.  At least, get a basic primer on the sicilian, such as &quot;Mastering the Sicilian&quot; by Danny Kopec.  This covers the basic ideas in open sicilian positions without getting bogged down in theory.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And study some master games.  The problem isn't that you played one or two wrong moves in this particular game, the problem is that you don't appear to understand at all how the Sicilian is played.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16774" LastEditorUserId="16774" LastEditDate="2018-09-04T09:36:48.417" LastActivityDate="2018-09-04T09:36:48.417" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22440" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6147" CreationDate="2018-09-04T13:10:58.243" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It should be verbalized what exactly means 'a solution to chess'.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Then we will understand what exactly we may get out from the hypothetical black-box chess solver (BBCS).&lt;br&gt;&#xA;We will feed BBCS with the chess board position.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;BBCS will spit out an integer number X.&#xA;0 means there is no solution for that position (or the position itself is not legit)&#xA;Another integer number means the least number of moves to transform the original position into a checkmate position in a non-cooperative chess game.&#xA;The ultimate solution to chess will be just an integer number which means the exact number of moves from the chess starting position to a checkmate position.&#xA;Is it a task for quantum computer? IDK.&#xA;As David Richerby lookup - chess is not for QC.&#xA;But when we must find a single integer number X to declare &quot;mate in X moves&quot; it seems more like to find a needle in haystack...&#xA;Am I wrong?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17321" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-09-04T20:22:18.150" LastActivityDate="2018-09-04T20:22:18.150" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22441" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22428" CreationDate="2018-09-05T01:27:02.470" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Control of the center allows you to conduct your kingside attack easier. (Pick up Nimzowitsch's My System for examples.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You're worried about a kingside attack but you never fought for the center.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;6...e6? allows the knight to stay on d4, a central square. White's position is therefore easier (he threatens Nd4-Nf5.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13147" LastActivityDate="2018-09-05T01:27:02.470" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22442" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-09-05T02:13:42.860" Score="5" ViewCount="424" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm reading John Nunn's book &lt;em&gt;Grandmaster Chess Move by Move&lt;/em&gt;, and it stresses the importance of the h4 square in the following endgame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;8/2p2p2/5k1p/2B1p1p1/4P3/1P3P2/2n1K1PP/8 w - - 0 1&#xA;&#xA;1. Kd2? Nd4 2. Bxd4 exd4 3. b4 Ke5 4. Kd3 h5! 5. g3 h4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nunn writes,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;and [Black] is just in time to prevent h4 by White. Now White cannot make progress and the game is drawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Using computer analysis, I see that the move 6. Kc4 loses in the resulting position, due to 6... hxg3 7. hxg3 g4! So white's best attempt is not Kc4 but rather playing f4 at the right time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why is it advantageous for each side to occupy h4? I have some thoughts on the matter but would appreciate a more complete answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Thoughts:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If white occupies h4, he can exchange hxg5 hxg5 at the right time and liquidate the kingside, so that black can't queen with an h-pawn. This is especially important since white's plan is to push f4, capture the d4 pawn and then attack on the queenside. Better not to leave behind a black h-pawn that can queen.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If black occupies h4, then he has an advanced h-pawn that can&#xA;potentially queen, especially if white tries to break through with&#xA;f4. (In the case of f4, black can counterattack on the kingside.)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Compare the above (drawn) position with the position below which is won for white. The moves are given by Stockfish. I think this illustrates why exchanging h-pawns is advantageous for white, so that he can attack on the queenside more freely.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;8/2p2p2/7p/4k1p1/1P1pP2P/3K1PP1/8/8 w - - 0 1&#xA;&#xA;1. hxg5 hxg5 2. b5 f6 3. f4+ Ke6 4. Kxd4 Kd6 5. e5+ fxe5+ 6. fxe5+ Ke6 7. Kc5 Kxe5 8. Kc6 Ke4 9. Kxc7 Kf3 10. b6 Kxg3 11. b7 Kf2 12. b8=Q g4 13. Kc6 Kg2 14. Kd5 g3 15. Qf8 Kh2 16. Ke4 g2 17. Qf4+ Kg1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are your thoughts on the endgame? Why do you think the h4 square is important for both sides? Am I leaving something out in my analysis?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2614" LastActivityDate="2018-09-05T13:46:13.303" Title="What's so important about the h4 square in this endgame?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;study&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22443" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22444" CreationDate="2018-09-05T05:58:57.430" Score="-3" ViewCount="167" Body="&lt;p&gt;Very rarely do grandmasters let themselves get checkmated. And to a certain extent I totally can understand that; grand masters can see the writing on the wall and they know when they are going to lose. If your opponent is also a grand master, he will probably not blunder and secure the checkmate without issue, so what's the point in going through the motions, right? Perhaps a certain degree of pride is involved as well. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Question&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I do not mean to humiliate the grand masters, but I want to see what would happen if we presented an incentive to play until the bitter end; until being checkmated. I would like the community here to comment on my hypothesis: if we added a small rating point boost (or reduce ranking penalty for losing) for playing until the end, would the grandmasters follow the incentive or is it not the case of pride goeth before a fall?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Further Clarifications:&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;Perhaps such a system would not prove to be extremely instructive for chess learners world wide. Some may liken it to shooting fish in a barrel or just wasting time, but who knows, something magical might happen if grandmasters are pushed to their breaking point every game. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15939" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-09-05T09:39:32.080" LastActivityDate="2018-09-05T09:39:32.080" Title="Theoretical new rating system (dissuading GMs from resigning)" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;rating&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ClosedDate="2018-09-05T14:46:32.197" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22444" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22443" CreationDate="2018-09-05T07:16:19.287" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Since rating is so important (two examples: you can &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candidates_Tournament_2018#Qualifiers&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;qualify for the World Cup Candidates Tournament&lt;/a&gt; via the rating list, and it's necessary to obtain a certain &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grandmaster_(chess)#Current_regulations&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;rating level&lt;/a&gt; to become International Master or Grandmaster), all grandmasters would certainly play until the end.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My counter-question is: &quot;What do you expect to gain from this system?&quot; I'm pretty sure the interesting part of chess games is &lt;em&gt;before&lt;/em&gt; professional players resign. So on average, the games will get &lt;em&gt;less&lt;/em&gt; interesting. Yes, there will be some cases where the player who would have resigned manages to miraculously save the game to a draw (or even a win), but those will only be a handful each decade.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2018-09-05T07:16:19.287" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22445" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22443" CreationDate="2018-09-05T07:36:06.760" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Resigning is usually a rational choice, preserving physical and emotional energy. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Grandmaster games would start to end like some internet games do: With the losing player giving away all his pieces and allowing a quick checkmate. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my opinion this would mar the beauty of the games. It would also make it difficult for inexperienced players to assess whether the players are still &quot;really playing&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2018-09-05T07:36:06.760" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22446" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22442" CreationDate="2018-09-05T08:52:01.230" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your thoughts are correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In pawn endgames with play on both wings, it is often decisive for one side to be able to reduce his pawn majority to a 1 vs 0 situation ; reversively, he wants to ensure he keeps a pawn on the side where he has a pawn minority. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The idea is that the opponent king will be diverted by your eventual passer and take it (thus opening space for your breakthrough or counterplay on the other wing). If you have reduced your majority to a 1 vs 0 situation, there is nothing more for the opponent king to do. Otherwise, it would remain active and grab enough of your pawns on this wing to get a passer of his own.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am familiar with this concept thanks to an excellent &lt;a href=&quot;https://books.google.fr/books/about/Mastering_the_Endgame.html?id=hqSrPAAACAAJ&amp;amp;source=kp_book_description&amp;amp;redir_esc=y&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;book&lt;/a&gt; by Glenn Flear. I haven't seen it in print anywhere else.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's exactly what happens in your example. White gets a 4 vs 3 majority on the kingside. If he can reduce it by exchanging the h-pawns, he will sac his eventual extra f-pawn to distract the Black king and win on the other side (take Pc7, queen b-pawn).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, if Black can retain the h-pawns (and if they are not too far north), the black king will be able, after taking the f-pawn, to also collect white h-pawn, and threaten to queen his own h-pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's why White needs to exchange the h-pawns early (or to ensure they stay far enough up the board for Black's counterplay to be too slow) with h2-h4 and hxg5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See comments in this line:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;8/2p2p2/7p/4k1p1/1P1pP2P/3K1PP1/8/8 w - - 0 1&#xA;&#xA;1. hxg5 hxg5 2. b5 f6 3. f4+ gxf4 (3...Ke6 {loses trivially}) 4.gxf4 Kf4 5.Kd4 {Thanks to zugzwang, White can also exchange the 4 and f6, even if that's not necessary here} Kf3 6.e5 fxe5 7.Kxe5 {And the White King wins Pc7 and the game, while the Black King has nothing to attack anymore and is just out-of-play. Add wPh2/bPh4 and the evaluation changes !}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastEditorUserId="14079" LastEditDate="2018-09-05T13:46:13.303" LastActivityDate="2018-09-05T13:46:13.303" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22447" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9925" CreationDate="2018-09-06T12:59:01.510" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I learned it as: &quot;one straight, one diagonal&quot;. Perhaps not ideal (you'd have to explain not to go backwards when you make the diagonal step), but could be an alternative to the L-method.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As she plays more and develops board vision I am sure that movement will become natural.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2018-09-06T12:59:01.510" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22448" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-09-07T14:32:03.450" Score="6" ViewCount="304" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is well known that a lot of games in the top level round-robin tournaments end in draws, often not very exciting ones. Many consider that detrimental, as it leads to spectators and sponsors losing their interest in the game. The anti-draw measures that have been tried are Sofia rules (ban on draw offers) and/or Bilbao rules (3 points for a win, 1 point for a draw). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There also has been a proposal to introduce the following rule: if a game ends in a draw, the players switch colors and play another game with faster time control. If that also ends in a draw, they switch colors again and play one more game with even faster time control. And so on until the first game won by one of the sides, who then gets the full point. The tie-breaks may be played after the round (which shouldn't be too bad with modern time controls), or on separate days like the adjourned games of old times.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This leads to every pair in each round having a winner, and, at its face, this has several immediate advantages. The pre-agreed draws, or just quick draws between players who are not in a mood to fight, would not make sense anymore. A player with white pieces gets an incentive to try and get as much winning chances as possible, or face a rematch with black; playing solidly for a draw with white against a stronger opponent would not make sense. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, despite all these advantages, and despite the fact that there are many rapid/blitz tournaments, I have never seen this scheme implemented. &lt;strong&gt;Why is that? What are the downsides of this rule? Have any top players ever commented on that?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17330" LastEditorUserId="15365" LastEditDate="2018-09-07T14:48:57.917" LastActivityDate="2020-02-15T23:12:16.560" Title="What are the downsides of fast tie-breaks after drawn games?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;draw&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22449" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22448" CreationDate="2018-09-07T19:55:44.513" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The problem with this rule is that it doesn't solve the problem, it might even exacerbate it. If this rule is implemented it suddenly becomes even more sensible for both players to preserve energy and agree to a lifeless draw, and then try their luck in a less exhausting faster game. Even if you are white and will have to play black, expending too much energy will in many situations just be a bad choice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You could solve that problem by playing the tie-break games before the actual tournament game. That way there is always a player who has to try to win, because a draw would be a loss.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason this isn't implemented is probably mostly inertia. Possibly the opinion is prevalent, that there aren't too many draws, less than there used to be anyhow. And also, nobody wants to figure out what this would mean for the rating system.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastEditorUserId="4362" LastEditDate="2018-09-10T05:16:28.107" LastActivityDate="2018-09-10T05:16:28.107" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22450" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22318" CreationDate="2018-09-08T06:34:03.380" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are a number of reasons. In no particular order:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Top players are still able to find interesting opening novelties. Therefore to them, chess is not yet &quot;played out.&quot; As time goes on, it will get more and more difficult, and the interest in FischerRandom will increase. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Amateur players overwhelmingly do not seem to like Chess960 compared to professional and top players. This was mentioned by WGM Jennifer Schehade. While GMs are able to navigate the increased complexity of chess960, amateurs do not have their usual reference points and memorized moves, thus it puts them into a deep think from the very first move, and so is more difficult. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;There are a couple hundred years of the standard chess opening, and this has ingrained itself in the minds of many players, who have memorized a lot of openings. They fear losing out on all this knowledge, firstly, but secondly, because they are so familiar with the initial starting position, many persons feel it is more &quot;harmonious.&quot; You will find other emotional terms frequently mentioned, whereas it likely just comes down to familiarity. Had there been a different start position for the past couple hundred years, people would be attached to it just like they are to the current position, and rationalizing it as the best starting position. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Publishers and writers of opening books have a vested interest in chess960 not succeeding, because it would mean an end to their book sales. There is, eg, one prominent opening authority who has denigrated chess960 repeatedly. It could also be that they are attached to the beauty of current opening theory. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The problem with draws and memorization of moves is only relevant for the chess professionals and chess fans. To anyone who has not played in a tournament, the game has plenty of complexity. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;While chess960 is the most common chess variant, there are always adherents of others which prevents any one from gaining undisputed status - eg, Seirawan-Harper chess, Finesse Chess, Capablanca chess, Bronstein chess, and so on. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11177" LastActivityDate="2018-09-08T06:34:03.380" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22451" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18798" CreationDate="2018-09-08T11:38:57.303" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The effect is small. On average, once out of every 20 rating periods a person plays rated games, a person's rating will be rounded up instead of down. A rating period is one month. Assuming everyone plays every rating period (which of course is not the case), this will create 30 points every 50 years.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are known deflationary effects from new players - they often enter near the bottom, then gain points, and usually never lose all the points they gain. It's possible the rounding is intentional as one way to insert an inflationary pressure to combat that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't think they will institute decimal points on ratings, regardless. The USCF uses a rating system with a decimal point and a complicated formula. The FIDE rating system, in contrast, was designed so anyone could calculate their own rating change based on their results and the published ratings of their opponents.  Adding decimals would make the math slightly more complicated and would make it necessary to publish those decimals for people to calculate their ratings.  We've already seen a GM throw a game in protest at &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/18721/why-cant-fide-use-a-non-deterministic-gender-neutral-swiss-pairing-system&quot;&gt;perceived unfair pairings&lt;/a&gt;; even though pairings are deterministic and were not manipulated in that case, the pairing rules are complicated enough that the GM couldn't easily determine this at the time. Perhaps FIDE doesn't want them questioning their ratings as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastEditorUserId="12629" LastEditDate="2018-09-08T20:16:46.750" LastActivityDate="2018-09-08T20:16:46.750" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22453" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23590" CreationDate="2018-09-08T21:55:20.107" Score="4" ViewCount="200" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was wondering whether anyone has ever designed chess rules for more than 3 dimensions. At that point you wouldn't be able to visualize the play using one board. And you'd instead need to to use 8 3-D boards (in the case of 4-D). When searching for multidimensional chess, the only thing I can find is 3-D chess. So has anyone ever designed a multidimensional chess game where (N &gt; 3)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you think this question should be posted elsewhere, please inform me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12170" LastEditorUserId="12629" LastEditDate="2018-09-09T00:48:22.903" LastActivityDate="2019-01-24T16:24:44.580" Title="Multi (N&gt;3) dimensional chess designs" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;chess-variants&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22454" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-09-08T22:53:57.777" Score="4" ViewCount="491" Body="&lt;p&gt;I’m a (predominantly) online chess player.  My rating is roughly FIDE 1800-1900. I’m travelling to the UK next week for work.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Is there a place or club or cafe in the inner or outer London area where I can go and find like-minded strangers for a friendly casual game?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9766" LastActivityDate="2019-06-06T18:07:26.487" Title="Casual chess meet up in London UK" Tags="&lt;etiquette&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22455" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22454" CreationDate="2018-09-09T02:50:42.897" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was in London two weeks ago, and attended a causal chess club in the central London.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://casualchess.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://casualchess.org/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It was a quiet pub, and the environment was good. What made it special was that it had a number of woman chess players. I tested my skills against those females.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a FIDE 1800-1900 player, you will find yourself beating everybody there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="18168" LastEditDate="2019-06-06T18:07:26.487" LastActivityDate="2019-06-06T18:07:26.487" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22457" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22454" CreationDate="2018-09-09T07:55:43.057" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are lots of clubs in London, googling &quot;chess clubs in London&quot; brings up Hammersmith, Battersea, Greater London, Metropolitan and Hackney for starters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't play in London myself, save for tournaments, but I have heard of the last one (Hackney) and looking at their web page they do seem to have quite a lot going on:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://hackneychess.org.uk/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://hackneychess.org.uk/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7726" LastActivityDate="2018-09-09T07:55:43.057" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22458" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22454" CreationDate="2018-09-09T09:16:24.200" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;120 years ago &lt;em&gt;the&lt;/em&gt; place to go and play chess in London was Simpsons in the Strand where you could drink, play and eat. Today that honour belongs to the Plough pub next to the British Museum which is where the Drunken Knights chess club play. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Their facebook page is &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.facebook.com/drunkenknights/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Their London League details are &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.londonchess.org.uk/club.php?clubcode=4074&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that during the World Championships Simon Williams, the ginger GM, will be doing commentary from here. There will also be blitz and other events. More details &lt;a href=&quot;https://chessfestival.co.uk/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2018-09-12T19:50:52.397" LastActivityDate="2018-09-12T19:50:52.397" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22459" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-09-09T13:57:27.307" Score="6" ViewCount="314" Body="&lt;p&gt;Or is time better spent analyzing particular games (like a match between two masters)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In general, is it better to play more, and analyze a few of those games, or to play less, and analyze most of them, or even play a less, and still only analyze a very few selected games? What is the most professional attitude towards learning?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17099" LastActivityDate="2018-09-10T15:22:53.730" Title="Should aspiring chess players analyze all of their games?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22461" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22459" CreationDate="2018-09-09T15:25:00.890" Score="4" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Should aspiring chess players analyze all of their games?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It all depends on the result of the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Every single game that you lost was because you made at least one mistake. If you don't correct your mistakes you will continue to lose to the same kind of mistakes. The only way you are going to stop making the same mistakes, same kind of mistakes is by analyzing your games, identifying what you are doing wrong and correcting it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Analyzing the games you lost is the one constant of the life of a player who wants to improve.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Analyzing the games you won is nice for your ego but in general does little to make you a better player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Analyzing the games you drew can be very useful for identifying the &quot;one that got away&quot;. If you were winning, or thought you were winning, and the game ended in a draw then it is useful to find out where you went wrong. Either your judgement was wrong and it was always more or less even or you really were winning and you made a mistake that let him get away. This is often a problem in endgames.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2018-09-09T15:25:00.890" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22462" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22448" CreationDate="2018-09-09T15:35:31.093" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;For at least some of us, the sort of scheme you propose is an unsatisfactory way to break a tie/settle a draw. If the tournament is being played under classical time controls, but then every draw is turned into a win/loss by having the opponents play a blitz game, the nature of the game is different. While a patzer like me is never going to defeat a grandmaster (or even national master) at any time control, different players excel at different types of events, and it's not fair to someone who's good at classic time control chess to suddenly decide the winner of a game via rapid chess. As an observer, I might want to watch a rapid time control tournament sometimes, but when I'm following a classic time control event, I don't want to see it decided in a short time control tie breaker. (Yes, I know other people will have differing opinions.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, why is a draw so bothersome? Is it necessary for every game to have a winner for you? Personally, I'm accustomed to the nature of chess involving lots of draws at the highest levels. Admittedly, I don't like pre-arranged and quick draws, but there other ways to handle that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, for a tournament, eliminating draws does not eliminate ties (although it &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;may&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; make them less frequent) at the end of events. While players' final scores may be more scattered, it will still be possible for two or more players to finish with the same total.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Addressing something you said in the last paragraph: While it was a match, not a tournament game, a famous example of using rapid games to decide a winner was the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Chess_Championship_2016#Tie-break_games&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;2016 World Championship&lt;/a&gt;, which was decided by a series of rapid games after being tied at the end of the scheduled 12 games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for comments from top players, the Wikipedia article linked to above notes that former World Champion Anatoly Karpov didn't like using rapid games to decide the (classical) World Champion. Former candidate Yasser Seirawan also disliked it. Carlsen himself expressed a desire for a different format, but it wasn't clear whether he dislikes the rapid tie breaker.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="224" LastEditorUserId="224" LastEditDate="2018-09-09T23:14:35.560" LastActivityDate="2018-09-09T23:14:35.560" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22463" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22464" CreationDate="2018-09-09T15:55:47.853" Score="9" ViewCount="285" Body="&lt;p&gt;I stopped playing for 2 years and then I had some periods where I played and studied chess, but never for more than a few months in a row. I have an ELO of 1900.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After these 2 years without playing, I noticed that I take way more time to think during my games (did I lose confidence?), sometimes hesitating for a long time between two good moves that should not matter that much (like &quot;should I play Bd3 or Bc4 in the opening?&quot;, or &quot;should I take with the c or e pawn?&quot;).&#xA;I also noticed that I forgot some opening lines (which I think is completely normal) and some endgames too.&#xA;I almost always end up with time trouble, even though I read guides about time management.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is: what should I study to get back to my level before I stopped playing?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I used to do a 15 min tactics on ChessTempo and Lichess, but I stopped because in a game you never know when there's a combination and the puzzles on ChessTempo became so difficult that I often ended up playing the moves I thought was best because I could not find the combination of +10 moves in my allocated time frame.&#xA;Now, I do the exercises from Practical Chess Exercises which are more similar to what you have to do during an actual game. I also do the very easy exercises in Ct-Art 6 because I think it takes me too much time to find these in a real game.&#xA;I also started to review my endgames and I do endgames exercises on Chessable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the openings, I tried to switch to new openings, but it did not go well, probably because I needed more time to learn them.&#xA;So, what I do now is I review my old openings.&#xA;I'm not sure I should review my openings though, because I'm pretty sure I don't lose my games in the opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there anything else I should do?&#xA;Should I stop review my openings and focus on other weaknesses?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit:&lt;/strong&gt; By the way, I did play a few tournaments (not as much as before I stopped playing, but still) and in a club since I stopped playing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7056" LastEditorUserId="7056" LastEditDate="2018-09-11T11:04:35.987" LastActivityDate="2018-09-11T11:04:35.987" Title="What to study after someone stopped playing for years?" Tags="&lt;training&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22464" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22463" CreationDate="2018-09-09T22:45:53.447" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Having had experience with this exact problem myself a while back, there is only one advice that I can give: play as much as possible! If the time management issues you're describing are a new occurrence they are most likely due to you being rusty, and they should be corrected by regular tournament play. It takes time to reinstate the trust you had in your own in-game judgement after a long period of inactivity, but it will most likely come back if you keep on playing regularly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a final note: studying chess theory is never a bad idea if you're looking to improve, but don't expect it to fix your problems with time management.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8300" LastActivityDate="2018-09-09T22:45:53.447" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22466" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22296" CreationDate="2018-09-10T08:16:10.197" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think that this comes from the times were games were recorded in descriptive mode (as opposed to algebraic), and in some cases some moves could be ambiguos.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17341" LastActivityDate="2018-09-10T08:16:10.197" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22467" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22468" CreationDate="2018-09-10T12:39:39.167" Score="9" ViewCount="1648" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here, it shows &quot;C22&quot;: [Name of opening]. This is from an online service, and I was confused what this is. At first, I thought it was for the specific sites database, but I have seen the letters and numbers used with the opening name on chess.stackexchange.com too. What is it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/2O1Sp.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/2O1Sp.png&quot; alt=&quot;Letter, Number, Opening&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17301" LastActivityDate="2018-09-10T12:50:38.257" Title="What are the letters and numbers next to an opening's name on online services?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;online-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22468" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22467" CreationDate="2018-09-10T12:44:52.030" Score="19" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Encyclopedia of Chess Openings (or ECO) is a classification system for the opening moves in chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Instead of the traditional names for the openings, ECO has developed a coding system that has also been adopted by other chess publications. There are five main categories, &quot;A&quot; to &quot;E&quot;, each of which is divided into 100 subcategories.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is more info and related questions in case you are interested:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/1804/how-are-the-eco-codes-for-chess-openings-assigned&quot;&gt;How are the ECO codes for chess openings assigned?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encyclopaedia_of_Chess_Openings&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encyclopaedia_of_Chess_Openings&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/1461/does-eco-openings-classification-have-an-established-more-detailed-specification&quot;&gt;Does ECO openings classification have an established more detailed specification - by sub indexes?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And this is the exact same code that you mentioned, covered in another source:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.365chess.com/eco/C22_Centre_game_Berger_variation&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.365chess.com/eco/C22_Centre_game_Berger_variation&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15365" LastEditorUserId="15365" LastEditDate="2018-09-10T12:50:38.257" LastActivityDate="2018-09-10T12:50:38.257" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22469" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22459" CreationDate="2018-09-10T15:22:53.730" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Every single chess game is considered to have &quot;mistakes&quot;, because chess is still within the select group of unsolved games. Now if we redefine the word &quot;mistake&quot; taking into account the level/quality of play (measured by rating, for example), we find out that &lt;strong&gt;we always make mistakes, even when we win&lt;/strong&gt;.&#xA;Take this situation: you play against a much higher rated opponent. There is little chance that you will win the game. Your opponent sees more and he wins. Did you make a &quot;mistake&quot;? With the practical meaning of mistake, I don't think so; you probably didn't have a chance. But according to a theoretical meaning, comparing the game to that (still unknown) perfect game of chess, there surely will be mistakes. Even from your highly rated opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My point is that you may not have made a mistake, but you will anyway benefit from analyzing your games, including the moves of your opponent. Moreover, I think that you &lt;strong&gt;must&lt;/strong&gt; analyze all of your games, regardless of the result (I would, however, skip some fast blitz games).&#xA;The closest best game that we can find is that analyzed by a well-known engine. And luckily nowadays it could be effortless: lichess.org and other sites allow you to analyze a full game, presenting you with alternative better moves:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/4385/free-online-analysis-engine&quot;&gt;Free online analysis engine?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One last advice: &lt;strong&gt;also analyze your opening!&lt;/strong&gt; You don't need an engine to do that, but an Opening Book. These are opening moves considered best for both sides, catalogued according to statistics, looking at thousands of games over the years. There are many free opening books out there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15365" LastActivityDate="2018-09-10T15:22:53.730" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22470" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22475" CreationDate="2018-09-10T16:30:51.243" Score="0" ViewCount="261" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/LBhGz.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The above image is clearly not a draw. Why is ChessBase giving this errant line?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After I play 10...Kd6!! Now White is winning. Why is ChessBase giving this error?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13147" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T20:35:47.177" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T20:36:13.683" Title="Why is ChessBase calling this a draw?" Tags="&lt;chessbase&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22471" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-09-10T17:11:11.117" Score="1" ViewCount="165" Body="&lt;p&gt;The game &quot;&lt;em&gt;Salgado L, Iván vs Arroyo R, Jesús, 83rd ESP-ch 1-0&lt;/em&gt;&quot;, shows this annotation after the last move:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Precision: White = 93%, Black = 18%.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What does that phrase mean?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Check &lt;a href=&quot;https://es.chessbase.com/post/sabrina-vega-y-salvador-del-rio-de-angelis-campeones-de-ajedrez-de-espana-2018&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://es.chessbase.com/post/sabrina-vega-y-salvador-del-rio-de-angelis-campeones-de-ajedrez-de-espana-2018&lt;/a&gt; for more information.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1766" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2019-01-04T18:16:58.687" LastActivityDate="2019-01-04T18:16:58.687" Title="What does &quot;Precision: White = nn%, Black = nn%&quot; mean in a game broadcast by chessbase.com?" Tags="&lt;chessbase&gt;&lt;annotation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22472" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22471" CreationDate="2018-09-10T18:42:41.223" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It surely is a measure of the quality of play, the deviation of the game from a &quot;perfect game&quot;, as understood by the engine used in the analysis. A perfect move will lose zero units of measure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I couldn't find a chessbase source, but here it is a similar question on lichess, in which the unit of measure is called a centipawn:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/qa/103/what-is-average-centipawn-loss&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://lichess.org/qa/103/what-is-average-centipawn-loss&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Centipawn loss could also be expressed as percentage, but as your question is about precision, they should be the opposite amount. In your example for white, a precision of 93% equals 7 centipawn loss (7% of inaccuracy).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15365" LastActivityDate="2018-09-10T18:42:41.223" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22473" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-09-10T19:47:14.533" Score="1" ViewCount="47" Body="&lt;p&gt;Does anyone know of chess engines that have been programmed to point out a tactical blunder in plain English?  I.e. “you missed a skewer”, or something to that effect.  Not simply “this move -3”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Would love to use something like that in bulk on library of my games to see what I should work on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And/or if it doesn’t exist, I’m an amateur programmer, anybody know where one would begin coding that?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17344" LastActivityDate="2018-09-10T19:47:14.533" Title="Chess engine used to point out common tactical blunders" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;programming&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2018-09-11T15:39:42.760" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22474" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22470" CreationDate="2018-09-11T03:18:21.783" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a &lt;strong&gt;bug&lt;/strong&gt;. The position should be simple enough for the engine to work out a promotion. You should report the incident to ChessBase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T20:36:13.683" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T20:36:13.683" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22475" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22470" CreationDate="2018-09-11T05:38:50.363" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Has the position after 10....Kd6 occurred earlier in this game? If yes, the engine thinks it's a repetition and shows &quot;0.00&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More information on the repetition issue can be found on &lt;a href=&quot;http://talkchess.com/forum3/viewtopic.php?f=2&amp;amp;t=50855&amp;amp;start=40#p552541&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this thread on TalkChess&lt;/a&gt;, a forum dedicated to computer chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4588" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T20:36:06.003" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T20:36:06.003" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22476" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22463" CreationDate="2018-09-11T08:25:28.473" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Having come back from a 2 year break, struggled, then went on to gain 200 points in that year, this is my advice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;10 tactics a day, master games, 1 long game a day, and endgames. You will not remember the openings you forgot, relearning them perfectly is too time consuming. Relearn them by analyzing your long games and master games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9627" LastActivityDate="2018-09-11T08:25:28.473" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22477" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22463" CreationDate="2018-09-11T09:52:29.700" Score="0" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;should I play Bd3 or Bc4 in the opening?&quot;, or &quot;should I take with the c or e pawn?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems like you forgot the common attacks and situations that your opening falls victim to later in the game based on earlier moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These types of dilemmas are legitimate, and no amount of studying is really going to bring out the problems you will encounter later in the game because of how deep and complex the nuance is at this point.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As an example, I had an opening once where I would play as Black and fianchetto the queen side. In certain openings, if I encountered c3 or g3, I absolutely had to change the entire development of my opening because 20 moves later I was going to be in serious trouble on my king side. I only learned this through playing dozens if not hundreds of games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which, to get to the point, is the solution for you here: to get back to playing games. Play a computer set to ludicrous mode. Set it for a rating of 4000 if possible. This will quickly allow you to discern the problems later on in the game or mid game based on your decision of Bd3 versus Bc4, cx versus ex, and any other broad variety of nuance you used to encounter that will surely come back to you the more you play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you stop playing, it is your general knowledge of your goto openings that languishes, not your tactics or overall strategy. Studying tactics will not yield the benefits of just playing full games, or games until there is a clear victor.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="342" LastEditorUserId="342" LastEditDate="2018-09-11T10:00:49.607" LastActivityDate="2018-09-11T10:00:49.607" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22478" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-09-12T02:40:49.020" Score="1" ViewCount="1469" Body="&lt;p&gt;What happens if I push a pawn to the 8th rank and press the clock before converting it to another piece?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does it make a difference if it's Blitz or not?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8235" LastActivityDate="2018-09-13T08:20:15.210" Title="What happens if I push a pawn to the 8th rank and press the clock before promoting?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;pawn-promotion&gt;&lt;illegal-move&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2018-09-13T10:17:12.383" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22479" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22478" CreationDate="2018-09-12T06:59:31.920" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;If the player has moved a pawn to the furthest distant rank, pressed the clock, but not replaced the pawn with a new piece, the move is illegal.&quot;&#xA;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=208&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Fide Laws of Chess taking effect from 1 January 2018&lt;/a&gt; at 7.5.2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If a move is illegal, it's illegal in Blitz, too. What can differ between Blitz and classical is what the penalty for an illegal move is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Previously, in blitz/rapid a player making an illegal move would instantly lose the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, January 1, 2018 revisions to FIDE Laws of Chess acted &quot;to equalize the rules for classical chess on the one hand, and rapid and blitz on the other, with regard to the penalty for making an illegal move.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Before, in both rapid or blitz an &quot;illegal move&quot; (which includes moving with two hands, or not making a move and pressing the clock) would instantly lose the game in case the arbiter intervened or the opponent stopped the clock. Now, in the first instance it will lead to a time penalty and only if a player does it again, he or she loses—just like in classical chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source for quotes on 1/1/2018 change: Peter Doggers, &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/news/view/new-fide-laws-of-chess-for-blitz-rapid-still-not-perfect&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;New FIDE Laws Of Chess For Blitz, Rapid Still Not Perfect&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17203" LastEditorUserId="17203" LastEditDate="2018-09-13T05:15:34.210" LastActivityDate="2018-09-13T05:15:34.210" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22480" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22478" CreationDate="2018-09-12T09:57:24.967" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Building on Jim Ratliff's answer that this would be an illegal move, the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=171&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;regulation&lt;/a&gt; says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;7.5 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a. If during a game it is found that an illegal move has been completed, the position immediately before the irregularity shall be reinstated. If the position immediately before the irregularity cannot be determined, the game shall continue from the last identifiable position prior to the irregularity. Articles 4.3 and 4.7 apply to the move replacing the illegal move. The game shall then continue from this reinstated position. &#xA;If the player has moved a pawn to the furthest distant rank, pressed the clock, but not replaced the pawn with a new piece, the move is illegal. The pawn shall be replaced by a queen of the same colour as the pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;b. After the action taken under Article 7.5.a, for the first completed illegal move by a player the arbiter shall give two minutes extra time to his opponent; for the second completed illegal move by the same player the arbiter shall declare the game lost by this player. However, the game is drawn if the position is such that the opponent cannot checkmate the player’s king by any possible series of legal moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12953" LastEditorUserId="12953" LastEditDate="2018-09-13T08:20:15.210" LastActivityDate="2018-09-13T08:20:15.210" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22481" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22478" CreationDate="2018-09-12T12:31:23.563" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's a good question, especially regarding the difference between time controls. The answer is yes, there is an important difference: &lt;strong&gt;in Blitz&lt;/strong&gt; (and Rapid chess, which is a frequently overlooked time control also covered in the rules) &lt;strong&gt;the game is a draw if the arbiter observes that the illegal position remains after the failing promotion move&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A.4.4 If the arbiter observes both kings are in check, or &lt;strong&gt;a pawn on the rank furthest from its starting position&lt;/strong&gt;, he shall wait until the next move is completed. Then, if an illegal position is still on the board, he shall declare the game drawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For reference: A position is illegal when it cannot have been reached by any series of legal moves. (article 3.10.3)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, the opponent could claim a win before he makes his move. But if he makes a move and the pawn remains on the last rank, the observing arbiter shall declare the game drawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is not possible in standard chess (where each player’s thinking time is at least 60 minutes) because the position immediately before the irregularity shall be reinstated, and the penalty is two minutes extra time to his opponent (or the player loses the game if this is the second illegal move).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15365" LastActivityDate="2018-09-12T12:31:23.563" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22482" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-09-12T15:27:38.083" Score="-2" ViewCount="114" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/s33Np.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/s33Np.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;I moved my white King to d4, taking black's bishop. This put the king in a checkmate with black's knight on c6. Is this move legal or illegal? Thank you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17362" LastEditorUserId="17362" LastEditDate="2018-09-12T15:53:10.540" LastActivityDate="2018-09-12T16:01:23.037" Title="Checking on the legality of a move" Tags="&lt;illegal-move&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ClosedDate="2018-09-12T21:54:24.490" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22483" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22482" CreationDate="2018-09-12T16:01:23.037" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Kd4 is not a legal move. You are never allowed to put yourself into a check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even though it's possible to argue &quot;black's knight can't take my king as that would put his king in check&quot;, it's still not legal. You can imagine that if the game could continue, black would capture the white king before white could capture the black king, and black would therefore win. This is of course just a device for explaining the why, as capturing a king is just as much an illegal move as putting your own king in check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17136" LastActivityDate="2018-09-12T16:01:23.037" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22484" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22485" CreationDate="2018-09-13T11:09:58.340" Score="1" ViewCount="84" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been told some times that I must record my moves in the carbon copy sheet provided by the organizer instead of using my own chess notebooks.&#xA;Is there any rule preventing me from using my own record sheets?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7056" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-09-13T17:35:21.277" LastActivityDate="2018-09-13T17:35:21.277" Title="Should a player use the provided carbon copy sheet to record moves in a club/tournament?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;fide&gt;&lt;notation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ClosedDate="2018-09-13T11:25:09.157" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22485" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22484" CreationDate="2018-09-13T11:16:27.903" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to the rules:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;8.1.1 In the course of play each player is required to record his own moves and those of his opponent in the correct manner, move after move, as clearly and legibly as possible, in the algebraic notation (Appendix C), &lt;strong&gt;on the ‘scoresheet’ prescribed for the competition&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And also important:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;8.3 The scoresheets are the property of the organiser of the competition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15365" LastActivityDate="2018-09-13T11:16:27.903" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22486" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11195" CreationDate="2018-09-13T15:01:20.173" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;chess.com has bughouse; it works quite well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know lichess is working on it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16385" LastActivityDate="2018-09-13T15:01:20.173" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22487" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22488" CreationDate="2018-09-13T17:38:51.313" Score="4" ViewCount="225" Body="&lt;p&gt;Wikipedia states that three chess sets are needed for &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kriegspiel_(chess)#Rules&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Kriegspiel&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_chess#Rules&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;dark chess&lt;/a&gt;. Is that actually true? I can see how having three sets would make things a lot easier, but couldn't the referee simply reconcile the two sets directly, without using a third set? Or am I missing something?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are three chess sets strictly required in order to play Kriegspeil and dark chess (without having to keep permanent track of the game state in anyone's head)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17368" LastEditorUserId="17368" LastEditDate="2018-09-15T05:07:14.260" LastActivityDate="2018-09-15T06:24:48.827" Title="Why are three chess sets needed for Kriegspiel and dark chess?" Tags="&lt;chess-variants&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22488" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22487" CreationDate="2018-09-13T20:43:44.970" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've never actually played Kriegspiel, but I've read a bit about it, and after what I understand it would be like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At a very minimum, two boards and one set of pieces are required. As the players only have access to the pieces of their own color, both players can share one set of pieces. However, they need a board each.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, unless the referee is a very good player, he will probably have trouble detecting everything if he has to look back and forth between the two boards. Therefore, it's better he has his own with all the pieces on it. That adds up to three boards and two sets of pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can't see any reason to introduce a third set of pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17136" LastActivityDate="2018-09-13T20:43:44.970" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22489" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4060" CreationDate="2018-09-13T21:00:42.997" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;There have been recent (1/1/2018) changes to FIDE's rules that relate to this question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Previously, in blitz/rapid a player making an illegal move would instantly lose the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, January 1, 2018 revisions to FIDE Laws of Chess acted &quot;to equalize the rules for classical chess on the one hand, and rapid and blitz on the other, with regard to the penalty for making an illegal move.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Before, in both rapid or blitz an &quot;illegal move&quot; (which includes moving with two hands, or not making a move and pressing the clock) would instantly lose the game in case the arbiter intervened or the opponent stopped the clock. Now, in the first instance it will lead to a time penalty and only if a player does it again, he or she loses—just like in classical chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source for quotes on 1/1/2018 change: Peter Doggers, &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/news/view/new-fide-laws-of-chess-for-blitz-rapid-still-not-perfect&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;New FIDE Laws Of Chess For Blitz, Rapid Still Not Perfect&lt;/a&gt;,&quot; Chess.com, January 3, 2018.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17203" LastActivityDate="2018-09-13T21:00:42.997" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22490" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19366" CreationDate="2018-09-14T02:08:45.727" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Stockfish is constrained to CPUs so it will never be able to scale to the level that GPUs are able.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Gor matrix calculations GPUs scale with the n, while CPUs scale with  n&lt;sup&gt;3&lt;/sup&gt;, these tensor cores are further optimized so it's likely even better performance as you scale.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17371" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-09-14T12:25:40.657" LastActivityDate="2018-09-14T12:25:40.657" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22491" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22493" CreationDate="2018-09-14T02:40:50.897" Score="3" ViewCount="381" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can someone explain to me, why on chess24.com white cannot castle in the situation in the picture? King never moved, neither did either of the rooks. When the queen was moved to &lt;code&gt;d2&lt;/code&gt; castling was not allowed queenside either. When I take the moves from the game and import to lichess, castling is allowed there. What am I missing?&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/HZ4Kv.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/HZ4Kv.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16138" LastEditorUserId="11749" LastEditDate="2020-05-29T22:54:14.457" LastActivityDate="2020-05-29T22:54:14.457" Title="chess24 castling rules" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;castling&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22492" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22491" CreationDate="2018-09-14T08:57:12.090" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It seems to be a bug. Lost 2 games today because I could not castle&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit They changed the way you castle. You have to click on the rook now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17372" LastEditorUserId="17372" LastEditDate="2018-09-14T09:03:13.587" LastActivityDate="2018-09-14T09:03:13.587" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22493" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22491" CreationDate="2018-09-14T10:12:52.187" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;After clicking on the king, the rook is outlined in green, as shown in your both your own image, and mine below. &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/3ihA6.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/3ihA6.png&quot; alt=&quot;Chess24 with castle option highlighted&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you click the rook after clicking the king, castling will occur, shown in the image below:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/dQRBb.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/dQRBb.png&quot; alt=&quot;Chess24 after castling&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="224" LastActivityDate="2018-09-14T10:12:52.187" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22494" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23226" CreationDate="2018-09-14T15:20:51.883" Score="11" ViewCount="1055" Body="&lt;p&gt;This quote is attributed both to Bernhard Horwitz and I.A. Horowitz, and I'd like to know which one said it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One thing that helps is they don't have overlapping lifespans. Bernhard Horwitz died in 1885 and I.A. Horowitz was born in 1907. We can probably safely assume that, if I.A. Horowitz said it, he had to have been at least 20 years old, so an attribution to Bernhard Horwitz from before 1927 should be considered reliable. Likewise, if no references to this quote before 1927 can be found, then it's probably I.A. Horowitz.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Alternatively, we might find a source that gives a more detailed attribution, such as &quot;Bernhard Horwitz uttered this at such-and-such tournament&quot; or &quot;I.A. Horowitz wrote this in the January 1935 issue of Chess Review&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My hunch is it was I.A. Horowitz because he wrote for &lt;em&gt;The New York Times&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;Chess Review&lt;/em&gt;, so he was a prolific author, so he had many chances to say something notable. Still, Bernhard Horwitz did write at least one book, and it does seem more likely for a quote by Horwitz to be misattributed to the better known Horowitz than vice versa.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3079" LastEditorUserId="3079" LastEditDate="2018-09-20T22:42:50.703" LastActivityDate="2018-12-12T03:36:50.227" Title="Who said &quot;One bad move nullifies forty good ones&quot;?" Tags="&lt;quotations&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22495" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2506" CreationDate="2018-09-14T21:10:09.180" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;We can make a small analysis from a theoretical point of view:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Let us call 'n' the number of pieces on the board.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In a match between players of similar strength, it is expected to find ~n/2 pieces for each side.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When it is White's turn to move, they have 64-n/2 available squares, n/2 are occupied by rival pieces.&#xA;That is, fc=(n/2)/ (64-n/2) is the fraction of moves that result in a piece capture&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The same number applies for Black.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;n=32 --&gt; fc~1/3, at the end of the opening, with pieces fully developed&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;n=22 --&gt; fc~1/5, middle-game&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;n=16 --&gt; fc~1/7, end-game&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, on average, we can expect that each player loses 1 piece every 5 moves approximately.&#xA;It takes ~8*5=40 moves to reach a population of 8 pieces vs 8 pieces.&#xA;After 40 moves, with both &quot;armies&quot; reduced to its half, there is a reasonable expectation that one of them has already lost its king, and so the match is ended.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15958" LastActivityDate="2018-09-14T21:10:09.180" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22496" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-09-15T04:13:21.643" Score="4" ViewCount="282" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this site :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.365chess.com/game.php?gid=2941895&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.365chess.com/game.php?gid=2941895&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I saw a game between two chess professional players :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Efimenko, Zahar (2566) vs. Kaliuzhny, Andrey (2213)&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 d6 2. d4 Nf6 3. Nc3 g6 4. Be3 Bg7 5. Nf3 c6 6. h3 O-O 7. Qd2 b5 8. Bd3 Nbd7 9. O-O e5 10. dxe5 Nxe5 11. Nxe5 dxe5 12. Bc5 Re8 13. a4 Nd7 14. Be3 b4 15. Ne2 a5 16. c3 Rb8 17. cxb4 Rxb4 18. Qc2 Nf8 19. Rfd1 Ne6 20. Qxc6 Bd7 21. Qc2 Qb8 22. Bc4 Rxb2 23. Qc3 Rc8 24. Rxd7 Rxe2 25. Rad1 Bf6 26. Qd3 Rb2 27. Rxf7 Rxc4 28. Rxf6 Qe8 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In move 12 , efimenko which is white played  &lt;strong&gt;Bc5&lt;/strong&gt; which I could not understand :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I have two questions&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) why he did not play 12 . &lt;strong&gt;Bh6&lt;/strong&gt; , instead of Bc5 , to get rid of the dark square bishop on &lt;strong&gt;Bg7&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which protects the king ? and 2) what is the reason of playing &lt;strong&gt;Bc5&lt;/strong&gt; ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am really confused and I do not understand . Help&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17378" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2018-09-15T10:02:38.593" LastActivityDate="2018-09-18T20:19:44.377" Title="confused about a move played by a grandmaster" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22497" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22496" CreationDate="2018-09-15T05:27:17.213" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;We can note a few things about the position before Bc5 was played on move 12. First of all, white's dark squared bishop is both his good bishop (due to the fixed pawn on e4) and an active contributor in the position (dissuading black from playing c5 and taking more space in the center/queenside). Moreover, black's dark squared bishop is his bad bishop and is currently blocked in by the pawn on e5. There is not any foreseeable attack on the black king because the knight and light squared bishop are hemmed in by the e4 pawn (and the c6 pawn), there are no open diagonals or files on the kingside, and black has more defenders around his king than white has attackers. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore to answer your first question, Bh6 doesn't make sense in this position. Yes it weakens black's kingside dark squares, but white has no way to ever take advantage of that. You are also willingly trading a good and active bishop with a bad, blocked bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As to why Bc5 was played... that one's a little bit harder. It's basically a high quality passing move assuming black plays perfectly. Bc5 forces Re8, a move that black does not want to play (moving a rook from a closed file to another closed file), so black will have to spend another move later if he wants to activate the rook. But on the other side, the bishop on c5 can be attacked by Nd7, which is arguably not a demotion of the knight. So the bishop will have to return to e3 eventually, effectively trading tempi with black. Maybe white figured that &quot;forcing&quot; black to play Nd7 wouldn't ultimately be useful for black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Personally, I would be playing 12. a4 and just getting on with it, as I agree it's unclear what white truly gains from this maneuver (especially because we later see that Nf6-d7-f8-e6 is a useful maneuver for black to make).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3884" LastEditorDisplayName="user8657" LastEditDate="2018-09-18T20:19:44.377" LastActivityDate="2018-09-18T20:19:44.377" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22499" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22529" CreationDate="2018-09-15T14:24:35.853" Score="4" ViewCount="1073" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm working with Stockfish in Python 3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And when I do something like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ZK1AS.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ZK1AS.png&quot; alt=&quot;Enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I get just &quot;bestmove e2e4&quot;. How can I retrieve full information?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/F02bG.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/F02bG.png&quot; alt=&quot;Enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17380" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-03-04T21:41:01.010" LastActivityDate="2020-03-04T21:41:01.010" Title="Python and UCI engine" Tags="&lt;uci&gt;&lt;python&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22500" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22499" CreationDate="2018-09-15T14:32:06.333" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;To get evaluation score for each legal move, you can do:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Set MultiPV to a high number, like in your answer&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Play the moves, then invoke SF on each of the resulting FEN. For example, in the starting position you could start 20 SF instances, one for each possible move. This is the approach adopted by commercial companies, such as Chessable.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first approach works but it's slow and not exactly scalable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS: Asking for Python code is off-topic here. We can guide you but we won't write code for you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2018-09-15T14:53:35.820" LastActivityDate="2018-09-15T14:53:35.820" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22504" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22496" CreationDate="2018-09-15T15:19:32.503" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I have a question about a GM move, I will look at the board and try to find out why. In this case, I have no idea other than he wants to push a pawn to &lt;code&gt;a4&lt;/code&gt; but he can't afford the &lt;code&gt;b4&lt;/code&gt; response. So &lt;code&gt;Bc5&lt;/code&gt; kicks the &lt;code&gt;f8&lt;/code&gt; rook with tempo, allowing &lt;code&gt;a4&lt;/code&gt; for free. But we see black pushes &lt;code&gt;b4&lt;/code&gt; anyway after using a simple tactic. I prefer &lt;code&gt;Rfe1&lt;/code&gt; because the pawn on e4 might need some help someday. It's a stock move for me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I asked Stockfish. For quite a while it suggested &lt;code&gt;Bc5&lt;/code&gt; too. Then it switched to Rfd1. The scores it assigned were within a few centipawns of &lt;code&gt;Bc5&lt;/code&gt;. We see this move starts eyeing ownership of an open file and lines up on the black Queen. We can see simple tactics start happening. After (say) Qe2, then &lt;code&gt;Bxb5&lt;/code&gt; is possible because of the discovered attack on the Q.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now that I know this, I can choose other moves and see the response. This will tell me what GM Efimenko was seeing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(What I can see as I examine moves is that Black wants to play &lt;code&gt;Be6&lt;/code&gt; and we need to be ready for &lt;code&gt;Qd7&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;Qc8&lt;/code&gt; threatening the pawn on &lt;code&gt;h3&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;code&gt;Be6&lt;/code&gt; is such a nice developing move it is happening regardless of the variations Stockfish is flashing at me.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My move (&lt;code&gt;12. Rfe1&lt;/code&gt;) yields a 25 centipawn loss, and the next 4 moves for White are passive pawn moves and rook shuffles. I surmise that while not bad, this move cedes initiative.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How about &lt;code&gt;12. b4&lt;/code&gt; to stop that &lt;code&gt;b5&lt;/code&gt; pawn? This move breaks the Queenside open, both bishops to slice into that area, and the rook on &lt;code&gt;f1&lt;/code&gt; can slide over too. But after &lt;code&gt;12... a6&lt;/code&gt; Black doesn't have too many problems. Stockfish says this move is also loses about 25 centipawns. I think it gives White a more active game than &lt;code&gt;12. Rfe1&lt;/code&gt; and if that's the sort of thing you like, it could be ok. One nice thing about this exercise is that I normally would not have considered &lt;code&gt;b4&lt;/code&gt; at all. And now I found a not-terrible move on my own.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For my last try, I see a lot of the variations White's knight on &lt;code&gt;c3&lt;/code&gt; gets kicked or is moved to &lt;code&gt;e2&lt;/code&gt; and black's Be6 move cannot be stopped. What if we accept that and move the Knight first?  After &lt;code&gt;12. Ne2&lt;/code&gt; Stockfish does indeed start a queenside attack, losing maybe 10 centipawns from the preferred move. Stockfish attacks the backward and weak &lt;code&gt;c&lt;/code&gt; pawn with &lt;code&gt;Qc3&lt;/code&gt; which cannot be defended adequately. Black drops the pawn on &lt;code&gt;a7&lt;/code&gt; but White cannot hold onto it. Rolicking and dynamic.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[fen &quot;r1bq1rk1/p4pbp/2p2np1/1p2p3/4P3/2NBB2P/PPPQ1PP1/R4RK1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Ne2 Be6 2.Qc3 Rc8 3.Bxa7 c5 4.Bxc5 Nd7 5.b4 Nxc5 6.bxc5 Qe7 7.Bxb5 Rxc5 8.Qb4 Rb8 9.a4 Qc7 10.Rfd1 Rxc2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Wow, that really is a lot of &quot;engine&quot; moves. Black has some monster rooks and queen for the pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I probably would have been lame and defended the &lt;code&gt;c6&lt;/code&gt; pawn.  For example, my b-player response might have been &lt;code&gt;1... Qc7&lt;/code&gt; to defend &lt;code&gt;a7&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;c6&lt;/code&gt;... While not a bad move, it gives 10 centipawns away (+46 after my move) but avoids the razor-sharp engine moves (as if I could find them).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My next b-player move is the fugly &lt;code&gt;Bb7&lt;/code&gt;. I would actually not play that because it turns a good bishop into a big pawn. But it does connect the rook and queen.  Stockfish thinks it is better than my queen move. This move encourages White to weaken his Kingside with 'f3' to blunt the new pressure against the pawn on &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt;. In a way, this move refutes &lt;code&gt;12. Ne2&lt;/code&gt;. In retrospect, &lt;code&gt;Ne2&lt;/code&gt; does indeed remove a defender of &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt;... Who knew, lol!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastEditorUserId="70" LastEditDate="2018-09-15T22:29:26.917" LastActivityDate="2018-09-15T22:29:26.917" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22506" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4060" CreationDate="2018-09-15T17:11:52.967" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;The rules changed in 2017 to make this an illegal move. Article 7.5 of FIDE Laws of Chess talk about illegal moves, and now Article 7.5.3 mentions this exact case:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;7.5.3 If the player presses the clock without making a move, it shall be considered and penalized as if an illegal move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17341" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2018-09-15T22:24:04.130" LastActivityDate="2018-09-15T22:24:04.130" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22507" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22496" CreationDate="2018-09-15T17:27:30.240" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;White wants to play a2-a4 to open lines on the queenside and expose the weak black pawns to attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After the immediate 12. a4, play might continue ... b4 13. Ne2 a5 14. c3?! Ba6. Black has counterplay against e4, and is doing well after 15. Bxa6 Qxd2 16. Bxd2 Nxe4. So here White has to delay or omit c2-c3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After the game continuation, ... Ba6 is not playable, and Black's position is more passive. White has a pleasant initiative.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2942" LastActivityDate="2018-09-15T17:27:30.240" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22509" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14107" CreationDate="2018-09-17T01:02:26.117" Score="2" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Journal your thoughts&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What patterns did you miss&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Invent mental triggers to not miss them again&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My only potential contribution beyond what @dsclose said is to maybe expound on his 'step 3'. Also, since I'm &amp;lt; 1300 USCF, take my thoughts with a grain of salt! :P&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Journal your thoughts&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What patterns did you notice?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What moves were you considering?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Were you looking really deep in a few areas? Were you looking at all the board?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Did you stop calculating the moment you didn't keep forced tempo?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Were you having time pressure that changed your thinking?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Did you simply feel like you need to be aggressive more?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Were you afraid of looking dumb in front of your friends?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Did you calculate a move, and then forget (two calculated moves later) that by moving your piece, you left a weakness that undermined your calculated goal?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Anything/Everything you were actually thinking!!&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;What patterns did you miss&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I currently believe pattern recognition is %80 of chess. So this post follows that opinion and focuses on pattern recognition the most&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Look for &quot;pre-patterns.&quot; Abstract or concrete patterns that you think correlate to your mistake&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;These are patterns that you can use as triggers later on. That way your pattern recognition catches future similarities &lt;em&gt;before&lt;/em&gt; your mistakes actually repeat&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Make up names for the abstract/concrete patterns if you want&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Use a computer to explore a million lines sometimes&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;made up examples:&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Did you miss that a piece defending two at once?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Did you not take seriously the million ways your king was open to check?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Where there &quot;lineups&quot; (pieces in the same line -- even if interposed by other pieces). Maybe that's a more abstract pattern than &quot;pin&quot; that you need to memorize.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Was there a knight at one end of the board that &lt;em&gt;suddenly&lt;/em&gt; was causing forks on the other end? I made up a name called &quot;hop scotch&quot; for that pattern. I tend to be particularly weak in seeing how powerful a knight is, so I prioritize more time looking at 3-4 knight moves first to see if I need to take the knight more seriously. Again, it all depends on what patterns you feel like you are blind to&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Maybe you suffer from pawn blindness more. Look for pawn patterns. For example: &quot;pawn tension&quot; has three possible outcomes: 1) capture 2) do nothing 3) pawns passing each other. Maybe in your calculations, you forgot that he can simply push his pawn pass yours and not recapture. Maybe that lead to your downfall. In that case, focus on learning very specific pawn patterns and how to react from them.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Invent triggers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Don't stop once you know &quot;the answer&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Don't stop once you know &quot;the generalized answer&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You must &lt;em&gt;actually&lt;/em&gt; change your thinking.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Be creative&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;They will be specific triggers to whatever you personally need to learn&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Ideas:&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;memorize a checklist that you recite before each game. This checklist will be the top, current problems you're working on&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Make yourself do breathing exercises 10 minutes in (if that's a theme of when you make mistakes most often)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Do more chess puzzles (repetition creates stronger pathways &quot;triggers&quot; in your brain)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;eat more vegetables and do yoga (if your problem is foggy thinking in general)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Prioritize patterns. For example, I may have 'felt' like a king was at risk of being exposed, but I ignored it and considered other things (to my regret). So my 'trigger' is this: when I think a king might be exposed, stop &lt;em&gt;everything&lt;/em&gt; else no matter how good they seem.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8486" LastActivityDate="2018-09-17T01:02:26.117" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22510" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22453" CreationDate="2018-09-18T11:21:19.337" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not sure if this qualifies for exactly what you're asking, but I have an idea that could fulfil your requiruments&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the &quot;doubles&quot; varient of normal chess, where two players play on a team with two 2d boards, that can be considered three dimensional.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If such a game were played with 3d boards, I guess that could be considered 4d, albeit the 4th dimension has a cardinality of only 2&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11943" LastActivityDate="2018-09-18T11:21:19.337" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22511" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="909" CreationDate="2018-09-18T16:05:12.273" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was asking myself who else tried to use Kmoch's terminology; I never find in my books other authors using most of his terms (only some of them).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am probably the only guy who thinks that the terminology is useful. We all are used to works like &quot;candidates&quot;, &quot;Luft&quot;, &quot;Zugzwang&quot;, &quot;passed pawns&quot;, &quot;pawn chain&quot;. We could also say that these terms are not completely necessary, as we could always describe what zugzwang or a passed pawn is. Since we are used to these terms, we are happy to use them. We are able to save time when we can use specific terms (instead of explaining them all the time).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The problem is not Kmoch's neologisms, but the fact that he proposed all these terms in one single work. If these terms would be proposed by several authors during decades and slowly adopted by other chess author, we would today use terms like &quot;sneakers&quot; (an unfree pawn or fake that may become a passer through a sacrificial combination) or &quot;wedge&quot; (two converging chains reaching into enemy territory) without thinking about them as neologisms.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;New terms are often used in specialized areas, for example in science, to facilitate communication. If you take a dictionary with biological or medical terms, you will probably perceive them as unnecessary - until you begin to work with biology or medicine. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17398" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-07-20T11:57:46.210" LastActivityDate="2019-07-20T11:57:46.210" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22512" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-09-18T19:13:38.677" Score="5" ViewCount="564" Body="&lt;p&gt;So let's say I capture en passant with a pawn. Using the same pawn, I get to the 8th rank. Can I promote that pawn into anything else? I've heard of this restriction in various ways. Some say it can become a rook at best, and some say it just stays as a pawn, but it moves backwards. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please let me know if this is a classic case of &quot;I'm losing better make some stuff,&quot; or an actual rule. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17401" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-06-16T19:18:01.927" LastActivityDate="2019-09-22T21:31:33.457" Title="Can a pawn that performed an en passant capture promote at all?" Tags="&lt;pawns&gt;&lt;pawn-promotion&gt;&lt;en-passant&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22513" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22512" CreationDate="2018-09-18T19:43:09.733" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;For as long as I can remember, there has never been a rule like that in any official matter. The pawn captures en passant and lately it can promote like any other pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15365" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-09-21T18:07:29.787" LastActivityDate="2019-09-21T18:07:29.787" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22514" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22512" CreationDate="2018-09-18T21:12:12.523" Score="23" Body="&lt;p&gt;From FIDE rules (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fide.com/fide/handbook?id=124&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;3.7 e&lt;/a&gt;): &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;When a pawn reaches the rank furthest from its starting position it must be exchanged as part of the same move on the same square for a new queen, rook, bishop or knight of the same colour. The player’s choice is not restricted to pieces that have been captured previously. This exchange of a pawn for another piece is called ‘promotion’ and the effect of the new piece is immediate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is no restrictions whatsoever about capturing en passant. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8214" LastActivityDate="2018-09-18T21:12:12.523" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22516" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-09-20T07:23:15.007" Score="1" ViewCount="237" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am trying to create a dark color scheme for &lt;strong&gt;Arena&lt;/strong&gt; but the problem is that the text inside the analysis pane – the area below the chessboard – is hard to read. How can I change the color of this text?&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/WA4a2.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/WA4a2.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;I am using Arena 3.5.1 on Windows 7.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17405" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-09-20T17:35:50.617" LastActivityDate="2018-09-20T17:35:50.617" Title="How to change text color in Arena Chess?" Tags="&lt;arena&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22517" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22516" CreationDate="2018-09-20T07:23:15.007" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It seems that in &lt;strong&gt;Arena&lt;/strong&gt; some colors are controlled by the operating system. I went to &lt;strong&gt;Control Panel\Appearance and Personalization\Personalization&lt;/strong&gt;, clicked on &lt;strong&gt;Window Color&lt;/strong&gt; and in the &lt;strong&gt;Window Color and Appearance&lt;/strong&gt; I changed the color of the item &lt;strong&gt;Window&lt;/strong&gt; to green in order to make it easier to see the color changes in &lt;strong&gt;Arena&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/LzPMb.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/LzPMb.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And this is the result.&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/neCya.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/neCya.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you can see, some text remained black, like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;RAM display (next to the Appearance Settings button)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;players' rating&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;numbers inside the &lt;strong&gt;Permanent Statistics&lt;/strong&gt; pane&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;last player move (to the right of opening name)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the &lt;strong&gt;Demo&lt;/strong&gt; button&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't know how to change the color of these elements.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17405" LastActivityDate="2018-09-20T07:23:15.007" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22518" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2756" CreationDate="2018-09-20T14:02:37.960" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;While today's official rules do forbid promoting a pawn to a piece of the opposite color, it has not always been the case. I would like to contribute to this topic with a tale in the field of &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joke_chess_problem&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chess humor&lt;/a&gt; that stars an alien learning chess. The tail exploits loopholes in the rules and features not only promoting to an opposite-colored piece but also &lt;strong&gt;promoting to a king&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.chessbase.com/post/study-of-the-month-2018-07&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Elementary, my dear Watson&lt;/a&gt; (scroll down to &quot;Yuri Dorogov’s story&quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15365" LastActivityDate="2018-09-20T14:02:37.960" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22519" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22512" CreationDate="2018-09-20T14:42:48.180" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The fact that a pawn has made an en passant capture does not alter or limit its capabilities at all, including its ability to promote to a queen or other piece when it reaches the eighth rank. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17408" LastActivityDate="2018-09-20T14:42:48.180" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22520" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-09-20T20:31:56.413" Score="1" ViewCount="390" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have read other posts (e.g. &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/1609/what-thought-process-should-one-use-to-find-candidate-moves&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt;) with descriptions of the thought process when playing long time controls, but I'm wondering what kind of information a GM processes during games with very short time controls.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12734" LastActivityDate="2018-09-20T21:35:32.590" Title="What is the thought process of a GM playing bullet?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;&lt;super-grandmaster&gt;&lt;bullet-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ClosedDate="2018-09-24T11:08:26.380" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22521" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22520" CreationDate="2018-09-20T21:20:52.760" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, of course in very short time controls one cannot assess all the details prescribed in the answers of &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/1609/what-thought-process-should-one-use-to-find-candidate-moves&quot;&gt;that&lt;/a&gt; good post. Grandmasters rely mostly on their vast experience, as much as it happens in other fields. But we can say that pattern recognition for tactics and mate threats play a major role. And they also learn to polish their intuition. They can efficiently and quickly prune the decision tree (even if they are wrong, they have the process automated) and they learn to recognize the critical points in which they should take some more time evaluating a position. They will have time saved for that critical moment, if it appears.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15365" LastActivityDate="2018-09-20T21:20:52.760" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22522" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22520" CreationDate="2018-09-20T21:35:32.590" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;They look at lots of master games and repeat those same patterns, avoiding blunders.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the opening, every move is used to get a piece out. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the middle game, piece maneuvering occurs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the end game, they move their kings and rooks to the strongest positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's  no shortcut to getting good.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13147" LastActivityDate="2018-09-20T21:35:32.590" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22523" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22453" CreationDate="2018-09-20T23:10:26.433" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's a vaguely chess-based game called &quot;Timeline&quot; that was described as 4-dimensional chess.  The pieces left 'trails' as they move over a 4x4x4 grid, and you could capture a piece &quot;before&quot; it reached its current square.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17411" LastActivityDate="2018-09-20T23:10:26.433" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22524" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22525" CreationDate="2018-09-21T07:03:11.703" Score="0" ViewCount="283" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was seeing &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/daily/game/202123292&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this match on chess.com&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[StartPly &quot;18&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5&#xA;2. Nf3 Nc6&#xA;3. Bc4 h6&#xA;4. O-O d6&#xA;5. d3 Bg4&#xA;6. c3 a6&#xA;7. Nbd2 Nf6&#xA;8. Qb3 Qe7&#xA;9. Qxb7 Nd8&#xA;10. Qb3 Be6&#xA;11. Qa4+ Bd7&#xA;12. Qc2 g6&#xA;13. Nb3 Bg7&#xA;14. d4 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The White queen had a chance to take the Black rook, but the White queen came back, why?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17193" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-09-21T07:09:38.387" LastActivityDate="2018-09-21T07:09:38.387" Title="Why didn't the White queen take the Black rook here?" Tags="&lt;rooks&gt;&lt;queens&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22525" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22524" CreationDate="2018-09-21T07:08:18.160" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think it's just a blunder from White; the white queen is not at risk of being trapped, nor is it needed for defense. Qxa8 would have definitely been the best move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that the player's ratings aren't that high (no idea how they compare to FIDE ratings though).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2018-09-21T07:08:18.160" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22526" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22528" CreationDate="2018-09-21T14:58:20.303" Score="2" ViewCount="525" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why is it necessary for black to defend the e5 pawn after 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3? What do you think of 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 a6 3. Nxe5 d6? Now white should move his knight to c4, d3 or f3 and black can develop more pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17415" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-09-21T15:20:08.893" LastActivityDate="2018-10-06T09:50:36.223" Title="Why is it necessary for black to defend e5 pawn after 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;knights&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22527" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22526" CreationDate="2018-09-21T15:17:37.457" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The purpose of protecting e5--or counter-attacking by Nf6--is to prevent the lose of material.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 a6 3. Nxe5 d6, white is up a pawn and has equal development.  Black doesn't have enough compensation for the sacrificed pawn.  3... Qe7 regains the pawn, as white can't protect both e5 and e4, but the resulting position will leave black's queen exposed to attack from white's minor pieces and gives white a greater advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To keep the game equal, black must protect the pawn with Nc6 or d6 or counter-attack with Nf6.  Protecting e5 with f6 loses to a famous chess trap(&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damiano_Defence&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damiano_Defence&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9684" LastEditorUserId="9684" LastEditDate="2018-09-22T12:49:27.107" LastActivityDate="2018-09-22T12:49:27.107" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22528" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22526" CreationDate="2018-09-21T15:18:52.363" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's not &lt;em&gt;necessary&lt;/em&gt;; the solid &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petrov%27s_Defence&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Petrov's Defence&lt;/a&gt; continues with the counterattack 2... Nf6. There's also a less stable option in 2... f5, the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latvian_Gambit&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Latvian Gambit&lt;/a&gt; but it rarely sees play at the top level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Otherwise, the real problem for Black is not the knight on e5. It's the fact that you're giving away a center pawn &lt;em&gt;without any compensation whatsoever&lt;/em&gt;. If you want to develop pieces, you're even better off playing 2... Bc5 than 2... a6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2018-09-21T15:18:52.363" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22529" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22499" CreationDate="2018-09-22T10:43:33.293" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Seems to be working just fine:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt; from subprocess import Popen, PIPE&#xA;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt; p = Popen( 'stockfish', stdout=PIPE, stdin=PIPE)&#xA;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt; p.stdin.write('uci\n')&#xA;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt; p.stdin.write('go depth 10\n')&#xA;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt; print p.communicate()[0]&#xA;Stockfish 09-06-13 64bit by Tord Romstad, Marco Costalba and Joona Kiiski&#xA;id name Stockfish 09-06-13 64bit&#xA;id author Tord Romstad, Marco Costalba and Joona Kiiski&#xA;&#xA;option name Use Debug Log type check default false&#xA;option name Use Search Log type check default false&#xA;option name Search Log Filename type string default SearchLog.txt&#xA;option name Book File type string default book.bin&#xA;option name Best Book Move type check default false&#xA;option name Contempt Factor type spin default 0 min -50 max 50&#xA;option name Mobility (Middle Game) type spin default 100 min 0 max 200&#xA;option name Mobility (Endgame) type spin default 100 min 0 max 200&#xA;option name Passed Pawns (Middle Game) type spin default 100 min 0 max 200&#xA;option name Passed Pawns (Endgame) type spin default 100 min 0 max 200&#xA;option name Space type spin default 100 min 0 max 200&#xA;option name Aggressiveness type spin default 100 min 0 max 200&#xA;option name Cowardice type spin default 100 min 0 max 200&#xA;option name Min Split Depth type spin default 7 min 4 max 12&#xA;option name Max Threads per Split Point type spin default 5 min 4 max 8&#xA;option name Threads type spin default 8 min 1 max 64&#xA;option name Use Sleeping Threads type check default true&#xA;option name Hash type spin default 32 min 1 max 8192&#xA;option name Clear Hash type button&#xA;option name Ponder type check default true&#xA;option name OwnBook type check default false&#xA;option name MultiPV type spin default 1 min 1 max 500&#xA;option name Skill Level type spin default 20 min 0 max 20&#xA;option name Emergency Move Horizon type spin default 40 min 0 max 50&#xA;option name Emergency Base Time type spin default 200 min 0 max 30000&#xA;option name Emergency Move Time type spin default 70 min 0 max 5000&#xA;option name Minimum Thinking Time type spin default 20 min 0 max 5000&#xA;option name Slow Mover type spin default 100 min 10 max 1000&#xA;option name UCI_Chess960 type check default false&#xA;option name UCI_AnalyseMode type check default false&#xA;uciok&#xA;info depth 1 seldepth 1 score cp 76 nodes 28 nps 28000 time 1 multipv 1 pv b1c3&#xA;info depth 2 seldepth 2 score cp 12 nodes 166 nps 166000 time 1 multipv 1 pv b1c3 b8c6&#xA;info depth 3 seldepth 3 score cp 72 nodes 300 nps 300000 time 1 multipv 1 pv b1c3 e7e5 g1f3&#xA;info depth 4 seldepth 4 score cp 12 nodes 692 nps 346000 time 2 multipv 1 pv b1c3 g8f6 g1f3 b8c6&#xA;info depth 5 seldepth 5 score cp 64 nodes 1311 nps 655500 time 2 multipv 1 pv b1c3 g8f6 g1f3 b8c6 e2e4&#xA;info depth 6 seldepth 7 score cp 12 nodes 4288 nps 857600 time 5 multipv 1 pv b1c3 g8f6 g1f3 b8c6 e2e4 d7d5&#xA;info depth 7 seldepth 7 score cp 28 nodes 5522 nps 920333 time 6 multipv 1 pv b1c3 g8f6 g1f3 b8c6 d2d4 d7d5 e2e3&#xA;info depth 8 seldepth 8 score cp 12 nodes 9003 nps 1286142 time 7 multipv 1 pv b1c3 g8f6 g1f3 b8c6 d2d4 d7d5 e2e3 e7e6&#xA;info depth 9 seldepth 13 score cp 48 nodes 21652 nps 1273647 time 17 multipv 1 pv b1c3 g8f6 g1f3 b8c6 e2e3 d7d5 f1b5 c8d7 e1g1 a7a6 b5c6 d7c6&#xA;info depth 10 seldepth 16 score cp 52 nodes 34328 nps 1373120 time 25 multipv 1 pv b1c3 g8f6 g1f3 b8c6 e2e4 e7e5 d2d4 e5d4 f3d4 d7d5 e4d5 f6d5 d4c6 b7c6&#xA;info nodes 34328 time 25&#xA;bestmove b1c3 ponder g8f6&#xA;&#xA;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Don't forget to send &lt;code&gt;uci&lt;/code&gt; command after loading the engine, so it can initialize all internal stuff and get ready. This is required by UCI protocol.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15296" LastActivityDate="2018-09-22T10:43:33.293" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22530" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2018-09-22T12:52:47.333" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2018-09-22T12:52:47.333" LastActivityDate="2018-09-22T12:52:47.333" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22531" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2018-09-22T12:52:47.333" Score="0" Body="Who said something memorable or profound about chess." OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2018-09-22T12:52:47.333" LastActivityDate="2018-09-22T12:52:47.333" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22532" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22526" CreationDate="2018-09-22T14:44:43.327" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Only defend the pawn because you coincidentally develop your pieces as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Playing 2...d6 to defend the pawn because you're SCARED it will get taken is a bad attitude.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even 2...f5 is a super, hyper-aggressive move that I'd play instead of the timid and mediocre 2...d6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But you see the attitude? If you decide to play 2...d6 with a solid strategy, and you REALLY know what you're doing, then it's playable. See Philidor, Hanham.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Playing 2...Nc6 develops a piece at the same time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even 2...Qe7 can be played, but it's a bad strategy. Good night, King's bishop. No pun intended.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.s. please forgive the caps. I'm on my phone and don't know how to italicize.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13147" LastEditorUserId="13147" LastEditDate="2018-10-06T09:50:36.223" LastActivityDate="2018-10-06T09:50:36.223" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22533" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1274" CreationDate="2018-09-22T14:48:09.337" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Blitz will evict overanalysis from your mind. It will teach you to play good moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To play great moves, calculation is required. But there's no time in blitz.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Blitz will teach you where to look. Standard will teach you what to do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13147" LastActivityDate="2018-09-22T14:48:09.337" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22534" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-09-23T01:42:42.420" Score="3" ViewCount="181" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a photo of Reshevsky playing at a very young age (like 8) against many adult players but there were no ratings in those days. I assume that a modern GM who got the title at 12 must have been close to master strength at 8 but I am not sure this is true. I wonder in fact if there is some limitation of the human brain that prevents a certain level of play before a certain age in the same way that no child can run a 4 minute mile, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17420" LastEditorUserId="10867" LastEditDate="2020-06-01T19:05:13.200" LastActivityDate="2020-06-01T19:05:13.200" Title="What was the youngest age at which a prodigy could be considered to have been a master?" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;children&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22537" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22534" CreationDate="2018-09-23T16:09:08.627" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let's just say a master is someone who crosses the 2200 USCF mark to get a rough idea. In that case, Abhimanyu Mishra and Liran Zhou both crossed the 2200 barrier around 9 years and 3 months. Christopher Yoo did the same thing in just under 10 years. Note that these chess players did not necessarily reach 2200 strength at those ages, it is likely they were weaker than 2200 but from stochasticity, achieved the crossing. Also note that USCF is the federation associated with United States and 2200 USCF corresponds to something like 2100 FIDE. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3872" LastActivityDate="2018-09-23T16:09:08.627" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22539" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-09-24T16:40:03.950" Score="1" ViewCount="109" Body="&lt;p&gt;Who is better in this position? White or black? Hard one!&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/w2sKA.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/w2sKA.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17430" LastActivityDate="2018-09-24T20:08:06.890" Title="Who is better here? [hard]" Tags="&lt;online-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22542" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22539" CreationDate="2018-09-24T20:08:06.890" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is indeed an interesting position. I am assuming it is black to move because the highlighted knight move should be the last one, and also because otherwise black would lose their queen for no good reason.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems that &lt;strong&gt;white manages to get some compensation by forcing black to exchange their queen for a rook&lt;/strong&gt;. However, the evaluation still favors black by a bit less than -2. Anyway, the ending looks very difficult to convert.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/analysis/standard/r2q2k1/pp3Npp/1np1b3/2Q5/3r4/2N5/PP4PP/4RRK1_b_KQkq_-&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;This&lt;/a&gt; analysis is according to Stockfish 9 at depth 22:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;r2q2k1/pp3Npp/1np1b3/2Q5/3r4/2N5/PP4PP/4RRK1 b Qq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;[Startply &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Bxf7 2. Re7 Bc4 3. Qg5 g6 4. Qe5 Qxe7 5. Qxe7 Rd7 6. Qe1 Bxf1 7. Kxf1 Nd5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15365" LastActivityDate="2018-09-24T20:08:06.890" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22543" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13566" CreationDate="2018-09-24T20:46:13.833" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Another complete, theory heavy and high quality work on the Slav Defence is &quot;The Complete Slav&quot; by GM Konstantin Sakaev. This series consists of two books, &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.newinchess.com/complete-slav-i&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Volume I&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.newinchess.com/complete-slav-ii&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Volume II&lt;/a&gt;, published in 2012 and 2013 respectively.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4588" LastActivityDate="2018-09-24T20:46:13.833" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22545" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22547" CreationDate="2018-09-25T14:57:24.313" Score="1" ViewCount="273" Body="&lt;p&gt;How is number of threads to use written on &lt;strong&gt;Android&lt;/strong&gt; versions of &lt;strong&gt;Stockfish&lt;/strong&gt;? Whole communication works but somehow I still can't change number of threads. I even have working code for PC version of Stockfish where changing number of threads works.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is what I do:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;SendLine(&quot;setoption name Threads value &quot; + threads.ToString());&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And this is what I get as a reply from Stockfish...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;Unknown command: setoption name Threads value 3&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I send the same line with multiPV, Stockfish does everything as expected, sending desired number of PVs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there something to consider when changing number of threads? Something that must be done prior to sending this command? Or is another command expected?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT:&lt;/strong&gt; I checked that when I &quot;later&quot; send meaningless line &lt;em&gt;'setoption name abc value true'&lt;/em&gt; it returns different text &quot;No such option: abc&quot;. While the engine is silent when sending number of threads &quot;later&quot;. So I expect it actually works after some time, so my question is, what must be done before sending command to change number of threads? &lt;strong&gt;As on the very initialisation it doesn't work for me.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11609" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2018-09-25T16:37:35.720" LastActivityDate="2018-09-26T18:56:59.943" Title="Android Stockfish communication works differently than on PC?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;programming&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2018-10-01T14:11:44.343" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22546" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-09-26T00:36:43.843" Score="1" ViewCount="289" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the minimum age to play chess in senior category?  A senior chess tournament for selection of nationals is happening in our state. I would like to play. What age do I have to be to play in the different senior categories? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17436" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2018-09-26T13:05:05.787" LastActivityDate="2018-09-26T13:05:05.787" Title="Age categories in chess" Tags="&lt;senior-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22547" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22545" CreationDate="2018-09-26T00:48:33.577" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure what exactly happened, but looking through the &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/blob/master/src/uci.cpp&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;source code&lt;/a&gt;, it appears your first token (&lt;code&gt;setoption&lt;/code&gt;) is corrupted or not read properly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Have you modified the code yourself? If so, please revert all your changes.&#xA;Please double and triple check the source code where you compile Stockfish.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;As on the very initialisation it doesn't work for me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You don't need to initialise anything to make SF work. The common &lt;code&gt;uci&lt;/code&gt; is absolutely useless (look in the source code to convince yourself). There is nothing you should need to do to initalize the engine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I believe the problem was in how you compiled the engine. There's not enough information here for me to give you a complete answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2018-09-26T09:54:07.540" LastActivityDate="2018-09-26T09:54:07.540" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22549" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22546" CreationDate="2018-09-26T12:51:11.820" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;FIDE has 2 senior age categories - over 50 and over 65. Most national federations will follow FIDE's lead. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that over 50 means that you will be at least 50 years old on the 31st December of that year. So, for over 50 tournaments this year you need to have been born in 1968 or earlier. The reason FIDE do it this way is that they publish your year of birth but not your exact date of birth (for privacy reasons). This information allows organizers to establish whether or not you are eligible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2018-09-26T12:51:11.820" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22550" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2018-09-26T13:00:46.043" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2018-09-26T13:00:46.043" LastActivityDate="2018-09-26T13:00:46.043" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22551" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2018-09-26T13:00:46.043" Score="0" Body="Tournaments for &quot;seniors&quot;, players over 50 and over 65" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2018-09-26T13:00:46.043" LastActivityDate="2018-09-26T13:00:46.043" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22555" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-09-26T15:02:32.050" Score="9" ViewCount="1115" Body="&lt;p&gt;In chess, there are some dead positions (FIDE Laws of Chess).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5.2.2 The game is drawn when a position has arisen in which neither player can checkmate the opponent’s king with any series of legal&#xA;moves. The game is said to end in a ‘dead position’. This immediately&#xA;ends the game, provided that the move producing the position was in&#xA;accordance with Article 3 and Articles 4.2 – 4.7&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Arbiters or players will terminate the game OTB, but is it possible to have computer solutions for dead position detection? If it is, then how?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user17439" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-10-28T05:02:07.597" LastActivityDate="2020-10-28T05:02:07.597" Title="Is the dead position problem solvable?" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;programming&gt;&lt;computer-chess&gt;&lt;chess-algorithms&gt;&lt;dead-position&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22556" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22555" CreationDate="2018-09-26T15:20:48.343" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Detecting for insufficient materials for checkmate is super easy. Just get the FEN position, and look for the number of pieces remaining and what they are.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The second solution requires enumerating all possibilities until a certain depth. If there is really no legal way to make progress, the variations will quickly repeat. A modern laptop should have the memory to do it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2018-09-27T05:40:16.010" LastActivityDate="2018-09-27T05:40:16.010" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22557" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22555" CreationDate="2018-09-26T16:47:05.033" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are two classes of dead position (positions from which helpmate is impossible)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Insufficient material &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Positions where both pawn moves are impossible and future captures are also impossible&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first is trivial to program. The second less so but I think still possible. Checking for possible pawn moves is straightforward. Checking for possible future piece captures is less straightforward but should still be possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2018-09-26T16:47:05.033" CommentCount="14" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22558" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22545" CreationDate="2018-09-26T18:56:59.943" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Stockfish &lt;strong&gt;ignores&lt;/strong&gt; any &lt;strong&gt;first command&lt;/strong&gt; I send to him. Don't know why. Probably I do something wrong when I initialize I/O redirection. This works perfectly to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;stockfish.SendLine(&quot;Hello Stockfish!&quot;);&#xA;stockfish.SendLine(&quot;setoption name Threads value &quot; + threads.ToString());&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just posting this answer as setting up number of threads as first command is quite logical thing to do. Stockfish replying &quot;Unknown command: setoption name Threads value 3&quot; is pretty misleading, taking into account that rest of communication works.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11609" LastActivityDate="2018-09-26T18:56:59.943" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22559" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8229" CreationDate="2018-09-27T02:41:45.120" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Isn't a player allowed to make &lt;strong&gt;any&lt;/strong&gt; legal move on their turn? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If my White position happens by chance to be identical to another board's White position, and that white makes a move and then makes a wincing expression clearly showing it was a mistake, can I &lt;strong&gt;avoid&lt;/strong&gt; that move or would I be using another source of information if I eliminate that move?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Don't put a board next to mine and tell me I can't copy. Or put salt in the wound by saying I can't copy now, but I can copy those moves in future games, including the very next game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17443" LastEditorUserId="17443" LastEditDate="2018-09-27T02:56:46.643" LastActivityDate="2018-09-27T02:56:46.643" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22560" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2343" CreationDate="2018-09-27T07:45:48.907" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my opinion, I think the winning strategy is within the player's mind. Because your next move will depend on your opponent's move. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17445" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-09-02T10:51:31.370" LastActivityDate="2019-09-02T10:51:31.370" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22561" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1494" CreationDate="2018-09-27T15:12:27.323" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have made some calculations that suggest that the advantage could have something to do with this fact:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;At the beginning of the game, both players have a &quot;board coverage&quot; of 22 squares (manually counted).&#xA;This number is very low because the pieces are not yet put into activity.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;White moves, let's say 1. Nf3, and advances to 26 covered squares (it could be 28sq if 1. d4)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;It is Black's turn, and Black finds herself at a slight disadvantage: 22 squares against 26 squares.&#xA;She moves and regains balance: 26 squares against 26 squares.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Now White moves and advances 29sq against 26sq.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;During the opening, each time that White must move, he finds a &quot;balanced&quot; board.&#xA;On the contrary, each time that Black must move, she finds an &quot;unbalanced&quot; board.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;There is a sort of &quot;roof&quot; at approximately 40 squares, (manually counted in many different games),&#xA;and it takes approximately 10 moves to jump from the &quot;undeveloped&quot; state of 22 squares to the &quot;fully developed&quot; state of 40 squares.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;40-22=18. A gain of 18 squares in 10 moves means 1.8squares per move and corresponds roughly to the number of squares covered by a pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Converted to pawn units, we could estimate that Black is &quot;1 pawn down&quot; each time that she must play.&#xA;When White must move, he finds 0 pawns of advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;--&gt;The average between 0 pawns and 1 pawn is 0.5 pawn, a possible measure of the first-move-advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Less coverage for Black means that some places are not accesible because White has already taken control.&#xA;It also means less pieces defended and/or less pieces attacked.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The advantage is small but sistematic, and persists during the opening phase.&#xA;When the battle begins (middle game), it is more likely that White has gained a slightly better position.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15958" LastEditorUserId="15958" LastEditDate="2018-09-27T18:17:06.957" LastActivityDate="2018-09-27T18:17:06.957" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22563" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-09-27T22:14:27.380" Score="1" ViewCount="108" Body="&lt;p&gt;Does anyone know of a (free) program which could be used to organize a bughouse chess tournament?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Where in each round the partner you have would change. (With the basic idea to put a good and 'less good' player in the same team.) The good player would be defined as the one with the most bughouse team wins.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or how should I try to manage such a tournament? Any ideas?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17453" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2018-09-27T22:19:31.027" LastActivityDate="2019-08-01T02:34:46.083" Title="Bughouse chess tournament pairing software?" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;bughouse&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22564" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22563" CreationDate="2018-09-27T22:25:20.580" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is no pairing program which can do what you want. No program exists to change the partners every round according to the previous results. Pairing programs also try and avoid pairing players or teams which have played before. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Exactly how the partners would vary and how you would decide who had played whom is not clearly defined in your system. Your idea needs more work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2018-09-27T22:25:20.580" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22565" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7949" CreationDate="2018-09-28T11:04:34.623" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you are rated only 1900 at 25 (especially if that's an online rating), it will be a significant achievement to reach FIDE Master level (~2300), not in 5 years, but at any point in the rest of your life.  IM and GM are almost certainly out of your reach at this stage, although it is theoretically possible - Scottish GM John Shaw became a grandmaster at 37 after being rated only 1745 at the age of 19.  Most grandmasters are already 2200+ by that age.  However, Shaw is an extreme example, and his peak rating was 2506, which is still not high enough to earn a living from playing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16774" LastEditorUserId="16774" LastEditDate="2018-09-28T11:09:45.557" LastActivityDate="2018-09-28T11:09:45.557" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22566" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4132" CreationDate="2018-09-28T13:17:53.793" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;chess.com CAPS. Compare CAPS score from chess.com (requires subscription), to table found in a graphic on this: &#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/article/view/better-than-ratings-chess-com-s-new-caps-system&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.chess.com/article/view/better-than-ratings-chess-com-s-new-caps-system&lt;/a&gt; .&#xA;Also of interest: &#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/article/view/who-was-the-best-world-chess-champion-in-history&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.chess.com/article/view/who-was-the-best-world-chess-champion-in-history&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note of caution: Caps scores for anyone particular game are volatile; best to make some average of CAPS scores over a batch of games. Right now, to my knowledge, CAPS can, by extension, predict an Elo rating from a set of moves.&#xA;Another note: CAPS scores exist in a vacuum without respect to the time controls. I play better chess at slower time controls than I do in a 1-minute bullet game. CAPS will see this difference in play strength and accordingly assign a lower rating to the bullet games. This does not mean that I am not the same person who played the slower time control games!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17454" LastActivityDate="2018-09-28T13:17:53.793" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22567" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-09-28T13:45:20.960" Score="1" ViewCount="105" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there any database of every position ever played in a recorded game? I don't ask of every possible position in chess, or &quot;solving&quot; chess. Only the positions that were played in a recorded game. Ideally, i would like to find for a position how many times it has been recorded to have been played and who won.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17455" LastActivityDate="2018-09-28T13:58:05.727" Title="Is there any database of every position ever played in a recorded game?" Tags="&lt;database&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22568" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22567" CreationDate="2018-09-28T13:58:05.727" Score="4" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is there any database of every position ever played in a recorded game&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No database is perfect. I would say no for your question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sounds like you're looking for the most complete database? I propose:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Purchase Chessbase Mega Database (many games already!)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Data mine www.chessgames.com and &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.365chess.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.365chess.com&lt;/a&gt; (you may need a script)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Download all TWIC games&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Download lichess games&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Download FICS games&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Download MillionBase database&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Perform an union operation on all those games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2018-09-28T13:58:05.727" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22569" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-09-28T14:03:41.343" Score="0" ViewCount="156" Body="&lt;p&gt;Negi suggests 18.Kh1!N but it seems Black can continue to push his pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;*&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;B33&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;????.??.??&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 e5 6. Ndb5 d6 7. Bg5 a6 8. Na3 &#xA;b5 9. Bxf6 gxf6 10. Nd5 f5 11. Bd3 Be6 12. c3 Bg7 13. Nxb5 Bxd5 14. exd5 Ne7 15. &#xA;Na3 O-O (15... e4 16. Qa4+ Kf8 (16... Qd7 17. Bb5 ) ) 16. O-O e4 17. Bc2 Rc8 &#xA;18. Kh1 (18. Qh5 Rc5 ) (18. f3 Qb6+ $19 ) Rc5 (18... Qb6 19. Bb3 $16 ) 19. f3 Rxd5 &#xA;20. Qe2 (20. Qb1 Qb8 21. fxe4 fxe4 22. Bxe4 Rh5 {threatening ...d5} 23. Bf3 Rh6 &#xA;24. Bg4 f5 {The Black center is gone, but Black doesn't stand bad either: White's &#xA;Queen and a1 rook are misplaced.} 25. Bh3 $4 Rxh3 26. gxh3 Qb7+ 27. Kg1 Rf6 $19 &#xA;) Re5 21. Nc4 Re6 22. Bb3 d5 23. Rad1 Kh8 24. Ne3 Rd6 25. fxe4 fxe4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does White just wait for Black to overextend?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13147" LastEditorUserId="4588" LastEditDate="2018-09-28T18:44:43.420" LastActivityDate="2018-10-02T02:01:24.930" Title="How does White crumble Black's center?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;1.e4&gt;&lt;sveshnikov&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22570" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22569" CreationDate="2018-09-28T19:14:13.060" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Black's pawns might seem impressive, but they're not so easy to mobilize. Clearly, the c3-pawn stops black's d-pawn. Due to the tension by white's pawn f3 on pawn e4, black can't push his f-pawn. And if black pushes e4-e3, the pawn ends up isolated when white plays f3-f4.&#xA;Therefore, it's often useful for white to keep the tension in the center and to refrain from the exchange fxe4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the given main line, after 20.Qe2 Re5, according to Stockfish 9, white has the time to grab the pawn on a6: 21.Bb3 d5 22.Qxa6. White can follow up with Rad1, Nc2, Qe2, f4, after which white is a healthy pawn up and black's center is blocked.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;      [StartPly &quot;39&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;      [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;      1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 e5 6.Ndb5 d6 7.Bg5 a6 8.Na3 b5 9.Bxf6 gxf6 10.Nd5 f5 11.Bd3 Be6 12.c3 Bg7 13.Nxb5 Bxd5 14.exd5 Ne7 15.Na3 O-O 16.O-O e4 17.Bc2 Rc8 18.Kh1 Rc5 19.f3 Rxd5 20.Qe2 Re5 21.Bb3 (21.Nc4 Re6 22.Bb3 d5 23.Rad1 Kh8 24.Ne3 Rd6 25.fxe4 fxe4) d5 22.Qxa6 Re6 23.Qe2 Rh6 24.Rad1 Qb8 25.f4 Rd8 26.Nb5&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4588" LastEditorUserId="4588" LastEditDate="2018-10-01T18:17:32.917" LastActivityDate="2018-10-01T18:17:32.917" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22571" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-09-28T21:36:59.007" Score="5" ViewCount="198" Body="&lt;p&gt;My sources of opening theory are mostly focuses on things to do in it, and some ideas about why.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are good sources about things to avoid, and ideas that can't be developed in an opening? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17457" LastEditorUserId="4588" LastEditDate="2018-09-29T16:30:14.527" LastActivityDate="2018-09-29T16:30:14.527" Title="Theory: Things NOT to do in a concrete opening" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;theory&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22572" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22571" CreationDate="2018-09-28T21:45:55.770" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessstrategyonline.com/content/tutorials/how-to-start-a-game-of-chess-opening-mistakes&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;site&lt;/a&gt; has some material. Things like don't block your center pawns with your pieces, and don't play into fool's mates, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then there is a series of beginner-ish books from Pandolfini: Chess Openings: Traps And Zaps&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;also,&#xA;Win in the Opening: Opening Mistakes and How to Punish Them &#xA;by Yakov Neishtadt&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2018-09-28T21:45:55.770" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22573" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22571" CreationDate="2018-09-29T00:13:06.560" Score="-4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just look at a bunch of master games (300 or so; maybe 100 per day) and you'll recognize the patterns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd say just look at the first 15 moves and no more. Take no longer than five minutes a game. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you're really good, you'll be able to take one minute per game. Remember, you're only looking at the first fifteen moves. The patterns are always the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13147" LastActivityDate="2018-09-29T00:13:06.560" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22574" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-09-29T13:51:43.170" Score="1" ViewCount="69" Body="&lt;p&gt;From FIDE Laws of Chess:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;FIDE Laws of Chess cover over-the-board play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, which rules cover Internet chess play?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user17460" LastActivityDate="2018-09-29T18:12:48.293" Title="Which chess rules cover Internet play?" Tags="&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;computer-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22575" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22571" CreationDate="2018-09-29T14:18:34.467" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Perhaps &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.newinchess.com/taming-wild-chess-openings&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Taming Wild Chess Openings&lt;/a&gt;, written by IM Watson and FM Schiller, is interesting for you. The book contains a collection of bad, dubious and tricky openings. The authors show how to react and, if possible, refute them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4588" LastActivityDate="2018-09-29T14:18:34.467" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22576" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22574" CreationDate="2018-09-29T16:22:29.760" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think FIDE Online Arena rules, but I cannot find them in a written form.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user17439" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-09-29T18:12:48.293" LastActivityDate="2018-09-29T18:12:48.293" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22577" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22574" CreationDate="2018-09-29T16:53:29.030" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Each individual site will have their own rules, although many of them will be the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I haven't played online in years, so I can't list specifics, but I know the rating systems are different from site to site. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9025" LastActivityDate="2018-09-29T16:53:29.030" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22578" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17087" CreationDate="2018-09-29T21:20:45.920" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've built a web tool (&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessinsights.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.chessinsights.org/&lt;/a&gt;) that you can use to upload your games, filter them, and find mistakes you made. The tool is free and open-source.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm currently working hard on adding features. If there's something you really want added, just let me know, and I can work on it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17462" LastActivityDate="2018-09-29T21:20:45.920" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22579" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22582" CreationDate="2018-09-30T09:40:43.843" Score="0" ViewCount="58" Body="&lt;p&gt;Doesn't it create bias for the country?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Disclaimer&lt;/strong&gt;: I realize that benefits of having more teams from the same country far outweigh possible drawbacks, just trying to reason how possibly &quot;unfair&quot; can this be for the other teams, and / if this can be improved.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Imagine last decisive round where two teams from the same country are paired between each other. Will it be a fair match? Does it make sense to avoid such pairings?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16389" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-09-30T17:42:08.773" LastActivityDate="2018-09-30T17:42:08.773" Title="Multiple teams from the same country in Swiss system" Tags="&lt;swiss-pairing&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22580" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22581" CreationDate="2018-09-30T13:07:19.373" Score="5" ViewCount="241" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just wondered: can K + 2 nightriders force a mate against bare K? (A nightrider can make an unlimited number of knight moves in any direction - it cannot change direction partway through its move.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8201" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-11-16T22:57:31.137" LastActivityDate="2020-07-14T06:53:05.060" Title="Fairy chess: KNNvK" Tags="&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;knight-endgame&gt;&lt;unorthodox-pieces&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22581" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22580" CreationDate="2018-09-30T14:15:23.547" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nightrider_(chess)#Examples&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia page on the Nightrider&lt;/a&gt; contains an example from T. R. Dawson, published in the British Chess Magazine in 1925, where a king, knight and nightrider force a mate against a lone king. I guess a similar procedure would work for two nightriders, but you have to be a little more careful to avoid stalemate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2018-09-30T14:15:23.547" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22582" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22579" CreationDate="2018-09-30T15:18:53.587" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a tradeoff between making the pairings that &quot;should&quot; be made according to the strict pairing rules, and attempting to prevent collusion.  Imagine this scenario:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Russia 1: 8.5&#xA;Russia 2: 8&#xA;India:    8&#xA;Peru:     7.5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which is more unfair: to have Russia 1 play Russia 2 and have a possible prearranged result, or to &lt;em&gt;prevent&lt;/em&gt; Russia 1 and Russia 2 from competing, causing Russia 2 to play a team with a lower score instead of the strong Russia 1 team?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are several ways to handle this.  You could switch the pairings only when it does not cause a team to be moved up or down a pairing group. You could switch the pairings in any round except the last two. Or you could not switch them, and watch closely for signs that the players aren't playing seriously.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2018-09-30T15:18:53.587" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22583" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22585" CreationDate="2018-09-30T22:18:45.477" Score="2" ViewCount="607" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am trying to program a chess game as a challenge to myself, however, I am unsure if I have all the moves correct to play a legal game (not any advanced moves, that would be a challenge for another day).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have created a flowchart/pictorial and text version to depict the flow of the game and the available moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The area with a blue background is the main game loop.&#xA;The area in dark purple are all the possible chess moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;if there is any part that doesn't make sense or needs clarification please don't hesitate to ask and I will try my best to reword it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/NejIH.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/NejIH.png&quot; alt=&quot;flowchart/pictorial of chess game loop&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Game Loop (start move)&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;is in checkmate?&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;yes&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;lose game&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;no&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;threefold repetition?&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;yes&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;stalemate&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;no&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;pawn moved in past 75 moves?&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;yes&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;stalemate&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;no&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;has captured in past 75 moves?&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;yes&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;stalemate&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;no&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Get all available pieces for current player&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;iterate all pieces&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;check pawn moves&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;check knight moves&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;check bishop moves&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;check castle moves&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;check queen moves&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;check king moves&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;change player&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Chess Moves&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Pawn Move&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;was last move a pawn?&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;yes&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;was it a double move?&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;yes&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;choice&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;capture en passant&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;other choice&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;no&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;other choice&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;no&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;is first move?&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;yes&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;check diagonals for enemy?&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;yes&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;choice&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;would kill enemy put in check?&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;yes&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;check other pieces to move&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;no&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;kill enemy&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;is on opposite side of board?&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;yes&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;promote&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;other choice&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;no&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;forward 1 empty?&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;yes&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;forward 2 empty?&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;yes&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;choice&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;would forward 1 put in check?&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;no&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;forward 1&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;is on opposite side of board?&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;yes&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;promote&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;yes&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;other move&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;would forward 2 put in check?&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;no&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;forward 2&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;is on opposite side of board?&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;yes&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;promote&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;yes&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;other move&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;no&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;would forward 1 put in check?&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;forward 1&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;is on opposite side of board?&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;yes&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;promote&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;no&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;check other pieces to move&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;no&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;check diagonals for enemy?&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;yes&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;choice&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;would kill put in check?&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;yes&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;other choice&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;no&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;kill enemy&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;is on opposite side of board?&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;yes&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;promote&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;other choice&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;no&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;forward 1 empty?&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;yes&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;forward 1&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;is on opposite side of board?&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;yes&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;promote&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;no&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;check other pieces to move&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Knight Move&lt;/h2&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;forward 2 left  1 empty?&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;forward 2 right 1 empty?&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;right 2 up 1 empty?&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;right 2 down 1 empty?&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;would move/kill put in check?&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;yes&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;if checked all moves check next piece&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;no&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;move to available spot&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;back 2 left 1 empty?&lt;/h3&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;back 2 right 1 empty?&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;left 2 up down 1 empty?&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;left 2 down 1 empty?&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Bishop Move&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;check all diagonal spaces stopping if there is a piece in its way&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;does move put in check?&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;yes&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;check other moves else check other pieces&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;no&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;move to available spot&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Queen Move&lt;/h2&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;same as bishop except all cardinal and intercardinal directions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Castle Move&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;choice&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;check all cardinal spaces stopping if there is a piece in its way&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;does move put in check?&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;yes&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;check other moves else check other choice&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;no&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;move to available spot&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;has moved?&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;yes&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;check other pieces&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;no&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;has king moved?&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;yes&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;check other pieces&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;no&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;is queenside castle?&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;yes&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;is in check?&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;yes&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;check other pieces&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;no&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;king 1 to queenside castle in check?&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;yes&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;check other pieces&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;no&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;king 2 to queenside castle in check?&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;yes&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;check other pieces&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;no&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;is adjacent spot towards king free?&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;yes&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;would put in check?&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;yes&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;check other pieces&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;no&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;move king 2 towards  queenside castle,  jump castle over king&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;no&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;check other pieces&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;no&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;is in check?&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;yes&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;check other pieces&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;no&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;king 1 to kingside castle in check?&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;yes&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;check other pieces&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;no&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;king 2 to kingsidecastle in check?&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;yes&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;check other pieces&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;no&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;move king 2 towards kingside castle,  jump castle over king&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;King Move&lt;/h2&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;choice&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;has moved?&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;yes&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;can castle? (Note: for the sake of non duplication see arrow)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;no&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;check other pieces&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;check all 1 move in cardinal and intercardinal spaces&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;does move put in check?&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;yes&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;check other moves else check other choice&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;no&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;move to available spot&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17465" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T16:19:03.467" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T16:19:03.467" Title="Is this the correct flow of a chess game?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;programming&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22584" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-10-01T00:44:37.283" Score="0" ViewCount="103" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the circumstances of two perfect AI's playing each other, will white have an inherent advantage? Or can black always play for a stalemate by countering every white strategy?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17466" LastActivityDate="2018-10-01T00:44:37.283" Title="If two perfect chess AI's played each other, would it always be a stalemate or would white win for an inherent first-move advantage?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="4" ClosedDate="2018-10-01T14:12:04.023" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22585" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22583" CreationDate="2018-10-01T08:29:08.297" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think it's going to work. Consider this fragment:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/q5125.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/q5125.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You don't &quot;kill enemy&quot; just because your pawn can do the capture. What if your pawn capture exposes your queen behind? What if your pawn capture leads to back-rank mate?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Furthermore, you're not making yourself clear how to choose between moves. Your flowchart implies your program would be making legal pawn moves before considering anything else. This won't work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You'll have to do searching, something like alpha-beta/nega-max. Your flowchart is way too simple for a reasonable chess engine, if that's your goal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There won't be any &quot;challenge&quot; from your flowchart. I estimate the program would play no better than a random player. However, if your aim is just to make something that can play a legal chess game; your flowchart is reasonable. It's also a nice mini-project for practising programming.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2018-10-01T08:37:05.023" LastActivityDate="2018-10-01T08:37:05.023" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22586" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22589" CreationDate="2018-10-01T12:20:06.813" Score="9" ViewCount="531" Body="&lt;p&gt;My tutor and I are exploring ways of doing lessons over the internet, and to our surprise, there isn't an immediately obvious way to do this on lichess or chess.com. What we were looking for is an analysis board that we can both move pieces on at the same time with maybe a chat room too (though we could just call each other, so that part isn't a deal breaker). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is anyone aware of such a site/program? Worst case, we can do a screenshare and I can just watch him move pieces on his screen, but that is definitely less than ideal. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Surely this problem has been solved since I can't imagine we are the first to encounter it. I hope I am just overlooking something obvious.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10779" LastActivityDate="2018-10-02T14:31:21.460" Title="Best method of remote tutoring?" Tags="&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;online&gt;&lt;teaching&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22587" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23828" CreationDate="2018-10-01T18:24:25.397" Score="5" ViewCount="523" Body="&lt;p&gt;Being an Italian, I am following my team at the Batumi Olympiad, and I was disappointed in seeing that GM Godena had just lost to a mere Candidate Master rated 500 ELO lower (Italy - Nepal). Then I realized that he resigned in a much better position Why?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is the final position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Godena vs. Lama, Batumi - 2018&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;r3r3/1q2pp1k/7p/1b1PN1p1/4Pn2/4Q2P/3N1PP1/1R2R1K1 w - - 4 30&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is full the Game:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Godena vs. Lama, Batumi - 2018&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 g6 4. O-O Bg7 5. c3 Nf6 6. Re1 a6 7. Bxc6 dxc6 8. h3 O-O 9. d4 Qa5 10. Bg5 h6 11. Bh4 Re8 12. Nbd2 cxd4 13. cxd4 Be6 14. Bg3 Rad8 15. Be5 Nh5 16. Bxg7 Kxg7 17. Qc1 Qb5 18. Qc3 Kh7 19. a4 Qb6 20. b4 Qc7 21. b5 axb5 22. axb5 Qc8 23. bxc6 bxc6 24. Rac1 Nf4 25. Qe3 g5 26. Ne5 Qb7 27. Nxc6 Ra8 28. d5 Bd7 29. Ne5 Bb5 30. Rb1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastEditorUserId="18475" LastEditDate="2019-03-06T03:11:54.497" LastActivityDate="2019-03-06T03:11:54.497" Title="Why did GM Godena resign in this position?" Tags="&lt;grandmaster&gt;&lt;chess-olympiad&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22588" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-10-01T23:15:13.680" Score="-4" ViewCount="205" Body="&lt;p&gt;If a king is in check, can the opponent's king take said king if it puts them in check? Someone may think they win, but surely you can’t put yourself in check even if the opponent's king has been taken.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17469" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-05-11T14:30:41.797" LastActivityDate="2021-05-11T14:30:41.797" Title="If a king is in check, can the opponent's king take said king if it puts them in check?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;check&gt;&lt;kings&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2018-10-04T22:46:19.190" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22589" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22586" CreationDate="2018-10-01T23:34:45.477" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;Have you tried lichess studies ?&#xA;They can be used exactly like that. Let me give you an overview of how it works.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First you need to create a study, which you can do by heading to  &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/study/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://lichess.org/study/&lt;/a&gt; and clicking in the green plus button.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Multiple Members&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As the &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/blog/V0KrLSkAAMo3hsi4/study-chess-the-lichess-way&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;What are Studies&lt;/a&gt; page explains, you can invite people to your study:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/PUidA.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/PUidA.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let me quote the page that explains what these studies are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Invite friends to analyse that new trendy opening. Invite your coach to teach you something. Invite 20 students to your lesson. Why not?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If your study is public, anyone can review it; invited members can chat, and invited contributors can update the study.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If your study is private, only invited members can review it, and invited contributors can update the study&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Moves, Symbols and Arrows&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The study members can create moves, or delete them. Any move anyone does changes the board that all other members see. Any move can have arrows to point possible moves or threats as well as symbols which are the red circles that normally are used to point key squares:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/5jdxm.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/5jdxm.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Comments&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any move can have comments, and these will be identified by who made them:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/gc0dm.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/gc0dm.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Annotations&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The moves can also have the common chess notation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/54maV.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/54maV.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Chat&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is also a chat, in case anyone wants just to say anything that isn't a comment to a move:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/IZpOu.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/IZpOu.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Chapters&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This feature is solely available in studies, and allows you to have multiple chapters over the same study. It is useful in many scenarios like when you want to try several different ideas with quite some depth and extended analysis while keeping the main line clean. You could have the analysis of all your games in a tournament within the same study, and turning each game into a chapter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/H59cP.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/H59cP.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Engine&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you would also probably be expecting, there is a feature to use an engine evaluation any time you need it. At the time of this answer the default engine is Stockfish 9.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15224" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2018-10-02T11:32:53.957" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22590" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22569" CreationDate="2018-10-02T02:01:24.930" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have no idea why @Maxwell86 was downvoted. He is correct that Blacks pawns look impressive but it is not easy to see what to do with them.&#xA;The pawns are strong if they restrict Whites pieces, or if they are mobile enough to generate threats. Neither is the case here. I would regard 16..e4 as a positional blunder, because it fixes the pawn structure, and allows White to form a plan around it. This might be along the lines of Bc2-Bb3 (hold that QP), f2-f4(giving Black a protected passed pawn, but it isnt going anywhere, and White prevents Black from connecting up his Pawns with an eventual ..f4), Na3-c2-e3 (A perfect square, blockading and influencing both wings), Ra1-b1 or Qd1-d2 (protect the b-Pawn) then in due course c2-c4, Bb3-a4, b2-b4, lauching a Pawn avalanche on the Q-side.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, of course Black gets to move also, but I dont see anything like this plan of campaign. White seems to me to have a big advantage because his Pawns are (or will become) mobile and Blacks will not. Whites strategy in this sort of position is always to advance on the Q-side, while Black usually looks for counterplay on the K-side, but this will not be easy with his pawns blockaded. They hardly restrict White from doing what he wishes, and they cant generate threats. It does take time for White to do everything but Blacks play is even slower. White has only one potential weakness (on g2, which the N already protects. Black will try things like Bg7-h6, Rf8-g8, Qd8-f6-g6, Ne7-g6-h4, against which White has Rf1-f2, Qd1-d2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is still a game ahead, but it will be the kind of game where each player forms a plan and tries to achieve their own while frustrating the oponent. My money is on White.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastActivityDate="2018-10-02T02:01:24.930" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22591" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22588" CreationDate="2018-10-02T07:26:37.733" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's not possible to get into a position where you can take his king. He must have made a move that left him in check, and that's illegal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2018-10-02T07:26:37.733" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22592" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22586" CreationDate="2018-10-02T08:58:33.940" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;An option could be to use Team Viewer, which allows remote control of a computer. That way, you could both be using your tutor's Chessbase software (which he probably has). For voice chat, you could simultaneously use Skype or whatever other VOIP service you prefer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12953" LastActivityDate="2018-10-02T08:58:33.940" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22593" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22586" CreationDate="2018-10-02T14:31:21.460" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You could use FICS with the Babaschess interface for this purpose. Setting up an analysis board in the starting position is as simple as typing the command &quot;examine&quot; in the command window. This will create a board on the server which you have control over. Others can view your activities on this board by typing &quot;observe [your username]&quot; in the command window. Then if you want to give a friend looking at your board authority to move the pieces as well, you write &quot;mexamine [friend's username]&quot; in the command window.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This analysis board will come with a dedicated chat which can be used if you like, but I prefer to use Discord and talk directly with my analysis partner when doing analysis since talking is much quicker than typing in my case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you want to finish your analysis of the current position you can use the command &quot;unexamine&quot;. Note that on FICS you can only be analyzing one game at a time with the &quot;examine&quot; command, so if you want to move onto another game/position to analyze you have to end the current analysis first.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you have a game stored as a pgn file that you wish to analyze you can do this as well on FICS in Babaschess very easily. This is as simple as logging in, going to &quot;File&quot;-&gt;&quot;Open PGN file&quot;-&gt;[Navigating to and opening your pgn file]-&gt;[Choosing your desired game in the pgn file and selecting &quot;Open as&quot; instead of &quot;Open&quot;]-&gt;[Selecting &quot;Examine on the server&quot;]. By doing this, you upload the game to the server, enabling&#xA;you to quickly go back and forth between different interesting moments in the game to analyze.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, if you wish to analyze a specific position on FICS this can be done as well by typing the command &quot;bsetup&quot; in the command window. This will open up a dialogue box where you can choose which side to move etc. and when you're happy with your initial settings for the board you can setup any legal position you'd like to analyze. When you've finished setting up the board to the desired position you write &quot;bsetup done&quot; in the command window, which will then make your position into an examined game on the server by default.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8300" LastActivityDate="2018-10-02T14:31:21.460" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22594" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-10-02T18:18:29.430" Score="0" ViewCount="189" Body="&lt;p&gt;Given a player with an ELO rating of 1200, and another with an ELO rating of 2100, how would you calculate an appropriate handicap?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know this can vary a lot depending on styles of play. I'm not looking for a globally correct answer. Just a rough rule-of-thumb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As I said, I'm not asking for an exact science, but a rule of thumb. &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/4/is-there-a-way-to-use-handicaps-in-chess-to-bridge-the-gap-between-players-of-di&quot;&gt;This question and its answers&lt;/a&gt; are discussing an exact method and how it compares to Go, which is &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; what I'm asking about.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17473" LastEditorUserId="17473" LastEditDate="2018-10-03T11:03:52.083" LastActivityDate="2018-10-04T07:26:03.843" Title="How to apply handicap given ratings" Tags="&lt;handicapping&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2018-10-04T22:46:55.043" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22596" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1432" CreationDate="2018-10-02T21:35:49.877" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are obviously many forced wins on any boards where M and N are at least 8 (including M or N or both infinite), so long as there is a corner of the same colour as the bishop's square.&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/CLcNN.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/CLcNN.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the pieces are all in the yellow tinted sub-board and the black king cannot escape the d10-j4-j10 triangle, the position is also won on the full board, because such positions can be (optimally) won on that sub-board without letting the black king escape the triangle. Similar goes for the green sub-board. The same applies to an MxN board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But the won positions are by no means restricted to such positions. In the position shown, for example, White can mate in at most 33 moves against any Black defence. There is, of course, a significant percentage of similar positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are not necessarily forced wins if M and or N are too small. For example, there are no checkmate positions on a 1xN board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are, strictly speaking, also a relatively small number of forced wins on (sufficiently large, i.e. M,N &amp;gt; 2, M+N&amp;gt;6) boards which include no corner of the same colour as the bishop's square but do include a corner of the opposite colour. This includes the 7x7 board with the &amp;quot;wrong&amp;quot; coloured corners you ask about. This is also possible in a &amp;quot;wrong&amp;quot; corner of any board that includes such a corner, e.g. on an 8x8 board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;7k/8/7K/8/5N2/8/8/7B w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Ng6+ Kg8 2. Bd5#**&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are no wins on a board that includes no corners, i.e. where one or both sides extend indefinitely in both directions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are drawn positions on any size of board. This is the general case on boards that have no corner of the same colour as the bishop's square and on boards where one or both of M and N are too small and, I believe, on boards where M and N are both large. Here is one example on an 8x8 board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;8/8/8/8/3K2k1/8/1B6/7N b - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;[startflipped &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Kf3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Drawn positions are the exception on the standard board (less than 10% of all positions according to the Nalimov EGTB).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I believe that on a 10x10 board there are also draws by repetition, where the lone king cannot force the capture of a piece, but the side with the pieces also cannot force mate. I think this becomes the general case for large M and N as it obviously is for odd M and N with the &amp;quot;wrong&amp;quot; coloured bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So long as the board contains a corner of the same colour as the bishop's square and M or N remains at 8 or less, but it is not &lt;em&gt;too&lt;/em&gt; small, mate will still be forcible generally for finite large values of the other and (somewhat irrelevantly) in as many positions as not for an infinite value of the other.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After reading DanStronger's post, I think my comments on draws by repetition on larger boards are erroneous. These were based on a 45-year-old analysis that I made when I first learned to play the ending (the details of which are now hazy). But I'm inclined to think the analysis was flawed. In that case, the percentage of draws should actually decrease as the board sizes increase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12520" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-05-13T15:04:23.030" LastActivityDate="2021-05-13T15:04:23.030" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22597" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7949" CreationDate="2018-10-02T22:28:12.913" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I knew a guy from high school who was an 1800 player at the age of 15 (not 25). He was the best player in my high school chess league, and the best chess player that I got to know on a day to day basis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I looked him up over the internet this past decade, he was in his early fifties, and about a 2200 player, that is the lower ranks of master. He spent all of his free (non-professional) time playing chess (I don't know about his personal life). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At 25, you are starting ten years later, and only about 100 points higher than Mark. If you were grandmaster material, it would have been more obvious earlier (e.g. master or close to by your late teens). Based on Mark's experience, 2200 may be a realistic goal for you, but not 2400 or 2500.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2018-10-02T22:28:12.913" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22598" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22526" CreationDate="2018-10-02T22:35:58.970" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The idea of offering a pawn for a lead in development is called a &quot;gambit.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Gambits are mostly played by White, who has the advantage of the first move, and who gets the advantage of a second or even third move for the sacrificed pawn. This can make it worth doing for White.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is not worth doing for Black, because he would have only &quot;switched colors,&quot; gotten White's normal first move advantage, but with a pawn down.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2018-10-02T22:35:58.970" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22599" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22588" CreationDate="2018-10-02T22:44:29.293" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I assume you mean something like the following: white king is on h1, white bishop is on g1, black rook is on a1, and black king is on a7, and it's black's turn to move. If black doesn't move the king, then the bishop can capture him ... but that would expose the white king to check. In this case, the black king still has to move, even though white can't capture him without putting the white king in check. White wouldn't ever get a chance to capture the king, because not moving the king would be an illegal move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15221" LastActivityDate="2018-10-02T22:44:29.293" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22600" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22588" CreationDate="2018-10-02T23:42:33.427" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Even if it were legal you would no longer be able win because without an opposing king you would have no possible checkmate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12520" LastActivityDate="2018-10-02T23:42:33.427" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22601" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22594" CreationDate="2018-10-03T11:08:01.007" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.chessbase.com/post/komodo-9-odds-matches-against-gms&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;This page&lt;/a&gt; presents a table of odds for rough ELO differences, used for games between a human and computer. Since my proposed difference is 900 points, this most closely matches the odds of removing a knight or two pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17473" LastActivityDate="2018-10-03T11:08:01.007" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22602" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6442" CreationDate="2018-10-03T11:14:31.017" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I wrote &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/antoyo/uncbv&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;a cli tool to extract .cbv archives&lt;/a&gt;.&#xA;And you can use &lt;a href=&quot;http://scidb.sourceforge.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;scidb&lt;/a&gt; to open the resulting .cbh file.&#xA;Scidb will eventually support opening .cbv archives directly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7056" LastActivityDate="2018-10-03T11:14:31.017" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22604" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22594" CreationDate="2018-10-04T05:23:30.837" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;A difference of 900 points at the level you showed (2400 vs 3300) is far different to 1200 vs 2100. Additionally computer ratings are not human ratings while your two players are humans I presume.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's no way with your example of 1200 and 2100 that a knight, or two pawns would be anywhere near sufficient for the 1200. Especially the two pawns, but also the knight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17482" LastActivityDate="2018-10-04T05:23:30.837" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22605" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22594" CreationDate="2018-10-04T07:26:03.843" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The rule of thumb is that if the stronger player is winning you increase the handicap and if he is losing you decrease it. You'll quickly work it out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your case I would start with giving a queen. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2018-10-04T07:26:03.843" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22607" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-10-04T16:27:25.943" Score="2" ViewCount="269" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a 1100 rated player.In rapid and blitz games I beated 1600 players this proves that my intution is good but at classical matches I can't even handle a 1300 player.I am a positional player as I just need a moderate advantage .But I am weak in long term calculation as I can't judge my opponent's move so kindly tell measures improve my calculation&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17488" LastActivityDate="2018-10-09T00:29:31.143" Title="How to improve my calculation and guess my opponents move" Tags="&lt;tactics&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22608" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22607" CreationDate="2018-10-04T19:30:49.273" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You could make your question more specific, giving examples of when and what type of moves you fail to take into account. Anyway, I am 2050 and suffer from the same, so, it is a relevant concern for players of all levels! Start with distinguishing forcing moves, from non-forcing ones. Basically, unless you've given a check, your opponent can, in theory, play any move they wish. Thus, look for as many possibilities as you can afford the time for. My own problem: I tend to fool myself into believing that my opponent and I together are trying to produce a stunning, beautiful game! As if he/she will not ruin my beautiful strategy I have in mind, and they will help me carry it out!! &quot;I attack this pawn and of course they will defend it...&quot; And then I got the shocking response that sends chills down my spine, waking me up from my dream :))&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do not ASSUME that by default your opponent will respond in the way you think they should/must. Try to look for all possibilities on their behalf. Look for the strongest they can play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13438" LastActivityDate="2018-10-04T19:30:49.273" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22609" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22588" CreationDate="2018-10-04T20:20:49.980" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You cannot capture king in chess. Check mate is not capturing the king. The game ends when king is under attack, and cannot escape. Any move that leads king to be captured is illegal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17490" LastActivityDate="2018-10-04T20:20:49.980" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22610" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22526" CreationDate="2018-10-04T23:01:32.260" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your proposed line 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 a6? 3.Nxe5 d6 simply loses a pawn for nothing.  Black gets no compensation in the form of development, because time has been lost by the pointless move 2...a6.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The two main replies to 2.Nf3, 2...Nc6 and 2...Nf6, both have the advantage of developing a piece and not losing a pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16679" LastActivityDate="2018-10-04T23:01:32.260" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22612" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-10-05T20:04:16.860" Score="6" ViewCount="7899" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am relatively new to chess, and I wonder, what is a fast (and hopefully easy) way to learn chess board coordinates? This is so when I am watching a video where the commentator says, for example, &amp;quot;Knight f6,&amp;quot; I know to look quickly at f6, and I don't waste time looking for coordinates on the edge of the board or count it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17499" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-11-18T05:02:07.240" LastActivityDate="2020-11-18T10:36:57.130" Title="How can one easily learn chess board coordinates?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;notation&gt;&lt;chessboards&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22613" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22612" CreationDate="2018-10-05T20:14:35.793" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This might disappoint you but the only thing you can do in the beginning when learning coordinates is to count, since you will lack the intuition necessary to identify coordinates immediately. As you gain chess experience the intuition necessary to quickly determine the coordinates of a square will be built up to the point where you know exactly where (for instance) f6 is on the chessboard without having to think about it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But in the beginning (as with anything else) you will have to spend some mental effort to locate squares on the chessboard by their coordinates. To make the learning process quicker you could try to incorporate identifying the coordinates of squares while playing (for instance by keeping a scoresheet of the games you play) but other than that there isn't really a quick method to just learn this without effort.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8300" LastActivityDate="2018-10-05T20:14:35.793" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22614" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22612" CreationDate="2018-10-05T22:53:38.713" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is something that you gain through experience.  One good way to obtain that kind of experience would be to buy a large game collection - for example, a modern algebraic edition of the 1953 Zurich tournament book by Bronstein - and play through them.  Not only will the experience accustom you to finding each square, you'll undoubtedly learn something from playing through so many master games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16679" LastActivityDate="2018-10-05T22:53:38.713" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22615" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22612" CreationDate="2018-10-05T22:56:37.410" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some websites offer &quot;coordinate drills&quot;. I'm not sure how effective they are for learning, but you can certainly give them a try. I found it to be surprisingly entertaining to try to beat my personal record number of coordinates per minute (or whatever the time limit is). Here are the two I know of, but maybe there are others (and maybe there are apps, as well):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/vision&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.chess.com/vision&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/training/coordinate&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://lichess.org/training/coordinate&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Personally I've found that studying openings (and to a certain extent, checkmate patterns) helps learn coordinates because you start associating coordinates with certain moves, which gives each square its own &quot;personality&quot;. For example, c4 is not just c4 anymore; it is the square where the bishop goes in the Italian game, or where the pawn goes in the queen's gambit. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12523" LastActivityDate="2018-10-05T22:56:37.410" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22616" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-10-06T13:06:34.327" Score="7" ViewCount="944" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/OiIxD.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What if there's a touch move rule, and my knight or bishop is blocking my king, and I touch it. Is that a checkmate? If not, what is it called?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17506" LastEditorUserId="3833" LastEditDate="2020-01-23T14:01:48.210" LastActivityDate="2020-01-23T17:05:15.187" Title="Is this considered checkmate if I touch a piece which can't make a legal move?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;pins&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22617" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22616" CreationDate="2018-10-06T13:15:16.653" Score="21" Body="&lt;p&gt;No. The touch-move rule can't force you to make an illegal move, and it is not legal to put yourself in check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's what the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/component/handbook/?id=208&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE laws of chess&lt;/a&gt; say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;4.5 If none of the pieces touched in accordance with Article 4.3 or&#xA;  Article 4.4 can be moved or captured, the player may make any legal&#xA;  move&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12523" LastEditorUserId="12523" LastEditDate="2018-10-06T13:21:04.347" LastActivityDate="2018-10-06T13:21:04.347" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22619" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22607" CreationDate="2018-10-07T07:11:55.123" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I good youtube site is maintained by ChessDiagnostic:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBnaQU92Z4qaNsIwkxV0GNA/videos&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBnaQU92Z4qaNsIwkxV0GNA/videos&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He has a series of lectures.&#xA;Look at: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzGKPxJ5NYI&amp;amp;t=1003s&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzGKPxJ5NYI&amp;amp;t=1003s&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17458" LastActivityDate="2018-10-07T07:11:55.123" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22620" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-10-07T14:54:50.163" Score="3" ViewCount="159" Body="&lt;p&gt;for my A-level computing project I was going to do an investigation into a type of engine design which incorporates Neural Networks that I haven't seen elsewhere; as part of this project I need to base my specification around the recipients of the outcomes for investigative projects (hopefully you guys).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My current design idea is this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;For a given position, A neural network will evaluate the position and spit out two values: how good it is for white/black, and a value representing how much will be gained from analysing this position further.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;All of this information (along with the depth) could then be combined to determine whether the engine should analyse to a layer further down in the decision tree or return the first value (how good the position is for white) so that it could then be used as a &quot;leaf&quot; in the decision tree that could then be analysed by mini-max (along with suitable pruning algorithms) to give an overall analysis of a given move.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;To train the neural network: I was going to play two networks against each other and analyse their evaluations of the certain moments in the game post-game to tell them (using back propagation) where they should look deeper or evaluate a certain position as better/worse based on who won the match. I think this method is similar to policy gradients. Another approach I was looking into was a genetic algorithm however I was sceptical of whether I have nearly enough processing power available to me seen as I'm doing this all on my laptop :(&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would be very grateful if you could answer these questions for me:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Have you seen any similar projects like this before?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;What are any pitfalls that you could see with this method?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;would you consider using a similar method in your engines? Why/ why not?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;how would you alter this investigative project so that it could benefit you more personally?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Would you use the genetic algorithm approach?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks a lot in advance for any replies!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17511" LastEditorUserId="17511" LastEditDate="2018-10-07T16:56:31.793" LastActivityDate="2018-12-10T23:01:25.253" Title="Guidance on a new idea for an engine design?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;alphazero&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22621" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-10-07T15:23:14.950" Score="3" ViewCount="442" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am doing tactics 30 minutes a day, practicing end games for about 90 minutes and analyzing 1 GM annotated game a day.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can understand the logic behind why the move is played, but I can't apply it in my own game. I can't understand what the position is asking. I can know my opponent is making a mistake but I can't find a way to punish it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My Elo rating is 1335. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there any books to solve these problems?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17488" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-10-17T17:47:08.887" LastActivityDate="2019-01-21T18:00:43.280" Title="How to improve my game" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;books&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="7" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22622" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22620" CreationDate="2018-10-08T10:52:53.943" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I see three ways of tackling this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You can add a confidence value to you position evaluation function. And then use this to improve your tree search. This sounds amenable to mathematical analysis, you'd have to adapt min-max search to handle a trade-off between confidence and evaluation.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You can output a distribution of evaluations instead of a single numerical value. And again use this information to improve tree search. That's similar to the one above.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You directly output a &quot;how much compute should be spent on this position&quot;-value.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The second thing has been done in some of Deepmind's video game reinforcement learning projects. So you might want to take a look at that. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I haven't seen anything like this for turn-based board games. It certainly sounds like a sensible idea. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to do the third thing you need to figure out how to capture and backpropagate &quot;how much compute should be spent on this position&quot;. That doesn't sound trivial and is not guaranteed to work, but it would be pretty neat and it would tilt your work more towards Deep Learning kinda stuff. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No, you should not use genetic algorithms. It's almost always better to optimise your function non-randomly. In your case backpropagation is highly likely to be much more efficient. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One pitfall is that even backpropagation might not be efficient enough. If you train your networks from scratch by self-play on your laptop, it is possible that the learning never really takes off. Self-play doesn't provide enough information for efficient learning, which is why AlphaZero and co use humongous amounts of compute.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So it might be more sensible to plan your training in such a way that it can use existing games. Then evaluation and confidence can be learned without doing any tree-search yourself. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2018-10-08T10:52:53.943" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22623" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22621" CreationDate="2018-10-08T13:46:23.130" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not any good books, as most use tactics as the only guide. however you can practice yourself.  Solitaire chess, where you try to guess the move--and the reason--before reading it from the annotated game, is the best practice, yet has the major flaw of not considering every style of play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A must read for everyone is Nimzovitsch's My System.  Botvinnik's game are useful for showing how to maneuver, which is useful for exploiting positional mistakes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thinking Techniques (written by Dr. Ferguson ~ 1982)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BEFORE EVERY MOVE...THINK:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;What new threat(s) has my opponent's last move created?  How can I answer it(them)?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Is my King safe?  Is my opponent threatening to checkmate in the next few moves?  Can I checkmate my opponent?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;What threats can I set up?  How?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Have I seen this position or a similar one before?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If so:  who stands better, and what is the best plan for continuing?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If not:  what are the outstanding features and elements of this position, and what plan(s) and method(s) of achieving it are available?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;What is my plan?  What specific position would I like to obtain?  How can I achieve my goal? How can I improve my position?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Which move is best?  Can I capture material without penalty? Can I employ an tactical device?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Is it safe to move my piece to the square I'm thinking about?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Did I remember to start my opponent's clock and write down my move?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not as useful as I hoped, but without a game example or more definite  problems, it's hard to provide a specific answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9684" LastActivityDate="2018-10-08T13:46:23.130" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22624" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22607" CreationDate="2018-10-09T00:29:31.143" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not an answer for all situations, but let me share with you something that helped me in some specific situations. One big mistake I was making at one stage was to look at my opponents move, deem quickly that it looked innocuous, dismiss it, and continue with whatever attack plan I had previously formulated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The mistake I made was to treat seemingly innocuous moves with less caution than other moves which presented an immediate threat. After a while, I learned that seemingly innocuous moves require MORE caution. If your opponent has made a move which doesn't immediately seem to improve her position, you are probably missing something. Sure, sometimes it is just a poor player or a bad move. But in my experience, it is more likely that they are seeing something you are not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So when your opponent makes such a move, alarm bells should be ringing. Where could that piece move to next? Think about the best position for that piece, does this move help them get there? What rows or columns does it open up for their rooks? What diagonals does it open up for their bishops? These are all questions you need to ask when such a move is made.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16234" LastActivityDate="2018-10-09T00:29:31.143" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22625" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22626" CreationDate="2018-10-09T09:56:08.843" Score="2" ViewCount="549" Body="&lt;p&gt;I play chess regularly, about 1600 rated. Sometimes I want to play chess on my phone (Android). The chess app I use, Chess free, is strong enough. However, it does not play regular openings, so when I am preparing for a regular match, it is quite useless.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does anyone know any good apps that play regular openings and are otherwise also decent overall?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's kind of a broad question, but I thought it's worth a shot here,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16247" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-10-17T17:46:51.167" LastActivityDate="2018-10-17T17:46:51.167" Title="Which chess app plays regular openings" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;computer-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22626" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22625" CreationDate="2018-10-09T10:06:52.373" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;what is regular opening(are you going to study 1.E4 C5 2. Na3 because Magnus Carlsen played it)? and any app that supports opening book (chessbase, arena, chessmaster, etc) will play whatever you set in the book. also if you are 1600 - you should study chess, learn strategy, position evaluation and there will be enough opening information for you how to start game if you just read trough good book of 400-600 chess miniatures - they very well show and emphasize what are bad moves in opening that lead to quick loss and also you will learn what are good moves and approach in the opening. At your level opening is not the problem definitely! (My highest ELO was 2650 and I never studied openings explicitly - I always got them as side effect from the other studies)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17448" LastActivityDate="2018-10-09T10:06:52.373" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22627" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23968" CreationDate="2018-10-09T13:25:02.027" Score="8" ViewCount="487" Body="&lt;p&gt;How many openings does a typical (national/international level) tournament player usually know and play?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance: in a tournament, can I expect that a player will either open &lt;code&gt;1.d4&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;1.e4&lt;/code&gt; consistently when they have white? And, if black plays (for instance) &lt;code&gt;1...e6&lt;/code&gt;, can I expect their move 2 to be always the same? How long of an opening line will they typically follow without changes (given the opportunity)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or maybe they have a single opening that they play 80% of the time, for instance, and then they change completely when they feel like doing something different?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am not speaking about top-level matches such as a world champion match, where many matches between the same two players are played with a lot of preparation, and I can expect them to vary a bit more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12957" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T16:52:55.617" Title="How big is the &quot;opening book&quot; of a typical tournament player" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;tournament&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="8" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22629" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22454" CreationDate="2018-10-09T23:47:01.860" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;just posted: blog article answering this very question&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessable.com/blog/2018/10/05/play-chess-in-london/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.chessable.com/blog/2018/10/05/play-chess-in-london/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9766" LastActivityDate="2018-10-09T23:47:01.860" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22630" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22625" CreationDate="2018-10-10T12:54:44.033" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the chess.com app, you can play in human-vs-human mode and at any time replace one of the human players by a computer. This way, you can play the first moves yourself, for the two players, and then once the opening position you want is achieved, you switch one of the players to a computer, and it will do its best for there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8235" LastActivityDate="2018-10-10T12:54:44.033" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22632" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19076" CreationDate="2018-10-11T14:45:24.070" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can easily craft your own anki decks based on pgn files. You just need to craft a .csv file that has on the first column the FEN positions as [fen]setup[/fen] and on the second column the solution. If you import the csv in Anki, you'll end up with cards that have the board set up in one side and the annotation on the other side. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wrote a guide on how to manipulate pgn to craft csv files can be found here:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://jpr.space/posts/linux-anki-chess/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://jpr.space/posts/linux-anki-chess/&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11055" LastEditorUserId="11055" LastEditDate="2018-10-11T14:48:27.677" LastActivityDate="2018-10-11T14:48:27.677" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22633" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22625" CreationDate="2018-10-11T18:40:13.920" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;From my experience Chess Genius (for Android and iOS) plays rather mainstream openings, if that's the meaning of your question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastActivityDate="2018-10-11T18:40:13.920" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22634" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22635" CreationDate="2018-10-12T03:02:15.207" Score="12" ViewCount="7287" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If I touch a piece with my forearm by accident, can my opponent call touch-move?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If the answer is &quot;no&quot;, what if after my opponent calls touch-move, I believe him and move the touch piece before calling the arbiter - can I take it back?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastEditorUserId="7792" LastEditDate="2018-10-12T11:40:50.937" LastActivityDate="2018-10-12T11:40:50.937" Title="If I touch a piece with my forearm by accident, can my opponent call touch-move?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2018-10-14T15:53:49.173" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22635" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22634" CreationDate="2018-10-12T03:25:24.687" Score="32" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to the 2018 FIDE Laws of Chess (emphasis mine):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;4.2.1 Only the player having the move may adjust one or more pieces on their squares,&#xA;  provided that he first expresses his intention (for example by saying “j’adoube” or “I&#xA;  adjust”).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;4.2.2 Any other physical contact with a piece, &lt;strong&gt;except for clearly accidental contact&lt;/strong&gt;, shall be considered to be intent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;4.3 Except as provided in Article 4.2, if the player having the move touches on the&#xA;  chessboard, with the intention of moving or capturing:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  4.3.1 one or more of his own pieces, he must move the first piece touched that can be moved&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Touching with a forearm seems to be &quot;clearly accidental contact&quot;, so it shouldn't trigger the touch move rules.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the scenario where you move the piece because your opponent said you must, and then want to take it back, it's less clear. You generally cannot take back moves (and, if you've moved, then obviously you &lt;em&gt;have&lt;/em&gt; now touched the piece with the intent of moving it.) However, your opponent has acted inappropriately; at the very least they've distracted you during your move. It's possible the arbiter would give some sort of penalty for this, especially if your opponent knew touch-move didn't really apply. You should summon the arbiter as soon as possible to get a ruling.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2018-10-12T03:25:24.687" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22636" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-10-12T12:17:27.777" Score="3" ViewCount="111" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'am looking for openings with white and black against strong junior players, which are mostly tactical beasts but not good at endgame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16120" LastActivityDate="2018-10-12T14:23:36.940" Title="Which openings (black/white) should man play against a player, who is not good at endgame but a tactical beast?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22637" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22616" CreationDate="2018-10-12T12:20:51.247" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, that's not a checkmate. The white bishop is currently pinned (in absolute pin because it protects the king from check by Black's rook), so there's no legal move can be made by that bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In short, this situation has no consequences, and you still can touch the king to continue play since touch-move rule doesn't apply for pieces in absolute pin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that the checkmate only occurs if:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;the king is under threat (in check);&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;the checked king doesn't have any legal move to eliminate the threat (by capturing the attacking piece, moving to other square or interposing with other piece).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similar issue: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessvariants.com/d.chess/matefaq.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;What happens if you touch a pinned piece?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12134" LastActivityDate="2018-10-12T12:20:51.247" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22638" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22636" CreationDate="2018-10-12T12:53:54.943" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I typically play double fianchetto (g3,b3 with white and g6,b6 with black); further pawn structure depends on responses; also sometimes playing b4,g4 - but that's more for speed chess; as general idea - some closed position where smart maneuvering matters and no direct encounters in opening if possible - or open 1,2 files and try to exchange few pieces&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17448" LastActivityDate="2018-10-12T12:53:54.943" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22639" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22636" CreationDate="2018-10-12T14:12:24.880" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is no guarantee to avoid big tactical complications in a chess game, regardless of the opening / defense played. Anyway, my advice would be to look at Ulf Andersson's opening repertoire with either color to maximize your chanches of playing an (early) endgame. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastEditorUserId="8291" LastEditDate="2018-10-12T14:23:36.940" LastActivityDate="2018-10-12T14:23:36.940" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22640" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-10-12T16:55:50.477" Score="12" ViewCount="806" Body="&lt;p&gt;Capturing a piece or moving a pawn irreversibly changes the state of the game and thus resets the counter for the 50-move rule. Since castling irreversible changes the state of the game too, it seems to me that it should reset the move counter too, but it does not. Why is that?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17538" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-01-05T21:10:12.383" LastActivityDate="2021-01-05T21:10:12.383" Title="Why doesn't castling reset the 50 moves rule?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;castling&gt;&lt;50-move-rule&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="10" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22641" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-10-12T17:26:15.320" Score="5" ViewCount="365" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a fairly low skill player and am wanting to improve my game, but I feel as though I need to gain at least a bit more speed in my decision making to make better progress. I am a fairly analytical person and because of this I tend to over-analyze a situation and take an extremely long time to deliberate my moves. For example, I have played casual games with friends that ended up taking 2 hours to complete mostly because of my slow-decision making. I really think if I could speed up my gameplay I'd be able to play more games in less time and see more benefit out of that. It would also mean less irritation when playing in person games, which would also be nice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would like to clarify that I understand speed isn't normally a main focus for beginners when compared to learning tactics and gaining a more general understanding of the game. However, in my case (and I am sure other people like me) it is a concern. I have considered many options to remedy this issue, such as trying to play with a time-limit, but I fear that may just cause me to rush and make a lot of mistakes. Would I be better off to put in more time to studying tactics and moves so that I just recognize ideal choices faster? I didn't see any questions involving the same problem and any advice here would be helpful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17536" LastEditorUserId="13023" LastEditDate="2018-10-17T13:39:33.520" LastActivityDate="2021-04-21T14:11:19.360" Title="How should a beginner improve gameplay speed?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;beginner&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22642" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22641" CreationDate="2018-10-12T18:09:44.277" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Treat the game less serious. !!! &#xA;It's only a game and since you think you are still a beginner then what's the harm. A lot of moves or combinations will become more familiar when you play more and more. Don't be afraid to make a mistake. It's only a game.&#xA;Try online chess portals for rapid or blitz games. &#xA;You'll see. It's fun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17516" LastEditorUserId="17536" LastEditDate="2018-10-12T18:31:23.650" LastActivityDate="2018-10-12T18:31:23.650" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22643" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22640" CreationDate="2018-10-12T22:01:58.943" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't know the reason, but I can make a guess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In standard algebraic notation, it's fairly easy to look at a scoresheet and see whether a capture has been made or a pawn moved.  Captures have an &quot;x&quot; in them, and pawn moves don't have a piece listed. But if loss of castling rights also triggered the 50 move rule, you'd have to look at the rest of the game (instead of just the last 50 moves) to see whether castling rights had previously been lost. This would seem to increase the burden on arbiters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, it's rather unusual for this to matter. Most people are going to move their king (and/or both rooks) before they reach a point in the game where the 50 move rule would begin to apply.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2018-10-12T22:01:58.943" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22644" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-10-13T00:34:16.480" Score="5" ViewCount="216" Body="&lt;p&gt;When a blindfold expert plays several players simultaneously, there is a tacit assumption that the players will not collude.  But suppose that the players are allowed to collude, and their goal is to maximize the chances of making the expert lose track of or forget the exact configuration on at least one of the boards.  (I'm assuming that they do this not by indulging in unsportsmanlike behavior unrelated to chess itself, but only by judicious move selection.)  What strategy should they adopt?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I suspect that a good strategy would be to choose very similar but slightly different moves, like playing b6 and g6 and then shuffling the bishops back and forth in some random manner.  If the expert is using memory palaces or some such technique then it will be challenging to come up with mnemonics that accurately distinguish between such similar positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Have any blindfold experts prepared for the possibility of such collusion?  What strategies worry them most?  How many simultaneous blindfold games would be possible if this kind of collusion were allowed?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17540" LastActivityDate="2019-07-23T20:02:40.337" Title="Collusion in a simultaneous blindfold exhibition" Tags="&lt;simultaneous&gt;&lt;blindfold-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22645" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4" CreationDate="2018-10-13T04:38:32.880" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Besides pieces, you can also give free moves, but both change the game. Playing while down a queen isn't about how well you can play chess, it's about how well you can predict your opponent's moves. Good chess is about making moves that are good no matter what your opponent does, not about correctly guessing what blunder your opponent will make. This is similar to how in games in general, there's only so much that a handicap can make up for bad AI.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Something that changes the game less is to give one player more time, but the problem with that is that there's a limit to how much advantage that gives: at some point, the weaker is taking so much time that the stronger player is simply using the weaker player's move to think. If the stronger player can think through two half-moves in less time that it takes the weaker player to think through one half-move, then giving the weaker player more time just helps the stronger player. This effect can be reduced by having two or more weaker players play the stronger player simultaneously. Playing blindfolded can also be a handicap, but how much this hurts a player varies.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another variant, that is similar to ldog's suggestion:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The weaker may, when making a move, call out a positive integer. If they have not done so before, it is optional, but once they call out a number, all further moves must be accompanied by a positive integer less than the previous one. If this is not possible (i.e., the previous number was 1), and the move is not checkmate, they lose. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Until the stronger player calls out a number, the weaker can switch sides/colors freely. Once the stronger calls out a number, the weaker player can switch sides at any time, but this switch is permanent, and the weaker player now has that many turns to deliver checkmate. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15221" LastActivityDate="2018-10-13T04:38:32.880" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22646" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-10-13T08:10:26.057" Score="1" ViewCount="262" Body="&lt;p&gt;How to play vs 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 Nxd4? Assuming that we want to recapture, is it better to take the d4 Knight or the e5 Pawn?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastActivityDate="2018-10-14T07:42:13.197" Title="How to play vs 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 Nxd4?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;1.e4&gt;&lt;scotch-game&gt;&lt;open-games&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22647" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22646" CreationDate="2018-10-13T09:22:17.400" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;After 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 Nxd4, both 4.Nxd4 and 4.Nxe5 seem to lead to an advantage for white. However, it's hard to tell which of the two options is best. Therefore it's a matter of taste.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4.Nxd4 exd4 5.Qxd4 transposes to the Scottish main line, where black played the inferior 4....Nxd4. This option is the easiest for white: white stays in his repertoire after 3....exd4, unless he wanted to play a Scottish gambit line, e.g. 4.Bc4 or 4.c3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, 4.Nxe5 also yields an advantage for white. After 4....Nc6 5.Nxc6, white has an extra tempo compared to 3....exd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nxc6. Instead, black can retreat with 4....Ne6. According to the &lt;a href=&quot;http://chesstempo.com/game-database.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Game Database of ChessTempo&lt;/a&gt;, 5.Bc4 is the most popular reply, but 5.g3 seems an interesting alternative.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit:&lt;/strong&gt; It's important to mention that, after 4.Nxe5, 4....Bc5 is a mistake. One refutation is 5.Nxf7, given by Evargalo, as white regains the piece after 5....Kxf7 6.Qh5+. Instead, black should complicate matters by 5....Qe7 or 5....Qh4. According to Stockfish 9, play should continue with 6.Nxh8 Qxe4+ 7.Be3 Nxc2+ 8.Kd2. Another refutation is the natural 5.Be3. Once again the Nxf7-idea comes into play: 5....Ne6 6.Bxc5 Nxc5 7.Nxf7 Kxf7 8.Qh5+. Black can avoid material losses by 5....Qh4, as 6.Bxd4 is answered by 6....Qxe4+. Nevertheless, white obtains a clear advantage after 6.Nc3 Ne6 7.g3 Qf6 8.Nc4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;      [StartPly &quot;5&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;      [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;      1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 Nxd4 (3...exd4 4.Nxd4 (4.c3)(4.Bc4) Nxd4 (4...Nf6 5.Nxc6) 5.Qxd4) 4.Nxe5 (4.Nxd4 exd4 5.Qxd4) Bc5? (4...Nc6 5.Nxc6)(4...Ne6 5.Bc4 (5.g3)) 5.Be3 (5.Nxf7 Qe7 (5...Kxf7 6.Qh5+)(5...Qh4 6.Nxh8 Qxe4+) 6.Nxh8 Qxe4+ 7.Be3 Nxc2+ 8.Kd2 Bxe3+ 9.fxe3 Nxa1 10.Nc3) Qh4 (5...Ne6 6.Bxc5 Nxc5 7.Nxf7 Kxf7 8.Qh5+) 6.Nc3 (6.Bxd4 Qxe4+) Ne6 7.g3 Qf6 8.Nc4&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4588" LastEditorUserId="4588" LastEditDate="2018-10-14T07:42:13.197" LastActivityDate="2018-10-14T07:42:13.197" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22648" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22650" CreationDate="2018-10-13T12:15:47.030" Score="8" ViewCount="3739" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to the chess.com DB, 3.e4 is the third most popular reply in the Queen's Gambit Accepted - but why isn't it the most popular by a long shot? Isn't the entire point to remove black's central d-pawn so white can play a strong e2-e4? The moves 3.Nf3 and 3.e3 seem passive almost, but surely I am missing something. Maybe e2-e4 is taking up too much space too early, and you end up overextending yourself?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10779" LastEditorUserId="10779" LastEditDate="2018-10-13T12:52:51.123" LastActivityDate="2019-12-30T07:35:00.757" Title="Why isn't 3.e4 more popular in the QGA?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;queens-gambit&gt;&lt;queens-gambit-accepted&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22649" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22670" CreationDate="2018-10-13T12:55:50.247" Score="6" ViewCount="325" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the Sicilian Taimanov, after the opening moves&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[StartPly &quot;12&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 e6 5.Nc3 Qc7 6.Be3 a6 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;7.Qf3 has become popular recently. I find it still a bit strange move however...What is (or are) the main ideas and perhaps tactical themes behind this move?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-09-11T00:32:58.147" LastActivityDate="2020-09-11T00:32:58.147" Title="What is the main idea of 7.Qf3 in the Sicilian Taimanov?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;&lt;sicilian-taimanov&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22650" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22648" CreationDate="2018-10-13T15:35:48.873" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure which database you are looking at: I see 3.e4 as the second, not third, most popular choice on chess.com, though not by much:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/dI82L.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/dI82L.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's what one author says about 3.Nf3:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Throughout the history of the Queen’s Gambit Accepted, this has been&#xA;  White’s most popular move in this position. White does not hurry to&#xA;  win back the pawn that he has sacrificed. He calmly develops his&#xA;  pieces and offers his opponent as few targets for an immediate&#xA;  counterattack as possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sterren, Paul Van der. FCO: Fundamental Chess Openings (Kindle Locations 1487-1489). Gambit Publications. Kindle Edition. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and about 3.e4:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;For a long time this very natural reaction to 2... dxc4 suffered the&#xA;  same fate as 3 e3 and 3 Nc3: it was thought to be inaccurate because&#xA;  of 3... e5. The difference is that in this case White has the&#xA;  promising pawn sacrifice 4 Nf3! exd4 5 Bxc4!, when his development is&#xA;  swift and aggressive and Black will have to take great care in getting&#xA;  his king into safety. This is in fact a lively variation with chances&#xA;  for both sides.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[...]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Another standard device for counterattacking against the white centre&#xA;  consists in 3... c5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sterren, Paul Van der. FCO: Fundamental Chess Openings (Kindle Locations 1438-1441). Gambit Publications. Kindle Edition. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My take is that it is not that 3.e4 is bad (it actually has better statistical results for White!), but it is a matter of taste and more people prefer to play more solidly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12523" LastActivityDate="2018-10-13T15:35:48.873" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22651" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22621" CreationDate="2018-10-13T17:36:05.650" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;This is the training regiment I did to go from 0 to Master level in 2 years.&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Watch/Complete all the Josh Waitzkin  &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHE9kgXX1YA&amp;amp;index=1&amp;amp;list=PLr5vRrAZ6TMwiF8r3tUo5kdHWY94Bzf2Z&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess Master Lessons&lt;/a&gt;. Vital.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;10 Tactics a day on &lt;a href=&quot;http://chesstempo.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;ChessTempo&lt;/a&gt; on hardest difficulty, standard no time limit. Take a minimum of 20 minutes for each tactic. The goal is to train your brain to calculate accurately. That involves being patient, vigilant, disciplined and careful with each move you make. I often take +1 hours on a single move.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Have exactly 1 correspondence chess game on &lt;a href=&quot;http://chess.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chess.com&lt;/a&gt; or &lt;a href=&quot;http://lichess.org&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;lichess.org&lt;/a&gt; with a 3 day per move time limit. Every day work on playing 1 move in this game as accurately as possible.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Iron Rules to follow for all the above.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;No Blitz, NEVER, Blitz only serves to reinforce bad habits. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If you don't see the solution DO NOT MOVE. When you see the solution, look for a better move, ask yourself what can I see/learn from the position that I did not see before. Sit there until you learn something new about the position.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Develop a challenger's mindset. Make everything into a challenge. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;All time spent on chess has to be focused on developing good habits. It's not about winning, it's about learning. If you did not learn you failed, wasted your time.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Your only goal is to be better then you where yesterday, if you're not, you lost. This is the game you're now playing. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Vital Questions/Reminders to keep in mind.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Ask high quality questions, at key moments. Example: Before making a move you spent +10 minutes calculating. Pause, ask yourself, what can I learn about this position that I don't already know? Don't move until you see/learn something new. This is one of the most powerful questions you can ask yourself in chess or in life. This will train the brain to see the possibilities. Eventually this question will become rooted into the subconscious. Where it's being asked constantly (... THE GOAL, THE POINT). &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Chess is a game against yourself. Chess shows you the limits of your mind. The only way to progress is to identify bad habits and vigilantly replace them with  better habits. This involves developing high levels of honest self awareness. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9106" LastEditorDisplayName="user7637" LastEditDate="2019-01-21T18:00:43.280" LastActivityDate="2019-01-21T18:00:43.280" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22653" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22640" CreationDate="2018-10-13T23:10:56.210" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;After some discussions in the comment section I think it's time for me to start answering this question to the best of my understanding. First off, let's discuss the use of the concept &quot;the state of the game&quot;. Although I sort of understand what you're trying to say I still wonder about weird cases such as the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;e4, e6 2. e5, d5 3. Nf3&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Has the &quot;state&quot; of the game changed on move 3, since white was allowed to capture the d5 pawn en passant before, but is now unable to do so after the third move? According to you, this would mean that the 50 move rule counter should be reset not on 2...d5 but instead on 3. Nf3. Since you only give examples of what would change the &quot;state&quot; of the game rather than a definition of what a state-changing move should constitute explicitly it is difficult to know exactly what you're trying to convey when using this concept. Please feel free to comment what you think should happen in the above scenario.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's go on to talk about the reasoning behind a rule such as the 50 move rule. What is the purpose behind it? The purpose is to force players who refuse to accept a draw to demonstrate an actual plan of action for winning the game. This is done by forcing the stubborn player to eventually try to either&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a) resolve the situation on the board somehow by capturing/trading material, or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;b) to make some progress in the position by pushing a pawn forward, presumably trying to queen it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If none of actions a) or b) are taken within 50 moves, then it's determined that neither of the players is making an honest attempt at winning the game, and it's up to either player's discretion to make a draw claim when the move limit has been reached. Nowadays it is possible to show with the help of tablebases that there are indeed positions where one side can force a checkmate but has to shuffle pieces around for way more than just 50 moves before either of actions a) or b) can be taken, however the rule still stands. This is because of the fact that positions where one side can force a win only if they're given more than 50 moves of piece shuffling are extremely rare, and in practice impossible to determine for human arbiters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With the above motivation of the 50 move rule in place, what is the case for amending the 50 move rule to include castling as a move counter-resetting move? All in all, it doesn't really try to resolve any situation on the board by making a capture, and it does not try to make some sort of progress either by moving a pawn forward. The only thing castling really does is to shuffle two pieces along the first rank. Sure, after castling once you may not castle again, but what does that have to do with attempting to make progress of some sort in a game of chess in contrast to other moves made by other light/heavy pieces?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8300" LastActivityDate="2018-10-13T23:10:56.210" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22654" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-10-14T02:33:48.217" Score="3" ViewCount="229" Body="&lt;p&gt;Played a decent amount of bughouse but only started with crazyhouse a month or less ago. Although on the surface very similar games, I would say they are fundamentally different because there is no partner and so crazyhouse is &quot;deterministic.&quot; I think that bughouse must be more popular if only because all that is required to play are two boards and two standard sets whereas crazyhouse is much better suited to online (I guess you could have bicolored pieces to play live.) So is crazyhouse catching on at all? Has anyone seen a set that would allow playing live? (I note there is not yet a tag for crazyhouse.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17420" LastEditorUserId="8201" LastEditDate="2019-12-28T04:57:13.577" LastActivityDate="2019-12-28T04:57:13.577" Title="Crazyhouse Chess: Playing with a real board and overall popularity?" Tags="&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;bughouse&gt;&lt;crazyhouse&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22655" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22621" CreationDate="2018-10-14T02:39:47.460" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Spending more time definitely helps, but I do believe the most important thing is to think.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you mention that you analyse 1 GM annotated game, do you try making a move first, before seeing what the grandmaster has done?  That would be really effective.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I understand that you have difficulty seizing the opportunity of mistakes your opponents make.  If it’s a blunder, I presume that it is rather simple to convert it to a win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What if it’s a strategic mistake?  Even as a 2000 Elo player on chess.com I am still prone, occasionally to overlooking such mistakes in a game.  Subtle things like isolated pawns and overloaded pieces are what can be taken advantage of.  However,any often overlook this, giving the opponent the time to correct himself; it’s usually easier to see how you can win in your opponent’s shoes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hence, you should practice, playing maybe 20-30 minutes rapid games, and train yourself.  Over time, you can get better and develop faster instincts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15357" LastActivityDate="2018-10-14T02:39:47.460" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22656" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22640" CreationDate="2018-10-14T09:13:25.353" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Capturing and move pawns are not reversible, in the sense that the position occurring before the capture or the pawn move cannot any longer occur in that game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To make an example, after 1 e4 d5 2 e:d5 there's no way back: white will never have a pawn in e2 again so Black's with the d7 pawn. Also, Black will never have 8 pawns again.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Castling in not irreversible in this sense. After, say, white castling king side it is not unconcievable that the King may return in e1 and the rook in h1 with the position prior to castling occuring again on the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="446" LastActivityDate="2018-10-14T09:13:25.353" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22657" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-10-14T11:02:05.217" Score="4" ViewCount="269" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can reach a draw with White in the below position. The Stockfish 9, however, gives 28.1 points for black after Kf3,Ba1,Ke4,Bb2,Kd3. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/p7/kpP5/qrp1b3/rpP2b2/pP4b1/P3K3/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Kf3 Ba1 2. Ke4 Bb2 3. Kd3 Ba1 4. Ke4 Bb2 5. Kd3 Ba1 6. Ke4 Bb2 7. Kd3 Ba1 8. Ke4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why Stockfish 9 fails to see the draw?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17550" LastActivityDate="2018-10-14T11:36:31.797" Title="Why Stockfish 9 fails to see the draw?" Tags="&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22658" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-10-14T11:23:50.637" Score="4" ViewCount="417" Body="&lt;p&gt;When a chess engine sees a position &lt;em&gt;p&lt;/em&gt; repeated once (i.e. position &lt;em&gt;p&lt;/em&gt; occurred twice) it immediately assigns the second occurrence of position &lt;em&gt;p&lt;/em&gt; a draw score. This makes sense because position &lt;em&gt;p&lt;/em&gt; doesn't need to occur thrice in order for the chess engine to realize that it's not making progress (i.e. a twofold repetition is just as drawn as a threefold repetition).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many chess engines do just this. They assign a draw score to all twofold repetitions. However, some of the best chess engines such as Stockfish and Ethereal don't assign a draw score to all twofold repetitions. If the first occurrence of position &lt;em&gt;p&lt;/em&gt; is not strictly after the root node then they don't assign a draw score to the twofold repetition. Instead, the position needs to be repeated twice (i.e. it needs to be a threefold repetition) in order for it to be assigned a draw score.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, consider the following &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/AndyGrant/Ethereal/blob/10a2c2f9cf2dfc0f4a3d172037bb6003bb1074e3/src/board.c#L316-L335&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;code&gt;drawnByRepetition&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/a&gt; function from the Ethereal source code:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;int drawnByRepetition(Board *board, int height) {&#xA;&#xA;    int reps = 0;&#xA;&#xA;    // Look through hash histories for our moves&#xA;    for (int i = board-&amp;gt;numMoves - 2; i &amp;gt;= 0; i -= 2) {&#xA;&#xA;        // No draw can occur before a zeroing move&#xA;        if (i &amp;lt; board-&amp;gt;numMoves - board-&amp;gt;fiftyMoveRule)&#xA;            break;&#xA;&#xA;        // Check for matching hash with a two fold after the root,&#xA;        // or a three fold which occurs in part before the root move&#xA;        if (    board-&amp;gt;history[i] == board-&amp;gt;hash&#xA;            &amp;amp;&amp;amp; (i &amp;gt; board-&amp;gt;numMoves - height || ++reps == 2))&#xA;            return 1;&#xA;    }&#xA;&#xA;    return 0;&#xA;}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you can see either &lt;code&gt;i&lt;/code&gt; must be greater than the root node (i.e. it must come after the root node) or the position &lt;em&gt;p&lt;/em&gt; needs to be repeated twice (i.e. it must be a threefold repetition) for it to be assigned a draw score.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The chess programming wiki has the following to say about &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessprogramming.org/Repetitions#Assigning_Draw_Score&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;assigning draw score&lt;/a&gt; to repetitions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Threefold repetition implies a position occurred thrice, that is repeated twice. When to score the position as a draw, however, is an entirely different matter. Most programs do this on the first repetition, no matter whether the first occurrence of the repeated position appears in the current search space, or not. Other programs consider that fact, they avoid &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cycle_%28graph_theory%29&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;cycles&lt;/a&gt; inside the current &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessprogramming.org/Search_Tree&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;search tree&lt;/a&gt; to make it a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Directed_acyclic_graph&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;directed acyclic graph&lt;/a&gt; (DAG), but allow a one-fold repetition, if the first occurrence appears in the game history before the current &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessprogramming.org/Root&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;root&lt;/a&gt;. Anyway, to wait for the second repetition one has its pros and cons. The Repetition score is either zero or the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessprogramming.org/Contempt_Factor&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;contempt factor&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It says that &amp;ldquo;to wait for the second repetition one has its pros and cons.&amp;rdquo; So, what exactly are the pros and cons? I couldn't find an explanation as to why top chess engines like Stockfish and Ethereal do this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1109" LastEditorUserId="1109" LastEditDate="2018-10-14T11:29:57.113" LastActivityDate="2018-10-14T15:50:00.670" Title="What's the rationale behind chess engines conditionally allowing threefold repetitions when assigning a draw score?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;programming&gt;&lt;draw&gt;&lt;threefold-repetition&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22659" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22657" CreationDate="2018-10-14T11:36:31.797" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;...... Stockfish isn't designed for solving a position like this. It's being written to play a good game of chess. Your position is not a position that SF should give an equal score.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The engine doesn't understand there's no mating possibility if White does nothing but moving the king. It gives a high score for Black because of the extra materials. Humans wouldn't even consider with any of the pawn capture, but SF has no idea.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately, SF doesn't have the power to solve chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2018-10-14T11:36:31.797" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22660" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="662" CreationDate="2018-10-14T14:08:56.513" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Readers interested in exploring this topic might be interested in a blog post I have written about data mining to find empirical evidence in support of such questions. It is called, &lt;a href=&quot;https://blogs.kent.ac.uk/djb/2018/10/14/chess-game-data-mining-exploring-the-advantage-of-the-bishop-pair-with-pgn-extract/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess game data mining: exploring the advantage of the bishop pair with pgn-extract&lt;/a&gt;. The post discusses some of the results found by Timoshchenko, Kaufmann and Sturman but it is primarily about mining data rather than presenting new results.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12951" LastActivityDate="2018-10-14T14:08:56.513" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22661" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22658" CreationDate="2018-10-14T14:48:48.047" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let's say your engine sees the best moves in a position as +0.08 and +0.06. It plays the +0.08 move and the opponent replies. In the new position, the engine realizes that it was slightly optimistic, and the best continuation is now +0.01 unless it repeats the position. I think it makes more sense for it to evaluate the repetition as +0.06 than a flat 0. It is, after all, &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; an automatic draw to repeat the position once.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is, of course, very possible that after the engine repeats and plays the +0.06 move, it will again find that it was optimistic (perhaps for the same general reason) and now the best move is -0.01. Perhaps it now missed its chance to get the +0.01.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, which scenario is more likely?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2018-10-14T14:48:48.047" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22662" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22666" CreationDate="2018-10-14T14:50:05.940" Score="11" ViewCount="786" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Christian Hesse's book &lt;i&gt;The Joy of Chess&lt;/i&gt; one reads about a mate-in-3 problem composed by Pál Benkö that stumped Bobby Fischer.  Hesse gives the following diagram:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/8/8/4k3/8/8/8/2BQKB2 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, on &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.chessbase.com/post/easter-puzzles-by-benko-a-world-champion-challenge&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;ChessBase&lt;/a&gt; a slightly different diagram is given:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/8/8/8/4k3/8/8/2BQKB2 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Curiously, both of these positions are valid three-movers with the same key move!  But which one is Benkö's actual composition?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17540" LastActivityDate="2019-08-28T13:56:17.520" Title="Benko's three-mover that stumped Fischer" Tags="&lt;history&gt;&lt;problems&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22663" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22665" CreationDate="2018-10-14T15:32:56.167" Score="4" ViewCount="473" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Nf6 4. Ng5 d5 5. exd5 Nxd5 6. Nxf7 Kxf7 7. Qf3+ Ke6 8. Nc3 Ncb4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White can play 9. Qe4 (Old variation protecting c2 square from ... Nxc2+ forking King and Rook and also with attack of d4 etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White can also play 9. a3 allowing 9... Nxc2+ 10. Kd1 Nxa1 allowing Black to attack the Rook. Further White will play strong attacking moves like 11. Nxd5 etc. and continue the strong attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Is 5... Nxd5 correct or he should go to main line of Two Knights Defense with 5... Na5?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;After 5... Nxd5, can White continue with 6. Nxf7 for strong attack?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;After 7. Qf3+, can Black continue with 7... Ke6 challenging White in further game? Hence can we play 7... Ke6 in tournaments and continue our attack and study of opening variations?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Between 9. Qe4 and 9. a3, which variation is better for White?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11904" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2018-10-16T14:19:24.487" LastActivityDate="2018-10-21T04:14:58.243" Title="Giuoco Piano / Two Knights Defense / Fried Liver Attack" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;1.e4&gt;&lt;fried-liver-attack&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22664" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22658" CreationDate="2018-10-14T15:44:38.073" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;It says that “to wait for the second repetition one has its pros and cons.” So, what exactly are the pros and cons? I couldn't find an explanation as to why top chess engines like Stockfish and Ethereal do this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My discussion will be technical, so let's make it as simple as possible. Firstly, let's make be clear about this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If the first occurrence of position p is not strictly after the root node then they don't assign a draw score to the twofold repetition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why would an engine do that? Let's consider &lt;strong&gt;two scenarios&lt;/strong&gt; where we have three-fold repetition during the search. Let's assume we are on move 30th, and the engine is thinking at move 40th.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The position repeated and played on the board, for example, the position occurred on move 24th and 26th.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The position &lt;strong&gt;never&lt;/strong&gt; actually played on the board, but it is part of the search. The position occurred at move 35th. (IMPORTANT - only a single repetition)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Scenario 1&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the first scenario, it's a repetition that we all understand. In your code example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;++reps == 2 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, if a position repeated twice earlier in the game &lt;strong&gt;before&lt;/strong&gt; the root (root == current board position), it's a three-fold repetition. Very simple.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Scenario 2&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What about the second scenario? You have the identical position on move 35th, and the same position come back on move 40th. Thus, it's reasonable to assume if you search further you will encounter the position again (for the third repetition). For example, move 45th.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your code example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;i &amp;gt; board-&amp;gt;numMoves - height&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;So, what exactly are the pros and cons?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pros: search quicker and deeper&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Cons: you assume the same position would occur again later in the search (e.g. move 45th), which is not always true&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I couldn't find an explanation as to why top chess engines like Stockfish and Ethereal do this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Search quicker and deeper. Common optimization in modern chess programming.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2018-10-14T15:50:00.670" LastActivityDate="2018-10-14T15:50:00.670" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22665" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22663" CreationDate="2018-10-14T17:33:52.580" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Most people agree that the Fried Liver attack is better for white. So black's 5...Nxd5 is inferior to the less scary 5... Na5. Assuming that black goes in for the Fried liver though, white can play either 6. Nxf7 or 6. d4. Both lead to similar attacks. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the Nxd5 Nxf7 line, however, black's moves are forced until move 8, where black has the choice to defend the pinned knight with Ne7 or Nb4. Any other moves just admit defeat and give back the piece to white for a completely misplaced king and underdeveloped position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most pros play 9. 0-0 or 9. a3. Interestingly, Qe4 is recommended by my engine... but the a3 lines are so good for white, that I don't really see any reason to deviate. Personally, I've only played a3 with good success.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3884" LastActivityDate="2018-10-14T17:33:52.580" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22666" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22662" CreationDate="2018-10-14T18:45:29.150" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can find this chess problem &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/8/8/8/4k3/8/8/2BQKB2 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;on page 582 of Pal Benko's book &quot;My Life, Games and Compositions&quot; 2003 ISBN:1-890085-08-1 which also states it was first published in &quot;Chess life&quot; in 1968, so &lt;strong&gt;ChessBase&lt;/strong&gt; is correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4196" LastActivityDate="2018-10-14T18:45:29.150" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22668" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-10-15T05:11:16.277" Score="2" ViewCount="1226" Body="&lt;p&gt;After decades away from tournament play, I decided to play in an open tourney my child entered. Trying to gauge how my game might have changed during my time away, I found an &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessmaniac.com/ELORating/ELO_Chess_Rating.shtml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;online rating estimator&lt;/a&gt; at &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessmaniac.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess Maniac&lt;/a&gt;. I was surprised to find that it estimated me 500 points stronger than my (USCF) rating - which actually went down about 60 points at the tournament. So, how accurate is this estimator?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: I realize the Chess Maniac page in question is just an estimator. I'm looking for answers indicating that it tends to overrate or underrate players and by how much. If it doesn't have a tendency one way or another, I'd like to know that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="224" LastEditorUserId="224" LastEditDate="2018-10-15T17:57:02.177" LastActivityDate="2021-03-22T03:57:48.450" Title="How accurate is Chess Maniac's online rating estimator?" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;online&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22669" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22668" CreationDate="2018-10-15T08:17:02.983" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Absolutely inaccurate. ELO rating is determined by playing a whole game of chess, not by solving a few positions without any pressure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please play some online games for better estimate of your playing strength.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2018-10-15T08:17:02.983" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22670" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22649" CreationDate="2018-10-15T15:22:48.990" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Main ideas:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Castling long as soon as possible&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The Qf3 will most often move to g3 to pressure g7 and d6, and possibly help the break e4-e5.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Both central files are left for the rooks to apply maximum pressure (unlike after Qd2 or Qe2 developments)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastEditorUserId="14079" LastEditDate="2018-10-15T20:08:47.340" LastActivityDate="2018-10-15T20:08:47.340" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22671" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22654" CreationDate="2018-10-15T16:52:43.267" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Very boring answer: when I was at the university, we used to play it on a real board with two sets of pieces. Whenever you take a piece, you exchange it with one of the correct color.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12957" LastActivityDate="2018-10-15T16:52:43.267" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22672" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22668" CreationDate="2018-10-15T19:41:49.470" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;As I wrote in a comment above, I also believe that it is unrealistic for many reasons.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You could also think about it from a technical point of view. How would you program the evaluation function of that website (No idea whether that code is public or not.)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The best you could do I believe is that you have each of the ten positions analyzed by an engine. Then you match the entered moves to the engine evaluation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;In the simplest case you just accept the best possible move and assign something like 200 ELO points to each correct answer (so as to cover  roughly 2000 ELO point range from beginner level to World Champion). So you have a huge error just from the method used (not including all the other factors I mentioned in the comment).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If you want to do it a bit more fancy you could also accept second, third, etc. best moves and give ELO points for them, perhaps weighted (with an &lt;em&gt;arbitrary&lt;/em&gt; weight). As you can see, all of this seems a bit random.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In summary a few points not related to the technical difficulties mentioned above:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The ELO system is made to measure the &lt;em&gt;relative strength of players&lt;/em&gt;, not the absolute strength (which might not even exist) as this site is trying to achieve. So by design, the ELO rating only tells you how strong you are relative to all other ELO rated players, not how strong you are overall.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Players might have the same rating but completely different strength and weaknesses. How do you expect to measure all the different factors with just 10 puzzles?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2018-10-15T19:41:49.470" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22673" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-10-16T07:20:13.223" Score="7" ViewCount="176" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the following sequence of moves, what are the main ideas of the fashionable 6. Qf3 in the Scotch? Can White hope for a real advantage by letting Black trade Queens so early and worsening (at least from a theoretical point of view) his Pawn structure?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Startply &quot;11&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 exd4 4. Nxd4 Bc5 5. Nxc6 Qf6 6. Qf3 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS: Another strange-looking early Qf3 by White that has become popular recently! Others are in the Sicilian Taimanov and in the Exchange Alekhine... &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2018-10-16T14:13:18.253" LastActivityDate="2018-10-17T20:11:05.207" Title="What are the ideas of 6. Qf3 in the Scotch?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;scotch-game&gt;&lt;open-games&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22674" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22641" CreationDate="2018-10-16T07:22:25.520" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I started playing it was often the case that I lost matched due to timeouts in rapids, but with time the frequency reduced significantly. With experience you will be able to analyze the move quickly than you are able to do now. Don't worry just enjoy the game. Also, You may play more of 1 day or 3 day chess till you feel confident enough.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17557" LastActivityDate="2018-10-16T07:22:25.520" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22675" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22673" CreationDate="2018-10-16T10:10:13.520" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I only see three alternative moves to defend the f2 square: &lt;strong&gt;6.Be3&lt;/strong&gt; Bxe3 7.fxe3 results in doubled isolated center pawns, not something I would like to play with. &lt;strong&gt;6.Qd2&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;6.Qe2&lt;/strong&gt; block the bishops.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I guess it's a matter of what you like to play with. If you block one of your bishops, you can later play the queen again or fianchetto the bishop. &lt;strong&gt;6.Qd2&lt;/strong&gt; and then fianchettoing your dark-squared bishop requires more moves as the black queen controls the b2 square. &lt;strong&gt;6.Qe2&lt;/strong&gt; blocks in your light-squared bishop taking you longer to castle (short).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After &lt;strong&gt;6.Qf3&lt;/strong&gt; Qxf3 7.gxf3 you can still castle long and you have quite a strong centrum pawn formation. Perhaps this looks better than the alternatives.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17145" LastActivityDate="2018-10-16T10:10:13.520" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22676" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1354" CreationDate="2018-10-16T10:44:18.987" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe that there is something about your mindset and way of mentally handling the game from the get go.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I personally play for about 40 years, have been training tactical and studying quite a bit of opening theory as well as some great games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can solve pretty high level tactical problems rated over 2.2k on chess tempo without too much trouble. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, that still doesn't keep me from making an average of one terrible blunder per actual game while playing 15+15 classical games on lichess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The worse part is that when I actually look at the computer analysis and try to understand how I could make that blunder, I often have a hard time to figure it out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is always a reason, but it's often just not enough to explain the blunder by itself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I believe it's related to how you built your basic chess processing system at the very beginning. &#xA;I personally was taught chess when I was young by an overconfident and unskilled player.&#xA;He could probably not even maintain 1200 on lichess...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I believe that it's pretty hard to cure this kind of issue at it's actually rooted deep in your &quot;basic chess system&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only way would require a long term effort to completely enforce a new way of dealing with the game. And the longer you've been using a faulty basic system, the harder it is to get rid of it...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I personally came to the conclusion that the amount of constant efforts that I would need to put into reshaping that system is way beyond the motivation I have to reach the end result.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The one thing that I've found somewhat effective was to actually enforce me to play as if I was the opponent and to end up playing a move that would go against &quot;my&quot; plans.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It doesn't keep me from blundering but it's enough of a different way to apprehend the game to tend to reduce the frequency of those. Unfortunately this mental process is quite boring to me and I rather just not play than bothering with something I just don't enjoy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I just tend to play rapid chess hoping for some nice problem like position to arise...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17558" LastActivityDate="2018-10-16T10:44:18.987" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22677" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22673" CreationDate="2018-10-16T10:53:15.587" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;After 6.Qf3, black can &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Not initiate Q trade 6... gxc6 7. Be2 or Nd2. In this case black's N has some develop problem as Q is blocking its natural f6 square.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Trade Qs 6... Qxf3 7. gxf3 bxc6 8 Be3. And normally after that 8... Bxe3 fxe3. In this case, white has better central control. White's K normally stays behind and guards the e/f pawns. Black's weak a pawn can be more problematic than white's h pawn since white's rook has more room to lift and roll over.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course all these are theoretical and even if they are in white's favor, it's very small.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One variation that's good for white is if black tries to keep pawn formation by taking dxc6. In this case white has a winning king and pawn ending so he can just try and trade everything, starting immediately by trading Qs and dark Bs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7002" LastActivityDate="2018-10-16T10:53:15.587" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22678" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15829" CreationDate="2018-10-16T11:09:17.193" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;King safety is the key. But here in this position there is no such big threat which cannot saved such as mate in 2  or king in the mating cage. So what I would have done was 1.Qxc7 if Rac8?   then Qg3.Taking more pawns and creating pass pawn is good in Queen and rook middlegame. Therefore better would be 1..Qxf3 2.Qg3 Qe2 3.b4 Rac8 4.Rac1 Qb2 5.RxRc8 RxRc8 6.Qg4 Rd8. 7. Rd3! Then our queen comes to d1 square. I have seen many games where opponents make mistakes because of passed pawn pressure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17559" LastEditorUserId="17559" LastEditDate="2018-10-16T11:29:10.787" LastActivityDate="2018-10-16T11:29:10.787" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22679" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22641" CreationDate="2018-10-16T14:45:40.087" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;You should only be spending time on a couple of candidate moves. This might shorten the thinking time if you rapidly dismiss moves that bring nothing to your position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;IM Jeremy Silman says in his book The Amateur's Mind that each move should have at least two purposes (amongst attacking, defending, gaining space, developing, gaining initiative, etc.).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also limit the lines you calculate to one and a half move : your move, the opponent's most likely reply, and then your next move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I hope this helps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11122" LastActivityDate="2018-10-16T14:45:40.087" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22680" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-10-16T15:37:26.773" Score="-1" ViewCount="81" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am teaching chess to beginners and am looking for recommended games to be discussed/analyzed together.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the games should be relatively simple, short and ideally focus on one main theme (e.g. mating attack, weak squares,...&#xA;My main interest is to have very straightforward games, without complicated sidelines, etc. It is not necessary that the games are commented/annotated. It would be good if the games were ordered by theme.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is essential that an electronic version (printable is fine) exists.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are good resources for such games?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2018-10-17T04:13:32.137" Title="Recommended master games for teaching chess" Tags="&lt;beginner&gt;&lt;database&gt;&lt;teaching&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22681" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22648" CreationDate="2018-10-16T19:14:11.043" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I play e3 because I prefer more positional play.  I want to first improve my position before a possible e4.  In a more closed game the loss of tempo is not very important.  That said,  e4 is perfectly playable.  To me, this is a matter of style.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I guess that most players who would play 3. e4 would play 1. e4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17425" LastActivityDate="2018-10-16T19:14:11.043" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22682" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-10-16T20:30:02.867" Score="5" ViewCount="428" Body="&lt;p&gt;Most players use these services to keep up to date on the latest chess results, but how do these services source their databases? It would seem like a prohibitive amount of work to scrape results from various tournament websites, so is there an official source that everyone uses? If it's FIDE, I wasn't able to find it on their site.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tournaments often have a place to turn in your scoresheets, but what happens between that and the game showing up in one of these databases?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="63" LastEditorUserId="13023" LastEditDate="2018-10-17T17:46:29.367" LastActivityDate="2018-10-17T17:46:29.367" Title="How do TWIC, chessgames.com, chessbase, etc. keep up to date with new games?" Tags="&lt;fide&gt;&lt;database&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22683" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22690" CreationDate="2018-10-17T03:28:07.507" Score="4" ViewCount="349" Body="&lt;p&gt;After 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 e5 why is 5. Nb5 the best move?&#xA;The game usually continues 5. Nb5 d6 6. N1c3 a6 7. Na3 and it looks to me like whites knight on a3 is misplaced. What makes this line good for white?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;      [StartPly &quot;8&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;      [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;      1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 e5 5.Nb5 d6 6.N1c3 a6 7.Na3&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14511" LastEditorUserId="4588" LastEditDate="2018-10-17T05:29:39.667" LastActivityDate="2019-06-02T02:38:20.893" Title="Why play Nb5 in this line of the sicilian?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22684" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22680" CreationDate="2018-10-17T03:53:57.570" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Paul Morphy vs Duke Karl / Count Isouard(Opening Principles, Initiative, Basic Tactics)&#xA;PGN: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 Bg4 4.dxe5 Bxf3 5.Qxf3 dxe5 6.Bc4 Nf6 7.Qb3 Qe7&#xA;8.Nc3 c6 9.Bg5 b5 10.Nxb5 cxb5 11.Bxb5+ Nbd7 12.O-O-O Rd8&#xA;13.Rxd7 Rxd7 14.Rd1 Qe6 15.Bxd7+ Nxd7 16.Qb8+ Nxb8 17.Rd8# 1-0&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Kivanc Haznedaroglu vs Jamshed Isaev(King Side Attack, Basic Tactics)&#xA;PGN:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Bxc6 dxc6 5. O-O Bg4 6. h3 h5 7. d3 Qf6 8. Nbd2 Ne7 9. Re1 Ng6 10. d4 Bd6 11. c3 O-O-O 12. Qe2 exd4 13. e5 Bxe5 14. hxg4 hxg4 15. Nxe5 Nxe5 16. Qxe5 Qh4 17. Kf1 d3 18. f3 g3 19. Qf5+ Kb8 20. Qc5 Rd4 21. Qxd4 Qxd4 22. Re8+ Ka7 0-1&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Jose Raul Capablanca vs Marc Fonaroff(Pawn Weakness, Backrank, Fork) &#xA;PGN:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 d6 4. Nc3 Nf6 5. Bb5 Bd7 6. O-O Be7 7. Re1 exd4 8. Nxd4 Nxd4 9. Qxd4 Bxb5 10. Nxb5 O-O 11. Qc3 c6 12. Nd4 Nd7 13. Nf5 Bf6 14. Qg3 Ne5 15. Bf4 Qc7 16. Rad1 Rad8 17. Rxd6 Rxd6 18. Bxe5 Rd1 19. Rxd1 Bxe5 20. Nh6+ Kh8 21. Qxe5 Qxe5 22. Nxf7+ 1-0&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Rudolf Rezso Charousek vs Jakob Wollner(Inititive, Mating Attack)&#xA;PGN:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.e4 e5 2.d4 exd4 3.c3 dxc3 4.Bc4 Nf6 5.Nf3 Bc5 6.Nxc3 d6 7.O-O O-O 8.Ng5 h6 9.Nxf7 Rxf7 10.e5 Ng4 11.e6 Qh4 12.exf7+ Kf8 13.Bf4 Nxf2 14.Qe2 Ng4+ 15.Kh1 Bd7 16.Rae1 Nc6 17.Qe8+ Rxe8 18.fxe8=Q+ Bxe8 19.Bd6# 1-0&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14511" LastActivityDate="2018-10-17T03:53:57.570" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22685" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22680" CreationDate="2018-10-17T04:13:32.137" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Try to get a copy of the old Chessmaster XI (or any version). It has a training section with Josh Waitzkin that I liked a lot. It has games sorted by theme.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I assume a google search for famous chess games will also give some good results.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally you’re asking a bit for teachers to give you the results of their hard work, giving a bunch of games, presorted for you per theme. It would’ve been nice if you shared in return, e.g. a link to your personal website where you’ve got a (small) database of games you’ve already found and sorted yourself and which you’ll update with answers from this post.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17145" LastActivityDate="2018-10-17T04:13:32.137" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22686" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22682" CreationDate="2018-10-17T04:30:51.667" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's no official source for that. Someone just has to download the PGN games manually.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is indeed a prohibitive amount of work, but we are talking about money here. They are &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; doing the collection for fun, they are trying to sell their services for something else such as paid membership or book advertisements.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's take a look at the TWIC homepage. Please note the paid ads by New In Chess. They're offering you PGN download as a business.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/1IYbw.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/1IYbw.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2018-10-17T04:30:51.667" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22687" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22689" CreationDate="2018-10-17T08:28:45.497" Score="3" ViewCount="1350" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm wondering about the move order 2. d4 cxd4 3. Nf3 in Sicilian. If black does not try to protect the pawn and plays some normal move like 3... d6, 3... e6 or 3... Nc6, then 4. Nxd4 transposes into one of the usual lines. On the other hand,  3... e5 does not seem to be the option, as e. g. white can play 4. c3, and if black captures on c3, it's a Smith-Morra gambit which black has already messed up by playing d5 in one move. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, are there any options for black that are better than transposing to the main lines? If not, I'm wondering why this move order is much less popular than 2. Nf3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17330" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-10-17T11:06:07.787" LastActivityDate="2019-12-19T22:20:39.477" Title="How does one play against 2. d4 cxd4 3. Nf3 in Sicilian?" Tags="&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;&lt;smith-morra-gambit&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22688" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22687" CreationDate="2018-10-17T08:59:09.770" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;3....Nf6 avoids the main lines for black because there is no Nc3. Instead you'll probably get something like a c3-sicilian, with 4.e5 Nd5, which is arguably an achievement for black. That's of course also very playable for white, maybe 5.Qd4 or 4.c4 poses some problems, but generally it is not a great idea to give options to your opponent if you don't have to. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2018-10-17T08:59:09.770" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22689" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22687" CreationDate="2018-10-17T09:20:02.000" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;It seems you only give Black extra options compared to the usual 2.Nf3 and 3.d4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Black can reach whichever Open Sicilian he was aiming for. He has made no concession since ...cxd4 was part of the plan anyway.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;As pointed by BlindKungFuMaster, 3...Nf6 will lead either to an Alapin, or to a harmless sub line of the Nimzo-Sicilian (1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.e5 Nd5, and now 4.Nc3 is considered much better than 4.d4). The small plus side for you is if you want to play an Alapin yet avoid lines without ...cxd4, e.g. if your opponent likes to play 1.e4 c5 2.c3 e6 3.Nf3 Nc6 4.d4 d5: this interesting option is not available anymore for Black.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;3...e5!? is actually perfectly playable. After 4.c3 Black doesn't have to take the pawn but can continue with 4...Nc6. This is actually one of Sveshnikov's recommendations for Black vs the Morra in his recently published repertoire against the anti-sicilians.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-12-19T22:20:39.477" LastActivityDate="2019-12-19T22:20:39.477" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22690" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22683" CreationDate="2018-10-17T09:20:48.333" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The real reason why this is the main line lies in the many possible variations after 5.Nb5 and its alternatives. Any verbal explanation will at best be approximately correct. With that in mind, here is my take:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5.Nb5 is the variation that best keeps control of the weakened d5 square. If black achieves d5 its only strategic problem will vanish, so keeping control of d5 is whites main strategic objective. 5.Nb5 provokes d6, which makes it impossible for the Nc3 to be neutralised by Bb4. This Bb4 move is a problem if the knight retreats to f3 or b3. If the knight goes to f5, d5 is even immediately possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2018-10-17T09:20:48.333" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22691" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15494" CreationDate="2018-10-17T11:08:08.193" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Regarding B, the classic trap is not undoing all the changes one makes to the board in the unmake move.  One thing that I do when debugging is to make a copy of the board before making &amp;amp; unmaking moves, and testing equality later. (I override the copy constructor &amp;amp; equality operator for my Board class)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;#if VALIDATEBOARD&#xA;    Board boardControl(_board);&#xA;#endif&#xA;&#xA;_board.PopulateMoveList(moveList, moveCount, oppositionAttackTable);&#xA;&#xA;for (int moveIndex = 0; moveIndex &amp;lt; moveCount; moveIndex++) {&#xA;&#xA;        _board.DoMove(moves[moveIndex]);&#xA;        // DO SOMETHING WITH MOVE&#xA;        _board.UndoMove();&#xA;&#xA;#if VALIDATEBOARD&#xA;        assert(_board == boardControl);&#xA;#endif&#xA;    }&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9863" LastActivityDate="2018-10-17T11:08:08.193" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22692" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22683" CreationDate="2018-10-17T16:21:32.470" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The knight on b3 isn't doing much other than covering d4 which isn't a big deal. White has plans to reposition the knight to e3 and forcing d6 does block in the black bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4393" LastActivityDate="2018-10-17T16:21:32.470" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22693" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22687" CreationDate="2018-10-17T17:18:11.080" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just play the main lines. The main lines are the main lines because that's the best chess. Otherwise, you'll get subpar positions. I used to be scared of the Sicilian until I picked up e4 vs the Sicilian by Negi. The first volume is necessary, but I ended up getting all three.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Play 3...d6 and you'll either transition into a Smith-Morra or the main lines of a normal Sicilian. Even 3...a6 is possible because you can capture en passant after 4.c4?! dxc3 e.p.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13147" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-09-21T14:08:22.437" LastActivityDate="2019-09-21T14:08:22.437" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22694" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-10-17T17:22:30.690" Score="-15" ViewCount="490" Body="&lt;p&gt;The other day I witnessed a National Master fail to checkmate using a queen vs rook.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I witnessed some of the worst technique known to man by a 2200+ player. It's clear he didn't know Philidor's position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just because it's blitz does not justify the poor play. Anyone who knows king and pawn endings, for example, can quickly promote in a kp vs. k situation. And this is with two second increment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How can masters be so bad at endings? This is embarassing. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13147" LastEditorUserId="13147" LastEditDate="2019-06-08T03:35:14.063" LastActivityDate="2019-06-08T03:35:14.063" Title="Why are masters so bad at endings?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="7" ClosedDate="2018-10-18T15:54:56.980" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22695" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22694" CreationDate="2018-10-17T18:08:42.473" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some pawnless endgames, like mating with bishop and knight, or the queen vs. rook case you mention, just don't occur that much in practice, especially compared to pawn endgames or rook endgames. That means players are less likely to study them, and unfortunately for those players, in these endgames one often can't rely on general principles (rooks behind passed pawns or on the 7th rank, weak vs. strong bishops). I doubt masters would have any difficulties with a king + pawn vs. king endgame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, let me quote Karsten Müller and Frank Lamprecht from their book Fundamental Chess Endings:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The queen always wins against a lone rook unless there is an immediate draw such as perpetual check or stalemate. The winning nature of the ending has been known for a long time and it was believed to be quite easy to force a win. However, the appearance of computer databases in 1978 caused the ending to be seen in a new light. While they confirmed that the queen should win from all normal starting positions, they also showed that it was &lt;strong&gt;quite difficult to win if the defender played precisely.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(emphasis mine)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2018-10-17T18:08:42.473" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22696" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22694" CreationDate="2018-10-17T19:30:02.760" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The problem is that winning with a Q v R requires multiple quiet moves which are not obvious at all to a human in blitz play. Not to mention these type of endgames are really only studied by GMs because at master level these endgames do not happen enough to justify studying them extensively. And even GMs screw up these type of endgames like RB V R or even RK v R in classic time controls fairly often.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1070866&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1070866&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Kasparov won a dead drawn endgame that even I should be able to draw no problem.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4393" LastActivityDate="2018-10-17T19:30:02.760" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22697" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22673" CreationDate="2018-10-17T20:11:05.207" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think white minds gxf3. He gets a half-open g file for his rook and he is capturing towards the center. I suppose black will respond with bxc6 and I would play Nd2 going for Nb3 next move and asking black where his bishop will go. If it goes back to b6 then pawn a4 seems like a very nice position for white, while other moves he will play f4 anyways and establish a slightly better position from what I can see.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4393" LastActivityDate="2018-10-17T20:11:05.207" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22698" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22703" CreationDate="2018-10-17T21:24:29.610" Score="15" ViewCount="1385" Body="&lt;p&gt;The tablebase suggests it's a win for White, but I struggle to beat my phone. Black's rook seems to always be able to harass the white king to stop white make any progress.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What's the technique to win this endgame?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;8/8/6k1/6r1/8/8/6PP/5RK1 w - - 1 61&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7002" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-10-18T06:33:58.977" LastActivityDate="2020-04-29T10:39:08.920" Title="Endgame technique: How to win with rook + g and h pawn vs rook?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;rook-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22699" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22698" CreationDate="2018-10-17T21:30:46.100" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Seems trivial, push pawns and use rook to block. I'm not sure what part you would have trouble at. There isn't even a general technique for this because it's a clear cut win for white.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You need to post the position where you have trouble winning in, such as avoiding stalemate traps. It is hard to give a solution from this position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4393" LastEditorUserId="4393" LastEditDate="2018-10-17T21:48:12.503" LastActivityDate="2018-10-17T21:48:12.503" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22700" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-10-18T01:16:15.787" Score="10" ViewCount="1355" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am planning to begin a chess club in the engineering college I study.&#xA;I am an average player myself, but enthusiastic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is how should we go about it, once its up and running?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One thing I get in mind is to organize games between members.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's also watching lectures, but who decides what lectures will we watch?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't know if there are any existing chess clubs in my city, though it is unlikely.&#xA;There are some government bodies which hold yearly competitions, and there are some institutes that offer tution, in neighboring cities.&#xA;Thanks&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12108" LastActivityDate="2020-01-22T20:30:32.947" Title="What activities should we set up in a chess club?" Tags="&lt;clubs&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22701" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22702" CreationDate="2018-10-18T11:32:11.483" Score="3" ViewCount="552" Body="&lt;p&gt;What happens if a player makes an illegal move (i.e. a realistic case could be, he castles after he already moved the King), but none of the player notices, and the game goes on and on for a lot of moves? Is the final result to be taken as valid? On another note, what happens if a player, after some moves, realizes that, say, move 10 was illegal, and could not be made?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-05-29T23:29:33.090" LastActivityDate="2020-05-29T23:29:33.090" Title="What happens if a player makes an illegal move and nobody notices?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;illegal-move&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22702" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22701" CreationDate="2018-10-18T12:07:51.703" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The FIDE laws of chess state:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If during a game it is found that an illegal move, including failing&#xA;  to meet the requirements of the promotion of a pawn or capturing the&#xA;  opponent’s king, has been completed, the position immediately before&#xA;  the irregularity shall be reinstated. If the position immediately&#xA;  before the irregularity cannot be determined the game shall continue&#xA;  from the last identifiable position prior to the irregularity. The&#xA;  clocks shall be adjusted according to Article 6.13. The Articles 4.3&#xA;  and 4.6 apply to the move replacing the illegal move. The game shall&#xA;  then continue from this reinstated position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So basically the game should be reverted to before that move, using the game record.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: These are for standard play. Other time controls have different rules, and although most national federations basically just apply the FIDE rules, they can sometimes be different.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3417" LastEditorUserId="3417" LastEditDate="2018-10-18T12:21:02.853" LastActivityDate="2018-10-18T12:21:02.853" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22703" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22698" CreationDate="2018-10-18T17:57:33.110" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I remember drawing a rook and two pawns vs. rook position with g- and h- pawns. I was the losing side. Basically, 1) prevent king mobility, 2) win the rook pawn and 3) play the first rank defense on the g-pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In rook endings, there are many positions where two pawns are not enough to win. Only opposite-coloured bishop endings present a higher drawish trend.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Excerpt From: &amp;quot;100 Endgames You Must Know: Vital Lessons for Every Chess Player Improved and Expanded&amp;quot; by Jesus de la Villa.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But what if the opponent plays accurately, and doesn't drop pawns?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/nYKjO.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The idea is as follows: set a blockade on the seventh rank by playing Rb7 and Kh7. If the king approaches, check him with your king on g6. If the rook attacks your king on h8, White has no time to move his King forward on the next move because of ...Kxg8.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To win, prevent the opponent from enacting this blockading strategy. Judging by the original poster's position, Black plays 1...Ra5 (or 1.Ra1 Rb5) and blockades.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT&lt;/strong&gt; It is a draw only if the pawns are pushed without thought as another poster suggested. The strategy is to push slowly, one at a time and to avoid drawing positions as listed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A two pawn advantage in most cases guarantees the win. But there are quite a few drawn positions, particularly when one of the pawns is a RP (as in OP).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Excerpt from Rook Endings. Smyslov and Levenfish.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This book is a great reference on such positions. There are eight pages devoted to it. Here is an excerpt:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/z3qmC.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/z3qmC.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13147" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2018-10-19T16:26:19.870" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22704" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22700" CreationDate="2018-10-18T19:58:26.260" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I run a chess club at my college. We have two meetings a week, 2 hours each, one run by myself and one run by someone else. We have a locker for our chess boards, mats and clocks and a meeting place in a lounge area that's not super busy but with decent foot traffic. We update our meeting times every academic quarter/semester to work around our classes and send out a survey to our email list to see when our members are available. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At our regular meetings, we just play chess, it's very casual. Usually blitz 5+0 or 10+0. We switch players every few games. Sometimes we play bughouse if there are enough willing participants. Sometimes we'll look at a position from a game, an opening, or a puzzle/tactic if people want to or have something interesting to talk about. If someone doesn't know how to play we teach them, we're not popular enough to be exclusive. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We have enough funding from the school to go to USCF tournaments in and around our city. Usually they're within walking distance, otherwise we carpool. We also sometimes host tournaments with $1 buy in.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;People often say they would be interested in &quot;workshops&quot; to learn chess, but I don't want to host them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13753" LastActivityDate="2018-10-18T19:58:26.260" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22705" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22616" CreationDate="2018-10-18T20:24:41.630" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I agree with those who responded that this is not a check mate, but rather the piece is absolutely pinned, and since it's not legal to move that piece, another move, if available, must be played.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd like to mention that, in tournament play, there are consequences to moving an absolutely pinned piece and then pressing the clock, since this is considered an illegal move:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You pause the clock.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You raise your hand to call the judge.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You explain what your opponent attempted to do.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The judge may give you two extra minutes on your clock.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The judge may give your opponent a first warning, and inform them that if a second illegal move is attempted, your opponent may automatically lose the game.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See FIDE rules 7.5.1 and 7.5.5 (&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=208&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=208&amp;amp;view=article&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For your specific game, if it's King + Bishop versus King + Rook and nothing else is on the board and no mistakes are made, then this is usually a theoretical draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17573" LastEditorUserId="17573" LastEditDate="2018-10-19T18:26:55.163" LastActivityDate="2018-10-19T18:26:55.163" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22707" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22711" CreationDate="2018-10-19T15:05:26.787" Score="0" ViewCount="122" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was white&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;FEN&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;4rrk1/1ppq1pp1/p1n4p/7P/P2PP3/P4Q2/4N3/R1B1K2R b Q - 0 1&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/hJcqY.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/hJcqY.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14098" LastEditorUserId="8300" LastEditDate="2018-10-19T17:34:31.047" LastActivityDate="2018-10-19T17:55:52.433" Title="Who is winning?" Tags="&lt;online-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22709" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22707" CreationDate="2018-10-19T15:16:24.357" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Probably best to have an engine answer such questions.&#xA;If it's white to move then personally I think with accurate play white is winning. I would play Bb2 and prepare to castle long, playing e5 if black plays f5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4393" LastEditorUserId="4393" LastEditDate="2018-10-19T17:55:52.433" LastActivityDate="2018-10-19T17:55:52.433" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22710" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22712" CreationDate="2018-10-19T15:45:33.307" Score="1" ViewCount="180" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am just an average chess player around 1500+ ELO&#xA;and have started experimenting to come up with a complete new style of my own. (it may have been used or discredited in the community)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This involves starting from corner pawns on each sides rather than the middle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is an example game:-&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. h4 e5 2. h5 d5 3. a4 Nc6 4. e3 d4&#xA;5. g4 dxe3 6. fxe3 h6 7. Nc3 Nf6 8. Bg2 Bxg4&#xA;9. Bf3 Bxf3 10. Qxf3 Qd6 11. Nb5 Qd7 12. c3 a6&#xA;13. Na3 Bxa3 14. bxa3 O-O 15. d4 exd4 16. cxd4 Rae8&#xA;17. Ne2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What do you have say about this? What kind of chess player am I?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14098" LastEditorUserId="13023" LastEditDate="2018-10-28T13:32:30.930" LastActivityDate="2018-10-28T13:32:30.930" Title="Is starting from sides a bad style?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;style&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22711" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22707" CreationDate="2018-10-19T17:06:15.913" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You should take Black. While the attack is not winning, its quite annoying to stop. White has to make some computer moves to defend, starting from Qd3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to engine it’s just little better for black, but it’s not simple to play White! Black wins by force if White doesn’t respond perfectly. Don’t forget Black can always go into a good endgame with enough pawns for compensation. The d4 and e4 are going to fall, the other pawns might also fall as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The computer gives:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/5Df95.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/5Df95.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2018-10-19T17:32:27.833" LastActivityDate="2018-10-19T17:32:27.833" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22712" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22710" CreationDate="2018-10-19T17:15:02.570" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would say you are wasting your own time. Black could have built a d5-e5 center with two bishops on d6 and e6 in your setup. Even in you own line, Black has all the winning chances due to weaker White king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You are giving Black the development for free. Your opening idea won’t work against any decent player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please study normal openings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2018-10-19T17:15:02.570" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22713" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-10-19T17:53:14.203" Score="7" ViewCount="465" Body="&lt;p&gt;The FIDE rules state:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;12.4&lt;/strong&gt; The scoresheet shall be used only for recording the moves, the times of the clocks, the offers of a draw, and matters relating to a claim and other relevant data.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I believe this rule has been used before, against &lt;strong&gt;Wesley So&lt;/strong&gt; in the 2014 ACP Golden Classic tournament (more &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/article/view/the-10-silliest-ways-to-lose-a-chess-game&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;). But, what about this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/XGQYE.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/XGQYE.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Carlsen's scoresheet from the 2018 European Club Cup&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is Carlsen's scoresheet from his game with &lt;strong&gt;Alexander Donchenko&lt;/strong&gt; in the 2018 European Club Cup, where he wrote &amp;quot;Absolutely no shorts allowed&amp;quot; instead of writing his and his opponent's names.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Isn't this a violation of the rules? Why didn't the arbiters take appropriate action?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13544" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2021-01-20T17:59:19.847" LastActivityDate="2021-01-20T18:21:09.710" Title="Should any information written on the scoresheet by the players be accurate?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;fide&gt;&lt;carlsen&gt;&lt;scoresheet&gt;&lt;wesley-so&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="7" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22715" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22716" CreationDate="2018-10-20T08:46:49.903" Score="2" ViewCount="301" Body="&lt;p&gt;Please let me know the issue with 4.Bg5 in the position after 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 Nf6.&#xA;I have check the FICS Games Database - Opening Explorer and it seems it's not a popular move. But I cannot understand the reason for this&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17582" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-10-20T10:31:10.220" LastActivityDate="2018-10-21T23:57:47.213" Title="1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 Nf6 4.Bg5?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;scotch-game&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22716" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22715" CreationDate="2018-10-20T08:57:26.877" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;The issue is that 4. d5 is a much better move; White establishes a strong center &lt;em&gt;with tempo&lt;/em&gt; and drives the c6 knight to a bad position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Besides, 3... Nf6 isn't that popular either (probably because of 4. d5); 3... exd4 is the main line of the Scotch Game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-10-20T10:30:07.257" LastActivityDate="2018-10-20T10:30:07.257" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22717" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22719" CreationDate="2018-10-20T11:32:43.773" Score="-2" ViewCount="166" Body="&lt;p&gt;My understanding is that there are basically two ways in which a game of chess is won.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(1) One side gives (or forces) checkmate, regardless of material situation on the board. He may be in material inferiority, but mate is unavoidable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(2) One side achieves enough material (or positional) superiority that with correct play will inevitably lead to a material advantage (if superiority was positional) won endgame and then checkmate, although at this stage mate is hardly forced. But the other side, for reasons above explained, resigns. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Am I missing something? Are there a 3rd, and maybe even a 4th, case (not considering forfeits, illegal moves, and so on...), in which a game is won?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastActivityDate="2018-10-20T20:51:04.887" Title="How is a game of chess won?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;material-balance&gt;&lt;winning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22718" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-10-20T14:04:26.287" Score="0" ViewCount="143" Body="&lt;p&gt;Prove that it is possible, from any starting KBN-K position, to accomplish the mate by manoeuvering to arrive at key positions from a well-known method or strategy whilst the losing king actively tries to avoid reaching the key positions that would lead to mate within 50 moves. In terms of the players' goals, the winning player's goal is to reach the key positions and still have moves to mate within 50 moves, and the losing player's goal is to avoid getting mated within 50 moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Given a starting KBN-K position, there exist paths through the tree of variations satisfying the winning player's goal with optimal play by the losing player. Is this satisfied for ALL legal KBNK positions using that particular stratagem only? How would one go about attempting to prove this using KBN-K tablebases?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17583" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-10-27T02:44:08.820" LastActivityDate="2020-10-27T02:45:20.607" Title="On the feasibility of a KBN-K mate within 50 moves using a particular method" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;tablebases&gt;&lt;50-move-rule&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22719" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22717" CreationDate="2018-10-20T20:51:04.887" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you don't count forfeits (including time forfeits) then yes, the two possibilities for losing a game are resignation or checkmate.  There may be other reasons for resignation than material or positional inferiority, however.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In 2017, GM Hou Yifan resigned after 5 moves in protest over perceived manipulated pairings.  (The pairings were later analyzed and proven to be correct.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One time I was down an exchange in a tournament game and the police wanted to talk to my opponent. He didn't resign (the TD paused the clock) but had the circumstances necessitated, he might have resigned to go take care of that matter, despite his material superiority.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And, of course, a player might resign without being inferior because they incorrectly &lt;em&gt;believe&lt;/em&gt; they are inferior. Even strong players will occasionally resign a game that should be a draw or even a win for them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2018-10-20T20:51:04.887" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22721" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22727" CreationDate="2018-10-20T22:20:05.267" Score="8" ViewCount="261" Body="&lt;p&gt;The question came to mind following today's game between Vishy (Viswanathan Anand) and the young Raunak Sadhwani at the Isle of Man 2018 Tournament. Has Vishy been beaten by an Indian player since, say, the mid-90s?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1402" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2018-10-30T14:43:48.430" LastActivityDate="2018-10-30T14:43:48.430" Title="Who was the last Indian player to beat Vishy, and when?" Tags="&lt;history&gt;&lt;famous-players&gt;&lt;anand&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22722" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-10-21T01:19:24.173" Score="1" ViewCount="147" Body="&lt;p&gt;I like positional games, and the Sicilian defence is very dynamic, however the B42 Sicilian defence is quite positional, but the pawn structure has some weaknesses. I would like to learn more about the B42 pawn structure and the name, or where to seek more information on the B42 Sicilian pawn structure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17586" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-10-23T20:04:09.087" LastActivityDate="2019-04-09T14:02:50.607" Title="Name of pawn struture in B42 Sicilian defense" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;&lt;pawn-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22723" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22663" CreationDate="2018-10-21T04:09:45.043" Score="2" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Nf6 4. Ng5 d5 5. exd5 Nxd5 6. Nxf7 Kxf7 7. Qf3+ Ke6 8. Nc3 Ncb4 9. O-O c6 10. d4 Qf6 11. Qe2 Kd7 12. dxe5 Qg6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Answering the question four, besides 9.Qe4 or a3, White can play Bb3 or O-O. Probably, the best continuation is 9.O-O c6 10.d4 Qf6 11.Qe2 Kd7 12.dxe5 Qg6 with equality but White should keep its pressure (1-0(43) Harrwitz, Daniel - Smith/Bogle / Glasgow blindfold sim, Glasgow 1848).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1766" LastEditorUserId="1766" LastEditDate="2018-10-21T04:14:58.243" LastActivityDate="2018-10-21T04:14:58.243" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22724" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22718" CreationDate="2018-10-21T04:12:50.903" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this satisfied for ALL legal KBNK positions using that particular stratagem only?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Absolutely not! Please don't try to prove something that's impossible. Consider this position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[startflipped &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;3kB3/4N3/8/8/8/8/8/3K4 b - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-10-27T02:45:20.607" LastActivityDate="2020-10-27T02:45:20.607" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22725" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-10-21T07:22:06.857" Score="25" ViewCount="5588" Body="&lt;p&gt;How to describe two knights defending each other?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Linked knights? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Doubled knights?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chinese Chess, two 马 (horse/knight)s protecting one another is quite common, and there is a standard terminology: &quot;连环马&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a real case: &quot;German Chess Prodigy Surprises Boris Gelfand With A Brutal Queen Sacrifice&quot;(&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l37hlb32Rs0&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l37hlb32Rs0&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17588" LastEditorUserId="17588" LastEditDate="2018-10-31T12:03:01.660" LastActivityDate="2018-10-31T12:03:01.660" Title="How to describe two knights defending each other?" Tags="&lt;knights&gt;&lt;terminology&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="10" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22726" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22725" CreationDate="2018-10-21T09:59:57.180" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;As far as I know, there's no standard terminology for this. It is usually not the best configuration for two knights; they are stronger when positioned side by side, so that they cover a lot of squares in the same area.&#xA;If I had to describe the situation, I'd go for something like 'mutually protecting knights'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's a related concept which is called the 'superfluous piece' or &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/article/view/an-quotextraquot-piece&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;'extra piece'&lt;/a&gt;, which most often happens with two knights. One of them occupies an outpost, and the other one is basically doing nothing but waiting to recapture on or move to that square when the first one is exchanged.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/3U9sH.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/3U9sHm.png&quot; width=&quot;300&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here, Black's next move was 11... Ne8, to make the c3 knight superfluous.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-10-21T16:54:19.670" LastActivityDate="2018-10-21T16:54:19.670" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22727" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22721" CreationDate="2018-10-21T11:47:00.540" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;The answer is: Yes&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Krishnan Sasikiran vs Viswanathan Anand&#xA;FIDE World Cup-C (2002), Hyderabad, rd 2, Oct-05&#xA;King's Indian Attack: Yugoslav Variation (A07)&#xA;1-0 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1357060&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1357060&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4196" LastActivityDate="2018-10-21T11:47:00.540" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22728" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22731" CreationDate="2018-10-21T12:00:20.330" Score="2" ViewCount="316" Body="&lt;p&gt;As in title above, are there any chances that the Fischer who reappeared in 1992 (and then later on), was not the real Bobby? If this is not the case, what do you consider as &quot;proof&quot; that he was indeed the real Fischer?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastEditorUserId="13023" LastEditDate="2018-10-29T06:24:29.400" LastActivityDate="2018-10-29T06:24:29.400" Title="Are there any chances that the Fischer who reappeared in 1992 was not the real one?" Tags="&lt;world-championship&gt;&lt;famous-players&gt;&lt;fischer&gt;&lt;boris-spassky&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2018-10-28T13:32:17.220" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22729" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22725" CreationDate="2018-10-21T13:04:48.850" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've seen the term &amp;quot;redundant knights&amp;quot;. In general, redundant pieces are pieces can get in each other's way. Here's a quote I could find about the general principle, but not specifically about knights:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Interestingly, two of Lasker’s other points were:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;• The principle of&#xA;redundancy: Two pieces that move the same way on the same squares can&#xA;easily get in each other’s way, while two pieces that never get in&#xA;each other’s way – like two bishops – are better coordinated. This was&#xA;verified by computer analysis by Larry Kaufman 60 years later! Larry’s&#xA;important contributions are noted in several places in this book.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Heisman, Dan. Elements of Positional Evaluation (Kindle Locations 1035-1039). SCB Distributors. Kindle Edition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Googling specifically for &amp;quot;redundant knights&amp;quot; I found this (also by Dan Heisman):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, he calls two knights that guard each other “redundant knights” and notes that this is usually a weak setup.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chesscafe.com/coordination/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://chesscafe.com/coordination/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't have access to that article as I'm not a chesscafe.com member so I don't even know who &amp;quot;he&amp;quot; is (maybe Lasker or Kaufman?), so if anyone with full access to that article can provide more context, I'll happily edit my answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12523" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2018-10-21T13:04:48.850" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22730" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22725" CreationDate="2018-10-21T16:24:43.333" Score="28" Body="&lt;p&gt;They're &lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;connected&lt;/strong&gt; knights&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As the other answers said, this isn't typically that smart a thing for knights. OTOH, &lt;em&gt;rooks&lt;/em&gt; are very often made stronger by connecting them (it allows them to thwart any queen intrusion). Thus you'll more often hear about it being “a &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/476/15238&quot;&gt;good idea to connect rooks&lt;/a&gt; now”. But I think I've also heard the term used with knights. Just, knights tend to serve more of a tactical role than solid defense of the back-rank, and they're usually better protected by pawns or bishops, as these don't reduce their mobility in the way mutual knight defense does.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For pawns, the term &lt;em&gt;connected&lt;/em&gt; of course means something different, since two pawns can never protect each other mutually.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15238" LastEditorUserId="15238" LastEditDate="2018-10-21T16:33:18.460" LastActivityDate="2018-10-21T16:33:18.460" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22731" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22728" CreationDate="2018-10-21T16:51:49.110" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;At the very least we know that in 1992 a man that looked and sounded like an aged version of Bobby Fischer played Boris Spassky in a match, and won it. Assuming that this old man was actually not Fischer, we must think of plausible alternatives for who it possibly could've been. What old man besides Bobby Fischer will look like Bobby Fischer and be able to play well enough to beat a former world champion? How couldn't this mysterious veteran be at least somewhat famous in the chess world (being a strong player that is also a Fischer look-alike)? And how did he manage to dupe the chess world (including all the people who knew him on a personal level) into thinking that he was Bobby Fischer?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is very difficult to give plausible answers to the above questions, and since there is no real indication that it wasn't the real Bobby Fischer to played Spassky I will go ahead and use Occham's razor to conclude that the most reasonable explanation is that it was the real Fischer that played in the 1992 match.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8300" LastActivityDate="2018-10-21T16:51:49.110" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22732" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22743" CreationDate="2018-10-21T20:14:14.963" Score="3" ViewCount="226" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Bc5 4. c3 Nf6 5. d4 exd4 6. cxd4 Bb4+ 7. Nc3 Nxe4 8. O-O  Bxc3 9. bxc3 d5 10. Ba3 dxc4 11. Re1 Be6 12. Rxe4 Qd5 13. Re3 O-O-O 14. Ne5 Nxe5 15. Rxe5 Qxe5 16. dxe5 Rxd1 17. Rxd1 Bf5 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black's position is better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a) From move 1 to 12 are Theoretical Variations which I have understood clearly and played in the club level match.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;b) I played 13. Re3 with the logic of protecting the f3 Knight by the pin of ...Bg4. Then my Queen can move freely to other squares not fearing the pin. Also it helps in doubling the Rooks or Rook &amp;amp; Queen on e file. When Analyzing the game with the engine Deep Fritz 12 the move 13. Re3 played by me matched with the Engine's move. 13... 0-0-0 played by my opponent is also matched with the Engine's move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;c) I played 14. Ne5 with the idea that if 14...Nxe5, then White will play 15. Rxe5 attacking the Queen. But I did not see the move 15... Qxe5 which gives Black some advantage with exchange of pieces since he is already a Pawn up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;d) Hence the recommended move by Deep Fritz 12 is 14. Qa4 instead of 14. Ne5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Questions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) Can I agree with the Recommended Line of Deep Fritz 12?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) Since there are many Engines now like Deep Fritz 12, Fritz 8, Fritz 16, Online Fritz, Chess Master Grand Master Edition etc. and still higher versions coming to market, which engine I can believe? How we can analyze our game using which best engine? The different engines may give different Recommendations of moves. In such cases, how a Club Player who regularly analyses and studies his game after the match can study the variation? He gets CONFUSED. How can he get the best variation out of many variations suggested by different engines? On Which Engine he can have faith? Is there a No. 1 Best Universal Engine (whom we can believe throughout our life irrespective of new higher versions of Engines coming to market) for it's Recommended moves and we can employ these moves in our further games in our tournaments? Requesting experts to please answer me and guide so that I can follow it throughout my life.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) By the way, what may be the logic behind 14. Qa4? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess Stack Exchange has helped me a lot. Thanks to all experts from this best website in the world. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11904" LastEditorUserId="11904" LastEditDate="2018-10-22T12:34:10.153" LastActivityDate="2018-12-25T00:02:40.550" Title="Analyzing using Chess Engines - Giuoco Piano/Steinitz Variation" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22733" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22715" CreationDate="2018-10-21T23:57:47.213" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;3...Nf6 is inferior, so white's possibilities thereafter are not seriously analysed.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4.Bg5 is probably not popular among players who do reach this position, because there are at least 5 better moves (4.d5 in particular), and it doesn't really achieve anything as Black can just play ...Be7.  Bg5 works better when Black has already played ...Bc5 and ...d6 and there is no easy way to break the pin.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, it is usually preferable to develop the kingside pieces first in the open games (1.e4 e5) to allow castling.  The queen's bishop is usually the last minor piece to be developed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16679" LastActivityDate="2018-10-21T23:57:47.213" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22734" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23514" CreationDate="2018-10-22T07:48:08.963" Score="5" ViewCount="432" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm sorry for being vague, but that's exactly my problem: I can't find an online blog post of a German/Scandinavian master anymore which illustrated a case of a young boy from Eastern Europe who managed to reach 2500 mark (in a few months time span) thanks to some suspect tournaments and timing.&#xA;His coach fine-tuned everything to exploit the delay in updating the Elo list, combined with an excellent performance on a local tournament.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does anyone can recall a similar story?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd really love to read the post again. It was backed up with data from the FIDE official site.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15253" LastEditorUserId="3444" LastEditDate="2019-01-20T09:27:18.757" LastActivityDate="2019-01-20T09:27:18.757" Title="Story of unexpectedly high (400+) Elo rising in few months (reaching 2500 Elo mark)" Tags="&lt;elo&gt;&lt;cheating&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22735" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22736" CreationDate="2018-10-22T10:26:41.930" Score="2" ViewCount="213" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm writing a chess engine, and I'm testing that the move generator is working correctly using a perft() function.  In perft position 2 my engine appears to be 90 moves short at ply 2.  How do authors of other engines then debug their engines?  Is there a full list of perft moves available online somewhere?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The obvious issue with using an established engine to enumerate the moves is if there's a bug in the move generation function in the established engine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9863" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2018-10-22T10:38:43.670" LastActivityDate="2018-10-22T11:19:17.357" Title="How to debug Move Generation function?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;computer-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22736" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22735" CreationDate="2018-10-22T11:19:17.357" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The obvious issue with using an established engine to enumerate the moves is if there's a bug in the move generation function in the established engine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stockfish is always perfectly correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Goto &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/blob/master/src/search.cpp&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/blob/master/src/search.cpp&lt;/a&gt;, add a &lt;code&gt;std::cout&lt;/code&gt; in &lt;code&gt;perft()&lt;/code&gt;. Recompile, and then run perft. Redirect your results to a text file.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sort the results with: &lt;code&gt;sort SFMoves.txt &amp;gt; SortedSFMoves.txt&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similarly, repeat for your generator, sort it and then compare with Stockfish.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Common mistakes:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;En-passpant&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Underpromotion&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Promote with a capture&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please check the special cases in your code.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2018-10-22T11:19:17.357" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22737" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22698" CreationDate="2018-10-22T16:06:17.083" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;As we can see from the other answers, there are two things you should avoid: 1) The pawns getting blockaded. 2) Your king getting cut off from the pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is not the only way to win, but as a matter of technique it is a good thing to advance the &lt;code&gt;h&lt;/code&gt;-pawn before the &lt;code&gt;g&lt;/code&gt;-pawn. In this way your king can use the &lt;code&gt;g&lt;/code&gt;-pawn to hide both from checks from the side and checks form behind. But first use the rook to chase the opponent king as far back as possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/8/7k/R7/6PP/6K1/8/1r6 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;[Title &quot;Rook endgame g+h&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Ra6+ Kg7 2. h5 Rb3+ (2... Rg1+ 3. Kh4 Rh1+ 4. Kg5) 3. Kh4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The checks will stop and you can think of the next step.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/6k1/R7/7P/6PK/8/8/1r6 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;[Title &quot;Rook endgame g+h&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Ra7+ Kg8 (1... Kh6?? 2. g5#)  (1... Kf6 2. g5+ Kf5 3. Rf7+ Ke6 4. Rf6+ Ke7 5. h6) 2. h6 Rb5 3. g5 Rb1 4. Kh5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here I would again chase the king away before advancing the &lt;code&gt;h&lt;/code&gt;-pawn another step.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the &lt;code&gt;g&lt;/code&gt;-pawn is pinned there is no point in giving a check first.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/7k/R7/7P/1r4PK/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;[Title &quot;Rook endgame g+h&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. h6 (1.Ra7+ Kh6) Rb1 (1... Rb5 2. g5 Rb1 3. Ra7+ Kg8 (3... Kg6 4. Rg7+ Kf5 5. h7))2. Kh5 Rb5+ (2... Rh1+ 3. Kg5) 3. g5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this way you can advance slowly rank by rank. Towards the end black will have to defend passively to avoid mate at the back rank. Just for the fun of it I would try to end the game with a knight or bishop promotion like in my answer to &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/730/why-would-one-promote-a-pawn-to-a-knight/4000#4000&quot;&gt;this question&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;r6k/8/6PP/5RK1/8/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;[Title &quot;Rook endgame g+h&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Rf8+ Rxf8 2.g7+ Kh7 (2...Kg8 3.Kg6) 3.gxf8=N+!(3.gxf8=B!)(3.gxf8=Q??)(3.gxf8=R??)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1485" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2019-05-13T10:21:33.053" LastActivityDate="2019-05-13T10:21:33.053" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22738" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22662" CreationDate="2018-10-22T19:51:17.613" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Given the hint of the same key move in both problems, I've systematically worked out all the various options for the solutions of both. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the king on e4 problem, the solutions are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1. Bc4 Ke5  2. Qd5+ Kf6  3. Qg5#.  If 1. ... Kf5  2. Qf3+ Kg6  3. Qf7#. If 2... Ke5 in this line, 3. Qf4#.  Alternately, 1... Kf5 2. Qh5+ Ke4  3. Qd5#.  If 2... Kf6 in this line, 3. Qg5#   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the king on e5 problem, the solutions are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1. Bc4 Ke4  2. Qd5#  or 1... Kf5  2. Qh5+ Ke4  3. Qd5#  or 1... Kf6 2. Qd6+ Kf5  3. Qe6#  or finally, if 2... Kg7 in this latter line, 3. Qh6#.       &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastEditorUserId="8472" LastEditDate="2019-08-28T13:56:17.520" LastActivityDate="2019-08-28T13:56:17.520" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22739" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-10-22T20:02:26.857" Score="3" ViewCount="105" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are FIDE World Champions after the 1993 Kasparov-Short match, i.e. Khalifman, Ponomariov, Kasymdžanov, Topalov, (not counting Karpov and Anand, for obvious reasons) to be considered actual World Champions, or not? I think that the real World Champions after Kasparov are Kramnik (who beat Kasparov), then Anand, and of course Carlsen. What's the chess world's view on this?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastActivityDate="2019-04-11T22:59:05.650" Title="FIDE World Champions after 1993" Tags="&lt;fide&gt;&lt;world-championship&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22740" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-10-22T21:34:07.387" Score="2" ViewCount="183" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there any documented game by &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessplayer?pid=20462&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Benjamin Blumenfeld&lt;/a&gt; where he played &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blumenfeld_Gambit&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Blumenfeld Gambit&lt;/a&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4196" LastActivityDate="2018-10-27T20:08:30.707" Title="Is there any documented game by Benjamin Blumenfeld where he played Blumenfeld Gambit?" Tags="&lt;history&gt;&lt;gambits&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22741" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-10-22T22:03:53.647" Score="7" ViewCount="966" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am trying to program my own chess clock and would like it to be as accurate as possible. Suppose 2 players, player A and player B, are playing a 15 minute game with a 2 second delay. Suppose A is white, and the game begins, and player A spends 2.5 seconds on his first move before hitting the clock. The first 2 seconds are &quot;absorbed&quot; by the delay, but what happens when it is his turn again? He will get the 2 second delay, but will 15:00 change to 14:59 half a second after the delay has finished, essentially giving him a free half-second? Or does the fractional time get rounded up to the nearest second? Similarly with increment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17601" LastActivityDate="2020-05-26T08:49:14.353" Title="How do delay and increment work, exactly?" Tags="&lt;chess-clocks&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22742" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22741" CreationDate="2018-10-22T23:09:51.427" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Nothing gets rounded internally. If you are programming a chess clock, then maintain the time according to whatever the machine precision is on your machine without rounding. Some clocks have tenth seconds on their display, but that doesn't mean that they're altering the fundamental increments of time as compared to different clocks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If A begins and spends 2.5 seconds on his first move, then he will have exactly 14:59.5 left. Just because it displays 15:00 doesn't mean that he still has 15:00. If he spent 2.6 seconds, then he has exactly 14:59.4 left, which may display as 14:59.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Likewise with increment. He will have exactly 14:57.5 + 2 = 14:59.5 seconds on his clock, which may display as 15:00.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3884" LastActivityDate="2018-10-22T23:09:51.427" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22743" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22732" CreationDate="2018-10-23T13:06:57.183" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1) Can I agree with the Recommended Line of Deep Fritz 12?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Re3 is a perfectly reasonable move, and Stockfish 9 also agree's with it. This isn't to say that there aren't other moves to consider such as Qe2 or even the more passive Re1. Also bare in mind that some engine recommendations don't really follow our human style and as such are sometimes hard to grasp and follow through.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;2) Since there are many Engines now like Deep Fritz 12, Fritz 8, Fritz 16, Online Fritz, Chess Master Grand Master Edition etc. and still higher versions coming to market, which engine I can believe? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In truth all of them are similar, and to a club level player it really doesn't matter which engine you chose among the ones you mentioned. If those engines are giving you different moves for the same position its because all the moves are equally strong. Note that engines have versions because they are always being updated and as such it's import to have them updated as much as possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Personally i feel Stockfish is one of the best options out there because not only is it one of the highest rated engines, but it is also open source.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now you shouldn't follow a move recommendation if you don't understand the logic behind a move, otherwise you just memorizing moves and not really improving. This is also why it is important to know the core chess concepts, such as piece development, center control, pawn structure, etc...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;3) By the way, what may be the logic behind 14. Qa4?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are many ideias behind Qa4:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Avoid trading - It is the exact opposite of what you did with Ne5 allowing Nxe5 and the consecutive simplification to rook and bishop endgame being a pawn down. Its important to say that if the rooks are traded off then it will mostly result in a draw despite being a pawn down because its a opposite colored bishop endgame.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Connecting/Doubling rooks - Moving the queen off the first rank allows both rooks to connect later on with Ree1 or even doubling on the E file with Rae1&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Queenside attack - By playing Qa4 you now pressure a7 tying down the knight to its defense. If unanswered then Ne5 will be a threat that removes the defender of a7 and allows you penetrate further with Qxa7. In this case even though you trade a knight down it gives you a lot of attacking options and more importantly the queens aren't traded. Also the B file is now open to a possible Rb1 that pressures the enemy king.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All these points make Qa4 better than Ne5 because they give you a lot more counter-play and fighting chances.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15224" LastActivityDate="2018-10-23T13:06:57.183" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22744" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22740" CreationDate="2018-10-23T14:49:17.017" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am sorry I have no sources, but I have read somewhere (maybe in Yermolinsky's &lt;em&gt;The Road to Chess Improvement&lt;/em&gt; - but apparently not) that no, there isn't any known game of Blumenfeld employing his eponym opening. The gambit is named such just because Alekhine, when annotating his famous Blumenfeld &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1012085&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;win&lt;/a&gt; against Tarrasch, wrote that &quot;4...b5 is an idea by Blumenfeld&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastEditorUserId="14079" LastEditDate="2018-10-27T20:08:30.707" LastActivityDate="2018-10-27T20:08:30.707" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22745" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22700" CreationDate="2018-10-23T19:34:05.977" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I also run a chess club, in Durham, NC.  We meet once a week on Saturdays in the local library, which lets us use their facilities free. We have a small number of of sets and roll-up boards for those few who don't have their own. The club is 9 years old.  We started with 2 players and have been averaging about a dozen players for the past few years. I rarely hold tournaments, since I find that they discourage the weaker players and I'm still trying to grow the club. &#xA;We just play casual chess, with quite a few players who like speed chess.  They bring their own clocks.  What I've found most helpful in keeping up interest is writing a monthly newsletter with news, games and problems which I e-mail to them. I've generated a list of over 250 e-mail addresses over the years.  They all of course don't always come, but with a rotating cast, we still keep up the average I mentioned.  We've had a couple of team tourneys against other clubs and a simul by a visiting master, which brought out a lot of people.  It's of course most important to have a dedicated leader to soldier on through thick and thin and always be there, which in our case is me.  I hope some of these ideas might be helpful.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastEditorUserId="7657" LastEditDate="2018-10-23T19:39:14.503" LastActivityDate="2018-10-23T19:39:14.503" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22746" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-10-24T12:15:21.407" Score="3" ViewCount="160" Body="&lt;p&gt;I feel I learn best from solving exercises and I'm looking for a resource that focuses on &quot;dynamic play&quot; such as going for dynamic advantages at the expense of static/material aspects and how to treat the resulting positions. Any recommendation for an exercise book or an online resource?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12953" LastActivityDate="2018-10-25T08:39:53.183" Title="Exercises on dynamic play" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22748" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22746" CreationDate="2018-10-25T08:39:53.183" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can recommend &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.qualitychess.co.uk/products/2/23/attacking_manual_1_2nd_edition_-_by_jacob_aagaard/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;The Attacking Manual&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From the Quality Chess homepage: &quot;British Champion Jacob Aagaard explains the rules of attack (the exploitation of a dynamic advantage) in an accessible and entertaining style. This groundbreaking work is well balanced between easily understandable examples, exercises and deep analysis.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To benefit from this book you should be an advanced player, maybe 1900 Elo or above. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Attacking Manual contains explicit exercises. An alternative is to just play through dynamic games from a book and try to guess the next move. For example you could search the game on chessgames.com or on chessbase, make sure you can't see the moves and then go through it until you find an interesting position. Then you calculate and write down all your variations. Afterwards you go back to the book and find out how accurate your reasoning was.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Books with great dynamic chess are &lt;a href=&quot;https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1857442024&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Life and Games of Mikhael Tal&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.gambitbooks.com/books/Storming_the_Barricades.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Storming the barricades&lt;/a&gt; or &lt;a href=&quot;https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1857441508&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Fire on Board&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2018-10-25T08:39:53.183" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22750" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22732" CreationDate="2018-10-25T22:05:53.327" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Maybe 13.Re3 is fine but your thought process concerns me: &quot; I played 13. Re3 with the logic of protecting the f3 Knight by the pin of ...Bg4.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You are down a pawn.  You are still a bit ahead in development.  It is not the time to think defensively.  You should be looking for a move that gives you the best chance to keep some kind of initiative.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Try going down different lines with the computer and see how the assessment changes.  In the old days people didn't have the help of a computer -- how do you think they figured out the best moves!  Don't blindly trust the computer, go down the lines to see why.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To me 13.Qe2 is very tempting and then 13...0-0-0 you can play your 14.Ne5, probably with compensation for the pawn.  On the other hand it is nice to have the queen visit the queenside where Black's King is going to try and live -- thus 13.Re3 and Qa4; presumably with enough pressure after 14...Qa5 15.Qxa5 Nxa5 16.Ng5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2018-10-25T22:05:53.327" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22751" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-10-26T07:25:31.793" Score="15" ViewCount="1495" Body="&lt;p&gt;Using a set of Platonic dice (tetrahedron, cube, octahedron, dodecahedron, and icosahedron), what way of choosing the initial position in a game of Fischer Random Chess (Chess 960) uses the fewest dice throws?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am looking for a way that&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;does not simply yield a number between 1 and 960 which you then look up on an ordered list of starting positions&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;allows pieces to be placed in sequence - for example, first the rooks, then the bishops, then the king, or in some other order&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;yields each of the 960 positions with equal probability&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The rules state that for each player bishops must be on squares of opposite colour and the king must be between the rooks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You do not have to use every die. If only, say, the octahedron needs to be used, that is fine!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17627" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-10-26T12:50:58.990" LastActivityDate="2018-11-07T08:19:39.620" Title="How to use dice to determine starting position in Fischer Random?" Tags="&lt;fischer&gt;&lt;chess960&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22752" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22751" CreationDate="2018-10-26T08:59:49.317" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Numbering from white's left, and assuming each die carries consecutive integers starting at 1, you can do it in the order BQN as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;throw a tetrahedron; if n is up, place the white-squared B on the nth free white square&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;do the same for the other B, except place it on the nth free black square&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;throw a cube; if n is up, place the Q on the nth free square&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;throw a cube; rethrow until a number n≠6 is up; place a N on the nth free square&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;throw a tetrahedron; if n is up, place the other N on the nth free square&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;now place RKR on the remaining free squares in that order&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This method uses two dice: a tetrahedron and a cube. The tetrahedron is thrown 3 times; the cube a minimum of 2 times and a mean of 2.2 times.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Equivalently, use a single dodecahedron and interpret n base 4 or 6 according to whether you would otherwise use a tetrahedron or cube. You then need to throw at least 5 times and a mean of 5.2 times.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is neat because all you need to remember is &quot;BQN&quot;. But I do not know whether this yields all 960 positions with equal probability.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17627" LastEditorUserId="17627" LastEditDate="2018-10-26T09:05:24.583" LastActivityDate="2018-10-26T09:05:24.583" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22753" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22751" CreationDate="2018-10-26T09:04:38.080" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Several methods to do so are described on &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess960_starting_position#Methods_for_creating_starting_positions&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Roll all the dice in one throw and place White's pieces as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Place a bishop on one of the eight squares (counting from the left, 'a' through 'h' ) as indicated by the octahedron (d8).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Place the other bishop on one of the four squares of opposite color as indicated by the tetrahedron (d4).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Place the queen on one of the remaining six squares as indicated by the cube (d6).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Take the value of the icosahedron (d20), divide by four  (round up), and let 'x' = the quotient, and 'y' = the remainder + 1. Place a knight on the 'x'-th empty square. Then place the other knight on the 'y'-th remaining empty square. In other words, see the d20 as a d5 for the first knight: 1-4, 5-8, 9-12, 13-16 and 17-20. Then for the second knight, look within the group to get a d4. For example, a 20 is in the fifth group and the fourth spot in that group, so place the knights on the fifth square and the fourth square. An 11 is in the third group and the third spot.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also use just a d10 since there are only ten unique placements of the knights once the bishops and queen has been placed. Hold one knight on the leftmost square and count one, two, three, four with the other knight on the empty square, then when it loops, move the leftmost knight one square to the right, five, six, seven, then it loops again, eight, nine, and finally with ten both knights are as far right as they go. For example, with a six the knight would be placed on the second of the five empty squares, then the second knight would be place on the second of the three squares that are empty to the right of the knight. Using a d10 in this way after two different colored d4:s and a d6 is a minimal one-roll way since 4×4×6×10 is exactly 960. (And, by subtracting one from each die and multipying with 1, 4, 16 and 96 respectively, then adding those numbers together, you find the number in the Chess960 numbering scheme.) The d8, d4, d6, d20 still give equal chance for all 960 positions, but with every position being represented in four different ways.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or alternatively (using an additional die and different calculations): Place the first knight according to the value of the d20 die, by counting the five empty squares and looping back to the left whenever reaching the rightmost empty square. Then with four empty squares remaining, do the same for the other knight using the dodecahedron (d12) die. With this method, every position is represented in 48 different ways.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Place the king between the rooks on the remaining three squares.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is stated (but not proven) that this method (and the others) &amp;quot;generat[e] random starting positions with equal probability&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2018-10-26T09:04:38.080" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22754" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8152" CreationDate="2018-10-26T16:02:09.940" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The machine, hands down. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These days the machine is so incomparably stronger than a player, that even if a player comes up with a better long-term strategy, they will still lose to inevitably missing tactics.  Even if they don't outright drop material, they will overlook threats and walk into a situation where they need to concede positional advantage to not lose that material.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's good to understand the role of Engines in human opening preparation.  Players would play through various lines against a computer looking for a good position, and using the engine to spot and avoid tactical problems for themselves, while laying tactical problems for the opponent.  Thus when they get to the board, if the line played out matches the studies of one player more than the other, they will instantly know which moves to play and the other is in danger of falling prey to the tactics uncovered by the machine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is why Fischer invented Random, to get away from excessive analysis.  It is impossible for a player to memorize 960 opening schemes.  Yet a computer is capable of memorizing, playing itself thousands of matches AFK.  But even if you throw that opening book out (and with the new generation following Alpha Zero, this doesn't even make sense) and elite players win the strategy of the opening, yet machines will crush them in the execution.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17630" LastActivityDate="2018-10-26T16:02:09.940" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22755" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22722" CreationDate="2018-10-26T16:35:32.853" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;https://drive.google.com/open?id=14nKd6uXbmUT2VEYeiQ597S7Jou1GzqXf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Johan Hellsten-Play the Kan&lt;/a&gt;, there are six structures found in the Kan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Classical Sicilian Structure&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Hedgehog Structure&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Enhanced Hedgehog Structure&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Maroczy Bind&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Aggressive Maroczy Bind&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Classical Maroczy Bind&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9684" LastActivityDate="2018-10-26T16:35:32.853" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22756" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-10-27T12:40:45.070" Score="5" ViewCount="919" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why is it important to leave the opponent's pawn in this situation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From over 7kk games only 426 ends with KNN against KP, of which 286 games (67.1%) is draw. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/GPovb.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/GPovb.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the two knights endgame, how should we block the pawn to force checkmate? In @SmallChess's answer, GM Samuel seem have made many mistakes... &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1937249&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1937249&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16403" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-03-14T17:18:41.867" LastActivityDate="2020-03-14T17:18:41.867" Title="2 Knights against 1 pawn (endgame)" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;knight-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22757" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22756" CreationDate="2018-10-27T13:13:45.167" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Endgame where two knights against a lone king is a draw, you can't force a checkmate. However, with a pawn the side with the two knights can setup a mating net without running into stalemate. That's why it's always important to leave a pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just a few days ago, Karjakin demonstrated the technique against a very strong US grandmaster. Please note in the final position, it's a stalemate without the black pawn. Please go through the game, note how Karjakin never attempted to win the final pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White is threatening Nh6, Nf7#. Again, this setup is impossible without the black pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1937249&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1937249&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/dQtRT.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/dQtRT.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2018-10-27T13:13:45.167" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22758" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22761" CreationDate="2018-10-28T15:42:54.253" Score="2" ViewCount="523" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know that, according to chess rules, every move should be made with a single hand. However, this does not clarify if, when making an en passant capture, I should move my pawn first or remove the opponent's pawn from the board. I understand that the result is pretty identical in both cases, but I wonder what is the preferred consequence if you are playing an international tournament game with strict rules, for example. So, for instance, what do most grandmasters etc. generally do first? (Moving their own pawn vs. removing the enemy pawn.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16801" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-06-01T21:02:54.020" LastActivityDate="2020-06-01T21:02:54.020" Title="In the case of en passant, should I move my pawn first or remove my opponent's one?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;pawns&gt;&lt;en-passant&gt;&lt;captures&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22760" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22758" CreationDate="2018-10-28T19:41:03.103" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fide.com/fide/handbook?id=124&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE rules of chess&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;3.1 ...If a piece moves to a square occupied by an opponent’s piece the latter is captured and removed from the chessboard as part of the same move...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So you move your piece (pawn is a piece as per rule 2.2) in order to capture the opponent's piece.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is &lt;em&gt;en passant&lt;/em&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to the rule 3.7 d. it is a sort of capture&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A pawn attacking a square crossed by an opponent’s pawn which has advanced two squares in one move from its original square may capture this opponent’s pawn as though the latter had been moved only one square.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;This capture is only legal on the move following this advance and is called an ‘en passant’ capture.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Think of this: you need to move your own piece first if you play online in order to capture opponent's piece.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Second part of your question regarding how grandmasters, etc do it. Obviously, can't speak for the whole community, however it is considered unethical and in full violation of the rules to remove opponents piece first and then 'forget' to move your own piece (this tactics is often used by hustlers). All chess players must follow the official rules.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4196" LastEditorUserId="8472" LastEditDate="2018-10-30T03:04:23.100" LastActivityDate="2018-10-30T03:04:23.100" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22761" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22758" CreationDate="2018-10-28T20:18:42.877" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both methods are legal. There is, however, one difference between the two options. If the en passant turns out to be illegal, then you must make a move involving the first piece you touched, if it is legal to so. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, if you touch the opponent's pawn first, you must capture the opponent's pawn. If you touch your own pawn first, you must move your own pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can't say I know which is preferred by grandmasters. But it seems like moving your own pawn first is somewhat less likely to result in disaster if the move turns out to be illegal-imagine having to capture a defended pawn with your queen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-09-21T14:06:51.437" LastActivityDate="2019-09-21T14:06:51.437" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22764" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22555" CreationDate="2018-10-29T03:31:40.513" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;Computer detection of dead positions is much trickier than people think. It is unlikely that an algorithm exists that runs in reasonable time and is 100% accurate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is easy to check for a simple condition like insufficient material (K+B v K, K+N v K). It is less easy to check for cases with blocked pawns, for instance:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;2b1k3/8/8/1p1p1p1p/1P1P1P1P/8/8/2B1K3 w - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;since there are a lot of legal moves to check. Computers aren't based on intuition like humans: you'd have to enumerate every single possible continuation for up to 150 ply without pawn moves/captures (those reset the counter) and check that &lt;em&gt;none&lt;/em&gt; of them end up in checkmate for either side.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You could try other tricks, like trying to store the positions reached in a tree and checked that none of the reachable positions are mate. That's only 76176 positions for the example I gave, but you'd need to check that the tree is indeed exhaustive - i.e. &lt;em&gt;every&lt;/em&gt; legal move in &lt;em&gt;every&lt;/em&gt; position must be tried. That's not going to be efficient.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You could also try to invent some arbitrary heuristics to help your algorithm, like checking for blocked pawns and same coloured bishops. The problem with this approach is that sometimes the heuristics are wrong, or they aren't general enough. (&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/22557/15989&quot;&gt;Brian Tower's answer&lt;/a&gt; is an example of an attempted heuristic, but in the comments user17439 shows it fails to flag some dead positions and I show it incorrectly flags a non-dead position.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And I would love to see any heuristic or algorithm that can distinguish between the following positions (problem by Andrew Buchanan, StrateGems 2002)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Dead:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Bb1k1b2/bKp1p1p1/1pP1P1P1/1P6/p5P1/P7/8/8 w - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Alive:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Bb1k1b2/bKp1p1p1/1pP1P1P1/pP6/6P1/P7/8/8 w - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The second position is alive since mate is possible after&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1.Ka6 Ke8 2.Bb7 Kd8 3.Bc8 Ke8 4.Bd7+ Kd8 5.Be8 Kc8 6.Bf7 Kd8 7.Bg8 Ke8 8.Kb7 Kd8 9.g5 Ke8 10.Kc8 a4 11.Bf7#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In sum, I do not believe you can have an algorithm that is 100% accurate in distinguishing between dead and alive positions that runs in reasonable time. Brute force is the only 100% reliable method, but it is definitely not efficient. You can get a decent success rate for &quot;practical&quot; positions with heuristics, but it will not be 100% accurate, even for real game positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15989" LastActivityDate="2018-10-29T03:31:40.513" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22765" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-10-29T05:02:43.443" Score="7" ViewCount="5145" Body="&lt;p&gt;White has a King and a Queen. &#xA;Black has a King and a Knight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is White's move. Can White win or is this ending a draw?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17640" LastActivityDate="2018-11-01T21:18:42.600" Title="Can a King and Queen mate a King and Knight or is this a drawn game?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;knights&gt;&lt;queens&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22766" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22765" CreationDate="2018-10-29T11:11:06.523" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is generally a win for White (unless Black's already forked the king and queen, of course.) White's king and queen can force the Black king to the edge of the board, and after that, either the knight is too close to the king to prevent checkmate threats, or too far to be protected by the king and gets forked by the queen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2018-10-29T11:11:06.523" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22767" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22765" CreationDate="2018-10-29T11:24:52.923" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;Without any pawns Queen vs Knight endgame is a theoretical win for the Queen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Actually, most chess sites that have checkmates practice offer this very problem as one of them, along side many other classical ones such as Queen vs Rook, Two Bishops, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/practice/checkmates/piece-checkmates-ii/Rg2cMBZ6/duxBgZ8t&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Take a look at this mate problem in lichess&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/drills/practice/queen-vs-knight-mate&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;The same problem in chess.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is an example of how you can win:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/8/3kn3/8/8/3KQ3/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Kc4 Kd7 2. Qe5 Nc7 3. Qf6 Ne6 4. Kd5 Nc7+&#xA;5. Ke5 Nb5 6. Qb6 Nc7 7. Qb7 Kd8 8. Kd6 Ne8+&#xA;9. Kc6 Nc7 10. Qxc7+ Ke8 11. Qg7 Kd8 12. Qd7#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15224" LastEditorUserId="15224" LastEditDate="2018-10-30T00:23:26.463" LastActivityDate="2018-10-30T00:23:26.463" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22769" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-10-29T15:52:49.493" Score="4" ViewCount="206" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have tried to look for historical chess games (i.e. 19th century to early 20th century). I usually use Chessbase online database and &lt;code&gt;chessgames.com&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have never paid for a database or database subscription, but I was wondering if anyone knows whether they tend to have more complete historical games than the free options available on these chess websites? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2569" LastEditorUserId="16912" LastEditDate="2018-10-31T02:11:02.510" LastActivityDate="2019-02-21T05:36:06.447" Title="Professional Databases and Historical Games" Tags="&lt;history&gt;&lt;database&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22770" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22765" CreationDate="2018-10-29T22:16:04.513" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Two words: Nalimov  Tablebase.&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chessok.com/?page_id=361&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://chessok.com/?page_id=361&lt;/a&gt; will allow you to set up any endgame position and will let you see the result.&#xA;Queen and King vs King and Knight results in a checkmate in at most (that I can find) 17 moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13147" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2018-11-01T21:18:42.600" LastActivityDate="2018-11-01T21:18:42.600" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22771" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22774" CreationDate="2018-10-30T18:37:18.347" Score="2" ViewCount="166" Body="&lt;p&gt;Last &lt;strong&gt;Scid&lt;/strong&gt; versions come without &lt;strong&gt;pgnscid&lt;/strong&gt; shipped with it. That happens since version 4.6.0, when it was removed because it was stated as &lt;em&gt;obsolete&lt;/em&gt;, according to changelog.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I guess that if &lt;strong&gt;pgnscid&lt;/strong&gt; is now obsolete must be because another executable can be used to do what the former did, a command line utility to convert a pgn file into a scid database, but I'm not able to find out how to do it with the other executables packed with &lt;strong&gt;Scid&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does anybody have a clue on which is &lt;strong&gt;pgnscid&lt;/strong&gt; replacement?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2311" LastActivityDate="2018-12-30T04:06:06.260" Title="Replacement for pgnscid" Tags="&lt;scid&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22772" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9237" CreationDate="2018-10-31T00:35:50.210" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm glad some have found the downloadable annotated PGN game archives at Path to Chess Mastery - &lt;a href=&quot;https://pathtochessmastery.blogspot.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://pathtochessmastery.blogspot.com/&lt;/a&gt; - useful. Although the individual game analyses (my own tournament games and commentary on Master games) have been posted on the blog for training purposes, I think a number of the positional and tactical insights gained could be of general interest for improving Class-level players. I'm a Class A player that uses the Komodo engine for position evaluation (with my own explanations), so you get what you pay for, heh.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a more general answer, I find that there are a lot of good Chess.com master videos that in fact consist of annotated games - often disguised as training in particular openings or on middlegame principles or whatnot - but there is a paywall, so no unlimited access.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17649" LastActivityDate="2018-10-31T00:35:50.210" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22774" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22771" CreationDate="2018-10-31T02:10:23.000" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;pgnscid does not have a replacement. Instead, it is expected that you import the pgn file within a SCID database.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1766" LastActivityDate="2018-10-31T02:10:23.000" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22775" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22751" CreationDate="2018-10-31T02:38:17.450" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the year 2005 or earlier, an Edward D. Collins, wrote the following procedure &quot;How to Create a Fischer Random Opening Position&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The pawns  go on their original squares. The pieces will be placed  randomly on the back rank, subject to the rules of  Fischer Random chess. The bishops must be on opposite  colors and the King must be between the two Rooks.  For  each of the first five steps below, simply roll the die  and act accordingly to place the white pieces. After  placing White's pieces, Black's pieces are simply a  mirror image.      &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Step #1 Select a black square for the bishop&#xA;If you roll a 1 place a bishop on a1. &#xA;If you roll a 2 place a bishop on c1. &#xA;If you roll a 3 place a bishop on e1. &#xA;If you roll a 4 place a bishop on g1.&#xA;If you roll a 5 or a 6, roll again.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Step #2 Select a white square for the next bishop&#xA;If you roll a 1 place a bishop on b1. &#xA;If you roll a 2 place a bishop on d1. &#xA;If you roll a 3 place a bishop on f1. &#xA;If you roll a 4 place a bishop on h1.&#xA;If you roll a 5 or a 6, roll again.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Step #3 Place the Queen on the empty square of the number that you roll.&#xA;For example, if you roll a 1, place a Queen on the first&#xA;empty square. If you roll a 3, place the Queen on the third&#xA;empty square.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Step #4 Place a knight on the empty square of the number that you roll.&#xA;Again, for example, if you roll a 2, place a knight on the second empty square.  If you roll a 6, roll again.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Step #5 Repeat Step #4 for the other knight. &#xA;If you roll a 5 or a 6, roll again.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Step #6 Finally, place the King in-between the two rooks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This procedure creates any of the possible  960 opening setups  with equal probability.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: The source is &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.edcollins.com/chess/fischer-random.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.edcollins.com/chess/fischer-random.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1766" LastEditorUserId="1766" LastEditDate="2018-11-07T08:19:39.620" LastActivityDate="2018-11-07T08:19:39.620" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22776" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22777" CreationDate="2018-10-31T05:38:36.213" Score="11" ViewCount="2386" Body="&lt;p&gt;From the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=208&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Handbook&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;III.2.2&lt;/strong&gt; These Guidelines shall apply only to standard chess and rapid chess games without increment and not to blitz games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;III.4&lt;/strong&gt; If the player having the move has less than two minutes left on his clock, he may request that an increment extra five seconds be introduced for both players. This constitutes the offer of a draw. If the offer refused, and the arbiter agrees to the request, the clocks shall then be set with the extra time; the opponent shall be awarded two extra minutes and the game shall continue.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to this, if I crush my opponent in a rapid game using all of my clock time except for a minute, then I can simply request an increment of 5 seconds for continuing the game (my opponent gets two minutes, but that will not affect the game due to his/her hopeless position). Is this fair enough?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There have been many examples where this rule could be used but wasn't, for instance, the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/news/view/fischer-random-chess-day-4-carlsen-wins-then-flags&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Unofficial Chess960 World Championship&lt;/a&gt;, Carlsen could have requested an increment and tried to win the R + B vs R endgame instead of flagging. Why didn't he do so?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13544" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2018-10-31T13:18:31.573" Title="Why is it allowed to request an increment in time trouble?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;time-control&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22777" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22776" CreationDate="2018-10-31T07:03:38.637" Score="15" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;but that will not affect the game due to his/her hopeless position&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well, if your opponent has a hopeless position, they would be better off accepting the 'automatic' draw offer which is implied whenever you make this request: &quot;This constitutes the offer of a draw.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, invoking this III.4 rule is &lt;em&gt;only&lt;/em&gt; beneficial if you have a worse position &lt;em&gt;and&lt;/em&gt; very little time left on your clock, which sort-of makes sense: especially in classical games, we want the stronger side to win &lt;em&gt;on the board&lt;/em&gt;, not by simply moving their pieces around.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One of the strengths of this rule is that it's an &lt;em&gt;objective&lt;/em&gt; rule. An older rule (III.5.1) is that the player in time trouble can claim their opponent isn't trying to win by normal means; validating this claim required a &lt;em&gt;subjective&lt;/em&gt; decision by an arbiter. I had never heard of rule III.4; I wouldn't be surprised if once it's wider known, rule III.5.1 will be abandoned entirely.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="2789" LastEditDate="2018-10-31T13:18:31.573" LastActivityDate="2018-10-31T13:18:31.573" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22778" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22741" CreationDate="2018-10-31T11:32:45.173" Score="0" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Essentially giving him a free second&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is not how a chess clock should work. The accuracy of the chess clock should be more than that you see while using it. If you are programming a chess clock for OTB play, then an accuracy of 100 milliseconds would be enough. However, for an online chess clock (one which gets automatically pressed when a move is made), this accuracy is not enough and could be exploited by the players, especially if premoving is an option.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When programming a chess clock, what I do is store the total time left for each player in milliseconds. Then, I write a function which will calculate the amount of hours, minutes, seconds and milliseconds (as necessary) to display them, and run this function every 10 milliseconds, each time subtracting 1 from the original time (in ms).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This way, while the clock may only show the time as 14:59, it will be able to store it as 14:59.625, for example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13544" LastActivityDate="2018-10-31T11:32:45.173" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22779" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22780" CreationDate="2018-10-31T13:04:51.260" Score="36" ViewCount="12161" Body="&lt;p&gt;Logically, if 75 moves have been played, 50 moves would've also been played. This sounds ridiculous. It is like saying &amp;quot;I would buy this book if it cost under $60 and it costs under $40&amp;quot;. So, what is the logic behind that?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13544" LastEditorUserId="13544" LastEditDate="2021-02-19T18:39:55.417" LastActivityDate="2021-02-19T18:39:55.417" Title="Why is there a 50-move rule and a 75-move rule?" Tags="&lt;history&gt;&lt;50-move-rule&gt;&lt;75-move-rule&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22780" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22779" CreationDate="2018-10-31T14:01:20.393" Score="66" Body="&lt;p&gt;From the FIDE Laws of Chess:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;50-move rule:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;9.3 The game is drawn, &lt;strong&gt;upon a correct claim by a player having the move&lt;/strong&gt;, if: &#xA;  (...) &#xA;  the last 50 moves by each player have been completed without the movement of any pawn and without any capture.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;75-move rule:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;9.6 If one or both of the following occur(s) then the game is drawn: (...) any series of at least 75 moves have been made by each player without the movement of any pawn and without any capture.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(emphasis mine)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you can see, the decisive difference is that the 50-move rule only applies if a player correctly claims it, while the 75-move rule applies independently of any claims. So, in the 50 to 75 move window, the players &lt;strong&gt;can&lt;/strong&gt; claim for a draw, but don't &lt;strong&gt;have&lt;/strong&gt; to (and play on). Only when the 75th move without pawn moves or captures has been reached, the arbiter may interfere and declare the game drawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13433" LastActivityDate="2018-10-31T14:01:20.393" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22784" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8633" CreationDate="2018-11-01T09:55:39.643" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;The two irreversible moves can be proved irreversible (it is impossible to replicate that board state later in the game) like so:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Assumptions:&#xA; - Pawns can't move backward.&#xA; - Every pawn move moves it forward.&#xA; - Pieces can't be added to the board.&#xA; - There is no way to create a pawn (unlike queens, bishops, knights, and rooks which can be created via pawn promotion).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Firstly, captures can be proved irreversible because they always remove a piece from the board. If a board state has N pieces and one is removed you now have N-1 pieces. There is no way to increase the number of pieces so you can never return to N pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Secondly, since every pawn move moves it forward, a pawn can never return to its original position. The only way to have a pawn in that position later on is to have it be occupied by another pawn. But for another pawn to occupy the position &lt;em&gt;that&lt;/em&gt; pawn has to move. There is only a finite number of pawns so after every pawn has moved to fill the position left by the previous pawn there are no pawns left to fill the position of the last pawn, preventing the board state from being reached again.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17646" LastActivityDate="2018-11-01T09:55:39.643" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22785" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22787" CreationDate="2018-11-01T10:50:51.180" Score="3" ViewCount="295" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let us suppose I am a chess beginner. I often lose my games. Well, it depends on the opponent but generally I can hardly win. My problem is I do not know what I should do with my knights.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Usually chess textbooks or people whom I asked for advice tell me, &quot;You must develop your knights very early in the game; it's necessary for castling.&quot; After that, they don't give any more useful information.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I simply do not know what to do after I castled... For example, I've played 1. e4 2. Nf3 3. Bc4 4. 0-0. After that, I am stuck. A few times, I tried to be brave and to advance my knight forward in hope of giving a smothered checkmate, but I always had to encounter the opponent's queen, which is extremely powerful. Returning my knight to initial square doesn't make any sense for me. And not making any further moves with my knight seems to be pretty stupid as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16801" LastActivityDate="2018-11-02T15:04:24.607" Title="What should a chess beginner do with his/her knights after 2. Nf3 or 2. Nc3?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;knights&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22786" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18503" CreationDate="2018-11-01T10:53:23.890" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You don't need Arena. Simply open a new notepad window. Then proceed by opening each individual PGN file in notepad, copy its contents and paste them in the new window you opened (i.e. put the contents of all of the PGN files in one file), then save as a PGN file. Open this file in arena and you will have all games in one file.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13544" LastEditorUserId="13544" LastEditDate="2018-12-01T13:51:31.103" LastActivityDate="2018-12-01T13:51:31.103" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22787" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22785" CreationDate="2018-11-01T11:30:16.483" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;The knights don't necessarily move beyond the third rank in the opening. The middlegame is more variable and depends on the opening, but I think the main &quot;rule&quot; you need to remember is that knights, being slow pieces, work best when they are supported. You generally should avoid advancing a knight unprotected, where it could be lost to a tactic. The best support for a knight is a pawn, but also you don't want your knight to be &quot;kicked back&quot; by an enemy pawn (unless that move would be bad for your opponent for some other reason), so the ideal square for a knight is an &lt;em&gt;outpost&lt;/em&gt;, which quoting the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outpost_(chess)&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia definition&lt;/a&gt; is &quot;a square on the fourth, fifth, sixth, or seventh rank which is protected by a pawn and which cannot be attacked by an opponent's pawn.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One more thing to consider is that, if you castle short, the f3 knight also has an important defensive role since it defends the h2 pawn, which is often a target of attack. That doesn't mean you can never move the knight, but you should be wary when there are enemy pieces threatening that pawn. A famous attacking pattern known as the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_gift_sacrifice&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&quot;Greek gift&quot;&lt;/a&gt; begins by sacrificing a bishop for the h2 pawn (or h7 against Black, of course!).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12523" LastActivityDate="2018-11-01T11:30:16.483" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22788" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22785" CreationDate="2018-11-01T11:59:12.967" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The most general opening goals are&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Develop your knights and bishops (all of them, usually N before B)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Castle&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Move the queen and connect your rooks&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At which point the opening stage is done and it is now middle game. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You might want to learn some particular opening lines (eg Italian/Sicilian) and memorize and understand the first few moves. If you are at a loss, try to achieve the above opening goals before going on something adventurous.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7002" LastActivityDate="2018-11-01T11:59:12.967" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22790" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22785" CreationDate="2018-11-01T14:02:54.850" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Think &lt;strong&gt;pawn breaks&lt;/strong&gt;. A pawn break is when you move one of your pawns so that it can be captured by an opponent's pawn. They are what changes a position, what opens lines, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After 1.e4 e5, those two pawns block each other. You can move a few pieces out, but that ends soon -- you need a pawn break, either d2-d4 or f2-f4. All openings following 1.e4 e5 try to achieve one or the other.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you play 2.Nf3, then you go for d2-d4, either on the next move or after further preparation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After 2.Nc3, it's more logical to aim for f2-f4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you play both either you go for d2-d4 or have to play a much slower game and then eventually go for d2-d4 anyway.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2018-11-01T14:02:54.850" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22791" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4188" CreationDate="2018-11-01T15:49:05.843" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was trying to solve the same problem but since I am not familiar with C++ I did it in Python instead. My program also unzips and extracts the PGN files from the downloaded zip files.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Code:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  import pycurl&#xA;  from io import BytesIO&#xA;  import os&#xA;  import zipfile&#xA;  from pathlib import Path&#xA;&#xA;  c = pycurl.Curl()&#xA;&#xA;  for i in range(start, end + 1):&#xA;&#xA;    url = &quot;http://theweekinchess.com/zips/twic&quot; + str(i) + &quot;g.zip&quot;&#xA;&#xA;    save_location_path = Path(&quot;/home/paluchasz/Desktop/chessbase_stuff/downloading_twic/twic&quot; + str(i) + &quot;.zip&quot;)&#xA;    unzipped_location_path = Path(&quot;/home/paluchasz/Desktop/chessbase_stuff/downloading_twic&quot;)&#xA;&#xA;    with open(save_location_path, 'wb') as f:&#xA;&#xA;        c.setopt(c.URL, url)&#xA;        c.setopt(c.WRITEDATA, f)&#xA;        c.perform()&#xA;&#xA;    with zipfile.ZipFile(save_location_path, 'r') as myzip:&#xA;        myzip.extractall(unzipped_location_path)&#xA;&#xA;    os.remove(save_location_path)&#xA;&#xA;  c.close()&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Notes:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Firstly to find the url I just put my mouse pointer on the download pgn button on the TWIC website. I noticed that the urls have a common structure and the only thing that changes are the numbers. However, that url appeared to be incorrect as I was getting a 301 (moved permanently) error. As it turned out it moved to the same url but without the 'www' at the start.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Adjust the range function depending on what files you want to download, so if you want to download from 1100 to 1250 then set start = 1100 and end = 1250&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The unzipped_location_path should be the path to the folder where you want the pgn files to be saved to. The save_location_path will be a path to where the zip files will be downloaded to first (I chose the same folder for this). These also need a file name at the end of the path which needs to be different for each zip. Hence the &lt;em&gt;str(i) + &quot;.zip&quot;&lt;/em&gt; ending.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It is not necessary to use &lt;em&gt;Path()&lt;/em&gt; - it's use is that this script can now be run on another operating system which perhaps has the same path (Windows for instance uses backslashes instead and this path would not work)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The pycurl library downloads the files. Zipfile then reads these files and extracts them. Finally &lt;em&gt;os.remove(save_location_path)&lt;/em&gt; removes the no longer useful zip files.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Finally, I originally downloaded CBV Chessbase files instead. However, I could not see an easy way to combine all those files together and I would have had to append to my database one file at a time. That is why I downloaded PGN instead as now I could use the cat command ($ cat * &gt;twic1100-1250.pgn) to merge all the files into one.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Automating the process&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Finally, I thought to myself: would it not be nice if the script was executed weekly and my database would be up to date from now on? To see how I adapted my code have a look on my GitHub: &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/paluchasz/downloading_games_from_TWIC/blob/master/downloading_twic_games.py&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://github.com/paluchasz/downloading_games_from_TWIC/blob/master/downloading_twic_games.py&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I then set up a cron job in the command line to execute the script every Tuesday.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17656" LastActivityDate="2018-11-01T15:49:05.843" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22792" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22785" CreationDate="2018-11-02T15:04:24.607" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Short answer: You wait! You don't move them again until you develop more pieces unless for good reasons. Such reasons usually involve captures in the center after pawn breaks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The nights there are already active pieces doing their share of the game. Nf3 puts pressure on e5 and d4 squares. Nc3 eyes d5 and e4. These are the four central squares and of utmost importance. Thus, having the knights exert pressure there is a good idea.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As an amateur, begin to see where your pieces apply influence, rather than to where they are sitting!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13438" LastActivityDate="2018-11-02T15:04:24.607" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22795" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-11-03T10:19:52.353" Score="-5" ViewCount="409" Body="&lt;p&gt;I need to know how start to become a professional chess player so that I can participate in tournaments.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I first tried to find someone who knows how to play, but didn't find anyone. &#xA;So I started looking through the web.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17678" LastEditorUserId="3444" LastEditDate="2019-01-04T22:19:19.873" LastActivityDate="2019-01-04T22:21:04.903" Title="What does it take to become a professional chess player?" Tags="&lt;chessboards&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22796" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22795" CreationDate="2018-11-03T12:23:48.173" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;To become a professional player who makes a living from tournaments, you really need a GM+ level. Even as a GM, you might find yourself struggling for your bills.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Raise your FIDE to 2500, come back then we talk.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2018-11-03T12:23:48.173" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22797" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22795" CreationDate="2018-11-03T22:37:55.247" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;You don't need to be a professional to participate in a tournament, you just have to sign up for the tournament (as long as it's not by invitation only or has minimum rating requirements). You may need to register with your national chess federation first.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for becoming a professional, I'm not one but I guess the old &quot;practice, practice, practice!&quot; rule is a start. Of course, it also helps to start young, have talent and a good mentor.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12523" LastEditorUserId="12523" LastEditDate="2018-11-04T13:05:11.623" LastActivityDate="2018-11-04T13:05:11.623" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22799" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="162" CreationDate="2018-11-05T02:53:54.410" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Among active players in the United States, about 15% seem to be women.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you look at the rankings on &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.uschess.org/msa/MbrDtlMain.php?12543137&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this page&lt;/a&gt;, there are currently 9513 women active out of 64634 total players. That's 14.7%.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My guess is that the composition of female players skews more heavily towards juniors than the composition of male players, but I didn't find any numbers on that. I say this because I saw more female players at scholastic tournaments as a child than I do now at open tournaments as an adult.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3270" LastEditorUserId="3270" LastEditDate="2018-11-05T02:58:55.427" LastActivityDate="2018-11-05T02:58:55.427" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22800" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22802" CreationDate="2018-11-05T03:55:41.853" Score="0" ViewCount="355" Body="&lt;p&gt;Given below is the crafty chess engine of xboard or winboard version free version.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/MichaelB7/Crafty/releases/download/25.2/Crafty-25.2-Win64.zip&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://github.com/MichaelB7/Crafty/releases/download/25.2/Crafty-25.2-Win64.zip&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Given below is the book&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/MichaelB7/Crafty/releases/download/25.2/Crafty_Chess_Informant.Opening_Books.zip&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://github.com/MichaelB7/Crafty/releases/download/25.2/Crafty_Chess_Informant.Opening_Books.zip&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Given below is the GUI open version.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/SigmaPT/asm.git&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://github.com/SigmaPT/asm.git&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I could not able to use xboard or winboard protocol in the gui.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please help me in fixing the issue. Please tell the command to be inserted in console window of the gui. Please note I request to put crafty chess engine ONLY in GUI and test.Other UCI chess engines are working GUI.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17688" LastEditorUserId="17688" LastEditDate="2018-11-05T04:42:02.250" LastActivityDate="2018-11-05T07:06:20.380" Title="How to use crafty chess engine in the gui chess64.exe link provided" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;computer-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22801" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15675" CreationDate="2018-11-05T06:08:42.433" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The answer to this question depends at least in part on what rating system you want to use when running an event, as well as what your definition of &quot;good&quot; is.  It's worth noting that pairing programs require a lot of time, testing and maintenance.  So, if you see &quot;good&quot; as synonymous with &quot;cheap&quot; or &quot;free&quot;, there probably isn't anything available that will work.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you're planning a FIDE rated tournament, you can find a list of the approved pairing programs here:  &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/FIDE/handbook/C04Annex3_FEP18.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.fide.com/FIDE/handbook/C04Annex3_FEP18.pdf&lt;/a&gt;.  Of these, Swiss Manager is, IMO, the best bet, not least in part because it offers one-button Web publishing of results and pairings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;if you're planning a US Chess rated tournament (as opposed to the FIDE rating system), your best options for pairings are as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.swisssys.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;SwissSys&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://estima.com/chess/index.shtml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;WinTD&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Manual pairing.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You won't be able to generate the files required for electronic submission of US Chess rating reports without either SwissSys or WinTD.  Either pairing program would work well for you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a reasonable argument that arbiters should learn how to pair by hand before jumping in to using a pairing program.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17690" LastActivityDate="2018-11-05T06:08:42.433" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22802" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22800" CreationDate="2018-11-05T07:06:20.380" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I played a quick game as White.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1.e4 Nc6 2.Ke2 d5 3.Ke3 dxe4&#xA;&#xA;xboard&#xA;st 1&#xA;e2e4&#xA;e1e2&#xA;e2e3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Logs:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;./crafty-25.3-gcc&#xA;unable to open book file [./book.bin].&#xA;book is disabled&#xA;unable to open book file [./books.bin].&#xA;&#xA;Crafty v25.3&#xA;&#xA;machine has 8 processors&#xA;&#xA;White(1): st 1&#xA;search time set to 1.00.&#xA;White(1): e2e4&#xA;              time used:   4.80&#xA;        time surplus   0.00  time limit 1.00 (1.00)&#xA;        depth     time       score   variation (1)&#xA;         18-&amp;gt;   1.00/1.00     0.33   1. ... Nc6 2. Nf3 e5 3. Bc4 Nf6 4. Nc3 Bc5&#xA;                                     5. O-O O-O 6. d3 Na5 7. Nxe5 Bd4 8. Nxf7&#xA;                                     Rxf7 9. Bxf7+ Kxf7 10. Bg5 d6&#xA;        time=1.00(100%)  nodes=5906541(5.9M)  fh1=92%  pred=0  nps=5.9M&#xA;        chk=40.8K  qchk=64.5K  fp=1.7M  mcp=1.4M  50move=1&#xA;        LMReductions:  1/236.3K  2/183.8K  3/125.8K  4/33.9K  5/1.3K&#xA;        null-move (R):  3/295.8K  4/20.0K  5/377&#xA;Black(1): Nc6&#xA;              time used:   1.00&#xA;White(2): Nf3 [pondering]&#xA;        time surplus  29.00  time limit 1.00 (1.00)&#xA;        depth     time       score   variation (17)&#xA;         19     1.15/1.00     0.22   2. (Nf3) e5 3. Bc4 Be7 4. Nc3 Nf6 5. O-O&#xA;                                     O-O 6. d3 d6 7. a3 a6 8. Be3 b5 9. Bd5 Bd7&#xA;                                     10. Qe2 Nxd5 11. Nxd5 Kh8&#xA;         19-&amp;gt;   1.28/1.00     0.22   2. (Nf3) e5 3. Bc4 Be7 4. Nc3 Nf6 5. O-O&#xA;                                     O-O 6. d3 d6 7. a3 a6 8. Be3 b5 9. Bd5 Bd7&#xA;                                     10. Qe2 Nxd5 11. Nxd5 Kh8&#xA;         20     1.94/1.00     0.26   2. (Nf3) e5 3. Bc4 Be7 4. Nc3 Nf6 5. O-O&#xA;                                     O-O 6. d3 d6 7. a3 a6 8. h3 b5 9. Ba2 Be6&#xA;                                     10. Bxe6 fxe6 11. Be3 Qd7 12. Qe2&#xA;         20-&amp;gt;   2.22/1.00     0.26   2. (Nf3) e5 3. Bc4 Be7 4. Nc3 Nf6 5. O-O&#xA;                                     O-O 6. d3 d6 7. a3 a6 8. h3 b5 9. Ba2 Be6&#xA;                                     10. Bxe6 fxe6 11. Be3 Qd7 12. Qe2&#xA;         21     4.24/1.00     0.24   2. (Nf3) e5 3. Bc4 Nf6 4. Nc3 Be7 5. O-O&#xA;                                     d6 6. d4 exd4 7. Nxd4 Nxd4 8. Qxd4 O-O&#xA;                                     9. Qd3 Be6 10. Bxe6 fxe6 11. Be3 Ng4&#xA;                                     12. f3 Nxe3 13. Qxe3&#xA;         21-&amp;gt;   4.56/1.00     0.24   2. (Nf3) e5 3. Bc4 Nf6 4. Nc3 Be7 5. O-O&#xA;                                     d6 6. d4 exd4 7. Nxd4 Nxd4 8. Qxd4 O-O&#xA;                                     9. Qd3 Be6 10. Bxe6 fxe6 11. Be3 Ng4&#xA;                                     12. f3 Nxe3 13. Qxe3&#xA;         22    11.23/1.00     0.13   2. (Nf3) e5 3. Bc4 Bc5 4. O-O Nf6 5. d3 d6&#xA;                                     6. Nc3 O-O 7. Bg5 Be6 8. Bxe6 fxe6 9. Qd2&#xA;                                     Qe7 10. Kh1 Nd4 11. Nxd4 exd4 12. Bxf6&#xA;                                     Rxf6 13. Nb5&#xA;         22-&amp;gt;  11.51/1.00     0.13   2. (Nf3) e5 3. Bc4 Bc5 4. O-O Nf6 5. d3 d6&#xA;                                     6. Nc3 O-O 7. Bg5 Be6 8. Bxe6 fxe6 9. Qd2&#xA;                                     Qe7 10. Kh1 Nd4 11. Nxd4 exd4 12. Bxf6&#xA;                                     Rxf6 13. Nb5&#xA;         23    15.56/1.00     0.18   2. (Nf3) e5 3. Bc4 Nf6 4. Ng5 d5 5. exd5&#xA;                                     Nxd5 6. O-O f6 7. Nf3 Bg4 8. Re1 Nd4 9. c3&#xA;                                     Nxf3+ 10. gxf3 Bh5 11. d4 Nb6 12. Be6 Bd6&#xA;                                     13. Nd2 Qe7 14. dxe5 Bxe5&#xA;         23-&amp;gt;  16.08/1.00     0.18   2. (Nf3) e5 3. Bc4 Nf6 4. Ng5 d5 5. exd5&#xA;                                     Nxd5 6. O-O f6 7. Nf3 Bg4 8. Re1 Nd4 9. c3&#xA;                                     Nxf3+ 10. gxf3 Bh5 11. d4 Nb6 12. Be6 Bd6&#xA;                                     13. Nd2 Qe7 14. dxe5 Bxe5&#xA;         24    19.01/1.00     0.25   2. (Nf3) e5 3. Bc4 Nf6 4. Ng5 d5 5. exd5&#xA;                                     Nxd5 6. O-O f6 7. Nf3 Bg4 8. Re1 Nd4 9. c3&#xA;                                     Nxf3+ 10. gxf3 Bh5 11. d4 Nb6 12. Bb3 Be7&#xA;                                     13. Na3 Bxa3 14. bxa3 Qd6&#xA;         24-&amp;gt;  20.78/1.00     0.25   2. (Nf3) e5 3. Bc4 Nf6 4. Ng5 d5 5. exd5&#xA;                                     Nxd5 6. O-O f6 7. Nf3 Bg4 8. Re1 Nd4 9. c3&#xA;                                     Nxf3+ 10. gxf3 Bh5 11. d4 Nb6 12. Bb3 Be7&#xA;                                     13. Na3 Bxa3 14. bxa3 Qd6&#xA;         25    30.02/1.00     1/22?  2. ... e5      (6.4Mnps)             &#xA;ok.&#xA;&#xA;ok.&#xA;e1e2&#xA;White(2): e1e2&#xA;              time used:  35.73&#xA;        time surplus  29.00  time limit 1.00 (1.00)&#xA;        depth     time       score   variation (1)&#xA;         17-&amp;gt;   1.01/1.00    -0.94   2. ... d5 3. exd5 Qxd5 4. Ke1 Bf5 5. Nc3&#xA;                                     Qc5 6. Nge2 O-O-O 7. Ng3 Qe5+ 8. Be2 Be6&#xA;                                     9. d3 Nf6 10. Kf1 Nd4 11. Nge4&#xA;        time=1.01(100%)  nodes=6286981(6.3M)  fh1=87%  pred=0  nps=6.2M&#xA;        chk=177.9K  qchk=408.3K  fp=2.1M  mcp=805.1K  50move=3&#xA;        LMReductions:  1/119.7K  2/76.9K  3/51.9K  4/20.2K  5/1.8K  6/1&#xA;        null-move (R):  3/160.8K  4/10.7K  5/175&#xA;Black(2): d5&#xA;              time used:   1.01&#xA;White(3): exd5 [pondering]&#xA;        time surplus  57.99  time limit 1.00 (1.00)&#xA;        depth     time       score   variation (16)&#xA;         19     1.25/1.00    -0.83   3. (exd5) Qxd5 4. Ke1 Bf5 5. Nc3 Qc5&#xA;                                     6. Bb5 O-O-O 7. Bxc6 Qxc6 8. Nf3 Nf6 9. d3&#xA;                                     e6 10. Kf1 Bg4 11. Ne5 Qxc3 12. Nxg4 Qc4&#xA;         19-&amp;gt;   1.80/1.00    -0.83   3. (exd5) Qxd5 4. Ke1 Bf5 5. Nc3 Qc5 &#xA;                                     6. Bb5 O-O-O 7. Bxc6 Qxc6 8. Nf3 Nf6 9. d3&#xA;                                     e6 10. Kf1 Bg4 11. Ne5 Qxc3 12. Nxg4 Qc4&#xA;e2e         20     4.67/1.00    -0.71   3. (exd5) Qxd5 4. Ke1 Nf6 5. Nc3 Qc5 6. d3&#xA;                                     e5 7. Nf3 Bd6 8. Be2 O-O 9. Kf1 Re8&#xA;                                     10. Ng5 Nd4 11. Bh5 g6 12. Bf3 h6 13. Nge4&#xA;3        20     4.67/1.00     2/29?  3. ... Bg4+    (7.0Mnps)             &#xA;White(3): e2e3&#xA;              time used:   4.93&#xA;        time surplus  57.99  time limit 1.00 (1.00)&#xA;        depth     time       score   variation (1)&#xA;         14-&amp;gt;   1.01/1.00    -2.57   3. ... dxe4 4. Ke2 Bg4+ 5. f3 exf3+&#xA;                                     6. Nxf3 Qd6 7. Nc3 O-O-O 8. Ke1 Nf6 9. d3&#xA;                                     Nd4 10. Be2 Qb4 11. Kf1&#xA;        time=1.01(100%)  nodes=6260401(6.3M)  fh1=86%  pred=0  nps=6.2M&#xA;        chk=169.6K  qchk=373.8K  fp=2.4M  mcp=534.1K  50move=2&#xA;        LMReductions:  1/100.5K  2/56.5K  3/38.1K  4/16.5K  5/1.0K&#xA;        null-move (R):  3/134.8K  4/6.3K  5/23&#xA;Black(3): dxe4&#xA;              time used:   1.01&#xA;White(4): Ke2 [pondering]&#xA;        time surplus   1:26  time limit 1.00 (1.00)&#xA;        depth     time       score   variation (13)&#xA;         16     1.38/1.00    -2.33   4. (Ke2) Bg4+ 5. f3 exf3+ 6. Nxf3 Bxf3+&#xA;                                     7. gxf3 Qd6 8. Bh3 e6 9. Nc3 O-O-O 10. d3&#xA;                                     Nf6 11. Kf1 Nd4 12. Be3 Qb4 13. Bxd4 Rxd4&#xA;         16-&amp;gt;   1.44/1.00    -2.33   4. (Ke2) Bg4+ 5. f3 exf3+ 6. Nxf3 Bxf3+&#xA;                                     7. gxf3 Qd6 8. Bh3 e6 9. Nc3 O-O-O 10. d3&#xA;                                     Nf6 11. Kf1 Nd4 12. Be3 Qb4 13. Bxd4 Rxd4&#xA;         17     5.31/1.00    -2.52   4. (Ke2) Bg4+ 5. f3 exf3+ 6. gxf3 Bf5&#xA;                                     7. c3 e6 8. d4 Qh4 9. Be3 O-O-O 10. Qe1&#xA;                                     Bd3+ 11. Kd2 Qxe1+ 12. Kxe1 Bxf1 13. Kxf1&#xA;                                     Nf6 14. Ne2&#xA;         17-&amp;gt;   5.34/1.00    -2.52   4. (Ke2) Bg4+ 5. f3 exf3+ 6. gxf3 Bf5&#xA;                                     7. c3 e6 8. d4 Qh4 9. Be3 O-O-O 10. Qe1&#xA;                                     Bd3+ 11. Kd2 Qxe1+ 12. Kxe1 Bxf1 13. Kxf1&#xA;                                     Nf6 14. Ne2&#xA;         18     5.34/1.00     1/33?  4. ... Bg4+    (6.3Mnps)             &#xA;ok.&#xA;         18     7.00/1.00    -2.62   4. (Ke2) Bg4+ 5. f3 exf3+ 6. gxf3 Bf5&#xA;                                     7. d3 e6 8. Qe1 Qe7 9. Kd1 O-O-O 10. Nc3&#xA;                                     Nf6 11. Nge2 Ne5 12. Ng1 Nc4 13. b3 Nd6&#xA;                                     14. Be3&#xA;         18-&amp;gt;   7.06/1.00    -2.62   4. (Ke2) Bg4+ 5. f3 exf3+ 6. gxf3 Bf5&#xA;                                     7. d3 e6 8. Qe1 Qe7 9. Kd1 O-O-O 10. Nc3&#xA;                                     Nf6 11. Nge2 Ne5 12. Ng1 Nc4 13. b3 Nd6&#xA;                                     14. Be3&#xA;         19     8.82/1.00    -2.51   4. (Ke2) Bg4+ 5. f3 exf3+ 6. gxf3 Bf5&#xA;                                     7. d3 Nf6 8. Nc3 Qd6 9. Ke1 O-O-O 10. Nge2&#xA;                                     Qb4 11. Bg2 Qh4+ 12. Kf1 e5 13. Be3 Bh3&#xA;                                     14. Qe1 Qh5 15. Rg1&#xA;         19-&amp;gt;   8.98/1.00    -2.51   4. (Ke2) Bg4+ 5. f3 exf3+ 6. gxf3 Bf5&#xA;                                     7. d3 Nf6 8. Nc3 Qd6 9. Ke1 O-O-O 10. Nge2&#xA;                                     Qb4 11. Bg2 Qh4+ 12. Kf1 e5 13. Be3 Bh3&#xA;                                     14. Qe1 Qh5 15. Rg1&#xA;         20    10.28/1.00    -2.56   4. (Ke2) Bg4+ 5. f3 exf3+ 6. gxf3 Bf5&#xA;                                     7. d3 Nf6 8. Nc3 Qd6 9. Ke1 O-O-O 10. Bg2&#xA;                                     Qd4 11. Ne4 Qa4 12. Ne2 Nb4 13. b3 Qc6&#xA;                                     14. N4c3 Bg4 15. Rf1&#xA;         20-&amp;gt;  10.42/1.00    -2.56   4. (Ke2) Bg4+ 5. f3 exf3+ 6. gxf3 Bf5&#xA;                                     7. d3 Nf6 8. Nc3 Qd6 9. Ke1 O-O-O 10. Bg2&#xA;                                     Qd4 11. Ne4 Qa4 12. Ne2 Nb4 13. b3 Qc6&#xA;                                     14. N4c3 Bg4 15. Rf1&#xA;         21    15.82/1.00    -2.50   4. (Ke2) Bg4+ 5. f3 exf3+ 6. gxf3 Bf5&#xA;                                     7. d3 Nf6 8. Nc3 Nd5 9. Ne4 e6 10. Bg2&#xA;                                     Nd4+ 11. Kf1 Bxe4 12. fxe4 Nb4 13. c3 Ndc2&#xA;                                     14. cxb4 Nxa1 15. a3 c5 16. Bf4&#xA;         21-&amp;gt;  16.34/1.00    -2.50   4. (Ke2) Bg4+ 5. f3 exf3+ 6. gxf3 Bf5&#xA;                                     7. d3 Nf6 8. Nc3 Nd5 9. Ne4 e6 10. Bg2&#xA;                                     Nd4+ 11. Kf1 Bxe4 12. fxe4 Nb4 13. c3 Ndc2&#xA;                                     14. cxb4 Nxa1 15. a3 c5 16. Bf4&#xA;         22    23.04/1.00     1/33?  4. ... Bg4+    (6.5Mnps)Nc6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2018-11-05T07:06:20.380" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22803" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-11-05T11:23:36.950" Score="7" ViewCount="163" Body="&lt;p&gt;My question relates to certain lines given by Avrukh (2018).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;...&quot;]   &#xA;1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. g3 Bg7 4. Bg2 d5 5. cxd5 Nxd5 6. Nf3 Nb6 7. Nc3 Nc6 8. e3 e5 9. d5 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here 9...Ne7 is the most popular move (88 games in the Chessbase Live database), when Avrukh gives the continuation 10. e4 Bg4 11 h3. Bxf3 12. Qxf3 0-0 13. 0-0.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;while 9...Na5 is the second most popular move (22 games in the Chessbase Live database), when Avrukh gives the continuation 10. 0-0 0-0 11 b3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;...&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. g3 Bg7 4. Bg2 d5 5. cxd5 Nxd5 6. Nf3 Nb6 7. Nc3 Nc6 8. e3 O-O 9. O-O e5 10. d5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;10...Na5 is the most popular move (537 games in the Chessbase Live database), when Avrukh gives 11 b3, transposing to a line given under the first diagram.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;10...Ne7 is the second most popular move (437 games in the Chessbase Live database), when Avrukh gives 11. e4 Bg4 12. h3 Bxf3 13. Qxf3, transposing to a line given under the first diagram.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus according to Avrukh it doesn't matter which move order is chosen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Given that is the case, why in the top diagram 9...Ne7 is so much more popular than 9...Na5, whereas in the bottom diagram 10...Na5 is somewhat more popular than 10...Ne7?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Avrukh, Boris (2018). &lt;em&gt;Grandmaster Repertoire 2A – King’s Indian and Grünfeld&lt;/em&gt;. Quality Chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1752" LastEditorUserId="4588" LastEditDate="2019-08-24T15:52:51.920" LastActivityDate="2019-08-24T15:52:51.920" Title="Move-order issue in the Grunfeld: ...Nc6-a5 vs ...Nc6-e7" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;1.d4&gt;&lt;grunfeld-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22804" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22795" CreationDate="2018-11-05T12:16:03.907" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You would probably need to be &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_rating_system#Elo_rating_system&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;2600+&lt;/a&gt; and play a lot of tournaments in order to make a living, and don't expect to get rich. I'm from the Netherlands though, and the prize pool in most tournaments isn't as high as in the US for example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know several strong grandmasters who play poker because you can earn a lot more. Even &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hikaru_Nakamura&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Hikaru Nakamura&lt;/a&gt; used to play poker a lot (though I'm not sure if money was the main reason there).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to make a living in chess, you need to either be really good, or do coaching on the side.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17563" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-01-04T22:21:04.903" LastActivityDate="2019-01-04T22:21:04.903" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22805" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22807" CreationDate="2018-11-05T14:13:25.477" Score="8" ViewCount="493" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is what I've seen described as the main line of the Closed Ruy Lopez up to move 7:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Ba4 Nf6&#xA;5. O-O Be7 (5... b5 6. Bb3 Be7 7. Re1 d6) 6. Re1 b5 7. Bb3 d6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm interested in Black's fifth move in particular. The top three options, with number of games according to the lichess opening book, are&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Be7 (43,520). Described in books as going to the Closed Ruy Lopez.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;b5 (8,126). Described as going to the Arkhangelsk variation.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Nxe4 (4,844). Open Ruy Lopez.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now 5...Be7 is clearly the most popular choice, but after 5... b5 6. Bb3, Black could choose to transpose to the Closed Ruy Lopez with 6... Be7 (shown as a variant in the diagram above). Here are the frequencies after 6. Bb3:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Bb7 (3,452). Arkhangelsk variation.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Bc5 (2,827). Neo-Arkhangelsk variation.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Be7 (1,765). Transposing back to the Closed Ruy Lopez.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is why is 5...Be7 overwhelmingly more popular than 5...b5? Assuming Black wants to get into the Closed Ruy Lopez, what would they lose by playing 5...b5? An argument for the latter is that by playing 5...b5, Black doesn't need to worry about the Delayed Exchange variation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Judging by the book, the transposition is doable and some people do play it, but they are a small minority (less than 5%).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12523" LastEditorUserId="14079" LastEditDate="2018-11-05T16:28:23.903" LastActivityDate="2018-11-05T17:39:40.793" Title="Why is 5...Be7 played before ...b5 in the main line of the Closed Ruy Lopez?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;ruy-lopez&gt;&lt;transpositions&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22806" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-11-05T16:40:58.510" Score="5" ViewCount="376" Body="&lt;p&gt;Last year, there was an incident where the &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/19163/arbiter-ignored-cheating-and-i-signed-the-scoresheet-did-i-lose-my-right-to-ob&quot;&gt;arbiter ignored cheating&lt;/a&gt;, and I filed a report to register a case to &lt;a href=&quot;http://ethics.fide.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Ethics Commission&lt;/a&gt;. The registration was made by email, in November 2017, and I have the confirmation mail that my request was received.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although one year passed, no one has contacted me. The case was not even classified as &quot;not admissible&quot; in the website. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I sent them another email asking for the status of my application, and again, no response.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What does this mean? Was my application form somehow invalid and therefore nullified? Should I register another case?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There &lt;a href=&quot;http://ethics.fide.com/images/stories/Ethics_case_1_2017_Final_Decision.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;are&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;http://ethics.fide.com/images/stories/ETH_Ruling_St_Petersburg_alleged_cheating.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;several&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;http://ethics.fide.com/images/stories/Ethics_case_7_2015_Decision.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;cases&lt;/a&gt; where FIDE published a decision, both for national and international tournaments.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How should I proceed?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8209" LastEditorUserId="8209" LastEditDate="2018-11-05T19:05:16.047" LastActivityDate="2020-01-21T21:29:09.963" Title="FIDE ignores my case. How to proceed?" Tags="&lt;fide&gt;&lt;ethics&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22807" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22805" CreationDate="2018-11-05T17:32:17.903" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;After 5....b5 6.Bb3 Be7, white has the strong option to play 7.d4. Now, 7....exd4 is a mistake, as white obtains a big advantage after 8.e5 Ne4 9.Bd5, which was played in &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1857675&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Grischuk-Nepomniachtchi (blitz)&lt;/a&gt;. Instead, 7....d6 is more stubborn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In contrast, after 5....Be7, 6.d4 is relatively harmless for black, for example 6....exd4 7.e5 Ne4 8.Re1 Nc5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;      [StartPly &quot;9&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;      [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;      1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.O-O b5 (5...Be7 6.d4?! exd4 7.e5 Ne4 8.Re1 Nc5) 6.Bb3 Be7 7.d4! exd4? (7...d6) 8.e5 Ne4 9.Bd5&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4588" LastEditorUserId="4588" LastEditDate="2018-11-05T17:39:40.793" LastActivityDate="2018-11-05T17:39:40.793" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22808" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22806" CreationDate="2018-11-05T18:25:54.360" Score="7" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;How should I proceed?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should get on with your life. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It was a minor incident which you brought to the attention of the arbiter. You disagreed with his decision but did not lodge an appeal with the appeals committee and you did not escalate to the national federation. Instead you went straight to FIDE. They are clearly not wasting time on this and nor should you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2018-11-05T18:25:54.360" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22809" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22806" CreationDate="2018-11-05T22:55:09.340" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Please don't waste your time anymore. The FIDE committee won't take a random case like yours. They don't have time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The committee won’t do anything unless there is a powerful national federation supporting you or the media like chess.com put your case to public.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Ask for help from your national federation&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Submit your story to chess.com or Chessbase&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Honestly, you don't have a chance. You have no evidence cheating occurred. Forget about it, it was just a game. Ok?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2018-11-06T00:28:14.527" LastActivityDate="2018-11-06T00:28:14.527" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22810" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15675" CreationDate="2018-11-06T08:28:00.637" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;French Chess Federation has developed a nice software named &lt;a href=&quot;http://echecs.asso.fr/Papi.aspx&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;PAPI&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is free for anybody who has a licence with the French Federation. If you don't, you can ask for a copy via un email to Mr. Erick Mouret (erick.mouret@free.fr).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastEditorUserId="14079" LastEditDate="2018-11-06T09:19:01.350" LastActivityDate="2018-11-06T09:19:01.350" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22811" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16298" CreationDate="2018-11-06T10:43:59.340" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Grandmaster Ulf Andersson's technique in the endgame (and in queenless middlegames) is quite proverbial.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Several books collect his best games, and you can also find much material online:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://thechessworld.com/articles/endgame/perfect-endgame-andersson/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://thechessworld.com/articles/endgame/perfect-endgame-andersson/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.modern-chess.com/en/chess-databases/database=49&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.modern-chess.com/en/chess-databases/database=49&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.kingpinchess.net/2014/03/keith-arkell-celebrates-a-sage-of-strategy/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.kingpinchess.net/2014/03/keith-arkell-celebrates-a-sage-of-strategy/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/article/view/endgame-virtuoso&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.chess.com/article/view/endgame-virtuoso&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastActivityDate="2018-11-06T10:43:59.340" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22812" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22823" CreationDate="2018-11-06T13:54:24.837" Score="2" ViewCount="1804" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=83&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE basic rules for Swiss systems&lt;/a&gt; mention:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;(c)&lt;/strong&gt; Should the number of players to be paired be odd, one player is unpaired. This player receives a pairing-allocated bye: no opponent, no colour and as many points as are rewarded for a win, unless the rules of the tournament state otherwise.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;(d)&lt;/strong&gt; A player who has already received a pairing-allocated bye, or has already scored a (forfeit) win due to an opponent not appearing in time, shall not receive the pairing-allocated bye.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, who gets the bye is never spoken of. So my questions are, how do I determine the bye player:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;in the first round, and&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;in other rounds?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am looking for how FIDE deals with it, and not any other Swiss system.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13544" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2018-11-08T06:24:43.670" Title="How do I determine the bye player in a Swiss tournament?" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;swiss-pairing&gt;&lt;bye&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22813" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2018-11-06T13:56:12.223" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2018-11-06T13:56:12.223" LastActivityDate="2018-11-06T13:56:12.223" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22814" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2018-11-06T13:56:12.223" Score="0" Body="A bye is a point allocated to a player in Swiss tournaments when he/she is not paired due to the number of players in the tournament being odd. " OwnerUserId="13544" LastEditorUserId="13544" LastEditDate="2018-11-06T15:19:17.027" LastActivityDate="2018-11-06T15:19:17.027" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22815" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22812" CreationDate="2018-11-06T14:54:50.787" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Note:   Independently from the route followed, the assignment of the&#xA;  pairing-allocated bye (see C.2) is part of the pairing of the last&#xA;  bracket.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/component/handbook/?id=170&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.fide.com/component/handbook/?id=170&amp;amp;view=article&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In simple terms, this means that the bye normally goes to one of the players currently tied for last place, but there may be complications if this conflicts with other rules (for example, if every player in the last bracket already got a bye).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is not stated, but I think that it makes sense to give the bye to someone in the last bracket because that way the bye is least likely to influence who wins the tournament. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12523" LastActivityDate="2018-11-06T14:54:50.787" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22816" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-11-06T19:30:01.323" Score="4" ViewCount="300" Body="&lt;p&gt;I had a game with a friend, I obviously lost, but now I don't understand why, while reviewing my game, the CPU suggest that at this point the best move is Bishop in b5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the Queen decides to take the Bishop, there is nothing taking the Queen back:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/aDXSi.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even continuing the game from there against CPU, the CPU doesn't take Bishop in b5. I don't get why.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17702" LastEditorUserId="14079" LastEditDate="2018-11-07T19:15:13.063" LastActivityDate="2018-11-07T19:15:13.063" Title="Why should I sacrifice Bishop?" Tags="&lt;tactics&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22817" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22816" CreationDate="2018-11-06T20:25:37.670" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Queen takes b5, Bishop takes d6&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastActivityDate="2018-11-06T20:25:37.670" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22818" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22816" CreationDate="2018-11-06T20:36:45.607" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The only immediate advantage of Bb5 is that it develops a piece with a tempo, which is usually a good idea. I would say that both whites light square bishop and blacks dark square bishop are probably worth around the same.&#xA;At the moment it's going to take some tempos for the light square bishop to contest the diagonal with either moving the Nd2 away or Bb5 to a4 then c2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4393" LastActivityDate="2018-11-06T20:36:45.607" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22819" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-11-07T02:56:01.637" Score="0" ViewCount="116" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd like to make a chess program to play decent strength chess (say around 2100 ELO). What are the factors in Eval &amp;amp; techniques in Search that one would consider to achieve that rating?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5632" LastActivityDate="2018-11-08T10:51:41.687" Title="Decent Playing Strength Chess Engine" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;evaluation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22820" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22819" CreationDate="2018-11-07T03:12:16.990" Score="1" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Bug-free material evaluation&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Null move heuristic&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Common knowledge such as rook on the seventh rank, king safety, weak squares etc&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Q-search&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Transposition table&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Killer heuristic&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Efficient move generator&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Nega-max&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Iterative deepening&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Aspiration windows&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="13544" LastEditDate="2018-11-08T10:51:41.687" LastActivityDate="2018-11-08T10:51:41.687" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22821" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22816" CreationDate="2018-11-07T06:38:42.633" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;When ... Qxb5 is played, &lt;strong&gt;White can play Bxd6&lt;/strong&gt;. This is a great spot for the bishop, because now your opponent can't castle and your bishop is controlling some nice squares. If Black doesn't capture on b5, then he pretty much needs to move his queen, since you're threatening it with that bishop. Once he retreats, &lt;strong&gt;you have another piece developed, while your opponent has wasted a move running away.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17363" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-11-07T07:46:35.333" LastActivityDate="2018-11-07T07:46:35.333" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22823" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22812" CreationDate="2018-11-08T00:31:23.760" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the first round, it should go to the player with the lowest initial ranking. After that, it depends, but it would ordinarily go to a low ranked player in the lowest score group.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/component/handbook/?id=170&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;rule&lt;/a&gt; A.2:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;For pairings purposes only, the players are ranked in order of, respectively&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  (a) score&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  (b) pairing numbers assigned to the players accordingly to the initial ranking list and subsequent modifications depending on possible late entries or rating adjustments&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Rule B.2 says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;To make the pairing, each bracket will be usually divided into two subgroups, called S1 and S2.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  S1 initially contains the highest N1 players (sorted according to A.2), where N1 is either M1 (in a heterogeneous bracket) or MaxPairs (otherwise).&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  S2 initially contains all the remaining resident players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And rule B.3 says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;S1 players are tentatively paired with S2 players, the first one from S1 with the first one from S2, the second one from S1 with the second one from S2 and so on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is ordinarily no reason to change the tentative pairings in the first round, and everyone's score is 0.  If there are an odd number of players, then S2 will contain one more player than S1. When you pair S1 with S2 as the rule says, there will be one player left over, and this player receives the bye. So, the bye in the first round would ordinarily go to the last player in S2, which in this case is simply the player with the lowest initial ranking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In later rounds, however, those tentative pairings could change. As you noted, the bye cannot go to the same player twice. Other pairing rules also come into play; for example, if switching who gets the bye will improve the number of players who get the color they are due, then it will be switched. You may have to pair everyone before you can confidently determine who gets the bye in later rounds. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The bye would ordinarily go to someone in the lowest score group - however, it is also possible that score groups will collapse into each other in certain circumstances (see rule A.9), and this &lt;em&gt;could&lt;/em&gt; result in someone with a higher score getting the bye instead of someone with a lower score, even if neither has yet received a bye.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2018-11-08T00:31:23.760" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22824" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22825" CreationDate="2018-11-08T14:06:51.717" Score="16" ViewCount="3801" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Lichess.org starts the clock of each player after their first move.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Chess.com  starts the clock when the players agree to a match, before&#xA;their first move.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think Lichess is correct, that's what we do where I play. What's the rule?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1105" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-11-08T14:34:22.430" LastActivityDate="2018-11-08T14:34:22.430" Title="When does a chess clock start?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;chess-clocks&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22825" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22824" CreationDate="2018-11-08T14:33:06.990" Score="23" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=208&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE rules&lt;/a&gt;,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;6.6 At the time determined for the start of the game White’s clock is started.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In over the board chess, it's usually Black who does this (you can't have an arbiter start all clocks simultaneously) after the players shake hands and wish each other good luck. If White isn't present, Black may start the clock anyway at the designated time; if Black isn't present, White should start his/her own clock, make a move and press their side of the clock to start Black's. (Of course, in some events, failing to show up at the designated start time constitutes an immediate loss anyway.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So actually chess.com's method is closer to the official rules, though those games are of course not regulated by the FIDE rules. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2018-11-08T14:33:06.990" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22826" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-11-08T14:50:24.763" Score="4" ViewCount="386" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the following &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%C5%8Dbutsu_shogi&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;dobutsu shogi&lt;/a&gt; position, is Gc3xc2 a bad move?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  ABC &#xA; +---+&#xA;1|   | g&#xA;2|lce|&#xA;3|E G|&#xA;4| L | *C&#xA; +---+&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9531" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-11-16T23:14:34.227" LastActivityDate="2020-06-06T05:41:02.623" Title="Is this a sound elephant offer?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;sacrifice&gt;&lt;shogi&gt;&lt;unorthodox-pieces&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22827" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27203" CreationDate="2018-11-08T16:13:40.400" Score="15" ViewCount="2117" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've tried finding statistics on the results of competitive armageddon games played at a high level (say, GM level), but to no avail. Evidently, these statistics must exist, as for example FIDE changed the time controls in the official rules from 6 minutes-5 minutes to 5 minutes-4 minutes in preparation for the Carlsen-Karjakin WC match (thus indicating that they felt that 6-5 gave black too much of an advantage compared to 5-4).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically, does white really have a ~50% win rate in GM-level armageddon chess games?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17713" LastActivityDate="2021-04-30T21:16:22.183" Title="Are there statistics on the results of armageddon games at the GM level?" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;statistics&gt;&lt;time-control&gt;&lt;blitz&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22828" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22803" CreationDate="2018-11-08T17:11:04.703" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There appears to be some additional options to White in the line without castling.  I haven't checked a database but perhaps for example, 9...Na5 10.Qd3!? threatening Qb5+ and grabbing the knight on a5.  So now if 10...0-0 Black has declared his king and White can consider 11.h4 going for attack.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2018-11-08T17:11:04.703" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22829" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22831" CreationDate="2018-11-09T11:40:05.117" Score="8" ViewCount="2343" Body="&lt;p&gt;Which TV channels are going to stream the WCC? Preferably with English commentary. (With live video from the playing board, not only the moves).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4127" LastEditorUserId="3594" LastEditDate="2018-11-09T12:44:51.367" LastActivityDate="2018-11-18T18:58:31.003" Title="The London 2018 World Chess Championship live coverage sources" Tags="&lt;world-championship&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22830" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22829" CreationDate="2018-11-09T11:56:27.100" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Try &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/tv&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.chess.com/tv&lt;/a&gt;. It is a popular streaming channel. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2018-11-09T11:56:27.100" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22831" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22829" CreationDate="2018-11-09T12:41:38.473" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe the live video footage is restricted to the official broadcast and you probably have to pay to get access to it.&#xA;The footage aside, the games will be broadcasted live on chess24 for free (even without an account) with a phenomenal team of commentators, namely, Peter Svidler, Sopiko Guramishvili, Alexander Grischuk, Anish Giri for the English commentary and there will also be separate commentaries in Spanish and German covering each round.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Here's their dedicated page to the WCC2018: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess24.com/en/wcc2018&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://chess24.com/en/wcc2018&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;And the featured page (including engine analysis etc): &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess24.com/en/watch/live-tournaments/carlsen-caruana-world-chess-championship-2018/1/1/1&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://chess24.com/en/watch/live-tournaments/carlsen-caruana-world-chess-championship-2018/1/1/1&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3594" LastActivityDate="2018-11-09T12:41:38.473" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22833" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22829" CreationDate="2018-11-09T14:08:47.010" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.nrk.no/sport/sjakk/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Norwegian National Broadcasting&lt;/a&gt; (NRK) will be covering the championship, both online and on their main TV channels, with Norwegian commentary led by &lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/card.phtml?event=1501887&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;IM Torstein Bae&lt;/a&gt;. They probably won't have a &lt;em&gt;constant&lt;/em&gt; camera at the board and the contestants, but it will feature front and center much of the time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Earlier productions they have done (and thus, I would presume, this one too) have been aimed at a lower level (I would expect them to explain things like en passant, the exact limitations on castling, and the concepts of pins and discoveries, possibly several times over the course of these days, especially if any game reaches a position where it is relevant), but they still make good analyses of positions and tactics, and it's generally well produced and fun to watch.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit:&lt;/strong&gt; I have realized since writing this that it's only available in Norway. I've been abroad myself and unable to reach it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7327" LastEditorUserId="7327" LastEditDate="2018-11-18T18:58:31.003" LastActivityDate="2018-11-18T18:58:31.003" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22834" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22836" CreationDate="2018-11-09T14:29:23.790" Score="6" ViewCount="323" Body="&lt;p&gt;As in the title above, since we read it everywhere about Caruana... why isn't Gata Kamsky considered the first American since Bobby Fischer to fight for the World Championship? He played Karpov in 1997 for the FIDE World Championship.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastActivityDate="2018-11-09T16:38:26.487" Title="Why isn't Gata Kamsky considered the first American since Bobby Fischer to fight for the World Championship?" Tags="&lt;world-championship&gt;&lt;fischer&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22835" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22837" CreationDate="2018-11-09T14:54:13.417" Score="-1" ViewCount="302" Body="&lt;p&gt;As in title above, why are Mato Jelic's Youtube chess videos so popular? I like them a lot, but I must confess that I am a bit surprised (not unhappy, just surprised), to see nearly millions of views for them...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastActivityDate="2018-11-09T21:03:04.047" Title="Why are Mato Jelic's Youtube chess videos so popular?" Tags="&lt;chess-videos&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="18" ClosedDate="2018-11-10T02:04:32.060" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22836" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22834" CreationDate="2018-11-09T16:32:33.050" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Kamsky played &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatoly_Karpov&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Anatoly Karpov&lt;/a&gt; for the championship during the time after &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garry_Kasparov&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Garry Kasparov&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigel_Short&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Nigel Short&lt;/a&gt; had &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Chess_Championship#Split_title_(1993%E2%80%932005)&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;split from FIDE&lt;/a&gt; to form the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professional_Chess_Association&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Professional Chess Association&lt;/a&gt; and hold their championship match under its auspices. Thus, the World Championship was &quot;split&quot; at the time - Kasparov held the PCA title and Karpov the FIDE title. In a sense, a split title such as this is no title, so Kamsky misses out on credit for playing for the championship.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is partly commentary, but hopefully adds a little insight: While my skills are nowhere near good enough to say, it seems that Kasparov is generally seen as the stronger player (vs. Karpov). Thus most people who pay attention probably see Kasparov at the &quot;true&quot; world champion from that time. Between the fact that Kamsky played for the FIDE championship at a time when the title was split and also when the FIDE champion was not the then strongest player, he doesn't get credit for playing for the World Chess Championship.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="224" LastEditorUserId="224" LastEditDate="2018-11-09T16:38:26.487" LastActivityDate="2018-11-09T16:38:26.487" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22837" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22835" CreationDate="2018-11-09T19:59:38.453" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Lots of possible reasons why people like him, here are a few:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;1. His videos are on interesting games that people want to see analyzed.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;2. He has a lot of great insight, including other possible moves that could have been played.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;3. He adds humanity to chess by sometimes telling personal stories: including how he got into chess.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;4. His voice is calming. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17654" LastActivityDate="2018-11-09T19:59:38.453" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22838" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6234" CreationDate="2018-11-09T21:01:38.633" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is winning for black after 1. ...Bc4 2.bc Re3 3.Be3 Qe3. Even if white could somehow avoid losing a pawn or two in this line, black can create a passed pawn on the kingside and then use the queen to usher it up to the 8th and increase the overwhelming material advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17725" LastActivityDate="2018-11-09T21:01:38.633" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22840" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22841" CreationDate="2018-11-10T02:16:01.083" Score="0" ViewCount="332" Body="&lt;p&gt;As stated in the title, I have always wondered whether it is better to move a pawn or knight first. Which one makes you generally more likely to win?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17719" LastActivityDate="2018-11-11T17:12:07.153" Title="Is it better to move a pawn or knight first?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;pawns&gt;&lt;knights&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2018-11-18T20:14:33.403" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22841" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22840" CreationDate="2018-11-10T04:03:08.450" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can see statistics at a site like &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/openings&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this one&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are four pawn moves (1. d4, 1. e4, 1. c4, 1. g3) and one knight move (1. Nf3) that form a top tier of first move choices.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The other twelve pawn moves and three knight moves vary in terms of viability.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3270" LastEditorUserId="3270" LastEditDate="2018-11-10T16:23:47.467" LastActivityDate="2018-11-10T16:23:47.467" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22842" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-11-10T04:40:55.460" Score="3" ViewCount="250" Body="&lt;p&gt;In python-chess you can communicate with the engine on a given position. However the method presented in &lt;a href=&quot;https://python-chess.readthedocs.io/en/latest/uci.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://python-chess.readthedocs.io/en/latest/uci.html&lt;/a&gt; using the engine.go() function with only a time parameter returns just one continuation and that continuations evaluation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know in most chess programs you can see the top few ranked positions and their evaluations. How can I do the same in python chess? None of the parameters in engine.go seemed to let me do that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9436" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-03-04T21:40:48.697" LastActivityDate="2021-02-13T07:04:01.383" Title="How can I get multiple computer recommended lines in python-chess module?" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;programming&gt;&lt;python&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22843" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22842" CreationDate="2018-11-10T10:26:04.483" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can do this by sending out MultiPV, something like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;engine = chess.uci.popen_engine(...)&#xA;engine.setoption({ &quot;MultiPV&quot; : multiPV})&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The module will generate multiple lines for you, as an array.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="674" LastEditDate="2018-11-10T11:34:43.693" LastActivityDate="2018-11-10T11:34:43.693" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22844" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22840" CreationDate="2018-11-10T14:50:04.893" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The question seems to imply that the very first move is directly influencing one's chances to win. This is not the case, the first move alone does not do anything in terms of improving or worsening your chances, as long as you follow correct opening principles. So either a Pawn (i.e. 1.d4) or a Knight (i.e. 1.Nf3) is O.K. in my view. A better question would have been, IMHO, which Knight or Pawn move would be better according to general opening principles? (i.e. 1.Nf3 vs 1.Na3, or 1.e4 vs 1.h4).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastEditorUserId="8291" LastEditDate="2018-11-10T14:55:36.267" LastActivityDate="2018-11-10T14:55:36.267" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22845" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22847" CreationDate="2018-11-10T15:58:56.757" Score="2" ViewCount="288" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a novice player. I have seen many White players using the Queen's Gambit (1. d4, 2. c4) which actually dominates the center and inflicts humongous damage at the expense of only one white pawn. What should be my response towards such a strategy? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17731" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-11-11T10:17:33.767" LastActivityDate="2018-11-11T10:17:33.767" Title="Tactics to counter Queen's Gambit" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;queens-gambit&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22846" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-11-11T04:03:50.493" Score="1" ViewCount="468" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have completed games on the Play Magnus app and clicked on the option &quot;Export game as PGN file &quot; but I don't know where to find those saved games. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17734" LastEditorUserId="13544" LastEditDate="2018-12-13T17:30:53.597" LastActivityDate="2020-05-29T03:04:55.390" Title="Where can I find the saved games or PGN files in the Play Magnus app?" Tags="&lt;computer-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22847" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22845" CreationDate="2018-11-11T05:11:25.473" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;If White wants to gambit a pawn, then give him a taste of his own medicine. The &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Chess_Opening_Theory/1._d4/1...d5/2._c4/2...e5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Albin Countergambit&lt;/a&gt; takes the game in a rather different direction that might be more to your liking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And of course, there's always the option of not playing 1... d5. Indian defenses (1... Nf6) are obviously popular, and the Dutch (1... f5) has a character of its own.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12377" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-11-11T10:11:17.403" LastActivityDate="2018-11-11T10:11:17.403" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22848" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22845" CreationDate="2018-11-11T10:16:36.817" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;You do not have to accept the gambit with 2... dxc4. This is chess, not draughts; capturing is not mandatory. (You know that, but this is a standard reply to gambits and other sacrifices.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both 2... e6 (the 'orthodox' Queen's Gambit Declined) and 2... c6 (the Slav) are solid choices, many grandmasters have them in their repertoire. Black's position might be a little cramped in some of the lines that follow, but (s)he'll keep a strong influence in the center.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2018-11-11T10:16:36.817" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22849" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22853" CreationDate="2018-11-11T13:18:37.740" Score="5" ViewCount="1220" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recently played a Sicilian as black, defending against a pawn storm.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is the game:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;Rated Classical game&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;https://lichess.org/ZMFC6dP4&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2018.11.11&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;-&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;crowlol&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;JushBJJ2&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[UTCDate &quot;2018.11.11&quot;]&#xA;[UTCTime &quot;11:50:56&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;1608&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;1644&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteRatingDiff &quot;+12&quot;]&#xA;[BlackRatingDiff &quot;-11&quot;]&#xA;[Variant &quot;Standard&quot;]&#xA;[TimeControl &quot;900+15&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;B20&quot;]&#xA;[Opening &quot;Sicilian Defense: Bowdler Attack&quot;]&#xA;[Termination &quot;Normal&quot;]&#xA;[Annotator &quot;lichess.org&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;[FEN &quot;...&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Bc4 { B20 Sicilian Defense: Bowdler Attack } d6 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. Ng5?! { (0.00 → -0.65) Inaccuracy. Best move was Nc3. } (4. Nc3 a6 5. d4 cxd4 6. Nxd4 b5 7. Bb3 e6 8. O-O Qc7) 4... e6 5. d3 Nc6 6. Bf4 Be7 7. Nf3 O-O 8. h3 Bd7?! { (-0.86 → -0.30) Inaccuracy. Best move was d5. } (8... d5 9. exd5 exd5 10. Bb3 a5 11. a4 Bd6 12. Bxd6 Qxd6 13. O-O Nh5 14. Nc3 Nf4 15. Kh1) 9. g4? { (-0.30 → -1.60) Mistake. Best move was Nc3. } (9. Nc3 Nd4 10. a4 Nxf3+ 11. Qxf3 a6 12. O-O Bc6 13. Rfd1 d5 14. Bb3 h6 15. exd5 exd5) 9... e5?! { (-1.60 → -0.81) Inaccuracy. Best move was d5. } (9... d5) 10. Be3 Be6 11. b3? { (-0.80 → -1.87) Mistake. Best move was Bb3. } (11. Bb3 c4 12. Bxc4 Bxc4 13. dxc4 Nxe4 14. Qd3 f5 15. gxf5 Nc5 16. Qd5+ Kh8 17. Bxc5 dxc5) 11... Qa5+? { (-1.87 → -0.63) Mistake. Best move was d5. } (11... d5 12. exd5 Nxd5 13. Bd2 f5 14. Nc3 Qd7 15. Qe2 Ndb4 16. O-O-O Bxc4 17. dxc4 e4 18. Nxe4) 12. Bd2 Qd8 13. Ng1? { (-0.68 → -2.73) Mistake. Best move was O-O. } (13. O-O a6) 13... Bxc4? { (-2.73 → 0.04) Mistake. Best move was d5. } (13... d5 14. exd5 Bxd5 15. Rh2 e4 16. Nc3 Qd6 17. f4 exf3 18. Rf2 Bxc4 19. bxc4 Nd4 20. Nxf3) 14. bxc4 Re8 15. g5 Nd7 16. h4 a6 17. Qg4? { (0.44 → -1.28) Mistake. Best move was a4. } (17. a4) 17... Qc8?! { (-1.28 → -0.42) Inaccuracy. Best move was b5. } (17... b5 18. Ne2 bxc4 19. dxc4 Nd4 20. Na3 Nf8 21. c3 Nxe2 22. Kxe2 Qa5 23. Nc2 Rab8 24. Kf1) 18. h5?! { (-0.42 → -1.21) Inaccuracy. Best move was Nc3. } (18. Nc3 b5 19. Nd5 bxc4 20. dxc4 Rb8 21. Nf3 Nd4 22. Kf1 Nxc2 23. Rd1 Nb6 24. Qxc8 Nxc8) 18... Nb6? { (-1.21 → 0.23) Mistake. Best move was b5. } (18... b5 19. Kf1 Nd4 20. Nc3 bxc4 21. Rc1 Nb6 22. Qg3 Rb8 23. Nge2 Qe6 24. Rg1 cxd3 25. cxd3) 19. Qg3 Nd7?! { (-0.21 → 0.71) Inaccuracy. Best move was Nd4. } (19... Nd4 20. Na3 Qc6 21. g6 Qa4 22. c3 Qxa3 23. cxd4 Qb2 24. Rc1 cxd4 25. h6 hxg6 26. hxg7) 20. g6?! { (0.71 → -0.13) Inaccuracy. Best move was Nc3. } (20. Nc3 b5 21. Nd5 bxc4 22. Nf3 Nf8 23. dxc4 Nb4 24. Kf1 Nxd5 25. cxd5 Rb8 26. h6 gxh6) 20... Rf8? { (-0.13 → 1.22) Mistake. Best move was Nd4. } (20... Nd4 21. Na3) 21. gxh7+ Kh8 22. h6? { (1.07 → 0.05) Mistake. Best move was Nc3. } (22. Nc3 Nd4 23. Rc1 Ne6 24. Nge2 Qd8 25. Rb1 b5 26. cxb5 axb5 27. Rxb5 Bg5 28. a4 Bh6) 22... g6 23. Bg5? { (0.10 → -1.47) Mistake. Best move was Nc3. } (23. Nc3 Nd4 24. Rb1 Nf6 25. Bg5 Nxc2+ 26. Kd2 Nd4 27. Qh4 Qd8 28. Rxb7 Ne6 29. f4 Nxg5) 23... Qd8?! { (-1.47 → -0.81) Inaccuracy. Best move was Bxg5. } (23... Bxg5 24. Qxg5 Nd4 25. Kd1 b5 26. Nd2 Ne6 27. Qh4 b4 28. a3 a5 29. Ngf3 Qd8 30. Qxd8) 24. Be3?! { (-0.81 → -1.52) Inaccuracy. Best move was Bxe7. } (24. Bxe7 Qxe7 25. Nc3 Nd4 26. Rc1 Qd8 27. Kf1 b5 28. Nd5 bxc4 29. dxc4 Rb8 30. Ne2 Kxh7) 24... b5 25. Nc3 Nd4 26. Bxd4 cxd4 27. Nd5 Nf6?! { (-1.87 → -1.34) Inaccuracy. Best move was bxc4. } (27... bxc4 28. Nf3 Nf6 29. Nxf6 Bxf6 30. Nd2 cxd3 31. cxd3 Kxh7 32. Nc4 Rb8 33. Kf1 Qe7 34. Ke2) 28. Nxf6?! { (-1.34 → -1.92) Inaccuracy. Best move was Nxe7. } (28. Nxe7 Qxe7) 28... Bxf6 29. Ne2?! { (-1.92 → -2.43) Inaccuracy. Best move was Nf3. } (29. Nf3) 29... Qa5+ 30. Kf1 Qd2 31. Rc1 Qg5? { (-2.43 → -1.01) Mistake. Best move was Rac8. } (31... Rac8) 32. Qxg5 Bxg5 33. Ra1?! { (-1.33 → -1.94) Inaccuracy. Best move was Rb1. } (33. Rb1 bxc4 34. dxc4 Rac8 35. Rb4 Rc7 36. Rh3 Rfc8 37. Rf3 Rxc4 38. Rxc4 Rxc4 39. c3 dxc3) 33... Kxh7?! { (-1.94 → -1.26) Inaccuracy. Best move was bxc4. } (33... bxc4) 34. a4? { (-1.26 → -2.35) Mistake. Best move was Rh3. } (34. Rh3 Rac8 35. c3 dxc3 36. Nxc3 bxc4 37. Rd1 Rfd8 38. Kg2 Rd7 39. dxc4 Rxc4 40. Rg3 Bh4) 34... b4? { (-2.35 → -1.11) Mistake. Best move was bxc4. } (34... bxc4 35. dxc4 Rac8 36. Rh3 Rxc4 37. c3 dxc3 38. Nxc3 Rb8 39. Ra3 Bxh6 40. a5 Kg7 41. Rd3) 35. a5 Bxh6 36. Rb1 Rab8 37. f4 Kg7 38. fxe5 dxe5 39. Rb2?! { (-1.60 → -2.46) Inaccuracy. Best move was Kg2. } (39. Kg2 Be3 40. Kf3 f5 41. Rh2 Kf6 42. Ng3 Rf7 43. Ke2 Bf4 44. Rh3 Bxg3 45. Rxg3 Rh7) 39... f5 40. exf5?! { (-2.33 → -3.03) Inaccuracy. Best move was Kg2. } (40. Kg2 fxe4 41. Ng3 e3 42. Ne4 Rf4 43. Rf1 Rh4 44. Rfb1 Bg5 45. Rxb4 Rxb4 46. Rxb4 Bd8) 40... Rxf5+ 41. Kg2?! { (-2.64 → -3.31) Inaccuracy. Best move was Ke1. } (41. Ke1 Be3 42. Rb1 e4 43. dxe4 Rxa5 44. Rd1 Rc5 45. Nxd4 Rxc4 46. Nb3 Rxc2 47. Rd7+ Kf6) 41... Rg5+? { (-3.31 → -1.43) Mistake. Best move was Be3. } (41... Be3 42. Rf1) 42. Kf3?! { (-1.43 → -2.13) Inaccuracy. Best move was Kh3. } (42. Kh3 e4 43. Nxd4 Rxa5 44. c5 exd3 45. cxd3 Be3 46. Nc6 Rh8+ 47. Kg2 Rxh1 48. Kxh1 Rxc5) 42... Rf5+ 43. Ke4 Rf2 44. Ng3 Bf4 45. Rg1 Bxg3?! { (-1.34 → -0.54) Inaccuracy. Best move was Kf6. } (45... Kf6 46. Kd5 Bxg3 47. Rxg3 Rd8+ 48. Kc6 e4 49. Rxb4 e3 50. Rg1 Rxc2 51. Rb6 Ke5 52. Kc7) 46. Rxg3 Re2+ 47. Kd5 Re3?! { (-0.08 → 0.45) Inaccuracy. Best move was e4. } (47... e4 48. Rb1 Rd8+ 49. Kc5 exd3 50. cxd3 Re5+ 51. Kc6 Re3 52. Rg4 Rxd3 53. Rxb4 Kf6 54. Rb6) 48. Rxe3 dxe3 49. Rb1 Kf6 50. Re1 b3? { (0.62 → 2.04) Mistake. Best move was e4. } (50... e4 51. dxe4) 51. cxb3 Rxb3?! { (1.54 → 2.34) Inaccuracy. Best move was g5. } (51... g5) 52. Rxe3 Kf5? { (2.27 → 5.20) Mistake. Best move was Rc3. } (52... Rc3 53. Rf3+) 53. Rxe5+ Kf4 54. d4 Ra3?? { (4.00 → 7.58) Blunder. Best move was g5. } (54... g5 55. c5) 55. c5 Rxa5? { (7.21 → 10.26) Mistake. Best move was g5. } (55... g5) 56. Kd6 g5? { (8.52 → 11.30) Mistake. Best move was Rb5. } (56... Rb5 57. Re8) 57. Re8?? { (11.30 → 6.39) Blunder. Best move was c6. } (57. c6 Rxe5 58. dxe5 g4 59. c7 g3 60. c8=Q g2 61. Qc1+ Kg3 62. Kc5 a5 63. Kb5 Kh2) 57... g4?? { (6.39 → 42.68) Blunder. Best move was Rb5. } (57... Rb5 58. c6) 58. c6 Ra4 59. d5 Rc4 60. c7 g3?! { (16.97 → Mate in 15) Checkmate is now unavoidable. Best move was a5. } (60... a5 61. c8=Q) 61. c8=Q Rxc8 62. Rxc8 g2 63. Rc1 a5 64. Kc5 Ke5 65. d6 a4 66. Rg1 a3 67. Rxg2 Ke6 68. Ra2 Kd7 69. Rxa3 Kd8 70. Kc6 Ke8 71. d7+?! { (Mate in 2 → Mate in 4) Not the best checkmate sequence. Best move was Rf3. } (71. Rf3 Kd8 72. Rf8#) 71... Kd8 72. Ra8+?! { (Mate in 4 → Mate in 4) Not the best checkmate sequence. Best move was Rf3. } (72. Rf3 Ke7 73. d8=R Kxd8 74. Re3 Kc8 75. Re8#) 72... Ke7 73. d8=Q+ Ke6 74. Qe8+?! { (Mate in 3 → Mate in 4) Not the best checkmate sequence. Best move was Qg5. } (74. Qg5 Kf7 75. Ra7+ Ke6 76. Re7#) 74... Kf6 75. Rd8?! { (Mate in 4 → Mate in 4) Not the best checkmate sequence. Best move was Qh5. } (75. Qh5 Kg7 76. Ra7+ Kf6 77. Rf7+ Ke6 78. Qd5#) 75... Kg7 76. Qe6 Kh7 77. Rd7+ Kh8 78. Qe8# { White wins by checkmate. } 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How do I defend against players who keep pawn pushing in the Sicilian? I really stress against these kind of players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17736" LastEditorUserId="15224" LastEditDate="2018-11-14T13:23:30.163" LastActivityDate="2018-11-14T13:23:30.163" Title="How do I defend against players who keep pawn pushing in the Sicilian?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22851" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22849" CreationDate="2018-11-11T15:16:39.203" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you find defending stressful, then a counterattack might be a good strategy for you. Generally, if the opponent is attacking your castled king when their own king is in the middle of the board, it's often good to try to open up the center to expose their king's vulnerability. There were some points where you could have played ...d5 to help with that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After 20.g6, one option would have been ...fxg6 hxg6 h6 and now White would have to sacrifice a bishop with Bxh6 to keep up the attack. (Of course, you'd have to make sure that the sacrifice doesn't result in some unstoppable attack before playing that move.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But overall your defense wasn't bad. You refrained from moving those pawns in front of your king too early, which would have given your opponent's pawns a good target to attack. You survived the attack and eventually wound up with an extra pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2018-11-11T15:16:39.203" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22852" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22846" CreationDate="2018-11-11T15:22:01.430" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Unfortuately, the Play Magnus app is not capable of creating PGN files. So, when you click on &quot;Export game as PGN file&quot;, the game is copied to clipboard. You can then paste the game in a text editor and save it as a PGN file.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13544" LastActivityDate="2018-11-11T15:22:01.430" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22853" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22849" CreationDate="2018-11-11T15:47:39.780" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Pawn pushing is a well known anti-Sicilian strategy. The main problem here is that your play was too passive and you paid more than enough attention to your opponents while they were pushing their pawns. While your opponent were rushing their pawns, they allowed many chances where counterplay by you is possible yet you were focusing only on their pawns. Here are examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Rated Classical game&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;https://lichess.org/ZMFC6dP4&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2018.11.11&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;crowlol&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;JushBJJ2&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[UTCDate &quot;2018.11.11&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;1608&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;1644&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;B20&quot;]&#xA;[Opening &quot;Sicilian Defense: Bowdler Attack&quot;]&#xA;[Termination &quot;Normal&quot;]&#xA;[StartPly &quot;17&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Bc4 d6 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. Ng5 e6 5. d3 Nc6 6. Bf4 Be7 7. Nf3 O-O 8. h3 Bd7 9. g4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the above position, &lt;strong&gt;9... d5&lt;/strong&gt; would have been very annoying for your opponent. Your opponent is now forced to play &lt;strong&gt;10. exd5&lt;/strong&gt;, placing their king in an open e-file. They won't be able to castle early then, since the kingside pawns have been advanced. Otherwise, they will lose a pawn (after say &lt;strong&gt;10. Bb3 dxe4 11. dxe4 Nxe4&lt;/strong&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another advantage of this move is that it takes away the center from you opponent. After &lt;strong&gt;9... d5 10. exd5 exd5 11. Bb3&lt;/strong&gt; you have decent central control, in addition to freeing the bishop such that 10... Bd6 is possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Moving on to the middlegame, I would say your defense was brilliant. However, instead of maneuvering the knight to the queenside, the engine suggests &lt;strong&gt;18... b5&lt;/strong&gt;, eventually starting an attack on the queenside. Obviously your plan was to free the queen, and &lt;strong&gt;18... Nf8&lt;/strong&gt; was better in my opinion, as it puts the knight in the area where all the action is taking place.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13544" LastActivityDate="2018-11-11T15:47:39.780" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22854" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22840" CreationDate="2018-11-11T17:12:07.153" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Neither is better. It's mostly a matter of opinion. However, there are certain themes that a lot of the commonly played moves all have in common. They try to get the center, to develop their pieces to useful squares, and often king-safety is achieved by castling either king-side or queen-side.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17704" LastActivityDate="2018-11-11T17:12:07.153" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22855" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22858" CreationDate="2018-11-11T17:55:55.240" Score="7" ViewCount="1174" Body="&lt;p&gt;For the live audience that's watching chess in person, not online, how is it like? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do they sit through it all, say 7h? Can they leave and comeback? Are their seats reserved if they leave? Do they have restaurants and so on to spend their time?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What was it like in the old days, say 90s or 80s when there was a huge crowd, did they sit still for 7h and comeback everyday?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I just wonder how it like to be in the audience, mainly in FIDE world classic chess championships, lets say the final match, since in theory it should attract the most audience.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1105" LastEditorUserId="1105" LastEditDate="2018-11-11T18:55:45.043" LastActivityDate="2018-11-11T20:49:06.460" Title="How is it like for live audience watching long classic chess?" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22856" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22849" CreationDate="2018-11-11T18:33:33.160" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Pawn storms are a pretty standard theme in the Sicilian.  Usually, the response is to counterattack and try to checkmate them before they checkmate you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black almost always castles on the kingside, so that's where White's pawn storm happens. If White has castled queenside, then Black typically responds by attacking there with a pawn storm, and opening the c-file against the White King.  If White castles kingside or doesn't castle at all, then their kingside pawn storm inherently weakens their king, leaving it open to attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2789" LastActivityDate="2018-11-11T18:33:33.160" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22857" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22860" CreationDate="2018-11-11T20:04:59.267" Score="0" ViewCount="129" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are many websites (such as chess.com and 365chess.com) which allow even a free account holder to practise a certain number of chess puzzles on a daily basis. However, I feel that most puzzles are about tactics instead of strategy, such as winning a piece, forcing checkmate, etc. Am wondering if there are (preferably free) online resources that allows one to daily train strategy (such as how to improve your position in a silent game, or create a weakness for your opponent) which does not necessarily resulting in immediate winning of material or checkmating. Any recommendation will be greatly appreciated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16626" LastActivityDate="2018-11-11T21:52:58.500" Title="Daily Strategy Traing" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;websites&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22858" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22855" CreationDate="2018-11-11T20:49:06.460" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;I helped out at the 2008 match between Kramnik and Anand in Bonn and attended many other world class events as a spectator. (Like Kramnik-Fritz when he blundered the mate in one. Epic.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Usually seats aren't reserved and people come and go. Often there is a separate commentary/analysis room that you might attend, although you can also hear commentary with headphones in the playing hall. If you are accompanied by friends you might occasionally slip out to discuss the current position. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But many people are actually sitting though almost the entire game, with only the occasional toilet break etc. Time flies when you are having fun. And of course 7h games aren't the norm. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2018-11-11T20:49:06.460" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22859" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22862" CreationDate="2018-11-11T21:45:22.077" Score="1" ViewCount="184" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know the DGT boards are used for this. But, do they all do so? Does every chess website connect their server to the DGT board and relay the moves? Or do they simply &quot;steal&quot; the moves from another site?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13544" LastActivityDate="2018-11-12T13:17:51.590" Title="How do chess websites relay the moves for tournaments?" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22860" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22857" CreationDate="2018-11-11T21:52:58.500" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is relatively easy for these websites to generate many thousands of tactical exercises: they run an engine over a corpus of games (for example, games played on the site itself) to look for blunders, and then turn the punishment of the blunder into a tactics puzzle (usually after additional filtering for example to choose only positions where there is only one move that is clearly best). They don't even need to worry about grading the puzzles for difficulty, because they determine that empirically after the fact, based on the ratings of the users who are able to solve the puzzle or not. The leave it to users to flag dubious machine-selected exercises for review.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The same is not true for strategy puzzles, since strategy is not so clearcut that you could let an engine search for strategically interesting positions. Therefore, strategy puzzles need to be laboriously created by experts. I know chess.com does have a &quot;lessons&quot; section, but you need to be a paid subscriber if you want unlimited access. Many of the lessons are about strategy, for example &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/lessons/course/22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Roots of Positional Understanding&lt;/a&gt; by IM Jeremy Silman has 300 hundred brief &quot;challenges&quot; which you could use as daily puzzles for a while.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12523" LastActivityDate="2018-11-11T21:52:58.500" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22861" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22859" CreationDate="2018-11-11T22:07:37.413" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;They &quot;steal&quot; the moves. The organizers of the last world championship didn't like that and sued, but lost. See some discussion at &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/17143/what-are-the-laws-concerning-copyright-of-chess-games/17153#17153&quot;&gt;What are the laws concerning copyright of chess games?&lt;/a&gt;. In short, the judge said that &quot;it is well-established that sports scores and events, like players' moves in the Championship, are facts not protectable by copyright&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can't speak for every site, but in my experience you can tell that they are doing it this way based on comments like &quot;I just heard there was a move&quot; and by the fact that the clocks are generally wrong. Also, why would the organizer make it easy for sites which they see as freeloaders?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Of course, this depends on the event. I wrote the above thinking of high-profile events such as the world championship which is taking place as of this writing, and which I thought might have been on the questioner's mind.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12523" LastEditorUserId="12523" LastEditDate="2018-11-12T13:17:51.590" LastActivityDate="2018-11-12T13:17:51.590" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22862" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22859" CreationDate="2018-11-12T01:03:15.643" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;That depends on the tournament organisation. If the tournament organiser is happy, they provide an online PGN file which is updated everytime the player makes a move. A good digital board software can easily do that. Broadcast websites such as chess24.com simply has to poll that PGN file. Easily scaled to any number of chess boards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Obviously, the last strategy requires cooperation. The 2018 world chess championship has no such facility. The broadcast websites has to hire someone constantly monitor the offical website (they have to pay for subscription), and relay the moves manually.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Generally, organisers especially open competition are more than happy to assist. It's a nice way for promoting their events. Chess moves don't make money.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2018-11-12T01:03:15.643" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22863" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-11-12T02:18:26.933" Score="1" ViewCount="105" Body="&lt;p&gt;I thought this was going to be a wild dynamic and fun opening to play. &#xA;Database results show average results comparable to most other openings.&#xA;Mainlines often lead to very drawish positions.&#xA;Computer analysis confirms drawish nature of many lines.&#xA;There is a lot of positive hype about this opening but I am a bit disappointed.&#xA;What am I missing?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17740" LastActivityDate="2018-11-12T03:52:16.073" Title="Grunfeld Defense" Tags="&lt;grunfeld-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2018-11-16T22:12:42.460" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22864" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22863" CreationDate="2018-11-12T03:52:16.073" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You're missing the fact that every good opening leads to balanced positions when played perfectly. This is the case for the Grünfeld as well. But just because the position is balanced after optimal play in an opening doesn't mean that the opening is easy to play optimally.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the Grünfeld the positions tend to quickly become rather unbalanced and sharp (black gives white the chance to occupy the center with pawns and thereby get a space advantage, and and hopes that the counterplay by attacking white's center is enough to offset white's edge in space), requiring both sides to play with precision not to get into a worse position. Therefore, especially on lower levels, anything can happen in a Grünfeld game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The mainlines in the Grünfeld may lead to drawish positions, but to reach these drawish positions both players must know a serious amount of theoretical lines in the Grünfeld intimately. This is way more than the average club player can handle, and there are often less forcing sidelines to pursue for both sides than the main lines played by the pros. As a final remark, it's worth noting that when a computer evaluation of a position says something like 0.00 it just means that the computer thinks the position is equal, not that it's drawish.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8300" LastActivityDate="2018-11-12T03:52:16.073" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22865" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-11-12T05:17:33.173" Score="4" ViewCount="1808" Body="&lt;p&gt;In general, as White, I prefer to castle queenside and then start attacking with a kingside pawn storm. Every time, I hope that my opponent lets me do it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance, when I play 1. d4 (or 1. c4), I hope my opponent does the King's Indian so that I can go to my Saemisch setup with queenside castling. Similarly, when I play 1 e4, I hope my opponent plays the Sicilian so that I can go for the Yugoslav or English attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, in both instances, Black has to cooperate to let me castle queenside. For instance, with the Slav against 1 d4 or 1...e5 against 1 e4, it becomes difficult for me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hence, in general, is there an opening system for White where I can go queenside castling irrespectivly for how Black plays? The closest that comes to this seems to be the London system, but I haven't deployed it much in my games. I am mainly a 1. c4 player (and play 1. e4 occasionally when I know that my opponent might play the Sicilian).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16311" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-12-09T22:05:44.833" LastActivityDate="2021-03-08T22:00:13.020" Title="Opening systems for White which enable queenside castling" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;castling&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22866" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22803" CreationDate="2018-11-12T09:54:46.533" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Analyzing this position it seems like the N to the rim has potential issues getting back into the game. W will play b3 and both of the black N's on the Q side are very limited. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After Ne7 the N gets back into the game via c8 and d6 playing an important role blockaiding the p at d5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That is the best I could find. Transposing to the same position did not come up in my analysis so maybe I am missing something.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17740" LastActivityDate="2018-11-12T09:54:46.533" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22867" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22718" CreationDate="2018-11-12T10:17:13.960" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;the diagram is not a N and B ending as one of them is lost immediately. dropping a piece on the first move should disqualify these types of positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;similarly any moves considered at any time should not drop a piece. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i assumed this was a serious and not a trick question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17740" LastActivityDate="2018-11-12T10:17:13.960" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22868" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22718" CreationDate="2018-11-12T13:00:33.097" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;With the tablebase you can prove that all positions that can be won, can be won within 50 moves. But they're not designed to guarantee that certain &quot;key positions&quot; are visited in between (and if you pick them badly, then there are positions that can't be won in time anymore).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So you'd need to get your list of key positions and note in how many moves checkmate can be forced from there, using the existing tablebases.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;And&lt;/em&gt;, for each key positions, you need to create &lt;em&gt;new&lt;/em&gt; tablebases where the goal is not to checkmate, but to reach that key position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then for each KNB v K position, there needs to be at least one key position in the list for which the minimum moves to force it plus the minimum moves to checkmate from there is 50 or below.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2018-11-12T13:00:33.097" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22869" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22865" CreationDate="2018-11-12T13:48:12.503" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;The London System is unlikely to be your answer, as white almost always castles kingside.  If you want to castle queenside, then 1.c4 is really the last way you should be playing, as white rarely castles queenside in openings where the c-pawn is moved early.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the whole, I'd say 1.e4 is probably your best bet, as the Sicilian is the most common reply, when queenside castling is possible in most variations with Be3/Qd2/f3 setups.  It is also usually possible against the caro-kann and scandinavian in the main lines (although black often castles queenside too), and also the pirc/modern.  Against the french you can play the classical with 4.e5, which often features opposite side castling, or the Reti Gambit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Against 1.e4 e5, I think it's better to play main lines, but you can pretty much get a sharp queenside castling position by force in the Centre Game, where the main line is something like 1.e4 e5 2.d4 exd4 3.Qxd4 Nc6 4.Qe3 Nf6 5.Nc3 Bb4 6.Bd2 0-0 7.0-0-0. Objectively, black is fine, but most opponents will not be prepared for it and you may catch out a few people who think the Centre Game is bad and do not play seriously against it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not sure about rarer lines like the Alekhine defence, 1...b6, 1...Nc6, and such, but in my experience you don't face that stuff very often.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, I cannot really recommend such a single-minded approach.  It's better for your game if you play all types of positions, and you can often attack with same-side castling.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16774" LastEditorUserId="16774" LastEditDate="2018-11-12T13:56:19.763" LastActivityDate="2018-11-12T13:56:19.763" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22870" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22865" CreationDate="2018-11-12T15:23:15.450" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, In the &lt;code&gt;Blackmar-Diemer Gambit&lt;/code&gt;, players often castle queenside. However, it is, as the name suggests, a gambit. You must be willing to sacrifice a pawn. I'm uncertain how often a pawn storm is recommended, but h3 and g4 are often played by White to my understanding. You could also play the &lt;code&gt;King's Indian Attack&lt;/code&gt;. Although it does often castle kingside, it is often a good idea to push your pawns on the kingside and attack with those.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: I don't know at what level you play and with what time control, but the Blackmar-Diemer Gambit is of course not completely sound.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17704" LastActivityDate="2018-11-12T15:23:15.450" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22872" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-11-12T19:21:10.677" Score="1" ViewCount="126" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let's focus on FIDE classical chess finals historically.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Caruana is always behind in time control, thinks more, waste more energy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Statistically speaking, did the players who played faster won more titles? Is Caruana showing signs of weakness?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1105" LastEditorUserId="1105" LastEditDate="2018-11-12T20:51:58.840" LastActivityDate="2018-11-12T21:30:52.037" Title="If a player is significantly behind in time, does it mean he's bound to lose?" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;fide&gt;&lt;world-championship&gt;&lt;time-control&gt;&lt;time-management&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22873" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22872" CreationDate="2018-11-12T21:30:52.037" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't know about statistics, but I do know that they are not &quot;bound&quot; to lose. It depends on the position. Is it easy to play, or is it a very sharp, tactical position? Also, is there a time-increment? Often, in classical FIDE games, there is. Based on experience, I can tell you that it can be very stressful being low on time in a long game, even if there is an increment. However, if psychological (personal) influences are ignored, &lt;code&gt;it very much depends on the position and on the time-increment&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17704" LastActivityDate="2018-11-12T21:30:52.037" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22874" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22865" CreationDate="2018-11-12T21:45:38.277" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can play some sort of Hyppopotamus System, in no particular order Pawns to b3, c3, d3, then Bb2, Qc2, Nd2, and then long castle. You are almost sure of achieving it irrespective for how Black plays, (unless Black foolishly sacrifices some pieces). Then perhaps e4, f4 and maybe even g4 (according to Black's play).   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course this is a very unorthodox system, so I'd suggest to play it only in blitz and bullet chess. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastActivityDate="2018-11-12T21:45:38.277" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22875" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-11-13T01:43:35.770" Score="3" ViewCount="156" Body="&lt;p&gt;Usually I play somewhere around move 5-Nc3 but I might start playing Nd2 more instead to get a different dynamic in the game. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this advised? Does this have dire consequences in QGA?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user17747" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-11-13T14:09:47.107" LastActivityDate="2018-11-13T17:38:29.873" Title="Queen's Gambit Accepted Nc3 VS Nd2" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;queens-gambit-accepted&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22876" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22875" CreationDate="2018-11-13T03:56:27.753" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Unless you have a good reason, why would you block your own queen bishop and release tension on the important d5 square?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The idea of the gambit is to intensify pressure on the d5 square. Volunteering yourself away by Nd2 is unusual.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2018-11-13T05:39:40.507" LastActivityDate="2018-11-13T05:39:40.507" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22877" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22878" CreationDate="2018-11-13T11:40:33.337" Score="0" ViewCount="133" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a novice player. I have just come across the Sicilian defense on the Internet which is also stated as &quot;aggressive defense&quot;. The French defense (1.e4 e6) also is good. Does the French defense cramp Black's position in the midgame as a result of which it is considered next to Sicilian ? Because I find the French defense to be structurally more organised than the Sicilian. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17731" LastActivityDate="2018-11-13T13:01:22.223" Title="Comparison between best defense moves" Tags="&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;&lt;french-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22878" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22877" CreationDate="2018-11-13T13:01:22.223" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not certain what you exactly mean with &lt;code&gt;it is considered next to the Sicilian&lt;/code&gt;. However, first of all, I would like to state that the &lt;code&gt;Sicilian Defense&lt;/code&gt; is not always aggressive. It depends on the line you play. Often, if White castles Queenside, the game becomes very sharp. However, if White castles Kingside, the game often becomes less sharp.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The biggest problem with the &lt;code&gt;French Defence&lt;/code&gt; is the development of Black's White Squared Bishop. The French has either very sharp lines and less sharp lines, such as &lt;code&gt;1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. exd5 exd5&lt;/code&gt;, known as the &lt;code&gt;Exchange Variation&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But in general, both openings can be really aggressive. You could take a look at:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the &lt;code&gt;Sicilian Defense&lt;/code&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;Sicilian Defense, Dragon Variation, Yugoslav Attack&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;Sicilian Defense, Dragadorf Variation&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;Sicilian Defense, Najdorf Variation, English Attack&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And for the &lt;code&gt;French Defense&lt;/code&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;French Defense, Winawer, Poisoned Pawn Variation&lt;/code&gt;.&#xA;&lt;code&gt;French Defense, King's Indian Attack&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Again, I'm not sure what answer you're looking for, but I believe that these (aggressive) lines may be very helpful comparing them. Seeing games (especially of higher-rated players, such as GMs, makes the opening-ideas a lot more clear, so I suggest doing that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17704" LastActivityDate="2018-11-13T13:01:22.223" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22879" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22875" CreationDate="2018-11-13T17:38:29.873" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Agree with SmallChess answer.  However, Nge2 ( you are talking about your Ng1 Knight, correct? ) is still problematic even if your bishop is out.  In QGA lines where Black pushes queenside pawns the Knight on c3 often likes to retreat to e2 after ..b4 where the knight is well placed to spring back into action.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17425" LastActivityDate="2018-11-13T17:38:29.873" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22880" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22882" CreationDate="2018-11-13T18:06:35.727" Score="0" ViewCount="148" Body="&lt;p&gt;I generally play 1.Nf3 as white . I actually wonder whether there would be any major difference if I play 1.Na3 instead of 1.Nf3 . I am a novice player . An illustration will definitely help me in understanding the reason behind this. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17731" LastActivityDate="2020-01-20T03:31:57.613" Title="Knight's opening move" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22881" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22880" CreationDate="2018-11-13T18:11:32.133" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;1. Nf3&lt;/code&gt; is used to instantly get a grip on the center. It for example answers &lt;code&gt;1. ... e5&lt;/code&gt; with &lt;code&gt;2. Nxe5&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;code&gt;1. Na3&lt;/code&gt; on the other hand, does not develop the piece towards the center, giving Black an easy opportunity to attempt to control the center. A better move would be &lt;code&gt;1. Nc3&lt;/code&gt;, still having control on the center.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17704" LastActivityDate="2018-11-13T18:11:32.133" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22882" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22880" CreationDate="2018-11-13T18:24:02.007" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;To answer your question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Experience has shown that it is a good idea in the opening phase of the game to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;develop minor pieces (bishop/knight) quickly&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;and to occupy the centre (squares e4, d4, e5, d5 and thereabout) with pawns and/or to attack the centre with minor pieces&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this sense Nf3 is the better (and by far more popular) move. It attacks central squares (d4 and e5) and thereby prevents black from occupying the center with e5 immediately and potentially could also support a white pawn push to d4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Na3 on the other hand does little to get hold of the center and in addition (as with any knight on the rim), it has fewer squares to go to: 4 instead of 8.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Occupying the center is important among others because it can:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;limit the space of your opponent&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;allow pieces stationed around there to quickly reach other parts of the board as needed&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For a novice player the first move(s) don't matter. It is highly unlikely that you win/lose a game because of the difference between 1. Nf3 and 1. Na3, rather because of some tactics later on. That's why it is recommend for beginners to focus on tactics first.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2018-11-13T18:24:02.007" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22883" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22880" CreationDate="2018-11-14T03:29:35.097" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Possibly with &lt;code&gt;1.Nf3&lt;/code&gt; , player has the chance to transpose the game into a large number of other openings which usually start with &lt;code&gt;1.e4&lt;/code&gt; , &lt;code&gt;1.d4&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;1.c4&lt;/code&gt; . If Black is not careful, there is the risk of running unprepared, according to me, into a highly tactical opening, e.g. after &lt;code&gt;1.Nf3 c5&lt;/code&gt; White can play &lt;code&gt;2.e4&lt;/code&gt; leading to the  Sicilian Defense (Mainline) . Other common transpositions are to various lines of the Queen's Gambit Declined (&lt;code&gt;1.Nf3 d5&lt;/code&gt; &lt;code&gt;2.d4 Nf6&lt;/code&gt; &lt;code&gt;3.c4&lt;/code&gt;) or the Catalan Opening (&lt;code&gt;1.Nf3 Nf6&lt;/code&gt; &lt;code&gt;2.g3 d5&lt;/code&gt; &lt;code&gt;3.Bg2 e6&lt;/code&gt; &lt;code&gt;4.0-0&lt;/code&gt; &lt;code&gt;Be7 5.c4&lt;/code&gt;). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17731" LastActivityDate="2018-11-14T03:29:35.097" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22884" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-11-14T14:19:04.443" Score="2" ViewCount="187" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just played a game of chess on my Mac and the Mac shows me this as a draw (I'm white). I can't get my head around it. Why is this a draw?&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/1DWkc.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/1DWkc.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17757" LastActivityDate="2018-11-14T18:19:00.253" Title="Why is this a draw?" Tags="&lt;draw&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2018-11-15T10:26:57.557" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22885" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22884" CreationDate="2018-11-14T14:24:06.707" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a case of &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalemate&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;stalemate&lt;/a&gt;. Black has no legal moves available, therefore the game is drawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17713" LastActivityDate="2018-11-14T14:24:06.707" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22886" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22887" CreationDate="2018-11-14T15:00:35.370" Score="3" ViewCount="310" Body="&lt;p&gt;By now there were 4 games and all were drawn. Should it not mean that Caruana should get points?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13744" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-11-14T16:06:52.203" LastActivityDate="2018-12-19T22:34:20.897" Title="Why don't the ratings of Carlsen and Caruana change after 4 games in the WCC 2018?" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;world-championship&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22887" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22886" CreationDate="2018-11-14T15:45:52.127" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;The exact workings of FIDE rating calculations can be found &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fide.com/component/handbook/?id=172&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;in the official rules&lt;/a&gt;. As you can see in Table 8.1b, a rating difference of 3 points (as is the case with Carlsen-Caruana) means that both players have the same expected score: 0.5. The value of ΔR, which is the expected score minus the result (in the case of a draw, 0.5) is therefore 0.5-0.5=0, i.e. no change in rating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If instead their difference were 4 points rather than 3 (meaning that Carlsen's expected score would be 0.51 instead of 0.5), a draw would mean that his ΔR would be -0.01. With a K value of 10 (as he has a rating above 2400), his gain/loss would therefore be -0.01*10. In other words, a draw with a rating difference of 4 would mean that he would lose 0.1 rating point (whereas Caruana would gain 0.1 point).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17713" LastEditorUserId="17713" LastEditDate="2018-11-14T17:46:56.847" LastActivityDate="2018-11-14T17:46:56.847" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22888" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22884" CreationDate="2018-11-14T18:19:00.253" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This type of situation is called a stalemate in which the opponent is unable to play the next move ( probably because of king's check) but is not completely checkmated. To avoid it, ensure that you completely mate the opponent king. The probability of this kind of situation occuring is increased when you have more pieces (like Rook, Queen which can mate the king) and you don't actually know which piece is already blocking the opponent king's road beforehand. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17731" LastActivityDate="2018-11-14T18:19:00.253" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22889" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-11-14T19:43:37.890" Score="5" ViewCount="207" Body="&lt;p&gt;In his &lt;a href=&quot;https://youtu.be/S5hWaI3Dkpw?t=432&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;analysis of the first game in the 2018 world championship&lt;/a&gt;, Antonio Radić says that on move 9. ... b7-b6, Carlsen took six minutes to make a move that he probably already knew: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;And now Carlsen again goes b6, but it did take him some six minutes for this move. As the other moves Carlsen played relatively quickly, so I don't think this is a new position for him. I think he actually came very much prepared and he was just like a &lt;strong&gt;Botvinnik moment&lt;/strong&gt;, where he takes six minutes to think about a move he already prepared.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only other instance of &quot;Botvinnik moment&quot; was in a comment on the game &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1032724&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Raymond Keene vs Mikhail Botvinnik&lt;/a&gt;, Hastings, 1966-1967. The annotation for the last move says, &quot;At which point Botvinnik gasped, raised his hand to his forehead, and resigned,&quot; and a commenter added, &quot;We have all been there and had this Botvinnik moment.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is clearly not what Agadmator is referring to. Was Botvinnik really known for taking a relatively long time for moves that he had prepared? Is &quot;Botvinnik moment&quot; a common phrase for this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10867" LastActivityDate="2018-11-15T08:42:31.387" Title="Where does the phrase &quot;Botvinnik moment&quot; come from?" Tags="&lt;terminology&gt;&lt;time-management&gt;&lt;botvinnik&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22890" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-11-14T21:22:31.257" Score="4" ViewCount="386" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess comes in many forms, both with respect to the clock and the board format. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But why don't we have chess tournaments where we play different openings? That is, a certain list of openings is picked (it could be publically announced prior to the tournament, or perhaps a surprise reveal), and then both players play games with those openings (each opening is played twice, once as black, once as white).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This seems like quite a fun thing to do and an obvious extension to the many forms of chess we already have? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What's the drawback?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17759" LastActivityDate="2018-11-18T18:16:45.360" Title="Why don't we play different openings in chess?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;tournament&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22891" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22890" CreationDate="2018-11-14T21:32:24.213" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is exactly how many computer chess tournaments are setup. For instance, I believe both &lt;a href=&quot;https://tcec.chessdom.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;TCEC&lt;/a&gt;, and &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/computer-chess-championship&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess.com's CCC&lt;/a&gt; are run exactly as you described.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The main reason this isn't done with human competitions is because (a) the mindgames that go into openings add a new level of meta-strategy to the game, and (b) humans don't have the time to play 2 x n games against every opponent (where n = number of openings to play vs each opponent).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3884" LastActivityDate="2018-11-14T21:32:24.213" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22892" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22890" CreationDate="2018-11-14T21:58:30.193" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are thematic tournaments.  For example, I recall a GM tournament where they had to play an open Sicilian.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2018-11-14T21:58:30.193" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22893" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22890" CreationDate="2018-11-15T07:12:56.693" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Actually while learning more about chess you will understand that on high level the problem with chess is opposite, that's why Fisher invented random-chess, chess960; because games started to become the memory competition, who can better remember variations from home analysis; so at least not knowing what opponent will play makes greater use for human chess than announcing opening in advance; also important reason why thematic tournaments are not very popular is that not every opening is suitable for everyone's style and GM is not going to spend 100 hours to study opening only for 1 tournament unless you put like 1 million prize money :) or so. As the result thematic tournaments for rare, crazy variations don't attract serious players, only hobby group; but for popular variation you don't need thematic tournament - it's popular anyway :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17448" LastActivityDate="2018-11-15T07:12:56.693" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22894" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22890" CreationDate="2018-11-15T07:45:19.710" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Back in the 1980s, in correspondence chess, thematic tournaments on a certain opening or defence were frequent, I don't know the current status, however. In classical chess they are a rare occurrence indeed, however in 1994 there was the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chesscollection?cid=1014008&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Lev Polugaevsky thematic tournament on the Open Sicilian.&lt;/a&gt; Top players of the period played.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastActivityDate="2018-11-15T07:45:19.710" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22895" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22889" CreationDate="2018-11-15T08:42:31.387" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is/was a common advice, in a game with a classical time-control, to take a small break during the opening instead of flashing out the moves, even if you know them by heart. The idea is to 'warm-up' your brain, to refresh your knowledge about the main ideas and plans in the variation, and to avoid starting out with a very long think after the first move by your opponent that you had not anticipated: first that would give him information about how deep your preparation was, second your very first thought would be about a difficult and important decision - when any mistake might be very consequential.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When he took a few minutes before playing 9...b6 (even though he already knew he would play that move), Carlsen was most probably mentally rehearsing the possible variations from that point, refreshing his positionnal guidelines in the given pawn structure and remembering which previous games of Caruana had already been played from similar positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The advice was originally spread within the infamous post-WWII 'Soviet Chess School', so it doesn't come as a surprise if it is somehow associated with Botvinnik - possibly Botvinnik formulated it first or endorsed it in a publication.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I consider the Keene-Botvinnik 'moment' to be something totally different: the commentator only stress out that every player has already found himself in that embarassing situation of having to resign a long-fought game after an oversight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastActivityDate="2018-11-15T08:42:31.387" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22896" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18332" CreationDate="2018-11-15T10:52:56.647" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's all about algorithms.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Taking on a human chess player took one of the most powerful computers in the world at the time. This brute force computing approach allowed Deep Blue to look around six to eight moves ahead. In a closely-fought contest, the machine eventually defeated Kasparov by 3 1/2 games to 2 1/2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Six years later, Kasparov was involved in another contest of man versus machine. This time he played against Deep Blue’s successor, Deep Junior. The result was a drawn series at three games all. The biggest difference was that Deep Junior ran on a machine with about one per cent of the computing power of Deep Blue. Chess-playing algorithms had improved to the point of achieving virtually the same result with a hundred times less computing power.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17762" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2018-11-15T11:28:23.953" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22897" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22890" CreationDate="2018-11-15T14:18:19.043" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;While there have been (and still are) thematic tournaments there are mainly three reasons why these have not been adopted in mainstream chess:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;How do you pick the openings? How many moves do you put on the board already? &lt;br&gt; While these questions may sound silly now, for professional tournaments they have actual relevance. Answering them (specially with regard to the other two points) is quiet hard.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;It is not illegal to outsmart your opponent in the opening. &lt;br&gt; This includes learning an opening that your opponent doesn't know (if you are playing on a hobby level), learning more more moves than your opponent (relevant for all players) and learning a sequence of moves where you know that your opponent makes mistakes (also relevant for all players). If you set up the game after an opening (or fix the opening moves to play), you take away this advantage from some players. Another allowed strategy is to learn one opening very well (often seen in hobby players). Then you know all the moves of your opening and no other openings. Especially for these players it would also take the fun away to play an opening that they don't know.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;People have different strengths in chess. &lt;br&gt; For example some players are good at learning openings, others are good at the endgame. And there are openings that draw out the opening phase for a long time or that go towards the endgame quickly. Seeing two players battle to keep the game in their style is something really interesting to look at (and if you know what to look for even more so on GM level). Other players might prefer an open position or a position or a position with a lot of tactical motives, while others would rather play closed or maybe strategically. Again forcing these players to play openings that are against their preferences may be educational but takes a lot of the fun away.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That is not to say that you can't find people who might enjoy these kinds of things but usually it will be only a fraction of all people playing chess. It certainly sounds good for some kind of internet variant with probably short thinking time, but as a general addition to chess it takes away too much freedom (and interesting developments).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16758" LastActivityDate="2018-11-15T14:18:19.043" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22898" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22900" CreationDate="2018-11-15T17:00:56.923" Score="1" ViewCount="80" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have been searching for a while for an online (preferably free) resource for opening plans. Up till now my study of openings has consisted of looking at popular lines and some master games. Is there any website or e-book that you are aware of that focuses on the plans behind each opening?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17768" LastActivityDate="2018-11-15T22:15:42.280" Title="Online Resource for Opening Plans" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22899" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22898" CreationDate="2018-11-15T17:10:34.640" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I had this book:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1580423442&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.amazon.com/Encyclopedia-Chess-Wisdom-Eric-Schiller/dp/1580423442&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's not free but it's simple to read for openigs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2018-11-15T17:10:34.640" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22900" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22898" CreationDate="2018-11-15T22:15:42.280" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The St. Louis Chess Club has a YouTube page full of video lectures, many of which delve into the opening ideas.  iChess.net also has such videos, for example: &lt;a href=&quot;https://youtu.be/ZrT5-MxX0R0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&quot;The Ideas Behind the Chess Openings! IM Vlaeri Lilov (Webinar Replay)&quot;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then there are some wiki pages that actually have decent explanation of some openings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2018-11-15T22:15:42.280" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22901" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22906" CreationDate="2018-11-16T03:22:21.683" Score="8" ViewCount="4139" Body="&lt;p&gt;What method requires the least amount of memorisation (doesn't have to be shortest path to victory) for the queen vs knight ending?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have looked at tablebases but the moves are somewhat bizarre and it would be nice to have some simple logic to follow (even if it takes a few more moves to checkmate).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is assuming the opponent is expert and will not make simple mistakes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16702" LastActivityDate="2019-05-13T23:50:56.137" Title="What is the simplest method to win Queen vs Knight endgame?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;queen-endgame&gt;&lt;knight-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22902" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="928" CreationDate="2018-11-16T03:52:48.783" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's not true that there are no more exhibition games between humans and computers. There're no more serious games between humans and computers, on equal terms, from the starting position; but there are still exhibitions on unequal terms. Hikaru Nakamura is the highest-profile player willing to play against engines, and he's said he does so because he enjoys the challenge of trying to beat the machine. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here're some examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/news/view/komodo-beats-nakamura-in-final-battle-1331&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Nakamura vs. Komodo 2016&lt;/a&gt; (Komodo wins 2.5-1.5)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://hunonchess.com/nakamura-adopts-komodo-on-fathers-day-20-5-2-5/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Nakamura vs. Komodo 2018&lt;/a&gt; (Nakamura wins vs. all the lower-levels, loses against the top level; also includes three games against Komodo MCTS)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/news/view/vachier-lagrave-comments-while-playing-komodo&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Maxime Vachier-Lagrave vs. Komodo&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some of the odds games are actually quite fun, and led to unique strategies. For example it's commonly known that when playing against computers, go for long-term positional duels; in some of the odds games though MVL was actively trying to &lt;em&gt;open&lt;/em&gt; the position. The &quot;knightmare&quot; starting position is also one-of-a-kind, and only a computer can hope to play with the white pieces. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastActivityDate="2018-11-16T03:52:48.783" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22903" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18332" CreationDate="2018-11-16T04:04:37.380" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Disclaimer: not an expert.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The algorithms got better, and today's best engines running on 1995 (remember Deep Blue was 1999) hardware will handily beat Kasparov. As I understand it, there are two aspects of algorithms:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Search&lt;/strong&gt;. If for example I take your queen with my queen, a human opponent will automatically look first at recapturing. For a computer however, it will evaluate every possible response to QxQ. Almost all of the time, this is wasted processing power. A good search algorithm cuts down all these &quot;branches&quot; since they're irrelevant anyway. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The standard search algorithm is &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha%E2%80%93beta_pruning&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;alpha-beta pruning&lt;/a&gt;, and it was used in the earliest chess computers. I don't know if Deep Blue used alpha-beta pruning, but modern engines don't. As a result their searches are &quot;unsafe&quot; - they can miss, for example, that some move other than recapturing the queen would've won the game. However, it's rare that this happens, and in return they push their depths very high. (&quot;Depth&quot; is a technical term for how deep the engine searches, so e.g. an engine that searches to depth 30 is likely to beat one that only searches to depth 20, all other things being equal).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Evaluation&lt;/strong&gt;. This is the other prong of engine code. Given a particular position, is it better for white, black, or equal? This can involve all sorts of functions, e.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If one side has extra material/space, give it a bonus to eval.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If white has an advanced knight supported by a pawn, give white a bonus to eval.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If black's king is stalemated, give white a bonus to eval.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If white has a rook on the 7th rank, give white a bonus to eval.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If it's an endgame (and there are algorithms to decide whether the position is an endgame) and both sides have opposite color bishops, impose a penalty to eval (i.e. push it towards 0.00).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Today's engines evaluate positions much better than Deep Blue.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for whether the algorithms are public, Stockfish is currently the world's strongest engine and it's open source. You can download the code yourself from &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/official-stockfish&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Github&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastActivityDate="2018-11-16T04:04:37.380" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22904" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-11-16T04:06:11.267" Score="6" ViewCount="1197" Body="&lt;p&gt;I had ScidvsMac 4.19 running on my Mac - ScidvsMac-4.19.dmg from &lt;a href=&quot;https://sourceforge.net/projects/scidvspc/files/mac/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://sourceforge.net/projects/scidvspc/files/mac/&lt;/a&gt; - but after upgrading to macOS Mojave (10.14.1) it doesn't run - the icon just bounces forever.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have been trying to use macports compilers to compile the latest source but I am just lost in dependency hell right now because I can't seem to install libgcc7 or libgcc8 properly. I might try to blow everything away and start a fresh install ... but wondering if anyone has overcome these problems?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17769" LastActivityDate="2019-06-27T08:42:09.370" Title="Is there a binary of Scid vs Mac which works on macOS Mojave?" Tags="&lt;scid&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22905" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22901" CreationDate="2018-11-16T09:49:25.570" Score="11" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I have looked at tablebases but the moves are somewhat bizarre&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's the problem with tablebases; they're efficient but they can't 'play' human chess. This particular endgame is one-sided enough that it's almost never required to play the best move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just drive the opponent's king to the edge of the board, as you would do with king+queen vs. king; just be careful that you don't end up in a knight fork. If the knight gets too far away from its king, you can probably fork it yourself after a few checks. Once on the edge of the board, the reduced mobility of the knight and mating threats will eventually lead to defeat.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is an example (from &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.shredderchess.com/online-chess/online-databases/endgame-database.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Shredder Chess&lt;/a&gt;):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/4PP8D.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/4PP8D.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The 'human' move here is Qg6+ (or Qa6+) followed by Kd5; it doesn't matter that Qe2, Qe3 and Qe4 are one move faster.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-11-16T09:57:59.013" LastActivityDate="2018-11-16T09:57:59.013" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22906" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22901" CreationDate="2018-11-16T16:48:26.673" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;Always keep your K and Q on opposite colour squares, or have your K diagonally 1 gap away from the N, so that you will never be forked. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Beyond that, just as Glorfindel said, fork the N if it's allowed or drive opponent's K to the edge and checkmate. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7002" LastEditorUserId="16702" LastEditDate="2018-11-17T09:55:12.077" LastActivityDate="2018-11-17T09:55:12.077" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22907" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2017" CreationDate="2018-11-16T18:09:20.973" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Wondering if this may have something to do with white possibly having a greater ability to push the game down a line of play for which white has spent more time preparing.  This may mean that Black is more likely to run into time constraints as they are have to spend more time figuring out the right response. Play at a high level seems to some extent to be to follow common lines of play for first set of moves and to then to try to push game into a less common line of play where you may have spent more time preparing/which you are more used to playing/where you have an advantage. To extent to which this is easier for white, there may be some advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17773" LastActivityDate="2018-11-16T18:09:20.973" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22908" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-11-17T05:27:27.327" Score="1" ViewCount="59" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is it possible for a clock to show less than 30 seconds for a player in a game with a 30-second increment &lt;strong&gt;when it is his opponent's turn&lt;/strong&gt;? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;My answer:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even if one player has only 1 second on his clock and then makes his move, he would end up with 31 seconds on his clock and it is his opponent's turn. So, it seems to me that a clock under such time controls can never show less than 30 seconds for a player &lt;strong&gt;when it is his opponent's turn&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Am I wrong?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17302" LastActivityDate="2018-11-17T08:02:16.620" Title="Is it possible for a clock to show less than 30 seconds for a player in a game with a 30-second increment?" Tags="&lt;chess-clocks&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22909" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22908" CreationDate="2018-11-17T08:02:16.620" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You are correct - it is impossible. It can only show less than 30 seconds while it's counting down on his/her turn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Obviously, with delay instead of increment, this would be possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3884" LastActivityDate="2018-11-17T08:02:16.620" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22910" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22916" CreationDate="2018-11-17T08:14:32.133" Score="9" ViewCount="1311" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm writing a chess app, and have some questions regarding the intricacies of the threefold repetition rules.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As of 2018, the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=208&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE handbook&lt;/a&gt; has this to say about what constitutes identical positions for the purpose of threefold repetitions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;9.2.2  Positions are considered the same if and only if the same player has the move, pieces of the same kind and colour occupy the&#xA;  same squares and the possible moves of all the pieces of both players&#xA;  are the same. Thus positions are not the same if:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;9.2.2.1   at the start of the sequence a pawn could have been captured en passant&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;9.2.2.2   a king had castling rights with a rook that has not been moved, but forfeited these after moving. The castling rights are lost&#xA;  only after the king or rook is moved.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/6188/draws-castling-rights-and-the-fides-2014-rulebook-revision&quot;&gt;This question&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;code&gt;Rule 9.2.2.2&lt;/code&gt; address calculating right to castle. Looking at both, my conclusion is that it only checks whether the relevant piece(s) have moved; other restrictions like check, obstructions, or even whether the relevant rook was captured are not considered (though the last is probably irrelevant). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The same rule also seems to specify that each player starts with 2 castling rights- one for kingside and one for queenside- rather than 3- one for the king and one for each rook.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the first part of my question is, am I correct in my assessment of how the right to castle affects whether positions are identical?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the second part of my question, there seems to be a little ambiguity regarding en-passant.&lt;code&gt;Rule 9.2.2.1&lt;/code&gt; is clear about the case of if a pawn can legally en-passant one turn and can't during a later turn, then the positions aren't identical even if everything else is the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But there are two cases with en passant that aren't clear, or at least, should be clarified in light of how right to castle is calculated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, say a pawn moves two squares, thus making it capturable by en-passant, but there's no enemy pawn next to its destination. Does the fact that it would have been vulnerable to en passant make the position non-identical to another otherwise identical position a few turns later?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Second, say a pawn moves two squares, landing next to an enemy pawn, giving that pawn the right to en-passant, but where exercising the right to en-passant would expose the king (thus barring the otherwise legal en passant). Would that position be considered different from an otherwise identical position a few turns later?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17775" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-08-28T23:49:50.840" LastActivityDate="2021-05-02T15:14:38.760" Title="Rules: How does right to castle and en passant get considered for the purpose of calculating a threefold repetition?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;castling&gt;&lt;en-passant&gt;&lt;threefold-repetition&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="9" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22911" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22910" CreationDate="2018-11-17T09:14:10.090" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;...So the first part of my question is, am I correct in my assessment of how the right to castle affects whether positions are identical?...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;...other restrictions like check, obstructions, or even whether the relevant rook was captured are not considered (though the last is probably irrelevant)...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes. Imagine we play a game from the starting position, but you don't have castling rights and I do. Obviously, it'd be a different game. For instance, you won't be to castle in Ruy Lopez. Winning advantage for me even before the first move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;First, say a pawn moves two squares, thus making it capturable by en passant, but there's no enemy pawn next to its destination. Does the fact that it would have been vulnerable to en-passant make the position non-identical to another otherwise identical position a few turns later?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pawns never move backward. A position that no enemy pawn being able to explore en passant is obviously different to one that does.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Second, say a pawn moves two squares, landing next to an enemy pawn, giving that pawn the right to en passant, but where exercising the right to en passant would expose the king (thus barring the otherwise legal en passant)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You don't have to check for king safety.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think you're over-complicating the rules. In programming, all you have to do is compare your FEN strings (ignore 50 moves counter and impossible en passant).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;FEN compareFEN = ...;&#xA;for (i from 0 to current move) {&#xA;    FEN fen = fens[i]&#xA;    if compareFENIgnore50MoveAndImpossibleEnpassant(compareFEN, fen)&#xA;        print(&quot;Repetition found!&quot;)&#xA;} &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-09-23T21:47:11.180" LastActivityDate="2019-09-23T21:47:11.180" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22912" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22919" CreationDate="2018-11-17T09:46:03.443" Score="3" ViewCount="51" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there a way to import World chess championship final match into google calendar?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can I do that for other major chess events?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1105" LastActivityDate="2018-11-17T20:24:51.873" Title="World chess championship final calendar" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2018-11-21T14:12:20.457" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22913" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22915" CreationDate="2018-11-17T09:51:20.073" Score="2" ViewCount="63" Body="&lt;p&gt;I remember that this logo was used last championship, why are they still using it? Shouldn't every final have its own logo? Am I missing something?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Fv0H0.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Fv0H0.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1105" LastEditorUserId="12523" LastEditDate="2018-11-17T12:46:22.127" LastActivityDate="2018-11-17T12:46:22.127" Title="Is FIDE still using the same logo for world championship final?" Tags="&lt;world-championship&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22914" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22910" CreationDate="2018-11-17T12:15:49.177" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;While comparing FEN strings may be common practice, I don't think it is correct according a close reading of the rule. I would say that the rule is already completely specified by its first sentence (emphasis added):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Positions are considered the same if and only if the same player has the move, pieces of the same kind and colour occupy the same squares and &lt;strong&gt;the possible moves of all the pieces of both players are the same&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The rest is an addendum just to emphasize that the &quot;possible moves of all the pieces&quot; may be different for seemingly identical positions (i.e., all pieces in the same squares) due to castling or en passant. But I think it would be fundamentally wrong to count an &quot;en passant state change&quot; when no en passant move was actually possible, either because there was no enemy pawn next to the pawn that just moved or the enemy pawn is pinned. FEN records an &quot;en passant target square&quot; anyway for simplicity of implementation, but that doesn't mean that it is a &lt;em&gt;possible move&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for castling, lack of castling rights due to check or obstruction doesn't matter for the purpose of this rule because if you couldn't castle due to check or obstruction in position 1, the same must be true for position 3 if all the pieces are in the same squares. If they were not, the position would already be obviously different without having to look at castling rights!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12523" LastActivityDate="2018-11-17T12:15:49.177" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22915" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22913" CreationDate="2018-11-17T12:43:39.033" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are you sure? I don't remember seeing it, and googling I couldn't find a source from 2016 with that logo. Here's the one that I found:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/6LuHI.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/6LuHI.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12523" LastActivityDate="2018-11-17T12:43:39.033" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22916" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22910" CreationDate="2018-11-17T15:04:44.360" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;You have identified the correct rule governing these situations. 9.2.2 is the relevant clause that applies; 9.2.2.1 and 9.2.2.2 are just clarifications of this rule.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So to answer your queries:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) Your interpretation of castling rights is correct. Each player has two castling rights which are irrespective of the current board position. The right to castle short is lost only when the king or h-rook moves for the first time. The right to castle long is lost only when the king or a-rook moves for the first time. Other restrictions are irrelevant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) If a pawn moves two squares without an enemy pawn ready to capture en passant next to it, the position is the same as the one which could reoccur after some more moves. This is because all the players have the same possible (legal) moves (the relevant en passant is, was, and will be unavailable) so under 9.2.2 it would be the same position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) Similarly, if en passant is illegal due to a pin (exposing own king to check) or another reason, it does not count as a possible (legal) move, so under 9.2.2 the position and the repeated one later are considered the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An additional note: comparing FEN is not a correct implementation according to the FIDE rules, since FEN always records down a pawn moving two squares, regardless of whether an en passant capture is possible or not. Hence a direct PGN comparison would yield a wrong conclusion in the two scenarios you described.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15989" LastActivityDate="2018-11-17T15:04:44.360" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22917" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22918" CreationDate="2018-11-17T16:39:48.883" Score="2" ViewCount="132" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the Michael Adams vs Anatoly Karpov (1994, Dortmund GER, rd 1, Jul-15 ) match (moves listed [here][1]), the last move is indeed a check to the black king, but why did the match end after that ? I don't see the last move as a check-mate. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[1]: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1014464[Event&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1014464[Event&lt;/a&gt; &quot;Dortmund&quot;]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Site &quot;Dortmund GER&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;1994.07.15&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;1&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Michael Adams&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Anatoly Karpov&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;B17&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;117&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[StartPly &quot;117&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.Nd2 dxe4 4.Nxe4 Nd7 5.Nf3 Ngf6 6.Ng3 e6 7.Bd3 c5 8.O-O &#xA;Be7 9.Qe2 O-O 10.Rd1 Qc7 11.c4 Re8 12.dxc5 Nxc5 13.Bc2 Ncd7 14.Ng5 Nf8 15.&#xA;N3e4 Bd7 16.Nxf6+ Bxf6 17.Qd3 Bxg5 18.Bxg5 Rac8 19.Rac1 Qe5 20.Qd2 Bc6 21.&#xA;b4 b6 22.Bf4 Qf6 23.Bg5 Qe5 24.Re1 Qb8 25.a4 Ng6 26.f3 Bb7 27.Bb1 h6 28.&#xA;Be3 e5 29.Qf2 e4 30.f4 Qd6 31.Qd2 Qf6 32.b5 Nh4 33.a5 bxa5 34.c5 a6 35.c6 &#xA;Ba8 36.Bd4 Qd8 37.Rxe4 axb5 38.c7 Qd7 39.Rxe8+ Rxe8 40.Qd3 Ng6 41.Bf2 Bc6 &#xA;42.Qxd7 Bxd7 43.Rd1 Nf8 44.f5 Rc8 45.Bg3 b4 46.Bd6 Nh7 47.Be4 Nf6 48.Bb7 &#xA;Re8 49.Be5 Bxf5 50.Rd8 Kh7 51.Rxe8 Nxe8 52.Be4 Nxc7 53.Bxf5+ g6 54.Bxc7 &#xA;gxf5 55.Bxa5 b3 56.Bc3 Kg6 57.Kf2 Kg5 58.Kf3 h5 59.h4+ 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17780" LastEditorUserId="7726" LastEditDate="2018-11-17T16:55:25.460" LastActivityDate="2018-11-17T17:42:02.317" Title="How does the last move in the Michael Adams vs Anatoly Karpov game result in the end of the match?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22918" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22917" CreationDate="2018-11-17T17:03:57.620" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Black has the dismal choice of being checkmated or watching his pawns drop off. If he takes the h pawn Bf6 is mate, if he drops the king back white will soon win the f pawn by wasting moves with his bishop if necessary, and then the others will follow. A few example lines below, Black's cause is really quite hopeless&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;Dortmund&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Dortmund GER&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;1994.07.15&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;1&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Michael Adams&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Anatoly Karpov&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;B17&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;117&quot;]&#xA;[StartPly &quot;117&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.Nd2 dxe4 4.Nxe4 Nd7 5.Nf3 Ngf6 6.Ng3 e6 7.Bd3 c5 8.O-O &#xA;Be7 9.Qe2 O-O 10.Rd1 Qc7 11.c4 Re8 12.dxc5 Nxc5 13.Bc2 Ncd7 14.Ng5 Nf8 15.&#xA;N3e4 Bd7 16.Nxf6+ Bxf6 17.Qd3 Bxg5 18.Bxg5 Rac8 19.Rac1 Qe5 20.Qd2 Bc6 21.&#xA;b4 b6 22.Bf4 Qf6 23.Bg5 Qe5 24.Re1 Qb8 25.a4 Ng6 26.f3 Bb7 27.Bb1 h6 28.&#xA;Be3 e5 29.Qf2 e4 30.f4 Qd6 31.Qd2 Qf6 32.b5 Nh4 33.a5 bxa5 34.c5 a6 35.c6 &#xA;Ba8 36.Bd4 Qd8 37.Rxe4 axb5 38.c7 Qd7 39.Rxe8+ Rxe8 40.Qd3 Ng6 41.Bf2 Bc6 &#xA;42.Qxd7 Bxd7 43.Rd1 Nf8 44.f5 Rc8 45.Bg3 b4 46.Bd6 Nh7 47.Be4 Nf6 48.Bb7 &#xA;Re8 49.Be5 Bxf5 50.Rd8 Kh7 51.Rxe8 Nxe8 52.Be4 Nxc7 53.Bxf5+ g6 54.Bxc7 &#xA;gxf5 55.Bxa5 b3 56.Bc3 Kg6 57.Kf2 Kg5 58.Kf3 h5 59.h4+ Kh6 &#xA;    ( 59...Kxh4 60.Bf6# )&#xA;60.Kf4 Kg6 61.Bb2 f6 &#xA;    ( 61...Kh6 62.Kxf5 Kh7 63.Kg5 )&#xA;    ( 61...Kh7 62.Kxf5 Kh6 63.Bc3 Kh7 64.Kg5 )&#xA;62.Bc3 Kh6 63.Kxf5 Kg7 64.Bxf6+ 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7726" LastEditorUserId="7726" LastEditDate="2018-11-17T17:42:02.317" LastActivityDate="2018-11-17T17:42:02.317" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22919" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22912" CreationDate="2018-11-17T20:24:51.873" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can get an &lt;code&gt;.ics&lt;/code&gt; file for every major tournament on the broadcast page for that tournament on chess24.com. When you are on that page, click the &lt;strong&gt;Information&lt;/strong&gt; tab, then download the file.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/aOq5d.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/aOq5d.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now open Google Calendar, click the cogwheel icon, and then click &lt;strong&gt;Settings&lt;/strong&gt;. On the settings page click &lt;strong&gt;Import &amp;amp; Export&lt;/strong&gt;. There is a form where you can select the &lt;code&gt;.ics&lt;/code&gt; file. Click &lt;strong&gt;Import&lt;/strong&gt; to add it to your calendar. And that's all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8472" LastActivityDate="2018-11-17T20:24:51.873" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22920" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22922" CreationDate="2018-11-18T07:35:05.883" Score="2" ViewCount="182" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've noticed that I lose sight of pieces' positions very fast during games, also, for some reason, I fail at having an &quot;objective&quot; view, some kind of an eagle eye, i.e I find myself concentrated on where the action is, the 3 or 4 squares related to the last move, this is obviously a default in me and would really wish to get helpful advice from you lots.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user17784" LastEditorUserId="9025" LastEditDate="2018-11-18T18:06:51.773" LastActivityDate="2018-11-18T18:06:51.773" Title="Concentration during games" Tags="&lt;psychology&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22921" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-11-18T08:32:26.280" Score="5" ViewCount="222" Body="&lt;p&gt;What will happen when we wrongly accepted stalemate and thereafter 02-03 seconds we noticed it was not a stalemate but a clear win?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17786" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-02-08T21:11:06.217" LastActivityDate="2020-02-08T21:11:06.217" Title="Wrongly accepted stalemate but game is a clear win?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;stalemate&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22922" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22920" CreationDate="2018-11-18T12:40:16.307" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think I am the best person to answer this question as I have come across a similar kind of situation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would suggest you to first focus on whether you are losing your pieces by any opponent's strategy. Don't directly play with a high level opponent . For increasing your alertness, you can play chess on computer at a lower level and then gradually increase it once you start winning. 'Chess titans', for example, on Windows 7 is an excellent game to improve firstly your alertness, then the logical skills , and finally patience. Try to analyze what is happening on the board instead of narrowing your vision to 3-4 squares. This will greatly benefit you, my friend. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, we turn to logical skills. The most important thing here is to predict your opponent's move and develop your strategy to make him/her fall into your trap. Try to think simple rather than complicating situations. I would also suggest you to be calculative while playing. Here I mean to say that you should be able to think what is going to happen on the board after 2-3 moves. Thereafter, increase the count. I know that it is not possible in all situations, but try to exploit the situations where it works.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally,  patience. Patience , in any work, is the key to success. You can also calculate and plan your next moves while your opponent is planning his/her next move. Also you can try to be ahead of your opponent in calculations. For example , if your opponent has calculated what is going to happen in the next three moves, and if you have calculated upto 4 moves, then you have an edge over your opponent. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These simple techniques have helped me in overcoming my problems and I hope these will be beneficial for you too. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17731" LastActivityDate="2018-11-18T12:40:16.307" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22923" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22921" CreationDate="2018-11-18T14:01:22.623" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to the &lt;a href=&quot;http://aekphotography.co.uk/CAA/Laws2018.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Laws of Chess&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;5.2.3  The game is drawn upon agreement between the two players during the game, provided both players have made at least one move. This immediately ends the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, the annotations to rule 5.1.1 state:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Particularly in junior tournaments it can be discovered that one player accepts he was mated to discover later that he could prevent the mate.  If a result is reported by both players that can be accepted.  Where a player announces mate and immediately shakes hands only for it to be discovered seconds later that the move played was not mate he should not be given the win despite any handshake.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would tend to think that a false stalemate should be handled like a false checkmate, and the game should be resumed if the error was discovered within seconds.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastEditorUserId="12629" LastEditDate="2020-02-08T20:33:44.930" LastActivityDate="2020-02-08T20:33:44.930" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22924" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22920" CreationDate="2018-11-18T14:04:43.343" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The problems you're describing are common with inexperienced players, and that is only natural; the number of possible moves in the average chess position is rather large, and keeping track of everything that's going on in a position is basically impossible without guidelines and experience.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These problems (i.e. losing sight of the position of pieces/losing focus of everything except for a small region of the board) will gradually go away as you gain more experience. However there are things that you can do to actively speed up the process of improving your &quot;eagle eye view&quot; of a position, and the method I suggest is that you use the following checklist:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Each time you're on the move, look for&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;all the different checks available for you in the position;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;all the different captures available for you in the position;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;all the different checks that your opponent could make if it were their move;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;all the different captures that your opponent could make if it were their move.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason for looking at these moves is that checks and captures are very forcing, and it will help you both see your own possibilities of scoring some easy points and it will also help you to find out what your opponent is threatening to do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the beginning this checklist will require some serious effort to complete for each move, but as you play more it will become easier to see the things mentioned in the checklist automatically without having to make a conscious effort.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8300" LastActivityDate="2018-11-18T14:04:43.343" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22925" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-11-18T17:08:56.643" Score="3" ViewCount="865" Body="&lt;p&gt;How should a tactical player as White play after 1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nc6?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The openings I am looking at are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Ruy Lopez&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Italian game&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Scotch game&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Three Knights&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am currently playing Scotch since it opens the centre early and I think it gives me more activity. Are there any other variations I should consider if I want activity and tactics?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16311" LastActivityDate="2018-11-18T20:02:29.627" Title="What next after 1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nc6 for the White tactical player?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;1.e4&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22926" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22925" CreationDate="2018-11-18T17:15:12.353" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would recommend the &lt;code&gt;Scotch Gambit&lt;/code&gt;. 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 exd4 4. Bc4! The game becomes very tactical. For example, if Black attempts to protect the pawn by playing 4. ... Bc5, 5. c3! is a very useful recourse. If Black takes this pawn, 6. Bf7+! is a tactic, after 6. ... Kxf7 7. Qd4+! Wins the piece back.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example game (White player = Nakamura) &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/Zny0pBLO#27&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://lichess.org/Zny0pBLO#27&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17704" LastEditorUserId="12629" LastEditDate="2018-11-18T20:02:29.627" LastActivityDate="2018-11-18T20:02:29.627" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22927" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22890" CreationDate="2018-11-18T18:16:45.360" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Over the summer when there was no league chess I organized weekly themed blitz tournaments in our club. They are a lot of fun, encourage players to play openings they wouldn't normally play, get them playing people they wouldn't normally play and get more players coming in to the club. So, win-win-win on many levels.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They could not be rated because the FIDE laws of chess are not obeyed. In particular article 2.3 is not obeyed in themed tournaments. In the modern, rating-obsessed world I suppose this is a reason why they are not more popular.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2018-11-18T18:16:45.360" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22928" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-11-18T22:48:37.987" Score="1" ViewCount="33" Body="&lt;p&gt;For instance&#xA;Black king is on g8&#xA;black light coloured bishop is on g6&#xA;white queen is on g5&#xA;black rook on d6 and black pawn on c3 are checking White king on d2&#xA;white king captures black pawn on c3&#xA;black rook moves to d3 checking king&#xA;Shouldn't white king be able to capture black rook on d3 because black bishop on g6&#xA;is prevented from attacking anyway?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17790" LastActivityDate="2018-11-18T22:48:37.987" Title="A piece preventing white king from occupying a square can't move for uncovering check on black king can the first king occupy said square anyway?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2018-11-19T11:14:02.713" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22929" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22910" CreationDate="2018-11-18T23:16:55.337" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think that your question is an excellent one. @Remillion, @itub and @SmallChess have answered it already. I believe that I mostly&amp;mdash;perhaps wholly&amp;mdash;agree with their answers, so now I would like to add an answer on a different level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The FIDE has not shown that it fully grasps the &lt;em&gt;kind&lt;/em&gt; of question you are asking. You and I get it. To some extent, the FIDE does not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, for the time being, one probably cannot find authoritative answers to all such questions. This is a shame. If the FIDE asked your advice, they could fix the rules, but they don't quite see the need. Not yet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The FIDE's problem (though imperfectly grasped by the FIDE) is to express game mechanics in a way that&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;is logically complete,&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;does not require the reader to process the phraseology of rulebook language through complex chains of verbal inference,&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;is unambiguous,&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;is unlikely to be incorrectly understood, and&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;is computationally tractable.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Moreover, it would help if the FIDE would do as the American Contract Bridge League (ACBL) has done, cleanly separating game mechanics (which are abstract mathematical/logical constructs) from rules of player conduct (which are concrete and inherently imprecise).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A good software engineer like you implicitly understands the problem. The FIDE, unfortunately, so far, is still groping toward an understanding.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="315" LastActivityDate="2018-11-18T23:16:55.337" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22930" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22934" CreationDate="2018-11-19T02:50:29.610" Score="4" ViewCount="268" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was playing a chess game with a highly rated person in a tournament, and his dad was watching over the game. Obviously, it didn't affect the game, but I would have felt better if he was not watching over the game. Should I just deal with him being there? How do I politely ask a spectator to not watch the game I am playing?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17301" LastActivityDate="2018-11-19T23:11:02.667" Title="How do I politely ask a spectator to stop watching my game?" Tags="&lt;spectating&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22931" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2018-11-19T02:53:57.833" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Use this tag if you are asking a question about a spectator, being a spectator, or spectating in general. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17301" LastEditorUserId="17301" LastEditDate="2018-11-19T11:12:48.790" LastActivityDate="2018-11-19T11:12:48.790" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22932" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2018-11-19T02:53:57.833" Score="0" Body="Use this tag if you are asking a question about a spectator, being a spectator, or spectating in general. " OwnerUserId="17301" LastEditorUserId="17301" LastEditDate="2018-11-19T11:12:57.863" LastActivityDate="2018-11-19T11:12:57.863" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22933" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-11-19T06:32:14.760" Score="11" ViewCount="285" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm thinking about adding the Slav defense to my opening repertoire.  I'm looking at the following line, which I believe is the main line:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. c4 c6 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. Nc3 dxc4 5. a4 Bf5 6. e3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Online, there's a lot of variations and specific moves and counter-moves, but I haven't found much in the way of general plans for black and white here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: What are the main plans for black and white in the main-line Slav after 5...Bf5 6.e3?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Play usually continues:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. c4 c6 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. Nc3 dxc4 5. a4 Bf5 6. e3 e6 7. Bxc4 Bb4 8. O-O&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After which black may castle or play 8...Nbd7, and white may play any of 9. Qb3, or 9. Qe2, or 9. Nh4.  But again, these are just moves, not plans.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2785" LastActivityDate="2019-07-28T11:35:03.670" Title="What are the main plans for black and white in the main-line Slav after 5...Bf5 6.e3?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;1.d4&gt;&lt;slav-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22934" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22930" CreationDate="2018-11-19T09:31:14.280" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Inform the arbiter that it's affecting you, that's more or less all you can do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other players in the playing hall and spectators if they're allowed in are allowed to watch your game. But not to interfere with you or distract you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So if the spectator goes over the line, the arbiter can tell him to take more distance, or leave the playing area. But by itself the fact that he is watching isn't enough, I'd say.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2018-11-19T09:31:14.280" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22935" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-11-19T11:06:06.810" Score="7" ViewCount="316" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a class A player, I have some understanding of opening principles. Relevant to the move played in the game, I know that it's advantageous to control the center, to have central pawns controlling the center, and to maintain tension for as long as possible. It's for these reasons that I was confused by 7. dxc5 in game 7 of the world championship.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would understand this move if Carlsen followed it with 8. cxd5, giving black an isolated queen pawn and trying to play against this for an advantage. But Carlsen did not follow up with this idea, and I was unable to understand the strategy of his next moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What's the idea behind 7. dxc5 in this game? Why give up a central pawn and break tension? Here's a link to the game where it can be replayed: &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.chessbase.com/post/world-championship-2018-game-7&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chessbase&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2614" LastActivityDate="2018-11-19T15:53:17.543" Title="Why did Carlsen play 7. dxc5 in Game 7 of the 2018 World Championship?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;queens-gambit-declined&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22936" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-11-19T12:40:24.897" Score="3" ViewCount="200" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have been adopting the Scotch opening recently with some moderate success. I would like to know whose games should I look at to have a good understanding. I see that &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chess.pl?yearcomp=exactly&amp;amp;year=&amp;amp;playercomp=white&amp;amp;pid=10084&amp;amp;player=&amp;amp;pid2=&amp;amp;player2=&amp;amp;movescomp=exactly&amp;amp;moves=&amp;amp;opening=C45&amp;amp;eco=&amp;amp;result=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Nakamura&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chess.pl?yearcomp=exactly&amp;amp;year=&amp;amp;playercomp=white&amp;amp;pid=15940&amp;amp;player=&amp;amp;pid2=&amp;amp;player2=&amp;amp;movescomp=exactly&amp;amp;moves=&amp;amp;opening=C45&amp;amp;eco=&amp;amp;result=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Kasparov&lt;/a&gt; deploy Scotch reasonably often. Apart from him, I was surprised to see that Tal used Scotch in only 3 games and Fischer never. I was under the impression that Scotch gives rise to dynamic active position and hence my surprise.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16311" LastEditorUserId="9025" LastEditDate="2019-09-19T15:12:09.347" LastActivityDate="2019-09-20T23:54:16.573" Title="Whose games should I collect for Scotch Opening?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;scotch-game&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22937" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22936" CreationDate="2018-11-19T13:30:47.317" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I religiously play scotch in e4/e5 games. Sergei Rublevsky is the star I follow.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7002" LastActivityDate="2018-11-19T13:30:47.317" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22938" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-11-19T15:30:39.037" Score="2" ViewCount="81" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have been adopting the Benoni opening against 1 d4 recently with some moderate success. I would like to know whose games should I look at to have a good understanding. I see that &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chess.pl?yearcomp=exactly&amp;amp;year=&amp;amp;playercomp=black&amp;amp;pid=14380&amp;amp;player=&amp;amp;pid2=&amp;amp;player2=&amp;amp;movescomp=exactly&amp;amp;moves=&amp;amp;opening=A56-A79&amp;amp;eco=&amp;amp;result=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Tal&lt;/a&gt;, and to a lesser extent &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chess.pl?yearcomp=exactly&amp;amp;year=&amp;amp;playercomp=black&amp;amp;pid=19233&amp;amp;player=&amp;amp;pid2=&amp;amp;player2=&amp;amp;movescomp=exactly&amp;amp;moves=&amp;amp;opening=A56-A79&amp;amp;eco=&amp;amp;result=&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Fischer&lt;/a&gt;, have practiced this opening in the past.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16311" LastActivityDate="2018-11-19T22:07:25.220" Title="Whose games should I collect for Benoni?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;famous-players&gt;&lt;modern-benoni&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22939" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22935" CreationDate="2018-11-19T15:53:17.543" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;The same move order also occurred in game 2 (at least up to &lt;code&gt;9...Qa5&lt;/code&gt;). It's a good question that you're asking, though I'm afraid there's no intuitive answer in the way that you're looking for. Instead, these are very concrete lines well polished by computer analysis, which means the best way to understand a decision such as &lt;code&gt;7.dxc5&lt;/code&gt; is to simply play through the lines a bit, and consider a couple of alternatives in order to draw close analogy between these QGD lines and pinpoint the main differences with and without &lt;code&gt;dxc5.&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That said, part of the answer also simply lies in the strategies that the players have adopted in this match (which ultimately stems from their exact preparations), e.g., Caruana seems to favour these rather more solid lines with &lt;code&gt;4...Be7&lt;/code&gt; as opposed to the somewhat sharper variations such as the Vienna (&lt;code&gt;4...dxc4&lt;/code&gt;), Tarrasch (&lt;code&gt;4...c5&lt;/code&gt;) or Ragozin (&lt;code&gt;4...Bb4&lt;/code&gt;) to name a few, most of which by the way Caruana has himself played previously. But then &lt;code&gt;4...Be7&lt;/code&gt; essentially allows Carlsen to stay in the mainline theory of QGD with &lt;code&gt;Bf4&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;e3...&lt;/code&gt;, and from Caruana's point of view, it's the &lt;code&gt;6...c5&lt;/code&gt; variation that he seems to have chosen to prepare for and play in this match against this line (so you should remember the line as &lt;code&gt;Be7&lt;/code&gt;... &lt;code&gt;c5&lt;/code&gt;, as the key defining moves of this variation), which he has followed similarly in both games with this &lt;code&gt;Nc6&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;Qa5-Rd8&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;Qa5-Qd8&lt;/code&gt; ideas. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now here's my attempt to offer you a bit of intuition for the specific &lt;code&gt;7.dxc5&lt;/code&gt; variation, but do take it with a grain of salt as these (like most other Queens pawn openings) are inherently very concrete lines after all: (annotations added to all variations and sub-variations)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [title &quot;London WCC2018 7.dxc5 in QGD games 2&amp;amp;7&quot;]&#xA; [fen &quot;rnbq1rk1/pp2bppp/4pn2/2pp4/2PP1B2/2N1PN2/PP3PPP/R2QKB1R w KQ - 0 7&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 7. dxc5 {What it achieves in short: i. leaves the bishop slightly misplaced on c5, often it has to return to e7 again e.g. to reroute to f6, or to side-step a3-b4 ideas. ii. prevents black from taking on d4 which would further enable black's development as white is essentially forced to recapture with a piece. On the same token, it keeps the knight on f3 where it is well placed controlling e5 and ready to re-route via d2 if needed. iii. Semi-opens the d-file with ideas to quickly play Qc2 Rd1 with immediate pressure along d-file, where d5 pawn still stands.} Bxc5 (7. Be2 {Let's make a quiet move and see what happens if we let black take on d4} cxd4 8. Nxd4 (8. exd4 dxc4 9. Bxc4 b6 {One line among others after exd4. But it already exemplifies why exd4 is bad for white: to play for any edge white has to maintain their IQP but black gets then an easy development with early b6 Bb7, target on d4 and a somewhat misplaced bishop on c4 which can be exploited to gain tempo. If white decided to resolve the IQP immediately it would lead to a completely liquidation of most pieces ending in a completely equal game.}) Nc6 {Thanks to the knight on d4 the Nc6 move comes somewhat with a bit of tempo as it forces white to react:} 9. Nxc6 bxc6 {and black has a solid grip over the centre, and partly solved their bad c8 bishop problem as now there are ideas to trade via a6, that is, Qa5 Ba6 ...} (9. Nf3 Qa5 {or dxc4, and black even has a slight initiative, Nf3 back is clear tempo given up by white.})) 8. Qc2 {As opposed to the more fashionable lines, namely cxd5. Qc2 side-steps the d-file to avoid queen trades and free the file for a quick rook move. Prophylactically stops Bf5 in certain lines because white will be ready to face it with Bd3, e.g. after Qa5 Re8 e5 Nd4 Bf5. It also controls e4 stopping any possible early Ne4 by black, and avoids immediate material trade that is common to cxd5. Finally, it also x-rays the bishop on c5 which is unprotected, forcing black to react to the potential discovery attack.} (8. cxd5 {still rather famous line, previously played by many including Carlsen, MVL, Grischuk, Caruana.} Nxd5 9. Nxd5 exd5 10. Bd3 Bb4+ 11. Nd2 {10. a3 also possible. And black is fine structurally because even the IQP is not permanent as d4 is playable in many lines that follow. But black has a somewhat slow play, because bishop is misplaced on b4, often it reroutes to f6-b2 diagonal via e7, and black still has to play Nc6 and develop c8 bishop. So it's decent for white but more committal which is maybe why Carlsen is not opting for it.}) Nc6 9. a3 {Still a highly theoretical line, still evolving as Carlsen and Caruana have been showing in the match so far, but it's one that suits both their styles of having a closed positional QGD game, with various continuation choices left for both sides.}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hopefully, the above analysis (by no means exhaustive) offers you a glimpse of the kinds of ideas that underlie the &lt;code&gt;dxc5&lt;/code&gt; line. But bear in mind that, in general, to answer such questions for yourself, try to uncover not only the concrete aspects of what the move achieves, but also the sorts of ideas it prevents or side-steps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3594" LastActivityDate="2018-11-19T15:53:17.543" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22941" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22938" CreationDate="2018-11-19T17:00:13.207" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would start with Vugar Gashimov and Veselin Topalov.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastActivityDate="2018-11-19T17:00:13.207" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22942" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22933" CreationDate="2018-11-19T17:15:14.323" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Fight for the center&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The variation with 9.Nh4 has its own flawor. For the other main lines, the logical plans flow from the strategic evaluation of each side's plusses and minuses:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;White enjoys the better center. Black's dxc4 was a slight concession in the fight for the center, Pd4 is firmly established.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;On the other hand, Black has freed both his bishops, while White's queen bishop is still locked inside his pawn chain.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;White has a very slight development advantage, having already castled.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;White's Q-side is slightly weakened by the a2-a4 advance. The stronghold on b4 for one of Black's pieces makes his lack of space more manageable.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a consequence, White aims to increase his space adantage, free his Bc1 and set his center in motion with &lt;strong&gt;e3-e4&lt;/strong&gt;. If possible, he would also like to provoque weaknesses in Black position (the usual suspects are Pb7 fixed by a4-a5 or targeted by Qb3, and the kingside pawns White tries to induce into advancing by threatening a K-side attack, or wants to double with an exchange on g6).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Conversely, Black tries to slow down White advance on e4 (8...0-0 9.Qe2 Bg6!?, e.g., aims to avoid 10.e4 Bxc3 11.exf5), complete his development, and nullify White's central advantage by exchanging the Pd4 with ...c6-c5 or ...e6-e5 (Nbd7, Qe7/Qa5, Rc8/d8/e8 are typical preparatory moves to engineer those breaks). Alternatively, he can put pressure on White's e4-d4 center when it's formed in order to provoque an early e4-e5 (which gives White attacking chances on the K-side but also the d5-square for Black).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The battle for and against e4 is the main topic of the next 5-10 moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can check several battles from the Topalov-Kramnik Elista WC match (WC stands for 'World Championship', not for 'Toiletgate'), or old games by Max Euwe and Gideon Stahlberg.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastEditorUserId="14079" LastEditDate="2019-07-28T11:35:03.670" LastActivityDate="2019-07-28T11:35:03.670" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22943" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22938" CreationDate="2018-11-19T22:07:25.220" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I agree with Evargalo; Topalov made some novel contributions.  Even Kramnik popped out a Benoni in recent times.  Three time US Champion Nick De Firmian played it a lot as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You might consider this book by Marian Petrov: &quot;Grandmaster Repertoire 12: The Modern Benoni&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2018-11-19T22:07:25.220" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22944" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22936" CreationDate="2018-11-19T22:18:27.573" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Magnus Carlsen has some games as White you might look for. &#xA;GM Parimarjan Negi authored a DVD on the Scotch and has himself played it on many occasions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Fischer loved the Ruy Lopez so didn't have much need for the Scotch, and in general fashion has favored the Ruy Lopez. Then Kasparov resurrected the Scotch (he even had an affair with the Evan's Gambit) and it saw new light.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2018-11-19T22:18:27.573" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22946" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22948" CreationDate="2018-11-20T06:58:06.140" Score="5" ViewCount="7884" Body="&lt;p&gt;Currently I am facing some difficulties playing as black when my opponent plays &lt;code&gt;1.g3&lt;/code&gt;. &#xA;In the midgame actually my position gets cramped. Is there some strong response to &lt;code&gt;1.g3&lt;/code&gt;? I actually want some good defense lines to counter &lt;code&gt;1.g3&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17731" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2018-11-20T11:26:13.757" LastActivityDate="2018-11-21T12:54:12.790" Title="Response to King's fianchetto opening" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;fianchetto&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22947" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22946" CreationDate="2018-11-20T07:04:37.250" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Many responses will be good against g3 - if you have problems against it  - actually its indicator that you have problems with general chess principles, so just study chess, get some good book on middle-game strategy and don't think of g3 for now. g3 is very slow and has no real opening threat for black - it takes on middle-game understanding though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17448" LastActivityDate="2018-11-20T07:04:37.250" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22948" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22946" CreationDate="2018-11-20T07:14:13.133" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;By far, the most aggressive and direct response to 1.g3 is prepare for king-side pawn storm with h7-h5-h4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That doesn't mean you play 1...h5! I'm afraid there're too many setups for ...h5. You have to see what White do. A possibility is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;...Bf5, ...Qd7, ...0-0-0, ...h5, ...h4, ...hxg3, ...Bh3&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sorry, there's no way to cover all the possibilities. The idea is not castle king-side yourself as you know before even making your first move you have the g3 target to attack. Castle queenside, keep your rook on the h (or g) file and go!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;... gets cramped&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The castle-queenside line shouldn't give you a cramped position, but a dynamic double-edge position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2018-11-20T08:31:35.130" LastActivityDate="2018-11-20T08:31:35.130" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22949" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22950" CreationDate="2018-11-20T10:34:06.610" Score="3" ViewCount="1788" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a complete beginner and have started learning chess one month ago. I play online on lichess.com. I lose a lot of games which is understandable too. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many people advised me that I should analyze my own games. I have came across number of online websites(also lichess inbuilt analyzer) that tells me what is the best move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I want to know why that specific move is the best move, what are advantages of playing &quot;X&quot; move in comparison with &quot;Y&quot; move etc. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In short is there a website/engine that decodes the chess moves from me?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17732" LastActivityDate="2018-11-21T14:26:06.850" Title="Website that decode chess moves?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;learning&gt;&lt;online-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22950" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22949" CreationDate="2018-11-20T11:08:34.070" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was thinking if you were the author of &lt;a href=&quot;https://decodechess.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://decodechess.com&lt;/a&gt;, and posted here for self-promotion. &quot;decode&quot; isn't a common terminology here. What you're asking match exactly to the name of the site.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ok. Please take a look at the site.&#xA;I personally don't use it as I found the analysis too simple/too naive. Maybe you'd think otherwise.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2018-11-20T11:08:34.070" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22951" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22955" CreationDate="2018-11-20T12:37:43.647" Score="6" ViewCount="987" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not a serious chess player, but I heard that about 80% of professional chess games end as a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In other similar abstract strategy games, such as Shogi and Janggi, when it is impossible to checkmate, they evaluate pieces value and determine the winner (in a professional game).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why does chess not adopt this way?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15714" LastEditorUserId="9277" LastEditDate="2018-11-20T14:26:19.093" LastActivityDate="2018-11-25T19:28:50.010" Title="Why is there a draw in professional chess?" Tags="&lt;draw&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="14" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22952" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22951" CreationDate="2018-11-20T12:55:44.867" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess pieces don't have a proper value, that depends on the position. A passed-pawn could be a weakness or a queen-promotion opportunity. A pawn next to promotion is stronger than a rook. Knights are not inferior to rook when it attacks with the queen etc etc etc&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2018-11-20T12:55:44.867" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22953" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22946" CreationDate="2018-11-20T16:32:55.657" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Play purposefully... What does it mean? From a high-level point of view, white is giving up control of the center by playing on the flank - the best way to counter that is for you to play in the center. Pawn advances in the center and piece activity will get you there. For example, if white castles king side and starts pushing h-pawn, that will make g3 pawn weak: you can try to control the a7 - f1 dark diagonal to launch an attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15509" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2018-11-20T19:10:52.607" LastActivityDate="2018-11-20T19:10:52.607" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22954" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22956" CreationDate="2018-11-20T17:19:08.580" Score="30" ViewCount="5444" Body="&lt;p&gt;As an amateur, I prefer the Scotch game as opposed to Ruy Lopez, since I feel that White loses tempo and Black seems to gain tempo with queenside counterplay in the main line.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [title &quot;Ruy Lopez&quot;]&#xA; [fen &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Ba4 {Bishop retreat at the expense of black gaining one queenside counterplay} b5 5. Bb3 {Another bishop retreat at the expense of black gaining a good queenside counterplay}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At the end of White's fifth move, it looks like Black is couple of tempo ahead and already has queenside counterplay going. Despite this, why is this one of (if not the most) celebrated openings? Can someone offer an explanation at the level of an amateur?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16311" LastEditorUserId="3594" LastEditDate="2018-11-20T18:29:39.777" LastActivityDate="2018-11-21T18:58:18.647" Title="Why is the Ruy Lopez a sensible opening for white?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;ruy-lopez&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22955" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22951" CreationDate="2018-11-20T17:38:05.377" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;First of all let's put the numbers correct. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The 80% draw ratio is for correspondence chess, not something that the average person would associate with &quot;chess&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In regular top level chess, the draw ratio is around 50%.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In either case, most games are &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; played out until a postions &lt;em&gt;when it is impossible to checkmate&lt;/em&gt;, but rather most draws are &lt;em&gt;agreed draws&lt;/em&gt;, i.e. draws in a position that could in principle be won by either player through checkmate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I understand your proposal correctly, you want to get rid of draws completely by evaluating dead positions (that cannot be won by either player, not even if cooperating) according to the piece value.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I see several difficulties/issues with this approach:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You'd have to decide what to do with perpetual check, stalemate and the 50 moves rule.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What do you do with positions that are equal/drawish with equal material but that are not dead draws (i.e.  either player can still checkmate)? Forcing players to continue until dead draws could lead to very long (and boring) games, similar to what we see with some games under Sofia rules.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Positions where it is impossible to checkmate are pretty rare. Basically only King vs King or King and one minor piece vs King (and a few exceptional/constructed cases). In the large majority of positions checkmate is possible if players cooperate. So the proposed change would not alter much.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If players in the dead draw position would have equal material it would still be a draw.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2018-11-20T17:38:05.377" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22956" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22954" CreationDate="2018-11-20T18:24:24.983" Score="27" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sure black's &lt;code&gt;a6-b5&lt;/code&gt; come with tempo, but let's say at a very basic level, if you just compare pieces, structure and development progress, you can see that white is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Ready to castle&lt;/strong&gt; whereas black hasn't yet developed either kingside pieces, so at least 2 tempi away from castling. This translates into white having a safer king 1-2 tempi earlier, which means white has the upper-hand in launching some sort of attack or push.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;White has developed two minor pieces that stand quite well:&lt;/strong&gt; Knight on &lt;code&gt;f3&lt;/code&gt; attacks &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt; and has the potential to coordinate on &lt;code&gt;f7&lt;/code&gt; with the bishop on &lt;code&gt;b3&lt;/code&gt; already eyeing black's kingside. In contrast, black has only developed a knight, one that stands defensively on &lt;code&gt;c6&lt;/code&gt; covering &lt;code&gt;e5.&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Besides the &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; pawn, &lt;strong&gt;white has nearly kept all pawn advancement options still on the table&lt;/strong&gt; (therefore, can opt for various pawn structures still), whereas black has made 2 additional commitments that cannot be undone, which can on the one hand, prove to have been self-inducing weaknesses, and on the other hand, be hooks (targets) for white's pawn advancements on the queenside, e.g. an &lt;code&gt;a4&lt;/code&gt; push, to which black has to react immediately.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These ways of reasoning can be adopted to conceptually assess nearly any opening you see, at least at a basic level. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The point on pawn commitments cannot be emphasized enough, they're the most committal moves in the game (trades come close but at least in principle a piece can be brought back to life with a promotion, but pawns cannot! :P ). Even at the highest level, for instance take a look at any of Caruana's openings in the match so far, where roughly speaking, he intentionally favours lines where he can delay unnecessary pawn moves and keep most of his options open. Examples: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Game 2:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [title &quot;Game 2, move 13, only 3 central pawns moved, compare to white!&quot;]&#xA; [fen &quot;r1br2k1/pp3ppp/2n1p3/q1bp4/2P2B2/P1P1PN2/2Q1BPPP/3R1RK1 b - - 0 13&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Game 4:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [title &quot;Game 4, move 13, only 2 central pawns moved, compare to white!&quot;]&#xA; [fen &quot;r1bqr1k1/ppp2ppp/3b4/4p3/1P6/2BP1BP1/P3PP1P/1R1Q1RK1 b - - 0 13&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;game 6:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [title &quot;Game 6, move 13, only 2 central pawns moved, compare to white!&quot;]&#xA; [fen &quot;r1b1kb1r/pppn1ppp/3pn3/3N4/3P4/N1P2P2/PP4PP/R1B1KB1R b KQkq - 0 13&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;game 8:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [title &quot;Game 8, move 16, only 3 pawns moved, compare to black!&quot;]&#xA; [fen &quot;1rbq1rk1/1p2b1pp/pN1p4/P2Pnp2/4p3/8/1PPBBPPP/R2Q1RK1 w - - 4 17&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyhow I think the idea is clear now! It's important to add that in all these examples, the simple fact of having moved &lt;em&gt;less&lt;/em&gt; pawns doesn't directly or necessarily translate into &lt;em&gt;having a better position,&lt;/em&gt; chess is never that simple or linear. Partly, specially in this examples, it is a case of style and preference (and thus the adopted openings), but on the other hand it shows you the importance of &lt;em&gt;diversity&lt;/em&gt; in pawn structures that can still be opted for as they translate into having more &lt;em&gt;choices&lt;/em&gt;, abundantly clear even at the highest level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I hope these ideas have shown you why the Ruy Lopez is such a liked opening, which I have only tackled from the white side in this post, and clearly, black's side has its own merits in the Ruy Lopez compared to alternative options that are available for black against &lt;code&gt;1. e4&lt;/code&gt;, but that's a discussion for another time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3594" LastActivityDate="2018-11-20T18:24:24.983" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22957" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22954" CreationDate="2018-11-20T18:43:24.113" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Note that while black gains space on the queenside, the advanced pawns offer white some opportunities later on to undermine black's pawns with a timely a4-push. Moreover, the queenside expansion doesn't develop a piece, nor does it help black to contest the center of the board. Further, white's bishop is quite a happy camper on b3, being less exposed than it would be on c4 while at the same time being basically just as influential as it would be on c4. So while white has spent 3 tempi to get the bishop to b3, black has spent 2 tempi on a queenside pawn expansion that doesn't develop a piece. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In essence, white gets to develop a piece to a very good square, while black gets to expand on the queenside, which doesn't really aid in development very much and has a potential of weakening black's position in the future. So the expansion is not without drawbacks for black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8300" LastActivityDate="2018-11-20T18:43:24.113" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22958" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22936" CreationDate="2018-11-21T09:56:27.840" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I generally prefer GM Negi Parimarjan, who is the master of the Scotch Opening and, as mentioned above, he has created a DVD series.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He has played Scotch lots of times.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17823" LastActivityDate="2018-11-21T09:56:27.840" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22960" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22946" CreationDate="2018-11-21T12:54:12.790" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you like some attacking dynamic response, you could try to form a reverse Sicilian like system with 1...c5 and transpose to a Reverse Saemisch attack, if he doesn't do an early e4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [title &quot;Reverse Saemisch&quot;]&#xA; [fen &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA; 1. g3 c5 2. Bg2 d5 3. Nf3 Nc6 4. O-O e5 5. d3 f6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Though Black is a tempo short as opposed to the usual Saemisch attack, the position is still equal and White has to play extremely sharp.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can try castling long (if White doesn't generate enough queenside counter play) and kingside pawn storm.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16311" LastActivityDate="2018-11-21T12:54:12.790" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22961" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22949" CreationDate="2018-11-21T14:26:06.850" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Many people advised me that I should analyze my own games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Good advise, but unfortunately impossible to do for a beginner.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In short is there a website/engine that decodes the chess moves from me?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is one (see the answer by SmallChess), however I am rather pessimistic about decoding done by computers. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As mentioned in my comments, for simple tactics, the site mentioned does a pretty decent job explaining the ideas behind the moves. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In less tactical/more equal positions, however in my experience, it will overload you with fairly irrelevant short term plans missing the long term idea behind it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you think you find this or similar sites useful, go for it. Personally I'd recommend to watch/read commented/annotated games (books, or youtube or chess24 or...) and if possible have a stronger player analyze games with you (perhaps join a chess club). IMO, can't beat human analysis of chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2018-11-21T14:26:06.850" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22962" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22964" CreationDate="2018-11-21T16:32:16.690" Score="1" ViewCount="200" Body="&lt;p&gt;While watching the Chess World Championship, a few news outlets provide updates on how supercomputers are evaluating the board position. The example I'm looking at is using the Sesse Supercomputer, which evaluates the strength of one side over the other measured in pawns. For example, though I don't remember the exact numbers, at one point in game 8, Caruana had an advantage of roughly +2, however after the ill-advised move h3, the computer reevaluated their position to be roughly equal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That made me wonder: Can you improve your evaluated position on your own turn, or do you only stand to weaken it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems to me that if you had a move available which strengthened your position, that would be included in the evaluation. My assumption (of which I'm not certain), is that the computer expects you to take the best possible move, so doing so would simply maintain the advantage you already have. Taking any move aside from the strongest would weaken it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this the case?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16035" LastActivityDate="2018-11-23T09:13:34.073" Title="Can you improve a supercomputer evaluation on your own move?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22963" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22962" CreationDate="2018-11-21T17:11:28.723" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;No way your assumptions are right. If the move is winning, the score may ruse even further. However, if the move is not winning playing it the score might drop to zero.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stockfish can make mistakes and often do even on a good hardware.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Evaluation can change to either direction every time you make a move. Sorry chess is a hard game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2018-11-21T17:11:28.723" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22964" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22962" CreationDate="2018-11-21T17:14:04.413" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, all the moves would have been included in the evaluation, but that evaluation isn't perfect. Supercomputer is still a normal computer, just faster. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your example, the chess god will see that +2 position as &quot;mate in 50&quot;, hence it should be evaluated as +infinity, a big improvement.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Whether mortals like those world champions can improve that evaluation is a different matter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7002" LastActivityDate="2018-11-21T17:14:04.413" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22965" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8285" CreationDate="2018-11-21T17:40:25.170" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I consider playing a sparring game with a chess software as  beneficial for a player to enhance his/her playing and analytical skill. I placed 2nd in a chess tournament by merely playing weak Chessmaster version of alphanumeric Nokia phone 3x a day for 5 months. Prior to that sparring sessions, I reviewed tactical postions to improve my game. Thus, I recommend having a chess app for sparring games before competing in an online or formal chess tournament. You can start practicing from lower level up to higher level depending on your preferred playing strength.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17828" LastActivityDate="2018-11-21T17:40:25.170" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22966" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22954" CreationDate="2018-11-21T18:58:18.647" Score="0" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What has Black gained by a6 and b5?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;He is no more developed than he was before those moves.  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Primarily he has removed BxN options from White.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What has White gained from a6 and b5?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The advanced pawns are often targets for White.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;White's Bishop is now on a nice diagonal and doesn't have to worry&#xA;about d7-d5 moves hitting it as in some lines of the Two-Knights or&#xA;Bishops Opening (2.Bc4 and 3.Bc4 lines)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;So in general&lt;/strong&gt; your assertion that Black is gaining tempos and counter-play are completely misguided.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2018-11-21T18:58:18.647" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22967" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22969" CreationDate="2018-11-21T23:03:47.263" Score="1" ViewCount="68" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to know if any of you could help me finding results from strong Blitz tournaments where the time control is around 5 minutes per player. It's for research. I do not have Chessbase or any chess game data base. Thanks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4127" LastActivityDate="2018-11-22T05:15:36.307" Title="Blitz tournaments (time control around 5 minutes)" Tags="&lt;blitz&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22968" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2747" CreationDate="2018-11-22T03:53:05.107" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm a senior master (2400+), and I've played thousands of odds games with players up to expert level (2000+).  In the 90s I was able to give a local 2100 the odds of piece-for-pawn (White removes his queen's knight, black removes his f-pawn), and I would win around 80%.  In those days I would give 1800-2000 players anywhere from a knight to a rook, with a positive win-loss ratio. The internet has changed things, though, and I think modern class players are much more savvy and accurate in blitz, so I can't say I can repeat those numbers today.  But I would say that Queen odds is more of a chess joke, where there really isn't much to do unless the opponent is a real tyro.  The clock can work both ways, because many weaker players won't necessarily come up with a better move given more time, whereas I can usually forestall doom if there's plenty of time to think.  Beer helps.  On both sides.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17834" LastActivityDate="2018-11-22T03:53:05.107" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22969" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22967" CreationDate="2018-11-22T05:15:36.307" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Blitz_Chess_Championship&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Blitz_Chess_Championship&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By 1950, the time controls had changed to the familiar five minutes per player, hence the &amp;quot;five-minute game&amp;quot; moniker; the term &amp;quot;blitz chess&amp;quot; would not be coined until the 1960s.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please search the games on Chessgames. You don't need Chessbase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2018-11-22T05:15:36.307" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22970" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33515" CreationDate="2018-11-22T07:37:44.600" Score="13" ViewCount="409" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=171&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE rules&lt;/a&gt; section 9.2 says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Positions are considered the same if and only if the same player has&#xA;the move, pieces of the same kind and colour occupy the same squares&#xA;and the possible moves of all the pieces of both players are the same.&#xA;Thus positions are not the same if:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;at the start of the sequence a pawn could have been captured en passant.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;a king or rook had castling rights, but forfeited these after moving. The castling rights are lost only after the king or rook is moved.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is about the correct interpretation of &amp;quot;possible moves&amp;quot; in regards to castling and en-passant rights.  &lt;strong&gt;Has FIDE ever officially clarified this rule&lt;/strong&gt;, or is there a petition out there somewhere for them to clarify this rule, to decide between these alternatives?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It matters only what moves can actually be made from the positions in question.  (Literally, the &amp;quot;possible moves&amp;quot; for the positions.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Both the moves that can be made, and the retention of rights to castle and capture en passant, must be considered and must match exactly between the positions in question.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have two examples to illustrate the question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, castling rights.  In this example, assuming both the king and rook have never been moved at the starting position, there is no possible future where White can castle.  So is the final position in this example a threefold repetition or not?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;White to Move&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;4k1n1/8/8/8/8/8/4p3/2B1K2R w K - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Rh2 Nh6 2. Rh1 Ng8 3. Rh2 Nh6 4. Rh1 Ng8&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Is this a threefold repetition ?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Formally, White has lost his castling right. However, even in the starting position, there was no possible legal continuation of the game where White could castle (he cannot get rid of bPe2 without moving king or rook), so even if the formal right to castle has been lost, the possibility of a later castle has not been altered by the moves played.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Second, capture en passant rights.  In this example, the white pawn can theoretically be captured en passant, but the only black pawn that could do it is pinned.  So is the final position in this example a threefold repetition or not?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;White to Move&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;2k3n1/8/8/8/2p5/8/3P4/2R1K3 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 Nh6 2. Kd1 Ng8 3. Ke1 Nh6 4. Kd1 Ng8 5. Ke1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In both examples, it depends how the phrase &amp;quot;possible moves&amp;quot; in the rule is defined.  &lt;strong&gt;Has FIDE ever clarified this rule&lt;/strong&gt; as it concerns cases like these?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4388" LastEditorUserId="14079" LastEditDate="2020-12-29T15:47:23.770" LastActivityDate="2020-12-30T05:11:22.280" Title="FIDE threefold repetition and possible moves" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;fide&gt;&lt;castling&gt;&lt;en-passant&gt;&lt;threefold-repetition&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22971" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-11-22T07:39:56.923" Score="6" ViewCount="501" Body="&lt;p&gt;What resources (books, videos, websites) are there to help me improve my understanding of pawn structures?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16792" LastEditorUserId="18475" LastEditDate="2020-02-01T22:03:33.543" LastActivityDate="2020-02-14T10:41:42.407" Title="How can I improve my knowledge of pawn structure theory?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;books&gt;&lt;pawn-structure&gt;&lt;chess-videos&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22972" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6048" CreationDate="2018-11-22T08:45:45.790" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;For the sake of a quick evaluation, the fastest and safest method in my opinion is &lt;strong&gt;the rule of the two plusses&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, let's get rid of the cases where it doesn't apply. White has the pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If the bK is not in the square of the pawn, White wins.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If the bK can take the pawn, it is a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Pawns on the edge of the board (the a- and h- files) have their own rules (less often a win, race to the key squares f7-g7-f8-g8). &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ok, now we have a pawn not on the edge and both kings &quot;close enough&quot; to prevent immediate promotion or capture. Then White tries to bring his king as much as possible in front of the pawn and Black's king comes to oppose that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When both kings are on the nearby files (for an e-pawn, that means files d-e-f) you can evaluate the position with the &quot;&lt;strong&gt;two plusses rule&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If the wK is one square in front of the pawn, count one plus. If it is two squares in front of the pawn, two plusses, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If White has the opposition, count one plus.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If wK is on the 6th rank, count one plus.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sum up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;White wins if and only if he has at least two plusses.&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Examples:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here white has only one plus: king in front of the pawn. Black draws.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;White to Move&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[SetUp &quot;1&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;8/6k1/8/6K1/6P1/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;11&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Kf5 Kf7 2. g5 Kg7 3. g6 Kg8! 4. Kf6 Kf8 5. g7 Kg8 6. Kg6 1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here White has two plusses: his king is two ranks in front of the pawn. White wins.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;White to Move&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[SetUp &quot;1&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;8/6k1/8/6K1/8/5P2/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;11&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. f4 Kf7 2.Kf5! Kg7 3.Ke6 1 0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here, with Black on move, White has two plusses: king in front of the pawn and the opposition. He wins.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Black to Move&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[SetUp &quot;1&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;8/6k1/8/6K1/6P1/8/8/8 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;15&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Kf7 2. Kh6 Kg8 3. Kg6 Kh8 4. g5 Kg8 5. Kh6 Kh8 6. g6 Kg8 7. g7 Kf7 8. Kh7 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here, one rank higher on the board, White, on move, has two plusses: king one square in front of the pawn and king on the 6th rank. He wins.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;White to Move&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[SetUp &quot;1&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;6k1/8/6K1/6P1/8/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;7&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Kf6 Kf8 2. g6 Kg8 3. g7 Kh7 4. Kf7 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Your positions:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;White to move&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;8/4k3/8/8/8/2P5/2K5/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After 1.Kb3 Kd6 2.Kb4! Kc6 3.Kc4! White has &lt;strong&gt;two plusses&lt;/strong&gt; (one square in front + opposition) &lt;strong&gt;White wins&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Black to move&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;k7/8/8/8/1PR4r/2K5/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After 1...Rxc4! (the simplest, but the rook ending is a dead draw too) 2.Kxc4 Kb8! 3.Kc5 Kc7! or 3.Kb5 Kb7! White has only &lt;strong&gt;one plus&lt;/strong&gt; (king in front of the pawn) : &lt;strong&gt;Draw&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;White to move&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;4k3/8/8/8/8/2P5/8/6K1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After 1.Kf2 Kd7 2.Ke3 Kc6 3.Kd4 Kd6! White has only &lt;strong&gt;one plus&lt;/strong&gt; (king in front of the pawn) : &lt;strong&gt;Draw&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks to this method, the variations are much shorter: you only need to calculate until the kings are near the pawn, and then you count the plusses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastEditorUserId="14079" LastEditDate="2018-11-22T09:05:28.453" LastActivityDate="2018-11-22T09:05:28.453" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22974" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20065" CreationDate="2018-11-22T10:10:25.040" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just remembered I totally forgot to come here post the solution. My apologies but better late than never :).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The main interest of this position is the apparent mutual zugzwang soon appearing after 1.d4 Bd6 2.Bg6, when playing natural moves and bringing the white king to f5 (in the position white : Kf5, Ra8, Bg6 pawns d4,d5,e6/ black : Kf8,Re7,Bg3,Ne8).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In that position If black is to play (which is the case ine the soçlution below after 13.Ra8), black loses very quickly (1...Bh2 loses the possilibility to play bh4+, so 2.Bxe8 Rxe8 3.Ra7 (threatening 4.Rf7+ followed by 5.Rd7 and the d pawn will be able to move to d6)3...Rb8 4.Kf6 (and bh4+ not possible anymore with the B on h2).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, with white to play (which would be the case in the solution below if white would chose to play the natural 6.Kf5), it's much harder to figure out how to win. The triangulation manoeuver requires to bring the white king to g4 and the white bishop to h5 (which aren't very naturlal ideas), before trinagulation with the rook (although the move order doesn t matter, you can olay 1.Rc8 Fh2 first, then bring the king to g4 and then the bishop to h5, or play Kg4 first or Bh5 first), but the traingulation manouever itself stays unique and the only way to win (just interversion duals).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'll just put the solution as is, I'll try to go into more details if some things aren't clear :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;&#xA;1.d4 Bd6 (i)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;2.Bg6 Bb4&lt;br&gt;&#xA;3.Ke2 Bd6&lt;br&gt;&#xA;4.Kf3 Bc7&lt;br&gt;&#xA;5.Kg4 Bh2! (ii)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;6.Bh5 Bc7! (iii)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;7.Rc8 Bh2! (iv)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;8.Rd8 Bc7&lt;br&gt;&#xA;9.Ra8 Bh2! (v)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;10.Rc8 Bd6&lt;br&gt;&#xA;11.Bg6 Bh2&lt;br&gt;&#xA;12.Kf5 Bg3&lt;br&gt;&#xA;13.Ra8 Bh2&lt;br&gt;&#xA;14.Bxe8 Rxe8&lt;br&gt;&#xA;15.Ra7 Rb8&lt;br&gt;&#xA;16.Kf6 Rb1&lt;br&gt;&#xA;17.Ra8+ Bb8&lt;br&gt;&#xA;18.d6 +-&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(i)1....Bxd4 2.d6! Rxe6 3.d7! Bb6 4.Bf5! Re7 5.Bg4! +-&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(ii)5...Bd6 6.Rc8 Bh2 7.Kf5 Bg3 8.Ra8 +-&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(iii)6...Bd6 7.Kf5 Bg3 8.Bg6 +-&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(iv)7...Bd6 8.Bg6 Bh2 9.Kf5 Bg3 10.Ra8 +-&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(v)9...Bd6 10.Kf5 Bg3 11.Bg6 +- &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14778" LastEditorUserId="14778" LastEditDate="2018-11-22T10:24:49.163" LastActivityDate="2018-11-22T10:24:49.163" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22975" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22977" CreationDate="2018-11-22T10:26:20.313" Score="25" ViewCount="5395" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there a chess system where you can make players of differing skill levels compete against each other with an equal chance to win without using different chess variations?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This system should give good players and bad players a level playing field where both of them can win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17837" LastEditorUserId="12523" LastEditDate="2018-11-22T11:48:48.447" LastActivityDate="2018-11-24T00:02:43.437" Title="Is there a balanced chess system where players of unknown skill can have an equal chance of winning?" Tags="&lt;chess-variants&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22976" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-11-22T11:20:07.770" Score="2" ViewCount="106" Body="&lt;p&gt;Suppose we cloned Magnus Carlsen and arranged a match between the clone and the real Magnus. I will give the real Magnus x minutes on his clock, and the clone will have y minutes. Is there any research on what is the expected result of the match for a given pair x, y? Thanks&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4127" LastActivityDate="2018-11-22T11:20:07.770" Title="How much does time control affect ELO strength?" Tags="&lt;elo&gt;&lt;time-control&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ClosedDate="2018-11-25T18:46:40.050" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22977" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22975" CreationDate="2018-11-22T12:19:57.613" Score="33" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The way I've done this in the past is to play a series of games with clocks starting with 10 minutes each on the clocks and then the rule for subsequent games that the winner of the previous game gets one minute less and the loser one minute more. This quickly stabilizes at a level where both players have good chances of winning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2018-11-22T12:19:57.613" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22978" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22971" CreationDate="2018-11-22T12:33:30.277" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;The old classical book by &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Kmoch&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Hans Kmoch&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;em&gt;Pawn Power in Chess&lt;/em&gt; is almost entiely devoted to this subject. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is often used as a reference because of its numerous useful examples, but also mocked for the author's tendency to over-theorize every principle and forge neologisms that have not made their way, half a century later, into common chess vocabulary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But as long as you don't mind skipping some sophisticated words like 'leucopenia' or 'melanoarchia', it remains an excellent ressource for studying pawn structures. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastEditorUserId="14079" LastEditDate="2020-02-01T18:22:03.243" LastActivityDate="2020-02-01T18:22:03.243" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22980" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22981" CreationDate="2018-11-22T14:41:59.937" Score="2" ViewCount="654" Body="&lt;p&gt;Playing as black against the chess.com computer, the following position was reached and chess.com declared checkmate in its favor. However, I don't see that the black king is in check. So is this a bug?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;2r2r2/p6k/2b1p1R1/2pp2Qp/P2P4/1PN5/1K6/8 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There was no time limit in effect and this is the final position. There was a message that said &quot;Checkmate&quot; and I couldn't make any more moves. (White's last move was Qg5; it had been on h4.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="224" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-03-08T14:08:20.840" LastActivityDate="2021-03-08T14:08:20.840" Title="How is this checkmate ... or does chess.com have a bug?" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;chess.com&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22981" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22980" CreationDate="2018-11-22T14:54:28.353" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;Obviously, this is not a checkmate. Something else must have happened. &#xA;Here is what I could imagine:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Maybe you have lost on time, and not by checkmate&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Maybe this is the position before White's last move (Qh6# or Qxh5#), which was played a mili-second before the computer claimed victory - so that the mating position wouldn't have been visible on your screen for long enough for you to notice.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Maybe (but unlikely) there is some bug in the software. Possibly the software 'played' Qh4xh5# but somehow sent Qh4-g5 to the virtual board for unknown reason.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastEditorUserId="14079" LastEditDate="2018-11-22T15:04:14.870" LastActivityDate="2018-11-22T15:04:14.870" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22982" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22984" CreationDate="2018-11-22T15:32:53.883" Score="0" ViewCount="599" Body="&lt;p&gt;See below my game last night, I am white and I got 3 queens. He only has the king left. We have loads of time left. It was a 30min game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As soon as I moved my original queen up one space and got him into check mate, the game ended as a draw! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How is this a draw?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/pFdvY.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/pFdvY.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17841" LastEditorUserId="17841" LastEditDate="2018-11-22T17:16:38.043" LastActivityDate="2021-01-18T04:05:16.533" Title="How is this not checkmate? I had loads of time to spare" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22983" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22982" CreationDate="2018-11-22T15:42:35.907" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is stalemate (opponent's king can't move anywhere and not in check). Your queen move last move doesn't check his king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17842" LastActivityDate="2018-11-22T15:42:35.907" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22984" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22982" CreationDate="2018-11-22T15:42:49.443" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;A necessary condition for checkmate is that the king is in check, which is not the case here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The position in question is called &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalemate&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;stalemate&lt;/a&gt;: black does not have any legal moves, but is not in check. The game ends at this point, and is evaluated as a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2018-11-22T15:42:49.443" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22985" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="22986" CreationDate="2018-11-22T16:28:17.207" Score="9" ViewCount="593" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is not allowed to draw till move 30. Are the players forced to find another moves in case of threefold repetition?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13744" LastActivityDate="2018-11-22T16:31:51.503" Title="What if threefold repetition occurs in WCC 2018?" Tags="&lt;draw&gt;&lt;world-championship&gt;&lt;threefold-repetition&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22986" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22985" CreationDate="2018-11-22T16:31:51.503" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;Draw by mutual agreement is not allowed before move 30. But a draw by threefold repetition can be claimed at any point if it occurs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastActivityDate="2018-11-22T16:31:51.503" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22987" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-11-22T16:49:31.933" Score="1" ViewCount="99" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am creating a Fairy-chess game. Means a chess game with not classic pieces. What is a good strategy to evaluate chess values?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What first comes to my mind is to value the pieces regarding to how many squares they control if you position them in the center. &#xA;Is there a better approach?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13744" LastActivityDate="2018-11-22T16:49:31.933" Title="What is a good system to evaluate a Fairy-piece value?" Tags="&lt;evaluation&gt;&lt;pieces&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2018-11-23T11:24:32.803" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22989" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-11-22T19:42:18.517" Score="6" ViewCount="558" Body="&lt;p&gt;As title above, what are a few of the worst blunders ever committed in a World Chess Championship Match?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastEditorUserId="17448" LastEditDate="2018-11-23T10:57:45.943" LastActivityDate="2020-05-31T00:42:42.970" Title="What are the worst blunders ever committed in a world championship match (final)?" Tags="&lt;world-championship&gt;&lt;blunder&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22990" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22989" CreationDate="2018-11-22T20:15:39.010" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Game six in the second Carlsen-Anand match comes to mind. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After 26.Kd2 black can simply take on e5 and after 26...Nxe5 27.Rxg8 he has the intermediate check 27...Nxc4+. Black just remains at least one pawn up. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, 26.Kd2 is one of the worst blunders in the history of the world championship. But of course 26...a4 forgoing this relatively simple tactical strike is also one of the worst blunders.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;Carlsen - Anand World Championship&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Sochi RUS&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2014.11.15&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;2014.11.07&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;6&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Magnus Carlsen&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Viswanathan Anand&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;B41&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;75&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 e6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 a6 5.c4 Nf6 6.Nc3 Bb4 &#xA;7.Qd3 Nc6 8.Nxc6 dxc6 9.Qxd8+ Kxd8 10.e5 Nd7 11.Bf4 Bxc3+ &#xA;12.bxc3 Kc7 13.h4 b6 14.h5 h6 15.O-O-O Bb7 16.Rd3 c5 17.Rg3 Rag8&#xA;18.Bd3 Nf8 19.Be3 g6 20.hxg6 Nxg6 21.Rh5 Bc6 22.Bc2 Kb7 &#xA;23.Rg4 a5 24.Bd1 Rd8 25.Bc2 Rdg8 26.Kd2 a4 27.Ke2 a3 28.f3 Rd8 &#xA;29.Ke1 Rd7 30.Bc1 Ra8 31.Ke2 Ba4 32.Be4+ Bc6 33.Bxg6 fxg6 &#xA;34.Rxg6 Ba4 35.Rxe6 Rd1 36.Bxa3 Ra1 37.Ke3 Bc2 38.Re7+ 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2018-11-22T20:15:39.010" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22991" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22989" CreationDate="2018-11-23T02:39:53.660" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;By far, the biggest blunder in all world championship is absolutely 32.Bb4?? played by Chigorin in the 1892 match. He threw away the win and the match, landed himself to mate in 2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Chess_Championship_1892&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Chess_Championship_1892&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A piece up, Chigorin should have won after 32. Rxb7 (32...Rxd5? 33. Nf4 forks the black rooks).[1] Instead the game and match ended suddenly when Chigorin blundered with 32. Bb4?? Rxh2+ White resigns, as Black will mate on the next move.[1][3]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2018-11-23T02:39:53.660" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22992" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22989" CreationDate="2018-11-23T05:33:55.093" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;As it happens &lt;a href=&quot;http://chessbase.com&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chessbase&lt;/a&gt; ran a story earlier this week featuring&#xA;&quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.chessbase.com/post/speelman-agony-87&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;eight egregious elite errors&lt;/a&gt;&quot;&#xA;from past World Championship matches.  They are Chigorin-Steinitz (noted by &lt;strong&gt;SmallChess&lt;/strong&gt;), Bronstein-Botvinnik, Spassky-Fischer (blunders from two games, Fischer's famous Bxh2? and one from Spassky), Korchnoi-Karpov (Korchnoi allowed mate in 3 in a RRPPP/RNN endgame), Kasparov-Karpov, Kramnik-Leko, and the mutual Carlsen-Anand blunder in the answer from &lt;strong&gt;BlindKungFuMaster&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8860" LastActivityDate="2018-11-23T05:33:55.093" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22993" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22962" CreationDate="2018-11-23T09:13:34.073" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The point of an evaluation is to rate one sides chances of winning and to select the best chance of winning for that side. All the engine can do is calculate up to a certain point and then rate the position.&#xA;So yes you can definitely improve your evaluation because the engine may have missed something past its search depth.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If an engine had infinite depth there would be no point of an evaluation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4393" LastActivityDate="2018-11-23T09:13:34.073" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22994" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22951" CreationDate="2018-11-23T09:15:52.630" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Because it would change the way the game is played. No way I would sac for a perpetual or even sac in general unless I have a clear cut win because bailing out to a draw from a position of superiority is not good enough.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4393" LastActivityDate="2018-11-23T09:15:52.630" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22995" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22975" CreationDate="2018-11-23T09:59:58.663" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;A common way to have a large number of weak players have a chance at beating a single strong player is simultaneous chess:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/liPD4.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/liPD4.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;simultaneous chess&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;sub&gt;image taken from &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/winter89.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/winter89.html&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The strong player plays multiple simultaneous chess games against each of the weak players, walking from board to board. That means the attention and time of the strong player is divided among all the games while the weak players can focus their full concentrate on just their own game. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The handicap of the strong player can be adjusted by adding or removing opponents.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3833" LastEditorUserId="3833" LastEditDate="2018-11-23T10:06:08.813" LastActivityDate="2018-11-23T10:06:08.813" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22997" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22975" CreationDate="2018-11-23T15:17:12.263" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;...players of unknown skill can have an equal chance of winning...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This sounds like you want to take the player's skill out of the game which goes against the spirit and rules of chess, I would say. You could introduce elements that equalize skill differences but you may end up with a completely different kind of game, which you wanted to avoid.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example you could introduce some kind of handicap or bonus (less time for the higher skilled, less chess pieces to begin with for the higher skilled, more chess pieces for the lower skilled (analogously to Go), other side tasks for the higher skilled) but that would require that you know the skill differences in advance or detect them while playing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please note, that winning chess for a lower skilled player because the higher skilled opponent had some kind of handicap is not the same as winning under otherwise equal conditions. In chess as most people play it, the definition of winning (in a statistical sense) means that you are higher skilled. Your definition of winning seems to be different (independent of skill). It would be a different kind of winning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Indeed one could switch sides at random times as &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/22975/is-there-a-balanced-chess-system-where-players-of-unknown-skill-can-have-an-equa#comment33689_22975&quot;&gt;RemcoGerlich&lt;/a&gt; pointed out, and it would formally solve your problem, but in that case winning would be very much meaningless.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's why I conclude that no, there is no such way. Either the stronger skilled players will win more often in chess, or the definition of winning becomes meaningless and some other kind of metric depends on the skill (like the handicap) or it's not standard chess any more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13988" LastActivityDate="2018-11-23T15:17:12.263" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22998" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22951" CreationDate="2018-11-23T15:35:22.097" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As far as I know, chess was invented as a metaphor to war. In war, you had the possibility of a trench warfare where neither side could make any progress, i.e. in war you could draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If chess adopted eliminating draws, it would lose the capability to model an interlocked battle in which no side can win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4411" LastEditorUserId="4411" LastEditDate="2018-11-25T19:28:50.010" LastActivityDate="2018-11-25T19:28:50.010" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="22999" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-11-23T16:48:43.857" Score="3" ViewCount="462" Body="&lt;p&gt;I like playing the King's Indian Attack against just about any black setup, except for when black plays the Leningrad Dutch style setup.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I had a look at how white is dealing with this situation and it seems that the double fianchetto with white pawns on b3, c4, d4 and g3 is not bad.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is about the different move orders that can lead there. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After 1. Nf3, black can reach his setup via either 1. ... f5 or 1...d6. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there any difference between these for the white player?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In which order shall I go for the double fianchetto setup described above?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2019-03-21T22:54:16.027" Title="Leningrad Dutch against Reti" Tags="&lt;dutch-defense&gt;&lt;reti-opening&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23000" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22975" CreationDate="2018-11-24T00:02:43.437" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The ultimate handicap is teaching.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Typically we assume that the person with the winning position on the board is a winner, and the person with the losing position on the board is the loser.  But this does not always have to be true.  The more advanced player can always choose a different win condition.  Why not? It's only a game.  If the more advanced player chooses a win condition that isn't in direct opposition to the less advanced player winning, then you can actually reach a win-win situation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You might be able to develop a clever handicap system where players have to &quot;play their best&quot; to beat the opponent with a specified handicap.  Go actually has this, though one quickly progresses to the point where a 2 stone handicap is too much.  If you do this, you quickly create a game of &quot;you vs. nature&quot;  The game becomes a zero-sum game and it really changes how it feels.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, if your goal is to create situations to help teach the newer player, it doesn't matter how skilled you are.  You are no longer playing on the board.  You are playing in the mind.  And, honestly, we can all use a little practice in our quest to become a grandmaster at that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6885" LastActivityDate="2018-11-24T00:02:43.437" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23001" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-11-24T06:12:36.840" Score="5" ViewCount="153" Body="&lt;p&gt;From a recent world-championship game &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1937891&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Fabiano Caruana vs Magnus Carlsen (2018)&lt;/a&gt;, the players agreed to a draw here:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Black to move&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;8/1r3kp1/7p/7P/4R1P1/6K1/5P2/8 b - - 2 54&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I played this position as black against the computer, and it quickly crushed me.  Obviously I'm doing it wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: How does black ensure a draw in this rook and pawn endgame?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My play was rather planless (basically I don't know where to put the king and rook---I think the pawns should not be moved), so after a few &quot;I don't really know what to do, but this move isn't immediately losing&quot; moves, I end up having to make critical moves, then end up making a mistake.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I played several times vs. the computer now; here's one example: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;8/1r3kp1/7p/7P/4R1P1/6K1/5P2/8 b - - 2 54&#xA;&#xA;54... Ra7 55. Kf4 Kf6 56. Rc4 Ra5 57. Rc6+ Kf7 58. f3 Rg5 59. Rc7+ Kf6 60. Rc6+ Kf7 61. Ke4 Ra5 62. Rd6 Ke7 63. Rc6 Kf7 64. Rd6 Ke7 65. Rd5 Ra4+ 66. Kf5 Kf7 67. Rd7+ Kg8 68. Ke6 Rf4 69. Rd3 Rf6+ 70. Ke5Kf8 71. Ra3 Kf7 72. Ra7+ Kf8 73. Ke4 Rb6 74. Kf4 Rc6 75. Ke5 Rf6 76. Ra3 Kf7 77. Ke4 Kf8 78. Ra8+ Kf7 79. Ra7+ Kf8 80. f4 Rb6 81. Kf5 Rc6 82. Ra8+ Kf7 83. Ra7+ Kf8 84. Ke4 Rc5 85. Rb7 Kg8 86. Rd7 Kf8 87. Rd5 Rc4+ 88. Kf5 Rc6 89. Ke5 Kf7 90. Rd7+ Kf8 91. Rd6 Rc5+ 92. Ke6 Rc8 93. Kf5 Re8 94. Kg6 Re7 95. Rd8+ Re8 96. Rxe8+ Kxe8 97. Kxg7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong with the replayer here.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes the computer would draw because it didn't seem to playing for a win (e.g. pushing pawns, or just letting them hang).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2785" LastEditorUserId="2785" LastEditDate="2018-11-24T07:45:50.243" LastActivityDate="2018-11-24T09:39:47.610" Title="How does black ensure a draw in this R+3P vs. r+2p endgame with all pawns on the same side?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;draw&gt;&lt;rook-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23003" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23001" CreationDate="2018-11-24T09:39:47.610" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The following explanation is for the general 3 vs 2 pawns on one side situation, which does apply also to this game. Of course the situation is the same whether the pawns are on the a-c files or on f-h files.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a fairly simple draw if you follow a few simple rules:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;don't exchange rooks&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;do exchange pawns whenever possible&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;keep your king close to your pawns&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;if necessary block the enemy king or check using your rook&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you do this, your opponent should not be able to enter your camp or bother you with checkmate or anything. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That leaves your opponent with one winning attempt only, which is to create a passed pawn in the center (here on the f-file). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In order to prevent this, the usual recommended set-up is to push the pawn on the border of the board forward (here the h-pawn) and to protect it with the pawn on the adjacent file (here g-pawn). (This setup is already realized in the quoted game with black pawns on g7 and h6.) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This setup ensures that in order to create a passed pawn, the opponent has to exchange all other pawns first. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The resulting position with rook+pawn vs rook should then be an easy draw as the defending king is placed close to the queening square of the pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The same general rules apply to 4 vs 3 pawns + rooks endgames. A good pawn structure for the defending side would be h5-g6-f7 (or similarly on the other 3 corners of the board). 4 vs 3 pawns is slightly more tricky as there are more pawns that need to be exchanged in order to secure a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2018-11-24T09:39:47.610" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23004" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23005" CreationDate="2018-11-24T14:59:47.693" Score="2" ViewCount="99" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was able to find on YouTube several live streaming videos of GMs commenting the Carlsen-Caruana games. But I wanted to see the actual players and the real board! Is there any streaming of that? I mean, there must be at least one camera on the guys themselves. Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8235" LastActivityDate="2018-11-24T16:19:25.910" Title="Is there a live streaming of the WCC2018 of the players themselves?" Tags="&lt;world-championship&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23005" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23004" CreationDate="2018-11-24T16:19:25.910" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm sure the official website (&lt;a href=&quot;https://worldchess.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://worldchess.com/&lt;/a&gt;) has it, which you'll need to pay.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please note video of the players are copyright owned by World Chess. The games have no copyright but the video of the match is absolutely covered. YouTube users are not in a position to show you anything unless authorized. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's like finding live World Cup soccer match on YouTube. It didn't happen, and won't happen to chess as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2018-11-24T16:19:25.910" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23006" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-11-24T19:07:56.487" Score="33" ViewCount="7160" Body="&lt;p&gt;As of 2018-11-24, 11 games have been drawn at the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Chess_Championship_2018&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;World Chess Championship (WCC) 2018&lt;/a&gt;. A lot of commentators (in particular &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Grischuk&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Alexander Grischuk&lt;/a&gt;) have attacked Carlsen for poor preparation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But ... 11 games have been &lt;em&gt;drawn&lt;/em&gt;. It's not like Carlsen is losing. If it's true that he is not well-prepared, what does that say about Caruana's inability to take advantage of that and win? Should he not be criticized for not being able to win against a supposedly ill-prepared player?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In fact, if Carlsen can manage to win this WCC without preparing too much, that's a ... success, isn't it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17863" LastEditorUserId="9025" LastEditDate="2018-11-26T02:58:20.897" LastActivityDate="2018-11-27T21:44:31.237" Title="Why is Carlsen criticized for poor preparation at World Chess Championship 2018?" Tags="&lt;world-championship&gt;&lt;carlsen&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23007" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23013" CreationDate="2018-11-24T21:21:35.600" Score="0" ViewCount="751" Body="&lt;p&gt;In a &quot;friendly&quot; blitz game I got into an argument with my opponent in the following scenario:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My opponent's knight was pinned to his king. He did not notice and touched his knight to move it. I became excited and before he had a chance to press his clock, I took his king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The question is: by official rules does my opponent lose the instant he touches the knight? (Making any action taken after this instant irrelevant?) Or does he need to &quot;complete&quot; the move by pressing the clock?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17865" LastActivityDate="2018-11-25T18:35:23.317" Title="Blitz Touch Move Rule" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;illegal-move&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23008" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23006" CreationDate="2018-11-24T21:25:07.490" Score="27" Body="&lt;p&gt;Carlsen is being criticized for his preparation with white, particularly e4. He knows that Caruana is going to play the Petrof yet nevertheless Caruana equalizes effortlessly. Carlsen appears to have no new ideas in this opening. Since there is no more important competition he could be saving novelties for it tells us he has no novelties. No novelties = poor preparation. If he doesn't have an answer to this he shouldn't play 1. e4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that we have seen novelties from Caruana, not necessarily good ones. As black in one game he played Rd8 in a Queen's Gambit looking to provoke the reply Nd2 from Carlsen. That looked like it would be a strong response from Carlsen but he chickened out and played a much more drawish move suggesting that he believed Caruana had some big improvement planned.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2018-11-25T11:52:51.003" LastActivityDate="2018-11-25T11:52:51.003" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23009" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23007" CreationDate="2018-11-24T21:42:34.110" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;If your opponent moved his knight and let go off the knight then he has made his move and you may reply before he presses the clock. If you wait until he presses the clock then you can claim that he made an illegal move. The penalty for this in blitz is that you get an extra minute on the clock, the position goes back to before his illegal move and he has to make a legal move. If he completes (i.e. makes and then presses the clock) a second illegal move then he loses the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But instead of letting him press his clock and then claiming illegal move you took his king. First of all once you make a move you lose the right to claim for your opponent's illegal move. Second, taking the opponent's king is also an illegal move. If you didn't press your clock then you can take back your illegal move and make a legal one. If you took your opponent's king and then pressed the clock then your opponent can claim illegal move and gain an extra minute on the clock and the game continues.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bottom line, your opponent does not lose because he made one illegal move. He doesn't get punished unless he completes the illegal move and in blitz you must claim for the illegal move (or the arbiter must see it and intervene) otherwise the game continues. Taking the opponent's king is also an illegal move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that these are the rules for blitz and rapid. The rules for standard time controls are different.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2018-11-24T21:42:34.110" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23010" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23006" CreationDate="2018-11-24T22:54:37.993" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;Carlsen is criticized because he's in a defense position (he's defending his title, and doesn't need to win all games), and people want to see crazy games with new things, as simple as that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While I must admit that this kind of games are pretty boring, we cannot &quot;hate&quot; on him for having poor preparation. He's not there to entertain people.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17800" LastEditorUserId="17800" LastEditDate="2018-11-24T23:02:53.793" LastActivityDate="2018-11-24T23:02:53.793" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23011" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23012" CreationDate="2018-11-25T00:14:50.590" Score="4" ViewCount="594" Body="&lt;p&gt;How cool would it be to have the world's most powerful computer analyzing games played in a match between the world's two strongest human players? Has it happened yet and is the analysis available?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2018-12-01T19:16:40.537" Title="Is there any analysis of the Carlsen-Caruana World Championsip match by AlphaZero?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;world-championship&gt;&lt;alphazero&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23012" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23011" CreationDate="2018-11-25T00:28:28.970" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, there is: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess24.com/en/read/news/alphazero-on-carlsen-caruana-games-1-8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;AlphaZero on Carlsen-Caruana Games 1-8&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess24.com/en/read/news/alphazero-on-carlsen-caruana-games-9-12&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;AlphaZero on Carlsen-Caruana Games 9-12&lt;/a&gt;. We don't have seen the PGNs with their concrete lines so far.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure how helpful that is. Just one minute thinking time … seems to be a bit short. Some deeper calculation might be more valuable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8472" LastEditorUserId="8472" LastEditDate="2018-12-01T19:16:40.537" LastActivityDate="2018-12-01T19:16:40.537" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23013" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23007" CreationDate="2018-11-25T00:48:52.310" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The touch-move rule never compels you to make an illegal move. It may compel you to make a stupid move, but not an illegal one. For example, you'd be forced to move a knight that's pinned against your queen and lose your queen as a result, but you'll never be compelled to move an absolutely pinned knight which would put you in check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/22616/is-this-considered-checkmate-or-not&quot;&gt;this related question&lt;/a&gt; for more discussion, but I'll quote here the relevant &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/component/handbook/?id=208&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE rule&lt;/a&gt; here:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;4.5 If none of the pieces touched in accordance with Article 4.3 or&#xA;  Article 4.4 can be moved or captured, the player may make any legal&#xA;  move&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12523" LastActivityDate="2018-11-25T00:48:52.310" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23014" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23015" CreationDate="2018-11-25T08:10:49.263" Score="4" ViewCount="978" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm using &lt;code&gt;stockfish-9-bmi2&lt;/code&gt; on my laptop to provide me move by move evaluation of games. I've set Stockfish to evaluate to &lt;code&gt;depth = 25&lt;/code&gt; plys. I find that the evaluation provided oscillates move-on-move after a certain number of moves. Below is the plot of the evaluation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/vTfVm.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/vTfVm.png&quot; alt=&quot;Stockfish evaluation on laptop&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the above plot, the &lt;code&gt;ply-count&lt;/code&gt; is on the &lt;code&gt;x-axis&lt;/code&gt;, the &lt;code&gt;evaluation&lt;/code&gt; from Stockfish is on the &lt;code&gt;primary y-axis (left)&lt;/code&gt;, the &lt;code&gt;Mate-In&lt;/code&gt; number is on the &lt;code&gt;secondary y-axis (right)&lt;/code&gt;. The Blue line with white circles is the plot of the evaluation and the red circles depict the mate-in number.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, for the same game, when I jot down the evaluation from &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/analysis&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;lichess.com's analysis board&lt;/a&gt;, which is also using Stockfish 9, I get a much more stable evaluation move-on-move. Lichess.com's analysis board also uses &lt;code&gt;depth = 25&lt;/code&gt; for most moves but can use a different number for certain moves. Below is the plot for the same:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/OfJID.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/OfJID.png&quot; alt=&quot;Stockfish evaluation using Lichess Analysis board&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the above plot, the Blue line depicts the evaluation. The break in the trend is because of a Mate-In-3 on &lt;code&gt;ply count = 63&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Considering that both methods use Stockfish 9 and is set to depth = 25, can someone help me with why the results on my laptop oscillates so much?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My Laptop's configuration:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;OS: MacOS High Sierra&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Processor: Intel core i7 2.2 GHz&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;RAM:  16GB&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Stockfish: stockfish-9-bmi2&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The game used is Praggnanandhaa vs Vishy Anand - Tata Steel Chess India Blitz 2018&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6&#xA;5. Nc3 a6 6. a3 g6 7. Be2 Bg7 8. Be3 O-O&#xA;9. Qd2 b5 10. O-O-O Bb7 11. f3 Nbd7 12. h4 Ne5&#xA;13. Bh6 Bxh6 14. Qxh6 Rc8 15. g4 Rxc3 16. bxc3 Qa5&#xA;17. Nf5 gxf5 18. gxf5 Qxc3 19. Rdg1+ Ng6 20. fxg6 fxg6&#xA;21. h5 Bxe4 22. fxe4 Qa1+ 23. Kd2 Nxe4+ 24. Ke3 Qc3+&#xA;25. Bd3 Qd2+ 26. Kxe4 Qxh6 27. hxg6 Qf4+ 28. Kd5 h6&#xA;29. g7 Rc8 30. Ke6 d5 31. Rg6 Rc6+ 32. Kxe7 Rxg6&#xA;33. Bxg6 Kxg7 34. Bd3 Qe5+ 35. Kd7 h5 36. Rg1+ Kf6&#xA;37. Rg6+ Kf7 38. Rh6 a5 39. Kc6 b4 40. axb4 axb4&#xA;41. Kd7 Kg7 42. Re6 Qd4 43. Ke8 Qg4 44. Ke7 h4&#xA;45. Be2 Qg5+ 46. Kd6 h3 47. Re7+ Kf8 48. Re5 Qf6+&#xA;49. Kxd5 h2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S.: I have also tried using &lt;code&gt;stockfish-9-64&lt;/code&gt; instead of &lt;code&gt;stockfish-9-bmi2&lt;/code&gt; and the results are similar&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17869" LastEditorUserId="17869" LastEditDate="2018-11-25T08:37:52.837" LastActivityDate="2018-11-25T08:37:52.837" Title="Oscillating Stockfish Evaluation on Laptop" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;statistics&gt;&lt;evaluation&gt;&lt;lichess&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23015" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23014" CreationDate="2018-11-25T08:36:24.733" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;If I understand correctly your x axis is the moves. Your script implied Anand and Prag were blundering every time they make a move,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Clearly you have a bug in your script. Stockfish engine always give you a score relative to the player making the move, NOT white. You need to multiply the score by minus one if it’s Black to move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please do this and you will be fine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2018-11-25T08:36:24.733" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23016" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22971" CreationDate="2018-11-25T14:11:38.133" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;My System&quot; and &quot;My System In Practice&quot; by Aron Nimzowitsch are classics with strong emphasis on pawn structures.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="419" LastActivityDate="2018-11-25T14:11:38.133" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23017" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23006" CreationDate="2018-11-25T15:01:20.877" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The question is best answered by World Champions, and I don't think any of them said such a thing, but it may be the confluence of two factors.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, and obviously, it is much more important for Carlsen to avoid being on the receiving end of ultra-sharp preparation like &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1877986&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1877986&lt;/a&gt;. If the price to pay is entering no sharp lines of his own, then he is more than willing to pay it, since he is probably the best at quiet, dull play, or at least he was!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Second, commentators like Grischuk may not have realized how ultra-dull chess can become with the current computers, even compared to the preparation Grischuk was doing 4-8 years ago. In the first game, Magnus was his scary self from Carlsen-Karjakin, with every move computer-approved and slowly shifting the balance in his favor.  Even the Nd3 Petrov was an attempt to catch Fabi out, as it only draws if you know the method. Fabi thought for a few minutes probably just to mess with us or even play with his food, and played the equalizer ..Nc6. Fabi tried the Magnus recipe with b4 in the Rossolimo in game 5, and Magnus knew the equalizer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The guys are prepared! It's just that they are prepared to play as little chess as possible. Perhaps there will be more exciting prep in a longer match, but it is hard to undo the computer damage, unless you are prepared to prepare 10x harder than what was the norm 10 years ago.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10855" LastEditorUserId="10855" LastEditDate="2018-11-26T11:50:27.377" LastActivityDate="2018-11-26T11:50:27.377" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23018" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23007" CreationDate="2018-11-25T15:23:18.480" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Taking the king is not a chess move, and putting your king en prise is an illegal move. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wish your rule was the rule. I could draw with Magnus Carlsen every time. I would touch my rook on my first rule, and as I have to move it and can't, therefore, I would walk away with a draw :-)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Touching a piece that cannot be moved such as the rook in my case, or the knight in your case, simply results in the touch being ignored. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So in your case, you were mistaken: he simply needs to make a legal move with any piece and then press the clock. I believe had he completed the illegal move, you could have asked him to take it back, and get a time bonus in blitz.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, touching the knight does not compel him to make that illegal move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17873" LastActivityDate="2018-11-25T15:23:18.480" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23019" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23021" CreationDate="2018-11-25T15:58:53.627" Score="1" ViewCount="100" Body="&lt;p&gt;John Nunn mentions the following in &lt;em&gt;Understanding Chess: Move by Move (2002)&lt;/em&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pawn weaknesses vary in severity according to two factors: 1) whether there is any possibility of liquidating the weakness, ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As an example of the first factor, a backward pawn may not be a real weakness at all if it is impossible to stop the pawn advancing aside another pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How do these two statements tie hand-in-hand?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13147" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2018-11-26T03:09:18.070" Title="Ambiguity in Text" Tags="&lt;books&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23020" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23007" CreationDate="2018-11-25T18:35:23.317" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this scenario you are the one who loses (in case tournament regulations specify that an illegal move results in an immediate loss), not your opponent. As you stated in the question, your opponent has touched their knight and &lt;strong&gt;while moving it&lt;/strong&gt;, you captured their king. Provided your opponent has &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; pressed their clock, it is their turn, not yours. Thus, you made a move in your opponent's turn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As @itub stated, the relevant line from the rulebook clearly indicates your opponent has not made their move (as the knight move they intended, &lt;strong&gt;but not played&lt;/strong&gt;, does not count).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13544" LastActivityDate="2018-11-25T18:35:23.317" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23021" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23019" CreationDate="2018-11-25T18:38:48.223" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Normally a backward pawn is considered a potential weakness since it cannot be defended by other pawns where it stands, and if it's impossible to move the pawn somehow it can become a very serious weakness indeed. But if the backward pawn can sidestep any threat against it by moving forward it may not even be an issue. In many cases, a backward pawn will come under attack by an enemy pawn if it were to move forward, and this is probably what John Nunn meant in the provided text; the &quot;weak&quot; pawn is pushed forward and will be &quot;liquidated&quot; against the enemy pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8300" LastActivityDate="2018-11-25T18:38:48.223" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23022" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23023" CreationDate="2018-11-25T20:09:29.883" Score="1" ViewCount="1551" Body="&lt;p&gt;On Chess.com, when you play live chess, when the match is done, on your right hand, above the view analysis button, it says something like this&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/c4JR1.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/c4JR1.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How to check my mistake and can I do that without being premium member?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1105" LastActivityDate="2018-11-25T23:21:55.247" Title="How to check mistakes, blunders and missed wins on Chess.com?" Tags="&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;online&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23023" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23022" CreationDate="2018-11-25T23:21:55.247" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Click on view analysis or computer analysis button&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17877" LastActivityDate="2018-11-25T23:21:55.247" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23024" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23019" CreationDate="2018-11-26T03:09:18.070" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The book is right. In chess, nothing is a weakness if it can't be exploited. In the following world championship game, Black had a backward pawn on d6. However, it was not a weakness.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note b3, Rad8, Red2, d5!, the d5 push will liquidate everything. That was why Carlsen exchanged the pawn with his c4 pawn immediately.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1937912&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1937912&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/zn9zn.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/zn9zn.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2018-11-26T03:09:18.070" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23027" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23006" CreationDate="2018-11-26T11:03:51.997" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let's not forget that Carlsen played the &lt;strong&gt;Sicilian&lt;/strong&gt; in all his black games so far, and had no problems. It's a riskier choice than the 1.e4 e5 of his previous matches and he's making it work. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also playing all of 1.c4, 1.d4 and 1.e4 is a riskier approach than sticking to one, and more exciting for the audience.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe he did have novelties, just not in the lines Caruana played. Chess is a draw, and Caruana did not choose those lines for nothing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2018-11-26T11:03:51.997" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23028" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23029" CreationDate="2018-11-26T14:18:38.770" Score="19" ViewCount="10223" Body="&lt;p&gt;If my opponent brings out his/her queen early in the game, I usually attack it with my own queen. The opponent can either accept the trade or reject it. If he/she accepts, I have no questions at all. The game continues, and I am happy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The question is: what if the opponent refuses to make any trades after I suggest the trade of queens? E. g. I am playing white; my opponent, black. He brings out the queen, I attack it. Then he simply moves the queen to a safe square. Quite &#xA;often it results in me being checkmated in about 10 next moves, or I lose a piece.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So if the opponent constantly refuses to trade queens in the opening, what should I do? Keep attacking the queen (possibly searching for forks/pins/skewers?), or develop my minor pieces, or try to defend my king? Thanks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16801" LastEditorUserId="2789" LastEditDate="2018-11-26T17:41:32.073" LastActivityDate="2020-08-10T22:31:27.807" Title="How to deal with your opponent's queen if your opponent rejects any trades?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;queens&gt;&lt;attack&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23029" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23028" CreationDate="2018-11-26T14:41:32.013" Score="42" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is no need for an early queen trade. Just develop your pieces, if possible by attacking the queen. Here is an example from the &lt;em&gt;Wayward Queen Attack&lt;/em&gt; also known as &lt;em&gt;Patzer Opening&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Qh5 Nc6 3. Bc4 g6 4. Qf3 Nf6 5. Ne2 Bg7 6. Nbc3 O-O 7. d3 d6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;2.Qh5&lt;/code&gt; threatens to take &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt;, so we defend it by developing a piece: &lt;code&gt;Nc6&lt;/code&gt; (&lt;code&gt;d6&lt;/code&gt; is also possible).  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;3.Bc4&lt;/code&gt; threatens to mate on &lt;code&gt;f7&lt;/code&gt;, so we defend it by attacking the queen with &lt;code&gt;g6&lt;/code&gt;, creating a square for our bishop as a side effect.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;4.Qf3&lt;/code&gt; renews the threat, so we develop another piece, &lt;code&gt;Nf6&lt;/code&gt; and block the queen's access to &lt;code&gt;f7&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Then we develop our bishop, castle and get a nice game with a development advantage.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The best punishment for an early queen development is not a queen trade, but using this queen to develop your minor pieces with a tempo: by forcing the queen to move again and again.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Update&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the example you gave in the comment, you play just the same way: Develop your other knight, get castling in, and have a good game. There is a reason why you don't see this line in games by players with a decent rating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c6 2. Nf3 Qa5 3. Nc3 d5 4. Be2 dxe4 5. Nxe4 Bf5 6. Ng3 Bg6 7. O-O Nd7 8. d4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First let me say that &lt;code&gt;2.Nf3&lt;/code&gt; is not the best move against the Caro-Kann. &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;Nc3&lt;/code&gt; or even &lt;code&gt;c4&lt;/code&gt; are better and therefore more common. See my &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/study/4Aqycynk&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Caro-Kann study&lt;/a&gt; for more ideas.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After &lt;code&gt;2…Qa5&lt;/code&gt; you just play &lt;code&gt;Nc3&lt;/code&gt; which develops a piece and unpins the d-pawn. Then you clear the &lt;code&gt;f1&lt;/code&gt; square by developing yet another piece, &lt;code&gt;Be2&lt;/code&gt;, castle as soon as possible, and &lt;em&gt;then&lt;/em&gt; play &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Black is at this point seriously behind in development: the entire kingside is still in the default position while you have already some very annoying moves like &lt;code&gt;Nh4&lt;/code&gt;,  &lt;code&gt;c4&lt;/code&gt;, or &lt;code&gt;Bf4&lt;/code&gt;. Your queen on d1 is keeping everything together. It's not in the way of any other piece and much better than Black's queen – and you didn't even move it!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, again: stay calm, develop your pieces, castle, and then question your opponent's position with your own minor pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8472" LastEditorUserId="8472" LastEditDate="2018-11-27T17:51:04.243" LastActivityDate="2018-11-27T17:51:04.243" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23030" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23028" CreationDate="2018-11-26T17:49:10.403" Score="33" Body="&lt;p&gt;Trying to encourage a queen trade in this sort of situation is usually the wrong strategy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The exaggerated version of the answer is this.  Your opponent has just proved that they don't know how to use their queen properly.  Instead of saying, &quot;That's OK. I'll trade off the queens so this isn't a problem for you&quot;, you should say &quot;I'll keep exploiting this big weakness in your play.&quot;  This isn't completely true, because it's not always wrong to bring your queen out early. But it's a good rule of thumb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bringing out the queen early is (usually) bad because the queen is valuable so, every time it's attacked, it must be moved out of the way. Unless it's attacked by the queen, it must be moved: defending it doesn't work, because the attacker is less valuable. So, when your opponent brings out their queen early, you can usually make sensible developing moves that attack it, which forces your opponent to keep moving their queen around. If you're lucky, they'll get their queen trapped and you'll win it.  Otherwise, you're still in a great position because you've developed most of your pieces and probably got your king to safety, while your opponent has just been moving their queen around.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2789" LastActivityDate="2018-11-26T17:49:10.403" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23031" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23028" CreationDate="2018-11-26T18:57:45.673" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;It doesn't really mean anything to attack (or exchange) a piece if you don't get anything from it. Also, it can end up getting you in a worse position if you don't pay close attention.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If he brings his queen out, unless there is a threat, keep bringing your pieces out and develop your game. And if you can attack his queen while developing a piece to force him to move it, it'll be much more beneficial for you than trading queens at the beginning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17800" LastActivityDate="2018-11-26T18:57:45.673" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23032" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23033" CreationDate="2018-11-26T19:02:14.613" Score="6" ViewCount="158" Body="&lt;p&gt;Unlike any other professional sports I know of, everyone seems to be able to broadcast chess world chess championship online. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That raises the question, are they making any money from media coverage? Can't they sell exclusive coverage to selected media? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1105" LastEditorUserId="1105" LastEditDate="2018-11-28T01:31:14.617" LastActivityDate="2018-11-28T01:31:14.617" Title="Does FIDE make any money from media coverage?" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;fide&gt;&lt;world-championship&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23033" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23032" CreationDate="2018-11-26T19:28:30.103" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;FIDE have sold the rights for the current world championship cycle to Agon. Given the very high levels of dissatisfaction with Agon it is unlikely that the contract will be renewed and the rights will revert to FIDE. There has been discussion of this on chess.com &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/fide--agon-limited-a-scent-of-hypocresy&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that the moves of the game cannot be legally protected via copyright laws etc. Only the live pictures of the players playing the games can be protected like that. This has already been tested in the courts in several countries including the US (the most lucrative market) by Agon for previous matches.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2018-11-26T19:35:56.070" LastActivityDate="2018-11-26T19:35:56.070" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23034" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23035" CreationDate="2018-11-26T20:12:28.413" Score="2" ViewCount="192" Body="&lt;p&gt;Suppose a complete hypothetical positions that white has 6 queens and they are at a1, a4, a7, g1, g4, g7, respectively. How to record the following move in the standard algebraic notation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Moving the first queen to d4?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Moving the second queen to d4?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Moving the third queen to d4?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Moving the fourth queen to d4?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Moving the fifth queen to d4?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Moving the sixth queen to d4?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16626" LastEditorUserId="11629" LastEditDate="2018-11-26T20:26:46.637" LastActivityDate="2018-11-26T20:27:11.353" Title="How to record these moves?" Tags="&lt;notation&gt;&lt;queens&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23035" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23034" CreationDate="2018-11-26T20:27:11.353" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;See for yourself: &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/analysis/standard/3K4/q5q1/8/8/q5q1/8/8/q2Bk1q1_b_-_-&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://lichess.org/analysis/standard/3K4/q5q1/8/8/q5q1/8/8/q2Bk1q1_b_-_-&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's Qa1d4 for total unambiguity. I imagine this corner case is not covered by every PGN reader though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Qa1d4&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Qa4d4&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Qa7d4&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Qg1d4&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Qg4d4&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Qg7d4&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3884" LastActivityDate="2018-11-26T20:27:11.353" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23036" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23028" CreationDate="2018-11-26T22:32:40.363" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;You seem to be saying &quot;I'm a weaker player than my opponent, but if I can trade off all my material, then obviously that'll be a draw by insufficient material. How do I force my opponent to accept this draw, instead of going for a win?&quot; And there isn't much answer to that other than &quot;Be a better chess player&quot;. If your opponent is willing to move their queen back to avoid a trade, then apart from tempo, you're in the same position as if they hadn't moved the queen out at all, so you're pretty much asking how to trade queens in general. And there isn't really any way to do that other than getting your opponent in a position where they will lose material and/or position if they don't trade, and asking &quot;How do I create threats to force a trade&quot; is not only an extremely broad question, it's not a &lt;em&gt;good&lt;/em&gt; question. You shouldn't be trying to create a situation where your opponent can avoid material/position loss by trading their queen, you should be creating situations where you opponent &lt;em&gt;can't&lt;/em&gt; avoid material/position loss no matter what they do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another thing to consider is that while it's sometimes easier to get your queen in a position where it can trade for the opposing queen than to get another piece in a position where it can attack the queen, that's not usually the case, and once a piece is threatening their queen, having that piece be your queen does not make it any more of a forced trade. If anything, attacking with your queen rather than another piece gives your opponent more options. All else being equal, any situation where your queen is attacking theirs would be improved by it being another piece attacking. The only advantage to it being your queen that's attacking is baiting them into a blunder, and relying on your opponent to make a mistake isn't good strategy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15221" LastActivityDate="2018-11-26T22:32:40.363" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23037" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23028" CreationDate="2018-11-26T23:27:49.803" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Ideally, you should be setting up trades that are good for you and bad for your opponent - equal material but better positioning for you, for example. At the same time, you need to make your moves such that if your opponent is declining the trade, it still leaves you with a better position. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you spend a move attacking a queen, and the queen &quot;retreats&quot; but actually puts itself in a better position, then perhaps don't make that attack yet. All you're doing is throwing away your tempo.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="598" LastActivityDate="2018-11-26T23:27:49.803" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23038" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23006" CreationDate="2018-11-27T06:52:42.003" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Adding a bit to Brian Towers' answer, which I think is the best one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In top-level chess, White has &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-move_advantage_in_chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;a noticeable advantage from the opening position&lt;/a&gt;. Therefore, &quot;win with white, draw with black&quot; is a common maxim: you don't have to aim to win your Black games, but you should aim to win the White games. In other words, you should come out of the opening with some advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Carlsen is being criticized because in his White games, he has very often failed to get an opening advantage. This might be explainable if Caruana learned a completely new opening repertoire (Boris Gelfand did this in his match vs. Anand); however Caruana has simply continued to play the openings he usually plays. I'll highlight what happened after a screenshot of Caruana's laptop was leaked. Some people argued it was a ploy, because the screenshot basically showed that Caruana was looking at the QGD and the Petrov's Defense, which Carlsen ought to already have known. Former world champion Anand said as much, calling the &quot;revelation&quot; that Caruana was looking at the Petrov's Defense &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.chessbase.com/post/anand-on-world-championship-2018-game-5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;completely useless&lt;/a&gt;&quot;. But if Carlsen had known Caruana was going to play these openings, he ought to have prepared some kind of line that would lead to an opening advantage. So why didn't he manage? For example, game 7 was a QGD that Carlsen already knew that Caruana was likely to play (if he didn't know it beforehand, he definitely knew it after game 2), and yet he still came out of the opening with no advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A fair question is why didn't Caruana's opening preparation come under criticism. First, it's harder to prepare against Carlsen than to prepare against Caruana: Carlsen plays more openings. When you don't know what opening the opponent is going to play, you have more ground to cover, making things hard. After game 1 when Caruana learned that Carlsen was going to play the Sicilian, he did make some progress in game 3, gaining a small opening advantage. He did it again in game 5, where he reached a complicated position from which he could hope that Carlsen would fail to navigate correctly; and then again in game 8, when his position was even winning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You'll have to come to your own conclusions about whether or not the criticism is fair. I'm simply explaining why it's happening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastEditorUserId="15223" LastEditDate="2018-11-27T21:44:31.237" LastActivityDate="2018-11-27T21:44:31.237" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23039" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23041" CreationDate="2018-11-27T07:25:40.723" Score="2" ViewCount="102" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Wikipedia page about Chess &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_control&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Time Control&lt;/a&gt; describes for example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;... 90 minutes for the first 40 moves ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A move in chess is defined as both White and Black side doing their separate move, so if the 90 minutes are per side, then the Wikipedia description appears to be misleading.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This applies also to the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Chess_Championship_2018&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;World Chess Championship 2018&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are these 90 minutes per side, or total ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17894" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-11-27T09:10:47.530" LastActivityDate="2018-11-27T09:10:47.530" Title="Is a given time control per side or in total?" Tags="&lt;world-championship&gt;&lt;time-control&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23040" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23042" CreationDate="2018-11-27T07:48:31.327" Score="17" ViewCount="3332" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is it possible to take back the draw offer if the opponent was not immediately replying to it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13744" LastActivityDate="2018-11-27T09:12:39.983" Title="Can you take back a draw offer?" Tags="&lt;draw&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23041" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23039" CreationDate="2018-11-27T09:05:52.853" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Time controls are &lt;strong&gt;always&lt;/strong&gt; specified per side, so White has 90 minutes and Black has 90 minutes, for a total of 180 minutes (for the first 40 moves). See the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=208&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE handbook&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;6.3.1 When using a chessclock, each player must complete a minimum number of moves or all moves in an allotted period of time including any additional amount of time with each move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It says 'each player', not 'both players'. It's probably not worded more elaborately since it's 'common knowledge' among competitive chess players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-11-27T09:08:53.790" LastActivityDate="2018-11-27T09:08:53.790" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23042" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23040" CreationDate="2018-11-27T09:12:39.983" Score="23" Body="&lt;p&gt;No. Rule 9.1.2.1 of &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=208&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;the FIDE rules&lt;/a&gt; says it all:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;9.1.2.1&lt;/strong&gt; A player wishing to offer a draw shall do so after having made a move on the chessboard and before pressing his clock. An offer&#xA;  at any other time during play is still valid but Article 11.5 must be&#xA;  considered. No conditions can be attached to the offer. In both cases&#xA;  the offer &lt;strong&gt;cannot be withdrawn&lt;/strong&gt; and remains valid until the opponent&#xA;  accepts it, rejects it orally, rejects it by touching a piece with the&#xA;  intention of moving or capturing it, or the game is concluded in some&#xA;  other way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(rule 11.5 is about not distracting the opponent during his move)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's expected that the opponent takes his time to think about the offer, just as he probably spends time on thinking about his next move. He isn't required to actually refuse the offer, just making a move is quite normal too (once he touches a piece to move the offer is over, see above).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2018-11-27T09:12:39.983" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23043" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-11-27T11:08:21.153" Score="4" ViewCount="881" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am looking for an offline move trainer software like the one chessable has. I am currently looking at PGN's with same opening and I would like to practice these games. For instance, I am looking at Sicilian Najdorf Scheveningen style and have collected Kasparov's game (roughly around 40 of them). I would like to faithfully repeat the moves made by Kasparov in each of these games, while the White's move is made by the computer. I would greatly appreciate suggestions. It need not necessarily be spaced repetition though it would be great.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16311" LastEditorUserId="16311" LastEditDate="2018-11-27T15:14:12.380" LastActivityDate="2019-03-14T16:54:49.027" Title="Offline move trainer software" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;software&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23044" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-11-27T16:03:27.877" Score="4" ViewCount="206" Body="&lt;p&gt;Surely he didn't follow the old cookie-cutter formula of take a day off before game day, play blitz matches, or some other standard ritual?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any sources?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13147" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-11-27T19:49:27.447" LastActivityDate="2018-11-27T20:14:13.583" Title="What was Fischer's preparation for tournaments?" Tags="&lt;fischer&gt;&lt;preparation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23045" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23044" CreationDate="2018-11-27T20:14:13.583" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a question for people who knew him well personally. Anyway Fischer lived and breathed chess almost daily since the day in which he learnt the rules, until well into the first match vs. Spassky, so we have no reasons to believe that he changed his lifestyle before tournaments, i.e. he constantly played and studied chess, at least until his life's main mission changed and became the one to &quot;unmask the Jewish conspiracy&quot;. But this happened after the first match vs. Spassky. However it is evident that the mature Fischer was aware of the importance of being fit physically, so we have to suppose that he did some exercise, especially before important matches and tournaments.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastActivityDate="2018-11-27T20:14:13.583" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23046" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23047" CreationDate="2018-11-27T21:42:55.377" Score="4" ViewCount="479" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just as the title says: Would a chess game go on indefinitely if both players played the absolute best move each turn? (assuming there is no draw) Or is it white that's going to win?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it even possible to be sure about that? Since even engines like Stockfish don't have a 100% accuracy rate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's not really a &quot;does white have the advantage&quot; question, rather &quot;if we make the best move each turn, will it ever end?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17800" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-11-28T08:00:24.963" LastActivityDate="2018-11-28T08:00:24.963" Title="Would a chess game go on indefinitely if both players played the absolute best move each turn?" Tags="&lt;theory&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23047" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23046" CreationDate="2018-11-27T22:21:08.050" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;It doesn't matter whether the players play good moves or bad moves there is a maximum possible number of moves. There is a rule which guarantees this - the 75 move rule. It says that if 75 moves are played without either a pawn move or a capture then the game is drawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The relevant article of the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=208&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Laws of chess&lt;/a&gt; is 9.6.2-&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;9.6 If one or both of the following occur(s) then the game is drawn:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;9.6.1 the same position has appeared, as in 9.2.2 at least five times. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;9.6.2 any series of at least 75 moves have been made by each&#xA;  player without the movement of any pawn and without any capture.&lt;/strong&gt; If&#xA;  the last move resulted in checkmate, that shall take precedence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, once every 75 moves a piece must be captured or a pawn moved (forward). Eventually all the pawns have queened or been captured and all the pieces captured and only the kings are left - which is a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2018-11-27T22:21:08.050" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23048" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23094" CreationDate="2018-11-28T08:38:24.473" Score="1" ViewCount="166" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there a program either Linux or a Windows program that can create a chess position and save it as an image. That image can then be used by the chess author in a book that is being written.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17674" LastActivityDate="2018-12-01T05:45:05.240" Title="Is there a GUI software that exports chess diagrams for chess authors?" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;books&gt;&lt;linux&gt;&lt;windows&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23049" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23050" CreationDate="2018-11-28T14:06:28.897" Score="1" ViewCount="552" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been recently playing the Danish Gambit online in blitz. It started as a dare from one of my friends, but I've had ludicrous success with it due to  common mistakes from my opponents. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, I don't mean the wimp-out Danish Gambit with 4. Nxc3. I mean &lt;em&gt;this&lt;/em&gt; Danish Gambit: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot; &quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. d4 exd4 3. c3 dxc3 4. Bc4 cxb2 5. Bxb2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's been doing &lt;em&gt;so&lt;/em&gt; much better online for me that I may want to try it in tournament play. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I'm worried that the slower time control will cause my opponents to make better calculations. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm currently a Class D (1200-1399) player. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, my big question is: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Is the Danish Gambit viable at longer (tournament-length) time controls for a Class D player?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you don't think so, can you give me some similar openings to try out (for White) that may perform better? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17429" LastActivityDate="2018-11-28T15:35:00.547" Title="Is the Danish Gambit viable for Class D tournament play?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23050" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23049" CreationDate="2018-11-28T15:06:36.227" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;My old chess tutor answered a similar question of mine quite decisively: &quot;Just don't worry about it: Below 2000 (FIDE) you can succeed with every opening.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lower rated (or non-prepared) players do not know how to punish the weaknesses an opening like the Danish Gambit opens - and they make mistakes. Lots of them. Playing against as sharp of an opening as the DG requires your opponent to make really precise moves and prompts them to make even more mistakes on which you can capitalize on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;To conclude: I think you are perfectly fine playing the Danish Gambit in Class D tournament chess, as your opponents are not likely to know the theory and will probably blunder sooner or later, especially if the opening fits your style. Even in longer time controls. (Also playing sharp openings is just a lot of fun!)&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another opening that comes to mind is the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grob%27s_Attack&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Grob&lt;/a&gt; (1.g4). It is no less dubious at master-level, but if you put the effort into it and learn some theory behind it, you can absolutely obliterate a careless player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally a word of warning: The higher you rise in the chess rankings (approaching 1800+), the harder it will get to win with &quot;one-trick-pony&quot; tactics. So put some time aside to improve your general Chess, not just one opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17911" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2018-11-28T15:35:00.547" LastActivityDate="2018-11-28T15:35:00.547" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23051" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22971" CreationDate="2018-11-28T20:18:12.773" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some excellent modern books on the subject are&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Soltis, &lt;em&gt;Pawn Structure Chess&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Flores Rios, &lt;em&gt;Chess Structures: A Grandmaster Guide&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Shankland, &lt;em&gt;Small Steps to Giant Improvement: Master Pawn Play in Chess&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is still good content in the books of Kmoch and Nimzowitsch, though Kmoch's shortcomings are well enumerated in Evargalo's answer and Nimzowitsch tends to lay down general rules as if they are laws without mentioning how often they have exceptions (and chess theory has come a long way since his day).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="291" LastActivityDate="2018-11-28T20:18:12.773" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23052" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-11-28T21:06:19.780" Score="8" ViewCount="1569" Body="&lt;p&gt;As in title above, at what playing strength level should one be able to mate with King, Bishop and Knight vs King without much effort (with reasonable time left for the game)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-11-28T21:54:00.670" LastActivityDate="2019-12-16T01:40:41.377" Title="At what playing strength level should one be able to mate with King Bishop and Knight vs King?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;knights&gt;&lt;bishops&gt;&lt;kings&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23053" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23052" CreationDate="2018-11-28T21:53:49.230" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think it's that relevant; most chess players are unlikely to &lt;em&gt;ever&lt;/em&gt; get this endgame on the board. I'd rather spend my time studying other tricky pawnless endgames like Queen vs. Rook, which is far more likely to occur.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I knew how to win this endgame fairly early in my career, but I had always been fascinated with endgames; conversely, &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bishop_and_knight_checkmate#Grandmasters_failing_to_mate&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt; shows two grandmasters failing to deliver mate. Had they known the right corner for mate, and the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bishop_and_knight_checkmate#W_manoeuvre&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;W-manoeuvre&lt;/a&gt;, they'd probably figure out the rest themselves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-11-30T07:40:33.470" LastActivityDate="2018-11-30T07:40:33.470" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23054" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23052" CreationDate="2018-11-28T22:56:45.437" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;A member of my club, rated about 1900 FIDE, had this in a championship blitz game about 2 years ago with 30 seconds left on the clock. He delivered mate with time to spare. IMs  have failed. Go figure. If you study and learn then you should be able to deliver mate. If you don't study then you won't. Playing strength doesn't have that much to do with it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2018-11-28T22:56:45.437" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23055" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-11-29T02:35:25.067" Score="0" ViewCount="162" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your challenge.&#xA;Find a position such that one side cannot make any legal &lt;em&gt;or illegal&lt;/em&gt; moves. I.E. Make it such that that even if you were allowed to move your king into check there would still be no legal moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17918" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-05T01:19:07.473" LastActivityDate="2020-04-05T01:19:07.473" Title="super stalemate" Tags="&lt;problems&gt;&lt;stalemate&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2018-11-29T11:39:32.113" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23056" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-11-29T04:07:27.853" Score="0" ViewCount="318" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am currently converting some of my chess books into electronic format by manually copying the pgn and making notes. I have found lichess study and chessable courses to be useful in doing this. However, I would like to do this offline. Is there a software which will do this for me? I am looking at ChessX but the interface is too complicated for me to even understand if this is what I want.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16311" LastActivityDate="2018-11-29T15:26:29.093" Title="Chess software for writing books" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;books&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23057" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23065" CreationDate="2018-11-29T05:01:19.347" Score="17" ViewCount="4444" Body="&lt;p&gt;Any online search about the recent game 12 in Carlsen-Caruana's WCC is filled with the surprise caused by Carlsen offering a draw when in a (possibly?) winning position. It was &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/news/view/computer-chess-championship-to-play-out-caruana-carlsen-game-12&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;announced&lt;/a&gt; on chess.com that &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;the top eight chess engines in the CCC will play a 2x-round-robin tournament starting after move 31 of the world chess championship game 12. The time control is rapid chess, 30 minutes plus five-second increment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At the moment of writing this, I can see the tournament &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/computer-chess-championship&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;. But I don't know enough about chess or at least how chess.com works to understand what's happening. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is the tournament leading to some consensus on how good/bad Carlsen's decision was? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12113" LastEditorUserId="18475" LastEditDate="2019-12-04T20:14:22.397" LastActivityDate="2019-12-04T20:14:22.397" Title="Carlsen-Caruana Game 12" Tags="&lt;computer-chess&gt;&lt;world-championship&gt;&lt;carlsen&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23058" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-11-29T05:38:06.457" Score="2" ViewCount="559" Body="&lt;p&gt;How do I embed chess games from PGN files in markdown format?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16311" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-11-29T08:33:24.487" LastActivityDate="2018-12-30T03:03:10.607" Title="Embedding chess games from PGN in markdown" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;software&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23059" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23055" CreationDate="2018-11-29T07:19:44.013" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;An empty board is the only solution. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As soon as there are pieces on the board, they can move in some way (capturing your own pieces is an illegal move which is now allowed). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13433" LastActivityDate="2018-11-29T07:19:44.013" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23060" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23057" CreationDate="2018-11-29T07:37:32.183" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;It will not show how good or bad Carlsen's decision was - humans play&#xA;and assess differently from computers; there are positions that are extremely&#xA;easy for computers, but terribly difficult for humans and vice versa.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So a computer evaluation of ~+1 might not give any chance for a human win&#xA;and in many cases a position with equal computer evaluation is an easy win&#xA;for one side in a human game, most often difficult endgame defence, that&#xA;computer never gets tired and plays perfectly and gets a draw, but human&#xA;can't execute it with tablebase precision.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think Carlsen did Very OK, last game before tie-breaks, draw with&#xA;black pieces - and he won the tie-break - that's the best proof that he&#xA;was right :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17448" LastEditorUserId="17448" LastEditDate="2018-11-30T07:45:33.920" LastActivityDate="2018-11-30T07:45:33.920" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23061" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23058" CreationDate="2018-11-29T08:39:16.763" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, on this site, you can use the 'replayer'. Basically, you just paste the PGN as a code block; for more details, see &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.meta.stackexchange.com/q/3/7297&quot;&gt;Can we implement a replayer for chess analysis on the site?&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, the following code will display the first three moves of the Ruy Lopez opening:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;    [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;    1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;sub&gt;(it doesn't work right here because of the &amp;lt;pre&gt; block in the post source)&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But this isn't really converting the PGN into Markdown, it's just Stack Exchange's rendering engine detecting the PGN and converting it into a JavaScript widget. There is no 'official' way of converting PGN into Markdown, just like there is no official way to convert it into HTML.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2018-11-29T08:39:16.763" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23062" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23057" CreationDate="2018-11-29T09:06:24.140" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The classic game rating of Carlsen and Caruana is very close (3 points difference!). But rapid game rating is another story. The rating point difference is a whooping 100 points. Carlsen's strategy throughout this whole tournament was along these lines - beat me if you can in classic. If you don't, I will sweep you off in the rapid games. And he did exactly that. Sure, Caruana is a quality player; but playing under time pressure, not to mention pressure in playing for World Championshiop, is a totally different thing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, Carlsen has no need to risk anything; (yet, it was Caruana who looked more happy after draw was agreed in game 12. This is quite understandable since Carlsen had the advantage in the game.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14678" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-11-29T09:18:18.193" LastActivityDate="2018-11-29T09:18:18.193" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23063" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23057" CreationDate="2018-11-29T12:12:47.607" Score="20" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is the tournament leading to some consensus on how good/bad Carlsen's&#xA;  decision was?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No. Consensus on Carlsen's play and decision has already been reached, I would suggest.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Psychologically Carlsen made it clear in the post match interview that his goal before this game was a draw to reach the rapid playoff where he thought (correctly) that he was strong favourite to win. Hence his play was aimed at taking no risks and inviting a draw at every opportunity. For instance, he offered to repeat moves around about move 14 or 15. In so far as he practically forced Caruana to accept the draw and then went on to win the playoff 3-0 his decision was a good one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From a chess point of view the consensus is that a few moves earlier Carlsen had a winning advantage, say after white's 29. Re1, and that Carlsen made quiet moves rather than the aggressive moves he needed to make to win. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While the game was in progress a very powerful computer, &lt;a href=&quot;https://analysis.sesse.net/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;sesse&lt;/a&gt;, was analysing the positions and showing its analysis and evaluations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This computer tournament adds nothing to the judgement as to how good or bad Carlsen's decision was.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2018-11-29T12:12:47.607" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23064" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-11-29T14:15:17.393" Score="3" ViewCount="760" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been stuck around the 2000 rating mark on various different online chess websites for a few years now. I seem to have hit a wall. I'm quite busy so when I do find time for chess I tend to just play some blitz for enjoyment. But I suspect that is what is stalling my game. I've decided to spend more time studying than playing in order to finally progress further.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am looking for concrete advice on what other players have found successful in their own experience of going past 2000. I've just ordered Dvoretsky's Endgame Manual and I plan to study several key positions each week over the next year. I hope that improving my endgame will bring my overall game up. But I'd be interested to hear other ideas too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14447" LastEditorUserId="14447" LastEditDate="2018-11-29T17:16:22.353" LastActivityDate="2018-11-30T21:49:53.983" Title="Stuck around 2000 rating. Concrete advice for improving?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;learning&gt;&lt;rating&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" ClosedDate="2018-12-02T08:19:45.593" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23065" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23057" CreationDate="2018-11-29T14:33:28.313" Score="23" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is the tournament leading to some consensus on how good/bad Carlsen's decision was?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not quite. As others have pointed out, Carlsen's decision was based on factors outside that one game. With a stronger position and a large time advantage, Carlsen most likely could have won game 12, but Caruana had just tied Carlsen in 11 consecutive games, several of which had each player blunder away a significant advantage. Caruana showed he could go toe-to-toe with our Norwegian champion, and so attacking his position would not come without risks. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Meanwhile, a draw effectively changed the championship to a 4-game Rapid tournament (then Blitz if that ended in a tie), where Carlsen is a &lt;em&gt;heavy&lt;/em&gt; favorite. While Carlsen and Caruana are roughly equal in standard chess (2835 and 2832 respectively), Carlsen is much stronger at Rapid (2880 and 2789) and Blitz (2939 and 2767). Why extend a game in an even format when a draw moves to a format you're stronger in? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Having said that, the Chess community was not happy at all to see that draw offered (source: I was unhappy). I'll concede it was a technically correct decision, but as someone who had been waiting 11 games for a win, seeing one materialize then simply vanish was frustrating. It left a lot of people asking &lt;strong&gt;&quot;What would have happened if Carlsen hadn't offered that draw? How would the game have ended?&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;, and that's the question these games are answering. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In other words, the tournament isn't leading to some consensus on how good/bad Carlsen's &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;decision&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; was. It's leading to some consensus on how good/bad Carlsen's &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;position&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; was. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All in all, the tournament showed that Carlsen had a &lt;strong&gt;very&lt;/strong&gt; good position. After 56 games, black finished with 27 wins, white finished with 3 wins, and there were 26 draws. That's a tremendous advantage. Any grandmaster would be ecstatic to hear that, for a chess engine, their position was only losing in 5% of games played. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What's more, this tournament had given both sides equal time. That's not completely accurate, as Carlsen had a significant lead on time (though I've forgotten just how much). That implies these results are even too conservative, and that Carlsen may have had a larger lead. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Having said that, humans and computers play in very different styles. Because it's winning for a computer doesn't guarantee it's winning for Carlsen (though he's practically a computer anyway), but it does show he had a strong opportunity to win it all in game 12.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16035" LastEditorUserId="16035" LastEditDate="2018-12-06T21:48:04.670" LastActivityDate="2018-12-06T21:48:04.670" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23066" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23070" CreationDate="2018-11-29T15:03:59.060" Score="16" ViewCount="7271" Body="&lt;p&gt;I followed &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Chess_Championship_2018#Tie-break_games&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;the three games&lt;/a&gt; live on chess24.es (for live commentary from GMs) and chess.com (for actual real time computer analysis).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As per my understanding:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Game 13 was mostly balanced until &lt;code&gt;19... Nb5?&lt;/code&gt; (GMs were expecting &lt;code&gt;Nb7&lt;/code&gt; if anything), and then after &lt;code&gt;34... Rc3?&lt;/code&gt; it was definitely over.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Game 14, Caruana was in a better position until &lt;code&gt;21. c5?&lt;/code&gt; which brought it back to balance, followed &quot;shortly&quot; after by &lt;code&gt;26. c7?&lt;/code&gt; which was definitely a losing move (live commentators went nuts here).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Game 15, there were no &quot;obvious&quot; errors (not that the GMs noticed on-air, at least), Caruana was even leading, but in the last half of the game the computer was marking several of Caruana's moves in red.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as I can tell, Carlsen didn't make any winning&lt;code&gt;!!&lt;/code&gt; or distinctly good moves. Yes, he played great and made very few errors, but my feeling is that Caruana lost the game, more than Carlsen won it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, why is everybody praising Carlsen for his play? What moves or strategies did he apply in the tie-breakers that show how good he is?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15793" LastEditorUserId="3444" LastEditDate="2018-12-02T13:01:29.027" LastActivityDate="2018-12-02T13:01:29.027" Title="Why is Carlsen being praised for his tie-break play, when Caruana made several game-losing moves?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;world-championship&gt;&lt;carlsen&gt;" AnswerCount="8" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23067" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23057" CreationDate="2018-11-29T15:15:33.733" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;As Lord Farquaad points out, the tournament will only show how good Carlsen's position was, not how good his decision was. That said, his position was pretty damned good, if the computers can be believed: so far 49 games have been played, and the score is 23 Black wins to 3 White wins, with 23 draws.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12189" LastActivityDate="2018-11-29T15:15:33.733" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23068" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23056" CreationDate="2018-11-29T15:26:29.093" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you're familiar with &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.latex-project.org/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;LaTeX&lt;/a&gt; (or if you're willing to learn it, which in my opinion is time well spent), there are some user-created packages which exist just for that. These are very easy to download (e.g. via with the &lt;a href=&quot;https://miktex.org/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;MiKTeX Package Manager&lt;/a&gt;) and use.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To my knowledge, the most extensive and well-documented of these packages for creating chessboards is &lt;a href=&quot;https://ctan.org/pkg/chessboard&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;chessboard&lt;/a&gt;. As you can see in the documentation, it's highly flexible. As for chess fonts (i.e. being able to write moves with the symbol for the piece rather than the letter for the piece), there's the package &lt;a href=&quot;https://ctan.org/pkg/chessfss&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;chessfss&lt;/a&gt;. There are other packages too if ever these aren't to your liking, for example &lt;a href=&quot;https://ctan.org/pkg/chess-problem-diagrams&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;chess-problem-diagrams&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17713" LastActivityDate="2018-11-29T15:26:29.093" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23069" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23066" CreationDate="2018-11-29T15:37:29.457" Score="15" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;my feeling is that Caruana lost the game, more than Carlsen won it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Whenever two players play a game without making any errors the result is a draw. Most games have lots of errors and it is usually the player who makes the last error who loses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;As far as I can tell, Carlsen didn't make any winning!! or distinctly&#xA;  good moves&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not true. Carlsen made many very good moves. So too did Caruana but unfortunately for Caruana he made more bad moves than Carlsen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2018-11-29T15:37:29.457" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23070" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23066" CreationDate="2018-11-29T16:06:27.410" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;Game 1 of the tiebreak: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1937923&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1937923&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;37 Rc7 is a brilliant endgame move under time control, that induces the opponent to make the mistake 37...Kxe4. There were few other options for Carlsen, v.i.z., 37. Kh3 or 37. Rb4. You can see the evaluation jumps couple of points from +0.3 to +2.1 even though materially Caruana pulls back to equal pawns. There are two aspects to playing good chess:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;First is finding amazing moves&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Second and equally important is provoking the opponent into making incorrect moves.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you look at Carlsen's previous WC games, in most of them he has ground the opponent down and forced them to make incorrect moves. You may not like his style but that doesn't mean he doesn't deserve praise.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16311" LastEditorUserId="16311" LastEditDate="2018-11-29T16:41:12.067" LastActivityDate="2018-11-29T16:41:12.067" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23071" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23066" CreationDate="2018-11-29T16:37:46.163" Score="9" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Carlsen didn't make any winning!! or distinctly good moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I doubt. Carlsen's play was almost accurate. He could exploit almost all of Caruana's mistakes in the rapid games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Game 1:&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Carlsen realizes his opponent is in serious time trouble, in which a move like Rc7! seems the most suitable. Without thinking, a human player would like to collect 2 pawns via &lt;strong&gt;37... Kxe4 38. Rxg7 Kxf5&lt;/strong&gt;, without realizing that &lt;strong&gt;39. Rg5+ Kf6 Rxh5&lt;/strong&gt; wins the crucial h5 pawn, without which the game is a straightforward victory for white.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;2018 World Chess Championship&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;London&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2018.11.28&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Carlsen, Magnus&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Caruana, Fabiano&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;A22&quot;]&#xA;[Annotator &quot;Sam Shankland&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;109&quot;]&#xA;[StartPly &quot;72&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;2018.??.??&quot;]&#xA;[CurrentPosition &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. c4 e5 2. Nc3 Nf6 3. g3 Bb4 4. e4 O-O 5. Nge2 c6 6. Bg2 a6 7. O-O b5 8. d4 d6 9. a3 Bxc3 10. Nxc3 bxc4 11. dxe5 dxe5 12. Na4 Be6 13. Qxd8 Rxd8 14. Be3 Nbd7 15. f3 Rab8 16. Rac1 Rb3 17. Rfe1 Ne8 18. Bf1 Nd6 19. Rcd1 Nb5 20. Nc5 Rxb2 21. Nxe6 fxe6 22. Bxc4 Nd4 23. Bxd4 exd4 24. Bxe6+ Kf8 25. Rxd4 Ke7 26. Rxd7+ Rxd7 27. Bxd7 Kxd7 28. Rd1+ Ke6 29. f4 c5 30. Rd5 Rc2 31. h4 c4 32. f5+ Kf6 33. Rc5 h5 34. Kf1 Rc3 35. Kg2 Rxa3 36. Rxc4 Ke5 37. Rc7! Kxe4 38. Re7+ Kxf5 39. Rxg7 Kf6 40. Rg5 a5 41. Rxh5 a4 42. Ra5 Ra1 43. Kf3 a3 44. Ra6+ Kg7 45. Kg2 Ra2+ 46. Kh3 Ra1 47. h5 Kh7 48. g4 Kg7 49. Kh4 a2 50. Kg5 Kf7 51. h6 Rb1 52. Ra7+ Kg8 53. Rxa2 Rb5+ 54. Kg6 Rb6+ 55. Kh5 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Game 2:&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Carlsen finds &lt;strong&gt;24... Bd8!&lt;/strong&gt;, after which the most clear path for white is to get c7 through after Nd5. However, Magnus finds the best move in the position, &lt;strong&gt;25... e4!&lt;/strong&gt;, generating enough counterplay in the center such that c7 is easily handled.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;2018 World Chess Championship&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;London&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2018.11.28&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Caruana, Fabiano&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Carlsen, Magnus&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;[Annotator &quot;Sam Shankland&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;56&quot;]&#xA;[StartPly &quot;50&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;2006.06.28&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 e5 6. Ndb5 d6 7. Nd5 Nxd5 8. exd5 Ne7 9. c4 Ng6 10. Qa4 Bd7 11. Qb4 Qb8 12. h4 h5 13. Be3 a6 14. Nc3 a5 15. Qb3 a4 16. Qd1 Be7 17. g3 Qc8 18. Rc1 Bg4 19. Be2 Bxe2 20. Qxe2 Qf5 21. c5 O-O 22. c6 bxc6 23. dxc6 Rfc8 24. Qc4 Bd8 25. Nd5 e4 26. c7? Bxc7 27. Nxc7 Ne5 28. Nd5 Kh7 (29. Qe2 Nd3+) (29. Ne7 Qf3 30. Qxc8 Rxc8 31. Rxc8 Qxh1+) 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13544" LastEditorUserId="13544" LastEditDate="2018-11-30T04:21:46.727" LastActivityDate="2018-11-30T04:21:46.727" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23073" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23066" CreationDate="2018-11-29T19:40:58.210" Score="26" Body="&lt;p&gt;Carlsen crushed it, made almost no mistakes whatsoever in rapid. It is as if he was playing at classical time controls.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess is about not making mistakes. If your opponent doesn't make mistakes then you're only going to get a draw even if you play like an engine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He did play good moves as well. Example on move 37 the position is a draw but he gave himself winning chances with 37. Rc7!. Caruana now blunders with Kxe4 instead of playing Ra2+. Now Carlsen plays the accurate Re7+! instead of Rxg7? and obtains a winning position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4393" LastActivityDate="2018-11-29T19:40:58.210" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23074" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23057" CreationDate="2018-11-29T19:44:56.597" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The engine tournament is absolutely pointless. Engines don't make mistakes and they are far better at pushing in advantageous positions. Even then black still managed to lose games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Carlsen's decision was absolutely the right one for the highest probability of holding the title. Realistically in a GM game black probably had around a 20% chance of winning and a 10% chance of losing at best. Instead he goes for the tiebreakers where he as a 75%+ chance of winning that with his elo advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4393" LastActivityDate="2018-11-29T19:44:56.597" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23075" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23066" CreationDate="2018-11-29T23:51:42.450" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Garry Kasparov put it this way in a &lt;a href=&quot;https://twitter.com/Kasparov63/status/1067826806823297029&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;tweet&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Carlsen’s consistent level of play in rapid chess is phenomenal. We all play worse as we play faster and faster, but his ratio may be the smallest ever, perhaps only a 15% drop off. Huge advantage in this format.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not sure where he gets the 15% from, but the general idea must be right: Caruana suffered much more from the lack of thinking time than Carlsen did. That is what is amazing about Carlsen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Like others said, you can only win if your opponent makes mistakes. Tartakower famously put it this way: &quot;The winner of the game is the player who makes the next-to-last mistake&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12523" LastActivityDate="2018-11-29T23:51:42.450" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23076" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16471" CreationDate="2018-11-30T01:03:51.287" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;As of August 2018 a complete set of 7-piece Syzygy endgame tablebases is available&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;for download, e.g. &lt;a href=&quot;http://tablebase.sesse.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://tablebase.sesse.net/&lt;/a&gt;,&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;online access on &lt;a href=&quot;https://syzygy-tables.info/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://syzygy-tables.info/&lt;/a&gt;,&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;and &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/blog/W3WeMyQAACQAdfAL/7-piece-syzygy-tablebases-are-complete&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;integrated into Lichess&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3122" LastActivityDate="2018-11-30T01:03:51.287" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23077" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23079" CreationDate="2018-11-30T02:49:22.140" Score="3" ViewCount="383" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/AhYE9.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The pawn move from &lt;code&gt;h2&lt;/code&gt; to &lt;code&gt;h3&lt;/code&gt;. I do not understand the reason behind this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17929" LastEditorUserId="8472" LastEditDate="2018-11-30T14:43:19.580" LastActivityDate="2018-11-30T14:43:19.580" Title="What is the idea behind h2-h3?" Tags="&lt;pawns&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23078" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23058" CreationDate="2018-11-30T02:59:38.993" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sometimes when I found interesting articles, I copy it to my notepad2-mod, that allows me some simple syntax highlighting, and that has moved me to adopt the following practices with chess articles with games interspersed. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) For every pair of moves, supress the dot. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) To avoid markdown processor interpreting incorrectly the pgn header, place the game between '~~~', before and after the game. This way, the block is treated as a  block.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) Add the text as you please, following the markdown conventions. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the time being, it is not possible to assign a chess font to the move section, due to the document model followed by markdown. A document, does not change fonts on every paragraph; instead asign fonts to specific parts of the document, like title, tables and text. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1766" LastActivityDate="2018-11-30T02:59:38.993" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23079" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23077" CreationDate="2018-11-30T03:50:19.590" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's a &lt;strong&gt;common&lt;/strong&gt; idea in the position. It's there to prevent &lt;code&gt;Be3 Ng4&lt;/code&gt;. Allowing Ng4 with the bishop on e3 is not good; White's dark bishop should be exchanged with Black's strong g7-bishop, something like &lt;code&gt;Be3-Qd2-Bh6&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;Be3-Bd4-Bxg7&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please note White played &lt;code&gt;10.Be3&lt;/code&gt; immediately next. Without &lt;code&gt;9.h3&lt;/code&gt;, something like this would have happened:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;9.Be3 Ng4! 10.Qe2 Nxe3!&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black's position is fine with the strong g7 &#xA;bishop unchallenged. &lt;code&gt;9.h3&lt;/code&gt; is a good move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2018-11-30T03:55:35.120" LastActivityDate="2018-11-30T03:55:35.120" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23080" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23066" CreationDate="2018-11-30T03:57:35.863" Score="-2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;As far as I can tell, Carlsen didn't make any winning!! or distinctly good moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In chess, only results count not the moves... Carlsen is being praised because he won the match. Winner takes all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2018-11-30T03:57:35.863" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23081" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18162" CreationDate="2018-11-30T11:05:39.680" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I like @phonon's answer; but still I guess some sub-questions are not answered.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Do you just grind them or save them for later?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Depends on the difference between your chess level and chess level of the audience the puzzle is intended to. If the puzzles are from books (esp. course-like structured series), authors will typically mention the level of the puzzles. For example, in winning chess series, Seirawan recommends time to be spent on puzzle and so on. The same is true for other series such as Yusupov's. If the puzzle is not a study, you should try to grinding and if you can't solve it in 'reasonable time', save it for later. If it is a study, one may be grinding against stone; but still that can be instructive (or not). What is 'reasonable time' also varies.&#xA;To make the learning process more smooth and enjoyable, I would recommend doing puzzles that are just above your level of play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.Do you ever annotate your chess tactics?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Annotation doesn't matter much. But, &lt;strong&gt;analyzing all important variations&lt;/strong&gt; can not be overemphasized. Writing down seems to help it.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;IMO, you should set the problem on board and solve rather than solve looking at a figure. That would be a better practice. (I have seen master players pointing out this)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3.Do you try to remember certain patterns and main ideas? Do you categorize your tactics by forks, pins, zugzwang, etc.?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In fact, no need to try to remember things. It is more like &lt;strong&gt;getting familiar with it&lt;/strong&gt;. Practicing with particular patterns or particular themes helps for sure.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;IMO, you should mix it up. If you know for sure that you are to use a particular patter only, you can easily figure it out. People (incl. professionals) say that it imprints the pattern in your mind. May be, it does. But it kills all the fun. I would suggest noting down the puzzles and note down some positions from random games (need not be master games) and mix it up and try to solve the position as if you are facing the position in a game over the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4.How do you recommend we train tactics puzzles?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This question is answered very carefully by @photon. I don't have much to add; I am only expressing an opinion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also go through the recommendations of Seirawan and Yusupov they give on how they expect their reader to try out the problems in their book. You can not go wrong with it. (One such recommendation is fight not only against the problem, but also time as pointed out by @Brian Towers)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Find a set of puzzles that fits your level best (not too easy not too hard; may be a small percentage of them challenging). Just to reiterate, solving over the board is a better practice whether the source is a book or not (eg:a software or website).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14678" LastActivityDate="2018-11-30T11:05:39.680" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23082" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4886" CreationDate="2018-11-30T13:13:27.590" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Wes already gave a good answer from the teaching perspective for the OP. This answer is complementary to his answer. I am concentrating on the &lt;em&gt;optimization and tricks&lt;/em&gt; still keeping beginners in mind (may not be useful to OP). If you haven't seen the basic technique read that form &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/4890/14678&quot;&gt;Wes's answer&lt;/a&gt; first, then read these tricks and finally go back to &lt;em&gt;optimisation and tricks&lt;/em&gt; section of his answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The most basic tool in making it faster is &lt;strong&gt;flexibility&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(eg: not sticking one method always whether it is king-in-opposition method or box-in-method)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, just to recall, our purpose is to confine the king &lt;strong&gt;to an edge&lt;/strong&gt;, not to a corner. And we are not preoccupied with which edge it must be.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Though obvious, these fact helps to make it shorter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Trick 1&lt;/strong&gt;) When you use king-in-opposition, there is no need to go all the way to the end of the side.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, instead of the following, you can make the check earlier if the king is confined enough (see the variation).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/8/8/4k3/R7/2K5/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Kd3 Kf5 2.Ke3 Kg5 3.Kf3 &#xA;( 3.Ra5+ Kf6 &#xA;    ( 3...Kg4 4.Rb5 Kg3 5.Rg5+)&#xA;4.Ke4 Kg6 5.Ra6+ Kg5 6.Rb6 Kg4 7.Rg6+ )&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5...Kh5 6.Kg3 Kg5 7.Ra5+ *&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Trick 2&lt;/strong&gt;) King can be inside the rectangle instead of outside&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/8/1k6/8/2R5/1K6/8/8 w - - 0 3&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;3.Kb4 Kb7 &#xA;( 3...Ka6 4.Rc6+ Kb7 5.Kb5 )&#xA;4.Kb5 Ka7 5.Rc7+ &#xA;( 5.Kc6 Kb8 6.Ra4 )&#xA;*&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14678" LastActivityDate="2018-11-30T13:13:27.590" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23083" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18162" CreationDate="2018-11-30T13:16:09.530" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my opinion it depends on how well you can understand and memorize them. The next time you want to play chess try different methods, such as the methods you know before and the methods which are suggested by others and try to work out which of them is easier and more comfortable for you. It's not one method for all. Try to find what is suitable for you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;                                                           Be successful&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17936" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2018-11-30T14:19:33.953" LastActivityDate="2018-11-30T14:19:33.953" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23084" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="59" CreationDate="2018-11-30T13:47:21.387" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is possible, but hard.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Memorizing it doesn't help (it rarely occurs over the board). But, if you try to do it own your own, it will help you with &lt;strong&gt;learning how to make better use of minor pieces in the end game&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you can confine the king to a corner of the same colour as the bishop, then it is over (try it!).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The method most people know is composed of two parts: (i) confine his king to some corner, and (ii) force it to a corner of correct colour (colour of your bishop). Part (ii) is is called the W technique in the lore. Part (i) is easy; part (ii) is not. I recommend against memorizing part (ii).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;But being able to do part (i) is a must&lt;/strong&gt;. Practice it if you cannot do it. If you are good at it, in some positions, you will be able to directly confine the opponent king to a 'right' corner - something that memorizing people cannot. Once you can do part (i) easily, may be just see the 'W technique' more to enjoy than to memorize. It is basically repeatedly forcing the king to move one square closer to the right corner (you fix that corner this time). This is done with a knight maneuver basically. You can then try to do it on your own. Whether you can recreate it or not doesn't matter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Note: if you are doing it on your own, it may go beyond the allowed 50 moves and lead to a draw. Don't worry about that. Once you can do it on your own, practice that ending with a friend and try to achieve that mate quicker. )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14678" LastActivityDate="2018-11-30T13:47:21.387" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23085" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23064" CreationDate="2018-11-30T14:28:59.853" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Without actually knowing your strengths and weaknesses, I'd suggest doing the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Studying endgames is a great idea - it will help you to convert equal positions into wins against players with worse endgame knowledge. However - an equal position has to be reached first.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;Find out what style of play you excel in - and learn how to get into positions that fit that style.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; The most drastic example of this might be the Fried Liver Attack. An engine really doesn't mind playing black here (I mean - it's a free knight!), but human players, even Grandmasters, are just screwed; they are just not able to calculate a complicated position like that well enough.&#xA;Improving here starts with analyzing openings and getting a feeling for positions, the weaknesses and strengths they bare and what long-term consequences your moves make. Aim to always know &lt;em&gt;why&lt;/em&gt; you make a move. To practice this, you take any position, make out weak and strong points and formulate a plan &lt;em&gt;for both sides&lt;/em&gt; - then think about moves you want to play to pursue your plan - and delay your opponents plans. Bonus points for moves that do both.&#xA;Take your time for this - it will help you find a plan OTB if you practice it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At higher ratings games are usually decided by strategy, not tactics. While it is important to have a good eye for tactics, tactical opportunities will be rarer and rarer. Get a good position, keep a good position and the checkmate will come naturally! :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17911" LastActivityDate="2018-11-30T14:28:59.853" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23086" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23052" CreationDate="2018-11-30T17:49:31.010" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;One should learn chess from the ending first!  So if one takes your question as when one should have learned the technique then as a beginner.  If one has never looked at this endgame (shame on you) and are facing it for the first time in a real game with the 50 move rule and clock ticking then anything can happen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The minimum one should know is quite small and is just a couple key concepts. Delétang's Triangle Method is easy to remember. It's just 3 successive nets.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;from wikipedia:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ZMpKX.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ZMpKX.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2018-11-30T17:49:31.010" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23087" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23064" CreationDate="2018-11-30T21:08:43.247" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Don't over-emphasize studying over actually playing. Studying is good, but if you neglect actually playing chess in the meantime you will suffer a great deal; you need to play to keep yourself from getting rusty and losing trust in your decision making over the board. Since you've stated that you don't have lots of time, I'd suggest that you play rapid chess instead of blitz; something like 15 minutes + 10 seconds/move is enough to get some good practice if you don't have the time to play actual slow time controls, since it will not take a huge amount of time (20-40 minutes in total per game) and will still give you a chance to go for some more refined ideas than the ones one may go for in blitz.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With all this being said, I think it's a good idea for you to study endgames as well since those are always going to be important for players of any level. And you can't really go wrong with DEM, it's a truly excellent book. The only thing with DEM is that it's quite high-level stuff and will require some serious effort on your part to get the most out of it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8300" LastActivityDate="2018-11-30T21:08:43.247" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23088" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23064" CreationDate="2018-11-30T21:22:46.113" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm 2100 in online blitz so we have a similar rating. I'll give you the same advice that Judit Polgar gave to me. Study middlegames and basic endgames. And tactics. I think that Dvoretsky's Endgame Manual might be overkill. It's a little too in depth. It's hard to apply the knowledge that you glean there to your games. For the amount of time you invest in it, you get very little application.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's explore this in further detail. There are three components to Judit Polgar's advice: (1) middlegames (2) basic endgames and (3) tactics. It's important that she left out openings, because at the 2000 level it's more important to know plans and ideas than to memorize sequences of moves. It's also important that she said &quot;basic endgames&quot; and not &quot;thoroughly know all the theoretical endgames&quot;, because basic endgames have enormous application -- such as opposite colored bishops, a- and h-pawns, knowing to put your king in front of your pawn and your rook behind your pawn -- whereas knowing the theoretical diagrams in Dvoretsky's book has little application unless you're a grandmaster. Why? Well, even if an endgame is theoretically drawn, at the 2000 level your opponent will often make mistakes which render the theoretical result irrelevant, since what's really relevant here is whether you exploit their mistakes and use that to win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Instead of Dvoretsky, I would recommend looking at annotated games (e.g. books, Chessbase, Chess.com) and watching top players play. This will help you absorb plans and ideas that you can then use in your own games. If you have a good plan during the middlegame then on the 2000 level you often have an edge against your opponent. Forming a knowledge base of plans, ideas, motifs is a lot like building a vocabulary. In order to build a good vocabulary it helps to be a voracious reader. Well, by analogy, you want to be a voracious chess observer. In addition to reading annotated games, you can watch the world's best players play blitz on chess.com. Why blitz? Well, Magnus Carlsen recently said that blitz and rapid are in a sense a purer form of chess because it takes the element of preparation out of it. It's easier to understand a grandmaster's ideas in blitz or rapid because the barrier of opening preparation, to which you are not privy, is removed to a certain extent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If there are positions where you feel uncomfortable, such as isolated queen pawn positions or even the endgame itself, then it helps to play those positions at every opportunity with willingness and enthusiasm, so that way you can get a feel for them and improve. I think it was like eight or nine years ago that I was afraid of the endgame, and preferred to win by attacking my opponent in the middle game to get a decisive material advantage or a mate. To improve this hole in my game, I just decided to play endgames with (1) willingness and (2) enthusiasm, often trading off pieces just for the sake of entering the endgame, especially when it was equal. Then I started winning equal endgames, and I found it enjoyable. What improved my endgame was not Dvoretsky but a basic endgame knowledge and lots of practice - and, of course, willingness and enthusiasm for the endgame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But this last bit of advice is important. If you watch grandmasters play blitz on chess.com, you'll notice that even 2700s and 2800s miss basic tactics that afford their opponent the opportunity to win. That's why it's so important to learn tactics. You can use them to win at almost any level. The number of tactics available to you in a position depends on how well your pawns and pieces are placed. The better position you have, the more tactics you likely have. In order to improve tactically, you also have to improve positionally. That's where studying the middle game helps. When Polgar gave me that advice, she said something like &quot;spend 70% of your time on the middle game&quot;. Because if you have good plans and ideas in the middle game, then chances are you'll reach positions where you have winning tactics. There's a big disconnect where some players place their pieces well but are then unable to find the winning tactics. I think this comes with experience. The better chess shape you're in, and the more experience you have, the more easily you can convert advantages, and know when to convert advantages. It's a skill in itself. Some times you have a strong knight on d5, but then you have to give it up in order to break up black's pawns on the kingside. Some players would be unwilling to give up this knight and never make any progress in their attack. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At the 2000 level, so many games are decided by not seeing one or two moves ahead. In other words, tactics. In order to get those tactics you need to have a good position. Hence Polgar's emphasis on middle games. When you go online, don't forget to watch top players play. It's something that I only started recently, and I wish I had started a lot sooner!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2614" LastEditorUserId="2614" LastEditDate="2018-11-30T21:49:53.983" LastActivityDate="2018-11-30T21:49:53.983" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23089" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23066" CreationDate="2018-11-30T22:10:31.577" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;How do you know Caruana made mistakes? How do you know Carlsen didn't make any &quot;winning&quot; moves?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Oh, right. You used an engine. Or you listened to a commentator who was using an engine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Get it through your head: Carlsen deserves praise because he's a fantastic HUMAN chess player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17945" LastActivityDate="2018-11-30T22:10:31.577" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23090" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23066" CreationDate="2018-11-30T22:29:40.473" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;You should read GM Sam Shankland's annotations to all three games, which are &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/news/view/carlsen-wins-2018-world-chess-championship-in-playoff&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;freely available on Chess.com&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In them he points out many good moves that Carlsen played. Some that come to mind are d4 in game 1, sacrificing a pawn. Castling kingside in game 2 allowing c6. Bd8 in game 2 and then sacrificing this bishop for the c7 pawn. e4 followed by Ne5 in game 2. All the moves in game 1 that won him the endgame. Playing for a solid Maroczy bind in game 3 which is very hard to beat.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2614" LastActivityDate="2018-11-30T22:29:40.473" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23091" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23092" CreationDate="2018-12-01T00:28:20.403" Score="3" ViewCount="148" Body="&lt;p&gt;All engines I'm aware of focus on finding the best moves to win the position. I'm curious whether there are any that exist that attempt to present an honest &lt;em&gt;evaluation&lt;/em&gt; of a position, with human capabilities in mind. For example, with each candidate move, associate a weighted probability that indicates the likelihood a human is to actually find a given move on the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm thinking of situations where computers can find winning lines, but the key moves are so counterintuitive or unnatural that most humans would never consider them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is clearly a challenging computer science task. I'm also not even sure there's a good use case for such an engine. But, I'm curious.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17946" LastActivityDate="2018-12-01T14:45:10.980" Title="Are there any engines that present evaluations based on probability of finding moves?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23092" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23091" CreationDate="2018-12-01T01:33:58.757" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;No engine do what you describe because it’s too hard to code a imperfect human brain. Estimating positional complexity at humans level is also quite hard.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2018-12-01T14:45:10.980" LastActivityDate="2018-12-01T14:45:10.980" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23093" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-12-01T02:56:28.923" Score="4" ViewCount="256" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am using Deep Shredder 13 and somewhat struggled with the engine at 1400. I then managed to defeat 1425 with great ease. The game went as follows&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]    &#xA;    1. d4   e6&#xA;        2. Bf4  Nf6 &#xA;        3. Nf3  d6 &#xA;        4. Nc3  h6  &#xA;        5. e4   g5&#xA;        6. Bg3  d5 &#xA;        7. e5   Ne4  &#xA;        8. Qd3  f5 &#xA;        9. h4   Nd7  &#xA;        10. hxg5  Nxg5  &#xA;        11. Nxg5  Qxg5 &#xA;        12. f4    Qg8 &#xA;        13. O-O-O h5 &#xA;        14. Bh4  Bh6 &#xA;        15. g3   Qf7 &#xA;        16. Nb5  Nf8 &#xA;        17. Qc3  Rg8  &#xA;        18. Nxc7+  Kd7 &#xA;        19. Nxa8 Qh7  &#xA;        20. Qc7+ Ke8 &#xA;        21. Qd8+ Kf7 &#xA;        22. Qe7+ Kg6&#xA;        23. Qf6# &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus, this brings me to question whether I am actually playing against a 1425 rating. On my &lt;a href=&quot;https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/chess-pro-ultimate-edition/id561435724?mt=8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;iphone app&lt;/a&gt; I struggle with a 1350, thus I am unsure what to make of this. During the game, I saw obvious threats (&lt;code&gt;Nb5xc7+&lt;/code&gt;) which could've been avoided. The engine instead of avoiding mate with &lt;code&gt;Qxc7&lt;/code&gt;, it went for the dubious move &lt;code&gt;Kd7&lt;/code&gt;. Afterwards, when I added a new variation, it actually went with &lt;code&gt;Qxc7&lt;/code&gt;. Why does this occur? I mean it seems as if I was playing against a 1300 rating. What is the logic behind this? (Also, I should add that during the game the engine was limited to book knowledge)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17948" LastEditorUserId="7726" LastEditDate="2018-12-01T08:01:24.353" LastActivityDate="2018-12-31T09:02:25.543" Title="Am I actually playing against a 1425 rated player?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;learning&gt;&lt;rating&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23094" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23048" CreationDate="2018-12-01T05:45:05.240" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chessbase products have to capability to export an image or using a chess diagram font as rtf to be pasted directly into word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4324" LastActivityDate="2018-12-01T05:45:05.240" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23095" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23093" CreationDate="2018-12-01T06:00:16.233" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't know if the engine was really playing at 1400+, but it was quite weak. 1400+ rating sounds fair to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please note:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Shredder is &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; the iPhone app you mention. It's rating system is not the same as what Shredder is using.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The iOS app you mention is definitely under-rated. I tried it several times, I know.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2018-12-01T06:00:16.233" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23096" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19677" CreationDate="2018-12-01T16:16:50.540" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes. I remembered seeing a Reddit post on this, so I looked it up;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/9s5eqw/what_is_the_difference_between_2_chess_engines/e8mgvnp/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;/u/MortalSisyphus on Reddit&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At the end of the day engines win and lose games against each other. Which means their analysis is &amp;quot;flawed&amp;quot; in the sense they don't have an infinite horizon. It says 0.27, but if the move ends up with an eventual loss then the analysis of that move wasn't actually 0.27, it was -100.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course it is more complicated than that since each move contributes slightly, but the point is the same. The engine does blunder, just not in the way humans typically blunder. The blunders are basically impossible to see even for a 3000+ engine, but if the move(s) lead to a loss it is a blunder.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is possible that a human seeing 3 roughly equally assessed lines could use intuition to pick the one least likely to be a long-term blunder, meaning a strategic mistake.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And of course humans have highly advanced opening theory, which is probably where most human advantage comes from if the engines in question don't have a very strong book.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to see some human-machine chess, look up some modern ICCF games - ICCF correspondence games are played with engine assistance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17817" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2018-12-01T16:16:50.540" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23097" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23052" CreationDate="2018-12-01T16:41:39.280" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;In 2007, Jeremy Silman published &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.silmanjamespress.com/shop/chess/silmans-complete-endgame-course/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Silman's Complete Endgame Course: From Beginner to Master&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt;. In this book, endgames aren't organised by theme but according to the level at which they would be most useful to learn - at least according to Silman. The book is divided into chapters that progress from the beginner level (below &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Chess_Federation#Ratings&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;USCF class&lt;/a&gt; E) to &quot;master&quot; (rating range 2200 - 2399). In the introduction to the book, Silman states (page xv; emphasis added):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I've deliberately left out many endgames. Why? Because I don't feel they are important to players below the 2400 level. For example, &lt;strong&gt;I heretically decided not to include Bishop and Knight vs Lone King&lt;/strong&gt; because it is far from easy to master, and it occurs very rarely in over-the-board play. In fact, I only got it once in my entire career, while IM John Watson and IM John Donaldson never got it at all!&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So he concludes that this endgame is so rare that it isn't worth spending two to three hours of study on it if your level is below 2400. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;http://simplifychess.com/chess/complete-endgame-guide.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Complete Guide to Chess Endgames&lt;/a&gt; on the Chess Simplified website tackles the &lt;a href=&quot;http://simplifychess.com/chess/complete-endgame-guide.html#h.768w4q6o0sw2&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;King, Bishop and Knight vs King&lt;/a&gt; at the &quot;master&quot; level (2199-2400).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not learning this endgame before the 2200 level is an idea that has been criticised by many people below the 2200 level who have faced this endgame on the board. (A long time ago, I was in this situation myself in a rapid game in a school tournament. As luck would have it, I had studied that endgame just the night before, so when my opponent demanded a draw, not knowing it was a losing endgame, I protested and checkmated his king, which he kindly moved to the edge of the board...) For example, this &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/forum/view/endgames/silmans-complete-endgame-course---any-good&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;thread on the Chess.com forums&lt;/a&gt; has both detractors and defenders of the approach.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yuri Averbakh's &lt;em&gt;Erfolg im Endspiel&lt;/em&gt; (translated into German by M. Hermann, Sportverlag 1987) is a book aimed at the elementary to intermediate level (which are not clearly defined in the book's introduction) that treats this endgame in two different chapters: in the second chapter (on elementary checkmates of the lone king), starting from positions where the lone king is just one square away from the last rank or file, and again in the last chapter, starting from positions where the lone king is either in the wrong corner or farther away from the edge (e.g. sixth rank). This same chapter also covers endgames with two knights versus pawn, rook and bishop versus bishop, and rook and knight versus rook. This approach recognises that this is a rather difficult endgame when starting with the lone king near the middle of the board, while at the same time treating it as an endgame that needs to be learnt well below the 2200 rating level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Max Euwe six-part book series &lt;em&gt;Praktische schaaklessen&lt;/em&gt; (published in Dutch in the early 1980s) covers the endgame both in the second volume (which covers each phase of the game) and the sixth volume, &lt;em&gt;Hogeschool van het eindspel&lt;/em&gt; (&quot;Endgame Academy&quot;), which treats endgames in greater depth.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The endgame is not explained in &lt;em&gt;The Soviet Chess Primer&lt;/em&gt; by Ilya Maizelis (translated into English by John Sugden, 2014). The book's chapter on endgames is obviously not meant to be exhaustive; the endgame type that is treated in most details is rook-and-pawn endgames.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At the bottom line, &lt;strong&gt;there is no consensus when the Bishop-and-Knigh-versus-Lone-King endgame should be learnt.&lt;/strong&gt; In &lt;em&gt;Studying Chess Made Easy&lt;/em&gt;, grandmaster Andrew Soltis said that he had never encountered this endgame in his own games but said that &quot;learning it teaches techniques that can be applied elsewhere&quot; (&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bishop_and_knight_checkmate#Importance&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;quoted from Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10867" LastActivityDate="2018-12-01T16:41:39.280" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23098" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23141" CreationDate="2018-12-01T21:23:24.913" Score="9" ViewCount="399" Body="&lt;p&gt;The late middlegame/early endgame is by far my weakest point.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I often get some kind of advantage in the opening, but then struggle to convert. I do study endgames, for example I am currently reading Silmans Endgame Course. But the point is that these kind of endgames that you can learn by rote memorization/technique (e.g. say Lucena Position, or K+P vs K etc.) is not what I struggle with. It's rather to find the right plan in positions, where there are many more pieces on the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I try to give an example by some positions that I encountered in tournament games, e.g. longer time controls. I hope this explains better in what kind of positions I struggle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;r1r3k1/ppp2pp1/2q2n1p/4B3/8/2Q4P/PPP2PP1/3RR1K1 w - - 0 19&#xA;&#xA;1. Qxc6 bxc6 Bxf6 gxf6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I noticed by exchanging pieces, that black will end up with several pawn islands and double pawns. But I failed to convert. Later &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;8/p1p2p2/1rp2k1p/4Rp2/1PP2P2/P6P/6P1/6K1 w - - 0 29&#xA;&#xA;1. Kf2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;instead of Ra5, forcing on exchanging rooks, or attacking both the a and c pawns. I simply didn't have a proper plan here and what to do - so even though I can calculate, I did not know &lt;em&gt;what&lt;/em&gt; to calculate. In this game black managed to ourmaneuvre me and I could barely hold a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;8/1p1k1p1p/2n1p1p1/p1P5/1pK1PP2/1P6/1B4PP/8 w - - 0 36&#xA;&#xA;1. g4? &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;here I played g4? instead of seeing that I can invade with Kb5, and then Black is stuck with defending his a-pawn so that his Knight is almost not moveable. After Na7 I lost instead of securing a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;3r4/8/2Rnk1p1/7p/1P1p1B1P/2p2P2/5P2/6K1 w - - 0 40&#xA;&#xA;1. b5?? &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which Black can answer with Kd5 and wins. I played b5?? instead of getting my King in the game with Kf1, which would have rescued the game. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In these positions it seems crucial to find the right plan before calculating anything. Typical endgame books kind of don't bring me forward I feel.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What kind of learning ressources and or methods can you suggest to improve in such kind of positions?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7687" LastEditorUserId="12629" LastEditDate="2018-12-02T14:27:12.080" LastActivityDate="2018-12-04T21:38:19.500" Title="How to improve on the early endgame?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;learning&gt;&lt;middlegame&gt;&lt;pawn-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23099" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23043" CreationDate="2018-12-01T22:30:12.887" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Check out Chess Position Trainer. Also Chessbase has a training mode where you can create quizzes for certain moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17626" LastActivityDate="2018-12-01T22:30:12.887" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23100" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23115" CreationDate="2018-12-01T22:39:46.403" Score="3" ViewCount="484" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have long been playing the Caro-Kann but I have never been able to come up with a plan according to the pawn structure in the games. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After playing d5 (and entering the Pawn exchange variation or the Advance variation) I just simply play what “seems best” but I am aware that a plan in chess is necessary.&#xA;I am asking this question because I hardly ever find a typical theme in this opening (doubled pawns, backward pawns) or any other typical position which has set goals for White and Black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am asking so someone can enlighten me on this.&#xA;Below are some positions I often reach but I am specially interested what are the goals for Black in the Advance and Pawn Exchange variations (according to theory). I highlight again, I am interested in the plan (if there exists any) in terms of the pawn structures which result from such variations.&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/AlZb8.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/AlZb8.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;The link of this game is:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/0o6pkS9r/black#30&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://lichess.org/0o6pkS9r/black#30&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/0o&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://lichess.org/0o&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another game in which I have no idea what do after the advance c5 (in this position I should have probably played h6 in order to prevent the bishop from pinning my knight)&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/TY80s.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/TY80s.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And here is a last one:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/d0VnK.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/d0VnK.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16771" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2018-12-02T00:13:33.007" LastActivityDate="2019-01-02T02:00:10.597" Title="Strategy according to the pawn structure in the Caro-Kann" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;caro-kann&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23101" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-12-01T23:13:22.300" Score="13" ViewCount="785" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was wondering why Chess isn't played with flat pieces, as Shogi is, or as Chess itself is represented online (where people mostly play with flat 2d pieces, even though most sites also have a 3d theme).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Personally, flat pieces seem more clear to me, albeit less pretty. When the pieces are tall, they start blocking each other and it's not immediately obvious where each piece is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, here's a simple example. This board isn't even close to being cluttered, and yet I still need to glance at White's pawns to make sure they actually are there, because they are close to being blocked by the other pieces. In particular, the f2 pawn is a bit hard to see. Likewise, Black's c7 pawn is blocked by the knight. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/YYdmI.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/YYdmI.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know that this can be fixed by getting closer to the board and looking at it from a top-down perspective, but... first of all, that's annoying: sometimes I just want to lean back in my chair and stare at the board from a distance in a relaxed position, yet I can't, because now all the pawns are blocked by taller pieces. Second: if you are going to be looking at it from a top-down perspective... then why even bother with tall 3d pieces? Your perspective will make them look like 2d anyway.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17958" LastEditorUserId="9926" LastEditDate="2019-06-24T05:57:54.270" LastActivityDate="2019-06-24T09:53:17.667" Title="Why isn't chess played with flat pieces?" Tags="&lt;chess-set&gt;&lt;board-vision&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="8" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23102" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23098" CreationDate="2018-12-02T00:07:05.760" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The English GM Glenn Flear has coined the phrase &quot;not quite an endgame&quot; or NQE to describe exactly the kind of positions you talk about. He has written a book, &quot;Practical Endgame Play - Beyond the Basics: The Definitive Guide to the Endgames That Really Matter&quot; about these. It covers NQEs where each player has pawns and only two pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately it is out of print but you may be able to find it for sale second hand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2018-12-02T00:07:05.760" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23103" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23043" CreationDate="2018-12-02T05:24:09.807" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;One piece of software that you might find useful is called Chess Hero. It takes a pgn file you supply and will have you do guess the move training, with it making the move for the other side. It also has an engine running and will tell you if it considers your move better than what was actually played or worse if you chosen something different, and keeps a score of how well you do. Chessbase 15 also has the new replay training feature, which basically does the same thing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4324" LastActivityDate="2018-12-02T05:24:09.807" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23104" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-12-02T10:57:30.533" Score="0" ViewCount="672" Body="&lt;p&gt;The objective of chess is to put the opponent's king in a position where it cannot evade capture. Why not go all the way?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Short of tremendous blunders of moving into check, chess would be completely the same, except with one more move at the end, and the rules would be simpler and easier to explain.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17817" LastEditorUserId="3444" LastEditDate="2018-12-02T12:56:15.400" LastActivityDate="2019-09-23T21:13:16.220" Title="Why isn't the objective of chess to capture the opponent's king?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;kings&gt;&lt;captures&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ClosedDate="2018-12-09T11:51:09.920" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23105" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23104" CreationDate="2018-12-02T12:21:34.717" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Of course the goal of chess is to capture the opponent king. However, I see no point in your suggestion for the game. If one player’s king  is in check they are forced to move a piece so your king does not remain so. If you are checkmated, by definition, your king cannot move and so you cannot escape the check. Because no move you could possibly make would avoid that, there is no legal move for you and so it is game over.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So all in all, you cannot simply move any piece so you get checkmated in the next move because a check forces you to escape the threat of check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16771" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-09-23T21:13:16.220" LastActivityDate="2019-09-23T21:13:16.220" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23106" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23104" CreationDate="2018-12-02T14:08:12.230" Score="5" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Short of tremendous blunders of moving into check, chess would be completely the same&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But it wouldn't be the same. There is one case where moving a king into check would not be a blunder. That case is what we currently call stalemate. If it was legal to move a king into check, then almost all cases of what is currently stalemate would instead be a win for one side.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This would have a huge impact on the endgame. Many endgames which are currently draws would turn into wins for the side with more material (KP vs K would win regardless of opposition, for example, and many other endgames can be simplified to that) and many theoretically won but difficult endgames would be much easier to win (since KNN vs K would now win, KNN vs KP could be won by just taking the pawn.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And this effect on the endgame would in turn have a large effect on the earlier stages of the game. It's harder to sacrifice a pawn if you know you don't have drawing chances in the event that you end up a pawn down in the endgame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You could, of course, hack a stalemate exception into the new rules, but that would probably be even more confusing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2018-12-02T14:08:12.230" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23107" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23101" CreationDate="2018-12-02T14:29:32.140" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's probably for historic reasons. Chess is very old and a metaphor for two armies making war, and people chose to make 'statues' to represent the pieces. Since this has worked well so far, nobody felt the urge to change them to 'tiles', that is, until computer chess came into being. I've never played Shogi on a real board, but I can imagine 2D pieces are harder to grab than 3D pieces. At least, that is my experience with playing draughts; with moves, you can push a piece, but with captures you have to pick up a piece.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But why is Shogi, which also has a rich history, played with tiles? Well, one good reason might be promotions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;They are much more common than in chess&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A piece promotes to a predefined other piece (there is no choice like in chess)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In case it's captured, it matters what the original piece was&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Flipping a tile is an elegant solution for this problem, unlike replacing it with another piece from outside the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2018-12-02T14:29:32.140" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23108" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23110" CreationDate="2018-12-02T17:12:43.353" Score="5" ViewCount="1222" Body="&lt;p&gt;When and where is the next world championship? Also, when is the candidates? Where can I find the important chess tournaments online?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16311" LastActivityDate="2018-12-02T19:00:17.480" Title="Next world chess championship" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;world-championship&gt;&lt;candidates&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23110" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23108" CreationDate="2018-12-02T18:39:46.763" Score="7" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;When and where is the next world championship?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It will take place in 2020 at the end of the year. The exact date and location have not been revealed nor decided yet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;When is the Candidates?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In 2020, the same year as the world championship match. It usually takes place in March, but &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/component/content/article/1-fide-news/10950-bidding-opens-to-host-the-2020-world-chess-candidates-tournament-.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;no official information&lt;/a&gt; about it has been released yet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Where can I find the important chess tournaments online?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are asking about the dates, then there are many sources. The one I use is &lt;a href=&quot;https://2700chess.com&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;2700chess&lt;/a&gt;. Scroll down to the &quot;Future Events&quot; section. It lists many scheduled upcoming tournaments as well as the most notable players taking part in each. There is also the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/article/view/chess-tournaments-calendar&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess.com tournaments calendar&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are asking about the broadcasts of the tournaments, then either &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess24.com/en/watch/live-tournaments&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess24&lt;/a&gt; or &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/events&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess.com&lt;/a&gt; is the right place for you. Personally I use Chess24.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13544" LastEditorUserId="13544" LastEditDate="2018-12-02T19:00:17.480" LastActivityDate="2018-12-02T19:00:17.480" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23111" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23108" CreationDate="2018-12-02T18:56:49.490" Score="4" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Where can I find the important chess tournaments online?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tournaments like the Candidates and World Championships are FIDE events. News about them will appear first on the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/index.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE&lt;/a&gt; website. FIDE also have a &lt;a href=&quot;https://twitter.com/FIDE_chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Twitter account&lt;/a&gt; which you can follow which will also make shorter announcements usually with links back to stories on the FIDE website.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2018-12-02T18:56:49.490" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23112" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20139" CreationDate="2018-12-03T00:43:05.570" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;Stockfish was running on weak hardware (1 GB RAM)...This setting by DeepMind is understandable from a scientific perspective...&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm a master scientist and this is NOT understandable scientifically. You have introduced an unneeded and unwanted variable by running Stockfish on weak hardware.&#xA;Poor experimental design. Poor science.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13367" LastActivityDate="2018-12-03T00:43:05.570" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23113" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23101" CreationDate="2018-12-03T00:49:39.400" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are two reasons that come to mind:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) There are Pawns, Knights, Bishops, Rooks, Queens, and Kings and a non-flat design makes it easier to tell them apart.&#xA;2) There is a touch-move rule where if you touch a piece and it's interpreted as intentionally you must move it: it's easier to move pieces that are smaller at the top than at the base.&#xA;The Staunton design from the 1800's is the official design accepted in rated chess games internationally in order to avoid someone trying to use abstract- or abnormal-shaped pieces that might confuse an opponent. I don't know how many chess sets I've been given as presents that are in the shapes of soldiers, abstract art, etc. that I never use to play the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13367" LastActivityDate="2018-12-03T00:49:39.400" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23114" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23052" CreationDate="2018-12-03T00:55:51.850" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I coached a high school team with ratings from 700 to 1500, and demonstrated the B + N Mate and how you move the opponent's king to a corner whose color is the same as the squares on which your bishop travels.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Those around 700-800 had trouble with it, maybe because they were fairly new to competitive chess, but those 900 or better could all do it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think you should be able to teach a six year old who doesn't know how all the pieces in chess move to do it, since there's a structure to how you do it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13367" LastActivityDate="2018-12-03T00:55:51.850" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23115" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23100" CreationDate="2018-12-03T01:17:14.337" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I (1878 rating) play the Caro-Kann and its cousin the Slav a lot and have found that in the Advance Variation, where White plays e5 you have to counterattack on the Queenside, usually beginning with ...c5 or ...b6 if c5 is occupied by White. You have to get the move in relatively early - usually soon after developing your QB, KN and QN. Of course, White playing Qb3 or Nh4 or Bd3, etc. can delay doing it, but it's almost always necessary to attack White there near the base of his Pawn Chain.&#xA;In some cases, White supports the Q-side so much that you can attack the neglected K-side with an ...f6, etc.&#xA;When I play White against the Caro-Kann, I play the Panov Attack or the Exchange Variation so the game is more open and Black isn't able to build the awesome wall you show in your boards. When I play Black I love it when White plays 3 e5.&#xA;If you look at chess.com/explorer (free membership may be required), click the drop-down box where &quot;Master Games&quot; is, select &quot;Other Player, enter MickinMD, select Black, and click on 1 e4, you'll see it has 23 games where I played 1...c6, winning 39%, drawing 26%, and losing only 35% to White against players averaging even with my rating including excellent players from Russia, Hungary, and other chess-loving nations - one was the former high school champ of Sidney, Australia.&#xA;I posted one 3...e5 game on chess.com's Game Showcase that I won with a struggle - a struggle partly due to not playing ...c5 until later than I should have, according to some excellent players who critiqued the game at my request.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13367" LastActivityDate="2018-12-03T01:17:14.337" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23116" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-12-03T04:53:54.487" Score="1" ViewCount="79" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm looking for an open source engine (doesn't have to be very strong) that can be loaded with python chess uci module and can play at very fast time controls (few seconds plus tens of milliseconds of increment)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks for your recommendations&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4127" LastActivityDate="2018-12-03T05:03:30.220" Title="Open source engine that doesn't lose on time" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23117" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23116" CreationDate="2018-12-03T05:03:30.220" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Stockfish is strong and able to handle your time control increments. Have you tried Stockfish?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2018-12-03T05:03:30.220" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23118" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23101" CreationDate="2018-12-03T11:23:28.523" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;I could not decide is this an answer or comment but finally decided to add it as answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Why isn't chess played with flat pieces?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because it is played with flat pieces as well; Many travel chess sets have flat pieces, but I think for historical reasons, as chess used to be royal game, played by aristocracy and play sets where created mainly for them, as well game characters used to be and in many languages are still used as real army units.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17448" LastEditorUserId="17448" LastEditDate="2018-12-03T14:18:45.703" LastActivityDate="2018-12-03T14:18:45.703" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23119" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23120" CreationDate="2018-12-03T12:03:15.403" Score="1" ViewCount="252" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am making modifications to a chess engine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I want to get quick feedback on whether the modified version seems stronger than an unmodified version or not, by fighting the older version multiple times.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does anyone know about a good tool to do this? (Currently I have some homemade code to do this using python-chess ... but a tried and tested tool would be preferred)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17975" LastActivityDate="2018-12-03T14:10:20.823" Title="Testing an engine (UCI) against an older version of itself" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;programming&gt;&lt;uci&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23120" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23119" CreationDate="2018-12-03T12:59:48.753" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/cutechess/cutechess/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Cutechess&lt;/a&gt; is a very good solution for this. You can use either the CLI or the GUI to run matches of engines (both UCI and XBoard protocol), and at least the CLI even supports &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sequential_probability_ratio_test&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;SPRT&lt;/a&gt; as a termination criterion of the match, see the &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/cutechess/cutechess/blob/master/projects/cli/res/doc/help.txt&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;help&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Cutechess is also heavily used in the development of Stockfish when running matches between different versions of Stockfish on &lt;a href=&quot;http://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;fishtest&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15415" LastActivityDate="2018-12-03T12:59:48.753" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23121" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23119" CreationDate="2018-12-03T14:10:20.823" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Arena would best suit you. It has a graphical user interface as well as other features required for engine development such as multi-PV, specifying number or cores, and many more (but as a new user it will take you some time to get used to it). Download it from their &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&amp;amp;source=web&amp;amp;rct=j&amp;amp;url=http://www.playwitharena.com/&amp;amp;ved=2ahUKEwjh16-g64PfAhVCUxoKHcckDZ8QFjAAegQIBhAD&amp;amp;usg=AOvVaw3IfUE5NCaoHdSxZrGpSHQo&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;website&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13544" LastActivityDate="2018-12-03T14:10:20.823" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23122" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23128" CreationDate="2018-12-03T21:45:01.893" Score="4" ViewCount="1460" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was watching recently the excellent &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ef6k4qs8tu8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;ChessNetwork  commentary&lt;/a&gt; of the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Chess_Championship_2018#Game_5:_Caruana%E2%80%93Carlsen,_%C2%BD%E2%80%93%C2%BD&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;5th game of the WCC 2018&lt;/a&gt; between Magnus Carlsen and Fabiano Caruana. The end position looked like this and players shook hands after white played g4:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[FEN &quot;8/5R2/5bp1/3rpk1p/8/4B2P/5PP1/5K2 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is not much to grip onto on either side for sure, but it doesn't strike me as a draw either. The line I get with Stockfish is not straight forward.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;{ [Stockfish 280218 64 POPCNT] 68:+0.00} 1...Ke6 2.Ra7 Rd6 3.Ke2 &#xA;hxg4 4.hxg4 Rc6 5.f3 Bd8 6.Rg7 Kf6 7.Rg8 Bb6 8.Bh6 Rd6 9.Rf8+ Ke6 10.&#xA;Re8+ Kd5 11.Be3 Bd8 12.f4 exf4 13.Bxf4 Re6+ 14.Rxe6 Kxe6 15.Kd3 Kd5 &#xA;16.Ke3 Be7 17.Kd3 Bb4 18.Ke3 Bc5+ 19.Kf3 Be7 20.Be3 Bd8 21.Bf4 Be7 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there any simple explanation why this position appears as an obvious draw other than a lack of goals to pursue on both sides?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12554" LastEditorUserId="12554" LastEditDate="2018-12-06T12:27:24.440" LastActivityDate="2018-12-07T00:56:30.550" Title="What makes game 5 of the World Championship a draw?" Tags="&lt;draw&gt;&lt;world-championship&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23123" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23122" CreationDate="2018-12-03T22:31:23.363" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Computer engines are of little use in positions like this. Still it is a pretty obvious draw, because of:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;equal (and very limited) material&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;pawns on the same side of the board&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;no weaknesses for either player&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;active and safe kings&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In order to win this, one would have to win material or promote a pawn, neither of which can be forced.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2018-12-03T22:31:23.363" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23124" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23098" CreationDate="2018-12-03T23:14:44.793" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a book: Endgame Strategy (Cadogan Chess Books)Apr 1, 1994&#xA;by Mikhail Shereshevsky which includes early endgame/late middlegame positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and: Capablanca's Best Chess Endings: 60 Complete GamesFeb 1, 1982&#xA;by Irving Chernev&#xA;is good.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Going over complete games of Karpov is beneficial for technique as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2018-12-03T23:14:44.793" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23125" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-12-04T00:28:33.027" Score="2" ViewCount="609" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I ask for the best move for this FEN:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1rbq1rk1/b4p2/p2p3p/3Bp3/P3P3/2P4P/R2Q1PP1/4K2R w -- - 0 30&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;1rbq1rk1/b4p2/p2p3p/3Bp3/P3P3/2P4P/R2Q1PP1/4K2R w - - 0 30&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stockfish (via Python) replies&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;e1e2&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which is a losing move, since there's a free pawn on the 6th rank that the white queen can take. Instead, Stockfish wants me to move the white king for some bizarre reason.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why does it do this? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I suspect it may have something to do with the ending to the FEN, namely the part where it says&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;-- - 0 30&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wrote the first part of the FEN by hand, and it is correct, but I didn't know what move it was or how to describe castling, so I just made up the &quot;-- - 0 30&quot; part. Is that the reason Stockfish gives this confusing answer?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17979" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2018-12-04T14:01:31.703" LastActivityDate="2020-11-06T12:05:15.140" Title="Why is Stockfish giving me this weird move?" Tags="&lt;stockfish&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23126" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23125" CreationDate="2018-12-04T00:43:21.177" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;You have a bug in your script. Try it on Stockfish yourself:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;position fen 1rbq1rk1/b4p2/p2p3p/3Bp3/P3P3/2P4P/R2Q1PP1/4K2R w - - 0 1&#xA;go movetime 1000&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;bestmove d2h6 ponder c8e6&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How many nodes have you given Stockfish to think?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2018-12-04T00:43:21.177" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23127" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-12-04T01:05:57.170" Score="2" ViewCount="140" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blindfold_chess#21st_century_24-hour_blindfold_chess_records&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;,  Timur Gareyev played 48 opponents with a mask before his eyes and sitting on an exercise bike, resulting in 35 wins, 7 draws, and 6 losses. On the other hand, the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/forum/view/chess960-chess-variants/a-new-blindfold-xiangqi-simul-record&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;record for blindfold xiangqi&lt;/a&gt; is only 26 opponents. It seems that it is extremely difficult to improve this record even by one game. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am wondering what makes the difference in the number of opponents? I do not think it is because xiangqi is more complicated than chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16626" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-12-05T12:30:11.120" LastActivityDate="2019-01-04T13:00:55.347" Title="Blindfold game records of chess and xiangqi" Tags="&lt;blindfold-chess&gt;&lt;xiangqi&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23128" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23122" CreationDate="2018-12-04T04:52:04.457" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some points to consider:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;No passed pawn&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;All rook endgames with equal number of pawns in its own half are drawn (I do not know if this is a theorem, but it is almost a theorem).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;One of the players can probably force exchange of bishops and get it to rook endgame with equal number of pawns.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Both players are 2800+ and it is a classical game, so enough time to think and make the right moves.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT&lt;/strong&gt;: You can look at the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessbase.in/news/kiit-open-r07&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;game discussed here&lt;/a&gt;, where one side has Rook along with 'a' and 'c' pawns, while the other side just has a rook and the game is still a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16311" LastEditorUserId="16311" LastEditDate="2018-12-04T05:10:28.720" LastActivityDate="2018-12-04T05:10:28.720" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23129" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-12-04T07:38:59.363" Score="2" ViewCount="220" Body="&lt;p&gt;Since Python is extremely slow, chess engines are almost never written using it.  I've been building a Python engine to avoid this issue (through JIT compilation), and want to compare my engine against other 'pure Python' engines.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm defining a 'pure Python' engine as an engine where all the core functionality is written in Python.  An example of this would be an engine which is written in all Python except for a tiny bit of C used to efficiently stitch together the use of a few Python packages.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Given that definition, I'm wondering which engine's would need to be beaten in order to fairly say my engine is the &quot;Best Python Engine&quot; running on &lt;a href=&quot;https://pcpartpicker.com/user/da_sammy/saved/j7KGGX&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;my computer hardware&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you'd like to test against my engine, or are just curious about it, my chess engine is &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/SamRagusa/Batch-First&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Batch-First&lt;/a&gt; (although as of writing this the trained ANNs aren't currently uploaded).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16593" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-03-04T21:40:39.647" LastActivityDate="2020-03-04T21:40:39.647" Title="Python Engines to Beat to Take the Crown" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;python&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23130" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-12-04T08:02:10.020" Score="3" ViewCount="392" Body="&lt;p&gt;I wonder if the Bishop and Knight that start out on the same color square as the opponent's King, is worth more than it's twin on the other flank. And if that is of significance when making choices about pawn structure and piece exchange in the early game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White's King starts out on and castles to dark squares, so Black's King's side dark Bishop can check white, or use the King as a pinboard, or win a tempo when the King moves to avoid that. For the Knights, it takes both sides' King's side Knights 4 moves to give a check, but only 3 moves for the Queen's side Knights, regardless which way is castled.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this enough to say that from the onset, the King's side Bishop is (a potential tempo) better than the Queen's side Bishop, and vice versa for the Knights?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Should one transfer one's Queen's side Knight to the King's side, on a 3-move path towards check, and thus possibly win a tempo later on? And also not trade the King's side Knight against the opponent's Queen's side Knight early on?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13829" LastEditorUserId="13829" LastEditDate="2018-12-04T11:00:36.890" LastActivityDate="2018-12-05T01:09:52.377" Title="Do the King's side and Queen's side pieces have different values because of which square color they start on?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;theory&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23131" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23130" CreationDate="2018-12-04T09:34:15.350" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;They don't have different values, but the actual place on the board definitely matters for pieces. Some well-known examples are the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/article/view/the-octopus-knight&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;octopus knight&lt;/a&gt;, positioned on the sixth or seventh rank protected by a pawn or another piece, which is usually worth at least a rook. The relative value of a pawn on the seventh rank is also much more than when it's still on the second rank.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is no a priori difference in relative value between the pieces in the starting position, but there are certain openings (e.g. French advance variation, King's Indian) which create central pawn structures leading to bad and good bishops. One could think of one bishop being worth 2.5 pawns and the other 3.5, but I don't know of any player who really counts this way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2018-12-04T09:34:15.350" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23132" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23127" CreationDate="2018-12-04T10:07:11.947" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It could be as simple as the relative popularity of playing blindfolded. In chess playing blindfolded goes very far back. There are reports of islamic scholars playing blindfolded chess of three games simultaneously more than a thousand years ago. In modern times blindfold exhibitions have been a staple of chess events. As records tend to be improved in small steps, maybe xiangqi just didn't have enough events of this type yet, to get to a similar number of games. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2018-12-04T10:07:11.947" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23134" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-12-04T11:53:52.453" Score="4" ViewCount="1967" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am looking for a Python chess engine package. It must be fully contained in Python, I don't want to download separate files for the engine itself and link them up somehow.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All I want it to be able to do is take a FEN and provide best move. It should obviously be a strong engine, at least 2500 rating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17981" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-03-04T21:43:22.833" LastActivityDate="2020-03-04T21:43:22.833" Title="Looking for a Python chess engine" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;python&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23135" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23144" CreationDate="2018-12-04T13:36:53.047" Score="9" ViewCount="1464" Body="&lt;p&gt;For example in the first turn there are 20 possible legal moves (16 pawn moves and 4 knights moves). This number increases in the middlegame and then decreases in the Endgame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there some calculations on the average? Google search seem to be focused only on &quot;average number of moves per game&quot;. Would appreciate if somebody have some links to some scientific researches or also blog posts. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13744" LastEditorUserId="1485" LastEditDate="2018-12-05T07:21:30.247" LastActivityDate="2019-09-02T08:05:00.903" Title="What is the average number of legal moves per turn?" Tags="&lt;statistics&gt;&lt;mathematics&gt;&lt;game-complexity&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23136" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23134" CreationDate="2018-12-04T13:56:10.360" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have experience with only SunFish, but I doubt it's 2500+ level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://talkchess.com/forum3/viewtopic.php?f=2&amp;amp;t=67025&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://talkchess.com/forum3/viewtopic.php?f=2&amp;amp;t=67025&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This link should help you. If you're not happy with the folks at talkchess, you probably won't find a better answer anywhere else.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2018-12-04T13:56:10.360" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23137" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23129" CreationDate="2018-12-04T14:00:01.210" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You may claim yourself the World Computer Champion in Python if you beat all of them:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://talkchess.com/forum3/viewtopic.php?f=2&amp;amp;t=67025&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://talkchess.com/forum3/viewtopic.php?f=2&amp;amp;t=67025&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2018-12-04T14:00:01.210" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23138" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23130" CreationDate="2018-12-04T15:01:50.733" Score="0" Body="&lt;h2&gt;Short answer&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You do have a certain point, but it is not meaningful enough in the big picture to truly matter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Long answer&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Indeed, on an empty board, the knight from c1 will reach the square e8 one move faster than the one on f1.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The board isn't empty. Your opponent won't simply allow you to march up to their king like that. The opponent's pawn structure will make a lot of squares impassable for your knights, and the kingside knight might have a faster path through that structure than the queenside knight in the end.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Checks are not the only way to gain tempo. Your queenside knight is potentially faster to attack the opponent's king, but conversely, the kingside knight is potentially faster to attack the queen, which in 90%+ of cases is just about as tempo-winning.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The opponent's king will most likely not even be on e8 anymore anyways by the time your knights come into range. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Usually, an invasion across the middle of the board will need some preparation on your part, and you will easily spend more than three or four moves to even enable your knight to give a check in the first place. Winning one tempo on the last move of a plan isn't that useful if the plan was more tempo-consuming than another.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;In the end, that one check to the opponent's king after a direct 3-move or 4-move path only happens in a small fraction of games. Most of the time, you will need your knights to perform other duties.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Even in cases where it happens, that one check will only be a tiny fraction of the &quot;value&quot; of that knight during that game. What it did along the path is much more important (an octopus knight as mentioned in another answer will ultimately be much more useful than one who only gave check once and didn't have much more impact otherwise). &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Chess is concrete.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13433" LastEditorUserId="2299" LastEditDate="2018-12-04T22:49:47.623" LastActivityDate="2018-12-04T22:49:47.623" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23141" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23098" CreationDate="2018-12-04T21:38:19.500" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Knowing when/how to transition to an ending is one of the difficult choices.  Ideally you will be able to correctly evaluate the resulting complex ending when making that choice.  I find the most helpful thing in evaluating complex ending is knowing the simple endings.  There are few resources I have found on this interesting topic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a bit at the end of Silman's Complete Endgame Course on this.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Joel Benjamin's Liquidation on the Chess Board covers the transition to a pawn ending.  Though that is from a piece ending to a pawn ending some of the ways of thinking are the same.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your examples call for &quot;technique&quot; as in &quot;and the win is now a matter of technique&quot;  Sadly these commentators rarely explain what the technique is.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Take your example of pawn islands / isolated pawns.  Standard technique is to attack the pawns activating your pieces and tying your opponent's pieces to the defense of the pawns.  But what to you do after he defends his pawns?  Then another principle may come into play, 'alteration' or multiple weaknesses.  Now you can switch you attack between weaknesses and make your opponent respond.  Even if the position is drawn you can present your opponent problems and try to provoke an error.  Sometime if you alternate your attack in just the right move order your opponent has no good response.  This is often true when you have a space advantage.  Sometimes a better position is just a draw.  There are no simple rules to follow, only judgement and experience.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I agree with Ywapom that going over great endgames is a wonderful way to see the patterns and get an idea of what to try.  I also agree that Karpov and Capablanca are good choices, they play very clear, the moves often look so simple.  Have fun with the masters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17425" LastActivityDate="2018-12-04T21:38:19.500" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23143" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23130" CreationDate="2018-12-05T01:09:52.377" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is no doubt that the value of a piece depends on where it is on the board, but the difference between b1 and g1 or between c1 and f1 is going to be very small and probably not worth worrying about for human players. (Position-dependent piece values are much more sensitive to the rank and centrality of the square, neither of which change in this case.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One way to try to measure this would be to ask the all-wise Stockfish. :-) What does it say if you remove one of these pieces? Here's what I got using the Lichess analysis board to default depth (these are the evaluation scores after removing the white piece):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Queen's knight: -3.8&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;King's knight: -3.6&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Queen's bishop: -4.7&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;King's bishop: -4.8&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So if we are to believe Stockfish, the queen's knight is worth 0.2 more, and the King's bishop is worth 0.1 more than their counterparts. Seems like a relatively small difference to me, and it is probably dependent on depth. Still, for whatever it is worth, the small differences at least went in the same direction as your hypothesis!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12523" LastActivityDate="2018-12-05T01:09:52.377" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23144" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23135" CreationDate="2018-12-05T01:21:52.713" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;What you are looking for is called the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Branching_factor&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;branching factor&lt;/a&gt;, and I've always seen the number &lt;strong&gt;35&lt;/strong&gt; mentioned, but I don't know what the original source is. I guess someone estimated it some 50 years ago by counting the number of moves in a number of random positions from games, and then it became &quot;common knowledge&quot;. The number 35 is reasonable enough in practice, but of course is not exact.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In today's age of big data, it should be easy to take a game database and answer the question of what is the exact average number of moves per position in the database. I'm sure someone must have tried that already, but I haven't seen it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12523" LastActivityDate="2018-12-05T01:21:52.713" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23146" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-12-05T07:04:31.837" Score="10" ViewCount="1343" Body="&lt;p&gt;A &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/training/74754&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;LiChess.org puzzle&lt;/a&gt; ends at this position with white to move.  Apparently, black has a win here, but running through moves with LiChess's Stockfish, I can't seem to figure out how to end the checks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;1K6/PPPq2PP/5P2/3p4/1p2Q3/7p/8/k2r4 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Can black end the checks and win?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe there's a humanly understandable reason that the checks don't end.  Or maybe the web version of Stockfish is not looking deep enough.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2785" LastActivityDate="2018-12-05T15:57:38.413" Title="A rook up, can black end the checks and thereby win (LiChess.org puzzle 74754)?" Tags="&lt;perpetual&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23147" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23146" CreationDate="2018-12-05T07:58:08.263" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Looks like you are correct with your second assumption - the evaluation didn't (cannot) look deep enough. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's a classic application of the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horizon_effect&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;horizon effect&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The white queen essentially has half of the chessboard at her disposal to give checks, while the black king has no shelter (the single rook is not enough (but moving it every now and then will reset the 3-fold-repetition countdown) and the black queen is cut off) but a lot of space to run around. The pawn on g5 will fall with check at some point and reset the 50-move countdown, too. The number of lines increases exponentially and since none of them actually changes anything significant about the position, Stockfish cannot efficiently prune any of them. Thus the search tree grows too large to process even for a modern engine on presumably good hardware.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS: I've tried and removed the white pawns and the black pawn on g5 who look insignificant to the perpetual at first glance to reduce the number of chessmen to 7 - low enough to use Lichess' tablebase. And indeed, that position is won for black. However, this is meaningless as both sides will quickly play moves that are impossible in the puzzle position, e.g. the white queen will move to a1 and the black king will run towards e3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13433" LastEditorUserId="13433" LastEditDate="2018-12-05T09:42:20.617" LastActivityDate="2018-12-05T09:42:20.617" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23148" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23146" CreationDate="2018-12-05T11:06:50.100" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;My feeling is that since black has mate in 1 threat, he can leave the rook undefended and march the K to go behind white's a/b/c pawns and end the checks. How exactly to get there I'm not sure, but I think white can't always keep d3 defended while giving checks non-stop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: After trying half hour against my phone, I now agree with the comments and other answers that such a plan is not possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7002" LastEditorUserId="7002" LastEditDate="2018-12-05T15:57:38.413" LastActivityDate="2018-12-05T15:57:38.413" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23149" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23146" CreationDate="2018-12-05T13:10:37.320" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;At first I thought that the black king could hide on h5, but then I realized that I had made a fatal mistake for white in my analysis. With this mistake corrected, it is clear that black's king cannot hide on h5 without allowing a capture on e8 with check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;   [FEN &quot;4r2k/8/p7/3Q2p1/4p3/2P5/PP2qPPP/6K1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;  1.Qd4+ Kh7 2.Qd7 Kh6 3.Qc6+! Kg7 4.Qd7+! Kf6 5.Qd6+ (4.Qc7?? Kg8!)(3.Qd6+?? Kh5 {White is out of checks, and under the threat of mate on e1. It is, however, not game over just yet.} 4.h3 (4.g3 Qg4! {shuts down white's play completely.}) Qe1+ 5.Kh2 Qxf2 6.Qd7!? {Trying to set up a little trap.} Rh8 (6...Qf8?? 7.Qh7+ Qh6 8.g4+! {and now white is winning.}) 7.Qg7 (7.Qg4 Kg6 8. Qxe4+ Qf5 9.Qe6+ Qf6 10.Qe4+ Kh6! {White is out of checks, and black is winning.})( 7.g4+ Kg6! 8.Qe6+ Qf6 9.Qxe4+ Kh6 {and black's king is safe. Game over.}) Qf8)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The final position seems like a draw to me, since black cannot really escape the queen checks by any other means than by getting the king to c2. But this seems impossible, since that requires black's king to cross the d-file at some point, which white will be able to prevent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: I realized that my initial line was incorrect, and that white shouldn't just check along the d-file.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8300" LastEditorUserId="8300" LastEditDate="2018-12-05T13:58:50.070" LastActivityDate="2018-12-05T13:58:50.070" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23150" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23151" CreationDate="2018-12-05T15:45:20.530" Score="0" ViewCount="197" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have a PC, an AMD RYZEN 7 2700 with minimal graphic card and 8 GB RAM. It has 8 cores and 16 threads. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If a chess engine is programmed well will it be able to calculate to a depth of 125  in 15 seconds? My question to the forum is is it scientifically possible? Please share your thoughts. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17688" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2018-12-05T17:39:49.407" LastActivityDate="2018-12-05T17:39:49.407" Title="Can my pc calculate to depth 125 in 15 seconds, if a chess engine is programmed well?" Tags="&lt;computer-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23151" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23150" CreationDate="2018-12-05T16:06:46.640" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sure it could, if you do a lot of pruning and consider only one or few branches. However it would likely not be a very strong engine, because it would miss lots of relevant sidelines/variations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Longer answer:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &quot;depth&quot; you see in engines does not mean, that the engine calculates all variations to that depth. This would be practically impossible because of the huge number of variations: After just 1 white and 1 black move you  already have 20*20=400 different games. With every move that you look ahead this number increases by a factor that is on average around 35.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because of that, engines are (just like humans) only considering what they think are the relevant lines, by ignoring all other moves. This is called &quot;pruning&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you do this pruning very heavily you can end up with an engine that can look very deep. However it would look in a very narrow range, considering only one line or so. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It would miss lots of moves/lines and be very weak.  Roughly speaking you could say that engines are doing a compromise between depth, width (number of variations) and allocated time in order to optimize for playing strength.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2018-12-05T16:06:46.640" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23152" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23150" CreationDate="2018-12-05T16:12:15.920" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;To complement the answer by user1583209, I would point towards the supercomputer &lt;a href=&quot;http://analysis.sesse.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Sesse&lt;/a&gt;. In normal positions, I've never seen it even come close to reaching a depth of 125. A more typical depth reached from what I've seen would be something like 40, i.e. very far off from 125. In the case of a home PC (even with Ryzen 2700), you likely won't even come close to 40 within the allocated 15 seconds. Therefore, assuming that your engine is actually half-decent and isn't instantly pruning almost every single variation, I'd say 25 is much more realistic than 125.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17713" LastActivityDate="2018-12-05T16:12:15.920" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23153" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8608" CreationDate="2018-12-05T18:21:35.843" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;You could try this free service: &lt;a href=&quot;https://swisssystem.org/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://swisssystem.org/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It’s simple and easy to use. It works fine on mobile devices. The maximum player count is 200.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17213" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-11-19T14:55:28.183" LastActivityDate="2019-11-19T14:55:28.183" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23155" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23386" CreationDate="2018-12-06T15:30:01.260" Score="2" ViewCount="1355" Body="&lt;p&gt;By looking at the uci option file of Stockfish 10 I found this line:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;o[&quot;nodestime&quot;]             &amp;lt;&amp;lt; Option(0, 0, 10000);&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How exactly does one use nodestime?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4127" LastActivityDate="2019-01-02T11:01:10.807" Title="How to use nodestime option in Stockfish 10?" Tags="&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;time-control&gt;&lt;time-management&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23157" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7821" CreationDate="2018-12-06T21:59:16.370" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the human will struggle to score just 1 point.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Engine elos are not even compariable human elos. I estimate the strongest engines are already over 1000 elo points stronger than humans like in go, and the engines in chess are much more refined. I think currently chess engines are a full rook stronger than the top humans.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Engines in go are not even refined as well as chess engines and they can beat pros with 4 stone handicap, which is basically a rook in chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4393" LastActivityDate="2018-12-06T21:59:16.370" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23158" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23122" CreationDate="2018-12-07T00:56:30.550" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'll add a few points to the answers already given:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If both sides exchanged all their pawns, the game is a draw, because R+B vs. R+B is a draw. In fact &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rook_and_bishop_versus_rook_endgame&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;R+B vs. R is a draw&lt;/a&gt; . Think about this for a moment: it means that if either side can exchange their bishop for all three of the other side's pawns, they're the only side that can win (since they can still theoretically promote a pawn while the opponent will never be able to checkmate them).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Obviously from that position, for either side to win, they must push their pawns to promotion. But there are no passed pawns. What's likely to happen after the pawn pushes is that the pawns are going to be exchanged.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Neither side has a material advantage.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can imagine what's likely to happen if both players had played on. Because of #2, pawns will be pushed and likely exchanged. Because of #3, there's a good chance all the pawns are exchanged. If either side is to have any hope of winning, it needs to be able to win a pawn for nothing. But even if that happens, some pawns are still likely to have been exchanged, leaving a R+B+P vs. R+B scenario ... and then the side with the R+B can just sacrifice the Bishop for the pawn and the game is drawn by #1.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastActivityDate="2018-12-07T00:56:30.550" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23160" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-12-07T05:48:58.663" Score="0" ViewCount="98" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think that classic chess and rapid chess are two quite different kinds of sport. The classic chess title was undecided this year 2018.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why not use the armageddon rule, that black wins if tied in exchange for a white time advantage, in a classic format? Say for example normal classic time rules for white, but in total only 100 minutes with no increment per move and no additional time after move 40 for black. Could something like that be fair or is it too easy for black to force a drawing position during the first 40 moves? Is armageddon all about blunders under time pressure?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13829" LastActivityDate="2018-12-07T10:57:23.617" Title="Would a classic full time armageddon tiebreaker be balanced?" Tags="&lt;draw&gt;&lt;time-control&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23161" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23160" CreationDate="2018-12-07T07:18:34.960" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;That wouldn't make any sense. In a long game between two 2800+ players, a draw is always very likely. Carlsen and Caruana understand exactly how to steer a game to a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Whoever gets Black would have a winning advantage before the game even started.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2018-12-07T10:57:23.617" LastActivityDate="2018-12-07T10:57:23.617" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23162" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7821" CreationDate="2018-12-07T08:18:41.340" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;No.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess computers are now fantastically strong. To put things in perspective:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In 2006, then undisputed world champion Kramnik lost a match against Deep Fritz.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Four years later, in 2010, Deep Fritz had been further developed into Deep Rybka 4. If you look at &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fritz_%28chess%29#History&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia's page on Fritz&lt;/a&gt;, Deep Fritz was over a hundred elo weaker than Deep Rybka 3, and Deep Rybka 4 improved even further.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In February this year, &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NaQ1gzX_gNo&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Stockfish 9 had improved to the point where it was able to crush Deep Rybka 4&lt;/a&gt; with a score of 10-0 in a 10-game match.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The latest version of Stockfish is itself &lt;a href=&quot;https://nextchessmove.com/dev-builds&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;~50 elo stronger than Stockfish 9&lt;/a&gt;. To put it in game terms, Alphazero's score vs. Stockfish 8, +155 -6 =839, was an elo difference of about 50.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In other words, Stockfish 10 crushes Stockfish 9 crushes Deep Rybka 4 crushes Deep Fritz which beat Kramnik. There's only one conclusion from this. Realistically, humans have no chance, and would be lucky to even draw a game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastActivityDate="2018-12-07T08:18:41.340" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23163" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23164" CreationDate="2018-12-07T14:34:03.250" Score="5" ViewCount="456" Body="&lt;p&gt;Ok, I'm looking at &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1011478&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Kasparov's Immortal&lt;/a&gt; to try to improve my own. I'm &amp;quot;mediocre&amp;quot; at best, but I enjoy a good game of chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At the end of the 9th move by both players, Kasparov has his queen on Qh6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, I'm what would be called a &amp;quot;beginning&amp;quot; chess player, in that I like the game, but I'm not that good at it, even though I have been playing (though not professionally or really competitively) for years.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But my question is as follows: For Kasparov's 10th move, he moves a3. What would have been the ramifications of him making the move Qg7? It seems to me like that would set up a good capturing opportunity, or at least cause Topalov to move the rook to a different protective position, like Rf8.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Event &amp;quot;Hoogovens Group A&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Site &amp;quot;Wijk aan Zee NED&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Date &amp;quot;1999.01.20&amp;quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &amp;quot;1999.01.16&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Round &amp;quot;4&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Result &amp;quot;1-0&amp;quot;]&#xA;[White &amp;quot;Garry Kasparov&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Black &amp;quot;Veselin Topalov&amp;quot;]&#xA;[ECO &amp;quot;B07&amp;quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &amp;quot;2812&amp;quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &amp;quot;2700&amp;quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &amp;quot;87&amp;quot;]&#xA;[startply &amp;quot;19&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 d6 2. d4 Nf6 3. Nc3 g6 4. Be3 Bg7 5. Qd2 c6 6. f3 b5 7. Nge2 Nbd7 8. Bh6 Bxh6 9. Qxh6 Bb7 10. a3 (10. Qg7?) e5 11. O-O-O Qe7 12. Kb1 a6 13. Nc1 O-O-O 14. Nb3 exd4 15. Rxd4 c5 16. Rd1 Nb6 17. g3 Kb8 18. Na5 Ba8 19. Bh3 d5 20. Qf4+ Ka7 21. Rhe1 d4 22. Nd5 Nbxd5 23. exd5 Qd6 24. Rxd4 cxd4 25. Re7+ Kb6 26. Qxd4+ Kxa5 27. b4+ Ka4 28. Qc3 Qxd5 29. Ra7 Bb7 30. Rxb7 Qc4 31. Qxf6 Kxa3 32. Qxa6+ Kxb4 33. c3+ Kxc3 34. Qa1+ Kd2 35. Qb2+ Kd1 36. Bf1 Rd2 37. Rd7 Rxd7 38. Bxc4 bxc4 39. Qxh8 Rd3 40. Qa8 c3 41. Qa4+ Ke1 42. f4 f5 43. Kc1 Rd2 44. Qa7 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hey, he's the grandmaster and I'm not, I'm just wondering what might have happened had he made that move instead of a3. Mainly, how the game might have unfolded, and what Topolov's counter may have been.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17997" LastEditorUserId="12031" LastEditDate="2020-11-23T11:45:04.317" LastActivityDate="2020-11-23T11:45:04.317" Title="Kasparov's Immortal: Why didn't he play 10.Qg7?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;learning&gt;&lt;kasparov&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23164" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23163" CreationDate="2018-12-07T14:55:58.400" Score="8" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What would have been the ramifications of him making the move Qg7?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That would be a really bad move. In a heartbeat his opponent would play Rg8 threatening to take the queen. The rook is protected by the knight on f6. The only move the queen has is to go back to h6 and then it is Topalov's move. All white has done is give away a tempo.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2018-12-07T14:55:58.400" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23166" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-12-07T15:10:27.760" Score="0" ViewCount="195" Body="&lt;p&gt;I play the Two Knighs Defense as Black vs. 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4, in the spirit of counterattack. What would you suggest I play as Black vs. the Ruy Lopez?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastEditorUserId="8291" LastEditDate="2018-12-07T18:15:01.200" LastActivityDate="2018-12-07T18:54:12.383" Title="What would you suggest I play vs. the Ruy Lopez, if I already play the Two Knights Defense vs. 3. Bc4?" Tags="&lt;ruy-lopez&gt;&lt;two-knights&gt;&lt;open-games&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23167" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23170" CreationDate="2018-12-07T15:50:41.123" Score="6" ViewCount="831" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recently played a chess game whose link is:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/pCFw1h2w/black#5&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://lichess.org/pCFw1h2w/black#5&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After running a computer analysis, I found that in this position:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/XzLNx.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/XzLNx.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know that even though Stockfish does not tell me so, up to the 9th move,  I made several small inaccuracies among which the 6th move ( 6. ...Bg6) which I think was worse than 6. ...Bh7.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now here is where my question arises.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the 8th move I did not play 8. ...Ne7 yet because I thought that then White would play g5 and the great square f5 for my knight would be off-limits. So I played 8. ...Nd7 first without committing to anything yet.&#xA;Now on the ninth move I would like to move my knight to e7 (with the idea I mentioned before). So what I played was 9. ...h5 in order to prevent g4 from White. However, Stockfish says h5 is not a good move. Why?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I an unable to understand why according to Stockfish I could directly play 9. ... Ne7 and White's expected answer 10. g4 is marked as a mistake, which I cannot explain. The line which is given for Black does not provide a good square for Black's knight on e7 (which remains stuck there) and yet Black has an advantage. Why?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16771" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2018-12-07T15:56:44.723" LastActivityDate="2019-12-14T22:00:18.967" Title="Question about the move h5" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;computer-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23168" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23169" CreationDate="2018-12-07T16:18:18.543" Score="0" ViewCount="211" Body="&lt;p&gt;Ok, here's a game that I won. I was playing vs someone on chess.com, and playing as black. My PGN is as follows (with comments from the analysis engine):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. d4 e5 2. Nf3 {MISTAKE (-0.26) The best move was 2. dxe5}&#xA;(2. dxe5)&#xA;2... Nc6 {MISTAKE (+1.33) The best move was 2... e4}&#xA;(2... e4 3. Nfd2 Nf6 4. c4 c6 5. e3 d5 6. Be2 Be6 7. Nc3)&#xA;3. Nc3&#xA;3... Bb4 {INACCURACY (+0.98) A better move was 3... exd4}&#xA;(3... exd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. g3 Bb4 6. Bg2 O-O 7. O-O d5 8. Nxc6)&#xA;4. dxe5 Nxe5 {MISTAKE (+3.60) The best move was 4... d5}&#xA;(4... d5)&#xA;5. Nxe5 Bd6 6. Nd3 Nf6 7. e3 b6 8. Qf3 Rb8 9. Qe4+ {BLUNDER (-4.53) From winning to losing. The best move was 9. Nb5}&#xA;(9. Nb5)&#xA;9... Nxe4 10. Nxe4 Qe7 11. Nxd6+ cxd6 12. f3 Qh4+ 13. Nf2 Qb4+ 14. c3 Qc5 15. Nd3 Qd5 16. e4 Qc4 {INACCURACY (-1.22) A better move was 16... Qe6}&#xA;(16... Qe6 17. Nf4)&#xA;17. Nf2 {INACCURACY (-2.60) A better move was 17. Nb4}&#xA;(17. Nb4 Qe6 18. Bf4 f5 19. Nd5 Qg6 20. exf5 Qxf5 21. O-O-O Bb7)&#xA;17... Qc6 {INACCURACY (-1.56) A better move was 17... Qe6}&#xA;(17... Qe6)&#xA;18. Nd3 {INACCURACY (-2.60) A better move was 18. Bf4}&#xA;(18. Bf4 b5 19. Rd1 Rb6 20. Bxd6 Qb7 21. Rd5 b4 22. Bd3 bxc3)&#xA;18... O-O 19. Nf4 {INACCURACY (-3.83) A better move was 19. Nb4}&#xA;(19. Nb4)&#xA;19... Re8 20. Bc4 {MISTAKE (-7.39) The best move was 20. Kf2}&#xA;(20. Kf2 f5)&#xA;20... d5 {BLUNDER (-2.20) The best move was 20... Qxc4}&#xA;(20... Qxc4)&#xA;21. Bxd5 Qc5 22. Bb3 d5 {MISTAKE (-0.87) The best move was 22... Bb7}&#xA;(22... Bb7 23. Nd3)&#xA;23. Bxd5 {MISTAKE (-3.69) The best move was 23. Nxd5}&#xA;(23. Nxd5 Be6 24. Be3 Qc6 25. O-O f5 26. Rad1 fxe4 27. fxe4 Rb7)&#xA;23... Bb7 24. Bd2 {INACCURACY (-6.92) A better move was 24. Bxb7}&#xA;(24. Bxb7)&#xA;24... Bxd5 25. Nxd5 Rbd8 {BLUNDER (-1.94) The best move was 25... Qxd5}&#xA;(25... Qxd5 26. Rd1 Qxa2 27. Bf4 Rbc8 28. Bc1 f5 29. O-O fxe4 30. f4)&#xA;26. O-O-O Rxd5 {INACCURACY (-1.14) A better move was 26... Qc4}&#xA;(26... Qc4 27. a3 f5 28. Ne3 Qa2 29. Nxf5 Rxd2 30. Kxd2 Qxb2+ 31. Ke3)&#xA;27. exd5 Qxd5 28. Be3 {INACCURACY (-2.55) A better move was 28. Rhe1}&#xA;(28. Rhe1)&#xA;28... Qxa2 29. Bf2 {MISTAKE (-6.58) The best move was 29. Rhe1}&#xA;(29. Rhe1 f6)&#xA;29... Re2 {BLUNDER (♔ MATE IN 2) From winning to losing. The best move was 29... Qa1+}&#xA;(29... Qa1+ 30. Kc2 Re2+ 31. Kd3 Qxb2 32. Bg3 Rxg2 33. Rhe1 Qc2+ 34. Kd4)&#xA;30. Rhe1 {BLUNDER (♚ MATE IN 1) From winning to losing. The best move was 30. Rd8+}&#xA;(30. Rd8+ Re8 31. Rxe8#)&#xA;30... Qa1#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And here are the &quot;stats&quot; from the game:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Strength    White   Black&#xA;Excellent   18  15&#xA;Good    1   5&#xA;Inaccuracy (?!) 5   4&#xA;Mistake (?) 4   3&#xA;Blunder (??)    2   3&#xA;Forced  0   0&#xA;Best Move   32.1%   26.7%&#xA;Avg. Diff   1.39    1.21&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The analysis engine tells me what the mistake was, and what the best move was, but not really &quot;why&quot;. I'm more interested in the mistakes and blunders at this point.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm really just trying to learn right now...any thoughts or advice are really appreciated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17997" LastEditorUserId="12377" LastEditDate="2018-12-07T23:16:04.923" LastActivityDate="2018-12-07T23:16:04.923" Title="Explanation of my game. Can someone explain the &quot;why&quot; to me?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23169" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23168" CreationDate="2018-12-07T17:01:09.980" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a game between beginners. Nothing wrong with that, but there is not much point at this level giving a very deep explanation as to the &quot;why&quot;. Both players should pay more attention to &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;not blunder pieces in one move&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;not miss mate in one move&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Concretely: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;From move 1 to move 4 a pawn was hanging on e5. White could/should have taken it earlier and black should not have allowed that (not move it there in the first place and later prevent it from being lost by either moving it away playing e4 or by capturing exd4.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;ol start=&quot;4&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;...Nxe5 is a big mistake as it just drops a piece. Always check and double check if your pieces are attacked.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;ol start=&quot;9&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Qe4 just drops the queen. As above with every move you make, check whether your opponent can capture something (particularly if it is your strongest piece...)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;ol start=&quot;20&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Bc4 is another big mistake as it drops the bishop. Black should have responded with 20...Qxc4 winning a full piece for nothing.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;22....d5 is a mistake because it drops a pawn.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;24 Bd2 is a big mistake as it drops another piece. Admittedly this is a bit more tricky to see. Basically the bishop on d5 is protected only once by the knight on f4, because the pawn on e4 is pinned to the king, so you cannot recapture e4xd5. Black could have played 24...Bxd5 25 Nxd5 Qxd5 winning a piece.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;ol start=&quot;29&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Bf2 is a mistake because after 29...Qa1+ black will eventually win the pawn on b2 and the white king will be without protection in the middle of the board. For instance 29...Qa1+ 30. Kc2 Re2+ 31. Kd3 Qxb2 etc. A better move would have been 29. Rhe1 which prevents the black rook from entering with check via e2. Admittedly at your current level, this is not a big oversight unlike the other mistakes and I would not yet worry about it.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;29....Re2 is a terrible mistake because it would lose to &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Back-rank_checkmate&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;back-rank mate&lt;/a&gt; after Rd8+. &lt;em&gt;Back rank mate&lt;/em&gt; is an extremely common tactics and you have to be aware of it at all times. You need to have the typical position (=three pawns in front of castled king and opponent queen or rook) ingrained subconsciously in your chess brain.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So in summary: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pay more attention to hanging pieces (both yours and your opponent's and learn some basic tactics.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2018-12-07T17:01:09.980" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23170" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23167" CreationDate="2018-12-07T17:17:22.413" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;f5 is a decent square for your knight, but it is not doing all that much from there either. Ok, it is attacking d4, but that pawn is overprotected by knight and queen, so nothing to worry about for white.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am not a Caro-Kann player, but I believe a much more natural plan is trying to push c5 exchanging the d4 pawn after which the pawn on e5 gets weak.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even if you get in Nf5 first, I don't see how you would proceed without playing c5 as black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Regarding the move h5. Yes it does prevent g4 for the moment, but it also weakens the square g5, which can be occupied by white knight and bishop. For instance after h5 castling short is almost impossible for black, because after white Ng5, Qh7 mate is very difficult to prevent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After Ne7, immediate g4 is not good, because &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;it weakens the white king&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;it only prevents Nf5 which is not all that dangerous anyway (see above)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;if you want to prevent the black knight from occupying the square f5, you could just wait until black moves Nf5, then play g4 and you would gain a tempo, because the knight would have to retreat to e7.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2018-12-07T17:17:22.413" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23171" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23167" CreationDate="2018-12-07T18:49:58.680" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;h5 is a horrible move, weakens your dark squares and gives white control of g5 for no reason.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not sure why you are afraid of bad moves. After ne7 g4 does absolutely nothing except weakens white's position severely.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your knight shouldn't be on f5 in this position. After c5 white cannot recapture d4 with his c pawn so his e5 pawn will be under fire and the only way to protect that with a pawn is f4 which is not great due to him already weakening his king side position with h3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a general rule of thumb you shouldn't be making weakening pawn moves without a clear purpose. You especially shouldn't be making weakening pawn moves where you plan to castle your king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4393" LastActivityDate="2018-12-07T18:49:58.680" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23172" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23166" CreationDate="2018-12-07T18:54:12.383" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's a simple reason for which 3...a6 and 3...Nf6 are by far the most common replies to the Ruy Lopez: they're the most solid for black. It's very hard to force white into playing something dynamic without comprimising your own position. Of course, you can try something like the Schliemann Defence with 3...f5, though objectively this is dubious for black. However, assuming you aren't playing against titled players, it can still be worth trying if you have good preparation and if you trust that your tactical ability is better than your opponent's. Another option instead of the Schliemann is the so-called &quot;Siesta variation&quot;, which features a similar f5 pawn break, though black scores better here than in the Schliemann.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5&#xA;2. Nf3 Nc6&#xA;3. Bb5 a6&#xA;4. Ba4 d6&#xA;5. c3 f5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This leads to very dynamic play. GM Laurent Fressinet used this in 3 different games at the World Blitz Championship 2017 against other GMs, and won all 3 of them. GM Valeri Yanderimov also has many games in this variation, with mixed results.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Alternatively, if you want something different, you can always try the Cozio defense, both the standard and the deferred variations. This is more solid, though players at lower levels are less likely to be prepared in this opening, and the resulting positions can be surprisingly dynamic with potential pawn storms and black having a strong bishop on g7. &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/9650/should-i-play-the-cozio-defense-deferred&quot;&gt;The answer to this question&lt;/a&gt; provides good insight into the differences between the direct and deferred versions. Of course, the dynamic character of the Cozio depends largely on what white decides to play, and thus you still have to be ready for more quiet or more drawish positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17713" LastActivityDate="2018-12-07T18:54:12.383" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23173" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-12-07T21:16:54.840" Score="0" ViewCount="136" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is one variation from Bird's Opening:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;f4 e5 2. e4 exf4 3. Nf3 d6 4. d4 g5 5. h4 g4  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;  [FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/ppp2p1p/3p4/8/3PPppP/5N2/PPP3P1/RNBQKB1R w KQkq - 0 6&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;The most popular move is Ng1 instead of Ng5. Am wondering why retreating the knight is a good idea. Doesn't this move violate some opening principles in developing your pieces? After white retreats the knight, he has only three pawns developed while black can continue with Bh6, developing the bishop whilst supporting the f4 pawn. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16626" LastEditorUserId="16626" LastEditDate="2018-12-07T21:42:56.623" LastActivityDate="2018-12-07T22:06:52.867" Title="Why white retreats the knight at the beginning of the game?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;kings-gambit&gt;&lt;birds-opening&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23174" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23173" CreationDate="2018-12-07T21:32:59.607" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The opening is called King's Gambit and is usually reached with a slightly different move order after 1.e4 e5 2.f4....&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It used to be popular a long time ago (100+ years) for its potential of wild games, but is probably slightly incorrect and not a good choice if your opponent knows what to do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Arguing with general opening principals is not really meaningful here, because the opening is very concrete/tactical. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After your suggested Ng5 for instance you'd have to be prepared for f6 after which the knight is attacked and will be lost due to lack of retreating squares. White would get 2 pawns for the knight, but that won't be enough.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Retreating the knight, while not ideal, is a better option.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2018-12-07T21:32:59.607" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23175" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23173" CreationDate="2018-12-07T22:06:52.867" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Ng5 loses a piece. Nh2 is awful after h5. Nd2 blocks your bishop and it has nowhere to go on the k side to defend.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So pretty much Ng1 looks like the best move here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4393" LastActivityDate="2018-12-07T22:06:52.867" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23176" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-12-07T22:07:55.773" Score="0" ViewCount="281" Body="&lt;p&gt;Am wondering if there is a definition of a countergambit. My understanding is, a countergambit happens when one side plays a gambit, instead of capturing the pawn, the other side also sacrifices a pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is my description accurate? Is the following line considered as a counter gambit?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;f4 e5 2. e4&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The move e5 is called From's gambit. Instead of capturing the pawn, white develops his king pawn, offering his f4 pawn. Is this considered as a countergambit? (Under a different move order 1. e4 e5 2. f4 it is called king's gambit.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16626" LastActivityDate="2018-12-08T07:07:28.490" Title="How to define a countergambit?" Tags="&lt;gambits&gt;&lt;kings-gambit&gt;&lt;birds-opening&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23177" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23269" CreationDate="2018-12-08T03:20:45.393" Score="2" ViewCount="309" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was reading  &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chesscafe.com/text/bust.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;A Bust to the King's Gambit&lt;/a&gt; by Bobby Fischer. The game starts with &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1 P-K4 P-K4 2 P-KB4 PxP 3 N-KB3&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;  [FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppp1ppp/8/8/4Pp2/5N2/PPPP2PP/RNBQKB1R b KQkq - 0 3&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bobby Fisher commented that&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;the move I played 3...P-KN4 against Spassky, but this is inexact&#xA;  because it gives White drawing chances in the ensuing ending: e.g., 4&#xA;  P-KR4 P-N5 5 N-K5 N-KB3 6 P-Q4 P-Q3 7 N-Q3 NxP 8 BxP B-N2  and now 9&#xA;  P-B3! (replacing Spassky ’s 9 N-B3) 9...Q-K2 10 Q-K2 B-B4  11 N-Q2&#xA;  leads to an ending where Black’s extra Pawn is neutralized by  White’s&#xA;  stranglehold on the dark squares, especially KB4.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems that the move 3...P-KN4 is still played frequently even today (even more popular than Fisher's recommended move P-Q3). So does this mean that Fisher's conclusion that &quot;3...P-KN4 ... is inexact&quot; inexact?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16626" LastEditorUserId="16626" LastEditDate="2018-12-08T03:31:58.453" LastActivityDate="2019-01-17T18:03:20.647" Title="In King's gambit, is Fisher's conclusion that &quot;3...P-KN4 ... is inexact&quot; inexact?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;kings-gambit&gt;&lt;fischer&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23178" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23176" CreationDate="2018-12-08T07:07:28.490" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You're right: a counter-gambit is an opening in which one side plays a gambit, and the other side rejects the gambit with another gambit (i.e. &quot;gambits&quot; the gambit). A popular counter-gambit is the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albin_Countergambit&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Albin Countergambit&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. c4 e5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Under a different move order 1.e4 e5 2.f4 it is called King's gambit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/analysis-board-editor?diagram_id=4818924&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;This is also a King's gambit&lt;/a&gt; but due to the order it is also cosidered a countergambit&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. f4 e5 2. e4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13544" LastActivityDate="2018-12-08T07:07:28.490" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23179" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23183" CreationDate="2018-12-08T13:23:07.523" Score="9" ViewCount="458" Body="&lt;p&gt;Am wondering if it is possible for a move to be considered &quot;good&quot; by engines but is rejected by professional human players. One possible reason that I can think of is that the in order for this move to be successful, one has to play exactly right for the next 20 moves or so, which is easy for engines but difficult for human players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16626" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2018-12-08T13:51:59.230" LastActivityDate="2019-01-15T12:40:52.167" Title="Is it possible for a move to be recomended by engines but rejected by professional human players?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;human-versus-machine&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23180" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23179" CreationDate="2018-12-08T13:51:27.123" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well... absolutely possible and common. Magnus Carlsen himself said &lt;em&gt;&quot;I don't care&quot;&lt;/em&gt; on his very positive position in the last game of the 2018 WCC match. Did he offer a draw in a position that a chess engine can very likely to win?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Engine might play stronger chess, but if we don't understand how to do it, it's pointless. Sometimes we don't always make the best objective move. Carlsen did it to his last game. Kramnik tried several unsound openings this year.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2018-12-08T13:51:27.123" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23181" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-12-08T14:11:27.147" Score="5" ViewCount="3315" Body="&lt;p&gt;Alpha Zero defeated Stockfish after &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AlphaZero&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;only 9 hours&lt;/a&gt; of self-play. On the other hand, Lc0, has been training for &lt;a href=&quot;http://blog.lczero.org/2018/09/guide-setting-up-leela-on-chess-gui.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;several months&lt;/a&gt; and while attaining impressive strength (to say the least...) it's still not crushing Stockfish. What can be the reason for such a dramatic difference in learning efficiency?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12953" LastEditorUserId="15223" LastEditDate="2019-01-14T11:29:29.457" LastActivityDate="2019-01-14T11:29:29.457" Title="Alpha Zero vs Lc0 - time for self-play" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;alphazero&gt;&lt;leela&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23182" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23179" CreationDate="2018-12-08T15:17:07.810" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, it is very much possible and this is the very reason different openings exist!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;1 e4 as White is suggested by almost all engines. However, some GM's and WC feel that e4 is too committal.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Sicilian is almost never recommended by engines, whereas lot of GM's and WC's think that is the best way to equalize for Black. Engines usually suggest 1...e5 or 1...e6&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Engine evaluation of KID may not always be understable to humans. See here: &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.chessbase.com/post/review-mihail-marin-winning-with-the-kings-indian&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.chessbase.com/post/review-mihail-marin-winning-with-the-kings-indian&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16311" LastEditorUserId="16311" LastEditDate="2018-12-08T15:55:49.150" LastActivityDate="2018-12-08T15:55:49.150" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23183" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23179" CreationDate="2018-12-08T15:21:16.460" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;I see three situations, where something like you describe could happen:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;wild tactical positions with open king, where moves have to be very precise and many humans might be too scared to enter such position&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Many composed studies feature surprising moves that could be rejected by humans. For instance studies in which you give up all your material except for say a bishop with which you mate somehow. In most positions you can't win with a bishop only, so lines leading to such positions would not be considered usually.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;some of the more tricky endgames feature very unnatural/inhuman moves that would be rejected by human players. One example are the computer lines after move 67 in game 6 of the last WC match Carlsen-Caruana. &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess24.com/en/read/news/carlsen-caruana-6-fabi-close-in-80-move-thriller&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Some quotes&lt;/a&gt; regarding the winning lines suggested by computers: &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Svidler:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Even when I saw what the machine suggested was winning there I honestly don't think it was humanly possible to find it on the 10 minutes that Fabi had, and it's incredibly weird how the position is conceptually lost after Kg6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Kasparov:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The computer shows Black wins with 68..Bh4 here. But had Caruana played the incredible 69.Bd5 Ne2 70.Bf3 Ng1!! they would request metal detectors immediately! No human can willingly trap his own knight like that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Svidler:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A move that a human is more or less incapable of making&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Grischuk:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I would never even dream about Bh4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Carlsen:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I’m not going to disagree with the computer, I just don’t understand it!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2018-12-08T15:21:16.460" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23184" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23179" CreationDate="2018-12-08T21:38:37.003" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would say definately yes. One example is the situation of a fortress. Even though one side is up in material the position is not winable. The engines can figure out that the fortress will not break in 10, 20 or whatever moves ahead but cannot figure out that it can &lt;strong&gt;never&lt;/strong&gt; break! Then the evaluation function is obviously off and the suggested move is also off. Only a relatively strong human player can assert that it's a dead draw and reject the move and the line that follows.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16163" LastActivityDate="2018-12-08T21:38:37.003" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23185" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23189" CreationDate="2018-12-08T22:43:53.457" Score="6" ViewCount="731" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is this position a draw?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. Nf3 Nf6 2. Ng1 Ng8 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. Ng1 Ng8&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't mean to ask the age-old question &quot;Is chess a draw?&quot;; four moves have been played here, returning to the starting position. Since the start position has appeared three times, it seems that white can claim a draw by threefold repetition. However, lichess does not permit this claim, which got me thinking that perhaps there is a subtlety to the rules.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;FIDE says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;9.2&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  The game is drawn, upon a correct claim by a player having the move, when the same position for at least the third time (not necessarily by a repetition of moves):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;a. is about to appear, if he first writes his move, which cannot be changed, &#xA;  on his scoresheet and declares to the arbiter his intention to make this move, or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;b. has just appeared, and the player claiming the draw has the move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Positions are considered the same if and only if the same player has the move, pieces of the same kind and colour occupy the same squares and the possible moves of all the pieces of both players are the same. Thus positions are not the same if:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;at the start of the sequence a pawn could have been captured en passant.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;a king or rook had castling rights, but forfeited these after moving. The castling rights are lost only after the king or rook is moved.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems that white clearly has the ability to claim a draw by 9.2.a, since 5. Nf3 would definitely repeat the position after 1. Nf3. But my question is really whether 9.2.b applies for white (or perhaps equivalently whether black can claim the draw on move 4 via 9.2.a): Did the starting position &quot;occur&quot; before 1. Ng3? Or does it somehow not count? Are the rules ambiguous?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Obviously this is a silly game, but this kind of &quot;Fool's Draw&quot; might occur in practice when both players want a draw but are not allowed a normal offer (e.g. FIDE world championship 3.8.3b &quot;The players cannot draw a game by agreement before black’s 30th move.&quot;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17633" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-09-16T21:31:23.633" LastActivityDate="2020-08-12T03:05:34.377" Title="Rules: Is this position a draw?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;draw&gt;&lt;threefold-repetition&gt;&lt;claim-draw&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23187" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23194" CreationDate="2018-12-09T03:23:36.773" Score="35" ViewCount="9041" Body="&lt;p&gt;My impression of the word &amp;quot;gambit&amp;quot; is the sacrifice of a pawn or several pawns at the opening stage of a chess game. However, based on the definition on &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gambit&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;, a gambit (from ancient Italian gambetto, meaning &amp;quot;to trip&amp;quot;) is a chess opening in which a player, more often White, sacrifices material, &lt;em&gt;usually a pawn&lt;/em&gt;, with the hope of achieving a resulting advantageous position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The phrase &amp;quot;usually a pawn&amp;quot; seems to imply that a gambit could be a sacrifice of other pieces. Am wondering what are examples of gambits that sacrifice a knight, or a bishop, or a rook, or even the queen, or a combination of these pieces?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am not talking about blunders at the opening stage that cause loss of material. I am asking about openings that stand the test of time where one side willfully sacrifices some material other than pawns to earn some advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A related question: What is the &amp;quot;biggest&amp;quot; gambit that is still being played at the master's or above level? That is, a gambit that white sacrifices a combination of biggest value of pieces and yet obtained enough advantage development and/or space; at the same time, the game is somewhat acceptable for black as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16626" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2020-09-13T00:39:50.780" Title="Are there any gambits involving sacrificing a piece?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;gambits&gt;&lt;sacrifice&gt;" AnswerCount="12" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23188" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23187" CreationDate="2018-12-09T05:26:13.100" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not sure if this is considered a gambit, but one of the lines of the Steinitz variation of the Caro Kann defense involves white sacrificing a knight:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1 &quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;IBM Man-Machine, New York USA&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;New York, NY USA&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;1997.05.??&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;6&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Deep Blue&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Garry Kasparov&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;B17&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;37&quot;]&#xA;[StartPly &quot;14&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 dxe4 4.Nxe4 Nd7 5.Ng5 Ngf6 6.Bd3 e6 7.N1f3 h6 8.Nxe6 Qe7 9.O-O fxe6 10.Bg6+ Kd8 11.Bf4 b5 12.a4 Bb7 13.Re1 Nd5 14.Bg3 Kc8 15.axb5 cxb5 16.Qd3 Bc6 17.Bf5 exf5 18.Rxe7 Bxe7 19.c4 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are only a few games involving this sacrifice, and this is due to the position requiring accurate play from white to keep the advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13544" LastActivityDate="2018-12-09T05:26:13.100" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23189" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23185" CreationDate="2018-12-09T06:24:45.523" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a better question than it seems at first glance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Intuitively it seems possible to claim a draw, since the position appears to have occurred three times.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;However,&lt;/strong&gt; according to a strict reading of the rules, the position after 4...Ng8 has appeared only for the second time. The relevant clauses are 9.2:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[...] Positions are considered the same if and only if the same player&#xA;  &lt;strong&gt;has the move&lt;/strong&gt;, [...]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and 1.1 about the start of the game:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The player with the white pieces commences the game. A player is said&#xA;  to ‘&lt;strong&gt;have the move&lt;/strong&gt;’, when his opponent’s move has been ‘made’.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the starting position, white does not &quot;have the move&quot; since black did not make a prior move, white merely commences the game. Therefore, the positions before 1. Nf3 and after 4...Ng8 are &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; the same, and a draw cannot be claimed yet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15989" LastActivityDate="2018-12-09T06:24:45.523" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23191" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23187" CreationDate="2018-12-09T10:31:41.337" Score="20" Body="&lt;p&gt;The 'Halloween Gambit' or 'Müller-Schulze Gambit' is a knight gambit in the (often characterized as dull) Four Knights Game:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Blokje&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Platypussy&quot;]&#xA;[StartPly &quot;7&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. Nxe5 Nxe5 5. d4 Nc6 6.d5 Ne5 7.f4 Ng6 8.e5 Ng8 9.Bd3 Bb4 10.O-O Bxc3 11.bxc3 d6 12.e6 fxe6 13.dxe6 Nf6 14.g4 O-O 15.g5 Ne8 16.f5 Ne5 17.Re1 Nxd3?? 18.e7 (5... Ng6 {This is the old refutation, but it's still hard to defend.} 6. e5 Ng8 7. Bc4 d5 8. Bxd5 c6)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As the famous Dutch writer Tim Krabbé &lt;a href=&quot;https://timkr.home.xs4all.nl/tour/breeze.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;phrases it&lt;/a&gt;: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;This [4. Nxe5] irritated me. I vaguely knew about this move - not as a real opening, but as some sort of a student's joke, something silly that might be played at the end of a long blitz-and-boozing session. Wasn't this the 'Irish Gambit', the one with the anecdote where they asked the inventor on his death bed how he had thought of it, and he had answered: 'I didn't see it was protected'?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even though a 'refutation' had already been published in the mid 50s, it's surprisingly hard to defend for Black, especially in blitz games. The Tim Krabbé article I linked to, though somewhat old, is a nice introduction; it features several games where IMs and GMs are beaten by a lower-rated player with this gambit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-12-09T18:14:11.657" LastActivityDate="2018-12-09T18:14:11.657" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23192" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23181" CreationDate="2018-12-09T11:20:11.020" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is happening because AlphaZero and Leela aren't playing against the same Stockfish. If you read the paper, AlphaZero beat Stockfish 8 (it also played a series against Stockfish 9 - same logic applies however). Both these versions of Stockfish are old, and &lt;a href=&quot;https://nextchessmove.com/dev-builds&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;significantly inferior to the latest version of Stockfish&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;AlphaZero beat Stockfish 8 by +155 -6 =839. That's a ~50 elo difference. On the other hand Stockfish 10 is better than Stockfish 8 by ~100 elo. Leela, playing against Stockfish Dev (which is even better than Stockfish 10 - the engine is continuously updated) and not Stockfish 8, could be as good as AlphaZero yet fail to crush Stockfish. It would crush Stockfish 8 alright, but not Stockfish Dev.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On a side note: it's not clear that AlphaZero would crush Stockfish 10 either, or vice versa, because elo isn't transitive: if A beats B by 50 elo and B beats C by 50 elo, it doesn't mean that A beats C by 100 elo.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit:&lt;/strong&gt; To illustrate, in the &lt;a href=&quot;http://legacy-tcec.chessdom.com/archive.php&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;TCEC cup semifinals&lt;/a&gt;, Leela vs. Stockfish, the version of Stockfish that played was Stockfish 270918. The last six numbers is the date - Stockfish as of the 27th of the 9th month of 2018. You can see from the link above that this version of Stockfish is roughly 100 elo stronger than Stockfish 8, so the fact that Leela performs worse against it is not a surprise.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastEditorUserId="15223" LastEditDate="2018-12-09T22:37:43.843" LastActivityDate="2018-12-09T22:37:43.843" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23193" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9312" CreationDate="2018-12-09T12:26:07.970" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you do that in a tournament, it could be construed as a conspiracy to help your opponents position in the standings, and you both would be disqualified.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18010" LastActivityDate="2018-12-09T12:26:07.970" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23194" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23187" CreationDate="2018-12-09T16:43:30.070" Score="27" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is kind of out there (virtually nobody plays it as white and even fewer allow it as black) but there is a rather crazy queen sacrifice line in the Grand Prix:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1 &quot;]&#xA;1.e4 c5 2.f4 d5 3.Nf3 dxe4 4.Ng5 Nf6 5.Bc4 Bg4!? 6.Bxf7+ Kd7 7.Qxg4+ Nxg4 8.Be6+ Kc6 9.Bxg4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5...Bg4!? by black is quite rare and combative, inviting (daring) white to initiate the festivities where 5...e6 instead is calmer. So white takes it up and sacrifices the queen for just two minors and the hope of long-term play against black's lack of development. Yes, there isn't any quick tactical win, just &lt;em&gt;long-term pressure while down a queen&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The position has occurred several times in master play (check the lichess database) but is extremely rare, and most examples not recent. It was even featured on chessgames.com many years back: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1648780&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1648780&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15989" LastActivityDate="2018-12-09T16:43:30.070" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23195" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23187" CreationDate="2018-12-09T18:20:16.543" Score="24" Body="&lt;p&gt;A commonly known knight sacrifice by white is the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_Knights_Defense,_Fried_Liver_Attack&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Fried Liver Attack&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;C57&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Nf6 4. Ng5 d5 5. exd5 Nxd5?! (5... Na5 {The main line.} 6. Bb5+ c6 7. dxc6 bxc6 {Black has compensation in form of initiative for the pawn.}) 6. Nxf7!? (6. d4 {The Lolli variation.}) Kxf7 7. Qf3+ Ke6 8. Nc3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White has a strong attack against the king in the middle of the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12023" LastActivityDate="2018-12-09T18:20:16.543" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23196" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-12-09T18:25:50.413" Score="4" ViewCount="154" Body="&lt;p&gt;Since time immemorial, some people have suggested that stalemate be declared a loss for the player who is unable to move.  This proposal is sometimes called &quot;abolishing the stalemate rule&quot; although I prefer calling it &quot;abolishing the checkmate rule&quot; (the idea is to declare that the game ends when the king is captured, and that it is legal to move into check&amp;mdash;although this way of phrasing the rule change means that a &quot;true&quot; stalemate, where a player has no legal moves even if moving into check is legal, remains a draw).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This rule change has some &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalemate#Effect_on_endgame_theory&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;obvious effects on endgame theory&lt;/a&gt;.  What I'm wondering is whether anyone has created tablebases for this variant of chess, to investigate more thoroughly how much endgame theory would be changed.  For example, does the overall draw rate of KRP vs KR, or KQP vs KQ, change noticeably?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17540" LastActivityDate="2018-12-10T00:06:17.267" Title="Tablebases for variant where stalemate is a win?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;tablebases&gt;&lt;stalemate&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23197" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23187" CreationDate="2018-12-09T20:52:39.967" Score="23" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Cochrane Gambit:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3.Nxe5 d6 4.Nxf7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is relatively sound gambit, Topalov has played it against Kramnik.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Traxler Gambit:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Nf6 4. Ng5 Bc5 5. Nxf7 Bxf2 6. Kf1 Qe7 7. Nxh8&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White does have an option of taking on &lt;code&gt;f7&lt;/code&gt; with the bishiop &lt;code&gt;5. Bxf7&lt;/code&gt; which leads to only a pawn sacrifice and less complicated position, but black does allow for a greater material sacrifice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Gambit in Ruy Lopez. I don't remember the name of this, but it is a piece sacrifice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 f5 4. d4 fxe4&#xA;5. Nxe5 Nxe5 6. dxe5 c6 7. Nc3 cxb5 8. Nxe4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is also a gambit in the Sveshnikov:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6&#xA;5. Nc3 e5 6. Ndb5 d6 7. Bg5 a6 8. Na3 b5&#xA;9. Bxf6 gxf6 10. Nd5 f5 11. Bxb5 axb5 12. Nxb5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It appears to be relatively sound as Alexey Shirov used on several occasions. White has a different option to sacrifice a piece &lt;code&gt;11. Nxb5&lt;/code&gt;, but this line is less popular.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="307" LastEditorUserId="307" LastEditDate="2020-02-15T18:38:16.143" LastActivityDate="2020-02-15T18:38:16.143" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23198" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23196" CreationDate="2018-12-10T00:06:17.267" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What I'm wondering is whether anyone has created tablebases for this variant of chess,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Interesting proposal, but nobody has done the works to my knowledge. If you would like to participate, you may modify source code of &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/syzygy1/tb&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://github.com/syzygy1/tb&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2018-12-10T00:06:17.267" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23199" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-12-10T01:02:37.857" Score="0" ViewCount="469" Body="&lt;p&gt;Installed SCID vs PC.&#xA;Can this give a count or frequency distribution of the ECO codes of the games ?&#xA;So far unable to do this.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Under the &lt;strong&gt;Tools&lt;/strong&gt; tab there is a selection &quot;Opening Report&quot;.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;This gives a lot of data, most of limited value, such as oldest games, most frequent players, shortest wins. Finally there is 5. Theory Table.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;This is a table of moves in 8 columns and 20 double rows. How to interpret this is obscure and certainly not intuitive. &#xA;There is a Help Index.  &quot;Theory table&quot; is absent from Help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Under Options there is a selection &quot;Load ECO file&quot;. Found .eco in data subdirectory of bin. Loaded it. Seems to get me nothing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13674" LastEditorUserId="12523" LastEditDate="2018-12-10T12:37:12.040" LastActivityDate="2019-01-10T00:02:00.417" Title="Scid vs PC, how to get ECO data ?" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;scid&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23200" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-12-10T02:38:41.117" Score="4" ViewCount="615" Body="&lt;p&gt;AlphaZero searches for moves using Monte Carlo Tree Search (MCTS). As I understand MCTS, it takes the root position, goes to a child node, and then plays random moves until one side wins. Since the moves played are random, does that mean AlphaZero is also random?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Related: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/19482/randomness-in-engine-play&quot;&gt;this question&lt;/a&gt; shows that Stockfish and other conventional engines are indeed deterministic if one looks only at the number of nodes evaluated. I don't know however if the same applies to AlphaZero.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastActivityDate="2019-05-26T04:19:30.570" Title="Is AlphaZero deterministic?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;alphazero&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23201" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23200" CreationDate="2018-12-10T03:32:02.207" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;No. MCTS is generally not deterministic. However, it's not that bad given how powerful Google's machines were.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2018-12-10T03:32:02.207" CommentCount="12" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23202" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23187" CreationDate="2018-12-10T12:37:54.480" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%A9gal_Trap&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Légal Trap&lt;/a&gt; is one of my most favorite games. It's just so simple, and yet gives a powerful reminder of what sacrifices can allow you to do. White sacrifices the Queen, but in exchange Black concedes the game!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;C57&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 d6 4. Nc3 Bg4?! 5. h3 Bh5? 6. Nxe5! Bxd1?? 7. Bxf7+ Ke7 8. Nd5#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18017" LastActivityDate="2018-12-10T12:37:54.480" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23203" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23187" CreationDate="2018-12-10T12:53:42.993" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;strong&gt;Perenyi Gambit&lt;/strong&gt; is an important theoretical variation that has been favored by GMs like J.Polgar or A.Shirov. White sacrifices at least one piece, and often two:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;C57&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 a6 6. Be3 e6 7. g4!? e5 8. Nf5 g6 9. g5 (9.Bg2) gxf5 10. exf5 d5 11. Qf3 d4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See, for instance, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1009882&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Polgar-Anand, 1999&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or this &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1231058&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;game&lt;/a&gt; by Svidler against Gelfand. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastEditorUserId="14079" LastEditDate="2018-12-11T16:14:12.393" LastActivityDate="2018-12-11T16:14:12.393" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23204" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-12-10T14:37:08.123" Score="0" ViewCount="130" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is the problem : when I have the time, i usually find the right move.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Meaning, in a longer time frame games (more than 10min) I'm doing better.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I feel like struggling with 5 min. games and I don't know how to improve.&#xA;I review my games usually using the computer but I haven't seen a big improvement, just a very small one.&#xA;To me it feels like I'm missing something that would elevate my level.&#xA;Any suggestions will be welcomed.&#xA;Thank you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user15591" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2018-12-10T16:05:52.247" LastActivityDate="2018-12-15T12:26:19.360" Title="Blitz games managment" Tags="&lt;blitz&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23205" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23214" CreationDate="2018-12-10T16:55:09.967" Score="1" ViewCount="825" Body="&lt;p&gt;I looked at the &quot;Description of the universal chess interface (UCI)&quot; dated April  2006, and did not find a command or option that seemed to address how a GUI might enable MultiPV (I assume that PV stands for Position Value).  How does a GUI display MultiPV?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Background:  I hope there is a simple UCI command that enables MultiPV, so that I can issue the command on my BabasChess GUI.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18019" LastActivityDate="2018-12-10T23:46:37.517" Title="How is MultiPV enabled in general?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;software&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23206" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-12-10T18:06:38.333" Score="2" ViewCount="3028" Body="&lt;p&gt;AlphaZero lost 6 games to Stockfish in a 1000-game match from the starting position, at least one of which was with the white pieces: &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/study/IeMBEw7t/40aILWc9&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;A game A0 lost with white&lt;/a&gt;. For some reason, these games haven't received much media attention. Does this mean AlphaZero hasn't solved the game of chess yet? So, there is still scope for improvement? The media's report that AlphaZero is the perfect chess-playing machine is false.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17302" LastEditorUserId="15223" LastEditDate="2018-12-10T23:56:33.230" LastActivityDate="2018-12-12T01:04:21.253" Title="The games AlphaZero lost" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;alphazero&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23207" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23213" CreationDate="2018-12-10T18:15:17.677" Score="1" ViewCount="87" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Background:&lt;/strong&gt;  I wrote and use a custom macro in the NoteTab Pro text editor to convert PGN position analysis to XML.  The resulting XML is used on my website to display chess puzzles.  I need to check for legal moves in some cases.  For example, a PGN move might say Rd6 in a position where two rooks can move to d6, but only one of them can legally move to d6 because the other is pinned to its King.  I am disinclined to write a macro legal move checker due to the apparent complexity of the task.  I do not want to reinvent the wheel.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ideally, I am looking for an executable that can be called with FEN and next-move parameters, and return a positive or negative result based on the move's legality.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18019" LastActivityDate="2018-12-10T23:45:33.953" Title="Is there a Open Source or Shareware Legal Move Checker Executable?" Tags="&lt;software&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23208" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23206" CreationDate="2018-12-10T19:16:02.343" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;AlphaZero hasn't solved chess, and it won't until it can find a strategy that results in the same outcome of the game given perfect play from both sides. According to &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solved_game&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A solved game is a game whose outcome (win, lose or draw) can be correctly predicted from any position, assuming that both players play perfectly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since AlphaZero has lost games to Stockfish with &lt;strong&gt;both&lt;/strong&gt; colours, we can assure it didn't solve the game. AlphaZero plays itself in training games. Had it solved the game, all these AlphaZero vs AlphaZero games will end up in one same result: either a win for white, a win for black or a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13544" LastEditorUserId="13544" LastEditDate="2018-12-11T12:46:34.783" LastActivityDate="2018-12-11T12:46:34.783" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23209" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19930" CreationDate="2018-12-10T20:02:25.280" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/4vdYn.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/4vdYn.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;There must be an issue with your copy of Arena 3.5.1 because Stockfish found a mate in 20. I'm using Scid for my GUI. I have attached the moves. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18024" LastActivityDate="2018-12-10T20:02:25.280" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23210" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23187" CreationDate="2018-12-10T20:08:48.680" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vienna_Game,_Frankenstein%E2%80%93Dracula_Variation&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Frankenstein-Dracula variation of the Vienna game&lt;/a&gt; features a Rook sacrifice by Black (effectively an exchange sacrifice however, since the Knight will not escape).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nc3 Nf6 3.Bc4 Nxe4 4.Qh5 Nd6 5.Bb3 Nc6 6.Nb5 g6 7.Qf3 f5 8.Qd5 Qe7 9.Nxc7+ Kd8 10.Nxa8&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Impressively, this variation seems to favour Black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastActivityDate="2018-12-10T20:08:48.680" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23211" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23206" CreationDate="2018-12-10T23:02:55.203" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is no such thing as perfect playing machine in chess. Google never claimed their engine was able to solve the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2018-12-11T02:52:22.203" LastActivityDate="2018-12-11T02:52:22.203" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23212" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23199" CreationDate="2018-12-10T23:42:55.817" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can get a count of how many of a particular ECO code (or a particular range of codes) is in the database.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the Game List, select Change Filter (magnifying glass icon), then Search by Header (binoculars icon). In the dialog box that pops up, there are two fields for ECO code, allowing you to choose a start and end. For example, enter B00 and B99 if you want to count all the B codes. Then click the Search button. The Game List will now show the count of games in the database that match the filter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2018-12-10T23:42:55.817" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23213" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23207" CreationDate="2018-12-10T23:45:33.953" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Simple problem. &lt;code&gt;python-chess&lt;/code&gt; is a useful Python package that can do it for you easily. You will need to get a FEN, check if your move is a legal move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://pypi.org/project/python-chess/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://pypi.org/project/python-chess/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;has everything you want.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2018-12-10T23:45:33.953" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23214" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23205" CreationDate="2018-12-10T23:46:37.517" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;MultiPV&quot; is the UCI option you are looking for.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;setoption name MultiPV value 10&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2018-12-10T23:46:37.517" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23215" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23179" CreationDate="2018-12-11T02:53:02.850" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, it's possible. See &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.chessbase.com/post/a-history-of-cheating-in-che-3-&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this article&lt;/a&gt;. The gist is, if for you're in a &quot;draw and I win this tournament&quot; situation, you would quite naturally play moves that might not be the best, but keeps the position simple and avoids tactical melees. You'd do this even if it reduces your chances to win the game. Conversely, if you're in a must-win situation, then you'll take chances and try to complicate the game even if they objectively weaken your position, because a draw is the same as a loss anyway. A computer on the other hand doesn't understand these things. It just makes the best moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Below is a quote from the article about this position, after 30...Bf6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;r6k/1p3Rpp/p2p1bq1/3N4/2P5/1P6/P1b2QPP/5RK1 w - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I showed the position to a number of players in Wijk aan Zee, and all gave me simple wins – for instance 31.Rxb7, 31.Rd7 or even 31.Rxf6. Remember, the first time control is looming and tournament victory is in grasp.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;So what does our hero play? 31.Qa7?!! “Fritzy!” squealed Anand and went into uncontrollable fits of laughter when he saw this and the following moves (I filmed his mirth and included it in my multimedia report in ChessBase Magazine 69). He and the other players immediately recognised the “hand” of the computer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If you switch on multiple-variation mode you will see that Fritz thinks 31.Qa7 is a tenth of a pawn better than the other alternatives. A computer program simply doesn't understand the difference between cast-iron moves that cannot fail, and a tight-rope walk on the edge of the precipice. I venture no human would undertake the latter course in the given tournament situation. Play through the continuation and judge for yourself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastEditorUserId="15223" LastEditDate="2019-01-14T06:12:06.503" LastActivityDate="2019-01-14T06:12:06.503" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23216" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="583" CreationDate="2018-12-11T03:31:58.773" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;To add to the Fool's Mate idea, this game left enough of an impression on me to remember it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. d4 f5 2. Bg5 {An enterprising line, threatening to weaken Black's pawn structure after the natural Nf6.} h6 3. Bh4 g5!? {This seems to trap the bishop, but the holes around the Black king are very dangerous. It is objectively OK, but only if Black does not play to win material.} 4. Bg3 f4? {This move is a definite mistake.} 5. e3! {Now fxg3 leads to Qh5#, and White threatens to rescue his bishop with exf4} h5 {Renewing the threat, now 6. exf4 h4 and the bishop is still trapped} 6. Bd3 {Objectively this move isn't the best, but it threatens Bg6#} Rh6?? 7. Qxh5+! Rxh5 8. Bg6#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastEditorUserId="15223" LastEditDate="2019-05-11T11:02:57.397" LastActivityDate="2019-05-11T11:02:57.397" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23217" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17659" CreationDate="2018-12-11T06:02:27.347" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;For the first part, see &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/7821/can-a-human-defeat-an-engine-in-a-10-game-match-if-he-is-given-the-white-pieces/23162#23162&quot;&gt;my answer to a related question&lt;/a&gt;. Humans have no chance - they'd be lucky to even draw a game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;About the second part, engine elo isn't directly translatable to human elo. The way elo works, it depends on the anchor. The bottom of the elo ladder is 0 elo. What does 0 elo mean to you? If you rate a complete human novice as 0 elo, there're still players who can be worse than you (e.g. an engine that selects moves at random). So no, you cannot say that an engine that is 2800-rated on engine elo lists would be expected to draw a match with 2800-rated Carlsen. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastActivityDate="2018-12-11T06:02:27.347" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23218" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="583" CreationDate="2018-12-11T11:40:01.763" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Blackburne-Shilling Gambit could result in a quick loss for White if he plays some fairly plausible moves:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 {Italian opening} Nd4 4.Nxe5 {Free pawn!} Qg5 5.Nxf7 {Forking the queen and rook.} Qxg2 6.Rf1 {Preventing Qxh1} Qxe4+ 7.Be2 {Qe2 Nxe2 drops the queen} Nf3#  0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastEditorUserId="12629" LastEditDate="2019-10-13T17:11:13.257" LastActivityDate="2019-10-13T17:11:13.257" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23219" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23204" CreationDate="2018-12-11T13:20:04.440" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Tactics play the most important part of winning blitz games. The tactical player has a better chance of winning a blitz game rather than a quiet, positional player (it is the other way round for classical chess). Next is intuition. To succeed as a blitz player, you must be able to figure out the next move without going into deep calculations (i.e. 'feel' the next move). For example, here is a game from your Chess.com account I analysed with a computer:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Live Chess&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Chess.com&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2018.12.09&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;-&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;quizhead (1238)&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;redhatkillers (1208)&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Variant &quot;Standard&quot;]&#xA;[TimeControl &quot;-&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;A02&quot;]&#xA;[Opening &quot;Bird Opening&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. f4 g6 2. Nf3 Bg7 3. e4 e6 4. Be2 a6 5. d4 b5 6. O-O Ne7 7. c3 f5 8. e5 Bb7 9. Be3 Bh6 10. Nbd2 Nd5 11. Bf2 Bxf4 12. Bh4 Qc8 13. Bf2 Be3 14. Kh1 Bxf2 15. Rxf2 Qd8 16. Qc2 g5 17. Raf1 g4 18. Ne1 Ne3 19. Qd3 Nxf1 20. Bxf1 Qh4 21. Qe3 Nc6 22. Nd3 Na5 23. Nf4 Rg8 24. b4 Nc4 25. Nxc4 bxc4 26. Qg3 Qxg3 27. hxg3 h6 28. Bxc4 c6 29. Bb3 a5 30. a3 axb4 31. axb4 Ba6 32. c4 Ke7 33. Rf1 Rg5 34. Rd1 Rh8 35. d5 h5 36. dxc6 dxc6 37. Nd3 h4 38. Nc5 hxg3+ 39. Kg1 Bc8 40. b5 cxb5 41. cxb5 Rgh5 { Black wins. } 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;10. Nbd2&lt;/strong&gt; is a normal move in an opening, but unfortunately not here. Your opponent has the massive d5 square for their knight. You should have paid attention to Nd5. It forks the bishop and the pawn, and you are forced to give up the pawn. 10. g3 would've saved the pawn, though that knight is still annoying.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;17. Raf1&lt;/strong&gt; allows a fork too. From the d5 square the knight is a serious threat. Usually when a knight is about to enter your territory, you must give it adequate attention.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;25. Nxc4&lt;/strong&gt; looks like it wins a pawm worsens your position. Your opponent didn't notice that 25... g3 wins your rook, and fortunately you had a chance to correct that by playing Qg3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These are just some remarks. There is still much to learn, by playing more and more games and highlighting the positions where you blunder such tactics. It happens to us all. As it is said, the player to make the next to last mistake usually wins. We all do fall for such tactics, but one needs to minimize this to have a good chance at blitz.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13544" LastEditorUserId="13544" LastEditDate="2018-12-15T12:26:19.360" LastActivityDate="2018-12-15T12:26:19.360" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23220" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23221" CreationDate="2018-12-11T19:16:23.457" Score="3" ViewCount="451" Body="&lt;p&gt;Out of curiosity, how many en passants can theoretically be done by both sides and the fastest way to achieve that result?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-04-29T17:01:24.050" LastActivityDate="2021-04-29T17:01:24.050" Title="What is the maximum number of en passants possible?" Tags="&lt;theory&gt;&lt;problems&gt;&lt;records&gt;&lt;en-passant&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23221" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23220" CreationDate="2018-12-11T19:30:40.323" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Every pawn has to take a pawn in an en passant capture, and each pawn taking another pawn will leave the 5th rank. Hence, the total possible number of en passant captures in a game is simply the number of pawns halved, i.e. 8. It can be achieved in the following sequence of moves:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. h4 a5 2. h5 g5 3. hxg6/ep a4 4. b4 axb3/ep 5. a4 h5 6. a5 b5 7. axb6/ep h4 8. g4 hxg3/ep 9. c4 f5 10. c5 d5 11. cxd6/ep f4 12. e4 fxe3/ep 13. f4 c5 14. f5 e5 15. fxe6/ep c4 16. d4 cxd3/ep&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is the minimum number of moves required for 8 en passant captures, and this is due to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;All moves being pawn moves&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Every pawn advancing 2 squares at its first move&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13544" LastEditorUserId="13544" LastEditDate="2018-12-11T19:41:33.227" LastActivityDate="2018-12-11T19:41:33.227" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23222" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34931" CreationDate="2018-12-11T20:41:18.703" Score="-4" ViewCount="286" Body="&lt;p&gt;I had an odd idea. What is the fastest way to checkmate via en passant after all other en passants have been completed?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-04-29T17:33:12.977" LastActivityDate="2021-05-22T03:25:41.743" Title="What is the fastest en passant checkmate after all other such captures?" Tags="&lt;problems&gt;&lt;records&gt;&lt;en-passant&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23223" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23187" CreationDate="2018-12-11T20:53:56.183" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is the Bronstein Gambit in the Two-knights Defence&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nf6 4.Ng5 d5 5.exd5 Na5 6.d3 h6 7.Nf3 e4 8.dxe4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastEditorUserId="13544" LastEditDate="2018-12-21T05:32:34.340" LastActivityDate="2018-12-21T05:32:34.340" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23225" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23206" CreationDate="2018-12-12T01:04:21.253" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;AlphaZero hasn't solved chess - to do so you'd need to know from the starting position which side wins (or if the game is a draw). This is in principle doable with a 32-piece tablebase, but &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.chessbase.com/post/how-god-plays-chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;in practice it's impossible&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“Yes,” replied God, “I have done the 32-piece endgame.”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“Ahh,” said Garry, “Of course that is trivially easy for you.”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“No, no,” said God, “it was really tough. More than 10^35 legal positions — it took the matter from a good-sized planet to store. But let us play. You can have white.”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;10^35 is a fantastically large number. If it takes one byte to store one position, one gigabyte is still only 10^9 positions, 26 orders of magnitude off the required number. So no, AlphaZero has not solved chess, and there's no way to do so in the foreseeable future.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Naturally this means there is still scope for improvement. If AlphaZero were a conventional engine its developers would be looking at the openings which it lost to Stockfish, because those indicate that there's something Stockfish understands better than AlphaZero. AlphaZero is a neural network engine however, which makes how to improve it less obvious. I am not an expert on neural networks, but you can follow the development of Leela (which is a reproduction of AlphaZero, based on the paper) on its &lt;a href=&quot;https://blog.lczero.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;developer blog&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2018-12-12T01:04:21.253" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23226" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22494" CreationDate="2018-12-12T03:36:50.227" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to chesshistory.com, in October 1959, Al Horowitz &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/winter155.html#CN_10475&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;wrote&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;It is axiomatic in chess that it is easier to achieve a winning game&#xA;  than to win it. &lt;em&gt;One bad move nullifies 40 good ones&lt;/em&gt;, and precision&#xA;  technique is of the essence even when the game is well in hand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The same can be found in his book, “All About Chess”, written in 1971.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, in the Chess Review magazine (November 1961), Al Horowitz &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/winter120.html#CN_8731&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;calls&lt;/a&gt; this quote an “adage”.  Given this, I think that Al Horowitz is not the author of the quote, but thanks to him we know about it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for Bernhard Horwitz, I have not found reliable sources indicating that he is the author of the quote. At least, it is strange to me that it is not mentioned in his books.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18039" LastActivityDate="2018-12-12T03:36:50.227" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23228" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-12-12T14:41:53.503" Score="4" ViewCount="217" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.365chess.com/view_game.php?g=354900&amp;amp;m=4&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;This game&lt;/a&gt; starts with&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;f4  e5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;g4&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;IMO, black has a winning position here. How did it end with a draw?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/FCwLN.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/FCwLN.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16626" LastEditorUserId="16626" LastEditDate="2018-12-12T14:53:03.133" LastActivityDate="2018-12-12T18:01:50.953" Title="Why did this game end with a draw?" Tags="&lt;draw&gt;&lt;birds-opening&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23230" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-12-12T15:47:10.653" Score="2" ViewCount="244" Body="&lt;p&gt;For example, if a player realises that his opponent has two bishops of the same colour after a certain legal move (and assuming that it is clearly not caused by any pawn promotion), which implies that his opponent has made at least one illegal move earlier (but it was recognised until much later in the game), what should this player do?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If there is a record, can he trace back the illegal move and declare that he wins the game because an illegal move was made earlier?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Even without a record, can he still win the game because he can theoretically prove the existence of at least one illegal move made by his opponent?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Or should the game continue as it is now, even though the position is impossible?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16626" LastActivityDate="2018-12-12T16:28:04.963" Title="In a tournament game, what should a player do if he find that his opponent's position is impossible, which was caused by an earlier illegal move?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;illegal-move&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2018-12-13T08:49:24.927" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23231" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23230" CreationDate="2018-12-12T15:51:42.643" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Section 7.5.1 of the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=208&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Laws of Chess&lt;/a&gt; has the answer:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;7.5.1&lt;/strong&gt; An illegal move is completed once the player has pressed his clock. If during a game it is found that an illegal move has been completed, the position immediately before the irregularity shall be reinstated. If the position immediately before the irregularity cannot be determined, the game shall continue from the last identifiable position prior to the irregularity. Articles 4.3 and 4.7 apply to the move replacing the illegal move. The game shall then continue from this reinstated position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The player found guilty is not penalised for the illegal move, provided their opponent has intended to play a move:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;4.7.1&lt;/strong&gt; A player forfeits his right to claim against his opponent’s violation of Articles 4.1 – 4.7 once the player touches a piece with the intention of moving or capturing it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13544" LastEditorUserId="13544" LastEditDate="2018-12-12T16:13:18.650" LastActivityDate="2018-12-12T16:13:18.650" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23232" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23230" CreationDate="2018-12-12T16:28:04.963" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If there is a record, can he trace back the illegal move and declare&#xA;  that he wins the game because an illegal move was made earlier?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No. The penalty for a first illegal move is an addition of 2 minutes to the other player's clock. Only a second illegal move loses the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to FIDE Laws of Chess article 7.5.5 -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;7.5.5&lt;/strong&gt; After the action taken under Article 7.5.1, 7.5.2, 7.5.3 or 7.5.4 for the first completed illegal move by a player, the arbiter shall give two minutes extra time to his opponent; for the second&#xA;  completed illegal move by the same player the arbiter shall declare&#xA;  the game lost by this player. However, the game is drawn if the&#xA;  position is such that the opponent cannot checkmate the player’s king&#xA;  by any possible series of legal moves&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Even without a record, can he still win the game because he can&#xA;  theoretically prove the existence of at least one illegal move made by&#xA;  his opponent?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No. If no record is being kept of the game then it must normally be blitz or rapid. In that case the illegal move stands and the game continues. According to article A.4.2 of the FIDE Laws of chess -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;A.4.2&lt;/strong&gt; If the arbiter observes an action taken under Article 7.5.1,&#xA;  7.5.2, 7.5.3 or 7.5.4, he shall act according to Article 7.5.5, provided the opponent has not made his next move. If the arbiter does&#xA;  not intervene, the opponent is entitled to claim, provided the&#xA;  opponent has not made his next move. If the opponent does not claim&#xA;  and the arbiter does not intervene, the illegal move shall stand and&#xA;  the game shall continue. Once the opponent has made his next move, an&#xA;  illegal move cannot be corrected unless this is agreed by the players&#xA;  without intervention of the arbiter&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The illegal move has to be seen immediately (before another move is made or piece touched) and a claim made by player or arbiter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2018-12-12T16:28:04.963" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23233" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23228" CreationDate="2018-12-12T18:01:50.953" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Either the game score is incorrectly recorded or this was a pre-arranged draw, because in that final position everyone beyond basic club level would realize that Black wins with Qh4# (a basic Fool's mate pattern).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastActivityDate="2018-12-12T18:01:50.953" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23234" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23222" CreationDate="2018-12-13T02:42:40.950" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here's one try:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.d4 b5 2.d5 c5 3.dxc6 b4 4.a4 bxa3 5.b4 d5 6.b5 a5 7.bxa6 d4 8.c4 dxc3 9.h4 f5 10.h5 g5 11.hxg6 f4 12.e4 fxe3 13.g4 Bb7 14.g5 h5 15.gxh6 e5 16.Ke2 e4 17.Qe1 Bc5 18.Nh3 Bxc6 19.f4 exf3#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While this probably isn't the fastest possible, it can't get &lt;em&gt;much&lt;/em&gt; faster. There are 8 en passants possible, and each takes 4 half moves to set up and execute (advance to 4th rank, advance to 5th rank, opponent moves pawn, capture pawn.) Those 32 half moves takes you through move 16, and you obviously need other moves somewhere to make it be a checkmate. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2018-12-13T02:42:40.950" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23235" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-12-13T08:35:03.550" Score="17" ViewCount="2717" Body="&lt;p&gt;Many videos on YouTube channel &quot;Kingscrusher&quot; which discuss the play of new neural-net engines like Leela Chess Zero focus considerable attention upon the development of &quot;thorn pawns&quot; which are pawns that have reached the sixth rank and are blocked by a pawn in front but do not have pawns ahead of them to either side.  In my limited study of the game in decades past, I've seen great significance given to passed pawns, but never any special attention given to thorn pawns.  Do such pawns have a significance that has only been fully brought out as a result of AI-assisted research, or have they always been understood but simply not in things I'd read?  Or is Kingscrusher giving them more significance than they deserve?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A typical thorn-pawn situation would occur when Black has pawns at f7, g7, and h7, white moves h5, Black g6, and white pushes h6.  If Black has castled kingside, that pawn at h6 can be very hard to capture, and its presence kills the escape square at g7 and the possibility of easily establishing one at h7.  Was that a common pattern in years past, and if so what was it called?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2698" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2018-12-19T10:56:08.953" LastActivityDate="2018-12-19T10:56:08.953" Title="Was the value of thorn pawns fully appreciated in decades past?" Tags="&lt;pawns&gt;&lt;terminology&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23236" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23235" CreationDate="2018-12-13T11:25:33.077" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;I had never heard the term, but such pawns are very important for their contribution to certain mating patterns, the most famous of which would be &lt;em&gt;Damiano's mate&lt;/em&gt;, which was included in Damiano's 1512 book &lt;em&gt;Questo libro e da imparare giocare a scachi et de li partiti&lt;/em&gt;. Here's an archetypal example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;5rk1/6pQ/6P1/8/8/8/8/8 w - - 1 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12523" LastActivityDate="2018-12-13T11:25:33.077" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23237" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-12-13T15:35:02.690" Score="1" ViewCount="200" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm currently following the rapid game Caruana-Nakamura in the London Chess Classic, and I have a basic question about the opening moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why play 7... Nxd5 instead of 7... exd5? Is the idea to trade pieces since black has less space and that would free up his position? Do black's two knights kind of step on each other's toes, making a trade of one knight desirable?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's the game: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessbomb.com/arena/2018-london-chess-classic/04-Caruana_Fabiano-Nakamura_Hikaru&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.chessbomb.com/arena/2018-london-chess-classic/04-Caruana_Fabiano-Nakamura_Hikaru&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2614" LastActivityDate="2018-12-14T19:30:14.357" Title="Why play 7... Nxd5 instead of 7... exd5 in the QGD?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;queens-gambit-declined&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23238" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23237" CreationDate="2018-12-13T15:52:41.570" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The white knight on c3 is better and potentially Nb5 could be annoying. Also black was planning to possibly bring the other knight to f6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also recapturing with the pawn gives you hanging pawns/an isolated pawn if you decide to break through with c5. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4393" LastActivityDate="2018-12-13T15:52:41.570" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23239" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-12-13T21:12:50.263" Score="0" ViewCount="265" Body="&lt;p&gt;I tested some tools which allow analysis EPD files but they not work like I want:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I can use Arena but it will not annotate back EPD - it create protocol file.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I can use SCID vs PC but it will not allow to set depth for EPD file.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I found some Python script but it also not support depth and multi PV.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can write such tool by I do not want duplicate known software. Do you know any tool which allow analysis EPD files.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8406" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-03-04T21:40:07.617" LastActivityDate="2020-03-04T21:40:07.617" Title="Is any tool which allow analyse EPD file and add evaluation score per I want specify depth/multi PVL?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23240" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-12-13T22:54:12.620" Score="5" ViewCount="452" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1r6/5pk1/2q1p1pp/3p4/r2P4/2P4P/PPQ2PP1/R3R1K1 w - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's White to move. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White is 2 passed pawns up, but Black is very active. I'm sure objectively White is winning, but how? Black will attack and force me to move my a or b pawn, but the moment I move one pawn, Black will sink a rook next to it (a3 or b3) and paralyze my pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7002" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-03-26T15:21:41.417" LastActivityDate="2020-03-27T21:25:24.653" Title="Heavy piece endgame with 2 extra pawns-how to convert?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;planning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23241" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20139" CreationDate="2018-12-13T23:30:42.807" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;AlphaZero vs. Stockfish 8, 1000-game match as in &lt;a href=&quot;http://science.sciencemag.org/content/362/6419/1140.full&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;the latest paper&lt;/a&gt; (with Stockfish operating at full power) yielded a score of +155 -6 =839. Using &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.3dkingdoms.com/chess/elo.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this calculator&lt;/a&gt; gives an elo difference of 52.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stockfish 8's elo rating on computer chess rating lists is &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.computerchess.org.uk/ccrl/4040/rating_list_all.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;about 3378&lt;/a&gt;, giving AlphaZero a rating of about 3430.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Disclaimer: these rating lists are generated with hundreds of thousands of games between all the engines. With only 1000 games against a single engine, this 3430 rating is unlikely to be accurate. AlphaZero is certainly one of the stronger engines out there, but it's not clear exactly how strong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastActivityDate="2018-12-13T23:30:42.807" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23242" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23240" CreationDate="2018-12-13T23:42:06.857" Score="5" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1r6/5pk1/2q1p1pp/3p4/r2P4/2P4P/PPQ2PP1/R3R1K1 w - - 0 1&#xA;&#xA;1. b3 Ra7 2. a4 Rab7 3. Reb1 Rc7 4. b4 Qxc3&#xA;5. Qxc3 Rxc3 6. b5 Rcc8 7. b6 Rb7 8. a5 Ra8&#xA;9. a6 Rbb8 10. b7 Ra7 11. Rb6 Kf6 12. Rab1 Ke7&#xA;13. Rc6 Kd7 14. Rbb6 Rxa6 15. Rxa6 Rxb7 16. Rcb6 Rc7&#xA;17. Ra8 Ke7 18. Rab8 Kf6 19. R6b7 Rxb7 20. Rxb7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should move your pawns forward first since the a-pawn and b-pawn are passed. Do not allow black to blockade them. If pawns get blockaded, switch your attack to the kingside, and try to mate black king. You should move your queenside pawns forward quickly, and support them...if not, you might lose your chance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some very unpolished examples.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1r6/5pk1/2q1p1pp/3p4/r2P4/2P4P/PPQ2PP1/R3R1K1 w - - 0 1&#xA;&#xA;1. b3 Ra3 2. c4 Rba8 3. c5 Rb8 4. Rec1 Qb7&#xA;5. c6 Qc7 6. Qc5 Ra5 7. Qc3 Ra3 8. Qg3 Qb6&#xA;9. Qe5+ Kh7 10. c7 Rc8 11. Rc5 Ra5 12. Rxa5 Qxa5&#xA;13. Rc1 Qxa2 14. Qf6 Qxb3 15. Qxf7+ Kh8 16. Qf6+ Kh7&#xA;17. Qe7+ Kh8 18. Qd8+ Rxd8 19. cxd8=Q+ Kg7 20. Rc7#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If rooks want to blockade, you may have to sacrifice pawns to promote and queen one pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do not forget your king safety. This variation is forcing, and promotes the pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you do not gain space on queenside, black can kill your pawns because of better mobility, so you must keep your edge and not fall from it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8406" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-04T18:43:55.457" LastActivityDate="2020-03-04T18:43:55.457" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23243" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-12-14T18:31:06.930" Score="1" ViewCount="136" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am confused with the Morozevich variant. I've seen quite a few funny games where they played ...g5, which gives very interesting moves, but I'm surprissed at not having seen any game in which white plays 4.e5, which seems a natural move, blocking the classical square f6 for the king-side knight. Here, &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/19776/what-is-the-main-idea-of-the-morozevich-variation-in-the-french-vs-the-tarrasch&quot;&gt;What is the main idea of the Morozevich variation in the French vs. the Tarrasch?&lt;/a&gt;, Nh6 was proposed in a comment, but I think after Bd3,c5,Ndf3, the black knight is quite weak.  How would you play against 4.e5?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11210" LastActivityDate="2018-12-18T17:12:10.270" Title="Morozevich variant in the Tarrasch french" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;french-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23244" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23243" CreationDate="2018-12-14T18:51:10.467" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think Black is in a hurry to develop the knight.  4...c5 is the main move.  If White plays Qg4 the bishop goes back to f8.  As a matter of fact the bishop sometimes goes back to f8 even if White doesn't play Qg4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course Nh6 is fine and the knight will then go to f5 where it is happy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note:  1. There are other lines where the Bishop returns to f8, like 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.e5 b6 5.Qg4 Bf8.&#xA;2. In non-Nf6 lines it is common for the knight to head to f5 via e7 or h6&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastEditorUserId="14202" LastEditDate="2018-12-18T17:12:10.270" LastActivityDate="2018-12-18T17:12:10.270" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23245" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23237" CreationDate="2018-12-14T19:30:14.357" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both moves are played with exd5 being the more popular choice.  After 8.Nxd5 exd5 is twice as popular as Qxd5 as played by Nakamura.  It is likely Nakamura is trying some ideas in these sidelines in the hopes to catch his opponent unawares.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2018-12-14T19:30:14.357" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23246" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23239" CreationDate="2018-12-15T05:46:45.187" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;With  &lt;a href=&quot;http://web.archive.org/web/20120717105032/http://home.online.no/~malin/sjakk/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;GradualTest&lt;/a&gt;, you can use it to control an engine to analyze a set of positions. The only version available through web.archive is 2.4 (a compiled version and program source) but exists version 2.6. The author is Gunnar Malin, available in GitHub.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Its syntax is: &#xA;GradualTest [switches] &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;** switches:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;/a -    Init time in second, default=2.&#xA;/c -    Command to reset hash. Defaults to 'new'. &#xA;/e -    Method to set up the board. Values: edit, cbedit or setboard.&#xA;        Default=setboard. (cbedit is used if the engine have implemented&#xA;        Chessbase's method of edit.)&#xA;/i -    Input file to be tested.&#xA;/o -    Output file.&#xA;/s -    Init string for the engine. Defaults to &#xA;  'xboard\nhard\neasy\nnew\nlevel 1 1440 0\npost\n'.&#xA;/t -    Time to use at each position.&#xA;/w -    File to write positions with move not found.&#xA;/g -    File to write positions with only good moves&#xA;/u -    Use the UCI protocol.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It write also the following epd fields:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;acd - Depth of the search for the pv line.&#xA;acn - Number of node serched for the pv line.&#xA;acs - Seconds searched for the pv line.&#xA;ce  - Centipawn evaluation of the pv line.&#xA;pm  - The best move from the engine.&#xA;pv  - The last pv line (pv=Predicted Variation).&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With crafty (a winboard engine) I configured it in 'crafty.rc', sd=21 for instance, but with enough time to reach a depth of 21 ply. When the time to reach this depth was inferior than the time provided with GradualTest, the program somehow knows that position analyze has finished and proceded with the following position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1766" LastEditorUserId="1766" LastEditDate="2018-12-15T05:52:08.460" LastActivityDate="2018-12-15T05:52:08.460" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23247" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-12-15T09:39:51.543" Score="3" ViewCount="144" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have a problem that when I start to play I cannot stop, and I am looking for some good online chess web site that have limited number of rated games per day for, lets say non premium user, or something like that. Like thay have for tactis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17954" LastActivityDate="2018-12-18T17:18:48.257" Title="Any online site with limited number of games per day like chess.com or chess24" Tags="&lt;online-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23248" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23249" CreationDate="2018-12-15T12:52:25.983" Score="6" ViewCount="328" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am having trouble understanding when Black should move c5 in The Advanced Variation of the Caro-Kann. &#xA;I have posted two games of mine below:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/M5jm6.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/M5jm6.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this first game, after the seventh move of White, the computer has no quarrel with the pawn advance c5 (though I played Ne7).&#xA;However, here:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/c03AY.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/c03AY.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which is a really similar position, if I play c5 (on the 8th move),Stockfish tells me it is not the right thing to do, but rather I should have played Ne7 which is a move also acceptable in the former position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is: does anyone know when is the advance c5 appropiate? I cannot see any reason why these positions should be differently evaluated at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I mean in the second position I find no particular reason why playing c5 which in case of being captured allows the direct development of my kingside bishop can be a bad thing at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16771" LastEditorUserId="9192" LastEditDate="2018-12-17T09:04:39.510" LastActivityDate="2018-12-17T09:04:39.510" Title="Advancing the c6 pawn in the Caro-Kann" Tags="&lt;caro-kann&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23249" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23248" CreationDate="2018-12-15T13:56:11.373" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;The knight on c3 is the difference.  In the second position, White can exploit superior development by quickly opening the centre with c4.  It's not easy for Black to arrange castling.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user17631" LastActivityDate="2018-12-15T13:56:11.373" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23250" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23260" CreationDate="2018-12-15T14:53:04.647" Score="2" ViewCount="274" Body="&lt;p&gt;I tried to represents all the main lines of the Pirc Defense to play at a 2000 ELO level. Am I right with the following tree?&#xA;What I mean by right is I wonder if I do not miss any popular line or choose a bad move at some level.&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Ey4jv.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Ey4jv.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user18011" LastActivityDate="2020-05-01T20:39:01.003" Title="Is my representation of the Pirc Defense correct?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;pirc-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23251" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23250" CreationDate="2018-12-15T18:16:28.877" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;After ...g6, playing Be2 and h4 with white is a popular option which is missing in your tree&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11210" LastActivityDate="2018-12-15T18:16:28.877" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23252" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23254" CreationDate="2018-12-16T04:05:03.967" Score="3" ViewCount="1183" Body="&lt;p&gt;People have been &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/662/what-is-the-bishop-pair-worth&quot;&gt;discussing&lt;/a&gt; about the value of a pair of two bishops. I am wondering if two bishops are of the same colour, are they generally worth less than a pair of bishops of different colours?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are some thoughts:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A pair of two bishops of the same colour cannot checkmate the king.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A pair of two bishops of the same colour can stand in some same diagonal protecting each other. Is it a solid way to defend in some endgames?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In some cases, both bishops can be &quot;bad&quot; and worth less.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16626" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2018-12-16T11:53:43.380" LastActivityDate="2018-12-16T23:55:57.107" Title="Are a pair of bishops of the same colour usually worth less than a pair of bishops of different colours?" Tags="&lt;bishops&gt;&lt;point-value&gt;&lt;bad-bishop&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23253" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23255" CreationDate="2018-12-16T11:43:52.067" Score="5" ViewCount="220" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was looking at an analysis which shows this position ( from Bacrot - McShane 2018). At this point Black just played &lt;code&gt;...Qa5+&lt;/code&gt;, and the only moves that are analyzed for white are &lt;code&gt;Kf2&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;c3&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;Qd2&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is not the first time I see such a position, and I never understood why &lt;code&gt;Bd2&lt;/code&gt; is not even considered. As a black french player, I often discard moves like &lt;code&gt;...Qa5+&lt;/code&gt; because it looks superficial to me after &lt;code&gt;Bd2&lt;/code&gt;. But by looking at these games, it clearly looks like I'm missing something important here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any pointers ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;r1b1kb1r/3n1ppp/p1n1p3/qpppP3/3P1P2/4BNP1/PPP1N2P/R2QKB1R w KQkq - 1 10&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12364" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-12-17T15:41:43.580" LastActivityDate="2018-12-17T15:41:43.580" Title="Why doesn't white play Bd2 after this ...Qa5+?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;french-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23254" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23252" CreationDate="2018-12-16T16:58:57.917" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Two same-colored bishops can, as you note, protect each other. And unlike two knights, they can keep protecting each other indefinitely, even if one has to move. But that doesn't overcome their drawbacks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The power of the two bishops is often because one can reach the squares the other cannot. With a mostly empty board, one of the two bishops can often control &lt;em&gt;any&lt;/em&gt; square on the chessboard in one move. But if the two bishops are the same color, they lose this property. The two same-colored bishops can't do much that one bishop couldn't do, and really can't do much that a bishop plus another minor piece couldn't do. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you noted, the two same-colored bishops cannot checkmate the opponent's king. There are other situations which also become draws if one side has two bishops of the same color instead of two different bishops. Bare king vs. two same colored-bishops and a rook pawn where the queening square is the wrong color is a draw. Two same-colored bishops and a pawn vs an opposite colored bishop is also an easy draw (there's no way to prevent the bishop from simply exchanging itself for the pawn.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you have a situation where you have two bishops vs bishop and knight (with some pawns on the board), then if you can arrange for a particular bishop to exchange itself for the knight, you can control whether or not the endgame will be a drawish opposite-colored bishops endgame. But if the two bishops are the same color, that option is not available; the bishops either are or aren't the same color as the opponent's.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2018-12-16T16:58:57.917" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23255" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23253" CreationDate="2018-12-16T17:11:36.040" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The point here is that Bd2 blocks your queen's mobility and also leaves the defense of the d4 square. So after say Qb6 you pretty much have to go back with Be3, which will move closer to a draw by threefold repetition if blacks continues again with Qa5+.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also if after Qb6 you play c3 instead of going back with the bishop, now your bishop is not well placed, and black's Queen on the other hand is very good on b6. So its safe to say that you kind of lost some piece coordination in the process.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One of ideas behind Kf2 is that you are pretty close to castling by hand with only two moves, such as Bg2 and Re1, and on the other hand black's Queen is misplaced on a5 and will most likely reroute later on to other squares.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All this being said, its still important to note that Bd2 is not a bad move. When i let Stockfish run for one or two minutes i see a diference of 0.1 for both moves. It gives 0.4 for Kf2 and 0.3 for Bd2, so its just an ok move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15224" LastEditorUserId="15224" LastEditDate="2018-12-16T20:07:39.763" LastActivityDate="2018-12-16T20:07:39.763" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23257" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23252" CreationDate="2018-12-16T22:52:15.403" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;A look at this position should make it clear that two bishops on the same color are usually worth less than a pair of bishops on opposite colors.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;B6k/1B5P/2B5/3B4/4B3/5B2/6BK/7B w - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This position is drawn because of the wrong rook pawn, even though White is comfortably ahead in material. If one of those Bishops were on a dark square, White wins easily.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastEditorUserId="15223" LastEditDate="2018-12-16T23:55:57.107" LastActivityDate="2018-12-16T23:55:57.107" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23258" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23259" CreationDate="2018-12-16T23:20:34.570" Score="13" ViewCount="3509" Body="&lt;p&gt;I’ve seen the solutions to the lowest amount of queens, bishops, and rooks are needed to cover an entire board, as in they can attack all squares and are the only type of piece on the board. What is the solution for this with knights?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-06-16T15:25:09.220" LastActivityDate="2020-06-16T15:25:09.220" Title="What is the least number of knights needed to cover the entire board?" Tags="&lt;theory&gt;&lt;problems&gt;&lt;knights&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23259" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23258" CreationDate="2018-12-17T00:02:41.810" Score="25" Body="&lt;p&gt;Depending on whether occupied squares need to be covered as well, the number is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot; 12 knights, Without Covering Occupied Squares&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;8/5N2/1NN1NN2/2N5/5N2/2NN1NN1/2N5/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot; 14 knights, With Covering Occupied Squares&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;8/2N1NN2/2N1N3/2N3N1/2N1N3/1NN1NNN1/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Problems like this are called &lt;em&gt;domination problems&lt;/em&gt; and solutions for knights and other pieces as well as a reference are given on the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_chess_problem#Domination_problems&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;wikipedia page on mathematical chess problems&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-06-17T17:37:09.627" LastActivityDate="2019-06-17T17:37:09.627" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23260" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23250" CreationDate="2018-12-17T08:36:46.090" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you are aiming to use this tree for practical use at 2000 level, you should start in the Pirc tabiya position after 1.e4 d6 2.d4 Nf6 3.Nc3 g6. That's where it all starts, with main choices being 4.f4, 4.Be2, 4.Be3, 4.Nf3, 4.f3. (&lt;em&gt;edit: Also 4.Bg5, 4.Bc4 and even 4.Bf4 as pointed in comments. And also 4.g3 and 4.h3&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That way, you will not be confused by games without ...g6 at all, like the Philidor 3...e5 or some moderns with 3...c6, 4...Qa5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't think the 1.e4 d6 2.d4 e6?! branch will ever be useful to you. With Black, you won't ever want to play this. With White, if you face it you can tackle it by following general rules, and in any case a tree is not useful there. Also, I wonder how this very obscure sideline appeared in your tree. If you use popularity to select lines, have you consider how far 2...e6 lies behind 2...Nf6 ? Have you restricted your base to tournament play, if possible above a certain level (say, 1800) ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If need be, you can build a separate tree for early deviations, like 2.Nf3, 2.Nc3 or 2.f4 - keeping in mind that they will often transpose later in your main tree in case of d2-d4. But if you have practical purposes, you want to get rid of parasitic information. That will also allow you to go deeper that move 5 - which is mandatory at 2000 level !&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastEditorUserId="14079" LastEditDate="2020-05-01T20:39:01.003" LastActivityDate="2020-05-01T20:39:01.003" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23261" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23253" CreationDate="2018-12-17T09:25:06.587" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Perhaps Black hopes to gain an advantage with the following sequence: --Qa5+, Bd2 Qb6, Be3. Now Black has the next move. If Black plays Qb6 in the first place, then White has the next move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18075" LastActivityDate="2018-12-17T09:25:06.587" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23262" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23264" CreationDate="2018-12-17T19:56:09.533" Score="3" ViewCount="624" Body="&lt;p&gt;I’ve heard of a few types of of pawns in chess gameplay. These include passed pawns, thorn/fawn pawns, promoted pawns, and and en passant pawns. But that is all I can remember. What other kinds of pawns are there in chess terminology?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="2299" LastEditDate="2018-12-17T23:55:25.623" LastActivityDate="2018-12-19T05:51:39.070" Title="What types of pawns are there in chess?" Tags="&lt;pawns&gt;&lt;terminology&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23263" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23262" CreationDate="2018-12-17T20:25:43.987" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;passed pawns: When there is no enemy pawn on the adjacent file(s), it's called a passed pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passed_pawn&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passed_pawn&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Promoted Pawn is when one player's pawn goes to the end of the enemy camp and you can choose a piece (Queen, bishop, rook, knight) you wish (except the king or a pawn itself)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;en passant: Better to show with an example &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/En_passant&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/En_passant&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Isolated pawn: When you don't have any pawns in the adjacent file but there are enemy pawns either on the same file or on the adjacent ones. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isolated_pawn&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isolated_pawn&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are more pawn types i.e. Isolated queen pawn, hanging pawns but for a beginner it's hard to explain and it's not too relevant if you play chess for fun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18085" LastActivityDate="2018-12-17T20:25:43.987" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23264" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23262" CreationDate="2018-12-18T01:17:06.377" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Backward pawn&lt;/strong&gt;: a pawn that is behind its colleagues on a pawn chain. It cannot safely advance because it will be captured. These pawns are often a liability because they can be attacked. Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;8/8/8/3p4/3P1P2/4P3/8/8 w - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The pawn on e3 is backward. If Black e.g. places rooks on the e-file, White will have to guard the pawn with pieces, which is passive. Black also has a &quot;captured square&quot; on e4 where he can station his pieces and they cannot be pushed away by White's pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Central pawn&lt;/strong&gt;: a pawn on the two central files (d- and e-files). Compare &quot;flank pawn&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Connected passed pawns&lt;/strong&gt;: see passed pawn. Being connected means there are two passed pawns of the same color on two adjacent files. This is almost always a very strong trump.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Doubled pawns&lt;/strong&gt;: two pawns on the same file. This is sometimes bad because they are inflexible. They can, however, guard key squares in the middlegame. Compare &quot;tripled pawns&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Flank pawn&lt;/strong&gt;: a pawn on the sides of the board (the a-c files and the f-h files). During the middlegame they usually less valuable than a central pawn because central control is an important tenet of chess strategy. Compare &quot;central pawn&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Hanging pawns&lt;/strong&gt;: two adjacent pawns side-by-side, with no other pawns on the adjacent files. They guard squares and mark out space. Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;8/8/8/2pp4/8/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black's two pawns (note no pawns on b- and e- files) are hanging pawns. Black will try to keep them in place since they control squares, while White will try to force one of them to  advance. If White succeeds, then the Black pawns leave behind a hole, e.g. if Black is forced to play ...d4, then the c4-square becomes a weak square White can occupy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Isolated pawns&lt;/strong&gt;: a pawn without a friendly pawn on its adjacent files. These are usually a liability because if they are attacked, they have to be defended by pieces, not pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Outside passed pawn&lt;/strong&gt;: see also &quot;passed pawn&quot;. This refers to a passed pawn that is far away from the action. For example, if there's an ongoing Kingside attack, then any passed pawn on the queenside would be extra valuable, because the defender needs to balance between using its pieces on the kingside and using them to restrain the pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Passed pawn&lt;/strong&gt;: a pawn that has no enemy pawns that are in front of it on its same file as well as on files to its left and right. These are generally trumps because the opponent needs to use pieces to stop them from queening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Thorn (fawn) pawns&lt;/strong&gt;: as far as I know, this terminology only exists in the computer chess community. They refer to protected pawns on the 6th rank that are blocked by another pawn. Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;6k1/5p2/4pPp1/4P3/8/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The White pawn on f6 is a &quot;fawn&quot;. It attacks an important square around Black's king, and also makes e7 (usually an important square for Black's pieces to maneuver) inhospitable. Black would love to be rid of it, but it's protected by the pawn on e5. That makes it a &quot;thorn&quot; in Black's position. As far as I know, &quot;fawn&quot; came about as a mispronunciation of &quot;thorn&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Tripled pawns&lt;/strong&gt;: three pawns on the same file. This is almost always bad because they can be easily attacked and none of the pawns can defend each other. Compare &quot;doubled pawns&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastEditorUserId="15223" LastEditDate="2018-12-19T05:51:39.070" LastActivityDate="2018-12-19T05:51:39.070" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23265" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7848" CreationDate="2018-12-18T10:00:25.420" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Time, availability of faster computers, and progress in Artificial Intelligence have invalidated my previous answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With Alpha Zero and Leela Zero we now have programs learning Chess strategy and openings from intensive self-play and giving winning percentages for moves and positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is possible &lt;strong&gt;now&lt;/strong&gt; (i.e., in 2018).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: However, even the above-mentioned engines have not yet solved Chess. They also produce quite a variety of opening lines and do not slavishly play one and the same line every time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3819" LastEditorUserId="3819" LastEditDate="2018-12-18T17:15:33.397" LastActivityDate="2018-12-18T17:15:33.397" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23268" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23247" CreationDate="2018-12-18T17:18:48.257" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have heard others make the same complaint and a friend decided to use the Makua software which will limit your computer time.  There is probably other software that does the same, mostly for parents to limit their kids but you can use it on yourself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2018-12-18T17:18:48.257" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23269" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23177" CreationDate="2018-12-18T17:32:48.973" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Apparently instead of 5...Nf6 in the line Fischer gave, 5...d6 6.Nxg4 Be7 is superior for Black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You might look to Shirov for what is best in the King's Gambit.   He gave 1.e4 e5 2.f4? in his book and said &quot;Prove me wrong&quot;.  In the past I saw him play a 3-minute game against 3000 rated computer on ICC in the King's Gambit and he crushed it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2018-12-18T17:32:48.973" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23270" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-12-19T02:58:55.367" Score="1" ViewCount="251" Body="&lt;p&gt;How can I use PGN-Extract to split a multi-game pgn into separate files with just one game per file.  With the pgn being named for the opponents?  Like opponentA-opponentB.pgn&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18095" LastActivityDate="2018-12-19T07:49:42.243" Title="PGN-Extract output each game to a separate file with name like opponentA-opponentB.pgn" Tags="&lt;pgn&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23271" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7848" CreationDate="2018-12-19T06:02:04.553" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, there's a flaw, and it's that the opponent also has a move. At best, you can only choose your first move (and only then if you are White). After the first move, because the opponent is also trying to maximize his chances of winning, he's not going to pick an opening which you win more often than not. Therefore you can't just find the opening that gives you the best result when you play against yourself, and play only that opening - the opponent will not allow it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At best, you might be able to say &quot;with 1. e4 I maximize my chances of winning&quot;, but that's already done by all computers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastActivityDate="2018-12-19T06:02:04.553" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23272" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23270" CreationDate="2018-12-19T07:49:42.243" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;To a limited extent, you can do something like this already using the -Tp argument which selects games by a particular player. So:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;pgn-extract -TpLeko --output Leko.pgn games.pgn&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but there is not currently (2018.12.19) a way to have the file names generated automatically from the contents of the source file. Without a way to bound the number of players of interest this would require a lot of file opening and closing for a large input file. Some thought would also need to be given to how player names are mapped to file names.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12951" LastActivityDate="2018-12-19T07:49:42.243" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23273" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-12-19T10:23:48.267" Score="3" ViewCount="502" Body="&lt;p&gt;What are the plans for Black when White castles short in the Sicilian dragon? Very broadly speaking I am thinking of two plans.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Go for a King's Indian like kingside attack with e5 played at a suitable time.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Do a6-b5 and generate queenside pressure.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is one more sound than the other? Or is it just a question of style? What should I be aware of before deciding which one to adopt?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16311" LastActivityDate="2018-12-20T05:21:24.843" Title="Plans for black when White castles short in the Sicilian dragon" Tags="&lt;castling&gt;&lt;kings-indian&gt;&lt;sicilian-dragon&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23274" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22904" CreationDate="2018-12-19T10:58:16.157" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;macOS Mojave still supports 32 bit apps. So it should run Scid vs. Mac.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18097" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-12-19T13:22:59.290" LastActivityDate="2018-12-19T13:22:59.290" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23275" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8755" CreationDate="2018-12-19T11:30:57.350" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;The game is also known under the name &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessvariants.com/diffsetup.dir/pawnsonly.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;pawns-only chess&lt;/a&gt;. There is a variation of this game called &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakthrough_(board_game)&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;breakthrough&lt;/a&gt; that has more strategical depth by allowing the pawns to also move diagonally.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since I had already implemented breakthrough, it was very straightforward to add an &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/ianfab/Fairy-Stockfish/tree/pawnsonly&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;implementation of pawns-only&lt;/a&gt; chess to my Stockfish fork for fairy chess variants (actually I only had to define the rules in a simple structure, see the &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/ianfab/Fairy-Stockfish/commit/3b808bedda287b6c844a349cd324f1f408a50f35&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;commit&lt;/a&gt;). I have run a single-threaded search for ~10 hours using 2GB of RAM, which yielded a mate score for all first moves, so the results should be reliable, although they are no strict mathematical proof, because Stockfish does forward pruning in its tree search.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The results of Stockfish's search state that the moves &lt;strong&gt;1.b4, 1.c4, 1.f4, and 1.g4 are winning for white, whereas all other first moves are a win for black&lt;/strong&gt; with perfect play. See the input and output below for details. Since the search was single-threaded and depth-limited, the results should be reproducible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While writing this answer, I found that someone else independently had obtained the same results, see his &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/14052/15415&quot;&gt;chess stackexchange answer&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/sliedes/pawnsonly&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;github repository&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;input:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;setoption name hash value 2048&#xA;setoption name multipv value 16&#xA;setoption name UCI_Variant value pawnsonly&#xA;position startpos&#xA;go depth 40&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;output (truncated):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;info depth 40 seldepth 38 multipv 1 score mate 18 nodes 52290435219 nps 1359031 hashfull 1000 tbhits 0 time 38476253 pv b2b4 g7g5 c2c4 f7f5 d2d4 g5g4 e2e3 g4g3 f2g3 e7e6 g3g4 f5g4 e3e4 d7d6 d4d5 e6d5 e4d5 h7h6 a2a4 g4g3 h2g3 h6h5 b4b5 b7b6 g3g4 h5h4 g4g5 h4h3 g2h3 a7a5 b5a6 c7c6 a6a7 c6d5 a7a8 &#xA;info depth 40 seldepth 36 multipv 2 score mate 18 nodes 52290435219 nps 1359031 hashfull 1000 tbhits 0 time 38476253 pv g2g4 b7b5 f2f4 b5b4 e2e4 c7c5 d2d3 h7h6 a2a4 b4a3 b2a3 g7g6 h2h4 f7f6 f4f5 g6g5 h4h5 a7a6 c2c3 e7e5 f5e6 d7e6 d3d4 c5d4 c3d4 f6f5 e4f5 e6f5 g4f5 g5g4 f5f6 a6a5 f6f7 g4g3 f7f8 &#xA;info depth 40 seldepth 40 multipv 3 score mate 20 nodes 52290435219 nps 1359031 hashfull 1000 tbhits 0 time 38476253 pv f2f4 c7c5 e2e4 h7h5 c2c4 d7d6 g2g3 g7g6 f4f5 a7a6 a2a3 b7b5 b2b3 g6f5 e4f5 e7e6 c4b5 a6b5 f5e6 f7e6 h2h3 d6d5 g3g4 c5c4 b3c4 h5g4 h3g4 b5b4 a3b4 d5c4 g4g5 c4c3 d2c3 e6e5 g5g6 e5e4 g6g7 e4e3 g7g8 &#xA;info depth 40 seldepth 40 multipv 4 score mate 20 nodes 52290435219 nps 1359031 hashfull 1000 tbhits 0 time 38476253 pv c2c4 f7f5 d2d4 a7a5 f2f4 e7e6 b2b3 b7b6 c4c5 b6c5 d4c5 h7h6 h2h3 g7g5 g2g3 d7d6 c5d6 c7d6 f4g5 h6g5 a2a3 e6e5 b3b4 a5b4 a3b4 f5f4 g3f4 g5g4 h3g4 e5f4 b4b5 f4f3 e2f3 d6d5 b5b6 d5d4 b6b7 d4d3 b7b8 &#xA;info depth 40 seldepth 39 multipv 5 score mate -19 nodes 52290435219 nps 1359031 hashfull 1000 tbhits 0 time 38476253 pv b2b3 c7c5 c2c4 g7g5 a2a3 f7f5 b3b4 d7d6 h2h3 f5f4 g2g4 f4g3 f2g3 h7h5 g3g4 h5g4 h3g4 e7e6 e2e4 c5b4 a3b4 e6e5 d2d3 a7a6 c4c5 d6c5 b4c5 a6a5 c5c6 b7c6 d3d4 e5d4 e4e5 d4d3 e5e6 d3d2 e6e7 d2d1 &#xA;info depth 40 seldepth 37 multipv 6 score mate -18 nodes 52290435219 nps 1359031 hashfull 1000 tbhits 0 time 38476253 pv e2e3 b7b5 g2g4 e7e5 f2f4 e5f4 e3f4 c7c5 f4f5 d7d6 a2a3 d6d5 b2b3 h7h6 a3a4 b5b4 a4a5 a7a6 h2h3 g7g6 f5g6 f7g6 h3h4 c5c4 g4g5 h6h5 b3c4 d5c4 d2d3 c4d3 c2d3 b4b3 d3d4 b3b2 d4d5 b2b1 &#xA;info depth 40 seldepth 37 multipv 7 score mate -18 nodes 52290435219 nps 1359031 hashfull 1000 tbhits 0 time 38476253 pv a2a4 g7g5 f2f3 c7c5 a4a5 d7d5 e2e4 d5d4 e4e5 h7h5 g2g3 g5g4 f3f4 e7e6 f4f5 e6f5 d2d3 b7b5 a5b6 a7b6 c2c4 d4c3 b2c3 b6b5 d3d4 c5d4 c3d4 b5b4 e5e6 f7e6 d4d5 b4b3 d5e6 b3b2 h2h3 b2b1 &#xA;info depth 40 seldepth 37 multipv 8 score mate -18 nodes 52290435219 nps 1359031 hashfull 1000 tbhits 0 time 38476253 pv d2d3 g7g5 d3d4 b7b5 d4d5 a7a5 e2e3 h7h5 f2f4 g5f4 e3f4 h5h4 c2c3 a5a4 b2b3 a4b3 a2b3 e7e6 c3c4 b5b4 g2g4 h4g3 h2g3 f7f5 c4c5 e6d5 g3g4 f5g4 c5c6 d7c6 f4f5 g4g3 f5f6 g3g2 f6f7 g2g1 &#xA;info depth 40 seldepth 37 multipv 9 score mate -18 nodes 52290435219 nps 1359031 hashfull 1000 tbhits 0 time 38476253 pv h2h4 b7b5 g2g4 c7c5 c2c3 e7e5 f2f3 d7d6 d2d3 d6d5 e2e3 c5c4 d3d4 e5d4 e3d4 f7f5 g4f5 h7h5 f3f4 a7a6 b2b4 c4b3 a2b3 a6a5 f5f6 g7f6 c3c4 d5c4 b3c4 b5c4 f4f5 c4c3 d4d5 c3c2 d5d6 c2c1 &#xA;info depth 40 seldepth 37 multipv 10 score mate -18 nodes 52290435219 nps 1359031 hashfull 1000 tbhits 0 time 38476253 pv f2f3 g7g5 c2c4 f7f5 e2e3 e7e5 b2b4 f5f4 e3f4 e5f4 c4c5 d7d6 d2d4 d6c5 d4c5 c7c6 a2a3 a7a6 a3a4 h7h6 g2g4 f4g3 h2g3 h6h5 b4b5 h5h4 g3h4 g5h4 b5a6 b7a6 f3f4 h4h3 f4f5 h3h2 a4a5 h2h1 &#xA;info depth 40 seldepth 37 multipv 11 score mate -18 nodes 52290435219 nps 1359031 hashfull 1000 tbhits 0 time 38476253 pv g2g3 g7g5 g3g4 c7c5 a2a4 d7d5 a4a5 e7e6 b2b3 e6e5 c2c3 e5e4 d2d3 e4d3 e2d3 d5d4 c3d4 c5d4 b3b4 a7a6 h2h3 f7f6 f2f3 h7h6 b4b5 a6b5 h3h4 g5h4 a5a6 b7a6 f3f4 h4h3 f4f5 h3h2 g4g5 h6g5&#xA;info depth 40 seldepth 39 multipv 12 score mate -18 nodes 52290435219 nps 1359031 hashfull 1000 tbhits 0 time 38476253 pv h2h3 b7b5 h3h4 f7f5 a2a3 c7c5 b2b3 d7d5 c2c3 c5c4 b3c4 d5c4 h4h5 e7e5 d2d3 c4d3 e2d3 a7a5 g2g3 a5a4 f2f3 h7h6 g3g4 f5f4 g4g5 h6g5 h5h6 g7h6 d3d4 e5e4 f3e4 f4f3 d4d5 f3f2 e4e5 f2f1 &#xA;info depth 40 seldepth 37 multipv 13 score mate -18 nodes 52290435219 nps 1359031 hashfull 1000 tbhits 0 time 38476253 pv d2d4 b7b5 h2h3 g7g5 e2e3 h7h5 e3e4 f7f6 d4d5 a7a5 c2c3 h5h4 b2b3 b5b4 c3c4 c7c6 d5c6 d7c6 c4c5 e7e6 g2g4 h4g3 f2g3 f6f5 e4f5 e6f5 h3h4 g5h4 g3h4 f5f4 h4h5 f4f3 h5h6 f3f2 a2a4 f2f1 &#xA;info depth 40 seldepth 35 multipv 14 score mate -17 nodes 52290435219 nps 1359031 hashfull 1000 tbhits 0 time 38476253 pv e2e4 g7g5 d2d4 b7b5 f2f3 h7h5 c2c3 f7f6 b2b3 e7e6 d4d5 e6d5 e4d5 f6f5 g2g3 g5g4 f3f4 a7a5 a2a3 a5a4 d5d6 c7d6 b3a4 b5a4 c3c4 d6d5 c4c5 d5d4 c5c6 d7c6 h2h3 g4h3 g3g4 h5g4&#xA;info depth 40 seldepth 35 multipv 15 score mate -17 nodes 52290435219 nps 1359031 hashfull 1000 tbhits 0 time 38476253 pv c2c3 b7b5 e2e4 g7g5 d2d4 a7a5 f2f3 c7c6 g2g3 d7d6 d4d5 c6d5 e4d5 e7e6 h2h4 g5h4 d5e6 f7e6 g3h4 h7h5 b2b3 b5b4 c3b4 a5b4 f3f4 d6d5 f4f5 e6f5 a2a3 b4a3 b3b4 a3a2 b4b5 a2a1 &#xA;info depth 40 seldepth 35 multipv 16 score mate -17 nodes 52290435219 nps 1359031 hashfull 1000 tbhits 0 time 38476253 pv a2a3 b7b5 e2e4 g7g5 d2d3 a7a5 d3d4 h7h5 f2f3 f7f6 e4e5 f6e5 d4e5 a5a4 g2g3 e7e6 h2h3 h5h4 g3h4 g5h4 b2b4 a4b3 c2b3 c7c5 a3a4 b5a4 b3a4 c5c4 a4a5 c4c3 a5a6 c3c2 f3f4 c2c1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15415" LastActivityDate="2018-12-19T11:30:57.350" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23276" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23278" CreationDate="2018-12-19T12:54:01.713" Score="2" ViewCount="1068" Body="&lt;p&gt;I play the nimzo Indian defence, and so in response to 1.d4 I play Nf6, planning on playing e6 and Bb4. &#xA;However, if they follow up with any other moves, I am at a bit of a loss as to what to play. I tend to just play d5 and develop my pieces, but I was wondering if there was any other good opening I could use in response to that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16427" LastActivityDate="2018-12-19T20:07:27.047" Title="Good follow up to 1.d4 Nf6 2. e3 for black" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;nimzo-indian&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23277" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-12-19T19:49:50.143" Score="-2" ViewCount="94" Body="&lt;p&gt;Have chess science advanced enough to determine if there is a a chess side that always win if both sides are given unlimited time to think for the next move?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note the question Is not dumb as might seem. We have been speaking of consequences of that all the evening and we wanted to share this idea to the community. Even algorithms that do the next computation knowing the best possible game but given limited moves to try to force the opponent out of the known best possible game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17702" LastEditorUserId="17702" LastEditDate="2018-12-19T20:00:45.903" LastActivityDate="2018-12-19T22:02:34.987" Title="Do someone found if there exists a ever winning side?" Tags="&lt;theory&gt;&lt;computer-chess&gt;&lt;game-complexity&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2018-12-20T04:17:52.347" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23278" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23276" CreationDate="2018-12-19T20:07:27.047" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The Nimzo-Indian can be closely paired with The Queen's-Indian, or The&#xA;  Bogo-Indian, or much less closely paired with the Benoni.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lets forget about the Benoni for now and focus on the other two options.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the Bogo and Nimzo you see Black's Bishop going to b4.  The general idea is to fight for the e4 square, but in some cases Black will trade the Bishop off and then put his own pawns on dark squares (d7-d6 and e6-e5).&#xA;When you play an early d5 as Black you kill this secondary plan -- which is totally fine but something to keep in mind.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the Queen's Indian you target e4 with Bb7 and the other Bishop usually goes to e7.  Here you are also fighting for e4 and because you aren't taking out Whites Queen's-knight who usually will attack the e4 square, you need help of a pawn and d7-d5 is often played.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;So, what's with the Benoni?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If White is avoiding c4 and Nc3 then they are playing slowly and it is not critical.&#xA;If they play c4 but avoid Nc3, say 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 then many players like to play 3...c5!   Since White has put their Knight on f3 a lot of aggressive lines with f2-f4 are avoided.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nick De Firmian paired the Nimzo with the Benoni.&#xA;Karpov paired the Nimzo with the Queen's Indian.&#xA;Fischer sometimes played a hybrid of the Queen's Indian and the Nimzo Indian.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The smallest amount of theory to know would pair the Nimzo with the Bogo-Indian.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2018-12-19T20:07:27.047" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23279" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23277" CreationDate="2018-12-19T21:17:03.107" Score="0" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Have chess science advanced enough to determine if there is a a chess side that always win if both sides are given unlimited time to think for the next move?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess engines are imperfect (for now at least), we've seen it a lot of times with terrible blunders, such as Leela blundering its queen against Andrew Tang, Stockfish getting crushed by AlphaZero making it look like a joke and so on. So no, there isn't a technology that allows us to know if there is a &lt;em&gt;winning side&lt;/em&gt;. What we know though is that white does have the advantage because of the first move, but that's only temporary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also time doesn't really matter, what matters are the moves played, if black played the absolute best moves, we currently know that it would end in a draw. But again, we can't know if that would be the case with a perfect game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18086" LastActivityDate="2018-12-19T21:17:03.107" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23280" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23277" CreationDate="2018-12-19T22:02:34.987" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;A) Absolute best moves are synonim of perfect game.&#xA;B) Absolute Black best moves are nulling the temporary White advantage.&#xA;C) A clear advantage is mostly not sufficient to win a game because chess rules.&#xA;A+B+C = perfect game is always draw.&#xA;At now it is only a conjecture, but the demonstration is not so far.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18101" LastActivityDate="2018-12-19T22:02:34.987" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23281" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22886" CreationDate="2018-12-19T22:34:20.897" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;FIDE apply a monthly update of rating but, during matches or tournaments, the ratings of participants it remains unchanged until the event is completed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18101" LastActivityDate="2018-12-19T22:34:20.897" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23282" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20041" CreationDate="2018-12-19T23:14:37.410" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;120 points of rating difference, are expected to produce 67% of game points for the stronger player.&#xA;This apply for all ratings, so is true for a game of a 2800 vs 2680, as for a game of a 1600 vs 1480.&#xA;Anyway, expected game points are useful to calculate rating variation, not directly the players comparision.&#xA;If this really means &quot;strong twice&quot; or not, it is a subjective point of view.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18101" LastActivityDate="2018-12-19T23:14:37.410" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23283" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23273" CreationDate="2018-12-19T23:25:43.480" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Pretty much any open Sicilian when both sides have castled King-side Black can seek counter-play against the center by undermining the Knight on c3 with b5-b4 ideas or if allowed Rxc3 exchange sacs. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also thematic is trying to play d5.   Bent Larsen said something to the effect that the Sicilian was a positional trick where you trade a wing-pawn for a center pawn, then with 2 center pawns vs one you will be able to eventually take over the center.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I haven't seen games where Black has prospects of a king-side attack in a Dragon where White castled King-side.  Usually White is trying to attack there with f2-f4 etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2018-12-19T23:25:43.480" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23284" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23273" CreationDate="2018-12-20T05:21:24.843" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What are the plans for Black when White castles short in the Sicilian dragon&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Good news. Black's position is fine; a useful half-open c-file without risks being blow off on the king side. White's short castling is a weaker plan to fight for advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black has decent chances to take over the board:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Move your rooks to the c-file&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Prepare for thematic d5 push&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Unblock the g7 dragon bishop&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black has stronger queenside chances while White is not significant better at kingside. I'd be happy to play as Black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2018-12-20T05:21:24.843" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23285" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-12-20T07:19:20.333" Score="2" ViewCount="641" Body="&lt;p&gt;I started playing chess in July. I was at a 600 rating on Chess.com for a month. I started playing seriously in August and have played regularly (at least a few blitz and rapid games everyday). Currently, I am rated 1300 on Chess.com after 800 games(10 minutes). I seem to have moved past my blundering days (although still blunder every now and then). I also play shorter games on lichess (rated 1400 on blitz). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I haven't really read any literature yet. I started reading Logical chess by Chernev. I play the games out on the board and they are fascinating but I don't see how I can improve with them. Also, I do puzzles on lichess frequently. I haven't seen any significant changes in my thinking process recently when I play games. What's the next thing I should do? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My goal really is to be able to create and execute longer plans in the game while being able to read the opponents plan and defend. I was told this corresponds to the ~1900 rating range, so that would be my target (rating wise) by the end of 2019. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18105" LastActivityDate="2018-12-21T06:54:49.437" Title="What's next after first 5 months and 700 points?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;beginner&gt;&lt;study&gt;&lt;planning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2018-12-22T18:45:06.597" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23286" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23285" CreationDate="2018-12-20T08:29:20.003" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is an open-end question. My recommendation is join serious face-to-face tournaments where you play games at the classical time control. Playing blitz is fun, but not a good idea for learning chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2018-12-20T08:29:20.003" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23287" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-12-20T08:31:58.327" Score="5" ViewCount="245" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the chapter &quot;Centralization&quot; of his Chess Praxis, Nimzowitsch writes &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The mechanics of centralization can be seen in the way that, after the necessary restraint of a possibly mobile opposing pawn center, we draw the noose tighter and tighter around the central squares...But if we manage to make this long-range action effective and establish some of our pieces in the center, then we should be really pleased with the success of our policy of centralization.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What does he mean by &quot;&lt;em&gt;drawing the noose tighter&lt;/em&gt;&quot;? So far, I have come to conclusion that &quot;&lt;em&gt;drawing the noose tighter&lt;/em&gt;&quot; means the &quot;&lt;em&gt;long-range action&lt;/em&gt;&quot; mentioned in the next sentence and therefore some sort of pressure on the center exerted by long-range pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18107" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-12-20T10:30:34.667" LastActivityDate="2018-12-21T23:36:48.350" Title="Can't understand a sentence from Nimzowitsch's Chess Praxis" Tags="&lt;terminology&gt;&lt;aaron-nimzowitsch&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23288" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22904" CreationDate="2018-12-20T19:43:22.273" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm running ScidvsMac 4.17 with no issues. macOS is Mojave 10.14.2.&#xA;You may give it a try at: &#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://sourceforge.net/projects/scidvspc/files/mac/ScidvsMac-4.17.dmg/download&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://sourceforge.net/projects/scidvspc/files/mac/ScidvsMac-4.17.dmg/download&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18111" LastActivityDate="2018-12-20T19:43:22.273" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23289" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5251" CreationDate="2018-12-20T22:34:19.943" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;5200 ELO or greater, based on &lt;a href=&quot;https://unclejerry9466728.wordpress.com/2018/12/20/172/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt;: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18114" LastActivityDate="2018-12-20T22:34:19.943" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23290" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23285" CreationDate="2018-12-21T06:54:49.437" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Unless you're Magnus Carlsen, you pretty much never move past the blundering stage. They just tend to be smaller blunders.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In addition to the advice in &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/23286/9025&quot;&gt;this answer&lt;/a&gt;, I highly recommend analyzing your own games. Those are two of the things that helped me jump from around a 1400 USCF rating, to eventually breaking 1700, before dropping back down to my current rating of ~1600. That still took me a few years, though, mostly because I was usually one of the two lowest rated players in the small local tournaments I played.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you can get a coach, or even a stronger friend to train with in person, that is very helpful as well. They can more accurately pinpoint exactly what you need to work on to improve.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9025" LastActivityDate="2018-12-21T06:54:49.437" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23291" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23287" CreationDate="2018-12-21T08:07:30.907" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;After re-reading the chapter Centralization I think that Nimzowitsch meant the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;First you restrict the opponent's pawns&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Then you start impacting the opponent's center &lt;em&gt;from the distance&lt;/em&gt; using long-range pieces (the so-called &quot;&lt;em&gt;long-range action&lt;/em&gt;&quot;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Then you start closer-range actions against the opponent's center (i.e. &quot;&lt;em&gt;you draw the noose tighter&lt;/em&gt;&quot;), e.g. by occupying some central square &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18107" LastActivityDate="2018-12-21T08:07:30.907" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23292" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15317" CreationDate="2018-12-21T15:29:23.523" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe that there are many more books written on fishing than on chess, but chess has many books in print from days gone by.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18118" LastActivityDate="2018-12-21T15:29:23.523" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23293" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21267" CreationDate="2018-12-21T17:49:21.053" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;The promotion rule actually matters a lot. &lt;strong&gt;With perfect play the game ends in a draw instead of a win for white/gote if you drop the promotion rule.&lt;/strong&gt; In fact, the evaluation of all four moves in the initial position changes in this way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have used two independent methods to get this result in order to double-check that there is no bug in my implementations:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Using an engine with alpha-beta search, namely my &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/ianfab/Fairy-Stockfish&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Stockfish fork for fairy chess variants&lt;/a&gt; (including shogi variants), I ran deep searches (~1h) before and after &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/ianfab/Fairy-Stockfish/commit/78619bf29807e3e3df4d8a0dbfc47a1bc16874ff&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;disabling the promotion rule&lt;/a&gt;, see the results below.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Since &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%C5%8Dbutsu_sh%C5%8Dgi#Theoretical_result&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;dobutsu shogi is a solved game&lt;/a&gt;, there are tablebase generators for it. I have used an &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/fuzxxl/dobutsu&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;open-source tablebase generator&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/ianfab/dobutsu/commit/68f498ccb0d74311375c25628a7b51e9c58d2b11&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;modified it to disable promotions&lt;/a&gt; (I am not very familiar with this code base, but since the results of the two methods are consistent, my change seems to work fine). I ran the tablebase generation with both rule sets and checked the results, which you can find below.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;1. Search results&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;input:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;setoption name multipv value 4&#xA;setoption name hash value 4096&#xA;setoption name UCI_Variant value dobutsu&#xA;position startpos&#xA;go depth 90&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;output with promotion rule:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;info depth 90 seldepth 87 multipv 1 score mate -43 nodes 2423491649 nps 889420 hashfull 338 tbhits 0 time 2724798 pv c1c2 a4a3 c2c1 b3b2 a1b2 c4b3 C@a1 C@a2 c1c2 a2a1+ b2a1 b3c2 b1c2 a3b3 c2b1 b4a3 E@b2 a3b4 b2c1 b3a3 a1b2 a3a4 b1c2 b4c4 b2c3 a4a3 c3b2 a3a2 C@a1 a2b2 c2b2 G@b3 b2b1 E@a3 G@c2 C@c3 c2b2 c4b4 b2a2 b4a4 a2a3 a4a3 a1a2 a3b4 b1a1 G@c2 a1b1 b4c4 E@a1 b3b4 a1b2 c4b3 a2a3 b4c4 b1a1 c2c1 b2c1 b3a3 G@a2 a3b3 a2b2 b3a4 b2a2 C@a3 c1b2 a3a2 a1a2 c3c2 C@b3 E@c3 b2c3 c4c3 b3b4+ a4b4 E@b2 c3b3 a2b1 b3b2 b1b2 E@a3 b2a1 E@b2 a1b1 G@a1 b1c2 C@c3&#xA;info depth 90 seldepth 87 multipv 2 score mate -43 nodes 2423491649 nps 889420 hashfull 338 tbhits 0 time 2724798 pv b1c2 b3b2 a1b2 c4b3 c2b1 a4a3 C@a1 C@a2 c1c2 a2a1+ b2a1 b3c2 b1c2 a3b3 c2b1 b4a3 E@b2 a3b4 b2c1 b3a3 a1b2 a3a4 b1c2 b4c4 b2c3 a4a3 c3b2 a3a2 C@a1 a2b2 c2b2 G@b3 b2b1 E@a3 G@c2 C@c3 c2b2 c4b4 b2a2 b4a4 a2a3 a4a3 a1a2 a3b4 b1a1 G@c2 a1b1 b4c4 E@a1 b3b4 a1b2 c4b3 a2a3 b4c4 b1a1 c2c1 b2c1 b3a3 G@a2 a3b3 a2b2 b3a4 b2a2 C@a3 c1b2 a3a2 a1a2 c3c2 C@b3 E@c3 b2c3 c4c3 b3b4+ a4b4 E@b2 c3b3 a2b1 b3b2 b1b2 E@a3 b2a1 E@b2 a1b1 G@a1 b1c2 C@c3&#xA;info depth 90 seldepth 87 multipv 3 score mate -43 nodes 2423491649 nps 889420 hashfull 338 tbhits 0 time 2724798 pv b1a2 a4a3 a2b1 b3b2 a1b2 c4b3 C@a1 C@a2 c1c2 a2a1+ b2a1 b3c2 b1c2 a3b3 c2b1 b4a3 E@b2 a3b4 b2c1 b3a3 a1b2 a3a4 b1c2 b4c4 b2c3 a4a3 c3b2 a3a2 C@a1 a2b2 c2b2 G@b3 b2b1 E@a3 G@c2 C@c3 c2b2 c4b4 b2a2 b4a4 a2a3 a4a3 a1a2 a3b4 b1a1 G@c2 a1b1 b4c4 E@a1 b3b4 a1b2 c4b3 a2a3 b4c4 b1a1 c2c1 b2c1 b3a3 G@a2 a3b3 a2b2 b3a4 b2a2 C@a3 c1b2 a3a2 a1a2 c3c2 C@b3 E@c3 b2c3 c4c3 b3b4+ a4b4 E@b2 c3b3 a2b1 b3b2 b1b2 E@a3 b2a1 E@b2 a1b1 G@a1 b1c2 C@c3&#xA;info depth 90 seldepth 85 multipv 4 score mate -42 nodes 2423491649 nps 889420 hashfull 338 tbhits 0 time 2724798 pv b2b3 c4b3 a1b2 a4a3 C@a1 C@a2 c1c2 a2a1+ b2a1 b3c2 b1c2 a3b3 c2b1 b4a3 E@b2 a3b4 b2c1 b3a3 a1b2 a3a4 b1c2 b4c4 b2c3 a4a3 c3b2 a3a2 C@a1 a2b2 c2b2 G@b3 b2b1 E@a3 G@c2 C@c3 c2b2 c4b4 b2a2 b4a4 a2a3 a4a3 a1a2 a3b4 b1a1 G@c2 a1b1 b4c4 E@a1 b3b4 a1b2 c4b3 a2a3 b4c4 b1a1 c2c1 b2c1 b3a3 G@a2 a3b3 a2b2 b3a4 b2a2 C@a3 c1b2 a3a2 a1a2 c3c2 C@b3 E@c3 b2c3 c4c3 b3b4+ a4b4 E@b2 c3b3 a2b1 b3b2 b1b2 E@a3 b2a1 E@b2 a1b1 G@a1 b1c2 C@c3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;output without promotion rule:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;info depth 90 seldepth 52 multipv 1 score cp 0 nodes 2745548262 nps 965315 hashfull 244 tbhits 0 time 2844199 pv b1a2 a4a3 a2b1 b3b2 a1b2 c4b3 C@a1 b4a4 c1c2 b3c2 b1c2 G@b3 b2c3 C@c4 c3b2 a4b4 E@a2 c4c3 c2c1 b3b2 c1b2 E@b3 b2b1 b3a4 G@b2 b4c4 b1c1 a4b3 a2b3 a3b3 b2b3 c4b3 G@b2 b3c4 E@b3 c4b4 c1b1 G@a3 b3a2 b4c4 b1c1 E@a4 c1b1 a4b3 b2b3 a3b3 a2b3 c4b3 G@b2 b3b4 E@b3&#xA;info depth 90 seldepth 52 multipv 2 score cp 0 nodes 2745548262 nps 965315 hashfull 244 tbhits 0 time 2844199 pv b1c2 b3b2 a1b2 c4b3 c2b1 a4a3 C@a1 b4a4 c1c2 b3c2 b1c2 G@b3 b2c3 C@c4 c3b2 a4b4 E@a2 c4c3 c2c1 b3b2 c1b2 E@b3 b2b1 b3a4 G@b2 b4c4 b1c1 a4b3 a2b3 a3b3 b2b3 c4b3 G@b2 b3c4 E@b3 c4b4 c1b1 G@a3 b3a2 b4c4 b1c1 E@a4 c1b1 a4b3 b2b3 a3b3 a2b3 c4b3 G@b2 b3b4 E@b3&#xA;info depth 90 seldepth 50 multipv 3 score cp 0 nodes 2745548262 nps 965315 hashfull 244 tbhits 0 time 2844199 pv b2b3 c4b3 a1b2 a4a3 C@a1 b4a4 c1c2 b3c2 b1c2 G@b3 b2c3 C@c4 c3b2 a4b4 E@a2 c4c3 c2c1 b3b2 c1b2 E@b3 b2b1 b3a4 G@b2 b4c4 b1c1 a4b3 a2b3 a3b3 b2b3 c4b3 G@b2 b3c4 E@b3 c4b4 c1b1 G@a3 b3a2 b4c4 b1c1 E@a4 c1b1 a4b3 b2b3 a3b3 a2b3 c4b3 G@b2 b3b4 E@b3&#xA;info depth 90 seldepth 59 multipv 4 score cp 0 nodes 2745548262 nps 965315 hashfull 244 tbhits 0 time 2844199 pv c1c2 a4a3 c2c1 b3b2 a1b2 c4b3 C@a1 b4a4 c1c2 b3c2 b1c2 G@b3 b2c3 C@c4 c3b2 a4b4 E@a2 c4c3 c2c1 b3b2 c1b2 E@b3 b2b1 b3a4 G@b2 b4c4 b1c1 a4b3 a2b3 a3b3 b2b3 c4b3 G@b2 b3c4 E@b3 c4b4 c1b1 G@a3 b3a2 b4c4 b1c1 E@a4 c1b1 a4b3 b2b3 a3b3 a2b3 c4b3 G@b2 b3a4 E@b3 a4b4 b1c1 G@a3 b3a2 b4c4 c1b1 E@b3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See the &lt;a href=&quot;http://wbec-ridderkerk.nl/html/UCIProtocol.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;UCI protocol description&lt;/a&gt; for details on the meaning of the in- and output.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;2. Tablebase results&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;input:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;show lines&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;output with promotion rule:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Gc4-c3 : #-78  (25.00%)&#xA;Lb4-c3 : #-78  (25.00%)&#xA;Lb4-a3 : #-78  (25.00%)&#xA;Cb3xb2 : #-76  (24.99%)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;output without promotion rule:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Cb3xb2 : 0     (25.00%)&#xA;Gc4-c3 : 0     (25.00%)&#xA;Lb4-c3 : 0     (25.00%)&#xA;Lb4-a3 : 0     (25.00%)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please note:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The mate distances differ for two reasons:&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Stockfish counts the mate distance in full moves (unless you enable the USI protocol), whereas the tablebase generator counts in ply (half moves).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The search does not not necessarily find the shortest way to mate, whereas the tablebase result should be accurate.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The two softwares also use different coordinate systems to describe the squares (the ordering of ranks is inverted), so be careful not to mix them up when comparing move strings.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15415" LastEditorUserId="15415" LastEditDate="2018-12-22T12:43:28.793" LastActivityDate="2018-12-22T12:43:28.793" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23294" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23287" CreationDate="2018-12-21T23:36:48.350" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;To understand his writing it is good to look examples.  Let's take a line of the Nimzo Indian:&#xA;1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Bb4  &lt;strong&gt;Black restrains e2-e4&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4.Nf3 b6 5.e3 Bb7 6.Bd3 0-0 7.0-0 Bxc3 8.bxc3 Ne4  &lt;strong&gt;Black centralizes his Knight&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;9.Qc2 f5 &lt;strong&gt;Black draws the noose tighter&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;10.Nd2 Qh4 11.g3 Ng5 12.gxh4 Nh3 mate  &lt;strong&gt;Black is really pleased&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[Event &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;????.??.??&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;*&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteELO &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[BlackELO &quot;?&quot;]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 Bb4 4. Nf3 b6 5. e3 Bb7 6. Bd3 O-O 7. O-O Bxc3 8.&#xA;bxc3 Ne4 9. Qc2 f5 10. Nd2 Qh4 11. g3 Ng5 12. gxh4 Nh3#&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2018-12-21T23:36:48.350" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23295" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23296" CreationDate="2018-12-22T07:57:12.833" Score="4" ViewCount="228" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question: In general, is noting a check/checkmate sufficient to disambiguate moves in descriptive notation?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If for example two of the same type of piece could move to the same square, but one giving check and one not giving check while doing so, is it necessary to further distinguish between the moves when recording in descriptive notation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Take for instance the following position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;r2k3r/pbp1bppp/1p3n2/2p3B1/3N4/2N5/PPP2PPP/2KR3R w - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In algebraic notation, according to the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=208&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Laws of Chess&lt;/a&gt; (Appendix C), we would write 1.Ndb5+ (or just 1.Ndb5) and 1.Ncb5. The '+' to mark checks is optional.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However in descriptive notation, what do we need to write? Is writing &lt;strong&gt;1.N-N5ch&lt;/strong&gt; for 1.Ndb5+ and &lt;strong&gt;1.N-N5&lt;/strong&gt; for 1.Ncb5 sufficiently clear, or do we need to specify &lt;strong&gt;1.N(Q)-N5ch and 1.N(B)-N5&lt;/strong&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Further test cases to justify responses with:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.Bb5+ and 1.Bg5: &lt;strong&gt;1.B-N5ch and 1.B-N5&lt;/strong&gt;, or &lt;strong&gt;1.B-QN5ch and 1.B-KN5&lt;/strong&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;rnbqkb1r/pp3ppp/3ppn2/8/3NP3/2N5/PPP2PPP/R1BQKB1R w KQkq - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.Qa8+ and 1.Qh8#: &lt;strong&gt;1.Q-R8ch and 1.Q-R8 mate&lt;/strong&gt;, or &lt;strong&gt;1.Q-QR8ch and 1.Q-KR8 mate&lt;/strong&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;5k2/8/4K3/8/8/8/8/7Q w - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.Bxf7+ and 1.Bxc5: &lt;strong&gt;1.BxPch and 1.BxP&lt;/strong&gt;, or &lt;strong&gt;1.BxKBPch and 1.BxQBP&lt;/strong&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;r1bq1rk1/p1bn1pp1/3p1n1p/1pp3N1/4P3/1BNPBR2/PPP1Q1PP/R5K1 w - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Citations from sources (style guides for writing descriptive notation/actual books notating such a situation) to support answers would be appreciated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15989" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-12-22T16:59:15.613" LastActivityDate="2020-02-19T17:09:17.937" Title="How to disambiguate checking moves in descriptive notation?" Tags="&lt;notation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23296" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23295" CreationDate="2018-12-22T13:27:18.247" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;My understanding is that it's OK to use &quot;ch&quot; to disambiguate a move, but it's not OK to use the &lt;strong&gt;absence&lt;/strong&gt; of &quot;ch&quot; to disambiguate. For example, in your first diagram, Ndb5 could be written as N-N5ch, but Ncb5 could not be written as simply N-N5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't have a source stating that explicitly as a rule, but there is some support in Kenneth Harkness's &lt;em&gt;Official Chess Handbook&lt;/em&gt;, &quot;Approved by THE United States Chess Federation&quot;, David McKay Company, Inc., New York, 1967. One of the games illustrating descriptive notation goes 1 P-K4, P-K4; 2 N-KB3, P-Q3; 3 B-B4, P-KB4; 4 P-Q4, PxKP; 5 NxP, PxN; 6 Q-R5ch, K-Q2; 7 Q-B5ch, K-B3; 8 QxP(5), P-QR3; 9 P-Q5ch, K-B4; 10 B-K3ch, KxB; 11 Q-Q4ch, K-N4; 12 N-B3ch, K-R4; 13 Q-R4 mate. The caption to the third diagram on p. 94 reads (emphasis added) as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Position after 7 ...K-B3; 8 QxP(5). &lt;strong&gt;It is not advisable to write QxP, relying on the &lt;em&gt;omission&lt;/em&gt; of check.&lt;/strong&gt; QxP(5) shows that the Queen captures the Pawn on &lt;em&gt;White's&lt;/em&gt; fifth rank.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2299" LastActivityDate="2018-12-22T13:27:18.247" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23297" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11008" CreationDate="2018-12-22T17:01:51.133" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes for chess, anyway; as ratings go higher , the proportion of perfect games will increase and therefore if chess is a theoretical draw, the rate of draws will also increase (assuming most games are played against players of similar rating.) Once 100% draws are reached there is no better rating.  This is borne out by the graph  &lt;a href=&quot;https://unclejerry9466728.wordpress.com/2018/12/20/172/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;  which if extrapolated indicates that 100% draws would occur for engines at a rating of about 5200.&#xA;Similar reasoning obtains if chess is a win or loss for white, namely that once perfect play is reached in 100% of games played, all white games are won and all black are lost or vice versa, again assuming play against similar beings. Even if one plays against dissimilar beings, an asymptote is reached in the calculation of elo points won per game; as ones rating rises , it is harder and harder to win points against lower rated rivals, again enforcing an upper bound.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18114" LastEditorUserId="18114" LastEditDate="2020-05-10T03:11:43.420" LastActivityDate="2020-05-10T03:11:43.420" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23299" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23303" CreationDate="2018-12-23T04:39:48.203" Score="-2" ViewCount="384" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are there any problems in chess that remain unsolved?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-04-29T16:57:54.207" LastActivityDate="2021-04-29T16:57:54.207" Title="What are unsolved problems in chess?" Tags="&lt;theory&gt;&lt;problems&gt;&lt;mathematics&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2018-12-24T10:21:16.593" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23300" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-12-23T05:04:05.097" Score="0" ViewCount="167" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am aware that in most chess games the king is the one to be checkmated. Yet when playing many online chess games I have found the queen is the the one being checkmated. Is this simply another variation of chess?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18125" LastEditorUserId="3594" LastEditDate="2018-12-25T12:46:13.357" LastActivityDate="2018-12-25T20:50:25.650" Title="Why queen traps happen so frequently?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;checkmate&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ClosedDate="2018-12-30T15:40:01.787" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23301" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23300" CreationDate="2018-12-23T05:28:33.943" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Blundering away the most powerful chess piece is a common mistake. Many players would simply resign for a new game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2018-12-23T05:28:33.943" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23302" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23299" CreationDate="2018-12-23T05:31:31.390" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there a forced win for White?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2018-12-23T05:31:31.390" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23303" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23299" CreationDate="2018-12-23T05:46:27.297" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can try finding &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.chessbase.com/post/the-perfect-babson&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;the perfect Babson&lt;/a&gt;: compose a problem with four main lines. They consist of a defensive promotion of a black pawn to a queen, rook, bishop or knight, which forces White to promote to the same piece type in each case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples already exist, but they involve duals, which make them imperfect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastActivityDate="2018-12-23T05:46:27.297" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23304" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22700" CreationDate="2018-12-23T13:23:14.527" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;My question is how should we go about it, once its up and running?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;One thing I get in mind is to organize games between members.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Members playing each other is the main attraction for most successful clubs which you can do by organizing club competitions. The second attraction is playing games against non members which you can do by entering one or more teams in a local chess league.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My experience is that if you just have people coming and playing who they want they often get stuck in a rut playing the same 2 or 3 openings against the same 2 or 3 opponents every week. Organized club competitions get them playing a wider range of opponents.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most clubs will have a club championship which runs over the season and which has a standard time control in which one game lasts most of the evening. This can either be a Swiss or, if you have a lot of members, a hybrid where you have group stages followed by a knockout between the winners of the groups.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Something which is a lot of fun is to organize blitz tournaments which take place with all games played in one evening. You don't necessarily want to do this every club evening but once or twice a month is a lot of fun and a 9 round blitz (if you have enough players) will get people playing a wider range of opponents.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A further twist to get players out of their ruts is to have themed blitz tournaments. This is where all the games played in the tournament must be the same opening. For example if the theme for the evening is the Ruy Lopez then all games start after the moves 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 with black to move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Apart from sets and clocks one other thing is very useful and that is a laptop with pairing software to help with organizing tournaments. Probably the best free program out there is the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.vegachess.com/tl/index.php/Home_page_English.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Vega pairing program&lt;/a&gt;. It is completely free to use on Linux and free on Windows for up to 30 players. Importantly it is simple and easy to use. It will also generate html for you to put details of your tournaments on your website if you have one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;There's also watching lectures, but who decides what lectures will we&#xA;  watch?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Having lectures is a more tricky subject. You obviously want these to be given by the stronger players in the club. If you don't have any strong players then it is going to be difficult to get an interesting lecture. Ideally you get a small number of players to agree to take it in turns to give a lecture, say once a month, on an &quot;interesting&quot; topic. &quot;Interesting&quot; probably means not an opening since whatever opening you pick means it is automatically not interesting to all the players who don't play it and don't want to play it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd suggest two types of topics, one for serious study and one for fun. The &quot;serious study&quot; one would be on endgames and endgame technique. The &quot;fun study&quot; one would be where a strong player analyzes one of their own games or perhaps an interesting game played by one of the club members, say the club championship final.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I don't know if there are any existing chess clubs in my city, though&#xA;  it is unlikely.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your best bet is to contact your national chess federation and ask them. They should be able to tell you if there are any other chess clubs in your area and give you contact details.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2018-12-23T13:23:14.527" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23305" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-12-23T15:35:57.020" Score="1" ViewCount="200" Body="&lt;p&gt;I discovered something quite unusual when working with stockfish 10 chess engine in arena. The discovery leads me to ask: Why does Stockfish_10_x64 have a Node Cap when searching moves based upon amount of Nodes used? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18128" LastActivityDate="2018-12-25T15:39:35.737" Title="Node Cap for Stockfish" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ClosedDate="2018-12-30T15:40:09.887" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23306" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23299" CreationDate="2018-12-24T08:34:24.813" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is it good or not for chess and the players if the World Championship match could be eventually decided by rapid, blitz, and armageddon?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastActivityDate="2018-12-24T08:34:24.813" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23307" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-12-24T17:56:09.760" Score="2" ViewCount="147" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am trying to collect a list of Sicilian Dragon classic games, which every dragon player must be aware. I would really appreciate if you could share some classics and also highlight the most important move/part in the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am okay with either color winning. The two games where the dragon kills the Yugoslav that immediately spring to mind are Kasparov's dragon vs Viswananthan Anand in 1995 WC&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1018626&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1018626&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1018628&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1018628&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16311" LastEditorUserId="16311" LastEditDate="2018-12-26T05:17:22.560" LastActivityDate="2018-12-26T05:17:22.560" Title="Sicilian dragon classic games" Tags="&lt;sicilian-dragon&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2018-12-28T14:44:22.483" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23308" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23307" CreationDate="2018-12-24T18:29:30.300" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1008373&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Fischer - Larsen, Portoroz 1958&lt;/a&gt; also known as &quot;Slaying the Dragon&quot; in his book, 60 Memorable games is &lt;strike&gt;recommended&lt;/strike&gt; &lt;strong&gt;required&lt;/strong&gt; reading.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The opening moves for the dragon, accelerated and hyperaccelerated dragon may be found in Parimarjan Negi's &lt;em&gt;e4 vs. the Sicilian: Vol 2&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13147" LastActivityDate="2018-12-24T18:29:30.300" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23310" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23305" CreationDate="2018-12-25T15:39:35.737" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;To play a position, an engine is usually given a search depth. Arena always does this. Probably in your case the search depth was set to a limited number of nodes. You can check this by keying in CTRL+L. The adjust level box pops in. There, you can see how the depth was specified, whether a time limit, a nodes limit, a search depth limit or an infinite depth.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13544" LastActivityDate="2018-12-25T15:39:35.737" CommentCount="22" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23311" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5470" CreationDate="2018-12-25T18:26:14.450" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Naturally, I recommend my own treatment of the subject opening at:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.logicalchess.com/learn/lessons/openings/grob.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.logicalchess.com/learn/lessons/openings/grob.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18019" LastActivityDate="2018-12-25T18:26:14.450" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23312" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23300" CreationDate="2018-12-25T20:50:25.650" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The short answer: because it is the most valuable piece after the king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The long answer: &#xA;For a piece to be trapped two things must happen: you need to threaten to capture it, and you need to make this in a way it can't &lt;strong&gt;escape&lt;/strong&gt; or be &lt;strong&gt;protected&lt;/strong&gt; without loss of material or a positional drawback suck as mate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;For a piece to be protected effectively, the piece attacking it must be more valuable than the piece being attacked, so &lt;strong&gt;any&lt;/strong&gt; piece can attack the queen and if there is a trade the attacker will gain a material advantage. &lt;strong&gt;So other pieces can be protected in more ways than the queen.&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;For a piece to be able to escape, it must be &lt;strong&gt;able to move&lt;/strong&gt;, and it needs a &lt;strong&gt;safe square&lt;/strong&gt;. The queen is the most mobile piece, but moving in straight lines, it can be easily blocked by another piece, and &lt;strong&gt;any&lt;/strong&gt; piece can do this, since a trade would mean material loss for the defending side. &lt;strong&gt;So the queen can be blocked in more ways than most pieces.&lt;/strong&gt; For a square to be safe for the queen, it needs to be free from attacks (except from the opposing queen), again, since any trades that happen after the queen moves to that square will result in material loss. Other pieces can move to squares attacked by stronger pieces, if the defender has another piece protecting that square. &lt;strong&gt;So the queen has less safe squares available than most pieces.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That sums it up, but there are MANY exceptions when you take into account the actual position, since a square can be safe if moving to that square uncovers a discovered attack with a mate threat, or many other situations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7019" LastActivityDate="2018-12-25T20:50:25.650" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23313" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23307" CreationDate="2018-12-25T21:07:01.340" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1067858&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Karpov-Kortchnoi from the 1974&lt;/a&gt; Candidates Final which turned out to decide the World Champion is a famous and appealing dragon game and part of chess history.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2018-12-25T21:07:01.340" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23314" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-12-25T23:24:33.573" Score="2" ViewCount="224" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Demis Hassabis' &lt;a href=&quot;http://mdcrosby.com/blog/koi.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;presentation&lt;/a&gt; at the the Kinds of Intelligence Symposium in January 2018, grandmasters are compared to AlphaZero and Stockfish along an interesting metric: how many moves are searched per decision made? It is claimed that ``human grandmasters'' considers 10 of moves per decision they make, AlphaZero tens of thousands, and Stockfish tens of millions. Is there any scientific evidence regarding the number of moves per grandmaster or human in general? 10 seems to me a very arbitrary number. Where does it come from?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS. I didn't know that grandmasters can be non-humans as well!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit&lt;/strong&gt;. I missed this &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/17088/how-many-steps-can-a-grandmaster-foresee&quot;&gt;answer&lt;/a&gt; but my question is not about what make a grandmaster special? Or how many moves can foresee a grandmaster? I understand that any number would depend on the position. My question is I guess more precise: is there any &lt;strong&gt;scientific evidence&lt;/strong&gt;, experiment, or study that tried to measure the average number of moves a human can consider during a certain amount of time? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My attempt was to read Alexander Kotov's book &quot;Think like a grandmaster&quot;. Kotov asks this simple question: How many candidate moves a grandmaster examine? Kotov does not give any precise answer: ``they are unusual cases where there can be five or six, where in the next they are actually seven'' but his book dates back from the seventies (1971 for the English translation) and I was wondering if someone tried to test this more scientifically, by estimating an average number. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11749" LastEditorUserId="11749" LastEditDate="2018-12-26T21:56:50.340" LastActivityDate="2018-12-28T04:30:28.233" Title="Amount of search per decision: GMs versus AlphaZero and Stockfish" Tags="&lt;grandmaster&gt;&lt;alphazero&gt;&lt;candidate-move&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2018-12-30T15:39:55.363" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23315" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23317" CreationDate="2018-12-26T15:15:08.973" Score="5" ViewCount="248" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm playing recently the English opening. specifically this line in the two knights variations&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.c4 e5 2.Nc3 Nf6 3.g3 Nc6 4.Bg2 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I find it difficult to see when it's advantageous to go queen side with &lt;code&gt;a3 b4&lt;/code&gt; idea rather then play in the center with &lt;code&gt;e3&lt;/code&gt; maybe &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt; later on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any thoughts ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18143" LastActivityDate="2018-12-26T22:49:13.777" Title="Ideas for the English opening" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;english-opening&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23316" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23315" CreationDate="2018-12-26T17:25:52.327" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am not a chess master so take this with a grain of salt. &#xA;However, I also play the English quite often. Without taking a look at any computer, what I often play is as you suggested e3 to prepare d4 but probably first play Nf3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think that playing those moves or preparing a queenside expansion pretty much depends on the position, but in this particular position I would not consider doing this (a3 b4) at least for now.&#xA;Note also that in some position a3 (not necessarily followed by b4) might be convenient to avoid the jump of the Black knight to b4, however, now (with the absence of Black bishop from f5) that does not look particularly dangerous.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16771" LastActivityDate="2018-12-26T17:25:52.327" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23317" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23315" CreationDate="2018-12-26T22:49:13.777" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a tough question and depends a lot on where the f8 Bishop is going (b4, c5, e7, or even g7), as well as where is the Knight g1 is going (e2 or f3). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the position of the diagram the most common move among top players is 4...Bc5. Then after 5.e3 with the idea to place the Knight g1 in e2 and to control the square d5 with the Bishop in g2, Black can still react by temporarily sacrificing a pawn with 5...d5 6.cxd5 Nb4 and a wild game. If Black prefers a more positional battle with 4...Bc5 5.e3 a6, then White prefers to expand on the queen-side: 6.Cge2 a6 7.0-0 0-0 8.a3 Ba7 9.b4 with a very flexible play. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Check this nice game between &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1783237&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Nakamura and Grandelius at Gibraltar in 2015&lt;/a&gt; (even if the move order is more subtle)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11749" LastActivityDate="2018-12-26T22:49:13.777" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23318" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14612" CreationDate="2018-12-26T23:13:18.507" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Another way to look at this question is to ask how the players who are eligible for the title rate the title compared to other titles as reflected in the take-up rate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Every month FIDE publish &lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/download.phtml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;files of rating data&lt;/a&gt; for all current FIDE registered players which also includes details of the titles they have. From these files it is possible to extract counts of how many players in different rating ranges have which titles.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Doing this for the December data gives these results.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First the number of players with each of the different titles (I'm just looking at &quot;open&quot; titles rather than women only titles).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;GM - 1647&lt;br&gt;&#xA;IM - 3762&lt;br&gt;&#xA;FM - 7869&lt;br&gt;&#xA;CM - 1663   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first thing to note is that the higher the title the fewer players have the title, with the exception of CM. There are only a few more CMs than GMs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Next, since probably a significant number of CMs got their title by a tournament performance rather than reaching 2200 ELO, try and get an estimate of how many players got the title by rating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since the FM title works in a similar way I will compare the two. A player can reach the required rating for a CM or FM title and get the title for life but as they get older and weaker their rating goes down. So, I'm going to look at the number of titled players above a floor 200 points below the required rating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The number of FMs with a rating of 2100 (=2300 - 200) or over = 7244. This is less than 10% down on the total number of FMs = 7869.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The number of CMs with a rating of 2000 (=2200 - 200) or over = 957. This is more than 40% down on the total number of CMs = 1663.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Next I'm going to look at the number of players who are eligible for the CM title by rating but have no title and do the same for the FM title.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Number of players rated 2200 or over = 21047.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Number of players rated 2200 or over with no title = 9665.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;So, about 45% of the players who are eligible for the CM title don't want it badly enough to apply.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Number of players rated 2300 or over = 8750&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Number of players rated 2300 or over with no title = 1513&lt;br&gt;&#xA;So, about 17% of the players who are eligible for the FM title don't want it badly enough to apply for it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you narrow down the range for the CM title to only look at 2200 to 2300 (so, eligible for the CM title only) then you get -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Number of players rated between 2200 and 2300 = 12297&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Number of players rated between 2200 and 2300 with no title = 8152&lt;br&gt;&#xA;So, about 66% of the players who are eligible for the CM title and not eligible for other titles are not interested.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Overall those figures tell me that players who are eligible for titles don't rate the CM title anywhere near as much as other titles.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2018-12-26T23:13:18.507" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23319" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14612" CreationDate="2018-12-27T05:47:44.567" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Many informative answers have been given, but to answer the real question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The readers are supposed to be beginners or amateurs or even chess enthusiast that do not really play chess.&#xA;  The answers should focus on how the title is perceived by potential buyers of the book, and not on the technical details of obtaining the CM title.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have been playing chess for over 20 years so in that regard, I’m not a beginner. Yet my current rating is about 1500 &amp;mdash; though on lichess it’s about 1950.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I buy a chess book I indeed look at whether or not the writer is an IM or GM so I know the author knows what he is talking about. Then again, they might know how to play chess, but be very bad at explaining the concepts and teaching others about the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A lower rated player could be better at explaining the concepts needed by lower rated players needed to improve their game. Playing chess and teaching about it are two different things.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although I’m not easily impressed anymore and I’m hesitant to buy books from CM or FM authors, I’m still more inclined to buy books from them than from an untitled player. To me, those titles are still FAR away and getting them is still an impressive accomplishment. I would imagine it would be even more impressive to those that do not really play chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17145" LastActivityDate="2018-12-27T05:47:44.567" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23320" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23321" CreationDate="2018-12-27T09:46:30.797" Score="9" ViewCount="1001" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recently gambitted a knight (I call it a gambit as I gave away a knight without being able to take back).&lt;br&gt;&#xA;However I had calculated through all the possibilities and five moves or so later I have an extra pawn and a better position. Does this still count as a gambit or doesn't it as I know I can get the material back?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Essentially, what is the actual definition of a gambit?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16427" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-12-27T10:51:09.423" LastActivityDate="2018-12-27T10:51:09.423" Title="Is a gambit still a gambit if it's calculated through to the end?" Tags="&lt;gambits&gt;&lt;terminology&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23321" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23320" CreationDate="2018-12-27T10:47:59.503" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, it's not a gambit; a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gambit&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;gambit&lt;/a&gt; is 'just' a sacrifice which is part of (well-known) opening theory, nothing more, nothing less.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But, technically, what you describe is not even a real sacrifice, but a 'sham sacrifice'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacrifice_(chess)#Real_versus_sham&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt; gives the following definitions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Real versus sham&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Rudolf Spielmann proposed a division between sham and real sacrifices:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In a 'real sacrifice', the sacrificing player will often have to play on with less material than his opponent for quite some time.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In a 'sham sacrifice', the player offering the sacrifice will soon regain material of the same or greater value, or else force mate.  A sham sacrifice of this latter type is sometimes known as a pseudo sacrifice. (Rudolf Spielman, &amp;quot;The Art of Sacrifice in Chess&amp;quot;, 1995, Dover, ISBN 0-486-28449-2)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In compensation for a real sacrifice, the player receives dynamic, positional, or other non-material advantages which he must capitalize on, or risk losing the game due to the material deficit.  Because of the risk involved, real sacrifices are also called 'speculative sacrifices'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the name 'sham sacrifice' sounds too negative to you, just call it a 'tactical combination'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2018-12-27T10:47:59.503" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23322" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23326" CreationDate="2018-12-27T13:25:16.050" Score="29" ViewCount="5341" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was watching a video last night by Ben Finegold on Paul Morphy and some of his games. He mentioned that some current GMs would discount Morphy's ability since all of his opponents were &quot;terrible&quot;. However, Ben countered by observing that ok even if that's true, almost all of Morphy's moves were the best move. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I went back and looked through more of his games and like his style - extremely aggressive, and always gets his pieces out and working together, something I have a tough time doing. So the question is as in the title: for someone at my level (still very much a beginner, probably sub-1200 once my rating stabilizes), does it make sense to study older players like this, or stick with newer games? The problem I have studying newer games is that they are completely inscrutable. I can almost never figure out why certain moves are begin made once they're outside theory, so I'm not sure how much mileage I actually get out of it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10779" LastActivityDate="2019-01-24T15:36:41.890" Title="Would studying the games of old players hurt my progress?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;learning&gt;&lt;master-games&gt;&lt;morphy&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23324" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23322" CreationDate="2018-12-27T13:52:18.053" Score="16" Body="&lt;p&gt;Paul Morphy's games are better resources for learning at your level. There's no use for you to get into deep positional understanding typically in modern GM games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should get a book on Amazon. Don't try to analyze the games yourself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2018-12-27T13:52:18.053" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23326" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23322" CreationDate="2018-12-27T15:12:51.253" Score="20" Body="&lt;p&gt;The answer from SmallChess is good. There's also an illustrative &lt;a href=&quot;https://twitter.com/Kasparov63/status/420663928209674240&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;tweet&lt;/a&gt; from Garry Kasparov on the subject:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;For beginning chess players, studying a Carlsen game is like wanting to be an electrical engineer &amp;amp; beginning with studying an iPhone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3270" LastActivityDate="2018-12-27T15:12:51.253" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23327" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-12-27T15:22:08.107" Score="1" ViewCount="437" Body="&lt;p&gt;Nobody likes a draw. Why then do chess tournaments provide incentives for players to go for a draw by awarding significant points for a draw? Typically, a win is 1 point, a draw is 0.5 points for each player, and a loss is 0 points. So a draw is &lt;strong&gt;half&lt;/strong&gt; of a win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is comparatively to other sports quite a large amount of points to get for a draw and essentially ends up encouraging players to play for a draw more often. Imagine you are rated 2500 and you are going up against a monster like Carlsen. Who in their right mind wouldn't want to just go for a draw and get a whole 0.5 points from that? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In comparison, take other sports, like football, where a draw is &lt;strong&gt;1 point&lt;/strong&gt; and a win is &lt;strong&gt;3 points&lt;/strong&gt;. So the point system encourages one to go for a win. Similarly, many other sports simply don't &lt;strong&gt;allow&lt;/strong&gt; draws and if a game ends in a draw, some sort of extra-time is played so that a winner is found (in Chess, I guess this could be arranged by having a quick blitz match best of 3 after a drawn game to decide a winner).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So why do chess tournaments give so many points for a draw? Wouldn't it be better to follow a different point system, like 3/1/0 as in football, to encourage players to go for a win?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18153" LastActivityDate="2018-12-27T18:56:15.587" Title="Why do chess tournaments award so many points for a draw?" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2018-12-27T21:25:33.830" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23328" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23327" CreationDate="2018-12-27T18:50:51.340" Score="0" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I don't see how tournaments incentivize people to go for a draw. You literally cannot win any tournaments by drawing every game.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Yes sometimes there are draws that are clearly prearranged but other than that only bad players say draws are bad for chess. The funny thing is that these low rated players are usually not getting draws even against similar strength opposition. They also can't figure out what's going on in high rated games without an engine.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The issue being your football system is it would change the elo system and encourage win trading. The best way to gain elo would be win farming against much weaker opponents, as you would lose elo drawing against people of similar elo. The players with the highest elo would not be participating in these super tournaments to maintain their elo. Also colluding draws is nowhere near as damaging as win trading in this system, as the tournament winner cannot really win by drawing every game, but can easily win winning 50% and losing 50% of his games. Also it is freelo due to 1 win and 1 loss against a similar rated opponent being a net gain in elo.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4393" LastEditorUserId="4393" LastEditDate="2018-12-27T18:56:15.587" LastActivityDate="2018-12-27T18:56:15.587" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23329" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23322" CreationDate="2018-12-27T19:02:01.947" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Pretty much all great players studied the games of the best players of the past, and it is repeatedly recommended that studying them is a great way to improve. Marin's book Learn from the Legends is pretty much based around his journey of doing that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4324" LastActivityDate="2018-12-27T19:02:01.947" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23330" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23331" CreationDate="2018-12-27T19:13:42.217" Score="2" ViewCount="178" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;Live Chess&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Chess.com&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2018.12.27&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;SergioRamos2&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;SmojLee&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1/2-1/2&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;B57&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;1640&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;2175&quot;]&#xA;[TimeControl &quot;600&quot;]&#xA;[EndTime &quot;10:48:30 PST&quot;]&#xA;[Termination &quot;Game drawn by agreement&quot;]&#xA;[CurrentPosition &quot;8/3kb1p1/7p/6p1/8/3K4/6PP/4R3 b - - 1 54&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.Nc3 Bd7 4.Bc4 Nc6 5.O-O Nf6 6.d4 cxd4 7.Nxd4 a6 8.f4 Qb6 9.Be3 Ng4 10.Nd5 Nxe3 11.Nxe3 Nxd4 12.Kh1 Nc6 13.Qe2 e6 14.Rab1 Be7 15.c3 Qc7 16.a4 O-O 17.Bd3 Rfd8 18.Rf3 Rac8 19.Rh3 h6 20.Rf1 Bf8 21.Rg3 Ne7 22.Qh5 Ng6 23.f5 exf5 24.exf5 Qc5 25.b4 Qe5 26.Ng4 Qd5 27.c4 Rxc4 28.Bxc4 Qxc4 29.Rd1 Qe4 30.fxg6 fxg6 31.Qd5+ Qxd5 32.Rxd5 Bxa4 33.Kg1 Bc6 34.Rd4 d5 35.Ne5 Bd6 36.Nxc6 bxc6 37.Ra3 c5 38.Rd1 c4 39.Kf1 Bxb4 40.Rxa6 Kf7 41.Ra4 Be7 42.Ra5 Ke6 43.Re1+ Kf6 44.Rd1 Rc8 45.Raxd5 c3 46.Ra5 g5 47.Ke2 Kf7 48.Ra7 Ke6 49.Kd3 Kf7 50.Rf1+ Ke8 51.Re1 Rd8+ 52.Kxc3 Rd7 53.Rxd7 Kxd7 54.Kd3  1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a game I had with black and I was doing well with time and position but it came down to one move that made me lose!  Luckily my opponent is time trouble so he had to offer a draw. Was it smart of me to accept it since he was up by +1 and he only had 40 seconds left? I would appreciate if someone could analyse the game to see what went wrong,   thank you! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18158" LastEditorUserId="7726" LastEditDate="2018-12-27T19:16:11.850" LastActivityDate="2018-12-28T01:45:45.977" Title="Is this a smart draw offer?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;&lt;blunder&gt;&lt;time-management&gt;&lt;online-blitz&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23331" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23330" CreationDate="2018-12-27T21:33:42.717" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;My first thought was that black had won a piece by move 12, and should have been able to win without getting into such heavy complications. For instance, a move like 15...Qc7? is just a bad move from a strategic standpoint. It's not necessarily losing or anything, but black doesn't know for sure where the queen is supposed to go, whereas black knows for sure that the king should get to safety. This is a good rule of thumb: begin by dealing with the pieces you know where they are going before manoeuvring with the pieces for which it's unclear where they stand better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically what went wrong for black in this game is not a one-move mistake in my opinion. Black went on with a standard plan in the open sicilian, ignoring the fact that white was preparing a kingside attack. This made everything very awkward in the end, and once white's attack was actually picking up steam it was already unneccessarily difficult for black to respond properly. I'm sure that one could make detailed remarks on many of the moves played in this game, but noting that this was a 10-minute blitz game I see little reason to make a detailed analysis of this game. One suggestion I would make for black in this game is that black should've played 11...Qxd4 instead of 11...Nxd4. The reason is that black is already a full piece up at this point, and if the queens are traded white is just doomed, since there will be no talk about kingside counterplay then.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for the question about the draw offer, black has zero winning chances in the final position. In general, it's never a bad idea to accept a draw offer in a worse position even if your opponent is low on time, and this is no exception to that rule. 40 seconds is enough for white not to blunder a rook, and realistically black is the only one actually risking anything by playing on. But in the end I think the position is drawn and I see no good try for white to actually make any progress.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8300" LastActivityDate="2018-12-27T21:33:42.717" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23332" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23330" CreationDate="2018-12-28T01:45:45.977" Score="4" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Was it smart of me to accept it since he was up by +1 and he only had 40 seconds left&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The final position was a &lt;strong&gt;dead draw&lt;/strong&gt;, so there was nothing wrong taking the draw offer. However, you would probably win the game by time if you had continue (assuming you had more than 40 seconds on the clock and no increment). Moved your king aimlessly, and pushed for h5-h4 to reset 50-move counter. It would have been a battle on mouse reaction, not chess anymore.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It was a wise decision by position, but unwise if you really wanted a win at all costs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2018-12-28T01:45:45.977" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23333" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23322" CreationDate="2018-12-28T01:52:45.737" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you're a beginner then studying games from the old masters does more good, especially players like Morphy who emphasized the basics (quick development, attacking an uncastled king, etc). Once you get to the 1500 range, you'd do best looking at games from the GMs of the 20th century up until the 1990s. That was when classical chess theory &quot;matured&quot;, so to speak, without being so absorbed in theory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You noted it's tough to follow the top players currently. That's no accident, as it's not uncommon for them to spend the first 15-20 moves completely in theory generated by engines and hours of preparation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2018-12-28T01:52:45.737" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23334" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23322" CreationDate="2018-12-28T03:58:47.300" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Definitely study classic Morphy's games. The fact that Morphy was so far ahead of his peers is a good thing. His opponents often missed Morphy's plan and the plan came out clearly, and it shows you what you should strive to do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In modern chess so much depends on opening preparation, where moves are often not intuitive and depend on engine backed calculations, that it is very difficult to see what the plan is. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="307" LastActivityDate="2018-12-28T03:58:47.300" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23335" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23314" CreationDate="2018-12-28T04:30:28.233" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I assume you're wondering about the speed of calculating moves. I'm not sure how you would go about figuring out the max #moves a GM can calculate (I guess the experiment runs until they fall asleep?).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm an FM and I can calculate a couple of moves per second (1-3), assuming the calculation is trivial enough. For more complicated positions where I need to analyze in the middle of my calculations, the speed significantly slows down to how long I need to analyze. This depends entirely on the complexity of the position. GMs are probably slightly faster than me on average. I'm not sure where the &quot;10 moves per decision&quot; figure came from.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From what I understand of AlphaZero, it uses a very strong intuitive (generated from playing itself thousands of times) combined with Monte Carlo Tree Search. This search plays out random simulations of games, starting from where AlphaZero is calculating, and then the move that ends up scoring the highest is chosen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stockfish uses the typical minimax with alpha-beta search algorithm, combined with other algorithms which increase efficiency (esp. iterative deepening). It doesn't calculate to the end of the game in each branch, but instead goes up to a certain point and evaluates the resulting position based off its evaluation heuristics.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for the speed of moves/second between AlphaZero and Stockfish, it comes down to how fast (on average) they can evaluate one position/node. The overall way they traverse the calculation tree is irrelevant when talking about raw calculation speed. Calculation speed comes down to two things:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The speed of the computer the Engine is running on.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The algorithm used to evaluate a position.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Assuming Stock and AlphaZero are given equal computers, then on average I would assume AlphaZero is faster (I don't have any official sources for this though). This is because it evaluates based off a very fined tuned intuition which it learned by playing itself over and over. Meanwhile, Stockfish uses evaluation heuristics thought up by humans. They're very good heuristics, but still only human made.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On ChessBase, Stockfish evaluates over 1 million nodes/positions per second. I don't know what AlphaZero's speed is, but when they eventually publish the engine you could check it out then.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2018-12-28T04:30:28.233" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23336" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-12-28T09:51:22.180" Score="2" ViewCount="61" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this game, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1365631&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1365631&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The engine says that 20. Na5 is a blunder. However, I fail to understand why it is. Also, I am surprised at White's choice of moves here with c4 instead of Qxd6. Essentially he is giving a Bishop for free.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [title &quot;Bronstein vs Winter&quot;]&#xA; [fen &quot;r2r2k1/pp3p1p/1n1B2p1/3P4/2q5/1N3P2/PbPQ1RPP/3R2K1 w - - 1 20&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. Na5 Qa6 2. Qb4 Rxd6 3. c4?&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the problem with 22. Qxd6 Qxa5 line where White gets a Rook and a pawn for his Knight and Bishop, the position looks equal. The engine says it is -3 for Black and gives a long long line but I am unable to see how it gives Black an advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16311" LastEditorUserId="16311" LastEditDate="2018-12-28T10:04:45.227" LastActivityDate="2018-12-28T16:56:30.500" Title="Bronstein vs Winter" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23337" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="162" CreationDate="2018-12-28T13:38:01.430" Score="7" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I have recently heard that the only 5% percent out of entire chess&#xA;  players are women.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In 2018 this is certainly false. The statistics from the November 2018 FIDE rating list are that there are 668785 active players of whom 99325 are female. That is a female participation rate of about 15%.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Update January 2020&lt;/strong&gt;: &lt;em&gt;The statistics from the January 2020 FIDE rating list are that there are 771484 active players of whom 120065 are female. That is a female participation rate of about 15.6%.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The statistics from the May 2012 FIDE list (when you wrote this question) are that were 87538 active players of whom 7226 were female. That is a female participation rate of 8.25%. So even when you wrote this question your number was inaccurate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The big difference between May 2012 and today in FIDE rating terms is that the current figures also include rapid and blitz and also FIDE's online Arena for online chess. FIDE rating of rapid and blitz only started with the July 2012 list and has grown massively since then. I believe the FIDE online Arena only started in late 2015.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One other factor also affects the figures and that is that the FIDE default when a new player is recorded is male. If the registering federation does not specify sex then the player is registered as male. This obviously introduces distortions in the figures. It should be noted that FIDE has made great efforts in more recent times to clean up its data and correct errors. More recent FIDE data is more accurate than older data.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now I don't know which federation you come from so your figure could be accurate for your federation even though it is inaccurate overall.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Figures vary wildly by federation and not necessarily in the way that you might imagine (unless you listen to Jordan Peterson). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Looking at the female participation rate (100 x active female players / active players for federations with 100 or more active players) gives these 10 federations as bottom of the list from the May 2012 list -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Czech Republic - 4%&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Spain - 3.9%&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Sweden - 3.8%&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Nepal - 3.4%&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Italy - 3.3%&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Finland - 2.6%&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Belgium - 2.5%&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Switzerland - 2.3%&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Ireland - 2.1%&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Denmark - 1.5%   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And here are the top 5 from the May 2012 list -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Vietnam - 39.1%&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Georgia - 33.7%&lt;br&gt;&#xA;China - 31.2%&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Ecuador - 23.8%&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Azerbaijan - 23.6%   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are the corresponding figures from the November 2018 list (restricted to federations with 1000 or more active players - about 10x as many active players so increase the &quot;noise&quot; filter by 10x).&lt;br&gt;&#xA;First the bottom 10 -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sweden - 6.3%&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Israel - 6.3%&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Switzerland - 5.9%&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Argentina - 5.3%&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Netherlands - 4.8%&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Norway - 4.8%&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Finland - 4.4%&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Ireland - 4.2%&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Denmark - 2.7%&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Libya - 0.9%&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And the top 5 -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mongolia - 41.9%&lt;br&gt;&#xA;United Arab Emirates - 35.6%&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Sri Lanka - 34.0%&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Vietnam - 32.5%&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Malaysia - 28.3%   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Who says that only men can play chess?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nobody says that and the statistics certainly don't say that either. What they do suggest is that men &lt;em&gt;want&lt;/em&gt; to play chess much more than women. Where women have a greater choice of what sort of things they can do, as in the Scandinavian countries, it appears that many more of them have better things to do with their time than play chess ;-).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS It's a shame there isn't an international knitting federation publishing data we could use to extract male participation rates in knitting.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;NB For anybody interested in the raw data, FIDE publish &lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/download.phtml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;rating file data&lt;/a&gt; going back to 2001. For data before 2001 there is the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.olimpbase.org/index.html?http%3A%2F%2Fwww.olimpbase.org%2FElo%2Fsummary.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Olimpbase site&lt;/a&gt;, but their data is very &quot;dirty&quot; and will need a lot of work to eliminate/merge duplicates and correct obviously false data before it can be used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2020-01-22T17:06:01.110" LastActivityDate="2020-01-22T17:06:01.110" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23338" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-12-28T16:05:52.817" Score="2" ViewCount="184" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am currently watching the Rapid World Championship and the amount of draws between players is absolutely shocking. I'm not talking about games where each player fights to the end and the game just happens to be a draw - that is perfectly okay in my opinion. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But so many games are being drawn on default - players are simply agreeing to draw far before any sort of endgame is reached. Just now, 5 minutes ago, Anish Giri drew a game after &lt;strong&gt;10 moves&lt;/strong&gt;. 10!!!  TEEEEN!!!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why do chess tournaments allow this scandalous behavior?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Imagine if any other sport was played this way. Imagine if Barcelona and Real Madrid are playing football, and they just decide to leave the pitch after 20 minutes because they no longer want to play, and agree to a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why is this behavior not banned? Why isn't a rule enforced so that a draw can only be reached after many moves (as was the case in the World Championship with Caruana and Carlsen)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18166" LastActivityDate="2018-12-28T18:43:58.220" Title="Why do chess tournaments allow absolutely scandalous draws?" Tags="&lt;draw&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2018-12-30T15:40:24.053" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23339" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23338" CreationDate="2018-12-28T16:44:00.993" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Many FIDE tournaments do have a rule where a draw can only be reached after &gt;= 30 moves. If I recall correctly, this rule is quite predominant especially in the closed tournaments which super GMs play in.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I suppose they could also implement the rule in rapid and blitz tournaments, but these events are more informal and less important. The need for so many extra strict rules decreases.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sports like hockey, football, etc don't allow quick draws since the game could never naturally end early on in a draw. In chess though, the game could easily end (naturally) in a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2018-12-28T16:44:00.993" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23340" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23336" CreationDate="2018-12-28T16:56:30.500" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the starting position, White should immediately protect his Bishop with 1.Qb4. Then, after 1...Qxb4 2.Bxb4 Rxd5, the endgame is close to equal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Instead, after 1.Na5 Qa6, White's bishop is still under attack and his knight is vulnerable. The game continued 2.Qb4 Rxd6, and now if White plays 3.Qxd6, Black has 3...Qxa5. Black has won two pieces for a Rook since White's queen got overloaded.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You're right though that 3.Qxd6 was a better move than 3.c4, but only by about 0.40 according to Fritz. Both moves are under -2. The point behind 3.c4 is that White's f2-rook is attacking Black's b2-bishop and threatening to take it. The bishop wasn't already threatened by White's queen since after Qxb2 Black has ...Qxa5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2018-12-28T16:56:30.500" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23341" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23338" CreationDate="2018-12-28T18:43:58.220" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Anish Giri was likely playing a &quot;solved&quot; opening, one in which all lines have been analyzed to a draw. Also, Giri is &lt;strong&gt;extremely&lt;/strong&gt; hard to beat and draws many of his games (his weakness is that he doesn't often win). In this situation, there was likely no room for progress outside of severe blunders, so it's almost a respect issue, where Giri and his opponent respected each other enough to admit that no blunders were likely to be made, especially in this line. This sort of &quot;guaranteed ending&quot; does not occur in games like football or baseball or whatever.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18168" LastActivityDate="2018-12-28T18:43:58.220" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23342" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-12-28T19:46:54.343" Score="0" ViewCount="177" Body="&lt;p&gt;Today I played a game, and it was my turn in the endgame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I had only one pawn, which is blocked, and my king left. But my king could move only to a single square legally, as it would otherwise be in check. However, on the next move of mine, I had to put my king back on the square that it came from. I had to repeat these moves 8 or 9 times, with no another moves available. My king was stuck within those 2 squares.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was confused, and I still am. Eventually, my opponent promoted a pawn to a queen, and afterward, in 2-3 moves, he checkmated me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can anyone explain this type of situation? Is it stalemate, or something else?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18169" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-05-22T21:40:37.183" LastActivityDate="2019-05-22T21:40:37.183" Title="A confusing situation-is this stalemate?" Tags="&lt;stalemate&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="0" ClosedDate="2018-12-29T11:04:29.077" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23343" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23322" CreationDate="2018-12-28T20:15:25.993" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;It absolutely makes sense to study Morphy. Sure, most of his opponents were &quot;terrible&quot; but so are most of your opponents.  And, let's be honest, so are you, at the moment.  Studying Morphy's games&amp;nbsp;&amp;ndash; and tactics in general&amp;nbsp;&amp;ndash; will teach you how to beat &quot;terrible&quot; opponents. At your level, nearly all games are decided by exactly the sort of tactical blunders that Morphy will quickly teach you how to avoid and exploit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once you're beating all the &quot;terrible&quot; players, you'll have moved up the ladder to &quot;bad&quot;. Then you can look at the games of people like Lasker and Capablanca, who'll help you learn to think strategically too. Then you'll be a &quot;so-so&quot; player and maybe even a &quot;good&quot; one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The modern games are, as you say, pretty inscrutable. Modern players know so much about chess that most of what they do is basically micro-optimization in an attempt to play something that's 99.5% perfect instead of 99%. It is possible to learn from modern games, as long as they're very well annotated, explaining why alternative moves would be mistakes. But don't fall into the trap of thinking &quot;Carlsen played Bb4 and I was thinking that Nc4 looks like a decent move. Why is it wrong?&quot; Usually, there are two or three good moves in any position. Carlsen needs to play the absolutely best move because his opponent is a genius; you can play any of the good moves and be fine, because your opponent isn't a genius. Mostly, though, people who play chess for a hobby will learn much more  from older games than modern ones.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2789" LastActivityDate="2018-12-28T20:15:25.993" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23344" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23342" CreationDate="2018-12-28T23:12:05.867" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;A stalemate is when, during your turn, you cannot make any legal move. The game then stops as a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As long as you can make a legal move, with any piece, it's not a stalemate. Therefore the situation that you have described is not stalemate, as you had legal moves every single turn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There isn’t really a name for the situation that you are in, but it is best called a repetition for simplicity’s sake.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, if your opponent also made the same moves as well every single time, and it were a tournament it would be called a threefold repetition and you could claim a draw. But only you are repeating your moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18086" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-05-22T18:39:40.287" LastActivityDate="2019-05-22T18:39:40.287" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23345" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23346" CreationDate="2018-12-29T00:00:31.970" Score="9" ViewCount="3071" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have started analyzing my games in Lichess. I'm wondering what does &lt;code&gt;Depth&lt;/code&gt; mean in the Stockfish analysis? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18172" LastEditorUserId="7019" LastEditDate="2018-12-29T06:46:35.313" LastActivityDate="2021-01-13T11:56:32.120" Title="What is 'Depth' in Lichess game analysis?" Tags="&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;lichess&gt;&lt;depth&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23346" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23345" CreationDate="2018-12-29T03:36:16.523" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;It means how many half moves ahead stockfish looked from the current position. It doesn't mean it looked at all the moves possible to that extent thought, it trims what it analises, otherwise it would be unable to reach such depths, this means a mate in 10 for example may only be found when stockfish searches in greater depths. In general, greater depths mean better analysis and moves suggested by stockfish. The only limiting factor is time and processing power.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7019" LastEditorUserId="7019" LastEditDate="2019-01-26T02:48:46.910" LastActivityDate="2019-01-26T02:48:46.910" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23347" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-12-29T04:16:54.533" Score="6" ViewCount="527" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the level of tournament chess, is the Traxler Counterattack just a dubious opening or a blunder? In club or online chess it works just fine, but it is one of those opening rarely seen in professional high level chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA; 1.  e4   e5&#xA; 2. Nf3  Nc6&#xA; 3. Bc4  Nf6&#xA; 4. Ng5  Bc5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7019" LastActivityDate="2019-03-02T14:34:55.503" Title="In tournament chess, is the Traxler Counterattack just a dubious opening or a blunder?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;traxler-counter-attack&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23349" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23350" CreationDate="2018-12-29T10:09:09.350" Score="0" ViewCount="308" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the fastest/shortest possible checkmate? What is the minimum amount of moves to checkmate a side?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18129" LastActivityDate="2018-12-29T10:11:33.363" Title="What is the fastest possible checkmate?" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2018-12-29T12:54:40.323" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23350" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23349" CreationDate="2018-12-29T10:11:33.363" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Two moves! And this has a name as well! It is called &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fool%27s_mate&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Fool's mate&lt;/a&gt;!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [title &quot;Fastest Mate&quot;]&#xA; [fen &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. f3? e5 2. g4?? Qh4++&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16311" LastActivityDate="2018-12-29T10:11:33.363" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23351" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22318" CreationDate="2018-12-29T19:07:26.900" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;If one is to modify the game of chess to make it more dynamic, the question becomes why choose Chess960?  There are many options beyond that particular choice, for example Chess480.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many also dislike the exact specifics and typicall playing dynamics of Chess960 and have proposed changes.  Specifically, for example, the castling rules.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I personally hope the rules of chess continue to evolve, but I hope they evolve in a less dramatic fashion than Chess960 proposes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Still, I believe that 'classical chess' will be around for a long time, and I don't think Chess960 has yet established itself as the only viable extension of classical chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are many chess variants, some of which are quite close to the usual game.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_chess_variants&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wiki: Chess Variants&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="69" LastActivityDate="2018-12-29T19:07:26.900" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23352" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-12-29T20:18:35.483" Score="4" ViewCount="294" Body="&lt;p&gt;Suppose I let the engine analyze a given position (let's say for simplicity the starting position), and then I execute the move suggested by the engine (let's say 1. e4). Then I let the engine analyze the upcoming position (black to move after 1. e4), and after a while I take the move back and let the engine again analyze the original position (the starting position, white to move again), will it:   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;utilize the analysis done on this position last time and look wider at each PLY?   &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;utilize the analysis done on the upcoming position (after I played 1. e4) and possibly reevaluate 1. e4 based on that?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12953" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2018-12-29T21:48:47.960" LastActivityDate="2018-12-29T22:26:56.657" Title="Do engines remember previous analysis?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23353" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23352" CreationDate="2018-12-29T21:56:20.670" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes. This is what hash is: it stores previous analysis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Hash is a database that stores information about positions previously searched, how deeply they were searched, and what was concluded about them. See also &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessprogramming.org/Hash_Table&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.chessprogramming.org/Hash_Table&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastActivityDate="2018-12-29T21:56:20.670" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23354" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23352" CreationDate="2018-12-29T22:26:56.657" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can't speak for all game playing engines, but a good engine would indeed remember past analysis. Having a &quot;first-draft&quot; evaluation of a position (and all the positions that can arise from each move) allows the engine to do move-ordering. This is where it looks at all possible moves in the order of &quot;probable best&quot; to &quot;probable worst&quot;, based off the aforementioned &quot;first-draft&quot; evaluations that it saves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By looking at the subtrees of moves that are probably better first, the engine is able to perform the minimax + alpha-beta algorithms MUCH more efficiently. Already looking at a good move/subtree allows you to prune a bad move/subtree, but not vice versa.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;High quality engines actually perform their search via iterative-deepening. Search one move ahead, then go back to the starting position. Search two moves ahead, then go back to the starting position. All the way up to N moves ahead. That might seem inefficient, but it shows how powerful having some preliminary knowledge of a position and its moves can be before expanding further on it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For your specific question, I assume you mean when you go forward and backwards &lt;em&gt;manually&lt;/em&gt; in ChessBase. In this case I'm not sure if the engine remembers everything it calculates, because that's a lot of data to store just for the specific case of the user clicking back to a previous position. It seems pretty space inefficient. I tested it on ChessBase by making a move and seeing how fast the engine's depth climbed. Getting to depth 20 was slightly faster on the second time than the first time, but it wasn't instantaneous on the second time (which it should be if it did remember all its calculations the first time I manually brought it to the position).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2018-12-29T22:26:56.657" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23355" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23357" CreationDate="2018-12-30T01:13:23.793" Score="5" ViewCount="330" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[StartPly &quot;5&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this opening is it better to do e6 to activate the dark square bishop which will protect c5 pawn. If the opponent plays Bxc6, it will have a double pawn in the c file but the dark squared bishop might help the pawn on c5 or g6 because I think the Bishop will be much better on the long diagonal. Also keeping open the option to recapture on c6 with the d-pawn to open the Queen and light squared Bishop. Also not worried about them doubling the pawns because of the Bishop pair to compensate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I gave my explanation for both moves but which move do you think is Better?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18158" LastEditorUserId="13544" LastEditDate="2018-12-30T15:36:38.953" LastActivityDate="2018-12-30T15:36:38.953" Title="Which is better in the Rossolimo Sicilian, 3... e6 or 3... g6?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;learning&gt;&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23356" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23421" CreationDate="2018-12-30T02:57:58.947" Score="18" ViewCount="2078" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've recently heard and then actually started to notice more and more that professional chess players tend to use a middle finger when pointing at pieces on the board like in this Anand vs Caruana game during the Sinquefield Cup 2017:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/CADLS.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/CADLS.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;(&lt;a href=&quot;https://twitter.com/LennartOotes/status/894341233958670336&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;source&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am wondering, why is it happening?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;sub&gt;Note: this is a genuine question, I am not trying to offend or make fun of anything or anyone here.&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18171" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-12-07T17:33:57.623" LastActivityDate="2020-12-17T23:00:06.597" Title="Why do professional chess players point at the pieces with a middle finger?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;learning&gt;&lt;psychology&gt;&lt;grandmaster&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23357" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23355" CreationDate="2018-12-30T08:20:25.610" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's really a matter of taste and style. One option may suit more your style than the other. But if you believe in a &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moneyball&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;moneyball approach&lt;/a&gt;&quot;, 3...e6 appears to be the &quot;best&quot; move for black based on a search on the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.365chess.com/opening.php?m=6&amp;amp;n=327&amp;amp;ms=e4.c5.Nf3.Nc6.Bb5&amp;amp;ns=3.3.4.37.327&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;365chess.com&lt;/a&gt; website. &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/lhN0J.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/lhN0J.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &#xA;Regarding the number of games, I guess that the difference in black's winning chances (30.2% for 3...e6) versus (26% for 3...g6) should be statistically significant. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you control for the level of players by focusing on the Master Database, the statistics also appear to favor 3...e6 over 3...g6.&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/iTYUh.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/iTYUh.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11749" LastActivityDate="2018-12-30T08:20:25.610" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23358" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-12-30T10:58:56.627" Score="1" ViewCount="233" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was searching C46 Four knights, Italian variation at &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.365chess.com/opening.php?m=8&amp;amp;n=56&amp;amp;ms=e4.e5.Nf3.Nc6.Nc3.Nf6.Bc4&amp;amp;ns=3.5.5.6.47.57.56&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;365chess.com&lt;/a&gt; and here is what I found:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Pskj1.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Pskj1.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/d7Vma.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/d7Vma.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am curious why 4...Bc5 gives black a slightly higher winning percentage. It seems to me that after 4...Bc5 it is white's turn to move and white should not have any disadvantage here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16626" LastActivityDate="2019-01-01T06:40:35.680" Title="Why in Four Knights, Italian variation the winning percentage favours black after the move 4...Bc5?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;advantage&gt;&lt;four-knights&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23359" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19380" CreationDate="2018-12-30T10:59:29.243" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, humans have the advantage of identifying potential long term positional ideas where as computers are better at calculating quite complex positions. I predict most of the games would end up in draws but in some situations (specially endgames where you need depth as well as complex strategic plannings), human and computer partnership would triumph. A famous example would be the Caruana vs Nakamura game where computers never identified the queen sacrifice. &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMjj9SPnlBE&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMjj9SPnlBE&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also it's self evident that artificial intelligence programs such as Alpha-go-zero has both human like abilities (long term strategic plannings) as well as computer like abilities (deep calculations). So it would be a great example for you to see the games played between Alpha go zero and chess programs like Stockfish (&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vP2J4WNN4Qg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vP2J4WNN4Qg&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18085" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2018-12-30T14:16:52.010" LastActivityDate="2018-12-30T14:16:52.010" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23360" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-12-30T11:21:25.103" Score="9" ViewCount="1046" Body="&lt;p&gt;If in a tournament game, white is only aiming for a draw, what openings and strategies will be recommended for him? I guess that the answer may depend on the following different mindset for black:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Black is happy with a draw as well.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Black would love to win but can accept a draw.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Black must win.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am aware of &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/2199/how-to-play-for-a-draw&quot;&gt;a related question&lt;/a&gt; but my questions seems to be different.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16626" LastActivityDate="2019-09-14T08:49:25.973" Title="What opening is recommended if white is only playing for a draw?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;draw&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23361" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23360" CreationDate="2018-12-30T14:03:19.043" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The main ideas in playing for a draw are to exchange as many pieces as possible, and to avoid getting into a sharp opening. This simplifies the position and reduces the tendency of either side to blunder. For each case, some openings are suitable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If black is OK with a draw, then &lt;strong&gt;1. e4&lt;/strong&gt; is the best. The only risk of drawing the game here is getting a sharp opening in return (a Sicilian, for example), which your opponent won't do if they are playing for a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If your opponent is playing for a win, then open with &lt;strong&gt;1. d4&lt;/strong&gt;. A typical reply is a QGD, or perhaps a Slav defense. In both cases, to draw you would go for an exchange variation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;QGD: Exchange Variation&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. cxd5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Slav Defense: Exchange Variation&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. c4 c6 3. cxd5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13544" LastActivityDate="2018-12-30T14:03:19.043" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23362" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23363" CreationDate="2018-12-30T20:57:47.707" Score="1" ViewCount="69" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;Live Chess&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Chess.com&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2018.12.29&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Leon_Likes_Chess&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;SmojLee&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;B47&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;1625&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;2310&quot;]&#xA;[TimeControl &quot;600&quot;]&#xA;[EndTime &quot;14:52:01 PST&quot;]&#xA;[Termination &quot;SmojLee won by resignation&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 e6 5.Nc3 Qc7 6.Ndb5 Qe5 7.f4 Qb8 8.e5 a6 9.Nd6+ Bxd6 10.exd6 Nh6 11.Be2 Nf5 12.Ne4 b5 13.g4 Nh4 14.Rg1 Qb6 15.Nf2 Nd4 16.Be3 Ndf3+ 17.Bxf3 Qxe3+ 18.Be2 Nf3+ 19.Kf1 Nxh2+ 20.Kg2 Bb7+ 21.Kxh2 h5 22.gxh5 Qxf4+ 23.Rg3 Qxf2+ 24.Kh3 Qf5+ 25.Kh2 Rc8 26.Bg4 Rxc2+ 27.Be2 Qxh5+ 28.Kg1 Bf3 29.Qxc2 Qh2+ 30.Kf1 Bxe2+ 31.Qxe2 Qxg3 32.Qf2 Rh1+ 33.Ke2 Qxf2+ 34.Kxf2 Rxa1  0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a 20min rapid game I played with black and I have questions about the beginning of the game:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Question 1 - What was the purpose of 6.....Qe5, it looks like it loses a tempo and gives White an advantage&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Question 2 - Doesn't 13.g4 weaken the White king?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Question 3 - Why 14. Rg1? White should really try to get his King to safety and focus on development&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would appreciate if someone can give me their thoughts about the rest of the game, thank you! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18158" LastEditorUserId="13544" LastEditDate="2018-12-30T21:20:48.383" LastActivityDate="2018-12-30T22:11:23.787" Title="Questions about the beginning of this game" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;learning&gt;&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23363" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23362" CreationDate="2018-12-30T22:06:08.993" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What was the purpose of 6... Qe5? It looks like it loses a tempo and gives White an advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think you are asking the wrong person. You said you were playing black, so, why did you play this move? Exactly as you say, it loses a tempo and worsens your position. 6... Qb8 was much safer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Doesn't 13. g4 weaken the White king?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't think so. White has a nice setup after 13... Nh4 14. Qd3, and even has the initiative as a kingside attack is ready to be launched against the black king. However, accurate play is required:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;rqb1k2r/3p1ppp/p1nPp3/1p3n2/4NP2/8/PPP1B1PP/R1BQK2R w KQkq b6 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. g4 Nh4 2. Qd3 f5 3. gxf5 Nxf5 4. Bh5+ g6 5. Bg4 O-O&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The bishop defends f4, so white has nothing to worry about.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Why 14. Rg1? White should really try to get his King to safety and focus on development.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wouldn't say Rg1 is a blunder, though, as you said, development takes precedence here. The queen must take part in the kingside action via Qd3. You can also get your king to safety - the engines agree, but it is not a humane decision to get your king walking:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;rqb1k2r/3p1ppp/p1nPp3/1p6/4NPPn/8/PPP1B2P/R1BQK2R w KQkq - 1 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Kf2 (1. Kd2? Bb7 2. Qe1 Ng6 3. Kd1 Nd4 4. Bd3 O-O {and the white king ends up exposed in the middle of the board.}) f5 2. Kg3 fxe4 3. Kxh4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your play was almost perfect throughout the middle game, though you missed a mate-in-4 starting at move 28 (the position was winning for black anyways):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;4k2r/1b1p1pp1/p2Pp3/1p5q/8/6R1/PPr1B3/R2Q2K1 b k - 1 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Qc5+ 2. Qd4 Qxd4+ 3. Kf1 Rh1+ 4. Rg1 Rxg1#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13544" LastEditorUserId="13544" LastEditDate="2018-12-30T22:11:23.787" LastActivityDate="2018-12-30T22:11:23.787" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23364" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-12-30T23:01:38.900" Score="6" ViewCount="658" Body="&lt;p&gt;Scenario: It's Player A's move, and without executing a move he offers a draw. Player B replies &quot;Please make a move&quot;. Player A then makes a move, where upon player B says: &quot;Ok, I accept&quot;. Is it now possible for Player A to say that the draw offer no longer stands, and was in fact nullified when it was not originally accepted during the period between the offer and the move that Player A did?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12953" LastActivityDate="2018-12-31T00:13:41.880" Title="Draw offer without executing move" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;draw&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23365" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23364" CreationDate="2018-12-31T00:13:41.880" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, Player A cannot do this. FIDE rules of chess article 9.1.1:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A player wishing to offer a draw shall do so after having made a move on the&#xA;  chessboard and before stopping his clock and starting the opponent’s clock.&#xA;  &lt;strong&gt;An offer at any other time during play is still valid&lt;/strong&gt; but Article 12.6 must be&#xA;  considered. No conditions can be attached to the offer. In both cases &lt;strong&gt;the offer&#xA;  cannot be withdrawn and remains valid until the opponent accepts it, rejects&#xA;  it orally, rejects it by touching a piece with the intention of moving or&#xA;  capturing it, or the game is concluded in some other way&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Key parts highlighted. Player A made the draw offer at one of these &quot;other times&quot;, so it's still valid and cannot be withdrawn. Player B asking player A to make a move, and player A actually making a move, are not one of the four actions that can terminate the draw offer, so the offer remains valid. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastActivityDate="2018-12-31T00:13:41.880" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23367" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23373" CreationDate="2018-12-31T07:47:04.940" Score="2" ViewCount="155" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am relatively new to chess SE, so I am not sure how to include the chessboard thing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]    &#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c5 &#xA;2. Nf3 Nc6 &#xA;3. d4 cxd4 &#xA;4. Nxd4 Nf6&#xA;5. Bc4?! Nxe4&#xA;6. Bxf7+ Kxf7&#xA;7. Qh5+ ...&#xA;8. Qd5+&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and wins back the Knight after that.  I am a ~1900 rating player on chess.com, and I play it frequently.  I win almost most of the matches and it is evident white settles for a good positional advantage by the end of this opening, leaving black unable to castle.  I would actually call this a trap that loses black his ability to castle.  Is there a name for this?  Is there any counter to this variation perhaps (I have never encountered one before)?  If not why is this rarely seen in world championships?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15357" LastEditorUserId="4362" LastEditDate="2018-12-31T13:20:59.763" LastActivityDate="2020-01-11T03:32:58.027" Title="How good is this variant of the Sicilian defense?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;&lt;opening-traps&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23368" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1585" CreationDate="2018-12-31T10:56:54.600" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Aron Nimzowitsch covered this in his classic (well, all his books are classic) autobiography &quot;How I Became a Grandmaster at Chess&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="419" LastActivityDate="2018-12-31T10:56:54.600" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23369" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23376" CreationDate="2018-12-31T11:18:40.133" Score="5" ViewCount="188" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this line of the 3 knights opening&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;start&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 Nf3 Nc6 Nc3 Bc5 Nxe5 Nxe5 d4 Bd6 dxe5 Bxe5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the best continuation according both to my engines and to databases is &lt;code&gt;7. Bd3&lt;/code&gt;. Why? For instance, can anyone explain why that's better than &lt;code&gt;7. Be2&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;7. Bc4&lt;/code&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Below some of the reasons I found by myself, but I would love to have confirmation or hear more:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If the pawn on e4 moves, the bishop would attack the h7 square which might be helpful for a mating attack in case black castles king-side. &lt;code&gt;7. Be2&lt;/code&gt; doesn't attack any important square&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;7. Bc4&lt;/code&gt; would attack f7, but the bishop is undefended on c4 and might become a target&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;7. Bd3&lt;/code&gt; gives extra protection to the e4 pawn (useful in case white needs to move the knight on c3), neither &lt;code&gt;7. Bc4&lt;/code&gt; nor &lt;code&gt;7. Be2&lt;/code&gt; does that&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18190" LastEditorUserId="14079" LastEditDate="2019-01-02T09:43:14.483" LastActivityDate="2019-01-02T09:43:14.483" Title="Why 7. Bd3 in the 3 knights opening?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23370" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-12-31T11:18:56.517" Score="0" ViewCount="156" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have bought Houdini 6 pro ( ChessBase version ), for the primary purpose of practising by playing games against Houdini 6 pro (and other engines I own)&#xA;I cannot figure out how to play a game against it (Not friendly game with dumbed down engine) . I want to play games with the engines full capacity (using ChessBase GUI)&#xA;Is this possible or is ChessBase just a database program.&#xA;Thanks in advance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18189" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T20:31:06.830" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T20:31:06.830" Title="Regarding Chessbase softwares" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;uci&gt;&lt;chessbase&gt;&lt;houdini&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23371" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23345" CreationDate="2018-12-31T13:19:39.200" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Depth counter shows the latest status of the algorithm in the search tree. Depth 10 means the algorithm checked all moves in 10 node distance. Each node is a position (each half move changes the position, so depth of 10 translates to 5 moves). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you wait longer and longer it will get deeper thus will provide better evaluation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9030" LastActivityDate="2018-12-31T13:19:39.200" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23372" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23370" CreationDate="2018-12-31T15:43:24.160" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chessbase is indeed &lt;em&gt;just&lt;/em&gt; a database program, albeit a very powerful one. If Houdini doesn't already provide it then you will need some kind of front end to play games against it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One of the best free ones is Scid vs PC. This is available for download on &lt;a href=&quot;http://scidvspc.sourceforge.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Sourceforge&lt;/a&gt; and if you need more help getting started with it then there is much useful information on the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.watfordchessclub.org/index.php/chess-freeware/54-scid-vs-pc-getting-started&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Watford Chess Club website&lt;/a&gt;. There it explains in great detail what you need to do to get Scid to use other engines like Houdini.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2018-12-31T15:43:24.160" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23373" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23367" CreationDate="2018-12-31T16:04:29.317" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I would actually call this a trap that loses black his ability to&#xA;  castle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would call it a double blunder, first by white with 5. Bc4 then by black with 5. ... Nxe4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is there a name for this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is unusual for blunders to be given names although it does happen in special cases. This isn't special.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is there any counter to this variation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;5&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;... Qa5+ is the obvious one after which white looks to be in a lot of trouble to me.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Deliberately playing bad moves in the hope that your opponent will blunder is called &quot;hope chess&quot;. If you want to improve then you have to try and stop doing that because it won't work against good players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2018-12-31T16:04:29.317" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23374" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23375" CreationDate="2018-12-31T18:07:12.190" Score="1" ViewCount="266" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am well aware that Fool's Mate exists. But how many two move checkmates exist in total?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-04-29T15:40:07.817" LastActivityDate="2021-04-29T15:40:07.817" Title="How many two move checkmates exist?" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;mathematics&gt;&lt;fools-mate&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23375" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23374" CreationDate="2018-12-31T18:29:03.727" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;8 different ways.&#xA;2 different ways for f3/f4. 2 different ways for e6/e5. 2 different ways for changing the move order between g4 and f3/f4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4393" LastActivityDate="2018-12-31T18:29:03.727" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23376" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23369" CreationDate="2018-12-31T19:03:18.400" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;A light-squared bishop move here is in order so that white can castle soon. The choices that you mentioned are definitely the only ones that aren't dumb/lose a tempo.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Be2 is probably the worst of the reasonable choices. Its only result is to allow castling, and it kind of clogs up white's middle - potential moves like Ne2 or Qe2, which may show up at some point, are off the plate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bc4 and Bd3 are both solid, I think. There likely wasn't much of a difference in the engine evaluation for these moves, and depending on the tools you used to conduct this analysis, the difference may be within the margin of error for the program. Essentially, &lt;strong&gt;I'm not sure there is a measurable difference between these moves in terms of evaluation&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Assuming that there is an actual difference&lt;/strong&gt;, you might also consider that engines are fairly notorious for &lt;strong&gt;NOT&lt;/strong&gt; playing attacking chess. It has been argued that they focus too much on material imbalances and not enough on position/pressure/psychology. The move Bc4 &quot;feels&quot; scary, but the engine sees that with perfect play, it isn't much of a threat. The pressure on the e4 pawn, however, will be real with perfect play, and it moves to defend that pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Essentially, Bc4 &lt;em&gt;might&lt;/em&gt; be more practical in a game between imperfect people, but the attack it provides is not real enough to matter in a perfect game - thus Bd3 is technicallybetter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Play whatever you're more comfortable with.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18168" LastActivityDate="2018-12-31T19:03:18.400" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23377" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2018-12-31T20:16:48.040" Score="1" ViewCount="90" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure if anyone is familiar with this game, I watched it a while ago and had just rewatched it now and cannot understand why Magnus didn't take the knight on e7. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's the screenshot before this went down:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/u6Wpw.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/u6Wpw.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The moves are in this order: Green, Blue, Red. So the board looks like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9iAPj.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9iAPj.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He doesn't take the knight, why? Instead he plays Bxb2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm sorry if this is obvious to more experienced players, I'm not expert by any means just trying to get someones opinion. Thanks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18192" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2018-12-31T21:38:01.930" LastActivityDate="2018-12-31T21:44:51.477" Title="Magnus vs Tomashevsky Blitz 2012 - why doesn't he take the knight on e7" Tags="&lt;carlsen&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23378" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23377" CreationDate="2018-12-31T21:30:21.130" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Magnus doesn't take the knight because it simply results in a loss of material:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;r1bqk3/p2pNpbn/1p4p1/8/2P5/1N4P1/PP2PP2/R2QK2B b Qq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Qxe7 2. Bxa8 Bxb2 3. Rb1 Bc3+ 4. Kf1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By taking on b2, Black threatens to take his opponent's rook, while at the same time frees the c3 square for a check, which gains a tempo. White will then either exchange rooks or move their rook away from danger, also giving Black a chance to flee with their rook.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Taking on b2 is not the best according to engines, but at least it avoids the material loss. The position is significantly better for white.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13544" LastEditorUserId="13544" LastEditDate="2018-12-31T21:44:51.477" LastActivityDate="2018-12-31T21:44:51.477" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23379" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23358" CreationDate="2019-01-01T06:40:35.680" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As fuxia noted, winning percentages depend on how strong the players are, not just the opening. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Think about someone likely to play the four knights as White. Since the opening is rather unambitious and fairly easy to learn, there's a good chance this player isn't very strong. I'm not trying to generalize all players here, I'm just talking about averages. Meanwhile, Black is just following the main line moves for 1...e5. This gives no indication of Black being a weaker player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As an aside though, the 365chess database isn't the most accurate. There are way more than 3723 games played in 4...Bc5. A look at the MEGA database or TWIC would give you more reasonable stats.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-01-01T06:40:35.680" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23380" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23369" CreationDate="2019-01-01T20:23:51.050" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just to answer directly and concisely to the question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol start=&quot;7&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Bd3. Why?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well there are 2 reasons for that and one of them you already mentioned:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Protecting the e4 pawn&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a bit more real than it seems because the most natural moves for black are Nf6 and castles, which immediately threaten the e4 pawn by removing the defender with Bxc3. Bd3 defends it in advance, which is prophylaxis. I personally feel this is the main reason for Bd3 over Bc4.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Kingside attack&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the future, if black castles kingside which is the most natural thing to do, Bd3 aims for h7, becoming an attacking piece, after the pawn moves of course. But the interesting part is that black will have a hard time stopping the advance because at any point white can play f4 to kick any blockading piece. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bc4 also targets black in a kingside castled position which is why it is a reasonable move as well, but h7 looks more threatening and harder to defend for black than f7.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15224" LastActivityDate="2019-01-01T20:23:51.050" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23381" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23374" CreationDate="2019-01-01T23:14:56.210" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I agree with the previously-given answer from Matthew Liu (please give it the checkmark), but I’ll add the standard notation of the solutions since you ask:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.f3 e5 2.g4 Qh4#&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.f3 e6 2.g4 Qh4#&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.f4 e5 2.g4 Qh4#&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.f4 e6 2.g4 Qh4#&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.g4 e5 2.f3 Qh4#&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.g4 e6 2.f3 Qh4#&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.g4 e5 2.f4 Qh4#&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.g4 e6 2.f4 Qh4#&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18168" LastActivityDate="2019-01-01T23:14:56.210" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23382" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-01-02T00:03:39.927" Score="0" ViewCount="385" Body="&lt;p&gt;How to import entire game from chess.com game to stockfish?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18201" LastEditorUserId="3594" LastEditDate="2019-01-02T16:44:24.323" LastActivityDate="2019-01-02T16:48:27.047" Title="Importing and analysing games played on chess.com" Tags="&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;online-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2019-01-03T17:18:31.297" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23383" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23382" CreationDate="2019-01-02T00:11:15.243" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think chess.com has in-built Stockfish engine analysis, so I don't understand why you'd want to do that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Don't like chess.com? lichess is easy. Just grab PGN of your game, &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/paste&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;import it into lichess&lt;/a&gt;. Select engine analysis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="13544" LastEditDate="2019-01-02T16:48:27.047" LastActivityDate="2019-01-02T16:48:27.047" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23384" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23427" CreationDate="2019-01-02T03:37:44.100" Score="6" ViewCount="380" Body="&lt;p&gt;Quite simply, what is the longest professional chess game that ended in a checkmate?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-03-26T16:36:33.037" LastActivityDate="2020-11-29T16:47:06.547" Title="What is the longest professional chess game that ended in a checkmate?" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;master-games&gt;&lt;records&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23385" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-01-02T07:17:46.783" Score="6" ViewCount="1574" Body="&lt;p&gt;Usually I use &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/paste&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Lichess&lt;/a&gt; to analyse games, but sometimes I am offline. Is there any software with the capability of providing offline computer analysis, giving the rate of inaccuracies/mistakes/blunders and the average centipawn loss for a given game?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13544" LastActivityDate="2020-01-06T09:52:37.513" Title="Is there any software that will analyse games offline?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;windows&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23386" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23155" CreationDate="2019-01-02T11:01:10.807" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/commit/926f215061311392bc26c7bc4bde5b719dbab4e5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/commit/926f215061311392bc26c7bc4bde5b719dbab4e5&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;has everything you need. Essentially, it's an option for chess engine testing, not for production use. The option ensures the engine plays perfectly equally during development.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a user, you shouldn't bother with this option because number of nodes per ms is not something easy to give a value.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2019-01-02T11:01:10.807" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23388" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-01-02T16:38:49.857" Score="2" ViewCount="115" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm playing daily games on chess.com and read that it's officially allowed to use books or databases during the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is: How does it help me getting better (if it's the purpose of this allowance) to use theory sources in daily games? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18206" LastActivityDate="2019-01-05T00:53:46.993" Title="What's the benefit of using books during correspondence games?" Tags="&lt;online&gt;&lt;correspondence-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23389" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23385" CreationDate="2019-01-02T16:50:23.927" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I personally use &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fritz_(chess)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Fritz&lt;/a&gt; you can play agains the computer as well as go to the analysis mode, I think that you can buy it &lt;a href=&quot;https://shop.chessbase.com/en/products/fritz_16_english?ref=RF32-OET9DCF5AK&amp;amp;gclid=Cj0KCQiA37HhBRC8ARIsAPWoO0zUNdcrY6rScKbaWZbf4qhWnXRoj9ubBa60VjUWMaxG2RHCOdF7KfMaAgm-EALw_wcB&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; but you should be able to find a free version.&#xA;I hope you find this information useful. Good Luck.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18207" LastActivityDate="2019-01-02T16:50:23.927" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23390" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19615" CreationDate="2019-01-02T16:57:30.050" Score="0" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;8/8/8/3pk3/1K6/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&#xA;&#xA;1.Kc3 Ke4 {You lose control of one of the key squares, as the following variations show.} 2.Kd2 (2.Kc2!? {Setting up a trap.} Ke3! (2...Kd4?? 3.Kd2! {Drawing, although the position would lose if the first rank was removed:} 3...Kc4 4.Kc2 d4 5.Kd2 d3 6.Kd1! {This move would be impossible if the first rank was removed, but White draws here.} (6.Ke3 {White would have to play this if the first rank was removed.} Kc3))) Kd4 3.Kc2 (3.Ke2 Kc3) Ke3 {And Black Wins.}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The replayer has moves with annotations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A video could also clear things up, because it explains &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ga9FKCcAc0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;the blockade and how to remove it.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13147" LastEditorUserId="13147" LastEditDate="2019-01-02T17:23:56.720" LastActivityDate="2019-01-02T17:23:56.720" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23391" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23388" CreationDate="2019-01-02T16:58:57.393" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;What you get from the books/databases during your correspondece games is the same as what you get when you read them generally. You can make use of&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Opening lines, which become more important as the games get slower and slower&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Tactics, which you may encounter during your games&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Positional concepts and maneuvers, which play the most important part of a correspondence game&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Endgames, though usually tablebases (7-man) are allowed in correspondence games.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All of these (not including tablebases) are allowed because they are simply undiscoverable in a cheating investigation (for example, you can expect perfect opening play from any player), as well as to help you, as you stated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13544" LastActivityDate="2019-01-02T16:58:57.393" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23393" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23394" CreationDate="2019-01-02T18:42:57.430" Score="2" ViewCount="1118" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've recently started to become interested in the exchange Queen's Gambit Declined (QGD) from the white side:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.cxd5 exd5 5.Bg5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thematically speaking it's very enjoyable to play. The problem I'm noticing in constructing my repertoire is that black has a couple of move-order tricks up his sleeve to completely avoid this. For one, there's the Alatortsev Variation (1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Be7), however white still has several interesting lines here after 4.cxd5 exd5 5.Bf4 with some highly dynamic Carlsbad structures. The second move order trick however seems a bit trickier to deal with:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems to me as though this essentially forces white to choose between accepting the possibility of a main line QGD (after 3.Nf3 d5 4.Nc3) or the possibility of a Nimzo-Indian if white tries 3.Nc3 in hopes of achieving the exchange variation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Bb4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While I do have some preparation against the Queen's Indian and Bogo-Indian Defenses, the problem here is that this move order seems to force me to study an entirely new system: either the main line QGD (with its endless amount of theory) or the Nimzo-Indian (also very heavy in terms of theory).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So my question is the following: do advocates of the exchange QGD recommend to book up in main lines of the QGD, to book up in the Nimzo-Indian, or to head in a completely different direction with something like 3.g3 (heading into the Catalan, also a very theoretical opening)? Which of those (and which variations therein) are most likely to have thematically similar play as the QGD exchange?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17713" LastEditorUserId="17713" LastEditDate="2019-01-02T21:46:44.020" LastActivityDate="2019-01-02T21:46:44.020" Title="What do advocates of the QGD exchange variation (from the white side) recommend against alternative move orders?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;queens-gambit&gt;&lt;nimzo-indian&gt;&lt;queens-gambit-declined&gt;&lt;catalan&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23394" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23393" CreationDate="2019-01-02T20:18:52.177" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Indeed, the Exchange QGD and a system against the Queen's Indian do not blend very well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In his famous repertoire series on 1.d4, GM Avrukh opts for the Catalan, using the move orders 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.g3 d5 4.Nf3 and 1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3. For more information, see Volume &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.qualitychess.co.uk/products/1/249/grandmaster_repertoire_1a_-_the_catalan_by_boris_avrukh/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;1A&lt;/a&gt; (published in 2015) and Volume &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.qualitychess.co.uk/products/1/274/grandmaster_repertoire_1b_-_the_queens_gambit_by_boris_avrukh/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;1B&lt;/a&gt; (published in 2016).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Instead, the repertoire presented by GM Schandorff in &quot;Playing 1.d4&quot; (published in 2012) might be more to your taste. In the volume about the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.qualitychess.co.uk/products/1/150/playing_1d4_-_the_queens_gambit_by_lars_schandorff/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Queen's Gambit&lt;/a&gt;, he discusses the Exchange QGD. In the volume about the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.qualitychess.co.uk/products/1/151/playing_1d4_-_the_indian_defences_by_lars_schandorff/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Indian Defences&lt;/a&gt;, the author recommends to play 4.e3 against the Nimzo-Indian.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4588" LastActivityDate="2019-01-02T20:18:52.177" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23395" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23396" CreationDate="2019-01-02T21:19:40.827" Score="3" ViewCount="739" Body="&lt;p&gt;Back when I used to study chess, like 10 years ago or so, all the text books and all the super GMs recommended either the slav or the semi slav against queens gambit, they said it's better than the queens gambit declined.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Moreover all recommended to avoid the queens gambit all together because it doesn't give white any advantage, and so many GMs just stopped playing d4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Fast forward to now, I stopped studying chess, and I see everyone (by everyone I mean super GMs) playing d4 and black replying by playing  queens gambit declined.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's pretty much automatic for Caruana to play the declined and everyone is playing queens gambit, see the last FIDE championship and more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What has changed? I feel like there's a big change in the text books nowadays, I don't know for sure, I haven't studied theory in ages.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1105" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-01-03T17:23:13.093" LastActivityDate="2019-01-03T17:23:13.093" Title="Is the queens gambit declined getting more popular than the slav?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;queens-gambit&gt;&lt;slav-defense&gt;&lt;queens-gambit-declined&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23396" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23395" CreationDate="2019-01-02T23:09:15.860" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;It seems to be that the QGD is regaining some popularity at the top level due to theory advancing. I don't think that says anything about the overall popularity of the two openings though (i.e., including all players).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The increase in engines' powers have made playing the semi-slav a very treacherous choice. There's a lot more that super GMs need to know now in order to stay in the game. Meanwhile, the slav can result in Black getting squeezed, and in general super GMs avoid openings like this. The QGD can be thought of as a safe &quot;middle-ground&quot;, in which Black can gain equality with a bit of precise play. This is the kind of Black opening that many super GMs tend to like nowadays.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Overall though, none of these openings have lost any validity at the non-top level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-01-02T23:09:15.860" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23397" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23402" CreationDate="2019-01-03T07:51:39.327" Score="4" ViewCount="336" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm intending to play in the Oceania Zonal tournament (&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/images/stories/FIDE_Calendar_2018/2019_Oceania_Zonal_entry_form.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;brochure&lt;/a&gt;) and direct titles will be awarded in this tournament.  I'm interested in the WIM title.  The &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=199&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE handbook&lt;/a&gt; says in regards to the WIM title:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Sub-Continental Individual&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;1st equal – title;&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Silver &amp;amp; Bronze – norm&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1st equal = best 3 players after tiebreak;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The current list of entries are &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesschat.org/showthread.php?17258-2019-Oceania-Zonal-Guam-17-24-Feb-2019/page3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; and it includes WGM &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julia_Ryjanova&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Julia Ryjanova&lt;/a&gt; (&lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/card.phtml?event=4127714&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;2308&lt;/a&gt;) and IM &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irina_Berezina&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Irina Berezina&lt;/a&gt; (&lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/card.phtml?event=3201937&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;2109&lt;/a&gt;) who are much stronger than me.  Both players, however, already have titles higher than the WIM title, and I would like to know if they &amp;quot;count&amp;quot; for awarding direct titles.  Do I need to score at least as much as them?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: To earn a direct title for coming first in an official FIDE tournament, do we include players who already have that title?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Layla Timergazi (&lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/card.phtml?event=4303733&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE&lt;/a&gt;) received the WIM title at the last Oceania Zonal, but she was outright first (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.newzealandchess.co.nz/Vega2017/wwwOceaniaZonalWomens/crosstablescore.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;crosstable&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2785" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2019-01-04T07:00:43.850" Title="To earn a direct title for coming first in an official FIDE tournament, do we include players who already have that title?" Tags="&lt;titles&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23398" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23404" CreationDate="2019-01-03T08:49:50.473" Score="2" ViewCount="213" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have played a &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/NwXpxoI2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;game&lt;/a&gt; recently and at move 7 the engine suggested f4 as best continuation, but I failed to understand why. When I see the move, all I see is a super weakening move, especially with a lot of pieces on board. What might be the idea(s) behind this move ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. c4 e5 2. Nc3 { A21 English Opening: King's English Variation, Reversed Sicilian } Bc5 3. Nf3 Nc6 4. Nxe5 Nxe5 5. d4 Ng4? { (0.43 → 2.98) Mistake. Best move was Bd6. } (5... Bd6 6. c5 Be7 7. dxe5 Bxc5 8. Bf4 Ne7 9. e3 Ng6 10. Bg3) 6. dxc5 Qf6 7. Ne4? { (3.17 → 1.96) Mistake. Best move was f4. } (7. f4 Qc6)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18143" LastActivityDate="2019-01-05T01:04:09.090" Title="Weird early f4 suggested by engine (English Opening: Reversed Sicilian)" Tags="&lt;english-opening&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23399" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23398" CreationDate="2019-01-03T11:35:43.293" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here, f4 is a good move. Because you can move e4 in near future. Then it will be a better position for you. You are dominating on centre. Before you move e4, it is hard to push d5 by black because three of your pieces already attacking d5. So it is hard to black to stop you moving e4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18211" LastActivityDate="2019-01-03T11:35:43.293" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23401" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23403" CreationDate="2019-01-03T14:48:58.500" Score="6" ViewCount="1297" Body="&lt;p&gt;First of all, I don't &lt;em&gt;think&lt;/em&gt; this is a duplicate of &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/23230/in-a-tournament-game-what-should-a-player-do-if-he-find-that-his-opponents-pos&quot;&gt;what happens on the first illegal move in a game&lt;/a&gt;. This is what happens after the &lt;em&gt;second&lt;/em&gt; if the first is unclaimed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The setting is a tournament under FIDE rules (2018).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Can a win be claimed after the second completed illegal move completed by one side, if neither player nor the arbiter intervened upon the completion of the first?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Assume the arbiter was summoned by the claiming player, and sees the game and its score for the first time. Assume that both players recorded the moves faithfully, illegalities included, such that they agree on the history of events and that there is no doubt that more than one illegal move was completed. (See below for an example.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The relevant articles of the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=208&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Laws of Chess&lt;/a&gt; seem to be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;7.5.1     &lt;strong&gt;An illegal move is completed once the player has pressed his clock&lt;/strong&gt;. If during a game it is found that an illegal move has been completed, the position immediately before the irregularity shall be reinstated. If the position immediately before the irregularity cannot be determined, the game shall continue from the last identifiable position prior to the irregularity. Articles 4.3 and 4.7 apply to the move replacing the illegal move. The game shall then continue from this reinstated position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;7.5.5     After the action taken under Article 7.5.1, 7.5.2, 7.5.3 or 7.5.4 for the first completed illegal move by a player, the arbiter shall give two minutes extra time to his opponent; &lt;strong&gt;for the second completed illegal move by the same player the arbiter shall declare the game lost by this player&lt;/strong&gt;. However, the game is drawn if the position is such that the opponent cannot checkmate the player’s king by any possible series of legal moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a concrete example, look at the following game and assume the arbiter was summoned after the move 24. 0-0-0. Both players recorded the game and agree the game score is correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1 &quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 Nf6 4. Nc3 Bb4 5. Bxc6 bxc6 6. d4 exd4 7. Nxd4 Ba6 8. O-O d5 9. exd5 cxd5 10. Re1+ Ne4 11. Qg4 Qf6 12. Bg5 Qg6 13. Qf4 O-O-O 14. Bxd8 Rxd8 15. f3 Nxc3 16. bxc3 Bxc3 17. Reb1 Bxa1 18. Rxa1 Kd7 19. Qf5+ Ke8 20. Qxg6 hxg6 21. Nc6 Ra8 22. Kf2 O-O-O 23. Ke1 Re8+ 24. O-O-O&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Aside: this is probably a plausible game between weak players, so the question has maybe more than academic value.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The illegal moves are &lt;code&gt;8.0-0&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;13...0-0-0&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;22...0-0-0&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;24.0-0-0&lt;/code&gt;. (Relevant articles of the Laws: 3.8.2.2.1 for the first three, 3.9.1 for the last.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Black attempts to claim a win under 7.5.5. Does this stand?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Could white have claimed a win had she summoned the arbiter after &lt;code&gt;22...0-0-0&lt;/code&gt;?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Extension: if the claimed win(s) does (do) not stand, under 7.5.1, from which position does the game resume?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15989" LastActivityDate="2019-01-04T15:33:36.277" Title="Can a win be claimed on the second illegal move if the first wasn't raised?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;illegal-move&gt;&lt;losing&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23402" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23397" CreationDate="2019-01-03T15:24:01.783" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, we include all the players who participated in the event. If you finish second after WGM Ryjanova, you will receive a norm but not the title. If you finish fourth, you receive neither, regardless of who is on the podium. If the level of the field is high with a lot of tilted players participating, it often occurs that no 'special' title is awarded at the end of the tournament.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance, the World Junior champion is awarded with a grandmaster title. This year, the &lt;a href=&quot;http://wjcc2018.tsf.org.tr/en/component/turnuva/?task=fileview&amp;amp;kid=975&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;tournament&lt;/a&gt; was won by Iran's Parham Maghsoodloo, who was already a GM. The first non-GM in the tournament, IM Sergei Lobanov, did not receive that title instead (he 'only' got a GM-norm for his third place).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastEditorUserId="14079" LastEditDate="2019-01-04T07:00:43.850" LastActivityDate="2019-01-04T07:00:43.850" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23403" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23401" CreationDate="2019-01-03T17:15:18.853" Score="7" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Black attempts to claim a win under 7.5.5. Does this stand?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No. According to 7.5.5 -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;After the action taken under Article 7.5.1, 7.5.2, 7.5.3 or 7.5.4&#xA;  &lt;strong&gt;for the first completed illegal move by a player, the arbiter shall give two minutes extra time to his opponent&lt;/strong&gt;; for the second&#xA;  completed illegal move by the same player the arbiter shall declare&#xA;  the game lost by this player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After the first illegal move the arbiter gives the opponent an extra 2 minutes. He will also explain his decision to the two players and warn the player that a second illegal move will lose the game. Punishment for a second illegal move can only occur if the punishment for the first illegal move has been made. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are recent judgements (for which I don't have reference to hand, but I suspect came from one of the &lt;a href=&quot;http://arbiters.fide.com/fide-arbiters-magazine.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Arbiters Magazines&lt;/a&gt;) saying that only one illegal move can be punished at a time. For instance, if a player promotes illegally by not replacing the pawn while still in check, he can not be punished for two illegal moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore after the first reported illegal move only the punishment for a first illegal move can be applied. Another illegal move must occur for the punishment for a second illegal move to be imposed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Could white have claimed a win had he summoned the arbiter after&#xA;  22...0-0-0?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No, the same arguments apply.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Extension: if the claimed win(s) does (do) not stand, under 7.5.1,&#xA;  from which position does the game resume?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From the position before the first illegal move. The punishment and reinstatement of the position are unrelated. Article 7.2.1 is relevant here -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;7.2.1 If during a game it is found that the initial position of the pieces was incorrect, the game shall be cancelled and a new game shall&#xA;  be played.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Regardless of fault or punishment the entire game should be played according to the FIDE Laws of chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note, I had a very similar problem arbiting a tournament in 2014 when a player came to me to report a third illegal move by his opponent and claim the game. Since it was the first illegal move he reported I treated it as the first illegal move. Since the previous illegal moves had involved his opponent not getting out of check and the position corrected by the players at the time there was no need to go back beyond the current move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS Before tieing oneself into gender-anguished knots it is worth noting this line in the introduction to the FIDE Laws of Chess -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In these Laws the words ‘he’, ‘him’, and ‘his’ shall be considered to&#xA;  include ‘she’ and ‘her’.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-01-04T15:33:36.277" LastActivityDate="2019-01-04T15:33:36.277" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23404" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23398" CreationDate="2019-01-03T19:24:23.140" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is either f4 or f3 to defend the threat on f2.  Intuitively I prefer the tempo that f2-f3 gets, but the idea of f2-f4 with e2-e4-e5 is probably what the computer likes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2019-01-03T19:24:23.140" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23405" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23398" CreationDate="2019-01-03T20:15:55.970" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you ask yourself: Why is Ne4 bad? the answer will reveal itself. The only moves are Ne4, f4 and f3 to meet the threat Qxf2+.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As to your comment, &quot;There are a lot of pieces of the board.&quot; I don't see any pieces? There is only a White Knight, a Black Queen and a Black Knight. The bishops and rooks are away on vacation...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13147" LastActivityDate="2019-01-03T20:15:55.970" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23406" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-01-03T23:23:39.533" Score="3" ViewCount="302" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is well known that the best chess engines are now far stronger players than the strongest human players.  But is it known what the smallest handicap is that makes them roughly equal?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17920" LastActivityDate="2019-01-04T07:06:43.600" Title="At what handicap are humans as good as computer?" Tags="&lt;computer-chess&gt;&lt;handicapping&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23407" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23356" CreationDate="2019-01-04T04:51:14.207" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Garry Kasparov has already answered this question. Unfortunately, it is a video and there is no text version.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can find it on his official site: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.kasparov.com/garry-kasparov-answers-chess-questions-from-twitter-jan-16th-2018/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.kasparov.com/garry-kasparov-answers-chess-questions-from-twitter-jan-16th-2018/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the video, essentially, Kasparov said that he hasn't noticed it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18211" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-12-07T17:34:21.623" LastActivityDate="2020-12-07T17:34:21.623" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23408" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-01-04T06:48:51.603" Score="-6" ViewCount="328" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's white's move and the king can't move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why was this game drawn? I should have won it I think.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9BiEr.png&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18217" LastEditorUserId="17823" LastEditDate="2019-01-04T18:17:10.673" LastActivityDate="2019-01-22T15:54:33.600" Title="The computer said a game was drawn but I think it is won for me" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;stalemate&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2019-01-04T20:28:40.123" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23409" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23413" CreationDate="2019-01-04T06:57:16.990" Score="3" ViewCount="366" Body="&lt;p&gt;The following position appears as the 7th puzzle of Raymond Smullyan's &lt;em&gt;Arabian Knights&lt;/em&gt;, a book about retrograde analysis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;3qk2r/p2pp1bp/bpp2n2/8/3N3Q/1PN1P1P1/P1PPP2P/3K1n2 w - - 0 50&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The conditions given are that &amp;quot;both [of White's] castles [rooks] captured on the same row, Black['s] queen's castle [rook was] captured by a pawn, and king's bishop given as odds.&amp;quot; The stipulation is that you must find where White's rooks were captured.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I puzzled over this for quite some time, then gave up. Very early in the solution, it is stated that &amp;quot;Since the Black king has not moved...&amp;quot; However, I do not see how this can be inferred from the position. Is it necessarily true? Couldn't the Black king and queen have moved out of the way of the Black rook (which was captured on e3), and then moved back? I do not see &amp;quot;non-movement of the Black king&amp;quot; among the conditions or anything about Black being able to castle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13155" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-09-14T21:29:34.270" LastActivityDate="2020-09-15T02:04:14.227" Title="Can we say for sure that Black's king has not moved?" Tags="&lt;problems&gt;&lt;retrograde-analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23410" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23409" CreationDate="2019-01-04T07:06:25.420" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The convention in chess studies and problems is that:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Castles are &lt;em&gt;always&lt;/em&gt; allowed but if retrograde analysis can prove otherwise, i.e. that rook or king have already moved.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;En passant captures are &lt;em&gt;never&lt;/em&gt; allowed but if retrograde analysis can prove the opponent's last move was the double-step pawn move required.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Smullyan's problem, if it is possible to reach the position without moving black king nor rook, then you should assume Black still has castling rights.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;However&lt;/strong&gt;, this in itself doesn't prove that the Black King has never moved. Can you show us more of the given conditions and solution ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastEditorUserId="14079" LastEditDate="2019-01-04T10:36:15.240" LastActivityDate="2019-01-04T10:36:15.240" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23411" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23406" CreationDate="2019-01-04T07:06:43.600" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;No scientific studies on this that I know of, but chess.com has hosted some online matches between super GMs (like Nakamura) and top engines in the world (esp. Komodo if I recall correctly).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In these matches, the human GM is given one of the following odds from the starting position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;An extra exchange (so rook for knight).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The engine, playing Black, is missing its f7-pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;White gets two extra moves on top of his additional right to go first (I think).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Each of these are approximately +2 for White. So it seems that at the top level for humans and engines, a +2 advantage is needed to ensure rough equality.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pretty humbling if you think about it. Wait until they perfect machine learning with engines...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-01-04T07:06:43.600" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23412" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23408" CreationDate="2019-01-04T07:17:27.823" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Welcome to the site. What you described is the definition of stalemate, not checkmate. The enemy king not being able to move anywhere (while it's not attacked) is stalemate. That's why the game was drawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For a checkmate, you'd need to trap the king &lt;em&gt;and&lt;/em&gt; be attacking it at the same time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it seems weird that stalemate is a draw, you're not alone. The 3rd world champion Capablanca argued that stalemate be considered a win. Nevertheless, the rules of chess dictate otherwise.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-01-04T07:17:27.823" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23413" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23409" CreationDate="2019-01-04T09:46:14.830" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;The conditions you gave are incomplete. The conditions include that black (to move) can castle; it's hidden in Smullyan's original problem text.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From the English book, last paragraph of the problem statement: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Just then, however, news came that Black was about to castle. [...]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A clearer problem statement from the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.janko.at/Schach/Smullyan-SK/07.a.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Retro Corner&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Schwarz (am Zuge) darf noch rochieren. [...]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Black (to move) can still castle.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15989" LastActivityDate="2019-01-04T09:46:14.830" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23414" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23415" CreationDate="2019-01-04T15:12:37.020" Score="2" ViewCount="101" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's black's turn. What plan should white use so as to confirm it's win? Thanks! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [fen &quot;r1b5/ppkn3R/3p2p1/8/N2b1B2/8/P1P2PPP/5RK1 w - - 0 50&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18218" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-01-05T09:28:39.190" LastActivityDate="2019-01-05T09:35:41.643" Title="What plan should white play with?" Tags="&lt;planning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23415" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23414" CreationDate="2019-01-04T15:46:52.403" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;White is an exchange up with a much safer king and more active / developed pieces. There are many ways to win. The most straightforward here is to exchange pieces where and queen a pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-01-05T09:35:41.643" LastActivityDate="2019-01-05T09:35:41.643" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23417" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23370" CreationDate="2019-01-04T17:29:00.263" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You cannot play games against engines in ChessBase. ChessBase is just a database program.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ChessBase community has released DeepFritz which is also a GUI where you can play even rated games with the engine you want.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Deep Fritz 16 is the latest version of it. Check &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.chessbase.com/post/fritz-16-your-companion-and-trainer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.chessbase.com/post/fritz-16-your-companion-and-trainer&lt;/a&gt; for more information.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17823" LastActivityDate="2019-01-04T17:29:00.263" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23418" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16059" CreationDate="2019-01-04T22:31:09.897" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The chess set I have here in front of me the pieces are both in black bags so someone picks one bag and that is what they play. I just realized this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18223" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2019-01-05T15:53:36.513" LastActivityDate="2019-01-05T15:53:36.513" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23419" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16059" CreationDate="2019-01-05T00:49:33.507" Score="0" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Pawn hand - you hold a white pawn in one hand and black pawn in the other. Your opponent picks a hand, and the color of the pawn he gets is the color he plays.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Flipping a coin.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Randomly generating a number x in a set of n numbers. If x is a number in the first half of the set, you go first. Else, your opponent goes first.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-01-05T00:49:33.507" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23420" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23388" CreationDate="2019-01-05T00:53:46.993" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Using theory sources like books just saves you having to do the theoretical research yourself. So it'll help you win more correspondence games, but not necessarily improve your skills.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the one hand, using theory books teaches you what high-quality opening play looks like. On the other hand, you're not really thinking yourself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would recommend spending time thinking what to play on your own. After you've reached a decision, &lt;em&gt;then&lt;/em&gt; check the book to see how your move and theirs compares. After that, play whichever move you prefer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-01-05T00:53:46.993" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23421" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23356" CreationDate="2019-01-05T00:59:05.157" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;When they're analyzing at a rapid pace, they tend to only need the thumb and index finger to pick up pieces and move them. Using the middle finger as well doesn't really help. So since that finger is freed up, they can use it to point (especially because pointing with the 4th finger or pinkie is awkward).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or they subconsciously despise each other.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-01-05T00:59:05.157" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23422" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23398" CreationDate="2019-01-05T01:04:09.090" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;7.Ne4 places the knight in an awkward position and makes it a target. After 7...Qe5 8.Qd5 Ne7 9.Qxe5 Nxe5, White is definitely better but Black's g4-knight has safely regrouped.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The point behind 7.f4 is to stop Black from moving his knight to the e5-square, while simultaneously neutralizing Black's attack on f2. Now White is ready to take up the whole centre with 8.e4. Another idea White has at his disposal is 8.Nd5, since the knight is still on c3 and not on e4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;7.f4 only looks weak temporarily. Once the e-pawn reaches e4, it looks very strong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-01-05T01:04:09.090" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23423" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-01-05T03:30:09.843" Score="3" ViewCount="236" Body="&lt;p&gt;Recently I was at a USCF tournament. Six moves into my first round game, the tournament director came to my board and had me stop my clock. It turned out that the person across from me had the wrong board - he was actually supposed to be at the same-numbered board in a lower section (which was playing in the same room.) And the opponent I was supposed to play had sat down at the board in the lower section. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The TD stated that he was nullifying those two games in progress, and that those clocks should be reset and those games restarted with the proper opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this the proper action? Can a game in which multiple moves have been played be simply nullified? Also, since my opponent was not at the correct board at the start of the round, and I was, and I properly started the clock, should some time have elapsed from his clock when we restarted?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2019-02-04T04:03:30.610" Title="Can a tournament director nullify a game in progress?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;uscf&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23424" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23423" CreationDate="2019-01-05T03:46:06.047" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In FIDE rated tournaments I remember hearing that if the starting position was set up wrong and roughly &amp;lt;= 6 moves were played, the game could be restarted. So if this tournament was also FIDE rated, FIDE rules take precident and restarting was fine. If this tournament was just USCF rated I'm not sure (you'd have to look up the official handbook).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I agree that some time should have elapsed for your opponent. You did nothing wrong but he did. However, you'd have to have said this during the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-01-05T03:46:06.047" CommentCount="11" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23425" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24757" CreationDate="2019-01-05T06:39:29.637" Score="3" ViewCount="307" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the fastest known game that ends that in a mutual stalemate position that is symmetrical?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-05-28T21:43:02.353" LastActivityDate="2021-05-02T14:51:05.037" Title="What is the quickest way to reach a mutual, symmetrical stalemate?" Tags="&lt;problems&gt;&lt;stalemate&gt;&lt;records&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23426" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23436" CreationDate="2019-01-05T12:48:01.673" Score="4" ViewCount="400" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why is the Gibbins-Wiedehagen Gambit (1.d4 Nf6 2.g4) also known as the Maltese Falcon Attack (or Gambit)? Is there any specific reason for that?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-08T16:58:25.887" LastActivityDate="2020-04-08T16:58:25.887" Title="Why is this gambit also known as the Maltese Falcon Gambit?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;history&gt;&lt;gambits&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23427" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23384" CreationDate="2019-01-05T13:44:33.127" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;The game &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessbomb.com/arena/2017-dresden-open/07-Dann_Matthias-Kovchan_Alexander&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Dann-Kovchan&lt;/a&gt; ended with 217...Nc2#.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Matthias Dann-Alexander Kovchan, Dresden Open, Dredsen Germany, 4/8/17&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;[startply &amp;quot;433&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 a6 6. Be3 Ng4 7. Bg5 h6 8. Bh4 g5 9. Bg3 Bg7 10. Qd2 Nc6 11. Nb3 b5 12. h4 gxh4 13. Rxh4 Nge5 14. Nd5 Ng6 15. Rh1 Bxb2 16. Rd1 Bg7 17. c4 Rb8 18. c5 Nge5 19. Nf4 Bg4 20. Be2 Nc4 21. Qc1 Bxe2 22. Kxe2 Bb2 23. Qb1 Qc8 24. cxd6 exd6 25. Nh5 Rg8 26. Kf1 Rg6 27. Bxd6 Qg4 28. Bg3 Rd8 29. Rxd8+ Nxd8 30. Nf4 Rc6 31. Rh4 Ne3+ 32. Kg1 Qd1+ 33. Qxd1 Nxd1 34. Nd5 Nc3 35. Nd4 Rg6 36. Nf5 Nxa2 37. Nxh6 Nc3 38. Nf5 Ne2+ 39. Kf1 Nxg3+ 40. Nxg3 Kd7 41. Ne2 a5 42. Nec3 Rc6 43. Nxb5 Rc5 44. Na7 Bd4 45. Ke2 a4 46. Nb6+ Kc7 47. Nxa4 Ra5 48. Rh3 Bxa7 49. Nc3 Kd7 50. Rd3+ Ke8 51. Rd2 Nc6 52. g3 Rc5 53. Nd5 Rc4 54. Kf3 Kf8 55. Kf4 Kg7 56. Kf3 Nd4+ 57. Kg2 Ra4 58. e5 Ra5 59. Ne3 Rxe5 60. Ra2 Re7 61. Nd5 Rd7 62. Ne3 Ne6 63. Nf5+ Kf6 64. Nh4 Bc5 65. Nf3 Rb7 66. Nd2 Rb4 67. Rc2 Bb6 68. Ra2 Nc5 69. Ra3 Kg6 70. Rc3 f6 71. Ra3 Nd7 72. Rb3 Rd4 73. Nf3 Rd5 74. Rb2 Ba5 75. Re2 Nc5 76. Re7 Bd8 77. Nh4+ Kh6 78. Re8 Kg7 79. Re2 Nd3 80. Re6 Kf7 81. Ra6 Be7 82. Ra7 Ke6 83. Ra6+ Bd6 84. Rb6 Kd7 85. Rb7+ Bc7 86. Ra7 Nc5 87. Ra2 Bb6 88. Rb2 Ba5 89. Rb5 Bc3 90. Nf3 Kc6 91. Rb8 Ne6 92. Rc8+ Nc7 93. Rb8 Ra5 94. Ng1 Ra2 95. Nh3 Nd5 96. Re8 Be5 97. Kf3 Kd7 98. Rg8 Ne7 99. Rf8 Nf5 100. Rf7+ Ne7 101. Rf8 Ke6 102. Re8 Bc7 103. Rh8 Nc6 104. Re8+ Kf7 105. Re4 Bb6 106. Kg2 Ne5 107. Kf1 Nd3 108. Re2 Ra1+ 109. Kg2 Bc5 110. Kh2 Ne1 111. Ng1 Bb4 112. Rb2 Bc3 113. Re2 Ra5 114. Nh3 Rh5 115. Re3 Ba5 116. Ra3 Rb5 117. Ra2 f5 118. Re2 Kf6 119. Ra2 Bb6 120. Re2 Rb1 121. Ra2 Nd3 122. Kg2 Nc5 123. Nf4 Rd1 124. Rc2 Rd6 125. Rb2 Nd7 126. Ra2 Kf7 127. Rb2 Bc5 128. Rc2 Rd1 129. Re2 Bd6 130. Nh3 Nf6 131. Ra2 Ne4 132. Rb2 Ke6 133. Re2 Kd5 134. Ra2 Rb1 135. Ra5+ Nc5 136. Ra2 Rd1 137. Ng1 Ne4 138. Ne2 Ke6 139. Rc2 Ra1 140. Nd4+ Ke5 141. Ne2 Kf6 142. Ng1 Ra5 143. Nh3 Ke6 144. Ng1 Kd5 145. Nh3 Kd4 146. Rb2 Kd3 147. Rb3+ Kd4 148. Rb2 Ra7 149. Rb5 Bc5 150. Rb2 Kc3 151. Re2 Bd6 152. Re3+ Kd4 153. Ng1 Kd5 154. Re2 Ra3 155. Rb2 Bc5 156. Nh3 Kd4 157. Re2 Bd6 158. Ng1 Kc4 159. g4 Ra8 160. gxf5 Rg8+ 161. Kf1 Kd5 162. Nf3 Bc5 163. Nd2 Nd6 164. Nf3 Rg4 165. Re5+ Kc6 166. Ne1 Bd4 167. Ra5 Bb6 168. Re5 Bd4 169. Ra5 Nc4 170. Ra6+ Bb6 171. Nd3 Rg5 172. Ra4 Nd6 173. f6 Nf7 174. Re4 Bd8 175. Ke2 Kd5 176. Re8 Rf5 177. Re3 Rxf6 178. Rf3 Re6+ 179. Re3 Rh6 180. Nf4+ Kd6 181. Rh3 Rf6 182. Nd3 Bb6 183. Rh5 Nd8 184. Rb5 Kc6 185. Re5 Ne6 186. Nb4+ Kd6 187. Rd5+ Kc7 188. Nd3 Bxf2 189. Rh5 Bb6 190. Rh7+ Kd6 191. Rh5 Nd4+ 192. Kd2 Re6 193. Kc3 Nc6 194. Kd2 Ba5+ 195. Kd1 Re3 196. Nc1 Ne5 197. Rh2 Kd5 198. Re2 Rh3 199. Kc2 Nc4 200. Re7 Rc3+ 201. Kb1 Bb4 202. Re2 Rh3 203. Kc2 Rc3+ 204. Kb1 Bd6 205. Na2 Ra3 206. Nc1 Bf4 207. Na2 Rb3+ 208. Kc2 Rb2+ 209. Kd1 Ne3+ 210. Kc1 Rb3 211. Rd2+ Ke4 212. Rd8 Bg5 213. Rg8 Bf6 214. Ra8 Kd3 215. Ra4 Bb2+ 216. Kb1 Ba3+ 217. Ka1 Nc2# 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8275" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-11-29T16:47:06.547" LastActivityDate="2020-11-29T16:47:06.547" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23428" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4884" CreationDate="2019-01-05T15:51:44.437" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;An Elo rating most emphatically is NOT a measure of a player's strength, nor was it intended to be. A player might, for all kinds of reasons, have a lower Elo rating than someone that is in reality weaker. For example a player that plays mostly in team competitions might accept a draw in a winning position, or risk losing by playing for a win in a drawn position, with bad effects on their rating. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another example: One player in  SWISS tournaments might play objectively to get the &quot;correct&quot; number of points that their play deserves. Another might take great risks on the grounds that 3.5 or 4 out of 6 finishes nowhere whereas 5 or more is usually in the money, and worth the risk of losing from an easily drawn position. The first player would probably earn a higher rating, but the second would win more tournaments! (and might actually be stronger).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The maths behind Elo ratings guarantees that rating points are gained more slowly than is warranted by current form and also ensures that a few bad results do not reduce a rating by a huge amount. In effect games played years earlier when a player was much weaker (or stronger) affect the rate at which the rating can change.  This aspect of controlling the rate of change is further fudged by choice of k-factor.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A further problem is that Elo ratings only apply properly to players that are contemporary.  They do not give meaningful comparisons of strength for players active in different eras. Of course that has not stopped people from making such comparisons and concluding (for example) that Lasker and ZUuckertort would hold their own against today's GM's that former world-champion Petrosian was no stronger than any modern-day top-50 super-GM, or that Fischer was significantly weaker than Kasparov and Carlsen. Those conclusions may or may not be true, but it is just wrong to use Elo ratings (retrospectively calculated as necessary) to arrive at them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What Elo ratings are designed for is to allow the probability of encounters between players to be estimated. They do that quite well for players that have stable ratings that have not changed much over a few years. They do a poor job when one or both of the players is either improving or declining.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They have been adopted as a proxy for chess strength, but are far from perfect. The right way to assess strength is to study a players games and make a judgement, but to do that you have to be very strong yourself, and it is hard work.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As in so many other areas of life and human endeavour it is much easier to pretend that a simple number based on results tells us what we'd like to know ... even when it doesn't.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11985" LastActivityDate="2019-01-05T15:51:44.437" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23429" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16015" CreationDate="2019-01-05T17:48:04.573" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In SCID, from the Game List you can select the &quot;Change filter&quot; icon followed by the &quot;Search for material or board patterns&quot; icon. In the window that pops up, you can select the location of up to ten pawns. Although ten is not enough to specify the pawns of both sides, you can also separately specify the number of pawns each side has.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also select just the file and not the rank (for example, you might care that your a-pawn exists, but not about its exact location.) And you can specify that a particular file doesn't have any pawns of a particular color. Here's what the screen can look like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/BfLQ1.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/BfLQ1.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this example, for a game to match the filter, Black must have pawns on b7, c6, e6, f7, and g7, no pawn on the d-file, and exactly seven pawns. Additionally, White must have pawns on c2, d4, and f2, with no pawn on the e-file, and exactly seven pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastEditorUserId="12629" LastEditDate="2019-01-05T18:06:01.593" LastActivityDate="2019-01-05T18:06:01.593" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23433" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23437" CreationDate="2019-01-05T23:34:07.783" Score="6" ViewCount="284" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am aware of related questions and great answers on the same topic such as &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/19353/understanding-alphazero&quot;&gt;Understanding AlphaZero&lt;/a&gt;. My questions are related to the following figure on &lt;strong&gt;AlphaZero's search procedure&lt;/strong&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/nnVOx.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/nnVOx.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This figure comes from the &lt;a href=&quot;http://science.sciencemag.org/content/362/6419/1140&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Science paper&lt;/a&gt; on AlphaZero (Fig. 4, page 4). The search is illustrated for a position from the very nice game 1 AlphaZero (white) and Stockfish (black) after 29. ... Qf8. The rest of note of the figure is as follows&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The internal state of AlphaZero's MCTS is summarized after 10^2,&#xA;  ..., 10^6 simulations. Each summary shows the 10 most visited states.&#xA;  The estimated value is shown in each state, from white's perspective,&#xA;  scaled to the range [0, 100]. The visit count of each state, relative&#xA;  to the root state of that tree, is proportional to the thickness of&#xA;  the border circle. AlphaZero considers 30.c6 but eventually plays&#xA;  30.d5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would appreciate some insights regarding the following questions. (Important to note that I am a mere chess player with no knowledge on computer science. I still find this fascinating)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What does represent the 10^2, ..., 10^6 simulations? I am very&#xA;confused because in the Supplementary Material they note that&#xA;``During training, each MCTS used 800 simulations''. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What does it mean that each MCTS used 800 simulations?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I assume that the value of 60 in the red circle in the 10^2&#xA;simulations represents a 60% expected score for white, which is the&#xA;    average of all position evaluations. However, the simple average of the 9 moves shown is equal to 61.2. I guess that other moves also considered and simulated. Am I right here? &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I assume that for simulations 10^3 to 10^6, they only present an&#xA;illustrative sample of the branches. The simulation 10^5 is not&#xA;    shown after 34.Rce1 or stopped after 34.Rce1? I guess that each&#xA;    simulation goes until an expected score of 100%.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11749" LastActivityDate="2019-01-06T05:51:14.837" Title="AlphaZero’s search procedure" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;alphazero&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23434" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23426" CreationDate="2019-01-06T02:01:12.920" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, it's known as a gambit because Bc8 eyes on g4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A common mistake is 1.d4 Nf6 2.g4? Nxg4? 3.e4 with initiative.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The Maltese Falcon is a prime example of a story that, while important in its day, is lost on the current generation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Named after Claude Bloodgood, the opening was played as the &lt;a href=&quot;http://bdgpages.blogspot.com/2008/11/maltese-falcon-attack.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Bogart Poisoned Spike&lt;/a&gt; in the 30's. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Clearly it's lost on the current generation: 2.g4? Doesn't do anything to control the center. What will White do after 2...h6! 3.Bg2 c6, when Black will play solid and exploit White's weakness ten moves later?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13147" LastEditorUserId="13147" LastEditDate="2019-01-06T15:17:55.187" LastActivityDate="2019-01-06T15:17:55.187" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23435" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4884" CreationDate="2019-01-06T02:02:02.917" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;One interpretation of the question is &quot;What is the standard error of Elo?&quot; That is, if Elo is a statistic that measures some true latent ability, what is the standard deviation of that statistic? If, for example, you've just played 50 tournament games, and your Elo is calculated as 1700, is it really 1700, or might it actually be 1710? Or 1750? Might it be 1600?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have analyzed this question in a &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/TwidereProject/Twidere-Android/issues/1159&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;blog post&lt;/a&gt;, the gist of which is as follows: Suppose two players play each other repeatedly. The difference in true abilities is &quot;Delta A&quot;, where we assume the probability of a win by the first player is the Elo logistic function in Delta A. Then, after many games between them, the difference in their computed Elos will be Delta r which equals Delta a plus some error, epsilon. That error term, epsilon, approximately follows an autoregressive process, and is asymptotically unbiased. The standard error depends on the &quot;k factor&quot; used in updating Elo, and on the probability of a tie (which is typically higher for better players, when equally matched). Here is a plot of the empirical (dots) and theoretical standard error versus the k factor, for different probabilities of a tie:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/gOEwM.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/gOEwM.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;The upshot is that differences in Elo will have standard error around 20 or more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As others have noted, the Elo rating has some deficiencies. However, it is fairly simple to describe and compute, which was necessary at the time of its introduction.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13155" LastActivityDate="2019-01-06T02:02:02.917" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23436" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23426" CreationDate="2019-01-06T02:46:55.477" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Humphrey Bogart was known to play this opening on a regular basis. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1233918&amp;amp;kpage=1&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Here&lt;/a&gt; is one of the recorded games with him playing the opening. One of Bogart's most famous movies is The Maltese Falcon, thus the Maltese Falcon Gambit or Attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9025" LastActivityDate="2019-01-06T02:46:55.477" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23437" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23433" CreationDate="2019-01-06T05:51:14.837" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The diagram shows the 10 most visited game states/positions that AlphaZero calculated. It's actually looking at thousands of positions, but they're only showing the 10 positions that it comes back to the most. For your questions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) AlphaZero's search algorithm is called Monte Carlo Tree Search (MCTS). The fundamentals of how it works when thinking at some game state:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Pick a move. The way this move is picked is based off an algorithm favoring:&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;How good a move has performed in past random simulations of it.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;How infrequently it has been picked (a move played out less ==&gt; more desirable).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Follow this move to a new game state (i.e., the position that arises when you play the move).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Repeat step 1, for some time limit or depth limit.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The move that has the best average score in all its playouts is the one that AlphaZero picks. There's more involved than this, but the above is the general idea of MCTS. So something like 10^2 simulations for the root node means that AlphaZero performed the above algorithm 10^2 times for that position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The part where they mentioned &quot;800 simulations&quot; refers to when AlphaZero was learning (&lt;em&gt;before&lt;/em&gt; its games with Stockfish). The way AlphaZero learns heuristics on its own (which allow it to accurately evaluate positions) is by playing itself over and over. So, I assume they mean that during this phase of playing itself, each time it thought on what to play in a position, it only performed 800 simulations from a position. The point of this was probably to have time to get more practice games in. Against Stockfish, playing extremely quickly is unnecessary, and AlphaZero may as well use the time it's been given to playout way more such simulations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) Explained above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) Yes, thousands of other moves are also considered, they just aren't shown in the diagram. Also, even if the 10 states shown were the only ones reached, you couldn't just average their scores out. The reason is that some game states are reached more often than others, and thus have a higher weight in the average calculation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;To illustrate this, assume you only had two possible moves you could play in the beginning of a game: 1.e4 and 1.h4. Looking back at the MCTS algorithm I outlined, playouts/simulations on 1.e4 would happen more often since 1.e4 performs better. However, 1.h4 would also be picked once in a while due to how infrequently you look at it. So maybe you do 9 playouts on 1.e4 and get a score of 60%, while do 1 playout on 1.h4 and get a 0% score. Your odds of winning from the starting position are not (60% + 0%) / 2 = 30%, but rather (60% * 9 + 0% * 1) / 10 = 54%.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4) Yes, only an illustrative sample is shown since they only wanted to show the 10 most visited game states. I'm sure AlphaZero continued the MCTS algorithm far past 34.Rce1.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-01-06T05:51:14.837" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23438" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2019-01-06T14:37:08.243" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Use this tag for questions about the history of chess and chess organizations.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Questions tagged history of chess includes&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;History of FIDE and other chess organizations&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Origins of chess&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Evolution of chess and chess organizations&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The different eras of chess&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/6Y1cD.jpg&quot; height=&quot;800&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.ichess.net/blog/history-of-chess/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.ichess.net/blog/history-of-chess/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Background&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is unclear where chess originally started; some say China, others Persia, others India. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Definitions&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Romantic Era - 1880-1950 where chess players mainly relied on tactics and sacrifices to play games&#xA;Digitized Era - Computers join the chess world with PGNs, analysis, A.I.s, and online chess games. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Links to Learn More about the History of Chess&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can learn more about the history of chess at &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Simple English Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chesshere.com/resources/chess_history.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chesshere&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.ichess.net/blog/history-of-chess/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;ichess&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17301" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-01-17T11:18:02.823" LastActivityDate="2019-01-17T11:18:02.823" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23439" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2019-01-06T14:37:08.243" Score="0" Body="Use this tag for questions about the history of chess and chess organizations. " OwnerUserId="17301" LastEditorUserId="17301" LastEditDate="2019-01-06T17:21:41.503" LastActivityDate="2019-01-06T17:21:41.503" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23440" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9638" CreationDate="2019-01-07T01:09:20.500" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;In the absence of any tactical justification,&lt;/strong&gt; it is logical to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Put your knight on e4 rather than on a1 because on e4 your knight would have much more influence on the game (it controls 8 squares) than on a1 where it controls only 2 squares.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Put your bishops on open diagonals, your rooks on open files, 7th rank... etc thus they will have maximum activity&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Keep your pawns connected as long as possible because they are very simple targets for attacks when they are isolated, doubled... etc.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This system of thinking is in fact the root of positional play and you can see it in action when studying Capablanca games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I recommend also Igor Smirnov's course &quot;Grandmaster positional understanding&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18236" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-01-07T14:24:52.623" LastActivityDate="2019-01-07T14:24:52.623" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23441" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23442" CreationDate="2019-01-07T01:14:20.053" Score="2" ViewCount="1487" Body="&lt;p&gt;Based on statistics (drawing percentage), which opening is the most drawish and which one is the least drawish? I am aware of questions such as &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/6250/books-on-drawing&quot;&gt;this one&lt;/a&gt;, but my question is different.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are two criteria.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It must be played by professionals.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It must not be an intentional loss (no hanging pieces, etc., so your opponent wins instead of drawing) for either side.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16626" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-03-19T19:12:05.370" LastActivityDate="2021-03-19T19:12:05.370" Title="Most drawish and least drawish opening" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;draw&gt;&lt;statistics&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23442" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23441" CreationDate="2019-01-07T01:58:22.520" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Dana Mackenzie wrote a &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.danamackenzie.com/blog/?p=3463&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;nice&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.danamackenzie.com/blog/?p=3475&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;series&lt;/a&gt; of &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.danamackenzie.com/blog/?p=3484&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;articles&lt;/a&gt; about opening statistics in 2015.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the most drawish openings, he writes this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Exchange Slav (D14) dominates this category like no variation dominates any other category. It’s a unique ECO code, a variation that is more about the players’ psychology than about chess. According to Rob Weir’s tables, this variation results in a draw 79.9 percent of the time in master play, and usually quickly. (The average number of moves is 25, about 8 less than any other variation.) If anything, I think that Weir’s statistics understate the extent to which these six moves serve as a wordless draw proposal. Weir removed all games of 10 moves or shorter from his database. When I look this position up on ChessBase, it looks as if at least 90 percent of the games are draws.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The top five drawing variations:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;D14 (Exchange Slav with … Nc6 and …Bf5): 79.9 percent draws&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;D79 (Symmetric Grunfeld, 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. g3 d5 4. Bg2 Bg7 5. Nf3 O-O 6. O-O c6 7. cd cd): 59.0&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;C92 (Ruy Lopez, Flohr-Zaitsev Variation 9. … Bb7): 57.5&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;D13 (Exchange Slav, not 5. Nc3 Nc6 6. Bf4 Bf5): 56.2&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B36 (Maroczy Bind, side variations): 56.1&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the least drawish:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unlike the last category, the Hall of Shame of chess openings, this category consists of the most honorable, “fightingest” opening variations in chess. And what better variation to start with than B89, the Velimirovic Attack in the Fischer-Sozin Variation of the Sicilian Defense? The above position arises after 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cd 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 e6 6. Bc4 Nc6 7. Be3 Be7. To get an idea of the fireworks that may ensue, take a look at the amazing game Fischer-Geller from Skopje 1967. This was one of the three losses that Fischer included in his My 60 Memorable Games, so you know it has to be a pretty special game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The top five:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B89 (Sicilian Defense, Sozin-Fischer-Velimirovic Attack): 25.2 percent draws&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A44 (Old Benoni, 1. d4 c5 2. d5 e5): 25.5&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B00 (Uncommon 1. e4 openings, e.g. Nimzovich 1. … Nc6, Borg 1. … g5, etc.): 27.5&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;C05 (French Tarrasch, closed variation, including the pawn sac 1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Nd2 Nf6 4. e5 Nfd7 5. Bd3 c5 6. c3 Nc6 7. Ngf3 Qb6 8. O-O!?): 29.5&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A60 (Main Variation Benoni, 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 c5 3. d5 e6, side lines): 29.6&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3270" LastEditorUserId="10380" LastEditDate="2021-03-19T17:49:51.387" LastActivityDate="2021-03-19T17:49:51.387" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23443" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23444" CreationDate="2019-01-07T04:25:10.547" Score="1" ViewCount="158" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to establish a rating system for my community.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I've decided to publish the rating every 1st January, April, July and October.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Every new player will be given a rating of 1200.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Using result submitted to me by tournament organisers, I will get&#xA;every players' Rating Performance for any tournament.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Every time I want to publish a new rating, I will calculate the Average&#xA;Rating Performance for every player.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Let say between January to April, Player A's Rating Performances are&#xA;1300, 1200, 1400 (Player A participated in 3 tournaments)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;So by April 1st, Player A's rating is (1300 + 1200 + 1400)/3 = 1300&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this correct?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Edit&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To put it simple, am I correct to use Player's Rating Performance to base my rating system?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or should I calculate players' rating based on every player's encounter using calculator like this: &lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/calculator_rtd.phtml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://ratings.fide.com/calculator_rtd.phtml&lt;/a&gt; ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13675" LastEditorUserId="13675" LastEditDate="2019-01-07T04:50:06.360" LastActivityDate="2020-11-23T23:52:47.053" Title="Establish Rating System for My Community" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;elo&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23444" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23443" CreationDate="2019-01-07T05:15:08.453" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is better to look at every game. Only looking at tournament performances causes you to lose some important information.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Should a 4 round tournament count the same as a 9 round tournament? Under your system, they count the same. That doesn't seem right.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I had a tournament recently where I won against 3 low-rated players and drew against a player rated over 2000. My performance rating was 2041. But there's a difference between a 2041 performance done this way, and a 2041 performance achieved by scoring 2/4 against players rated over 2000.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's worse when a player wins (or loses) every game in a tournament. Are you going to make a player's rating go &lt;em&gt;down&lt;/em&gt; after they win every game, if their opponents were too weak and thus the performance rating for that tournament was low? That doesn't seem fair.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, what happens during the next rating period? How do you account for the fact that the player already has a rating? Are you averaging in the old rating? But if a player with a well established rating plays in one tournament in a period, simply averaging the old rating and the one new tournament seems to put too much weight on the one new tournament.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2019-01-07T05:15:08.453" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23445" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23443" CreationDate="2019-01-07T16:22:57.173" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The way elo works is that they take current rating and tournament performance, and then adjust a new rating based depending on k-factor. For all intents and purposes they count every game during a tournament as happening at the same time. So your step 6 is wrong because it doesn't weigh the latest result more than the previous tournaments. If somebody plays their first 10 tournaments with a performance of 1200 and then their last 5 tournaments they played at a 2000 level, they are clearly much closer to 2000 strength than 1200 now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4393" LastActivityDate="2019-01-07T16:22:57.173" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23446" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4763" CreationDate="2019-01-07T21:20:51.770" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;With regard to Blindkungfumaster’s comment, I agree that over analyzing losses as a novice might be counterproductive. Sometimes the reasons for losing the game are so obvious that analysis is unnecessary. Such as leaving pieces hanging, which I do!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18240" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-01-07T21:46:50.547" LastActivityDate="2019-01-07T21:46:50.547" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23447" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21835" CreationDate="2019-01-07T23:57:55.700" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;openingmaster.com with 26 millions is the biggest chess database with zero duplicates. Smaller 8 mil is OTB and 1,7 mil is Correspondence chess database. All you need is there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18242" LastActivityDate="2019-01-07T23:57:55.700" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23448" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21835" CreationDate="2019-01-08T03:09:49.763" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I find that &lt;a href=&quot;https://365chess.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://365chess.com&lt;/a&gt; has an AMAZING range of games - it's the only place I've been able to find some really old games. For basic analysis, I use the &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://lichess.org&lt;/a&gt; analysis board because the overall experience on the site is so great. Seriously. It's amazing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18168" LastActivityDate="2019-01-08T03:09:49.763" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23449" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23425" CreationDate="2019-01-08T03:17:06.050" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;To be straightforward, there is &lt;strong&gt;no such thing as a mutual stalemate&lt;/strong&gt;. Saying&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;neither side could move on their turn&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;is a bit confusing. If it's white's turn, then they can be stalemated. Black cannot be stalemated as well, because his opponent has not moved to put him in stalemate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18168" LastActivityDate="2019-01-08T03:17:06.050" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23452" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-01-09T01:07:20.560" Score="6" ViewCount="526" Body="&lt;p&gt;My chess club wants to host a FIDE tournament in a couple of months with 3 FIDE rated games in one day.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the shortest allowed time control for FIDE rated standard tournament games so we can fit in all 3 games on one day?  Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Best,&#xA;Richard&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8258" LastActivityDate="2019-01-09T02:58:12.140" Title="what is the shortest allowable time control for a FIDE rated standard tournament game?" Tags="&lt;fide&gt;&lt;time-control&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23453" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23452" CreationDate="2019-01-09T02:58:12.140" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=197&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Rating Regulations&lt;/a&gt;, it depends on the player ratings:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1.1 For a game to be rated each player must have the following minimum periods in which to complete all the moves, assuming the game lasts 60 moves.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Where at least one of the players in the game has a rating 2200 or higher, each player must have a minimum of 120 minutes.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Where at least one of the players in the game has a rating 1600 or higher, each player must have a minimum of 90 minutes.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Where both of the players in the game are rated below 1600, each player must have a minimum of 60 minutes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1.2 Where a certain number of moves is specified in the first time control, it shall be 40 moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2019-01-09T02:58:12.140" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23454" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23458" CreationDate="2019-01-09T06:05:32.187" Score="1" ViewCount="326" Body="&lt;p&gt;For example, suppose it's game 12 of the Carlsen-Caruana match last year. Caruana has white, and he wants to win before the tiebreaks. Now if instead of Caruana playing white, Stockfish were playing, one can practically guarantee that Stockfish will win the game. Therefore, in principle, Caruana can also win the game, regardless of what opening line Carlsen chooses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So Caruana can pick an opening by inputting what Carlsen is likely to play to Stockfish. For example, suppose Stockfish plays 1.d4 and Carlsen is likely to respond with 1...Nf6. Caruana can give that to Stockfish and see what Stockfish comes up with. Regardless of what line Carlsen chooses, Stockfish should be able to reach a line that has winning chances. In the same way, this technique would beat well-known drawing lines such as the Petroff or the Berlin. This technique would even work to achieve a win with black, since Stockfish is also very likely to beat Carlsen with black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Questions: does this scheme work? If so, do human GMs already use it? If so, why aren't GMs aiming to win with black as well as with white?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastActivityDate="2019-01-09T16:33:08.303" Title="Can GMs use computers to beat their opponents?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;engines&gt;&lt;preparation&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23455" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23454" CreationDate="2019-01-09T07:14:14.440" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;That a human uses engine techniques to beat their opponent is practically impossible. Even if the human has an excellent understanding of all of the evaluation techniques used by the engine, the human would never be able to prune all lines as perfect as the engine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The human is a human, while the engine is a silicon brain. Engines do win drawish openings against humans because they can punish every small inaccuracy made by the human. The human can never do this. If he/she does so, he/she will be making their own mistakes, and pressing for a win in such scenario is likely to result in a loss.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your example, Caruana can only win the game if he can play a perfect game and penalise every mistake Carlsen makes. Otherwise, his only chance is to be the second-to-last to make a mistake, which he won't likely be able to achieve intentionally.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13544" LastEditorUserId="13544" LastEditDate="2019-01-09T16:33:08.303" LastActivityDate="2019-01-09T16:33:08.303" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23456" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23462" CreationDate="2019-01-09T07:20:16.630" Score="3" ViewCount="536" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to Deep mind's &lt;a href=&quot;https://deepmind.com/blog/alphazero-shedding-new-light-grand-games-chess-shogi-and-go/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;article&lt;/a&gt;, Alpha Zero searches roughly 10,000 moves per decision, while Stockfish is around 10,000,000 moves. I'm aware that Alpha Zero uses Monte Carlo Tree Search while Stockfish uses minimax, but why would this cause 1000 times less moves to be considered? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-01-09T17:40:04.260" Title="Why does AlphaZero evaluate on the order of 1000 times less moves than Stockfish?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;calculation&gt;&lt;alphazero&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23457" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23456" CreationDate="2019-01-09T07:23:21.233" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;While I was in the middle of writing this question I came up with a probable answer, so I'll write it here. AlphaZero is actually running through the same positions &lt;em&gt;far more&lt;/em&gt; than 10,000 times, it's just doing it on a set of positions roughly 10,000 large. So each position has many playouts run on it, each &gt;= in length than the last.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stockfish looks at millions of positions and evaluates each only once (not taking things like iterative deepening search into account). Meanwhile, AlphaZero repeatedly looks at promising branches based off their previous preformance. This explains why it only looks at 10,000 moves, since it's usually only sampling the best it can find.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastEditorUserId="12873" LastEditDate="2019-01-09T17:40:04.260" LastActivityDate="2019-01-09T17:40:04.260" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23458" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23454" CreationDate="2019-01-09T07:33:28.693" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;You pretty much described modern day preparation...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is exactly what GMs are doing, except that they also try to add some of their own creativity into the process. Nevertheless, the majority of the heavy lifting is done by engines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, the process doesn't come close to guaranteeing a win due to the sheer number of possibilities. For example, assume that on each of your opponent's moves, he has 3 good moves to choose from. This means:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;After his 1st move, you have to prepare for 3 outcomes.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;After his 2nd move, you have to prepare for 9 outcomes (since each of the 3 outcomes for his 1st move then have 3 follow up outcomes when its his turn on the 2nd move).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;After his 3rd move, you have to prepare for 27 outcomes.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;4th move ==&gt; 81 outcomes.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;5th move ==&gt; 243 outcomes.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;6th move ==&gt; 729 outcomes.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;7th move ==&gt; 2187 outcomes.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can see where this is going, and this is based on the generous assumption that your opponent only has 3 acceptable choices. After the early stages of the opening, this number is often much higher.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But going off 3 choices, the horrible function for the approx. number of reasonable outcomes is f(x) = 3^x, where x is number of moves your opponent has made. However, GMs often still manage to prepare for 20 moves, which means their opponent has moved 10 times. 3^10 = 59,049. So GMs are clearly very clever at predicting what's going to happen, and have excellent memories, but even this can barely get to 20 moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-01-09T07:33:28.693" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23459" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-01-09T08:13:38.777" Score="9" ViewCount="399" Body="&lt;p&gt;Lichess puzzle &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/training/82753&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;82753&lt;/a&gt; involves a rook and pawn endgame where white sacrifices their rook to queen a pawn. The final position is the following (with black to move):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;2Q5/6p1/1K3pkp/8/8/4p3/r5PP/8 b - - 0 44&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not convinced white can win from here; it looks like black can swap off one pair of pawns, then set up a fortress. This seems to hold on against Lichess’s version of Stockfish, but I don't think it looks especially deep. Maybe there's a winning strategy for white, though, that it didn't find.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Question&lt;/em&gt;: Can white win with a queen and two pawns vs. rook and four pawns?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2785" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-05T21:29:08.973" LastActivityDate="2020-04-05T21:29:08.973" Title="Lichess Puzzle 82753: Can white win with a queen and two pawns vs. rook and four pawns?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;puzzles&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23460" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23459" CreationDate="2019-01-09T09:10:31.283" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, the endgame is winning for White. Take the position after these first moves:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Qe8+ Kh7 2. Qxe3.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note here that 2...Rxg2 allows White to win the Rook with the fork: 3.Qe4+&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The endgame is now just 2 pawns vs 3 pawns. You assumed that Black can swap off a pair of pawns, but this is easier said than done. If Black pushes their kingside pawns up the board, the king will be exposed and the fortress weakened. White's queen can also help to prevent any unwanted exchanges.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So Black's best strategy to defend is to put the rook on e5, where it prevents White's king from crossing the e-file and reaching the kingside. However, notice how the rook &lt;em&gt;must&lt;/em&gt; stay on e5 to accomplish this. If it moves anywhere else on the e-file, it's liable to be forked. Note also that it's not easy for Black to even bring the rook to the e5-square in the first place. But let's assume Black manages.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, White's winning strategy consists of putting Black in zugzwang. The ideal arrangement of White's pieces:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;King on d6 or d7.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Queen on f8.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Pawns on h4 and g4&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And then Black's pieces will be as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;King on h7.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Rook on e5.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Pawns as they are in the diagram position (moving just hurts Black's defensive chances).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you set this position up on a board, you'll notice how Black's king can only move to g6. But then White plays Qg8 and Black's king is stuck in a vulnerable position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black's only other option is moving the rook somewhere else along the e-file, such as 1...Re1. But then White strikes with 2.g5!, since the Rook is no longer on the 5th rank preventing this push. After 2...fxg5 3.hxg5 hxg5 4. Qf7, Black's rook no longer has a protected square it can sit on along the e-file. This means it won't be able to prevent White's king from crossing the e-file and reaching the kingside much longer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once White's king crosses the file, it's easy enough to checkmate Black's king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: For Black to move in the starting position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;On 1...Rxg2 2.Qe8+ Kg5 3.Qxe3+ Kh4 (...Kg6 or ...Kf5 lose the rook to a fork), Black can't really set up a fortress. &#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Placing the rook on g5 can eventually lead it to being attacked when White pushes h4 with the help of the queen.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Meanwhile, putting the rook on e5 leaves the g7-pawn undefended, since the king is stranded on h4. If White takes the g7-pawn, Black's fortress falls apart due to the weak f6-pawn.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;On 1...e2 2.Qg4+ Kh7 3.Qe4+ Kh8 4.g4 Kg8 5.h4, White is going to round up the e2-pawn by bringing the king to b3. If Black's rook moves to d2, White plays Qe3 and Black's rook is unable to stay on the 2nd rank. White's queen then takes the e2-pawn, and see my main answer for how to break the subsequent fortress w/ rook on e5.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Other first moves for Black don't do anything special.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastEditorUserId="12873" LastEditDate="2019-01-09T09:23:32.223" LastActivityDate="2019-01-09T09:23:32.223" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23461" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23454" CreationDate="2019-01-09T09:14:43.957" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Doesn’t make sense to me. Stockfish even running on a super computer will not be able  refute an established opening. Furthermore, the other side can do the same preparation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It’s not as simple as that. You can’t just memorise by heart engine lines and hope to win. You don’t have memory to hold all the possible lines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2019-01-09T09:14:43.957" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23462" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23456" CreationDate="2019-01-09T09:16:55.877" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Very simple. Running a large neural network with floating numbers can’t be quicker than running a simple C++ function on integers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;AI machine learning is not new to chess. There were serious attempts before Google established. Unfortunately, nobody had the determination, skills and resources to do a good job. Nobody wanted to invest money. Before Google's chess journey, the chess engine community believed:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;AI chess will not beat classical programming because neural networks&#xA;  (or other models) run much slower.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2019-01-09T09:25:09.770" LastActivityDate="2019-01-09T09:25:09.770" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23463" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23467" CreationDate="2019-01-09T14:13:01.747" Score="1" ViewCount="181" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can one win with two dark square bishops and two light square bishops and his opponent has only one queen?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I remember seeing this endgame being analyzed in a video around 10 years ago (and I think the answer is yes) but could not find the video any more. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16626" LastActivityDate="2019-12-27T15:14:45.897" Title="Can one win with two dark square bishops and two light square bishops and his opponent has only one queen?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;queens&gt;&lt;bishops&gt;&lt;bishop-pair&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23464" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23456" CreationDate="2019-01-09T15:35:37.313" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Because alphazero's evaluation algorithm is far more complex and takes up way more computing power than normal chess engines evaluation algorithm.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In fact if you were to fairly compute how much processing power each engine uses, no doubt alphazero takes up way more power to beat normal engines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4393" LastActivityDate="2019-01-09T15:35:37.313" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23465" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23459" CreationDate="2019-01-09T16:02:04.620" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;It looks very difficult for white to prevent the fortress.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The obvious sequence is something like -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;2Q5/6p1/1K3pkp/8/8/4p3/r5PP/8 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1. ... Rb2+ (to kick the king one square further from the action) 2. Ka5 Rxg2 3. Qe8+ Kh7 4. Qe4+ Rg6 5. h4 h5 and black has 3 extra pawns, albeit the e3 pawn is likely to fall soon&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If 5. Qf5 then 5... h5 anyway when 6. Qxh5 Rh6 leaves white struggling to save the h pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-01-09T19:13:31.750" LastActivityDate="2019-01-09T19:13:31.750" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23466" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23459" CreationDate="2019-01-09T16:09:01.490" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think it's a draw. Don't have an access to an engine right now though&#xA;1... Rxg2 2. Qe8+ Kf5 &#xA;if 3.Qxe3 Rxh2 I don't see a way to win black's rook immediately. Even if black can't capture the h2 pawn it doesn't seem that difficult for him to regroup and set up a fortress.&#xA;3. Qh5+ Rg5 leads to an immediate draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Missed that after Kh7 black can block Qe4+ with Rg6 as given by Brian. That variation is completely drawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4393" LastEditorUserId="4393" LastEditDate="2019-01-09T23:22:47.680" LastActivityDate="2019-01-09T23:22:47.680" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23467" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23463" CreationDate="2019-01-09T16:10:43.447" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;What you're referring to is a so-called &quot;7-man&quot; ending (2 kings, 1 queen and 4 bishops). Luckily for you, we have 7-man tablebases which are even &lt;a href=&quot;https://syzygy-tables.info&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;available online&lt;/a&gt; and which allow us to analyze every possible legal 7-man chess ending.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;1q1k4/8/8/8/B7/1B6/1B6/2B1K3 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Randomly setting up the above position shows that white is indeed winning, and generally most positions seem to show white winning. However, this isn't always the case, for example the following is a draw (white to move) because of the fact that black can either fork the king and one of the bishops, or can fork two bishops:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;3k3K/B3q3/8/8/8/8/B7/2B4B w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The tablebase also shows how the win often doesn't require that many ply, depending on the starting position of course.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17713" LastEditorUserId="17713" LastEditDate="2019-01-09T16:18:55.450" LastActivityDate="2019-01-09T16:18:55.450" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23468" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23454" CreationDate="2019-01-09T16:18:32.677" Score="1" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Yes it works against unprepared opponents to get a superior position.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Yes, most super-gms use engine prep for certain must win scenarios.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Because both sides are using engine prep and white inherently has an advantage to being with.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In fact in the previous WCC, most advantages came from engine use exclusively.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4393" LastActivityDate="2019-01-09T16:18:32.677" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23469" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-01-09T18:41:20.907" Score="3" ViewCount="1259" Body="&lt;p&gt;I tend to think the Elephant Gambit is dubious, but what is the best path to a White advantage?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 d5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Update&lt;/strong&gt;: &#xA; RemcoGerlich's comment of an upcoming book is quite relevant!  Typical analysis is only 4 moves deep claiming White is better (as shown in some answers below).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I had never seen 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 d5 3.exd5 &lt;strong&gt;Bd6&lt;/strong&gt; given as &quot;Elephant Gambit Proper&quot; on wikipedia (link in Kortchnoi's answer); The wiki, by-the-way, quotes De Firmian analysis which is pre-computer analysis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastEditorUserId="14202" LastEditDate="2019-01-11T17:20:19.580" LastActivityDate="2019-01-11T17:20:19.580" Title="How bad is the Elephant Gambit?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23470" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23469" CreationDate="2019-01-09T20:45:03.513" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Edit:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 d5 3. exd5 e4 4. Qe2 Nf6 5. Nc3 Be7 6. Nxe4 O-O 7. Nxf6+ Bxf6 8. d4 Qxd5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;is more of what the OP is looking for. In this case 4.Qe2 shuts down black's pressure placed on the f3 knight. He can't defend the pawn on e4 and remove the pin in time to do anything with the pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18168" LastEditorUserId="18168" LastEditDate="2019-01-09T22:21:17.710" LastActivityDate="2019-01-09T22:21:17.710" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23471" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23469" CreationDate="2019-01-09T22:00:27.747" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Good question. You are right, the Elephant gambit appears to be a dubious opening. Have you checked the wikipedia page on the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elephant_Gambit&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Elephant Gambit&lt;/a&gt;? It offers good lines to fight for an advantage. But they are two other questions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Do you like to defend or retain the initiative?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Those playing this opening are not afraid to gambit a pawn for the initiative with 1.e4 e5 2. Nf3 d5 3.exd5 e4. In most of the lines following 4.Qe2 Nf6 5.d3 Be7 or 4.Qe2 Nf6 5.Nc3 Be7 white has a pawn up but black has the initiative. With a precise play and a bit of patience, white will gain an advantage. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Do you like opening theory?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The issue is that you are going to face this rare opening once or twice in your tournament life and most of the time black will be better prepared (in this rare line). He/she will have more experience with this gambit. So, another way to deal with this gambit will be to go for an unrated variant such as &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1.e4 e5 2. Nf3 d5 3.Nxe5 Bd6 4.d4 dxe4 5.Qe2!?&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;rnbqk1nr/ppp2ppp/3b4/4N3/3Pp3/8/PPP1QPPP/RNB1KB1R w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;followed by Nc3, Bg5 and 0-0-0...&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Those continuations have many advantages: Easy to remember; easy to play, and maybe not the kind of positions black are looking for when playing the Elephant Gambit !&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11749" LastEditorUserId="11749" LastEditDate="2019-01-09T22:34:02.583" LastActivityDate="2019-01-09T22:34:02.583" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23472" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7949" CreationDate="2019-01-10T06:55:07.227" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Very late to this question (and I would be curious about what you ended up doing with chess) but I can tell you that even very talented players have had trouble making a living at chess. Even those who reached world champ struggled. &quot;Mere&quot; grandmasters have often had to have non-chess jobs. Fischer was perhaps the first player in history who, had he chosen to fully exploit the opportunities available, could have become rich from chess and the fame he achieved. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17420" LastActivityDate="2019-01-10T06:55:07.227" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23473" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-01-10T14:08:17.523" Score="0" ViewCount="1812" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm using python chess and I'm trying to use my stockfish 10 engine downloaded from the stockfish website.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;import chess.uci&#xA;&#xA;engine = chess.uci.popen_engine(r&quot;stockfish-10-linux/Linux/stockfish_10_x64&quot;)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Leads to the error:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Traceback (most recent call last):&#xA;  File &quot;&amp;lt;stdin&amp;gt;&quot;, line 1, in &amp;lt;module&amp;gt;&#xA;  File &quot;/home/tim/anaconda3/lib/python3.7/site-packages/chess/uci.py&quot;, line 1139, in popen_engine&#xA;    return _popen_engine(command, engine_cls, setpgrp, **kwargs)&#xA;  File &quot;/home/tim/anaconda3/lib/python3.7/site-packages/chess/_engine.py&quot;, line 295, in _popen_engine&#xA;    PopenProcess(engine, command, **popen_args)&#xA;  File &quot;/home/tim/anaconda3/lib/python3.7/site-packages/chess/_engine.py&quot;, line 133, in __init__&#xA;    self.process = subprocess.Popen(command, **popen_args)&#xA;  File &quot;/home/tim/anaconda3/lib/python3.7/subprocess.py&quot;, line 756, in __init__&#xA;    restore_signals, start_new_session)&#xA;  File &quot;/home/tim/anaconda3/lib/python3.7/subprocess.py&quot;, line 1499, in _execute_child&#xA;    raise child_exception_type(errno_num, err_msg, err_filename)&#xA;PermissionError: [Errno 13] Permission denied: 'stockfish-10-linux/Linux/stockfish_10_x64'&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've done this before on my old computer and I'm mimicking my old code which ran with no problem. Except in my old code I used stockfish 9 and here I'm using stockfish 10. Also I imported chess.engine in my old code but now it says this library isn't available.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18256" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-03-04T21:40:15.660" LastActivityDate="2020-03-04T21:40:15.660" Title="Why can't I use my stockfish engine with python chess?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;python&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2019-01-10T19:06:44.327" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23474" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23473" CreationDate="2019-01-10T14:35:46.783" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the error log you've pasted you can see it's a permission error, which can occur for files that behave as &quot;executables&quot; if you will (think any form of program, e.g. scripts, compiled files etc), but that have not been given the rights by the os to do so. One way to fix it, go to the folder containing the engine file and open a terminal to run the following command which will render your file as executable to the os:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;chmod +x stockfish_10_x64&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Alternatively, right click, go to properties, permissions and select &quot;allow executing file as program&quot;.&#xA;After this (by either method) you should be able to load and run the engine within the python-chess library.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3594" LastActivityDate="2019-01-10T14:35:46.783" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23477" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-01-11T20:26:23.407" Score="5" ViewCount="376" Body="&lt;p&gt;I played a game starting with&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;d4 d5 2. c4 dxc4 3. Nc3 a6 4. a4 Nc6 5. Nf3&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black's next move is 5... Bg4 and it was considered by chess.com as&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Inaccuracy (-0.28) A better move was 5... e5 (5... e5 6. d5 a5 7. e4&#xA;  f6 8. e2 b4 9. g5 O-O 10. O-O)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/njbq0.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/njbq0.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But according to 365chess.com, the move 5... e5 is seldom played while 5... Bg4 is more popular with a high winning percentage for black. Why does chess.com consider 5... Bg4 as an inaccuracy?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/7EMRv.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/7EMRv.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/colJ1.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/colJ1.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16626" LastActivityDate="2019-01-11T22:32:48.460" Title="&quot;A better move&quot; recommended by chess.com but almost never played?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;queens-gambit&gt;&lt;websites&gt;&lt;queens-gambit-accepted&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23478" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23477" CreationDate="2019-01-11T22:16:07.457" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;5...Bg4 isn't an inaccuracy, the chess.com engine just considers 5...e5 to be better. Deep Fritz, running at depth 23 on my computer, considers 5...Bg4 to be a slightly better move (giving a -0.31 evaluation). On 5...e5, it says that the endgame after 6.Nxe5 Nxe5 7.dxe5 Qxd1 8.Nxd1 is just equal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe chess.com's engine is better than my Deep Fritz, but that's not really the point. Engines consider one move in the opening to be a bit better than another all the time. It's important to take such differences with a grain of salt: if both moves are playable, choose the one that's easier/&lt;em&gt;more practical&lt;/em&gt; to play. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your scenario, 5...Bg4 clearly looks more comfortable than 5...e5. You're developing a piece and putting pressure on White's knight (which defends the d4-pawn). Meanwhile with ...e5, you're inviting White to push your knight offside.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-01-11T22:16:07.457" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23479" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23477" CreationDate="2019-01-11T22:32:48.460" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess.com listed this as an inaccuracy because the engine is running at a limited depth, only looking at each move for a few seconds. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I put the position after 5...Bg4 into Stockfish, it gave an evaluation of +0.12 at 16 ply. But at 18 ply, the evaluation dropped to -0.38. Most likely if you had run the analysis at &quot;maximum&quot; (which I realize is locked for non-premium members) the engine would have analyzed enough to know that 5...Bg4 was not an inaccuracy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2019-01-11T22:32:48.460" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23480" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23500" CreationDate="2019-01-12T05:29:42.467" Score="13" ViewCount="1170" Body="&lt;p&gt;Before engines were introduced to chess in late 20th centry, there were many established openings that were played by the top players at that time. I am wondering if any of those openings were refuted (and thus are seldom played today) by engine? Namely, have engines found any flaws in established popular openings?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16626" LastActivityDate="2020-07-27T07:56:17.520" Title="Have engines refuted any established openings?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;engines&gt;&lt;computer-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23481" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23483" CreationDate="2019-01-12T08:35:38.633" Score="18" ViewCount="2502" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm considering getting a chess coach with the general goal of reaching the WIM title (2200 rating, plus norms; or get lucky in an Oceania Zonal).  I'm not sure how realistic this is.  However, almost everyone with a title nowadays considers themselves a chess coach, so I should be a bit selective.  I have a few questions, but my first is...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: In terms of rating points, how much stronger should a coach be than their student?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My current rating is &lt;a href=&quot;http://ratings.fide.com/card.phtml?event=3208281&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;1792&lt;/a&gt; and in a &lt;a href=&quot;http://chess-results.com/tnr402892.aspx?lan=1&amp;amp;art=9&amp;amp;fed=AUS&amp;amp;snr=52&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;recent tournament in China&lt;/a&gt; (after two years without tournament play) my performance was 1889, including a draw with an FM and a win against a 2247-rated player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I have concerns that a coach around the 2300 level might not be able to help me achieve my goal.  But I could be completely wrong about this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2785" LastActivityDate="2019-12-26T21:11:43.127" Title="In terms of rating points, how much stronger should a coach be than their student?" Tags="&lt;coach&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23482" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23481" CreationDate="2019-01-12T09:35:23.117" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I suspect you'll work need to quite hard for your goal. Rising from 1792 to 2200 is not so simple for your age (no offence). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess coaches in Australia like kids, only few people in the country seriously deal with people around your level and age. There is simply no profit margin for coaching an adult.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My recommendation is to get an IM+, someone who has time and dedication to look after you. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesschat.org&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;www.chesschat.org&lt;/a&gt; is a better place for your question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="10295" LastEditDate="2019-01-13T12:26:12.817" LastActivityDate="2019-01-13T12:26:12.817" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23483" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23481" CreationDate="2019-01-12T09:52:46.700" Score="29" Body="&lt;p&gt;So, you are about 1800 and you are worried that a coach with a rating 500 points higher than you will not be able to give you the help you require?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think you are too fixated on rating. What do you think a player rated about 2400 looks for in a coach? Do they also &quot;need&quot; somebody rated 500 points higher? While he was alive IM Mark Dvoretsky coached grandmasters. How was that even possible?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A coach who can help you improve by several hundred rating points is not going to do it by magically transferring his extra rating points. He will do it by teaching you how to study and work better, by directing the work that you do and to some extent by motivating you to do the work. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you sit down at the chess board the moves that come out will reflect the work that you have done, how much, what type, not the rating of your coach. The most important factor your coach has is how good a teacher, trainer and guide he is not how strong a player. Look for these qualities first.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2019-01-12T09:52:46.700" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23484" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21267" CreationDate="2019-01-12T15:00:29.980" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am now convinced that &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/23293/9531&quot;&gt;Fabian Fichter's answer&lt;/a&gt; is correct. The following commentary on Fabian's answer may help to convince others of the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;1. Position that seems to be impacted by removing chick promotion&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Analysing the posted results from the modified Stockfish, all games converge pretty quickly on the following position: S/-l-/ge-/-E-/-LG/cC.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;$ ./dobutsu -vs900&#xA;Loading tablebase... done&#xA;1. setup S/-l-/ge-/-E-/-LG/cC&#xA;1. show board&#xA;  ABC &#xA; +---+&#xA;1| l | c&#xA;2|ge |&#xA;3| E |&#xA;4| LG| *C&#xA; +---+&#xA;1. show lines&#xA;Eb3xa2 : #-72  (67.13%)&#xA;C  *a4 : #-70  (32.87%)   &amp;lt;---  apparently quite strong&#xA;Gc4-c3 : #-46  ( 0.00%)&#xA;C  *c2 : #-36  ( 0.00%)&#xA;C  *c1 : #-28  ( 0.00%)&#xA;Eb3-a4 : #-26  ( 0.00%)&#xA;Lb4-a4 : #-26  ( 0.00%)&#xA;C  *a1 : #-24  ( 0.00%)&#xA;C  *c3 : #-22  ( 0.00%)&#xA;C  *a3 : #-20  ( 0.00%)&#xA;Eb3-c2 : #-12  ( 0.00%)&#xA;Lb4-c3 : #-2   ( 0.00%)&#xA;Lb4-a3 : #-2   ( 0.00%)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sente then plays &lt;code&gt;C*a4&lt;/code&gt;, dropping their chick in the bottom left corner. I initially thought this a pretty wasteful drop but according to the table base it is actually not at all bad.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1. C  *a4&#xA;  ABC &#xA; +---+&#xA;1| l | *c&#xA;2|ge |&#xA;3| E |&#xA;4|CLG| &#xA; +---+&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now something interesting happens. The table base agrees with Stockfish that stepping the Lion to the side is a draw, but what about dropping a chick to fight a chick?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;2. show lines&#xA;C  *a3 : #69   (99.57%)   &amp;lt;---  winning chick drop&#xA;C  *c2 : #91   ( 0.21%)&#xA;C  *c1 : #91   ( 0.21%)&#xA;C  *a1 : 0     ( 0.00%)&#xA;Ga2-a1 : 0     ( 0.00%)&#xA;Eb2-c1 : 0     ( 0.00%)&#xA;Eb2-a1 : 0     ( 0.00%)&#xA;Lb1-a1 : 0     ( 0.00%)   &amp;lt;---  draws the game&#xA;C  *c3 : #-28  ( 0.00%)&#xA;Lb1-c1 : #-22  ( 0.00%)&#xA;Eb2-c3 : #-20  ( 0.00%)&#xA;Eb2-a3 : #-20  ( 0.00%)&#xA;Ga2-a3 : #-18  ( 0.00%)&#xA;Lb1-c2 : #-2   ( 0.00%)&#xA;2. C  *a3&#xA;  ABC &#xA; +---+&#xA;1| l | &#xA;2|ge |&#xA;3|cE |&#xA;4|CLG| *&#xA; +---+&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now the chick on &lt;code&gt;a3&lt;/code&gt; is one step away from promoting and moreover would give check on promoting, which would force the Sente lion to take it. The only problem is that the best move involves losing the chick on &lt;code&gt;a3&lt;/code&gt; and also that we are still pretty far from a checkmate. Therefore we are going to take a bit of a short-cut, such that we lose faster, but without losing for other reasons such as giving away material needlessly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;3. show lines&#xA;Ca4xa3 : #-68  (92.84%)   &amp;lt;---  catches chick about to promote&#xA;Gc4-c3 : #-62  ( 7.16%)&#xA;Eb3xa2 : #-32  ( 0.00%)   &amp;lt;---  shortcut&#xA;Eb3-c2 : #-8   ( 0.00%)   &amp;lt;---  give away elephant&#xA;Lb4-c3 : #-2   ( 0.00%)   &amp;lt;---  stupid&#xA;Lb4xa3 : #-2   ( 0.00%)   &amp;lt;---  stupid&#xA;3. Eb3xa2&#xA;  ABC &#xA; +---+&#xA;1| l | *&#xA;2|Ee |&#xA;3|c  |&#xA;4|CLG| G&#xA; +---+&#xA;4. show lines&#xA;Lb1xa2 : #31   (100.00%)&#xA;Lb1-c2 : #-10  ( 0.00%)&#xA;Lb1-c1 : #-6   ( 0.00%)&#xA;Lb1-a1 : #-6   ( 0.00%)&#xA;Ca3xa4+: #-2   ( 0.00%)&#xA;Eb2-c3 : #-2   ( 0.00%)&#xA;Eb2-c1 : #-2   ( 0.00%)&#xA;Eb2-a1 : #-2   ( 0.00%)&#xA;4. Lb1xa2&#xA;  ABC &#xA; +---+&#xA;1|   | e&#xA;2|le |&#xA;3|c  |&#xA;4|CLG| *G&#xA; +---+&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We seem to have succeeded in preserving the threat of the sacrificial promoting chick, so let's continue!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;5. show lines&#xA;G  *b3 : #-30  (100.00%)&#xA;G  *a1 : #-24  ( 0.00%)&#xA;G  *c3 : #-20  ( 0.00%)&#xA;Gc4-c3 : #-18  ( 0.00%)&#xA;G  *c2 : #-14  ( 0.00%)&#xA;G  *c1 : #-10  ( 0.00%)&#xA;G  *b1 : #-10  ( 0.00%)&#xA;Ca4xa3 : #-8   ( 0.00%)&#xA;Lb4-c3 : #-2   ( 0.00%)&#xA;Lb4-b3 : #-2   ( 0.00%)&#xA;Lb4xa3 : #-2   ( 0.00%)&#xA;5. G  *b3&#xA;  ABC &#xA; +---+&#xA;1|   | *e&#xA;2|le |&#xA;3|cG |&#xA;4|CLG| &#xA; +---+&#xA;6. show lines&#xA;Ca3xa4+: #29   (100.00%)   &amp;lt;---  sacrificial promoting chick check&#xA;E  *c3 : #-30  ( 0.00%)&#xA;E  *c1 : #-28  ( 0.00%)&#xA;Eb2-c1 : #-28  ( 0.00%)&#xA;Eb2-a1 : #-28  ( 0.00%)&#xA;La2-b1 : #-28  ( 0.00%)&#xA;La2-a1 : #-28  ( 0.00%)&#xA;E  *c2 : #-26  ( 0.00%)&#xA;E  *a1 : #-24  ( 0.00%)&#xA;E  *b1 : #-12  ( 0.00%)&#xA;Eb2-c3 : #-12  ( 0.00%)&#xA;La2xb3 : #-2   ( 0.00%)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And there it is, the sacrificial promoting chick as the best move! Let's see what happens.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;6. Ca3xa4+:&#xA;  ABC &#xA; +---+&#xA;1|   | ce&#xA;2|le |&#xA;3| G |&#xA;4|rLG| *&#xA; +---+&#xA;7. show lines&#xA;Lb4xa4 : #-28  (100.00%)   &amp;lt;---  take chick (forced if promoted)&#xA;Gc4-c3 : #-2   ( 0.00%)&#xA;Gb3-c3 : #-2   ( 0.00%)&#xA;Gb3-a3 : #-2   ( 0.00%)&#xA;Gb3xb2 : #-2   ( 0.00%)&#xA;Lb4-c3 : #-2   ( 0.00%)&#xA;Lb4-a3 : #-2   ( 0.00%)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now let's see what happens if we change that rooster to a chick:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;7. setup S/---/le-/-G-/cLG/ec&#xA;1. show board&#xA;  ABC &#xA; +---+&#xA;1|   | ce&#xA;2|le |&#xA;3| G |&#xA;4|cLG| *&#xA; +---+&#xA;1. show lines&#xA;Gc4-c3 : #-90  (100.00%)&#xA;Gb3xb2 : #-30  ( 0.00%)&#xA;Lb4xa4 : #-28  ( 0.00%)&#xA;Gb3-c3 : #-10  ( 0.00%)&#xA;Gb3-a3 : #-8   ( 0.00%)&#xA;Lb4-c3 : #-2   ( 0.00%)&#xA;Lb4-a3 : #-2   ( 0.00%)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this position the best move puts checkmate 88 (90-2) moves away, which is further away from checkmate than the starting position, making it plausible that when analysed it will lead to another position that without promoting chick power is suddenly much further from mate than before (ad infinitum). If true &lt;strong&gt;that would make position G/---/le-/cG-/CLG/e (see below) a draw instead of a win without chick promotion&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  ABC &#xA; +---+&#xA;1|   | *e&#xA;2|le |&#xA;3|cG |&#xA;4|CLG| &#xA; +---+&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;2. Correctness of exhaustive search&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Assuming that the used table base generator is a correct exhaustive search, it seems that Fabian's patch should succeed in disabling chick promotions as file &lt;code&gt;moves.c&lt;/code&gt; is the only place that &lt;code&gt;POS_FLAGS&lt;/code&gt; is used (except for a use in &lt;code&gt;validation.c&lt;/code&gt; to check position structs) and indeed seems purpose-built to disable promotions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;/* clear promotion bits for pieces that can't be promoted */&#xA;status &amp;amp;= POS_FLAGS;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9531" LastActivityDate="2019-01-12T15:00:29.980" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23486" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-01-12T20:47:03.163" Score="-1" ViewCount="808" Body="&lt;p&gt;Does the knight move two steps forward and then to left or right or does it move one step forward and then diagonally to left or right?&#xA;I was taught move one square then to right or left&#xA;My partner says other way and we are fighting over it!&#xA;Please can someone help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18272" LastActivityDate="2019-01-13T00:41:12.447" Title="Knight moves which way?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="6" ClosedDate="2019-01-13T05:17:30.037" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23487" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23486" CreationDate="2019-01-12T22:33:56.090" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Both of you are correct&lt;/strong&gt;; you are just thinking of it in different ways. The following picture shows a knight and the squares where it could be after one move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/TePkk.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/TePkk.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Knight&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's another picture that shows both methods:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/4cNvL.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/4cNvL.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;2Knights&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18168" LastEditorUserId="18168" LastEditDate="2019-01-12T22:49:12.337" LastActivityDate="2019-01-12T22:49:12.337" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23488" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5403" CreationDate="2019-01-12T23:02:12.240" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The touch-move rule depends on the intention of the player.  It is unsporting to misrepresent one's intention after changing one's mind and changing their move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This type of situation is nearly never provable because the opponent would very rarely let it pass if they would suspect this, but it is at least suspected &lt;a href=&quot;http://touchmoverule.blogspot.com/2013/07/polgar-vs-kasparov-1994.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;at Linares 1994 between Polgár and Kasparov&lt;/a&gt;, or &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milan_Matulovi%C4%87&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;at Sousse Interzonal in 1967 between Matulović and Bile&lt;/a&gt;k.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this case, what would make such a move unsporting, would be that the player has already made a different move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other possibilities include cheating using electronics, bribery, collusion to a fake draw, excessively protracting a game whose outcome is, given the level of players, already very unambiguous, and many more.  Tournament chess has rules against a player &quot;making no effort to win by normal means&quot;, so all these cases are strictly speaking rather illegal than unsporting; but the move ultimately made on the board itself might well still be legal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9555" LastActivityDate="2019-01-12T23:02:12.240" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23489" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23486" CreationDate="2019-01-13T00:41:12.447" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Like everyone says, the two definitions are equivalent, but if you want an official-looking source, here is the quote from the USCF rulebook:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;8E. The knight.&lt;/strong&gt; The knight’s move is composed of two different steps.&#xA;First, it makes one step of one single square along the rank or file&#xA;on which it stands. It does not land on that square, as its move is&#xA;not complete (9A). Then, still moving away from the square of&#xA;departure, it moves one step of one single square on a diagonal. It&#xA;does not matter if the square of the first step is occupied.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This move&#xA;is sometimes called an L move, as it is equivalent to moving the&#xA;knight two squares vertically, then one square horizontally (or two&#xA;squares horizontally, then one square vertically). Note that the&#xA;knight always moves to a square different in color than that of its&#xA;starting square. A knight has a maximum of eight possible moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;U.S. Chess Federation. United States Chess Federation's Official Rules of Chess, Sixth Edition (Kindle Locations 941-946). Kindle Edition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are yet more ways of looking at the knight's move. This one is from the FIDE handbook, and while clearly correct I don't think it reflects the way most people think of the move:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;3.6&lt;/strong&gt; The knight may move to one of the squares nearest to that on which it&#xA;stands but not on the same rank, file or diagonal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=208&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=208&amp;amp;view=article&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12523" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2019-01-13T00:41:12.447" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23490" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-01-13T08:46:11.033" Score="3" ViewCount="121" Body="&lt;p&gt;In &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%C5%8Dbutsu_shogi&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;dobutsu shogi&lt;/a&gt;, the usual starting position is a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zugzwang#Tr%C3%A9buchet&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;trébuchet&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;full-point mutual zugzwang&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt; position, but other likely (starting) positions can have a completely different value.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If we arrange the pieces in a different way but still mostly on the back rank and mostly on the board, are most of those positions also trébuchets or do they share another commonality?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9531" LastActivityDate="2019-02-12T11:02:55.700" Title="What is the value of most starting positions in dobutsu shogi?" Tags="&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;shogi&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23491" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23490" CreationDate="2019-01-13T09:02:49.987" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The first surprise is that &lt;strong&gt;if we change the starting position to have mirror symmetry (like western chess) instead of rotational symmetry (like Japanese chess) we get a drawn position&lt;/strong&gt; in which any lion move is losing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1. setup S/elg/-c-/-C-/ELG/&#xA;1. show board&#xA;  ABC &#xA; +---+&#xA;1|elg| &#xA;2| c |&#xA;3| C |&#xA;4|ELG| *&#xA; +---+&#xA;1. show lines&#xA;Cb3xb2 : 0     (50.00%)&#xA;Gc4-c3 : 0     (50.00%)&#xA;Lb4-c3 : #-46  ( 0.00%)&#xA;Lb4-a3 : #-46  ( 0.00%)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Giraffes and elephants are freely exchanged in winning lines, so they must be very close in value. Still, elephants (like bishops in western chess) suffer from being restricted to half of the squares, which probably explains that &lt;strong&gt;giraffes versus elephants is a win for the giraffes&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1. setup S/ele/-c-/-C-/GLG/&#xA;1. show board&#xA;  ABC &#xA; +---+&#xA;1|ele| &#xA;2| c |&#xA;3| C |&#xA;4|GLG| *&#xA; +---+&#xA;1. show lines&#xA;Lb4-c3 : #25   (50.00%)&#xA;Lb4-a3 : #25   (50.00%)&#xA;Cb3xb2 : #53   ( 0.00%)&#xA;Gc4-c3 : #53   ( 0.00%)&#xA;Ga4-a3 : #53   ( 0.00%)&#xA;1. setup S/glg/-c-/-C-/ELE/&#xA;1. show board&#xA;  ABC &#xA; +---+&#xA;1|glg| &#xA;2| c |&#xA;3| C |&#xA;4|ELE| *&#xA; +---+&#xA;1. show lines&#xA;Lb4-c3 : #-32  (50.00%)&#xA;Lb4-a3 : #-32  (50.00%)&#xA;Cb3xb2 : #-24  ( 0.00%)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or is it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1. setup S/lee/-c-/-C-/GGL/&#xA;1. show board&#xA;  ABC &#xA; +---+&#xA;1|lee| &#xA;2| c |&#xA;3| C |&#xA;4|GGL| *&#xA; +---+&#xA;1. show lines&#xA;Ga4-a3 : 0     (50.00%)&#xA;Lc4-c3 : 0     (50.00%)&#xA;Cb3xb2 : #-62  ( 0.00%)&#xA;1. setup S/eel/-c-/-C-/GGL/&#xA;1. show board&#xA;  ABC &#xA; +---+&#xA;1|eel| &#xA;2| c |&#xA;3| C |&#xA;4|GGL| *&#xA; +---+&#xA;1. show lines&#xA;Ga4-a3 : 0     (50.00%)&#xA;Lc4-c3 : 0     (50.00%)&#xA;Cb3xb2 : #-58  ( 0.00%)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Starting giraffes draw&lt;/strong&gt;, but beware of chick fights...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1. setup S/lgg/-c-/-C-/EEL/ &#xA;1. show board&#xA;  ABC &#xA; +---+&#xA;1|lgg| &#xA;2| c |&#xA;3| C |&#xA;4|EEL| *&#xA; +---+&#xA;1. show lines&#xA;Cb3xb2 : 0     (33.33%)&#xA;Eb4-c3 : 0     (33.33%)&#xA;Eb4-a3 : 0     (33.33%)&#xA;Lc4-c3 : #-48  ( 0.00%)&#xA;1. setup S/ggl/-c-/-C-/EEL/&#xA;1. show board&#xA;  ABC &#xA; +---+&#xA;1|ggl| &#xA;2| c |&#xA;3| C |&#xA;4|EEL| *&#xA; +---+&#xA;1. show lines&#xA;Cb3xb2 : 0     (33.33%)&#xA;Eb4-c3 : 0     (33.33%)&#xA;Eb4-a3 : 0     (33.33%)&#xA;Lc4-c3 : #-50  ( 0.00%)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;...and &lt;strong&gt;starting elephants also draw&lt;/strong&gt;, but beware of lion moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What about side lions in the standard position?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1. setup S/lge/-c-/-C-/EGL/&#xA;1. show board&#xA;  ABC &#xA; +---+&#xA;1|lge| &#xA;2| c |&#xA;3| C |&#xA;4|EGL| *&#xA; +---+&#xA;1. show lines&#xA;Cb3xb2 : 0     (50.00%)&#xA;Lc4-c3 : 0     (50.00%)&#xA;1. setup S/egl/-c-/-C-/EGL/&#xA;1. show board&#xA;  ABC &#xA; +---+&#xA;1|egl| &#xA;2| c |&#xA;3| C |&#xA;4|EGL| *&#xA; +---+&#xA;1. show lines&#xA;Cb3xb2 : 0     (50.00%)&#xA;Lc4-c3 : 0     (50.00%)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Central giraffe with lion to the side is a draw&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1. setup S/leg/-c-/-C-/GEL/&#xA;1. show board&#xA;  ABC &#xA; +---+&#xA;1|leg| &#xA;2| c |&#xA;3| C |&#xA;4|GEL| *&#xA; +---+&#xA;1. show lines&#xA;Eb4-a3 : #65   (100.00%)&#xA;Cb3xb2 : 0     ( 0.00%)&#xA;Ga4-a3 : 0     ( 0.00%)&#xA;Eb4-c3 : 0     ( 0.00%)&#xA;Lc4-c3 : #-44  ( 0.00%)&#xA;1. setup S/gel/-c-/-C-/GEL/&#xA;1. show board&#xA;  ABC &#xA; +---+&#xA;1|gel| &#xA;2| c |&#xA;3| C |&#xA;4|GEL| *&#xA; +---+&#xA;1. show lines&#xA;Cb3xb2 : #51   (99.94%)&#xA;Eb4-c3 : #65   ( 0.06%)&#xA;Ga4-a3 : 0     ( 0.00%)&#xA;Eb4-a3 : #-64  ( 0.00%)&#xA;Lc4-c3 : #-52  ( 0.00%)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is a &lt;strong&gt;win if the elephant is in the middle&lt;/strong&gt;. Notice that moving the elephant towards the enemy lion is winning in both positions and moving the lion forward is losing, but in the mirror-symmetric case, chick fight is also winning and elephant towards the other side is losing. At least in this case shogi is more drawish than western chess!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In summary, it seems that trébuchets are quite rare (we did not find any), and most starting positions are draws with the occasional win for the starting player or loss for positions with an obvious weakness.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9531" LastEditorUserId="9531" LastEditDate="2019-01-13T10:04:31.217" LastActivityDate="2019-01-13T10:04:31.217" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23492" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23481" CreationDate="2019-01-13T13:02:49.807" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a quote from &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Heine_Nielsen&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Nielsen coached World Champion Vishy Anand from 2002 until 2012. Anand won the World Championship title in Mexico 2007, and defended it in Bonn 2008, Sofia 2010 and Moscow 2012. Nielsen has been coaching world number one, Magnus Carlsen, since 2013. Carlsen won the Candidates Tournament 2013, which gave him the right to challenge Anand for the world championship. He defeated Anand, and has since defended the title three times. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am not sure in terms of rating points, how much stronger is Peter Heine Nielsen than Vishy Anand and Magnus Carlsen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16626" LastActivityDate="2019-01-13T13:02:49.807" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23494" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8327" CreationDate="2019-01-13T14:58:41.577" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;The rating system used by Lichess is called Glicko and is different from the FIDE one, called Elo system.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This post on Lichess forum gives some insights about the topic:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/qa/6/how-does-the-rating-system-work-on-here&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://lichess.org/qa/6/how-does-the-rating-system-work-on-here&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The most important thing in the answer, in my point of view is this last paragraph:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;It's best to think of ratings as &quot;relative&quot; figures (as opposed to &quot;absolute&quot; figures). By this I mean: within a pool of players, their relative differences in ratings will help you estimate who will win/draw/loss, and how often. Saying &quot;I have X rating&quot; means nothing unless there are other players to compare that rating to.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17341" LastActivityDate="2019-01-13T14:58:41.577" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23495" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-01-13T15:09:19.753" Score="4" ViewCount="139" Body="&lt;p&gt;In &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%C5%8Dbutsu_shogi&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;dobutsu shogi&lt;/a&gt;, the usual starting position is a loss for the beginning player in (at most) 78 turns (from first move until (and including) lion capture or ascension).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But are there perhaps other (starting) positions that are farther from win/loss than the standard one? I would be most interested in positions with all (starting position) or most of the pieces on the board and on the back rank.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9531" LastEditorUserId="9531" LastEditDate="2019-01-13T15:15:16.237" LastActivityDate="2020-11-17T11:06:29.417" Title="Are there starting positions in dobutsu shogi that are farther from a win/loss than the standard one?" Tags="&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;shogi&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23496" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23481" CreationDate="2019-01-13T19:14:04.607" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Unless you are looking for an idol rather than a coach, you should focus on their ability to coach rather than their ability to play competitively.  Check the ratings of their pupils, not their own ratings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user18275" LastActivityDate="2019-01-13T19:14:04.607" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23497" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8850" CreationDate="2019-01-13T19:24:08.350" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you're unrated, you don't really have an expected score. How can anything be expected when your rating is totally unknown? But the win expectancy table is sometimes used in &lt;em&gt;reverse&lt;/em&gt;, to calculate the rating of an unrated player based on the &lt;em&gt;actual&lt;/em&gt; score.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are actually a few different formulas that might be used to determine your initial rating, depending on the type of tournament and your score, according to the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fide.com/component/handbook/?id=197&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Ratings Regulations&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;8.2 Determining the Rating 'Ru' in a given event of a previously unrated player.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;8.21 If an unrated player scores zero in his first event his score is disregarded.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  First determine the average rating of his competition 'Rc'.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(a) In a Swiss or Team tournament: this is simply the average rating of his opponents.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(b) The results of both rated and unrated players in a round-robin tournament are taken into account. For unrated players, the average rating of the competition 'Rc' is also the tournament average 'Ra' determined as follows:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  (i) Determine the average rating of the rated players 'Rar'.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  (ii) Determine p for each of the rated players against all their opponents.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Then determine dp for each of these players.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Then determine the average of these dp = 'dpa'.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  (iii) 'n' is the number of opponents.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Ra = Rar - dpa x n/(n+1)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;8.22 If he scores 50%, then Ru = Ra&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;8.23 If he scores more than 50%, then Ru = Ra + 20 for each half point scored over 50%&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;8.24 If he scores less than 50% in a Swiss or team tournament:  Ru = Ra + dp   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;8.25 If he scores less than 50% in a round-robin: Ru = Ra + dp x n/(n+1)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's say you play in a Swiss and lose to a 2000, beat an 1800, draw to a 1900, draw a 1750, and lose to a 1950.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first step is to calculate the average rating of your opponents. In this example, it is 1880. Since you scored less than 50%, we then calculate dp using table 8.1a (which is at the link.) You scored 2/5, which is 40% or 0.4. According to the table, this gives a dp of -72. So your rating for this tournament would be 1880 - 72 = 1808.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When your opponents are calculating their own ratings, this applies:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;8.52  If the opponent is unrated, then the rating is determined at the end of the event. This applies only to round-robin tournaments. In other tournaments games against unrated opponents are not rated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So your games against them would not count towards their ratings, in this case. But if this was a round-robin instead, then your rating would be calculated first (using the slightly more complicated process for round-robins described above), and their win expectancy against you would then be determined based on your new rating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2019-01-13T19:24:08.350" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23498" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-01-13T19:50:12.670" Score="1" ViewCount="49" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here I am asking suggestions on plans to systematically improve one's chess skills. I am aware of questions such as &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/1702/systematic-approach-to-learning-opening-endgame-theory&quot;&gt;this one&lt;/a&gt;, but I am seeking advice based on the following criteria: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I am willing to spend 30-60 minutes on chess everyday.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I am unwilling to spend money on this. Thus expenses such as paid membership or personal coach will not be an option. I have access to some libraries so books are welcome; I have regular access to the internet as well. Any recommendation of engines that are completely free will be more than welcome.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The training needs to cover all areas of chess playing, including of course opening, mid-game and endgame. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is what I am doing on a regular basis (all of them can be done for free):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Solve 5 puzzles at chess.com and 10 at 365chess.com.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Play one puzzle rush at chess.com.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Study one lesson at chess.com.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Watch some chess related videos on Youtube. (Since there are so many videos/channels/playlists, any recommendation will be appreciated.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If time allows, I would also play a few 5+5 blitz games at chess.com for fun. I do not have much time to sit down and play some lengthy games, at least on a regular basis.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I currently do not have a rating but my estimation of my ELO rating is 1500-1600. I am also wondering if it is realistic for me to obtain the FIDE Master's title after say 10 years of self-training of 30-60 minutes per day. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16626" LastActivityDate="2019-01-13T19:50:12.670" Title="Daily chess self-training plan?" Tags="&lt;theory&gt;&lt;training&gt;&lt;online&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2019-01-14T08:01:58.357" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23499" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-01-13T21:45:26.247" Score="2" ViewCount="413" Body="&lt;p&gt;Answering this &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/23456/why-does-alphazero-evaluate-on-the-order-of-1000-times-less-moves-than-stockfish&quot;&gt;question&lt;/a&gt;, @SmallChess offered this answer:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Before Google's chess journey, the chess engine community believed:&#xA;  AI chess will not beat classical programming because neural networks&#xA;  (or other models) run much slower.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I was looking for a reference to this quote. Did someone make this&#xA;prediction in the past?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I have another, perhaps more fundamental question related to another part of @SmallChess' answer:&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;AI machine learning is not new to chess. There were serious attempts&#xA;  before Google established. Unfortunately, nobody had the&#xA;  determination, skills and resources to do a good job.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it possible to pin down precisely what they have done better than others? Could it be simply that they use a lot more of computing ressources than before? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Subsidiary question: For a layman, who doesn't know how to compare TPU&lt;br&gt;&#xA;    and CPU, instead of 4 hours, how long would Alphazero's training&#xA;    have taken with Stockfish's configuration? (44 threads on 44&#xA;    cores - two 2.2GHz Intel Xeon Broadwell CPUs with 22 cores instead of a single machine with 4 first-generation TPUs. See&#xA;Supplementary Materials for    their &lt;a href=&quot;http://science.sciencemag.org/content/362/6419/1140&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Science paper&lt;/a&gt;.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11749" LastActivityDate="2019-01-15T05:22:05.480" Title="AlphaZero and the revenge of the Artificial Intelligence" Tags="&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;programming&gt;&lt;alphazero&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23500" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23480" CreationDate="2019-01-13T23:57:34.953" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;No, engines have not refuted any established openings&lt;/strong&gt;, unless you're including nonsense openings like 1.e4 d6 2. Qg4, which humans already know to be unsound.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In 2012, Rybka's author Vasik Rajlich authored an April's Fool prank in Chessbase claiming to have proved the King's Gambit is at best a draw. &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.chessbase.com/post/the-chebase-april-fool-s-prank&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Owning up to the prank&lt;/a&gt; a few days later, he said:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;It's reasonable to construct a search tree of around 10^18 positions using modern technology. The chess alpha-beta tree is thought to have at least 10^45 positions. The alpha-beta tree for the King's Gambit will be at most 10x to 100x smaller than that. So, we're still probably a good 25 or so orders of magnitude away from being able to solve something like the King's Gambit. If processing power doubles every 18 months for the next century, we'll have the resources to do this around the year 2120, plus or minus a few decades.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The last couple of lines are the most relevant ones. It's 2019 as I write this, so if processing power doubles every 18 months for the next century, we're still a hundred years away from solving the King's Gambit, plus or minus a few decades. The same goes for every other opening, even those 20+ moves long. Talking in terms of order of magnitude, even if the alpha-beta tree for those openings are a billion times (10^9) smaller than chess's, we'd still be a good 16 orders of magnitude or so away from being able to solve it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you're also interested in endgames though, then there have been endgames which humans couldn't solve that have been solved by engines (or engines found flaws in human analysis).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastEditorUserId="15223" LastEditDate="2019-06-29T22:45:39.310" LastActivityDate="2019-06-29T22:45:39.310" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23501" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23506" CreationDate="2019-01-14T00:22:57.450" Score="7" ViewCount="3412" Body="&lt;p&gt;The neural-network engine Leela is a relatively new one. It's also got some extremely passionate fans. For example they &lt;a href=&quot;http://talkchess.com/forum3/viewtopic.php?f=2&amp;amp;t=68218&amp;amp;start=100#p771595&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;write things like this&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Wait 5-6 months, and we will see SF8 on uber-duper logarithmic in cores Elo-wise 32 cores being smashed by Lc0 on my puny single 1060.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Watching Leela's fans argue up and down Talkchess, Chess.com's computer championship chat and TCEC chat, about how their engine is / isn't superior to Stockfish because of [multitude of factors] or how their engine is going to crush Stockfish after the next learning rate drop, about how the &quot;end of an era&quot; is at hand, etc, makes me wonder: why are Leela's fans so passionate? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't recall seeing anything similar to this before Leela showed up. It's not like Leela is so special either: before Leela showed up, Stockfish, Komodo and Houdini dominated engine chess, and there were periods when any of the three were the strongest engine. But I don't recall seeing any of their fans displaying the same level of intensity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2019-01-14T03:54:01.010" LastActivityDate="2019-01-14T05:49:51.153" Title="Why are Leela's fans so passionate?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;leela&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ClosedDate="2019-01-14T12:16:38.647" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23502" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2019-01-14T00:23:34.613" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2019-01-14T00:23:34.613" LastActivityDate="2019-01-14T00:23:34.613" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23503" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2019-01-14T00:23:34.613" Score="0" Body="Related to the chess engine Leela, also known as Lc0 or Leela Chess Zero, an open-source adaptation of Deep Mind's AlphaZero." OwnerUserId="15223" LastEditorUserId="15223" LastEditDate="2019-01-14T07:36:05.077" LastActivityDate="2019-01-14T07:36:05.077" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23504" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23501" CreationDate="2019-01-14T00:33:20.997" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;Leela is special because it's the first strong open-source deep-learning engine. Defeating Stockfish (and also Komodo and Houdini) convincingly on all settings is a very significant milestone, practically more important than Google's AlphaZero. Google's system is inaccessible to anyone but themself. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Human-understandable evaluation function has always been part of engine design, since it started around 30 years ago. Leela, running on a complex neural network evaluation will be the first open-source &quot;intelligent&quot; leading chess engine. The engine &quot;learns&quot; chess by NN machine learning, a much smarter programming technique than random heuristics programming. Engine programmers no longer have to guess/hardcode engine heuristics!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the first time in history, we will have access to a free and strong &quot;intelligent&quot; chess engine. Stockfish is also strong but it knows nothing about chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The era of none-AI evaluation will soon end. Stockfish, Houdini and Komodo will soon fade in existence. Chess engines adopting classical programming techniques will no longer lead the world. Leela is the future, Stockfish will be history.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2019-01-14T05:49:51.153" LastActivityDate="2019-01-14T05:49:51.153" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23505" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23501" CreationDate="2019-01-14T02:38:50.277" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Anytime a group of people get extremely hyped about something (and especially when they aggressively bash alternatives), there's a good chance this is just human tribalism at work. Leela may become extremely strong in the near future, but to say with 100% certainty this will happen now is naive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;People also like change. Stockfish is a revolutionary engine (strong evaluation function based on a huge number of heuristics, and an incredibly fast searching function), but it's been the top dog for a long time. No matter how good things are, eventually people want something even better. It's what drives society forward.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Again, I'm not saying it's impossible for Leela to live up to its hype. It's just that this hype you're describing isn't currently warranted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-01-14T02:38:50.277" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23506" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23501" CreationDate="2019-01-14T04:46:53.173" Score="16" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can't really objectively answer this question, but I'll share my view.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One of the important factors to take into account is that Leela Chess Zero project requires tremendous computational resources to complete. The way project attains those resources is by convincing large number of people to donate part of their machine time to that project.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To make this work, project needs to sustain strong community that clearly sees its goals, ideas and progress. There have been done many things for that: there is a very active discord chat, google groups, blog, you can see lots of graphs and metrics regarding project status, there are very detailed spreadsheets, etc. Also some chess youtubers helped this project grow community (e.g. KingsCrusher and ChessNetwork) by featuring it in their videos.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Beating StockFish is one of the very important goals of this community.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When people are united around some idea, it's because they are passionate about it. The behavior you are describing looks the same as when people argue about politics, football, religion, nationality, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18281" LastActivityDate="2019-01-14T04:46:53.173" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23507" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23181" CreationDate="2019-01-14T06:44:52.050" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;In short, because &lt;strong&gt;DeepMind has TPUs&lt;/strong&gt;. Lots and lots of TPUs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By far, the most time-consuming part of the training process is &lt;strong&gt;generating self-play games&lt;/strong&gt;. DeepMind used 5000 TPUs to generate self-play games, which is a lot of processing power. Meanwhile, Lc0 crowdsources processing power from volunteer clients, which is much slower.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From the &lt;a href=&quot;https://arxiv.org/pdf/1712.01815.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;DeepMind paper&lt;/a&gt; published December 2017 (emphasis mine):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;We trained a separate instance of AlphaZero for each game. Training proceeded for 700,000 steps (mini-batches of size 4,096) starting from randomly initialised parameters, using &lt;strong&gt;5,000 first-generation TPUs&lt;/strong&gt; to generate self-play games and &lt;strong&gt;64 second-generation TPUs&lt;/strong&gt; to train the neural networks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To achieve the level of performance that AlphaZero got against the (sub-optimally tuned) Stockfish version 8, the training run took about 9 hours and 44 million self-play games for chess:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ispsC.png&quot; alt=&quot;Table S3: Selected statistics of AlphaZero training in Chess, Shogi, and Go: Mini-batches, training time, training games, and thinking time&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Meanwhile, the Lc0 project got started sometime in &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/gcp/leela-zero/issues/369#issuecomment-354701069&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;January 2018&lt;/a&gt;, and by &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.chessbase.com/post/leela-chess-zero-alphazero-for-the-pc&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;April 2018&lt;/a&gt;, they'd only generated &lt;strong&gt;8.2 million out of the needed 44 million games&lt;/strong&gt;. I believe they were generating about 200k games per day at the time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They also came across a lot of bugs in the process and were figuring out a lot of things as they went, so when the first training run plateaued, the best net was not as good as AlphaZero. Since then, the Lc0 project has actually &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/LeelaChessZero/lc0/wiki/Training-runs&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;restarted the training run&lt;/a&gt; multiple times:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;old main:&lt;/strong&gt; The original 192x15 &quot;main&quot; run, using the original &lt;code&gt;lczero.exe&lt;/code&gt; engine. It ended in August 2018, with the last net being ID595. (These nets don't seem to be listed anymore though? The early IDs at the bottom of the &lt;a href=&quot;http://lczero.org/networks/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;net list&lt;/a&gt; seem to be these &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/LeelaChessZero/lc0/wiki/lc0-transition#runs-on-the-test-pipeline&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;test nets&lt;/a&gt;.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;test10&lt;/strong&gt;: The original 256x20 test run. This was a separate pipeline using a completely rewritten &lt;code&gt;lc0.exe&lt;/code&gt; engine that was much faster at generating self-play games. Net numbering for this run &lt;a href=&quot;http://archive.is/oiuQu&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;started&lt;/a&gt; with ID10000 on June 27, 2018, and ended with ID11262 on August 30, 2018.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;test20&lt;/strong&gt;: A run with &lt;a href=&quot;http://blog.lczero.org/2018/08/training-run-reset.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;various changes&lt;/a&gt;, starting with ID20001 on August 30, 2018 and ending with ID22201 on November 16, 2018.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;test30&lt;/strong&gt;: A run testing &lt;a href=&quot;http://blog.lczero.org/2018/09/tb-rescoring.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;various new ideas&lt;/a&gt;, starting with ID30001 on September 9, 2018. As of January 14, 2019, the best net was ID32598.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;test40&lt;/strong&gt;: The December 6, 2018 AlphaZero paper revealed a lot of &lt;a href=&quot;http://blog.lczero.org/2018/12/alphazero-paper-and-lc0-v0191.html?m=1&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;differences between what DeepMind did and what Lc0 did&lt;/a&gt;, and it looks like a &lt;a href=&quot;http://blog.lczero.org/2019/01/leela-in-december.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;new test run&lt;/a&gt; started with ID40001 on January 8, 2019. As of January 14, 2019, the best net was ID40202.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To get a sense of how well Lc0 is doing compared to AlphaZero, it's more useful to look at the Elo with respect to total number of games generated, not time elapsed. Here's what the graph looks like for the entire Lc0 project as of January 14, 2019 (note that this is self-play Elo, which is inflated compared to actual Elo):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://web.archive.org/web/20190114061353/http://lczero.org/?full_elo=1&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/f8iTb.png&quot; alt=&quot;graph of self-play Elo vs. number of accumulated games&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you can see, they've reset the training run many times. There were also a number of &lt;a href=&quot;http://archive.is/tnj6k&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;bootstrap mini-resets&lt;/a&gt; during the original main run to fix some critical bugs, and there was also a temporary &lt;a href=&quot;http://blog.lczero.org/2019/01/leela-in-december.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;test35&lt;/a&gt; to test the newly revealed configuration settings from the December 2018 AlphaGo paper. Yep, this isn't confusing at all! (/s)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are lots of calculations and graphs in &lt;a href=&quot;https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1XSJiCcQpCLv0fNwrUn7jXjdkZFU63YFEWpdXv6dSSg0/edit?usp=sharing&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this spreadsheet here&lt;/a&gt; that compares lc0's performance with AlphaZero. For example, here's the graph from the first old main run (under the &quot;Graphs&quot; tab):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1XSJiCcQpCLv0fNwrUn7jXjdkZFU63YFEWpdXv6dSSg0/edit#gid=2014732845&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/adHkF.png&quot; alt=&quot;AlphaZero vs. Leela progression comparison&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;From that link, an explanation of what &quot;Leela Max&quot; is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;Leela Max&quot; is Leela's theoretical maximum performance when given hardware and/or time to the point of absolute diminished returns. It may be more comparable to AlphaZero, as AlphaZero operated on 4.8 million nodes per move, whereas a conventional setup only gets a small fraction of that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These days, the self-play generation speed is much faster than it was at the beginning. As of January 14, 2019, it looks like the project is generating about &lt;a href=&quot;http://web.archive.org/web/20190114060043/http://lczero.org/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;1.5 million games per day&lt;/a&gt;. But at this speed, it'll still take a month to achieve what DeepMind achieved in 9 hours. More like double the time, really, if the training games are being diverted towards two separate runs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15964" LastEditorUserId="15964" LastEditDate="2019-01-14T07:06:19.910" LastActivityDate="2019-01-14T07:06:19.910" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23508" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23509" CreationDate="2019-01-14T15:47:03.980" Score="-2" ViewCount="190" Body="&lt;p&gt;Before I get to my question couple things to get out of the way:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;This question is a sensitive subject.  But I assure you that I'm not a troll, I have deep respect for your community.   It is my first question here, so please be gentle.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I am a beginner chess player with mere 50 games that I've played total in my whole life.  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;By asking this question I'm trying to uncover answer to the question: &quot;What do we do as humanity when AI proves to be superior in all ways 100 years from now? - not just chess&quot;.   I'm asking here specifically because I'm assuming &quot;you've been there, done that&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With that out of the way:  What motivates you to keep playing chess?  I notice that lot of players here are very focused on ranking, too, so it's not purely social there is some need to be better (or even perhaps to be &quot;the best&quot;).   But what can you do when you've worked hard for your ranking but you know that a couple silicon chips have a ranking superior to yours?   And that you will never catch up (the gap between chess abilities in AI and humans will just widen).  Is it something that just never bothered you in the first place?    How come?   If it did bother you but it doesn't any longer, how did you get through that slump?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or am I making the wrong assumption?  Are you into chess in some ways AI is INFERIOR to the human mind and you are fascinated by the ways that human mind still remains superior to AI regardless of the historic AI-human match outcomes?  Or perhaps you even want to prove this somehow?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or are we talking about a situation much like horse racing?  Yes, horse races still make billions of dollars around the world, even though SR71 could beat any horse with it's Mach 6 performance?   Is it just a question of the pure feeling that's unique experience of playing and watching human chess?  Same as a horse race can never be replicated with robot horses, neither can chess?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What aspects of chess as a game allow the human chess-playing community to persist despite the existence of chess computers?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18291" LastEditorUserId="17363" LastEditDate="2019-01-17T05:09:20.627" LastActivityDate="2019-01-17T05:09:20.627" Title="Why bother with human chess when AI is superior?" Tags="&lt;training&gt;&lt;world-championship&gt;&lt;chess-ai&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ClosedDate="2019-01-14T20:38:57.540" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23509" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23508" CreationDate="2019-01-14T16:33:29.887" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think one of the reasons humanity continues to play gams that computers will always win at is that chess is a useful tool to inprove critical thinking skills, such as pattern recognition and analysis of consequences. No matter how good at chess computers become, and even if chess is one day solved, humans can learn the game and still enjoy it, not to be the best on the planet, but to improve oneself and also for entertainment. Lord knows no one plays chess for the fame or the lifestyle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Additionally, chess doesn't have to be played with computers. Two humans can enjoy a game of chess regardless of their skill level because it's a form of competition. It's also one of the most widespread forms of mental competition, so for those who don't enjoy physical competitions like other sports, chess can be appealing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We still teach our children to play games like Tic-Tac-Toe (or Noughts and Crosses, or whatever you wish to call it), even though it's solved. The idea, apart from providing relief to the kids' parents, would be that they learn. Chess, and other activities, are not about being the best in the world or defeating computers. They're about the journey to get there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another reason humans don't care that much about being inferior to computers and AI is that we can simply exclude those from competing. Sure, cheetahs might be faster than Usain Bolt, but humans don't care; we don't allow cheetahs to race us in competition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17363" LastActivityDate="2019-01-14T16:33:29.887" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23510" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23499" CreationDate="2019-01-14T16:53:19.870" Score="2" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Pretty much everybody. The reason being that it is STILL slower. The evaluation function for alphazero has WAY more variables so despite more computing power, alphazero can only calculate a fraction of number of positions than stockfish. However the evaluation function for alphazero is much much better due to self-learning and also takes forever to calculate.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://arxiv.org/pdf/1712.01815.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://arxiv.org/pdf/1712.01815.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Consider this. Google used 5000 super computers to train the AI to play before the game. Now consider what happens if you give stockfish access to 5000 super computers to think for 4 hours and if it memorized all those lines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The issue comes down to computing power.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Not in your lifetime.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is a bit difficult to find Ghz to tflop conversions but consider this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/hpc/Intel-Core-i9-7900X-and-7980XE-Skylake-X-Linux-Linpack-Performance-1059/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/hpc/Intel-Core-i9-7900X-and-7980XE-Skylake-X-Linux-Linpack-Performance-1059/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;28 cores on 2.6Ghz gives about 1.123Tflops. So for 88 cores running at 2.2Ghz each is around 3Tflops. So your system gives around 3Tflops.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now I can't find any information on the first generation TPUS but the second generation TPUs have 180 Tflops each.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tensor_processing_unit&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tensor_processing_unit&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So 1 TPU = 60 of your systems. So 5000*60*4 = 1200000 hours = 136 years.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also should clearly show how unfair the alphazero vs stockfish match is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: I made a mistake, you said 2 22 core systems. My calculations had 88 cores. So you would need to double the previous total to 272 years.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4393" LastEditorUserId="4393" LastEditDate="2019-01-14T22:57:14.257" LastActivityDate="2019-01-14T22:57:14.257" CommentCount="15" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23511" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-01-14T17:00:30.733" Score="1" ViewCount="375" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am curious if there is a known position with the largest material imbalance that, no matter who it is to move, the weaker side can hold a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18293" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-05-28T21:58:08.850" LastActivityDate="2021-02-13T15:39:59.450" Title="Position with the largest material imbalance that is a draw, no matter whose turn it is?" Tags="&lt;problems&gt;&lt;records&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23512" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23511" CreationDate="2019-01-14T17:18:13.353" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;One side with fully promoted pawns and all his material and the other side having nothing but his king. Just stalemate the king in the corner with a bishop, knight and rook, place your other material to block off checkmates and you have a forced stalemate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4393" LastActivityDate="2019-01-14T17:18:13.353" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23514" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22734" CreationDate="2019-01-14T22:40:26.600" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Ok, I finally got it!!!&#xA;Here is the link I've been looking for:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://zibbit64.blogspot.com/2010/12/curious-case-of-alexandru-crisan.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Zibbit's blog&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15253" LastActivityDate="2019-01-14T22:40:26.600" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23515" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23499" CreationDate="2019-01-14T23:48:03.423" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;(1)&lt;/strong&gt; Let's go back to 2016 when Google had just beaten the best Go player...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://talkchess.com/forum3/viewtopic.php?f=2&amp;amp;t=59072&amp;amp;hilit=machine+learning+chess+slow+machine+learning&amp;amp;start=50&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://talkchess.com/forum3/viewtopic.php?f=2&amp;amp;t=59072&amp;amp;hilit=machine+learning+chess+slow+machine+learning&amp;amp;start=50&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Milos who I believe is a PhD claimed machine learning had been tried &quot;N&quot; times.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/CcXhj.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/CcXhj.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Dr Bob, the legendary engine programmer who wrote Crafty believed NN was too slow.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/BaZvZ.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/BaZvZ.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;(2)&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessprogramming.org/NeuroChess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.chessprogramming.org/NeuroChess&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://arxiv.org/abs/1509.01549&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://arxiv.org/abs/1509.01549&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Others I miss here...&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is it possible to pin down precisely what they have done better than others? Could it be simply that they use a lot more of computing ressources than before?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Google indeed had more computing resources but that's not all ...&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Google had a superior deep learning model&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Google adopted MCTS instead of pure alpha-beta&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Google developed the model from self-playing, not like learning from GM games&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This was the network used in NeuroChess. It's a shallow network in our modern standard. It's &lt;strong&gt;NOT&lt;/strong&gt; a deep NN.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/MD96n.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/MD96n.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(3). I suspect it'd take weeks if not months. Not sure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2019-01-15T05:22:05.480" LastActivityDate="2019-01-15T05:22:05.480" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23516" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23179" CreationDate="2019-01-15T06:13:52.313" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;To follow up on plus1's comment, consider things like&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;6kr/5b1p/2p3pP/rpPp1pP1/pP1PpP2/P3P3/1K6/8 w k - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;as well. It is clear that if White takes the rook eventually the Black forces will break through yet many engines can't resist the lure of decreasing the points deficit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18296" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2019-01-15T12:40:52.167" LastActivityDate="2019-01-15T12:40:52.167" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23517" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-01-15T08:06:48.987" Score="1" ViewCount="521" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd like to create tournament for my students where I specify the starting positions. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which websites allows users to create tournaments with different starting positions? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5653" LastEditorUserId="10295" LastEditDate="2019-01-15T15:26:33.837" LastActivityDate="2019-01-15T15:26:33.837" Title="Websites for creating tournaments with different starting positions" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;online&gt;&lt;websites&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23518" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23517" CreationDate="2019-01-15T14:48:38.193" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can do this&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;For free&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;at &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://lichess.org&lt;/a&gt;. Go to the &quot;Play&quot; tab, and select &quot;Tournaments.&quot; Assuming that you have a lichess account, (&lt;em&gt;all they need for that is your e-mail, and they do not spam it&lt;/em&gt;) you will see an option to create a tournament. Once you select that option, you will be able to specify the start position in the tournament (this position must be an opening with an ECO code).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you wish to have &lt;em&gt;only your students&lt;/em&gt; playing in the tournament, you can make the tournament private (password required to enter) and send the password to your students.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also play a game (not tournament) from &lt;em&gt;any legal position&lt;/em&gt; (opening, endgame, middlegame, whatever) via the board editor, which is under the &quot;tools&quot; tab&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18168" LastActivityDate="2019-01-15T14:48:38.193" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23521" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-01-15T18:40:04.790" Score="3" ViewCount="253" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm looking for a command-line tool to let two chess engines play a game or a tournament against each other. The tool should support UCI and/or the xboard protocol and it should allow to save the game as a PGN.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I could only find GUI programs for that purpose. Aren't there any commandline tools that can do that job?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18300" LastActivityDate="2019-01-15T23:02:20.603" Title="CLI tool to let chess engines play each other" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;computer-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2019-01-17T07:13:10.753" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23522" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23536" CreationDate="2019-01-15T20:13:20.143" Score="19" ViewCount="3920" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have noticed the following example, which should be a dead draw:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/PPb6X.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/PPb6X.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am wondering what is the theoretical material difference of a dead draw which is not a stalemate? (I am not asking about agreed draws.) Apparently we could not add more rooks to the diagram as all white pawns have not been promoted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, the game above is not drawn by &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.e4ec.org/immr.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;the insufficient material rule&lt;/a&gt;, as white can theoretically win the game if black makes a blunder such as capturing the rook.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16626" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-05T00:59:24.637" LastActivityDate="2020-04-05T00:59:24.637" Title="What is the theoretical maximal material difference of a dead draw which is not a stalemate?" Tags="&lt;theory&gt;&lt;problems&gt;&lt;draw&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="11" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23523" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23522" CreationDate="2019-01-15T20:36:16.713" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;This position, with a material difference of 1 queen, 2 rooks, a bishop and a knight, is (quite easily) reachable from the starting position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;7k/8/8/1n6/1p1p1p1p/pPpPpPpP/P1P1P1P1/RQNKNB1R w - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You could add a white bishop on g1 and a black knight on f5, but the material difference remains the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2019-01-15T20:36:16.713" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23524" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23522" CreationDate="2019-01-15T20:46:21.427" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;With white to move, the following position is a draw:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/0mnkC.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/0mnkC.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I &lt;em&gt;think&lt;/em&gt; it's reachable from the original position, although it would be difficult. I'll let you know if I can.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18168" LastActivityDate="2019-01-15T20:46:21.427" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23525" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23521" CreationDate="2019-01-15T23:02:20.603" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Try cutechess, a reliable software.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2019-01-15T23:02:20.603" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23526" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7962" CreationDate="2019-01-15T23:37:45.977" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a recent &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.researchgate.net/publication/329629571_Are_Armageddon_chess_games_fair&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;academic paper&lt;/a&gt; claiming that time controls in Armageddon of the 2018 World Chess Championship &quot;&lt;em&gt;greatly favours black&lt;/em&gt;&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18302" LastEditorUserId="18302" LastEditDate="2019-01-16T00:12:32.217" LastActivityDate="2019-01-16T00:12:32.217" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23527" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23522" CreationDate="2019-01-16T00:16:44.687" Score="22" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. a4 b5 2. b4 bxa4 3. c4 c5 4. d4 cxb4 5. e4 d5 6. f4 dxc4 7. g4 e5&#xA;8. h4 exd4 9. Ba3 g5 10. Nc3 gxh4 11. Qb3 f5 12. Kf2 h3 13. Kg3 h2&#xA;14. Bd3 Qa5 15. Kh4 dxc3 16. Kg5 h5 17. Kg6 cxb3 18. g5 Rh7 19. Ra2 Rc7&#xA;20. Bc4 Rxc4 21. Kh7 Bd6 22. g6 fxe4 23. Kg7 hxg1=Q 24. Kh7 h4 25. Kg7 h3&#xA;26. Kh7 h2&#xA;27. Kg7 bxa3 28. Kh7 bxa2 29. Kg7 Qgb6 30. Rg1 hxg1=Q 31. Kh7 Nc6&#xA;32. Kg7 Nd8 33. Kh7 Nf6+ 34. Kg7 Nd7 35. Kh7 a1=Q 36. Kg7 c2+ 37. Kh7 Qab1 &#xA;38. Kg7 Qb8 39. Kh7 Q1b7 40. Kg7 c1=Q 41. Kh7 a2 42. Kg7 a1=Q+&#xA;43. Kh7 Qab1 44. Kg7 Qb1b6 45. Kh7 a3 46. Kg7 a2 47. Kh7 a1=Q 48. Kg8 Qab1 &#xA;49. Kg7 Q1b5 50. Kh7 Nf6+ 51. Kh8 Bd7 52. Kg7 Nc6 53. Kh8 Be7 54. Kg7 Bd8&#xA;55. Kh8 e3 56. g7 Ne4 57. Kh7 Qab4 58. Kh8 a5 59. Kh7 a4 60. Kh8 a3&#xA;61. Kh7 a2 62. Kh8 Qxf4 63. Kh7 a1=Q 64. Kg8 e2 65. Kh8 Nc5 66. Kh7 Re4&#xA;67. Kh8 Re6 68. Kh7 Qf4b8 69. Kh8 Ra6 70. Kh7 Qb6a7 71. Kh8 Nd4&#xA;72. Kh7 Rad6 73. Kh8 e1=Q 74. Kh7 Qg1e3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White can force a draw from this position with 75. g8=Q+ and perpetually check the black king.  The end position given above (before the pawn promotes) is the moment of maximum material difference in this forced draw.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15238" LastEditorUserId="9363" LastEditDate="2019-01-17T07:47:11.587" LastActivityDate="2019-01-17T07:47:11.587" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23528" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18231" CreationDate="2019-01-16T01:33:56.193" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Possible solution for the World Championship match: always playing a tie-break before the classical phase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In case, the main phase (12 classical games) is not drawn, the tie-break will be of no importance for selecting the world champion. Simply, the winner of the classical phase is always declared the world champion. Only if classical phase ends in a draw (6.0 – 6.0), the – previously played – tie-break is decisive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The key idea is that a tie-break loser will have stronger incentives to play aggressively (offensively) than now. Already before the first classical game, he will be certain that without winning at least a single game out of 12, it is impossible for him to become the champion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The incentives would be the strongest in the 12th game if after the 11 games the result is 5.5 – 5.5. To have championship chances, the tie-breaker loser will have to risk playing for a win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The idea described here is a direct analogy to the solution proposed in the literature for soccer (see References below).  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;References:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Carrillo, J. D. (2007). Penalty shoot-outs: Before or after extra-time? Journal of Sports Economics, 8, 505-518. (link)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lenten, Liam JA, Jan Libich, and Petr Stehlík. &quot;Policy Timing and Footballers' Incentives: Penalties Before or After Extra Time?.&quot; Journal of Sports Economics 14.6 (2013): 629-655. (link)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18302" LastActivityDate="2019-01-16T01:33:56.193" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23529" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23522" CreationDate="2019-01-16T03:20:41.760" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;How about this? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1q3r1k/2b1Nn1r/5K2/qqn5/qqb5/qq6/q7/8 w - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The knight gives a perpetual. I think this position is possible, but I have not verified it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="307" LastActivityDate="2019-01-16T03:20:41.760" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23531" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23532" CreationDate="2019-01-16T04:47:38.233" Score="3" ViewCount="204" Body="&lt;p&gt;This question relates to a game I played on LiChess (&lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/Gu6PCLRj&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;link&lt;/a&gt;), from which we have the following position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/2rn4/2pN2k1/r1Pp2p1/p2P4/3KPP2/R7/7R w - - 4 42&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this position with white to move, I played 48. Rha1, eventually winning the a pawn.  LiChess's version of Stockfish declared this a blunder and gives 48. Rah2 a score of +5.6.  Playing it through, it even looks like white forces mate after giving many checks, although Stockfish doesn't claim this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Question&lt;/em&gt;: In this two-rook and knight position, does 48. Rah2 lead to mate after a gajillion checks?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ideally, it'd be nice if there was some way to understand the mate, as a human, if it exists.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2785" LastEditorUserId="3594" LastEditDate="2019-01-16T11:24:21.737" LastActivityDate="2019-01-17T16:54:55.447" Title="Finding a mating net in a RRN vs RRN endgame" Tags="&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;calculation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23532" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23531" CreationDate="2019-01-16T11:21:27.147" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is really a concrete-calculation question, to which you should find an answer yourself by either going through the obvious candidate lines or playing it out with the help of an engine. Your calculation techniques will benefit far more from that process, even if you don't find the answer, than asking for the direct answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In any case, clearly black is doing terribly poorly: there's no initiative, the rooks are completely out of play and stand defensively, and the king is quite isolated on &lt;code&gt;g6,&lt;/code&gt; and even in the worst case scenario the passed &lt;code&gt;a&lt;/code&gt; pawn is not hard to defend against. On the other hand, white's able to easily coordinate all 3 pieces for an attack on the king, either forcing material loss or checkmate. &#xA;So the game's really lost even if you fail to find the mate, simplest being to mount an attack on the defense-free king on &lt;code&gt;g6&lt;/code&gt; well caged thanks to the monster knight on &lt;code&gt;d6&lt;/code&gt;. Focus on winning material first and then convert if the mate does not appear to be a trivial one. That said, the only way black can delay the imminent mate threat is to bring the knight into the defense, namely, &lt;code&gt;Nf6&lt;/code&gt; which at least stops a rook landing on &lt;code&gt;h7&lt;/code&gt; and secures some space for the king. As far as I see, even if black ignored the threat and just pushed the &lt;code&gt;a&lt;/code&gt; pawn after &lt;code&gt;Rah2,&lt;/code&gt; the cage around the king may be enough to force mate but it may easily be a case of mate in 12-15 moves&lt;sup&gt;1&lt;/sup&gt;, which means, it's far simpler to grab material first and simplify the task before calculating for such forced lines. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's one line (among the various ways this can unfold) where black attempts a defense by bringing the knight, to which white can reply with a e3-e4 pawn push in order to advance a pawn to &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt; forcing the knight away from its &quot;ideal&quot; defensive post on &lt;code&gt;f6.&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;8/2rn4/2pN2k1/r1Pp2p1/p2P4/3KPP2/R7/7R w - - 4 42&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1.Rah2 Nf6 2.Rh6+ {The immediate e4 may allow Rh7 for black, forcing the trade of a pair of rooks} Kg7 3.e4 {e5 is unavoidable, best black can do is to take once to at least free up the g4 square for the knight.} a3 {ignoring white's threat just to see what the mating net looks like} 4.e5 Ng8 5.Rh7+ Kf8 6.Rxc7  {Mate on f7 next} Ne7 7.Rxe7 Kxe7  {at this point, even if you don't see the mating pattern, you can simply win the a pawn first and then convert the game.} 8.Rh8 a2 9.Re8+ Kd7 10.e6+ Kc7 11.Rc8# &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;sup&gt;&lt;sup&gt;1&lt;/sup&gt;: This is far too deep to calculate mentally, what players (at any level really) do in such a case, they simply go with the first few obvious moves (checks), moves they know cannot be possibly wrong, and after a while if it appears to have simplified then you can sit down and calculate a forced mate (assuming there's time) else you just have to be practical and go with the first best line you see, specially in such case where the position is trivially winning for white anyway.  &lt;/sup&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3594" LastActivityDate="2019-01-16T11:21:27.147" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23533" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23534" CreationDate="2019-01-16T14:44:23.537" Score="1" ViewCount="360" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 a6 6. Bg5 Nbd7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) Why 6... Nbd7 is not played by many players? Why they prefer 6... e6 only? I could not get the answer for this. Requesting experts to answer this question with detailed explanation &amp;amp; examples. Thanks in advance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11904" LastEditorUserId="18168" LastEditDate="2019-01-16T15:31:35.583" LastActivityDate="2019-01-17T16:48:54.933" Title="Sicilian Najdorf 6. Bg5 Nbd7 line" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23534" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23533" CreationDate="2019-01-16T16:30:35.740" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;6.Nbd7 is played and often the lines transpose.&#xA;If Black continues to try and avoid e7-e6, his position, though solid, is less aggressive than the other lines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Fischer said something like: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;The Sicilian is not a defense, but rather a vicious counter-attack!&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;so with 6...e6 7.f4 Black has options like 7...Qb6 entering the Poison Pawn Variation, or 7...b5 entering the Polugaevsky Variation which are considered some of the sharpest variations in chess theory.  Why spare White the worry of having to deal with either of these lines?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;6...Nbd7 is playable and probably leads to equality as well but Black is delaying his counterplay if he avoids ...e6 for long.   Some issues are that Black would like to play Qc7 and then has to worry about Nd5 when if Nf6xd5 exd5 results in a favorable structure for White.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastEditorUserId="14202" LastEditDate="2019-01-17T16:48:54.933" LastActivityDate="2019-01-17T16:48:54.933" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23535" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23531" CreationDate="2019-01-16T16:52:37.957" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;This is trivial calculation&lt;/strong&gt;, though I can see it tempting to just target a weak pawn -- it's the King we are after!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Phonon is correct in that you need to practice concrete calculation.  But I disagree that the lines are too deep. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First:&#xA;1.Rah2 threatens Rh7 when R1h6 will be mate. Let's try to defend this straight forward threat:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black moves his knight to allow his rook to defend h7:&#xA;--Phonon's line of 1...Nf6 just loses a piece to 2.Rh6+ Kg7 3.Rxf6 followed by the fork on e8 (of course playing for more as in Phonon's line is better you don't need to calculate more when you already see a win), so how else can Black defend?&#xA;-- 1...Nf8? 2.Rh6 and now the knight forks the King again! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It becomes easy to see that Black can't avoid these forks and mate at the same time.&#xA;-- 1...g4 2.f4 doesn't change anything&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Supplemental:&lt;/strong&gt;  To finish answering the direct question &quot;Does it lead to mate&quot;:  I will say it does not directly force mate.  Black can jettison material to avert immediate mate.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastEditorUserId="14202" LastEditDate="2019-01-17T16:54:55.447" LastActivityDate="2019-01-17T16:54:55.447" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23536" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23522" CreationDate="2019-01-17T06:08:13.477" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;With white to move the following position is a draw with the maximum possible material difference. The position is not currently stalemate but will be with correct play from white. If white plays Kh1 any move from black will result in stalemate. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;8/7b/8/3n4/q3k3/8/qqqq1rKn/qqq1qrb1 w KQkq - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Another possibility would be a position utilizing a forced draw due to the 50 move rule)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18311" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2019-01-17T09:43:31.457" LastActivityDate="2019-01-17T09:43:31.457" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23538" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-01-17T13:57:19.357" Score="2" ViewCount="641" Body="&lt;p&gt;If one of the following is true, a position is &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; reachable from the starting position by a series of legal moves:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;One side has two or more kings or one side has no kings;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;One side has  a total of 10 or more queens and pawns, or a total of 11 or more rooks and pawns, or a total of 11 or more knights and pawns, or a total of 10 or more bishops of the same colour and pawns;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;One side has a total number of more than 16 pieces;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;At least one pawn is in the first rank or eighth rank;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Both kings are being checked;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The kings can capture each other in the next move;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;At least one bishop is in an &quot;impossible square&quot; blocked by pawns in their starting positions, such as the following:&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/8mqPb.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/8mqPb.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;8&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;One king is being &quot;impossibly&quot; checked or checkmated such as the following (this should also include the case where a king is being checked by three or more pieces): (I am not sure how to define this more precisely);&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/rznBt.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/rznBt.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;9&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;One side is checking and it is his turn.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am sure that this list is not exhaustive. Does one know a complete list? Is there an algorithm determing whether a position is reachable from the starting position by a series of legal moves?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit&lt;/strong&gt;: I would also add the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;One side has more than 8 pawns.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16626" LastEditorUserId="16626" LastEditDate="2019-01-17T18:50:16.940" LastActivityDate="2019-12-01T09:35:56.693" Title="How does one know if a position is not reachable from a series of legal moves from the starting position?" Tags="&lt;theory&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23539" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23541" CreationDate="2019-01-17T13:59:36.577" Score="4" ViewCount="703" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sometime ago, a friend showed me a position where he had the Black king removed. The goal was to find where is the Black king using some pretty weird reasoning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There were only a few pieces on the board and they were quite close to each other in the bottom left corner of the board. Mostly likely, each side has two pawns each, and, maybe two pieces. I'm almost sure that the White king was in double check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Here are more details that in a spoiler due to hinting at the solution)&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The solution (very approximately) is first to find who's move it is. It is obviously White's because of the check, and then from that deduce what Black's last move was. From that, you deduce the king's position. The reasoning was more complicated than the, as it required to go two or three moves backward. This is the gist of the problem.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have tried to remember the problem, but I can't. Does anyone know a &amp;quot;where is the black king&amp;quot; problem?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18312" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-09-14T19:16:52.020" LastActivityDate="2020-09-14T23:58:46.007" Title="Searching for a &quot;where is the black king&quot; problem" Tags="&lt;problems&gt;&lt;retrograde-analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23541" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23539" CreationDate="2019-01-17T17:52:30.160" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;What leaps to mind is Raymond Smullyan's problem, and it's to find the White king but possibly it. A retro classic (and one of the few good ones he made.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;8/8/8/1r1b4/B7/8/8/3k4 w - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(1+3) Where is the white king?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Raymond Smullyan, &lt;em&gt;Manchester Guardian&lt;/em&gt;, 1957)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15989" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-09-14T19:17:59.980" LastActivityDate="2020-09-14T19:17:59.980" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23542" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23538" CreationDate="2019-01-18T00:23:04.637" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;First of all, &lt;strong&gt;if you can't find a way to reach a position from an opening board, then it's likely illegal.&lt;/strong&gt; I say &lt;em&gt;likely&lt;/em&gt; only because you may have missed something.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/forum/view/fun-with-chess/illegal-position-contest&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Here&lt;/a&gt; is a fairly nice collection of illegal positions that I ran across a while ago on a &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chess.com&lt;/a&gt; forum. Some of the positions are extremely subtle. One common theme I noticed that isn't on your list is &lt;strong&gt;doubled pawns&lt;/strong&gt; when there cannot be doubled pawns (for example, doubled pawns with no pieces captured, doubled pawns on the 2nd and third rows when the only piece of the opponent's captured is a bishop of the color of the unmoved pawn on the second row, etc, etc.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another one is &lt;strong&gt;impossible move order&lt;/strong&gt; - something that usually happens with knights. For example, it is impossible for it to be black's turn with all of the pieces in their starting position - this is because of the white-black, white-black, white-black pattern of the knight's moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are &lt;strong&gt;many&lt;/strong&gt; more good examples, I'm sure. If anyone thinks of any, leave a comment and I'll add it in!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is probable that neither our posts nor the link I gave will ever provide a comprehensive list of all the &lt;em&gt;categories&lt;/em&gt; of illegal positions, but again - if it can't be reached from the beginning of the game, it's illegal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18168" LastActivityDate="2019-01-18T00:23:04.637" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23543" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23546" CreationDate="2019-01-18T03:21:48.980" Score="3" ViewCount="184" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/images/stories/FIDE_Calendar_2018/2019_Oceania_Zonal_entry_form.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;brochure&lt;/a&gt; for the upcoming Oceania Zonal in Guam states:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The winners of the 2019 Guam Zonal qualify and are entitled to advance to play in the World Cup and the World Chess Championship.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm unclear on what exactly this means for women's chess.  (Men go into the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_World_Cup&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;World Cup&lt;/a&gt;, which seems clear enough.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Last year, WFM &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kathryn_Hardegen&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Kathryn Hardegen&lt;/a&gt; represented Australia in the November &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%27s_World_Chess_Championship_2018_(November)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;2018 Women's World Chess Championship&lt;/a&gt;, and came second in the 2017 Oceania Zonal (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.newzealandchess.co.nz/Vega2017/wwwOceaniaZonalWomens/crosstablescore.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;crosstable&lt;/a&gt;) but the winner WFM Layla Timergazi didn't play in the Women's World Chess Championship, so Kathryn Hardegen played instead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, this was a knockout tournament; WFM Hardegen was knocked out by GM &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ju_Wenjun&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Ju Wenjun&lt;/a&gt; (who went on to win this tournament) in round 1.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, as I understand correctly, FIDE is changing the format to no longer be a knockout tournament.  Wikipedia writes:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The match marks the return to &lt;strong&gt;a match only format for the title with qualifying Candidates Tournament&lt;/strong&gt;, after new FIDE president Arkady Dvorkovich expressed his dissatisfaction for the knock-out tournaments and its frequent different world champions.  ...  The newly established candidates tournament starts on 29 May 2019 in Kazan, Russia. The format is an &lt;strong&gt;eight player double round-robin tournament&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sub&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%27s_World_Chess_Championship_2019&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Women's World Chess Championship 2019&lt;/a&gt;, Wikipedia&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So if the candidates tournament is an 8-player round robin, it can't have all the zonal winners.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Does the winner of the women's Oceania Zonal qualify to play in a world championship match?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2785" LastActivityDate="2019-01-19T00:19:06.890" Title="Does the winner of the women's Oceania Zonal qualify to play in a world championship match?" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;women&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23544" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23538" CreationDate="2019-01-18T08:39:15.813" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is part of a whole genre of chess problem, retrograde analysis. People keep coming up with new tricks in positions that make it impossible to reach them, possibly in surprising ways.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm copying a diagram here from the question &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/23539/searching-for-a-where-is-the-black-king-puzzle&quot;&gt;Searching for a &amp;quot;where is the black king&amp;quot; puzzle?&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;8/8/8/1r1b4/B7/8/8/3k4 w - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Problem: place a white king on the board to make the position legal&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Spoiler:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt; It's on c3. The reasoning is that it's black to move, so white's king can't be on b3 as it would be in check. So black is in check by the Ba4. But then the king must have just left b3, and it was in double check there. But how can it be in double check by a rook on b5 and a bishop on d5? Only by an en passant capture. There was a black pawn on b4, a white pawn on c2, and the last moves were 1.c2-c4 b4xc3e.p.++ 2.Kb3xc3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This means that &lt;em&gt;the position with the white king placed on that square is reachable, but with the king anywhere else it's unreachable&lt;/em&gt;. That's not easy to spot just by checking items from a list!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's an easy retrograde analysis problem. Some of them need quite deep analysis, like several pieces have left the bottom rank, they could each have left it over some square, but only in the order they're in on the back row, and they must have left in some other order -- but I can't find a problem like that now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I believe your list can be made arbitrarily long.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for algorithms, there are better ways than the brute force approach I described in my comment on the question: there has been work on &lt;em&gt;finding proof games&lt;/em&gt; in retrograde analysis. These take it a step further: they find a game that reaches the given position &lt;em&gt;in a set number of moves&lt;/em&gt;. That should also be enough to find whether the position can be reached at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I found the software &lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://natch.free.fr/Natch.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Natch&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; that can do this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastEditorUserId="924" LastEditDate="2019-12-01T09:35:56.693" LastActivityDate="2019-12-01T09:35:56.693" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23545" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5403" CreationDate="2019-01-18T23:28:14.657" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let me mention timed online games where the opponent seems to disappear, then makes a move with a few seconds left in the hope you are no longer watching the board and will, yourself, forfeit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="921" LastActivityDate="2019-01-18T23:28:14.657" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23546" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23543" CreationDate="2019-01-19T00:19:06.890" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It would seem not. According to &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/images/stories/NEWS_2018/FIDE_NEWS/Rules_for_the_FIDE_Womens_Candidates_Tournament_2019.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this document&lt;/a&gt; from FIDE:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Qualification for the 2019 Women’s Candidates Tournament&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  3.1. Players who qualify for the Women’s Candidates Tournament are determined according to the following criteria, in order of priority:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;strong&gt;Women’s World Championship KO 2018;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Three (3) players who reach the semi-finals of the 2018 Women’s World Championship (excluding the Women’s World Champion 2018 who qualifies directly to the World Championship Match).&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;strong&gt;Winner of the Women’s World Championship Match 2018 (GM Ju Wenjun);&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;strong&gt;Average FIDE Rating of the 12 monthly lists starting from 1st January 2018 to 1st &#xA;  December 2018.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Four (4) players will qualify by their average rating. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Zonal qualifiers are nowhere on this list.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My best guess is that the brochure you linked was created before the changes to the championship were made. The brochure says that countries may nominate players for free entry before October 31 2018 (implying the brochure was created before that date), and &lt;a href=&quot;http://fide.com/component/content/article/1-fide-news/11265-fide-on-the-womens-world-championship-cycle.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this article&lt;/a&gt; from FIDE announcing the Women's Candidates Tournament is dated November 21 2018.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2019-01-19T00:19:06.890" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23547" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-01-19T02:24:05.843" Score="4" ViewCount="479" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    [White &quot;Garry Kasparov&quot;]&#xA;    [Black &quot; Vassily Ivanchuk&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[StartPly &quot;62&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 Bb4 4. e5 b6 5. a3 Bf8 6. Nf3 Ne7 7. h4 h6 8. h5 a5 9. Bb5+ c6 10. Ba4 Nd7 11. Ne2 b5 12. Bb3 c5 13. c3 Nc6 14. O-O Qc7 15. Re1 c4 16. Bc2 Nb6 17. Bf4 Be7 18. Bg3 Rb8 19. Nh2 Qd8 20. Ng4 b4 21. axb4 axb4 22. cxb4 Nxb4 23. Bb1 Bd7 24. b3 Ra8 25. Rxa8 Qxa8 26. bxc4 Nxc4 27. Nc1 Ba4 28. Qe2 Qa7 29. Ne3 Qxd4 30. Nxc4 dxc4 31. Qf1 O-O 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a game from  Horgen 1995, well-known because of Ivanchuk's 5th move (&quot;enrage the beast&quot;). As a fairly limited player, it is not obvious to me why Kasparov resigned at this stage. Is it obvious that the c-pawn cannot be stopped without losing material? Is there another reason to resign?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12113" LastEditorUserId="12113" LastEditDate="2019-01-19T10:10:04.577" LastActivityDate="2019-01-19T10:10:04.577" Title="Reason why Kasparov resigned in the &quot;Enrage the Beast&quot; game" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;famous-players&gt;&lt;kasparov&gt;&lt;famous-games&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23548" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23547" CreationDate="2019-01-19T03:46:00.177" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;White's position is just bad overall. The main reasons:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The passed c-pawn is a huge asset. It's likely it will eventually cost White a piece, but in the meantime it cramps White's forces.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;All Black's pieces are far more active than their White counterparts, with the sole exception of the rooks (which are roughly equal in activity).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Knowing Kasparov, he was probably disgusted with his play at this point and fed up with the game. White's position is already objectively resignable in any case due to the two points above.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-01-19T03:46:00.177" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23549" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-01-20T01:35:33.093" Score="4" ViewCount="481" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the Caro-Kann where white plays 3.Nd2, it seems like the d2 knight is misplaced: it's on a worse square than c3, and it blocks the c1 bishop.  Black playing 3...dxe4 relieves white of both these problems (along with allowing white to play Bc4).  However, 3...dxe4 is by far the most popular move, probably partly because black has probably &quot;booked up&quot; on this line.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.Nd2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Is it worthwhile delaying or avoiding 3...dxe4 to exploit the poor position on the d2 knight?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Judging from LiChess's master games, some players have tried 3...g6 followed by 4...Bg7.  For example, some master games follow the following lines (e.g. &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/cCWQlYl9&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Smirin vs. Bologan, 1994, 1/2-1/2&lt;/a&gt;):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. Nd2 g6 4. Ngf3 Bg7&#xA;5. c3 Nd7 6. Bd3 dxe4 7. Nxe4 Ngf6 8. Nxf6+ Nxf6&#xA;9. O-O O-O&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2785" LastActivityDate="2019-01-22T03:10:07.693" Title="Caro-Kann 3.Nd2: is it worthwhile delaying or avoiding 3...dxe4 to exploit the poor position on the d2 knight?" Tags="&lt;caro-kann&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23550" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23549" CreationDate="2019-01-20T04:18:13.057" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The whole idea behind the caro-kann is to safely push ...d5 and challenge White's e4-pawn. While you can play something like ...g6, it goes against the main principle of the opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the French, a move Black often plays instead of ...dxe4 is ...Nf6. That doesn't work so well here since after 3...Nf6 4.e5 Nd7, the d-file has been closed up and the d2-knight could calmly move to f3. In the French Black usually goes for a ...c5 push soon, but here that's a waste of a tempo (due to the c-pawn already being on c6).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3...dxe4 is the most popular move mainly because it's objectively the best. The reason so many players are booked up on it is due to it being the best and most popular. If you'd like to not take on e4 so early, look into the French. It's a similar opening but gives more options to not liquidate immediately.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-01-20T04:18:13.057" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23551" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23552" CreationDate="2019-01-20T11:24:42.717" Score="0" ViewCount="360" Body="&lt;p&gt;A short time ago, I ran across some short texts and a short video about Chuzhakin's system to spot tactics and avoid blunders. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What little I've seen seems really to help me. And so I'm looking for the complete list of hazardous elements and rules or the complete text. Everywhere is mentioned a pdf. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, there are a lot of links to Chuzhakin's pdf (at neoneuro.com...) in the net, but all of them lead to 404 Page not found...  Some hours of searching the net for the text lead to no result. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could somebody please post the pdf or the maybe list of hazardous elements and the counting rules? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18332" LastActivityDate="2019-01-20T15:05:15.870" Title="Chuzhakin's System Hazardous Elements and Rules" Tags="&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;blunder&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23552" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23551" CreationDate="2019-01-20T14:53:01.280" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I googled the name of the file, chuzhakinssystem.pdf, and found a copy here: &lt;a href=&quot;https://docplayer.net/22332201-Chuzhakin-s-system-version-2-14.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://docplayer.net/22332201-Chuzhakin-s-system-version-2-14.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Better yet, it can be found using the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine: &lt;a href=&quot;https://web.archive.org/web/20180219185540/https://neoneuro.com/downloads/chuzhakinssystem.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://web.archive.org/web/20180219185540/https://neoneuro.com/downloads/chuzhakinssystem.pdf&lt;/a&gt; . I think this link is more likely to be stable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12523" LastEditorUserId="12523" LastEditDate="2019-01-20T15:05:15.870" LastActivityDate="2019-01-20T15:05:15.870" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23553" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23579" CreationDate="2019-01-20T20:19:13.917" Score="4" ViewCount="364" Body="&lt;p&gt;In a standard opening position in chess, imagine that all Black pieces are removed except for the king and pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;4k3/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQ - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the shortest forced mate, assuming White starts?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't know the answer to this but it seems like a fun piece of chess trivia if it is solvable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17920" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-04-29T15:20:47.363" LastActivityDate="2021-04-29T15:20:47.363" Title="Black only has pawns: Mate in what?" Tags="&lt;problems&gt;&lt;checkmate&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23554" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23553" CreationDate="2019-01-21T01:31:02.277" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Stockfish took a long time with this one, but with some help it eventually got to &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/study/FJKaViJU&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Looks like it's &lt;em&gt;approximately&lt;/em&gt; checkmate in 15 from your position. By move 9 (following Stockfish recommendations) it finds a checkmate in 6. Here's what Stockfish says is the best line:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;4k3/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQ - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. c3 b5 2. Qb3 c6 3. Qa3 a5 4. Qxa5 e5 5. Qc7 f6 6. Qc8+ Ke7 7. Qg8 e4 8. Qxg7+ Ke6 9. g3 f5 10. d4 e3 11. Bh3 b4 12. Bxf5+ Kxf5 13. Qf7+ Kg5 14. Bxe3+ Kg4 15. f3#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's a sample game, me vs Stockfish. Took me 18 moves: &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/AJFXfWmCQB5I&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://lichess.org/AJFXfWmCQB5I&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And another, also 18 moves: &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/Ibno7F6cdfhT&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://lichess.org/Ibno7F6cdfhT&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I missed some sequences both times.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18168" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2019-01-23T14:24:39.510" LastActivityDate="2019-01-23T14:24:39.510" CommentCount="12" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23555" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23549" CreationDate="2019-01-21T05:41:53.503" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here, g6, transposing to a Modern defense, Gurgenidze variation, isn't quite as good as it is against 3. Nc3. The problem with is that c3, supporting the d4 pawn, is still a possibility after 3. Nd2, vs 3. Nc3. &lt;sup&gt;1&lt;/sup&gt;. In other words, the slightly poor position of the knight is more than offset by being able to setup a strong pawn chain&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to the chess.com opening explorer, looking at master games only, black scores 26% with g6 against Nd2 (41% for white, 33% draws), as opposed to 30% against Nc3 (39% for white, 31% draws). While black scores about 2% better than the main dxe4, white scores about 5% better against g6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) Joe Gallagher, Starting out: The Caro-Kann.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9025" LastEditorUserId="9025" LastEditDate="2019-01-22T03:10:07.693" LastActivityDate="2019-01-22T03:10:07.693" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23556" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23538" CreationDate="2019-01-21T12:15:35.033" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is a retro which needs deep analysis:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Thierry le Gleuher; Economy Records in Add Unit(s) Problems, 5A&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;B5bn/5PrR/5prN/6pk/7p/5P2/PPPPPP2/KR1Q2N1 w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The stipulation is &quot;Add the missing unit(s)&quot;. A solution may be found in &lt;a href=&quot;https://pdb.dieschwalbe.de/search.jsp?expression=PROBID=%27P1227636%27&amp;amp;s=0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;entry P1227636 in PDB&lt;/a&gt;. In brief:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt; To disentangle Black's kingside, White must retract most pieces back home so that White can retract g2xf3. Interleaved with these White moves are 19 Black moves. But, all this time, Black has no retrotempi with units in the diagram, so they must be provided by the added units. The only way is to add black pawns on a3, b3, c3, d3, e3. Each provides 4 retrotempi, except that the b and d pawns can't both retract home, because the bishop on g8 will need to retract to c8 eventually.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus the position would be illegal if&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt; 5 black pawns were added but any of them were nearer rank 7, because Black would run out of retrotempi, but it would take deep analysis to show that this is the case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This might be the sort of situation RemcoGerlich was thinking of, seeing that&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt; Some White pieces need to leave the back rank and move back in a different order.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In case you thought that there's a simpler way to add units:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt; A Black piece captured White's c1 bishop on c1. White is not missing anything else, so no Black pawn ever left its file. Thus White's 3 captures g2xf3 and hxgxf were of Black's 3 missing pieces: the f8 bishop, the queen and a knight. So we may add Black pawns but not a piece.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10380" LastEditorUserId="19465" LastEditDate="2019-11-30T18:43:46.573" LastActivityDate="2019-11-30T18:43:46.573" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23557" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23562" CreationDate="2019-01-21T13:11:41.527" Score="7" ViewCount="599" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;rnbq1rk1/ppp2ppp/4pn2/3p4/1bPP4/2NBP3/PP3PPP/R1BQK1NR w KQ - 0 6&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If white move his king knight to e2 in the next move, should this move be recorded as Nge2 or Ne2 in the algebraic notation? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After all, the other knight cannot legally move to e2 in this move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16626" LastEditorUserId="16626" LastEditDate="2019-01-21T15:35:01.687" LastActivityDate="2019-01-21T17:08:09.600" Title="For white's next move, should it be recorded as Nge2 or Ne2 as there is only one knight which can legally move to e2?" Tags="&lt;fide&gt;&lt;notation&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23558" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23557" CreationDate="2019-01-21T13:31:47.583" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It should be Ne2 because, as you correctly say, only that knight may move to e2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By contrast, if, say, each of two knights could move to e2, but one would discover check and the other would not give check, then the move must be disambiguated in both cases. The presence or absence of a &lt;code&gt;+&lt;/code&gt; does not disambiguate. Cf, from the PGN reference:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;8.2.3.5: Check and checkmate indication characters&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If the move is a checking move, the plus sign &quot;+&quot; is appended as a suffix to&#xA;  the basic SAN move notation; if the move is a checkmating move, the octothorpe&#xA;  sign &quot;#&quot; is appended instead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Neither the appearance nor the absence of either a check or checkmating&#xA;  indicator is used for disambiguation purposes.  This means that if two (or&#xA;  more) pieces of the same type can move to the same square the differences in&#xA;  checking status of the moves does not allieviate the need for the standard rank&#xA;  and file disabiguation described above.  (Note that a difference in checking&#xA;  status for the above may occur only in the case of a discovered check.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Cf &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/1864/is-this-case-considered-an-ambiguity-or-not&quot;&gt;this question&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10380" LastEditorUserId="10380" LastEditDate="2019-01-21T13:41:59.337" LastActivityDate="2019-01-21T13:41:59.337" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23559" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23557" CreationDate="2019-01-21T13:32:25.597" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The correct notation stays &lt;code&gt;Nge2&lt;/code&gt; irrespective of the fact that &lt;code&gt;Nce2&lt;/code&gt; would be an illegal move in this position. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In such cases, always remember that the notation should be as complete and self-contained as possible, such that everything that happens in the game remains reproducible, even errors such as illegal moves. These things become more relevant when conflicts arise and an arbiter has to resolve it based on the record of the game. So by writing &lt;code&gt;Nge2&lt;/code&gt; you'll have left no room for uncertainty. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess notation serves merely as a way of recording the state and evolution of a game in a fully reproducible manner, it is not an implementation of the rules of the game per se.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3594" LastActivityDate="2019-01-21T13:32:25.597" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23560" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23557" CreationDate="2019-01-21T13:35:24.297" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both are legal and acceptable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Appendix C of the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=208&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Laws of Chess&lt;/a&gt; describes the rules for writing the moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The relevant article if the c3 knight had not been pinned is C10 -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;C.10 If two identical pieces can move to the same square, the piece that is&#xA;  moved is indicated as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;C.10.1 If both pieces are on the same rank by:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;C.10.1.1 the abbreviation of the name of the piece,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;C.10.1.2 the file of departure, and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;C.10.1.3 the square of arrival.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but note that longer forms are acceptable. As article C8 says -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A longer form containing the square of departure is acceptable.&#xA;  Examples: Bb2e5, Ng1f3, Ra1d1, e7e5, d2d4, a6a5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2019-01-21T13:35:24.297" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23561" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23557" CreationDate="2019-01-21T14:39:05.927" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Only &lt;code&gt;Ne2&lt;/code&gt; is correct. There is a FIDE rule that explains what to do &quot;if two identical pieces can move to the same square&quot; (C10), that would lead to the Nge2 notation. But that rule simply doesn't apply here as the c3 knight cannot move to e2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That said, there is no problem with writing Nge2, as it is still clear what move is meant. I think most software that reads PGN will also accept Nge2 (no guarantees!).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2019-01-21T14:39:05.927" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23562" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23557" CreationDate="2019-01-21T14:53:45.543" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;It doesn't matter. The purpose of algebraic notation is to produce an unambiguous record of the game, not a canonical representation that you could compare character by character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is not spelled out on the official rules, but I believe it is the inescapable conclusion considering that some parts of the notation are explicitly optional (here I'm talking about the FIDE Laws of Chess); for example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[...] each player is free to use the name which is commonly used in his country [...]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A longer form containing the square of departure is acceptable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[...] an x may be inserted [...]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[...] ‘e.p.’ may be appended.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[...] The last four [capture, check, checkmate, and &lt;em&gt;en passant&lt;/em&gt;] are optional.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That said, the rules are clear that disambiguation is only needed when two identical pieces &lt;em&gt;can&lt;/em&gt; move to the same square, so the &quot;correct&quot; notation would be Ne2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12523" LastEditorUserId="12523" LastEditDate="2019-01-21T17:08:09.600" LastActivityDate="2019-01-21T17:08:09.600" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23563" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-01-21T15:05:07.037" Score="4" ViewCount="2282" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to improve my tournament play, so I play classical chess on LiChess (&lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/@/becky82&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;me on LiChess&lt;/a&gt;).  In some (not all) of my games, I do well and have very few or no &quot;inaccuracies&quot; and maybe 15 centipawn loss (example centipawn loss: &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/2putlAi8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;6&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/d2fiPQHH&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;14&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/FFkcJPPC&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;19&lt;/a&gt;).  Only a few of my games are at this level, though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm paranoid that someone will report me for cheating, and my account will consequently incur problems.  Also, as a result of playing classical chess with a 2100-ish rating, I encounter people who are almost certainly cheating from time to time (at some point in their game history, they just stopped making mistakes), which creates an atmosphere of mistrust.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Need I be concerned about being classed as a &quot;cheater&quot; if I sometimes play good classical games on LiChess?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2785" LastActivityDate="2020-01-09T15:47:31.840" Title="Need I be concerned about being classed as a &quot;cheater&quot; if I sometimes play good classical games on LiChess?" Tags="&lt;cheating&gt;&lt;lichess&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23564" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-01-21T15:06:19.063" Score="2" ViewCount="290" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have used many chess engines, especially Stockfish and I want to ask you, if it possible to change its mode to the most complicated one. What I mean:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, most engines work as following:&#xA;1) Mate the opponent asap.&#xA;2) If it is not possible to mate him, then draw him asap.&#xA;3) If it is not possible to draw him, then delay its mate as longer as you can.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or something similar, I don't know. So my question is if it can change, so anytime engine will choose this move that makes the game as complicated as possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An example: Imagine we are in a position that engine can choose two moves: A or B. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The A one, is the best defense and if the opponent is engine can mate us in minimum 30 moves. But also the win by a simple human of 2000 Elo is possible. Just applying simple theory. In 50-60 moves, human also can mate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The B one is not good, an engine can mate us in 10 moves but this combination of 10 moves is completely unique and it is very difficult to be seen by a human, neither by Carlsen. If a mistake will be done, then we will win the opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Simply said, the first move is the best one if the engine plays against an engine because it delays the mate much, but if it plays against a human it is very simple to lose. The second move is bad if the engine plays against an engine because it can be mated in 10 moves, but if it plays against a human, even against Carlsen, it is a bluff move, because this combination of the next 10 moves is completely invisible by humans and a mistake is 100% sure to be done, so engine will win human.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it possible to change this mode in engines? Or can an engine detect whether it plays against engine or human and adjust its moves? So if it loses and plays against human, it can choose the most complicated moves, hoping for a human-blundering...?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18337" LastActivityDate="2019-02-21T18:43:07.157" Title="Most complicated mode for chess engines" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;human-versus-machine&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23565" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23563" CreationDate="2019-01-21T15:24:37.140" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Lichess is good about false positives as far as I know. Unfortunately confirmed cheating in longer time controls is harder to catch because many people won't make engine moves every time. In general most good players will not play rapid online for this reason.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4393" LastActivityDate="2019-01-21T15:24:37.140" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23566" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23549" CreationDate="2019-01-21T15:37:39.013" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm no expert in the Caro-Kann but one of the reasons to play it is to obtain a French defense like position but with your light squared bishop outside of the pawn-chain.&#xA;The trade-off is you are taking 2 moves to play c5 as opposed to 1.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this position black cannot develop his light squared bishop and he certainly doesn't want to transpose into a french being a tempo down. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also in the French white does play Nd2 in certain variations as well. It allows him to play c3 to preserve his pawn structure and he is planning to play Ndf3 to support his d4 pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4393" LastActivityDate="2019-01-21T15:37:39.013" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23567" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23563" CreationDate="2019-01-21T17:00:36.793" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Lichess is definitely very good at avoiding false positivies &lt;em&gt;and&lt;/em&gt; rectifying those false positives when they do occur.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even though I don't have access to moderator tools on lichess, one can spot cheaters fairly easily. They usually have the following characteristics:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;A &quot;flat&quot; time graph where all of their moves took about the same length of time - &lt;em&gt;even simple recaptures&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Having no mistakes, and less than three inaccuracies (obviously)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Perfectly executing a long checkmate sequence in the fastest way possible. This is a good catch because even a good player will likely turn a mate in 6 into a mate in 7 or 8. Computers do it perfectly.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Numbers 1 and 2 are fine by themselves IMO, so &lt;strong&gt;you have nothing to worry about&lt;/strong&gt; unless you spend the same amount of time on each move in those games where you have few inaccuracies. Number 3 is a sort of &quot;icing on the cake&quot; for me; your games look fine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18168" LastActivityDate="2019-01-21T17:00:36.793" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23568" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23573" CreationDate="2019-01-21T18:19:48.750" Score="0" ViewCount="222" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 a6 6. Bc4 e6&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) For 6. Bc4 Black can play immediately b5 and attack it. But almost all Grandmasters reply with 6....e6. Theory also stresses to 6....e6. Why not 6.... b5 to attack Bishop immediately as 5....a6 is already done? Is it not giving Black a strong attack against White? Hence, why Grandmasters are not playing early 6....b5 in their games? Expecting good answer. Thanks in advance.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11904" LastActivityDate="2019-01-21T23:50:13.577" Title="Sicilian Najdorf, Sozin Variation" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2019-01-22T04:14:59.337" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23569" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23564" CreationDate="2019-01-21T21:56:06.070" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You are talking about playing suboptimal moves for bluffing. Stockfish is not good at that... Chess programming theories are no good because it’s hard to define a complicated position. There were research articles on this topic but it’s still an unsolved problem.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I believe you will need a good mathematics model. Stockfish doesn’t have it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2019-01-21T21:56:06.070" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23571" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-01-21T22:59:39.053" Score="2" ViewCount="516" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm learning to play chess. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Twice we had a situation where the white player moved a piece that was blocking the black Queen from checking the white King. There was no move available to announce &quot;Check&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the proper procedure here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18341" LastEditorUserId="18475" LastEditDate="2019-02-09T23:15:01.450" LastActivityDate="2019-02-09T23:15:01.450" Title="How to notify check when a player leaves himself in check" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;illegal-move&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23572" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23571" CreationDate="2019-01-21T23:39:18.023" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Leaving the king exposed to check is an illegal move. Simply ask the player to make another legal move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2019-01-21T23:39:18.023" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23573" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23568" CreationDate="2019-01-21T23:50:13.577" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;6...b5 7.Bd5! Nxd5 8.exd5 leaves Black in trouble. The e-file has been opened and Black has to figure out how to castle before things get really heated. The c6-square is also a major weakness that White's d4-knight is ready to jump to at the right moment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-01-21T23:50:13.577" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23574" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23571" CreationDate="2019-01-21T23:52:55.980" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's not technically a check since Black wasn't making a move to check White's king. White made an &lt;em&gt;illegal move&lt;/em&gt; that placed his King under attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black should mention that White made an illegal move, getting White to take the move back and play something else. If you're playing in a tournament, you could call the arbiter over and say White made an illegal move (often 3 illegal moves = forfeit).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-01-21T23:52:55.980" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23575" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23563" CreationDate="2019-01-22T00:00:44.960" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;No you absolutely don't need to worry. The big chess sites (LiChess included) have refined algorithms to detect cheaters. Unless you're consistently playing like an engine in most/all of your games, you're fine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've played on ICC and chess.com for over a decade and have yet to be suspected of being an engine :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-01-22T00:00:44.960" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23576" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23563" CreationDate="2019-01-22T02:51:51.937" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Don't worry. 2100 is hardly a cheater rating, 1000 more may land you in troubles.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While you didn't commit too many blunders in your games, you also failed to follow the computer best lines. You will be fine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2019-01-22T02:51:51.937" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23578" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4113" CreationDate="2019-01-22T13:06:40.597" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The answer depends on preference:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If you apply a 50-move limit, the longest possible chess game is 5898.5 moves long.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If you apply a 75-move limit, it is 8848.5 moves long.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See https://wismuth.com/chess/longest-game.html for a detailed demonstration.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you don't apply either of these, the next hurdle is draw by repetition (at 3 or 5 occurrences). I don't know if anyone has explored this systematically: perhaps a project for someone?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you reject draw by repetition too, then you can carry on forever. Have a look at https://wismuth.com/chess/statistics-games.html#perft-ratios which argues that the maximum eigenvalue of chess (which will dominate the growth rate in the long run) is about 84.3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which approach is right?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If you are a player, then I guess you might say that the 50-move rule involves player choice, while the 75-move rule is mandatory, so go for the latter.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If you are a problemist, you might say that the 50-move rule only applies by default to retro problems. However you would probably be interested to waive that convention for this interesting problem. I don't know any problemists who are adopting the 75-move rule yet, and it's excluded from scope of conventions.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8201" LastEditorUserId="8201" LastEditDate="2020-10-29T07:25:03.360" LastActivityDate="2020-10-29T07:25:03.360" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23579" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23553" CreationDate="2019-01-22T18:41:12.220" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Having run stockfish for a couple of days, I can confirm there is at least a mate in 15.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/M93U6.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/M93U6.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17920" LastActivityDate="2019-01-22T18:41:12.220" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23580" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23792" CreationDate="2019-01-23T09:42:17.637" Score="4" ViewCount="218" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the UCI documentation, it says&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;mate x&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;search for a mate in x moves&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I believe this should say &quot;search for mate in x plies&quot;, as plies are used in most of the protocol. I can not find any good documentation for this. Which way does it actually work?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18349" LastActivityDate="2019-02-23T16:21:20.803" Title="How does &quot;go mate &lt;x&gt;&quot; work in UCI" Tags="&lt;uci&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23583" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23584" CreationDate="2019-01-23T16:23:07.900" Score="30" ViewCount="6320" Body="&lt;p&gt;On LiChess, &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/@/knightprince&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;FM knightprince&lt;/a&gt; gave a simul where I participated (&lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/8z7KG1QALXUs&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;our game&lt;/a&gt;).  I &lt;s&gt;blundered a pawn&lt;/s&gt; played a pawn gambit, but managed to complicate things and won it back.  Afterwards, the game would have led to a drawn endgame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The FM offered a draw; I wanted to refuse, but thought that would be perceived as ungrateful, so I accepted.  I wasn't expecting to win; I just wanted to play out the endgame for the experience.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Is it bad etiquette to decline a draw offer when participating in a simul?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2785" LastActivityDate="2019-01-23T18:59:07.753" Title="Is it bad etiquette to decline a draw offer when participating in a simul?" Tags="&lt;etiquette&gt;&lt;simultaneous&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23584" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23583" CreationDate="2019-01-23T18:59:07.753" Score="46" Body="&lt;p&gt;No it's not bad etiquette at all. A player being higher rated does not entitle them to automatically get the result they want, even if the position seems to indicate such a result.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And in the rare case your opponent gets offended by this, congratulations. You've just gained a psychological edge.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-01-23T18:59:07.753" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23585" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-01-24T03:38:05.707" Score="7" ViewCount="3730" Body="&lt;p&gt;In a LiChess game (&lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/7m6C6uvk/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Vakeesh vs. becky82&lt;/a&gt;), during the game I thought I played well, and won as black without and real complications.  Here's the game:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Rated Classical game&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2019.01.23&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Vakeesh&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;becky82&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;[UTCDate &quot;2019.01.23&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. e5 Bf5 4. f4 e6 5. Be2 c5 6. c3 Nc6 7. Be3 Qb6 8. b3 cxd4 9. cxd4 Bb4+ 10. Nd2 Nxd4 11. Bxd4 Qxd4 12. Nf3 Bxd2+ 13. Nxd2 Ne7 14. Bb5+ Nc6 15. Rc1 O-O 16. Bxc6 bxc6 17. Rxc6 Qxf4 18. Qe2 Rfc8 19. g3 Qd4 20. Rxc8+ Rxc8 21. Kf1 Bd3 22. Qxd3 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, the post-game computer analysis gives me a &quot;80 average centipawn loss&quot;, which implies that for my average move I blundered the equivalent of 4/5-ths of a pawn.  (My opponent had &quot;123 average centipawn loss&quot;, outblundering me.)  I'm not sure what to think of this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: What can I learn from my &quot;80 average centipawn loss&quot; game, which I thought I played well?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems I repeatedly played &quot;a good move&quot; rather than &quot;the best move&quot; (as there were often multiple winning moves).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Edit&lt;/em&gt;: I'm after humanly understandable &quot;take home&quot; lessons from the game, which I can apply to other games in general (when using an engine is considered cheating).  I'm also after an evaluation of the applicability of the engine analysis (available from the linked game) to a human player trying to improve.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not seeking &quot;this move is better because the computer says so&quot;, I'm seeking how I can find the best moves as a human in a tournament game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2785" LastEditorUserId="2785" LastEditDate="2019-01-24T12:56:38.813" LastActivityDate="2020-06-23T11:47:16.507" Title="What can I learn from my &quot;80 average centipawn loss&quot; game, which I thought I played well?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23586" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14537" CreationDate="2019-01-24T09:47:05.857" Score="7" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;P-2f 2. K-4b 3. P-2e 4. K-3b 5. P-2d 6. R-4b 7. Px2c+ Checkmate&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The King is trapped by his own Rook on 4b.&#xA;It's a bad idea to have the King and Rook close together or an early mate like this could happen in the worst case&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/yhO9e.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/yhO9e.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18361" LastEditorUserId="9531" LastEditDate="2019-01-25T10:41:26.330" LastActivityDate="2019-01-25T10:41:26.330" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23587" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23585" CreationDate="2019-01-24T13:50:57.113" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is too broad to answer meaningfully, moreover, a one game example provides no real ground for investigating what the weaknesses or strengths of a player may be.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That said, here are a couple of general advice that may help you improve in the long run, specially if you manage to make a &lt;strong&gt;routine&lt;/strong&gt; out of them (&lt;em&gt;by no means an exhaustive list, but these are things you should continuously be doing if you intend to improve your game&lt;/em&gt;):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Keep working on your tactics! Try to reach an &lt;strong&gt;average of 50 tactics per day&lt;/strong&gt; (it's no magic number but it's a good start), and &lt;strong&gt;consider diversifying your source&lt;/strong&gt;: thematic combinations, endgame combinations, etc. To diversify, keep solving your lichess tactics, to have a mix of easier puzzles in between (which helps your calculation speed) you can try other websites such as &lt;a href=&quot;https://chesstempo.com/chess-tactics.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;chesstempo&lt;/a&gt;. But I strongly recommend getting some of the well-known &lt;strong&gt;tactics books&lt;/strong&gt; by &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Nunn#Books&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;John Nunn&lt;/a&gt;, or the series of &lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.scribd.com/search?content_type=tops&amp;amp;page=1&amp;amp;query=The%20Manual%20of%20Chess%20Combinations&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&quot;The Manual of Chess Combinations&quot;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; (chess school 1, 2, 3, by Sergey Ivashchenko, Alexander Mazja et al.) The recommended way is to go about solving them completely mentally (and blindfolded when you can) and only try out your solution once you've been convinced.  &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Keep playing a healthy dose of blitz/rapid games online&lt;/strong&gt; (10 games per day is quite feasible), in order to prevent from getting rusty, improving your calculation speed (shorter time controls), and they provide for a casual setting to try out some new lines/openings that you may be interested in learning. Most importantly, irrespective of the result of each game, do go through them afterwards by yourself to realise in hindsight how you could have gone better about the game strategically, and then turn on the engine to see what combinations were missed. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Improve your strategic understanding of the game&lt;/strong&gt;: Tactics are not sufficient to improve your chess understanding, you need to regularly study top players' games, I suggest starting from Kramnik, Botvinnik or Alekhine (you can choose better based on your style and opening interests): go through a select of their games each day, and try to get into their heads, to understand what they intended to achieve in the opening (&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/20022/wrong-lines-of-play-to-illuminate-right-lines/20024#20024&quot;&gt;more on how to do that&lt;/a&gt;) and middlegame (trace out their strategies), to learn how they convert and maintain small advantages, to uncover how they exploit even the smallest weakness in their opponent's camp. In addition to studying other player's games, I highly recommend &lt;strong&gt;solving middlegame-strategy problems&lt;/strong&gt; (they are about finding the best strategy, not the best moves per se), and for that the book of &lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.scribd.com/document/108466014/Chess-Middlegame-Planning-Peter-Romanovsky&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&quot;Chess Middlegame planning&quot;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; by Peter Romanovsky makes for a perfect start. &#xA;Another gem at one's disposal nowadays is &lt;strong&gt;Peter Svidler&lt;/strong&gt;'s (among others) &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/user/chess24media/search?query=Peter%20svidler&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;commentary and post-analysis&lt;/a&gt; of top tournament games (absolutely recommended). &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3594" LastActivityDate="2019-01-24T13:50:57.113" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23588" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23585" CreationDate="2019-01-24T13:54:22.510" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Honestly, do a computer analysis and look at what the computer says are mistake and blunders.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Now&lt;/em&gt; figure out &lt;em&gt;why&lt;/em&gt; the computer called them that. Look carefully at the position and the analysis. If you have a (specific) position that bugs you, ask here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another alternative is to get a chess coach.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18168" LastActivityDate="2019-01-24T13:54:22.510" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23589" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23322" CreationDate="2019-01-24T15:36:41.890" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just wanted to add - for one to say that to say &quot;not all Morphy's opponents were terrible&quot; is really understating the case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The fact is that Morphy consistently beat all the best chess players in the world.  For example, Akavall mentioned Adolf Anderssen. Anderssen was estimated by Arpad Elo ( who invented the ELO rating system ) as being over 2600.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Morphys record against him was +12 -3 = 2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Etcetera.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18367" LastActivityDate="2019-01-24T15:36:41.890" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23590" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22453" CreationDate="2019-01-24T16:24:44.580" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, there are a few four-dimensional chess variants:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessvariants.com/index/mainquery.php?type=Any&amp;amp;category=4d&amp;amp;usethisheading=Four+(or+more)+Dimensions&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.chessvariants.com/index/mainquery.php?type=Any&amp;amp;category=4d&amp;amp;usethisheading=Four+(or+more)+Dimensions&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sphinx Chess, by V.R. Parton, is probably the first, c.1970.  Timeline is also described there (it's actually a full 4 spatial dimensions, being 4x4x4x4, plus the &quot;timelines&quot;), as well as my own variant TessChess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most 3D chess (at least online) is played by splaying the levels out next to each other, since seeing and reaching between levels may be difficult.  Once you get used to that, it's not so unnatural to put the levels in a grid, and you've got four dimensions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, most 3D chess is on a smaller board than 8x8x8 (8x8x3 or 5x5x5 are common), and higher dimensions similarly shrink the edge length.  This, together with appropriately extending piece movements, get around NoseKnowsAll's density argument.  But, of course they are also right that the game becomes rather different from chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;V.R. Parton also created a 6-dimensional game, Ecila.  I and others have toyed around with even more dimensions, but it obviously becomes more difficult for the &quot;array of array of arrays&quot; board simulation to work out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18278" LastActivityDate="2019-01-24T16:24:44.580" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23591" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23585" CreationDate="2019-01-24T16:44:03.970" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;You are asking two very different question: How to interpret the number 80, and how to make that number go down :-) I'll focus on the first one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;80 means that on average, you overlooked many better moves. What this says about your playing strength depends on how hard those better moves were to discover. In complicated tactical positions higher values are normal. You may miss many opportunities that the computer can see because it looks, say, 10 moves ahead. So the bar is high.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In calm positions the centipawn loss is lower because there are no tactics (as by the definition of &quot;calm&quot;), so as long as you don't blunder your move cannot be a lot worse than the computer's optimal move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've had games with a centipawn loss below 20 and above 100 even though, I'd argue, my playing strength was the same. (My) Chess960 games tend to get into complicated tactical positions quickly, for example, so my centipawn loss in those is higher.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, it's an arithmetic mean so it is susceptible to outliers. Many good moves and one blunder will give the same result as just mediocre moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You are probably aware that Lichess offers a tool to evaluate your games based on centipawn loss (&quot;Chess Insights&quot;, on your profile page).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18363" LastActivityDate="2019-01-24T16:44:03.970" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23592" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-01-24T19:26:35.203" Score="1" ViewCount="186" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/hdMhT.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How is this checkmate? The King isn't even in check! Am I missing something, or did the chess app goof up?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18369" LastActivityDate="2019-01-25T19:00:15.643" Title="App Mis-calculated Checkmate?" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23593" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23425" CreationDate="2019-01-24T19:42:27.030" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There was a previous stack exchange answer which has a very amusing position where neither side can make a legal move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Take a look; it is very enjoyable!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/18945/mutual-stalemate&quot;&gt;Mutual Stalemate&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18367" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-05-02T14:51:05.037" LastActivityDate="2021-05-02T14:51:05.037" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23594" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7594" CreationDate="2019-01-24T21:31:21.483" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Chess Variant Pages actually does have a couple of rankings (at least one is new since Pablo's answer):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessvariants.com/index/favorites.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Community Favorites&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessvariants.com/rindex.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Recognized Variants&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessvariants.com/play/pbm/listgames.php?max=50&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Most Played on Game Courier&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessvariants.com/index/avgratings.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Game Ratings&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd also point out that variants that can be played at other sites, like those at &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;lichess.org&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://greenchess.net/variants.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;greenchess.net&lt;/a&gt;, are presumably fairly popular. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18278" LastActivityDate="2019-01-24T21:31:21.483" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23595" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23596" CreationDate="2019-01-25T02:29:44.507" Score="2" ViewCount="169" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was looking through the &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/player/top/200/classical&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;top classical players&lt;/a&gt; list on LiChess, and I'm gradually improving.  I noticed I'm catching up with &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/@/EricRosen&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;IM Eric Rosen&lt;/a&gt;, which I found surprising (I'm nowhere near that strong).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I went through his &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/@/EricRosen/search?perf=3&amp;amp;mode=1&amp;amp;players.a=ericrosen&amp;amp;players.loser=ericrosen&amp;amp;sort.field=d&amp;amp;sort.order=desc&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;rated losses&lt;/a&gt;: his opponent cheated (&lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/1ssFwIlm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;1&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/wf3FXgcE&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;2&lt;/a&gt; (probably), &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/8f7Ehg7I/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;3&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/5ZIZLyjZ&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;4&lt;/a&gt;) in all but &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/3zDCHkgB&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;one game&lt;/a&gt; (which seems to involve a mouse slip).  They don't just win---they crush him without problems.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I speculate that he encounters more cheating than I do because he has his title on display---his opponents want an IM scalp, and cheat to obtain it.  However, maybe this is not accurate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: In online chess with long time controls, does having a title encourage opponents to cheat against you?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm hoping a titled player will describe their experiences with and without their titled displayed online.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2785" LastActivityDate="2019-01-25T07:11:37.380" Title="In online chess with long time controls, does having a title encourage opponents to cheat against you?" Tags="&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;cheating&gt;&lt;titles&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2019-01-25T08:49:47.633" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23596" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23595" CreationDate="2019-01-25T05:23:58.793" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've displayed an FM title and never noticed a problem with cheating once. Your question is the first time I've ever thought about the concept of someone wanting to cheat &lt;em&gt;more&lt;/em&gt; against a titled player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If anything, most players would want the opportunity to get to play a titled player, and wouldn't waste it by cheating with an engine. How do you know that his opponents were cheating in most of his losses?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-01-25T05:23:58.793" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23597" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23595" CreationDate="2019-01-25T07:11:37.380" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;A title sometimes attracts cheating, but those cheating against a titled player (or generally a strong player) are easily identifiable. Usually they are below average players having played a small number of games (to climb to that rating of a titled player) on an account used particularly for cheating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I don't see any point of doing this. The more common intention for an amateur is to test their skills against a titled player, when they get the chance. So, as a titled player, it is more likely to get an opponent wanting to test themselves against you rather than a noob trying to cheat and score an illegal win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13544" LastActivityDate="2019-01-25T07:11:37.380" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23598" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23603" CreationDate="2019-01-25T08:12:01.640" Score="2" ViewCount="151" Body="&lt;p&gt;Very often, I find myself playing the Caro-Kann and encountering positions like this below (especially note the pawns on the columns c and d):&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qJha8.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qJha8.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I do have read that knowing what to do (capturing or mantaining the tension) boils down to calculation but in cases like this, where capturing with a pawn does not imply hanging a specific piece (defended by this pawn), I am not sure what to make of this position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could you please tell me what do in these situations and what to do in this particular situation and why?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16771" LastEditorUserId="16771" LastEditDate="2019-01-25T09:01:43.940" LastActivityDate="2019-01-26T22:03:07.170" Title="Pawn tension in the Caro-Kann" Tags="&lt;pawns&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23599" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-01-25T12:48:43.300" Score="1" ViewCount="229" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a very basic and general question (and my first on this website), so feel free to tell me if this is inappropriate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Besides specific strategies and opening sequences, there are some fairly general things about openings that are quite intuitive and, on the whole, not too difficult to follow: try to get out as many pieces as soon as possible and to position them on their most effective squares, try to get control of the center, try to castle when appropriate, put pressure on this square, do not move that pawn and so on. But when all the pieces are out, well placed, and I have castled, I have no idea about what I should do next. It might sound silly, but I feel that everything would compromise the balance I have just created. Are there any general pieces of advice, any general principles that one should try to apply? Or just any standard lines of thought that one could roughly follow? I feel like there is a huge gap between opening and endgame that I have no idea how to fill, and that I usually start out well in the opening and end being in disadvantage in the endgame because I did some silly moves in the middlegame because I did not know what to do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance: I was playing a match against a computer opponent. I managed to get out all my pieces (horses on c3 and f3, pawns on d4 and e4, bishops on the sides, putting pressure on the f7 square and so on, all very classical) and to castle and the opponent had only been moving his horses around aimlessly by that time! He had not even moved a pawn! A good player would be sure to win, starting from such a situation. But in my case, whatever I tried turned out to be a bad idea and the counter actions of the opponent where always effective and in the end he won.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I should mention that I am reading &quot;Logical chess move by move&quot; by Irving Chernev. I haven't got vey far yet, but even the few pages I've read were very illuminating as far as positional play in the opening is concerned. But somehow I did not manage to take away any general advice on how to proceed in the middlegame: as I said, once everything is well placed, whatever I do seems to destroy its balance...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18372" LastActivityDate="2019-01-25T13:57:58.853" Title="General advice for middlegame" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;middlegame&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2019-01-25T15:38:14.700" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23600" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5870" CreationDate="2019-01-25T13:39:16.610" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just my totally subjective opinion. Seems to me that at sub-master level - the goal is to have fun and enjoy the thrills and chills of the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So why not play King's Gambit as well as all the other gambits ?&#xA;Accept that you might get blasted off the board - but you might equally wind up getting some sudden inspiration and doing the same to your opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why even worry about whether or not grandmasters currently favor an opening or whether it is fashionable at the moment ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And who cares if computers like a line or not ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I love it when people throw gambits at me that I am totally unprepared for - it gets the juices flowing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18367" LastActivityDate="2019-01-25T13:39:16.610" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23601" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23599" CreationDate="2019-01-25T13:57:58.853" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I feel you should &lt;strong&gt;choose an opening repertoire&lt;/strong&gt; so you enter middlegames where you (a) &lt;strong&gt;know where the pieces belong ordinarily&lt;/strong&gt;, and (b) &lt;strong&gt;understand the plans in those openings&lt;/strong&gt;.  At a certain point, you need to do more than &quot;just develop&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you've ever watched a GM give a video lecture on some opening, you'll see them repeatedly avoid certain lines not because they're &quot;bad&quot;, but because there is no clear plan for what to do.  And I can't tell you how many games I've lost simply because I got to a position with my pieces all on their seemingly best squares, but without a plan for how to continue.  I make random moves that don't immediately lose, but it makes things incrementally worse.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, a straightforward plan arising from an opening (that works from beginner to super GM level) is the minority attack.  Here's one of many examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;1994&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;2&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Karpov (2780)&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Campora (2560)&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. cxd5 exd5 5. Bg5 Be7 6. e3 O-O 7. Bd3 Nbd7 8. Nf3 c6 9. Qc2 Re8 10. O-O Nf8 11. h3 Be6 12. Bxf6 Bxf6 13. b4 Rc8 14. Na4 Rc7 15. Rac1 Be7 16. Qb1 Bd6 17. b5 Qf6 18. bxc6 bxc6 19. Nh2 Qh4 20. Bf5 Qh5 21. Bxe6 Nxe6 22. Nf3 f5 23. Rc3 Nd8 24. Nc5 Bxc5 25. Rxc5 Ne6 26. Rc3 f4 27. e4 h6 28. Re1 Rce7 29. Rxc6 dxe4 30. Rxe4 Qd5 31. Rc3 Qf5 32. Qe1 Qd5 33. Kh1 Qd6 34. Qd2 Ng5 35. Rxe7 Qxe7 36. Qxf4 Qb4 37. Nxg5 hxg5 38. Qd2 g4 39. hxg4 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this game, white's plan after development is a minority attack: to push the queenside pawns, and give black a pawn weakness, which should give white an edge in the endgame.  We see on move 18, black ends up with a backwards pawn.  White heads for an endgame by swapping off pieces, while black tries to stir up trouble with the f-pawn push.  On move 28, black gave up defending it (rather than waste a rook defending a pawn), and let white capture it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The moral of the story: choose openings so that your plan is clear.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2785" LastActivityDate="2019-01-25T13:57:58.853" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23602" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23571" CreationDate="2019-01-25T14:47:42.217" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The player of the white pieces has made an illegal move. Touch-move applies so he must take back his illegal move and make a legal move. If it is possible to make a legal move with the piece he touched then he must make a legal move with the touched piece. If there are no legal moves with the piece he touched then he may make any legal move. This is important because often making a legal move with the touched piece loses the game immediately.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2019-01-25T14:47:42.217" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23603" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23598" CreationDate="2019-01-25T16:05:17.120" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;That kind of tension in the center is very double-edged.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the long term, the pawn exchanges in the center should favor Black: he will get a stronghold on d5 for a knight and the e5-pawn might turn into a weakness in the endgame. Also, exchanges of major pieces down the newly opened c- and d-files will reduce White's attacking chances on the kingside.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the short term however, pawn exchanges open lines that will favor the better developed side, which is undoubtedly White. All kind of nasty threats may follow, especially because the black King is still far from castled: checks on the a4-e8 diagonal, kinght jumps to d6, threats against the un-protected Pb7, intrusions on the 7th rank before Black can connect his rooks, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's why what you have read (&quot;&lt;em&gt;knowing what to do (capturing or mantaining the tension) boils down to calculation&lt;/em&gt;&quot;) is absolutely correct. Most often it will boil down to one tempo whether Black can safely castle or if he get caught beforehand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the precise given position, for instance, I would be reluctant to play 1...cxd4?! 2.Na3!? a6 3.Bg5, when it is hard to untangle the knights and white rooks will put huge pressure on the central files. 2...Nc5 3.Qd4 Nf5 is more active, but 4.Qf4 Be7 can be met by either 5.g4 or 5.Rd1, so Black will play longer with the king in the center. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, 1...dc4!? is tempting, 2.Qxc4 Nd5 and that kinght stabilizes the position, e.g. 3.Nc3 N7b6 4.Qb5 Qd7 5.Qxd7 Kxd7 and Black has nothing to complain about, or 3.Rd1 Be7 followed by 0-0.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it was White's move, however, 1.Nc3 would already put strong pressure on Black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastEditorUserId="14079" LastEditDate="2019-01-26T22:03:07.170" LastActivityDate="2019-01-26T22:03:07.170" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23604" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23592" CreationDate="2019-01-25T19:00:15.643" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;If the app first displayed checkmate in that position, then it miscalculated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But as Phonon noted, the app could have displayed checkmate in a previous (future) position, and then you went back a few moves. In that case it's not a miscalculation per se, but just a bug in the UI.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-01-25T19:00:15.643" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23605" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24172" CreationDate="2019-01-25T20:28:36.073" Score="3" ViewCount="305" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;r1bqkb1r/ppp2ppp/2n2n2/3pp3/3PP3/2N2N2/PPP2PPP/R1BQKB1R w KQkq - 4 5&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If Black &quot;mirrors&quot; White's move 4. d4 in the Scotch 4 Knights, and White wants to play sharp, aggressive moves, what would be the best move? I know that chess engines like Atockfish, GNU Chess etc. would calculate the next move forWhite as Bb5, but I want to exchange pieces. So what would the strongest capture be here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18374" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-06-12T19:09:47.297" LastActivityDate="2021-05-01T17:47:36.807" Title="Scotch 4 Knights with 4... d5" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;four-knights&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23606" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-01-26T01:21:31.650" Score="6" ViewCount="120" Body="&lt;p&gt;This dilemma occurs in a variety of positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;r1bq1rk1/pp1nbpp1/5n1p/2pp4/3P3B/2NBPN2/PP3PPP/R2QK2R w KQ - 0 10&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here, it's white to move, and white has to choose between:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;capturing black's c5 pawn, giving black an isolated queen's pawn, but we improve black's development with tempo,&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;make a developing move, thereby allowing black to play c4 on the next move, which creates a queenside majority of pawns, and can be dangerous later in the game.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This position is from &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/uQ9uX1b1&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Vasile vs. Voiculescu&lt;/a&gt;, where white chose to play a developing move (Rc1), and subsequently resigned after black eventually promoted the c-pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples of famous players facing similar dilemmas: &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/yrPEv0i4&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Short&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/SHMsJRi1&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Dreev&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/JSb23VB0&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Giri&lt;/a&gt;.  They have different positions and make different decisions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: How do we decide whether we should do 1. or 2.?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here, I don't simply mean in this specific position.  I'm seeking general guidelines (or rules) as to when it is better to take, and when it is better to not take.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2785" LastActivityDate="2020-12-29T21:17:12.490" Title="Capture the c-pawn, so the opponent has an IQP but improved development, or let them push the c-pawn and form a queenside majority?" Tags="&lt;isolated-pawn&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23607" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8327" CreationDate="2019-01-26T03:22:00.020" Score="26" Body="&lt;p&gt;I went through the list of &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/player/top/200/classical&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;LiChess classical top 200 players&lt;/a&gt; and collected the FIDE ratings of LiChess classical ratings of anyone who I could verify on FIDE's website as actually having a FIDE rating:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;LiChess FIDE    LiChess username    Name&#xA;&#xA;2585    2265    ClassyPlays         Thibault Dudognon [FM]&#xA;2389    1869    nikkon2006          Nikita Konstantinov &#xA;2373    2274    PchelkinVK          Andrey Ermolaev [CM]&#xA;2357    1780    LeProfessionnel     Xavier Bohaer   &#xA;2329    1963    Callmoon            Lina Nassr [WIM]&#xA;2299    2249    Peristeria          Marcus Schmuecker   &#xA;2290    2214    Crocodilu1976       Adrian Stanca   &#xA;2278    1899    TonoyanRob7         Robert Tonoyan  &#xA;2271    1900    CamelClutcher       Daniel Herman   &#xA;2269    1985    Chess-For-All       Alexey Pugach   &#xA;2242    2242    weichi              Eugeny Pankin   &#xA;2241    2208    kirillgenius        Kirill Shcherbinin [CM]&#xA;2241    2247    Cizar               Srboljub Zaric  &#xA;2236    2065    pepellou            Jose Doval Gonzalez &#xA;2235    2093    Suleymanov_Marat    Marat M. Suleimanov &#xA;2232    2155    Son_Of_Caissa       Hrvoje Vlahov   &#xA;2228    2358    VadimCernov         Vadim Chernov [IM]&#xA;2221    2010    emiliooo            Emilio Profili  &#xA;2219    2274    Josip_buje          Josip Bulic [FM]&#xA;2214    1455    diarbovi            Diego Armando Bonilla Viamonte  &#xA;2206    1878    hebertvr            Hebert Valera   &#xA;2199    1958    MrsBlunderqueen     Jan Oltmanns    &#xA;2193    2215    aconeni             Ondrej Toman    &#xA;2193    2187    teddyhh             Julio Fernandes &#xA;2187    2190    yichen              Yichen Han  &#xA;2181    2298    jolle23             Johan Hultin [FM]&#xA;2171    2270    Konnov_Oleg         Oleg Konnov [FM]&#xA;2164    2138    FrankDischinger     Dischinger Frank [FM]&#xA;2162    1754    moldscaien1357      Dimitrios Makridis  &#xA;2145    1898    shayanaghaie        Shahram Aghaei  &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(I use the current FIDE rating, not the one listed on the LiChess profile; this affects 6 players.  One player had a FIDE profile page, but no rating: &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/@/AuaAua&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;LiChess&lt;/a&gt; (2174); &lt;a href=&quot;http://ratings.fide.com/card.phtml?event=24628743&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE&lt;/a&gt;.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We see some major differences in several cases, so we cannot expect a simple relationship between the two.  However, perhaps it's fair to conclude that a typical low-2000s FIDE player could likely reach a 2100+ LiChess classical rating.  However, I feel like it depends heavily on how seriously they play on LiChess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's a plot of the above data, with a linear regression.  It's an incredibly weak correlation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/6eNG3.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/6eNG3.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2785" LastActivityDate="2019-01-26T03:22:00.020" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23608" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23606" CreationDate="2019-01-26T04:19:59.203" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;A few general guidelines:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Take if your opponent has to waste a move to recapture. Normally this happens once your opponent has moved the f8/f1 bishop. In the position you posted, Black can take back with the knight and continue developing.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Don't take if you've got a powerful position and are planning some aggressive attack. An attack often requires a good structural foundation in the centre, so taking on c5/c4 would compromise that.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Take if there are a few pieces exchanged off, since your opponent's extra activity from the IQP will be less dangerous without many pieces. Take especially if the queens are off, or if your opponent is missing their dark-squared bishop (assuming your opponent is playing Black).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Take if your opponent is behind in their queenside development. Undeveloped pieces ==&gt; less activity ==&gt; less danger from an IQP.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Don't take if your king's position is compromised. The last thing you want with a vulnerable king is to have your opponent get more activity for attacking.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These rules don't always work, but it's useful to take them all into account before making a decision.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-01-26T04:19:59.203" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23609" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23606" CreationDate="2019-01-26T15:31:25.107" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here taking the pawn does a number of bad things -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It gives up the centre&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It resolves the tension&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It gives the opponent a good freeing, developing move, Nxc5. This develops the knight and opens up a diagonal for the c8 bishop.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In short, it is just bad. You should just continue with development. That Vasile chose Rc1 suggests that he wants to reply to c4 with Bb1. I think an immediate c4 by black is also bad because it resolves the tension unnecessarily so I would probably just castle here as white.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2019-01-26T15:31:25.107" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23610" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23606" CreationDate="2019-01-27T00:14:07.843" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you don't take on c5, your opponent can get in the move b7-b6. If b7-b6 is played, then you'll most likely be playing against hanging pawns if you take on c5. Those positions may or may not be suited for your style, which would affect your decision.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The pawns pushing to c4 would not be a threat, as you can easily get in b3 and e4 to chip away at his center.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Taking on c5 immediately would result in a classic IQP position where your goal would be to exchange minor pieces in order to stifle his attack and to keep the &amp;quot;heavy&amp;quot; pieces on the board in order to make it easier to take attack his pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7361" LastEditorUserId="10867" LastEditDate="2020-12-29T21:17:12.490" LastActivityDate="2020-12-29T21:17:12.490" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23611" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23612" CreationDate="2019-01-27T07:55:05.227" Score="1" ViewCount="190" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=84&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Rules for Swiss Systems&lt;/a&gt; state:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;C.04.2 A&lt;/strong&gt; It is not allowed to alter the correct pairings in favour of any player.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and then further state:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Where it can be shown that modifications of the original pairings were made to help a player achieve a norm or a direct title, a report may be submitted to the QC to initiate disciplinary measures through the Ethics Commission.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What I can get from this is that (for example) if my friend, who is one point away in the final round to achieve a title, is a player in a tournament, and I am the arbiter of that tournament, I can alter the pairings in such a way that he plays an 1100 player and have an easy title shot.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this what can be concluded from the above section of the rules? If not, what is meant by &quot;modifications&quot; there?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13544" LastEditorUserId="13544" LastEditDate="2019-01-27T10:43:48.183" LastActivityDate="2019-10-09T23:37:20.227" Title="In what way is it allowed to alter tournament pairings in favor of a player?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;fide&gt;&lt;swiss-pairing&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23612" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23611" CreationDate="2019-01-27T08:51:59.890" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;It says the exact opposite.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;C.04.2 A It is &lt;strong&gt;not allowed&lt;/strong&gt; to alter the correct pairings in favour of any player. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So no, you can't.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Where it can be shown that modifications of the original pairings were made to help a player achieve a norm or a direct title, a report may be submitted to the QC to initiate &lt;strong&gt;disciplinary measures&lt;/strong&gt; through the Ethics Commission.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;FIDE could try to punish the player or you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2019-01-27T08:51:59.890" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23613" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23617" CreationDate="2019-01-27T11:11:05.183" Score="6" ViewCount="582" Body="&lt;p&gt;After reading &lt;em&gt;Chess structures&lt;/em&gt; of Mauricio Flores Rios, I have some initial questions on the Isolani (or isolated queen pawn). &#xA;The author shows this diagram:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ETZra.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ETZra.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Later, he proceeds to giving White and Black plans for the game. Here my questions arise. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White is supposed to start a kingside attack. &#xA;I can see no reason why one would do that. I mean White does not have a majority of pawns in the kingside. I would not clearly start doing anything on the queenside but I am not sure why I should do it in the kingside.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Furthermore, if the reason for why this kingside attack is justified does not lie in the pawn majority, I cannot see why the pawn distribution would allow White pieces to be arranged so as to threaten the kingside. White can place a knight on e5 but he can also put it on c5 so it is unclear to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have this very same question also regarding the following pawn structure:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/5E6Qf.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/5E6Qf.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Later, the author suggests placing the Queen and a bishop forming an attack on the b1-h7 diagonal as well as a bishop on g5. These are reasons to start an attack to the kingside but again I am not sure why the pawn structure would suggest doing this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My second question is why Black is supposed to benefit from the exchange of White light-coloured bishop. I can see this bishop supports the d4-d5 rupture but it seems somewhat exaggerated to exchange it simply for that (maybe there is a better reason?).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16771" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-02-27T13:17:41.627" LastActivityDate="2020-02-27T13:17:41.627" Title="Understanding The Isolani Pawn" Tags="&lt;pawns&gt;&lt;pawn-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23614" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23615" CreationDate="2019-01-27T20:33:06.927" Score="4" ViewCount="473" Body="&lt;p&gt;I understand that when the same board position occurs three times in a game, with the same player to move, and having all the same possible moves, the game may be claimed as a draw by threefold repetition of positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If neither player makes a claim, and the game continues, and the position changes, is it legal for a (losing) player to thereafter claim a draw because threefold repetition had occurred earlier in the game? Or is a threefold repetition claim only valid when it involves the immediately current position?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18378" LastActivityDate="2021-03-08T12:12:11.767" Title="Can you claim a draw, after the position has changed, if threefold repetition occurred earlier?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;threefold-repetition&gt;&lt;claim-draw&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23615" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23614" CreationDate="2019-01-27T21:00:56.737" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;(I consider the FIDE rules to be the &amp;quot;the rules of chess&amp;quot; and this answer is only about them)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No, you cannot claim. In fact your right to claim ends as soon as you &lt;em&gt;touch&lt;/em&gt; a piece.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's what the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=208&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;rules&lt;/a&gt; say, emphasis in bold mine:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;9.2.1     The game is drawn, upon a correct claim by a player having the move, when the same position for at least the third time (not&#xA;necessarily by a repetition of moves):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;9.2.1.1   &lt;strong&gt;is about to appear&lt;/strong&gt;, if he first writes his move, which cannot be changed, on his scoresheet and declares to the arbiter his&#xA;intention to make this move, or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;9.2.1.2   &lt;strong&gt;has just appeared&lt;/strong&gt;, and the player claiming the draw has the move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So either it is about to appear, or it has just appeared, and not at any other time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then 9.4 ends the debate:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;9.4 If the player &lt;strong&gt;touches a piece&lt;/strong&gt; as in Article 4.3, he &lt;strong&gt;loses the right&lt;/strong&gt; to claim a draw under Article 9.2 or 9.3 on that move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's related to the touch move rule -- once you touch a piece that can legally move with the intention to move it, you have to do so. It's too late for claims.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it were possible to claim at any later time, there would never be any reason to continue: as soon as it was clear one of the players was going to lose, they'd claim the draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But in the case of &lt;em&gt;five&lt;/em&gt; fold repetition, it's different:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;9.6 If one or both of the following occur(s) then the game &lt;strong&gt;is drawn&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;9.6.1 the same position has appeared, as in 9.2.2 at least five times.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If a position repeats five times, then that's just an automatic draw, no claim needed. If it is found out later during the &amp;quot;game&amp;quot; that a position was repeated five times some time ago, then that means that you just weren't playing the game anymore after that as it was already finished. You were moving pieces about.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastEditorUserId="924" LastEditDate="2021-03-08T12:12:11.767" LastActivityDate="2021-03-08T12:12:11.767" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23617" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23613" CreationDate="2019-01-27T23:54:29.503" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;To answer your first question, in these structures, white has more space and because of that, he can put his pieces in more advanced positions. Black's king is usually on the kingside in these positions which makes the e5 square a great square for a knight. If the knight was on c5, then black could play b6 and kick the knight out. When the knight lands on e5, f6 would be unwise by black because it greatly weakens the e6 square. Basically, these pawn structures result in more space which means it is easier to maneuver and therefore, start an attack. Also, these pawns are a short term advantage, and without quick action, black could quickly arrange his pieces to attack your d4 (and c4) pawn(s).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black would benefit with an exchange of light squared bishops because of the fact that the e6 pawn blocks the activity of black's light squared bishop. White's bishop is very strong on the b1-h7 diagonal, therefore, in a majority of circumstances, it is favorable for black to exchange light-squared bishops.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7361" LastActivityDate="2019-01-27T23:54:29.503" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23618" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23622" CreationDate="2019-01-28T05:41:48.227" Score="11" ViewCount="521" Body="&lt;p&gt;Lichess &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/training/87510&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;puzzle 87510&lt;/a&gt; has this position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;r1b1k3/pp4R1/2q3RQ/4p3/5P2/bP2P3/2P1K2P/8 b - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The solution is 1...Bg4+,.after which White has 6 legal moves:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;1...Bg4+ 2. Rxg4 Qxh6, which is the computer solution, possibly followed by 3. Rg8+ Bf8,&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Kd3, which is mate in 7,&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Kd2, which is mate in 8,&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Ke1, which is mate in 5,&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Kf1, which is mate in 4, and&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Kf2, which is mate in 4.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I feel like a human player in a tournament would not calculate the whole decision tree, and probably just intuit that 1...Bg4+ is going to win since black can continue with a range of powerful moves Qf3, Qc2, Rd8, and Bb4 and at least one of them is with check, depending onWhite's response.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: How much calculation would a strong player (say an FM+) perform before playing 1...Bg4+?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's a dangerous movem Black begins with an exposed king, with mate threats and a possible rook skewer, and queen attacked, and Black responds by creating an undefended bishop.  If the checks ended, Back would probably lose.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2785" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-21T15:26:39.847" LastActivityDate="2020-08-21T15:26:39.847" Title="Lichess puzzle 87510: How much calculation would a strong player do before playing Bg4+ when white has a range of (all losing) responses?" Tags="&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;puzzles&gt;&lt;calculation&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23619" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23618" CreationDate="2019-01-28T14:30:12.293" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm no FM, but here's how I would look at it logically, while keeping in mind that calculation can overrule logic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black's move pretty much must be a check, given the mate threat and the threat to Black's queen. Four of the checks look really bad because they immediately lose the queen for no discernible benefit. This leaves only two choices: ...Bg4+ and ...Qxc2+.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While ...Bg4+ puts the bishop &lt;em&gt;en prise&lt;/em&gt;, it is easy to see (a two-ply calculation) that taking it would be disastrous for White, even though, according to the engine, it is White's best move! If White doesn't take, even without doing a lot of calculation, you can have a &quot;feeling&quot; that there are mating chances now that you have your bishop and queen cooperating in the attack and the possibility of adding the other bishop, as well as the rook, which is now free to move to the open file.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With ...Qxc2+, the problem is that the only attacking piece is the queen, which on its own gives you perpetual check at best. Now that your queen isn't pinning White's rook against the queen, there is no good way of bringing the light-square bishop into the attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The problem is that if it so happened that ...Bg4+ didn't work after all (something which you can't know for sure without further calculation), it could well be that a draw is the best result for Black, which would make ...Qxc2+ the better choice! So &quot;logic&quot; can give you an indication of which move is likely to be better, but it is not foolproof. How much a FM would calculate probably depends on how much time they have. I would be interesting to hear from an actual FM. :-)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12523" LastEditorUserId="12523" LastEditDate="2019-01-28T16:53:00.037" LastActivityDate="2019-01-28T16:53:00.037" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23620" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23623" CreationDate="2019-01-28T15:35:50.227" Score="4" ViewCount="292" Body="&lt;p&gt;Does Stockfish's testing framework get the new engine to play the old engine many times in a match? Since Stockfish thinks on each move according to a time limit (and not a depth limit, which gives a deterministic amount of calculation), randomness in the OS' speed affects the engine's performance. This means that the match result could be more determined by randomness in the OS than by the incremental change made to Stockfish, causing the new engine to lose.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm working on my own engine with this testing framework, and I've found this to be a problem. Are there any other testing frameworks for engines that aren't subject to how the OS is performing? I also run matches with a depth limit for the engines, but these matches aren't ideal because in some positions an engine needs to calculate more or can get away with calculating less.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-01-29T00:56:31.773" Title="How does Stockfish ensure an incremental change made is beneficial?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23621" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23618" CreationDate="2019-01-28T18:10:35.433" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;With enough time (let's say a couple of minutes), a strong player would most certainly do all the calculations (down to mate) before deciding on a move here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Doing the calculations here is actually not all that difficult because of several factors:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;As pointed out, because of white's threats against the black king, black is basically forced to check and obviously has only two good candidate moves to do so: Bg4+ or Qxc2+. If playing for a win, Bg4+ is more attractive because it adds another attacker to the game, so one might as well start calculating the consequences of Bg4+ only.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;All moves are forced and many of the longest mating sequences all follow the same pattern: basically black capturing the e3 pawn with check opening more diagonals for activating the dark-squared bishop.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;While Kd2 and Kd3 lead to the longest theoretical mates from the position, they are quite obviously lost after Rd8+, when white has the option of prolonging the game by sacrificing all his pieces or getting mated immediately (e.g. after easy-to-see Kd2, Rd8+, Ke1, Rd1+, Kf2, Qf3++). Of course once white loses all his pieces there is no point calculating the shortest route to mate.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So in summary, the mates after Bg4+ boil down to calculating something like a mate in 4 where black gives check at every move. Not at all difficult even for sub-FM players like me (around 2200 strength).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In addition to calculating the mates, one would also have to decide that 1. Qxc2+ does not lead to mate (quite obviously because black is only attacking with the queen) and that Bg4+, Rxg4, Qxh6 is winning for black (also obvious because of the large material advantage).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2019-01-28T18:10:35.433" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23622" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23618" CreationDate="2019-01-28T21:09:09.183" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm an FM, and my calculation process would be as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) See that after 2.Rxg4 Qxh6 2.Rg8 Bf8, I'm clearly winning and White has no follow up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) Look at White's king moves to get out of check. Immediately Kd1, Kd2, Kd3 can be discarded since they just let me play ...Rd8+ for free. Also, Kf1/Kf2 lead to the same thing after I play 2...Qf3+. So I'd just look at Ke1 and Kf2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) Everything looks good, so I'm done.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I were in time trouble, I'd play 1...Bg4+ seconds after seeing it. Since 2.Rxg4 doesn't work, there's no practical risk to playing it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-01-28T21:09:09.183" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23623" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23620" CreationDate="2019-01-29T00:56:31.773" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Disclaimer: not an expert.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As I understand the so-called &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Fishtesting&lt;/a&gt;&quot;, you write a patch and submit it to the queue. The system then plays your patch against the previous engine at short time controls. Very many games are played (this is why computing power is needed to improve your engine). If the patch proves to be stronger at short time controls, another test is performed and longer time controls, and if the patch passes again then it's promoted to become the main version.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: &lt;a href=&quot;http://tests.stockfishchess.org/html/live_elo.html?5c4f854b0ebc593af5d4cd72&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this patch&lt;/a&gt;. You can see the user submitting the patch is &quot;protonspring&quot;, and he was trying to simplify the passed pawns code. Fishtesting played the new patch against the old version 5451 times, with a result of 20.1% wins, 23.3% losses, and 56.5% draws. The new patch is inferior, so it's rejected. As you can see from the Fishtest main page, most patches fail.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastActivityDate="2019-01-29T00:56:31.773" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23625" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23626" CreationDate="2019-01-29T13:23:45.020" Score="18" ViewCount="4178" Body="&lt;p&gt;I usually find in reports like &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/player/wei_yi.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; (and many others) something like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;... with a &lt;strong&gt;TPR&lt;/strong&gt; of 2551 ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would like to know its meaning, and also what it stands for.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15365" LastEditorUserId="13544" LastEditDate="2019-01-29T13:48:36.220" LastActivityDate="2019-01-29T18:50:35.977" Title="What does &quot;TPR&quot; mean in chess tournament reports?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;tournament&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23626" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23625" CreationDate="2019-01-29T13:31:10.283" Score="22" Body="&lt;p&gt;It means &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossary_of_chess#Performance_rating&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Tournament Performance Rating&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Very roughly a TPR of 2551 means that the results this player has achieved in this tournament would have been expected of a player rated 2551.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's always a bit problematic. Say you scored 100% against a group of 1500 players, what kind of player would have expected to score that? Well, a 1900 player probably, but also a 2800 player. And many methods make your TPR go down if you win against a much lower rated player, because they are based on the average rating of your opponents. But it's a rough measure of how well a player did.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There exist various methods to calculate it that I don't have time now to go into now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2019-01-29T13:31:10.283" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23627" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23634" CreationDate="2019-01-29T14:17:42.947" Score="2" ViewCount="488" Body="&lt;p&gt;Does anyone have advice to give against the giuoco piano ? I find this opening boring for white after 3... Bc5 and I'd like to find a way to keep playing the italian without risking to play a boring game. I know the Evan's gambit, but I'd rather develop a repertoire on openings I can comprehend instead of relying on preparation. &#xA;I'm looking for sharper lines that don't require sacrifices a computer or theorician would consider unsound. Would you recommend, 4. O-O, d3, c3, Nc3, or do I have to avoid the italian game completely ? That would be a shame because I enjoy playing against all other replies. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18390" LastEditorUserId="18390" LastEditDate="2019-01-29T19:21:59.977" LastActivityDate="2019-01-30T16:53:29.853" Title="Making the giuoco piano interesting as white" Tags="&lt;italian-game&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="10" ClosedDate="2019-02-07T02:52:53.270" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23628" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23627" CreationDate="2019-01-29T16:17:22.757" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First: Giuoco piano translates to &quot;quiet game&quot; so you have an odd expectation.  There are plenty of ways to make it sharp however.  You mentioned the Evan's gambit, but there is also the 4.0-0 Nf6 5.d4 gambit (which I played a ton of as a kid, but the name escapes me).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2019-01-29T16:17:22.757" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23629" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23631" CreationDate="2019-01-29T16:21:07.627" Score="1" ViewCount="3418" Body="&lt;p&gt;Few days ago I was watching a game review on lichess and found out one of the player's account was banned. Any idea why lichess does that?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18391" LastActivityDate="2019-01-29T18:53:23.217" Title="Why does lichess ban players?" Tags="&lt;lichess&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2019-01-30T07:21:14.300" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23630" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23360" CreationDate="2019-01-29T16:26:26.440" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The English Opening (1.c4) is excellent for pushing for a drawish line. There's not many risky/sharp lines in it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Reti Opening (1.Nf3) is also a good &quot;safe&quot; opening without too  many sharp lines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In both of these, &lt;em&gt;flexibility is key&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These delay committing to either &quot;wing pressure&quot; with minor pieces or &quot;center occupation&quot; with pawns; white can adapt to whatever black throws out and &lt;em&gt;slow things down&lt;/em&gt;, whether black wants to win or is looking for a draw themselves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If black is looking for a win, the French Opening might be a possibility - most lines are fairly defensive (not all - &lt;em&gt;some are very sharp and should be avoided by white&lt;/em&gt;) and can push said player into being so aggressive as to make a mistake that could even hand white an easy win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Note:&lt;/strong&gt; (suggested by @ATLPoly)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With both the Reti and the English, it is possible to play sharply with moves like f5. These aren't the best lines for black, but be warned that they are sharp and do require white (and black to a greater extent) to play accurately, even though the position is slightly in white's favor.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18168" LastEditorUserId="18168" LastEditDate="2019-01-29T17:59:56.537" LastActivityDate="2019-01-29T17:59:56.537" CommentCount="11" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23631" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23629" CreationDate="2019-01-29T16:35:38.580" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;First of all, lichess rarely &lt;em&gt;bans&lt;/em&gt; players. What they usually do is flag their profile (usually for using chess computer assistance), remove their rating, and prevent them from p laying in tournaments and/or rating games. This is not a full ban.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To answer your question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lichess flags players for a variety of reasons, but (as mentioned above) they usually flag players for using chess computer assistance. They may also be flagged for sandbagging - artificially increasing or decreasing their rating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to know why are particular player was flagged, check their profile. There should be a large red banner informing you what has happened.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are wondering how the process of reporting/flagging players works, that would be a separate question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18168" LastActivityDate="2019-01-29T16:35:38.580" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23632" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23625" CreationDate="2019-01-29T18:50:35.977" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;Tournament performance rating&quot;. An approximate measure of the strength that a player performed/played at in the tournament.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The calculation of such a performance rating varies, but one method is as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If you beat someone at rating X, your performance for that game is X + 400.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If you lose to this person, your performance for that game is X - 400.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If you draw this game, your performance for that game is X.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then the tournament performance rating is calculated by taking the average performance out of all your games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-01-29T18:50:35.977" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23633" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23629" CreationDate="2019-01-29T18:53:23.217" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The two main reasons:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Lichess detected that the player was very likely cheating.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The player used profanity or broke some rule of conduct.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-01-29T18:53:23.217" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23634" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23627" CreationDate="2019-01-30T03:52:17.420" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;What about slow plan (1.e4, Nf3, Bc4, d3, c3, 0-0, Nd2), then depending on what the opponent does, you can play d4 or move the knight on d2 -&gt; f1 -&gt; g3 (and potentially f5) and make something happen on the king side.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="307" LastEditorUserId="307" LastEditDate="2019-01-30T16:53:29.853" LastActivityDate="2019-01-30T16:53:29.853" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23637" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9219" CreationDate="2019-02-01T04:16:10.107" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;That's funny, White's position is broken after only 3 moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3...Nh5? Costs a tempo. I can play 5.Qd2 &lt;strong&gt;overprotecting&lt;/strong&gt; the &lt;em&gt;strong&lt;/em&gt; points d4 and f4, e.g. 4.e3 Nxf4 5.exf4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Broken means injured...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And injured means weak.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A position is not broken if there's no weakness.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13147" LastEditorUserId="13147" LastEditDate="2019-02-01T18:48:44.983" LastActivityDate="2019-02-01T18:48:44.983" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23638" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23360" CreationDate="2019-02-01T14:46:30.740" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The best way to play for a draw as White is to stick to your main opening repertoire, only avoiding the sharpest lines where you are not sure of the latest analysis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Playing an opening you know well prevents you from misshaps in the first phase of the game and arms you for the early middlegame. Moreover, if your repertoire is decent, it generally leads to equal or better positions for White, from where it will be easier for you to lead the game into dull waters (e.g. positions with symetrical pawn structures, mass exchanges, or forced lines leading to perpetual check).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A tactical line is not necessarily to be avoided. A common psychological trap is to avoid calculating any variation by fear of a calculation error, play passive moves, and drift surely and not-so-slowly into a lost position. If you stop yourself from using your capabilities (tactics, calculations), you diminish your own playing strength. Compared to a &quot;normal&quot; game, however, you can evaluate differently the positions reached in your calculations: even if you are slightly better, a perpetual is fine, a drawn endgame also.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's assume you are a 1.e4 player, for instance. If you go 1. c4 or 1.Nf3, you probably won't face any disaster in the opening, however after move 10 you will find yourself in unknown territory, in an equalish-but-with-a-lot-of-play-left position and with a lot of decisions ahead to make by yourself. Moreover, exchanges don't come for free in positional lines, if you aim for them you will often trade your good pieces and keep the worst ones.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other end, if you play your usual 1.e4, you can use your knowledge to navigate through the opening without huge mistakes and it is your opponent's job to make something special happen and create chances for himself. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He will probably refrain from the French for fear of the exchange varaition, or from 1...e5 because White can aim for liveless positions in, say, the 4 knights or the exchange Ruy Lopez. In case of a Caro-Kann, your usual line is probably not very risky for White, but you can also go for a Panov: isolani positions can get very sharp when White plays for an attack, but Black cannot do much to avoid simplifications if you simply play for d4-d5 and exchanges.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Against rarer stuff like Pirc, Scandinavian or Alekhine, your usual repertoire probably yield a small plus for White. If you go for it, you will be in a good position to force simplifications later in the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The tougher nut to crack, or rather to tame, of course, would be the fiery Sicilian. There you have a choice: if you are confident in your theoretical knowledge, you can prepare your opponent's usual main variation having in mind that all the equal-and-simple lines and all the perpetuals are okay for you. That makes White's preparation much easier actually. Or you could go for something solid like the c3-sicilian, where (as in the Panov) some games can get wild but that is merely when White goes for an attack. If you play in the center and look for simplifications, you will very often get them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;TL;DR&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Don't change your very first moves, but adapt your play to your goal only when you start calculating lines at the end of the opening and in the early middlegame. Don't forget that it is much easier to force a draw from a slightly better position than from a slighty worse one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastEditorUserId="14079" LastEditDate="2019-09-13T19:55:35.187" LastActivityDate="2019-09-13T19:55:35.187" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23639" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14979" CreationDate="2019-02-01T18:15:22.450" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The oldest reference I have for that chess typeface is to Linotype, so I suspect it may have been one of their foundry typefaces (i.e. created by their own artists, not by a 'well-known' type designer). The lack of detail suggests it may have been intended for a printing process that could not do fine details very well:  some of the earlier chess typefaces had very fine details, and required good paper as well as good printing technique for those details to be seen.  This typeface looks more as if it might have been intended for newspaper printing or similar 'fast' printing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Adobe has it in their 'Linotype Game Pi Chess Draughts' font set, so I'm fairly certain it's a Linotype face.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Best way to find out more is probably to visit museums of printing, or type design, such as the Letterform Archive (who seem to have a large number of Linotype master drawings).  They are planning for online access -- it may possibly be found there when that comes on-line.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user18412" LastActivityDate="2019-02-01T18:15:22.450" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23640" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6398" CreationDate="2019-02-01T20:00:15.137" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Did you ever find a tree like this?  I have a Chessmaster file that I have created that documents every move of every named opening line recognized by the program.  Yes, it took me ten years and spanned 4 computers and probably 5 versions of ChessMaster to complete...and yes, I do account for transitions...its very awkward to use sometimes when stepping through successive transistions because its sort of a manual process. Here are some screen shots...oh, and at the end of every opening line, I analyzed the final position, scored it, and walked the score back to the previous branch...I did this for every position where there are several candidate moves, all the way back to the starting position of the game...the first screenshot shows that result.  The second screen shot shows a position a few moves in (Note the references to possible transitions).  The third screen shot shows one of hundreds of thousand of ending positions I had chessmaster analyse&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/k2USu.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/k2USu.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/lbRco.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/lbRco.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/37flm.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/37flm.png&quot; alt=&quot;Last branching position of long opening line&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The .CMG file is 30 megabytes and I continue to expand it by adding in all the non-book moves I've encounted and explored as well...Sadly, I believe the file is actually reaching the limits set by the program and lately I've been losing work because the latest file I save frequently becomes corrupted and unusable (I back it up every few edits however, then back up the backup every few days).  But still there have been times where I have lost weeks of analysis and added chesslines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, I'm looking for a new platform to migrate all this work to and to continue this project on a modern platform.  the .CMG format is probably 30+ years old now!  Definitely could be improved!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18414" LastEditorUserId="18414" LastEditDate="2019-02-01T20:16:04.847" LastActivityDate="2019-02-01T20:16:04.847" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23641" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23642" CreationDate="2019-02-01T22:08:34.417" Score="5" ViewCount="310" Body="&lt;p&gt;It seems both openings have the Capablanca Pawn Structure with c6 and e6&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/XRCbJ.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/XRCbJ.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm curious about where the similarities stop and what are the optimal pawn breaks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7898" LastActivityDate="2019-02-02T02:38:56.743" Title="What are the similarities and differences in pawn Structure from the Scandinavian and the Caro-Kann?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;pawn-structure&gt;&lt;caro-kann&gt;&lt;scandinavian-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23642" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23641" CreationDate="2019-02-01T23:47:59.477" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The pawn structure in the Caro-Kann Classical Variation and the Scandinavian can be the exact same. The optimal pawn breaks are either pushing the c6 pawn to c5 or pushing the e6 pawn to e5. The differences are in the positions of the pieces, which is why far more people play the Caro-Kann than the Scandinavian. In the Scandinavian, black spends many tempi moving their Queen around, giving white time clamp down on these possible pawn breaks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7361" LastActivityDate="2019-02-01T23:47:59.477" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23643" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23641" CreationDate="2019-02-02T02:38:56.743" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The pawn structures are the same, which means the typical pawn breaks are also the same. Black often tries for ...c5 and sometimes ...e5, while White always has a thematic d5 break in mind.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, in the Scandinavian Black must waste a few tempi moving his queen. This means that White's plan more often involves early attacks as opposed to the Caro-kann.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-02-02T02:38:56.743" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23644" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-02-02T07:23:01.097" Score="8" ViewCount="1758" Body="&lt;p&gt;After Kramnik's recent announcement, Nakamura also said in a chess.com interview that he will retire from chess at age 40.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am curious why a super GM feels the need to &quot;officially retire&quot; from chess (or a format of chess). Why not just stop playing but keep the door open for future events? Who knows, maybe you'll feel different after a break.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To be clear, I am not asking for speculations specific to Kramnik or Naka's mindset. I want to know what concrete, practical reasons there may be for a top GM to announce retirement, like sponsorship or contractual reasons as an example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Update based on comments and whoever voted to close: I'm specifically &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; asking for guesses or opinions, but for insight from someone who have knowledge of a super GM's unique situation (be it legal, social, practical or otherwise) to elaborate why it is beneficial to announce retirement rather than simply stop playing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1816" LastEditorUserId="1816" LastEditDate="2019-02-03T06:18:00.823" LastActivityDate="2019-02-03T06:18:00.823" Title="Why do top GM's &quot;retire&quot; from chess?" Tags="&lt;super-grandmaster&gt;&lt;careers&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ClosedDate="2019-02-03T13:52:19.943" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23645" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23651" CreationDate="2019-02-02T13:53:29.610" Score="-1" ViewCount="187" Body="&lt;p&gt;A polite &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/q/23599/315&quot;&gt;duplicate&lt;/a&gt; asked last week by @57Jimmy mentions an incidental matter I find interesting:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;But when all the pieces are out, well placed, and I have castled, I have no idea about what I should do next. It might sound silly, but I feel that everything would compromise the balance I have just created.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here, @57Jimmy does not refer to a particular game of chess but speaks of the transition from the opening to the middlegame in chess generally. I, too, have sometimes felt the same way. Perhaps some chess masters, maybe including the late world champion Petrosian, have felt this way, too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Admittedly, it is not easy to distill a focused &lt;em&gt;question&lt;/em&gt; out of @57Jimmy's interesting observation but the observation is sufficiently interesting (at least to me) that I shall try.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Question: how does chess reward or punish players who, going from the opening into the middlegame, seek to maintain the balance to which @57Jimmy refers?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I will give my own answer below but am more interested in answers others might give.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="315" LastEditorUserId="315" LastEditDate="2019-02-02T20:44:15.050" LastActivityDate="2019-02-03T13:03:23.680" Title="In the middlegame, can one avoid compromising the balance one's opening has achieved?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;middlegame&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2019-02-04T14:58:05.030" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23646" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23645" CreationDate="2019-02-02T13:53:29.610" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess is a finely balanced game. During the early opening, one can seldom deploy sufficient force to stop one's opponent from building a balanced position of defense and attack. Nevertheless, tension gradually builds into the middlegame. In most games, eventually, the tension will overbear a defense's ability to resist.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, the balance is subtle. Defense does indeed often prosper for a while, which is why players tend to prefer early moves that both defend and attack. Nevertheless, middlegames can suddenly explode defenses and, even when middlegames do not explode, they do tend to erode defenses bit by bit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Consider: pieces are exchanged, leaving defensive squares one can no longer cover. Pawns too are exchanged, exposing both positions to attacks that are more direct. Opening balance can be a good feeling but you can't hold it. Not quite.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And this is part of the mystique of chess, isn't it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, you want a slightly different feeling in chess. Defend, surely. Seek opening balance to a point, but, as the middlegame emerges, recognize when the time has come to discharge one's own balance via an attack that disrupts the opponent's balance. Experience suggests that this is the sort of approach that chess most often rewards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Much of chess is in knowing when to commit to the attack. Not too late.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EXCEPTION&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A fairly rare exception exists. Occasionally, diagonal chains of pawns will interlock in the center, particularly in games that begin 1. d4. The interlock can force play out onto the wings. If the interlock forces both players out onto the same wing, then a type of position can arise in which some or all of the heavy pieces have been exchanged and in which the knights and bishops, which remain, are more effective in defense than attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But you won't see many games like this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EXAMPLE&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is an example of the more common kind of game, a game in which, recognizing that defense cannot indefinitely hold, the opponents discharge the tension and commit to the attack. (Black is a strong grandmaster. White is a onetime world champion.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[startflipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[startply &quot;14&quot;]&#xA;[title &quot;V. Kramnik v. M. V. Krasenkow, Corus 2003&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Bc5 4. c3 Nf6 5. d3 a6 6. Bb3 O-O 7. O-O d5 8. exd5 Nxd5 9. h3 Nb6 10. Re1 h6 11. Nbd2 Qxd3 12. Nxe5 Qg3 13. Qf3 Qxf3 14. Ndxf3 Ne7 15. Nd3 Bd6 16. Bf4 Ng6 17. Bxd6 cxd6 18. Re4 a5 19. Rd4 Rd8 20. Rd1 d5 21. Nc5 Ne7 22. a4 Re8 23. R4d2 Nd7 24. Nxd7 Bxd7 25. c4 dxc4 26. Rxd7 cxb3 27. Rxb7 Rab8 28. Rdd7 Nc6 29. Rxf7 Rxb7 30. Rxb7 Re4 31. Rxb3 Rxa4 32. Rb6 Rc4 33. g3 a4 34. h4 Nd4 35. Ne5 Rc5 36. Rb8+ Kh7 37. Nd7 Rb5 38. Ra8 Ne2+ 39. Kg2 Rxb2 40. h5 Nc3 41. Ne5 Rb5 42. f4 Ne4 43. g4 Nf6 44. Ng6 Ng8 45. Nf8+ Kh8 46. Ng6+ Kh7 47. Kf3 Rb3+ 48. Ke4 a3 49. Nf8+ Kh8 50. Ng6+ Kh7 51. g5 hxg5 52. fxg5 Rb4+ 53. Kf5 Rb5+ 54. Kg4 Rb4+ 55. Kf5 Rb5+ 56. Kg4 Rb4+ 57. Nf4 a2 58. Rxa2 Ne7 59. Ra8 Ng8 60. Ra7 Kh8 61. Ra8 Kh7 62. Rf8 Kh8 63. Kf3 Rb3+ 64. Ke4 Rb4+ 65. Ke5 Rb5+ 66. Nd5 Ra5 67. Rd8 Kh7 68. g6+ Kh8 69. h6 Ra7 70. Ne3 gxh6 71. Nf5 Ra5+ 72. Kf4 Ra4+ 73. Kf3 Ra3+ 74. Kg4 Ra4+ 75. Kh5 Ra7 76. Rf8 Rb7 77. Kh4 Rb4+ 78. Kg3 Rb6 79. Ne7 Kg7 80. Rf7+ 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Source: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1259586&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chessgames.com.&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="315" LastEditorUserId="315" LastEditDate="2019-02-02T20:14:04.717" LastActivityDate="2019-02-02T20:14:04.717" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23647" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23644" CreationDate="2019-02-02T14:03:24.363" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't know about the practical reasons that you suggest, but I imagine retirement is a way to tell your fans and the world &quot;stop bugging me!&quot;. :-) Super-GMs probably retire when they feel they are past their peak and would rather retire at the top of their game than have the world see them decline.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That said, retirement is not irreversible! For example look at Kasparov, who &quot;retired&quot; in 2005 and yet has reappeared in tournaments from time to time: &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garry_Kasparov#Retirement_from_chess&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garry_Kasparov#Retirement_from_chess&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12523" LastActivityDate="2019-02-02T14:03:24.363" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23648" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22904" CreationDate="2019-02-02T16:54:23.140" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your question is pretty old. Did you succeeded to resolve your problem? I am running scidvsmac 4.19 on Mojave without any problem. You may download it here: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://scidvspc.sourceforge.net/#toc3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://scidvspc.sourceforge.net/#toc3&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Best greetings &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;marek&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18420" LastActivityDate="2019-02-02T16:54:23.140" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23649" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-02-02T18:24:16.480" Score="0" ViewCount="4321" Body="&lt;p&gt;Which chess GUI will be good for Linux. I have tried a lot of GUI's, but as I am new at computer chess, I have no idea about pros and cons of chess GUI's.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which is chess GUI will you recommend? Is that free? Is that opensource?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18129" LastEditorUserId="18129" LastEditDate="2019-02-02T18:39:36.307" LastActivityDate="2019-02-03T03:21:31.250" Title="Chess GUI recommendation for linux" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;computer-chess&gt;&lt;online&gt;&lt;linux&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2019-02-04T14:57:32.627" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23650" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23645" CreationDate="2019-02-02T20:12:17.157" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The first chapter of Axel Smith's &lt;em&gt;Pump Up Your Rating&lt;/em&gt; is named &lt;strong&gt;No Pawn Lever, No Plan&lt;/strong&gt;, and he hit the bull's eye with that title. Plans come out of pawn structure and are usually about implementing one of the possible pawn levers in the position (it's when you move a pawn to square where it can be captured by an opposing pawn; also called a pawn break).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;But when all the pieces are out, well placed, and I have castled, I have no idea about what I should do next.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Says nothing about the pawns. Or about any of the opponent's pieces, for that matter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That &quot;balance&quot; is a red herring. If you have no plan, then how do you know your pieces are well placed. First decide what you should be trying to achieve, then see where to place your pieces. Including in the early opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most classical openings try to achieve the e4/d4 pawn center, so 1.e4 and 1.d4 are the most important first moves. After 1.e4 e5, the most important plans are about pawn breaks -- achieving a favourable d2-d4 (with or without playing c2-c3 first) or f2-f4. &#xA;Often the pieces are moved out first because of all sorts of details, but the goal is always to attack pawn e5 with a white pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similarly 1.d4 d5 2.c4 has always been the most important reply to the Queen's Gambit (2.e4 is less good because of tactical reasons, it can't be easily recaptured, but the &lt;em&gt;idea&lt;/em&gt; logical), while 1.d4 d5 openings without either have a stodgy reputation as it takes so long for the action to really start.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The beginner advice about developing your pieces, castling early etc is important, but they should have been told at the same time to try to achieve pawn breaks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2019-02-02T20:12:17.157" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23651" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23645" CreationDate="2019-02-02T20:39:20.960" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;From an objective/theoretical standpoint, a player is &quot;allowed&quot; to disrupt the balance if he already has some kind of advantage (material, more development, etc). Such a disruption allows him to transform his existing advantage into another type of advantage. For example, if you have a development advantage, it's often beneficial to aggressively break through in the centre as a means of creating an attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But if the game is equal, one does not have the means to disrupt the balance (again, purely from an objective standpoint), and maintaining the balance is recommended.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, trying to play idly is &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; equivalent to maintaining the balance. Playing idly is punished by chess, unless one's position is so rock solid that such passive play is permitted. The term &quot;balance&quot; means both players' advantages and disadvantages cancel out nicely to yield an equal game. Carrying out a plan and even changing the structure of the game is recommended, &lt;em&gt;since it doesn't necessarily try to unbalance the game&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;TL;DR&lt;/strong&gt;: Chess usually punishes players who passively try to keep the game from changing. But chess also punishes players who try to disrupt the balance without just cause (i.e., some advantage). Going with the natural flow of the game will change things, but also keep the game in balance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-02-02T20:39:20.960" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23652" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23644" CreationDate="2019-02-02T20:42:42.270" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's like any other profession. For example, just because someone retires from working as a software developer doesn't mean they can't do programming anymore. It's just that their official line of work won't involve software development anymore.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-02-02T20:42:42.270" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23653" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-02-02T21:06:34.130" Score="6" ViewCount="509" Body="&lt;p&gt;I thought I might take a minute to share a project I started about 20 years ago.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Essentially, I used my ChessMaster program to make a &quot;Chess Explorer&quot;.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In 1998, I noticed I could add notes into the annotation window for each chess position displayed in the game. After toying around with several ideas for a few months, I decided I wanted to document every variation of the Ruy Lopez, score each variation with the Chessmaster analysis engine, then record each score at the end of the line using the player annotation window.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then, I'd take that score, bring it forward however many moves to the previous point in the opening where a particular line branched off and compare that score with the scores of all the other candidate branches stemming from that position for which I'd also analysed and recorded the score.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At each of these positions where the opening could branch to one variation or another, I'd then sort each candidate line based on the score, going from best to worst.  Initially, I only did this for &quot;White to move&quot;, and ignored the windows displayed for &quot;Black to move&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I soon realized that it'd be cool to be able to use it for Black, as well. Then, some time later (probably a few weeks or more), I discovered that the Caro variation of the Lopez can transpose into the Steinitz at move 6 and this increased the complexity of my endeavor because I knew I'd have to make note of this transposition, record the score from that branch in the window where the transposition was possible - and that I'd need to do this for all transpositions in the Ruy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well, to make a long story short, the scope of my task exploded over the years until I finally accepted to fact that I could not analyse just a single opening.  I could not ignore the relevant transpositions.  Nor could I only consider the game from the perspective of only one color.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Indeed, I had to analyze and compare &lt;em&gt;every&lt;/em&gt; named opening, note &lt;em&gt;all&lt;/em&gt; relevant transpositions and do this from the perspective of both Black and White.  I'd have to compare all those lines and branches to one another, condense each result into the annotation window and bring the results of each comparison forward to the previous branch in the line.  I did this for every named opening until I reached the starting position of the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It took 10 years, give or take.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I was finished and had just hit the &quot;save&quot; button for what I thought would be the last time, I instantly realized that I also needed to include all credible moves, and not just the ones in named openings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No time to rest!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As to this task, I have not finished and don't expect that I ever will. Not in this life, anyway. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's a screenshot of the starting position, so far, comparing every opening move with every other move, and representing what effectively is 20 years of composite computer chess analysis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/lquBp.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/lquBp.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sadly, as the .CMG file containing all this information grows, it appears to be reaching the limits of the Chessmaster program.  I started with ChessMaster 7000, upgrading at each new release, and I'm currently using GrandMaster Edition.  I save the file every few edits, and backup the backups, but there have been a few times where I have lost weeks of work because of corrupted files probably resulting from broaching the limits of the program or a momentary shortfall of system resources during a save.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's a few more screen shots:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a position (Move 3, White to move) in the Bogo-Indian comparing three named candidate variations.  Note that one is a transposition to the Three Knights Variation of the Nimzo-Indian.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/sVjgH.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/sVjgH.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &quot;*1&quot; within the name of the line directs you to a note concerning the transposition.  The note tells which move order to use to see the continuation.  In other words, if I were to simply play Nc3 here, the following screen results:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/bSSGd.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/bSSGd.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Playing Nc3 here and transposing directly to the other line shows a blank annotation window.  This is because in order to avoid analyzing the same exact position more than once, I use this system of redirects instead and analyze a position only once.  Here's a screenshot of the Nimzo at the point just before (White to move) the Bogo can transpose into it:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/cKJYv.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/cKJYv.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that instead of an asterisk (*1) in the reference, I use a &quot;#&quot; along with a number to keep the references straight.  *'s I use to &lt;em&gt;point to&lt;/em&gt; the move sequence where the line continuation is documented, and #'s indicate that another line &lt;em&gt;transposes into&lt;/em&gt; the current point and that the referenced line &lt;em&gt;is dependent&lt;/em&gt; upon the following continuation.  This is necessary so that when I expand the main line with new analysis, I know where to go and update all the dependent transpositions as well.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And then the Main line continues with 4.Nf3:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/8jrMD.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/8jrMD.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, I'm looking to migrate my opening &quot;explorer&quot; to something more user friendly. It is pretty awkward to actually use in positions where lines transpose like a game of ping-pong at every other move. This is in addition to the fact that it looks like I am reaching the limits of the ChessMaster platform. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But on the whole, it works surprisingly well for a something I started 20 years ago.  Does anyone have any suggestions?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What I'm looking for is as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.) Position navigation similar to what 365chess.com offers (link based?), showing chessboard position as you step through the moves, ability to add candidate moves, and an editable annotation window for each position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.) Recognizes and seamlessly accounts for transitions.  For example, when I arrive at the position 1.Nf3 c5 2.e4, it shows the annotations and notes for the same position arrived at by the more common move sequence, 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3.  When I edit new notes, those notes show up for unique position no matter which move order is used to get there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3.) Ability to analyze each position with imported chess engines...this is probably standard on most programs, but I'm not too familiar with the process.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4.) I'm not interested in Win/Loss percentages like what is displayed at 365Chess.com, but I have noticed that 365 has recently added the results of engine analysis, displaying chess &quot;score&quot; along with depth of analysis.  Obviously, the position score is fundamental to my needs, but also the search depth is necessary.  My current platform does indeed record search depth/ply information along with score.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18414" LastEditorUserId="18414" LastEditDate="2019-02-02T23:03:41.923" LastActivityDate="2019-02-07T09:46:34.837" Title="Can anyone recommend a Chess platform that, well, you better read further" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;engines&gt;&lt;theory&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23654" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23649" CreationDate="2019-02-03T03:21:31.250" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I used &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.pychess.org/download/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.pychess.org/download/&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://sourceforge.net/projects/scidvspc/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://sourceforge.net/projects/scidvspc/&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Linux chess applications are generally free and open source. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2019-02-03T03:21:31.250" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23655" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23656" CreationDate="2019-02-03T09:49:19.087" Score="-3" ViewCount="251" Body="&lt;p&gt;Which is the most popular and crowded chess server? I'm new at computer chess, and want to start playing at servers, but I do not understand where I have to play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am hearing about &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.freechess.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;freechess&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessclub.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chessclub&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;lichess&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://chess.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chess.com&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How do I play in chess servers? Will I use a GUI or will I play directly in the browser. How do the professionals play?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mention that, I like free and open-source things.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18129" LastActivityDate="2019-02-04T15:24:23.750" Title="Which is the most popular and crowded chess server?" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;computer-chess&gt;&lt;online&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23656" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23655" CreationDate="2019-02-03T10:26:22.867" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Lichess has everything you need. Free and open source. It's the second or third popular website after chess.com (possibly chess24 not sure). Many strong players. No installation as it’s a web app.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2019-02-03T23:32:08.070" LastActivityDate="2019-02-03T23:32:08.070" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23657" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23655" CreationDate="2019-02-03T12:54:17.157" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Fide is the federation site for international chess and their &lt;a href=&quot;https://arena.myfide.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Arena site&lt;/a&gt; allows you to play online and even win titles like Arena Grand Master (AGM). It has resources and links to sites. It has statistics and world position lists of all rated players and is responsible for the chess Olympiad held every 2 years where countries compete. You can't become a Grandmaster unless fide rates you above a threshold&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18427" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-02-04T15:24:23.750" LastActivityDate="2019-02-04T15:24:23.750" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23658" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23645" CreationDate="2019-02-03T13:03:23.680" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes! While openings tend to be positional play for both sides such as following basics for eg developing pieces and controlling the centre, the middle game is tactically played with much more room for making detrimental errors though usually not with one move. Balance is not about how the pieces look on the 64 squares after the opening has ended but how each player commands it's army thereafter. Aggressive play on one side and safe play on the other can mean the difference between a match ending in the middle game or reaching the end.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18428" LastActivityDate="2019-02-03T13:03:23.680" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23659" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="593" CreationDate="2019-02-03T18:32:01.153" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;My experience with Chernev's “Logical Chess Move by Move” was kind of mixed. It is good but before starting it one would really benefit from knowing the style it is written in.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Initiated to chess in early childhood I have been playing it now and then for 20 years but remained somewhere between beginner and intermediate level. So, I found this book to finally start playing normally.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for the content, the book is indeed well-detailed and very analytical. Chernev follows every move with &lt;strong&gt;super clear descriptions&lt;/strong&gt; and in general it is simply a pleasant read because of its succinct and sometimes passionate language. This nice part accounts for two thirds of the book.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The rest of the book, however, is made of author's enumerations of all forced moved possible in those games. These are places where &lt;strong&gt;Chernev&lt;/strong&gt; just &lt;strong&gt;re-writes&lt;/strong&gt; in advance 7-10 or more hypothetical forced &lt;strong&gt;moves without giving context&lt;/strong&gt; or something else for your brain to catch onto. Often for one real move there are multiple these 'think far in advance' things. At moments, it really blows your mind and honestly may become boring. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, this smaller part of the book is clearly not for beginners and, in my opinion, at all is not well done. I spent half of reading time on it and did not get much use from it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Conclusion: Beginners could easily use this great book but would better drop the parts with forced moves&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18431" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-02-05T23:32:56.317" LastActivityDate="2019-02-05T23:32:56.317" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23660" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23662" CreationDate="2019-02-03T19:04:37.123" Score="13" ViewCount="3592" Body="&lt;p&gt;What was the first chess engine that could beat the world chess champion when running on a standard desktop playing at standard speeds (i.e. not blitz chess)? For concreteness, say a $1000 PC.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17920" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2019-02-04T23:36:11.027" LastActivityDate="2019-02-04T23:36:11.027" Title="What was the first chess engine that could beat the world champion on a standard desktop?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;human-versus-machine&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23661" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23660" CreationDate="2019-02-03T19:57:35.523" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;A standard desktop today is significantly more powerful than whatever machine Deep Blue was running on in the mid-1990s against Kasparov. Since Deep Blue was the first engine to beat  a world champion, that's the answer to your question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that there may have been an engine before Deep Blue that, if it ran on a modern day desktop, &lt;em&gt;could&lt;/em&gt; have beat Kasparov. But we never saw such a match happen so it's just speculation to say any earlier engine than Deep Blue.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-02-03T19:57:35.523" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23662" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23660" CreationDate="2019-02-03T22:18:02.437" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Blue_(chess_computer)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Deep Blue&lt;/a&gt; was a super computer. In the 2006 match, Kramnik was defeated by &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fritz_(chess)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Deep Fritz&lt;/a&gt; that everybody could buy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In a November 2006 match between Deep Fritz and world chess champion&#xA;  Vladimir Kramnik, the program ran on a computer system containing a&#xA;  dual-core Intel Xeon 5160 CPU, capable of evaluating only 8 million&#xA;  positions per second, but searching to an average depth of 17 to 18&#xA;  plies in the middlegame thanks to heuristics; it won 4–2.[31][32]  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;sup&gt;(&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chess.pl?tid=54499&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;source&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorDisplayName="user15565" LastEditDate="2019-02-04T19:16:32.540" LastActivityDate="2019-02-04T19:16:32.540" CommentCount="16" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23664" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23669" CreationDate="2019-02-04T09:38:59.380" Score="1" ViewCount="140" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am developing in my free time a python-based supervised chess engine. It is trained on past games to detect who wins (only games without draw), then it proceeds as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) find the top 4 moves based on static evaluation&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) search until depth four with minimax-algorithm&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) evaluation = 1/2 *( probability of white winning the &#xA;game + probability based on the material difference)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first probability is based on supervised learning.&#xA;I play occasionally chess and when I played on Xboard against this engine, then me and the engine make mistakes. I wanted to ask you, based on your experience if you could look at one game (me=white, engine = black) and maybe find some explanation for the mistakes the engine makes or even maybe suggest an approximate elo of the engine, if this is possible with only one game?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks for your help.(I am not sure how to correctly tag this question)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. d4 Nc6 2. Nf3 e6 3. e4 Nf6 4. Nc3 Bb4 5. Bb5 Nxe4 6. Qd3 Nxc3 7. bxc3 Bd6 8. Bxc6 dxc6 9. O-O f5 10. Bg5 Be7 11. h4 Qd6 12. Bxe7 Kxe7 13. Ng5 h6 14. Nf3 Bd7 15. c4 c5 16. Rab1 Bc6 17. Ne5 cxd4 18. Ng6+ Kf7 19. Nxh8+ Rxh8 20. Rb4 Be4 21. Qa3 a5 22. Qxa5 b6 23. Qa3 Ra8 24. Qb3 Bxc2 25. Qb2 Be4 26. c5 Qxc5 27. Rb5 Qc4 28. Qb3 Qxb3 29. axb3 Ke7 30. Rc1 c6 31. Rxb6 f4 32. f3 Bd5 33. Rb7+ Kf8 34. b4 Kg8 35. Rd1 c5 36. Rc7 Bb3 37. Rd2 Ra1+ 38. Kh2 cxb4 39. Rxd4 Bd5 40. Rxb4 Bxf3 41. gxf3 Ra2+ 42. Kh3 Rd2 43. Rc8+ Kh7 44. Rbc4 Kg6 45. Rxf4 e5 46. Re4 Kf6 47. Re8 Rd4 48. R4xe5 Kg6 49. R5e6+ Kh7 50. R6e7 Kg6 51. Rg8 Kf5 52. Rexg7 Ke5 53. Rh7 Rd2 54. Rxh6 Kf4 55. Rf8+ Ke3 56. Re6+ Kd4 57. Rd8+ Kc3 58. Rc8+ Kb3 59. Rb6+ Ka3 60. Ra8# *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user18387" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-02-04T10:14:13.150" LastActivityDate="2019-02-04T23:54:28.863" Title="Why might this supervised engine make mistakes based on an example game?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23665" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-02-04T16:34:14.160" Score="2" ViewCount="225" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to be able to play entire games blindfolded, atleast at the strength that I can win against beginner players. My current ELO is around 1800. I usually manage to play ok moves up to move 20, after that I struggle to see the position clearly, and have a hard time finding moves at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is 6 months a reasonably timeline to expect substantial improvements? What would a good strategy be to achieve this goal?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18441" LastEditorUserId="18441" LastEditDate="2019-02-04T17:24:29.703" LastActivityDate="2019-02-04T20:45:56.333" Title="Master blindfold chess in 6 months" Tags="&lt;blindfold-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2019-02-05T02:07:19.893" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23666" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2409" CreationDate="2019-02-04T17:06:55.410" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Initial values are Pawn - 1 point, Bishop, Knight - 3 Pawns, Rook - 5 Pawns, Queen - 9 Pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These values change in relation to the position and the configuration of pieces on either side.  Pieces on good squares are worth more than pieces on bad squares.  Point count is merely a rough, basic guide to the strength of each side; more important is the placement and activity of the pieces - this is where judgement of material imbalances becomes important.  You can't simply say that a Queen is equal to 3 minor pieces or 2 rooks; the position will dictate the relative values.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16639" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-08-17T02:14:33.840" LastActivityDate="2020-08-17T02:14:33.840" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23668" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23665" CreationDate="2019-02-04T20:45:56.333" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you spent roughly an hour a day for 6 months, then it's absolutely reasonable at your playing strength. The only chess-related thing you have to do is just practice playing blindfolded. Gradually it'll become more natural.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You could also do exercises for improving your overall memory (so not just related to chess). Such exercises are outside the scope of this community, but I'm sure you can find many online.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-02-04T20:45:56.333" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23669" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23664" CreationDate="2019-02-04T23:54:28.863" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well done for your engine. I think a positional mistake was &lt;code&gt;9...f5&lt;/code&gt;. It weakened the king position, and without any compensation in return. The move also seriously made the e5 square weak.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why your engine didn't make a simpler &lt;code&gt;9...h6&lt;/code&gt;? Probably, your engine put too much focus onto material differences into your NN network? You'll have to spend some time on debugging. Your engine needed better understanding of king's safety. Your search depth was also too low.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I estimate &lt;code&gt;FIDE 1600&lt;/code&gt; for your engine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2019-02-04T23:54:28.863" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23670" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23674" CreationDate="2019-02-05T15:16:36.700" Score="3" ViewCount="269" Body="&lt;p&gt;Whenever I play the English Opening, I usually try to achieve a c4, d4, e3 pawn structure. However, in &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SE4lLEo2Rs&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; video by STL chess club, the instructor recommends playing d3 (and possibly e4 later) to control the white squares as much as possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which is objectively better? Does it depend on the opponent's play?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18168" LastActivityDate="2019-02-07T23:23:35.743" Title="In the English Opening, where should the d-pawn go?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;pawn-structure&gt;&lt;english-opening&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23671" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-02-05T17:58:18.397" Score="19" ViewCount="1990" Body="&lt;p&gt;The usual case one often sees specially in blitz play is when one side (usually the winning) mis-plays and then stalemate occurs with the losing side dodging a loss. But are there positions where stalemate is a forced (maybe planned) outcome no matter what the opponent does?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15078" LastActivityDate="2021-05-02T03:55:08.540" Title="Examples of forced stalemate" Tags="&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;draw&gt;&lt;stalemate&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23672" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23671" CreationDate="2019-02-05T18:04:00.340" Score="26" Body="&lt;p&gt;Oh sure, here are two examples (annotated):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a neat puzzle from the chess.com tactics, with white to play!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [title &quot;White to play!&quot;]&#xA; [fen &quot;1q6/2b2ppb/4p1k1/7p/2Np1p1P/3P1Q2/6PK/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1.Ne5+ Bxe5 {black has to take else white either checkmates or wins the queen.} 2.Qg3+ fxg3+ {Pawn takes queen is forced else white checkmates} 3.Kh3 {and black has no way to avoid the imminent stalemate, any move draws!}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes stalemates are exploited strategically or tactically to force&#xA;a draw, e.g. in the game below between So and Karjakin, where black may&#xA;have had the stalemate setup in mind already when the white pawns got&#xA;to &#xA;&lt;code&gt;g6&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;h7&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [title &quot;W. So vs S. Karjakin 2017, black to move&quot;]&#xA; [fen &quot;4r2k/4P1pP/2pB2P1/2P2K2/8/8/R7/4r3 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1.R8xe7 {black switches to antichess style of play to force the draw.} Bxe7 2.Re5+ {and white has no way to avoid the stalemate, the rook will keep checking the king where ever it goes.} Kxe5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3594" LastActivityDate="2019-02-05T18:04:00.340" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23673" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23676" CreationDate="2019-02-05T20:52:56.940" Score="8" ViewCount="358" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am arbiter myself, but I don't know how to treat player in team matches who try to indicate other players of their team what move to play in position they are in. If they won their game I might first warn them and at the second time lower their score to 1/2 (to 0 in case of a draw), but if they lose their game, there is no way one can punish them. They have literally nothing to lose. According to FIDE rules, they become a spectator one can only exclude from the room. And even in that case, nothing can stop them just to not care and stay anyway. For the refference, we're talking about low contest, like regional once where most of the time the arbiter is actually a player of one team as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18453" LastEditorUserId="18475" LastEditDate="2019-02-09T19:28:40.590" LastActivityDate="2019-02-09T19:28:40.590" Title="Punishing player for indicating moves to other team players" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;cheating&gt;&lt;team&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23674" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23670" CreationDate="2019-02-05T21:46:59.390" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Once you play d4 you are usually leaving the pure English opening and transposing to a queen-pawn opening.  Objectively there are positions where it is absolutely better to transpose to a queen-pawn opening but you can certainly build a repertoire around playing the pawn to d3 -- it may just be easier for Black to equalize in some lines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The formation of c4, d3, e4 with the kings bishop fianchetto'd, knights on e2 and c3 was Botvinnik's baby and is a viable way to play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2019-02-05T21:46:59.390" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23675" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23670" CreationDate="2019-02-06T03:35:33.020" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It depends on your opponent's play and your own tastes. Neither are objectively better on their own merits. Yes, c4-d3-e4 does control the light squares, but it grossly weakens the central dark squares (especially d4). Your setup with c4,d4,e3 goes for broad central control, but is rather slow (sometimes allowing Black to strike first with ...d5).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's nothing wrong with pushing the d-pawn to d4. However, for the sake of speed in some positions, consider just playing c4 and d4 (omitting the move e3).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-02-06T03:35:33.020" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23676" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23673" CreationDate="2019-02-06T04:45:06.830" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is, quite obviously, cheating. I'm going to assume that the teammate isn't asking for help, and the guy is just blurting it out. (Otherwise a forfeit would be a given.) But even if the teammate doesn't want the advice and is doing nothing wrong, it's still extremely unfair to his opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/FIDE/handbook/Anti%20Cheating%20Guidelines.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Anti-Cheating Guidelines&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In a Team event, the team of the offending player shall be excluded from the final rankings. The results for the opposing teams shall remain unchanged. Each of the offender’s games shall be considered a loss, but the score for the opponent shall remain unchanged. All games shall be reported as unplayed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The prospect of &lt;em&gt;all&lt;/em&gt; of the player's games being considered losses and the team being removed from the event ranking is probably enough to deter this behavior. In addition, this counts as a breach of the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=9&amp;amp;view=category&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Code of Ethics&lt;/a&gt;, and the player could be suspended from FIDE events if they are reported to, and found guilty by, the Ethics Committee.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If that still isn't enough to deter them, there's another option. According to the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=208&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Laws of Chess&lt;/a&gt; 11.3.1, players are forbidden to &quot;use&quot; advice. You could, I believe, inform the teammate that playing the suggested move would be considered &quot;using&quot; the advice and could incur the penalty of a forfeit. Although rule 12.9 does not list forbidding a move as a possible penalty, this restriction is not really intended as a penalty against the teammate (who has not done anything wrong himself at this point) - it's simply an attempt to restore fairness to a game which was interfered with. It's not appropriate in all situations, either.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Prohibiting the suggested move in this situation is specifically contemplated under USCF rule 20E2 regarding unsolicited advice. Other options under this USCF rule include declaring the game a draw, or forfeiting the game on the grounds that advice from a teammate can automatically be presumed solicited.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastEditorUserId="12629" LastEditDate="2019-02-07T23:00:00.927" LastActivityDate="2019-02-07T23:00:00.927" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23677" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23673" CreationDate="2019-02-06T05:08:53.963" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;In a low contest regional type tournament, I'm assuming you don't have to abide by FIDE or USCF rules. Given this, I would suggest the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Warn them the first time you see this happening. Say that the next time you see this anytime in the rest of the tournament, their team loses whatever current match they're playing. So not only does one player lose a game, but their whole team forfeits the entire match.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Enforce your ultimatum from step 1 if you see them cheating again.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastEditorUserId="4509" LastEditDate="2019-02-07T05:15:30.857" LastActivityDate="2019-02-07T05:15:30.857" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23678" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23671" CreationDate="2019-02-06T11:42:50.110" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;Viswanathan Anand vs Vladimir Kramnik is a notable one:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;World Championship Tournament&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Mexico City MEX&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2007.09.15&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;3&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1/2-1/2&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Viswanathan Anand&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Vladimir Kramnik&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;C42&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;2803&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;2811&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;130&quot;]&#xA;[StartPly &quot;128&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.Nxe5 d6 4.Nf3 Nxe4 5.d4 d5 6.Bd3 Nc6 7.O-O&#xA;Be7 8.c4 Nb4 9.Be2 O-O 10.Nc3 Bf5 11.a3 Nxc3 12.bxc3 Nc6&#xA;13.Re1 Re8 14.cxd5 Qxd5 15.Bf4 Rac8 16.Qa4 Bd7 17.Qc2 Qf5&#xA;18.Qxf5 Bxf5 19.Bb5 Bd7 20.d5 Ne5 21.Bxd7 Nxd7 22.Bxc7 Rxc7&#xA;23.d6 Rxc3 24.dxe7 f6 25.Rad1 Rc7 26.Nd4 Ne5 27.f4 Nc6 28.Nxc6&#xA;bxc6 29.Rd6 c5 30.Ree6 c4 31.Rc6 Rexe7 32.Rxc4 Rxc4 33.Rxe7&#xA;Ra4 34.Rb7 h6 35.f5 Rxa3 36.Kf2 h5 37.g3 a5 38.Ra7 a4 39.h4&#xA;Ra2+ 40.Kf3 a3 41.Ke3 Ra1 42.Kf2 Kf8 43.Kg2 a2 44.Kh2 Ke8&#xA;45.Kg2 Kd8 46.Kh2 Kc8 47.Kg2 Kb8 48.Ra3 Kb7 49.Ra4 Kb6 50.Ra8&#xA;Kc5 51.Ra7 Kd5 52.Ra4 Ke5 53.Ra5+ Ke4 54.Kh2 Kf3 55.Ra3+ Kf2&#xA;56.Ra4 Kf1 57.Kh1 Ke1 58.Kg2 Kd1 59.Ra7 Rc1 60.Rxa2 Rc2+&#xA;61.Rxc2 Kxc2 62.Kf3 Kd3 63.g4 hxg4+ 64.Kxg4 Ke4 65.Kh5 Kxf5&#xA;1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anand forces the draw with 65. Kh5, after which 65... Kxf5 is stalemate, while not taking the pawn allows white into a winning pawn endgame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13544" LastActivityDate="2019-02-06T11:42:50.110" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23679" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23671" CreationDate="2019-02-06T12:53:55.997" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;The most common is the situation with King + Pawn vs King, if it's a draw. Okay, the stalemate isn't forced, but everything else is a draw too and it's important that the stalemate exists:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;8/3k4/8/3KP3/8/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e6+ Ke7 2.Ke5 Ke8 3.Kd6 Kd8 4.e7+ Ke8 5.Ke6 {Stalemate}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is also a sideline in the so-called Saveedra position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;8/8/1KP5/3r4/8/8/8/k7 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.c7 Rd6+ 2.Kb5 (2.Kc5? Rd1! {followed by Rc1(+), =}) Rd5+ 3.Kb4 Rd4+ 4.Kb3 Rd3+ 5.Kc2 Rd4! 6.c8=Q? (6.c8=R! Ra4 7.Kb3 {White wins}) Rc4+ 7.Qxc4 {Stalemate}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Instead 6.c8=R wins, because the stalemate isn't there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastEditorUserId="924" LastEditDate="2020-06-20T14:46:07.370" LastActivityDate="2020-06-20T14:46:07.370" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23680" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23653" CreationDate="2019-02-06T17:49:52.010" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Update -  I purchased Chessbase and am currently exploring this program as a candidate on which to continue this work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18414" LastActivityDate="2019-02-06T17:49:52.010" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23681" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23653" CreationDate="2019-02-07T09:29:04.310" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Man, you should have found Bookup way back when. That program is (I think) from about the same time period as when Chessmaster came out, and its development was entirely motivated by the need to solve these transpositions in opening theory. It started the genre of the chess &lt;em&gt;position&lt;/em&gt; database (as opposed to game or line databases).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And, to my surprise, I see it's still at least somewhat alive and kicking -- its &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.bookup.com/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;current home page&lt;/a&gt; has links to iOS and Android apps (no idea they existed. Edit: they links are broken) and to &#xA;its &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.bookup.com/home/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;old home page&lt;/a&gt; which also doesn't look all that old.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But a long time ago Bookup seemed not developed anymore, and someone started &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesspositiontrainer.com/index.php/en/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess Position Trainer&lt;/a&gt;. It's not that stable but it's useable. It's not quite as fanatical about finding transpositions as Bookup is, in return for more options for repertoires and spaced repetition training.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then came the online &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessable.com/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chessable&lt;/a&gt; which I was hoping to be an online version of Bookup (this sort of endeavour should really be cooperative, shouldn't it?) but they went in the direction of being online chess opening ebooks, focusing their databases on &lt;em&gt;lines&lt;/em&gt;, not &lt;em&gt;positions&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is also generic chess database software like Chessbase or Scid, but in my experience they are only good at detecting transpositions within the main game, but not if a position has already occurred in an analysis sideline of another game. That means you'd have to store all the analysis as separate games (without sidelines). That becomes infeasable very quickly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So if those Bookup apps are real modern versions of what Bookup was, then that's exactly what you need. Edit: Or if they aren't, then CPT or the old version of Bookup I guess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastEditorUserId="924" LastEditDate="2019-02-07T09:46:34.837" LastActivityDate="2019-02-07T09:46:34.837" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23682" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23673" CreationDate="2019-02-07T10:14:12.547" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Assuming that the player in the ongoing game did nothing wrong (did not speak to team members about the game) and a spectator team mate just shouts a move, there is unfortunately not much you can do in the moment, apart from removing the spectator from the room. The player did nothing wrong, and you are only the arbiter of the current match, not of the whole competition. The situation is similar to a normal spectator shouting advice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You mention lowering their score in their own finished game, but in my opinion that is not allowed by the rules -- their game is already finished and the result is already set, they are spectators.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What you can do is have the &lt;em&gt;team leader of the other team&lt;/em&gt; lodge a &lt;em&gt;formal complaint&lt;/em&gt; with the competition organiser. You as the arbiter can write a factual report of what happened, including the name of the team mate, and send it to the organiser along with the official result forms of the match. &lt;em&gt;They&lt;/em&gt; can issue warnings, match losses, a ban for the player, match point deductions, fines, you name it -- you can't. If this sort of thing is consistently reported, they can also know if it is just this one incident or a regular occurance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the spectator refuses to leave the playing area after being told to do so, you have bigger problems. I would abort the whole match at that point, write a report to the competition organisation and argue for a 8-0 loss (example) for that team.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastEditorUserId="924" LastEditDate="2019-02-07T10:20:25.570" LastActivityDate="2019-02-07T10:20:25.570" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23684" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23687" CreationDate="2019-02-07T11:08:32.047" Score="19" ViewCount="2853" Body="&lt;p&gt;I made a horrible decision as black in a game, and I do not understand why it's incorrect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;rn2kb1r/pp2pppp/1q3n2/2pp4/3P1P2/2PQPN2/PP4PP/RNB1K2R b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I played c4, Stockfish considers the position to be + 0.4 after the move. My reasoning: I forever block white's bad bishop behind his blocked pawns, while keeping my good bishop. Since I gain a tempo on the queen, I can move my queen right away to be able to answer the break b3 with b5. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am also thinking that my position is much better, as white has a hole on e4 and I don't have such a weakness, so I thought I'd capitalize on my advantage by closing up the position. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stockfish considers this move to be a really poor move, e6 leading to an evaluation of -0.7. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've had this several time, and it's unclear to me why my move is bad, even though it gives me an inferior position from a superior one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it always bad to close up the position this way, or is it specific to the position ? Why is it bad, because I forever lose my main pawn break ? Or because my &quot;good bishop&quot; has no target and is therefore not really good ? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18390" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-02-07T17:36:17.237" LastActivityDate="2020-01-09T04:16:49.780" Title="Assessing an early c4 against white's Stonewall structure" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;&lt;closed-position&gt;&lt;bad-bishop&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23685" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23684" CreationDate="2019-02-07T12:08:18.560" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some points:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White's &quot;bad&quot; bishop is already locked behind their pawns, your move doesn't change that, it's a feature of the opening white is playing. Long term white could go for &lt;code&gt;Bc1-d2-e1-h4&lt;/code&gt;, or play &lt;code&gt;b3&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;Ba3&lt;/code&gt;. In fact in your proposed line of &lt;code&gt;1...c4 Qc2 2.Qc6 3.b3 b5&lt;/code&gt;, white has &lt;code&gt;4.Ba3&lt;/code&gt;. Note that if you don't play &lt;code&gt;...c4, Ba3&lt;/code&gt; sometimes fails to &lt;code&gt;...cxd4 cxd4 Bxa3 Nxa3 Qa5+&lt;/code&gt; picking up the knight, but if you play &lt;code&gt;...c4&lt;/code&gt; white doesn't have to think about that possibility.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [title &quot;4.Ba3&quot;]&#xA; [fen &quot;rn2kb1r/pp2pppp/1q3n2/2pp4/3P1P2/2PQPN2/PP4PP/RNB1K2R b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1...c4 2.Qc2 Qc6 3.b3 b5 4.Ba3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similarly, your &quot;good&quot; bishop is already good. But it doesn't gain much from &lt;code&gt;...c4&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You have a good square on &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt;, but if you put a knight there then white will exchange it for his and there will be a pawn on that square. If white plays &lt;code&gt;Ne5&lt;/code&gt; and you exchange it, they can take &lt;code&gt;fxe5&lt;/code&gt; and get an attack over the f-file.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You removed the tension (white doesn't have to care about the option &lt;code&gt;...cxd4&lt;/code&gt; anymore) and now have few good pawn breaks (I don't think &lt;code&gt;...f6&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;...e5&lt;/code&gt; is going to work soon). If one the other hand white manages &lt;code&gt;e3-e4&lt;/code&gt;, then your pawn on &lt;code&gt;c4&lt;/code&gt; may become weak. Or white can attack it with &lt;code&gt;b3&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;a4&lt;/code&gt;. Or go for a kingside attack with &lt;code&gt;g2-g4&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I don't see your points. That said, &lt;code&gt;0.7&lt;/code&gt; is more of an advantage than I had expected, maybe there is a way for them to force you to waste some more time, or win a pawn?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastEditorUserId="15078" LastEditDate="2019-05-23T11:50:28.290" LastActivityDate="2019-05-23T11:50:28.290" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23686" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23684" CreationDate="2019-02-07T12:39:14.917" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;First of all, your plan of keeping White's queenside blocked doesn't quite work out in any case: After e.g. &lt;strong&gt;1...c4 2. Qe2 Qc7 3. b3 b5&lt;/strong&gt; White can simply continue attacking your pawn chain by &lt;strong&gt;4. a4&lt;/strong&gt; and you cannot answer &lt;strong&gt;4...a6&lt;/strong&gt; because of &lt;strong&gt;5. axb5 axb5? 6. Rxa8&lt;/strong&gt;. &#xA;If you try to protect the rook by &lt;strong&gt;2...Qc6&lt;/strong&gt;, White can insert &lt;strong&gt;3. Ne5&lt;/strong&gt; to displace the queen. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But even if White does not play a4, there are some things to note:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The blockade is not complete anyways, as the Bc1 can always escape&#xA;its own pawn chain via a3.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The move &lt;strong&gt;1...c4&lt;/strong&gt; is very committal, &lt;strong&gt;1...e6&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;on the other hand keeps all options open and even adds some more by&#xA;supporting the development of your kingside. Crucially, you can now&#xA;answer &lt;strong&gt;dxc5&lt;/strong&gt; by &lt;strong&gt;Bxc5&lt;/strong&gt;, and since e3 would become super weak,&#xA;White is discouraged to take on c5 anytime soon. The option of&#xA;playing &lt;strong&gt;...c4&lt;/strong&gt; thus won't disappear after &lt;strong&gt;1...e6&lt;/strong&gt;!&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;But in the meantime, the pawn keeps up pressure on the White centre from c5, pressure that an immediate &lt;strong&gt;...c4&lt;/strong&gt; loses.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In this light, you'd like your queen to stay on b6, too, where she eyes&#xA;both the g1-a7 diagonal as well as b2.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13433" LastEditorUserId="14079" LastEditDate="2019-02-07T13:27:22.630" LastActivityDate="2019-02-07T13:27:22.630" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23687" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23684" CreationDate="2019-02-07T13:00:55.463" Score="17" Body="&lt;p&gt;Good question! The positional priorities in this position do not really lie in whose bishop has more prospects, but rather in the emerging pawn structure, potential pawn breaks, and either side's ability to create targets and holes in opponent's camp. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In short, &lt;code&gt;c4&lt;/code&gt; here is an extremely committal move which should only be played if it can be backed by very strong concrete ideas, which do not exist in this position. Why does the fact that it's committal makes it into a poor choice? It's simply because it resolves white's strategy into something immediate and concrete, namely: to undermine black's pawn chain and create a weak pawn out of &lt;code&gt;c4&lt;/code&gt;, and to this end, the almost immediate &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; pawn break is perfectly playable for white without any drawbacks and black has nearly no means of preventing it. So in hindsight, moves such as &lt;code&gt;c4&lt;/code&gt; and similar ones in analogous positions, are only good if you are sure you can stop your opponent's relevant pawn breaks. Otherwise you're creating overly advanced pawns that will eventually turn into weaknesses that you cannot easily parry. &#xA;Remember, a pawn is considered to be weak if (all 3 must be met simultaneously):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;it &lt;strong&gt;cannot&lt;/strong&gt; move&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;it is &lt;strong&gt;isolated&lt;/strong&gt; (not defensible by pawns)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;it &lt;strong&gt;can be&lt;/strong&gt; attacked. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To summarise: with the unavoidable &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; by white and &lt;code&gt;a4&lt;/code&gt; in reply to &lt;code&gt;b5&lt;/code&gt;, the &lt;code&gt;c4&lt;/code&gt; pawn is bound to become a weakness as it meets all 3 said conditions. &#xA;Gained tempi and temporarily blocked out bishops are secondary in such positions, unless you have an actual threat following your pawn push (such as, an imminent knight jump to &lt;code&gt;d3&lt;/code&gt;!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More concretely, let's take a look at a few possible continuations as illustrated in the following diagrams:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Left:&lt;/strong&gt; Early &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; by white  |  &lt;strong&gt;mid:&lt;/strong&gt; early &lt;code&gt;b5&lt;/code&gt; attempt  |  &lt;strong&gt;right:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; blockade attempt&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/yEY5Zb.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/yEY5Zb.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/AKARPb.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/AKARPb.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/0Lxzab.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/0Lxzab.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Left: Immediately undermining &lt;code&gt;c4&lt;/code&gt;'s defense after &lt;code&gt;Qe2, Nbd2&lt;/code&gt;, if black takes, &lt;code&gt;c4&lt;/code&gt; is dropping soon and both knights will be well established centrally. And if black tries to sit still, &lt;code&gt;e4-e5&lt;/code&gt; is a threat, leaving black's kingside heavily undefended and white's pawn push is quite straightforward, black will lack space and the ability to create a counter-attack.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Mid: Black prepares for the immediate &lt;code&gt;b5&lt;/code&gt; (with &lt;code&gt;Qc7&lt;/code&gt;) in order to reinforce &lt;code&gt;c4&lt;/code&gt; which leads to: &lt;code&gt;Qe2, Qc7, Nbd2, e6, e4, b5, f5!&lt;/code&gt; and soon followed by &lt;code&gt;a4.&lt;/code&gt; Notice how white's perfectly undermining the entire pawn backbone (&lt;code&gt;e6, d5, b5&lt;/code&gt;) of &lt;code&gt;c4&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Right: Black simply tries to stop &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; by blockading it with a knight, but since it cannot really be followed up by &lt;code&gt;f5&lt;/code&gt; (as shown in the diagram), it will easily be challenged with &lt;code&gt;Nbd2&lt;/code&gt; after which black either has to take on &lt;code&gt;d2&lt;/code&gt; which revives &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; again, or lets white take on &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; leaving a ton of light square weaknesses behind along with a permanent knight post on &lt;code&gt;e5.&lt;/code&gt; Note that in this structure, black has no prospect for ever landing a knight on &lt;code&gt;d3&lt;/code&gt;, leaving the light square control that the overly advanced pawns have secured virtually unusable. Finally, notice that in neither of these cases, black's left with any form of initiative or targets in white's structure to allow for any counter-attack. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lastly, by not playing &lt;code&gt;c4&lt;/code&gt;, you can still entertain a timely resolution of the central pawns in order to either simplify or create weak points in white's centre. And to connect with our discussions, by holding still with the pawn on &lt;code&gt;c5&lt;/code&gt; you are actually stopping white's &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; push as after, say, &lt;code&gt;e6, Nbd2, Be7, e4&lt;/code&gt; you can simply take both on &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt; not allowing white any central control (unlike the case of &lt;code&gt;c4&lt;/code&gt; where white always had clear spatial advantage), and your structure is devoid of weaknesses. If anything, white will be the only side with potential dark square weaknesses. And if white recaptures on &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt; with the pawn, then it's a comfortable IQP structure with easy play for black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/wEMvvb.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/wEMvvb.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3594" LastEditorUserId="11202" LastEditDate="2020-01-09T04:16:49.780" LastActivityDate="2020-01-09T04:16:49.780" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23688" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23684" CreationDate="2019-02-07T14:16:03.043" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;The other answers were great, but I think you could sum it up like this :&#xA;the player who has built the stonewall is looking for a locked center so that he can benefit from the time to build up an attack on your king, funneling his pieces over in the vicinity of your king without having to worry about central counter-play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Doing c4 might superficially look like gaining space, but it really helps the opponent in keeping the center locked, by giving up a possible break which might be needed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18367" LastActivityDate="2019-02-07T14:16:03.043" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23689" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1922" CreationDate="2019-02-07T14:22:56.823" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;McDonald's &quot;Art of Logical Thinking&quot; is similar to the Chernev book since it has verbal explanation of pretty much every move, and is light on long variations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &quot;Planning&quot; book is more typical of chess books generally in that McDonald doesn't bother explaining many of the moves, figuring that his higher-rated audience would find the extra verbiage tedious and distracting. Also, long variations are sometimes provided.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Personally, I always prefer more verbal explanations, but those kind of books are relatively rare.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Nunn book is for higher-rated players and is heavy on long variations, requiring a lot of work on the part of the reader.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18367" LastActivityDate="2019-02-07T14:22:56.823" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23690" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23684" CreationDate="2019-02-07T17:08:38.410" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;...c4 is generally bad because it releases the tension on White's d4-pawn. This makes it much easier for White to get away with pushing e4, since the e3-pawn doesn't need to support the d4-pawn anymore.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You're correct that White does have a weak hole on e4, but after playing Qc2 and Nbd2, he's ready to push e4 and gain a central initiative.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-02-07T17:08:38.410" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23691" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23670" CreationDate="2019-02-07T23:23:35.743" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;One aspect of the English opening is that White retains a lot of options. He believes that c2-c4 will be a useful move in many different situations, so he may play with the idea of keeping his intentions concealed, or with the idea of leaving Black to disclose his intentions first. But it is also possible to play the English having a certain setup, such as the Botwinnik c4, d3, e4 structure, in mind. A common mistake is to do nothing but play &quot;flexible&quot; moves, and leave Black with a free hand to whatever he wants. Keep these considerations in mind as you play through some master games, and imagine whether you would feel comfortable in the situations that arise.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastActivityDate="2019-02-07T23:23:35.743" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23692" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5644" CreationDate="2019-02-07T23:32:32.743" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Read My System by Nimzowitch. You need to see examples where the isolated passed pawn is weak, and examples where it is strong. If your judgement on the matter can be consistently more accurate than that of your opponents, you will win a lot of games&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastActivityDate="2019-02-07T23:32:32.743" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23693" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23694" CreationDate="2019-02-08T03:59:08.750" Score="7" ViewCount="607" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why don't the developers of AlphaZero let it learn for days, or even months on end? Wouldn't its neural network become much stronger, at the cost of just occupying some computational resources for a while? It seems like this would make it indisputably the best engine in world, since right now there's still controversy on whether it's clearly better than Stockfish.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If something like this already is happening, please correct me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-02-08T06:16:23.027" Title="Is there a reason AlphaZero hasn't been allowed to learn for longer?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;alphazero&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23694" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23693" CreationDate="2019-02-08T04:06:02.093" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Google's hardware is already very convincing. However, allowing a network running forever doesn't mean it'll play stronger chess. There is always limitation, in machine learning we say the network has reached &quot;convergence&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Google developers must eventually stop the training, and evaluate it's performance. They would make a better model in the next iteration.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2019-02-08T04:06:02.093" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23695" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23693" CreationDate="2019-02-08T06:16:23.027" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;Check out the &lt;a href=&quot;https://arxiv.org/pdf/1712.01815.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;AlphaZero paper&lt;/a&gt;, figure 1.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/eHiOV.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/eHiOV.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you can see from the leftmost figure, you can let AlphaZero train, but that doesn't mean it'll improve. In fact, AlphaZero peaked at a level slightly above Stockfish 8 (in other words, it'll likely lose to Stockfish 10).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm no expert, but I understand Leela is competitive with Stockfish 10 not because she has trained for longer, but because she's doing certain things that AlphaZero didn't do (such as &quot;squeeze excitation&quot; as in the latest Test 40).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastActivityDate="2019-02-08T06:16:23.027" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23696" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-02-08T19:24:09.100" Score="-1" ViewCount="303" Body="&lt;p&gt;Image attached. May not be exactly right but looks something similar to this! Thanks&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/A0nU1.png&quot; alt=&quot;![enter image description here&quot;&gt;]&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/A0nU1.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;1&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18472" LastActivityDate="2019-02-13T15:54:10.177" Title="What is this opening, can't remember name, driving me crazy" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23697" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23696" CreationDate="2019-02-08T19:44:05.740" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is not an opening. This is an &quot;idealised&quot; set up for the white pieces which is unlikely to be possible in a normal game unless black plays something like the Hippopotamus opening. I put &quot;idealised&quot; in quotes because there is really no such thing as a universal ideal white set up. White's best set up depends on where black puts his pieces. All openings are a struggle to make your pieces &quot;good&quot; and your opponent's &quot;bad&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2019-02-08T19:44:05.740" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23698" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23613" CreationDate="2019-02-08T21:34:14.513" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a lot of material available, both in books and on the internet, about how to play isolated Queens pawn positions for both sides, but you ask one very simple question that has a short answer. You ask if there is any basis in the pawn structure for White to launch a King-side attack. There is, but is a bit indirect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If white plays passively, he may very well drift into an inferior endgame, so he needs to find a way to exert some control over the position, using the positive aspects of his pawn structure. Mostly this is that he has more space and more mobility, and he can use these to shift his pieces toward the enemy King. Typical moves include Ne5, Bd3 and Qc2, Bg5, Nc3-e4, Rae1-e3, f2-f4-f5. Even if the attack does not succeed, it will distract Black from his endgame plans. It is true that there are no targets yet for White to focus on, but they can usually be created later on. White must attack, because he really has nothing else to do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The issue of exchanging the light-square Bishops is not so clear IMHO.&#xA;Whites KB is mobile and plays many useful roles, attacking f7 and h7, preparing the thrust d5. Blacks QB has less mobility and activity, so a trade tends to relieve Blacks game. That being said, if this B can be posted on b7, it restrains the Pd4 and probes the White K-side, so can become very powerful. Rather than advising that it should always be exchanged off if possible, it might be better to say that its role must be given careful consideration.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastActivityDate="2019-02-08T21:34:14.513" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23699" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23696" CreationDate="2019-02-09T00:27:57.433" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is not an opening but rather a set-up. I believe it is called by many as a bull head set up. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7361" LastActivityDate="2019-02-09T00:27:57.433" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23700" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23613" CreationDate="2019-02-09T04:18:41.293" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In general, the player with more central control has the means to start a successful attack on the opponent's king. This is just a fact of chess, but I'll list a few reasons for it:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The player who controls the centre can use the central squares for efficiently maneuvering his pieces across the board. This plays well with a fast attack.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Central control provides the player with active outposts for his pieces, that often put them in striking distance to the opponent's king. As you noted, the e5-square works for the knight.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Central control gives the player more space, allowing his pieces to comfortably arrange themselves in attacking formation. For example, because of his central control, White can easily put his queen on d3 to set up a battery.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Control of the centre restricts the opponent's pieces. This allows the player to not worry so much about counterplay, allowing him to focus on offensive operations.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You noted White could also attack on the queenside. This is true, but here's why attacking on the kingside is better:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The King is a more valuable target than mere pawns and squares on the queenside.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The b1-h7 diagonal let's White create a Q+B battery right to the Black king's castle. There is no such equally powerful opportunity for pressuring the queenside.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, Black benefits from exchanging White's light-squared bishop due to the b1-h7 potential battery.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-02-09T04:18:41.293" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23703" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-02-10T04:27:48.573" Score="0" ViewCount="125" Body="&lt;p&gt;I enjoy playing chess and thought that I knew all of the &quot;rules&quot;??? However, I just found out now something interesting, though very confused regarding what exactly the &quot;Pawn&quot; is able to perform??? This may be hard to understand, but as we were playing, my opponent that I was playing against had eventually moved one of his &quot;Pawns&quot; almost to my end of the board (more than half way) and then took one of my pieces using some kind of a crazy format move??? I had always thought that in order for a &quot;Pawn&quot; to take an opponents piece, it had to take it with using only a one diagonal square move??? In this particular case, he moved his &quot;pawn&quot; in two spots using a two step process, one diagonal and then one forward and then he took one of my pieces, which I had thought was in a very safe position????? I apologize for the confusion question, hoping that you understand my question and can help me understand what I do not know???Thank you in advance for your help...  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18478" LastActivityDate="2020-04-20T06:16:17.837" Title="Confusing question about the &quot;Pawn&quot;" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2019-02-10T11:39:19.620" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23704" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23703" CreationDate="2019-02-10T06:13:18.543" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Check out &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/En_passant&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;en passant&lt;/a&gt;... a very common rule to overlook.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11263" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2020-04-20T06:16:17.837" LastActivityDate="2020-04-20T06:16:17.837" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23705" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23710" CreationDate="2019-02-10T07:23:35.850" Score="14" ViewCount="2277" Body="&lt;p&gt;Suppose my opponent in a tournament was running very low on time, and after move 40, presses the clock and leaves the board for a while, falsely believing they will get extra time on their clock. There have been many losses on time as a result of a similar situation. In this case, is it allowed to warn your opponent of the potential danger of flagging?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13544" LastEditorDisplayName="user1954" LastEditDate="2019-02-11T07:16:47.573" LastActivityDate="2019-02-11T11:57:33.663" Title="Is it allowed to talk to your opponent in a tournament game?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;etiquette&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23706" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23720" CreationDate="2019-02-10T10:00:28.830" Score="1" ViewCount="107" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm going through a classic book (Reti's Modern Ideas in Chess), which uses English descriptive notation rather than algebraic notation.  I see there is an online resource which has converted the book to algebraic notation, but is it possible to configure SCID to use English descriptive notation instead of the default?  Links below.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.openchessbooks.org/reti-mic/chapter1/combination.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.openchessbooks.org/reti-mic/chapter1/combination.html&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://sourceforge.net/projects/scid/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://sourceforge.net/projects/scid/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An example of the book notation is &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;4. P - Q Kt 4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which converts to the algebraic notation of&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;b4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17031" LastActivityDate="2019-02-11T12:22:16.927" Title="Is it possible to configure SCID to use English descriptive notation?" Tags="&lt;notation&gt;&lt;scid&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ClosedDate="2019-02-11T13:38:31.767" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23707" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-02-10T10:42:33.883" Score="3" ViewCount="218" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why is the Tartakower Variation of the Queen's Gambit Declined almost always predeced by 5...h6, while in the Orthodox defense an early ...h6 is almost never played by Black? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2020-09-13T09:42:58.923" LastActivityDate="2020-09-13T09:42:58.923" Title="Why 5...h6 in the Tartakower Queen's Gambit Declined and not in the Orthodox Variation?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;queens-gambit-declined&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23708" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-02-10T10:51:13.957" Score="1" ViewCount="282" Body="&lt;p&gt;This question is related to another I just posted, but it is actually a different question: if Black Defends the Tartakower QGD without an early ...h6, and I am an Anti-Tartakower–Makogonov–Bondarevsky vartiation player (5... h6 6. Bxf6 Bxf6), should I take an early Bxf6 nonetheless, by my own initiative, or should I keep my Bishop on g5? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2020-09-13T09:43:04.830" LastActivityDate="2020-09-13T09:43:04.830" Title="How should I play as White if Black Defends the Tartakover QGD without ...h6?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;queens-gambit-declined&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23710" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23705" CreationDate="2019-02-10T10:59:30.557" Score="17" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In this case, is it allowed to warn your opponent of the potential&#xA;  danger of flagging?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes. The rule which limits talking to your opponent is the one which forbids annoying the opponent, article 11.5 -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;11.5 It is forbidden to distract or annoy the opponent in any manner whatsoever. This includes unreasonable claims, unreasonable offers of&#xA;  a draw or the introduction of a source of noise into the playing area.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If your opponent has left the board and you remind him of the time control this cannot be interpreted as distracting or annoying. It is helpful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2019-02-10T10:59:30.557" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23711" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-02-10T15:52:06.937" Score="6" ViewCount="271" Body="&lt;p&gt;we belong to a state in India with over 5000 active players. FIDE rating tournaments and FIDE rated players are here but we wish to start a new internal rating system like the USCF or ACF rating systems. Are there softwares or websites for this? Kindly advise&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18484" LastActivityDate="2019-02-13T10:13:36.703" Title="Rating system for 5000 players" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;rating&gt;&lt;websites&gt;&lt;uscf&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23712" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23711" CreationDate="2019-02-10T17:53:08.983" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are two alternative rating systems - &lt;a href=&quot;http://glicko.net/glicko.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Glick/Glicko-2&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.garnergaggle.org/papa/chess/ELORater/help/index.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;EloRater&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I believe the author of EloRater is a member of this site - @JimGarner. You could try contacting him directly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2019-02-10T17:53:08.983" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23713" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23714" CreationDate="2019-02-10T18:07:30.483" Score="22" ViewCount="6144" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the game Andrey Esipenko - Nihal Sarin (2018 World Blitz Championship), after 7. Qb3 c4 8. Qc2 Sarin plays 8... Bf5, and before he hits the clock, Esipenko plays 9. Qc1, but since Nihal has not pressed the clock Esipenko can't (&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTQmINNA-I0&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; is the full video of the game).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as I understand this would lead to errors recording the game (because the DGT board only records a move when the clock is pressed). But how about the rules? Is this a breach? This is a blitz game and its obvious that both players let it go, but if either player appeals, who will get penalised?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13544" LastActivityDate="2019-10-09T23:21:17.107" Title="Is it legal to play a move without hitting the clock?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23714" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23713" CreationDate="2019-02-10T19:26:51.607" Score="26" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is this a breach?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No. Article 4.7 of the FIDE Laws of Chess defines when a move has been &quot;made&quot;. Basically when your hand loses contact with the piece moved/captured/promoted etc. Once the move has been made the opponent may make a move. This applies whether clocks are being used or not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If clocks are being used then the move is &quot;completed&quot; when the player presses the clock. If the player did not press the clock then it is completed when he makes his next move - article 6.2.1 -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;6.2.1 During the game each player, having made his move on the chessboard, shall stop his own clock and start his opponent’s clock&#xA;  (that is to say, he shall press his clock). This “completes” the move.&#xA;  A move is also completed if:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  6.2.1.1 the move ends the game (see Articles 5.1.1, 5.2.1, 5.2.2, 9.6.1 and 9.6.2), or&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  6.2.1.2 the player has made his next move, when his previous move was not completed&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When increments are used it is important that a player making a move should have the opportunity to press the clock and gain the increment. This is covered in article 6.2.2 -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;6.2.2 A player must be allowed to stop his clock after making his move, even after the opponent has made his next move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hence if the opponent makes his move before the player has pressed the clock then the player may press the clock without making a move and it is up to the opponent to press the clock back which most opponents would do immediately in a blitz game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, there is no breach, no penalty.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-02-10T20:57:10.077" LastActivityDate="2019-02-10T20:57:10.077" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23715" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23708" CreationDate="2019-02-10T19:41:27.920" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;It depends on your own tastes, but I'd recommend not taking. Taking after ...h6 is justified because it essentially costs Black a tempo (i.e., playing ...h6). If you take without provocation then no one's losing tempi, you're just making an exchange.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you really like trading on f6 then go ahead, but objectively you shouldn't have any advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-02-10T19:41:27.920" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23716" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23707" CreationDate="2019-02-10T19:47:38.367" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;2 main reasons:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The orthodox defense typically goes for a ...c6 structure and avoids ...b6 + ...c5. This makes Bxf6 a more viable option for White due to the more closed nature of the game. So, ...h6 could just end up wasting a tempo by nudging White to make a somewhat favourable exchange. Note that it's fine for you to play Bxf6 against the Tartakower too, it just works better against the orthodox.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The orthodox could see Black doing the maneuver Nbd7-Nf8-Ng6 (especially if White goes for a Carlsbad by exchanging on d5). This requires control over the g6 square if White has a Qc2+Bd3 battery set up. If Black has already played ...h6 and then plays ...Ng6, White wins a pawn with Bxg6 fxg6 Qxg6.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-02-10T19:47:38.367" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23717" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4702" CreationDate="2019-02-10T22:42:14.300" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;A common practice, although not to my knowledge in any rule book, is that if your flag falls, you only lose if there is a legal sequence of moves that ends with you being mated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This will lead to anomalous situations, such as you having plenty of pieces and your opponent just King and one Pawn. This is a win for your opponent because there will be a sequence of moves, probably very stupid, in which you give away all of your pieces and the opponent promotes his pawn. This means that your chief objective, in the moments before flag-fall, should have been to capture that pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastActivityDate="2019-02-10T22:42:14.300" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23718" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23705" CreationDate="2019-02-11T11:57:33.663" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Assuming the opponent got away from the chessboard, but nearby another game which takes place at a tournament, the only thing you should be careful, is not harassing the other players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Whispering your opponent that he or she is gonna lose because of the 40 move bonus that didn't apply is noble. You show some class this way, something missing from a lot of chess players nowadays.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18488" LastActivityDate="2019-02-11T11:57:33.663" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23719" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23713" CreationDate="2019-02-11T12:16:57.463" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can request for a clock press, reminding it to your opponent. 99% of the time people forget of the clock. &#xA;What you can do is either show the clock to your opponent after he or she played, or let the clock roll and enjoy your free time to think.&#xA;Obviously, showing the clock to your opponent is more noble that taking advantage of the situation. &#xA;If you rush to play a move you end up missing a press both of you. It is a mistake from both sides, thus you both have same responsibility. If someone loses in a fisher style tournament due to time, because they thought they pressed the clock 40 times, too bad. Thus, it is a good idea to remind the clock to your opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18488" LastActivityDate="2019-02-11T12:16:57.463" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23720" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23706" CreationDate="2019-02-11T12:22:16.927" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I looked through the help, the menus, and the option file. I didn't see anything that looked like it could do this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, SCID is open source. If you know programming, you could always add this functionality yourself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2019-02-11T12:22:16.927" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23721" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-02-11T16:57:48.907" Score="3" ViewCount="294" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm looking to implement a Glicko 2 library in my application, however the two libraries I'm considering are different. Firstly, they produce slightly different results for the same dataset (the default one given in the Glicko paper). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Second, and what I'm interested in, is how they calculate the results. Library 1 calculates each match one-by-one. That is, n-function calls to &lt;code&gt;calculateMatch()&lt;/code&gt;. Library 2 takes the entire set of data (all matches and players) and seemingly calculates it in one batch (although I'm not 100% on this).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What I wanted to know was &lt;strong&gt;does it make a difference if you calculate the results one by one or as one batch?&lt;/strong&gt; Maybe I'm misunderstanding how the Glicko calculations actually work, but some clarification would be greatly appreciated!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18492" LastActivityDate="2019-02-11T17:37:09.570" Title="Glicko 2- Calculating match-by-match or batch of matches?" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;glicko&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23722" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23721" CreationDate="2019-02-11T17:37:09.570" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What I wanted to know was &lt;strong&gt;does it make a difference if you calculate&#xA;  the results one by one or as one batch?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;http://glicko.net/glicko/glicko2.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Professor Mark E. Glickman&lt;/a&gt; -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The Glicko-2 system works best when the number of games in a rating&#xA;  period is moderate to large, say an average of at least 10-15 games&#xA;  per player in a rating period.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note the above link also gives Glickman's algorithms for Glicko 2&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2019-02-11T17:37:09.570" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23723" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-02-11T17:44:20.857" Score="21" ViewCount="7745" Body="&lt;p&gt;If a player intentionally damages a chess set (e.g. breaks a piece in two, cracks the board, etc.), is there a specific penalty under FIDE rules? I'm not talking about moving pieces around surreptitiously or attempting to obscure the current game state, but something like a player getting angry and, while lawfully moving their knight, they bite it with their teeth, drool on it, or crack it with their hands before putting it back down.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems like it &lt;em&gt;might&lt;/em&gt; fall under &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=208&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Rule 11.1&lt;/a&gt;, which provides&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;11.1 The players shall take no action that will bring the game of chess into disrepute.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to 11.6, such a violation &quot;shall lead to penalties in accordance with Article 12.9.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Would such an act fall under this general rule of sportsmanship, or is there a specific penalty (or specifically no penalty at all) for this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14122" LastActivityDate="2019-02-12T00:04:31.683" Title="Is there a specific penalty for intentionally damaging chess pieces or the board?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;fide&gt;&lt;sportsmanship&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23724" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23723" CreationDate="2019-02-11T17:53:32.710" Score="35" Body="&lt;p&gt;First of all I would consider the Preface:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The Laws of Chess cannot cover all possible situations that may arise&#xA;  during a game, nor can they regulate all administrative questions.&#xA;  Where cases are not precisely regulated by an Article of the Laws, it&#xA;  should be possible to reach a correct decision by studying analogous&#xA;  situations which are regulated in the Laws.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think it should be obvious that the sort of behavior you describe is wrong even if there is no rule that explicitly says &quot;biting, drooling on, or cracking pieces is not allowed&quot;. :-)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But you can also consider&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;11.5. It is forbidden to distract or annoy the opponent in any manner whatsoever [...]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't think any arbiter would question your claim of being annoyed if your opponent is chewing on the pieces!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12523" LastActivityDate="2019-02-11T17:53:32.710" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23727" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23713" CreationDate="2019-02-12T06:01:35.823" Score="0" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt; Is this a breach?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Haven't read all the manual pages, but afaik yes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even if the opponent plays the next move, you have a right to stop your clock and force opponent to spend fraction of &quot;their time&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In a timed game you can't get a free move. Free = costs no clock time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18497" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-10-09T23:21:17.107" LastActivityDate="2019-10-09T23:21:17.107" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23728" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23708" CreationDate="2019-02-12T16:55:41.577" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Be careful that you don't end up a tempo down in a known line, otherwise it is good to keep all your options open. h6 can benefit Black in giving luft to a castled king but overall it is a slight weakening of his position, so you should be encouraged to wait for Black to ask the Bishop it's intentions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Overall, unless you have a concrete reason to take the knight you should keep the Bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2019-02-12T16:55:41.577" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23729" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9192" CreationDate="2019-02-13T07:51:52.900" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Stockfish 9 and 10 had contempt set to 20 or so by default, so that the engine would avoid draws when playing against weaker opponents (i.e. most other engines and all humans).  If you change the contempt to 0 when analyzing, that should bring the evaluations with white or black to move closer to the same number.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8309" LastActivityDate="2019-02-13T07:51:52.900" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23730" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23711" CreationDate="2019-02-13T10:13:36.703" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;It seems that &lt;a href=&quot;https://rankade.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;rankade&lt;/a&gt;, our ranking system for sports, games, and more, fits your needs. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's free to use and it's designed to manage &lt;strong&gt;rankings&lt;/strong&gt; (and &lt;strong&gt;stats&lt;/strong&gt;, including matchup stats, and more) for small to large groups of players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Rankade doesn't use &lt;strong&gt;Elo&lt;/strong&gt;, but its algorithm (called &lt;em&gt;ree&lt;/em&gt; algorithm), although more complex (here's a &lt;a href=&quot;https://rankade.com/ree#ranking-system-comparison&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;comparison&lt;/a&gt; between most known rating system, including &lt;em&gt;Elo&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;Glicko&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;TrueSkill&lt;/em&gt;), is similar to Elo if you play 1-on-1 matches only.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On rankade (besides other sports and games) we host many chess groups, clubs, and associations.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7575" LastActivityDate="2019-02-13T10:13:36.703" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23731" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23696" CreationDate="2019-02-13T15:54:10.177" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sorry, but that isn't an actual opening.  That is a diagram that demonstrates the &quot;ideal position&quot; for each white piece.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An opening involves both White and Black moves, and the Black player has a lot of influence over which opening ends up being played.  For example, the White player may start with 1. e4 and an opening in mind, but it is the Black player who decides if he is responding with 1. .. e5 or 1. .. e6 or 1. .. d6 or 1. .. c5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18516" LastActivityDate="2019-02-13T15:54:10.177" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23732" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9192" CreationDate="2019-02-13T17:22:56.573" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, it's A). The engine is not perfect and can only search so far in a given time. When you make a move for White, the engine doesn't have to waste time considering White's other options anymore. It can focus on only searching down the sub-tree rooted at the move you just made for White.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's hard to say what this means about the positions that Stockfish is calculating. You might be tempted to say that the positions are tense and very sharp. However, using quiescence search, Stockfish tends to avoid evaluating such positions and waits until the game calms down. So it's hard to infer what the positions are like.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-02-13T17:22:56.573" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23733" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9192" CreationDate="2019-02-14T09:00:54.633" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Engines like Stockfish use something called the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimax&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Minimax Algorithm&lt;/a&gt;, which in short means that the engine &lt;strong&gt;always assumes best play&lt;/strong&gt; by the opponent. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That means it will not go for any traps if it sees a refutation that is beneficial to the opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The algorithm basically works so that it looks at as many positions as possible, and applying an evaluation function to them. Stockfish is extremly fast at calculating positions and thus looking pretty far ahead, but its evaluation function isn't as precise as that of Komodo, for example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a consequence, the evaluation can vary quite a bit, depending on how many positions it had time to calculate. Playing a move obviously limits the search space, so the engine can give a better analysis of that specific position, so it's more likely to find something that has a major impact on the evaluation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;TL;DR: Answer A is correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17202" LastActivityDate="2019-02-14T09:00:54.633" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23734" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23774" CreationDate="2019-02-14T18:11:06.417" Score="15" ViewCount="1289" Body="&lt;p&gt;As I understand it engines can be divided into four groups right now: those that use Alpha-beta (AB) + those that use Monte Carlo Tree Search (MCTS) for search, and those that use handwritten functions + those that use neural networks for eval. The two strongest engines are Leela and Stockfish. Leela uses MCTS + NN, while Stockfish uses AB + handwritten.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why these two combinations? Why not NN + AB, or MCTS + handwritten? If MCTS is better than AB, why isn't Komodo MCTS stronger than Komodo AB? If AB is better than MCTS, why isn't Leela using AB instead?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastActivityDate="2019-10-25T01:17:59.953" Title="Why does NN + MCTS &amp; AB + handwritten eval dominate engine chess?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23735" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23734" CreationDate="2019-02-15T03:16:59.247" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;AB and MCTS aren't necessarily better than each other on their own merits. It's just that they are different search algorithms that work better with different foundations. For the NN, MCTS works well since it allows the engine to explore branches that are doing better. This gives the engine more freedom to look at what it &quot;wants&quot; to.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Meanwhile with AB, all branches in principle have to be looked at. This is because even with iterative deepening, the engine only looks so far on each branch in each iteration. So it doesn't know if one branch is actually winning for one side, even if it seems losing at a limited depth.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-02-15T03:16:59.247" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23736" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23737" CreationDate="2019-02-15T16:03:44.150" Score="11" ViewCount="1452" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is the scenario: I pick up my Knight to capture my opponent's Bishop (touching the Bishop). I then realise my Knight was pinned to my King in the first place, so moving it would be illegal. However, I have already touched my opponent's Bishop with my Knight. Since I have touched my opponent's Bishop, would I have to capture the Bishop with another piece of mine (in this case my Queen can legally capture the Bishop instead), or am I allowed to just move any other piece entirely? Reference in FIDE Rules is Article 4.3.3 but it still seems it doesn't explain this scenario well enough.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18528" LastEditorUserId="17146" LastEditDate="2019-04-06T18:17:11.860" LastActivityDate="2019-04-06T18:17:11.860" Title="Touch-move when move is illegal but opponent's piece can be captured by another piece" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23737" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23736" CreationDate="2019-02-15T16:21:05.180" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;Article 4.3.2 clarifies this -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;4.3 Except as provided in Article 4.2 [j'adoube], if the player having the move touches on the chessboard,with the intention of moving or capturing:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;4.3.2 one or more of his opponent’s pieces, he must capture the first piece touched that can be captured&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the scenario you describe you touch your knight and your opponent's bishop with the intention of capturing the bishop with your knight. Moving the knight is illegal hence you may not capture the bishop with the knight. However capturing the bishop with some other piece, your queen, is legal. Therefore you must capture the bishop with that piece.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2019-02-15T16:21:05.180" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23739" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23708" CreationDate="2019-02-15T21:23:21.663" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think what's important here is a conceptual understanding of the openings involved. What you're essentially asking is whether or not Bxf6 is worth considering in something like the Orthodox Defense variation of the QGD or some Semi-Slav variation, and what are its differences compared to the the Bxf6 move featured in the Anti-Tartakower variation of the &lt;em&gt;Neo&lt;/em&gt;-Orthodox.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Firstly, one of the key reasons for which people may play the Neo-Orthodox rather than the Orthodox (or Semi-Slav) is that the latter ends up being more passive and cramped than the former, while still being solid. However, it features a key weakness: it uses a tempo to move the h-pawn. Even though White generally prefers to maintain the bishop (at least for a while) and to maintain the pressure in the position, the Anti-Tartakower nevertheless becomes coherent in light of this, as it takes advantage of a &quot;wasted&quot; tempo. Additionally, it avoids some of the more theoretical lines of the Tartakower. However, despite this, it's still generally considered a slightly worse try for White compared to the main line with Bh4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the Orthodox Defense, however, Black generally plays 5...O-O or 5...Nbd7. If Black plays 5...Nbd7, then 6.Bxf6 is a poor move, as it reduces White's pressure on Black's position, it makes Black's position less cramped, and it improves Black's knight on d7, all of that without even needing to invest a tempo on the h-pawn. If Black plays 5...O-O, then 6.Bxf6 is transposing to the Anti-Tartakower (which, as discussed, is already regarded as arguably not being the best try for White) but where Black has an extra tempo (as h6 wasn't played). Therefore, you can quickly tell that it must be an objectively poor choice for White. And this allows us to also address the differences between Bxf6 in the Orthodox and Bxf6 in the Neo-Orthodox: Black having an extra (and highly valuable) tempo to get his queen-side minor pieces out. Therefore, typical Anti-Tartakower plans such as playing Qb3 and trying to put pressure on the queenside will not be as effective. Therefore, while Bxf6 in the Orthodox is probably not outright &lt;em&gt;losing&lt;/em&gt;, it almost certainly sacrifices White's opening advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's also worth noting that the same applies in the Anti-Meran Gambit of the Semi-Slav (1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.Nc3 e6 5.Bg5). If Black plays the Moscow Variation (5...h6), then 6.Bxf6 is a good continuation for White. If, however, Black opts for something else (e.g. the Cambridge Springs Defence starting with 5...Nbd7), then 6.Bxf6 is no longer considered as good.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17713" LastActivityDate="2019-02-15T21:23:21.663" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23740" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23741" CreationDate="2019-02-16T12:47:56.197" Score="0" ViewCount="284" Body="&lt;p&gt;is there a simple / basic / quick checklist that beginners can use when in super easy games? I am not worried about questions like pawn structure, applying pressure, maintaining momentum, I am talking super basic like, will my knight move open my queen to attack? did his pawn open his bishop to wreck my back line?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am not worried about getting outplayed, I get frustrated that I didn't see the fact his bishop had a direct shot at my queen. Losing my queen isn't as much of an issue as the fact that I didn't even see it coming.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;yes, super beginner, yes, I need a quick and dirty checklist to start with before I can even THINK about maintaining pressure and pawn formations. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18534" LastActivityDate="2019-02-16T16:11:27.120" Title="Any suggested check list for beginners?" Tags="&lt;beginner&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2019-02-17T17:02:10.460" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23741" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23740" CreationDate="2019-02-16T16:11:27.120" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The focus is mostly on the piece your opponent just moved, and the piece you are moving. Most of the time, a blunder will involve one of those two pieces. Most of the rest of the time, a blunder will involve a discovered attack or not noticing that a piece was pinned to something more valuable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ways to lose your queen in one move mostly consist of:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You move your queen to a spot where it can simply be taken.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;You move another piece which was pinned to your queen, allowing it to be taken.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Your opponent moved a piece which is now attacking your queen, and you ignore it.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Your opponent moved a piece which allowed another of his pieces to attack your queen, and you ignore it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So that suggests a basic checklist of:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Make sure the piece you're about to move can't be taken for free.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Make sure the piece you're about to move isn't pinned to another piece.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Look at what the piece your opponent just moved is attacking.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Check if your opponent's move allowed another of his pieces to attack you.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ways to lose your queen in two moves mostly consist of:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your queen gets pinned.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Your queen gets skewered.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Your queen gets forked.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Your opponent plays a discovered check which also attacks your queen.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Your queen gets trapped.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the slightly less basic version of the checklist makes sure that your move does not allow any pins, forks, skewers, discovered checks, or trapped pieces, and that your opponent's last move does not threaten any of those.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And you should, of course, always be watching out for checkmate. It doesn't matter if you lose your queen if the game is over.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is not comprehensive - there are other ways to lose your queen fast. But it does check for some of the most common basic-level blunders.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2019-02-16T16:11:27.120" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23742" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23743" CreationDate="2019-02-16T23:25:26.267" Score="2" ViewCount="233" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am going to be going to my first tournament soon (the southern class championship),  and am slightly confused about the time control.  Most tournament listings have something along the lines of 40/100, SD/30, d10 which makes it obvious that the 10 second delay applies to both time controls.   However, the listing for the tournament says 40/100, SD/30 d10.  The lack of comma makes me think that possibly this delay only applies to the second time control.  Is this something I should ask the director about, or is this just another way to write a delay that applies to both time controls?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17435" LastActivityDate="2019-02-23T04:04:33.307" Title="Does 40/100, SD/30 d10 mean that the delay is applied to both time controls?" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;time-control&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23743" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23742" CreationDate="2019-02-17T00:02:36.733" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It looks like the tournament is run by the Continental Chess Association. From my experience playing in many CCA tournaments, the d10 is applied to both time controls.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3270" LastActivityDate="2019-02-17T00:02:36.733" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23744" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23747" CreationDate="2019-02-17T06:48:50.970" Score="3" ViewCount="91" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is the bonus time added before the game starts, that is before the first move?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I play in a competition that has a time control of 1 hour 40 minutes +30 seconds per move. If I set the chess clock to this time control, the game effectively starts with 1 h 40 min 30 s per Player. Is this the correct behaviour?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2019-02-17T12:47:51.047" Title="Bonus added at move zero" Tags="&lt;time-control&gt;&lt;chess-clocks&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23747" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23744" CreationDate="2019-02-17T12:47:51.047" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is this the correct behaviour?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes it is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Consider the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=197&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Rating Regulations&lt;/a&gt; -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1. Rate of Play&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  1.1 For a game to be rated each player must have the following minimum periods in which to complete all the moves, assuming the game lasts 60&#xA;  moves. Where at least one of the players in the game has a rating 2200&#xA;  or higher, each player must have a minimum of 120 minutes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The standard time control used in the vast majority of FIDE rated competitions is game in 90 minutes with a 30 second increment starting from move 1.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Suppose the increment is added after the player presses the clock and he starts with 90 minutes. After 59 moves his clock will show -&lt;br&gt;&#xA;90 minutes + 59x30 seconds - time taken to make 59 moves&lt;br&gt;&#xA;= 119 minutes 30 seconds - time taken to make 59 moves   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In other words he is going to have less than 120 minutes to make 60 moves because the 30 second increment doesn't get added &lt;strong&gt;until&lt;/strong&gt; he has completed 60 moves. If he takes 119 minutes 31 seconds to make 60 moves then his flag will have fallen before he presses the clock and gets the increment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Adding 30 seconds before the first move corrects this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2019-02-17T12:47:51.047" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23750" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9528" CreationDate="2019-02-18T00:20:49.893" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;If your opponent runs out of time but &lt;em&gt;you&lt;/em&gt; have no possible way to checkmate, the game is declared drawn (by FIDE rules). The rationale is that you couldn't have won the game no matter what, so you don't get a full point.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your game you technically could have won with only a knight if your opponent played very badly. So according to FIDE rules the server should have awarded you a win. However, the server doesn't have to abide by FIDE rules (personally I think the no mating material rule is fairer in this instance).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastEditorUserId="12873" LastEditDate="2019-02-23T04:01:24.280" LastActivityDate="2019-02-23T04:01:24.280" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23751" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-02-18T00:57:47.900" Score="7" ViewCount="268" Body="&lt;p&gt;this is about queen gambit declined lasker defence :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. Bg5 Be7 5. e3 O-O 6. Nf3 h6 7. Bh4 Ne4 8. Bxe7 Qxe7 9. Rc1 Nxc3 10. Rxc3 c6 11. Qc2 Nd7 12. a3 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;why or what is the purpose of  12.a3 ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17378" LastEditorUserId="13544" LastEditDate="2019-02-18T20:15:49.807" LastActivityDate="2019-02-19T12:47:54.900" Title="What is the purpose of 12.a3 in the QGD Lasker Defence?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;queens-gambit&gt;&lt;queens-gambit-declined&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23752" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23751" CreationDate="2019-02-18T01:03:37.397" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The main reason is to prepare a b4 push. This is especially useful if a Carlsbad structure is reached (after cxd5 exd5), when White will try to launch a queenside minority attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another reason is to stop Black's queen from intruding on the square, as well as the b8-knight (e.g., ...Na6 followed by ...Nb4).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-02-18T01:03:37.397" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23753" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13389" CreationDate="2019-02-18T02:37:51.723" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I will do the obligatory retro and proof game plug:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Proof games&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A type of problem where you are to reach the diagram position within a given number of moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A &lt;a href=&quot;http://abrobecker.free.fr/chess/IntroductionToPGs.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;good introductory PDF by Alain Brobecker&lt;/a&gt;, featuring many &amp;quot;classic&amp;quot; problems that are well-known among the proof game community.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Jeff Coakley has a lot of shorter (but still tricky) 4-move proof games on &lt;a href=&quot;https://chesscafe.com/columns/the-puzzling-side-of-chess/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chesscafe&lt;/a&gt; (although the site put them behind a paywall since 2014, the resourceful reader can probably figure something out...)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another simple example (original by me): Reach the position after black's 4th move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;rnbqkbnr/1ppppppp/8/p7/3P4/8/PPP1PPPP/RNB1KBNR w - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Shorter proof games of about 4 to 7 moves are pretty good for regular chess players, and you literally only need to know how the pieces move. Longer ones can go up to 30 moves (for a &amp;quot;normal&amp;quot; long proof game) or even over 180 moves (the longest I know of).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Retrograde analysis&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Given only the diagram position and the fact that it was reached in a legal chess game, determine some feature of the position like side to move, castling rights, en passant rights, whether a piece is promoted...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An excellent &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.janko.at/Retros/PedagogicalCollection.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;collection of simpler problems&lt;/a&gt; that slowly rise in difficulty.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A magnificent &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessproblem.net/viewtopic.php?t=429&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;introductory text&lt;/a&gt; by Nikolai Beluhov, an excellent composer of such problems. (Link is to a post containing PDF attachment.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another easy example by me again (although the idea is not new): What was the last move played? (I don't even need to give you the side to move for you to solve it.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;8/8/8/8/8/4PP2/1PPPRKPk/4nQ2 w - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15989" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2019-05-13T07:50:34.380" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23754" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23755" CreationDate="2019-02-18T11:43:54.203" Score="6" ViewCount="429" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was practicing with stockfish level 8, having two rooks in the endgame whereas stockfish has only one. At the 78th move, it was declared as a draw. But, it was not a stalemate. Can anyone please help me, finding out why is this a drawn match ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/f9pDb.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/f9pDb.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15511" LastEditorUserId="13544" LastEditDate="2019-02-18T12:46:26.640" LastActivityDate="2019-02-18T23:51:03.977" Title="Not in stalemate, but why is this a draw?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;draw&gt;&lt;rook-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23755" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23754" CreationDate="2019-02-18T11:56:04.790" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;The game ended because of the &lt;strong&gt;50-Move-Rule&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifty-move_rule&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The fifty-move rule in chess states that a player can claim a draw if no capture has been made and no pawn has been moved in the last fifty moves (for this purpose a &quot;move&quot; consists of a player completing their turn followed by the opponent completing their turn).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The last capture was made by white at move 28. (Rgxg6), so the game is declared a draw on move 78.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17911" LastEditorUserId="13544" LastEditDate="2019-02-18T12:44:20.733" LastActivityDate="2019-02-18T12:44:20.733" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23756" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23754" CreationDate="2019-02-18T23:51:03.977" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;You most likely played 50 moves without a capture or a pawn move. This is called the 50-move rule, which results in a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Check back to around move 28. You should see the last capture/pawn move there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-02-18T23:51:03.977" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23757" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23751" CreationDate="2019-02-19T12:41:19.010" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;12. a3&lt;/code&gt; in this position is a very concrete move, and as such, the best way to understand its purpose is to play out a handful of the main variations &lt;em&gt;with&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;without&lt;/em&gt; the &lt;code&gt;a3&lt;/code&gt; inclusion. If it's difficult to do that on your own, keep an engine on your side while you're doing your exploratory analysis. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Short answer:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;code&gt;a3&lt;/code&gt; is not necessarily needed for white here, as there are alternatives such as &lt;code&gt;Be2&lt;/code&gt; (see Ivanchuk vs Carlsen 2012), but &lt;code&gt;a3&lt;/code&gt; helps keep a slight additional edge for white, as in a number of lines that can ensue white will have stopped any options of &lt;code&gt;Qb4+, Qb5&lt;/code&gt; (stopping white's castling) and &lt;code&gt;Nf6-Nd5-Nb4&lt;/code&gt; (specially in lines where black opts for &lt;code&gt;b6.&lt;/code&gt;) To see why either of these options are relevant, let's go through some lines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Longer answer&lt;/strong&gt; (annotated, first go through the lines without &lt;code&gt;a3&lt;/code&gt;):  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [title &quot;Without and with a3 from move 12&quot;]&#xA; [fen &quot;r1b2rk1/pp1nqpp1/2p1p2p/3p4/2PP4/2R1PN2/PPQ2PPP/4KB1R w K - 2 12&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. Be2 (1. a3 {for the sake of comparison, let's follow through with both sides similarly to the Be2 line in order to highlight the underlying difference} dxc4 2. Bxc4 b6 3. Bd3 Nf6 (3...Bb7 {connecting the rooks and defending c6 directly} 4. Be4 Rfc8 5. Bxc6 {if c6-c5 could be played after Be4, black would be fine, but the knight on d7 leaves the queen and bishop disconnected, therefore, leaves c6 stuck on c6 and black cannot muster enough defense to hold on to it. So in this subvariation black still loses a clear pawn. We can conclude that after a3, black cannot really proceed with dxc4 and b6 ideas to finish development. However, dxc4 followed by e5 seems like a better alternative, but that's another discussion altogether.}) 4. Rxc6 Nd5 5. Qe2 Bb7 6. Rc1 {thanks to a3, white's a safe pawn up, has avoided simplifications for black, kept a healthy pawn structure and is ready to castle and maintaining control over the open file. Thus, a3, clearly refutes Nf6-Nd5 and leaves c6 hanging for black, so let's do better for black now.}) {Simply focusing on kingside development and to prepare short castles} dxc4 {a key forcing line that emphasizes the importance of control of b4 square} 2. Bxc4 b6 {in order for black to finish development, a solution has to be found for the locked out c8 bishop, therefore, either one opts for the e5 break early enough, or sets up the bishop on the long diagonal with b6, with either pawn breaks c5-e5 postponed for later.} 3. Bd3 {white's immediate reaction should be to prevent black's easy development, which here is simply to pressure the vulnerable c6 pawn, so Bd3 both uncovers the semi-open file and keeps the option of Be4 to add more pressure on c6.} Nf6 (3...Bb7 {for completeness let's consider the immediate Bb7 as well} 4. Be4 {usually throwing a Bh7+ first is good, but for the purpose of our discussions here it's not so important.} Rac8 5. Bxc6 Bxc6 6. Rxc6 Rxc6 7. Qxc6 Qb4+ {b4's not controlled by white!} 8. Qc3 Qb5 {black's well compensated for the pawn as white's unable to finish development and bring its last piece into play, black seems to be well in time for Nf6-Ne4-Nd6 followed by Rc8 claiming the open file, while white's left with no real initiative or even a clear path to finishing development.}) {but Bd3 is not even with tempo because black doesn't even have to immediately respond to the defense of c6 as Nf6 followed by Nd5 indirectly defends c6 as it comes with a double attack threat of Nb4 either forking the rook and queen, or the queen and bishop.} 4. Rxc6 Nd5 5. Qd2 {side-stepping the fork} Nb4 {b4's not controlled by white!} 6. Rc3 Nxd3+ 7. Qxd3 Bb7 8. O-O (8. Qe2 {as an alternative attempting not to prevent the kingside damage and holding on to the extra pawn} Rfc8 9. O-O Rxc3 10. bxc3 Rac8 11. Rc1 Qa3 12. Qd2 Bd5 {black's completely equalized as white's both weak pawns are under pressure and white has no initiative, Rc2 Be4 can even potentially lead to repetition.}) Bxf3 9. gxf3 Qg5+ 10. Kh1 Qd5 {black's winning back the temporarily sacrificed pawn and has a perfectly playable position without any weaknesses. This shows that Nf5-Nd5 is a very strong idea and if white wants to stop all these forcing variations which heavily simplify and equalize the game, then the said knight maneuver has to be stopped.}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Summary after our analysis:&lt;/strong&gt; Very concretely, &lt;code&gt;a3&lt;/code&gt; puts a clear stop to &lt;code&gt;dxc4&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;b6&lt;/code&gt; type of continuations for black (which would let them complete development comfortably), while maintaining the asymmetry of the position and avoiding simplifications which would favour black.  Black on the other hand, still has a number of choices at their disposal after &lt;code&gt;a3,&lt;/code&gt; one of which is &lt;code&gt;dxc4&lt;/code&gt; followed by &lt;code&gt;e5,&lt;/code&gt; either way, black has to have planned for a well-timed pawn break with &lt;code&gt;c5&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt; if and when they decide to take on &lt;code&gt;c4.&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3594" LastEditorUserId="3594" LastEditDate="2019-02-19T12:47:54.900" LastActivityDate="2019-02-19T12:47:54.900" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23758" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23759" CreationDate="2019-02-19T19:15:20.027" Score="5" ViewCount="389" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here are the first few moves:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.c4 e5 2.Nc3 Bb4 3.Nd5 Bc5 4.Nf3 e4 5.d4 Bf8  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After the fifth move, black has essentially only pushed one pawn, while while has developed two knights and his c-pawn and d-pawn. However, the current position does not seem bad for black at all. 365chess.com gives winnings percentage White / Draw / Black as 25% /50% /25%.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.c4 e5 2.Nc3 Bb4 3.Nd5 Bc5 4.Nf3 e4 5.d4 Bf8&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is, in the first few moves, has black violated any opening principles? Why this position is not too bad for black while he has only pushed one pawn while white has developed two nights (and it is white's turn now)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16626" LastEditorUserId="16626" LastEditDate="2019-02-20T01:10:13.757" LastActivityDate="2019-02-25T20:34:26.017" Title="Not Developing a Piece in the First Five Moves" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;english-opening&gt;&lt;development&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23759" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23758" CreationDate="2019-02-19T19:35:25.613" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;Obviously black has violated principles such as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;don't move a piece twice&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;develop pieces&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However opening principles are just general guidelines and in very concrete positions like the one at hand they are of little use. There are many established openings where opening principles are broken, so nothing wrong with that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the final position it is white's move, however the knight on f3 is attacked and has to move. After the knight has moved, black will most certainly kick away the other knight by playing c6 and then create a strong pawn center with d5 or f5. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White has currently a lead in development but black has more space and will have an easier development for its minor pieces than white. If there is nothing immediately threatening from white, I don't see why black should have a bad position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that my engine still prefers white's position by about +0.5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2019-02-19T19:35:25.613" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23760" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-02-19T23:18:04.420" Score="1" ViewCount="354" Body="&lt;p&gt;Everyone knows the amazing positional ability and endgame ability of Magnus Carlsen, but how is his tactical skills. I have heard someone say tactics are not his specialty? is this accurate&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18554" LastActivityDate="2019-02-20T03:49:34.067" Title="How good of a tactical player is Magnus?" Tags="&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2019-02-20T07:04:35.563" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23761" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23760" CreationDate="2019-02-19T23:45:53.100" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;He's definitely one of the most tactically skilled players on the planet. Arguably not the #1 tactical player, but he's definitely up there in the highest echelon.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He's more known for his endgame abilities, but that doesn't mean that he's lacking tactically. He wouldn't be able to gain and retain the world championship title for 6 years if he was.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-02-19T23:45:53.100" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23762" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23763" CreationDate="2019-02-20T02:44:29.170" Score="4" ViewCount="283" Body="&lt;p&gt;Fischer's play was powerful in this Nimzo-Indian, achieving a strong knight against two bishops in a closed position. The knight became a monster on f4. But why did Spassky let the knight reach f4? The idea of playing 26. g3 to prevent the knight from getting there seems like an obvious idea. If not for f4, it's hard to find a good square for the knight. Sure, the move 26. g3 has some drawbacks, like weakening the light squares around white's king and making the dark-squared bishop even worse. But it looks like the benefit would outweigh the drawbacks. What are your thoughts?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I used the chessgames.com engine to analyze the position and was surprised to find that 26. g3 wasn't even in the top two moves. I wonder why this is? Why did neither Spassky nor the chessgames.com engine choose 26. g3 as a move?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Spassky - Fischer World Championship Match&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Reykjavik ISL&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;1972.07.20&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;5&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Boris Spassky&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Robert James Fischer&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;E41&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 Bb4 4. Nf3 c5 5. e3 Nc6 6. Bd3 Bxc3+ 7. bxc3 d6 8. e4 e5 9. d5 Ne7 10. Nh4 h6 11. f4 Ng6 12. Nxg6 fxg6 13. fxe5 dxe5 14. Be3 b6 15. O-O O-O 16. a4 a5 17. Rb1 Bd7 18. Rb2 Rb8 19. Rbf2 Qe7 20. Bc2 g5 21. Bd2 Qe8 22. Be1 Qg6 23. Qd3 Nh5 24. Rxf8+ Rxf8 25. Rxf8+ Kxf8 26. Bd1 Nf4 27. Qc2 Bxa4 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2614" LastActivityDate="2019-02-20T02:54:24.163" Title="Why didn't Spassky play 26. g3 in game 5 of Fischer-Spassky (1972)?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;world-championship&gt;&lt;fischer&gt;&lt;spassky&gt;&lt;1972-world-championship&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23763" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23762" CreationDate="2019-02-20T02:54:24.163" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd actually argue that the drawbacks of g3 are worse than Black getting a knight on f4. White &lt;em&gt;permanently&lt;/em&gt; weakens the kingside light squares and blocks in his dark-squared bishop. Meanwhile, Black getting a knight on f4 is a bit unpleasant, but it's not necessarily a permanent problem. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Spassky probably thought that after 26...Nf4 27.Qc2, he was holding. He missed 27...Bxa4 of course, but if he had played 27.Qb1 instead, Komodo actually gives an equal evaluation. It's funner to play Black, but finding a plan to breakthrough is nontrivial.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After 26.g3 Nf6, Black is planning to play ...Qh5 and aggressively capitalize on White's weak light squares. If White stops this with 27.Qd1, Black has 27...Bg4. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-02-20T02:54:24.163" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23764" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23760" CreationDate="2019-02-20T02:59:12.763" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can't be a strong positional player without being a strong tactical player... and you can't be a strong tactical player without being a strong positional player. The two go hand in hand, and when a player is strong they tend to be strong in both domains. Here's one way of explaining this. In order to achieve a good position, you have to see the tactical possibilities on the board. This will let you find good squares for your pieces and activate them. And in order to have tactical possibilities, you need to achieve a good position, as tactics flow from a good position. That's why the two are connected. For someone of Magnus's strength (the best in the world) you have to be extremely strong in both. So, to answer your question, he is extremely strong at tactical chess, positional chess, and endgames.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another question you might ask is, what is his style? Does he play tactically or positionally? A player's style is largely composed of the positions they have learned and the openings they choose. Historically Magnus has a positional style as he tends to play strategic positions over sharp, tactical ones. However, recently this has changed. In the World Championship against Caruana, he played one of the sharpest openings with black, the Sicilian Sveshnikov. In Tata Steel he reprised this opening. Thus it seems that he is favoring sharp openings with black these days, perhaps out of his desire to win more games and play fewer draws. It will be interesting to see how he plays during the rest of the year. Will he continue to play sharp, unbalanced openings with black? Will he continue to play aggressively with considerable risk? To draw a connection between this question and the one you asked, it's important to point out that Magnus can do this -- switch from a positional style to a sharper and more aggressive style -- because he is so strong both tactically and positionally.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is a masterful endgame he played in 2012 which showcases both strategy and tactics. Notice how 38. Kd5 involves a tactic that lets him improve his position, an example of how tactical and positional chess are connected. Another example would be 49. f6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Grand Slam Chess Final&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Sao Paulo BRA&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2012.10.08&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;2012.09.24&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;6&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Magnus Carlsen&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Fabiano Caruana&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;C00&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e6 2.d3 d5 3.Nd2 Nf6 4.Ngf3 Nc6 5.c3 Bd6 6.Be2 O-O 7.O-O a5 8.Re1 e5 9.exd5 Nxd5 10.Nc4 Re8 11.Bf1 Bg4 12.h3 Bh5 13.g3 Nb6 14.Nxb6 cxb6 15.Bg2 b5 16.a4 b4 17.Be3 Bc7 18.Qb3 h6 19.Qc4 bxc3 20.bxc3 e4 21.dxe4 Bxf3 22.Bxf3 Ne5 23.Qe2 Nxf3+ 24.Qxf3 Qd3 25.Kg2 Qxe4 26.Bd4 Qxf3+ 27.Kxf3 b6 28.Rab1 Rac8 29.Re4 g6 30.g4 Kf8 31.h4 Rxe4 32.Kxe4 Re8+ 33.Kd3 Re6 34.Be3 Kg7 35.Rb5 Bd8 36.h5 Rd6+ 37.Kc4 Rc6+ 38.Kd5 Re6 39.Bd4+ Kf8 40.f4 Bc7 41.f5 Rd6+ 42.Ke4 Rc6 43.Rb1 Ke8 44.hxg6 fxg6 45.Rh1 Kf7 46.Kd5 Rd6+ 47.Kc4 gxf5 48.gxf5 Bd8 49.f6 Bxf6 50.Rxh6 Be7 51.Rxd6 Bxd6 52.Kb5 Ke6 53.Bxb6 Kd7 54.c4 Kc8 55.Bxa5 Kb7 56.Bb4 Bf4 57.c5 Ka7 58.c6 Kb8 59.a5 Ka7 60.a6 Ka8 61.Bc5 Bb8 62.Kc4 Bc7 63.Kd5 Bd8 64.Ke6 Bc7 65.Kd7 Ba5 66.Be7 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's a Sicilian he played as white against Karjakin in the 2016 tie break. He plays a strategic Maroczy bind in the opening but uses a clever tactic to win at the end.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Carlsen - Karjakin World Championship Match&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;New York, NY USA&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2016.11.30&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;2016.11.11&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;13.4&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Magnus Carlsen&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Sergey Karjakin&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;B54&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.f3 e5 6.Nb3 Be7 7.c4&#xA;a5 8.Be3 a4 9.Nc1 O-O 10.Nc3 Qa5 11.Qd2 Na6 12.Be2 Nc5 13.O-O&#xA;Bd7 14.Rb1 Rfc8 15.b4 axb3 16.axb3 Qd8 17.Nd3 Ne6 18.Nb4 Bc6&#xA;19.Rfd1 h5 20.Bf1 h4 21.Qf2 Nd7 22.g3 Ra3 23.Bh3 Rca8 24.Nc2&#xA;R3a6 25.Nb4 Ra5 26.Nc2 b6 27.Rd2 Qc7 28.Rbd1 Bf8 29.gxh4 Nf4&#xA;30.Bxf4 exf4 31.Bxd7 Qxd7 32.Nb4 Ra3 33.Nxc6 Qxc6 34.Nb5 Rxb3&#xA;35.Nd4 Qxc4 36.Nxb3 Qxb3 37.Qe2 Be7 38.Kg2 Qe6 39.h5 Ra3&#xA;40.Rd3 Ra2 41.R3d2 Ra3 42.Rd3 Ra7 43.Rd5 Rc7 44.Qd2 Qf6 45.Rf5&#xA;Qh4 46.Rc1 Ra7 47.Qxf4 Ra2+ 48.Kh1 Qf2 49.Rc8+ Kh7 50.Qh6+ 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And here's a blitz game he played in 2015. A lot of these moves, including the tactical blows at the end, he played almost instantly. Notice how 19... Bf5 20. Qd2 would lose to 20... Be4 with an unstoppable mate. In a blitz game it's very hard to respond to a move like 19... Bf5. Everything goes downhill after 20. e4 Qxd3. And 24... Bb4 followed by 25... Bd3 is a clever way of saving material after 24. Rd2 put both bishops in a skewer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;banter blitz&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;chess24.com&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2015.11.??&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;2017.??.??&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Jan Gustafsson&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Magnus Carlsen&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;A96&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Nf3 f5 2.g3 Nf6 3.Bg2 e6 4.O-O Be7 5.c4 O-O 6.Nc3 d6 7.d4 a5&#xA;8.b3 Qe8 9.Ba3 Na6 10.Rc1 Nb4 11.Qd2 Ne4 12.Nxe4 fxe4 13.Ne1&#xA;Qg6 14.Nc2 Bg5 15.e3 Nd3 16.Rcd1 e5 17.Bxe4 Qxe4 18.Qxd3 Qf3&#xA;19.dxe5 Bf5 20.e4 Qxd3 21.Rxd3 Bxe4 22.Rc3 Bd2 23.Re3 Bxc2&#xA;24.Re2 Bb4 25.Bxb4 Bd3 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2614" LastEditorUserId="2614" LastEditDate="2019-02-20T03:49:34.067" LastActivityDate="2019-02-20T03:49:34.067" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23765" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3971" CreationDate="2019-02-21T04:16:20.797" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Chess Repertoire Manager&lt;/strong&gt; is what you are looking for. In its latest release version 1.3.19 you are able to play chess games with the chess engine adjusted to your playing strength and with your selected particular opening. It is a &lt;strong&gt;free Android app&lt;/strong&gt;. Check it out here: &lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ayelmarc.chessorm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ayelmarc.chessorm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Though if you prefer the premium version, you can check it out here: &lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ayelmarc.chessormpro&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ayelmarc.chessormpro&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18559" LastEditorUserId="18559" LastEditDate="2019-05-06T01:20:46.233" LastActivityDate="2019-05-06T01:20:46.233" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23766" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22769" CreationDate="2019-02-21T05:36:06.447" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Have you looked at &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess-db.com/public/index.jsp&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://chess-db.com/public/index.jsp&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This website has historical players like: Morphy, Marshall, Steinitz, Bird. You can download all their games. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18557" LastActivityDate="2019-02-21T05:36:06.447" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23767" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3971" CreationDate="2019-02-21T11:56:46.110" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I use &lt;a href=&quot;https://beadappshelp.wixsite.com/chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess Repertoire Trainer&lt;/a&gt; for Android. There are free and paid versions, where the free version has ads and limits the number of openings you can add, and the paid version costs about $5 USD.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You create your opening manually or by importing PGN files. Then you train by playing &quot;your&quot; side (where the repertoire can only have one &quot;correct&quot; move for each position), while the app picks a move from the repertoire for the &quot;opponent&quot; (where the repertoire can have multiple moves per position). You can ask it to pick randomly, systematically, or with emphasis on positions that you've gotten wrong before.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A very important feature for me is that the app works offline, because I often use it on a subway train with no internet access.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12523" LastActivityDate="2019-02-21T11:56:46.110" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23768" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23770" CreationDate="2019-02-21T14:43:27.843" Score="4" ViewCount="851" Body="&lt;p&gt;I drew a game with rook and bishop vs an opposite color bishop due to the 50-move rule.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;4b3/k1B5/8/2K5/8/8/R7/8 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this a theoretical draw? If not, what is the technique to win?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18562" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-12-15T00:36:02.147" LastActivityDate="2020-12-15T00:36:02.147" Title="Rook and bishop vs. opposite color bishop" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;rook-and-minor-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23769" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23768" CreationDate="2019-02-21T15:01:06.117" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't know about the technique beyond trying to keep all your pieces on the dark squares and the enemy king cornered, but the position above is not a draw. According to the endgame tablebase it's mate in 10 moves. Here's one line:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;4b3/k1B5/8/2K5/8/8/R7/8 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Kb7 2. Ba5 Bg6 3. Rb2+ Ka7 4. Rb6 Bc2 5. Kd6&#xA;Bd1 6. Kc7 Bc2 7. Bc3 Be4 8. Bd4 Bb7 9. Rd6+&#xA;Ka8 10. Rd8+ Bc8 11. Rxc8#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want statistics more generally, see &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.maths.usyd.edu.au/u/thiel/misc/endgames/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.maths.usyd.edu.au/u/thiel/misc/endgames/&lt;/a&gt; . According to the table, for KRB vs KB, with white to move, 98.2% of positions are won by white and 1.8% are drawn; with black to move, 31.1% are drawn. Note that this table doesn't make the distinction between same-colored and opposite-colored bishops. The draws are probably positions where white loses the rook in the next move or two.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12523" LastEditorUserId="12523" LastEditDate="2019-02-21T15:15:33.797" LastActivityDate="2019-02-21T15:15:33.797" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23770" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23768" CreationDate="2019-02-21T18:23:21.967" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Definitely not a theoretical draw, this should be easily winning for White. The strategy to win would be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Advance with your king and rook to push back Black's king. If Black's light-squared bishop blocks your rook's check, then this means the Black king is on a dark square. Thus, you can use your dark-squared bishop to check the king and push it back.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Eventually you'll have pushed Black's king to either a light-squared or dark-squared corner.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If it's in a light-squared corner like a8, the light-squared bishop isn't able to act as a blockader from your rook. In the diagram you posted, here's one example of how to win:  1...Kb7 2.Bb6 Bh5 3.Ra7+ Kb8 4.Kd6 Bf3 5.Rc7 Bg2 6.Ba7+ Ka8 7.Kc5 Bf3 8.Kb6. Now all you need to do is maneuver your rook to the 8th rank to checkmate, which can be accomplished in as little as 2 moves.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If it's in a dark-squared corner like h8: Put your king on h6 and move your rook to the 8th rank, checking the Black king. If Black manages to block the check with ...Bg8, then you can checkmate immediately by moving your bishop onto the a1-h8 diagonal.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-02-21T18:23:21.967" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23771" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23773" CreationDate="2019-02-21T18:41:02.000" Score="2" ViewCount="826" Body="&lt;p&gt;Where does an engine (such as AlphaZero) use its neural network in MCTS? It shouldn't be needed to evaluate positions reached via MCTS, since I'm under the impression that only terminal game states are evaluated (checkmate or draws). Is the neural network used in the expansion portion of the MCTS algorithm? I.e., choosing which new move to expand on a leaf node, rather than randomly choosing a new move? If that's the case then it doesn't seem like the neural network plays such an important role.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-02-22T13:17:15.783" Title="Where is the neural network used in MCTS?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;programming&gt;&lt;alphazero&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23772" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23564" CreationDate="2019-02-21T18:43:07.157" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is definitely not possible in Stockfish. An engine like Stockfish plays the moves it would play against an engine, not a human. To get an engine playing with a human reasoning is very difficult due to the fact that the engine would have to determine how &quot;human&quot; every line is. You need a human brain to determine how complicated a specific variation is to a human.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The best you could try to get human play is to install an engine running on neural networks (LeelaChess being a good example) by using the neural network that enables the engine to play at an approximate ELO of the human you would like to simulate. Even this won't result in 100% human play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13544" LastActivityDate="2019-02-21T18:43:07.157" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23773" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23771" CreationDate="2019-02-21T20:35:45.780" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Neither AlphaZero, nor Lc0 (an open source project based on the AlphaZero paper), use MCTS in its pure form, because they do not perform game rollouts - the search is simply called MCTS because the way that it expands its tree is similar to MCTS.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are the main differences:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;MCTS performs random rollouts to a termination condition (e.g. win, draw, loss) at leaf nodes to estimate to value of that node, whereas AlphaZero and Lc0 simply use the neural network to estimate the win value. They do not perform rollouts.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;MCTS uses UCT to decide which node should be expanded. AlphaZero and Lc0 use the output of the neural network as an additional parameter in their versions of UCT: the neural network generates a probability associated with every possible move in the position, which allows the neural network to control the expansion of the search tree to some degree.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/LeelaChessZero/lc0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Lc0&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10075" LastActivityDate="2019-02-21T20:35:45.780" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23774" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23734" CreationDate="2019-02-21T21:36:09.733" Score="12" Body="&lt;h2&gt;Speed&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Neural networks operate much more slowly than handcrafted evaluation functions. In the &lt;a href=&quot;https://tcec.chessdom.com/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;TCEC Superfinal&lt;/a&gt;, Leela Chess Zero, running on two GPUs each with dedicated tensor cores, is able to search around 60 thousand positions per second. By contrast, Stockfish, on a single core on my PC, searches over 2 million positions per second.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While modern engines have a huge selection of &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessprogramming.org/Selectivity&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;techniques to cut off unnecessary branches&lt;/a&gt;, alpha-beta tree search is still very much a brute force technique, requiring vast numbers of positions to be searched to determine good moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;MCTS, by contrast, is far more selective, and only expands its search tree towards the most promising moves, which allows it to make the most of the more limited number of nodes that can be searched.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Worst-case behaviour&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One of the key requirements of the evaluation function for an engine based around alpha-beta search is that it must have &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.talkchess.com/forum3/viewtopic.php?topic_view=threads&amp;amp;p=135133&amp;amp;t=15504#p135133&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;good worst-case behaviour&lt;/a&gt;. This is because any large error in evaluation, however rare, can easily be propagated to the root and lead to a horrendously incorrect move being played.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By nature of their complexity, neural networks are prone to overfitting and can only be as good as the data used to train them. For example, in &lt;a href=&quot;http://legacy-tcec.chessdom.com/archive.php&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;match 80 of the TCEC Season 14 Superfinal&lt;/a&gt;, on move 47 Lc0 was apparently unfazed by Stockfish's extra queen, evaluating the position as a cool +0.77, while Stockfish (and most other engines) sported an evaluation of +8.31. A popular explanation for this is that Lc0 may not have had a significant number of games with multiple queens on the board in its training set. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Neural networks, therefore, have poor worst-case behaviour, and hence are likely to perform poorly with alpha beta search. MCTS, by contrast, allows an incorrect score assigned to one position to be offset by averaging it out with reasonable scores assigned to positions nearby in the search.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Quiescence&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All strong alpha-beta engines use a technique called &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessprogramming.org/Quiescence_Search&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;quiescence search&lt;/a&gt;, a restricted form of alpha-beta search applied at leaf nodes, in acknowledgement that their handcrafted evaluation functions only work well in &quot;quiet&quot; positions, where there are no pending captures or checks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, immediately after the first half of a queen exchange, a handcrafted evaluation function might tell you that the side which just had their queen taken is completely lost, whereas a neural network may be able to understand that the queen will be recaptured soon.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This makes handcrafted evaluation functions similarly unsuitable for MCTS due to absence of quiescence search, resulting in the handcrafted functions performing poorly much of the time (although Komodo 12 MCTS gets around this restriction by &lt;a href=&quot;http://talkchess.com/forum3/viewtopic.php?f=2&amp;amp;t=69891#p789773&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;using short alpha-beta searches anyway&lt;/a&gt;, to get quiescent positions and hence allow its handcrafted evaluation to return a reasonable score)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10075" LastActivityDate="2019-02-21T21:36:09.733" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23775" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23776" CreationDate="2019-02-21T21:53:09.230" Score="1" ViewCount="361" Body="&lt;p&gt;What are the quickest helpmates, which is where both sides help administer checkmate to one side,  delivered by the rook, knight, bishop, and pawn? The said piece has to deliver the checkmate on the final move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-11-29T15:45:16.577" LastActivityDate="2021-04-29T15:16:26.183" Title="What are the quckest helpmates delivered by the rook, knight, bishop, and pawn?" Tags="&lt;theory&gt;&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;pawns&gt;&lt;problems&gt;&lt;pieces&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23776" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23775" CreationDate="2019-02-21T22:18:28.100" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here's what I came up with.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bishop took me 3 moves:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 f5 2.Be2 g5 3.Bh5#  *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Knight took me 3 moves as Black:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 Nc6 2.Ne2 Nd4 3.g3 Nf3#  *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pawn took me 5 moves:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 Na6 2.Bc4 Nb4 3.e5 Na6 4.e6 Nc5 5.exf7#  *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Rook initially took me 6 moves, with 1.h4 f5 2.Rh3 f4 3.d4 f3 4.Rxf3 g6 5.Bh6 Nc6 6.Rxf8#. But I found a quicker way to checkmate with a rook - promote to one! This results in a checkmate in 5:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;1. g4 Nh6 2. g5 g6 3. gxh6 Bg7 4. hxg7 Na6 5. gxh8=R#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastEditorUserId="12629" LastEditDate="2019-02-22T04:03:00.580" LastActivityDate="2019-02-22T04:03:00.580" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23777" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23778" CreationDate="2019-02-22T07:21:30.717" Score="4" ViewCount="678" Body="&lt;p&gt;I played a game recently on chess.com, where the most detailed analysis identified a single blunder in the game -- 23. d6  The analysis given by the computer suggested that 23 Qd1 was better, with the line it gave then chasing the black knight around the board until it was captured, and freeing the Black queen rook in the process.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Myself and my opponent both like 23. d6 (well, I liked it more than he did) as it locks out the entire Black queenside for the rest of the game.  From my perspective I'm a rook and bishop up at this point, which makes it hard to me to see this as a blunder.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could anyone perhaps point out better reasons why I should regard this move as a blunder?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Let's Play!&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Chess.com&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2019.02.19&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;-&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;postmortes&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Glebbf&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;1341&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;859&quot;]&#xA;[TimeControl &quot;1/86400&quot;]&#xA;[EndDate &quot;2019.02.21&quot;]&#xA;[Termination &quot;postmortes won by checkmate&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. g3 e5 2. Bg2 Nf6 3. Nc3 Bd6 4. e3 Na6 5. Nge2 O-O 6. O-O c6 7. a3 Qc7 8. b4&#xA;Re8 9. d3 c5 10. Re1 h5 11. b5 Nb8 12. Rb1 Re6 13. Bd2 c4 14. a4 cxd3 15. cxd3&#xA;a6 16. b6 Qc5 17. d4 exd4 18. exd4 Qf5 19. Nf4 Bxf4 20. Bxf4 Nc6 21. d5 Rxe1+&#xA;22. Qxe1 Nd4 23. d6 h4 24. Ne4 h3 25. Nxf6+ Qxf6 26. Qe8+ Kh7 27. Be4+ Nf5 28.&#xA;Qe7 Qg6 29. Qe5 Kg8 30. Bxf5 f6 31. Qd5+ Qf7 32. Qxf7+ Kxf7 33. a5 g6 34. Bxh3&#xA;f5 35. Re1 Kf6 36. Bf1 Kf7 37. Bc4+ Kf6 38. h4 Kg7 39. Re7+ Kf8 40. Bh6# 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18569" LastActivityDate="2019-02-22T19:09:54.520" Title="What did I blunder at move 23?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;beginner&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23778" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23777" CreationDate="2019-02-22T09:58:35.017" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;This may be the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horizon_effect&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;horizon effect&lt;/a&gt; at work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I analyzed the position a bit with Lichess' Stockfish, which at depth ~20 likes 23. Rd1 (+8.0~8.5) even more than 23. Qd1 (+7.0~7.5). The idea is the same: White catches Black's knight, for an immediate material advantage (e.g. 23. Qd1 Nc2 24. Rb2 Na3 25. Qb3).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After 23. d6 on the other hand, Stockfish still gives a solid advantage of +4.0~5.0 (no human would call that &quot;blunder&quot; since it's still clearly winning) at depth ~20, but the following lines are rather unforcing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A likely explanation is that in either variation there are so many defensive possibilites left (there's a lot of open space to manoeuvre!) that Stockfish is unable to find a concrete way to force mate or even only increase White's advantage substantially within its search horizon. It does of course realize that White has the much better position, which it prices at around +5.0~6.0, but that's it. In the Qd1/Rd1 line, it then simply adds the material advantage of +2.0~3.0 of that missing knight. However, it won't do the same for the queenside rook and bishop in the d6 line since it has no way to tell that these pieces are buried forever (that would require it to go deeper in its search). The engine cannot exclude that these pieces will become active again at depth 50 or something, so it still counts them in. We as humans do of course know better (one of the last cases we do).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Case in point: While writing this, the evaluation of 23. d6 increased to +6.5 at depth 30. It will most likely converge with the one of 23. Qd1 / 23. Rd1 at some point.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;From a human point of view, you should not view this move as a blunder.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Update:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Depth 32 starting from the position after 22...Nd4:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1 23. Rd1 +8.4&#xA;2 23. Qd1 +7.7&#xA;3 23. Qe3 +7.1&#xA;4 23. d6 +6.9&#xA;5 ...&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We're getting closer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13433" LastEditorUserId="13433" LastEditDate="2019-02-22T10:17:56.057" LastActivityDate="2019-02-22T10:17:56.057" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23780" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23771" CreationDate="2019-02-22T13:17:15.783" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Disclaimer, not an expert.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As I understand it, the process runs something like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Given current position, ask the neural network for a prediction on 1) the move and 2) the win probability arising from that move.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Make that move. This gets to a leaf node. Query neural network for new prediction on 1) the move and 2) the win probability arising from that move.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;And so on ...&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Because it's Monte Carlo Tree Search, at some points the program will back up and search the move with the next-highest win probability.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When time is up, make the move that leads to the highest win probability.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See &lt;a href=&quot;https://applied-data.science/static/main/res/alpha_go_zero_cheat_sheet.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this link&lt;/a&gt; for an infographic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastActivityDate="2019-02-22T13:17:15.783" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23781" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-02-22T15:44:36.787" Score="2" ViewCount="148" Body="&lt;p&gt;When playing chess on a physical board, which way should the knights face? Sideways (as in chess diagrams) or straight ahead? If there is nothing in the rules about this, how do the professionals usually set up their knights?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2299" LastActivityDate="2019-02-22T19:02:12.813" Title="Setting up the knights" Tags="&lt;knights&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ClosedDate="2019-02-25T14:07:20.270" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23782" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23781" CreationDate="2019-02-22T16:15:30.157" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is nothing in the rules about this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The way that grandmasters set up their knights varies from person to person.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is an image from the world chess championship:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/192Hz.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/192Hz.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Carlsen and Caruana&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Carlsen has placed his knights facing each other, and Caruana has positioned his knights facing forwards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10075" LastActivityDate="2019-02-22T16:15:30.157" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23783" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23781" CreationDate="2019-02-22T19:02:12.813" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The rules say nothing about this, and it varies from person to person (including among professionals). Some people place their knights facing sideways and forwards, and another popular orientation is placing them in a diagonal pointed towards the centre.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You could place them pointing backwards if you want to screw with your opponent, but I've never seen someone do this in an actual game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-02-22T19:02:12.813" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23784" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23777" CreationDate="2019-02-22T19:09:54.520" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I wouldn't call your move a blunder, it seems just as good as winning the Black knight. Stockfish puts you at roughly +2.5 with 23.d6, while winning the knight with 23.Qd1 yields roughly +5.5. Honestly not such a huge difference - at such extreme evaluations you should generally prefer the move that's easier to play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's easier for engines to evaluate being a clean piece up, rather than a few of your opponent's pieces being indefinitely trapped. This is a well known flaw in the top well known engines (Stockfish, Komodo, Houdini, etc). They're very good at searching, but their evaluation functions aren't perfect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-02-22T19:09:54.520" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23785" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23758" CreationDate="2019-02-22T19:30:39.213" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The first moves look, by Black and White like a &quot;Sicilian with reversed colors!&quot; &#xA;(Before Bb4)&#xA;For Black I would prefer Nf6 (rather than Bb4)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After Bb4, I would move Qc2, (rather than Nd5) then a3&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) In the opening The first plan is &quot;sound development&quot;, prepare for a possible castling, as soon as possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) A &quot;premature attack&quot;, usually means a lose of time (tempo), which is dangerous in the opening phase!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18430" LastActivityDate="2019-02-22T19:30:39.213" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23786" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-02-22T23:26:49.270" Score="5" ViewCount="255" Body="&lt;p&gt;After  1.c4 Nf6 2. Nc3 g6, thousands of games have been played with the following two moves of white: 3.g3 and 3.e4. It seems that the winning percentage suggested that 3.e4 is clearly better than 3.g3, though interestingly, more games are played after 3.g3 than 3.e4. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    [fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.c4 Nf6 2. Nc3 g6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/UYO7m.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/UYO7m.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So my question is that, can one conclude that 3.e4 is better than 3.g3 based on the winning percentage?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similarly, in a position where thousands of games have been played, if say after Move A white's winning percentage is significantly higher than after Move B (say by 5%) and at the same time, the winning percentage for black is significantly lower, is it sufficient to conclude that Move A is better than Move B?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16626" LastActivityDate="2020-02-06T19:41:16.710" Title="In the opening stage, can we determine that one move is better than another by looking at winning percentage?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;database&gt;&lt;statistics&gt;&lt;english-opening&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23787" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23786" CreationDate="2019-02-23T00:07:47.500" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, these winning percentages should be taken with a grain of salt, especially for as early as move 3. The percentages largely depend on the type of players that go for certain lines. For example, if more inexperienced players favour 3.e4 more often, more of the 3.e4 games will have an inexperienced player playing White.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The percentages are simply one of many indications of a move's strength. Generally you should pay more attention to the number of games a move has, since that tells you if it's the main line or not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-02-23T00:07:47.500" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23788" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23742" CreationDate="2019-02-23T04:04:33.307" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The standard setting is for the delay to be applied to both time controls. I haven't heard of a tournament that has only applied the delay to one of the time controls. So it should be safe to assume the delay is enduring throughout the whole game, but it never hurts to ask the TD just in case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-02-23T04:04:33.307" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23789" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-02-23T11:14:17.587" Score="5" ViewCount="799" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recently played in a tournament in Iran (&lt;a href=&quot;http://chess-results.com/tnr412553.aspx?lan=1&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Fajr Cup, u2000&lt;/a&gt;), where 1600-rated players were a serious threat, and 1400-rated players would fight to the last pawn.  I don't think a single opponent of mine made significant tactical errors--they know how to calculate.  In my opinion, these players are vastly underrated, maybe by 300+ rating points.  I also play in China, which is also considered an underrated country (but Iran seems more underrated).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Players suggest countries for relatively easy rating points and FIDE title norms: A WGM suggested France or Spain, and a WFM suggested Turkey to me.  I'm tempted to go norm hunting, but I wonder where.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Which countries are easiest to gain rating points and earn FIDE titles in?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm after something a bit more concrete than some random countries, e.g., the usual places players go to get rating points and norms.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2785" LastActivityDate="2021-05-08T20:39:53.750" Title="Which countries are easiest to gain rating points and earn FIDE titles in?" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;titles&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23790" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23385" CreationDate="2019-02-23T14:34:20.220" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are a number of options:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Paid:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.hiarcs.com/pc-chess-explorer.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Hiarcs Chess Explorer&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.chessbase.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;ChessBase&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://shop.chessok.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&amp;amp;products_id=807&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;ChessOK Aquarium&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://shop.chessbase.com/en/products/fritz_16_english&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Fritz&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.shredderchess.com/pc.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Shredder&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Free:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://lucaschess.pythonanywhere.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Lucas Chess&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://scid.sourceforge.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;SCID&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.playwitharena.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Arena&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For all of the above, you should download the latest Stockfish and install it as an engine and use it for analysis, as it will likely be stronger than anything which comes by default.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I use HIARCS Chess Explorer, mainly due to the nice interface. I've heard Fritz can provide natural language analysis which could be useful for those new to chess engines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10075" LastActivityDate="2019-02-23T14:34:20.220" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23792" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23580" CreationDate="2019-02-23T16:21:20.803" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The specification is correct here. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An appropriate implementation would start a search, and then terminate it once a checkmate has been found in &lt;code&gt;x&lt;/code&gt; full moves, or &lt;code&gt;2x&lt;/code&gt; plies&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I believe this should say &quot;search for mate in x plies&quot;, as plies are used in most of the protocol.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is not the case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The way that mate scores are handled is one of the quirks of the UCI Protocol. As it happens, using full moves to describe mates &lt;strong&gt;is consistent&lt;/strong&gt; with the rest of the protocol. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, here is the section which describes how scores should be reported:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;* score&#xA;    * cp &amp;lt;x&amp;gt;&#xA;        the score from the engine's point of view in centipawns.&#xA;    * mate &amp;lt;y&amp;gt;&#xA;        mate in y moves, not plies.&#xA;        If the engine is getting mated use negative values for y.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here, the mate scores must also be reported in full moves, just like the requirement for &lt;code&gt;go mate &amp;lt;x&amp;gt;&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You are, however, right to find this unusual, as most chess engines do represent mate scores in plies internally.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10075" LastActivityDate="2019-02-23T16:21:20.803" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23793" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23796" CreationDate="2019-02-23T16:58:59.800" Score="0" ViewCount="52" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://ratings.fide.com/tournament_details.phtml?event=213396&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Here&lt;/a&gt; is this tournament on the FIDE website. However, there are no contact details, no venue mentioned and the tournament does not appear in the chess-results database. How do I register for such a tournament?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13544" LastActivityDate="2019-02-23T17:44:43.187" Title="How do I register for a tournament that appears in the FIDE website but not on chess-results?" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23794" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23789" CreationDate="2019-02-23T17:34:55.170" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Rating is a lagging indicator. That is, it gives an estimate of playing strength in the past. Therefore by definition players who are improving are underrated and players who are declining in strength are overrated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore as a first step if you can enter late you should look at the age profile of the entries and avoid entering tournaments with lots of very young players (who are likely to be still improving) and try and enter tournaments with old (preferably senile :-)) players (who will likely be on the decline).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Looking at the &lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/download.phtml?period=2019-01-01&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;raw FIDE rating data&lt;/a&gt; which FIDE supply from January 2019 (I haven't yet loaded the latest February data in my database) and running a query gives the following results for average Date of Birth year for active players in federations with at least 1000 active players -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P 1. Denmark - 1966.4&lt;br&gt;&#xA; 2. Netherlands - 1969.5&lt;br&gt;&#xA; 3. Switzerland - 1970.95&lt;br&gt;&#xA; 4. Finland - 1972.8&lt;br&gt;&#xA; 5. Austria - 1974.2&lt;br&gt;&#xA; 6. Germany - 1974.6&lt;br&gt;&#xA; 7. Serbia - 1974.8&lt;br&gt;&#xA; 8. Sweden - 1976.1&lt;br&gt;&#xA; 9. Ireland - 1976.2&lt;br&gt;&#xA; 10. Bosnia Herzegovina - 1976.7&lt;br&gt;&#xA; ...&lt;br&gt;&#xA;P 22. Spain - 1984.9&lt;br&gt;&#xA;P 23. Australia - 1985.2&lt;br&gt;&#xA; ...&lt;br&gt;&#xA;P 34. France - 1986.9&lt;br&gt;&#xA; ...&lt;br&gt;&#xA;P 56. Iran - 1992.6&lt;br&gt;&#xA; ...&lt;br&gt;&#xA;P 70. India - 1997&lt;br&gt;&#xA;P 71. Turkey - 1997.8&lt;br&gt;&#xA; ...&lt;br&gt;&#xA;P 76. China - 1999.2&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, for best results try and enter tournaments in countries at the top of the list and avoid countries at the bottom.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that Spain and France are not much different to Australia and Turkey is on a par with India - far too young!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-02-24T09:40:33.157" LastActivityDate="2019-02-24T09:40:33.157" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23795" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23789" CreationDate="2019-02-23T17:35:27.650" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;In general, countries with many tournaments but not a super strong &quot;chess culture&quot;. I think China and Iran tend to not have so many tournaments (if I recall correctly), which explains why their players tend to be more underrated. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Meanwhile, European countries have lots of FIDE rated events (some clubs have such events every weekend!). Since they have more tournaments they're more susceptible to rating inflation, thus making their players a bit overrated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since Eastern Europe has a stronger chess culture, you should prefer western European countries. Great candidates are, as you mentioned, France or Spain.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-02-23T17:35:27.650" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23796" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23793" CreationDate="2019-02-23T17:44:43.187" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;FIDE used to publish contact details for arbiters but they no longer do so. However if you can look up any of the three mentioned arbiters and find contact details locally that would be your quickest route.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Failing that your next best bet would be to contact the &lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/fide_directory.phtml?country=SUD&amp;amp;list=837&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Sudan Chess Federation&lt;/a&gt;. There the email address is given as sudanchessfed@yahoo.com and the phone number as +249916177000. Additional (different) phone numbers are given for the president and two vice presidents. You could also try these.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2019-02-23T17:44:43.187" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23797" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-02-23T19:37:31.970" Score="-1" ViewCount="90" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm new to Chess FEN notation and I'm making an online chess game, but I have one problem, I need to check after every new move if there is a winner and which one is a winner. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can I extract that information from FEN notation ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user18580" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-02-23T23:48:44.523" LastActivityDate="2019-02-23T23:48:44.523" Title="Chess FEN winner" Tags="&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;fen&gt;&lt;winning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23798" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23797" CreationDate="2019-02-23T21:33:42.380" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;FEN (&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forsyth%E2%80%93Edwards_Notation&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Forsyth-Edwards Notation&lt;/a&gt;) is a way of recording the current position on the chess board - piece positions, active colour, castling possibilities, en passant target, half move clock, full move number. The result of the game is not included.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2019-02-23T21:33:42.380" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23799" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-02-24T00:14:31.087" Score="6" ViewCount="250" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was white and played this against a 1589 rated player on Lichess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The gambit happens at move 10 and it is characterized as a blunder by stockfish analysis. However, black does some inaccuracies and after a couple of moves he is trapped. Black does a blunder on move 13, and black cannot avoid being checkmated. It looks obvious from the analysis that black should have used the other pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there any more experienced players that could tell me some of the possible moves that black can do to avoid getting into trouble and also what white can do instead of taking the risks that i took after move 10. I am wondering what white should do after realizing the gambit was a blunder.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Hourly Blitz Arena&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2019.02.23&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;-&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[Variant &quot;Standard&quot;]&#xA;[TimeControl &quot;300+0&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;B21&quot;]&#xA;[Opening &quot;Sicilian Defense: Smith-Morra Gambit&quot;]&#xA;[Termination &quot;Normal&quot;]&#xA;[Annotator &quot;lichess.org&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. d4 { B21 Sicilian Defense: Smith-Morra Gambit } cxd4 3. Qxd4 Nc6 4. Qd1 Nf6 5. Nc3 d6 6. Bb5 Bd7 7. Nf3 a6 8. Ba4?! { (-0.03 → -0.56) Inaccuracy. Best move was Be2. } (8. Be2 e6 9. O-O Be7 10. Bf4 Qc7 11. a3 O-O 12. h3 b5) 8... b5 9. Bb3 b4?! { (-0.34 → 0.50) Inaccuracy. Best move was e6. } (9... e6 10. Qd3) 10. Bxf7+?? { (0.50 → -2.95) Blunder. Best move was Nd5. } (10. Nd5 e6 11. Nxf6+ Qxf6 12. O-O Be7 13. a3 bxa3 14. Rxa3 Ne5 15. Nd4 d5 16. exd5 Bxa3) 10... Kxf7 11. Ng5+ Kg8 12. Nd5 h6? { (-3.82 → -1.07) Mistake. Best move was e6. } (12... e6) 13. Nxf6+ exf6?? { (-1.26 → Mate in 2) Checkmate is now unavoidable. Best move was gxf6. } (13... gxf6) 14. Qd5+ { Black resigns. } 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17574" LastActivityDate="2019-03-30T01:05:43.167" Title="Poor gambit for white" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;blunder&gt;&lt;opening-traps&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23802" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23804" CreationDate="2019-02-24T09:12:48.083" Score="4" ViewCount="1158" Body="&lt;p&gt;In a Queen vs Pawn endgame where the pawn is a Rook pawn on the 7th rank, it is a draw unless the King is inside the winning box, as shown here:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/2UZCJ.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/2UZCJ.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is what is that winning box if the pawn is a Bishop pawn? Though I do know that the Queen needs to be on h2 or d2 against an f pawn, and on a2 or e2 against a c pawn. (Comparing to the whole 2nd rank if it was a Rook pawn).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16875" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2019-02-24T13:26:35.207" Title="What's the winning box for the King in a Queen against 7th rank Bishop-pawn endgame?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;queen-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23803" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23802" CreationDate="2019-02-24T10:41:40.963" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is given by &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.chessbase.com/post/endgame-blog-karsten-mueller-999e&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Karsten Muller for Chessbase&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/usYJ4.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/usYJ4.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastActivityDate="2019-02-24T10:41:40.963" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23804" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23802" CreationDate="2019-02-24T13:21:51.287" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are actually &lt;em&gt;two&lt;/em&gt; zones, depending on which side of the pawn the black king is. If it's already in the corner, the zone is small:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Wj4aT.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Wj4aT.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the black king on the other side (towards the center), the zone is larger. The white queen can force the king to stand in front of the pawn, giving the white king an extra tempo to reach the 'small' zone above. (This also applies if the king is in front of the pawn already.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/OVVcr.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/OVVcr.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;sub&gt;(diagrams from Fundamental Chess Endings by Müller and Lamprecht)&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2019-02-24T13:21:51.287" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23805" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23806" CreationDate="2019-02-24T20:37:32.297" Score="4" ViewCount="462" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can an Arabian mate be enforced without the king's help in this position?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;r6k/8/8/8/8/8/8/K6n w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-11-29T16:44:25.687" LastActivityDate="2020-11-29T16:44:25.687" Title="Is an Arabian mate possible without the king’s help?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;checkmate&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23806" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23805" CreationDate="2019-02-24T21:09:36.680" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think it is possible to forcibly mate the king with rook and knight only.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Proof: The only mating position is with the white king in a corner, the rook giving check from an adjacent square and the knight protecting the rook and covering the escape square.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For simplicity let's say Ka1, Rb1, Nc3. There are 7 other equivalent positions to this one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you retro-analyze the position the last move must have been with the rook along the b file from somewhere between b3 and b8. For the following analysis it does not matter from where it came.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then what was white's last move? It certainly was a king move from a2, b2 or b1 to the corner (a1). However, since white was not forced to move the king to the corner but could have moved to a3 or c1 (or to b3 if the rook was standing there), the mate cannot be forced.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;1r6k/8/8/8/8/K7/4n3/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;[StartPly &quot;4&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Ka2 Nc3+ 2. Ka1?? (2. Ka3!) Rb1++ &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastEditorUserId="15619" LastEditDate="2019-12-20T08:06:41.827" LastActivityDate="2019-12-20T08:06:41.827" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23807" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23808" CreationDate="2019-02-25T00:53:42.673" Score="8" ViewCount="2982" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Mr. Robot (TV series) episode &quot;eps2.2_init_1.asec&quot;, Elliot and Mr. Robot drew 3 consecutive chess games. They remark it's impossible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The odds of that are Impossible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as TV shows go, Mr. Robot is known for its technical accuracy. I was surprised when I heard that line, so I fact-checked it:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draw_(chess)#Frequency_of_draws&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[Frequency of draws] is currently &quot;holding pretty steady around 50%, and is only increasing at a very slow rate&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I understand that figure is for top-level tournaments, not 3 consecutive games from the same 2 players. Is there are any accuracy to that statement in the show? If not, is it different from the 50% rate for top-level players?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18587" LastActivityDate="2020-01-31T00:49:57.797" Title="What is the draw frequency for 3 consecutive games (same players; amateur level)?" Tags="&lt;draw&gt;&lt;statistics&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="8" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23808" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23807" CreationDate="2019-02-25T02:37:06.397" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;Definitely not impossible! It is true that draws are less frequent in amateur chess, and it is also true that draws are less frequent for faster games (how fast was the game in the show?), but even so, let's say that for a blitz game between evenly matched amateurs the draw frequency were 5%, or 1/20. If you played three games, the odds of playing three draws would be 1/8000, which while unlikely, is hardly &quot;impossible&quot;. This is assuming that the probabilities are independent, which may not be entirely true but I think is close enough for a rough estimate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't have an academic citation, but if you want some stats for online games you can look at the Lichess opening book: &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/analysis&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://lichess.org/analysis&lt;/a&gt; . Normally it shows master-level games, but if you click on the settings you can chose to look at Lichess games instead, and filter by rating and time control. For blitz games at rating 1600, the draw frequency is 4-5%, depending on the opening move (the draw is the small gray stripe without a percentage, so you have to compute it by difference):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/BnTFx.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/BnTFx.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the highest ratings, it's closer to 10% for blitz. And for classical chess, as you know, it's about 50% for top-level chess. For amateur chess I'd say maybe 10-20% but it depends on which level of amateur we are talking about. I won't cite the Lichess stats here because even though they have a &quot;classical&quot; category, it's really what would called rapid in over-the-board tournaments (30 min games in Lichess; OTB classical is usually 2 hours or more). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12523" LastEditorUserId="12523" LastEditDate="2019-02-25T02:53:43.877" LastActivityDate="2019-02-25T02:53:43.877" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23809" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23823" CreationDate="2019-02-25T04:57:35.360" Score="-6" ViewCount="478" Body="&lt;p&gt;As far as I can calculate, 6 is the limit for the most number of pawns on a single file possible. Is 7 possible at all, ignoring promotion? I only took into account using the edge of the board, not the center, so I may be wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-11-29T19:20:49.990" LastActivityDate="2021-04-29T14:54:26.673" Title="Is 6 the limit for the most pawns possible on a single file?" Tags="&lt;theory&gt;&lt;problems&gt;&lt;pawns&gt;&lt;pawn-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23810" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23807" CreationDate="2019-02-25T08:18:06.060" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;As standard math says, probability of &lt;em&gt;same&lt;/em&gt; event happening in a row for &lt;code&gt;N&lt;/code&gt; times is: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;P&lt;sub&gt;e&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;sup&gt;N&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;where P&lt;sub&gt;e&lt;/sub&gt; is single event probability.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So if we take as standard draw probability 50%, then event of having 3 draws in a row between some players will be 1/2&lt;sup&gt;3&lt;/sup&gt; = 0,125 = &lt;code&gt;12.5%&lt;/code&gt;. Thus not impossible, but &lt;strong&gt;unlikely&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However there can be specific pairs of players which always plays at optimal strategy for each-other, so that their games mostly ends in a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18590" LastEditorUserId="18590" LastEditDate="2019-02-25T12:29:09.613" LastActivityDate="2019-02-25T12:29:09.613" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23811" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23809" CreationDate="2019-02-25T14:22:26.567" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Addendum 9/2/2020-It turns out that the shortest possible game is actually in &lt;strong&gt;16.5. moves.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Henrik Juel &amp;amp; James Malcom, PDB Website 07/07/2020, Proof Game In 16.5 Moves&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. g4 Nc6 2. g5 f6 3. gxf6 Nd4 4. fxe7 Nf6 5. exd8 Nd5 6. a4 b5 7. axb5 c6 8. bxc6 Bd6 9. b4 Ba6 10. e4 Bd3 11. cxd3 O-O 12. cxd7 Rc8 13. exd5 Rc5 14. bxc5 Rf3 15. cxd6 Re3+ 16. fxe3 Kh8 17. exd4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source:&lt;a href=&quot;https://pdb.dieschwalbe.de/P1377635&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;The Die Schwalbe Chess Problem Database&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Uing black pawns-my thanks goes to @DM for this idea-I have completed my quest to find the shortest possible septupled pawns proof game in &lt;strong&gt;18.0 moves.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;James Malcom, chess.stackexchange.com 2/25/2019, Proof Game In 18.0 Moves&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 b6 2. d5 a5 3. d6 exd6 4. Qd5 c6 5. e4 cxd5 6. b4 f5 7. Bd3 fxe4 8. c4 exd3 9. c5 bxc5 10. Be3 axb4 11. Nc3 bxc3 12. Bd4 cxd4 13. O-O-O g5 14. f4 gxf4 15. Rd2 cxd2+ 16. Kb1 f3 17. Ne2 fxe2 18. Rd1 exd1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-04-29T14:54:26.673" LastActivityDate="2021-04-29T14:54:26.673" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23813" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12829" CreationDate="2019-02-25T15:57:31.517" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've read 60 Memorable Games by Fischer, Art of Attack by Vukovic, Understanding Chess: Move by Move by Nunn, and My System by Nimzowitsch.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These books got me to ~1800, but something was missing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Before the end of 2018, in December, IM Alejandro Moreno recommended Chess Praxis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Another book?&quot; I thought. Weary and withered, I reluctantly read the book. I really felt like a law student at this point (mind you, I was studying chess in a quiet area of the law library - with the rollable board and wooden pieces).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've read Chess Praxis. Here's where it's gotten me:&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/amllY.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Note the highest rating in October - that was when I finished reading the three books listed at the beginning of this post, minus Nimzowitsch. I was playing sharp, but my positional play was unsound. So once I got bored of the lines, I dropped down to ~1700 (!) in a week).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And in my last USCF Tournament (2/16/19), I scored 2.5/4.0 in the open, beat an expert, drew a National Master, and took a 1900 to the cleaners. My rating exploded from 1815 -&gt; 1880.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If there's one book you must read, it's Chess Praxis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Reading those five books only took three months, but those will be the three most critical months of your life.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13147" LastActivityDate="2019-02-25T15:57:31.517" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23814" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13447" CreationDate="2019-02-25T15:58:52.770" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've read 60 Memorable Games by Fischer, Art of Attack by Vukovic, Understanding Chess: Move by Move by Nunn, and My System by Nimzowitsch.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These books got me to ~1800, but something was missing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Before the end of 2018, in December, IM Alejandro Moreno recommended Chess Praxis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Another book?&quot; I thought. Weary and withered, I reluctantly read the book. I really felt like a law student at this point (mind you, I was studying chess in a quiet area of the law library - with the rollable board and wooden pieces).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've read Chess Praxis. Here's where it's gotten me:&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/amllY.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Note the highest rating in October - that was when I finished reading the three books listed at the beginning of this post, minus Nimzowitsch. I was playing sharp, but my positional play was unsound. So once I got bored of the lines, I dropped down to ~1700 (!) in a week).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And in my last USCF Tournament (2/16/19), I scored 2.5/4.0 in the open, beat an expert, drew a National Master, and took a 1900 to the cleaners. My rating exploded from 1815 -&gt; 1880.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If there's one book you must read, it's Chess Praxis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Reading those five books only took three months, but those will be the three most critical months of your life.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13147" LastActivityDate="2019-02-25T15:58:52.770" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23815" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23786" CreationDate="2019-02-25T16:02:25.327" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I use the opening percentages when I review my games - never before. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes I'll see that my opening scores &quot;70%&quot; for my opponent - not good for me, even if I did win. So why did I win?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After looking at why it scores so high for my opponent, I see he missed a good move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But even then, the move has to be so good, it's forcing - as in, it's actually a trap. However, most of the time it only leaves my opponent with an advantage of 0.6 in his favor. I can live with that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13147" LastActivityDate="2019-02-25T16:02:25.327" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23816" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23805" CreationDate="2019-02-25T16:13:40.433" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The knight would have to go to c3, and then the king's only move is a1. Then Rb1 or Ra2 mate, the Arabian mate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But on 1.Nc3+, the king can go to a3. It can't go to the b-file, because we've assumed a rook is on b8. A similar argument holds for if the king starts on b1, with a rook on h2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Had a king been on c4, 1.Nc3+ Ka3 2.Rb3#. Therefore, a king is necessary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S. The Arabian mate is so-called because it exists from the times of Chaturanga (500 A.D.)! The rook, knight and king have always been able to move the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13147" LastActivityDate="2019-02-25T16:13:40.433" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23817" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23807" CreationDate="2019-02-25T17:17:41.937" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;From a transcript at &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/view_episode_scripts.php?tv-show=mr-robot-2015&amp;amp;episode=s02e04&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/view_episode_scripts.php?tv-show=mr-robot-2015&amp;amp;episode=s02e04&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;You just need to be able to see ahead of your opponent. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;But how can&#xA;  you when your other opponent is you? &lt;strong&gt;Stalemate&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Three in a row.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The&#xA;  odds of that are Impossible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the impossibility mentioned can be interpreted to be three stalemates in a row, not simply three draws.  I could not quickly find a reference to the stalemate rate, but it must be significantly less than the draw rate, and the cube of it will therefore tend a bit closer to &quot;impossible&quot;.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't know if the moves in the show are meant to be real games or just a nod to the audience that is looking closely (kind of like the in-jokes written in tiny print on &quot;Star Trek&quot; displays).  But the first two are &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/chess-games-in-tv-show-mr-robot&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;reported&lt;/a&gt; to be the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalemate#In_problems&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Loyd 10-move stalemate&lt;/a&gt; and the final game is Minerva's fastest known &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalemate#Double_stalemate&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;double stalemate&lt;/a&gt;.   (I don't have a copy of the video to confirm this)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because they are &quot;constructed&quot; puzzles, neither would be expected in a competitive game, only a cooperation scenario.  That may or may not mean something in the context of the episode.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18592" LastActivityDate="2019-02-25T17:17:41.937" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23818" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23786" CreationDate="2019-02-25T19:32:42.790" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The precise answer depends largely on the database, and the answer is still never yes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the database includes any players below 2500ish OR it includes blitz or rapid time controls, do NOT attempt to rely on these percentages. Inaccurate moves were likely played and possibly &quot;moved to the top&quot; of the possible moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You could possibly rely on percentages for main lines with high rated players and long games, but it's still a little risky.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would recommend looking instead at established opening theory books/websites as well as Stockfish.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18168" LastActivityDate="2019-02-25T19:32:42.790" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23820" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23758" CreationDate="2019-02-25T20:34:26.017" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In their recent book &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.newinchess.com/the-modern-english-1-c4-e5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;The Modern English 1.c4 e5&lt;/a&gt;, GM Kiril Georgiev and Semko Semkov consider the line 1.c4 e5 2.Nc3 Bb4 3.Nd5 (considered better than 3.Qc2) Bc5 (the alternative is 3...a5) 4.Nf3 e4, although their main variation continues with 4...c6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They now recommend 5.Ng5! because&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;5.d4 is also possible, but after 5...Be7 we cannot put the knight on g5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the game you consider, Black obviously anti-developed with 5...Bf8?! (which indeed goes against the main opening principle) because he was afraid of losing the bishop pair after 5...Be7 6.Ne7.&#xA;However, after a further 6...Qe7 7.Nd4 Nf6 (or even Qc5 8.e3 Nf6), Black's faster development and space advantage likely compensate for the bishops.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, 5...Bf8 6.Bf4 d6 7.Ng5 or 7.Nd2 yields a nice initiative to White. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastActivityDate="2019-02-25T20:34:26.017" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23821" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-02-25T22:40:43.820" Score="-2" ViewCount="68" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are there any hard-fast rules for when you should resign a game or when you should fight for it? For instance, in timed games I've realized if they are destroying me, but running out of time to do it (like, less than 30 seconds) I think it's worth it to make them play it out because it is hard (for lower rated players anyway) to play both accurately and fast.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there any well known rules for when you should just give up, or is it mostly up to you whether you think you can win or not?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18599" LastActivityDate="2019-02-25T22:40:43.820" Title="Are there some rules on when you should resign, vs when you stick with it should fight?" Tags="&lt;resigning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ClosedDate="2019-02-25T23:02:56.397" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23822" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23821" CreationDate="2019-02-25T22:40:43.820" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;As I was asking this, I came across &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/21387/is-it-wise-to-resign-a-game-if-the-win-is-only-apparent-too-many-moves-ahead&quot;&gt;this question&lt;/a&gt;, which is not a duplicate of my question, but had some answers which did answer mine, so I decided to answer my own question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Per &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/21394/18599&quot;&gt;this answer&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;For beginner players, who tend to blunder a piece or mate in one regularly, there is no point to resign early. Any game, even in (objectively) clearly lost position will help them to gain experience.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;For more advanced players, the &lt;strong&gt;decision to resign will depend on various factors and cannot be generalized&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Some factors to take into account before resigning:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Do I have any chances for active counterplay? &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Do I have any chances for drawing (building a fortress, stalemate,...)?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Is the position easily won for my opponent or is it rather a &quot;theoretical&quot; win, but difficult to do in &quot;practice&quot;? (e.g.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;How much time does my opponent&#xA;  have left?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Over the last couple of moves, did my opponent show that&#xA;  he understands how to play the position for a win?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18599" LastActivityDate="2019-02-25T22:40:43.820" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23823" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23809" CreationDate="2019-02-26T02:18:37.433" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you only include legal positions then 6 is the limit. The pawns could possibly occupy the 2nd-7th ranks, via diagonal captures towards the desired file.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you ignore promotion and allow pawns to be on the 8th rank (or 1st rank for Black's POV) then the limit is 7.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-02-26T02:18:37.433" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23824" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23805" CreationDate="2019-02-26T02:21:07.580" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's likely not a win, assuming White plays rationally. While it is possible to set up a checkmate position (e.g., knight on c3, rook on a2, White king on a1), Black shouldn't be able to force White into this position. The knight and rook can't control enough squares in their immediate vicinity to create a box and successfully push the White king back.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-02-26T02:21:07.580" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23826" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13447" CreationDate="2019-02-26T11:43:10.100" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;How to Reassess Your Chess, 4th Edition&lt;/em&gt; by Jeremy Silman is the book that has helped me progress the most. The author explains at length how to break down a position based on its imbalances with multiple examples from all level of plays.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The emphasis is given on general principles for positional play, not on critical lines or particular themes. In that regard, it's similar to the famous &lt;em&gt;My System&lt;/em&gt; books from Nimzowitch. For example, high level games (but also amateur blitz games!) are analyzed under the light of certain principles, in an easy to understand way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The book also tackles the subject of competitive mindset, what common pitfalls to avoid in reasoning, and conversely what kind of mindframe a player should build. That's a topic not often discussed in books, and has definitely helped me approach games more efficiently.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are around 650 pages, with tests at the end of each chapter to confirm what was just studied, assorted with an Elo indication for each test's level, to gauge their difficulty. Silman's writing style is clear, direct, and most importantly enjoyable to read.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I definitely recommend this book if you're looking to strengthen your fundamentals, if you want to improve your mindset, or if you just want to see the game under a new light. It's suited (according to the author, and I'd agree) for players between 1400 Elo and 2200 Elo, so it should fit right into your goal of reaching Expert class (1800-2000).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To conclude, the worst point about this book in my opinion is how long of a read it is for a middlegame book, but every page is worth it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16910" LastActivityDate="2019-02-26T11:43:10.100" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23827" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13447" CreationDate="2019-02-26T12:20:58.243" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In addition to the other nice suggestions and to studying other player's games, I highly recommend simply solving middlegame-strategy problems (they are about finding the best strategy, not the best moves per se), and for that the book of &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.scribd.com/document/108466014/Chess-Middlegame-Planning-Peter-Romanovsky&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess Middlegame planning&lt;/a&gt;&quot; by Peter Romanovsky makes for a perfect start. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [title &quot;Example from the book: important strategic decision for black&quot;]&#xA; [fen &quot;1rq3k1/5pb1/2p1r1p1/4p1Pp/1pP1P3/pP3Q1P/P1B2P2/2KR3R w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the above diagram, white has just played the move &lt;code&gt;c4,&lt;/code&gt; which is a big strategic mistake! How should black respond here? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It might be tempting, say in a blitz game, to just push &lt;code&gt;c5&lt;/code&gt; here to protect the &lt;code&gt;b&lt;/code&gt; pawn and lock the structure, but that would be a big miss! In this position, black has a very strong strategy at their disposal which requires the &lt;code&gt;c5&lt;/code&gt; square to be left free so the bishop can re-route. As Romanovsky goes about it, there are 4 stages to black's plan here: 1) Re-route the bishop to &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt; (e.g. &lt;code&gt;Bf8-Bc5-Bd4&lt;/code&gt;), 2) Consolidate the bishop with &lt;code&gt;c5,&lt;/code&gt; 3) Open the f-file (which will be semi-open, that is, here only open for black after &lt;code&gt;f6&lt;/code&gt;) 4) control the f-file with heavy pieces and invade white's structure via that file.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once spotting this plan, you can tell that it's nearly impossible for white to muster a defense against what black intends to achieve, therefore, one can argue that white is objectively lost here after having played &lt;code&gt;c4.&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;The book is filled with this kind of problems in the middlegame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3594" LastEditorUserId="3594" LastEditDate="2019-02-26T12:50:48.977" LastActivityDate="2019-02-26T12:50:48.977" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23828" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22587" CreationDate="2019-02-26T13:54:51.397" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Transmissions can be inaccurate in real-time. I once saw 1.e4 a6 in a Follow Chess game, but it was actually 1. e4 c5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the real game, GM Godena lost on time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13147" LastActivityDate="2019-02-26T13:54:51.397" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23829" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23786" CreationDate="2019-02-26T20:05:17.423" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Where were your data taken from? What do you know about the population? If the stats were the last 10 years of GM Tournaments around the World, well that would be a good guideline for two things: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Avoid a potential harmful move, everyone knows how to counter. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Study for Novelties (moves that you are gonna be established in new theory of openings with ! or !? and will not give any disadvantage while they stabilize or create interesting positions.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What value do those data have if taken from online chess games though? Well since the ELO rating in that case has greater variance and the intentions, timeouts also vary, since it is not a tournament that you give your best, you just play a game on the internet, you should take those data with a huge grain of salt, as you were already told. The data do not determine anything in this case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance, if 5% of the population are Masters, while the rest 95% varies significant lower, the data means nothing. On the other hand if 100% of the population are Masters, they knew what they were doing, so we can make more accurate assumptions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the data were for internet games, you get what they just tell. At average you should prefer a move from another on an ONLINE game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18488" LastActivityDate="2019-02-26T20:05:17.423" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23830" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23933" CreationDate="2019-02-26T22:08:16.787" Score="3" ViewCount="214" Body="&lt;p&gt;In tri-dimensional chess some rule sets allow for the attack board to be moved from the peg on top of the main board to the peg on the underside (as long as the attack board is unoccupied). What is the point of this inversion? Especially since some rule sets deem it okay to ignore inversion rules.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Inversion seems redundant since the attack board's level under a board is the same as the level if it's on top of the board below. i.e. KL under neutral board is equal as KL over white's board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18607" LastEditorUserId="18168" LastEditDate="2019-02-27T04:43:20.860" LastActivityDate="2019-03-12T03:45:32.890" Title="What's the point of attack board inversion?" Tags="&lt;chess-variants&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23831" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7818" CreationDate="2019-02-26T22:14:14.003" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I like the online chesstempo beta opening manager and trainer.&#xA;I have read on the facebook page of chess position trainer, that chess position trainer 6 is coming this year. I aspect a lot from this software.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lucas Chess has some interesting repertoire making functions. Like importing best moves or all best moves from a bin book, for one collar. You can export the openings to pgn but I have noticed that there is an error and there are many threefold and more-fold repetitions in the games. You can solve this by importing the pgn in chess position trainer and export to pgn again. I also like Hiarcs Chess explorer. You can sort games for one player by opening name. So you can make repertoires for it. You can edit the player name in a text editor or in Chess Assistant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18608" LastEditorUserId="18608" LastEditDate="2019-02-26T22:39:28.833" LastActivityDate="2019-02-26T22:39:28.833" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23833" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23856" CreationDate="2019-02-27T03:06:04.050" Score="4" ViewCount="315" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there a general consensus among composers, players, and/or organizations for what exactly defines an en passant checkmate, and is there any history  to it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as I know, there are two possibilities to define it by.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The pawn captures, moving to deliver a discovered check that results in checkmate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The pawn captures, and the &lt;em&gt;pawn itself&lt;/em&gt; checkmates.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-09-15T13:06:52.697" LastActivityDate="2020-09-15T13:06:52.697" Title="What should be defined as an en passant checkmate?" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;history&gt;&lt;terminology&gt;&lt;en-passant&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23834" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23833" CreationDate="2019-02-27T04:32:49.593" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think it is defined at all.  But in your first case, the pawn is delivering the mate. So I think that would be the 'en passant mate'.  The 2nd case is 'just' a discovered mate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="70" LastActivityDate="2019-02-27T04:32:49.593" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23835" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4485" CreationDate="2019-02-27T14:08:38.627" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;over 2 years too late to the party, but Axel Smith's 'Pump Up Your Rating' has a wonderful section dedicated to pawn levers. Such a great book!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18321" LastActivityDate="2019-02-27T14:08:38.627" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23836" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23838" CreationDate="2019-02-27T14:22:15.680" Score="3" ViewCount="171" Body="&lt;p&gt;My wife and I are relocating to France this year. As a very poor French speaker, I was wondering how I would cope with entering rated tournaments in France. Any advice from a native English speaker?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am planning on joining a club out there, in a bid to improve my French and become more social.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18321" LastActivityDate="2019-04-02T12:44:02.983" Title="Rated Tournaments in France - For a Poor French Speaker" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23837" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-02-27T14:44:15.967" Score="6" ViewCount="661" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are there chess studies that require an outside of the box thinking that goes beyond the concrete calculation capabilities of today's engines (e.g. Stockfish)? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have sometimes seen certain endgames that are known to be fortresses (drawn) but since the engine have depth limitations they cannot see all the way through and keep assessing them as winning for one side (for example giving +2 evaluation). But are there examples, to which we know the forced solution (checkmating line), but still the engines fail to solve? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15078" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-05T01:19:25.150" LastActivityDate="2020-04-05T01:19:25.150" Title="Solvable studies that computers fail to crack" Tags="&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;problems&gt;&lt;study&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23838" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23836" CreationDate="2019-02-27T15:18:39.677" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;As long as you enter FIDE rated tournaments you should be OK. If the arbiter is a FIDE International Arbiter he is required to know English. English is the main FIDE language and according to FIDE &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=41&amp;amp;view=category&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Regulations for the Titles of Arbiters&lt;/a&gt; -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;4. Requirements for the title of International Arbiter&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  All of the following:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  ...&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  4.3 Obligatory knowledge of English language, minimum at conversation level; and of chess terms in other official FIDE&#xA;  languages.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Arbiters with just the FA title are not obliged to have good knowledge of English but will need it if they have ambitions to become IAs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That said, the French are notoriously bad at foreign languages. I went to live and work there after having lived and worked in Germany for some time and the contrast was stark. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My experience going to open a bank account in Munich went something like this -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Me to stereotypical gorgeous, blonde teller: &quot;Entschuldigung Sie. Ich moechte ein Konto oeffnen&quot;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Brunhilde: &quot;Certainly sir. Your passport please? You are working at Digital?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I tried the same thing only in French at the bank near where I worked on the southern edge of Paris and got a reply in French. With my schoolboy French it was a struggle but she was patient and I just about managed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For chess tournaments you might be OK but for general life I would strongly recommend you have French lessons while you are there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, if you are the Owen Rees with FIN &lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/card.phtml?event=343113860&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;343113860&lt;/a&gt; then I would recommend you try and get a proper FIDE ID number before you go. If you are in England (might also work in Wales) then the cheapest / easiest way is to enter a FIDE rated blitz tournament. The ECF doesn't grade blitz and FIDE don't charge federations for rating blitz so you will end up getting a FIN free of federation membership fees.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS. I'm guessing you already know &quot;j'adoube&quot;. The other useful word is &quot;remis&quot; for when you want to offer a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2019-02-27T15:18:39.677" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23839" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23837" CreationDate="2019-02-27T15:41:55.737" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Indeed such studies do exist, similar to the fortresses you speak of. In my experience timely underpromotions seem to be the Achilles' heel of most current engines, and I remember at least one example that I'll show in the annotated diagram below.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's a beautiful endgame study, with white to win (&lt;strong&gt;I strongly recommend trying it on your own before you see the solution here&lt;/strong&gt;) and the difficulty lies in the fact that most lines that avoid stalemate end up in endgames that are in fact drawn (endless checks or impossible to make progress, at least as far as I remember) despite&#xA;a large material imbalance (I'll show such lines as subvariations below). And since there's no immediate forced draw (by repetition or stalemate), the engine keeps evaluating the position wrongly and misses the winning solution.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I remember this study from a couple of years ago (I'll add the reference to the problem if I can find it), and I recall at the time the engines couldn't solve it (&lt;em&gt;or maybe they needed days to see it, but I never let them run for that long&lt;/em&gt;):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Here's the FEN:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;code&gt;5K2/p2p4/p7/4P3/P7/8/1R4pp/6nk w - - 0 1&lt;/code&gt;, to test whether an engine can solve it, simply give it the FEN and see whether it can find the critical line &lt;strong&gt;specially without you showing it&lt;/strong&gt; our analysis and principal variation below (because once you do, the engine caches the line and remembers the solution thereafter within that analysis session).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [title &quot;White to play and win (don't remember the source at the moment)&quot;]&#xA; [fen &quot;5K2/p2p4/p7/4P3/P7/8/1R4pp/6nk w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1.Rb1 {stop knight moves and force black to exhaust remaining pawn moves} a5 2.Rd1 {Important waiting move with the rook, as there are no waiting moves with the king, as any king move to e-file blocks our own pawn, Kf7 blocks a key diagonal soon to be made clear, and Kg7 allows black to promote with check, for that see the added subvar} (2.Kg7 a6 3.Ra1 d5 4.e6 d4 5.e7 d3 6.e8=B d2 7.Bh5 d1=Q 8.Bxd1 Ne2 {and promotion's unavoidable, black's winning.}) a6 3.Ra1 {one of the critical moves missed by engine, at least not coupled with the right promotion, as to why a1 and not b1 for example, you'll see shortly} (3.Kf7 {a reasonable attempt would be to keep the rook on d1 and make a waiting move with king to force black's d pawn to move, and as such is what the engines also typically suggest but they end up in drawn endgames such as this very line} d5 {d6 leads to trivial mate as white promotes and black's still left with pawn moves to spare!} 4.e6 d4 5.e7 d3 6.e8=Q d2 7.Rxd2 Nf3 8.Rf2 g1=Q 9.Rxf3 {This position is not winning for white but the engine fails to see it due to calculation truncations and the overwhelming material imbalance is simply misleading it. Surprisingly, there are no ways to make progress, if my memory serves me well this is an actual fortress despite the engines giving it high centipawns.}) (3.Kg7 {alternative similar line to Kf7 that ends in a fortress as well} d5 4.e6 d4 5.e7 d3 6.e8=Q d2 7.Rxd2 Nf3 8.Rxg2 {else g pawn promotes with check and black wins.} Kxg2 {and black holds as white has no way to make progress, as the king cannot get close enough to overwhelm the knight. Again, surprisingly, there are no way to make progress, the fortress holds.}) d5 (3...d6 {leads to an even quicker loss for black as the d pawn's too slow and allows white a beautiful quick mate with a knight} 4.e6 d5 5.e7 d4 6.e8=N d3 7.Ng7 d2 8.Nh5 d1=Q 9.Ng3# {Therefore, d5 is black's only real attempt at salvaging the position.}) 4.e6 d4 5.e7 d3 6.e8=B {bishop underpromotion is the only way to win here! It's very simple once you see it, but otherwise everyone, including engines would opt for queen promotion without a second thought!} d2 7.Bh5 d1=Q 8.Bxd1 {right on time to blind the rook and prevent the stalemate} Nh3 {Ne2 no longer works for black as our king's on f8 not exposed to a queen promotion with check.} 9.Bc2+ Ng1 10.Bb1 {Bingo! that's why we needed Ra1 and not Rb1, the c2 square is needed to reroute the bishop to e4 with check while blocking the rook and giving black one more knight move to spare.} Nf3 11.Be4+ Ng1 12.Ra2 Nh3 13.Rxg2 Nf4 14.Rg3+ Ng2 15.Kg7 {waiting move} Kg1 16.Rxg2+ {and the win is trivial from here.}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I hope this is close to what you expected. Some remarks:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The lines with queen promotion lead to non-trivial draws that engines tend to fail to realise as the calculation truncation inherent to their working disables them from seeing a forced line that draws by force (say either by repetition or stalemate), moreover, the large material imbalance that is created with a queen promotion wrongly biases/fools the engine's evaluation such that it probably doesn't even consider a bishop promotion (as within the analysed depth it evaluates the position with the queen as favourable.) This is not to say that for humans it is easy to realise these fortresses, by no means, but after some time spent calculating few lines one starts to realise that objectively white has no means to make progress and convert. Eventually, one realises the bishop underpromotion is the only way to win.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;My guess is that if you give the initial position to an engine, it will opt for lines with rook on &lt;code&gt;d1&lt;/code&gt; and followed by a queen promotion as its principal variation, and constantly evaluating the position wrongly with a large centipawn value (20+). Meaning they fail to see the fortress. However, once you show it the line with &lt;code&gt;3.Ra1&lt;/code&gt; followed by the bishop promotion and &lt;code&gt;Bh5&lt;/code&gt; it will see the forced checkmate and no longer reconsiders its previous attempt of &lt;code&gt;e8=Q.&lt;/code&gt; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;For humans it is much easier to spot the solution as without much calculation one conceptually realises that stalemate has to be avoided when capturing black's promoted piece on d1, therefore a queen is out of the question. Moreover, the tedious part is rather connected to the lines with Rd1 plus the queen promotion which are more easily dismissed after a few tries as one eventually realises that despite being a piece up there's no way to make progress whether by winning black's queen or forcing checkmate. And once we've spotted the solution with &lt;code&gt;e8=B&lt;/code&gt; the win becomes so trivial that we don't even need to consider alternative lines (even if they may still be winning). &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The fundamental difference between how humans tackle such problems (specially in endgames) compared to engines lies in our ability to foresee the end of a line conceptually without actually doing the concrete calculation, exactly similar to how we find fortresses in endgames but engines fail to see them. This allows us to contemplate alternative lines much more quickly than engines would do.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3594" LastActivityDate="2019-02-27T15:41:55.737" CommentCount="11" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23841" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23842" CreationDate="2019-02-27T16:24:41.453" Score="11" ViewCount="968" Body="&lt;p&gt;Playing a friendly game against my son (but with Touch-and-Move in force), I was going to promote a pawn to a queen, so I fished out my queen from among the captured pieces, and placed it on the eighth rank. But before removing my pawn to complete the move, I realised that this would lose me the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is: Am I required to complete the move, and promote to a queen? The law says that if I touch any piece &lt;em&gt;on the board&lt;/em&gt; I must move or capture it. Does this situation count?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12189" LastEditorUserId="18475" LastEditDate="2019-03-08T11:38:02.170" LastActivityDate="2020-12-30T13:24:04.480" Title="Touching a captured queen -- must I promote to it?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;pawn-promotion&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23842" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23841" CreationDate="2019-02-27T17:06:34.143" Score="16" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, you should promote to a Queen forcibly. FIDE rules say that (emphasis mine):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4.4 If a player having the move:&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;[...]&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;4.4.4 promotes a pawn, the choice of the piece is finalised, &lt;strong&gt;when the piece has touched the square of promotion&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You placed the Queen in the promotion square, so you should promote to it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I would suggest not to promote this way. Instead, you can move your pawn to the promotion square, then put the piece you want there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17823" LastEditorUserId="17823" LastEditDate="2020-12-30T13:24:04.480" LastActivityDate="2020-12-30T13:24:04.480" CommentCount="11" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23843" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23850" CreationDate="2019-02-27T17:55:01.303" Score="2" ViewCount="314" Body="&lt;p&gt;Vertical: wherein the rook attacks down a file.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wish to know the fastest possible castling checkmates, for both queenside and kingside, that are a vertical one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See my question about horizontal castling &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/23847/what-is-a-faster-way-to-do-horizontal-castling-checkmate&quot;&gt;here.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-05-22T15:36:07.810" LastActivityDate="2020-08-17T02:23:03.100" Title="What are the fastest vertical checkmates for both castlings?" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;problems&gt;&lt;castling&gt;&lt;records&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23844" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23799" CreationDate="2019-02-27T19:48:48.033" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think you know that 12..e6 for Black avoids all trouble and thus he was never in trouble until the successive blunders.  So your Bxf7 sac is completely dubious.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your problem is back at move 3 when you played Qxd4 and lost time to Nc6.  At this point Black is already doing well.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Based on your play you might consider 3.c3 offering the Smith-Morra Gambit.&#xA;At the level you are playing, people are horrible at defending (as seen in your game), so opening gambits make sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2019-02-27T19:48:48.033" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23845" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23843" CreationDate="2019-02-27T21:14:49.293" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here's a faster mate (in 7) for kingside castling:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 f5 2. f3 fxe4 3. fxe4 Kf7 4. Qh5+ Kf6 5. Nh3 a6 6. Bc4 a5 7. O-O#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-17T02:23:03.100" LastActivityDate="2020-08-17T02:23:03.100" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23846" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23843" CreationDate="2019-02-27T21:51:52.997" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;mate in seven for queenside castling:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 d5 2. d3 dxe4 3. Nc3 Kd7 4. Bh6 Kd6 5. dxe4+ Ke5 6. Qh5+ Kd4 7. O-O-O#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Might be worth checking whether it gets any faster if black is the one to castle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2019-02-27T21:51:52.997" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23847" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29295" CreationDate="2019-02-27T23:11:41.457" Score="1" ViewCount="289" Body="&lt;p&gt;Horizontal: wherein the rook attacks down a rank.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wish to know the fastest possible castling checkmates, for both queenside and kingside, that are a horizontal one&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See my question about vertical castling &lt;a href=&quot;http://chess.stackexchange.com/q/23843&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-17T02:41:24.537" LastActivityDate="2020-08-17T02:42:57.723" Title="What are the fastest horizontal checkmates for both castlings?" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;problems&gt;&lt;castling&gt;&lt;records&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23848" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23837" CreationDate="2019-02-27T23:26:32.263" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is an outrageous mate in 57 puzzle which none of the top 3 engines are able to solve:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;8/6pp/5p2/k7/3p4/1Q2p3/3prpp1/3Kbqrb w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Qc4 Kb6 2.Qd5 h6 3.Qc4 Ka5 4.Qb3 h5 5.Qc4 Kb6 6.Qd5 h4 7.Qc4 Ka5 8.Qb3 h3&#xA;9.Qc4 Kb6 10.Qd5 h2 11.Qc4 Ka5 12.Qb3 g6 13.Qc4 Kb6 14.Qd5 g5 15.Qc4 Ka5&#xA;16.Qb3 f5 17.Qc4 Kb6 18.Qb4+ Kc6 19.Qa5 f4 20.Qe5 g4 21.Qf5 Kd6 22.Qb5 f3&#xA;23.Qf5 Kc6 24.Qg5 Kd6 25.Qb5 d3 26.Qf5 Kc6 27.Qa5 Kd6 28.Qb5 Kc7 29.Qa6 Kb8&#xA;30.Qb6+ Ka8 31.Qc7 g3 32.Qc8+ Ka7 33.Qc6 Kb8 34.Qa6 Kc7 35.Qb5 Kc8 36.Qb6 Kd7&#xA;37.Qc5 Kd8 38.Qc6 Ke7 39.Qd5 Ke8 40.Qd6 Kf7 41.Qe5 Kf8 42.Qe6 Kg7 43.Qf5 Kh8&#xA;44.Qg5 Kh7 45.Qe5 Kg8 46.Qf6 Kh7 47.Qf8 Kg6 48.Qe7 Kh6 49.Qf7 Kg5 50.Qe6 Kh5&#xA;51.Qe8+ Kg4 52.Qf8 Kg5 53.Qf7 Kg4 54.Qf6 Kh5 55.Qg7 Kh4 56.Qg6 Kh3 57.Qh5#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Aside from the fact that the mating line is an absolute unit, an important reason why engines are unable to solve this is due to a technique called &quot;Null move pruning&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Null move pruning assumes that playing no move is always worse than playing a move, which allows chess engines to search deeper by using this assumption to prune moves which are probably bad. However, because of this assumption, null move pruning is tactically vulnerable in zugzwang positions. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the above position, black is pretty much perpetually in zugzwang, so null move pruning prevents most programs from being able to see how black's king is forced around the board. As a result, Houdini, Stockfish and Komodo all report draws.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10075" LastActivityDate="2019-02-27T23:26:32.263" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23849" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23799" CreationDate="2019-02-28T00:55:28.533" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm an FM so I guess I'm experienced. For Black's POV, the 12...e6 variation you gave is the best way to play. It pretty much stops White's attack and Black's just up a piece. If he really wanted to Black could have also gone for 11...Ke8 followed by ...e6. In any case, playing with ...e6 is the way to go since it covers up all Black's weak light squares.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For you, I'd recommend not going for 3.Qxd4 (it's rather dubious). If you want to go for this kind of setup, consider playing 2.Nf3 and after 2...d6, 3.d4 cxd4 4.Qxd4. Of course you couldn't go this after 2...Nc6 though. If you still want to play 3.Qxd4, consider 4.Qe3 followed by 5.c4. It gives you a bind in the centre at least.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After 9...b4 in the game, you should have played 10.Nd5. You're a bit worse, but at least the game is close to equal. After 10.Bxf7, I think you played well to get compensation. I wouldn't recommend playing safe AFTER 10.Bxf7, since you need to attack to make up for being down a piece.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-02-28T00:55:28.533" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23850" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23843" CreationDate="2019-02-28T02:51:24.797" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Mate in 6.0 for kingside.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1 &quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e6 2. Bc4 Bd6 3. Ke2 Qg5 4. Kf3 Nh6 5. Bxe6 fxe6 6. Qe2 O-O#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And 5.5 for queenside, even faster.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1 &quot;]&#xA;1. d4 Nc6 2. Nc3 Nxd4 3. Qxd4 e5 4. Qc4 Ke7 5. Bg5+ Kd6 6. O-O-O#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This should be fastest.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15989" LastEditorUserId="15989" LastEditDate="2019-02-28T02:56:46.977" LastActivityDate="2019-02-28T02:56:46.977" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23851" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23847" CreationDate="2019-02-28T03:27:20.083" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Kingside castling, 8.5 moves (fastest; no way for a king to reach the last rank any faster than this.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 d6 2. b4 Kd7 3. Nh3 Kc6 4. Bb5+ Kxb5 5. Nc3+ Kxb4 6. Ba3+ Kxa3 7. Qh5 Kb2 8. Qb5+ Kxa1 9. O-O#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Queenside castling: 8.5 moves (again, fastest.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. d4 e6 2. g4 Ke7 3. Na3 Kf6 4. Bg5+ Kxg5 5. Nf3+ Kxg4 6. Bh3+ Kxh3 7. Qd3 Kg2 8. Qg6+ Kxh1 9. O-O-O#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There you have it. The theoretical fastest is 8.0 moves if you try to let black deliver mate instead of white, but I couldn't find a way to set up the mating net or to avoid locking the king out. Feel free to try.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15989" LastEditorUserId="15989" LastEditDate="2019-02-28T10:15:12.117" LastActivityDate="2019-02-28T10:15:12.117" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23856" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23833" CreationDate="2019-02-28T13:13:02.693" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;After some research I could not find  any &quot;official&quot; definition by a chess association/federation. This doesn't really surprise me, as there really is no need for a definition of &quot;e.p. checkmate&quot; to ensure correct play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However the general internet consensus on the usage of the term seems to agree on the following requirements:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The game has to end with checkmate.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The last move has to be played en passant.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An exemplary notated move would be &quot;&lt;strong&gt;29... cxd e.p. #&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; (although notating e.p. is optional under the &lt;em&gt;FIDE laws of chess (C.9)&lt;/em&gt;) - regardless if the pawn capturing delivers check or not. The &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/En_passant#Unusual_examples&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia examples&lt;/a&gt; follow this definition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As there is no opinion by a regulatory instance about this topic, it seems to be up to you to make up your mind on this topic or bringing it to the attention of said regulatory instance. I am taking the &quot;democratic&quot; approach with the above definition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17911" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-01-24T05:32:37.313" LastActivityDate="2020-01-24T05:32:37.313" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23857" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-02-28T16:32:40.787" Score="13" ViewCount="1961" Body="&lt;p&gt;In game 10 of the Caruana-Carlsen WCC, why did Carlsen (black) not take the terribly annoying and strong dark squared bishop on &lt;code&gt;b6&lt;/code&gt; on move 18 when given the chance? Instead, Carlsen moved the queen with &lt;code&gt;Qe8.&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The position is shown in the following diagram:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [title &quot;Caruana vs Carlsen, game 10, why not 18...Nxb6 instead of 18...Qe8&quot;]&#xA; [fen &quot;r1bq1rk1/1p1nb1pp/1B1p4/P2Pp3/2N2p2/8/2P1BPPP/R2Q1RK1 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15078" LastActivityDate="2019-02-28T16:51:17.817" Title="Caruana vs Carlsen game 10 (WCC) why not 18...Nxb6?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;world-championship&gt;&lt;carlsen&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23858" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23857" CreationDate="2019-02-28T16:43:52.623" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;Several reasons I can think of:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;black is obviously playing on the kingside and &lt;strong&gt;Qe8 is a useful move&lt;/strong&gt; aiming to transfer the queen to f7, g6 or perhaps h5 later. Also it might be useful to push e4 later.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the bishop on b6 &lt;strong&gt;is not annoying&lt;/strong&gt;. At the moment it attacks the black queen but that's about it. To some extent it is also blocking other white pieces. Also the bishop does not have many squares and could (if necessary) be taken later.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the position after 18...Nxb6 19 Nxb6 is worse, because now you have a knight on b6 and the pawn on b7 is more prone to become weak. Also the light squares are much weaker then.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2019-02-28T16:43:52.623" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23859" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23857" CreationDate="2019-02-28T16:50:32.007" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;From a purely positional point of view, &lt;code&gt;18...Nxb6&lt;/code&gt; would have been a&#xA;terrible mistake, as it would have allowed white to then forcefully trade the light squared bishops with the immediate &lt;code&gt;Bg4&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;move, leaving &lt;em&gt;exposed&lt;/em&gt; all the &lt;em&gt;light square&lt;/em&gt; weaknesses that black has&#xA;created with the &lt;code&gt;d6-e5-f4&lt;/code&gt; setup.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These weaknesses (created holes) would then have been permanently exploited by white's&#xA;knight (and queen), in other words, white's minor piece (&lt;code&gt;b6&lt;/code&gt; knight) would have&#xA;dominated the game and been virtually untouchable on light squares for the rest of the game.&#xA;Notice that next to the knight controlling key light squares from &lt;code&gt;b6&lt;/code&gt;,&#xA;it's also for example quite feasible for white to re-route the knight&#xA;to &lt;code&gt;e4,&lt;/code&gt; established centrally (permanently) and constantly eying black's&#xA;weak &lt;code&gt;d6&lt;/code&gt; pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And as for black, Carlsen would have simply been left with a bad dark&#xA;squared bishop &lt;em&gt;hemmed in&lt;/em&gt; by his &lt;em&gt;own structure&lt;/em&gt;.&#xA;Therefore, Carlsen chose wisely to play &lt;code&gt;Qe8&lt;/code&gt; instead of &lt;code&gt;Nxb6&lt;/code&gt;, thus,&#xA;preserving his &lt;code&gt;c8&lt;/code&gt; bishop as &lt;code&gt;Bg4&lt;/code&gt; no longer forces a trade thanks to&#xA;the well placed knight on &lt;code&gt;d7.&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In summary, this is a purely positional decision where black is well&#xA;aware that having weakened their light squares, any scenario with the&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;knight vs dark square bishop&lt;/strong&gt; would be unfavorable for them, and&#xA;arguably,&#xA;at that level even objectively lost! Instead having kept both the &lt;code&gt;d7&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;knight and &lt;code&gt;c8&lt;/code&gt; bishop, black has in fact preserved two pieces that can&#xA;provide light square control.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The following situations would have ensued had Carlsen played&#xA;&lt;code&gt;18...Nxb6&lt;/code&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;18...Nxb6 19.Nxb6 Ra7 20.Bg4&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ePklGb.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ePklGb.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which would have led to positions of the following nature, infested with light square holes:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ruCZ0b.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ruCZ0b.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3594" LastActivityDate="2019-02-28T16:50:32.007" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23860" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23857" CreationDate="2019-02-28T16:51:17.817" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;After 18 ... Qe8 the bishop on b6 is attacking thin air and isn't very annoying.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;After 18 ... Nxb6 19. Nxb6 the knight on b6 is very annoying indeed. The a8 rook is forced to a7 and black's pieces are becoming uncoordinated.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;After 18 ... Nxb6 19. axb6 Rxa1 20. Qxa1 black is in trouble. White's b6 pawn is looking dangerous, black's b7 pawn is going to come under attack and his position is cramped and uncoordinated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2019-02-28T16:51:17.817" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23863" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23868" CreationDate="2019-02-28T21:25:23.393" Score="2" ViewCount="316" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is 21 moves the least needed to get board down to 2 kings? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;] &#xA;1. e4 d5 exd5 Qxd5 Qh5 Qxa2 Qxh7 Qxa1 Qxh8 Qxb1 Qxg8 Qxb2 Qxg7 Qxc2 Qxf8 Kd7 Qxf7 Qxc1 Ke2 Qxd2 Kf3 Qxf2 Ke4 Qxf1 Qxe7 Kc6 Qxc7 Kb5 Qxc8 Qxg1 Qxb8 Qxh1 Qxa8 Qxh2 Qxa7 Qxg2 Kd4 Qd5 Kxd5 b6 Qxb6 Kxb6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-11-29T19:19:47.967" LastActivityDate="2020-11-29T19:19:47.967" Title="Is this the quickest way to clearing the board to two kings?" Tags="&lt;theory&gt;&lt;problems&gt;&lt;records&gt;&lt;kings&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2019-10-11T21:54:58.587" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23864" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23863" CreationDate="2019-02-28T23:20:36.467" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, that is not the quickest way. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The problem is that you have too many checks. The solution I came up with is to switch to using the rooks to eat pieces. This allows the board to be cleared in 18 moves:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 d5 2.exd5 Qxd5 3.Qh5 Qxa2 4.Qxh7 Qxb2 5.Qxg7 Qxb1 6.Qxg8 Rxg8 7.Rxb1 Rxg2 8.Rxb7 Rxf2 9.Rxc7 Rxd2 10.Rxa7 Rxc2 11.Rxa8 Rxh2 12.Rxb8 Rxh1 13.Rxc8+ Kd7 14.Rxf8 Rxg1 15.Rxf7 Rxf1+ 16.Kd2 Rxc1 17.Rxe7+ Kxe7 18.Kxc1  *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastEditorUserId="12629" LastEditDate="2019-03-01T00:24:37.927" LastActivityDate="2019-03-01T00:24:37.927" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23865" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23347" CreationDate="2019-02-28T23:42:10.523" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Karpov-Beliavsky, Moscow, 1983, Black held a draw without ever being in serious trouble. Karpov played 5.Bxf7. I have never seen detailed analysis of the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it suits your style, try it. But there is a HUGE volume of analysis on it. If you play it more than once you may face a booked-up opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastActivityDate="2019-02-28T23:42:10.523" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23866" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23836" CreationDate="2019-03-01T00:06:08.663" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I lived in Paris for about a year and played in a few tournaments. I can summarise my experiences.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Opponents. For the most part, more charming and courteous than in the US&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Refreshments. Much better than in the US.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Toilet facilities. Much worse   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Atmosphere. More relaxed. You can't talk to your opponent, but a casual appropriate comment will not bring the TD down on you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So all the cliches are true. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should should have no trouble making yourself understood. Chess players are often educated above the average, and most will manage at least a greeting and a polite remark, but your stay will be more fun if you can manage bit of French.&#xA;Remember it is not a school classroom with tests, but you are allowed pointing, gestures...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastActivityDate="2019-03-01T00:06:08.663" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23867" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13447" CreationDate="2019-03-01T00:10:28.123" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Secrets of Modern Chess-Advances Since Nimzowitsch by John Watson&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastActivityDate="2019-03-01T00:10:28.123" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23868" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23863" CreationDate="2019-03-01T01:29:37.083" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;Samuel Loyd found faster in 1895.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. c4 d5 2. cxd5 Qxd5 3. Qc2 Qxg2 4. Qxc7 Qxg1 5. Qxb7 Qxh2 6. Qxb8 Qe5 7. Qxc8+ Rxc8 8. Rxh7 Qxb2 9. Rxh8 Qxa2 10. Rxg8 Qxd2+ 11. Kxd2 Rxc1 12. Rxg7 Rxb1 13. Rxf7 Rxf1 14. Rxf8+ Kxf8 15. Rxa7 Rxf2 16. Rxe7 Rxe2+ 17. Kxe2 Kxe7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://pdb.dieschwalbe.de/search.jsp?expression=PROBID=%27P0001931%27&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://pdb.dieschwalbe.de/search.jsp?expression=PROBID=%27P0001931%27&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is 17.0 moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is also possible to do it in 16.5 moves but I can't find it yet. See &lt;a href=&quot;https://wismuth.com/chess/problems-massacre.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;François Labelle's page&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15989" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-06-11T02:34:25.627" LastActivityDate="2019-06-11T02:34:25.627" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23869" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8772" CreationDate="2019-03-01T18:20:18.357" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;What I've gleaned - for a more efficient thinking process be an MCP.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;ie. focus on:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;M - Memory&lt;br&gt;&#xA;C - Calculation&lt;br&gt;&#xA;P - Pattern recognition  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Acronyms are highly useful in chess!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18622" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2019-03-01T18:46:40.470" LastActivityDate="2019-03-01T18:46:40.470" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23870" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8772" CreationDate="2019-03-02T01:24:00.317" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It sounds great in theory, but creating a completely algorithmic thinking system is impractical for humans. And why would you want to operate strictly to an algorithm? Our creativity and intuition is what gives us a chance against the machine's super speed and memory (or at least what used to).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A patzer with huge amounts of time usually couldn't beat a master with less time. The master's intuition is too strong. Theoretically with &lt;em&gt;unlimited / infinite&lt;/em&gt; time a patzer should always win, but what's the point of discussing that?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you really want an algorithm here's the best I have:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) Read books / play games / solve puzzles.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) Gradually build your intuition+calcuation abilities over time from step 1.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) Repeat step 1 while playing in tournaments.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4) Hopefully gain success.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-03-02T01:24:00.317" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23871" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23874" CreationDate="2019-03-02T05:57:24.837" Score="16" ViewCount="1624" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I started playing chess, I learned many of the rules of chess on my own.&#xA;I was playing chess online, and then I realised that pawns can capture in such a fashion. At first, it was weird to me. Like, wow! How can a pawn capture like this?!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then I read the theory of en passant. I have come to know that such kinds of rules exist in chess. By the way, it's an interesting rule.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now here comes the main question: How can we teach this rule to a beginner (in a plain language or simplified way or associating any story to it)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18625" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-04-05T00:50:36.660" LastActivityDate="2021-04-05T02:50:28.087" Title="En passant for beginners" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;beginner&gt;&lt;en-passant&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23873" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23871" CreationDate="2019-03-02T10:07:46.157" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;As much as I hate to cite Wikipedia, they have a decent article regarding en passant:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/En_passant&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/En_passant&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;It is a special pawn capture that can only occur immediately after a pawn makes a double-step move from its starting square, and it could have been captured by an enemy pawn had it advanced only one square. The opponent captures the just-moved pawn &quot;as it passes&quot; through the first square. The result is the same as if the pawn had advanced only one square and the enemy pawn had captured it normally.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I hope that helps a little.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18321" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-09-21T14:06:09.260" LastActivityDate="2019-09-21T14:06:09.260" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23874" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23871" CreationDate="2019-03-02T10:15:35.633" Score="19" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;How can we teach this rule to a Beginner? (in a plain language or&#xA;  simplified way or associating any story to it)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The history gives the story.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At one time pawns could only move one square at a time even on the first move. But this made the game a bit slow. To speed it up the rule was changed to allow a pawn to move either one square, as before, or two squares on the first move. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But this changed the way one pawn could stop another pawn from moving because of the risk of capture. So, for instance, a black pawn on g4 stops a white pawn on h2 from moving. Before the rule change the only move the white pawn could make was from h2 to h3. Then the black pawn on g4 could capture it. After the rule change the black pawn could move straight from h2 to h4 thereby dodging the attack from the black pawn. This was unfair to the black pawn on g4 and changed the game in an unintended way. So, to even things up again the en passant rule was introduced which said that in that situation the g4 black pawn could take the h4 white pawn as if it had only moved one square. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The rule only applies on the move immediately after the double pawn move because with the old rule (only allowed to move one square on move one) if black didn't take immediately then white could move the pawn on his next move and the chance was gone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2019-03-02T10:15:35.633" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23875" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23871" CreationDate="2019-03-02T10:42:36.157" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;In simple words: if a pawn jumps &lt;strong&gt;two&lt;/strong&gt; squares and lands &lt;strong&gt;right next&lt;/strong&gt; to an opponent's pawn, then the opponent can capture that pawn in the &lt;strong&gt;following turn&lt;/strong&gt; as if it had moved only 1 square. That is, only right after you made your jump, your opponent has the option to take by en passant, past that turn it is no longer allowed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So keywords to remember: &lt;strong&gt;two square move, right next to, and following turn&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Visually:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [title &quot;Visualised example&quot;]&#xA; [fen &quot;r1bqkbnr/pppppppp/2n5/4P3/8/8/PPPP1PPP/RNBQKBNR b KQkq - 0 2&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1...d5 2.exd6 (1...d6 2.exd6)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Notice the end scenarios are the same after either &lt;code&gt;d6&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt;, as in after the capture one cannot tell if it had been by en passant or a normal capture.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Intuitively, you can imagine the rule is there so that one cannot jump past another pawn and &lt;strong&gt;completely evade&lt;/strong&gt; the option of a trade. Exactly similar to when you move your pawn only one square, and your opponent still has the option to capture your pawn if they so desire. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15078" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-09-21T14:05:48.773" LastActivityDate="2019-09-21T14:05:48.773" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23876" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9925" CreationDate="2019-03-02T12:22:08.723" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;One way I haven't seen mentioned yet but I use:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The knight moves to the opposite corner of a 2x3 rectangle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Spatially for me it's easier to visualise and recognise a rectangle instead of counting steps in an L-shape.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15989" LastActivityDate="2019-03-02T12:22:08.723" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23877" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23347" CreationDate="2019-03-02T14:34:55.503" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would call it dubious for most rating levels.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A computer doesn't like it too much, and you are going to lose a pawn. However, the line requires very accurate play by white to maintain that advantage. You can also get a bit of a psychological advantage here by completely ignoring your opponent's attack and focusing on your own - and if your opponent is playing the line that leads to the Traxler in the first place, they are likely a fan of attacking chess, and used to playing against defensive chess, not counter-attacking chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Still, you do gambit a pawn, so it is rather dubious.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At, say, the super-GM level, white is going to be able to play very accurately, and has excellent chances of at least not losing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Gambits can be fun, and if you are not at the super-GM level (I think it's safe to assume that you aren't in the top 0.01% or whatever of chess), it can be reasonable to play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18168" LastActivityDate="2019-03-02T14:34:55.503" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23878" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32764" CreationDate="2019-03-02T17:22:09.867" Score="4" ViewCount="471" Body="&lt;p&gt;What are the fastest possible games in which only all pieces and all pawns are captured? I did some searching myself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Pieces Only&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;me, chess.stackexchange.com 3/2/2019, Non-Unique Proof Game In 13.5 Moves&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. d3 d5 3. Qg4 Qg5 4. Qxc8+ Ke7 5. Qxb8 Qxc1+ 6. Ke2 Qxb1 7. Qxa8 Qxa1 8. Qxf8+ Kd7 9. Qxg8 Qxf1+ 10. Kd2 Qxg1 11. Qxh8 Qxh1 12. Qe8+ Kxe8 13. d4 Qe1+ 14. Kxe1 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Pawns Only&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;me, chess.stackexchange.com 3/2/2019, Non-Unique Proof Game In 16.0 Moves&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. f4 f5 3. g4 g5 4. h4 h5 5. d4 d5 6. c4 c5 7. b4 b5 8. a4 a5 9. bxa5  bxa4 10. cxd5 cxd4 11. exf5 exf4 12. gxh5 gxh4 13. Rxh4 Rxh5 14. Rxa4 Rxa5 15.  Rxd4 Rxd5 16. Rhxf4 Rhxf5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-04-29T22:25:49.730" LastActivityDate="2021-04-29T22:26:38.950" Title="Piece And Pawn Only Massacre Games" Tags="&lt;problems&gt;&lt;pawns&gt;&lt;pieces&gt;&lt;captures&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23879" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23878" CreationDate="2019-03-03T04:22:56.550" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the pawns only, you don't need to move so many pawns.  Getting the major pieces involved early seems to be fastest:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 c5 2.Qh5 Qa5 3.Qxh7 Qxa2 4.Qxg7 Qxb2 5.Rxa7 Rxh2 6.Rxb7 Rxg2 7.Rxd7 Rxf2 8.Rxe7+ Kd8 9.Qxf7 Rxd2 10.Qf5 Qxc2 11.Qxc5 Qxe4+  *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was unable to find a faster version of the piece only.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastEditorUserId="12629" LastEditDate="2019-03-13T02:13:11.963" LastActivityDate="2019-03-13T02:13:11.963" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23880" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23878" CreationDate="2019-03-03T05:30:01.483" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Thanks to @DM, I managed to beat off another move by opening with a pawn capture and having one less check. Sorry mate!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;me, chess.stackexchange.com 3/3/2019, Non-Unique Proof Game In 10.0 Moves&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 d5 exd5 Qxd5 Qh5 Qxa2 Qxh7 Qxb2 Qxg7 Rxh2 Rxa7 Rxg2 Rxb7 Rxf2 Rxc7 Rxd2 Rxe7+ Kd8 Qxf7 Qxc2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-04-29T22:26:38.950" LastActivityDate="2021-04-29T22:26:38.950" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23881" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23882" CreationDate="2019-03-03T12:51:46.810" Score="9" ViewCount="2062" Body="&lt;p&gt;The computer analysis on a game I played tells me that in the following position, White should have played &lt;code&gt;c4&lt;/code&gt; instead of &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;r3qrk1/pppb1ppp/1nn1p3/6B1/3PP3/P1P2N2/4BPPP/R2Q1RK1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The engine (Stockfish 10 from Lichess.org) tells me that &lt;code&gt;c4&lt;/code&gt; would have given White an advantage of +2.2, compared to +0.9 with &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt;, so it's quite a difference.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't see any immediate tactical win with &lt;code&gt;c4&lt;/code&gt;, and while it would give White some extra space, so does &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt;. Furthermore, &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt; results in a pawn structure that points to Black's king (I've heard that you should attack in the direction your pawn structure points to), plus covers &lt;code&gt;f6&lt;/code&gt; in case Black wants to move his f pawn there. &lt;code&gt;c4&lt;/code&gt; also results in three pawns being aligned on the 4th rank, which I am not very comfortable with.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14457" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-03-03T14:20:59.590" LastActivityDate="2019-03-03T17:49:44.533" Title="Why is c4 a better move in this position?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;pawns&gt;&lt;pawn-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23882" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23881" CreationDate="2019-03-03T13:35:50.530" Score="17" Body="&lt;p&gt;White intends to play c5, which will gain space on the queenside and severely cramp black's position (The b6 knight has no good square).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, e5 weakens white's control over d5 and f5 (e.g. Black can then go ...Ne7-f5).  Black could also take advantage of the weak c4 and d5 squares with ...Na5 and ...Bc6.  Keeping the pawn on e4 seems better.  It also keeps the h2-b8 diagonal open for white's unopposed dark-squared bishop.  Preventing black from playing f6 does not seem very important to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By advancing c3-c4, the c4 square also becomes less of a weakness because it can now be covered from the rear with Qc2 or Rc1, which is impossible with a pawn on c3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Slightly weakening d4 is not a big deal, because it's easier for white to defend d4 than it is for black to attack it, since white has a big space advantage and a dark squared bishop, while black is quite cramped.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18634" LastActivityDate="2019-03-03T13:35:50.530" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23883" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23884" CreationDate="2019-03-03T15:36:31.083" Score="-2" ViewCount="90" Body="&lt;p&gt;Recently, I played a game and after running the computer analysis, it seems like playing 5. Ba4 was a mistake, being better Bxc6.&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/vWe2V.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/vWe2V.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I cannot find the reason why. By retreating the bishop, White does not lose a pawn after ...Nfxe4. So I cannot see why my move would be a mistake.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16771" LastEditorUserId="16771" LastEditDate="2019-03-03T18:41:20.047" LastActivityDate="2019-03-03T18:41:20.047" Title="Playing Ba4 in this position" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23884" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23883" CreationDate="2019-03-03T16:12:39.307" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The difference is that after Bxc6 you win a pawn with Nxe5. That's why the computer gives a +1 evaluation for it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After Ba4 you end up with just an equal, normal position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So it is rather the difference between going from better/won to equal than from equal to worse.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In fact 4...a6 is a weak move by black. Most popular and good is 4...Nxe4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2019-03-03T16:12:39.307" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23885" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23881" CreationDate="2019-03-03T17:49:44.533" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I agree with all of @hdueru4 's points, but I'd like to briefly add a broader pawn-structure point - having 3 central pawns (especially on files c-e) on the 4th rank can actually be a very good thing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Definite control of the center - which greatly increases the power of your pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;These 4th-rank pawns are usually easy to defend in this position with your knights (and possibly bishops, queen, and castled rook)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Also, having almost all of your advanced pawns on one color (like you propose) &lt;em&gt;can sometimes produce weaknesses&lt;/em&gt; - you are weak on opposite color, and the same-colored bishop loses some power as well.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, in this position, c4 is downright terrific because it threatens c5, pushing back the knight to oblivion, as mentioned in the other answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18168" LastActivityDate="2019-03-03T17:49:44.533" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23886" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-03-03T17:51:05.220" Score="0" ViewCount="82" Body="&lt;p&gt;Most puzzles I find are where payout is relatively high. e.g mate in 2-3 moves, play right and get a piece etc. However, I needed a resource which gives me some puzzles/exercises about particular topics in chess where payout is not that high. For example puzzles focussing solely on whether to exchange a piece in a given situation or not. Or whether to be aggressive or defensive in a given scenario. Chesstemp does have tactics tags in its puzzles but I was not able to work out how to get puzzles solely with a few selected tags. Thank you for your kind help&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18636" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-05T00:17:54.103" LastActivityDate="2020-04-05T00:17:54.103" Title="Resource for Chess Problems about particular topics" Tags="&lt;problems&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23887" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24165" CreationDate="2019-03-03T22:41:05.747" Score="1" ViewCount="898" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some of us have heard about the famous game Kovacs-Barth, Balatonbereny 1994, which has the longest known surviving quadrupled pawn structure . It is one of many games with quadrupled pawns for one side, since quintupled hasn’t occurred yet. However, when it comes to counting pawns of both sides, has a higher number been reached? Hextupled pawns are the obvious limit, but it is a matter of finding such a game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-04-29T22:02:13.300" LastActivityDate="2021-04-29T22:05:30.873" Title="What is the record for the most pawns, of both sides, on a file in a professional chess game?" Tags="&lt;pawns&gt;&lt;pawn-structure&gt;&lt;master-games&gt;&lt;records&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23889" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23891" CreationDate="2019-03-04T06:56:17.393" Score="5" ViewCount="955" Body="&lt;p&gt;I thought opening books were just big compilations of opening moves that engines have access to, and they choose at random which move to play from the list of moves that the opening book says is good. However if this is correct, I don't see how videos like &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyeryLXQH48&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; make sense. How can an opening book &quot;beat&quot; another?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Am I understanding opening books wrong? What are they exactly, and how do they make an engine stronger (if they actually make the engine stronger)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastActivityDate="2019-03-04T14:13:10.737" Title="How do opening books in engine chess work?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;engines&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23890" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23889" CreationDate="2019-03-04T07:05:11.893" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;A better book gives better lines and moves for an engine. For example, if you were to construct a book based on beginner games (no more than 1200) on lichess, it would not perform well. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2019-03-04T07:05:11.893" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23891" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23889" CreationDate="2019-03-04T14:08:09.420" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your understanding is more or less correct, an opening book is a large collection of positions and what are the &quot;book moves&quot; in that position. I don't know if engines typically choose at random if there are multiple moves in the book for a given position or if they do something more complicated, but that doesn't matter much for your question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;How can an opening book &quot;beat&quot; another?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It can contain better moves, and more of them, and they could even be better tailored to the specific opponent!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To figure out which is better, you let &lt;em&gt;the same engine&lt;/em&gt; play against itself, with one side using one opening book and the other side the other. If you take care to have each book play white as often as black, you can see in the end which book had a higher score against the other book.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance, an opening book could contain a line somewhere that actually is not as good as the author thought at the time of putting it together, and the other book chooses to go for that position as the other side and it leads to a win for the engine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or one book is &quot;done&quot; after 15 moves after which the engine is on its own, but the other book still has several moves coming up after it on which the engine spent far more time on while creating the book than it could during the actual game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or the author of the opening book for engine A knows that engine B is worse at playing certain positions from the French, and he chooses to put moves into the book that causes A to go for those positions whenever it has the chance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or an opening book author spends days analyzing a certain position in an opening, and finally figures out that there is a way to force a good position for white there, and he adds it to the opening book. Engines with books that still allow that position to come up will have a bad time there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And so on, opening books are in the end created by humans (with heavy use of engines) and the same arms race is going on there as between top human players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastEditorUserId="924" LastEditDate="2019-03-04T14:13:10.737" LastActivityDate="2019-03-04T14:13:10.737" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23892" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-03-04T15:42:03.983" Score="15" ViewCount="1488" Body="&lt;p&gt;The position I'm studying is the middlegame part of the &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess24.com/en/embed-tournament/fide-berlin-candidates-2018/1/1/1&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;game 1 of Berlin Candidates 2018 between Kramnik and Grischuk&lt;/a&gt;, which Kramnik won with the white pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In particular, I'm interested in understanding what Kramnik's idea is with the patient knight re-routes and doubling of rooks against a well protected &lt;code&gt;d6&lt;/code&gt; pawn! Intuitively, I would try to use the rooks to prepare or anticipate the opening of a central file in such a position, but instead he opts for a doubling along the semi-open d-file which is a bit odd at first glance, as it seems the rooks are facing a wall. Additionally, Kramnik seems to strongly emphasize the positioning of a knight on &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt; as he invests at least 5 tempi to reconfigure his already developed knights (&lt;code&gt;Nb1-Nc3&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;Ng5-Nh3-Nf4).&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any insight into what white's ideally trying to achieve would be very useful. Below is the position after the rooks are doubled along the d file.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [title &quot;Game 1 - Kramnik vs Grischuk - Candidates 2018&quot;]&#xA; [fen &quot;1qr1r1k1/1b1nppbp/pp1p1np1/8/2P5/1PN1PN2/PB1RBPPP/Q2R2K1 w - - 3 17&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15078" LastActivityDate="2019-03-21T22:32:09.027" Title="Understanding Kramnik's play in game 1 of Candidates 2018" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;&lt;middlegame&gt;&lt;candidates&gt;&lt;kramnik&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23893" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23892" CreationDate="2019-03-04T16:19:06.033" Score="21" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The short answer is:&lt;/strong&gt; white's making it difficult for black to challenge the center with their central pawns. But that's not really revealing much, so let us dig deeper into this beautiful middlegame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The rook doubling is in fact part of a grander scheme that Kramnik has in mind. Once black commits to &lt;code&gt;d6&lt;/code&gt;, Kramnik targets a very concrete objective: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;To undermine black's control over the &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt; square in order to establish a &lt;em&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knight_(chess)#Value&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;centralised knight&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt; on &lt;code&gt;d5.&lt;/code&gt; Ultimately, the plan stems from the &lt;em&gt;asymmetry&lt;/em&gt; between the light square control provided by white's center compared to black's central pawn setup (&lt;code&gt;d6-e7&lt;/code&gt;). The plan is quite simple in appearance but becomes rather involved once we try to see how it ought to be executed.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's now visually unravel the whole thought process behind this plan, but given the question appears to be asked at a basic level, I'll skip certain concrete (tactical) details and only cover the gist of the involved strategic ideas.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the question is now re-iterated to: How can we establish a knight on &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt; without allowing black to easily prevent or trade on &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt;? and if a trade is to happen on &lt;code&gt;d5,&lt;/code&gt; we definitely don't want to have to re-capture with a pawn, which would block a useful central square and potentially gift black a target on &lt;code&gt;d5.&lt;/code&gt; Alternatively, you can reformulate the question: How can we turn the &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt; square into a safe &lt;strong&gt;knight outpost?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Black's control over &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/4lplvb.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/4lplvb.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Kramnik's surgical strategy:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Left:&lt;/strong&gt; Reroute knights to &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt;| &lt;strong&gt;Mid:&lt;/strong&gt; pin the &lt;code&gt;f6&lt;/code&gt; knight | &lt;strong&gt;Right:&lt;/strong&gt; Pressure &lt;code&gt;d6&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/WDHRBb.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/WDHRBb.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/LiVy7b.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/LiVy7b.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/v67Grb.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/v67Grb.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Left:&lt;/strong&gt; We need both knights in range of &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt; as otherwise in principle black could trade the light square bishop for the knight landing on &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt; and white would have to recapture with the pawn, which is exactly what we want to avoid as explained earlier.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Mid:&lt;/strong&gt; One of the best defenders of &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt; is the well placed knight on &lt;code&gt;f6&lt;/code&gt;, and one way to undermine its defense is to pin the knight by creating a battery along the long diagonal against the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fianchetto&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;fianchetto'ed bishop&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Right:&lt;/strong&gt; If black is able to play &lt;code&gt;e6&lt;/code&gt; without any drawbacks, then they'll have permanently secured control over &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt;, therefore, by pressurizing the &lt;code&gt;d6&lt;/code&gt; pawn white is making it more difficult for black to play &lt;code&gt;e6&lt;/code&gt; as it would weaken an already targeted &lt;code&gt;d6&lt;/code&gt; pawn.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Notice that in contrast to &lt;code&gt;d5,&lt;/code&gt; the &lt;code&gt;b5&lt;/code&gt; square is not as good a post for a knight since not only it is not a central square (knights are strongest when centralised), it is also a square that is quite easy to cover for black as &lt;code&gt;a6&lt;/code&gt; is playable in most cases (unlike &lt;code&gt;e6&lt;/code&gt;) thanks to the closed b-file which makes it difficult for &lt;code&gt;b6&lt;/code&gt; to be put under pressure (and thus stop &lt;code&gt;a6&lt;/code&gt;). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In summary, with black's &lt;code&gt;11...d6&lt;/code&gt; commitment, white sets out to establish a well centralised knight on &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt;, which was harmoniously achieved on move &lt;code&gt;22.Ncd5:&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/LlR6bb.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/LlR6bb.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt; ----&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Ar1MCb.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Ar1MCb.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It must be noted that the knight post on &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt; is not permanent, but for as long as the knight can stand centralised without black being able to reciprocate a similar level of minor-piece-activity, white stands favourable - with constant pressure on key squares in black's structure (&lt;code&gt;c7, e7, f6...&lt;/code&gt;). That's why Grischuk has tried to counter white's threats by mounting a direct attack on white's king with the rook lift.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although there's a slight positional edge for white in that final position after &lt;code&gt;Ncd5,&lt;/code&gt; it's by no means winning for white, in fact it's just about to get ignited [*], but it is a prime example of Kramnik's positional approach to the game, he always plays with a clear &lt;strong&gt;plan&lt;/strong&gt; in mind, enabled not only by his great strategic intuition for exploiting/spotting weaknesses and calculation capabilities, but also by his tirelessness and resourcefulness in finding ways to improve his pieces. His games cannot be recommended enough to be studied, his purposeful play-style is a unique portrayal of harmony in chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[*]: there are many tactical lines that can ensue from the reached position, e.g., &lt;code&gt;Nxd5 Bxd5 Bxb2 Qxb2 Bxd5 Nxd5&lt;/code&gt; and neither &lt;code&gt;Nb6&lt;/code&gt; nor &lt;code&gt;Nf6&lt;/code&gt; are immediately playable (try to figure out for yourself as an exercise). Or &lt;code&gt;Nxd5 Bxd5 Bxb2 Qxb2 Nf6 Bxa8 Qxa8 Rxd6 exd6 Qxf6&lt;/code&gt; (with interesting positional compensation). Or &lt;code&gt;Ne5 Be2 Ne4 ...&lt;/code&gt; which is what happened in the game. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3594" LastActivityDate="2019-03-04T16:19:06.033" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23894" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23892" CreationDate="2019-03-04T23:46:59.073" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The doubled rooks on the d-file prevent black's pawn activity in the center (e6, e5 and d5). This reduces black's counterplay. It also allows white to post a knight on d5 or d4 without having to worry about a pawn kicking it out of there, as this would create a weakness on d6, if not lose the pawn. In the game we see white establish a knight on d5, but also after 17... Ne4 18. Nxe4 Bxb2 19. Qxb2 Bxe4 20. Nd4 white establishes a knight on d4. The loss of dark squared bishops would favor white as black's king is a little weaker.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since black's center pawns are immobile, his most logical pawn break is b5. It takes black some time to achieve this, which gives white time to re-route his knight with Ng5-Nh3-Nf4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2614" LastActivityDate="2019-03-04T23:46:59.073" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23896" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23899" CreationDate="2019-03-05T07:38:08.087" Score="2" ViewCount="547" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am writing a pairing program for round-robin/double round-robin/swiss tournaments. I am looking for the rules to follow while generating the pairings. There seem to be no rules in the FIDE handbook. The only rule I know is that in tournaments like the FIDE Candidates players of the same federation are paired together as early as possible. Do there exist any other restrictions, or do I just pair the players randomly such that each player plays every other player in the tournament?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13544" LastActivityDate="2019-12-28T04:04:21.313" Title="What are the pairing regulations for round-robin tournaments?" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;round-robin&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23899" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23896" CreationDate="2019-03-05T10:33:59.750" Score="4" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I am looking for the rules to follow while generating the pairings.&#xA;  There seem to be no rules in the FIDE handbook.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The pairings are the responsibility of the arbiter and the &lt;a href=&quot;http://arbiters.fide.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Arbiters Commission&lt;/a&gt; produces a &lt;a href=&quot;http://arbiters.fide.com/images/stories/downloads/2018/Arbiters-Manual-2018-v1.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;handbook&lt;/a&gt; which it maintains for the guidance of arbiters in the commission of their duties.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This handbook collects together various documents some of which appear in other places on the FIDE website. These include -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;An annotated copy of the FIDE Laws of Chess&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Guidelines for Organisers&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;FIDE Competition (Tournament) Rules&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;General Rules and Recommendations for Tournaments&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;International Title Regulations&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;FIDE Rating Regulations&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Regulations for the Titles of Arbiters&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Anti Cheating Guidelines&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The Role of the Arbiters and their Duties&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Do there exist any other restrictions, or do I just pair the players&#xA;  randomly such that each player plays every other player in the&#xA;  tournament?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For your question the important section is section &lt;em&gt;7. Pairings&lt;/em&gt; in the FIDE Competition (Tournament) Rules. There it says -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;7.5 The pairings for a round robin should be made in accordance with the Berger tables (Annex 1), adjusted where necessary for double-round&#xA;  events.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, no you do not pair the players randomly. You pair using the Berger tables. The allocation of players to start numbers is governed by the other articles in that section -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;7.1 Responsibility for the drawing of lots and the actual pairings rests with the CA.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  7.2 The drawing of lots for the first round of a round-robin competition shall be arranged by the CO, to be open to the players.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  7.3 In L1, L2: round robin competitions and preferable Swisses, the drawing of lots shall take place at least 12 hours before the start of&#xA;  the first round. In L1 all participants shall attend the ceremony of&#xA;  drawing of lots. A player who has not arrived on time for the drawing&#xA;  of lots may be included at the discretion of the CA. The first-round&#xA;  pairings shall be announced as soon as possible thereafter.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  7.4 If a player withdraws or is excluded from a competition after the drawing of lots but before the beginning of the first round, or there&#xA;  are additional entries, the announced pairings shall remain unaltered.&#xA;  Additional pairings or changes may be made at the discretion of the CA&#xA;  in consultation with the players directly involved, but only if these&#xA;  minimise amendments to pairings that have already been announced.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In response to -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The only rule I know is that in tournaments like the FIDE Candidates&#xA;  players of the same federation are paired together as early as&#xA;  possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is covered in articles 7.6 and 7.7 which specify that the Varma tables may be used in conjunction with the Berger tables to provide a way of restricting the drawing of lots to ensure this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;7.6 If the pairings are to be restricted in any way - for example, players from the same federation shall, if possible, not meet in the&#xA;  last three rounds - this shall be communicated to the players as soon&#xA;  as possible, but not later than the start of the first round.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  7.7 For round-robin competitions this restricted drawing of lots may be done by using the Varma tables, reproduced in Annex 2, which can be&#xA;  used for competitions of 9 to 24 players&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Berger tables and Varma tables appear at the end of the &lt;em&gt;FIDE Competition (Tournament) Rules&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-03-05T10:43:55.097" LastActivityDate="2019-03-05T10:43:55.097" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23900" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23901" CreationDate="2019-03-05T10:47:54.303" Score="1" ViewCount="295" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was doing this &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/training/61517&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;exercise on lichess&lt;/a&gt;, but I don't see why the best move for white is to sacrifice their queen in exchange for a knight (after &lt;code&gt;Nh3+&lt;/code&gt;):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [title &quot;lichess puzzle 61517&quot;]&#xA; [fen &quot;4r1k1/p1b2pp1/1pp2r2/3p2np/1P1P2q1/P3P1P1/2R1NPQP/2R2NK1 b - - 1 28&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user18387" LastEditorUserId="15078" LastEditDate="2019-03-05T14:32:43.433" LastActivityDate="2019-03-09T12:05:51.130" Title="Why does white sacrifice their queen in this exercise?" Tags="&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;queens&gt;&lt;sacrifice&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23901" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23900" CreationDate="2019-03-05T11:24:45.263" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Because white will lose the queen anyway after &lt;code&gt;Nh3+&lt;/code&gt;, since otherwise &lt;code&gt;Kh1&lt;/code&gt; is answered with &lt;code&gt;Rxf2&lt;/code&gt; trapping and winning the queen. Just try to work out the tactics by yourself. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As to why white doesn't give up the queen for the rook instead (after &lt;code&gt;Rxf2&lt;/code&gt;), it's because in &lt;em&gt;this position&lt;/em&gt; the knight+queen are more apt at coordinating and creating threats. For example, to see that even after &lt;code&gt;Qxf2&lt;/code&gt; black can win back the rook if desired, here's a line:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [title &quot;lichess puzzle 61517&quot;]&#xA; [fen &quot;4r1k1/p1b2pp1/1pp2r2/3p2np/1P1P2q1/P3P1P1/2R1NPQP/2R2NK1 b - - 1 28&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1...Nh3+ 2.Kh1 Rxf2 3.Qxf2 Nxf2+ 4.Kg2 Nd3 5.Ra1 Qe4+ 6.Kg1 Ne1 7.Rxe1 Qxc2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One must bear in mind that these are tactics problems, and in this case we know white is lost anyhow after &lt;code&gt;Nh3+&lt;/code&gt; but you should solve them with the mindset that you're playing against an engine, that is, assume the best resistance that exists, and sometimes since the position is lost, the best resistance is to &lt;em&gt;delay&lt;/em&gt; the unavoidable exactly similar to how engines would go about such lost positions. Therefore, &lt;code&gt;Qxh3&lt;/code&gt; is presumably the move that yields the best resistance (lowest evaluation value for black's advantage from the engine's pov).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15078" LastActivityDate="2019-03-05T11:24:45.263" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23902" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18418" CreationDate="2019-03-05T12:36:39.477" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here's a &lt;a href=&quot;https://youtu.be/z585PZjuWAg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;great little trap&lt;/a&gt; where when you can try trapping their queen. The only out of the trap is accepting a queen exchange .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18644" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-03-05T14:34:38.317" LastActivityDate="2019-03-05T14:34:38.317" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23903" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-03-05T16:32:30.357" Score="10" ViewCount="652" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handicap_(chess)#Main&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt; quotes an analysis by GM Harry Golombek (from Golombek’s Encyclopedia of Chess, Crown Publishers, 1977, p. 218. I do not have access to the source) where he lists possible handicaps, in order of increasing severity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The last item in the list is &quot;Strong king&quot;, where the king is given the ability to move up to two squares in any direction. It appears further down (that is, a bigger handicap) than &quot;Queenside odds&quot; where the stronger player gives up a queen, rook, knight and bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can understand that this is powerful because a strong king is harder to mate (AFAIK, even K+Q can't mate a strong king. Not only does he have more escape routes, the normal king can't get too close to the action) and in general is hard to put pressure against.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But seriously, more powerful than Q+R+B+N? Is this a mistake? If not, where can I find an analysis that supports this claim?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: I've played a few games of this with friends. The jury is still out on the exact strength, but my estimation: This is probably on the same ballpark as queen odds, but nowhere near QRBN.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8094" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2019-04-04T06:52:40.947" LastActivityDate="2019-04-04T13:22:20.237" Title="Is a &quot;Strong King&quot; handicap really as powerful as is claimed?" Tags="&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;handicap&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23904" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13178" CreationDate="2019-03-05T17:20:52.240" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The longest known forced checkmate with disregard for the 50-move rule is now mate in 549.&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/KVS65.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/KVS65.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Queen + Pawn vs. Rook + Knight + Bishop&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can replay this endgame on this site:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://tb7.chessok.com/probe/745/61&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://tb7.chessok.com/probe/745/61&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [Event &quot;Longest 7-piece checkmate in chess&quot;]&#xA; [Site &quot;GothicChess.info&quot;]&#xA; [Date &quot;????.??.??&quot;]&#xA; [Round &quot;?&quot;]&#xA; [White &quot;?&quot;]&#xA; [Black &quot;?&quot;]&#xA; [Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA; [SetUp &quot;1&quot;]&#xA; [FEN &quot;1n1k4/6Q1/5KP1/8/7b/1r6/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1.Kf5 Rb5+ 2.Kg4 Rb4+ 3.Kf3 Nd7 4.Qh8+ Ke7 5.g7 Bf6 6.g8=N+ Ke6 7.Qh3+ Kd6 8.Kg2 Rb2+ 9.Kf1 Rb1+ 10.Ke2 Rb2+ 11.Kd1 Rb1+ 12.Kc2 Rb2+ 13.Kc1 Rb5 14.Qh6 Rc5+ 15.Kb1 Rb5+ 16.Ka2 Ra5+ 17.Kb3 Rf5 18.Ka3 Rf3+ 19.Ka2 Ke6 20.Qh7 Ne5 21.Nh6 Rf2+ 22.Kb1 Rf4 23.Qg8+ Kd6 24.Ka2 Nc6 25.Ng4 Bd4 26.Qg6+ Kd5 27.Qg5+ Ke4 28.Kb1 Nb4 29.Qe7+ Kd3 30.Qh7+ Ke2 31.Qh2+ Kf3 32.Qh3+ Ke4 33.Qg2+ Kd3 34.Qg3+ Ke4 35.Qe1+ Kd3 36.Qd1+ Ke4 37.Qe2+ Kd5 38.Kc1 Kd6 39.Qh2 Nd5 40.Kd2 Bc3+ 41.Ke2 Bd4 42.Qh6+ Kd7 43.Qh7+ Kc6 44.Qg8 Kc5 45.Kd3 Nb4+ 46.Kd2 Nd5 47.Qc8+ Kd6 48.Nh6 Bc3+ 49.Ke2 Re4+ 50.Kf2 Rf4+ 51.Kg1 Bd4+ 52.Kh2 Ne3 53.Qd8+ Kc6 54.Qe8+ Kc5 55.Nf7 Rf2+ 56.Kh3 Rf3+ 57.Kh4 Rf5 58.Nh6 Rf1 59.Qa8 Kb4 60.Kh5 Kc3 61.Qc8+ Kd3 62.Kg6 Rf2 63.Qa8 Rf1 64.Qb8 Kd2 65.Qb3 Ke2 66.Qb5+ Kd2 67.Qg5 Kc2 68.Kh7 Kd3 69.Qb5+ Kc3 70.Qa5+ Kd3 71.Qg5 Rf6 72.Qb5+ Ke4 73.Qb7+ Kd3 74.Qd7 Kc3 75.Qe8 Kd2 76.Qb5 Kc2 77.Qe2+ Kc3 78.Qh5 Rf1 79.Qg6 Rf6 80.Qe4 Kc4 81.Qe8 Kd3 82.Ng8 Rf1 83.Ne7 Rh1+ 84.Kg6 Rg1+ 85.Kf7 Rf1+ 86.Ke6 Rf6+ 87.Kd7 Bc5 88.Nc6 Nd5 89.Nd8 Rd6+ 90.Kc8 Ne7+ 91.Kc7 Nd5+ 92.Kb7 Rb6+ 93.Kc8 Ne7+ 94.Kd7 Nd5 95.Qe1 Rd6+ 96.Kc8 Be3 97.Qd1+ Ke4 98.Qc2+ Kd4 99.Qa4+ Ke5 100.Qh4 Kf5 101.Qh3+ Ke4 102.Nf7 Rc6+ 103.Kd8 Kd4 104.Ke8 Rc7 105.Kf8 Bf4 106.Qe6 Ra7 107.Qe2 Be3 108.Qg4+ Kc5 109.Qc8+ Kd4 110.Qb8 Kd3 111.Kg8 Rc7 112.Qb5+ Kd4 113.Qa4+ Kc5 114.Qa6 Kd4 115.Kf8 Bd2 116.Qf1 Bc3 117.Kg7 Rc6 118.Kg8 Nf6+ 119.Kf8 Rc8+ 120.Kg7 Ne4 121.Qb5 Ke3+ 122.Kh7 Rc7 123.Qb6+ Rc5 124.Qe6 Kf4 125.Qh6+ Kf3 126.Qh3+ Ke2 127.Kg8 Rc6 128.Kf8 Bb4+ 129.Kg7 Bc3+ 130.Kg8 Rf6 131.Qh4 Kd3 132.Nd8 Kd4 133.Qg4 Ke5 134.Qe2 Kf4 135.Qc4 Kf3 136.Qb3 Kf2 137.Ne6 Ke3 138.Qa2 Rf3 139.Qc2 Be5 140.Qd1 Bc3 141.Qc1+ Kd3 142.Nf4+ Kc4 143.Ng2 Rf2 144.Nh4 Nf6+ 145.Kg7 Ne4+ 146.Kg6 Rf6+ 147.Kh5 Kd4 148.Qd1+ Ke3 149.Qb1 Bd2 150.Ng6 Ng3+ 151.Kh6 Bc3 152.Qc1+ Kd3 153.Qg1 Ne4 154.Kh7 Rd6 155.Kg8 Rd8+ 156.Kf7 Rd7+ 157.Ke6 Rd6+ 158.Ke7 Bf6+ 159.Ke8 Rd8+ 160.Kf7 Rd7+ 161.Ke6 Rd6+ 162.Kf5 Rd5+ 163.Kf4 Bg5+ 164.Kg4 Ke2 165.Qa7 Bd2 166.Qe7 Rg5+ 167.Kh3 Ke3 168.Nh4 Rg3+ 169.Kh2 Rg4 170.Qa3+ Bc3 171.Qa7+ Ke2 172.Ng2 Be5+ 173.Kg1 Nd2 174.Qf2+ Kd1 175.Kh1 Bd4 176.Qe1+ Kc2 177.Qe2 Re4 178.Qh5 Nf1 179.Qd5 Nd2 180.Qf5 Kd1 181.Nf4 Be5 182.Qh5+ Kc2 183.Ng6 Bf6 184.Kg2 Bg5 185.Qh7 Kd1 186.Qh8 Be3 187.Qh5+ Kc2 188.Nh4 Bd4 189.Nf5 Be5 190.Qe8 Rg4+ 191.Kh3 Re4 192.Qc8+ Kd1 193.Qc5 Nc4 194.Nh6 Nd2 195.Ng4 Bd4 196.Qb5 Rf4 197.Kh4 Be3 198.Qd3 Bd4 199.Kh5 Re4 200.Qa3 Rf4 201.Qd6 Re4 202.Nh6 Bf2 203.Kg6 Rc4 204.Qe5 Bb6 205.Qg3 Rc6+ 206.Kg7 Rc4 207.Nf7 Bc7 208.Qg1+ Kc2 209.Nh6 Be5+ 210.Kg8 Re4 211.Nf5 Bf4 212.Qh1 Be5 213.Qh3 Kd1 214.Kf8 Bf4 215.Qg4+ Ke1 216.Qg2 Be5 217.Qh1+ Ke2 218.Ke8 Bg3+ 219.Kd7 Bf2 220.Ne7 Rd4+ 221.Nd5 Kd3 222.Kc6 Rh4 223.Qg2 Rc4+ 224.Kb5 Be3 225.Qh1 Bc5 226.Qh7+ Ke2 227.Qh5+ Ke1 228.Kc6 Bd4+ 229.Kd6 Bf2 230.Kd7 Rd4 231.Qh1+ Ke2 232.Ke6 Rh4 233.Qg2 Rc4 234.Ke7 Nf3 235.Qh3 Re4+ 236.Kd8 Rd4 237.Qh5 Bg3 238.Qe8+ Be5 239.Qb5+ Kf2 240.Kc8 Re4 241.Kb7 Bd4 242.Qc6 Rg4 243.Ka6 Rg7 244.Nb4 Re7 245.Nd3+ Ke3 246.Qc1+ Ke4 247.Nb4 Re5 248.Qb1+ Ke3 249.Qc2 Rc5 250.Qd3+ Kf4 251.Qe2 Kg3 252.Qe7 Rh5 253.Nd3 Rh6+ 254.Ka5 Rh4 255.Qe6 Bc3+ 256.Ka6 Bd4 257.Qc6 Be3 258.Qe8 Bd4 259.Qb8+ Kg2 260.Qg8+ Kh3 261.Qg6 Rg4 262.Qc6 Kg3 263.Qc7+ Kh3 264.Nf4+ Kh4 265.Qd6 Kg3 266.Ng6+ Kf2 267.Qe6 Rg1 268.Nf4 Ra1+ 269.Kb7 Ra7+ 270.Kb8 Ra3 271.Qe2+ Kg3 272.Nd3 Rb3+ 273.Kc8 Rb6 274.Qe4 Rf6 275.Kd7 Bc3 276.Nc5 Bd4 277.Ne6 Be5 278.Ng5 Bb2 279.Qe3 Kg4 280.Ne4 Rf7+ 281.Kc6 Rf5 282.Nf2+ Kg3 283.Nd3 Be5 284.Kd7 Rf7+ 285.Ke8 Rf5 286.Qc5 Kg4 287.Nf2+ Kg5 288.Qd5 Kg6 289.Nd3 Bg7 290.Qe4 Kg5 291.Ke7 Bd4 292.Kd7 Rf6 293.Kc8 Rf8+ 294.Kb7 Rf7+ 295.Ka6 Rf6+ 296.Ka5 Bc3+ 297.Ka4 Ra6+ 298.Kb5 Ra5+ 299.Kb6 Rf5 300.Qe7+ Kg6 301.Qe8+ Kg5 302.Kb7 Bd4 303.Qe7+ Kh5 304.Qe4 Rf7+ 305.Ka6 Rf6+ 306.Kb5 Kg5 307.Nb4 Be5 308.Nd5 Rf5 309.Qe3+ Kh5 310.Ka6 Rf7 311.Qf2 Ng5 312.Qc2 Nf3 313.Qc8 Kg5 314.Qe6 Rf5 315.Kb7 Bd4 316.Qe7+ Bf6 317.Qe3+ Kh5 318.Qe4 Kg5 319.Nc7 Nd4 320.Qg2+ Kh5 321.Nd5 Nf3 322.Ne3 Rf4 323.Qh3+ Nh4 324.Qe6 Kg5 325.Qd5+ Kg6 326.Qd6 Kg5 327.Qc5+ Kg6 328.Qc7 Kg5 329.Nd5 Rf3 330.Qc1+ Kg4 331.Ne3+ Kg5 332.Nc4+ Rf4 333.Nb6 Kg4 334.Qd1+ Kg3 335.Nd5 Rf3 336.Qd2 Kg4 337.Ne3+ Kh5 338.Nc4 Bg5 339.Qd1 Bf4 340.Nb6 Bg3 341.Nd7 Kg5 342.Qd5+ Rf5 343.Qe4 Rf4 344.Qe7+ Kg4 345.Qe6+ Kf3 346.Nf6 Kg2 347.Qd5+ Kh2 348.Ne4 Nf5 349.Ng5 Nd6+ 350.Kb6 Bf2+ 351.Kc7 Bg3 352.Kd7 Nf5 353.Qd2+ Rf2 354.Qd1 Rf4 355.Qe2+ Rf2 356.Qh5+ Kg2 357.Kc6 Rc2+ 358.Kd5 Rd2+ 359.Kc4 Rf2 360.Qh3+ Kg1 361.Kb4 Rf1 362.Ka5 Rf4 363.Ka6 Ra4+ 364.Kb5 Rf4 365.Ka5 Rf2 366.Qh8 Kg2 367.Qc3 Rf4 368.Qd2+ Kf1 369.Qd5 Nd4 370.Kb6 Bf2 371.Kc7 Rh4 372.Qe5 Kg2 373.Ne4 Kf3 374.Nd2+ Kg2 375.Qd5+ Kh2 376.Kb7 Rh7+ 377.Ka6 Rh6+ 378.Ka5 Rh4 379.Qd6+ Kh3 380.Qd7+ Kg2 381.Qb7+ Kg3 382.Qg7+ Rg4 383.Nf1+ Kh3 384.Qd7 Kh4 385.Qh7+ Kg5 386.Qg7+ Kf4 387.Qc7+ Kg5 388.Nd2 Rf4 389.Qg7+ Kf5 390.Nc4 Nf3 391.Nd6+ Ke6 392.Ne8 Kf5 393.Ka6 Bd4 394.Nd6+ Ke6 395.Qg8+ Kf6 396.Qh7 Ke6 397.Ne4 Kd5 398.Qb7+ Ke6 399.Ng3 Be5 400.Qb3+ Kd6 401.Qb6+ Ke7 402.Ne4 Kf7 403.Qh6 Kg8 404.Qe6+ Kh8 405.Qe7 Rf5 406.Kb6 Bg7 407.Ng3 Rf6+ 408.Kb5 Nd4+ 409.Kc4 Rc6+ 410.Kd3 Rc3+ 411.Ke4 Rc6 412.Qe8+ Kh7 413.Kd3 Rd6 414.Qh5+ Kg8 415.Ne4 Rd8 416.Ke3 Bh6+ 417.Kf2 Rf8+ 418.Kg2 Kh7 419.Ng3 Ne6 420.Qh4 Ng7 421.Qe4+ Kg8 422.Qd5+ Kh7 423.Qd6 Rf7 424.Qd3+ Kg8 425.Qd5 Bc1 426.Kh3 Ba3 427.Kg4 Be7 428.Qc4 Kf8 429.Qc8+ Ne8 430.Nf5 Rf6 431.Qd7 Rf7 432.Qd3 Bf6 433.Qe3 Be7 434.Qh6+ Kg8 435.Qh1 Rh7 436.Qd5+ Kf8 437.Kf3 Nf6 438.Qe5 Ne8 439.Ke2 Bf6 440.Qd5 Rf7 441.Kd2 Bg5+ 442.Kc2 Rc7+ 443.Kb2 Bf6+ 444.Kb1 Rh7 445.Qf3 Ra7 446.Qb3 Rc7 447.Qb4+ Kf7 448.Qb6 Rd7 449.Qb3+ Kf8 450.Nh6 Rg7 451.Qa3+ Be7 452.Qf3+ Bf6 453.Ng4 Ke7 454.Kc2 Rg5 455.Qe3+ Kf7 456.Qb3+ Kf8 457.Qe6 Bg7 458.Ne3 Re5 459.Qb6 Bf6 460.Ng4 Rf5 461.Qe6 Rf4 462.Qc8 Bd4 463.Qd7 Bg7 464.Ne3 Rf2+ 465.Kb1 Rf7 466.Qc8 Rc7 467.Qa6 Rd7 468.Qa3+ Kf7 469.Qb3+ Kf8 470.Qb4+ Nd6 471.Qf4+ Kg8 472.Nd5 Nf7 473.Qc4 Ra7 474.Nf4 Rb7+ 475.Kc2 Rb2+ 476.Kd1 Rb6 477.Qc8+ Kh7 478.Qc7 Rd6+ 479.Ke2 Kg8 480.Qe7 Bf8 481.Qe8 Ng5 482.Qc8 Rf6 483.Qg4 Bh6 484.Nh5 Re6+ 485.Kf1 Re5 486.Qc8+ Bf8 487.Qc2 Re6 488.Qa2 Kh7 489.Qg2 Kh6 490.Qh1 Rb6 491.Nf4+ Kg7 492.Qh5 Nh7 493.Qg4+ Kf7 494.Qd7+ Be7 495.Qd5+ Kf8 496.Ne6+ Ke8 497.Qh5+ Kd7 498.Ng7 Nf6 499.Qf5+ Kc7 500.Qe5+ Kd7 501.Qd4+ Kc7 502.Qe3 Nd5 503.Qe5+ Kc6 504.Nf5 Rb7 505.Qe4 Kc5 506.Qc2+ Kb6 507.Qb3+ Kc6 508.Nd4+ Kc5 509.Qxb7 Kxd4 510.Kf2 Ke4 511.Qb1+ Kd4 512.Qg6 Bf6 513.Kf3 Be7 514.Qg1+ Kc4 515.Qg4+ Kc5 516.Ke2 Nf6 517.Qf5+ Kd4 518.Qf4+ Kd5 519.Kf3 Ke6 520.Qc4+ Kf5 521.Qa6 Nd7 522.Qd3+ Ke6 523.Qe3+ Kd6 524.Kf4 Nc5 525.Kf5 Bf8 526.Qf3 Nd7 527.Qc3 Ke7 528.Qd4 Ke8 529.Ke6 Nc5+ 530.Kd5 Nd7 531.Kc6 Nb8+ 532.Kb6 Nd7+ 533.Kc7 Nc5 534.Qc4 Be7 535.Qg8+ Bf8 536.Kc6 Na6 537.Qe6+ Be7 538.Qc8+ Kf7 539.Qxa6 Ke6 540.Qd3 Bg5 541.Qe4+ Kf6 542.Kd6 Bd2 543.Qe5+ Kg6 544.Ke6 Bg5 545.Qf5+ Kh5 546.Qf3+ Kh6 547.Qf7 Bh4 548.Kf5 Bg5 549.Qg6# 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;FEN:&#xA;1n1k4/6Q1/5KP1/8/7b/1r6/8/8 w - -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18646" LastEditorUserId="15078" LastEditDate="2019-03-05T19:06:30.400" LastActivityDate="2019-03-05T19:06:30.400" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23905" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23906" CreationDate="2019-03-05T23:28:06.067" Score="-4" ViewCount="191" Body="&lt;p&gt;Paul Morphy, from what I’ve seem, seems to have been a master of making weird and wonderful games, such as his famous kingside castling checkmate game. Are there any particular reasons for this? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-03-07T02:29:51.887" LastActivityDate="2020-03-07T02:29:51.887" Title="How come Paul Morphy has lots of weird and wonderful games?" Tags="&lt;history&gt;&lt;master-games&gt;&lt;morphy&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2019-03-06T07:04:09.157" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23906" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23905" CreationDate="2019-03-05T23:40:02.460" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes. The reason is simple. For the most part, his opponents were dramatically weaker than him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Knowledge of the game was in its infancy in Morphy's time, and any number of opponents were murdered in their beds by Morphy's superior grasp of principles of development and calculating ability. The majority of Morphy games are not even contests but good old one-sided floggings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;His match games against the strongest opposition of the time like Anderssen and Lowenthal, while clearing showing him to be superior, are seldom as colorful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user17631" LastActivityDate="2019-03-05T23:40:02.460" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23908" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-03-06T17:47:08.127" Score="7" ViewCount="323" Body="&lt;p&gt;Similar to a &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/16504/could-two-kings-force-checkmate-against-a-lone-king&quot;&gt;previous question&lt;/a&gt; of mine, let's suppose there's a piece that moves like the king, but isn't restricted from moving into check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While a normal king and two knights can't force checkmate, can this &quot;king&quot; and two knights force it by themselves? What about a &quot;king&quot; and a single knight or bishop?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12377" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-11-16T23:07:56.360" LastActivityDate="2019-11-16T23:07:56.360" Title="Would certain checkmates be possible if the king could move into check?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;unorthodox-pieces&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23909" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23908" CreationDate="2019-03-07T04:33:37.403" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;You could force a checkmate with two knights and a &quot;king&quot;. Because the &quot;king&quot; does not fear being taken, it can move directly in front of the opponent's king, if it is protected by a knight.  All it has to do is do this when the opponent's king is on the side of the board and thus cannot retreat - and it is known that two knights and a normal king can force the opponent's king to the side of the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Based on trying it out, I believe a &quot;king&quot; and single knight could also force checkmate. The knight supports the &quot;king&quot; very well, cutting off squares and proving good places for the &quot;king&quot; to advance. And when the knight retreats, the &quot;king&quot; is usually ready to go into that same square if necessary, cutting off the king and forcing it backwards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With a bishop and a &quot;king&quot;, I think the question is whether the king can be forced into a corner which is the same color as the bishop. The following position, with either side to move, results in a quick checkmate, because Black must go into the corner:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;1k6/8/1K2B3/8/8/8/8/8 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I believe this can't be done from many positions, though.  From most positions, the king escapes into the wrong corner. Although it can be driven from that corner, it can then flee to the wrong corner on the opposite side of the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2019-03-07T04:33:37.403" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23910" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-03-07T15:57:54.810" Score="2" ViewCount="225" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have been looking all over the web for a good way to counter the french defense, but nothing really helps. If you have any suggestions please tell me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18656" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-03-07T16:27:21.677" LastActivityDate="2019-03-07T19:12:26.300" Title="What are good resources for how to play against the french as white?" Tags="&lt;french-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2019-03-08T07:28:00.220" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23911" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23910" CreationDate="2019-03-07T16:38:23.523" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The main problem you have playing against the French as white, particularly if you don't play it as black, is that there is just so much theory to learn. If you try and play either  the Tarrasch or the Winawer you don't know if you are going to get a wild tactical game or end up in a tame, boring Rubinstein. Your opponent makes the choice. Even if your opponent declines to play 3 ... de there are still many ways for black to play and they are ways where one small error can lead to an instant lost game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your best bet then is to either play the Advance variation with 3. e5 or the more boring Exchange variation with 3. ed. The Advance gives more scope for tactical play and the Exchange more scope for positional play, although you can still have sharp games in the Exchange. They just tend to have a longer fuse. Either one will leave you much less to learn than either the Tarrasch or Winawer with much less chance of a quick loss.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Whichever one you choose learn it thoroughly and stick with it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2019-03-07T16:38:23.523" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23912" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23910" CreationDate="2019-03-07T18:14:49.210" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The latest I am aware of is: &quot;Grandmaster Repertoire: 1.e4 vs The French, Caro-Kann and Philidor&quot;&#xA;by Parimarjan Negi &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As with any opening, ultimately you would like to have 3 ways to play: 1. A non-theoretical line; 2. A must win line - might be highly theoretical; 3. A safe &quot;draw or win&quot; line.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And of course it comes down to playing positions you are comfortable with.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most opening books are from the Black perspective but there are a ton of books on beating the French which suggests you are not the only one who finds it pesky.&#xA;Personally, I tried everything against the French, including creating a novelty line against it; and all the lines are good!  You just have to accept that the French is a solid opening and play chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3.Nc3 is thought to be the best line but this book suggests 3.Nd2:&#xA;How to Beat the French Defence: The essential guide to the Tarrasch &#xA;by Andreas Dr Tzermiadianos&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Kasimdzhanov has 3(!) DVDs on beating the French&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2019-03-07T18:14:49.210" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23913" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23886" CreationDate="2019-03-07T18:17:19.880" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Dvoretsky's books are full of what you seek.  Just search him on amazon.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2019-03-07T18:17:19.880" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23914" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23910" CreationDate="2019-03-07T19:12:26.300" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't even bother with the theory as white since if they are playing the french they probably know all the main lines. I even play the French as black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I play exchange variation with castle queen side. That is most likely to get them out of book if they are not a strong player, and still leads to a sharp position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4393" LastActivityDate="2019-03-07T19:12:26.300" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23916" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-03-08T15:30:29.777" Score="11" ViewCount="972" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am doing endgame training with LucasChess (LC), but the problem is not really related to LC, but to chess engines in general. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have this problem: See picture. When I move  Kh6 in this position, the engine in LC moves Ke8. Probably this is the move with which white needs the most moves until mate.&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/YilI8.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/YilI8.png&quot; alt=&quot;position: w:Kh5, Pg6, Pg4, b:Kf8, white to move&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But it is also the move which makes things easy for white.  It would be harder for white if black would move Kg8, trying to block the pawn until it is no longer possible and maybe provoking a stalemate.&#xA;Instead of blocking, black flees in direction  to the center.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I assume the engine sees that with fleeing to the center it is maybe a mate in 20 and without fleeing and trying to block it is maybe a mate in 16. So it makes the &quot;optimal&quot; move with which the distance to mate is the longest.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But this is not the best human like move.  Because it makes it easier for white to queen its pawn. It clears all possibilities for white to make mistakes and in this way it takes away an important part of the training effect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have seen this behaviour in nearly all pawn endings, not only this one; and also in other endings.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All engines I've tried show this behaviour.  (Komodo, Stockfish, Gull, Gaviota, Fruit)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So my question is: Do you know a free engine or some settings for an engine which plays endgames human-like, trying to block pawns as long as possible instead of fleeing with the king to the center?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Update:&lt;/strong&gt; konsolas found an engine (Leela or Lc0) which treats the given position well and so at first I accepted his answer as &lt;em&gt;the&lt;/em&gt; answer. &#xA;In between I've tested Lc0 more and came to the conclusion that it is absolutely not usable for endgame training, because it plays most endings catastrophically. When accepting the answer, I couldn't even imagine any engine playing endgames so bad. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I want to clarify my question: Do you know a free engine or some settings for an engine which, with movetime 1s or below, without needing a graphics card, plays endgames human-like, trying to block pawns as long as possible instead of fleeing with the king to the center? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lc0  with current nets or dkappe's distilled nets do not qualify, because these play most endgames horribly and absolutely non-human-like on a PC without graphics card. And from all what I've read a graphics card even won't help for its endgame play. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Update 2:&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;I'd like to clarify that it is not only the position above, but a lot of others, too. Engines play the move which makes distance to mate biggest, assuming perfect play of the opponent.  Example 8/8/8/6K1/8/8/3Q2kp/8 b - - 4 9, see second picture. &#xA;Engines play  Kf3, which makes it very easy for W.    What B should play is Kg1, and now it's much harder for W to win. W then needs to know or find that he has to allow B to queen.&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/QPSdH.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/QPSdH.png&quot; alt=&quot;8/8/8/6K1/8/8/3Q2kp/8 b - - 4 9&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18667" LastEditorUserId="18667" LastEditDate="2019-03-23T23:03:04.663" LastActivityDate="2019-03-23T23:03:04.663" Title="Human-like engine for endgame training" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;training&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="7" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23918" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13327" CreationDate="2019-03-09T09:36:44.193" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sometimes a rook or bishop is preferable to a queen. I.e., when stalemate is an issue.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastEditorUserId="12873" LastEditDate="2019-04-19T15:32:48.080" LastActivityDate="2019-04-19T15:32:48.080" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23919" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2248" CreationDate="2019-03-09T09:54:36.050" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can do this with &lt;a href=&quot;http://lucaschess.pythonanywhere.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;LucasChess&lt;/a&gt;. And you can chose as opponent any engine you like or dozens of preconfigured opponents with various personalities.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18667" LastActivityDate="2019-03-09T09:54:36.050" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23920" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-03-09T10:05:58.283" Score="0" ViewCount="428" Body="&lt;p&gt;Nowadays with speedy Internet and in order to play lots of opponents and to decrease the chance of cheating, people are opting for Bullet or blitz. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Generally I prefer to play Larsen opening or Double fianchetto or sometimes Ruy lopez. The traps in these openings are not in the openings but in the captures ( capturing the pawns or Knight with bishops). If the opponent is careless and pre- moves then these tricks work. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But many of the players are unaware of these things and many other gambits or trick. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are a pro player of bullet games what bullet-specific tricks do you use?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18625" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-03-09T15:47:55.330" LastActivityDate="2019-03-09T16:03:40.787" Title="Bullet tips and tricks" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;computer-chess&gt;&lt;time-management&gt;&lt;bullet-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2019-03-09T17:17:12.743" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23921" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23916" CreationDate="2019-03-09T10:33:14.420" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Alpha-beta engines, in many endgame positions, will quickly find a mate and therefore will pick the move which prolongs the mate for the longest.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Engines which use Monte Carlo Tree Search, however, pick the line with the greatest winning/drawing chances. For example, &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/LeelaChessZero/lc0&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Lc0&lt;/a&gt;, a neural network engine which uses MCTS, suggests Kg8 as you wanted in your position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;8/6k1/6P1/7K/6P1/8/8/8 b - - 0 1&#xA;&#xA;1...Kg8 2.Kh6 Kh8 3.Kg5 Kg7 4.Kf5 Kg8 5.Kf6 Kf8&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lc0 does not play endgames as well as alpha-beta engines, but it tends to play them in a much more human manner.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would also suggest taking a look at Komodo 12 MCTS, which may also exhibit this type of behaviour.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10075" LastActivityDate="2019-03-09T10:33:14.420" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23922" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23900" CreationDate="2019-03-09T12:05:51.130" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;1...Nh3+ 2.Kh1 Rxf2 and White's queen is dead anyway. Sure maybe it takes a rook instead of a knight but it's non-trivial which is worth more in this position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In either case White's king should be bringing out the white flag.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-03-09T12:05:51.130" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23923" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23920" CreationDate="2019-03-09T16:03:40.787" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;These tricks work much better in bullet, where flagging is probably 50% of the game, than in blitz.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The obvious one is to reply to the start of a fianchetto by threatening the square the bishop is about to move to in case it was pre-moved. e.g. reply to g3 with Bh3. Of course if your opponent didn't pre-move and your bishop is unprotected then you lose a piece but you should only do this when your opponent is playing some opening with minimal contact and with automatic moves like for instance the Kings Indian Attack with white.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2019-03-09T16:03:40.787" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23925" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23932" CreationDate="2019-03-10T00:19:28.347" Score="7" ViewCount="557" Body="&lt;p&gt;In view of castling rights, an aspiring rules lawyer could ask: when does threefold repetition support a draw claim? Technical example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[title &quot;Illustration of castling rights&quot;]&#xA;[startply &quot;13&quot;]&#xA;[startflipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 g6 2. b3 Bg7 3. g3 BxRa1 4. e5 b6 5. Na3 Bb7 6. Qg4 BxRh1 7. Nc4 Nc6 8. Kd1 Nb8 9. Ke1 Nc6 10. Kd1 Nb8 11. Ke1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The aspiring rules lawyer's question is not actually my question today. My questions today rather are these:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Has an arbiter ever expressed an opinion, given advice or issued a ruling regarding threefold repetition in view of castling rights?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Have competent persons in any chess federation ever discussed the matter?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Do parallel or otherwise related laws, opinions, advice, rulings or discussions by arbiters, federations or competent persons exist that indicate the principles by which such a case might be judged?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The three questions are related and answers to any or all of the three&amp;mdash;or even &lt;em&gt;partial&lt;/em&gt; answers to any of the three&amp;mdash;would be read with interest. I seek insight into how chess authorities have approached (or would approach) such problems.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Related question &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/q/6188/315&quot;&gt;here.&lt;/a&gt; Related answer &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/21317/315&quot;&gt;here.&lt;/a&gt; FIDE's laws of chess &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=208&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;UPDATE&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The excellent, concise, informative, well-researched answers of &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/23926/315&quot;&gt;@BrianTowers&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/23927/315&quot;&gt;@TonyK,&lt;/a&gt; taken together, perfectly illustrate the reason the question has been asked. Both answers are recommended and, naturally, both have been upvoted by me. Ironically however, under the circumstance, neither answer can be accepted over the other, can it, for only the two answers &lt;em&gt;together&lt;/em&gt; serve to illustrate the point.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since the two answers so perfectly capture the two sides, my preference would be that further answers (if any) avoid taking sides but rather focus on the three items listed above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;ILLUSTRATION BY @REMELLION&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Incidentally, before the question was asked, @Remillion had composed a problem position to illustrate a related point. He had originally meant the position as a joke but, since he has mentioned the position in comments in the present context, we can diagram it here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;B6N/1p1pp3/4pp1P/7P/7P/2p4P/1PPP2rr/R3K2k b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;[title &quot;By @Remellion: black to move; helpmate in 2&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="315" LastEditorUserId="18475" LastEditDate="2019-04-21T07:06:20.803" LastActivityDate="2021-05-02T16:39:03.983" Title="Threefold repetition in view of castling rights" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;draw&gt;&lt;fide&gt;&lt;castling&gt;&lt;threefold-repetition&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23926" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23925" CreationDate="2019-03-10T10:18:15.387" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is dealt with explicitly in article 9.2.2 -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;9.2.2 Positions are considered the same if and only if the same player has the move, pieces of the same kind and colour occupy the same&#xA;  squares and the possible moves of all the pieces of both players are&#xA;  the same. Thus positions are not the same if:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  9.2.2.1 at the start of the sequence a pawn could have been captured en passant&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  9.2.2.2 a king had castling rights with a rook that has not been moved, but forfeited these after moving. The castling rights are lost&#xA;  only after the king or rook is moved.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Neither of white's rooks move hence castling rights are not affected until the king moves. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In general provided white has not moved his king he may castle on the side on which a rook which has not moved has been captured. I believe there are even puzzles which rely on this for the solution.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2019-03-10T10:18:15.387" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23927" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23925" CreationDate="2019-03-10T11:46:34.940" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;This seems to be an omission in law 9.2.2.2:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;9.2.2.2 a king had castling rights with a rook that has not been moved, but forfeited these after moving. The castling rights are lost only after the king or rook is moved.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It should read &quot;The castling rights are lost only after the king or rook is moved, or the rook is captured.&quot; Indeed, that is how I hope an experienced arbiter would interpret it; the idea of having castling rights with non-existent rooks is absurd.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12189" LastActivityDate="2019-03-10T11:46:34.940" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23928" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9468" CreationDate="2019-03-11T09:22:15.063" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think you are confusing &lt;em&gt;check&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;checkmate&lt;/em&gt;. Check is the situation where a king is under attack from another piece. Checkmate is where that is the case, the king's side has the move, but there is no move possible that stops the check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your opponent &lt;em&gt;isn't allowed&lt;/em&gt; to play any move that puts himself into check. So if he does, you have to tell him, and he has to &lt;em&gt;take the move back&lt;/em&gt; and play something else. With the same piece if possible (touch move rule).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In tournament play, there are often penalties involved if you play an illegal move, like some minutes extra time for the opponent, or the loss of the game (common in blitz, or if it's the second or third illegal move you play in the same game).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2019-03-11T09:22:15.063" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23929" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-03-11T10:13:02.957" Score="1" ViewCount="178" Body="&lt;p&gt;Firstly I got 1018 rating last year. Then next tournament deducted 25 and my FIDE rating became zero. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Then I faced next tournament opponent 03 players 1352, 1255 and 1174 respectively. All 03 games I lost.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Then I faced next tournament opponent 03 players 1288, 1315 and 1153 respectively. I won 1315 rated game and other 02 lost.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Then I faced next tournament opponent 02 players 1227 and 1334 respectively. I won 0.5 with draw 1334 rated player and other one lost.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then I already got 1.5 points, but still my FIDE rating is showing 0. I want to know how many games I need to play and win to again take my FIDE rating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18675" LastEditorUserId="12629" LastEditDate="2019-03-11T11:30:12.030" LastActivityDate="2019-03-12T16:02:00.333" Title="Rating calculation problem" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;rating&gt;&lt;fide&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23930" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23929" CreationDate="2019-03-11T11:29:44.770" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Then I already got 1.5 points, but still my fide rating is showing 0.&#xA;  I want to know how many games need to play and win to again take my&#xA;  fide rating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=197&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Rating Regulations&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;7.2 Players who are not to be included on the list:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  7.21 Players whose ratings drop below 1000 are listed on the next list as 'delisted'. Thereafter they are treated in the same manner as any&#xA;  other unrated player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since your rating went below 1000 you count as a new player for rating purposes and this section applies:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;7.14 A rating for a player new to the list shall be published only if it meets the following criteria:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;7.14a If based on results obtained under 6.3, a minimum of 5 games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;7.14b If based on results obtained under 6.4, a minimum of 5 games played against rated opponents.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;7.14c The condition of a minimum of 5 games need not be met in one tournament. &lt;strong&gt;Results from other tournaments played within consecutive&#xA;  rating periods of not more than 26 months are pooled to obtain the&#xA;  initial rating&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;7.14d The rating is at least 1000.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;7.14e &lt;strong&gt;The rating is calculated using all his results as if they were played in one tournament&lt;/strong&gt; (it is not published until he has played at&#xA;  least 5 games) by using all the rating data available.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bottom line: you need to play well enough to bring your rating back to 1000 or above to have your rating reinstated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-03-11T11:42:52.667" LastActivityDate="2019-03-11T11:42:52.667" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23932" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23925" CreationDate="2019-03-12T01:50:14.477" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Has an arbiter ever expressed an opinion, given advice or issued a ruling regarding threefold repetition in view of castling rights?&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, Stewart Reuben, International Arbiter and Chair of the FIDE Rules Committee has presided over progressive rationalization of the FIDE rules, and is very aware of the general questions over castling and e.p. impact on threefold repetition. I don't know if he knows of the rook-capture lacuna.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Have competent persons in any chess federation ever discussed the matter?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Apart from FIDE, members of WFCC (World Federation of Chess Composition) have certainly discussed this issue. In Fairy Chess the general principle applies that a newly minted rook is assumed never to have moved. @Remellion's problem relies on this. The rook-capture lacuna is a slightly different point, stating that original castling rights remain rather than become re-established. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Problemists also generally concur that a king can make a double hop &quot;castling&quot; if a rook was given as odds. I don't know if any would go as far to agree with @Brian Towers that this could happen in a non-odds composition, as it would interact pathologically with the problem convention that castling rights are assumed to be retained unless they can be proved to have been lost.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Do parallel or otherwise related laws, opinions, advice, rulings or discussions by arbiters, federations or competent persons exist that indicate the principles by which such a case might be judged?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: (thanks itub) I now have an idea what USCF opines, since their rules are now published uschess.org/content/view/7752/369. Draw by repetition is constrained by rights of castling and e.p. But the concept of &quot;rights&quot; is not defined in the movement rules. This is actually quite important since under FIDE, the interpretation is subtly different between castling and e.p. The paragraph which in FIDE laws contains the rook-capture hole does not appear in USCF.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Sidebar: my initial impression of the USCF rules is quite positive. They seem fluently written, with some authorial personality (e.g. &quot;Tournament Director Tips&quot;) and there's are some good ideas which are new to me (e.g. can only claim a draw at the beginning of your turn, any claim also implies an offer of a draw). However the first time we try to get a clear answer, about &quot;rights&quot; we are a little let down.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the FIDE rook-capture lacuna is surely just a hole, and it may be filled in the future. In the mean time, FIDE arbiters have discretion to interpret the rules using their judgement, as @TonyK stated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the mean time, as Brian surmised, at least one joke problem relies on specifically this point. Place both kings and two knights on an empty board so that with White to move there is a unique way to draw by repetition in 4.0 moves. (A.Buchanan, version Retros Mailing List 3/1/2019). Note that this relies on the aforementioned castling convention.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8201" LastEditorUserId="8201" LastEditDate="2019-09-06T14:12:41.437" LastActivityDate="2019-09-06T14:12:41.437" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23933" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23830" CreationDate="2019-03-12T03:45:32.890" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;em&gt;Star Trek&lt;/em&gt; set I'm familiar with has connection points for the attack boards at the corners of the main boards, but not elsewhere.   So you can have the attack board above the middle board in 4 spots (the corners), or inverted from the upper board, halfway across the middle board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the middle board is labeled a1-d4, then the attack board can be placed 'upright' at the outside corners of a1, a4, d1, and d4.   It can also be placed inverted at the outside edge of a3 (near a2) and d3 (near d2) beneath the upper board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also invert a board without moving it along the file.  Moving it between boards requires at least a 1 'peg' move along the file.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17411" LastActivityDate="2019-03-12T03:45:32.890" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23934" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23929" CreationDate="2019-03-12T16:02:00.333" Score="4" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;please check Ekanayake E M Anindu Rehan Fide ID is 29909279&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;OK, so this is your playing record -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;2017-10&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;1754    0&lt;br&gt;&#xA;1155    0&lt;br&gt;&#xA;1371    0   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;2017-11&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;1112    0   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;2018-04&lt;/strong&gt; (1018)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;1286    0&lt;br&gt;&#xA;1079    0&lt;br&gt;&#xA;1018    1&lt;br&gt;&#xA;1318    0&lt;br&gt;&#xA;1067    1&lt;br&gt;&#xA;1090    0   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;2018-05&lt;/strong&gt; (1018 - 25.2 -&gt; 0)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;1418    0&lt;br&gt;&#xA;1332    0&lt;br&gt;&#xA;1221    0&lt;br&gt;&#xA;1292    0   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;2018-10&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;1352    0&lt;br&gt;&#xA;1255    0&lt;br&gt;&#xA;1174    0   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;2018-11&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;1288    0&lt;br&gt;&#xA;1315    1&lt;br&gt;&#xA;1153    0   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;2019-02&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;1227    0&lt;br&gt;&#xA;1334    0.5   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's go back and check the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=197&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE rating regulations&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;6.1 If an unrated player scores zero in his first tournament, his score and that of his opponents against him are disregarded. &#xA;  Otherwise if an unrated player has played rated games, then this&#xA;  result is included in computing his overall rating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your first two tournaments you scored zero points so these are not used in any rating calculations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You got your first rating of 1018 in the April 2018 list after a tournament in the previous month. Let's see how the calculation works. First the relevant parts of rating regulations:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;8.2 Determining the Rating 'Ru' in a given event of a previously unrated player.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  8.21 If an unrated player scores zero in his first event his score is disregarded.    First determine the average rating of his competition&#xA;  'Rc'.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  (a) In a Swiss or Team tournament: this is simply the average&#xA;  rating of his opponents.    ...&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  8.24 If he scores less than 50% in a Swiss or team tournament:  Ru = Ra + dp&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;2018-04&lt;/strong&gt; (1018)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;1286    0&lt;br&gt;&#xA;1079    0&lt;br&gt;&#xA;1018    1&lt;br&gt;&#xA;1318    0&lt;br&gt;&#xA;1067    1&lt;br&gt;&#xA;1090    0&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Sum of opponents' ratings = 6858&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Average of opponents' ratings = Rc = 6858 / 6 = 1143&lt;br&gt;&#xA;You scored 2/6 which is 33%. Hence:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Fractional score = p = .33,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Then I look up in table 8.1a from the rating regulations to find 'dp'&lt;br&gt;&#xA;dp = -125 so new rating = 1143 - 125 = 1018   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now if we repeat the calculation for what your current rating would be we again throw away the first two tournaments (2017-10 and 2017-11) and use all the tournaments since then.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We get:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Total sum of opponents' ratings = 6858 + 5263 + 3781 + 3756 + 2561 = 22219&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Total games = 18&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Rc = 22219 / 18 = 1234.39&lt;br&gt;&#xA;p = 3.5/18 x 100 = 19.4%&lt;br&gt;&#xA;dp = -251 (looking up in table 8.1a for p=0.19)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;So new rating = 1234.39 - 251 = 983.39   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is less than 1000 so you are recorded as unrated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If your fractional score had been 0.21 (i.e. you scored 4 / 18) then dp according to table 8.1a would be -230.4 and you would have had a rating of 1004.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, basically you fell short by one draw. If you continue winning one game in three against similar opposition then you should make it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2019-03-12T16:02:00.333" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23938" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24276" CreationDate="2019-03-14T02:22:28.107" Score="7" ViewCount="713" Body="&lt;p&gt;That’s one long question, so let’s break it down. Threefold repetition, as many know, is when a draw occurs, after the same position, with all piece types on the same square, all possible moves and rights are the same, happens three times in a game of chess. The draw can be claimed whether or not the positions are consecutive or not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is based on the non-consecutive part. Is there any sort of or record for when a draw was claimed for threefold repetition, when the three congruent positions, are the farthest apart by number of moves?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Essentially, the “number of moves” means this: Somtime in the game, position one occurs. So and so many moves later, position two happens. Then the third and final position is reached at last. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One could view this in two ways: What is the greatest number of moves between positions one and three, OR,  What is the greatest number of moves from position one to position two, and then from position two to position three?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The game must have ended on the basis of a threefold-repetition claim.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-03-12T16:12:26.410" LastActivityDate="2020-03-12T16:12:26.410" Title="Is there a record for threefold repetition for when the claimed positions are the farthest apart, in terms of moves?" Tags="&lt;draw&gt;&lt;threefold-repetition&gt;&lt;records&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23939" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23938" CreationDate="2019-03-14T12:06:21.370" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would say 50 moves (possibly 49).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Three-fold repetition requires the game to return same position 3 times.  This obviously can't happen if there are any captures or pawn moves, so therefore as long as the 3-fold repetition is possible so is the 50-move rule - which provides a hard upper limit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18698" LastActivityDate="2019-03-14T12:06:21.370" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23940" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9127" CreationDate="2019-03-14T16:26:07.347" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Toga Log also gives a breakdown of its evaluations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18667" LastActivityDate="2019-03-14T16:26:07.347" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23941" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23043" CreationDate="2019-03-14T16:54:49.027" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can do something like this with LucasChess, option &quot;Play like a gradmaster&quot;.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Though you can't provide your own pgns, you can select the player and the opening. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18667" LastActivityDate="2019-03-14T16:54:49.027" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23943" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-03-15T03:58:16.150" Score="2" ViewCount="1121" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm slowly getting better at my chess skills.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The one thing that bugs me the most right now is knowing which piece to move after many of my pieces have been developed and the king has been castled.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any move I make after the opening either seems trivial or will lead to 1-to-1 sacrifices. I'm trying to understand what approach I should follow after both my opponent and I move up our pieces to the point where we can no longer any with sacrificing them in a way that gives me an advantage.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Usually with beginners, they make some silly move so it's easy to know where to move my pieces. But with intermediate people I find it difficult to follow a consistent strategy after the first 10-15 moves.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I tried to use a chess helper to determine the next move, but couldn't quite understand the pattern and the moves it made felt arbitrary. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18703" LastEditorUserId="18475" LastEditDate="2020-02-01T23:13:19.440" LastActivityDate="2020-02-01T23:13:19.440" Title="How do I make the right move after an opening?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;learning&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2019-03-18T23:01:30.907" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23945" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23947" CreationDate="2019-03-15T12:27:43.353" Score="5" ViewCount="219" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am confused by the usage of the following chess terms: 'positional advantage', 'initiative', 'attack', 'pressure', 'aggressive/active moves' and 'play/counterplay'. Do they mean the same thing? Can they be used interchangeably? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18706" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2019-03-24T08:59:26.273" LastActivityDate="2019-03-24T08:59:26.273" Title="Can these chess terms be used interchangeably?" Tags="&lt;terminology&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23946" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23943" CreationDate="2019-03-15T13:58:19.980" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Usually each opening consists in a middle game plan rather than just a sequence of initial moves. This means that the criteria behind choosing this or that other opening must be driven by the specific middle game positions that one wants to achieve or is confident to play (driven by personal taste, skills or whichever other reason).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are mainly two ways to develop sense of positions for middle game:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;studying the opening thoroughly: this means taking a book written by experts on the subject analysing positions very deeply until the endgame. Classical openings (Ruy Lopez, Queen's gambit, Sicilian, King's Indian) are easy to play but extremely hard to master, therefore one cannot really play them without extensive knowledge (unless you want to fall back into your previous case, where players end up moving pieces randomly after a while)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;looking at classical games by classical players: this is the evergreen advice but really it &lt;em&gt;does&lt;/em&gt; help to understand what to do. Good players are such because they have a sense of how to treat specific positions and come up with sensible plans for the initiative. In general looking at GM games helps understanding how to convert small advantages into winning positions (at the end of the day, chess games are not won by throwing all your pieces at the opponent's King, rather by accumulating small advantages throughout the game and converting the resulting endgame position).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11726" LastActivityDate="2019-03-15T13:58:19.980" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23947" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23945" CreationDate="2019-03-15T16:45:03.777" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;positional advantage&quot;  -- This could refer to a better pawn structure or deployment of forces; a knight outpost or the opponent has doubled pawns etc.&#xA;In battle it could be having the high-ground.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;initiative&quot; and &quot;attack&quot; are used similarly, but &quot;initiative&quot; is who can make the next threat.  For example, in Tennis: you have the serve = initiative.  You make a good serve and are able to rush the net (keeping the initiative -- threat after threat) = attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;pressure&quot; is making threats against weaknesses.  So, you might have a positional advantage, say your opponent has weak pawns, but if you don't attack them where is the pressure?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;play&quot; and &quot;counter play&quot; refer to the ability to make threats.  If you are completely on the defensive then you have no play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;active moves&quot; are moves that seek to attack/counter-attack as opposed to passivity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So now I hope you can understand this: &#xA;&quot;I had a positional advantage, which I turned into an attack, but he sacrificed the exchange and got counter-play.  I defended and was able to consolidate my material advantage.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastEditorUserId="14202" LastEditDate="2019-03-15T16:53:25.157" LastActivityDate="2019-03-15T16:53:25.157" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23948" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23943" CreationDate="2019-03-15T16:53:00.397" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Read a book; see how the masters do it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You learned how to walk from observing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess Praxis by Nimzowitsch or Art of Attack by Vladimir Vukovic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your thoughts are a subset of something&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A framework organizes them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A book is that framework you're missing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It helps you look for ideas to accomplish.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Without a book, you don't know what to look for. You are sailing without a map.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13147" LastEditorUserId="13147" LastEditDate="2019-03-15T17:03:01.173" LastActivityDate="2019-03-15T17:03:01.173" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23949" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23916" CreationDate="2019-03-15T17:06:05.070" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Freechess.org has a bot called endgamebot you can play against.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It knows up to 6-man endgames.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13147" LastActivityDate="2019-03-15T17:06:05.070" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23950" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-03-15T22:16:03.810" Score="7" ViewCount="634" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not enthusiastic about chess in particular, so if I use terminology incorrectly please correct me. I use &quot;phase 1 &amp;amp; phase 2&quot; for each player's move, and &quot;turn &lt;em&gt;n&lt;/em&gt;&quot; for each pair of phases.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm a novice programmer writing a chess program as a personal challenge, and  would like to know exactly when checkmates and stalemates take effect. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Specifically:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If a player 1's move causes checkmate or stalemate, does the game end during phase 1, or at the beginning of phase 2?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Edit:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems I wasn't clear enough that I wasn't looking for a programming answer, I wanted to know about chess standards. Even if my program can work without detecting the exact final phase, I would like that information to be available.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I looked at the FIDE rules as mentioned in Laska&#xA;'s answer [&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/FIDE/handbook/LawsOfChess.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;link&lt;/a&gt;], and Section 5 points out what I was looking for:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;5.1 a. The game is won by the &lt;strong&gt;player who has checkmated his opponent’s king&lt;/strong&gt;. This &lt;strong&gt;immediately&lt;/strong&gt; ends the game, provided that the move producing the checkmate&#xA;position was a legal move.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;5.2 a. The game is drawn when the &lt;strong&gt;player to move&lt;/strong&gt; has no legal move and his king is not in check. The game is said to end in ‘stalemate’. This &lt;strong&gt;immediately&lt;/strong&gt; ends the game, provided that the move producing the stalemate position was legal.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From these rules I gather that if I cause a checkmate, the game ends before my opponent's next phase, and if I cause a stalemate, the game ends during my opponent's next phase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please correct me if you think I'm not understanding something correctly. Also, I know I've seen the term FIDE before but I'm not sure if their chess laws would generally be considered a widely accepted and robust standard. I figure a chess community is the right place to ask about whether or not I should be using their standards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user18707" LastEditorDisplayName="user18707" LastEditDate="2019-04-09T19:31:45.927" LastActivityDate="2020-08-17T01:58:42.970" Title="When exactly does a checkmate or stalemate take effect?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;stalemate&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23951" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23950" CreationDate="2019-03-15T22:19:43.053" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;Take your pick.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Conventionally in computer chess, we express your idea of phases as &quot;plies&quot;, or half-moves, where 2 plies is one &quot;turn&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can detect checkmate in the ply where the checkmating move is made, but it is more common for checkmate to be detected in the following ply, where your program generates legal moves for the mated player, only to find that there are 0 available.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is often more convenient and efficient that way, as the work to generate moves would have been done anyway had the position not been mate, so no extra work is done to determine whether a position is checkmate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10075" LastActivityDate="2019-03-15T22:19:43.053" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23954" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-03-16T03:36:17.060" Score="8" ViewCount="391" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm trying out the Tartakower variation of the Caro-Kann.  It begins&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[startply &quot;11&quot;]&#xA;[startflipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 dxe4 4. Nxe4 Nf6 5. Nxf6+ exf6 6. Bc4 Bf5 (6... Bd6)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have not had much success with it thus far.  I lost &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/RzTuOsNY&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;a recent LiChess game&lt;/a&gt; seemingly without much effort from my opponent.  It continued from the above &lt;code&gt;6. Bc4 Bf5&lt;/code&gt;.  It seems for black &lt;code&gt;6...Bf5&lt;/code&gt; is inferior to &lt;code&gt;6...Bd6&lt;/code&gt;, being played in far fewer master games (and judging from Stockfish's evaluation: +0.6 vs. +0.3), although I'm not sure if this is correct, and I'm not sure why.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Is 6...Bf5 inferior to 6...Bd6 in the Caro-Kann Tartakower after 6. Bc4?  And if so, why?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2785" LastEditorUserId="315" LastEditDate="2019-03-16T13:43:10.263" LastActivityDate="2019-03-21T23:17:17.773" Title="Is 6...Bf5 inferior to 6...Bd6 in the Caro-Kann Tartakower after 6. Bc4? And if so, why?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;caro-kann&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23956" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23954" CreationDate="2019-03-16T12:25:13.870" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;6...Bf5 looks like a good developing move. It fights for control of the e4 square and puts pressure on the c2 pawn. However neither side is trying to push a pawn to e4 because there are no e pawns left and the c2 pressure is pretty meaningless.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Meanwhile white's 6. Bc4 fought for control of the d5 square and now 7. d5 is a possibility although probably not yet desirable. 6...Bf5 does nothing to address this and basically lets White have control.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;6...Bd6, on the other hand, directly contests the d5 square. Furthermore it leaves white with an immediate choice, either acquiesce to the exchange of bishops thereby unravelling black's pawn structure with near equality, or move the bishop again.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;6...Bd6 is clearly superior.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2019-03-16T12:25:13.870" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23957" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-03-16T14:14:06.737" Score="2" ViewCount="67" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there any way to search for games by a player where the move &quot;x...Ng8&quot; took place?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm looking for a specific game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And no, it's not Saemisch - Nimzowitsch, Berlin 1928.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13147" LastActivityDate="2019-03-17T09:04:58.310" Title="Nimzowitsch specific game with Nf6-g8" Tags="&lt;master-games&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23959" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23916" CreationDate="2019-03-16T14:49:09.637" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It depend which chess engine LC is using, nowadays engines play very similarly to human type moves, download stockfish 9 and attach it LC you will what he is playing. &#xA;There is also one important point, sometimes training app uses built in moves to play with, so make sure engine is playing and not just replying moves from notation&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18713" LastActivityDate="2019-03-16T14:49:09.637" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23960" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23943" CreationDate="2019-03-16T14:52:38.347" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You need to read some chess books but general advise from a master is,&#xA;Get center in opening and if you got it in opening in middle game try to keep center and make space using is.&#xA;If you lost center or gave center by intention to your opponent, your first middle game action plan should be attacking that center that usually start by exchanging and engaging pawns with opponent’s central pawns&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18713" LastActivityDate="2019-03-16T14:52:38.347" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23961" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22102" CreationDate="2019-03-16T14:55:58.217" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes it is considering side to move, also right of moves are also considered, for example if you lose right of castling after 3 moves repetition, you cannot claim draw or if lose right of en-passant &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18713" LastActivityDate="2019-03-16T14:55:58.217" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23963" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-03-16T15:06:48.750" Score="2" ViewCount="200" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am using the training annotation function of ChessBase quite extensively but have now encountered a problem. I am using ChessBase 11. When I save a game with training annotation as a pgn-file and then reopen it with ChessBase, the training questions are not triggered, but there is now text of the type&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;{[%tqu &quot;How should White play?&quot;,&quot;&quot;,&quot;&quot;,Rg4,&quot;Black has to play non-script moves such as &quot;,10]}&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What could be the reason that ChessBase does not recognize the training annotation? Any ideas how I could try to solve this problem?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks and kind regards,&#xA;Florian &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18714" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T20:32:26.160" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T20:32:41.490" Title="Chessbase training annotation" Tags="&lt;training&gt;&lt;chessbase&gt;&lt;annotation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23964" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23957" CreationDate="2019-03-17T00:15:52.527" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can do it with chess database softwares &#xA;Paid and open-source like chessbase or scid chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You do not need to put complete position, also you can use maneuvers if you know last move.&#xA;Here is a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.chessbase.com/post/fun-and-instructive-the-new-search-mask-in-chessbase-15&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Link&lt;/a&gt; to chessbase with instructions&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18713" LastEditorUserId="18713" LastEditDate="2019-03-17T00:31:43.293" LastActivityDate="2019-03-17T00:31:43.293" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23965" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23957" CreationDate="2019-03-17T01:16:20.447" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you have your database in clear text format such as pgn, and if you are satisfied with any knight move to g8, you could just search for the string &quot;Ng8&quot; (and potentially &quot;Nfg8&quot;, &quot;Nhg8&quot; and &quot;Neg8&quot;) in the pgn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This does not help if you want to filter for Nf6g8 &lt;em&gt;only&lt;/em&gt;, unless there is a way to save the pgn with long algebraic notation. Also you would find both black and white knights moving to g8 (probably a lot more black than white moves though).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastEditorUserId="11629" LastEditDate="2019-03-17T09:04:58.310" LastActivityDate="2019-03-17T09:04:58.310" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23966" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23950" CreationDate="2019-03-17T03:05:40.620" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is no reason not to exit the loops your program uses after a checkmate or a stalemate. The rules of the game says there is no move for the opponent. The game is finished.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should just break your looping and send an alert with the result and update the statics of your program.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is not any .pgn or FEN more notation to write so no sense to still use code to perform your program.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user18196" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T16:53:10.970" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T16:53:10.970" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23967" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5738" CreationDate="2019-03-17T09:56:54.907" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;A bit late, but this app has a pause button and will also pause if you answer a call:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.kokajin.applications.chessclock&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.kokajin.applications.chessclock&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18719" LastActivityDate="2019-03-17T09:56:54.907" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23968" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22627" CreationDate="2019-03-17T13:34:01.080" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;It depends.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Myself I play at a 1900 FIDE level and I have practically never studied openings!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Take as an example two players of my club rated 2250 FIDE:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Player A: theory enthusiastic&lt;/strong&gt;: This player not only have a repertory close to an IM, but he went to a pub before each game to&#xA;study possible development of the games taking in consider what&#xA;openings his rival played.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Player B: tactics enthusiastic&lt;/strong&gt;: This player do not study more theory and just played for fun at the club. He of course know some&#xA;basis because to reach that level you need to survive against every&#xA;+2000 the first ten moves, but he never prepared any game and uses to fall in second non book lines at the first moves.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyhow at a titled level everybody has a repertory. But also at this level there are some masters that know very deep lines of a huge repertory: more than fifty openings with more than ten lines on each one, to make a rude calculation, and others that just do not fall in ambushes, but as player B of my club can fall in non book lines to make think their opponents.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user18196" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T16:52:55.617" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T16:52:55.617" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23969" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23950" CreationDate="2019-03-17T14:34:02.393" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Thanks for the question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The FIDE rules are not great here. A turn ends when a game-ending move has been played (Article 6.2.a.1). The clock does not need to be pressed. But in order to compute whether the move ends the game, there has to have been some kind of hypothetical look-ahead as to what would happen at the beginning of the next turn. The simple purpose of this I suppose is to avoid the chance to lose on time after just having e.g. played a mating move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A particular question is who has the move in the final position? In cases of mate it’s sort of obvious but in cases of stalemate it is not clear at all. Is this showing the position in the actual time or&#xA;the position in the hypothetical look-ahead? Argh!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However from a programming point of view this hypothecating is not necessary. The move is completed, and the opponent loses or is stalemated etc in their own turn. The final position cleanly shows who has the move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8201" LastActivityDate="2019-03-17T14:34:02.393" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23970" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23943" CreationDate="2019-03-17T15:12:02.307" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a perplexing problem. You are not the only beginner it has troubled. Let us suppose that, during the opening, you have probably&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;developed at least three of your four minor pieces (knights and bishops) and&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;castled.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Admittedly, depending on the position, these do not happen in every game. Exceptions are interesting and fairly frequent. Castling is occasionally omitted or deferred, for example. Nevertheless, despite exceptions, in a typical game, most competent opening players do indeed develop minor pieces and, when tempo allows, castle.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now comes the advice you have heard before, the advice that once frustrated me, too, as a beginner:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Make and begin to execute a plan.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, what is this &lt;em&gt;plan&lt;/em&gt; chess players are always talking about?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First let me tell you what a plan is usually not. A plan&amp;mdash;especially so early in the game&amp;mdash;is usually not a script; that is, a plan is usually not a predetermined sequence of many moves. A plan is also usually not a fixation; that is, a plan is usually not a goal from which the player singlemindedly, doggedly refuses to deviate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Rather, a plan is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;a set of things&amp;mdash;sometimes as few as one or two things&amp;mdash;the player would like if possible to do to improve the position in his or her favor, along with&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;a favorable judgment that the things in question are reasonably feasible to achieve.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At only slightly more advanced levels, a plan also necessarily assimilates&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;countermeasures against the opponent's plan,&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but it is hard for a beginner to think of too many requirements at once; so, at least for the moment, let us focus on the first two of the three requirements.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since a plan arises not in a vacuum but in response to a concrete position during a particular game, a plan seldom emerges except by assessment of the features of a particular position. This is best illustrated by example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Title &quot;Classical time, 1885 v 1836. French Defense, Exchange Variation.&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[StartPly &quot;18&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Rated Classical game&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;https://lichess.org/qdEjEWRU&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2018.10.18&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;-&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Mermaqs&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;cimrman44&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[UTCDate &quot;2018.10.18&quot;]&#xA;[UTCTime &quot;16:34:25&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;1885&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;1836&quot;] &#xA;[WhiteRatingDiff &quot;+10&quot;]&#xA;[BlackRatingDiff &quot;-9&quot;] &#xA;[Variant &quot;Standard&quot;] &#xA;[TimeControl &quot;900+15&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;C01&quot;] &#xA;[Opening &quot;French Defense: Exchange Variation&quot;]&#xA;[Termination &quot;Normal&quot;]&#xA;[Annotator &quot;lichess.org&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 1... e6 2. d4 2... d5 3. exd5 3... exd5 4. Nf3 4... Nf6 5. Bd3 5... Be7 6. O-O 6... Bg4 7. Bg5 7... O-O 8. Nbd2 8... c6 9. c3 9... Nbd7 10. Qc2?! (10. Bf4 Re8) 10... Bh5?! (10... h6 11. Bxf6 Nxf6 12. Ne5 Qc7 13. Nxg4 Nxg4 14. g3 Nf6 15. Rae1 Rae8 16. Nf3 Bd6 17. Kg2) 11. Bxf6?! (11. Rae1 Re8) 11... Nxf6 12. Rae1 12... Bg6 13. Ne5 13... Re8 14. Nxg6 14... hxg6 15. Nf3 15... Qc7 16. Qd2 16... Bd6 17. g3 17... Rxe1 18. Rxe1 18... Re8 19. Rxe8+ 19... Nxe8 20. Qe3 20... Nf6 21. a3 21... Qe7 22. Qxe7 22... Bxe7 23. c4 23... Bd6 24. c5 24... Bc7 25. b4 25... Nd7 26. Nd2 26... f5 27. Kf1 27... Kf7 28. f4 28... Kf6 29. Nf3 29... Nf8 30. a4?! (30. Kf2) 30... Ne6 31. h4 31... a6?! (31... a5 32. bxa5 Bxa5 33. Kf2 b6 34. Ne5 bxc5 35. Nxc6 Bc3 36. dxc5 Nxc5 37. Bb5 Nb3 38. Ke2) 32. b5?! (32. a5) 32... axb5 33. axb5 33... Bb8? (33... b6 34. cxb6 Bxb6 35. bxc6 Ke7 36. c7 Nxc7 37. Ke2 Ne8 38. Ke3 Nf6 39. Ne5 Kd6 40. Nxg6) 34. b6 34... Nd8 35. Kf2 35... Nf7? (35... Ne6 36. Ke3 Kf7 37. Be2 Ke7 38. Bd1 Kf6 39. Ba4 Nd8 40. Bc2 Ne6 41. Nd2 Ke7 42. Kd3) 36. Be2? (36. Ne5 Bxe5 37. fxe5+ Ke6 38. Ke3 Ke7 39. Bc2 Nd8 40. g4 f4+ 41. Kxf4 Ne6+ 42. Ke3 g5) 36... Nh6? (36... Ke6 37. Nd2 Nd8 38. Ke3 Kf6 39. Nb3 Ke7 40. Na5 Ke6 41. Bd3 Kf6 42. Kd2 Ke6 43. Kc3) 37. Nd2? (37. Ne5 Ke6 38. Ba6 bxa6 39. Nxc6 Bc7 40. bxc7 Kd7 41. Ne7 Kxc7 42. Nxd5+ Kc6 43. Ne7+ Kd7) 37... Nf7 38. Nb3 38... Nd8 39. Na5 39... Ke6 40. Ke3 40... Kf6 41. g4?! (41. Nb3 Ke7 42. Kd3 Ne6 43. Na5 Nd8 44. Kc3 Kd7 45. Bf3 Ke6 46. Nb3 Kd7 47. Bd1 Ne6) 41... Ke6 42. h5 42... gxh5 43. gxh5 43... Kf6 44. Bf1 44... Ke6 45. Bh3 45... Kf6 46. Kf3?! (46. Bf1 g5 47. fxg5+ Kxg5 48. Bd3 Bh2 49. Kf2 f4 50. Kg2 Bg3 51. Nxb7 Nxb7 52. Ba6 Na5) 46... Ke6 47. Nb3 47... Kf6 48. Nd2?! (48. Nc1 Ne6 49. Ne2 g5 50. hxg6 Kxg6 51. Ke3 Kf6 52. Bg2 Kg6) 48... Ne6 49. Nb3 49... Bxf4 50. Na5 50... Bb8?! (50... Bd2 51. Nxb7) 51. Nxb7 51... Nxd4+ 52. Ke3 52... Nb3 53. Bg2 53... Ke5?? (53... Be5 54. Nd8 Bd4+ 55. Kd3 Bxc5 56. b7 Bd6 57. Nxc6 Nc5+ 58. Kd4 Nxb7 59. Kxd5 Bc5 60. Ne5) 54. Nd8? (54. Bf3) 54... Na5 55. Kd3 55... f4?? (55... Kf6) 56. Kc3 56... Kf6? (56... d4+ 57. Kb4 d3 58. Kxa5 Kd4 59. Ne6+ Ke3 60. Bxc6 d2 61. Ba4 f3 62. c6 f2 63. c7) 57. Kb4 57... Nc4?! (57... Ke7 58. Kxa5 Kxd8 59. Ka6 f3 60. Bxf3 Bf4 61. Kb7 Be3 62. Kxc6 Kc8 63. Bxd5 Bf2 64. Kb5) 58. Nxc6 58... Ne3?? (58... f3 59. Bxf3) 59. Nxb8 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Diagrammed is &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/qdEjEWRU&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;an arbitrarily selected recent game&lt;/a&gt; from Lichess (with computer-provided annotation). Like you and me, the game's players are not masters, so not every move they make is the best one. The players are not beginners, either, however. Anyway, let us see how they play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After 9...&amp;nbsp;Nbd7, White has the move. The game has reached just the kind of position about which you have asked. The opening is over. Bishops and knights are in play. Kings are castled, so now White must decide what to do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White finds two primary avenues of potential attack:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the e-file, which is free of pawns; and&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the light-squared diagonal b1-h7, which White's light-squared bishop already controls.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White will attend to the e-file soon but for now he judges (perhaps inaccurately, but nevertheless) that Black's king is weak in the corner. White's plan therefore is to try for checkmate on&amp;nbsp;h7.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When we say, &quot;to try for checkmate,&quot; we do not necessarily mean that White believes that he &lt;em&gt;will&lt;/em&gt; checkmate on&amp;nbsp;h7. White might believe instead that, by threatening checkmate on&amp;nbsp;h7, he may force Black to defensive maneuvers that weaken Black's position elsewhere. Even such defensive maneuvers can make White's plan a success. At any rate, over the board, White mounts pressure against&amp;nbsp;h7 by 10. Qc2. Subsequently, White exchanges a piece for Black's Nc6, a defender. Attending also to plan avenue&amp;nbsp;1 earlier listed&amp;mdash;White further places a rook on the e-file.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the event, no midgame checkmate occurs, heavy pieces are swapped off, and the position after 22...&amp;nbsp;Bxe7 is reached. Material remains equal. Has White's plan failed?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not necessarily. Though it would exaggerate to call White's plan a great success, White does have a slightly better pawn structure (Black's pawns being doubled) and White has the move. Yet could not White have chosen a different plan that would have been a greater success? Answer: perhaps but remember that Black has been executing a plan, too. At any rate, 22...&amp;nbsp;Bxe7 affords White the chance to develop a new plan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A midgame checkmate is no longer possible but an endgame pawn promotion might be feasible. Because Black's king is on the kingside White resolves to try on the queenside via 23.&amp;nbsp;c4. (Of course, I do not know what White is &lt;em&gt;really&lt;/em&gt; thinking any more than you do. One can but infer from the moves.) I am not sure that the move White chooses, 23.&amp;nbsp;c4, is a particularly strong move but, in this position, White is in little danger of losing even if his winning chances are not especially good. The move White chooses at the board is thus probably about as good as any and has the virtue at least that it does not passively surrender the initiative, such as it is, to Black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have purposely chosen a game in which nothing brilliant occurs. This is not a spectacular or even a very romantic game. This is an ordinary game between ordinary players with whom you and I are unacquainted; yet the game straightforwardly illustrates the way in which moves that follow the opening need not be aimless. It shows how players can develop and follow a plan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;During your next game, once your knights and bishops are in play and, probably, after you have castled, scan your opponent's position for a weak point. You need not look for checkmate as White in the sample game has done, but maybe your opponent has an ill-defended pawn against which you can mount pressure? Maybe there is an open or semi-open file down which you can start advancing rooks toward a square you control in enemy territory. Maybe, especially in games which do not open 1.&amp;nbsp;e4, you can push a pawn or two to deny your opponent space, cramping his or her maneuvers. If you are playing a much stronger player&amp;mdash;well, playing stronger players is good and necessary and you should do it&amp;mdash;but a stronger player is likely to develop and execute a good plan before you can even start, throwing you back on the defensive; so, for purpose of practicing the making of plans, also mix a few players who are less strong among your opponents, if only so that you can gradually develop a feeling for the use of the initiative.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After the opening, as a general rule, do not delay. Do not waste moves. Find a target. Start piling multiple attackers against it. Consider maneuvers that may discomfit the target. Identify one or two alternate attacks to which you might suddenly shift. Defend when necessary but maintain at least a moderately aggressive spirit. Suddenly, you may see the point, coming to understand why one move is chosen over another as players enter the middlegame of chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="315" LastEditorUserId="315" LastEditDate="2019-03-17T19:48:11.397" LastActivityDate="2019-03-17T19:48:11.397" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23972" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23977" CreationDate="2019-03-17T18:48:37.450" Score="5" ViewCount="618" Body="&lt;p&gt;If one master writes a book on &lt;em&gt;chess strategy&lt;/em&gt; (example &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.gambitbooks.com/books/Secrets_of_Modern_Chess_Strategy.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;) and another writes a book on &lt;em&gt;positional chess&lt;/em&gt; (example &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.gambitbooks.com/books/Secrets_of_Positional_Chess.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;), are they writing more or less on the same subject?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do other major chess languages (if you happen to read any) like Russian, German, Spanish and/or French likewise circulate distinct terms for &lt;em&gt;chess strategy&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;positional chess?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Usually in English, synonyms will bear some gradation in meaning, so a minor distinction to separate the two terms in question is expected. However, are the two synonymous at all? Suppose that the publisher had swapped the titles of the above two linked books. Would the swap have confused anyone?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See also:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/q/13904/315&quot;&gt;Chess strategy defined&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/q/9638/315&quot;&gt;What is positional play in chess?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="315" LastEditorUserId="315" LastEditDate="2019-03-17T20:59:24.700" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T16:52:31.057" Title="Chess strategy versus positional chess" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;books&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;&lt;terminology&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23973" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23972" CreationDate="2019-03-17T20:54:21.563" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;As I have understood it on Spanish yes, there is a difference. Strategy is a top level term for almost everything in chess that is not tactics.&#xA;Take in consider the definition you provide for strategy also creates a separated field for endgames:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess strategy can be defined as the creation of long term plans that will dictate your next several moves. In order to achieve these plans, you can argue that the chess player will resort to either positional, tactical or endgame devices.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Blog post about &lt;a href=&quot;http://beginchess.com/2016/03/13/chess-strategy/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess Strategy&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Endgames are also strategy, but usually they are not positional.&#xA;Conversely, positional chess use to take place when pieces are on the board, either at opening either at middlegame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user18196" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T16:52:31.057" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23974" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23954" CreationDate="2019-03-17T23:04:59.983" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is a bit early in the game to be saying that one move is decisively better than another, but there are general principles that can be applied. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One of these is to ask whether you are already sure where certain pieces belong, and if you are sure, put them there at once unless there is some tactical reason not to. In this variation, where Black recaptures on f6 with the e-pawn, he has already conceded a slightly disadvantageous endgame because he cannot create a passed pawn on the K_side, but White can do so on the Q-side. As compensation, Black has achieved mobility for all of his pieces, and can try to use this to bring off an attack with ....Bd6, 0-0, Qc7 and Bg4 that makes any endgame irrelevant. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So Black is fairly sure that his KB belongs on d6. His QB could belong on g4, f5, perhaps e6, or it might stay where it is while Black plays Re8 and Nd7-f8. He might even consider ..f6-f5. So ..Bd6 has the advantage of preserving options for the QB. There is less value in maintaining options for the KB because we already know where we want it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The possibility of 6...Be6 is dubious. After 7. Bxe6 (or first 7.Qe2) the Pawn on e6 will be a permanent weakness even it gets to e5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastActivityDate="2019-03-17T23:04:59.983" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23975" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23943" CreationDate="2019-03-18T00:09:37.400" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You are asking what to do when the opening is over, which implies that you think you know what to do while still in the opening. Im not sure that you do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Every move in every opening is motivated by trying to prepare for what comes next, and as the opening progresses the preparation becomes more specific. 1.e4 follows very general principles. Gain some space, control the center, mobilize some pieces. Blacks reply is more informative.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1..e5 Follow suit, try to keep up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1..e6 Encourage White to be ambitious. Hope it backfires.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1..c6 Play for an easy development. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1..d5 Provoke White to try and punish me. Force him to fight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1..c5 Let White have the center. Counterattack later.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1..d6/g6 Be noncommittal. Wait to see Whites intentions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These are very vague and simplistic of course, but as the game progresses both players firm up their 'wish list' and try to forward their own plans while frustrating what they guess to be their opponents. Sometimes the focus is quite specific (is that square weak?) Sometimes it remains less specific (Do my pieces move freely?) but by the time the &quot;opening is over&quot; (Pawn structure stabilized, Rooks connected, whatever definition you prefer) you can ask if you have achieved&#xA;your ambitions. If you have, follow up consistently. If not, reassess the situation. Limit the damage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Opening books for advanced players tend to assume that you already know this, and often focus on analyzing variations. Beginners books may go no further than &quot;get your pieces out!&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Two old, but still very readable books that stress the links between opening and &#xA;middle game are The ideas behind the Chess Openings by Reuben Fine, and A Guide to Chess Openings by Leonard Barden (published in several editions with slightly different titles and coauthored with Tim Harding) Both of these are a bit outdated, but if you understand them you will be a stronger player than you are now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastActivityDate="2019-03-18T00:09:37.400" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23976" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23943" CreationDate="2019-03-18T15:01:21.853" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;This moment is crucial. It is called the middle game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A game of chess typically has three phases.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Opening&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Middle game&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;End game&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Learning tactics and basic principles of advanced chess play can help all of these phases. What I would recommend you though, is to do this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Learn good endgame. Endgame theory is limited, as the whole logic focus on fewer pieces and pawns. Learn about pawn structures and conditions that can end you up in a winning endgame position. You can win a game easily, if you have played to reach a winning position, but first you should know what an endgame winning position is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Second thing you should know, a thing that most people focus on first, is an opening. You shall choose an appropriate opening to end you up to possible positions you can win. Knowing endgame can make you choose which opening to focus as white.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hardest part is to learn to respond correct on any opening as black. This needs a load of hours to study basic variations. The basic principles are always present to help you out, but knowing the theory makes you a real master.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally there is the middle game you are so concerned. If you can do a 1 for 1 trade, for each piece, then you might end up into a position with Kings and pawns. If your pawns and you King position is better, (endgame theory) you are winning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the middle game though it isn't always that simple. There might be tactical tricks, like skewers, pinned pieces and other principles that you have to train so you can see they can exist. You can see then the potential of the position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many players focus on winning material on a trade. It is good, but you should never forget that you can win more than that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Better positioning&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Better control on the center&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A Zugzwang position for the opponent.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hopefully this helps you out, because this is actually briefly what better chess is all about.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;you should also take a look at this topic:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/1103/how-do-i-learn-to-understand-the-middlegame?noredirect=1&amp;amp;lq=1&quot;&gt;How do I learn to understand the middlegame?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And yes, a few books on chess strategies should help you out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A final suggestion would be a program like Chessmaster (FOR PC). &#xA;10th edition and later contained a whole interactive academy on how to learn better chess. Strongly recommend it, because I have seen people who were weak turn into significant stronger in a year or so.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18488" LastEditorUserId="18488" LastEditDate="2019-03-18T15:29:59.017" LastActivityDate="2019-03-18T15:29:59.017" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23977" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23972" CreationDate="2019-03-18T15:12:10.943" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;These terms overlap but should not be used interchangeably.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Positional&quot; books tend to take positions from a game and explain a specific aspect, while &quot;Strategy&quot; books usually try to tie positional aspects together (this does not appear to be the case with Watson's book).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An example of strategy would be choosing the &quot;Exchange Ruy Lopez&quot; as White with the idea of having 4 pawns against 3 on the king-side while Black's 4:3 on the Queen-side is crippled and can't force a passed pawn.   Then White just needs to trade all the pieces and have a won endgame. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Understanding that Blacks pawns cannot force a passed pawn on their own is a positional aspect of the strategy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2019-03-18T15:12:10.943" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23978" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23972" CreationDate="2019-03-18T15:19:02.357" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess Strategy contains a lot of principles. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Tactics, like skewer and pin&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Basic principles, like attack the center&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Better positioning pieces and taking advantage of a position itself.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;and more.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Positional chess is a part of the strategical chess in my opinion, &lt;strong&gt;but&lt;/strong&gt; a book on positional chess goes even deeper. A LOT deeper. You can sacrifice a whole piece and on some rare occasions a rook and a queen to set up a winning position. Positional chess books focus on teaching you how to see the full potential on a position. That is the difference. &#xA;Tactical chess is a set of principles and tricks. Understanding the potential of a position though makes you evaluate a position better and opens your mind to another level of chess play.&#xA;For instance, imagine you got an opponent king, and a lot of pawns and pieces around that king. You might be able to use opponents pieces as obstacles for their king to escape. It is like judo. Use opponent's strength to weaken them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18488" LastActivityDate="2019-03-18T15:19:02.357" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23979" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23954" CreationDate="2019-03-18T15:24:34.427" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;6...Bf5 certainly doesn't feel right to me.  I would think Black wants to get ready to castle king-side quickly and 6...Bd6 allows that.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Additionally Bd6 prevents White from playing Bf4 which is quite active compared to the alternatives.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By-the-way, I think this line is risky for Black as you already have the potential for a lost endgame due to the pawn structure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2019-03-18T15:24:34.427" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23981" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-03-19T03:41:31.663" Score="1" ViewCount="82" Body="&lt;p&gt;Somewhat of a peculiar question/request/search. &#xA;Basically, I'm looking for any software/website/etc. where I can play chess with friends however the only caveat is that the icons/designs/board pieces/etc. be whatever I want them to be. Say having a strawberry for a king or a pawprint for a pawn for example. And that one side's icons be different from the other's (as in white king is a strawberry and black king is a shoe).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18727" LastActivityDate="2019-03-19T08:00:16.700" Title="Custom icons/designs for online with other people?" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;websites&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23982" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23981" CreationDate="2019-03-19T08:00:16.700" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Hi Anon and welcome to chess.stackexchange.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would begin at &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.virtualpieces.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Peter Wong's virtual pieces site&lt;/a&gt;. Have a look at this, and if necessary contact Peter, who is very friendly and approachable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All the best.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8201" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2019-03-19T08:00:16.700" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23983" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-03-19T09:29:39.697" Score="2" ViewCount="464" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the Berlin Defence, why is 4.0-0 preferred to 4.Nc3, as then White can transition into the four knights?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18729" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-03-19T09:45:20.093" LastActivityDate="2021-05-02T03:49:17.570" Title="In the Berlin Defence, why is 4.0-0 prefered to 4.Nc3?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;ruy-lopez&gt;&lt;four-knights&gt;&lt;berlin&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23985" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="23987" CreationDate="2019-03-19T14:18:21.937" Score="8" ViewCount="2560" Body="&lt;p&gt;Given my lead in development in this game, the presence of an advanced pawn on the 5th rank and the arrangement of the pieces toward Black king, I think that an immediate kingside attack is justified.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ddged.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ddged.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the game I ended up playing a move which I do not like very much now that I think about it (6.Bg5).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, thinking about it now, I believe it would be best if I had started playing g3 with the idea of defending the knight in my next move (Nh4) as well as to support an upcoming advance f2-f4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, Stockfish seems to prefer to slowly manoeuvre on the other side of the board with b3, Nc3... but all of these moves seem to ignore White's lead in development. I can see that moving my pawn to b3 will eventually allow my light-squared bishop to be placed on d3. But I believe that is too slow.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why is a kingside attack not justified here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16771" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-03-19T23:16:25.813" LastActivityDate="2019-03-20T16:53:18.767" Title="Reason why a kingside attack is not justified" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23986" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23985" CreationDate="2019-03-19T14:46:52.617" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Why is a kingside attack not justified here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because the center is closed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You need to start by undermining black's center pawn chain. That means either the e6 pawn, the c4 pawn or both. The computer's suggestion of b3 undermines c4 immediately and makes a lot of sense. Undermining e6 will take a lot of moves by which time will likely be much better developed and prepared.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because Black is much less well developed and his king is still in the middle while your king is safely castled kingside your best plan is to open the center first. It will be very hard for black to survive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-03-19T17:08:43.333" LastActivityDate="2019-03-19T17:08:43.333" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23987" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23985" CreationDate="2019-03-19T16:07:21.100" Score="17" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is no king on the kingside yet to attack. Black might very well castle long in which case your attack is aimed at nothing and might potentially weaken your own king's safety.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5....c4 is premature and unnecessary. It loses the pressure on the d4 pawn and loses a tempo for development. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A very typical reply to such pawn structure is b3, which is based on the fact that black cannot stabilize the pawn on c4 as after 7. b3 b5 8. a4, a6 is not an option because of the potentially hanging rook on the a file (after axb5 axb5). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The situation would be different if black had for instance already played Bb7 which would defend the rook.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So all in all, b3 is a natural plan, which will in the short term weaken black's pawn structure and give white an advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The other option, kingside attack, with f5 eventually is not bad per se, but you should probably wait until black has castled short. Also it takes a lot of moves to get any kind of attack going.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2019-03-19T16:07:21.100" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23988" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23985" CreationDate="2019-03-19T17:08:50.853" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe white has to strike now on c4 pawn otherwise black can consolidate the position of that pawn. As it stands with b3, b5, a4 black cannot maintain his structure with a6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure why you would consider g3 or Nh4, it has no squares to go to. g3 weakens your position for pretty much no reason. Even with a bunch of free tempos it accomplishes nothing. Like if your knight was on h4, pawn on g3 and pawn on f4 in this position, you still can't push f5 and if bg4 it can easily be stopped with nf5 or g6. You would need to play g4, which does nothing against ng6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I truly want to attack the king side, I would be looking for moves like Ng5 and f4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4393" LastActivityDate="2019-03-19T17:08:50.853" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23989" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-03-20T06:50:38.163" Score="-1" ViewCount="1659" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are AlphaZero's openings objectively better than the others? If so, why haven't top grandmasters like Carlsen exclusively adopted them in their own games?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17302" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-06T16:09:52.013" LastActivityDate="2020-03-06T16:09:52.013" Title="Are AlphaZero's openings objectively better than the others?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;alphazero&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ClosedDate="2019-03-20T14:56:27.820" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23990" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23989" CreationDate="2019-03-20T09:31:55.570" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I guess they suit more his style, he plays open position and he's not afraid of sacrificing material for activity because he has better assessment when it comes to sharp open positions. However some openings like &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qzpDHLDI2c&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;This French Defense&lt;/a&gt; Classical variation with 6. h4 proved to be very hard for A0 because it's already in defense mode and for black (in the game above) to achieve equality he should defend fiercely and precisely for quite some time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My take on this is that every player uses openings that suits best his playing style, some goes for open games because they feel more comfortable with piece activity and the variety of options (A0 style), others with closed games that need a strong defense technique (like some games of Stockfish &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sv-PJhwHehg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;A0 follows his gut but it didn't work out&lt;/a&gt;)  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18143" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-06T16:09:39.640" LastActivityDate="2020-03-06T16:09:39.640" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23991" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23989" CreationDate="2019-03-20T10:16:30.197" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are AlphaZero's openings objectively better than the others?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not easy to answer. I try: You can not say the openings are &quot;objectively&quot; better because you can not compare openings really &quot;objectively&quot; since chess is not &quot;solved&quot;.&#xA;But you can compare the situations after the opening. which player has a better position after the opening etc.? (Admitted: This is obviously also not 100% objectively answerable, but you can analyse it anyway.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If that is not enough for you you can compare the entire game results (but then you lose focus on the openings unfortunately): AlphaZero can play chess very very well. So all in all (opening + middlegame + endgame) you can probably say AlphaZero can play better than many other chess-engines. This is a strong clue that also the openings of AlphaZero are slightly better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why haven't top grandmasters like Carlsen exclusively adopted them in their own games?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because it is not enough to &lt;em&gt;memorize&lt;/em&gt; an opening from an chess engine. You must really &lt;em&gt;understand&lt;/em&gt; the openings from AlphaZero if you want to adopt them in your own games. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It worth nothing when you play a &quot;perfect opening&quot; (adopted from AlphaZero) and then your opponent does one unexpected move and then you do not know how to continue playing and you do not know which move AlphaZero would prefer in this new situation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17177" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-06T16:09:27.710" LastActivityDate="2020-03-06T16:09:27.710" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23992" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23985" CreationDate="2019-03-20T15:06:07.173" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think your position is better, because you have many possibilities here. The move b3 does a lot of things. It immediately asks black a question — he can't really afford to allow bxc4 dxc4 Bxc4 and the response b5 fails to a4 since a6 is impossible. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's not that a kingside attack is not justified. Actually, it's in the air. With a pawn on e5 and a space advantage on the kingside, you definitely have the possibility for a kingside attack. The closed center actually helps you achieve this. But you shouldn't always confine yourself to playing on one side of the board. The move b3 will help you on both sides of the board, so it's worth playing first. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's a good chance black will play cxb3 here, which as you point out frees up the d3 square for the bishop, and might contribute to a future attack. It also allows you to play Ba3 and possibly trade dark squared bishops, weakening the dark squares like d6 and even f6, which could be suitable for a knight. If black plays cxb3 you also get some pressure on the a-file, and the b5 square could be occupied by your knight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Castling long seems a bit suicidal, especially after b3 cxb3 axb3, when you have an open a-file and the a6-f1 diagonal. Thus black will probably castle kingside.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While you do have a lead in development, it's true that the center is closed, which makes your lead in development a little less dangerous. Your pieces aren't on very aggressive squares right now, either. I think your biggest advantage here is actually your space advantage, with pawns on d4 and e5 that are difficult to challenge. The move b3 threatens to increase your space advantage and your piece activity, as it might give you the d3 square and/or an open a-file. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Instead of cxb3, it is worth considering the alternative Ba6. Black is threatening to trade light-squared bishops with cxb3 axb3 Bxe2. This would be undesirable, as your light-squared bishop is better than his. But maybe bxc4 Bxc4 Bxc4 dxc4 c3 is good for you. You lose your light-squared bishop, but now you're threatening Qa4+, and if black plays b5 you have a4. If black plays Qc7 then you have Nd2, and you are still threatening Qa4+. Also you have access to the e4 square.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In lines like these, your lead in development could be more useful on the queenside than the kingside (since there is immediate pawn tension on the queenside).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2614" LastEditorUserId="2614" LastEditDate="2019-03-20T16:53:18.767" LastActivityDate="2019-03-20T16:53:18.767" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23993" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23954" CreationDate="2019-03-20T18:19:36.790" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not directly answering the question but 6...Qe7+ followed by Be6 is considered to be an equaliser against Bc4 (idea is if Be3 then Qb4+ wins and otherwise the bishop on c4 has to meekly retreat or Qe2 is played with lots of trades on e6 and equality)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If just between ...Bd6 and ...Bf5:&#xA;6...Bf5 is also little bit off because you are going to castle kingside and are still two moves away from doing so. Two moves is actually a lot more worrying than one move away from castling (if your opponent does something scary when you are one move away, you just castle).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also as @Philip Roe says it is a bit committal - it's not clear if the bishop belongs on e6, f5, g4 or what yet. In general you want to play the moves you know you have to do first - i.e. castling.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hopefully this explains why Bd6 is better than Bf5&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;@Ywapom ...exf6 C-K is only slightly risky IMO - this line with ...h5 against the Qc2+Bd3 +Ne2 setup (1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 dxe4 4. Nxe4 Nf6&#xA;5. Nxf6+ exf6 6. c3 Bd6 7. Bd3 O-O 8. Qc2 Re8+&#xA;9. Ne2 h5) has totally revitalised it (big plus score for black  after 9...h5 although I would take that with a pinch of salt)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18738" LastEditorUserId="18738" LastEditDate="2019-03-21T23:17:17.773" LastActivityDate="2019-03-21T23:17:17.773" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23994" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23954" CreationDate="2019-03-20T18:49:22.850" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would play Bd6 first, because it's more flexible. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;First&lt;/strong&gt;, it allows you to castle more quickly. &lt;strong&gt;Second&lt;/strong&gt;, you know that you want your bishop on d6, but you don't know exactly where you want your light-squared bishop. Perhaps it belongs on g4, pinning the knight. &lt;strong&gt;Third&lt;/strong&gt;, if you do want to put your bishop on f5, it might be worthwhile to first prepare this with h6, so that you can meet Nh4 with Bh7. The pawn formation on f7, g7, f6 and g6 didn't work out too well for you in the game, as your king didn't really have a good square; it was vulnerable on g8 to the light-squared bishop, it would have been vulnerable on h8 to checks along the h-file and it would have been vulnerable on f8 to a check on h8.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think f5 is a fine square for the bishop, and if the knight moves to f3 then g4 would also be a good square. I personally would prefer g4 in that case since it seems more active to me; it pins the knight whereas a bishop on f5 has no target. But I don't think it's a mistake to eventually place the bishop on f5. It's just that the timing is important. You might have to prepare it with h6 to meet the threat of Nh4. The one square I don't like putting the bishop on is e6, since after Bxe6 fxe6, the e6 pawn becomes a weakness. It can easily be attacked along the e-file, and by a queen on b3 or g4. And if you ever play e5, then either you end up with an isolated pawn on e5 (after dxe5 fxe5) or you end up with pawns on dark squares, which is the wrong color to place your pawns when you have a dark-squared bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think the real question is not whether you play Bd6 or Bf5 first, but how you meet the threat of Nh4 when you have a bishop on f5. That seems to me the reason you lost the game. You had no good way to meet this threat and that gave white a lot of initiative.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2614" LastEditorUserId="2614" LastEditDate="2019-03-20T18:57:33.743" LastActivityDate="2019-03-20T18:57:33.743" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23995" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22627" CreationDate="2019-03-20T19:03:12.830" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's really less about the lines, and more about the ideas. To become strong, you have to know the typical middle game plans that arise from an opening. Knowing exact sequences of moves is less important, unless a certain sequence confers a concrete benefit (like saving a tempo or preventing counter play).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wouldn't say that a player's &quot;opening book&quot; is important... it's their knowledge of positions and what plans and ideas to use in these positions that's important. Essentially these are patterns. If you know that a certain position is good for white or black, and what white or black should do in that position, that's a big advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2614" LastActivityDate="2019-03-20T19:03:12.830" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23996" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19402" CreationDate="2019-03-21T12:10:56.057" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;To add to SmallChess's answer, Stockfish as an engine doesn't come with an opening book. Those are separate inputs, and you can give Stockfish whatever opening book you want. Therefore, if the AlphaZero paper doesn't say the authors gave Stockfish an opening book, it didn't have one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/how-to-install-brainfish-the-best-chess-program-in-the-world&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this thread&lt;/a&gt; on Chess.com for more about Stockfish playing with the Cerebellum opening book (aka &quot;Brainfish&quot;). You can see from the rating list that the opening book is worth about 50 elo - a substantial amount. You can also see the difference in the TCEC S14 superfinal, which was played with set openings, and the rapid bonus afterwards, played without books. Leela (an AlphaZero clone) narrowly lost the superfinal, but annihilated Stockfish in the bookless bonus.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastActivityDate="2019-03-21T12:10:56.057" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23997" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-03-21T17:52:56.267" Score="4" ViewCount="1274" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have played 630 blitz game at chess.com and only 10.3% of my games are draw; see the diagram.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/cDIZX.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/cDIZX.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I play black, my drawing rate is slightly higher than my drawing rate playing white. This is likely because that psychologically I am more content with a draw when I am playing black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I understand that usually blitz games have relatively lower drawing rates. But in World Blitz Chess Championship 2009, &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-move_advantage_in_chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;26.41% of the games are draws&lt;/a&gt; and my blitz drawing rate at chess.com is not even half of this rate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/25Rje.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/25Rje.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is my question: Is my low blitz drawing rate an indicator that I am a relatively weaker player, or is it due to my playing style, or both? What can I do to naturally improve my blitz game drawing rate (so it looks more like top or professional players)? Here I am not interested in purposefully requesting a draw in a winning position; instead, I would seek advice on how to keep playing naturally while end up with a much higher drawing rate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit&lt;/strong&gt; Statistically I have observed that relatively stronger players usually have higher drawing rates than relatively weaker players. When I play online blitz games, I fe&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;At chess.com my blitz rating is around 1500.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I usually like to offer draw or accept draw offer or force draw with perpetual check when the position seems even or unclear to me and when I do not observe any tactical opportunities (even when there still several pieces on the board), especially when my opponent has higher rating than me, or I am playing black, or both. Sometimes I offer draw when I play with a much stronger player and I have some advantage at the opening stage. (Since my opponent is stronger, it is not easy for me to win the game with the advantage and thus I am happy with a draw.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After eight months, I have successfully increased my drawing rate from 10.3% to 14.5%. &lt;strong&gt;As my blitz drawing rate is increasing, my rating has also increased from around 1500 to around 1600.&lt;/strong&gt; For my recent six games (five opponents have higher rating than mine), I managed to draw five of them and only lost one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/0DU8T.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/0DU8T.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/UBAD7.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/UBAD7.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16626" LastEditorUserId="16626" LastEditDate="2019-11-25T19:29:38.820" LastActivityDate="2019-11-25T19:29:38.820" Title="Is my low blitz game drawing rate at www.chess.com an indicator that I am weak in chess?" Tags="&lt;draw&gt;&lt;statistics&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23998" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23997" CreationDate="2019-03-21T19:30:05.430" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;Weak in chess&quot; is a rather meaningless statement.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess is somewhat unique in regard to the skill gap between players. For information, a rating difference of 457 points means that the higher-rated player has an approximately 95% probability of winning. Now think about how many &quot;leaps&quot; of 457 points there are between a beginner who only knows the basic rules (which could give an Elo rating of 600 for example), an &quot;average&quot; beginner player who knows some strategy (1000 to 1200), a typical club-level player (1500), a very strong player who's still nowhere near Master level (say 2000), an International Master (2400) and a Super Grandmaster (2700).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, without even adressing the issue of draw rates, yes you are indeed a weak player compared to many people. But you're also a practical God compared to others. Therefore, I'll approach your question as being more along the lines of &quot;is there a correlation between rating and draw level&quot; rather than any subjective notion of strength.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is indeed some loose correlation between playing strength and draw rate. For example, you can look at the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.ficsgames.org/openings.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FICS database&lt;/a&gt;, which is a database of online games. If we look at games starting with 1.e4 in Blitz time control, then the draw rate increases rather quickly as we change rating category (in order: 7%, 11%, 32%). Keep in mind that the weakest of the three categories is still with a rating of 2000 to 2200. Even if this rating is inflated, it's still well above average. But as you can see, the strongest category also has a draw rating that is somehow &lt;em&gt;higher&lt;/em&gt; than that of the World Blitz Championship 2009. This should be enough to show that trying to infer anything at all from these results is somewhat pointless. The fact that one of them concerns online play rather than over-the-board play means that they probably should not be directly compared.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To conclude, I would not worry about your blitz draw rating of 10.3%. Not only is this probably high for your Elo rating (or so I assume, given you haven't specified your rating), but even if it weren't, the path to getting better wouldn't be based on ideas of attempting to increase your draw rate. Rather, it's the other way around: improving you chess skills in other areas (time management, tactics, reducing blunders, etc.) will mean that you and your opponents will be less likely to give a free win to the opponent, thus increasing draw rates.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17713" LastActivityDate="2019-03-21T19:30:05.430" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="23999" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23997" CreationDate="2019-03-21T20:10:55.697" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I agree with @ATLPoly when he says that draw rates are not the best indicator of your playing strength. Don't try to draw more games as a whole - try to win more! (although of course try to make draws out of lost positions.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;I'd like to address what the draw percentage means (generally), and why it is often higher at higher levels of play.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The easiest way to think about this is to think like a computer. When thinking like a computer, you assess it a value based on continued perfect play - on the best possible outlook for both players. In this mindset, the only type of moves that alters the analysis of the position are bad moves. The best moves do not change the analysis, but rather fulfill the analysis's predictions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, the value of the starting position in chess is approximately a draw (chess is somewhat close to being solved, but it's not there yet. It is generally agreed that white has a very small but difficult to measure advantage.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's the key: &lt;em&gt;With perfect play, the game is a draw. Wins and losses &lt;strong&gt;only&lt;/strong&gt; happen because of mistakes on the part of a player.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Since mistakes are the only reason that we have wins and losses in chess, it is somewhat expected that the draw rate is higher in higher levels of play, since less mistakes are made there.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, there are still some mistakes (and thus wins and losses) at the highest levels, and it is still possible to draw at lower levels, (we are human). However, you can see the trend here: &lt;em&gt;Less mistakes on the part of &lt;strong&gt;both&lt;/strong&gt; players contributes to more draws.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18168" LastActivityDate="2019-03-21T20:10:55.697" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24000" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23997" CreationDate="2019-03-21T22:00:38.537" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Lots of factors could affect this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;time control (playing &lt;em&gt;with&lt;/em&gt; increment should raise the drawing percentage because you are less likely to lose on time)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;opposition: if you are playing against opponents of similar strength (as at the world championship) you are more likely to draw than if you play against much stronger or much weaker players  as you typically do in online chess&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;tournament situation: in a championship  there might be situations where players are satisfied with a draw&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;playing style: you can get 50% of the points by drawing each game or by winning half and losing half of the games. Neither is better nor worse&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Based on this, I don't see any connection between drawing ratio and strength.I would not worry about it at all. Me (rated about 2200) has a blitz drawing percentage of only 2% on lichess. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2019-03-21T22:00:38.537" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24001" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23997" CreationDate="2019-03-21T22:22:19.333" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;10% is a high drawing rate for online blitz - I am drawish in classical games and an FM and have 6.6% draw rate on chess.com 3 minutes.&#xA;I would suggest you use your rating as the indicator for playing strength - that is it's only purpose and it is fairly objective.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also wouldn't worry about adjectives like &quot;weak&quot; - it's all very relative.&#xA;Chess is fun. Improving is also fun - by all means work hard on your chess just not so that you won't be &quot;weak&quot;. I am &quot;weak&quot; to lots of players and I am an FM.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18738" LastActivityDate="2019-03-21T22:22:19.333" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24002" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23892" CreationDate="2019-03-21T22:32:09.027" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Knight is dim on the rim on d2 (on c3 it controls 8 squares which are further forward, on d2 only 6).The position is quiet so time is not so important (within reason!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;d5 is also a good square for the knight as ...e6 would give black a dodgy pawn on d6 - this is why doubling the rooks is useful too as it discourages ...e6 even more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White is just trying to improve his pieces - an opportunity to use his pieces will come along if they are on good squares.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18738" LastActivityDate="2019-03-21T22:32:09.027" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24003" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23837" CreationDate="2019-03-21T22:44:59.843" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;This one I solved but stockfish 10 does not manage in a few minutes at least.&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/pxT6j.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/pxT6j.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(all of it's lines seem to fail to some combination of Bf7, Bxh5 and ...g5 preventing Nf4, with pushing the e-pawn - at depth 27 it realises this and says +0.2)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18738" LastActivityDate="2019-03-21T22:44:59.843" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24004" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22999" CreationDate="2019-03-21T22:54:16.027" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;After 1...d6 you could consider playing 2.e4. One of the biggest advantages of 1.Nf3 is it's flexibility and if you are looking for a quiet(ish) game then perhaps a Be2 (Classical) Pirc is your answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Against 1...f5 2.d3 has an excellent reputation I believe. (Idea is 2...Nf6 3.e4 and black is advised not to take the gambit pawn).&#xA;Worth noting is that 1.Nf3 f5 2.d3 Nc6!? I think the best move is 3.d4! Chess is a funny game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are dead set on a double fianchetto, I guess fianchettoing the kings bishop makes sense first as you get to castle sooner (you can also consider playing b4 instead of b3 after you have castled).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18738" LastActivityDate="2019-03-21T22:54:16.027" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24005" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23997" CreationDate="2019-03-21T23:15:03.323" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is my low blitz drawing rate an indicator that I am a relatively weaker player&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Relatively&quot; compared to the 2009 World Blitz Championship players? Well, probably, but who isn't?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think your rating is a much better indicator of your strength than your draw rate. Draw rate can depend on whether you seek a draw or a win in an equal position. It can depend on whether you like to sacrifice material for an attack. It can depend on whether you tend to think a long time, and either find a win or lose on time.  It can depend on whether you play people very close to your own rating, or people higher and lower than you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;or is it due to my playing style, or both? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Without seeing your playing style, it's hard to say. You didn't provide any games or link to your account so we can see your games.  All we can say is that, in general, your play style can have a large impact.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I would seek advice on how to keep playing naturally while end up with a much higher drawing rate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Castle on the same side as your opponent to help avoid mutual attacks on the king. Avoid sacrifices. Make and/or accept draw offers in neutral but playable positions. Avoid losing on time, and avoid trying to rush your opponent when he's low on time (sometimes that works, but sometimes it results in you blundering yourself.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2019-03-21T23:15:03.323" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24006" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23997" CreationDate="2019-03-22T00:16:12.087" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What can I do to naturally improve my blitz game drawing rate (so it looks more like top or professional players)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Check out the profile of the number one blitz player on Chess.com, &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/stats/live/blitz/hikaru&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Hikaru&lt;/a&gt;. His drawing rate is only 9%. That's lower than yours. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This counterexample shows that a higher playing strength doesn't necessarily correlate with a higher drawing rate. You might even find an unexpected distribution on Chess.com, where the very top grandmasters have lower drawing rates than other grandmasters. I think you will find that the top 5 blitz players on Chess.com have a similar drawing rate as Hikaru.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's also not worth comparing statistics from the World Rapid &amp;amp; Blitz Championship to Chess.com statistics, including your own, since they are two very different environments. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think it would be helpful to change your focus from statistics such as drawing rate to the actual moves played and the actual mistakes made. The best indicator of playing strength is rating, and the second best indicator is probably a computer analysis of your games which shows the mistakes that were made. Better to focus on moves and on mistakes. Also, plans and ideas, and everything that goes into the game of chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2614" LastEditorUserId="2614" LastEditDate="2019-03-23T00:12:05.090" LastActivityDate="2019-03-23T00:12:05.090" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24007" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24023" CreationDate="2019-03-22T23:25:16.370" Score="2" ViewCount="212" Body="&lt;p&gt;In chess, it is usually advisable to have fewer pawn islands than your opponent. However, while I was watching a youtube video by someone called agadmator chess, he mentioned that multiple pawn islands do have their benefits and I'm trying to understand what kind of benefits or scenarios where multiple pawn islands are an advantageous factor.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18038" LastEditorUserId="315" LastEditDate="2019-03-23T16:17:53.960" LastActivityDate="2019-03-24T01:18:57.497" Title="Are there ever scenarios where more pawn islands are preferred?" Tags="&lt;pawns&gt;&lt;pawn-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24008" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24007" CreationDate="2019-03-22T23:59:28.680" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;More pawn islands is an endgame disadvantage, even a late endgame disadvantage because it means that the side with more pawn islands has more weaknesses to defend.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The obvious advantage to &lt;em&gt;more&lt;/em&gt; pawn islands is where one side has made pawn captures creating doubled pawns and half open files which can be used for an attack. These can give a temporary advantage through the late opening and middlegame but later turn in to an endgame disadvantage if the player does not turn his dynamic advantage into either a win or a static advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Such a position can even be an early endgame advantage if it allows fast activation of one or more rooks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In general there are lots of rules from the time of Nimzowitsch's &quot;My System&quot; which have proved in modern times to be too inflexible. There is an excellent book by John Watson called &quot;Secrets of Modern Chess Strategy: Advances since Nimzowitsch&quot; which reassesses these positional ideas.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2019-03-22T23:59:28.680" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24009" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24010" CreationDate="2019-03-23T01:55:46.960" Score="6" ViewCount="2050" Body="&lt;p&gt;When dealing with gambits, especially ones where your opponent could have a lot more active pieces to pressure you. Is declining the best approach?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A friend of mine usually always wrecks me with the Danish Gambit, especially whenever I accept and before I know it, she's literally attacking  with way more pieces than I can handle and to be honest it does seem like a solid sacrifice (3 pawns for 2 very active pieces (the bishop pair) while  I literally have nothing to show for the first 3 moves).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a solid way to exploit the fact that white is down 3 pawns? Or even better, what is the best approach to fighting back when the pressure is too much and I'm so behind in development?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18038" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2019-04-09T04:56:06.247" LastActivityDate="2019-10-28T09:33:03.607" Title="How can the Danish Gambit be exploited?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;gambits&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24010" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24009" CreationDate="2019-03-23T03:52:57.257" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Danish gambit isn't very popular these days because of the &lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danish_Gambit#Lindehn&amp;#39;s_continuation:_4.Bc4&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Schlechter Defense&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;. The idea is to take the gambit pawns but return them quickly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;e4 e5 2. d4 exd4 3. c3 dxc3 4. Bc4 cxb2 5. Bxb2 d5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5...d5 initiates the Schlechter Defense. The mainline continues 6.Bxd5 (6.exd5 Nf6 closes the position and lets Black develop, still a pawn up) Nf6 7.Bxf7+ Kxf7 8.Qxd8 Bb4+ 9.Qd2 Bxd2+ 10.Nxd2 c5. Black regains the Queen and steers the game to an equal endgame. White has no attack and the position is not even remotely close to tactical, which is psychologically depressing for gambit players. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. d4 exd4 3. c3 dxc3 4. Bc4 cxb2 5. Bxb2 d5 6. Bxd5 (6. exd5? Nf6) Nf6 7. Bxf7+ Kxf7 8. Qxd8 Bb4+ 9. Qd2 Bxd2+ 10. Nxd2 c5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only downside of this defense is, if you keep using it, your friend might not want to play with you anymore.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastEditorUserId="15223" LastEditDate="2019-10-25T05:17:02.013" LastActivityDate="2019-10-25T05:17:02.013" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24011" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24012" CreationDate="2019-03-23T07:07:51.203" Score="17" ViewCount="5498" Body="&lt;p&gt;Suppose you're playing in a tournament. For the purpose of filling up your scoresheet, is it improper etiquette to ask your opponent what his/her rating is before the game?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17302" LastActivityDate="2019-03-24T18:09:21.227" Title="Is it improper etiquette to ask your opponent what his/her rating is before the game?" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;etiquette&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24012" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24011" CreationDate="2019-03-23T08:28:23.883" Score="26" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yesterday, I played a tournament match, and at the table next to me the guy asked his opponent for his rating. “I don’t really know...” was the reply, “about 1580, I think. And yours?”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“Euhm... about 1400”, the guy mumbles in reply.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you don’t want to give out your exact rating in reply or you don’t know it yourself, I would not ask the question to begin with. Furthermore, I thought the question was bad etiquette and would not really be happy with my opponent asking it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, where I live, most tournaments have lists of all participating players and their rating which you can look at. So start the game, and then after a couple of moves, when your opponent is thinking, you can always go check the list.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS: I find that I play better when I don’t know my opponent's rating. Once I know his rating is a lot better, I get nervous and consider myself lost from the start. When I know his rating is much lower, I tend to play reckless and make mistakes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17145" LastEditorUserId="17719" LastEditDate="2019-03-24T18:09:21.227" LastActivityDate="2019-03-24T18:09:21.227" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24013" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24009" CreationDate="2019-03-23T10:07:35.507" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you are feeling more ambitious then the bizarre looking 1.e4 e5 2.d4 exd4 3.c3 Qe7!? is recommended by Viktor Bologan (former 2700 player).&#xA;Having looked into it a bit, I believe him when he says it's better for black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That said Allure's answer is a simpler line to learn in some ways and is very reliable - quite an interesting endgame too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18738" LastActivityDate="2019-03-23T10:07:35.507" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24014" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24011" CreationDate="2019-03-23T10:10:21.870" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some people are a bit self conscious if they are lower rated - better to look it up on the tournament list or ask a teammate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That said, if it's a team game and I don't recognise the opponent or their name on the team sheet then I might ask - I do feel it is important to have a ballpark idea of your opponent's strength.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You could also try google if most of your opponents are &gt;1800 FIDE&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18738" LastActivityDate="2019-03-23T10:10:21.870" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24015" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24007" CreationDate="2019-03-23T10:15:09.000" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I guess one case would be the outside passed pawn in a pawn endgame.&#xA;i.e. if white has two kingside pawns and an a-pawn, and black has three kingside pawns.&#xA;In that situation white will be winning usually.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wouldn't really think about pawn islands there though - it's a useful paradigm for evaluating pawn structures but it's not the only one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18738" LastActivityDate="2019-03-23T10:15:09.000" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24016" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24011" CreationDate="2019-03-23T12:48:31.247" Score="25" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think this would be a breach in etiquette - but I think it is a somewhat &lt;strong&gt;dangerous thing to do for you&lt;/strong&gt;. Chess is as much about mental fortitude as it is about &quot;playing skill&quot; and regardless what your opponents answer is - it can get into your head and affect your play.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;If your opponent is a lot lower rated than you are, it tempts you to play these &quot;Maybe he won't see it&quot; moves, if he is higher rated, you might overestimate a bad sacrifice or a blunder he does.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Considering the mental effects of a move, before and during the game, may prove to you as useful as considering the positional effects.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17911" LastActivityDate="2019-03-23T12:48:31.247" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24017" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24018" CreationDate="2019-03-23T13:26:44.793" Score="1" ViewCount="117" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a beginner in chess. I am playing a puzzle on chess.com and the puzzle is like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;White to move&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;r4rk1/p4p2/1p2p2p/2p1P3/3p1q1n/1P1PR1N1/P3QP2/R4K2 w - - 0 2&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Re4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why is this the best move? Is it purely because this is the only way to save the rook, or this move can even gain some pieces?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you in advance!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18749" LastActivityDate="2019-03-23T13:47:46.920" Title="A question on a puzzle on chess.com" Tags="&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;puzzles&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24018" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24017" CreationDate="2019-03-23T13:47:46.920" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is the best move because it wins the knight on h4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black has only two squares for its queen after 1.Re4:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;2....Qf3 3. Rxh4 winst the knight&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;2....Qg5 3. Rg4 &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pin_(chess)&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;pins&lt;/a&gt; and wins the queen&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that 1. Re4 is not the only move to save the rook. White could also play Nh5 attacking the queen first and if the queen moves save the rook (e.g. via Rg3).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2019-03-23T13:47:46.920" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24019" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24011" CreationDate="2019-03-23T20:29:07.797" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;It isn't a beach of etiquette and is quite common in tournaments.  Many scoresheets have a place to write the opponent's rating, so a lot of players ask while filling it out at the beginning of the match.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's no shame in being low-rated anyway.  With the exception of top players, we're all novices compared to someone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18421" LastEditorUserId="18421" LastEditDate="2019-03-23T20:42:32.167" LastActivityDate="2019-03-23T20:42:32.167" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24020" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="188" CreationDate="2019-03-23T21:14:56.560" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;in principle you should look at the game yourself without a computer, then go over with coach, then with computer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For real life :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A. enter the game into computer without engine straight after game, write down all the things you saw and thought that you can remember.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B.enter the game into lichess.org, tell it to auto analyse. cover up the engine's suggestions by pressing one of the menu options on the right hand side.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Press your mouse on the spot on the graph (see image) just before each big turning point (aka blunder) and solve as a puzzle!&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Yfy4B.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Yfy4B.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A is optional if you are really lazy :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18738" LastActivityDate="2019-03-23T21:14:56.560" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24021" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24024" CreationDate="2019-03-23T22:28:56.037" Score="0" ViewCount="361" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am trying to get Stockfish to work in Python 3. Just to get started on my project, I tried to have Stockfish think until a depth of 20. However, the program instantly returns that Stockfish recommends 1.a3 in the starting position. After browsing these forums, I found out that the problem was that there was a missing '\n'. However, after adding it, the program still doesn't work. Can someone tell me what I did wrong?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Code:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/RZFBJ.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/RZFBJ.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Message:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/uY25k.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/uY25k.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18752" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-03-04T21:39:54.017" LastActivityDate="2020-03-04T21:39:54.017" Title="Python and Stockfish" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;programming&gt;&lt;python&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2019-03-24T05:31:35.307" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24023" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24007" CreationDate="2019-03-24T01:18:57.497" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Such scenarios arise occasionally in the late endgame.  For example, this position is a win for white (&lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/analysis/standard/1k6/8/8/7p/P2P2pK/8/8/8_w_-_-&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;LiChess&lt;/a&gt;):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;1k6/8/8/7p/P2P2pK/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;while a similar position (where white has fewer pawn islands) is a draw (&lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/analysis/standard/1k6/8/8/7p/PP4pK/8/8/8_w_-_-&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;LiChess&lt;/a&gt;):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;1k6/8/8/7p/PP4pK/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the first case, if black's king captures a pawn, the other white pawn promotes (although white needs to play precisely).  In the second case, black's king can stop both from promoting because they're closer together, i.e., because of there being one pawn island.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2785" LastActivityDate="2019-03-24T01:18:57.497" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24024" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24021" CreationDate="2019-03-24T01:41:13.073" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Even though the best answer is to use a pre-existing module instead of reinventing the wheel, just for illustrative purposes here's a version that works using only pure Python Popen(). The key is the use of &quot;isready&quot; and waiting for an answer:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;import time&#xA;from subprocess import Popen, PIPE&#xA;&#xA;def put(p, msg):&#xA;    p.stdin.write(msg+'\n')&#xA;    p.stdin.flush()&#xA;&#xA;def get(p, verbose=False):&#xA;    put(p, 'isready')&#xA;    lines = []&#xA;    while True:&#xA;        s = p.stdout.readline().strip()&#xA;        if s == 'readyok':&#xA;            break&#xA;        if verbose:&#xA;            print(s)&#xA;        lines.append(s)&#xA;    return lines&#xA;&#xA;def putget(p, msg, verbose=False):&#xA;    put(p, msg)&#xA;    get(p, verbose)&#xA;&#xA;def go(p, depth=None, t=1.0, dt=0.05, verbose=False):&#xA;    depth = 'infinite' if depth is None else 'depth %d' % depth&#xA;    put(p, &quot;go %s&quot; % depth)&#xA;    t0 = time.time()&#xA;    stopped = False&#xA;    while True:&#xA;        time.sleep(dt)&#xA;        lines = get(p, verbose=verbose)&#xA;        for line in lines:&#xA;            if line.startswith('bestmove'):&#xA;                return line&#xA;        if not stopped and time.time() - t0 &amp;gt; t:&#xA;            put(p, &quot;stop&quot;)&#xA;            stopped = True&#xA;&#xA;p = Popen(&quot;stockfish-8-64&quot;, stdout=PIPE, stdin=PIPE, universal_newlines=True)&#xA;get(p, verbose=True)&#xA;putget(p, 'uci')&#xA;putget(p, 'position startpos')&#xA;bestmove = go(p, depth=20, t=3.0)&#xA;print(bestmove)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12523" LastActivityDate="2019-03-24T01:41:13.073" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24025" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24026" CreationDate="2019-03-24T06:03:24.727" Score="1" ViewCount="221" Body="&lt;p&gt;I will start by saying I am new at chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The scenario is as follows. In a particular game you are in check, but fail to move out of check because you and your opponent did not realize this. Since the rules of chess state that you must not take any move to leave yourself in check or put yourself in check, what do you do? I read that for FIDE fast paced chess they have a stipulation that benefits the &quot;checker&quot;(ie you messed up... sucks to be you). Is this a house rule that everyone abides by? I cannot find anything pertaining to this mistake elsewhere.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18753" LastActivityDate="2019-03-24T08:22:35.243" Title="If you fail to move the king out of check (for any reason) what is the status of the game?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;check&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2019-03-24T16:38:54.233" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24026" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24025" CreationDate="2019-03-24T08:22:35.243" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;FIDE Laws of Chess, 7.4.1:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;... If during a game it is found that an illegal move has been completed, the position immediately before the irregularity shall be reinstated. If the position immediately before the irregularity cannot be determined, the game shall continue from the last identifiable position prior to the irregularity. Articles 4.3 and 4.7 apply to the move replacing the illegal move. The game shall then continue from this reinstated position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, based on your/your opponent's written recording of the moves, the position will be restored to the last position before the illegal move. Articles 4.3 and 4.7 refer to touch move - in replacing the illegal move, you must move the same piece that made the illegal move, unless that piece has no legal moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In addition:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;For the first completed illegal move by a player, the arbiter shall give two minutes extra time to his opponent; for the second completed illegal move by the same player the arbiter shall declare the game lost by this player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10075" LastActivityDate="2019-03-24T08:22:35.243" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24027" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-03-24T08:55:02.797" Score="4" ViewCount="693" Body="&lt;p&gt;Losing chess has been &lt;a href=&quot;http://magma.maths.usyd.edu.au/~watkins/LOSING_CHESS/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;proven&lt;/a&gt; to be a win for white, with the opening move &lt;code&gt;1. e3&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The proof consists of a number of huge game trees which show that each variation must end in a white win, but is there a winning &lt;strong&gt;strategy&lt;/strong&gt; for white, which can be used to force a win in a game without needing to memorise the entire game tree?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10075" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-17T02:28:37.473" LastActivityDate="2020-08-17T02:28:37.473" Title="Is there a winning strategy for Losing chess?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;losing-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24028" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24030" CreationDate="2019-03-24T14:22:15.387" Score="5" ViewCount="1225" Body="&lt;p&gt;(See also &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/q/23889/315&quot;&gt;this related question&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/forum/view/chess-openings/stockfish-database-opening-book&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this related off-site discussion.&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do state-of-the-art chess AIs still &lt;strong&gt;normally&lt;/strong&gt; start games in human-compiled opening books of master games?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Years ago, as far as I know, state-of-the-art chess AIs started games in opening books. That is, years ago, to choose their first few moves, rather than calculating, chess AIs instead consulted databases of master games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do chess AIs still do that?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you wish to know why I ask, more than 20 years ago, I owned a dedicated chess computer like &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&amp;amp;_trksid=m570.l1313&amp;amp;_nkw=chess%20computer&amp;amp;_sacat=0&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;one of these.&lt;/a&gt; The computer would instantly play each of its first several moves, apparently without thinking. The computer would slow down and start thinking only after&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;it had exhausted the book or&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;its human opponent had made a poor move, deviating from the book.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nowadays, however, playing on &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Lichess,&lt;/a&gt; where &lt;a href=&quot;https://stockfishchess.org/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;the Stockfish AI&lt;/a&gt; is available for &lt;em&gt;post mortem,&lt;/em&gt; I notice no obvious sign that Stockfish were consulting anything other than its own analyses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(One suspects that various interesting things could be written on the topic. My knowledge of chess AIs is &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/q/1003/315&quot;&gt;limited.&lt;/a&gt; I may or may not have posed the question optimally. Therefore, feel free to interpret the question broadly at your discretion.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="315" LastActivityDate="2019-09-25T04:54:36.517" Title="Do chess AIs still use old-style opening books?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;engines&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24029" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24027" CreationDate="2019-03-24T14:30:10.967" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;One useful tactic is to try, as far as possible, to leave exactly one of your units en prise. That forces your opponent to capture that unit next. So to a large extent you're in control (and are losing units). By contrast, if you were not so careful as to which units of yours were en prise, then if ever two or more of them were, then your opponent can choose which of them to capture next, and thus keeps more control.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10380" LastActivityDate="2019-03-24T14:30:10.967" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24030" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24028" CreationDate="2019-03-24T16:01:11.350" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess engines are, of course, able to analyse opening positions and come up with reasonable moves, but opening books still come with some advantages:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Moving instantly in the opening saves a lot of time, which can be spent on more complex moves later on in the game.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Some more subtle theoretical moves in the opening may be missed without an opening book.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In engine vs engine testing, the overwhelming majority of games are conducted starting from an opening position, but the engines themselves are not allowed their own books.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When playing a human, many chess applications use books, but delay their move anyway to give the impression that the program is thinking. This has the advantage of allowing said application to offer a greater variety of openings, whereas relying on the engine's analysis would lead to repetitive games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In analysis, it is common for to only start from the first move made out of book, because it is likely that moves made in-book are reasonable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lichess is somewhat unique in that it uses the engine to analyse every move rather than using a book for the first moves. The analyses of many opening positions are stored in the cloud to avoid duplicating work in the opening (you may see, for example, &quot;Depth 39 [CLOUD]&quot;). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10075" LastActivityDate="2019-03-24T16:01:11.350" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24031" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24028" CreationDate="2019-03-25T08:29:51.140" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;You're asking whether AIs still &quot;normally&quot; start games with opening books, and I find it hard to decide what &quot;normally&quot; should be. All engines can be configured to use an opening book.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For analysis purposes like in Lichess, there is obviously no opening book configured as that would mean it wouldn't analyze. Having the engine analyze the position and show an evaluation and a line is what the user wants, not just &quot;5...d6&quot; from an opening book without further information.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In human vs engine play, opening books mostly serve to randomize the openings the engine plays, so there they have a use. But deep opening books that contain huge amounts of lines are not that useful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In engine vs engine tournament play, the trend is to do without opening books at all because otherwise it's more a battle of the books than a battle of the engines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So what you get are groups of opening book enthousiasts who play &lt;em&gt;lots&lt;/em&gt; of engine vs engine games and constantly try to tweak their books to beat the other engines, that are often the exact same engine but with a book made by someone else. This sort of thing is also useful for correspondence chess -- when a move is known to be a draw from thousands of engines games, it is not that promising for white to play it in correspondence where black can also use an engine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for &quot;chess AIs instead consulted databases of master games&quot;, that isn't true. They consult an &lt;em&gt;opening book&lt;/em&gt;; basically a long list of &quot;in this position, play move X 60% of the time and move Y 40% of the time.&quot; Whoever made that opening book probably used a database of games, but the opening book isn't such a database by itself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2019-03-25T08:29:51.140" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24032" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23950" CreationDate="2019-03-25T12:20:45.800" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Checkmate and stalemate end the game &lt;em&gt;immediately&lt;/em&gt;, as soon as the move is played (that is, when the hand lets go of the piece -- but that's not relevant for computers).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If that move was White's, then that move was the last move of the game. Black never gets their turn, so in your terms &amp;quot;phase 2&amp;quot; of that turn doesn't exist.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-08-17T01:58:42.970" LastActivityDate="2020-08-17T01:58:42.970" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24033" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-03-25T13:14:12.923" Score="5" ViewCount="982" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am looking for a position in which all possible moves are checkmate. This means, that if the player does not want to checkmate the opponent, because for example he feels sorry for him, even in that case he is forced to checkmate him. He cannot avoid it. Can you tell me an example? White or black does not matter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, I feel this can be done only if there is a very small number of possible moves. For example 1 or 2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13641" LastActivityDate="2021-02-06T08:25:30.663" Title="A position in which checkmate is forced (obligatory)" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;forced-move&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24034" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24033" CreationDate="2019-03-25T15:15:07.560" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found two cases of &lt;strong&gt;55&lt;/strong&gt; forced mates with promoted pieces in Tim Krabbe’s &lt;a href=&quot;https://timkr.home.xs4all.nl/chess2/diary.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Diary Entry #383&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Ludwig Zagler, Feenschach 1972&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;1rB1Q1Q1/1PRQ3Q/2b2k2/2pQ1N1Q/4KRPp/5N2/1R6/B3nn1b w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Sampsa Lahtonen, Tim Krabbe's Website 2008 Diary Entry #383&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;B3n1bb/1R6/4pN2/4KRPp/2pQ1N1Q/2b2k2/1PRQ3Q/1rB1Q1Q1 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;@Rosie F’s &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/24067/15543&quot;&gt;answer&lt;/a&gt; contains the record without promoted piece,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-02-06T08:25:30.663" LastActivityDate="2021-02-06T08:25:30.663" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24035" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24036" CreationDate="2019-03-25T18:56:05.673" Score="2" ViewCount="124" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there any way to predict, with some certainty, my next opponent and color for next round in a swiss tournement on chess-result:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chess-results.com/tnr406767.aspx?lan=1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://chess-results.com/tnr406767.aspx?lan=1&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7051" LastActivityDate="2019-03-25T19:30:23.637" Title="Predicting color and opponent" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;planning&gt;&lt;swiss-pairing&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24036" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24035" CreationDate="2019-03-25T19:30:23.637" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;One sure-fire way is for you to buy your own copy of &lt;a href=&quot;http://swiss-manager.at/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Swiss Manager&lt;/a&gt;, the pairing software used in this particular case, and reproduce the tournament and then do the next round pairing once all the results are in. The light version of Swiss Manager, which you could use since there are fewer than 60 players, costs 75 euros.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Alternatively you could try and do the pairing by hand yourself. For this you would need to read, understand and follow the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=18&amp;amp;view=category&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Swiss rules&lt;/a&gt; for pairing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2019-03-25T19:30:23.637" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24037" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24033" CreationDate="2019-03-25T20:02:51.587" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just remembered a class of chess problem; see item 267 of &lt;a href=&quot;https://timkr.home.xs4all.nl/chess2/diary_14.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Tim Krabbé's Open Chess Diary&lt;/a&gt; (his whole site is highly recommended):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;White mates in 7, Noam Elkies, 2004.&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;KBk5/P1P4p/2Pp3P/P6p/2p3rP/2P3pB/6P1/8 w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Spoiler: White has some choices here, he can choose different move orders. &lt;em&gt;But it's always checkmate on move 7, no matter what.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-01-15T14:04:20.140" LastActivityDate="2020-01-15T14:04:20.140" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24038" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24053" CreationDate="2019-03-26T00:36:23.713" Score="-1" ViewCount="272" Body="&lt;p&gt;Does anyone know of any problems in which a KNN-K mate is forced in the end? It is fine if you make one yourself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-05-22T15:47:30.243" LastActivityDate="2020-05-22T15:47:30.243" Title="Looking for problems in which a KNN-K mate is forced" Tags="&lt;problems&gt;&lt;knight-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24039" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-03-26T05:39:06.560" Score="6" ViewCount="158" Body="&lt;p&gt;This question is motivated by &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/J9cdDkL5#17&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;a recent LiChess game&lt;/a&gt; where I was black where I played the Caro-Kann and white played the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caro%E2%80%93Kann_Defence#Panov%E2%80%93Botvinnik_Attack:_4.c4&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Panov-Botvinnik Attack&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;https://lichess.org/J9cdDkL5&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2019.03.26&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;pierremarc1986&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;becky82&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. exd5 cxd5 4. c4 Nf6 5. Nc3 e6 6. Bg5 Be7 7. Nf3 O-O 8. Bd3 dxc4 9. Bxc4 b6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here I played &lt;code&gt;9...b6&lt;/code&gt; (with the idea of playing either &lt;code&gt;10...Bb7&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;10...Ba6&lt;/code&gt; depending on how I evaluated the position after my opponent's move) and didn't even think to play &lt;code&gt;9...a6&lt;/code&gt; during the game, which is both the prominent book move, and among Stockfish's top recommendations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Is &lt;code&gt;9...a6&lt;/code&gt; better for black than &lt;code&gt;9...b6&lt;/code&gt; in this line of the Panov-Botvinnik Attack?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The move &lt;code&gt;9...a6&lt;/code&gt; prepares &lt;code&gt;10...b5&lt;/code&gt;, where black fianchettos the queenside bishop with more queenside space, but it costs a tempo.  It also allows &lt;code&gt;10. a4&lt;/code&gt; which prevents &lt;code&gt;10...b5&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The main book lines on LiChess are as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. exd5 cxd5 4. c4 Nf6 5. Nc3 e6 6. Bg5 Be7 7. Nf3 O-O 8. Bd3 dxc4 9. Bxc4 a6 10. a4 (10. O-O b5 11. Bb3 Bb7) (10. a3 b5 11. Ba2 Bb7) Nc6 11. O-O Bd7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2785" LastEditorUserId="3594" LastEditDate="2019-03-28T13:31:31.177" LastActivityDate="2019-03-28T13:31:31.177" Title="Comparing 9...a6 to 9...b6 in the Panov-Botvinnik Attack" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;caro-kann&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24040" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24038" CreationDate="2019-03-26T06:18:19.340" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;To get the following position as a checkmate, the last move must be Nb3#.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;8/8/8/8/8/1NN5/2K5/k7 b - - 0 2&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Prior to Nb3#, black must have made a non-king move, so must have moved something to b3.  If it were anything other than a pawn, it could choose to avoid the b3 square, so it's not a forced win for white.  If it were a pawn on b4, it could capture the c3 knight, which is also not a forced win.  Thus black must have had a pawn on c4, and be forced to capture on b3 on black's previous move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So here's one such puzzle (&lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/analysis/standard/8/8/8/8/2pN4/2N5/1PK5/k7_w_-_-&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;LiChess&lt;/a&gt;):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;8/8/8/8/2pN4/2N5/1PK5/k7 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White to move and mate in 2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's possible to move black's pawn back a bit, and give a slightly longer puzzle with the same idea:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;8/8/2p5/8/7N/2N5/1PK5/k7 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White to move and mate in 4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I haven't exhaustively checked all possible flips and rotations of the board (which makes more difference than I initially thought).  There's also a few possible mating patterns, but I expect the idea is going to be much the same in each case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2785" LastActivityDate="2019-03-26T06:18:19.340" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24041" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24039" CreationDate="2019-03-26T15:56:41.290" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;This will be a short answer as unfortunately I don't have much time (last minutes of my break :) ).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;In a nutshell:&lt;/strong&gt; Both options are quite playable but result in slightly different structures, so it's up to you to decide which one leads closer to something you're more familiar with. As to why both moves &lt;code&gt;9...b6&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;9...a6&lt;/code&gt; are equalizing for black, it lies in the fact that white has not castled yet and therefore they cannot really emphasize on black's slow development and there are no immediate pawn breaks left for them in the centre. All of which means, that extra tempo white has to invest for castling allows black this added flexiblity in choice. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A slightly more concrete look at some lines: (&lt;em&gt;please do check everything here with an engine, I don't have time/option to do that now&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;White has no immediate ways of challenging &lt;code&gt;b6&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;: for example, with the king still in the centre, the immediate &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt; (i), trying to liquidate the IQP and open up the centre bears no relevance as it easily leads to a much better endgame for black (with all the initiative):&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(i)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [title &quot;immediate d5 after 9...b6&quot;]&#xA; [fen &quot;rnbq1rk1/p3bppp/1p2pn2/3P2B1/2B5/2N2N2/PP3PPP/R2QK2R b KQ - 0 10&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1...Nxd5 2.Bxd5 exd5 3.Qxd5 Qxd5 4.Nxd5 Bxg5 5.Nxg5 Re8+ 6.Ne3 Ba6 {forcing white to castle long} 7.O-O-O Nc6 8.Kb1 Nb4 {thanks to weakened light squares black has great initiative, trade 1 pair of rooks and plans of Bd3-Bg6 following by Nd3 are always out there, where white's minor pieces can only be defensive.}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Now let's see what difference it would make if in the same position as (i) white's king was already safe/castled:&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(ii)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [title &quot;Same position as (i) but assuming white's castled short already&quot;]&#xA; [fen &quot;rnbq1rk1/pp2bppp/4pn2/6B1/2BP4/2N2N2/PP3PPP/R2Q1RK1 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1... b6 2. d5 Nxd5 3. Bxd5 exd5 4. Bxe7 Qxe7 5. Nxd5 Qd8 6. Rc1 Na6 7. Ne5 {A completely different end result, both sides have quite a healthy structure but if anyone it's white with an extra positional edge, in contrast to previous case where black was leading a better endgame.}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These lines underline the fact that white cannot really commit to much in the centre here (in order to pressure black by any means) without castling first, therefore black really does have an extra tempo at their disposal to choose either the immediate &lt;code&gt;b6&lt;/code&gt; or the somewhat slower but more sensible &lt;code&gt;a6&lt;/code&gt; (as it also provides important control over &lt;code&gt;b5&lt;/code&gt;, which can still be followed by &lt;code&gt;b6-Bb7&lt;/code&gt; with the added advantage that you're in time to respond to &lt;code&gt;a4-a5&lt;/code&gt; with &lt;code&gt;b5&lt;/code&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A tad more on the &lt;code&gt;9...a6&lt;/code&gt; line followed by a simple developing plan leads to a very decent position with active ideas for both sides: white's play should revolve around emphasizing the IQP to establish a centralised knight on &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt; (in other words making use of the extra dark square control provided by d4), and in contrast black's play is to exploit the IQP structure in order to establish a minor piece on &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt; blockading the pawn and keeping the prospect of the &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt; pawn potentially becoming a weakness, while activating the somewhat passive &lt;code&gt;d7&lt;/code&gt; bishop. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(iii)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [title &quot;One possible continuation after 9...a6 Nc6 Bd7&quot;]&#xA; [fen &quot;rnbq1rk1/pp2bppp/4pn2/6B1/2BP4/2N2N2/PP3PPP/R2QK2R b KQ - 0 9&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1...a6 2. a4 Nc6 3. O-O Bd7 4. Qe2 Nb4 {preparing Bc6 to d5, one way or the other black is here in time to establish a piece on d5 blockading d4's advance} 5.Ne5 Bc6 6.Rad1 Bd5 7.Nxd5 (7.Bxf6 Bxf6 8.Nxd5 Nxd5) Nfxd5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, not much else to say about &lt;code&gt;b6&lt;/code&gt; as it is equally decent: the light square fianchetto is quite fitting for black in all these kinds of IQP structures, as white often cannot easily challenge the bishop by either trading it or closing the diagonal, and on the other hand black ends up with a well active bishop which also provides additional control over &lt;code&gt;d5.&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3594" LastEditorUserId="3594" LastEditDate="2019-03-26T16:03:52.033" LastActivityDate="2019-03-26T16:03:52.033" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24042" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24116" CreationDate="2019-03-26T16:10:08.250" Score="6" ViewCount="289" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recently came across an interesting &lt;a href=&quot;https://arxiv.org/abs/1307.7118&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;article&lt;/a&gt; that proves Gardner's Minichess is solved (2013) and the theoretical result is a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Might studying why Minichess is a theoretical draw help me better understand the concepts behind long term strategy in standard chess?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is the starting position of Minichess:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/89osi.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/89osi.png&quot; alt=&quot;Garner&amp;#39;s Minichess Starting position&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18143" LastEditorUserId="9531" LastEditDate="2019-05-22T16:41:39.347" LastActivityDate="2019-05-22T16:41:39.347" Title="Studying why Gardner's Minichess Variant is solved?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;chess-variants&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24043" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17164" CreationDate="2019-03-26T17:44:52.043" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The opening trainer can only be understood and used by the programmers themselves it's how I would describe it, the options are not user friendly.  So I suggest that you click the List Window then choose the game you want to train, make the first move, if you want to practice White, then click the replay button, a little on top of board, a forward triangle icon, then just move ahead for the White moves because if not then the program will auto play the White moves for you.  You can set the replay move speed on Options... Moves... Autoplay Time Delay...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18765" LastActivityDate="2019-03-26T17:44:52.043" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24044" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4" CreationDate="2019-03-26T18:35:39.177" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have been handicapping student games for over 15 years, and my two favourites, if the relative strengths allow, are these:&#xA;1)  White replaces queen with rook (about 4 points) -OR-&#xA;2)  White replaces queen with bishop (about 6 points).&#xA;Black, the handicap receiver, does not have a numerical advantage in pieces.  Both handicaps are strictly worse than the standard even strength situation.  The players do not need to know how to use chess clocks.  Extremely easy to explain.  Handicapping the queen will always impact the game, unlike for example removing a rook.  Doesn't mess up many of the openings as much as removing a knight.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another handicap that is popular with the kids, and even easier to implement now that many sets come with extra queens, is to power up the weaker player by replacing a piece with the spare queen--usually the QR or the KB.  This one is also nice when giving a simultaneous, because you don't need a stock of spare rooks and bishops.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ultimately, every chess coach has to ask himself or herself whether handicapping will benefit the club and the students.  A large club with many students at each level may not need to.  My school clubs have not had this luxury; regularly handicapping the stronger players does increase the staying power of the weaker players, and I haven't faced much protest from the stronger players either.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyone else using a system similar to mine out there?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18767" LastActivityDate="2019-03-26T18:35:39.177" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24045" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-03-26T19:50:11.903" Score="-1" ViewCount="96" Body="&lt;p&gt;Has there been a game of master level or above in which one player did not move any piece or pawn beyond the third or fourth rank?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18768" LastActivityDate="2019-03-29T00:24:04.377" Title="A master-level game in which one player did not move beyond the third or fourth rank?" Tags="&lt;master-games&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24046" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24047" CreationDate="2019-03-27T03:33:21.053" Score="3" ViewCount="131" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/training/94536&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;LiChess puzzle 94536&lt;/a&gt; (from &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/KieQtDyC&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this game&lt;/a&gt;) begins with this position with black to play:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;r1b2rk1/ppq1n1pp/3p4/3Ppp2/1bP5/3B1N2/1B1P1PPP/R2QR1K1 b - - 1 13&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The fork &lt;code&gt;1...e4&lt;/code&gt; is obvious, then white responds &lt;code&gt;2. Qb3&lt;/code&gt; hitting black's b4 bishop.  We need to save the bishop, and my candidate moves were as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;2...Ba5&lt;/code&gt; which I eliminated after some analysis, since it allows a removal of defender tactic with &lt;code&gt;Rxa5&lt;/code&gt; at some point.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;2...Qb6&lt;/code&gt; which I quickly eliminated since it pins the e pawn.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;2...a5&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;2...Bc5&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I couldn't distinguish between &lt;code&gt;2...a5&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;2...Bc5&lt;/code&gt;, and I fortunately played the correct move &lt;code&gt;2...a5&lt;/code&gt; (which I thought was slightly better since it guards the c3 square, preventing white's battery).  The move &lt;code&gt;2...Bc5&lt;/code&gt; is faulty because of the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt; black's dark-squared bishop becomes trapped via the moves &lt;code&gt;3. Bf1 exf3 4. d4! Bb6 5. c5!&lt;/code&gt; and black cannot capture on c5 since &lt;code&gt;5..dxc5 e6+&lt;/code&gt; drops black's queen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After seeing the solution, I feel there is no chance of me recognizing this in an actual game---I'd probably declare there to be virtually no distinction, and play a move to avoid wasting time.  Maybe someone at a higher level than me might find it in a tournament game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: At what level would a player be able to correctly analyze how ...a5 is superior to ...Bc5 if this puzzle arose in a tournament?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to improve, and get an idea for how my improvement is going.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2785" LastEditorUserId="924" LastEditDate="2019-03-27T13:39:06.523" LastActivityDate="2019-03-28T13:27:54.393" Title="At what level would a player be able to correctly analyze how ...a5 is superior to ...Bc5 if LiChess puzzle 94536 arose in a tournament?" Tags="&lt;puzzles&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ClosedDate="2019-03-28T10:45:29.647" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24047" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24046" CreationDate="2019-03-27T17:41:46.643" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some things make it difficult....&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;several motifs are involved: two clearances, trapped piece, discovered attack (and you have to see &lt;em&gt;all&lt;/em&gt; them in order to understand the problem)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;the particular form of these motifs is non-standard (meaning there are  more usual patterns for any of these motifs): &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;moving the bishop to f1 to clear the d pawn, is rare; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;trapping the bishop with just one pawn (more common is a theme with a white pawn on b4 and a black pawn on c7); &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;clearing the diagonal by playing c5 (this is essential for the discovered check);&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;discovered check with a pawn is not very common either&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Moving one of the double-attacked pieces is not what one might come up first, because it often loses a tempo. One might be tempted to have an attitude like: anyway I'll lose one of the two pieces, perhaps I could  make a useful move with one of the other pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;One would have to calculate this defensive tactics from the black, i.e. from the attacker side which is for many people more tricky as (at least lower rated) players tend to do a lot more tactics that ask for winning/mating, etc than doing defensive themes.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;In a tournament game (unlike in a composed study) you never know whether there is one good move or several equal (or almost equal) moves.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some things in favour of finding the correct move:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Since e4 has the potential to win a piece and therefore the game, the black player in a tournament game would want to make extra sure and invest plenty of time to check any defensive options.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The move a5 once and for all makes sure that the bishop on b4 is save, because it cannot be attacked by white pawns on that square and at most one would lose a pawn on any trade on b4 (after having checked that the pin along the a-file is not a problem).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Overall I think that because of the multiple non-standard motifs involved it is a very difficult problem in a tournament game. If you want a number, my estimate would be around 2200 ELO, but this might be more about how careful the player is than about what his rating is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Given enough time (10+ min or so), I believe that a lower rated player of around 1800 should be able to find the solution &lt;strong&gt;if told that there is a unique solution&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastEditorUserId="11629" LastEditDate="2019-03-28T13:27:54.393" LastActivityDate="2019-03-28T13:27:54.393" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24049" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-03-27T18:40:10.077" Score="4" ViewCount="320" Body="&lt;p&gt;If white plays an early d3 in the Ruy Lopez (presumably after c3 to give the light-squared bishop a retreat square) what are some ideas for black? I'm talking about those lines where white doesn't push d4, at least not immediately, but plays more calmly with d3. Svidler made a video series about the d3 Spanish on Chess24, but it's a little hard to tease out the ideas from the moves. I'm looking for an answer here that articulates in plain words what plans and ideas black has at his/her disposal when playing the Ruy Lopez against an early d3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've outlined, below, some plans and ideas with which I am familiar. But some of them may be faulty. This is just my modest knowledge of an opening (d3 Spanish) with which I am not that familiar.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Playing d5 and often then d4. This can be followed up by dxc3 bxc3 b4 to undermine the pawn on c3 and free up the d4 square for occupation (perhaps by a knight).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Rerouting the f6 knight to d7. This gives black the possibility of f5, which could be viable depending on the situation. It also allows the dark-squared bishop to go to f6, where it pressures d4 and might eventually end up on g7. The knight on d7 can then go to b6.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Playing on the kingside, Kings Indian style, by maneuvering the f6 knight to g7, playing f5, perhaps rerouting the c6 knight to f7. Why often responds to this plan with an early g4, discouraging black from playing f5, and playing on the kingside him or herself.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Playing on the queenside, starting with the moves Na5 Bc2 c5. A rook can go on c8, and then black can push c4 or b4, and try to open up the queenside. However, it can sometimes be difficult to pry open the queenside without an open c-file, as you often get in other lines.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Plans 3 and 4 are general plans that apply to most Spanish openings, whereas 1 and 2 are more typical in the d3 Spanish. I guess I have a passing knowledge of what to do in this opening, but, I still feel like it's not nearly enough. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there any key ideas or characteristics that I am missing, that are specific to the d3 Spanish? How is it strategically different from other Spanish openings? Are any of my above plans faulty? Can any of the above plans be elaborated more? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Ba4 Nf6 5. O-O Be7 6. d3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2614" LastEditorUserId="2614" LastEditDate="2019-03-28T21:20:32.377" LastActivityDate="2019-04-10T21:29:15.860" Title="What are some ideas for black in the Ruy Lopez when white plays an early d3?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;ruy-lopez&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24050" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8117" CreationDate="2019-03-27T20:33:07.850" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Since another user already commented on alpha-beta and the importance of good heuristics for move ordering, I will focus on a different aspect of your question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You specifically asked about forced mates rather than general board position evaluation, which makes the question somewhat easier to answer because it does not depend on the strength and cost of some evaluation function heuristic. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a family of related tree search algorithms collectively known as PN or proof number search (distant cousins of the general alpha-beta pruned search) which are particularly efficient at solving binary subproblems in computer games, such as whether or not there is a forced mate in &amp;lt;=N moves in chess (rather than the more abstract question of which board position is &quot;better&quot;).&#xA;The algorithm proceeds by visiting each node and trying to either prove or disprove the initial query by checking which conditions must be satisfied for that branch to contain a solution (or a countersolution) and evaluating them in a &quot;good&quot; order such that proof failures can be detected early. The search quits as soon as it finds the first solution to the query (unlike ab- search, which keeps going until it finds the optimal minimax sequence).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proof-number_search&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proof-number_search&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In general, the &quot;deepest&quot; searching algorithms based on PN combine two searches, the &quot;top&quot; half running some PN variant sped up by transposition tables, and after some critical depth which depends on the amount of memory available for the tables, a second search algorithm without TT is launched, for some maximum depth of plies. It is the case that large enough searches will far exceed in number of nodes any reasonable amount of memory, so the TT can only help skip redundant branches at the lowest depths.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If we assume we can build a TT in memory with something like 10^9 positions (for a memory in the order of several Gb), we will in theory fill it with the surviving search candidates from a search in theory twice as deep (10^18 positions), the vast majority of which will have been ruled out by the algorithm without further analysis. Stockfish can run in the order of 70 million plies per second on a high-end computer, which means a &quot;regular&quot; computer can fill the top half of the search in the order of 10s of seconds to a few minutes. This top part of the search roughly corresponds to 11.6 plies already.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The expensive work however is to launch a search at each one of the leaves, which can fortunately be done in parallel using as much hardware as you can throw at it. The point here is not so much how many &quot;computations&quot; can be done per second but whether or not you want to check the table (memory accesses are costly, but narrow the search), build a local TT of just a few Mb to speed up purely the local search, or just use CPU power as means of tree exploration.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tianhe-2 has something like 10^7 cores, so we are talking about assigning ~100 subproblems to each for maximum parallelism. So two minutes of thinking time will roughly translate into 1 second of unbounded exploration for each of the 10^9 leafs. Now assume each core visits 5 million (pruned) positions in this second and we get in theory an extra 8.7 plies of depth for a total of 20.3 plies of depth.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;HOWEVER, the true number will be much higher because we ignored the effect of transpositions. Since we are considering ALL legal moves each turn, we can approximate the number of transpositions as roughly (M!^2) with M=2P the number of moves. This is because most moves outside of a strategy do not interfere with other legal moves elsewhere on the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So visiting 10^9 nodes in the first half actually implies solving  30 ^ P = (10^9)^2 (P/2)!^2, which gives a (possibly too optimistic) bound of P~24, and similarly the bottom half gives P~14 for a total depth of 38 plies.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now of course in reality moves will end up not commuting, and the children nodes are not always visited in optimal order, but on the other hand we are using all legal moves as branching factor, which is a very pessimistic selection choice .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18777" LastActivityDate="2019-03-27T20:33:07.850" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24051" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24052" CreationDate="2019-03-28T10:53:50.847" Score="1" ViewCount="92" Body="&lt;p&gt;Currently making a parser for PGN files. And wondering if there is any practice of using commentary in Tag pair section, like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[Event &quot;Tournament X&quot;];hosted once a year&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[Event &quot;Tournament X&quot;]{hosted once a year}&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Has anyone seen such PGN? Is it used? Cause I couldn't find no such clause in PGN standart that forbids such comments. Or it's me that's just blind...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18776" LastEditorUserId="18776" LastEditDate="2019-03-28T10:59:58.993" LastActivityDate="2019-03-28T11:39:18.490" Title="PGN format and comments with tag pairs" Tags="&lt;pgn&gt;&lt;annotation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24052" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24051" CreationDate="2019-03-28T11:39:18.490" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The first example is invalid in PGN, please don't do that. Your second example is also invalid. We don't put comment to the same line as the header.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2019-03-28T11:39:18.490" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24053" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24038" CreationDate="2019-03-28T14:27:55.947" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here's a #4 where White has just KNN and there are no Black units blocking Black king flights:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;C. Barton; Family Herald 5 Nov 1859, no. 65&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;8/8/8/8/8/6K1/4p1N1/4N1k1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Ne3 Kh1 2.Ng4 Kg1 3.Nf3+ Kh1 (3... Kf1 4.Ne3#/Nh2#) 4.Nf2#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's a #5 where White has just KNN and the play is a bit more interesting than in Barton's #4:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Otto Dehler; Denken und Raten 31 Dec 1934&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;8/1p6/8/8/3K4/N7/8/k1N5 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Kc3 b6 (1...b5 2.Kc2 b4 3.Kb3 bxa3 4.Kc2 a2 5.Nb3#) 2.Kc2 b5 3.Nb1 b4 4.Nd2 b3+ 5.Ndxb3#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10380" LastEditorUserId="10380" LastEditDate="2019-03-28T15:29:08.743" LastActivityDate="2019-03-28T15:29:08.743" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24054" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24038" CreationDate="2019-03-28T15:48:28.833" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.apronus.com/chess/puzzle/?p=08X8X2p5X8X7NX2N5X1PK5Xk7_w_-_-_0_1&amp;amp;N=4&amp;amp;w=rqsqpqq-aqfqrqw-aqfqiqw-aqpqiqq-aqpqsqw-iqrqpqq-iqoqiqq-iqoqsqw&amp;amp;h=White%20to%20move%20and%20win%20by%20checkmate%20in%204%20moves&amp;amp;m=9&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.apronus.com/chess/puzzle/?p=08X8X2p5X8X7NX2N5X1PK5Xk7_w_-_-_0_1&amp;amp;N=4&amp;amp;w=rqsqpqq-aqfqrqw-aqfqiqw-aqpqiqq-aqpqsqw-iqrqpqq-iqoqiqq-iqoqsqw&amp;amp;h=White%20to%20move%20and%20win%20by%20checkmate%20in%204%20moves&amp;amp;m=9&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a real puzzle solving interface for one of the mate in 4 ideas given in another answer. There are many alternative solutions ending in 4.Nb3#&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3456" LastActivityDate="2019-03-28T15:48:28.833" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24055" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24038" CreationDate="2019-03-28T20:28:57.987" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The mate in 4 from another answer can be presented as an interactive puzzle with this link&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.apronus.com/chess/puzzle/?p=08X8X8X8X8X6K1X4p1N1X4N1k1_w_-_-_0_1&amp;amp;N=4&amp;amp;w=uqtqowd-uqtqoqp-uqtqoqf&amp;amp;h=%3Ch1%3EMate%20in%204%3C%2Fh1%3EC.%20Barton%3B%20Family%20Herald%205%20Nov%201859%2C%20no.%2065&amp;amp;m=9&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.apronus.com/chess/puzzle/?p=08X8X8X8X8X6K1X4p1N1X4N1k1_w_-_-_0_1&amp;amp;N=4&amp;amp;w=uqtqowd-uqtqoqp-uqtqoqf&amp;amp;h=%3Ch1%3EMate%20in%204%3C%2Fh1%3EC.%20Barton%3B%20Family%20Herald%205%20Nov%201859%2C%20no.%2065&amp;amp;m=9&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While the mate in 5 is this &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.apronus.com/chess/puzzle/?p=08X1p6X8X8X3K4XN7X8Xk1N5_w_-_-_0_1&amp;amp;N=0&amp;amp;w=owaqeqiqw-oqsqaqoqw&amp;amp;h=%3Ch1%3EMate%20in%205%3C%2Fh1%3EOtto%20Dehler%3B%20Denken%20und%20Raten%2031%20Dec%201934&amp;amp;m=9&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.apronus.com/chess/puzzle/?p=08X1p6X8X8X3K4XN7X8Xk1N5_w_-_-_0_1&amp;amp;N=0&amp;amp;w=owaqeqiqw-oqsqaqoqw&amp;amp;h=%3Ch1%3EMate%20in%205%3C%2Fh1%3EOtto%20Dehler%3B%20Denken%20und%20Raten%2031%20Dec%201934&amp;amp;m=9&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3456" LastActivityDate="2019-03-28T20:28:57.987" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24056" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14610" CreationDate="2019-03-28T23:08:35.313" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The following version has 99 threats &lt;strong&gt;none of which is a discovered check&lt;/strong&gt;. It is possibly the best under that additional requirement.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I made it as an answer to &lt;a href=&quot;https://puzzling.stackexchange.com/questions/81096/how-many-total-checkmates-can-you-possibly-make-against-the-enemy-king/81097#81097&quot;&gt;the same question asked on Puzzling SE&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/PIZBS.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/PIZBS.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18786" LastEditorUserId="18786" LastEditDate="2019-04-25T11:46:08.963" LastActivityDate="2019-04-25T11:46:08.963" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24057" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24045" CreationDate="2019-03-29T00:16:27.150" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Thanks for your question and welcome to chess.stackexchange :-) This is the kind of question which Tim Krabbe would have answered fascinatingly!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I choose to focus on the question where both players didn’t move beyond the fourth rank. There must be thousands of games where one player kept back.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Early games from the “romantic” period which featured open openings and aggressive sacrifices were the norm until the end of the 19th century. So don’t expect anything from that time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Later, the revolution led by Reti and Nimzowitch led to much more positional play with indirect control of the centre from a distance. However, it seems unlikely to be able to win such a game, without moving forwards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If neither player moved beyond the 4th rank, then no captures have taken place. So it’s hard to see what kind of winning advantage one side could have accrued. There must be many agreed draws, but they don’t really count. I would be very interested to see what a won game would look like with this constraint, as I can’t imagine it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8201" LastEditorUserId="8201" LastEditDate="2019-03-29T00:24:04.377" LastActivityDate="2019-03-29T00:24:04.377" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24059" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-03-29T07:12:05.610" Score="1" ViewCount="95" Body="&lt;p&gt;This question relates to the following possible continuation of the Short Variation of the Advance Caro-Kann:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.e5 Bf5 4.Nf3 e6 5.Be2 c5 6.O-O Nc6 7.c3 Bg6 8.a3 cxd4 9.Nxd4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This arose in an opening video by an Indian GM, and he said &lt;code&gt;9.Nxd4&lt;/code&gt; was a poor move because white's &lt;code&gt;f4&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;g4&lt;/code&gt; push lose its venom.  I was wondering if it simply drops a pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Is &lt;code&gt;9...Nxe5&lt;/code&gt; recommended here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stockfish recommends it, but that's different to being practically playable by humans.  Stockfish plays:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.e5 Bf5 4.Nf3 e6 5.Be2 c5 6.O-O Nc6 7.c3 Bg6 8.a3 cxd4 9.Nxd4 Nxe5 10.Bf4 Bd6 (10...Nc6 11.Qa4 Qd7 12.Bb5 Rc8 13.c4 Nf6 14.Nc3 a6) (10...Nd7 11.Nb5 e5 12.Qxd5 exf4 13.Qxb7 Rc8 14.Re1 Bc5 15. b4 Ne7 16.bxc5 Nxc5 17.Qxa7 O-O) 11.Bb5+ Kf8 12.Re1 Nc4 13.Bxd6 Nxd6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some of these lines are sharp, and may not be easily playable by humans.  Perhaps there's a reasonable alternative here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2785" LastActivityDate="2019-04-01T17:43:34.120" Title="Is 9...Nxe5 recommended in this line of the Short Variation of the Advance Caro-Kann?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;caro-kann&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24061" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24110" CreationDate="2019-03-29T14:54:10.667" Score="3" ViewCount="336" Body="&lt;p&gt;Having been inspired by a &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/24033/a-position-in-which-checkmate-is-forced-obligatory/24034#24034&quot;&gt;similar question,&lt;/a&gt; what legal positions have the most forced checkmates for one side and for both sides?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-04-29T21:57:46.243" LastActivityDate="2021-04-29T21:57:46.243" Title="What is the highest number of forced checkmates in a legal position?" Tags="&lt;problems&gt;&lt;records&gt;&lt;forced-move&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24062" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24071" CreationDate="2019-03-29T20:46:56.177" Score="0" ViewCount="286" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am trying to interact with stockfish via UCI to get a current evaluation of the board. When you do a simple&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;position startpos&#xA;go depth 10&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The board will helpfully return&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;...[previous depths]&#xA;&#xA;info depth 10 seldepth 11 multipv 1 score cp 29 nodes 1463 nps 731500 tbhits 0 time 2 pv e2e4 e7e5 g1f3 b8c6 f1b5 a7a6 b5c6 d7c6 e1g1 c8g4 d2d3&#xA;bestmove e2e4 ponder e7e5&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From this I can see that the evaluation for the next move is cp29 and this is corroborated by a &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/5945/how-to-get-position-evaluation-with-uci&quot;&gt;previous question&lt;/a&gt;. However, looking at &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/6155/how-to-evaluate-my-move-with-uci-engine&quot;&gt;another question&lt;/a&gt;, it seems like the initial question is technically wrong since the evaluation is for the position that will be resulted from the next best move, rather than the score for a current position. The second question also explains a way to get the technically correct evaluation for the current position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My questions are&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What score is commonly outputted by UIs that interact with stockfish? Do other UIs also go back in history to get a score when given a position?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is it correct that the score I get is the score for the next move when I use the standard &lt;code&gt;go whatever&lt;/code&gt; notation?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is there anyway to get the current score without going back in game history and force stockfish to calculate scores for all those other positions as explained in the second SE question? This forces me to fake a move backwards in time if I am using a FEN and don't know the game history for instance which doesn't seem like the right thing to do, nor it should be necessary.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16041" LastActivityDate="2019-03-30T12:13:33.857" Title="Standard for current position evaluation via UCIs" Tags="&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;uci&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24063" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5579" CreationDate="2019-03-29T21:53:18.193" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;TSCP is well commented and a good place to learn how chess programs work&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.tckerrigan.com/Chess/TSCP/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.tckerrigan.com/Chess/TSCP/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18716" LastActivityDate="2019-03-29T21:53:18.193" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24064" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-03-29T21:53:57.870" Score="0" ViewCount="160" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are they already so happy about the victory or is this behavior of the cheat program? I don’t believe in what they think over the simplest move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18795" LastActivityDate="2019-03-30T11:30:25.570" Title="Why do people make a huge pause before making even a simple checkmate?" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;cheating&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2019-03-30T19:46:50.893" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24066" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24059" CreationDate="2019-03-29T23:42:44.960" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think when Stockfish is saying +1 for black you kind of have to go for it - yes white gets a flurry of initiative but you can't avoid mess in every game. It's hard for humans to play messy positions but it will be hard for your opponent too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18738" LastActivityDate="2019-03-29T23:42:44.960" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24067" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24033" CreationDate="2019-03-30T07:29:17.397" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The current record for most &lt;strong&gt;forced&lt;/strong&gt; checkmates in a legal position with no promoted pieces is 29:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Harold Holgate Cross, The Problemist FCS Apr 1936, 2251&amp;quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &amp;quot;0&amp;quot;]&#xA;[fen &amp;quot;8/1b6/p1N5/P1r5/P3KPr1/QBk1NRP1/P2R1P2/4B3 w KQkq - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://pdb.dieschwalbe.de/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;PDB&lt;/a&gt; has it at id P1178654. White is to move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(For the record where the position must be legal and may have promoted pieces, see Rewan Demontay's answer.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One source is Dickins &amp;amp; Ebert, &amp;quot;100 Classics of the Chessboard&amp;quot;, no.94b&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10380" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2020-12-18T08:54:36.940" LastActivityDate="2020-12-18T08:54:36.940" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24068" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24064" CreationDate="2019-03-30T11:30:25.570" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I do not know what other players do. I pause because I&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;have time on the clock,&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;am (at Lichess classical 1590) not a strong player,&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;am not a quick calculator,&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;have insufficiently memorized some basic mating patterns, and&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;do not wish to blunder.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If your opponent still has time left on his or her clock, do you know a reason he or she should not pause?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When an annoyed online opponent of mine (usually an opponent who is losing) demands that I move faster, I merely&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;kill the chat so that I can finish the game in peace and&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;block the opponent so that he or she need suffer no further annoyance in connection with me during future games.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Meanwhile, if my opponent prefers not to wait while I use the time on my clock to think, then he or she can always resign.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Admittedly, it is indeed slightly impolite to run one's clock down &lt;em&gt;for the mere sake of running it down,&lt;/em&gt; but I seem to encounter this peculiar form of impoliteness in no more than five percent of all games. When I do encounter it, I relax, stretch my legs, review the game's earlier moves, read a nonchess book, catch up on the news, do chores, attend to children, etc., and don't let the play bother me much. Otherwise, the time on a player's clock is the player's to use as he or she sees fit. A player owes no explanation of a thinking pause, not even before delivering mate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A sportsman should probably not presume to instruct an opponent regarding how fast to think.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As to whether cheating is occurring, I have no idea. I doubt that it happens much in my games. It isn't happening on my end; and on the other end, who knows? Insofar as cheaters are not especially targeting me and insofar as the online platform on which one plays makes a reasonable effort to detect and deter cheating, I have not found it profitable to worry too much about that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="315" LastActivityDate="2019-03-30T11:30:25.570" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24069" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-03-30T11:41:54.303" Score="3" ViewCount="144" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm looking for a program that can force a lone king into checkmate on a specific square. Are there any programs out there that can do this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18796" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-03-30T14:49:11.677" LastActivityDate="2019-04-02T23:30:04.000" Title="Is there a chess AI that can force checkmate on a specified square?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;problems&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24070" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-03-30T11:47:54.517" Score="0" ViewCount="623" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Nf6 4. Ng5 Bc5 5. Nxf7 Bxf2+ 6. Kf1 Qe7&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) Chess.com computer at Level 10 plays 5. Nxf7. Theory recommends 5. Bxf7. Which line to follow in my game in tournaments? Please advice as I am confused now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) After analyzing the game with computer of chess.com it suggests 4. ... Bc5 as Blunder. The best move suggested by it is 4. ...  d5. Again confused as I know that this theory is Traxler Counter Attack and another is going for main line of Two Knights Defense. Kindly give your valuable suggestion. I played this game just now with play computer option of chess.com without login but as a guest. Waiting for your valuable answers. Thanks in advance&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11904" LastActivityDate="2020-08-18T09:40:03.330" Title="Traxler Counter Attack" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;traxler-counter-attack&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2019-04-01T08:37:14.517" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24071" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24062" CreationDate="2019-03-30T12:13:33.857" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Game theoretically the evaluation of the current position is equal to the evaluation of the position after the optimal move is played, since the evaluation of a position is defined as the result with optimal play from both sides. So although the engine technically speaking prints the score of the position after the (supposedly) best move, it at the same time gives the score for the current position, since they are identical.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to get the static evaluation of a position without any search, you can use the &lt;code&gt;eval&lt;/code&gt; command in stockfish, which returns something like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;     Term    |    White    |    Black    |    Total   &#xA;             |   MG    EG  |   MG    EG  |   MG    EG &#xA; ------------+-------------+-------------+------------&#xA;    Material |  ----  ---- |  ----  ---- |  0.00  0.00&#xA;   Imbalance |  ----  ---- |  ----  ---- |  0.00  0.00&#xA;       Pawns |  0.34 -0.08 |  0.34 -0.08 |  0.00  0.00&#xA;     Knights |  0.00 -0.16 |  0.00 -0.16 |  0.00  0.00&#xA;     Bishops | -0.04 -0.35 | -0.04 -0.35 |  0.00  0.00&#xA;       Rooks | -0.22 -0.02 | -0.22 -0.02 |  0.00  0.00&#xA;      Queens |  0.00  0.00 |  0.00  0.00 |  0.00  0.00&#xA;    Mobility | -0.92 -1.08 | -0.92 -1.08 |  0.00  0.00&#xA; King safety |  0.70 -0.08 |  0.70 -0.08 |  0.00  0.00&#xA;     Threats |  0.00  0.00 |  0.00  0.00 |  0.00  0.00&#xA;      Passed |  0.00  0.00 |  0.00  0.00 |  0.00  0.00&#xA;       Space |  0.60  0.00 |  0.60  0.00 |  0.00  0.00&#xA;  Initiative |  ----  ---- |  ----  ---- |  0.00  0.00&#xA; ------------+-------------+-------------+------------&#xA;       Total |  ----  ---- |  ----  ---- |  0.00  0.00&#xA;&#xA;Total evaluation: 0.13 (white side)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15415" LastActivityDate="2019-03-30T12:13:33.857" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24072" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-03-30T13:26:08.007" Score="2" ViewCount="211" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let's say it's the last day of a tournament and white needs to win a game in order to advance to the next stage or something like that. Unfortunately, he reaches a position where there is no way to progress without making things worse somehow, and so he begins repeating the same position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, he doesn't want to claim a draw since it would ruin the tournament for him. Black realizes what's going on and also refuses to claim a draw, hoping that eventually white will give in and make an inferior move in an attempt to win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Would black's behavior be considered unsporting in such a situation? Has something like this happened in a tournament before? Could this theoretically go on forever in a game with time increment?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16321" LastActivityDate="2019-04-01T17:48:43.197" Title="Making an inferior move to get out of threefold repetition?" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;threefold-repetition&gt;&lt;sportsmanship&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24073" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24070" CreationDate="2019-03-30T14:31:29.690" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Bxf7+ is definitely the way to go in practice in my opinion. I have done quite a lot of analysis with stockfish on Nxf7 and am not at all sure it is better for white despite the computer evaluation early on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bxf7+ almost certainly is a lot better for white and is a lot simpler to learn which is important for a repertoire choice against an unusual line (most people won't have the guts to play Traxler!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18738" LastActivityDate="2019-03-30T14:31:29.690" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24074" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24072" CreationDate="2019-03-30T14:46:40.373" Score="5" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Could this theoretically go on forever in a game with time increment?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No, because the arbiter would step in and declare the game drawn after the fifth repetition of the position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=208&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Laws of Chess&lt;/a&gt; -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;9.6 If one or both of the following occur(s) then the game is drawn:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  9.6.1 the same position has appeared, as in 9.2.2 at least five times.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;9.2.1 The game is drawn, upon a correct claim by a player having the move, when the same position for at least the third time (not&#xA;  necessarily by a repetition of moves):&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  9.2.1.1 is about to appear, if he first writes his move, which cannot be changed, on his scoresheet and declares to the arbiter his&#xA;  intention to make this move, or&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  9.2.1.2 has just appeared, and the player claiming the draw has the move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2019-03-30T14:46:40.373" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24075" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24072" CreationDate="2019-03-30T20:39:14.450" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think this is unsporting, unless it lasts so long that it delays the tournament. White has the option of claiming a draw, and he can do so at any time. White also has the option of playing an inferior move and trying to win at all costs.  Repeating the position multiple times does nothing but delay this choice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Has something like this happened in a tournament before?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Multiple repetition without a draw happened in one of the first strong tournaments! I don't know which round this game was played in, but as you can see, both players repeat the position many times, at multiple points in the game - and then one of them eventually plays another move. Look at what happens around moves 17, 33, and 86.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;Baden-Baden&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;1870.??.??&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Neumann, G&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Steinitz, W&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 f5 2.e4 2...fxe4 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Bg5 c6 5.Bxf6 exf6 6.Nxe4 d5 7.Ng3 Qb6 8.Qe2+ Kf7 9.O-O-O Na6 10.Qf3 g6 11.Bd3 Nb4 12.Kb1 h5 13.h3 h4 14.N3e2 Nxd3 15.Rxd3 Bf5 16.Rb3 Qc7 17.Nf4 Be4 18.Qg4 Bf5 19.Qf3 Be4 20.Qg4 Bf5 21.Qf3 Be4 22.Qg4 Bf5 23.Qf3 Be4 24.Qg4 Bf5 25.Qf3 Be4 26.Qg4 Bf5 27.Qf3 Be4 28.Qg4 Bf5 29.Qf3 Bd6 30.Nge2 a5 31.Rg1 a4 32.Re3 Rae8 33.g3 Be4 34.Qg4 Bf5 35.Qf3 Be4 36.Qg4 Bf5 37.Qf3 Be4 38.Qg4 Bf5 39.Qf3 Be4 40.Qg4 Bf5 41.Rxe8 Rxe8 42.Qf3 Qa5 43.Kc1 Qa6 44.Nc3 b5 45.g4 Bc8 46.Nd1 b4 47.Ne3 b3 48.a3 bxc2 49.g5 f5 50.Nxc2 Qc4 51.Ng2 Re2 52.Ne1 f4 53.Kd1 Re4 54.Ng2 Qb3 55.Qc3 Qxc3 56.bxc3 Bxh3 57.f3 Re8 58.Nxh4 Rh8 59.Ng2 Rh5 60.Nge1 Bf5 61.Nb4 Bd7 62.Rg2 Ke6 63.Ned3 Kf5 64.Nb2 Rh1+ 65.Kc2 Ra1 66.Nxa4 Rxa3 67.Nc5 Bxc5 68.dxc5 d4 69.cxd4 Rxf3 70.d5 Rg3 71.Rf2 f3 72.dxc6 Be6 73.Kd2 Ke4 74.Rf1 Rg2+ 75.Kc3 Re2 76.c7 Re3+ 77.Kd2 Re2+ 78.Kd1 Bb3+ 79.Kc1 Be6 80.Nc2 Bc8 81.Kd1 Bg4 82.c6 Kf4 83.Nd4 Re8 84.Kd2 Rc8 85.Kd3 Kg3 86.Rg1+ Kf4 87.Rf1 Kg3 88.Rg1+ Kf4 89.Rf1 Kg3 90.Rg1+ Kf4 91.Rf1 Kg3 92.Rg1+ Kf4 93.Rf1 Kg3 94.Rg1+ Kf4 95.Rf1 Kg3 96.Rg1+ Kf4 97.Rf1 Kg3 98.Rg1+ Kf4 99.Rf1 Kg3 100.Rg1+ Kf4 101.Rf1 Re8 102.Kc4 Kg3 103.Nxf3 Bxf3 104.Rxf3+ Kxf3 105.Kd5 Ra8 106.Ke5 Ke3 107.Kf6 Rc8 108.Kxg6 Kf4 109.Kf6 Rxc7 110.g6 Rxc6+ 111.Kf7 Kf5 112.g7 Rc7+ 113.Kf8 Kf6 114.g8=N+ Ke6 115.Nh6 Rh7 116.Ng4 Rh4 117.Ne3 Re4 118.Nd1 Rf4+ 119.Kg7 Rf3 120.Kg6 Ke5 121.Kg5 Kd4 122.Kg4 Rf1 123.Nb2 Rb1 124.Na4 Rb4 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2019-03-30T20:39:14.450" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24077" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22076" CreationDate="2019-03-31T00:37:18.633" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The variation beginning 4.e3 Bxc3+ is not very popular, but it is better than its reputation, and it's a very efficient way of cutting out a lot of theory if you're just taking up the Nimzo-Indian as Black. It hasn't been tried and found wanting; it just hasn't been tried (very much).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Essentially, Black would like to set up a dark-square pawn structure and would be happy to transpose into the Huebner Variation should White be so inclined. As II has pointed out, White's main way of avoiding the Huebner Variation is to choose Ne2-g3 instead of the more direct Nf3. But Black can generate pressure against White's center with or without ...e5, and in the Ne2-g3 lines he may well adopt the setup 5.bxc3 d6 6.Bd3 c5 7.Ne2 Nc6 (or even ...b6) 8.e4 0-0 9.0-0 b6 when he has ideas like ...Ba6 and ...Na5 or even ...Nh5 and ...Qh4. Stockfish 10 chews on the position for a while and coughs up an evaluation of 0.00. That doesn't mean the position is actually perfectly equal (see the discussion in Sadler and Regan, &lt;em&gt;Game Changer&lt;/em&gt;, for some insight on what that 0.00 actually tells us), but it does mean that if you're a human being and you like Black's position and think you understand it, you should feel free to try it out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At GM level, the Armenian GM Ashot Anastasian (d. 2016) frequently employed 4...Bxc3+, and it shows up occasionally in the practice of GM Paweł Jaracz, GM Leonid Yudasin, GM Dmitry Andreikin, GM Chanda Sandipan, and GM Roman Ovetchkin. In the Mega 2013 database Black scores a respectable 44% with it out of 166 games at master level (2200+ for both players).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18799" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-08-16T09:19:29.230" LastActivityDate="2020-08-16T09:19:29.230" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24079" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24070" CreationDate="2019-03-31T02:47:43.220" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As previously suggested by Hamish, Bxf7 instead of Nxf7 is a safe way for white to gain an edge, though Nxf7 is unsound anyways.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my opinion, if you want a swashbuckling defense against the fried liver,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e4 e5    Nf3 Nc6    Bc4 Nf6    Ng5 &lt;strong&gt;Nxe4!?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This move is much less known than traxler counter gambit and full of tricks. For example, if&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nxf7, black is equal, if not better(Nxf7 wins for white in the traxler (see Saglione vs Moreno carretero or any chess engine)).&#xA;Nxf7 Qh4 O-O(best move is Qe2, very difficult to find because it invites Nd4) Bc5 (black is already winning) Nxh8 Nxf2 .... and that's just one of the lines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But both of these lines are UNSOUND to Bxf7, so really you should play d5.&#xA;e4 e5    Nf3 Nc6    Bc4 Nf6    Ng5 d5     exd5 Na5    Bb5+ c6 and I'll let you investigate yourself, but this line is the reason why strong players seldom play Ng5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3872" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-08-18T09:40:03.330" LastActivityDate="2020-08-18T09:40:03.330" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24080" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24083" CreationDate="2019-03-31T04:18:39.200" Score="3" ViewCount="1024" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was surfing across Tim Krabbe’s website, as I usually do on occasion, and I found his article &lt;a href=&quot;https://timkr.home.xs4all.nl/admag/hajiri.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;DE KOEWEITSE ONSTERFELIJKE,&amp;quot;&lt;/a&gt; a very interesting tidbit. A game of 34 moves is mentioned in the last paragraph and notations for all of the moves are given. However, I do not understand them at all. There are strange letters for the pieces, such as P T, and D. K is understandable as the King. I suspect that P is for pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can anyone please explain to me what these symbols mean, and tell me what kind of notation variation that this is? A link to a site that explains it, such as its history, would also be helpful to have. I would also like it if you could put the game in the replayer so that I may better understand the notation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-04-29T22:19:38.210" LastActivityDate="2021-04-29T22:19:38.210" Title="Help! I cannot understand this game’s notations!" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;notation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24081" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24084" CreationDate="2019-03-31T09:22:27.350" Score="3" ViewCount="262" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was wondering if anyone could identify the name of this chess piece design, or possibly the name of its designer? It's obviously not the standard Staunton set.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Deleu.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Deleu.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;White pieces&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/XjHxF.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/XjHxF.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Black pieces&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18802" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-12-16T06:40:39.817" LastActivityDate="2020-12-16T06:40:39.817" Title="Can you identify the design of these chess pieces?" Tags="&lt;pieces&gt;&lt;identify-this&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24082" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24080" CreationDate="2019-03-31T09:57:13.357" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Looks like it's just algebraic notation using Dutch as the language, most likely given the author's nationality and that the rest of the article looks like Dutch - not the whole of the world speaks English! You can translate it yourself using the table at &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algebraic_notation_(chess)&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algebraic_notation_(chess)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7726" LastActivityDate="2019-03-31T09:57:13.357" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24083" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24080" CreationDate="2019-03-31T11:52:14.293" Score="10" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Can anyone please explain to me what these symbols mean?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These are the abbreviations for the pieces in Dutch. I believe they are almost the same as the German ones (with the exception of the knight = Springer (jumper) in German and = paard (horse) in Dutch (Pferd = horse in German), which are -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;T = Turm (= Castle, Rook)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;P = Pferd (= Horse, Knight)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;L = Laufer (= Runner, Bishop)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;K = Koenig (= King, King)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;D = Dame (= Queen, Queen)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I would also like it if you could put the game in the replayer so that I may better understand the notation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.g4 e5 2.Nh3 Ba3 3.bxa3 h5 4. Bb2 hxg4 5. Bc3 Rh4 6. Bd4 exd4 7. Nc3 dxc3 8. dxc3 g3 9. Qd3 Rb4 10. Nf4 g5 11. h4 f5 12. h5 d5 13. h6 Bd7 14. h7 g2 15. h8=B g1=R!! 16. Bd4 Ba4 17. Rh4 Rg3 18. Bg2 gxf4 19. Be3 fxe3 20. Be4 fxe4 21. fxe3 exd3 22. exd3 c5 23. Rc4 dxc4 24. dxc4 b5!! 25. cxb4 Qa5 26. cxb5 Na6 27. bxa5 O-O-O!! 28. bxa6 Rd4 29. exd4 Rb3 30. cxb3 Ne7 31. bxa4 Nd5 32. dxc5 Nb6 33. cxb6 Kb8 34. bxa7 Ka8&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-03-07T02:42:40.213" LastActivityDate="2020-03-07T02:42:40.213" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24084" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24081" CreationDate="2019-03-31T13:22:01.317" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It’s not exact match, but it’s possible that your set is what is called a St. George-style set.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Compare your set to this image from the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Staunton_chess_set#/media/File%3AChess_set_4o06.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Staunton chess set Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/c83bV.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/c83bV.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The way the kings, bishops, queens and pawns are built, in comparison with your set and the image above, are very similar. The rooks and knights are not exact nor are the dimensions the same. I would suspect that what you have is a variation and/or  modernized design of the St. George-style chess set, such as a mesh with the Staunton perhaps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here’s an &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess-museum.com/st-george-chessmen.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;article&lt;/a&gt; about the St. George-style that might be of help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-06-18T19:02:34.697" LastActivityDate="2020-06-18T19:02:34.697" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24086" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24072" CreationDate="2019-03-31T14:09:54.780" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Though your question is perhaps a minor question in that the circumstance it describes seldom arises, it is nevertheless a significant question in the philosophy of game rules. At least two schools of thought exist:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;One school holds that the game is for the two players to play. If neither player wants a draw, there would seem to be no reason the game should not continue until the players tire of it.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Another school however holds alternately that, besides the two players, third persons too might have a legitimate interest in seeing the game come to an eventual conclusion.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first school is self-explanatory but the second school admits a follow-up question: insofar as the only person who stands in a position to represent third persons is the arbiter or tournament director, should the arbiter or director act at discretion or according to a nondiscretionary rule?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The USCF empowers&amp;mdash;or burdens (depending on your perspective; see &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.uschess.org/docs/gov/chessrules/US_Chess_Rule_Book_Chapter_1_v7.0.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;USCF rule 14K&lt;/a&gt;)&amp;mdash;the director to act at discretion. Readers are not required to care what the USCF does, of course, but I mention the USCF in counterexample to the FIDE, which terminates the game, as Brian has explained, according to a nondiscretionary rule.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your question gives probably the best illustration I have met of the point.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Besides in a tournament, a similar question might also arise when two computer programs play against one another. Suppose that neither computer will claim a draw and the arbiter is third computer program. When should the arbiter terminate the game?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I do not ask here for answers but only observe that the last question is a question the USCF's formulation does not seem to answer. Whether the lack of an answer matters is a practical and/or philosophical point on which I express no opinion. (I seem to recall many years ago a computer tournament that implemented an &lt;em&gt;ad hoc&lt;/em&gt; rule terminating games after 300 moves. Moreover, I seem to recall that the rule acted during at least one of the tournament's games. However, I no longer have the reference and cannot document the assertion. My memory might be faulty.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One notes in any event that the last question is a question the FIDE's formulation does indeed answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For further illustration or at any rate for amusement, below is diagrammed what I believe was when it took place in&amp;nbsp;1989 (and perhaps still is) the longest game on record. I suppose that today's FIDE rules would have terminated the game short of the&amp;nbsp;269 moves it eventually reached. (Source &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1268705&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here.&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Belgrade&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Belgrade YUG&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;1989.02.17&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1/2-1/2&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Ivan Nikolic&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Goran Arsovic&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;E95&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;538&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.e4 d6 5.Nf3 O-O 6.Be2 Nbd7 7.O-O e5 8.Re1 Re8 9.Bf1 h6 10.d5 Nh7 11.Rb1 f5 12.Nd2 f4 13.b4 g5 14.Nb3 Bf8 15.Be2 Ndf6 16.c5 g4 17.cxd6 cxd6 18.a3 Ng5 19.Bf1 Re7 20.Qd3 Rg7 21.Kh1 Qe8 22.Nd2 g3 23.fxg3 fxg3 24.Qxg3 Nh3 25.Qf3 Qg6 26.Nc4 Bd7 27.Bd3 Ng5 28.Bxg5 Qxg5 29.Ne3 Re8 30.Ne2 Be7 31.Rbd1 Rf8 32.Nf5 Ng4 33.Neg3 h5 34.Kg1 h4 35.Qxg4 Qxg4 36.Nh6+ Kh7 37.Nxg4 hxg3 38.Ne3 gxh2+ 39.Kxh2 Rh8 40.Rh1 Kg6+ 41.Kg1 Rc8 42.Be2 Rc3 43.Rd3 Rc1+ 44.Nf1 Bd8 45.Rh8 Bb6+ 46.Kh2 Rh7+ 47.Rxh7 Kxh7 48.Nd2 Bg1+ 49.Kh1 Bd4+ 50.Nf1 Bg4 51.Bxg4 Rxf1+ 52.Kh2 Bg1+ 53.Kh3 Re1 54.Bf5+ Kh6 55.Kg4 Re3 56.Rd1 Bh2 57.Rh1 Rg3+ 58.Kh4 Rxg2 59.Kh3 Rg3+ 60.Kxh2 Rxa3 61.Rg1 Ra6 62.Rg6+ Kh5 63.Kg3 Rb6 64.Rg7 Rxb4 65.Bc8 a5 66.Bxb7 a4 67.Bc6 a3 68.Ra7 Rb3+ 69.Kf2 Kg5 70.Ke2 Kf4 71.Ra4 Rh3 72.Kd2 a2 73.Bb5 Rh1 74.Rxa2 Rh2+ 75.Be2 Kxe4 76.Ra5 Kd4 77.Ke1 Rh1+ 78.Kf2 Rc1 79.Bg4 Rc2+ 80.Ke1 e4 81.Be6 Ke5 82.Bg8 Rc8 83.Bf7 Rc7 84.Be6 Rc2 85.Ra8 Rb2 86.Ra6 Rg2 87.Kd1 Rb2 88.Ra5 Rg2 89.Bd7 Rh2 90.Bc6 Kf4 91.Ra8 e3 92.Re8 Kf3 93.Rf8+ Ke4 94.Rf6 Kd3 95.Bb5+ Kd4 96.Rf5 Rh1+ 97.Ke2 Rh2+ 98.Kd1 Rh1+ 99.Kc2 Rh2+ 100.Kc1 Rh1+ 101.Kc2 Rh2+ 102.Kd1 Rh1+ 103.Ke2 Rh2+ 104.Kf1 Rb2 105.Be2 Ke4 106.Rh5 Rb1+ 107.Kg2 Rb2 108.Rh4+ Kxd5 109.Kf3 Kc5 110.Kxe3 Rb3+ 111.Bd3 d5 112.Rh8 Ra3 113.Re8 Kd6 114.Kd4 Ra4+ 115.Kc3 Ra3+ 116.Kd4 Ra4+ 117.Ke3 Ra3 118.Rh8 Ke5 119.Rh5+ Kd6 120.Rg5 Rb3 121.Kd2 Rb8 122.Bf1 Re8 123.Kd3 Re5 124.Rg8 Rh5 125.Bg2 Kc5 126.Rf8 Rh6 127.Bf3 Rd6 128.Re8 Rc6 129.Ra8 Rb6 130.Rd8 Rd6 131.Rf8 Ra6 132.Rf5 Rd6 133.Kc3 Rd8 134.Rg5 Rd6 135.Rh5 Rd8 136.Rf5 Rd6 137.Rf8 Ra6 138.Re8 Rc6 139.Ra8 Rb6 140.Ra5+ Rb5 141.Ra1 Rb8 142.Rd1 Rd8 143.Rd2 Rd7 144.Bg2 Rd8 145.Kd3 Ra8 146.Ke3 Re8+ 147.Kd3 Ra8 148.Kc3 Rd8 149.Bf3 Rd7 150.Kd3 Ra7 151.Bg2 Ra8 152.Rc2+ Kd6 153.Rc3 Ra2 154.Bf3 Ra8 155.Rb3 Ra5 156.Ke3 Ke5 157.Rd3 Rb5 158.Kd2 Rc5 159.Bg2 Ra5 160.Bf3 Rc5 161.Bd1 Rc8 162.Bb3 Rc5 163.Rh3 Kf4 164.Kd3 Ke5 165.Rh5+ Kf4 166.Kd4 Rb5 167.Bxd5 Rb4+ 168.Bc4 Ra4 169.Rh7 Kg5 170.Rf7 Kg6 171.Rf1 Kg5 172.Kc5 Ra5+ 173.Kc6 Ra4 174.Bd5 Rf4 175.Re1 Rf6+ 176.Kc5 Rf5 177.Kd4 Kf6 178.Re6+ Kg5 179.Be4 Rf6 180.Re8 Kf4 181.Rh8 Rd6+ 182.Bd5 Rf6 183.Rh1 Kf5 184.Be4+ Ke6 185.Ra1 Kd6 186.Ra5 Re6 187.Bf5 Re1 188.Ra6+ Ke7 189.Be4 Rc1 190.Ke5 Rc5+ 191.Bd5 Rc7 192.Rg6 Rd7 193.Rh6 Kd8 194.Be6 Rd2 195.Rh7 Ke8 196.Kf6 Kd8 197.Ke5 Rd1 198.Bd5 Ke8 199.Kd6 Kf8 200.Rf7+ Ke8 201.Rg7 Rf1 202.Rg8+ Rf8 203.Rg7 Rf6+ 204.Be6 Rf2 205.Bd5 Rf6+ 206.Ke5 Rf1 207.Kd6 Rf6+ 208.Be6 Rf2 209.Ra7 Kf8 210.Rc7 Rd2+ 211.Ke5 Ke8 212.Kf6 Rf2+ 213.Bf5 Rd2 214.Rc1 Rd6+ 215.Be6 Rd2 216.Rh1 Kd8 217.Rh7 Rd1 218.Rg7 Rd2 219.Rg8+ Kc7 220.Rc8+ Kb6 221.Ke5 Kb7 222.Rc3 Kb6 223.Bd5 Rh2 224.Kd6 Rh6+ 225.Be6 Rh5 226.Ra3 Ra5 227.Rg3 Rh5 228.Rg2 Ka5 229.Rg3 Kb6 230.Rg4 Rb5 231.Bd5 Rc5 232.Rg8 Rc2 233.Rb8+ Ka5 234.Bb3 Rc3 235.Kd5 Rc7 236.Kd4 Rd7+ 237.Bd5 Re7 238.Rb2 Re8 239.Rb7 Ka6 240.Rb1 Ka5 241.Bc4 Rd8+ 242.Kc3 Rh8 243.Rb5+ Ka4 244.Rb6 Rh3+ 245.Bd3 Rh5 246.Re6 Rg5 247.Rh6 Rc5+ 248.Bc4 Rg5 249.Ra6+ Ra5 250.Rh6 Rg5 251.Rh4 Ka5 252.Rh2 Rg3+ 253.Kd4 Rg5 254.Bd5 Ka4 255.Kc5 Rg3 256.Ra2+ Ra3 257.Rb2 Rg3 258.Rh2 Rc3+ 259.Bc4 Rg3 260.Rb2 Rg5+ 261.Bd5 Rg3 262.Rh2 Rc3+ 263.Bc4 Rg3 264.Rh8 Ka3 265.Ra8+ Kb2 266.Ra2+ Kb1 267.Rf2 Kc1 268.Kd4 Kd1 269.Bd3 Rg7 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="315" LastActivityDate="2019-03-31T14:09:54.780" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24087" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21492" CreationDate="2019-03-31T14:52:24.127" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are four kinds en passant checkmates-&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The pawn moves, checking the king itself.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The pawn moves, checking the king, while also allowing another piece to check as well, aka a double check.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The pawn moves, not checking the king, as to allow another piece to check the king, aka a discovered check.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The pawn moves, not checking the king itself, as to allow two other pieces to check the king, aka a double discovered check.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are the fastest possible games for all four categories, in order. Variations exist of course. To get the fasest checkmates for black, simply reverse each game, always adding on a half a move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sources: &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/forum/general-chess-discussion/competition-create-the-shortest-game-with-ep-and-mate-pxp-ep-?page=1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;The Lichess Forums&lt;/a&gt; &amp;amp; &lt;a href=&quot;https://pdb.dieschwalbe.de/search.jsp?expression=PROBID=%27P0005364%27&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;The Chess Problem Database&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 f5 2. exf5 Kf7 3. Qg4 h6 4. b3 Qe8 5. Bb2 g5 6. fxg6#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 d5 2. d4 dxe4 3. d5 Kd7 4. Bc4 Nc6 5. Bg5 Qe8 6. h3 e5 7. dxe6#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. g4 Nc6 3. g5 d6 4. Qh5 Kd7 5. Bh3+ f5 6. gxf6#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. c3 f5 2. h4 Kf7 3. Qb3+ Kg6 4. Qf7+ Kh6 5. h5 a6 6. d4+ g5 7. hxg6#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-03-07T15:12:18.300" LastActivityDate="2020-03-07T15:12:18.300" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24088" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24706" CreationDate="2019-03-31T19:58:18.230" Score="5" ViewCount="565" Body="&lt;p&gt;The fastest way to get to 18 queens is &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/4128/shortest-possible-game-with-18-queens&quot;&gt;known&lt;/a&gt;. But what are the shortest possible games with a) 20 Bishops, b) 20 Knights, and c) 20 Rooks?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are my own attempts. Can anybody find/create a faster way?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;20 Rooks-104 Ply, me, chess.stackexchange.com 3/31/2019, Non-Unique Proof Game In 52.0 Moves&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;[startply &amp;quot;104&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. b4 d5 2. g4 e5 3. h4 f5 4. a4 c5 5. c4 d4 6. f4 e4 7. Nf3 exf3 8. Nc3 dxc3 9. d4 a5 10. e4 h5 11. b5 Na6 12. g5 Nh6 13. bxa6 b5 14. gxh6 g5 15. d5 b4 16. e5 g4 17. Bd3 Bd7 18. Be4 Bb5 19. Qd4 Qg5 20. axb5 fxe4 21. hxg5 cxd4 22. g6 h4 23. g7 h3 24. f5 g3 25. f6 g2 26. Kf2 Kf7 27. Kg3 Kg6 28. Rh2 Rh7 29. g8=R+ Rg7 30. h7 g1=R+ 31. Rg2 h2 32. f7 f2 33. e6 e3 34. e7 e2 35. exf8=R h1=R 36. Re8 f1=R 37. f8=R e1=R 38. h8=R b3 39. b6 b2 40. b7 Ra7 41. Ra2 bxc1=R 42. b8=R Rb1 43. Rab2 Rab7 44. a7 d3 45. d6 d2 46. c5 c2 47. c6 a4 48. c7 a3 49. d7 a2 50. a8=R a1=R 51. c8=R c1=R 52. d8=R d1=R&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [Title &amp;quot;20 Bishops-104 Ply, me, chess.stackexchange.com 3/31/2019, Non-Unique Proof Game In 52.0 Moves&amp;quot;]&#xA; [FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;[startply &amp;quot;104&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. g4 h5 2. g5 Rh6 3. gxh6 g5 4. h4 g4 5. b4 e5 6. f4 e4 7. Nf3 exf3 8. e4 f5 9. e5 Qg5 10. Nc3 a5 11. Ne4 fxe4 12. c4 a4 13.Qb3 axb3 14. a4 b5 15. a5 d5 16. c5 Ra6 17. hxg5 Rd6 18. cxd6 c5 19. Ra4 c4 20. d4 Na6 21. Be3 Nc5 22. dxc5 bxa4 23. g6 g3 24. h7 h4 25. g7 h3 26. b5 g2 27. Kf2 Kf7 28. f5 c3 29. f6 Kg6 30. Kg3 gxh1=B 31. a6 a3 32. a7 a2 33. b6 b2 34. b7 c2 35. c6 d4 36. c7 f2 37. Ba6 f1=B 38. Bf2 e3 39. a8=B Bhg2 40. b8=B h2 41. hxg8=B d3 42. Bb3 d2 43. g8=B Bh6 44. f7 e2 45. d7 a1=B 46. f8=B b1=B 47. d8=B Be6 48. c8=B Bf7 49. e6 c1=B 50. e7 d1=B 51. e8=B e1=B 52. Ba2 h1=B&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;20 Knights-104 Ply, me, chess.stackexchange.com 3/31/2019, Non-Unique Proof Game In 52.0 Moves&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;[startply &amp;quot;104&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 c5 2. f4 e5 3. f5 d5 4. Bf4 Be6 5. fxe6 exf4 6. e4 f5 7. e5 c4 8. Bd3 Bc5 9. dxc5 cxd3 10. c4 a5 11. b4 a4 12. Qb3 axb3 13. a4 b5 14. a5 h5 15. g4 Rh6 16. g5 d4 17. gxh6 g5 18. h4 g4 19. Ra4 Qg5 20. hxg5 bxa4 21. Kf2 d2 22. e7 f3 23. g6 d3 24. g7 Kf7 25. Ke3 Kg6 26. Kd4 f4 27. e6 h4 28. h7 b2 29. a6 a3 30. b5 a2 31. b6 f2 32. c6 f3 33. c7 g3 34. a7 g2 35. b7 h3 36. c5 h2 37. c6 Kf5 38. Nh3 Na6 39. Na3 Nh6 40. bxa8=N gxh1=N 41. c8=N d1=N 42. e8=N f1=N 43. g8=N b1=N 44. h8=N a1=N 45. c7 d2 46. e7 f2 47. Nef6 Nb2 48. Ncb6 Nfg3 49. c8=N f1=N 50. e8=N d1=N 51. Nac7 Nhf2 52. a8=N h1=N&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-04-29T22:41:58.450" LastActivityDate="2021-04-29T22:46:17.187" Title="What are the shortest possible games with a) 20 Bishops, b) 20 Knights, and c) 20 Rooks?" Tags="&lt;problems&gt;&lt;knights&gt;&lt;bishops&gt;&lt;rooks&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24089" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24090" CreationDate="2019-04-01T03:39:27.553" Score="2" ViewCount="1906" Body="&lt;p&gt;How do I respond to the Italian Game here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5&#xA;2. Nf3 Nc6&#xA;3. Bc4 Nf6&#xA;4. Ng5 d6 (I kind of got lost here)&#xA;5. Nxf7 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What should I have done against this as Black?  For reference me and my opponent are rated about 1000-1200.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I blundered bad, but without taking my queen out early I can't see another line.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've seen some stuff that suggests giving a pawn for other stuff, but I really would like to maintain material equality in the opening without extremely losing initiative / space / development.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17856" LastEditorUserId="12629" LastEditDate="2019-04-01T05:47:32.240" LastActivityDate="2019-10-26T00:53:59.127" Title="Italian Game Response As Black" Tags="&lt;italian-game&gt;&lt;two-knights&gt;&lt;fried-liver-attack&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24090" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24089" CreationDate="2019-04-01T05:30:29.710" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;4.Ng5 is a provocative move, threatening to take on f7.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The main line is 4...d5, and after 5.exd5 the best move might be 5...Na5. After 6. Bb5+ c6 7. dxc6 bxc6 Black has sacrificed a pawn but has gained a slight lead in development. If instead you play 5...Nxd5, White will often play 6. Nxf7 Kxf7 7. Qf3+ Ke6, known as the Fried Liver. White has a very good attack despite being down material. At your level, White is probably wanting and expecting the Fried Liver when he plays Ng5, so I wouldn't give it to him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The other common response is 4...Bc5, known as the Traxler Counterattack. Black is allowing White to take on f7 but is trying to get his own attack on f2. These games can get wild.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;None of these really fit your criteria; they involve sacrifices by one side or the other. If you prefer material equality, I suggest you avoid this line altogether by playing 3...Bc5, going into the Giuoco Piano instead of the Two Knights as your response to the Italian. White cannot then play 4.Ng5 because you could take the knight with your queen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Nf6 (3... Bc5 {Giuoco Piano}) 4. Ng5 d5 (4... Bc5 {Traxler}) 5. exd5 Na5 (5... Nxd5 6. Nxf7 Kxf7 7. Qf3+ Ke6 {Fried Liver}) 6. Bb5+ c6 7. dxc6 bxc6 *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2019-04-01T05:30:29.710" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24091" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24089" CreationDate="2019-04-01T07:01:46.610" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Responding 3...Nf6 to the Italian Game initiates the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_Knights_Defense&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Two Knights Defense&lt;/a&gt;. This isn't an opening to play if you're looking for a calm positional game with material equality; in fact, it's been suggested that the name &quot;defense&quot; is inappropriate and the opening should've been called a &quot;counterattack&quot; or even &quot;gambit&quot; instead. White playing 4.Ng5 practically wins a pawn by force, and it's up to Black to demonstrate compensation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After 4. Ng5 there are two lines: the Traxler variation with 4...Bc5 invites White to take on f7 with either piece. Black gains superior development as compensation. The resulting positions are very tactical (even by the Two Knight's standards) and complicated. Entering this line without preparation is asking for trouble, but at amateur level, you can outprepare your opponent especially if they naively go for 5. Nxf7.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The other line goes 4...d5 5. exd5 Na5 (5...Nxd5? is a &quot;well-known bad move&quot;; White can just play 6. d4 intending O-O and a straightforward attack) 6. Bb5+ c6 7. dxc6 bxc6. This is the same line given by D M in the other answer. White is up a pawn and has a much superior pawn structure, but Black is way ahead in development and has many moves that develop with tempo available. To illustrate Black's initiative, if White plays to grab more pawns with 8. Qf3, then after 8...Rb8 9. Bxc6+ Nxc6 10. Qxc6+ Bd7, the lead in development widens even further. Against the more conservative 8. Be2, Black still has 8...h6 9. Nf3 e4 10. Ne5, followed by 10...Bd6, Qd4 or Qc7 to drum up an initiative. Note however that after these moves, Black is &lt;em&gt;still a pawn down with inferior pawn structure&lt;/em&gt;! If Black doesn't make use of his development advantage and attack, he will go down in flames.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Nf6 4. Ng5 d5 5. exd5 Na5 6. Bb5+ c6 7. dxc6 bxc6 8. Be2 (8. Qf3 Rab8 9. Bxc6+ Nxc6 10. Qxc6+ Bd7) h6 9. Nf3 e4 10. Ne5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The upshot of all this is &lt;strong&gt;do not play the Two Knights if you're looking for a calm positional game with material equality&lt;/strong&gt;. Play 4...Bc5 instead. The Giucco Piano can also become sharp and tactical if White goes for the Evans gambit (5. b4), but at least then you're the one with the material advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastEditorUserId="15223" LastEditDate="2019-10-25T05:22:00.503" LastActivityDate="2019-10-25T05:22:00.503" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24093" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25177" CreationDate="2019-04-01T14:53:46.757" Score="7" ViewCount="3378" Body="&lt;p&gt;I saw some videos featuring a chess variant called Quantum Chess on YouTube. It looked very interesting to me, so I decided to try to find it online for free, but I couldn’t. Does anyone know of such a place?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18814" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-17T02:17:44.063" LastActivityDate="2020-08-17T02:17:44.063" Title="Where can I play Quantum Chess online for free?" Tags="&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;online-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24094" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24059" CreationDate="2019-04-01T17:43:34.120" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I kind of disagree with the previous answer, as computers often get confused with long-term complications coming from the opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my view, the position is fine, but far from comfortable. However, when playing the Caro-Kann, Black has to accept that this type of positions will arise, and it should master how to defend them accordingly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In short, analyse it deeper, get ready and go for it!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastActivityDate="2019-04-01T17:43:34.120" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24095" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23481" CreationDate="2019-04-01T17:46:21.327" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've seen cases of coaches who are weaker than the players they train with and yet do an excellent work. Don't believe me? Well, who's Carlsen's coach then?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Players with 2300 rating can make great coaches for you if they are good coaches in the first place! The same for 2000-rated coaches! Below that level, I start to see the point...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastActivityDate="2019-04-01T17:46:21.327" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24096" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24072" CreationDate="2019-04-01T17:48:43.197" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It can't be considered unsportmanship if you opponent has the right to stop it any time he wants!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastActivityDate="2019-04-01T17:48:43.197" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24098" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-04-01T23:49:44.360" Score="3" ViewCount="1493" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to form a 1d4 repertoire (exculsively 1e4 player) around the Catalan Opening. What are some lines that Catalan players play against the KID and slav defense(it seems the normal catalan setup isn't very effective against the slav?). I know this is an open question but I do want lines in the spirit of the Catalan if possible. Thanks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3872" LastActivityDate="2019-10-06T13:55:01.557" Title="For those who play the Catalan Opening, what are typical responses to the KID and slav defense?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24099" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24098" CreationDate="2019-04-02T07:00:50.460" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you have a preferred line against the Slav, it can still be compatible with the Catalan. You can go 1.d4 d5 2. c4 c6 and now play whatever you want. It could be 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 c6 3.Nf3 and play your favourite system.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Against the King's Indian, there are a bunch or interesting fianchetto lines&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastActivityDate="2019-04-02T07:00:50.460" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24100" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24098" CreationDate="2019-04-02T08:39:19.780" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is the exact situation where I found myself and I decided to employ &#xA;the following move order/repertoire to keep me in the spirit of the Catalan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;h2&gt;King's Indian defence&lt;/h2&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Against the King's Indian Defence you can use the fianchetto variation (which requires studying the Panno variations from the black side), which is actually quite solid and positional.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nf3 Bg7 4.g3 d6 5.Bg2 0-0 6.0-0 Nc6 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The above can be met in many different ways: there are 7.h3 lines, 7.Nc3, 7.Qc2 and so forth (you should dig into a little theory here). Notice that 3.Nf3 avoids forcing Grünfeld lines that could occur after 3.Nc3 (3...d5 4.cxd5 Nxd5 5.e4 Nxc3 bxc3 6.c5) because there is in fact no Knight on c3 to be exchanged after 5.e4.&#xA;The fianchetto variation moreover avoids the automatic plan by Black in the standard variations of the King's Indian (Mar de la Plata) with f5-f4-g5-g4, as the construction&#xA;with g3-Bg2 by White makes it really hard to sac-sac-checkmate the King.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;h2&gt;Slav&lt;/h2&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To be honest the best way to meet the Slav is to play the main line, as it gives&#xA;White always a slight edge and if well played Black must defend (though it is by &#xA;all means very robust and solid for the second player). Here it is important to &#xA;go 3.Nf3 instead of 3.Nc3 to avoid the Winawer gambit 3...e5 (well, unless you want to play against it and feel comfortable).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.Nc3 dxc4 5.a4 Bf5 6.e3 e6 7. Bxc4 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and the standard plan is to play Qe2 and then e4-e5 (at the right moment) followed by Bd3 and attack on the Black King. There are fianchetto lines against the Slav as well, however, if you really feel the need to play fianchetto all the times.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11726" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-10-06T13:55:01.557" LastActivityDate="2019-10-06T13:55:01.557" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24101" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18945" CreationDate="2019-04-02T11:28:49.033" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you want a solution that doesn't rely on the en passant convention, here is a solution with &lt;strong&gt;29 men&lt;/strong&gt; that is heavily based on Laska's answer. The missing White knights ensure that one of the black pawns could have promoted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When each sides moves their pawn to f3, the only legal move, a mutual stalemate shall occur. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;bqnbKRQB/rnk1pBRP/rb1pP1P1/p1pP4/PpP2p2/1P6/5P2/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just as a fun fact, the White dark-squared Bishop could easily be replaced by a knight and the position would still be a mutual stalemate after either side moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here’s an alternative 8-piece solution.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;KBk5/P1P1p3/2P5/4P3/8/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This shows that 2 pieces is the least that one side can have.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-10-23T12:55:14.710" LastActivityDate="2019-10-23T12:55:14.710" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24103" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23903" CreationDate="2019-04-02T12:47:36.577" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;A strong king has a few less moving possibilities than a queen and a knight combined, so its strengh would be close to that, maybe a little less&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastActivityDate="2019-04-02T12:47:36.577" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24104" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24098" CreationDate="2019-04-02T16:08:11.200" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you go on amazon and search &quot;Grandmaster Repertoire Avrukh&quot; you will see:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Grandmaster Repertoire 1: 1.d4 Volume One (v. 1)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Grandmaster Repertoire 2: 1.d4 Volume Two&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Grandmaster Repertoire 1A - 1. d4 - The Catalan&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;1.d4: King’s Indian &amp;amp; Grunfeld (Grandmaster Repertoire)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Grandmaster Repertoire 17: The Classical Slav&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and more.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;GM Avrukh has created the repertoire you seek as a starting point to 1.d4.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He recommends the fianchetto lines against the King's Indian Defense as g3 is a Catalan move after all.  Having said that you don't really get any advantage with it!  You do get a solid position which you can play chess with.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I too tried to adopt 1.d4 though exclusively 1.e4 forever.  I ended up adopting the English first and found some cool anti-slav lines and used the Botvinnik setup against the King's Indian.  But again against the Kings Indian I don't see an edge for White -- just a battle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2019-04-02T16:08:11.200" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24105" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24089" CreationDate="2019-04-02T17:34:51.220" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;As others have correctly said, once you have played 3..Nf6 there is no going back. A very reasonable alternative is the Hungarian Defence 3..Be7, against which White cannot launch a wild attack. If he plays too quietly (c3, h3..), you can often take the initiative by playing ..d5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Books will you that ..Be7 is a bit passive, but at your present level your opponents may not be capable of exploiting that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastActivityDate="2019-04-02T17:34:51.220" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24107" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24108" CreationDate="2019-04-02T20:55:18.763" Score="2" ViewCount="91" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there a specific reason why Stockfish thinks Black's 7th move is an inaccuracy?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/9eE7XxLa/black#13&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Reference Game Aronian v Carlsen&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/0S8ca.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/0S8ca.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm currently going over &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessable.com/the-kings-indian-in-thirty-classic-games/course/9016/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;The King's Indian in Thirty Classic Games at Chessable&lt;/a&gt; and the move suggested is 7... &lt;strong&gt;Nc6&lt;/strong&gt; to provoke white's &lt;strong&gt;d5&lt;/strong&gt; and stabilize the center pawn structure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7898" LastEditorUserId="18475" LastEditDate="2019-04-04T00:27:05.040" LastActivityDate="2019-04-04T00:27:05.040" Title="KID Gligoric-Taimanov Variation [E92] Black inaccuracy? Move 7 .... Nc6" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;kings-indian&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24108" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24107" CreationDate="2019-04-02T21:48:38.863" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess engines are currently not able to give you a good analysis of opening moves all by themselves. This is basically due to the huge number of possible variations during the opening phase. Engines are effectively limited to a certain depth and if the potential positions some 10-20 moves later are still roughly equal you cannot decide on a best move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Particularly the KID is known for being tricky for engines. Usually they give white a large advantage and underestimate any counterplay of black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because of this, analyzing openings is usually done with human interaction. For instance a player would pick certain lines that he is interested in and have the engine look more deeply into those directions. Also other factors than just objective computer evaluation do play a huge role in openings, such as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;how playable is this line for me and for my opponent (does he have to play only moves or is it easy to play)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;am I aiming for a save draw or for a wild game with chances for both sides&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;etc&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, they'd use stronger engines and strong computers than the one on the lichess website.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyway, in this particular case you should ignore what the engines says and trust many decades of games played in this line.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2019-04-02T21:48:38.863" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24109" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24069" CreationDate="2019-04-02T23:30:04.000" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Thanks for the great question ChessNoob3000, and welcome to chess.stackexchange.com&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't know of any chess program right now (&quot;AI&quot; or otherwise) which can force checkmate on a particular square. The idea of &quot;conditional problems&quot;, e.g. white must mate with a certain piece, was popular in the 19th century, before the arrival of software which can solve much more complex problems, but they are now a bit of a backwater. If you wrote a program specializing in conditional problems, you could be able to apply it to &lt;a href=&quot;https://pdb.dieschwalbe.de/search.jsp?expression=k=%27conditional%27&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;hundreds of unproven problems&lt;/a&gt;!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Related work is in Francois' Labelle's &lt;a href=&quot;https://wismuth.com/jacobi/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&quot;Jacobi&quot; program&lt;/a&gt;. This does allow for conditions, but is strictly applicable to help problems and proof games. It would not apply to adversarial stipulations e.g. &quot;mate in 2&quot; or &quot;self-mate in 2&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You might post a feature request for &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/thomas-maeder/popeye&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Popeye in github &lt;/a&gt;, or if you are a programmer you might want to contribute to the Popeye open source yourself. Chat with Thomas Maeder about this: conditional problems for non-help stipulations is definitely a hole currently.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8201" LastActivityDate="2019-04-02T23:30:04.000" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24110" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24061" CreationDate="2019-04-03T12:07:44.090" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The answer to this has already been given as an &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/24033/a-position-in-which-checkmate-is-forced-obligatory/24076#24076&quot;&gt;answer&lt;/a&gt; in a related question. That answer was 55.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Ludwig Zagler, Feenschach 1972&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;1rB1Q1Q1/1PRQ3Q/2b2k2/2pQ1N1Q/4KRPp/5N2/1R6/B3nn1b w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The position is taken from &lt;a href=&quot;https://timkr.home.xs4all.nl/chess2/diary_17.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Tim Krabbe's website&lt;/a&gt;. According to Krabbe:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;There are 12 mates by Rb2; 1 by g5; 1 by Qd5; 7 by d7; 7 by Qe8, 7 by&#xA;  Qg8; 6 by Qh5; 6 by Qh7; and 8 by Nf5, for a total of 55.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The record with both sides to move is 39 according to &lt;a href=&quot;http://matplus.net/start.php?px=1586184928&amp;amp;app=forum&amp;amp;act=posts&amp;amp;tid=607&amp;amp;fid=gen&amp;amp;page=2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this Matplus.net thread&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Ludwig Zagler, Fairy Chess 6/1974&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;6B1/2p2R1B/2P1k1NR/2P1q1PP/1pp1Q1p1/brn1K1p1/1b1r2P1/n1b5 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-06T15:03:07.393" LastActivityDate="2020-04-06T15:03:07.393" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24111" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1983" CreationDate="2019-04-03T14:30:11.187" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The puzzle &lt;a href=&quot;https://puzzling.stackexchange.com/q/81359/11110&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; offers a light-weight alternative, &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.apronus.com/chess/pgnviewer/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Apronus&lt;/a&gt;. It's quite simple: paste the PGN, click the 'Absorb' button and then 'Link to share'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/U0bNT.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/U0bNT.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2019-04-03T14:30:11.187" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24112" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24121" CreationDate="2019-04-04T11:36:59.980" Score="7" ViewCount="531" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was using &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.apronus.com/chess/pgnviewer/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Apronus&lt;/a&gt; to make a new chess puzzle for &lt;a href=&quot;https://puzzling.stackexchange.com/&quot;&gt;Puzzling Stack Exchange&lt;/a&gt;, but then it did something odd.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Nh3 f5 2. e4 fxe4 3. d3 exd3 4. Be2 Kf7 5. Qd2 dxe2 6. O-O&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's letting the White king castle through a square that is attacked by a Black pawn-that is an illegal move! One should know that our replayer is not built to detect checks and whatnot, so I am able to show it here just fine. However, just shouldn’t be happening in a properly built PGN editor, which Apronus is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does anyone have any idea why this is happening?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-11-29T18:36:28.667" LastActivityDate="2020-11-29T18:36:28.667" Title="Why is Apronus allowing the White king to castle through an attacked square?" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;pgn&gt;&lt;castling&gt;&lt;websites&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24113" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24112" CreationDate="2019-04-04T12:38:16.587" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, for a definitive answer you need to ask the authors/maintainers of the website.  Especially since it has a &amp;quot;legal moves only&amp;quot; option above the board which is selected by default. Note that this very website's replayer also executes the illegal move in your post.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can imagine that one wants to analyze/record a complete game &lt;em&gt;even if an illegal move was made in it&lt;/em&gt;, or show an almost-legal constructed game to reach a certain position. However, the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.saremba.de/chessgml/standards/pgn/pgn-complete.htm#c8.2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;PGN standards&lt;/a&gt; forbid this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;8.2: Movetext section&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The movetext section is composed of chess moves, move number indications, optional annotations, and a single concluding game termination marker.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because illegal moves are not real chess moves, they are not permitted in PGN movetext. They may appear in commentary, however. One would hope that illegal moves are relatively rare in games worthy of recording.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2019-04-04T12:38:16.587" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24114" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24112" CreationDate="2019-04-04T12:41:26.737" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Do you have any idea why this is happening?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because it is a chessboard editor, not an engine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is what the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.apronus.com/chess/pgnviewer/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Apronus&lt;/a&gt; site says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;PGN Viewer and Editor &lt;em&gt;with Chess Puzzle Editor&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;online interactive chessboard with PGN viewer and editor, diagram    editor and puzzle editor&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;set up any position to play against computer or analyze with a chess    engine&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;make diagrams with arrows and selected squares or animations    indicating moves with arrows&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;create links to your chess positions or embed chessboards on your own    pages&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;design chess puzzles:&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Its main function is to help you design diagrams and puzzles not validate your games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2019-04-04T12:41:26.737" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24115" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23903" CreationDate="2019-04-04T13:22:20.237" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;It depends on how we measure the effectiveness of a handicap.&lt;/strong&gt; Here's what I mean by that:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;If we are trying to increase the likelihood that the weaker player wins, queen-side odds are more effective&lt;/em&gt; than the strong king, because the weaker player has so much offensive potential in queen-side odds (and the stronger player doesn't have much defense).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;If we are trying to decrease the likelihood that the weaker player loses, the strong king is more effective&lt;/em&gt; than queen-side odds, because the weaker player has so much more defensive potential in a strong king. Checkmating that king is one heck of a job.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18168" LastActivityDate="2019-04-04T13:22:20.237" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24116" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24042" CreationDate="2019-04-04T22:49:24.293" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;This variant is definitely very interesting, and could prove somewhat beneficial in learning standard chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Standard Chess(SC)'s castling operation is not reflected in this variant. Your king is already tucked away.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;This variant does not reflect SC pawn structures. Space is too limited.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The value of pieces changes. Knights are going to be worth more than in SC, since they can now traverse half the diagonal of the board in two moves.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;No opening knowledge whatsoever will be attained in this variant. Also, common opening motifs from SC (control the center, develop your pieces) will not be used.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Standard tactics from SC will not be used as much in this variant. Skewers and pins, for example, would be quite rare.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That leaves endgame practice, which could be a little helpful, but there's also endgame puzzles in SC - and actual SC endgames in SC.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Conclusion:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If your goal is to further your understanding of standard chess, you are better off studying standard chess. This variant looks like a lot of fun, but it does not do a good job of teaching typical chess lessons, for reasons outlined above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18168" LastActivityDate="2019-04-04T22:49:24.293" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24117" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-04-05T00:16:14.450" Score="3" ViewCount="443" Body="&lt;p&gt;After:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 g6 2. d4 Bg7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;by far the most common third move is 3. Nc3. This goes against the principle of not blocking the c pawn with the knight as white, now of course principles can be broken but I can't see the benefit of doing so here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The e4 pawn does not need defending, and if the aim is to stop 3... d5 then 3. c4 achieves this as well, then Nc3 can be played later.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So why is it not preferable to play 3. c4 before Nc3?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18829" LastEditorUserId="17823" LastEditDate="2019-06-01T16:34:06.430" LastActivityDate="2019-09-10T14:47:31.400" Title="Why is 3. Nc3 played in mainline of the Modern Defense?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;&lt;modern-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24118" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24176" CreationDate="2019-04-05T01:42:15.497" Score="1" ViewCount="610" Body="&lt;p&gt;I had an idea for a type of stalemate: One side is stalemated with 8 pins in a legal position with as many pieces as possible, with all of the stalemating side’s units being “necessary.”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;”Necessary” is defined as either pinning a piece, blocking a piece, or covering a king’s flight square. The king must be involved of course.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The best I came up with was 22 units. What is the optimal amount?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;me, chess.stackexchange.com 4/5/2019&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;b2r2q1/1R1BkR2/8/qN1K1Nq1/8/1P1N1P2/q2r2q1/2q1q1b1 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a bonus optional question, what is the maximum number of units in a legal position with 4 “natural” pins, which means no promoted pinning pieces?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-04-29T22:23:28.890" LastActivityDate="2021-04-29T22:23:28.890" Title="An Interesting Idea: Pinned Pieces Stalemate" Tags="&lt;problems&gt;&lt;stalemate&gt;&lt;pins&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24119" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24117" CreationDate="2019-04-05T05:58:27.810" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt; 3. c4 will likely transpose to a King Indian defense while 3. Nc3 will likely lead to a Pirc. 1. e4 players will prefer the more familiar Pirc positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Modern Defense move order lets White decide the main position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9321" LastEditorUserId="17823" LastEditDate="2019-06-01T16:30:01.467" LastActivityDate="2019-06-01T16:30:01.467" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24120" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24117" CreationDate="2019-04-05T07:08:04.750" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is no such principle as &quot;don't block your c-pawn&quot;. A c3/c4 pawn push is better in some positions and worse in others. What White intends is to develop his queenside fast, castle there and launch a kingside attack with his pawns, so c4 is out of the question if you want to play that plan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Indeed, White would want to do the same thing against the King's Indian, the reason why he doesn't is that Black would not allow it! See for instance 1.d4 Nf6 and now 2.Nc3 is not done because 2...d5 would come, otherwise, if would be the best move!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-09-10T14:47:31.400" LastActivityDate="2019-09-10T14:47:31.400" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24121" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24112" CreationDate="2019-04-05T11:31:34.880" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;I happen to be the author of the chessboard editor under discussion. Let me clarify the issue.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This editor is supposed to enforce legal moves but it has a bug which prevents it from being able to make a pawn capture onto the final rank. Therefore it cannot notice that a black chessman controls the f1 square. If you place a black bishop on the a6-f1 diagonal then it won't allow White to castle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a newer chessboard editor that is free from this bug: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.apronus.com/chess/puzzle/editor.php?editpuzzle=0&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.apronus.com/chess/puzzle/editor.php?editpuzzle=0&lt;/a&gt;, which is meant as a powerful puzzle editor but it can serve as a PGN editor, too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &quot;position setup&quot; interface can be used to illustrate an arbitrary sequence of chessboards, not necessarily legal or illegal moves. If you tick the checkbox &quot;Animation sequence&quot; you will see that it keeps a record of all board positions like frames in a movie. It allows you to delete certain frames which effectively allows you to set up an arbitrary sequence of board position and generate an animated GIF diagram. I am the author of this tool.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3456" LastEditorUserId="3456" LastEditDate="2019-04-05T11:39:13.557" LastActivityDate="2019-04-05T11:39:13.557" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24122" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24117" CreationDate="2019-04-05T19:36:12.217" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is just a matter of taste.  White is playing a king pawn opening so with the pawn on e4 the principal of blocking the c-pawn does not apply.   White simply doesn't want to play a King's Indian defense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With Nc3 White has a lot of options:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;For one he can seek a more Dragon type game with the idea of Bc1-e3, &#xA;Qd2, and h2-h4; often with f2-f3 being played.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Alternatively, White    can go for f2-f4 lines probably pushing&#xA;e4-e5.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Or White can play    classically with Nf3 and Be2.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So overall a flexible developing move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2019-04-05T19:36:12.217" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24123" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18950" CreationDate="2019-04-05T21:07:33.247" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am unclear if this is a variety of chess played in England, or if the implication is this game is &quot;England's Chess&quot; but from 1550-1700 a popular game was called The Philosopher's Game. Instructions for the game were published in 1568 according to HJR Murray's History of Chess book. The Publisher's Circular of 1907 talks about a William Fulke who wrote down a list of instructions for The Philosopher's Game in 1563, a transcript of which can be read here:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://jducoeur.com/game-hist/fulke.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://jducoeur.com/game-hist/fulke.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It would seem Shakespeare, at least, called chess by the &quot;The Philosopher's Game&quot; during his lifetime, because in 1611 when Shakespeare staged The Tempest, the philosopher in that play, Prospero, is instructed in Act V by the stage directions to &quot;[Here PROSPERO discovers FERDINAND and MIRANDA] playing at chess]&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ann Moyer's book, The Philosopher's Game, details what she calls &quot;the Elizabethan Rule book&quot; for how to play The Philosopher's Game, which she says is also known as &quot;Rithmomachia (&quot;The Battle of Numbers&quot;), which combined the pleasures of gaming with mathematical study and moral education&quot; It's expensive but you can find that book &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.press.umich.edu/17230/philosophers_game&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18835" LastEditorUserId="315" LastEditDate="2019-04-06T11:53:40.920" LastActivityDate="2019-04-06T11:53:40.920" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24124" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24126" CreationDate="2019-04-06T00:15:48.387" Score="4" ViewCount="387" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sometimes the reason a piece should not be captured isn’t the recapture, but rather the threat of a fork because the capturing piece would find itself in just the wrong spot. The &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/wcRgyUgW#40&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;1926 game between Stepanov and Romanovsky&lt;/a&gt; is full of this after 20. … R×f3+.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a name for the situation where a piece is protected by the threat of a fork?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18838" LastActivityDate="2019-06-25T17:08:28.777" Title="Is there a name for fork-protected pieces?" Tags="&lt;terminology&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24125" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24124" CreationDate="2019-04-06T00:28:36.323" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't know about English. In spanish we use the term &quot;defensa indirecta&quot; or &quot;protección indirecta&quot;, but it does not refer specifically to indirect protection/defence by fork, it could be a threat of any kind that prevents the piece in question to be captured.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, after the silly moves 1.e4 d6 2.Nf3 Bg4 3. Bc4 g6 4.Ne5 and the queen is indirectly protected by a mate threat.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.e5 c5 4.c3 Nc6 5.Nf3 Qb6 6.Bd3, the d4 pawn is indirectly protected by a discovered attack in case it got captured.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And finally, relating back to your specific case: 1.d4 c5 2.dxc5 e6 3.Be3 Qa5+ 4.c3 is another case of indirect protection, this time by means of a fork threat in case of 4...Bxc5?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-06-25T17:08:28.777" LastActivityDate="2019-06-25T17:08:28.777" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24126" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24124" CreationDate="2019-04-06T01:29:35.733" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;I agree with asdf regarding the idea that &lt;strong&gt;there isn't a name specifically attached to indirect protection of a piece stemming from a &lt;em&gt;fork&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, in general, pieces that are protected by &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_tactic&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;any&lt;/em&gt; tactic&lt;/a&gt;, including forking, are said to be &quot;indirectly defended.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as a name for the piece being indirectly defended, &lt;strong&gt;one might call it a &quot;bait&quot; piece&lt;/strong&gt;, as it baits the opposing player to make a dubious move. In a specific opening line, there is a somewhat famous &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoned_Pawn_Variation&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&quot;poisoned pawn&quot;&lt;/a&gt; - a pawn that looks like it can be taken without fear, but makes things positionally difficult in the long run. Thus, &lt;strong&gt;an indirectly defended piece might also be called a &quot;poisoned&quot; piece.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18168" LastActivityDate="2019-04-06T01:29:35.733" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24127" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13928" CreationDate="2019-04-06T16:08:45.607" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I play 1.e4 d5 2.d3 dxe4 3.dxe4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3456" LastActivityDate="2019-04-06T16:08:45.607" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24128" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23736" CreationDate="2019-04-06T17:24:16.660" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The relevant sections from &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=208&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=208&amp;amp;view=article&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  4.2.1&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Only the player having the move may adjust one or more pieces ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  4.2.2&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Any other physical contact with a piece, except for clearly accidental contact, shall be considered to be intent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  4.3&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Except as provided in Article 4.2, if the player having the move touches on the chessboard,with the intention of moving or capturing:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  4.3.1&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;one or more of his own pieces, he must move the first piece touched that can be moved&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  4.3.2&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;one or more of his opponent’s pieces, he must capture the first piece touched that can be captured&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  4.3.3&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;one or more pieces of each colour, he must capture the first touched opponent’s piece with his first touched piece or, if this is illegal, move or capture the first piece touched that can be moved or captured. If it is unclear whether the player’s own piece or his opponent’s was touched first, the player’s own piece shall be considered to have been touched before his opponent’s.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Article 4.2.2 establishes that any non-accidental contact shall be considered intent, so touching the opponent's bishop with your knight establishes intent to capture. At that stage, you've touched both your knight and your opponent's bishop - that is, you've touched &lt;em&gt;&quot;one or more pieces of each colour&quot;&lt;/em&gt; -  so article 4.3.3 dictates what happens next.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's break down article 4.3.3, then. It first says you must:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;capture the first touched opponent’s piece with his first touched piece&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(nope, you can't do that - it's an illegal move)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;or, if this is illegal&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(it is)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;move or capture the first piece touched that can be moved or captured&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since your knight cannot be moved, the &quot;first piece touched that can be moved or captured&quot; is your opponent's bishop. Therefore you must capture it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17146" LastActivityDate="2019-04-06T17:24:16.660" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24129" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24130" CreationDate="2019-04-06T17:28:49.857" Score="-4" ViewCount="181" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the total number of KNN vs. K checkmate positions? Assume that White is checkmating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Firstly the Black king must be mated on a corner. &lt;strong&gt;It is impossible to do it on the edge.&lt;/strong&gt; The calculations on one corner can be multiplied by four for the final results.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Addendum&lt;/strong&gt;: It actually can be done as @Glorfindel’s answer shows. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;k6k/8/8/8/8/8/8/k6k w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let’s choose this corner for now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/8/8/8/8/8/8/k7 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The white king needs to be on one of these four squares.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;k6k/8/8/8/8/8/8/k6k w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The checkmating knight needs to be on one of these two squares.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/8/8/8/8/1N6/2N5/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, the knight used to block off the black king’s escape route has to be on one of these five squares.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/8/8/8/1N6/N1N5/3N4/2N5 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can anyone calculate the total number of possiblities?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-03-07T05:02:19.460" LastActivityDate="2020-03-07T05:02:19.460" Title="What is the total number of KNN vs K checkmate positions?" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;knights&gt;&lt;mathematics&gt;&lt;knight-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24130" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24129" CreationDate="2019-04-06T19:07:24.173" Score="3" Body="&lt;h3&gt;TL;DR: 120&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You're on the right track, but combinatorics can be hard sometimes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the black king must be in the corner, just pick a1. If the white king is on c1, one knight (the white one below) must give check on c2 or b3, and the other one (the black one below) must cover a2, so be on c3 or b4. That's four positions (we'll cover symmetry later).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;8/8/8/8/1n6/1Nn5/2N5/k1K5 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the white king is on c2, the knight giving (the white one below) check must be on b3 and the other one (the black one below) must cover a2, so be on c1, c3 or b4. That's three positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;8/8/8/8/1n6/1Nn5/2K5/k1n5 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now all seven positions can be flipped along the long diagonal; that's 14 (there are no duplicates; the white king isn't on the diagonal). And finally all positions can happen on all four corners, for a total of 14 times 4 = &lt;strong&gt;56&lt;/strong&gt; positions ... &lt;strong&gt;in the corner&lt;/strong&gt;. @Remellion found another mating pattern:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;8/8/8/8/8/1N2N3/K7/K1k5 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(the white king can be at two places) and this position can be shifted one square to the right four times. (I missed it because I only looked for mates with the black king on b1 and assumed I didn't need to consider the other edge squares. I was wrong ...) We again have an eight-fold rotation symmetry (four edges times two, for the mirrored version), so this pattern yield 4 times 2 times 8 = &lt;strong&gt;64&lt;/strong&gt; positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Together, there are 120 mating positions.&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2019-04-07T07:06:23.710" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24131" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8789" CreationDate="2019-04-06T21:22:56.987" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is &lt;strong&gt;16 plies&lt;/strong&gt; for such a sequence. The source is the &lt;a href=&quot;https://pdb.dieschwalbe.de/P1303798&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Die Schwalbe Chess Problem Database.&lt;/a&gt; It can be also be viewed in a PDF of the found &lt;a href=&quot;http://problem64.beda.cz/silo/feenschach51_1980.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;original source&lt;/a&gt; on page 13.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Bernd Schwarzkopf After Karl Scherer, Feenschach 1980, Mate In 8&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;1KN4r/QRRRRRRr/kq6/p1q1R3/PP1q1b2/4q3/5q2/1r4q1 b - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;[startflipped &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Qxa7+ 2. Rxa7+ Qxa7+ 3. Rxa7+ Qxa7+ 4. Rxa7+ Qxa7+ 5. Rxa7+ Qxa7+ 6. Rxa7+ Qxa7+ 7. Rxa7+ Rxa7 8. b5+ Rxb5+ 9. axb5#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As an aside, if only discovered checks are allowed, I know of a sequence of &lt;strong&gt;6 plies.&lt;/strong&gt; I found it on Tim Krabbe's website in &lt;a href=&quot;https://timkr.home.xs4all.nl/chess2/diary_14.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Diary Entry #265.&lt;/a&gt; All six checks after White's first move are forced. The composer's first name comes from the &lt;a href=&quot;https://pdb.dieschwalbe.de/P1374776&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Die Schwalbe Chess Problem Database&lt;/a&gt; as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Vladmir Korolkov, 1940, White Wins&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;6B1/5Nb1/3p4/q2krP1R/Nn2p3/pPKnr3/Q1PB4/3R4 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Nd8+ Re6+ 2. f6+ Ne5+ 3. Bxe3+ Nd3+ 4. b4#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-02-06T08:19:24.923" LastActivityDate="2021-02-06T08:19:24.923" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24132" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8982" CreationDate="2019-04-07T01:02:37.367" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;37 is the record so far &lt;em&gt;without promoted pieces.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Giuseppe Ponzetto, Torre i Cavallo 1993, 37 Consecutive Checks&amp;quot;] &#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;4r1Q1/B2nr3/5b2/8/4p3/4KbNq/ppppppp1/RR3Nkn w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Nh2+ f1=N+ 2. Rxf1+ gxf1=N+ 3. Ngxf1+ Bg5+ 4. Qxg5+ Bg2+ 5. Nf3+ exf3+ 6. Kd3+ Nc5+ 7. Qxc5+ Re3+ 8. Nxe3+ c1=N+ 9. Qxc1+ d1=Q+ 10. Qxd1+ e1=N+ 11. Qxe1+ Bf1+ 12. Nxf1+ f2+ 13. Ne3+ f1=Q+ 14. Qxf1+ Qxf1+ 15. Nxf1+ Re3+ 16. Nxe3+ b1=Q+ 17. Rxb1+ axb1=Q+ 18. Nc2+ Nf2+ 19. Bxf2+&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A comment says that the record &lt;em&gt;with promoted pieces&lt;/em&gt; is 53. However, according to Tim Krabbe's &lt;a href=&quot;https://timkr.home.xs4all.nl/chess2/diary.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Diary Entry #387&lt;/a&gt;, the record is actually 54.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Alexey Khanyan Sampsa Lahtonen, Tim Krabbe's Website Diary Entry #387 2013, 54 Consecutive Checks&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;5q2/2q1pn1B/R1Q1R3/1B2r1B1/1q1k1Knq/rr5Q/B2NPN1N/3Qb1QQ w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Qb6+ Rc5+ 2. Qd6+ Nxd6+ 3. Bf6+ Nxf6+ 4. Nfg4+ Qf2+ 5. Nhf3+ Kd5+ 6. e4+ Nfxe4+ 7. Nf6+ Nxf6+ 8. Be4+ Nfxe4+ 9. Qf5+ Nxf5+ 10. Rad6+ Nexd6+ 11. Bc4+ Nxc4+ 12. Re5+ Nxe5+ 13. Nc4+ Qfd2+ 14. Nxd2+ Rf3+ 15. Nxf3+ Qd2+ 16. Ncxd2+ Rc4+ 17. Bxc4+ Qxc4+ 18. Ne4+ Bd2+ 19. Qxd2+ Nd3+ 20. Qxd3+ Nd4+ 21. Nf6+ Qxf6+ 22. Qf5+ e5+ 23. Nxe5+ Rf3+ 24. Nxf3+ Qe5+ 25. Nxe5+ Nf3+ 26. Qd4+ Qxd4+ 27. Qe4+ Qxe4+&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think that the theoretical hard limit is limited by which category you choose of promoted pieces allowed and not allowed. Additionally, the current records can be refined until only two kings and one piece giving check are left on the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the aforementioned Diary #387, Tim Krabbe even remarks that &lt;strong&gt;&amp;quot;This is probably not the end to this task. The fact that in Lahtonen's 53 checks only 5 pieces remain in the final position and in the new 54-record there are 6, leads Khanyan to believe that if he could get this down to 5 pieces, too, he could add two checks and make it to 56. &amp;quot;56 checks in a row do not seem to me as being higher than the clouds!&amp;quot;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Additionally, just for fun, there are also records for &lt;em&gt;discovered checks.&lt;/em&gt; Tim Krabbe's site is also the source.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As Krabbe first shared in &lt;a href=&quot;https://timkr.home.xs4all.nl/chess2/diary_7.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Diary Entry #125,&lt;/a&gt; and later in &lt;a href=&quot;https://timkr.home.xs4all.nl/chess2/diary16txt.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;#308,&lt;/a&gt;, the record without promoted pieces is 11 discovered checks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Ottavio Stocchi, L'Echiquier 1930, 11 Consecutive Discovered Checks&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;2R4B/3r2P1/4P2b/2N5/3k2BR/2N1n3/r1nK2bq/2Q5 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. g8=B+ Kc4+ 2. Nd3+ Bc6+ 3. Be2+ Nd4+ 4. Nxa2+ Nec2+ 5. Nf4+ Nxe2+ 6. exd7+&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Diary Entry &lt;a href=&quot;https://timkr.home.xs4all.nl/chess2/diary19txt.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;#366&lt;/a&gt; the record for with promoted piece is given. The author's full name and source date from the &lt;a href=&quot;https://pdb.dieschwalbe.de/P1183629&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Die Schwalbe Chess Problem Database.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Werner Frangen, Feenschach 08/1974, 17 Consecutive Discovered Checks&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;B3R2B/1R1q3b/b4R2/RrNkPR2/4N3/1NbK2nr/B1rn3B/1b1r3Q w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e6+ Nxf5+ 2. Ng3+ Nf3+ 3. Nd2+ Rb3+ 4. Nxa6+ Bxa5+ 5. Rxb3+ Rc6+ 6. Rxb1+ Ke5+ 7. exd7+ Ne7+ 8. Ne4+ Nxh2+ 9. Rf3+&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-05-02T16:47:15.627" LastActivityDate="2021-05-02T16:47:15.627" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24134" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-04-07T08:21:09.943" Score="3" ViewCount="100" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have a Chess.com tactics rating (default blitz setting where time to solve is instrumental in getting points)  hovering around 1750 but for some reason I can't get beyond 1550 on the Chess Tempo's Chess-Tactics site on the standard rating scale (no time limit). Any reason why?  Is it only because the blitz capability and the no-time-limit capability are different, or because the problem difficulty ratings in these two websites are different?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18844" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2019-04-07T09:35:41.867" LastActivityDate="2019-04-08T07:10:18.357" Title="Difference in Tactics Ratings" Tags="&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;rating&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24135" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24136" CreationDate="2019-04-07T09:16:51.623" Score="5" ViewCount="222" Body="&lt;p&gt;NOTE: I asked a similar question at the ai stackexchange, but didn't get any satisfying answers, so I will post an updated version of the question here, to see if someone with more of a chess background can answer it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In short terms: Is it possible to combine the techniques used by AlphaZero with those used by, say, Stockfish? In AI terms that would be combining deep reinforcement learning with alpha-beta pruning. And if so, has it been attempted?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have only a brief knowledge about how AlphaZero works, but from what I've understood, it basically takes the board state as input to a neural net, possibly combined with monte carlo methods, and outputs a board evaluation or prefered move. To me, this really resembles the heuristic function used by traditional chess engines like stockfish.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, from this I will conclude (correct me if I'm wrong) that AlphaZero evaluates the current position, but uses a very powerful heuristic. Stockfish on the other hand searches through lots of positions from the current one first, and then uses a less powerful heuristic when a certain depth is reached.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it therefore possible to combine these approaches by first using alpha-beta pruning, and then using AlphaZero as some kind of heuristic when the max depth is reached? To me it seems like this would be better than just evaluating the current position like (I think) AlphaZero does. Will it take too much time to evaluate? Or is it something I have misunderstood? If it's possible, has anyone attempted it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;---Reopening motivation---&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This closed question may have a good answer in &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.newinchess.com/komodo-chess-13&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.newinchess.com/komodo-chess-13&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17136" LastEditorUserId="3456" LastEditDate="2019-05-21T13:49:41.353" LastActivityDate="2019-05-21T13:49:41.353" Title="Combining AlphaZero methods with Stockfish methods" Tags="&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;alphazero&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="2" ClosedDate="2019-04-08T02:30:07.157" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24136" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24135" CreationDate="2019-04-07T14:42:46.320" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;You are asking the right question but only want to refine your premise slightly. AlphaZero does indeed search &quot;through lots of positions from the current one first,&quot; as you have said, only not precisely via alpha-beta pruning. AlphaZero's makers &lt;a href=&quot;https://deepmind.com/documents/260/alphazero_preprint.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;explain it thus&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Instead of an alpha-beta search with domain-specific enhancements, AlphaZero uses a general-purpose Monte Carlo tree search (MCTS) algorithm. Each search consists of a series of simulated games of self-play that traverse a tree from root state &lt;em&gt;s&lt;/em&gt; root until a leaf state is reached. Each simulation proceeds by selecting in each state &lt;em&gt;s&lt;/em&gt; a move &lt;em&gt;a&lt;/em&gt; with low visit count (not previously frequently explored), high move probability and high value (averaged over the leaf states of simulations that selected &lt;em&gt;a&lt;/em&gt; from &lt;em&gt;s&lt;/em&gt;) according to the current neural network &lt;em&gt;f&lt;sub&gt;θ&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/em&gt;. The search returns a vector π representing a probability distribution over moves, π&lt;sub&gt;&lt;em&gt;a&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/sub&gt; = Pr(&lt;em&gt;a&lt;/em&gt;|&lt;em&gt;s&lt;/em&gt;&lt;sub&gt;root&lt;/sub&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you know, most opening and middlegame positions make it impractical to search all relevant chessboard futures, so the question is how to prune the search tree. AlphaZero prunes the tree as explained but, &lt;em&gt;for each relevant chessboard future not pruned,&lt;/em&gt; evaluates the position by neural net.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus, contrary to your premise (if I grasp your premise correctly), AlphaZero judges not only the position actually on the board but also potential future positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you have had occasion to review Stockfish's source code you will have noticed how straightforward Stockfish's evaluation function is. It's fairly simple and very quick. The speed of AlphaZero's evaluation function naturally depends in part on the hardware on which AlphaZero is run but in the absence of exotic hardware AlphaZero's evaluation can hardly be as fast as Stockfish's. Therefore, significantly, as far as I know, Stockfish has the advantage of evaluating more chessboard futures than AlphaZero can. Your premise is right to that extent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nevertheless, AlphaZero&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;searches more chessboard futures than a human master can, and&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;apparently evaluates each better than Stockfish can.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is reportedly how AlphaZero plays better than either.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Insofar as AlphaZero's makers have not released their source, it is hard to say too much more, but meanwhile you may have heard of &lt;a href=&quot;https://lczero.org/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;LCZero,&lt;/a&gt; a vigorous open-source attempt to replicate AlphaZero's results. If you have not heard of LCZero, also known as &quot;Leela,&quot; then you might investigate when you have some time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="315" LastActivityDate="2019-04-07T14:42:46.320" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24137" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17164" CreationDate="2019-04-07T15:44:39.227" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'll give instructions for Scid 4.6.4. With this setup, I haven't seen any issues where it moves both sides:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Create a database of openings you want to study. Scid will select randomly from all variations of all games, so make sure you want to train on everything in that database. Open the database switcher and make sure your desired openings database is selected.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Database &gt; Maintenance &gt; Maintenance Window (Ctrl + M). You should see your database name at the top. Next to the name of your database, click the image to the right of &quot;Type Icon:&quot; and select either &quot;Openings for White&quot; or &quot;Openings for Black&quot;. Note that this option decides your selection in step 4. Let's say you select &quot;Openings for Black&quot;; the only option you can select in step 4 is to play as Black. If you want to play White, you'll need to either reclassify the database in the Maintenance Window or rotate the board (after you've selected to play black) and it will let you play the White pieces. &quot;Openings for either color&quot; allows you to select playing both sides in the Openings Trainer, but from what I've seen it'll just play one side anyway.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/xUrhr.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/xUrhr.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If desired, add additional flags for White or Black openings here in the Maintenance Window. I don't think this does anything for the Opening Trainer.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;You may need to restart Scid. Play &gt; Training &gt; Openings. Customize your options (such as which side you want to play) and hit Continue. Play a move and Scid should play the other side if you've selected either White or Black. Once it displays &quot;End of variation&quot; in the window that pops up, you can use the arrow keys to move back to move 1 (or select move 1 in the Notation) and it will randomly select another variation. If you're ever stuck on a move, click &quot;Display candidate moves&quot; in the pop-up and below that button it will show your options.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18848" LastEditorUserId="18848" LastEditDate="2019-04-07T16:27:29.353" LastActivityDate="2019-04-07T16:27:29.353" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24138" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24146" CreationDate="2019-04-07T20:24:27.507" Score="7" ViewCount="647" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/8982/theoretical-limit-for-the-number-of-consecutive-checks&quot;&gt;record&lt;/a&gt; for the most mutual checks in a legal position is known. But what is the record for double checks? There is one rule-threefold repetition applies. Four criteria exist-promoted pieces allowed and not along with forced, Black defends, and unforced, Black helps. Below is my research.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;No Promoted Pieces, Unforced-6&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;4K3/8/8/3p4/k1p1N3/1p4N1/P5BB/RRQ5 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. axb3+ Kb5 2. bxc4+ Kc6 3. cxd5+ Kxd5 4. Nc3+ Kd6 5. Nf5+ Kc5 6. Na4#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;No Promoted Pieces, Forced-5&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;kb1r4/P1p5/1P2P3/6NB/7B/8/8/RRQ4K w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. axb8=Q+ Kxb8 2. bxc7+ Kc8 3. cxd8=Q+ Kxd8 4. Nf7+ Ke8 5. Nd6+ Kf8&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Promoted Pieces, Unforced-9&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;K5b1/5p2/4p3/3pR3/k1p1N1N1/1pQ5/P1B5/RR1R1RRR w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. axb3+ Kb5 2. bxc4+ Kc6 3. cxd5+ Kd7 4. dxe6+ Ke8 5. exf7+ Kf8 6. fxg8=Q+ Kxg8 7. Nh6+ Kh7 8. Nf6+ Kh8 9. Nf7#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Promoted Pieces, Forced-8&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;K4Bb1/5p2/4p3/3p4/k1p3N1/1pR5/P1B5/RQ1RRRRR w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. axb3+ Kb5 2. bxc4+ Kc6 3. cxd5+ Kd7 4. dxe6+ Ke8 5. exf7+ Kxf8 6. fxg8=Q+ Kxg8 7. Nh6+ Kh8 8. Nf7#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Addendum: @Hauke Reddmann commented a known double checking mechanism, but no origin is given. The likely origin of it is a century old &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.yacpdb.org/#288613&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;problem&lt;/a&gt; as @Evargalo proposed a comment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Alain Campbell White, Pittsburgh Gazette Times 4/1916, Mate In 12&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;2q5/2pp4/3pr3/4pb2/K1p2pn1/2bn1kp1/3pr1R1/6BB w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Rf2+! Ke3 2. Rf3+ Ke4 3. Re3+ Kd4 4. Re4+ Kd55. Rd4+ Kc5 6. Rd5+ Kc6 7. Rc5+ Kb6 8. Rc6+ Kb7 9. Rb6+ Ka7 10. Rb7+ Ka8 11. Ra7+ Kb8 12. Ra8#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;https://pdb.dieschwalbe.de/P1373088&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;record&lt;/a&gt; for the longest sequence in a checkmate problem is 13, but it cannot contend for the record since Black’s king can walk out of the double checking sequence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Dragan Stojnic &amp;amp; Milomir Babic, The Problemist 2004-05, Mate In 13&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;3q1nKB/R1P1kPRB/N3p3/1p1n2p1/2r2p2/1p2b3/P2pb2N/3r4 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. c8=N+! Kf6 2. Rg6+ Kf5 3. Rf6+ Ke5 4. Rf5+ Ke45. Re5+ Kd4 6. Re4+ Kd3 7. Rd4+ Kc3 8. Rd3+ Kc2 9. Rc3+ Kb2 10. Rc2+ Kb1 11. Rb2+ Ka1 12. Rb1+ Kxa2 13. Nb4#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-12-30T22:21:38.010" LastActivityDate="2021-01-21T04:40:40.193" Title="What is the longest possible sequence of double checks?" Tags="&lt;problems&gt;&lt;records&gt;&lt;threefold-repetition&gt;&lt;double-check&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24139" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24134" CreationDate="2019-04-08T07:10:18.357" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Different sites will have different rating systems, even for games!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, for tactical puzzles, basically every site works in a completely different manner. Also, I don't know about chess.com, but in chesstempo, different settings will also result in different ratings, as the kind of puzzles will be different, and the balance is not perfectly achieved.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastActivityDate="2019-04-08T07:10:18.357" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24140" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-04-08T08:15:27.230" Score="5" ViewCount="495" Body="&lt;p&gt;Normally I'd pester the/a computer chess forum, but I couldn't register yet...       &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the &lt;a href=&quot;http://matplus.net/start.php?px=1554711224&amp;amp;app=forum&amp;amp;act=posts&amp;amp;fid=xshowm&amp;amp;tid=2262&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Matplus chess forum&lt;/a&gt;, the following construction task came up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both White and Black are on the brink of losing because the position is so sharp. Both players have only one way to draw the game. However, the seqeunce falls under th Nunn convention-each move is the only one that doesn't lose, but it has at least one legal alternative. They are denoted as “!” moves. What is the longest sequence of mutual &quot;!&quot; moves?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is an illustrating example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;2K5/8/7k/6N1/3q1N2/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Nf7+ Kh7 2. Ng5+ Kh6 3. Nf7+&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nalimov confirms that 1.Sf7+! Kh7 2.Sg5+! Kh6! is the only way to draw (by repetition), but since Kh7 is also an only legal move, this position is invalid.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't have Nunns &quot;Secrets&quot; series at hand, where surely some examples can be found. Neither can  Imine a database for this question. Maybe you can?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11144" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-12-16T19:55:22.847" LastActivityDate="2021-01-12T00:57:13.600" Title="Longest series of mutual &quot;!&quot; moves" Tags="&lt;theory&gt;&lt;draw&gt;&lt;problems&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24141" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-04-08T09:34:35.637" Score="4" ViewCount="292" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm a hobby chess player with a rating of about 2050 FIDE. I would like to get to 2300 in the long run, but I don't have too much time on my hands, since I'm a busy university student and I also have other interests.&#xA;What I'm looking for is some kind of training plan that I can follow and that will eventually pay off. That comes with a few questions, of course. &#xA; 1. What should I train?&#xA; 2. How much should I train each week?&#xA;Each week, I have about 4-5 hours available for chess training. My current idea is that I spend most of that on tactics, and some of it on reading chess books on strategy. What do you think?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12604" LastActivityDate="2019-04-09T18:38:16.263" Title="What's the most efficient way to get from 2000 to 2300?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ClosedDate="2019-04-09T21:26:30.947" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24142" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24145" CreationDate="2019-04-08T09:43:06.637" Score="5" ViewCount="445" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why is typical move order for QGD among top grandmasters 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nf3 d5? Why does not black immediatelly go 1. ..d5?&#xA;Also, why is QID via 3. ..b6 almost never played?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18842" LastActivityDate="2019-04-17T14:38:02.440" Title="Top players move order when playing QGD?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;queens-gambit&gt;&lt;queens-indian&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24143" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24141" CreationDate="2019-04-08T09:46:47.107" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Once you've reached a skill level like that one you have, it really depends on what you current flaws are!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first step should be a deep analysis of your games (I mean a real self-made analysis, not checking what Stockfish thinks of each position) Try to find the reasons why you lose the games you lose.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But, in general, for a 200+ rating point increase, you will have to work to some extent on all aspects of your game, with tactics and strategy (static and dynamic) being most important, but I'd also have a look at fundamental endgame theory as wel as build a solid opening repertoire.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, is it a possibility to hire a coach?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Good luck!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastActivityDate="2019-04-08T09:46:47.107" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24145" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24142" CreationDate="2019-04-08T11:46:25.890" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is no real objective answer, both are playable at any level. Such variations in move order are decided primarily according to roughly 3 common criteria:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;a) Comfort zone of the player: which structures they're more familiar with, and therefore, they may opt for lines that maximise the liklihood of ending up in those. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;b) The types of variations and transpositions they want to prevent from occurring (depending on the opponent), which itself depends on various elements.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;c) The kind of game they've envisaged: double edged, conservative, etc. (this is a subcategory of b) essentially), all of which influence how committal you're going to be with your starting moves.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, these matters tend to be quite opinion-based, that said, here's an attempt to shed some light on a handful of key differences between the two specific lines: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More particularly for the line you ask about, &lt;code&gt;1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 d5 ...&lt;/code&gt; often called the anti-Nimzo qualifies as one of the most versatile options for black as there still remain a diverse set of variations for black to consider, to name a few (assuming &lt;code&gt;4.Nc3&lt;/code&gt;):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;On the solid side: &lt;code&gt;4...Be7&lt;/code&gt;[*] (leading to mainline QGD with &lt;code&gt;Bf4...e3&lt;/code&gt;).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Or sharper variations such as: the Vienna &lt;code&gt;4...dxc4&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Tarrasch &lt;code&gt;4...c5&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Ragozin &lt;code&gt;4...Bb4&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that white is also keeping many options open with &lt;code&gt;3.Nf3&lt;/code&gt; instead of &lt;code&gt;Nc3.&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, with &lt;code&gt;1...d5,&lt;/code&gt; well for starters, Nimzo Defence options are essentially ruled out, and assuming black is going to follow with &lt;code&gt;e6...Nf6&lt;/code&gt;, white is left with early options to divert towards fundamentally different structures such as the exchange variation of the QGD: &lt;code&gt;1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.cxd5 exd5 5.Bg5 ...&lt;/code&gt;, compared to the move order with &lt;code&gt;1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 d5&lt;/code&gt; where an attempt to transpose to an exchange variation with &lt;code&gt;4.cxd5 exd5&lt;/code&gt; leads to poorer version of that system for white as the early &lt;code&gt;Nf3&lt;/code&gt; is almost a lost tempo since black has to pressure &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt; (with early &lt;code&gt;Nc3&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;Bg5&lt;/code&gt; pinning &lt;code&gt;f6&lt;/code&gt;-defender) while including an early &lt;code&gt;Qc2&lt;/code&gt; to prevent black from creating a good light-square bishop with &lt;code&gt;Bf5.&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;So the whole setup with early &lt;code&gt;Nf3-cxd5&lt;/code&gt; and without &lt;code&gt;Nc3&lt;/code&gt; allows only for a nonthreatening transposition to the QGD exchange variations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Instead, by not committing to &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt; [**] on the first move and playing &lt;code&gt;Nf6&lt;/code&gt;, black preserves the option of playing the Nimzo among other lines (and therefore, avoid QG's altogether if so desired), while transpositions to most variations with pawn on &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt; remain open, which leads us to the natural conclusion that: not making early committal pawn moves in the centre tends to leave us with more options on the table. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So as you see, all these lines are possible but the decisions are made according to one's preferences (and the circumstance at hand) and neither option (&lt;code&gt;1...d5&lt;/code&gt; , &lt;code&gt;1...Nf6...&lt;/code&gt;) is generally better or worse.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Regarding your last question,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Also, why is QID via 3. ..b6 almost never played?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;it's not clear what you mean, the move &lt;code&gt;3...b6&lt;/code&gt; is &lt;strong&gt;the&lt;/strong&gt; defining move of the Queen's Indian Defense (QID), and it is frequently played (by e.g. Carlsen, Karjakin, Anand, Ivanchuk, ...).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[*]: This mainline followed by &lt;code&gt;Bf4..e3&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;6...c5&lt;/code&gt; also happens to be what Carlsen - Caruana had prepared for during the recent world championship event, see e.g. game 7.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[**]: Similarly, &lt;code&gt;1...d5&lt;/code&gt; also avoids certain lines that &lt;code&gt;1...Nf6&lt;/code&gt; doesn't, but there's not enough time/space to get into that. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3594" LastActivityDate="2019-04-08T11:46:25.890" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24146" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24138" CreationDate="2019-04-08T13:14:29.510" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am pretty sure I could make this last longer, but here is already a sequence with &lt;strong&gt;26 unforced&lt;/strong&gt; consecutive double-checks without promoted pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/8/8/Rp2p3/3Pk1N1/6pB/1Q2N2B/K3R3 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Nc3+ Kxd4 2. Ne2+ Ke4 3. Nc3+ Kd4 4. Ne2+ Ke4 5. Nc3+ Kd4 6. Nxb5+ Kd5 7. Nc3+ Kd4 8. Nb5+ Kd5 9. Nc3+ Kd4 10. Ne2+ Ke4 11. Nxg3+ Kf4 12. Ne2+ Ke4 13. Nc3+ Kd4 14. Nb5+ Kd5 15. Nc3+ Kd4 16. Ne2+ Ke4 17. Ng3+ Kf4 18. Ne2+ Kf5 19. Nh6+ Ke4 20. Ng3+ Kf4 21. Ne2+ Ke4 22. Nc3+ Kd4 23. Nb5+ Kd5 24. Nc3+ Kd4 25. Nb5+ Kd5 26.Nc7+&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;12 forced&lt;/strong&gt; double-checks, based on the scheme given by Hauke Reddmann in a comment:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;1RN5/5p2/7p/3P3p/2P3p1/QPk4N/1R1p1K2/BB6 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Rc2 Kd3 2. Rc3 Kd4 3. Rd3 Ke4 4. Rd4 Ke5 5. Re4 Kf5 6. Re5 Kf6 7. Rf5 Kg6 8. Rf6 Kg7 9. Rg6 Kh7 10. Rg7 Kh8 11. Rh7 {11. Rg8} Kg8 12.Ne7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastEditorUserId="14079" LastEditDate="2019-06-05T12:34:19.140" LastActivityDate="2019-06-05T12:34:19.140" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24148" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4963" CreationDate="2019-04-08T18:43:52.117" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are two definitions of forced in play here:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Forced as in it the only legal move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Forced as in you are bound by the rules of chess to make a move, i.e. your king is in check or it is your turn to move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While there is some overlap between the two definitions, they are still separate categories in general. Here are records for each one, with and without promoted pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Each record shall be recorded in length by plies, or half-moves, Since a player has a choice of what piece to promote to, promotion is not considered a fully forced move under definition #1.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One Legal Move, No Promoted Pieces-15 Ply&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Bernd Schwarzkopf, Feenschach 1980 On Page 13&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;8/2p5/2p5/1pP5/nP3p2/PP2B3/1pp1p3/brkbK3 b - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;[startflipped &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... fxe3 2. bxa4 bxa4 3. b5 cxb5 4. c6 b4 5. axb4 a3 6. b5 a2 7. b6 cxb6 8. c7 b5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;https://pdb.dieschwalbe.de/P1374771&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;The Die Schwalbe Chess Problem Database&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Additional Source: &lt;a href=&quot;http://problem64.beda.cz/silo/feenschach51_1980.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;A PDF of the original source&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One Legal Move, Promoted Pieces-18 Moves&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Karl Scherer, Feenshach 1980 On Page 13&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;BQ4R1/2Q5/3Q4/4Q1pp/5B1P/6QK/Rrrrrrrq/R4nk1 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Qxh2+ Rxh2+ 2. Bxh2+ Rxh2+ 3. Qxh2+ Rxh2+ 4. Qxh2+ Rxh2+ 5. Qxh2+ Rxh2+ 6. Qxh2+ Rxh2+ 7. Rxh2 g4+ 8. Rxg4+ hxg4+ 9. Kxg4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;https://pdb.dieschwalbe.de/P1303797&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;The Die Schwalbe Chess Problem Database&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Additional Source: &lt;a href=&quot;http://problem64.beda.cz/silo/feenschach51_1980.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;A PDF of the original source&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Multiple Legal Moves, No Promoted Pieces-12 Ply&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Noam D. Elkies, Tim Krabbe’s Website Diary Entry #267 2004 (Version By Me)&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;KBk5/P1P1p2p/2PN3P/P6p/2p3rP/2P3pB/6P1/8 b - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;[startflipped &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... exd6 2. a6 d5 3. Bxg4+ hxg4 4. h5 d4 5. cxd4 c3 6. d5 c2 7. d6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;https://timkr.home.xs4all.nl/chess2/diary_14.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Diary Entry #267&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Multiple Legal Moves, Promoted Pieces-22 Ply&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Alexey Khanyan, Tim Krabbe's Website Diary Entry #267 2008, Mate In 11&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;4Q2Q/4r3/4n1n1/1bbK1krn/RR1RR1RR/2qn1R1n/4n1nN/Q3Q3 b - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;[startflipped &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Ng2f4+ 2. Rfxf4+ N2xf4+ 3. Rgxf4+ Nh3xf4+ 4. Rhxf4+ Ndxf4+ 5. Rxf4+ Nhxf4+ 6. Rxf4+ Ngxf4+ 7. Rxf4+ Nxf4+ 8. Rxf4+ Kxf4+ 9. Qee5+ Qxe5+ 10. Qaxe5+ Rgxe5+ 11. Qxe5+ Rxe5+ 12. Qxe5#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;https://timkr.home.xs4all.nl/chess2/diary_14.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Diary Entry #267&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are records if you want each one to end in checkmate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One Legal Move, No Promoted Pieces-11 Ply&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;@Peter, Chess Stack Exchange 3/11/2015, Mate In 6&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;7k/q5Q1/p4PPK/6PP/8/5P2/8/8 b - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;[startflipped &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Qxg7+ 2. fxg7+ Kg8 3. f4 a5 4. f5 a4 5. f6 a3 6. f7#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/8789/what-is-the-longest-known-sequence-of-forced-moves-leading-to-a-checkmate-for-on&quot;&gt;This&lt;/a&gt; CSE question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One Legal Move, Promoted Pieces-16 Ply&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Bernd Schwarzkopf After Karl Scherer, Feenschach 1980 On Page 13, Mate In 8&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;1KN4r/QRRRRRRr/kq6/p1q1R3/PP1q1b2/4q3/5q2/1r4q1 b KQkq - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;[startflipped &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Qxa7+ 2. Rxa7+ Qxa7+ 3. Rxa7+ Qxa7+ 4. Rxa7+ Qxa7+ 5. Rxa7+ Qxa7+ 6. Rxa7+ Qxa7+ 7. Rxa7+ Rxa7 8. b5+ Rxb5+ 9. axb5#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;https://pdb.dieschwalbe.de/P1303798&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;The Die Schwalbe Chess Problem Database&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Additional Source: &lt;a href=&quot;http://problem64.beda.cz/silo/feenschach51_1980.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;A PDF of the original source&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Multiple Legal Moves, No Promoted Pieces-14 Ply&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Noam D. Elkies, Tim Krabbe’s Website Diary Entry #267 2004 (Version By Me)&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;KBk5/P1P1p2p/2PN3P/P6p/2p3rP/2P3pB/6P1/8 b - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;[startflipped &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... exd6 2. a6 d5 3. Bxg4+ hxg4 4. h5 d4 5. cxd4 c3 6. d5 c2 7. d6 c1=Q 8. d7# &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Multiple Legal Moves, Promoted Pieces-See the above Alexey Khanyan problem.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-02-06T08:14:31.737" LastActivityDate="2021-02-06T08:14:31.737" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24149" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9309" CreationDate="2019-04-09T05:02:49.523" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is a Knight inferior to a Bishop? A perfect reply is, I think an impossibility.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well the superiority of Knight over Bishop (or vice versa) is position dependent. I believe as a general guideline (but not a rule) that a Knight is only slightly superior to a Bishop, though several exceptions can be demonstrated. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some people believe that a Knight is inferior to a Bishop in endings. It is worth noting that in about 55% of masters' games (single Bishop vs. single Knight) the Knight dominates the opposing Bishop. It is again often the case that Queen + Knight combination is better than a Queen + Bishop combination because the Knight is unique in its movement and thus supplements its friendly Queen. So is a R + N combination a little superior to a R + B team.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some also believe that a Knight is pretty useless on an empty board, which can be a wrong notion. What finally becomes important is whether the piece (the Knight or the Bishop) watches crucial squares and does the 'job' well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What about pairs of pieces? A Bishop pair is usually much worth compared to a Knight pair! The Bishop pair can win 80% or so of chess endings when they confront pair of Knights. What I like about chess is that it 'disproves' Mathematics in this context! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18856" LastActivityDate="2019-04-09T05:02:49.523" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24150" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24009" CreationDate="2019-04-09T07:27:31.693" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;After &lt;strong&gt;1.e4 e5 2.d4 exd4 3.c3 dxc3 4.Bc4 cxb2 5.Bxb2&lt;/strong&gt; the main line continuation is &lt;strong&gt;5...d5 6.Bxd5 Nf6&lt;/strong&gt; as already pointed out. However, your opponent may or may not dislike the endgame. It is still a very dynamic one with passed pawns and winning chances for both sides, and if your opponents knows this position (he probably played it a million times before), you could be in big trouble.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are however a few lines that give Black the edge, like &lt;strong&gt;5...d5 6.Bxd5 Bb4+!?&lt;/strong&gt; I suggest you to look at a database and check a few of the games by the strongest polayers&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastEditorUserId="18809" LastEditDate="2019-10-28T09:33:03.607" LastActivityDate="2019-10-28T09:33:03.607" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24151" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9309" CreationDate="2019-04-09T08:49:06.400" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In endgames, especially when knight or bishop is against pawns, the knight has another advantage. It is that knights can reach and attack pawns on dark squares as well as light squares. Also for many players it is harder in the endgame to see knight moves than bishop moves. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18858" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-04-09T12:42:59.940" LastActivityDate="2019-04-09T12:42:59.940" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24152" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24153" CreationDate="2019-04-09T11:24:23.617" Score="14" ViewCount="1406" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1n3r2/q4pbk/3p2pp/r1pPp3/1pB1P3/1P2BP2/2PQ2PP/3R1RK1 w - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was white in the diagram position in an OTB game I played recently. However, I couldn't find a satisfactory plan. Playing f4 is always tricky because it vacates the e5 square for the black knight and opens up the diagonal for the black bishop. I have the feeling I evaluated this position wrong and it is in fact just equal and not better for white. Any thoughts?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12604" LastEditorUserId="18143" LastEditDate="2019-04-09T13:41:59.450" LastActivityDate="2019-04-25T18:19:00.487" Title="What is the best strategy for white in this position?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24153" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24152" CreationDate="2019-04-09T12:48:36.070" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the f4-plan is doomed to fail. It would be beautiful if we could achieve it in good conditions, however, as you pointed out, f4 is met with ...exf4 followed by probably ...Qe7 and Nd7-e5. We get rid of the pressure on the 'a' file though, so it's better than doing nothing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If we went for g3, preparing for gxf4 after f4, our effort will be met by ...f5! shattering our dreams.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It would be interesting to try to put our light-squared bishop on a4, but I don't see it working either after 1.Qd3 Nd7 2.Bb5 and now even Nb6 does fine&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For those reasons, I think the best answer here is to immediately play c3!? It's true that Black has ...Ra2, but after Qe1 I don't really think it does much. If Black captured on c3, our queen would be now in a great square to fight for the a file. If Black does NOT capture, then we can begin to put some pressure on b4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastActivityDate="2019-04-09T12:48:36.070" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24154" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22047" CreationDate="2019-04-09T14:28:38.347" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found a few in an article on chessworld.com called &lt;a href=&quot;https://thechessworld.com/articles/general-information/31-great-chess-quotes-from-garry-kasparov-new/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&amp;quot;31 Great Chess Quotes from Garry Kasparov.&amp;quot;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“When your house is on fire, you can’t be bothered with the neighbors. Or, as we say in chess, if your King is under attack, don’t worry about losing a pawn on the queenside.”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“If you wish to succeed, you must brave the risk of failure.”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“The highest art of the chessplayer lies in not allowing your opponent to show you what he can do.”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-12-16T06:34:11.373" LastActivityDate="2020-12-16T06:34:11.373" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24156" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24152" CreationDate="2019-04-09T16:46:29.910" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I see a couple ideas:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First your f4 idea seems reasonable.   Consider 1.g3 with the idea of f4 when the threat of f5 is good.  If Black plays exf4 then gxf4 controls e5.  You can even re-deploy the Bishop from c4 to h3 to control the knight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The second idea, which seems like a clear edge for White to me, is to trade the queen-side pawns by playing c3 and eventually b4.   This will expose the d6 pawn as weak while completely destroying Blacks space advantage on that side of the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I would play 1.c3&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Don't worry about 1...Ra2 that is just a temporary nuisance; simply Qe1 and Black has to deal with the threat of cxb4.  On bxc3 2.Qxc3 followed by Ra1 takes over the a-file.  Black is suffering here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2019-04-09T16:46:29.910" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24157" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24141" CreationDate="2019-04-09T18:38:16.263" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;4-5 hours a week:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Go over GM games nightly as if you are playing.  They need to be well annotated -- preferably by one of the players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do puzzles when you have a minute here or there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Book recommendations:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Symslovs 125 Selected Games &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Karpov's 100 Best Games&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The Test of Time    by Kasparov&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Fire on Board by Shirov&#xA;and my favorite &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Life and Games of    Tal by Tal&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;for puzzles pick up 1001 winning chess combinations by Reinfeld.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2019-04-09T18:38:16.263" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24158" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24152" CreationDate="2019-04-09T19:26:29.823" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Whites position is much better/winning due to double bishop advantage, space advantage and black's poor dark square bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;f4 looks like a good plan, however it needs preparation with g3. It threatens f5 with f6 which will completely crush black's position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;c3 looks pretty good as well, breaking up black's queen side.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course all of this is my speculation and you should just use an engine to see white's best plan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4393" LastEditorUserId="4393" LastEditDate="2019-04-09T19:31:48.543" LastActivityDate="2019-04-09T19:31:48.543" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24159" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24161" CreationDate="2019-04-09T19:27:29.257" Score="4" ViewCount="2511" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm looking for a database or a collection of the chess results of all FIDE-rated games (standard time control). The data I'm interested in is: the white player, the black player, the result and the date for each game. I've checked the &lt;a href=&quot;http://ratings.fide.com/download.phtml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE-website&lt;/a&gt;, however, I could only find the published rating lists.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is such a collection available? If so, where would I be able to download it? Thanks in advance!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4588" LastActivityDate="2019-09-19T18:23:44.077" Title="Database of chess results" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;fide&gt;&lt;database&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24160" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24162" CreationDate="2019-04-09T21:57:50.320" Score="3" ViewCount="121" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the role of the president of the International Chess Federation? What does he or she do, and what is he or she supposed to do? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have looked at sources such as &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIDE&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikepedia&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17301" LastActivityDate="2019-04-09T22:34:05.157" Title="What does the FIDE president do?" Tags="&lt;fide&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24161" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24159" CreationDate="2019-04-09T22:21:35.373" Score="4" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I'm looking for a database or a collection of the chess results of all&#xA;  FIDE-rated games (standard time control).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Such a database exists but only on FIDE's computers and they don't make the data easily available in its entirety.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The data &lt;em&gt;is&lt;/em&gt; available but you have to select and download one tournament at a time. Here's how:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Go to the FIDE &lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/archive.phtml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Ratings Archive&lt;/a&gt; page. There you have the ability to &lt;strong&gt;Browse Rated tournaments by country&lt;/strong&gt;. You select a federation from a drop-down list and a period from another drop-down list and click on the &quot;go&quot; button. For instance if you select &quot;Russia&quot; and &quot;April 2019&quot; then you get &lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/tournament_list.phtml?moder=ev_code&amp;amp;country=RUS&amp;amp;rating_period=2019-04-01&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this page&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first two tournaments are rapid tournaments but the third looks like a standard tournament. On the end of the row of that tournament there is a hyperlink &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/tournament_details.phtml?event=208193&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;inf&lt;/a&gt;&quot; for information. If you click on it then you get the general tournament information including time control and, indeed, it is &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Standard: 90 minutes with 30 second increment from move 1&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Scroll down a bit further and there is a crosstable element with a &lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/view_source.phtml?code=208193&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;blueish icon&lt;/a&gt; next to it. Click on it and you get the results of all the games in the tournament.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you go back to the page with the list of tournaments for Russia for April 2019 you see similar blueish icons on the left side of the page next to the tournament names. These will take you to the same place more quickly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are determined to get all the results going back to July 2001 then you can do so by building your own web crawler to navigate the site automatically and screen scrape the cross table pages for all the tournaments in all the periods for all of the federations, extract the data you want and build your own database.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2019-04-09T22:21:35.373" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24162" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24160" CreationDate="2019-04-09T22:34:05.157" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The FIDE President's role is defined in one of the FIDE Handbooks on the FIDE website. The relevant part is &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=46&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chapter 09 - The President and Deputy President&lt;/a&gt; in the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=1&amp;amp;view=category&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Statutes&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There it says -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;9.1.  The President represents FIDE officially and can solely sign for FIDE.  All contracts signed by the President shall be subject to prior&#xA;  approval or subsequent ratification by the Presidential Board. Any&#xA;  contract that commits FIDE to an obligation or exposes FIDE to a&#xA;  potential liability of more than €100,000 must be submitted for&#xA;  ratification by the Executive Board or General Assembly.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  9.2.  The President presides over the meetings of the General Assembly, the Executive Board and the Presidential Board.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  9.3.  The President presents an annual report to the General Assembly.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  9.4.  The President’s decisions may be appealed to the General Assembly, Executive Board or Presidential Board.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  9.5.  If the President is unable to act or if he duly authorises, then he can be represented by the Deputy President who shall exercise the&#xA;  powers of the President. The Deputy President can thus represent FIDE&#xA;  officially and can solely sign for FIDE.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  9.6.  In certain cases the FIDE President can also delegate specific tasks to other persons; this includes authorising in writing other&#xA;  FIDE officials to sign contracts on his behalf.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Details of the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=41&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;General Assembly&lt;/a&gt;, the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=42&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Executive Board&lt;/a&gt; and the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=44&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Presidential Board&lt;/a&gt; are given in the FIDE Statutes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2019-04-09T22:34:05.157" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24164" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1086" CreationDate="2019-04-10T03:14:23.483" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Gothic Chess sets are being sold in the United States in Florida and Pennsylvania.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://gothicchess.info/set_01.shtml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://gothicchess.info/set_01.shtml&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The 10x8 board and the full set of pieces. Much cheaper than the House of Staunton which is always overpriced.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18863" LastActivityDate="2019-04-10T03:14:23.483" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24165" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23887" CreationDate="2019-04-10T03:40:59.227" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I did some searching on &lt;a href=&quot;https://timkr.home.xs4all.nl/chess2/diary_14.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Tim Krabbe's site&lt;/a&gt; and, in Journal Entry #278, I found that Krabbe gave a unique game in which there are 6 pawns on the c-file, 3 per side, on move 21! This is the obviously the maximum.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Sevcikova-Blichova, ch girls u12, Slovakia, 1999&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;[startply &amp;quot;42&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. Nc3 Nc6 4. Bb5 Bb4 5. a3 Bxc3 6. dxc3 Nxe4 7. Bxc6 dxc6 8. Qxd8+ Kxd8 9. Nxe5 Rf8 10. O-O Bf5 11. Be3 Nd6 12. Rac1 Re8 13. Rfe1 f6 14. Nd3 Nc4 15. Rcd1 Ke7 16. Bxa7+ Kf7 17. Bc5 Rxe1+ 18. Rxe1 Re8 19. Rxe8 Kxe8 20. b3 b6 21. bxc4 bxc5 22. a4 Bxd3 23. cxd3 Kd7 24. a5 Kc8 25. f4 Kb7 26. g4 Ka6 27. Kf2 g5 28. fxg5 fxg5 29. Kf3 Kxa5 30. d4 Kb6 31. d5 cxd5 32. cxd5 c6 33. d6 Kb7 34. Ke4 Kc8 35. Kf5 Kd7 36. Kxg5 Kxd6 37. Kh6 Kd5 38. Kxh7 Kc4 39. g5 Kxc3 40. g6 c4 41. g7 Kb2 42. g8=Q c3 43. Qb8+ Kc2 44. Kg6 Kd2 45. Qd6+ Kc2 46. Qxc6 Kd2 47. Qd5+ Kc2 48. h4 Kb2 49. Qb5+ Ka1 50. h5 c2 51. Qc5 Kb1 52. h6 c1=Q 53. Qxc1+ 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For one side, the recuring record is four, as shared by many. There is no known case of quintupled pawns yet, for which the stars must align. However, as mentioned, the most notable example is the game in which the structure survived an astonishing 23 moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Gabor M Kovacs-Rainer Barth, Balatonbereny Open, 1994&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;[startply &amp;quot;43&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 Nf6 2. Nc3 d5 3. exd5 Nxd5 4. Bc4 c6 5. d4 g6 6. Nge2 Be6 7. Bb3 Nxc3 8. bxc3 Bxb3 9. axb3 Bg7 10. O-O O-O 11. f4 Na6 12. Ba3 Re8 13. Qd3 Qb6 14. f5 c5 15. fxg6 fxg6 16. Qc4+ e6 17. dxc5 Qc6 18. Rad1 b5 19. Nd4 Qxg2+ 20. Kxg2 bxc4 21. Nb5 Reb8 22. bxc4 Rc8 23. Nd6 Rc6 24. Ne4 Rac8 25. Rd7 R6c7 26. Rd6 Rc6 27. Rfd1 Bf8 28. Rxc6 Rxc6 29. Rd8 Kf7 30. Rd7+ Be7 31. Rxa7 h6 32. Bc1 g5 33. h4 gxh4 34. Bf4 e5 35. Bxe5 Re6 36. Nd6+ Kg6 37. Bd4 Nb8 38. Ra8 Nc6 39. Rg8+ Kh5  40. Nf5 Rg6+ 41. Rxg6 Kxg6 42. Nxe7+ Nxe7 43. Kh3 Nc6 44. Kxh4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Interestingly, the 6 pawns game is an example of 2+1, 2+2, and 2+3 pawn structures. I wondered if 3+1 had ever occurred, and I found such an &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1500956&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;example&lt;/a&gt;. It occurs on move 10, although faster has surely been done.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Jorn Sloth-Grigory Sanakoev, CORR, 1992&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;[startply &amp;quot;20&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. c4 Nf6 2. Nc3 e5 3. Nf3 Nc6 4. e3 Bb4 5. Qc2 O-O 6. Nd5 Re87. Qf5 d6 8. Nxf6+ gxf6 9. Qh5 e4 10. a3 exf3 11. axb4 Nxb4 12. Ra4 Re5 13. Qh6 fxg2 14. Rg1 Bg4 15. Rxb4 gxf1=Q+ 16. Kxf1 Rg5 17. Rg3 Rg6 18. Qf4 Qd7 19. f3 c5 20. Rb5 Bf5 21. e4 Be6 22. d3 f5 23. b4 b6 24. Bb2 f6 25. Kg1 Rf8 26. Ba1 Kf7 27. Bc3 Kg8 28. Qh6 fxe4 29. Rxg6+ hxg6 30. Qxg6+ Qg7 31. Qxg7+ Kxg7 32. bxc5 dxc5 33. fxe4 Rd8 34. Rb3 Kg6 35. Bb2 f5 36. Kf2 fxe4 37. Ke3 exd3 38. Rxd3 Re8 39. Kf4 Bxc4 40. Rg3+ Kf7 41. Rg7+ Ke6 42. Rxa7 Kd5 43. Rd7+ Kc6 44. Rd2 b5 45. h4 Bf7 46. Be5 b4 47. Rd6+ Kb5 48. Rd7 Bg6 49. Rb7+ Kc4 50. Rb6 Bh5 51. Rh6 Be2 52. h5 Rf8+ 53. Kg5 Bd3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This leaves 4+1 and 4+2 pawn structures are still yet to known to me. 4+1 has probably occurred, but I severely doubt the existence of a 4+2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lastly, here is a &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.365chess.com/game.php?gid=2347790&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;game&lt;/a&gt; in which tripled pawns occur on move 7. However, the actual record may be 6 moves, if not 5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Gerhard Kiefer-Peter Krauseneck, Bundesliga Germnay, 1982&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;[startply &amp;quot;13&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 Bb4 4. e5 c5 5. dxc5 Qc7 6. Nf3 Bxc3+ 7. bxc3 Qxc5 8. Bd3 Nc6 9. O-O Nge7 10. Rb1 Qxc3 11. Rb5 Nd4 12. Nxd4 Qxd4 13. Rxb7 Qxe5 14. Bb2 Qd6 15. Rb3 f6 16. Qh5+ Kf8 17. c4 dxc4 18. Bxc4 Qc6 19. Bb&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-04-29T22:05:30.873" LastActivityDate="2021-04-29T22:05:30.873" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24166" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24274" CreationDate="2019-04-10T04:01:52.267" Score="5" ViewCount="821" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the blog &lt;a href=&quot;http://ajedrezsinduda.blogspot.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&amp;quot;AJEDREZ, SIN DUDA&amp;quot;&lt;/a&gt;, I came across &lt;a href=&quot;http://ajedrezsinduda.blogspot.com/2012&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;a page&lt;/a&gt; that gives a game featuring quadrupled pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Zheliandinov-T. Sereteli, 35th Championship of the USSR, Kharkov, 1967&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;2r1kbr1/pp3pqp/5p2/3N1p2/5p2/6P1/PPn1BR1P/R2Q2K1 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It occurred to me that this game might have the shortest sequence, starting from move one in a professional chess game, to quadrupled pawns. It happens here in just 18 moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have three points of focus.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is this the shortest such game that satisfies my requirements?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I cannot find the score for the mentioned game. If you can find it, please link it and put it into the replayer.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is there a way to easily find collections of quadrupled pawn games online?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-04-29T22:14:05.143" LastActivityDate="2021-04-29T22:15:22.420" Title="What professional game has the quickest sequence, starting from move one, to quadrupled pawns?" Tags="&lt;pawns&gt;&lt;pawn-structure&gt;&lt;records&gt;&lt;master-games&gt;&lt;famous-games&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24167" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24140" CreationDate="2019-04-10T06:41:41.090" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The example below comes from Guy Haworth's &lt;em&gt;Chess Endgame Records&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The annotations, as explained by Guy Haworth, are as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;% the only move available&lt;br&gt;&#xA;! the only value-preserving move available (i.e., for a White move, the only winning move, and, for a Black move, the only drawing move, all others losing)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;''' the only move which does not allow a repetition or otherwise waste time&lt;br&gt;&#xA;''  the unique optimal move selected by the defined strategy&lt;br&gt;&#xA;' an optimal but not unique optimal move&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The other notation used is as follows (this is copied from Guy Haworth's book):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Metrics:&#xA;DTM Depth To Mate  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Miscellaneous notation:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;AUMS Absolutely Unique Move Sequence&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[White &quot;KR&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;KNP&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2013.11.24&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;5m, 2-3m, KRKNP, GBR 0103.01, longest-known decisive AUMS: SV+M+/SUm&quot;]&#xA;[Annotator &quot;Haworth, Guy&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;8/8/7p/7n/k7/8/2K5/3R4 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Rd4+! {dtc/m/z = -26/-49/-17m} Ka3'' 2. Kd3! Kb3'' 3. Rd6! Kb4'' 4. Kd4! Nf4'' 5. Rb6+! Ka5'' 6. Rf6! Ne2+'' 7. Kc4! Ng3'' 8. Rg6! Ne4'' 9. Kd4! Nd2'' 10. Rg2! Nf3+'' 11. Kc5! Ka6'' 12. Rg6+! Kb7'' 13. Kd5! h5'' 14. Rh6! h4'' 15. Rf6! Ne1'' 16. Rf1! Nc2'' 17. Rb1+! Ka6'' 18. Rb2! Ne1'' 19. Ke4! h3'' 20. Rb1! Nc2' 21. Kd3! Na3'' 22. Ra1! h2' 23. Rxa3+! {KRKP: dtc/m/z = -3/-15/-3m} {Nalimov and Lomonosov DTM EGTs} *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Each of the first 35 plies, from White's 1st to White's 18th move, is the unique best for the player. What move is best for Black on their 18th turn depends on the criterion applied. Black's 18th move here, 18 ... Ne1, is the unique move which enables Black to maximise the number of successive White turns at which White has only one winning option. However, if Black is to maximise the number of future turns (i.e. maximise DTM), Ne1 is not best for Black: it loses for Black in 20; best is 18 ... Ne3+ (loses in 32) 19 Kc6 (best; wins in 32; Kc5 wins in 34).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10380" LastActivityDate="2019-04-10T06:41:41.090" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24168" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24166" CreationDate="2019-04-10T14:00:01.297" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found the game in the chess365.com database. &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.365chess.com/view_game.php?g=2609015&amp;amp;m=1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Here's the link&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.365chess.com/search_result.php?submit_search=1&amp;amp;p=1&amp;amp;open=&amp;amp;eco=&amp;amp;sply=1&amp;amp;ply=&amp;amp;res=&amp;amp;yeari=&amp;amp;yeare=&amp;amp;wlname=Zheliandinov&amp;amp;wname=&amp;amp;blname=&amp;amp;bname=&amp;amp;nocolor=on&amp;amp;wid=&amp;amp;bid=&amp;amp;start=150&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Here&lt;/a&gt; is the search that I used to find it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's the game in the replayer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.  e4  c5 2.   Nf3 Nc6 3.  d4  cxd4 4. Nxd4    Nf6 5.  Nc3 d6 6.   Bg5 Bd7 7.  Be2 Qa5 8.  Bxf6    gxf6 9. Nb3 Qg5 10. Nd5 Rc8 11. O-O Rg8 12. g3  f5 13.  f4  Qg7 14. e5  dxe5 15.    Nc5 Nd4 16. Nxd7    Nxc2 17.    Rf2 exf4 18.    N7f6+   exf6 19.    Bb5+    Kd8 20. Rxc2    fxg3 21.    Qd4 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also found &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chesscollection?cid=1016894&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this collection&lt;/a&gt; of games with isolated triple pawns. Might be helpful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some google searching found a famous quadrupled pawn game played by the great Alekhine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. Nf3 e6 3. e3 c6 4. Bd3 f5 5. Ne5 Qf6 6. Nd2 Nd7 7. f4 Nxe5 8. fxe5 Qf7 9. O-O Qc7 10. c4 Nh6 11. b3 Bd7 12. a4 Be7 13. cxd5 cxd5 14. Ba3 Bxa3 15. Rxa3 O-O 16. Ra2 Rac8 17. Qe2 Qb6 18. Rc2 Rxc2 19. Bxc2 Rc8 20. Bd3 Qb4 21. h3 Nf7 22. Rb1 Rc3 23. Kh2 a6 24. Qf1 Qa3 25. Rd1 Qb2 26. Qe2 Nd8 27. Rb1 Qa3 28. Rf1 Qb4 29. Bb1 b5 30. g4 bxa4 31. gxf5 Bb5 32. Nc4 Rxb3 33. fxe6 dxc4 34. Qf3 Rxb1 35. Rxb1 Qxb1 36. e7 Ne6 37. d5 Qg6 38. dxe6 Qe8 39. Qd5 h6 40. Qc5 c3 41. Qxc3 Qxe7 42. Qc8+ Qe8 43. Qc7 Qxe6 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, check out @Phonon 's answer; it holds additional games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18168" LastEditorUserId="18168" LastEditDate="2019-04-11T17:19:03.300" LastActivityDate="2019-04-11T17:19:03.300" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24169" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23983" CreationDate="2019-04-10T18:41:56.057" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In a comment that ought to be an answer, @Ellie said: “The transposition from the Berlin Defense (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 Nf6 4...) to the Four Knights Game (Spanish variation 4.Nc3) is a perfectly valid one, but the four knights game is known to be a quite dry opening for white, as in there are various easily equalizing lines for black, starting from the Rubinstein 4...Nd4 (see Kramnik games). Instead 4.O-O is the more critical line (one that offers more hanging fruits...) alongside the 4.d3 line which is known as an anti-Berlin approach.”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-05-02T03:49:17.570" LastActivityDate="2021-05-02T03:49:17.570" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24171" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24049" CreationDate="2019-04-10T21:29:15.860" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have found some ideas for you from an online source. I hope that this helps you!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Quote: “All this being said, there is some downside to playing d3 one move earlier -- there always is. Seeing as the idea of playing 6.d3 following 5...Be7 is to have black commit to developing their bishop to that square, playing d3 a move earlier with 5.d3 allows black to play differently and more advantageously. This is done by black playing d6 (protecting the e5 pawn) followed by g6 and Bg7, which is a useful and common maneuver found in many Ruy Lopez lines. Black here is able to develop their bishop to g7 immediately, and white can't punish this with an early break in the center with d4 (a la the Fianchetto/Smyslov Variation of the Ruy Lopez with 3...g6), as it comes with a loss of tempo (time) because the d3 pawn has already moved. Therefore, black is thought to equalize rather easily if they conduct this early Bg7 maneuver against 5.d3 (occurring roughly 20% of the time according to databases), as black essentially reaches a Deferred Steinitz or Russian Defense type of position with an extra tempo. You can think of 5.0-0 as a very useful waiting move in relation to the 6.d3 variation, in that it waits for black to commit their bishop so that white may potentially hang on to an advantage somewhat longer.” -Source: &lt;a href=&quot;https://hubpages.com/games-hobbies/Chess-Openings-The-Ruy-Lopez-with-6-d3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://hubpages.com/games-hobbies/Chess-Openings-The-Ruy-Lopez-with-6-d3&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastActivityDate="2019-04-10T21:29:15.860" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24172" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23605" CreationDate="2019-04-10T23:05:24.400" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to 365chess.com's &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.365chess.com/opening.php?m=9&amp;amp;n=17985&amp;amp;ms=e4.e5.Nf3.Nc6.Nc3.Nf6.d4.d5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;opening explorer,&lt;/a&gt; 5. exd5 is the best capture, with an 83.3% win rate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/nUlz5.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/nUlz5.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-05-01T17:47:36.807" LastActivityDate="2021-05-01T17:47:36.807" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24175" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24152" CreationDate="2019-04-11T07:04:39.987" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would not go for f4, since it opens up the Black's Bishop on g7. It becomes really strong after exf4. My instinct would be to go for the other pawn break: c3! Although this gives Black the immediate Ra2, imagine the response Qe1. The Queen looks very backwards, I know. However, cxb4 is a threat. If Black plays f5, it can be ignored; taking opens up his bishop! Therefore, also in this position cxb4 is possible. But why Qe1? To keep focus on c3 and prepare Ra1, getting your rook to an open file. Be careful though, don't play Ra1 without good preparation. imagine: 1. Ra1 Rxa1 2. Qxa1 Qxa1 3. Rxa1 bxc3 4. Rc1 Nd7. It can become awkward with Ra8, again taking the open file. So: Ra1 may be awkward if the tension between c3 and b4 is still there. I would prefer playing cxb4 first. If your opponent were to take your pawn on c3 before you've played Ra1, just Qxc3 and Ra1 would be fine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17704" LastActivityDate="2019-04-11T07:04:39.987" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24176" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24118" CreationDate="2019-04-11T09:50:25.830" Score="1" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;b3r3/1R1p1p1q/1p1P1P1b/1Pk1BR2/1rN1K1Nq/p7/P1P1B1P1/1qn1q1nq w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is an (ugly) suggestion wth &lt;strong&gt;29 units&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White is stalemated with 8 pins; removing any Black unit would break the stalemate. Black has promoted all of their four missing pawns (all into queens).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The three captures (white queen and 2 white pawns) ensure that this position is reachable. The three missing White pieces ensure that the position is legal and that Black could have promoted all four of their missing pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Black g-pawn captured the White h-pawn to produce doubled pawns that both promoted. The Black c-pawn captured the White queen to bypass the White pawn structure and promote. Finally, the White e-pawn was captured and then the Black e-pawn marched down and promoted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is optimal because 4 pawns must be promoted to create 8 pins, with requires a minimum of 3 units, thus leaving 29 left for the final position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-05-18T14:49:21.797" LastActivityDate="2020-05-18T14:49:21.797" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24177" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24166" CreationDate="2019-04-11T10:15:03.703" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Regarding your last question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is there a way to easily find collections of quadrupled pawn games online?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No need to look online, you can do this on your own.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've found 3 additional examples after parsing through roughly 300000 games of a TWIC DB:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [fen &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA; [Event &amp;quot;FSIM May&amp;quot;]&#xA; [Site &amp;quot;Budapest HUN&amp;quot;]&#xA; [Date &amp;quot;1996.05.13&amp;quot;]&#xA; [Round &amp;quot;11&amp;quot;]&#xA; [White &amp;quot;Lochte, T.&amp;quot;]&#xA; [Black &amp;quot;Gross, S.&amp;quot;]&#xA; [Result &amp;quot;0-1&amp;quot;]&#xA; [WhiteElo &amp;quot;2220&amp;quot;]&#xA; [BlackElo &amp;quot;2290&amp;quot;]&#xA; [PlyCount &amp;quot;54&amp;quot;]&#xA; [EventDate &amp;quot;1996.??.??&amp;quot;]&#xA; [SourceDate &amp;quot;2011.01.01&amp;quot;]&#xA; [StartPly &amp;quot;54&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. e4 c5 2. d4 cxd4 3. c3 dxc3 4. Nxc3 d6 5. Bc4 Nc6 6. Nf3 e6 7. O-O Bd7 8. Bf4 Qb8 9. Nb5 Ne5 10. Nxe5 dxe5 11. Bg3 Nf6 12. Qe2 a6 13. Nd4 Bd6 14. Rad1 Bc7 15. Nf3 Bc6 16. Bh4 h6 17. Bxf6 gxf6 18. Nh4 h5 19. Qf3 Bd8 20. Qg3 Qc7 21. Qg7 Rf8 22. f4 exf4 23. Rfe1 Qe5 24. Bd5 Qg5 25. Bxc6+ bxc6 26. Nf5 Bb6+ 27. Kh1 exf5 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [fen &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA; [Event &amp;quot;8th World Seniors&amp;quot;]&#xA; [Site &amp;quot;Grieskirchen GER&amp;quot;]&#xA; [Date &amp;quot;1998.11.09&amp;quot;]&#xA; [Round &amp;quot;2&amp;quot;]&#xA; [White &amp;quot;Wegener, H.&amp;quot;]&#xA; [Black &amp;quot;Knebel, W.&amp;quot;]&#xA; [Result &amp;quot;0-1&amp;quot;]&#xA; [ECO &amp;quot;B95&amp;quot;]&#xA; [WhiteElo &amp;quot;2115&amp;quot;]&#xA; [PlyCount &amp;quot;54&amp;quot;]&#xA; [EventDate &amp;quot;1998.??.??&amp;quot;]&#xA; [SourceDate &amp;quot;2011.01.01&amp;quot;]&#xA; [StartPly &amp;quot;48&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 a6 6. Bg5 e6 7. Bd3 Be7 8. O-O b5 9. a4 b4 10. Na2 a5 11. e5 dxe5 12. Bxf6 gxf6 13. Qf3 Ra7 14. Bb5+ Kf8 15. Nf5 exf5 16. Qe3 Qd4 17. Qh6+ Kg8 18. c3 Qg4 19. Qe3 Rc7 20. cxb4 axb4 21. Rfc1 Rxc1+ 22. Rxc1 Kg7 23. h3 Qg5 24. f4 exf4 25. Qxe7 Be6 26. h4 Qg3 27. b3 f3 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [fen &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA; [Event &amp;quot;Open&amp;quot;]&#xA; [Site &amp;quot;Pula CRO&amp;quot;]&#xA; [Date &amp;quot;2001.05.24&amp;quot;]&#xA; [Round &amp;quot;7&amp;quot;]&#xA; [White &amp;quot;Molnar, Be&amp;quot;]&#xA; [Black &amp;quot;Polak, T.&amp;quot;]&#xA; [Result &amp;quot;1-0&amp;quot;]&#xA; [ECO &amp;quot;D42&amp;quot;]&#xA; [WhiteElo &amp;quot;2352&amp;quot;]&#xA; [BlackElo &amp;quot;2503&amp;quot;]&#xA; [PlyCount &amp;quot;80&amp;quot;]&#xA; [EventDate &amp;quot;2001.05.18&amp;quot;]&#xA; [SourceDate &amp;quot;2011.01.01&amp;quot;]&#xA; [StartPly &amp;quot;66&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. exd5 cxd5 4. c4 Nf6 5. Nc3 e6 6. Nf3 Be7 7. cxd5 Nxd5 8. Bd3 Nc6 9. O-O O-O 10. Re1 Bf6 11. Be4 Nce7 12. Qd3 h6 13. Ne5 Nxc3 14. Qxc3 Nf5 15. Be3 a5 16. Rad1 a4 17. Ng4 Bg5 18. Bxf5 exf5 19. Bxg5 hxg5 20. Ne5 Qa5 21. Qc4 Be6 22. d5 Rac8 23. b4 axb3 24. Qxb3 Rc5 25. Ng6 Rc3 26. Qxb7 Rc7 27. Qb1 fxg6 28. Rxe6 Kh7 29. d6 Rd7 30. Qb3 Rfd8 31. g4 Qc5 32. Qd5 Qxd5 33. Rxd5 fxg4 34. a4 Ra8 35. Re7 Rdd8 36. a5 Ra6 37. d7 Ra7 38. Kg2 Raa8 39. Rxg5 Ra7 40. Rd5 Raa8 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Briefly, how I've done it in Python and using python-chess to read the PGN DB:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I scan through each game of the DB mapping each position to its FEN, then I expand the FEN by replacing numbers with a corresponding amount of dashes '-'. In the FEN notation numbers in between the rank '/'-separated sections denote how many empty squares there are before a piece reached on a given row) so e.g., this FEN&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;'3r4/3PR1pk/r5p1/P2R2p1/6p1/8/5P1P/6K1'&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;becomes:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;'---r----/---PR-pk/r-----p-/P--R--p-/------p-/--------/-----P-P/------K-'&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which you can easily do as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(after removing everything after the first space &lt;code&gt;fen=fen[0:fen.index(' ')]&lt;/code&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;def isinteger(s):&#xA;    try:&#xA;        int(s)&#xA;        return True&#xA;    except ValueError:&#xA;        return False&#xA;&#xA;for el in fen:&#xA;        if isinteger(el):&#xA;            fen = fen.replace(el,int(el)*'-')&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then we know we want to find consecutive rows having pawns (of same color) on the same files, so if you split the FEN string&#xA;according to the '/' separators into a list (&lt;code&gt;splitfen = fen.split('/')&lt;/code&gt;), you have to match the pattern that letter 'p' (denoting black pawns in FEN, similarly, 'P' for white) occurs in 4 consecutive elements of the list and at the same position of the strings of size 8 (to ensure they're on same file) which you can go about in many different way:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;#(the function that finds all consecutively matching patterns for t)&#xA;def checkpattern(sp,t):&#xA;    start = [sp[0]]&#xA;    for i in sp[1:]:&#xA;        if any(all(t == c for c in b) for b in zip(*(start+[i]))):&#xA;            start.append(i)&#xA;        else:&#xA;            if len(start) &amp;gt; 1:&#xA;                yield start&#xA;            start = [i]&#xA;    return&#xA;&#xA;splitfen = fen.split('/')&#xA;&#xA;forblack = list(checkpattern(splitfen,'p'))&#xA;forwhite = list(checkpattern(splitfen,'P'))&#xA;total = forblack+forwhite&#xA;  for el in total:&#xA;    if len(el)==4: #(since we want quadrupled pawns)&#xA;      res = True&#xA;      break&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All such kinds of search queries across chess DB's can be easily performed with a bit of scripting around the FEN to spot the wanted patterns (be they pawn structures, number of pieces etc).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3594" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-04-29T22:15:22.420" LastActivityDate="2021-04-29T22:15:22.420" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24178" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23605" CreationDate="2019-04-11T10:57:38.667" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;4...d5&lt;/code&gt; is really bad, if nothing else it leads to at least a clear pawn up for white in various lines that can ensue and they all involve frequent trades as well (as you desired), here are a few options starting from &lt;code&gt;Nxe5&lt;/code&gt; (a choice well in line with your preferences) leaning on more aggression/direct play and less positional compared to some of the other choices (like your suggested move):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [fen &quot;r1bqkb1r/ppp2ppp/2n2n2/3pp3/3PP3/2N2N2/PPP2PPP/R1BQKB1R w KQkq - 0 5&quot;]&#xA; [title &quot;5. Nxe5&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 5. Nxe5 Nxe4 (5... dxe4 6. Bb5 Bd7 7. Nxd7 Qxd7 8. d5 a6 9. dxc6 Qxd1+ 10. Kxd1 O-O-O+ 11. Ke2 axb5 12. cxb7+ Kxb7 13. Nxb5) 6. Qh5 Be6 (6... Nxe5 7. Qxe5+ Be6 8. Nxe4 dxe4 9. Qxe4) 7. Bb5 Nxc3 8. bxc3 g6 9. Nxg6 fxg6 10. Qe5 Rg8 11. Qxe6+ Qe7 12. Qxe7+ Bxe7 13. O-O&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Note:&lt;/strong&gt; Bear in mind that by intentionally opting for lines such as above where you favour trades and direct aggression, you'd be naturally walking into highly tactical positions, so be prepared to calculate many many relevant lines at each point (specially in the given examples above). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15078" LastActivityDate="2019-04-11T10:57:38.667" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24179" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24211" CreationDate="2019-04-11T16:20:34.507" Score="0" ViewCount="2277" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recently played a game with my friend I wish I had memorized the entire game, but, unfortunately, my memory isn’t too good.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In summary, I was in a really tight position, and playing as black. I had a very active rook on the open f-file However my opponent was attacking my king. and it looked really bad. As a result, I sacrificed my very active rook for a bishop and a knight. I still lost the game, however.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is that kind of exchange worth it? Once I lost my rook, my opponent was able to monopolize on the f-file by making a triple battery, and consequently I lost.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, when is it a good idea to make sacrifices concerning Rooks and minor pieces?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18038" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-04-11T17:01:29.833" LastActivityDate="2019-04-16T05:41:53.667" Title="Is the exchange of a rook for two minor pieces really worth it?" Tags="&lt;rooks&gt;&lt;sacrifice&gt;&lt;minor-pieces&gt;&lt;exchange&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24181" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24179" CreationDate="2019-04-11T17:00:09.317" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;You say your opponent had a strong attack against your king and you had to &quot;sacrifice&quot; your rook for two minor pieces and went on to lose. I think you have it the wrong way round. It sounds like your opponent had a strong attack against your king and sacrificed two minor pieces for your rook, your one active piece by the sound of it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In general a rook and a pawn are roughly equivalent to two minor pieces. However in the middlegame this is usually not a good trade for the player losing the two minor pieces because two minor pieces are two pieces which can attack/defend whereas one rook is only one piece which can attack/defend and the number of pieces participating in the attack or defence is generally more significant than their precise power.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2019-04-11T17:00:09.317" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24182" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-04-11T18:36:32.903" Score="4" ViewCount="531" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is learning the opening 1. c4 e5 as white helpful in learning the opening 1. e4 c5? How about vice versa?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are the ideas behind the Sicilian Defence as black very similar to the ideas behind the English Opening as white?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16626" LastEditorUserId="16626" LastEditDate="2019-04-11T18:44:31.827" LastActivityDate="2020-01-15T13:37:13.400" Title="Is learning the English Opening helpful for learning the Sicilian Defence? How about vice versa?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;&lt;english-opening&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24183" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-04-11T20:00:56.110" Score="43" ViewCount="10120" Body="&lt;p&gt;How do you keep chess fun when the only person that wants to play against you beats you all the time? I am struggling to want to keep playing, because I get smashed all the time, and it is not fun anymore.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18870" LastEditorUserId="3594" LastEditDate="2019-10-09T10:27:44.207" LastActivityDate="2019-11-01T13:38:02.597" Title="How do you keep chess fun when your opponent constantly beats you?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;psychology&gt;&lt;etiquette&gt;" AnswerCount="17" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24184" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24182" CreationDate="2019-04-11T20:12:04.547" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Short answer: not too much&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[disclaimer: The more openings you know the more basic understanding of chess you have -- in which case the answer would be &quot;yes it helps you&quot;]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Long answer: similar ideas but very different concrete variations&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You would think that because of the similar pawn structures the English and Sicilian sometimes share, that knowledge in one would assist learning the other.  In practice though the concrete lines are completely different.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sure some ideas are the same like in a closed Sicilian Black wants to play b5-b4 and in the English White does b4-b5;  that certainly helps.&#xA;But open Sicilian is a sharp fight and the English equivalent structure results in very different play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would say the majority of answers to the English are nothing like the Sicilian defense so if you are thinking to save time by tackling learning these at the same time I don't think you will have much luck.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2019-04-11T20:12:04.547" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24185" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24183" CreationDate="2019-04-11T20:16:57.237" Score="39" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are many people who want to play chess with you. You can play chess online! Online sites such as &lt;a href=&quot;http://chess.com&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;chess.com&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://lichess.org&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;lichess.org&lt;/a&gt; will match you with opponents of similar rating so you should win about 50 percent of the time. Furthermore, playing online as well as studying chess will immensely improve your chess, and maybe you'll play your friend again and this time you will win!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3872" LastEditorUserId="15176" LastEditDate="2019-04-17T15:12:20.577" LastActivityDate="2019-04-17T15:12:20.577" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24186" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24183" CreationDate="2019-04-11T20:53:41.510" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;In chess, like other sports we go through many falls to eventually find our balance and improve. Just like everyone goes through many falls before learning how to ride a bike. And then we want to be able to ride without our hands, well, that'll again take a good dozen of falls before we eventually master it, and this keeps happening at any juncture we challenge ourselves again.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These falls remain inherent to the learning process for as long as we intend to improve even further. That is to say that, even at the highest level, even the world champion, players are constantly reflecting back on each game and saying to themselves: &quot;why did I lose this endgame?, where did I miss the win?, what went wrong in my opening?&quot; and so on, until they eventually amend those weakpoints. So keep playing and stay focused on the game and your weak as well as strong points, and in due time you'll start beating your regular opponent as well. I'm sure the very opponent you speak of, has a friend to whom they also always lose to :), it's just a matter of perspective and realising how natural your experience is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From another point of view, getting beat should not deter you from having fun, there's an element of purity to chess logic, a bit similar to that of learning mathematics, there is a peaceful quiet beauty to it. Think of it as there being something to learn in every game you play regardless of the outcome, shift your mindset onto better understanding the game and how to reason about it as opposed to beating a specific player. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Diversify your opponents, for example start playing online blitz/rapid games on lichess, quickly your rating will settle and your average opponent will be at the same level as you currently are, which will naturally lead to more balanced games. Like anything else, the competitive element should only be of major relevance if one intends to take the game to a professional level. Speaking of which, there's a very good related movie called &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0108065/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&quot;Innocent moves&quot; or &quot;Searching for Bobby Fischer&quot;&lt;/a&gt;, which you might find interesting: without spoiling, it's about a kid who discovers chess in a park and develops a strong sense of curiosity and passion for the game, who also happens to have a natural ability for it, but soon starts to have conflicting thoughts about it as soon as it becomes competitive: where it's expected of him to become the best, to beat everyone, to ceaselessly improve and to never fail, in other words they turn chess into another mindless responsibility for the kid in which he &lt;em&gt;has&lt;/em&gt; to succeed as opposed to simply &lt;em&gt;playing chess for the sheer fun&lt;/em&gt; of it, which should be the only point to playing any game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other than playing online, consider just getting into the habit of solving chess tactics where you have to find the best moves, treat it as any other puzzle game: there's no &lt;em&gt;opponent&lt;/em&gt; and you'd simply be trying to get better at solving puzzles by discovering more about chess strategy and the art of coordinating your pieces in order to achieve specific objectives: checkmating, winning a piece, securing a draw, etc. The better you get at it the higher the gratification. There are various website you can start from: &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;lichess&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://chesstempo.com/chess-tactics.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chesstempo&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess24.com/en&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chess24&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You might also find it fun and instructive to watch chess lectures: in particular, &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/user/STLChessClub/search?query=yasser%20seirawan&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yasser Seirawan lectures&lt;/a&gt; tend to be quite fun and easy to go through, not only he provides a lot of insight and reveals a lot of the reasoning that goes into each move of a chosen game, he complements with a lot of lighter moments with his fun anecdotes. For example, &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnPeGmtjkNo&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;his coverage of one of the 1972 Spassky-Fischer games&lt;/a&gt;, or &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gaRMPe_grgA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;the famous miniature games&lt;/a&gt;, ... there are many to choose from. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3594" LastEditorUserId="3594" LastEditDate="2019-09-19T12:11:22.643" LastActivityDate="2019-09-19T12:11:22.643" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24187" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24183" CreationDate="2019-04-11T21:01:39.190" Score="36" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are lots of ways to play with a handicap in chess. One way is to give one player a starting material advantage, where the weaker player starts with an extra queen, or the stronger player replaces their queen with a bishop/rook, or starts with some of their pawns missing - anything that weakens one player's starting position can be used to even the odds. Another means of handicapping can be used in timed games, where the stronger player has a shorter clock than the weaker one, so can spend less time thinking about their moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15233" LastActivityDate="2019-04-11T21:01:39.190" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24188" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24183" CreationDate="2019-04-11T21:48:32.640" Score="17" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you can change your attitude from this being a competition that you are &quot;losing&quot; to this being a tutorial, that should help a lot. Every time you play a game, you get more famailiar with lines and their responses. Consider each move to be a question (what sort of responses are this to this move?) rather than a challenge.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15221" LastActivityDate="2019-04-11T21:48:32.640" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24189" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24179" CreationDate="2019-04-11T22:05:42.900" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your experience doesn't speak too much to the general question. Your opponent apparently was more skilled than you, which means several things. First, they probably would have won if you hadn't traded. Second, part of dominating a game is making it  so that all of the options available to their opponent are bad; thus, it's likely that they deliberately created a situation where the trade was good for them. Third, if they're a good player, then there's lots of times that they don't make the trade because it's not good. The fact that it worked out for them doesn't mean that the trade in general is good, it just means that it was good in this situation, so there's a selection bias, in that good players select the trade that's good in that particular situation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The value of a piece lies not just in what piece it is, but where it fits into the game as a whole. If you spent a lot of resources developing your rook, leaving your other pieces undeveloped, then trading minor pieces for your one active piece could very well be a good trade.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15221" LastActivityDate="2019-04-11T22:05:42.900" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24190" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24183" CreationDate="2019-04-11T22:39:08.120" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;In regular tournaments both players write the moves down and play with clocks to make sure both players have the same amount of time for their moves. It is normal after the game for the players to analyze the game. They can do this easily because they have written the moves down. When I lose in a tournament I almost always ask my opponent if they would like to go over the game with me. Even if I &quot;got smashed&quot; this makes it much more interesting for me and I always learn something. Most opponents are friendly and helpful and will agree to do this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To make the games more even the best way is to use the clocks. Start by giving both players 10 minutes each on the clocks. In subsequent games the loser gets another minute and the winner gets one minute less. If you reach 9 minutes versus 1 minute and still lose then go to 9 minutes 30 seconds vs 30 seconds, then 9 min 45 vs 15 seconds etc. Sooner or later you will come to a stage where you take it in turns to win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-04-17T10:25:24.410" LastActivityDate="2019-04-17T10:25:24.410" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24191" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22739" CreationDate="2019-04-11T22:59:05.650" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The answer is that both the FIDE world champions and the PCA world champions were world champions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The situation was actually less chaotic than the normal situation in boxing. In boxing there are four bodies awarding world champion titles. They are -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;WBA - World Boxing Association&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;WBC - World Boxing Council&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;IBF - International Boxing Federation&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;WBO - World Boxing Organization&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the heavyweight division the British fighter, Anthony Joshua, holds three of the four titles (WBA, IBF, WBO) but in the light heavyweight division four different boxers hold the four titles -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;WBA - Dmitry Bivol&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;WBC - Oleksandr Gvozdyk&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;IBF - Artur Beterbiev&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;WBO - Sergey Kovalev&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If boxers are clever enough to get their heads round having up to four different world champions in one weight division then I'm sure chess players are clever enough to manage just two for the short period of time of the existence of the PCA.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2019-04-11T22:59:05.650" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24192" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16736" CreationDate="2019-04-12T00:00:51.333" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I assume you want this so that you can train against the engine by playing the suggestion for black and then thinking about what to play as white?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lichess allows this on their website. Set up a position in the board editor or analysis board, then pick &quot;Practice against computer&quot;. If you like, it will even evaluate your moves as you go, telling you if you made a mistake, blunder, a good move but not the strongest move etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I often do this because too often I reach a winning position and then go on to squander my advantage. I go back to the winning position and see how to actually convert it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18873" LastActivityDate="2019-04-12T00:00:51.333" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24194" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24197" CreationDate="2019-04-12T06:09:13.157" Score="6" ViewCount="165" Body="&lt;p&gt;I like to study my games after I've played them. Often, I find myself identifying mistakes and moving on to play another game or study something else. I was wondering if it is worthwhile to continue studying your games beyond the point where the position becomes lost. I'm not talking about extremely lost positions where checkmate is imminent and inevitable, but rather about positions where you are down a minor piece or two and might have a chance at throwing a wrench in your opponents plans and inducing a mistake. It feels like this is a particularly difficult part of the game to study because often times complicating things for your opponent might involve an unsound, but threatening move, something like a bluff in poker. I was hoping some people might have some insights on whether or not it is worth it to study lost positions and how to do so if so. For reference, I am an amateur player who has been playing casually for a few years now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18876" LastActivityDate="2019-04-16T05:38:13.627" Title="Studying Lost Positions" Tags="&lt;study&gt;&lt;losing&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24195" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24194" CreationDate="2019-04-12T07:27:05.860" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Generally speaking I'd say no -- two pieces down is just too much, there shouldn't be much potential for play left. In the game you'd be better off resigning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or is that too easy? If you had the side with the two extra pieces against a really good opponent, would that opponent find ways to put up resistance?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nowadays there is a way to check that: setup the position with an engine, let it play the weak side, and demonstrate that you can win against it. If you can, then you were right to stop analyzing. If you can't, try to understand how it managed to put up resistance, and analyze your game a bit further to see if you could have done something similar. Then repeat until you beat the engine from the winning side.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And that a try to complicate things might be unsound isn't that relevant anymore if you're already lost.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2019-04-12T07:27:05.860" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24197" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24194" CreationDate="2019-04-12T09:07:36.247" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, these positions can be very rewarding. Sometimes, in endgames, there are stalemate possibilities. In middlegames and even endgames there can be tactical possibilities. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are far enough behind in material that a standard approach by your opponent of just swapping pieces is going to yield a straightforward win you need to be inventive to make him work for the victory. You can do this by playing actively and aggressively rather than defensively covering up. Make threats. That way you can sometimes create tactical opportunities to get back in the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In endgames there are also positions where the player with the material advantage can not win. Queen against rook and pawn can sometimes not win if the weaker side can set up the correct fortress. Sometimes a queen is not enough against a 7th rank pawn if it is on a rook or bishop file with the king next to it. Learn your endgames and look out for these opportunities in your games both when you are losing the endgame and also when you are winning to make sure you don't let your opponent escape.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even when you appear completely lost there may be chances to trick an opponent who is playing on autopilot. Make him keep thinking and working for the win!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2019-04-12T09:07:36.247" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24198" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24182" CreationDate="2019-04-12T11:27:32.137" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd say learning the Sicilian is great for playing the English. Ideas from the Closed Sicilian, King's Indian attack and many others appear all the time in the English with reversed colors.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I don't think it works the other way around, as the main lines in the Sicilian come form the opened variation, where the extra tempo is often critical and therefore the ideas played change way too much.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastEditorUserId="18809" LastEditDate="2020-01-15T13:37:13.400" LastActivityDate="2020-01-15T13:37:13.400" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24200" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24183" CreationDate="2019-04-12T11:38:13.027" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here's what I used to do while instructing the kids (usually the weaker player) in our local chess club: We would play a normal game of chess under standard rules, but the weaker player could request to swap colors at any time during the game. Like this, the stronger player gets a real challenge too. After the first switch, he's busy trying to regain the advantage he had over you a few moments ago.&#xA;The weaker player trains to detect when his position gets &quot;really bad&quot; and he is about to get checkmated soon.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Overall, the games run for a longer time like this, which may resolve some of the frustration that you seem to experience. Have fun and continue playing!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18882" LastActivityDate="2019-04-12T11:38:13.027" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24201" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23671" CreationDate="2019-04-12T13:25:36.457" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is a (rather simple) example of a position where stalemate is forced, &lt;em&gt;no matter what either player does&lt;/em&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/p1p3pp/5ppk/6q1/5PPK/6P1/P1P3PP/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. fxg5+ fxg5+ 2. Kh3 a6 3. a3 a5 4. a4 c6 5. c3 c5 6. c4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2019-04-12T16:29:45.517" LastActivityDate="2019-04-12T16:29:45.517" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24202" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24183" CreationDate="2019-04-12T14:49:35.630" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;This question transcends chess I think. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In any game/sport, there are people who are better than you and those that are worse. You can learn a lot by losing, way more than you can learn by winning against easy opponents.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Analyze your games. Ask why your opponent made moves he made that you didn't see when you were playing with them. Get better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My local chess club is small and I am the strongest of the bunch. It's much less fun to win all the time and learn nothing from it. Losing and learning from those losses is a quality problem to have.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18042" LastActivityDate="2019-04-12T14:49:35.630" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24204" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24183" CreationDate="2019-04-12T15:47:45.103" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I noticed one thing playing chess: I adjust my level to my opponent's level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I play against a weak player, I play weak too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Against a strong player I play better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't know what the reason for this is, maybe because I lose interest playing against a weak opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, I prefer to play against strong players even if I lose.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1131" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-04-12T21:23:10.493" LastActivityDate="2019-04-12T21:23:10.493" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24205" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24194" CreationDate="2019-04-12T16:16:16.163" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;A useful piece of advice is to use those types of positions to practice your technique. Swaps sides, and play against a strong engine. Try a different plan than your opponent used. For example, if they won with a mating attack, try simplifying and promoting a pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9025" LastActivityDate="2019-04-12T16:16:16.163" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24206" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24194" CreationDate="2019-04-12T17:38:20.153" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Don't forget how how psychologically demoralizing it can be when your opponent doesn't resign when they're &quot;supposed&quot; to. It can be worth studying how the quality of one's game changes after one has broken through after a lot of effort and captured that crucial piece, only to have the reward of the win delayed by a pest who is wasting your time by having the audacity to keep going. When losing badly, you win the right to play like a crazy person.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7018" LastActivityDate="2019-04-12T17:38:20.153" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24207" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24183" CreationDate="2019-04-12T20:07:56.380" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Honestly, it is not fun at all if you feel you can and will never win.  Losing sometimes is fine, but losing all the time is extremely frustrating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think you can make it more fun by doing a few things:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1. Make it a goal to improve your chess.&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;Solving tactics puzzles can be fun and feel rewarding to solve.  They also improve your chess.  If you improve, you can reach the point where you are able to win sometimes against your opponent.  It is much more fun to play chess when you feel you have a chance to win.  You can improve a lot by learning to see simple tactics quickly and by being mindful of undefended pieces (yours and your opponent's).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;2. Go over your games with your opponent.&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;This will give you some perspective that will help you understand where you are making mistakes.  You may find that you make the same sort of mistakes often.  You can identify the issues and know where you need to focus to improve.  In this way it plays into point 1 by helping you improve.  It also gives you a chance to enjoy a chess activity with your opponent without feeling the stress of making a mistake like in a game.  You can walk through the game and discuss what-ifs and even play them out a bit.  You sort of turn chess into a cooperative game for a time when you are walking through a game together.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;3. Play a larger variety of opponents.&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;You can play online at various websites against players of similar skill.  The rating system is great because you can be matched with an opponent that you can beat, but who can also potentially beat you.  I find that this tension makes chess much more fun.  This will give you other exposure to chess where you feel you can win.  It may make you feel less frustrated playing against a player you are not likely to beat.  You won't feel that you lose every game anymore so it can be easier to brush off those loses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18894" LastActivityDate="2019-04-12T20:07:56.380" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24208" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24183" CreationDate="2019-04-13T19:45:14.690" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sir, when you lose you learn many new lines, variations, tactics etc. and improve your database of knowledge which definitely helps to beat others in the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11904" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-04-17T22:16:19.020" LastActivityDate="2019-04-17T22:16:19.020" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24209" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24182" CreationDate="2019-04-13T19:50:08.097" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sir, preferably English opening may improve Sicilian Dragon and vice versa as both will have finachetto of Bishop with almost similar move orders from both colors.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11904" LastEditorUserId="11904" LastEditDate="2019-04-16T18:20:30.660" LastActivityDate="2019-04-16T18:20:30.660" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24210" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24179" CreationDate="2019-04-14T01:44:33.463" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The generally accepted numerical value of those chess pieces are that the rook is worth 5 and the knight is worth 3 (the bishop is also worth 3 and the pawn is worth 1). Looking at the situation numerically, losing two minor pieces is -6 whereas losing a rook is -5, so apparently losing a rook would be the more favorable situation and it would seem favorable for you. However, you say that your rook was very active and its loss may have even cost you the game. In this case, eating the two minor pieces wouldn't be worth it for you (the difference is negligible between the two situations, after all, since the difference is just 1, or a pawn, &lt;em&gt;and&lt;/em&gt; your key piece is gone).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sacrifice your rook when it sets you up for a good play, be it to pressure the opposing king or to take away a lot of valuable pieces from your opponent, IF the rook isn't your centerpiece to your attack at that moment. If the game is mostly on one side and you've got your rook on the other side relatively inactive, sacrifice it, if need be (don't sacrifice it if you don't need to). The same goes for minor pieces but those are more expendable. It's up to you to evaluate the situation and what you really need, and what you don't.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18904" LastActivityDate="2019-04-14T01:44:33.463" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24211" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24179" CreationDate="2019-04-14T12:31:40.367" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Two minor pieces are generally stronger than a rook, with the advantage becoming more evident when the game heads to the endgame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is clear that there can be exceptions even in an endgame, like one of the two minor pieces being misplaced (a &quot;bad bishop&quot; may lead to such a situation) or a situation where the two minor pieces are temporary unable to parry some direct threat, like the rook being able to capture a few pawns before the two minor pieces have the time to regroup.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While the game is still in the middlegame situations can be very fluid and depend on many independent variables: open files, pawn structures and so on. In any event it is impossible--and unwise--to generalize from one single game or position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is likewise difficult to suggest when is convenient to give up a Rook for lesser material. That's more so for the possibly more classical of all middlegame sacrifices: the sacrifice of the exchange. Under the right circumstances a well placed bishop or even a well placed knight may be worth, dinamically speaking, a rook and may give their side a lot of compensation for the material loss. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yet, one has to consider that average-goodish players do not often have the necessary technique to turn these dinamic advantages into more concrete and lasting ones, so they have to be considered temporary and the learning chessplayer needs to be extra-careful about exchange sacrifices because even if they are good in an abstract &quot;ideal&quot; sense, they might turn out to be poor choices.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="446" LastActivityDate="2019-04-14T12:31:40.367" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24212" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12821" CreationDate="2019-04-14T12:38:04.757" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just a factual observation: many endgames rook + pawns vs. minor piece + pawns are drawn if there aren't too many pawns left and they all are on the same side of the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A general minor piece + pawns vs pawns or 2 minor pieces + pawns vs minor piece  + pawns is always won for the stronger side (there are some exceptional situations where the weaker side draws, but these may be considered &quot;pathological&quot;, and usually easily avoided if the advantage of a piece comes from the middlegame)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="446" LastActivityDate="2019-04-14T12:38:04.757" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24213" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24214" CreationDate="2019-04-14T14:02:11.653" Score="1" ViewCount="111" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am 1700-ish player and have too much time to play, and I didn't choose a study plan. I searched on the web about it, but no one has clearly defined study plan except chess.com and their study plan is trash. I wanted for a help from someone better or same rating like me. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15655" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T17:18:01.783" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T17:18:12.223" Title="Need help with study plan" Tags="&lt;study&gt;&lt;planning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24214" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24213" CreationDate="2019-04-14T15:56:05.920" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;In order to develop a study plan you'd basically have to figure out your strengths/weaknesses and formulate a goal that you want to achieve.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In practice this means that a stronger player would have to analyze your games, but also (particularly at higher level) look at other things such as psychological factors, fitness, etc. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ideally that coach would spend lots of chess time with you, so being somebody from your area would be preferable to having a random guy from the internet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unless you have money to burn or are super serious, IMO the most reasonable would be (if possible) to find a friendly chess club in your area with strong enough players. In my experience players in a club are usually very willing to give advise or tips to improve.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are objective enough, you could also try to figure out what you should train for yourself, however at a rating of 1700 that would be difficult to do. In any case you should always analyze your own games to improve and learn what to focus on next.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once you know what to train for, there is plenty of information on this and other websites concerning improving in a particular area of chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T17:18:12.223" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T17:18:12.223" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24215" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-04-14T20:33:12.663" Score="0" ViewCount="137" Body="&lt;p&gt;The en passant move can be utilised when a pawn is offered the option of being able to capture an adjacent file’s pawn, which has advanced two ranks. However, surely the game of chess would be fine enough with the absence of the en passant rule? Yes, it does indeed help locked up pawn structures to not occur, but I do not entirely understand the genuine purpose of the en passant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18908" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-04-14T21:24:40.107" LastActivityDate="2019-04-14T21:24:40.107" Title="Is the notion of an en passant redundant?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;en-passant&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2019-04-14T21:05:35.683" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24216" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24215" CreationDate="2019-04-14T20:46:21.237" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;If nothing else, it does help to make similar looking pawn structures, behave similarly independent on which row they occur. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance &lt;em&gt;with&lt;/em&gt; en-passant: white: pawn h5, black pawns on h6, g7 would be somewhat equal to the position where white: pawn on h4, black pawns on h5, g6. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Without&lt;/em&gt; en-passant however black would be able to achieve a protected passed pawn (often a huge advantage in many endgames) in the first situation by simply playing g7-g5 without being in danger of being captured.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus not having en-passant would change the evaluation of many endgames and complicate rules somewhat because now you'd have to consider on what row the pawns are as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2019-04-14T20:46:21.237" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24217" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-04-14T23:55:29.867" Score="2" ViewCount="412" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the below position, I played pawn from g7 to g5, trapping the white bishop. The computer didn't like that at all, and gives white a huge advantage. Instead, it wanted me to just simply develop my light-squared bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is wrong with my move?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/OdZA7.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/OdZA7.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18911" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-20T19:36:37.397" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T16:08:51.830" Title="Why is it a mistake to trap this bishop?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24218" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-04-15T02:41:37.573" Score="3" ViewCount="235" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there an objective measure of the superiority (or otherwise) that the strongest computer programs enjoy over the strongest human players which can be compared across the four main forms of chess, namely western chess, xiang qi (Chinese chess), shogi (Japanese chess), and makruk (Thai chess)? For example, can it be said that on comparable Elo scales the programs have say an x point advantage in western chess, a y point one in Chinese chess, and lag behind in the other two games by z points?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18768" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-06-25T17:14:09.083" LastActivityDate="2019-09-21T13:54:34.480" Title="An objective measure of the difference in strength between top programs and top human players in the four most popular forms of chess?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;shogi&gt;&lt;xiangqi&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24220" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24217" CreationDate="2019-04-15T08:39:37.873" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;You get a bishop in exchange two pawns and initiative for white piece.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is the explanation: After you go to g5, your opponent can play knight takes g5 and if you recapture the knight with your pawn, queen opponent will go to h5 and it is a check. Your pawn on g5 will be captured in the next move by your opponent queen.&#xA;Black position is vulnerable and d5 pawn is the weakness that can be exploited by white.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17842" LastActivityDate="2019-04-15T08:39:37.873" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24221" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-04-15T14:36:58.927" Score="-3" ViewCount="131" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sam Loyd, 1860 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;8/8/8/8/B6n/7p/6k1/4K3 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Bd7!! h2 2.Bc6 Kg1 3.Bh1!! Kxh1 4.Kf2.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Ke1, Ba4; Kg2, Nh4, h3) says mate in 54  after 1.Bd7!! h2 2.Bc6 Kg1 3.Bh1!! Kxh1 4.Kf2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a textbook draw, as the king is on the same square as the knight (with Black to move). For example, in some moment 1...Nf4+ 2.Kf1 Ng3+ 3.Kf2 Ne2 4.Kf1. (No. 205, BCE. Fine.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mate in 54? What's up with that?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/7gLoa.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13147" LastEditorUserId="13147" LastEditDate="2019-04-15T18:57:29.843" LastActivityDate="2019-04-16T05:40:23.647" Title="Stockfish 9 giving erroneous reading" Tags="&lt;stockfish&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24222" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24221" CreationDate="2019-04-15T15:39:36.747" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Stockfish 10 of lichess @ depth 74 says it's draw. Only if you can give more details about the version of Stockfish you used&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/d9pl0.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/d9pl0.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18143" LastActivityDate="2019-04-15T15:39:36.747" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24223" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24217" CreationDate="2019-04-15T19:35:22.270" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your king is weak when one of the pieces ( probably knight ) takes your pawn on g5, then he will get two pawns for a minor piece + opened bishop that threats a 3rd pawn ( which is almost equal ) and a big initiative with a strong attack on your open king, and you will be busted in about 5-10 moves&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15655" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T16:08:51.830" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T16:08:51.830" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24225" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24182" CreationDate="2019-04-16T00:22:43.853" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is quite a deep question that could be the subject of an interesting book. Without trying to go into depth, I think the main difference is that in the open Sicilian, White often feels encouraged by the non-developing nature of ..c5 to start a fierce attack with Nf3 and d4. In some lines (eg Najdorf) Black even provokes this, believing that it will misfire. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After the English sequence 1. c4 e5 if Black tries to mount an attack the lack of a tempo means that the  attack is less likely to succeed, and more likely to misfire, so Black frequently avoids sharp play and plays more on the lines of the closed Sicilian with .. Nc6 and either ..Bb4 or ..Bg7. What this means is that knowledge from the English can be useful in the Sicilian and vice versa, but only if the lines correspond and the players motivations also correspond. This happens less often than you might expect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastActivityDate="2019-04-16T00:22:43.853" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24226" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24233" CreationDate="2019-04-16T03:15:12.630" Score="1" ViewCount="832" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is this the longest possible series of consecutive captures in a legal position? Here is an example of 25 on the same square, which is not required.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;q1kr2q1/1qnqnb2/2prp3/q2pK3/2P1P3/1QNQNB2/Q2R2Q1/3R3Q w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. exd5 cxd5 2. cxd5 exd5 3. Bxd5 Qaxd5+ 4. Ncxd5 Rxd5+ 5. Nxd5 Nexd5 6. Qdxd5 Nxd5 7. Qbxd5 Qdxd5+ 8. Rxd5 Qxd5+ 9. Qaxd5 Bxd5 10. Rxd5 Qaxd5+ 11. Qxd5 Qxd5+ 12. Qxd5 Rxd5+ 13. Kxd5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-06-16T16:00:52.390" LastActivityDate="2020-06-16T17:03:22.097" Title="What is the longest possible series of consecutive captures?" Tags="&lt;problems&gt;&lt;records&gt;&lt;captures&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24227" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24182" CreationDate="2019-04-16T05:35:50.870" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Somewhat helpful but for the most part no. The fact that White gets an extra move in the English causes the types of positions to vary significantly. Mainly because Black is more hesitant to engage in the sharper systems being a tempo down.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-04-16T05:35:50.870" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24228" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24183" CreationDate="2019-04-16T05:37:09.923" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Don't play with that opponent :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That or ask for piece/clock odds, but they'd have to agree.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-04-16T05:37:09.923" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24229" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24194" CreationDate="2019-04-16T05:38:13.627" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You could but I've never found much use it in. The most important part to study are your main mistakes that lead to a losing position in the first place.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-04-16T05:38:13.627" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24230" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24221" CreationDate="2019-04-16T05:40:23.647" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Mmm that's not mate in 54, just a -52.40 evaluation (equivalent of being &quot;52.4 pawns&quot; down).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The engine is calculating far ahead and can't find a forced win, but sees Black's up a pawn and knight so it evaluates based off that. I'm surprised the engine wasn't smart enough to evaluate as a draw though, especially if you're using current Stockfish?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-04-16T05:40:23.647" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24231" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24179" CreationDate="2019-04-16T05:41:53.667" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's usually a very good trade to get two pieces for a rook. Maybe in the particular game you played it was important to keep the rook on in order to control the file, but in general the two pieces are far preferable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-04-16T05:41:53.667" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24232" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24142" CreationDate="2019-04-16T05:43:03.343" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both moves orders let Black reached a QGD guaranteed (if he wishes), but the move order with 1...Nf6 keeps White guessing. Until Black actually plays 3...d5 White has no idea if he's going to go for something like a Nimzo instead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-04-16T05:43:03.343" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24233" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24226" CreationDate="2019-04-16T09:08:27.647" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here's an &lt;a href=&quot;https://pdb.dieschwalbe.de/search.jsp?expression=PROBID=%27P0005398%27&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;example&lt;/a&gt; of 30 successive captures (White's 3rd to Black's 17th). It is the solution (from White's 3rd onwards) of a massacre proof-game found by Gerd Wilts &amp;amp; Norbert Geissler.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Gerd Wilts &amp;amp; Norbert Geissler.PDB CD-ROM 1998-Version&quot;]&#xA;[StartPly &quot;4&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d3 d6 2. Bg5 Bg4 3. Bxe7 Bxe2 4. Bxd6 Bxf1 5. Bxc7 Qxd3 6. Bxb8 Qxc2 7. Bxa7 Rxa7 8. Qxc2 Rxa2 9. Qxh7 Rxb2 10. Qxg8 Rxb1 11. Rxb1 Rxh2 12. Rxb7 Rxh1 13. Rxf7 Rxg1 14. Rxg7 Rxg2 15. Qxf8+ Kxf8 16. Kxf1 Rxf2+ 17. Kxf2 Kxg7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10380" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-06-16T17:03:22.097" LastActivityDate="2020-06-16T17:03:22.097" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24237" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="615" CreationDate="2019-04-17T01:51:47.333" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;If allow the longest game without a capture based on losing on time, you can bump it up to 71 moves. The source is the page &lt;a href=&quot;https://timkr.home.xs4all.nl/records/records.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;'&amp;quot;Chess Records.&amp;quot;&lt;/a&gt; on Tim Krabbe's site.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Meijfroidt B.-Lenoir A., Veurne, 2000&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. c4 Nf6 2. Nc3 e5 3. g3 d6 4. Bg2 Nbd7 5. e3 c6 6. Nge2 Qc7 7. O-O Be7 8. d3 O-O 9. b3 h6 10. Bb2 Nh7 11. d4 f5 12. e4 f4 13. f3 g5 14. Kh1 Ndf6 15. d5 c5 16. Qd3 Bd7 17. Nd1 Qc8 18. Nf2 Nh5 19. g4 Ng7 20. h3 Nf6 21. Kh2 Kf7 22. Rh1 Rh8 23. Kg1 h5 24. Bc3 Rh6 25. Kf1 Qe8 26. Ke1 b5 27. Kd2 a5 28. Kc2 Rh8 29. Qd2 Qb8 30. Kd3 Rc8 31. Nc1 Bd8 32. Ke2 Qa7 33. Qc2 Qa6 34. Bd2 Bb6 35. Ncd3 Qa7 36. Nb2 Rf8 37. Qd3 Rac8 38. Rac1 b4 39. Ra1 Kg6 40. Qc2 Rf7 41. Nbd3 Rcf8 42. Ne1 Qa8 43. Bc1 Qc8 44. Bb2 Qa6 45. Qd3 Ra8 46. Qc2 Nge8 47. Ned3 Qc8 48. Ne1 Ra6 49. Qd3 Qa8 50. Nc2 Rh7 51. Qd1 Ng7 52. Bc1 Qh8 53. Bb2 Ra7 54. Rb1 Bc8 55. Ra1 Rf7 56. Qd3 Nge8 57. Rag1 Nc7 58. Rd1 Kg7 59. Ra1 Qe8 60. Kd2 Kg8 61. Rae1 Re7 62. Ba1 Qg6 63. Bb2 Rh6 64. Ba1 Reh7 65. Bb2 Qg7 66. Na1 Bd7 67. Qe2 Qf7 68. Qd3 Qe8 69. Nc2 a4 70. Ke2 Qa8 71. Rd1 Qa6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-05-02T05:02:31.013" LastActivityDate="2021-05-02T05:02:31.013" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24238" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-04-17T03:45:52.930" Score="5" ViewCount="1471" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm looking for a program or website which offers to create chess diagrams using custom piece sets. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know many sites and programs that offer this but with a preset types of pieces. This is the case for example for &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jinchess.com/chessboard/composer/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;jinchess board editor&lt;/a&gt;. So what I'm looking for is a board editor like this one but which gives me the option to edit the pieces set with some png image files I have for a personalized chess set.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would love as well the possibility to change the board image.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My final aim would be to be able to create a chess position like the one bellow using a chess board editor and not having to copy and paste the image files with an image editor.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/0HJXR.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/0HJXR.png&quot; alt=&quot;Chess board with personalized chess set&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;To sum up&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To sum up I look for a program or website which lets:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Create a chess board position.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Use custom piece set using personalized image files.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Use as board a personalized board image file.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Note&lt;/strong&gt;: If not a website, the software I'm looking for can be for Mac, Windows, and/or Linux.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11215" LastActivityDate="2020-10-27T03:13:47.673" Title="Board editor using customized pieces and board" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;chess-set&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24239" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24142" CreationDate="2019-04-17T14:38:02.440" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;One possible reason to play 1...Nf6 first is to avoid the exchange variation of the QGD, which is considered a fairly good opening for white (40% white win rate and 43% draw rate in the &lt;a href=&quot;https://chesstempo.com/game-database.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;database I'm currently looking at&lt;/a&gt;, compared to ~33% white win and 52% draw in the main line of the QGD for example).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.cxd5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, this is not to say that it's unplayable for the black end, but it's not considered black's best try for equality. Instead, by playing 1...Nf6 and 2...e6, black keeps his options open: if white plays 3.Nc3, black can most notably go for the Nimzo-Indian defense with 3...Bb4, which is considered to be relatively good for black and which many white players dislike playing against. When white instead plays 3.Nf3, then black can go into the QGD (if he so pleases) by playing 3...d5. At this point, any attempt at an exchange-type QGD (with 4.Nc3 followed by 5.cxd5) won't be nearly as good, as that early tempo that white has spent on Nf3 will make it substantially easier for black to consolidate his position, in particular to get his light-square bishop out while keeping his queenside pawn structure intact.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 d5 (3.Nc3 Bb4)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, at the end of the day it all boils down to personal preference, especially since all of the mentioned variations are perfectly playable, even though top-level players might disdain some of them (due to the fact that top-level players operate on the smallest of edges).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17713" LastActivityDate="2019-04-17T14:38:02.440" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24240" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23963" CreationDate="2019-04-17T15:53:09.737" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Thanks for your answers. I have contacted ChessBase and they told me that training annotation is not supported in PGN files but just in their original database format cbh. So, there is nothing to be done about this problem. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18931" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T20:32:41.490" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T20:32:41.490" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24241" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24242" CreationDate="2019-04-17T19:36:45.823" Score="3" ViewCount="337" Body="&lt;p&gt;I’ve read up on Babson tasks, and they mention that all known tasks are not perfect because there are duals. I’m not sure what this means exactly. What precisely is a “dual” in chess problems?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-03-17T04:17:17.260" LastActivityDate="2021-03-17T04:17:17.260" Title="What is a “dual” in chess problems, such as the Babson task?" Tags="&lt;problems&gt;&lt;terminology&gt;&lt;composing&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24242" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24241" CreationDate="2019-04-17T19:41:57.327" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;A dual is an alternate solution, other than the intended one, &lt;em&gt;after the first move&lt;/em&gt; of a problem or study. If it happens on the &lt;em&gt;first&lt;/em&gt; move, the problem or study is called &lt;em&gt;cooked&lt;/em&gt; instead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;dual&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Ideally, White should have only one move at each juncture that solves a problem. If White has an alternative at any stage other than the first move, this is a &lt;em&gt;dual&lt;/em&gt;. A dual is not as serious a flaw as a &lt;em&gt;cook&lt;/em&gt;, and in minor lines, duals may be permissible (opinions differ on this point). Some problems make a virtue out of dual avoidance – of two apparently equivalent white moves, only one works.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(source: &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossary_of_chess_problems#D&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2019-04-17T20:17:10.610" LastActivityDate="2019-04-17T20:17:10.610" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24243" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24244" CreationDate="2019-04-17T20:55:36.177" Score="4" ViewCount="593" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Sodium attack is characterised by the move 1.Na3, tending to be followed by the fianchetto of the bishop. This opening has never been played by myself, but I seem to encounter it quite frequently amongst lower rated players. What would be the best way to respond?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18908" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-06-18T02:32:21.913" LastActivityDate="2020-06-18T02:33:13.377" Title="How should one respond to the Sodium attack?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24244" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24243" CreationDate="2019-04-17T21:09:10.610" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Play whatever.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Two-three moves like that hardly constitute an &quot;opening&quot;. It could help if you told us what kind of set up white tries to achieve in the center (e.g. which of the central pawns are moved.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Generally moves like that are nothing I'd worry about. Playing just normal moves (occupy the center, develop pieces, take it from there....) should be fine. If you have a favourite black opening against say d4 or e4 you might be able to follow it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You might want to make the somewhat fundamental decision on whether you prefer to block the b2 bishop by playing e5 at some point or to limit the space for the a3 knight by playing d5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2019-04-17T21:09:10.610" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24245" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24247" CreationDate="2019-04-18T05:07:01.290" Score="27" ViewCount="7243" Body="&lt;p&gt;May I know how to find in all grandmaster games, what the percentage of each of the following is?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Kingside castling&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Queenside castling&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Never castled by the end of the game but still has the right to castle&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Lost the right to castle&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Note&lt;/strong&gt; When one side has &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess-poster.com/english/mail/mail_2002/three_castlings.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;castled more than once in a game&lt;/a&gt;, only the first castle counts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16626" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2019-04-18T12:44:02.020" LastActivityDate="2019-04-19T15:20:27.680" Title="How often does castling occur in grandmaster games?" Tags="&lt;statistics&gt;&lt;castling&gt;&lt;grandmaster&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24246" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24245" CreationDate="2019-04-18T07:18:36.000" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just googling for &quot;castling statistics&quot; already yields a few results; even though the analysis is done on a different set of games than 'all grandmaster games', it gives a rough indication.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/a32glt/castling_statistics/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;50 world class players&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://blog.ebemunk.com/a-visual-look-at-2-million-chess-games/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;2 million games in the MillionBase database&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Kingside castling&lt;/strong&gt; is done by 80-81% of the players, and &lt;strong&gt;queen side castling&lt;/strong&gt; by 8-9%. I estimate that &lt;strong&gt;Never castled by the end of the game but still has the right to castle&lt;/strong&gt; is negligible (less than 0.1%, since it requires a very short game). So that leaves about 11% for the final group &lt;strong&gt;Lost the right to castle&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2019-04-18T07:18:36.000" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24247" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24245" CreationDate="2019-04-18T08:25:01.373" Score="31" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you are prepared to use standard Linux command-line tools like &lt;code&gt;wc&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;grep&lt;/code&gt; then I think my free PGN processor, &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.cs.kent.ac.uk/~djb/pgn-extract/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;pgn-extract&lt;/a&gt;, will do much of the pre-processing necessary to count games in each category. Below is a basic bash script I put together as a proof of concept. It assumes your file of games is called &lt;code&gt;inputfile.pgn&lt;/code&gt; - adjust as necessary, or pass it in as a command-line argument:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;#!/bin/bash&#xA;# Output stats on castling.&#xA;src=inputfile.pgn&#xA;# Pre-process the games to allow textual analysis.&#xA;pgn-extract -C -V -N --notags --nochecks --linelength 10000 -s -o stripped.pgn ${src}&#xA;# Castling by white: detect a preceding move number.&#xA;grep '\. O-O ' stripped.pgn &amp;gt; Wkingside.pgn&#xA;grep '\. O-O-O ' stripped.pgn &amp;gt; Wqueenside.pgn&#xA;# Castling by black: detect no preceding move number.&#xA;grep '[^.] O-O ' stripped.pgn &amp;gt; Bkingside.pgn&#xA;grep '[^.] O-O-O ' stripped.pgn &amp;gt; Bqueenside.pgn&#xA;# Find games in which no castling occurred.&#xA;grep -v ' O-O ' stripped.pgn | grep -v ' O-O-O ' | grep -v '^$' &amp;gt; nocastle.pgn&#xA;&#xA;# Output the FEN of the final position to include castling rights and&#xA;# look for the presence of rights.&#xA;pgn-extract -C -V -N --notags --nomovenumbers --linelength 10000 -s nocastle.pgn --dropply -1 -F | grep ' [wb] [KkQq]' &amp;gt; rights.txt&#xA;&#xA;# Output the results - assumes valid Result tags in the source.&#xA;echo 'Number of games: ' `grep '^\[Result ' ${src} | wc -l`&#xA;echo 'W Kingside: ' `cat Wkingside.pgn | wc -l`&#xA;echo 'W Queenside: ' `cat Wqueenside.pgn | wc -l`&#xA;echo 'B Kingside: ' `cat Bkingside.pgn | wc -l`&#xA;echo 'B Queenside: ' `cat Bqueenside.pgn | wc -l`&#xA;echo 'Neither: ' `cat nocastle.pgn | wc -l`&#xA;echo 'Rights retained: ' `cat rights.txt | wc -l`&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I tried the script on the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.kingbase-chess.net/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;KingBase database&lt;/a&gt; (Apr 2019) and, after removing broken games and duplicates got the following stats:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Number of games:  2072354&#xA;W Kingside:  1633762&#xA;W Queenside:  246158&#xA;B Kingside:  1670870&#xA;B Queenside:  128124&#xA;Neither:  69776&#xA;Rights retained:  24280&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The 'neither' figure is about 3.4% while the 'rights retained' figure is about 1.2%. If games with 20 or fewer ply are removed then the 'neither' figure reduces to about 2.9% and the 'rights retained' figure to about 0.7%.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12951" LastEditorUserId="12951" LastEditDate="2019-04-19T08:31:25.360" LastActivityDate="2019-04-19T08:31:25.360" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24248" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24250" CreationDate="2019-04-18T14:54:32.253" Score="4" ViewCount="153" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have recently got back into chess. I only really get to play online these days (May get the odd game OTB with the kids but I have only just started to teach them) I thought it might be a nice idea to try an OTB tournament maybe around September time. I live in the UK and I was wondering if anyone answers a couple of questions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How to find and pick the correct event.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do you need to be a member of a federation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What to expect on the day.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Razor&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18586" LastEditorUserId="18586" LastEditDate="2019-04-18T15:57:24.733" LastActivityDate="2019-04-22T11:16:50.283" Title="My first tournament" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24249" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-04-18T15:04:50.920" Score="8" ViewCount="300" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Queen's Gambit Declined, Albin counter-gambit, Lasker trap, black ended up with three knights, which should be rare. Here white should not capture the additional knight in the next move (8. Rxg1 Bg4+ and black is winning). Are there any other openings that one side ends up with three or more knights?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. c4 e5 3. dxe5 d4 4. e3 Bb4 5. Bd2 dxe3 6. Bxb4 exf2 7. Ke2 fxg1=N&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;  &#xA;" OwnerUserId="16626" LastEditorUserId="16626" LastEditDate="2019-04-18T15:14:59.490" LastActivityDate="2020-01-15T15:11:06.203" Title="Is this the only opening that allows one side to end up with three knights?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;knights&gt;&lt;queens-gambit-declined&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24250" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24248" CreationDate="2019-04-18T15:53:03.580" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I live in the UK ... Do you need to be a member of a federation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes &lt;em&gt;you&lt;/em&gt; do. You need to become a member of the English Chess Federation. You can do that on &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.englishchess.org.uk/guide-to-joining-the-ecf/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;their website&lt;/a&gt;. You either need Silver membership, if you are going to play congresses only, or gold membership if you want to play FIDE rated tournaments as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;How to find and pick the correct event&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Again the ECF maintains a &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.englishchess.org.uk/event-calendar/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;calendar of events&lt;/a&gt; on their website. There will be events that don't appear there but the vast majority of events in England will be listed. Events will normally have different sections according to playing strength. Enter the section that best reflects your level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is probably also worth your while to find the nearest chess club to where you live and get in touch with them. They will have lots of good advice, particularly when it comes to local events. The ECF have a &lt;a href=&quot;https://ecf.azolve.com/clubfinder.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;club finder&lt;/a&gt; page which can help you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;How to prepare for the event.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That is really far too general a question to be answered here. I would edit your question, if I were you, otherwise it is likely to get closed for being too broad :-)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2019-04-18T15:53:03.580" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24251" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24249" CreationDate="2019-04-18T16:02:12.200" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Theoretically, any opening can allow you to end up with three knights, provided that you promote enough pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13147" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-01-15T15:11:06.203" LastActivityDate="2020-01-15T15:11:06.203" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24252" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24249" CreationDate="2019-04-18T21:16:46.660" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;As @JossieCalderon pointed out, any opening could end up with three knights for one side. This would always require a knight promotion of some sort. Usually, knight promotions occur to&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Give check to the opponent immediately to move the king to another square or to save a tempo.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Avoid a knight fork from the opponent, or give one of your own&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Avoid stalemate&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Give checkmate&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think, however, that you are also asking if there is another opening where knight promotion occurs &lt;em&gt;in the opening phase of the game&lt;/em&gt;. The answer is  most likely &quot;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;no&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18168" LastActivityDate="2019-04-18T21:16:46.660" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24253" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-04-18T23:49:42.337" Score="-1" ViewCount="190" Body="&lt;p&gt;Nakamura castles with two hands. But I saw one of my students taking their king and &quot;tipping&quot; their rook towards f1.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this USCF/FIDE legal?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13147" LastEditorUserId="18475" LastEditDate="2019-04-21T09:46:31.047" LastActivityDate="2019-04-21T09:46:31.047" Title="Is it legal to castle by tipping the rook with the king?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;castling&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24255" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-04-19T01:52:22.347" Score="4" ViewCount="252" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;5k2/8/1R6/5r2/P7/1P4P1/6KP/5n2 b - - 0 40&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With black to move, remarkably it's mate in 2 (at first glance, it looks like black may struggle to even draw).  It occurred in &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/zohTb2tR&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;a recent LiChess game of mine&lt;/a&gt;.  It looks like the kind of position that might occur in a composed puzzle because it contains the precise material required to checkmate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Does this knight and rook mating pattern have a name, or has it occurred before?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When there's a mating pattern involving so little material (just the rook and knight, no king), I feel it might be worthwhile studying it in its own right.  The knight and rook could be on multiple other squares and still achieve essentially the same mate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2785" LastActivityDate="2021-05-02T04:55:40.297" Title="Does this knight and rook mating pattern have a name, or has it occurred before?" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;rook-and-minor-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24256" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24260" CreationDate="2019-04-19T03:24:17.710" Score="3" ViewCount="154" Body="&lt;p&gt;Depending on the situation, some pieces that are ordinarily worth the about same value (say a knight and a bishop, or two of any piece) have different practical values because one piece is &lt;em&gt;stronger&lt;/em&gt; than the other.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's a few &quot;strong&quot; pieces I can think of that are a dream for an opponent to trade away.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;A centralized knight&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;A fiancetto-ed bishop&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;A rook on the seventh rank&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've heard that sometimes it's in a players best interest to give up a rook for a strong bishop, just to give himself some breathing room.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How do I identify &quot;strong pieces&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18168" LastEditorUserId="18168" LastEditDate="2019-04-19T22:52:19.857" LastActivityDate="2019-04-22T04:09:45.570" Title="How do I identify strong pieces?" Tags="&lt;positional-play&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24257" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24255" CreationDate="2019-04-19T08:20:17.903" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;That is a nice problem, with rook and knight mating a king at the edge, with one square blocked. Here's a helpmate problem which shows more examples of that phenomenon:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Forsberg, Revista Romana de Sah, 1935. h#2. b) bRa6 c) bBa6 d) bNa6 e) bPa6&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;8/8/q7/8/1R4K1/k2N4/8/8 b KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Qf6 2. Nc5 Qb2 3. Ra4#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My analysis is based on that by John Nunn, &lt;em&gt;Solving in Style&lt;/em&gt;, prob. 133. White's king is too far away to participate in the mating-net (though it is accurately placed to avoid dual solutions). So White must mate with rook and knight alone. Rook and knight can mate, but only if bK is in a corner. With only 2 Black moves, this corner must be a1, but this entails wNc3, which the knight can't reach in two moves. Therefore Black must block one square in bK's field, and this is where the unit on a6 comes in. The 5 choices of unit lead to 5 different mating nets.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10380" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2019-04-19T10:26:29.457" LastActivityDate="2019-04-19T10:26:29.457" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24258" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24255" CreationDate="2019-04-19T11:18:19.583" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe that that is called “Anatasia Mate,” based on &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Checkmate_pattern&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipeda's&lt;/a&gt; testimony.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Anastasia's mate, a knight and rook team up to trap the opposing king between the side of the board on one side and a friendly piece on the other. Often, the queen is first sacrificed along the a-file or h-file to achieve the position. This checkmate gets its name from the novel Anastasia und das Schachspiel by Johann Jakob Wilhelm Heinse.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It gives this position as an example of Anatasia mate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;8/4N1pk/8/7R/8/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now compare it to the checkmate from your game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;5k2/8/1R6/7r/P7/1P2n1PK/7P/8 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even though the White king has an extra pawn by it, I believe it to be similar enough to call it an Anatasia mate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-05-02T04:55:40.297" LastActivityDate="2021-05-02T04:55:40.297" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24260" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24256" CreationDate="2019-04-19T15:16:48.453" Score="4" Body="&lt;h1&gt;How do I identify strong pieces?&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Read books on pawn structures (Kmoch, Soltis, Baburin etc.)  Pieces are strong/weak &lt;strong&gt;entirely&lt;/strong&gt; based on the landscape that gets carved out on the board through hostile negotiations that the purists call the &lt;em&gt;Opening.&lt;/em&gt; Treacherous valleys, open plains and rocky crevices ... &lt;strong&gt;all of&#xA;these&lt;/strong&gt; get created by different pawn structures. Know the structures&#xA;and you'll automatically see which pieces are going to become strong&#xA;and weak well before they get to that state.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Consider picking up some of the lighter and rudimentary books on strategy like &lt;a href=&quot;https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/B00D2J444Y&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Michael Stean's Simple Chess&lt;/a&gt; or &lt;a href=&quot;https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/0976196220&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Todd Barwick's Chess Strategy Workbook&lt;/a&gt; (which has a fantastic section description on what makes a piece strong or weak)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;How do I produce (make my pieces strong, my opponent's pieces weak) in my own games?&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Supplement your reading (see section above) with studying annotated Master Games to find these patterns and learn how the big boys &lt;strong&gt;execute on&lt;/strong&gt; the typical plans associated with these sorts of strong-or-weak pieces. You'll slowly start to subconsciously (or consciously) emulate these ideas.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Review your slow time-control games with a stronger player to go over opportunities where you missed opportunities to strengthen or weaken a piece. After tactical safety is established, you should always be looking to improve your pieces (or diminish the usefulness of your opponent's pieces). Sometimes just doing this is more practical (with a clock running) than some fanciful deep strategic idea that is outside most mortal club player's wheelhouses (that the more advanced books notoriously confuse people with)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1751" LastEditorUserId="1751" LastEditDate="2019-04-19T19:35:10.940" LastActivityDate="2019-04-19T19:35:10.940" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24262" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24253" CreationDate="2019-04-19T19:43:56.383" Score="4" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nakamura castles with two hands.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's actually illegal:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4.1 Each move must be played with one hand only.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for your student, there's no rule that you are not allowed to simultaneously move two pieces at once, and since &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=208&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;the rules&lt;/a&gt; do not describe exactly &lt;em&gt;how&lt;/em&gt; the king and rook reach their final squares, this is up to the player. In any case, this is &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; a violation of rule 4.4.2:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4.4.2 [If a player having the move:] deliberately touches a rook and then his king he is not allowed to castle on that side on that move and the situation shall be governed by Article 4.3.1&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4.3.1 one or more of his own pieces, he must move the first piece touched that can be moved&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2019-04-19T19:43:56.383" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24263" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-04-19T23:25:54.147" Score="4" ViewCount="288" Body="&lt;p&gt;Instead of 'a1', why not '11'? First file, first rank.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Instead of 'g6', why not '76'? Seventh file, sixth rank.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And so on. Why not just use two numbers to represent the square, as opposed to 1 letter and 1 number? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think the notation with the letter is more confusing for beginners and children. For example, with the 'g6'-square, it's not immediately obvious to a complete beginner where the 'g'-file is. They usually have to look down on the letter on the chess board, or, if the board doesn't have letters, they will usually count in their head, from left to right: 'a ... b.. c.. d.. e ... f... g, aha there it is'. On the other hand, if the 'g'-file was simply the '7'-file, it's immediately obvious where it is, since it's much easier to simply find the 7th file by eye-sight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18948" LastActivityDate="2019-06-25T17:05:40.237" Title="Why is the algebraic notation not just two numbers?" Tags="&lt;notation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24265" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24256" CreationDate="2019-04-20T02:17:47.207" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Generally speaking strong pieces limit the opponents freedom. Think of the effect of your opponents strong pieces. There are important lines that you cannot challenge. There are squares you would like to occupy but cannot, either because the square is too well controlled or because the route to it is unsafe. You have pawns that are blocked. Your King is hemmed in.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When playing a game, put yourself in your opponents shoes. What would they most like to do? Can you prevent this? Permanently might be really good but if it will take them a long time that is also good. And remember that having an advantage in position often provides an opportunity for tactics. If such a chance comes up, don't miss it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And of course you should try to prevent the opponent from establishing strong pieces. What do YOU want to do? How will your opponent try to prevent that? Can you stop him from preventing it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Look at some well-annotated games. Read the notes and try to interpret them in the way that they relate to acquiring strong pieces. Consider if strong pieces are ever enough to compensate for being (a small amount of) material down.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastActivityDate="2019-04-20T02:17:47.207" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24266" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-04-20T02:40:25.823" Score="8" ViewCount="422" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sometimes, I'll be in a position where my opponent is threathening to do something and I cannot stop it. So, in response, I play a move that looks pretty dangerous and clever, but which I in fact have not managed to calculate all the way through and I have no idea whether it will work or not. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And I often see that in such situations, the opponent becomes overly paranoid and thinks I've just played some sort of mastermind move, and then they start retreating or playing too defensively or whatever, and I manage to weazel my way out of the situation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I then go back and analyze my play with the engine, it will often tell me that my clever move was a complete mistake and my opponent wins by just doing the obvious thing they were about to do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At what point do these mental tricks, where you make dangerous-looking movies to make your opponent overly paranoid, stop working? I'm thinking there must be some point where players simply become too good to be fooled by that sort of trickery, and just calmly make decisions based on pure calculation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I currently play in the 1600-1700 range on lichess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18948" LastActivityDate="2020-09-30T08:20:45.223" Title="At what point does this mental trick stop working?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;rating&gt;&lt;psychology&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24267" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24266" CreationDate="2019-04-20T09:01:23.277" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;This trick is prevalent in all levels. Of course, depending on the position, your ability to muddy the waters varies. Against much higher rated opponents, it is typical that they will  gain an advantage without giving you much counterplay. Nevertheless, in all levels of the game, the losing side will try to muster some counterplay to get back into the game. &#xA;You make a comment about moves that look dangerous but are not. The higher rated your opponents are, the more likely they will realize that your plan is not dangerous. Often, it will be better for the losing side to defend and wait for the right time to strike than to go all out on a dubious plan. Furthermore, many positions, even in the top levels, can be wildy complicated to calculate, and the objective evaluation is not always a good predictor of outcome even at the top levels. Thus, not even grandmasters will always be able to evaluate the position accurately from &quot;pure&quot; calculation. &#xA;So to answer your question more precisely and perhaps unsatisfactorily, if you make a dangerous looking move, if it is &quot;obvious&quot; to your opponent that it's unsound, you'll be punished. Where &quot;obvious&quot; depends on the strength of your opponent and the subtleness of your clever move. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3872" LastActivityDate="2019-04-20T09:01:23.277" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24268" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24263" CreationDate="2019-04-20T09:15:04.087" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe that it is more of a historic thing where chess players went from descriptive to algebraic notation, really because strong players started adopting algebraic notation. Admittedly, using 2 numbers would probably be just as easy to use once you get use to it.&#xA;Infact, ICCF(international correspondence chess federation) uses such coordinate systems in order not to confuse people from different countries who would use different alphabets for algebraic notation.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3872" LastActivityDate="2019-04-20T09:15:04.087" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24270" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24152" CreationDate="2019-04-20T15:29:16.923" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;My thought looking at the position is you want to attack Black's king, so if you don't want to play f5 at once, then a possible plan is to play Rf2, g5, Rg2, Rg3, Rh3, increasing the pressure on h6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is quite slow, but black doesn't seem to have an obvious way to generate counterplay.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black might defend h6 by putting his Knight on g8, perhaps play f5 at that point.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[ I am not much good, so take this with a big pince of salt! ]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18733" LastActivityDate="2019-04-20T15:29:16.923" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24271" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-04-20T15:39:01.617" Score="6" ViewCount="220" Body="&lt;p&gt;For (endgame) training purposes, I would like to write a python program (using &lt;a href=&quot;https://python-chess.readthedocs.io/en/latest/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;python chess&lt;/a&gt;) that generates all pairs of corresponding squares in a pawn endgame. Following the definition from Dvoretsky's Endgame Manual, I define corresponding squares as squares of &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zugzwang&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;reciprocal zugzwang&lt;/a&gt;. &#xA;This definition, however, does not seem to formalize corresponding squares.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Suppose we have access to a scoring function s that returns, for any position p, a score s(p) from a totally ordered domain S of scores.&#xA;The maximal score means that White wins, and the minimal score means that Black wins.&#xA;The simplest scoring domain is the ordered set {-1,0,1}, where -1 is a win for Black, 0 is a draw, and 1 is a win for White.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Given such a scoring function, I now define &lt;strong&gt;a reciprocal zugzwang&lt;/strong&gt; as a position p such that s(p_w) &amp;lt; s(p_b), where p_w and p_b are the positions derived from p wherein White resp. Black is to move.&#xA;This definition states that White would prefer to Black to move, and vice versa.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, this definition of reciprocal zugzwang does not yield the usual notion of corresponding squares. For example, consider the &lt;a href=&quot;https://syzygy-tables.info/?fen=8/2k5/p1P5/P1K5/8/8/8/8_w_-_-_0_1&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Fahrni - Alapin&lt;/a&gt; position. &#xA;If Black is to move, White can win easily. &#xA;White is to move can secure a win by means of triangulation.&#xA;Nevertheless, Dvoretsky claims that the kings are placed on corresponding squares.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What would be a sensible formal definition of corresponding squares?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18950" LastActivityDate="2020-06-09T14:00:50.087" Title="Formal definition of corresponding squares" Tags="&lt;pawn-endgame&gt;&lt;zugzwang&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24272" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24271" CreationDate="2019-04-20T18:27:08.357" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Two squares A and B such that after the attacker (player going for the win) moves to square A the defender &lt;em&gt;must&lt;/em&gt; move to square B to hold the position (at least for the moment).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This doesn't say that the attacker won't still win the game down the road (with objective play from both sides). But to prevent an immediate win the defender must go to B after the attacker goes to A.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-04-20T18:27:08.357" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24273" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28114" CreationDate="2019-04-20T20:38:14.563" Score="5" ViewCount="747" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am currently playing in a tournament and my last game was a total disaster. Without going into details, I missed a two-move threat my opponent had in the position (I'd expect a ~1600 Elo rated player to find this threat during a game) straight out of the opening and my position was practically hopeless afterwards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, after some time spent on self-pity I started reflecting on the nature of my blunder and I started to realize that this is a type of blunder I've lost countless games to. In this game, the following happened:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I was having trouble finding a good plan out of the opening, and before making the losing blunder I spent around 30 minutes on the clock.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The move I played should have been easily recognizable as a blunder for a player of my strength (~2200 Elo at the moment).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I noticed the threat almost immediately after pressing the clock, long before my opponent actually played the winning move (naturally he was a bit suspicious that someone like me would miss something THAT obvious; I could even see him throwing some suspicious glances, seeming like he wanted to ask me: &quot;Are you for real!?&quot;).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After realizing that this was not an isolated event for me, I started to wonder: is this actually common for players rated, say, 2100+ Elo? Also, does anyone have any advice how to counteract this self-destructive psychological issue? Right now I'm at a loss for how to deal with it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8300" LastActivityDate="2020-01-22T23:10:25.870" Title="Ways to notice opponent's threats during one's own move" Tags="&lt;psychology&gt;&lt;blunder&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24274" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24166" CreationDate="2019-04-21T07:07:23.463" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I thought it would be interesting to try a variation of @Phonon's approach and treat the search as essentially a pattern-matching task using regular expressions. So, after performing the same expansion of a FEN and isolating the central six ranks, I passed the resulting string to the &lt;code&gt;search&lt;/code&gt; function of Python's &lt;code&gt;re&lt;/code&gt; package, looking for occurrences of pawn characters separated by any eight intervening characters (I haven't removed the rank separators from the expanded FEN):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;# Look for games in the given file that&#xA;# have 4 adjacent pawns in a column.&#xA;def process_file(file):&#xA;    file = open(file, encoding = &quot;ISO-8859-1&quot;)&#xA;&#xA;    # Form the regular expressions for both colours.&#xA;    white_pattern = &quot;P........P........P........P&quot;&#xA;    black_pattern = &quot;p........p........p........p&quot;&#xA;&#xA;    game = chess.pgn.read_game(file)&#xA;    while game:&#xA;        board = game.board()&#xA;        for move in game.mainline_moves():&#xA;            board.push(move)&#xA;            fen = board.fen()&#xA;            # Expand the empty-square digits in the FEN to dots&#xA;            # and extract just the board position.&#xA;            pieces = &quot;&quot;.join([&quot;.&quot;*int(c) if c.isdigit() else c for c in fen])[:71]&#xA;            # Drop first and last ranks as they can't contain pawns.&#xA;            match_area = pieces[9:-9]&#xA;            # Give up if neither side has sufficient pawns.&#xA;            if match_area.count('P') &amp;lt; 4 and match_area.count('p') &amp;lt; 4:&#xA;                break&#xA;&#xA;            if(re.search(white_pattern, match_area)):&#xA;                print(game, &quot;\n&quot;)&#xA;                break&#xA;&#xA;            if(re.search(black_pattern, match_area)):&#xA;                print(game, &quot;\n&quot;)&#xA;                break&#xA;&#xA;        game = chess.pgn.read_game(file)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have kept the logic as simple as possible for clarity but an obvious improvement would be to adapt it for different numbers of pawns by generating the pattern strings using string replication.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In practice, I found the matching to be relatively slow - around 100 games per second on my machine, which would take about 8 hours to search a 3,000,000 game database. I don't know whether that speed is limited by the python-chess library or the pattern matching.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As an alternative, I tried my own &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.cs.kent.ac.uk/~djb/pgn-extract/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;pgn-extract&lt;/a&gt; program which can accept regular expression FEN patterns to be matched when parsing games. For quadrupled pawns, there are only 24 possible configurations for each side, so these are relatively easy to enumerate (either by hand or programmatically); for instance:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;FENPatternI &quot;*/???????p/???????p/???????p/???????p/*/*/*&quot;&#xA;FENPatternI &quot;*/*/???????p/???????p/???????p/???????p/*/*&quot;&#xA;FENPatternI &quot;*/*/*/???????p/???????p/???????p/???????p/*&quot;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Using this approach, I was able to search a 3,200,000 game database in around 9 minutes, which is about 5,500 games per second. Interestingly, I found a slightly shorter version of something similar to the OP's original example, with the match after Black's 17th move:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;     [Event &quot;CSR-chT 9091&quot;]&#xA;        [Site &quot;CSR&quot;]&#xA;        [Date &quot;1991.01.19&quot;]&#xA;        [Round &quot;5.2&quot;]&#xA;        [White &quot;Novotny, Jiri&quot;]&#xA;        [Black &quot;Obsivac, Josef&quot;]&#xA;        [Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 Nc6 6. Bg5 Bd7 7. Be2 Qa5&#xA;    8. Bxf6 gxf6 9. Nb3 Qg5 10. g3 f5 11. Nd5 Rc8 12. f4 Qg7 13. e5 dxe5 14.&#xA;    Nc5 Nd4 15. Nxd7 Nxc2+ 16. Kf2 exf4 17. N7f6+ exf6&#xA;    { 2r1kb1r/pp3pqp/5p2/3N1p2/5p2/6P1/PPn1BK1P/R2Q3R w k - 0 18 } 18. Bb5+ Kd8&#xA;        19. Ne7+ 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12951" LastEditorUserId="12951" LastEditDate="2019-04-21T12:03:13.573" LastActivityDate="2019-04-21T12:03:13.573" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24275" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24277" CreationDate="2019-04-21T14:58:19.770" Score="5" ViewCount="226" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/tXfIacLjZWLU&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;I played a game on lichess recently&lt;/a&gt;. Afterwards, I used the analysis feature, including the &quot;learn from your mistakes&quot; feature, and it said that 6. a3 by white was a mistake, with 6. Qa4+ as best. I'd like to know why, as I don't understand why 6. Qa4+ is superior.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[After Qa4+ , it seems to me black can play 6. Nc6, and if the white queen captures the black knight, 7. Qxc6, it seems to lead to a draw as the white queen cannot escape capture threats starting with 7. Bd7 by black.]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;   [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;   1. d4 d5 2. e3 { D00 Queen's Pawn Game } a6 3. c4 b6?! { (0.12 ? 1.07) Inaccuracy. Best move was e6. } (3... e6 4. Nf3 c5 5. cxd5 exd5 6. Nc3 Nf6 7. Bd3 c4 8. Bc2) 4. Nc3?! { (1.07 ? 0.50) Inaccuracy. Best move was cxd5. } (4. cxd5 Nf6 5. Nf3 Bb7 6. Be2 Qxd5 7. Nc3 Qd6 8. O-O Nbd7 9. Nd2 e5 10. Bf3 c6) 4... e6 5. Nf3 Bb4? { (0.17 ? 1.63) Mistake. Best move was Bb7. } (5... Bb7 6. b3 Nf6 7. Bb2 Bd6 8. Bd3 O-O 9. O-O Nbd7 10. h3 c5 11. cxd5 exd5 12. Ne2) 6. a3? { (1.63 ? 0.59) Mistake. Best move was Qa4+. } (6. Qa4+ Nc6) 6... Bxc3+ 7. bxc3 f6?! { (0.65 ? 1.60) Inaccuracy. Best move was Nf6. } (7... Nf6 8. cxd5 exd5 9. Be2 Nbd7 10. O-O O-O 11. a4 c5 12. c4 Bb7 13. Bb2 Rc8 14. Nd2) 8. Qc2 g6 9. cxd5 exd5 10. c4 Ne7?! { (1.74 ? 2.43) Inaccuracy. Best move was Bf5. } (10... Bf5 11. Bd3) 11. cxd5 Qxd5 12. e4?! { (2.47 ? 1.93) Inaccuracy. Best move was Bc4. } (12. Bc4 Qd6 13. O-O Be6 14. d5 Bf7 15. Rd1 b5 16. Ba2 Nd7 17. e4 O-O 18. Be3 g5) 12... Qd6 13. Be2 Bg4? { (2.31 ? 3.33) Mistake. Best move was Bb7. } (13... Bb7) 14. Bb2?! { (3.33 ? 2.57) Inaccuracy. Best move was O-O. } (14. O-O Nd7 15. Rd1 h5 16. h3 Bxf3 17. Bxf3 Kf7 18. a4 Qc6 19. Qd3 Qe6 20. Bf4 c6) 14... Nbc6?! { (2.57 ? 3.07) Inaccuracy. Best move was Nd7. } (14... Nd7 15. O-O O-O 16. Rfd1 c6 17. a4 Rfe8 18. Ba3 Qb8 19. Qb3+ Kh8 20. Bc4 Kg7 21. Bf7) 15. d5? { (3.07 ? 1.98) Mistake. Best move was O-O. } (15. O-O) 15... Bxf3 16. Bxf3 Ne5 17. Be2 b5 18. O-O O-O 19. Bd4 Rac8?! { (2.29 ? 3.12) Inaccuracy. Best move was f5. } (19... f5 20. Bc5 Qd7 21. Rfd1 Nf7 22. exf5 gxf5 23. d6 cxd6 24. Qb3 d5 25. Qg3+ Ng6 26. Bxf8) 20. f4? { (3.12 ? 1.35) Mistake. Best move was Bc5. } (20. Bc5 Qd7) 20... Nc4? { (1.35 ? 3.56) Mistake. Best move was Nd7. } (20... Nd7) 21. Bxc4 bxc4 22. Qxc4 c5 23. Be3 Kg7? { (3.59 ? 4.87) Mistake. Best move was f5. } (23... f5 24. Rac1 fxe4 25. Bxc5 Qxd5 26. Qxd5+ Nxd5 27. Bxf8 Rxf8 28. g3 Nf6 29. Rc6 a5 30. Ra6) 24. Rac1 f5? { (4.67 ? 6.59) Mistake. Best move was Qd7. } (24... Qd7 25. Bxc5 a5 26. Qc3 a4 27. Qd4 Rfd8 28. Rc4 Qe8 29. Rfc1 Qf7 30. Rxa4 Nxd5 31. exd5) 25. Bxc5 Rxc5?! { (5.89 ? 6.59) Inaccuracy. Best move was Qd7. } (25... Qd7 26. Qc3+) 26. Qxc5 Qxc5+ 27. Rxc5 fxe4 28. d6 Nf5 29. d7 Rd8 30. Rd1 e3 31. Kf1 Ne7?! { (6.49 ? 7.39) Inaccuracy. Best move was Kf8. } (31... Kf8 32. Ke2 Nh6 33. Ra5 Ke7 34. Rxa6 Ng4 35. a4 Nf2 36. Rd4 Ng4 37. h3 Nf6 38. Kxe3) 32. Ke2 Nf5? { (7.22 ? Mate in 10) Checkmate is now unavoidable. Best move was Kf7. } (32... Kf7 33. g4 a5 34. a4 h5 35. gxh5 gxh5 36. Rxa5 Ng6 37. Kxe3 h4 38. Rad5 Ke7 39. a5) 33. Rc8 Rxd7?! { (24.96 ? Mate in 8) Checkmate is now unavoidable. Best move was Kh6. } (33... Kh6) 34. Rxd7+ Kf6 35. Rc6+ Nd6 36. Rcxd6+?! { (Mate in 2 ? Mate in 2) Not the best checkmate sequence. Best move was g4. } (36. g4 a5 37. Rcxd6#) 36... Kf5 37. Kxe3?! { (Mate in 2 ? Mate in 4) Not the best checkmate sequence. Best move was Kf3. } (37. Kf3 g5 38. Rf7#) 37... Kg4 38. Rxh7 g5 39. fxg5?! { (Mate in 3 ? Mate in 4) Not the best checkmate sequence. Best move was Ke4. } (39. Ke4 a5 40. Rg6 a4 41. Rxg5#) 39... Kxg5 40. Rc7 Kf5 41. Rc5+ Kg4 42. Rd4# { White wins by checkmate. } 1-0 *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18733" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-04-21T16:44:35.630" LastActivityDate="2019-04-22T03:56:38.167" Title="Why is 6. a3 a mistake compared to Qa4+?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24276" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23938" CreationDate="2019-04-21T20:13:25.537" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is an improvement over my original suggestion. The game finishes after White's 128th move, repeating the position after their 62nd and 87th moves, so the distance is 66 moves. The source for this game was Mark Crowther's &lt;a href=&quot;http://theweekinchess.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;The Week in Chess&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Int ch-Central SRB Op A&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Paracin SRB&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2016.07.12&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;7.38&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Tisma,I&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Krasteva,Beloslava&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1/2-1/2&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Nf3 d5 2. d4 Nf6 3. c4 e6 4. g3 Be7 5. Bg2 O-O 6. O-O Nbd7 7. Qc2 c5 8.&#xA;cxd5 exd5 9. dxc5 Nxc5 10. Nc3 Be6 11. Be3 Rc8 12. Rfd1 Nce4 13. Qa4 Nxc3&#xA;14. bxc3 a6 15. Rab1 Bd7 16. Qb3 b5 17. Ne5 Be6 18. Bd4 Qc7 19. a4 Rb8 20.&#xA;axb5 Rxb5 21. Qa2 Rfb8 22. Rxb5 axb5 23. Nd3 Ne4 24. Qb2 Bf6 25. Bxe4 dxe4&#xA;26. Nb4 Rd8 27. Nc2 Bc4 28. Ne3 Bg5 29. Ng2 Ra8 30. Ra1 Qb7 31. h4 Be7 32.&#xA;Rxa8+ Qxa8 33. Ne3 Qa4 34. Qd2 Be6 35. Kh2 h6 36. Ng2 Qa8 37. Qf4 Bc4 38.&#xA;Qg4 Bf8 39. Nf4 Qc6 40. h5 Be6 41. Nxe6 Qxe6 42. Qxe6 fxe6 43. Be5 Kf7 44.&#xA;Kh3 Bc5 45. e3 Be7 46. Kg4 Bg5 47. Bd4 Kf8 48. f4 Bf6 49. Bxf6 gxf6 50. f5&#xA;e5 51. Kh3 Ke7 52. Kg2 Kd6 53. Kf2 Kc5 54. Ke2 b4 55. g4 bxc3 56. Kd1 Kd6&#xA;57. Kc2 Kc6 58. Kxc3 Kc5 59. Kb3 Kd5 60. Kb4 Kd6 61. Kb5 Kd5 62. Ka4 Kc6&#xA;63. Kb3 Kd7 64. Kc3 Kc7 65. Kb4 Kd6 66. Kb5 Kd5 67. Kb6 Kd6 68. Kb7 Kd7 69.&#xA;Ka6 Kc6 70. Ka5 Kc5 71. Ka4 Kc6 72. Kb3 Kd7 73. Kc3 Kc7 74. Kc4 Kc6 75. Kb3&#xA;Kd7 76. Kb4 Kd6 77. Kb5 Kd5 78. Ka6 Kc6 79. Ka7 Kc7 80. Ka8 Kc8 81. Ka7 Kc7&#xA;82. Ka6 Kc6 83. Ka5 Kc5 84. Ka4 Kc6 85. Ka3 Kc5 86. Kb3 Kd5 87. Ka4 Kc6 88.&#xA;Kb4 Kd6 89. Kb5 Kd5 90. Kb6 Kd6 91. Ka5 Kc5 92. Ka4 Kc6 93. Ka3 Kc7 94. Kb3&#xA;Kd7 95. Kb4 Kd6 96. Kb5 Kd5 97. Kb6 Kd6 98. Ka5 Kc5 99. Ka4 Kc6 100. Ka3&#xA;Kc7 101. Kb2 Kd8 102. Kc3 Kc7 103. Kb3 Kd7 104. Kc3 Kc7 105. Kb4 Kd6 106.&#xA;Ka5 Kc5 107. Ka4 Kc6 108. Kb3 Kd7 109. Kc3 Kc7 110. Kb4 Kd6 111. Kb5 Kd7&#xA;112. Kb6 Kd6 113. Kb7 Kd7 114. Ka6 Kc6 115. Ka5 Kc5 116. Ka4 Kc6 117. Ka3&#xA;Kc7 118. Kb3 Kd7 119. Kc3 Kc7 120. Kb3 Kd7 121. Ka4 Kc6 122. Kb4 Kd6 123.&#xA;Kb5 Kd5 124. Kb6 Kd6 125. Kb5 Kd5 126. Kb6 Kd6 127. Kb5 Kd5 128. Ka4&#xA;1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The following was my original offering which finishes after Black's 146th move, with the same position having previously occurred after their 96th and 117th moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Internet Section 14-A&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Dos Hermanas&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2003.03.14&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;1&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Keskinen, Sauli&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Verhagen, Emmanuel&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1/2-1/2&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 exd4 4. c3 d3 5. Bxd3 d6 6. h3 Be7 7. O-O Nf6 8.&#xA;Nd4 O-O 9. Nd2 Bd7 10. f4 Qc8 11. N2f3 a6 12. Be3 Nxd4 13. cxd4 c5 14. Rc1&#xA;b5 15. b3 Qb7 16. dxc5 dxc5 17. Bxc5 Bxc5+ 18. Rxc5 Qb6 19. b4 a5 20. a3&#xA;axb4 21. axb4 Rfd8 22. Kh2 Be6 23. Qb1 h6 24. Rxb5 Qd6 25. Ne5 Nd7 26. Rd1&#xA;Nxe5 27. fxe5 Qe7 28. Rc5 Qg5 29. Qc1 Qg6 30. b5 Ra2 31. Bf1 Rxd1 32. Qxd1&#xA;Qxe4 33. Qd8+ Kh7 34. Bd3 Rxg2+ 35. Kh1 Bf5 36. Bxe4 Bxe4 37. Qd4 Rg4+ 38.&#xA;Kh2 Rg2+ 39. Kh1 Rg4+ 40. Kh2 Rg2+ 41. Kh1 Rg4+ 42. Qxe4+ Rxe4 43. Kg2 Rb4&#xA;44. Kg3 Kg6 45. Rd5 Kf5 46. Rd7 Kxe5 47. Rxf7 g5 48. Rh7 Rxb5 49. Rxh6 Kf5&#xA;50. Rh8 Rb3+ 51. Kh2 Kf4 52. Rf8+ Ke4 53. Kg2 Ke5 54. Rf2 Ke4 55. Rf8 Ke5&#xA;56. Re8+ Kf5 57. Rf8+ Kg6 58. Rg8+ Kh5 59. Rh8+ Kg6 60. Rf8 Kh5 61. Rf7 Kg6&#xA;62. Rf8 Kh5 63. Rc8 Kg6 64. Rc6+ Kh5 65. Rf6 g4 66. Rf5+ Kh4 67. hxg4 Kxg4&#xA;68. Rf8 Rb2+ 69. Kf1 Kg3 70. Ke1 Kg4 71. Rg8+ Kf3 72. Rf8+ Ke3 73. Re8+ Kf3&#xA;74. Rf8+ Ke3 75. Re8+ Kf3 76. Kd1 Rh2 77. Kc1 Rg2 78. Kd1 Rh2 79. Rf8+ Ke3&#xA;80. Re8+ Kd3 81. Rd8+ Ke3 82. Ra8 Kd3 83. Ra3+ Ke4 84. Ke1 Kf4 85. Kf1 Ke4&#xA;86. Kg1 Rb2 87. Ra4+ Kf3 88. Ra3+ Kf4 89. Ra8 Kf3 90. Rf8+ Kg3 91. Rg8+ Kf3&#xA;92. Rf8+ Kg3 93. Rg8+ Kf3 94. Ra8 Kg3 95. Ra3+ Kf4 96. Kf1 Ke4 97. Ke1 Kf4&#xA;98. Kd1 Rh2 99. Kc1 Ke4 100. Kb1 Kd4 101. Ra4+ Ke3 102. Ra8 Kd3 103. Rd8+&#xA;Kc3 104. Rd1 Kb3 105. Rd3+ Kc4 106. Rd8 Kc3 107. Rc8+ Kb3 108. Rb8+ Kc3&#xA;109. Rg8 Kb3 110. Rg3+ Kc4 111. Rg4+ Kb3 112. Rg3+ Kc4 113. Kc1 Kd4 114.&#xA;Kd1 Ke4 115. Ke1 Kf4 116. Ra3 Ke4 117. Kf1 Rb2 118. Ke1 Kd4 119. Ra4+ Ke3&#xA;120. Ra3+ Ke4 121. Kd1 Kd4 122. Kc1 Rh2 123. Ra8 Kc3 124. Rc8+ Kd3 125.&#xA;Rd8+ Ke3 126. Ra8 Kd3 127. Ra3+ Kc4 128. Ra4+ Kc3 129. Ra3+ Kc4 130. Ra8&#xA;Kc3 131. Rc8+ Kd3 132. Rd8+ Kc3 133. Rc8+ Kd3 134. Rd8+ Kc3 135. Rc8+ Kd3&#xA;136. Kb1 Kd4 137. Rd8+ Kc3 138. Rg8 Kb3 139. Rg3+ Kc4 140. Kc1 Kd4 141. Kd1&#xA;Ke4 142. Ke1 Kf4 143. Ra3 Ke4 144. Ra4+ Ke3 145. Ra3+ Ke4 146. Kf1 Rb2&#xA;1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have some longer examples but, in those cases, the repetitions occur more than three times.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The original process was fairly messy but I have now streamlined it in the light of experience:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Use my &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.cs.kent.ac.uk/~djb/pgn-extract/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;pgn-extract&lt;/a&gt; program to identify games with three-fold repetition. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Use pgn-extract again to output the matched games in EPD notation - essentially, the FEN string after every move.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Use a Perl script to read the EPD version of a game and find the distance between the first and last occurrences of the terminating position, and the number of repetitions. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Sort the distances, find the largest and then match it up with the original game. As a side effect, this process allows those games that didn't actually end by repetition to be eliminated.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of 3.2M games in one database, about 50,000 had 3-fold repetitions occurring somewhere but only around 35,000 ended by repetition. Of those, about 87% ended as soon as the third repetition occurred.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is an example with a longer distance: 73 moves occurring 10 times (48, 53, 61, etc.).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;GER-chT U12&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Verden/Aller&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2002.12.30&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;7.2&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Mader, Manuela&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Voelz, Michael&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1/2-1/2&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Bc5 4. b4 Bxb4 5. c3 Be7 6. d4 exd4 7. O-O d3 8.&#xA;Qb3 d5 9. Bxd5 Na5 10. Bxf7+ Kf8 11. Qd5 Qxd5 12. Bxd5 c6 13. Bxg8 Rxg8 14.&#xA;Nbd2 c5 15. Nb3 Nc6 16. Ba3 c4 17. Bxe7+ Kxe7 18. Nbd4 Nxd4 19. Nxd4 Bd7&#xA;20. a4 b6 21. Rfb1 Rgb8 22. Rb4 Rc8 23. Kf1 Kd6 24. Ke1 Rc5 25. Kd2 Rf8 26.&#xA;Ke3 Ke5 27. a5 b5 28. Rab1 a6 29. Rf1 g5 30. Nf3+ Ke6 31. Nd4+ Ke5 32. Nf3+&#xA;Kd6 33. Nd4 Re5 34. Nf3 Rc5 35. Nd4 Bg4 36. f3 Bd7 37. h3 Re5 38. Rf2 Re7&#xA;39. Rb1 Ke5 40. Rh1 h6 41. g3 Ref7 42. Rhh2 h5 43. g4 h4 44. Rh1 Rf4 45.&#xA;Rhf1 Re8 46. Rg1 Rg8 47. Rgf1 Rd8 48. Rd1 Rb8 49. Rb1 Re8 50. Re1 Rb8 51.&#xA;Rb1 Ra8 52. Ra1 Rd8 53. Rd1 Rh8 54. Rh1 Rhf8 55. Rhf1 Rg8 56. Rg1 Rb8 57.&#xA;Rb1 Rc8 58. Rc1 Ra8 59. Ra1 Raf8 60. Raf1 Rd8 61. Rd1 Re8 62. Re1 Rc8 63.&#xA;Rc1 Rg8 64. Rb1 Rgf8 65. Rbf1 Rd8 66. Rd1 Rc8 67. Rc1 Rb8 68. Rb1 Rbf8 69.&#xA;Rbf1 Re8 70. Re1 Rb8 71. Rb1 Ra8 72. Ra1 Rg8 73. Rg1 Re8 74. Re1 Rd8 75.&#xA;Rd1 Rg8 76. Rg1 Rb8 77. Rb1 Rc8 78. Rc1 Rcf8 79. Rcf1 Rb8 80. Rb1 Ra8 81.&#xA;Ra1 Rg8 82. Rg1 Rgf8 83. Rgf1 Rd8 84. Rd1 Rc8 85. Rc1 Rb8 86. Rb1 Ra8 87.&#xA;Ra1 Rh8 88. Rh1 Rg8 89. Rg1 Rgf8 90. Rgf1 Rb8 91. Rb1 Ra8 92. Ra1 Raf8 93.&#xA;Raf1 Rb8 94. Rb1 Re8 95. Re1 Ref8 96. Ref1 Rd8 97. Rd1 Rb8 98. Rb1 Rbf8 99.&#xA;Rbf1 Re8 100. Re1 Rd8 101. Rd1 Rdf8 102. Rdf1 Rg8 103. Rg1 Rgf8 104. Rgf1&#xA;Rb8 105. Rb1 Rbf8 106. Rbf1 Re8 107. Re1 Rd8 108. Rd1 Rb8 109. Rb1 Ra8 110.&#xA;Ra1 Rh8 111. Rh1 Rhf8 112. Rhf1 Rc8 113. Rc1 Rb8 114. Rb1 Rg8 115. Rg1 Re8&#xA;116. Re1 Rc8 117. Rc1 Ra8 118. Ra1 Rh8 119. Rh1 Rhf8 120. Rhf1 Rd8 121. Rd1&#xA;1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have no idea what was going on with the following example. The repetition occurs 28 times, starting after White's 67th move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Dos Hermanas&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2004.03.08&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;9&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Garvin Mejia, Ricardo Luis&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Arroyo, Roberto Carlos&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1/2-1/2&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 d5 2. exd5 Qxd5 3. Nc3 Qa5 4. d4 Nf6 5. Bc4 Bf5 6. Ne2 e6 7. Ng3 Bg6&#xA;8. Bd2 c6 9. h4 h6 10. Nd5 Qd8 11. Nf4 Bh7 12. Qe2 Bxc2 13. Bc3 Bh7 14. d5&#xA;cxd5 15. Bxf6 gxf6 16. Nxd5 Be7 17. Nxe7 Qxe7 18. O-O O-O 19. Rfe1 Nc6 20.&#xA;Bb5 Nd4 21. Qg4+ Bg6 22. Qxd4 e5 23. Qg4 Kh8 24. Qe2 a6 25. Bd3 Rg8 26. Qe3&#xA;Kh7 27. Nf5 Bxf5 28. Bxf5+ Kg7 29. Rad1 Rad8 30. Rxd8 Qxd8 31. f4 exf4 32.&#xA;Qxf4 Qb6+ 33. Qf2 Qxf2+ 34. Kxf2 Rd8 35. Re2 Rd5 36. g4 Ra5 37. a3 Ra4 38.&#xA;Re7 b5 39. Ra7 a5 40. Be6 b4 41. Bxf7 Kf8 42. Bb3 bxa3 43. Bxa4 a2 44. Ra8+&#xA;Kg7 45. Ra7+ Kf8 46. Ra8+ Kg7 47. Ra7+ Kf8 48. Ra8+ Kg7 49. Ra7+ Kf8 50.&#xA;Ra8+ Kg7 51. Ra7+ Kf8 52. Ra8+ Kg7 53. Ra7+ Kf8 54. Ra8+ Kg7 55. Ra7+ Kf8&#xA;56. Ra8+ Kg7 57. Ra7+ Kf8 58. Ra8+ Kg7 59. Ra7+ Kf8 60. Ra8+ Kg7 61. Ra7+&#xA;Kf8 62. Ra8+ Kg7 63. Ra7+ Kf8 64. Ra8+ Kg7 65. Ra7+ Kf8 66. Rxa5 a1=Q 67.&#xA;Ra8+ Kg7 68. Ra7+ Kf8 69. Ra8+ Kg7 70. Ra7+ Kf8 71. Ra8+ Kg7 72. Ra7+ Kf8&#xA;73. Ra8+ Kg7 74. Ra7+ Kf8 75. Ra8+ Kg7 76. Ra7+ Kf8 77. Ra8+ Kg7 78. Ra7+&#xA;Kf8 79. Ra8+ Kg7 80. Ra7+ Kf8 81. Ra8+ Kg7 82. Ra7+ Kf8 83. Ra8+ Kg7 84.&#xA;Ra7+ Kf8 85. Ra8+ Kg7 86. Ra7+ Kf8 87. Ra8+ Kg7 88. Ra7+ Kf8 89. Ra8+ Kg7 &#xA;90. Ra7+ Kf8 91. Ra8+ Kg7 92. Ra7+ Kf8 93. Ra8+ Kg7 94. Ra7+ Kf8 95. Ra8+ &#xA;Kg7 96. Ra7+ Kf8 97. Ra8+ Kg7 98. Ra7+ Kf8 99. Ra8+ Kg7 100. Ra7+ Kf8 101.&#xA;Ra8+ Kg7 102. Ra7+ Kf8 103. Ra8+ Kg7 104. Ra7+ Kf8 105. Ra8+ Kg7 106. Ra7+&#xA;Kf8 107. Ra8+ Kg7 108. Ra7+ Kf8 109. Ra8+ Kg7 110. Ra7+ Kf8 111. Ra8+ Kg7&#xA;112. Ra7+ Kf8 113. Ra8+ Kg7 114. Ra7+ Kf8 115. Ra8+ Kg7 116. Ra7+ Kf8 117.&#xA;Ra8+ Kg7 118. Ra7+ Kf8 119. Ra8+ Kg7 120. Ra7+ Kf8 121. Ra8+ 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For completeness, here is the 131-move repetition but from the tags I presume this was played in an Under-10 tournament, so probably not of great significance:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;GER-ch U10&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Ueberlingen&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2000.06.05&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;3&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Ugur, Ozgur&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Cammann, Tim&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1/2-1/2&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Nf6 4. Nc3 Bb4 5. d3 Nd4 6. Be3 c5 7. O-O O-O 8.&#xA;a3 Bxc3 9. bxc3 Nxf3+ 10. Qxf3 d6 11. h3 Qa5 12. Qd1 Qxc3 13. Bd2 Qb2 14.&#xA;Ra2 Qb6 15. Qf3 Qd8 16. Qg3 Ne8 17. Bh6 Bd7 18. Be3 b5 19. Bb3 a5 20. c3 a4&#xA;21. Bc2 Qa5 22. Bd2 Rb8 23. Qe3 Be6 24. Rb2 Nf6 25. Rfb1 Bd7 26. c4 Qa6 27.&#xA;cxb5 Bxb5 28. Bc3 Rb7 29. Qd2 Rfb8 30. Qd1 h6 31. Bd2 d5 32. exd5 Nxd5 33.&#xA;Qg4 Bd7 34. Rxb7 Rxb7 35. Qd1 Rxb1 36. Qxb1 Qb5 37. Qe1 f6 38. Qe4 Qc6 39.&#xA;Bxa4 Qxa4 40. Qxd5+ Kh7 41. Qa2 Bb5 42. Be3 Qd1+ 43. Kh2 Qxd3 44. Bxc5 Qc4&#xA;45. Qxc4 Bxc4 46. Kg3 Kg8 47. Kg4 Kf7 48. Kh5 Be2+ 49. Kh4 g5+ 50. Kg3 h5&#xA;51. f3 f5 52. Be3 f4+ 53. Kf2 Bd3 54. Bd2 Kf6 55. Ke1 Kf5 56. Kf2 h4 57.&#xA;Ke1 e4 58. fxe4+ Bxe4 59. Kf2 g4 60. a4 g3+ 61. Kg1 Bd5 62. a5 Bc4 63. a6&#xA;Bxa6 64. Bxf4 Kxf4 65. Kh1 Bc8 66. Kg1 Bb7 67. Kh1 Bxg2+ 68. Kxg2 Ke3 69.&#xA;Kg1 Ke2 70. Kg2 Ke1 71. Kg1 Ke2 72. Kg2 Ke3 73. Kg1 Ke4 74. Kg2 Kf4 75. Kg1&#xA;Kf5 76. Kg2 Ke4 77. Kg1 Ke5 78. Kg2 Kf4 79. Kg1 Kf3 80. Kf1 Ke3 81. Kg1 Ke2&#xA;82. Kg2 Ke3 83. Kg1 Kf4 84. Kg2 Ke4 85. Kg1 Kd5 86. Kg2 Ke4 87. Kg1 Kd3 88.&#xA;Kh1 Kc3 89. Kg2 Kd2 90. Kh1 Kd3 91. Kg1 Kc4 92. Kg2 Kd5 93. Kh1 Ke6 94. Kg2&#xA;Kf7 95. Kf3 Kg6 96. Kg2 Kh5 97. Kf3 Kh6 98. Kg2 Kh7 99. Kg1 Kg8 100. Kh1&#xA;Kf8 101. Kg2 Ke8 102. Kg1 Kd8 103. Kh1 Kc8 104. Kg2 Kb8 105. Kg1 Ka8 106.&#xA;Kg2 Ka7 107. Kg1 Ka6 108. Kg2 Ka5 109. Kg1 Ka4 110. Kg2 Ka3 111. Kg1 Ka2&#xA;112. Kg2 Ka1 113. Kg1 Kb1 114. Kg2 Kc1 115. Kg1 Kb2 116. Kg2 Kb3 117. Kg1&#xA;Kb4 118. Kg2 Kb5 119. Kg1 Kb6 120. Kg2 Kb7 121. Kg1 Kb8 122. Kg2 Kc8 123.&#xA;Kg1 Kc7 124. Kf1 Kc6 125. Kg2 Kc5 126. Kg1 Kc4 127. Kg2 Kc3 128. Kg1 Kc2&#xA;129. Kg2 Kc1 130. Kg1 Kd1 131. Kh1 Kd2 132. Kg2 Kd3 133. Kh1 Kd4 134. Kg2&#xA;Kd5 135. Kg1 Kd6 136. Kg2 Kd7 137. Kg1 Kd8 138. Kg2 Ke8 139. Kg1 Ke7 140.&#xA;Kg2 Ke6 141. Kg1 Ke5 142. Kg2 Ke4 143. Kg1 Ke3 144. Kh1 Kf4 145. Kg2 Kg5&#xA;146. Kf3 Kh6 147. Kg2 Kh7 148. Kg1 Kg7 149. Kg2 Kf7 150. Kg1 Ke7 151. Kg2&#xA;Kd7 152. Kg1 Kc7 153. Kg2 Kb7 154. Kg1 Ka7 155. Kg2 Ka6 156. Kg1 Kb6 157.&#xA;Kg2 Kc6 158. Kg1 Kd6 159. Kg2 Ke6 160. Kg1 Kf6 161. Kg2 Kg6 162. Kg1 Kh5&#xA;163. Kg2 Kg5 164. Kg1 Kf5 165. Kg2 Ke5 166. Kg1 Kd5 167. Kg2 Kc5 168. Kg1&#xA;Kb5 169. Kg2 Ka5 170. Kg1 Ka4 171. Kg2 Ka3 172. Kg1 Ka2 173. Kg2 Kb2 174.&#xA;Kg1 Kc2 175. Kg2 Kd2 176. Kg1 Kd3 177. Kg2 Kd4 178. Kg1 Kd5 179. Kg2 Kd6&#xA;180. Kg1 Kd7 181. Kg2 Kd8 182. Kf1 Ke8 183. Kg1 Kf8 184. Kg2 Kg8 185. Kg1&#xA;Kh8 186. Kg2 Kh7 187. Kg1 Kh6 188. Kg2 Kh5 189. Kg1 Kg5 190. Kg2 Kf5 191.&#xA;Kg1 Ke5 192. Kg2 Kd5 193. Kg1 Kc6 194. Kg2 Kb5 195. Kg1 Kb4 196. Kg2 Kc4&#xA;197. Kg1 Kd3 198. Kg2 Ke4 199. Kg1 Ke5 200. Kg2 Kf6 201. Kf1 Kf7 202. Kg1&#xA;Kg7 203. Kg2 Kf6 204. Kg1 Ke7 205. Kg2 Kd7 206. Kf3 Kc6 207. Ke2 Kc5 208.&#xA;Kf1 Kc4 209. Kg2 Kb4 210. Kg1 Kb5 211. Kg2 Kc6 212. Kg1 Kd7 213. Kg2 Ke7&#xA;214. Kg1 Kd6 215. Kg2 Kc7 216. Kg1 Kb6 217. Kg2 Ka5 218. Kg1 Ka6 219. Kg2&#xA;Ka7 220. Kg1 Ka8 221. Kg2 Kb8 222. Kg1 Kc8 223. Kg2 Kd8 224. Kg1 Ke8 225.&#xA;Kg2 Kf8 226. Kg1 Kg8 227. Kg2 Kh7 228. Kg1 Kg6 229. Kg2 Kf5 230. Kg1 Ke6&#xA;231. Kg2 Kd6 232. Kg1 Kc7 233. Kg2 Kd8 234. Kg1 Ke7 235. Kg2 Kf7 236. Kg1&#xA;Ke6 237. Kg2 Kd5 238. Kg1 Kc4 239. Kg2 Kb3 240. Kg1 Kc4 241. Kg2 Kc3 242.&#xA;Kg1 Kb4 243. Kg2 Ka5 244. Kg1 Kb6 245. Kh1 Kc7 246. Kg1 Kd8 247. Kh1 Ke8&#xA;248. Kg1 Kd7 249. Kg2 Kc6 250. Kg1 Kb6 251. Kf1 Kc5 252. Kg2 Kd5 253. Kg1&#xA;Kd4 254. Kg2 Kd5 255. Kg1 Ke6 256. Kg2 Kf7 257. Kg1 Kf6 258. Kg2 Kf5 259.&#xA;Kg1 Ke5 260. Kg2 Kd5 261. Kg1 Kc4 262. Kf1 Kd5 263. Kg2 Kc6 264. Kg1 Kb5&#xA;265. Kg2 Kb4 266. Kg1 Kc5 267. Kg2 Kd6 268. Kg1 Ke5 269. Kg2 Kd5 270. Kg1&#xA;Kc4 271. Kg2 Kc3 272. Kg1 Kb3 273. Kg2 Kc4 274. Kg1 Kd3 275. Kh1 Ke4 276.&#xA;Kg2 Ke5 277. Kg1 Ke6 278. Kg2 Kf6 279. Kg1 Kg7 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12951" LastEditorUserId="12951" LastEditDate="2019-05-19T18:45:47.557" LastActivityDate="2019-05-19T18:45:47.557" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24277" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24275" CreationDate="2019-04-22T00:19:10.180" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;In short&lt;/strong&gt;: &lt;code&gt;Qa4&lt;/code&gt; forces black to lose grip over central light squares as black is tactically being restricted to recapturing with a queen on &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt; instead of a pawn, leading to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/pNGReb.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/pNGReb.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As opposed to any of the actually desirable and common setups for black, which might look like: (with &lt;code&gt;Nf6&lt;/code&gt; instead of &lt;code&gt;Bb4&lt;/code&gt;, and quick &lt;code&gt;Bb7&lt;/code&gt; and castling being prioritized)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/KpMAXb.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/KpMAXb.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/A9iZnb.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/A9iZnb.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/LyrCGb.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/LyrCGb.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It helps to try and understand the purpose of every move at a basic level, let's start with your 3rd move &lt;code&gt;c4:&lt;/code&gt; Clearly, one of the most common and signature moves of all queen's pawn games, but what purpose does it serve?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Openings are a lot about taking control over the centre and not conceding it easily to your opponent, so when white plays &lt;code&gt;1.d4&lt;/code&gt;, they're claiming control over dark squares, namely &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;c5,&lt;/code&gt; similarly, black replying with &lt;code&gt;1...d5&lt;/code&gt; they're reciprocating by controlling &lt;code&gt;c4&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; (so light square control). And that brings us to the famous &lt;code&gt;c4&lt;/code&gt; move, which attempts to undermine black's control over light square, so whenever white manages to force black's hands into either taking on &lt;code&gt;c4&lt;/code&gt; or recapturing on &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt; with a non-pawn piece, you could say white has achieved a small success in central control, which among other options may allow white to play &lt;code&gt;e3-e4-e5&lt;/code&gt; and take away more squares from black's minor pieces. These ideas should make it a bit more intuitive as to why, &lt;em&gt;black recapturing with a non-pawn&lt;/em&gt; ought to be a strategic gain for white. Let's summarise with a diagram, in blue the desired central setup with &lt;code&gt;d4-e4&lt;/code&gt;, and the green &lt;code&gt;c4&lt;/code&gt; the enabler, and in turn black's intends to keep maintain grip over &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt; with &lt;code&gt;e6/c6.&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/1aLkVb.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/1aLkVb.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now let's have a closer look at your game: &lt;code&gt;5...Bb4&lt;/code&gt; by black is a terribly odd and poor move: black is playing rather inconsistently, first opting for an early queen-side development with &lt;code&gt;b6&lt;/code&gt; to fianchetto their &lt;code&gt;c8&lt;/code&gt; bishop, but then develop their dark squared bishop, temporarily ignoring the created light square weaknesses, in particular &lt;code&gt;c6&lt;/code&gt;. Moreover, bishop developments before knights are possible but rather rare, in general knights are more easily developed (as their restricted movement makes their optimal development easier to resolve given a structure), and they in turn create useful space for the bishops. And your game makes for a perfect example of such careless development as it can be tactically exploited with an immediate &lt;code&gt;Qa4+&lt;/code&gt; which:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Forces &lt;code&gt;Nc6&lt;/code&gt;, which is not only a non-ideal knight placement in this position (the structure tends to favour developments of the type &lt;code&gt;Nd7-Bb7-Nf6-Be7&lt;/code&gt; with an early &lt;code&gt;c5&lt;/code&gt; to challenge white's centre, impossible with a knight on &lt;code&gt;c6&lt;/code&gt;) but it also allows white to force a queen recapture on &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt; after &lt;code&gt;cxd5.&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;After &lt;code&gt;7.cxd5&lt;/code&gt;, black can either take on &lt;code&gt;c3&lt;/code&gt; first with check, or take on &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt; with &lt;code&gt;Qxd5&lt;/code&gt; immediately as the knight on &lt;code&gt;c3&lt;/code&gt; is pinned. Obviously, &lt;code&gt;exd5&lt;/code&gt; is not a choice as it outright blunders &lt;code&gt;c6&lt;/code&gt; since the queen will no longer be caged as it can take on &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt; afterwards.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Not only white will have fully claimed the centre, but they will also be much ahead in development and black has a real struggle ahead to even meaningfully finish development (no prospect for active knights, open files and rook activity ...) while parrying white's upcoming threats, to showcase with one possible scenario, after &lt;code&gt;7...Qxd5 8.Bd3 Ne7 9.O-O Bxc3 10.bxc3 O-O 11.e4 Qd8&lt;/code&gt; we reach the following position:&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/0MXx6b.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/0MXx6b.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that black conceding the &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt; pawn with either &lt;code&gt;dxc4&lt;/code&gt; or a non-pawn recapture would be acceptable provided they could maintain sufficient light square control with their minor pieces afterwards, e.g. a knight on &lt;code&gt;f6&lt;/code&gt; and a fiachetto'ed &lt;code&gt;b7&lt;/code&gt; bishop. The latter may further justify the opening of the long diagonal for creating active play against white's king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Last but no least, at a rough basic level similar to our earlier discussions, there are openings where black even encourages white towards an early advancement of central pawns, which black aims to exploit by either fixing the structure and therefore inducing a weakness (like the King's Indian Defence) or by actively trying to undermine the central structure in order to create a weakened target (such as the Grünfeld Defence), all backed by an early kingside development.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3594" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2019-04-22T00:19:10.180" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24285" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24297" CreationDate="2019-04-22T08:18:20.477" Score="3" ViewCount="334" Body="&lt;p&gt;How many solutions does the Knight’s Tour puzzle have when the knight first moves from square a1, through all squares (on each square once), and return back to a1? Please give some solutions. Also, does the Knight’s Tour have any solutions for starting from any random square? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18858" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-04-22T17:19:24.573" LastActivityDate="2019-04-23T03:06:42.977" Title="How many different knight's tours are there?" Tags="&lt;puzzles&gt;&lt;knights&gt;&lt;calculation&gt;&lt;mathematics&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24286" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24285" CreationDate="2019-04-22T09:42:19.937" Score="4" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Please share some solutions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you use the search function (top left corner of the screen) you will find &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/22292/can-a-knight-move-through-all-squares-from-its-original-position/22293#22293&quot;&gt;this answer&lt;/a&gt; with a beautiful picture of the moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;And also has this puzzle solutions from any random square?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you stop and think about it for a moment you will realise that if the knight starts on a1, moves through all the other squares exactly once before returning to a1 then that sequence of moves constitutes an answer for every square on the board. Hence every solution where the knight returns to the same square is a solution for every square of the board. This was also pointed out by Aric in his answer above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-04-22T09:50:40.293" LastActivityDate="2019-04-22T09:50:40.293" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24290" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24292" CreationDate="2019-04-22T20:43:20.000" Score="1" ViewCount="160" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know this sounds like a really basic question, but I couldn't find it anywhere on the site...  On the following board, is the black king actually in check (assuming it's his move)? My thoughts are just that white technically should not be allowed to move his bishop away, as it would place his king in check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/SAtKU.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/SAtKU.png&quot; alt=&quot;Is black king in check?&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My &lt;em&gt;guess&lt;/em&gt; would be that black &lt;em&gt;is&lt;/em&gt; in check because white could take his king before black could take his, but I'm looking for confirmation / refutation...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I guess what really made me ask the question was when I was placed in a situation in a chess game where I was in a similar situation, but I was able to place the white king in checkmate; something like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/EQuT7.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/EQuT7.png&quot; alt=&quot;Checkmate by rook&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;...where rook to a7 results in a checkmate for white.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Again, I have a feeling that the fact that white is in direct line to take black takes precedence over the rule that you are not allowed to put yourself in check by your moves, but again, I'm looking for confirmation / denial.  Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16096" LastActivityDate="2019-04-22T20:52:06.783" Title="Is black in check?" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;check&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2019-04-22T20:55:49.033" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24292" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24290" CreationDate="2019-04-22T20:52:06.783" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, black is in check. Pinned pieces are able to give check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your second position, &lt;code&gt;Ra7#&lt;/code&gt; is an illegal move. Black is in check, and thus must get out of check immediately.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10075" LastActivityDate="2019-04-22T20:52:06.783" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24293" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24294" CreationDate="2019-04-23T01:03:05.587" Score="3" ViewCount="316" Body="&lt;p&gt;On the one hand today's chess engines will stomp those from five years ago no problem, not to mention hardware improves; on the other hand, correspondence chess players emphasize that &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.chessbase.com/post/correspondence-chess-and-correspondence-database-2018&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;one can't just rely on the engine to play&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;DN: Every how often do you have to change your machine?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;WM: I've never changed my 'machine'. If we're talking about my computer for chess analysis, I'm using the same computer I've had since 2008. Modern correspondence chess isn't all about CPU power (although that obviously helps), but more about how you prepare each move and how you work with the engine in tandem with your own ideas. You can get lazy and buy a powerful computer, and probably get to a fairly decent rating on ICCF just parroting the engine, but that's not going to take you to the top ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are today's top correspondence chess players able to reliably beat those from five years ago?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Related: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/12974/are-contemporary-chess-players-now-stronger-than-players-in-the-90s-or-80s&quot;&gt;Are contemporary chess players now stronger than players in the 90's or 80's?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2020-06-08T19:48:08.470" Title="Are today's top correspondence chess players stronger than those from 5 years ago?" Tags="&lt;history&gt;&lt;correspondence-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24294" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24293" CreationDate="2019-04-23T02:06:53.437" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, mainly due to more advanced theory that wasn't known five (or more) years ago.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, while top Correspondence players do indeed combine engines with their own ideas, having an Engine that is a few hundred rating points higher is a definite factor. I find it hard to believe the person you quoted uses the same engine he has for 10 years. If he means the same computer though (so running the most recent Stockfish/Komodo/Houdini on an old computer), that sounds more understandable. In this case he's only sacrificing the amount of speed that a PC 10 years older gives up compared to PCs now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-04-23T02:06:53.437" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24295" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="730" CreationDate="2019-04-23T02:16:43.063" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sometimes the reason to promote to a knight is not that it avoids stalemate, forks, skewers, or saves a game. It can simply be that it is the strongest move in the position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to Tim Krabbe, on his site's page &lt;a href=&quot;https://timkr.home.xs4all.nl/records/records.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&amp;quot;Chess Records,&amp;quot;&lt;/a&gt; the game &lt;a href=&quot;https://chesstempo.com/gamedb/game/1669142&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Schweber-Wexler, Buenos Aires, 1964&lt;/a&gt; (link the chessgames.com) has such a position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;This is the only game with two Knight promotions that were the strongest move. Promotions to Queen would have been equally strong, but as the Knight promotions were checks, they were more obvious, and therefore genuine.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Schweber-Wexler, Buenos Aires, 1964&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;[startply &amp;quot;90&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 e6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 a6 5. Bd3 Qc7 6. O-O Nf6 7. Qe2 d6 8. f4 Nbd7 9. Kh1 Be7 10. c4 b6 11. Nc3 Bb7 12. Bd2 O-O 13. Rae1 Rad8 14. Bb1 Rfe8 15. f5 exf5 16. Nxf5 Bf8 17. Bg5 Rc8 18. Nh6+ gxh6 19. Bxf6 Nxf6 20. Rxf6 Bg7 21. Qg4 Re5 22. Rxh6 Qe7 23. Nd5 Qg5 24. Qxg5 Rxg5 25. Ne7+ Kf8 26. Nxc8 Bxh6 27. Nxd6 Bc6 28. Rf1 Be8 29. Nf5 Bg7 30. Nxg7 Kxg7 31. Kg1 Rc5 32. Bd3 Bd7 33. Kf2 Be6 34. b4 Rc7 35. Rc1 Kf6 36. Ke3 Ke5 37. a3 f6 38. c5 b5 39. a4 bxa4 40. Bxa6 a3 41. b5 a2 42. b6 Rg7 43. b7 Rg8 44. c6 Kd6 45. c7 a1=Q 46. c8=N+ Rxc8 47. bxc8=N+.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/RRjtnlDx&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Stockfish 8&lt;/a&gt; seems to agree with Tim Krabbe. I replicated Black’s last move in the position before White’s promotion, and Stockfish promoted to a knight. I followed with the same rook capture. Once more, the computer again played what White did; the second knight bounced along.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another good reason is that it comes with a checkmate. The score comes from &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1075778&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chessgames.com.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Wiede-Alphonse Goetz, Strasbourg, 1880&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;[startply &amp;quot;13&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. f4 exf4 3. b3 Qh4+ 4. g3 fxg3 5. h3 g2+ 6. Ke2 Qxe4+ 7. Kf2 gxh1=N#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, maybe you are Hikaru Nakamuru and you want to &lt;em&gt;horse&lt;/em&gt; around some for fun! Once more, the score comes from &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1480850&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chessgames.com.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Crafty Computer-Hikaru Nakamura, ICC Blitz, 2007&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;[startply &amp;quot;178&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Nc3 g6 2. e4 Bg7 3. Bc4 e6 4. Nf3 Ne7 5. O-O d6 6. d4 O-O 7. Bg5 h6 8. Be3 b6 9. Qd2 Kh7 10. d5 e5 11. Ne1 f5 12. f3 f4 13. Bf2 g5 14. Nd3 h5 15. Rae1 Ng6 16. Re2 Bh6 17. Ne1 g4 18. Qd3 a6 19. a4 Nd7 20. Kh1 Nf6 21. b4 Rf7 22. Rg1 g3 23. hxg3 fxg3 24. Bxg3 h4 25. Bxh4 Nxh4 26. g3 Ng6 27. Rh2 Kg7 28. Kg2 Rf8 29. Nd1 Rh8 30. Rgh1 Bg5 31. Rxh8 Nxh8 32. Nf2 Ng6 33. c3 Qe8 34. b5 a5 35. Nc2 Ne7 36. Nh3 Bxh3+ 37. Rxh3 Qg6 38. Kf2 Rh8 39. Rxh8 Kxh8 40. Ba2 Nd7 41. Ne1 Nc5 42. Qc2 Qh6 43. Ng2 Ng6 44. Bc4 Qh2 45. Bf1 Kg7 46. Qa2 Nf8 47. Bc4 Nh7 48. Kf1 Qh1+ 49. Kf2 Qc1 50. Be2 Nf6 51. Qc4 Bd2 52. g4 Qxc3 53. Qxc3 Bxc3 54. Bd1 Bd2 55. Nh4 Ng8 56. Ke2 Bg5 57. Nf5+ Kf7 58. Bc2 Ne7 59. Ng3 Nd7 60. Kd3 Ng6 61. Nf5 Kf6 62. Kc3 Nh4 63. Nxh4 Bxh4 64. Kd2 Kg5 65. Bd1 Kf4 66. Ke2 Nf6 67. Kf1 Nh7 68. Kg2 Be1 69. Kf1 Bg3 70. Be2 Ng5 71. Kg1 Nxf3+ 72. Kg2 Ne1+ 73. Kf1 Nc2 74. Kg2 Ne3+ 75. Kh3 Be1 76. g5 Kxg5 77. Kh2 Kf4 78. Bd3 Ng4+ 79. Kg2 Nf2 80. Bc2 Nxe4 81. Bb3 Nc5 82. Kf1 Nxb3 83. Kxe1 Nc5 84. Ke2 Nxa4 85. Ke1 Nc5 86. Kf2 Ke4 87. Kg2 Kxd5 88. Kg3 Kc4 89. Kg4 Kxb5 90. Kg3 a4 91. Kf3 a3 92. Ke3 a2 93. Kf2 a1=N 94. Ke3 Kc6 95. Kf3 Nab3 96. Kg4 Nd4 97. Kg5 Nde6+ 98. Kf5 Kd7 99. Kg4 b5 100. Kf3 b4 101. Kg3 b3 102. Kf3 b2 103. Kg4 b1=N 104. Kf5 Na3 105. Kg4 Nb7 106. Kf5 Nf8 107. Ke4 Nd8 108. Kd3 Nb5 109. Kc4 Na7 110. Kd3 Nc8 111. Ke4 Ke6 112. Ke3 d5 113. Kd2 c5 114. Kd1 e4 115. Kc2 d4 116. Kb2 Kd5 117. Kc1 c4 118. Kd2 e3+ 119. Ke1 Ke4 120. Kf1 d3 121. Ke1 c3 122. Kd1 c2+ 123. Kc1 e2 124. Kd2 Kd4 125. Ke1 c1=N 126. Kd2 Nb3+ 127. Ke1 Kc3 128. Kf2 Nc5 129. Ke1 Nce6 130. Kf2 Nc7 131. Kf3 e1=N+ 132. Kf2 Nc2 133. Kf1 Ne8 134. Kg2 Nfe6 135. Kf2 Nf6 136. Kf3 Nd6 137. Kg3 Nc6 138. Kg2 N2d4 139. Kh3 N4f5 140. Kg2 Nfe7 141. Kf2 Ng6 142. Ke1 Kc2 143. Kf2 d2 144. Kg2 d1=N 145. Kf1 Nc3 146. Kf2 Ncd5 147. Kg2 Nce5 148. Kg1 Nde4 149. Kg2 Nd4 150. Kg1 Ngf4 151. Kh1 Nfg4152. Kg1 Nde3 153. Kh1 Ndf5 154. Kg1 Nf3+ 155. Kh1 Nfg3# 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-05-02T05:04:32.377" LastActivityDate="2021-05-02T05:04:32.377" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24297" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24285" CreationDate="2019-04-23T03:06:42.977" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knight%27s_tour&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;quotes several sources for a count of 26,534,728,821,064 for the number&#xA;of closed directed tours of the 8x8 board.  As &lt;strong&gt;Brian Towers&lt;/strong&gt; notes&#xA;in his answer, that is equivalent to the count of Knight's tours&#xA;starting from some given square (such as a1) and ending on the same square.&#xA;The same Wikipedia page exhibits several such tours.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8860" LastActivityDate="2019-04-23T03:06:42.977" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24300" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24273" CreationDate="2019-04-23T16:35:26.980" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am not 2000+ rated, but I experience this myself from time to time (I actually got better). &#xA;Reasons I found why I do this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Being to excited about my plan, e.g. I see a nice tactic, which my opponent might not see, he plays a move which does not prevent it (apart from his threat).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&quot;I am winning feeling&quot;, I get this when I won previous games against someone and am in a winning position again. Sometimes (especially when tired) I start to &quot;just play it down&quot;. Then I start missing things like a Zwischenzug.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For countermeassures:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I focus more on opponents threats during his time, while developing my plans during my time. If he plays an unexpected move, I take my time. This way, I am constantly up to date about my opponents threats and I distribute enough time to think about his plans. If he plays really fast, I have to spend some of my time. Since I am used to spend more time for his plans, I do this quite automatically.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If I am feeling happy about a position, I tell myself, &quot;Nice position, lets focus and find the closing moves&quot;. This helps me to focus (again).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18963" LastActivityDate="2019-04-23T16:35:26.980" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24301" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24266" CreationDate="2019-04-23T17:46:21.830" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you're losing, then attempting to complicate matters is a good idea. It gives your opponent a chance to go wrong and you a chance to recover. I've saved many games by aggressive moves that upon scrutiny could be found wanting. If your opponent stays calm and analyzes them thoroughly, then chances are they probably won't work. But nothing has been lost by trying.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastActivityDate="2019-04-23T17:46:21.830" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24302" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24304" CreationDate="2019-04-23T19:24:49.990" Score="1" ViewCount="440" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have often heard (or this one video just got it stuck in my head) Youtube &lt;a href=&quot;https://youtu.be/r-xTunK0WcY&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;videos&lt;/a&gt; (the timestamp is 2:37, nothing else relevant) refer to this kind of pawn structure as a “crab” pawn structure (below, white pawns.) The name makes sense because it is like a crab pincer enclosing the board, as agadmator said.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is just an example; it is not to be analyzed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;[startply &amp;quot;8&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e3 f5 2. f4 Nf6 3. c4 c5 4. d3 Nc6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a good opening that revolves around such a “crab” pawn structure? I seek merely one, not all possible ones. As long as the structure of the pawns, as shown in the example, is the same, the “crab” can be anywhere on the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would like to utilize such an unorthodox playing method to surprise opponents. I would like to know the advantages/disadvantages of the opening, such as how to counter/play it. There is no need to cover all possible variations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-04-29T22:08:01.283" LastActivityDate="2021-04-29T22:08:01.283" Title="Looking for a single, good opening that revolves around a “crab” pawn structure" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;pawn-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2019-04-29T19:50:06.357" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24303" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24302" CreationDate="2019-04-24T01:29:26.077" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;To answer your question, there are no good openings that revolve around this &quot;crab&quot; pawn structure. This is because this structure takes a lot of pawn moves, decreases the mobility of your bishops, and creates weakness on the kingside. It would even be difficult to come up with a respectable variation of any opening that has this pawn structure (perhaps the variation in the link provided is playable, but I don't think it gives an objective advantage). &#xA;Of course the pawn structure in the link is different than the one you displayed. Either way, I recommend avoiding these &quot;crab&quot; structures at all costs. &#xA;If you want to surprise you're opponent with unorthodox openings in an aggressive manner, try some gambits out. For example, King's Gambit, Smith Morra Gambit, Evans Gambit, etc. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3872" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-04-24T01:49:53.207" LastActivityDate="2019-04-24T01:49:53.207" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24304" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24302" CreationDate="2019-04-24T02:10:46.727" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;One disadvantage of the position in your diagram is that the pawns on d3 and e3 are &quot;backward&quot;. That is, there are no pawns behind them and they cannot be safely advanced. Backward pawns are often a target for the opponent to aim at.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One advantage is that all four center squares are covered by your pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This pawn structure, if shifted one file towards the queenside, can arise from the Giuoco Pianissimo, among other openings. For example, the following is perfectly reasonable and has been played by multiple grandmasters:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;] &#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Bc5 4. c3 Nf6 5. d3 O-O 6. b4 *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's a game from 1857 where Paul Morphy wins against this structure, arising from a Roy Lopez opening:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Site &quot;New York (USA)&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;1857.??.??&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Meek A&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Morphy Paul&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;C65&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 Nf6 4.d3 Bc5 5.c3 d6 6.b4 Bb6 7.a4 a6 8.Bc4 Be6 9.Bxe6 fxe6 10.O-O O-O 11.Ng5 Qe7 12.Kh1 h6 13.Nh3 d5 14.Ba3 Nd8 15.b5 Bc5 16.Bb2 dxe4 17.d4 exd4 18.cxd4 Bd6 19.Nc3 axb5 20.axb5 Nf7 21.Qe2 Qd7 22.Nxe4 Nxe4 23.Qxe4 Qxb5 24.Rab1 Qd5 25.Qg4 Ra4 26.Nf4 Qe4 27.Bc1 Bxf4 28.Bxf4 Rxd4 29.Qh3 Qxf4  0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastEditorUserId="12629" LastEditDate="2019-04-24T02:39:14.710" LastActivityDate="2019-04-24T02:39:14.710" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24305" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24615" CreationDate="2019-04-24T02:38:37.880" Score="1" ViewCount="577" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://nextchessmove.com/dev-builds&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;NCM plays each Stockfish dev build 20,000 times against Stockfish 7. This yields an approximate Elo difference and establishes confidence in the strength of the dev builds.&lt;/a&gt; As of time of writing, one can see from the plot that Stockfish's strength hasn't really budged for a month: version 20190324-1637 had a performance of +217.95 +/- 3.73 elo relative to Stockfish 7, while the latest version 20190420-0634 is +221.52 +/- 3.79 elo. The gap is within the error bars. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(It's possible that this is sort of the expected performance increase in a month's time, but the latest version's results appear to be anomalously high. For example the next-latest version, 20190419-1533, is +218.61 +/- 3.77 and almost indistinguishable from the 20190324-1637 version.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The weird thing is, for each version of Stockfish to be promoted to the &quot;main version&quot;, it has to beat the previous version. All these new versions of Stockfish (that aren't non-functional changes) have to do this. If we look at &lt;a href=&quot;http://abrok.eu/stockfish/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;the catalogue of Stockfish patches&lt;/a&gt;, we see patches such as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Author: protonspring &#xA;  Date: Tue Apr 16 23:10:53 2019 +0200 &#xA;  Timestamp: 1555449053 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Move pawnsOnSquares to Position (#2100) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;We can remove the values in Pawns if we just use the piece arrays in Position. This reduces the size of a pawn entry. This simplification passed individually, and in concert with ps_passedcount100 (removes passedCount storage in pawns.). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;STC &#xA;  LLR: 2.95 (-2.94,2.94) [-3.00,1.00] &#xA;  Total: 19957 W: 4529 L: 4404 D: 11024 Elo +2.18&#xA;  &lt;a href=&quot;http://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/5cb3c2d00ebc5925cf016f0d&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/5cb3c2d00ebc5925cf016f0d&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Combo STC &#xA;  LLR: 2.95 (-2.94,2.94) [-3.00,1.00] &#xA;  Total: 17368 W: 3925 L: 3795 D: 9648 Elo +2.60&#xA;  &lt;a href=&quot;http://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/5cb3d3510ebc5925cf01709a&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/5cb3d3510ebc5925cf01709a&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In other words this version of Stockfish defeated the previous one by ~2 elo. Why isn't this ~2 elo showing up in the NCM data? I know elo isn't transitive (i.e. if engine A beats engine B by 50 elo and engine B beats engine C by 50 elo, it doesn't mean engine A beats engine C by 100 elo), but this is just one patch, and there were plenty of elo-gaining patches that passed Fishtest. For NCM to show &lt;em&gt;no progress&lt;/em&gt; for months, in spite of all these patches, doesn't make sense to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastActivityDate="2019-05-31T10:13:17.973" Title="Why does NCM show no progress for Stockfish when each new version has to beat the previous version?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24306" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24266" CreationDate="2019-04-24T04:31:28.893" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Depends on how much experience people have dealing with bluffing. The trick you mentioned can be effective at all levels, but against a 2000+ player (with lots of experience) it's likely to not have too much of an effective.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Still, the tactic has been used by GMs against other GMs successfully in the past. Karpov was once down a clear exchange against another top player in the world. He played so confidently that he messed his opponent up and either drew or won.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-04-24T04:31:28.893" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24307" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24263" CreationDate="2019-04-24T09:58:46.747" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Imagine White has two knights on b5 and e2 respectively (ie, 25 and 52) I think it would be confusing to write N243 rather than Nbd4 (we could still write N5d4, making a &quot;mistake&quot; but still not changing our move)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, there is no advantage to write everything in numbers, I'd say it loses legibility, as now our eyes can easily tell pieces (capital letters), files (lowercase letters) and ranks (numbers)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-06-25T17:05:40.237" LastActivityDate="2019-06-25T17:05:40.237" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24308" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24266" CreationDate="2019-04-24T10:19:07.243" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is not a mental trick, this is how chess should be played!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you cannot stop your opponent's attack, you'd better find yourself some counterplay. Of course, you won't always be able to calculate the consequences of your moves, but who cares? If you can pick between a weird success possibility and a certain faillure, the choice is not hard!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As your level increases, the &amp;quot;mental trick&amp;quot; won't move away, you will just learn how to create more subtle, precise ones, and also how to predict your opponents plan and react before!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastEditorUserId="18809" LastEditDate="2020-09-30T08:20:45.223" LastActivityDate="2020-09-30T08:20:45.223" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24309" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-04-24T11:23:15.527" Score="4" ViewCount="442" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you are familiar with watching chess broadcasts on ChessBomb, you'll know they have an engine running on the server which evaluates moves, and colors each move according to whether (according to SF) it was the correct move, an imprecise move, a mistake, a blunder etc. with colors ranging from bright blue (good) to bright red (bad). When switching to a game, one can then instantly see how well the game was played, and where a blunder/mistake may have occurred.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does anyone know if a similar feature is available in other chess software or websites where one can upload their own games? And get such color codings for their own games?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm only looking for something equivalent or very similar to this; I know some software uses graphs to display the +/- score as a function of the move number, and some software can auto-analyze all moves and annotate it with ? and ?! and such. I'm not looking for that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: below is an example of what I mean, when viewing a game in the mobile browser. It instantly shows all the moves and highlights which moves were good/bad.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/iZxXz.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="444" LastEditorUserId="444" LastEditDate="2019-04-24T14:38:33.023" LastActivityDate="2019-04-24T15:24:09.300" Title="Color-coding moves and games" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;evaluation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24311" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24309" CreationDate="2019-04-24T15:24:09.300" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here's how color-coded analysis looks on &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;the lichess desktop site&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/V50ou.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/V50ou.png&quot; alt=&quot;computer analysis&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you can see, depending on the severity of the error (according to Stockfish), different colored bars pop up on the game analysis - blue for an inaccuracy, orange for a mistake, and red for a blunder. A black bar will show if a player loses a forced checkmate sequence or blunders into a forced checkmate sequence. I don't have the app, currently, but I believe that the same thing shows up there, since I used to play exclusively on the app.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You get this color-coded analysis by clicking &quot;request a computer analysis&quot; - it's on the bottom of the screen on PC.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If anyone has the app downloaded at the moment, feel free to screenshot this feature and add it to this answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18168" LastActivityDate="2019-04-24T15:24:09.300" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24312" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24318" CreationDate="2019-04-24T15:45:32.247" Score="7" ViewCount="649" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've heard often about Elo Inflation among the top chess players, meaning that a player rated 2650 Elo nowadays is weaker compared to a player rated 2650 Elo player 10 years ago.&#xA;I'm curious if there's an opposite phenomenon on the lower end of the Elo bell curve:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is a 1500 Elo rated player nowadays stronger compared to a 1500 Elo rated player 10 years ago?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have this 'feeling' based on my personal experience but no data to back it up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Update: I'm referring to FIDE Elo ratings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15253" LastEditorUserId="15253" LastEditDate="2019-05-02T10:47:02.053" LastActivityDate="2019-09-12T10:52:42.650" Title="Is there a low-end ELO Deflation?" Tags="&lt;elo&gt;&lt;statistics&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24313" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24312" CreationDate="2019-04-24T16:16:38.560" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think most of the inflation-deflation debate is an excuse by formerly good players who have worsened or been surpassed by younger ones over time. I don't see any reason to believe that current 2650 ELO players are weaker than their predecessors.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the lower part of the spectrum, though, you may have a point, as lower and lower ratings get allowed into the FIDE lists, but, if anything, this should create inflation, as 1400-ish rated players now get rating for defeating 1100s, who a few years ago would've been unrated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In any case, I don't really know if a definite answer is possible&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-09-10T14:45:22.740" LastActivityDate="2019-09-10T14:45:22.740" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24314" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24263" CreationDate="2019-04-24T18:48:33.707" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;One reason would be to avoid confusion with earlier methods - such as numbering each square from 1 to 64, starting on black's side of the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;28&quot; could either be file 2, rank 8 (b8), or the 28th square from the upper left (d5).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17411" LastActivityDate="2019-04-24T18:48:33.707" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24315" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24312" CreationDate="2019-04-24T21:55:54.697" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Elo inflation occurs when the player base increases which allows the top players to take more points from the bottom players. The top ratings in a rating system are highly dependent on the size of the player pool. If there were only 10 rated chess players, even magnus wouldn't be much higher than around 1800 with a default rating of 1200.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ratings are used to compare people in the same pool, and comparing ratings from two different time periods are strictly different pools. In terms of pure ranking, a 2650 10 years ago would be higher up than a 2650 now, but it does not say anything about what would happen if they played each other. It could be the case that everybody got significantly better at chess in 10 years, so the 2650 player now would beat the 2650 10 years ago. It could also be the case that people didn't improve, so the 2650 player before would beat the 2650 player now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For in the middle ratings, there's barely any rating inflation to begin with. 1500 is still higher than the default 1200 so it would be inflated over time. However it's nowhere near as exaggerated at the end of the ratings pools. Deflation only occurs on ratings below the default rating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4393" LastActivityDate="2019-04-24T21:55:54.697" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24316" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24238" CreationDate="2019-04-25T03:05:45.287" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think you can check &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.lichess.org&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Lichess&lt;/a&gt;.&#xA;It has advanced board editor feature (along with study feature also). It uses stockfish 11 server analysis for analyzing the game, has massive database with millions of games and above all, it is completely FREE.&#xA;Go and check that out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15511" LastEditorUserId="24196" LastEditDate="2020-07-16T13:50:24.843" LastActivityDate="2020-07-16T13:50:24.843" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24317" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8225" CreationDate="2019-04-25T03:14:49.580" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;A good way to better understand this position is to try and play it with black. What you'll quickly notice that the Nd7 is awkwardly placed as it's blocking the Bc8 which in turn virtually stalemates the Ra8. Black has a handful of semi-useful moves they can try before they start looking for a new square for the Nd7, like moving the Nf6 to push f5 and perhaps move the Rf8 but ultimately the Nd7 WILL have to move. This means that the b6 square will inevitably become available for a white piece; whether that'll be relevant depends entirely on other decisions made by black, however.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for the d6 square, you definitely shouldn't be concerned about a knight defending it from e8. If black doesn't immediately lose tactically, they'll certainly have to sooner or later face the consequences of playing two rooks down.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Weak squares are undoubtedly a feature of the position you have to keep in mind but to me it's actually more important to determine what the ideas or plans for black can be and search for ways to prevent them or at least render them ineffective. Considering black's King's-Indian-like setup, if it were black to move, then they'd most likely go for the Nc5-Ne6 maneuver, assuming you aren't going to give up your DSB for a knight if you want to win the game. Nc5 can nevertheless be prevented by moving your queen to c4, which also gives your LSB a little more scope and frees up the d file for a rook. Qc4, moreover, will threaten Bc5 should the Nd7 go elsewhere. Lastly, it pins the f pawn to the king, which rules out f7-f5 for the time being. The white queen can always move away from c4 to allow for the Nd2-Nc4 maneuver later on. An engine might always come up with a better move, though, I haven't checked. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Remember that tactics flow from a superior position and a position where your opponent has all their pieces on the back rank certainly is superior for you. When your opponent has to make passive retreats with no potential to create counterplay, you have to treat it as one of a number of small strategic victories that you can accumulate until you gain a decisive advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18970" LastActivityDate="2019-04-25T03:14:49.580" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24318" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24312" CreationDate="2019-04-25T11:27:53.150" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;These questions of rating inflation/deflation over time are very tricky to answer objectively. It is very easy to find mid-range players who will say something like &quot;My rating today is about 200 points lower than it was 10 years ago but I'm just as strong if not stronger [spot the wishful thinking] therefore there must have been rating deflation at my level during this period&quot;. Full disclosure: I'm one of those mid range players :-)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To get more objective views (I think definitive answers are another, more complicated, matter) you have to look at how many players were above a given level today and 10 years ago and perhaps also the percentage of players who were above a given level today and 10 years ago.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That data is available via the FIDE rating website where it is possible to download &lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/download.phtml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;rating data&lt;/a&gt; going back to 2001.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are the figures from the January 2019 and January 2009 lists:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;January 2019&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Players rated above 2650 = 109 (0.0335%)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Players rated above 2100 = 40940 (12.6%)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Players rated above 1500 = 224873 (69.1%)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Total rated players = 325306   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;January 2009&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Players rated above 2650 = 75 (0.0756%)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Players rated above 2100 = 40044 (40.35%)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Players rated above 1500 = 98669 (99.4%)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Total rated players = 99232   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Interpreting these figures is difficult, particularly the percentage ones. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you just look at absolute values then there are a lot more players graded over 2650 today than 10 years ago and the same for players rated over 1500. This suggests rating inflation at both levels. I've also included values for players over 2100 because, intriguingly, these are almost unchanged.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you look at percentage values then a much smaller percentage of players are rated over 2650 today than 10 years ago and the same for players rated over 1500. This would suggest  a great deal of rating deflation at both 1500 and 2650 levels. The deflation is highest, however, at the 2100 level (out of the three levels I have looked at).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I think the percentage values are problematic. First if you look at the 1500 level 10 years ago there are only 563 players with ratings &amp;lt;= 1500. I suspect that this is because the only FIDE rated tournaments for players below 1500 were tournaments like continental and world junior tournaments going down to levels as low as 1001. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, the first player I can find to have had a rating just above 1500 was the Polish player Sebastian Kobus. His &lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/id.phtml?event=1140671&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;first rating was 1500&lt;/a&gt; in January 2006. For 1000 it was Indian player Hakeem Nikhil with a &lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/id.phtml?event=35036645&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;rating of 1003&lt;/a&gt; in September 2012. The first sub 1300 player was French player Michel Khechab with a &lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/id.phtml?event=639443&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;rating of 1260 in September 2009&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There were, of course, a lot of players playing tournament chess whose strength was below 1500 but they were all playing nationally graded chess because there simply were no FIDE rated tournaments for players that weak outside the big FIDE championship tournaments. Those figures show that today over 30% of players have a FIDE rating of 1500 or below compared to just 0.6% 10 years ago.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;My tentative conclusion is that there has been some rating &lt;strong&gt;inflation&lt;/strong&gt; at the level of 2650 and above because there has been a 45% increase in the number of players rated over 2650 which I think cannot be accounted for by increasing number of chess players.&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;I think there has been a lot of &lt;strong&gt;deflation&lt;/strong&gt; in higher mid-ranges (typified by the 2100 figures) because there has been some increase in chess playing numbers which is not reflected in higher numbers at these levels.&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;At the lower mid-range (1500) I think the data is unreliable 10 years ago due to the very small number of tournaments open to players of these levels and so it isn't possible to draw any conclusions about this level.&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Regarding the data for players at the 2100 and 2650 levels I think this is reliable because I think FIDE rated tournaments were capturing most players at these levels.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-09-12T10:52:42.650" LastActivityDate="2019-09-12T10:52:42.650" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24319" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24152" CreationDate="2019-04-25T18:19:00.487" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Matthew- Before claiming that something is strong you have to point out what it enables. This is the counterpart to the truism that nothing is weak unless it can be attacked. It is also true that nothing is strong unless it can be used to attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastActivityDate="2019-04-25T18:19:00.487" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24320" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8225" CreationDate="2019-04-25T20:10:07.347" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a profound question. I merely offer a few points to keep in mind. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can't avoid all weaknesses. In your position d6 is weak because Black has played c6. But if he had not played c6 then d5 might be a weakness. You need to judge which would be more serious. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Simply arriving at a weak square is not a great achievement unless there is something for the piece to do when it gets there. In your position b6 is perhaps weak, but weaknesses far from the center of the board are often not very important because other potential attackers cannot coordinate with it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is not always important to take advantage of weaknesses immediately. There is little that White can do directly in this position but he can make sensible developing moves like Rad1 and Rfe1 and Qc4. Black does not have a similar set of &quot;useful little moves&quot; if he needs to keep his weaknesses defended.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A weakness is not serious if it takes a long time to reach it. Even if you give White a lot of free moves, how does that Knight arrive on b6? The problem is that both the Knight and the Queen want to use c4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You do not include c5 in your list of weak squares, but it can  only be defended by b6. Given Blacks frequently occurring Pawn structure this is often important.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If White had known Blacks setup in advance, he could have placed his pieces more effectively. For example move Nf3 to b3, Pf2 to f3, Qd3-f2 and the Black position looks very porous. You have treated this position where the weaknesses (if such they are) are already present. There is an important topic of how to induce weaknesses that are exploitable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To win a superior ending it is often necessary to penetrate through a weakness with your King, but the defender can often guard a single weakness, or two weaknesses that are close together. You will often see an annotation &quot;opening a second weakness&quot; which is the way to exploit superior mobility.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, I was once in a position to offer a draw to a much stronger player, IM Bill Hartston. Potentially I had a strong attack but could not regroup my pieces because I had to keep them tied down to defending a weak pawn. After we agreed the draw I mentioned this and Bill replied, &quot;Ah yes, but Im tied down to attacking it&quot; This remark is worth taking some time to understand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastActivityDate="2019-04-25T20:10:07.347" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24321" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24322" CreationDate="2019-04-26T01:42:29.673" Score="-1" ViewCount="6008" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have gotten back to learning chess, and I started using the chess game program on my 2015 MacBook Pro. Last night I wanted to castle, but it would not allow me to do so. I was white by the way. Later on, I saw that black was allowed to castle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there some reason why the MacBook Pro Chess game program does not allow for castling? Or is there a rule about castling as white I am yet to learn?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I moved my King over to the Rook - nothing. I then moved my Rook over to the King, again nothing. The pieces went back to their original place.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15396" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-09-16T13:07:56.510" LastActivityDate="2020-09-16T13:07:56.510" Title="Does the MacBook chess game program not allow castling?" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;castling&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24322" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24321" CreationDate="2019-04-26T02:45:04.467" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to the rules of castling, you cannot castle if:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Your king has ever moved.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The rook you are castling with has ever moved.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Your king is currently in check.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Your king would be in check at the destination square.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Your king must cross through check.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most likely, one of these factors was the reason you couldn't castle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If none of these are the case, then perhaps dropping the king on the rook is the problem. The program might want you to drop the king on its destination square.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2019-04-26T02:45:04.467" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24324" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24321" CreationDate="2019-04-26T13:30:30.720" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am going to accept DMs answer because it has so much good information on Chess rules, but to be clear my question was in regards to how does the MacBook Pro Chess game understand that you are trying to castle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On my Windows 7 machine, you move the King to h1 and that's how it knows you are castling.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For future readers who run into similar problems where this does not work in their MacBook Pro Chess game, you need to move the King to g1 and at that point, your Macs Chess game understands you are castling and will move the Rook over to f1 for you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At no point was I in check, so yes if you are in check, no attempt at castling will work. For Macs Chess game you cannot move the King to h1 where the Rook is, you have to move it to g1 to the left of the Rook and the Chess game will understand its castling and thereby move your Rook over to f1.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On Windows 7, the default behavior of the Chess game is you must move King over to h1 where the Rook is, it will understand it as castling and move the Rook over.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15396" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2019-04-27T08:32:54.577" LastActivityDate="2019-04-27T08:32:54.577" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24325" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23135" CreationDate="2019-04-26T22:01:08.017" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;Whilst acknowledging the comment by @SmallChess that this is pointless, it is also relatively straightforward to do. I analysed 2,539,871 games from a ChessBase mega database counting the number of moves for the next player to move before each move was played. I did not include the number of moves available after the final move of the game had been played. The total number of moves played was 194,389,820 (76.5 per game) and the total number of available moves was 6,039,013,721 giving an average of about 31.1 per move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is an analysis of the average number of moves available for each colour at each move point for the first 100 moves of each. Move 0 is prior to the first move of each colour. It is interesting to observe that, on average, black has fewer options than white. I am not sure why this would be-hopefully, it isn't an error in the analysis (!) but I don't think it is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/7eqPQ.gif&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/7eqPQ.gif&quot; alt=&quot;Average number of moves available before each move&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12951" LastEditorUserId="12951" LastEditDate="2019-04-30T19:21:13.887" LastActivityDate="2019-04-30T19:21:13.887" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24326" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14675" CreationDate="2019-04-27T04:18:02.913" Score="2" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Make sure you are pointing to the binary distribution of Stockfish and not the source. The binary distribution should be a variation of stockfish_10_x64.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Make sure this binary has execute permissions: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;chmod u+x stockfish_10_x64&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16476" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2019-04-27T08:31:45.037" LastActivityDate="2019-04-27T08:31:45.037" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24327" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-04-27T15:48:37.987" Score="0" ViewCount="39" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am an average player of chess with chess rating of &lt;strong&gt;1750&lt;/strong&gt; max and average around &lt;strong&gt;1600&lt;/strong&gt;. in Blitz on chess.com. I haven't read/learned about any specific openings. I just do play-lose-learn strategy.&#xA;I want to improve my rating at-least to the level of Candidate master but failed. As far as I know, the rating can be improved by learning the opening strategies &amp;amp; mid/end game strategies but I don't know where to start.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Kindly suggest me to how to improve the game, what to learn and where to learn, better websites, books etc.&#xA;Thanks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18981" LastEditorUserId="12523" LastEditDate="2019-04-27T15:51:43.323" LastActivityDate="2019-04-27T15:51:43.323" Title="Suggestions to improve and learn better chess" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;online-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="4" ClosedDate="2019-04-27T16:18:32.653" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24328" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19003" CreationDate="2019-04-27T18:00:16.743" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;On a similar tangent, here is the fastest way with &lt;strong&gt;a&lt;/strong&gt; king move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;1. f4 h5 2. h3 e5 3. Kf2 Ke7 4. Kg3 exf4+ 5. Kh4 Ke8#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-05-02T03:55:57.960" LastActivityDate="2021-05-02T03:55:57.960" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24331" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24333" CreationDate="2019-04-28T15:00:25.877" Score="6" ViewCount="927" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://youtu.be/fFRVFHP4GLE&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;A few weeks ago&lt;/a&gt;, Magnus Carlsen (White) played against Anish Giri (Black), and this position was reached on the board on move 17 after black had played exf4:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/W1Tzv.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/W1Tzv.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is the full game:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[White &quot;Magnus Carlsen&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Anish Giri&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. c4 e5 2. Nc3 Nf6 3. Nf3 Nc6 4. g3 d5 5. cxd5 Nxd5 6. Bg2 Bc5 7. O-O O-O 8. d3 h6 9. Nxd5 Qxd5 10. a3 a5 11. Bd2 Qe612. Rc1 Qe7 13. Bc3 Nd4 14. e3 Nxf3+ 15. Qxf3 Bd6 16. Qh5 c617. f4 exf4 18. gxf4 Qxe3+ 19. Kh1 Rd8 20. Rce1 Qc5 21. f5 Bf822. Be4 Rd5 23. Rf3 b5 24. Rg1 Ra7 25. Bf6 g6 26. Qh3 Rd6 27. Qh4 Rxf6 28. Qxf6 Be7 29. Qxc6 Qxc6 30. Bxc6 Kg7 31. fxg6 fxg6 32. d4 a4 33. d5 b4 34. Be8 Bg5 35. h4 Bxh4 36. Rxg6+ Kh7 37. Rc6 Bg4 38. Rf4 Rg7 1-0 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, with white to play, it would be natural would be to play exf4. However, gxf4 was played, hanging a pawn and letting black capture it with a check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can someone explain what is the logic behind such apparently wrong move?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16771" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2019-04-28T16:38:12.483" LastActivityDate="2019-04-28T21:45:41.013" Title="Pawn Sacrifice Justification" Tags="&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;middlegame&gt;&lt;sacrifice&gt;&lt;carlsen&gt;&lt;master-games&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24332" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24331" CreationDate="2019-04-28T18:46:19.677" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It appears the reason was to clear the pawn from the g-file to get an attack on the opponent's king. Kh1 and Rg1 were later played, which supports this theory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2019-04-28T18:46:19.677" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24333" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24331" CreationDate="2019-04-28T21:45:41.013" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;As was stated in the answer to this post made by D M, one idea of capturing in this manner is to open up the g-file for white's rooks to attack black's king. In the game this proved to be a very potent idea, and in general it's a good idea to open up lines for one's rooks against the enemy king if one intends to attack it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But there is another point to letting the e-pawn hang and that is to gain some tempi for the attack. When black's queen spends one tempo on capturing on e3 with check, white responds by playing Kh1 (a move that white wants to make in order to clear the g-file for the rooks), so while black used a tempo to make a move that does nothing to bolster their defenses, white made a move that is crucial for the coming attack (gaining 1 tempo, relatively speaking). Next white improves the position of the rook on c1 by going to e1. Once again, this is done with a gain of tempo, since black's queen is exposed on e3 and needs to spend one tempo moving away. This way white manages to get two &quot;free&quot; tempi to make his position more ready for going on the attack while black had to strut around with their queen, arguably doing nothing to bolster their defenses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the pawn sacrifice had a two-fold purpose here, I would say. First, by capturing with the g-pawn white opens up an important line of attack against black's king. Secondly, by investing the e-pawn white gains some free tempi to use in order to make their position more ready to go on the offensive against black's king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In general, material count is only one of many factors in evaluating a position, and while it may be the most obvious it is not always the most important one. In this example, Carlsen judged that his superior piece coordination and black's kingside weaknesses were more important positional factors than the material count, and seeing how the game went it is difficult to argue that his judgement was off.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8300" LastActivityDate="2019-04-28T21:45:41.013" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24334" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24335" CreationDate="2019-04-28T23:28:44.880" Score="-4" ViewCount="186" Body="&lt;p&gt;Promotion is common in many games, and is sometimes comes with check. But something I have never seen in a game is a promotion that comes with double check like this example illustrates.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/3QPk2/8/8/8/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e8=Q++&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Has this ever occurred in a professional game? If so, has it happened for each type of promotion? An example that comes with checkmate  would nice as well, but it has probably never happened.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-05-18T19:16:53.753" LastActivityDate="2020-05-18T19:16:53.753" Title="Has promotion with double check ever happened in a professional game?" Tags="&lt;pawn-promotion&gt;&lt;master-games&gt;&lt;famous-games&gt;&lt;double-check&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24335" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24334" CreationDate="2019-04-29T00:12:20.877" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes. I was able to locate a game between grandmasters which included a double-check promotion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;17. ch-EUR Indiv 2016&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Gjakova KOS&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2016.05.19&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;7.5&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Ter-Sahakyan, Samvel&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Ponomariov, Ruslan&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;2601&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;2715&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;B51&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;2016.05.12&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteTitle &quot;GM&quot;]&#xA;[BlackTitle &quot;GM&quot;]&#xA;[Opening &quot;Sicilian&quot;]&#xA;[Variation &quot;Canal-Sokolsky (Nimzovich-Rossolimo, Moscow) attack&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteFideId &quot;13302531&quot;]&#xA;[BlackFideId &quot;14103320&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[startply &quot;102&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.Bb5+ Nd7 4.O-O a6 5.Bd3 Ngf6 6.Re1 b5 7.c4 g5 8.Nxg5 &#xA;Ne5 9.Be2 bxc4 10.Nc3 Bh6 11.Nf3 Nd3 12.Bxd3 cxd3 13.e5 dxe5 14.Nxe5 Kf8 &#xA;15.Qf3 Be6 16.Nxd3 Rg8 17.Ne5 Nd5 18.g3 Rc8 19.d3 Bg7 20.Bg5 f6 21.Ng6+ &#xA;hxg6 22.Rxe6 Nb4 23.Be3 Kf7 24.Qe4 Qd7 25.Rb6 Rgd8 26.Rd1 Nxd3 27.Qc4+ Kf8&#xA;28.Rxa6 Qf5 29.Qe4 Qxe4 30.Nxe4 c4 31.Nc5 Nxc5 32.Rxd8+ Rxd8 33.Bxc5 f5 &#xA;34.Ra4 Rd1+ 35.Kg2 Rc1 36.Rb4 Kf7 37.a4 c3 38.bxc3 Rxc3 39.Bb6 Ra3 40.a5 &#xA;Bc3 41.Rb5 Ra2 42.h4 e5 43.Rc5 Bd4 44.Rc7+ Kf6 45.Rc6+ Kg7 46.Bxd4 exd4 &#xA;47.a6 d3 48.Kf3 Kh6 49.Ke3 d2 50.Ke2 Kh5 51.Rf6 d1=Q+ 52.Kxd1 Rxf2 53.Kc1 &#xA;Rg2 54.a7 Ra2 55.Rf7 Kg4 56.Kb1 Ra5 57.Rg7 Kxg3 58.h5 Rxa7 59.Rxa7 gxh5 &#xA;60.Kc2 h4 61.Kd3 h3 62.Ke2 h2 63.Rg7+ Kh3 64.Rh7+ Kg2 65.Rg7+ Kh3 66.Kf2 &#xA;h1=N+ 67.Kf3 Kh2 68.Rg2+ Kh3 69.Rg5 Kh2 70.Rxf5 Kg1 71.Rg5+ Kf1 72.Rg2 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And here's one where the pawn is promoted to a rook:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;2. London Chess Classic&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;London ENG&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2010.12.14&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;6&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Kramnik, Vladimir&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Carlsen, Magnus&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1/2-1/2&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;2791&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;2802&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;D07&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;2010.12.06&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteTitle &quot;GM&quot;]&#xA;[BlackTitle &quot;GM&quot;]&#xA;[Opening &quot;QGD&quot;]&#xA;[Variation &quot;Chigorin defence&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteFideId &quot;4101588&quot;]&#xA;[BlackFideId &quot;1503014&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[startply &quot;113&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 d5 2.c4 Nc6 3.Nf3 Bg4 4.Nc3 e6 5.Bf4 Bd6 6.Bg3 Nf6 7.e3 O-O 8.a3 Ne7 &#xA;9.Qb3 b6 10.Ne5 c5 11.Nxg4 Nxg4 12.Rd1 Bxg3 13.hxg3 Nf6 14.cxd5 exd5 15.&#xA;Be2 Qd6 16.Qc2 h6 17.O-O c4 18.b3 Qxa3 19.bxc4 dxc4 20.Bf3 Rab8 21.Ra1 Qd6&#xA;22.Nb5 Qd7 23.Qxc4 a5 24.e4 Rfc8 25.Qe2 Rc6 26.Rab1 Rd8 27.Rfd1 Rdc8 28.d5&#xA;Rc2 29.Qe3 R2c5 30.Nd4 Re8 31.Qd3 Qd6 32.Qa6 Rb8 33.Nb3 Rc2 34.Nd4 Rc5 35.&#xA;Nb3 Rc2 36.Qd3 Rcc8 37.Nd2 Ng6 38.Be2 Qc5 39.Rb5 Qc3 40.f4 a4 41.e5 Nd7 &#xA;42.Qxc3 Rxc3 43.Ne4 Rc7 44.Ra1 Ra7 45.d6 Ngf8 46.Nc3 Nc5 47.Nd5 Ra5 48.&#xA;Rxb6 Rxb6 49.Nxb6 Nfe6 50.Bc4 Kf8 51.f5 Nd8 52.Rf1 Ncb7 53.Re1 a3 54.e6 &#xA;fxe6 55.fxe6 Nxd6 56.e7+ Ke8 57.exd8=R+ Kxd8 58.Rd1 Kc7 59.Ba2 Rg5 60.Nd5+&#xA;Kc6 61.Nc3 Rc5 62.Rxd6+ Kxd6 63.Ne4+ Kc6 64.Nxc5 Kxc5 65.Kf2 Kd4 66.Kf3 &#xA;Kd3 67.g4 Kd2 68.Be6 Kd3 69.Kg3 Ke3 70.Kh4 Kf2 71.Bd5 g6 72.Kh3 g5 73.Kh2 &#xA;Kf1 74.Be6 Kf2 75.Bc4 Ke3 76.Kg3 Kd4 77.Be6 Ke3 78.Kh2 Kf2 79.Bc4 Ke3 80.&#xA;Kg1 Kf4 81.Be6 Ke5 82.Bb3 Kf4 83.Be6 Ke5 84.Bb3 Kf4 85.Be6 Ke5 86.Bb3 &#xA;1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And a bishop:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;GMA&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Bermuda BER&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2003.02.02&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;8&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Markowski, Tomasz&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Movsesian, Sergei&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;2574&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;2663&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;A09i&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;2003.01.25&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;113&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[startply &quot;100&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;1.g3 d5 2.Nf3 g6 3.c4 d4 4.Bg2 Bg7 5.O-O c5 6.d3 Nc6 7.Na3 Nf6 8.Nc2 O-O &#xA;9.a3 a5 10.b3 e5 11.Rb1 e4 12.Ng5 exd3 13.exd3 Bg4 14.Qd2 h6 15.h3 Bf5 16.&#xA;Nf3 Qc8 17.Kh2 Nd7 18.Nh4 Be6 19.f4 Ne7 20.g4 Qc7 21.Kg1 f5 22.Qe2 Ra6 23.&#xA;Bd2 Bf6 24.g5 hxg5 25.fxg5 Be5 26.Nf3 Bg7 27.b4 axb4 28.axb4 Bf7 29.bxc5 &#xA;Nc6 30.Rb5 Re8 31.Qf2 Ra2 32.Nfe1 Nde5 33.Qg3 Re7 34.Bf4 Qc8 35.Rb1 Ra5 &#xA;36.Na1 Nd7 37.Nb3 Ra2 38.Rf2 Qa8 39.Nc2 Qa4 40.Qf3 Nde5 41.Qd1 Nxd3 42.&#xA;Qxd3 Bxc4 43.Qg3 d3 44.Ne3 Bxb3 45.Rxb3 Qxb3 46.Bd5+ Qxd5 47.Nxd5 Re1+ 48.&#xA;Kg2 Ree2 49.Rxe2 dxe2 50.Kf2 e1=B+ 51.Kxe1 Ra1+ 52.Kd2 Ra2+ 53.Kd1 Nd4 54.&#xA;Nf6+ Bxf6 55.gxf6 Ra1+ 56.Kd2 Ra2+ 57.Kd3 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And a knight:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;Lake Sevan GM&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Martuni ARM&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2010.07.11&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;1&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Grigoryan, Avetik&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Petrosian, Tigran L&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;2584&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;2597&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;D30&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;2010.07.11&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[startply &quot;100&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;1.Nf3 d5 2.d4 c6 3.c4 Nf6 4.e3 e6 5.Bd3 Nbd7 6.Nbd2 dxc4 7.Nxc4 c5 8.O-O &#xA;Be7 9.e4 cxd4 10.e5 Nd5 11.Nxd4 Nc5 12.Bc2 O-O 13.a3 a5 14.Qg4 f5 15.Qg3 &#xA;Qe8 16.Bg5 a4 17.Bxe7 Qxe7 18.Rfd1 Ne4 19.Bxe4 fxe4 20.Nd6 e3 21.fxe3 Bd7 &#xA;22.Rac1 Bc6 23.h3 h6 24.Kh2 Kh7 25.Rf1 Nb6 26.Nxc6 bxc6 27.Rxf8 Rxf8 28.&#xA;Rxc6 Nd5 29.Qg4 Nxe3 30.Qe4+ Nf5 31.g4 Qh4 32.gxf5 Qf2+ 33.Qg2 Qf4+ 34.Kh1&#xA;exf5 35.e6 Qe5 36.Nc4 Qe1+ 37.Kh2 Rf6 38.Qg1 Qe4 39.Qg2 Qf4+ 40.Qg3 Qe4 &#xA;41.Rc5 Rxe6 42.Qf2 f4 43.h4 f3 44.h5 Qg4 45.Qc2+ Re4 46.Nd6 f2 47.Rf5 Qg1+&#xA;48.Kh3 Qg4+ 49.Kh2 Re2 50.Qd3 f1=N+ 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-05-12T16:24:32.507" LastActivityDate="2019-05-12T16:24:32.507" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24336" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24339" CreationDate="2019-04-29T04:20:37.087" Score="10" ViewCount="4119" Body="&lt;p&gt;At &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.365chess.com/opening.php&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;365chess.com&lt;/a&gt;, 1.c3 is ranked as the 14th most common first move for white. If the Caro-Kann defense is considered as a sound defense, why is the Saragossa opening so rare for white? After all, white is preparing to play 2. d4 in the next move and transfer into some solid defense systems. For example, one possible line is &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;c3 e5 2. d4 (reversed Caro-Kann with one extra tempo for white.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another possible line is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;c3 d5 2. d4 (reversed Slav with one extra tempo for white.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16626" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2019-04-29T13:10:41.850" LastActivityDate="2019-04-30T03:02:06.930" Title="If 1. e4 c6 is considered as a sound defense for black, why is 1. c3 so rare?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;caro-kann&gt;&lt;slav-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24337" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24336" CreationDate="2019-04-29T06:27:02.540" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;1. c3 (and 1. d3 and 1. e3, which can lead to reversed Pircs, French defense or QGD) aren't bad in that they give White a worse position. So those moves might have some merit as a surprise weapon (if you don't do it too often). But they &lt;em&gt;do&lt;/em&gt; offer Black the advantage of setting the first foot in the center and the possibility to defend it, which is normally White's role in the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another question which you should ask yourself: why does Black play c6 in the openings you mentioned? In the Caro-Kann, Black needs to play c6 in order to be able to play d5 (and not having to take back with the queen). In the Slav, the pawn is already on d5 but the idea is the same: Black wants to keep a pawn on d5, thereby establishing a bit of control in the center. For White, this isn't necessary; he can just put a pawn on d4 and play c3 only if it's under attack (e.g. in the Colle system).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Looking at it from another angle: in the two examples you mention, if you're going to play 2. d4 anyway, why not play it on the first move? If your opponent doesn't respond with 1... d5, you have more options. For example, suppose (s)he plays 1... f5; I think the pawn is actually &lt;em&gt;worse&lt;/em&gt; on c3 than on c2, since it blocks the natural development of the queen's knight and a possible fianchetto of the queen's bishop (in the Leningrad variation).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2019-04-29T06:27:02.540" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24338" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-04-29T06:59:14.937" Score="14" ViewCount="2820" Body="&lt;p&gt;Say I run Komodo on my 4-core machine. How much stronger would Komodo be if I used an 8-core machine? A 40-core machine? A 4000-core machine?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a general relation for this? Also, does this scaling depend on which engine is used, and if so, why?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-04-29T11:50:57.403" LastActivityDate="2020-06-23T07:34:18.797" Title="How does engine strength scale with hardware?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;depth&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24339" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24336" CreationDate="2019-04-29T07:03:18.030" Score="24" Body="&lt;h2&gt;&quot;Reversed&quot; Openings in general&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A black defense and its white mirror counterpart will often play out quite differently (compare the rather sharp Sicilian Defense and the rather quiet English Opening). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The right to move matters, &lt;em&gt;in both ways&lt;/em&gt;. By moving, you give away information to your opponent - the set of variations you can choose from shrinks with every opening move. Early moves are usually played to either proactively increase your control over the board or reactively counter your opponent's moves (the best moves do both). This second category of moves only make sense as answer to one of the first category: If your opponent doesn't play a move that you have to react to, you'd want to play a move to advance your own plan rather than a &quot;counter&quot; to a plan your opponent has not committed to yet. Commitment is an important factor here. If you parry right before knowing which side your opponent will commit to, they can now simply swing left and catch you off-balance. Even if they cannot immediately strike that way, you will still have wasted time you could have used for more useful moves. The further in advance your opponent knows what setup you are heading for, the easier it is for them to screw your plan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most openings are a series of moves reacting to each other. Simply playing a &quot;reversed&quot; opening won't lead to the same result because the dynamics can be totally different depending on who strikes first.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Caro-Kann vs. 1.c3&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Caro-Kann defense strategically centers around the d5 square. Playing 1...c6 merely is a means to the end of playing 2...d5 next turn and being able to take back on d5 with a &lt;em&gt;pawn&lt;/em&gt; if White plays exd5. Playing 1...d5 right away is certainly possible (leading to the Scandinavian Defense), but then Black concedes that he has to take back on d5 with a &lt;em&gt;piece&lt;/em&gt;, when he will obtain a half open d- instead of c-file (generally speaking, a half-open c-file and two center pawns are more desirable than a half-open d-file and only one center pawn). Of course, White can refuse to take on d5, but that's the idea.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, let's have a look at the same idea, but from the white side. Sure, White can play 1.c3 to prepare 2.d4. But since Black obviously did not have time to play ...e5 yet, this is simply not necessary and White can play 1.d4 right away! Now Black won't even be able to play ...e5 with ease (the best moves: activity as well as prevention). Isn't preventing the black pawn from entering e5 not much better than preparing to attack it with 1.c3 after the fact? And remember, Black did not commit to this pawn move yet anyways and may answer 1.c3 with a completely different move, leaving White look rather silly for preparing against something that may never happen. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, if Black does not play ...e5, White doesn't actually have to defend d4 by playing c3 ... and the c-pawn is free to be moved to c4, from where it attacks d5. If it now gets traded for Black's d-pawn, we may actually arrive at a similar situation as in the Caro-Kann exchange variation: White has pawns on both central files and a half-open c-file. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To no surprise (and in contrast to 1.c3), 1. d4 2. c4 is one of the most popular ways to open the game as White of all time. So why not go for a Queen's Gambit if you like the Caro-Kann?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13433" LastActivityDate="2019-04-29T07:03:18.030" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24340" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24338" CreationDate="2019-04-29T08:08:42.903" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;Multicore is important for chess engines, but it doesn't scale forever.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Up to certain depth, no matter how much hardware you have, you just don't have enough computational power&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Yes. Scaling is heavily implementation dependent. For example, a simple mutex would make multithread programming much easier (any decent programmer will agree here), but that'd also make the engine run much slower than another engine runs without mutex locking.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;40 cores machine will play stronger than an 8-core machine, although it's hard to state how much. A 4000 core machine should also play stronger than a 40 core, but it's harder to justify the costs for smaller Elo improvement.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2019-04-29T08:08:42.903" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24341" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24338" CreationDate="2019-04-29T11:01:13.537" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I didn't do the experiment but I  think it should be something like &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/LOzvS.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/LOzvS.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As @SmallChess said in his &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/24340/18143&quot;&gt;answer&lt;/a&gt;: required computational power grows exponentially and at a certain depth it would be just way too big.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;for simpler position however it's not the case because the engine would've explored all the possibilities before reaching its full capacity (ie: maximum depth) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18143" LastActivityDate="2019-04-29T11:01:13.537" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24343" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18979" CreationDate="2019-04-29T13:10:21.420" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Sort of (but not really) - and it's actually getting &lt;em&gt;harder&lt;/em&gt; for engines to do this for you.&lt;/strong&gt;  To understand why, you have to understand how the evaluation goes.  Engines typically can make snap evaluations on a given position, giving it a raw point value.  Then, whatever the position is, they play forward, trying to find the line forward that optimizes that score for both sides.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's important to understand, that '2.0' or '1.4' score &lt;em&gt;aren't&lt;/em&gt; the evaluation/score for the current position.  Instead, it's the evaluation N moves down the line, with each side playing the best move the engine found.  This is why the &quot;Current evaluation score&quot; jumps around while the computer is thinking.  It's not that the 'score' for a position changed - it's just that it found a different line moving forward that ended up in a different position (which had a different score.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the past, engines sucked.  Not just because of sub-optimal algorithms, but because of very slow hardware - if you think compounding interest is powerful, it's nothing compared to &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore%27s_law&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Moore's Law&lt;/a&gt;.  So computers back then were just looking a few moves into the future.  Which made it relatively easy for a human to follow the logic - your score went down because you're losing your knight the next turn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But now?  If your score went from '2.0' to '-0.3', it's possible it's because, due to some unavoidable tactics over the next 7 moves, that you'll have to give up the exchange in order to avoid losing your queen or getting checkmated.  But it's hard to show the leap from &quot;Here's the position now&quot; and &quot;Well, I evaluated 20 billion positions going forward, and trust me when I say that you sacrificing the rook for their bishop was the best you could hope for.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18998" LastActivityDate="2019-04-29T13:10:21.420" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24344" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2019-04-29T15:13:01.147" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2019-04-29T15:13:01.147" LastActivityDate="2019-04-29T15:13:01.147" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24345" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2019-04-29T15:13:01.147" Score="0" Body="A double check is a move in which one moves and gives check, while also revealing a check from a piece behind it. A double check can also be created through promotion and en passant." OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-11-14T15:10:28.557" LastActivityDate="2019-11-14T15:10:28.557" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24346" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2019-04-29T15:24:11.247" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2019-04-29T15:24:11.247" LastActivityDate="2019-04-29T15:24:11.247" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24347" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2019-04-29T15:24:11.247" Score="0" Body="A discovered  check is a move where one piece moves, while not checking the opponent’s king itself, to uncover a check from another piece." OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-04-29T15:41:45.380" LastActivityDate="2019-04-29T15:41:45.380" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24348" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24336" CreationDate="2019-04-29T15:34:00.767" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Because White has the initiative and usually feels that s/he can do better than &quot;a sound/solid defense&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2789" LastActivityDate="2019-04-29T15:34:00.767" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24349" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24336" CreationDate="2019-04-29T17:47:29.100" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;c3 is an inferior first move.  White has the advantage of moving first and should use it to seize the initiative and put black on the defensive.  The basic idea behind the Caro Kann is to counterattack in the center with d5 after white plays d4 without blocking the light-squared bishop as in the French.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The key word here is &quot;counterattack.&quot;  White should not be looking to counterattack at this stage.  As the first player, white should be putting black under pressure and forcing black to respond to threats like dominating the center.  1. c3 is more of a defensive move and it just doesn't make sense for white to play defensively on the first move of the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18421" LastEditorUserId="18421" LastEditDate="2019-04-30T03:02:06.930" LastActivityDate="2019-04-30T03:02:06.930" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24351" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24352" CreationDate="2019-04-30T00:43:52.877" Score="1" ViewCount="432" Body="&lt;p&gt;With a database open in SCID, one can use the tree window to explore openings.  Among other things, it shows the frequency of each move that has been played in the current position and how well that move has scored.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a way to combine this with SCID's filter functionality so that the tree window only uses the subset of games selected by the current filter?  For example, this could be used to explore openings based on 2600+ games or games where the opponents are close in rating.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is possible to do this by creating a copy of the database and then removing all games that are not in the filter, but this is an inconvenient workaround.  Is there a better way?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18421" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-04-30T03:00:31.453" LastActivityDate="2019-05-05T07:49:06.497" Title="Using the tree window in SCID on a subset of games in the database" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;database&gt;&lt;scid&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24352" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24351" CreationDate="2019-04-30T04:53:07.520" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes. In the tree window, there is an &quot;All Games&quot; checkbox. Unchecking this will make the tree window use the filtered games instead of all the games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/7C6bt.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/7C6bt.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2019-04-30T04:53:07.520" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24353" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24355" CreationDate="2019-04-30T14:34:02.487" Score="0" ViewCount="214" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not having played chess in ~5 years, I started playing against the computer on my phone at ELO~800 (I've since reached ~900). I do not know what engine the app uses (&lt;code&gt;Chess&lt;/code&gt; for iPhone by &lt;strong&gt;Mastersoft Ltd&lt;/strong&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my most recent game, which I ended up winning, the computer (Black) played what looked to me like an odd move (9. ...Ke7).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm wondering if anyone can shed some insight into this particular move. Why play it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 e6 2. h4 Be7 3. Bf4 Bxh4 4. e3 Qf6 5. Bc4 Nc6 6. Nf3 Na5 7. Bb5 Qd8 8. Nxh4 g6 9. Qd3 Ke7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the curious, the full game is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 e6 2. h4 Be7 3. Bf4 Bxh4 4. e3 Qf6 5. Bc4 Nc6 6. Nf3 Na5 7. Bb5 Qd8 8. Nxh4 g6 9. Qd3 Ke7 10. Qa3+ c5 11. Qxc5+ Ke8 12. Bd3 Qb6 13. Qe5 f6 14. Qe4 Qxb2 15. O-O Kf8 16. Nd2 Ke7 17. d5 d6 18. Qa4 e5 19. Qxa5 Kf7 20. Qc7+ Kf8 21. Nc4 Qb4 22. Rad1 exf4 23. exf4 Bg4 24. Rde1 Qb5 25. Qxd6+ Kg7 26. Na3 Qd7 27. Qc5 Rd8 28. Nc4 a6 29. f3 Qc8 30. Qa5 Bd7 31. Nd6 Qb8 32. Nf7 h6 33. Nxh8 Kxh8 34. Nxg6+ Kh7 35. Re7+ Nxe7 36. Nxe7+ Kh8 37. Qc3 Qd6 38. Nf5 Qf8 39. d6 Bxf5 40. Bxf5 Rxd6 41. Qb3 Kg7 42. Qxb7+ Kh8 43. Qh7#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18769" LastActivityDate="2019-05-02T21:40:14.690" Title="Why did the (Black) computer play 9. ... Ke7 here?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;middlegame&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24354" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24357" CreationDate="2019-04-30T14:50:19.940" Score="2" ViewCount="146" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have long been playing games in which I can develop my bishop to g5 like in the following positions:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/nT8Rw.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/nT8Rw.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/KAN7f.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/KAN7f.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The truth is I have trouble deciding if such moves are useful. In the diagrams, what pushed me to playing such move is specially my pawns on e5. But maybe come to think of it, that is not much of a compelling factor. Is there anyway to reliably determine when this move would be worth it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16771" LastActivityDate="2019-04-30T17:51:00.030" Title="Threatening the Queen in the bishop with Bg5" Tags="&lt;bishops&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24355" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24353" CreationDate="2019-04-30T16:00:28.560" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The answer to your question is that &lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;there is no good reason to play this move.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt; I plugged the position &lt;em&gt;before&lt;/em&gt; Ke7 into StockFish on &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;lichess&lt;/a&gt;. At depth 27, StockFish gives the position a &lt;strong&gt;+6.3&lt;/strong&gt; for white. &lt;em&gt;After&lt;/em&gt; Ke7, the analysis jumps to &lt;strong&gt;+10.8&lt;/strong&gt; for white. Ke7 is a blunder.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;StockFish aside, the only thing that this move &lt;em&gt;does&lt;/em&gt; do is remove the pin placed by the white Bishop on the f-pawn. A better move to accomplish this goal (and indeed the one that StockFish suggests in this position) is &lt;strong&gt;a6&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This computer program is set to play generally poor moves - the 800 rating of the computer indicates that the computer is almost playing randomly - playing any better would increase its rating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Note: I analyzed the position with SF (and mentally) because I didn't just want to tell the OP that the computer was playing poorly [it is, but that wouldn't make a good stand-alone answer IMO].&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18168" LastEditorUserId="18168" LastEditDate="2019-05-02T21:40:14.690" LastActivityDate="2019-05-02T21:40:14.690" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24356" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24360" CreationDate="2019-04-30T16:02:51.533" Score="0" ViewCount="249" Body="&lt;p&gt;From Fine's BCE:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/kL6dq.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can only see the pawn getting to a2 after 1.d6+ Kd8 2.e6 a4 3.Kf6 a3 4.e7+ Ke8 5.Ke6 a2 6.d7#. That's three pawn moves, not four.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the more resistant defence I missed?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13147" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-12-26T20:11:38.007" LastActivityDate="2020-12-26T20:11:38.007" Title="Where is there a mate in four (pawn moves)?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;problems&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24357" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24354" CreationDate="2019-04-30T16:14:08.740" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;One-move threats are &lt;em&gt;usually&lt;/em&gt; not the most productive moves to make. There are, of course, many exceptions to this rule. These exceptions should answer your question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The attacked piece is on a very strong square (or has to escape to a very weak square). In this case, the black queen is on a kind of &quot;meh&quot; square - it's fine where it is for now, and it'll still be fine if it has to evacuate that square.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Setting up a pin. If black's only recourse in this situation was to put the knight in between the bishop and the queen, then a pin would be set up. However, there are other options for black to take, so this isn't the case.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;(related to 1) Removing a defender - occasionally, one-move threats can force the attacked piece to stop defending another attacked piece. This is not the case here.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Messing up the opponent's pawn structure. If black's only recourse here was to play f6, it would be nice to bring out their f-pawn so early. However, black has other options.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Trapping the attacked piece (self-explanatory).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Developing your pieces. In this case, the attack isn't even the main point - it's developing your pieces that's the point. This happens regularly in the early opening of a game.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Consequently, if a one-move threat doesn't accomplish one of the above things, I would &lt;em&gt;generally&lt;/em&gt; advise not making it. Of course, there are always exceptions to the exceptions to the rule.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18168" LastActivityDate="2019-04-30T16:14:08.740" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24358" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24354" CreationDate="2019-04-30T17:51:00.030" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;When your pawns are on the dark squares, as in your examples, it is often &quot;Positionally&quot; desirable to exchange your dark squared Bishop so responses like ...Be7? would leave Black weak on the dark squares.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But in chess you must be concrete, which means you must calculate.  What if Black plays ...f6 which is often a thematic assault on your pawn chain -- now with tempo.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Look over grandmaster games and learn from what they do. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2019-04-30T17:51:00.030" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24359" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-05-02T11:02:39.207" Score="7" ViewCount="1098" Body="&lt;p&gt;If both sides make moves completely randomly but legally, how many different games are there? Since the 50 move rule applies, this number should be finite (but HUGE).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, there are 20 possible first moves for white to start with. If we include the first move for black, there will be 400 different positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Among all these different games, how many of them will be win for white? Black? Draw?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I guess very few (in term of percentage) game will end with a draw. And the winning percentage will be roughly the same for white and for black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16626" LastEditorUserId="12629" LastEditDate="2020-02-24T00:08:37.470" LastActivityDate="2020-02-24T00:08:37.470" Title="Of all the possible legal chess games, how many end in white win, draw and black win (assuming 50 move rule)?" Tags="&lt;theory&gt;&lt;mathematics&gt;&lt;50-move-rule&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="9" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24360" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24356" CreationDate="2019-05-02T17:44:58.580" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;1.d6+ Ke8&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.e6 a4 (pawn move 1)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3.Kf6 a3 (pawn move 2) [Note: 3.e7 Kf7!]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4.e7 a2 (pawn move 3)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5.Ke6 a1=Q (pawn move 4)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;6.d7 mate&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastEditorUserId="14202" LastEditDate="2019-05-02T18:01:20.813" LastActivityDate="2019-05-02T18:01:20.813" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24361" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24183" CreationDate="2019-05-02T21:35:21.993" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Read a book and get better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's like basketball. You want to compete with the best? Get good.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Read My System by Nimzowitsch.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13147" LastActivityDate="2019-05-02T21:35:21.993" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24362" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2848" CreationDate="2019-05-03T10:43:57.980" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Despite the rules, Elizabeth Spiegel in her &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__CPZu4ckjM&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;2019 chess educator of the year talk&lt;/a&gt; continues to recommend to her kids the pre-writing of moves for blunder checking.  She said that in almost all circumstances for kids no one will have a problem, and if anyone makes an issue of it it will be adults.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19019" LastActivityDate="2019-05-03T10:43:57.980" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24365" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-05-03T12:46:16.263" Score="31" ViewCount="4599" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm stuck on this problem a friend shared with me recently, with barely any pieces left and apparently white is able to force a win but I've been hitting a wall with everything I've tried so far, as everything seems to immediately lead to stalemate...! Here's the diagram of the problem, with white to move and win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This problem was created by Josef Prokop, and published in Prager Presse in 1924.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [title &quot;White to move and win&quot;]&#xA; [fen &quot;6k1/6P1/5BP1/p7/8/K7/p7/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know that if I entered this position into an engine I'd probably get the answer immediately, but to be honest as opposed to just seeing the answer, I'm more interested in how one should approach or reason about such problems in order to systematically get closer to finding the solution. So I would appreciate it if someone could flesh out how they approached the problem and step by step got to the solution, that would be incredibly helpful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15078" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-08T17:08:54.927" LastActivityDate="2020-04-08T17:08:54.927" Title="Endgame problem: How to avoid stalemate and win?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;problems&gt;&lt;stalemate&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24366" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24365" CreationDate="2019-05-03T13:08:52.077" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;Right now Black can only move his/her pawns. There are 1+4 moves left. To win, White needs the black king to capture the g7 pawn but not the g6 pawn. Therefore, the King must protect it (probably from f5). Let's try to get the king there:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1. Kb3 a4+ 2. Kc4 a3 3. Kd5 a1Q 4. Bxa1 a2 5. Ke5 (conveniently blocking the long diagonal) Kxg7 6. Kf5+&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now 6... Kg8 is the hardiest defense, since Kf8 would give away the opposition in a basic king + pawn vs. king endgame. Can White win after 6... Kg8?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt; Yes, (s)he can with 7. Ke6, since the normal defense in a king + pawn vs. king endgame, 7... Kg7 is not possible thanks to the bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I hope you can take it from here, it's not too difficult anymore.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2019-05-03T13:08:52.077" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24367" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24365" CreationDate="2019-05-03T13:15:12.880" Score="41" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's quite a fun problem to think about, before getting to the&#xA;calculation of long variations, try to first spot the key idea needed to crack the problem.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are the first observations that come to my mind which eventually&#xA;led me to spot the solution, let's break them down step by step:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;a)&lt;/strong&gt; With our bishop eyeing &lt;code&gt;g7&lt;/code&gt; and our doubled pawn formation on &lt;code&gt;g6-g7&lt;/code&gt;, black will draw by stalemate as soon as they run out of pawn moves on the &lt;code&gt;a&lt;/code&gt; file.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;b)&lt;/strong&gt; With a) in mind, try some basic moves to develop a feel for the position and nuances in terms of timing. So let's attempt to see through some of our king move options: &lt;code&gt;1.Ka4&lt;/code&gt; is no good as it will end immediately in a draw after &lt;code&gt;2...a1=Q+ 3.Bxa1&lt;/code&gt;, similarly with &lt;code&gt;1.Kb2 a1=Q+ 2.Kxa1 a4&lt;/code&gt; and the draw is trivial.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;c)&lt;/strong&gt; Count black's remaining moves: in principle there are a total of 5 pawn moves, then it's a stalemate unless we give the black king on &lt;code&gt;g8&lt;/code&gt; a legal move.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;d)&lt;/strong&gt; To ensure the latter, the only way is clearly to let the &lt;code&gt;g7&lt;/code&gt; pawn fall, as &lt;code&gt;g6&lt;/code&gt; cannot move anyway.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;e)&lt;/strong&gt; But how to give away the &lt;code&gt;g7&lt;/code&gt; pawn, while &lt;em&gt;i)&lt;/em&gt; our bishop still eyes the promotion square (&lt;code&gt;a1&lt;/code&gt;), and &lt;em&gt;ii)&lt;/em&gt; afterwards not leave hanging our 2nd and only remaining pawn on &lt;code&gt;g6&lt;/code&gt; which is a light square pawn!&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;f)&lt;/strong&gt; observations in e) basically tell us that we cannot leave the &lt;code&gt;a1-h8&lt;/code&gt; diagonal with our bishop or else black promotes. So in order to leave &lt;code&gt;g7&lt;/code&gt; unprotected, our only option is to blind the bishop by blocking the long diagonal with the king!&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;g)&lt;/strong&gt; Assuming we leave our bishop on &lt;code&gt;a1&lt;/code&gt;, then there are various options for blinding the bishop, for instance getting the king to &lt;code&gt;c3&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt;, ... which is the right one?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;h)&lt;/strong&gt; We can resolve that by remembering our observation e, &lt;em&gt;ii)&lt;/em&gt;, namely that after black takes on &lt;code&gt;g7&lt;/code&gt; we need to be in time to protect &lt;code&gt;g6,&lt;/code&gt; that means in the very next ply! Therefore, our only option is to block the bishop's sight via &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt;, let black take, and defend &lt;code&gt;g6&lt;/code&gt; immediately with &lt;code&gt;Kf5,&lt;/code&gt; right on time. In fact &lt;code&gt;Kf5&lt;/code&gt; will unavoidably be with check as our bishop is still on the long diagonal! Once &lt;code&gt;g7&lt;/code&gt; is removed and &lt;code&gt;g6&lt;/code&gt; is defended, black has spare king moves and there are no threats of stalemate anymore. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Summary of our discovered idea:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/A9562b.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/A9562b.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA; &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/weoZPb.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/weoZPb.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now it simply remains to execute our plan correctly, which means a bit of concrete assessment of the position in order to find the right move order:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;We know we want our bishop somewhere between &lt;code&gt;a1-d4&lt;/code&gt;, so let's try the immediate &lt;code&gt;1.Ba1&lt;/code&gt;: &lt;code&gt;2...a4&lt;/code&gt; and black draws immediately. All other bishop moves lead to the same situation after &lt;code&gt;2...a1=Q&lt;/code&gt; forcing &lt;code&gt;Bxa1.&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Let's not waste tempi at start with the bishop since it'll be naturally drawn to &lt;code&gt;a1&lt;/code&gt; anyhow as we let black promote. Instead, let's use all our tempi to get our king to &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt; as fast as possible and prepare our &lt;code&gt;Ke5-Kf5&lt;/code&gt; maneuver. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Solution:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt; So let's try: &lt;code&gt;1. Kb3 a4+ 2. Kc4 a3 3. Kd5 a1=Q 4. Bxa1 a2 5. Ke5 Kxg7 6. Kf5+ kg8&lt;/code&gt; the difficult bit is done! Now we just have to shoulder away the king from the promotion square (&lt;code&gt;g8&lt;/code&gt;). &lt;code&gt;7. Ke6 Kf8 8. g7+ Kg8 9. Ke7 Kh7 10. Kf7&lt;/code&gt; and the rest is trivial. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;I really recommend to either go through the above discussions without using an analysis board to try out moves, or to try and solve it on your own with mental calculations only, considering our observations a to h. As there are only few pieces in this problem, it can make for a very useful exercise of concentration and calculation.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Animated solution:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt; &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/l34Wg.gif&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3594" LastEditorUserId="3594" LastEditDate="2019-05-03T14:14:11.487" LastActivityDate="2019-05-03T14:14:11.487" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24373" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5582" CreationDate="2019-05-03T16:00:27.323" Score="-4" Body="&lt;p&gt;You have to start right away.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Art of Learning by Joshua Waitzkin has more information about it. Students tend to become results-oriented (as opposed to learning-oriented) if time is spent studying openings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13147" LastActivityDate="2019-05-03T16:00:27.323" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24374" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19857" CreationDate="2019-05-04T00:49:49.513" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a list of Magnus Carlsen’s ratings at each of his birthdays.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;9 years old: 900&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Norwegian rating.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;10 years old: 1645&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Still Norwegian rating.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;11 years old: 2127&lt;br&gt;&#xA;FIDE rating now.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;12 years old: 2250&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Magnus became an FM at age 11.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;13 years old: 2450&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Magnus became an IM at age 12.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;14 years old: 2581&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Magnus became a GM at age 13, the youngest in the world and the second youngest ever at the time.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;15 years old: 2570&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Magnus went through his only real slump that year.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;16 years old: 2698&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Magnus played in his first super tournaments right around this time.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;17 years old: 2714&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Magnus reached 2700 at 16 as the youngest ever, a record that has since been beaten by Wei Yi.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;18 years old: 2786&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Magnus was now number four in the world.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;19 years old: 2801&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Magnus reached 2800 at 18 as the youngest ever. The record still stands.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;20 years old: 2802&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Magnus became the highest rated player in the world at 19, as the youngest ever.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;21 years old: 2826&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Magnus solidified his top spot on the world rankings this year, and has held it since.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;22 years old: 2848&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Magnus was really closing in on Kasparov’s rating record now, and surpassed it shortly after his 22nd birthday.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;23 years old: 2870&lt;br&gt;&#xA;At this point there was a whopping 70 point difference between Magnus and the second rated player, Aronian.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;24 years old: 2863&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Magnus peaked at 2882 (unofficially 2889) that year, the highest rating ever.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;25 years old: 2850&lt;br&gt;&#xA;A minor dip in form.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;26 years old: 2853&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Still number one by a good margin.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;About the app - of course there may be flaws, concerning its system there is no information. Although I don't see any reason why they would deviate from the ELO system (which is used in official FIDE games), whose formulas aren't secret and can be found even on Wikipedia.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19027" LastEditorUserId="19027" LastEditDate="2019-05-04T13:15:32.357" LastActivityDate="2019-05-04T13:15:32.357" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24375" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24377" CreationDate="2019-05-04T13:24:39.010" Score="7" ViewCount="1145" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recently played a game as Black. My opponent and I transposed into, according to Lichess, the Russian Game, Damiano Variation, when White played 4. Qe2. I wasn’t sure how to reply, and I ended up losing my queen and soon resigned.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. Nxe5 Nxe4 4. Qe2 Nf6 5. Nc6+ Be7 6. Nxd8 Kxd8&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As Black, how should one respond to 4. Qe2 by White in the Russian Game, Damiano Variation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-11-29T17:19:20.583" LastActivityDate="2020-11-29T17:19:20.583" Title="As Black, how should one respond to 4. Qe2 by White in the Russian Game, Damiano Variation?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;queens&gt;&lt;petroff-defense&gt;&lt;counterplay&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24376" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24375" CreationDate="2019-05-04T13:48:07.380" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Damiano variant you respond 4. ... Qe7 to 4. Qe2. Yes, white takes the knight faster than you, but then you simply make d6 move, and if white knight retreats, white loses Queen. So to black's 5. ... d6 white have to respond with 6. d4, then: you take knight with the pawn and white makes a move dxe5. After those there's a bunch of possibilities that are better to be all checked on lichess.org via its analysis function.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not to create any complications, you may not beat the e4 pawn after white knight grabs e5. Instead 3. ... d6 is a much better move, in my opinion, making white's knight retreat immediately, after which you can grab 4. ... Nxe4 without a thought after 4. Nf3, for example. And here to 5. Qe2 you simply respond 5. ... Qe7 and thus are able to retreat your knight next move without having a hidden check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19027" LastEditorUserId="2789" LastEditDate="2019-05-04T18:02:31.293" LastActivityDate="2019-05-04T18:02:31.293" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24377" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24375" CreationDate="2019-05-04T14:04:58.127" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;This part of the answer pertains to the first version of the post, where (due to a typo in setting up the diagram in OP) the move &lt;code&gt;4...f6&lt;/code&gt; was played:&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It started to go wrong for you from the move &lt;code&gt;4...f6,&lt;/code&gt; which just walks right into &lt;code&gt;Qh5+&lt;/code&gt; completely winning for white:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [title &quot;why 4...f6 is a mistake&quot;]&#xA; [fen &quot;rnbqkb1r/pppp2pp/5p2/4N3/4n3/8/PPPPQPPP/RNB1KB1R w KQkq - 0 5&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 5.Qh5+ g6 6.Nxg6 hxg6 7.Qxg6+ Ke7 8.Qxe4+ Kf7 9.Bc4+ d5 {forced to sac the pawn so Qg4 can be prevented} (9...Kg7 10.Qg4+ Kh6 11.d4+ Kh7 12.Bd3+ f5 13.Bxf5#) 10.Bxd5+ Kg7 11.Bxb7 Bxb7 12.Qxb7 Nd7 13.O-O {and white is completely winning, both on position and material count.} &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;General advice:&lt;/strong&gt; Particularly against &lt;code&gt;1.e4&lt;/code&gt; systems, you almost always should try to avoid moving your &lt;code&gt;f&lt;/code&gt; pawn early on, as white's queen and light square bishop are activated early on and therefore kingside light square weaknesses can be easily exploited. Typical to the Russian/Petroff move order, is rather &lt;code&gt;d6&lt;/code&gt; instead of &lt;code&gt;f6&lt;/code&gt; in order to kick the knight back. Though &lt;code&gt;4...d6&lt;/code&gt; happens to also have been a poor choice in your game, as in that specific variation &lt;code&gt;4...Qe7&lt;/code&gt; is really the only reasonable move that maintains the balance of the position. So let's look at that next:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;The remaining part of the answer from here tackles the latest and corrected move order provided by the OP, with &lt;code&gt;4.Qe2 Qe7 5.Qxe4&lt;/code&gt; and without &lt;code&gt;f6:&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [title &quot;4...Qe7: cover your king and set up a pin on e5 knight&quot;]&#xA; [fen &quot;rnbqkb1r/pppp1ppp/8/4N3/4n3/8/PPPPQPPP/RNB1KB1R b KQkq - 1 4&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 4...Qe7 5.Qxe4 d6 6.d4 dxe5 7.dxe5 Nc6 8.Bb5 Bd7 9.Nc3 O-O-O&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And black has a much more reasonable play than they did in the aformentioned line.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Generally speaking, inherent to this opening's move order, moves such as &lt;code&gt;Qe2&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;Qe7&lt;/code&gt; come quite naturally as the &lt;code&gt;e&lt;/code&gt; file is opening up quickly and the discovery threats have to be parried, and these queen moves allow you to do so with tempo. Moreover, as you can see from the last line we looked at, trades are abound in this variation, and as black, you should not worry about dropping a pawn if you manage to compensate with development and piece activity (specially in short time control games). By sacrificing the &lt;code&gt;d6&lt;/code&gt; pawn on &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt;, we found a target pawn on &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt; to coordinate against, which resolves your development plan (in contrast to white's play, hesitating as to whether defend the pawn or to regain initiative), and you have a slight initiative after the long castles. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Addendum:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Upon further requests in the comments regarding the latest move order provided by the OP, here I provide additional explanations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Important summary:&lt;/strong&gt; In the Petroff, if you want to take white's pawn immediately after &lt;code&gt;3.Nxe5&lt;/code&gt; then you should definitely expect &lt;code&gt;4.Qe2&lt;/code&gt; as it is white's best move and black has really only one playable reply and that is &lt;code&gt;4...Qe7,&lt;/code&gt; as any other move either loses a piece or a pawn. For example the seemingly natural &lt;code&gt;4...d5&lt;/code&gt; loses a pawn as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [title &quot;4...d5 leads to a loss of pawn&quot;]&#xA; [fen &quot;rnbqkb1r/pppp1ppp/8/4N3/4n3/8/PPPPQPPP/RNB1KB1R b KQkq - 1 4&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 4...d5 5.d3 Qe7 6.dxe4 Qxe5 7.exd5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, it remains to cover all lines ensuing from &lt;code&gt;4...Qe7&lt;/code&gt;, but luckily, white's continuation is also quite limited if they want to play for an edge. The mainline that follows after &lt;code&gt;4...Qe7&lt;/code&gt; is already covered in the 2nd diagram of my answer and the discussions thereafter. For completeness, it's worth pointing out that if in the said line (2nd diagram) white captures the pawn on &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt; with the queen on move &lt;code&gt;7.Qxe5&lt;/code&gt;, then black has two choices:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Avoiding the trade of queens with &lt;code&gt;7...Be6&lt;/code&gt; and playing for the initiative with the added tempo we'll steal (with either &lt;code&gt;Nc6&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;Nd7&lt;/code&gt;) from white thanks to their exposed queen on &lt;code&gt;e5.&lt;/code&gt; Might be perfectly fine for a blitz game, but otherwise white stands clearly better.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;2nd and better option after &lt;code&gt;7.Qxe5&lt;/code&gt; is: Trading queens on &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt; and playing the endgame with a lead in development which partially compensates for being a pawn down, additional compensation lies in the &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt; being somewhat weak as it is easy for black to target all forces on it. Clearly, white has a small edge, but that is expected from the line starting from &lt;code&gt;3...Nxe4&lt;/code&gt; as it is not black's best reply in the Petroff. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That last point bring us to the mainline in the Petroff, which differs from your move order from move &lt;code&gt;3&lt;/code&gt; onward: The main move for black after &lt;code&gt;3.Nxe5&lt;/code&gt; is &lt;code&gt;3...d6&lt;/code&gt; (played thousands of times more often than &lt;code&gt;3...Nxe4&lt;/code&gt;), which simply kicks the knight back to &lt;code&gt;f3&lt;/code&gt; and then black captures the pawn on &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt;. Here's a diagram to showcase one typical continuation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [title &quot;One possible mainline with 3...d6&quot;]&#xA; [fen &quot;rnbqkb1r/pppp1ppp/5n2/4N3/4P3/8/PPPP1PPP/RNBQKB1R b KQkq - 0 3&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 3...d6 4.Nf3 Nxe4 5.Qe2 Qe7 6.d3 Nf6 7.Bg5 Qxe2+ 8.Be2 Be7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The difference with the line of &lt;code&gt;4...Nxe4&lt;/code&gt; is the fact that after &lt;code&gt;Qe2&lt;/code&gt; pinning the knight black can simply reciprocate with &lt;code&gt;Qe7&lt;/code&gt; unpinning and maintaining material equality. Whereas in the previous line (with &lt;code&gt;4...Nxe4&lt;/code&gt;) the trade of knights is forced and white's in time to play &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt; winning our &lt;code&gt;d6&lt;/code&gt; pawn after &lt;code&gt;4.Qe2 Qe7 5.Qxe4 d6 6.d4 dxe5 7.dxe5.&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All in all, in the Petroff defense the queens tend to come off the board rather quickly, therefore, it all very quickly transitions into mid-endgame type of position, which requires very technical play (and as such generally not fun). So I definitely encourage you to explore other defensive systems for black against &lt;code&gt;1.e4,&lt;/code&gt; e.g. the Sicilian or the Caro-Kann defense. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To finish on a fun note, the very line you're interested in is something GM Yasser Seirawan fell for when he was starting out his chess career (around age of 12), where he had come up with a plan: To replicate all opponent's moves and to catch them as soon as they make a mistake, and in the case of the Petroff, as you've experienced it yourself, it ended up costing him his queen of course... :) &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgUQBYOWaOE&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Here's the story told by himself&lt;/a&gt; (Petroff line is around 6:30 min mark), I encourage you to watch the whole thing as it is quite funny and instructive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3594" LastEditorUserId="3594" LastEditDate="2019-09-19T11:37:31.113" LastActivityDate="2019-09-19T11:37:31.113" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24378" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-05-04T14:50:39.593" Score="9" ViewCount="2176" Body="&lt;p&gt;A computer analysis of a game in Lichess lists your &quot;inaccuracies&quot;, &quot;mistakes&quot;, and &quot;blunders&quot;.  An example is below:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/SRgy8.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/SRgy8.png&quot; alt=&quot;LiChess highlighting my &amp;quot;inaccuracies&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;mistakes&amp;quot;, and &amp;quot;blunders&amp;quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What I don't understand is why Lichess doesn't point out my good moves.  It seems there is some inherent problem identifying strong moves, which is not present when pointing out poor moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Why does Lichess only tell me my &quot;inaccuracies&quot;, &quot;mistakes&quot;, and &quot;blunders&quot;, and not e.g. my &quot;brilliancies&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2785" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-05-05T06:16:47.517" LastActivityDate="2021-01-19T16:20:58.490" Title="Why does Lichess only tell me my &quot;inaccuracies&quot;, &quot;mistakes&quot;, and &quot;blunders&quot;, and not e.g. my &quot;brilliancies&quot;?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;lichess&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="17" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24379" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24378" CreationDate="2019-05-04T15:07:35.630" Score="20" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here's why computer analysis (on any platform) can not find brilliant moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;They don't exist.&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, I recognize that this seems &lt;em&gt;very&lt;/em&gt; counter-intuitive, but bear with me. This has to do with the difference between how &lt;em&gt;we&lt;/em&gt; (intuitively) view a chess game and how a &lt;em&gt;computer&lt;/em&gt; (correctly) views a chess game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When we look at a chess position, we subconsciously view the position on the board as having a certain value, and we look to improve that value.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Chess computers look at this in a &lt;em&gt;completely&lt;/em&gt; different way.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The value that they assess the position is based on perfect play from the position forward - the only way to deviate from the perfect play is to make an error of some sort.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: You're losing a game by a bit, and then you find a beautiful, non-obvious tactic that nets your opponent's queen. In our human minds, we just took the game from losing to winning with our brilliancy. According to the computer, &lt;strong&gt;the position was already winning&lt;/strong&gt; for you, because the computer saw the brilliancy. Any move other than the brilliancy is likely a mistake of some sort.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;TL;DR&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Non-obvious &quot;brilliant&quot; moves do not change the value of the position - they merely fulfill its potential.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, of course there are moves that we consider &quot;excellent&quot; or &quot;brilliant&quot; for one reason or another (requires a sacrifice, isn't immediately obvious, requires deep calculation, etc.). Don't get me wrong - it feels &lt;em&gt;very&lt;/em&gt; rewarding to find one of these moves, and some moves are undeniably &quot;!!&quot; moves for human players. However, any analysis (on the part of a spectator  &lt;em&gt;or&lt;/em&gt; a player) that does &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; take into account the &quot;!!&quot; move is incorrect in the first place, and the &quot;!!&quot; move shows that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, creating an objective definition of &quot;brilliancy&quot; is next to impossible - sometimes we &quot;know&quot; a move is brilliant, but we can't consistently explain why.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18168" LastEditorUserId="18168" LastEditDate="2019-05-04T16:48:07.290" LastActivityDate="2019-05-04T16:48:07.290" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24380" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24378" CreationDate="2019-05-04T18:34:27.957" Score="23" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's really hard to tell what a brilliancy is. For example, you might try to say that a brilliancy is a move that's much better than any other move on the board.  Well, if you offer me a queen exchange and I play queen takes queen, you taking back my queen is probably a much better move than any alternative, but it's definitely not a brilliancy. So maybe a brilliancy is a &lt;em&gt;non-obvious&lt;/em&gt; move that's much better than any alternative. OK, but what's non-obvious? Maybe you could do something based on the depth you have to go in the search tree to prove that the move is good, but that probably still isn't right because a long sequence of exchanges is usually obvious but, by construction, goes deep into the tree. Or, suppose you trap my queen: by the proof depth metric, that would be a brilliancy if I can insert a long sequence of pointless checks before you take my queen, and a normal move if I can't.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In contrast, bad moves are easy to detect: if a move is suboptimal, you just compare its score against the score of the best move and use a more negative word for bigger differences.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Fundamentally, there's only one best move in any situation. As far as the computer is concerned, you either played it or you didn't.  Bad moves are bad moves, but brilliancies are good moves that most players wouldn't have seen, and that's as much a statement about &quot;most players&quot; as it is about &quot;good moves&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2789" LastActivityDate="2019-05-04T18:34:27.957" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24382" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24351" CreationDate="2019-05-05T07:49:06.497" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;A more practical workaround to go about this in SCID vs. PC is to copy the filter games to the clipbase and open a tree window for the clipbase database. Admittedly it's still inconvenient compared to the functionality in SCID.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1716" LastActivityDate="2019-05-05T07:49:06.497" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24383" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-05-05T10:22:12.073" Score="1" ViewCount="194" Body="&lt;p&gt;My colleague Prof. Dr. S. writes a fictional story with symbolic elements involved.  One of them is a simultaneous game played by a grandmaster with a gifted schoolboy. Prof. S. wants to represent it by a real game by players of similar strength. But for some symbolic reasons, unknown even to the author, :-) the end of the game &lt;em&gt;must&lt;/em&gt; match the following pattern. At the final stage Black finds a unique saving move ... Nf6 and after one move White has nothing better than a perpetual check. I failed to find such a game by Google and I am not acquainted with chess databases, so I ask here for a game instance matching the given pattern, preferable with mentioned strength of the players. Thanks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Update (May 7).&lt;/strong&gt; I have a talk with Prof. S. He thanks to all who offered help. Below are results of our discussion of the problem conditions. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The move …Nf6 followed by a perpetual check is a necessary game condition. But between ... Nf4 and the start of the perpetual check (which we consider as the first check in the series) are allowed a few intermediate moves, preferable at most three (at most four  in the worst case). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Prof. S. understands how hard is to find a required game and thinks that it is needed a lot of luck for this. If it will fail than then, as  already proposed @Brandon_J and @Scounged, there is an option to construct a fake game of sufficiently strong players (especially White) which satisfies the above conditions and does not looks artificial. In this case it is preferable to start a game from a move 1. d4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the very worst case when even a construction will fail there is a option to construct only the final position, which looks as a plausible position from a game of sufficiently strong players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately, the &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/24389/19031&quot;&gt;game&lt;/a&gt; between Ward and Lalic does not fit the purpose of Prof. S. He needs a &lt;em&gt;material&lt;/em&gt; advantage for White which is kept after the move …Nf6. Nevertheless, also is required that this move is not an obvious, and this is a problem. The advantage, the bigger the better, but it can be sufficient for White to have a superfluous or a passed pawn. The aim of this condition is to provide for the amateur audience a game position which seems to be winning for White.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19031" LastEditorUserId="19031" LastEditDate="2019-05-07T16:28:49.200" LastActivityDate="2019-05-07T16:28:49.200" Title="Looking for a real game ending by ... Nf6! leading to a perpetual check by White" Tags="&lt;master-games&gt;&lt;perpetual&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="8" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24384" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24365" CreationDate="2019-05-05T12:56:06.010" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I approached this problem in reverse. I transported my king to a winning position at F5 and then tried to figure out how he got there. I also realized that my pawn at G7 had to be removed with Black's help, but my own bishop was preventing that. Eventually, I saw that my King could block my bishop and for the sacrifice of G7. All of this has to be done while still giving Black a legal pawn move to avoid stalemate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user19036" LastActivityDate="2019-05-05T12:56:06.010" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24385" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24378" CreationDate="2019-05-05T15:14:45.510" Score="14" Body="&lt;h1&gt;You are being compared to perfection&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your every move is being evaluated by a chess engine with super-human playing-strength. The default is to compare your performance to its own super-human performance. Since the engine always makes the move it itself has identified as the highest-valued, perforce it always makes the best move by definition. Hence you can only stray from this path of &amp;quot;perfection&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Allowing brilliance means comparing to non-perfection&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To leave room for brilliant moves, or better than expected performance, it is necessary that your performance be compared to something that is not &amp;quot;perfect&amp;quot; by definition, for example the performance of a weaker engine. Theoretically, given the availability of a whole range of engines with different known ratings, each one of your moves could be categorized into a specific rating bucket.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9531" LastEditorUserId="9531" LastEditDate="2021-01-19T16:20:58.490" LastActivityDate="2021-01-19T16:20:58.490" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24387" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5904" CreationDate="2019-05-05T22:02:09.933" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think you should say check, because if the other player is less experienced than you, then he/she would probably get better at it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19041" LastActivityDate="2019-05-05T22:02:09.933" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24388" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24375" CreationDate="2019-05-06T02:57:21.343" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Do not play 3...Nxe4 in response to 3. Nxe5&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I feel this important aspect is missing in the other answers. You can see the primary reason it doesn't work in your game - you end up losing the queen. Given that you can't just move the knight after 4. Qe2, your next-best option is to play 4...Qe7 5. Qxe4 d6 (or ...f6), which still results in you losing a pawn. It's not a disaster because Black does have some compensation in the form of superior development, but Black's position is still undoubtedly inferior.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Avoiding this line is the main line of the Petroff, and is much more stable. The main line goes 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. Nxe5 d6 4. Nf3 Nxe4 5.d4 d5. Black has gained a tempo (as seen from his advanced knight), but the knight is somewhat exposed and can potentially be forced to retreat, in which case White is up two tempi. In practice, White can usually achieve this, but needs to play pawn breaks like c4, which balances out. The Petroff is thought to be drawish for a reason.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastActivityDate="2019-05-06T02:57:21.343" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24389" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24383" CreationDate="2019-05-06T04:01:20.513" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This game meets the criteria of Black plays the best move Nf6, and after one move, White has nothing better than a perpetual. However, it's probably not quite what you're looking for. If Black plays the second best move, Stockfish evaluates the position as +0.12, which is a rather slim advantage for White. So it's hardly the &quot;only saving move&quot;. Furthermore, White has the option of not pursuing the perpetual and playing on - according to Stockfish, the resulting position is &quot;nothing better than&quot; the perpetual, but it's not really worse either.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Nf6 move that is relevant occurs on move 44 by black, and soon thereafter white perpetually checks black with their rook. 17 moves later a draw occurs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White was rated 2500, and Black was rated 2537. Both were grandmasters at the time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;Redbus KO&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Southend&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2002.04.01&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;4.2&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Ward, Chris G&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Lalic, Bogdan&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1/2-1/2&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;2500&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;2537&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;A20&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;2002.03.29&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;122&quot;]&#xA;[Source &quot;ChessliB&quot;]&#xA;[SourceDate &quot;2003.01.21&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.c4 e5 2.g3 Nf6 3.Bg2 c6 4.Nf3 e4 5.Nd4 d5 6.cxd5 Qxd5 7.Nc2 Qh5 8.h3 Bc5&#xA;9.b4 Bb6 10.Bb2 Nbd7 11.Ne3 O-O 12.Nc3 Re8 13.Qc2 Qg6 14.b5 Bd4 15.bxc6 &#xA;bxc6 16.Qa4 c5 17.Rb1 Nb6 18.Qc2 Bd7 19.a4 Bxc3 20.Bxc3 Bxa4 21.Qa2 Nfd7 &#xA;22.h4 Qe6 23.Qxe6 Rxe6 24.h5 Bc6 25.h6 g6 26.O-O f5 27.Ra1 Na4 28.Bg7 Ndb6&#xA;29.Rfc1 Rd8 30.Ra2 Bb5 31.Kf1 a6 32.Ke1 c4 33.Nc2 Red6 34.Na3 Nc5 35.f3 &#xA;Nb3 36.Rcc2 e3 37.dxe3 Nd5 38.Nxc4 Rc6 39.Ne5 Re6 40.Rcb2 Nc5 41.Rd2 Red6 &#xA;42.Kf2 Ne6 43.f4 Nxg7 44.hxg7 Nf6 45.Rxd6 Rxd6 46.Rc2 Kxg7 47.Rc7+ Kg8 48.&#xA;Rc8+ Kg7 49.Rc7+ Kg8 50.Ra7 Nd7 51.Nf3 Nf6 52.Ne5 Nd7 53.Ra8+ Kg7 54.Ra7 &#xA;Kg8 55.Ra8+ Kg7 56.Ra7 Kg8 57.Nf3 Nf6 58.Ne5 Nd7 59.Nf3 Nf6 60.Ne5 Nd7 61.&#xA;Nf3 Nf6 ( 61...Nf6 32:+0.00 62.Ne5 Rd2 63.Ra8+ Kg7 64.Ra7+ Kg8) 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2019-05-06T18:21:19.863" LastActivityDate="2019-05-06T18:21:19.863" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24390" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24394" CreationDate="2019-05-06T04:20:02.453" Score="2" ViewCount="107" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is it possible for engine A to be decisively better than engine B at short time controls (say, 5 min/game) but decisively weaker at long time controls (say, 1 hour/game)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the answer is yes, what could possibly be the source of the discrepancy? If the answer is no, why do we need long time control tournaments like the TCEC superfinal, when we could just get both engines to play each other at short time control much more often?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastEditorUserId="15223" LastEditDate="2019-05-06T08:25:31.587" LastActivityDate="2019-05-06T12:29:04.307" Title="Is it possible for an engine to be stronger at short time controls, and weaker at long time controls?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24392" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24395" CreationDate="2019-05-06T07:20:03.057" Score="26" ViewCount="2725" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;r1bqkbnr/1ppp1ppp/p1B5/4p3/4P3/5N2/PPPP1PPP/RNBQK2R b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the Ruy Lopez Exchange, black always takes back the bishop with 4...dxc6. In Timothy Taylor's 2011 book &lt;em&gt;Slay the Spanish&lt;/em&gt;, he advocates 4...bxc6 instead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I want to analyze his lines and reach my own opinion, but I've never played these lines before. I want to know more about the arguments for 4...dxc6 that he is arguing against first, so that I can be a bit more skeptical about the lines he gives.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White still can't win a pawn with 4...bxc6 5.Nxe5 because of 5...Qe7 6.d4 d6 7.Nf3 Qxe4+.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can see that 4...dxc6 does more for development than 4...bxc6 does, and it leads to two pawn islands instead of three, but 4...bxc6 captures towards the center.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there more to it than that? What is concrete analysis that's usually used to argue that 4...dxc6 is so superior that it is virtually always played?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastEditorUserId="7726" LastEditDate="2019-05-06T09:25:06.817" LastActivityDate="2019-09-15T20:57:52.230" Title="Why always 4...dxc6 and not 4...bxc6 in the Ruy Lopez Exchange?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;ruy-lopez&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24393" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24392" CreationDate="2019-05-06T09:28:04.663" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;First of all, you are correct in your assessment, that taking towards the center normally is preferred. The reason for this is, that taking towards the center usually (!) allows for easier development and generally more active play. As a rule of thumb (remember - few absolutes in chess!) taking towards the center leads to sharper positions, taking away from it tends to favor calm games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Ruy Lopez often results in extremely rich middlegames, which for many players pose some difficulties, as (especially with white) you need to find a plan in a position where you mostly won't get away with hurling all your pawns at the enemies king and checkmating. Mindlessly developing your pieces is easy - coordinating them on a full board is not.&#xA;I personally do not like the positions resulting from 4... bxc as, while maybe inherently not being bad, it gives white concrete targets to attack. Moreover the benefits for black (development, supporting d5) are a while away. Let's take a look at it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Center&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Since you now have a pawn on c6, d5 is basically screaming to be played - attacking white's e-pawn. However after a rather quiet d3 by white (the bishop is already out of the garage anyway) d5 doesn't really achieve a whole lot. If white were to take with 6. exd, you would have solved all your problems. However white is in no way obligated to do so (and shouldn't!). Taking on e4 yourself results in just a joke of a pawn structure.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Even if the tension is preserved black's pawn on e5 is in trouble. Nxe5 poses a realistic threat now - and there is no good way of defending that e-pawn (much like when white plays c3 too early in a Ruy Lopez!). Bd6 would kill the bishop, Qe7 is awful in so many ways and f3... Well, &lt;strong&gt;never play f3&lt;/strong&gt;!&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Position after 4 ... bc 5. 0-0 d5 6. d3 de? 7. de&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;r1bqkbnr/2p2ppp/p1p5/4p3/4P3/5N2/PPP2PPP/RNBQ1RK1 w KQkq - 0 5&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Position after 4 ... bxc 5. 0-0 d5 6. d3 dxe? 7. dxe | Not the best moves for white - but the resulting position is not looking good for black.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which brings us to...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;... the doubled c-pawns&#xA;Which may come under fire. The c6 pawn is only defended by the d-pawn - and you are going to move that one away.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Development&#xA;Black opened b7 for his bishop, but the diagonal is now blocked by his c6 pawn. Developing to b7 anyway doesn't feel good.&#xA;Another idea would be to push the a6-pawn and put the bishop on a6 - this however weakens the pawn severely and the bishop is somewhat misplaced on a6.&#xA;Black doesn't really gain anything here.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I sadly do not have more time for more analysis, but white can find easy ways to put blacks position under pressure and will probably be in the driver seat for the rest of the game. Black is required to play really precisely to &lt;strong&gt;hold&lt;/strong&gt; his position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On a side note: 4. ... bxc 4. O-O has a 62% (!) win rate for white in the lichess masters database! The only commonly known grandmaster to play this is (Who else...? ^^) Bent Larsen. The game ended in a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17911" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-09-15T12:48:03.647" LastActivityDate="2019-09-15T12:48:03.647" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24394" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24390" CreationDate="2019-05-06T09:29:58.060" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why not? I don't have an example here, but cache implementation could be a major factor.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A cache algorithm that doesn't scale well with time will not perform well on a long time control. No matter how much memory you have, at longer control it will surely be filled up very easily and very quickly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2019-05-06T09:29:58.060" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24395" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24392" CreationDate="2019-05-06T09:57:51.923" Score="20" Body="&lt;p&gt;Good question. Indeed &lt;code&gt;4..bxc6&lt;/code&gt; is extremely rare compared to the main line, and the reasons are multi-fold specially strategically, but foremost, from a concrete point of view it leads to a rather poor position for black after the immediate &lt;code&gt;d4-exd4-Qxd4&lt;/code&gt; and white's completely controlling the centre:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [title &quot;Important concrete reply&quot;]&#xA; [fen &quot;r1bqkbnr/2pp1ppp/p1p5/4p3/4P3/5N2/PPPP1PPP/RNBQK2R w KQkq - 0 5&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1.d4 exd4 2.Qxd4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From a strategic point of view, &lt;code&gt;4..bxc6&lt;/code&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;leaves black with an isolated &lt;code&gt;a6&lt;/code&gt; pawn without any effort required from white.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;More damaging to the structure than &lt;code&gt;dxc6&lt;/code&gt; as black's left without any prospect of a queenside expansion since move four already! First repercussion of the latter is the fact that white has the assured prospect of blockading black's isolated &lt;code&gt;a&lt;/code&gt; pawn and in doing so render it into a permanent weakness.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Despite black having the bishop pair in principle, the bishops have very poor prospects in this structure, in particular the light squared one, e.g.: developing it along the long diagonal is no longer meaningful as the fianchetto option is gone and an indirect one with &lt;code&gt;c6-c5-Bb7&lt;/code&gt; will in turn block-in the &lt;code&gt;f8&lt;/code&gt; bishop. Moreover, to develop the bishop along the side diagonal &lt;code&gt;c8-h3&lt;/code&gt; is now at least delayed for an extra tempo, which means white could easily include &lt;code&gt;h3&lt;/code&gt; without any real drawbacks. Instead, with &lt;code&gt;dxc6&lt;/code&gt; both bishops are immediately activated and the bishop pair compensation is more tangible (specially with &lt;code&gt;Bg4&lt;/code&gt; being readily playable). &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The latter is really pointing to the fact that with &lt;code&gt;bxc6&lt;/code&gt; black is left with very poor piece activity, and the structure guarantees no real outpost for the knight, in fact not even the immediate &lt;code&gt;Nf6&lt;/code&gt; is playable after &lt;code&gt;bxc6 d4 exd4 Qxd4 Nf6&lt;/code&gt; the knight is pushed around to non-ideal posts such as &lt;code&gt;b6&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;e7&lt;/code&gt; after &lt;code&gt;e5-Nd5-c4.&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Unlike &lt;code&gt;bxc6&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;dxc6&lt;/code&gt; is in fact challenging the immediate &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt; (which is one of white's main plans in this structure) as the queen trade becomes forced and having the bishop pair black definitely doesn't mind the endgame. Thus, as mentioned in the beginning, with &lt;code&gt;4...bxc6&lt;/code&gt; black is even playing into white's hands by inviting &lt;code&gt;d4.&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;This line of &lt;code&gt;bxc6-d4-exd4-Qxd4&lt;/code&gt; is really critical as it perfectly highlights the major differences between the two sides: white has all the space, perfectly healthy pawn structure, ready to castle (while black is at least 2 tempi away), while black has no prospect to claim the centre, nor to liquidate the isolated &lt;code&gt;a6&lt;/code&gt; pawn. I highly encourage you to play through some of the ensuing lines after this move order, you'll quickly develop a feel for the kinds of struggles black is facing.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now consider going through all above points but with the position after &lt;code&gt;4...dxc6:&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [title &quot;Main line after dxc6&quot;]&#xA; [fen &quot;r1bqkbnr/1pp2ppp/p1p5/4p3/4P3/5N2/PPPP1PPP/RNBQK2R w KQkq - 0 5&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in doing so, hopefully you'll be able to convince yourself that all the aspects of &lt;code&gt;dxc6&lt;/code&gt; outweigh that of &lt;code&gt;bxc6,&lt;/code&gt; both concretely and strategically. Last but not least, note that here the immediate &lt;code&gt;c3&lt;/code&gt; (for &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt;) is not possible due to &lt;code&gt;Qd3,&lt;/code&gt; moreover, black is well in time to keep the fight over &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt; alive (e.g. &lt;code&gt;5.O-O Bg4&lt;/code&gt; pinning white's most important piece of they're to ever play &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At the high level, the key downsides to be emphasized for &lt;code&gt;4...bxc6&lt;/code&gt; are: &lt;strong&gt;isolated&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;code&gt;a&lt;/code&gt; pawn, &lt;strong&gt;no prospect&lt;/strong&gt; of expansion on the &lt;strong&gt;queenside&lt;/strong&gt;, extremely &lt;strong&gt;limited minor piece activity&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;delayed&lt;/strong&gt; development, and the &lt;strong&gt;lack&lt;/strong&gt; of any ability to create a target in white's camp. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3594" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-09-15T12:58:03.207" LastActivityDate="2019-09-15T12:58:03.207" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24396" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24390" CreationDate="2019-05-06T12:29:04.307" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here's an argument for how this might happen, but I don't know if it applies to real engines out there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Imagine engines A and B are able to calculate to the same depth at short time controls, but due to better optimizations, B can calculate deeper at long time controls. And then imagine engine A has a better evaluation function. It seems to me that engine A might have an advantage at fast time control, but a disadvantage at slow time control.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12523" LastActivityDate="2019-05-06T12:29:04.307" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24398" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-05-06T17:49:23.713" Score="3" ViewCount="269" Body="&lt;p&gt;I live in a small town. I only play a couple of tournaments a year and about two rapid games a week with my teamates. Therefore, playing online should be my primary source of practice, but I find it really hard to focus and calculate when playing online (rapid or even classical). As a result, I play way better on the board than online. Is there something I can do to play better online?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19046" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-05-06T18:37:03.433" LastActivityDate="2021-03-20T15:51:06.627" Title="I play better on the board than online. How can I play better online?" Tags="&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;best-practice&gt;&lt;otb-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24399" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-05-06T17:55:07.763" Score="2" ViewCount="72" Body="&lt;p&gt;I already looked on several websites but I have not been able to get a clear and thorough answer to this question: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If player &lt;em&gt;A&lt;/em&gt; has FIDE rating &lt;strong&gt;x&lt;/strong&gt; and player &lt;em&gt;B&lt;/em&gt; has FIDE rating&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;y&lt;/strong&gt;, how many times, on average, player &lt;em&gt;A&lt;/em&gt; should be able to win? In other words, what is the probability for &lt;em&gt;A&lt;/em&gt; to beat &lt;em&gt;B&lt;/em&gt;?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Is there a mathematical formula to get such a probability?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Furthermore, what is the amount of points that are added/subtracted to the players if they have a certain difference in Elo rating? Which is the mathematical formula behind it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance, this article &lt;a href=&quot;https://thechessworld.com/articles/general-information/all-truth-about-elo-rating-system/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;All truth about ELO rating system&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;gives a couple of examples for opponents with a rating difference of 200, 400, 600; but is there a more generic formula?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could someone give (or point to) a quite decent and thorough explanation? Thanks in advance!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18674" LastEditorUserId="8472" LastEditDate="2019-05-06T18:23:06.307" LastActivityDate="2019-05-06T18:23:06.307" Title="Probability of winning based on Elo rating" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;elo&gt;&lt;mathematics&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2019-05-07T12:38:32.477" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24400" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24709" CreationDate="2019-05-06T18:57:35.737" Score="14" ViewCount="1519" Body="&lt;p&gt;I’m a big fan of chess cheat detection apps, like Irwin that was created by lichess.org.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I heard that there is a new bot called Leela that is teaching herself how to play chess, and to think in a human-like way. Is that true, and are there any ways to detect it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19047" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-05-18T13:05:13.480" LastActivityDate="2019-12-03T19:05:18.297" Title="Can an Irwin Cheat Detector catch a user who is using a Leela chess bot for cheating?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;cheating&gt;&lt;lichess&gt;&lt;leela&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24401" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24408" CreationDate="2019-05-07T00:11:52.207" Score="4" ViewCount="1089" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have been playing chess for almost an year and I'm addicted to playing chess on Lichess.&#xA;My stats there are:&#xA;2100 classical&#xA;2000 rapid&#xA;1800 blitz&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I feel that playing chess online ruins my life and that my life would be much better without it at the moment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I'm studying at the University and my grades dropped.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I'm not devoted enough in my work place.  &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I'm barely going out with my friends &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I do less sports&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I dropped some of my other fun hobbies&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I sleep very late &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I barely go on dates&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All of these are results of my online chess addiction.&#xA;However, after all that said, it makes me sad to think that I will give up chess completely. I still want to keep my playing skills and improve.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can a chess player keep himself in shape only by studying chess (which is not as addictive as playing online) and playing long time control OTB tournaments once in a while? Or should I quit chess completely? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please help me by finding some things that I could do to stay good at chess while not playing online.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm mainly addicted to blitz, the problem is that I lack self control to retain myself from playing it. I tried a few times to stop playing blitz only but failed to accomplish and went back to my bad habits. I wish there was an option to open an account that would be allowed to play long time control games only to help people like me. Once I play blitz I usually just crave to reach a specific rating and I play like am possessed. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I started playing in a local chess club a few months ago. I already got to play 3 long time control tournaments, quite sucessfully and I want to keep my level there. I fear that without this abusive online playing my abilities OTB will be damaged&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user19048" LastEditorDisplayName="user19048" LastEditDate="2019-05-07T18:48:34.207" LastActivityDate="2021-03-02T19:31:43.523" Title="Can one improve his chess without playing online?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;study&gt;&lt;lichess&gt;&lt;otb-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="8" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24402" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24401" CreationDate="2019-05-07T05:57:37.120" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;If chess is stopping your normal life you should just stop it. It’s not a career for you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Fischer played better chess than you but never played online. It’s of course possible to improve without playing online. Why not read digital books like Chessable.com? What about study your own game with a computer?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Come out for real tournaments to gain FIDE points whenever you have some time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2019-05-07T09:54:11.480" LastActivityDate="2019-05-07T09:54:11.480" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24403" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24401" CreationDate="2019-05-07T05:59:10.843" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would recommend playing in tournaments at your local chess club.  Aim for longer games with at least 30 minutes for each side (the longer the better).  Based on your online rating, you should be somewhere in the middle of the field depending on the strength of your club.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It may take you some time to adjust to playing over the board if you aren't used to it.  However, with practice your online chess skills should transfer to a physical chess board just fine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18421" LastEditorUserId="18421" LastEditDate="2019-05-07T18:36:12.150" LastActivityDate="2019-05-07T18:36:12.150" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24404" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5363" CreationDate="2019-05-07T13:56:05.037" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Rosie F’s answer is a wonderful one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, if you want it to be forced in terms of returning a check with a check, and having to make that move by the laws of chess, I have a different answer. The positions are legal and are checkmating problems as required.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The record with each player having multiple legal moves is 22 ply.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Alexey Khanyan, Tim Krabbe’s Website #267 2008, Mate in 11&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;4Q2Q/4r3/4n1n1/1bbK1krn/RR1RR1RR/2qn1R1n/4n1nN/Q3Q3 b - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;[startflipped &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Ng2f4+ 2. Rfxf4+ N2xf4+ 3. Rgxf4+ Nh3xf4+ 4. Rhxf4+ Ndxf4+ 5. Rxf4+ Nhxf4+ 6. Rxf4+ Ngxf4+ 7. Rxf4+ Nxf4+ 8. Rxf4+ Kxf4+ 9. Qee5+ Qxe5+ 10. Qaxe5+ Rgxe5+ 11. Qxe5+ Rxe5+ 12. Qxe5#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;https://timkr.home.xs4all.nl/chess2/diary_14.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Diary Entry #267&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want it so each player has only one legal move, the known record is 15 ply.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;shoopi, www.chess.com 6/11/2013, Mate In 8&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;rk1KB3/b1q1QQQR/bnqQ1q2/1Rq1Q1q1/2q1rQ1q/6B1/6QQ/8 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Qxc7+ Qxc7+ 2. Qxc7+ Qxc7+ 3. Qxc7+ Qxc7+ 4. Bxc7+ Kb7+ 5. Bb8+ Qxe7+ 6. Qxe7+ Qxe7+ 7. Qxe7+ Qxe7+ 8. Rxe7#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;https://pdb.dieschwalbe.de/P1374763&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;The Die Schwalbe Chess Problem Database&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Additional Source: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/forum/view/more-puzzles/self-solving-puzzles?page=3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;The original page!&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-02-06T08:21:20.170" LastActivityDate="2021-02-06T08:21:20.170" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24406" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24401" CreationDate="2019-05-07T14:42:13.547" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I agree with itub's comment. You don't neccessarily have to give up on playing online altogether, but ask yourself whether you just play on at times, game after game, like you're possessed.&#xA;Does chess become an obsession rather than recreation? Does this happen to you for all time controls? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In general, obsessive playing is more likely when playing blitz (or even faster time controls than that) due to prolonged adrenaline rushes being more likely in faster time controls (in general you get some time to calm yourself down between moves during a longer game). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you feel like the situation is getting out of hand you shouldn't hesitate to take a break from online chess for a while, and remember that taking a break for now doesn't mean you have to give up playing for the rest of your life. Another thing that you could do that itub also suggested in his comment is to join a local chess club and play chess OTB in general. One of the issues with online chess that makes it addictive is that there's always someone willing to play you online, no matter what time it is, an issue which doesn't really exist with OTB chess in general.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When it comes to keeping oneself in shape chess-wise, I think you don't need to worry that much. If you stop playing completely you will naturally get rusty, but your ability to play will not disappear very easily. When I was inactive for a while during my years as an undergrad I had some issues when I started playing again, but these issues were intimately connected with time management and self-doubt, and after a tournament or two I was already back at full strenght. In general, if you play about 4-5 OTB tournaments a year I have a hard time seeing you even getting rusty in the first place, and if you work on your chess inbetween tournaments by studying chess in general I don't see why you couldn't improve.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8300" LastActivityDate="2019-05-07T14:42:13.547" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24408" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24401" CreationDate="2019-05-07T19:43:59.970" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd like to start with this comment of yours:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;I fear that without this abusive online playing my abilities OTB will be damaged.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know where you are coming from, because I've been there, too. I used to be &lt;em&gt;ridiculously&lt;/em&gt; addicted to chess - and I wasn't even very good lol. Now it's a hobby, which is much more healthy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also know that fear you speak of - I, and people like myself (which presumably includes you) strive for depth, rather than breadth in life. Being very good at one thing seems so much more important than being kind of good at a lot of things; trouble is, I picked the wrong thing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Personally, &lt;em&gt;I had to completely stop playing chess for a while.&lt;/em&gt; When I came back to it (in a more recreational fashion), I was indeed worse at chess, and though I have improved, I'm still not completely back to where I was (although I strongly suspect I'll get there).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;It was &lt;em&gt;completely&lt;/em&gt; worth it.&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I had free-time. I had sleep. I had better grades. By golly, I even had more &lt;em&gt;friends&lt;/em&gt; - not fair-weather friends, but honest-to-goodness friends that cared about me and my life.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I say all of this to encourage you that even if your playing ability drops off, &lt;em&gt;please&lt;/em&gt; don't worry about it. &lt;strong&gt;Chess is not your life. Your life is your life. Go out and live it! Study with all of your strength, go on dates, hang out with your friends, work your rear end off and become the absolutely amazing, incredible person that you are&lt;/strong&gt; - one that's always up for a relaxing game of chess with a friend, of course.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now for the practical suggestions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are some suggestions for maintaining playing strength while limiting online chess:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Study master games. Seriously, doing this will get you &lt;em&gt;way&lt;/em&gt; more chess knowledge than playing oodles of blitz games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Read some chess books, playing out the games on the board if you wish. These books are almost always entertaining as well as being extremely helpful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Play casually OTB with some friends, analyzing various lines at a relaxed pace - chat with a friend (or maybe even a date) over a nice, no-pressure, slow game (although if it's a date, make sure that she likes chess first XD).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Visit you local chess club, and play some games there when you're in a good spot with your schoolwork and workplace work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;TL;DR: it really is possible to enjoy chess &lt;em&gt;and&lt;/em&gt; have a life.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18168" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2019-05-07T20:16:31.847" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24409" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19437" CreationDate="2019-05-07T21:13:30.443" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The LC0 authors studied the AlphaZero paper very carefully, ran their own experiments, and they came to the following conclusion. AlphaZero, despite calling it's algorithm Monte Carlo tree search (All Monte Carlo methods are by definition explicitly random), does not employ any explicit non-determinism after a certain number of moves (I believe this is 15 moves). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are two different parts to MCTS that could introduce randomness into move selection. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;During the search phase, AlphaZero assigns weights on which moves to explore based on 2 factors: the win probability as evaulated by the neural network, and also some sub-tree size statistics of the parent and child move sub-trees. The first factor ensures that more promising lines are evaluated first, and the second factor ensures that less promising lines are eventually searched. In a natural implementation of MCTS, it would use weighted random choices between these weighted possibilities. In reality, AlphaZero chooses between these completely deterministicly, by just choosing the max weight every time. It does this because the randomness in this step does not turn out to be helpful, and only distracts the engine from the more important variations, on average.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;During the moving phase, it can make a weighted choice between move candidates which already have deep and accurate evaluations calculated by the search phase. The idea is to make slightly suboptimal moves to try to introduce diversity in its play, so it doesn't play the same game every time. This is especially important during training, but also leads to more interesting match results. It turns out that AlphaZero only does this for the first 15 moves or so, after that it always chooses the best move. This determinism turns out to be essential for its extremely accurate endgame play, where tiny differences in evaluation turn out to be the difference between draws and wins. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is true during both training and evaluation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In other words, once it is out of the opening, its play is as deterministic as a traditional engine. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, note that it will have the same sort of multithreading and time control non-determinism as traditional engines. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19030" LastActivityDate="2019-05-07T21:13:30.443" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24410" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24365" CreationDate="2019-05-08T02:14:02.030" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;How to approach this problem.  First you must understand just what the problem is, as you would with any problem. -  It's obvious that white must promote a pawn to win. He'll never be able to move the g7 pawn, so the g6 pawn is the only candidate.  To accomplish that he must sacrifice the g7 pawn while gettng his king over to defend the g6 pawn.  But the question is whether he'll have enough tempi to do that.  A quick count seems to indicate that he won't before black runs out of moves and is stalemated.  Hence some &quot;trickery&quot; must be in order, i.e. the white king's interfering with the white bishop's protection of the g7 pawn long enough for the black king to capture it while the white king can then protect the g6 pawn.  Now that we know the method, we can apply it, as follows  -  1. Kb3 a4+  2. Kc4 a3  3. Kd5 a1(Q)  4. Bxa1 a2  5. Ke5!  Kxg7  6. Kf5+ Kg8  7. Kg5 Kf8  8. Kh6 Kg8  9. g7 Kf7  10. Kh7 Ke6&lt;br&gt;&#xA;11. g8(Q)+ wins.  (if 6..., Kh6 7. Kf6 Kh5  8. g7 Kh6 or Kg4  9. g8(Q) wins).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastActivityDate="2019-05-08T02:14:02.030" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24411" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-05-08T04:48:56.627" Score="9" ViewCount="3310" Body="&lt;p&gt;In &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.365chess.com/view_game.php?g=3606995&amp;amp;m=14&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this game between Guseinov (2622) vs. Bauer (2634)&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Crete 2007 · French, Winawer, Alekhine (Maroczy) gambit (C15) · ½-½&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.    e4    e6&#xA;2.    d4    d5&#xA;3.    Nc3    Bb4&#xA;4.    Nge2    Nc6&#xA;5.    a3    Ba5&#xA;6.    b4    Bb6&#xA;7.    Na4    dxe4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After dxe4, Guseinov played 8. Bb2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why did he not take the black dark square bishop on the b6 square with his knight on a4?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17378" LastEditorUserId="18475" LastEditDate="2020-01-06T00:08:34.313" LastActivityDate="2020-01-06T13:13:51.487" Title="Why not take the bishop with the knight (Guseinov vs. Bauer)?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;captures&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24412" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24411" CreationDate="2019-05-08T08:52:58.773" Score="25" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is no hurry. After 8. Bb2 the bishop on b6 is not going anywhere. NxB continues to be available to white until black does something about it like a6. That means that delaying NxB gains a tempo if black has to make a less useful move to try and &quot;save&quot; the bishop like a6. Since recapturing with the a pawn probably gives black a better game it is worth waiting to see if he will throw away this option by playing a6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Delaying the capture also retains the possibility of playing Nc5 which may be stronger in some circumstances.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally an immediate NxB will be met by axN opening the a file for black and allowing the a8 rook to pressure the now weak, backward a3 pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, in short, delaying the capture retains flexibility. That way white has more and possibly better options. This &quot;maintaining the tension&quot; is one of the things which separates weak and strong players. Weak players are in too much of a hurry to release the tension in a position. Strong players maintain the tension and with it give their opponents more opportunities to go wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2019-05-08T08:52:58.773" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24413" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24411" CreationDate="2019-05-08T10:37:08.790" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;One way of thinking in these situations in the opening is the following: while white gains the bishop pair after taking on b6, it also opens up the a-file for black's rook. Moreover (as Brian Towers pointed out in his answer), depending on the situation, white may actually want to be able to place a knight on c5 in some lines down the road. So white doesn't know whether he wants to take the b6 bishop yet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Meanwhile, white knows that he will have to develop the c1 bishop sooner or later, and b2 is not a bad square at all for that bishop, where it has great potential for activity later in the game, giving white ideas of making a d5 push.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore it may be a good idea for white to make the obviously good move (which he is very likely to make at some point in the game anyway), and only afterwards consider the move that he's not completely sure about yet. In this particular example it becomes even more rational to do it this way, since the option of playin Nxb6 doesn't go away.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8300" LastActivityDate="2019-05-08T10:37:08.790" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24414" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24398" CreationDate="2019-05-08T12:03:45.713" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Have you tried setting up a chessboard by the computer and playing the online moves on the board before transmitting them?  This may be more difficult with rapid than classical games, but if you find seeing the pieces in 3 dimensions more desirable, it seems like a practical altenative to looking at them in 2 dimensions on the computer screen.  When I work on online problems, I set them up on a board before solving them for that reason.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastActivityDate="2019-05-08T12:03:45.713" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24415" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24416" CreationDate="2019-05-08T13:59:41.897" Score="4" ViewCount="1295" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [fen &quot;r1bqkbnr/ppp2ppp/2n1p3/3p4/3P4/6P1/PPP1PPBP/RNBQK1NR w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have a few friends who I play with. Recently they have picked up on one of our better player's openings and it's surprisingly effective for development of the white pieces and positioning. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can't figure out how to beat the opening effectively. I need to be able to shut it down where it starts. This should be noted, the pawn that was moved to &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt; is there to help develop the Queen. After this the next step for white is to develop the dark-squared bishop to &lt;code&gt;b2&lt;/code&gt;, and after that to move the knight from &lt;code&gt;g1&lt;/code&gt; to &lt;code&gt;h3&lt;/code&gt;. After which comes a king side castle. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm unsure how to interrupt this opening other then to make an island on &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;e6&lt;/code&gt; to protect my rook. Is there any way to fully shut down this opening?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know this opening relies on the bishops but I do not know how to get rid of them without suffering losses worse than gains.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19061" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-09-22T18:44:05.907" LastActivityDate="2019-09-22T18:47:05.947" Title="How to beat King's Fianchetto Opening Modified (White)" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24416" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24415" CreationDate="2019-05-08T14:15:40.787" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can develop your pieces pretty much any way you want and no big trouble can be caused to you by White.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I would postpone the ...e6 move, as your light-squares bishop gets blocked for no benefit (you could also try ...e5 with enough preparation). You may also want to break the center with a ...c5 push, so, although there is nothing particularly wrong with your play, my favourite move order would be &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1.d4 d5 2. g3 Nf6 3.Bg2 c5!?&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;now forcing White to make a choice&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-09-22T18:45:28.790" LastActivityDate="2019-09-22T18:45:28.790" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24417" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24415" CreationDate="2019-05-08T15:21:47.307" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;General plan suggestions:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Like @David said, don't play e6 so early (or possibly at all). You want your light-squared bishop alive and active in any situation, and &lt;em&gt;especially&lt;/em&gt; here for a possible trade-off of bishops.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Try mixing things up a little bit with a move like c6, supporting the d5 pawn against the fiancetto-ed bishop. You'll then want to swing your light squared bishop out to g4 or f5, and then put your knight on d7. &lt;em&gt;Note: You mentioned moving your bishop to b7. Don't do that if you've already played d5; it blocks in the bishop.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Number one flaw in white's position&lt;/strong&gt;: White has an extremely solid position, but no opening is perfect, and there is a small weakness: &lt;strong&gt;g4&lt;/strong&gt;. This square is not easily defended, and can become an excellent post for one of your pieces. Hammer down on this. Play Nf6. Keep your light squared bishop on the kingside.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;First move suggestions:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Try fiancetto-ing yourself! Play 1...g6 and simply imitate his strategy for a few moves.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Try playing 1...e5. If he counters with e4, you've successfully blocked in his bishop. If he counters with d4, take with the pawn, let him take with queen, and then develop your knight to c3, pushing the queen back and winning a tempo.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18168" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-09-22T18:47:05.947" LastActivityDate="2019-09-22T18:47:05.947" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24418" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24411" CreationDate="2019-05-09T05:38:54.687" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The bishop's more out of play on b6 than White's knight is on a4. Also, White could play c4 (threatening to trap the bishop with c5), after which Black may be forced to give the bishop breathing room with ...a6. &lt;em&gt;Then&lt;/em&gt; White can play Nxb6 since ...cxb6 will be forced, which is less ideal for Black than recapturing with ...axb6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-05-09T05:38:54.687" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24419" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11040" CreationDate="2019-05-09T06:09:53.767" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would also recommend taking a look at the Queens Gambit Declined: Tarrasch defense, Because you are playing the Alapin against the Sicilian, and the Tarrasch against the French you have a pretty good chance of playing with or against an Isolated Queen Pawn (IQP) which can teach you a lot about active piece play.  In IQP positions knowing the plans and the typical tactics of the positions are way more important than knowing opening moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19063" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2019-05-09T10:14:51.630" LastActivityDate="2019-05-09T10:14:51.630" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24420" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11040" CreationDate="2019-05-09T06:32:27.300" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This looks like a pretty complicated repertoire, so I would focus on my openings as Black first (with White, it's harder to get smashed in the opening) You don't really need that much opening thoery, so I'd rather &quot;learn by doing&quot; (play a bunch of games and analyse them)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Danish gambit is not a problem at all, just accept it and after 5.Bxb2 d5! 6.Bxd5 Nf6 7.Bxf7+ Kxf7 8.Qxd8 Bb4 the game is at least equal. Other attempts can be answered by a quick ...d5, like 1.e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3.c3 d5 or 2.Nc3 Nf6 3.f4 d5. You can also be fine against the King's gambit with your move, so I'd focus on Italian, Spanish and Scotch&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But maybe we are doing this the wrong way, after all, there are still three main openings to study, and White will always have the ability to choose the one they prefer. That's why I would suggest you to play the either 2...d6 (Philidor Defence) or 1...e6 (the French Defence)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastActivityDate="2019-05-09T06:32:27.300" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24421" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24401" CreationDate="2019-05-09T06:44:41.610" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my opinion, online chess often does more to ruin your game than to actually improve it, as most of the time we are just playing Blitz, with not too much thought and with zero analysis of the game&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So review your games (I mean, actually do it, not just run them through an engine), find your weakest point and get your hands on a good chess book that treats that topic in depth. A coach is not a bad idea if you can afford it either, but even if you can't, it won't be hard to find some &quot;chess pals&quot; and train with them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, on the matter of self-control: 1) Try harder! 2) Avoid the temptation by not logging into the site at all! When you play blitz, let it at least be a social activity at the chess club/bar/whatever you're closest to&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-06-25T17:14:57.753" LastActivityDate="2019-06-25T17:14:57.753" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24422" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5582" CreationDate="2019-05-09T07:02:51.023" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Based purely on opinion, but could serve as reference:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;As an absolute beginner, you should be able to mate with RR, Q and R against a lonely king.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;About the time you play your first tournament (people nowadays love ELO, so let's say 1200, I mean actual ELO, not that UBSCF), you should also know KP-K endgame, mate with two bishops, and probably both the basics of KRP-KR (Philidor and Lucena) as well as KQ-KP&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Later on, you should explore the minor piece positions (I mean KBP-KN, KBP-KB(same colour), King and multiple pawns bith oppsite color bishops, and so on...) while improving your knowledge of rook endgames. Also, some exchange advantage positions may help. KBN-K will eventually become a MUST as well!&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Finally, you may want to explore &quot;fortresses&quot; that occur in more complicated endgames (queen vs rook with a few pawns in certain positions or KQ-KBN, for instance) If you can do all of that, you will have a good endgame knowledge up to an IM level&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastActivityDate="2019-05-09T07:02:51.023" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24423" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23671" CreationDate="2019-05-09T20:29:37.270" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Glorfindel’s answer shows an example of a forced mutual stalemate. On a similar note, in the below position the soon to be stalemated side must stalemate themselves or lose, and the opposing side has no choice but to allow it. Forced here is a bit of a combination of best move and must make a move due to the king being in check. I made the sequence absurdly long just for fun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Me, chess.stackexchange.com 5/19/2019, Black Draws&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;3Rbk1K/qqqqq1NQ/6Qq/6QQ/6Qq/2b3QQ/1B4Qq/q5R1 b - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;[startflipped &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Qexg7+ 2. Qxg7+ Qdxg7+ 3. Qxg7+ Qcxg7+ 4. Qxg7+ Qbxg7+ 5. Qxg7+ Qaxg7+ 6. Qxg7+ Bxg7+ 7. Bxg7+ Qaxg7+ 8. Rxg7 Qxh7+ 9. Qxh7  Qxh7+ 10. Qxh7 Qxh7+ 11. Kxh7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-05-02T03:55:08.540" LastActivityDate="2021-05-02T03:55:08.540" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24424" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-05-10T02:15:36.347" Score="1" ViewCount="120" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess engines will have a Principal Variation (PV) that may be as many as 30 (or more) ply deep.  Of course, the PV and the other facets of the engine help to determine the best move at the root position (the first ply).  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, how accurate is the rest of the PV?  Some of the PV is most certainly wrong; for example, the very last ply of a depth 30 search will almost certainly change in evaluation if it were instead treated as the root position.  Is there an easy way determine how much of the PV is trustworthy, and how trustworthy it is?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15765" LastActivityDate="2019-05-10T11:17:06.163" Title="How much of the Principal Variation can I trust?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ClosedDate="2019-05-10T17:58:53.000" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24426" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24424" CreationDate="2019-05-10T11:17:06.163" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The answer is, of course, it depends:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes the engine will accurately calculate a very long sequence of forced moves and all of it will be correct (the more powerful the engine, the most likely this is to happen)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other times, not even the first move will be correct. It may also occur that the computer plays &quot;correctly&quot; but still gives a wrong evaluation (this is often the case in positions with fortresses)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In summary, your question is too broad, as the answer will vary too much depending on what software you are using, on which machine it is running, and most importantly, what position they are evaluating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastActivityDate="2019-05-10T11:17:06.163" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24427" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-05-10T14:44:20.337" Score="2" ViewCount="84" Body="&lt;p&gt;When solving tactics sometimes I spend a lot of time (20-30 minutes) looking at the same line over and over again. &#xA;Sometimes I have a feeling that one particular line is the right one but my vision gets blurry after 4-5 moves and I'm unable to go on without moving the piece.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do you have any suggestions (books and/or training methods) on how to improve in this area?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15253" LastActivityDate="2019-05-11T12:21:28.660" Title="Looping through the same lines while solving puzzles" Tags="&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;board-vision&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24428" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-05-10T15:25:29.040" Score="1" ViewCount="178" Body="&lt;p&gt;My coach showed me a famous game &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1044361&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Fisher vs. Taimanov (1971)&lt;/a&gt; where Fisher expertly used the bishop's advantage over a knight in an endgame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Robert James Fischer&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Mark Taimanov&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Qc7 5. Nc3 e6 6. g3 a6&#xA;7. Bg2 Nf6 8. O-O Nxd4 9. Qxd4 Bc5 10. Bf4 d6 11. Qd2 h6&#xA;12. Rad1 e5 13. Be3 Bg4 14. Bxc5 dxc5 15. f3 Be6 16. f4 Rd8&#xA;17. Nd5 Bxd5 18. exd5 e4 19. Rfe1 Rxd5 20. Rxe4+ Kd8 21. Qe2&#xA;Rxd1+ 22. Qxd1+ Qd7 23. Qxd7+ Kxd7 24. Re5 b6 25. Bf1 a5&#xA;26. Bc4 Rf8 27. Kg2 Kd6 28. Kf3 Nd7 29. Re3 Nb8 30. Rd3+ Kc7&#xA;31. c3 Nc6 32. Re3 Kd6 33. a4 Ne7 34. h3 Nc6 35. h4 h5&#xA;36. Rd3+ Kc7 37. Rd5 f5 38. Rd2 Rf6 39. Re2 Kd7 40. Re3 g6&#xA;41. Bb5 Rd6 42. Ke2 Kd8 43. Rd3 Kc7 44. Rxd6 Kxd6 45. Kd3 Ne7&#xA;46. Be8 Kd5 47. Bf7+ Kd6 48. Kc4 Kc6 49. Be8+ Kb7 50. Kb5 Nc8&#xA;51. Bc6+ Kc7 52. Bd5 Ne7 53. Bf7 Kb7 54. Bb3 Ka7 55. Bd1 Kb7&#xA;56. Bf3+ Kc7 57. Ka6 Ng8 58. Bd5 Ne7 59. Bc4 Nc6 60. Bf7 Ne7&#xA;61. Be8 Kd8 62. Bxg6 Nxg6 63. Kxb6 Kd7 64. Kxc5 Ne7 65. b4&#xA;axb4 66. cxb4 Nc8 67. a5 Nd6 68. b5 Ne4+ 69. Kb6 Kc8 70. Kc6&#xA;Kb8 71. b6 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I want to consider the position at move 45 (with black to move), but move white's bishop to a dark square.  Let's say this position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;5B2/8/1pnk2p1/p1p2p1p/P4P1P/2PK2P1/1P6/8 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All I've done is move white's bishop from b5 (a light square) to f8 (a dark square).  This seems substantially harder for white to win, and perhaps it's unwinnable for white.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: If we move white's bishop to a dark square in the Fisher-Taimanov (1971) bishop vs. knight endgame, can white still win?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think white cannot win, and if that's correct, then there's an interesting nuance in the position: Fisher didn't simply win because &quot;the bishop is better than a knight&quot;, but because he organized his pawns to suit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2785" LastActivityDate="2019-06-25T17:13:50.307" Title="If we move white's bishop to a dark square in the Fisher-Taimanov (1971) bishop vs. knight endgame, can white still win?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24429" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21417" CreationDate="2019-05-10T21:28:38.063" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;After some thinking, as I did not look at the other answers, I concluded that it is indeed possible to checkmate with all 16 pieces on their original squared. Doing this requires a promoted piece to travel back to its “original square.”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then I looked at Roberto’s excellent problem and thought “there must be a faster way to do that.” Of course, his problem is special in its own right because there is only one way to reach the position. But the effect that it shows is beatable without the uniqueness&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are two variants to consider. Type #1 focuses on the least possible disturbance, meaning that Black has 13 pieces (think about it) at home when mated. Type #2 is without regard to that. @Rebecca J. Stones did much-appreciated work on this in the comments. Here are the results.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Rebecca J. Stones, chess.stackexchange.com 5/10/2019, Type #1, Non-Unique Proof Game In 11.5 Moves&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. g4 g5 2. Nf3 f5 3. gxf5 Bh6 4. f6 Kf8 5. f7 Kg7 6. f8=N Kf6 7. Ne6 Kf5 8. Nf4 Kg4 9. Ng2 Kh3 10. Ne5 Bf8 11. Nf3 g4 12. Ng1#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Rebecca J. Stones, chess.stackexchange.co 5/11/2019, Type #2, Non-Unique Proof Game In 7.5 Moves&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]  &#xA;&#xA;1. a4 f6 2. a5 Kf7 3. a6 e5 4. axb7 Ne75. bxc8=Q Kg8 6. Qxd7 Ng6 7. Qa4 Nd7 8. Qa2#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Secondly, it is also of interest what can be done with &lt;strong&gt;discovered checks.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;me, chess.stackexchange.com 5/10/2019, Type #1, Non-Unique Proof Game In 15.5 Moves&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;  1. h4 g5 2. hxg5 f6 3. g6 Nh6 4. g7 Kf7 5. g8=R Ke6 6. Rg3 Kf5 7. Rgh3 Kg4 8. R3h2 Ng8 9. Nh3 Kh5 10. g4+ Kh4 11. g5 Nh6 12. g6 Ng8 13. g7 Nh6 14. g8=R Kh5 15. Rgg2 Ng8 16. Ng1#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Rebecca J. Stones, chess.stackexchange.co 5/11/2019, Type #2, Non-Unique Proof Game In 10.5 Moves&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]  &#xA;&#xA;1. Nf3 h5 2. e4 h4 3. e5 f6 4. exf6 Kf7 5. fxe7 Kg6 6. exd8=Q Kh5 7. Qe7 g6 8. Qee2 Rh6 9. Nc3 Be7 10. Nb1 Bg5 11. Ng1#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-05-02T04:17:57.633" LastActivityDate="2021-05-02T04:17:57.633" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24431" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24432" CreationDate="2019-05-11T11:23:43.667" Score="3" ViewCount="801" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm a novice player, trying to improve. In the following game I played as white recently on chess.com, I analysed afterwards and my worst move of the game was apparently when I castled. The engine strongly favoured trading queens on move 9.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 &#xA;2. Nf3 d6 &#xA;3. Nc3 Nf6 &#xA;4. d4 Nc6 &#xA;5. Bb5 Be7 &#xA;6. Bxc6+ bxc6 &#xA;7. dxe5 dxe5 &#xA;8. Nxe5 O-O &#xA;9. O-O Bg4 &#xA;10. Nxg4 Nxg4 &#xA;11. Qxg4 Bb4 &#xA;12. a3 Bxc3 &#xA;13. bxc3 Rb8 &#xA;14. Be3 a5 &#xA;15. Bd4 Rb4 &#xA;16. Qxg7# 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why is this? I can't quite see why the trade is beneficial, and so much better than castling at this point.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe I'm giving up initiative by allowing black to initiate a trade? Or perhaps I'm better developed, so it makes more sense to trade down and benefit for more activity with my pieces? It was a strong 2 point difference from what seems like a fairly even choice from my perspective.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any ideas why the castling move at that point was such a bad choice?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19073" LastActivityDate="2019-05-11T18:14:44.687" Title="Why was castling bad for white in this game, and engine strongly prefered trading queens?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;castling&gt;&lt;exchange&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24432" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24431" CreationDate="2019-05-11T12:01:54.457" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Castling (9. 0-0) is not a very bad move. You still have a very solid advantage after it due to being a pawn up and having the better pawn structure (black's pawns on a7, c7, c6 are weak and vulnerable).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However you had a better move...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The pawn on c6 is hanging and you could have simply taken it. Both 9. Nxc6 or taking the pawn after queen trades (9. Qxd8 Bxd8 10. Rxd8) are good.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Taking the pawn after queen trades is better, because you will also exchange the knight later on for black's dark squared bishop (which is due to the pawn structure, the stronger piece).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance an almost forced sequence could be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;r1bq1rk1/p1p1bppp/2p2n2/4N3/4P3/2N5/PPP2PPP/R1BQK2R w KQ - 1 9&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;9. Qxd8 Bxd8&#xA;10.Nxc6 Bb7&#xA;11.Nxd8 Rfxd8&#xA;12.f3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the end white is left with two pawns up, a strong pawn structure and the better bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastEditorUserId="11629" LastEditDate="2019-05-11T12:43:23.240" LastActivityDate="2019-05-11T12:43:23.240" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24433" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24431" CreationDate="2019-05-11T12:08:43.887" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;As already pointed out by user1583209, 9.Qxd8 Rxd8 10.Nxc6 followed by Nxe7+ wins an extra pawn. However I wouldn't say that trading your knight Black's dark-squared bishop is good for you because of the strength of the bishop (your knight is also a great piece).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason why this continuation is so powerful is, apart from the material advantage, simplification. You remove both queens and a pair of minor pieces from the board, which reduces risk and allows your advantage to be more notorious in the endgame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, I would strongly suggest you against computer-assisted analysis if you want to sharpen your chess skills. Try to review the game by yourself instead&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastActivityDate="2019-05-11T12:08:43.887" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24434" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24428" CreationDate="2019-05-11T12:15:43.403" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would say no.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black's king is doing a very good job at protecting the queenside, with no possible threats on the kingside. Also, the e4 square could be a great source of counterplay for Black. In short, I wouldn't say that White even has an edge in that position. I'd prefer being Black if I could choose. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, the statement &quot;the bishop is better than the knight&quot; is just meaningless. Even if such an advantage exists, other existing factors in the position will make too big of a difference to apply the general principle. By the way, knights are OFTEN better than &quot;good bishops&quot; at defeating &quot;bad bishops&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-06-25T17:13:50.307" LastActivityDate="2019-06-25T17:13:50.307" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24435" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24427" CreationDate="2019-05-11T12:21:28.660" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Establish an order to analyse the lines!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would begin by the most forced moves (checks, mate threats, captures...) and finish with those where the opponent was multiple possibilities. Respect that order strictly so you won't be jumping back and forth.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Use the same criteria also for sorting subvariations (ie: start by the most obvious check, pick an opponent's answer, now calculate checks, threats and captures after that particular answer and so on)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastActivityDate="2019-05-11T12:21:28.660" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24438" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24428" CreationDate="2019-05-11T18:07:05.040" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The thing is, with the light-squared bishop White could attack two weaknesses. His bishop could attack Black's g6-pawn while the king could attack the b6-pawn. If the bishop is dark-squared, White has no piece that can get to Black's g6-pawn. He can only attack the one weakness on b6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Granted, White can attack the b6-pawn with more firepower, but since Black only has to focus on defending that one pawn it isn't too hard to draw. So White probably can't win with the bishop on a dark square.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-05-11T18:07:05.040" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24439" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24398" CreationDate="2019-05-11T18:11:12.230" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Have a board beside you when playing online. Make all the moves on the board and think/calculate by only looking at the board. If you're playing a standard time control this won't cost you much time on the clock.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you're asking about blitz/bullet then I unfortunately have no solution for you, though most people tend to be better online in fast time controls.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-05-11T18:11:12.230" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24440" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24431" CreationDate="2019-05-11T18:14:44.687" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;9.Qxd8 followed by 10.Nxc6 wins you another pawn. Meanwhile, 9.0-0 gives Black time to protect the c6-pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Given this, 9.Nxc6 is almost as good as 9.Qxd8 for the same reason (winning a pawn). However, 9.Qxd8 is slightly preferable since Black's bishop is out of play on d8 when it recaptures via 9...Bxd8 (if Black recaptures with 9...Rxd8 then 10.Nxc6 exchanges the bishop off with a fork).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-05-11T18:14:44.687" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24441" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="730" CreationDate="2019-05-12T02:21:56.180" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In some cases the knight's ability to attack in L-shaped directions is more useful than a queen's straight line attack vectors. Delivering an immediate mate with a knight would be an example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, promoting to a rook/bishop can be preferable to a queen since it could avoid a stalemate. The same logic can also be applied to a knight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-05-12T02:21:56.180" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24442" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-05-12T15:20:02.163" Score="3" ViewCount="66" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is the opening I'm referring to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.d4 Nf6 2.Nf3 e6 3.g3 b6 4.Bg2 Bb7 5.O-O Be7 6.c4 O-O 7.Nc3 Ne4 8.Bd2!?&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The other white book moves at this point seem sensible &lt;code&gt;8.Qc2&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;8.Qd3&lt;/code&gt;, or even  &lt;code&gt;8.Nxe4&lt;/code&gt; (which seems to almost always draw).  I'm unsure about &lt;code&gt;8.Bd2&lt;/code&gt;, as it seems to give up the bishop pair (and &lt;code&gt;8...Nxd2&lt;/code&gt; has been played, e.g., &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/qmbUACQ4&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Gelfand vs. Radjabov, 2017&lt;/a&gt;) and it puts the bishop on a fairly modest square, but it's listed as having 1500+ master games at LiChess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Why is 7...Ne4 8.Bd2 such a popular line in this variation of the Queen's Indian Defence?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The most popular continuation on LiChess is the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.d4 Nf6 2.Nf3 e6 3.g3 b6 4.Bg2 Bb7 5.O-O Be7 6.c4 O-O 7.Nc3 Ne4 8.Bd2 f5 9.d5 Bf6 10.Rc1 Na6 11.a3 Nac5 12.b4 Nxc3 13.Bxc3 Ne4 14. Bxf6 Qxf6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2785" LastEditorUserId="2785" LastEditDate="2019-05-12T15:27:12.760" LastActivityDate="2019-05-12T22:26:19.453" Title="Why is 7...Ne4 8.Bd2 such a popular line in this variation of the Queen's Indian Defence?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;queens-indian&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24443" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24444" CreationDate="2019-05-12T17:26:40.873" Score="0" ViewCount="59" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am curious of the games that would arise if I changed the initial  value of a knight to -1 or make standing on e5 worth -10 points.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How would I go about to create such an engine? Is it possible to alter an  existing engine in such a way and let it play against itself? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15478" LastActivityDate="2019-05-12T17:51:26.057" Title="Is it possible to manually alter initial values in a chess engine?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24444" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24443" CreationDate="2019-05-12T17:51:26.057" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes. You can download the source code for Stockfish &lt;a href=&quot;https://stockfishchess.org/files/stockfish-10-src.zip&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;. Once you have done that you need to work out where the evaluation functions are and change them according to your requirements. Then recompile and run.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2019-05-12T17:51:26.057" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24445" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24442" CreationDate="2019-05-12T22:26:19.453" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;White wants to avoid doubled c-pawns and all of the moves you mention, Qc2, Qd3, Nxe4 and Bd2 achieve this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you note, Nxe4, exchanging knights tends to be drawish, so is not what most white players want.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With the queen moves (Qc2, Qd3) your queen will end up on c3, which is a bit of an unusual square for the queen. Also the c1-bishop is not developed yet, so white would still have to connect his rooks and likely move the queen to a better square.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;8&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Bd2 is a modest development move for the bishop, but it does make space for the rooks. Also, if black takes Nxc3, Bxc3 and the bishop has found a very nice square on c3.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would not be concerned about giving up the bishop pair. The black knight on e4 is a rather strong piece while the dark squared bishop is the weaker of white's bishops due to the pawn structure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2019-05-12T22:26:19.453" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24446" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23775" CreationDate="2019-05-12T23:33:39.953" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I came across a rook mate in 4.5 moves &lt;em&gt;without&lt;/em&gt; promotion on a page called &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.janko.at/Retros/Records/ShortestMate/Geissler.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&amp;quot;Shortest Mates in Proof Games&amp;quot;&lt;/a&gt; at &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.janko.at/Retros/index.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;janko.at/Retros/index.htm&lt;/a&gt;. This elected curiosity for other types of shortest mates, including a shorter pawn mate than the accepted answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Non-Promoted Rook&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. a4 c5 2. a5 Qxa5 3. Rxa5 c4 4. Rc5 c3 5. Rxc8#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pawn&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e3 e5 2. Ke2 Qh4 3. Kf3 f6 4. Be2 e4#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pawns can also do double-steps. &lt;a href=&quot;https://madchess.wordpress.com/2012/11/08/shortest-legal-double-pawn-move-mates&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Nick's Mad Chess Blog&lt;/a&gt; provides one of many possible sequences.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. c4 d6 2. Qb3 Kd7 3. e3 Kc6 4. Qxb7+ Kc5 5. d4#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Via Bishop Promotion&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 g6 2. d5 Bh6 3. d6 Kf8 4. dxe7+ Kg7 5.Q d6 Qf8 6. exf8=B#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Via Knight Promotion&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. h4 d5 2. h5 Nd7 3. h6 Ndf6 4. hxg7 Kd7 5. Rh6 Ne8 6 .gxf8=N#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another option is to promote, and then give mate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With A Promoted Bishop&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. d4 c5 2. dxc5 Qb6 3. c6 Nh6 4. cxb7 Nc6 5. bxc8=B Nd8 6. Bxd7# &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With A Promoted Knight&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. g4 Nc6 2. g5 e6 3. g6 Nce7 4. gxh7 g5 5. hxg8=N Rh3 6. Nf6#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With A Promoted Rook&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. g4 h5 2. gxh5 g6 3. h6 Bg7 4. hxg7 Nf6 5. gxh8=R+ Ng8 6. Rxg8#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-04-29T15:16:26.183" LastActivityDate="2021-04-29T15:16:26.183" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24448" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24456" CreationDate="2019-05-13T02:21:57.097" Score="11" ViewCount="8226" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here are my understandings of the English opening:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/21570/why-do-masters-open-1-d4-more-often-than-1-c4&quot;&gt;The English opening is as good as 1.d4.&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Since it is less common than 1.e4 and 1.d4; it is more likely that an average amateur player is less familar with it and thus it is easier for white to play against an amateur player using the English opening.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;There are less lines than say 1. e4. When white plays 1. e4, he needs to be familiar with 1. ... e5, the Sicilian Defense, the Scandinavian Defense, the Caro-Kann Defense, the French Defense etc. On the other hand, when white plays the English, he almost always knows where each piece goes to, regardless of how black replies (except for some rare and dubious lines, such as &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/openings/A10-English-Opening-Anglo-Scandinavian-Defense&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;1. ... d5&lt;/a&gt;). For example, after the 8th move, the following two formations for white are natural and common:&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qJdsX.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qJdsX.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/I4s7k.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/I4s7k.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;4&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It is lessly that white will fall into a surprising trap. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do these factors make the English opening ideal for beginners?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16626" LastEditorUserId="16626" LastEditDate="2019-05-13T11:54:48.753" LastActivityDate="2019-10-31T01:45:29.743" Title="Is the English opening the most suitable for beginners?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;beginner&gt;&lt;english-opening&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24449" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24452" CreationDate="2019-05-13T02:58:48.117" Score="0" ViewCount="234" Body="&lt;p&gt;I read about this game on Tim Krabbe’s website and found it on &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1086879&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chessgames.com&lt;/a&gt;. I am severely confused by Black’s 30th and 31st moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Sergey Gennadyevich Kudrin-Rudy C Douven, GMA Baleares op, Palma de Mallorca Spain, 12/1989&amp;quot;]&#xA;[startply &amp;quot;59&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 dxe4 4. Nxe4 Bf5 5. Ng3 Bg6 6. h4 h6 7. Nf3 Nd7 8. h5 Bh7 9. Bd3 Bxd3 10. Qxd3 e6 11. Bf4 Qa5+ 12. Bd2 Qc7 13. O-O-O Ngf6 14. Ne4 O-O-O 15. g3 Nxe4 16. Qxe4 Nf6 17. Qe2 Bd6 18. Ne5 c5 19. Rh4 Bxe5 20. dxe5 Nd7  21. Rg4 Rhg8 22. Re1 Qc6 23. Qe4 Nb8 24. Rf4 Rd7 25. Qh7 Rgd8 26. Ba5 b6 27. Bc3  Qd5 28. b3 b5 29. Kb1 b4 30. Bb2 f5 31. exf6 g5 32. hxg6 Rxh7 33. gxh7 e5 34. Rxe5 Qf7 35. Re7 Qf8 36. f7 Qxe7 37. f8=Q Rxf8 38. Rxf8+ Qxf8 39. h8=Q Qxh8 40. Bxh8 h5 41. Kc1 Kd7 42. Kd2 Ke6 43. Ke3 Kf5 44. f3 Nd7 45. Kd3 Nb6 46. Bg7 a5 47. Bf8 Nd7 48. Bd6 Ke6 49. Bc7 Kd5 50. c4+ bxc3 51. Kxc3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why would Black let White capture en passant two times in a row and gain two very powerful passed pawns? Sure, the queen gets nabbed, but I just don’t think that it’s a good idea. What good is nabbing one queen when two more might soon pop up?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-09-15T13:09:12.923" LastActivityDate="2020-09-15T13:09:12.923" Title="Why did Black allow White to capture en passant two times in a row?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;&lt;en-passant&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24450" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5736" CreationDate="2019-05-13T04:19:43.557" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here's a source about how &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessable.com/blog/2018/12/10/alphazero-google-david-howell-draw/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;GM David Howell and three others took on AlphaZero in a game&lt;/a&gt;. They played two games, both drawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Caveat: AlphaZero isn't like conventional engines. Conventional engines have a &quot;contempt&quot; score that tweaks how it plays against weaker opposition. With a high contempt score, conventional engines are very likely to have beaten GM David Howell and his three teammates. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastActivityDate="2019-05-13T04:19:43.557" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24451" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-05-13T05:22:31.547" Score="-2" ViewCount="157" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is essentially the same as my question &lt;a href=&quot;https://psychology.stackexchange.com/questions/23207/could-being-given-unlimited-tries-to-correctly-answer-an-open-ended-question-be&quot;&gt;https://psychology.stackexchange.com/questions/23207/could-being-given-unlimited-tries-to-correctly-answer-an-open-ended-question-be&lt;/a&gt; except that it's specifically about chess. I'm linking that question because I'm not sure if it would be self plagiarism if I didn't because this question appears to be a derivative work based on it. I have other stuff on my mind and am not myself interested in devoting a lot of attention to chess and grew to dislike chess because of the detrimental effects it appeared to be having on my brain by my standards and very rarely play actual chess games these days, but am asking this because I think it could be useful for other people.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think that sometimes when somebody takes a chess lesson or reads a chess book, it can give them some help but if they don't play in tournaments, the lessons and books alone will not be enough to make them a grandmaster because they will not be able to figure out the underlying high level abstract concepts that are the underlying reason the books and the lessons say what they say. On the other hand some people, if they regularly play in tournaments with a 90 minute base time and 30 second increments, might begin to notice some predictable pattern to the way their game play affects the game play of their opponent in future matches. The pattern is pretty much this. Every opponent with the same rating will have essentially the same probabilistic distribution on their style of play from the outset because they're randomly paired with somebody of similar rating and don't already know that person's style of play, and the combination of information about how each of your games went; which colour you played as in each match; and the rating of each of your opponents and the rating you had before the match determines what your rating will be changed to after the match. Also what your rating is determines how they will pair you in your next tournament. With the predictable pattern in how your game play determines the game play of your future opponents, their rating, and your rating, the brain can adapt to have you realize that although you can't get a high rating right away, you can get it eventually and then you can adopt the creative thinking approach for slowly figuring out the solution to the problem of how to eventually get a really high rating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there any research on whether playing in tournaments in general is a really great way to become really good at chess? If so, do you know if it's the case that most people who regularly play in tournaments end up really good at chess?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13189" LastActivityDate="2019-05-13T11:27:02.570" Title="Could playing in chess tournaments make you really good at chess?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;rating&gt;&lt;tournament&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24452" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24449" CreationDate="2019-05-13T05:37:06.750" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The point was to win the queen. Yes, White gets two passed pawns, but a passed pawn won't necessarily get to be promoted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sure it happened in the game, but that's not really the point here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-01-15T13:52:36.107" LastActivityDate="2020-01-15T13:52:36.107" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24453" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24448" CreationDate="2019-05-13T05:40:24.357" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the competitive sense of surprising your opponent it does have its advantages for beginners. However, a few things:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) A surprise in the English isn't as valuable as a surprise in one of the 1.e4 openings. The reason is that the English is quieter and it's harder for White to tactically profit off of small mistakes on Black's part.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) The English structure may be non-intuitive for a beginner at first, so could require more work to learn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, it's important to consider how playing the English will affect the beginner's chess progress in the long-term. If the beginning instead played 1.e4 he would become acquainted with a wealth of common openings integral of chess. This would benefit his foundation, as well as be helpful when playing as &lt;em&gt;Black&lt;/em&gt; against 1.e4 (which is more common than the English).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-05-13T05:40:24.357" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24454" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23775" CreationDate="2019-05-13T10:35:05.553" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's not in your original question, but the game &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/q/19003/7297&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; can be adapted for a mate-in-5 by the king:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. f3 e5 2. Kf2 Ke7 3. Kg3 d6 4. Kh4 Kf6 5. g3 Kg6#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2019-05-13T10:35:05.553" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24455" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24460" CreationDate="2019-05-13T10:53:44.560" Score="13" ViewCount="3683" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have played recently a game. In the position below Stockfish is saying that &lt;strong&gt;Nxe6&lt;/strong&gt; is a mistake and &lt;strong&gt;Rad1&lt;/strong&gt; is suggested but I'm having a hard time figuring out why. Can someone provide some insights ? given these thoughts:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It's a bishop for knight in my favor.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The bishop makes my position slightly vulnerable because of the pin on the queen.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The knight outpost is appealing but it can be kicked with c5.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I played:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1r1q1rk1/ppn1bppp/2ppb3/8/2PNPBn1/1QN3P1/PP3PBP/R3R1K1 w - - 9 14&#xA;&#xA;1. Nxe6 fxe6 2. Rad1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/43GS67dc/white#28&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;link of the game&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18143" LastEditorUserId="2941" LastEditDate="2019-05-13T17:43:32.567" LastActivityDate="2019-05-13T17:43:32.567" Title="A case where Bishop for knight isn't a good trade" Tags="&lt;knights&gt;&lt;bishops&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24456" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24448" CreationDate="2019-05-13T11:05:24.267" Score="12" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Do these factors make the English opening ideal for beginners?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No. As a beginner it is OK to study the English along with other openings but what you seem to be suggesting, that it be the only white opening a beginner learns, is very bad.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By definition a beginner doesn't know very much about chess and to progress needs to learn much. In openings the standard approach, therefore, is to learn the classics: Ruy Lopez, Italian, Kings Gambit, 4 Knights, Scotch, Sicilian, French, Caro Kann.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You notice these are all e4 openings and the list starts with the reply e5 by black before moving on to other replies. A beginner needs to start by learning about control of the centre in the most direct way. He needs to learn about the importance of development and then tactics. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some chess teachers would start by teaching the Kings Gambit for this reason. Chess needs to be fun and tactics are fun and most games end because of some missed tactic by the opponent. If you only ever learn how to play calm positions then you will lose all your games where your opponent manages to make the game tactical.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You also seem to suggest a formulaic way of playing the opening. Play more or less the same moves in the English and you will end up in one of two tabiyas which you give. This is also very wrong. One of the key skills a beginner needs to develop is to always consider the ideas and aims of his opponent's moves. Just playing automatic moves will lead to many quick defeats.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are many ways for black to respond and they give rise to different problems for white which can't be addressed by just playing more or less the same moves. The opening theorist IM John Watson actually wrote 4 separate books on the English because of this. He wrote one book each for black's responses: 1 ... e5, 1 ... c5, 1 ... Nf6 and a catch-all &quot;other replies&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, no, the English is close to being the least suitable opening for beginners. Better than the Grob, obviously, also better than Bird's, but a long way behind 1. d4 and even further behind 1. e4 openings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="2789" LastEditDate="2019-05-13T17:59:37.193" LastActivityDate="2019-05-13T17:59:37.193" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24457" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24451" CreationDate="2019-05-13T11:14:15.390" Score="0" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is there any research on whether playing in tournaments in general is&#xA;  a really great way to become really good at chess?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No, for the very obvious reason that the only way we find out that a player is good at chess is by their tournament performance over a period of time. A &quot;player&quot; who never plays any tournaments will never come to the chess world's attention as being any good.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If so, do you know if it's the case that most people who regularly&#xA;  play in tournaments end up really good at chess?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to the rating system most players who play regularly in tournaments improve as indicated by their rising rating however, almost by definition of &quot;really good at chess&quot;, few players end up being really good at chess. So, no, most people who regularly play in tournaments don't end up being really good at chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2019-05-13T11:14:15.390" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24458" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24455" CreationDate="2019-05-13T11:23:54.650" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The statement &quot;it's a bishop for knight in my favor&quot; makes no sense, or at least, no more than &quot;It's a knight for a bishop in my favor&quot;. Bishops are no better than knights. Well, they kind of are overall but the difference is so small that there are often many other factors that can turn the balance around.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your knight is a very strong centralized piece, and it is true that it can be kicked away with ...c5, but at that point this would create a weakness (the d6 pawn) that can be targetted by your queen, dark-squared bishop and rooks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And lastly, but probably most importantly, Nxe6 reinforces your opponent's central presence, while also activating the f8 rook&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastEditorUserId="18809" LastEditDate="2019-05-13T15:05:40.853" LastActivityDate="2019-05-13T15:05:40.853" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24459" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24451" CreationDate="2019-05-13T11:27:02.570" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;They key word here is balance. You need to study, train and practice in the appropriate proportion you feel a significant improvement. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many players have seen high improvements at the lower level by playing their first tournaments, but game analysis is probably the largest cause of that difference (it helps the player identify mistakes and avoid them in the future)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastActivityDate="2019-05-13T11:27:02.570" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24460" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24455" CreationDate="2019-05-13T12:46:28.300" Score="20" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;it's a bishop for knight in my favor&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So what? You will have moved the knight 3 times to your opponent's bishop 1 move and you will have improved your opponent's position by opening the f file for him. So, not in your favour after all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;the bishop makes my position slightly vulnerable because of the pin on the queen&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No, it doesn't. If it ever becomes a threat you can nullify it with NxB. Until it becomes a threat you are reacting to a phantom.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;the knight outpost is appealing but it can be kicked with c5&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To which you can react with NxB! Again, you are reacting to a phantom. Although Ndb5 would be much better increasing the pressure on the backward and now weak pawn on d6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason you won the game is that your opponent blundered. His reply to your Rad1 of moving the knight back to f6 for no good reason was terrible. Far better would have been to kick your bishop with e5. With the knight on g4 protecting e5 this is possible and very good. With the knight back on f6 this is not possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As is often the case the move you chose, NxB, releases tension unnecessarily, and in this case in your opponent's favour. Playing Rad1 retains the possibility of NxB if it looks better later and it reinforces the center and places a rook opposite black's queen. It is just a much better move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2019-05-13T12:46:28.300" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24461" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24455" CreationDate="2019-05-13T14:39:45.227" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Nxe6 could also be followed by Nxe6, strengthening his king side, center presence as well as improving Black's queen, giving her more options.&#xA;This is generally a waste of a well-positioned piece.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19086" LastActivityDate="2019-05-13T14:39:45.227" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24462" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-05-14T02:07:59.840" Score="0" ViewCount="227" Body="&lt;p&gt;Now that from &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/17426/what-is-the-time-control-for-fide-chess-tournaments/17428#17428&quot;&gt;this answer&lt;/a&gt;, I know what the time control is, why is it 90 minute base time for the first 40 moves, an additional 30 minute base time for the rest of the game plus a 30 second increment for each move, and not a 2 hour base time with 30 second increments per move? It doesn't seem to make any sense. If the directors already have time to stay more than 4 hours and 41 minutes after the tournament begins, the maximum amount of time that could go by before the 41st move is completed, why are they rushing them to complete the 40th move a whole hour before then? They would still have the same amount of time to complete the 41st move if it was a 2 hour base time and 30 second increments. Are they specifically trying to rate them on their ability to play with that time control so that they'll know that the ones with a really high rating know how to adapt to playing well with that time control? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13189" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-05-14T02:35:30.877" LastActivityDate="2019-05-14T18:49:38.560" Title="Why is the time control for FIDE chess tournaments what it is?" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;fide&gt;&lt;time-control&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2021-01-03T13:11:48.500" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24463" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-05-14T02:33:35.063" Score="-5" ViewCount="117" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess with a 5 minute base time and no increments is a very different game from chess with a 3 minute base time and 2 second increments. It probably always had a winner and a loser except for when there's a stalemate. The challenge pretty much is to form a clear plan on how to quickly react to each move your opponent could make and not get checkmated before your opponent's time goes to zero so that if your opponent is slow enough, you can win by moving faster than them and waiting until they run out of time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13189" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-05-14T06:03:37.140" LastActivityDate="2019-05-14T14:27:26.987" Title="Do some people play chess with a 5 minute base time and no increments because it's a different challenge than 3 minutes with 2 second increments?" Tags="&lt;time-control&gt;&lt;blitz&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2019-05-14T21:11:14.797" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24464" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8968" CreationDate="2019-05-14T05:04:53.987" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Jiu Jitsu, we practice Tai Sabaki which we are told means &quot;foot placement&quot; or &quot;foot movement&quot;. Additionally, in the videogame Persona 5, you befriend a shogi player who teaches you a move called &quot;Koma Sabaki&quot; which allows you to change your party mid-battle. With that information, and being a Japanese speaker, I conclude it most likely means &quot;piece placement&quot; or &quot;piece movement&quot; like a formula or plan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19095" LastActivityDate="2019-05-14T05:04:53.987" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24465" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24462" CreationDate="2019-05-14T08:27:16.917" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;We can't really answer what all the reasons for the decisions were, as there are many people involved with the committee that decides on the FIDE time controls and they haven't published their reasoning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I just want to point out two things:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One, history. A slightly older time control are for instance 2 hours for the first 40 moves, then 1 hour for the next 20 moves, then 30 minutes for the rest of the game. Before that, games were adjourned after move 60. Earlier time controls were similar but with more time per move. So there is a long tradition of time controls for parts of the game and not for a long time period for the whole game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason is that organizers want to ensure that players have sufficient time left in each period of the game. As players don't know in advance whether their game will last 35 moves or 115, it's hard to decide how much time to use on the first 30 moves. A player who wants to have sufficient time left to play the endgame well has a middle game disadvantage against a player who just burns all his time assuming he doesn't reach that point. We want players to be able to play all parts of the game well so we add the time only if it is needed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another thing is to save time in case the game is short. Someone on the losing side of a game is going to use all his time to try to save it, so short games would take very long if all that time was given at the start. Tournaments are already very exhausting.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastEditorUserId="924" LastEditDate="2019-05-14T18:49:38.560" LastActivityDate="2019-05-14T18:49:38.560" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24466" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24463" CreationDate="2019-05-14T09:48:41.683" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Chess with a 5 minute base time and no increments is a very different&#xA;  game from chess with a 3 minute base time and 2 second increments.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No, it isn't. Most of the moves in the two formats are played with the same aims and with the same mindset. Most games are decided before time becomes an issue. Only if the game is still undecided with little time left on the clocks does the increment make a difference. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In 5+0 flagging your opponent becomes an option based purely on time rather than position. You can have a completely even position but the player with a few seconds left will lose to the player with 30+ seconds left purely and simply because he can't move quickly enough and not for any chess reasons. In the same position in a 3+2 game that is not the case. Two seconds is ample time to make a move. Flagging still occurs, of course, but it is based on chess skill and ability. The player losing on time just can't solve the problems the other player sets him in the limited time available.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;It probably always had a winner and a loser except for when there's a&#xA;  stalemate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is just wrong. Many games in 5+0 result in draws because of repetition or perpetual check. They can also result in draws by agreement because neither side can see any winning chances, both players are short of time and neither player wants a lottery.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Timothy, do you actually play much chess? Because your questions are full of wrong assumptions which a regular player of the game would not make.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2019-05-14T09:48:41.683" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24468" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24463" CreationDate="2019-05-14T14:27:26.987" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;3:2 allows for the ability to gain time especially in online chess as you are able to perform &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Premove&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;pre-moves&lt;/a&gt; you can catch up quite a lot of time. &#xA;I've once played a game where my opponent tried to flag me in a 3:2 game and then accused me of cheating - Never underestimate the incremental time!  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See Wikipedia's page on &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_clock#Timing_methods&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Timing-methods&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19086" LastActivityDate="2019-05-14T14:27:26.987" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24469" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24478" CreationDate="2019-05-14T16:48:30.473" Score="6" ViewCount="1050" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want, with Python-chess, to evaluate any movement of some game and generate the PGN with analysis, as Chess.com does in its analysis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, i played one game with fools mate and they generate that PGN:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;????.??.??&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 f6 {INACCURACY (+1.03)} ({(+0.16) The best move was} 1... e6 2. d4 d5 3.&#xA;exd5 exd5 4. Bd3 Nf6 5. Nf3 Bd6 6. O-O O-O 7. Re1 Be6 8. h3 Re8 9. Nc3 c6 10.&#xA;Ne2 Qc7 11. Be3 Nbd7 12. Qc1 c5 13. c3 c4 14. Bc2 Ne4 15. Bf4 f6 16. Bxd6 Qxd6&#xA;17. Nd2 Nxd2 18. Qxd2 Nb6 19. Ng3 Bd7 20. Rxe8+ Rxe8 21. Re1 Rxe1+ 22. Qxe1) 2.&#xA;d4 g5?? ± {BLUNDER (♔ Mate in 1)} ({(+0.93) The best move was} 2... e6 3. Bb5&#xA;Ne7 4. Nc3 g6 5. Nf3 Bg7 6. h4 a6 7. Be2 d5 8. h5 gxh5 9. Rxh5 dxe4 10. Nxe4 f5&#xA;11. Nc5 Nbc6 12. c3 e5 13. dxe5) 3. Qh5# 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I like to show the evaluation of any move (if its an good move, or excellent, blunder, book-move ...), like they do. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know how to load any PGN game and process it, generating String from PGN, like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;import chess&#xA;import chess.pgn&#xA;&#xA;pgn = open(&quot;game path&quot;)&#xA;board = game.board()&#xA;for move in game.mainline_moves():&#xA;    board.push(move)&#xA;exporter = chess.pgn.StringExporter(headers=True)&#xA;&#xA;pgn_string = game.accept(exporter)&#xA;print(pgn_string) ## Here is the string with the pgn!&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically: i want to generate a String PGN from an evaluated chess game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19100" LastEditorUserId="3594" LastEditDate="2019-05-14T21:27:56.860" LastActivityDate="2019-05-15T12:59:48.710" Title="How to evaluate and comment moves in PGN format?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;programming&gt;&lt;pgn&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24470" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-05-14T19:12:49.820" Score="1" ViewCount="273" Body="&lt;p&gt;As the title above, why aren't 1.e4 g6 2.d4 Bh6, and 1.e4 b6 2.d4 Ba6 (or eventually beginning with 1.d4) for Black not even considered by theory? Isn't the eventual early trade-off of White's strong Bc1 and Bf1 for Black's Bishop an asset for Black? What is the best reply for White vs such irregular defences? Should he trade the Bishops or avoid that? (i.e. with f2-f4 and c2-c4)? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2019-05-14T21:18:30.840" LastActivityDate="2019-12-13T22:22:01.763" Title="Why aren't 1.e4 g6 2.d4 Bh6, and 1.e4 b6 2.d4 Ba6 considered by theory?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;1.e4&gt;&lt;modern-defense&gt;&lt;owens-defence&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24473" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-05-14T19:42:51.910" Score="8" ViewCount="1049" Body="&lt;p&gt;As title above, why is the Advance Variation in these recent years considered strong vs the Caro-Kann, especially owing to White's early space advantage in the center, but &lt;strong&gt;not vs the Scandinavian?&lt;/strong&gt; In other words, the Advance Variation (especially the so-called Short System, with Nf3, Be2 etc.) is considered a strong way to fight the Caro-Kann. On the other side, after 1.e4 d5, the move 2.e5 is considered weak (or even a mistake) because Black can develop his Bishop to f5, obtaining a &quot;better&quot; version of the Advance French. But isn't the structure with ...Bf5 then very similar to the Advance Caro-Kann (which is considered strong)? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2019-05-14T19:56:47.773" LastActivityDate="2019-05-14T20:07:33.723" Title="Why is the Advance Variation considered strong vs the Caro-Kann but not vs the Scandinavian?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;caro-kann&gt;&lt;1.e4&gt;&lt;scandinavian-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24474" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24470" CreationDate="2019-05-14T19:51:45.877" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;White should trade bishops and use the unprotected knight to gain some extra tempo and gain a massive lead in development, e.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 g6 2. d4 Bh6 3. Bxh6 Nxh6 4. Qd2 Ng8 5. Nc3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4... Ng4 is best met by 5. h3 Nf6 (forced) 6. e5 Nd5 7. c4 Nb6 8. Qh6 and Black has problems completing his development, though there is no forced win at the moment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I haven't analyzed the b6/Ba6 lines but I guess a similar concept holds.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2019-05-14T19:51:45.877" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24475" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24473" CreationDate="2019-05-14T19:54:51.560" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;Against a white d4-e5 pawn formation, Black wants to play c5 (see e.g. the French opening). In the Caro-Kann, that will cost two moves (c7-c6-c5), while in the Scandinavian, it's only one move since the pawn is still on c7. That's one tempo, and as @Qudit notes in the comments, in the main line Scandinavian White usually &lt;em&gt;wins&lt;/em&gt; a tempo by chasing the black queen around. So it's actually a difference of &lt;em&gt;two&lt;/em&gt; tempi, which makes a huge difference, as is often the case in (semi-)open games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2019-05-14T20:07:33.723" LastActivityDate="2019-05-14T20:07:33.723" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24476" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24470" CreationDate="2019-05-14T20:00:24.060" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would argue that both of these lines are incorrect on principle.  g6 weakens the dark squares on the kingside.  In such positions, typically one wants to keep the dark squared bishop on the board to help defend the dark squares.  Playing Bh6 lets white trade the dark squared bishops for nothing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Moreover, the reason for playing a move like g6 is usually to put the bishop on the long diagonal where it can be very strong.  If you just trade it off instead, black has gained nothing by the tempo that was lost when g6 was played.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The same applies to the other line.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18421" LastEditorUserId="18421" LastEditDate="2019-05-14T20:08:10.733" LastActivityDate="2019-05-14T20:08:10.733" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24478" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24469" CreationDate="2019-05-14T20:19:34.923" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;For loading Stockfish using python-chess and evaluating a PGN input see these already answered posts: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/q/18182/3594&quot;&gt;Stockfish evaluation of a position from PGN&lt;/a&gt; or &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/q/15723/3594&quot;&gt;Returning scores for all possible moves from a chess engine&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For Adding comments in between moves according to standard PGN formatting, you can use &lt;code&gt;node.comment&lt;/code&gt; as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's take a sample PGN file (&lt;a href=&quot;https://2700chess.com/games/svidler-caruana-r1-karlsruhe-2019-04-20&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Svidler vs Caruana Grenke 2019&lt;/a&gt;) from &lt;a href=&quot;http://theweekinchess.com/a-year-of-pgn-game-files&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;TWIC&lt;/a&gt;, load it up and add a comment to the first move:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;import chess&#xA;import chess.pgn&#xA;&#xA;pgnfilename = 'samplepgn.txt'&#xA;with open(pgnfilename) as f:&#xA;    game = chess.pgn.read_game(f)&#xA;&#xA;node = game.variations[0]&#xA;node.comment = 'this is a test comment'&#xA;print game&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and the output is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;GRENKE Chess Classic 2019&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Karlsruhe/Baden Baden GER&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2019.04.20&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;1.2&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Svidler, Peter&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Caruana, Fabiano&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1/2-1/2&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteTitle &quot;GM&quot;]&#xA;[BlackTitle &quot;GM&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;2735&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;2819&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;B33&quot;]&#xA;[Opening &quot;Sicilian&quot;]&#xA;[Variation &quot;Pelikan (Lasker/Sveshnikov) variation&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteFideId &quot;4102142&quot;]&#xA;[BlackFideId &quot;2020009&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;2019.04.20&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 { this is a test comment } 1... c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 ....&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and if you want to write the output to a file (assuming &lt;code&gt;python 2.x&lt;/code&gt;):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;with open(&quot;testpgn.txt&quot;, &quot;w&quot;) as fgame:&#xA;    print &amp;gt;&amp;gt; fgame, game&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should be able to take it from here. For any additional info, please have a look at the official &lt;a href=&quot;https://python-chess.readthedocs.io/en/latest/pgn.html#&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;documentations of python-chess&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3594" LastActivityDate="2019-05-14T20:19:34.923" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24479" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24470" CreationDate="2019-05-14T20:24:10.743" Score="4" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Opening moves that don't have remotely reasonable ideas don't have a&#xA;  place in theory. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your only assertion seems to be that Black is eliminating &quot;strong Bishops&quot;.  Why are they strong?  They haven't even left home yet.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A) White trades bishops:&#xA;Black ends up with a silly looking undefended knight on the rim coupled with weakened squares.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B) White doesn't trade bishops:&#xA;White can just keep developing, it doesn't really matter how.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Either way White ends up with a large development lead and the center.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2019-05-14T20:24:10.743" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24481" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24470" CreationDate="2019-05-14T22:51:34.703" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The assumption that White's bishops are much stronger than Black's is faulty. After 1...g6, Black has weakened his dark squares and requires a bishop to &quot;fill in the gap&quot;. Playing 2...Bh6 betrays this duty, and to make it worse Black's knight will have to go to the unattractive h6-square to recapture. The same logic is applied to 1...b6, 2...Ba6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Against the finachetto White often spends a few moves to actually initiate a bishop exchange (e.g., Be3, Qd2, Bh6).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-05-14T22:51:34.703" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24482" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24483" CreationDate="2019-05-15T01:59:48.517" Score="2" ViewCount="316" Body="&lt;p&gt;I played a game on &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/DGt2RK1W/white#109&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Lichess&lt;/a&gt; today as white, and me and my opponent reached this interesting endgame position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Rewan Demontay-NN, Lichess, 5/14/19&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;8/8/3r1kP1/5B2/4PK2/8/8/8 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With Black to play, is this KBPP vs. KR position a draw or a win, with perfect play by both sides?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It looks like a draw to me. White can make no progress here. Black cannot exchange his rook for the bishop and a pawn at any point, or else the other white pawn will advance ahead and promote. Therefore, each side will effectively end up making infinite waiting moves. That is what happened in our game, and it was drawn by the 50 move rule.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although I could use a computer, I wish to know how I can tell it is a draw without one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-04T16:21:25.813" LastActivityDate="2020-04-04T16:21:25.813" Title="Is this KBPP vs. KR position a draw or a win with perfect play?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;learning&gt;&lt;rook-and-minor-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24483" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24482" CreationDate="2019-05-15T05:27:59.667" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You're right, Black's dominance on the dark squares makes sure White cannot make any progress, and he only needs to sacrifice his rook for two pawns to ensure the draw. If he occupies the key squares for the last pawn, sacrificing the rook for the bishop and a pawn works too. (Of course, there's the immediate threat of e5+ winning the rook you need to protect against.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black shouldn't even be thinking of winning; the endgame KR vs. KB is a draw (unless the KB are badly placed) and as you can see in the position, it'll be very hard to force a pawn move from White, which would be necessary to win a pawn. Right now, everything is just too well protected.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2019-05-15T05:27:59.667" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24484" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1632" CreationDate="2019-05-15T09:57:17.130" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The conclusions of Regan-Haworth paper should be taken with a grain of salt, as it seems to contradict &lt;a href=&quot;https://content.iospress.com/articles/icga-journal/icg0012&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;other&lt;/a&gt; computer analysis of games, on better soft- and hardware and with more advanced mathematical methods. There they conclude (see Table 9), e. g., that Karpov in 1977 played at just slightly lower level than Kasparov in 2001 and Anand in 2008 (expected to score about 47% of points), and actually better than Topalov in 2005 and Ponomariov in 2011. Since Kasparov-2001 is 150 points higher rated than Karpov-1977, the rating would expect him to score 70% of points. I don't see how to reconcile this with the claim that there was no rating inflation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that also, contrary to the implicit claim in the question, &lt;strong&gt;there is no mechanism by which rating would reflect a change in the overall strength in the player pool&lt;/strong&gt;. It might be empirically the case that a typical strength of a 2600 player has not changed over certain time period, but this would be merely a coincidence rather than a reflection of fundamental properties of the ELO system, and certainly not generalizable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If we rather define inflation naively and just measure the average rating of the top 100 players, then, as can be seen from &lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/toplist.phtml?list=men&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this link&lt;/a&gt;, there was a steady inflation until 2012 and &lt;strong&gt;no inflation since then - the top-100 average rating oscillated betweeen 2700 and 2705 for the last 7 years&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17330" LastActivityDate="2019-05-15T09:57:17.130" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24485" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24491" CreationDate="2019-05-15T11:05:33.887" Score="9" ViewCount="1367" Body="&lt;p&gt;Recently I heard something about &lt;strong&gt;pure checkmate&lt;/strong&gt;. This is a special kind of checkmate where each of the squares around the king has to be covered by just one single piece. One simple example of this would be checkmate using two pawns and the king:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;3k4/2PP4/3K4/8/8/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately, I couldn't find any more detailed information about this topic, which is the main reason for this question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To make the question slightly more specific, I'd like to know what are the exact circumstances for a mate to be considered pure?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it allowed to have opponent's pieces involved in the check mate? For example like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;1r1q1r2/4R1p1/2p2pkp/p4Q1N/n2PP3/P5N1/5PPP/4R1K1 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18980" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-12-13T18:17:39.577" LastActivityDate="2021-05-02T04:21:50.523" Title="What is a pure checkmate?" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;problems&gt;&lt;terminology&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24486" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24482" CreationDate="2019-05-15T12:38:11.737" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;IF White wanted to have any winning chances, the pawns should either be connected or, at least, staying in dark squares for quite some time. In the presented position, even if the central pawn pushes, Black will be able to blockade in the second rank&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastActivityDate="2019-05-15T12:38:11.737" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24487" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24469" CreationDate="2019-05-15T12:59:48.710" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Have you looked at &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/rpdelaney/python-chess-annotator&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;python-chess-annotator&lt;/a&gt;? I think it does pretty much what you want, and if not, it might be easier to modify it than to start from scratch. It's based on &lt;code&gt;python-chess&lt;/code&gt;, too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'll copy its usage example here to make this answer a bit more self-contained:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;$ python3 -m annotator -h&#xA;usage: annotator [-h] --file FILE.pgn [--engine ENGINE] [--gametime MINUTES]&#xA;                 [--threads THREADS] [--verbose]&#xA;&#xA;takes chess games in a PGN file and prints annotations to standard output&#xA;&#xA;optional arguments:&#xA;  -h, --help            show this help message and exit&#xA;  --file FILE.pgn, -f FILE.pgn&#xA;                        input PGN file&#xA;  --engine ENGINE, -e ENGINE&#xA;                        analysis engine (default: stockfish)&#xA;  --gametime MINUTES, -g MINUTES&#xA;                        how long to spend on each game (default: 1)&#xA;  --threads THREADS, -t THREADS&#xA;                        threads for use by the engine (default: 1)&#xA;  --verbose, -v         increase verbosity&#xA;&#xA;$ python3 -m annotator -f caruana-kasparov.pgn -g 15&#xA;[Event &quot;Ultimate Blitz Challenge&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;St. Louis, MO USA&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2016.04.29&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;18.1&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Fabiano Caruana&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Garry Kasparov&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;2016.04.28&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;A05&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;2795&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;2812&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;74&quot;]&#xA;[Opening &quot;King's Indian Attack: Symmetrical Defense&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteACPL &quot;252&quot;]&#xA;[BlackACPL &quot;141&quot;]&#xA;[Annotator &quot;Stockfish 8 64 POPCNT&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;{ Stockfish 8 64 POPCNT } 1. Nf3 Nf6 2. g3 g6 { A05 King's Indian Attack:&#xA;Symmetrical Defense } 3. Bg2 Bg7 4. O-O O-O 5. c4 d6 6. b3 e5 7. Bb2 c5 8. e3&#xA;Nc6 9. Nc3 Bf5 10. d4 e4 11. Ne1 Re8 12. Nc2 h5 13. Qd2 h4 14. Ba3 $6 { -1.13 }&#xA;( 14. h3 g5 15. g4 Bg6 16. Rad1 Qe7 17. Qe2 a6 18. Ba3 a5 { 0.19/25 } ) 14...&#xA;b6 $6 { -0.04 } ( 14... Nh7 15. Nd5 Ng5 16. Bb2 Rc8 17. Rac1 Ne7 18. Nf4 h3 19.&#xA;Bh1 { -1.11/24 } ) 15. Rfd1 $6 { -1.15 } ( 15. h3 d5 16. g4 Be6 17. cxd5 Nxd5&#xA;18. Nxe4 f5 19. gxf5 gxf5 { 0.00/26 } ) 15... Bg4 16. Rdc1 Qd7 17. b4 Qf5 18.&#xA;Bb2 Rad8 19. Nb5 Bf3 20. d5 Ne5 $6 { -1.66 } ( 20... Nxb4 21. Ne1 Bxg2 22.&#xA;Nxg2 Nd3 23. Nxh4 Qh3 24. Bxf6 Bxf6 25. f4 { -3.14/25 } ) 21. Bxe5 Rxe5 22.&#xA;Ne1 hxg3 23. fxg3 Bh6 24. Rab1 Kg7 $6 { -1.08 } ( 24... Qh5 25. Rb3 Rf5 26.&#xA;bxc5 dxc5 27. Rc2 Ng4 28. h3 Bxg2 29. Kxg2 { -2.48/24 } ) 25. Rb3 Qh5 26. h3&#xA;$6 { -3.08 } ( 26. bxc5 bxc5 27. Nxa7 Rh8 28. h4 Qg4 29. Nc6 Rh5 30. Qf2&#xA;Bd1 { -2.00/23 } ) 26... Nh7 $2 { -1.37 } ( 26... Rg5 27. Qf2 { -2.89/24 })&#xA;27. g4 Bxg4 28. hxg4 Qxg4 29. Qd1 $4 { -5.69 } ( 29. Qb2 Ng5 30. Nxd6 Qg3&#xA;31. Nf5+ gxf5 32. Kf1 Nf3 33. Qf2 Nh2+ { -2.30/24 } ) 29... Qg3 30. Qe2 Ng5&#xA;31. Kh1 Rh8 32. Nxd6 Kg8 33. bxc5 Bf8+ 34. Kg1 Nh3+ 35. Kf1 Bxd6&#xA;36. cxd6 Rf5+ 37. Nf3 Rxf3+ 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Note: I'm not the author or affiliated to this project in any way, so for further questions I suggest contacting the author via github.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12523" LastActivityDate="2019-05-15T12:59:48.710" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24489" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20036" CreationDate="2019-05-15T14:50:37.917" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, it is possibile and not so unlikely under two conditions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the human is quite strong&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;lichess is browsed via mobile (not on a desktop pc) &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please note that the elaboration is not done serverside, but clientside.&#xA;That means that it uses (part of) the resources of the hardware you are using when browsing lichess (!).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In other terms if you browse on a mobile the engine will be weaker.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just today I drew a fast game (I’m near 2300 elo and I run it on a Samsung S8 hw).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19107" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2019-05-15T15:14:36.883" LastActivityDate="2019-05-15T15:14:36.883" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24490" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20036" CreationDate="2019-05-15T19:56:04.573" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I used LiChess's &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/games/search&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Advanced Search&lt;/a&gt; feature to search for games with Stockfish level 8 playing blitz.  Stockfish has lost against bots multiple times, but &lt;strong&gt;I did not find any verifiable losses against humans&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some wins by &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/@/Demolisher95&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Demolisher95&lt;/a&gt; (&lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/g3ZtQDKU&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;1&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/SjKNgAEz&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;2&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/Ir7leP3i&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;3&lt;/a&gt;) look like plausible human wins to me, with a kind of anti-Stockfish style, but the account states it uses &quot;computer assistance&quot;, which makes these wins dubious.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's a bunch of draws by strong players, e.g. Hungarian &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/@/Pap-G&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;GM Gyula Pap&lt;/a&gt; achieved &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/j3e9g7Pg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this draw&lt;/a&gt; (3+2 time control); &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/@/vsepro100&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;a Ukranian IM&lt;/a&gt; achieved &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/Mopo5sPt&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this draw&lt;/a&gt; (5+0 time control); &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/@/opperwezen&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;a Dutch IM&lt;/a&gt; achieved &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/JS1wk7dq&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this draw&lt;/a&gt; (5+3 time control); Russian &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/@/amaidel&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FM Anton Maidel&lt;/a&gt; achieved &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/ZBrABP9o&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this draw&lt;/a&gt; (5+3 time control); and so on.  These draws were accompanied by multiple losses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[Some wins by &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/@/thinkabit&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;thinkabit&lt;/a&gt; (&lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/nTWR6ij7&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;1&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/abWkwNl4&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;2&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/LWdLCeS7&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;3&lt;/a&gt;; &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/mXvZWWI4&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;4&lt;/a&gt;), &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/hGaKenCZ&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Widyana&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/5EZNXXoD&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;SexyChessMen&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/fQvPWB2p&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Amir_King1&lt;/a&gt;, and &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/puDoGcJU&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;caballito64&lt;/a&gt; are almost certainly with computer &quot;assistance&quot;, so I disregard these wins.]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2785" LastActivityDate="2019-05-15T19:56:04.573" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24491" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24485" CreationDate="2019-05-15T19:56:50.220" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pure_mate&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;A pure mate is a checkmating position in chess in which the mated king&#xA;and all vacant squares in its field are attacked only once, and&#xA;squares in the king's field occupied by friendly units are not also&#xA;attacked by the mating side (unless such a unit is necessarily pinned&#xA;to the king to avoid it interposing to block the check or capturing of&#xA;mating unit.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Essentially, a pure mate is a position in which each square around the opposing king is attacked only once by the mating side, so your first example is indeed a pure mate. However, your second example is not. While kings can be blocked off by their own units, they cannot be attacked unless they are pinned, which they aren't.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To summarize, the Black king can be surrounded by its pawns and pieces so long as they are not attacked, and if they are, they must be pinned. Furthermore, the pin must prevent the pinned piece from interfering with the mate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as I can tell, multiple pieces may be on the board so long as the stipulations of a pure mate are met. The enemy pieces surrounding the king’s squares can be attacked, so long so as the mating piece is actually capable of mating, i.e. it cannot be captured or blocked.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Wikipedia gives an example from the final position from the famous &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1018961&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Evergreen Game&lt;/a&gt; (link the chessgames.com).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [Title &amp;quot;”The Evergreen Game,” Adolf Anderssen-Jean Dufresne. Berlin GER, 1852&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;1r3kr1/pbpBBp1p/1b3P2/8/8/2P2q2/P4PPP/3R2K1 b - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this position, each of the Black king's available squares that it could move to are attacked exactly once by the White pieces, and the black blocking pieces are not attacked by white pieces at all. Although the White pawn that blocks off the g7 square for the black king is attacked, this is a real pure mate from high-level play nonetheless.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you wish to see a constructed position for a pure mate, @DM has a great position in his answer to a related &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/19207/what-is-the-most-number-of-pieces-from-one-side-that-can-be-involved-in-a-checkm&quot;&gt;question&lt;/a&gt; on this site.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-05-02T04:21:50.523" LastActivityDate="2021-05-02T04:21:50.523" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24492" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-05-16T01:08:06.037" Score="11" ViewCount="747" Body="&lt;p&gt;How much of a skill drop is there when a GM plays a blitz game or a bullet game versus rapid and classical?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What I mean is, imagine if Carlsen was given 1 minute to play in, and he played against somebody who was given 1 hour to play in. What must the rating of this opponent be in order for them to be equally matched? In other words, what is the &quot;classical rating&quot;-equivalent of Carlsen's bullet-rating? And the same for blitz?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Obviously you cannot answer this by actually playing Carlsen against somebody who can think for longer, because Carlsen would also be able to think while his opponent is taking their time and that's not what I'm looking for.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I suspect by analyzing the &lt;em&gt;quality&lt;/em&gt; of the games that Carlsen plays, one could compare them to his classical games and perhaps estimate what &quot;classical-rating&quot; skill-level he is playing at when he plays blitz?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19109" LastEditorUserId="9025" LastEditDate="2019-05-16T03:44:20.687" LastActivityDate="2021-04-12T06:26:08.010" Title="How much worse do GMs play in their blitz and bullet games?" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;blitz&gt;&lt;bullet-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24493" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28202" CreationDate="2019-05-16T04:00:58.243" Score="11" ViewCount="614" Body="&lt;p&gt;After 1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5, what are the differences between 3. Nc3 and 3. Nd2?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems 3. Nc3 is more popular, though after 3. ... dxe4, I failed to see the difference.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16626" LastActivityDate="2020-04-13T07:23:57.687" Title="In Caro-Kann Defense, what are the differences between 3. Nc3 and 3. Nd2?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;caro-kann&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24494" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24493" CreationDate="2019-05-16T10:56:18.540" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;3.Nc3&lt;/code&gt; allows White to play the &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/study/4Aqycynk/KBOAk93S&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Two Knights Attack&lt;/a&gt; with &lt;code&gt;2.Nf3&lt;/code&gt;. It does block the c-pawn, though, so Black can play &lt;code&gt;3...g6&lt;/code&gt;, the &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/study/4Aqycynk/3Zjm99OY&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Gurgenidze System&lt;/a&gt;, because White cannot protect the d-pawn with the c-pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is also the rarely played &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/study/4Aqycynk/prcSJeZ2&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Gurgenidze Counter Attack&lt;/a&gt; &lt;code&gt;3...b5&lt;/code&gt;. A very dubious line that can be stopped easily with &lt;code&gt;a3&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;3.Nd2&lt;/code&gt; tries to avoid these lines, but it makes the Two Knights Attack impossible, a line that is very popular nowadays. It also blocks the view of White's dark-squared bishop, so Black can develop their kingside knight to &lt;code&gt;h6&lt;/code&gt; if they want.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8472" LastActivityDate="2019-05-16T10:56:18.540" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24495" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24493" CreationDate="2019-05-16T16:33:37.453" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Nd2 avoids this line:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 b5!? 4.ed5 b4 followed by recapturing on d5&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;IM Jeremey Silman was a proponent of this for Black as a surprise weapon.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2019-05-16T16:33:37.453" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24496" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24492" CreationDate="2019-05-16T17:15:31.653" Score="5" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Handicapping&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've played in blitz tournaments where the higher rated player was handicapped 1 minute per 100 rating points with a maximum of 3 minutes deducted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you play with one 1 minute physical ability becomes a huge factor.  If you are not fast enough to move a piece while your opponent is reaching for his clock, and then hit your clock near immediately after your opponent, you will likely lose on time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is an endurance factor as well.   When you play blitz or bullet it is typically a lot of games in succession.  You might note that in the recent Côte d’Ivoire Rapid &amp;amp; Blitz (which Magnus dominated), the quality of the blitz games dropped significantly as the day went on -- this is typical of these type of tournaments and you often see players brains just stop performing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Overall Strength&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We don't have data on GM's playing with huge time handicaps as you proposed, but we can see their quicker games and compare them to their slower games.  Of course they have multiple FIDE ratings to represent this.  Magnus is further ahead of the world in rapid than he is in classical.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I personally think that when the players are young and in great form, they don't need much time.   When Anand was a rising star he played classical games at blitz speed.  Kamsky too played fairly quickly.  This is strategic as older GMs need to take their time and would get into time pressure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Probably a computer program could rate the quality of the games to get a non-opinion based answer to your question.  My personal opinion is that if classical was level 10, rapid would be 7-8, blitz 5-6, and bullet under a 4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then it would be interesting to compare these against IM or Master games.  My guess is that GM games at Rapid are still better than IM classical games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2019-05-16T17:15:31.653" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24497" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24499" CreationDate="2019-05-16T17:53:35.097" Score="5" ViewCount="577" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have played a couple of games as black with this line. It is a simple plan: to put pressure on the weak c3 and c4 pawns. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This line is mainly known as the Dzindzi-Indian Opening, according to the comments and &lt;a href=&quot;https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PHvUGZq3iuo&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; video. It. also called the Modern Defense: Pterodactyl, Beefeater Variation according to &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/openings/A40-Modern-Defense-Pterodactyl-Beefeater-Variation&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chess.com&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 g6 2. c4 Bg7 3. Nc3 c5 4. d5 Bxc3 5. bxc3 f5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have tried it while playing correspondance, so I have followed the move sugested by databases: 5. f5. This has had good results after quickly playing Qa5, trying to attack the weak pawns along with other minor pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5...f5&amp;nbsp; &lt;strong&gt;347&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;2018&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp; 2403/2426/2709&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp; 30.3%&amp;nbsp; 25.6%&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp; 44.1% &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5...Qa5 &lt;strong&gt;22&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;2017&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp; 2359/2306/2586&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp; 50%&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp; 22.7%&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp; 27.3% &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5...e5&amp;nbsp; &lt;strong&gt;5&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;2014&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp; 2370/2338/2418&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp; 40%&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;    20%&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp; 40% &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5...d6&amp;nbsp; &lt;strong&gt;1&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;2010&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp; Steadman vs. Bosboom 0-1&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*&lt;a href=&quot;https://chesstempo.com/game-database.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chesstempo database for the position&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wonder what the reason is for taking away a tempo to play f5 while the plan is clear, at least as I play it: to profit from the doubled pawns by attacking on the queenside.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is f5 played to avoid e4?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user18196" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T16:45:21.257" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T16:45:21.257" Title="Why is 5. f5 so necessary in the Dzindzi-Indian Opening/Modern Defense: Pterodactyl, Beefeater Variation?" Tags="&lt;evaluation&gt;&lt;modern-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24499" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24497" CreationDate="2019-05-16T22:48:03.247" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;You don't want a White pawn getting to e5, especially with a friend at f4.  White can let you have a c-pawn if he can achieve such a central dominance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, without f5 it is awkward to develop the Ng8 -- you notice none of the variations you show have Nf6.  But now after f5, Nf6 will grip the e4 square.   Thus White often plays e4 anyway!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2019-05-16T22:48:03.247" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24500" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-05-17T00:59:05.727" Score="0" ViewCount="299" Body="&lt;p&gt;As the title suggests, I want to know how to train like Bobby Fischer did, along with what books he read during his chess training. Remember, keyword is &lt;strong&gt;TRAIN&lt;/strong&gt;. I don’t want to be &lt;strong&gt;like&lt;/strong&gt; him, as that is impossible, but I merely want to know how to &lt;strong&gt;train&lt;/strong&gt; like him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19112" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-05-17T01:32:13.250" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T17:12:34.803" Title="How would I train like Bobby Fischer did?" Tags="&lt;books&gt;&lt;training&gt;&lt;fischer&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2019-05-17T16:47:06.070" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24501" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8769" CreationDate="2019-05-17T02:59:29.240" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have been able to find information for everything asked of. However, I have not found any large surveys; just mere snippets.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Mutual Zugzwangs&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://ruszchessstudies.blogspot.com/2018/09/7-man-mutual-zugzwangs-krpp-vs-krp.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;This&lt;/a&gt; page on &lt;a href=&quot;http://ruszchessstudies.blogspot.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://ruszchessstudies.blogspot.com/&lt;/a&gt; provides several examples of half-point mutual zugzwangs along with some general information. Here is one of them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;3K4/P7/P7/8/8/8/R5rp/3k4 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for full point mutual zugzwangs, one such position was given by @mbourzut in &lt;a href=&quot;http://rybkaforum.net/cgi-bin/rybkaforum/topic_show.pl?pid=413852&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; a Rybka forum. This forum contains numerous drawing and winning positions; a small survey.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;8/8/2P5/2r1p3/RK1kP3/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;DTC&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The record for the longest DTC sequence is 79 moves, according to page 24 of &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.arves.org/arves/images/PDF/EG_PDF/eg185.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; arves.org PDF. It contains further information KRPP-KRP endgames.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &amp;quot;8/r7/2K3p1/k7/8/8/P4P2/1R6 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. Rb7 Ra6+ 2. Kc5 Ka4 3. Rd7 Ra5+ 4. Kd4 Rf5 5. Ke3 Kb4 6. Rd6 Re5+ 7. Kd4 Rf5 8. Rb6+ Ka3 9. Ra6+ Kb4 10. Ke3 Re5+ 11. Kf3 Rg5 12. Re6 Ka3 13. Re2 Kb4 14. Kf4 Rg2 15. Ke3 Rg1 16. Rc2 Re1+ 17. Kf4 Rg1 18. f3 g5+ 19. Ke3 Re1+ 20. Re2 Rc1 21. Rg2 Rc5 22. Rb2+ Ka3 23. Rd2 Rf5 24. Rc2 Kb4 25. Rc7 Kb5 26. Rc8 Re5+ 27. Kf2 Kb6 28. a4 Rd5 29. Rb8+ Kc6 30. Kg3 Rf5 31. Re8 Kd7 32. Re4 Rd5 33. Kg4 Kd6 34. Re8 Rc5 35. Kh5 Rf5 36. Re3 Ra5 37. Ra3 Kd7 38. Kg6 Ke7 39. Ra2 Ke8 40. Kf6 Kf8 41. Ra3 Ke8 42. Re3+ Kf8 43. Re4 Kg8 44. Ke7 Kg7 45. Kd6 Kf6 46. Kc6 Ra8 47. Kb5 Rb8+ 48. Kc4 Rc8+ 49. Kb4 Rb8+ 50. Ka3 Rh8 51. Re3 Rh3 52. Rb3 Ke7 53. a5 Kd8 54. Ka4 Rh4+ 55. Rb4 Kc8 56. a6 Rh6 57. Ka5 Rh7 58. Rb6 Rg7 59. Rb7 Rg8 60. Rb5 Rg7 61. Rb6 Rf7 62. Kb4 Rf4+ 63. Kb5 Rf5+ 64. Kc4 Rf4+ 65. Kd5 Kc7 66. a7 Ra4 67. Rf6 Kb7 68. Rf7+ Ka8 69. Ke5 Ra2 70. Rg7 Rg2 71. Ke4 Rg3 72. Ke3 Rg2 73. Kd3 Rf2 74. Ke4 Re2+ 75. Kf5 Re3 76. Kg4 Re4+ 77. Kg3 Rg4+ 78. Kf2 Rc4 79. Rxg5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;DTM&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The record for the longest DTM sequence is 218 moves. It can be found on page 105 of &lt;a href=&quot;http://centaur.reading.ac.uk/34268/2/chessendrecann.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; PDF, created by Guy Haworth, about tablebase length records.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;8/k1P5/8/8/1R5P/7p/r7/1K6 b - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... h2 2. Kxa2 h1=Q 3. c8=R Qd5+ 4. Kb1 Qa5 5. Rcc4 Qe5 6. Ra4+ Kb6 7. Rc2 Kb5 8. Rac4 Qg7 9. Rc5+ Kb4 10. R2c4+ Kb3 11. Rc3+ Kb4 12. R5c4+ Kb5 13. Rc7 Qg1+ 14. Ka2 Qg2+ 15. Ka3 Qg1 16. Rb7+ Ka6 17. Rb2 Qa1+ 18. Kb3 Qe1 19. Rc6+ Ka7 20. Rc4 Qe6 21. Rbc2 Ka6 22. Ka4 Qd7+ 23. Rc6+ Ka7 24. Kb3 Qd5+ 25. Kb4 Qh1 26. Rc7+ Ka8 27. R7c4 Qh3 28. Ka4 Ka7 29. Rb4 Qd7+ 30. Ka3 Qd3+ 31. Kb2 Qd5 32. Rbc4 Qh1 33. Ka2 Qd5 34. Ka3 Qd6+ 35. Kb2 Qf6+ 36. Kb1 Qb6+ 37. Ka1 Qg1+ 38. Ka2 Qg8 39. Kb2 Qd8 40. Ra4+ Kb6 41. Rb4+ Ka5 42. Rbc4 Qh8+ 43. Kb3 Qg8 44. Ka3 Qf8+ 45. Rc5+ Ka6 46. h5 Ka7 47. Kb4 Kb6 48. Kb3 Qf3+ 49. Ka2 Qf7+ 50. Kb2 Qf6+ 51. R2c3 Qf2+ 52. Ka3 Qf8 53. Ka4 Qf1 54. Rc6+ Kb7 55. h6 Qa1+ 56. Kb4 Qb2+ 57. Rb3 Qd2+ 58. Kc5+ Ka7 59. Ra3+ Kb7 60. Rb6+ Kc8 61. Ra8+ Kc7 62. Ra7+ Kc8 63. Rc6+ Kb8 64. Ra4 Kb7 65. Rb4+ Ka7 66. Rc4 Qe3+ 67. Kd5 Qd2+ 68. Ke5 Qe3+ 69. Kf5 Qd3+ 70. Ke6 Ka8 71. Rc8+ Ka7 72. R8c7+ Ka6 73. h7 Qh3+ 74. Kf6 Qh6+ 75. Kf5 Qh3+ 76. Kf4 Kb5 77. Rc3 Qh1 78. Rb3+ Ka6 79. Rd7 Qh4+ 80. Ke5 Qg5+ 81. Kd4 Qf6+ 82. Kd3 Qg6+ 83. Kc3 Qg3+ 84. Kc2 Qg2+ 85. Kb1 Qf1+ 86. Ka2 Qe2+ 87. Ka3 Qe5 88. Rbd3 Qa1+ 89. Kb3 Qb1+ 90. Kc4 Qc1+ 91. Kd5 Qg5+ 92. Ke4 Qg4+ 93. Ke3 Qg5+ 94. Kf2 Qh4+ 95. Ke2 Qe4+ 96. Kd1 Qg4+ 97. Kc1 Qc4+ 98. Kd2 Qf4+ 99. Re3 Qf2+ 100. Kd3 Qf5+ 101. Kc3 Qc5+ 102. Kd2 Qa5+ 103. Rc3 Qa2+ 104. Ke3 Qe6+ 105. Kf2 Qb6+ 106. Re3 Qf6+ 107. Rf3 Qb6+ 108. Kg2 Qg6+ 109. Kf1 Qb1+ 110. Ke2 Qb5+ 111. Ke3 Qe5+ 112. Kd2 Kb5 113. Rdf7 Qd5+ 114. Ke2 Qe5+ 115. Kf1 Qh2 116. R3f4 Ka5 117. Ke1 Kb5 118. Kd1 Qh5+ 119. Kd2 Qd5+ 120. Ke2 Qe6+ 121. Kf2 Qh3 122. R4f5+ Ka4 123. Ra7+ Kb4 124. Rb7+ Kc4 125. Rc7+ Kb4 126. Rf4+ Kb5 127. Rfc4 Qh2+ 128. Ke3 Qh1 129. Kd2 Kb6 130. Kc2 Qa1 131. R4c6+ Kb5 132. Rc3 Qa2+ 133. Kc1 Qa1+ 134. Kd2 Qb2+ 135. Ke3 Qh2 136. Kd3 Kb6 137. R3c6+ Ka5 138. Rc5+ Kb4 139. Rc4+ Ka5 140. Kc3 Kb6 141. Kb3 Qh1 142. R4c6+ Kb5 143. Rc2 Qf3+ 144. Kb2 Qh1 145. Rf2 Qh4 146. Rf3 Qh2+ 147. Kb3 Qh1 148. Rf5+ Kb6 149. Rcf7 Kc6 150. R7f6+ Kd7 151. Kb2 Qh2+ 152. Kc3 Ke7 153. Rc6 Qg3+ 154. Kc2 Qg2+ 155. Kb3 Qg3+ 156. Rc3 Qb8+ 157. Kc4 Qc7+ 158. Kb4 Qb6+ 159. Rb5 Qd4+ 160. Kb3 Qd1+ 161. Ka3 Qa1+ 162. Kb4 Qb2+ 163. Kc4 Qh2 164. Kb3 Kd6 165. Rb7 Qh1 166. Rbc7 Ke5 167. R3c5+ Kd4 168. Kb2 Qh6 169. Rb5 Qf8 170. Rbb7 Ke4 171. Rc4+ Ke5 172. Rc3 Qf2+ 173. Kb3 Qh2 174. Re7+ Kd6 175. Rec7 Qh1 176. R3c5 Ke6 177. Kb4 Kf6 178. Rd7 Ke6 179. Rcd5 Qe1+ 180. Kb5 Qb1+ 181. Ka6 Qa1+ 182. Kb6 Qb2+ 183. Rb5 Qh8 184. Rb7 Kd6 185. Rf5 Ke6 186. Rh5 Qd4+ 187. Ka6 Qa4+ 188. Ra5 Qe8 189. Re7+ Qxe7 190. h8=Q Qd6+ 191. Kb5 Qd5+ 192. Kb4 Qd6+ 193. Rc5 Qb6+ 194. Rb5 Qd6+ 195. Kb3 Qd1+ 196. Ka3 Qd6+ 197. Rb4 Qd3+ 198. Ka4 Qc2+ 199. Rb3 Qc4+ 200. Ka5 Qc5+ 201. Ka6 Qc4+ 202. Rb5 Kd7 203. Qh5 Kd6 204. Qf5 Kc7 205. Qc5+ Qxc5 206. Rxc5+ Kd7 207. Kb6 Kd6 208. Rh5 Ke6 209. Kc6 Kf6 210. Kd6 Kg6 211. Rd5 Kf6 212. Kd7 Kf7 213. Rd6 Kf8 214. Ke6 Kg7 215. Ke7 Kg8 216. Kf6 Kh8 217. Kg6 Kg8 218. Rd8#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;4&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;DTZ&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The DTZ length records can be found in the &lt;a href=&quot;https://syzygy-tables.info/?fen=2r5/8/p7/3P3K/2P5/3R2k1/8/8_b_-_-_0_1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Syzygy endgame tablebases.&lt;/a&gt; Here are the record positions without the moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Longest Winning DTZ, Without The 50-Move Rule-136 ply&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;6k1/8/3pP1R1/3P4/8/1K6/8/3r4 b - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Longest Winning DTZ, With The 50-Move Rule-100 ply&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;2r5/8/8/2pP3K/2P5/3R2k1/8/8 b - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Longest Losing DTZ, Without The 50-Move Rule-124 ply&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;1k6/4K3/5R2/8/5P2/1p6/3P4/4r3 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Longest Losing DTZ, With The 50-Move Rule-63&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;8/8/8/K7/P5R1/1k6/P1p5/r7 b - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-05-02T04:06:10.973" LastActivityDate="2021-05-02T04:06:10.973" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24502" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24497" CreationDate="2019-05-17T06:21:30.213" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;By playing ...f5 you're trying to weaken the e4 push. This is the most important immediate thing to attend to. It's not like White's doubled pawns are going to run away anytime soon.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-05-17T06:21:30.213" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24503" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24493" CreationDate="2019-05-17T06:23:32.087" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, if Black plays 3...dxe4 there is no difference whatsoever.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The difference between 3.Nc3 and 3.Nd2 is the sidelines they allow/prevent Black from playing. For example, 3.Nc3 may encourage 3...b5!?, trying to harass the knight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-05-17T06:23:32.087" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24504" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24482" CreationDate="2019-05-17T06:25:39.447" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes it's a draw. It's hard enough for White to win these endgames with 2 split pawns if he had a &lt;em&gt;rook&lt;/em&gt; instead of a bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-05-17T06:25:39.447" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24505" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24508" CreationDate="2019-05-17T11:07:50.757" Score="4" ViewCount="135" Body="&lt;p&gt;I play the French Defense as both white and black. I often play this line with black suggested by Korchnoi if I am not wrong. I have found a way to prevent the sudden b4, via Bd7 (if 8.Rb1 Bd7 9.b4 cxb3 10.Nxb3, I can answer with 10...Ba4, pinning the queen and winning material).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[FEN &quot;r1b1kbnr/pp3ppp/1qn1p3/2ppP3/3P4/2P2N2/PP3PPP/RNBQKB1R w KQkq - 3 6&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;6. a3 c4 7. Nbd2 Na5&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The problem is, although I feel comfortable with the limitations white has in development, I do not often find a winning plan as black and I end up finishing by playing for a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are your thoughts as to what I could do here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user18196" LastEditorUserId="2967" LastEditDate="2019-06-23T08:57:11.833" LastActivityDate="2019-06-23T08:57:11.833" Title="Winning plan for black in this line of French Defense: Advance Variation Main Line" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;&lt;french-defense&gt;&lt;planning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24506" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24500" CreationDate="2019-05-17T11:26:41.827" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This question may be better suited for &lt;a href=&quot;https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/&quot;&gt;Worldbuilding Exchange&lt;/a&gt;, but as Bobby's training system you are asking for started at the precise second Bobby met the game at a young age, you will need to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Return with a time machine to five years old and develop Asperger&#xA;disorder.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Buy not only one but a dozen of chess boards.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Develop an uncontrollable obsession with chess as said, forgetting&#xA;everything is not chess. Your mother can do those tasks and the&#xA;school is totally unnecessary for you. You know modals and how the law &#xA;rules, not to enter in troubles not related with chess.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Play millions of games with yourself. Play chess every minute you&#xA;don't have to eat, sleep or waste your time with adults. Use those&#xA;books only to follow master moves and remaster the games on your&#xA;dozen of chess board that have colonized your home (you will need to&#xA;convince your mother for that).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Go to the tournaments and destroy all those poor players that read&#xA;the text of those chess books you will take a look later to see if&#xA;they are correct or not.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Continue enjoying and learning at FIDE circuit your hole life.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user18196" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T17:12:34.803" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T17:12:34.803" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24507" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24514" CreationDate="2019-05-17T14:43:11.337" Score="2" ViewCount="1554" Body="&lt;p&gt;The new Komodo 13 MCTS has been &lt;a href=&quot;https://komodochess.com/Komodo13.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;announced&lt;/a&gt; with the claim that:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Komodo 13 MCTS thinks like no other chess engine in the world.&#xA;  Inspired by the ideas of AlphaZero and Leela, Larry and Mark set out&#xA;  to reinvent Komodo. What they came up with was Komodo 13 MCTS - a&#xA;  engine which searches for candidate moves in an incredible new way,&#xA;  and finds moves no other engine can&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They are clearly trying to cash in on the publicity behind AlphaZero and LeelaZero. But is the hype justified? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There seems to be no mention of an AlphaZero like database of training results. Is the use of MCTS on its own enough to produce worthwhile improvements? More detailed information seems to be hard to find (possibly for commercial reasons).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2019-10-09T00:52:21.520" Title="To what extent (if at all) is the new Komodo 13 MCTS an AlphaZero Lite?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;alphazero&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24508" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24505" CreationDate="2019-05-17T16:31:51.037" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Once stuff has settled down on the queenside, you may eventually castle there and create play on the other sector, with moves such as ...f6 or ...f5 Take a look at a few illustrative games that may help you understand how to put this into practice&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastActivityDate="2019-05-17T16:31:51.037" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24509" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24507" CreationDate="2019-05-17T18:06:21.193" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Komodo doesn't use machine learning, it just uses roughly the same search algorithm that A0/L0 uses. It still relies on the human-built heuristics it's used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastEditorUserId="12873" LastEditDate="2019-10-09T00:52:21.520" LastActivityDate="2019-10-09T00:52:21.520" CommentCount="11" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24510" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-05-17T18:26:51.890" Score="7" ViewCount="550" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Woodpecker Method was introduced in the book &lt;em&gt;Pump Up Your Rating&lt;/em&gt; (&lt;a href=&quot;https://books.google.com/books?id=avlCnwEACAAJ&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Google Books&lt;/a&gt;) by GM Axel Smith (&lt;a href=&quot;http://ratings.fide.com/card.phtml?event=1707930&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE&lt;/a&gt;), who was inspired by a training method used by GM Hans Tikkanen (&lt;a href=&quot;http://ratings.fide.com/card.phtml?event=1706446&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE&lt;/a&gt;), who used it to improve his chess.  A subsequent book &lt;em&gt;The Woodpecker Method&lt;/em&gt; (&lt;a href=&quot;https://books.google.com/books?id=HfUQvgEACAAJ&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Google Books&lt;/a&gt;) was published by the two GMs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A description of this method is given in &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/19568/2785&quot;&gt;Brian Towers's answer&lt;/a&gt;, but it involves repeatedly solving tactics problems (not only &lt;em&gt;what's the best move?&lt;/em&gt; But, also, &lt;em&gt;what are the critical lines?&lt;/em&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's some debate online (see e.g. &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/forum/view/chess-equipment/chesscom-tactics-trainer---the-woodpecker-method&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;chess.com&lt;/a&gt;) as to whether this helped Axel Smith improve, or if this was attributable to other aspects of his chess training.  Hence my question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Has anyone other than GM Axel Smith and GM Hans Tikkanen had success improving their chess through the &quot;Woodpecker Method&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2785" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-05-17T19:15:24.937" LastActivityDate="2019-05-18T00:14:12.290" Title="Has anyone other than GM Axel Smith and GM Hans Tikkanen had success improving their chess through the &quot;Woodpecker Method&quot;?" Tags="&lt;training&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24511" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24510" CreationDate="2019-05-17T20:47:08.177" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the chapter &lt;em&gt;Woodpecker History&lt;/em&gt; from the book &lt;em&gt;The Woodpecker Method&lt;/em&gt;, Hans Tikkanen says this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I was obviously asked by many people about what I had done to finally&#xA;  take the step from IM to GM. I described the method and my rationale&#xA;  for adopting it, and several others decided to give it a go. One&#xA;  Swedish trainer has apparently invited his students in the north of&#xA;  our country to work dedicatedly on the method for a while.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But, tantalisingly, he does not name names.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2019-05-17T20:47:08.177" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24512" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24510" CreationDate="2019-05-18T00:14:12.290" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;What you describe as the Woodpecker method is a standard training regime many players do. Solving tactics over and over is one of the best ways to improve. Explicitly identifying all the critical lines can only help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-05-18T00:14:12.290" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24513" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24672" CreationDate="2019-05-18T05:27:55.293" Score="5" ViewCount="955" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is current use status of Leela for practical player? Is it already working well as UCI? Could anybody give some insight on strength with various thinking times, especially in analysis mode? As leela uses different thinking process, I must ask also for multiPV search. Is the speed down of many PVs still as devastating as with other engines?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have desktop with 6x3.2Ghz CPU. As graphics card like RTX2080ti is 'just' around 1300€ with good use outside of chess too, I wonder, what performance change would it mean.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With mentioned hardware, how long would approximately leela have to think to compare to Stockfish?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stockfish 0.1s&#xA;Stockfish 1s&#xA;Stockfish 10s&#xA;Stockfish 1min&#xA;Stockfish 10min&#xA;Stockfish 1hour&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11609" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-05-18T13:02:01.520" LastActivityDate="2019-07-05T01:46:14.067" Title="Leela Chess Zero - UCI engine" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;leela&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24514" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24507" CreationDate="2019-05-18T08:48:48.773" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are a number of benefits to using MCTS instead of alpha-beta search, mainly in the realm of analysis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Firstly, Alpha-Beta Search only attempts to find the best move in a position. As a result, MultiPV is implemented in alpha-beta engines by searching all the root moves, then searching the root again, skipping the root move, then searching again skipping the two already-found root moves, etc. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This significantly reduces the strength of alpha-beta engines in analysis, where you often want to take a look at multiple possible variations. MCTS, by contrast, expands out portions of the whole tree making the PV of every move considered by MCTS available. There is therefore no strength hit when enabling MultiPV for MCTS engines, and Komodo MCTS can therefore be &lt;a href=&quot;http://talkchess.com/forum3/viewtopic.php?f=2&amp;amp;t=70681&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;much stronger than alpha-beta engines when MultiPV is set to high values&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With regards to the results of the search, MCTS has the advantage of being able to reflect the possibility of the opponent going wrong, as it assumes that all reasonable moves have some chance of being chosen. By contrast, alpha-beta engines always assume that the opponent will play the move that the engine considers best.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a result, alpha-beta engines can often evaluate situations which are deadly tactical landmines to be dead draws, whereas Komodo MCTS can take this into account, further improving its performance in analysis of human games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10075" LastActivityDate="2019-05-18T08:48:48.773" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24515" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2019-05-18T13:04:52.127" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2019-05-18T13:04:52.127" LastActivityDate="2019-05-18T13:04:52.127" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24516" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2019-05-18T13:04:52.127" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2019-05-18T13:04:52.127" LastActivityDate="2019-05-18T13:04:52.127" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24517" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-05-18T13:54:12.203" Score="5" ViewCount="1111" Body="&lt;p&gt;As title above, how to play vs. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 d6 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I see that this move (3...d6) is generally considered inferior in books, or not even mentioned in books about 3.Bc4, but I cannot see a clear way to obtain advantage. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-09-10T14:50:27.747" LastActivityDate="2019-09-10T14:50:27.747" Title="How to play vs. 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 d6?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;1.e4&gt;&lt;italian-game&gt;&lt;open-games&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24518" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24517" CreationDate="2019-05-18T15:44:01.503" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;The game will get the characteristics of the Philidor Defense rather than the Italian Game. Wikipedia calls it the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semi-Italian_Opening&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Semi-Italian Opening&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I. A. Horowitz called the defence &quot;solid&quot;, also writing: &quot;It does not seem quite sufficient for equality.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Wikipedia article notes several possible continuations for White, with 4. d4 probably the best bet for advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2019-05-18T15:44:01.503" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24519" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24507" CreationDate="2019-05-19T00:03:33.493" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Komodo MCTS isn't a neural-network based engine. It just uses a different search algorithm, in particular MCTS instead of AB. Alphazero also used MCTS, so KMCTS is an &quot;Alphazero lite&quot; in that sense; however a distinguishing factor of Alphzero is that it uses a neural network to perform the evaluation, and KMCTS does not do that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is MCTS &quot;better&quot; than AB? Yes and no. From what I've seen, MCTS is exceptionally better when you want multiple PVs (because they effectively get it for free, while AB engines need to spend computational power). However MCTS loses firepower in tactical shoot-outs, and it's also really bad at winning a technical position. For example I remember seeing a KMCTS game in TCEC where its eval read &quot;I have a forced checkmate&quot; one move and then &quot;wait, I don't, I only have a very large advantage&quot; another, and then back to &quot;I have a forced checkmate&quot;, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Having said all that, KMCTS eliminated regular Komodo from the latest TCEC cup, so it's absolutely a respectable engine. In a straight-up game against another engine, it's not as strong as Stockfish or Leela, but it's comparable to everything else.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastActivityDate="2019-05-19T00:03:33.493" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24520" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-05-19T03:00:41.757" Score="13" ViewCount="1900" Body="&lt;p&gt;(Originally I hoped a lengthy prologue would not be needed here, but some of the answers and comments have led me to write one so that the purpose of the question is clear, thus this is now much longer.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When my child was around six or seven years old, I taught them the rules of the game and basic principles of opening play. At the time, chess didn't seem to hold a lot of interest. However, move forward a few years, and playing with school mates after classes were over led to an interest in the game. Quickly the kid rose above the novices at school and could even beat the teacher. Games between the two of us became competitive, even though I usually - but not always - win. The kid played a few tournaments: in the first 8 the kid had positive records in all but one, which was an open where all opponents were adults with ratings 300 to 500 points better with one exception - an unrated player. There are three trophies on a shelf from these tournaments, including first place from the beginners section of our state scholastic championship. Along the way, we signed up for a year of chess instruction from professional instructors. Also, the kid watches videos online about all aspects of the game and has worked through at least one well respected chess book. It is clear that the kid has a decent understanding of opening principles for someone at this level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At tournament nine the kid had a bad day. One game in particular stands out: The opposing player opened with 1) a4 ... 2) h4 (or something similar, I don't have the scoresheet). Ultimately, the other kid won the game because my kid didn't know how to respond and got rattled. In some ways this isn't surprising, as any time any person encounters an unusual situation they can get confused and make poor choices. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Don't get me wrong, I certainly want my youngster to learn good chess principles. I don't want to play first moves like a4, h4, a5 or h5, in serious games, nor do I want the kid to do so (at all).  However, I've seen other games opened this way by players just learning the game (or using strange openings to confuse their opponents). In order to boost my kid's confidence and provide experience against games like this, I want to (occasionally) play openings at home that may be seen in games at this level. I don't expect to win these games, but that isn't the point: The point is to provide an experience that will benefit the psychological aspects of my kid's game if another player tries a similar opening in the future. Thus, I'm seeking some guidance on strange openings like 1) a4 or 1) h4, that I could at home play against my kid to help prepare for future tournaments.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="224" LastEditorUserId="224" LastEditDate="2019-06-27T01:53:25.117" LastActivityDate="2019-10-04T11:44:57.897" Title="(For training purposes) Are there any openings with rook pawns that are more effective than others (and if so, what are they)?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;training&gt;&lt;preparation&gt;" AnswerCount="8" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24521" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24520" CreationDate="2019-05-19T03:22:57.557" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Learning good chess principles and playing against clearly dubious openings like 1. a4 or 1. h4 are not mutually exclusive.  In fact, following solid opening principles is the best way to counter weak openings like this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The moves 1. a4 and 1. h4 are both poor because they do not follow any of the opening principles.  Namely, they do not help control the center, they do not develop or prepare to develop any pieces and they actually reduce the king's options as to which side to castle on by weakening the pawn cover on one side of the board.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To counter such a move, you should simply play normal opening moves.  1... e5 or d5 is a good start.  If white allows it, you can take over the center by advancing the other central pawn two squares as well.  Then simply continue by developing the minor pieces and castling the king to safety.  At this point you will have a large lead in development if white has continued making many foolish pawn moves (which is likely against the type of players who open with 1. a4 or 1. h4) and should be able to make life miserable for the opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18421" LastActivityDate="2019-05-19T03:22:57.557" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24522" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24524" CreationDate="2019-05-19T08:54:44.133" Score="8" ViewCount="2294" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are some positions in which you need to know how many moves have been played without pawn move or capture. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;1R5K/8/8/8/8/8/7R/k7 w - - 98 1000&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(1R5K/8/8/8/8/8/7R/k7 w - - 98 1000)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here, white must play Ra2 or Rb1 to force a capture within 1 move. If this is not done the game is drawn due to the 50 move rule.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the 50 move rule was not a concern it would be an easy mate in 2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course it is very hard to remember how many moves have passed. Is white allowed to look at the scoresheet and count the number of moves during the game?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17934" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-05-19T12:48:26.963" LastActivityDate="2019-05-19T18:12:24.723" Title="Is it OK to look at the list of played moves during the game to determine the status of the 50 move rule?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;50-move-rule&gt;&lt;claim-draw&gt;&lt;scoresheet&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24523" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24522" CreationDate="2019-05-19T09:06:04.020" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Of course it is very hard to remember how many moves have passed. Is white allowed to look at the scoresheet and count the number of moves during the game?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In a serious tournament game, you would stop the clocks and ask the arbiter to come and check your scoresheets. I remember there was a recent incident between Russian GM Alexandra Kosteniuk against Chinese GM Ju Wenjun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If there was no arbiter, you would have to do it with your opponents after stopping the clocks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2019-05-19T09:06:04.020" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24524" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24522" CreationDate="2019-05-19T09:44:57.243" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;The rules for this and how it works are spelled out in articles 9.3, 9.4 and 9.5 of the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=208&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Laws of Chess&lt;/a&gt;. They don't mention whether or not you are allowed to check your scoresheet to do this because you are &lt;strong&gt;always&lt;/strong&gt; allowed to check your scoresheet. You would be very foolish to not check your scoresheet first because there are penalties for an incorrect claim.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are articles 93, 9.4 and 9.5 of the FIDE Laws of Chess:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;9.3 The game is drawn, upon a correct claim by a player having the move, if:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  9.3.1 he writes his move, which cannot be changed, on his scoresheet and declares to the arbiter his intention to make this move which will&#xA;  result in the last 50 moves by each player having been made without&#xA;  the movement of any pawn and without any capture, or&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  9.3.2 the last 50 moves by each player have been completed without the movement of any pawn and without any capture.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  9.4 If the player touches a piece as in Article 4.3, he loses the right to claim a draw under Article 9.2 or 9.3 on that move.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  9.5.1 If a player claims a draw under Article 9.2 or 9.3, he or the arbiter shall stop the chessclock (see Article 6.12.1 or 6.12.2). He&#xA;  is not allowed to withdraw his claim.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  9.5.2 If the claim is found to be correct, the game is immediately drawn.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  9.5.3 If the claim is found to be incorrect, the arbiter shall add two minutes to the opponent’s remaining thinking time. Then the game shall&#xA;  continue. If the claim was based on an intended move, this move must&#xA;  be made in accordance with Articles 3 and 4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2019-05-19T09:44:57.243" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24525" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24520" CreationDate="2019-05-19T10:15:52.180" Score="7" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Are there any openings with rook pawns that are more effective than&#xA;  others?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are few recognized openings which start with a rook pawn move on move one, except in circumstances where the opponent starts with a double knight pawn move, because those are generally inferior moves on move one. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One example where it &lt;em&gt;is&lt;/em&gt; good is if white plays the Sokolski Opening (1. b4). Then 1 ... a5 is a good response.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However they are more common later on in any opening where your opponent fianchettos a bishop because challenging the fianchetto with a rook pawn rush is worth considering if it does not weaken your own position too much.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2019-05-19T10:15:52.180" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24526" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19819" CreationDate="2019-05-19T14:21:27.687" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;All general principles are subject to exceptions. If all you had to do in chess was memorizing a set of strategical guidelines and follow them all the time, chess would be a very boring game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this particular example, White's moves are not doing much for his own development, however they do disturb the opponent's. By move 13, Black and White have their respective developments at a similar stage. We can even argue that White pieces will have it easier to find good squares. Actually, the &quot;developped&quot; Black knight on d7 is not really doing anything but interrupting its teammates&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastActivityDate="2019-05-19T14:21:27.687" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24527" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24520" CreationDate="2019-05-19T14:25:36.413" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your kid did not lose the game because he did not know how to respond to that opening. He lost the game because he played worse! (by the way you're telling the story, probably because of a tactical blunder) I don't really think there is any human being on the planet who has prepared a line against 1.a4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wouldn't really have a clear preference for any &quot;rook pawn&quot; opening. 1.a3 is sometimes played at &quot;high&quot; levels, as it could transpose to other openings where the a3-push is useful. h4 is a common attacking move, but only after Black has castled or, at least, moved the &quot;g&quot; pawn&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-10-04T11:44:57.897" LastActivityDate="2019-10-04T11:44:57.897" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24528" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24520" CreationDate="2019-05-19T17:11:33.520" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;How can 1.a4 be bad, when some guy named Magnus played it against a grandmaster and won? :-) See &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1671724&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Carlsen-Radjabov (2012)&lt;/a&gt;, from the World Blitz Championship.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, I don't think it counts as much preparation, but my rule of thumb against kids who open with 1.a4 is ...e5 and against h4, ...d5. I think ...e5 and ...d5 are both legitimately good moves, but the reason I pick the one opposite to the rook pawn is that I've seen those kids love their rooks, and their plan is often an early rook lift to a3 or h3, and they often to forget to look out for ...Bxa3 or ...Bxh3. Admittedly, this &quot;trap&quot; only works at the extreme beginner level, but that's the level where I've seen this opening (I haven't played against Magnus Carlsen), and if they don't blunder I didn't lose anything. Anyway, two things you could try if you want to simulate this kind of game against your kid are the rook lifts already mentioned, and early pawn storms.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Back to the original question, what's an &quot;effective&quot; rook opening? It seems to me that non-beginners who play such an opening basically treat it as a waiting move and then play a normal opening (the Carlsen example is basically a Four Knights Game after the 1.a4), perhaps trying to transpose to something where the move is useful. With 1.a4, you are roughly giving up a tempo, which means losing the first-move advantage, but at low levels of play this is not very important. Moving the h pawn may be worse because it has a bigger effect on king safety.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12523" LastEditorUserId="12523" LastEditDate="2019-05-19T18:00:21.260" LastActivityDate="2019-05-19T18:00:21.260" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24529" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24522" CreationDate="2019-05-19T18:12:24.723" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes you're absolutely allowed to look at the score-sheet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What you're not allowed to do is make special symbols/notes on the scoresheet to remind you of things. But that's non-applicable here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-05-19T18:12:24.723" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24530" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24539" CreationDate="2019-05-20T00:28:18.733" Score="1" ViewCount="344" Body="&lt;p&gt;Long ago in 2000, Tim Krabbe presented, a now classic, problem by Harry Goldsteen in his article &lt;a href=&quot;https://timkr.home.xs4all.nl/tour/horse.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;“The Horse Concoction”&lt;/a&gt; on his site. It has blossomed across the Internet, as some of us know.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The task's stipulation is complex.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Take an empty board. Put white pawns on b3, b6, h4 and h7, and a white Queen on f1. Now add ten black knights, both Kings, and the necessary material to enable White to stalemate Black in one move, and Black to win after any other move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The retrograde analysis Tim Krabbe glosses over isn’t too hard to understand. But there is just one part that he skips over that nags at me, and I cannot figure it out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Firstly, here is the unique position that solves the problem.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;8/7P/1P5B/2B1Q1n1/3nn2P/1PRnk1nR/3nnnK1/2B1nQBn w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Krabbe remarks that the knight jammed in the corner cannot be jammed in the corner on h8 for reasons too big for his article. But why is that so?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-04-29T21:36:07.953" LastActivityDate="2021-04-29T21:36:07.953" Title="A question regarding &quot;The Horse Concoction&quot;" Tags="&lt;problems&gt;&lt;knights&gt;&lt;retrograde-analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24531" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8623" CreationDate="2019-05-20T02:05:06.500" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The oldest chess player was &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoltan_Sarosy&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Zoltan Sarosy&lt;/a&gt;. He lived 1906 - 2017 at 110 years. He was still playing actively in his centenarian years.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19168" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2019-05-20T12:55:01.727" LastActivityDate="2019-05-20T12:55:01.727" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24532" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24520" CreationDate="2019-05-20T03:58:29.547" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I made a terribly long book study of well-known and lesser-known unusual openings to contend with my grandpa's massive advantage in opening theory. He could match me in general openings, but I specialized. I would get the upper hand in the opening because he had no idea how to play against what I would produce. Of course he was still better than me and the game would turn around in the mid game ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can say categorically as follows from my book search:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;There are no known remotely good openings starting with a2-a4.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The best response to a2-a4 is to advance the c, d, or e pawn two squares. I favor the c pawn because I favor the Sicilian defense, not because it's actually any better.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The best way to play if you start with a2-a4 is to play a center-pawn opening with a wasted move. That is, you're now playing the matched center-pawn opening as black. It's possible that pushed pawn will be useful later, but probably not.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If a rook is brought out early, it is likely to be chased around by minor pieces and can't meaningfully participate in the center battle.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Don't deploy anything to b6.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If a4-a5 is played, play a7-a6 in response.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you really want to give your youngster some practice on this, play it and bring the rook out until he learns to chase it around. This play is unsound, but that's the point. Defending unsound gambits is something that needs to be practiced later on, so why not this now given your youngster is already facing it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8063" LastActivityDate="2019-05-20T03:58:29.547" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24533" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-05-20T05:50:42.470" Score="11" ViewCount="1148" Body="&lt;p&gt;I had been thinking about exercises to help players &amp;lt;1400 gain confidence. For instance, they should feel confident they can always win with queen and king vs king, or rook and king vs king, even against Magnus Carlsen. They should also feel confident they can win with a bishop and 8 pawns vs 8 pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I lazily took all the pieces off the back ranks and removed black's king pawn, to give an exercise with king and 8 pawns vs king and 7 pawns. I figured winning a pawn up in a pawn endgame is a useful skill to know, and it should not be too hard.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[FEN &quot;4k3/pppp1ppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/4K3 w - - 0 0&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, initial desultory poking around showed Black may be able to sit tight and form a barricade. This could be instructive for a beginning player, but it also might be too intimidating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While this probably won't happen in actual play (exchanged pieces mean there is probably at least one line open), this is a non-trivial case worth looking at, as Black could quite possibly establish a blockade down two pawns (you can ignore the two backwards pawns--I saw this pawn structure in &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnMqxRBSDzw&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;a recent video of Ben Feingold's, about his 2019 Foxwoods tourney&lt;/a&gt;.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[FEN &quot;8/4k3/1p4p1/p1pPPp1p/P1P2P1P/8/4K3/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is a good strategy for White to minimize the possibility of blockades? Also, what is Black's best strategy to push pawns and maximize the possibility of blockades?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11202" LastEditorUserId="14473" LastEditDate="2019-05-20T15:10:54.813" LastActivityDate="2019-05-20T16:34:06.380" Title="Eight pawns vs seven exercise: how to win?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;training&gt;&lt;pawn-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24534" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24540" CreationDate="2019-05-20T06:47:29.807" Score="2" ViewCount="120" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have a Russian translation of Bobby Fischer's My 60 Memorable Games. In the Game 1 (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1008366&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1008366&lt;/a&gt;) in the annotations given after Black's &lt;code&gt;4. ...Ng8-f6&lt;/code&gt; the author writes that  &lt;code&gt;4...d5 5. Nbd2 Bd6 6. Bg2 Nge7 7. 0-0 0-0 8. Nh4!&lt;/code&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 e6 3. d3 Nc6 4. g3 d5 5. Nbd2 Bd6 6. Bg2 Nge7 7. O-O O-O 8. Nh4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;results in White's initiative. I think that &lt;code&gt;initiative&lt;/code&gt; means creating direct threats to which the opponent must respond immediately. But where is initiative after &lt;code&gt;Nh4&lt;/code&gt;? White doesn't seem to create any direct threats at all&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19169" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-05-20T09:17:28.750" LastActivityDate="2019-05-20T15:12:25.520" Title="Annotations to Fischer vs Sherwin,1957" Tags="&lt;terminology&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24535" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24533" CreationDate="2019-05-20T10:02:24.013" Score="6" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I figured winning a pawn up in a pawn endgame is a useful skill to&#xA;  know&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is a useful skill to know and an even more important skill to know is when a pawn-up endgame is a win and when it is a draw and when it could be either depending on who is to move first. This is a vital skill because it stops you from swapping off into a drawn king and pawn endgame when you are a pawn up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I had been thinking about exercises to help players &amp;lt;1400 gain&#xA;  confidence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When it comes to building confidence in pawn-up endgames for &amp;lt;1400 players this is where you / they should start. This is a win for white if it is white's turn and a draw if it is black's turn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;4k3/8/8/8/8/8/4P3/4K3 w - - 0 0&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This teaches you the importance of:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The opposition and &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Getting your king in front of your passed pawn not&#xA;behind&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In terms of preventing (or aiming for) drawing blockades the &amp;lt;1400 player needs to know this position and why it is a win for white if it is white's turn and a draw if it is black's turn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/ppp3k1/8/PPP3K1/8/8/8/8 w - - 0 0&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This teaches you that it is the position of the pieces which is key not material balance. White to play wins by sacrificing a pawn or even two depending on black's response.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, Capablanca's Position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;6k1/7p/8/8/8/8/6PP/6K1 w - - 0 0&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is a win for white but if black knows the ending it is very easy for white to go wrong and end up in a drawn position. Many white players much stronger than 1400 would struggle to win this against a knowledgeable black opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All 3 of the positions above could arise from the position in the question. All 3 have far fewer pieces and so are much simpler but are far from straightforward. Mastering them first would be a good first step.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-05-20T16:34:06.380" LastActivityDate="2019-05-20T16:34:06.380" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24536" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24520" CreationDate="2019-05-20T10:12:12.543" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Actually, it doesn't matter how your opponent play the opening. You should teach your students to main aspects of the chess. In the opening, the goals are very clear. There are (mainly) 2 important things: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Importance of the center: Try to take control and dominate the center &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Development: Try to develop your pieces as fast and as effective as possible - generally in order to their values. (pawns first, knights and bishops after, rooks and queen followed)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you or your student basically apply the opening rules especially to an opponent who don't, then it can be an easy win with hight possibility. You would enter the mid-game with a big advantage and turning it into a clear win is up to you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19174" LastActivityDate="2019-05-20T10:12:12.543" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24538" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24530" CreationDate="2019-05-20T12:07:05.497" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The article mentions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Square h8 also being impossible is the result of incredibly complex considerations (Goldsteen spent a month and a half on this problem; 'Not much, for me') that would be beyond the scope of even this article.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's no obvious reason why h8 doesn't work; a complete proof could even require more characters than fit in a Stack Exchange answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2019-05-20T12:07:05.497" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24539" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24530" CreationDate="2019-05-20T12:45:39.053" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;This is just the very beginning of what must have been Goldsteen's demonstration, but if anyone wants to carry on from here...&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's try and build the position after White's key move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The bNh8 cannot be pinned, so there must be &amp;quot;blockading&amp;quot; knights on f7 and g6, that are pinned themselves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because squares f7 and h7 are occupied, the bNg6 cannot be pinned diagonally. It cannot be pinned vertically either, otherwise we cannot pin the bNf7. Hence it is pinned horizontally, leftwards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The bK cannot be on f6 because there wouldn't be enough space to set up a pin on the f6-h8 diagonal. It cannot be too far from the bNf7 either, so you can conclude that the bK stands on e6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The space available (or lack thereof) allows us to define the positions of four more pinned knights and four pinning pieces, leading to this position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;2B1R1Bn/3nnn1P/1PRnk1nR/3nn3/2B4P/1P6/8/5Q2 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Two remarks:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The wQf1 (&lt;em&gt;or even a wP, although it seems unlikely&lt;/em&gt;) might have moved with the key move, I just put it on the diagram as a reminder that it had to be there before.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Each wB or wR might be replaced by a wQ.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There will be two additionnal bN's, and two pinning pieces, on the e-file and on the e6-h3 diagonal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To go further, I suppose we might discuss cases depending on the locations of these two bN's. A very important point is that Black must be winning if White doesn't stalemate, so most probably wK willl be under check by the 10th knight (as in the solution with a bNh1) to avoid allowing scores of possible first white moves. Most probably too, the bK will also have a free square to escape to, thus unpinning half of its army.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Second step&lt;/em&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White already has three promoted pieces on the diagram. Since adding two more of them would be illegal (due to the remaining four wP's), it means that one of the last pinning pieces must be either the wQ or the wPh7.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are only five possible stalemating key moves to consider:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Ph7xNg8:B or Ph7xNg8:Q (these ones are very unlikely because they cannot be check-parrying moves)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Qf1xNh3&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Qf1xNe1&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Qf1xNe2&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a consequence, the positions of the wP's on b3, b6, and h4 are certain.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's consider that White's key move is 1.Qf1-takes-the-knight-that-was-checking-white-King and try now to infer where the wK might stand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Given that the wK cannot be on f4 or g5 (these squares are controlled by other bN's), the available square that is closest to the cluster of black pieces is d4, with d3 and f3 second-order possibilities. Because it is very hard to imagine Black, who is down scores of material, to be winning against a far-away wK (say, on c1), putting the wK on d4 could be the most logical next step.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a consequence, the pinned bN on the e6-h3 diagonal cannot be on f5, and must stand on g4. To limit wK freedom, it is tempting to put the 9th knight on e5 (controlling d3), but it might also be on e3 or e4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which leads to this diagram before the key move:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;2B1R1Bn/3nnn1P/1PRnk1nR/3nn3/2BK2nP/1P5B/4n3/5Q2 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But this leads to several new difficulties:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The key move 1.Qxe2 is &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; stalemating in spite of the 8 pins, since black can play 1...Kf6 or 1...Kf5. Of course, adding more (non-promoted) units, e.g. wNg3, wBg5, might still be possible.&#xA;(Notice that if we add chosen the setup wKd3/bNe4/bNe1 instead, we would also need to cover square e5; but then, the bNg4 could be on f5 blocking one flight square...)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;We have to demonstrate a black win after the alternative capture 1.Bxe2, or make it impossible by adding a wNd3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In both case, adding white units reduces the number of previous captures by Black, and is very likely to be impossible while keeping the legality of the position (less captures means less paths to promotions for both sides).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The alternative, in case adding a wB would still allow all the promotions, is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;2B1R1Bn/3nnn1P/1PRnk1nR/3n1n2/2B1n2P/1P1K3B/8/B3nQ2 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[Ba1 could be on b2,c3,d4,g7]&#xA;[If this is legal - &lt;em&gt;edit&lt;/em&gt;: it is not]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then we really have a stalemate after 1.Qf1xe1, but demonstrating a Black win after the alternative 1.Ke2 is a long shot, since only two black units can move! The best try would be to put wBa1 on c3 and play 1...Nxc3+ followed by 2...Ke5 or 2...Kf6, but that would allow yet another variation starting with 1.Bxe1! And still... &lt;em&gt;(funnily enough, 1...Ng3+ 2.Kxe1 Nxf1 3.Kxf1 is another stalemate, and if Black cannot win the wQ at once he should not dream of a long-term win and has to checkmate quite forcefully)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The third step should be retrograde analysis to prove that we cannot add a white knight nor a dark-squared bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Edit&lt;/em&gt;: this step is actually pretty easy: Black needs three captures to promote all his pawns: one by the b-pawn, one by the h-pawn, and one by the e-pawn or the c-pawn to allow the opposing white pawn to promote on a light square.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a consequence, the third diagram above is illegal.&#xA;With a key move by the wQ, even without the stipulation that it should be the only move to prevent a defeat, I am thus unable to even reach a legal stalemate. &lt;em&gt;[but I will not pretend I am 100% confident about all this reasonning; dear reader, please double check!]&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The possible key moves that remain, because they allow more pieces to be present, are the non-check-parrying 1.h7xNg8:B and 1.h7xNg8:Q.&#xA;I am pretty convinced that they cannot be mandatory to prevent defeat (and thus, that Harry Goldsteen &lt;strong&gt;is&lt;/strong&gt; right - not a surprise!), but step four will be to...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Step four&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;build a legal 9-knights stalemate starting with 1.h7xNg8:B&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I believe this is achieved by the following position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;2B1R1nn/3nnn1P/1PRnk1nR/3nn3/2BK2nP/1P5B/8/4RQ2 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;] &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.h7xNg8=B &lt;strong&gt;is&lt;/strong&gt; stalemate&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, Black is clearly not winning after any other White move. Indeed, White has a direct mate in 1 with&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.Bxg4# or 1.Bxd5#&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Convincing oneself that it is really mate is a little mind-boggling with all these pinned defenders who cannot defend.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I may spend a bit more time and sweat to prove properly that this last position is legal, but I will stop thereafter. After reaching that point, I am totally convinced that Goldsteen's assertion that &lt;em&gt;&amp;quot;there is no solution to the Horse Concoction with a bNh8&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt; is absolutely correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Addednum-Here is game that proves it is legal. Due to the page freezing, it can be played out on &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.apronus.com/chess/pgnviewer/?m=a4_a5_h4_h5_g4_e5_g5_Rh6_gxh6_d5_f4_Bd6_d4_e4_Na3_g5_Nc4_e3_Nd2_exd2*_Kf2_Be5_dxe5_g4_e4_Qg5_fxg5_f5_b3_Ra6_Ba3_b5_h7_Rb6_g6_b4_g7_Rb5_axb5_bxa3_c4_c5_Nh3_Bd7_b6_Bb5_cxb5_g3*_Ke2_g2_Nf2_f4_Ng4_hxg4_b7_f3*_Ke3_d4*_Kf4_g3_e6_f2_e5_g1ZN_Bh3_g2_e7_Kf7_e6*_Kf6_e8ZB_a2_e7_a4_Bf7_a3_e8ZB_c4_Bed7_c3_Bc8_Nd7_b8ZR_d3_Bb7_c2_Re8_Ne7_Bc4_f1ZN_g8ZR_c1ZN_b6_Nf3_Bb5_Nfe5_Qe1_Nf7_Rh2_g1ZN_Rb1_d1ZN_Rg5_Nf2_Rh5_Ng4_Rc2_d2_Ke4_d1ZN_Rcc5_Nc3*_Kd4_Ncd5_Bc4_Nfe3_Rb2_N3f5*_Ke4_N5h6_Kd4_Nhg8_Ke4_a1ZN_Rd2_Nf3_Qe2_N3e5_Qe1_N5g6_Qe2_Ngh8_Qe1_Nc2_Qe2_Ne1_Rd1_a2_Qg2_a1ZN_Qg1_Nac2_Qf1*_Ke6_Bc8_Ne3_Kd4_Nf5*_Ke4_N5d6*_Kd4_Ncd3_Rc6_Nde5_Rc1_N1d3_Re1_Nf4_Rh6*_Nfg6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;apronus.com.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Move List: 1. a4 a5 2. h4 h5 3. g4 e5 4. g5 Rh6 5. gxh6 d5 6. f4 Bd6 7. d4 e4 8. Na3 g5 9. Nc4 e3 10. Nd2 exd2+ 11. Kf2 Be5 12. dxe5 g4 13. e4 Qg5 14. fxg5 f5 15. b3 Ra6 16. Ba3 b5 17. h7 Rb6 18. g6 b4 19. g7 Rb5 20. axb5 bxa3 21. c4 c5 22. Nh3 Bd7 23. b6 Bb5 24. cxb5 g3+ 25. Ke2 g2 26. Nf2 f4 27. Ng4 hxg4 28. b7 f3+ 29. Ke3 d4+ 30. Kf4 g3 31. e6 f2 32. e5 g1=N 33. Bh3 g2 34. e7 Kf7 35. e6+ Kf6 36. e8=B a2 37. e7 a4 38. Bf7 a3 39. e8=B c4 40. Bed7 c3 41. Bc8 Nd7 42. b8=R d3 43. Bb7 c2 44. Re8 Ne7 45. Bc4 f1=N 46. g8=R c1=N 47. b6 Nf3 48. Bb5 Nfe5 49. Qe1 Nf7 50. Rh2 g1=N 51. Rb1 d1=N 52. Rg5 Nf2 53. Rh5 Ng4 54. Rc2 d2 55. Ke4 d1=N 56. Rcc5 Nc3+ 57. Kd4 Ncd5 58. Bc4 Nfe3 59. Rb2 N3f5+ 60. Ke4 N5h6 61. Kd4 Nhg8 62. Ke4 a1=N 63. Rd2 Nf3 64. Qe2 N3e5 65. Qe1 N5g6 66. Qe2 Ngh8 67. Qe1 Nc2 68. Qe2 Ne1 69. Rd1 a2 70. Qg2 a1=N 71. Qg1 Nac2 72. Qf1+ Ke6 73. Bc8 Nce3 74. Kd4 N3f5+ 75. Ke4 N5d6+ 76. Kd4 Ncd3 77. Rc6 N3e5 78. Rc1 N1d3 79. Re1 N3f4 80. Rh6+ Nfg6&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-04-29T21:29:51.953" LastActivityDate="2021-04-29T21:29:51.953" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24540" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24534" CreationDate="2019-05-20T15:12:25.520" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You are correct; there is no initiative.  The author is overstating the idea behind Nh4 which is to throw pieces and pawns toward the black king, who is at this point in no danger.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you put this in a modern chess program it would probably show the position as completely equal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2019-05-20T15:12:25.520" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24541" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-05-21T13:33:50.730" Score="1" ViewCount="59" Body="&lt;p&gt;my question can be seen in the title. I used to play chess competitively in my teenager-years and would like to come back to it now. The important stuff is still in my head and I am not doing too bad when playing rapid online, but my opening-knowledge has been erased nearly entirely. I am going to play a local tournament soon and would like to learn some openings at least on the surface, so what's a good way to do so?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19185" LastActivityDate="2019-05-21T13:33:50.730" Title="What's a good way to learn openings when coming back to chess as a former 1400-1600 player?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;beginner&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="4" ClosedDate="2019-05-21T16:23:39.940" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24542" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="75" CreationDate="2019-05-21T14:40:13.150" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I read all the comments , by your post I think you need a new opening to learn which has a solid reputation but aggressive in nature which always favorite of many chess player club players and grand masters . If you are trying to find new gambit lines then you can try The gambit  by M.yudovich , but if you want aggressive but solid openings first, I want to recommend you Vienna Game it also can transfer from the bishop's opening which goes like , 1.e4 e5 2. (Nc3/Bc4) (Nf6/Nc6/Bc5/others) 3.(Bc4/Nc3) {now after nf6 there is also frakenstein-dracula line which will be like 3..Nxe4 4.Qh5 which always a drawish line but you can pressurize your opponent and he/she can fall into your traps} 3....Bc5(after nf6) 4.d3 d6 5.Ne2 0-0 6.0-0 Nc6 7.Kh1 Be6 8.f4(and suddenly you can see it is a solid version of king's gambit) which always played by many top players recently it's been a fashion for top players to refute petrov defence or russian defence (1.e4 e5 2Nf3 Nf6). Now e4 is played for many many years to have the main purpose checkmate the king with controlling the f7 square. In the e4 lines I also like the opening called the Najdorf sicilian english attack, (1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 a6 6.Be3) , 6. Bg5 is also aggressive which all comes into the main pawn race with g4 , g5 , and in the side of d4 openings solid and aggressive lines can be found in the A Killer Chess Opening Repertoire by Aaron Summerscale , ( the barry attack is one of favourites from that book which goes like 1. d4 Nf6 2. Nf3 g6 3. Nc3 d5 4. Bf4 , with the plans of going in pawn race with h4 or g4 this opening also been mastered by GM mark hebden and also a new form of this opening been played by famous GM baadur jobava and the opening is named as jobava opening . Now you can also read A Ferocious Opening Repertoire by C. LAKDAWALA which includes veresov opening with f3 lines . And with black against e4 my favorite opening is najdorf (1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 a6)and also can play tiger modern (1. e4 g6 2. d4 Bg7 3. Nc3 d6) and against d4 you can play Grünfeld Defence(1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 d5) and you can play dutch defence (1. d4 f5 ) and this is also aggressive but solid played by many player you will find many examples in the ginger gm youtube channel.I don't recognize benko gambit as a aggressive opening cause a if your opponent knows then it can be not an aggressive one.And also other openings. Anyway Best Of Luck!!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12748" LastEditorUserId="12748" LastEditDate="2019-05-23T17:01:34.713" LastActivityDate="2019-05-23T17:01:34.713" CommentCount="0" CommunityOwnedDate="2019-05-21T14:40:13.150" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24544" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24704" CreationDate="2019-05-21T19:48:52.667" Score="3" ViewCount="297" Body="&lt;p&gt;In his article &lt;a href=&quot;https://timkr.home.xs4all.nl/tour/horse.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;“The Horse Concoction&amp;quot;&lt;/a&gt;, Tim Krabbe mentions retrograde analysis problems that involve placing 10 rooks, knights, or bishops on the board for a mate in 1. The 10 rooks problem shown (it also &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/13952/how-is-this-retrograde-analysis-position-legal&quot;&gt;on&lt;/a&gt; site).  However, the other two by Henrik Juel and Guus Rol are only mentioned. Who made which is unclear, although suspect that it goes respectively.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is the relevant portion of the article.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;In the last few years this old idea, where all the pawns of one or even both sides promote to one kind of piece, had been taken up again by the Dane Henrik Juel and the Dutchman Guus Rol - first with Bishops, then with Knights. And when Goldsteen saw Rol's latest version of an earlier composition by Juel, something unusual happened to him: he was jealous. He was just pissed off that he hadn't thought of Juel's and Rol's ten-knight problem (add ten black Knights to a given position so that White can mate in 1).&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can these problems be found online? I would love to see them out of curiosity and to learn more about retrograde analysis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-04-29T21:41:09.050" LastActivityDate="2021-04-29T21:46:28.503" Title="Where can I find these mentioned chess problems?" Tags="&lt;problems&gt;&lt;retrograde-analysis&gt;&lt;identify-this&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24545" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25168" CreationDate="2019-05-21T20:27:26.413" Score="3" ViewCount="228" Body="&lt;p&gt;Does anyone who uses Deep Fritz 14 know how to activate &quot;Visualize Search,&quot; aka &quot;Show Plans&quot;? I went to File, Options, and Engine. &quot;Show Plans&quot; is one of the options, but it won't let me activate it. How do you activate it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/dxaje.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/dxaje.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19189" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-07-08T02:09:38.913" LastActivityDate="2019-08-19T01:50:13.920" Title="Deep Fritz 14, Show Plans-How to activate?" Tags="&lt;fritz&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24546" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14758" CreationDate="2019-05-21T22:33:50.537" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;When promoted pieces are allowed, William Shinkman has the record with &lt;strong&gt;216 mates in two.&lt;/strong&gt; I came across it in the &lt;a href=&quot;https://pdb.dieschwalbe.de/P1182014&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Die Schwalbe Chess Problem Database&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;William A. Shinkmam After S. Hiatt, Brownson's Chess Journal 1886, Mate In 2&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;1Q5R/4Q1K1/B1Q5/B4Q2/N2Q4/pQ4Q1/pn2Q3/krQ4R w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another category to be considered is no promoted pieces with no promotions allowed. Here is my try with a count of &lt;strong&gt;93 mates in two.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;me, chess.stackexchange.com 2/24/2020, Mate In 2&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;R7/2R5/8/1K3BBN/3Q4/1P6/4N1pp/5nrk w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-05-02T04:02:08.367" LastActivityDate="2021-05-02T04:02:08.367" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24547" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24042" CreationDate="2019-05-22T15:24:38.707" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my experience, small variants emphasize tactics and not so much strategy. This is due to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the closer proximity of all the pieces&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the reduced board-size cramping pieces and exacerbating their deficiencies.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My conclusion is thus that &lt;strong&gt;studying small variants does not help with strategy&lt;/strong&gt;, but can help with tactics.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9531" LastActivityDate="2019-05-22T15:24:38.707" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24548" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6046" CreationDate="2019-05-22T16:37:37.260" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Give &lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ayelmarc.chessorm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess Repertoire Manager&lt;/a&gt; a try. You'll be surprised on how big a help it can do to your quest of improving your opening game play. By the way, it is an Android app from Google Play Store. With this app, you can create and manage your opening repertoire and train with it. It has built in chess engine for analysis or playing chess games with it using your opening repertoire as opening book of the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18598" LastActivityDate="2019-05-22T16:37:37.260" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24550" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5480" CreationDate="2019-05-22T22:12:08.870" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;As the new owner of a DGT 3000 I am disappointed to inform you that it is only capable of Fisher delay (increment type) for any time control with a set number of moves like 40/2 hours followed by whatever. There is no way for it to do a US or Bronstein delay for a given number of moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19193" LastActivityDate="2019-05-22T22:12:08.870" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24551" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-05-22T22:40:43.197" Score="3" ViewCount="184" Body="&lt;p&gt;In season 14 of TCEC, Stockfish defeated Leela 50.5-49.5 in a 100-game match (the closest possible winning margin). Using an elo calculator such as &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.3dkingdoms.com/chess/elo.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this one&lt;/a&gt;, we can see that the elo difference between the two engines was +3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However it must be that this isn't a statistically significant result - after all the match was only 100 games, and it's the smallest possible winning margin. Therefore the error bars on this calculation should be at least 3. The calculator doesn't give the error bars though, and I can't find any equations on how to calculate the error. How do you calculate the error on this estimate?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Related: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/15135/how-do-you-calculate-elo&quot;&gt;How do you calculate elo?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastActivityDate="2019-05-22T22:40:43.197" Title="How do you calculate error bars on elo rating?" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="3" ClosedDate="2019-05-23T10:57:24.177" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24553" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6184" CreationDate="2019-05-23T08:06:37.703" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes it's possible but very unlikely. As strong as modern day engines are, they aren't perfect. I have seen a multitude of instances where the engine thinks for a while and suddenly changes its evaluation when reaching a certain depth. If it's forced to move quickly in time trouble it could make a blunder. Of course, then the GM would have to know it's a blunder and figure out how to exploit it (which could be difficult since the engine itself didn't know at whatever depth it got to).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-05-23T08:06:37.703" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24554" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23495" CreationDate="2019-05-23T09:06:31.217" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The following starting position is a win in 123 (according to the software I am using):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1. setup S/cel/---/---/CGL/eG&#xA;1. show board&#xA;  ABC &#xA; +---+&#xA;1|cel| e&#xA;2|   |&#xA;3|   |&#xA;4|CGL| *G&#xA; +---+&#xA;1. show lines&#xA;Gb4-b3 : #123  (100.00%)&#xA;G  *c3 : 0     ( 0.00%)&#xA;G  *b3 : 0     ( 0.00%)&#xA;G  *a3 : 0     ( 0.00%)&#xA;Ca4-a3 : #-102 ( 0.00%)&#xA;Lc4-c3 : #-44  ( 0.00%)&#xA;Lc4-b3 : #-44  ( 0.00%)&#xA;G  *b2 : #-20  ( 0.00%)&#xA;G  *c2 : #-16  ( 0.00%)&#xA;G  *a2 : #-16  ( 0.00%)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9531" LastActivityDate="2019-05-23T09:06:31.217" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24558" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24517" CreationDate="2019-05-23T21:50:56.303" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 d6:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;365chess.com database shows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;MOVE   | games | year |  White +  Draw  + Black&#xA;-------+-------+------+--------+--------+-------&#xA;4. d4  |  491  | 2018 | 50.3 % | 24.4 % | 25.3 %&#xA;4. c3  |  359  | 2018 | 53.5 % | 20.6 % | 25.9 %&#xA;4. d3  |  357  | 2018 | 45.4 % | 22.7 % | 31.9 %&#xA;4. h3  |  323  | 2016 | 42.7 % | 25.7 % | 31.6 %&#xA;4. Nc3 |  289  | 2018 | 50.9 % | 16.3 % | 32.9 %&#xA;4. O-O |  249  | 2019 | 50.6 % | 22.1 % | 27.3 %&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White will get a space advantage and freer development after d4 (whether delayed or played immediately).  Or White can play the pawn to d3 and the fact that his Bishop is outside the pawn chain (and Blacks Bf8 is inside) gives White an easier position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is no knock-out blow for White as Black is accepting a slightly passive but solid position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastEditorUserId="18168" LastEditDate="2019-05-23T22:12:48.943" LastActivityDate="2019-05-23T22:12:48.943" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24559" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24561" CreationDate="2019-05-23T23:50:47.343" Score="3" ViewCount="362" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=184&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Berger tables for round-robin tournaments&lt;/a&gt; state:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Where there is an odd number of players, the highest number counts as a bye.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as I understand this statement correctly, this means that, for example, in an 8-player round-robin, the 8th seeded player will always be the bye player and hence will not play any game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What else could this mean?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13544" LastActivityDate="2019-05-28T06:04:41.227" Title="How do I determine the bye player in a given round of a round-robin tournament?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;round-robin&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24560" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5888" CreationDate="2019-05-24T01:46:13.763" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;I present unto you a superbly easy mate in 21 that I found the other day in the &lt;a href=&quot;http://matplus.net/start.php?px=1558655710&amp;amp;app=forum&amp;amp;act=posts&amp;amp;fid=xshown&amp;amp;tid=1610&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Matplus.net forums.&lt;/a&gt; Give it a try!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Filip Bondarenko, Feenschach 1960, Mate In 21&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;8/7Q/2r1p3/2rkr3/2rrr2Q/7K/8/8 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a mate in 24 that I quite like. You can view the solution in &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.yacpdb.org/#442276&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yet Another Chess Problem Database.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Martin Hoffmann &amp;amp; Franz Lutsenberger, Schach-Almanach 1977-1978, Mate In 24&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;8/7p/6pP/5pP1/pK2pP2/1pBpP3/pn1N4/k7 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, just for fun, here is a legal version of @Fate‘s idea that I have created solely for this answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;me, chess.stackexchange.com 8/16/2019, Mate In 20&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;6bB/3p1pB1/2pP1Ppr/2P3P1/2p5/2P3p1/5pPk/5Kbr w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-05-02T05:13:54.770" LastActivityDate="2021-05-02T05:13:54.770" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24561" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24559" CreationDate="2019-05-24T02:25:38.723" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;It means that in the pairings given in the tables, if there are an odd number of players (so not an 8-person round-robin for instance), the player &lt;em&gt;playing against&lt;/em&gt; the highest number receives a bye.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance, for 5 players (use the 5-6 player table):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Round 1: #1 gets a bye&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Round 2: #4 gets a bye&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Round 3: #2 gets a bye&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Round 4: #5 gets a bye&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Round 5: #3 gets a bye&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15989" LastActivityDate="2019-05-24T02:25:38.723" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24564" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-05-24T11:27:29.870" Score="2" ViewCount="199" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_World_Cup_2017&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Here&lt;/a&gt; are the pairings for the 2017 FIDE World Cup. The above pairings are for 128-player knockouts. I can't get the way the pairings were generated. I want to be able to generate pairings using the same criteria for knockouts with different numbers of players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there any FIDE published rules for single-elimination tournaments, such as the World Cup? If not, what are the criteria they use for such pairings?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;As it stands, there are no &lt;a href=&quot;/questions/tagged/knockout&quot; class=&quot;post-tag&quot; title=&quot;show questions tagged &amp;#39;knockout&amp;#39;&quot; rel=&quot;tag&quot;&gt;knockout&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;/questions/tagged/single-elimination&quot; class=&quot;post-tag&quot; title=&quot;show questions tagged &amp;#39;single-elimination&amp;#39;&quot; rel=&quot;tag&quot;&gt;single-elimination&lt;/a&gt; or &lt;a href=&quot;/questions/tagged/pairing&quot; class=&quot;post-tag&quot; title=&quot;show questions tagged &amp;#39;pairing&amp;#39;&quot; rel=&quot;tag&quot;&gt;pairing&lt;/a&gt; tags. I couldn't find appropriate tags, so feel free to re-tag this question.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13544" LastActivityDate="2019-05-24T20:10:31.200" Title="What are the pairing regulations for a single-elimination (knockout) tournament?" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24565" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24564" CreationDate="2019-05-24T11:44:36.847" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_World_Cup_2017#Participants&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;participants&lt;/a&gt; were seeded by their FIDE rating: the highest rated player (Magnus Carlsen, 2822) got #1; Wesley So, rated 2810, got #2, all the way down to Oluwafemi Balogun (2255), seed #128.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the first round, the player with number &lt;em&gt;x&lt;/em&gt; plays against the opponent with number &lt;em&gt;129 - x&lt;/em&gt;. So 1 vs. 128, 2 vs. 127, and so on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the second round, assuming the stronger player (with the lower number) advances, the player with number &lt;em&gt;x&lt;/em&gt; plays against the opponent with number &lt;em&gt;65 - x&lt;/em&gt;. So 1 vs. 64 (this actually happened) and 9 vs. 56 (but this became 9 vs. 73 since 73 beat 56).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The 'target sum' for the third round is 33, for the fourth round 17, and so on until the final where #1 is supposed to play against #2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This all is a standard &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seed_(sports)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;seeding mechanism&lt;/a&gt; used in many sports (sometimes with slight variations); actually, in most cases, only the top n% (25% is common) of the players is seeded and the rest are paired randomly. This tournament was 'completely' seeded, which is relatively rare.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2019-05-24T20:10:31.200" LastActivityDate="2019-05-24T20:10:31.200" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24566" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-05-24T14:13:47.847" Score="2" ViewCount="351" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to find a suitable response to the Trompowsky using LiChess.  I saw the following line, which looks like it might transpose into more familiar QGD territory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.d4 Nf6 2.Bg5 d5 3.e3 e6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On LiChess, in master games, white scores 52% wins, 33% draws, and 15% losses.  It seems black's moves are faulty for some reason.  I'm not sure why though---it looks like white has a sharp line.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For contrast, after &lt;code&gt;3...c5&lt;/code&gt; white scores 24% wins, 48% draws, and 29% losses.  So &lt;code&gt;3...e6&lt;/code&gt; scores significantly worse.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Why does 1.d4 Nf6 2.Bg5 d5 3.e3 e6 score so highly for white in master games?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2785" LastActivityDate="2019-05-24T21:40:01.217" Title="Trompowsky: why does 1.d4 Nf6 2.Bg5 d5 3.e3 e6 score so highly for white in master games?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24567" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24566" CreationDate="2019-05-24T14:39:01.043" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;3..e6 closes the way for your light-squared bishop, but I don't think that's too good of a reason to reach such scores (I checked on ChessTempo and got similar numbers)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please be careful about possible bias due to player strength differences. A move may score worse simply because it is often used as a &quot;drawish weapon&quot; against a stronger player. This is the case of the French exchange variation, where Black scores better in a symmetrical position! But there could be other reasons why an opening system is more common among weaker players&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would tend towards an explanation of this kind, since there does not seem to be a clear &quot;refutation&quot; in the position you show (4.c4, 4.Nd2, 4.c3 and 4.Nf3 all score similarly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please specify your own skill level for further advice on how to build a repertoire around these lines to be possible&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastEditorUserId="18809" LastEditDate="2019-05-24T21:40:01.217" LastActivityDate="2019-05-24T21:40:01.217" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24568" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24566" CreationDate="2019-05-24T15:48:52.240" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Those statistics are surprising but I think it has to do more with player strength than the quality of the opening moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course Black has closed his Bc8 in behind his pawns, but this bishop is often a problem in queen pawn openings.  And in fact the game could transpose into some main line opening.&#xA;So is 4.e6 bad?  No, it is just this line of play is not something strong players do.  And if strong players don't do this that means the Black players are weak and thus the statistic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why wouldn't a strong player make these moves, they seem reasonable:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.d4 Nf6&#xA;2.Bg5 d5&#xA;(2...Ne4 is more common but 2.d5 is another main move)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black says, &quot;go ahead and double my pawns.  If 3.Bxf6 exf6 opens my Bf8 with gain of time, and I get the Bishop pair.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3.e3 e6&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now Black is saying, &quot;I am just going to pin my Knight and block my c8 Bishop, but my d-pawn is solid and I can just develop my Bf8 next.&quot; [Weak!]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Compared to 3.e3 &quot;How can I make that Bg5 move look stupid...  3...c5 opens my queen to possibly attack the weakened b2 pawn or even get a check on a5.  Plus I am attacking the center and trading my c-pawn for his d-pawn is desirable.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2019-05-24T15:48:52.240" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24569" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-05-24T20:27:53.050" Score="2" ViewCount="180" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;r1bqk2r/pppp1ppp/2n2n2/2b3B1/4P3/8/PPP2PPP/RN1QKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do you know the name of this opening/position? Additionally, please tell me what white’s best move is in this position. I ask this because I play aggressively, and I need help with finding my next best move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19207" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-05-24T20:57:18.333" LastActivityDate="2019-05-24T21:14:25.613" Title="What is this opening/position called, and what is white’s best move?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24570" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24569" CreationDate="2019-05-24T20:49:02.217" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;It looks like you arrived at this position with the moves&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[StartPly &quot;10&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. d4 exd4 3. Qxd4 Nc6 4. Qd1 Nf6 5. Bg5 Bc5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White is already worse here because you're behind in development. There's no reason to have your queen chased around like that; therefore, it sees very little play and the position does not have a name. If you want to play aggressively, play 3. c3 instead (the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danish_Gambit&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Danish Gambit&lt;/a&gt;), and there are plenty of aggressive options after 2. Nf3 as well. &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/358/7297&quot;&gt;This question&lt;/a&gt; lists more options you might be interested in.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Right now, you should concentrate on completing your development, e.g. with 6. Nc3. Playing aggressive moves in this very position will for sure lead to a quick defeat.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2019-05-24T21:14:25.613" LastActivityDate="2019-05-24T21:14:25.613" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24572" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24517" CreationDate="2019-05-24T21:59:12.237" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is no way to &quot;crush&quot; that move. You just play! Develop your pieces, get space in the center and obtain a small advantage. Your opponent won't be losing a piece or something like that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I assume 3...d6 may have some ideas related to a pin on g4 (for instance, 4.d4 Bg4) A c3 pawn advance can be useful to prevent some ...Nd4. I think you'll be fine after 4.0-0 Bg4 5.c3, but also 4.Nc3 Bg4 5.h3 or many other sequences&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In short, I don't know what the best answer is. I doubt anyone in the world actually does. Analyze your games and find what works best for yourself&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-06-25T17:11:06.623" LastActivityDate="2019-06-25T17:11:06.623" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24573" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17584" CreationDate="2019-05-25T10:33:45.180" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If the root position you set up on the board is covered by the syzygy tablebases you loaded, you can just directly query the tablebases using the Stockfish-specific (non-UCI) command &lt;code&gt;d&lt;/code&gt;, see the example below.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since syzygy tablebases are depth-to-zero (DTZ) and not depth-to-mate (DTM) (see &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessprogramming.org/Endgame_Tablebases#Metrics&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.chessprogramming.org/Endgame_Tablebases#Metrics&lt;/a&gt; for the definitions), what you get is the result with perfect play for the side to move as well as the number of half moves until the 50 move rule counter will be reset due to a capture or pawn move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;input:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;setoption name SyzygyPath value {path to your tablebases}&#xA;position fen 8/8/8/5k2/8/1R6/R7/4K3 w - - 0 1&#xA;d&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;output:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;info string Found 35 tablebases&#xA;&#xA; +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+&#xA; |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |&#xA; +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+&#xA; |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |&#xA; +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+&#xA; |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |&#xA; +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+&#xA; |   |   |   |   |   | k |   |   |&#xA; +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+&#xA; |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |&#xA; +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+&#xA; |   | R |   |   |   |   |   |   |&#xA; +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+&#xA; | R |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |&#xA; +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+&#xA; |   |   |   |   | K |   |   |   |&#xA; +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+&#xA;&#xA;Fen: 8/8/8/5k2/8/1R6/R7/4K3 w - - 0 1&#xA;Key: 48F90DF481A6F1D6&#xA;Checkers: &#xA;Tablebases WDL:  Win (Success)&#xA;Tablebases DTZ:    7 (Success)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15415" LastActivityDate="2019-05-25T10:33:45.180" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24574" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24359" CreationDate="2019-05-25T11:11:17.347" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;The number of games is huge but finite, and estimates have been made based on a number of assumptions. But that question has been asked before already, so I won't go into the details here. A short answer given on &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shannon_number&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt; is at least 10&lt;sup&gt;123&lt;/sup&gt;, based on an average branching factor (moves per position) of 35 and an average game length of 80; after only 10 plies (5 full moves) the exact count is 69,352,859,712,417. See &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/8331/is-the-number-of-possible-chess-games-infinite&quot;&gt;Is the number of possible chess games infinite?&lt;/a&gt; for more answers. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The probable outcomes of a game with random moves can be estimated &quot;experimentally&quot; by running random simulations. I wrote a program to do just that, had it play 1000 games, and these were my results:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Outcome                        Count  Avg. #moves&#xA;-----------------------------  -----  -----------&#xA;Draw by insufficient material    500          179&#xA;Draw by fifty-move               157          208&#xA;Draw by threefold repetition     147          164&#xA;Black wins by checkmate           75           87&#xA;White wins by checkmate           72           78&#xA;Draw by stalemate                 49          138&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think that the most common result is a draw because random moves are rather incompetent at mating, which requires the interaction of at least three pieces (counting both colors, including kings), in contrast with capturing, which is much easier to do by chance, only requiring the interaction between two pieces. After enough captures occur, you end up with insufficient material, which is the most likely outcome, occurring 50% of the time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Alternatively, if you don't luck into a capture for long enough, you are also somewhat likely to bump into the fifty-move limit or threefold repetition. (My program assumes that these draws are claimed as soon as possible, even though they are not automatic per the rules, unlike 75-move or fivefold repetition.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't expect a color advantage in random games. My sample had a few more wins with Black than with White, but I think that's within statistical noise.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For anyone who is interested, here's my program, written in Python and using the &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/niklasf/python-chess&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;python-chess&lt;/a&gt; module:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;import chess&#xA;import collections&#xA;import random&#xA;&#xA;terminations = ['is_stalemate', 'is_insufficient_material', 'is_checkmate',&#xA;    'can_claim_fifty_moves', 'can_claim_threefold_repetition']&#xA;&#xA;def get_termination(board):&#xA;    for termination in terminations:&#xA;        method = getattr(board, termination)&#xA;        if method():&#xA;            return termination&#xA;&#xA;def game():&#xA;    board = chess.Board()&#xA;    for i in range(10000):&#xA;        moves = list(board.legal_moves)&#xA;        move = random.choice(moves)&#xA;        board.push(move)&#xA;        result = board.result(claim_draw=True)&#xA;        if result != '*':&#xA;            termination = get_termination(board)&#xA;            print(result, board.fullmove_number, termination)&#xA;            return result, termination&#xA;&#xA;stats = collections.Counter()&#xA;for i in range(1000):&#xA;    result, termination = game()&#xA;    if termination == 'is_checkmate':&#xA;        stats[result] += 1&#xA;    else:&#xA;        stats[termination] += 1&#xA;&#xA;print(stats)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12523" LastEditorUserId="12523" LastEditDate="2019-05-25T11:37:17.150" LastActivityDate="2019-05-25T11:37:17.150" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24575" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23200" CreationDate="2019-05-26T04:19:30.570" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It seems Alphazero is deterministic, up to a point. Looking at &lt;a href=&quot;https://applied-data.science/static/main/res/alpha_go_zero_cheat_sheet.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;the details of its implementation&lt;/a&gt;, there's nothing inherently random in it. If one looks at the TCEC bookless bonus between Leela (an Alphazero clone) against Stockfish, this particular Leela net always played the same opening move 1.e4 when it was white. Against this Stockfish sometimes played 1...e6 and sometimes 1...c5; Leela always responded with the Steinitz Boleslavsky variation and Najdorf English attack respectively. In fact, almost every time it's &lt;a href=&quot;http://mytcecexperience.blogspot.com/2019/03/s14-bonus-match-leela-stockfish.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Stockfish deviating instead of Leela&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Leela is more stubborn than Stockfish in its opening moves. All the major opening classes in the first few moves - Sicilian, French, Ruy Lopez, Italian, QGD - were determined by Stockfish either in black or in white. Stockfish expanded the opening tree almost every move in at least one opening line, again in both white and black. Leela, on the other hand, almost always played the same move when presented with the same position. In the first 24 plys of 100 games I found only 3 cases where Leela expanded the opening tree, on move 7 as black in QGD (game 29), on move 10 as black in Ruy Lopez (games 45 vs 97), and on move 10 as white in French (game 84).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although Leela was a lot less random than Stockfish, it wasn't completely deterministic either, presumably because of multithreading &amp;amp; random fluctuations causing a different number of nodes to be evaluated. Take out these factors, and Leela (and hence Alphazero) is deterministic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastActivityDate="2019-05-26T04:19:30.570" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24576" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-05-26T06:44:56.110" Score="27" ViewCount="7729" Body="&lt;p&gt;They say that there are currently about 1500 grandmasters. I was wondering how many chess players currently have &quot;grandmaster strength&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3872" LastEditorUserId="15260" LastEditDate="2019-05-27T02:02:03.930" LastActivityDate="2019-05-27T10:18:35.573" Title="How many chess players are over 2500 Elo?" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;grandmaster&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24577" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-05-26T09:04:27.277" Score="-6" ViewCount="3020" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a movement in chess endorsed by several grandmasters called “MoveForEquality”, which revolves around the idea that the black pieces should start first instead of the white pieces. The movement made me feel that white moving first is morally wrong and is somehow discriminatory on race. Is it racist that white moves first? If not, then why does the movement “MoveForEquality” exist?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19217" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-03-07T00:00:18.283" LastActivityDate="2020-03-07T00:00:18.283" Title="Is it racist that white pieces move first in a chess game?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;rules&gt;&lt;super-grandmaster&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2019-05-26T22:11:27.697" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24578" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24577" CreationDate="2019-05-26T09:57:57.833" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, it's not racist; it's just a convention. Or like the famous chess saying goes: &quot;White begins, Black wins&quot;. There are other board games like &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_(game)&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Go&lt;/a&gt; where Black begins, or games where &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draughts&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;it depends on which variation you play&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The main problem with changing who moves first (or alternating it) is that many diagrams which have been printed (especially in opening books) would be invalidated, or at least require extra brain processing (mirroring) to make them work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Personally, I'd rather have chess players focus on giving people from underdeveloped countries more chances to participate at the international level than something (trivial IMHO) like this. But it's a (mostly) free world and everybody may devote their energy as they deem fit, as long as it doesn't harm others.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2019-05-26T09:57:57.833" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24579" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24576" CreationDate="2019-05-26T10:06:50.880" Score="34" Body="&lt;p&gt;The website 2700chess.com has a &lt;a href=&quot;https://2700chess.com/all-fide-players&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;database&lt;/a&gt; with the FIDE ratings (from May 1st, 2019). Their search form only offers the option to show the top 50 or 100 players satisfying the search results, but it's possible to modify the submit request and ask for the top 5000 instead. When I do that, I get &lt;strong&gt;808&lt;/strong&gt; results:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/gsKF7.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/gsKF7.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the other 700 must have ratings lower than 2500 or have stopped playing competitive chess altogether.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2019-05-26T10:06:50.880" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24580" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-05-26T10:41:05.070" Score="0" ViewCount="122" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know the rules and played with my friends but without any knowledge of opening tactics etc. And all material I could find online was not in an ordered manner . So can you suggest some courses I can enroll myself online which cover the basics going all the way to the advanced level ?( I am an absolute beginner)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S.: Free resources would be more appreciable because I am just a student . Thanks&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19218" LastEditorUserId="19218" LastEditDate="2019-05-27T16:23:51.587" LastActivityDate="2019-05-27T16:23:51.587" Title="Which chess courses should I start with?" Tags="&lt;beginner&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2019-05-26T18:15:50.213" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24581" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24577" CreationDate="2019-05-26T20:00:57.063" Score="7" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is it racist that white moves first?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No.  According to MoveForEquality.com:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The rule was originally developed to make annotation easier, and has never been considered in the context of prejudice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The goal of this movement was never to permanently change the rules of chess. The reversal of the rule for who goes first was simply a way &quot;to inspire a worldwide discussion about equality&quot; on the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, which was March 21.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2019-05-26T20:00:57.063" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24582" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24580" CreationDate="2019-05-26T20:36:51.453" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Elo rating system is quite simple in an essence, and functions as such:&#xA;By beating a higher rated player, you accumulate more Elo rating points than if you were to beat a lower rated player. (Elo rating points basically measure your chess aptitude).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for the other aspects that you have mentioned, I would recommend that you visit chess.com and lichess.com.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18908" LastActivityDate="2019-05-26T20:36:51.453" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24583" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19451" CreationDate="2019-05-26T23:42:55.280" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It appears that the Chronus GX clock does not have a count up mode.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While the normal one does, as you have mentioned, it seems that the GX doesn’t. I found this &lt;a href=&quot;https://youtu.be/LHMc6yM3yRM&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;video&lt;/a&gt; on how to set up a count on the normal one. It cites pages 35-36 of the manual on how to do this. As expected, the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesspraga.cz/download/manualy/ChronosManual.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;online PDF of the manual&lt;/a&gt; corresponds to the video’s given information.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My conclusion is that if the GX manual does not contain information on how to do it, then it cannot do it. Further evidence of this from this &lt;a href=&quot;https://youtu.be/8gKS70XnQeg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;video&lt;/a&gt; on how to use GX clock. As far as I can tell, it has no, mention of a count up setting.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So unfortunately the Chronus GX Clock has no count up setting as far as I can tell.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-05-30T19:23:52.770" LastActivityDate="2020-05-30T19:23:52.770" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24584" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24576" CreationDate="2019-05-27T10:18:35.573" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;Using the official &lt;a href=&quot;http://ratings.fide.com/download.phtml&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE rating lists&lt;/a&gt;, there are 954 players with above 2500 ELO. Currently, FIDE has awarded 1668 players the title of &quot;Grandmaster&quot;. Filtering out inactive players, there are 1334 GMs and 729 players with &quot;grandmaster strength&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are GMs with a current ELO as low as 2138.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Keep in mind that titles can be awarded for achieving certain placements at tournaments (&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/component/handbook/?id=199&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;direct titles&lt;/a&gt;) and that the ELO of a player may vary considerably over time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2715" LastActivityDate="2019-05-27T10:18:35.573" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24585" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-05-27T15:45:43.373" Score="0" ViewCount="140" Body="&lt;p&gt;Could Ding win this endgame vs. Carlsen (at this point in the diagram), in the game played yesterday at Lindores Abbey? Without using engines, it seems logical to me to play 41.Re3 or 41.Rd3 (instead of 41.Kc5 as played by Ding), with the idea of leaving the f2 Pawn to its destiny, but clearing a way for the King to the g6 Pawn, and eventually winning Black's other Pawns, while the White Rook is defending the g3 Pawn.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;8/1k6/6p1/3K1p1p/1P5P/5RP1/4rP2/8 w - h6 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastEditorUserId="8291" LastEditDate="2019-05-27T15:51:13.313" LastActivityDate="2019-05-27T17:02:10.273" Title="Could Ding win this endgame vs Carlsen?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;carlsen&gt;&lt;rook-endgame&gt;&lt;ding&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24586" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24585" CreationDate="2019-05-27T17:02:10.273" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a book draw. At our level it is difficult but at GM level this is an easy version of KR+3 v KR+4 with the extra pawn on the the queenside. The fact that Black's king is already in position to block the passer makes it much easier than the classic version of this endgame. His very active rook is another plus. White is not going to lose but he can make at best token efforts to win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Without using engines, it seems logical to me to play 41.Re3 or 41.Rd3&#xA;  (instead of 41.Kc5 as played by Ding)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These moves make no sense. Black is then going to play Rxf2 and follow up with f4. Soon the kingside pawns will be eliminated and the draw becomes much easier.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Jonathan Rowson devotes 42 pages to this endgame in his book &quot;Amateur to IM&quot;. If you want to find out more about this endgame then his book is highly recommended.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2019-05-27T17:02:10.273" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24587" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-05-27T17:40:18.183" Score="1" ViewCount="355" Body="&lt;p&gt;As title above, what is the point or the main idea of a very early ...a6 Pawn move in Queen’s Gambit Declined? I see that the move is fairly popular at GM and even top level. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastActivityDate="2019-05-27T19:47:05.970" Title="What’s the point of early ...a6 move in Queen’s Gambit Declined?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;queens-gambit-declined&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24588" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24359" CreationDate="2019-05-27T18:24:12.957" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;It would seem that the longest games would end up being the most numerous, by far. On any particular move, if you end a game, that's one game, but if you let it continue, it's many games. It would seem, therefore, that the greatest number of games would continue until one side had a single piece left. The remaining piece should not be a knight or bishop, as that would end the game via insufficient material, and a rook would have fewer possible moves than a queen - over the course of the next 50 moves, the number of possible games involving a rook would fade into insignificance compared to the number of possible games involving a queen. If the remaining piece is a pawn, it must eventually promote to something to continue the game, and it may as well promote to a queen. So we're left with the overwhelming number of games ending with king and queen vs king - we can pretty much ignore all other games as insignificant. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Imagine the board after 49 moves looking like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/6Q1/8/8/8/8/8/5K1k w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this position, White to move has 26 possible moves, out of which 5 are checkmates.  So that would be a 5/26 chance of a checkmate, which is about 19.2% I think this has the highest checkmate probability of any king and queen vs king position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, it's obvious that it's rather unlikely for this position or a similar one to come up at the end of the game. There are 4 corner squares on the board, and 24 non-corner edges, and these are the only places where the king may be checkmated. If the black king is placed randomly, there is a 1/16 chance he will end up in a corner, and if the white king is then randomly placed on a legal square, there is a 1/12 chance he will be on a square where checkmate is possible. There is also a 3/8 chance that the black king would be placed on a non-corner edge, and a 3/58 chance that the white king would then be placed on a square allowing checkmate. If you add those probabilities, that's less than a 2.5% chance that the kings would be on squares even allowing for checkmate. Even if you assume the maximum 19.2% chance that the queen can deliver checkmate (which is unlikely), that results in less than a 0.5% chance of checkmate. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But it gets worse. That assumed the kings were placed randomly. But, of course, kings are not actually placed randomly on a board; they must move to their locations. The branching factor is going to be higher when the kings have more possible moves (especially the weaker side's king), and the kings have more possible moves when they are away from each other and not on the side of the board (and if they're in the corner of the board with the other side's king nearby, they have &lt;em&gt;very&lt;/em&gt; few possible moves.) So, more games are going to have the kings in no position to allow a checkmate on that last move than you'd expect from random placement. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although a checkmate could happen earlier than move 50, earlier checkmates are going to become exponentially rare in comparison the farther back you go, and this will have only a small effect. (And even this small effect is partially offset because there's also the possibility of a draw via stalemate, capturing the queen, or repetition before move 50.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So we've determined that checkmates are rare. But who gets more of them and by how much? That's unclear to me. Nevertheless, we can determine an upper bound on the ratio between the number of White checkmates and the number of Black checkmates. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are going to be many games that start with the knights and perhaps the rooks moving, before any pawn is moved. Because up to 49.5 moves can be played this way without triggering the 50 move rule, the number of these games will quickly dwarf the number of games that open any other way. After 49.5 moves, Black must make a pawn move or capture, or else the game will end prematurely. The fact that Black must do this first is the relevant difference between White and Black at this point.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But what if, instead, White is the one to move a pawn or capture, one ply early? White and Black essentially switch roles, and we will lose one ply of possible non-capture non-pawn moves. But the branching factor at this stage of the game is relatively low. In positions where no pawn has been moved, there are at most 6 squares each of the knights can reach without capturing anything, and the rooks can also reach one square each. That's 14 possible moves, which would be lost by having White make the first pawn move or capture. So the number of games where one side checkmates cannot exceed the number of games where the other side checkmates by more than a factor of 14. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2019-05-27T18:24:12.957" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24589" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24587" CreationDate="2019-05-27T19:47:05.970" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is hard to tell exactly without an exact line, but normally it has the idea of following with ...dxc4 (putting the enemy bishop on the c4 square), ...b5 (now kicking it away) and ...Bb7.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This solves the annoying problem of placing the c8 bishop on a decent square&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastActivityDate="2019-05-27T19:47:05.970" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24591" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19656" CreationDate="2019-05-28T04:51:20.557" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is this the sort of problem you're looking for?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Erich Bartel. Augsburger Allgemeine, 10 Feb 2001, no.628. #6&amp;quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &amp;quot;0&amp;quot;]&#xA;[fen &amp;quot;8/7Q/3b2B1/1K6/3k4/4p3/8/8 w KQkq - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Bb1! Ke5 (1... e2? 2. Qe4+) 2. Qf5+ Kd4 3. Qe4+ Kc3 4. Qd3+ Kb2 5. Qc2+ Ka1 6. Qa2#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is &lt;a href=&quot;https://pdb.dieschwalbe.de/P1126265&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;P1126265&lt;/a&gt; in the PDB.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10380" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-05-01T19:20:02.390" LastActivityDate="2021-05-01T19:20:02.390" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24592" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-05-28T05:12:34.747" Score="18" ViewCount="3879" Body="&lt;p&gt;What if any, is the term for a piece whose owner gets a draw by keeping up a relentless series of checks with it -- a paradox being that even if this player puts it &lt;em&gt;en prise&lt;/em&gt;, the opponent daren't capture it because that would deliver stalemate?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The piece is in many cases a rook, and I have come across the terms &quot;rambling rook&quot; and &quot;roving rook&quot;, but they seem to mean something else.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've also come across the term &quot;desperado&quot;, and that seems to mean something similar, but it is not the same. A desperado is a piece which might do some damage, e.g. delaying-checks, but they merely delay mate: those checks run out, and the other side captures the desperado without stalemating, and goes on to win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The tactic is an unusual form of perpetual check. In most perpetual checks, the checking piece switches back between two squares on neither of which is it &lt;em&gt;en prise&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10380" LastActivityDate="2019-05-28T13:35:20.560" Title="Term for checking piece whose opponent daren't capture it" Tags="&lt;terminology&gt;&lt;stalemate&gt;&lt;perpetual&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24593" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24559" CreationDate="2019-05-28T06:04:41.227" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Its all documented here:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=184&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=184&amp;amp;view=article&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example:&#xA;Where there is an odd number of players, the highest number counts as a bye.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;9 or 10 players:&#xA;Rd 1: 1-10, 2-9, 3-8, 4-7, 5-6. &#xA;Rd 2: 10-6, 7-5, 8-4, 9-3, 1-2. &#xA;Rd 3: 2-10, 3-1, 4-9, 5-8, 6-7.&#xA;Rd 4: 10-7, 8-6, 9-5, 1-4, 2-3. &#xA;Rd 5: 3-10, 4-2, 5-1, 6-9, 7-8. &#xA;Rd 6: 10-8, 9-7, 1-6, 2-5, 3-4.&#xA;Rd 7: 4-10, 5-3, 6-2, 7-1, 8-9. &#xA;Rd 8: 10-9, 1-8, 2-7, 3-6, 4-5. &#xA;Rd 9: 5-10, 6-4, 7-3, 8-2, 9-1.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As result - who ever plays highest number - has bye, for example round 5 Nr3 gets bye as he plays against 10.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17448" LastActivityDate="2019-05-28T06:04:41.227" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24594" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24592" CreationDate="2019-05-28T06:42:29.190" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, that's only possible with a rook or a queen (at least, in most realistic situations) and indeed it's a typical theme in rook endgames.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Spanish, we have a name for that: torre loca (meaning &quot;crazy rook&quot;) I think &quot;crazy rook&quot; is also used in English, but I don't find so many links, so maybe there are other names for it or those I can find are a translation error&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastActivityDate="2019-05-28T06:42:29.190" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24595" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24592" CreationDate="2019-05-28T12:44:52.383" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd use the term you already mentioned, &amp;quot;rambling rook&amp;quot;, for this (at least when it's a rook). Tim Krabbé &lt;a href=&quot;https://timkr.home.xs4all.nl/chess/gukal.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;claims&lt;/a&gt; to have invented it:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the term 'Rambling Rook' sounds unfamiliar, this could be because I invented it. In Russian it is beshenaya ladya, in Dutch dolle toren, both meaning 'crazy rook.' There is no English term, and I thought a little alliteration would be in its place.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are a couple of usages, showing that the term is quite widespread:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chesscollection?cid=1014346&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Rambling Rooks, compiled by SwitchingQuylthulg on chessgames.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Rambling Rooks&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Witness rooks selflessly throw theirselves at the opponent's mercy again and again... until there is no choice but to take them and accept draw by stalemate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://puzzling.stackexchange.com/q/20764/11110&quot;&gt;Can you stop the rambling rook?&lt;/a&gt; by user Sleafar on our sister site Puzzling Stack Exchange:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The rook can't be taken, because black couldn't move anymore which is a stalemate (= draw). If the king moves away the rook will continue to give checks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can you stop the rambling rook and find a way for white to win the game anyway?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2019-05-28T12:44:52.383" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24596" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24592" CreationDate="2019-05-28T13:35:20.560" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sometimes I hear it referred to as a &quot;poison piece,&quot; because it kills you if you take (consume?) it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19234" LastActivityDate="2019-05-28T13:35:20.560" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24597" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-05-28T16:50:40.703" Score="3" ViewCount="1770" Body="&lt;p&gt;As title above, what is the point of playing 3.Nc3 (before d2-d4) after 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6? Compared to the “normal” 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;[Variant &quot;Standard&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;B50&quot;]&#xA;[Opening &quot;Sicilian Defense&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. Nc3 { Less common move } (3. d4 { Usual move })&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastEditorUserId="18168" LastEditDate="2019-06-06T00:16:16.973" LastActivityDate="2019-06-06T00:16:16.973" Title="What is the reason (if any) for 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.Nc3?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;&lt;1.e4&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24598" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24597" CreationDate="2019-05-28T17:42:13.553" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;If White is not willing to play a Maroczy formation (with c4), then Nc3 will eventually be played in almost any variation. Black has no clear way of preventing d2-d4 on the next move (3...e5 kind of sucks)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, White may want to wait for Black's move before deciding whether to push d2-d4 or maybe go for a different variation against certain Black's responses (for example a closed Sicilian after 3...e6 4.g3&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastActivityDate="2019-05-28T17:42:13.553" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24599" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24601" CreationDate="2019-05-28T21:09:45.043" Score="7" ViewCount="394" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are there regulations on what to do when your opponent has poor hygiene and it negatively influences your performance?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I do not want to be disrespectful or shame anyone, but bad breath or body odor really can negatively impact your mind, especially if you have to spend hours opposite of the person. It is not fair to have to play under such conditions (in my opinion).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19238" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-05-28T23:08:38.280" LastActivityDate="2019-05-28T23:08:38.280" Title="What to do if opponent has poor hygiene?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;otb-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24600" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24599" CreationDate="2019-05-28T21:26:35.883" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Unless the tournament organizer wants to do something aobut it, I am afraid you will have to deal with it. Theoretically, FIDE rules prevent these situations from happening, but in practice, you have no real power to enforce them by yourself&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastActivityDate="2019-05-28T21:26:35.883" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24601" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24599" CreationDate="2019-05-28T22:05:02.110" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to Article 12.2.3 of the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=208&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Laws of Chess&lt;/a&gt; it is one of the roles of the arbiter to -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;12.2.3 ensure that a good playing environment is maintained&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your first course of action should be to bring the matter to the attention of the arbiter. It is not a pleasant thing for him or her to deal with but it is part of the (usually unpaid) job of the arbiter to resolve such problems.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2019-05-28T22:05:02.110" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24603" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24597" CreationDate="2019-05-29T05:58:12.640" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;It basically just stalls for a move before 100% committing to the open Sicilian. For example, suppose you were playing White and hated facing this Sicilian (1.e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3.d4 cd 4.Nxd4 Nc6). You could use the move order you described and after 3.Nc3, only play 4.d4 if your opponent doesn't play 3...Nc6. If they do play 3...Nc6, then go for some Closed Sicilian.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also in online bullet some people have done the 3.Nc3 move order against me because it takes half a second to realize what's happening and then play 3...Nf6 instead of 3...cd.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-05-29T05:58:12.640" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24604" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24597" CreationDate="2019-05-29T13:28:50.527" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Does it make sense though if white hates the sicilian 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cd 4. Nxd4 Nc6? Usually this move order leads to some Rauzer system after 5. Nc3 Nf6. &#xA;The move order with 4... Nc6 gives White just the extra option to play some kind of Maroczy bind, and after 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. d4 cd4 5. Nc6 White ends up in the Rauzer anyway. &#xA;I guess some people play 3. Nc3 against 2... d6 only, because they are playing it against 2... Nc6. After 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. Nc3, Black has no much additional options (except maybe 3... a6). &#xA;After 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Nc3 White manages to avoid the Sveshnikov, since there is no useful waiting move for black which still leads to Sveshnikov. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19236" LastActivityDate="2019-05-29T13:28:50.527" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24605" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-05-29T22:31:54.463" Score="6" ViewCount="573" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was playing with my brother, and we both had equal number of pieces.&#xA;He carelessly moved his king in the direction of my queen. I was about to checkmate my brother, but he told that my mating move was invalid.  If his king comes in my direction and gets caught, I must say that I don't keep there.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was confused. Can anyone please help me?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19248" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-06-02T17:30:43.563" LastActivityDate="2019-06-30T03:13:30.013" Title="Can I reply to an illegal move with checkmate?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24606" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24605" CreationDate="2019-05-29T22:53:16.080" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes. Putting your own king into danger is considered an illegal move. Depending on the context, illegal moves can be treated in different ways:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In most casual games, players just agree to roll back to the position before the illegal move was made.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In tournament games, the player who didn't make the illegal move gets 2 extra minutes on the clock. I guess this does not apply, as most likely you aren't playing with a chess clock. Anyway, the second illegal move is punished with a loss&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since you're playing a casual game with your brother, just go for the one you agree on!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-06-25T16:49:38.333" LastActivityDate="2019-06-25T16:49:38.333" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24607" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24614" CreationDate="2019-05-29T23:30:04.700" Score="5" ViewCount="1062" Body="&lt;p&gt;As of time of writing, there is one major traditional engine using &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monte_Carlo_tree_search&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Monte Carlo Tree Search&lt;/a&gt; for its search algorithm - Komodo. The MCTS version of Komodo started out weak but gained strength quickly, and Komodo MCTS recently defeated Komodo AB (i.e. Komodo using the more traditional &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha%E2%80%93beta_pruning&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;alpha-beta pruning&lt;/a&gt;) in the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessdom.com/tcec-cup-3-pairings-and-information/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;TCEC Cup 3&lt;/a&gt;. That indicates that MCTS is at least comparable to standard AB search.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there any attempts at converting Stockfish to MCTS search?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastEditorUserId="15223" LastEditDate="2019-06-07T00:52:34.957" LastActivityDate="2019-08-27T16:35:25.137" Title="Are there any attempts at writing Stockfish MCTS?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24608" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24610" CreationDate="2019-05-29T23:58:25.967" Score="2" ViewCount="243" Body="&lt;p&gt;For most openings that I play (e4 and d4 openings) I have observed that they take exactly 4 moves (e.g. Giuoco Piano Game without variation). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;C50: Giuoco Pianissimo, Italian four knights variation takes 5 moves. &#xA;The Van't Kruijs Opening (1. e3) takes less than 1. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which opening requires the longest amount of chess moves?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Edit&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As I see I have been unclear, let me clarify. When I say two distinct openings, all I mean is a different name. For example, Ruy Loypez, XXX Variation is different from Ruy Lopez Ppening is different from Ruy Lopez, YYY Variation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17301" LastEditorUserId="17301" LastEditDate="2019-05-30T21:27:43.343" LastActivityDate="2019-05-30T21:27:43.343" Title="Which opening requires the longest amount of chess moves?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="8" ClosedDate="2019-05-30T17:02:31.143" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24609" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24605" CreationDate="2019-05-30T01:17:58.153" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;If by &quot;get caught&quot; you mean the king moves such that it can be taken in one move, then yes you don't win the game. You must allow your opponent to take the move back. In official tournaments this would be counted as an &quot;illegal move&quot;, and after 2 illegal moves from your opponent you win the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A checkmate is where you move a piece such that your opponent's king is trapped and attacked at the same time. It's not where your opponent's king steps into a direct attack on its own.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-06-25T16:53:12.923" LastActivityDate="2019-06-25T16:53:12.923" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24610" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24608" CreationDate="2019-05-30T11:05:22.367" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is one possible answer: there is an &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/niklasf/eco&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;eco.json&lt;/a&gt; file available which is based on the &lt;em&gt;Encyclopedia of Chess Openings&lt;/em&gt;. If you take the contents of that file and sort the openings by the length of the line leading to the named position, there is a unique winner, the 36 plies long &lt;em&gt;Ruy Lopez: Marshall, Main Line, Spassky Variation&lt;/em&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;{'c': 'C89',&#xA; 'f': '5rk1/5ppp/p1pbr3/1p1n3q/P2P2b1/1BPQB1P1/1P1N1P1P/R3R1K1 w -',&#xA; 'id': 3320,&#xA; 'm': 'e2e4 e7e5 g1f3 b8c6 f1b5 a7a6 b5a4 g8f6 e1g1 f8e7 f1e1 b7b5 a4b3 e8g8 c2c3 d7d5 e4d5 f6d5 f3e5 c6e5 e1e5 c7c6 d2d4 e7d6 e5e1 d8h4 g2g3 h4h3 c1e3 c8g4 d1d3 a8e8 b1d2 e8e6 a2a4 h3h5',&#xA; 'n': 'Ruy Lopez: Marshall, Main Line, Spassky Variation'}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12523" LastActivityDate="2019-05-30T11:05:22.367" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24611" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24612" CreationDate="2019-05-30T13:21:45.930" Score="-3" ViewCount="80" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want know the depth we can set in 16 core processor and 32 threads time can be maximum set  to 15 seconds. Please share your thoughts and ideas. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17688" LastActivityDate="2019-05-30T15:58:57.510" Title="What is the realistic depth in chess we can set in graphical user interface when we have hardware with 16 core processor with 32 threads?" Tags="&lt;computer-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2019-05-30T17:30:28.240" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24612" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24611" CreationDate="2019-05-30T15:58:57.510" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you want to search based on a time limit, you should be using iterative deepening search. That is: search to depth 1, then 2, then 3, etc. After you search to each depth level, check if you've exceeded the time limit (or are close to exceeding it).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This may seem inefficient but if you use a transposition table it actually gives the engine a significant boost since it can look at the best moves first on each iteration.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-05-30T15:58:57.510" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24613" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24597" CreationDate="2019-05-30T17:31:58.473" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Najdorf players will have to go either 3. ...Nf6 or 3. ...a6. After the latter, White may make a move after which he deems ...a6 sligtly premature, such as 4. g3 (without saying that this will lead to an advantage for white over the Open Sicilian). I played 4. a4 once and got a good position after ... Nf6 5. e5 dxe5 6. Nxe5 Nbd7 7. Nc4 Nb6 8. a5 with a bind on the Q-side. &#xA;After the former, there is 4. e5!? as well which is more dangerous than it looks and can easily throw an unprepared opponent off guard. The line is a specialty of 2700 player Mamedov.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19250" LastActivityDate="2019-05-30T17:31:58.473" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24614" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24607" CreationDate="2019-05-30T22:44:37.260" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is difficult to answer definitively as there is obviously no way to say that there isn't someone &lt;em&gt;somewhere&lt;/em&gt; working on an MCTS version of Stockfish. However, as of the time of writing, there exists no official attempt to create an MCTS version of Stockfish.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While some forks of Stockfish, such as &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/amchess/ShashChess&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;ShashChess&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/Zerbinati/SugaR&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;SugaR&lt;/a&gt; have MCTS-like modes, they differ from what you are looking for:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;One of these modes applies a simple neural network to determine &lt;code&gt;R&lt;/code&gt; in Late Move Reductions in Stockfish's alpha-beta search.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The alternative collects MCTS-like information for each root move by collecting the evaluation of every node visited in a standard alpha-beta search. This is not really MCTS as it only collects additional statistics on the same alpha-beta search function.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Komodo MCTS, which does use its own handcrafted evaluation function and a full-fledged MCTS search, is only competitive with the standard version due to the fact that &lt;a href=&quot;http://talkchess.com/forum3/viewtopic.php?p=798180#p798180&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;its implementation of MCTS applies alpha-beta rollouts&lt;/a&gt;: i.e. the alpha-beta search used in standard Komodo is used to determine the expected win % for leaf nodes, and also as the &lt;em&gt;policy&lt;/em&gt; to determine which nodes should be preferentially expanded.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The exact methods by which Komodo MCTS converts its alpha-beta score to an expected win probability, as well as the details in how alpha-beta searches are used to determine which node MCTS should expand, are all proprietary. As such, it's unlikely that implementing MCTS in Stockfish is anything close to trivial.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10075" LastActivityDate="2019-05-30T22:44:37.260" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24615" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24305" CreationDate="2019-05-31T10:13:17.973" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Fishtest tests proposed changes to Stockfish's code with &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sequential_probability_ratio_test&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;SPRT&lt;/a&gt; to determine if they should be accepted. Broadly speaking, there are two types of changes which are tested in this way (non-functional changes do not go through Fishtest): simplifications, and changes which intend to gain strength - elo changes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The crucial difference here is that simplifications (like the one referenced in the question) are tested for no regression, whereas elo changes are tested for an improvement: SPRT bounds of [0.5, 4.5] are used for elo changes and bounds of [-3, 1] are used for simplifications.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The vast majority of changes to Stockfish recently have been simplifications, and as such they are not expected to increase strength.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, the patch in the question is a simplification, and was tested with SPRT bounds [-3.00, 1.00]. The fact that it passed tells us that &lt;em&gt;there is a 95% chance that the change does not lose 3 elo&lt;/em&gt;. If the test failed, we would know that &lt;em&gt;there is a 95% chance that the change does not gain 1 elo&lt;/em&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We can't say anything more precise than this, because SPRT stops immediately as soon as there is enough evidence to accept either hypothesis and doesn't attempt to measure the elo change more precisely. Although an elo difference of +2.18 is quoted at STC, all we know is that the lower error bound on the elo gain is &lt;code&gt;&amp;gt;= -3.00&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is insufficient evidence to say that the change produced an actual elo gain of +2.18, and thus claiming that this simplification gains 2 elo would be misleading.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The small number of elo gaining changes is what results in Stockfish's slow progress at the moment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10075" LastActivityDate="2019-05-31T10:13:17.973" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24616" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24644" CreationDate="2019-05-31T14:03:56.920" Score="8" ViewCount="1970" Body="&lt;p&gt;As you probably know, &quot;King of the hill&quot; (KOTH) is a variant of chess where one can win either like in classical chess or by putting the king in the central squares, namely d4, e4, d5 and e5, by a legal move. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would like to collect some information about opening in this variant. More precisely, we can try to answer the following questions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What are some examples of opening which are reasonably good in normal chess but almost losing in KOTH? &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Conversely, are there some examples of opening which are reasonably good in KOTH but almost losing in normal chess?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="411" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-17T02:37:01.727" LastActivityDate="2020-08-17T02:37:01.727" Title="Openings in King of the Hill" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;king-of-the-hill&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24617" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-05-31T18:52:25.833" Score="11" ViewCount="1328" Body="&lt;p&gt;Recently I (rated ~1900 &quot;classical&quot; on Lichess) played the following opening:&#xA;1.d4 Nf6 2.Bf4 g6 3.e3 Bg7 4.Nf3 O-O 5.Nbd2 d6 6.c4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;rnbq1rk1/ppp1ppbp/3p1np1/8/2PP1B2/4PN2/PP1N1PPP/R2QKB1R w KQ - 0 6&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Upon playing c4, the stockfish analysis goes from a score of 0 to a whopping -1.1, as if I've already blundered a pawn. I've noticed this in a lot of my games - when black avoids developing his queenside and putting pawns in the center, I'm tempted to play c4, planning Nc3, castling kingside, taking up space on the queenside and if black is passive, perhaps pushing for a central pawn break with c5. But in these situations stockfish usually strongly dislikes c4. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why? Stockfish's response is usually suggesting black play c5 pretty quickly, but this allows d5 giving me a lot of kingside space instead, and I can imagine a nice eventual pawn break with e5. I'm perhaps not at a level where I should be focusing on the opening so much, but I feel like I'm missing a big strategic idea here. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15395" LastEditorUserId="15224" LastEditDate="2019-06-04T10:38:00.187" LastActivityDate="2019-09-10T14:55:54.303" Title="Why is c4 bad when playing the London against a King's Indian?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;kings-indian&gt;&lt;london-system&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24618" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24617" CreationDate="2019-05-31T19:09:45.763" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;It may be to the fact that you are making his bad Bishop into a Monster.&#xA;After 6...c5, 7. d5 Nh5!  and the dark square bishop is free to roam.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;rnbq1rk1/pp2ppbp/3p2p1/2pP3n/2P2B2/4PN2/PP1N1PPP/R2QKB1R w KQ - 1 8&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7898" LastEditorUserId="7898" LastEditDate="2019-05-31T19:24:11.857" LastActivityDate="2019-05-31T19:24:11.857" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24619" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24617" CreationDate="2019-05-31T22:10:09.813" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you want to play c4 against the King's Indian, it's better to go &quot;all in&quot; by having your e-pawn on e4 (so playing a main line against the KID). With the pawn on e3 you're sort of dipping your toe in the water with c4. It's not nearly as effective.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's also an important tactical reason for why c4 is bad (probably why Stockfish gave -1). After 6...c5, if you push 7.d5 then Black has 7...Nh5, attacking your f4-bishop and the hanging b2-pawn. You'll have to give up the pawn or settle for Black playing ...Nxf4 and giving you doubled pawns. You could avoid pushing d5 but then after ...Nh5 (again) your d-pawn is under heavy fire since it doesn't have any support from your c-pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If your c-pawn were on c3 then the d4-pawn would have more support, and there would never be any issues with the b2-pawn hanging.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-05-31T22:46:18.717" LastActivityDate="2019-05-31T22:46:18.717" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24620" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24597" CreationDate="2019-05-31T23:05:22.613" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It avoids the Kalashnikov and the Sveshnikov&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2174" LastActivityDate="2019-05-31T23:05:22.613" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24621" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24497" CreationDate="2019-05-31T23:17:36.687" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;f5 has the aim to stop the e4 push. However, a &quot;refutation&quot; of the line is 1. d4 g6 2. c4 Bg7 3. Nc3 c5 4. d5 Bxc3 5. bxc3 f5 6. e4 fxe4 7. f3!; Here, if black captures in f3, then white has a strong attack due to the better development. Therefore, in his DVD series on the Dzindzi, GM Ron Henley suggests 7. ...e5!, but he doesn't consider the first choice of Stockfish, which seems very good for white: 8. Nh3! with the idea of Nf2 (ff 8. ... exf3 then simply Qxf3).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2174" LastActivityDate="2019-05-31T23:17:36.687" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24622" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24117" CreationDate="2019-05-31T23:31:41.227" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Carlsen used to play 3.Nf3 with the idea of 3...d6 4.Bc4 Nf6 5.Qe2 0-0 6.0-0, with Rd1 and e5 following. It is very easy to play with white because the attack is immediate, and solving the black issues on the board seems not to be that easy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2174" LastActivityDate="2019-05-31T23:31:41.227" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24623" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24617" CreationDate="2019-06-01T07:13:53.763" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think the problem is with any c4 in this type of position altogether. I think that if you go for a line like 5.c4 and 6.Nc3 your position is just OK.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The particular position you post is maybe a different story as the knight is a bit misplaced on d2 (this leaves the d4 pawn a bit exposed. Many of the moves suggested are right, and exploit this fact in one way or another.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am surprised, however, by how much the chess community has changed! In both responses, the writers believed the engine's evaluation and tried to justify it. I'd rather think Stockfish is exaggerating here! For how long have you let it think? (Please beware of the use of computer analysis in the opening. When no tactics are involved, it can be quite misleading!) If we trusted machines for the opening, we would be playing 1.Nc3 all the time. But how many games have you seen with that move?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The line with 6...c5 pointed out by @Inertial_Ignorance is strong, but I don't think Black is more than slightly better after 7.d5 Nh5 8. Qb3 Nxf4 9.exf4. By the way, you can also just play 7.Nb3 or 7.bxc5 instead continuing your development with a reasonable position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One (correct) argument is that the sequence is bad as a whole as you'll never get anything more than equality, but I don't see any other way to play that leads to an advantage for White, with or without c4. With correct play, you will reach an equal position that is (maybe) a little more comfortable for Black&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-09-10T14:55:54.303" LastActivityDate="2019-09-10T14:55:54.303" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24624" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24117" CreationDate="2019-06-01T21:05:57.380" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;3.Nc3 saves a tempo by not pushing the c-pawn first, which could be important in some sharp lines. However, 3.c4 is equally as good, transposing from the Pirc into the King's Indian.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It really just depends on your preferences.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-06-01T21:05:57.380" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24625" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24616" CreationDate="2019-06-01T23:07:17.467" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Basically, controlling the centre becomes significantly more important in KOTH. The obvious reason is that you want to spot the opponent's king from reaching one of the centre squares, and more space may allow your king to quickly march to the centre.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With that in mind, some openings that are good in chess but bad in KOTH are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Grunfeld Defence&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;King's Indian Defence&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Pirc Defence&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Nimzo Indian Defence&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Reti Opening&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your second question (openings good in KOTH but almost losing in normal chess) is much harder to answer. Since KOTH is basically a more demanding version of chess, it tends to be that only some openings are acceptable in KOTH (and not the other way around). The only openings would be where one side sacrifices a piece to get their king closer to the centre, but none come to mind.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-06-01T23:07:17.467" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24627" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22683" CreationDate="2019-06-02T02:38:20.893" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The knight has been recluded to the a3 square, with the move a6 and e5. while a6 may be a useful tempo, e5 is weakening. Meanwhile, the knight is going to e3 via c4, controlling d5. If black plays b5 to avoid it, then white ideas are based on the c4 break: in this case, the Knight can be recycled via c2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2174" LastActivityDate="2019-06-02T02:38:20.893" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24628" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24605" CreationDate="2019-06-02T16:44:08.663" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Moving your king into check (i.e. where it can be captured) is called an &quot;illegal move&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are playing a casual game then you should put the position back to what it was before the illegal move was made and make a legal move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are playing in a competition then more formal rules apply as specified in the sections of the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=208&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Laws of Chess&lt;/a&gt; from article 6 onwards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In a competition you play with clocks and the illegal move only counts as &quot;completed&quot; if you pressed the clock after making the illegal move. If you have not pressed the clock then you should just take the move back, play a legal move with the touched piece if possible and continue the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you have completed the move by pressing the clock then you must also take the move back and play a legal move with the piece touched if possible but then additional penalties apply. These are spelled out in article 7.5.5:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;7.5.5&lt;/strong&gt; After the action taken under Article 7.5.1, 7.5.2, 7.5.3 or 7.5.4 for the first completed illegal move by a player, the arbiter shall give two minutes extra time to his opponent; for the second&#xA;  completed illegal move by the same player the arbiter shall declare&#xA;  the game lost by this player. However, the game is drawn if the&#xA;  position is such that the opponent cannot checkmate the player’s king&#xA;  by any possible series of legal moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These rules apply for all competition chess regardless of time control. Regardless of whether it is standard, rapid or blitz a second illegal move loses the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only difference between standard time controls on one hand and blitz and rapid on the other is in determining that an illegal move has been made. In standard the moves are recorded and it is possible to detect an illegal move several moves later and also to return to the position before the illegal move. In the two quicker forms where moves are not recorded (world championships may differ in the respect that moves are recorded and so standard rules apply) and so slightly different rules apply regarding detecting that an illegal move has been made.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These are spelled out in Appendix A.4.2:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;A.4.2&lt;/strong&gt; If the arbiter observes an action taken under Article 7.5.1, 7.5.2, 7.5.3 or 7.5.4, he shall act according to &lt;strong&gt;Article 7.5.5&lt;/strong&gt;, provided the opponent has not made his next move. If the arbiter does&#xA;  not intervene, the opponent is entitled to claim, provided the&#xA;  opponent has not made his next move. If the opponent does not claim&#xA;  and the arbiter does not intervene, the illegal move shall stand and&#xA;  the game shall continue. Once the opponent has made his next move, an&#xA;  illegal move cannot be corrected unless this is agreed by the players&#xA;  without intervention of the arbiter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, in rapid and blitz the illegal move must be spotted immediately. If any more moves are made then the illegal move stands and the game continues. If the move is spotted by either the opponent or the arbiter then the normal rules apply and a second illegal move loses the game unless it is impossible for the opponent to mate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2019-06-02T16:44:08.663" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24629" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2019-06-02T17:28:11.433" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/variant/kingOfTheHill&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;King of the Hill&lt;/a&gt; is a chess variant King of the Hill, where a player can win either by the ways of traditional chess or by bringing the king in one of the central square by a legal move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="411" LastEditorUserId="411" LastEditDate="2019-06-02T20:49:52.957" LastActivityDate="2019-06-02T20:49:52.957" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24630" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2019-06-02T17:28:11.433" Score="0" Body="For question about the chess variant King of the Hill, where a player can win either by the ways of traditional chess or by bringing the king in one of the central square." OwnerUserId="411" LastEditorUserId="411" LastEditDate="2019-06-02T20:50:11.267" LastActivityDate="2019-06-02T20:50:11.267" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24631" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="221" CreationDate="2019-06-02T17:42:06.147" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;To be perfectly honest, just play your regular openings. You know them the best, and consequently will be able to play quicker with them. I'm around 2400 online in 1 0 chess and this is the strategy I use if I'm feeling &quot;serious&quot; about my rating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-06-02T17:42:06.147" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24632" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24635" CreationDate="2019-06-02T17:57:13.090" Score="22" ViewCount="6714" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was asked for first time to help at a non federated tournament for kids to arbitrate their games, played at 30 minutes with no increment time.&#xA;It was a scholar tournament and they made mistakes as leaving checkmates in one, let the queen to be captured etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At one game both kids arrived to a K+R K+R endgame. There was not a way to quickly gain the rook and win the game and both kids had time.&#xA;One kid claimed it was a draw. We were two arbiters (not experts, just two 1900 helping a bit at the club).&#xA;We claimed draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Was it a correct decision or we should have left the kids play?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user18196" LastEditorUserId="18168" LastEditDate="2019-06-05T17:54:27.963" LastActivityDate="2019-06-05T17:54:27.963" Title="Should an arbiter claim draw at a K+R vs K+R endgame?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;claim-draw&gt;&lt;tournament-directors&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="7" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24633" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24632" CreationDate="2019-06-02T18:35:14.603" Score="16" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is not a drawn position according to the rules, since there is sufficient mating material. It may be a draw from the point of view of endgame theory, but given players who make lots of mistakes, it wouldn't be all that surprising for one to lose to a tactic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would let them play until the player who wanted a draw can claim it based on the 50-move rule or threefold repetition, or someone runs out of time or the game ends some other way. (Were they keeping notation? If not making a proper claim could be difficult, although an arbiter who witnesses the game could rule it a draw after 75 moves or fivefold repetition. Also note that USCF rules allow the arbiter or a deputy to count moves, if requested, for a 50-move claim under sudden death.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That said, for a &quot;non federated kids tournament&quot;, I suppose you may have some leeway, so I wouldn't really fault you for ruling it a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12523" LastEditorUserId="12523" LastEditDate="2019-06-02T18:44:32.073" LastActivityDate="2019-06-02T18:44:32.073" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24634" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24632" CreationDate="2019-06-02T19:57:04.017" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is difficult to say what the exact rules should be if you aren't affiliated with a group that publishes rules for such situations. But I think your actions in this case were reasonable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;USCF rule 14H used to state that a player with less than two minutes on the clock (with no delay or increment being used) could make a claim of insufficient losing chances. Officially, that rule is no longer in effect, although a tournament is still allowed to use it as a variation without announcing it in advance. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If this variation is used, then rule 14I4 specifically states that rook vs rook should be a draw unless it is a position where there is a quick win. In general, if a class C player with ample time would not reasonably lose the position against a master, then the draw claim would be upheld, under this variation. This is regardless of the actual strengths of the players involved or how little time is on the clock.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since there were more than 2 minutes on the clock (&quot;both kids had time&quot;) technically this variation could not have been invoked. However, an attempted draw &lt;em&gt;claim&lt;/em&gt; also constitutes a draw &lt;em&gt;offer&lt;/em&gt;, which the other player may accept even if the claim is not upheld. According to your comment on another answer, you asked the other player if they agreed with the draw, and they seemed happy with it. That would be good enough for me. If neither player wanted to play on, there would be little point in forcing them to shuffle the pieces around for 50 moves. It's possible that novice players would not even be aware of the possibility of simply offering a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The part of the USCF Official Rules of Chess book which contains the rules is now available online, by the way. I found it &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.uschess.org/content/view/7752/369/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2019-06-02T19:57:04.017" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24635" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24632" CreationDate="2019-06-02T20:22:32.090" Score="25" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can declare a draw and in fact you are required to declare a draw but only after you have counted 75 moves by each side without a capture or a pawn move. This is according to the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=208&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Laws of Chess&lt;/a&gt; article 9.6.2:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;9.6 &lt;strong&gt;If one or both of the following occur(s) then the game is drawn:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;9.6.1 the same position has appeared, as in 9.2.2 at least five times.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;9.6.2 &lt;strong&gt;any series of at least 75 moves have been made by each player without the movement of any pawn and without any capture. If the last&#xA;  move resulted in checkmate, that shall take precedence&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course the players are also free to agree a draw between them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: blues makes the following comment:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;III.5.1 may also apply. If the arbiter agrees that the opponent cannot&#xA;  win by normal means, or that the opponent has been making no effort to&#xA;  win the game by normal means, he shall declare the game drawn.&#xA;  Otherwise he shall postpone his decision or reject the claim. This&#xA;  does not require 75 moves or fivefold repetition&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I will answer that here since there is insufficient room in a comment to do so.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Guidelines III.5.1 almost certainly does not apply in this case. III.5.1 is not standalone. It is part of section III and is dependent on earlier parts of III.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's take a look.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Guidelines III. Games without increment including Quickplay Finishes&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;III.1&lt;/strong&gt; A ‘quickplay finish’ is the phase of a game when all the remaining moves must be completed in a finite time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;III.2.1 The Guidelines below concerning the final period of the game including Quickplay Finishes, shall only be used at an event if their&#xA;  use has been announced beforehand.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;III.2.2&lt;/strong&gt; These Guidelines shall apply only to standard chess and rapid chess games without increment and not to blitz games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, according to the OP, the time control was all moves in 30 minutes, so a rapid time control and no increments mean it is possible that III applies. However according to III.2.1 these &lt;strong&gt;shall only be used at an event if their use has been announced beforehand&lt;/strong&gt;. They were almost certainly &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; announced beforehand, else the two arbiters would have at least know of their existence and they appear not to.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Suppose they were announced beforehand. Then we come to: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;III.4&lt;/strong&gt; If the player having the move has &lt;strong&gt;less than two minutes&lt;/strong&gt; left on&#xA;  his clock, he may request that an increment extra five seconds be&#xA;  introduced for both players. This constitutes the offer of a draw. If&#xA;  the offer refused, and the arbiter agrees to the request, the clocks&#xA;  shall then be set with the extra time; the opponent shall be awarded&#xA;  two extra minutes and the game shall continue.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The OP in one of his comments seems to say that both players still had 25 minutes left. This would mean this does not apply. Nevertheless supposing the player did have less than 2 minutes left, the arbiters cannot apply this rule unless the player specifically asks for it. The arbiters are not allowed to help the players in any way and may not volunteer this information during the game. They may only make announcements informing all players &lt;strong&gt;before&lt;/strong&gt; the game. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Continuing, we finally reach the part blues references:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;III.5&lt;/strong&gt; If Article III.4 does not apply and the player having the move has less than two minutes left on his clock, he may claim a draw&#xA;  before his flag falls. He shall summon the arbiter and may stop the&#xA;  chessclock (see Article 6.12.2). He may claim on the basis that his&#xA;  opponent cannot win by normal means, and/or that his opponent has been&#xA;  making no effort to win by normal means&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, this can only apply if III.4 does not apply. The only way that can happen is if there are no digital clocks capable of being set with the required time and increment. If such clocks are available then III.4 applies and III.5 does not apply.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Suppose, however, that all the previous counterfactual &quot;if onlys&quot; apply then III.5 can only apply if the player also knows the rule and makes the specific request in the correct manner. Again, even if the arbiter knows the rule he may not help the player by volunteering the information.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hence my original conclusion that - Guidelines III.5.1 almost certainly does not apply in this case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-06-05T16:08:58.223" LastActivityDate="2019-06-05T16:08:58.223" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24636" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="221" CreationDate="2019-06-02T20:39:26.083" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I played 1+0 some time ago and book openings were not something to consider a lot at my level (I had 2000 at 1+0 at chess.com). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, it is slightly different if you play 1+0 (or 1/2+0) than e.g. 2+1, which is sometimes included in bullet time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you play 2+1, you can play the game as in blitz following the openings you know, but 1+0? well at this time control you may want to put your opponent in trouble. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is common at 1+0 to offer even pieces just to win some time. Sometimes your opponent get nervous and to play weird opening making quick threats can be something to consider at a [young] non-master level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Bc4 Nc6 3. Qh5 g6 4. Qf3 Nf6&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The result is black can lose 5 seconds (as important as a pawn at a 1+0 game) whereas white has not a weak structure or serious troubles in development. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you don't want to play weird openings you can try Budapest Gambit kindly openings. After 2.....e5 white may lose some seconds or fail not capture the pawn with advantage, and you can always finishing by materializing some traps as this one if your opponent doesn't know the theory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e5 3. dxe5 Ng4 4. Bf4 Nc6 5. Nf3 Bb4+ 6. Nbd2 Qe7 7. a3 Ngxe5 8. axb4 Nd3++&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user18196" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-04T20:03:39.373" LastActivityDate="2020-03-04T20:03:39.373" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24637" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24632" CreationDate="2019-06-02T21:56:27.583" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's better to let them play it out a bit and ideally only draw once reaching 50 moves. But if one of them is low on time (and their opponent is clearly just trying to flag them) then you should claim the draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-06-02T21:56:27.583" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24639" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24640" CreationDate="2019-06-03T04:56:41.030" Score="-7" ViewCount="410" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe the question &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/5287/how-to-start-learning-chess&quot;&gt;How to start learning chess?&lt;/a&gt; is actually two questions only one of which is a duplicate. This question is a fixed up version of it which asks only the other one of those questions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Would it be possible to explain the rules of chess in a nutshell? A clear short description of the rules is nowhere to be found but I'm sure it can be explained very simply.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13189" LastEditorUserId="13189" LastEditDate="2019-06-04T05:18:46.867" LastActivityDate="2019-06-04T05:18:46.867" Title="What are the rules of chess in a nutshell?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24640" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24639" CreationDate="2019-06-03T04:56:41.030" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, the rules can be explained in a nutshell as follows. It uses some ideas I originally wrote at &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Chess&amp;amp;oldid=649489454&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Chess&amp;amp;oldid=649489454&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess is a 2 player game. It starts with the pieces arranged like in the following image.&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ALq3K.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ALq3K.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One player moves only white pieces and sits on the side of the board where the white pieces start. The other player moves only black pieces and sits on the side where the black pieces start. Which ever player moves the white pieces starts first.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess without some of the extra rules works as follows. Each player on his or her turn can make any move as long as it satisfies the following conditions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;It's a move of one of the following forms:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Normal move&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A normal move is a move where a player moves one piece of their own color under the following conditions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The piece he or she moves is the type of move for that type of piece which is as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The king moves one square in any direction.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The rook can move any number of squares along any rank or file.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The bishop can move any number of squares diagonally.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The queen combines the power of the rook and bishop and can move any number of squares along rank, file, or diagonal.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The knight moves to any of the closest squares that are not on the same rank, file, or diagonal, thus the move forms an &quot;L&quot;-shape: two squares vertically and one square horizontally, or two squares horizontally and one square vertically.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The pawn may move forward to the unoccupied square immediately in front of it on the same file without capturing, or on its first move it may advance two squares along the same file without capturing; or the pawn may capture an opponent's piece on a square diagonally in front of it on an adjacent file, by moving to that square.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The piece stays the same type of piece unless it's a pawn moving to the 8th rank in which case it stays the same color and can get promoted to anything except a king. The promotion is not restricted to captured pieces. The pawn must get promoted if it reaches the 8th rank.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The piece may not go through another piece unless the former's a knight.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The piece captures another piece if it moves there but captures nothing if it moves to an empty square.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The piece may not capture a piece that's its own color.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Castling move&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A Castling move involves the king and a rook where the king moves two squares along the rank directly towards one of the rooks, then that rook moves over the king to the square that the king crossed over under the following conditions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Neither the king nor the rook it's castling with ever moved before.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;There are no pieces between the king and the rook it's castling with.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;En passant move&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When a player moves a pawn 2 squares then on the very next move, the other player moves their pawn diagonally forward 1 square to the square that pawn moved through, capturing it in the process, the latter is said to be doing en passant. Note that the pawn does not move to the square of the pawn it captured in en passant.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A square is said to be under attack for one player when the other player has a move to that square satisfying the first condition. When the king is under attack, it's said to be in check.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;He or she may not make a move that leaves or puts his or her king in check.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The king may not castle into check, out of check, or through check.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You win if you check mate your opponent. That is, after your turn, your opponent is in check and doesn't have a legal move. If after your turn, your opponent is not in check and doesn't have a legal move, it's called stalemate. Stalemate is one of the ways for the game to end in a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are also extra rules. Some of them are very clear and considered a universal rule of chess. Others are unclear how people should play in casual games but are clear in a certain type of tournament. I'm not absolutely completely sure of what they all are. Some of the clear ones are&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The 3 fold repetition rule states that if you go into the same state from the same other state a third time in the game, a draw is declared.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;One player can forfeit the match by resigning. It usually happens when they see that their opponent has a forced win.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A draw is declared when both players agree to a draw.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes people also play a casual game of chess with a clock. People also sometimes play a variant of chess like crazyhouse chess but when they're doing that, they're said to be playing a different game which is not chess and are not said to be playing chess. Sometimes one player gives the other player permission to leave and not finish the game. Sometimes one player gives the other player permission to take back moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For a certain type of FIDE tournament with a certain rating, the rules are as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;After both players complete 50 moves with nothing getting captured and no pawns moving forward, a player can claim a draw.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If 75 moves have been completed without anything getting captured or any pawn moving forward, the game must end in a draw unless the last move is a checkmate.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Both players play with a clock. Each player has 90 minutes for the first 40 moves plus 30 minutes for the rest of the game and an additional 30 seconds per move.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sources:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifty-move_rule&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifty-move_rule&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=39&amp;amp;view=category&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=39&amp;amp;view=category&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13189" LastEditorUserId="13189" LastEditDate="2019-06-03T22:56:53.460" LastActivityDate="2019-06-03T22:56:53.460" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24642" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24632" CreationDate="2019-06-03T06:15:31.557" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Relevant FIDE rule, appendix G.5:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If Article G.4 [a player may claim extra time for both sides] does not apply and the player having the move has less&#xA;  than two minutes left on his clock, he may claim a draw before his&#xA;  flag falls. He shall summon the arbiter and may stop the chessclock&#xA;  (see Article 6.12 b). He may claim on the basis that his opponent&#xA;  cannot win by normal means, and/or that his opponent has been making&#xA;  no effort to win by normal means.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similar to the USCF rule cited by D M, technically this can only be invoked if the claiming player has less then two minutes on their clock. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13433" LastActivityDate="2019-06-03T06:15:31.557" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24644" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24616" CreationDate="2019-06-03T08:31:59.370" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;As mentioned already, most hypermodern openings (King's Indian, Modern, etc.) are dubious in KOTH, because they give the opponent too much space in the center.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Besides that there are gambits where the compensation mostly consists of better control of the center, which is of course more valuable in KOTH. Therefore, some of such gambits that are often considered to be slightly inferior to dubious in chess are good or even best moves in KOTH. Usually, the gambit pawn should be rejected in order to get a playable position. A few examples are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King%27s_Gambit&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;King's gambit&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sicilian_Defence,_Smith%E2%80%93Morra_Gambit&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Smith-Morra gambit&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latvian_Gambit&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Latvian gambit&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chesstempo.com/gamedb/opening/1891&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Blackburne gambit (Scandinavian)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halloween_Gambit&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Halloween gambit&lt;/a&gt; [a piece gambit]&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Furthermore, openings/gambits which try to drive the opponent's king to the center can be close to losing in KOTH. A notable example is the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_Knights_Defense,_Fried_Liver_Attack&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Fried liver attack&lt;/a&gt;. After 7.Qf3+ black should play 7..Qf6! followed by Be6 instead of 7..Ke6 in order to threaten the exchange of the white queen and bishop, which gives black a considerable advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In order to double check my evaluation of the above mentioned openings in King of the Hill, I used the &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/ddugovic/Stockfish&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;multi-variant Stockfish fork&lt;/a&gt; that is also used for analysis on &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/analysis/kingOfTheHill&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;lichess&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15415" LastEditorUserId="15415" LastEditDate="2019-06-03T08:37:44.810" LastActivityDate="2019-06-03T08:37:44.810" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24645" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24639" CreationDate="2019-06-03T09:36:21.277" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The definitive guide to chess is given in the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=208&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Laws of Chess&lt;/a&gt;. The game itself is defined by the first five articles and this is short. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are many more articles, appendices and even guidelines in the FIDE Laws of Chess which cover over-the-board competition rules and practices but these are not required for a basic understanding of the game, only for tournaments.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2019-06-03T09:36:21.277" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24646" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24648" CreationDate="2019-06-03T16:16:10.330" Score="18" ViewCount="3167" Body="&lt;p&gt;Recently, an official (FIDE-rated) tournament was held, where I participated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the last round – which was the most critical one – I was black and my opponent white. In the middle of the game, they started making strange sounds, which clearly disturbed both the nearby boards and me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At first, I mentioned that they were disturbing. Since they wouldn't listen, I called the arbiter. In all 4 cases, the arbiter warned the user like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;lt;Player name&amp;gt;, could you please stop doing this, since you are disturbing your opponent?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In addition, when I offered draw, here's what my opponent replied:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the game were drawn, then I would offer it first to you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;What should the arbiter have done&lt;/strong&gt;? At least, I'd expect to have a punishment in the clock (e.g., +2 minutes for me, -2 for them). It is well-defined in article 11 of Fide Laws of Chess (emphasis mine):&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;11.5 It is &lt;strong&gt;forbidden&lt;/strong&gt; to &lt;strong&gt;distract&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;strong&gt;annoy the opponent&lt;/strong&gt; in &lt;strong&gt;any manner whatsoever&lt;/strong&gt;. This includes unreasonable claims, &lt;em&gt;unreasonable offers&lt;/em&gt; of a draw, or the introduction of a source of noise into the playing area.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;11.6 &lt;strong&gt;Infraction&lt;/strong&gt; of any part of Articles 11.1 – 11.5 shall lead to &lt;strong&gt;penalties&lt;/strong&gt; in accordance with Article 12.9.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;11.7 &lt;strong&gt;Persistent refusal by a player to comply with the Laws of Chess shall be penalised by &lt;em&gt;loss of the game&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;. The arbiter shall decide the score of the opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And I suppose that this behaviour is persistent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;What should &lt;em&gt;I&lt;/em&gt; have done&lt;/strong&gt;? I ended up losing the game and, while I could end being 2nd, I ended up being 3rd! Could I make an appeal to another arbiter or even the chief?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17823" LastEditorUserId="17823" LastEditDate="2021-01-11T10:48:00.380" LastActivityDate="2021-01-11T10:48:00.380" Title="What should the arbiter and what should have I done in this case?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;arbiters&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24647" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24646" CreationDate="2019-06-03T18:23:09.260" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;At this point you should report the Arbiter to FIDE and if applicable the USCF.  You could even try to get the result of the game changed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They should have implemented Article 12.9 penalties followed by &lt;em&gt;loss of game&lt;/em&gt; if it continued.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now that you have read the articles, you probably see that you could have pressured the Arbiter to implement the rules. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[Unfortunately, the world is full of people that are either incompetent or lazy and therefore don't do their jobs; forcing competent people to learn all kinds of area's in life just to be able to hold the incompetent accountable or simply get the service they need.]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastEditorUserId="14202" LastEditDate="2019-06-04T20:36:28.463" LastActivityDate="2019-06-04T20:36:28.463" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24648" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24646" CreationDate="2019-06-03T18:25:17.020" Score="18" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, we cannot tell you what the arbiter should have done because we were not there and certainly don't have all the facts. We only have your version of events. What you say was very disturbing may not have been perceived as so disturbing to others there at the time. We weren't there, so we just don't know. We can't judge.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As to what you should have done, you did the right thing by bringing the disturbance you suffered to the attention of the arbiter. If the arbiter took no action beyond issuing a warning you could have made another appeal to the arbiter during the game for more robust action. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At the end of the game you could also have refused to sign the scoresheet and instead raised the issue again first with the arbiter and then the chief arbiter. If this failed then you could have lodged an appeal with the appeals committee for the tournament. FIDE rated tournaments are required to have an appeals committee to which you can appeal during the tournament. This committee is usually composed of players in the tournament and disbands when the tournament finishes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, if you took all those actions and still did not get a satisfactory answer you could appeal to your national chess federation. You could probably still do that now but if you didn't make the previous levels of appeal and complaint you are unlikely to get any satisfaction.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Currently there is a high level women's tournament (candidates for world championship) taking place in Kazan in Russia which has a problem with noise from a band playing music outside. Some of the players have earplugs and are not being disturbed by it others do not and are being disturbed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2019-06-03T18:25:17.020" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24649" PostTypeId="6" CreationDate="2019-06-03T20:03:18.603" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Hi, I'm Glorfindel and I'd like to become your moderator.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Why me?&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I'm already doing a lot of moderation activities on this site. I'm the most active reviewer, editor and flagger on the site.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I have almost two years of experience serving as a &amp;diams; moderator on Ask Different. I'm familiar with how the tools work; I know how and when to act, but equally important: I know when &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; to act, e.g. to let the community decide on whether a specific question is on-topic or not, instead of closing/opening it unilaterally.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I'm an active contributor on Meta Stack Exchange so I know what's going on on the Stack Exchange network as a whole. We don't have a particular active Chess Meta site, but I'm one of the top contributors there as well.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I'm one of the top 10 users here by reputation. Reputation doesn't necessarily say something about a person's moderation capabilities, but a little subject matter expertise definitely helps making the right decision in some situations.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Why not me?&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I'm not an active chess player anymore. I stopped about ten years ago when other priorities (also known as &quot;work&quot;) started to conflict with playing long over-the-board games.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2019-06-03T20:03:18.603" LastActivityDate="2019-06-03T20:03:18.603" CommentCount="4" CommunityOwnedDate="2019-06-03T20:03:18.603" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24650" PostTypeId="6" CreationDate="2019-06-03T21:30:49.590" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Heya!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd like to help this site as a moderator.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I visit the site every day, clear the review queues and try to improve new posts.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I'm a moderator on &lt;a href=&quot;https://wordpress.stackexchange.com&quot;&gt;WordPress Development&lt;/a&gt; for 7 years now. I know the tools and how to act in difficult situations.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The base for a working community is, in my opinion, &lt;em&gt;mutual respect&lt;/em&gt;. This includes that the moderators have to respect the evolving specific culture of the community, as long as it is friendly and welcoming.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I'm also the most active chat moderator on chess24, and I help out as a mod on various Twitch channels.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;As a chess player, I see myself still as a beginner – I started just 2½ years ago. I play on lichess, but mostly I'm &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/study/mgquHh3e&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;exploring theory&lt;/a&gt; and try to improve every day a tiny bit.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think this site has a good potential to become &lt;em&gt;the&lt;/em&gt; place to discuss chess. If I can help with my time and experience, then I will take this seriously. I see the diamond as a duty, not as a trophy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Side note: Please use your right to vote. Whoever the new moderators are, they need to know you support them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8472" LastEditorUserId="8472" LastEditDate="2019-06-03T21:30:49.590" LastActivityDate="2019-06-03T21:30:49.590" CommentCount="2" CommunityOwnedDate="2019-06-03T21:30:49.590" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24652" PostTypeId="6" CreationDate="2019-06-04T00:17:16.493" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, I'm newer to Chess.SE than the other candidates, but I think that could be a good thing. Since I've joined, I've been active both here and on meta - &lt;strong&gt;I'm one of 7 users with the &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.meta.stackexchange.com/help/badges/85/curious&quot;&gt;curious&lt;/a&gt; badge on meta.&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;I've also been able to gain reputation on CSE fairly quickly considering the time I've been here, and I think that's reflective of how I carry myself - not only in well-formed questions and answers, but also thoughtful engagement in comments. Also, out of the 17 flags I have raised, 15 are helpful, 1 is disputed, and 1 declined.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've also had some moderation privileges on &lt;a href=&quot;https://puzzling.stackexchange.com/&quot;&gt;Puzzling.SE&lt;/a&gt;, a larger site, which gives me general moderation experience. I also frequent the &lt;a href=&quot;https://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/11540/charcoal-hq&quot;&gt;Charcoal HQ&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I am elected moderator, I will continue to approach Chess.SE with the same mindset that I have employed in the past: persistently trying to make it a better place.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note: as @fuxia said, please vote. Seriously.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, &lt;strong&gt;the other candidates are great people. Chess.SE will be in good hands regardless of the election outcome.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18168" LastEditorUserId="18168" LastEditDate="2019-06-08T22:14:27.303" LastActivityDate="2019-06-08T22:14:27.303" CommentCount="1" CommunityOwnedDate="2019-06-04T00:17:16.493" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24653" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24639" CreationDate="2019-06-04T01:14:27.850" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;How to win: preventing the opponent's king from moving while attacking it. This is a &lt;em&gt;checkmate&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's the goal of the game. The rest of the rules just relate to how each piece moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;King: Can move one square in any direction.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Queen: Can move any number of squares in any direction, but can't jump over pieces in the way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bishop: Can move any number of squares along any diagonal it's on, but can't jump over pieces in the way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Rook: Can move any number of squares horizontally or vertically, but can't jump over pieces in the way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Knight: Can move in an L-shape. 2 squares horizontally and one square vertically, &lt;em&gt;or&lt;/em&gt; 2 squares vertically and one square horizontally. It &lt;em&gt;can&lt;/em&gt; jump over any pieces in the way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pawn: Can move one square forward, and has the additional option of moving 2 squares forward if it's on its starting square. However, it captures enemy pieces by moving one square &lt;em&gt;diagonally&lt;/em&gt; in either direction. The pawn is unique in that it captures and moves differently (unlike all other pieces). In addition, if the pawn reaches the end of the board it turns into a queen, rook, bishop, or knight (your choice).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, the game could end where no one wins, a tie or &lt;em&gt;draw&lt;/em&gt;. This can happen in a variety of ways:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Both sides only have a king left.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Neither side has any material left that's sufficient to possibly make a checkmate. Any example is one side having a king and knight vs a lone enemy king.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A position has been repeated three times. This is called a three-fold repetition.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;One player offers a draw and the opponent accepts.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Stalemate: one side has no moves left because his king is trapped and the rest of his pieces have either been captured off the board or cannot move. This is very similar to a checkmate, except that the trapped king is &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; being attacked.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've left out some rules, but this is the meat of it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-06-04T01:14:27.850" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24654" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5681" CreationDate="2019-06-04T06:00:38.043" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't know the answer to this question. However, I believe you might have made a wrong assumption about it being beneficial to play chess as a child so I'll write what I have to say about it. What does it mean to say it's bad to play chess as a child? That's very vague. I think it may be harmful to gain too much experience with chess before the age of 5 as I will explain later. People sometimes make mistakes. We don't know what's meant by &quot;It's beneficial to play chess as a child.&quot; Even if we can determine what is meant, it's probably still only a theory that we cannot be absolutely certain of.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.inc.com/bill-murphy-jr/science-says-were-sending-our-kids-to-school-much-too-early-and-that-can-hurt-th.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.inc.com/bill-murphy-jr/science-says-were-sending-our-kids-to-school-much-too-early-and-that-can-hurt-th.html&lt;/a&gt;, students generally learn better from school when they're older. This too is probably only a theory. That might just be because when students start younger, they generally need longer to learn the basics and the teacher might move on from the basics before they're ready. However, I'm not sure it's not the case that there is also a slight tendency for students to sometimes misinterpret what they learned because they learned it too young and then later have trouble unlearning their misinterpretation and some people really are better off without the extra early learning of concepts than with it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In one episode of the TV show &quot;My 600 lb life,&quot; the overweight patient at the time she was 5 her parents or one of her parents kept saying &quot;You're too fat. You can't have it,&quot; meaning dessert and she thought it was a punishment for being fat and got very depressed and kept on eating more to get her mind off the depression. It's probably because unconsciously, it can be deduced from the fact that she got a punishment that she did something wrong. An older person in that situation if their parents said something like that for the first time when they were older would probably figure out that it wasn't a criticism and tolerate that comment really well. That's probably how the parents of that patient thought of it and they probably didn't realize that she was too young to be able to figure out what they really meant by what they were saying. She probably thought they were thinking like the person who had his World of Warcraft account cancelled in the YouTube video &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YersIyzsOpc&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Greatest freak out ever (ORIGINAL VIDEO)&lt;/a&gt;. For her, she probably would have been so much better off without the early learning than with it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similarly, the article &lt;a href=&quot;https://chessimprover.com/too-young-for-chess/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Too Young for Chess&lt;/a&gt; gives me a probable reason to think that kids in general cannot gain knowledge on how to play chess really well very fast before they turn 5. Maybe so much early learning and studying chess before the age of 5 for some people can even make it harder for them to learn things later than it would have been if they didn't do all that early learning and studying chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13189" LastEditorUserId="13189" LastEditDate="2019-07-27T06:16:08.590" LastActivityDate="2019-07-27T06:16:08.590" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24655" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24597" CreationDate="2019-06-04T10:37:40.890" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I sometimes play 3.Nc3 as it gives an option of  against 3...a6, 4.e5 which leads to the kind of tedious positions I enjoy :) instead of some Najdorf.&#xA;There are a lot of these kind of funny options for white players. For example 1.e4 c5 2.Nc3 Nc6 3.Nge2 used to give me some headaches as a sveshnikov player because 3...Nf6 is not what I was looking for against the closed sicilian, but there is still the possibility of white going 4.d4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18738" LastActivityDate="2019-06-04T10:37:40.890" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24656" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5681" CreationDate="2019-06-04T13:02:23.067" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think you are asking the wrong question. There's been recently a lot of (horrible?) marketing relating chess to Alzheimer's disease prevention, abstract reasoning skill improvement and so on. While this is all great, and very interesting from a scientific point of view, I'll say it's irrelevant!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason for that is that nobody plays chess because it's good for them. People play chess because they enjoy it, regardless of whether it serves them for any further purpose or not. By the way, pretty much any hobby you can think of has some type of benefit, and by choosing chess, you are therefore harming yourself in some way! The same principle applies to people who go to the gym. Either you enjoy your training our you will eventually quit.. And if you enjoy your training, then why do you need it to be beneficial?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With regards to the &quot;which approach to choose for learning&quot;, just forget about research! If your goal is to play better chess, no scientist in the world can give you the domain-knowledge of an actual experienced chess coach... But you don't even need to hire a coach at all! Just learn by doing! Play a few games, analyse them (by yourself, not with a chess engine) and if you want to train some specific aspect, the best thing you can do is focus on the ones you will actually enjoy training!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In summary, chess will have an impact on your intellectual skills. But you have to achieve that as a side-effect, not as a target&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-06-25T17:01:25.810" LastActivityDate="2019-06-25T17:01:25.810" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24657" PostTypeId="6" CreationDate="2019-06-04T14:20:55.350" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;My active involvement on this site in the last couple of years have allowed me to understand how the community works. I still manage to guarantee a minimum activity of 1hr/day, not just to answer but also to review new posts and protect well-answered ones, monitor closing &amp;amp; quality votes and suggested edits.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Two very important aspects of moderation for me:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;An inclusive and gender-neutral community:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;This is something I've always worked towards, which is clear from my own answers and the numerous occasions I've pointed out an implicit bias in someone's answer. Sadly, in many cultures there is a clear (not even implicit) bias against women playing chess, and when already one's tone and choice of pronoun (irrespective of the language) assume a hypothetical chess player to be male, that bias gets perpetuated, and finds its way into influencing choices made even at an individual level.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;A professional community,&lt;/strong&gt; this entails encouraging:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Clear arguments and well structured answers&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Showing own attempt and cross linking to related posts&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Providing sources and refs. for any made claims&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Using the built-in features of chess SE, such as the chess replayer, etc&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3594" LastEditorUserId="3594" LastEditDate="2019-06-04T14:20:55.350" LastActivityDate="2019-06-04T14:20:55.350" CommentCount="4" CommunityOwnedDate="2019-06-04T14:20:55.350" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24658" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5681" CreationDate="2019-06-04T15:06:58.293" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;My case is a bit particular as I have Asperger Disorder, but I returned to chess as an adult after leaving it at 10 years old and I could say it might have saved my life. I would say I might not have graduated without chess. It improved my concentration when studying for exams, but it also taught me not to be so impulsive, which has helped me in most facets of life. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;About your particular case, as mathematician you might improve your speed in calculus, especially if you do tactics exercises (a needed step, answering your second question), as well as have some other medical benefits like those related to Alzheimer's.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Understanding positional chess and strategy may also encourage your brain to better solve abstract math problems.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It might be positive for your profession and help you not to lose capabilities, as, note it, most of Science's extraordinary discoveries and works are done at a young age (around 25/30) and we all lose capabilities with age. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, if you reach a level to compete you can go to a club and socialize, which is always nice for health and happiness. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So if you like and enjoy the game, be sure it has some benefits for your brain and your health in general. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user18196" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T16:51:40.723" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T16:51:40.723" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24659" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9029" CreationDate="2019-06-04T16:02:17.200" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have created such an engine at &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.apronus.com/chess/romantic-chess-variant.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.apronus.com/chess/romantic-chess-variant.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It has been modified to allow pawn promotion to knights only and to treat pawns very lightly when assessing the material balance. In fact, this creates a chess variant which I called &lt;strong&gt;Romantic Chess&lt;/strong&gt; because it is meant to discourage playing for a better endgame as a winning strategy, effectively promoting direct mating attacks as the only realistic way to win the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3456" LastActivityDate="2019-06-04T16:02:17.200" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24660" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24661" CreationDate="2019-06-04T17:18:40.800" Score="5" ViewCount="580" Body="&lt;p&gt;A few months before an official national tournament is held, an announcement is published, which contains information about specific rules (e.g., no draw offers until the 30th move), etc. One thing that caught my attention was that a player &lt;strong&gt;can't have the same colour for 3 consecutive rounds&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yet, in the last round, I played Black and my opponent White. After the end of the game, I realize that my opponent had taken White 3 times in a row. Swapping colours was also impossible since I was Black in the last 2 rounds.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can the result actually be changed? Or should the game be replayed?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As I am not an arbiter, I'd also like to ask whether there is an option in Swiss Manager (the pairing program used) not to allow players to get the same color 3 times in a row?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17823" LastEditorUserId="17823" LastEditDate="2021-01-11T13:29:31.643" LastActivityDate="2021-01-11T13:29:31.643" Title="Is it acceptable to pair a player with the same colour three times in a row?" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24661" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24660" CreationDate="2019-06-04T18:58:09.093" Score="9" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Lodging an appeal also came to mind that time. However, can the result&#xA;  actually be changed?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No. Only in extreme cases such as cheating can the result be changed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Or should the game be replayed?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No. There is no reason why the game should be replayed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In addition, as I am not an arbiter, is there an option in Swiss&#xA;  Manager (the pairing program which was used to make the pairings) not&#xA;  to allow players get the same color 3 times continuously?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Swiss Manager uses the JaVaFo pairing engine written by FIDE. The pairing engine implements the FIDE defined pairing rules. As far as I know (I am a FIDE arbiter) the only pairing rule that can be overridden is the one which says that a player who has already had a voluntary bye can also be given a compulsory bye in a later round given an odd number of players. In my experience this is never done.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;In the last round&lt;/strong&gt;, I played with Black and my opponent with White.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;After the game, which I unfortunately lost, due to the lack of opening&#xA;  preparation, I realized that my opponent had taken White 3 times in&#xA;  the 3 last rounds. Playing with opposite colours was also impossible,&#xA;  since I had White 2 times continuously. In addition, I had played with&#xA;  most of the players which were up to the 10th position, so I couldn't&#xA;  find anyone else to play - maybe this is an exception?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the FIDE Handbook the rules for Swiss pairing are given in the section &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=83&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Basic rules for Swiss Systems&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your case is covered by these two rules.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;f&lt;/strong&gt; For each player the difference between the number of black and the&#xA;  number of white games shall not be greater than 2 or less than –2.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;strong&gt;Each system may have exceptions to this rule in the last round of a tournament&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;g&lt;/strong&gt; No player shall receive the same colour three times in a row.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;strong&gt;Each system may have exceptions to this rule in the last round of a tournament&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the last round of a tournament the requirement to allow the highest placed players to play each other in the interests of having clear winners and major places decided fairly takes precedence over most of the other rules. The rule which says that two players who have already played in an earlier round cannot be paired against each other again takes precedence over all other rules and cannot be broken.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2019-06-04T18:58:09.093" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24662" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-06-05T02:13:38.697" Score="7" ViewCount="314" Body="&lt;p&gt;For regular chess, I use SCID and it works well. It has database searches, position searches, player stats, and a nice compact file format (i.e. not PGN, which is inefficient and big).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there any similar software like the SCID software mentioned above, but for &lt;strong&gt;chess variants&lt;/strong&gt;? I've tried Winboard/XBoard (it reads from PGN, so is slow and bulky, plus it has a slightly stunted search).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An example use case: I would like to organise/search/use a database of only antichess or only atomic games. I should be able to do all (or at least some) of the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Save/load the database to and from PGN&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Save/load the database to and from a more compact format than raw text PGN (compare SCID .s*4 or ChessBase .cb* formats for regular chess)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Search for games by date/player/rating (or more generally by tag)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Play through the games in a GUI (or at least give me a PGN of individual game(s) I view)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Engine support is not a must.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15989" LastEditorUserId="15989" LastEditDate="2019-07-09T01:17:02.983" LastActivityDate="2020-01-22T06:10:45.347" Title="Chess database software for variants" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;database&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24663" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24660" CreationDate="2019-06-05T03:42:45.240" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately there's nothing you can do once the game is over, even if pairing rules were violated. In some tournaments you can talk to the TD after pairings are &lt;em&gt;posted&lt;/em&gt;, but in FIDE tournaments pairings might be final once they are posted (if memory serves).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In rare cases you could lodge an appeal with an appeal committee, but most tournaments don't have these.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-06-05T03:42:45.240" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24664" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24665" CreationDate="2019-06-05T13:51:16.090" Score="10" ViewCount="4204" Body="&lt;p&gt;Which side is in a better position here : white or black ? Is White controlling this game as all rook, knight, bishop, queen are in open position now ? What are the chances for black to come back ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;rn1qk2r/1p1b1pp1/pPp1p1np/P1PpP1b1/3P4/1Q3N1P/1B1NBPP1/R3R1K1 w Qkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17193" LastEditorUserId="18168" LastEditDate="2019-06-05T22:53:16.060" LastActivityDate="2019-06-06T22:38:34.080" Title="Is White controlling this game?" Tags="&lt;positional-play&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24665" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24664" CreationDate="2019-06-05T14:28:58.583" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, white is better in this position, because it controls more space. The black position is somewhat cramped, particularly the queenside pieces (Bd7, Nb8, Ra8) are difficult to develop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The queenside pawns are blocked so the play is going to happen on the kingside. (there might be some tactical ideas for white in the far future related to a piece sacrifice on a6 or c6 creating a strong passed pawn on b6; but for the time being nothing is going to happen on the queenside.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Typical plans for white in this position: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;quickly move pieces to the kingside before black can develop any counterplay&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;potentially exchange the active black pieces (such as Bg5).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;create a pawn break/pawn storm with f4-f5 at some point&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Typical plans for black:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;develop queenside pieces&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;create some kind of counterplay (perhaps playing f6 at some point later on, without weakening the e6 pawn or kingside pawn structure; having played h6 already is rather bad in this case)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Without giving any concrete lines it seems to me that the white plan is much easier to achieve than black's&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2019-06-05T14:28:58.583" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24666" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24664" CreationDate="2019-06-05T14:34:28.940" Score="8" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Which side is in a better position here : white or black ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White is clearly better since he controls more space and is more developed than black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is White controlling this game as all rook, knight, bishop, queen are&#xA;  in open position now?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No, White is not controlling the game. There is still all to play for because the queenside is completely blocked and although White's pieces are all developed, as in &quot;off their starting squares&quot;, they are not co-ordinated well and are not on very good squares. White needs to regroup his pieces before he is ready to launch an attack. If he allows the kingside to become as blocked as the queenside then it will be a draw. White should not be in a rush to advance his kingside pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What are the chances for black to come back?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black is cramped for space. He needs to either grab more space or exchange off some pieces. However he must be careful not to exchange his best pieces, in particular his dark squared bishop, BxN would be a mistake. He also needs to complete development. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ideally he would like to castle queenside and then launch a pawn storm against white's castled king, however that would take far too long to engineer, something like Bc8, Nd7-f8, Bd7, Qe7 (NxB from white would help black, allowing QxN), 0-0-0 is 6 moves which black probably doesn't have. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is important for Black to consider White's plans and how to counter them. White's obvious next move is Bd3 to open the e rook up and to threaten the black knight on g6, thereby discouraging black from moving his f pawn. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Meanwhile either f6 or f5 is key for black to either try and counter the white center or to try and create space on the kingside for his pieces to move and develop, particularly his white-squared bishop which is currently acting like a &quot;tall pawn&quot;. Perhaps black should prepare f6 or f5 with moves like 0-0, Be8, Nd7 etc. He must find a way to bring his QR and QN into the game or else he is basically playing a rook and a knight down.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2019-06-05T14:34:28.940" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24667" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24664" CreationDate="2019-06-05T15:20:00.827" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;BLACK IS LOST!&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Plug the position into a chess engine and see the evaluation -- probably thinks White is +5 despite material being equal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It will be decades before Black can mobilize the queen-side pieces.  So in essence play can develop where White will have over-powering force on the king-side.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As White I would start with 1.g3 (which prevents Nf4), followed by Bd3 -- Black's two active pieces are in trouble.  Eventually f2-f4, g3-g4, f4-f5 with the board getting squishy from Black's squashed forces; it almost doesn't matter how White pushes on the king-side -- he just moves everything over there. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black will never break Whites Pawn wall.  Even if he gets in f7-f6 the e5 square is firmly under Whites control.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastEditorUserId="2789" LastEditDate="2019-06-05T22:02:09.920" LastActivityDate="2019-06-05T22:02:09.920" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24669" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24674" CreationDate="2019-06-05T19:49:16.603" Score="3" ViewCount="277" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 g6 6. Be3 Bg7 7. f3 O-O 8. Qd2 Nc6 9. O-O-O d5 10. exd5 Nxd5 11. Nxc6 bxc6 12. Bd4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is White's plan &amp;amp; idea behind 12. Bd4 move? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11904" LastEditorUserId="18168" LastEditDate="2019-06-05T20:42:36.197" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T16:51:11.817" Title="Sicilian Defence, Dragon Variation" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;sicilian-dragon&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24670" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24669" CreationDate="2019-06-05T20:38:23.993" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Something that instantly stands out to me is that &lt;strong&gt;12. Bd4 challenges black's strong fiancettoed bishop.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black must submit to trading pieces or weaken his bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also,&lt;strong&gt;12. Bd4 removes pressure from the c3 knight.&lt;/strong&gt; This piece is in a bit of a weak position, especially since one of its defenders is a pawn next to the king that we don't really want to move, and &lt;em&gt;definitely&lt;/em&gt; don't want to double up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, &lt;strong&gt;12. Bd4 could help white control the d-file.&lt;/strong&gt; Black's queen could step out of the way much more easily and allow the d1 rook to push the d8 queen off of the open d-file. (For example: Knight takes knight, queen takes knight, bishop takes bishop, rook takes bishop.) The queen is also free-er to move along the &quot;up-and-to-the-right&quot; diagonal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Regarding other future ideas:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A move like &lt;strong&gt;Bc4&lt;/strong&gt; might be in order soon: it develops a piece, unites the back-rank rooks, attacks a strong but weakly-defended piece, and has the chance to participate in a kingside attack, eventually. It also protects the hanging a2 pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18168" LastActivityDate="2019-06-05T20:38:23.993" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24672" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24513" CreationDate="2019-06-06T07:26:53.437" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Lc0 is fully compatible with UCI. It's strength depends a ton on what hardware it's being run on. On any hardware (tested down to Raspberry Pi), it will be superhuman (over 2900 elo). With a RTX 2060 ($200ish) it should be roughly even with SF on 8 cores (although you may need to mess with settings a bit to get it there). A 2080ti puts decently (20 or so elo) ahead of 24 cores of SF. The current MultiPV mode is only a display tweak. It isn't weaker, but it doesn't give as good analysis of the non-primary lines. If you have more questions, the best place to ask is probably the Lc0 discord.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17100" LastEditorUserId="17100" LastEditDate="2019-06-06T15:17:11.993" LastActivityDate="2019-06-06T15:17:11.993" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24673" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24863" CreationDate="2019-06-06T11:46:38.190" Score="8" ViewCount="453" Body="&lt;p&gt;As far as I know, chess was introduced at Europe from Arabia by a Spanish king: &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfonso_X_of_Castile&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Alfonso X&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I recently read &lt;a href=&quot;https://elpais.com/elpais/2019/05/23/ideas/1558625906_727993.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;an article in Spanish press&lt;/a&gt; saying the queen was also introduced as a piece in Spain.&#xA;The article says historians &lt;a href=&quot;https://everipedia.org/wiki/lang_en/govert-westerveld/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Govert Westerveld&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marilyn_Yalom&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Marilyn Yalom&lt;/a&gt; confirm it is a tribute to &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isabella_I_of_Castile&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Queen Isabella of Castille&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wonder if this article is biased (the title of the article affirms &quot;The chess queen is Spanish&quot;), as it is from my country, and there are other theories about the origin of the queen in chess than being a tribute to our known medieval queen Isabella.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user18196" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T16:44:36.810" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T16:44:36.810" Title="Historical origin of the queen as a chess piece" Tags="&lt;history&gt;&lt;queens&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24674" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24669" CreationDate="2019-06-06T12:48:41.620" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;One of the main purposes of playing f3 at the Yugoslavian attack against the dragon is to put pressure on black's king by pushing the kingside pawns (g4, h4-h5). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However the black strong bishop defender should be eliminated in order to put black's king in troubles.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Normally this is done via Bh6. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this line white is putting pressure on c3 knight, so Bh6 doesn't work. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bh6?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is the continuation of Stockfish if Bh6, winning a pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6&#xA;5. Nc3 g6 6. Be3 Bg7 7. f3 O-O 8. Qd2 Nc6&#xA;9. O-O-O d5 10. exd5 Nxd5 11. Nxc6 bxc6 12. Bh6 Nxc3&#xA;13. Bxg7 Qxd2+ 14. Rxd2 Nxa2+&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If Nxc3 bxc3 Qa5!, a classical on Dragon, starts a strong attack on queenside (Stockfish gives -8). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6&#xA;5. Nc3 g6 6. Be3 Bg7 7. f3 O-O 8. Qd2 Nc6&#xA;9. O-O-O d5 10. exd5 Nxd5 11. Nxc6 bxc6 12. Bh6 Nxc3&#xA;13. bxc3 Qa5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As said, the idea of this move is not only exchanging bishops but also reducing pressure on the diagonal; Nxc3 is a threat.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user18196" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T16:51:11.817" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T16:51:11.817" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24675" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24513" CreationDate="2019-06-06T13:18:14.460" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can't comment on hardware but will say something about Leela's strengths and weaknesses -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you look through the games from the TCEC superfinal, sometimes Leela is brilliant. For example in this position from game 61:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;r1bbnr2/pp1n1q1k/3p4/2pPp1pP/2P1PpP1/2NQ1N2/PP2BB2/2KR2R1 w - - 10 26&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stockfish (White) evaluated this as +0.63, while Leela was at -2.01. From the human point of view, I suspect most will prefer Black. That's because White has nothing on the kingside while Black is more capable of playing on the queenside. The game proved Leela right - it took a lot more moves for Stockfish to realize it was inferior, and even more moves after that for Stockfish to resign (it is a fantastic defender), but the fact that Leela saw it was superior so much earlier than Stockfish is very impressive. There are many similar games from the superfinal - Leela seems very capable of outplaying Stockfish positionally, often converting a Stockfish advantage into one of its own, even if the game eventually ends in a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another advantage of Leela is multi-PV. MCTS engines get this for free, while Stockfish (which runs on AB) needs to invest computational power. If this matters for you then that's an additional advantage for Leela.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However the infamous &quot;Leela blunder&quot; is still a thing. Take this position from game 81:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;4rr2/2pb2bk/1p1p4/2nP3P/p1P1p3/P1N1Bq2/1P3N2/1K2Q1RR w - - 2 26&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Leela just played 25...Rae8 and showed a +0.67 eval. It thinks its position is inferior, but not by that much. Its principal variation went 25. .. Rae8 26. h6 Be5 27. Rg7+ Kh8 28. Ka2 Rf7 29. Nfd1 Nd3 30. Qh4. Stockfish had the same moves, but saw that 28. Qg1! wins, and its eval shot up to +7.68 one move later. Leela remained blissfully unaware until Stockfish played Qg1, and resigned shortly afterwards. Stockfish virtually never makes this kind of one-move blunder.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another problem with Leela is that it doesn't seem to defend very well. When Stockfish loses, it defends grimly and it takes a long time for Leela to grind a win. On the other hand when Leela loses, it often implodes. In the ongoing TCEC Champions bonus, &lt;a href=&quot;https://cd.tcecbeta.club/archive.html?season=15&amp;amp;div=champions&amp;amp;game=29#/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;its loss to Houdini 3 (!!) is illustrative&lt;/a&gt;. Houdini 3 is an engine many years old, rated hundreds of elo below Stockfish (and ostensibly Leela). But Leela hated the starting position so much it managed to lose. Comparatively you would need to play hundreds if not thousands of games before Stockfish loses to Houdini 3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally a noticeable weakness of Leela's is that it isn't very good at beating inferior opponents. For example in the ongoing TCEC Champions bonus, which includes engines from many years ago, Leela is performing worse than 1-year old versions of Stockfish. In this, Leela is kind of similar to Petrosian - it doesn't win many games, but it's good in match play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the end, I think Leela is inconsistent. In some positions it's much stronger than Stockfish, and in others it's just worse. As a practical player, I'd say use both. Their relative strengths and weaknesses should be pretty apparent. As a heuristic, trust Stockfish if the position is highly tactical, or if it's an endgame. Otherwise trust Leela (but run Leela's principal variation through Stockfish to eliminate the &quot;Leela blunder&quot;). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT:&lt;/strong&gt; Will probably expand on this later, but GM Matthew Sadler wrote &lt;a href=&quot;https://tcec.chessdom.com/articles/Sufi_15_-_Sadler.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;a piece&lt;/a&gt; on the relative differences between Stockfish and Leela based on the 15th TCEC superfinal which you might find interesting (especially &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TCEC_Season_15#Games_43/44&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;games 43/44&lt;/a&gt;) In a nutshell, Stockfish is comfortable going to a slightly inferior endgame and defending endlessly, while Leela hates that playstyle and prefers to seek active play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastEditorUserId="15223" LastEditDate="2019-07-05T01:46:14.067" LastActivityDate="2019-07-05T01:46:14.067" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24676" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5681" CreationDate="2019-06-06T13:29:28.593" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;From my own expierence , I started learn chess in my 50's.  I also have dyscalcula (fancy word, it just means I don't visualize numbers so they get jumbled up for me, like how a dyslexic gets when they try to read words ).&#xA;Chess is teaching my to watch the entire board, note how my actions can affect the actions of another,  also notice how one action can have far-reaching consequences, like playing the wrong chess piece the wrong way (kinda like the chaos theory! ).  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It helps me to understand that if I want to win, I have to look at the big picture (opponents set up, potential moves, can they check me , my set up , my potential moves, can I check them ) all at the same time,   and on top of that, it's never the same game twice so I can't play on memory, I have to adjust every single time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;.......AND it's great fun too!!&#xA;Just my two cents!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19285" LastActivityDate="2019-06-06T13:29:28.593" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24677" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-06-06T15:43:23.020" Score="1" ViewCount="106" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've heard a new tournament format is being adopted in the new series of Norway Chess, where each drawn classical game is followed by an Armageddon game in order to conclude with a decisive result for each match-up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are the recommended (free) websites for following the event live other than the official coverage of the tournament? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15078" LastActivityDate="2019-06-06T15:49:46.623" Title="Options for following the Norway Chess tournament live" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;norway-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24678" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24677" CreationDate="2019-06-06T15:46:31.057" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It depends on what you are looking for (comments, video...) but if you are just are looking for the games, chessbomb has them live: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessbomb.com/arena/2019-altibox-norway-chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.chessbomb.com/arena/2019-altibox-norway-chess&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastActivityDate="2019-06-06T15:46:31.057" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24679" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24677" CreationDate="2019-06-06T15:49:46.623" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can follow the event live from various platforms, to name a few:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Chess24&lt;/strong&gt;: live broadcast of moves and engine analysis available to all&#xA;users, and the live commentary provided by Jan Gustafsson and Peter&#xA;Svidler restricted to premium members for this event.&#xA;But all broadcasts are recorded and available freely on their youtube&#xA;channel, including Peter Svidler's analysis of a game of the round.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess24.com/en/watch/live-tournaments/altibox-norway-chess-2019/5/1/1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess24's page for current round&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/user/chess24media/search?query=Norway%20Chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Related uploaded videos on their youtube channel&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Lichess&lt;/strong&gt;: also provides the live broadcast of moves via its dedicated&#xA;study page for each round of the tournament. The advantage is more&#xA;freedom to customize the engine analysis while following a game and also more suitable for following the moves live from your phone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/broadcast/norway-chess-2019-round-3/qo1ItVY1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Dedicated study page for current round&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Miscellaneous&lt;/strong&gt;: There are also various streams providing commentary for the event (see e.g. the twitch page of chess streams), among them is the chessbrah channel having Yasser Seirawan and Nils Grandelius currently as guests. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.twitch.tv/directory/game/Chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Twitch page of live chess streams&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.twitch.tv/chessbrah&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chessbrah channel&lt;/a&gt;, with invited guests providing live commentary.  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So there's plenty to choose from given what you're most interested in.&#xA;If there's one thing I would definitely recommend, is to watch Peter&#xA;Svidler's post analysis videos of the game of the round&#xA;as they are highly instructive and fun. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/user/chess24media/search?query=peter%20svidler&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;All of his uploaded sessions on chess24's YT&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/user/chess24media/search?query=Norway%20chess%20peter%20svidler&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Restricted to the Norway Chess event&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3594" LastActivityDate="2019-06-06T15:49:46.623" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24680" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24669" CreationDate="2019-06-06T16:02:43.100" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the line with 9.0-0-0 d5, by contrast with 9.Bc4 or 9.0-0-0 Bd7, the center gets open and White is more often aiming for play in the center than on the h-file.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White wants to neutralize the strong Bg7 and any possible counterplay on the b-file and exploit the weaknesses on c6, c5, d6 and the open d-file.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After the usual 12...e5 (12...Bxd4 13.Qxd4 Qb6 is more solid but passive) 13.Bc5 Be6!, White does best not to take the offered exchange but to build up her pressure with Ne4, Kb1, Bc4, and often g4-h4 and/or b3-a4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black chances are linked with threats against a2 or b2 or activating his pawn majority on the kingside with ...f7-f5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Fixing the pawn structure, even by closing the kingside (g4-g5 met by ...h6-h5) is good for White because Black would lack levers to create counterplay and White minor pieces all have good active and safe posts near the d-file: c4,c5,e4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A dream scenario for White:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 g6 6. Be3 Bg7 7. f3 O-O 8. Qd2 Nc6 9. O-O-O d5 10. exd5 Nxd5 11. Nxc6 bxc6 12. Bd4 e5 13.Bc5 Be6 14.Ne4 Re8 15.h4 h6 16.g4 a5 17.g5 h5 18.Bc4 Nf4 19.Qc3 Qc7 20.a4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastEditorUserId="14079" LastEditDate="2019-06-10T09:56:08.750" LastActivityDate="2019-06-10T09:56:08.750" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24682" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19785" CreationDate="2019-06-06T18:44:54.287" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The strongest circumstantial evidence I know of is from Alfonso X's &lt;a href=&quot;https://games.rengeekcentral.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Libro de los Juegos (&amp;quot;Game Book&amp;quot;)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt; from the year 1283.  It has a description of a chess variant played on a 12x12 board with 8 different types of pieces, and describes how to make 8-sided dice as an optional part of the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It also mentions a 10x10 variant with 7 different pieces, and how to make/use 7-sided dice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So playing chess with dice wasn't unthinkable.  Since they went to the trouble of describing new dice for the new variants, it makes me suspect that using 6-sided dice for 'normal' chess had to be at least moderately common.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17411" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2020-10-28T07:29:32.157" LastActivityDate="2020-10-28T07:29:32.157" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24683" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14795" CreationDate="2019-06-06T20:25:40.557" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here’s a complete list just for reference.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In summary, a windmill, known as a zwickmühle in German, is series of checks and discovered checks. with two pieces that are used on a piece, most often the King, to gain material.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are two &amp;quot;rules&amp;quot; on how they work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The stationary piece is one with infinite range. It will be a bishop, rook, or queen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The moving piece does not attack along the same direction as the stationary piece. This means that a vertical/horizontal stationary would have a diagonal mover, and a vertical/horizontal stationary has a vertical mover. However, kings and knights can be used for both horizontal/vertical and stationery pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I shall show chess problems that utilize all windmill types. There are two categories based on the stationary piece's attacking lines, which are vertical/horizontal and diagonal. The moving piece is listed first followed by the stationary piece. Just for fun, all will be winning examples.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Vertical/horizontal Stationery Pieces&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bishop+Rook&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Alfred O. Karlström, Die Schwalbe 02/1940, Mate In 13&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;k2K2n1/Bp6/1p6/1pp5/R2p4/4p3/5p2/6b1 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Ra2 Bh2 2. Bxb6+ Kb8 3. Ba7+ Ka8 4. Bxc5+ Kb8 5. Ba7+ Ka8 6. Bxd4+ Kb8 7.  Ba7+ Ka8 8. Bxe3+ Kb8 9. Ba7+ Ka8 10. Bxf2+ Kb8 11. Ba7+ Ka8 12. Bg1+ Kb8 13.  Bxh2#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;https://pdb.dieschwalbe.de/P1226245&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;The Die Schwalbe Chess Problem Database&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bishop+Queen&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Ārons Ņimcovičs, Unknown Publication 1925, Mate In 13&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;4r1k1/5p2/R5BQ/5p2/4p3/3n4/b1n4K/br6 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Bh7+ Kh8 2. Bxf5+ Kg8 3. Bh7+ Kh8 4. Bxe4+ Kg8 5. Bh7+ Kh8 6. Bxd3+ Kg8 7.  Bh7+ Kh8 8. Bxc2+ Kg8 9. Bh7+ Kh8 10. Bxb1+ Kg8 11. Rg6+ fxg6 12. Bxa2+ Re6 13. Bxe6#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.yacpdb.org/#328129&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yet Another Chess Problem Database&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Knight+Rook/Queen&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See Mike Jone’s &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/14796/15543&quot;&gt;answer.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Diagonal Stationery Pieces&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Rook+Bishop/Queen&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Josef Krejcik, Wiener Schachzeitung 2/1925 On Pages 41-42, White Wins&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;5nk1/nbnbnbrR/6bn/6n1/6b1/2B3n1/1K4b1/r5n1 w KQkq - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Rxg7+ Kh8 2. Rxf7+ Kg8 3. Rg7+ Kh8 4. Rxe7+ Kg8 5. Rg7+ Kh8 6. Rxd7+ Kg8 7.  Rg7+ Kh8 8. Rxc7+ Kg8 9. Rg7+ Kh8 10. Rxb7+ Kg8 11. Rg7+ Kh8 12. Rxa7+ Kg8 13.  Rg7+ Kh8 14. Rxg6+ Kh7 15. Rg7+ Kh8 16. Rxg5+ Kh7 17. Rg7+ Kh8 18. Rxg4+ Kh7 19.  Rg7+ Kh8 20. Rxg3+ Kh7 21. Rg7+ Kh8 22. Rxg2+ Kh7 23. Rg7+ Kh8 24. Rxg1+ Kh7 25. Rg7+ Kh8 26. Kxa1 Nh7 27. Rg6+ Nf6 28. Rxh6+ Kg7 29. Rxf6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/extra/seesaw.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Edward Winter’s Chess Notes article entitled &amp;quot;The Chess Seesaw&amp;quot;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Knight+Bishop/Queen&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;M. Kwiatkowski, The Problemist 1992, Mate In 29&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;3n4/rBp1p3/2P5/2PK4/k2N4/pp2R3/bppB2Rp/q1n1r1b1 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Rg4 h1=Q+ 2. Nf3+ Kb5 3. Rb4+ Ka5 4. Rbe4+ Kb5 5. Nd4+ Ka4 6. Ne2+ Kb5 7. Nc3+ Ka5 8. Nxa2+ Kb5 9. Nc3+ Ka5 10. Ne2+ Kb5 11. Nd4+ Ka4 12. Nf3+ Kb5 13. Rb4+ Ka5 14. Rbxb3+ Ka4 15. Rb4+ Ka5 16. Rbe4+ Kb5 17. Nd4+ Ka4 18. Ne2+ Kb5 19. Nc3+ Ka5 20. Na2+ Kb5 21. Ba6+ Rxa6 22. Nc3+ Ka5 23. Ne2+ Kb5 24. Nd4+ Ka4 25. Nf3+ Kb5 26. Rb4+ Ka5 27. Rb6+ Ka4 28. Rxa6+ Kb5 29. Ra5#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;https://timkr.home.xs4all.nl/chess2/diary14txt.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Tim Krabbe's Website Diary Entry #270&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;King+Bishop/Queen&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See Noam D. Elkies's &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/15299/15543&quot;&gt;answer.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-02-09T01:04:36.973" LastActivityDate="2021-02-09T01:04:36.973" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24684" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24664" CreationDate="2019-06-06T22:38:34.080" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;White has a much better position, but all is not lost for black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;...   BxN!&#xA;NxN   O-O&#xA;NB3   PB3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White's position still looks better, but black's not too far behind.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;BQ1   PB4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and black has enough time to maneuver his pieces over. Best he can hope for is a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8063" LastActivityDate="2019-06-06T22:38:34.080" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24685" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24714" CreationDate="2019-06-07T00:21:00.080" Score="12" ViewCount="1101" Body="&lt;p&gt;As I understand the so-called &lt;a href=&quot;http://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Fishtesting&lt;/a&gt;, people write patches, then try the patches against the current version of Stockfish. If the new version performs better, it's promoted to be the main version; otherwise it's rejected.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Question: why test against the current version of Stockfish? It's worked in the past, and current Stockfish is a lot stronger than two-year old Stockfish. However, we can also see limitations to this approach. Although Stockfish is now capable of utterly destroying other traditional engines, it also recently lost the TCEC S15 superfinal against Leela. Therefore, why not test each new version against Leela? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The obvious answer is that Fishtesting's resources come from CPUs, and Leela is awful on CPU. However that shouldn't be fatal: one could just give Leela more time, e.g. with Stockfish running on 10s per game, give Leela 100s per game or whatever time odds are necessary to get the Leela ratio to the ratio in the superfinal. This will certainly slow down Fishtesting, but if it leads to an engine that can beat Leela in a match, that might still be worth it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastActivityDate="2020-06-04T03:48:28.520" Title="Why does Fishtesting test Stockfish against itself, not other engines?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24686" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24685" CreationDate="2019-06-07T04:27:42.847" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;The point of fishtesting is to test if a newer version of Stockfish has become &lt;em&gt;stronger&lt;/em&gt;. The definition of stronger is it beating its previous version.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure how testing each new version against an engine like Leela would help. Your idea might be only accepting a new version of Stockfish if it performs better against Leela than the previous version of Stockfish did. So now each version of Stockfish is guaranteed to play better against Leela, but not guaranteed to be a better chess player overall. The reason is that Stockfish could rely on certain characteristics in Leela's play to win more games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT - I thought of an example that might help here. Suppose you were rated 1500 a few years ago, and now you're 1800. If you played your past self in a match it's clear you would win. But for the sake of argument it's possible your 1500-self would perform better against Kasparov than your current 1800 self. Maybe the 1500-self was less conservative and took way more risks. This manages to beat Kasparov in a rare game, while your current 1800 self would lose every time (yet the games would be slightly closer on average).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastEditorUserId="12873" LastEditDate="2019-06-07T04:58:01.823" LastActivityDate="2019-06-07T04:58:01.823" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24687" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24140" CreationDate="2019-06-07T12:42:07.563" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just to add a note of interest for the people of CSE (excluding Hauke of course who knows of this), here's the current known &lt;strong&gt;record of 32 plies&lt;/strong&gt; by  Geir Sune Tallaksen Østmoe, borrowed from the question's linked Matplus forums.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The question is asking for the longest, or an example of, series of both sides that are the only drawing move that is dual free in a position without promoted pieces. This is under the &amp;quot;Nunn Convention,&amp;quot; which, to my understanding, means that there must be at least one other legal moves, and pawn promotions count as duals.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I do not know of any studies myself, but perhaps I will find something someday. I if I do, I shall update this answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, here is that 32 ply record, from post number 19.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Geir Sune Tallaksen Østmoe, Matplus.net Forum 8/9/2019, White To Draw&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;k1B5/r1p1p2b/nPPP2R1/BN2b1R1/2P2qp1/p7/P3P2P/6Kn w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Bb7+ Rxb7 2. Rg8+ Bxg8 3. Rxg8+ Nb8 4. Rxb8+ Kxb8 5. bxc7+ Rxc7 6. dxc7+ Bxc7  7. Bxc7+ Qxc7 8. Nxc7 Kxc7 9. Kxh1 Kxc6 10. Kg2 Kc5 11. Kg3 Kxc4 12. Kxg4 Kc3  13. h4 Kb2 14. h5 Kxa2 15. h6 Kb1 16. h7 a2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-01-12T00:57:13.600" LastActivityDate="2021-01-12T00:57:13.600" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24688" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2868" CreationDate="2019-06-07T12:43:55.040" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would like to point another way for Black to try and hold to the dark squared bishop, without allowing doubled pawns on f6. I believe that 1...Bd8 would be a reasonnable choice in that difficult position, but White still seems winning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;2r3k1/1b2bppp/p4n2/1p1p1NB1/8/4P3/PP2NPPP/3R2K1 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1...Bd8 2.Nd6 Rc7 3.Nb7 Rb7 4.Bf6 Bf6 5.Rd5 Rc7 6.Rd2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Capablanca's win against Spielmann in a similar endgame is famous.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastActivityDate="2019-06-07T12:43:55.040" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24689" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24685" CreationDate="2019-06-07T13:48:00.263" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Inertial is correct. I should also add there was no strong open source engine before LC0. Both Komodo and Houdini had licensing restriction.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2019-06-07T13:48:00.263" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24690" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24695" CreationDate="2019-06-07T18:38:09.653" Score="2" ViewCount="364" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Bxc6 dxc6 5. Nc3 f6 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Theory recommends 5. ... f6. Why? What is the specific reason behind this move? How this move helps Black? Other than 5. ... f6, are there any other good moves available for Black? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11904" LastEditorUserId="9025" LastEditDate="2019-06-07T20:47:42.943" LastActivityDate="2019-06-09T04:47:53.527" Title="Ruy Lopez, Exchange Variation" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;ruy-lopez&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24691" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24690" CreationDate="2019-06-07T19:07:36.067" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;White is threatening to take the pawn on e5. It couldn't take it with 5.Nxe5 because, since the pawn on d4 is undefended, Black can immediately get it back with ...Qd4 6.Nf3 Qxe4+. Or Black could also consider ...Qg5 followed by ...Qxg2. With 5.Nc3, the e4 pawn is defended, making the threat of taking on e5 more serious. If you look at games between highly rated players, 5...f6 is indeed the most popular move, but there are other alternatives that are also fairly frequent, such as ...Qd6 and ...Bd6. I'm pasting below the table from the lichess opening book. If you look at all the popular moves (say those with more than 10 games), they all defend the pawn one way or another (in the case of 5...Bc5 it is a bit tactical).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Sbcet.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Sbcet.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That said, I don't know why defending with ...f6 is the most popular. It is simple and solid, I suppose (maybe they prefer to defend a pawn with a pawn to give more freedom to the pieces?). If you go by results, protecting the pawn with the queen or bishop (the second and third choices above) are also fairly common moves and actually have a higher frequency of wins for Black (but also for White!).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12523" LastEditorUserId="12523" LastEditDate="2019-06-07T19:14:54.067" LastActivityDate="2019-06-07T19:14:54.067" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24692" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24694" CreationDate="2019-06-08T12:15:04.050" Score="10" ViewCount="1110" Body="&lt;p&gt;I find Na5 a good resource for black in this line of the french, profiting from the fact that white's b-pawn is binned to the bishop. As far as I can understand this position with my limited chess, I find it a strong move, winning space on queenside with the plan of trying Bd7-Rc8-Nc4 on c-file. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;r1b1kbnr/pp3ppp/1qn1p3/2ppP3/3P4/2P2N2/PP3PPP/RNBQKB1R w KQkq - 3 6&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;6. a3 Nh6 7. b4 cxd4 8. cxd4 Nf5&#xA;9. Bb2 Na5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I don't find this move at the database of chesstempo I use to use for my correspondence games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/KgH7C.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/KgH7C.png&quot; alt=&quot;chesstempo database before Na5&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stockfish neither considers it. It even don't play 10....Nbd2 (it plays Nc3) to defend on c4 (which I would expect), and doesn't wonder at all about Nc4 (it simply trades his bishop for the knight; apparently it should result an advantage on the center).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What's my misunderstanding here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user18196" LastEditorUserId="18168" LastEditDate="2019-06-08T12:23:11.333" LastActivityDate="2019-06-08T17:05:44.050" Title="Why is Na5 not played in this line of the French Defense, Advance Variation?" Tags="&lt;positional-play&gt;&lt;french-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24693" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24692" CreationDate="2019-06-08T12:53:31.623" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Nbd2 --&gt; Nc4 plan to protect the bishop doesn't work because c4 is attacked by black's pawn. Stockfish takes a more direct route to kick the pin:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;r1b1kb1r/pp3ppp/1q2p3/n2pPn2/1P1P4/P4N2/1B3PPP/RN1QKB1R w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Nc3 {White can kick the pin in a moment.} (1. Nbd2 {This move also poorly develops the knight - and as you can see, c4 is covered anyway.}) 1...Bd7 2. Na4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And the pin is already gone. Na5 didn't really do anything in the first place. It was interesting while it lasted, but that wasn't long. It wasn't exactly a &lt;em&gt;bad&lt;/em&gt; move, even (lichess would call it an &quot;inaccuracy,&quot; I'd wager); however, there are better ideas here, such as the simple developing move Bd7.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18168" LastActivityDate="2019-06-08T12:53:31.623" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24694" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24692" CreationDate="2019-06-08T17:05:44.050" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;The plan you outlined with ...Bd7, ...Rc8, ...Nc4 is a good strategical plan, but there are a few concrete reasons it doesn't work well:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In the opening you should be focusing on developing all your pieces and castling. Your plan with maneuvering the knight to c4 will move the same piece three times.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;At depth 33, Stockfish gives 10.Nc3 Bd7 11.Rb1!, breaking the pin on the b2-bishop and attacking the a5-knight. Now you have to move the knight before your a8-rook manages to reach c8. If you go ahead with 11...Nc4 then 12.Bxc4 dxc4 is poor for you. Your new pawn on c4 is mainly a weakness at the moment, and White may blast open the centre with d5 to attack your uncasted king.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Also, White could always play 10.Qa4+. If you block with 10...Bd7 then 11.Qxa5 wins the knight. So you have to respond with retreating the knight: 10...Nc6.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-06-08T17:05:44.050" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24695" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24690" CreationDate="2019-06-08T17:14:43.637" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not only does 5...f6 protect the e5-pawn, but it also resists against White pushing his own pawn to e5 (if Black's e5-pawn gets exchanged off).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Consider the main line of 5...Bd6: 6.d4 exd4 7.Qxd4. Now White's threatening e5, along with Qxg7. Black's only move to maintain the balance is thus 7...f6. So he ends up having to play the move anyway, but perhaps under less favourable circumstances.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Comparatively: 5...f6 6.d4 exd4 7.Qxd4 Qxd4 8.Nxd4 sees Black exchanging off the queens, making it much safer for his king (which is still a fair number of moves away from castling).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All this being said, 5...Bd6 is completely playable, along with 5...Bc5 and 5...Bg4. But 5...f6 is simply the most solid and safest way to reinforce the e5-pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Funny side note, on live book someone let Stockfish somehow think to depth 53, and it gives 5...f6 as the best move with an evaluation of -0.18.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-06-08T17:14:43.637" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24696" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24690" CreationDate="2019-06-09T04:47:53.527" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think it has more to do with the surviving bishop for white. Since it covers black squares then this move indeed closes the board for that bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19300" LastActivityDate="2019-06-09T04:47:53.527" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24697" PostTypeId="6" CreationDate="2019-06-09T10:53:31.087" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm Brian Towers and I'd like to be one of your moderators.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Why me?&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I already do a lot of moderation on the site, reflected in the&#xA;moderation badges I have.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I'm retired so have plenty of time to visit the site several times&#xA;most days.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I'm the top user by reputation. This shows that I have the knowledge&#xA;and expertise needed to make the right fact-based moderation&#xA;judgements.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I'm an active chess player. As well as playing local chess I play&#xA;international chess tournaments as well. In the last year I have&#xA;played in both the Isle of Man and Gibraltar tournaments.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I'm an active FIDE arbiter. I have been chief arbiter in a range of&#xA;FIDE rated tournaments ranging from local blitzes to international&#xA;norm events with several GMs and IMs.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I post under my own name so users can check &lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/card.phtml?event=2808617&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;my public record&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-06-09T10:53:31.087" LastActivityDate="2019-06-09T10:53:31.087" CommentCount="0" CommunityOwnedDate="2019-06-09T10:53:31.087" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24698" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-06-10T16:49:17.993" Score="2" ViewCount="222" Body="&lt;p&gt;In ChessBase I use the Mega Database as my reference database when in a board. However, I recently downloaded a Correspondence database and would like to look up positions in it as well. Is there a way I can easily use both reference databases when in a board?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So far what I'm doing is keeping the Mega Database as my default Reference, and for the Correspondence Database I: right click on it --&gt; click opening reference --&gt; and another board pops up where I can look up things in it. However, this is a bit inconvenient since I must keep tabbing between the two boards and manually making the same moves on each of them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T20:49:09.870" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T20:49:09.870" Title="ChessBase: how to efficiently use two reference database simultaneously" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;database&gt;&lt;chessbase&gt;&lt;correspondence-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24699" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2806" CreationDate="2019-06-10T20:33:21.170" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;After some searching, it turns out that this monster is very much a real chess problem. The official name for it is  &amp;quot;The Obelisk.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The earliest known reference I have found is from February of 1882, mere weeks after its publication. Bizarrely, it comes from an Australian magazine. The site I found it on is &lt;a href=&quot;https://trove.nla.gov.au/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;trove.nla.gov.au&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It appears in 1882, February 25th edition of the South Australian Weekly Chronicle, published in Adelaide, on &lt;a href=&quot;https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/page/8726663#&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;page 25&lt;/a&gt;. It is part of an overall review of Brentano's January 1882 issue.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is a clipping of the relevant section to read for yourself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/GfA5L.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/GfA5L.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also found mention of it in &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.google.com/books/edition/American_Chess_Review/y6uBo98GjoUC?hl&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&amp;quot;American Chess Review, Volume 1, Issues 1-6&amp;quot;&lt;/a&gt; (readable on Google books) from 1886, just four years after the original publication in Brentano's Chess Monthly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The information is given in the middle of the page. The position itself is given near the end of the page in descriptive notation (link to Wikipedia](&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Descriptive_notation&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Descriptive_notation&lt;/a&gt;)). Note that the &amp;quot;S&amp;quot; is German notation for the knight; it was semi-standard back then.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/4SbOp.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/4SbOp.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are later sources.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess Review 1936, issue 37 page 17; viewable online in the US Chess Federation &lt;a href=&quot;https://new.uschess.org/chess-life-digital-archives&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;online archive&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Curious Chess Facts, by Irving Chernev, 1937&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Wonders and Curiosities of Chess, page 205, by Irving Chernev, 1974&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Complete Chess Addict, by Mike Fox &amp;amp; Richard James, 1987&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Even More Complete Chess Addict, by Mike Fox &amp;amp; Richard James, 1994&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unsurpingsly, there is no solution given anywhere at all. The reason for this is that the magazine ceased publication soon after the mate in 1220 printed. Thus, another edition with the solution was never made.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for how to interpret the stipulation, I believe it is very simple. Wite forces the Black knight to visit each and every square three times. Then White gives checkmates. Most of the moves come from White's piece dancing around in order to do said forcing. If anyone is crazy to try and solve it, they will surely find a much shorter solution than whatever Otto Blathy had in mind.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-05-02T02:48:20.020" LastActivityDate="2021-05-02T02:48:20.020" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24700" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23863" CreationDate="2019-06-11T02:30:42.253" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found the solution to the 16.5 massacre proof game that Remellion mentioned that Francois Labelle had &lt;a href=&quot;https://wismuth.com/chess/problems-massacre.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;found&lt;/a&gt; using a computer search! Well to be more accurate, I found a computer program that found the solution. But it is amazing nonetheless!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I discovered the &lt;a href=&quot;http://wismuth.com/jacobi/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jacobi Fairy Chess Helpgame solver,&lt;/a&gt; made by Francois Labelle himself. Here is the code that you can use yourself to find all 25 possible games that end on this position: stipulation dia16.5 forsyth 8/5k2/8/8/8/8/5K2/8. It does take around 15 minutes to complete, however.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is one of the many solutions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 d5 2. exd5 Qxd5 3. Bd3 Qxa2 4. Bxh7 Qxb2 5. Rxa7 Qxc1 6. Rxb7 Qxb1 7. Qxb1  Rxh7 8. Rxc7 Rxh2 9. Qxb8 Rxg2 10. Rxe7+ Kxe7 11. Qxc8 Rxg1+ 12. Rxg1 Rxc8 13. Rxg7 Rxc2 14. Rxg8 Rxd2 15. Rxf8 Rxf2 16. Rxf7+ Kxf7 17. Kxf2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-11-29T19:18:31.253" LastActivityDate="2020-11-29T19:18:31.253" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24701" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8781" CreationDate="2019-06-11T12:10:12.180" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the &lt;a href=&quot;http://matplus.net/start.php?px=1584295518&amp;amp;app=forum&amp;amp;act=posts&amp;amp;fid=xshowm&amp;amp;tid=2324&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Matplus.net forums,&lt;/a&gt;, Arpad Rusz shared the longest such sequence in a 6-piece position. The length of it is ply or 9.5 moves, or 19 plies.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can check the uniqueness for yourself by using the &lt;a href=&quot;https://syzygy-tables.info/?fen=3k4/8/8/p4pP1/3K3P/8/8/8_w_-_-_0_1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Sygyzy tablebases.&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;3k4/8/8/p4pP1/3K3P/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. h5 Ke7 2. h6 Kf7 3. Ke5 Kg6 4. Ke6 f4 5. h7 Kxh7 6. Kf7 f3 7. g6+ Kh6 8. g7 f2 9. g8=Q f1=Q+ 10. Ke7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-05-02T05:09:36.177" LastActivityDate="2021-05-02T05:09:36.177" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24703" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24698" CreationDate="2019-06-11T14:47:08.907" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is there a way I can easily use both reference databases when in a&#xA;  board?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The obvious way is to create a new database by merging MegaBase and your correspondence database and use this new database as your reference database.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2019-06-11T14:47:08.907" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24704" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24544" CreationDate="2019-06-11T18:44:36.120" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Thank to Bojan Basic, who responded to my thread on the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.matplus.net/start.php?px=1560259404&amp;amp;app=forum&amp;amp;act=posts&amp;amp;fid=gen&amp;amp;tid=2304&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Matplus.net forum&lt;/a&gt;, I now know what the knight problem is. But the bishop problem still remains unseen, it seems.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is Henrik's Juel predecessor problem. It can be found in the &lt;a href=&quot;https://pdb.dieschwalbe.de/P0009134&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Die Schwable Chess Problem Database Server.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Henrik Juel, Probleemblad 1/1999, Add a king and 9 Black knights for a mate in one&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;n7/7P/P7/8/8/1PKPP1P1/2P2P2/1N1N4 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is the improved problem that Guus Rol created. It is also in the &lt;a href=&quot;https://pdb.dieschwalbe.de/P1298977&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Die Schwable Chess Problem Database Server.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Henrik Juel &amp;amp; Guus Rol, Probleemblad 05/1999, 4th Honorable Mention, Add a king and 10 Black knights for a mate in one&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;8/7P/8/P7/6K1/1P1PP1P1/2P2P2/2NN4 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lastly, although it is not the 10 bishops problem, this problem is a nice one that captures the essence of it what it may be. Once more, it is in the &lt;a href=&quot;https://pdb.dieschwalbe.de/P0008936&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Die Schwable Chess Problem Database Server.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Henrik Juel. Probleemblad, 5/1997, Add a mating bishop&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;b3B3/1k1B3B/7b/1B3b1B/B6b/3b1K1b/7B/1BbBbbB1 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-04-29T21:46:28.503" LastActivityDate="2021-04-29T21:46:28.503" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24705" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24685" CreationDate="2019-06-11T20:23:26.140" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'll agree in the main with @inertialignorance but I'd like to clarify the position a bit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When human plays human, the result of one game is relatively meaningless, given the extreme variability of human play. (I'll use Kasparov v Deep Blue as an example of that variability -- on a good day &lt;em&gt;I&lt;/em&gt; probably could have beaten Kasparov in the game he blundered away against DB.) So let's just ignore humanity in this and concentrate on the machine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Machines play at a far more consistent level of skill than humans. Therefore a single game means more, and a series of games means a lot. So it makes sense to test the proposed Stockfish improvement against a machine. But why Stockfish?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Simply because there's no way to quantify &quot;does better against Leela&quot; in any meaningful way. It could do better, and still lose. But what's the standard for better, in that case? How do you prove it played better? I can't see a viable standard.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's far simpler to prove Stockfish prime is an improvement over Stockfish original by simply playing a set of games and counting the results.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edward Deming maintained that it was of prime importance to chose the correct metric, because you only know you improve because of what you measure. So ask the question: What is the purpose of the process? Why are you proposing a patch for Stockfish?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it really the ultimate goal of the patch to beat Leela? Or is it rather to make Stockfish play better chess? I'd say it's the latter. Beating Leela will come on its own if only Stockfish continues to improve enough.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, an incremental improvement path for Stockfish could come to a plateau. Even so, the only verifiable path off that plateau will lie in making changes to it that make it better. If an approach &quot;hits a wall,&quot; then a continual search for improvements will dictate another path. If a proposed alternate path can't beat the current path, why choose it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="657" LastActivityDate="2019-06-11T20:23:26.140" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24706" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24088" CreationDate="2019-06-13T01:18:40.413" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Addendum 1/9/2021: In a Computer Chess Club archives &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.stmintz.com/ccc/index.php?id=174242&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;page&lt;/a&gt; that I came across today, I found some holy grails! The thread author Eduard Nemeth posted four proof games, all from 1997 and by Zoltan Blazsik, for 18 queens and 20 rook, bishops, and knights.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The bishop and knight games are faster than mine-new records! However, my 104 ply for 20 rooks remains untouched.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;20 Knights-100 Ply, Zoltan Blazsik, 1997, Non-Unique Proof Game In 50.0 Moves&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;[startply &amp;quot;100&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. h4 g5 2. h5 g4 3. h6 Bg7 4. Rh3 gxh3 5. hxg7 h5 6. b4 a5 7. b5 Ra6 8. bxa6 a4 9. a7 a3 10. Bb2 axb2 11. a4 h2 12. g4 e5 13. f4 d5 14. e4 Be6 15. f5 h4 16. fxe6 f5 17. g5 h3 18. c4 Qd6 19. c5 f4 20. cxd6 c5 21. Bc4 dxc4 22. d4 c3 23. d5 c4 24. Qd4 exd4 25. a5 bxa1=N 26. a8=N c2 27. a6 c1=N 28. a7 c3 29. gxh8=N b5 30. Nb6 b4 31. a8=N b3 32. Na3 b2 33. e5 b1=N 34. g6 Na2 35. g7 Nh6 36. g8=N c2 37. d7+ Kf8 38. d8=N c1=N 39. e7+ Kg7 40. d6 h1=N 41. d7 h2 42. Nb7 d3 43. d8=N d2+ 44. Kf1 f3 45. e8=N+ Kh7 46. e6 f2 47. Kg2 d1=N 48. Nec7 f1=N 49. e7 Nhf2 50. e8=N h1=N&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;20 Bishops-100 Ply, Zoltan Blazsik, 1997, Non-Unique Proof Game In 50.0 Moves&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;[startply &amp;quot;100&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. a4 b5 2. a5 c5 3. Ra3 b4 4. d4 Qb6 5. axb6 a5 6. d5 Nc6 7. dxc6 bxa3 8. b4 a4 9. b5 c4 10. Nd2 c3 11. e4 f5 12. e5 Nf6 13. exf6 f4 14. g4 h5 15. g5 Rh6 16. gxh6 g5 17. h7 g4 18. h4 g3 19. Qg4 hxg4 20. h5 g2 21. h6 gxh1=B 22. Ne2 f3 23. h8=B fxe2 24. f4 g3 25. b7 g2 26. f5 e5 27. bxa8=B cxd2+ 28. Kf2 a2 29. c4 a1=B 30. b6 d5 31. b7 d4 32. c7 g1=B+ 33. Kg3 a3 34. c5 a2 35. b8=B Ba6 36. c8=B Bb2 37. c6 a1=B 38. Bcb7 d1=B 39. c7 Bb3 40. c8=B d3 41. f7+ Kd8 42. f6 Bb4 43. f8=B d2 44. Bc5 e1=B+ 45. Bf2 d1=B 46. f7 e4 47. h7 e3 48. Bg7 e2 49. h8=B Bed2 50. f8=B e1=B&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks to Remellion's comment that getting 16 passed pawns first isn't necessary, I shaved 2 plies off 20 knights.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Addendum 11/29/2020-With a Black king maneuver, another ply is gone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;20 Knights-101 Ply, me, chess.stackexchange.com 11/29/2020, Non-Unique Proof Game In 50.5 Moves&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;[startply &amp;quot;101&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. h4 a5 2. h5 a4 3. b4 g5 4. h6 a3 5. Bb2 Bg7 6. hxg7 axb2 7. a4 h5 8. Rh4 Ra5 9. bxa5 gxh4 10. g4 b5 11. g5 b4 12. g6 b3 13. c4 f5 14. c5 f4 15. c6 f3 16. Bg2 Bb7 17. cxb7 fxg2 18. gxh8=N bxa1=N 19. f4 c5 20. f5 c4 21. f6 c3 22. g7 b2 23. a6 h3 24. a7 h2 25. a8=N h1=N 26. a5 h4 27. a6 h3 28. a7 h2 29. e4 d5 30. d4 e5 31. Qf3 Qc7 32. Qf4 Qc5 33. dxc5 exf4 34. e5 d4 35. e6 d3 36. c6 d2+ 37. Ke2 f3+ 38. Ke3 f2 39. c7 c2 40. c8=N c1=N 41. e7 f1=N+ 42. Kd4 Na6 43. f7+ Kd7 44. e8=N Nh6 45. Nh3 g1=N 46. Na3 b1=N 47. Nac7 Nhg3 48. a8=N d1=N 49. b8=N+ Kd8 50. f8=N h1=N 51. g8=N&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-04-29T22:46:17.187" LastActivityDate="2021-04-29T22:46:17.187" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24707" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24708" CreationDate="2019-06-13T14:31:39.153" Score="6" ViewCount="216" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm looking for an iPhone app that will allow me to set up a chess problem and work out its solution.  I've seen apps that present me with a battery of chess problems but don't allow me to set up my own.  I've also seen apps that allow me to play chess starting from the opening position.  But I haven't seen one that will allow me to configure the board as I choose.  Admittedly I haven't tried every existing iPhone app but none of the ones I've looked at allow this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19322" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2019-06-13T15:05:22.113" LastActivityDate="2019-06-14T15:01:04.987" Title="Looking for an iPhone app for working out chess problems" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;problems&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24708" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24707" CreationDate="2019-06-13T15:07:25.853" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The only chess app on my iPhone is &lt;a href=&quot;https://apps.apple.com/us/app/stockfish-chess/id305558605&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Stockfish&lt;/a&gt;, and it has a menu option Game -&gt; Edit position where you can set up your own board. You'd also have to change the Level/Game mode to 'Two player'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/piN3g.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/piN3g.jpg&quot; width=&quot;300&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's a free app.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2019-06-13T15:07:25.853" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24709" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24400" CreationDate="2019-06-13T17:38:33.667" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;Leela works by performing an exceptionally sophisticated positional evaluation at a relatively shallow search depth, whereas most chess engines work by performing a simple evaluation at as deep a search as possible.  In theory this should produce a more positional style of play, and it does seem to be an effective strategy versus today's best conventional chess engines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So in general, the moves selected by Leela will be different from those selected by Stockfish (Irwin's reference engine) in key positions.  But the differences in move evaluation may be small from Stockfish's point of view; it's not that Stockfish thinks Leela's moves are &lt;em&gt;bad&lt;/em&gt; per se, just that it doesn't reliably choose them for itself, because it doesn't see their unique advantages relative to a move that it has deeply researched tactically.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, there are other characteristics of engine-users' play that differ from that of strong human players, and are observable and measured by Irwin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Move timing statistics are an important one, and that probably won't change with Leela.  Good human players recognise key moves, where many possibilities of nearly equal apparent strength exist, and plan ahead during them, taking more time.  Then they play quickly when their opponent responds in the way they expected, or in easy positions where there is only one obvious good (or even legal) move.  An engine user doesn't do this - for every move, they must enter the opponent's move into the engine, and wait a few seconds to see what to do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another characteristic which Irwin checks for is large variations in playing style, either between games or during a game.  A player who plays some games extremely well with very few mistakes, but then plays other games (at the same time control) rather badly with several blunders, is probably a weak player who uses an engine for his good games.  This is especially true if he seems to play his strong games against players with high ratings.  Or a player might find himself losing a game, then get out the engine, in which case he will show blunders and a declining position, followed by extremely accurate play which salvages the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In short: yes, I believe Irwin can detect engine users, even if the engine in question happens to be Leela.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19281" LastEditorUserId="19238" LastEditDate="2019-06-16T23:35:00.127" LastActivityDate="2019-06-16T23:35:00.127" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24710" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15332" CreationDate="2019-06-13T17:54:36.600" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Most games published for human study are written in short algebraic notation.  For each move, the destination square is always specified, the moving piece is specified unless it's a pawn (in which case the origin file is specified for captures only), and if there's any ambiguity the origin rank and/or file is given to resolve it.  Captures are indicated by inserting 'x' before the destination square.  Promotion is indicated using eg. &amp;quot;=Q&amp;quot; suffix.  Additional suffixes are used to indicate check, mate, and move quality.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Long algebraic notation is just like the above, except that the origin square is always exactly specified, and usually a '-' is inserted in place of the 'x' for non-captures.  So Re1 might become Ra1-e1.  The same suffixes are used, and castling is still specified using O-O type notation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;English descriptive notation is somewhat more arcane, and may specify only the piece identities if the resulting move is unambiguous, eg. RxB.  It is now considered obsolete, though you might find it in old literature.  I don't think it is used in any engine protocols.  The same goes for foreign-language piece name abbreviations, eg. German chess uses &lt;em&gt;Springer&lt;/em&gt; (S) instead of &lt;em&gt;Knight&lt;/em&gt; (N).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The UCI protocol uses none of the above notations, but merely specifies the origin and destination squares; the only suffix is a &lt;em&gt;single letter&lt;/em&gt; to disambiguate pawn promotions.  So exd8=N in short algebraic would become e7xd8=N in long algebraic, but e7d8n in UCI (all in lowercase).  Castling is specified by moving the king two spaces (in standard chess) or onto the corresponding rook (in 960) instead of in shorthand notation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19281" LastEditorUserId="19281" LastEditDate="2021-02-10T18:52:59.267" LastActivityDate="2021-02-10T18:52:59.267" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24711" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24400" CreationDate="2019-06-13T23:02:20.153" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately, if the cheater is smart enough, he's never going to be caught!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No matter how strong the cheat detector may be, if you only use the engine to help you out in one critical position, there is not enough data to get you caught.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, the only thing that can be proven is similarity between your play and the engine's play, which does not constitute proof of cheating&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-06-14T13:25:04.857" LastActivityDate="2019-06-14T13:25:04.857" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24712" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-06-13T23:31:47.270" Score="2" ViewCount="282" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm looking for detailed statistics exhibiting draw rate for elite players. I did find &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess-db.com/public/research/draw_rate.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.chessbase.com/post/has-the-number-of-draws-in-chess-increased&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; publications, however, they only contain aggregated data for 2600+ players, and arrive at a figure of about 55% for equal 2600+ players. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This strikes me as completely inadequate estimate as far as &lt;em&gt;elite&lt;/em&gt; players are concerend. I checked randomly some pairs of top players on chessgames.com, and the draw rate is usually more like 70% to 80% (well, for Carlsen-Ding Liren it's currently 100% with the sample of 9 games). This is consistent with the data that I got by checking some random elite tournaments - they have anywhere between 20% and 40% decisive games, most of them usually between players with larger rating difference. This is also consistent with betting odds - they indicate the probabilities of draw between 75% and 83% for the ongoing Altibox Norway chess tournament.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a detailed statistics on how a draw rate varies with (a) rating&#xA; difference and (b) average rating of the two players involved, similar to one linked above but with a detailed breakdown in the range of 2600-2800? Ideally with color breakdown, so that one can extract data such as &quot;if a 2720 player plays white against an 2770 player, then the probability of draw is such and such&quot;...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17330" LastActivityDate="2020-01-24T03:34:55.837" Title="Draw rates in classical chess between elite players?" Tags="&lt;draw&gt;&lt;statistics&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24713" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24685" CreationDate="2019-06-14T02:06:54.077" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;There appears to be a hardware reason for not making this change. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The main problem with using Leela as a sparring opponent is that Leela runs best on GPU. It's possible to run Leela on CPU, but Leela's performance suffers a lot. The OP suggests giving Leela time odds to compensate, but time odds does not work very well: Leela's performance weakens so much that the time odds required are oppressively long. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To get an idea of how much weaker Leela is on CPU, we can look at Leela in season 12 of TCEC, when it didn't have GPU support and ran on CPU. &lt;a href=&quot;https://cd.tcecbeta.club/archive.html?season=12&amp;amp;div=4&amp;amp;game=17&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Here's an example game played by Leela then&lt;/a&gt;. If one looks at the speeds it was achieving, it's about 1-3kn/s, or 1000-3000 positions per second. Comparatively, in the latest season 15 when Leela was running on powerful GPUs, it would achieve about 50kn/s (&lt;a href=&quot;https://cd.tcecbeta.club/archive.html?season=15&amp;amp;div=sf&amp;amp;game=13&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;example game&lt;/a&gt;). Therefore to be able to test Stockfish against Leela on equal terms, one needs to give Leela about 25x time odds. If Stockfish has one minute, Leela needs 25 minutes. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As of time of writing, Fishtesting tests at two time controls: 10s + 0.1s/move, and 60s + 0.6s/move (patches that pass the first, short time control test get promoted to the longer one and tested again. Patches that pass the second then become the &quot;new&quot; version). At 25x time odds, Leela needs 250s + 2.5s/move in the first time control and 1500s + 15s/move in the second time control. The slowdown is tremendous; we would effectively have Leela playing at rapid time controls and not bullet. The number of games that can be completed in unit time would also drop by about 25x. Fishtesting regularly needs tens of thousands of games to test each patch; taking 25x as long to finish each test sounds unacceptably slow.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To add fuel to the fire, as far as I know, Leela had a smaller network in season 12 - the latest nets' performance could be even slower on CPU now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's possible that someday, if Fishtesting gets the GPU resources to test with Leela, it might switch over; however we are not at that point yet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit&lt;/strong&gt;: Lc0-CPU is currently playing at TCEC. It gets about 5knps. According to some people in the chat though, Lc0-CPU is modified to play on CPU; unmodified, it is about 80x slower than it is on GPU. Therefore there's a real hardware cost to using Lc0-CPU as a testing opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastEditorUserId="15223" LastEditDate="2019-07-19T03:29:45.113" LastActivityDate="2019-07-19T03:29:45.113" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24714" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24685" CreationDate="2019-06-14T09:26:26.477" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;First of all, what does not become clear from other answers is that you of course can in principle use any opponent (with a consistent playing strength) to compare the playing strength of two versions of a program.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, there are several good reasons to test the versions directly against each other, regardless of whether you are developing Stockfish or any other engine:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The playing strength comparison of chess playing entities usually does not fulfill transitivity, i.e., if A &gt; B and B &gt; C, A &amp;lt; C is still possible. So as long as a comparison against a large pool of opponents (in order to average out the transitivity issue) is not feasible, a direct comparison should be the most reliable measurement, although you can of course have the same issue for three versions of a single program.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;By doing a direct comparison, you reduce the required number of games in testing, because you only need to run one match instead of two, and at the same time you get smaller error bars for the playing strength difference.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Testing against an opponent of (almost) equal strength maximizes the statistical sensitivity of a single game result, so you again save hardware costs. If the difference in playing strength is very high, the information/entropy of a single game is very low.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Furthermore, in the case of fishtest/Stockfish there are several concrete reasons why choosing a direct comparison was the most principled choice:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;At the time fishtest was initially developed, Leela was not available.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Using commercial engines such as Komodo and Houdini was/is not an option because of licensing issues.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Using other programs can introduce security risks as well as additional software dependencies or hardware requirements you want to avoid in a distributed computing environment.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Previous to Leela, there basically was no open source engine that was strong enough in order to get statistically significant results when matching against Stockfish.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15415" LastEditorUserId="15415" LastEditDate="2019-06-14T09:31:43.853" LastActivityDate="2019-06-14T09:31:43.853" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24715" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24707" CreationDate="2019-06-14T12:45:35.290" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Mastersoft makes a &lt;a href=&quot;https://apps.apple.com/us/app/chess-pro-ultimate-edition/id561435724&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess&lt;/a&gt; app, with similar modes to Glorfindel’s answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I do not remember if it was free. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18769" LastEditorUserId="9025" LastEditDate="2019-06-14T15:01:04.987" LastActivityDate="2019-06-14T15:01:04.987" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24716" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24717" CreationDate="2019-06-15T12:51:17.970" Score="3" ViewCount="1030" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to understand stockfish Ponder functionality. I'm very interested to let stockfish think when the opponent is thinking. From what I understand you can do it as follows&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;$&amp;gt; uci&#xA;$&amp;gt; ucinewgame&#xA;$&amp;gt; position startpos moves e2e4&#xA;$&amp;gt; go wtime 599999 btime 600000&#xA;   ... // after 2 seconds&#xA;   bestmove d8a5 ponder a2a4&#xA;$&amp;gt; go ponder wtime 599999 btime 598000&#xA;// wait for opponent --&amp;gt; a2a4 (ponderhit)&#xA;$&amp;gt; ponderhit&#xA;   bestmove a7a5 ponder b2b4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But there is also a Ponder option&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;$&amp;gt; setoption name Ponder value on&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No matter what I set it too&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;$&amp;gt; setoption name Ponder value 3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;it doesn't complain and I'm not sure what it does. The behaviour is identical, I still have to manually do &lt;code&gt;go ponder...&lt;/code&gt;. &#xA;How should I use this option and what exactly does it do?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19338" LastActivityDate="2019-06-15T13:29:49.523" Title="How to use the Ponder option in stockfish / UCI" Tags="&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;uci&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24717" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24716" CreationDate="2019-06-15T13:21:21.343" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The only purpose of the &quot;Ponder&quot; UCI option in Stockfish is to inform the engine about that you will use pondering so that it can consider this fact in its time management, as can be seen in &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/blob/46ce245763705c89dba60dcfda549dc1f64eb48b/src/timeman.cpp#L131-L132&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/blob/46ce245763705c89dba60dcfda549dc1f64eb48b/src/timeman.cpp#L131-L132&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  if (Options[&quot;Ponder&quot;])&#xA;      optimumTime += optimumTime / 4;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since the option is boolean, you should enable it by setting it to &quot;true&quot;, i.e.: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;setoption name Ponder value true&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stockfish will then use a more aggressive time management, since it knows that it will also be able to use the opponent's thinking time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is consistent with how the &lt;a href=&quot;http://wbec-ridderkerk.nl/html/UCIProtocol.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;UCI protocol&lt;/a&gt; defines the ponder option:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;        *  = Ponder, type check&#xA;            this means that the engine is able to ponder.&#xA;            The GUI will send this whenever pondering is possible or not.&#xA;            Note: The engine should not start pondering on its own if this is enabled, this option is only&#xA;            needed because the engine might change its time management algorithm when pondering is allowed.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15415" LastEditorUserId="15415" LastEditDate="2019-06-15T13:29:49.523" LastActivityDate="2019-06-15T13:29:49.523" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24718" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-06-15T15:42:16.437" Score="1" ViewCount="121" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am using CQL 5 port in SCIDvsPC 4.19, my basic working query in CQL search window currently looks like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;cql ()&#xA;initial&#xA;  {player  white &quot;Anand&quot;&#xA;   result 1-0}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How would one include FEN string in it?&#xA;Command line FEN support in version 6 as per &lt;a href=&quot;http://gadycosteff.com/cql/fen.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://gadycosteff.com/cql/fen.html&lt;/a&gt; and a ton of otherwise excellent tutorials at &lt;a href=&quot;https://haydoooke.github.io/Scidpp/cqltut.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://haydoooke.github.io/Scidpp/cqltut.html&lt;/a&gt; still don't quite cover how to pass FEN within a query.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="618" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2019-06-16T10:52:11.600" LastActivityDate="2020-09-13T09:41:39.987" Title="How to search for exact position (FEN) in CQL 5?" Tags="&lt;cql&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24719" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-06-15T17:02:12.130" Score="30" ViewCount="16005" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recently bought a set of wooden chess pieces, which I liked for its simplicity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure, however, which one is supposed to be the king and which one is supposed to be the queen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would say that the one with the spike is the queen, and the one more flat is the king. Am I right, or is it the opposite?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/b10BM.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Chess pieces, one with a pointed crown on the left, and one with a rounded crown on the right&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16923" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2019-06-17T15:35:01.440" LastActivityDate="2019-06-17T15:35:01.440" Title="King or Queen-Which piece is which?" Tags="&lt;queens&gt;&lt;kings&gt;&lt;identify-this&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24720" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24719" CreationDate="2019-06-15T18:16:43.887" Score="50" Body="&lt;p&gt;In general, a chess set has the king as the tallest piece, followed by queen, bishop, knight, rook and pawn in that order. Notice in the starting position how the piece height decreases smoothly from the centre to the edge. (Also, when buying a chess set, usually the height of the king is given as a guide to the size of the chessmen.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus I would say the king is the taller of the two pieces, which from your picture looks to be the one with the spike on the left.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This ordering of height may not hold for particularly ornate decorative sets.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, if you're not going to use the set to play against other people in tournaments (where usually Staunton pieces are mandated anyway), the correct answer would probably be: the king is whichever piece you think it is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15989" LastActivityDate="2019-06-15T18:16:43.887" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24721" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24719" CreationDate="2019-06-15T18:29:42.920" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;The piece on the right clearly reminds me of kings from &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess-museum.com/german-sets.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;German &quot;Bundesform&quot;&lt;/a&gt; piece sets, which are still occasionally used in Germany, although very rarely in tournament play. The left piece does not exactly look like a &quot;Bundesform&quot; queen, but it is still somehow similar.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15415" LastActivityDate="2019-06-15T18:29:42.920" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24722" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24831" CreationDate="2019-06-16T04:24:09.433" Score="3" ViewCount="234" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dabbaba_(chess)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;dabbaba&lt;/a&gt; is a '2,0' leaper fairy piece, only able to ever reach a quarter of the squares on the board. According to the linked Wikipedia page, a quartet of them can apparently &quot;easily&quot; force mate against a bare king with the help of their own king; however, I'm curious whether an orthodox knight could reliably hold off the dabbaba quartet. It's effectively a 7-piece endgame, just that 4 of the pieces are weaker fairy pieces; four '2,0' leapers that can each only reach a quarter of the squares on the board versus a single '2,1' leaper that can reach any square on the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for the dabbaba's aforementioned restriction to a quarter of the squares on the board, a single dabbaba can reach either ACEG or BDFH files and either odd ranks or even ranks; making the 4 dabbabas of the quartet be the odd ACEG, even ACEG, odd BDFH, and even BDFH. Assuming the 4 dabbabas are to cover their respective quarters of the board, there should be ((16^4)/8)*(60!/(60-3)!)*2 meaningfully unique KDDDDvKN positions to look at minus any where side-to-move could just take the other side's king or is already checkmated by the other side.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16577" LastEditorUserId="16577" LastEditDate="2019-11-16T22:18:53.883" LastActivityDate="2019-11-16T22:18:53.883" Title="Fairy endgame statistics for KDDDDvKN (D=dabbaba; '2,0' leaper)?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;unorthodox-pieces&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24723" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24722" CreationDate="2019-06-16T05:03:02.143" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Hi welcome to chess stackexchange. If I had a Knight surely I can trade it for one of these Daddaba guys. So a simpler question is whether KDDD can beat K. If the lone K can reach the corner where he can’t be checked, then he is safe.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8201" LastActivityDate="2019-06-16T05:03:02.143" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24724" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24719" CreationDate="2019-06-16T06:59:04.533" Score="21" Body="&lt;p&gt;At first glance, the taller piece with skinnier top would appear to be the King while the shorter, rounder piece would appear to be the Queen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are a few reasons why this would appear to be the case.&#xA; The King often has a cross on top and the taller piece with the spike appears to more closely resemble that than the shorter piece, and in some sets the King looks like a larger bishop and the taller piece more closely resembles that, too.&#xA; The Queen in some sets looks like a larger rook and the shorter, rounder piece more closely resembles a rook than the other piece.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note: re prior commenter: the bundesform chess sets I have seen are even simpler in design than this and while some have tall bishops, the King is still taller than the Queen&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19343" LastEditorUserId="19343" LastEditDate="2019-06-16T07:05:24.780" LastActivityDate="2019-06-16T07:05:24.780" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24726" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24727" CreationDate="2019-06-16T15:22:32.693" Score="8" ViewCount="2427" Body="&lt;p&gt;Recently I played a game with White whose link is:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/pAoAUp4O/white#42&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://lichess.org/pAoAUp4O/white#42&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;and reached this position:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/murhj.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/murhj.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am having a hard time finding why the moves I played next (22. Rxe8+? Rxe8 23. Bb2? ) are mistakes. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In particular, I am interested in knowing why on move 22, it is advisable to play Bb2 (something I find reasonable) and why on the next move, it is a mistake. Why the exchange of rooks makes such a move unsound? I brought the bishop to b2 because it occupies a nice diagonal and it defends my rook on a1 in case of an eventual check on h1 or g1 by the Black queen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can only come up with the fact that that with the Bishop on e3 (on move 23), I would be threatening the a7 pawn. However, I am not convinced that is the reason because such a threat can be easily dealt with by playing a6 or simply Bb6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Besides, is the exchange of rooks (on move 22) wrong because there exists a stronger move or is it just a bad move in itself?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16771" LastEditorUserId="16771" LastEditDate="2019-06-17T07:01:41.027" LastActivityDate="2019-06-17T08:07:12.927" Title="What is the most suitable position for a bishop here?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;bishops&gt;&lt;rooks&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24727" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24726" CreationDate="2019-06-16T17:04:29.137" Score="20" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the diagrammed position you have a material advantage but Black's position is a little bit better because his rooks are connected and he has a safer king position. His immediate threat is RxR, when you have to retake with the king followed by Qg1+ and after you move Kd2 he will play Bb6 and the pressure around your king will become intense. You are paying for your backward development with you queenside rook and bishop playing no part.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is the exchange of rooks (on move 22) wrong because there exists a&#xA;  stronger move or is it just a bad move in itself?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is a bad move in itself because when you play RxR you immediately give control of the e file to your opponent. While you have a rook on e1 you are contesting the open e file.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If instead you play Bb2 you connect the rooks, complete your development and threaten Nxg7 which looks winning. It is a very hard threat to meet. You can meet Re6 with RxR and then carry out your threat. Probably Black has to play Be5. Then you swap bishops and play Ne7+ followed by Nxd5 and Black is just going downhill.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This course of action is much less effective if you start by exchanging rooks and ceding the e file to black. If you try the same tactic with your rook on a1 then black can comfortably play Be5 and retake with the queen after a pretty much forced BxB. With your material advantage you should still win but only after a grovelling defence as it is Black with the initiative making the threats. One of which is just to rush the h pawn down the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2019-06-16T17:04:29.137" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24728" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24719" CreationDate="2019-06-16T18:38:38.570" Score="12" Body="&lt;h2&gt;It doesn't matter.&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As long as you and your opponent are in agreement about which one is the king and which one is the queen,  it doesn't really matter what they were &quot;supposed&quot; to be. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That said, if they're easy to mistake, then you run the risk of someone making a misplay because they got confused about which one is which.  Which would be unfortunate.    If you and your opponent have different intuition about which one &quot;looks&quot; like the king, &lt;em&gt;one&lt;/em&gt; of you will be disadvantaged by the arrangement you choose, no matter what you choose. So talk things over with your opponent before the match begins. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19347" LastActivityDate="2019-06-16T18:38:38.570" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24729" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24719" CreationDate="2019-06-16T18:56:16.070" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's very simple. The piece with the pointy top is the &quot;King&quot;. As such, the other piece is the &quot;Queen&quot; by default.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19348" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-06-16T19:13:51.490" LastActivityDate="2019-06-16T19:13:51.490" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24730" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2539" CreationDate="2019-06-16T19:55:16.927" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;While a pawn cannot capture en passant twice under the modern law of chess, it has not always been that way. We can play fast and loose with 19th-century rulebooks, as chess was not as standardized then. This is a thought experiment regarding the old rules of chess, all for fun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As aforementioned, the rules weren't so cut and dry in the 19th century. Many joke problems were and have been made to exploit ambiguities in official rulebooks. The most famous is the loophole that allowed promotion into any of the opponent's pieces. However, the hypothetical legality promoting into an enemy pawn, on their first rank, was and is vague.&#xA;Furthermore, there is the question of how it would move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But we can take liberties with our imagination and assume it moves like normal, including being allowed a double-step on it's first rank. For example, Lichess's chess variant &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/variant/horde&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Horde Chess&lt;/a&gt; logicallly allows this movement. If you count the transformed pawns as the &amp;quot;same&amp;quot; unit after the wrong promotion, capturing en passant twice is possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This takes two stages. First, White plays en passant and then advances to the 7th rank&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;4k3/6p1/8/7P/8/8/5P2/4K3 b - - 0 1&amp;quot;] &#xA;[startflipped &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... g5 2. hxg6 null 3. g7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now we pretend it promotes into an enemy pawn. Next, it advances forward to preform an en passant once more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;4k1p1/8/8/8/8/8/5P2/4K3 b - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;[startflipped &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... g7 2. null g6 3. null g5 4. null g4 5. f4 gxf3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus, the &amp;quot;same&amp;quot; pawn has captured en passant twice!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-05-02T01:06:54.997" LastActivityDate="2021-05-02T01:06:54.997" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24731" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24719" CreationDate="2019-06-17T06:04:13.483" Score="-3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The king is the one on the right, because that is the shape I know a chess king has, just that the cross is left out, still it has the shape of a King,  therefore the right one is the king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19355" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-06-17T09:32:03.943" LastActivityDate="2019-06-17T09:32:03.943" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24733" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24726" CreationDate="2019-06-17T08:07:12.927" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;Brian Towers' answer is excellent. I'll just add this: &lt;strong&gt;if you play Rxe8, you are effectively trading your e1-rook for your opponent's a8-rook&lt;/strong&gt;. A glance at the position should show that your e1-rook is a lot more valuable than your opponent's a8-rook. It is currently already developed and participating in the game, while the a8-rook (like your a1-rook) is doing nothing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the same reason, after 22. Bb2, Black should not play 22...Rxe1+.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastActivityDate="2019-06-17T08:07:12.927" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24734" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8792" CreationDate="2019-06-17T16:43:11.837" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;After some extensive Googling, it appears to me that the the DTC tablebase named &lt;a href=&quot;http://chess.jaet.org/endings/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;jaet&lt;/a&gt; that you linked is the only one that is online currently. As such, there may not exist &quot;click and drag&quot; DTC tablebases out there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, if you are still adamant about using a &quot;drag&quot; feature, you're best bet is to use the &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/editor&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Lichess board editor&lt;/a&gt; to create your position, and then copy paste the FEN into jaet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'll demonstrate this easy process using some pictures for the benefit of any who do not understand how to do the above mentioned process. Some people are visual learners, so you never know.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Go the &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/editor&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Lichess board editor&lt;/a&gt;.&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/xD9kp.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/xD9kp.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Use the &quot;drag&quot; feature to create your position.&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/DRHLX.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/DRHLX.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Copy the FEN.&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/b5UAF.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/b5UAF.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Paste the FEN into the right bar at the &lt;a href=&quot;http://chess.jaet.org/endings/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;jaet site&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/zrkoT.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/zrkoT.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Click the &quot;Lookup FEN&quot; button that's next to the FEN bar and check the results.&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/QoGeV.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/QoGeV.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastActivityDate="2019-06-17T16:43:11.837" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24736" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2337" CreationDate="2019-06-17T18:39:36.420" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have found quite a few websites I popped the phrase for &amp;quot;Shatranj chess problem&amp;quot; into a search. The rules are, as always, on &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shatranj#Player_classification&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia.&lt;/a&gt; Bishops represent alfils, and queens for ferz, in the following diagrams.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On chessvariants.com, there is an excellent resource page entitled &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessvariants.com/mansubat.dir/mansindex.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&amp;quot;Chess Problems Of 1001 Years Ago.&amp;quot;&lt;/a&gt; Here is the longest problem. This can be played out as the alfils and ferz are still.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;The Water Wheel, Al-Suli, 930, Mate In 36&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;rQ2nbbR/P5p1/pkp1pn2/1Pr2B2/2Pq2Pp/PN1P4/1N3p2/1KB3R1 w K - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Na4!+ Kb7 2. Na5+ Kc8 3. Nb6+ Kd8 4. Nb7+ Ke7 5. Nc8+ Kf7 6. Nd8+ Kg6 7. Ne7+ Kg5 8. Nf7+ Kf4 9. Ng6+ Kf3 10. Ng5+ Ke2 11. Nf4+ Kd2 12. Nf3+ Kc3 13. Ne2+ Kb3 14. Nfxd4+ Ka4 15. Nc3+ Ka5 16. Nb3+ Kb6 17. Na4+ Kb7 18. Nbxc5+ Kc8 19. Nb6 Kd8 20. Nb7+ Ke7 21. Nc8+ Kf7 22. Nd8+ Kg6 23. Ne7+ Kg5 24. Nf7+ Kf4 25. Ng6+ Kf3 26. Ng5+  Ke2 27. Nf4+ Kd2 28. Nf3+ Kc3 29. Ne2+ Kb3 30. Nd2+ Ka4 30. Nc3+ Ka5 31. Nc3+ Ka5 32. Nb3+ Kb6 33. Na4+ Kb7 34. Na5+ Kc8 35. Nb6+ Kd8 36. Nxc6#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In addition, I remembered a particular problem on Tim Krabbe's site in &lt;a href=&quot;https://timkr.home.xs4all.nl/chess2/diary_8.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Journal Entry #146.&lt;/a&gt; The source is &amp;quot;100 Classics of the Chessboard&amp;quot; by Dickins and Ebert.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;MS. 791 Casanatense Library, Rome, 15th Century, Mate In 6&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;4k3/4P3/4P3/4P3/4P3/4P3/4P2B/R1N1K3 w Q - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Nb3! Kxe7 2. Ra8 Kxe6 3. Ra7 Kxe5 4. Ra6 Kxe45. Ra5 Kxe3 6. Re5#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lastly, the Wikipedia page for Shatranj gives this classic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Dilaram Problem, c. 10th century, Mate In 5&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;1r4k1/8/5PP1/8/K1n3NR/7B/1r6/7R w KQkq - 0 1&amp;quot;]    &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Solution: 1. Rh8+! Kxh8 2. Af5+ (the alfil leaps over the knight) Kg8 3. Rh8+ Kxh8 4. g7+ Kg8 5. Nh6#&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-05-02T03:34:06.593" LastActivityDate="2021-05-02T03:34:06.593" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24737" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8546" CreationDate="2019-06-17T19:55:12.367" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The 7-men databases from Lomonosov are available for free via their &lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.convekta.android.lomonosovtb&amp;amp;hl=en&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Android app&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/AEDyg.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/AEDyg.jpg&quot; width=&quot;300&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've analyzed the traffic between the app and server a while ago, and discovered that it's easy to 'fake' your own calls to the server, so you're not depending on having an Android device nearby anymore. IIRC it worked with FEN strings. I don't have the specifics anymore, and it's probably against the Terms of Service of the app.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2019-06-17T19:55:12.367" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24738" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24740" CreationDate="2019-06-18T04:31:01.910" Score="2" ViewCount="519" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would like to use opening books for my stockfish chess engine, but I'm not sure how to do this. As far as I understand stockfish doesn't support these, so I though I setup a system next to stockfish, which is used until it doesn't return any moves anymore.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These .bin files can be found anywhere, for example&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;http://rebel13.nl/download/books.html&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;https://github.com/joeyrobert/ceruleanjs_opening_books&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyway, I downloaded a couple of .bin files, and thought to use it with &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.npmjs.com/package/polyglot-chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;code&gt;polyglot-chess&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;var Polyglot = require('polyglot-chess');&#xA;&#xA;var obj = new Polyglot();&#xA;&#xA;var fen = &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;;&#xA;console.log(&quot;Polyglot hash for fen &quot; + fen + &quot; is: &quot; + obj.hash(fen));&#xA;console.log(&quot;Best move in the book is: &quot; + obj.find(fen, &quot;book.bin&quot;, true));&#xA;console.log(&quot;Random move in the book is: &quot; + obj.find(fen, &quot;book.bin&quot;, false));&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now when I try to run it&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;$&amp;gt; node index.js &#xA;internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:615&#xA;   throw err;&#xA;   ^&#xA;&#xA;Error: Cannot find module '../build/Release/polyglot'&#xA;    at Function.Module._resolveFilename (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:613:15)&#xA;...&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I checked the build folder from polyglot-chess, but there isn't a polyglot file at that location. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19338" LastEditorUserId="19338" LastEditDate="2019-06-18T06:52:40.083" LastActivityDate="2019-06-18T11:43:01.560" Title="How to use opening books on mac/linux" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;computer-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24739" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24742" CreationDate="2019-06-18T06:02:41.973" Score="6" ViewCount="385" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the maximum number of legal moves in a legal position, &lt;strong&gt;given that the player is in check?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's easy to see that 43 is an upper bound. Let's suppose the white K is in check along a diagonal by a Q or B (other cases are similar or easier). Then White has at most 7 legal K moves; a white Q has at most 3 moves (interposition or capture); a white B of the right color has at most one move; and a white R, N, or P has at most 2 moves. Even if White has lost no pieces and has promoted all his pawns to queens, he has no more than 1*7 + 9*3 + 1*1 + 4*2 = 43 legal moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In fact it's easy to see that 43 cannot be attained. If White has 7 legal K moves, then one of them must be to capture the checking piece. But in that case no interposition is possible, the only legal non-K moves are captures, so White has at most 21 moves total. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2299" LastActivityDate="2021-05-02T15:00:24.867" Title="Maximum number of ways to get out of check" Tags="&lt;problems&gt;&lt;check&gt;&lt;records&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24740" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24738" CreationDate="2019-06-18T11:43:01.560" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can do this on your own in a customized fashion (i.e. you control when to run the engine or to use the book) with a bit of scripting in python, using the &lt;a href=&quot;https://pypi.org/project/python-chess/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;python-chess module&lt;/a&gt; and a polyglot opening book of your choice. In this example I'm using &lt;code&gt;gm2001.bin&lt;/code&gt;, which you can get from &lt;a href=&quot;https://sourceforge.net/p/craftychessinterface/wiki/UCI%20engine%20opening%20book/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As dummy example I have chosen two positions: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;fen = 'rnbqkb1r/ppp1pppp/5n2/3p4/3P4/5NP1/PPP1PP1P/RNBQKB1R b KQkq - 0 3'&lt;/code&gt; A basic Catalan position for which I know the book still has a move.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;fen2 = 'rnbqkb1r/ppp1ppp1/5n2/3p3p/3P4/5NP1/PPP1PP1P/RNBQKB1R w KQkq - 0 4'&lt;/code&gt; A position for which there are no book moves left in the chosen opening book.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What the code does is very basic: if it finds an opening move, then it makes that move (if there are more opening branches, you need to figure out how you want to choose the line to play), otherwise, it calls Stockfish with 10 seconds of movetime and makes the top engine move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;import chess&#xA;import chess.uci&#xA;import chess.polyglot&#xA;&#xA;fen = 'rnbqkb1r/ppp1pppp/5n2/3p4/3P4/5NP1/PPP1PP1P/RNBQKB1R b KQkq - 0 3'&#xA;fen2 = 'rnbqkb1r/ppp1ppp1/5n2/3p3p/3P4/5NP1/PPP1PP1P/RNBQKB1R w KQkq - 0 4'&#xA;board = chess.Board(fen)&#xA;print board&#xA;&#xA;handler = chess.uci.InfoHandler()&#xA;engine = chess.uci.popen_engine('stockfish_8_x64') #Provide correct address to where your engine is stored&#xA;evaltime = 10000&#xA;&#xA;reader = chess.polyglot.open_reader('gm2001.bin') #Provide correct address to where your bin file is stored&#xA;n = sum(1 for _ in reader.find_all(board))&#xA;&#xA;if n==0:&#xA;    print 'empty, using SF top move with 10 sec movetime'&#xA;    engine.info_handlers.append(handler)&#xA;    if board.is_checkmate():&#xA;        print 'Game has ended: checkmate'&#xA;    else:&#xA;        engine.position(board)&#xA;        eval = engine.go(movetime=evaltime)&#xA;        nextmove = board.san(eval[0])&#xA;        if handler.info[&quot;score&quot;][1].cp != None:&#xA;            print 'Top move: ', nextmove, ' Evaluation: ',round(handler.info[&quot;score&quot;][1].cp/100.0,2)&#xA;        else:&#xA;            print nextmove&#xA;        print board.variation_san(handler.info[&quot;pv&quot;][1])&#xA;        print 'nodes: ', handler.info[&quot;nodes&quot;], ' depth: ', handler.info[&quot;depth&quot;], ' time: ', handler.info[&quot;time&quot;]&#xA;        board.push_san(nextmove)&#xA;        print '---- Updated position:'&#xA;        print board&#xA;else:&#xA;    for entry in reader.find_all(board):&#xA;        print 'Found book moves:'&#xA;        nextmove = board.san(entry.move())&#xA;        print str(nextmove)&#xA;        board.push_san(nextmove)&#xA;        print '---- Updated position:'&#xA;        print board&#xA;        break&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Output for the first &lt;code&gt;fen&lt;/code&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;r n b q k b . r&#xA;p p p . p p p p&#xA;. . . . . n . .&#xA;. . . p . . . .&#xA;. . . P . . . .&#xA;. . . . . N P .&#xA;P P P . P P . P&#xA;R N B Q K B . R&#xA;Found book moves:&#xA;c6&#xA;---- Updated position:&#xA;r n b q k b . r&#xA;p p . . p p p p&#xA;. . p . . n . .&#xA;. . . p . . . .&#xA;. . . P . . . .&#xA;. . . . . N P .&#xA;P P P . P P . P&#xA;R N B Q K B . R&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and output for the 2nd fen (&lt;code&gt;fen2&lt;/code&gt;):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;r n b q k b . r&#xA;p p p . p p p .&#xA;. . . . . n . .&#xA;. . . p . . . p&#xA;. . . P . . . .&#xA;. . . . . N P .&#xA;P P P . P P . P&#xA;R N B Q K B . R&#xA;empty, using SF top move with 10 sec movetime&#xA;Top move:  Bg2  Evaluation:  0.24&#xA;4. Bg2 c5 5. c4 cxd4 6. cxd5 Qxd5 7. Qxd4 Nc6 8. Qxd5 Nxd5 9. Bd2 Ndb4 10. Na3 Be6 11. Ng5 Bd5 12. Bxd5 Nxd5 13. e4 Ndb4 14. Nb5 Nd3+ 15. Ke2&#xA;nodes:  14946976  depth:  21  time:  10001&#xA;---- Updated position:&#xA;r n b q k b . r&#xA;p p p . p p p .&#xA;. . . . . n . .&#xA;. . . p . . . p&#xA;. . . P . . . .&#xA;. . . . . N P .&#xA;P P P . P P B P&#xA;R N B Q K . . R&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should be able to take it from here and extend the code however you want.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3594" LastActivityDate="2019-06-18T11:43:01.560" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24741" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24739" CreationDate="2019-06-18T12:07:32.700" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Building on @Remellion's newest matrix for 42 in a legal position, here is &lt;strong&gt;68&lt;/strong&gt; in an illegal position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;me, chess.stackexchange.com 9/22/2019. Block The Check&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;1NQrQN2/1NP1PN2/1NQ1QN2/1NQ1QN2/1NQ1QN2/1NQ1QN2/1NQ1QN2/1N1K1N2 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-05-02T15:00:24.867" LastActivityDate="2021-05-02T15:00:24.867" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24742" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24739" CreationDate="2019-06-18T13:18:35.940" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Of course we can do better. We can always do better. 42 legal responses with a little trick.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;3rB2k/2P1P3/1NQ1QN2/2Q1QN2/2Q1Q3/1R3R2/3K1B2/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My previous attempt, 40 legal responses:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/4N2R/3QQQQ1/1K5r/3QQQQ1/BB1NN2R/8/1k6 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And 39 legal responses with a bishop check (and the position is legal, black's last move was ...h2-h1=B+):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;7k/1K6/4RN2/5QN1/B1R3QN/3Q3Q/3NQ3/4NQ1b w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15989" LastEditorUserId="15989" LastEditDate="2019-06-22T07:11:19.640" LastActivityDate="2019-06-22T07:11:19.640" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24743" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8233" CreationDate="2019-06-18T14:10:00.740" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;On ICC, and as a clubplayer, I have a rating around 1900. But on Chess24 I have now reached 2200. Now, that’s inflation!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19370" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T19:07:01.400" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T19:07:01.400" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24744" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2337" CreationDate="2019-06-18T19:24:33.827" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;While it's not yet in the public domain, H.J. Murray's &lt;em&gt;A History of Chess&lt;/em&gt; can be found on Google Books, and contains a large number of constructed shatranj problems.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17411" LastActivityDate="2019-06-18T19:24:33.827" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24745" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5343" CreationDate="2019-06-18T19:59:23.493" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;@Aschultz is correct that 26 pieces is the maximum number of non-pawn and non-king pieces on the board. Since they said that they have not seen such proof yet, here it is to be seen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;me, chess.stackexchange.com 6/18/2019, Non-Unique Proof Game In 40.5 Moves&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 a5 2. b4 c5 3. h4 e5 4. f4 g5 5. dxc5 axb4 6. hxg5 exf4 7. g4 b5 8. a4 h5 9. c4 f5 10. c6 f3 11. c5 f4 12. g6 b3 13. g7 b2 14. Na3 Nh6 15. g5 b4 16. g6 b3 17. g8=B b1=B 18. Bh7 Ba2 19. g7 b2 20. g8=B b1=B 21. e4 d5 22. e5 d4 23. e6 d3 24. Kd2 Ke7 25. Kc3 Kf6 26. e7 d2 27. Qc2 d1=B 28. e8=B f2 29. c7 f3 30. c6 Bb7 31. Bg2 f1=B 32. c8=B Bfe2 33. Bcd7 f2 34. c7 f1=B 35. c8=B h4 36. a5 Ra6 37. Rh3 Rb6 38. Rg3 h3 39. a6 h2 40. a7 h1=B 41. a8=B&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-05-01T19:22:48.567" LastActivityDate="2021-05-01T19:22:48.567" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24746" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8546" CreationDate="2019-06-19T08:54:12.923" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;All of the Syzygy tablebases are available here: &lt;a href=&quot;https://syzygy-tables.info/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://syzygy-tables.info/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These cover all endgames up to 7-man, and provide WDL (win-draw-loss) and DTZ (distance to zeroing move) data.  Syzygy also distinguishes between a theoretical win or loss that can actually be forced into a draw by the 50-move rule, and one that cannot.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://syzygy-tables.info/?fen=r3k3/4p3/8/8/8/8/3PP3/4K2R_w_-_-_0_1&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Here's an example for KRPPvKRP.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19281" LastEditorUserId="19281" LastEditDate="2019-06-19T09:02:49.490" LastActivityDate="2019-06-19T09:02:49.490" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24747" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18587" CreationDate="2019-06-19T15:05:59.830" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you are looking for helpmate problems of arbitrary length, then I have a few for you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The longest legal helpmate with a &lt;strong&gt;unique solution&lt;/strong&gt; is &lt;strong&gt;28 moves long&lt;/strong&gt;, and this &lt;strong&gt;record&lt;/strong&gt; has stood for &lt;strong&gt;76 years and counting&lt;/strong&gt;! My source for it is the &lt;a href=&quot;https://pdb.dieschwalbe.de/P0559197&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Die Schwalbe Chess Problem Database.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;A. Hegermann, Fairy Chess Review 1934, Helpmate In 28&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;6kR/4p1p1/1p2P1P1/1P2p3/1P2P3/1P2p1p1/4P1P1/5BK1 b - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Kxh8 2. Kh1 Kg8 3. Kg1 Kf8 4. Kh1 Ke8 5. Kg1 Kd8 6. Kh1 Kc7 7. Kg1 Kd6 8. Kh1 Kxe6 9. Kg1 Kf6 10. Kh1 Kg5 11. Kg1 Kf4 12. Kh1 Kxe4 13. Kg1 Kd4 14. Kh1 Kc3 15. Kg1 Kxb3 16. Kh1 Kxb4 17. Kg1 Kxb5 18. Kh1 Kc4 19. Kg1 b5 20. Kh1 b4 21. Kg1 b3 22. Kh1 b2 23. Kg1 b1=Q 24. Kh1 Qf5 25. Kg1 Qf7 26. gxf7 Kc3 27. f8=Q Kd2 28. Qc8 Ke1 29. Qc1#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The longest legal helpmate &lt;strong&gt;without a unique solution&lt;/strong&gt; is &lt;strong&gt;48 moves long&lt;/strong&gt;. Once again, the source is the &lt;a href=&quot;https://pdb.dieschwalbe.de/P0569740&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Die Schwalbe Chess Problem Database.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Karl Fabel, Schachmatt  1948, Helpmate In 48&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;8/8/5p2/2p1pPp1/2PbPk1b/2pBp1pB/2P1P1P1/5BRK b - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... g4 2. Bxg4 Kg5 3. Bf3 Kh6 4. Bg4 Kg7 5. Bf3 Kf7 6. Bg4 Ke7 7. Bf3 Kd7 8. Bg4 Kc7 9. Bf3 Kb6 10. Bg4 Ka5 11. Bf3 Ka4 12. Bg4 Ka3 13. Bf3 Kb2 14. Bg4 Kc1 15. Bf3 Kd1 16. Bg4 Bg5 17. Bf3 Bh6 18. Bg4 Bf8 19. Bf3 Bd6 20. Bg4 Bc7 21. Bf3 Ba5 22. Bg4 Bb4 23. Bf3 Ba3 24. Bg4 Bc1 25. Bf3 Bd2 26. Bg4 Be1 27. Bf3 Bf2 28. Bg4 Bxg1 29. Kxg1 Ke1 30. Kh1 Kxf1 31. Bf3 Ke1 32. Kg1 Kd1 33. Kf1 Kc1 34. Ke1 Kb2 35. Kd1 Ka3 36. Kc1 Ka4 37. Kb1 Ka5 38. Ka2 Kb6 39. Ka3 Kc6 40. Ka4 Kd6 41. Kb5 Ke7 42. Kc6 Kf7 43. Kd6 Kg7 44. Ke6 Kh8 45. Kxf6 Kg8 46. Kg6 Kh8 47. f6 Kg8 48. f7+ Kh8 49. f8=Q#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lastly, the longest helpmate in an &lt;strong&gt;illegal position&lt;/strong&gt; is &lt;strong&gt;111 moves&lt;/strong&gt; long! It is hard to imagine that there exists checkmating sequence in this position at all! The &lt;a href=&quot;https://pdb.dieschwalbe.de/P1372555&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Die Schwalbe Chess Problem Database&lt;/a&gt; is still the source.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;James Malcom &amp;amp; Arno Tüngler, Matplus.net Forum 1/30/2020, Helpmate In 111&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;5b1b/2p1p1b1/1bPbPbpp/b1pPp1b1/1bPpPpkp/b1pBpPpP/1bPbPbPb/bBbBb1bK b - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Kh5 2. Ba2 Ba7 3. Bb1 B5b6 4. Ba2 B4a5 5. Bb1 B3b4 6. Ba2 B2a3 7. Bb1 Bb8 8. Ba2 B6a7 9. Bb1 B5b6 10. Ba2 B4a5 11. Bb1 B3b4 12. Ba2 Bca3 13. Bb1 Bdc1 14. Ba2 Bcb2 15. Bb1 Bd2 16. Ba2 Bdc1 17. Bb1 Be1 18. Ba2 Bed2 19. Bb1 Bf2 20. Ba2 Bfe1 21. Bb1 Bg1 22. Kxg1 Bf2+ 23. Kf1 Bde1 24. Ba2 Bg1 25. Kxe1 Bd2+ 26. Kf1 Bbc1 27. Bb1 Be1 28. Kxe1 Bd2+ 29. Kf1 Be1 30. Kxe1 Bc1 31. Kf1 Bd2 32. Ba2 Be1 33. Bb3 Ba3 34. Ba4 Bc1 35. Bb5 Bb4 36. Ba6 Bba3 37. Bc8 Ba5 38. Bd7 B5b4 39. Be8 Bb6 40. Bf7 B8a7 41. Kxe1 Bd2+ 42. Kf1 Be1 43. Bg8 Bc1 44. Bh7 Bcd2 45. Bxg6+ Kxg6 46. Kxg1 Kh7 47. Kh1 Kg8 48. Kg1 h5 49. Kh1 B7h6 50. Kg1 Bf8g7 51. Kh1 Kf8 52. Kg1 Ke8 53. Kh1 Kd8 54. Kg1 Kc8 55. Kh1 Kb8 56. Kg1 Ka8 57. Kh1 Bb8 58. Kg1 Ka7 59. Kh1 Ka6 60. Kg1 Ka5 61. Kh1 Ka4 62. Kg1 Ka3 63. Kh1 Kb2 64. Kg1 Kc1 65. Kh1 Kxd1 66. Kg1 Kc1 67. Kh1 Kb2 68. Kg1 Ka3 69. Kh1 Ka4 70. Kg1 Ka5 71. Kf1 Bc1 72. Kxe1 Ka6 73. Kd1 Ka7 74. Kxc1 Ka8 75. Kb1 B6a5 76. Ka2 Ba7 77. Kb3 Kb8 78. Ka4 Kc8 79. Kb5 Kd8 80. Ka6 Ke8 81. Kxa7 Kf8 82. Kb7 Kg8 83. Kc8 Bf8 84.  Kd7 Bh8g7 85. Ke8 Kh8 86. Kf7 Bb6 87. Kg6 Kg8 88. Kf5 Bh8 89. Kg6 Bf8g7 90. Kf5 Kf8 91. Kg6 Ke8 92. Kf5 Kd8 93. Kg6 Kc8 94. Kf5 Kb8 95. Kg6 Ka7 96. Kf7 Ka6 97. Ke8 Ka5 98. Kd7 Ka4 99. Kc8 Ka3 100. Kb7 Kb2 101. Ka6 Kc1 102. Kb5 Kd2 103. Ka4 Ke1 104. Kb3 Kf2 105. Ka2 Kxg2 106. Kb1 Kxh3 107. Kc1 g2 108. Kd1 g1=N 109. Ke1 Nxf3+ 110. Kf1 Kg4 111. Kg2 Bb2 112. exf3# &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd also like to add to @supercat's idea of casting in a helpmate. Here is the same concept, but in a lighter form that I made.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;me, chess.stackexchange.com 6/20/2019, Helpmate In 2.5&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;k7/Pp6/1P6/8/8/3p1p2/3P1P1p/R3K1nr w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. O-O-O Nh3 2. Re1 Ng1 3. Re8#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just for fun, here is the longest problem, from the &lt;a href=&quot;https://pdb.dieschwalbe.de/P1285983&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Die Schwalbe Chess Problem Database,&lt;/a&gt; in which White must castle on their first move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Frank Richter, Feenschach 6/5/2014, Helpmate In 7&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;4k3/8/4p3/4P3/p1p5/PpPpPp1p/1P1PbP1P/R3K3 b Q - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Bf1 2. O-O-O Bg2 3. Rg1 Bh1 4. Rg3 Kf7 5. Rxf3+ Kg6 6. Rg3+ Kf5 7. f4 Be4 8. Rg5#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lastly, from &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.yacpdb.org/#386266&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yet Another Chess Problem&lt;/a&gt;, here is a helpmate in which castling must be the last move. This version comes from a thread in the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.matplus.net/start.php?px=1600372834&amp;amp;app=forum&amp;amp;act=posts&amp;amp;tid=2309&amp;amp;fid=xshowh&amp;amp;page=1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;MatPlus.net forums.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Mirko Degenkolbe &amp;amp; Steven B. Dowd, Die Schwalbe 2010, Version, Helpmate In 8.5&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;8/8/8/2p5/p1PNp3/P1Pp1n2/Pn1P1Ppp/RNB1Kbkr w Q - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Nxf3+ exf3 2. Bxb2 Be2 3. Bc1 Bd1 4. Bb2 Bb3 5. Bc1 Bxc4 6. Bb2 Bxa2 7. c4 Bxb1 8. Bd4 Ba2 9. O-O-O#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-05-02T15:50:38.807" LastActivityDate="2021-05-02T15:50:38.807" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24748" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-06-19T21:21:48.580" Score="1" ViewCount="189" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just got Leela Chess Zero up and running inside docker using &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/LeelaChessZero/lc0/wiki/Leela-Self-play-in-Docker&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; guide. Added a couple of weights from &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/dkappe/leela-chess-weights&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, when I run leela&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;$&amp;gt; lczero -w path/to/weight/file&#xA;go&#xA;info depth 16 nodes 435 nps 48 tbhits 0 score cp -437 time 9085 pv b5c4 d3c4 d5b4 ...&#xA;bestmove b5c4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've used stockfish before, which also returns a ponder move&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;bestmove b5c4 ponder d3c4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://blog.lczero.org/2018/09/guide-setting-up-leela-on-chess-gui.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Here&lt;/a&gt; is described that you can use &lt;code&gt;--ponder&lt;/code&gt; to enable it, but that option is not recognized. Is something like this also possible with Leela? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Furthermore, I've seen different weight files, where can I find good weight files?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19338" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-06-19T21:56:09.877" LastActivityDate="2019-06-25T16:54:38.850" Title="Enable pondering with Leela chess zero" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;leela&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24749" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="176" CreationDate="2019-06-19T22:53:24.510" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recently faced a very similar problem when I organized a King's Indian Attack themed blitz tournament at my club. The problem is that it takes quite a few moves to establish White's KIA position and I had to find moves for black that preserved Black's flexibility in light of the many Youtube videos out there that promise to &quot;crush Black with the KIA&quot; :-).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The solution I came up with was to follow a line recommended by England's &quot;Ginger GM&quot;, Simon Williams in his series of videos on the French Defence. It goes like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e6 2. d3 d5 3. Nd2 c5 4. Ngf3 Nc6 5. g3 g6 6. Bg2 Bg7 7. O-O Nge7 8. Re1 b6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are a number of ideas here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The King's knight has gone to e7 not f6. This is important because it takes the sting out of e5 by White and of ed. The e file is blocked by the knight on e7 and Black's king sheltered.   &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Black has delayed castling. There is no urgency and castling queenside may be more appropriate. In any case don't castle automatically into the programmed KIA king's side attack. Make your opponent think! Try and frustrate his plans.   &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Black is ready to meet ed with ed and O-O. If necessary then a5, Ra7 will redeploy the queenside rook along the 7th rank opening up new defensive and attacking possibilities.   &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Black will meet e5 with moves like Qc7 and g5 with the idea of exchanging his g pawn for White's e pawn and if White defends with Qe2 Black will happily initiate the exchange of queens on e5. Black is more likely to castle queenside in this variation   &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If White follows a traditional move order with moves like c3, Nf1 h5 etc then Black will respond with something like h6, a5, Ra7, Rd7 with threats to play either de to embarrass the White queen or d4 to drive a wedge into the center and take space.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course this does not refute the KIA but it does give a flexible and rich way to combat White players who bang out the first 10 or 12 moves like an automaton.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2019-06-19T22:53:24.510" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24750" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26438" CreationDate="2019-06-20T01:22:50.247" Score="3" ViewCount="673" Body="&lt;p&gt;Allie is a strong engine that's looking competitive with the top ones (Leela Chess Zero and Stockfish). It's supposedly based off AlphaZero, but works differently. As far as I understand it, the most important difference is the search algorithm. The author said in &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessdom.com/alliestein-the-new-neural-network-entering-tcec-s15/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;a March 2019 interview&lt;/a&gt; that:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;AT: To begin the tournament, Allie will perform MCTS based search with absolute fpu where new nodes start off with win pct of -1. The search is modeled after Deepminds paper’s. As I said above, &lt;strong&gt;I’m hoping to switch to AlphaBeta for the long term direction of the project&lt;/strong&gt;. I’ve experimented with many, many ways of doing this with the networks generated by the Lc0 project and I think I’ve hit upon a way to achieve the depths required to maintain ELO level with MCTS based search, but it is not ready yet. In the future, I imagine we’ll see a lot of experimentation with different variations of search (mcts, ab) + eval (handwritten, NN) in computer chess engines. Hoping to be a part of that and to contribute to the shared pool of knowledge.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Emphasis mine.) As of time of writing the &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/manyoso/allie&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Allie Github page&lt;/a&gt; says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Well, I was inspired during the original CCC to see if you could pair traditional Minimax/AlphaBeta search with an NN. This is still her main purpose and the focus going forward. However, the initial versions were using a similar pure MCTS algorithm as Lc0 and AlphaZero. &lt;strong&gt;The current versions of Allie use a modified hybrid search of Minimax and Monte Carlo.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't understand what &quot;modified hybrid search of Minimax and Monte Carlo&quot; means. Can someone explain? I know what each of these terms mean, but I don't understand the combination.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastEditorUserId="15223" LastEditDate="2019-06-20T02:15:39.377" LastActivityDate="2020-06-07T13:41:37.653" Title="How does Allie's search algorithm work?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;chess-algorithms&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24751" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24750" CreationDate="2019-06-20T01:56:05.030" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;“Minimax” means pick the move which minimises the value of the opponent’s best possible response. If the search space was small this can be applied recursively to essentially solve the game.&#xA;However chess is too big, so one can’t search the whole space. The program is picking a bunch of different directions randomly (aka Monte Carlo) and finding the minimax over all of these. There is some secret sauce the designer is glossing over here, hence “modified hybrid”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8201" LastActivityDate="2019-06-20T01:56:05.030" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24752" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24753" CreationDate="2019-06-20T08:38:01.083" Score="1" ViewCount="196" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have recently made an agreement with a bunch of highly interested but still inexperienced players and I will become their trainer. My plan is to have 1-2 meetings per week with them to talk about some relevant strategical topics and prepare their &quot;training plan&quot; for the days we will not meet (by now, consisting mostly of tactics and analysis of their own games)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I could find some illustrative games for most of the strategical themes that I would like to have a look at with them, like open files, the 7th rank, minor piece comparison (good and bad bishop, active and passive knights...), as well as pawn structure. I've also chosen a list of must-know theoretical endgames for them to learn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, before starting with these &quot;more subtle&quot; strategical topics, I would to begin with a few lessons on material and attack. Material advantage and simplification are no problem, but I am struggling to find illustrative games showing different types of attack. Ideally, the games should be easy to understand from a tactical perspective (by that I mean that, despite of course there being tactical complications, the strategical ideas should still be clear behind the forced-move mess) Classical games are also preferred since modern ones often require a great understanding of a particular type of position to follow, and I would prefer to show a more global view of attacking in chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could you please provide me some reference to attacking games you consider illustrative/enjoyable? Any help is appreciated, even it you only contribute with one game.  I would like to cover the following topics: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Attacking a king in the center. First game in Nimzowitsch's book is great here. Morphy also comes to the rescue. What other examples do you know?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Converting development advantage into attack against the king.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Piece power in opened-center positions.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Maneuvering the pieces into the enemy's castled position (more closed-position focused)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Bayonet attacks (opposite-side castling): Here I am pretty much served, as some opening books on the Sicilian and French made the job for me, but other examples are welcome.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Bayonet-attacks (kings castled on the same side): The best examples I found come from the King's Indian Defence. What else can I look for?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(After finding a good collection of games, I intend to show them 1-2 games per theme, and give them the rest so that they can make the analysis themselves) Thank you for your time!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-06-21T08:44:08.220" LastActivityDate="2021-05-02T15:31:19.853" Title="Games that illustrate attacking themes" Tags="&lt;attack&gt;&lt;teaching&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24753" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24752" CreationDate="2019-06-21T03:23:11.383" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;When it comes to maneuvering pieces to an enemy's king in a position, the following famous game with a king walk comes to my mind. The position isn't quite closed, but it does illustrate an attacking theme of walking the king across the board to a castled king. It has been nicknamed &amp;quot;A Long Walk Off a Short Peer&amp;quot; by &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1124533&amp;amp;kpage=5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chessgames.com.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Nigel Short-Jan Timman, Interpolis 15th, Tiligribg Netherlands, 1991&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 Nf6 2. e5 Nd5 3. d4 d6 4. Nf3 g6 5. Bc4 Nb6 6. Bb3 Bg7 7. Qe2 Nc6 8. O-O O-O 9. h3 a5 10. a4 dxe5 11. dxe5 Nd4 12. Nxd4 Qxd4 13. Re1 e6 14. Nd2 Nd5 15. Nf3 Qc5 16. Qe4 Qb4 17. Bc4 Nb6 18. b3 Nxc4 19. bxc4 Re8 20. Rd1 Qc5 21. Qh4 b6 22. Be3 Qc6 23. Bh6 Bh8 24. Rd8 Bb7 25. Rad1 Bg7 26. R8d7 Rf8 27. Bxg7 Kxg7 28. R1d4 Rae8 29. Qf6+ Kg8 30. h4 h5 31. Kh2 Rc8 32. Kg3 Rce8 33. Kf4 Bc8 34. Kg5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-05-02T15:31:19.853" LastActivityDate="2021-05-02T15:31:19.853" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24754" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24758" CreationDate="2019-06-21T18:19:41.747" Score="2" ViewCount="1598" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm using Leela chess zero for a couple of days and found a couple of weight files &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/dkappe/leela-chess-weights&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;. But what is the place to be for weight files? I can imagine that lc0's strength is determined by the weight file. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, as you can see &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/dkappe/leela-chess-weights/tree/master/weights&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;, the project has a couple of weight files, which one should I use? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19338" LastEditorUserId="19338" LastEditDate="2019-06-21T20:38:04.510" LastActivityDate="2019-06-22T21:47:54.943" Title="Leela chess zero weight files" Tags="&lt;leela&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24755" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24756" CreationDate="2019-06-21T19:01:58.663" Score="3" ViewCount="251" Body="&lt;p&gt;Today, I have played a &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/TiKi9Qlv/black#23&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;game&lt;/a&gt; as Black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I reached this position, with Black to play:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/BzsvY.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/BzsvY.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The position, as you can see, is closed. The truth is that I had difficulty finding a plan here, considering the pawn structure, what are potential short and long term plans?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My Thoughts:&#xA;There are no open files yet and  the weakest point in White structure, which is located at d3, is by no means weak.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I considered moving a knight to g4 with the idea of exchanging with the dark-coloured bishop. But such an exchange would only put a pawn on e3, which would help White challenge the control of the dark squares. Thus, I quicky discarded this plan as I should be aiming to control the dark squares.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I am not sure what is the right plan. I guess that my plan should be preventing a d4 break by Qhite.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can someone help me figure out a strategy for this game?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note: I know that the computer suggests c4, but I am interested in a long term plan too. This is because, after that, there are no more breaks for me to aim for.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16771" LastEditorUserId="16771" LastEditDate="2019-06-21T22:41:00.343" LastActivityDate="2019-06-25T14:55:49.427" Title="Short and long term plans in a closed game in the Sicilian Defense" Tags="&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;&lt;planning&gt;&lt;closed-position&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24756" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24755" CreationDate="2019-06-21T19:30:00.570" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Before we talk planning, you can see from the diagram arrows that the tactical line 12.Nxd3 followed by c4 is available.   A trade of c&amp;amp;b pawns for Whites e&amp;amp;d pawns = the center is Blacks; not to mention the monster on b7 is unopposed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On to abstract thinking:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;I considered moving a knight to g4 with the idea of exchanging with&#xA;  the dark-coloured bishop but such exchange would only give a pawn on&#xA;  e3 which would challenge the control of the dark squares.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This line of thinking is extremely flawed!  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Trading a knight for a bishop is rarely a bad idea.  Doubling the opponents pawns is also rarely a bad idea.&#xA;In this particular case it is a good idea!  Remember, doubled pawns have difficulty with mobility, and are therefore inherently weak.  What do you think controls more dark squares, the Bishop on e3 or a pawn on e3?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, in general when the center is fluid, you need to be thinking about the center.   &quot;He who controls the spice controls the universe.&quot; and he who controls the center drives the battle.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So apart from the tactics available your planning should be around finishing development with an eye to conquering the center.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This position is so dynamic and full of tactics that it requires more concrete calculation than a long-term plan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit due to comments -- more on fxe3 doubled pawns:&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;With resulting pawns on e3, e4, d3; yes the pawn on e3 controls f4 nicely, but look at the cluster -- it can't move!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The e4 pawn is attacked twice (so the d3 pawn is stuck) and it's advance is suicide.  Therefore the e3 pawn isn't going anywhere either.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So now black can make long-term plans.  Piling up behind the c-pawn to play c5-c4 can result in White getting double-isolated-pawns on the efile.   Or setting up a battery of Bb6 and Qa7 hitting the weak e3 pawn...  There are various ways for Black to attack due to Whites weakened structure.  Now what can White do?  Looks like just defend.  His knights have no active squares and his remaining Bishop is thwarted.  White is clearly worse here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastEditorUserId="14202" LastEditDate="2019-06-25T14:55:49.427" LastActivityDate="2019-06-25T14:55:49.427" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24757" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23425" CreationDate="2019-06-21T20:19:31.367" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The fastest known is in &lt;strong&gt;37 plies.&lt;/strong&gt; I found this in Journal Entry #361 on &lt;a href=&quot;https://timkr.home.xs4all.nl/chess2/diary_19.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Tim Krabbe's website&lt;/a&gt;, which in turn pulled it from the 2007 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.bestproblems.it/bppdf/BP044.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;5th issue&lt;/a&gt; of the chess magazine &amp;quot;Best Problems.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Evgeny Ghik, Shakhmatyi i Matematika 1983, Non-Unique Proof Game In 18.5 Moves&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 d5 2. e5 d4 3. c3 f6 4. Qf3 Kf7 5. Qxb7 Qd5 6. Kd1 Qxg2 7. Kc2 Qxf1 8. Qxc8 Qxg1 9. Qxb8 Rxb8 10. Rxg1 Rb3 11. Rg6 Ra3 12. Rh6 gxh6 13. bxa3 Kg7 14. Kb2 d3 15. e6 a5 16. h4 a4 17. h5 c5 18. f4 c4 19. f5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In case the PDF link goes cold, here are the relevant sections.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/fyrDk.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/fyrDk.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/euQak.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/euQak.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/FYcDc.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/FYcDc.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/nHb6P.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/nHb6P.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-05-02T14:50:26.090" LastActivityDate="2021-05-02T14:50:26.090" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24758" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24754" CreationDate="2019-06-21T21:34:32.607" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The weights for main networks are &lt;a href=&quot;http://lczero.org/networks/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;. The best weights depends on whether you are using a cpu or gpu. For cpu, the best weights file is probably &lt;a href=&quot;https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/530486338236055583/587323650282225700/LD2.pb.gz&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;LD2&lt;/a&gt; which is a small net trained off of data for t40. For strong gpus or longer searches, one of the recent t40 networks will be very strong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17100" LastEditorUserId="17100" LastEditDate="2019-06-22T21:47:54.943" LastActivityDate="2019-06-22T21:47:54.943" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24759" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24761" CreationDate="2019-06-22T05:03:24.377" Score="6" ViewCount="1795" Body="&lt;p&gt;I played a &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/jUOLj6GO&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;game&lt;/a&gt; as Black in which I fell victim to a gambit trap and soon resigned. Stockfish labled it as the &amp;quot;Tennison Gambit.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Nf3 d5 2. e4 dxe4 3. Ng5 Nf6 4. d3 exd3 5. Bxd3 h6 6. Nxf7 Kxf7 7. Bg6+ Kxg6 8. Qxd8 Nc6 9. Qxc7 Nd5 10. Qg3+ Kh7 11. O-O e5 12. Qd3+&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How should I play on after I accept the gambit, and how can I refute the gambit?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T14:19:27.593" LastActivityDate="2020-06-17T14:19:27.593" Title="How should I play after, or refute, the Tennison Gambit?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;gambits&gt;&lt;opening-traps&gt;&lt;counterplay&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24760" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24759" CreationDate="2019-06-22T07:59:38.680" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;It looks like your position fell apart pretty early on, a symptom of poor opening theory.  Your King and Queen were exposed to attack within the first few moves, and White ruthlessly exploited that opportunity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first move that Stockfish classifies as a blunder (yes, there's more than one) is &lt;strong&gt;5. … h6??&lt;/strong&gt; where you attempt to directly attack the advancing knight.  But the knight's threat is not countered by that attack, because it can just continue as planned to threaten your queen, pulling your king out of his home square in an emergency defence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White then sacrifices his bishop to gain your queen anyway - a net material gain of 3 points if you include his lost knight.  While you then move your knight to attack the White queen, it's too late as he can simply move it away to safety.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The suggested move is &lt;strong&gt;5. … Nc6&lt;/strong&gt; which &lt;em&gt;pre-emptively&lt;/em&gt; protects your queen, turning the above sequence into a losing proposition for White; the game would then develop along a different line.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is in general the better way to defend against attacks - protect the threatened squares which the attacking pieces want to move to, rather than where they currently stand.  To do this effectively you must think at least a couple of moves ahead, which takes practice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19281" LastActivityDate="2019-06-22T07:59:38.680" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24761" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24759" CreationDate="2019-06-22T13:08:08.640" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a saying that &quot;the best way to refute a gambit is to accept it&quot;, attributed to Steinitz. While sayings in chess often have exceptions, I think it does apply to this particular case. If you go by either the Stockfish evaluation (-0.8) or the results of games between highly rated players (67% win for black out of 12 games), the gambit is a mistake.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The purpose of a gambit is to trade material for piece activity and the initiative. If you accept the gambit, your plan is usually to brace for the onslaught; if you survive the attack while keeping your material advantage, you can get a winning endgame. That means you have to play solidly and be especially careful about wasting time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In addition to 5...Nc6 as suggested by Chromatix, there are other moves which prevent this attack. For example, a simple 5...e6 also works. It helps block the diagonal leading to f7 and gives an additional flight square to your king. But more importantly, by not moving the h pawn you still keep control of the g6 square. Other moves that work are 5...Nd7 or 5...Bd7, blocking access to the queen, or 5...Qd7, advancing the queen to a protected square. None of these look particularly attractive to me but they do prevent the tactic and let you keep your material advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With that said, this was a blitz game, and I think gambits work better in blitz because there is less time to think about the proper defense, and going for an endgame with an extra pawn can be tricky because you might run out of time first. So another practical way to &quot;refute&quot; a gambit may well be to decline it, if only because players who play gambits usually &lt;em&gt;want&lt;/em&gt; you to accept it, and by not doing what they want they may get frustrated, and it is possible that they haven't prepared for the declined variants as well as for the accepted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12523" LastActivityDate="2019-06-22T13:08:08.640" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24762" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24739" CreationDate="2019-06-22T13:44:37.037" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Since several lower bounds have already been posted, I would like to elaborate a bit more on the possible upper bounds, since the estimate in the question is a bit oversimplified in my opinion (although the conclusion is still correct).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, let us have a look at naive upper bounds, not considering interference between piece types, for each possible checking piece. The number of moves per piece type in the respective scenario (with the optimal number of pieces given in brackets) are given below:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    R       B       N       P   &#xA;---------------------------------&#xA;K   7 (1)   7 (1)   8 (1)   8 (1)&#xA;Q   3 (7)   3 (8)   1 (1)   1 (3)&#xA;R   1 (2)   2 (2)   1 (2)   1 (2)&#xA;B   2 (2)   1 (1)   1 (1)   1 (1)&#xA;N   2 (2)   2 (2)   1 (8)   1 (8)&#xA;P   4 (2)   4 (1)   4 (2)   1 (0)&#xA;---------------------------------&#xA;    46      44      28      22  &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is quite obvious that checks of non-sliding piece (N/P) do not need to be considered, since they can not be blocked. The case of a bishop is only slightly worse than a rook, but it is relatively obvious that it can not be better (because of opposite colored bishops, and pawns can not be effectively used against bishops), so we can focus on the scenario of a rook check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The naive/conservative upper bound is 46 as given above. However, there are several interferences that make it impossible to achieve this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The slider blocking moves only work if the king is not next to the piece giving check, therefore, the king effectively can only have 6 moves, i.e., one less than the maximum.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The 8x8 board is too small to fit all possible interposing pieces into their optimal positions:&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When the king &lt;strong&gt;is not&lt;/strong&gt; at the edge of the board, we only have 8 squares available for the 2 pawns, 7 queens, and 2 bishops. Therefore, 3 of these pieces need to be put on suboptimal squares or need to be replaced by a different piece, which will lose at least 3x1 move.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When the king &lt;strong&gt;is&lt;/strong&gt;  at the edge of the board, we still have only 10 squares for the 11 P/Q/B, so we lose one move. Furthermore, the king of course has two moves less compared to when it is not at the edge of the board.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For those reasons, the theoretical maximum needs to be lowered by 4, arriving at 42. Since we already know the lower bound 42 from Remellion's answer, we can conclude that 42 is both the lower and the upper bound, so it has to be the optimum.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The number of 42 can be achieved with different scenarios, just using different ways to concede the 4 moves that we have to lose compared to the naive upper bound, but all of them are similar to the position from Remellion's answer:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;King at the edge, one queen replaced by a knight&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;3r3k/2P1P3/1NQ1QN2/2Q1QN2/2Q1B3/2Q1B3/1R3R2/3K4 w - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;King at the edge, one bishop at a suboptimal square&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;3rB2k/2P1P3/1NQ1QN2/2Q1Q3/2Q1Q3/2Q1B3/1R3R2/3K4 w - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Three queens replaced by knights.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;3r3k/2P1P3/1NQ1QN2/1NQ1BN2/2Q1BN2/1R3R2/3K4/8 w - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;etc.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15415" LastActivityDate="2019-06-22T13:44:37.037" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24763" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4836" CreationDate="2019-06-23T01:12:03.097" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just for fun, here is an attempt at &lt;strong&gt;optimizing&lt;/strong&gt; the number of pieces that can be involved. I was able to manage &lt;strong&gt;24 pieces.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;me, chess.stackexchange.com 6/23/2019, mate in 20&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;5brk/4p1pb/4p1p1/p3P1Pp/Pp1p3P/1P1P4/BP1P4/KRB5 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-05-02T14:43:33.240" LastActivityDate="2021-05-02T14:43:33.240" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24764" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24769" CreationDate="2019-06-23T14:09:48.140" Score="5" ViewCount="1068" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to FIDE regulations I should calculate the average of my opponents and just plug it here: &lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/calculator_rp.phtml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://ratings.fide.com/calculator_rp.phtml&lt;/a&gt;. &#xA;I scored 5/9 but a couple of players didn't have rapid rating so I don't know if I should count those players as 0 points of ELO or just calculate the avg without them. &#xA;Also I don't understand the point 8.21 of the handbook:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;8.2 Determining the Rating 'Ru' in a given event of a previously unrated player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;8.21 If an unrated player scores zero in his first event his score is disregarded.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;    First determine the average rating of his competition 'Rc'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;    &lt;p&gt;(a) In a Swiss or Team tournament: this is simply the average rating of his opponents.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;    &#xA;    &lt;p&gt;(b) The results of both rated and unrated players in a round-robin tournament are taken into account. For unrated players, the average&#xA;    rating of the competition 'Rc' is also the tournament average 'Ra'&#xA;    determined as follows:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;        (i) Determine the average rating of the rated players 'Rar'.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;        (ii) Determine p for each of the rated players against all their opponents.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;        Then determine dp for each of these players.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;        Then determine the average of these dp = 'dpa'.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;        (iii) 'n' is the number of opponents.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;        Ra = Rar - dpa x n/(n+1)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;8.22 If he scores 50%, then Ru = Ra&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;8.23 If he scores more than 50%, then Ru = Ra + 20 for each half point scored over 50%&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;8.24 If he scores less than 50% in a Swiss or team tournament: Ru = Ra + dp&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;8.25 If he scores less than 50% in a round-robin: Ru = Ra + dp x n/(n+1)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Should I calculate my 'Ru' using the average of the rating of my opponents, of the whole tournament or is it more complicated than that?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks in advance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are the games and opponents, I have only the 9 games I talked about so it might help: &lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/chess_statistics.phtml?event2=&amp;amp;event=1669320&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://ratings.fide.com/chess_statistics.phtml?event2=&amp;amp;event=1669320&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19396" LastEditorUserId="8472" LastEditDate="2019-06-23T16:47:19.010" LastActivityDate="2019-06-23T17:44:09.467" Title="I played my first (rapid) tournament recently and I wanted to calculate my ELO" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;rating&gt;&lt;elo&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24765" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24764" CreationDate="2019-06-23T14:49:29.610" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Based on the screenshot, I believe this was a Swiss tournament. In that case, you ignore the unrated opponents. Do not average in a rating of 0, and do not count the results against those players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;code&gt;Ra&lt;/code&gt; is the average rating of your rated opponents, not the average rating of the entire tournament, based on this line:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;In a Swiss or Team tournament: this is simply the average rating of his opponents.&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2019-06-23T14:49:29.610" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24766" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23101" CreationDate="2019-06-23T14:55:56.130" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Flat chess pieces do exist on the market, in the form of &quot;pocket chess&quot; sets in which there isn't room to provide 3D pieces.  In this example, notice the lack of extra queens for promoting pawns to:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/RopLH.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/RopLH.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As others note, the provided photo is not the typical viewing angle for a player.  Here is a more typical view, in this case of one of the nicer chess &lt;em&gt;computers&lt;/em&gt;:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/42uDv.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/42uDv.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;These pieces are also magnetic, but in this case to facilitate informing the computer of moves being made, rather than for travel games.  In any case, the point here is that every piece is easily visible and distinguishable from above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's also considerably easier to pick up a 3D piece when making a move, which can be very important in a fast-paced game.  Shogi tiles are designed to be easy to pick up with an accepted technique, but the time controls in Shogi tend to be fairly long, and the tiles are not held down magnetically.  I have yet to see a Western chess set using similar tiles.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19281" LastActivityDate="2019-06-23T14:55:56.130" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24767" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24768" CreationDate="2019-06-23T14:59:57.630" Score="7" ViewCount="1815" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've always wondered, what are the main tactical and strategic differences between Rad1 and Rfd1 (or Rad8 and Rfd8 as black)? I know it's a subtlety, but my guess is there are some common principles that apply often.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12604" LastActivityDate="2019-06-24T08:46:14.650" Title="The difference between Rad1 and Rfd1" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;planning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24768" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24767" CreationDate="2019-06-23T15:16:40.530" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;When you move one rook to the center, the other rook, obviously, cannot cross it. If you play Rfd1, you cannot then play Rae1. And if you play Rad1, you cannot then play Rfc1. So, part of this decision is planning ahead and thinking about which &lt;em&gt;other&lt;/em&gt; file you are likely to want a rook on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Relatedly, if you play a move like Rae1, you are trapping your f-rook, often making it vulnerable to an attack from the bishop. Be careful before playing a move like that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the opponent has a bishop on g7, it is sometimes a good idea to get the rook off of the a1 square, especially if the center is not closed. This allows you to more easily play b3 or b4 without putting your rook in danger from the bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2019-06-23T15:16:40.530" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24769" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24764" CreationDate="2019-06-23T17:44:09.467" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;OK, so the tournament was the &lt;a href=&quot;http://chess-results.com/tnr430958.aspx?lan=1&amp;amp;art=3&amp;amp;fed=AUT&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Rattenberger Schnellschach-Open 2019 Tiroler Einzelmeisterschaft im Schnellschach&lt;/a&gt; It was a Swiss tournament. Here are &lt;a href=&quot;http://chess-results.com/tnr430958.aspx?lan=1&amp;amp;art=9&amp;amp;fed=AUT&amp;amp;snr=39&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;your results&lt;/a&gt; from the tournament.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One of your opponents, Karl-Heinz Staudacher, has no rating. You should exclude your result against him altogether.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One of your opponents, Manuel Keßler, has a standard rating but no rapid rating. In the listing his standard rating has been used for pairing purposes and I believe this will also be used in rating calculations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That means that you scored 4/8 against rated opposition. Accordingly (8.21a and 8.22) your rating will just be the average of those 8 opponents' ratings = 1885.5 which will be rounded up for display as 1886. If you play more FIDE rated rapid tournaments in June then the results from these tournaments will also be used in your calculations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I don't understand the point 8.21 of the handbook&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This first says that if you score 0 in your first tournament then all your results in that tournament are excluded from the calculations. This is usually a good thing because it means that results which would give you a low rating (or no rating at all if it works out at below 1000) are not used. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Coaches of weak players playing their first tournament and losing their first few games often advise the player to either lose the last game or two or to pull out of the tournament to take advantage of this rule.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The rest is just giving the rules for calculating rating in case of round robin and Swiss. Your tournament was Swiss so you should use those rules.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2019-06-23T17:44:09.467" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24770" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24767" CreationDate="2019-06-23T19:27:06.710" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Normally, when I need to choose between one of my rooks, whether to move on a promising center column or to defend a center pawn, I wonder myself which side columns are better. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If there is not a task to do on queenside's columns, I move the a-rook. The f-file rook, which is the h-file rook after castling, is used to better protect the castled king, as well as to provide support to f4 if a7-g1 diagonal is not controlled by a black bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes, moving the f-file rook is indeed not recommendable because f2 might need the f-file rook as a defender.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Cases where I move my f-file rook are mostly related with plans of playing Rab1 or Rac1, with no troubles for my castled king. Additionally, as @DM noted, if it is Rae1, the needed move, the f-file rook gets trapped.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user18196" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-06-23T19:53:25.650" LastActivityDate="2019-06-23T19:53:25.650" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24771" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22644" CreationDate="2019-06-23T19:32:37.527" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Partial Answer&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just in case it gets deleted, &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/users/1751/shivsky&quot;&gt;@shivksy&lt;/a&gt; left a helpful comment that seems to partially answer the question. It would make a good answer in itself in my opinion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is the comment in it's full glory:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Fascinating topic. An answer may lie within the book amazon.com/Thought-Choice-Chess-Adriaan-Groot/dp/4871877582. One of the observations made in this very scientific treatise on chess thought process is that Grandmaster memory/recall for non-standard/weird positions that cannot be chunked and recalled is surprisingly no better than lower rated players. In other words, they are pattern-recognition geniuses who are a bit more helpless with statistically infrequent patterns. Perhaps one could stress our expert to store (without the power of chunking) a ton of weird positions?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastActivityDate="2019-06-23T19:32:37.527" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24772" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24773" CreationDate="2019-06-24T04:19:19.517" Score="0" ViewCount="638" Body="&lt;p&gt;In zugzwang, the usual idea is to limit the number of moves that the opponent can make. But they can also have many moves in certain scenarios.&#xA;What is the highest amount number of moves by the losing side in a zugzwang position, with and without promoted pieces allowed?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-04-29T21:54:33.513" LastActivityDate="2021-04-29T21:54:33.513" Title="The highest amount of moves by the losing side in a zugzwang" Tags="&lt;problems&gt;&lt;records&gt;&lt;zugzwang&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24773" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24772" CreationDate="2019-06-24T07:22:19.750" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;The following are full-point zugzwangs, so both sides are losing if either moved!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Noam Elkies. EG 128, Apr 1998, p.53, 10967 (v)&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;8/8/k7/8/K7/RNbn4/B7/1R6 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Rc1 Nb2#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White: 8 with wRb1, 6 with N = 14. Black: 11 with B, 8 with N, 3 with K = 22. Total-36.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Noam Elkies. EG 128, Apr 1998, p.53, 10967 (text, v)&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;8/8/8/k1n5/8/K7/RRb5/QBb1n3 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Bxc2 Nxc2#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White: 1 with B = 1. Black: 9 with Bc2, 6 with Bc1, 8 with Nc5, 3 with Ne1, 1 with K = 27. Total-28.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10380" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-06-24T10:52:19.883" LastActivityDate="2019-06-24T10:52:19.883" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24774" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24772" CreationDate="2019-06-24T07:55:37.413" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you allow promoted pieces in the diagram: The following is a half-point zugzwang.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;half-point zugzwang: WTM draws. BTM loses in 14&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;3q4/8/4q3/2Q5/k7/8/8/2K4Q b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Qg5+ 2. Qxg5! Qc4+ 3. Kd2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is a draw if it is white to move. Meanwhile, if it is Black to move, they lose  in 14 moves. Black has 25 moves with Qe6, 21 moves with Qd8, and 1 with Ka4, for a grand total of 47.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10380" LastEditorUserId="10380" LastEditDate="2019-06-24T12:32:45.500" LastActivityDate="2019-06-24T12:32:45.500" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24775" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24767" CreationDate="2019-06-24T08:46:14.650" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It comes down to what squares you want your rooks to be on, which in turn is driven by strategical considerations for where your rooks are going to be most active. In general you want your rooks to be on open files (files in which there are no pawns of either color), or semi-open files (files with an enemy pawn but not one of your own) if open files are not available. Of course this is abstract, so let's take a concrete example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]    &#xA;  1. e4             c5            &#xA;  2. Nf3            d6            &#xA;  3. d4             cxd4           &#xA;  4. Nxd4           Nf6          &#xA;  5. Nc3            &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is the starting point of a myriad possibilities in the open Sicilian. If we just proceed from here then it should be clear that Black wants a rook on the c-file while White wants a rook on the d-file. This is because those are their respective semi-open files. A rook on c8 for example would control four squares (c7, c6, c5, c4) and is also instrumental in the iconic Sicilian exchange sacrifice ...Rxc3. For the other Rook, Black wants it on the d-file to support the standard Sicilian equalizing break ...d5, while White would prefer the e-file since 1) the Rook controls most squares there and 2) the pawn push e5 is a standard attacking idea.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore in the Sicilian, Black is probably not playing ...Rad8 because he is playing ...Rac8 and ...Rfd8, while White is probably playing Rad1 and Rfe1.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;However&lt;/em&gt;, a lot of this is going to depend on the position. Let's take this position and add a few more moves:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]    &#xA;  1. e4             c5            &#xA;  2. Nf3            d6            &#xA;  3. d4             cxd4           &#xA;  4. Nxd4           Nf6          &#xA;  5. Nc3            g6&#xA;  6. Be3            Bg7        &#xA;  7. f3             O-O         &#xA;  8. Qd2            Nc6&#xA;  9. Bc4            Bd7           &#xA;  10. O-O-O         &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now we are in a Sicilian Dragon, Yugoslav attack. This is a sharp line where both sides are looking to attack the other's king. Black still wants a Rook on c8, and maybe on d8 as well (although doubling on the c-file is also a real possibility), but White no longer wants his Rooks on d1 and e1. Instead, White wants his rooks on g1 and h1 to support pawn pushes against the Black king. Rooks on d1 and e1 is no longer effective because in this pawn structure, White's active plan is going to involve pawn advances on the kingside and rooks on these two squares don't contribute to that plan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So: it comes down to where you want your rooks to be, which in turn comes down to the specifics of the position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastActivityDate="2019-06-24T08:46:14.650" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24776" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23101" CreationDate="2019-06-24T09:53:17.667" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Flat boards are used online because both players can see the pieces properly oriented. Now imagine playing online chess with half the screen upside-down.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, a flat screen is not the best representation of a 3D object, so that's why most players use 2D boards online. Same for chess books by the way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, thank you for giving me another reason why nobody plays shogi!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastActivityDate="2019-06-24T09:53:17.667" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24777" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-06-24T13:45:43.163" Score="4" ViewCount="198" Body="&lt;p&gt;White is in the presumably better position in the situation below. However, under such conditions (e.g. there are tight formations of many pieces on the board), I find it usually hard to 'breach' the opponent's defense, i.e. to capitalize the advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, I tend to favor c4 as the next move and subsequently trying to capture/exchange pieces in order to clear the way to the king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The question here is what the direction of white's next moves should be?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[FEN &quot;2k1rbnr/ppp5/1q4p1/3pNp1p/1P1P4/B1P1P1P1/P3Q2P/1KR1R3 w Kk - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19404" LastActivityDate="2019-06-26T09:48:57.857" Title="Strategy for next move in a crowded situation" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24778" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24777" CreationDate="2019-06-24T14:16:29.873" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The position you are having here is also quiet though I guess. &#xA;You can ask yourself first: What do I want to play for? &#xA;Then you can analyse the position as the following: &#xA;1.) Black has some kind of weakness in the g6 pawn, how can I attack that? &#xA;2.) The rook is placed good for opening the c-file, how do I achieve that? &#xA;3.) What are the ideas for black in the position? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then you can search for answers for those questions. &#xA;1.) There is no direct way to attack that, but 1. h4 would fix the pawn structure for the moment, therefore it would fix the weakness. &#xA;Nevertheless, after 1... Bg7 your knight is not very stable on e5, so you probably have to move it away and there is no real way of keeping the pressure on g6, therefor the plan to go for the weakness doesn't really appeal to me. &#xA;2.) If you want to play c4 and you want to sidestep Bxb4, a5 ideas, 1. Ka1 could be a smart move. If you assume for a moment that you have to moves in a row, 1.Ka1 2. c4 would allow 2... Bxb4 but after 3. c5 Qa5 4. Bxb4 Qxb4 5. c6 you would have some initative. &#xA;3.) Black has several plans, like kicking the knight away from e5 with Bg7, placing the own knight on e4, making pressure on e3. However, placing the knight on e4 is not easy yet since Nf6 allows Nxg6. Therefore black needs to kick the knight away with Bg7 or Bd6 (the latter one allows c4 with threatening c5). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now you can think of what happens if black tries any of them after 1. Ka1/h4 like 1... Bg7 2. Nd3 and so on, seeing which option seems to be the best objectively and so on improve your position. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19236" LastEditorUserId="19236" LastEditDate="2019-06-26T09:45:29.883" LastActivityDate="2019-06-26T09:45:29.883" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24779" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24782" CreationDate="2019-06-25T05:42:57.690" Score="5" ViewCount="224" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to put together a flyer of the golden rules in chess for kids that are absolute beginners. I noticed that they ran into the same trivial mistake that could be easy to fix with a simple switch, and I guess the flyer could help flipping it. Here is my list so far, kinda ranked by how important the principles are :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Practical :&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I shall take my time on each move, at least a good 20 seconds&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I shall pay attention to what’s my opponent last move and what is the intent&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I shall make sure that neither I nor my opponent is giving away a piece&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I shall keep my hand on my chin as long as I am not sure of what will be my next move&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I shall never resign&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A bad plan is better than no plan&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I shall not reveal my intent orally to my opponent&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I shall consider my opponent plays like a grandmaster&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Do not focus on one sector of the board. View the whole board&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;In game :&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In the opening, I shall deploy the knights, bishops, and then castle.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I shall not take out my queen in the opening&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I shall use my king in the endgame&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I shall connect my rook&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I shall try to control the center&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A knight on the rim is dim&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Rooks smile on open files&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When behind in material, I shall trade pawns. When ahead, trade pieces&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I shall avoid doubled, isolated or backward pawns and try getting passed pawns instead&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Whenever possible, I shall place my rook on the 7th or 8th rank&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I shall double my rooks on the 7th rank&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What do you guys think of it? Any other important principles I didn't think of? Feel free to use it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit : Here's the final look of it. Feel free to use it !&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/JiOZK.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/JiOZK.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Chess tips&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8661" LastEditorUserId="8661" LastEditDate="2019-07-14T12:53:33.410" LastActivityDate="2019-07-14T12:53:33.410" Title="Chess principles for beginner" Tags="&lt;teaching&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="18" FavoriteCount="1" ClosedDate="2019-06-25T16:09:46.750" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24780" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13762" CreationDate="2019-06-25T09:29:41.443" Score="1" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Queen of Katwe &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_of_Katwe&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;1&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Lang Leve de Koningin (i guess only available in dutch and german?) &lt;a href=&quot;https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lang_lebe_die_K%C3%B6nigin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;2&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19190" LastActivityDate="2019-06-25T09:29:41.443" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24781" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13762" CreationDate="2019-06-25T10:38:36.210" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;A movie that I like about chess is &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Luzhin_Defence&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;The Luzhin Defense&lt;/a&gt;&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, the movie might encourage your friend not to be obsessive with chess. Anyhow, the tactical problems showed in the movie deserves a view if you are yet a chess player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user18196" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-06-25T16:11:44.927" LastActivityDate="2019-06-25T16:11:44.927" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24782" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24779" CreationDate="2019-06-25T15:54:01.567" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The idea of giving your students some guidelines for playing good chess is good in principle, but we have to be aware of its limitations too. For the &quot;practical&quot; ones:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;1 This is great until you play a 5-minute blitz game. You also don't often need 20 seconds in a capture-recapture sequence. This illustrates the main problem with trying to create fixed rules, they don't apply in every situation. I would go for &quot;think until you make sure you are not blundering&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;2, 3 and 4 are good pieces of advice!&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;5 is just bad etiquette. I understand what you mean but you should definitely resign if you are a queen and two rooks down in material&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;6 is pretty controversial. Just say &quot;I shall find a good plan&quot;. Anyway beginner games are rarely decided on planning but on blunder exploitation&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;7, 8 and 9 sound fine to me.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &quot;in-game&quot; principles are generally OK, but meaningless outside of their context, sometimes even false or contradictory with one another. If you are going to present them, please do so by providing good examples of how those rules actually apply.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a final thought, please keep in mind that it's better to let your student figure out the &quot;in-game&quot; principles themselves rather than you showing them as if they were the Ten Commandments. Your mission should be to give them hints in their discovery, rather than being the word of Truth. For the sake of example, let's take in-game rule No. 6. I would review one of their games where they have an awful knight, then try to help them figuring out why the enemy's attack was so devastating. Eventually, they'll see how useful the knight would have been in an active square creating counterplay&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-06-25T16:02:33.757" LastActivityDate="2019-06-25T16:02:33.757" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24783" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24748" CreationDate="2019-06-25T16:54:38.850" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;After asking on the Discord as @Oscar Smith suggested in a comment, I got some results.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The person I asked said that you could download good weight files for Leela from this webpage: &lt;a href=&quot;http://lczero.org/networks/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://lczero.org/networks/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This was also said: &quot;nT40.T8.610 (used in TCEC Sufi): &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.dropbox.com/s/rmcf0lf1hes10gi/256x20.T8-swa-610000?dl=0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.dropbox.com/s/rmcf0lf1hes10gi/256x20.T8-swa-610000?dl=0&lt;/a&gt; and currently in use in TCEC Rapid is 42547.pb.gz from above page. LCZero won Season 15 TCEC Superfinal  with above net T40.T8.610, but might not any more be strongest one.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm assuming that it's relavant to what you need.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is the Leela Chess Zero Discord link so you can find out more: &lt;a href=&quot;https://discordapp.com/invite/pKujYxD&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://discordapp.com/invite/pKujYxD&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastActivityDate="2019-06-25T16:54:38.850" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24784" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-06-25T17:20:24.883" Score="8" ViewCount="10562" Body="&lt;p&gt;Many years ago, I was on a mountain with some people. I was very young then, between 15 and 17 years old, I think. Some older people came and one of them started to play chess with me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I cannot recall all the details, but at one moment in the game he captured my queen and I continued to play without it. Besides being without queen, he might have had 1 or 2 of my pawns and a bishop. I also had 1 or 2 his pawns, along with 1 or 2 of his bishops.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then I started to play very smartly, and, somehow, I manged to capture his queen with a trap made by using rooks and knights. I won the game after that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Obviously, this is not a question about the particular game I played on the mountain. It is more about, if someone loses his queen at the beginning of the game, what are the tactics to trap and capture the other player's queen?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And also, what is the actual strength of a queen? For example, is it generally better to be without queen or without two knights and a rook but with a queen?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would like to know more about tactics when some player lost some important pieces, but played so well that he won the game. Are there any tricks that can be used here? I am also interested in such a game in which one player loses their queen, but the other one still has theirs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19411" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-06-27T23:37:31.857" LastActivityDate="2019-06-27T23:37:31.857" Title="Losing the queen and then winning the game" Tags="&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;queens&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="7" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24785" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24784" CreationDate="2019-06-25T18:05:51.730" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Unless there is a clear chance for counterplay, losing your queen means losing the game. You won that game because your opponent was a very bad player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With regards to the strength of the queen, there is no definite answer, as every position is different. However, as a general guideline:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Two rooks are slightly more powerful than a queen.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A rook and a minor piece(bishop/knight) is slightly weaker than a queen.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Two minor pieces vs a queen often means a lost position.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Three minor pieces are also slightly stronger than a queen&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some folks will come with a &quot;points system&quot;, well, that's just  plain wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, queens are a very bad piece at blocking enemy advancing pawns, so that may be a source of counterplay in &quot;otherwise worse&quot; positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;NOTE&lt;/strong&gt; Since my statement about the pointing system was received with controversy in the comments, let me elaborate a bit further (even though this is beyond the scope of the original question, it's still related and interesting):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Any scoring system you can think of will always be inaccurate, because we cannot define a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_order&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;total order relation&lt;/a&gt; in the &quot;set of piece tandems&quot; that actually models the &quot;is more likely to be stronger than&quot; relation. Even if we could, it wouldn't work well with addition/subtraction (R+6P - N+8P is more likely a rook-side win, but R vs N+2P is more likely to be a knight-side win)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Piece strength can vary a lot from one position to another, so, even if it were possible to define such scoring system, it would overlook a lot of exceptions and, more importantly, it would give us no criterion about when those exceptions happen.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Finally, a &quot;one-point advantage&quot; grows in importance as the game gets simplified, so we don't get a good reference either about how well/badly the game is going for us (even if we only care about material)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For those reasons, I think every score-system is wrong (not even entering the discussion of which one would be right, since different people have had different opinions). But all of that does not really matter that much, even if we ignore 1 and 3, the second issue would still be there, and it's quite an important one! It you learn to think in terms of a scoring system, you will eventually have to un-learn all of that and, from my own experience, I can tell you that's really hard! The main problem is therefore that the scoring system is not useful in practice! It does not provide any help in your game and it makes progress more difficult.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;@user1583209 pointed out that computers use the points system quite succesfully. Well, that's simply not the full story! Computer position evaluation has worked very differently for a long time, and even if it were the case, there is pretty much nothing to learn from computers in terms of &quot;how to think&quot; as a human&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastEditorUserId="18809" LastEditDate="2019-06-26T15:33:10.373" LastActivityDate="2019-06-26T15:33:10.373" CommentCount="18" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24786" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24784" CreationDate="2019-06-25T19:21:25.857" Score="20" Body="&lt;p&gt;Losing a queen early on without any compensation or counterplay means almost certain defeat against anybody except for absolute beginners. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a certain &quot;point system&quot; which can be used to evaluate a position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically you assign points to certain aspects of the position, like &lt;em&gt;material&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;piece activity&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;king safety&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;space advantage&lt;/em&gt;, etc. Adding all those points (with weights depending on the aspects), you come up with a final number, for instance -2. The sign (-) means black is better and the number 2 means that all other things being equal, black could be up by 2 pawns. Of course it could also mean that material is equal and black has much more active pieces, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just for the material aspect the points assigned to the pieces is usually pawn: 1, knight/bishop: 3, rook: 5, queen: 9 (see &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_piece_relative_value&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; for details) or thereabout.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While this point system is used by computers, for practical play it is not really relevant. I don't know any decent player who would start adding numbers to assess a position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Still you can use it to answer your question...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Looking at games of top players, within an evaluation of roughly -1 to + 1, i.e. at most a pawn up (all other things being equal), the game usually ends in a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Around +-2, the game would usually be lost/won at GM/IM level, though people might still fight for a while depending on the position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Around +-3, good players would typically resign immediately.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course there are exceptions to this rule and particularly in very tactical/wild positions with open kings and attacking potentials, there could be chances for the losing side.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Still it could give you an idea of what losing a queen (value 9) means...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I would like to know more about tactics when some player lost some important pieces, but played so well that he won the game. Are there any tricks that can be used here? I&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The word you mean is &quot;strategy&quot; not &quot;tactics&quot;. As outlined above, most people would resign in a situation like you describe. Still, if you think your opponent is weak enough to continue fighting there are a few things you can do to increase your chances:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;keep many pieces on the board (don't exchange pieces): this increases the potential for tactics&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;keep the position complicated: typically this means open positions with lots of piece activity&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;start a direct attack on the enemy king&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;if time is limited try to force your opponent getting low on time, e.g. by moving quickly, doing unusual moves, etc.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;play for tricks/tactics (you really should never do this in chess because it is not how you play chess beyond a certain level...)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2019-06-25T19:21:25.857" CommentCount="15" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24787" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-06-26T04:41:13.530" Score="1" ViewCount="164" Body="&lt;p&gt;Adding to this question, &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/15563/scid-pgn-analysis-using-stockfish&quot;&gt;Scid PGN analysis using Stockfish&lt;/a&gt;, I ran a batch analysis using Scid. Now, I want to extract only the &amp;quot;D&amp;quot; diagrams. How can I do this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19382" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2020-09-01T07:51:46.060" LastActivityDate="2020-09-01T07:51:46.060" Title="Extracting &quot;D&quot; in Scid vs PC Analysis" Tags="&lt;scid&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24789" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24777" CreationDate="2019-06-26T09:48:57.857" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is white better here? Stockfish, Lc0 or another engine may well say white is better, but black has many trumps despite being behind in development.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The white king position is weak and can be attacked with a5.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The white knight on e5 looks excellent and puts pressure on g6 but can be eliminated with an exchange sacrifice, followed by Bb2.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Black's knight on g8 can quickly get to e4 in 2 moves&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Black's rook on the h-file can easily activate with h4&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As white, I would be looking to secure my king position with Bb2 and a3, which will support the c4 push at a later time if possible. Right now, the king position is very weak, and it might not be wise to willingly weaken it anymore.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would also be looking to put pressure on the d5 pawn to tie down black's pieces or induce c6. Black does have a dark-squared bishop to cover that weak diagonal, however, the pawn on c6 is possibly a target.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I prefer the black position here in a practical game without looking at a chess engine evaluation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8910" LastActivityDate="2019-06-26T09:48:57.857" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24790" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22174" CreationDate="2019-06-26T10:14:23.410" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The closest one that I have found is called celestial strains at:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess-museum.com/stone--glass-sets.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chess-museum.com/stone--glass-sets.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are some Polish sets on the site but they are not the same. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3495" LastActivityDate="2019-06-26T10:14:23.410" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24791" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24218" CreationDate="2019-06-26T13:05:01.627" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would have to answer no in my opinion. The four forms of chess are different. Shogi from what I remember is a form of chess where capturing an opponent's piece allows you to, at a time of your choosing, put one of that piece on the board as yours. Now that is a level of tactical complexity that surely gives any engine a huge advantage over any strength of human. I have played a little Xiang Qi and I would say the same; in the 90's when Chinese players played Professional western chess for the first time they were awesome tacticians; Xiang Qi as their previous game being very tactical led to that. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3495" LastActivityDate="2019-06-26T13:05:01.627" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24793" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24784" CreationDate="2019-06-26T17:01:40.703" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I played a game recently where I lost my queen for a knight early on with no other obvious compensation or counterplay.  I almost resigned, but decided to play on for a few moves to see if I could get anything, and ended up winning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The approach I used was to try and keep pieces on the board, as mentioned in another answer, as any simplification is usually bad if you're down material.  Other strategies I used were - to keep attacking their queen; and generally favouring development, coordination, disruption of their position, and piece activity, over material (e.g. not capturing the dark square bishop in the game - link below).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/zlVS5Nhj&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://lichess.org/zlVS5Nhj&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19420" LastEditorUserId="19420" LastEditDate="2019-06-26T18:09:10.510" LastActivityDate="2019-06-26T18:09:10.510" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24794" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24784" CreationDate="2019-06-26T17:21:47.393" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Play the board, not the pieces. Chess is more than just a game of material advantage--much like war. This is why piece sacrifices exist.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Take for example the following game:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Fabiano Caruana (2823)&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Hikaru Nakamura (2779)&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;    1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 a6 { Caruana had not expected Nakamura to play the Najdorf. } 6. Bg5 e6 7. f4 h6 8. Bh4 Qb6 9. a3 { Note b2 is a poisoned pawn and trap for black queen. } 9... Be7 (9... Qxb2 10. Na4) 10. Bf2 10... Qc7 11. Qf3 Nbd7 12. O-O-O b5 13. g4 { Notice either push of pawns is easily met with resistance from end pawns. } 13... g5 { Push of g pawn threatens f pawn with potential setup for knight on e5 (see variation). } 14. h4 (14. fxg5 Ne5) 14... gxf4 15. Be2 b4 { Interesting sacrifice of b pawn. } 16. axb4 Ne5 17. Qxf4 Nexg4 { A second sacrifice for black to that will do well for him. } 18. Bxg4 e5 { With this fork, three of white's pieces are threatened. } 19. Qxf6 Bxf6 20. Nd5 Qd8 { More precise is knight to c6 (see variation). } 21. Nf5 (21. Nc6) 21... Rb8 { Nakamura spent 35 minutes analyzing the position and decided on Rb8, preventing white's threat of Bb6. } 22. Nxf6+ Qxf6 23. Rxd6 Be6 24. Rhd1 O-O 25. h5 { White prepares for Bh4. } 25... Qg5+ { In an effort to stall/prevent Bh4. } 26. Be3 Qf6 27. Nxh6+ Kh8 { As we will see, white will play Nxf7, but could have played it now. } 28. Bf5 Qe7 29. b5 Qe8 30. Nxf7+ Rxf7 31. Rxe6 Qxb5 32. Rh6+ { 1-0 Black resigns. } { Possible continuation: } 32... Kg8 33. Rg1+ Kf8 34. Rh8+ Ke7 35. Rxb8 Qxb8 36. Bc5+ Kd8 37. Rg8+ Kc7 38. Bd6+ Kxd6 39. Rxb8 { White is now up a bishop and two pawns. } 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Caruana sac'ed his queen and gained so much space, position, and tempo versus black's side.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also this game:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Rashid Gibiatovich Nezhmetdinov&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Oleg L Chernikov&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[Termination &quot;Normal&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;B35&quot;]&#xA;[Opening &quot;Sicilian Defense: Accelerated Dragon, Modern Bc4 Variation&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 g6 5. Nc3 Bg7 6. Be3 Nf6 7. Bc4 O-O 8. Bb3 Ng4 9. Qxg4 Nxd4 10. Qh4 Qa5 11. O-O Bf6 12. Qxf6 Ne2+ 13. Nxe2 exf6 14. Nc3 Re8 15. Nd5 Re6 16. Bd4 Kg7 17. Rad1 d6 18. Rd3 Bd7 19. Rf3 Bb5 20. Bc3 Qd8 21. Nxf6 Be2 22. Nxh7+ Kg8 23. Rh3 Re5 24. f4 Bxf1 25. Kxf1 Rc8 26. Bd4 b5 27. Ng5 Rc7 28. Bxf7+ Rxf7 29. Rh8+ Kxh8 30. Nxf7+ Kh7 31. Nxd8 Rxe4 32. Nc6 Rxf4+ 33. Ke2 { 1-0 Black resigns. } 1-0&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Through shear inundation of threat after threat, Nezhmetdinov creates a formidable attack even apart from his queen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess cannot be simplified to just piece/material advantage. There are more elements at play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10687" LastActivityDate="2019-06-26T17:21:47.393" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24795" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-06-26T20:49:33.593" Score="6" ViewCount="581" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think that this question really can be answered rigorously with good analysis. It is opinion-based, but not completely since some results in this direction can be obtained, and strict and general guidelines can be given, along with good heuristics and reasons for the advantage of one or the other side. So, let us go straight to the description of a question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some of you wrote about some system of points I really did not know of, that assigns values to figures, according to their &amp;quot;strength&amp;quot;. Of course, it all depends on the positions in the game and on the tactics and strategies, but, I have a legal question to ask.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Suppose that two players are starting the game, and that they are equally good (in this context, meaning that all the strategies that one player knows of the other one knows too, and vice-versa). One is starting the game without 8 pawns and with a queen, and the other one is without a queen and with 8 pawns. Who, generally, has the advantage?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;rnbqkbnr/8/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNB1KBNR w - - 0 1 &amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think that this can answer this can be determined through very rigorous and sufficient analysis. It seems also that there is a tendency to favor the side with a queen and without pawns, but I do not see exactly why, and do not understand the reason for that?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can it be explained, with sufficient analysis of the problem, the main issues of both sides, with givem heuristics about what would (or should) happen later in the game? Is there really a real advantage for one side, and why?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit&lt;/strong&gt;: Now, after some thinking, I am of the opinion that this question is harder than it might seem to be, and, although much can be written and said about this starting configuration, I think that general consensus will not be so easy to establish. I am of the opinion that the White one is, generally, in advantage, but am unsure on how to prove that, and, someone with much more experience and games behind him/her could obtain some precise and thorough analysis. If someone is in close contact with masters of chess, and can ask them about an opinion, we could be closer to some conclusions. As for me, the more I think about this problem, the more hard it becomes to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19411" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-11-18T13:47:49.817" LastActivityDate="2020-11-18T13:47:49.817" Title="Is it better to start without a queen or without any pawns?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;puzzles&gt;&lt;point-value&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="12" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24796" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-06-26T21:14:52.717" Score="3" ViewCount="217" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to memorize some games so that I can replay them in my mind without a board. The reason for this is that I think it could be helpful for improving my strength. I want to be able to fully replay the game, to visualize the pieces in every position, to check variants etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now this is an arduous task (at least for me).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What do you think is the easiest way to accomplish it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This might sound like playing blindfold, but that is not the point of my question. I read about tools for learning playing blindfold, like software to improve visualization-skills or techniques.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am looking for ideas and hints how I could design the learning process more comfortable when memorizing games – maybe using some kind of software, maybe how to progress when starting to learn a game by heart.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4537" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2019-06-27T09:13:21.567" LastActivityDate="2019-06-27T15:23:59.913" Title="How to efficiently memorize games?" Tags="&lt;blindfold-chess&gt;&lt;memorization&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24797" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24795" CreationDate="2019-06-27T08:28:20.773" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The queen is better. Other than being worth 9 points (compared to the pawns' combined worth of 8 points), the queen is a single powerful unit. White can only move each of his pawns one at a time, making them collectively not nearly as strong as the queen. If White attempts to use all of his 8 pawns to combat the queen, it'll take him 8 moves on each &quot;iteration&quot; of moving all the pawns. The queen can do serious damage in this time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For what it's worth, Stockfish gives roughly a -7 evaluation for the position you posted. Maybe this is a bit too high, but nevertheless Black's clearly winning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-06-27T08:28:20.773" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24798" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22904" CreationDate="2019-06-27T08:42:09.370" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Since 12 April 2019, Scid Vs PC 4.20 has been available which seems to have fixed the problem for me at least - now works on macOS Mojave 10.14.5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17769" LastActivityDate="2019-06-27T08:42:09.370" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24799" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24796" CreationDate="2019-06-27T08:51:33.917" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Playing blindfold is not going to be easy, as @Annatar states. Only if you practice much (and accept that you're going to fail the first few times), you will succeed and over time it will probably become easier.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That said, here are some hints:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Start with short games.&lt;/strong&gt; It's easier to replay a 15 move miniature than a 80 move endgame with lots of rook maneuvers.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Use games from openings you play yourself.&lt;/strong&gt; If you're not familiar with the Sveshnikov pawn structure or the typical moves of a King's Indian, they'll be harder to remember and to visualize.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Use your &lt;em&gt;own&lt;/em&gt; games.&lt;/strong&gt; Especially the most recent one, which is still 'living' in your memory and you probably have analyzed it already after the game itself. Check if you can still 'reach' that position where that crazy bishop sacrifice was possible which you and your opponent talked about in the post-mortem.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2019-06-27T08:51:33.917" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24800" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24796" CreationDate="2019-06-27T12:36:05.823" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am the author of the software that you might be needing. For example, it is possible to set up an exercise like this &lt;a href=&quot;https://szachydzieciom.pl/?page_id=5216&amp;amp;lang=en#6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://szachydzieciom.pl/?page_id=5216&amp;amp;lang=en#6&lt;/a&gt; where the task is to replay blindfold from the score the famous opera game. The score need not be shown, it's just an option. It need not be blindfold, either, it's just an option. I can provide more details if this is the kind of thing that you are looking for.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3456" LastActivityDate="2019-06-27T12:36:05.823" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24801" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-06-27T14:03:03.437" Score="1" ViewCount="43" Body="&lt;p&gt;I use Arena with different engines to study different positions. One thing I haven't figured out is whether it's possible to use Arena to play against an engine where, for instance, I give the engine a fixed time, like 30 seconds, to make it's move but give me unlimited time to make my move. Is this possible?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I use the Linux version which apparently hasn't been updated in a couple of years so if it's possible to do this in the Windows version then possibly I'll set it up in a VM and use that for my own training.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it's not possible with Arena but works well in another GUI please advise.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18413" LastActivityDate="2019-06-27T14:03:03.437" Title="Using Arena (Linux version) with unequal time limits" Tags="&lt;arena&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24802" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24796" CreationDate="2019-06-27T15:23:59.913" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I basically agree with the points mentioned in Glorfindel's answer (short games in your opening and your own games). A few additonal thoughts:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;IMO there is not much point (for your chess strength) to remember very long games from start to end. I'd limit myself to the opening/middle game and perhaps interesting snippets from the game. What do you gain from remembering say 40 moves in an equalish rook endgame?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;In my experience, as you improve in strength, calculate more deeply and analyze/replay games you will gain the ability to memorize games automatically. You could try to do it the other way around, though personally I'd find it a bit boring to learn (long) games by heart.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Another idea for learning would be to replay games from notation without a board in your head. Not necessarily with the aim to memorize the game, but to practice visualization.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2019-06-27T15:23:59.913" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24804" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24218" CreationDate="2019-06-27T18:18:35.457" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;While it is &lt;em&gt;possible&lt;/em&gt; to write engines that can play different chess-family games, doing so generally yields an engine that are only &quot;competent&quot; at each one, at best.  The best engines for each individual game incorporate specific knowledge and optimisations for that game, and are usually &lt;em&gt;incapable&lt;/em&gt; of playing the others.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many standard chess engines are not even capable of playing Chess960 correctly, because there are special rules for castling due to the variety of starting positions, even though the rest of the game is identical.  However, adding this capability does not usually weaken the engine in the way that adding support for Shogi would.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Shogi, in particular, is very difficult to adapt a standard chess-playing engine to play well - even &quot;fairy chess&quot; engines which can support Xiangqi relatively easily.  The immediate stumbling block is generally the piece-dropping mechanic, which completely explodes the branching factor of the game tree - so it is very difficult for an engine to explore the game tree to sufficient depth to treat the game in the tactical manner that engines usually do best at.  Instead, Shogi has to be treated as a positional game, requiring a sophisticated positional analysis function to determine the correct lines to explore.  Human players are naturally better at acquiring this knowledge than computers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Conversely, a good Shogi engine would need to be taught about the special en passant and castling moves in standard chess, which don't exist in any form in Shogi, as well as the way pawns capture differently from moving, and the way in which pawns can promote to several different pieces rather than just one.  All of the specialised Shogi positional knowledge that made it a good Shogi engine would then be useless for playing standard chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the correct approach is to measure any given player's or engine's strength on an individual game.  This will generally not be correlated strongly with its strength on a different game, if it is even capable of playing it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19281" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-09-21T13:54:34.480" LastActivityDate="2019-09-21T13:54:34.480" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24806" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19877" CreationDate="2019-06-28T05:26:43.237" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Stockfish and LCZero can work with WDL without DTZ, but it might not find the optimal way to win under engine playing conditions. If you are only interested in analyzing positions with tablebases, you don't need the DTZ to tell you if a position is won or loss (since WDL already does that), but having DTZ will guarantee the winning/bestplay sequence if the engine cannot figure it out from probing WDL alone. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="46" LastActivityDate="2019-06-28T05:26:43.237" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24807" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-06-28T10:53:17.957" Score="2" ViewCount="189" Body="&lt;p&gt;Where can I find games annotated by Philidor in his book in    a PGN file?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19431" LastActivityDate="2019-12-26T00:19:39.773" Title="Analysis of chess by Philidor in PGN" Tags="&lt;books&gt;&lt;pgn&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24808" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24873" CreationDate="2019-06-28T13:14:04.320" Score="6" ViewCount="377" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm curious about the history of chess openings. Nowadays there is a lot of theory about what opening moves are considered mainstream and (near) optimal, such that either side can keep up with their opponent and maintain equality (or an advantage if anyone errs). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This sometimes goes for up to 25-30 moves without either player thinking much at all, simply because they know the best moves and have studies it extensively, and undoubtedly validated it with chess engines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now I'm wondering about before engines were a thing. Are there any known examples of openings, previously considered to be strong or played regularly by &lt;em&gt;strong players&lt;/em&gt;, but later -- with the help of engines --  determined to be dubious/easily counterable?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19435" LastActivityDate="2019-07-08T08:56:01.277" Title="Are there any known examples of spurious strong chess openings, which have been determined to be dubious with the introduction of the first engines?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;history&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24809" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24810" CreationDate="2019-06-28T17:55:30.037" Score="1" ViewCount="181" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am new to chess, so sorry for this obvious question. I was surfing through the web and learned the en passant rule. In &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/5662/when-is-it-possible-to-carry-out-the-en-passant-manoeuvre&quot;&gt;this question&lt;/a&gt; they say &quot;You cannot wait a few moves and then use the en passant capture.&quot; So I went searching through websites to find out if I can wait, then play the en passant capture and found nothing. So what I want to know is, if for example there are 2 pawns by each other, can I wait and play a few moves and then perform the move. Example: (I know the image below can't happen, but just saying.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/5LwNH.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/5LwNH.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And then play a few moves like shown below.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/yApDv.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/yApDv.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And finally capture the white piece using en passant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19438" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-09-23T21:49:47.590" LastActivityDate="2019-09-23T21:49:47.590" Title="Can you wait and then perform an en passant capture?" Tags="&lt;en-passant&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ClosedDate="2019-06-28T18:10:07.703" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24810" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24809" CreationDate="2019-06-28T17:59:26.627" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;En-passant can only occur &lt;em&gt;immediately&lt;/em&gt; after a pawn moves two squares from its starting square, where it could have been captured had it only moved one square.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You cannot wait a move: if you choose not to immediately capture en-passant, you lose the ability to do so next move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10075" LastActivityDate="2019-06-28T17:59:26.627" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24811" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24520" CreationDate="2019-06-28T20:57:44.827" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm seeing a lot of great answers being met with, &quot;This doesn't answer my question&quot; - so I'm going to go ahead and answer your literal question (even though the answer won't help you out at all.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;a4 is the strongest opening rook-pawn move.&lt;/strong&gt;  &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.365chess.com/opening.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;In tournament games&lt;/a&gt;, it still leaves white with a slight edge to winning (28.9% to 25.8%) which is much smaller than good moves and nearly concedes the entire advantage of going first.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;a3 is the next strongest of the four&lt;/strong&gt;, and leaves &lt;em&gt;black&lt;/em&gt; with a slight edge.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;h3 and h4 both leave black with a considerable lead.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, that that's over with, will you finally listen to why &lt;em&gt;this doesn't matter&lt;/em&gt;?  If you're concerned with training purposes, you &lt;em&gt;don't want to train against a4&lt;/em&gt; specifically.  What you &lt;em&gt;want&lt;/em&gt; to do is occasionally pick some purposely strange opening decisions that your kid has never played against.  Did he reply to your e4 with the sicilian?  Then try playing 2. b4 against him and see if he keeps his head.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;That's&lt;/em&gt; why everyone is saying &quot;Teach him opening fundamentals.&quot;  Because you're &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; going to be able to train him on how to react to every strange/atypical opening move.  There's simply too many of them.  What you &lt;em&gt;can&lt;/em&gt; train him on is how to react when your opponent starts doing stuff you don't expect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18998" LastActivityDate="2019-06-28T20:57:44.827" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24812" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24520" CreationDate="2019-06-29T03:49:29.523" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd like to give a more complex answer. I will give an opening that was played frequently [at least by the standards of off beat openings] at the highest level by people of Grandmaster Strength. That is the &quot;Julian Hodgson&quot; Trompowsky. &#xA;1. d4 Nf6&#xA;2. Bg5 Ne4 &#xA;3. h4 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At GM level against GM opponents that is the only opening that I can think of where a rook pawn move is for practical purposes playable. From an absolute theoretical point of view it will get the 3. h4?! symbol for dubious. But it is not clear over the board how to meet it as black and get any advantage. Hodgson, a strong GM, was also a specialist in the Trompowsky and he used 3.h4 a lot here in the 1990's. I haven't got the statistics offhand of his record with 3.h4.  Apologies for not giving a diagram; not my strong point but could use one. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Obviously at the elite professional level of chess players are not usually going to open on the first move with a rook pawn. But a few moves later as here is possible. Of course if someone wants to be a smart alec and say well there's the fourth move of the main line Spanish then you can go ahead lol. Sorry that is a chess joke.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3495" LastActivityDate="2019-06-29T03:49:29.523" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24813" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21711" CreationDate="2019-06-29T17:38:21.093" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;From Jeremy Gaige's &lt;em&gt;Chess Personalia: a biobibliography&lt;/em&gt; (2005 paperback edition (originally from 1987), MacFarland), if no other source is given.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) Shmit&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Anatoly Shmit, a pseudonym, actual name is Anatolijs Šmits, p. 389&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Anatolijs Šmits, born 1941.09.02 in Pskov gov., URS, p. 397&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pskov&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Pskov&lt;/a&gt; is a city in Russia very close to Estonia.&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;Likely&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I found Anatolijs Šmits in &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatolijs_%C5%A0mits&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;, where it's said he died on January 30, 1998.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) Zurakov&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Vladen Yakovlevich Zhurakov, born 1930.05.19, URS, p. 482&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;Possibly&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) Abaharov&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Jarullakh Ibadullakh Ogli Abakarov, born 1934.05.10, URS, p. 1&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;Possibly&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On page 280 of Gino Di Felice's &lt;em&gt;Chess Results 1956-1960&lt;/em&gt; (MacFarland, 2010), Abakarov is said to be from Azerbaijan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4) Donnelly&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;4.1) B. Donnely, IM in 1982, Zimbabwe, p. 97&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;4.2) Ruth Donnelly, born 1929.01.19, USA, p. 97&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;Unlikely&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Next I looked at Edward Winter's &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/index.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess History&lt;/a&gt; website and found a &lt;em&gt;Donnelly&lt;/em&gt; in his 1997 article &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/extra/ozols.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;War Crimes&lt;/a&gt; on Karlis Alexandrs Ozols. A game is given &lt;em&gt;Karlis Ozols – Donnelly&lt;/em&gt; from the  1987 Correspondence Olympiad. It was a KID Ozols won in 24 moves.&#xA;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Then I looked up the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.iccf.com/tables&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;ICCF Chess Olympiad&lt;/a&gt; in 1987 and the preliminaries (no earlier records), but without success.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;David McAlister's Blog &lt;a href=&quot;https://irishchesshistory.wordpress.com/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Irish Chess History&lt;/a&gt; has a page about &lt;a href=&quot;https://irishchesshistory.wordpress.com/restricted/irish-junior-championship/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Irish Junior Championship&lt;/a&gt;. A &lt;em&gt;F. Donnelly&lt;/em&gt; competed in 1954 in the Dublin Chess Club, but was not too successful (last place with 0/5).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19441" LastActivityDate="2019-06-29T17:38:21.093" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24814" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5949" CreationDate="2019-06-29T21:04:59.500" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The January 1953 &lt;a href=&quot;https://archive.org/details/ChessReview1953/page/n1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess Review&lt;/a&gt; on the back of the front cover, right below &lt;em&gt;Chernev's Chess Corner&lt;/em&gt;, has a &quot;Thought for the month&quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Properly taught, a student can learn more in a few hours, than he would find out in ten years of untutored trial and error. -Ed. Lasker&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This implies that it was &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Lasker&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Edward Lasker&lt;/a&gt;, not Emanuel Lasker, who said it. I didn't find its exact source yet, though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19441" LastActivityDate="2019-06-29T21:04:59.500" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24816" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24605" CreationDate="2019-06-30T03:13:30.013" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a special case where you can reply to an illegal move with checkmate. In blitz chess different sets of rules exist. I have played blitz tournaments over the board where if you leave your king in check [so you have made an illegal move] the other player can &quot;take&quot; your king which is checkmate and they win the game. It's surprising how often that does happen. It's worth adding that the otehr player must make a move that &quot;takes&quot; your king. If they do not then you could make a legal move by getting your king out of check and the game goes on. In other words the player cannot just claim checkmate; they must make the legal move that captures the king. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3495" LastActivityDate="2019-06-30T03:13:30.013" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24817" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1055" CreationDate="2019-06-30T08:01:22.403" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Two examples from &lt;strong&gt;Vladimir Kramnik&lt;/strong&gt;, taken from Kramnik, Vladimir; Damsky, Igor: &lt;em&gt;My Life and Games&lt;/em&gt;, Everyman Chess, 2000.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) &lt;em&gt;A smile in the endgame&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Position after 48.Ne5:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;    [Title &quot;Kramnik, Vladimir - Ivanchuk, Vasily, Las Palmas 1996&quot;]&#xA;    [FEN &quot;8/6K1/7P/4N3/8/k7/8/1b6 b - - 0 0&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1...Kb4 {The black king is hurrying towards g5.} 2. Ng6 Bxg6 3. Kxg6 {And in view of the variation 50...Kc5 51.h7 Kd6 52.h8=Q my opponent finally resigned.}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Game 151, p. 194&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1060715&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Link to the game&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) &lt;em&gt;In the mystification genre&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Kramnik annotates Kramnik, Vladimir - Timman, Jan, Wijk aan Zee 1999 (game 173) on pp. 250-254 in an unusual manner. Her parodies commenters:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I have often begun noticing that the commentaries of certain well-known (and not so well-known) players would be correctly characterised as &quot;frankly hack-work&quot;, by no means aimed at searching for the truth.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He then goes on to give 4 reasons, that I paraphrase&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Winner wants to make it seem like their opponent &quot;was doomed [...] even before the first move&quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Doesn't want to recognize own mistakes.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Doesn't want to waste their time and effort on commentary.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;Anything else.&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But he believes that the 3rd reason occurs more often than all the others.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then comes &lt;em&gt;Part 1&lt;/em&gt; of the commentary (move 1 to 41), followed by &lt;em&gt;Part 2&lt;/em&gt; (moves 26 to 36). &lt;em&gt;Part 2&lt;/em&gt; concentrates on specific moves and is much more thorough. It turns out that annotations from &lt;em&gt;Part 1&lt;/em&gt; from move 26 onwards are parodies of the above mentioned commenters. They are short, but authoritatively sounding, and are refuted in &lt;em&gt;Part 2&lt;/em&gt; which is much more critical of both, Kramnik's and Timman's moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;After all that has been said, it becomes clear that the play of both players in the game was far from ideal. [...]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1011520&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Link to the game&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19441" LastEditorUserId="19441" LastEditDate="2019-07-01T18:02:16.807" LastActivityDate="2019-07-01T18:02:16.807" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24818" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24825" CreationDate="2019-06-30T12:25:03.733" Score="16" ViewCount="5583" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfgang_Unzicker&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wolfgang Unzicker&lt;/a&gt; was a German GM, rated about 2550 and worked as a judge. In the sense of holding down a job while playing, he was an &quot;amateur&quot; player. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So was Unzicker, a GM in the 70's, the last amateur GM?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3495" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2019-07-01T16:34:29.857" LastActivityDate="2019-07-01T16:34:29.857" Title="Was Wolfgang Unzicker the last Amateur GM?" Tags="&lt;grandmaster&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24819" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24818" CreationDate="2019-06-30T12:31:09.880" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are plenty of GMs that do not play professionally, e.g. GM &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2017/jul/14/luke-mcshane-shares-third-consecutive-title&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Luke McShane is a financial trader&lt;/a&gt;, GM &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.bsg.ox.ac.uk/people/yifan-hou&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Hou Yifan is a Rhodes scholar&lt;/a&gt;. So if your definition of &quot;amateur&quot; is holding down a job while playing occasionally, Wolfgang Unzicker certainly was not the last amateur GM.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-07-01T09:15:37.817" LastActivityDate="2019-07-01T09:15:37.817" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24821" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24822" CreationDate="2019-06-30T14:04:12.433" Score="0" ViewCount="139" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am around 1700 - 1800 player on chess.com, mainly playing 3+2 and 5+5 games and as white I always play KIA, but what I have noticed recently is that with white my score is much better that as black - with white I have 40 victories more than losses, but with black I have only 8 victories more than losses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, I was wondering what opening one should play with black if he plays KIA as white?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have tried French, Sicilian Kan and Pirc, and maybe I had the most success with Kan, but again it is nowhere near as good as my performance with white. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17954" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2019-06-30T17:23:33.240" LastActivityDate="2019-06-30T17:23:33.240" Title="What to choose to play as black if you play King's Indian Attack as white?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;kings-indian-attack&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24822" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24821" CreationDate="2019-06-30T17:23:02.007" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The King's Indian Attack isn't called the King's Indian Attack for nothing; it's White's version of the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King%27s_Indian_Defence&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;King's Indian &lt;em&gt;Defense&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt; which is an opening for Black, characterized by the moves 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6, and Black intends to follow up with Bg7, d6, castling kingside and either c5 or e5. So you should get a structure you're familiar with, although the precise moves may be different.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can't really play the KID against 1. e4, so you'd have to opt for the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_Defense&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Modern Defense&lt;/a&gt;, or the Pirc you already mentioned. If you're attracted to the setup with g6 and Bg7, the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sicilian_Defence,_Dragon_Variation&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Sicilian Dragon&lt;/a&gt; would also be an option.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;but what I have noticed recently is that with white my score is much better that as black - with white I have 40 victories more than loses, but with black I have only 8 victories more than losses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Depending on the strength of your opponents and the number of games you play, this can be quite normal. By moving first, White has a slight advantage and (at all levels of play) this implies players score better with White than with Black. I wouldn't really worry about it for now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2019-06-30T17:23:02.007" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24823" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24818" CreationDate="2019-06-30T18:42:17.180" Score="34" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;So in the sense of holding down a job while playing he was an&#xA;  &quot;amateur&quot; player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;So was Unzicker, a GM in the 70's, the last amateur GM?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No. Here are 4 current British &quot;amateur&quot; grandmasters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;English GM Matthew Turner is a teacher at Millfield School in Somerset.   &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;English GM Matthew Sadler is a computer consultant in the Netherlands.   &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;English GM Luke McShane (currently on &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess24.com/en/watch/live-tournaments/netanya-masters-2019/7/1/1&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;4/7 in the Netanya Masters&lt;/a&gt;) is a financial trader in London   &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Scottish GM Dr. Jonathan Rowson is Director of the Social Brain Centre at the Royal Society of Arts in London   &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-07-01T09:14:55.963" LastActivityDate="2019-07-01T09:14:55.963" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24824" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="347" CreationDate="2019-06-30T23:48:44.640" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Surprisingly, it turns out that a Minimax engine will play reasonably well when the evaluation function is &lt;strong&gt;random&lt;/strong&gt;; this is known as the Beale effect, and results from the principle that positions which give you more options and your opponent fewer options are generally favourable.  One reasonable way to generate random evaluations consistently and efficiently is to generate a Zobrist hash for the position (using coefficients chosen randomly at the start of the game), and derive the random evaluation directly from the hash.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At the opposite end of the scale, AlphaZero and Leela conduct an extremely sophisticated evaluation of each position searched, using a &lt;strong&gt;large neural network&lt;/strong&gt;.  It is impractical to describe in human terms what functions this network effectively implements, but it is undeniably more effective than Stockfish's evaluation function.  The AlphaZero research paper indicates that this approach works best with Monte-Carlo Tree Search rather than Minimax.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If, on the other hand, you want to develop an &lt;strong&gt;analysis engine&lt;/strong&gt; to help human players or commentators understand the nuances of a position, it may be worthwhile to implement a conventional evaluation function using &lt;strong&gt;established material values and positional theory&lt;/strong&gt;.  A good example is set by Ed Schröder's &lt;a href=&quot;http://members.home.nl/matador/Inside%20Rebel.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Inside Rebel&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt;, documenting the major design features of a well-regarded engine used in several of Mephisto's chess computers.  You may wish to use a certain degree of machine learning to determine the relative importance of each element of your evaluation function, and also break out these elements individually for presentation in a GUI.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19281" LastEditorUserId="19281" LastEditDate="2019-07-02T11:52:39.573" LastActivityDate="2019-07-02T11:52:39.573" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24825" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24818" CreationDate="2019-07-01T01:57:27.927" Score="18" Body="&lt;p&gt;The economist &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Rogoff#Chess&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Ken Rogoff&lt;/a&gt; (b. 1953) achieved the GM title in 1978, but was never a &quot;professional&quot; chess player. Rogoff is currently a professor of economics at Harvard University.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9645" LastActivityDate="2019-07-01T01:57:27.927" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24826" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6212" CreationDate="2019-07-01T13:15:42.087" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;For people stumbling on this question: volume 29 is available online though &lt;a href=&quot;https://books.google.be/books/about/Deutsche_Schachzeitung.html?id=YORgAAAAcAAJ&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Google Books&lt;/a&gt; since februari 2015.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19450" LastActivityDate="2019-07-01T13:15:42.087" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24827" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6256" CreationDate="2019-07-01T13:22:51.783" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Actually, I don't think a6 was a good move. In those structures, I would be very careful to push the a-pawn too early. At some point it might be necessary of course, but this was too early in my opinion. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Instead you could consider 17... g4, because a common motif in these structures is that 18. fxg4 is bad due to 18... Nxe4 with grabbing away the dark squared bishop. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After 17... g4 18. Nxa7 Bd7 one important point to notice is, that 19. Bb5 fails due to 19...g3! ( 20. hxg3 fxg3 21. Be3 fails to the standard 21... Nxd5 with Qh4 to follow up, while 22. Bxd7 fails due to 22...Nxe3).&#xA;So after 18. Nxa7, Whites play is simply too slow, and blacks attack is way to strong - therefore there is no need to defend a7 at all. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On every other whites move then 18. Nxa7, you can simply play 18... g3 with the follow-up g3 hxg3 fxg3 Bxg3 Nh5 Bh2/f2 Ngf4 and a strong attack. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore Nb5 might actually be already quite a blunder. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is one thing you should always check before playing a6: That's the Na4-b6 idea. &#xA;To avoid this, you should play a6 mainly, if Na4-b6 is either too slow to prevent the king side attack, or if a6 Na3/c3 b5 is possible with avoiding the nasty knight jumps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19236" LastActivityDate="2019-07-01T13:22:51.783" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24828" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-07-01T14:16:31.737" Score="4" ViewCount="206" Body="&lt;p&gt;How can I use pgn-extract to remove a game from a pgn file when there is an illegal move?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19451" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-07-01T14:25:27.113" LastActivityDate="2019-07-02T05:38:33.790" Title="How can I use pgn-extract to remove a game from a pgn file when there is an illegal move?" Tags="&lt;illegal-move&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24829" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24834" CreationDate="2019-07-01T16:50:18.100" Score="3" ViewCount="246" Body="&lt;p&gt;I remember seeing a particular chess problem awhile ago on YouTube, but I can't find it. The problem's theme was something about caging in the Turkish king, and the video mentioned it as being old.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Regarding details of the problem, here are two. It ends in a smothered mate with eight black pawns surrounding the Black king. In the course of the solution, all of the Black pawns are forced into place by White.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is example I've made of the general concept.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;8/2pKN3/Q3ppp1/2ppk1p1/4pR2/3P1P2/4N3/8 w KQkq - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Qd6+ cxd6 2. Rf5+ gxf5 3. d4+ cxd4 4. f4+ gxf4 5. Ng6#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does anyone know the problem and its source?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-06-27T22:14:54.560" LastActivityDate="2020-06-27T22:14:54.560" Title="Looking for an old problem that I can't quite remember" Tags="&lt;history&gt;&lt;problems&gt;&lt;identify-this&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24831" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24722" CreationDate="2019-07-01T19:18:42.130" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was unable to generate data for exactly what you want, but I managed something with a restriction to 6x6 board. I think it's reasonable to assume that it doesn't make a big difference from 8x8 for this specific case since there are no powerful pieces on the board (with unrestricted movement distance).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Available positions are enumerated by starting from a certain position and doing moves until we can. It should give all possible positions but I'm not sure. (I respect the requirement posed by OP that all Ds have different available positions)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Code (C++17, uses a few MSVC specific intrinsics) (tuned for this specific piece types and configuration): &lt;a href=&quot;https://pastebin.com/d6J5WHuY&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://pastebin.com/d6J5WHuY&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stripped WDL data:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;        W               D               L&#xA;KvK     0.000000000%    100.000000000%  0.000000000%&#xA;KDvK    0.000000000%    0.000000000%    0.000000000%&#xA;KDDvK   0.620803000%    99.379200000%   0.000000000%&#xA;KDDDvK  25.666000000%   74.334000000%   0.000000000%&#xA;KDDDDvK 69.638300000%   30.361700000%   0.000000000%&#xA;KvKN    0.000000000%    100.000000000%  0.000000000%&#xA;KDvKN   0.000761905%    99.997700000%   0.001523810%&#xA;KDDvKN  0.083948400%    99.916000000%   0.000000000%&#xA;KDDDvKN 3.553240000%    96.446800000%   0.000000000%&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/y28G3.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/y28G3.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;        Longest DTM for white   &#xA;            Longest DTM for black&#xA;KvK     0   0&#xA;KDvK    0   0&#xA;KDDvK   17  0&#xA;KDDDvK  57  0&#xA;KDDDDvK 63  0&#xA;KvKN    0   0&#xA;KDvKN   1   1&#xA;KDDvKN  17  0&#xA;KDDDvKN 63  0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/nqZkc.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/nqZkc.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm unable to generate KDDDDvKN as it would require ~32GiB of RAM (should take less than an hour though), which I don't have.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Buf overall it can be seen that around a quarter of KDDDvK games are winning for white which may suggest that there are non-trivial winning KDDDDvKN positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also have more detailed logs with the longest winning line shown.&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1_aLMYB87zVJ9qslQxafTZNKHgXsoBnl2?usp=sharing&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1_aLMYB87zVJ9qslQxafTZNKHgXsoBnl2?usp=sharing&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have not added any persistence/querying and I don't plan to. Code is provided above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19415" LastEditorUserId="19415" LastEditDate="2019-07-05T15:06:03.647" LastActivityDate="2019-07-05T15:06:03.647" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24832" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24828" CreationDate="2019-07-02T05:38:33.790" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.cs.kent.ac.uk/~djb/pgn-extract/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;pgn-extract&lt;/a&gt; will do exactly that if you give it an input file and say where you want the correct games to go. For instance:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;pgn-extract --output clean.pgn games.pgn&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;will put only the valid games from &lt;code&gt;games.pgn&lt;/code&gt; into &lt;code&gt;clean.pgn&lt;/code&gt;, reporting any errors on standard output. If you want to have a record of the errors then you can use the -l flag to specify a log file; e.g.:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;pgn-extract --output clean.pgn -lissues.txt games.pgn&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are lots of additional options/flags described in &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.cs.kent.ac.uk/~djb/pgn-extract/help.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;the documentation&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Disclosure: I am the author of pgn-extract.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12951" LastActivityDate="2019-07-02T05:38:33.790" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24833" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24829" CreationDate="2019-07-02T06:08:08.777" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is it this one?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Herbert Grasemann. Deutsche Schachblätter 1950, 2nd Prize&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;8/8/8/5B2/6QN/3prp2/3r1p2/3bbk1K w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Qh3+ Ke2 2.Qf1+ Kxf1 3.Bh3+ Ke2 4.Bf1+ Kxf1 5.Nf5 Ra2 6.Ng3#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Dickin &amp;amp; Ebert, in their &lt;em&gt;100 Classics of the Chessboard&lt;/em&gt;, no. 55, call it &quot;Back into Clink&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If not, if the bK really is surrounded by 8 pawns and no pieces, then perhaps it was one of the problems as located by this PDB query:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://pdb.dieschwalbe.de/search.jsp?expression=PIECELIST=&amp;#39;Sbbbbbbbb&amp;#39;%20AND%20WPIECES=3%20AND%20G=&amp;#39;n%23&amp;#39;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://pdb.dieschwalbe.de/search.jsp?expression=PIECELIST='Sbbbbbbbb'+AND+WPIECES=3+AND+G='n%23'&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10380" LastEditorUserId="12523" LastEditDate="2019-07-02T10:56:36.527" LastActivityDate="2019-07-02T10:56:36.527" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24834" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24829" CreationDate="2019-07-02T08:48:36.593" Score="9" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;    [Title &quot;Carl Ferdinand von Jänisch, Der eiserne Käfig des Tamerlan, 1849&quot;]&#xA;    [FEN &quot;4N3/P2p1Np1/3Qp1R1/2pR4/2p1kpp1/b2bp2B/q3PP2/3K4 w - - 0 0&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.f3+ gxf3 2.exd3+ cxd3 3.Bf5+ exf5 4.Re6+ dxe6 5.Nf6+ gxf6 6.Rd4+ cxd4 7.a8=B Qd5 8.Bxd5+ exd5 9.Qe5+ fxe5 10.Ng5#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's problem 59 in Max Lange: &lt;em&gt;Handbuch der Schachaufgaben&lt;/em&gt;, Leipzig 1862, p. 79. &lt;a href=&quot;https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=BbFAAAAAcAAJ&amp;amp;dq=jaenisch%20eiserner%20k%C3%A4fig&amp;amp;pg=PA79#v=onepage&amp;amp;q=jaenisch%20eiserner%20k%C3%A4fig&amp;amp;f=false&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Google Books&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It was published on p. 427 of the 1849 &lt;em&gt;Schachzeitung&lt;/em&gt;. &lt;a href=&quot;https://books.google.de/books?id=R61AAAAAcAAJ&amp;amp;dq=schachzeitung%201849&amp;amp;hl=de&amp;amp;pg=PA427#v=onepage&amp;amp;q=schachzeitung%201849&amp;amp;f=false&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Google Books&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The chess puzzle can also be found with the search term &lt;code&gt;tamburlaine's iron cage&lt;/code&gt;, e. g. Suren's &lt;a href=&quot;https://youtu.be/pzUj78TLFIU&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;YouTube video&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19441" LastEditorUserId="19441" LastEditDate="2019-07-02T13:57:08.020" LastActivityDate="2019-07-02T13:57:08.020" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24836" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24837" CreationDate="2019-07-02T09:46:26.170" Score="5" ViewCount="631" Body="&lt;p&gt;I saw this thread: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/9470/converting-square-notation-to-algebraic-notation-programmatically&quot;&gt;Converting square notation to algebraic notation programmatically&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately, it's the reverse of what I need to do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Given a FEN and an Algebraic move, I need to generate the coordinate notation of said move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I realize that you need the position (FEN) in order to reverse engineer the starting position of the pawn/piece being moved.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm hoping there is some utility or library/function that does this. If not, a description/outline of the basic algorithm would be great too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4128" LastActivityDate="2019-07-02T10:08:01.960" Title="Converting from Algebraic notation to Coordinate notation" Tags="&lt;programming&gt;&lt;notation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24837" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24836" CreationDate="2019-07-02T10:08:01.960" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can do this easily in python using the &lt;a href=&quot;https://pypi.org/project/python-chess/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;python-chess&lt;/a&gt; module and using the &lt;a href=&quot;https://python-chess.readthedocs.io/en/latest/core.html#chess.Board.parse_san&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;code&gt;parse_san&lt;/code&gt; function of &lt;code&gt;chess.Move.&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's call the script &lt;code&gt;algebTocoord.py&lt;/code&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;import chess&#xA;&#xA;testfen = 'rnbqkb1r/pppppppp/5n2/8/3P4/8/PPP1PPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 1 2'&#xA;board = chess.Board(testfen)&#xA;algmove = 'Nf3'&#xA;coordmove = str(board.parse_san(algmove))&#xA;print coordmove&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the printed output is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;'g1f3'&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This was tested using Python version &lt;code&gt;2.7.16&lt;/code&gt; and the &lt;code&gt;0.22.1&lt;/code&gt; version of python-chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3594" LastActivityDate="2019-07-02T10:08:01.960" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24838" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24183" CreationDate="2019-07-02T10:09:14.617" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It depends on what you want with chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you’re willing to play chess to be able to win, you’re in for a huge disappointment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let me take the example of &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nim&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Nim&lt;/a&gt;, which is a simpler game. You learn the rules, and start to play and have fun. Until you meet somebody who knows the true structure of the game, and the invisible goal to pursue (enforcing the binary parity of stacks) They start to smash you every time you play with them, and you don’t understand why.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess is like that, but with more layers of understanding. You learn the rules, you play, until you play against someone who counts attacks and defenses on pieces better than you, and they start gaining material advantage over you at every game. If they care to explain it to you, you start to see something invisible that is more interesting, and you may get better, even starting not to lose so many pieces so sillily.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then you meet someone else who knows about how pawns play against each other in the endgame, once the queens are no more on the board, and they start exchanging all the pieces and you end up with a shattered pawn structure at every game, and their king being centralized sooner than yours, and you don’t understand how they can promote to queen every time and you lose. If they care to explain it to you, you may get better, but this requires time, thinking and dedication.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or maybe you meet someone who read Nimzovitch’s &quot;My system&quot; and you end up having your opponent’s rooks slaughter your pawn line at every game... et cetera.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the end, someone who is better than you has learned to see invisible things in the game that you don’t see yet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, do you want play chess to understand the game and what it is made of? Or do you want to play just for fun? Both are OK. There are people who play for the former, some for the latter, some for both. Fun will be there if your opponent can adapt to your level and can teach you. I would advise you to walk away from a person whose only aim is winning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Fun is slowly disappearing from high-level chess, as Aleksandra Kosteniuk puts it forward. A chess game will be won by the one who could, during training, mine a better acute line of play from a commonly played line. Less and less things are unknown about chess. Kosteniuk advocates for playing Chess360. That may be a lead for you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I’d advise you to try to play online, with people who are about your level. Try also other variations of chess, maybe fairy chess, Chess360, or others.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user3243" LastEditorDisplayName="user3243" LastEditDate="2019-07-02T10:20:39.030" LastActivityDate="2019-07-02T10:20:39.030" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24839" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8767" CreationDate="2019-07-02T20:16:06.003" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It depends on what do you mean by &quot;almost anyone&quot;. I think that any intelligent, focused, and with no other faults, individual, could make it if &quot;they devoted their whole life to chess from age 6&quot;, especially if they could afford the best trainers and so on and on. GM is just a title, it means that you are a very strong player. That doesn't mean you are going to beat Carlsen or become US champion.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastActivityDate="2019-07-02T20:16:06.003" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24840" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6212" CreationDate="2019-07-03T05:23:33.707" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Nick Pope's web site Chess Archaeology has a page titled &quot;Chess Library&quot;  where he lists a number of on-line chess periodicals. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessarch.com/library/library.shtml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chessarch.com/library/library.shtml&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And, yes, the volume of DSz that you're asking for can be found there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For German sources, the Deutsche Digital Bibliothek (&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.deutsche-digitale-bibliothek.de/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.deutsche-digitale-bibliothek.de/&lt;/a&gt;) can sometimes be useful:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://reader.digitale-sammlungen.de/de/fs1/object/display/bsb11184017_00259.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://reader.digitale-sammlungen.de/de/fs1/object/display/bsb11184017_00259.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user18412" LastActivityDate="2019-07-03T05:23:33.707" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24841" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8554" CreationDate="2019-07-03T14:19:25.047" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;em&gt;First International Ladies' Chess Congress&lt;/em&gt; in London, 1897. Games commenced on June 23 and the tournament was finished on July 3. It was organized by the Ladies' Chess Club of London and the Women's Chess Club of New York. The time control was 20 moves per hour, from 1 to 5 pm and 7 to 11 pm. Two games were played per day.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Results (after 19 rounds):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Mary Rudge 18.5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Louisa Matilda Fagan 15.5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Eliza Mary Thorold 14&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Harriet J. Worrall 13&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Marie Bonnefin 12.5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;F. Sterling Barry, Edith Margaret Thomas 11.5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Gertrude Field 11&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;G. Watson, A. M. Gooding 10.5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;E. H. Sidney, Alice E. Hooke 10&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Rita Fox 9&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Anna Hertzsch 8.5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Eschwege 6&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Müller-Härtung 5.5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;De la Vigne, Forbes-Sharpe 4&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Finn 3.5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Stevenson 1&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Referee: &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Nelson_Pillsbury&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Harry Nelson Pillsbury&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My sources are&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Batgirl: &lt;em&gt;Women Can Play Chess!&lt;/em&gt;, 2013, &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/blog/batgirl/women-can-play-chess&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;chess.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Joost van Winsen: &lt;em&gt;The Ladies Made an International Move&lt;/em&gt;, 2016, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessarch.com/archive/0041_Ladies/index.shtml&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;chess archaeology&lt;/a&gt; (with many pictures!)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19441" LastActivityDate="2019-07-03T14:19:25.047" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24842" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-07-03T19:18:11.550" Score="18" ViewCount="1353" Body="&lt;p&gt;Almost everyone knows the standard rules of thumb: a minor piece is worth three pawns, a rook is worth five pawns, and a queen is worth nine. (I’m aware that this is debated; in particular many theorists think the exchange is worth less than two pawns, but at any rate this is the most famous and well known set of values).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When were these consensus material values first stated? Who came up with them, and how?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19458" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2019-07-03T20:35:51.523" LastActivityDate="2019-07-15T00:08:48.313" Title="What is the origin/history of the traditional piece values?" Tags="&lt;history&gt;&lt;point-value&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24844" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24842" CreationDate="2019-07-03T20:41:52.340" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;In &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.computerhistory.org/chess/doc-431614f453dde/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Claude Shannon's paper of 1949&lt;/a&gt;, he quotes those values as part of his evaluation function:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Most of the maxims and principles of correct play are really assertions about evaluating positions, for example: -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(1) The relative values of queen, rook, bishop, knight and pawn are about 9, 5, 3, 3, 1, respectively. Thus other things being equal (!) if we add the numbers of pieces for the two sides with these coefficients, the side with the largest total has the better position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(2) Rooks should be placed on open files. This is part of a more general principle that the side with the greater mobility, other things equal, has the better game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(3) Backward, isolated and doubled pawns are weak.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(4) An exposed king is a weakness (until the end game).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;These and similar principles are only generalizations from empirical evidence of numerous games, and only have a kind of statistical validity. Probably any chess principle can be contradicted by particular counter examples. However, form these principles one can construct a crude evaluation function. The following is an example: -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;f(P) = 200(K-K') + 9(Q-Q') + 5(R-R') + 3(B-B'+N-N') + (P-P')&#xA;      - 0.5(D-D'+S-S'+I-I') + 0.1(M-M') + ...&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He doesn't cite an explicit reference for these values, but appears to treat them as well-known.  He does cite three obviously chess-related books published from 1937 onwards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, Nimzowitsch's &lt;em&gt;My System&lt;/em&gt; was first published in 1925, and it is not immediately obvious that specific relative values are assigned to pieces; a text search for &quot;piece value&quot; yields only oblique references to the idea that a rook is so much more valuable than a pawn that the former should not be tied down to defend the latter.  With that said, &lt;em&gt;My System&lt;/em&gt; is a textbook about positional play, so could be said to have moved beyond simple material analysis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also first published in 1925 was &lt;em&gt;Lasker's Manual of Chess&lt;/em&gt;, which starts from the very basics - the form of the board and the rules of moving pieces.  Here, we &lt;em&gt;do&lt;/em&gt; find a numerical description of piece value, near the end of the &quot;first book&quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;We rivet our attention on the games of the experienced […] and among them certain regularities show very plainly.  […]  Hence, we know that &lt;em&gt;ceteris paribus&lt;/em&gt; (all else being equal) knight and bishop are even, either is &lt;em&gt;ceteris paribus&lt;/em&gt; worth three pawns, rook &lt;em&gt;ceteris paribus&lt;/em&gt; as strong as knight or bishop and two pawns, queen very nearly as strong as two rooks or three minor pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From this prose, we can extract B=N=3, R=5, Q is a little less than 10 (2xR) or 9 (3xB/N).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He then goes on to point out some situations where the qualification &lt;em&gt;ceteris paribus&lt;/em&gt; is most definitely &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; true.  But again, it is not immediately clear from the text whether Lasker was the first to explicitly write these values down, or whether he himself learned them from elsewhere.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A subsequent answer notes that Staunton published a similar set of values in 1847, but essentially quotes Q=10 instead of Shannon's value of 9; these values in turn appear to have been established even earlier.  So we can see that Lasker may have obtained these piece values from Staunton (a very influential figure in chess, so Lasker would certainly have read him) and, before writing his own chess manual three-quarters of a century later, revised them based on his own experience.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It appears that Lasker revised his own values yet again for a later 1947 work, to values somewhat different from Shannon's: B=N=3.5, R=5, Q=8.5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is also worth noting that modern chess engines sometimes choose a different set of values entirely, especially when they are self-optimised.  Stockfish uses N=4.16, B=4.41, R=6.625, Q=12.92, which roughly corresponds to devaluing an individual pawn more than anything else.  Nevertheless, the &quot;standard&quot; values appear to have remained reasonably stable through the late 19th century and most of the 20th.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19281" LastEditorUserId="19281" LastEditDate="2019-07-15T00:08:48.313" LastActivityDate="2019-07-15T00:08:48.313" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24848" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24849" CreationDate="2019-07-04T13:28:54.230" Score="2" ViewCount="970" Body="&lt;p&gt;“&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.ichess.net/blog/caro-kann-defense-complete-guide/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;The Caro-Kann has often been maligned for being dry and boring, played by those wishing to bore their opponents to death.&lt;/a&gt;” – IM (WGM) &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jovanka_Houska&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jovanka Houska&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there other defenses in which black can bore white to death? For example, when white starts with&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;1. d4.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The English Opening.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The Reti Opening.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other than the opening choice, are there are other strategies if black wishes to bore white to death? How about if white wishes to bore black to death?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other than the opening choice, what are other strategies to bore your opponent?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16626" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2020-04-13T07:24:54.700" Title="How to &quot;bore your opponent to death&quot;?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;caro-kann&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24849" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24848" CreationDate="2019-07-04T14:03:57.620" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The London system (for White), the Caro-Kann and the Classical Slav with ...Bf5 (for Black), are extremely similar, we are aiming for the same setup (c3, d4, e3, Bf4, Nf3, Nbd2, 0-0, h3, Bd3 or Be2) in all of them, so they fit well together in a repertoire, and they all have the reputation of being extremely boring, especially the Slav Exchange variation that has an extremely high draw percentage and the London system that is nicknamed &quot;the boring system&quot; and &quot;the old man variation&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/hD6Bo.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/hD6Bo.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other openings that are considered to be boring are the French Exchange variation (1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.exd5) and the Petrov (1.e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nf6).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Generally, the openings that are considered boring are either the openings that have a high draw percentage because they are symmetrical (Slav Exchange, French Exchange, Petrov) or the openings that are very positional, slow, quiet, solid, safe, passive, unambitious (London system, Caro-Kann).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3237" LastEditorUserId="3237" LastEditDate="2019-07-04T14:50:20.590" LastActivityDate="2019-07-04T14:50:20.590" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24850" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24848" CreationDate="2019-07-04T16:36:24.327" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Berlin Wall in response to the Ruy Lopez is the classic &quot;boring&quot; opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 Nf6 4. O-O Nxe4 5. d4 Nd6 6. Bxc6 dxc6 7. dxe5 Nf5 8. Qxd8 Kxd8&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It results in a very dry queenless middlegame where Black's advantage of having the two bishops is balanced by White's kingside pawn majority which is far more likely to result in a passed pawn than Black's queenside majority. Breaking down the Berlin Wall is a difficult proposition as even Kasparov found in his world championship match with Kramnik.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2019-07-04T16:36:24.327" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24851" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24858" CreationDate="2019-07-05T01:43:18.677" Score="8" ViewCount="2368" Body="&lt;p&gt;Wikipedia's article on &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transgender_people_in_sports&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;transgender people in sports&lt;/a&gt; indicates there's considerable controversy about male-to-female players competing in women's competitions. The controversy is over physical prowess that's retained through the sex change process. For this, chess is special, because physical prowess presumably matters less in chess. Further, it's already possible for women to join open tournaments and play against men.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm wondering if there're any rules concerning transgender people in chess. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If Carlsen (as of time of writing the [male] World Chess Champion) decides to sex change, are there rules that bar him (her?) from competing in Women-only competitions?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If Carlsen decides to sex change, does he instantly become the Women's World Chess Champion?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If Carlsen decides to sex change, does he instantly acquire the WGM title?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastEditorUserId="15223" LastEditDate="2019-07-05T06:47:20.253" LastActivityDate="2021-02-21T19:01:12.547" Title="Are there any rules for transgender players in chess?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;gender&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24852" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13958" CreationDate="2019-07-05T04:48:43.393" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is pointless to have a rest API for random position evals which have to be precomputed for near-instant response. In that case you might as well ask for an opening book. There are a few sites that with opening book querying tools, which are pretty close.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="46" LastActivityDate="2019-07-05T04:48:43.393" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24853" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13958" CreationDate="2019-07-05T08:24:54.143" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The project &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/noobpwnftw/chessdb&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://github.com/noobpwnftw/chessdb&lt;/a&gt; provides an API for getting engine evaluations including also the PV, with the FEN of a position as input.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;E.g., try an example from the readme:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessdb.cn/cdb.php?action=querypv&amp;amp;board=rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR%20w%20KQkq%20-%200%201&amp;amp;json=1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.chessdb.cn/cdb.php?action=querypv&amp;amp;board=rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR%20w%20KQkq%20-%200%201&amp;amp;json=1&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The response I got is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;{&quot;status&quot;:&quot;ok&quot;,&quot;score&quot;:8,&quot;depth&quot;:39,&quot;pv&quot;:[&quot;e2e4&quot;,&quot;c7c5&quot;,&quot;d2d4&quot;,&quot;c5d4&quot;,&quot;g1f3&quot;,&quot;e7e5&quot;,&quot;c2c3&quot;,&quot;b8c6&quot;,&quot;f1c4&quot;,&quot;g8f6&quot;,&quot;f3g5&quot;,&quot;d7d5&quot;,&quot;e4d5&quot;,&quot;c6a5&quot;,&quot;c4b5&quot;,&quot;c8d7&quot;,&quot;d1e2&quot;,&quot;f8d6&quot;,&quot;b2b4&quot;,&quot;h7h6&quot;,&quot;g5f3&quot;,&quot;e8g8&quot;,&quot;b4a5&quot;,&quot;d4d3&quot;,&quot;e2b2&quot;,&quot;f6d5&quot;,&quot;b1d2&quot;,&quot;d7b5&quot;,&quot;b2b5&quot;,&quot;d5c3&quot;,&quot;b5d3&quot;,&quot;d6b4&quot;,&quot;d3d8&quot;,&quot;f8d8&quot;,&quot;a5a6&quot;,&quot;b7a6&quot;,&quot;a2a3&quot;,&quot;b4a5&quot;,&quot;e1f1&quot;],&quot;pvSAN&quot;:[&quot;e4&quot;,&quot;c5&quot;,&quot;d4&quot;,&quot;cxd4&quot;,&quot;Nf3&quot;,&quot;e5&quot;,&quot;c3&quot;,&quot;Nc6&quot;,&quot;Bc4&quot;,&quot;Nf6&quot;,&quot;Ng5&quot;,&quot;d5&quot;,&quot;exd5&quot;,&quot;Na5&quot;,&quot;Bb5+&quot;,&quot;Bd7&quot;,&quot;Qe2&quot;,&quot;Bd6&quot;,&quot;b4&quot;,&quot;h6&quot;,&quot;Nf3&quot;,&quot;O-O&quot;,&quot;bxa5&quot;,&quot;d3&quot;,&quot;Qb2&quot;,&quot;Nxd5&quot;,&quot;Nbd2&quot;,&quot;Bxb5&quot;,&quot;Qxb5&quot;,&quot;Nxc3&quot;,&quot;Qxd3&quot;,&quot;Bb4&quot;,&quot;Qxd8&quot;,&quot;Rfxd8&quot;,&quot;a6&quot;,&quot;bxa6&quot;,&quot;a3&quot;,&quot;Ba5&quot;,&quot;Kf1&quot;]}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15415" LastActivityDate="2019-07-05T08:24:54.143" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24854" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24851" CreationDate="2019-07-05T10:53:29.610" Score="6" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If Carlsen decides to sex change, does he instantly become the Women's World Chess Champion?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course not. Just like if any other woman suddenly made herself known as an extremely strong chess player, she wouldn't instantly become the world champion. You become world champion by winning the world championships, not by being the highest-rated player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2789" LastActivityDate="2019-07-05T10:53:29.610" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24855" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-07-05T11:29:07.293" Score="2" ViewCount="243" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was looking at the statistics for my tournament games in SCID, and found something surprising. When I played opponents rated under 1000, 13 out of 15 times I've had White. Conversely, when I played opponents rated 2000 or higher, 10 out of 15 times I've had Black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd accept 10 out of 15 as being coincidence. But 13 out of 15 seems unlikely to happen purely by chance; the odds are less than 1%.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a reason why a person would tend to play stronger players as Black and weaker players as White? Or is it just a coincidence?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2019-07-08T08:14:52.933" Title="In Swiss tournaments, is it common to play weaker players when playing White?" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;statistics&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24857" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24855" CreationDate="2019-07-05T16:06:23.217" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is there a reason why a person would tend to play stronger players as&#xA;  Black and weaker players as White?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Or is it just a coincidence?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To understand this you only have to look at the way the first round of a Swiss tournament is drawn. Following rounds follow similar principles within score groups (groups of players with the same score) and allowing for colour preference (aiming for WBWBWB etc and avoiding BBB and WWW except possibly in the last round).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Suppose you have 16 players who we'll call for simplicity's sake &quot;1&quot;, &quot;2&quot;, ... &quot;15&quot;, &quot;16&quot; where &quot;1&quot; is the strongest, &quot;2&quot; next strongest and so on. Colour for the first round is determined randomly, that is half the time player &quot;1&quot; gets black and half gets white.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first round draw should look like this when &quot;1&quot; is assigned white:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;1&quot; v &quot;9&quot;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&quot;10&quot; v &quot;2&quot;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&quot;3&quot; v &quot;11&quot;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&quot;12&quot; v &quot;4&quot;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&quot;5&quot; v &quot;13&quot;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&quot;14&quot; v &quot;6&quot;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&quot;7&quot; v &quot;15&quot;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&quot;16&quot; v &quot;8&quot;   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you can see half the time the weaker player is white and half the time black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you see deviations in this pattern it tells you one of two things:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) There was a forbidden pairing which changed the order&lt;br&gt;&#xA;2) One or more players who entered the tournament pulled out or missed the first round without telling the arbiter and some pairings were redone to try and ensure that every player had a game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that 2) requires either the agreement of the players involved in the redraw or that the tournament conditions specify that this will happen automatically. The chess world's leading barrack room lawyer, now a FIDE vice president, famously pulled out of a tournament when this happened to him in the first round without his permission and without being part of the tournament conditions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Occasionally you will see a (high level) tournament where the tournament appears to have been split in two with the top half paired according to the above algorithm and the bottom also paired accordingly. In this case something called &quot;acceleration&quot; has been applied to keep the strongest and weakest players apart for the first round or two. This is done in norm tournaments where the chances of norm seekers in the top half of the field would be ruined if they had to play 2 or more very weak (relatively) players in the early rounds.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2019-07-05T16:06:23.217" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24858" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24851" CreationDate="2019-07-05T16:27:37.200" Score="16" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I'm wondering if there're any rules concerning transgender people in&#xA;  chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I asked this question or something very like it of someone who was in a position to know. Basically if your sex is recorded by FIDE as &quot;M&quot; and you tell them it has changed to &quot;F&quot; (actually your federation has to tell FIDE. Not you since FIDE trust the federations who they know rather than the players who they generally don't know) then FIDE will change your records to reflect this fact. Similarly if you choose to go in the opposite direction. I should add that I asked this question in a spirit of intellectual curiosity rather than personal interest :-).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If Carlsen (as of time of writing the [male] World Chess Champion)&#xA;  decides to sex change, are there rules that bar him (her?) from&#xA;  competing in Women-only competitions?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First you should know that there is no such thing as &quot;male&quot; World Champion. Carlsen is world champion, period. If one of the top women players qualifies to play him (or another person) for the title of &quot;World Champion&quot; and wins then that woman would become World Champion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If Carlsen decides to change sex then &lt;em&gt;she&lt;/em&gt; would, of course, be eligible to play in Women-only competitions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If Carlsen decides to sex change, does he instantly become the Women's&#xA;  World Chess Champion?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your question is grammatically wrong. It should read &quot;does &lt;em&gt;she&lt;/em&gt; instantly become the Women's World Chess Champion?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The answer is, of course, &quot;obviously not&quot;. There is a cycle of tournaments which anybody wanting to become Women's World Chess Champion must compete in and succeed in to become Women's World Chess Champion. Carlsen would have to do this first.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If Carlsen decides to sex change, does he instantly acquire the WGM&#xA;  title?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Again the grammatical error in the question. It should be &quot;If Carlsen decides to sex change, does &lt;em&gt;she&lt;/em&gt; instantly acquire the WGM title?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Certainly not! She would have to apply for the title. FIDE would have to decide if norms achieved while a man qualify for women's titles. I would suspect not which would mean that she would have to achieve the norms required as a woman.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would add one further point. In general titles cost money. FIDE charges you if you want a title and have qualified for it. In your hypothetical situation if Carlsen wanted even the WFM title, even the WCM title, then she would have to apply and pay for the title. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know the new regime under Dvorkovitch has talked about charging players and officials (arbiters and organizers) less and getting more money from sponsorship but I don't think this rhetoric has been changed into action yet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-07-05T17:00:07.903" LastActivityDate="2019-07-05T17:00:07.903" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24859" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6386" CreationDate="2019-07-06T06:53:00.330" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The above answers pretty much cover it. Most moderate chess engines don't really make plans and can't read yours: they are only good at tactical calculations. So avoid double-edged positions, make a solid plan and build up slowly, make sure not to allow any counterplay, and the computer will never know what hit it. Also, for the most part computers are terrible at endings. Such ideas as 'that pawn will queen in 5 moves' - never mind 'outside passed pawn wins' - are all Greek to it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, a program's apparent level will vary a lot between games. If you lose one game, don't assume the computer is invincible - the next time you play, it may be practically be playing suicide chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19468" LastActivityDate="2019-07-06T06:53:00.330" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24860" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24842" CreationDate="2019-07-06T12:44:36.040" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Before 1847&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The value of the chess pieces was established in the XIXth century. The simple scheme 1-3-3-5-10 (rather than 9 which is common nowadays) was already accepted in the first half of the century (and maybe introduced even earlier, we gotta check Philidor, Stamma or even the Italian school). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was surprised I couldn't find any reference to it in Bilguier &amp;amp; Von der Lasa's &lt;em&gt;Schach Handbuch&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://dfg-viewer.de/show/cache.off?tx_dlf%5Bpage%5D=14&amp;amp;tx_dlf%5Bid%5D=http%3A%2F%2Fdaten.digitale-sammlungen.de%2F~db%2Fmets%2Fbsb10481825_mets.xml&amp;amp;tx_dlf%5Bdouble%5D=0&amp;amp;cHash=99224599fe8ca1333348edd7e79753ba&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;published&lt;/a&gt; in 1853 and the main reference for decades - but maybe I haven't checked the right pages. &lt;em&gt;Edit&lt;/em&gt;: Indeed, @A.Thulin found the value of the pieces in the &lt;em&gt;Handbuch&lt;/em&gt; and mentioned it in a comment. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyway, Howard Staunton gave values to each chess piece in his own &lt;a href=&quot;https://books.google.fr/books?id=Zu0IAAAAQAAJ&amp;amp;printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&amp;amp;q&amp;amp;f=false&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chessplayer's handbook&lt;/a&gt; published in &lt;strong&gt;1847&lt;/strong&gt;. As you can check on page 34, the short 4th chapter is entitled &lt;em&gt;On the relative value of the chess pieces&lt;/em&gt; and offers these very sophisticated numbers:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Pawn 1.00&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Knight 3.05&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Bishop 3.50&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Rook 5.48&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Queen 9.94&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While Staunton admits that the precision of these values should not be exaggerated, it is obvious from his comments that many writers had already offered their own estimates beforehand. Most of the chess knowledge before Staunton spread through newspapers, so that might be where the first quantitative estimation of the value of the chess pieces originated. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastEditorUserId="14079" LastEditDate="2019-07-08T19:19:29.683" LastActivityDate="2019-07-08T19:19:29.683" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24862" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8835" CreationDate="2019-07-06T22:47:58.463" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In an Alpha Beta search in that utilizes a Negamax framework, how does one collect principal variations to use in move ordering&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Every strong modern chess engine which uses alpha-beta search uses a transposition table to store the PV move for ordering. If you are writing a chess engine, you should this high-performance, now ubiquitous technique.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;and how does one use them, without using a transposition table?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are various approaches to storing the principal variation which are commonly used &lt;em&gt;alongside&lt;/em&gt; a transposition table. The most popular of these is a triangular PV table. &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessprogramming.org/Triangular_PV-Table&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;The Chess Programming Wiki has a page on this&lt;/a&gt;, which includes code examples as you requested.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Additionally, would it be different in a principal variation search&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No. Move ordering can be implemented in the same way for both pure alpha-beta and for PVS. The only difference is the way in which the ordered moves are searched.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;and do we collect and store important moves for quiescence search too?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No. Standard techniques used to order captures are sufficient in quiescence search (namely, MVV/LVA and Static Exchange Evaluation). The move stored in the transposition table may not be a capture, so it is unlikely to be useful for quiescence. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10075" LastActivityDate="2019-07-06T22:47:58.463" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24863" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24673" CreationDate="2019-07-07T15:02:37.333" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;A basic problem is to define terms and criteria.  What is needed to 'have introduced chess' in Europe? Is it enough to find chess men mentioned in donations or bequests?  Or do we need proof that the rules of the game were known?  Or perhaps even that they were used to play according to those rules?  Is an introduction that we find one mention?  Or do we need to have a significant number of people with chess pieces, or playing chess or whatever? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Murray's  A History of Chess mentions wills from the family of Counts of Barcelona, at least one of is dated to early 11th century, thus before Alphonso X. So Alphonso appears to be out as point of origin. He also notes multiple mentions of the game during the 12th century (i.e. in the 1100's), adding to the problem of having Alfonso introducing the the game, except in very limited sense. (The nordic game 'skak-tafl', which is usually taken to be chess, was played in 11th and 12th century -- which may be an added problem in connecting Alphonso X with the game.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are also indications that the games was known to Europeans even earlier, outside Europe.  If that is correct, it certainly opens for other vectors of transmission into Europe than through Spain.  Even though the game is more likely to be found mentioned in writing in relation to royalty, high nobility or priesthood, (as they were mainly those who left written documents) there seems to be no clear reason why tradesmen and sailors anywhere necessarily must have been ignorant of the game.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As to the name of the queen itself ... I'll leave that for others. Murray suggests that the name of the piece we call Queen was part of the Europeanization of the game: in Europe, a queen was perhaps the only generally recognized piece to have a natural place beside the king. Besides 'Queen', version of 'ferz' were also used -- there seem to be Spanish sources using the term 'alfferza' as well as connecting it to the idea of a standard-bearer.  If Spain could be shown to be the sole or main point of entry of chess into Europe, then the naming of the queen would probably originate in Spain as well.  But until that has been shown definitely, origin of terminology is probably best treated carefully.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But again, perhaps, the question of what the question really is may need to be asked.  Yalom connected the &lt;em&gt;modern&lt;/em&gt; queen, with its added powers of movement, with Isabella, not the old queen piece. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user18412" LastEditorDisplayName="user18412" LastEditDate="2019-07-07T15:13:51.833" LastActivityDate="2019-07-07T15:13:51.833" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24864" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-07-07T15:45:02.073" Score="1" ViewCount="125" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am using Chessbase 13. I would like Stockfish to stop analyzing until I make it  start again. What happens now is that I make it stop, and as soon as I go on to the next move, it starts analyzing again. Mounting and unmounting the engine is slow. Is there a way to do that?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19474" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-07-07T15:51:31.873" LastActivityDate="2019-07-07T15:51:31.873" Title="How to stop Stockfish analysis?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;chessbase&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24865" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24864" CreationDate="2019-07-07T15:48:22.707" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Actually, nevermind about my question, because I have just found an answer myself. Just click on stop, and then click the lock button. To start again, just click on the lock button to unlock it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19474" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-07-07T15:50:18.570" LastActivityDate="2019-07-07T15:50:18.570" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24866" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15791" CreationDate="2019-07-07T18:53:26.830" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;asmFish is NOT the same engine as Stockfish, so the answer by Dave is wrong. The difference is that asmFish is written in x86 Assembly (~20% faster), while Stockfish in C++.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/lantonov/asmFish/issues/214&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Here&lt;/a&gt; is an issue I opened to test basically the time fasmg did to compile asmFish. It was closed, however, because the latest fasmg version fails to compile asmFish. The latest working version is &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/lantonov/asmFish/files/2418012/fasmg.zip&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this one&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can download the version you want, but this is not necessary. You just need to open a command line and clone the repository:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;git clone -b master https://github.com/lantonov/asmFish.git&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then, run &lt;code&gt;cd asmFish&lt;/code&gt; to enter the directory and &lt;code&gt;make.bat&lt;/code&gt; to compile.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For what it's worth:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;There are already MacOS binaries in the main repository. They are in the &lt;code&gt;MacOS_binaries&lt;/code&gt; folder.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;There is also an archive of the executables in the executables branch, which is rarely updated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;You can directly compile asmFish from MacOS from the command line just having the whole &lt;code&gt;x86&lt;/code&gt; folder and the &lt;code&gt;fasmg&lt;/code&gt; file:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; fasmg &amp;quot;x86\fish.asm&amp;quot; &amp;quot;asmFishX_type&amp;quot; -e 1000 -i &amp;quot;VERSION_OS='X'&amp;quot; -i &amp;quot;PEDANTIC = 1&amp;quot; -i &amp;quot;VERSION_POST = 'version'&amp;quot;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Replace &lt;code&gt;type&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;version&lt;/code&gt; with the version post you want (&lt;code&gt;base&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;popcnt&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;bmi1&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;bmi2&lt;/code&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17823" LastEditorUserId="17823" LastEditDate="2020-12-17T07:07:55.240" LastActivityDate="2020-12-17T07:07:55.240" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24867" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-07-07T21:16:11.070" Score="15" ViewCount="7180" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is the study&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;3B4/1r2p3/r2p1p2/bkp1P1p1/1p1P1PPp/p1P4P/PPBK4/8 w - - 0 1 &quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you can see, Stockfish gives an absolute decisive win for black, though it is clearly a draw!!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/study/sANfn6M8&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Check it out yourself&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;c4+ is a losing move, while Ba4+ is the correct one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What's going on? Doesn't Stockfish take into consideration closed positions &lt;strong&gt;at all&lt;/strong&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16875" LastEditorUserId="16875" LastEditDate="2019-07-11T20:14:15.647" LastActivityDate="2019-12-28T13:08:13.907" Title="Bad Stockfish evaluation" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;study&gt;&lt;closed-position&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="10" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24868" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24867" CreationDate="2019-07-07T21:29:54.543" Score="25" Body="&lt;p&gt;Stockfish isn't a perfect chess-playing entity, and you've found a position where it's unable to tell is a draw (at least until the 50 move rule kicks in and helps it prune). These positions are called &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessprogramming.org/Fortress&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;fortresses&lt;/a&gt;&quot;. You can tell this is happening because even if you input the solution, Stockfish still evaluates the final position as -10 or more. These fortress positions where Stockfish is dead wrong are few and far between, but they exist, and this is one of them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There've been various attempts at writing fortress detection code in Stockfish and other conventional engines which are meant to recognize fortresses and stop Stockfish from heading for them if its position is superior. If you have a smart idea, you can probably publish it in an academic journal (see the publications in the chessprogramming wiki).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastActivityDate="2019-07-07T21:29:54.543" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24869" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24871" CreationDate="2019-07-08T06:29:54.650" Score="2" ViewCount="330" Body="&lt;p&gt;These less-represented groups could be women, transgender players, etc. As of time of writing there's only one woman in the world's top 100 players by rating, and I don't know if there's any transgender player there either.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm thinking in particular of tournaments where the organizers reserve some space explicitly for these less-represented groups. For example, suppose one of the 8 spots of the Candidates Tournament were reserved for the Women's World Champion, that would qualify (of course this has never happened). For the purpose of this question I exclude women-only tournaments, unless these tournaments gave special privileges to players who transitioned from male to female.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Further questions: if this has happened before, how did the community react? If this has never happened, has it ever been considered?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastActivityDate="2019-12-28T03:48:07.287" Title="Are there any tournaments that treat less-represented groups preferentially?" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;gender&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24870" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24869" CreationDate="2019-07-08T07:17:58.133" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Fide World Cup&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_World_Cup_2019#Qualification_paths&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;qualified&lt;/a&gt; for the World Cup:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The Women's World Champion&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The last two World Junior Champions&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Players from Continental Championships&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastActivityDate="2019-07-08T07:17:58.133" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24871" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24869" CreationDate="2019-07-08T07:57:35.187" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;A good amount of tournaments have prizes to the best classified women, best underage players, best unrated, best locals...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The chess community simply doesn't care too much. A few &quot;lower-level&quot; masters will complain about &quot;prices for mediocrity&quot;, but no one really pays too much attention to what they say.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In many countries, the best girls in each age group from each region will have their entry fees paid for the national championship. &quot;I don't know why&quot; but the guys often like this!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, the four best men and women from each country play the Chess Olympiad every two years, whether they are grandmasters or unrated players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many team tournaments (more often those organized by National Federations than private ones) also include quotas on how many young/female players each team should have. As expected, teams with strong female players tend to love this rule, and &quot;men-only&quot; clubs often hate it!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-09-10T15:02:38.453" LastActivityDate="2019-09-10T15:02:38.453" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24872" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24855" CreationDate="2019-07-08T08:14:52.933" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your 1% chance calculation is wrong, because &quot;observations&quot; are not independent from each other within a single tournament. When you play one round as White, you are very likely to play the following one as Black. Also, after a win, you are very likely to face a stronger player in the next round. So your tournament could go something like this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;WHITE, weak opponent. WIN&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BLACK, strong opponent. LOSE&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;WHITE, weak opponent. WIN&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;... (you get the idea)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This means that if, in 3 consecutive tournaments, you get to play a weak opponent as White (let's say that, by ranking, you are about 100th in a pool of 200 players), you can easily get pairings such as those you are showing (with a 1 in 8 chance, and also a 1 in 8 chance of getting the exact opposite)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastActivityDate="2019-07-08T08:14:52.933" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24873" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24808" CreationDate="2019-07-08T08:56:01.277" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Pretty much any opening that is no longer played was &quot;refuted&quot; by an engine. You can check for example the 9. 0-0-0 Nxd4 line in the Sicilian Dragon. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Computer analysis has also found interesting ways for White to keep the advantage in the From's gambit, although this opening was never that popular (because of 1.f4 being a rarity)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;About 25 years ago, Kasparov reintroduced the Evans gambit into elite chess. Despite initial success computer-assisted analysis forced it to step away again.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The list goes on and on, but sometimes it's just about a variation in a particular line being changed by another, rather than something like the Sicilian or the French being abandonned altogether&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastActivityDate="2019-07-08T08:56:01.277" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24874" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6386" CreationDate="2019-07-08T13:18:07.217" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've read the rest of the answers and I think there is something completely wrong with them:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These answers represent good advice against an ordinary chess computer. Of course the more modern ones will beat you anyway no matter how much you manage to apply those tips, but let's say we are talking about an older/somehow underpowered chess engine. Most of the ideas circle around getting into quiet positions, with not much tactics involve&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, the OP is talking about a very particular type of computer, who &quot;is able to make decisions on an about 3 moves deep search graph.&quot; This means this computer is actually very bad at tactics! It won't be able to see what most of the tactical complications of a chess game will return, other than the simplest &quot;I win a piece in two moves&quot; kind of &quot;combination&quot;. You could even use sacrifices traps, since the computer will give a high importance to the immediate gain in material, not seeing attacking chances for the opponent that can happen after a few moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In short, against this type of &quot;engine&quot;, you should definitely go for the tactical complications! This does not mean that positional styles should be disregarded, though. I am pretty sure that, in an endgame, the computer won't be able to see why things like &quot;activating your king&quot; are recomended&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastActivityDate="2019-07-08T13:18:07.217" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24875" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24867" CreationDate="2019-07-08T16:25:34.593" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;It helps to understand that engines don't really go off of &quot;strategy&quot;, so much as they look several moves into the future, evaluate the score of the position, and find the optimal move set.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The great weakness of that approach is that if nothing can happen quickly, the engine's going to have problems.  This used to be a &lt;em&gt;huge&lt;/em&gt; problem with endgames.  If you've got a K+B+P vs K+P, you're not resolving that position in just a few moves.  So the fix was to add Endgame Tablebases to the engines - just bruteforce calculate every endgame position ahead of time and add them as a library for the engine to use.  (This is why, in most cheap chess apps, you can earn a win simply by surviving to the endgame: because it doesn't have an endgame tablebase.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But your position is (understandably) not going to be in any endgame tablebase.  So stockfish has to play out millions of positions, stretching 10 or so moves into the future... only to find that in all of them, black is substantially up in material.  It definitely can't play out ~56 moves for the full decision tree - which is what it would take to determine a definitive draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18998" LastActivityDate="2019-07-08T16:25:34.593" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24876" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2703" CreationDate="2019-07-09T18:52:13.350" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;As long as the queen is not protected by another piece, the king can capture it.  The king can in fact be a strong attacking piece, particularly in the ending, when it doesn't have to worry as much about strong attacks against it since the enemy force has been diminished.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastActivityDate="2019-07-09T18:52:13.350" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24877" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24878" CreationDate="2019-07-10T04:05:57.700" Score="18" ViewCount="8837" Body="&lt;p&gt;Looking through the history of chess we find tournaments that are significantly longer than today's, e.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_1899_chess_tournament&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;London 1899&lt;/a&gt; - 15 players, double round robin&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_1924_chess_tournament&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;New York 1924&lt;/a&gt; - 11 players, double round robin&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Today we get tournaments such as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tal_Memorial#2018&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Tal Memorial 2018&lt;/a&gt; - 10 players, single round robin&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dortmund_Sparkassen_Chess_Meeting#2018&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Dortmund Sparkassen Chess Meeting 2018&lt;/a&gt; - 8 players, single round robin&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For comparison, the players in the London 1899 tournament played a full four times as many games as those in the Dortmund 2018 tournament.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why such a large difference? Why can't today's players play tournaments as long as those in the past? Alternatively, if they can, why aren't today's tournaments organized to be as long as those in the past?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastActivityDate="2019-07-22T02:39:04.463" Title="Why do players in the past play much longer tournaments than today's top players?" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;history&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24878" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24877" CreationDate="2019-07-10T07:20:02.580" Score="29" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is nothing in principle preventing players from long tournaments. Or maybe yes if they are way too long, like the first Karpov - Kasparov match (had to be postponed for health reasons), but these cases are far from the norm.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If we stick to the elite games, I would say that the main reasons why tournaments have become shorter is that there are many more tournaments to choose from! Every organizer wants the best players to play at them, at making the event longer would result in the players occupying a larger fraction of their calendar, so they will either request more prize money or go play somewhere else.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In short, top level chess has professionalized and players will try to maximize their &quot;paycheck&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastActivityDate="2019-07-10T07:20:02.580" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24879" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14162" CreationDate="2019-07-10T07:25:44.760" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would say only very big tournaments divide their players in sections. With a &amp;lt;100 player-pool, you will see everyone together. But if you want to make sure you will definitely have strong players alongside you, follow the prize money!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastActivityDate="2019-07-10T07:25:44.760" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24880" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24877" CreationDate="2019-07-10T08:37:28.020" Score="15" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Today we get tournaments such as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_World_Cup_2005&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess World Cup 2005&lt;/a&gt; - 128 players&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_World_Cup_2007&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess World Cup 2007&lt;/a&gt; - 128 players&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_World_Cup_2009&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess World Cup 2009&lt;/a&gt; - 128 players&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_World_Cup_2011&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess World Cup 2011&lt;/a&gt; - 128 players&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_World_Cup_2013&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess World Cup 2013&lt;/a&gt; - 128 players&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_World_Cup_2015&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess World Cup 2015&lt;/a&gt; - 128 players&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_World_Cup_2017&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess World Cup 2017&lt;/a&gt; - 128 players&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_World_Cup_2019&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess World Cup 2019&lt;/a&gt; - 128 players   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course these tournaments only last about half the length of time that the one-off 1899 tournament lasted but they occur much more frequently and feature a lot more players, the strongest of which are undoubtedly stronger than the 1899 players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are simply far too many very strong players to play double round robins today. Furthermore the players are no longer the leisured rich of bygone days. They have to earn a living either by playing chess, coaching or get a proper job. No organisation or person is going to pay them enough money for 6 or 7 weeks playing in one tournament. We no longer live the Victorian era with its slower pace of life.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2019-07-10T08:37:28.020" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24881" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24877" CreationDate="2019-07-10T15:36:30.787" Score="18" Body="&lt;p&gt;Perhaps another factor is that transport and communications were so much more limited in the 19th century, that a short tournament would not have justified lengthy travel, particularly for transatlantic professionals visiting Europe. At an amateur level in Britain, the burgeoning train network allowed evening visits from one provincial town to a neighbouring one, so county leagues operated at much the same cadence that they do today.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8201" LastActivityDate="2019-07-10T15:36:30.787" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24882" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-07-10T19:06:45.453" Score="3" ViewCount="596" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a 1400-rated player currently working on my theory and understanding of openings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am good at learning lines, much more so than others at my rating. But I'm less sure on where/how to learn the theory behind my preferred openings (I prefer the London System as White, and the Taimanov Sicilian as Black). Therefore, I don't know how to capitalize when my opponent doesn't know the lines themselves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, I know the main line of the Taimanov Sicilian to the 18th move, as well as how to transpose into several variations along the way depending on White's move. However, what I struggle with is knowing what to do when my opponent plays a move that is not part of any studied line.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To display this, in the Taimanov Sicilian, the standard line is 14. Ne4 O-O 15. Bc5 Bb7; if white played a move other than 15. Bc5 (that wasn't an obvious blunder or mistake), I would struggle to know how to continue.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I guess what I'm essentially asking is how and/or where I can learn the theory behind the openings. Every video I've found simply walks through the main lines and standard variations, and Wikipedia articles generally only give one-sentence summaries of the theory behind certain openings (for example, their section on the Taimanov Sicilian reads simply &quot;Black develops the knight to a natural square and keeps his options open regarding the placement of his other pieces. One of the ideas of this system is to develop the king's bishop to b4 or c5.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19495" LastEditorUserId="15989" LastEditDate="2019-07-15T07:52:18.617" LastActivityDate="2019-10-31T00:58:41.820" Title="Novice - Capitalizing on players not knowing their openings?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;learning&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="12" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24883" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2703" CreationDate="2019-07-11T14:05:13.360" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There &lt;em&gt;is&lt;/em&gt; a case, under FIDE Laws, where a king cannot capture an unprotected adjacent queen:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Queen is safe&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;4k3/4Q3/8/8/8/8/8/4K3 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The point is of course that the game is dead: there is no possible checkmate, so the game ends immediately in a dead draw. But hang on: isn't this checkmate then? Black is in check but can't escape.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The answer to the apparent paradox is that checkmate is defined to be when a player is in check, and has no legal moves. KxQ is perfectly legal, but it's just not &quot;playable&quot; (there is no official word for this) as the game is over.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In exactly the same way, a dead position where &lt;em&gt;no-one&lt;/em&gt; is in check (e.g. the diagram above without the wQ) is not a stalemate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8201" LastActivityDate="2019-07-11T14:05:13.360" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24884" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24877" CreationDate="2019-07-12T18:30:05.340" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;One word answer: Money.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) Tournaments cost a lot of money to organize. At the top end, with, say, less than a dozen players, the organizers are expected to pay for the player's expenses. That's a lot of money. And then a good half of the games being played in the event will be lifeless draws that no one wants to see. The complete score of every interesting game will be available to everyone in the world within hours of the game's end, or earlier. In the 19th century, they could publish a book and gain a little from the sales. Today every magazine in the world will publish their own annotated games from the event as fast as the organizers could, so there's no opportunity to recover any of the money spent on it there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) Players want to win efficiently. For example, if they're responsible for their own expenses, they will prefer to play multiple short (weekend) events to a single month-long event, even if the prize money is less, because the net gain is better, and the likelihood of profit more secure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) There are far more opportunities to play today than in the 19th century.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Put those three together and it's clear players aren't going to accept invitations to play in 30-round events. They can do better for themselves by playing multiple short events during that time, interspersed with coaching sessions or other money-making activities (Walter Browne used to play backgammon for money, for example) than they will in a month-long event.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Put yourself in their place. Would you want to tie yourself to playing a long event where the chance of a bad start will condemn you to little gain for the entire month, or play short events where you can compensate for a bad game or two in one event with the prize money from the next event?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="657" LastActivityDate="2019-07-12T18:30:05.340" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24885" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14675" CreationDate="2019-07-12T23:24:13.710" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The solution is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This command right here, as linked: /home/yourusername/.scid4.7/Linux/stockfish_10_x64&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It worked for me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I went into a search and found &quot;Stockfish.&quot; Then I went onto &quot;copy link location,&quot; and pasted it into command (I copied the Stockfish files in the SCID folder).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I hope that someone finds this helpful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19509" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-07-13T04:18:33.263" LastActivityDate="2019-07-13T04:18:33.263" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24886" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-07-13T15:08:14.947" Score="4" ViewCount="166" Body="&lt;p&gt;How do we know &lt;em&gt;w_i&lt;/em&gt; which is not possible to calculate using the &lt;a href=&quot;https://medium.com/@quasimik/monte-carlo-tree-search-applied-to-letterpress-34f41c86e238&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;tree search&lt;/a&gt; only?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From the &lt;a href=&quot;https://slides.com/crem/lc0#/9&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;lc0 slide&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;em&gt;w_i&lt;/em&gt; is equal to summation of subtree of &lt;em&gt;V&lt;/em&gt; ? How is this equivalent to winning ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/aLNja.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/aLNja.png&quot; alt=&quot;tree&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/lFPTK.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/lFPTK.png&quot; alt=&quot;UCB formula&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/tQ3Ls.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/tQ3Ls.png&quot; alt=&quot;leela formula&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19501" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-07-16T04:33:52.517" LastActivityDate="2019-07-16T04:33:52.517" Title="Leela Chess PUCT Mechanism" Tags="&lt;programming&gt;&lt;mathematics&gt;&lt;leela&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24888" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25098" CreationDate="2019-07-13T16:53:06.997" Score="6" ViewCount="404" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there a known record for the most possible stalemates in one in a legal position, for with and without promoted pieces? I did some constructing myself for a start.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For without promoted pieces, I found &lt;strong&gt;105&lt;/strong&gt;, counting different promotions as different moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;me, chess.stackexchange.com 2/24/2020, Stalemate In 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;kN6/P1PPPPPP/2P5/4K3/6Q1/2NBB3/1R6/R7 w KQkq - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For promoted pieces, I remembered a position from &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/q/4490/15543&quot;&gt;elsewhere on this site.&lt;/a&gt; I switched two pieces, made come counting deductions, and I arrived at a number of &lt;strong&gt;205&lt;/strong&gt; moves for with promoted pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;me, chess.stackexchange.com 2/24/2020, Stalemate In 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;R6B/3Q4/1Q4Q1/4Q3/2Q4Q/Q4Q2/pp1Q4/kBNN1KR1 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-04-29T21:14:12.070" LastActivityDate="2021-05-02T16:47:26.817" Title="What is the record for the most stalemates in one?" Tags="&lt;problems&gt;&lt;records&gt;&lt;stalemate&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24889" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-07-13T19:52:11.970" Score="3" ViewCount="322" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recently downloaded Stockfish 10 on my android phone and after unzipping the rar file, there were three separate engine binaries and I am wondering which one would be the strongest one to use.  The three that were in the folder are stockfish-10-arm64-pgo, stockfish-10arm64v8, and stockfish-10armv7.  Which one of these binaries would be the strongest one to use?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19515" LastActivityDate="2019-08-06T20:36:21.937" Title="Stockfish on Android Question" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24890" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23187" CreationDate="2019-07-13T20:33:05.887" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Muzio Gambit in the King's Gambit is pretty well-known:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. f4 exf4 3. Nf3 g5 4. Bc4 g4 (4... Bg7 {About as common on Lichess in the 1600-2000 range as 4... g4. If you're going to play for the Muzio, you'll have to be happy with reaching this position about half the time.}) 5. O-O!? gxf3 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is virtually unseen at the GM level, but is very dangerous at lower levels. I could find only one game between two GMs: a blitz game between Hikaru Nakamura and Dmitry Andreikin at the 2010 World Blitz TournamentNakamura v Andreikin in 2010, which Nakamura won.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Wch Blitz 5th&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;https://lichess.org/iNs71Tbl&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2010.11.18&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;36&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Nakamura, Hikaru&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;2741&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Andreikin, Dmitry&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;2683&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;C37&quot;]&#xA;[Opening &quot;King's Gambit Accepted, Muzio Gambit, Wild Muzio Gambit&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. f4 exf4 3. Nf3 g5 4. Bc4 g4 5. O-O gxf3 6. Qxf3 Bh6 7. d4 Qh4 8. Nc3 Nc6 9. Nd5 Kd8 10. c3 d6 11. Nxf4 Nge7 12. g3 Qg4 13. Qg2 Bd7 14. h3 Qg8 15. Nh5 Bxc1 16. Raxc1 Qg5 17. g4 Ng6 18. Rce1 Rf8 19. Qg3 Qh4 20. Qxh4+ Nxh4 21. Nf6 Ng6 22. Nxh7 Rh8 23. Ng5 Be8 24. Bxf7 Ke7 25. Kg2 Rf8 26. Bb3 Bd7 27. Kg3 Na5 28. Bf7 Nh8 29. e5 Nxf7 30. exd6+ Kxd6 31. Rf6+ Kd5 32. Nxf7 Nc6 33. b3 Rae8 34. Rc1 Ke4 35. d5 Ne5 36. Re1+ Kxd5 37. Rd1+ Ke4 38. Rf4+ Ke3 39. Re1+ Kd2 40. Rxe5 Bc6 41. Rxe8 Rxe8 42. g5 Re3+ 43. Kh4 Bd7 44. Rd4+ 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="378" LastActivityDate="2019-07-13T20:33:05.887" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24891" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24892" CreationDate="2019-07-15T03:17:41.447" Score="7" ViewCount="3271" Body="&lt;p&gt;I really missed playing chess with someone who know how to play, I am looking for a good program to play chess online from ubuntu computer.&#xA;Any Ideas?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19519" LastActivityDate="2019-08-23T20:58:45.857" Title="Is there a good program to play chess online in ubuntu?" Tags="&lt;software&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24892" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24891" CreationDate="2019-07-15T03:55:16.030" Score="27" Body="&lt;p&gt;On ubuntu, you can download Firefox, Chrome, or any other browser of your choice. From within that browser, go to lichess.org, chess.com, or chess24.com, create a free account, and play against others online.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3884" LastActivityDate="2019-07-15T03:55:16.030" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24893" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24891" CreationDate="2019-07-15T04:58:51.297" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;With Winboard or Arena, you could play also in chess servers, like &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.freechess.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FICS&lt;/a&gt; --free-- or ICC or several others that are listed in &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Internet_chess_servers&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; article on chess servers on Wikipedia.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1766" LastActivityDate="2019-07-15T04:58:51.297" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24894" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24896" CreationDate="2019-07-15T10:28:44.113" Score="20" ViewCount="8423" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm reading Kasparov's Deep Thinking and I came across this sentence:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In one computer championship, a machine blundered a full piece early&#xA;in the game but its opponent declined to capture it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I googled it I also saw the term &amp;quot;half piece&amp;quot; but couldn't find any definition on any of them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not a native speaker and I'm not familiar with chess terms in English. I'm guessing full piece is an important piece such as queen or rook and half piece is a minor piece like bishop or knight but I want to be sure. Can you explain what they mean?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19521" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-12-25T04:47:19.257" LastActivityDate="2020-12-25T04:47:19.257" Title="What are &quot;full piece&quot; and &quot;half piece&quot; in chess?" Tags="&lt;terminology&gt;&lt;pieces&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="7" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24895" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24894" CreationDate="2019-07-15T11:03:32.780" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think &quot;full piece&quot; means anything beyond &quot;piece&quot; but &quot;full&quot; was added for emphasis. This is to highlight the magnitude of the blunder, since many blunders are smaller than a piece; for example, one can blunder a pawn or the Exchange (rook for knight or bishop), or trade a piece for a pawn or two.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The commonly used terms to distinguish queen/rook vs bishop/knight are &lt;strong&gt;major piece&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;minor piece&lt;/strong&gt;. You may also see &quot;heavy piece&quot; used as a synonym for major piece.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The term &quot;half-piece&quot; doesn't make a lot of sense and I had never heard it. Using Google I found a couple of examples but they are in the context of chess variants such as &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessvariants.com/diffmove.dir/inchworm-chess.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;inchworm chess&lt;/a&gt;&quot;, where a piece can be in two squares at once (half a piece on each square), or &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessvariants.com/rules/symmetric-unirexal-chess&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;symmetric unirexal chess&lt;/a&gt;&quot;, where two &quot;half pieces&quot; can occupy the same square.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's elaborate on the statement above that many blunders are &quot;less than a piece&quot;. In the best-known piece value scheme, minor pieces are worth three pawns, rooks are worth five pawns, and queens are worth nine pawns. The quote about blundering a &quot;full piece&quot; probably referred to a minor piece, because otherwise it would say &quot;blundered a rook&quot; or &quot;blundered the queen&quot;. Therefore blundering a pawn would be like blundering one-third of a piece, and the Exchange would be two-thirds (a piece for a pawn would be two-thirds, too). Note that there is no way to blunder &quot;half a piece&quot; under this value scheme. (Note however that these values are just a rough guideline!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12523" LastEditorUserId="12523" LastEditDate="2019-07-15T13:25:11.100" LastActivityDate="2019-07-15T13:25:11.100" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24896" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24894" CreationDate="2019-07-15T12:09:12.150" Score="30" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;blundering a &lt;strong&gt;full&lt;/strong&gt; piece&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;being a &lt;strong&gt;full&lt;/strong&gt; piece down&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;are typical expressions in English chess literature.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With the little word &amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;full&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;quot;, the author wants to make clear that the player has not only lost the piece, but that they also received no consolation material in return, i.e. one or two pawns. An alternative expression is &amp;quot;blundering a &lt;strong&gt;clean&lt;/strong&gt; piece&amp;quot; / &amp;quot;being a &lt;strong&gt;clean&lt;/strong&gt; piece down&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The typical scale is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The opponent blundered/sacrificed a piece for two pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The opponent blundered/sacrificed a piece for a pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The opponent blundered/sacrificed a full/clean piece.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(&amp;quot;Sacrifice&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;blunder&amp;quot; generally depend on the positional compensation for the loss of the piece.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &amp;quot;piece&amp;quot; in question may theoretically be a any of the &amp;quot;pieces&amp;quot; knight, bishop, rook or queen (pawns are not &amp;quot;pieces&amp;quot; and the king cannot be captured), but typically you would expect it to be either a knight or a bishop (in the other cases it would rather be e.g. &amp;quot;being a full rook down&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;being a full queen down&amp;quot;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The term &amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;half&lt;/strong&gt; piece&amp;quot; does not exist, at least to my knowledge.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13433" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2019-07-15T12:33:43.133" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24897" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26402" CreationDate="2019-07-15T15:11:08.313" Score="21" ViewCount="668" Body="&lt;p&gt;The current &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess24.com/en/read/news/gm-igors-rausis-allegedly-caught-cheating&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Rausis phone cheating scandal&lt;/a&gt; saw a player with an initial rating of about 2500 in his 50's improve by about 200 rating points in 6 years. This improvement was remarkable because older players are expected to get weaker with age. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It even received attention a couple of week's ago, before the scandal broke, with the suggestion that he was hacking the system by playing mostly much weaker players and &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.ecforum.org.uk/viewtopic.php?f=2&amp;amp;t=10300&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;taking advantage of the 400 point rule&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Has there been any analysis showing the correlation between age and rating on one hand with expected decline on the other? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, I'm in my 60's and my FIDE rating is about 1700. How much decline can I expect in the next 10 years? Would that be much different for a 2200 master in his 60's? For a 2500 GM? For 1500 player?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/blog/LionChessLtd/age-vs-elo---your-battle-against-time&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;chess.com blog article&lt;/a&gt; which looks at the data for just one month which is unsatisfactory in many ways. It shows a graph of average rating in 5 year bands but with no analysis following players with similar starting ages and ratings to see what the decline is over a given period.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The data is there. FIDE publish more than &lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/download.phtml&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;18 years of rating data&lt;/a&gt; which is available for download. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.olimpbase.org/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Olimpbase&lt;/a&gt; have &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.olimpbase.org/Elo/data/elo1967-2001.zip&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;data available for download&lt;/a&gt; going back another 30 years although then only strong (master level) players had ratings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2019-09-16T18:57:45.553" Title="How do age and initial rating correlate to decline in playing strength with age?" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24899" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24903" CreationDate="2019-07-15T22:10:14.453" Score="2" ViewCount="274" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am trying to create a retraction problem, but I am unsure if it is sound, and I do not know where to find resources on them. I have two questions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Is my problem correct? I am not giving a solution as to leave it to you to decipher.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Where can I find resources on how to make retraction problems?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wish for feedback so I may better my creations of retraction problems.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;White retracts a move and instead delivers stalemate.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;8/3R2Kp/4kP1P/3R3P/3B2BP/6NP/P1P4P/8 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-04-29T21:03:08.063" LastActivityDate="2021-04-29T21:04:00.323" Title="Attempting to create a retraction problem" Tags="&lt;problems&gt;&lt;retrograde-analysis&gt;&lt;composing&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24900" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24899" CreationDate="2019-07-15T22:42:26.980" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;First attempt.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the White bishop is removed then it is stalemate which suggests that Black had a piece on g4 and White's last move was Bxg4++. He could retract this and play hxg4 stalemate instead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But White has made 14 pawn captures and Black has 2 pieces left. Hence there are no Black pieces left for the Bishop to take. Any White capture must have been made by a pawn. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Second attempt&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This suggests that there was a Black pawn on f5 which had just made the move f7-f5 blocking the bishop check and White responded ef++. There is no White piece that can block the pawn on f5 and stop it moving hence to deliver stalemate White must take the pawn without check. Hence White replaces ef++ by Nxf5 stalemate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-07-15T22:53:45.910" LastActivityDate="2019-07-15T22:53:45.910" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24902" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18848" CreationDate="2019-07-16T00:35:29.670" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;As @Evargalo noted in their answer, that is not part of the official rules of chess. However, &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;lichess.org&lt;/a&gt; hosts a chess variant called &amp;quot;Racing Kings&amp;quot; in which your mentioned rule holds true.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-05-02T15:07:23.077" LastActivityDate="2021-05-02T15:07:23.077" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24903" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24899" CreationDate="2019-07-16T00:39:29.690" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Could white have just played Bg4 from somewhere without capture? Black’s prior move was Ke5-e6. This can be fixed by a shifting wNg3 to e3 and wBd4 to g3 in its place. This stops other cooks where White has just given a discovered check. Adding a further wN on c6 also prevents any retractions with the White rook, and the Black king moving to e5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;8/3R2Kp/4kP1P/3R3P/6BP/4N1BP/P1P4P/8 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A key point is that retracting 1. e5xf6e.p. f7-f5 2. B~g4+ Kf5-e6 3. N~e3+ works, as wPe5 blocks wRd5 from attacking f5, and so bK on f5 only endures a single check (from wNe3).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;General chess problem solving engines e.g. Popeye don’t currently offer retraction capabilities. It might be possible to solve Edith Baird style retractors though, but not ones with retro logic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The database &lt;a href=&quot;https://pdb.dieschwalbe.de&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;pdb.dieschwalbe.de&lt;/a&gt; contains lots of retractor problems. Type k='help retractor' in the search box, and hit Overview to begin your journey in this amazing resource.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Addendum #1 11/30/2020:&lt;/strong&gt; Here is a sound version by Rewan, a correction of my above &amp;quot;correction&amp;quot;! It is certified correct by Mario Richter's Rawbats program. The above version is incorrect due to 1. Rf5-d5 being a possible last move for White as well, and, furthermore, multiple stalemating moves afterward.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;8/3R2Kp/2N1kP1P/3R3P/3B2BP/6NP/P1P4P/8 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Addendum #2 11/30/2020:&lt;/strong&gt; I found a bug with my earlier proposed version, and also a way to make this much more economical. The new solution is proved correct (aka &amp;quot;C+&amp;quot;) by Mario Richter's legendary Rawbats program.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;8/3R2K1/4kP1P/3R3P/3P2BP/4N1BP/7P/8 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White has made 15 pawn captures, so if the last move (which must have delivered check) was by an officer, then it was not a capture, so Black has no prior move, and the position is illegal. The only possible last move is en passant, R: 1. e5xf6ep# so we conclude that this definitely was the case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(For retractors, one does not need to prove that the prior move was definitely a double hop in order to allow the en passant retraction. In this case, the logic goes the other way round: the en passant proves the double hop.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now the retraction goes R: 1. ... f7-f5 2. B~-g4+ Kf5-e6/Ke7-f6 3. S~e3+/R~-d7+ etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Instead of the first retraction, White can play 1. Se3-f5= for stalemate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(It could be possible to generate this effect in a position in which White is not delivering check, or in which one can retract uniquely further.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8201" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-04-29T21:04:00.323" LastActivityDate="2021-04-29T21:04:00.323" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24904" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24891" CreationDate="2019-07-16T01:29:29.780" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you'd like a lightweight CLI experience, and you have telnet enabled, try 'telnet freechess.org' on the command line.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19527" LastEditorUserId="19527" LastEditDate="2019-08-23T20:58:45.857" LastActivityDate="2019-08-23T20:58:45.857" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24905" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24869" CreationDate="2019-07-16T03:36:58.463" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;All the women only events (you don't see any men only events)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="46" LastActivityDate="2019-07-16T03:36:58.463" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24906" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24886" CreationDate="2019-07-16T04:11:31.027" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;As you noted, &lt;code&gt;w_i&lt;/code&gt; is not calculated by the search tree. It is simply the number of wins out of the total simulations performed at that node (if this is the method used to score the node). This scoring mechanism is also known as &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/LeelaChessZero/lc0/wiki/Technical-Explanation-of-Leela-Chess-Zero&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;playout&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="46" LastActivityDate="2019-07-16T04:11:31.027" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24907" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24882" CreationDate="2019-07-16T16:35:12.190" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think your problem comes from the difference between memorizing the opening theory, and understanding it. I suggest you focus more on understanding, why this move is played (both yours and theirs). This way, you can think during the game, why this move could be not optimal and play accordingly. Even if you do not know, how to take advantage of it, you can it least follow the theme of your opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To understand the theme of an opening, you can (most of the times) read books about it. The introduction will contain the goals of the opening most of the times. You can also just take a chess board and look for yourself, what the lines of the openings are about.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To understand the reasons behind the moves, just play out different moves, which look natural to you. I recommand not to use an engine at first, and only check afterwards, if you missed something. Do not memorize every line, but rather look for common motives, which appear, e.g. they do not defend a field, so now you can put your knight there which puts pressure on a crucial field. Or they trade DSB, so now they have a weakness on dark squares (if pawns are on light squares), so you can try to capitalize on that. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My personal experience however is, that at your level (and some levels above) gaining minimal advantages through the opening is not so important. A lot of games will be decided by tactics, so remember to constantly look out for them!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18963" LastActivityDate="2019-07-16T16:35:12.190" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24908" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24894" CreationDate="2019-07-16T17:33:34.740" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I do not know. In my circles, the bishop and knight are not always &quot;equal&quot; to exactly 3 pawns when they are being exchanged.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For us, we might say a player is &quot;a half-piece down&quot; after a bishop for knight exchange (if material was otherwise equal), or vice versa (depending on when the exchange happens), or even &quot;three and a half down&quot; if the player blunders their higher valued minor piece.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this scheme, at the start of a game, a knight may be considered worth &lt;em&gt;more&lt;/em&gt; than a bishop (3.5 while the bishop is 3); while later on, the values switch and the bishop becomes worth more (3.5 while knight becomes 3). Thus, in total evaluation, you get a &quot;half piece&quot; difference.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, this is generally only considered when a bishop for knight or knight for bishop is exchanged, or a minor piece is sacrificed or blundered; or perhaps when evaluating the strength of positions at the end game (as some folks may consider the bishops more useful in the end. But I'd say, the positioning determines which would be better in any situation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is worth reading &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2014/11/knight-vs-bishop/383202/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this Atlantic article&lt;/a&gt; for the general idea. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Addtionally, the the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_piece_relative_value&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wiki&lt;/a&gt; page notes many material valuation considerations and alternatives that include fractional pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19534" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-01-15T13:55:56.723" LastActivityDate="2020-01-15T13:55:56.723" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24910" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-07-17T16:03:10.303" Score="3" ViewCount="192" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was wanting to collect some statistics about players, and also just easily update player ratings for my local club. I tried the web crawls on USCF's Member Services Area (even using the thin pages &lt;a href=&quot;http://msa.uschess.org/thin.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://msa.uschess.org/thin.php&lt;/a&gt;), but it takes too long just waiting for the server to respond. How can I read the players from the Golden Database into a program I have made?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19543" LastActivityDate="2019-11-17T14:09:24.023" Title="What is the format for USCF's Golden Database?" Tags="&lt;programming&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24911" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21936" CreationDate="2019-07-17T20:31:14.300" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Since my &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/ianfab/Fairy-Stockfish&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Stockfish fork for fairy chess variants&lt;/a&gt; already supports Almost Chess, I &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/ianfab/Fairy-Stockfish/tree/sortofalmost&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;added Sort of Almost Chess&lt;/a&gt; with both sides having all promotion options (which is what you seem to imply in your question).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I ran a search on the given position up to depth 50 with the commands below:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;setoption name hash value 1024&#xA;setoption name multipv value 30&#xA;setoption name UCI_Variant value sortofalmost&#xA;position fen 7Q/8/6K1/8/8/1k6/6P1/c7 b - - 0 1&#xA;go depth 50&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The results below state that white is winning (latest in 23 moves) irrespective of black's next move. Going through some of the variations in the output it seems relatively clear that the chancellor has no way to give a perpetual, so white is able to advance the pawn and finally either promote or force the exchange of queen and chancellor.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;info depth 50 seldepth 47 multipv 1 score mate -23 nodes 860106805 nps 1814762 hashfull 355 tbhits 0 time 473950 pv a1a4 h8f6 b3a2 f6e6 a2b2 e6e2 b2c1 e2e3 c1c2 g6f7 a4a5 e3e2 c2b3 e2d3 b3a4 d3d4 a4b3 d4b6 b3a4 b6a5 a4a5 g2g4 a5a6 f7f6 a6b7 g4g5 b7a7 g5g6 a7a6 f6e5 a6b5 g6g7 b5c4 g7g8q c4c3 e5e4 c3c2 e4d4 c2b2 d4c4 b2c2 g8g2 c2d1 c4d3 d1e1 g2g1&#xA;info depth 50 seldepth 47 multipv 2 score mate -23 nodes 860106805 nps 1814762 hashfull 355 tbhits 0 time 473950 pv a1e1 h8b8 b3a2 b8a7 a2b3 a7b6 b3c4 b6a6 c4b4 a6d6 b4c4 g2g4 e1a1 d6c6 c4b4 c6e4 b4b3 e4d3 b3b2 d3d4 b2a2 d4a1 a2a1 g6f5 a1b2 f5e5 b2b1 g4g5 b1c1 g5g6 c1d1 g6g7 d1e2 g7g8q e2f3 g8b3 f3e2 e5e4 e2f2 e4f4 f2g2 b3c2 g2f1 f4f3 f1e1 c2c1&#xA;info depth 50 seldepth 45 multipv 3 score mate -22 nodes 860106805 nps 1814762 hashfull 355 tbhits 0 time 473950 pv a1g1 h8b8 b3c2 b8c7 c2d3 c7d6 d3e4 d6b4 e4d3 g2g4 g1h1 b4d6 d3e3 d6e5 e3f2 e5f4 f2g1 f4c1 g1h2 c1h1 h2h1 g6f5 h1g2 g4g5 g2f2 g5g6 f2f3 g6g7 f3e3 f5e5 e3d3 g7g8q d3e3 g8b3 e3e2 e5e4 e2f2 e4f4 f2g2 b3c2 g2f1 f4f3 f1e1 c2c1&#xA;info depth 50 seldepth 45 multipv 4 score mate -22 nodes 860106805 nps 1814762 hashfull 355 tbhits 0 time 473950 pv a1f1 h8f6 f1g3 g6f7 g3h1 g2g4 h1h7 f7g6 h7h3 g4g5 b3a3 g6f7 a3b4 g5g6 h3h6 f7e6 h6g4 g6g7 b4c4 e6f7 g4g1 f6c6 c4d3 c6g6 g1g6 f7g6 d3e4 g6f6 e4f4 g7g8q f4e4 g8c4 e4f3 c4d3 f3g2 d3e2 g2h3 e2f2 h3g4 f2e3 g4h4 f6f5 h4h5 e3h3&#xA;info depth 50 seldepth 45 multipv 5 score mate -22 nodes 860106805 nps 1814762 hashfull 355 tbhits 0 time 473950 pv a1d1 h8f6 b3a4 f6c6 a4b4 c6b6 b4c4 g2g4 d1e1 b6d6 e1a1 d6c6 c4b4 c6e4 b4b3 e4d3 b3b2 d3d4 b2b1 d4a1 b1a1 g6f5 a1b2 f5e5 b2b1 g4g5 b1c1 g5g6 c1d1 g6g7 d1e2 g7g8q e2f3 g8b3 f3e2 e5e4 e2f2 e4f4 f2g2 b3c2 g2g1 f4f3 g1h1 c2g2&#xA;info depth 50 seldepth 43 multipv 6 score mate -21 nodes 860106805 nps 1814762 hashfull 355 tbhits 0 time 473950 pv a1c1 h8f6 b3a3 f6d6 a3b3 d6d7 c1c5 d7d1 b3a2 d1d2 a2b3 d2e3 b3b4 e3c5 b4c5 g2g4 c5d6 g6f7 d6c6 g4g5 c6d7 g5g6 d7d6 f7f6 d6d5 g6g7 d5e4 g7g8q e4e3 f6e5 e3f3 g8b3 f3e2 e5e4 e2f2 e4f4 f2g2 b3c2 g2g1 f4f3 g1h1 c2g2&#xA;info depth 50 seldepth 43 multipv 7 score mate -20 nodes 860106805 nps 1814762 hashfull 355 tbhits 0 time 473950 pv a1a6 h8f6 a6a4 g6f5 b3a2 f6e6 a2a1 e6e1 a1a2 e1d2 a2a3 d2d3 a3b4 d3e4 b4b5 e4a4 b5a4 g2g4 a4a3 f5e5 a3b2 g4g5 b2b1 g5g6 b1c1 g6g7 c1d2 e5e4 d2c2 e4d4 c2b3 g7g8q b3b2 d4c4 b2c2 g8g2 c2d1 c4d3 d1e1 g2g1&#xA;info depth 50 seldepth 41 multipv 8 score mate -20 nodes 860106805 nps 1814762 hashfull 355 tbhits 0 time 473950 pv a1c2 h8b8 b3a2 b8a8 a2b3 a8d5 b3b2 d5e4 c2c1 e4b4 b2c2 b4c5 c2b1 c5c1 b1c1 g2g4 c1d2 g6f5 d2d1 g4g5 d1e2 g5g6 e2e3 g6g7 e3e2 f5e5 e2e3 g7g8q e3f3 g8b3 f3e2 e5e4 e2f2 e4f4 f2g2 b3c2 g2g1 f4f3 g1h1 c2g2&#xA;info depth 50 seldepth 39 multipv 9 score mate -19 nodes 860106805 nps 1814762 hashfull 355 tbhits 0 time 473950 pv a1a5 h8b8 b3a2 b8d6 a5a4 d6d5 a2a3 d5d3 a3b2 d3b5 b2a3 b5a4 a3a4 g6f6 a4b5 g2g4 b5b6 g4g5 b6a7 g5g6 a7a6 f6e5 a6b5 g6g7 b5c4 g7g8q c4c3 e5e4 c3c2 e4d4 c2b2 d4c4 b2c2 g8g2 c2d1 c4d3 d1e1 g2g1&#xA;info depth 50 seldepth 31 multipv 10 score mate -15 nodes 860106805 nps 1814762 hashfull 355 tbhits 0 time 473950 pv a1a3 h8h3 b3b4 h3a3 b4a3 g2g4 a3b4 g4g5 b4c5 g6f6 c5c6 g5g6 c6d6 g6g7 d6c5 f6e5 c5c4 g7g8q c4c3 e5e4 c3c2 e4d4 c2b2 d4c4 b2c2 g8g2 c2d1 c4d3 d1e1 g2g1&#xA;info depth 50 seldepth 31 multipv 11 score mate -15 nodes 860106805 nps 1814762 hashfull 355 tbhits 0 time 473950 pv a1a2 h8g8 b3b2 g8a2 b2a2 g2g4 a2b3 g4g5 b3b4 g6f5 b4b5 f5e5 b5b6 g5g6 b6c5 g6g7 c5c4 g7g8q c4c3 e5e4 c3c2 e4d4 c2b2 d4c4 b2c2 g8g2 c2d1 c4d3 d1e1 g2g1&#xA;info depth 50 seldepth 31 multipv 12 score mate -15 nodes 860106805 nps 1814762 hashfull 355 tbhits 0 time 473950 pv a1b1 h8b8 b3c2 b8b1 c2b1 g2g4 b1c2 g4g5 c2d3 g6f5 d3e2 g5g6 e2e3 g6g7 e3e2 f5e5 e2e3 g7g8q e3f3 g8b3 f3e2 e5e4 e2f2 e4f4 f2g2 b3c2 g2g1 f4f3 g1h1 c2g2&#xA;info depth 50 seldepth 29 multipv 13 score mate -14 nodes 860106805 nps 1814762 hashfull 355 tbhits 0 time 473950 pv b3a2 h8a1 a2a1 g2g4 a1b2 g4g5 b2a1 g6f6 a1b1 g5g6 b1a2 g6g7 a2b2 g7g8q b2c2 g8g3 c2b2 f6e5 b2a2 e5d4 a2b2 g3c3 b2a2 c3b4 a2a1 d4c3 a1a2 b4b2&#xA;info depth 50 seldepth 21 multipv 14 score mate -10 nodes 860106805 nps 1814762 hashfull 355 tbhits 0 time 473950 pv a1a7 h8b8 a7b7 b8b7 b3c4 g6f5 c4c5 f5e5 c5c4 b7f3 c4b5 f3c3 b5a6 e5d6 a6a7 c3b2 a7a8 d6c6 a8a7 b2b7&#xA;info depth 50 seldepth 19 multipv 15 score mate -9 nodes 860106805 nps 1814762 hashfull 355 tbhits 0 time 473950 pv a1h1 h8h1 b3c3 h1h4 c3b3 h4d4 b3c2 g6f5 c2b3 f5e4 b3a3 e4d3 a3b3 d4b6 b3a2 d3c2 a2a1 b6b1&#xA;info depth 50 seldepth 19 multipv 16 score mate -9 nodes 860106805 nps 1814762 hashfull 355 tbhits 0 time 473950 pv a1a8 h8a8 b3b4 a8c6 b4b3 c6b5 b3c2 g6f5 c2d2 f5e4 d2c3 e4e3 c3c2 b5b4 c2c1 e3d3 c1d1 b4b1&#xA;info depth 50 seldepth 17 multipv 17 score mate -8 nodes 860106805 nps 1814762 hashfull 355 tbhits 0 time 473950 pv b3b4 h8a1 b4c4 g6f5 c4d3 a1a4 d3e2 a4d4 e2f1 f5g4 f1e2 g4g3 e2e1 g3f3 e1f1 d4a1&#xA;info depth 50 seldepth 17 multipv 18 score mate -8 nodes 860106805 nps 1814762 hashfull 355 tbhits 0 time 473950 pv b3a3 h8a1 a3b3 a1d4 b3c2 g6f5 c2b3 f5e4 b3a3 e4d3 a3b3 d4b6 b3a2 d3c2 a2a1 b6b1&#xA;info depth 50 seldepth 17 multipv 19 score mate -8 nodes 860106805 nps 1814762 hashfull 355 tbhits 0 time 473950 pv b3c2 h8a1 c2d3 g6f5 d3c4 a1a4 c4d3 f5f4 d3c3 f4e3 c3b2 e3d3 b2b1 d3c3 b1c1 a4a1&#xA;info depth 50 seldepth 17 multipv 20 score mate -8 nodes 860106805 nps 1814762 hashfull 355 tbhits 0 time 473950 pv b3a4 h8a1 a4b3 a1d4 b3c2 g6f5 c2b3 f5e4 b3a3 e4d3 a3b3 d4b6 b3a2 d3c2 a2a1 b6b1&#xA;info depth 50 seldepth 17 multipv 21 score mate -8 nodes 860106805 nps 1814762 hashfull 355 tbhits 0 time 473950 pv b3c4 h8a1 c4b3 a1d4 b3c2 g6f5 c2b3 f5e4 b3a3 e4d3 a3b3 d4b6 b3a2 d3c2 a2a1 b6b1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15415" LastActivityDate="2019-07-17T20:31:14.300" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24912" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-07-17T21:23:35.300" Score="2" ViewCount="211" Body="&lt;p&gt;Every now and then I will move my queen into a position that puts it in position to be captured by the opposing queen. Sometimes my opponents takes it and I capture their queen immediately. Also, sometimes they don't take it and neither of use loses a queen. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it ever smart, except for obvious occasions, to lose your queen just to take the opposing sides queen?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19544" LastActivityDate="2019-07-17T22:33:26.493" Title="Would a professional level player put their queen in danger of capture from the opposing queen with protection?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;queens&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24913" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24912" CreationDate="2019-07-17T21:41:45.153" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The only possible answer is: it depends. It is a good idea if, by placing your queen in that particular position, you get some kind of advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, if you have a lot of material advantage, you may want to simplify the position by trading queens. Of course your opponent can just run away, but this could imply running away from an active attacking position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also move your protected queen into a very good square (like the seventh rank) so that in case it's captured by the enemy queen, the piece with which you recapture places itself in that very good square.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In other cases, for example if you are down on material, this can tend to be a very bad decision.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, in short, it depends on context&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastActivityDate="2019-07-17T21:41:45.153" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24914" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24912" CreationDate="2019-07-17T22:33:26.493" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;You're referring to a queen trade, and yes, there're plenty of situations in which you want to trade queens. In general, trading queens simplifies the position, which is good if:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You're up material. The fewer pieces there are on the board, the harder it is for the opponent to cook up counterplay.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You're on the defensive. The fewer pieces there are on the board, the harder it is to launch a successful attack on the enemy king.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You have some kind of advantage that makes you win the endgame, e.g. fewer pawn islands (this is a technical chess concept that measures on how many separated pawns you have), an outside passed pawn, and so on.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Various other reasons (there are a ton of them).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's an example from the recent game &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.chessbase.com/post/the-game-of-the-week-2019-29&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Topalov-Maxime Vachier Lagrave&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1kr5/1r3p2/2np3p/p5p1/2P3P1/PPNq4/K1R3QP/7B w - - 0 39&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black has just played Qe3-d3, and it's White's turn. It should be clear that Black's queen is much stronger than White's right now: it's much more aggressively positioned and it's generating a lot of threats. So Topalov played 39. Qd2, offering the trade. MVL promptly played 39...Qxd2, because if he didn't, White would play Qxd6+, eating a pawn for free. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This kind of exchange happens all the time at top level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastActivityDate="2019-07-17T22:33:26.493" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24915" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24916" CreationDate="2019-07-18T13:23:48.117" Score="7" ViewCount="3073" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would like to know how the Buchholz tiebreak system works, and how it is calculated, taking into consideration other factors such as bye, no show (default win), etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19491" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-07-19T18:40:48.623" LastActivityDate="2019-07-19T18:40:48.623" Title="How is Buchholz score calculated in a Swiss tournament?" Tags="&lt;swiss-pairing&gt;&lt;tie-breaks&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24916" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24915" CreationDate="2019-07-18T13:40:38.100" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;The information is hidden away in &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/FIDE/handbook/Standards_of_Chess_Equipment_and_tournament_venue.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Standards of Chess Equipment and tournament venue for FIDE Tournaments&lt;/a&gt; section 13.4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;13.4. Buchholz System&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;strong&gt;13.4.1.&lt;/strong&gt; The Buchholz System is the sum of the scores of each of the opponents of a player.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;strong&gt;13.4.2.&lt;/strong&gt; The Median Buchholz is the Buchholz reduced by the highest and the lowest scores of the opponents.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;strong&gt;13.4.3.&lt;/strong&gt; The Median Buchholz 2 is the Buchholz score reduced by the two highest and the two lowest scores of the opponents.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;strong&gt;13.4.4.&lt;/strong&gt; The Buchholz Cut 1 is the Buchholz score reduced by the lowest score of the opponents.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;strong&gt;13.4.5.&lt;/strong&gt; The Buchholz Cut 2 is the Buchholz score reduced by the two lowest scores of the opponents.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now it gets complicated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;how it is calculated, taking into consideration other factors such as&#xA;  bye, no show (default win)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since these pose a problem for all tie breaks which take into account the performance of opponents, in 2012 FIDE introduced the concept of a &quot;virtual opponent&quot; to be used in these cases. The details are spelt out in section 13.14.2&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;13.14. Tie-Break Systems using Ratings in Individual Tournaments (where all the players are rated)&lt;/strong&gt;    ...&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;strong&gt;13.14.2.&lt;/strong&gt; For tie-break purposes a player who has no opponent will be considered as having played against a virtual opponent who has the&#xA;  same number of points at the beginning of the round and who draws in&#xA;  all the following rounds. For the round itself the result by forfeit&#xA;  will be considered as a normal result.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;This gives the formula:   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Svon = SPR + (1 – SfPR) + 0.5 * (n – R)&lt;/strong&gt;   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;where for player P who did not play in round R:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;strong&gt;n&lt;/strong&gt; = number of completed rounds&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;strong&gt;Svon&lt;/strong&gt; = score of virtual opponent after round n&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;strong&gt;SPR&lt;/strong&gt; = score of P before round R&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;strong&gt;SfPR&lt;/strong&gt; = forfeit score of P in round R&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since I, like a lot of arbiters, use the Swiss Manager pairing program I though I'd see what the &lt;a href=&quot;http://chess-results.com/FAQ.aspx?id=5462&amp;amp;lan=1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Swiss Manager help&lt;/a&gt; has to say about this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;4 Buchholz-Tie-Break Calculation&lt;/strong&gt; On account of many requests about the Buchholz-Tie-Break I publish the following &lt;a href=&quot;http://chess-results.com/Download/Buchholz_Beispiele.XLS&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Excel file with&#xA;  suitable examples&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some quite complicated examples are given there but with minimal explanation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One last final twist which helped me understand the examples is this one regarding &#xA;the score of a player which is going to be used in the Buchholtz calculations for other players. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;If a player has received a pairing bye for which he has received one point (as opposed to an elective bye for which the player receives only half a point) then this is treated as an elective bye for Buchholtz calculations, so only counts as a half point bye.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, if I play player A who has a total score of 3 and he had a one point bye (meaning he scored 2 points from playing games and 1 point from the bye) then when calculating my Buchholtz score I don't add 3 points for this opponewnt, I only add 2.5 points because his one point bye only counts as a half point bye.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-07-19T18:39:39.300" LastActivityDate="2019-07-19T18:39:39.300" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24917" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24921" CreationDate="2019-07-18T14:00:03.843" Score="30" ViewCount="11918" Body="&lt;p&gt;In chess you don't need to be physically strong. Well, you need some kind of endurance, but is it the real reason why there aren't any super strong women GMs?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, I know about Hou Yifan and Judit Polgar, but they aren't even close to being world champion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I understand that there are a lot more men chess players than women, but how many women are in top 100? Even the disproportionate number of players can't explain this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the reason then? Can we deduce that men are smarter than women or shall we conclude that there are more geniuses among men than geniuses among women?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19551" LastEditorUserId="3444" LastEditDate="2019-07-20T13:29:22.793" LastActivityDate="2020-01-20T21:08:41.067" Title="Why aren't there any women super Grandmasters (GMs)?" Tags="&lt;psychology&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="19" FavoriteCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24918" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24917" CreationDate="2019-07-18T14:53:24.160" Score="35" Body="&lt;p&gt;Women played chess as much as men did for a while until the beginning of the 17th century. At this time, chess rules changed in that the queen and bishop gained much more significance and power in the game. Chess became a more competitive sport, not just a casual game among the wealthy. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Chess went from a leisurely game played between lords and ladies to a cut-throat competitive sport played in public houses and cafés, and therefore considered an unseemly activity for women.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the next 300 years, society continually sent the message of &quot;chess is not for women.&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason there are no women super grandmasters (players at the top) is because there are hardly any girls signing up to start playing chess anymore. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, there are some seemingly contrary examples&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In the Netherlands at youth level (&amp;lt; 10) there are almost as many girls as there are boys, and sometimes a girl wins the national championship for her age. But most of them quit during early teens, I think mostly because they prefer other hobbies. By 18, there is the typical huge difference.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/24917/why-arent-there-any-women-super-grandmasters-gms/24918?noredirect=1#comment38807_24918&quot;&gt;Remco&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For further reading, read &lt;a href=&quot;https://aeon.co/essays/why-are-only-two-of-the-world-s-top-100-chess-players-women&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this article about why only two of the world's top 100 chess players are women&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17301" LastEditorUserId="17301" LastEditDate="2019-07-23T20:57:23.630" LastActivityDate="2019-07-23T20:57:23.630" CommentCount="18" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24919" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24924" CreationDate="2019-07-18T15:07:56.713" Score="17" ViewCount="7545" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the history of FIDE chess competitions or rankings, why hasn't there been a black super GM (2750+ elo)? What could be the hindrance or what is it that the black players are not doing right that other players from other races are doing right in chess?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19491" LastActivityDate="2021-04-12T14:48:27.507" Title="Why are there few or no black super GMs?" Tags="&lt;super-grandmaster&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24920" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24919" CreationDate="2019-07-18T15:12:14.510" Score="31" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would say the main reason here is the low proportion of black players. If you look at statistics from the 20th century, you will find very few top players from Asia. But as chess became more popular in countries like China, now there are plenty of Asian super GMs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I guess something similar will happen to still underrepresented races&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-07-18T16:12:31.983" LastActivityDate="2019-07-18T16:12:31.983" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24921" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24917" CreationDate="2019-07-18T19:43:34.190" Score="44" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't know a lot about chess or even gender differences in cognition, but I do know enough that chess involves certain aspects of cognition and that there are &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_differences_in_cognition&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;gender differences in cognitive ability&lt;/a&gt;. For your question, about the number of super GMs, the average abilities of men and women is more or less irrelevant. You need to look at the tails of abilities. Again, there are &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289610000346&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;differences in the tails&lt;/a&gt;. Men are better (both on average and at the extremes) for some abilities and worse at others. Women tend to excel at verbal and social cognition while men excel at spatial aspects of cognition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In addition to cognitive differences, men and women react differently to competition and my guess is you cannot be a super GM without a strong competitive side. There are also social and cultural differences between men and women. Even if there were equal numbers of recreational players, that doesn't mean there would be equal numbers of competitive players (or similar rates of individuals willing to dedicate their lives to chess).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The popularity of competitive chess may well stem from its emphasis on male dominated traits (i.e., spatial cognition) and its lack of emphasis on verbal and social cognition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The source of these gender differences (i.e., nature/nurture or intrinsic/learned) does not really matter, as the end result is that there are differences. As to whether these differences can explain the lack of women super GMs, it is not clear. That said, given there are measurable differences in cognitive abilities, reaction to competition, and social and cultural influences, it seems wrong to conclude that the lack of women super GMS means that men are smarter than women or that there are more male geniuses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19553" LastEditorUserId="19553" LastEditDate="2019-07-21T14:09:58.607" LastActivityDate="2019-07-21T14:09:58.607" CommentCount="18" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24922" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-07-19T05:05:15.610" Score="6" ViewCount="676" Body="&lt;p&gt;For this question I'm interested only in gambits that:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Are real gambits. That is, the side that's risking the material actually ends up down material + cannot count on winning the material back. This, e.g., excludes the Queen's Gambit because 1. d4 d5 2. c4 dxc4 3. Qa4+ wins the material back without problems (plus most Queen's Gambit lines don't end with White down material). Also, if the gambit cannot be safely accepted, it's excluded.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Don't rely on opponent making a mistake. So the Fried Liver Attack 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Nf6 4. Ng5 d5 5. exd5 Nxd5?! 6. Nxf7 doesn't count since 5...Nxd5 is a well-known bad move.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I notice that Stockfish doesn't seem to like gambits. Analyzing using the engine at www.chess.com/analysis, for example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;King's Gambit: 1. e4 e5 2. f4 yields a starting eval of -1.10 (at depth 19).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Evan's Gambit: 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Bc5 4. b4 yields a starting eval of -0.60 (d =19).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Danish Gambit: 1. e4 e5 2. d4 exd4 3. c3 yields a starting eval of -0.48.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Sicilian Wing Gambit: 1. e4 c5 2. b4 yields a starting eval of -0.44.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Smith Morra Gambit: 1. e4 c5 2. d4 cxd4 3. c3 yields a starting eval of -0.19&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Blackmar-Diemer Gambit: 1. d4 d5 2. Nc3 Nf6 3. e4 dxe4 4. f3 yields a starting eval of -0.49.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(I'd consider Black gambits as well but those are harder to evaluate since the starting position favors White, and therefore it's not surprising if White has an advantage after Black plays the gambit)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there any gambits in which the side that is down material for tempo is advantaged? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-07-19T05:13:37.193" LastActivityDate="2020-07-09T00:34:09.180" Title="Are there any gambits which yield an advantage for the side down material?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;gambits&gt;&lt;material-balance&gt;&lt;advantage&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24923" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24922" CreationDate="2019-07-19T07:19:16.773" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can play the Queen's gambit if you go for 3.Nf3, actually offering your opponent a chance to stick to the pawn later on, so even if it's not a &quot;real gambit&quot; at move 2, you can turn it into one later on. The position often gives white a small advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another interesting possibility is the From's Gambit (1.f4 e5 fxe5 d6 exd6 Bxd6) which is often said to at least equalize (not bad being Black)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyway, I wouldn't trust the engine's evaluation in the opening (if we did, we'd be playing 1.Nc3 all day long!) If the Danish Gambit really leads to -0.48 while beign two pawns down, it probably means White is actually better unless there is some good obvious continuation for Black!. And this is assuming the engine's opinion is &quot;not that wrong&quot;. For example, the Evans Gambit is not played because Black can equalize, not because it can get a -0.6 position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, what about the Scotch Gambit?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastEditorUserId="18809" LastEditDate="2019-07-19T11:44:56.040" LastActivityDate="2019-07-19T11:44:56.040" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24924" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24919" CreationDate="2019-07-19T09:51:06.113" Score="34" Body="&lt;p&gt;The number of players was already mentioned. But lets go one level deeper than that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are two driving factors in the chance that a player becomes a top player:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Talent&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Education&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And once you know the chance that someone becomes a top player, you can multiply this with the number of players. Which depends on the population and chance of someone playing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A very simplistic formula might be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Expected number of top players&lt;/strong&gt; = &lt;em&gt;Population size&lt;/em&gt; * &lt;em&gt;likelihood to play&lt;/em&gt;&#xA;  * &lt;em&gt;likelihood to have enough chess talent&lt;/em&gt; * &lt;em&gt;likelihood to have enough chess education&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, let's look into each of the factors:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Likelihood to have enough chess education&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is both cultural and economical. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Beginner level&lt;/strong&gt;: The more people play chess, the more likely you have access to someone who can explain you the rules, and teach you how to play&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Intermediate level&lt;/strong&gt;: If more people play, you are more likely to find suitable opponents to develop against. If the local economy is better, it is more likely that you can afford basic training materials or have the chance to play/study online. A combination of economy and player density will determine if you are able to play many tournaments.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Advanced level&lt;/strong&gt;: At this point training will require a serious investment of time and money that not everyone can make. Logistics are slightly easier if there are several strong tournaments nearby, but you will still expect to travel international. Also don't underestimate the fact that you will likely not be able to work (or at least less) outside chess if you want to climb to the top.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Likelihood to play&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once a sport is popular, it is much more likely to be picked up by new people. A clear example can be found in the Netherlands, where the sport got really booming for decades after Max Euwe became the world champion. Not only will this lead to more players, it will often also lead to more facilitating infrastructure/clubs which may encourage people to play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Likelihood to have enough chess talent&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are plenty of controversial statements that could be made here, but I think it is fairly safe to say that starting with general education and calculation/reading skills have a positive impact on chess talent coming out. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Population size&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More people leads to more potential players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Conclusion&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason why there are less Black top players, is because the population in general has a lower average likelihood to become one. For people in less faverable circumstances the answer so far should already explain things clearly. For other people (e.g. those in the US) I think the main reason is that they have a reduced likelihood to become a player. If earlier generations did not play themselves, and there are no past champions to inspire you, that will slow down adoption.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That being said, as education and economical development increases across the globe, I think we just need one black world champion of a few top players in general before we start seeing many black players grow to the top :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17898" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2019-07-21T14:09:09.233" LastActivityDate="2019-07-21T14:09:09.233" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24925" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24917" CreationDate="2019-07-19T11:04:24.557" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess is a zero-sum game: both players can't win. This is more attractive to boys who are naturally more aggressive than girls, especially teenagers. Furthermore, it's a solo sport, so social skills which girls master earlier and better than boys cannot be put to good use.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a result, girls tend to pick different activities instead of chess. As fewer women go into chess than men, naturally fewer women excel at it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12789" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-01-15T13:58:51.810" LastActivityDate="2020-01-15T13:58:51.810" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24927" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2019-07-19T18:42:08.187" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-07-19T18:42:08.187" LastActivityDate="2019-07-19T18:42:08.187" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24928" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2019-07-19T18:42:08.187" Score="0" Body="Use this tag for questions about tie breaks and how they work" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-07-19T18:42:08.187" LastActivityDate="2019-07-19T18:42:08.187" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24929" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24972" CreationDate="2019-07-20T08:39:05.310" Score="2" ViewCount="130" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am asking something that chess.com shows about the English Opening, based on a game that I recently played on chess.com &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess.com showed the following figures:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;1.c4 e5&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;.. &#xA;&lt;code&gt;2.g4 e4 9.6 5.8&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-&lt;code&gt;White: 9.6&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;-&lt;code&gt;Black: 5.8&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are these figures? It comes with &lt;code&gt;Gantt Chart&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As previously mentioned, these numbers are from the chess.com website, specifically from the &quot;15|10&quot; gamemode that I played in.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These figures seem to be common for all chess games. I think that it pertains to Chess Mega Base and Chess Analytics, which was already done, and clearly counted to some number. What is this rational number about.?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9229" LastEditorUserId="18168" LastEditDate="2019-07-25T00:41:02.003" LastActivityDate="2019-07-25T00:41:02.003" Title="What are these chess.com figures from my English Opening game?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;english-opening&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24931" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-07-20T22:57:02.690" Score="2" ViewCount="421" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am aware of questions such as &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/6048/is-there-an-easy-way-to-detect-a-draw-in-a-king-pawn-vs-king-endgame&quot;&gt;this one&lt;/a&gt; which discussed a method of determining if a king pawn vs king endgame is a draw or not. The accepted answer gave detailed guidelines but is not mathematically strict. I am asking the question again, but from a different angle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If we label all the squares of the board as 1, 2, ..., 64 and we will use three numbers to denote the position of white king, black king, and white pawn, respectively. Let f be a function whose domain is a subset of {1,...,64}×{1,...,64}×{9,...,56}×{0,1} and whose range is {1/2,1}. Here × denotes the Cartesian product and the third set is {9,...,56} instead of {1,...,64} as it denotes the position of the white pawn. The fourth set {0,1} denotes whose turn it is; 0 for white and 1 for black. For the range, 1/2 means draw and 1 means win for white (assuming both sides only play the best moves possible). The actually domain is a subset of {1,...,64}×{1,...,64}×{9,...,56}×{0,1} instead of the entire set since no two or more pieces can occupy the same square and two kings cannot be adjacent to each other. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With the above definition, f is a function whose domain contains fewer than 64×64×48×2=393216 elements and whose range contains 2 elements. So it is possible (though may be difficult) to express f explicitly. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is: How to mathematically determine the output of the function f, given any input and therefore determine if a king and pawn vs king endgame is a draw or not?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In other words, I am looking for a way to find the value of f(x,y,z,w), where x denotes the position of the white king, y for the black king, z for the white pawn, w for whose turn it is and the output of f can only be 1/2 and 1.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16626" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-07-21T03:35:13.400" LastActivityDate="2020-08-06T22:32:57.810" Title="How to mathematically determine if king and pawn versus king endgame is a draw or a win?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;mathematics&gt;&lt;pawn-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24933" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24931" CreationDate="2019-07-21T02:21:09.107" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can do this (the space is, after all, finite) but it ends up being tedious, and is probably inferior to just looking it up in a tablebase. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's start with one of the most basic concepts in king and pawn endgames: the pawn square. White generally wins if Black is too far away to enter the square. We just need to convert this rule into simpler rules, and then convert those into your mathematical scheme.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If, with White to move, the White pawn is farther advanced than the Black king, White wins. If, with Black to move, the White pawn is 2 ranks farther advanced than the Black king, White wins.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;So, if &lt;code&gt;floor(y/8) + w &amp;lt; floor(z/8)&lt;/code&gt; then &lt;code&gt;f(x,y,z,w} = 1&lt;/code&gt;.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If, with White to move, there are more files between the Black king and the pawn than there are ranks between the White pawn and the 8th rank, White wins. If, with Black to move, there are 2 more files between the Black king and the pawn than there are ranks between the White pawn and the 8th rank, White wins.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;So, if &lt;code&gt;abs((y mod 8)-(z mod 8)) + w &amp;lt; (8-floor(z/8))&lt;/code&gt; then &lt;code&gt;f(x,y,z,w} = 1&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But we aren't done yet. If the pawn is on the second rank, it can go an extra square on its first move. But if Black has the move and is next to the pawn, he might be able to capture the pawn right away before it can move those 2 squares.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;So, if &lt;code&gt;z&lt;/code&gt; is in {9...16}, and &lt;code&gt;w = 0&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;(abs(z/8 - y/8 &amp;gt; 1)&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;abs((z mod 8) - (y mod 8) &amp;gt; 1)&lt;/code&gt;, then if  &lt;code&gt;((y mod 8)-(z mod 8)) + w+1 &amp;lt; (8-floor(z/8))&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;floor(y/8)+w+1 &amp;lt; floor(z/8)&lt;/code&gt; then &lt;code&gt;f(x,y,z,w} = 1&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But we still aren't done. There's an exception to the pawn square rule. Here, Black is outside the square and cannot enter it, but the game is drawn because of stalemate:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;K7/P7/3k4/8/8/8/8/8 b - - 0 1&quot;]  &#xA;&#xA;1... Kc7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So now, to be complete, we'd have to exclude the situation where the White king is in the corner, blocking his own pawn, and Black can trap him in that corner. This function is getting very convoluted already, and that's just one of the most basic concepts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2019-07-21T02:21:09.107" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24934" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24943" CreationDate="2019-07-21T14:27:36.427" Score="27" ViewCount="9154" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;Chess is a sea where a gnat may drink from and an elephant may bathe in.&quot; ~ Anonymous&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The above proverb is scattered everywhere throughout chess literature, folklore and even software.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have never fully understood its meaning, however.  Does the gnat represent a patzer and the elephant represent a master? Is the proverb trying to say that the game is a game for everyone?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13177" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-06-06T07:17:12.603" LastActivityDate="2020-06-06T07:17:12.603" Title="What does this chess proverb mean?" Tags="&lt;history&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24935" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24917" CreationDate="2019-07-21T20:57:42.047" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let us just try to see whether it is possible to give a definite answer to these questions or not. The first major issue is of course to evaluate how many chess players there are. Looking at different sources, one quickly concludes that this number is unknown, which consequently means that the percentage of chess players that are female is also unknown.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, we may conclude that the percentage of female players in competitive chess is very small by looking at official rating lists and tournament records; for instance, through my own experience in tournament chess I would estimate the percentage to be between 1 and 5 percent. With this estimation, there is nothing strange with seeing only one female player in the top 100 chess players, which is the case today. Indeed, even if none of the top 100 players were to be female this would still not be very remarkable given the small proportion of female players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So right at the get-go we get trouble even addressing the legitimacy of this question since we don't have much data. But let's say we somehow retrieve the exact percentage of female players for argument's sake, and that this percentage is not sufficient to satisfactorily explain the difference in performance between men and women in chess at the very elite level. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could it be used to argue that this means that men and women have different cognitive abilities in general? The answer is no, and a resounding one at that. Looking at the very elite individuals in a given discipline gives us little to no information about the average Joe, since the elite performers will of course be extreme outliers which have very little to do with the average performers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could it be used to argue that there are more male outliers than female outliers when it comes to chess performance? Yes, but it would hold no explanatory power as to why that is. Are there more male super-talents in chess, or is it a matter of environmental factors, such as women being actively discouraged to participate in chess regardless of their talent? How on earth would we get this type of data? It is one of the fundamental issues with psychology to determine how much external and internal factors will affect an individual's cognitive performance (and psyche in general), and due to ethical consideration there is a clear lack of research data on how big of a role these factors play in forming an individual although it has been establised that both types of factors are very important.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The question whether different groups of people have different inherent cognitive abilities on a population level (men vs. women, blacks vs. whites, etc.) has been asked and investigated many times, and every time that I'm aware of the same things tend to happen. Either the investigation produces no significat findings whatsoever, or the investigation fails to take into account potentially important confounding factors.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So to answer your question I would say that &#xA;1) it is impossible to answer the question in the title due to lack of information,&#xA;2) chess cannot be used to argue that &quot;men are smarter than women&quot;, and &#xA;3) one could possibly argue that there are relatively more male &lt;strong&gt;chess-geniuses&lt;/strong&gt; than female &lt;strong&gt;chess-geniuses&lt;/strong&gt; (assuming we have sufficient data to support such a claim), but this would only be a descriptive statement and there would be no way to answer &lt;em&gt;why&lt;/em&gt; that is using the percentage of female chess players as the only factor considered.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8300" LastActivityDate="2019-07-21T20:57:42.047" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24936" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24934" CreationDate="2019-07-21T22:24:25.297" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Edward Winter's &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/extra/proverbs.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;page about Chess Proverbs&lt;/a&gt; has this and a few other proverbs. A couple look like they could be related to the one you are asking about:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;The game of chess is like the ocean, which a gnat may cross and where an elephant may drown&quot;. (English translation of a Spanish version of possibly the same proverb.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;Though thine antagonist be an ant, imagine he were an elephant&quot;. (Similar in that it involves an elephant and a small insect.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think the two proverbs I quote above are clear: don't underestimate your opponent, because in chess anyone can win (as any adult who has been beaten by a bright child knows firsthand).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Going back to the original proverb, perhaps it is a more subtle and less violent expression of the same idea, with drinking and bathing instead of crossing and drowning. Or maybe it was a case of &quot;lost in translation&quot;. :-)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12523" LastActivityDate="2019-07-21T22:24:25.297" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24937" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24877" CreationDate="2019-07-22T02:39:04.463" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Former world champion Vladimir Kramnik &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/article/view/vladimir-kramnik-interview-im-not-afraid-to-lose&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;gave an interview with chess.com&lt;/a&gt; recently that briefly touches on something related to this question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;How do you feel about the state of chess now? Next year, Magnus Carlsen will defend his title again. There’s been criticism that there are too many draws in world championship matches. Do you think anything needs to be changed? Should the match be even longer—18, 20 games?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nowadays it’s not so easy to have a longer match because the amount of preparation involved is really, really intense. It is totally different to previous generations. Back then, there were no computers, not much theory. During my first Linares tournament, engines had yet to be developed, and my game preparation would be one or two hours. Now during world championship matches, you work 12-14 hours a day. So if we had a 20-game match, I think both players would end up in the hospital.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If this is correct, then back in the Victorian era players presumably prepared much less (I remember reading that the first player to do serious preparation, connecting openings to the endgames that can arise from them, was Alexander Alekhine). Therefore they are less fatigued by long tournaments, while today that's no longer the case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2019-07-22T02:39:04.463" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24938" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24934" CreationDate="2019-07-22T06:00:23.777" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think your thought &quot;Does the gnat represent a patzer and the elephant represent a master?&quot; is right. A beauty of chess is this combination of two aspects. The rules are  simple enough for a child to learn. But the game has so much depth that you can spend years studying the game, and amass a great deal of knowledge about it --- but there is more to the game still to discover.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10380" LastActivityDate="2019-07-22T06:00:23.777" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24939" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24946" CreationDate="2019-07-22T08:37:47.620" Score="4" ViewCount="2429" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is an option in the Swiss Manager pairing program which allows you to download into the program the current list of FIDE registered players (for many individual federations also). Once it is done it gives you a count of the number of players. I just did this and it told me 897,324 players had been found.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The FIDE rating website has an advanced search function. I just used this to &lt;a href=&quot;http://ratings.fide.com/advaction.phtml?idcode=&amp;amp;name=&amp;amp;title=g&amp;amp;other_title=&amp;amp;country=%25&amp;amp;sex=&amp;amp;srating=0&amp;amp;erating=3000&amp;amp;birthday=&amp;amp;radio=name&amp;amp;line=asc&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;search for all GMs&lt;/a&gt;. It also gave me the count - 1680.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This means that 100 x 1680 / 897,324 = 0.187% of FIDE registered players are GMs. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are these GMs also intelligent in the same proportion? So, are they in the top 0.2% of the population for intelligence also? Or are there some GMs who, as we say in England, are &quot;as thick as mince&quot;? (Failed to graduate high school might be one indicator) Have there been any World Champions who have been &quot;as thick as mince&quot;? (Bobby Fischer, I'm looking at you!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there any research which has examined IQ and chess playing ability?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2019-07-26T08:49:18.840" Title="Is high IQ necessary to become a GM?" Tags="&lt;grandmaster&gt;&lt;iq&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24940" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2019-07-22T08:44:33.850" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-07-22T08:44:33.850" LastActivityDate="2019-07-22T08:44:33.850" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24941" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2019-07-22T08:44:33.850" Score="0" Body="For questions relating to chess and IQ or intelligence" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-07-22T08:44:33.850" LastActivityDate="2019-07-22T08:44:33.850" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24942" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2695" CreationDate="2019-07-22T09:29:27.150" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;First of all, the origin of this game was India. chess should have WAR TROOPS in the battle field. what makes the logic of using a chariot as troop? It could be an Elephant that elephants were used for wars. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;when this game spread to the world, people uaed their own terminologies to represent these troops according to thier custom of battle environents and imaginations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the chess federation developed and fixed some rules and common names for the troops.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;mostly animals and soldiers were involved in war. not the chariot (i dont think that people accept the chariot as troop?). it was like a leg of an elephant, for a better shape of a troop to stand on a board (look at the toes of an elephant. this upside down looked like a Tower /casle in some countries. and they named as such.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;rook is not a war troop.&#xA;elehant is a troop to kill enemies.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;can you imagine when the chess special moves were introduced? and what could be the time of this game invented?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the base name of rook was an elephant, not a tower or castle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i m not against the arguements here. just to remind the logic of the art of cereberal war.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;rook is elephant&#xA;king is king&#xA;queen is queen (in ancient days,  queens too warred in india)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19608" LastActivityDate="2019-07-22T09:29:27.150" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24943" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24934" CreationDate="2019-07-22T10:42:13.590" Score="23" Body="&lt;p&gt;I disagree with all answers treating the gnat and elephant as allegory for players of varying skill level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Rather, the actions of the gnat and elephant are the main point. Chess as a game with rules is not very broad. There are only six types of piece. Half the actual number of pieces are identical and have moves that are almost as simple as it is possible to be (with the exception of &lt;em&gt;en passant&lt;/em&gt;, and even then, it is not nearly as complicated as many chess teachers and commentators make it out to be). The other pieces are moved in ways so simple a toddler can understand them. The board is a simple square only eight spaces wide. If one only looks from above the surface, chess is indeed narrow enough that a small insect could metaphorically fly across its whole.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, in the centuries of its play, strategies and tactics have developed almost to excess. There is gambit and counter-gambit and analysis measured in the millions of pages, billions of words spent on dissecting just a few landmark matches together, let alone the game as a whole. If one considers the depth the game can present, it is indeed a sea deep enough to drown the metaphorical elephant in.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9847" LastActivityDate="2019-07-22T10:42:13.590" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24944" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24939" CreationDate="2019-07-22T10:48:23.850" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The closest I've come to finding an answer is this research paper - &lt;a href=&quot;https://loop.frontiersin.org/publications/22642362&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Does chess need intelligence? - A study with young chess players&lt;/a&gt; from 2006.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately you need a login to see the full paper, but the abstract is provocative:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The present study investigated the chess skill of 57 young chess&#xA;  players using measures of intelligence (WISC 111), practice, and&#xA;  experience. Although practice had the most influence on chess skill,&#xA;  intelligence explained some variance even after the inclusion of&#xA;  practice. &lt;strong&gt;When an elite subsample of 23 children was tested, it&#xA;  turned out that intelligence was not a significant factor in chess&#xA;  skill, and that, if anything, it tended to correlate negatively with&#xA;  chess skill.&lt;/strong&gt; This unexpected result is explained by a negative&#xA;  correlation between intelligence and practice in the elite subsample.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which is a bit of a blow to those of us who think that our chess playing ability is a reflection of our high IQ :-). Perhaps the low numbers mean the results aren't significant?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2019-07-22T10:48:23.850" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24945" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-07-22T11:15:32.850" Score="2" ViewCount="218" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know that symmetrical variations of some openings are good up to a certain point, after which White gets a significant advantage (like gaining a piece or even mating the opponent's king). One such example is the match below, following the Italian variation of the Four Knights Game (C50):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Eventdate &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;NN&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;NN&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;C50&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Plycount &quot;27&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.Nc3 Nc6 4.Bc4 Bc5 5.O-O O-O 6.d3 d6 7.Bg5 Bg4 8.Nd5 Nd4 9.Qd2 Qd7 10.Bxf6 Bxf3 11.Ne7+ Kh8 12.Bxg7+ Kxg7 13.Qg5+ Kh8 14.Qf6#&#xA;1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After the move &lt;code&gt;9. ..Qd7&lt;/code&gt;, White gains a significant advantage in which Black will have to sacrifice some pieces (even the queen in one line) or he is getting checkmated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is: do you know any other example of situations like this, where White gets a significant advantage after a few moves performed in a symmetrical fashion?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18674" LastActivityDate="2019-07-22T15:58:45.507" Title="Bad symmetrical variations" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;opening-traps&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24946" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24939" CreationDate="2019-07-22T13:40:57.727" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;The most comprehensive and recent publication I've found related to this question is &lt;a href=&quot;https://doi.org/10.1016/j.intell.2016.08.002&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;The relationship between cognitive ability and chess skill: A comprehensive meta-analysis&lt;/a&gt;. It's behind a paywall, but you may be able to find copies of the PDF by googling the title. Also here's a less technical overview of the article from &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/09/160913124722.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;ScienceDaily&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The bottom line is that according to a meta-analysis of numerous studies, there is clearly a correlation between chess skill and cognitive ability, but cognitive ability explains only about 6% of the variance in chess skill (12% if you only consider numerical ability only). There must be other factors as well (e.g., training), some of which could be more important than cognitive ability.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An interesting observation was that intelligence plays a bigger role among lower-level players; here's a relevant quote from the ScienceDaily article.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The study found that intelligence was linked to chess skill for the&#xA;  overall sample, but particularly among young chess players and those&#xA;  at lower levels of skill. This may be because the upper-level players&#xA;  represent a winnowed distribution of cognitive ability -- in other&#xA;  words, they all tend to be fairly bright. (By way of comparison,&#xA;  Burgoyne said, consider the world's best basketball players. Although&#xA;  there is essentially no correlation between height and points scored&#xA;  at that level, that doesn't mean height isn't important in&#xA;  basketball.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't have an answer specifically regarding the IQ of GMs or world champions, but &lt;a href=&quot;https://thechessworld.com/articles/healthpsycology/chess-rating-and-iq-score-correlation/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this page&lt;/a&gt; has an interesting, if unsourced, factoid:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;International team of psychologists have attempted to measure IQ score of Garry Kasparov and after many tedious tests has concluded Kasparov’s IQ to be 135, making him fall into ‘moderately gifted’ category.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(I later found the same claim in other websites, some of which say that the testing was organized by Der Spiegel in the 1980s.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If this is true, it would mean Kasparov is perhaps in the top 1% in terms of IQ, which is certainly not bad, but seems almost nothing compared to the percentile he occupies in terms of chess skill (top 0.0001% or whatever, depending on how you define &quot;chess player&quot;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12523" LastEditorUserId="12523" LastEditDate="2019-07-22T18:41:01.010" LastActivityDate="2019-07-22T18:41:01.010" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24947" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24945" CreationDate="2019-07-22T15:58:45.507" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;From the OP and the discussion in comments I guess you're looking for more nuanced variations. Here's one that comes to mind from the Queen's pawn game (symmetric-pseudo-Catalan), where if black doesn't break the symmetry at some point, white will either be up a pawn or have tangible positional advantage. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [title &quot;Queen's pawn game example&quot;]&#xA; [fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. d4 d5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. g3 g6 4. Bg2 Bg7 5. O-O O-O 6. b3 b6 7. Bb2 Bb7 8. Nbd2 Nbd7 9. c4 c5 10. e3 e6 11. Ne5 Ne4 12. Nxe4 {Here black can no longer keep playing symmetrically, as exemplified in the shown mainline. Instead black has to simply recapture on e4 and it's a normal game.} Nxe5 (12...dxe4 {optimal continuation for black here, breaking the symmetry.} 13. Nxd7 Qxd7 14. Qc2) 13. dxe5 dxe4 14. Qc2 Rb8 (14...Qc7 15. Bxe4 {and white is up a clear pawn}) 15. Rad1 Qc7 16. Bxe4 Bxe5 17. Bxe5 Qxe5 18. Bxb7 Rxb7 {despite the symmetric pawn structure and equal material, white has a clear positional advantage as they control the only open file and black's disconnected rooks are far from being in time to challenge the file.}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15078" LastActivityDate="2019-07-22T15:58:45.507" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24948" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24967" CreationDate="2019-07-22T19:10:49.457" Score="1" ViewCount="86" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have a vision of producing future chess stars in a country and I am looking for tips and advice on how to go about it. What would be the &lt;em&gt;best&lt;/em&gt; approach or programme to adopt in achieving this dream by working with under 16 players (4 - 16 year olds). I would be interested in areas of study, approach strategies, and any other information that might be vital to chess development on a national scale.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19491" LastActivityDate="2019-07-24T13:34:27.273" Title="Chess development strategy for U16 players with the aim of producing future masters on a national scale" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;training&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24949" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24917" CreationDate="2019-07-22T22:06:17.277" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;The stating of the question implies an agenda but I'll do some answering anyway.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For one, I was disappointed to see no mention of Vera Menchik here. First women's world champion, she defeated many of the best males of her time, including World Champion Max Euwe (twice!) as well as Sammy Reshevsky, Jacques Mieses, and Lajos Steiner. Hastings 1930-1, Euwe lost only one game in the entire event -- to Menchik.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, the OP states, without any visible support, that the disparity of cannot be explained by population, but that's something my own experience of over a decade organizing a good portion of the strongest events in my state leads me to believe is absolutely true. The percentage of female chessplayers in the events I organized was well under 1 percent of the total players (in close to half of those events, it was 0). And if, over that same period of time, we decide to use total unique players (every individual counts as 1 player, no matter how many events of mine they played in) that number would be no higher. Hence the disparity in number of players would easily explain the population difference in the top 100. In fact, I'm impressed there are 2%.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Moving on from that, I've yet to see anything prove the popular notion that chessplayers are smarter than the general population. We can all think of top-level chessplayers who have advocated some pretty hare-brained ideas. I've known a number of very smart people who never proceeded past beginner levels in chess, and others who did. Weak correlation at best, it seems to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think we should dismiss the &quot;genius&quot; allegation in the original question the same way. No proof for it at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One of the more interesting fields for this study is in the very young players. In the USCF lists the concentration of females in the top 20 or top 100 lists is higher at the earlier ages than later, with numbers at 10% or more being female on the young lists, going down to 2% or so on the older ones. This parallels my experience as a chess coach; there were more female students in my younger classes than my older ones.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've spoken to some of the more promising ones about why they stopped. Reasons for walking away from chess were varied. Some did it because of what we would term &quot;socialization&quot; -- they felt pressure from the outside world (peers, family members, other authority figures) to stop playing chess because it just wasn't &quot;something girls were supposed to do.&quot; Some did it for the same reason males walked away later in life -- they got too busy, or became more interested in other things (from social pursuits to STEM subjects such as Chemistry or Math).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But for some, the reason was the boys. Not more interested in boys than chess, but less interested in chess because of the attitude of the boys playing it. I know several girls who continued to read about chess, just never showed up or sat down to play it at a club because of the tendency of the boys of similar age (pre-teen to teen) to denigrate them. (The denigration, I can attest from observation, came independently of skill, in fact, the better the boy was at chess, the less he tended to sneer at the girls who played well. It seemed more an outside-the-game tactic employed to keep mediocre boys from losing to a better player. Viewed as such, I would have to say it worked; if she didn't play, it was one less threat for him to face.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="657" LastActivityDate="2019-07-22T22:06:17.277" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24950" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24951" CreationDate="2019-07-23T04:10:37.140" Score="3" ViewCount="223" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is it a good idea to play unusual openings (minus the d&amp;amp;e files), such as c4 played by Bobby Fischer in his “Game of the Century”, to confuse the opponent and stop them from playing their natural opening in the rated tournaments?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15511" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-03-13T22:59:06.510" LastActivityDate="2020-03-15T13:03:15.177" Title="A question on psychology / strategy in Chess opening" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;psychology&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24951" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24950" CreationDate="2019-07-23T05:26:08.963" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Absolutely! This is an important component of opening preparation. If you know your opponent is very booked up in e.g. the Sicilian Najdorf, entering the Sicilian Najdorf is suicide unless you also have specialist knowledge. You are liable to be caught in an opening trap or make otherwise inferior moves against which the opponent has memorized the best responses. &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Chess_Championship_2010#Game_1,_Topalov%E2%80%93Anand,_1%E2%80%930&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Game 1 of the World Chess Championship 2010&lt;/a&gt; is illustrative: Anand forgot his preparation and when Topalov responded instantly, Anand knew at once that he was lost. More to the point, he didn't actually lose the game to Topalov's superior chess, he lost to Topalov's computer &amp;amp; memory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In a similar way, if you know your opponent likes tactical melees, playing for closed positions where slow maneuver is the order of the day can dramatically increase your win rate against him. Directly challenging the opponent in the area of his strength is fine if you're looking to improve, and not so fine if you just want to win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In case you're wondering, the same principles apply as well in the highest level of play: correspondence chess. To quote from &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.chessbase.com/(X(1)S(rg2ylarr0wonrzrhfene5qre))/post/better-than-an-engine-leonardo-ljubicic-1-2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;an interview&lt;/a&gt; with the then-world correspondence chess champion,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is indeed impossible to achieve any significant result in today’s correspondence chess without engines and databases. But we humans play, not the engines, and the input of humans mainly affects two areas: a) the choice of a suitable opening, and b) &lt;em&gt;steering the engine toward (or away) from certain types of position.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;If you want to be successful in top correspondence chess you can only play a certain set of openings because you simply cannot afford one single sub-optimal move – if you do, you will sooner or later regret it. That’s as certain as death and taxes.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I used Rybka for a number of years but around 2012 and 2103 I switched to Stockfish. Of course, I tested other engines as well but these two are my main engines. &lt;em&gt;I firmly believe that the top CC players must not change their engines too much because you have to understand and recognize the strengths and weaknesses of your engines.&lt;/em&gt; Otherwise, you again and again have to choose between two or three moves the engines suggest, however, without understanding the differences these moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Emphasis mine)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If your engine is good at positional play, those are the positions you want to gun for. If you further manage to identify the opponent's engine is not good at positional play, more power to you if you successfully get into such a position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2019-07-23T05:26:08.963" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24952" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28027" CreationDate="2019-07-23T06:33:31.677" Score="4" ViewCount="303" Body="&lt;p&gt;I used to play Video Chess on Atari with my dad when I was a kid.  What is the approximate FIDE rating of each level?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13896" LastActivityDate="2020-02-17T01:02:15.283" Title="How strong is each level of Atari 2600's Video Chess?" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;computer-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24954" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24950" CreationDate="2019-07-23T12:22:38.307" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are many ways of looking at this depending on one's strength. Super Grandmasters are able to shift between openings with ease and still play them well at a very high level and with deep understanding. As for middling players, it is &lt;em&gt;good&lt;/em&gt; to stay with one opening line for long and there are several advantages to that; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Experience is a very important aspect in the road to mastery and there's no shortcut to acquiring experience. The great martial artist, Bruce Lee once said, &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks &lt;em&gt;(chess openings)&lt;/em&gt; once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick &lt;em&gt;(chess opening)&lt;/em&gt; 10,000 times.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The same could also be said about chess and sticking with one (or a few) opening lines for long time, acquiring more experience, deepening your understanding in strategic &amp;amp; tactical ideas behind the opening and both the resulting middlegames and endgame positions.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Don't play against the player but play against the pieces. Most great masters of the past including Bobby Fischer himself have stayed with one opening repertoire for long and playing fearlessly against all their opponents. Fischer played just a few openings, Ruy Lopez, Sicilian Najdorf, King's Indian Attack &amp;amp; Defense, Grunfeld Defense, and others in between. Some openings and variations have been named after masters simply because they remained loyal for long and built indepth understanding in those lines.   &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The desire to win quickly and the creeping in of last minute doubt in one's opening repertoire is what has led many players to run away from their main weapons, hoping that the new unknown opening will yield better results in their favor. More often than not, it is the same players that end up surprising themselves with their own lack of experience in the new unusual opening than surprising their opponents. The sad is thing is that after the game, there isn't much to analyse or to add to your experience in that &lt;em&gt;surprise&lt;/em&gt; opening.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For serious tournament games, I would strongly recommend sticking with one's main opening repertoire and using &lt;em&gt;surprise&lt;/em&gt; openings for blitz and casual chess. As for beginners, I would recommend that they should stay with simple openings that adhere to basic opening principles (develop your pieces quickly, knights first, king safety, etc) like the Italian Game before trying to &lt;em&gt;surprise&lt;/em&gt; anyone.     &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19491" LastActivityDate="2019-07-23T12:22:38.307" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24955" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24950" CreationDate="2019-07-23T17:53:09.100" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, I'm not convinced Fischer's 1. c4 was the masterstroke some claim. His Bb5 had already been played by Furman against Geller, one of Spassky's seconds, and was nothing special. (As shown the next year when Timman ventured that same line against Geller, who responded with the continuation he himself had shown Spassky during the match prep and won.) I think Spassky had already been rocked back on his heels before Game 6 by the way Fischer responded to being two games down -- drawing even by winning his next two games &lt;em&gt;as black.&lt;/em&gt; Starting with Game 5 Spassky became uncharacteristically blunder-prone for a fatal stretch. I'm not sure the end result would have changed had Fischer simply stuck to his e4 habit. (See for example, Game 10.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for the main question: I've always encouraged my students to experiment with openings, for the simple reason that until both players have reached a basic level of strength (it's an uncertain line but it's somewhere north of USCF1800) specific opening choices really don't matter, and it's a way for them to discover what kinds of positions they like to play and have a natural aptitude for.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The unfortunate truth is for beginning and club-level players, the propensity for making errors in the middlegame and endgame will more than offset any advantage gained by memorizing a list of opening moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The question why I wasn't telling them which openings to play came up in a training session with one of my high school teams, so I opened my scorebook and we took a look at all the rated tournament games I had won so far that year (15, I think). We discovered that in all but one of those games I had come out of the opening behind, ranging from standing a little bit worse to being well on my way to losing. (I've long had a propensity for playing oddball lines, just to see how they play out against humans, rather than computers.) Yet I'd won, mainly because once the game shifted gears into the middle game or the endgame, my opponent didn't know what to do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first things to work on are calculation/visualization and basic endgames. Basic principles of chess, such as mobility, development, and control of the center. Go ahead and try out different opening lines, with the aim of figuring out whether the resulting positions suit you, not because of some supposed psychological effect on your opponent. Until the rest of your game is good enough to hold on to an early edge, none of that will matter for you. (If you want to play some trappy line and hope your opponent won't find the right path through it, go ahead. But remember, winning via memorized book traps says nothing at all about how good you are at chess, only how good your memory is.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Specific opening preparation can wait until you're good enough to hold on to the advantage that preparation might give you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anatoly Karpov spoke at one of Scholastic Championships I brought a team to, and one of the coaches there asked him to comment on what US coaches were doing wrong. You could see him think carefully for a while (since his English is quite good, I personally think as a gentleman he was trying to find a way to say it clearly without offending his hosts) &quot;You think too much about the opening. First comes chess. After you play it well, then is the time to think about openings.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You want to play some offbeat lines? Go ahead. Have some fun with them. Experiment. Dance with the wallflowers of chess opening theory. But unless both you and your opponent are dancing with candidate master or better skill, don't do it for any sort of opening advantage, because the odds are you'll give it all back before the game is over.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="657" LastActivityDate="2019-07-23T17:53:09.100" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24956" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-07-23T20:19:49.660" Score="-1" ViewCount="294" Body="&lt;p&gt;As it stands right now, FIDE does not have any minimum Elo rating requirement for arbiters. In fact, there's no test to check whether one can play chess or not before being awarded a FIDE arbiter-related titles. Isn't it time FIDE introduced such minimum requirements as a way of raising the standard of the game?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19491" LastActivityDate="2019-07-24T13:48:49.170" Title="Should FIDE introduce a minimum rating for arbiters?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;rating&gt;&lt;fide&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2021-04-17T08:56:57.407" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24957" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13698" CreationDate="2019-07-23T20:43:41.837" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I doubt chess is better for your brain than other intellectual exercises. The brain is like a muscle, the more exercise it gets, the stronger it gets.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So if the comparison is between chess and watching TV, yes, chess is better for your brain. But if the comparison is between chess and solving crosswords or logic puzzles, I think you're doing well, either way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="657" LastActivityDate="2019-07-23T20:43:41.837" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24958" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24956" CreationDate="2019-07-23T22:39:11.800" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=124&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;pre-2014 FIDE Laws of Chess&lt;/a&gt; article 10 said this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Article 10: Quickplay Finish&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;10.1 A ‘quickplay finish’ is the phase of a game when all the (remaining) moves must be made in a limited time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;10.2 If the player, having the move, has less than two minutes left on his clock, he may claim a draw before his flag falls. He shall summon&#xA;  the arbiter and may stop the clocks. (See Article 6.12.b)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;a. If the arbiter agrees the opponent is making no effort to win&#xA;  the game by normal means, or that it is not possible to win by normal&#xA;  means, then he shall declare the game drawn. Otherwise he shall&#xA;  postpone his decision or reject the claim.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;b. If the arbiter postpones his decision, the opponent may be&#xA;  awarded two extra minutes and the game shall continue, if possible in&#xA;  the presence of an arbiter. The arbiter shall declare the final result&#xA;  later in the game or as soon as possible after a flag has fallen. He&#xA;  shall declare the game drawn if he agrees that the final position&#xA;  cannot be won by normal means, or that the opponent was not making&#xA;  sufficient attempts to win by normal means.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;c. If the arbiter has rejected the claim, the opponent shall be&#xA;  awarded two extra minutes time.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;d. The decision of the arbiter shall be final relating to (a), (b) and&#xA;  (c).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=171&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;2014 to 2017 FIDE Laws of Chess&lt;/a&gt; this moved to Appendix G and was expanded.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Appendix G. Quickplay Finishes&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;G.1   A ‘quickplay finish’ is the phase of a game when all the remaining&#xA;  moves must be completed in a finite time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;G.2   &lt;strong&gt;Before the start of an event it shall be announced whether this&#xA;  Appendix shall apply or not.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;G.3. This Appendix shall only apply to standard play and rapidplay&#xA;  games without increment and not to blitz games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;G.4   If the player having the move has less than two minutes left on&#xA;  his clock, he may request that a time delay or cumulative time of an&#xA;  extra five seconds be introduced for both players, if possible. This&#xA;  constitutes the offer of a draw. If refused, and the arbiter agrees to&#xA;  the request, the clocks shall then be set with the extra time; the&#xA;  opponent shall be awarded two extra minutes and the game shall&#xA;  continue.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;G.5   If Article G.4 does not apply and the player having the move has&#xA;  less than two minutes left on his clock, he may claim a draw before&#xA;  his flag falls. He shall summon the arbiter and may stop the&#xA;  chessclock (see Article 6.12 b). He may claim on the basis that his&#xA;  opponent cannot win by normal means, and/or that his opponent has been&#xA;  making no effort to win by normal means&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If the arbiter agrees that the opponent cannot win by normal means, or&#xA;  that the opponent has been making no effort to win the game by normal&#xA;  means, he shall declare the game drawn. Otherwise he shall postpone&#xA;  his decision or reject the claim. If the arbiter postpones his&#xA;  decision, the opponent may be awarded two extra minutes and the game&#xA;  shall continue, if possible, in the presence of an arbiter. The&#xA;  arbiter shall declare the final result later in the game or as soon as&#xA;  possible after the flag of either player has fallen. He shall declare&#xA;  the game drawn if he agrees that the opponent of the player whose flag&#xA;  has fallen cannot win by normal means, or that he was not making&#xA;  sufficient attempts to win by normal means. If the arbiter has&#xA;  rejected the claim, the opponent shall be awarded two extra minutes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The movement from the main articles to an appendix is significant and this trend continued in 2017 and the latest version of the rules. In the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=208&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;latest version of the FIDE Laws of Chess&lt;/a&gt; it has moved to a new section &quot;Guidelines&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is not too dissimilar to the 2014-2017 version so I won't repeat it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are two key points:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The arbiter requires real chess skill to fulfil his/her function. &quot;The opponent cannot win by normal means&quot; is not a straightforward decision to make. A minimum rating for arbiters would make a lot of sense. I believe such a suggestion has been made at the level of the Arbiters Commission and I will try and find a reference. I believe a rating somewhere in the region of 1700 to 1900 has been suggested and no doubt argued over.   &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The clear trend for this rule is deprecation and elimination. The next revision of the rules is due in 2021. I think it is a better than even money bet that this rule (along with adjournments in Guidelines 1) goes away. If this happens the argument for a minimum rating for arbiters is much diminished but currently I don't see how an arbiter with only a weak grasp of the game could adjudicate such positions.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2019-07-23T22:39:11.800" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24959" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="940" CreationDate="2019-07-24T02:49:45.963" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;One more to think about is the Colle System. It’s not as obvious, but during the transition to the Middlegame it often transpires that Black trades the c&amp;amp;d pawns for White’s d&amp;amp;e pawns. That leaves White with a Q-side majority. While having a majority on the side away from the kings is not, in itself a winning advantage, not completely winning, if White can follow with centralizing the king and using the f-pawn to restrain Black’s e-pawn, it’s enough to win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="657" LastActivityDate="2019-07-24T02:49:45.963" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24960" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="954" CreationDate="2019-07-24T03:16:04.347" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Depends upon how big a fuss you want to make over it. I’m less sure than some others here that it’s legal; there’s enough grey area around it to have grounds for a complaint, though not enough to be sure you’ll win the ruling.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It flows from the fact the rules specifically state captures are made by moving a piece unto a square occupied by another, and then immediately removing the captured piece from play (7C USCF, Section 4, I think, FIDE).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your opponent clearly is not simply touching the piece, he is removing it from the board. As such, he is performing the actions out of order. That can be the first part of your complaint.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Under USCF rule 20G, players are prohibited from conduct that annoys their opponent. TDs/Arbiters have discretion as to what can be considered annoying, but pairing the out-of-order factor above with the fact you find it quite disconcerting to be staring at an empty hole where your piece was could carry it through.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For added weight, you might add the claim that your opponent’s early removal of your piece constitutes an illegal aid to his analysis, since he is, in effect, using a physical view of the chessboard that does not reflect the current position while thinking about his move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I’m not going to claim those three points taken together will guarantee the Director/Arbiter will side with you, some will and some won’t, but if you find the behavior annoying enough, it might be worth a try next time. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="657" LastActivityDate="2019-07-24T03:16:04.347" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24961" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24962" CreationDate="2019-07-24T03:43:53.407" Score="20" ViewCount="2546" Body="&lt;p&gt;From the start of the game what is the longest possible series of consecutive white moves where white can do those moves no matter what black does?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I want the longest list of moves white can do after starting the game no matter what moves black does. So what is the maximum number of moves he can plan ahead and be sure he will be able to do it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19618" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-10-24T06:19:08.503" LastActivityDate="2020-10-24T11:02:08.003" Title="From the start of the game what is the longest possible series of consecutive white moves where white can do those moves no matter what black does?" Tags="&lt;problems&gt;&lt;records&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24962" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24961" CreationDate="2019-07-24T03:55:01.397" Score="16" Body="&lt;p&gt;Three moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On move 3, Black can crash through with his queen on f2 or d2 via several different squares, forcing White to respond. There is no series of White moves that can prevent all such checks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Nf3 (1. e3 e5 2. c3 Qf6 3. g3 Qxf2+) 1... c6 (1... e5 2. c3 Qh4 3. e3 Qxf2+) 2. g3 Qa5 (2... Qb6 3. c3 Qxf2+) 3. e3 Qxd2+ *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastEditorUserId="15602" LastEditDate="2019-07-24T14:31:59.767" LastActivityDate="2019-07-24T14:31:59.767" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24963" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24965" CreationDate="2019-07-24T08:15:49.557" Score="29" ViewCount="12270" Body="&lt;p&gt;Despite all the efforts that chess professionals put to the game the majority of them cannot make a living out of chess. Only 4 or 5 super grandmasters across the world have been able to make a few million dollars from chess. This is mainly because there are no good brands/sponsors associating themselves with chess. At one point, one former president of FIDE had to sponsor world championships from his own &quot;pocket&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Over the years chess has been associated with big industries in business, technology, health, research, etc but it has not been able to attract major sponsors or partners to competitive chess. For example one would have expected a big spin-off from Google's AlphaZero and partnership with FIDE but nothing big has come out so far. Hence the following question;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why is chess failing to attract major sponsors like other sporting codes? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19491" LastActivityDate="2020-08-27T15:49:34.687" Title="Why is chess failing to attract big name sponsors?" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;fide&gt;" AnswerCount="9" CommentCount="7" FavoriteCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24964" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24966" CreationDate="2019-07-24T09:01:28.677" Score="-1" ViewCount="92" Body="&lt;p&gt;Who is the best-attacking player all the time? Bobby Fischer, Garry Kasparov, Magnus Carlsen or Mikhail Tal?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18867" LastActivityDate="2019-07-24T10:20:50.057" Title="Who is best attacking player all the time?" Tags="&lt;attack&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2019-07-24T10:20:15.400" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24965" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24963" CreationDate="2019-07-24T10:17:32.303" Score="59" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's frankly quite boring to watch chess, unless you understand what is going on - it's not like football, basketball or hockey, where there is dynamic, action, fast-paced play - for us, chess players, it might appear that chess is dynamic and fast-paced, but this is not so for the common viewer. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's be honest, would you really want to watch a chess game lasting three hours on your TV, waiting for the next move which the player takes 30 minutes to think through and calculate? Specifically for this reason you will never see chess featured on TV, and since it is not featured on TV, it does not get the luxurious contracts that other sports do. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3621" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2019-07-25T09:14:03.987" LastActivityDate="2019-07-25T09:14:03.987" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24966" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24964" CreationDate="2019-07-24T10:20:50.057" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's nothing like the &lt;em&gt;&quot;best attacking player of all time&quot;&lt;/em&gt;, as there has never been a competition to prove that fact or find the winner. What is best to you might not be best to another person. It is more of a personal taste than anything else. For example Albin Planinc played some very aggressive games that portrayed some kind of artistry and beauty but it is hard to say that his games were among the &lt;em&gt;&quot;best&quot;&lt;/em&gt; or he is the &lt;em&gt;&quot;best attacking player&quot;&lt;/em&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19491" LastActivityDate="2019-07-24T10:20:50.057" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24967" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24948" CreationDate="2019-07-24T13:27:55.203" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure there's one best way. The best way depends on the country: current chess level, number of chess players, the country's economy, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That said, assuming we're talking your country specifically i.e. Botswana, or more generally a developing country where chess isn't very widespread, the first thing I'd look into is the funding provided by FIDE's Planning and Development Comission (PDC). As of 2019 they offer up to 20,000 USD that can be used for purchasing chess equipment, organizing tournaments, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In fact, as you can see on &lt;a href=&quot;https://pdc.fide.com/federations-approved-or-funding/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;PDC's website&lt;/a&gt;, Botswana's funding request for 2019 has been approved. So you should check with your national federation and see how they plan to use the money.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now if we're talking about a hypothetical situation where you can decide how the money would be used (e.g. for 2020), I'd suggest:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;allocate a small part (say 20%) of the funding to improve the situation for existing players (including adults): purchase chess sets, organize free or cheap tournaments, organizer an arbiter  seminar, organize classes for intermediate/advanced players, or even provide coaching to players likely to play in the Olympiad. Note I'm not suggesting you do &lt;em&gt;all&lt;/em&gt; of these, as $4000 isn't that much, just what you need the most.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;allocate the bulk of it (say 80%) to the long term vision: for example, train chess instructors -- think Developmental Instructors in FIDE parlance, that is, people who can teach the rules and the basic of chess to beginners, not FIDE Senior Trainers -- and then provide cheap or free classes to children on weekends or after school. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ideally you would institute chess classes in schools across the country (like in Armenia), but of course that's very hard to pull off. Still, you can use the Armenian case as an example. You want to convince parents and school teachers that spending time on chess is beneficial for kids, that it's associated with good outcomes. &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.ft.com/content/a7686122-524c-11e5-b029-b9d50a74fd14&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Example article&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You want to focus on elementary school children. It may sound harsh, but if your goal is to produce masters, starting at high school is a bit late. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13896" LastEditorUserId="13896" LastEditDate="2019-07-24T13:34:27.273" LastActivityDate="2019-07-24T13:34:27.273" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24968" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24956" CreationDate="2019-07-24T13:48:49.170" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;No. A good arbiter needs to know the Laws of Chess, but that's about it. There's no need to refer to tactics or openings or strategy when you're arbitering. After all, the days of adjudication are over.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've heard that there are a lot of arbiters with titles that aren't good arbiters, but that wouldn't be solved with imposing a minimum rating. In fact, such a minimum would end up excluding good arbiters who don't even play (my country's only active International Arbiter doesn't compete at all, she has no rating, but she does a great job at being an arbiter).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13896" LastActivityDate="2019-07-24T13:48:49.170" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24969" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="863" CreationDate="2019-07-24T15:43:55.830" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The 2017 Isle of Man Masters tournament provided a couple of these shock results.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First the fairy tale story of an aging, declining US GM overturning an almost 400 point rating difference to beat one of the pre-tournament favourites, ex world champion Vladimir Kramnik.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Isle of Man Masters&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Douglas IMN&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2017.09.25&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;2017.09.23&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;3.28&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;James Tarjan (2412)&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Vladimir Kramnik (2803)&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;A12&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;2412&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;2803&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;111&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. c4 Nf6 2. g3 c6 3. Nf3 d5 4. b3 Bg4 5. Bg2 e6 6. O-O Nbd7 7. Bb2 Bd6 8. d3 O-O 9. Nbd2 Re8 10. h3 Bh5 11. Re1 a5 12. a3 e5 13. cxd5 cxd5 14. Nh4 Nc5 15. Qc2 Ne6 16. Rac1 Nd4 17. Qd1 Nb5 18. Nb1 Qd7 19. Kh2 Ra6 20. Nf3 e4 21. dxe4 Nxe4 22. Rf1 Bb8 23. Nc3 Nbxc3 24. Bxc3 Rae6 25. Be1 h6 26. Rc2 Ba7 27. Qc1 Bb6 28. e3 Qb5 29. Nd4 Bxd4 30. exd4 Bf3 31. Bxf3 Nxg3 32. fxg3 Qxf1 33. Bf2 Qd3 34. Rc3 Qf5 35. Kg2 Rf6 36. Qc2 Qd7 37. g4 Rc6 38. Rc5 Rd8 39. Qf5 Rxc5 40. Qxd7 Rxd7 41. dxc5 d4 42. Kf1 d3 43. Ke1 d2+ 44. Kd1 Kf8 45. Bg3 Ke7 46. Bd6+ Ke6 47. Kxd2 b6 48. Ke3 bxc5 49. Bxc5 Rd8 50. b4 axb4 51. axb4 f5 52. b5 fxg4 53. hxg4 g6 54. b6 h5 55. g5 Kd7 56. b7 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the first round an obscure 70 year old English player took a draw by repetition in a winning position against a GM rated almost 700 points higher.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Isle of Man Masters&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Douglas IMN&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2017.09.23&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;2017.09.23&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;1.14&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1/2-1/2&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Zaki Harari (2027)&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Maxim Rodshtein (2695)&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;B21&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;2027&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;2695&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;147&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. d4 cxd4 3. c3 d3 4. Bxd3 Nc6 5. c4 g6 6. Nf3 Bg7 7. O-O d6 8. h3 Nf6 9. Nc3 O-O 10. Be3 Nd7 11. Rc1 Nde5 12. Be2 b6 13. Qd2 Bb7 14. Rfd1 Rc8 15. b3 Nxf3+ 16. Bxf3 Ne5 17. Be2 Nd7 18. Bh6 Nf6 19. Bxg7 Kxg7 20. Bf3 Qc7 21. h4 Qb8 22. h5 Rc5 23. h6+ Kg8 24. Nd5 Bxd5 25. exd5 Rfc8 26. Re1 R8c7 27. a4 Qf8 28. Qf4 a5 29. Qe3 Kh8 30. g4 Ng8 31. g5 f6 32. gxf6 exf6 33. Qf4 Re7 34. Kf1 Re5 35. Rxe5 dxe5 36. Qd2 Qd6 37. Rd1 Rc7 38. Bg2 g5 39. Bh3 Nxh6 40. Be6 Ng8 41. Qe2 Ne7 42. Qf3 Kg7 43. Qh5 Ng6 44. Bf5 Re7 45. Rd3 Nf8 46. Rh3 Kg8 47. Be4 Rg7 48. Bf5 Re7 49. Be4 Qd7 50. Rf3 Rf7 51. Bf5 Qe7 52. Rd3 Qd6 53. Rh3 Rg7 54. Rf3 Qd8 55. Rh3 Ra7 56. Rd3 Qd6 57. Rh3 Rf7 58. Be4 Qa3 59. Bf5 Re7 60. Qd1 Qd6 61. Qd3 Rg7 62. Rh6 g4 63. Qg3 Rg5 64. Be4 Kg7 65. Qh4 Qe7 66. d6 Qf7 67. d7 Qe7 68. Rxh7+ Nxh7 69. Qxh7+ Kf8 70. Qh8+ Rg8 71. Qh6+ Rg7 72. Qh8+ Rg8 73. Qh6+ Rg7 74. Qh8+ 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bd5 crying out to be played instead of Qh8.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2019-07-24T15:43:55.830" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24970" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24963" CreationDate="2019-07-24T16:47:24.803" Score="33" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sponsorship is more like an investment. For example in video game competitions, companies like 'Sony' and 'Redbull' may invest money, of course, in the hopes that their audience will be more likely to purchase 'Sony' or 'Redbull' products since the players are using them. In your example, I don't see what AlphaZero has to gain from casual enthusiasts by sponsoring chess tournaments. Is the AI program something consumers can purchase? There's little gain there. And the other big reason as the other poster put it is that chess just isn't much fun to watch so the audience willing to sit through chess matches is very small, which ties in the first point about little gain from sponsorship.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19624" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-08-27T03:26:56.780" LastActivityDate="2020-08-27T03:26:56.780" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24971" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24963" CreationDate="2019-07-24T18:18:06.017" Score="19" Body="&lt;p&gt;Biggest reason? Indecisive games. Hard to make money for sponsors when 60%+ of the time there’s no winner. In a sporting event, no one likes ties.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Possible avenues are faster time controls, where at least spectators don’t waste half a day watching no one win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Back in the 19th century Steinitz had match rules that required players to reset the pieces and play again if a draw happened. Maybe create something similar today. Continuous games until one is decisive, perhaps with declining time limits.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know, draws are a part of chess. But spectators don’t care what’s a part of chess. For the most part, they don’t even care about quality of play. They want to celebrate a winner.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe turn to a tennis model, with 3-5 sets of rapid games, each set won by the first player to win x number of games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess, as we play it today, is not a sponsor’s game. The only game with as many indecisive games as chess is poker, and it kind of controls for that by having a table full of players, so if 3-4 have nothing, the hand is still competitive, so eventually someone wins.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="657" LastActivityDate="2019-07-24T18:18:06.017" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24972" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24929" CreationDate="2019-07-24T23:52:05.137" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe you mean this (correct me if wrong):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/C5xga.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/C5xga.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This refers to time in seconds that it took to complete a move. So in this case (my game), it took White 2.5 seconds to make a  move, and 0.9 seconds for Black to respond. Then it took 19.7 seconds for White to make a move, and 1 second for Black to respond.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your case, it took White 9.6 seconds to make a move, and Black 5.8 seconds to respond.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3621" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2019-07-24T23:52:05.137" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24973" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24980" CreationDate="2019-07-25T11:35:05.317" Score="2" ViewCount="759" Body="&lt;p&gt;USSR (Russia) used to dominate world chess but that dominance seems to have faded away; with the Russians losing both the World Chess Championships and the Olympiad. &#xA;What is it that the Russians are not doing right that the USSR used to do, and/or what is it that the other countries did to catch up and surpass?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19491" LastActivityDate="2019-07-26T08:42:33.000" Title="Why is Russia no longer dominating the world chess championships?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;training&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24974" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24973" CreationDate="2019-07-25T12:23:48.620" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Soviet Union used to dominate chess because it had state-sponsored schools that provided high-quality trainers. After the Soviet Union broke up, funding dried up, and many of these trainers emigrated. Naturally the competitors caught up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Vladimir Kramnik discusses some of this in &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/article/view/vladimir-kramnik-interview-im-not-afraid-to-lose&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;an interview he gave with chess.com&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Chess.com: Much has been written about the legendary Soviet chess schools. You attended the Botvinnik school in the 1980s. What was it like?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Vladimir Kramnik&lt;/strong&gt;: People always have a bit of an exaggerated picture of the Soviet chess schools, this idea that there were these concentration camps for kids, working 25 hours a day on chess. No, it was just a two-week session, held twice a year, and even during these two weeks, it was not so terribly intense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The main asset of the Soviet chess school was actually the high standard of trainers throughout the country. In a world without internet and little exchange of information, this knowledge was hidden away behind the iron curtain. The reason the balance of power started to change after the iron curtain came down was because many of these Russian trainers emigrated, allowing western players and Chinese players to learn from them and get closer to the Russians.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;You were 14 when the cold war ended and the Soviet Union began to collapse. How did that affect you?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course there were some issues, but I was just a kid at the time, so it didn’t make that big an impact on me. I think it was a much more difficult time for the older generations. For me, there were plusses and minuses. The plusses were that I could finally start going abroad to play tournaments, of my own will. The minuses were that all the state support for chess started to disappear.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The years 1990-1992 were a very difficult time financially in Russia, and many talented players of my generation didn’t manage to improve quickly enough. They ran out of money for trainers, and they ended up stuck at the same level. I was quite lucky in that I benefited from the state support of young talents when I was small, and then I reached the top of the game very quickly. But initially, money was not always easy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2019-07-25T12:23:48.620" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24976" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24981" CreationDate="2019-07-25T16:41:28.010" Score="5" ViewCount="3905" Body="&lt;p&gt;This not a question about chess exactly but I'm reading &lt;em&gt;Deep Thought&lt;/em&gt; by Kasparov and I didn't understand what he meant by &quot;I was behind in three and even in one after six games&quot; when he was describing his matches with Karpov.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In my five world championship matches against Karpov, I was ahead after six games in only one, our last match in 1990. In the other four &lt;strong&gt;I was behind in three and even in one after six games&lt;/strong&gt;, but didn’t lose any of them in the end, winning two and drawing one. (Our first match was terminated after I came back from 0–5 to 3–5.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does this mean that he was three games behind in the first six in one match and one game behind in the other? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19521" LastEditorUserId="7792" LastEditDate="2019-07-26T14:11:27.010" LastActivityDate="2019-07-26T18:50:33.163" Title="What does Kasparov mean by &quot;I was behind in three and even in one after six games&quot;?" Tags="&lt;kasparov&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24977" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24976" CreationDate="2019-07-25T19:12:47.230" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe he means that in one of his matches, he was ahead after the first six games had been played.  In one of them, after six games were played the score was tied.  In the remaining three, he was behind after the first six games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18421" LastActivityDate="2019-07-25T19:12:47.230" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24979" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24963" CreationDate="2019-07-25T22:45:01.983" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Simply put, the primary purpose of sponsorship of competitions (or events in general) is &lt;strong&gt;advertising&lt;/strong&gt;. The amount of money an organization would be willing to spend to sponsor an event is directly tied to the audience of that event and the likelihood of increased sales to that audience resulting from the advertisement.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sports like American football, baseball, soccer, ice hockey, basketball, etc. draw large audiences (often many millions) to which sponsors can advertise their brand and products. Chess games, on the other hand, tend to draw quite small audiences. If chess can find some way to make the games interesting enough that millions of people will watch them on a regular basis, then they, too, will be able to attract large sponsorship contracts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, the same logic generally applies to all forms of advertising, not just event sponsorship. Advertisement during TV shows, on radio stations, in newspapers, in magazines, on billboards, on signs, on web banner ads, etc. is all based to trying to expose your brand/product to the the largest number of likely potential buyers for the lowest price per conversion. A small audience to an advertisement means few potential conversions and, therefore, little willingness to invest in that advertisement.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4376" LastActivityDate="2019-07-25T22:45:01.983" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24980" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24973" CreationDate="2019-07-25T23:04:49.970" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Russia never dominated the world chess championships. The USSR did. Russia and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics are two very different things.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The USSR consisted of -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Armenia&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Azerbaijan&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Byelorussia&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Estonia&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Georgia&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Kazakhstan&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Kirghizia&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Latvia&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Lithuania&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Moldavia&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Russia&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Tajikistan&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Turkmenia&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Ukraine&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Uzbekistan   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Today these are 15 separate federations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is also instructive to look at where world champions have been born after 1948 and what their nationalities would be based on birth in today's world.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mikhail Botvinnik (1948-57, 1958-60, 1961-63) born Kuokkala, Finland&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Vasily Smyslov (1957-58) born Moscow, Russia&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Mikhail Tal (1960-61) born Riga, Latvia&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Tigran Petrosian (1963-69) born Tbilisi, Georgia&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Boris Spassky (1969-72) born Leningrad, Russia&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Bobby Fischer (1972-75) born Chicago, USA&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Anatoly Karpov (1975-85) born Zlatoust, Russia&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Garry Kasparov (1985-2000) born Baku, Azerbaijan&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Vladimir Kramnik (2000-2007) born Tuapse, Krasnodar Krai, Russia&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Anand Vishwanathan (2007-13) born  Mayiladuthurai, India&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Magnus Carlsen (2013-) born Tønsberg, Norway   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So during the post war Soviet period the title was held by 3 Russian born players for a total of 14 years and by players from Finland (14 years), Georgia (6 years), Azerbaijan (4 years), USA 3 years and Latvia (1 year).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the post Soviet period Russian born players have held the world championship for 7 years compared to Azerbaijan (11 years), India (6years) and Norway (6 years).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What is it that the Russians are not doing right that the USSR used to&#xA;  do?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nothing. What the USSR did was to keep 15 nations trapped in a large communist prison, not allowing them to leave. This was not &quot;right&quot; it was evil. When the USSR collapsed and the prison walls pulled down (literally in the case of the Berlin Wall) the people who had been trapped were free to go to other countries to enjoy the benefits of living in democratic countries which respect human rights.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Top Soviet players ended up in countries like the USA, Israel, Spain, Holland, Germany, Switzerland, Ireland, etc. The list goes on. This obviously strengthened the chess in these countries and weakened the countries which were formerly part of the USSR.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-07-26T08:42:33.000" LastActivityDate="2019-07-26T08:42:33.000" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24981" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24976" CreationDate="2019-07-26T00:18:39.643" Score="18" Body="&lt;p&gt;He is talking about the score after the sixth game of each of his matches with Karpov. To be precise, these were the scores after game six (shown as Kasparov-Karpov, not counting draws, to follow the same convention as the quote from the book):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1984: 0-2&#xA;1985: 1-2&#xA;1986: 1-1&#xA;1987: 1-2&#xA;1990: 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you can see, Kasparov was behind after the sixth game in three matches: 1984, 1985, and 1987. The score was even in one: 1986. Put both facts together and you have &quot;behind in three and even in one&quot;. And indeed in only one match, 1990, Kasparov was ahead after the sixth game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12523" LastEditorUserId="12523" LastEditDate="2019-07-26T13:00:02.037" LastActivityDate="2019-07-26T13:00:02.037" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24982" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-07-26T00:43:32.580" Score="4" ViewCount="291" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm writing a chess engine for fun. Currently I'm finishing writing the move generator. During the research I leaned about PERFT for debugging my software. Indeed, I found many bugs, some of them was &quot;amazing&quot; mistakes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But now, I'm blocked in a wrong perft result for discovered checks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This position &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/2p5/3p4/KP5r/1R3p1k/8/4P1P1/8 w - - 0 1 &quot;] &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;that I found in the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessprogramming.org/Perft_Results&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess Programming Wiki&lt;/a&gt; shows 1292 positions of discovered check in the depth 5. But my move generator found 1295 (three more). However, the total number of positions are the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My move generator matches with results of Chess Programming Wiki for all other values, in all depths from 1 to 5, except for discovered checks in the depth 5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;My results (depth 5):&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Nodes - 674624&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Captures - 52051&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;En passants - 1165&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Castlins - 0&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Promotions - 0&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Checks - 52950&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Discovery checks - 1295 (the problem)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Double checks - 3&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Checkmates - 0&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Results from Chess Programming Wiki (depth 5):&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Nodes - 674624&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Captures - 52051&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;En passants - 1165&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Castlins - 0&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Promotions - 0&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Checks - 52950&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Discovery checks - 1292&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Double checks - 3&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Checkmates - 0&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, I'd like you to give some facts about other perft generators capable of calculating the number of discovered checks, pawn promotions, castling, etc... not only the total number of nodes. I have found some perft generators, but only for calculating total number of positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19648" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-09-25T00:19:32.543" LastActivityDate="2019-09-25T00:19:32.543" Title="Wrong perft result?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;programming&gt;&lt;performance&gt;&lt;perft&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24983" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24963" CreationDate="2019-07-26T03:29:42.473" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The professional chess is doing pretty well when compared to the past but nowhere close to what it could under different circumstances.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are all reasons to have chess at the highest or just grandmaster level sponsored generously. There are the computer industry and the wealthy people who would sponsor chess just to feel good. Also, chess players know that the frequent occurrence of draws is not any serious problem -- chess fans are different from soccer fans. Also, chess games are excited to watch on TV or on the Internet, from classical time all the way down to bullets.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, the last two former FIDE presidents were criminalists. FIDE was corrupt and unethical... such things are repulsive to sponsors.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If chess were totally decentralized, if there were no more FIDE, etc. (here I could provide simple general meta-principles of organizing professional chess life -- the amateur life is doing better it seems), then professional chess would bloom the big way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13536" LastEditorUserId="13536" LastEditDate="2019-07-29T09:52:02.990" LastActivityDate="2019-07-29T09:52:02.990" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24984" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24963" CreationDate="2019-07-26T08:11:49.443" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Apart from the lack of action, it is also because chess is no longer a celebration of human excellence and triumph over computers as much as before. This was the time before Deep Blue when humans still had a chance, and computer manufacturers could use chess to promote their products. When people look at two humans playing, they know very well that they are not looking at strongest game possible, or some kind of latest advancement. So what else is there to be celebrated or sponsored? In fact, humans have stagnated at chess as a sporting endeavor for a long time, although they have learned how to train computers to do certain activities (including playing chess) more effectively.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Apart from machine learning applications, AlphaZero had the most impact on Go as humans could still hold their own before its arrival, while chess has lost this battle long ago along with checkers. This question implies that many chess enthusiasts are still oblivious to the outside world and do not have a firm grasp of the reality that surrounds chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="46" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-01-15T13:51:48.363" LastActivityDate="2020-01-15T13:51:48.363" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24985" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24917" CreationDate="2019-07-26T08:43:15.737" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;At the professional level, women often play in women-only events where the competition is much weaker (and easier for them to get prizes or sponsorship), so they grow to become fish that cannot survive in shark tank. Until women willingly opt for stronger events, they can never compete on an equal footing with men.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="46" LastActivityDate="2019-07-26T08:43:15.737" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24986" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24939" CreationDate="2019-07-26T08:49:18.840" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some IQ is needed to understand the rules, it is necessary but not sufficient. Chess benefits from specific skills like memory and pattern recognition, but the bar for intelligence is lower than what people may think. Also, voted to close.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="46" LastActivityDate="2019-07-26T08:49:18.840" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24987" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24963" CreationDate="2019-07-26T10:23:17.450" Score="9" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Despite all the efforts that chess professionals put to the game the majority of them cannot make a living out of chess. Only 4 or 5 super grandmasters across the world have been able to make a few million dollars from chess. This is mainly because there are no good brands/sponsors associating themselves with chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How many javelin, discus, or hammer throwers have made millions of dollars from athletics? There's a tonne of sponsorship that goes into athletics, and the best athletes get massive worldwide television coverage at least every four years (with the Olympics), but I suspect that only a handful of sprinters end up as millionaires.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How about tennis? A few people at the top earn tens of millions from prize money and individual sponsorship deals, but the world number 50 barely makes a living.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The sports where a thousand competitors rake in the money are few and far between, and they're team sports where the leagues can provoke bidding wars between TV networks and then distribute the lucrative results among the teams.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12958" LastActivityDate="2019-07-26T10:23:17.450" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24988" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24976" CreationDate="2019-07-26T10:34:14.007" Score="-4" Body="&lt;p&gt;He just means he was behind in four of the matches, and after just 6 games for one of them. He is not trying to compare the result after 6 games for all matches.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="46" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2019-07-26T18:50:33.163" LastActivityDate="2019-07-26T18:50:33.163" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24989" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24963" CreationDate="2019-07-27T01:01:04.900" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's a fair question.&#xA;I think that most of the companies who would have the cash to be anchor sponsor to, say, an international tournament would need to benefit by this association.&#xA;This benefit is not going to be financial - it's going to be reputational, like big accounting or law firms sponsoring piano competitions. &#xA;In the context of events likely to benefit a company's reputation there are many choices. And the more popular, more pleasurable or more socially beneficial events are likely to win out over chess in the company boardroom debate on where to spend the 'sentiment money'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you were looking for a sponsor for a chess tournament you'd probably have to find some organization priding itself on its ingenuity - or at least trying to get a name for ingenuity. It's no secret that governments in USSR, China, USA, UK, France and so on have actively promoted chess playing to cultivate strategic thinking among young people so recruits to its national defense establishments have some advance training. In the modern world maybe some of the major IT corporations might see a reputational benefit in this. But sadly those IT companies with a very real connection to chess, e.g. AI or critical software design, are usually rather small and simply not flush enough to blow millions on a single no-gain event. What's more, if an AI company grew to be a major, it would be faced with the same commercial imperatives as Coca-Cola: so its no-gain &lt;em&gt;largesse&lt;/em&gt; would have to be spread around rather than concentrated on a single small sector.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But chess tournaments of course are not just held in superpower countries. They are often also held in countries where chess is a popular pastime among the ordinary populace, e.g. Argentina, Serbia, Holland, Poland, etc. These countries have numerous chess cafés and interesting local diversions for visitors and media people. Moreover whenever a tournament takes place it gives stimulus to patronage of these cafés by locals as well as visitors. All this makes the expense of hosting big chess tournaments a viable commercial proposition for the local economy. &#xA;I think that the latter model of sponsorship is the better way forward for national chess federations: try and get small commitments from a large range of organizations - public and private - and try to exploit the tourism angle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19668" LastEditorUserId="19668" LastEditDate="2019-08-02T22:36:51.027" LastActivityDate="2019-08-02T22:36:51.027" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24990" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-07-27T01:37:38.080" Score="5" ViewCount="618" Body="&lt;p&gt;Suppose that there are only two pawns that White can use to put the Black king in check that are on the board.&#xA;But in both cases, the pawns need to move past Black pawns, risking en passant capture to both pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, my question is this: Can an opponent capture en passant twice in a row, when two different sets of pawns are in play?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19669" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-05-18T21:14:09.943" LastActivityDate="2021-05-02T15:39:25.897" Title="Can a player capture en passant two times in a row?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;en-passant&gt;&lt;captures&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24991" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24990" CreationDate="2019-07-27T02:34:15.990" Score="20" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, given that the opponent helps the capturing side, it is possible to capture en passant two times or more in a row&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is a famous example from a real game. The score came from &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1086879&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chessgames.com&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;You can find more such games &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/30431/games-with-consecutive-en-passants&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; on Chess Stack Exchange.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Sergey Gennadyevich Kudrin-Rudy C Douven, GMA Baleares op, Palma de Mallorca Spain, 1989&amp;quot;]&#xA;[startply &amp;quot;59&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 dxe4 4. Nxe4 Bf5 5. Ng3 Bg6 6. h4 h6 7. Nf3 Nd7 8. h5  Bh7 9. Bd3 Bxd3 10. Qxd3 e6 11. Bf4 Qa5+ 12. Bd2 Qc7 13. O-O-O Ngf6 14. Ne4  O-O-O 15. g3 Nxe4 16. Qxe4 Nf6 17. Qe2 Bd6 18. Ne5 c5 19. Rh4 Bxe5 20. dxe5 Nd7  21. Rg4 Rhg8 22. Re1 Qc6 23. Qe4 Nb8 24. Rf4 Rd7 25. Qh7 Rgd8 26. Ba5 b6 27. Bc3  Qd5 28. b3 b5 29. Kb1 b4 30. Bb2 f5 31. exf6 g5 32. hxg6 Rxh7 33. gxh7 e5 34. Rxe5 Qf7 35. Re7 Qf8 36. f7 Qxe7 37. f8=Q Rxf8 38. Rxf8+ Qxf8 39. h8=Q Qxh8 40. Bxh8 h5 41. Kc1 Kd7 42. Kd2 Ke6 43. Ke3 Kf5 44. f3 Nd7 45. Kd3 Nb6 46. Bg7 a5 47. Bf8 Nd7 48. Bd6 Ke6 49. Bc7 Kd5 50. c4+ bxc3 51. Kxc3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For an extreme showcase, here is a chess problem that features &lt;strong&gt;7 en passant captures in a row&lt;/strong&gt;! My source for it is &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.yacpdb.org/#19268&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yet Another Chess Problem Database.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Milan Velimirovic, Novi Temi 1979, 1st Prize, Mate In 10&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;r7/pppppppN/8/1PPPPPPP/1n5k/R5N1/3n2K1/8 w KQkq - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Ra4! a5 2. bxa6 b5 3. cxb6 c5 4. dxc6 d5 5. exd6 e5 6. fxe6 f5 7. gxf6 g5 8. hxg6 Ne4 9. Rxb4 Kg4 10. Rxe4#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-05-02T15:39:25.897" LastActivityDate="2021-05-02T15:39:25.897" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24993" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-07-27T21:23:07.643" Score="1" ViewCount="145" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is it possible to configure SCID to output the annotating engine in the variation itself?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;25&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Ne5 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Stockfish: -0.01 / +0.32 25. Bc4 ...) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Engine2:   +0.20 / +0.48 25. 0-0 ...)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Engine3:   -1.32 / -0.02 25. Rg2 ...) &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;etc.?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would like to compare different engine evaluations for whole games and in opening lines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If not, is there an easy way to accomplish it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="36" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-07-27T21:44:17.997" LastActivityDate="2019-07-27T21:44:17.997" Title="SCID vs. PC: Multi-Engine Analysis" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;scid&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24994" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-07-28T05:18:37.873" Score="3" ViewCount="195" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am looking for a list chess websites which allow you to download large numbers of previously played chess games. Currently I have found that lichess &lt;a href=&quot;https://database.lichess.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;allows you to do so&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there any other sites?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I do not care whether the game were played by humans or bots, professional or amateurs, time control or anything else. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="703" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-07-28T10:28:36.380" LastActivityDate="2019-07-29T08:02:34.593" Title="Which online chess websites allow you to download their games?" Tags="&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;database&gt;&lt;websites&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24995" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24994" CreationDate="2019-07-28T10:39:03.180" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess-db.com/public/index.jsp&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess-db&lt;/a&gt; allows you to search their database for a player and download all their games. For instance, if you search for Magnus Carlsen you get to his &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess-db.com/public/pinfo.jsp?id=1503014&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess-db profile page&lt;/a&gt; where there is a &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess-db.com/public/download.jsp?id=1503014&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;link&lt;/a&gt; which allows you to download all his games in their database. This is very useful for finding and studying the games of famous players or just for finding the games of an opponent so you can try and prepare against them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2019-07-28T10:39:03.180" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24996" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="24997" CreationDate="2019-07-28T20:07:54.383" Score="19" ViewCount="12707" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just lost an online game on time (while playing on lichess.org). I had three pawns and my opponent had just a knight. I don't understand why it's not a draw. Shouldn't it be a draw because my opponent does not have enough material to checkmate me?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13879" LastEditorUserId="3884" LastEditDate="2021-05-26T19:33:34.710" LastActivityDate="2021-05-26T19:33:34.710" Title="Why did I lose on time with three pawns versus a knight? Shouldn't it be a draw?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;draw&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24997" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24996" CreationDate="2019-07-28T20:16:12.690" Score="29" Body="&lt;p&gt;Draw with insufficient material is covered in article 9.6:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The game is drawn when a position is reached from which a checkmate cannot occur by any possible series of legal moves, even with the most unskilled play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With a given material, it is possible to construct a checkmate (assuming your cooperation or horrible blunders), so it is not a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3774" LastActivityDate="2019-07-28T20:16:12.690" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="24998" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25001" CreationDate="2019-07-29T07:44:13.060" Score="19" ViewCount="6120" Body="&lt;p&gt;With the advent of smart phones, cheating in chess tournaments has become rife to the extent that if unguarded it will kill the spirit of competitiveness. There has been several such cases, accussations and allegations including the infamous &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.thesprucecrafts.com/what-was-toiletgate-611124&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Vladimir Kramnik and Veselin Topalov toiletgate&lt;/a&gt;. In some cases a player can make &lt;em&gt;perpetual&lt;/em&gt; toilet visits; move-after-move which might seem suspicious. This is partly due to unlimited &lt;em&gt;&quot;freedom of movement&quot;&lt;/em&gt; during the game.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance in other sports like soccer - &lt;em&gt;even though there's no computer cheating&lt;/em&gt; - halftime breaks are timed and controlled. Should chess adopt a limit to a number of toilet breaks per game per player, say in a standard game, a player can only go to the bathroom after making a certain number of moves 10, 20, 40?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What would be the advantages or setbacks to this limited breaks?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19491" LastActivityDate="2019-07-31T06:51:56.637" Title="Anti-cheating: should there be a limit to a number of toilet breaks per game per player?" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;cheating&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25000" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24996" CreationDate="2019-07-29T08:05:55.470" Score="29" Body="&lt;p&gt;Worst-case scenario:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Upgraded all your pawns to knights&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Your king is at &lt;code&gt;Ka8&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Your knights surround your king, so at &lt;code&gt;Nb8&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;Na7&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;Nb7&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Opposition knight is at &lt;code&gt;Nc7#&lt;/code&gt; - &lt;em&gt;checkmate&lt;/em&gt;!&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So it is indeed possible to lose, thus not a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14767" LastActivityDate="2019-07-29T08:05:55.470" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25001" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24998" CreationDate="2019-07-29T09:29:05.907" Score="44" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, there shouldn't and if you live to be 80 you will probably understand why.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A few years ago in a tournament where I was one of the arbiters a 16 year old boy was playing an old guy in his 80's in round 2, both of them were rated about 1950. There had recently been the case of the Bulgarian phone cheat who had consulted a phone hidden behind one of the toilets.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The 16 year old came up to me and said &quot;Can I have a word with you outside?&quot; It sounded very serious so I agreed. He then explained that his opponent was getting up regularly to go to the toilet even once doing it when it was his turn to move. The boy was worried his opponent was a phone cheat.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Had I been the boy's coach and not the arbiter I would have been able to explain the reasons. The old guy had just recently come out of hospital where he had had &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transurethral_resection_of_the_prostate&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;prostate surgery&lt;/a&gt;. The truth was he should really have been at home recovering with his feet up not playing chess but who is going to tell an 80 year-old how to live his life? In the previous round he had blundered his queen against a player rated about 1750. I would have told the boy to just keep playing good moves and the old guy was sure to blunder sooner or later. That is what happened in the game, by the way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course as the arbiter I couldn't give him helpful information like that. Instead I told him I would check the toilets for mobile phones and keep an eye on the old guy for the rest of the round, which I did.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that the toilets are generally in the bounds of the playing venue but not in the playing area so going to the toilet when it is your turn is not allowed unless you get the permission of the arbiter. If you have a medical condition which makes this likely then you can speak to the arbiter before play to explain to the arbiter and get this permission.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are a woman then you can't have prostate problems but if you have children you may experience similar problems with needing to make regular visits to the toilet for some time after giving birth.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In short imposing limits on toilet breaks would be inhumane.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2019-07-29T09:29:05.907" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25002" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24996" CreationDate="2019-07-29T09:29:59.030" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;From FIDE Laws of Chess (2018 version):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;6.9 Except where one of Articles 5.1.1, 5.1.2, 5.2.1, 5.2.2, 5.2.3 applies, if a player does not complete the prescribed number of moves in the allotted time, the game is lost by that player. However, the game is drawn if the position is such that the opponent cannot checkmate the player’s king by any possible series of legal moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(The articles in chapter 5 all concern checkmate, stalemate, resignation or agreement to draw. I.e. any conventional consideration other than time that causes the game to be over.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So your time ran out, and your opponent can checkmate you through some legal series of moves, which means you lost.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I do not know that Lichess folows the FIDE laws, but it seems like a reasonable assumption in this case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7327" LastActivityDate="2019-07-29T09:29:59.030" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25004" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="940" CreationDate="2019-07-29T10:49:09.263" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There have already been good answers and examples, so I will just a few more without too much expalantion (see Pablo S. Ocal's response for it) I would like to add, though, that pawn endgames are mainly about the king, so we can't just say that a given pawn structure always loses if we remove all pieces from the board&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both the Caro-Kann defence and the Queen's Gambit often reach central isolated pawn structures. The player with the isolated pawn is often accepting a slightly worse pawn structure (and the d5-square) in exchange for space (mainly the e5-square) and piece activity. Most endgames favour the opponent, although not all endgames are necesarelly lost.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similarly, lines like the Semi-Tarrasch (1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Nf3 c5 5.cxd5 Nxd5 6. e4 Nxc3 7.bxc3 c5, followed by an evetual ...cxd4) leave Black with a queenside majority, that can decide a pawn endgame by creating a distant past pawn. A similar example appears in the Grünfeld after 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 d5 4.cxd5 Nxd5 5.e4 Nxc3 6.bxc3 c5&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, in many lines in the King's indian defence, Black is left with a weakness on d6 that does not lose most pawn endgames due to the closed character of the position, but can the a target in other types of endgmaes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastActivityDate="2019-07-29T10:49:09.263" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25005" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="274" CreationDate="2019-07-29T13:01:11.967" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;We all start as beginners, as we all start on a small bicycle - not driving a car.  The Colle or the London are good places to start and learn how and what along with some wins.  As we grow and mature as chess players, then we can move on to more challenging or &quot;sharp&quot; openings.  Ones that fit our chess personality.   Some past grandmasters were attacking players, some were defensive.  Whatever fits the persons chess personality.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is no one be-all/end-all opening that promises a win.  That comes down to the skill and experience of the player.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19682" LastActivityDate="2019-07-29T13:01:11.967" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25006" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24996" CreationDate="2019-07-29T13:33:24.597" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;As others mentioned, you cannot get the draw because you can still get checkmated. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In fact I have actually seen this kind of position get lost in practice, as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You are on Ka8 and have just played a7 pawn (knight, rook or even bishop have very similar effect and could be obtained via promotion), opponents king is on Kc8 or Kc7 and opponent plays Nb6#&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17898" LastEditorUserId="17898" LastEditDate="2019-07-30T10:52:24.217" LastActivityDate="2019-07-30T10:52:24.217" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25007" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="758" CreationDate="2019-07-29T14:19:46.070" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Because tactical complications often come with very sharp positions, a tactical opening often means a lot of theory. So, it would depend on your skill level and, more importantly, on how many hours you want to spend building your repertoire.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At a lower skill level, &lt;code&gt;1.e4&lt;/code&gt; looks like a nice choice, but in fact it's not the only one! There is &lt;code&gt;1.f4&lt;/code&gt;, the King's indian attack, or maybe some &lt;code&gt;d4, Nc3, Bg5, Qd3/d2, 0-0-0, e4&lt;/code&gt; system that also allow for complicated tactical games and may not need such a deep study.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With Black you can try the Tarrasch Defence against &lt;code&gt;1.d4&lt;/code&gt; (central isolated pawns will suit you perfectly) and &lt;code&gt;1...e5&lt;/code&gt; against &lt;code&gt;1.e4&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are a strong player and you can dedicate a long time to studying openings, I would definitely stick to &lt;code&gt;1.e4&lt;/code&gt;as White, playing the Open Sicilian, the Scotish Opening, the Panov Attack and probably &lt;code&gt;3.Nd2&lt;/code&gt;against the French (or even &lt;code&gt;3. exd5 exd5 4.c4&lt;/code&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When playing Black, the Sicilian Dragon appears to be the best choice to me (Najdorf or Taimanov are good alternatives). I'd choose the Grunfeld Defence against &lt;code&gt;1.e4&lt;/code&gt;. Knowing the main ideas in the Dutch Defence and the Closed Sicilian is also helpful when playing against &lt;code&gt;1.c4&lt;/code&gt;and &lt;code&gt;1.Nf3&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, I would remark that we should distinguish &quot;tactical player&quot; from &quot;attacking player&quot;. For instance, the King's Indian and the Closed Sicilian are great choices for an attacking player, but the attack often comes as a result of a deep comprehension of strategical principles, rather than just &quot;brute force&quot;. That's what led me to suggesting the Dragon Sicilan rather than other lines like the Scheveningen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastActivityDate="2019-07-29T14:19:46.070" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25008" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-07-29T15:24:53.453" Score="1" ViewCount="487" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have been playing chess again for two or three months, after a period of about twenty years of interruption. In a game against a human adversary, I noticed that my opponent was taking the time to build a large wall of pawns similar to the following picture, while I was on my side playing with stronger pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;8/8/8/8/P1P1P1P1/1P1P1P1P/8/8 w KQkq - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I found quite difficult to play aggressively against such a wall. Recently I tried the same and found this strategy rather efficient (of course the wall is never perfect but the picture gives the idea). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would like to know a little more about this style of playing. Does it have a name? Is it known to be efficient? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19684" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-07-29T15:57:27.847" LastActivityDate="2021-01-09T07:05:15.050" Title="Defensive strategy relying on a wall of pawns" Tags="&lt;pawns&gt;&lt;pawn-structure&gt;&lt;defense&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25009" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-07-29T19:54:07.820" Score="5" ViewCount="187" Body="&lt;p&gt;What exactly does it mean for a gambit to be unsound?  I see this term being used a lot but I have yet to come across a precise definition.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it enough for white to lose the  advantage that comes with being the first player?  What if black is better with best play but not winning?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How is soundness defined if black is the one playing the gambit?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18421" LastActivityDate="2019-07-30T08:33:00.463" Title="Definition of Soundness" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;gambits&gt;&lt;terminology&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25010" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25009" CreationDate="2019-07-29T20:06:09.467" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Adapted from &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gambit#Soundness&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A gambit is said to be '&lt;strong&gt;sound&lt;/strong&gt;' if it is capable of resulting in an advantage against the opponent. &lt;strong&gt;There are three general criteria in which a gambit is often said to be sound:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Time gain:&lt;/strong&gt; the player accepting the gambit must take time to obtain the sacrificed material and possibly must use more time to reorganize his pieces after the material is taken.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Generation of differential activity:&lt;/strong&gt; often a player accepting a gambit will decentralize his pieces or pawns and his poorly placed pieces will allow the gambiteer to place his own pieces and pawns on squares that might otherwise have been inaccessible. In addition, bishops and rooks can become more active simply because the loss of pawns often gives rise to open files and diagonals. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Generation of positional weaknesses:&lt;/strong&gt; finally, accepting a gambit may lead to a compromised pawn structure, holes or other positional weaknesses.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An example of a &lt;strong&gt;sound&lt;/strong&gt; gambit is the Scotch Gambit: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 exd4 4.Bc4. &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here Black can force White to sacrifice a pawn speculatively with 4...Bb4+, but White gets very good compensation for one pawn after 5.c3 dxc3 6.bxc3, or for two pawns after 6.0-0 inviting 6...cxb2 7.Bxb2, due to the development advantage and attacking chances against the black king. As a result, Black is often advised not to try to hold on to the extra pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An example of an &lt;strong&gt;unsound&lt;/strong&gt; gambit is the so-called Halloween Gambit: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Nxe5?! Nxe5 5.d4.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here the investment (a knight for just one pawn) is too large for the moderate advantage of having a strong center. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3621" LastEditorUserId="3621" LastEditDate="2019-07-30T08:27:46.310" LastActivityDate="2019-07-30T08:27:46.310" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25011" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-07-30T00:11:16.393" Score="3" ViewCount="537" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've often seen (on lichess, I play only bullet, at ratings 1800ish) black play the f8 bishop to c5, and then if white challenges it by playing their c1 bishop to e3, black retreats their bishop from c5 to b6, and then if white captures, black recaptures with the a7 pawn. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;rnbqkbnr/pppp1ppp/8/8/8/8/PPP1PPPP/RNBQKBNR b KQkq - 0 1&#xA;&#xA;1. Bc5  Be3 2. Bb6 Bxb6 3. axb6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why is this a good move? I've see it CONSTANTLY in a variety of openings, and I myself never play this way. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems a bad move for black to me because &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a) you lose a tempo.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;b) you double your pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;c) yes, you do get an open file for your rook, but ... so what, quite frankly? It's a bullet game. You are probably not going to have the time to think of some ingenious rook lift in the middle of the game. It just seems too risky to utilize that a-flank with the rook in a bullet game, at least for the players at my level. Indeed, I can confirm that I can't recall a single game where black utilized the strategy above and actually got something worthwhile out of it. The rook never made an impact on the a-file in a single bullet game that I've played where black played above strategy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So why do players do this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19690" LastEditorUserId="5819" LastEditDate="2019-07-30T09:39:16.007" LastActivityDate="2019-10-04T11:36:52.140" Title="Why do players play this move (bishop to b6) in bullet chess?" Tags="&lt;bullet-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25012" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16671" CreationDate="2019-07-30T00:53:52.620" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Scandinavian is easy to learn and easy to play.  Recovering the pawn with the Queen in the opening isn't bad because even though White chases the Queen with Nc3, the Knight doesn't belong on c3.  White has to move that Knight a second time in order to play c4 to help crack open the position.  So White loses a tempo just like Black does.  It is played at the top levels sometimes.  I just played through a game where Black was over 2700 and played it with a resulting draw.  Bent Larsen beat Karpov with it and Annand almost beat Kasparov with it.  Magnus played it using the Qd8 variation and won with it.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19691" LastActivityDate="2019-07-30T00:53:52.620" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25013" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25011" CreationDate="2019-07-30T06:49:14.457" Score="4" Body="&lt;h2&gt;It's a trap.&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You really try to reason too much about strategic aspects. This is a move that may not be considered sound in real chess... but we are talking about bullet here. And not Magnus Carlsen level bullet, which often almost looks like real chess, but Patzer level that more often than not is just bloody chaos.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Premoving is very common in bullet and there are tons of cheesy traps that try to exploit that. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This looks like one of them. Black hopes that White premoves Be3xc5, which (after Bc5-b6) will actually play out as Be3-c5 without capture, followed by ...Bb6xc5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13433" LastActivityDate="2019-07-30T06:49:14.457" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25014" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25008" CreationDate="2019-07-30T07:22:08.213" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would say that type of formation leaves a lot of weak squares, as enemy pieces can occupy pretty much any dark square they want (mainly b4, d4, f4, h4) and start an attack from there with help from the pawns. These pieces will never ever be kicked away. White's light squared-bishop will also suffer because he has nowhere to go, so, for that strategy to be effective:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;White needs to have traded his light-squared bishop beforehand, or else pretty much any bishop vs knight endgame will be lost.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;White must keep his dark-squared bishop at all cost, or else Black's bishop could be very harmful&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;White needs to know what to do about enemy knights on f4 and d4.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Pawn breakthroughs near White's king must somehow be prevented (for example, if Black castles in the kingside, ...h7-h5 must be somehow prevented)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In short, I don't like that kind of &quot;wall&quot; at all. And we haven't even talked about the at least eight moves it requires to build it, in which you can develop pretty much all of your pieces. Sometimes a c3-d4-e3-f4 formation is built (Stonewall Dutch), but this is only four moves and only leaves one weak square (e4) rather than four. So, occupy the dark squares, open a file and checkmate your opponent! If you want, post an example game where you've struggled against the &quot;wall&quot;, and we can see what else could have being played&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-10-04T11:39:04.853" LastActivityDate="2019-10-04T11:39:04.853" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25015" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25011" CreationDate="2019-07-30T07:28:41.320" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Actually, ..Bb6 is a sound move not just in Blitz. The Italian and Scotch game are filled with it. There are plenty of reasons why you would make it:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;After &lt;code&gt;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 exd4 4.Nxd4 Bc5 5.Be3&lt;/code&gt; White is threatening to win a piece, so Black can retreat to b6 and prevent his bishop from hanging.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Let's assume a central formation like e4+d3 vs e5+d6, with a Black bishop on c5 and a White bishop on e3. It is good for Black to retreat to b6 (even if ...Bxe3 or even just leaving it on c5 could sometimes be considered) in order to trade them on that square and open the &quot;a&quot; file. In your post you give a lot of importance to the fact that this doubles pawns and very little to the opening of the file. But I would say that, specially in Blitz, the file is way more important! White will have to worry about the a8 rook for the entire game.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Finally, Black could have retreated to b6 (or a7) to prevent a trade and keep a powerful bishop on the a7-g1 diagonal.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-10-04T11:36:52.140" LastActivityDate="2019-10-04T11:36:52.140" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25016" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8846" CreationDate="2019-07-30T07:33:59.510" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Most answers here talk about computer assistance, but I think the OP was asking about knowingly make illegal moves, which happens from time to time at club level (I cannot think of any GM-level example apart from Kasparov's touch-move rule against Polgar, see BlindKungFuMaster)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I have once seen a pawn on f3 advancing to f5, with mate! That happened in a slow tournament game, and the &amp;quot;checkmated player&amp;quot; accepted his loss.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In Blitz, I know a player whose pawns run faster than most of his opponent's in pawn-race endgames. It's probably due to them moving multiple squares at a time. The same happens sometimes with the king.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I've also seen a knight on f4 moving to h6, with mate.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Finally, in a game between two masters (not GMs, though), one of them claimed a stalemate that didn't exist. His opponent accepted the draw&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastEditorUserId="18809" LastEditDate="2020-08-31T08:31:25.930" LastActivityDate="2020-08-31T08:31:25.930" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25017" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16671" CreationDate="2019-07-30T07:35:41.043" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think there is anything wrong with the Scandinavian itself. The reason why it's not often played at top level is that there are &quot;improved versions&quot; in the Rubinstein French and Caro-Kann Defence, which will leave you with the same pawn structure but all those queen moves in the opening are not needed&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastActivityDate="2019-07-30T07:35:41.043" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25018" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25009" CreationDate="2019-07-30T07:39:32.307" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would add to vs97's answer that not all sound openings lead to an advantage. Indeed, when playing Black, we are often happy with an equal game, thus defences that lead us there are &quot;sound&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some openings that don't give anything special for White are still considered &quot;sound&quot; (I don't think anyone would say the London System is unsound). So I would say that for an opening to be unsound, it must have a clear refutation&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastEditorUserId="18809" LastEditDate="2019-07-30T08:33:00.463" LastActivityDate="2019-07-30T08:33:00.463" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25019" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25021" CreationDate="2019-07-30T13:35:11.707" Score="6" ViewCount="1100" Body="&lt;p&gt;I really wish to improve my chess skills a bit, albeit I am pretty sure that I do not want to become a grandmaster.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One of my problem is my king's safety. Chess is very different from some other board games. E.g. in checkers you must either kill or immobilize every single opponent's pieces in order to win; however, the rule of mandatory capture repulses me quite a lot from playing draughts. Chess is much nicer, it's more elegant and has much more possibilities. But having your queen, rooks, bishops, knights and pawns in good squares, a good attacking position and knowing strategy and tactics, openings and endgames etc. is nothing if you are so, so bad at providing safety for your king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In fact, I would say I'm quite good in endgames where pieces are so few. If I have a pawn or a piece advantage and manage to get to the endgame, then I can make my way to a win. But my opponent rarely allows me to play so many moves. The game ends in the opening or middlegame. That is, I'd like to say I've studied fool's mate, scholar's mate and so on. I know how to avoid them. Most often, the opponent checkmates me in the middlegame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've seen a couple of great chess games on youtube. For example, 1851 &quot;immortal game&quot; (Anderssen–Kieseritzky) impressed me so much. And of course, using my chessboard I studied (played back) quite a bunch of other famous games played by very good chess players. Many of them seem to have the same theme: the stronger player constantly gives checks and thus blocks a good majority of squares around the opponent's king. Then, he/she delivers checkmate, using a great advantage from those blocked squares.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am not sure if I should keep my own king open or closed. An open (bare) king seems to be a bad thing since it is very easily separated from my pieces and then driven to the edge of the board. But isn't a king surrounded by friendly pieces from different sides even worse? They are used as an advantage by the opponent. Moreover, I am often checkmated with a knight, so it can be a smothered checkmate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately, my search for &quot;king safety&quot; on this site did not provide too much useful information.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The question is if they are any videos or maybe sites or written material which would help me to improve my king's safety? Apart from very obvious advice, e.g. an early castling. Believe me, I know my castling well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When playing chess, I still try to concentrate on capturing enemy pieces and thus to make my way to the endgame. I know it can be criticized but it's my style.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16801" LastEditorUserId="3594" LastEditDate="2019-07-30T14:43:50.040" LastActivityDate="2019-08-16T07:46:02.790" Title="How to improve king safety" Tags="&lt;middlegame&gt;&lt;pawn-structure&gt;&lt;kings&gt;&lt;defense&gt;&lt;king-safety&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25020" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25019" CreationDate="2019-07-30T14:12:22.473" Score="4" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Apart from very obvious advice, e.g. an early castling. Believe me, I&#xA;  know my castling well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first thing to note is that early castling is only recommended to complete beginners and in positions where the center is open. Castling too early in closed or semi-closed positions can be catastrophic. It is often wise to wait until you see which side your opponent is going to castle before committing your own king. If the center of the board is completely blocked then the center may be the safest place for the king. Then the rooks should be connected by moving the king to the second rank rather than castling.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are two other important aspects of king safety.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, when you have castled or intend to castle be wary of moving pawns in front of the castled king position. Moves like g3, to put the bishop on g2, or h3 to stop a piece from coming to g4, create a levers which the opponent can use to open your castled position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This doesn't mean you should never make these moves, just that you shouldn't do so gratuitously and when you do you need a plan for what you are going to do if your opponent attacks via an h-pawn push against g3 or a g-pawn push against h3. You also have to watch out for possible piece sacrifices against a pawn on h3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Second, don't abandon your king! If you've castled kingside then don't launch an all-in queenside attack without keeping an eye on your own king safety, especially if your opponent's king is also on the kingside. Look out for dual purpose moves. For instance, a rook on an open 3rd rank can be very effective at both attacking and defending at the same time. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Make sure you pay attention to possible dual purpose moves by your opponent. An innocent looking queen or bishop move that looks like it is just defending something on the queenside can at the same time create threats on your kingside. If you have tunnel chess vision you can easily miss this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2019-07-30T14:12:22.473" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25021" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25019" CreationDate="2019-07-30T14:41:42.037" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's a very general question, no concrete examples (where you struggle to defend) are provided in your post, and as such one cannot really answer meaningfully. However, here are some &lt;strong&gt;rough&lt;/strong&gt; hints that might help you:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Pawn structure&lt;/strong&gt; is a key factor in king safety. Any pawn move commitments on the side you've castled should be taken into account with extreme care, else you're irreversibly creating hooks for your opponents attacks or simply holes for the opponent's pieces to land on. E.g., when you castle short and play &lt;code&gt;h3,&lt;/code&gt; when your opponent hasn't castled short, there's a very concrete attack threat on your king: black pushes the &lt;code&gt;g&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;h&lt;/code&gt; pawns and opens a file towards your king, as &lt;code&gt;g4&lt;/code&gt; will challenge &lt;code&gt;h3&lt;/code&gt;, and often however you react to it, a file will eventually open. Instead if all the pawns are on the starting squares, it's very hard for your opponent to find a breakthrough (for more on this see the discussions &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/q/19734/3594&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; and in particular the showcased Kasparov game). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;For a good example, &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess24.com/en/watch/live-tournaments/fide-berlin-candidates-2018/3/1/2&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;see the game of Aronian vs Kramnik from 2018 candidates&lt;/a&gt;: notice how Kramnik exploited the &lt;code&gt;h3&lt;/code&gt; hook to create a devastasting attack on white's king.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similarly argued, if you finachetto your bishop on a castled side (e.g. &lt;code&gt;g3-Bg2&lt;/code&gt;), and lose/trade that bishop, all the weakened squares  turn into holes (entry points) for your opponent's pieces towards your king. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Defending pieces:&lt;/strong&gt; Another aspect to king safety is presence of defending pieces, e.g. if you castle short and all your minor pieces are on the queenside, your king's left naked and can be easily prone to various sacrificial attacks which you won't be in time to defend.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are some diagrams showing some typical examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Left:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;h3&lt;/code&gt;, a hook for your opponent's attack. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Mid:&lt;/strong&gt; Weakened Fianchetto structure. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;right:&lt;/strong&gt; knights are great defenders.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/uJceob.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/uJceob.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/XBXuSb.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/XBXuSb.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/5wh6Wb.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/5wh6Wb.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Neutralize opponent's key attacking pieces:&lt;/strong&gt; Given your established structure on the side you've castled, or simply where your king stands, ask yourself which of your opponent's pieces can best exploit these weaknesses against your king and try to force a trade of those pieces. And vice versa, try to preserve your good defenders by disallowing your opponent from easily forcing an exchange.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Play for initiative:&lt;/strong&gt; Try to create threats and attacks to divert some of your opponent's play and pieces away from your king. If you pose no challenge to your opponent, they will simply mount everything they have onto your king. To play the defense side is always harder, as you have to consider all the tactical options for your opponent in order to defend against them, whereas for them, if a tactic works or not is not a major risk (unless they've sacrificed heavily of course) as either way it doesn't concern &lt;em&gt;their&lt;/em&gt; king. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyhow, the list goes on and this is by no means exhaustive, but it hopefully gives you additional hints for how to think about your king's safety.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3594" LastActivityDate="2019-07-30T14:41:42.037" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25022" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24996" CreationDate="2019-07-30T15:20:38.753" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;By USCF rules, you wouldn't have.King + Bishop and King + Knight are defined to be insufficient mating material unless that side can demonstrate a forced win (all forced wins are very short, so this isn't hard to do if it exists).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;14E: Insufficient material to win on time:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  The game is drawn even when a player exceeds the time limit if one of the following conditions exists:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  14E1: Lone king&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  14E2: King and bishop or king and knight  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The presumed rationale behind this is that avoiding checkmate from that material combination is so trivially easy that a win on time is the only realistic way to win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12377" LastActivityDate="2019-07-30T15:20:38.753" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25023" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25029" CreationDate="2019-07-30T17:46:27.903" Score="4" ViewCount="276" Body="&lt;p&gt;Many masters have always recommended the study of classical games. Why is it important to study them and what is so special about classical games?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19491" LastActivityDate="2019-07-31T10:39:44.193" Title="Why is it important to study classical games?" Tags="&lt;training&gt;&lt;study&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25024" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8846" CreationDate="2019-07-30T18:45:00.023" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;If you slightly broaden your definition of 'cheating', you should consider Bobby Fischer's complaint of collusion during the 1962 World Chess Championship&lt;/strong&gt; (See: &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Chess_Championship_1963&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Chess_Championship_1963&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In short, the World Chess Championship had qualifying rounds, where to advance, you needed to be one of the top candidates based on number of points accumulated during a round-robin stage. In such a system, a win is worth 1 point, and a draw is worth 1/2 points. Therefore if you are at the top of the leaderboard and are playing the 2nd place on the leaderboard, and you both tie, then you would both retain your respective #1 &amp;amp; #2 spots.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Fischer alleged that there was collusion amongst most of the the Soviet players, who agreed beforehand that they would draw against eachother in order to avoid a dreaded '0' points on a match. In particular, this agreement is alleged to have occurred when 'forced draws' between these Soviet players would have mathematically prevented Bobby Fischer from reaching the next stage in the championship. This collusion can be seen as sort of a 'nationalistic team spirit', when the WCC is supposed to be an individual competitor event.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note also that 'agreed draws' were against the rules of the competition. In fact, no player was allowed to agree to a draw before the ~15th move, entirely to prevent such collusion. So instead, the Fischer alleged that the Soviet players colluded by playing well-known drawish lines, that lasted until after the 15th move, at which point they conveniently agreed to a draw. Fischer's allegation was predicated on the notion that players lower on the leaderboard would not have given their opponent a 'leg up' in the tournament by guaranteeing a draw - instead they should have been taking fighting chances for a win themselves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;There were 3 significant fallouts from these accusations&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(1) &lt;strong&gt;The ICC indirectly acknowledged Fischer's complaints&lt;/strong&gt; by changing the format of the championship from Round-Robin to knockout elimination; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(2) &lt;strong&gt;The chess community was faced with direct proof of the problems caused by chess being increasingly 'drawish'&lt;/strong&gt;. In this case, it was shown how convincingly the Soviets were able to play games that were entirely by the book, from first move to last, with no innovation. That conversation continues today (where the proportion of draws at top-level play continues to increase); and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(3) &lt;strong&gt;Bobby Fischer invented Fischer Random chess (AKA Chess960)&lt;/strong&gt;, which is a variant that includes randomly shuffling pieces for each player before play. Fischer argued that by randomizing the pieces, innovation would increase, and no similar collusion could occur, because there would be no such thing as a known tablebase of drawish games to collude with. [*Note that he did not invent Fischer Random until the 90's, so whether we can say the collusion strongly led to this or not is debatable]. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14340" LastEditorUserId="14340" LastEditDate="2019-07-30T18:58:17.400" LastActivityDate="2019-07-30T18:58:17.400" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25025" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25023" CreationDate="2019-07-30T18:49:39.373" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I suppose that this question is in the context of a motivated beginner who wants to significantly improve his / her chess. I think it's because they are of recognized value, and so they are like classical computer science challenges, classical math problems, and so on. No one can call himself an expert in that field and ignore them. It's the same with chess. Of course there are many modern games that have the same instructional value, if not more, of the well-known classical games. And we should also consider that competitive chess has changed a lot in recent years, especially at top levels. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastActivityDate="2019-07-30T18:49:39.373" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25026" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25011" CreationDate="2019-07-30T19:10:10.143" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;After ...axb6 the a file is open, a Pawn goes nearer to the center, and these might be assets for Black. Black's Pawn structure now is not inferior in my view. Furthermore, if a Pawn was on d6, defending Black's Bishop, White probably threatened Bxc5, worsening Black's Pawn structure after ...dxc5. And if Black instead took on e3, White could play fxe3, increasing control of the center and opening the important f file.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastActivityDate="2019-07-30T19:10:10.143" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25027" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27576" CreationDate="2019-07-30T21:27:01.500" Score="1" ViewCount="180" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was going over an old &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/S82ZiDWr&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;lichess.com game&lt;/a&gt; when I realized that the checkmating pattern seemed familiar.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;5rk1/p4pp1/1p5p/2p4Q/2P3R1/P4q2/6RP/4r2K w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here it is boiled down, although the White rook could be replaced by any White piece.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;4k3/8/8/8/8/5q2/6RP/4r2K w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wondered if this mating pattern his a particular name. However, Wikipedia is of no help. Is there a name for this checkmating pattern?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-04-29T21:01:30.520" LastActivityDate="2021-04-29T21:01:30.520" Title="Is there a name attributed to this type of checkmate pattern?" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;terminology&gt;&lt;patterns&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25028" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24998" CreationDate="2019-07-31T06:51:56.637" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I fully agree with &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/25001/553&quot;&gt;Brian Towers'&lt;/a&gt; answer, but want to point out an &lt;strong&gt;alternative to having a limit: ask for an upfront estimate&lt;/strong&gt;. Before the game starts, ask each participant to estimate how many toilet breaks he/she estimates will be needed. This number is communicated to the opponent&lt;sup&gt;1&lt;/sup&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;People that needs to go often will have no problems in justify a higher number, while people that go to the bathroom to cheat will not. Some of the cheaters might not have planned to cheat beforehand, but will just take the opportunity when feeling the need to during the game, and having given an estimate beforehand will create some accountability that most likely will deter some cheating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;sup&gt;1&lt;/sup&gt;&#xA;Probably after the game is over. Otherwise it might result in &lt;em&gt;&quot;oh, my opponent has double my number, well then I can throw in a couple extra visits&quot;&lt;/em&gt; thinking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="553" LastActivityDate="2019-07-31T06:51:56.637" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25029" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25023" CreationDate="2019-07-31T07:29:01.383" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are a variety of reasons:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Regardless of when they were played, there is always a lot to learn in analyzing better players's games.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Players from a century ago often used simpler strategical themes that are easier to understand and apply.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Opening theory was not that well developed back then, so the &quot;actual game&quot; starts earlier on. You also wouldn't find any &quot;weird&quot; moves that are justified by some obscure tactical sequence that only a computer can see.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Games between masters were, unlike today, rarely decided by at-home preparation.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Old masters had an awesome endgame technique.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The opposition was often weaker than today, so masters could execute their plan in a &quot;pure&quot; form. In more modern games, the main plan is most of the time hidden behind counterplay, counters to that counterplay, and so on...&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A final point would be that these games have been reviewed multiple times by a lot of different people, each of them making their contribution&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastEditorUserId="18809" LastEditDate="2019-07-31T10:39:44.193" LastActivityDate="2019-07-31T10:39:44.193" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25030" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25031" CreationDate="2019-07-31T09:44:34.227" Score="3" ViewCount="180" Body="&lt;p&gt;Few days ago, one of my opponent wore Bose anti noise earpieces. Of course, I didn't call the referee cause I knew that it wasn't a cheat technique. But I was wondering what is the rules for that kind of object. I think that some players could confuse with earphones and call referee for cheat attempt.&#xA;Thank you for your answers :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19706" LastActivityDate="2019-07-31T10:32:06.923" Title="Is there a rule for anti noise earpieces?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25031" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25030" CreationDate="2019-07-31T10:32:06.923" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;But I was wondering what is the rules for that kind of object.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Strictly speaking they are not allowed without the arbiter's permission.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is what the latest &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/component/handbook/?id=208&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Laws of Chess&lt;/a&gt; state:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;11.3.2.1 During a game, a player is forbidden to have any electronic device not specifically approved by the arbiter in the playing venue.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;However, the regulations of an event may allow such devices to be&#xA;  stored in a player’s bag, provided the device is completely switched&#xA;  off. This bag must be placed as agreed with the arbiter. Both players&#xA;  are forbidden to use this bag without permission of the arbiter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;11.3.2.2 If it is evident that a player has such a device on their person in the playing venue, the player shall lose the game. The&#xA;  opponent shall win. The regulations of an event may specify a&#xA;  different, less severe, penalty.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2019-07-31T10:32:06.923" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25033" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24996" CreationDate="2019-07-31T16:50:00.190" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;From the lichess.org &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/faq#timeout&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;FAQ&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In the event of one player running out of time, that player will usually lose the game. However, the game is drawn if the position is such that the opponent cannot checkmate the player’s king by any possible series of legal moves (FIDE handbook §6.9).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Note that it can be possible to mate with a single knight or bishop if the opponent has pieces that could block the king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I assume that the statement in the second paragraph is being used as the basis for ruling this as a timeout rather than a draw (and, as others have pointed out, this would be a correct call in this case.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Perhaps it is worth noting that, in general, it is computationally infeasible to determine when a player cannot win, and furthermore, an automated system cannot yet be expected to identify all such cases that are obvious to an experienced player, so it must be expected that lichess will use tractable rules such as those quoted. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19715" LastEditorUserId="19715" LastEditDate="2019-07-31T16:56:41.413" LastActivityDate="2019-07-31T16:56:41.413" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25034" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-07-31T19:09:30.550" Score="0" ViewCount="167" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there a way to copy/paste a game into arena? I know how to load a PGN, but suppose I have: &lt;code&gt;1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 Bg7 4. e4 d6 1-0&lt;/code&gt; as my game.&#xA;Can I copy paste this anywhere to get it loaded into the GUI?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19716" LastActivityDate="2019-08-08T12:20:32.733" Title="Can you manually type moves into Arena? (copy pasting notation)" Tags="&lt;arena&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25035" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25167" CreationDate="2019-07-31T19:16:02.313" Score="4" ViewCount="184" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is a book written by Boris Zlotnik. I found some books from him in search, but I'm not sure whether the same book. Some titles with chess course vol.1, vol2., etc..&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/BKC9D.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/BKC9D.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;It is a book written by Boris Zlotnik&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19648" LastActivityDate="2020-07-28T13:49:35.967" Title="Does anyone know if there is an English translation of this book?" Tags="&lt;books&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25037" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-07-31T21:50:16.710" Score="3" ViewCount="66" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's a popular saying along the lines of &lt;em&gt;&quot;life imitates chess&quot;&lt;/em&gt;, my understanding is that &lt;em&gt;cool, calm and collected&lt;/em&gt; players like Karpov will tend to opt for positional play while &lt;em&gt;unsettled skittish&lt;/em&gt; players like Kasparov and Tal will drift towards aggressive play. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does this mean that if you are &lt;em&gt;cool&lt;/em&gt; by nature your style of play will lean more towards positional play than risky aggressive play and can style of play be acquire through training? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19491" LastActivityDate="2019-07-31T21:50:16.710" Title="Life imitates chess: is a player' style of play determined by personality and can style of play be altered?" Tags="&lt;positional-play&gt;&lt;training&gt;&lt;attack&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="4" ClosedDate="2019-08-01T06:06:22.970" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25038" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22563" CreationDate="2019-08-01T02:34:46.083" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Bughouse is not the only partnered game where this would be a problem worth solving.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ohioeuchre.com/HosTourn_Progrssive-Euchre.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Here&lt;/a&gt; is a description of what you want for Euchre tournaments; in this case they call it a &quot;progressive&quot; tournament format (not sure why). It still involves manually tracking results (no software) though. If you really must have software you might have to do some more googling.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just remember that if it works for something like euchre, it will work for bughouse also.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1312" LastActivityDate="2019-08-01T02:34:46.083" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25039" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25132" CreationDate="2019-08-01T08:38:45.960" Score="5" ViewCount="364" Body="&lt;p&gt;First of all, I am explicitly &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; asking for a list of endgame principles, nor am I asking for resources to study endgames from.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is: &lt;strong&gt;How does one develop endgame theory?&lt;/strong&gt; The main motivation of my question is that I have been trying to study endgame theory for a chess variant (&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;atomic chess&lt;/a&gt;, as it were) and there is precious little of it. I am quite literally writing new theory the deeper I study.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm looking for answers that could address either or both of the following points, in regular chess or in chess variants:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;How endgames (regular chess or any chess variant) were analysed, organised and codified over the decades until we have our present-day knowledge;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;How to study endgames, but &lt;em&gt;without&lt;/em&gt; access to any books or professional games (just a chess set, a brain, an engine, tablebases, and lots of patience.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15989" LastEditorUserId="15989" LastEditDate="2019-08-02T08:53:00.633" LastActivityDate="2020-01-25T02:34:06.577" Title="How is endgame theory developed?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;atomic-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25040" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25042" CreationDate="2019-08-01T10:21:12.557" Score="7" ViewCount="2447" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am trying to work on my openings and start playing the Sicilian as a response to 1. e4 but I am slightly overwhelmed by the huge amounts of resources available. I am rated around 1850 FIDE and I mainly play the French as a response to 1. e4 and the Gruenfeld as a response to 1. d4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What would be a good resource for a player of my level to get used to the Sicilian? My goal is not to get an extensive knowledge of the opening, I just want to play/become familiar with a few variations, i.e. the Najdorf, the Sveshnikov and the 3. Bb5+ variation after d6&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8751" LastActivityDate="2020-03-04T20:18:35.213" Title="Introduction to the Sicilian" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25041" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25040" CreationDate="2019-08-01T11:41:56.203" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you start playing the Sicilian, I wouldn't recommend to become familiar with Najdorf and Sveshnikov. Both are very complex openings and it takes a huge amount of time to get familiar even with the main lines in both of them. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Apart, I can recommend several things: &#xA;1.) To get familiar with plans more then variations, the best thing is to analyse games from strong players who plays Najdorf/Sveshnikov. For Najdorf I can recommend to take a look at a number of Vachier-Lagraves games. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.) A good book for 1800-1900 is usually the Starting Out Najdorf book from Richard Palliser. It's not really up to date, but I think below 2200 that doesn't really matter and gaining an understanding of the structures and the positions is much more important.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3.) Another good resource for the Najdorf is the PowerPlay DVD from Daniel King. &#xA;He also has a quite good DVD for anti Sicilians. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4.) One of the best Sveshnikov books is the quite old &quot;Sveshnikov Reloaded&quot; from Dorian Rogozenko. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That are more or less the resources I can recommend based on the given information. &#xA;Be aware, that Bb5+ variation after d6 doesn't help you much if you want to play the Sveshnikov.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19236" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-04T20:18:18.467" LastActivityDate="2020-03-04T20:18:18.467" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25042" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25040" CreationDate="2019-08-01T13:31:41.530" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's no known recipe that works for everyone for how to approach the Sicilian (or any new opening) as a newcomer to the opening, but it definitely helps if you concretize your target even more than what you've described in the OP. To do that, you might find the following &lt;strong&gt;general&lt;/strong&gt; considerations helpful, specially given that Sicilian is a vast and rich system in opening theory:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Mindset and approach:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Find players whose approach to employing the Sicilian suits your style, in terms of: the type of play (closed, open, sharp), depth of needed theory, whether it's midgame or endgame oriented etc, and study their games (e.g. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chess.pl?pid=15940&amp;amp;playercomp=black&amp;amp;opening=B20-B99&amp;amp;title=Garry%20Kasparov%20playing%20the%20Sicilian%20as%20Black&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Kasparov's games&lt;/a&gt;). &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;When studying such games, for at least the first 10 moves, constantly ask yourself what the purpose of each move is in theory (for the move order you're trying to learn), and if you find the point of a move goes over your head, follow through a few variations with the engine &lt;em&gt;with&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;without&lt;/em&gt; that move and see what repercussions it has on the ensuing variations.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Even more important than understanding specific moves, try to learn what the underlying plan of the particular Sicilian variation you're studying is, this really cannot be emphasized enough. Once you know what the line aims to achieve from a strategic point of view (e.g. is it to create an isolated pawn structure, is it to establish a permanent knight post in the centre, is it to trade bishops or keep bishop pair, etc), making sense of the moves and the ensuing play becomes much easier to grasp.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Once your particular type of Sicilian system (Kan, Sveshnikov, Dragon, Taimanov, etc) is decided, then you can focus your resources on that system and your search becomes much more meaningful.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Once you get a grip of the basic ideas behind the system of choice, start carving your own version of the system, personalize it according to the kinds of positions you feel comfortable playing and where your skills lie (middlegame, tactical, strategic, endgame player etc), and in that regard learn the relevant transpositions, while always checking your new ideas with an engine.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Keep practicing your developed system, 1-2 two blitz games won't cut it, you need to play many many games until the concepts start to sink in and you form a good intuition for the opening. Keep analysing each game irrespective of the outcome, go back to the opening stage and find improvements.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;A training exercise that is often quite helpful is to: play the opening lines you're trying to master in your head without any visual aid (board, phone) against yourself, e.g. when on a commute or during a nice walk. When playing blindfolded against yourself, saying the moves helps a lot to remember the position (that is, literally saying to yourself &lt;code&gt;Nc3&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt;, etc).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Tools for the learning process:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;To keep a clear note of the ideas you learn along the way for each line and move order, &lt;strong&gt;create a study&lt;/strong&gt; on lichess and fill it up with annotations and arrows, and go over these studies to review and brush up on what you've learnt every now and then. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Similarly, create a study for the personalized system you start building for yourself. These studies can be made private, and of course they will always be work in progress as you will regularly update them with any new finding. For more on lichess studies see also this &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/5972/3594&quot;&gt;post&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;To explore opening lines and try new ideas, use the opening explorer on lichess (and many other available ones online) with the Stockfish cloud engine active in the background, &lt;strong&gt;play through the lines&lt;/strong&gt; and cross check your ideas with the engine.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;There exists various &lt;strong&gt;video series&lt;/strong&gt; on the Sicilian, e.g. on chess24 see &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess24.com/en/learn/videoseries?filter=sicilian&amp;amp;lang=en&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; (for instance the Taimanov one by Robin van Kampen has become quite well reviewed).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Other online resources:&lt;/strong&gt; Check out the content on various chess youtube channels, e.g. &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/user/Chessexplained/search?query=sicilian&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;ChessExplained&lt;/a&gt; or &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/user/ChessNetwork/search?query=sicilian&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;ChessNetwork&lt;/a&gt;, they provide very clear commentary as they play or analyse games, and they both frequently play the Sicilian too. And of course the wonderful lectures by Yasser Seirawan, e.g. on the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvipCjxqGiM&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Pin variation&lt;/a&gt; or the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13Y4QR_-Upc&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Accelerated Dragon&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Last but not least, &lt;strong&gt;books, books, books!&lt;/strong&gt; They still remain the best resources in chess. There are plenty written on the Sicilian too (e.g. see the &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/25041/3594&quot;&gt;recommendations by Chris&lt;/a&gt;), find one author and book level that matches your taste and get started! Reading chess books is almost always an interactive process, where either you're pausing to calculate something blindfolded, or setting up a board and going through some variation discussed in the book. Generally, they're not read cover to cover, and specially if they are extensively covering something, such as &lt;em&gt;Endgames in chess&lt;/em&gt;, or &lt;em&gt;Pawn structures&lt;/em&gt;, you will be jumping around the book frequently to read up on the bits that currently are relevant for your improvement. Remember that there's no one book that is the best, these things are always subjective to our preferences, so try to explore and find one that you like and read up patiently ;)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3594" LastActivityDate="2019-08-01T13:31:41.530" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25043" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25044" CreationDate="2019-08-02T00:18:53.997" Score="3" ViewCount="114" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm going to further expand a FEN validation function I have been working on for some time to include illegal pawn formations such that:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;... for example white pawns could&#xA;  never be on a2, a3, and b2; there is no way a pawn could be on both a3&#xA;  and b2. &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/1482/how-to-know-when-a-fen-position-is-legal#comment1575_1483&quot;&gt;(source)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This particular test doesn't require to take opponent missing material into consideration (it could, but I have that on a separate test to check every column with multiple pawns and determine the minimum missing material the opponent should have, but that test is different, I only want to focus on this other test assuming infinite material can be used to reach those positions).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So far, my approach has been to draw a triangle from any pawn (excluding the ones that sit on the starting rank, which wouldn't allow a triangle to be drawn) all the way to the starting rank, then counting all the pawns that would fit on the base line of the triangle (starting rank). In the case the triangle goes out of bounds, those pawns are not counted:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/geaGi.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/geaGi.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That amount of pawns on the bottom of the triangle are the upper exclusive limit that pawns could then appear anywhere inside the triangle (because the test is applied to each pawn and each one will draw their own triangles and because the test is a generalized &quot;no invalid pawn structures?&quot;, as in, all or nothing, it is safe to give big triangles with cluttered pawns a pass, since later on, the pawns inside will undergo the same test).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example from the left image with limit of 3, there should be 0-2 to be a legal pawn structure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Will this solution always work or there are times where this limit will be incorrectly generated? Can this be simplified further using a different reasoning or methods?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any ideas, feedback, alternative solutions are appreciated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="478" LastEditorUserId="478" LastEditDate="2019-08-02T00:31:02.503" LastActivityDate="2019-08-02T17:55:32.263" Title="How to detect invalid pawn structures (not based on opponent material) for FEN valdation?" Tags="&lt;pawn-structure&gt;&lt;illegal-move&gt;&lt;fen&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25044" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25043" CreationDate="2019-08-02T08:38:49.600" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is at least one case where your method will fail: pawns on f2, g3, h2 and  h3. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/RPrjv.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/RPrjv.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The structure is illegal, but drawing triangles from every pawn will not show this. To catch this, you'd have to draw the triangle from every square of the chessboard (h4 in this case demonstrates the illegality).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So as you said, draw triangles, but instead of starting from pawns, draw them from every square on the board. (For white, it actually suffices to try every square from the 3rd to the 8th rank.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15989" LastEditorUserId="15989" LastEditDate="2019-08-02T17:55:32.263" LastActivityDate="2019-08-02T17:55:32.263" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25045" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1251" CreationDate="2019-08-02T09:01:02.623" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I study openings by using a database and looking at the most played moves in the opening I want to learn. Don't look too much at the computer evaluation (as long as it stays below +- 1), look mainly at win percentages, since they show you which side of the board is easier to play. If I come across a position I don't understand (can't find a good plan), I usually look at the highest rated win for the color im playing myself (so often a carlsen game or a game from an other top GM) and look at the way they played the game. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Whenever you play an on the board game, try to analyse the game without an engine afterwards (often with your opponent). After you have done this, check whether your assessment of the game (opening) was good with a database and engine. You can even analyse the first 10 moves of online blitz games to quickly check if you went wrong in the opening, and try to improve next game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have opening books at home and some videos, but I mainly learn my opening theory this way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17563" LastActivityDate="2019-08-02T09:01:02.623" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25046" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25058" CreationDate="2019-08-02T14:38:46.937" Score="7" ViewCount="795" Body="&lt;p&gt;Could the following situation possibly exist?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's White to play, and Black is about to get back rank mated. This is because the King's mobility is restricted to a single file. Then White gives a check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At this point, Black plays the best move that blocks with a hanging piece, where the blocking piece has no defense. White takes the piece with check, and black can now escape somehow. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An example of this is that by blocking check with a hanging knight, Black opens up a bishop's path to further block, but this time safely and checkmate is avoided.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19717" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2019-08-03T20:29:17.137" LastActivityDate="2019-08-04T10:03:53.160" Title="Can it be useful for a player block with a hanging piece in a back rank mate situation?" Tags="&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;checkmate&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25047" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25040" CreationDate="2019-08-02T14:41:30.060" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are great answers to your question already, but to give you a concrete opening advice, you can look into the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sicilian_Defence#Kalashnikov_Variation:_4...e5_5.Nb5_d6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Kalashnikov variation (Nc6 with e5)&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why is that a good choice:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;you don't need much theory - just learn the ideas from any of the good players who are playing this opening&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;you develop your pieces very fast securing you a full game where you cannot instantly lose and can later outplay the opponent&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the position is very unbalanced (your weak d5 square) - which is typically the case in Sicilian. You cannot evaluate the position statically but the dynamics of ideas will mainly influence the result&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Unlike the Sveshnikov where many completely different kind of positions can arise, here you reach about three position types in any case&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19731" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-04T20:17:27.633" LastActivityDate="2020-03-04T20:17:27.633" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25049" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25046" CreationDate="2019-08-02T16:13:20.797" Score="17" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;R5k1/5ppp/8/2r5/1b6/8/5PPP/6K1 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Rc8 2. Rxc8+ Bf8&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is an example of what Tim Krabbé calls an &lt;a href=&quot;https://timkr.home.xs4all.nl/chess2/cql.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;'unguarded guard'&lt;/a&gt; - a linepiece checks, and a piece interposes on an unguarded square. That page mentions Topalov - Polgar, Novgorod 1996 (see below); while not a true back rank mate, it comes close. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.arves.org/arves/index.php/en/endgamestudies/cql-sample-files/cql-unguarded-guard&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Here&lt;/a&gt; are some endgame studies with other types of Unguarded Guards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Novgorod&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;1996-07-27&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Veselin Topalov&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Judit Polgar&quot;]&#xA;[StartPly &quot;92&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 e6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nc6 5.Nc3 Qc7 6.Be3 a6 7.Bd3&#xA;b5 8.Nxc6 Qxc6 9.O-O Bb7 10.a3 Nf6 11.Re1 Be7 12.Qf3 d6 13.Qh3&#xA;h5 14.Bg5 Qc5 15.Be3 Qc6 16.f3 g5 17.a4 b4 18.Na2 g4 19.fxg4&#xA;d5 20.c3 bxc3 21.bxc3 Nxg4 22.Bd4 Bc5 23.Be2 Nf6 24.e5 Ne4&#xA;25.Nb4 Bxd4+ 26.cxd4 Qb6 27.Nc2 Rc8 28.Rab1 Qa7 29.Bd3 Rg8&#xA;30.a5 Bc6 31.Rb6 Bb5 32.Bxe4 dxe4 33.Rxe6+ Kf8 34.Qa3+ Kg7&#xA;35.Re7 Rc7 36.Rxc7 Qxc7 37.Ne3 Kh8 38.Rc1 Qd8 39.d5 Qg5 40.Qc3&#xA;Kh7 41.Qd4 Bd3 42.d6 h4 43.Rc7 Rb8 44.Rxf7+ Kg8 45.e6 Qxe3+&#xA;46.Qxe3 Rb1+ 47.Qc1 Rxc1+ 48.Kf2 Rc6 49.Rd7 Bb5 50.Ke3 Rc2&#xA;51.Rc7 Re2+ 52.Kf4 Rf2+ 53.Kxe4 Re2+ 54.Kf5 Rf2+ 55.Ke5 Re2+&#xA;56.Kf6 Rf2+ 57.Ke7 Re2 58.d7 Bxd7 59.Kxd7 Rd2+ 60.Ke8 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2019-08-02T16:47:10.133" LastActivityDate="2019-08-02T16:47:10.133" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25050" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1489" CreationDate="2019-08-02T16:17:48.187" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessable.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chessable&lt;/a&gt; have turned a large number of chess books, many of them classics, into audio-visual chess courses. I think you can register for free to preview their material. Alternatively they have a &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxVGiP4dl19wwGJlCy3_u8g&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;YouTube channel&lt;/a&gt; which also publishes previews.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2019-08-02T16:17:48.187" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25051" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25087" CreationDate="2019-08-03T10:36:45.597" Score="2" ViewCount="644" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would like to get some advice on how I can get better at chess. I know that it's a lot to ask, but I would like an analysis of what I am doing wrong and in my games.  I would also like to know what I should do to practice, rather than improve the tactics or the endgame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My Lichess ratings are as follows: 1760 for classical games, and 1900 for tactics. The latter is these days quite low but two months ago I peaked 2100. I intend to do more tactics puzzles these days until I reach again 2100.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am quite good at my openings. Considering the last month, my average centipawn loss is 32.4, though it has usually been a bit lower (around 28). The ones belonging to middlegames and endgames are respectively, 68.2 and 35.3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as endgames are concerned, I studied up to the middle of part six (corresponding to ratings:1800-1999) of the Silman’s complete endgame course, but I admit that I have not been able to test what I learned because most of the games I play are decided in the middlegame and if they reach the endgame, one side often resigns because of material imbalance. I know that I need to refresh this endgame material even if I have not used them so far very much.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Regarding calculation, I have, in my opinion, recently improved a lot as I make the point of finding candidate moves and calculate up to 10 moves deep.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I make the point of analyzing my games after I play them. First on my own, then with the computer and finally, I play the game on board again so I can see if I can use the computer‘s ideas in the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In general I realize that there are some  mistakes that I make that I can find on my own after playing a game but some middlegame and endgame moves are quite hard for me (not straightforward endgames such as pawn and king against lone king). Plus, I often cannot understand some mistakes (and particularly some blunders which “only” decrease my advantage by 3 points) that Stockfish detects in my games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are some links to recent Lichess games of mine for you to take a look at for my requested analysis:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/s1HQ0vU7Zbrs&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;#1&lt;/a&gt;, &#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/dH9f3Q0WvsiJ&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;#2&lt;/a&gt;, &#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/W8ZPTGNOXGxW&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;#3&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/uTT3VLzSHp8f&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;#4&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/eXoSQ7l3nKUG&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;#5&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;,&lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/bsbV0dM3dCpu&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;#6&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In case someone needs anything else to ask a more complete question, please do ask.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16771" LastEditorUserId="16771" LastEditDate="2019-08-03T14:05:53.233" LastActivityDate="2019-09-10T15:11:36.187" Title="Tips to improve my chess" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="10" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25052" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-08-03T11:28:27.207" Score="0" ViewCount="149" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;2r1r1k1/5ppp/8/8/Q7/8/5PPP/4R1K1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The important square of e8 square is hanging. It is hanging because if white can take that square it's checkmate. Is this a hanging square tactic?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the rook on Rook on c8 is deflected from the  protection of e8, is it called a deflection tactic?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;6k1/3qb1pp/4p3/ppp1P3/8/2PP1Q2/PP4PP/5RK1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here, the important f8 square is not hanging, so white plays Qf7+ to deflect the king from protection of f8 square, thus leading to checkmate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19717" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-08-03T14:46:47.877" LastActivityDate="2019-09-28T22:35:15.583" Title="Hanging square and deflection tactic leading to a back rank checkmate" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25053" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25056" CreationDate="2019-08-03T16:58:12.573" Score="2" ViewCount="136" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is it possible to block a double-check, or is your only option to move the king? (I'm trying to code a chess game, to then go on to code a chess AI, and this would really help me)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19738" LastActivityDate="2019-08-03T18:16:57.377" Title="Is it possible to block a double check?" Tags="&lt;check&gt;&lt;double-check&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2019-08-03T19:05:48.553" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25054" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25046" CreationDate="2019-08-03T17:10:11.650" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;A different, but similar, situation would be with a castled king, minus the rook, behind two pawns with a knight inbetween them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;r3k3/8/8/8/8/8/5PNP/6K1 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Ra1+ 2. Ne1 Rxe1+ 3. Kg2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="674" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-08-03T17:20:05.157" LastActivityDate="2019-08-03T17:20:05.157" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25056" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25053" CreationDate="2019-08-03T18:16:57.377" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Moving the king is the only way to escape a double check.  There is no possible other move that will block both checks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19740" LastActivityDate="2019-08-03T18:16:57.377" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25057" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25051" CreationDate="2019-08-03T18:47:11.787" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;One thing I noticed is that, as Black, you should probably put a priority on castling. For example, move 14 in game 6 - you play a5 (which &lt;em&gt;hangs&lt;/em&gt; the pawn) rather than playing something like Be7 so you can castle. In game 4, look at the position after 10.O-O. Your opponent is castled, and your entire kingside hasn't moved &lt;em&gt;at all&lt;/em&gt;. Stockfish evaluated the position as +3.4; you're already lost.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A couple of times in the opening you played Bg4 followed by Bxf3. There wasn't really a good reason for this exchange, and both times it allowed your opponent to develop their queen with Qxf3 while your king was still uncastled and the position was not closed. You might think that it's a weakness for your opponent to have their queen out early, but you can't take advantage without that bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2019-08-03T18:47:11.787" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25058" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25046" CreationDate="2019-08-04T10:03:53.160" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;One more scenario that has not been mentioned yet is that an unprotected interposing piece might unblock a sliding piece leading to a discovered check, which prevents the capture of the interposed piece, like in the example below:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;3r2k1/6pp/4R3/8/2R5/1B6/5PPP/r5K1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Rc1 Rxc1+ 2. Re1+&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15415" LastActivityDate="2019-08-04T10:03:53.160" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25059" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25040" CreationDate="2019-08-04T10:08:05.650" Score="0" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Had I not played the Sicilian with Black I could have saved myself the trouble of studying for more than 20 years all the more popular lines of this opening, which comprise probably more than 25 percent of all published opening theory!&#xA;   - Bent Larsen&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9030" LastActivityDate="2019-08-04T10:08:05.650" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25061" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13627" CreationDate="2019-08-04T14:11:41.390" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;For the purposes of writing an algorithm, I don't think I would approach it that way at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On any given ply, you generate a list of legal moves to investigate.  A move is illegal if, in the resulting position, your king is in check.  If there are no legal moves, and the king is currently in check, then it's checkmate.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You don't need an algorithm to figure out whether a check can be blocked or whether the checking piece can be eliminated, or any other scenarios.  The lack of any legal moves in the position indicates that already.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19740" LastActivityDate="2019-08-04T14:11:41.390" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25062" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25063" CreationDate="2019-08-04T14:25:51.630" Score="5" ViewCount="1609" Body="&lt;p&gt;In a KP-K endgame, if the enemy king is in front of the pawn, is it always a draw?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've tried it in various positions, yet my opponent always is able to get in front somehow and promote the pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I hear it's always always a draw. I've  been playing for so many years, and never figured out how to get the draw. What is the correct technique to do this that always works?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1105" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-08-04T14:39:15.780" LastActivityDate="2019-08-04T15:17:42.987" Title="In a KP-K endgame, if the enemy king is in front of the pawn, is it always a draw?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;pawn-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25063" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25062" CreationDate="2019-08-04T15:17:42.987" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;If the king is on the sixth and the pawn is on the fifth (and it's not a rook pawn), then it's a win for the side with the pawn, no matter who has the move:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;4k3/8/4K3/4P3/8/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;] &#xA;&#xA;1. Kd6 Kd8 2. e6 Ke8 3. e7 Kf7 4. Kd7 Kf6 5. e8=Q *  &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With Black to move:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;4k3/8/4K3/4P3/8/8/8/8 b - - 0 1&quot;] &#xA;&#xA;1... Kd8 2. Kf7 Kd7 3. e6+ Kd8 4. e7+ Kd7 5. e8=Q+ *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you back it up, though, the position is a win with Black to move and a draw with White to move. If White has to move first, Black can simply mirror the movements of the White king until White moves the pawn forward.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/3k4/8/3K4/3P4/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the pawn is in front of the king, the general strategy is to make sure to oppose the enemy king when it goes alongside its pawn, to prevent it from getting in front.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;4k3/8/4P3/4K3/8/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Kd6 Kd8 2. Ke5 Ke7 3. Kf5 Ke8 (3... Kf8?? {This loses! If you take this critical square too soon, before the enemy king is alongside the pawn, you can't stay on the square when the enemy king does advance.} 4. Kf6 Ke8 5. e7 Kd7 6. Kf7) 4. Kf6 Kf8 5. e7+ Ke8 6. Ke6 {Stalemate.} 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2019-08-04T15:17:42.987" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25068" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-08-04T21:34:49.663" Score="1" ViewCount="50" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a 2300-rated FM in chess. Sometimes I want to know to know is this: what computing knowledge do you need to solve the game of chess? Does anyone know precisely?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16440" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-08-04T23:25:38.383" LastActivityDate="2019-08-04T23:25:38.383" Title="What computing knowledge do you need to solve chess?" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;computer-chess&gt;&lt;game-complexity&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2019-08-05T01:15:39.563" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25069" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25070" CreationDate="2019-08-05T07:21:49.210" Score="8" ViewCount="1124" Body="&lt;p&gt;One strong player once told me that you can improve quickly if you focus more on endgame studies than on tactics training. His reasoning was that endgame studies use a few pieces to cover most of the chess rudiments including strategy, tactics, imagination, concrete calculation, awareness, visualization, etc. While tactics on the other hand can lead to speculation over calculation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is, can a player improve quickly by focusing more on solving endgame studies and giving tactics less time?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19491" LastActivityDate="2019-10-30T05:27:32.727" Title="Which one is more important between endgame studies and tactics?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;learning&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;training&gt;&lt;studies&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25070" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25069" CreationDate="2019-08-05T08:25:23.870" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Endgame studies are a particular form of tactical problem. I think variety is always good here, but, most importantly, since consistency is critical for improvement at chess, I would suggest you to focus on the type of exercise you enjoy most! (You won't train for too long if it's a sacrifice rather than a pleasure.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I disagree with the &quot;tactics can lead to speculation&quot; part. Quite the opposite, training tactics is what we do to find concrete realizations of our intuitions/speculations. Of course, this means trying to calculate the entire continuation from the starting position, with all the possible consequences of the moves you are thinking about being considered. But this also applies to solving endgame studies, though!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, I'd say that endgame studies seldom cover relevant strategy, and when they do, it's in a very artificial form. Anyway, if we wanted to improve our chess strategy, why not study chess strategy itself?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In conclusion, I think endgame studies can help you improve your tactical skills, but I'd use them as an additional resource rather than the main focus of your training. Tactical puzzles often have the advantage of being closer to positions you can reach in a real game (you are forced to &quot;remove the noise&quot; and find what's the relevant factor that can lead you to a win.) This does not mean that you should disregard the Master's advice, but rather stick to what's useful from it, so: beware of speculation during your tactical training!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastEditorUserId="11202" LastEditDate="2019-08-07T09:14:25.880" LastActivityDate="2019-08-07T09:14:25.880" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25071" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25072" CreationDate="2019-08-05T08:35:50.447" Score="3" ViewCount="119" Body="&lt;p&gt;From &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=171&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Law of Chess, article 3.8&lt;/a&gt;, it is stated as:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qYj1B.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qYj1B.png&quot; alt=&quot;Castling Rule&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, coming to &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/PAXCH1gQ&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;My game vs killin_pieces on lichess.org&lt;/a&gt; :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After move 9, situation was something like this: b1 was threatened by my opponent's light square bishop:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/wn3Lg.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/wn3Lg.png&quot; alt=&quot;position 9&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Still I was able to give him a discovered check on move no. 10.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/2qxxF.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/2qxxF.png&quot; alt=&quot;position 2&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which clearly contradicts FIDE Law of chess article 3.8.2.a, stated as :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Castling is prevented temporarily: &#xA;  if the square on which the king stands, or &lt;strong&gt;the square which it must cross&lt;/strong&gt;, or the square which it is to occupy, is attacked by one or more of the opponent's pieces&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can anyone please explain me how can this be possible ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15511" LastEditorUserId="15511" LastEditDate="2019-08-05T10:11:46.360" LastActivityDate="2019-08-05T10:11:46.360" Title="Is it valid according the FIDE chess rule?" Tags="&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;castling&gt;&lt;online-blitz&gt;&lt;lichess&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ClosedDate="2019-08-05T10:05:39.273" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25072" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25071" CreationDate="2019-08-05T08:38:00.567" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;The king does not cross b1 (only the rook does). It also does not end up standing on b1 following the castling. Hence, the quoted rule is not violated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3831" LastActivityDate="2019-08-05T08:38:00.567" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25073" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1600" CreationDate="2019-08-05T10:12:59.360" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/nickzuber/chs&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chs&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Play chess against the Stockfish engine in your terminal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/AFZoW.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/AFZoW.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19751" LastActivityDate="2019-08-05T10:12:59.360" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25074" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25051" CreationDate="2019-08-05T11:54:55.000" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;You may be able to get some help from the following tips. Not all of them apply to everybody, so you must be able to think for yourself in a critical way, picking up what works best for you!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;First, forget about centipawns! I would suggest to remove computer engine assistance completely if you want to improve your game. The reason is that, more often than not, checking positions with the engine is like copying in an exam. It helps you get the right answer, but does nothing to improve your knowledge. I am not saying that engines are useless for chess training, but I am saying that it's very difficult to distinguish when they should be used. This results in often doing more harm than good (it may help you judge a bad move as bad, but for the wrong reason!)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Then, you need to work on your tactics. Puzzles and studies are great, but (of course, unassisted) analysis of your own games also plays a role here. I really doubt you can find candidates and calculate accurately up to 10 moves deep. If you really could, you would be a top-tier Grandmaster. Work on finding out what mistakes you are doing without even realizing!&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Once you have a decent tactical skill (which you probably are close to having given your ratings and games), you'll need to work on your endgames and middlegame strategy. Get a book that covers topics like piece activity, central control/counterplay, weak squares, good/bad bishops, open files and so on. Don't just stick to the general tips. Instead, analyze illustrative games in depth to study how those concepts translate into practical advantage. Try to find strategical themes in your own games as well.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Last, but not least, every time you make a move, it must have a purpose! If it doesn't, then it's a bad move! If the reason is more of an excuse than an actual reason, then it's a bad move, too! (See, for instance, the ...Bxf3 mentioned in DM's answer. What were the reasons/excuses behind that trade?)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS: If you can afford one, get a professional coach! If they are expensive on your area, go online!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-09-10T15:11:36.187" LastActivityDate="2019-09-10T15:11:36.187" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25075" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25077" CreationDate="2019-08-05T13:23:00.053" Score="20" ViewCount="4457" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm guessing that there's a pretty simple explanation for this, but I can't seem to see it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[White &quot;Donald Byrne&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Robert James Fischer&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Nf3 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 Bg7 4. d4 O-O 5. Bf4 d5 6. Qb3 dxc4 7. Qxc4 c6 8. e4 Nbd7 9. Rd1 Nb6 10. Qc5 Bg4 11. Bg5 {11. Be2 followed by 12 O-O would have been more prudent. The bishop move played allows a sudden crescendo of tactical points to be uncovered by Fischer. — Wade} Na4! {!} 12. Qa3 {On 12. Nxa4 Nxe4 and White faces considerable difficulties.} Nxc3 {At first glance, one might think that this move only helps White create a stronger pawn center; however, Fischer’s plan is quite the opposite. By eliminating the Knight on c3, it becomes possible to sacrifice the exchange via Nxe4 and smash White’s center, while the King remains trapped in the center.} 13. bxc3 Nxe4 {The natural continuation of Black’s plan.} 14. Bxe7 {Forking Black's Queen and Rook - Brandon_J} Qb6 15. Bc4 (15. Bxf8 Rxf8 16. Bd3 (16.Be2)(16.Bc4)) Nxc3 16. Bc5 Rfe8+ 17. Kf1 Be6!! {If this is the game of the century, then 17…Be6!! must be the counter of the century. Fischer offers his queen in exchange for a fierce attack with his minor pieces. Declining this offer is not so easy: 18. Bxe6 leads to a ‘Philidor Mate’ (smothered mate) with …Qb5+ 19. Kg1 Ne2+ 20. Kf1 Ng3+ 21. Kg1 Qf1+ 22. Rxf1 Ne2#. Other ways to decline the queen also run into trouble: e.g., 18. Qxc3 Qxc5} 18. Bxb6 Bxc4+ 19. Kg1 Ne2+ 20. Kf1 Nxd4+ {This tactical scenario, where a king is repeatedly revealed to checks, is sometimes called a “windmill.”} 21. Kg1 Ne2+ 22. Kf1 Nc3+ 23. Kg1 axb6 24. Qb4 Ra4 25. Qxb6 Nxd1 26. h3 Rxa2 27. Kh2 Nxf2 28. Re1 Rxe1 29. Qd8+ Bf8 30. Nxe1 Bd5 31. Nf3 Ne4 32. Qb8 b5 {Every piece and pawn of the black camp is defended. The white queen has nothing to do.} 33. h4 h5 34. Ne5 Kg7 35. Kg1 Bc5+ 36. Kf1 Ng3+ {Now Byrne is hopelessly entangled in Fischer’s mating net.} 37. Ke1 Bb4+ 38. Kd1 Bb3+ 39. Kc1 Ne2+ 40. Kb1 Nc3+ 41. Kc1 Rc2# 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Why is 15. Bxf8 not played?&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1008361&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Here&lt;/a&gt; is the chessgames link to the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18168" LastActivityDate="2019-08-05T15:01:28.760" Title="The Game of the Century - why didn't Byrne take the rook after he forked Fischer?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;&lt;famous-players&gt;&lt;planning&gt;&lt;famous-games&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25076" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25075" CreationDate="2019-08-05T14:14:15.720" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Instead of 15... Rxf8 like in your line, black could play 15... Bxf8. Bxf8 attacks the queen, so the queen has to move. 16. Qa4 let c3 uncovered and makes 16... Nxc3 with an upcoming Re8+ possible, 16. Qc1 (the only other square for the queen) should pretty much be lost after 16... Nxc3 (the queen can't take because of Bb4). On 17. Rd2 Re8+ looks strong, and against 17. Rd3 Bb4 looks pretty strong. 16... Re8 could also be strong instead of Nxc3. &#xA;All in all the white king is very vulnerable in the middle of the board and black can play pretty strong gaining some tempo by attacking the white queen. So black would have a strong initiative for the exchange, which gives compensation at least.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19236" LastActivityDate="2019-08-05T14:14:15.720" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25077" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25075" CreationDate="2019-08-05T14:47:09.007" Score="17" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Short answer&lt;/strong&gt;: Since after the &lt;strong&gt;bishop recapture&lt;/strong&gt; on &lt;code&gt;f8&lt;/code&gt; (and not the rook recapture!) white is tactically and positionally completely busted, with &lt;em&gt;5&lt;/em&gt; active black pieces against a completely &lt;em&gt;exposed&lt;/em&gt; king in the centre and no foreseeable chance of consolidation in order to eventually benefit from the material advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;&lt;strong&gt;First observations:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;15...Bxf8&lt;/code&gt; is with tempo as it attacks the queen on &lt;code&gt;a3&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;White king is still stuck in the centre and being at least two tempi away from castling, not even sidestepping from the open file with &lt;code&gt;Kf1&lt;/code&gt; is possible.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;With the bishop recapturing on &lt;code&gt;f8,&lt;/code&gt; &lt;code&gt;Bb4&lt;/code&gt; becomes a constant threat, which means &lt;code&gt;Nxc3&lt;/code&gt; is unstoppable for white as &lt;code&gt;Qxc3&lt;/code&gt; falls to &lt;code&gt;Bb4&lt;/code&gt; winning the queen in all ensuing lines.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Although white is an exchange up temporarily, one of their rooks and the &lt;code&gt;f1&lt;/code&gt; bishop are completely out of play still and therefore it is in fact black who effectively appears to be material up (with last piece being the &lt;code&gt;a8&lt;/code&gt; rook that comes into play with check in fact &lt;code&gt;Re8+&lt;/code&gt;), not in the raw count of pieces but most definitely in terms of the positional compensation.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Most important consequence of all these observations: black is well in time to prevent white from ever consolidating, which means even without concrete assessment of the different lines we can safely bet that everything's about to fall apart for white quite shortly after &lt;code&gt;15...Bxf8&lt;/code&gt; as black's initiative on the white king seems to lead to tactically and forcibly winning variations in every scenario.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Brief concrete assessment:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now let's look at a few candidate lines concretely (&lt;em&gt;by no means exhaustive, please make sure to check these and the connected sidelines with an engine on your own&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [title &quot;after 15. Bxf8 Bxf8&quot;]&#xA; [fen &quot;r4bk1/pp3p1p/1qp3p1/8/3Pn1b1/Q1P2N2/P4PPP/3RKB1R w K - 0 2&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. Qb3 Nxc3 2. Bc4 (2. Ra1 Re8+ 3. Kd2 (3. Ne5 Rxe5+ 4. dxe5 Bb4 {and the mating net is set, white's completely defenseless.}) Ne4+ {and black's at least winning the f3 knight after for instance Kc2 and Qa5}) (2. Qxb6 axb6 3. Ra1 Bb4 4. Bc4 Ne4+ 5. Ke2 Re8 {only way to avoid the discovery is to play Kd3 but after Nxf2 Nxh1 we're back to a quite similarly lost endgame compared to the 2...Nxd1 Qxb6 line}) Nxd1 {and black is up a clear piece as white cannot in any way recapture the knight} 3. Qxb6 (3. Qxd1  Qb4+) (3. Kxd1 Qxd4+ 4. Qd3 Qa1+ {and the h1 rook is lost, notice the Bxf7 trick doesn't lead to anything for white.}) axb6 4. Kxd1 Ra4 5. Bb3 Rxd4+ 6. Ke2 Re4+ 7. Kd1 Bb4 {and black's clearly winning considering the bishop pair, the 2 pawns up and a passed one already, the exposed white king under constant threats and the out of play white rook.}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;these lines clearly demonstrate why the &lt;code&gt;f8&lt;/code&gt; rook is in fact not hanging and why white's best chances lie in &lt;code&gt;Bc4&lt;/code&gt; creating Luft on &lt;code&gt;f1&lt;/code&gt; for the king (or even short castles if black allows on a good day) side-stepping (at first glance) most of the tactical shenanigans we just witnessed after &lt;code&gt;13...Bxf8.&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [title &quot;15. Bc4 only attempt at consolidating&quot;]&#xA; [fen &quot;r4rk1/pp2Bpbp/1qp3p1/8/3Pn1b1/Q1P2N2/P4PPP/3RKB1R w K - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. Bc4 Nxc3 2. Bc5 Rfe8+ 3. Kf1 {and the rest is as you see in the real game, with Fischer's devastating attack despite the tucked away king on f1, which is just too little too late.}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3594" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-08-05T15:01:28.760" LastActivityDate="2019-08-05T15:01:28.760" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25078" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1340" CreationDate="2019-08-05T16:54:30.920" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Aron Nimzowitsch's book &lt;em&gt;My System&lt;/em&gt; has more early game principles which give excellent guidance. Two important ones which would help you fix your problems are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Over protection&lt;/strong&gt;. If you over protect your central pawns then you aren't going to lose them&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Prophylaxis&lt;/strong&gt;. This means trying to anticipate your opponent's plans and good moves and trying to prevent them. This starts by asking yourself after every move of your opponent &quot;Why did he do that?&quot; It is an important step to becoming a better player.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2019-08-05T16:54:30.920" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25079" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25069" CreationDate="2019-08-05T17:28:01.560" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your question is fairly opinion-based, but I will try to answer in reference to common chess thought:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;Learn chess backwards&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't know who first said it, but I think it is well regarded that one should learn chess starting with the endgame and working back toward the opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Simple looking endgames can be incredibly complex and full of nuance; studying them will improve your tactical vision.   Once you know a particular endgame situation, you have gained permanent wisdom.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, endgame study is extremely important!   But:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;Tactics are everything&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you can calculate like a maniac, you can figure out how to proceed in any phase of the game.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, if you get rusty and don't play as sharp, what good was all that tactics training?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tactics training is like working out your body.  The more you do it, the better your baseline fitness.  Endgame study is still a workout, just more long-distance running than cross-fit, and it can be easier for adding permanent pattern recognition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastEditorUserId="11202" LastEditDate="2019-08-07T10:24:05.577" LastActivityDate="2019-08-07T10:24:05.577" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25080" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1346" CreationDate="2019-08-06T07:46:18.060" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm loving this set at a &lt;a href=&quot;https://schaakshop.nl/index.php?route=product/product&amp;amp;product_id=111&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Dutch / Belgium / German store&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://schaakshop.nl/index.php?route=product/product&amp;amp;product_id=111&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://schaakshop.nl/index.php?route=product/product&amp;amp;product_id=111&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/w3NUe.jpgions/11481&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason for it is that it's small enough for me to take anywhere in my bag. (it travels with me :)). The size of the board is 10&quot; (26cm) x 5&quot; (13cm) as it is foldable. The pieces are wooden, so they look alright although not too big, and the pieces have magnets in them that are strong enough to be held upside down.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Price for this board is around 20 euro, that's kinda the same in dollars. The good thing about this price that if you lose a a piece, it's affordable to buy a new set. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So if,  like me, you live in The Netherlands, Belgium or Germany... This is a really nice option.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Rik&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19758" LastEditorUserId="19758" LastEditDate="2019-09-05T19:39:23.627" LastActivityDate="2019-09-05T19:39:23.627" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25081" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-08-06T08:09:50.723" Score="3" ViewCount="295" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Back-rank_checkmate&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;definition&lt;/a&gt; of the back rank mate is: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A Back-Rank Mate is a checkmate delivered by a rook or queen along the&#xA;  back rank in which the mated king is unable to move up the board&#xA;  because the king is blocked by friendly pieces (usually pawns) on the&#xA;  second rank.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example white to move in this position &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [fen &quot;6k1/5pp1/8/8/8/3B4/5PPP/4R1K1 w - - 0 1&quot;] &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;King can't escape second rank, is this back rank mate?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What about this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;6k1/5bpp/8/8/2Q5/8/5PPP/4R1K1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What about this interesting black to move situation (its mate), is there a name for this mate?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;6kr/5ppp/7N/2B5/8/6R1/8/1K6 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19717" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2019-08-07T20:26:13.157" LastActivityDate="2019-08-07T20:26:13.157" Title="Is it still back-rank mate when there aren't friendly pieces blocking?" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;patterns&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25082" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25081" CreationDate="2019-08-06T16:02:56.043" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;First ask yourself &lt;em&gt;why&lt;/em&gt; the differentiation of a 'back-rank mate' is meaningful.&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Generalized patterns that we call 'tactics' have names because it helps us to learn from them and respond to them. For example, I personally find the distinction between 'pin' and 'skewer' meaningful because it helps to separate the concepts of attacking 'through' either a less valuable enemy piece or a more valuable enemy piece. Likewise, understanding that pins with enemy kings on the other side are 'hard', and pins with enemy knights on the other side are 'soft' helps to make you wary of 'desperado' attacks that might help break your pin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Really a back-rank mate could be seen as just a partially smothered mate. But it's important to see the distinction because of how common it is, so you can be aware of preparing for it. It is an acknowledgement of the fact that at the start of the game, your king only has 6 possible moves (being on the 1st rank), of which 3 are taken up by pawns, leaving you with just 2 open squares if your other pieces have developed already. Even after you castle, your king can remain vulnerable because it has only 2 squares of freedom, and both of those are on the same rank - meaning 3 of the opponent's pieces can checkmate your king with no support!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;So, is it helpful to consider your examples above 'back rank mates'?&lt;/strong&gt; I would argue &lt;strong&gt;yes&lt;/strong&gt;. To me, being wary of back rank mates simply means I need to make sure my king has an 'escape path' when necessary; it is not so critical for me to say &quot;back-rank pawn only&quot; mate vs &quot;back-rank my pieces only&quot; mate vs &quot;back-rank-2-of-my-pawns-and-by-the-way-a-bishop-is-attacking-h7&quot; mate. In all 3 of those 'back-rank sub-types', I have failed to provide my king with enough mobility to avoid a common mating pattern.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit to consider your new example of mate with a knight, on the back rank&lt;/strong&gt;. I would say that is not a 'back rank mate', because it does not involve an attack along the back rank, by the queen or a rook. Without that key element, the mating pattern is simply very different.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14340" LastEditorUserId="14340" LastEditDate="2019-08-07T12:47:13.720" LastActivityDate="2019-08-07T12:47:13.720" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25083" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25084" CreationDate="2019-08-06T16:51:39.973" Score="4" ViewCount="297" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to understand how a chess engine like Stockfish works. I use Stockfish 10 directly, without an UI.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, for this position &lt;strong&gt;(white to move)&lt;/strong&gt;...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;r3n1k1/1bpp2pp/pp2p3/2P1P3/R2P4/3B1rPq/7P/1Q3RK1 w - - - 0 26&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;...Stockfish (depth limited to 31) returns the following informations; I only kept the last lines, eliminating those where the depth was less than 31:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;info depth 31 seldepth 47 multipv 1 score cp -771 lowerbound nodes 86977322 nps 1898570 hashfull 990 tbhits 0 time 45812 pv f1f3&#xA;info depth 31 seldepth 47 multipv 1 score cp -761 lowerbound nodes 87198087 nps 1898499 hashfull 990 tbhits 0 time 45930 pv f1f3&#xA;info depth 31 seldepth 47 multipv 1 score cp -790 upperbound nodes 99439222 nps 1905696 hashfull 992 tbhits 0 time 52180 pv f1f3 b7f3&#xA;info depth 31 seldepth 51 multipv 1 score cp -788 nodes 134293602 nps 1906577 hashfull 995 tbhits 0 time 70437 pv d4d5 f3f1 d3f1 h3h5 c5c6 d7c6 a4h4 h5e5 b1h7 g8f8 h4f4 e8f6 h7h8 f8f7 d5e6 e5e6 h8h5 f7e7 h5f3 a8e8 f4c4 b6b5 c4c2 e7d8 f3d3 d8c8 c2e2 f6e4 d3e3 c6c5 f1g2 c5c4 g2e4 b7e4 e3d4 b5b4&#xA;bestmove d4d5 weight f3f1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't understand what criteria allow Stockfish to say that &lt;code&gt;d4d5&lt;/code&gt; is the best move.&#xA;The line corresponding to d4d5...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;info depth 31 seldepth 51 multipv 1 score cp -788 nodes 134293602 nps 1906577 hashfull 995 tbhits 0 time 70437 pv d4d5 f3f1 d3f1 h3h5 c5c6 d7c6 a4h4 h5e5 b1h7 g8f8 h4f4 e8f6 h7h8 f8f7 d5e6 e5e6 h8h5 f7e7 h5f3 a8e8 f4c4 b6b5 c4c2 e7d8 f3d3 d8c8 c2e2 f6e4 d3e3 c6c5 f1g2 c5c4 g2e4 b7e4 e3d4 b5b4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;... proposes a score (&quot;cp score&quot;) equal to -788 which is smaller e.g. than -771 (see the following line) by example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;info depth 31 seldepth 47 multipv 1 score cp -771 lowerbound nodes 86977322 nps 1898570 hashfull 990 tbhits 0 time 45812 pv f1f3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;If it is not the &lt;code&gt;cp score&lt;/code&gt; that is decisive, what is the criterion used?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any help would be appreciated !&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19761" LastActivityDate="2019-08-06T17:30:02.803" Title="Leaving the score aside, what are the criteria allowing Stockfish to choose its &quot;best move&quot;?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25084" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25083" CreationDate="2019-08-06T17:30:02.803" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The first three lines:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;info depth 31 seldepth 47 multipv 1 score cp -771 lowerbound nodes 86977322 nps 1898570 hashfull 990 tbhits 0 time 45812 pv f1f3&#xA;info depth 31 seldepth 47 multipv 1 score cp -761 lowerbound nodes 87198087 nps 1898499 hashfull 990 tbhits 0 time 45930 pv f1f3&#xA;info depth 31 seldepth 47 multipv 1 score cp -790 upperbound nodes 99439222 nps 1905696 hashfull 992 tbhits 0 time 52180 pv f1f3 b7f3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are not actually complete searches. The &lt;code&gt;lowerbound&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;upperbound&lt;/code&gt; following &lt;code&gt;score cp ...&lt;/code&gt; indicates that the value is not the actual value of the move. Instead, the value is a bound that was obtained when stockfish failed outside of its &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessprogramming.org/Aspiration_Windows&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;aspiration window&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When this happens, Stockfish needs to perform a search at the same depth again, with a wider aspiration window. This is why you have 4 lines at depth 31: stockfish searched the position a total of 4 times at depth 31 because it failed outside of its aspiration window 3 times in a row. The first three scores are not exact, and hence only the score from the 4th search (which is exact) is used to determine the best move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the criterion used to determine the best move is the internal score of the deepest search which did not fail outside of its aspiration window.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The internal score differs from the cp score in that stockfish evaluates positions with a granularity of 1/256 of a pawn, rather than 1/100 of a pawn. So two positions may have the same cp score, but stockfish may still be able to rank them internally. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The answer changes again when stockfish uses multiple threads. In this case, a voting system is used, where each thread has a different voting weight based on its score and max depth reached.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10075" LastActivityDate="2019-08-06T17:30:02.803" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25086" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24897" CreationDate="2019-08-06T19:18:12.893" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;I looked at the data briefly and got some interesting conclusions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I used data from FIDE webpage for january in years 2006-2019.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I calculated each player's rating change in consecutive years and used player's age in the first of the two as the age when this rating change occurred. Then I simply calculated the average. The result is this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/D2XyW.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/D2XyW.png&quot; alt=&quot;As you can see, players are on average gaining rating only until the age of 27, and afterwards they tend to slowly lose rating. Children gain the most rating per year, which is very intuitive.&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;em&gt;As you can see, players are on average gaining rating only until the age of 27, and afterwards they tend to slowly lose rating. Children gain the most rating per year, which is very intuitive.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Rating range 19-90 from up close:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/eq3DG.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/eq3DG.png&quot; alt=&quot;Rating loss increase looks linear.&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;em&gt;Rating loss increase looks linear.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Cumulative rating change:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9EYvG.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9EYvG.png&quot; alt=&quot;This is of course cumulative change since the age of 10.&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;em&gt;This is of course cumulative change since the age of 10.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Secondly, I did the same thing but separated players into groups. I looked at each of their entry in the data and put them into respective categories according to the maximum rating achieved in it: which might not be their actual peak rating, but should be a good indication of their top strength.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/kiWQv.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/kiWQv.png&quot; alt=&quot;Gains are much larger here. Might be due to the fact that the negative contribution of sub-1500 players isn&amp;#39;t included.&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;em&gt;Gains are much larger here. Might be due to the fact that the negative contribution of sub-1500 players isn't included. Intuitively, higher rated players have higher average rating gains, but the decline rate seems to be similar regardless of the strength.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/4d9tw.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/4d9tw.png&quot; alt=&quot;The linear range up close.&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;em&gt;The linear range up close.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/R7tqM.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/R7tqM.png&quot; alt=&quot;Cumulative again. Interestingly, the two middle groups have very similar curves. I haven&amp;#39;t thought of an explanation for that.&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;em&gt;Cumulative again.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19727" LastEditorUserId="19727" LastEditDate="2019-08-07T07:42:47.527" LastActivityDate="2019-08-07T07:42:47.527" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25087" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25051" CreationDate="2019-08-06T20:36:21.197" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;As as Master here are my recommendations:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;I.  Play slow tournament games&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Slow&quot; because you need to sit there and really think on your own.  &quot;Tournament&quot; because you and your opponent have skin in the game and it makes it serious.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Games from such an event are what you then analyse in detail to find your shortcomings.   The lichess games you presented are full of elementary oversights.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;II. Play romantic openings&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am talking about go for the throat openings including gambits.  It has nothing to do with the inherit value of these openings and everything to do with developing as a chess player.  If you can't play sharp you won't succeed, so spend some time playing this way before you adopt a more positional approach.&#xA;The games you shared show weakness in combative play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;III. Take it from a World Champion&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Get a book(s) written by the player who was a world champion, and study one or two games a night.  Try to read through the games as if you are playing them.  Guess the moves, analyse continuations, and then see what the player does and comments.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Great books are &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;Tal Botvinnik 1960&quot; by Tal&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;Smyslov's 125 Selected Games&quot; by Smyslov&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;My Best Games&quot; by Karpov&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and it goes on and on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;IV. Solve&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Eat tactic and endgame puzzles daily&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Final comment&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;You shouldn't be spending a lot of time on openings at your rating, but with the romantic openings you are basically studying tactics and developing a sharp vision.  Good luck.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2019-08-06T20:36:21.197" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25088" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24889" CreationDate="2019-08-06T20:36:21.937" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Android 32 bits? stockfish-10armv7&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Android 64 bits? stockfish-10arm64v8 and stockfish-10-arm64-pgo&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;stockfish-10-arm64-pgo is faster but also with larger file&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7608" LastActivityDate="2019-08-06T20:36:21.937" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25089" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15210" CreationDate="2019-08-07T09:50:42.923" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;A triple check hasn't been mentioned here, but it's appeared here: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/18064/is-triple-check-possible&quot;&gt;Is triple check possible?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;@MeniRosenfeld's example 4a covers this but brings up one concrete case that could catch people napping, because without doubled pawns, it might initially seem like there are no captures. Of course, it would have to be disguised a bit better, maybe with white pawns at d4/e5 and black at d5/e4:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;pawn switch&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;rnbqkbnr/p1pppppp/8/1P6/1p6/8/P1PPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And to riff on the entombed bishop from @AlexPetrov's second example,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;jumpy rook&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;7k/8/8/8/p1p5/PpPp4/1P1P4/2B2RRK w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The bishop can never have moved, so the a1-rook could never have jumped over it, either. We actually do need both white rooks on the board for this position to be illegal, because it's possible a knight could've gone to b3 and taken the rook on a1 (or a2 or b1, if the game was really weird) and retreated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I suppose false-flag illegal positions (such as without the rooks) would be their own puzzle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ETA: Evargalo makes a good point about underpromoting rooks. I should have kept all White's pawns on the board just to make sure. But then the position would seem even more contrived.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11202" LastEditorUserId="11202" LastEditDate="2019-08-07T11:34:48.623" LastActivityDate="2019-08-07T11:34:48.623" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25090" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25091" CreationDate="2019-08-07T11:54:39.010" Score="3" ViewCount="2643" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am working on a simple cheat detection script to find if a user used one of the  top engine moves in a game, so I found this great python-chess library&#xA;Additionally, &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/15723/returning-scores-for-all-possible-moves-from-a-chess-engine/15734#comment39098_15734&quot;&gt;I found this example&lt;/a&gt; to getting the moves score. But that topic is an old version of the lib so I tried to update the script. However, I keep getting errors, and I don't know how to get the scores in the right way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;import asyncio&#xA;import chess&#xA;#import chess.uci&#xA;import chess.engine&#xA;import chess.pgn&#xA;import io&#xA;#Let's try our code with the starting position of chess:&#xA;&#xA;fen = 'rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1'&#xA;board = chess.Board(fen)&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;#Now make sure you give the correct location for your stockfish engine file&#xA;#...in the line follows: e.g., /home/.../stockfish_6_x64&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;engine = chess.engine.SimpleEngine.popen_uci('/home/shar/Desktop/cheat detect python/stockfish-10-linux/Linux/stockfish_10_x64')&#xA;&#xA;if board.turn: print( 'White to move');&#xA;else: print( 'black to move');&#xA;&#xA;for el in board.legal_moves:&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;    pgn = io.StringIO(board.san(el))&#xA;&#xA;    thnwpgntofen = chess.pgn.read_game(pgn);&#xA;    nwinfo = engine.analysis(thnwpgntofen.board());&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;    print(nwinfo[&quot;score&quot;])&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;    print(&quot;-------------------------&quot;);&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I get this error after running my code:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Traceback (most recent call last):   File &quot;prntengmv.py&quot;, line 37, in&#xA;  &#xA;      print(nwinfo[&quot;score&quot;]) TypeError: 'SimpleAnalysisResult' object is not subscriptable&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19047" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-03-04T21:43:03.430" LastActivityDate="2020-03-04T21:43:03.430" Title="Python-chess : how to get a list for the best engine moves" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;programming&gt;&lt;python&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25091" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25090" CreationDate="2019-08-07T14:15:38.273" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;As per: &lt;a href=&quot;https://python-chess.readthedocs.io/en/latest/engine.html#indefinite-or-infinite-analysis&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://python-chess.readthedocs.io/en/latest/engine.html#indefinite-or-infinite-analysis&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;engine.analysis(board)&lt;/code&gt; now returns an &lt;code&gt;AnalysisResult&lt;/code&gt; object, which has the property &lt;code&gt;info&lt;/code&gt; that you want.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So instead of:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;nwinfo = engine.analysis(...)&#xA;print(nwinfo[&quot;score&quot;])&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You would loop over &lt;code&gt;info&lt;/code&gt; in the &lt;code&gt;AnalysisResult&lt;/code&gt;, and print the score property from each element:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;with engine.analysis(...) as analysis:&#xA;    for info in analysis:&#xA;        print(info.get(&quot;score&quot;))&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, your use case looks like it may benefit from &lt;a href=&quot;https://python-chess.readthedocs.io/en/latest/engine.html#analysing-and-evaluating-a-position&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;code&gt;engine.analyse&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/a&gt; more than &lt;code&gt;engine.analysis&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10075" LastEditorUserId="10075" LastEditDate="2019-08-07T14:33:14.920" LastActivityDate="2019-08-07T14:33:14.920" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25092" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27407" CreationDate="2019-08-07T21:44:11.910" Score="5" ViewCount="178" Body="&lt;p&gt;When a USCF rated tournament is submitted for rating, the tournament director submits to the USCF a set of dBase III files (.DBF files) that include the tournament data.  I've never seen a description of the structure of those files anywhere - I mean, I know they're dBase files, but as far as the fields and such.  Does such a description exist?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A long while back, I was talking to someone at the USCF who worked on the website and online tournament submission, who told me that there was in the planning stages an XML-based format for submitting tournament results, and that it was in limited testing at that time.  I've never seen nor heard anything else about this since then.  Is anything like this still in progress?  Is there a description of that format anywhere?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7147" LastActivityDate="2019-12-16T18:40:48.387" Title="Is there a description of the files used by USCF ratings reports?" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;uscf&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25093" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-08-08T02:48:34.460" Score="6" ViewCount="5848" Body="&lt;p&gt;If a pawn is promoted to queen adjacent to the enemy king, is the king instantly in check?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19772" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-08-08T03:13:50.867" LastActivityDate="2019-08-11T20:12:06.840" Title="If a pawn is promoted to queen beside the king is the king instantly in check?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;pawn-promotion&gt;&lt;check&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="9" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25094" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25093" CreationDate="2019-08-08T05:42:07.917" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;If the pawn is adjacent to king before promoting, it's already in check. For example, pawn is on e7 and King is on d8, king is in check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, if pawn is 1 rank away from king and is promoted to queen, yes king is instantly in check. For example, pawn in on c7 and king is on e8, if c8Q, king is in check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is applicable for all the pieces not only for Queen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17361" LastActivityDate="2019-08-08T05:42:07.917" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25095" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-08-08T09:28:57.077" Score="3" ViewCount="647" Body="&lt;p&gt;My goal is to make a script to finding the most and least likely move an engine will play, and then make a list it. I tried using the scores to make such a list, with the best score equalling the most likely move,  but every time I got d ifferent scores for the same position. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After compering high-scoring moves with engine moves with the code &lt;code&gt;engine.play(board, chess.engine.Limit(time=0.100))&lt;/code&gt;, I noticed that the engine moves are totally different from the move that have the highest score on my outputs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I use the same version from my engine, but onvother sites that have the engine installed, I found that it chooses a different move from what my engine script chooses. I know that the engine is  not just a bot who is repeating moves every time, but what's the best way make it as such?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is my code if you want to have a look:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;import asyncio&#xA;import chess&#xA;#import chess.uci&#xA;import chess.engine&#xA;import chess.pgn&#xA;import io&#xA;from chess.engine import Cp, Mate, MateGiven&#xA;#Let's try our code with the starting position of chess:&#xA;&#xA;fen = 'rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1'&#xA;board = chess.Board(fen)&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;#Now make sure you give the correct location for your stockfish engine file&#xA;#...in the line that follows: e.g., /home/.../stockfish_6_x64&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;engine = chess.engine.SimpleEngine.popen_uci('/home/shar/Desktop/cheat detect python/stockfish-10-linux/Linux/stockfish_10_x64')&#xA;&#xA;if board.turn: print( 'White to move');&#xA;else: print( 'black to move');&#xA;counter = 0&#xA;while counter &amp;lt; 1:&#xA;  # do processing&#xA;  counter = counter + 1&#xA;&#xA;  result = engine.play(board, chess.engine.Limit(time=0.100))&#xA;  print('the engine move',result.move)&#xA;&#xA;#getting legal moves scores part&#xA;for el in board.legal_moves:&#xA;&#xA;    pgn = io.StringIO(board.san(el))&#xA;&#xA;    thnwpgntofen = chess.pgn.read_game(pgn);&#xA;    nwinfo = engine.analyse(thnwpgntofen.board(),chess.engine.Limit(time=0.100));&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;    print(board.san(el),nwinfo.get(&quot;score&quot;), nwinfo.get(&quot;depth&quot;))&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;    print(&quot;-------------------------&quot;);&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19047" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-03-04T21:43:35.233" LastActivityDate="2020-03-04T21:43:35.233" Title="Python-chess : Are the move scores enough to rank moves from the most to least likely moves played by an engine?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;programming&gt;&lt;python&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25096" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25034" CreationDate="2019-08-08T12:20:32.733" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;PGN file format is a simple text format.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portable_Game_Notation&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portable_Game_Notation&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So ideally you should be able to save your text as pgn and import in GUI.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However it depends on GUI how strict the rules are for importing pgn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, you can copy paste your text or import your pgn here and it works perfectly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/paste&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://lichess.org/paste&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17361" LastActivityDate="2019-08-08T12:20:32.733" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25097" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25093" CreationDate="2019-08-08T13:03:14.823" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;Per FIDE Chess Laws, rule 3.1, a piece is said to attack an opponent’s piece if the player’s piece can make a capture on that square (and in one more special case not relevant here).  In full:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is not permitted to move a piece to a square occupied by a piece of the same colour. If a piece moves to a square occupied by an opponent’s piece the latter is captured and removed from the chessboard as part of the same move. A piece is said to attack an opponent’s piece if the piece could make a capture on that square according to Articles 3.2 to 3.8.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A piece is considered to attack a square even if this piece is constrained from moving to that square because it would then leave or place the king of its own colour under attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Per rule 3.9, the king is in check when it is attacked by one or more of the opponent’s pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, as soon as the move is completed, the king is in check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9555" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2019-08-08T13:03:14.823" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25098" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24888" CreationDate="2019-08-08T15:28:39.337" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;I managed to find the ultimate records in the &lt;a href=&quot;https://pdb.dieschwalbe.de/index.jsp&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Die Schwable Chess Problem Database.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Anthony Stewart &amp;amp; Mackay Dickens, Feenschach 9/1969, 113 Stalemating Moves&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;6R1/PPPPPP2/7R/1K6/2N1BN2/2B4p/P4P1k/3Q4 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://pdb.dieschwalbe.de/P0005616&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Source Page&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Anthony Stewart &amp;amp; Mackay Dickens, Feenschach 1/1969, 211 Stalemating Moves&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;4Q2R/1K4Q1/3Q4/Q4Q2/2Q4Q/4Q3/1Q4Rp/1N1BB1Nk w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://pdb.dieschwalbe.de/P1178842&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Source Page&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-05-02T16:47:26.817" LastActivityDate="2021-05-02T16:47:26.817" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25099" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9186" CreationDate="2019-08-08T15:37:17.300" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I stopped playing Bf5 because that is the most explored Caro-Kann line... I recommend playing 3..c5 instead (Botvinnik–Carls Defense). Yes, it is sharp, but I find it relatively straightforward to learn, and play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you still prefer Advance-Shirov, then I recommend either 4..Nd7 (I like it because Black develops another piece) for a quiet/solid opening, or as you mentioned, 4..e6. However, if you would like to have a complicated game, I recommend immediate 4..h5!? I play this move with success quite often as it confuses White, plus it is a perfectly sound move. If it works for GM Sergey Kasparov it should work for us, club players...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4501" LastActivityDate="2019-08-08T15:37:17.300" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25100" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-08-08T17:36:51.447" Score="4" ViewCount="508" Body="&lt;p&gt;We all know the Sicilian as shown below, is one of the most famous and commonly employed openings in chess. But compared to the other replies, which tend to be more about fixing the center (such as &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt;, or the French &lt;code&gt;e6-d5&lt;/code&gt;, Caro-kann &lt;code&gt;c6-d5&lt;/code&gt;), the Sicilian tends not only to not fix the center, at least more often than not,&#xA;but it also starts from a pawn non-central pawn move which doesn't liberate any of our bishops or knights. On top of that, it is not a move on our kingside, which means relative&#xA;to white's &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; we will be slower in developing our kingside pieces. As opposed to starting with &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt; and still stopping &lt;code&gt;d4.&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I started pondering this question after I had read the &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/q/22954/15078&quot;&gt;discussions on this post&lt;/a&gt;, which was about the point behind Ruy-Lopez and why it's good for white.&#xA;So considering those discussions and the above points, my question is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;At a conceptual and strategic level, what makes the Sicilian a sensible opening for black?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Diagram:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [title &quot;The Sicilian opening&quot;]&#xA; [fen &quot;rnbqkbnr/pp1ppppp/8/2p5/4P3/8/PPPP1PPP/RNBQKBNR b KQkq - 0 2&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15078" LastActivityDate="2019-08-09T15:17:24.037" Title="Conceptually, what makes the Sicilian opening sensible for black?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25101" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25100" CreationDate="2019-08-08T18:15:44.493" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Note: Discussions are primarily from black's perspective.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It may be relevant to remind that one way or the other, most often, the Sicilian continues with white preparing the &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt; pawn push, which leads to a trade of the &lt;code&gt;c5-d4&lt;/code&gt; pawns.&#xA;Common starting lines are shown in the following diagram:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [title &quot;common starting lines&quot;]&#xA; [fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 (2...d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6) (2...e6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 Bb4) (2...g6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Bg7 5.Nc3 Nc6 6.Be3 Nf6) 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At a very basic and fundamental level, the Sicilian &lt;code&gt;1.e4 c5&lt;/code&gt; achieves the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Claims immediate control over the center, otherwise white would happily take the full sweet center with &lt;code&gt;e4-d4.&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Leads to a trade of a non-central pawn (&lt;code&gt;c7&lt;/code&gt;) for a white's central pawn (&lt;code&gt;d2&lt;/code&gt;)!&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Provides a certain degree of flexibility in how to commit the central &lt;code&gt;e-d&lt;/code&gt; pawns. And also breaks the symmetry right from the start, which tends to make the continuation of the game more dynamic.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the purposes of your question, I will further expand on the first two points:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Expanding on point 1:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Claiming their share of control over the center: white's &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; actives the queen and bishop, but more importantly it provides light square control in the center as it takes away &lt;code&gt;d5-f5&lt;/code&gt; from black. That does not mean &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt; is unplayable, in fact that opening exists (see &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scandinavian_Defense&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Scandinavian Defense&lt;/a&gt;) but it simply means black can't &lt;strong&gt;establish&lt;/strong&gt; a pawn on &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt; and maintain it, as white will immediately take. Similarly, black's &lt;code&gt;c5&lt;/code&gt; in return, provides dark square control as it controls &lt;code&gt;b4&lt;/code&gt; and more importantly &lt;code&gt;d4.&lt;/code&gt; On the plus side, it stops white from landing a pawn on &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt; without having had to commit their central pawns (black's &lt;code&gt;e &amp;amp; d&lt;/code&gt; pawns remain flexible still). But on the other hand, &lt;code&gt;c5&lt;/code&gt; is not a move that provides activity to any minor piece, in fact it only activates the queen, therefore, the setback of it is that it doesn't directly contribute to black's minor piece development, as you also hinted at in your question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;&lt;strong&gt;And on point 2: not all pawns are equal&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At a basic level of pawn consideration: the Sicilian almost always leads white to trade a central pawn for a non-central pawn, and that in itself is a gain for black!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To see why consider the following thought process: generally, we say pawns have a value of &lt;code&gt;1,&lt;/code&gt; as a means of quantifying their worth relative to the other pieces, which are dynamically faster and move reversibly. But amongst the pawns themselves, do they all have the same value still? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well let's consider e.g. white's queenside pawns: the &lt;code&gt;a2&lt;/code&gt; pawn which is at the boundary of the board, only provides control over one square, namely &lt;code&gt;b3.&lt;/code&gt; In contrast, the &lt;code&gt;b2&lt;/code&gt; pawn being slightly away from the boundary, provides control over 2 squares, &lt;code&gt;a3&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;c3.&lt;/code&gt; And even when you push these pawns, the relative control they provide remains similar. However, things become more interesting towards the more central pawns: the &lt;code&gt;c2&lt;/code&gt; pawn, also provides control over 2 squares, but when pushed for example to &lt;code&gt;c4&lt;/code&gt;, it also provides us with control over a central square, namely &lt;code&gt;d5,&lt;/code&gt; and a non-central and less important square, &lt;code&gt;b5.&lt;/code&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And finally, the pawn on &lt;code&gt;d2,&lt;/code&gt; when pushed to &lt;code&gt;d4,&lt;/code&gt; it provides control over a central (&lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt;) square and a near-central (&lt;code&gt;c5&lt;/code&gt;) square, meaning it secures more central space than a &lt;code&gt;c&lt;/code&gt; pawn is capable of doing&lt;sup&gt;2&lt;/sup&gt;. So, with all that in mind, doesn't it stand to reason that the central pawns are in fact worth more than the side pawns? and indeed it does. Intuitively, if you imagine the &lt;code&gt;b2&lt;/code&gt; pawn being worth &lt;code&gt;1,&lt;/code&gt; then the &lt;code&gt;a2&lt;/code&gt; pawn is something like &lt;code&gt;0.9,&lt;/code&gt; and the &lt;code&gt;d&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;e&lt;/code&gt; pawns are probably close to &lt;code&gt;1.1-1.2.&lt;/code&gt; But the absolute values you assign to them do not matter much, it's more important to remember conceptually their differences.&#xA;To conclude this point, in the Sicilian, black is in fact exchanging the pawn on &lt;code&gt;c7&lt;/code&gt; for the pawn on &lt;code&gt;d2,&lt;/code&gt; so clearly, black's getting away with a better deal in that regard&lt;sup&gt;1&lt;/sup&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I guess the common denominator of all these discussions and different points boils down to the control over the center. This cannot be emphasized enough: Having the center, your pieces move and reroute more efficiently across the board, they also see a larger portion of the board when centralised. So much like the pawn comparison above, it's as if their relative worth increases when they are placed more centrally. Compare a bishop on &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt; which sees 13 other squares distributed over two diagonals (so sees both the king and queen side), to a bishop on &lt;code&gt;h8&lt;/code&gt; which sees 7 squares only, and all of them along the same diagonal. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Two Caveats:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;sup&gt;&lt;sup&gt;1&lt;/sup&gt;: All things considered, it begs to ask: doesn't all this mean that black should even be better by playing the Sicilian? What does white have to gain by allowing all this?&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;Short answer:&lt;/strong&gt; tempo and initiative. &#xA;&lt;strong&gt;Longer answer:&lt;/strong&gt; To understand these things you need to always remember than chess is never that linear, and that there are many more angles to consider before we can fully assess a position. In this case, white has the better activity and develops more efficiently. These stem from the fact that in the Sicilian white's first 2 pawn moves in the game are (often) &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; (by definition) and &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt; (after being prepared by &lt;code&gt;Nf3&lt;/code&gt;). Thus, both our bishops are activated, and nothing prohibits our knights from being developed centrally. Sure, white trades a better &lt;code&gt;d2&lt;/code&gt; pawn for a &lt;code&gt;c&lt;/code&gt; pawn, but in return the &lt;code&gt;d&lt;/code&gt; file becomes semi-open for white, along which white will exert pressure (and so should do black along its own semi-open file, namely the &lt;code&gt;c&lt;/code&gt; file). Being up in development means we castle faster, and have more pieces in play, so white will still be for the most part dictating the flow of the game.  &lt;/sup&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;sup&gt;&lt;sup&gt;2&lt;/sup&gt; One might ask whether the relative worth of the &lt;code&gt;e-f-g-h&lt;/code&gt; pawns follows symmetrically from the discussion of the queenside pawns.  Partly yes, but major difference is that these are &lt;em&gt;kingside&lt;/em&gt; pawns, and as such, their movement leaves behind weaknesses around the king. So if you will, the king is what breaks the symmetry between the left and right side of the board. For example, when the &lt;code&gt;c2&lt;/code&gt; pawn moves, it leaves light square weaknesses behind it but these are squares that are of lesser concern for black as often the king will not lie behind them. In contrast, when the &lt;code&gt;f&lt;/code&gt; pawn moves, it weakens the dark squares around the king and exposes it to diagonal attacks (and leaves holes for pieces to land on near your king.)&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3594" LastActivityDate="2019-08-08T18:15:44.493" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25102" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24118" CreationDate="2019-08-09T03:06:40.793" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Regarding the bonus question, for 4 “natural” pins, here is a position with &lt;strong&gt;30 units.&lt;/strong&gt; 31 is the theoretical maximum though, since the White queen would take too many units to stalemate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;me, chess.stackexchange.com 8/9/2019&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;4r3/1b1pB3/1nRP1pkb/pPp4p/PrB1K1pP/1P2PpP1/2R2P2/Nqn4N w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-04-29T22:21:17.470" LastActivityDate="2021-04-29T22:21:17.470" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25103" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12609" CreationDate="2019-08-09T09:59:14.273" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are loads of PGN file database download sites, the best and most comprehensive one is probably PGN Mentor at &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.pgnmentor.com/files.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.pgnmentor.com/files.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BUT...very few have annotated game collections, so I have put about 950 annotated games, which are in 9 separate &quot;.pgn&quot; files, here &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://pgnchessbook.org/pgn/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Annotated PGN file download page&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;for people to download&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19786" LastEditorUserId="19786" LastEditDate="2019-08-20T08:44:37.597" LastActivityDate="2019-08-20T08:44:37.597" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25105" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25100" CreationDate="2019-08-09T15:17:24.037" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Bent Larsen&lt;/strong&gt; said the Sicilian defense is an opening trick.  Referring to an open Sicilian where White trades his d-pawn for Blacks c-pawn.  Suddenly Black has a pawn majority in the center and if he can, say trade the d-pawn for White's e-pawn he can then get his e-pawn to occupy the center; thus getting an advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Bobby Fischer&lt;/strong&gt; said the Sicilian is not a defense but a vicious counter-attack.  Whether a closed or open Sicilian, Black is going for counter-play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You argue that c5 doesn't help development and you are correct!  This is the entire argument for playing the open Sicilian as White.  Can Black survive to capitalize on his extra center pawn?&#xA;Clearly there are tons of games where Black is blown off the board, but there are also plenty of games where Black smashes White (just look at Kasparov's games).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, what makes it &quot;strategically sensible&quot;?  Well, it has proven to be strategically sound; sensible would have to consider your goals for that particular game.  Do you want to have a all out fight or do you want to be safer with less chances for a full point?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2019-08-09T15:17:24.037" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25106" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25107" CreationDate="2019-08-09T18:27:22.573" Score="15" ViewCount="3826" Body="&lt;p&gt;We all know the shortest possible checkmate is 4 ply:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;f3 e5&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;g4 Qh5#&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This isn't the only possible move order. In fact, there are 8, depending on whether white moves the f or g pawn first, whether he moves the f pawn to f3 or f4, and whether black plays e6 or e5. Of course, this makes up only a tiny fraction of the possible 4-ply sequences of moves, but these are the only ones that end the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What I'm looking for is, for small numbers of ply, how many sequences of moves end in checkmate vs not ending in checkmate. Ideally what I'd like is something along the lines of&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;4 ply: X non-checkmate sequences, 8 4-ply checkmates&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;5 ply: Y non-checkmate sequences, 8 4-ply checkmates, N 5-ply checkmates&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;6 ply: Z non-checkmate sequences, 8 4-ply checkmates, N 5-ply checkmates, M 6-ply checkmates&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and so on for as deep as this is reasonable to do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is inspired by a &lt;a href=&quot;https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/3318378/probability-of-duplicated-games-in-chess/3318496&quot;&gt;Math.SE&lt;/a&gt; question about the probability of two players making random moves resulting in the same chess game. I suspect the short games heavily dominate this probability, which should make the probability easy to approximate, but it'd be nice to have the real numbers to work with.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12377" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2019-08-11T03:21:03.687" Title="How many different ways are there to checkmate in the early game?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;checkmate&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25107" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25106" CreationDate="2019-08-09T19:41:34.937" Score="27" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are no checkmates from 0-3 ply.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;4 ply: 8 checkmates, 197,281 total nodes&#xA;5 ply: 347 checkmates, 4,865,609 total nodes&#xA;6 ply: 10,828 checkmates, 119,060,324 total nodes&#xA;7 ply: 435,767 checkmates, 3,195,901,860 total nodes&#xA;8 ply: 9,852,036 checkmates, 84,998,978,956 total nodes&#xA;9 ply: 400,191,963 checkmates, 2,439,530,234,167 total nodes&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;checkmates&quot; is the number of checkmating moves made on the final ply. So for 5 ply, there are 347 checkmating sequences of exactly length 5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These values are from: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessprogramming.org/Perft_Results&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.chessprogramming.org/Perft_Results&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Currently there is no checkmate data for 10 ply and above, presumably due to the computational resources needed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To obtain more specific data (e.g. the lines themselves), you would need to write your own perft program which saves lines ending in checkmate. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10075" LastEditorUserId="10075" LastEditDate="2019-08-10T16:29:39.423" LastActivityDate="2019-08-10T16:29:39.423" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25108" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25106" CreationDate="2019-08-09T20:35:04.520" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here's a simple Python program that answers the question but is slow, taking 40 minutes to run to 5 plies on my laptop (and increasing at least 30-fold per additional ply). A nice thing is that it prints out the games, if you need that. I could post the output here but didn't want to make a 347-line long answer... :-)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;import chess&#xA;from chess import pgn&#xA;&#xA;def dfs(board, depth):&#xA;    global n&#xA;    result = board.result(claim_draw=True)&#xA;    if result != '*':&#xA;        game = pgn.Game.from_board(board)&#xA;        print(game.mainline())&#xA;    elif depth &amp;gt; 0:&#xA;        moves = list(board.legal_moves)&#xA;        for move in moves:&#xA;            n += 1&#xA;            board.push(move)&#xA;            dfs(board, depth-1)&#xA;            board.pop()&#xA;&#xA;n = 0&#xA;try:&#xA;    board = chess.Board()&#xA;    dfs(board, 4)&#xA;except KeyboardInterrupt:&#xA;    pass&#xA;print(n, 'positions checked')&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12523" LastActivityDate="2019-08-09T20:35:04.520" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25110" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25106" CreationDate="2019-08-10T14:13:40.733" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;The top person that I know for this kind of analysis is François Labelle, who has computed many numbers associated with chess (including an estimate of the maximum growth rate of the number of chess games as a function of ply) and in particular has computed the number of checkmates up to ply 13. For values up to ply 12, see the figure in &lt;a href=&quot;http://wismuth.com/chess/chess.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://wismuth.com/chess/chess.html&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then at &lt;a href=&quot;http://wismuth.com/chess/statistics-games.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://wismuth.com/chess/statistics-games.html&lt;/a&gt;, he gives specific figures up to ply 13, which has 346,742,245,764,219 checkmate games apparently.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the total number of games, he quotes results from others who've gone up to ply 15(!) but I think they didn't track checkmates.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From plies 5-13 there's about 1 chance in 10,000 that a move delivers mate. But it seems to be significantly easier to mate as White compared to Black:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/hgXfW.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/hgXfW.png&quot; alt=&quot;graph of ply versus mate chance&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The growth rate of number of games is also greater for White moves over Black moves, but that's just about 1%, much weaker than the pattern identified here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I enjoy random games of chess. Sometime it would be nice to link that with an online quantum random number generator, to have a program which is playing all games of chess, if the multiple worlds hypothesis holds.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8201" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2019-08-11T03:21:03.687" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25111" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25106" CreationDate="2019-08-10T17:42:46.507" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;This sequence of integers is known as &lt;a href=&quot;https://oeis.org/A079485&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;A079485&lt;/a&gt; in the On-Line Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences (OEIS) and numbers up to and including 13 ply are known with various references available.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15806" LastActivityDate="2019-08-10T17:42:46.507" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25112" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25093" CreationDate="2019-08-11T04:07:14.243" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I initially thought that it isn't possible to promote a pawn on a back rank square that is adjacent to the king, as that would suggest that the opposing king was left in check on the previous turn. But remellion pointed out that a pawn could promote on a square adjacent to the king if it captures on its promoting move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Either way, assuming no pieces are between the promoted pawn to queen and the opposing king, the white king would be in check on this next turn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19802" LastEditorUserId="19802" LastEditDate="2019-08-11T20:12:06.840" LastActivityDate="2019-08-11T20:12:06.840" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25113" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25139" CreationDate="2019-08-11T10:36:26.377" Score="11" ViewCount="5488" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recently saw this mate-in-2 problem&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[title &quot;White to mate in 2&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;8/8/8/2B5/2p5/1kp5/8/R3K3 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This was posed with the hint that the player of the White pieces was a strong player and Black was a novice. The take away was that White was offering rook odds, started the game without a rook on a1 and the rook now on a1 had started on h1. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The key was that White castles queenside with the ghost of the rook given as odds so the king moved from e1 to c1 and the rook on a1 stayed where it was. This forces Black to play c2 allowing White to play Ra3 mate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This raises two questions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is castling with a &quot;ghost&quot; rook like this legal where there has&#xA;never been a rook on a1 because it was given as odds at the start of&#xA;the game?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is castling with a &quot;ghost&quot; rook like this legal&#xA;where there was a rook on a1 at the start of the game but it was&#xA;captured before it could move?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The replayer doesn't like it. It will only allow castling with a real rook.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-08-11T10:50:05.473" LastActivityDate="2021-05-02T16:53:56.010" Title="Can you castle with a &quot;ghost&quot; rook?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;odds&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25114" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2019-08-11T10:41:26.123" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-08-11T10:41:26.123" LastActivityDate="2019-08-11T10:41:26.123" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25115" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2019-08-11T10:41:26.123" Score="0" Body="For questions about games where odds have been given or about giving odds usually to handicap the stronger player. e.g. &quot;pawn and move odds&quot; means the stronger player is black and has the f7 pawn removed before play starts, &quot;knight odds&quot; means the stronger player is white and has the b1 knight removed before play starts." OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-08-11T10:41:26.123" LastActivityDate="2019-08-11T10:41:26.123" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25116" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25113" CreationDate="2019-08-11T10:49:08.587" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, not really. Some problemists might use your case 1 as a joke, but it's not really legal. Your case 2 is certainly not legal (even if the rook had never moved).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10380" LastActivityDate="2019-08-11T10:49:08.587" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25117" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1312" CreationDate="2019-08-11T11:08:07.103" Score="0" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;the opponent tells the computer program which move it must make&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Every GUI / front-end which allows you to switch between playing against the engine (normally the default mode) and &quot;infinite analysis&quot; has this functionality.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All you need to do on your turn before the computer move you want to force is switch on &quot;infinite analysis&quot;, make the forced move for the computer or sequence of forced moves and then switch &quot;infinite analysis&quot; off again.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2019-08-11T11:08:07.103" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25118" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25113" CreationDate="2019-08-11T16:32:44.230" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;@Remellion suggested in a comment, less than an hour ago, for a directmate joke problem in which the key is to capture a ghost rook in order to prevent ghost castling as a defense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As such, I decided to make such a problem just for fun. This is what I came up with. The White rook &amp;quot;on a1 must be &amp;quot;captured&amp;quot; first to prevent the White king from casting away from the mating net.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;me, chess.stackexchange.com 9/1/2019, Black Mates In 4&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;r6B/1p2p3/8/8/8/3p1k1p/3P4/4K3 b - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Ra1+! Bxa1 2. h2 Bd4 3. h1=Q+ Bg1 4. Qxg1#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I suppose the way these &amp;quot;ghost&amp;quot; rooks are as spectators. They are invisible, can be moved through, and can't interact with other pieces, similar to a ghost. But other pieces can choose to not interact with it by sitting on the square, and a one-time &amp;quot;capture&amp;quot; can be done at any time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The technicality here is that since the rook is still there, and castling counts is king move. It can be moved without ever moving on its own. As such, interesting problems can be created.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An interesting concept that arises from this definition of a ghost rook is that a piece can capture two enemy pieces on the same square. If White moves a piece to a8 a Black piece can do a &amp;quot;double capture.&amp;quot; The player giving the odds may retain their castling rights if they move onto the rook's square. The ghost rook can be “captured” though if an enemy piece is there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While these rulesets can be applied to any &amp;quot;ghosted&amp;quot; piece, minus the king, the rook is the only interesting case due to the castling possibilities there are to explore.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-05-02T16:53:56.010" LastActivityDate="2021-05-02T16:53:56.010" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25119" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25120" CreationDate="2019-08-11T18:46:41.173" Score="0" ViewCount="122" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this extreme examplethe c5 pawn is defended three times, though white can take the pawn with an advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;2r1k3/2r5/2q5/2p5/8/8/PPR5/KN4B1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What about if the defender is a higher value piece than the attackers, even though it's defended and attacked twice? Clearly, White can take the pawn with an advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;8/8/3k4/2p2q2/8/8/PPR5/KN4B1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now it's not hanging:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;8/8/3k4/2p2r2/8/8/PPR5/KN4B1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What do you call these type of situations if it's not hanging piece?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This position also has a hanging piece:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;2b4k/3q2pp/8/5p2/8/2B1N3/PP6/KN4Q1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19717" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-08-11T21:35:46.587" LastActivityDate="2019-08-11T21:35:46.587" Title="Is a piece hanging if it is defended by a higher value piece?" Tags="&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;patterns&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25120" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25119" CreationDate="2019-08-11T19:39:57.553" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This would still be called a hanging piece. &lt;strong&gt;If the piece can be taken with impunity&lt;/strong&gt;, it is a hanging piece. It is irrelevant how many attackers there are on the piece, how many defenders there are on the piece, or the point value of the attackers/defenders. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3884" LastEditorUserId="3884" LastEditDate="2019-08-11T19:52:58.007" LastActivityDate="2019-08-11T19:52:58.007" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25121" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25122" CreationDate="2019-08-12T11:02:18.570" Score="4" ViewCount="4681" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm learning chess and I practice in the chess.com app. I don't understand how the winning points are calculated in every match.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/KOmoc.png&quot; height=&quot;500&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/7Rjbv.jpg&quot; height=&quot;300&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19815" LastEditorUserId="9025" LastEditDate="2019-08-13T19:55:45.003" LastActivityDate="2019-08-13T19:55:45.003" Title="Why did I get only 5 points even though I won?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;rating&gt;&lt;online-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25122" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25121" CreationDate="2019-08-12T11:17:49.063" Score="20" Body="&lt;p&gt;Most chess sites use some variant of the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elo_rating_system&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Elo rating system&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you have a much higher rating than your opponent, the expectation is that you will win. So if you do win, then we haven't gained that much information, so the change in rating for both you and your opponent will be small. If your opponent wins, there will be a much larger change in rating as their win was less expected.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your case, you have a rating of 775 and your opponent had a rating of 651. Since you have a much higher rating, winning didn't result in a large rating increase. If you had won against someone much higher rated than you, you would have experienced a much larger rating increase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mathematically, the rating change of each player is calculated as some empirical constant (K, 32 is often used) multiplied by the difference between the actual score and the expected score of that player against the other. The expected score is calculated from the difference of the two ratings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10075" LastActivityDate="2019-08-12T11:17:49.063" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25123" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-08-12T11:27:31.257" Score="3" ViewCount="182" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would like to play online chess via an interface where name and FIDE number are disclosed, mainly because I believe that this discourages engine users.&#xA;A few questions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I found the FIDE Arena application, and thought it indeed required&#xA;disclosure of personal info, but after trying it out it&#xA;doesn't seem so. Is that perhaps only a requirement for paying&#xA;users? Any info what be appreciated on this.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Any other platform that enforces such a requirement?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12953" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-08-12T12:58:39.603" LastActivityDate="2020-09-05T22:50:01.317" Title="Online chess with full disclosure of name and FIDE ID" Tags="&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;fide&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="13" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25125" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13696" CreationDate="2019-08-12T17:02:37.870" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;2300 is a lofty goal, but I'll humor you.  You need to progress with baby steps.  Also, 30 minutes a day is nothing.  Perhaps you need more practice a day.  Now, you said you were high 1600s, but I'll assume 1700 for an easy number to crunch.  This means 600 point of improvement, and this will make you a tactical master.  You are probably miles away from a master, which is okay, and must take this slowly. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are some tricks to help make you very strong in a year, assuming you commit yourself religiously.  This did work for me. I am only rated 1539 because I haven't done tournaments in a while, but I learned how to consistently draw/beat 2100s easily, because I played several skittles games and nonrated events at camps, my tactics in standard on chess tempo are well above 2000, and I've met people with the exact same story (except they are more active than I in tournaments).  Plus, you have coaching experience, and I don't.  You have an advantage that I don't have, so I think you can do it too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Discipline.  Mastery is a commitment.  It takes long working hours, a lot of homework, and a strict critic, which is yourself.  Buy yourself complex endgame books, like that of Jesus de la Villa or Mark Dvoretsky.  Purchase Think Like a Grandmaster by Alexander Kotov to boost tactics even further and learn how to analyze complexities properly.  Now, at 1600, these books are tricky, but they hold everything you need for mastery except maybe opening knowledge, which is more crucial than some think.  You just need to harness it, and you can do that with tactics.  Read these books front to back, and you will see significant improvements, but be sure to read it for content.  As with tactics, I'd recommend two hours a day.  At this point, tactics matter most (arguably).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Projections.  If you are like me, you like numbers, and chess tempo offers great opportunity for that.  Set a criteria daily, weekly, and/or monthly/bimonthly as to how much comprehensive studying you want to get done within these time periods.  Daily schedules are the most important.  Want to be 2300 in a year? 600 divided by 365 is 1.643..., which should be paired by your side goal or two hours a day, meaning you still need to practice that long a day, but you want to be that many points higher.  So, day one you are 1700 and you mess up and drop to 1690 after two hours.  The goal was 1702 today (I'm rounding to 2) and the day is done.  Tomorrow is 1704.  What now?  Well, I hope you know why you got these problems wrong, because you're shooting for 1704 tomorrow.  This doesn't seem like a whole lot, and it isn't.  The point is you can still, at this rate, make it to 2300 during your year, and you also have the time to absorb the knowledge from every level.  As with reading, read maybe 10 pages of endgame a day with 10 pages of middlegame theory or book tactics, like Think Like a GM by Kotov and a constant stream of opening patterns and theory in your favorite openings, which I won't really focus on.  &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Practice playing somebody frequently who beats the crap out of you all the time.  Analyze your games on chess.com and figure out your mistakes you that you don't make similar ones again.  &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For me, I used an engine, which is a great resource.  Try stockfish, because it's cheap and easy to get your hands on it.  I used an app called Chess Tiger, in which the computer is rated 2790 FIDE, apparently, on its max level, but it's not reliable and is frankly a bad engine.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I played chess with this thing so much it can't beat me anymore, but draws.  This does not mean I'm a good player.  It just means I figured out how to counter a predictable playing pattern from a lousy engine.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But the benefits are great!  You learn how to go down with a massive struggle and play brilliantly to the endgame, where things get most interesting. Plus, you learn how to think like that computer, which is a venomous weapon employable on the chess board.  Play serious chess with it, though, thinking long periods of time just like if it was a human on OTB.  You may not be able to beat it, but getting the crap beaten out of you teaches you how to defend yourself.  Maybe you'll beat your first grand master someday! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19818" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-08-12T18:00:36.680" LastActivityDate="2019-08-12T18:00:36.680" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25126" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-08-12T17:45:36.237" Score="7" ViewCount="865" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess has a fairly elegant set of rules, but it has two rather ugly &quot;rules hacks&quot; in it:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Pawns can move two squares forward, but only on their first move, and have the rather ugly rule of &lt;em&gt;en passant&lt;/em&gt; to get rid of the nasty side effect of having your 5th rank pawns get bypassed.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Castling lets you move two pieces at once, and has a bunch of rules about when you're allowed to do it.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, the usual justification of these is that they make the game go faster. According to &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/17617/why-is-en-passant-only-possible-on-the-first-opportunity?rq=1&quot;&gt;this question&lt;/a&gt;, the two-square pawn move was introduced because players would begin each game with 1. e3 e6 2. e4 e5 (or similar). Castling was a variation on the &quot;king's leap&quot; many chess variants had. It makes a certain degree of sense--games are meant to be fun, and why not get to the action more quickly?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, chess theory has advanced a lot since the 1500s. In modern opening theory, black often forgoes immediate center pawn moves. 1. e3 would likely meet the reply 1... Nf6, not 1... e6. It stands to reason that some of the considerations then may no longer be the case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, has anyone ever done any studies into what chess openings would look like without castling, without the double pawn move, or both?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12377" LastActivityDate="2021-05-02T14:25:24.510" Title="What would chess openings be like without castling and/or the double pawn move?" Tags="&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;castling&gt;&lt;en-passant&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25127" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1567" CreationDate="2019-08-13T22:02:49.440" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This was said by a team-mate while returning by car from an away match.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;I do hope I play old Frank in the return match. After our game tonight we analysed a line in the Giuoco Piano. Its good for White, in fact very good, but I was letting him win the analysis.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastActivityDate="2019-08-13T22:02:49.440" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25128" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1309" CreationDate="2019-08-14T01:52:28.610" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are already good answers tothis question, and the position is indeed full of food for thought. The position is very interesting because it is about to take on a clearer shape. Whoever makes the best preparation could obtain a big advantage. Not much has happened yet in this game. Certainly neither player has made a major error. In such situations it is usually a mistake to try and force matters. You just quietly get on with things. But what?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A really bad idea would be to focus all your thinking on forcing through with e4 to create a King-side attack. For one thing, you have to do a lot of work getting your pieces over there. For another, you will be wrecking your nice pawns by isolating your d-pawn. Also, he has no weaknesses over there for you to exploit. If K-side attacks are what you enjoy, why did you play this opening?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Dont try quite yet to decide the best plan, but play moves that will fit in whatever happens. The crucial question in this position is probably &quot;what will happen on the c-file?&quot; Is that backward pawn stuck there forever? Perhaps it is, because playing ..c5 does have some drawbacks, leaving the d-pawn isolated. So Black has a difficult choice to make. (Never do anything to make your opponents decisions easier!) Rfd1 comes into consideration. Your opponent will be reluctant to open up that Rooks file. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't really like Na4. It is tempting because it does attack both the Q and a weak square, but it puts the N on the rim. It does not yet threaten to move to c5, when White must retake with a P, after which his half-open file has disappeared, and even a N on the good square d4 does not achieve much. Leaving the N where it is still discourages ..c5 because of the pressure against d5. But there is not much to work with apart from the c-file, so suppose we try to prepare our play a bit, until we could put the N on c5 when we are able to retake with a piece. This needs some preparation, like N-d2-b3 (Maybe I should not play b3 because although it protects the pawn, it blocks the N trek. Arien would like to play a3 and b4, but then Black might get play with ..a5) Creating an outpost will not do much in itself, but it may prepare for pieces to penetrate in the endgame. Think of the K striding through. This is going to be a 60-move game! Blacks only counterplay seems to be a diversion on the K-side involving f6-f5-f4 after a lot of preparation. Attacks down the b-file can be parried by Qe2 and Rc2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have not looked at this position hard enough to know what I would play, and my choice may not be the best anyway, but I do know how I would try to think about it. White must try to exploit the c-file; it is the only asset he has gained from the opening. If you can think of a way to manoeuver your  pawns and pieces, plan this so they dont get in each others way. Dont settle on a definite plan too soon. Books will tell you that a bad plan is better than no plan. Don't believe them. Play, as far as possible, moves that can contribute, even indirectly, to as many possible plans as there may be. The nature of the best plan will reveal itself in the next phase of the game, as you both jockey for position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Good luck to you. You are taking the right steps to enjoy a deeper appreciation of the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastActivityDate="2019-08-14T01:52:28.610" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25129" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1302" CreationDate="2019-08-14T02:06:15.533" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There may be a psychological element. My impression is that 1.f4 is often played by weaker players, just to avoid the main line &quot;book&quot; that they fear from a strong opponent (although I dont want to impute that motive to anyone here). On the other hand, I think that 1..f5 is often played by strong opponents to prevent a weak White player from playing it safe.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastActivityDate="2019-08-14T02:06:15.533" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25130" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-08-14T07:38:38.537" Score="4" ViewCount="247" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/GYQm4.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Who has the advantage here? In general  whar will perform better in this scenario- 3 pawns vs. 3 pawns, or 4 pawns vs. 2 pawns?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19837" LastEditorUserId="19837" LastEditDate="2019-08-16T15:57:03.997" LastActivityDate="2019-08-18T15:26:29.497" Title="Who has the advantage here?" Tags="&lt;pawns&gt;&lt;pawn-structure&gt;&lt;advantage&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25131" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25130" CreationDate="2019-08-14T07:49:13.790" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Black is better&lt;/strong&gt; here, but this is much more due to piece activity and coordination than to the pawn structure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once upon a time (i.e. a century ago), it was thought that such structures gave a big advantage in endgames for the camp with 3 pawns on the queenside - because in the long term they can create an outer passed pawn. However, this has been debunked in practice since the times of Alekhine (who would &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1012078&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;enter&lt;/a&gt; such endgames on either side as long as he had more activity) and in theory at least since the works of &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/article/view/quotendgame-strategyquot-by-mikhail-shereshevsky&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Shereshevsky&lt;/a&gt; (who notably analysed endgames by Capablanca and Alekhine). Many examples in (online available) chapter V of this &lt;a href=&quot;https://books.google.fr/books?id=5CRBCwAAQBAJ&amp;amp;pg=PA62&amp;amp;hl=fr&amp;amp;source=gbs_toc_r&amp;amp;cad=4#v=onepage&amp;amp;q&amp;amp;f=false&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;book&lt;/a&gt; by Srodovsky. In a 2001 &lt;a href=&quot;https://books.google.fr/books/about/Mastering_the_Endgame.html?id=hqSrPAAACAAJ&amp;amp;redir_esc=y&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;book&lt;/a&gt;, Glenn Flear showed that even in pawn endgames the queenside argument is not void but generally not the most important.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here Black controls the only open file, enjoys centralised and coordinated minor pieces, is on move and has no pawn weaknesses while a2, f2 and e4 might become useful targets. wNa3 is offside, wBf3 is unprotected and restricted by its own pawn on e4, and white rooks are undeveloped.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After, say 1...Rd8 2.Rad1 Ne5 3.Be2 (or 3.Rxd6 Nxf3+ 4.Kg2 Nh4+ 5.gh4 Rxd6 -/+) Rd2, Black is clearly for choice. 1...Rd2 2.Rfd1 Ne5 3.Bg2 Rfd8 is similar.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastEditorUserId="14079" LastEditDate="2019-08-14T10:06:35.700" LastActivityDate="2019-08-14T10:06:35.700" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25132" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25039" CreationDate="2019-08-14T14:27:26.673" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;How do you want to do it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know that sounds flippant, but that's pretty much the only good answer to questions along the lines of &quot;How do I create something that no one has created?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess endgame theory developed by people starting from very simple positions and identifying commonalities among them. Typically, endgames get classified by the pieces involved (Rook endings, minor piece endings, etc.) so I'd start with elemental positions that are clearly won/lost, see what leads to them, try and see common maneuvers to create them, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From simple positions you create the building blocks for understanding more complex positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Rinse. Lather. Repeat.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An example is pawn endings. We started with simple concepts like the queening square, moved on to techniques like opposition, and kept building until we ended up with a theory of co-ordinate squares, which covered all pawn endings. Opposition, Triangulation, all of that stuff boiled down to being special cases, subsets within that theory. But it all started with atoms, from which we built molecules, and so on until we eventually arrived at an impressive, comprehensive, edifice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's no single uniform best way to approach something that's never been done. You try something, if it seems helpful you keep using it; if not, try another way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By definition, there is no mapped out course to get you safely through uncharted waters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="657" LastActivityDate="2019-08-14T14:27:26.673" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25133" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-08-14T14:54:53.937" Score="2" ViewCount="113" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recently played &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/kqaAck5u&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Lichess&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;game that left me confused.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My opponent had 1 second left on the clock when the game was suddenly drawn. There was no repitition nor was the 50-move rule invoked. Did the program cheat me?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19841" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-08-14T16:01:21.400" LastActivityDate="2019-08-14T16:01:21.400" Title="Lockheed draw rules" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;draw&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25134" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25133" CreationDate="2019-08-14T15:08:05.263" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This was a draw by threefold repetition. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The final position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;6k1/pp1r2p1/2n4p/3p4/3P4/1BP1R3/PP3PPP/6K1 w - - 19 37&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;had been repeated three times in the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It first appeared after &lt;code&gt;32. ... Kg8&lt;/code&gt;, then after &lt;code&gt;34. ... Nc6&lt;/code&gt; and finally after &lt;code&gt;36. ... Nc6&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although players normally have to claim a draw by threefold repetition manually, Lichess performs the claim automatically if the time left on their clock is below some predefined threshold. Since your opponent only had 1 second left, this is likely what happened.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10075" LastActivityDate="2019-08-14T15:08:05.263" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25135" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-08-14T19:00:28.190" Score="3" ViewCount="278" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't watch chess tournaments because it is such a poor experience. The live stream of the players showcases the board at an angle and I struggle to see what is going on. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Meanwhile, the digital image of the board that is usually also there is often behind the actual game. In classic, maybe not a big deal, but it's a dealbreaker for blitz and rapid.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why don't chess tournaments solve this issue by using a top-down camera angle? It's not hard to extend the camera down from a pole attached to the roof, or you can even use a camera connected to a flexible cable which you can extend and then curve downwards, kind of like on a lamp:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/BCIRv.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/BCIRv.png&quot; width=&quot;300&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This would then give the following much more clear viewing experience:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/mJwGP.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/mJwGP.png&quot; width=&quot;300&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Obviously you'd use a high quality camera, and you also need to use pieces which are more easily distinguishable from a top-down view, which are both minor changes, that could lead to great improvement.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19845" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2019-08-14T19:12:23.930" LastActivityDate="2019-08-14T19:12:23.930" Title="Why don't chess tournament organisers use top-down camera angles?" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;online&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25136" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25135" CreationDate="2019-08-14T19:05:57.133" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;I see a couple of reasons not to do this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;It's a lot harder to distinguish the pieces. For example, bishops and pawns look really similar, and the black queen and king look similar too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;When you watch a game as an on-site spectator, you don't view it top-down either. Even better: the players &lt;em&gt;themselves&lt;/em&gt; don't view the board top-down, but from an angle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Video streams are often accompanied by a live analysis board, which &lt;em&gt;is&lt;/em&gt; top-down and offers much more (the remaining time for both players, the evaluation of the current position and the best lines according to a strong engine). A top-down video stream would basically duplicate this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They can, as you say, be a little out-of-sync with the video (on a slow connection, the live board can be even faster because of buffering) but that seems (to me) like a better problem to tackle. Maybe the next generation of livestreams will be able to do this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The lamp standard in your picture would rather annoy me as a player, but hanging from the ceiling (like some other lamps) would bypass that particular problem.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2019-08-14T19:11:12.767" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25137" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25146" CreationDate="2019-08-15T00:24:14.103" Score="4" ViewCount="388" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm currently working on a chess engine and have a pseudo-legal move generator working. I'm looking for a way to efficiently generate a bitboard of pinned pieces, so I could skip them when generating legal moves. How would one go about doing this, given 12 bitboards for each piece, and a bitboard called UNSAFE with all the squares the opponent is threatening?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19847" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-08-15T12:48:01.867" LastActivityDate="2019-08-16T17:44:32.950" Title="Chess Engine: Generate a Bitboard of Pinned Pieces" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;programming&gt;&lt;pins&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25139" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25113" CreationDate="2019-08-15T11:02:52.607" Score="18" Body="&lt;p&gt;The second part of the question is more straightforward, so I'll look at that first.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is castling with a &quot;ghost&quot; rook like this legal where there was a rook&#xA;  on a1 at the start of the game but it was captured before it could&#xA;  move?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Article 3.8.2 of the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/component/handbook/?id=208&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Laws of Chess&lt;/a&gt; describes how castling works:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;3.8.2 by ‘castling’. &lt;strong&gt;This is a move of the king and either rook&lt;/strong&gt; of the same colour along the player’s first rank, counting as a single move&#xA;  of the king and executed as follows: the king is transferred from its&#xA;  original square two squares towards the rook on its original square,&#xA;  &lt;strong&gt;then that rook is transferred to the square the king has just crossed&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This explicitly states that castling involves two pieces, the king and the rook, and it describes how the rook moves in this manoeuvre. If you don't have an unmoved rook on the board then you can't castle. Therefore castling with a &quot;ghost&quot; rook is illegal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With this clear the first part becomes easier to answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is castling with a &quot;ghost&quot; rook like this legal where there has never&#xA;  been a rook on a1 because it was given as odds at the start of the&#xA;  game?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It depends on the rules of the competition or individual game, if the game is a one-off. If the rules state that apart from the initial position of the board the FIDE Laws of Chess apply then clearly it is illegal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the absence of such a clarification the best guide is probably the chess historian Edward Winter. In his &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/winter56.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;chess notes for March 2009&lt;/a&gt;, note 6029 he considers exactly this question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;6029. Castling with a phantom rook&lt;/strong&gt; From Mark Thornton (Cambridge, England):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;‘In rook-odds games could the odds-giver castle with the “phantom&#xA;  rook”? For example, if White gave the odds of his queen’s rook, could&#xA;  he play Ke1-c1? And, if so, were the castling rules the same as if the&#xA;  rook were present?’&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to Winter there is no conclusive ruling one way or the other. He quotes probably the most sensible approach from Howard Staunton on page 35 of Chess Praxis (London, 1860):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;When a player gives the odds of his king’s or queen’s rook, he must&#xA;  not castle (or, more properly speaking, leap his king) on the side&#xA;  from whence he takes off the rook, unless before commencing the game&#xA;  or match he stipulates to have the privilege of so doing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are strong feelings on both sides of the argument. Here is more from Winter:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;However, in a review of the book on pages 88-89 of the March 1890 BCM&#xA;  Edward Freeborough disagreed. After stating, with respect to level&#xA;  games, that castling should be described as a move of the king and&#xA;  that the king should therefore be moved first, Freeborough observed:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;‘&lt;em&gt;It follows logically that the fact of giving the odds of a rook&#xA;  ought not to deprive the king of his privilege of taking two steps to&#xA;  the right or left as his first move.&lt;/em&gt;’&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Page 36 of The British Chess Code (London, 1903) stated:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;‘&lt;em&gt;In the absence of agreement to a different effect, a player may&#xA;  castle (by moving his king as in ordinary castling) on a side from&#xA;  which, before the commencement of the game, the player’s rook has been&#xA;  removed, provided that this rook’s square is unoccupied and has been&#xA;  unoccupied throughout the game, and that the same conditions as to&#xA;  squares and as to the king are fulfilled which are required for&#xA;  ordinary castling on this side&lt;/em&gt;.’&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The above text was quoted on page 275 of the June 1916 Chess Amateur&#xA;  when a revised edition of the Code was envisaged. Comments were&#xA;  invited, and on page 305 of the July 1916 issue ‘Simplex’ wrote:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;‘&lt;em&gt;This I think sheer nonsense. If a player gave me a rook and wanted&#xA;  to castle on this rook’s side, I should say, “No, you don’t, you can’t&#xA;  castle without a castle”. Let’s have no pretence. If a player gives a&#xA;  rook, let him give it totally not half. Receivers of odds are not&#xA;  strong players, and to see the nominal giver of odds move his king a&#xA;  couple of squares would be disconcerting. No; if a player gives odds&#xA;  let him give them without pretence.&lt;/em&gt;’&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A contrary view was expressed by W.S. Branch on pages 333-334 of the&#xA;  August 1916 Chess Amateur:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;‘&lt;em&gt;Re Chess Laws, page 305 (July), and as to “castling without rook”, I&#xA;  would say, first, that you can’t “castle the king” – the full and&#xA;  proper term, of which “castles” is an abridgment – without a castle.&#xA;  The phrase should be “moving the king as in castling”. I believe that&#xA;  the right of the odds-giver to move his king, once in a game, as in&#xA;  castling, has always been upheld since “castling” was invented&#xA;  (sixteenth century). It existed, as part of the “king’s leap”, long&#xA;  before “castling” was invented, and long before the rook was ever&#xA;  called a “castle”. The giving of the rook as odds should not deprive&#xA;  the king of any of his rights.’&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Branch then gave further historical details regarding the king’s leap.&#xA;  By 1916, however, the practice of giving odds was disappearing,&#xA;  without any formal resolution of the ‘phantom rook’ question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Winter revisits this topic in note 6035. &quot;Castling with a phantom rook (C.N. 6029)&quot; with some interesting anecdotes regarding castling with a ghost or phantom rook.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-08-15T11:09:29.123" LastActivityDate="2019-08-15T11:09:29.123" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25140" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="176" CreationDate="2019-08-15T19:33:35.273" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;So far, I’ve had success with the Pachman System, d5 g6 Bg7 e5 Ne7. If they play d4 before you can get the e5 off, you can go for Nf6, Nd7, and Nb6, allowing you to capture any c4 pawn, and get a good position while they recapture.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19857" LastEditorUserId="9025" LastEditDate="2019-08-15T20:41:20.627" LastActivityDate="2019-08-15T20:41:20.627" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25141" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25130" CreationDate="2019-08-15T22:39:41.780" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I like Evargalo's answer although I think the position is closer to equal than he credits.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Shereshevsky's book is great for late middle-game to early endgame study.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Concerning the opposing pawn majorities&lt;/strong&gt;, it is easier to play the endgame with the side having the majority furthest from the kings.  As play usually has both sides castling king-side, the queen-side majority is desirable.  Your hope is to get an &quot;outside passed pawn&quot; to distract the king away.  But, as Evargalo points out, it's the pieces that decide what is going on.  Better would be to consider such positions with king an pawns only.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2019-08-15T22:39:41.780" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25143" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25040" CreationDate="2019-08-16T07:22:25.310" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The main question is whether or not the Sicilian is a better fit for your style of play. The French is a perfectly viable opening up to GM level. If it's working for you why spend all the time to learn something else? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I were learning the Sicilian from scratch I would start with some of the simpler lines like the Qb6 lines, 4 knights, Kan or the Nimzo, work on the anti-Sicilians, before trying to tackle something like the Najdorf. Honestly, if you're older than 5 and not a professional, you probably don't have the time to spend learning the Najdorf and even if you did I'm not sure it would be worth it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-04T20:18:35.213" LastActivityDate="2020-03-04T20:18:35.213" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25144" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25019" CreationDate="2019-08-16T07:46:02.790" Score="0" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Castle quickly. Don't let your king get caught in the center. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Don't move the pawns in front of your king unless you absolutely have to. Every pawn move in front of the king creates weaknesses. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Develop your pieces, play to control the center and make sure you can swing enough defensive pieces over to match the attack. Your opponent won't be able to create a sound attack without at least one of those advantages.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Play for the initiative. If your force your opponent to defend they won't be able to attack. When your opponent creates a threat look to create a bigger one. Look for moves that both attack and defend at the same time. Always look for ways to flip the attack and put your opponent on the defensive.  &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2019-08-16T07:46:02.790" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25145" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25011" CreationDate="2019-08-16T07:59:56.420" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Keeping the Bishop on that diagonal is very aggressive which is good in fast time controls. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Trading the bishop often gives the other side more control of the center and an open f-file. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By moving to b6 white will waste two moves and accomplish nothing where black now has a rook on an open file (which is a gain of time). Furthermore, the rook is a more powerful piece than the bishop and the pawn on b6 can support c5. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Doubled pawns aren't inherently weak. They typically increase mobility. They're only weak if the other side can exploit the weakness.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2019-08-16T07:59:56.420" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25146" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25137" CreationDate="2019-08-16T17:44:32.950" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;This task is nontrivial and cannot be obtained easily or setwise from the available bitboards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The following solution is an example for how such a task might be done for a generic slider - only obvious substitutions are necessary to convert this code to be usable for bishops, rooks and queens.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, identify the set of possible pinn&lt;strong&gt;ing&lt;/strong&gt; pieces by calculating sliding attacks &lt;em&gt;from the king square&lt;/em&gt;, using the opposite side as the set of occupied squares.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;BitBoard bb_pinners = slider_moves(king_square, bb_other_side) &amp;amp; bb_other_side;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All bitboard engines should have some function similar to &lt;code&gt;bishop_moves&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;rook_moves&lt;/code&gt;, which uses magic bitboards, PEXT or Koch-Stone to generate sliding moves from a square, given a bitboard of occupied squares as blockers to the slider. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To determine the set of pinned pieces from the set of pinners, it is necessary to iterate through the set of possible pinners (this is why pinned pieces cannot be calculated setwise).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For each pinner, we consider the set of bits between the pinner square and the king square (using the utility function &lt;code&gt;between&lt;/code&gt;), determine if there is only one bit set, and if so, add that bit to the set of pinned pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;BitBoard bb_pinned = 0;&#xA;while(bb_pinners) {&#xA;    Square sq = pop_bit(bb_pinners);&#xA;    BitBoard bb_possible_pinned = between(sq, king_square) &amp;amp; bb_own_side;&#xA;    if(only_one_bit(bb_possible_pinned)) {&#xA;        bb_pinned |= bb_possible_pinned;&#xA;    }&#xA;}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here, &lt;code&gt;pop_bit&lt;/code&gt; finds the index of and removes the least significant bit of bb_pinners.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stockfish implements a similar strategy in &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/blob/master/src/position.cpp#L486-L509&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;code&gt;slider_blockers&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/a&gt; to determine possibly pinned pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is also worth mentioning that even with a set of these blockers, this does not mean that they may be excluded from legal move generation because if the pinned piece is a slider itself of the correct type, it may still have legal moves despite being pinned, under the above algorithm's definition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10075" LastActivityDate="2019-08-16T17:44:32.950" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25147" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25150" CreationDate="2019-08-16T18:29:15.013" Score="2" ViewCount="202" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am having trouble deciding whether a move such like g5 (g4 in case it is White) is worth it or not. I am looking for advice on my particular position and if possible, a general explanation for any other case.&#xA;In the position below I was Black:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/EzawL.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/EzawL.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I actually considered playing g5 during the game because the bishop on h4 is quite annoying as it is pinning my f6 knight.&#xA;However, it is hard for me to understand how this move can be good if after 12. ...g5 13. Bxg5 hxg5 14. Nxg5 and that knight and the combo bishop and Queen is very threatening and both exerting pressure on the king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the reason to make such move? Personally, I would go with something like Be7.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks a lot before-handed. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S. : The link to the game is &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/EzawL.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;1&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/BBzc4Y46/black&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://lichess.org/BBzc4Y46/black&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/EzawL.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;1&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16771" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-21T20:29:24.497" LastActivityDate="2020-03-21T20:29:24.497" Title="Weakening the kingside with g5" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25149" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1494" CreationDate="2019-08-17T02:19:46.110" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;White's advantage is that he can claim a stake in the center that black can't immediately match. If white plays 1.e4 then no matter black plays white will still be at least a little better. If 1..e5 white can respond with d4 (either immediately or after Nf3) and his e pawn is better than black's d-pawn. Some lines play c3 first with the idea of keeping pawns at e4 and d4 with a much better center. f pawn openings are the same idea. The lopez is more subtle but it still is based on pressure on black's e5 pawn. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Typically black is considered equal when he has an equal center. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastEditorUserId="9025" LastEditDate="2019-08-17T04:09:59.970" LastActivityDate="2019-08-17T04:09:59.970" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25150" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25147" CreationDate="2019-08-17T02:53:37.290" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this case it's tactical. d4 looks like a really strong move but the problem is after 12...d4 13. Bxf6 black has to play 13...gxf6 because 13...Qxf6 drops a piece to 14.Ne4. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, if you play 13...g5 first followed by d4, then d4 trades off the isolated pawn and equalizes for black. Black also has a little bit of an initiative going at that point. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In general, you don't want to move the pawns in front of your king if you don't have to or unless it benefits you (like in this example). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How to deal with pins? Study unpin combinations. There are a lot with sacs on f7/f2 and h7/h2. There are also some where the knight captures like Legal's mate or captures on d4/d5 sometimes winning a piece. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also play actively. For example creating a threat with the queen and then moving the knight to a center square or just playing aggressively in general will sometimes make the pin meaningless. You also have to remember an early pin by the queen's bishop is usually bad. For one it leaves the b pawn unprotected but also if you haven't castled on that side he isn't really threatening anything. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lastly, if the opponent captures and doubles your pawns that's not always bad. For one, that means you have the two bishops and an open g-file which is typically the file right in front of the opponent's king. It depends on the position but it's not uncommon for your opponent to hand you a ferocious attack by capturing the knight. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just as an example, to illustrate some points, this is a game I see at least once a week in blitz: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1. e4 e5 2. Bc4 d6 3. d4 exd4 4. Nf3 Bg4 5. c3 Nc6 6. Qb3 with a double attack on both b7 and f7. Black has a lot of ways to go wrong in this position and 6...Bxf3 (which leads to 7. Bxf7+, Ke7 or d7 8. Qe6#) is fairly common. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2019-08-17T10:50:37.270" LastActivityDate="2019-08-17T10:50:37.270" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25151" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4455" CreationDate="2019-08-17T04:29:50.407" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I use &lt;a href=&quot;https://techrev.me/movavi-review/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Movavi software&lt;/a&gt; for that. Movavi Video Editor is made to be used by anyone, but especially for those who don’t really have much knowledge in video editing but would like to learn. If you are new into this world, this is definitely the editor you will want to use. It’s great software to make chess videos.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19869" LastActivityDate="2019-08-17T04:29:50.407" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25152" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25130" CreationDate="2019-08-17T10:28:03.920" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Black is slightly better though a draw is still the most likely outcome. White's a3-knight is poor, and Black has the superior bishop (White's f3-bishop is somewhat &quot;bad&quot; due to the e4-pawn). Also, the 3v2 queenside majority is better than White's central majority in this specific case. The reason is that Black can more easily create an outside passed pawn, while I don't see White starting anything soon in the centre.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-08-17T10:28:03.920" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25153" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19752" CreationDate="2019-08-17T10:44:48.983" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have created this gist which is the best documentation I could find - most links I found where dead&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://gist.github.com/aliostad/f4470274f39d29b788c1b09519e67372&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://gist.github.com/aliostad/f4470274f39d29b788c1b09519e67372&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19871" LastActivityDate="2019-08-17T10:44:48.983" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25154" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25161" CreationDate="2019-08-17T10:50:28.503" Score="2" ViewCount="191" Body="&lt;p&gt;Apart from Bobby Fischer &quot;renouncing&quot;, in a sense, the World Championship title in 1975, are there any other famous cases from chess history of strong players voluntarily renouncing titles, tournament victories, and the like, for personal, political, religious, or other reasons? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-08-17T12:51:02.233" LastActivityDate="2019-08-18T14:48:34.457" Title="Cases of grandmasters renouncing titles, tournament victories, etc?" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;history&gt;&lt;world-championship&gt;&lt;grandmaster&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25155" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-08-17T21:52:08.457" Score="1" ViewCount="142" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there a way to move an individual game up or down the database list? Or give it a new game number in the list?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19872" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-08-18T09:16:39.823" LastActivityDate="2019-08-19T10:14:07.513" Title="Moving a game up or down the SCID database list?" Tags="&lt;database&gt;&lt;scid&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25156" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25163" CreationDate="2019-08-18T00:35:39.600" Score="0" ViewCount="149" Body="&lt;p&gt;A few weeks ago. I won a game as Black &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/yiskkJse&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;on lichess.com.&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;[startply &amp;quot;48&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d5 3. Bd3 c4 4. Be2 e6 5. d4 cxd3 6. Qxd3 Nc6 7. exd5 Qxd5 8. a3 Nf6 9. c4 Qxd3 10. Bxd3 Bc5 11. O-O O-O 12. Be3 Bxe3 13. fxe3 e5 14. Ng5 h6 15. Ne4 Nxe4 16. Bxe4 Be6 17. b3 Rac8 18. Nc3 b6 19. Rad1 Ne7 20. Bd5 Bxd5 21. Nxd5 Nxd5 22. Rxd5 f6 23. Rd7 Rf7 24. Rfd1 Rc7 25. Rd8+ Kh7 26. h4 Kg6 27. g4 h5 28.  gxh5+ Kxh5 29. Rh8+ Kg4 30. Kg2 Kf5 31. Rf1+ Ke4 32. Rf3 Kd3 33. Rd8+ Rcd7 34. e4+ Kxe4 35. Rh8 Kd4 36. Kg3 e4 37. Rf4 Rde7 38. h5 Kd3 39. Rf1 e3 40. Rd1+ Kc2 41. Rh1 e2 42. Re1 Kd2 43. Kf2 f5 44. Rd8+ Kc3 45. Rxe2 Rxe2+ 46. Kxe2 Kxb3 47.  Rd3+ Kxc4 48. Kd2 f4 49. Ke2 f3+ 50. Kd2 f2 51. Rc3+ Kb5 52. Rb3+ Ka4 53. Kc3  f1=Q 54. Rb4+ Ka5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To solidify my position, I pushed my pawns forward to create chains on both sides of the board. In order to defend against a rook infiltration, I doubled my rooks on my own seventh rank in order to guard my pawn. I then went on a long King walk and won a few pawns. Finally, I pushed my new passed pawns and promoted for the win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, in hindsight, I'm not so sure it was a good strategy. My opponent defended inadequately, so I can't tell. How sound was my long-term strategy?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-04-29T20:57:16.857" LastActivityDate="2021-04-29T20:57:16.857" Title="Guarding my seventh rank and a king walk assualt" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;learning&gt;&lt;middlegame&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25157" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25130" CreationDate="2019-08-18T05:35:22.940" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The position is roughly equal but I would give a slight edge to black based on piece placement and the queenside majority. All 4 of white's pieces seem to be misplaced where black is a little better coordinated. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You don't say whose move but black can play to control the d file with rooks or Nc5 attacking the e pawn and then look to create a passed pawn on the queenside. White is just responding to black. His knight isn't doing much. His bishop is vulnerable to Ne5. He needs to take control of the d-file but the e pawn could quickly become a target and if white loses that he's playing for a draw. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2019-08-18T05:35:22.940" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25158" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25156" CreationDate="2019-08-18T06:19:59.767" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;By the time it got to 24. Rfd1 I'm not sure it mattered what you played. Re8, Rcf8 etc. all look about the same. Rc7 does give white an extra option of Rd8+ though. White's rook lift and doubling on the open file were pretty textbook. Your problems started with 17...Rac8 From there you were playing pretty passively. You should be looking to control the d-file, create threats (ie Na5, f5 etc) and exploit the fact that white is behind in development. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would just say you're overthinking things. You're worrying about minor pawn structure issues and missing the big picture. You should be playing aggressively and forcing white to respond to you but instead you're sitting back, playing passively, letting white do what he wants and then trying to respond. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2019-08-18T06:19:59.767" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25159" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23134" CreationDate="2019-08-18T13:16:29.600" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;An alternative to Sunfish is PyChess: &lt;a href=&quot;http://pychess.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://pychess.org/&lt;/a&gt; (or &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/pychess/pychess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://github.com/pychess/pychess&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's stronger than sunfish (has 2100 bullet rating on lichess: &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/@/PyChessBot&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://lichess.org/@/PyChessBot&lt;/a&gt; ) and also allows playing chess variants, such as antichess or fisher random.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It has a lot more code than sunfish though, so pulling it out as a separate library takes a bit more work.&#xA;See also &lt;a href=&quot;http://talkchess.com/forum3/viewtopic.php?t=67025&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://talkchess.com/forum3/viewtopic.php?t=67025&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1025" LastActivityDate="2019-08-18T13:16:29.600" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25160" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25154" CreationDate="2019-08-18T14:21:44.543" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;A.N Other is not correct. Regardless of the fact that he still considered himself WC, he did, in fact, resign (renounce) his WC title. From the NY Times in 1974:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“I resign my F.I.D.E. [Federation International des Echecs] world championship,” the American grandmaster said in cable received today by the federation, which is meeting concurrently with the chess Olympiad at Nice, on the French Riviera.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The cable was signed “Sincerely yours, Bobby Fischer,” rather than “Bobby Fischer, World Chess Champion,” as he usually writes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would have just added a comment, but I am new here, and my rep is not high enough.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2019-08-18T14:21:44.543" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25161" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25154" CreationDate="2019-08-18T14:48:34.457" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have been playing tournaments for 39 years, 34 as a USCF Master, so I follow chess closely; but other than Fischer, I have never heard of anyone doing it voluntarily DURING their reign. Alekhine is the only other male World Champion not to defend his title, but did it involuntarily (he died). :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other cases of not defending their title include Hou Yifan, who decided not to defend her Women's World Championship title in 2015 due to another commitment, and after winning it back in 2016, again she chose not to defend in 2017 protesting the knockout system (I do not blame her).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, some have not defended their lesser titles for various reasons, like political and moral. Anna Muzychuk refused to defend her world titles in rapid chess and blitz in 2017 due to Saudi Arabia’s treatment of women. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have heard of a few, who were stripped of their titles like GM Gaioz Nigalidze for computer cheating (demoted to IM). GM Igors Rausis is most likely facing the same sanctions for his recent cheating incident (He admitted it, and announced his retirement).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2019-08-18T14:48:34.457" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25162" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25130" CreationDate="2019-08-18T15:26:29.497" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Assuming black to move, black is definitely better, but he still must make sure that his Be6 cannot be driven to the unfavorable c8 square, or that too many trades occur along the d-file. I concur with Evargalo that the slight pull is primarily due to activity, and due to control of the only open file. In addition, white's queenside can be attacked soon.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In addition, white's pieces do not have the best squares, especially the Na3, which even given a few reasonable moves, like Nc3-e3, it still has not improved much. The best square would be c5, or e4 after e5, but neither will happen anytime soon. In addition the black N will soon get to b4, and a2 will be very touchy, or have to move, weakening the q-side that much more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The best way to make use of black' slight advantage is: 1...Ne5; 2.Bg2 f6! (this secures the B retreat to f7, which will keep the Na3 off c4. Normally, white would not want to play f4-f5 there, but if it secured the c4 square for the N, and drove the B back to c8, then the trade off might be OK. That would be a similar idea to the famous Lasker-Capablanca, St. Petersburg 1914 game.); 3.f4 (or 3.Rfd1 Rfd8; 4.Rd6 Rd6 and Rd2 will be unavoidable) 3...Nd3 (and this is a bit akin to the famous Karpov-Unzicker, Nice 1974 game where Karpov blocked the a-file with Ba7, then tripled on the file, and although he never actually moved the Ba7, had he done so, he would have had control of the file); 4.Rad1! (White will defend a2 with Rf2, and try to keep the black rook off the 7th.) Rfd8; 5.Nc2 a5, and black's pressure is growing. He will continue with Nc5 and a4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2019-08-18T15:26:29.497" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25163" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25156" CreationDate="2019-08-18T16:16:50.827" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;White was slightly better after 23.Rd7. This is one of those cases where you should have gone for activity with 23...Rcd8! Now, if he just doubles with 24., you can trade and then play Rf7; or if 24.Ra7 then Rd3 with active counterplay and better chances, but white is still better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That said, the reason you won is that white knows nothing about the endgame, and tried to mate you with h4 and g4, and that is not what the position called for. He only weakened his position, and improved your K since there was not going to be any mate on g4 or e4. It required a gradual improvement of the white K, and then the gradual advancement of the q-side pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the time you started advancing e5-d4, that was generally the right plan, but you should have started with 36...f5 first so the pair could not be blockaded with Rf4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In any case, you were already cruising by then.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2019-08-18T16:16:50.827" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25164" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25166" CreationDate="2019-08-18T16:32:27.907" Score="13" ViewCount="8300" Body="&lt;p&gt;My son is into chess and plays chess tournaments. I would like to know what good chess software is available to analyze his games.  The software should analyze move-by-move and should point out weak/strong moves, alternative moves, blunders, tactics etc.&#xA;What do you use for this? I googled, I see lots of options and I don’t know which one is good or bad.&#xA;Thank you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19876" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-08-18T18:47:59.823" LastActivityDate="2019-09-22T18:57:28.420" Title="Chess software to analyze games" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;software&gt;" AnswerCount="8" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25165" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25147" CreationDate="2019-08-18T16:41:38.760" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, the question is not if 12. ...g5 13. Bxg5 hxg5 14. Nxg5 is dangerous, since white is just giving up a piece, and the tactics after 14...d4 are just winning for black (15.Ne6 is nothing since the Nf6 defends h7, and 15.Nh7, you can take on c3 since Nf6+ Qf6 is also nothing).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The real question is what to do after 12...g5; 13.Bg3 d4; 14.Na4 or 13...Rc8. Stockfish indicates that it is roughly equal, but I would not want to weaken my k-side that much without knowing white's K was already castled k-side too, if at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lastly, with your isolated d5-pawn, you should be looking at d4 on every move to see it is a good time to push it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2019-08-18T16:41:38.760" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25166" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25164" CreationDate="2019-08-18T17:11:39.373" Score="20" Body="&lt;p&gt;One of the problems with chess-analysis software for weaker players is that it just shows the strongest move per the computer, without any explanation why. There are some programs, like the ChessBase programs that, using their &quot;Tactical Analysis&quot; feature, attempt to give some explanation to the moves, but they are all wanting.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That said, &lt;a href=&quot;https://decodechess.com/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;decodechess.com&lt;/a&gt; seems to do better than most for newbies. As a USCF Master, the explanations are pretty good from what I can see, and the underlying &quot;engine&quot; (program) is Stockfish, which is A LOT stronger than the best humans in history. Although a premium account is $99/year (right now, 50% off with the promo code &quot;DECODESPRING&quot;. for the record, I have no affiliation with the site, nor am I a member), you can create an account, and &quot;decode&quot;, or analyze three games per day for free. If you like it, I would jump on the promo.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is not analysis software, but I would also recommend the book &quot;Logical Chess Move by Move&quot;. It is a classic, and there is an new algebraic edition for $12.98 on Amazon.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-08-18T18:50:44.923" LastActivityDate="2019-08-18T18:50:44.923" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25167" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25035" CreationDate="2019-08-18T23:24:48.243" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is hard to prove that something does not exist, but I read and speak Russian, and I just looked at that book in Russian. It deals a lot with tabias of various openings, and resulting middlegames.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only book of his in English I could find is &quot;Chess : Knowledge, Training, Mastery&quot;, and that is definitely a different book, as I also have that in Russian: &quot;Шахматы - Наука, Опыт, Мастерство (1990)&quot; (strictly translated as &quot;Chess: Science, Experience, Mastery&quot;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lastly, I found a site that seemed to say that it was only available in Russian, which I tend to agree with after researching it. Interestingly, he has a two-volume series in Spanish though, and one more in Spanish.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2019-08-18T23:24:48.243" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25168" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24545" CreationDate="2019-08-18T23:38:39.530" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It appears to be for future use: Although it is two versions later, to quote the Fritz 16 online manual: &quot;Show Plans - Displays the planned Manoeuver of the engine. The function is not supported by any engine!&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://help.chessbase.com/Fritz/16/Eng/index.html?options___engine.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Fritz 16 Manual&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2019-08-19T01:50:13.920" LastActivityDate="2019-08-19T01:50:13.920" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25169" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25164" CreationDate="2019-08-19T03:14:56.090" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Stockfish is very strong and free. Lichess.org makes it available under the analysis section. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For my phone I use the droidfish app and with that you can download any engine you want. There are hundreds of freely available engines including stockfish. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the old days I would download a free version of Fritz and then replace the Fritz engine with the best engine I could find. It seems a little impractical though nowadays. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2019-08-19T03:14:56.090" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25170" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25164" CreationDate="2019-08-19T08:11:13.310" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://lucaschess.pythonanywhere.com/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Lucas Chess&lt;/a&gt; is a very good free software I used for several years. It has an intuitive interface and gives in-depth analyses and move recommendations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4215" LastActivityDate="2019-08-19T08:11:13.310" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25171" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25164" CreationDate="2019-08-19T08:44:47.720" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;My suggestion would be to get your hands on &lt;a href=&quot;https://shop.chessbase.com/en/categories/chessbase&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;ChessBase&lt;/a&gt;. This software allows you to store your games in a structured format, coming back to them whenever you need it, with many options for variations, annotations and comments. Also, many chess books can be read in a very practical way in this format (with the software showing the moves for you on a board)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would be more hesitant towards the use of a chess engine, though. Game analysis is one of the best ways of training, and leaving it for a computer to do it for you will make you miss that opportunity. I analyse all of my games by putting them into my database, but I do the analysis myself, rather than with Stockfish, Fritz, Komodo or the engine of your choice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My advice would be to use an engine like Stockfish (it's free!) to correct his analysis, rather than to analyse the games themselves. For the opening moves, checking what's been played in previous high-level games (and what happened next) is often a great idea, too!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-09-22T18:57:28.420" LastActivityDate="2019-09-22T18:57:28.420" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25172" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2422" CreationDate="2019-08-19T09:35:35.373" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, I think it would be possible. But only if the database was more like a neural network, taking moves that caused it to lose and deleting them. That calculation is based on exponentiating(bear with me) all possible actions in a chess game at move one, to move 100 or something. Meanwhile if we got rid of repeats, ((Ke3 Ke4 Ke3 Ke4) looping) 10^120 could probably become something like 10^70. That is still ridiculously huge but if we somehow were able to encode it onto a 4D plane (Which I believe is possible) it would be child’s play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19889" LastActivityDate="2019-08-19T09:35:35.373" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25173" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25155" CreationDate="2019-08-19T10:14:07.513" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;SCID orders the items in the order that imported them. You can modify the sort order in the list of games. Click in the column names to change the sort order or to reset the sort. But you can't change the individual position of a game in the list. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And what columns can be shown, seems to be hard coded. But if you add a collection of games that are numbered, say on the event tag, it is possible to sort that database by that tag.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1766" LastActivityDate="2019-08-19T10:14:07.513" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25174" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9237" CreationDate="2019-08-19T11:17:56.357" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The best annotated PGN game collections I found were added to my website after searching for days, see&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://pgnchessbook.org/pgn/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Annotated PGN file download page&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I added 950+ annotated games and every world championship match game ever played. &#xA;You can get a good free PGN reader app from there too, which comes with Stockfish built in.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If any one knows about any other annotated &quot;.pgn&quot; sites please can you post here? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19786" LastEditorUserId="19786" LastEditDate="2019-08-20T08:42:58.830" LastActivityDate="2019-08-20T08:42:58.830" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25175" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25164" CreationDate="2019-08-19T13:57:07.073" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can get a good free PGN Viewer app from &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://pgnchessbook.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;PGN ChessBook&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which comes with the very strong Stockfish analysis engine built in.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The best annotated PGN game collections I could find were also added to my website at&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://pgnchessbook.org/pgn/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Annotated PGN download page&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It took me several days to find these. There are 950+ annotated games in “.pgn” files and I added every world championship match game ever played.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19786" LastEditorUserId="19786" LastEditDate="2019-08-20T08:36:37.383" LastActivityDate="2019-08-20T08:36:37.383" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25176" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25095" CreationDate="2019-08-19T20:09:02.620" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The volatility of the score here is caused by the time limit you have set. With &lt;code&gt;time=0.100&lt;/code&gt; you're restricting the engine to &lt;code&gt;100 milliseconds&lt;/code&gt;. With such a small time limit, there are a lot of small factors that can dramatically change the results. You can try increasing the time limit, or instead of using a time limit you can try a &lt;code&gt;depth&lt;/code&gt; limit instead. This will make the engine search to a specific depth, rather than searching for a set amount of time. A depth limit will probably make your results more robust.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An example of depth limit would be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;chess.engine.Limit(depth=20)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19896" LastActivityDate="2019-08-19T20:09:02.620" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25177" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24093" CreationDate="2019-08-20T04:16:45.687" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Try &lt;a href=&quot;https://truly-quantum-chess.sloppy.zone&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;truly quantum chess&lt;/a&gt;. It is an implementation of quantum chess by yours truly, the rules are sligtly different from the rules of the steam version though, for example, pawns can quantum move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19901" LastActivityDate="2019-08-20T04:16:45.687" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25178" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11112" CreationDate="2019-08-20T10:19:51.937" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are a lot of PGN file database download sites, the best and most comprehensive one is probably PGN Mentor at &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.pgnmentor.com/files.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.pgnmentor.com/files.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They have several databases containing thousands of games that can be downloaded and easily merged into a single DB using a command window&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But very few of these games are annotated, so I have put about 950 annotated games, which are in 9 separate &quot;.pgn&quot; files, here &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://pgnchessbook.org/pgn/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Annotated PGN file download page&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19786" LastActivityDate="2019-08-20T10:19:51.937" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25179" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7897" CreationDate="2019-08-20T10:33:03.507" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;.pgn&quot; file chess game databases can be opened, viewed and edited in apps that run on Android, Windows, Linux etc. There are many download sites, depending on what your looking for. For current event games try &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://theweekinchess.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;The Week in chess&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For comprehensive collections by players (mostly grandmasters), events or openings try&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.pgnmentor.com/files.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;PGN Mentor downloads&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For annotated PGN games (which are very hard to find) I have added 950+ to my website in 9 separate downloadable &quot;.pgn&quot; files at&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://pgnchessbook.org/pgn/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Annotated PGN games&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19786" LastEditorUserId="19786" LastEditDate="2019-08-20T10:39:32.440" LastActivityDate="2019-08-20T10:39:32.440" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25180" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25164" CreationDate="2019-08-20T12:14:58.783" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess.com membership might be an option both in general for this specifically. It has a feature that allows games - whether played on the site or elsewhere - to be analysed. This includes a &quot;retry&quot; feature where the analysis will find weak moves with the challenge of finding a better one. It'll also graph the relevant strength of the position of board as the progress.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess.com does have free features and several levels of membership at different costs. It also has various lessons and other features as might be expected.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've no affiliation other than as a (paid) user. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19907" LastActivityDate="2019-08-20T12:14:58.783" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25182" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-08-20T19:26:43.687" Score="2" ViewCount="74" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have been going through some websites for practising my middle game so that I can get an advantage right away.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are some good sites for practising the middlegame?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19905" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-08-20T21:38:45.950" LastActivityDate="2019-08-20T21:38:45.950" Title="Sites to learn the middlegame from" Tags="&lt;middlegame&gt;&lt;websites&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="6" ClosedDate="2019-08-22T20:07:29.597" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25183" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25164" CreationDate="2019-08-20T21:27:15.377" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The most feature rich tool for making recommendation I have used is chess-pro app. &#xA; &lt;a href=&quot;https://apps.apple.com/us/app/chess-tiger-pro/id423198259&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://apps.apple.com/us/app/chess-tiger-pro/id423198259&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My favorite feature is that you can page through the position in the game where the computer thinks you have made an error.  It also can alert you to threats and has other guidance features. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To learn the most from your games it is important to review them yourself first before analyzing them with a computer.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17425" LastActivityDate="2019-08-20T21:27:15.377" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25184" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25164" CreationDate="2019-08-21T00:52:38.580" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chessbase is your best bet if your son is serious about playing for years to come. I believe the base version is around $100, but it comes with default (super strong) engines to help analyse. The software also allows you to input your games and save them, allowing you to review them later on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-08-21T00:52:38.580" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25187" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16197" CreationDate="2019-08-21T07:22:41.497" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess books in &quot;.pgn&quot; format are hard to find because most books (except those out of print) are copyrighted and so cannot be made available for download in &quot;.pgn&quot; format. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are some annotated &quot;.pgn&quot; collections on the web...but these are VERY hard to find. After much searching I found these annotated games, which can be viewed online one at a time for free but can't be downloaded&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://gameknot.com/best-annotated-games.pl&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Gameknot annotated games&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also see these two very good collections, which are chess books in everything but name. The first collection has about 1000 games in various downloadable files, and the second has about 80 games&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://pgnchessbook.org/pgn/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;About 1000 annotated games&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.pathtochessmastery.com/2012/03/thanks-to-query-from-hieronymus-ive-now.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;80 annotated games&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If anyone knows of any other good chess book type downloadable &quot;.pgn&quot; links please post here so that other players can find them&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19915" LastEditorUserId="19915" LastEditDate="2019-08-21T07:33:04.557" LastActivityDate="2019-08-21T07:33:04.557" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25189" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8494" CreationDate="2019-08-21T12:42:04.087" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Stockfish is an engine that's called by apps that read PGN files, it doesn't read the PGN data itself. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are many very good free apps that can read PGN files and analyse the games they contain using Stockfish (which is also free) and/or similar engines (mostly not free)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A lot of good free PGN reader apps that are able to call Stockfish can be downloaded and installed from SourceForge, such as&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://sourceforge.net/projects/chessx/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;ChessX&lt;/a&gt; An old app but a good one&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://sourceforge.net/projects/scid/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Scid&lt;/a&gt; The most popular app on SourceForge at the time of writing&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://sourceforge.net/projects/pgn-chessbook/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;PGN ChessBook&lt;/a&gt; Which comes with the requested Stockfish engine built in&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you search for &quot;pgn&quot; on SourceForge you should find more apps, but in my opinion these are the best ones currently available.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19915" LastActivityDate="2019-08-21T12:42:04.087" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25192" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25197" CreationDate="2019-08-21T21:32:45.173" Score="2" ViewCount="240" Body="&lt;p&gt;What are some aggressive gambits that White could use out of the Nimzowitsch Defense? 1. e4 Nc6 d4 d5&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19921" LastEditorUserId="19921" LastEditDate="2019-08-21T23:05:59.260" LastActivityDate="2019-08-23T15:45:35.857" Title="Gambits out of Nimzowitsch Defense" Tags="&lt;gambits&gt;&lt;aggressive-play&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25193" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25192" CreationDate="2019-08-22T07:12:57.440" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's 3.Nc3 dxe4 4.d5 as an interesting option, but I don't really think it's worth it as you will trade a slightly advantageous position for an equal/worse one and how many times are you gonna play 1.e4 Nc6 as White anyway? Your opponent will almost certainly be more prepared than you are!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastActivityDate="2019-08-22T07:12:57.440" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25194" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25195" CreationDate="2019-08-22T14:22:14.047" Score="9" ViewCount="2491" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to recall a particular chess problem. It's related to retrograde analysis. All what I can remember is this: it's an endgame where there is only one way to reach the position, and during last 49 moves there were no captures, so a potential winning move draws instead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19927" LastEditorUserId="19927" LastEditDate="2019-08-25T16:37:47.757" LastActivityDate="2019-12-07T15:11:37.383" Title="Identify a problem where a potentially winning move draws because of the 50 move rule" Tags="&lt;problems&gt;&lt;retrograde-analysis&gt;&lt;50-move-rule&gt;&lt;identify-this&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25195" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25194" CreationDate="2019-08-22T20:10:56.510" Score="18" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are dozens of problems that illustrate a potential winning moves that instead leads to a draw because of the 50 move rule.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One example is the following mate in four published by Léon Loewenton in 1956 :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;5KBN/p2ppp1r/1p4pp/b7/RP6/1PP4P/1RpPPPkP/n1B1Q1N1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Nf3 Rg7! 2. Kxg7! (2. Qg1+?? draws)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is an apparent mate in three moves: &lt;strong&gt;1. Nf3&lt;/strong&gt; followed by &lt;strong&gt;2. Qg1(+)&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;3. Qg3 mate&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, after &lt;strong&gt;1. Nf3 Rg7! 2. Qg1+&lt;/strong&gt; black claims a draw according to the 50 moves rule (the retrograde analysis is left as an exercise to the reader!).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If white plays &lt;strong&gt;2. Kxg7!&lt;/strong&gt;, the capture breaks the 50 move chain and white can mate with &lt;strong&gt;3. Qg1(+)&lt;/strong&gt; followed by &lt;strong&gt;4. Qg3 mate&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4572" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-12-07T15:11:37.383" LastActivityDate="2019-12-07T15:11:37.383" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25197" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25192" CreationDate="2019-08-23T15:45:35.857" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;1.e4 Nc6 2.d4 d5:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;3.Nc3&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;scores best for White according to my database and it is the move I play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3...dxe4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your opponent can go into the French Defense with 3...e6, but this is not a good French with the N on c6 blocking the c-pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4.d5 Ne5 is the most common.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5.Qd4 Ng6&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now White can consider Qxe4, h2-h4, f3... White has many aggressive options.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The safe 6.Qxe4 Nf6 7.Qa4+ Bd7 8.Qb3 continues to give Black problems.&#xA;The pawn sac offer of f2-f3 seems to have clear compensation based on the development advantage it gives.  But the problem with non-queen moves is that they allow Black to play e7-e5 which is close to equal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Alternatively 2.Nf3&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a common line is 1.e4 Nc6 2.Nf3 offering Black to return to a standard opening with 2...e5.  If 2...d5 you get an odd Scandinvian/Center-counter.  Black usually plays 2...d6 and after 3.d4 Bg4 4.Bb5 a6 5.Bxc6 White scores better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2019-08-23T15:45:35.857" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25198" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25194" CreationDate="2019-08-23T19:00:57.177" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Welcome to stackexchange.com, dveim.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's a great answer already, but I think there's a couple of interesting points that I can add.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, in the composition world, there's a convention which states whether the 50 move rule applies by default only to retro-problems. See &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.wfcc.ch/1999-2012/codex/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess Problem Codex Article 17&lt;/a&gt;. So all these very long &quot;cursed wins&quot; found in the tablebases don't get interrupted. However the retro problems mostly rely on the rule. But for some problems the convention would work the wrong way round, and in these cases the convention would be ignored, e.g. &lt;a href=&quot;https://pdb.dieschwalbe.de/search.jsp?expression=probid=%27P1308962%27&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Elkies' famous problem&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, some problem composers think that castling should reset the move count. I personally think that this is illogical: if this were so then &lt;em&gt;any&lt;/em&gt; king or rook move which disrupts castling rights should reset the move count. But there are great enthusiasts for this interpretation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another corner-case is what happens when the 50th move delivers checkmate? The FIDE rules for 75-move draw are clear: mate trumps draw. However to conclude the same thing for 50-move rule requires looking at the mechanism for claiming draws. It assumes that no-one delivering checkmate would want to claim a draw instead, and that coupled with the fact that someone would be checkmated before they can claim a draw in their own turn effectively means that &quot;mate trumps draw&quot; for 50-move rule. But, although this is the FIDE intent, it doesn't explicitly say so, and some composers like the idea of creative ambiguity here. I personally think that mate trumps draw for 50-move rule.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, there are currently 160 problems in PDB Chess Problem Database See &lt;a href=&quot;https://pdb.dieschwalbe.de/search.jsp?expression=k=%2750%27&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;overview here&lt;/a&gt;, of which an amazingly proportion of 94 are by the late great Russian composer, Nikita Plaksin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: STOP PRESS: I deliberately skipped over the fact that the Codex of Chess Problem Composition had no formal notion of 50-move rule (or draw by repetition)! The sections of the FIDE Laws which cover these were deemed not relevant by the Codex. In the last few days, in Vilnius, at the annual Congress for Problemists, Footnote 12 of the Codex has been fixed in this regard. There is still the problem of how to &lt;em&gt;translate&lt;/em&gt; these rules to the Problem world - the castling and checkmate issues are problems for the 50 move world, and the happy acceptance that composers are “free spirits” means you can end up with vague compromise assertions which are a barrier to retrograde analysis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8201" LastEditorUserId="8201" LastEditDate="2019-08-26T04:49:13.277" LastActivityDate="2019-08-26T04:49:13.277" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25199" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26576" CreationDate="2019-08-23T23:30:49.150" Score="4" ViewCount="269" Body="&lt;p&gt;In 1979, Nikita M. Plaksin published a reportedly fascinating article containing 50 problems all related to the 50 moves rule. Unfortunately I can't find it anywhere, the only links that I could find are old and broken.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If anyone has it, would you please share it with the community and not let it get lost to time?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18786" LastEditorUserId="18786" LastEditDate="2019-08-24T08:27:37.543" LastActivityDate="2021-05-02T15:19:11.477" Title="Does anyone have a version of the 50x50 article by Nikita Plaksin?" Tags="&lt;history&gt;&lt;books&gt;&lt;problems&gt;&lt;50-move-rule&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25200" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25206" CreationDate="2019-08-24T08:34:19.993" Score="6" ViewCount="654" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;1K6/1P3q2/1P6/P7/3k4/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there any way that white can win or draw in the above game? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19934" LastEditorUserId="7726" LastEditDate="2019-08-25T09:59:21.043" LastActivityDate="2020-03-17T22:24:14.543" Title="Is there any way white can win?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25201" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25212" CreationDate="2019-08-24T09:03:36.343" Score="4" ViewCount="365" Body="&lt;p&gt;It seems to me that after the popular move order &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nf3 d5 4. Nc3 Be7 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the most popular option - at least at top GM level - is currently 5. Bf4. Yet, back in the 1980s and 1990s, 5. Bf4  was not considered a particularly challenging way to fight the Queen's Gambit Declined. Every strong GM was playing 5. Bg5 (or the Exchange Variation). Who revitalized  5. Bf4, and why is it considered a strong / challenging move nowadays?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastEditorUserId="8291" LastEditDate="2019-08-24T13:28:30.880" LastActivityDate="2019-08-26T17:19:15.467" Title="Who revitalized 5. Bf4 vs the Queen's Gambit Declined?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;1.d4&gt;&lt;queens-gambit-declined&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25202" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25213" CreationDate="2019-08-24T09:08:35.823" Score="6" ViewCount="242" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why isn't 5. f4 considered a strong move in the main line French Advance, after &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. e5 c5 4. c3 Nc6  &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Everyone plays 5. Nf3 here, but isn't it logical to support e5 with a Pawn and later 6. Nf3, as it is for example in the Steinitz Variation of the Classical French, after &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. e5 Nfd7 5. f4 c5 6. Nf3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastEditorUserId="4588" LastEditDate="2019-08-24T15:49:13.050" LastActivityDate="2020-08-12T22:25:52.610" Title="Why isn't 5. f4 considered strong in the French Advance, main line?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;french-defense&gt;&lt;1.e4&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25204" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-08-24T09:12:08.790" Score="5" ViewCount="154" Body="&lt;p&gt;My question relates the Cambridge Springs QGD when Black deviates from the main line by playing the well-known inaccuracy 7 Bd3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;...&quot;]   &#xA;1. d4 d5 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. Bg5 Nbd7 5. e3 c6 6. Nf3 Qa5 7. Bd3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I had always been taught to play 7...dxc4 8 Bxc4 Ne4 here. However, searching an up-to-date database of OTB games I see that of the 292 games to reach the position after 7 Bd3 118 players chose 7...Ne4, while only 97 chose 7...dxc4. Furthermore of the 13 players above 2200 who have got to this position as Black, 8 chose 7...Ne4, 4 chose 7...dxc4, and 1 chose 7...Bb4. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I don't understand why this should be. It seems to me 7...Ne4 8 Bxe4 dxe4 9 Ne5 (the usual continuation) White is doing relatively better than they would be doing after 7...dxc4 8 Bxc4 Ne4. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Am I missing something, or is the case that Black players are making a mistake by choosing 7...Ne4 instead of 7...dxc4?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1752" LastEditorUserId="4588" LastEditDate="2019-08-24T15:53:43.887" LastActivityDate="2019-08-24T15:53:43.887" Title="Why is 7 Bd3 in the Cambridge Springs QGD more often met with 7...Ne4 than 7...dxc4?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;1.d4&gt;&lt;queens-gambit-declined&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25205" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25207" CreationDate="2019-08-24T09:13:56.963" Score="9" ViewCount="1007" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why is &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Bg5 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;almost never played? Isn't it a logical opening move? OK, it goes against the rule of &quot;Knights before Bishops in the Opening&quot;, but is a general rule enough for this move to be virtually never played at top level?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastEditorUserId="4588" LastEditDate="2019-08-26T17:46:52.457" LastActivityDate="2019-08-26T17:46:52.457" Title="Why is 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Bg5 almost never played?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;1.d4&gt;&lt;indian-defence&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25206" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25200" CreationDate="2019-08-24T09:14:26.243" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;This position has six pieces on the board, and is hence present in a number of chess endgame tablebases.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, the &lt;a href=&quot;https://syzygy-tables.info/?fen=1K6/1P3q2/1P6/P7/3k4/8/8/8_w_-_-_0_1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Syzygy tablebases show that this position is a theoretical draw&lt;/a&gt;, but that there is only one move which guarantees the draw: &lt;code&gt;Kc8&lt;/code&gt;. All other moves allow black to force a win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;1K6/1P3q2/1P6/P7/3k4/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Kc8 Qe8+ 2. Kc7 Qe7+ 3. Kc8&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This position is a draw because White is constantly threatening to promote and win, which leaves Black with no choice but to perpetually check White.  The problem with Ka8 and is that Black can pin the White pawn and gain tempo through constant checking, gaining time to advance their king and win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If this position were to occur in an actual game, the result would likely be unclear as it would be incredibly easy for either blunder, and end up losing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10075" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-03-17T22:24:14.543" LastActivityDate="2020-03-17T22:24:14.543" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25207" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25205" CreationDate="2019-08-24T09:28:48.967" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your bishop can be chased with h6, g5 and h5, after what white barely equalizes. It also gives black calm options, for example some c5 with Qa5 ans Ne4 ideas. It's just committing the bishop too early. So yes, it's typical position on why 'knights first' often works! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11609" LastActivityDate="2019-08-24T09:28:48.967" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25208" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22803" CreationDate="2019-08-24T10:00:28.937" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Eventually I came to suspect that in the top line the ...Nc6-e7 plan (forcing e2-e4) is relatively more popular than ...Nc6-a5 because there is at least one viable line in which a quick ...c7-c6 can be played to hit back at White's centre.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After 8...e5 9 d5 Ne7 10 e4 Black can try 10...c6. White might get an edge following 11 d6 Ng8 but it's complicated. 10...c6 isn't the most popular move in this line, but it's been played by some strong GMs. By contrast, after 8...0-0 9 0-0 e5 10 d5 Ne7 11 e4 then 11...c6 isn't an option as it just loses a piece to 12 d6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1752" LastActivityDate="2019-08-24T10:00:28.937" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25209" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22803" CreationDate="2019-08-24T11:25:57.053" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The reason 9...Ne7 is more popular than 9...Na5 is that it gives Black more possibilities than just transposing with castling. I.e.: 9...Ne7 10.e4 c6!? is quite popular in my database, the point being that 11.d6 is answered with 11...Ng8. Note how this wouldn't be possible if Black had castled, since the g8-square wouldn't be vacant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It may seem odd how the ability to strike immediately with 10...c6 would make 9...Ne7 way more popular than 9...Na5. But consider: why would someone bother playing 8...e5 in the first place (instead of being safer by castling first with 8...0-0) unless he was intending to deviate? If a player is content with the main lines you give, it makes more sense to castle immediately. Being combative with an early 8...e5 implies the player may be looking for an offbeat line, and if this is the case then 9...Ne7 is the natural choice over 9...Na5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-08-24T11:25:57.053" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25210" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25204" CreationDate="2019-08-24T11:33:03.560" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;7...dxc4 is absolutely just as good as 7...Ne4. Stockfish 10 (at depth 32) gives 7...dxc4 an evaluation of -0.31, while 7...Ne4 is 0.23. A difference of 118 games vs 96 games isn't a big deal and has very little weight in determining the objective strength of a move. So this is one of those cases where deciding which move to play is a matter of taste.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT - according to online saved results, Stockfish (as of Aug 1 2019) at depth 47 gives 7...dxc4 a -0.43 evaluation. So it's definitely sound :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-08-24T11:33:03.560" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25211" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25205" CreationDate="2019-08-24T15:45:19.377" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;After 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Bg5, the position resembles the Tromposvky Attack (1.d4 Nf6 2.Bg5), where white often gives up the bishop pair in exchange for a lead in development and the center. For example, one main line goes 2....e6 3.e4 h6 4.Bxf6 Qxf6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, in the position after 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Bg5, the move c4 doesn't fit well in this plan. Moreover, it weakens the dark squares, helping black's plans with c5 or Bb4+.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;      [StartPly &quot;2&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;      [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;      1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 (2.Bg5 e6 3.e4 h6 4.Bxf6 Qxf6) e6 3.Bg5 h6&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4588" LastActivityDate="2019-08-24T15:45:19.377" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25212" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25201" CreationDate="2019-08-24T16:28:40.090" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;One of the possible reasons why 5.Bf4 has gained popularity at the very top-level, is because white seems to have difficulties obtaining an advantage after 5.Bg5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The critical variation is 5....h6 6.Bh4 O-O 7.e3 Nbd7 8.Rc1 c5 9.dxc5 Nxc5 10.cxd5 g5!, which occured for the first time in &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1791496&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wojtaszek-Kramnik (2015)&lt;/a&gt;.&#xA;Moreover, black can also play 9....dxc4, which happened in another famous Kramnik game: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1811839&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Matlakov-Kramnik (2015)&lt;/a&gt;.&#xA;After 8....c5, white's main alternative is 9.cxd5. In this line too, there is an impressive Kramnik win: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1779836&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Salem-Kramnik (2014)&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To answer the question &quot;Who revitalized 5.Bf4?&quot;: Kramnik, by posing some questions as black in the 5.Bg5 line.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;      [StartPly &quot;8&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;      [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;      1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 d5 4.Nc3 Be7 5.Bg5 (5.Bf4) h6 6.Bh4 O-O 7.e3 Nbd7 8.Rc1 c5 9.dxc5 (9.cxd5) Nxc5 (9...dxc4) 10.cxd5 g5&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4588" LastEditorUserId="4588" LastEditDate="2019-08-26T17:19:15.467" LastActivityDate="2019-08-26T17:19:15.467" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25213" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25202" CreationDate="2019-08-24T16:30:08.793" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;After 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.e5 c5 4.c3 Nc6 5.f4, black can put white's center under pressure very quickly. For example, after 5....Nh6 6.Nf3, black is already better after 6....Qb6 or 6....cxd4 7.cxd4 Nf5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In contrast, one of the main lines of the Tarrasch variation goes 3.Nd2 Nf6 4.e5 Nfd7 5.f4 c5 6.c3 Nc6 7.Ndf3. In this line, white has a firm grip on the center, while black cannot manoeuvre Nd7 to the outpost on f5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;      [StartPly &quot;4&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;      [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;      1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.e5 (3.Nd2 Nf6 4.e5 Nfd7 5.f4 c5 6.c3 Nc6 7.Ndf3) c5 4.c3 Nc6 5.f4 Nh6 6.Nf3 cxd4 (6...Qb6) 7.cxd4 Nf5&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4588" LastEditorUserId="4588" LastEditDate="2019-08-26T17:24:51.620" LastActivityDate="2019-08-26T17:24:51.620" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25214" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25232" CreationDate="2019-08-24T19:50:26.370" Score="1" ViewCount="218" Body="&lt;p&gt;I played a &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/1YMDFmZO&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Lichess bullet game&lt;/a&gt; as Black in which I disregarded any opening theory because I just wanted to mount up a pawn storm on the queenside. Has anybody come across this idea? It seems to me that a French Defense-like position with the e6 and d5 pawns blocked would make this to work. Also, the pair of bishops seems quite important here and I think that when established, this pawn structure would limit White's space and, if he castles, allows for pressure along both sides of the board. How would you make this work though?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;abranzyck-LIR1618, Lichess, 8/24/19&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;*&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. f4 e6 2. Nf3 d5 3. d3 a5 4. e4 c6 5. e5 Nh6 6. h3 b5 7. Be2 Bd7 8. O-O Na6 9. Be3 c5 10. Bf2 d4 11. Bh4 Be7 12. Ng5 Nf5 13. Qe1 Bc6 14. Bf3 Bxf3 15. Rxf3 Nxh4 16. Qxh4 h6 17. Qh5 g6 18. Qh4 Qd5 19. Nd2 O-O-O 20. Nde4 hxg5 21. Qf2 f5 22. Nxg5 Bxg5 23. fxg5 Rh5 24. g4 fxg4 25. Rf7 Rxg5 26. Kh2 Rh8 27. Rf1 Rxh3+ 28. Kg1 g3 29. Qf6 Qh1#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19936" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-08-24T20:09:56.977" LastActivityDate="2019-08-27T21:01:29.207" Title="How would you make a queenside pawn storm opening idea work?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;learning&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;pawn-structure&gt;&lt;attack&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25215" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15547" CreationDate="2019-08-24T23:42:40.480" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is a new record of &lt;strong&gt;41 moves.&lt;/strong&gt; I retooled the White knight checking cycle with a new scheme.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;me, chess.stackexchange.com 8/25/2019, White Draws&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;6r1/p1p1p1r1/p1p1p1q1/4pN1N/4n3/7K/4N1p1/R4Nbk w KQkq - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Nhg3+ Qxg3+ 2. N5xg3+ Rxg3+ 3. Nexg3+ Rxg3+ 4. Nxg3+ Nxg3 5. Kxg3 e4 6. Kh3 e3 7. Kg3 e2 8. Kh3 e1=Q 9. Rxe1 c5 10. Kg3 c4 11. Kh3 c3 12. Kg3 c2 13. Kh3 c1=Q 14. Rxc1 e5 15. Kg3 e4 16. Kh3 e3 17. Kg3 e2 18. Kh3 e1=Q 19. Rxe1 c6 20. Kg3 c5 21. Kh3 c4 22. Kg3 c3 23. Kh3 c2 24. Kg3 c1=Q 25. Rxc1 a5 26. Kh3 a4 27. Kg3 a3 28. Kh3 a2 29. Kg3 a1=Q 30. Rxa1 e6 31. Kh3 e5 32. Kg3 e4 33. Kh3 e3 34. Kg3 e2 35. Kh3 e1=Q 36. Rxe1 a6 37. Kg3 a5 38. Kh3 a4 39. Kg3 a3 40. Kh3 a2 41. Ra1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-05-02T15:33:51.340" LastActivityDate="2021-05-02T15:33:51.340" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25216" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25214" CreationDate="2019-08-25T05:07:52.873" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;That is a beautiful checkmate, but I personally don't consider a pawnstorm in the opening or early midgame a really good idea, since its easy to penetrate and it loses in terms of development.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But if you were to make a queenside pawnstorm, you could probably start with the queens gambit? You can probably push your queen pawns and still end up with a playable midgame in that case. As you mentioned, the bishops are important (and so are the knights) so you maybe would like to get your minors out and attacking or supporting the pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19941" LastActivityDate="2019-08-25T05:07:52.873" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25217" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25264" CreationDate="2019-08-25T05:18:05.313" Score="2" ViewCount="133" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Bughouse, players often target the f2/f7 square; it is common to see a minor sack on f7, followed by a knight on g5 delivering check and breaching through the opponent's defenses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I recently played a &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/live#g=3976463097&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Lichess Bughouse game&lt;/a&gt; where, even though the opponent castled, the f7 square still offered opportunity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Personally I think I'm still novice with bughouse, so I'm wondering if just attacking the f2/f7 square is a good rule of thumb. Or, is there is some better general advice for beginner or intermediate players to follow?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19941" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-08-25T13:51:59.253" LastActivityDate="2020-11-27T23:37:26.583" Title="Is targeting the f7/f2 square in bughouse a good rule of thumb?" Tags="&lt;sacrifice&gt;&lt;attack&gt;&lt;bughouse&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25218" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-08-25T09:12:48.843" Score="3" ViewCount="521" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a beginner in Chess. I know the basics but I have very very little practice as of now and I've shortlisted Chess.com to learn and improve my game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am yet to buy a premium subscription there but before that I want to test the website with (as much as possible) content available in the basic (free) version. But, there are so many sections in the 'Learn' area only like Puzzles, Lessons, Videos, Openings, Drills and then so many lessons inside each of them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm getting a little confused as to where to start. The reason I'm asking for a right path is because I don't want to mistakenly throw away the option of learning from Chess.com just because I started with things that were probably too advanced for me to start with.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, if anyone has any other suggestion besides Chess.com for online platforms for a beginner to learn Chess, then that's also most welcome.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19942" LastActivityDate="2021-04-16T12:24:39.830" Title="What is the right path to be followed on Chess.com for learning Chess?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;training&gt;&lt;beginner&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25219" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25218" CreationDate="2019-08-25T10:52:04.937" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Have a look at &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/2008/the-path-of-learning-chess?rq=1&quot;&gt;The path of learning chess&lt;/a&gt; and see how you can match this with what chess.com offers. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Starting with tactics, a couple of basic general chess principles and playing slower time controls is probably a good start. Avoid learning openings by heart. Watch videos aimed at beginners on youtube, chess24 or any other website (there are questions on SE about recommended websites as well). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;IMO there is so much free material for beginners out there that I'd rather invest the money in a good book or for joining a chess club than paying for some website.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once you are beyond the beginner stage you will want to figure out your main weaknesses and work more on those. Having a stronger player look over your game is very useful in this respect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2019-08-25T10:52:04.937" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25220" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25221" CreationDate="2019-08-25T14:04:31.293" Score="5" ViewCount="1183" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recently played a &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/9MjU5E62&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Lichess Bullet Game&lt;/a&gt; as White.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.h4 Nc6 3.d3 Nf6 4.g3 Bc5 5.Nc3 d6 6.a3 O-O 7.b4 Bxf2+ 8.Kxf2 Ng4+ 9.Ke1 a6 10.Bh3 Nd4 11.Bxg4 b5 12.Bxc8 Rxc8 13.Nge2 Nxe2 14.Qxe2 c5 15.bxc5 dxc5 16.Rb1 c4 17.dxc4 bxc4 18.Be3 h6 19.g4 f6 20.Bxh6 gxh6 21.Qe3 Kf7 22.Qxh6 Ke7  23.Rb7+ Ke6 24.Rf1 Rh8 25.Rxf6+ Qxf6 26.Re7+ Kxe7 27. Nd5+ Kf7 28.Qxf6+ Kg8 29.Ne7+ Kh7 30.Qg6#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After Black's 24th move, I thought I was doomed, but I found the rook sacrifice, Rxf6, which forces Black to capture Qxf6. I could have gone for Rb6+ next, taking their queen, but I missed that and played Re7+ sacrificing both rooks. They had to capture with the king, and now, what I foreseen, is that Nd5+ forks the Black king and the queen. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is this: If Black ran better with his King, would they have a chance to defend against my attack? It seems to me that d7 is not a better square for black to move his king to because he has to block Qe7+ and there is also the Nb6+ threat of forking the rook. It's possible that their next best move would be Rce8, which is met with 1. Qf7+ Kd6 2. Qc7+ Ke6 3. Qc6+ Kf7 4. Qf6+ Kf8 Ne7+, forcing him to take with the rook, because otherwise it's mate. It looks like the game was mine anyways.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nevertheless makes for a more spectacular win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19936" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-08-25T15:36:55.210" LastActivityDate="2019-08-26T00:27:45.593" Title="Could this kind of inaccurate sacrifice be countered?" Tags="&lt;sacrifice&gt;&lt;attack&gt;&lt;bullet-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25221" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25220" CreationDate="2019-08-25T14:45:37.437" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;When asking questions about tactics and sacrifices, chess engines are usually the most efficient and accurate way of determining the answer. The following is based on analysis from Houdini 6.03 in tactical mode:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the end of move 24, in the following position, a forced mate (in 8) already exists for white&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;2rq3r/1R6/p3kp1Q/4p3/2p1P1PP/P1N5/2P5/4KR2 w - - 5 25&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Rxf6+ { #8/58 } 1...Qxf6 2.Rb6+ Rc6 3.Rxc6+ Kd7 4.Qxf6 Rh6 5.Qxh6 Ke7 &#xA;6.Rc7+ Kd8 7.Qd6+ Ke8 8.Qe7#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And &lt;code&gt;Rxf6+&lt;/code&gt; was indeed the optimal move. Later on, &lt;code&gt;Rb6+&lt;/code&gt; was completely fine, but not optimal (see analysis above). As it turns out, you lose your mate in 7 and are tragically left with the following mate in 19:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;2r4r/4R3/p3kq1Q/4p3/2p1P1PP/P1N5/2P5/4K3 b - - 1 26&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1...Kxe7 { #19/50 } 2.Nd5+ Kd7 3.Qxf6 Rhf8 4.Qe7+ Kc6 5.Nb4+ Kb5 6.Qxe5+ Kb6 7.Qd6+ Kb7 8.Qxa6+ Kc7 9.Qc6+ Kb8 10.Qb6+ Ka8 11.Nc6 Rxc6 12.Qxc6+ Kb8 13.Qd6+ Kc8 14.Qxf8+ Kd7 15.e5 Ke6 16.Qd6+ Kf7 17.Qf6+ Kg8 18.h5 Kh7 19.h6 Kg8 20.Qg7#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It turns out the best move for black (the one which holds off mate for longest) is in fact to take your rook and allow themselves to be forked. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On move 27, the played move &lt;code&gt;Kf7&lt;/code&gt; allows the mate in 3. The best option, &lt;code&gt;Kd7&lt;/code&gt; is shown in the mating line above. It delays mate much longer than 3 moves, but obviously still loses. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10075" LastActivityDate="2019-08-25T14:45:37.437" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25222" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28148" CreationDate="2019-08-25T15:44:50.593" Score="1" ViewCount="84" Body="&lt;p&gt;To make it simple, let's say that I play a game that opens with 1. e4 d5 2. d4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I use Scid-vs-PC, and in this position, it just shows a bunch of games. Od course, if black plays now 2 ... e6, we transpose into the French defense, and suddenly thousands of games exist.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm looking for a software that after 1. e4 d5 2. d4 will show you the games that transpose to the French Defense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure if I'm explaining myself properly. So, just in case, this site has this feature that I'm attaching a picture of to show both cases in &lt;a href=&quot;https://chesstempo.com/game-database.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chesstempo&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/aukZB.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/aukZB.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/aukZB.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/aukZB.png&quot; alt=&quot;chesstempo showing the option e6 after 1 e4 d5 2 d4&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9179" LastEditorUserId="9179" LastEditDate="2019-08-25T20:33:05.270" LastActivityDate="2020-01-24T03:31:11.593" Title="Is there any software (preferably Linux) that, when managing a database, can inform you about opening transpositions?" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;database&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25223" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13255" CreationDate="2019-08-25T17:06:43.293" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This engine was created just with the idea of being of help to beginners on the chess engines coding world:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/emdio/secondchess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://github.com/emdio/secondchess&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9179" LastActivityDate="2019-08-25T17:06:43.293" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25224" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25220" CreationDate="2019-08-26T00:27:45.593" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;That sacrifice could not have been countered once Re7+ was played, though on move 26 white could also have played Rb6+ since that would have won the black queen for free and is materialistically superior to Re7+.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19941" LastActivityDate="2019-08-26T00:27:45.593" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25225" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25199" CreationDate="2019-08-26T01:01:20.987" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Hi Arnaud thanks for your question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The problems themselves can all be found in pdb.dieschwalbe.de. Type K='50' AND A='Plaksin' AND S='Problem' AND YEAR='1979'. All 50 are there numbered, with solutions. If you are typing from a phone make sure that you select the correct single-quote character: the vertical one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The query reveals that they were published in the now-defunct magazine Problem, but it does not give the article text. I suggest Arnaud that you send your request to the Retro Mailing List retros@janko.at. This will put you in touch with all the current retro greats who would probably love to hear from you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If that doesn’t work then let me know and I will approach someone individually.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: the 50x50 article is now available at &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.janko.at/Retros/Articles/index.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.janko.at/Retros/Articles/index.htm&lt;/a&gt; in Russian but I guess that google translate will work - and the diagrams are the not important part.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8201" LastEditorUserId="8201" LastEditDate="2019-10-09T19:37:33.970" LastActivityDate="2019-10-09T19:37:33.970" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25226" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25227" CreationDate="2019-08-26T07:10:16.973" Score="13" ViewCount="1936" Body="&lt;p&gt;Suppose that, as a result of White's move, there have now been 100 single-moves (50 full moves) since the most recent pawn move or capture. White didn't claim a draw because they're going for the win. Every option for Black's next move is a pawn move or a capture. Does this mean that Black has now lost the opportunity to claim a draw under the 50-move rule?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Art. 9.3 of FIDE's Laws of Chess (2018) suggests that they have, but I wanted to check. If I've understood correctly, the opportunity does not just occur on the 100th non-pawn non-capture and then vanish forever --- you may claim at any point from the 100th onwards in a series of more than 100 --- but there must be a series of at least 100 including the very turn in which you make your claim. That is, retrospective claims do not stand.) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This question was prompted by my reading up on Art. 9.3 of FIDE's Laws of Chess (2018) to respond to &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/25194/identify-a-problem-where-a-potentially-winning-move-draws-because-of-the-50-move&quot;&gt;this question&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10380" LastActivityDate="2019-08-26T07:32:01.453" Title="50-move rule: only the last 50 or any consecutive 50?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;50-move-rule&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25227" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25226" CreationDate="2019-08-26T07:22:36.353" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;She can claim a draw. Article 9.3 of the &lt;a href=&quot;http://rules.fide.com/images/stories/Laws_of_Chess_2018_-_EB_approved_-_clean_version.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Laws of Chess, 2018&lt;/a&gt;, emphasis mine:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;9.3&lt;/strong&gt; The game is drawn, upon a correct claim by a player having the move, if:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;9.3.1&lt;/strong&gt; he writes his move, which cannot be changed, on his scoresheet and declares to the arbiter his intention to make this move which will result in thelast 50 moves by eachplayer having been made without the movement of any pawn and without any capture, &lt;strong&gt;or&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;9.3.2&lt;/strong&gt; the last 50 moves by each player &lt;strong&gt;have been completed&lt;/strong&gt; without the movement of any pawn and without any capture.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;9.3.2 is the case you describe, where the moves have already been completed. 9.3.1 is the case that counts the move the player is about to make.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: but you link to the other question. In real tournament chess, checkmate would certainly trump this -- checkmate &lt;em&gt;ends the game&lt;/em&gt;, so the other player would never get another turn to claim a draw in. But problems &lt;em&gt;are not tournament chess&lt;/em&gt; and they use their own conventions, like the famous rule that castling is allowed unless you can prove it isn't.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2019-08-26T07:32:01.453" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25228" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25218" CreationDate="2019-08-26T09:13:19.593" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recommend these collections of &lt;a href=&quot;https://szachydzieciom.pl/?page_id=63160&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;mate-in-1&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://szachydzieciom.pl/?page_id=63164&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;mate-in-2&lt;/a&gt; puzzles. They are powered by a unique software system not available anywhere else:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(1) the computer plays multiple defense lines before admitting success&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(2) the system allows alternative solutions to be played out to success rather than prompt the irritated user to find a better solution&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(3) the system allows the user to play wrong lines and keeps replying with moves and not just with words like &quot;wrong, try again&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(I am the chess programmer, author of this chess publishing platform.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://szachydzieciom.pl/?page_id=63160&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Mate in 1 interactive exercises&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://szachydzieciom.pl/?page_id=63164&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Mate in 2 interactive exercises&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3456" LastActivityDate="2019-08-26T09:13:19.593" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25229" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17181" CreationDate="2019-08-26T09:32:03.387" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you want to check a very simple chess engine written in C (even simpler than TCSP) and beginners oriented you can take a look at Secondchess:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/emdio/secondchess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://github.com/emdio/secondchess&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9179" LastActivityDate="2019-08-26T09:32:03.387" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25230" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25231" CreationDate="2019-08-26T12:07:22.303" Score="4" ViewCount="196" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am having trouble understanding a move studied in an opening book. The move is Bg4 in the Pirc defence in this position.&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/BkkSr.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/BkkSr.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the point of aiming to exchange the bishop on f3? The point d4 does not seem to be the reason.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16771" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-08-26T19:56:56.460" LastActivityDate="2019-08-26T19:56:56.460" Title="The move Bg4 in the Pirc defense" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25231" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25230" CreationDate="2019-08-26T13:24:34.137" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Compare that position with other variations where White does not allow ...Bg4 to be played. Black often struggles with the development of the c8 bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, the central dark squares are indeed a target, so ...Bg4 is clearly helping there (what else could he possibly do in a different square?) Pawn breaks with ...e5 or ...c5 are a possibility as well&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastActivityDate="2019-08-26T13:24:34.137" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25232" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25214" CreationDate="2019-08-26T14:54:04.223" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You may want to take a look at some games with the English opening (after, for example 1.c4 e5 2.Nc3 Nc6 3.g3, where white rushes for a strong queenside attack based on Rb1, b4-b5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Sicilian Defence (Classical, Closed, Najdorf, Dragon, Taimanov or Scheveningen variations also provide good examples)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some lines on the French Defence also have examples of queenside storm from Black, but I cannot recommend you anything in particular. Of course, even in the openings I mentioned, there will be plenty of examples where other plans are used instead. Be patient with your search until you find something useful for you&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastActivityDate="2019-08-26T14:54:04.223" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25233" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2019-08-26T17:51:52.043" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="4588" LastEditorUserId="4588" LastEditDate="2019-08-26T17:51:52.043" LastActivityDate="2019-08-26T17:51:52.043" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25234" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2019-08-26T17:51:52.043" Score="0" Body="the group of openings characterized by the moves 1.d4 Nf6" OwnerUserId="4588" LastEditorUserId="4588" LastEditDate="2019-08-26T17:51:52.043" LastActivityDate="2019-08-26T17:51:52.043" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25235" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25236" CreationDate="2019-08-26T18:13:32.530" Score="6" ViewCount="1814" Body="&lt;p&gt;My chess rating is somewhere between 400 and 500 and I have a lot of trouble countering the Scandinavian Defense. My first move is usually e4 but when my opponent uses the Scandinavian Defense (d5), I have a hard time countering that. I heard from everyone that only beginners do it for a reason but I can't exactly figure out why nobody else would use that defense. I am curious if you know an aggressive counter to the Scandinavian defense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19921" LastActivityDate="2021-05-17T02:12:20.653" Title="An aggressive counter for white vs Scandinavian Defense" Tags="&lt;beginner&gt;&lt;aggressive-play&gt;&lt;scandinavian-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25236" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25235" CreationDate="2019-08-27T02:51:16.780" Score="7" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I heard from everyone that only beginners do it for a reason but I can't exactly figure out why nobody else would use that defense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's not true that nobody but beginners use the Scandinavian - I use it, and my rating is in the 1700s.  The opening is, however, somewhat rare; I've only seen it about 4% of the time when I've played 1.e4 in tournament games. Some beginners perhaps like this opening because it gets their queen out early. But this is actually a &lt;em&gt;bad&lt;/em&gt; thing for Black, not a good thing. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As White, one good idea is to make that queen your target. This game is the fastest I've lost playing the Scandinavian, and I lose when my opponent (rated 2042) traps my queen:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 d5 2.exd5 Qxd5 3.Nf3 Qa5 4.Be2 Nf6 5.O-O Bf5 6.d4 c6 7.c4 Nbd7 8.Nc3 e6 9.Bf4 Be7 10.a3 c5 11.Nb5 O-O 12.dxc5 a6 13.Bc7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And here's a game where a beginner (rated 535) tries the Scandinavian against me. Notice how, when possible, I attack his queen with moves that also develop my pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 d5 2.exd5 Qxd5 3.Nc3 {I attack his queen. So far this is the mainline.} Qd4 {This is where we deviate from the mainline Scandinavian. This isn't the best square for his queen.} 4.Nf3 {I attack his queen again.} Qb6 5.Bc4 {I develop another piece. I don't attack his queen with Nd5 or Na4 because that wouldn't help me develop.} Nf6 6.O-O Qd6 {He moves his queen again. His plan is probably to trade off my f3 knight with Bg4 and Bxf3, and then play Ng4 to threaten Qxh2#.} 7.h3 {To prevent his plan. It wouldn't work, but Bg4 is annoying so I prevent it.} Nh5 {Moving his knight again and putting it on the edge of the board. That's usually not a good idea.} 8.Re1 {Activating my rook. It's not the strongest move I could have played. Ng5, attacking f7 and discovering an attack on his knight, was better.} Qg6 {Moving his queen yet again! We're on move 8, and he's moved his queen 5 times. His threat is Bxh3, and I can't play gxh3 because the pawn is pinned by the queen.} 9.Ne5 {Threatening his queen again. He can't play Bxh3 if his queen isn't safe. This also threatens his f7 pawn.} Qg5 {Still threatening Bxh3.} 10.d4 {A discovered attack on his queen. Perhaps I should have just played Bxf7+ now, but this also works.} Nf4 {Blocking the attack on his queen and threatening Qxg2#.} 11.Bxf4 {I have to do something about his checkmate threat.} Qxf4 {Eleven moves in, and his queen is his only piece that isn't on its starting square, while my army is just about fully developed. It's time for me to attack.} 12.Bxf7+ Kd8 13.Bd5 {Threatens Nf7+ forking his king and rook.} Qg5 {Trying to set up Bxh3 again, but it just makes my impending fork worse.} 14.Nf7+ {King-queen fork.} Ke8 15.Nxg5 h6 {From here I have a forced mate.} 16.Qh5+ Kd8 17.Nf7+ Kd7 18.Be6+ Kc6 19.Qc5# 1-0 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2019-08-27T02:51:16.780" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25237" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25235" CreationDate="2019-08-27T07:47:17.127" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you are having trouble with it, maybe you need to slow down the aggression!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My advice is to play 2.e5. It is theoretically a &quot;bad&quot; move because it allows your opponent to play an improved Caro-Kann or French. But at your skill level, nobody who goes for the Scandinavian will know anything about how to play those!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-08-27T11:59:07.550" LastActivityDate="2019-08-27T11:59:07.550" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25238" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18396" CreationDate="2019-08-27T11:55:13.437" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;On a related note, enjoy a chess problem that demonstrates the weird mechanism of the pawn being pinned by the taken pawn. I pulled this from &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.yacpdb.org/#86389&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yet Another Chess Problem Database.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Erich Anselm Brunner, Deutsches Wochenschach 12/1908, Selfmate In 3&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;8/8/5Q2/2p3Pk/5R1P/5r2/1PPKB1P1/2NRB3 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Ra4! c4 2. Qf7+ Kg4 3. b4 c3#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The rook on a4 pins the Black pawn such that it cannot take en passant, as that would expose the Black king to check. As such, Black pawn cannot perform an en passant and must move forward with a mate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-05-02T15:17:07.537" LastActivityDate="2021-05-02T15:17:07.537" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25241" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13462" CreationDate="2019-08-27T17:58:06.100" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, moving both the king and the rook are necessary to castle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-08-27T17:58:06.100" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25242" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25214" CreationDate="2019-08-27T21:01:29.207" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In your example the game was basically played on the kingside only as your &quot;pawn storm&quot; did not get beyond the 5th rank. With or without pawn storm white would not really want to put pieces on the queenside. White made some strange decisions starting with Bh4. Likely a better plan for white would have been to develop pieces quickly (e.g. a knight to e4) and open the position while black was still somehwat less developed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyway, IMO, having a fixed plan like a &quot;pawn storm&quot; for every game in mind is a bad idea. You should investigate the position at hand and then decide what plan to follow based on that. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you like positions with queenside pawn storms, see David's reply for openings where it often is a good idea.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Generally speaking pawn storms are often started in opposite side castling and if there is already a weakness (e.g. a pawn has moved out of line) in the opponent's position that you can attack with a pawn storm. You also want to have your development completed or almost completed before you open the position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2019-08-27T21:01:29.207" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25243" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25235" CreationDate="2019-08-27T21:54:01.493" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You are correct to seek an aggressive line since at this stage in your chess development you should be going for the throat.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is a suggested line:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.e4 d5&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.d4 dxe4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3.f3 or Bc4&#xA;[EDIT]  3.Nc3 is most common, then the ideas of f3 or Bc4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Seeking fast development.  You can target f7...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastEditorUserId="14202" LastEditDate="2019-08-28T19:02:12.187" LastActivityDate="2019-08-28T19:02:12.187" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25244" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21629" CreationDate="2019-08-27T23:00:34.583" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;In a comment, the OP asked for a non-retrograde analysis problem in which both castling rights are known, and, for fun, I have done so.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;me, chesstackexchange.com 8/27/2019, Mate In 4&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;4k2r/2p1p2p/P1P1P2P/8/8/8/6P1/nn2K2R w Kk - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Clearly, in order to checkmate Black in just four moves, White's pawn must be promoted. However, if White pushes their pawn, then Black will castle and there is no mate! Thus, White must prevent Black from castling  The only way to do that is with their rook.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But if White plays 1. Rf1?, then Black will play 1... Nc2+!, also preventing a mate in time. Therefore, White's only option to prevent Black from castling is to castle themselves-1. 0-0!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is a shorter mate in 3 version. It shows the idea much more clearly&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;me, chesstackexchange.com 11/5/2019, Mate In 3&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;4k2r/4p1p1/1P2P3/1N6/8/8/7P/n3K2R w Kk - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-05-02T16:28:58.757" LastActivityDate="2021-05-02T16:28:58.757" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25245" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-08-28T12:03:11.063" Score="9" ViewCount="546" Body="&lt;p&gt;EDIT: Link added&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One of my chess heroes, Hungarian GM Pal Benko, is no longer with us. He overcame many difficulties in his early life to live one which was rich and full, and reached the age of 91 with his faculties undimmed. I love the clarity and variety of his problems and puzzles, and am moved by an &lt;a href=&quot;https://gamesmaven.io/chessdailynews/news/the-final-gift-a-masterpiece-composition-to-the-chess-community-by-pal-benko-kmjxCeXak0emg5lpfp6b1Q&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;article by another Hungarian GM, Susan Polgar&lt;/a&gt;, to relay his new, final composition as a tribute. First I will quote Polgar verbatim, and then give some technical comments.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;This was his final request to me, to share this Help Mate Composition&#xA;  with the Chess World!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;This is the last chess composition Pal Benko shared with me when I&#xA;  visited him and his wife at their home in Budapest last week.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;This is a a Help Mate Composition! From the starting position, White&#xA;  starts the game and checkmates Black by En Passant on the 9th move!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In addition, the game MUST include all the SPECIAL chess moves (at&#xA;  least from one side) such as Pawn Promotion, Castling, En Passant (in&#xA;  addition to the final checkmate), and Discovered Check. There is only&#xA;  one possible solution (according to Benko himself).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;He was very proud of this Help Mate Masterpiece and asked me to share&#xA;  it with all of you! This was his final request to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Enjoy!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(1) This kind of problem is known as a &quot;synthetic&quot;, and can be very hard to solve, &quot;a real test of chess imagination&quot;, as the veteran chess columnist Len Barden would say. It's not a proof game, but a problem with constraints.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(2) It contains a &quot;Valladao&quot;: i.e. castling + promotion + en passant. But beyond that there is a fourth thematic move here (Discovered Check) and the constraint that these four thematic moves should be played by the same player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(3) There is a second en passant, which delivers mate. It seems consistent with the wording that this second en passant might be the thematic Discovered Check, in which case the player of all thematic moves would have to be White. However, then White has 5 moves for promotion including e.p., 3 for second pawn, 1 for 0-0 and maybe 2 to move B&amp;amp;N for 0-0. That makes 10 which seems to be too many. If it's Black doing the thematic stuff: 5 for promotion including e.p. which can be discovered check, 1 for 0-0, 1 for pawn to be eped, and 2 to move B&amp;amp;N for 0-0. That's 9 again too many. So kB or kN must have been captured on its starting square and then got right out of the way. Maybe N captures kN and then after moving is captured by bB? (EDITED for clarity)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(4) Normally in a proof game with e.p., one can reason by uniqueness that the double pawn move must have been blocking a check, because otherwise the move might as well have been a single pawn move. But here in this thematic synthetic, that constraint is not present.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And beyond that I currently have no idea of the solution! Good luck!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8201" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-11-08T08:34:50.957" LastActivityDate="2021-04-29T14:54:56.463" Title="Pal Benko's final problem" Tags="&lt;problems&gt;&lt;mathematics&gt;&lt;retrograde-analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25246" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25247" CreationDate="2019-08-28T13:55:13.877" Score="6" ViewCount="2433" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/qG9bE6ch&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;In this Lichess game,&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.c4 e5 2.e4 d6 3.Nc3 Be6 4.Nf3 Nc6 5. d4 exd4 6.Nxd4 Nxd4 7.Qxd4 c5 8.Qd3 g6 9. Be2 Bg7 10.O-O Nh6 11.Re1 Ng4 12.Bxg4 Bxg4 13.e5 Bxe5 14.Nd5 Qh4 15. Nc7+ Kd7 16. Nxa8 Qh2+ 17. Kf1 Qh1#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After move 14 White is facing a serious mate threat from the Queen on h4, Bishop on g4, and Bishop on e5. White goes with 15. Nc7+ , forking the King and Rook, but ignoring the mate threat. After the rook capture, Mate in 2 was assured. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could white have avoided this mate? By playing, say, Qg3 or h3? Or do both of these positions lead to wins for black, hence, white's strategy with 15 Nc7+ was to prolong mate and perhaps prod black into an unforced error?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19842" LastEditorUserId="19842" LastEditDate="2019-08-28T14:10:30.327" LastActivityDate="2019-09-02T21:54:01.927" Title="Is this position a forced win for Black after move 14?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;forced-move&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25247" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25246" CreationDate="2019-08-28T14:07:57.547" Score="18" Body="&lt;p&gt;The best move would have been &lt;code&gt;16. Rxe5&lt;/code&gt;, which entirely eliminates the mate threat, leaving white with a winning advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;r6r/ppNk1p1p/3p2p1/2p1R3/2P3bq/3Q4/PP3PPP/R1B3K1 b - - 0 16&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here, if black takes the white knight (&lt;code&gt;16. ... Kxc7&lt;/code&gt;), &lt;code&gt;17. Bg5&lt;/code&gt; wins the queen as &lt;code&gt;Qh5&lt;/code&gt; is met with &lt;code&gt;Bd8+&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10075" LastActivityDate="2019-08-28T14:07:57.547" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25248" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25246" CreationDate="2019-08-28T14:08:28.577" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;White could play 15. Bf4, covering h2 and attacking the Bishop on e5 which can't move due the pin in the e-file. &#xA;But the probably stronger continuation is 15. g3 followed by 16. f4, winning the bishop on e5 and winning the game... &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19236" LastActivityDate="2019-08-28T14:08:28.577" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25249" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9520" CreationDate="2019-08-28T18:20:50.497" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know of two bizarre games in which neither player castles. They are both mentioned in the &amp;quot;Longest immobility&amp;quot; section of Tim Krabbe &lt;a href=&quot;https://timkr.home.xs4all.nl/records/records.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&amp;quot;Chess Records&amp;quot;&lt;/a&gt; page.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this game, none of the four rooks moved whatsoever!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Szabo-Ristoja, Helsinki Finland, 1975&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 c5 3. d5 e5 4. Nc3 d6 5. e4 Be7 6. Bd3 Nbd7 7. Nge2 Nf8 8. Ng3 g6 9. h4 h5 10. Nf1 Ng4 11. f3 Nh6 12. g3 a6 13. Qc2 Bd7 14. a3 Qb8 15. a4 Bd8 16. a5 Bc7 17. Bg5 Ng8 18. Nd1 f6 19. Bd2 Kf7 20. Nfe3 Nh6 21. Nf2 b6 22. axb6 Bxb6 23. f4 a5 24. Be2 Kg7 25. f5 Be8 26. g4 hxg4 27. Nfxg4 Nxg4 28. Bxg4 a4 29. fxg6 Nxg6 30. Nf5+ Kg8 31. h5 Nf4 32. Bxf4 exf4 33. h6 Ba5+ 34. Kf1 Kf8 35. Qf2 Qb3 36. Qxf4 Bc7 37. h7 Bf7 38. Qh6+ Ke8 39. Qxf6 Qd3+ 40. Kg2 Qxe4+ 41. Bf3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this game, neither of the kings moved at all!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot; Thorhallsson T.-Johannesson, Hafnarborg Iceland, 2003&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 Bb4 4. Nge2 Nc6 5. e5 Nge7 6. h4 h6 7. h5 f6 8. exf6 gxf6 9. a3 Ba5 10. b4 Bb6 11. Na4 e5 12. Bb2 e4 13. Bc1 Bg4 14. c3 Qd7 15. Bf4 Nd8 16. Qc2 Ne6 17. Bd2 Qc6 18. Qb3 Nf5 19. Rc1 Nd6 20. Rh4 Bxe2 21. Bxe2 a6 22. Rg4 Ng5 23. Nc5 Ba7 24. Rf4 Rf8 25. a4 Bxc5 26. bxc5 Nc8 27. Rb1 Rb8 28. c4 Ne7 29. cxd5 Nxd5 30. Bxa6 Qxa6 31. Qxd5 Rd8 32. Qxb7 Qxa4 33. Be3 f5 34. Qxc7 Ne6 35. Qe5 Qa2 36. Rc1 Qd5 37. Rh4 Qxe5 38. dxe5 f4 39. Bd2 Rd5 40. c6 Rf7 41. c7 Nxc7 42. Bxf4 Ne6 43. Bxh6 Rxe5 44. Be3 Rff5 45. h6 Rh5 46. Rxh5 Rxh5 47. Rc4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-05-02T16:03:50.027" LastActivityDate="2021-05-02T16:03:50.027" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25250" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25246" CreationDate="2019-08-28T19:13:06.910" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;15.g3 looks winning!  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;16.f4 is coming to win the Bishop on e5.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastEditorUserId="14202" LastEditDate="2019-08-29T15:10:00.210" LastActivityDate="2019-08-29T15:10:00.210" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25251" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2422" CreationDate="2019-08-28T19:46:30.093" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Back in college in the early 1980s, I read in a game playing text that if a computer could plan, evaluate and execute a move, any single move, from the start of the game to all possible conclusions every 1/3 of a nanosecond, that is approximately 3 &lt;em&gt;billion&lt;/em&gt; moves/second, to do this for every conceivable outcome would take 10 to the 120th centuries to complete.  And who has that long to wait?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another staggering statistic?  You've obvious heard of a googol?  Not THE Google, but the number?  It is 10 to the 100th power.  A 10 followed by 100 zeros.  Now imagine the googolplex.  That's 10 to the googol'th power.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've read that there isn't enough of &lt;em&gt;anything&lt;/em&gt; in the known universe, not even atoms, to require using the googleplex.  In fact, even the googol is too big to describe anything.  You should check out some of the astonishing trivia about these numbers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19972" LastActivityDate="2019-08-28T19:46:30.093" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25252" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22910" CreationDate="2019-08-28T22:54:17.737" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is an important corner case for programming and also comes up in certain chess problems. I begin explanations by saying that castling and en passant are handled slightly differently, but don’t worry about this. Each is handled in the most sensible way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ideally one would look ahead in the game to find out whether the moves are actually playable. For en passant this is totally practicable because it just means looking one move ahead. Can the en passant actually be played or does a pin prevent it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Whether or not castling is actually playable may be complicated to determine by looking st the deeper future of the game. So the rule simply looks at whether the two rights have changed, i.e. whether king or rook have just moved.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A genetics metaphor might be “check castling genotype and ep phenotype”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is the intention behind the FIDE rules according to the head of the rules committee. There is some unwillingness to make arbitrary changes to the wording, but the current 2018 phrasing seems fairly clear. Certainly FIDE get the exact issue here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This applies both over the board and for chess problems&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8201" LastActivityDate="2019-08-28T22:54:17.737" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25254" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15547" CreationDate="2019-08-29T08:43:08.490" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Aloril has created what he calls &lt;a href=&quot;https://tcec-chess.com/puzzle/rules.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;“mobility chess”&lt;/a&gt; and generated up to 5-man tablebase for it. It just so happens that it generates shortest forced stalemates when there is one and there is no possible mating sequence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are the extracted statistics provided for the longest forced stalemate sequences of 3, 4, and 5 unit positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3 man:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;KPvK, stalemate, 42 ply&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;8/8/8/8/8/1k6/7P/K7 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1...Kc4 2. Kb1 Kd3 3. Kc1!! Ke4 4. Kd1 Kd3 5. Ke1! Ke3! 6. Kf1! Kf3! 7. Kg1! Kf4! 8. Kf2 Kg4! 9. Kg2! Kh4! 10. h3! Kh5! 11. Kg3! Kg5! 12. h4+! Kf5 13. Kf3!! Kf6! 14. Kf4 Kg6! 15. Kg4! Kg7 16. Kg5! Kf7 17. h5! Kg7! 18. h6+! Kf7 19. Kf5!! Kf8! 20. Kf6 Kg8!! 21. Kg6! Kh8!! 22. h7! * &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4 man:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;KPvKP, stalemate, 53 ply&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;K7/8/5p2/8/8/8/1P6/5k2 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. b4!! f5 2. b5!! f4 3. b6!! f3 4. b7!! f2 5. b8=Q!! Kg2! 6. Qb2 Kg1! 7. Qd4! Kg2! 8. Qg4+! Kh1 9. Qf3+ Kg1!! 10. Qg3+! Kf1! 11. Ka7 Ke2! 12. Qg2 Ke1!! 13. Qe4+! Kd1 14. Qd3+ Ke1!! 15. Qe3+! Kf1!! 16. Kb6! Kg2! 17. Qe2 Kg1!! 18. Qg4+! Kh1 19. Qf3+ Kg1!! 20. Qg3+! Kf1! 21. Kc5! Ke2!! 22. Qh2! Kf3!! 23. Qh5+! Kg2!! 24. Qg4+! Kh1 25. Qf3+ Kg1!! 26. Qg3+! Kh1!! 27. Qxf2! * &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5 man:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;KQPvKQ, stalemate, 210 ply&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;3q4/7Q/2K5/8/7k/8/4P3/8 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1...Kg5!! 2. Qg7+!! Kh4! 3. Qh6+! Kg4! 4. Qe6+ Kf4!! 5. Qf7+! Ke5! 6. Qh5+! Kd4!! 7. Qg4+!! Kc3! 8. Qf3+!! Kb4 9. Qe4+ Kc3!! 10. Qe3+! Kc2!! 11. Qf3! Qa8+ 12. Kd6!! Qd8+! 13. Ke5! Qc7+ 14. Kf5! Qd7+ 15. Kf4 Qc7+! 16. Kg4! Qg7+!! 17. Kh3 Qh8+! 18. Kg2 Qg7+!! 19. Kf2! Qd4+! 20. Qe3! Qh4+! 21. Kg1 Qg4+! 22. Kf1! Qc4! 23. Qe5! Kd2! 24. Qg5+! Kd1! 25. Qd8+! Kc2! 26. Qf6! Kb3! 27. Kf2!! Qc5+! 28. Kg2!! Kb4 29. Qe6!! Kb5! 30. Kf3! Qh5+! 31. Kf4! Qh4+!! 32. Qg4! Qf2+! 33. Ke4!! Kb6 34. Qe6+! Kc7!! 35. Qc4+! Kb7! 36. Ke5! Qh2+! 37. Kd5!! Qh5+! 38. Kd6!! Qh2+! 39. Ke7! Qe5+! 40. Qe6!! Qg7+!! 41. Kd6! Qc7+! 42. Kd5!! Qd8+! 43. Ke5! Qg5+!! 44. Kd6! Qg3+!! 45. Kd7! Qg7+!! 46. Qe7! Qd4+!! 47. Ke6+!! Kc6 48. Qe8+!! Kc5 49. Qf8+! Kc6! 50. Qf3+! Kc7! 51. Qg3+! Kc6! 52. Qg2+! Kc7! 53. Qh2+! Kc6! 54. Qh1+! Kc5! 55. Qc1+!! Kb6! 56. Qb1+!! Ka7! 57. Qh7+! Ka8! 58. Qf5! Qb6+!! 59. Kf7! Qc7+! 60. Kg6! Qc6+! 61. Kg5! Qg2+! 62. Qg4!! Qd5+!! 63. Kh4! Qh1+! 64. Kg3! Qg1+! 65. Kf3! Qf1+! 66. Ke4! Qb1+! 67. Kf4! Qb4+ 68. Kf3! Qb3+ 69. e3! Qd1+! 70. Kg3! Qg1+! 71. Kf4! Qh2+! 72. Kf3! Qh1+! 73. Qg2! Qh4 74. Qg8+! Kb7! 75. Qf7+! Kc8! 76. Qf5+! Kd8!! 77. Qf8+! Kd7!! 78. Qg7+! Kc6! 79. Qg6+!! Kb5! 80. Qf5+! Kb6! 81. e4! Kc6! 82. Qe6+ Kc5 83. e5! Qd4! 84. Qf6! Kb5! 85. Qg5! Kc6! 86. Qe3! Qa1! 87. Kf4! Qa2 88. Qe4+! Kd7! 89. Qf5+! Ke8! 90. Kg5! Qb3! 91. Qg6+ Kd7 92. Qf6! Qa2 93. Kh6! Qe6! 94. Kh7 Qe7+! 95. Kg6! Qe6! 96. Kh6! Qa2 97. Kg7! Qe6!! 98. Qf7+! Qe7!! 99. Kg6!! Kd8!! 100. Qxe7+! Kxe7!! 101. Kf5! Kf7!! 102. e6+! Ke7! 103. Ke5!! Ke8!! 104. Kd6 Kd8!! 105. e7+! Ke8!! 106. Ke6!! *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19415" LastEditorUserId="19415" LastEditDate="2020-04-05T14:06:31.680" LastActivityDate="2020-04-05T14:06:31.680" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25255" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17617" CreationDate="2019-08-29T16:28:57.063" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your programming description relies on variable name specific to your program, so it's hard to understand what you're saying, but one way to program this is to to have a &quot;double pawn move&quot; boolean. To makes things simpler, let's assume that white is the one making a double pawn move. To move a pawn two space, white first moves the pawn &lt;em&gt;one&lt;/em&gt; space, and set that pawn's &quot;double move&quot; boolean to true. If any of the opponent's pawns have a true &quot;double pawn move&quot; booleans, then they have only two options: take or pass. So now black has only two legal move (three if two pawns are adjacent). Black can either capture the pawn, or pass. If black passes, then it's now white's turn. But if a player starts their turn with a &quot;double pawn move&quot; boolean being true for any of their own pawns, they aren't allowed to make any move other than advancing that pawn, and then the boolean is set to false. If black captures the pawn, then the boolean is set to false, and it's now white's turn. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In other words, you can think of &lt;em&gt;en passant&lt;/em&gt; not being that white makes one move consisting of the pawn moving two spaces, and then black has the &lt;em&gt;en passant&lt;/em&gt; option only on the next move, but rather that white makes a move consisting of the pawn moving one space, black makes a move consisting of either capturing that pawn or passing, and then, if the pawn is still on the board, white makes a move of advancing the pawn again. The &lt;em&gt;en passant&lt;/em&gt; option exists only for the intermediate move (the one in which black either captures or passes) because that's the only move where the pawn is in the right location to be captured.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, there is a corner case presented here: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.futilitycloset.com/2010/06/09/intercepted/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.futilitycloset.com/2010/06/09/intercepted/&lt;/a&gt; . As &lt;em&gt;en passant&lt;/em&gt; is currently implemented, it's legal to make a double move if you kings is not in check after the second advancement, even if you king is in check after the pawn is advanced only one space. So your code would have to take that into account.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15221" LastEditorUserId="15221" LastEditDate="2019-08-29T16:37:10.517" LastActivityDate="2019-08-29T16:37:10.517" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25256" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25263" CreationDate="2019-08-29T16:46:37.030" Score="4" ViewCount="401" Body="&lt;p&gt;As you know, in the initial position Chess960 the king lies between the two rooks. &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess960.net/how-to-play/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Here&lt;/a&gt; are the rules for castling.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For a starting position P, let n(P) be the minimal number of moves that White needs to legally castle kingside. How many positions are there such that n(P)=1?, n(P)=2, and so on?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are cases where we can castle n the first move, namely when the King on f1 and the rook on g1. There are also other extreme cases with the king on b1 and the rook on c1, so then we have to make space.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe some engines can solve this question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="411" LastEditorUserId="4399" LastEditDate="2021-04-20T07:05:22.767" LastActivityDate="2021-04-20T13:07:29.113" Title="Minimal number of moves before castling in Chess960" Tags="&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;castling&gt;&lt;mathematics&gt;&lt;chess960&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25257" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25258" CreationDate="2019-08-29T18:51:04.887" Score="6" ViewCount="772" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recently started reading Game Changer, the new(ish) book on Alphazero, and I'm really enjoying it. My one issue so far is that I can't find, in the book or elsewhere, games where Alphazero played the white side of &#xA;1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nf3 d5, &#xA;forcing a QGD with the knight placed on f3 very early. If anyone knows of any games that went this way, please let me know!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19980" LastActivityDate="2019-08-29T22:27:11.427" Title="How does Alphazero Respond to the QGD?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;alphazero&gt;&lt;queens-gambit-declined&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25258" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25257" CreationDate="2019-08-29T22:27:11.427" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;There were a select of games published played between AlphaZero and Stockfish 8, see e.g. &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess24.com/en/watch/live-tournaments/alphazero-vs-stockfish/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;here on chess24&lt;/a&gt;. Some of them were played without book and some with the TCEC opening book, which I reckon led to a bigger likelihood for the QGD to occur.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Considering that QGD itself is an opening for black, how frequently they occurred in AlphaZero's games playing the white side is mostly dependent on how compliant Stockfish was to playing such systems. As it happened and whether it was directly or by transposition, QGD structures did occur a few times, at least among the ones I can recall/find at the moment, which I will share below along with some other closely related lines that can potentially be of interest to you. Otherwise, and in particular when without a book, Stockfish seemed to favour lines more along Nimzo-Indian and Queen's Indian defense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Since the games tended to be quite long, I will only include a portion of the starting moves of the games and provide a direct link to each game so you can study the games in their entirety on your own.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;With&lt;/strong&gt; TCEC openings:&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess24.com/en/watch/live-tournaments/alphazero-vs-stockfish/3/1/82&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Game 82 QGD Vienna variation, from move 7 off-book&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [title &quot;TCEC openings, game 82, AlphaZero vs Stockfish 8 (draw)&quot;]&#xA; [fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1.d4 e6 2.c4 d5 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Nf3 dxc4 5.e4 Bb4 6.Bg5 b5 7.a4 c5 8.axb5 cxd4 9.Bxf6 Qxf6 10.Qxd4 Qxd4 11.Nxd4 Bc5 12.Nf3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess24.com/en/watch/live-tournaments/alphazero-vs-stockfish/3/1/85&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Game 85 QGD Harrwitz Attack, from move 11 off-book:&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [title &quot;TCEC openings, game 85, AlphaZero vs Stockfish 8 (draw)&quot;]&#xA; [fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1.d4 e6 2.c4 d5 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Nf3 Be7 5.Bf4 O-O 6.e3 c5 7.dxc5 Bxc5 8.a3 Nc6 9.Qc2 Qa5 10.O-O-O Be7 11.h4 a6 12.Kb1 Rd8 13.g4 dxc4 14.Rxd8+ Bxd8 15.Bxc4 Nxg4 16.Rg1 Nf6 17.Ng5 g6 18.Bd3 e5 19.h5 exf4 20.Qb3 Qc7 21.hxg6 hxg6 22.Bxg6 Kf8 23.Bxf7 Bf5 24.Ka2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess24.com/en/watch/live-tournaments/alphazero-vs-stockfish/3/1/1&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Game 1, Semi-Slav (nearly QGD) mainline&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;, Semi-Slav lines are always closely related to both Slav and QGD due to the rich transpositional lines that exist between them. From move ...12 off-book:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [title &quot;TCEC openings, game 1, AlphaZero vs Stockfish 8 (1-0)&quot;]&#xA; [fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.Nc3 e6 5.e3 Nbd7 6.Qc2 Bd6 7.g4 Bb4 8.Bd2 Qe7 9.Rg1 Bxc3 10.Bxc3 Ne4 11.O-O-O O-O 12.Be1 b6 13.h4 Bb7 14.Ng5 Nxg5 15.hxg5 Qxg5 16.f4 Qe7 17.Kb1 c5 18.Bd3 g6 19.cxd5 cxd4 20.e4 Rac8 21.Qh2 f6 22.f5 exd5 23.fxg6 hxg6 24.Rh1 Qg7 25.Bc2 Ne5 26.Bb3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Without&lt;/strong&gt; book:&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess24.com/en/watch/live-tournaments/alphazero-vs-stockfish/2/1/15&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Game 15, Semi-Slav (nearly QGD):&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [title &quot;Without opening books: game 15, AlphaZero vs Stockfish 8 (1-0)&quot;]&#xA; [fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1.Nf3 Nf6 2.d4 d5 3.c4 e6 4.Nc3 c6 5.Bg5 h6 6.Bh4 dxc4 7.e4 g5 8.Bg3 b5 9.h4 g4 10.Ne5 Nbd7 11.Be2 Nxe5 12.Bxe5 Rg8 13.O-O Bb7 14.Re1 a6 15.g3 h5 16.Qc2 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The list is by no means exhaustive, you might find more examples by browsing through all &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess24.com/en/watch/live-tournaments/alphazero-vs-stockfish/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;the available games&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3594" LastActivityDate="2019-08-29T22:27:11.427" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25259" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25260" CreationDate="2019-08-30T01:58:55.797" Score="8" ViewCount="1468" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to Simon Williams, from 25:10 and forwards of &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzILpNZFZgU&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this stream&lt;/a&gt;, his opponents attempt at capturing his fianchettoed bishop with a bishop and queen battery is not a good idea &quot;in these types of positions&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, thus I ask: When is it a good idea? I usually go for it because I know that many players hate having to give up their fianchettoed bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7059" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2019-08-30T18:02:13.330" LastActivityDate="2019-08-30T18:02:13.330" Title="When is it a good idea to capture the fianchettoed bishop?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;bishops&gt;&lt;captures&gt;&lt;fianchetto&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25260" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25259" CreationDate="2019-08-30T04:53:26.417" Score="6" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. d4 c5 2. d5 g6 3. c4 Bg7 4. Nc3 d6 5. e4 Nf6 6. Bf4 O-O 7. Qd2 Re8 8. Be2 e6 9. Nf3 exd5 10. exd5 a6 11. O-O Bg4 12. h3 Bxf3 13. Bxf3 Qc7 14. a4 Nbd7 15. Rfe1 Bf8 16. Ne4 Nxe4 17. Rxe4 Rxe4 18. Bxe4 Re8 19. Re1 Bg7 20. b3 Be5 21. Bxe5 Rxe5 22. Bf3 Qd8 23. Rxe5 Nxe5 24. Bd1 Qf6 25. f4 Nd7 26. Qe3 Kf8 27. Bg4 Nb6 28. a5 Na8 29. Bc8 Qa1+ 30. Kh2 Qxa5 31. Bxb7 Nc7 32. Bc6 Qa1 33. Qf3 h5 34. f5 Qe5+ 35. Qg3 gxf5 36. Qxe5 dxe5 37. d6 Ne6 38. Kg3 e4 39. Kf2 Nd4 40. Ba4 f4 41. b4 cxb4 42. c5 b3 43. Bxb3 Nxb3 44. c6 Ke8 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are a few points here that make it a bad idea. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First and foremost, white's dark squared bishop in this pawn structure is his good bishop (and it's extremely active). While black's fianchetto'd bishop is also good, it isn't directly influencing the position until the knight on f6 moves (which you'll notice never happens in this game until his opponent mis-steps and trades knights). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Secondly, trading the kingside fianchetto'd bishop is usually good because it leaves black with dark squared weaknesses that white might be able to take advantage of and attack. Notice how Simon Williams calls Qd2 &quot;an aggressive plan.&quot; He's already envisioning white trading bishops, and going for a kingside attack. However, in this position, white does not really have any pieces aimed towards the kingside that he can use to attack black's king. And the possible plan of h4-h5 to open up black's king falls flat in the Benoni when black is able to quickly open the center of the board with e6-exd5. If black had already played e5, then it would be entirely different.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lastly, notice that when the pieces start to get traded off, BLACK offers to trade this bishop for white's (41:20ish). The reason here is that the position has transformed largely into an endgame, and Simon Williams discusses how he wants to get the classic good knight vs bad bishop endgame. All of white's pawns are stuck on light squares, impeding his minor piece's mobility. Whereas black has a few important dark squares his knight can jump to in the center of the board where it influences everything (e5 and d4 in particular, possibly c5 if white plays b4 cxb4).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Usually the fianchetto'd bishop is strong because the h8-a1 diagonal has a lot of juicy targets it can aim at from a distance. In this game, the diagonal never really meant anything.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3884" LastActivityDate="2019-08-30T04:53:26.417" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25261" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25259" CreationDate="2019-08-30T07:20:13.333" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Most of the reasons given by NoseKnowsAll are correct for this particular position. Put shortly, Black's bishop was a &quot;worse bishop&quot; and the remaining pieces leave White in a disadvantageous endgame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please take into account that chess decisions cannot be taken based on a fixed set of rules that applies in all situations. If that were the case, we would be able to buy a book where all such rules are listed and after studying it we would be playing at a world-class level. There are always factors which are specific to each position that can turn otherwise good-plans into bad ones and vice-versa.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, I would add that the fact that some (bad) players don't like their bishop traded does not make automatically make it a good idea. By the way, how do you know they don't? See: &quot;I don't like when my opponent trades his queen for one of my knights with no compensation&quot;. Would you do it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastActivityDate="2019-08-30T07:20:13.333" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25262" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-08-30T08:18:08.490" Score="7" ViewCount="287" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the first known example of published expert chess analysis that was disproven by a computer search, with the winning player completely opposite? That is to say, a widely known published analysis by a chess grandmaster of a position with the conclusion that it was winning for one player, but later a computer search proved that actually it was winning for the other player. &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/2479&quot;&gt;This&lt;/a&gt; comes close, but I am curious to see examples with win-to-lose reversal of opinion. To clarify, I am looking for the first time we discovered that the previously accepted analysis was wrong, and our discovery arose from a computer search.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9192" LastEditorUserId="9192" LastEditDate="2019-08-30T10:43:06.593" LastActivityDate="2019-09-02T05:42:22.680" Title="First known computer-found error in expert chess analysis" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;grandmaster&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25263" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25256" CreationDate="2019-08-30T10:31:43.247" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;The three first steps:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;There are 90 positions where n(P)=1&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For White to be able to castle short at once, he needs to have Kf1, Rg1 in the initial position. Then there are 5 possible spots from the second rook, 3 for one bishop and 2 for the other one, and finally 3 remaining spots for the queen. The knights go to the last two spots.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;There are 64 positions where n(P)=2&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;36 of them with Kf1, Ng1, Rh1: White can play 1.Nf3 or 1.Nh3 and 2.0-0&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;28 of them with Rg1, Nf1, Ke1: White can play 1.Ng3 or 1.Ne3 and 2.0-0&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;There are 242 positions where n(P)=3&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;&lt;em&gt;please double-check this part&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are the different configurations and the number of relevant positions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;xxxxxQKR 18&lt;br&gt;&#xA;xxxxxBKR 36&lt;br&gt;&#xA;xxxxxRKR 18&lt;br&gt;&#xA;xxxxxKQR 18&lt;br&gt;&#xA;xxxxxKBR 24&lt;br&gt;&#xA;xxxxKNNR 8&lt;br&gt;&#xA;xxxKNNRx 6&lt;br&gt;&#xA;xxxKNRNx 6&lt;br&gt;&#xA;xxxKRNNx 6&lt;br&gt;&#xA;xxKRxNNx 4&lt;br&gt;&#xA;RKRxBNNx 2&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: Now I have a doubt for these two cases. Is castling allowed in Chess960 in spite of a piece being &amp;quot;on the way&amp;quot; on e1 ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;xxxxKBRx 24&lt;br&gt;&#xA;xxxxKQRx 18&lt;br&gt;&#xA;xxxxKRBx 36&lt;br&gt;&#xA;xxxxKRQx 18&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Total:242&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once we reach &lt;strong&gt;n(P)=4&lt;/strong&gt;, we cannot ignore Black's play anymore: for instance, QNRNKBBR &lt;em&gt;looks like&lt;/em&gt; it should have n=5, but actually it has n=4 because of the sequence 1.f4 b5 2.Bxa7 Qxg2 3.Bxg2 Nc6 4.0-0. Counting by hand becomes too fastidious and hazardous: a software program is needed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, after clarification by the OP, I believe &lt;strong&gt;7 to be the maximum&lt;/strong&gt; value of the function P-&amp;gt;n(P).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If Black wasn't allowed to &amp;quot;help&amp;quot; we could build only 2 positions with n(P)=9; Here is one, the other is similar with RKBBNNQR on the first rank.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;rkqnnbbr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RKQNNBBR w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In a series problem where White plays alone he would need 9 moves in order to castle. But since Black moves are taken into account, White actually can castle on move 7 from that diagram if the game goes something like 1.b3 d5 2.Qa3 Qe6 3.Nb2 Qxe2 4.Nd3 Qxf2 5.Bxf2 Nc6 6.Be2 0-0-0 7.0-0.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-04-20T13:07:29.113" LastActivityDate="2021-04-20T13:07:29.113" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25264" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25217" CreationDate="2019-08-30T11:17:00.140" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcKXwA_lo3Zpz3_Mc-WVLtw&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcKXwA_lo3Zpz3_Mc-WVLtw&lt;/a&gt; is the YouTube channel of Helmsknight.  She is a strong player who plays with Nakamura, Seirawan, and many other high rated players.  Interesting is that all these players tend to castle before starting an attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just like normal chess, starting an attack on this (these) square(s) is often a good idea.  However, I used to take advantage of this common attack and have both boards play passively.  Soon my opponents would be down a couple of pieces (on each board sometimes) and no resources to continue the attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For a better understanding of proper use of resources, Crazyhouse is the variant.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9684" LastActivityDate="2019-08-30T11:17:00.140" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25265" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25262" CreationDate="2019-08-30T11:43:01.970" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the early eighties, the evaluation of the two bishops vs knight endgame was changed thanks to computer-assisted analysis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Previously, that endgame was thought to be a draw, but now we know the bishops can force a win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't know if this is the earliest instance, but it's definiely a quite old one&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastActivityDate="2019-08-30T11:43:01.970" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25266" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25246" CreationDate="2019-08-30T15:48:15.853" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is indeed a forced win for Black, partly due to White's choice to ignore the mate threat. White could respond better with 16.g3, thereby buying time and throwing Black off-guard.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19745" LastActivityDate="2019-08-30T15:48:15.853" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25267" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25259" CreationDate="2019-08-30T16:04:40.587" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Careful!  He never said it was a bad idea.  He said it usually doesn't work in these types of positions.   Note how me chooses to play Re8 so he can keep his Bishop with Bh8.  This is why it doesn't work; White is unable to get the trade.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2019-08-30T16:04:40.587" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25268" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-08-30T16:55:32.883" Score="4" ViewCount="116" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've heard that Bobby Fischer had a 2892 performance in 1971. If this is true, it's probably the highest performance, but I don't know if this is true. Does anyone have any information about this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3872" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-08-30T17:27:33.473" LastActivityDate="2019-08-31T05:33:20.833" Title="What are the records for highest 1 year span performance rating?" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;history&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25269" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25268" CreationDate="2019-08-30T18:04:58.860" Score="-1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I've heard that Bobby Fischer had a 2892 performance in 1971. If this&#xA;  is true, it's probably the highest performance, but I don't know if&#xA;  this is true. Does anyone have any information about this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.olimpbase.org/Elo/player/Fischer,%20Robert%20James.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Olimpbase site&lt;/a&gt; FIDE produced 2 rating lists covering 1971, one in &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.olimpbase.org/Elo/Elo197107e.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;July 1971&lt;/a&gt; covering January 1971 through June 1971 and one in &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.olimpbase.org/Elo/Elo197207e.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;July 1972&lt;/a&gt; covering July 1971 through June 1972.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to this his ratings over this period were -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Unofficial) January 1971 list - 2740&lt;br&gt;&#xA;July 1971 list - 2760&lt;br&gt;&#xA;July 1972 list - 2785   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you can see 2785 was the highest his rating ever reached. He was never anywhere near 2892.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-08-30T18:24:20.533" LastActivityDate="2019-08-30T18:24:20.533" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25270" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-08-30T22:29:21.990" Score="2" ViewCount="137" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am reading a book by Yasser Seirawan, and in it he assigns the following values to each piece:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Pawn: 1 point&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Knight: 3 points&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Bishop: 3 points&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Rook: 5 points&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Queen: 9 points&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;King: infinite value&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now its straightforward that the king should have infinite value, and that the queen is most valuable after the king. How was the value of each other piece arrived at? Why is a bishop less valuable than a rook? What is the reasoning behind each value?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19985" LastActivityDate="2019-08-31T06:34:32.953" Title="Value Of Pieces" Tags="&lt;point-value&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ClosedDate="2019-08-31T06:59:48.210" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25272" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25268" CreationDate="2019-08-31T05:33:20.833" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Given Carlsen's 2882 current rating and the fact that he also reached this rating in 2014, it seems likely that at some point he had a year with a performance rating higher than your 2892 figure. (I calculated Carlsen's 2013 performance rating as 2890 [47 points in 69 games against an average opponent of 2757] but it's tedious enough to calculate that I don't want to do it for every year.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, if you use current FIDE rules on how to calculate performance rating, Fischer's performance rating in 1971 was even higher than the number you specified.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In 1971, Fischer participated in three official matches that I know of:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Fischer - Taimanov Candidates Quarterfinal&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Fischer - Larsen Candidates Semifinal&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Fischer - Petrosian Candidates Final  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(He also played some blitz and simul games, but I assume those don't count.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Taimanov was rated 2620, Larsen was rated 2660, and Petrosian was rated 2640 at the times of the matches. Fischer scored 6/6 in the first two matches and 6.5/9 in the third, for a total of 18.5/21 and an average opponent rating of 2640.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;18.5/21 corresponds to a fractional score of 0.88. According to &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=198&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE regulations&lt;/a&gt;, this in turn means that the performance rating is 336 points higher than the opponent's average rating. 2640 + 336 = 2976 performance rating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's hard to say whether that's the highest ever, but it very well might not be, even setting aside powerhouses like Carlsen. Since a 100% score results in a performance rating 800 points above the average opponent, anyone whose record for a particular year consisted solely of a 100% match score against a 2200 player would have a performance rating of 3000. I'm guessing that has happened to someone at least once.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2019-08-31T05:33:20.833" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25273" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25270" CreationDate="2019-08-31T06:34:32.953" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The values are approximations of each piece's strength. The true, exact, &quot;objective&quot; value of each piece is unknown. For example, Fischer believed the bishop to be worth about 3.25, Kasparov back in the day thought it was about 3.15 (but he's recently changed his opinion to be closer to Fischer's). There are reasons for the hierarchy though, and why the approximations make sense:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) First, it could be considered an axiom that a knight/bishop is roughly 3 times better than a pawn. There's no direct reason for this, it just seems to be the case. So a knight/bishop are roughly 3 points. Even though the bishop has longer range than the knight, it is limited to one colour complex, making them roughly equal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) Next, the rook. A good way to think about this piece is that it's like the bishop except can move on either colour square. For this reason, it's worth about 5 points. Not quite double the bishop, but clearly better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) Finally the queen. It's the rook and bishop combined into one piece. So instead of being worth 8 points, it's around 9. Since it unifies the strength of the rook and bishop into one force, it's generally considered slightly better than these two individual pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-08-31T06:34:32.953" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25274" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25275" CreationDate="2019-08-31T12:10:27.797" Score="13" ViewCount="528" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the Two Knights Defense, after &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nf6 4.Ng5 d5 5.exd5 Na5 6.Bb5+ c6 7.dxc6 bxc6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;8. Bd3&lt;/code&gt; has become fashionable recently, and is considered a serious way for White to play for a win. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yet, is seems an artificial move, going against basic opening principles, in particular blocking the d-Pawn. What are the main points of this line, especially in comparison to the &quot;old&quot; &lt;code&gt;8. Be2&lt;/code&gt; move, and are there any typical traps or pitfalls to be aware of? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastEditorUserId="10075" LastEditDate="2019-08-31T12:49:55.580" LastActivityDate="2019-09-02T21:52:29.070" Title="Ideas behind the 8.Bd3 line in the 4.Ng5 Two Knights Defense" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;1.e4&gt;&lt;two-knights&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25275" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25274" CreationDate="2019-08-31T16:16:24.443" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the main reason behind Bd3 is to provide a &quot;safe&quot; retreat for the knight and keeps to e-file open.  Both Nf3 and Nh3 have liabilities. A retreat to e4 also allow a further lose of time from f5, but this may be offset by black's LSB having less mobility.  The other option is Bf1, which while playable, also goes against basic opening principles.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although this may apply here, paraphrasing Alekhine, to punish unconventional moves (Na5) you may have to play unconventional moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9684" LastActivityDate="2019-08-31T16:16:24.443" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25276" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25217" CreationDate="2019-08-31T16:46:46.507" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In general it's a good idea, but to every rule there are exceptions. For example, if your opponent's king is safe (such as from castling) and he has lots of pieces around defending, sacrificing the knight on f7 may not be a good idea.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-08-31T16:46:46.507" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25277" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23135" CreationDate="2019-08-31T19:57:05.110" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The variability in number of legal moves is about the same for black &amp;amp; white... except for that odd little bump for white on move 7.  This phenomenon demands further research!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/jqKEl.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/jqKEl.png&quot; alt=&quot;mean number of legal moves after move number&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/3FInO.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/3FInO.png&quot; alt=&quot;std dev legal moves after move number&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19383" LastEditorUserId="19383" LastEditDate="2019-09-02T08:05:00.903" LastActivityDate="2019-09-02T08:05:00.903" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25278" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25279" CreationDate="2019-09-01T01:43:50.527" Score="3" ViewCount="826" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I let Stockfish get to a certain depth (say depth 33), it gives some evaluation. Then I refresh the position (while leaving Stockfish on) and when it gets to the same depth it gives a different evaluation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know it uses previous analysis stored in a hash table to get to the same depth quicker the second time around, but why it can give a different evaluation puzzles me. Previous analysis should only improve search speed for a deterministic engine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For anyone familiar with Stockfish's source code, any reasons this could be?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastEditorUserId="12873" LastEditDate="2019-09-01T02:34:00.580" LastActivityDate="2019-09-02T07:25:56.103" Title="Why can Stockfish give different evaluations at the same depth?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25279" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25278" CreationDate="2019-09-01T09:01:27.960" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;If Stockfish was a pure minimax/alpha-beta searcher with all leaves having a predetermined depth, your assumption that the search result should be reproducible would hold true, even with a different state of the hash table. That is because the result in minimax/alpha-beta only depends on the evaluation function, but not on the order in which the moves are searched, which only has an impact on speed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, in fact Stockfish is using a lot of &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessprogramming.org/Selectivity&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;forward pruning, reduction and extension techniques&lt;/a&gt; that are state/history dependent, so the results of the search of a subtree depends on the state/history with which it entered the subtree. Therefore, starting with hash table entries that influence move ordering (and can actually return a different evaluation than searching the subtree again) leads to a different result of for a search of same depth.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is one more detail in the Stockfish case why even with pure alpha-beta search re-searching the position again would give different results. The &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/blob/8fec8834715a440ac18e24e130888c2c60bab352/src/search.cpp#L88-L92&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;evaluation of draws is pseudo-randomized&lt;/a&gt; with small fluctuation from zero in order to avoid some search artefacts in case of repetition draws, and this pseudo-random number depends on the node count of the current search. Therefore, using a different move ordering due to the hash entries would lead to different pseudo-random numbers, and hence potentially a different search result.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15415" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-09-01T09:42:10.700" LastActivityDate="2019-09-01T09:42:10.700" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25280" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25281" CreationDate="2019-09-01T19:44:43.020" Score="32" ViewCount="18533" Body="&lt;p&gt;I really don't know if I am correct when I ask my opponent to resign when I am at a 1800-1900 ELO level. I have an Asperger disorder. To me ,endgames are more clear to play than middlegames, and the game loses interest when I think a newbie would win it. I sometimes ask my opponent to resign and play a rematch. Sometimes it has an effect, and they resign. At other times, I feel myself uncouth.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;5k2/1p6/p3pP2/P1p1K2p/2P4P/8/5Bp1/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it unfair to ask for a resignation in these kinds positions in an online chess game?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user18196" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-04T18:25:17.837" LastActivityDate="2020-03-04T18:25:17.837" Title="Is it rude to ask my opponent to resign an online game when they have a lost endgame?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;resigning&gt;" AnswerCount="9" CommentCount="22" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25281" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25280" CreationDate="2019-09-01T20:54:36.393" Score="52" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is it rude to ask my opponent to resign an online game when they have&#xA;  a lost endgame?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, it is rude, although you are in good company. In one Olympiad Victor Korchnoi is alleged to have asked his opponent - &quot;Do you speak English?&quot; When they said &quot;Yes&quot; he replied &quot;Then please resign&quot;. I may be misquoting. He may not have said &quot;please&quot; :-)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Strictly speaking today what Korchnoi did is not allowed in over the board chess because it is disturbing the opponent. In online chess, however, trash talking is more acceptable because the opponent can always mute by switching off chat.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2019-09-01T20:54:36.393" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25282" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7810" CreationDate="2019-09-01T21:04:40.370" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know of a VERY complex selfmate that has just 8 pieces on the board!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;William Shinkman, 1907, Selfmate In 259 Moves&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;8/8/8/8/QK6/1n6/B6R/r3k3 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wouldn’t blame you if you couldn’t solve yourself!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This position was originally published as a 423-mover intially, but then it was quickly changed to a 418-mover. It was then republished later on as a 298-mover after it was cooked by Joeshph Babson and F.H. Curtiss. Nealy 80 years later,  a further cook was found by Yaakov Mintz, and the 259 move solution was published in The Problemist 05/1985, on page 36. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is that solution.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Yaakov Mintz. After William Shinkman, 1985, Selfmate In 259 Moves&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;8/8/8/8/QK6/1n6/B6R/r3k3 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Qe8+ Kf1 2. Rh1+ Kf2 3. Qf7+ Kg2 4. Qd5+ Kg3 5. Qg5+ Kf3 6. Rh3+ Ke2 7. Qg4+ Kd2 8. Rh2+ Kc1 9. Qc4+ Kd1 10. Qc2+ Ke1 11. Qe4+ Kf1 12. Qf3+ Kg1 13. Qg3+ Kf1 14. Rh1+ Ke2 15. Qg2+ Ke3 16. Rh3+ Kf4 17. Rf3+ Ke5 18. Qg5+ Ke4 19. Qf4+ Kd5 20. Rd3+ Ke6 21. Rd6+ Ke7 22. Qf6+ Ke8 23. Re6+ Kd7 24. Qe7+ Kc8 25. Qe8+ Kc7 26. Rc6+ Kb7 27. Qd7+ Ka8 28. Ra6+ Kb8 29. Rb6+ Ka8 30. Qa4+ Na5 31. Ra6+ Kb8 32. Qe8+ Kb7 33. Qb5+ Kc8 34. Ra8+ Kc7 35. Qb8+ Kd7 36. Qd8+ Kc6 37. Ra6+ Kb7 38. Qb6+ Kc8 39. Ra8+ Kd7 40. Rd8+ Ke7 41. Qc7+ Kf6 42. Rf8+ Kg6 43. Qf7+ Kg5 44. Qf4+ Kg6 45. Rg8+ Kh5 46. Rh8+ Kg6 47. Qf7+ Kg5 48. Rh5+ Kg4 49. Qf5+ Kg3 50. Rh3+ Kg2 51. Bd5+ Kg1 52. Rg3+ Kh2 53. Rg2+ Kh1 54. Rg4+ Kh2 55. Qf4+ Kh3 56. Rg3+ Kh2 57. Re3+ Kg1 58. Qg3+ Kf1 59. Bg2+ Kg1 60. Bc6+ Kf1 61. Rf3+ Ke2 62. Qg2+ Ke1 63. Qg1+ Ke2 64. Rf2+ Ke3 65. Qg3+ Kd4 66. Qf4+ Kd3 67. Bb5+ Nc4 68. Qd2+ Ke4 69. Bc6+ Ke5 70. Qf4+ Ke6 71. Qf7+ Kd6 72. Qd7+ Ke5 73. Qg7+ Ke6 74. Rf6+ Ke5 75. Rf3+ Ke6 76. Qd7+ Ke5 77. Qe7+ Kd4 78. Qf6+ Ne5 79. Qh4+ Ng4 80. Qd8+ Ke5 81. Qg5+ Kd4 82. Qd2+ Ke5 83. Qf4+ Ke6 84. Qf5+ Kd6 85. Qc5+ Ke6 86. Bd5+ Ke5 87. Ba8+ Ke6 88. Qd5+ Ke7 89. Rf7+ Ke8 90. Qe6+ Kd8 91. Rd7+ Kc8 92. Bb7+ Kb8 93. Qe8+ Ka7 94. Be4+ Kb6 95. Rd6+ Kc7 96. Qc6+ Kb8 97. Qb6+ Kc8 98. Rc6+ Kd7 99. Bf5+ Ke8 100. Re6+ Kd7 101. Rf6+ Ke8 102. Qc6+ Ke7 103. Qd6+ Ke8 104. Re6+ Kf7 105. Qe7+ Kg8 106. Rg6+ Kh8 107. Qh4+ Nh6 108. Qd4+ Kh7 109. Rg7+ Kh8 110. Rb7+ Kg8 111. Bh7+ Kf8 112. Qh8+ Ng8 113. Qg7+ Ke8 114. Qg6+ Kd8 115. Qd6+ Kc8 116. Qc6+ Kd8 117. Rb8+ Ke7 118. Qc7+ Kf6 119. Rb6+ Kg5 120. Qg3+ Kh5 121. Qh3+ Kg5 122. Rg6+ Kf4 123. Qg3+ Kf5 124. Qg5+ Ke4 125. Rf6+ Kd4 126. Rf4+ Ke3 127. Qg3+ Kd2 128. Qc3+ Kd1 129. Qc2+ Ke1 130. Qf2+ Kd1 131. Qf1+ Kd2 132. Rf2+ Ke3 133. Re2+ Kd4 134. Re4+ Kd5 135. Qf7+ Kd6 136. Re6+ Kd5 137. Rb6+ Ke5 138. Qf5+ Kd4 139. Qf4+ Kd5 140. Be4+ Kd4 141. Bf3+ Kd3 142. Qe4+ Kd2 143. Qe2+ Kc1 144. Qe1+ Kb2 145. Qc3+ Ka2 146. Qa3+ Kb1 147. Kc5+ Kc2 148. Qb2+ Kd3 149. Qd4+ Kc2 150. Be4+ Kc1 151. Qg1+ Kd2 152. Rb2+ Kc3 153. Rc2+ Kb3 154. Qg3+ Ka4 155. Bc6+ Ka5 156. Qc7+ Ka6 157. Bb7+ Ka7 158. Qb6+ Kb8 159. Be4+ Kc8 160. Kd5+ Kd7 161. Qd6+ Ke8 162. Rc8+ Kf7 163. Qg6+ Ke7 164. Re8+ Kd7 165. Qe6+ Kc7 166. Qd6+ Kb7 167. Ke6+ Ka7 168. Qc5+ Ka6 169. Qc4+ Ka5 170. Ra8+ Kb6 171. Rb8+ Ka5 172. Rb5+ Ka6 173. Qc6+ Ka7 174. Rb7+ Ka8 175. Rh7+ Kb8 176. Qb6+ Kc8 177. Qb7+ Kd8 178. Qc7+ Ke8 179. Bc6+ Kf8 180. Qd6+ Ne7 181. Qb8+ Nc8 182. Rh8+ Kg7 183. Qb2+ Kg6 184. Be4+ Kg5 185. Qf6+ Kg4 186. Qf3+ Kg5 187. Qe3+ Kg4 188. Bf3+ Kg3 189. Bd5+ Kg4 190. Qf3+ Kg5 191. Rh5+ Kg6 192. Qf5+ Kg7 193. Qf6+ Kg8 194. Rg5+ Kh7 195. Rg7+ Kh8 196. Re7+ Kg8 197. Qf7+ Kh8 198. Qh5+ Kg8 199. Kd7+ Kf8 200. Rf7+ Kg8 201. Qg5+ Kh8 202. Rf8+ Kh7 203. Bg8+ Kh8 204. Bf7+ Kh7 205. Bg6+ Kg7 206. Qf6+ Kh6 207. Be8+ Kh7 208. Rf7+ Kg8 209. Qg5+ Kh8 210. Rf8+ Kh7 211. Qg8+ Kh6 212. Qh8+ Kg5 213. Qf6+ Kg4 214. Qf3+ Kh4 215. Qf2+ Kg5 216. Qe3+ Kh4 217. Rf4+ Kg5 218. Rc4+ Kf6 219. Qf3+ Ke5 220. Qe4+ Kf6 221. Qg6+ Ke5 222. Re4+ Kd5 223. Qe6+ Kc5 224. Rc4+ Kb5 225. Kd8+ Ka5 226. Rc5+ Kb4 227. Qc4+ Ka3 228. Ra5+ Kb2 229. Qb4+ Kc2 230. Rc5+ Kd3 231. Bb5+ Ke3232. Rc3+ Kd2 233. Qd4+ Ke1 234. Re3+ Kf2 235. Qd2+ Kg1 236. Rg3+ Kh1 237. Rh3+ Kg1 238. Qe3+ Kg2 239. Bc6+ Kf1 240. Rf3+ Kg2 241. Qd2+ Kh1 242. Rh3+ Kg1 243. Rg3+ Kf1 244. Bg2+ Kg1 245. Ba8+ Kf1 246. Rf3+ Kg1 247. Qf2+ Kh1 248. Rg3+ Rxa8 249. Qf1+ Kh2 250. Rg2+ Kh3 251. Qf3+ Kh4 252. Rh2+ Kg5 253. Rh5+ Kg6 254. Qg4+ Kf7 255. Rf5+ Ke6 256. Qe4+ Kd6 257. Qe5+ Kc6 258. Qb5+ Kd6 259. Qb6+ Nxb6#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is a Google Books link to my chosen source of an orignal publication (although it was also sent elsewhere by Shinkman), The British Chess Magazine Volume 27, See page &lt;a href=&quot;https://books.google.com/books?id=SLg3AQAAIAAJ&amp;amp;q=the#v=snippet&amp;amp;q=Shinkman&amp;amp;f=false&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;92&lt;/a&gt;, along with a &lt;a href=&quot;https://pdb.dieschwalbe.de/search.jsp?expression=PROBID=%27P1318437%27&amp;amp;s=0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess Problem Databse link&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the &lt;a href=&quot;https://books.google.com/books?id=W5xJAAAAYAAJ&amp;amp;pg=PA281&amp;amp;lpg=PA281&amp;amp;dq=british+chess+magazine+418+sui-mate&amp;amp;source=bl&amp;amp;ots=6veQJo3As9&amp;amp;sig=ACfU3U27_boCOSb3KSUCJwsfCsUeWzFrKA&amp;amp;hl=en&amp;amp;sa=X&amp;amp;ved=2ahUKEwjGnMHp3a3kAhVRiqwKHTQ6BjAQ6AEwAHoECAkQAQ#v=onepage&amp;amp;q&amp;amp;f=false&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;28th Volume&lt;/a&gt;, the 298-move cook was published on page 281.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The mentioned later republication of the problem but with the 298-move stipulation can be seen &lt;a href=&quot;https://pdb.dieschwalbe.de/search.jsp?expression=PROBID=%27P1081941%27&amp;amp;s=0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here , also on the Chess Problem Database&lt;/a&gt;. This is also where the 259-move solution, but with some changes in moves 5 to 10, in accordance to a comment left by Olaf Jenkner there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Shinkman published a small bookelt in 1907 that explains the logic behind his selfmate, a PDF of which can be found &lt;a href=&quot;http://problem64.beda.cz/silo/shinkman_in_re_the_418_sui_mate_1907.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What a long problem for a position with just 8 pieces on the board!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://books.google.com/books?id=uSAEAAAAYAAJ&amp;amp;pg=PA151&amp;amp;lpg=PA151&amp;amp;dq=shinkman+423&amp;amp;source=bl&amp;amp;ots=NYzHKTCZi_&amp;amp;sig=ACfU3U0zXA4696na2WRlpuxoVurs9uiHVw&amp;amp;hl=en&amp;amp;sa=X&amp;amp;ved=2ahUKEwi2ltjArbjoAhULWs0KHdyQBQEQ6AEwAHoECAkQAQ#v=onepage&amp;amp;q=shinkman%20423&amp;amp;f=false&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Elsehwere&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-05-14T17:47:13.317" LastActivityDate="2020-05-14T17:47:13.317" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25283" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1743" CreationDate="2019-09-02T00:15:23.677" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I asked for and received a refund from Chess.com.  There were far too many cheaters, and they are &lt;em&gt;so&lt;/em&gt; slow in finding and removing cheaters on their website. It is too expensive to have to put up with so many cheaters.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19992" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2019-09-02T07:20:05.193" LastActivityDate="2019-09-02T07:20:05.193" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25284" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25262" CreationDate="2019-09-02T02:16:36.983" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Partial answers because this is an intrinsically difficult question, especially to prove it was the &quot;first&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_endgame#Effect_of_tablebases_on_endgame_theory&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Endgame tablebases have changed the evaluations of some endgames&lt;/a&gt;. E.g.,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Queen versus two bishops. This was thought to be a draw due to the existence of a drawing fortress position, but the queen can win most of the time by preventing the bishops from getting to the fortress. However, it can take up to 71 moves to force a win (Nunn 2002:290ff).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The question also asks about grandmaster analysis being incorrect, with the actual result being the opposite. This certainly has happened before simply because grandmasters are fallible humans. &lt;a href=&quot;https://timkr.home.xs4all.nl/chess2/resigntxt.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Example by Tim Krabbe&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;3r2k1/4qpbp/Q4P2/8/2N5/4p3/PP4PP/5RK1 w - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black to move. With the powerful passed pawn on e3, Black is clearly winning. &lt;strong&gt;26...e2 27. fxe7 Bd4+&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;White Resigns&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This game was published as a brilliancy, and it was months before someone spotted the fatal flaw in the combination: the position after 28...e2?? is actually winning for White. I won't spoil it here, but if you're interested you can find the solution on Tim Krabbe's website. Of course, in today's world, errors like this will never get published because an engine will spot the winning move in a fraction of a second.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastEditorUserId="15223" LastEditDate="2019-09-02T05:42:22.680" LastActivityDate="2019-09-02T05:42:22.680" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25285" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25280" CreationDate="2019-09-02T03:22:52.360" Score="35" Body="&lt;p&gt;Brian Towers answered the question, but to help you understand why people don't resign, I recommend you watch this lecture by GM Finegold &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKVVhBoo13w&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Blunders, with GM Ben Finegold&lt;/a&gt;. The gist of it is: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Never resign, and look for resources no matter how bad your position&#xA;  is. And when you are winning, don't let your guard down.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="307" LastEditorUserId="307" LastEditDate="2019-09-02T03:28:50.467" LastActivityDate="2019-09-02T03:28:50.467" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25286" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25280" CreationDate="2019-09-02T06:44:04.970" Score="22" Body="&lt;p&gt;Honestly it's rude to ask your opponent to resign in any position. The one exception may be them deliberately letting their clock run to 0 in a completely lost position, but in this case they're being deliberately malicious and you can't really hope to reason with them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even though you're absolutely justified in thinking your opponent should resign, that doesn't mean you should tell them to.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-09-02T06:44:04.970" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25287" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25274" CreationDate="2019-09-02T08:02:02.513" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think this move illustrates the problem with &quot;opening principles&quot;. Sometimes they simply contradict one another!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, 8.Be2 may appear more natural because it does not block the &quot;d&quot; pawn. However, it also places the bishop in a passive square as, as indicated by Mike Jones, does not allow for &lt;code&gt;Ne4&lt;/code&gt; later on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, &lt;code&gt;Qf3&lt;/code&gt;-related ideas may still be playable after &lt;code&gt;8.Bd3&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastActivityDate="2019-09-02T08:02:02.513" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25288" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25280" CreationDate="2019-09-02T10:37:15.893" Score="31" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's always rude to ask your opponent to resign. They should resign of their own accord once they're convinced that you're overwhelmingly likely to win the game. In my case, that always meant you'd have to convince me that you knew how to play the endgame in question and that both of us knew how you would win it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If your opponent hasn't resigned yet, it might mean that they don't know that it's a lost position for them, or that they're not yet convinced you know how to win it. In any case, in the position shown, it shouldn't take more than a few more moves for you to checkmate your opponent, so it's really not something you should be worrying about.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2789" LastEditorUserId="2789" LastEditDate="2019-09-02T10:49:46.243" LastActivityDate="2019-09-02T10:49:46.243" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25289" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25280" CreationDate="2019-09-02T11:01:28.970" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;You might know that you are playing a game that is already decided, but your opponent might not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Your opponent might not realize that the position you now have is a won endgame.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Even if your opponent realizes it, she might not be convinced that &lt;em&gt;you&lt;/em&gt; know that you already won and that &lt;em&gt;you&lt;/em&gt; know what mistakes you need to avoid in order to win. So they believe that there is still a small chance that you slip up and they can get a draw or even win after all.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Usually it is considered bad etiquette to discuss the game you are playing with your opponent, but if you really want them to be aware that they are wasting your and their time by continuing this match, then you could use this as a teaching opportunity. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Use chat to tell them (politely!) that they can not win. You could also give them a link which explains how to win that endgame to show them you know exactly how to beat them and that they can't do anything about it. Don't write &quot;You lost, resign already!&quot;. Write &quot;I think you can no longer win this game because...&quot; and let them come to the conclusion to resign on their own.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But it is possible that your opponent can not be convinced that they lost no matter what you write. In that case the only way to convince them is by playing the game to the end and win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3833" LastEditorUserId="3833" LastEditDate="2019-09-02T14:48:53.670" LastActivityDate="2019-09-02T14:48:53.670" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25290" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25280" CreationDate="2019-09-02T13:12:03.390" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The answer I am about to give is not directly related to Chess (a game I'm far from mastering),  but any skill based PvP game (opposed to stats-based games).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Yes, I know that in some cases, the loss is inevitable since you cannot win with one King vs two promoted Queens.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The other player/team might be losing for now, but the game is not over and the tables may turn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my opinion, keep playing a game in the losing position is really important to get better (not only because I feel sympathy for underdogs). &#xA;As you have no room for mistakes you have to keep a cool head, play on the edge, take the absolute best decisions if you want to keep a chance of reducing the advantage and, finally, overturning the opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the other hand, in the winning position, you may have more room for mistakes but you need maintain your best level to keep the lead and widen the gap.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not wanting to play a game until it's conclusion is either :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;a proof of lack of respect for your opponent, as you believe he has no chance (i.e. : is not skilled enough) of getting back.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;a vulgar display of vanity of your part, since you're assuming you cannot be overtaken in any way and that you won't learn from the rest of the game.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;wishing neither of you get better at the game, because not playing said game will not help any of you improving at it.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;showing you are not having fun playing the game anymore, which is... kind of sad.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, asking your opponent to resign is rude, no matter the game/sport if you are playing a competitive ELO (or other system) match-made game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19999" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-04T18:24:10.710" LastActivityDate="2020-03-04T18:24:10.710" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25291" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25274" CreationDate="2019-09-02T21:52:29.070" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The point is that after 8...h6, White can now play 9.Ne4. Comparatively, after 8.Be2 h6, White must go for 9.Nf3 e4, when the knight is hit again.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You're right that 8.Bd3 blocks the d2-pawn from advancing, but this isn't such a huge price to pay. The c1-bishop can get into the game via b3 followed by Bb2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-09-02T21:52:29.070" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25292" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25246" CreationDate="2019-09-02T21:54:01.927" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;15.g3 followed by 16.f4 wins for White since the e5-bishop is pinned.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-09-02T21:54:01.927" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25293" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25280" CreationDate="2019-09-03T00:33:35.403" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would never ask an opponent to resign &lt;em&gt;over the board&lt;/em&gt; (live chess), although someone else brought up a good point about an opponent letting the clock run to zero on purpose.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Online, I think it's different.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Online chess, especially at a beginner-intermediate level, is a lot less formal. When sites give you the preset option to request that your opponent resign, I think it's fine to do so once. Chess is different from other sports; resignation is acceptable, obviously, and some argue refusal to resign in a lost position is disrespectful. But regardless, sometimes things come up. I might ask an opponent to resign if I had a dominating position but didn't have the time (in real life, not on the game clock) to finish the game. Or if I had to finish doing the laundry. Or I wanted to go to sleep. I wouldn't actually expect that to work every time, and if you do this you should not take any offense if the opponent refuses to resign and plays out the game. I think it's akin to a draw offer, in that your opponent has every right to continue, but your suggestion might be more convenient.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Asking for resignation in online chess is an agreement, just like asking for a draw.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17363" LastActivityDate="2019-09-03T00:33:35.403" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25294" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25296" CreationDate="2019-09-03T03:31:06.863" Score="6" ViewCount="597" Body="&lt;p&gt;Has this gambit (6.Ng5!) been played? (I only found games with 6.Ne5.) Is it any good? Is it the refutation of Black's silly 3...h5 (the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King%27s_Gambit#Wagenbach_Defense:_3...h5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wagenbach Defense&lt;/a&gt;)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.f4 exf4 3.Nf3 h5 4.d4 g5 5.h4 g4 6.Ng5 f6 7.Bxf4 fxg5 8.Bxg5 Be7 9.Qd2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2299" LastEditorUserId="2299" LastEditDate="2019-09-03T05:28:26.327" LastActivityDate="2019-09-03T18:27:27.423" Title="King's Gambit, Wagenbach Defense 1.e4 e5 2.f4 exf4 3.Nf3 h5" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;gambits&gt;&lt;kings-gambit&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25295" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25280" CreationDate="2019-09-03T04:36:40.420" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why don't you resign instead?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's a question that looks like it has an obvious answer: because I'm winning!  But that begs the question &quot;who cares?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let the game end.  What happens?  Your record goes up by 1 win, and you get some rating points.  In the end, other than the sheer enjoyment of the game, that's the only real consequence.  A few bits in a computer tracking your record.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now if you were merely bored with the game, and convinced it is utterly over, nothing stops you from just resigning a winning position and going on with your life.  Perhaps you might play another game in the saved time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which means, when you really get down to the trade-off, you are pairing the points you might lose by resigning yourself (to solve your interest issues) against any sheer enjoyment of the game the other party may have.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which leads to the human question: do you have a sense of how much enjoyment they have left in the game?  Clearly they're not already at the point of saying the game was no longer worth playing, or they would have resigned already.  So you are asking them to truncate that enjoyment for your sake.  You are really telling them that they are no longer worth your time &lt;em&gt;and&lt;/em&gt; they are not worth the points it'd take to break free of the game of your own accord.  Whether they agree is really a people problem, and you may get some clues from their move choices and/or their chat.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe they've been looking to try out that difficult endgame to see what they might be able to pull off.  They'll never find out if they resign.  But now they know that any fun they might have trying out that end game is paining you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's a few alternatives I might suggest.  One is to do what Allure did in the comments:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Black is completely busted. 39. Kxe6 Kg8 40. Ke7 and the pawn promotes, or 39...Ke8 40. f7+ Kf8 41. Bxc5+ and 42. f8=Q+&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Rather than telling them to resign, because they are no longer worth your time, help them see what you see.  Practice teaching people how to analyze the endings.  Then &lt;em&gt;they&lt;/em&gt; can decide whether that means its time to resign or if they want to play out a line you didn't analyze.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Alternatively, realize that those bytes in some computer's memory banks somewhere are not really all that important.  &lt;strong&gt;Make your own game&lt;/strong&gt;.  If a position seems totally won, look for a challenge instead.  See what non-optimal play you might be able to bring into the game to make the endgame interesting again.  Maybe you need to hang a bishop, or promote a pawn to a funny piece.  If you have a text-to-speech engine that can call out moves, consider playing the ending blindfolded, just for the challenge.  We teach games to be all about winning and losing, but at the heart of it they're games.  Find ways to have fun with them!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6885" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-04T18:24:30.503" LastActivityDate="2020-03-04T18:24:30.503" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25296" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25294" CreationDate="2019-09-03T06:46:53.520" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;From my analysis, the line you give appears to be the best way White can play. After 9.Qd2, Stockfish 10 at depth 28 gives roughly +1. So I think it qualifies as a refutation of 3...h5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I couldn't find any games where 6.Ng5 was played, but I did find a game that reached the same position on move 6 via transposition. The game was from 1788 (!) in the &quot;London Casual Games&quot; between two players named Cotter and Von Bruehl:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[White &quot;Cotter&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Von Bruehl&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;London Casual Games&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;1788&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.f4 exf4 3.Nf3 g5 4.h4 g4 5.Ng5 h5 6.d4 {Transposing to the diagram you gave} f6 7.Bxf4 fxg5 8.hxg5 (8.Bxg5 {Is stronger, following your line}) d5 9.e5 Bf5 10.Bd3 Ne7 11.O-O Bg7 12.Bg3 Rf8 13.Bh4 Qd7 14.Nc3 a6 15.Qe2 Nbc6 16.Bf2 O-O-O 17.Na4 Bxd3 18.Qxd3 Nxe5 19.Qb3 b5 20.dxe5 bxa4 21.Qc3 d4 22.Qd3 Qb5 23.Qa3 Ng6 24.b3 Bxe5 25.bxa4 Qc6 26.Rab1 0-1.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastEditorUserId="12873" LastEditDate="2019-09-03T18:27:27.423" LastActivityDate="2019-09-03T18:27:27.423" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25297" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-09-03T10:02:41.890" Score="1" ViewCount="91" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm looking for a software tool that will:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Engine Support&lt;/strong&gt;. For analysis suggestions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Support for software evaluation of the moves&lt;/strong&gt;. I guess this is optional, although I've seen this feature in popular websites where they give a weight on each move. +1.5, -.8, etc, but what is needed is at least give an arbitrary/subjective weight/evaluation on them with a comment as a justification (just an Idea) as comparison.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Organize the moves variations (from the Opening) with trees&lt;/strong&gt;. The only tool that I've seen that has this feature is &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chessmaster&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chessmaster&lt;/a&gt; series, other tools have a similar approach but not with trees but a list of the next &quot;registered&quot; variations/moves, this will be acceptable as well, although a tree will be definitely optimal&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Rearrange variations on the tree by weight&lt;/strong&gt;. Optional. Also seen on chessmaster but in chessmaster it is shown as a 3 star rating on the move so if the moves/variations have weights on them, those can be used to list them in order under the tree.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Support for opening books and easy way to expand them&lt;/strong&gt;. I want to be able to add a fairly complete Opening book like &quot;olympiad.abk&quot; and expand it, with new options in the openings and add comments on the different variations.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've analyzed several tools like the ones I mentioned and &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/analysis&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chess.com&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.playwitharena.de/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;arena&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/analysis&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;lichess.org&lt;/a&gt; and seeing some others, and I can see that these features exist but I'm thinking that no one has them all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do you know any tool that has all these features? Or can you think of something even remotely similar?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20021" LastEditorUserId="8472" LastEditDate="2019-09-03T10:30:11.623" LastActivityDate="2019-09-09T03:23:59.987" Title="Software with support for Database with opening analysis" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;engines&gt;&lt;software&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25298" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25300" CreationDate="2019-09-03T10:39:16.857" Score="14" ViewCount="4898" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a follow on from the question &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/q/25113&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Is it legal to castle with a &quot;ghost&quot; rook&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt;: When is it legal (according to the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=208&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Laws of Chess&lt;/a&gt;) to castle moving the rook first?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2019-09-03T19:32:00.373" LastActivityDate="2019-09-04T15:27:55.773" Title="When is it legal to castle moving the rook first?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;castling&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25299" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25298" CreationDate="2019-09-03T11:01:57.330" Score="20" Body="&lt;p&gt;Unless this is a trick question, I'd say &lt;strong&gt;never&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3.8.2 [] This is a move of the king and either rook of the same colour along the player’s first rank, counting as a single move of the king and executed as follows: the king is transferred from its original square two squares towards the rook on its original square, then that rook is transferred to the square the king has just crossed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The word &lt;strong&gt;then&lt;/strong&gt; implies the king moves first, and the rook second. Also,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4.4 If a player having the move:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4.4.1 touches his king and a rook he must castle on that side if it is legal to do so&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4.4.2 deliberately touches a rook and then his king he is not allowed to castle on that side on that move and the situation shall be governed by Article 4.3.1&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That would imply that touching both king and rook (but not moving them) commits the player to castling; then, he/she could then move the rook first and only then the king, since that would give the same position on the board as the only legal play at that moment. Still, if I would see that as an arbiter, I'd have a word with the player about this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2019-09-03T11:01:57.330" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25300" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25298" CreationDate="2019-09-03T11:34:06.890" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.uschesschamps.com/2019-champions-showdown-chess-9LX/overview&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;2019 Champions Showdown: Chess 9LX&lt;/a&gt; (aka Chess 960) currently taking place in St. Louis should have been a clue.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is the relevant extract from the FIDE Laws of Chess:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Guidelines II. Chess960 Rules&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;II.3 Chess960 castling rules&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;II.3.1 Chess960 allows each player to castle once per game, a move by&#xA;  potentially both the king and rook in a single move. However, a few&#xA;  interpretations of regular chess rules are needed for castling,&#xA;  because the regular rules presume initial locations of the rook and&#xA;  king that are often not applicable in Chess960.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;II.3.2 How to castle. In Chess960, depending on the pre-castling&#xA;  position of the castling king and rook, the castling manoeuvre is&#xA;  performed by one of these four methods:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;II.3.2.1 double-move castling: by making a move with the king and a&#xA;  move with the rook, or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;II.3.2.2 transposition castling: by transposing the position of the&#xA;  king and the rook, or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;II.3.2.3 king-move-only castling: by making only a move with the king,&#xA;  or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;II.3.2.4 &lt;strong&gt;rook-move-only castling: by making only a move with the&#xA;  rook&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is one of the starting positions from yesterday's games which gives the possibility of rook-only castling on the queenside:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;nrkrqbbn/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/NRKRQBBN w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The kings are already on the queenside castling squares of c1 and c8. All that is required is for the d file rooks to move and castling can be performed by hopping the b rook over the king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="11093" LastEditDate="2019-09-04T15:27:55.773" LastActivityDate="2019-09-04T15:27:55.773" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25301" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25326" CreationDate="2019-09-03T12:06:38.727" Score="0" ViewCount="329" Body="&lt;p&gt;Quite simply, what is the record for the most pawn double-steps in a professional game? Drawn and won games are both considered.  Computer games of any kind are not to be considered.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The most I have found, in quite a few games, is 8. For example, here is a game in which all 8 double steps occur in just 15 moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;John Cochrane-Bonnerjee Mohishunder, Calcutta, 1855&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. Nxe5 d6 4. Nxf7 Kxf7 5. Bc4+ Be6 6. Bxe6+ Kxe6 7. O-O Kd7 8. d4 Kc8 9. c4 Nbd7 10. Nc3 Kb8 11. f4 a6 12. a4 Ka7 13. b4 Rc8 14. Be3 Kb8 15. a5 c5 16. b5 Ka7 17. d5 g6 18. Qb3 Bg7 19. Rfb1 Rb8 20. b6+ Ka8 21. Nb5 Ne8 22. Ra2 Rf8 23. Na7 Ndf6 24. Nc6 Qd7 25. Nxb8 Kxb8 26. e5 Ng4 27. e6 Qe7 28. Kh1 Qh4 29. g3 Qh3 30. Bg1 g5 31. Qa4 Nef6 32. e7 Rc8 33. fxg5 Ne4 34. Rg2 Nc3 35. e8=Q Nxa4 36. Qxa4 Rf8 37. Re1 Be5 38. Qb3 Kc8 39. Qd3 Kd7 40. Rf1 Ke7 41. Rxf8 Kxf8 42. Qf5+ Kg7 43. Qd7+ Kg6 44. Qxb7 Bd4 45. Bxd4 cxd4 46. Qc6 d3 47. Qxd6+ Kxg5 48. Qf4+ Kg6 49. Qe4+ Kg7 50. Qxd3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-04-29T22:56:45.617" LastActivityDate="2021-04-29T22:57:07.900" Title="What is the record for the most pawn double-steps in a professional game?" Tags="&lt;pawns&gt;&lt;records&gt;&lt;master-games&gt;&lt;famous-games&gt;&lt;double-step&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25302" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25305" CreationDate="2019-09-03T14:07:28.410" Score="9" ViewCount="2312" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am having trouble deciding whether I should allow getting an isolated by pushing d5. For instance, this is one of many such positions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;rn1q1rk1/pp2bppp/2ppbn2/8/2PP4/2N2N2/PP2BPPP/R1BQK2R w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Right away, I can tell that I control more space with such an advance, and I also force my opponent's light-colored bishop to retreat.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Furthermore, I get another open file, but still that does not convince me.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;In theory, the isolated pawn should enable me to have a dangerous attack on the kingside but my bishops are not occupying any terrific squares. Another reason which deterred me from playing d5 is that this pawn would become very vulnerable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After forcing the e6 bishop to c8, I think that I am only forcing Black to fianchetto their bishop, which would exert pressure on the isolated pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All in all, I am not sure how to tell which factors outweigh the others in the push of the d5 pawn so I can decide if such move is correct or not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16771" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-09-03T16:26:25.427" LastActivityDate="2019-09-05T03:25:40.033" Title="Go for an isolated pawn" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;isolated-pawn&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25303" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25302" CreationDate="2019-09-03T16:55:40.887" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;While the push could result in an isolated pawn, it would saddle Black with an isolated pawn as well. Furthermore, this Black pawn would make your own isolated pawn less vulnerable than most isolated pawns. It couldn't be attacked from straight ahead and doesn't provide a nice blockade square for an enemy piece. Furthermore, the Black isolated pawn cramps its position. In the long term, your isolated pawn might be more vulnerable than Black's, but if you are going for an attack the extra space could be worth it. That doesn't mean that you &lt;em&gt;should&lt;/em&gt; push the pawn here. I would probably just castle since I'm a wimp who likes to think about my own safety before worrying about storming my opponent's kingside.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15148" LastActivityDate="2019-09-03T16:55:40.887" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25304" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25302" CreationDate="2019-09-03T17:42:33.420" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It looks like a &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt; push is premature.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Keep in mind is that you have not completed development. You correctly noted that your bishops are not at terrific squares. Besides, your rooks are also not ready. &#xA;Castle, develop the dark-squared bishop, position rooks. Only then consider the push.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3774" LastActivityDate="2019-09-03T17:42:33.420" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25305" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25302" CreationDate="2019-09-03T20:10:43.373" Score="16" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your understanding and judgment about a couple of things is way off.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, you really need to understand that all isolated pawns are not created equal. If it were on an open file, then you need to worry about it becoming a weakness more (frontal attack by rooks, in particular), but here, because after d5 cd; cd it is shielded by the pd6, it is hard for black to attack d5, let alone win it. Also, again, you are mistaking the famous &quot;isolani&quot; positions, which is an isolated d-pawn on the open file, which can often go to d5 and create k-side chances. This is not that position. This gains space, which in some types of positions can lead to an attack if the center is closed, but here, although I like d5, there are too many open lines in the middle to hope that a k-side attack will work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I like d5 because it gains more space, and you will have the excellent d4 square for the Nf3 after you finish developing a bit more. That is a tangible and relatively permanent plus in your position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you do not do it now, black should play d5, and the position is closer to level. It is now, or never, and you are not losing anything on your development because black has to move the B twice also.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Positions like this typically will come down to who can seize the e-file. Even though the c-file is also open, in practice, it is not as important as the e-file. If you can double rooks, and black cannot oppose them, often due to his pieces tripping over each other in the lack of space, you will win. Also, then, and only then, you may be able to execute that k-side attack with Re3-g3 or h3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, after d5 cd; cd, there is no really good square for the B to go to. c8 undevelopes it, d7 and the Q or N also want that square. f5, and Nd4 will come with tempo. g4, and white will play h3 and either gain the B pair, or at least gain luft with tempo.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lastly, I also noticed that black's q-side will be vulnerable after the B goes to e3. For the Ra8 to move, then a6 will need to be played, and then maybe Nc4-b6 might happen. Also, if Na6-c5, black might try to secure the N with a5, and then b5 could lead to something.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All, and all, as a Master for 34 years, I really like d5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The following is in response to the question below. It was too long to just add in as a comment.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, let’s discuss the idea of Bc8 with b6 and Bb7. It is very bad for the following reasons: You are talking about spending three moves to reposition the B to b7, and you weaken c6, which white will get to soon. Nd4 supported by an eventual Rc1, and then the N will go to c6 severely cramping black. A white Nc6 will be absolutely intolerable, so you will be forced to spend yet another move to trade the Bb7 off for it. This will create a strong passed pawn for white on c6, and it will then expose the black pd6, which will then be on an open file, and possibly give white use of d5 for a piece, although there is no immediately good piece that could go there. Of course, white will not play Nc6 until he is sure that it will not simply be lost. In addition, all these moves are sure to put you way behind in development.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This Nd4-c6 idea protected by a pd5 is a very common idea, and compare it to Yusupov-Kuzmin 1981 (PGN below). Go through that game around the move 15.Ne5. The threat of e5 forced black to take drastic measures, but try to make other reasonable moves, and see just how much that N hinders black, and look at what happens when he takes it because he cannot tolerate it. Neither is a good option.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I do not like the B going to g4 because as white I am happy for you to trade it off on f3 giving me the two Bs. Also, if I do not lose a tempo playing h3 (“luft”, which is German for air, meaning you will not be able to backrank mate me later), which will probably be helpful later, that is another small plus. Chess is a game of accumulating small plusses at least when playing similarly-rated opponents. I am also a very positional player, and like closed and semi-closed positions, so that type of position is right up my alley. I am willing to make your position uncomfortable, and wait for you to crack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This game comes from the 11/26/2008 version of ChessBase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Artur Jussupow-Gennadi  Kuzmi, Moscow, URS Team Tournament-ch15 Final A Tournament, 5/16/1981&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 d5 4. cxd5 Nxd5 5. e4 Nxc3 6. bxc3 Bg7 7. Nf3 O-O 8. Be2 c5 9. O-O Nd7 10. Bg5 cxd4 11. cxd4 Nf6 12. Qd3 b6 13. Rac1 Bb7 14. d5 Qd7 15. Ne5 Qd6 16. Nc6 Qd7 17. e5 Nxd5 18. Nxe7+ Kh8 19. Bf3 Rae8 20. Rfd1 Rxe7 21. Bxe7 Qxe7 22. Bxd5 Rd8 23. Qb3 Bxd5 24. Rxd5 Rxd5 25. Qxd5 Bxe5 26. g3 Bd6 27. Qd4+ Qe5 28. Rd1 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-09-04T22:32:28.913" LastActivityDate="2019-09-04T22:32:28.913" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25306" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25113" CreationDate="2019-09-04T09:04:45.180" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are no official rules regarding games with &quot;odds&quot;, so I guess it's up to your taste for this particular case. Anyway, my first thought would be to say &quot;No. You can't&quot; and allowing that possibility would be making a strange twist of the rules that should be specified beforehand&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastActivityDate="2019-09-04T09:04:45.180" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25309" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25327" CreationDate="2019-09-04T18:48:10.407" Score="1" ViewCount="1227" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have played over a thousand blitz games at chess.com and here are the results:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/c54vh.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/c54vh.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I failed to notice any obvious difference between white and black. In other word, I do not see the the first-mover advantage in my game history at all. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What are the possible reasons that the the first-mover advantage is not reflected in my game history?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If playing white does not give me an advantage, should I play the &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/24336/if-1-e4-c6-is-considered-as-a-sound-defense-for-black-why-is-1-c3-so-rare&quot;&gt;Saragossa opening&lt;/a&gt; and play as if I am playing black (Slav with one extra tempo, Caro-Kann with one extra tempo, etc.) when I am actually playing white?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16626" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-03-07T00:00:08.737" LastActivityDate="2020-03-07T00:00:08.737" Title="Why I did not see the first-mover advantage in my game history?" Tags="&lt;statistics&gt;&lt;advantage&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" ClosedDate="2019-09-10T09:36:36.347" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25310" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25309" CreationDate="2019-09-04T19:48:33.830" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;The advantage White gets in a game is so small that it becomes completely irrelevant at low levels. &#xA;What is the point of having such edge on your opponent if you at least are going to make an inaccuracy in the opening or middlegame? &#xA;Furthermore, in blitz games that small advantage is probably negligible since a greater deal of mistakes are made.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My online rating in lichess is today close to 1700 and I see this in my games all the time. I do OK until a certain move (or later on) but due to something I cannot understand, I lose that +1 advantage I had accomplished before.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All in all, I do not think you should expect to have a greater percentage of wins as White unless you are above 2000 because below that, mistakes make the players constantly lose the upper hand they managed to acquire.&#xA;At higher levels, masters are more likely to capitalize on small advantages and turn the game into a win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16771" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-09-04T19:55:25.850" LastActivityDate="2019-09-04T19:55:25.850" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25311" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25302" CreationDate="2019-09-05T03:25:40.033" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In general, isolated pawns aren't necessarily bad. I've been studying the Alapin sicilian recently (from the black side) and I'm amazed at how much activity white has. I thought it would be very fairly easy to equalize but stockfish keeps coming up with idea after idea. Every time I think I have it beat there's some new crushing line that I missed. i recommend trying that if you want to learn about IQP. Prove that black is equal in the Alapin. Whether or not you succeed you'll learn a lot. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More specifically, the line you gave isn't a true IQP position. I often read in books the comparison of an IQP to a &quot;battering ram&quot; smashing its way through the opponent's structure. That's not happening here. Everything is situational. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2019-09-05T03:25:40.033" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25312" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25309" CreationDate="2019-09-05T07:39:53.913" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Maths64's answer is fine. I would like to add: &quot;Don't change your opening repertoire based on some silly irrelevant statistics! Play what feels more comfortable with you&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It could be the case that you faced stronger players more often as White. It could also be the case that you made some random mistakes more often as White due to pure chance (or maybe because you had one more attempt to do them!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would therefore be careful about taking conclusions from statistics. If you want to know where you are making mistakes, take a handful of your games and analyze them&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastEditorUserId="18809" LastEditDate="2019-09-05T07:58:01.797" LastActivityDate="2019-09-05T07:58:01.797" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25313" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2343" CreationDate="2019-09-05T08:59:36.110" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is very unlikely that black could have a forced win since any line shown as winning for black could be played as white a tempo up. For example, if 1.e4, c5 is a forced win for black then white could play 1.c4 heading for the same line reversed. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2019-09-05T08:59:36.110" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25314" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25301" CreationDate="2019-09-05T09:15:25.130" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is clearly contrived, but it was an actual tournament game so it wins that record. :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  [Title &quot;Danny Jazmati-Marcel Harff, NRW-ch U12, 2002&quot;]&#xA;  [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. a4 a5 2. b4 b5 3. c4 c5 4. d4 d5 5. e4 e5 6. f4 f5 7. g4 g5 8. h4 h5 9. Ra2 Rh6 10. Rh3 Raa6 11. Bd2 Be7 12. Bc3 Bf6 13. Nd2 Ne7 14. Nb3 Ng6 15. Ne2 Bb7 16. Kf2 Nd7 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2019-09-05T09:15:25.130" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25315" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25316" CreationDate="2019-09-05T11:29:39.507" Score="1" ViewCount="200" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can across this trap playing a bullet game and I wonder if it has a name: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nf6 4.Nc3 Bc5 5.Nd5 Nxd5 6.Bxd5 Nd4 7. Ng5 O-O 8.Qh5 Nxc2+ 9.Kf1 h6 10.Nxf7 Kh7 11.Nxd8 Rxf2+ &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And now black has a checkmate in 3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19936" LastEditorUserId="7726" LastEditDate="2019-09-05T11:45:46.980" LastActivityDate="2019-09-05T14:31:55.617" Title="Does this trap have a name?" Tags="&lt;opening-traps&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25316" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25315" CreationDate="2019-09-05T12:13:21.147" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;The pattern starting from &lt;code&gt;Nxf7&lt;/code&gt; does not correspond to any known (opening) trap. It's to be expected as this does not really qualify as a trap for the following reasons:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The path up to the critical position &lt;code&gt;10.Nxf7&lt;/code&gt; has major flaws, e.g. white is hanging a full knight on move &lt;code&gt;7.Ng5&lt;/code&gt; (&lt;code&gt;7...Qxg5&lt;/code&gt;), so objectively, white is already lost before any trap setup is reached. Therefore, this move order does not really belong to a branch of a known opening (here the Four Knights game: Italian var).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Opening traps usually occur when one side is baited/tempted towards a known losing variation, such as the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%A9gal_Trap&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Légal Trap&lt;/a&gt;. Sometimes the side attempting to set up a trap might have to make a non-optimal, nearly dubious move to force the desired variation, but (at least for most known traps) if the opponent spots the trap and plays a refutation the game remains about equal. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, in your example, assuming black is indeed setting up a trap, white can [*] simply play &lt;code&gt;11.d4&lt;/code&gt; instead of falling for &lt;code&gt;11.Nxd8,&lt;/code&gt; and white's completely winning as both &lt;code&gt;dxc5&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;Bxh6&lt;/code&gt; are threatened and they cannot be simultaneously parried, therefore, black is lost and if anything, all this has been nothing but a last attempted tactical bait in an otherwise completely lost position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[*]: other than the fact that white can simply play &lt;code&gt;9.Kd1&lt;/code&gt; instead of &lt;code&gt;Kf1&lt;/code&gt; and be completely winning having also side-stepped black's combination along the &lt;code&gt;f&lt;/code&gt;-file.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3594" LastActivityDate="2019-09-05T12:13:21.147" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25317" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25319" CreationDate="2019-09-05T13:20:13.540" Score="7" ViewCount="239" Body="&lt;p&gt;I beat this 1570 rated player (me being 1170), but the thing is that i had his rating covered by a youtube pop-up window so I didn't know he's higher rated until i finished the game. I feel like if I knew, it would have made me perform worse due to pressure. What's your thoughts of that? I think that besides good moves, there a psychological side to chess. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are wondering here is a link to the game: &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/qlnj6aMS&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://lichess.org/qlnj6aMS&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19936" LastActivityDate="2019-09-05T14:55:02.097" Title="Do you feel intimidated by higher rated players?" Tags="&lt;psychology&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ClosedDate="2019-09-11T08:14:27.263" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25319" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25317" CreationDate="2019-09-05T14:55:02.097" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;It really matters whether you are talking about a simple blitz game, or an OTB (over-the-board) tournament game. In blitz, it really is for fun, so you should just do precisely that, and have fun. Do not worry about someone's rating. If you are really into chess, you will play so many blitz games, and you will win some, and you will lose a lot too. Some wins will be great games, and some losses will be horribly pathetic losses. Just move on to the next game. I cannot even imagine the number of losses I have had in my life, but they all combined to make me a reasonably strong player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, a tournament game is another thing, so I can understand someone getting nervous; but you really do not want to think that way &lt;strong&gt;if you can help it&lt;/strong&gt;. I certainly know that if I got a chance to play Magnus Carlsen, I know logically that I will likely lose, but at the same time, I am not at all afraid of him (really). What is the worst that can happen: The predicted result? Big deal. Even that game, I would enjoy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That reminds me of one other related thing that I just do not understand: In 40 years of playing tournaments, and following chess closely, I have seen a lot of weak players take draws against even world champions in simultaneous exhibitions. Sure, take a draw if it is really a dead draw, but otherwise, how many times are you going to get to play someone that strong, or even an IM or weaker GM? You should play that out, and enjoy the experience, even if you lose.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Back to the subject: You just want to take your time (within reason within any time control), and play good moves. You may not play the best moves every move, but I highly recommend not being one of those people, who constantly gets into time trouble. Funny, I feel like bad clock management, and trying to play too good a move too often is what is hurting Kasparov in the exhibition Chess 960 match he is playing against Caruana in St. Louis. He should just play moves that are good, and do not lose, and hope Caruana makes a mistake first.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lastly, confession time: For at least the first two years I played tournaments WAY back when, I literally threw up before virtually every game. It was not because of being afraid, but just general nerves; so while I did not worry about someone's rating, I do understand your potential nervousness. I would just try to put it behind you, especially since blitz means nothing. :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I went a little beyond the scope of the question, but hopefully, the practical advice will help someone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ONE LAST PIECE OF ADVICE: In a tournament game, NEVER treat a lower-rated player with contempt. ALWAYS play them like you would play a Master. When you do that, you get too sure of yourself, and can make mistakes. I had a period of 7 years that I did not lose a tournament game to anyone below 2100, and I believe that part of it is not taking for granted that I would win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2019-09-05T14:55:02.097" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25320" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24882" CreationDate="2019-09-05T15:10:21.627" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Ahh, this is the difference between studying openings, and really learning to play chess. Openings are really fundamentally different pawn structures, so what you are asking to learn are opening pawn structures. Here are the books I recommend to players seeking my advice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a.  “Complete Chess Strategy” volumes 1,2 and 3 by Ludek Pachman. (This teaches about many basic plans, and what you are striving for with your pieces and pawns, especially. To this day, I still credit THIS SERIES with making me a master.)&#xA;b.  “Pawn Structure Chess” by Andy Soltis. (This extends the above to specific opening structures.)&#xA;c.  “Chess Structures: A Grandmaster Guide” by Mauricio Flores Rios (This is an extension of “Pawn Structure Chess”, and is deeper, and covers more structures. It is outstanding especially if you have already covered “Complete Chess Strategy”.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S. I peaked at 2298 USCF, and I never studied any openings, just how to play structures.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2019-09-05T15:10:21.627" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25321" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25322" CreationDate="2019-09-05T20:10:08.643" Score="-1" ViewCount="457" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to chess.com, &quot;White threatens both Qxh7 and Qxf8 checkmate-Black cannot defend against both threats.&quot; Would the threat the white Queen has towards h7 be enough to have a checkmate? How is Qxh7 relevant?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ej8Re.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ej8Re.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20059" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-05-31T15:09:22.747" LastActivityDate="2020-05-31T15:10:31.333" Title="How is the threat Qxh7 relevant here?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;problems&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25322" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25321" CreationDate="2019-09-05T20:31:59.640" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The threat of Qxh7 is VERY relavant. It is as important as Qxf8 is. I shall demonstrate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is your intial postion for us all to see.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;r1b2r1k/pppp1p1p/2n4Q/8/q7/2PB1P2/P1P3PP/R4RK1 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If Black moves their rook to prevent against Qxf8 checkmate and create an escape route for the king:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;r1b2r1k/pppp1p1p/2n4Q/8/q7/2PB1P2/P1P3PP/R4RK1 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Re8 Qxh7#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black will get checkmated.  This is checkmate because the White queen attacks all of the Black king’s sqaures, and it is protected, so the Black king can’t take, and no other Black units can take it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If Black tries to defend against Qxh7#:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;r1b2r1k/pppp1p1p/2n4Q/8/q7/2PB1P2/P1P3PP/R4RK1 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Qe4 2. Qxf8#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Black king gets mates by the threat from the first varation, and this is checkmate for the same reasons. Do note that 1... f5 by Black also defends agaisnt Qxh7, but it still falls Qxf8#.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In conclusion, the threat of Qxh7 is important because Black cannot prevent either way. There is no possible way to defend against both checkmating threats. If one threat wasn’t possible, Black could defend against it easily and eventually win the game with their extra material.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In other words, if White had only one checkmating threat, and Black could easily defend that one threat, White would be losing because Black has more pieces than White.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-05-31T15:10:31.333" LastActivityDate="2020-05-31T15:10:31.333" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25323" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25321" CreationDate="2019-09-05T20:37:32.963" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is very relevant since in chess, often when you have two mate threats on two separate squares, you cannot defend both.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this case, if you defend the mate on h7, for example, with f5; then Qf8 is still mate. If you defend the QxRf8 mate by Rg8, then Qh7 is mate. That is pretty relevant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2019-09-05T20:37:32.963" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25324" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25321" CreationDate="2019-09-06T00:02:18.297" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Qxh7 is relevant because it is checkmate - note the Black King cannot take the White Queen because it is defended by the Bishop on d3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastActivityDate="2019-09-06T00:02:18.297" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25325" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23925" CreationDate="2019-09-06T01:34:58.857" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have found a &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1068512&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;real game&lt;/a&gt; (link to chessgames.com) in which an arbiter denying a draw claim by threefold repetition due to the fact that Black had the right to castle in the first position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What happened was that the position on the board was repeated three times, and Karpov was low on time. He announced to arbiter Geurt Gijsseh his intention to play 26. Nb5, thus claiming a draw by threefold repetition. While Miles agreed, resulting in a draw anyhow, the arbiter denied Karpov his claim, stating that Black had the right to castle in the first position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have found a detailed source in the issue &lt;a href=&quot;http://vachess.org/news/2013-5.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Virginia News Chess, 2013-#5&lt;/a&gt;, “The bimonthly publication of the Virginia Chess Federation,&amp;quot; on pages 16 and 17.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I will quote the entire story here, even if a little repetitive. However, the arbiter's name I mentioned earlier was pulled from the chessgames.com comments page on the game, so it may not be accurate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“There are other possible sources of misunderstanding. Perhaps the most diabolical example is what happened in the game Karpov-Miles, Tilburg 1986. This was the position after Karpov moved 22 Nb5. Ra4 25 Nc3 Ra8 and now, just like my opponent Justin, Karpov summoned the arbiter, declared his intention to play 26 Nb5, and claimed a draw since the position would be the same as after his 22nd and 24th turns. Miles agreed and the game ended, but in fact Karpov’s claim was incorrect. Even though the position ‘looks the same’ (all pieces on the same squares) each time, the first&#xA;occurrence (the one in the diagram above) is actually a different position from the later two because Black still has the legal move22...0-0-0 as an option. He can no longer castle after that first ...Ra8-a3-a8 foray, so the potential for play is different later, and thus not the “same position” under the rules. This could have been a real tragedy for Karpov if Miles had disputed the claim. The rules in force at the time called for a three minute penalty off the clock of a player making an incorrect claim. Karpov had less than five minutes remaining to reach move 40, perhaps even less than three minutes. He might easily have time forfeited or even been declared to have forfeited straightaway.”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Anatoly Karpov-Anthony Miles, Interpolis 10th, Tilburg Netherlands, 11/4/198&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;[startply &amp;quot;42&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 c5 3. d5 b5 4. cxb5 a6 5. e3 Bb7 6. Nc3 Qa5 7. Bd2 axb5 8. Bxb5 Qb6 9. Qb3 e6 10. e4 Nxe4 11. Nxe4 Bxd5 12. Qd3 Qb7 13. f3 c4 14. Bxc4 Bxc4 15. Qxc4 d5 16. Qc2 dxe4 17. Qxe4 Qxe4+ 18. fxe4 Nd7 19. Ne2 Nc5 20. Nc3 Nd3+ 21. Ke2 Nxb2 22. Nb5 Ra4 23. Nc3 Ra8 24. Nb5 Ra4 25. Nc3 Ra8 26. Nb5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, just for fun, here is a miniature version of @Remellion’s hilarious helpmate idea.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;me, chessstackexchange.com, 9/6/2019, Helpmate In 2&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;8/8/8/8/8/7p/rr6/k3K1B1 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;[startflipped &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Solution:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt; 1... h2 2. Bd4 h1=White Rook! 3. 0-0#!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-05-02T16:39:03.983" LastActivityDate="2021-05-02T16:39:03.983" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25326" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25301" CreationDate="2019-09-06T02:20:14.397" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found a game with &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1776547&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;12 double-steps&#xA;&lt;/a&gt; on chessgames.com&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Alexandru Sorin Segal-Karl-Heinz Podzielny, Dortmund, Dortmund Germany, 1980&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 c5 3.d5 e6 4.Nc3 exd5 5.cxd5 d6 6.e4 g6 7.f4 Bg7 8.Nf3 O-O 9.Be2 Re8 10.Nd2 a6 11.a4 Nbd7 12.O-O Rb8 13.a5 Qc7 14.Qc2 b5 15.axb6 Nxb6 16.Bf3 c4 17.Kh1 Bh6 18.Ne2 Qc5 19.b4 cxb3 20.Qxb3 Qc7 21.Qd3 Bd7 22.Rxa6 Nbxd5 23.Qd4 Bb5 24.Ra7 Qc5 25.Qxc5 dxc5 26.exd5 Bxe2 27.Bxe2 Rxe2 28.d6 Bf8 29.f5 gxf5 30.Ra6 Rd8 31.Nc4 Re4 32.Ne3 Rxd6 33.Ra8 f4 34.Nf5 Rd5 35.g4 fxg3 36.Nxg3 Re8 37.Ra2 Bg7 38.Nf5 Kf8 39.Nxg7 Kxg7 40.Rg2+ Kf8 41.Bh6+ Ke7 42.Bg5 Rxg5 43.Rxg5 Rg8 44.Rxc5 Rg6 45.Rc8 Nd5 46.Ra8 Rf6 47.Rb1 Rf5 48.Rh8 h5 49.Re1+ Kf6 50.Rh6+ Kg7 51.Rd6 Kh7 52.Ra6 Nc7 53.Raa1 Ne6 54.Rf1 Rxf1+ 55.Rxf1 Kg6 56.Kg2 Nd4 57.Ra1 Kg5 58.Ra5+ f5 59.h4+ Kf4 60.Ra6 Ne2 61.Rg6 Nd4 62.Rg8 Nc6 63.Rg5 Ne5 64.Kh3 Nd3 65.Rxh5 Nf2+ 66.Kg2 Kg4 67.Rh8 Nd3 68.Rg8+ Kxh4 69.Kf3 Kh5 70.Re8 Kg5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-04-29T22:57:07.900" LastActivityDate="2021-04-29T22:57:07.900" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25327" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25309" CreationDate="2019-09-06T14:13:04.083" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I thought you'd be playing something quiet like the London System. It explains perfectly well why your win rates with Black and White match.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not because the London is not &quot;sound and solid&quot;. It is. But &lt;em&gt;too&lt;/em&gt; solid.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Solid is fine as Black when the main aim is to equalize White's first-move advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, if you are playing White yourself, you can strive for a little more, namely maintaining that slight advantage. But this is not something that the London is known for. You basically play the same way as if you were Black. Thus, you cannot really expect much different results, can you?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In short, &lt;strong&gt;you don't experience the first-move advantage because you play openings that don't try very hard to maintain it&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From this it does &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; follow that the advantage does not exist - it just &quot;happens&quot; in other openings (and since these are more popular, they have a bigger influence on the average).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It also doesn't mean that you should stop playing the London. After all, it's not &lt;em&gt;worse&lt;/em&gt; than your Black openings and they are fine, too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13433" LastActivityDate="2019-09-06T14:13:04.083" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25328" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-09-06T15:09:22.623" Score="3" ViewCount="1671" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yesterday, I play a game against Stockfish 7, and it has 2200 rating points.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I drew 2 games, and lost 1. The point is that if I play against a human-rated 2200 player, I would probably have a positive score against him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also noticed that Stockfish 7 played much better than the average 2200 human player strength.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do human-ratings and machine-ratings show the same strength of play?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20064" LastEditorUserId="3594" LastEditDate="2019-09-08T23:30:02.820" LastActivityDate="2019-12-14T19:34:15.213" Title="Are engine ratings directly comparable to human-level play?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;rating&gt;&lt;computer-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25329" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25328" CreationDate="2019-09-06T15:19:01.303" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;What you have to understand is, first, that any rating is just a comparison of players within that pool. So a 2200 on chess.com is not the same as 2200 on lichess.com, or on ICC. They are probably close, but it is not the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Second, you need to realize that your three game sample is just not enough to draw any valid conclusions. You are human, so even if your winning expectancy were .95, you can always defy expectations, and make a blunder, and the computer, even handicapped, would still likely take advantage of it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lastly, at 2200, you are playing a handicapped computer. It is playing &quot;not best&quot; moves, but how is it playing them? Is it being told to play the fourth best move every time, or is it being told to play the best moves every time, but on the 5th move, play the 10th best move? Either way, you could have an anomaly where it plays less bad moves in an individual game, and when those worse moves do pop up, maybe you miss the opportunity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The computer can only be handicapped so much. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2019-09-06T15:19:01.303" CommentCount="12" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25330" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-09-06T23:53:52.443" Score="1" ViewCount="134" Body="&lt;p&gt;Engines really push for a win in a dead-draw middlegame position, unlike humans who may agree on a draw. Why is that happening?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20064" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-09-07T00:25:29.517" LastActivityDate="2019-09-07T18:52:45.303" Title="Computers and draws" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;draw&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25331" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25330" CreationDate="2019-09-07T01:10:30.130" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is not so much that engines &quot;push for a win in a dead drawn position.&quot; Instead, they simply continue to play the most accurate moves--because they are engines and lack the volition to do anything else by virtue of their programming. Since it can be difficult for a human to continue to find the accurate drawing moves even in an equal position, especially when time trouble is a factor, the human simply feels as if the engine is pushing for a win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1402" LastActivityDate="2019-09-07T01:10:30.130" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25332" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25330" CreationDate="2019-09-07T03:13:32.297" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The simple answer is that most engines are not programmed to offer a draw, nor to accept draw offers when made. Those that do are the rare exceptions. Furthermore, for such an engine to make/accept a draw offer, it must judge the position to be equal, which might not correspond with the human intuition for what a drawn position is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15989" LastActivityDate="2019-09-07T03:13:32.297" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25333" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25336" CreationDate="2019-09-07T12:45:01.360" Score="9" ViewCount="1080" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am wondering if anyone else has faced chess burnout. Do you have advice? I am a novice enthusiast (~1400) but, with a wife, child, and job, do not have the opportunity to dedicate as much time to it as I would have in my youth. Because of this I have mostly been playing correspondence chess online, which I am sure is contributing to burnout. Being tied to 50+ games at once against fairly faceless opponents is not conducive to passion for the game I am sure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some ideas I have had:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Play more OTB and find better live opponents. I always enjoy the game more and play better when it is personal, like a dance or a good conversation. I have found clubs intimidating but I think at this point I need to bite the bullet and go for it... at my level I am by no means good but I definitely have trouble finding challenges against casual players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Teach (what little I know). Generally speaking, pouring into others helps motivate and inspire the teacher as well. Maybe I should start a chess club at the local library? (Just to be clear, I have no delusions of grandeur with my measly 1400 but one can always teach basics or facilitate, right?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Have any of you successfully dealt with burnout? What were your experiences and what would your advice be?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20065" LastActivityDate="2020-06-20T16:52:58.300" Title="Strategies for dealing with chess burnout?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;online-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25334" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25333" CreationDate="2019-09-07T14:38:39.067" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;It sounds like you simply crave some human contact in chess, and that is understandable, oh, and much more fun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Starting a club, or getting involved in state chess &quot;politics&quot; is certainly one way, but it is a much bigger undertaking with more responsibility. Think hard about this commitment before you do this. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Helping kids at a school, possibly your child's school, is another. If you do attempt to teach, focus on the rules and basic tactics, which you can get straight out of a book. Give them a few puzzles each week, but go through them yourself first before you go over them with the kids. If you have any questions about certain avenues of defense for a particular problem, then you can go over it with Stockfish first so you are ready to answer their questions. You can also see if some local Master would come in and give a talk, play a few games, or give a simul. I have done this quite a few times over the years just because I like kids, and thus, did it for free.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another think that came to my mind first, and that is go to a club, and make friends with someone, who is close in rating, and invite each other over to your homes, and play for a few hours (or all night...I did that a lot when I was first learning) every week, or couple of weeks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would finish the correspondence games, and get away from that. When i started playing in 1980, correspondence was still chess. Now, it is who is better with a computer program. I can see why you do not find much fun in that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Playing tournaments is also a way to meet up with people, who you will see many times over the years.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Good luck, and let us know what you decide to do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S. You could also take lessons yourself as that would also fit the bill.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2019-09-07T14:44:32.407" LastActivityDate="2019-09-07T14:44:32.407" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25335" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25330" CreationDate="2019-09-07T18:52:45.303" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;If an engine continues to play on in a drawn position, the reason is because it simply hasn't been given the heuristic to offer a draw in a dead drawn position. There are a couple of reasons a programmer may not program in such a heuristic:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) Suppose an engine calculates that the game is a forced draw at depth 30, but to a human (or much weaker engine) the position is very complicated and not at all drawn. It wouldn't make sense to offer a draw here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) Making a heuristic that assesses whether a position is &quot;dead drawn&quot; may be non-trivial. What constitutes &quot;dead drawn&quot; versus an equal position? Quantifying this could be tricky.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-09-07T18:52:45.303" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25336" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25333" CreationDate="2019-09-08T01:57:17.603" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I experienced burnout once from too many correspondence games and I chose to limit my correspondence games to only 10 games, 5 per server that I play on as the max that I would start.  I only play on 2 servers.  For me, it really helped.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have a growing family, a full time job and like we all have, the realities of life going.  Not a lot of time to really dedicate to developing my game as much as I would like or get to the chess clubs as much as I would like.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Keeping my expectations to be based on the input that I can realistically give to developing my game helped me out mentally as well.  I can't expect monumental results in my development in chess when my top priorities are not chess.  I also plan on trying to get to the chess clubs and just keep track of local tournaments so if the opportunity for me comes that I can play I know where and when the tournaments are.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also for me, some of my hobbies help.  I'm a programmer enthusiast(novice-beginner) and I'm making my own database, data processing program for pgn files so if I'm feeling a little burnt out I can redirect my attention to the programming stuff for a bit.  Seems to help me so maybe if you have a hobby, chess related or not, you can throttle time between them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope however you chose to deal with your issue works out the best!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14760" LastActivityDate="2019-09-08T01:57:17.603" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25337" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="863" CreationDate="2019-09-08T12:21:29.760" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Late to the party, but while Anand losing to a guy, who was rated 400 points below him was, clearly, a huge upset; an IM, who was over 2400 at one point, and 2368 when that game was played is definitely strong enough to take advantage if Anand makes an error. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This still probably beats all upsets I have ever heard of. In the first round, GM John Fedorowicz, rated 2479 at the time (I cannot find this to prove it, but I am recall his USCF rating being in the mid-2500's as well), lost to a 1714 player at the 1980 U.S. Open!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I still remember this because I was a really new player, and saw this game in &quot;Chess Life and Review&quot; (Later shortened to &quot;Chess Life&quot;), and I was amazed. Nevertheless, Fed brushed off the early setback, and tied for first.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1609849&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1609849&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;W Stanley Davis-John Fedorowicz, 81st US Open, 8/3/1980&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Nf3 e6 2.e3 b6 3.b3 Bb7 4.Bb2 c5 5.Be2 Nf6 6.d3 d5 7.Nbd2 Be7 8.Ne5 O-O 9.O-O Re8 10.f4 Bf8 11.Qe1 a5 12.g4 a4 13.Rc1 axb3 14.axb3 Ra2 15.Ba1 Na6 16.g5 Nd7 17.Bh5 Nxe5 18.Bxe5 Nb4 19.Qh4 Nxc2 20.Rf3 Nxe3 21.Rxe3 Rxd2 22.Rh3 c4 23.Bf6 Bc5+ 24.Kf1 Bf2 25.Bxf7+ Kf8 26.Qxh7 gxf6 27.Bg6 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2019-09-08T12:21:29.760" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25338" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25333" CreationDate="2019-09-08T14:20:14.017" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;1) Get away from correspondence and play more blitz. I realize blitz may not be the healthiest for your long term development but it is fun and correspondence (esp that many games) can be stressful and demand a lot. I know sometimes I avoid analyzing correspondence positions because I know they'll take hours to figure out. It become this stressful thing that dominates my thinking. If you're playing 50 correspondence games at a time you're either analyzing in a superficial way (which leads to frustration) or you're neglecting other areas of your life. At that point it starts to feel like work. A blitz game is over in ten minutes at most and then you can think about something else. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) Take a look at your opening rep. Play some fun openings. The Englund gambit is very simple to learn and perfectly playable in blitz or even in classical up to about 1800. Evans gambit, scotch gambit, king's gambit, vienna gambit. Anything with the word &quot;gambit&quot; in it is probably good. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One thing I've noticed is that players around your level tend to play defensive openings and play for material pretty much exclusively. 9 times out of 10 learning to play for the initiative over material is what takes a 1400 to a 1600. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) Take a break if you need to. When you come back spend some time on what interests you- Maybe a particular player or opening or concept or whatever. If it were me I'd play through Fischer's 60 memorable games or maybe take up a new opening. Maybe a biography of a player. Whatever interests you. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4) Lastly, I agree with the person who said you crave some human contact in chess. It sounds like you're looking for some other way to enjoy chess beyond solitary study. I wouldn't be afraid of a club. At 1400, you'll be better than some of the players and the stronger players will help you improve. There are plenty of other avenues to explore also like teaching. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2019-09-08T14:20:14.017" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25340" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25297" CreationDate="2019-09-09T03:23:59.987" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found a software that complies with the specifications, at least most of them, it is pretty good and personally I really liked it, its name is &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesspositiontrainer.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;CHESS POSITION TRAINER&lt;/a&gt; and is a paid software. Thank you everybody.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20021" LastActivityDate="2019-09-09T03:23:59.987" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25342" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25328" CreationDate="2019-09-09T07:14:28.990" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you are rated 2300, the computer is 2200 and you make 1/3, that's not too weird of a result, specially not if you played two of those three games as Black, for instance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you played 300 games and socred only 100 points, then you can start to have some suspicion that perhaps the engine is stronger than it says.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even then, it could also be the case that you perform badly against that particular opponent (the engine), just as it could happen against any human player&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastActivityDate="2019-09-09T07:14:28.990" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25343" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25333" CreationDate="2019-09-09T07:32:30.230" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;50+ correspondence games is a lot of them. If you don't have time for chess you are either dedicating time you don't have or not even thinking most of the moves you are playing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Correspondence games are supposed to give you a spot where you can think your moves for almost as much time as you want. If, instead, you are rushing through them in order to play all 50+ games, then what's the difference between that and playing Blitz?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sure, human contact is also a key factor in staying motivated. Go to a local club and play some games. If they make a tournament on a day you are free, give it a try! You may even also find your chance to teach there once you are trusted!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastActivityDate="2019-09-09T07:32:30.230" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25344" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25328" CreationDate="2019-09-09T10:01:24.277" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are several things to note:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Computer ratings are inaccurate because there are so few serious games played between humans and computers that can be used to tune the ratings. Then the rest of the computer ratings are derived from computer v computer games. So it's 2200 plus or minus an error margin that could be hundreds of points.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I have no idea where you got the rating number from, but I suspect it's a rounded number and may even be a &lt;em&gt;pure guess&lt;/em&gt; by the engine author&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;You have a FIDE rating of 2300, achieved in FIDE rated over the board tournaments. But do you play at exactly the same level against the computer? For me at least, my concentration level in a tournament hall playing for real results is way higher than at home in the evening clicking some pieces against a computer. The computer doesn't care, it is always the same.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Ratings hide the fact that style differences exist. Your expected score against a 2200 player is 64%; but there are probably players of that level whose style is hard for you to counter and you do less well against them, there are also players against which you'll score better. The 64% is just an average.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Especially the fact that you have &lt;em&gt;10 draws&lt;/em&gt; in 12 games suggests the combination of your style and the computer's leads to drawishness. And for instance part of the computer's 2200 rating &lt;em&gt;may be&lt;/em&gt; in the fact that while it can draw 2300s a lot, it would also draw against 2100s more than you'd expect.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Your hardware may be different than the hardware used to get the rating of 2200&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;And in the end, a 50% score over 12 games is not enough games to conclude that the rating difference is not 100 (which would yield a 64% score over an infinity of games). There is always some variance in results and 12 games is not a lot.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So overall I think your 50% score is well within the range of normal results, as that range is broad.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastEditorUserId="924" LastEditDate="2019-09-09T10:10:59.917" LastActivityDate="2019-09-09T10:10:59.917" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25345" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25328" CreationDate="2019-09-09T11:05:25.253" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This depends on how those engine ratings you're thinking of are generated in the first place. Ratings are reliable only so much as to compare vs. other players being rated. For example you say Stockfish 7 has rating 2200, but the &lt;a href=&quot;https://ccrl.chessdom.com/ccrl/4040/rating_list_all.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;CCRL 40/40 list&lt;/a&gt; gives a rating of 3326. Other problems: the strength of an engine depends on the hardware used, and to a lesser extent on the time control.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That said, TCEC attempted to benchmark its ratings to the FIDE ratings recently. The idea was to use Kramnik's rating when he played Fritz in Bahrain in 2002 to anchor Fritz in Bahrain's rating. That rating can then be used for every other engine running on the same hardware.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Based on that, Lc0's rating is currently 3907 (on TCEC hardware), and Stockfish dev is 3895.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastActivityDate="2019-09-09T11:05:25.253" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25346" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-09-09T14:36:18.817" Score="-1" ViewCount="116" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why not allow the winner of the Women's world championship and the winner of the Junior world championship to join the candidates tournament? Their rating is lower than the top 10 players but I mean they are both champions . Also this would give extra motive for women to play chess since the winner of the Women's world championship would have a chance to play for the World Championship.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20064" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-20T19:43:59.443" LastActivityDate="2020-03-20T19:43:59.443" Title="Candidates tournament" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;world-championship&gt;&lt;candidates&gt;&lt;women&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2019-09-09T19:44:17.250" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25347" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25346" CreationDate="2019-09-09T14:55:16.970" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;(this is my opinion, this is a purely opinion-based that some would say should be closed but I prefer to just give my answer)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems unfair and discriminatory to allow someone into the Candidates just because they are a woman or junior. The recent winners of both championships are also so far off the level of the Candidates that they just wouldn't belong there, and they would take the place of two players who would have qualified using the existing criteria.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All the ways of qualifying for the Candidates are open for everybody, man or woman, young or old. If the Women's champion wants to qualify for the Open championship, she can just try to qualify like everybody else.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2019-09-09T14:55:16.970" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25348" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25354" CreationDate="2019-09-09T15:03:59.203" Score="2" ViewCount="148" Body="&lt;p&gt;Today FIDE publishes a new rating list once a month. When FIDE first started publishing official lists in 1971 they came out once a year. How has the frequency changed over the years? When did the frequency change and by how much?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2019-12-14T19:43:06.457" Title="How has the frequency of FIDE rating lists changed over the years?" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;history&gt;&lt;fide&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25349" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25346" CreationDate="2019-09-09T16:25:26.480" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is not exactly the same thing, but on chess.com, they have allowed the women and the junior speed chess champion to be seeded into the open tournament. Well, the two women, who have played, Hou Yifan, and Elena Danielian have both been crushed by record scores, 27.-2.2 and 27-2 respectively.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The other day, Wei Yi got destroyed by Maxime Vachier-Lagrave 21-10.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In either case, and frankly, especially with the women, it would not be competitive. If you can get in on your strength of play, fine; but they should not be given free entry based on winning some other event. All this does is take away a slot from a more-deserving candidate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2019-09-09T16:25:26.480" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25350" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13322" CreationDate="2019-09-09T16:33:12.647" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;In a sense, promoting illegally counts as not promoting. If it isn’t legal under chess law, it officially never happens at all. There are many types of such promotion. I shall give examples of almost all of them. There are no queen problems because there are no known correct problems where White draws by promoting to a Black queen, much less winning by doing so.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Types Of Illegal Promotion&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;King&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Pawn&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Pawn, But Promoting Later&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Enemy king&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Enemy pawn&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Enemy knight&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Enemy bishop&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Enemy rook&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Enemy queen&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All of the source links direct to pages in the &lt;a href=&quot;https://pdb.dieschwalbe.de/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Die Schwalbe Chess Problem Database.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;King&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;M. Frisbee &amp;amp; Palmer Gunkel Keeney, Pittsburgh Gazette Times 1914, Mate In 2&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;5R2/3P4/4k3/8/3K4/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Solution:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;d8=WK Kd6 2. Rf6#&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://pdb.dieschwalbe.de/P1193261&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Source&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Enemy King&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Karl Arthur Leonid Kubbel, 1941, Mate In 2&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;8/4P1Q1/2P5/8/8/6Pk/5P2/7K w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Solution:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;e8=BK Kd8 2. Qd7##&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://pdb.dieschwalbe.de/P1237542&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Source&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Additionally, here is another joke problem has castling on the enemy rank.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Andrew Buchanan After Anonymous, PDB Website 1/15/2019, Mate In 3 Without Queening A Pawn&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;2k5/P3P3/P4P2/3P4/3B4/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Solution:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;e8=K Kc7 2. a8=R Kd6 3. 0-0-0#&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://pdb.dieschwalbe.de/P1359646&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Source&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Pawn&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Samuel Loyd, American Chess Magazine 12/1898, Mate In 3&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;N1Br4/2Pb1P2/3k4/1P2R3/1P2K3/B7/8/8 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. cxd8! Bf5+ 2. Rxf5 Ke7 3. f8=Q#&#xA;(1. cxd8=Q/R? stalemate!)&#xA;(1. cxd8=B? Bf5+ 2.  Rxf5 stalemate) &#xA;(1. cxd8=B? Bf5+ 2. Kd4? Bxc8!)  &#xA;(1. cxd8=N? Bc6+ 2. bxc6 stalemate!)&#xA;(1. cxd8=N? Bc6+ 2. Kd4? Bxa8!)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://pdb.dieschwalbe.de/P1265742&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Source&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even more amazingly, here is a problem in which the best move for both sides is promotion into a pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Peter Wong &amp;amp; Geir Sune Tallaksen Østmoe, Matplus.net Forum 11/12/17, Black Moves And White Wins&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;5qnk/3pPB2/1p1p1N2/1pbK1NP1/1p1pP3/1P1P4/6p1/7R b - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;[startflipped &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. gxh1! exf8! {White easily wins with an extra piece}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://pdb.dieschwalbe.de/P1372419&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Source&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lastly, here is a classic by Thomas R. Dawson in which white promotes to a pawn three times!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Thomas R. Dawson, The Chess Amateur 1913, White Draws&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;6K1/6PP/3p2PP/3P1ppp/8/ppp5/qrp5/1rk5 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Kh8 Kd2 2. g8 Re1 3. g7 Re6 4. dxe6 Rb1 5. e7 b2 6. e8 Qxg8+ 7. hxg8 null 8. h7 null {Stalemate}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://pdb.dieschwalbe.de/P1372358&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Source&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Pawn, But Promoting Later&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Ado Kraemer, Deutsche Schachblätter 1949, Mate In 3&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;7K/5P2/6pp/6pk/6pr/6pb/8/8 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Solution:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;f8 Bf1 2. f8=Q and Kh7 ~ 3. Qxh7#&#xA;or 1... g2 2. f8=N &amp;amp; Sd7/h7 ... 3. Nf6#&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://pdb.dieschwalbe.de/P1373527&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Source&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Enemy Pawn&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;James Malcom, PDB Website 3/4/2020, Mate In 2&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;1k1K3r/3Q2P1/1N6/8/8/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Solution:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;gxh8=BP h7,h6 (Pawns are allowed to do a double step on their first move) 2. Qc7#&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://pdb.dieschwalbe.de/P1375482&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Source&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Enemy Knight&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;8/5RPk/6N1/6K1/8/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Solution:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;g8=BN#&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Enemy Bishop&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;James Malcom After Thomas R. Dawson, PDB Website 3/5/2020, Mate In 2&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;6B1/2Q2P2/k7/8/K7/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Solution:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;f8=BB B~ 2. Bc4#&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://pdb.dieschwalbe.de/P1375481&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Source&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Enemy Rook&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Noam D. Elkies, Outrageous Chess Problems 2005, Mate In 2&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;5brk/5Pp1/6K1/6N1/8/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Solution:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;fxg8=BR B~ 2. Nf7#&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://pdb.dieschwalbe.de/P1373257&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Source:&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-05-02T16:41:55.797" LastActivityDate="2021-05-02T16:41:55.797" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25351" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="25353" CreationDate="2019-09-10T02:44:13.803" Score="-4" ViewCount="225" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recently played a funny &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/XYtzzbyn/white&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;blitz game on Lichess as White&lt;/a&gt; in which an usual battery was formed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[startply &quot;25&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 e5 2. dxe5 Nc6 3. e4 Nxe5 4. Nf3 d6 5. Nxe5 dxe5 6. Qxd8+ Kxd8 7. Bc4 Bc5  8. Bxf7 Nf6 9. O-O Nxe4 10. Bb3 Nxf2 11. Rxf2 Rf8 12. Nc3 Bxf2+ 13. Kh1 Be1 14.  Bg5+ Ke8 15. Rxe1 Be6 16. Bxe6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black preceded to play 13... Be1, unwittingly creating a battery for me with two pieces that had never moved before. I repeat, &lt;strong&gt;a self-creating battery with two unmoved pieces forming the battery itself.&lt;/strong&gt; Quite funny indeed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I define a battery in this case as “when one pieces hides in front in front of a queen, rook, or bishop, and that hiding piece moves/threatens to move with a threat from the unmoving piece, aka a discovered attack.”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus, batteries in the sense of something like Alekhine’s Gun are not in the picture here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are some examples of unconventional, i.e rare or uncommon to see in games, not typically played, or is there a general consensus of it being so, of such a battery from famous play under the set definition? The battery is not required to have been fired-just to have existed is enough. It doesn’t have to be a check. Threatening a piece, such as in my game, is optional.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sorry of this comes across on too broad-I will edit the question in the morning if need be.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: In regards to my particular used definition of a &quot;battery,&quot; given that it has a few meanings, I turn to an authoritive source: Tim Krabbe. See below.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;The Asaba Battery, White plays and makes a draw, E. Asaba, 1980&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;4b2k/3p3B/8/8/8/n6P/p2nP3/6RK w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA; [startply &quot;15&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Bg8 d5 2. Bxd5 Bc6 3. Bxc6 Ndb1 4. Rg8+ Kh7 5. Be4+ Kh6 6. Rg6+ Kh5 7. Bd5 a1=Q 8. Bf7 Kh4 9. Kg2 Kh5 10. Kh1 Kh4 11. Kg2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is from Tim Krabbey article &lt;a href=&quot;https://timkr.home.xs4all.nl/admag/asaba.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&quot;De Asaba-Batterij,&quot; which translates to &quot;The Asaba Battery.&quot;&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The formation of the White rook and bishop is what is calls &quot;The Asaba &lt;strong&gt;Battery&lt;/strong&gt;.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The rook hides the bishop. The threat from White is, if Black moves their newfound queen, the hiding piece, the rook, moves, giving an attack to the Black king from the unmoving Bishop, aka a discovered attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tim Krabbe calls and rook-bishop formation a battery, and the threat that this battery contains is the same as my chosen usage of battery for this question . Therefore, my usage of &quot;battery&quot; upolds; I have merely chosen one of it's many definitions to use for this questions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In addition, many thanks to @itub in the comments for this. &quot;The definition given by the Oxford Companion to Chess: &quot;BATTERY, a problem term for one of the two kinds of ambush: a line-piece would command a line if another man of the same colour were moved off that line. Discovered checks arise from this kind &#xA;of ambush, as shown in the Indian theme. Players occasionally use the word battery to describe doubled or tripled line-pieces; composers rarely &#xA;use the word in this sense.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Alekhine's Gun is a battery of the second definition-doubling/tripling of similarly attack pieces on a rank, file, or diagonal. I am using &quot;battery&quot; in the sense of the discovered attacks of the first definition. This is why I stated earlier &quot;Thus, batteries in the sense of something like Alekhine’s Gun are not in the picture here.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I hope that this clears up the confusion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-09-11T22:32:51.523" LastActivityDate="2019-09-12T04:51:54.700" Title="Examples Of Unconventional Batteries" Tags="&lt;famous-games&gt;&lt;discovered-check&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25352" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25348" CreationDate="2019-09-10T07:53:45.207" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;the FIDE ratings list&lt;/a&gt;, which shows info from the period 2001-2019, there was a list in January 2001 followed by another one in July 2001, so maybe it was done twice a year back then, or maybe it's just that the March list was not published in the Internet). From there on, lists were updated quarterly until July 2009, where they started to do it every two months (next list was on September 2009)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In July 2012, the current per-month appeared for the first time (the following list is from August 2012)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can assure these two last changes are accurate, but cannot be sure about the six-months to three-months shift. I also don't know anything about the once-to-twice per year shift&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastEditorUserId="18809" LastEditDate="2019-09-10T08:02:46.017" LastActivityDate="2019-09-10T08:02:46.017" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25353" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25351" CreationDate="2019-09-10T09:11:56.163" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is pretty common.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With your given stipulation, the battery can only happen with a pawn as the front piece or with an attacking queen or rook masked by a bishop, knight or king along the first rank.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This example of the latter is a very old theoretical line in the Danish double-gambit:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[startply &quot;14&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. d4 exd4 3. c3 dxc3 4. Bc4 cxb2 5. Bxb2 d5 6. Bxd5 Nf6 7. Bxf7 Kxf7 8. Qxd8 Bb4  &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Rh8-Bf8 battery is activated at once by Black to win the queen back and reach an equal endgame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are even more examples of the former, e.g. this miniature played multiple times in youth tournaments:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[startply &quot;7&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Nd4 4. Nxe5 Qg5 5. Nxf7 Qxg2 6. Rf1 Qxe4 7.Be2 Nf3#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4...Qg5 jumps into the Bc1-Pd2 battery.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastEditorUserId="14079" LastEditDate="2019-09-11T07:53:25.287" LastActivityDate="2019-09-11T07:53:25.287" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25354" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25348" CreationDate="2019-09-10T10:49:02.583" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The period before 2001 is documented on the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.olimpbase.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Olimpbase&lt;/a&gt; site. The period from 2001 on is documented on the &lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/download.phtml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE rating&lt;/a&gt; site.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To find the details for pre-2001 go to the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.olimpbase.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Olimpbase&lt;/a&gt; site and about a third of the way down on the right hand side under &quot;PLAYERS &amp;amp; TEAMS&quot; click on &quot;Elo lists 1971-2001&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To find the details for 2001 and after go to the &lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/download.phtml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE rating download&lt;/a&gt; site and halfway down click on the dropdown box &quot;Download old files from Archive - Please select your period and press GO&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both these sites give the possibility to download the lists in zip file format.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Pre-2001&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Unofficial lists&lt;/strong&gt; were published in -&lt;br&gt;&#xA;June 1967, April 1968, 1969 (no month given), 1970 (no month given) and January 1971&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Official lists&lt;/strong&gt; were published in July of the following years:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;1971, 1972, 1973.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This switched as a one-off to May in 1974 before settling down to full lists published in January in 1975 through to 1980 with the addition of three supplementary lists in July of 1978, 1979 and 1980. These supplementary lists included less than 10% of players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In 1981 FIDE switched to publishing lists twice a year, in January and July, and this continued from 1981 through to 1999.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This period was also significant for the introduction of a number of new features:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;FIDE IDs in 1990, although the first attempt in January 1990 only had&#xA;5 digit IDs. This was clearly going to be inadequate and the length&#xA;was extended in July 1990.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;With the break up of the USSR new federation codes were introduced&#xA;for ex Soviet, Yugoslav and Czechoslovak republics.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;Active / Inactive&quot; flags were introduced in July 1992.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The rating floor for men was lowered to 2005 in January 1993.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Ratings stopped being rounded to the nearest 0 or 5 in January 1999.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In 2000 three rating lists were published in January, July and October.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In 2001 the frequency changed to 4 times a year. Lists were published in January, April, July and October from January 2001 up to July 2009.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From September 2009 through to July 2012 lists were published every two months in January, March, May, July, September and November.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In January 2013 they changed to being published monthly through to the current day.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although it should be noted that the actual download files themselves are updated on an almost daily basis. For instance, I am posting this on 9th September 2019 and that is also the date on the download file. Two days ago the date was 7th September. The information in the two files is almost the same. The differences are minor corrections and additions. The data in the September files is still significantly different from the August files in that the August files reflect data reported in July while the September files reflect data reported in August.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2019-09-10T10:49:02.583" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25355" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26361" CreationDate="2019-09-10T18:18:03.290" Score="3" ViewCount="256" Body="&lt;p&gt;I (around 1700 on classical games on lichess) need advice on how to correct some mistakes I often make during the games, if possible, from  a player with a Master title or higher.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have noticed that during my games I tend to make the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-Hang pieces (usually pawns, but from time to time a piece of greater value).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-Capture a defended piece with a piece resulting in a disadvantageous exchange.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-Quite commonly make wrong assumptions of the nature of the game. For instance, thinking that after a move I can capture a pawn only to realize it is already defended or thinking that I am threatening checkmate with knight and queen (say on the 8th rank) when in fact, the queen cannot deliver it because the knight would not protect the queen when checking the king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-Fail to see a tactic (a pattern easy to spot for me but I still omit it). In particular, some combinations in which a check made by my opponent makes the game turn into their favor.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-Sometimes I make a calculation mistake. I think this is due to my inability to play blindfold chess and see the variants in my head.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know it is embarrassing to make these mistakes but I really need some advice from a player who has been there. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Plus, I also realize it is hard for me to follow everything that happens in the game. For instance, after a discovered attack, I sometimes miss it and if I realize, it happens by luck and very late. I feel like it should be easier for me to keep track of these things after 3 years playing chess quite seriously.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The conclusion I get from my games is that &#xA;I should be more focused but I am missing the ability to not be overwhelmed by the changes caused by the pieces' moves (that I mentioned earlier).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks very much for reading.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16771" LastEditorUserId="16771" LastEditDate="2019-09-11T11:30:58.173" LastActivityDate="2019-09-11T20:38:30.057" Title="Help with mistakes" Tags="&lt;psychology&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25356" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25355" CreationDate="2019-09-10T22:26:55.793" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Hang pieces (usually pawns, but from time to time a piece of greater value).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pay more attention to the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Capture a defended piece with a piece resulting in a disadvantageous exchange.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well this is a bit more complicated . Before you capture think: Will I gain anything from the exchange?Can that piece move freely around the board or are there many squares which cannot go(for example in front and right or left of a pawn)? Does my piece im exchanging do something important? For example if your opponent threatens something with that piece then exchange it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Quite commonly make wrong assumptions of the nature of the game. For instance, thinking that after a move I can capture a pawn only to realize it is already defended or thinking that I am threatening checkmate with knight and queen (say on the 8th rank) when in fact, the queen cannot deliver it because the knight would not protect the queen when checking the king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Become familiar with all the pieces and how they cooperate and you will see a big improvement.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Fail to see a tactic (a pattern easy to spot for me but I still omit it). In particular, some combinations in which a check made by my opponent makes the game turn into their favor.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Train your tactics.Be cautious for in-between moves.We think that after I capture my opponent's bishop with my knight that he/she/it will capture my bishop.But not always!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Sometimes I make a calculation mistake. I think this is due to my inability to play blindfold chess and see the variants in my head.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Place a chessboard next to you and play there the moves you think are worth considering.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Plus, I also realize it is hard for me to follow everything that happens in the game. For instance, after a discovered attack, I sometimes miss it and if I realize, it happens by luck and very late. I feel like it should be easier for me to keep track of these things after 3 years playing chess quite seriously.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Be more focused and not only do your plans but follow your opponent's plan as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wish I helped.See you in lichess.org.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20064" LastEditorUserId="12629" LastEditDate="2019-09-11T11:26:52.363" LastActivityDate="2019-09-11T11:26:52.363" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="25357" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25355" CreationDate="2019-09-10T23:28:03.773" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;All of the errors you describe are &quot;short attention span&quot; mistakes. That is a polite way to put it. A less polite way would be to say that you make simple blunders. Having identified what the problem is the next step is to find out what the underlying cause is and try and remedy that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are two obvious possibilities -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Underlying psychological problems&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Bad chess habits&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Underlying psychological problems could come from personal problems in your life. This could be stress, divorce, bereavement, bad job or work environment. When my mother died 20 years ago I had a period of about 6 months when my play was as you describe. I lost 70 or 80 rating points. When I recovered from her death my chess picked up again. Things like divorce, bereavement, relationship breakdown can take quite some time to recover from.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Psychological problems could also come from drugs you are taking. This could be medication which has bad side effects. My brother worked for a while in the tropics and took Larium, an anti-malarial drug, which had bad mental effects on him. Once he realized what was happening he found other ways to protect against malaria. Substance abuse can obviously also produce unwanted mental side effects. If you are taking drugs for any reason you should find out about all the possible effects.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you don't have some underlying psychological problem that leaves &quot;bad chess habits&quot;. You say you have a lichess rating of 1700. I bet that is not for playing long-play games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How much blitz do you play? How much standard rate chess do you play? How much internet chess do you play? How much face-to-face, over-the-board chess do you play? Are you a member of a chess club?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My suggestion to you, if you are serious about fixing the problem, would be to give up internet chess completely for a year, stop playing blitz, join a chess club and play &quot;proper&quot; chess at a slow time control. Do that for a year and you should have a good chance of fixing your bad chess habits and become a much stronger player. When you then go back online the benefits should remain.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2019-09-10T23:28:03.773" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26357" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24312" CreationDate="2019-09-11T06:31:23.237" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;When two established players play a rated game there is a transfer of rating points from the loser to the winner.  Elo deflation occurs when young players gain strength and rating points from other players and then lose interest and stop organised play. They gained rating points from the pool of established players and then departed. Eventually they drift off the ratings lists and the rating points go away.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9321" LastActivityDate="2019-09-11T06:31:23.237" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26358" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24338" CreationDate="2019-09-11T07:55:23.523" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Partial answer: TCEC Stockfish plays with 43 cores and threads, while the so-called Redfish kitbitzing engine (which is basically Stockfish on stronger hardware) plays with 192 cores and 256 threads. Running at 4x the speed (as measured by nodes per second), Redfish is +50 elo stronger than TCEC Stockfish.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Partial answer #2: Komodo developer Larry Kaufmann &lt;a href=&quot;http://talkchess.com/forum3/viewtopic.php?f=2&amp;amp;t=73759#p841287&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;writes here&lt;/a&gt; that -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Komodo is rated 3423 CCRL Rapid on four cores, but will be playing on a 32 core Threadripper which should boost its Rapid rating to around 3600.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If each core contributes roughly the same to speed, then 32 cores is 8x the speed of the original, and that translates to about 180 elo. (Of course this makes it seem like Komodo scales better than Stockfish, but Stockfish is going from 43 to 192 cores which is much more firmly in the logarithmic part of the curve.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Partial answer #3: the performance of Komodo 14 drops from +80 elo (2 threads vs 1 thread) to +4 elo (128 threads vs 64 threads). The performance of Stockfish 11 drops from +90 elo (2 threads vs 1 thread) to +14 elo (128 threads vs 64 threads). &lt;a href=&quot;http://talkchess.com/forum3/viewtopic.php?f=2&amp;amp;t=74188&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Source&lt;/a&gt;. In this range, the scaling looks pretty linear.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastEditorUserId="15223" LastEditDate="2020-06-23T07:34:18.797" LastActivityDate="2020-06-23T07:34:18.797" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26359" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-09-11T09:43:31.350" Score="6" ViewCount="2501" Body="&lt;p&gt;I had previously heard and seen in commentaries about the Dragon opening where black plays an early &lt;code&gt;g6&lt;/code&gt; to develop the bishop on &lt;code&gt;g7&lt;/code&gt; after the typical open Sicilian starting moves &lt;code&gt;c5 cxd d6.&lt;/code&gt; But how does the Accelerated Dragon differ from the usual Dragon and what aspect of it is being accelerated? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;A short explanation of the naming and summary of the underlying opening idea would really be helpful.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15078" LastActivityDate="2019-10-16T07:51:31.573" Title="Uncovering the Accelerated Dragon opening" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;accelerated-dragon&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26360" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26359" CreationDate="2019-09-11T10:03:46.233" Score="13" Body="&lt;h2&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Dragon&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The opening is named after the Draco (Latin for dragon) constellation because if you remove all the pieces and just look at black's pawn structure with the  pawns on &lt;code&gt;g6&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;d6&lt;/code&gt; it looks like the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draco_(constellation)&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;dragon constellation&lt;/a&gt; as shown below (&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.pinterest.com/pin/106467978666810073/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;image source&lt;/a&gt;):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/LXR0fm.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/LXR0fm.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/RIxfgm.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/RIxfgm.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Accelerated&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unlike the mainline &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sicilian_Defence,_Dragon_Variation&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Dragon Sicilian&lt;/a&gt; where &lt;code&gt;d6&lt;/code&gt; is a key early move (&lt;code&gt;1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6...&lt;/code&gt;), even though later it might still be pushed to &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt;, the accelerated version attempts to play &lt;code&gt;d7-d5&lt;/code&gt; in one go, without the inclusion of an early &lt;code&gt;d6&lt;/code&gt; move, and hence the name &lt;em&gt;accelerated&lt;/em&gt; Dragon.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's an important move order that really typifies the accelerated Dragon, where everything black has set out to do has been achieved: safe king, healthy development, a successful early &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt; push to undermine white's center, powerful bishop on the long diagonal, active play in the center and on the queenside. I highly encourage you to closely study the 3 variations that can result from either of the 3 ways white can capture the pawn on &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt; on the next move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [Title &quot;Accelerated Dragon, typical position&quot;]&#xA; [fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA; [StartFlipped &quot;1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 g6 5. Nc3 Bg7 6. Be3 Nf6 7. Bc4 O-O 8. Bb3 a5 9. f3 d5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Basic plan for black:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In short, having neutralized white's central &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt; pawn for our &lt;code&gt;c7&lt;/code&gt; pawn, black fianchettoes their kingside bishop and exerts pressure on the long diagonal from the get-go, unlike most other Sicilian variations where the dark squared bishop stands quite defensively. Additionally, the fianchetto structure is a good defensive fortress for the king. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Moreover, black's kept both central pawns (&lt;code&gt;e&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;d&lt;/code&gt;) and in the future they can potentially make a better claim at central control as the central pawns are 2 for 1 in favour of black. Considering that white's only remaining central control lies in their &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; pawn, with constant threats of &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt; kicking our knight to a less ideal  post, black's constantly playing towards making the &lt;code&gt;d7-d5&lt;/code&gt; break happen as early as possible, neutralizing white's only  central foothold. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3594" LastActivityDate="2019-09-11T10:03:46.233" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26361" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25355" CreationDate="2019-09-11T10:26:10.927" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;OK, assuming you are still very young, then really, you need to do two more things: Study more tactics, AND read some books with interesting games without a board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first thing is obvious, but I recommend doing 50 per day, spending no more than two minutes on each problem...then look at the answer. I once helped a 38-year-old friend go from 1000 to 1850 on ICC in just three months by doing this. He stopped, and never went any higher. This is much harder to do than it seems, and requires a lot of time invested, but the immersion learning will pay off. I can also tell you that I have seen many 2000-2200 players, who are really not that strong at tactics, so this can be for everyone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reading games without a book (including all the sub-variations), I personally always loved Irving Chernev's &quot;1000 Best Short Games of Chess&quot;. The games start out short, and go up to only 25 moves, and are all loaded with fun tactics. The only problem with this book is that, to this day, it is still only in descriptive notation. The goal of reading this book is to read the games, and REALLY keep the position in your head. You are not trying to analyze the game. When you are done, you play it over on a board and see how well you really kept it in your head.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are getting older, especially in your 40s and 50s and above, the above will help, but also, you may simply need more time to process the board. For example, pick a time control for &quot;blitz&quot; of 10 with 10 seconds increment, or play OTB tournament games. JUST yesterday, I had a 5-hour battery of mental tests at the doctor, and I can tell you that at my age (almost 58), I was simply MUCH slower than I was in my 20s and 30s.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My last suggestion comes from an esteemed source, and it almost seems crazy, but when starting to analyze (at least every few moves), look at every possible move you have on the board. You ARE NOT analyzing them. You are just looking at them for a split second because you will be amazed at what just briefly considering them will sometimes trigger in your mind. It is almost subconscious. When you are about to make your move, again, quickly, look at EVERY opponent reply. Of course, this is primarily for an OTB game with a lot more time than a blitz game. This practice might sound crazy, but this is the suggestion of none other than Arthur Yusupov (former top 10 in the world, three-time world-championship candidate, and one of the world's foremost trainers). He recommends this in the first volume of his 10-volume series when discussing why he has students do composed two-move mate problems.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At almost 58, I know that I now do not see the board as quickly, and miss things, and this last suggestion has been helping me A LOT.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2019-09-11T10:26:10.927" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26362" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26359" CreationDate="2019-09-11T10:58:01.700" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;The differences are really comes down to what you want to avoid or allow, meaning mostly the Maroczy Bind.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Accelerated Dragon primarily allows the the Maroczy bind, so you would need to play the main-line Dragon if you do not want to play this. 1.e4 c5; 2.Nf3 Nc6; 3.d4 cd; 4.Nd4 g6; 5.c4. (The defining move of Maroczy). The Maroczy might not suit the tastes of a Dragon player, who is hoping for a wild game since it leads the game down a more positional path. One advantage of this line is there are a few opening traps that can catch white, but I do not recommend that approach if you do not like the position after 5.c4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The regular Dragon due to 4...Nf6, forces white to block the c-pawn. 1.e4 c5; 2.Nf3 Nc6; 3.d4 cd; 4.Nd4 Nf6; Nc3 and the Maroczy is out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let me also mention the Hyper-Accelerated Dragon,and what it is designed to avoid: 1.e4 c5; 2.Nf3 g6!?. This is meant to avoid the Rossolimo anti-Sicilian 1.e4 c5; 2.Nf3 Nc6; 3.Bb5 since there is no Nc6. The downside is that white can play an early d4 or c3 and d4, and black is not as well-placed to contest the center.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2019-09-11T11:08:01.647" LastActivityDate="2019-09-11T11:08:01.647" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26363" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26359" CreationDate="2019-09-11T14:10:46.480" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;The main difference resides in the strongest counters that White has at its disposal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you play the Classical Dragon, then White can try the Yugoslav attack:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [Title &quot;Classical Dragon. Yugoslav attack main position&quot;]&#xA; [fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA; [StartFlipped &quot;1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 g6 6.Be3 Bg7 7.f3 O-O 8.Qd2 Nc6 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;followed by either &lt;code&gt;9.Bc4&lt;/code&gt;or &lt;code&gt;9.0-0-0&lt;/code&gt;. This position offers great attacking chances for White, but Black can look for counterplay on the queenside in this opposite-side-castling position. Games in this positions are often very tactical and wild, with chances for strategical sacrificies (an exchange on c3 or d4 for instance) Here you have a &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1971856&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;classical example&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you go for the Accelerated Dragon, the Yugoslav Attack is less of a threat because of the idea of pushing &lt;code&gt;...d5&lt;/code&gt;in a single move, striking the center and destroying any chance of White playing on the kingside. There are also some tactical reasons why plans with an early &lt;code&gt;Bc4&lt;/code&gt; by White (trying to prevent that centra-strike) don't work. But, since we don't play &lt;code&gt;Nf6&lt;/code&gt;early on, White can place a pawn on the c4 square (no ```Nc3`` is played)`, thus building the &quot;Maroczy formation&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [Title &quot;Accelerated Dragon. Maroczy formation&quot;]&#xA; [fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA; [StartFlipped &quot;1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 g6 5. c4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here both sides will castle short, with a more &quot;quiet&quot; positional battle. White will try to make use of the semi-open &lt;code&gt;d&lt;/code&gt;file and the outopost on d5, while Black will often try some queenside counterplay based on a &lt;code&gt;...b5&lt;/code&gt;push and the &lt;code&gt;c&lt;/code&gt;and &lt;code&gt;b&lt;/code&gt;files. Another plan is to disturb White using the &lt;code&gt;c5&lt;/code&gt; outpost, maybe with the help of an &lt;code&gt;...a5&lt;/code&gt;push to prevent ```b4`` from being played See &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1967395&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this game&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastEditorUserId="18809" LastEditDate="2019-09-11T14:21:15.850" LastActivityDate="2019-09-11T14:21:15.850" CommentCount="14" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26364" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26359" CreationDate="2019-09-11T16:05:46.333" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's the Dragon, Accelerated Dragon, and The Hyper-accelerated Dragon. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Each are measured by how quickly the pawn goes to g6 and each have unique variations.  You can YouTube each to get a taste.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As mentioned by others, the accelerated versions typically allow White the option of putting a pawn on c4 before developing Nc3 (Since Black didn't attack e4 with Nf6).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With the pawn on c4 the game is more positional and you don't get the swashbuckling play that attracts many players to the Dragon.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Opening play in each of these Dragons often revolves around whether Black can get in d5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2019-09-11T16:05:46.333" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26365" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25355" CreationDate="2019-09-11T16:56:43.903" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;People vary very much in their thinking. As well as visual thinking there is verbal thinking, kinesthetic thinking...An artist friend told me that when he looked at the board the important squares and pieces took on a slight glow. You are probably at least good at one style, so dont try to push a skill you haven't got. One thing that might help (at longer time limits) is to review every piece on the board and ask yourself why it went to that square. Strong players do this subconsciously. This will give you a listing of the important aspects of the board position. Try to group the pieces into &quot;constellations&quot;, for example the attackers and defenders&#xA;of a weak pawn. In psychology this is called &quot;chunking&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-09-11T20:38:30.057" LastActivityDate="2019-09-11T20:38:30.057" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26366" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25355" CreationDate="2019-09-11T17:34:31.740" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;At 1700 you should be missing tactics, but not at the level you describe.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You obviously need to get better at calculating and that is done by simply solving puzzles.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems to me you don't have any skin in your games.  It is just an internet game (yawn).  Try playing a live person in a tournament or something to get you more motivated to do better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2019-09-11T17:34:31.740" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26367" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17879" CreationDate="2019-09-11T21:54:20.003" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just saw this question, and while someone came up with the game you were looking for, here is a game with what many consider THE most spectacular queen sacrifice ever. It is a positional sacrifice for two minors on move 12! I thought everyone might enjoy this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you do have never heard of Rashid &quot;SuperNezh&quot; Nezhmetdinov, despite never getting the GM title (mostly due to being unable to travel outside the Soviet Union), he won the Soviet championship 5 times. He had a lifetime plus of 4-1 against Mikhail Tal, and was Tal's second for the 1960 match against Botvinnik. In the 20 games he contested against world champions, he also had a plus score.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And here is what the greats said about him:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;Nobody sees combinations like Rashid Nezhmetdinov.&quot; Mikhail Botvinnik&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Nezhmetdinov is &quot;the greatest master of the initiative.&quot; Lev Polugaevsky&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;His games reveal the beauty of chess and make you love in chess not&#xA;so much the points and high placings, but the wonderful harmony and&#xA;elegance of this particular world.&quot; Mikhail Tal&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;Rashid Nezhmetdinov is a virtuoso of combinational chess.&quot; David&#xA;Bronstein&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lastly, every player should see Lev Polugaevsky vs Rashid Nezhmetdinov, which is another incredible game with a queen sacrifice that is incredibly memorable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1111459&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1111459&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    [Title &quot;Rashid Nezhmetdinov-Oleg Chernikov, Rostov-on-Don, Chigorin Team Cup, 1962&quot;]&#xA;    [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;   1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 g6 5. Nc3 Bg7 6. Be3 Nf6 7. Bc4 O-O 8. Bb3 Ng4 9. Qxg4 Nxd4 10. Qh4 Qa5 11. O-O Bf6 12. Qxf6 Ne2+ 13. Nxe2 exf6 14. Nc3 Re8 15. Nd5 Re6 16. Bd4 Kg7 17. Rad1 d6 18. Rd3 Bd7 19. Rf3 Bb5 20. Bc3 Qd8 21. Nxf6 Be2 22. Nxh7+ Kg8 23. Rh3 Re5 24. f4 Bxf1 25. Kxf1 Rc8 26. Bd4 b5 27. Ng5 Rc7 28. Bxf7+ Rxf7 29. Rh8+ Kxh8 30. Nxf7+ Kh7 31. Nxd8 Rxe4 32. Nc6 Rxf4+ 33. Ke2 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2019-09-11T22:30:51.023" LastActivityDate="2019-09-11T22:30:51.023" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26368" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13462" CreationDate="2019-09-12T02:45:28.010" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, but one additional point: If you have started to place the king on g1, for example, but you change your mind AND you have not taken your hand off it, you can still move it one square to another square as long as you have not also touched the rook. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2019-09-12T02:45:28.010" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26370" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25351" CreationDate="2019-09-12T04:51:54.700" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Another famous example is &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1259009&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Edward Lasker - George Alan Thomas, 1912&lt;/a&gt;. Most people remember it for the king hunt, but indeed the (non-castling) mating move is unleashing a king-rook battery.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Lasker-Thomas 1912&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[startply &quot;34&quot;]&#xA;1. d4 e6 2. Nf3 f5 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. Bg5 Be7 5. Bxf6 Bxf6 6. e4 fxe4 7. Nxe4 b6 8. Ne5 O-O 9. Bd3 Bb7 10. Qh5 Qe7 11. Qxh7+ Kxh7 12. Nxf6+ Kh6 13. Neg4+ Kg5 14. h4+ Kf4 15. g3+ Kf3 16. Be2+ Kg2 17. Rh2+ Kg1 18. Kd2# 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15989" LastActivityDate="2019-09-12T04:51:54.700" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26371" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17879" CreationDate="2019-09-12T13:37:59.550" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are plenty of games that fit the parametres you described, let's see if we get lucky!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    [Title &quot;Polgar - Chilingriova&quot;]&#xA;    [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;    1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 g6 4.O-O Bg7 5.c3 e5 6.d4 exd4 7.cxd4 Nxd4 8.Nxd4 cxd4 9.e5 Ne7 10.Bg5 O-O 11.Qxd4 Nc6 12.Qh4 Qb6 13.Nc3 Bxe5 14.Rae1 Bxc3 15.bxc3 Qxb5 16.Qh6 Qf5 17.Qxf8+ 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    [Title &quot;Segovia - Curbelo&quot;]&#xA;    [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;    1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 a6 6. Bc4 e6 7. Bb3 Be7 8. Be3 O-O 9. Qe2 Bd7 10. O-O-O b5 11. a3 Qc7 12. Kb1 Nc6 13. g4 Rac8 14. f4 e5 15. Nxc6 Bxc6 16. g5 Nxe4 17. Nxe4 Bxe4 18. Rhg1 exf4 19. Bxf4 Bg6 20. h4 Rfe8 21. h5 Bxg5 22. hxg6 Rxe2 23. gxf7+ Kh8 24. Bxd6 Qc6 25. Rxg5 Rxc2 26. Be5 Rc1+ 27. Ka2 Qh6 28. Rxg7 Qxg7 29. Rxc1 Rf8 30. Rg1 Rxf7 31. Bxf7 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    [Title &quot;Nikitin - Stein&quot;]&#xA;    [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;     1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.g3 Bg7 4.Bg2 O-O 5.Nf3 d6 6.O-O Nc6 7.d5 Na5 8.Nfd2 c6 9.Nc3 cxd5 10.cxd5 Bd7 11.b4 Qc7 12.bxa5 Qxc3 13.Nb3 Rfc8 14.Be3 Bb5 15.Bxa7 Rxa7 16.Rc1 Qxc1 17.Nxc1 Rxa5 18.Qd2 Ra4 19.Qe3 Kf8 20.Qb3 Ra5 21.Qb4 b6 22.Nb3 Rc4 23.Qd2 Ra8 24.Rc1 Ne4 25.Bxe4 Rxe4 26.e3 Rea4 27.Rc2 Bc4 28.Kg2 Bf6 29.f3 Kg7 30.e4 h5 31.h4 b5 32.Nc1 Ra3 33.Qf2 R8a4 34.Kh2 Rb4 35.Qd2 Rb1 36.Kg2 Ra4 37.Kh2 Rab4 38.Nd3 Bxd3 39.Qxd3 Rd4 40.Qe2 Rdd1 41.f4 Bd4 42.Qf3 b4 43.Re2 Rbc1 44.e5 Rc3 45.Qe4 Bc5 46.f5 Rd4 47.f6 exf6 48.exf6 Kxf6 49.Rf2+ Kg7 50.Qe7 Rxh4+ 51.Qxh4 Bxf2 52.Qxb4 Bxg3+ 53.Kg2 Be5 54.a4 Rc2+ 55.Kf3 g5 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For more examples, check &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chesscollection?cid=1022437&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chesscollection?cid=1022437&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2019-09-12T14:29:35.020" LastActivityDate="2019-09-12T14:29:35.020" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26372" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26377" CreationDate="2019-09-12T14:29:20.150" Score="21" ViewCount="2359" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the board position both knights can move to e4. To distinguish which knight moved one would normally write Nce4 or Nfe4. However in this special situation only Nce4 is check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Would it be sufficient here to write Ne4+ (meaning Nce4) only (i.e. without the &quot;c&quot; but with &quot;+&quot;), as Nfe4 would not be check?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By sufficient I mean whether there are any (FIDE or other organization) laws regarding such issue.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;8/8/5N2/8/3k4/2N5/8/B3K3 w - - 1 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2021-02-23T15:03:01.430" LastActivityDate="2021-02-23T15:42:23.077" Title="Ambiguity in notation resolved by +" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;fide&gt;&lt;notation&gt;&lt;uscf&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26374" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26378" CreationDate="2019-09-12T15:23:54.853" Score="1" ViewCount="439" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the below chess position, the chess.com computer analysis says that there is a checkmate in 7 moves for Black, but I can't find the way. Can you help me find the solution? White's last move was Rxe7, which chess.com says is a blunder, allowing for the mate in 7.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/d38HC.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20092" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-09-15T03:49:54.443" LastActivityDate="2019-09-15T04:06:27.207" Title="Checkmate in 7 moves?" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26375" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26372" CreationDate="2019-09-12T15:34:23.133" Score="18" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=208&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Laws of Chess 2018&lt;/a&gt; are unambiguous: &lt;strong&gt;you should write Nce4&lt;/strong&gt;, and the + sign is optional and not disambiguating. Ne4+ is not sufficient.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Appendix C (algebraic notation), article C.10 basically tells you to write Nce4 to distinguish it from Nfe4. It does not mention check or other ways to disambiguate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Article C.13 notes that writing &quot;+&quot; to indicate check is &lt;em&gt;optional&lt;/em&gt;, which also implies that it does not serve to distinguish between a Ne4 that checks and one that doesn't.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15989" LastActivityDate="2019-09-12T15:34:23.133" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26376" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26374" CreationDate="2019-09-12T15:40:03.160" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is a solution to your question, since you changed the position, with the lines being on a board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;   [FEN &quot;3r2k1/p3Rp1p/6p1/8/3nbP2/P1r3P1/P6P/2B1KR2 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;    1... Rxc1+ 2. Kd2 (2. Kf2 Rc2+ 3. Ke1 Nf3+ 4. Rxf3 Bxf3 5. Re8+ Rxe8+ 6. Kf1 Ree2 7. a4 Rc1#) 2... Rc2+ 3. Ke1 (3. Kd1 Nf3+ 4. Rd7 Rxd7#) 3... Nf3+ 4. Rxf3 Bxf3 5. Re8+ Rxe8+ 6. Kf1 Bg2+ 7. Kg1 Re1#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-09-15T04:06:27.207" LastActivityDate="2019-09-15T04:06:27.207" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26377" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26372" CreationDate="2019-09-12T15:42:35.167" Score="24" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Would it be sufficient here to write Ne4+ (meaning Nce4) only (i.e.&#xA;  without the &quot;c&quot; but with &quot;+&quot;), as Nfe4 would not be check?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It depends on exactly what you mean by &quot;sufficient&quot;. By &quot;normal&quot; definitions of &quot;sufficient&quot; the answer is obviously &quot;yes&quot;. &quot;Ne4+&quot; disambiguates and leaves the human reader in no doubt which knight was moved.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However it doesn't work in FEN diagrams. You need to specify Nce4 to get it to work. So, then the answer would be &quot;No&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/component/handbook/?id=208&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Laws of Chess&lt;/a&gt; describe how you should annotate your games in Appendix C and that does not allow for using check as a way of disambiguating between two different pieces of the same type moving to the same square. However there is no penalty specified for mistakes. It is up to the arbiter to decide and that will only happen if it is noticed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In real life the most that might happen is that if the games are transcribed for sending to FIDE or for publishing the player might get a scolding from the arbiter tasked with this chore, but this is extremely unlikely in this case and would happen long after the game is completed. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mistakes far worse than this happen all the time and the only comeback from the arbiters is when the scoresheet is completely illegible or grossly incomplete. Vigilant arbiters will notice these misdemeanors during the game and warn the player concerned to mend their ways.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2019-09-12T15:42:35.167" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26378" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26374" CreationDate="2019-09-12T17:07:52.220" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You posted a different position after my comment and PhishMaster's answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for the new position, yes it is mate in 7 starting with Rxc1+.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Possible continuations are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Kd2 Rc2+ 2. Ke1 (if 2. Ke3 Re2++; if 2. Kd1 Nf3+ 3. Rd7 Rxd7++) Nf3+ 4. Rxf3 Bxf3 (threat is Rd1++) 5. Re8+ Rxe8 6. Kf1 Bg2+ 7. Kg1 Re1++&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Kf2 Rc2+ 2. Kg1 (if 2. Ke1 or Ke3 see the other line above) Nf3+ 3. Rxf3 (3. Kh1 Rxh2++) Rd1+ 4. Rf1 Rg2+ 5. Kh1 Rxf1++&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As I wrote above the mating patterns are not particularly pretty. It boils down (in the longer lines) to mating with two rooks, one on the second and one on the first rank. Also it is more like a mate in 5 as some of the moves are just white sacrificing a rook to prolong the mate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2019-09-12T17:07:52.220" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26379" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26413" CreationDate="2019-09-12T21:28:42.137" Score="2" ViewCount="312" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm working out the Caro-Kann Defense, and I need your help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/study/qJ92dHuO/jguNDHDR&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Lichess study&lt;/a&gt; below, I am dealing with the Goldman Variation. I couldn't find out anything about the chess player Goldman, nor could I found useful hints in the web. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;Caro-Kann Defense Study-Goldman  Variation&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c6 2. Nc3 d5 3. Qf3 dxe4 (3... e6 4. d4 Nf6 5. e5 Nfd7 6. Qg3 c5)    (3... Nf6 4. e5 Nfd7 5. d4 e6 6. Qg3 c5 7. Nf3)  (3... d4 4. Bc4 e6 5. Nce2 c5   6. d3 Nc6 7. Qg3) 4. Nxe4 Nd7 (4... Nf6) 5. d4 (5. Ne2 Ngf6 6. N2c3 g6) 5... Ndf6 6. c3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can anybody point me towards more information about Goldmann?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16757" LastEditorUserId="9025" LastEditDate="2019-09-19T15:12:21.030" LastActivityDate="2019-09-19T18:51:21.007" Title="I'm looking for more information on &quot;Goldmann&quot; of the Goldmann Variation (Caro-Kann)" Tags="&lt;caro-kann&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26380" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-09-13T09:16:20.223" Score="1" ViewCount="141" Body="&lt;p&gt;A 'Conveyor Belt' Chess variant is where rows (And the pieces on them) of the chessboard move left, right, up or down based on different criteria.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've not seen or heard of a chess variant where rows of a chess board move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are these a known and studied variant?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7040" LastEditorUserId="7040" LastEditDate="2019-09-13T14:27:45.460" LastActivityDate="2019-09-15T01:06:22.470" Title="Are 'Conveyor Belt' Chess variants studied?" Tags="&lt;chess-variants&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26381" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23360" CreationDate="2019-09-13T17:28:49.883" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is a long-held opinion of the Soviets (now Russians) that when you play for a draw, you are really playing for a loss.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should play normal chess, and trade down when it simplifies the position without degrading it. Of course, the more you simplify, the more you need to understand about the endgame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2019-09-13T17:28:49.883" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26382" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24795" CreationDate="2019-09-13T17:36:14.233" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Other than the computer evaluation proving that the Q is better, the biggest problem here is that black basically starts out fully developed since his pieces already have amazing scope, and can quickly coordinate his forces, and attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2019-09-13T17:36:14.233" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26383" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19932" CreationDate="2019-09-13T17:55:14.550" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;While the computer says it is still roughly equal, I would MUCH rather play black here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After whatever move white makes, black will play Qf6 and e5 in the next two moves, and then I like the central pawns after Re8 (assuming white tries to hold them up at all, he will have to attack e5) and then f4. Later, black will also have the potential for playing against the white king with Rg8, h4, and eventually pushing the center forward creating real threats against the white king. White has no active plan to counter this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This brings up an often-overlooked point that Tal clearly understood, and that is that there are practical problems in chess that go beyond analysis at home (now with computers). In this position, black has not even sacrificed anything, and it may well be equal between two computers, but this position is very difficult in practice for white.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2019-09-13T17:55:14.550" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26384" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19381" CreationDate="2019-09-13T18:24:15.190" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;This question is old now, but thought I would chime in on how to find a good coach.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You wrote: &quot;But I feel like a lot of coaching sometimes is just random topics with a lack of structure.&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You do not say what the rating of your coach is, but that lack of structure is a major red flag, and the sign of a not-great coach. Long-time coaches/trainers have definite lesson plans that can be tailored to players of different strengths. If they are just winging it every lesson, that is a sign it is time for a new coach.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another important factor is that while many people want a GM coach, most players do not need a GM to train them, however, most professional trainers do nothing but that for a living, and usually are at least FM strength. In fact, many FMs or IMs can be much better coaches than many GMs, who just wing it since they work hard to have well thought out lessons.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lastly, there are MANY places online nowadays that you can find very professional coaches for as little as $25/hour since they live in countries where that is a decent rate, but ask a lot of questions about whether they have formal lesson plans or just wing it. You can get a sense about that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/coaches&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess.com Coaches&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lastly, here is my own tip about getting stronger: I cannot recall a tournament game between 1600 players that I kibitzed the postmortem that did not have an obvious missed tactic. I suggest immersion in chess tactics as I will describe in the next paragraph. I once took a 38-year-old friend, so not a super-young mind, from 1000 to 1850 ICC in three months doing this. He then stopped, and never got any better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I recommend trying to do 50 tactics problems per day, spending no more than two minutes per problem, from the following books (eventually, you can use other books too):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;“1001 Brilliant Ways to Checkmate”, 21st Century Edition by Fred&#xA;Reinfeld&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;“1001 Winning Chess Sacrifices and Combinations”, 21st Century&#xA;Edition by Fred Reinfeld&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know there are a lot of tactics books out there, but I love these two books because of how well they are laid out. You start with the mates book because the first chapter is queen sacrifices, so you have two huge hints: Mate, and give up the queen. I skip the last chapter on composed mates for now. As you are doing them, in pencil, mark each one with a number 1-5 as to how easy you found it, 5 being hard. You will read both books more than once. Again, try to do 50 per day. It is hard, but worth it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have been recommending this for over 35 years, but the method is very similar to the relatively new book &quot;The Woodpecker Method&quot;, which was published in 2018.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2019-09-13T18:24:15.190" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26385" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23360" CreationDate="2019-09-13T22:33:39.303" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Playing for a Draw is against the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=208&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Laws of Chess&lt;/a&gt; (1.4: The objective of each player is to place the opponent’s king ‘under attack’ in such a way that the opponent has no legal move.) And it is the simplest way to lose.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you need a draw, play good chess. The best chess you can play. If you are good in endgames, simplify. If you are good in tactics, make it complicated. Play the opening you have played for decades because most probably you know its positions better than your opponent. And avoid doing anything special for draw’s sake that you would not do if playing for a win or for fun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20096" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-09-14T08:49:25.973" LastActivityDate="2019-09-14T08:49:25.973" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26386" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-09-14T08:53:26.340" Score="6" ViewCount="464" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am playing with my friend. I didn't notice that my king was in check, so I made an illegal move. We noticed this after several more moves. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What should happen next? Do we restart the game or continue it as is?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20100" LastEditorUserId="10075" LastEditDate="2019-09-14T09:23:49.117" LastActivityDate="2019-09-14T09:23:49.117" Title="We found out that we made an illegal move later on in the game" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;illegal-move&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2019-09-14T20:05:57.377" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26387" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26386" CreationDate="2019-09-14T09:21:56.827" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;FIDE Laws of Chess 7.4a&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If during a game it is found that an illegal move, ..., has&#xA;  been completed, the position immediately before the irregularity shall be&#xA;  reinstated. If the position immediately before the irregularity cannot be determined&#xA;  the game shall continue from the last identifiable position prior to the irregularity.&#xA;  The clocks shall be adjusted according to Article 6.13. The Articles 4.3 and 4.6 [touch move] apply&#xA;  to the move replacing the illegal move. The game shall then continue from this reinstated position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, if you are playing with your friend, you can choose to do whatever you feel would be best. The above is simply what would happen in a FIDE tournament.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10075" LastActivityDate="2019-09-14T09:21:56.827" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26389" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26380" CreationDate="2019-09-15T01:06:22.470" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's not studied to my knowledge. This is my first time hearing of such a variant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-09-15T01:06:22.470" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26390" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="80" CreationDate="2019-09-15T02:03:31.423" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is a problem that I published in the &lt;a href=&quot;http://matplus.net/start.php?px=1608213940&amp;amp;app=forum&amp;amp;act=posts&amp;amp;fid=xshow2&amp;amp;tid=2297&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;MatPlus.net forums&lt;/a&gt; a few months ago. It demonstrates how the rook can move through squares that are attacked. The squares a1 and b1 are maximally guarded. If it were on a board, it would definitely frustrate a few people, which is the exact point of this little exercise!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;me, Matplus.net Forum 5/24/2019, Mate In 2&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;8/8/8/8/pppbbp1r/nr2pppB/q2n2Pp/R3K2k w Q - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. O-O-O+! Nf1 2. Rxf1#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-05-02T15:02:52.163" LastActivityDate="2021-05-02T15:02:52.163" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26391" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26392" CreationDate="2019-09-15T03:19:38.653" Score="1" ViewCount="126" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;4r3/pq3k2/1p4p1/2p1Qn1p/2PpN3/3P4/PP3PPP/R5K1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is White to move the above position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After Ng5 check, the Black king can go only to g8 or f8.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the Black king goes to g8, they lose their rook. After Kf8 by Black, what is White's best move?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20092" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-09-15T03:40:04.840" LastActivityDate="2019-09-20T14:42:28.123" Title="What is the best continuation for White?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;&lt;planning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26392" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26391" CreationDate="2019-09-15T03:57:17.183" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;White is easily winning in this position. Here is the best continuation according to Stockfish. I would trust Stockfish on this one since it should be pretty easy for a good tatictal player to figure out themselves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;4r3/pq3k2/1p4p1/2p1Qn1p/2PpN3/3P4/PP3PPP/R5K1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Ng5+ Kf8 2. Qh8+ Ke7 3. Re1+ Kd6 4. Qxe8 Qd7 5. Qxg6+ Kc7 6. Ne6+ Kb8 7. Qxf5 a5 8. Nxd4 Qxf5 9. Nxf5 a4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White is now two pawns and two pieces up. It is an easy stroll to victory lane from here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastActivityDate="2019-09-15T03:57:17.183" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26394" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-09-15T06:11:17.827" Score="7" ViewCount="2294" Body="&lt;p&gt;Isn't White giving up too much, i.e. one tempo in the opening and the bishop pair, for too little, i.e. doubled pawns?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, after&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 g6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;4&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Bc6 is the second option in Lichess Masters database.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9179" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-09-15T15:51:03.880" LastActivityDate="2019-09-16T11:05:51.407" Title="In Bb5 systems against the Sicilian, why does White exchange their b5 bishop without playing a6?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;&lt;doubled-pawn&gt;&lt;development&gt;&lt;bishop-pair&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26395" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26394" CreationDate="2019-09-15T13:13:59.383" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some things that are probably part of the answer, but probably not complete and concrete enough:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;1...a6 won't come.&lt;/em&gt; There is no threat to a pawn on e5, the knight isn't pinned, the only point of 3.Bb5 is to exchange it on c6. So black doesn't waste a tempo on forcing white to do what he was already going to do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, black has a choice to make, between ...bxc6 and ...dxc6. By taking earlier, white can see which way black goes and set up his pieces accordingly. If, in contrast, he takes later, black can first see where white puts his pieces and then choose which way to take. So since it's going to happen anyway, better do it immediately and not give out more information just yet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastEditorUserId="2789" LastEditDate="2019-09-16T11:05:51.407" LastActivityDate="2019-09-16T11:05:51.407" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26396" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26394" CreationDate="2019-09-15T15:03:25.977" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;A lot of it is simply to create an imbalance. Nakamura has mentioned this before about a different opening B-for-N trade, and sometimes it is done without even getting doubled pawns in return, like an early Bg4 in the Slav then putting the pawns on c6 d5 and e6 to retain some control of the light squares. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even in the Caro-Kan Two-Knights variation you see the same trade: 1.e4 c6 2.Nc3 d5 3.Nf3 Bg4 and the B is often traded off after 4.h3 Bf3 5.Qf3 (In the 1960 World Championship match against Botvinnik, Tal even played 5.gf to imbalance the position even more. )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2019-09-15T15:03:25.977" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26397" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24392" CreationDate="2019-09-15T20:57:52.230" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was always taught that dc is simply to indirectly defend e5 since Ne5 Qd4 is advantage to black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2019-09-15T20:57:52.230" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26398" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26394" CreationDate="2019-09-15T23:11:43.937" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;A few things:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) White's actually not wasting any tempi. He has to move his bishop out anyway (in order to castle). Then, once on b5, taking on c6 doesn't waste a tempo since Black has to spend a tempo recapturing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) The doubled c-pawns are more of a big deal than they'd be in, say, the Ruy Lopez Exchange variation. Since Black has a pawn on c5 instead of c7, the weakness of the doubled pawns is more prominent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) You're right that White's giving up the bishop pair. This is the main reason the Bb5 systems are not the main line, and instead playing an early d4 is. It's really a matter of taste: if you believe giving your opponent doubled pawns is worth sacrificing the bishop pair, you should play the Bb5 system. Many people don't believe this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4) As for not waiting for ...a6, White has to take action before Black changes the situation. For example, he may play ...Nd4 after developing more, or he may protect the c6-knight with a piece (e.g., ...Qc7), thus preventing White from giving Black doubled pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastEditorUserId="12873" LastEditDate="2019-09-15T23:18:31.397" LastActivityDate="2019-09-15T23:18:31.397" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26399" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26391" CreationDate="2019-09-15T23:17:02.367" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Best is 2.Qh8+ Ke7, after which White has a choice:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Go for &lt;code&gt;3.Qh7+ Kf6 4.Qxb7 Kxg5&lt;/code&gt;, when White has won a queen for a knight with a completely winning position.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Go for &lt;code&gt;3.Re1+&lt;/code&gt;, which is slightly more complicated but leads to a forced mate according to Stockfish:&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;4r2Q/pq2k3/1p4p1/2p2nNp/2Pp4/3P4/PP3PPP/R5K1 w - - 0 3&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;3.Re1+ Ne3 4.Qg7+ Kd6 5.Qxb7 Re7 6.Qb8+ Kc6 7.fxe3 Rb7 8.Qa8 a5 9.exd4 cxd4 10.Qc8+ Rc7 11.Re6+ Kc5 12.Qf8+ Re7 13.Qxe7#.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastEditorUserId="4509" LastEditDate="2019-09-20T14:42:28.123" LastActivityDate="2019-09-20T14:42:28.123" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26400" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26394" CreationDate="2019-09-16T07:19:30.517" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The main reason is that White does not want to face &lt;code&gt;Nd4&lt;/code&gt;in many lines. They want to make sure they will &quot;hurt&quot; Black's pawn structure with &lt;code&gt;Bxc6&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Compare this line with others where the Black knight is actually pinned, like &lt;code&gt;3...d6&lt;/code&gt; for instance. There, White has no reason to hurry and trade so quickly&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastActivityDate="2019-09-16T07:19:30.517" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26401" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18311" CreationDate="2019-09-16T10:51:08.433" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;We recommend &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.albertochueca.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Alberto Chueca&lt;/a&gt;, one of the best chess coaches in the world. His students are getting great results and his price is very economical.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20111" LastActivityDate="2019-09-16T10:51:08.433" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26402" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24897" CreationDate="2019-09-16T18:57:45.553" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;As suggested in the question I have taken FIDE rating data from 1992 (when active/inactive flags were first introduced) through to September 2019 taken from Olimpbase and FIDE and loaded it into a database which has allowed me to run SQL queries against the data to get some answers for this question. I looked at average decline in playing strength for players in 5 year age bands from 15 through to 85 and in 100 point playing strength bands from 1500 through to 2700.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I shall present my conclusions from looking at the data first, followed by a brief description of my method followed by the data.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Conclusions&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, I should emphasise that here I am talking about averages. Individuals will obviously vary, possibly wildly from the averages.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Young, weak players improve faster than older, stronger players.&#xA;Players in the two weakest bands, 1500 - 1700, continued to improve&#xA;through to their early 30's.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Mid strength players (1700 - 2200) start declining first, in their&#xA;late 20's. At this age weaker players are still improving and&#xA;stronger players are maintaining their level.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Mid strength players decline faster in middle age and early old age&#xA;than both weaker and stronger players.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Weaker players are more variable (have a higher standard deviation)&#xA;than stronger players until you get to your 80's when I guess it starts &#xA;falling apart for everybody.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Finally, to answer the question about my prospects. I am in the 60-65&#xA;and 1700-1800 band so I can &quot;look forward&quot; to an expected decline of&#xA;139 points over the next 10 years with a standard deviation of 118.&#xA;Of course I expect this not to happen. I blame my current low rating&#xA;on getting &quot;mugged&quot; by several very under-rated juniors last year and&#xA;I promise I will study more (fingers crossed behind my back).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Method&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For each age and rating band I selected the average rating decline over a 10 year period and the standard deviation for each player in the band who was active at the beginning and end of the 10 year period. I restricted these calculations to where I had at least 50 data points, hence the gaps in the following data for older age groups. I ran this query over all the data in the database.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For each age/rating point there are two numbers. The first is the average decline. If this is a negative number it indicates an average &lt;em&gt;increase&lt;/em&gt; in rating. The second number, in brackets, is the standard deviation. For a normal distribution 95% of the results would fall within a range of +/- 2 standard deviations. However average improvement/decline is almost certainly not normally distributed. Nevertheless this figure gives a useful indication of variability.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance, the first data point for the 15-20 age band and the 1500-1600 rating band is -161 (174). This means that the average rating increase over a 10 year period for players in this band is 161 points and the standard deviation is 174. This high standard deviation indicates that some players will be improving by several times as much as the average while some may stay roughly the same or even decline.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Compare this with the figures for the 50-55 age band and 2600-2700 rating band. The average decline is 43 and the standard deviation is only 28. This suggests that most, if not all the players in this band are declining slightly in rating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Results&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;AgeBand = 15-20&#xA;1500 -     1600 -     1700 -     1800 -    1900 -    2000 -    2100 -    2200 -    2300 -  2400 -   2500 -    2600&#xA;-161 (174) -137 (169) -123 (152) -99 (141) -87 (132) -84 (118) -94 (112) -94 (107) -94 (9) -103 (8) -101 (65) -93 (47)&#xA;&#xA;AgeBand = 20-25&#xA;1500 -    1600 -     1700 -     1800 -    1900 -    2000 -    2100 -    2200 -    2300 -   2400 -   2500 -    2600&#xA;-89 (158) -58 (151) -34 (130)   -28 (123) -21 (109) -15 (95) -23 (82)   -32 (79)  -30 (76) -35 (64) -35 (55) -28 (52)&#xA;&#xA;AgeBand = 25-30&#xA;1500 -    1600 -     1700 -     1800 -    1900 -    2000 -    2100 -    2200 -    2300 -   2400 -   2500 -    2600&#xA;-71 (149) -19 (142)  2 (124)    20 (122)  29 (102) 16 (88)    7 (75)   -2   (69)    -1 (65) -4 (55)   0 (51)    1 (40)&#xA;&#xA;AgeBand = 30-35&#xA;1500 -    1600 -     1700 -     1800 -    1900 -    2000 -    2100 -    2200 -    2300 -   2400 -   2500 -    2600&#xA;-53 (144) -18 (147)  21 (121)   37 (102)  48 (87)   35 (79)   29 (75)   16 (62)   17 (59)  14 (51)  16 (47)   18 (59)&#xA;&#xA;AgeBand = 35-40&#xA;1500 -    1600 -     1700 -     1800 -    1900 -    2000 -    2100 -    2200 -    2300 -   2400 -   2500 -    2600&#xA;3 (125)   22 (123)  41 (116)    58 (100)  63 (93)   51 (79)   44 (69)   30 (60)   29 (56)  25 (47)  25 (48)   33 (38)&#xA;&#xA;AgeBand = 40-45&#xA;1500 -    1600 -     1700 -     1800 -    1900 -    2000 -    2100 -    2200 -    2300 -   2400 -   2500 -    2600&#xA;25 (113)  22 (110)   70 (120)   73 (108)  80 (91)   66 (78)   57 (68)   42 (61)   38 (57)  35 (51)  38 (44)   38 (37)&#xA;&#xA;AgeBand = 45-50&#xA;1500 -    1600 -     1700 -     1800 -    1900 -    2000 -    2100 -    2200 -    2300 -   2400 -   2500 -    2600&#xA;22 (135)  54 (121)   73 (111)   93 (100)  91 (93)   80 (80)   69 (70)   54 (66)   48 (57)  41 (51)  38 (43)   49 (34)&#xA;&#xA;AgeBand = 50-55&#xA;1500 -    1600 -     1700 -     1800 -    1900 -    2000 -    2100 -    2200 -    2300 -   2400 -   2500 -    2600&#xA;23 (123)  85 (116)   91 (120)   106 (99)  109 (89)  95 (82)   81 (73)   66 (70)   57 (63)  53 (57)  43 (40)   43 (28)&#xA;&#xA;AgeBand = 55-60&#xA;1500 -    1600 -     1700 -     1800 -    1900 -    2000 -    2100 -    2200 -    2300 -   2400 -   2500 -    2600&#xA;66 (127)  84 (103)   117 (106)  129 (106) 126 (103) 108 (89)  92 (76)   73 (72)   70 (67)  54 (54)  55 (47)   44 (38)&#xA;&#xA;AgeBand = 60-65&#xA;1500 -    1600 -     1700 -     1800 -    1900 -    2000 -    2100 -    2200 -    2300 -   2400 -   2500 -    2600&#xA;93 (123)  123 (126)  139 (118)  146 (106) 136 (95)  117 (90)  105 (78)  87 (76)   82 (79)  70 (72)  93 (77)   &#xA;&#xA;AgeBand = 65-70&#xA;1500 -    1600 -     1700 -     1800 -    1900 -    2000 -    2100 -    2200 -    2300 -   2400 -   2500 -    2600&#xA;96 (111)  123 (122)  144 (120)  141 (107) 152 (102) 124 (89)  112 (80)  108 (87)  91 (82)  81 (81)  69 (37)   &#xA;&#xA;AgeBand = 70-75&#xA;1500 -    1600 -     1700 -     1800 -    1900 -    2000 -    2100 -    2200 -    2300 -   2400 -   2500&#xA;96 (115)  119 (131)  147 (128)  153 (124) 161 (104) 135 (93)  125 (84)  115 (91)  93 (74)  63 (65)     &#xA;&#xA;AgeBand = 75-80&#xA;1500 -    1600 -     1700 -     1800 -    1900 -    2000 -    2100 -    2200 -    2300 -   2400&#xA;119 (207) 156 (180)  171 (123)  167 (141) 173 (101) 156 (101) 138 (94)  126 (96)  134 (92)       &#xA;&#xA;AgeBand = 80-85&#xA;1700 -     1800 -    1900 -     2000 -    2100 -    2200 -    2300&#xA;75 (167)   148 (186)  156 (169) 179 (102) 177 (118) 92 (174)       &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2019-09-16T18:57:45.553" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26403" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23185" CreationDate="2019-09-17T03:39:01.550" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a funny situation - in a FIDE tournament, it depends on whether you're talking about White or Black. To claim a draw in FIDE tournaments the procedure is as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) Write down the move you are planning to make that will result in a three-fold repetition. Do NOT make the move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) Call over the arbiter and explain what move you're about to make, and how this results in a three-fold. The arbiter checks it over and declares the game drawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So after 4.Ng1, if Black wanted to claim a draw he'd write 4...Ng8 down and call the arbiter over. The game would then be declared drawn. If he actually made the move 4...Ng8 and tried calling the aribter over, he could not claim a draw since it's not his turn. It's extremely weird, but this is how it works. So assuming the diagram position has been reached in a real game, Black could not claim a draw there (it's not his turn).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Meanwhile, White could claim a draw in the position you posted. Not because of the fact that the position has been repeated three times, but because if he moves 5.Nf3, the resulting position has been seen three times. So he'd write down 5.Nf3, call the aribter over, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've known people who have missed out on a draw and ending up losing their game because they weren't aware of this technicality in FIDE tournaments. It's borderline ridiculous but those are the rules.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-09-17T03:39:01.550" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26404" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26405" CreationDate="2019-09-17T14:17:56.610" Score="2" ViewCount="104" Body="&lt;p&gt;What are the key training areas &lt;em&gt;(Openings, Middlegames, Tactics, Strategies, Endgame, Studies, etc)&lt;/em&gt; and tools &lt;em&gt;(books, computer engines, databases, etc)&lt;/em&gt; in which players of different levels of playing strength &lt;em&gt;(for instance 1800, 2100, 2400, 2500, 2600, Elo rating etc)&lt;/em&gt;, should focus on in order to improve their chess to the next level of understanding and playing strength?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19491" LastEditorUserId="19491" LastEditDate="2019-09-17T18:11:34.760" LastActivityDate="2019-09-17T18:11:34.760" Title="What are the different training strategies for different player strengths?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;training&gt;&lt;study&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2019-09-17T15:02:39.947" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26405" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26404" CreationDate="2019-09-17T15:01:36.140" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, this outline is more for the average player, who still may be very decent, but is not likely to be become a professional.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Beginners up to 1800, it is mostly about tactics: Tactics, tactics, and more tactics. I also found that having a very strong dose of endgames, even when I got my first rating of 1036 USCF back in 1980, has stuck with me all the way through being a Master. I still love Fine's &quot;Basic Chess Endings&quot; (any mistakes in it as far overshadowed by the principles that it puts forth).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Around 1800, people start getting more clued in on positional play, and start picking up more on that. I still love Ludek Pachman's trilogy: &quot;Complete Chess Strategy&quot;. That was the first time I started to see real plans enter into my games, and I still credit that trilogy with making me a Master. For the first time, I started to really grasp pawn play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, around 1800, I also think that players need to understand HOW to play opening pawn structures instead of focusing on memorizing openings that when their opponent deviates, they are lost and on their own. For this, books like Soltis' &quot;Pawn Structure Chess&quot; (a really bad book if you are looking at it with a computer, but the underlying principles are very strong), and Mauricio Flores Ríos' book &quot;Chess Structures: A Grandmaster Guide&quot; is a fantastic book that expounds upon what was in the Soltis book, and does it a lot better, but also at a higher level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Starting at 2000, assuming you have a shot at 2200 and higher, you are going to start needing specific openings, and memorization as you face stronger competition. All along, you should have been still studying more and more endgame material as you will also need that when you faces &quot;monsters&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Over 2200, you are talking about in-depth refinement of what you have learned. A lot of people buy the Dvoretsky books before they are ready, and now is the time that you are just getting started to be ready for those. They will help with small details, and a lot of it above 2200 is analyzing better and better, so not only will his books refined and expand your knowledge, they are hand-picked difficult problems that need a lot of deep analysis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once at 2400, if you have not already had a professional coach, you probably will need one to really gain a lot more strength. In addition, if you have a kid, who is super talented, and clearly going places, it is also probably a good idea for them to have a professional coach at a lower rating, and younger age to get the most benefit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2019-09-17T15:01:36.140" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26406" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13462" CreationDate="2019-09-17T17:03:45.027" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know this is a late answer to a question that got bumped, but there are a couple of  essential points to add to @BlindKungFuMaster's answer:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;There can be no pieces on the squares in between the king and the castling rook (So knight/bishop on the kingside, and knight/bishop/queen on the queenside).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It must be the first move for both pieces involved - So if you want to castle to the kingside, and either the rook on H1 or the king has moved off of their square and then back, you cannot castle to that side. If the king has not moved, but the rook on H1 has, and the rook on A1 has not, then you can still castle queenside.*&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*- Note: Square reference assumes castling as White.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="394" LastActivityDate="2019-09-17T17:03:45.027" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26407" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17712" CreationDate="2019-09-18T11:32:47.683" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;Have a look at the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_piece_relative_value&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;wikipedia article on relative chess piece values&lt;/a&gt;, it provides an extensive discussion on the matter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To see how you can compare two given pieces, let's consider your bishop vs rook question at a basic level:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A rook's movement is not restricted to a color, unlike the bishop's. This makes half of the board squares inaccessible to a bishop.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Assuming an empty board, the rook can always see 14 other squares from any other square, whereas a bishop's scope of legal moves varies between 7 to 13 depending on the square, the latter only reached when the bishop is centralised, something the rook doesn't care about!&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A rook has an additional way of moving when it combines with the king to castle, the bishop doesn't.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Checkmate#King_and_rook&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;A king and rook are sufficient to checkmate&lt;/a&gt;, but bishop+king vs king is a draw, as unlike the rook, a bishop cannot cut-off the king's path as it can always escape via the opposite square color of the bishop. Additionally, this difference allows a rook to achieve stalemate setups that a bishop cannot, as the rook is able to &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/23672/3594&quot;&gt;continuously check the king no matter where it goes&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When combined, a pair of rooks can create a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battery_(chess)&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;battery&lt;/a&gt; along a file/row, but bishops can only create batteries with the queen, or other promoted bishops of same color but those are not always a given. But now we're getting into more advanced details, so let's stop here.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So you see the collection of these properties make it clear that in an individual comparison, a rook's worth ought to be more than the bishop's. Now try to perform similar comparisons between any other pair of pieces in order to convince yourself where their relative values stand. Remember that key basic properties are: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Type of movement both individually and combined&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;mobility and range&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;ability to deliver checkmate when combined with a king&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;square dependence (such as color, and centrality dependence of bishops)&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3594" LastActivityDate="2019-09-18T11:32:47.683" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26408" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4467" CreationDate="2019-09-19T06:19:13.600" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can't eliminate blunders entirely (even today's top engines blunder), but this simple piece of advice will cut down the rate of blunders dramatically:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;When you see a good move, sit on your hands and see if you can find a better one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;-- Siegbert Tarrasch&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastActivityDate="2019-09-19T06:19:13.600" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26409" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22910" CreationDate="2019-09-19T11:00:26.127" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Although it does not directly answer the question, here is a chess problem that demonstrates how the right to castle affects calculating threefold repetition. I sourced it from &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.yacpdb.org/#67373&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yet Another Chess Problem Databse.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Nenad Petrović, Problem (Zagreb) 1959, 1st Prize, Mate In 8&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;r3k2r/p2p4/p1pP2p1/5pN1/5p2/1Q3p2/PP4b1/KB6 w kq - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Qb7 {In the initial position, Black has both castling rights.} Rd8 2. Qb3 Ra8 {The starting diagram is reached again, but now Black has lost queenside castling rights.} 3. Bd3 Rh1+ 4. Bb1 Rh8 {For the third and final time we have the same diagram, but now Black has lost both castling rights and has no hope of claiming a draw.} 5. Qc3 Rh1 6. Qg7 Rxb1+ 7. Kxb1 Rb8 8. Qg8#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The point is that when Black plays 4... Rh8 they may not claim a draw by threefold repetition. This is because, in each instance, the diagram is the same, but the rights, i.e. Black’s ability to castle, are not. In position #1, Black has both rights, in position #2, Black has only one right, and in position #3, Black has zero rights. Each position is different, and therefore, by the FIDE laws of chess, as cited in other answers, Black cannot claim a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-05-02T15:14:38.760" LastActivityDate="2021-05-02T15:14:38.760" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26411" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24375" CreationDate="2019-09-19T14:30:15.490" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;To expound upon Allure's totally correct comment, 3...Ne4 is just horrible, and borderline losing by force.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As he stated 3...d6 is the book move, and is the preferred move in 31907 games in my Mega 2019 database with a white winning percentage of 59.4% (which is still a lot higher than I would have guessed considering the drawish reputation of the Petrov). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Compare that to only 1248 games for the second most-played move, 3...Ne4?, which has a white winning percentage of 71.6%. That is a huge number in chess, and Stockfish gives this an eval of +.88. You are just down a pawn in this variation, and begging to try to win it back, and no more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please play 3...d6! if you play this opening, or you will just lose a lot of games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2019-09-19T20:27:34.477" LastActivityDate="2019-09-19T20:27:34.477" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26412" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22936" CreationDate="2019-09-19T15:42:20.703" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Kasparov has some good examples. Se &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chesscollection?cid=1017006&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chesscollection?cid=1017006&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastActivityDate="2019-09-19T15:42:20.703" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26413" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26379" CreationDate="2019-09-19T16:35:26.320" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Warren H. Goldman wrote a book titled &quot;New Ideas in Old Settings: Q-B3 against the Caro-Kann&quot;. It was published by Chess Ltd. (December 1979). It's still available from Amazon, and perhaps other sellers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In &lt;em&gt;Kaissiber&lt;/em&gt; No. 15 (Summer 2000), there was a thirty-page article about the &quot;Dispute of Theoreticians&quot; on the Goldman Variation (1.e4 c6 2.Nc3 d5 3.Qf3) and its exponents.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastEditorUserId="8291" LastEditDate="2019-09-19T18:51:21.007" LastActivityDate="2019-09-19T18:51:21.007" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26414" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2641" CreationDate="2019-09-19T22:11:22.647" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The best way, in my opinion, to learn opening theory is to study a chess database. Chessbase has a free one online, and so does chesstempo.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Look up games that match a particular position of your choosing. See what moves strong players play (also look at win percentages). Think about what moves you or an opponent would play in a particular position, and see how strong players respond. If there are no, or only a few games played in whatever line you are investigating, you can use a free engine, like Stockfish for example. Lastly, every time you play a game of chess, think about looking up in the database the opening that you played.  And of course, the entire time, you must try to understand why the moves are being played. If you don't do this, it will be very difficult to remember lines. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3872" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-09-19T22:24:47.727" LastActivityDate="2019-09-19T22:24:47.727" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26415" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-09-20T12:54:16.490" Score="2" ViewCount="370" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm writing a chess engine just for fun, and during the validation of movement generation, I found some positions in Perft Results that differ from what my engine is producing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As an example, take the below position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;r3k2r/p1ppqpb1/bn2pnp1/3PN3/1p2P3/2N2Q1p/PPPBBPPP/R3K2R w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I found in the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessprogramming.org/Perft_Result&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess programming wiki&lt;/a&gt;, the number of possible positions in depth 5 is 193690690, and my program matches this value.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, regarding the number of possible double checks, my program found 8 more positions. The Perft Results from the Wiki indicate a total of 2637, while I found 2645.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't know what to think. Maybe the Perft Result from the Wiki does not consider positions where a pawn promotes with check whilst revealing a check, aka a discovered check. But there are only 6 moves where a pawn promotion results in a double check (3 positions, where the pawn may promote to queen or rook). Are the positions from Wiki wrong?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If someone wants to look at the positions, they can be found &lt;a href=&quot;https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vmqimjJzRntsLJeM28uURaQbxjMxl6ei/view?usp=sharing&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here on Google Drive&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19648" LastEditorUserId="19648" LastEditDate="2019-09-20T22:33:40.697" LastActivityDate="2019-09-20T22:33:40.697" Title="If a pawn promotes to a checking piece while also revealing a check, it is a double check?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;programming&gt;&lt;pawn-promotion&gt;&lt;performance&gt;&lt;double-check&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26416" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26415" CreationDate="2019-09-20T13:17:40.993" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, a double check is when two pieces give check at the same time. It doesn't matter how you got to that position. As to whether there's an error on that wiki, it's probably best to try to ask its author. Maybe they can provide the full list of positions for you to compare.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can think of two ways of giving double check while promoting. One is where you have say the black king in front of the white pawn, and a white queen or rook behind the pawn, and the pawn promotes with a capture, ending up as a new white queen or rook next to the black king. The other is where say the black king is on the seventh rank, white has a rook or queen on the other side of the pawn, and White promotes to a knight, queen or bishop giving check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12523" LastActivityDate="2019-09-20T13:17:40.993" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26417" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26415" CreationDate="2019-09-20T22:14:24.270" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, the case you mentioned would also qualify as a double check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But it also depends on what your definitions are. If the Perft result does consider that to not be a double check, it doesn't mean you have to abide by it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-09-20T22:14:24.270" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26418" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22936" CreationDate="2019-09-20T23:54:16.573" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a new book on the Scotch by Alexander Khalifman (who is sort of an ex world champion).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20127" LastActivityDate="2019-09-20T23:54:16.573" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26419" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26424" CreationDate="2019-09-21T06:42:15.227" Score="2" ViewCount="166" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am asking this because Stockfish was accepting different FEN strings through the terminal inbetween a game, of which it is giving best moves. I have compiled Stockfish in the Ubuntu 19.04 terminal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20128" LastEditorUserId="20128" LastEditDate="2019-09-30T12:45:23.213" LastActivityDate="2019-09-30T12:45:23.213" Title="Is it possible to play multiple games with Stockfish simultaneously?" Tags="&lt;stockfish&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26420" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26423" CreationDate="2019-09-21T20:55:49.087" Score="4" ViewCount="595" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have two questions about a &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/jnNNVvZK/white&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;recent game&lt;/a&gt; that I played on Lichess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Question 1:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why is it necessary for White to push d5 now in the game, in this position, and why is Be3 a blunder?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/P2IP7.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/P2IP7.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;I did play d5 later in the game on move 10, but I cannot understand why, if no disruptive move such as c5 or a well timed e5 (although probably impossible here) is made, I should push d5 at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Question 2:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why is e2 the best position for the King's knight, and not f3 in the next diagram (on move 6 by White)? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/P2IP7.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/P2IP7.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There does not appear to be any annoying pin of the knight on f3 by a bishop on g4. Plus, I do not think it is disadvantageous to have doubled pawns on my position(if needed I could play Bd2 when Black plays Bb4). Lastly, and more importantly, the knight on f3 can jump to e5 if possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16771" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-11-27T20:19:27.620" LastActivityDate="2019-11-27T20:19:27.620" Title="Why is 6. Nge2 better, and 7. d5 a necessary push in this game?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26422" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26420" CreationDate="2019-09-21T21:48:14.727" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Nf3 is not horrible (it actually transposes into a position that Kasparov once had as White, and won.) I think the reason the engine doesn't like it is that after your proposed Nf3 Bb4 Bd2, Black may play Bxc3.  If that knight is on f3, than after you retake with Bxc3 or bxc3, Black can safely take on e4. If instead the knight was on d2, then you just play Nxc3 and e4 is defended. (See the blunder by Black a little later where he doesn't take on e4.) You do have other options after Nf3 to not lose the pawn, but your pawns may get doubled.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastEditorUserId="12629" LastEditDate="2019-09-21T23:31:23.177" LastActivityDate="2019-09-21T23:31:23.177" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26423" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26420" CreationDate="2019-09-21T22:38:39.720" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;1) After 7.Be3 Bxc3 8.bxc3, Black could have won the e4-pawn with ...Nxe4. The purpose behind 7.d5 would have been to block the b7-bishop, preventing Black from winning the pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) I don't think 6.Nf3 is that much worse than 6.Nge2. Lichess still says White's better by 0.7. But the advantage of Nge2 is that it protects the c3-knight and after 6...Bb4 you can play 7.0-0 with no issues. Since now 7...Bxc3 is answered with 8.Nxc3, and you still have a knight on c3 (preventing Black from winning the e4-pawn).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-09-21T22:38:39.720" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26424" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26419" CreationDate="2019-09-21T22:40:12.610" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Chessbase you can have Stockfish analyzing/playing in multiple boards. It's definitely possible to do this, but it slows Stockfish down since it's being overworked. So it'll take longer to search ahead in each game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-09-21T22:40:12.610" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26425" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5662" CreationDate="2019-09-21T22:45:32.650" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The best way to think of en passant is that it's a normal move in all regards, except that the opportunity to play it expires on that move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The move can be carried out so long as it doesn't break any rules, just like any other move. So it can be used to block a check, give a check, give a checkmate, etc. But let's say your pawn is pinned to your king. If performing an en passant capture with it leaves your king exposed to an enemy attack, this is illegal and thus not allowed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-09-21T22:45:32.650" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26426" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19691" CreationDate="2019-09-22T10:45:11.090" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there a good way to test an incomplete chess engine? Yes, but nothing of what I'm going to say is chess-specific but really just good software development practice. Write &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_testing&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;unit tests&lt;/a&gt;. This means test each &quot;unit&quot; of your program in isolation. The most common unit is a function. For example, let's say your program has a function to check whether a position is a checkmate. Set up a bunch of positions which you already know whether they are checkmate or not, call your function with each position, and verify that it returns the expected result. Keep those tests around and run them automatically as part of your development cycle. That way you'll notice immediately if you broke something by accident.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can even write the test before actually writing the function that you want to test. That is called &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Test-driven_development&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;test-driven development&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12523" LastActivityDate="2019-09-22T10:45:11.090" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26427" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22512" CreationDate="2019-09-22T21:31:33.457" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Nothing changes whatsoever to the pawn. It can still promote to a queen, rook, bishop, or knight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-09-22T21:31:33.457" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26428" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-09-23T08:02:43.540" Score="2" ViewCount="487" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm currently developing a self-playing chessboard on which I'd like to implement an Artificial Intelligence (AI) (currently it's &lt;a href=&quot;https://stockfishchess.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Stockfish&lt;/a&gt;. I would like to know how I could, if I can, export Arena GUI's (other ideas are welcome) to somehow position my stepper motors correctly. Does anyone know of a way?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm writing the code in python.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20137" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-03-04T21:43:44.323" LastActivityDate="2020-03-04T21:43:44.323" Title="How to use Arena GUI outputs in a python program" Tags="&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;programming&gt;&lt;uci&gt;&lt;python&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26429" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-09-23T11:33:37.910" Score="2" ViewCount="272" Body="&lt;p&gt;I used to have a chess app that would say the name of the opening being used when you played. Then my tablet broke, and I thought it would be easy to find that chess app, but no luck.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does anyone know what app I'm talking about, or another app that says the name of the opening being used when you play it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20139" LastEditorUserId="20139" LastEditDate="2019-09-23T16:21:56.970" LastActivityDate="2019-09-26T07:33:46.733" Title="What chess app displays the name of the opening being used in the game?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;engines&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26430" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26429" CreationDate="2019-09-23T12:22:05.100" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It isn't likely to be the app you were using, but the Stockfish iOS app &lt;em&gt;displays&lt;/em&gt; it:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/yfrDm.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/yfrDm.jpg&quot; width=&quot;300&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(if you play more moves, the ECO code and opening name may change, to e.g. A81 Dutch defense)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I suspect many more (or even most) apps do it, or have at least an option to enable it in the settings. Stockfish does not &lt;em&gt;say&lt;/em&gt; the name of the opening, though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2019-09-23T12:22:05.100" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26431" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-09-23T14:12:17.767" Score="2" ViewCount="232" Body="&lt;p&gt;How can I prepare for a rapid chess tournament (not chess sites tournament!)? For example, in one and half months, I am going to play a 15+5 tournament. I tried to find some rapid strategy or some advice on opening or middlegame whether I should play positional or tactical or attacking. However, I couldn't find anything. Could you give me some advice or strategy for 15+5 time control?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20078" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-09-23T14:54:17.960" LastActivityDate="2019-09-23T16:22:37.603" Title="How to prepare for a rapid tournament" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;preparation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26432" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26431" CreationDate="2019-09-23T14:53:38.313" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The best thing to do is play some games with that specific time control so you can get used to the pace.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Whether to play positional or tactical is a decision around your skills and what you know about your opponents play.  Though it is considered more difficult to defend than attack and that can lead your opponent to use more time.  It is also true that finding a plan is time consuming; so I would just play toward your skills.   Certainly you should study a lot of tactics so you can calculate quickly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In general, you don't want to fall behind on the clock.  But you shouldn't panic if you do.  And don't play on your opponents time pressure.   5 second increment is a lot.  You should get comfortable defending &quot;drawn&quot; endgames where you can make a move within 5 seconds.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Semi-dubious openings like the Smith-Morra Gambit are common in quick tournaments.  Prepare your openings so your opponents don't get to have any such fun!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2019-09-23T14:53:38.313" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26433" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26437" CreationDate="2019-09-23T15:07:24.803" Score="6" ViewCount="1940" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am having trouble understanding why the move e5 which I &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/imeBM3Eu/white#10&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;played&lt;/a&gt; in the position below&#xA;is not correct according to Stockfish (6th move for White)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am not doing this move by winning a tempo, but I consider that this push would constrain Black particularly since d6 is no longer possible. and f6 would be quite weakening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another move I considered during the game (exd4 followed by d4) does not appear to be correct either. This way. I would prevent Black from further pushing their central pawns.&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/uzZ8l.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/uzZ8l.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could someone enlighten me in the pawn theory relevant to the diagram of the game?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16771" LastEditorUserId="2789" LastEditDate="2019-09-24T09:36:25.843" LastActivityDate="2019-09-24T09:36:25.843" Title="Pushing the e-pawn" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;&lt;pawns&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26434" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16626" CreationDate="2019-09-23T16:16:00.363" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you are playing chess, you are supposed to play according the FIDE Laws of Chess Art. 1 to 5. But those rules are not known to everyone playing „chess“ in private. The official rules allow every move or capture to get out of chess (except castling, of course). Private rules might differ, but those are not official, and one could discuss if the game described by those private rules is still chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20096" LastActivityDate="2019-09-23T16:16:00.363" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26435" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26431" CreationDate="2019-09-23T16:22:37.603" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is no special rapid strategy for rapid. You should play the game you play in standard time. If rapid is new to you, you should play some games with the shorter time to get used to the faster moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But no rule without exception: If your opponent is stronger than you, you might try to make things more complicated to give him a chance to blunder. You might blunder, too, but that you would do with any move rate. The faster the game, the sharper the lines you can choose. (According to Simon Webb, Chess for Tigers)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Exception to the exception: If you play with time increment, that will reduce the chance of the stronger opponent to blunder. The higher the increment, the more normal lines you should choose.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20096" LastActivityDate="2019-09-23T16:22:37.603" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26436" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26433" CreationDate="2019-09-23T16:23:56.320" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;e5 does nothing for you and helps your opponent. Why?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, it does nothing for your development. Much better would be d3 which releases the c1 bishop and protects the e pawn. If your opponent plays de then you retake de and he is left with doubled isolated pawns on the c file and an isolated pawn on the a file. If he doesn't then exchange queens he also has an open position with his king still in the center and is behind in development.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Second, e5 release the tension in the center and takes all the pressure off your opponent. His development becomes easy. He will play Bg4, exchange the light-squared bishop for your knight, block up the position with e6 and calmly complete his development.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2019-09-23T16:23:56.320" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26437" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26433" CreationDate="2019-09-23T18:32:46.513" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;I disagree that it is primarily about development.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a very common theme, and it comes down to the fact that e5 is not easily defended by a pawn (aka &quot;artificially isolated&quot;). Bg4 soon will trade one of the pe5's defenders, and it will need constant watching. It is not a big deal that you will be trading the Bc8 on f3 since white already traded on c6 so you are not giving up the B-pair, and after e6, the pc6-pd5-pe6 complex keep a nice hold on the light squares.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black can attack the pe5 with Qc7, and Ne7-g6 as one plan. If white defends with the obvious Re1 and Bf4 (and later Bg3 after Ng6), then Rb8; b3 will leave white's dark squares very weak. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is also important to note that defending e5 with d4 is also never good after cd; any c5 and another pc5 appears and a nice center for black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2019-09-23T20:18:22.480" LastActivityDate="2019-09-23T20:18:22.480" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26438" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24750" CreationDate="2019-09-23T20:18:21.640" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Allie's search is a combination of MCTS and Minimax. The MCTS is very much like you would find in AlphaZero or LC0 as it was taken from the same papers. In addition to MCTS, Allie also does a minimax based backup of the tree whenever a new MCTS batch is evaluated by the NN. This minimax backup is then used to modify the Q values of the nodes in the tree that were either 'min' or 'max'. This modification is a further averaging of the MCTS based backups.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Allie uses MCTS for playouts and for back prop in much the same way as A0 and Lc0&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Allie also does a minimax-based back prop to supplement that mcts based back prop&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've also tried many, many, many, different ways of adding newer AB/Minimax to the algorithm, but so far nothing that has successfully gained elo over the above. Finally, I'll note that in all of my testing of Allie (pure MCTS) vs Allie (MCTS+Minimax) the latter has scored significantly higher so I am confident that it does improve elo at least in self play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;UPDATE:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since I wrote this, the Allie minimax backup has grown more complicated. Now, in positions where the best candidate move is a terminal node Allie does a pure minimax based backup with no mcts averaging. If the best is &lt;em&gt;proven&lt;/em&gt; best among all of its siblings, then the parent is also made terminal and assigned the inverse score of the best child. If the best is &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; proven, then it still does pure minimax backup, but the parent continues to be expanded and if a sibling becomes best it switches back to the combination of minimax+mcts backup. Finally, this is all kept track of for transpositions too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20141" LastEditorUserId="20141" LastEditDate="2020-06-07T13:41:37.653" LastActivityDate="2020-06-07T13:41:37.653" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26439" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-09-23T20:44:41.910" Score="1" ViewCount="148" Body="&lt;p&gt;It seems that there is no way to direct see Stockfish’s analysis in pgn when it evaluates a position. I am looking for a way to convert the SAN or LAN format into a PGN. Maybe it will work in Python. Does anyone know of a way to do this conversion?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20142" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-09-23T20:54:39.883" LastActivityDate="2019-09-28T22:53:52.763" Title="Convert Stockfish analysis output to pgn" Tags="&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;pgn&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26440" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21254" CreationDate="2019-09-24T03:26:11.997" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I had the privilege of meeting Gabriel Vicente Maura in Puerto Rico when i was a teenager in the 80s. He brought to life in the 70s the World Federation of Modern Chess (Femdam) with the new piece called the Prime Minister which moves like a Knight and a Bishop on a 9x9 Chessboard.&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Wtl7l.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Wtl7l.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Eduardo A. Jusino- Modern Chess Set&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20144" LastActivityDate="2019-09-24T03:26:11.997" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26441" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-09-24T08:18:12.333" Score="8" ViewCount="3956" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are lot of recommendations on what endgame books you should read and study. But reading is just passive learning, and not so efficient.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the book doesn't contain exercises, what is the best method for active learning and doing exercises? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One idea I have is to play the positions against an engine. Are there better suggestions?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17458" LastActivityDate="2019-09-25T01:19:22.177" Title="How to study endgames?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26442" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26441" CreationDate="2019-09-24T11:17:34.810" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Actually in a case of endgames you can split learning in two parts:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Theory&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Practice&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You have to start with theory - read books - those will explain ideas and principles. Then You can move on (can do it somewhat in parallel) to practice. There are lot of internet sites, PC and mobile apps for that - I will not advertise any specific - that would be unfair. You can even just set-up position and play Vs your engine until you succeed getting desired result(win/draw). Also - learning is never easy - if you want to achieve high level You will have to work hard, spending many hours on this!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17448" LastActivityDate="2019-09-24T11:17:34.810" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26443" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26441" CreationDate="2019-09-24T14:08:48.047" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't know about 'better', but solving chess endgame studies can be an alternative way.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Best introduction to that field is John Roycroft's book The Chess Endgame Study. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for use of computer ... I'm in two minds.  Yes, it makes it possible to get a slightly higher degree of realism, including the possibility of blunders (if your program allows you to set up that), but I think you also have to learn to see the position from the opponent's view ... and use of computer may not help very much with that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user18412" LastActivityDate="2019-09-24T14:08:48.047" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26444" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26441" CreationDate="2019-09-24T14:31:39.560" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Are there better suggestions?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I find videos to be more effective than books and ideally the videos, as well as giving instruction, should also have problems related to the matter as you suggest. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My personal preference, which I find very effective, is the two DVDs on endgames produced by the Ginger GM, Simon Williams. The material is presented by English GM Nick Pert and covers everything you are likely to need from complete beginner (K+Q v K) through to GM level (K+R v K+B, K+h+f pawns v K, K+R+a,f,g,h v K+R+f,g,h, K+Q v K+R). You can find more details &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.gingergm.com/shop/killer-endgames&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2019-09-24T14:31:39.560" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26445" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26441" CreationDate="2019-09-24T15:24:14.237" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Personally, I love a number of great books, and there is still no substitute. You can then plug positions into a computer to test yourself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I still love Fine's &quot;Basic Chess Endings&quot;. Despite the errors, many corrected later in the Pal Benko edition, it gives a great sense of WHAT you are trying to accomplish in any type endgame. Simply by reading over all the examples, and the sub-examples, you will absorb a lot. Each sub-example, while meant to show an exception, or other deviation, is also reinforcement of the main idea.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example as to my comment about &quot;WHAT&quot; you are trying to accomplish, take a minor piece endgame where you are up a pawn. The basic plan is to create a passer, and if your opponent blocks with the K, you run with your king to attack and take his other pawns. It he just tries to block it with the piece, you run over and force him to give up the piece for the pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I studied this book when I was rated just 1036, and much of what I learned has stuck with me through being a Master almost 40 years later. No less than World Champion, Mikhail Botvinnik, considered it the best book on the endgame (although many greats ones have come along since). Fine's words are chess gold.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Next, I really like &quot;100 Endgames You Must Know: Vital Lessons for Every Chess Player&quot; by GM Jesus de la Villa. Not many books get a fourth edition, which is a testament to this book's appeal. In addition, he recently added &quot;The 100 Endgames You Must Know Workbook: Practical Endgame Exercises for Every Chess Player&quot;, which lets you apply the 100 endgames from the first book in practical game exercises.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lastly, if you really get strong, I still consider &quot;Dvoretsky's Endgame Manual&quot; THE single most instructive book ever written. That said, it is not for novices, and expects a lot of prior endgame knowledge. Similar to de la Villa's recent workbook, Dvoretsky also wrote &quot;Tragicomedy in the Endgame: Instructive Mistakes of the Masters&quot;, which shows practical games involving information from DEM.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No matter what you do though, endgame study requires time and effort; however, unlike opening study, this study will stick with you for a lifetime.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2019-09-24T16:47:56.477" LastActivityDate="2019-09-24T16:47:56.477" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26446" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-09-24T20:58:18.827" Score="2" ViewCount="517" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can a minimax function with just alpha beta pruning really evaluate 1.8 billion chess positions (3 ply = 356) in just a second?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My chess engine, which uses minimax with only alpha beta pruning, takes 30 seconds to search 2 ply deep, evaluate the leaves, and determine the best move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20150" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-01-08T18:09:40.747" LastActivityDate="2020-01-08T18:09:40.747" Title="Speed of minimax with alpha beta pruning in chess engines" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;minimax&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26447" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-09-24T22:41:38.187" Score="3" ViewCount="334" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a coach at a small high school. We are starting a chess club. We have Epson BrightLink projectors with the interactive boards. Is there a way we can have a chess board displayed on the whiteboard that allows a finger to move pieces while also using a pen to annotate? An example can be seen &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2SARMDtDv8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20152" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-09-24T23:55:45.590" LastActivityDate="2019-09-26T10:38:48.723" Title="Interactive Chess Whiteboard" Tags="&lt;chessboards&gt;&lt;clubs&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26449" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2019-09-25T00:19:06.443" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2019-09-25T00:19:06.443" LastActivityDate="2019-09-25T00:19:06.443" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26450" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2019-09-25T00:19:06.443" Score="0" Body="Perft, (performance test, move path enumeration) a debugging function to walk the move generation tree of strictly legal moves to count all the leaf nodes of a certain depth, which can be compared to predetermined values and used to isolate bugs." OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-09-25T07:17:34.823" LastActivityDate="2019-09-25T07:17:34.823" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26451" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26446" CreationDate="2019-09-25T00:23:15.920" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There're some problems with your question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Alpha-beta pruning doesn't make you search faster, it makes you search &lt;em&gt;further&lt;/em&gt;. For illustration (these numbers are not accurate) if your computer is searching at 1 million nodes (here a &quot;node&quot; is a position) per second, without alpha-beta pruning you might only make it 5 ply deep. With it, you might reach 10 ply.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Obviously, how fast you search is going to depend on hardware. With sufficiently powerful hardware you can search 1.8 billion nodes per second. For example right now, &lt;a href=&quot;http://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Fishtesting&lt;/a&gt; is running with this hardware: 650 machines 5048 cores 1.21M nps (6127.86M total nps) 8825 games/minute. That's 6.1 billion nodes per second.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;However note that Fishtesting is running with 5048 cores. A typical desktop computer might have 4 cores, so this is fantastically powerful hardware. If you're getting 1.8 billion nodes per second, and you have reasonably normal hardware, your eval function is probably very simple compared to the top engines.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastEditorUserId="15223" LastEditDate="2019-09-25T00:31:29.830" LastActivityDate="2019-09-25T00:31:29.830" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26452" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26441" CreationDate="2019-09-25T01:19:22.177" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've practiced some endgames against the computer, and I think it has been useful but there are some caveats. It may depend on the engine (and the endgame), but I've found that sometimes when practicing a won position or defending a drawn position, the engine does not play &quot;realistically&quot;, making the endgame unnecessarily easy to win or draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's use KP vs K endgames as a simple example. Let's say you have a won position. A stubborn human defender would try to block the pawn til the end, hoping maybe you'll slip and allow a draw. The engine may decide instead &quot;I'm lost, but if I run away with my king now, it will be mate in 12 instead of mate in 10!&quot;, so the king runs away and makes the promotion trivial.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similarly, if you are defending a drawn position, a stubborn human would try to keep the pawn and advance it until stalemate is reached. The engine concludes there's no difference, so I've seen it give away the pawn, leading to an immediate draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've also practiced endgames with a coach, and it's much better, because the coach knows how to make tricky moves which give you the opportunity to make a mistake, instead of just trying to maximize the distance to mate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12523" LastActivityDate="2019-09-25T01:19:22.177" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26453" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26454" CreationDate="2019-09-25T01:55:14.930" Score="3" ViewCount="259" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recently played as Black in a &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/z9OLB7Hw/black&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;1+0 blitz game on Lichess&lt;/a&gt; in which the below position was reached.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 Nf6 2. Nc3 e6 3. d4 d5 4. e5g Nfd7 5. f4 Nb6 6. Nf3 Nc6 7. Bb5 Bd7 8. O-O g6 9. Bxc6 Bxc6 10. Ne2 Bg7 11. g4 Qe7 12. g5 a6 13. b3 Nd7 14. c4 b5 15. c5 Bb7 16. a4 c6 17. axb5 axb5 18. Rxa8+ Bxa8 19. b4 O-O 20. Be3 Qd8 21. Qc2 Qb8 22. Ra1 Bb7 23. h4 Qc7 24. Ng3 Ra8 25. Rxa8+ Bxa8 26. h5 Kf8 27. h6 Bh8 28. Kg2 Qa7 29. Qd2 Ke7 30. Kh3 Kd8&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A lockdown position eventually ensued, and I offered a draw to my opponent, even though I theoretically could have won on time but I am a fair player, and they accepted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The final position is one in which I see no foreseeable advance for either side. Black shouldn’t even think of making one, with a useless dark-squared bishop and an imprisoned light-square one. White has a knight pair, which could jump past Black lines, though it would be hard to do so. A good knight outpost is on a5. Their dark-square bishop is also useless. Therefore, White has an small advantage, but it would hard to due with dancing queens. If exchanged, then there is much less of a chance of an advance. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the game was continued between two other people who were given infinite time, could White, in theory, ever commence a winning breakthrough into Black’s camp, or can Black hold a draw? Ignore the 50-move rule if you must.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-11-29T19:35:28.710" LastActivityDate="2020-11-29T19:35:28.710" Title="Does White have any feasible way to break through this position?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;closed-position&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26454" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26453" CreationDate="2019-09-25T03:14:35.723" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't see any way for White to make progress. There are a few ways but all don't lead to anything:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) Maneuvering a knight to f6. This just gives Black an opportunity to exchange his bad h8-bishop. After ...Bxf6 gxf6, Black puts his knight on f8 and plays ...Ke8, defending the f7- and h7- pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) Playing the f5 pawn sac. The purpose of this would be to plant a knight on f4. But here Black just plays ...exf5 and again employs ...Nf8, defending the e6- and g6- squares.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) Putting a knight on a5. This doesn't really due much and hardly warrants a response from Black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also let Stockfish think to depth 68. The evaluation it gave is 1.97, which sounds bad, except it gave this same evaluation before it reached depth 30. This suggests White has no way to make any progress, meaning most likely the result is a draw (though it doesn't prove it).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Btw, in a 1+0 game trying to flag your opponent in a dead drawn position is completely fine. Aiming to win on time in bullet is a huge part of that time control. I'd only considering playing on there an unfair practice maybe in longer time controls (say over 5+0).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-09-25T03:14:35.723" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26455" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24028" CreationDate="2019-09-25T04:54:36.517" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There're several closely-related interpretations of your question that can change the answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Do chess AIs still use old-style opening books?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As I understand it, all chess engines these days can be configured to use an opening book, or to not use an opening book. So the answer is &quot;if you want them to&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want them the engine to use an opening book, then you'll have to supply one. An example is the &lt;a href=&quot;https://zipproth.de/Brainfish/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Cerebellum opening book&lt;/a&gt;. You can also, e.g., force the engine to play the Evans Gambit. Some commercial engines will also come with their own opening books.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you don't want them to use an opening book, then you can disable the book. In this case the engine starts thinking from the first move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Do state-of-the-art chess AIs still normally start games in human-compiled opening books of master games?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As mentioned, this is a closely-related question that can nonetheless lead to completely different answers because different people use engines differently. For someone who's playing against the engine &quot;for fun&quot;, the answer is probably yes, because otherwise the engine only plays a few openings. In engine vs. engine competition, both options happen. The &quot;official&quot; &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Computer_Chess_Championship&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;World Computer Chess Championship&lt;/a&gt; allows the use of opening books, while the unofficial &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top_Chess_Engine_Championship&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Top Chess Engine Championship&lt;/a&gt; does not. There're advantages to both approaches, the details of which should probably be its own question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The latter part of this - &quot;human-compiled opening books of master games&quot; - is also debatable. There've been attempts to create engine-compiled opening books, not necessarily of master games, but also including engine vs. engine matches.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ultimately, engines are programs, and you can configure their settings to do whatever you want.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastActivityDate="2019-09-25T04:54:36.517" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26456" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26458" CreationDate="2019-09-25T10:04:14.533" Score="10" ViewCount="8421" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to the chess app I am using, this is not a checkmate against black:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;1rk4r/1p6/3p3q/Q1pPbRnP/p1P3B1/P6P/1P4R1/7K w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Rf7+&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How is it not? I think the black king is checkmated by the queen and the white-squared bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20059" LastEditorUserId="4186" LastEditDate="2019-09-27T14:23:17.860" LastActivityDate="2019-09-27T14:31:12.797" Title="How is this situation not a checkmate?" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26457" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-09-25T10:05:38.670" Score="1" ViewCount="146" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have made a chess engine, and it seems from cProfile that my most expensive function is the one that calculates attack squares for both players. Here is the cProfile results for a perft function I wrote that goes 4 ply deep: &lt;a href=&quot;https://imgur.com/a/VMoF3G5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://imgur.com/a/VMoF3G5&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason why my calculate attack squares function is so expensive is because every time a move is made in perft, the position is a new one, and attack squares for both players have to be recalculated. My question is this: Is there a more efficient way to be calculating attack squares for both players? Is there a way I can avoid having to recalculate attack squares for all 32 pieces every time a move is made in perft? Thank you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://repl.it/@kasparov/ImportantNotedCoderesource&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://repl.it/@kasparov/ImportantNotedCoderesource&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;My code for anyone who's curious&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20150" LastEditorUserId="20150" LastEditDate="2019-09-25T10:11:59.597" LastActivityDate="2019-09-25T14:00:49.413" Title="What is the most efficient way to calculate attack squares in a chess engine?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;performance&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26458" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26456" CreationDate="2019-09-25T10:30:15.823" Score="46" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is not checkmate because Black can interpose a piece to block the check from the bishop: move knight or queen to e6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's still only a miniscule delay for the inevitable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;1rk4r/1p6/3p3q/Q1pPbRnP/p1P3B1/P6P/1P4R1/7K w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Rf7+ Ne6&#xA;(1...Qe6 2.Qc7#)&#xA;2.Qc7# 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12523" LastEditorUserId="4186" LastEditDate="2019-09-27T14:31:12.797" LastActivityDate="2019-09-27T14:31:12.797" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26459" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26457" CreationDate="2019-09-25T14:00:49.413" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It may help to keep a list of each piece and the squares it attacks for the position. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then when a move occurs, you can reduce the work calculating for the pieces that don't move. Non-moving kings, knights, and pawns will attack the same squares as before. Non-moving queens, bishops, and rooks only need to be recalculated if a piece moved to or away from a square they attacked.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then you can update the attack squares of the pieces that actually moved.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13585" LastActivityDate="2019-09-25T14:00:49.413" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26460" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26462" CreationDate="2019-09-25T14:31:29.207" Score="6" ViewCount="909" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am having trouble understanding why the push c4 here is incorrect for Black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/IfwhY.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/IfwhY.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After 9. Qc2 b5 10. a4 a6 11. axb5 axb5 12. Rxa8 can be recaptured with the Queen and the pawn chain is stable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is wrong then with this push?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16771" LastEditorUserId="15783" LastEditDate="2019-09-26T11:22:33.310" LastActivityDate="2019-09-26T11:22:33.310" Title="Caro-Kann c5-c4 push" Tags="&lt;pawns&gt;&lt;caro-kann&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26461" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26460" CreationDate="2019-09-25T15:42:51.687" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;c4 is the usual beginner's mistake of releasing the tension unnecessarily. With the pawn on c5 you exert some pressure on d4 which can be increased with moves like Ne7-c6. When the pawn moves to c4 that pressure disappears. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you played Ne7 instead then taking the c5 pawn is bad for white. You are not going to retake immediately but instead play Nc6. This gives white the choice between allowing you to recapture on c5 with the bishop with gain of tempo or allowing you to take the more important e5 pawn. Instead of taking on c5 white will want to develop his queenside pieces but this is awkward in the current position. His dark squared bishop is problematic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;After 9. Qc2 b5 10. a4 a6 11. axb5 axb5 12. Rxa8&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is &quot;hope&quot; chess. You &quot;hope&quot; your opponent is going to make some bad moves and then your bad move magically becomes a good move. If you want to improve then you have to stop doing this. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your opponent is not going to play Qc2 because if the c file opens then he wants a rook on that file not the queen. Qe2 is better. He is also not going to play 10. a4. He is going to play 10. b3, immediately attacking the front of your pawn chain.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Furthermore you are a long way behind in development with your king still stuck in the middle. You should not be wasting time on further pawn moves, particularly ones which threaten to open the position leaving your king exposed to attack. Ne7 is more to the point, developing a piece and getting you one move closer to being able to castle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2019-09-25T15:42:51.687" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26462" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26460" CreationDate="2019-09-25T15:52:12.890" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, although it is hard to disagree with the computer there, it is interesting that 8...c4 scores quite well for black in the Mega 2019 database (only a 43.8% for white).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first obvious thing that comes to mind is that anytime you change the base of attack on the pawn chain like that it does two related things (right now the base of attack is at d4 and black can attack it with c5...after c4 the new base is c3, and black will need to attack it with b5-b4): Typically when you push, it often makes the later break with b5-b4 stronger, but of course it does not come without a price...it is much slower so you may never get to play that break, or it might be ineffectual by then, especially on the q-side since with similar advances on the k-side threats to the king cannot be ignored. A very common example of this is in the King's Indian Classical Variation, when black plays f5-f4. It is slower, but there are countless examples showing just how dangerous black's attack may become if white's counterplay is not very active. Sometimes, white's q-side counterplay can even be ignored, even if it costs a rook or other significant material due to unstoppable mating threats.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this position, specifically, you are already behind in development, so slowing your counterplay on the q-side may well be fatal. Right now, until you are better developed, and can see if white might somehow not continue to develop effectively, it is too early to change the attack point of white's pawn chain. If you catch up in development, and see that white cannot attack your castled king with impunity, then maybe later you can opt for c4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A better plan is to play Ne7-c6 (it may also go to f5) and pressure d4. Other common moves in that plan will be Be7, 0-0, and possibly cd and Qb6 with Rc8 to follow.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the line that you gave, after 8...c4; 9 Qc2 b5, instead of immediately taking on black's q-side, I think white should just continue developing to make your lack of development more pronounced. I even suggest the very &quot;sophisticated&quot; 10.Bg5! Be7; 11. Be3! when black has to figure out how to finish developing his k-side since 11....Nh6 is just bad there as is 11....f6. I think black is in trouble in the long run.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2019-09-25T15:52:12.890" CommentCount="12" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26463" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6548" CreationDate="2019-09-25T17:32:50.000" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;b5 looks HORRIBLE. If there were not a pawn on c6, you could play a6, like in the Benko, but here, a6 would be answered by bc with a winning position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It really does just drop a pawn for nothing as you gain no development advantage, or positional trumps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2019-09-25T17:32:50.000" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26465" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26429" CreationDate="2019-09-26T02:16:07.990" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;When you run the analysis on &lt;em&gt;Chess Play &amp;amp; Learn&lt;/em&gt;, it displays the name of the opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20160" LastEditorUserId="4509" LastEditDate="2019-09-26T07:33:46.733" LastActivityDate="2019-09-26T07:33:46.733" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26466" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26468" CreationDate="2019-09-26T05:14:50.927" Score="1" ViewCount="199" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/V4xXL.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;position&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I played b4. According to computer, it is a &quot;missed win&quot; move by me. But what move did I miss? What move should I have played? &#xA;(I am white. And played b4 but I got &quot;missed win&quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20092" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-09-26T07:42:41.323" LastActivityDate="2019-09-27T08:16:40.483" Title="What move did I miss?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26468" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26466" CreationDate="2019-09-26T07:37:46.917" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;After 23...Ra6? White has the option of going for an immediate kill, as black's king is in danger of getting checkmated: 24.Re7+! is a very strong move, forcing black to play 24...Kc8 (since the reply 24...Kc6?? would be immediate checkmate after 25.c4! followed by 26.Rc7# whatever black plays). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After this, white may play 25.Rc7, after which black is practically forced to play 25...Kd8 (if black goes 25...Kb8, white can play 26.a5! after which the simple plans of Rd7-d8# or Ne7-Rc8# are quite crushing) and in this situation, white may choose a few different winning plans. The most basic one is to just take pawns by either Rxb7+ or Rxf7+ using the fact that there is a discovered check. But the most crushing move seems to be 26.a5, after which black will lose at least the exchange, if not more. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A sample line: 26...Ke8 (stepping out of the pin) 27.Rxb7 (threatening Nc7, and the rook on a6 is trapped; there is no way of preventing the move, and black loses the rook on a6 for at most the bishop on b6.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8300" LastEditorUserId="14079" LastEditDate="2019-09-27T08:16:40.483" LastActivityDate="2019-09-27T08:16:40.483" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26469" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26473" CreationDate="2019-09-26T10:25:00.620" Score="9" ViewCount="27254" Body="&lt;p&gt;I had no incurracies,blunders or mistakes then also my centipawn loss was 48.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the problem here or I have misunderstood average centipawn loss.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can have a look at that game at lichess.&#xA;Link to the game: &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/fhvYi9SS/black&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://lichess.org/fhvYi9SS/black&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19380" LastEditorUserId="19380" LastEditDate="2019-09-27T08:22:07.823" LastActivityDate="2020-03-29T07:25:55.737" Title="Average centipawn loss" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;chess-algorithms&gt;&lt;lichess&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26470" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26447" CreationDate="2019-09-26T10:38:48.723" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Try using the chessboard on &lt;a href=&quot;https://szachydzieciom.pl/?page_id=61146&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://szachydzieciom.pl/?page_id=61146&lt;/a&gt; in full screen mode (click the full screen icon). I know that in some schools in Poland it works well with touch whiteboards. But dragging pieces may not work. Instead you should tap the piece to move and then disconnect your hand and tap the target square separately.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3456" LastActivityDate="2019-09-26T10:38:48.723" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26471" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26469" CreationDate="2019-09-26T11:36:56.607" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the issue is that, when one side is winning by a large margin, the analysis will not always indicate an inaccuracy for a move which is not best but still clearly winning. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, after 20.Qg4, the analysis says that 20...dxe3 would have a score of -18.9, but your played move 20...d3 has a score of -10.9. That's an 800 centipawn difference. The analysis does not show an inaccuracy here, but that's a lot of centipawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2019-09-26T11:36:56.607" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26472" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15609" CreationDate="2019-09-26T16:31:51.300" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As an avid Caro-Kann player, I would like to give my two cents. Some answers have mentioned that the knight can go to f5 with the idea of putting pressure on d4. This is in my experience not very useful. Even with a knight on c3, simply by playing Nf3 in addition to the defense exerted by the Queen, the d4 pawn is often sufficiently protected.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the ideal position for this knight is quite problematic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some better ideas are rerouting your knight to c6 with the idea of pressing an additional square (e5). Also, this knight might also jump to b4 (from f5, the knight does not even have an opportunity to go to the fourth rank, other than the h4 square which will be undesirable most of the times).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another position which is often suggested by computers is g6, although I cannot tell what the knight can do there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16771" LastActivityDate="2019-09-26T16:31:51.300" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26473" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26469" CreationDate="2019-09-26T18:12:25.927" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Average &lt;strong&gt;centipawn loss&lt;/strong&gt; is the difference of your move to the best computer move averaged over all moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Inaccuracies/Mistakes/blunders as defined per lichess are moves that are at least 0.5=50 centipawns / 1=100 centipawns / 3=300 centipawns worse than the suggested computer move. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This rule is not strictly enforced in situations where you have a clear winning position and a choice of several good moves. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So if you have a choice between a move that leads to +10 advantage (best computer move) and +9 advantage this will count to your centipawn loss, but will not show up as mistake.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even without it, it is possible to collect centipawn losses &amp;lt; 50 that don't show up as inaccuracy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2019-09-26T18:12:25.927" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26475" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-09-28T18:13:37.233" Score="3" ViewCount="86" Body="&lt;p&gt;First off I'm not looking for a gimmick / trap, but rather I'm looking for a new opening system for white / black that could enable more tactical options.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the last year or so I've been playing the Open Scillian as Black, and the Queens Gambit as white, but I did that because they are very common systems. Now I am interested in finding systems that lead to open boards so that I can start playing my 'style of chess'. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Obviously I'm not the only one influencing the board, but I would love to learn how to create more opportunities for smothered mates in particular. Any suggestions?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is a &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/@/Nebri&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;link&lt;/a&gt; to my lichess.org profile.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5830" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-09-28T18:54:55.827" LastActivityDate="2019-09-28T18:54:55.827" Title="Opening systems that enable strong tactics" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="7" ClosedDate="2019-09-28T19:03:14.330" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26476" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25052" CreationDate="2019-09-28T22:35:15.583" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I haven't heard of the term &quot;hanging square&quot; before. But you're right that the c8-rook would be deflected (or &quot;attracted&quot;) if it were taken away from defending the rook on e8.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-09-28T22:35:15.583" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26477" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26439" CreationDate="2019-09-28T22:53:52.763" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you're in chessbase you can right click on Stockfish (where it displays its lines of evaluation), and press &quot;Copy to Notation&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-09-28T22:53:52.763" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26478" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26479" CreationDate="2019-09-29T21:35:27.127" Score="1" ViewCount="77" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm reading about KID in &quot;The Complete Book of Chess Strategy&quot; by Jeremy Silman, and I don't understand one of his points. He gives the following moves (which is the &quot;Averbackh Variation&quot;):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.d4 Nf6&#xA;2.c4 g6&#xA;3.Nc3 Bg7&#xA;4.e4 d6&#xA;5.Be2 0-0&#xA;6.Bg5 c5&#xA;7.d5 Qa5&#xA;8.Bd2 e6&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which he says (of Black's plan) &quot;...opening the e-file for his Rooks&quot;. But I don't see that. There's no way white would go 9.exd6 when 9.exf6 is there, unless we are talking a Knight sacrifice with 9.exf6 exf6. But even then, the e-file is not totally open with a Bishop at e2. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I guess my question is if I'm reading that right, or if there is maybe some typo/error here. Black sacrifices his Knight for a partially open e-file?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20187" LastActivityDate="2019-09-29T21:56:33.597" Title="Opening the e-file in King's Indian Defense?" Tags="&lt;kings-indian&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26479" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26478" CreationDate="2019-09-29T21:46:07.437" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am not sure if you are leaving something out, but what he means is that depending on what white does, assuming it does not lose, black may play e6xd5 and then Re8 to get play either against e4 if white recaptures with c4xd5, or possibly other play down the open file should white respond to e6xd5 with e4xd5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also think you may be misreading the notation since there is not going to be exd6 or exf6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2019-09-29T21:56:33.597" LastActivityDate="2019-09-29T21:56:33.597" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26480" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-09-29T23:59:41.440" Score="2" ViewCount="81" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess 960 is a version of chess where the pieces are arranged behind the row of pawns. The same random arrangement (with the constraints of the king being between the rooks, and the bishops being on opposite colours) is given to both players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Consider a version of chess where, instead of this position being randomly chosen, each player gets to choose their starting arrangement (simultaneously, without knowing the other players' choice. What would be the best position(s)? To what extent would some positions be 'good' inherently, vs to what extent would it depend on what your opponent does.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you're up for a much more creative problem, consider a version in which you can set your 16 pieces (considering light and dark bishops as separate pieces) on any of the 32 squares on your half of the board. How would you go about it? Would doubled pawns be ok? Would you start many pawns on the 4th rank? Or create a pawn shell around the king? Would you begin with some batteries?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20188" LastActivityDate="2019-09-30T03:02:54.870" Title="Chess 960: what is the optimal arrangement?" Tags="&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;chess960&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ClosedDate="2019-09-30T08:23:19.937" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26481" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26484" CreationDate="2019-09-30T02:34:22.720" Score="13" ViewCount="4114" Body="&lt;p&gt;Many chess openings get their name from a player who invented it and/or played it and/or documented it. Place names are also frequently used, denoting where an opening was first played or became prominent, or perhaps where players who used it were from. Other openings may take their name from some sort of description of style or some other feature of the opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_Knights_Defense,_Fried_Liver_Attack&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Fried Liver Attack&lt;/a&gt; doesn't seem to follow any of these patterns. Where does the name come from?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="224" LastEditorUserId="224" LastEditDate="2019-10-02T15:31:11.370" LastActivityDate="2019-10-02T15:31:11.370" Title="How did the Fried Liver Attack get its name?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;terminology&gt;&lt;fried-liver-attack&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26483" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22318" CreationDate="2019-09-30T03:17:56.063" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chessbase once published &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.chessbase.com/post/the-problem-with-chess960&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;an article&lt;/a&gt; that touches on this question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess960 introduces very alien positions, such as this one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;bnqrnbkr/p2p1ppp/1p2p3/8/2PN4/1P6/P3PPPP/BNQR1BKR w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chessbase's comment on this is: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Here's another example: Svidler [Black] is still wondering, on move five, if he can move a pawn and not lose instantly, while Anand is pondering his 22nd move in a very interesting position. In the commentary booths, the GMs were discussing Anand's options with great excitement – he seemed to be struggling to equalize with white in a Sveshnikov! They were completely silent on the Aronian-Svidler game, as nobody had the faintest idea of what was going on. I think it was Tim Krabbé who compared commenting on a Fischer Random game to conducting a guided tour of an art gallery that you are visiting for the first time. Very apt.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another problem with Chess960 is that some positions are more unbalanced than the traditional starting position. While some positions are also more equal, there are a few positions which start with more than twice the &quot;normal&quot; White advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The final problem with Chess960 is that there's no continuity. If you play the opening position and lose to a spectacular new idea, you can study it back home, analyze where you went wrong, use the idea yourself, see if someone else can come up with an idea to beat this idea. In Chess960, nothing of this sort applies. Misjudge the opening and lose? Who cares, you're probably never getting the same opening again anyway.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastActivityDate="2019-09-30T03:17:56.063" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26484" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26481" CreationDate="2019-09-30T03:28:20.647" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;From the Wikipedia article on the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_Knights_Defense,_Fried_Liver_Attack&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Fried Liver&lt;/a&gt;,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Italian way of cooking liver (&quot;Fegatello&quot; means to put the liver in a&#xA;  net and cook it over a fire, or, in modern times, in a pan. Here we&#xA;  can see a metaphor for what happens to Black’s king in this line: it&#xA;  is cooked like a &quot;fegatello&quot;. Usually Black’s king is caught in the&#xA;  mating net and White increases the heat move by move – &quot;dead as a&#xA;  piece of liver&quot;.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9025" LastActivityDate="2019-09-30T03:28:20.647" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26485" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26486" CreationDate="2019-09-30T09:56:57.240" Score="8" ViewCount="1023" Body="&lt;p&gt;Threefold repetition requires that the same &quot;potential for moves&quot;. For example, if an en passant move could be played in one position but not another, it does not count as the same position. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With respect to threefold repetition, would the positions be considered the same if:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In the first position, the king cannot castle because it is in check, pieces are blocking, or for some other reason, but it could castle otherwise.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In the second position, the king cannot castle because it has already moved. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18349" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-06-14T13:09:18.633" LastActivityDate="2020-06-14T13:09:18.633" Title="Does permanent loss of castling rights reset three fold repetition?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;castling&gt;&lt;threefold-repetition&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26486" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26485" CreationDate="2019-09-30T11:07:56.777" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to the FIDE Laws of Chess:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;9.2.2 Positions are considered the same if and only if the same player has the move, pieces of the same kind and colour occupy the same squares and the possible moves of all the pieces of both players are the same. Thus positions are not the same if:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;9.2.2.1   at the start of the sequence a pawn could have been captured en passant&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  9.2.2.2   a king had &lt;strong&gt;castling rights&lt;/strong&gt; with a rook that has not been moved, but forfeited these after moving. The castling rights are lost&#xA;  only after the king or rook is moved.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hence the answer to&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;With respect to threefold repetition, would the positions be&#xA;  considered the same if:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In the first position, the king cannot castle because it is in check,&#xA;  pieces are blocking, or for some other reason, but it could castle&#xA;  otherwise&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although castling is temporarily prevented the king still has &lt;strong&gt;castling rights&lt;/strong&gt;. They are not lost if castling is temporarily prevented by check or blocking pieces. They are only lost if the king or rook moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With regard to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;With respect to threefold repetition, would the positions be&#xA;  considered the same if:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In the second position, the king cannot castle because it has already&#xA;  moved.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The rules are clear. If the king has lost castling rights since the the first position then the positions are not the same and a draw cannot be claimed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Does permanent loss of castling rights reset three fold repetition?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes. That's what the rule says.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2019-09-30T11:07:56.777" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26487" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-09-30T11:58:27.260" Score="3" ViewCount="103" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are there any chess engines out there that will allow me to add arbitrary amounts of time to their clocks as the game progresses? I am interested in experimenting with two engines playing each other with me manually (or programatically) giving each bonus time throughout the game according to an algorithm I've developed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8134" LastActivityDate="2019-12-04T14:07:27.800" Title="Adding time to game played with chess engine" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;time-control&gt;&lt;time-management&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26489" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26503" CreationDate="2019-09-30T21:28:39.080" Score="22" ViewCount="9886" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am both an avid chess player and computer programmer. I would say that playing chess and programming are the two things I spend the most time doing. Naturally, I am wanting to create my own engine and, ultimately, Lichess bot.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In wake of AlphaZero's crushing performance against Stockfish last year, I am considering whether I should create this engine with machine learning (some type of neural network, possibly using Tensorflow) or traditional, hard coded heuristics.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am less familiar with neural networks than other kinds of hard-coding. Still, it could be a good way for me to learn to work with neural networks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another thing I am considering is whether it is important which language I use to code the engine. I know many chess engines use C++, which I have never used before. I have used other C-based languages which do many of the same things, with mostly varying syntax. I am most familiar with Swift and Javascript, but am also familiar with Python and feel that it could do the trick for me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, in terms of creating the strongest chess engine possible, should I go neural network or hard-coded?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Update:&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;I am writing a traditional engine in C++. It is currently &lt;em&gt;somewhat&lt;/em&gt; UCI compatible and plays at what I estimate is 1100ish ELO. But it generates legal moves and I’ll be posting updates here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/ChopinDavid/Maestro-cpp&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot; title=&quot;This is the link to the github repo.&quot;&gt;This is the link to the github repo for the engine.&lt;/a&gt; Feel free to fork and make PRs, or just make general suggestions/tips.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19802" LastEditorUserId="19802" LastEditDate="2020-09-22T15:11:45.337" LastActivityDate="2020-09-22T15:11:45.337" Title="Creating chess engine, machine learning vs. traditional engine?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;programming&gt;&lt;computer-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26490" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26489" CreationDate="2019-09-30T22:01:15.053" Score="9" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;So, in terms of creating the strongest chess engine possible, should I go neural network or hard-coded?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Don't choose a NN unless you have access to ridiculous(A few hundred Nvidia V100s). Training a NN to play chess takes so much hardware. See the people contributing to &lt;a href=&quot;https://lczero.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Lc0&lt;/a&gt; to train over 200 million games. Since you will probably have trouble accessing the hardware (you could try to get some at &lt;a href=&quot;https://colab.research.google.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Google Colabatory&lt;/a&gt;, but with only that, training will be very slow).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit: Using a NN With Supervised learning, you MAY get away with just Google Colab and possibly one strong GPU (2080, 2080Ti, Radeon VII).&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Another thing I am considering is whether it is important which language I use to code the engine. I know many chess engines use C++, which I have never used before. I have used other C-based languages which do many of the same things, with mostly varying syntax. I am most familiar with Swift and Javascript, but am also familiar with Python and feel that it could do the trick for me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Python and Javascript are probably too slow for a strong chess engine. I haven't used Swift but it probably won't like platforms other than macOS, so it's probably better to use C or C++. You could also possibly use Rust, but that has many safety features that get annoying and you don't really need, which can get annoying. It's also going to be harder to get good performance out of it since certain low-level optimizations are hard to make. Of course, you can always write it in assembly but that's probably going to be too much work. see &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessprogramming.org/Languages/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.chessprogramming.org/Languages/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18349" LastEditorUserId="18349" LastEditDate="2019-10-01T22:34:17.883" LastActivityDate="2019-10-01T22:34:17.883" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26491" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26489" CreationDate="2019-10-01T00:36:58.833" Score="26" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you're trying to make the strongest engine possible, absolutely go for NN engines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Traditional engines are great - Stockfish is arguably still the strongest engine on the planet on consensus equal hardware - but they are hard to write. These engines didn't get where they were overnight; they took years and years of work. Stockfish for example has been &lt;a href=&quot;https://nextchessmove.com/dev-builds&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;steadily gaining elo for six years&lt;/a&gt;. If you start from scratch, you will not get anywhere near Stockfish strength quickly; in fact you are likely to stall several hundred elo from where Stockfish currently is. For comparison some of the strongest single-author engines right now are &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/AndyGrant/Ethereal&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Ethereal&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/jeffreyan11/laser-chess-engine&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Laser&lt;/a&gt;, and &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/milostatarevic/xiphos&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Xiphos&lt;/a&gt; (I neglect Houdini &amp;amp; Fire since they aren't open source). These engines are all substantially weaker than Stockfish.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why are they so much weaker? Two reasons:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;At this level, developing an engine takes a lot of computational power. What you do is look through your code and identify an idea that could gain elo. An example idea is, &quot;if we know this move is probably good, do not search branches that reverse that move&quot; (if this doesn't make sense to you, it means there's going to be a high learning curve as well). You then write a patch that implements the idea, and test the modified engine against the previous version. At this level, it takes tens of thousands of games to get a large-enough sample size to tell if the patch is effective. Playing these games takes huge amounts of computational power. Stockfish has access to super hardware: as of time of writing, the Stockfish testing ground &lt;a href=&quot;http://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Fishtesting&lt;/a&gt; is running with 1038 cores. For comparison a typical desktop computer might have 4-8 cores.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The other reason is that Stockfish is backed by many brains. As of time of writing, there are 8 patches written by 5 people being tested. If you look through the patch histories you'll find many more developers who've written patches. I don't know how many active Stockfish developers there are, but it's certainly &gt;20.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, NN engines (relatively) easily reach a strength that's well above Ethereal/Laser/Xiphos. See for yourself in the latest &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.tcec-chess.com/archive.html?season=16&amp;amp;div=p&amp;amp;game=1&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Top Chess Engine Championship tournament&lt;/a&gt;. Ethereal/Laser/Xiphos are in League 1, which is credible enough, but the engines in the top division (Division P) are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Stockfish (community-backed traditional engine, runs with Fishtesting)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Komodo (commercial traditional engine, has full-time developers)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Komodo MCTS (commercial semi-traditional engine, has full-time developers)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Houdini (commercial traditional engine, is a one-man effort, hasn't been updated for two years)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Leela Chess Zero (community-backed NN engine, runs with the analog of Fishtesting aka a ton of hardware)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessdom.com/alliestein-the-new-neural-network-entering-tcec-s15/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;AllieStein&lt;/a&gt; (2-man NN engine)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Stoofvlees (NN engine)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;ScorpioNN (NN engine)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The last three engines - AllieStein, Stoofvlees and ScorpioNN - are all small collaborations by people who, as far as I know, are enthusiasts like you and not full-time developers. They've gotten to Div P strength after less than two years of trying (all these NN engines only appeared after AlphaZero). For comparison, in the recent history of computer chess there has only been one person who's ever written a traditional engine that competed successfully with Stockfish &amp;amp; Komodo on his own (Robert Houdart, the author of Houdini). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's true that you probably won't have the hardware to compete with Lc0, but Lc0 takes this much computational power because it's a &quot;zero&quot; engine - it's supposed to play chess without any kind of human knowledge except for rules. You don't need to use the same methodology. You could use e.g. the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.patreon.com/jjosh&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Stein methodology&lt;/a&gt; that uses supervised learning. It's arguably even better than going &quot;zero&quot; - after all it's AllieStein playing in the superfinal, not Lc0.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The upshot is: &lt;strong&gt;if your aim is to compete with the best engines in the world, you are far more likely to succeed with NN engines than traditional ones.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastEditorUserId="15223" LastEditDate="2019-10-01T10:16:38.587" LastActivityDate="2019-10-01T10:16:38.587" CommentCount="12" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26492" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26489" CreationDate="2019-10-01T05:19:12.703" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I built a purely toy chess engine using: &lt;a href=&quot;https://pypi.org/project/python-chess/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;python chess&lt;/a&gt; it was really nice not having to code the rules of the game myself and just focus on the logic; however, the number of position I was able evaluate per second is very low. This might be a good starting point.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="307" LastActivityDate="2019-10-01T05:19:12.703" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26493" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26494" CreationDate="2019-10-01T12:32:38.687" Score="14" ViewCount="3624" Body="&lt;p&gt;And if so, what interfaces can connect to them, and how do they do that?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I want to analyze with Lc0, but I don't have a computer with a GPU; I could rent one for a short time period at various cloud providers, but then I don't know what GUI I could use to talk to an engine running somewhere on the Internet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do e.g. Chessbase, Scid, Aquarium etc have a feature to work with engines running in the cloud?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2020-08-19T19:50:40.650" Title="Do &quot;chess engine in the cloud&quot; services exist?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26494" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26493" CreationDate="2019-10-01T14:32:33.850" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chessbase has this feature for subscribers. Basically you can analyse your games using their cloud based engine. If you have a powerful machine yourself you can also &quot;rent out&quot; your engine. More details &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.chessbase.com/post/tutorial-how-does-the-engine-cloud-work&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is an &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.chessbase.com/post/chessbase-account-using-cloud-engines&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;older article&lt;/a&gt; which includes a video explaining how it works and walks you through the process.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2019-10-01T14:32:33.850" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26495" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26493" CreationDate="2019-10-01T16:00:16.467" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://nextchessmove.com/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Next Chess Move&lt;/a&gt; offers a number of engines in the cloud including LC0, although they charge a subscription fee for access to more powerful hardware.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At the time of writing, they provide an app on Android and iOS, though it doesn't appear to have any integration with desktop programs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10075" LastActivityDate="2019-10-01T16:00:16.467" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26497" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-10-01T19:15:53.413" Score="2" ViewCount="227" Body="&lt;p&gt;By default, engines return the strongest variation(s) they calculate. I was wondering if there is a way to tweak an open source chess engine to show a move from their MultiPV which is slightly better than or equal to your moves. Let's say the evaluation stays only +2 consistently through the game. Instead of the strongest move in a position, the engine is retuning back the move with +2. Is there a way to do this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[edit 3.10.2019] in case of a blunder (e.g. +3 jump in the engine evaluation, the engine can keep the difference and continue the game with +5 instead of +2). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[edit 4.10.2019] I found that on &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://lichess.org&lt;/a&gt; there are levels for SF. Right now,  level 5 corresponds to ca. 1700 elo, level 6 is 1900, level 7 is 2200. This satisfies my needs and closes my question. Thank you&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20203" LastEditorUserId="20203" LastEditDate="2019-10-04T19:47:00.943" LastActivityDate="2019-10-04T19:55:43.233" Title="How to tweak a chess engine like SF to return a variation which is only slightly better than your moves?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;learning&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;open-source&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="9" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26498" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-10-01T20:57:01.003" Score="4" ViewCount="344" Body="&lt;p&gt;Does there exist any online public chess database that I can upload my own games to (so that others can look at them)?  I know that sites where you can play online will store games (that you played on that site) so they can be viewed, but I'm trying to find somewhere to store my OTB games that were not played online.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was thinking that chess-db.com might be a possibility, it seems at first glance like that's what it's supposed to be for - but I note that it is aware of me (it knows my USCF ID and everything), but it has my rating wrong (what they have is years out of date) and it also has a list of games supposedly played by me that I never played.  So I am not sure if that site is actually legitimate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7147" LastActivityDate="2019-10-06T16:33:14.207" Title="Are there any online public chess databases I can upload my own games to?" Tags="&lt;database&gt;&lt;online&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26499" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26498" CreationDate="2019-10-01T21:44:56.467" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If all you want to do is share your games with others via the internet then the easiest way is to create your own database of your games and upload the file to your cloud storage area, be it Dropbox, Google Drive or Microsoft One Drive. Then you can share read-only links to the file. This is the only free method of doing this that I know.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are prepared to pay then you can do something similar with a Chessbase account but you can only share with other Chessbase users. There is an article on the Chessbase site explaining how this works &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.chessbase.com/post/tutorial-sharing-databases&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2019-10-01T21:44:56.467" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26500" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26498" CreationDate="2019-10-01T22:41:28.073" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would suggest going to lichess.org and creating one or more studies for this. You can choose to make these public or private or only visible to those you give the link to. Within a study, you can upload the PGN of your games as separate chapters. You will need an account to make studies, but creating an account and using any of the study features is entirely free.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For each game, you can fill in as much or as little information about the players/situation as you want. Lichess studies also have advanced commentary features, so that you can describe your thoughts as well as annotate which moves you thought were interesting, blunders, etc. Personally, I find it useful to add variations I've found that I feel are worth further consideration - whether I found the variation during or after the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As an example, &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/study/rRxO5EpF&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here is one study I made to contain the most interesting Tabletop Simulator games I've played&lt;/a&gt;, as well as my annotations of the games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3884" LastActivityDate="2019-10-01T22:41:28.073" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26503" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26489" CreationDate="2019-10-02T11:49:20.587" Score="10" Body="&lt;h1&gt;First step: Define your goals/reasons&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think this is the predominant factor. Which of these best fits you? &lt;em&gt;(Choose &lt;strong&gt;only one&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You want to enjoy a fun, challenging coding task&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You want to create an extremely good chess engine&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You want to learn about how chess engines work&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You want to learn/practice coding skills&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You want to learn/implement computer science concepts/theory (e.g. machine learning)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;(Other)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;IMO it's fine to &quot;toss a coin&quot; for anything except 2. For all the others, you will meet your goal whether you choose ML or hard-coding. However you probably want a comparison between the choices to help you decide.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;The case for hard-coding&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Playing chess (as a human) involves logical thinking. You explore the space of possible actions you and the opponent can take. This has spawned a field called &lt;em&gt;game theory&lt;/em&gt; which contains theoretical frameworks for analysing games in general.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you enjoy working with details and being specific and reasoning about things then this could work well for you. In comparison, machine learning involves a lot more &quot;black box&quot; algorithms which are fuzzy and opaque. You don't know exactly what is going on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also I reckon you will have an easier time &quot;figuring it out on your own&quot; if you go the hard-coding route rather than machine learning. Less copy-pasting stuff you don't fully understand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;The case for machine learning&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It can be exciting to give birth to a creation and watch it take on a life of its own.  While hard-coding is all about precision and detail, machine learning is flexible. Take away some neurons and the result will probably be similar.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hard-coding is about studying chess. Machine learning is about studying the creature you have created.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And machine learning is, of course, a very hot topic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Language choice for hard-coded&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am not sure what you mean by &quot;other C-based languages&quot;. C++ is the only mainstream language that is anything like C. The advantage of C/C++ is that they are &lt;em&gt;fast&lt;/em&gt;. Although other languages have caught up over the years, C++ still gives them a run for their money.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;C++ isn't easy. You will get great performance out of more modern compiled languages like Rust, Golang or Swift. But it shouldn't be much worse if you go for a JIT language. I.e. &lt;strong&gt;don't use the CPython interpreter&lt;/strong&gt;; use IronPython or Jython, or Node, or C# or Java.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;GPU programming requires a different approach and I would advise against it at this point.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Language choice for machine learning&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The problem with TensorFlow is that it is very low-level. It is more about writing number-crunching algorithms (which can be farmed out to parallel hardware) than about an interface dedicated to machine learning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, it can be a great learning experience! And is certainly very worthwhile learning today. However, you may want to start with Keras or PyTorch.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20208" LastActivityDate="2019-10-02T11:49:20.587" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26504" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26497" CreationDate="2019-10-02T13:26:47.930" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Ok, so say the engine plays a move with white and values the position as +0.50 (slightly better for white). So now the human plays as black, and blunders a bishop. The engine now values the position as +3.50, but you want to play a move as close as possible to +0.50, v. g. +0.60. Is it what you're looking for?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In that case it seems the way to go is (from the POV of the engine); &quot;the position after my last move was +0.50, so in the current position, if a move that improves that eval exists, I must play the one closest to +0.50. Otherwise (there isn't a move that improves my eval after my last move), play the best move available.&quot;&#xA;If this is your idea, I guess this is doable, and for someone who develops their own chess engine probably shouldn't be hard to code.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe the idea can be improved. For example, if you blunder a bishop, probably it's a good idea the engine to grab the bishop than to play something really stupid.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In any case, I think it's definitely doable, probably with some refinement. (For example, it's not the same blundering a bishop in one than losing a bishop after a 10 moves combination; in the first case, IMO, the engine should take the bishop, but in the second one it should chose a sub-optimal move).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9179" LastActivityDate="2019-10-02T13:26:47.930" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26505" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26508" CreationDate="2019-10-02T20:59:07.047" Score="17" ViewCount="13319" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why is coffee provided for free during big chess events like the Olympiad despite the fact that it contains caffeine, which is a banned substance according to the World Anti Doping Agency (WADA)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19491" LastEditorUserId="12" LastEditDate="2019-10-03T03:17:40.400" LastActivityDate="2019-10-04T21:55:04.227" Title="Why is coffee provided during big chess events when it contains a banned substance?" Tags="&lt;fide&gt;&lt;chess-olympiad&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26506" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26505" CreationDate="2019-10-02T21:26:55.847" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;Because nobody seriously considers it an advantage in chess. The WADA applies to sport, where caffeine can improve performance because it's a stimulant, thus improving physical performance. In chess, however, physical performance is meaningless, and no one has ever performed a test that proves caffeine leads to better chess (as opposed to, say, faster times in a race). Indeed, since one of its side-effects is an increase in impulsiveness, it could very well prove a &lt;em&gt;detriment&lt;/em&gt; to playing better chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can see where it might yield a minor advantage in blitz, where fractions of a second in punching the clock would matter. But in normal tournaments, I'd wait until someone actually does some testing before worrying about &lt;em&gt;any&lt;/em&gt; substance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;OK, from the comments I see I need to add some details (in no particular order):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Java language: was called Green or Oak for most of its development. Oak was already trademarked, so they couldn't use it. Kim Polese of Sun held a brainstorming session among the development team in which hundreds of names were tossed into the discussion (James Gosling said he thinks half the words in the dictionary were named at least once). No one has the definitive origin, everyone who was there tells a different story of how it started -- good luck separating truth from retcon on that. (In fact one origin story has the group handing off a set of names to Sun's Lawyers, and they picked the name. In any case, the relationship to coffee is barely mentioned in any of the stories.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Blitz phase: standard FIDE time controls have a 30-second increment, hardly necessitating fast clock punches.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Caffeine on performance:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can we agree to draw a line between &quot;physical performance&quot; and &quot;endurance?&quot; The former (in chess context) is a measure of the ability to rapidly and assuredly and firmly move pieces, press clock buttons, etc. The latter relates to continuous activity. I thought that distinction was obvious; equally obviously it wasn't, given some of the comments. Again, my bad.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Relative to endurance &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5752738/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5752738/&lt;/a&gt; is a paper that concludes, among other things, that while controlled caffeine dosages can have some effect, the dosage is idiosyncratic; pertinent quote from the abstract: &quot;Contemporary evidence suggests current standardised guidelines are optimal for only a sub-set of the athlete population.&quot; They go on to say the effect depends upon many individual factors, which of course renders a one-size-fits-all test irrelevant. (It might be material here to note that the range they talk about as being effective equates to roughly 4-10 cups of coffee (3-9 cans of Red Bull) an hour before the game for a 100kg person. (The paper's highlighted range was 3-9mg/kg, rather an imprecise setting but there it is). Given, as I said, that caffeine is known to lead to impulsiveness, I think I'd be pleased that my opponent came to the board with, say, 8 cans in him. I'd probably pass him a couple more quite willingly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To my mind that paper is pretty strong. Higher doses than optimum give no additional benefit, and optimum doses for an individual are unknowable without doing a workup on the individual, so precisely what benefit does the testing provide?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of interest but perhaps limited relevance here is &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.anusha.com/uscfdrug.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.anusha.com/uscfdrug.htm&lt;/a&gt; (the USCF resolution on drug testing -- the tl;dr of it is &quot;test if your national committees give you money, but stop thinking it's performance related, because it isn't&quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We have a nebulous (extremely wide range) dosage that may cause endurance benefits in some people. Which, to me, condenses into &quot;We can't take this seriously without a lot more research.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Caffeine is known to promote impulsive behavior, and risk-taking (a cambridge study links it with gambling addiction, brings a whole 'nother meaning to the phrase &quot;coffeehouse chessplayer&quot;). I'm not sure how you can translate that kind of effect into &quot;improves chess play.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But OK, maybe &quot;nobody cares&quot; might have been a bit over the top. My bad. I originally wrote &quot;nobody who's familiar with testing methods and caffeine&quot; (which, BTW, includes WADA, who specifically do &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; include it on their prohibited list) but decided the generalized version would keep me from having to write a dissertation about it. Looks like I was wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are a lot of urban legends about caffeine and software (same with whisky, the phrase is &quot;the Ballmer Peak&quot; if you're interested). Doesn't make any of them true; a wise person views them all with skepticism.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="657" LastEditorUserId="657" LastEditDate="2019-10-04T21:55:04.227" LastActivityDate="2019-10-04T21:55:04.227" CommentCount="15" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26507" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26505" CreationDate="2019-10-02T21:59:16.590" Score="20" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is not prohibited would be the main answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Caffeine was removed from the list, and moved to the WADA &quot;watch list&quot;, so it is not currently banned. &quot;Bupropion, caffeine, nicotine, phenylephrine, phenylpropanolamine, pipradrol, and synephrine: These substances are included in the 2019 Monitoring Program, and are not considered Prohibited Substances.&quot; (quote taken from both the 2019 and 2020 WADA prohibited list PDF document).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;The legal limit under previous restrictions was 12 microgram/ml in urine, which is roughly equivalent to drinking 8 servings of espressos over the course of a few hours.&quot; (quote taken from nationalcoffee.blog)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2019-10-02T21:59:16.590" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26508" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26505" CreationDate="2019-10-02T22:19:38.330" Score="49" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/FIDE/handbook/WADA%20Anti%20Doping.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE's Anti-Doping Policy&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The 2018 WADA Prohibited List and Monitoring Program can be found at:&#xA;  &lt;a href=&quot;http://list.wada-ama.org/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://list.wada-ama.org/&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;  The most relevant banned substances for chess are:   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;• Amphetamines – e.g. Adderall, Ritalin&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  • Ephedrine and Methylephedrine – Prohibited by WADA when its&#xA;  concentration in urine is greater than 10 micrograms per milliliter&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  • Pseudoephedrine is prohibited when its concentration in urine is greater than&#xA;  150 micrograms per milliliter&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  • Modafinil&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Substances not present on the Prohibited List but represented in the Monitoring&#xA;  Program:   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;• Caffeine – Included in WADA Monitoring Program and relevant for incompetition testing only. Any urine test reading of less than 12 micrograms per milliliter poses no problem.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  • Codeine – A common ingredient in, for example, preparations used to treat coughs and stomach upsets. Any dosage is highly unlikely to be significant when taken in normal therapeutic quantities.    &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that caffeine is not currently banned. It was banned during the period 1984 - 2004 but was lifted. I'm guessing that sponsorship via advertising from Coca Cola may have been an important factor.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2019-10-02T22:19:38.330" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26509" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26517" CreationDate="2019-10-03T01:06:14.897" Score="3" ViewCount="168" Body="&lt;p&gt;In many positions, different moves are functionally the same, and an engine should return the same evaluation. For example, in a KR vs. KR endgame, (almost) every move that does not lose the rook should give exactly the same evaluation: 0.00. How does an engine choose between them then?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-10-03T01:12:28.380" LastActivityDate="2019-10-03T17:31:48.530" Title="How does an engine choose between two moves of equal evalulation?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;evaluation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26510" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33801" CreationDate="2019-10-03T01:26:11.380" Score="28" ViewCount="3951" Body="&lt;p&gt;A standard chess engine will find the move it considers best assuming best play from both sides. But this move might lead to an insignificant advantage or a tricky line that can easily result in mistakes for a human player of a specific ability. Is there a program that finds the best &quot;practical&quot; move for e.g. intermediate players? For example, it might pick a move that leads to a very strong attacking position where the opponent will most likely make a mistake, even though it could be defended against with perfect play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15842" LastEditorUserId="15842" LastEditDate="2019-10-03T01:36:17.297" LastActivityDate="2021-01-18T01:42:56.633" Title="Is there an engine that finds the best &quot;practical&quot; move?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="8" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26511" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26510" CreationDate="2019-10-03T01:35:58.817" Score="24" Body="&lt;p&gt;You're describing something that's very similar to &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessprogramming.org/Contempt_Factor&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;contempt&lt;/a&gt;. The idea with contempt is that if you keep more dynamism in the position, a weaker opponent is more likely to make mistakes that you can then exploit. Therefore, given two moves that yield similar evals, an engine with high contempt score will choose the one that keeps more dynamism in the position. The current-strongest traditional engines all have contempt implemented (example for &lt;a href=&quot;https://komodochess.com/store/pages.php?cmsid=14&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Komodo&lt;/a&gt;). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The danger of contempt is, against a strong opponent, high contempt can get you killed - you are after all forcing the engine to play a weaker move just to keep the game alive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastActivityDate="2019-10-03T01:35:58.817" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26512" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26509" CreationDate="2019-10-03T04:11:34.917" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some engines uses three decimals in its evaluation. That's how can introduce a difference. I have read that its in use a technique to add a really small but ramdom number, to make them different. Don't have the references at hand, but can be known from the read.me of every engine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1766" LastActivityDate="2019-10-03T04:11:34.917" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26513" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26510" CreationDate="2019-10-03T04:16:54.537" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I realized this question applies mainly to standard chess engines that use minimax functions to evaluate moves. However chess engines like alphazero use monte carlo tree search to simulate many different games so they're not only looking at the best possible moves. It's possible that they already could be used to find the best &quot;practical&quot; move, or that they could be adapted for that purpose. For example the monte carlo search algorithm could be updated to look at &quot;reasonable&quot; moves and simulate what happens. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15842" LastActivityDate="2019-10-03T04:16:54.537" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26514" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26428" CreationDate="2019-10-03T05:29:33.923" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think using the Arena GUI may be an overly complex way of attempting this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Instead, go for the Arena engines. Many (all?) implement the UCI protocol, which would allow your application to basically send move information to the engine, and get its responses (under the chosen set of parameters) back.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some chess engines use other protocols, and not all may be open or freely available.  UCI (see &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessprogramming.org/UCI&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.chessprogramming.org/UCI&lt;/a&gt; for more info) is reasonably well known, so you should be able to get answers to any problems you might have.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user18412" LastActivityDate="2019-10-03T05:29:33.923" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26515" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-10-03T07:53:01.860" Score="3" ViewCount="82" Body="&lt;p&gt;Please tell me of a free and easy to use website for organizing an online correspondence chess competition for kids. Thank you very much. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20222" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-10-03T08:36:35.873" LastActivityDate="2019-10-06T16:30:00.937" Title="Online Correspondence Chess Competition" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;online&gt;&lt;correspondence-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26516" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26515" CreationDate="2019-10-03T08:58:09.643" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You may want to use the &lt;a href=&quot;https://echecsemail.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;echecsemail&lt;/a&gt; website. You can create round-robin tournaments for up to 9 players. For bigger player-pools, you'll have to split them in groups (or maybe talk to the admins).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They also offer the possibility of choosing an alternative starting position (for opening practice purposes mainly)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I hope those kids speak French, though!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastActivityDate="2019-10-03T08:58:09.643" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26517" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26509" CreationDate="2019-10-03T17:06:11.910" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The answer is simple for traditional engines like Stockfish and the like: if multiple moves have the same evaluation, they pick whichever move was searched first.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All strong alpha-beta engines employ &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessprogramming.org/Move_Ordering&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;move-ordering heuristics&lt;/a&gt; which guess the moves that are likely to be strongest in a position, before actually searching those moves. This is advantageous because the best case for alpha-beta search (especially for PVS) occurs when the strongest move is searched first, allowing beta cutoffs to occur as soon as possible and also avoiding repeated searches.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So when two moves are found to have the same evaluation, the tie is broken by move ordering heuristics.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Evaluation granularity also plays a role. Stockfish evaluates positions to the nearest 1/256th of a pawn, but only reports evaluations in 1/100th of a pawn, so there could be internal differentiation which is not visible to a user. MCTS engines like Lc0 make decisions based on the number of nodes searched in the subtrees of each move. This information wouldn't make sense to report as centipawns, so a conversion function is used. If many nodes have been searched, multiple moves may map to the same centipawn evaluation even if they can be differentiated internally.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10075" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-10-03T17:31:48.530" LastActivityDate="2019-10-03T17:31:48.530" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26518" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26428" CreationDate="2019-10-03T18:24:26.723" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you're working with python, you'll have far better luck with &lt;a href=&quot;https://python-chess.readthedocs.io/en/latest/core.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;python-chess&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It includes a fully featured core API for the rules of chess, and is also able to handle engine communication via both UCI and XBoard (along with support for opening books, endgame tablebases, chess variants, rendering, PGN files, etc.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This would be significantly easier than implementing the UCI protocol yourself or trying to hook into Arena.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10075" LastActivityDate="2019-10-03T18:24:26.723" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26519" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19661" CreationDate="2019-10-04T00:00:57.647" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Bobby Fischer lived &lt;a href=&quot;https://youtu.be/ChAIkCKo3Xo&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; at Lincoln Place 560 in Brooklyn. The video shows the inside of the building. I was there in September, 2019.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20233" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-10-08T12:53:44.740" LastActivityDate="2019-10-08T12:53:44.740" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26521" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26593" CreationDate="2019-10-04T15:43:07.740" Score="3" ViewCount="239" Body="&lt;p&gt;Teimour Radjabov has just won the World Cup.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first two FIDE World Cups, in 2000 and 2002 had 4 groups of 6 players with the 2 group winners going into an 8-player knockout. They were both won by Anand and were stand-alone tournaments.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In 2005 the tournament morphed into its current form, a 128 player knockout with a place in the Candidates as the prize (apart from large bundles of cash) played every 2 years. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Knockout is a brutal format which favours the toughest players over the very best. Even though the Soviet Union ceased to exist in 1991 every single winner of the current format World Cup was born in the former USSR. Here is the list:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2005 - Levon Aronian (born 1982 in Yerevan, USSR)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;2007 - Gata Kamsky (born 1974 in Novokuznetsk, USSR)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;2009 - Boris Gelfand (born 1968 in Minsk, USSR)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;2011 - Peter Svidler (born 1976 in Leningrad, USSR)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;2013 - Vladimir Kramnik (born 1975 in Tuapse, USSR)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;2015 - Sergey Karjakin (born in 1990 in Simferopol, USSR)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;2017 - Levon Aronian (born 1982 in Yerevan, USSR)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;2019 - Teimour Radjabov (born 1987 in Baku, USSR)   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The very best non-USSR players have entered multiple times and failed. Players like Carlsen, Caruana, Ding, Anand have entered but failed to make it all the way though the tough competition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is it about Soviet born players that makes them winners in this format?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-20T19:40:40.213" LastActivityDate="2020-03-20T19:40:40.213" Title="What is it about Soviet born players that makes them winners in the brutal 128-player knockout format of the World Cup?" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;history&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26522" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26521" CreationDate="2019-10-04T16:58:52.627" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think a lot of it is culture, and certainly they have the longest history of sustained success in chess from their long history of training. Lastly, there is hardship going back to WWII even, which is related to their culture.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was a Russian linguist for 8 years during the Cold War, and thus, I have met many former Soviets in my lifetime, including chess players, who are my friends. It is amazing the hardships that they have suffered under communism, and especially during the &quot;Great Patriotic War&quot; (WWII). Everything from the encirclement of Stalingrad to the Siege of Leningrad during the war has really made them a very tough people. They also survived the purges of Stalin. From personal experience, I know that they will do whatever it takes to survive, including standing in line all day for a loaf of bread, even though that is no longer the way life is there...it still was when I was a linguist in the Air Force.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That toughness permeates their lives, and I think that includes chess. Do whatever it takes to get by, or in chess, to win. I cannot think of any tougher people.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, you then cannot discount that they have the best pool of teachers to call upon to teach the next generations. Sure, China is catching up, but Russia and the rest of the former Soviet states, still have that pedigree.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2019-10-04T16:58:52.627" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26524" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-10-04T21:03:06.903" Score="38" ViewCount="12267" Body="&lt;p&gt;Suppose you win a game in a noncompetitive way, when you know your opponent cannot feel good about his play. Maybe he dropped his queen early, to a simple tactic that should have been evident for a player of his level, for example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do you say &quot;Good game&quot; when you shake hands? Or do you say nothing at all?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="216" LastEditorUserId="216" LastEditDate="2019-10-08T14:20:56.037" LastActivityDate="2020-10-26T11:58:51.960" Title="Do you say &quot;good game&quot; after a game in which your opponent played poorly?" Tags="&lt;etiquette&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="7" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26525" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26524" CreationDate="2019-10-04T22:07:40.053" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;In general you say something like &quot;Good game until ... That was a shame&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Maybe he dropped his queen early, to a simple tactic that should have&#xA;  been evident for a player of his level, for example&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, in that case &quot;Good game until you dropped your queen. That was a shame because it was a real fight until then&quot;. It may be a small white lie but it is less transparent than the standard &quot;Good game&quot; which comes across as formulaic and lacking in sincerity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2019-10-04T22:07:40.053" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26526" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26524" CreationDate="2019-10-04T22:12:13.653" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I try to, but in the case of egregious errors like that, I'll typically slide that into &quot;...at least up until move 15&quot; (or wherever the queen fell). If it's not just dropping the queen to a pawn, like maybe it was a long bishop move for example, I might add something like &quot;Long moves are sometimes hard to see.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We all have those kind of games and we all feel horrible after it. I try to at least say something that might relieve the stress a bit. maybe ask a question about a moment that occurred earlier in the game, if I can come up with one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To me the important thing is to be encouraging. Sometimes that can be really difficult.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="657" LastActivityDate="2019-10-04T22:12:13.653" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26527" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5965" CreationDate="2019-10-05T06:23:00.033" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Off the top of my head I believe 700-750 rating points is the point where ratings don't change. So, at about a 700 point difference the superior player should win every game. Granted, anything could happen in an actual game. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A beginner has about a 1 in 40 chance of playing a gm move by accident (given 40 legal moves in a position). Its not inconceivable that they could play several really strong moves in a row and end up in a very good position. At the same time, a very good player could be distracted or overplay the position and play some weak moves. Anything's possible. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2019-10-05T06:23:00.033" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26528" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26524" CreationDate="2019-10-05T06:48:50.073" Score="48" Body="&lt;p&gt;In short: Yes. It is a polite way to acknowledge an enjoyable game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Good game&quot; isn't the same thing as saying, &quot;well-played game&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Saying &quot;good game&quot; just means you enjoyed playing it. You could have enjoyed it for many reasons. For example, it could mean something as simple as, &quot;thank you for being polite and not stalling or offering draws from badly losing positions&quot;, or &quot;not being a d*** when you lost&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It could even mean, &quot;yes, I clearly won, but you kept me on my toes&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Good game&quot; does not imply that the opponent played well in any way, and is the normal polite way of thanking a person for their time. If the person is rude to you, or obnoxious, then you wouldn't probably feel the desire to say &quot;good game&quot;, no matter how well they played.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastEditorUserId="5879" LastEditDate="2019-10-07T18:47:08.317" LastActivityDate="2019-10-07T18:47:08.317" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26529" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26510" CreationDate="2019-10-05T07:00:50.413" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not really. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Databases are useful because they can tell you often a move is played and what the result is however they are not perfect for a variety of reasons. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Fritz 12 (not sure about later versions) has a &quot;hotness&quot; meter which tells you how complex a variation is.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bottom line. it's a combination of things. You're looking for moves where the most principled moves turn out to be bad. No engine can tell you that. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2019-10-05T07:00:50.413" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26530" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="132" CreationDate="2019-10-05T07:25:24.073" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would say 1. Nh3. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.f3 is bad however after g3 white is only down a couple of tempos and has a somewhat reasonable position. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.Nh3 allows black the potential to to wreck white's pawn structure and even threaten a very quick mate. Yes, white can avoid that with Ng4-&gt;Nf3 but you've wasted two tempos when you could have done the same thing with 1.Nf3  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White is in a struggle for equality after 1.Nh3 and is one slip away from losing the game for the next several moves. Even if white does play perfectly, he has thrown away several tempi for no reason and allowed an equal game. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T15:54:55.873" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T15:54:55.873" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26531" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4539" CreationDate="2019-10-05T07:37:26.693" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;White- Bishop's opening (very versatile). Alapin and exchange variations vs french.ck, alekhines. Main lines vs cc and nimzo. 150 attack vs pirc/robatsch. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black- vs e4 play the classical vs the Ruy and against everything else look for lines that play a quick d5. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;d4- Choose between either the tarrasch or dutch.  Both are system-type openings in that you can play them against anything. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a very simple opening rep that allows you to get playable games against almost anybody while at the same feeing you up to study the parts of the game that will give you the most improvement. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2019-10-05T07:37:26.693" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26532" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14035" CreationDate="2019-10-05T07:55:49.103" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If I was trying to explain this to a beginner, I would say that black is up a pawn with no compensation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, white's position is dangerous but black is fully equal. Refer to the engine for specific lines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2019-10-05T07:55:49.103" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26533" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26524" CreationDate="2019-10-05T11:11:48.330" Score="63" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why not just:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Thanks for the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You wanted to play a game, and your opponent gave you a game. Played well or not, you could thank him for giving you the opportunity to play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9192" LastActivityDate="2019-10-05T11:11:48.330" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26534" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26535" CreationDate="2019-10-05T22:50:55.943" Score="3" ViewCount="177" Body="&lt;p&gt;Does the pawn's initial double square move have a special name, akin to how special capturing move that the pawn has is called en passant?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20249" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-06-14T03:20:56.917" LastActivityDate="2020-06-14T03:20:56.917" Title="Does the pawn's initial double square move have a special name?" Tags="&lt;pawns&gt;&lt;terminology&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26535" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26534" CreationDate="2019-10-05T22:54:45.967" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, it's a standard move. By definition, pawns are pieces which can move 1 square forward or 2 on the first move, and can capture diagonally. These actions don't have special names as they're easy to define, but en passant requires a bit more explanation (as most pawns never do it in any particular game).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-10-05T22:54:45.967" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26537" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-10-06T12:33:04.597" Score="4" ViewCount="197" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 Bg7 4. e4 d6 5. Nf3 O-O 6. Be2 e5 7. O-O Nc6 8. d5 Ne7 9. Ne1 Nd7 10. Be3 f5 11. f3 f4 12. Bf2 g5 13. b4 Nf6 14. c5 Ng6 15. cxd6 cxd6 16. Rc1 Rf7 17. Nb5 a6 18. Nc3 Bf8 19. Na4 Bd7 20. Nb6 g4 21. Nxa8 g3 22. hxg3 fxg3 23. Bxg3 Nh5 24. Bf2 Ngf4 25. Nb6 Rg7 26. Nxd7 Qxd7 27. Kh2 Nxg2 28. Nxg2 Rxg2+ 29. Kxg2 Nf4+ 30. Kg1 Qh3 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I won this game, but I think that I was lucky. I feel that allowing &lt;code&gt;21. Nxa8&lt;/code&gt; was a blunder.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What if white captured &lt;code&gt;21. fxg4&lt;/code&gt;? Then I have to play &lt;code&gt;21. ... Nxe4&lt;/code&gt; . White then captures my rook at &lt;code&gt;a8&lt;/code&gt;. I don't see any compensation for black for the loss of material. I also don't see how to continue the attack through this variation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20256" LastEditorUserId="3594" LastEditDate="2019-10-07T13:22:21.793" LastActivityDate="2019-10-08T09:34:48.213" Title="Potential exchange sacrifice in a King's Indian Defence middlegame" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;blunder&gt;&lt;attack&gt;&lt;kings-indian&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26538" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26537" CreationDate="2019-10-06T13:59:14.567" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, it is highly unlikely that you will get a definitive answer here since computers are not great in these types of positions where the danger to white might be 10 moves down the road. It is also not uncommon for black to &quot;lose&quot; a rook in this opening, the Classical King's Indian, however, we often find that black's k-side attack is simply too strong in practice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Computers are not yet strong enough to see this deeply, and even if they could, you are playing a human being. As a practical matter, positions like these, which are so complicated and dangerous, even if technically not correct, they are fine to play in practice...ask Tal. :) Still, you also missed some quicker wins too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the line 21.fg Ne4, you clearly have compensation since the eval is only +.7, and falls to about +.4 the move after taking on a8 and the recapture, however, the question is if you can ignore the immediate recapture, and just play something else. I do not think so since white's q-side attack comes too quickly. I think you have to take back immediately, and then bring the queen back to the k-side. If you have to do that, you are right that it is probably wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All of this is a bit moot since the most popular move is 18...h5, which scores at only 33% for white compared to 83% after 18...Bf8. I like the idea of the pawn roller there since it is more flexible when you play g4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;    1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 Bg7 4. e4 d6 5. Nf3 O-O 6. Be2 e5 7. O-O Nc6 8. d5 Ne7 9. Ne1 Nd7 10. Be3 f5 11. f3 f4 12. Bf2 g5 13. b4 Nf6 14. c5 Ng6 15. cxd6 cxd6 16. Rc1 Rf7 17. Nb5 (17. a4 {a4 is a more common move here.}) 17... a6 18. Nc3 Bf8 (18... h5 {h5 is a more common move here.}) 19. Na4 Bd7 20. Nb6 g4 21. Nxa8 (21.fxg4 Nxe4 22.Nxa8) 21... g3 22. hxg3 fxg3 23. Bxg3 Nh5 24. Bf2 Ngf4 25. Nb6 Rg7 26.Nxd7 Qxd7 (26... Rxg2+ 27. Nxg2 Qg5-+) 27. Kh2 Nxg2 (27... Rxg2+ 28. Nxg2 Qh3+ 29. Kg1 Qxg2#) 28. Nxg2 Rxg2+ 29. Kxg2 Nf4+ 30. Kg1 Qh3 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="3594" LastEditDate="2019-10-07T13:38:32.900" LastActivityDate="2019-10-07T13:38:32.900" CommentCount="13" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26541" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26515" CreationDate="2019-10-06T16:30:00.937" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can play correspondence chess (and I believe set up tournaments) on chess.com. While the site is free, paid members do get more features. I'm not sure if any of these features would be relevant to a correspondence tournament though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-10-06T16:30:00.937" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26542" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26498" CreationDate="2019-10-06T16:33:14.207" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;When you play in a tournament (especially a FIDE rated one) and submit a carbon copy of your notation, that's how the game can end up in some database (such as chess-db). Chess players wouldn't be allowed to upload whatever they want to well known database sites since then they could deliberately mislead people who look them up to prepare for them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can of course upload your games via your own methods (such as on your own site), but this won't be very popular on a Google search.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-10-06T16:33:14.207" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26543" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26544" CreationDate="2019-10-07T00:12:18.613" Score="2" ViewCount="208" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recently went to a USCF tournament. Although it was quick/blitz rated, regular ratings were used for the purposes of pairings and prizes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This led me to wonder: are regular ratings actually better predictors of results in quick/blitz games than the quick/blitz ratings themselves are?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2020-11-28T19:08:46.777" Title="Are USCF regular ratings more accurate than quick or blitz ratings in regards to quick or blitz games?" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;blitz&gt;&lt;uscf&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26544" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26543" CreationDate="2019-10-07T02:52:26.177" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Probably not technically if everyone played a lot of rapid games, however, I have seen organizers do this before since the regular ratings usually have a more established basis. In other words, because people have usually played a lot more standard rated games, in that respect, they are more accurate. It helps prevent sandbagging.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In reality, in rapid and blitz, a better predictor is probably age. Kids often perform better than their standard rating the faster the game. I once won an under-1800 blitz tournament when I was an under-rated 1100-player (I went up to 1254 after the main tournament). I was about 18, and the mind was very quick back then (there also were not a lot of kids like there are today).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-01-11T16:10:27.163" LastActivityDate="2020-01-11T16:10:27.163" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26545" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-10-07T06:39:12.313" Score="3" ViewCount="921" Body="&lt;p&gt;Which are some top players known to be strongly in favor of 1.e4 in the opening?&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this respect I find interesting a comment by Fischer on Alekhine:&#xA;&quot;there is nothing light or breezy in his style&quot;. As Fischer clearly belongs to the 1.e4 group, do you think this &quot;light and breezy&quot; feel is in some way attached to this move, or is it an entirely subjective opinion that cannot be taken too seriously?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20224" LastEditorUserId="18475" LastEditDate="2020-02-17T18:32:32.150" LastActivityDate="2020-02-17T18:32:32.150" Title="Top players strongly in favor of 1.e4" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;1.e4&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26546" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26524" CreationDate="2019-10-07T06:39:34.903" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Whatever you choose to say to your opponent, consider also saying something along the lines of:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Perhaps we should have a rematch sometime?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which is a polite way of acknowledging that they messed up and offering them a chance to redeem themselves without actually embarassing them by stating that you know they played badly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not directly pertinent to your question, but I'd like to add that if you do end up having a rematch with them and they make the same mistake again then it may be a good idea to that they in fact aren't aware that they made a mistake and instead inform them what their mistake is and why it's a bad move/strategy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4146" LastActivityDate="2019-10-07T06:39:34.903" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26547" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26545" CreationDate="2019-10-07T08:22:20.387" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Another notable top player was Karpov in the 70s and first half of the 80s. But after Kasparov successfully employed the Sicilian against him and took the world championship title, Karpov switched to 1.d4 mainly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Kasparov also tended to favour 1.e4, although as he matured as a world champion he played other opening moves too (as any top player should).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nowadays I can't think of many players who favour 1.e4 predominantly. One exception I can think of though is Maxime Vachier-Lagrave. He is known for being a strong proponent of 1.e4 as White and the Najdorf Sicilian as Black. In general though, most modern top players play 1.e4 and 1.d4 (as well as other moves) since it broadens their repertoire. If you always play 1.e4 then people can prepare to surprise you (and it's harder for you to surprise them).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-10-07T08:22:20.387" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26548" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26543" CreationDate="2019-10-07T08:25:58.217" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's a tradeoff involved here. On the one hand, blitz ratings tend to reflect a player's strength in blitz (by definition). But on the other hand, most players play many more standard rated games, meaning that rating could be considered more accurate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In general though, standard ratings are a reasonable enough indicator of blitz results. Most players who are good tend to also be good in blitz, although there are of course exceptions (older players, for example).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, if you're referring to online blitz ratings vs USCF standard ratings, the online blitz ratings are clearly a better indicator. People play far more online blitz games than OTB games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-10-07T08:25:58.217" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26549" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26537" CreationDate="2019-10-07T09:20:43.073" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;21.fg4?! leads to complicated positions that should objectively favour White but that Black often ends up winning in practice. After 21...Nxe4 22.Nxa8 Qxa8, at the price of an exchange you have broken White's pawn chain and can expect active piece play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The text 21.Nxa8! is much stronger and should have brought White a clear advantage if after 21...g3 he had not touched this pawn but continued 22.Nc7!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then:&#xA;22...gf2 23.Rf2 gives a decisive material advantage for White, who can continue with Bf1, Rfc2 and Ne6 without being bothered by any counterplay by Black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;22...Nh5 is usually countered with 23.Kh1! Qh4 24.Bg1 gh2 25.Bf2, but here White even have the simpler 23.Ne6! Qh4 24.h3, when there is no ...Bxh3 sacrifice available and Black's attack is not at all in time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;22...gh2 yields nothing serious after either 23.Kh1 or 23.Kxh2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black's mistake came earlier, probably with 18...Bf8 which is just too slow. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastEditorUserId="14079" LastEditDate="2019-10-07T11:16:07.383" LastActivityDate="2019-10-07T11:16:07.383" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26550" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16068" CreationDate="2019-10-07T09:51:47.960" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The position you are concerned about doesn't qualify as a &lt;em&gt;stubborn&lt;/em&gt; Semi-Slav in my opinion. At most, it is a very &lt;em&gt;passive&lt;/em&gt; Semi-Slav where the Nc7 lost two tempi to reach a waiting spot, and neither of Black's usual breaks, ...e5 and ...c5, will be attractive in the near future.&#xA;Moreover, the hook on h6 has provided you with a very nice target.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White has three possible, natural plans:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Queenside expansion&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is the continuation you consider, with a4-b4-Rb1. Indeed, in your line, ...a5 come handy notably because your king sitting on e1 makes the weakening of b4 annoying and allows Black to exchange two minor pieces - a relief for him given his lack of space.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should instead take your time to implement this plan: 0-0, Rfd1, Rac1 or Rab1, a3 if need be, b4, possibly Ne5 building pressure against c6, and then you look for an opportunity to breakthrough with b4-b5 when Black cannot counter with c6-c5. If you keep everything under control this could lead to a serious weakness on c6 and a winning squeeze down the c-file. Even if you don't break through, the completed development and the space gained should be enough to prevent any ...a5 or ...c5 by Black and free your hands for switching to the center with e3-e4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Central squeeze&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe the simplest way to enhance your space advantage is to build up in the center with 0-0, e3-e4, Rad1-Rfe1 or Rac1-Rfd1. In case Black offer a bishop exchange with ...Nd7, you decline with Bg3. Then Black is extremely passive and can only hope for c6-c5 to free himself (after b6, Bb7, and maybe some half-useful rook moves but he lacks space so much that it is hard to propose a way for him to finish development). Not only can you try to block c5 (with Rc1, or Ne5-d3, or b4), but even if Black achieves it the opening of the center after dc5, d5, or ...cd4 should rather benefit your more active pieces. Meanwhile, he also needs to be careful that you won't mount an attack on his king (e.g. with a Bb1-Qc2 battery then e4-e5 chasing the Nf6, or with Ne5 followed by a rook lift on the third rank).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Direct kingside attack&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With the weakness on h6 on the board before you have castled and the stable center, I would really give a go to the caveman approach (aka 'latvian' or 'bayonet' attack) with 11.Rg1 intending g4-g5, Ke2 (or 0-0-0), opening the g-file and mating on move 20. All your pieces can join the attack while Black's Nc7, Bc8 and Ra8 won't be able to help their king before long...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Choosing between the three plans is merely a question of style and taste. In any case, White enjoys a great advantage and will try to avoid piece exchanges.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastEditorUserId="14079" LastEditDate="2020-01-08T16:35:36.987" LastActivityDate="2020-01-08T16:35:36.987" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26552" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26524" CreationDate="2019-10-07T11:33:36.550" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Go (which I discovered after Chess, and ... much prefer now, I have to confess), we usually say &quot;&lt;strong&gt;Have a good game!&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; before we start (the meaning being: let's both play a nice game, and enjoy it), and &quot;&lt;strong&gt;Thank you for the game&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; at the end, said by both parties. There can be tons of variants, but there is usually a good attitude from both players before and after the game. If the game was well played on both parts, it's often pointed out by saying something like &quot;This was a really nice game!&quot;, as we are both happy we played it (even when one loses, if the game was well played by both, it is a good feeling to have lived it and contributed to it). And often the game is then discussed by replaying key moves of the game and exploring what each could have done better instead of those moves. Being fiercly fighting on the board during the game shouldn't lead you to be rough to your opponent outside of it, so saying &quot;good game&quot; to your opponent for a game where the opponent blundered seems a bit misplaced, even hurtful. Just saying &quot;Thank you for the game&quot; is enough (and hopefully doesn't convey the same feeling. Intonation is key.).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9745" LastActivityDate="2019-10-07T11:33:36.550" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26553" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26578" CreationDate="2019-10-07T17:34:32.930" Score="2" ViewCount="154" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to solve a problem with Thomas Maeder's excellent Popeye engine, and to specify that a possible en passant in the diagram is ok. How can I do this please? The documentation seems opaque. Thanks so much!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/thomas-maeder/popeye/releases/tag/v4.81&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://github.com/thomas-maeder/popeye/releases/tag/v4.81&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: Outside chess, I see stackexchange used widely to ask technical questions about software use (indeed use it myself like this sometimes), and I think this is fair use in chess too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8201" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T19:15:45.140" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T19:15:45.140" Title="How can I set up en passant in the Popeye engine?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;programming&gt;&lt;en-passant&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26554" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-10-07T18:04:28.597" Score="5" ViewCount="124" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm interested in collections of chess problems &#xA;where we are not told beforehand what is happening in the positions presented, &#xA;but we have to decide by ourselves, whether something clear exists (a winning or drawing combination, a good move or plan that keeps the initiative) or whether the position presented is still unclear. Clearly the goal is to exercise analysis, intuition and general judgment of positions, by simulating actual play.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;So are there collections of problems of this type, in print or online?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19759" LastEditorUserId="15989" LastEditDate="2019-10-08T04:16:43.950" LastActivityDate="2019-10-08T12:56:25.810" Title="Position-jugdment problems simulating actual play" Tags="&lt;puzzles&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26555" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26554" CreationDate="2019-10-07T22:28:42.110" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can find such positions in Dvoretsky's books.  Also, in &quot;The Defense Triumphs&quot; by Kotov. But in general I am not aware of a collection of positions without a clear objective presented.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then there are a couple newer &quot;positions you must know&quot; books that you might explore.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course if you go over annotated GM games as if you are playing the game, thinking before reading the next more or comments -- this is a good way to achieve such training.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2019-10-07T22:28:42.110" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26556" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26557" CreationDate="2019-10-08T03:37:08.337" Score="2" ViewCount="261" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am wanting to write a chess engine (see here: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/26489/creating-chess-engine-machine-learning-vs-traditional-engine&quot;&gt;Creating chess engine, machine learning vs. traditional engine?&lt;/a&gt;). The first step I am doing is taking a position in as an FEN and converting this position into an ideal move. Pseudocode would look something like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;Position → Move&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or using notation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1 → e4&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am trying to create an enumeration of every possible chess move, and I feel that I may be missing some. This includes moves like &quot;e4&quot;, &quot;Nxf5&quot;, &quot;Bg3+&quot;, &quot;Qxh4#&quot;, &quot;exf8N#&quot;. My total count of unique moves that can be expressed using algebraic notation is &lt;strong&gt;1884&lt;/strong&gt;. Can anybody confirm the total number of unique moves that can be expressed using algebraic notation? My full list of moves can be found here: &lt;a href=&quot;https://pastebin.com/xDNqbFt2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://pastebin.com/xDNqbFt2&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19802" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-10-17T19:23:04.067" LastActivityDate="2019-10-19T12:05:59.013" Title="How many moves can be expressed with algebraic chess notation?" Tags="&lt;programming&gt;&lt;notation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26557" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26556" CreationDate="2019-10-08T04:20:05.543" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I immediately notice that you've missed the castling moves (O-O and O-O-O).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would list the pawn-promoting moves according to their PGN syntax (=Q/R/N/B suffix), as that's the most commonly used in computer chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Algebraic notation can be ambiguous for sliding and leaping pieces (everything except pawn and king, actually) which may require specifying the origin rank, file, or both.  The latter is only needed for queens, bishops and knights, as rooks are always disambiguated by one or the other.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It might be useful to treat the suffix codes indicating whether the move results in check or checkmate as orthogonal to the move itself, since pretty much any move can theoretically have those results.  This would effectively divide the number of unique moves you need to handle by three.  Conversely, the different promotions of a pawn definitely should be considered as unique moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19281" LastEditorUserId="19281" LastEditDate="2019-10-08T04:32:13.363" LastActivityDate="2019-10-08T04:32:13.363" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26558" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26573" CreationDate="2019-10-08T08:57:37.987" Score="11" ViewCount="3795" Body="&lt;p&gt;In several openings white or black trades a bishop for a knight (Ruy Lopes exhange, Sicilian Rossomilo, Nimzo Indian etc).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have learned the bishop pair is worth a half pawn, and I have difficult to understand these trades, which to me look bad. The opponents pawn structure get worse, but is this enough compensation for the trade?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17458" LastActivityDate="2019-10-09T05:43:25.157" Title="Trade a bishop in the opening" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26559" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26558" CreationDate="2019-10-08T09:08:37.403" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Very good question! This illustrates a deeper conflict between chess &quot;principles&quot; and &quot;practice&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I have learned the bishop pair is worth a half pawn&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Very dangerous piece of advice here! That is true in certain spots, I'd say most, but definitely not all the time. Piece activity, pawn structure, king exposure and many other factors can determine whether the bishop pair is an advantage or not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, what on Earth does &quot;half a pawn&quot; even mean? It's just a heuristic used by computers. There are no half-pawns in chess!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pawn structure can definiely be a factor to consider. Indeed, knights often operate better in positions with a lot of weak squares, but let's take a look at a couple of different examples&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3.e5 c5 4.c3 Nc6 5.Nf3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this position, Black would be very happy if he could trade his light-square bishop for an opponent's knight because it is a pretty bad piece, even with no improvement in the pawn structure! Indeed, some players have even tried &lt;code&gt;3...b6&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;4...b6&lt;/code&gt; with the idea of &lt;code&gt;...Ba6&lt;/code&gt;. You can even see manoeuvres like &lt;code&gt;...Bd7-b5&lt;/code&gt; (not in the mainlines, but that's because White does not allow that to happen)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The fact that, in general, the bishop pair is an advantage is an irrelevant consideration here. Games are not won with abstractions, but with concrete moves on concrete positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 e5 6.Ndb5 d6 7.Bg5 a6 8.Na3 b5 9.Nd5 Be7 10.Bxf6!&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here White trades his bishop without any pawn structure gain, and the bishop wasn't even that bad! But the control of the d5 square is critical here, so it's definitely worth losing the bishop pair!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastEditorUserId="18809" LastEditDate="2019-10-08T09:21:20.573" LastActivityDate="2019-10-08T09:21:20.573" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26560" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26537" CreationDate="2019-10-08T09:34:48.213" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would be pretty happy with my position after &lt;code&gt;21. fxg4&lt;/code&gt;. At least, I think it's even more favourable than &lt;code&gt;21. Nxa8&lt;/code&gt;. The central pawns are just too strong and can become ddangerous if you manage to play &lt;code&gt;...e4&lt;/code&gt; (your opponent had no good way of preventing it). You will also have several plans based on pressure on &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt; and/or a kingside attack. Still, concrete analysis is required for a definite answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the practical question is, in my opinion. Was it really necessary? Would your attack be slowed down too much by just playing ``20...Rb8&lt;code&gt;? Sure, he can take your&lt;/code&gt;d7```bishop, but that's also the case in the line you played! So, the soundness of the sacrifice probably depends upon the answer to that question. In a Blitz game, I'd definitely go for it!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastActivityDate="2019-10-08T09:34:48.213" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26561" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26558" CreationDate="2019-10-08T09:40:42.837" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;In general there are two scenarios in the opening where one side might want to exchange one of their bishops for a knight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The knight controls key squares in the center which are being&#xA;contested. In the Nimzo, for instance, the knight on c3 controls e4.&#xA;White would really like to put a pawn there. Pinning and then&#xA;exchanging that knight makes the e4 pawn push far less likely. &#xA;Similarly in the Dutch black sometimes plays Bb4 to pin the knight on c3 to weaken white's control of e4 and will swap if a3 or O-O is played.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Where one side has control of most of the space on the board that normally gives them an advantage because they have more room to manoeuvre their pieces and can switch the point of attack more easily. The side with less space, conversely, often struggles. However there is balance between space and number of pieces. More space with lots of pieces confers an advantage. Reduce the number of pieces and the pawns defending that space become overextended as the few remaining pieces struggle to defend them. Similarly a cramped space with lots of pieces becomes a comfortable one when pieces are exchanged. So, again, in those positions it is often worth one side exchanging a bishop for a knight.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2019-10-08T09:40:42.837" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26562" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26554" CreationDate="2019-10-08T12:45:57.943" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, in a real game, you can often get a sense of how things are going, so there are always some &quot;hints&quot; just by looking at the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I just went up and looked at my library, and opened up a number of books. The old Dvoretsky books really do not do this much, but the &quot;School of Future Champions&quot; and &quot;School of Chess Excellence&quot; series do have many sections that just say &quot;white (or black) to play&quot;, and nothing more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other Dvoretsky books that do that significantly are &quot;Recognizing Your Opponent's Resources&quot;, which has 154 such examples. Also, &quot;Chess Lessons&quot; and &quot;Maneuvering: The Art of Piece Play&quot;. That said, all of Dvoretsky's books are quite advanced, and you need to be above 2000 OTB, preferably 2200, to really benefit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A couple of other tough books, but not as tough as Dvoretsky, are the classic &quot;The Best Move&quot; by Hort and Jansa, and &quot;Test Your Chess Skills&quot; by Sarhan Guliev and Logman Guliev. Again, both are a bit advanced, but still OK for a wider range of players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My recommendation for most players are two outstanding series of books. The Yusupov series &quot;Build up/Boost/Chess Evolution&quot;. There are 10 books in the series, and in each one, there is a lesson, and then a series of 12 test exercises for each lesson with just who is to move. The first four books are not simple, but they are accessible to players of a very wide range of OTB ratings. They get harder after that. This series is like having your own former top-10 GM as your teacher.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The other is the Jacob Aagaard series &quot;Grandmaster preparation&quot;. There are 6 in this series, and there are many problems within each book.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Start with the first four Yusupov books, and go from there, is my recommendation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S. The Yusupov books cover everything, from opening to tactics, to endgames, to positional play, as you specifically asked about.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2019-10-08T12:56:25.810" LastActivityDate="2019-10-08T12:56:25.810" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26563" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26558" CreationDate="2019-10-08T12:55:23.490" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;With each of the trades that you mentioned, it is not just a B for N. Beyond that, the side giving up the B also doubles the other side's pawns, but it is still deeper than that. In each case, the doubling also leaves one of the remaining Bs with less prospects.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, in the Nimzo, after Bb4xc3, after bc, the Bc1 is often a bit of a problem in many lines. So it is really B for N plus doubled pawns, plus I limited one of the remaining Bs. It makes up for the half a pawn (more like a 1/4 pawn according to many).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lastly, there is a practical matter that I had never really thought about until I heard Hikaru Nakamura mention it: It simply unbalances the position. Chess at the highest level is so often a draw, that unbalancing the position can be desirable, especially if you need to win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2019-10-08T13:05:05.867" LastActivityDate="2019-10-08T13:05:05.867" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26564" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26565" CreationDate="2019-10-08T19:20:26.353" Score="5" ViewCount="496" Body="&lt;p&gt;Surely it has happened, that a famous chess problem turned out to be incorrect because some move was overlooked. Maybe a chess engine found out that a classic problem was incorrect! Is there a collection of such problems? Please give an example as well, if you know any.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20272" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-08-16T22:42:14.667" LastActivityDate="2021-05-02T17:01:29.670" Title="List of famous, but incorrect, chess problems" Tags="&lt;history&gt;&lt;problems&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26565" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26564" CreationDate="2019-10-08T20:29:52.587" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can find a list of 8039 cooked, which is the official term that means incorrect, chess problems &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.yacpdb.org/#search/ODg4ODg4ODgvLy8vLy8vLy8vQ29va2VkLCAvLy8xLzEvMS8w/1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; on the site Yet Another Chess Problem Database, often shortened to YACPDB. Another option is a list of 28670 problems on the &lt;a href=&quot;https://pdb.dieschwalbe.de/search.jsp&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Die Schwalbe Chess Problem Database&lt;/a&gt; that can be found by inputting 'COOKED' into the search bar.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A famous example of an incorrect problem is this problem, which calls for White to play and checkmate Black in 8 moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;William Shinkman, St. Louis Globe-Democrat 1885, Mate In 8&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;k7/P7/P7/P7/P7/P7/P7/R3K3 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The intended solution was 1. 0-0-0!, White castling queenside, followed by 1... Kxa7 2. Rd8 Kxa6 3. Rd7 Kxa5 4. Rd6 Kxa4 5. Rd5 Kxa3 6. Rd4 Kxa2 7. Rd3 Ka1 8. Ra3#.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But as it turned out,, 1. Kd2! also checkmates on the 8th move, thereby making the problem incorrect. An example of a possible continuation is as follows: 1. Kd2 Kxa7 2. Re1 Kxa6 3. Re7 Kxa5 4. Re6 Kxa4 5. Re5 Kxa3 6. Kc3 Kxa2 7. Re1 Ka3 8. Ra1#.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On Tim Krabbe's website, there is an article entitled &lt;a href=&quot;https://timkr.home.xs4all.nl/chess2/kuwait.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&amp;quot;The Kuwait Immortal,&lt;/a&gt; that is linked in &lt;a href=&quot;https://timkr.home.xs4all.nl/chess2/diary_7.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Journal Entry #140.&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;Within, Krabbe published a correction of Shinkman's problem by Bader Al-Hajiri. The White king is now on g1, utilizing Chess960 to allow for a cook free long-range castling as the key.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Bader Al-Hajiri After William Shinkman), Tim Krabbe's Website  9/19/2007, dedicated to Tim Krabbe, Mate In 8 Under Chess 960&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;k7/P7/P7/P7/P7/P7/P7/R5K1 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-05-02T17:01:29.670" LastActivityDate="2021-05-02T17:01:29.670" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26568" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8966" CreationDate="2019-10-08T21:58:19.727" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Such a game more than likely doesn't. The game that you give is amazing enough in that 16 already exists. Without access to a database, however, I don't know for sure. Perhaps someone could try to do that, and search in one or two. But again, more than likely it doesn’t exist due to the extreme conditions and setup that a real game would have to arrive at the do it, not to mention that there are two minds involved.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just for fun, as a related note that isn't an answer, here is the fastest possible game with such a sequence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;me, chess.stackexchange.com 7/3/2020, Non-Unique Proof Game in 15.0 Moves&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e3 e6 2. Qf3 Qf6 3. Qxb7 Qxb2 4. Be2 Be7 5. Nf3 Nf6 6. O-O O-O 7. h3 h6 8. Kh2 Kh7 9. Qxa8 Qxa1 10. Qxb8 Qxb1 11. Qxc8 Qxc1 12. Qxf8 Qxf1 13. Qxe7 Qxe2 14. Qxf6 Qxf3 15. gxf3 gxf6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-05-02T16:33:15.230" LastActivityDate="2021-05-02T16:33:15.230" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26569" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26558" CreationDate="2019-10-09T00:54:31.543" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As you mentioned, White weakens Black's pawn structure in all these trades, causing the c-pawns to become doubled. The question of whether this is worth giving up a bishop for a knight is a good one, and many chess players disagree on it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically if you're the kind of player who isn't that biased towards bishops over knights, such trades could be good for you. But if you like the bishops (like Fischer), you wouldn't choose such openings. There's no objective answer whether these trades are necessarily good or bad, but it's a matter of taste. You're right to question them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-10-09T00:54:31.543" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26570" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-10-09T01:10:59.843" Score="-1" ViewCount="154" Body="&lt;p&gt;Was just thinking about this. It's easy to have two pieces checking the king via a discovered double check, but three is where it gets interesting. Finegold said in a video he was TDing for a game and a player's king was in check from five different pieces. Sounds like an exaggeration, but I'm curious what input people have.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-04T22:03:02.243" LastActivityDate="2020-04-04T22:03:02.243" Title="What are the maximum number of pieces that can be checking a king at once" Tags="&lt;theory&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ClosedDate="2019-10-09T07:56:17.523" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26571" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26570" CreationDate="2019-10-09T01:21:25.153" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you have an unlimited number of pieces to place, and ignore the mechanics needed to get them there in actual gameplay, it's easy to show you can surround a king with eight queens and eight knights for a total of sixteen checks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In actual gameplay, however, you have only fifteen non-king pieces to use, and there are serious difficulties in getting more than two pieces to an attacking position &lt;em&gt;in the same move,&lt;/em&gt; remembering that the opposing player cannot leave his king in check after his own move.  Answers to &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/18064/is-triple-check-possible&quot;&gt;this question&lt;/a&gt; even claim that triple check is impossible in standard chess, never mind quintuple.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Under standard rules, a double check can result from a move giving both a direct and a discovered check.  In the case of an en-passant capture, it is even possible to invoke a double discovered check, but the moving pawn is then not in position to give a third direct check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is also possible to consider more than two pieces to be &quot;attacking&quot; the opposing king, in the form of batteries (which would need to be set up via discovered check) or absolute pins.  However, these do not directly count as checking pieces, only as complications to the problem of getting &lt;em&gt;out&lt;/em&gt; of check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do you have a link to Ben Finegold's video?  He's a respected player, so I'm sure there's some context being missed here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19281" LastEditorUserId="19281" LastEditDate="2019-10-09T01:49:30.113" LastActivityDate="2019-10-09T01:49:30.113" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26572" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8965" CreationDate="2019-10-09T01:24:54.040" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Since a game with all 14 pieces, as kings are excluded, hanging has probably not happened yet, and will not for a long time, I will answer as best as I can. Under these circumstances, I think that the best that can be done is to locate the highest number possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The highest that I have found so far is&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;6 hanging pieces.&lt;/strong&gt; I found the full score on &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1338860&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chessgames.com.&lt;/a&gt; In the board position on move 23, Black can capture three White pieces, and likewise White can also capture three Black pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Loal W Davis-Magesh Chandran Panchanathan, HB Global Chess Challenge, Minneapolis Minnesota USA, 5/19/2005&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;[startply &amp;quot;45&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Nf6 4. Ng5 d5 5. exd5 Na5 6. Bb5+ c6 7. dxc6 bxc6 8. Be2 h6 9. Nf3 e4 10. Ne5 Bd6 11. f4 exf3 12. Nxf3 O-O 13. d4 Rb8 14. a3 Re8 15. O-O c5 16. Nc3 cxd4 17. Qxd4 Nc6 18. Qh4 Bf5 19. Bd3 Bc5+ 20. Kh1 Bxd3 21. cxd3 Qxd3 22. Bxh6 Rxb2 23. Na4 Rc2 24. Nxc5 Rxc5 25. Bg5 Ne4 26. Bf4 Rc2 27. Ng5 Nxg5 28. Qxg5 Nd4 29. Rfe1 Rce2 30. Rxe2 Qxe2 31. h3 Nc2 32. Rc1 Qe4 33. Bg3 Ne3 34. Bf2 f6 35. Qxe3 Qxe3 36. Bxe3 Rxe3 37. Ra1 a5 38. Ra2 a4 39. Kg1 Kf7 40. Kf2 Rc3 41. Rb2 Rxa3 42. Rb7+ Kg6 43. Ra7 Ra1 44. Kg3 a3 45. Kf2 Kh6 46. Ra5 g6 47. Kg3 Ra2 48. Kf3 f5 49. Ra7 Ra1 50. Kf2 f4 51. Ra8 a2 52. Ra5 f3 53. Kg3 Kg7 54. Ra6 Kf7 55. Kf2 Ke7 56. Kg3 Kd7 57. Kf2 Kc7 58. Ra3 Kb6 59. Ra8 Kc5 60. Rc8+ Kb6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, if you wish for &lt;strong&gt;&amp;quot;pure&amp;quot;&lt;/strong&gt; position with &lt;strong&gt;all pieces hanging,&lt;/strong&gt; I discovered a beauty on &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1250082&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chessgames.com.&lt;/a&gt; It holds &lt;strong&gt;yet another 6 hanging pieces&lt;/strong&gt; in the final position after the climactic &lt;em&gt;33. Be4!&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Veselin Topalov-Alexander Morozevich, NAO Masters, Cannes France, 2/22/2002&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;[startply &amp;quot;64&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Ba4 Nf6 5. O-O b5 6. Bb3 Bc5 7. a4 Rb8 8. c3 d6 9. d4 Bb6 10. axb5 axb5 11. Na3 O-O 12. Nxb5 Bg4 13. Bc2 h6 14. dxe5 Nxe5 15. Nbd4 d5 16. exd5 Qxd5 17. h3 Bh5 18. g4 Nfxg4 19. Nxe5 Nxe5 20. Qxh5 Bxd4 21. Qf5 Nf3+ 22. Kh1 Qxf5 23. Bxf5 Bf6 24. Ra7 c5 25. Be4 Ne5 26. Rd1 Nc4 27. Bb7 Bg5 28. Bxg5 hxg5 29. b3 Ne5 30. Rd5 Rfe8 31. Rxc5 Re7 32. Rb5 Nd3 33. Be4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lastly, just for giggles, the fastest way reach to such a position is a mere &lt;strong&gt;6 moves.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[title &amp;quot;me, chess.stackexchange.com 10/16/2020 Non-Unique Proof Game In 6.0&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e3 e6 2. Qh5 Qh4 3. Qxh7 Qxh2 4. Ba6 Ba3 5. Bxb7 Bxb2 6. Nc3 Nc6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On a semi-related note, the record for the longest time &lt;em&gt;a piece&lt;/em&gt; was “hanging” is &lt;strong&gt;24 moves,&lt;/strong&gt; during which the Black knight on g4 could have been captured by White's h-pawn. Tim Krabbe has it in his &lt;a href=&quot;https://timkr.home.xs4all.nl/records/records.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&amp;quot;Chess Records&amp;quot;&lt;/a&gt; of course, although the score comes from &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1092195&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chessgames.con&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Anthony Miles-Ljubomir Ljubojevic, Interpolis 10th, Tilburg Netherlands, 1986&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Nf3 c5 2. c4 g6 3. e4 Bg7 4. d4 Nc6 5. dxc5 Qa5+ 6. Nfd2 Qxc5 7. Be2 d6 8. O-O Nd4 9. Bd3 Nf6 10. Nb3 Nxb3 11. axb3 Ng4 12. h3 h5 13. Qd2 Qe5 14. f4 Qc5+ 15. Kh1 Bd7 16. Nc3 e6 17. Qe2 Bd4 18. Bd2 Qb6 19. Nd1 a6 20. Ba5 Qa7 21. Bb4 Qb6 22. Ba5 Qc6 23. Qe1 e5 24. Bb4 Qb6 25. Ba5 Qa7 26. f5 gxf5 27. exf5 Bc6 28. Be4 Kd7 29. f6 Rag8 30. Bxc6+ bxc6 31. Qe4 Qb7 32. Bc3 Ba7 33. b4 Kc8 34. c5 dxc5 35. Qf5+ Kb8 36. Bxe5+ Ka8 37. bxc5 Bxc5 38. Bg3 Ba7 39. Qd3 Ne3 40. Rf3 Rd8 41. Bd6 Nxd1 42. Qxd1 Rhg8 43. b4 Rg5 44. Rd3 c5 45. Bg3 Rgd5 46. Rxd5 Qxd5 47. Qa4 cxb4 48. Qxa6 Qb7 49. Qf1 Rd7 50. Bf2 Qc6 51. Bg1 Rb7 52. Qf2 Qd7 53. Qf3 Kb8 54. Qf4+ Ka8 55. Qe4 Kb8 56. Bxa7+ Rxa7 57. Qxb4+ Ka8 58. Qf8+ Kb7 59. Rxa7+ Kxa7 60. Qe7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-05-02T15:27:50.463" LastActivityDate="2021-05-02T15:27:50.463" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26573" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26558" CreationDate="2019-10-09T05:43:25.157" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, you should never say &quot;X is worth Y amount of pawns&quot;. You could think in terms of it being worth ABOUT that amount all things equal, but never make assumptions about exact values. The position always determines the value of the pieces. Often quoted values are only rules of thumb or guidelines. There are entire books written about how to value pieces in various positions. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Second, there is no &quot;right&quot; answer other than what happens over the board. The three openings you mentioned all score very well for the side without the 2 bishops. Some people believe the 2 bishops is worth the disadvantages. Others point out that these openings score really well for the other side. Most people, however, just copy what their favorite players do without much thought. Nobody knows which is truly better, all they can offer is their opinion. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lastly, at lower levels, (&amp;lt;2000) practical advantages mean a lot more than objective advantages.  What good is it to have the 2 bishop advantage when you aren't familiar with the all of the positional subtleties and the opponent can't calculate knight moves two moves ahead (many can't at that level)? Playing for positions you are comfortable in means a lot more than gaining miscroscopic positional advatanges, at least below master level. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2019-10-09T05:43:25.157" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26574" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26545" CreationDate="2019-10-09T06:09:59.800" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess players at the highest levels today tend to be more versatile in opening choices because of engines. If you played the same thing over and over you would slaughtered by engine analysis no matter how good you are. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Magnus plays e4 more often than any other choice but the difference is fairly small and combined plays all other openings more often. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anand plays e4 about 7x more often than d4. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Morozevich plays e4 about 2.5x more often and Topalav is fairly similar. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Throughout history I would say up until about 1920 e4 was more common with virtually every player. From 1920 to about 1950 it was fairly equal with both Capa and Alekhine playing both but slightly favoring e4. After 1950, there was a divergence and you see many strong e4 players (Fischer, Tal) and many more d4 players. In the 80s, Kasparov was the first to see the value of playing a very broad rep and played both. That has carried over to the chess we see today. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2019-10-09T06:09:59.800" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26576" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25199" CreationDate="2019-10-09T11:19:09.760" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Last night, to my surprise, my reasking of this question over on the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.matplus.net/start.php?px=1570619082&amp;amp;app=forum&amp;amp;act=posts&amp;amp;fid=gen&amp;amp;tid=2341&amp;amp;pid=18003#n18003&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Matplus.net forums&lt;/a&gt; about received an; answer. There, a user by the name of Valery Liskovets provided a link to a PDF of the original article, which has pictures of all of the pages.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is the link: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.janko.at/Retros/Articles/Plaksin-50x50-Problem-1979.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.janko.at/Retros/Articles/Plaksin-50x50-Problem-1979.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-05-02T15:19:11.477" LastActivityDate="2021-05-02T15:19:11.477" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26577" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25126" CreationDate="2019-10-09T13:06:45.773" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Overall, the game would be slower and opening attacks would be more aggressive at times.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The purpose of implementing the double-step was to speed up the game. That way, those pesky pawns wouldn't have to waste so much time, i.e. moves, moving forward to mount an attack or to develop an area of advantage/control. But with the double-step gone, we would have to revert back to the slow way of the ancients.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The double-step is often done on the c and f files to let the knights out without blocking the pawns. Now it would take more time to flesh out that plan, as it would now take two turns to let the knight out onto its most advantageous opening square.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In some semi-closed positions, the double-step is used as an immediate can opener. However, having to move the can-opener pawn two times might give the opponent just enough time to react and defeat, or at least nullify, your attack. A few more draws might result because the position stays closed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Additionally, in some games, the double-step is used to quickly advance a rook pawn, and break open the enemy's king's encampment. But with it gone, a single step must be done, thereby giving the opponent time to react. Have a look at the below position and deduce for yourself how this affects the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &amp;quot;3r1r2/1bp3k1/1p1qp2p/p2p2n1/5NQ1/PBNP2P1/1PP4P/1K2R2R w KQkq - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for no castling, it would also lead to a slower game, but at the same time lead to more aggressive opening attacks. The concept of castling, even if the move isn't allowed anymore, would still be a popular motif due to how it keeps the king safe.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Doing castling manually takes several moves, and with both players doing so, games would start to be several moves longer. Due to the slow process of doing so, an opponent may try to catch the king in the act and take him down. Kings would be in the center longer, also leading to a reason to favor, and as such an increase, in open positions. That allows for an attack to be done faster. Artificial kingside castling would increase in use due to the process taking much longer than on the queenside.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At the same time, however, with the hindrance of the double-step, such attacks may be also seen less often due to the need to spend time mobilizing pawns. The enemy might use your time to manually castle, ruining your plan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-05-02T14:24:59.287" LastActivityDate="2021-05-02T14:24:59.287" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26578" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26553" CreationDate="2019-10-09T15:03:19.893" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/thomas-maeder/popeye/releases/tag/v4.81&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;github&lt;/a&gt; page lists several help files in various languages: &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/thomas-maeder/popeye/releases/download/v4.81/py-engl.txt&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;English&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/thomas-maeder/popeye/releases/download/v4.81/py-fran.txt&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;French&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/thomas-maeder/popeye/releases/download/v4.81/py-deut.txt&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;German&lt;/a&gt;. These are text files which can be downloaded. English is clearly not Thomas Maeder's mother tongue, I'm guessing German. Perhaps the German help file is clearer than the English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as I can tell from the English file there is a long list of options you can pass to the program to define the problem you want it to solve. For en passant it defines the &quot;EnPassant&quot; option as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;EnPassant  - Must be followed by 3-4 squares which indicate the  pawn&#xA;  move just played:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;departure square   &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;avoided squares   &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;arrival square&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2019-10-09T15:03:19.893" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26579" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-10-09T15:33:01.720" Score="3" ViewCount="321" Body="&lt;p&gt;Assume such a situation: Both players (Black and White) only have two pieces, that is a King and a Pawn. They have the liberty of placing them according to their wishes on the first row of their side of board (White on row 1, Black on row 8) and then the game starts. (Yes, pawn start from the same row as kings).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which starting positions guarantee a win to one side? Which will be drawn?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My intention: I wonder if such a chess variant would make sense. Since players have the liberty of placing their king and pawn on any column they please, are there any positions that are clearly best? Or (as I'd hope for) would it reduce to rock-paper-scissors, that is regardless of which position a player starts with their chances to win/lose/draw the game depend on which position their opponent starts with? Or would all games be necessarily drawn, which would make such a variant pointless?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I guess I need a method of determining if any given position is drawn or won, or rather - general rules that govern this problem, so that I could grasp all possible positions without having to enumerate them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20281" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-10-09T19:39:05.437" LastActivityDate="2019-10-11T07:52:28.770" Title="When can king and pawn win against another king and pawn?" Tags="&lt;theory&gt;&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;kings&gt;&lt;pawn-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26581" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26553" CreationDate="2019-10-09T16:03:53.543" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Thanks, inspired by Brian's response, I have tried the following input:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;begi &#xA;prot outputp.txt &#xA;piec White Kf5 Qf8 Ph5 Black Kh7 Pg5 &#xA;stip #1&#xA;opti enpa g7g6g5S &#xA;next &#xA;piec White Kf5 Pg4 Rf6 Black Kh4 Pf4 &#xA;stip h#1&#xA;opti enpa g2g3g4&#xA;end&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which successfully gives the following outputs:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1.h5*g6 ep. #&#xA;1.f4*g3 ep. Rf6-h6 #&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I think that's it. Thanks again.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8201" LastActivityDate="2019-10-09T16:03:53.543" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26582" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26579" CreationDate="2019-10-09T16:20:19.823" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You could reference either&#xA;Encyclopedia of Chess Endings, Volume 1, Pawn Ending by Aleksandar Matanovic (Editor),&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Endgame Tablebase: &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endgame_tablebase&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endgame_tablebase&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-10-09T17:23:46.767" LastActivityDate="2019-10-09T17:23:46.767" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26583" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19641" CreationDate="2019-10-09T20:18:51.937" Score="4" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Can anyone tell me why variant chess is supposed to be bad for your&#xA;  game?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No, they can't because it's not bad for your game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I have not seen any visible problem in my games&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So where do you get the crazy idea that it is bad for your chess?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;But in my chess club we are usually discouraged from playing such&#xA;  chess&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your club is obviously very different from my club. We actually have a competition every year for a chess variant - handicap chess. Handicaps vary according to the difference in grading between the two players and vary between just the move (weaker player has white) through to queen and rook (stronger player has white but remove his queen and a1 rook).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Apart from this one variant, though, most of the players are not keen on other variants. One summer I tried to get people playing bug house. It worked for one evening and then they lost interest. Certainly no interest in a summer competition. Then I tried chess960. I managed to get 2 or 3 players to have one game and that was it. No more interest.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think the problem you will find also in your club is not that people think it is bad for your chess but that they just don't like it. The reason for that I think from my attempts to get people to play 960 is that they have invested a lot of time, in some cases decades of their life, becoming good at the regular version of chess. Playing any variant which moves too far away from that essentially means losing the benefit of all that work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2019-10-09T20:18:51.937" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26584" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13607" CreationDate="2019-10-09T21:26:53.330" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Time for an answer! :-)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Overall you played a wonderfully strong game. White played weakly, and you used that to your advantage. Very nicely done!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I plugged the game into Stockfish to see if the computer could find any moments of missed tatical shots. Here are answers to each of your four questions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) Instead of playing 4... exd5 as you did in the this game, next time you could play the Stockfish recommened 4... g6, which is slightly better, preparing to fianchetto the bishop and gain a slight lead in development&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) A missed middlegame chance:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;20&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;b4?! was in fact an inaccuracy by White! This is be because you have a battery comprised of your queen and bishop on the a1-h8 diaganol. 20... Qxa1! is in fact the best moving, giving up the queen for two rooks. Black now has a much better postion.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3)  Your move, 29... Rxe2+? misses an oppurtunity, as you suspected. There was a chance  a piece. This is because of the move 29... a4!! and White must give up a piece for Black’s passed pawn, whether or be the rook or the bishop, at some point. If 30. Bxe4, Black wins the White bishop via a discovered check from the rook. If White move their king to avoid it, 30 Kh1, 30... a5 is next. Now White’s light square bishop can’t reach it. The rook will have to capture the promoted Black piece once the pawn promotes, if not taking it earlier, as Black’s dark-squared bishop protects the promtoion sqaure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4) I think that what you consider the endgame in this game is after the rooks are excahnged, and as such I will answer this question regarding the moves that happen after 31. Kxe1.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Playing your pawns out to get a passed pawn and activating your king are good, standard practices. You played much better than White did. All in all, you played thiss endgame more strategically than White did, you did miss a few moves. Really, there were no stronger moves that White made.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After White played 35. g3?!!, aka a blunder, you were correct to play 35... Bg1.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;37&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;g4?! was another blunder. Instead of 37... fxg4?, f4! was the better move, gaining a second passed pawn.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After 43. Kc6? you should have played 43.. a4! instead, the second time this move was missed by you. After 44. Bf5 a3 45. Bb1, 45... h4! is the move to play, and soon you shall queen one of your two rook pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White’s attempt to create their own passed pawn was a natural stragety, but it was not perfect. Yours wasn’t either, but it was superior.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastActivityDate="2019-10-09T21:26:53.330" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26585" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24807" CreationDate="2019-10-09T21:41:15.303" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can find Philidor’s 1790 book &lt;a href=&quot;https://books.google.com/books/about/Analysis_of_the_Game_of_Chess.html?id=d2jnqeVdIdQC&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; in a free Google Books scanned eBook of it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-12-26T00:19:39.773" LastActivityDate="2019-12-26T00:19:39.773" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26586" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23950" CreationDate="2019-10-09T23:17:05.843" Score="0" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;From these rules I gather that if I cause a checkmate, the game ends&#xA;  before my opponent's next phase, and if I cause a stalemate, the game&#xA;  ends during my opponent's next phase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your understanding is wrong. Both checkmate and stalemate take effect immediately the move has been made. The move is made immediately the player's hand loses contact with the piece. It happens even before the player presses the clock. Hence even if the player's flag falls the checkmate or stalemate still stands.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your terminology both cause the game to end before the opponent's next phase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Also, I know I've seen the term FIDE before but I'm not sure if their&#xA;  chess laws would generally be considered a widely accepted and robust&#xA;  standard&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;FIDE is the international chess federation. It stands for &quot;Federation International des Echecs&quot; and is French for &quot;International Chess Federation&quot;. It is the chess equivalent of FIFA in the world of soccer. If you understand that the FIFA rules of soccer govern the play of soccer throughout the world then you will also understand that the FIDE Laws of Chess govern the play of chess throughout the world.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Individual chess federations (governing bodies of national chess federations) may vary some rules in special cases but when they do so the tournaments affected can not be internationally rated. They can only be nationally rated. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The most common variation that I am aware of is that for competitions for weak/young players the rule which says that two illegal moves loses the game is suspended because these players play many illegal moves without thinking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2019-10-09T23:17:05.843" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26587" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23611" CreationDate="2019-10-09T23:37:20.227" Score="0" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I mean, can you give an example of altering the pairings and it gets&#xA;  approved by FIDE? Put in another way, in what way can the arbiter&#xA;  alter the pairings without getting penalised?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;OK, this is the scenario.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You are the chief arbiter of a norm tournament. It is the last round. One of the players has norm chances, say if he/she wins his/her last game against a player with a rating above a certain rating. The default time is 30 minutes. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After 30 minutes the opponent has not turned up and is defaulted. In these circumstances you should have some spare players who act as &quot;fillers&quot;. These players do not play in the full tournament but are on standby in case something like this happens. In this case you may choose a &quot;filler&quot; who has a high enough rating for the norm to still be possible. This is a change to the original pairings and is acceptable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a side note this business of repairing in the case of a default is a tricky business. In general if you want to force the player to accept a new opponent then this must be stated in the terms and conditions for the tournament before the tournament starts. If this is not done then the player can refuse and must then be awarded the full point for the default. If it means a cash prize then obviously the player is going to take the point for a default.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2019-10-09T23:37:20.227" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26588" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26579" CreationDate="2019-10-10T02:15:02.347" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It would come down to raw calculation a lot of the time. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which pawn would queen first? Can the opponent prevent the pawn from queening? ? If so, what happens after that? Also consider square of the pawn, opposition and zugzwang. There are also positions where one side queens first but still loses (for example queening with check). Who queens first is the most important factor but, like I said, there are a lot of variables. You might also look at Reti's position which in an ingenious proof that you just have to calculate a lot of this stuff out.    &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Those elements will tell you who wins but it would be difficult to boil it down to a simple formula. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bottom line: Start with who queens first and go from there unless one side can force a zugzwang or push the opponent back with opposition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastEditorUserId="19861" LastEditDate="2019-10-10T02:20:37.473" LastActivityDate="2019-10-10T02:20:37.473" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26589" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26521" CreationDate="2019-10-10T03:40:02.947" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Soviet placed a large emphasis on chess during the cold war. It was meant to show the superiority of their far-left communist politics. They trained virtually every child in the country to play chess and selected the best to become professionals. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Relatively speaking, the soviet government probably spent more on chess than the US spends on things like medicare and social security. I don't have exact numbers in front of me but the USSR's left-wing politics made it a very poor country and their investment in chess was very large. Ultimately, this was what caused the collapse of the USSR. While they could match the US spending in certain areas they couldn't match everything at the same time. Then, when they started losing in areas where they weren't supposed to lose (moon landing, Bobby Fischer, 1980 hockey, afghanistan) the soviet people started to doubt the viability of the Soviet state and some of the smaller republics started breaking off which eventually led to the complete collapse of the USSR. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That being said, the original investment of the soviets is still paying dividends in chess. Even if the Russian government today doesn't spend the resources, the fact is many of the teachers today were brought up in that time. Many of the parents are still fairly strong and able to pass that on to their children. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2019-10-10T03:40:02.947" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26590" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26579" CreationDate="2019-10-10T04:53:08.730" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;As far as I can tell, in your proposed variant a player could always force a draw by placing the king in a reasonably centralized position, regardless of what the other side chooses. Even if he allows the opponent a seemingly superior king position, it still winds up as a draw with correct play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's say Black chooses the king on the D file and the pawn on the C file. If the pawns start on the same file, Black could allow a position like this and still get a draw:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;3k4/8/8/2pK4/2P5/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Kxc5 Kc7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With the pawns one file apart, it's a similar pattern:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;3k4/8/8/2p5/2KP4/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Kxc5 Kc7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With the pawns two files apart, Black can take the diagonal opposition:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;3k4/8/8/2p5/3KP3/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Kxc5 Ke7 Kd5 Kd7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Three or more files apart? No problem. White must abandon his pawn to eliminate Black's pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;3k4/8/8/2p1K3/5P2/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.f5 c4 2.Kd4 Ke7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And, of course, Black can and probably will get his king to a better position than that. This is just to demonstrate that even if he doesn't, he can still draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as when a king and pawn can win against a king and pawn, there's one position that comes to my mind, outside of the obvious pawn race scenarios. This position is a loss for whoever has the move - they must abandon their pawn and will be out of position to block the opponent's pawn:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/8/8/1Kp5/2Pk4/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2019-10-10T04:53:08.730" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26591" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4001" CreationDate="2019-10-10T04:53:28.723" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;First off, A fianchetto allows a lot of advantages. The bishop is moved to a position where it has a lot of control of the center and potentially a lot of mobility. The position is versatile and allows the fianchetto side to develop freely and dictate the position to some extent. If the opponent castles queenside, he is castling into a ferocious attack. If he castles kingside the opponent can decide between a kingside attack (like the KID) or play for a very strong endgame advantage in most cases.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;to answer what you said: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1)  &quot;blocked&quot; isn't the right word. &quot;Blocked&quot; means there are no legal moves. What you mean is that the knight controls the same squares. Given that the bishop is better in most cases this really isn't an argument. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) The bishop can indirectly control squares. For example, if you are black with a pawn on e5 and your opponent plays d4 the bishop is indirectly controlling d4 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) I'm not sure what you're getting at. You would have to move the g-pawn to fianchetto in the first place. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4) True, although the other bishop can often find a useful function and there are many &quot;standard openings&quot; where that bishop isn't doing much. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5) Weak squares aren't that big of a deal if you know how to defend and can arise just as frequently from non-fianchetto openings. This isn't a problem unique to fianchettoes. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All that being said, where should that bishop move to? c4/c5 is a pretty classical approach but can be countered easily. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2019-10-10T04:53:28.723" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26592" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26564" CreationDate="2019-10-10T11:08:09.190" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;'Famous'  I don't know about.  Few problems become famous in any real sense.  Problem tourney winners (which should be thoroughly tested) sometimes turn out to be cooked, but that removes their fame, and they're largely forgotten, and so no longer famous.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Rudolf Willmers won 1 pr in American Chess Association tourney 1857 (part of the 1st american congress), but one of the problems in his set was cooked&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Samuel Loyd won first prize in the Chess Monthly, 1857 tourney, but his 4# was cooked.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The 'professional's prize' in the Frere Tourney, 1859 (conducted in Frank Leslie's, but seems to have been his own private affair) was won by T. M. Brown, but three(!) of his five problems were later found to be cooked. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The most famous mess is probably that concerning J. Campbell in the 1862 tournament of the British Chess Association.  He won the best prize as well as another prize (1st? 2nd?) for best set. After the prize problems were published, the best pr. problem was found to be cooked. That made his set incomplete, and so it had to be cancelled.  Another of his problems were given the best prize, ... but it too was found to be faulty. All that after the judges report had been published, and prizes had been handed out! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, more than 150 years since then provides lots of additional opportunities for similar messes.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user18412" LastEditorDisplayName="user18412" LastEditDate="2019-10-10T11:23:48.720" LastActivityDate="2019-10-10T11:23:48.720" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26593" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26521" CreationDate="2019-10-10T13:28:54.943" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Most top participants were ex-USSR. Almost all of the World Cups were held in ex-USSR countries. And the rest is coincedence.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Especially in earlier years, most of the top participants were born in the USSR.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;E.g. in 2005, the top-25 by rating of the participants was Ivanchuk, Bacrot, Aronian, Grischuk, Gelfand, Shirov, Akopian, Radjabov, Ponomariov, Tiviakov, Sokolov, Dreev, Kamsky, Bologan, Lautier, Bruzon, Bareev, Mamedyarov, Vallejo Pons, Smirin, Harikrishna, Malakhov, Sakaev, Volokitin, Moiseenko.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Only 6 in 25 (Bacrot, Sokolov, Lautier, Bruzon, Vallejo Pons, Harikrishna) were not born in the USSR. And only 1 in the top-10! And that tournament had Kasparov, Kramnik, Anand, Topalov, Svidler and Morozevich (4 out of 6 USSR) missing because of world championship situations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In later years the number of non-USSR players grew slowly, but in 2011 the first non-USSR player on the list was #12, Zoltan Almasi.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2015 was the first year with only 4 USSR players in the top-10, but 11 in the top-20 (#11 Karjakin won).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's only in the last few years that it's a bit against the odds that a USSR player won it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are of course top non-USSR players: Carlsen, Anand and Topalov were consistently in the top most of this period. But as the World Cup was mostly a qualification event for the Candidates and they qualified otherwise (or were World Champion), they played in very few World Cups.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Apart from 2013, all World Cups were held in USSR countries&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of which three times in Khanty-Mansiysk, Siberia, sometimes in november/december. I think Russian speakers have a psychological advantage in Siberia, they feel more at home because they can at least understand the people.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Coincedence&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Taking the facts above, this is easily within the realm of coincedence. I wouldn't bet on a ex-USSR winner next time purely based on the results so far.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2019-10-10T13:28:54.943" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26594" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26579" CreationDate="2019-10-10T16:49:15.500" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Other than special cases like with a rook pawn and the defending side getting to a8 or c8, or where the pawn can just queen, there is a simple rule that applies to most positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The rule is that you need to have your king in front of the pawn, and be able to get the opposition. So if you can win the pawn, and still meet this criteria, then it is a win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2019-10-10T16:49:15.500" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26595" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26932" CreationDate="2019-10-10T18:52:30.463" Score="1" ViewCount="230" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have seen some of the games that were published in the match between AlphaZero and Stockfish.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In many games, as when it beats Stockfish as black playing the Berlin Defense, AlphaZero appears to obtain some extra advantage of preserving the pair of bishops.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there, conversely, any game where AlphaZero beats Stockfish using the power of the knight pair?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user18196" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-10-10T18:55:04.110" LastActivityDate="2020-05-31T23:50:59.823" Title="Is there any game where AlphaZero wins against Stockfish thanks to a knight pair?" Tags="&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;knights&gt;&lt;alphazero&gt;&lt;famous-games&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26596" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8799" CreationDate="2019-10-11T01:51:09.820" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you play d5 vs 1.d4 and want a positional game that is also active the French seems like the natural choice. Alekhine's defense might be another choice if avoiding theory is the main concern.It is both active and fairly positional. Simple to learn and probably playable up to GM level. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are 10 &quot;normal&quot; responses to 1.e4. 1...c5 and 1...e5 are what most people play and there is a wide variety of openings that fit what you want within both of those choices. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Next are the French and ck. I agree the ck is too passive but outside of the above two the French sounds like the best fit for you. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then you have the Pirc and Robatsch which you already said you didn't like but neither is all that passive. When I get a Pirc from the white side the game is frequently some of the most aggressive games I play (by both sides). Maybe its the lines you're choosing. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lastly, you have Nf6, Nc6, d5 and b6. All 4 are reasonable choices to avoid theory. Alekhine's is probably the most respectable of the group. 1...b6 is interesting because there is so little theory and it can be played against virtually anything but it is probably not completely sound. The other two (Nc6 and d5) are similar in a lot of ways . I would probably choose 1...Nc6 between the two. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The other choice would be be to choose more than one opening. Choose an active opening and a more positional one and then vary them depending on the opponent.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2019-10-11T01:51:09.820" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26597" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26543" CreationDate="2019-10-11T05:10:56.823" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Classical ratings aren't designed to predict blitz play in any way. Yes, they might be predictive but you are backwards inferring by association rather than using any actual proof. I would prefer actual numbers that mean something over guesses regardless of how accurate the guesses might be.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2019-10-11T05:10:56.823" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26598" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26579" CreationDate="2019-10-11T07:44:55.277" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think this is winning for white -- if pawn can still move 2 squares on move 1.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;6pk/8/8/8/8/8/8/PK6 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7002" LastEditorUserId="7002" LastEditDate="2019-10-11T07:52:28.770" LastActivityDate="2019-10-11T07:52:28.770" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26599" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26600" CreationDate="2019-10-11T11:00:25.047" Score="6" ViewCount="2845" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found myself in this position as Black. I played Kb6, but the engine on chess.com suggested that the move Kb7  is a missed win, and the continuation below would have been winning for me. It gave no lines beyond what is below, and I can't see how this is a win for Black. Is this a fault with the engine, or is there some line that I've completely missed?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Unexplained&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;2b2r2/2p5/p1kb2qp/1p1p4/3P4/7P/PP1BQPP1/RNR3K1 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1...Kb7 2.Qe3 Rg8&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In response to comments questioning if I have the position wrong or missed a root, I confirm I was a full rook down and felt this was a completely lost position. I have now included a screenshot demonstrating the strange opinion of the engine at chess.com&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I guess it's a bug with the engine then?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/2S6bU.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/2S6bU.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11943" LastEditorUserId="11943" LastEditDate="2019-10-11T12:39:07.887" LastActivityDate="2019-10-11T12:45:33.957" Title="Why is this a missed win?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26600" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26599" CreationDate="2019-10-11T11:30:12.590" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; a missed win for black, both &lt;code&gt;Kb6&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;Kb7&lt;/code&gt; are equally &lt;strong&gt;losing for black&lt;/strong&gt; as you are simply a full rook down without any real compensation. &lt;code&gt;Qe3&lt;/code&gt; move simply stops black's only way to breakthrough as it stops &lt;code&gt;Bxh3.&lt;/code&gt; That is not white's only move either, &lt;code&gt;Kh1&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;Rc3&lt;/code&gt; (though walks in the way of the knight) are sufficiently good for white too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So either: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The cloud engine didn't get to run sufficiently long and gave a wrong evaluation, or&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;you simply mis-read or mis-interpreted the evaluation of the engine, or &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;you're showing us the wrong position here.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3594" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-10-11T11:45:02.257" LastActivityDate="2019-10-11T11:45:02.257" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26601" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26599" CreationDate="2019-10-11T12:43:54.953" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, it is a bug. I just plugged that updated position into Stockfish 10 running on a quad-core 2.9 GHz laptop, and it is still over +5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2019-10-11T12:45:33.957" LastActivityDate="2019-10-11T12:45:33.957" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26604" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26638" CreationDate="2019-10-11T16:52:59.253" Score="3" ViewCount="327" Body="&lt;p&gt;Recently I played a chess game that started with the moves: 1. e4 e6 2. d4 a6 and then I played 3. c4 which according to Stockfish is inaccurate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e6 2. d4 a6 3. c4 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the reason for that? How is this situation any different in essence from the King Indian defense for instance in which White occupies the center right away with 1. d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3. Nc3 Bg7 4. e4 ... ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3. Nc3 Bg7 4. e4 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16771" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-12-14T20:57:26.253" LastActivityDate="2019-12-14T20:57:26.253" Title="Central control disliked by engine in 1.e4 e6 2.d4 a6 3.c4" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;computer-chess&gt;&lt;french-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26605" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26604" CreationDate="2019-10-11T17:03:19.350" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's not inaccurate whatsoever. 3.c4 is just as good a move as 3.Nf3, 3.Nc3, etc. In general you should take what engines say that early on with a grain of salt, unless the position is already extremely tactical. What was the evaluation drop when you played 3.c4, and what depth was Stockfish thinking at? For me, at depth 27 Stockfish 10 goes down from 0.58ish to 0.48ish, which isn't significant on move 3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-10-11T17:03:19.350" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26606" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26608" CreationDate="2019-10-11T17:18:27.220" Score="3" ViewCount="121" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why are the laws of chess still being overseen by the same political-governing body called FIDE and not by an independent autonomous body like in other major sporting codes such as football where IFAB (International Football Association Board - which is an independent body that determines the Laws of the Game of association football outside FIFA)? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19491" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-11-20T20:50:59.577" LastActivityDate="2019-11-20T20:50:59.577" Title="Should the Laws of Chess have an overseeing board independent from FIDE?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;fide&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26607" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26609" CreationDate="2019-10-11T18:20:34.940" Score="3" ViewCount="149" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would like to receive some feedback on my mistakes of the &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/B7FLCZBd/black#13%E2%80%98&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;below Lichess game&lt;/a&gt;, if possible from someone above 2000.  I an unsure about the reason of the mistakes I did in the game. When I finished the game I thought I had won quite convincingly, but apparently, I made some mistakes early in the game. I was playing with the black pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;ulimilu1997-bird67, lichess.com, 10/11/19&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Nf3 Nf6 2. Nc3 c5 3. g3 d5 4. d4 cxd4 5. Nxd4 e5 6. Nf3 Nc6 7. Bg5 e4 8. Nd4 h6 9. Bxf6 Qxf6 10. Nxc6 bxc6 11. e3 Bb4 12. Qd2 O-O 13. a3 Bxc3 14. bxc3 Qf3 15. Rg1 Rb8 16. Be2 Qf6 17. Kf1 Bh3+ 18. Ke1 Rb2 19. a4 Rfb8 20. Rc1 Rb1 21. Kd1 Qxf2 22. Qe1 Qxe3 23. Bh5 Rxc1#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mistake in 7th move:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/SQird.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/SQird.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I played 7... e4. Later, I realized that d4 was probably better but I get the feeling that after 7... d4 8. Ne4 Be7, Black has lost some initiative. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mistake in move 8:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9WGfi.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9WGfi.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I played 8.. h6 as White’s Bishop is forced to be exchanged on f6 or to retreat to a passive position. I calculated 9. Bxf6 Qxf6 10. Nxc6 bxc6 with a more or less favorable position in which the powerful center, which will be stronger after c5, is an advantage for Black. However, Stockfish evaluation drops around 1.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Blunder on move 11&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/UAWYK.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/UAWYK.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I played Bb4 threatening to win a pawn. However, it is considered a blunder. I do not understand this. I do see that 12.Qd4 forces the Queen trades, but to me, the position is not much worse for Black for it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Blunder in move 13&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/vlk05.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/vlk05.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Given that the g3 pawn of my opponent is on a dark square, I thought of trading the bishop. I now realize that maybe this bishop had some prospects on the g1-a7 diagonal, but again I am not sure why this qualifies as a grave mistake.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note: If possible, could you please also tell what move number you would stop at in order to calculate variations? I am unsure if I am doing this at all, but all my calculations take only 6 moves at best by each side. I know that in the middlegame, I should probably do some analysis of variants but in games I am not sure how deep these analysis should be.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16771" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-10-11T19:22:35.830" LastActivityDate="2019-10-12T11:02:02.383" Title="Mistakes in my game" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26608" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26606" CreationDate="2019-10-11T18:39:26.163" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm going to answer with a question. In any case this was an opinion-based question so it's not like I can give a factual answer, and this is too long to post as a comment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You make it sound as if IFAB took control of the Laws of the Game from FIFA, at least if we go by analogy with the idea of some organization taking control of the Laws of Chess from FIDE. But it turns out that IFAB is actually older than FIFA (1886 vs 1904). Maybe the case of football is just historical accident. I don't know about other sports.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question to you is: why? What problem do you think would be solved by having the Laws of Chess be controlled by some other organization? Maybe you have a solution in search of a problem. Maybe chess by being a &quot;smaller&quot; sport doesn't need another layer of bureaucracy?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12523" LastActivityDate="2019-10-11T18:39:26.163" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26609" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26607" CreationDate="2019-10-12T04:46:11.023" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here are my thoughts on that game. Sorry, after a long day, I tried to format it correctly in a board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [title &quot;Annotated game analysis&quot;]&#xA; [fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. Nf3 Nf6 2. Nc3 c5 (2... d5 {Why not take the center right away?}) 3. g3? {White does not even contest the center, and allows black to own the center for free.} d5 4. d4 cxd4 5. Nxd4 (5. Qxd4 Nc6 6. Qa4 {Was better, trying to prevent the huge center by black.}) 5... e5 6. Nf3 Nc6 7. Bg5 e4? (7... d4! 8. Bxf6 (8. Ne4 Nxe4!! {A common idea, and the main point, however, I have only ever seen white get to play it.} 9. Bxd8 Bb4+ 10. c3 dxc3 11. a3 c2+ 12. axb4 cxd1=Q+ 13. Rxd1 Nxd8-+) 8... gxf6 {and the N has no good square since Ne4 f5 is nice. Black will have the two Bs, the open g-file for the Rh8, and pressure down the c-file.}) 8. Nd4 h6? {Even if the tactics supported h6, losing the tempo is not worth it.} (8... Be7) 9. Bxf6 Qxf6 10. Nxc6?? {Horrible. This just strengthens the black center, and gives him strong b-file play soon. Also, because of Bf6 the move before, black also has the B pair.} bxc6-+ 11. e3? {Weakens the light squares, and gives black the time to win almost immediately.} (11. Bg2 {Developing, while not weakening the light squares, and it indirectly stops d4 since e4 hangs.}) 11... Bb4? (11... Rb8 {This just wins b2 while putting the Rb8 on a strong square. b2 is indefensible.} 12. Rb1 (12. Qc1 Ba3! {Although the easier-to-see Bb4 is also crushing.} 13. Nd1 Rxb2) 12... Rxb2! 13. Rxb2 Qxc3+ 14. Qd2 Qxb2-+) 12. Qd2 O-O 13. a3 Bxc3? {You have pressure, and two Bs in an open position, so giving them up so easily just to double his pawns is impatient.} (13... Bd6 {Idea Be5 and Rb8. Also white cannot develop his k-side. If Bg2, then Ba6 is annoying, or if Be2, Bh3. The weakening of 11.e3 is felt.}) 14. bxc3? (14. Qxc3 {If white is going to defend this miserable position, one of the key reasons is the strong black Q, so it makes sense to trade it off...or at least attempt to. If nothing else, after Qf3, it would be much better than the game.}) 14... Qf3 15. Rg1 Rb8 16. Be2 Qf6 17. Kf1? {One-move analysis.} Bh3+ 18. Ke1 Rb2?! {A good positional move, for sure, but it allows counterplay with g4 threatening Rg3.} (18... Qe5 {Stopping g4 due to Qh2, and centralizing the Q even move.}) 19. a4 Rfb8 20. Rc1 Rb1! {In many positions, you sometimes need to trade off your active piece, in order to be able to get at a weakness since it also removes a key defender.} 21. Kd1? Qxf2 22. Qe1 Qxe3 23. Bh5 Rxc1# 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="3594" LastEditDate="2019-10-12T11:02:02.383" LastActivityDate="2019-10-12T11:02:02.383" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26610" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26604" CreationDate="2019-10-12T07:50:03.520" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;2.c4 is generally considered the best way to take control of the center after 1.d4 Nf6, since 2.e4 is no longer possible, but after 1.e4 e6 2.d4 a6 White already has the ideal central Pawn formation e4-d4, and has no need or hurry to push another Pawn to control the d5 square with c2-c4. He can simply begin developing some pieces instead. Of course 3.c4 is no terrible mistake, but I'd go for development with either Nc3, Nf3, or Bd3, keeping an eye on the center with my pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastActivityDate="2019-10-12T07:50:03.520" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26611" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26615" CreationDate="2019-10-12T08:13:06.703" Score="13" ViewCount="2115" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why is the Sicilian line with &lt;code&gt;1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 b6&lt;/code&gt; almost never played at any level, nor considered in books and similar? It seems logical to me, and after the usual &lt;code&gt;3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Bb7&lt;/code&gt;, the Bishop is already well placed on &lt;code&gt;b7&lt;/code&gt; to control key central squares. So are there any obvious faults in this line that I am missing?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA; 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 b6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Bb7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastEditorUserId="20569" LastEditDate="2020-02-14T10:17:01.523" LastActivityDate="2020-02-14T10:17:01.523" Title="Why is 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 b6 so unpopular?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26612" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26613" CreationDate="2019-10-12T08:50:20.643" Score="22" ViewCount="3632" Body="&lt;p&gt;Did Bobby Fischer actually write his bestseller primer “Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess” (1966, 978-0553130539), or was it written by a ghost writer?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I often ask myself this question because it seems very unlikely (to me, at least) that Bobby could keep interest in writing a book in which half of the book is about one or two-move mates, in other words, very simple tactics, and the other half doesn't go much deeper than that.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/b0JrZm.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/b0JrZm.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Cover of “Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess.”&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-02T17:50:35.290" LastActivityDate="2020-03-02T18:54:17.870" Title="Did Bobby Fischer actually write &quot;Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess&quot;?" Tags="&lt;books&gt;&lt;beginner&gt;&lt;fischer&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26613" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26612" CreationDate="2019-10-12T10:39:13.950" Score="27" Body="&lt;p&gt;Basically, no.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It was co-authored by Stuart Margulies and Don Mosenfelder, and while Fischer may have contributed a little, it is generally accepted that he just lent his name to the project.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;sub&gt;Soltis, Andrew (2003). Bobby Fischer Rediscovered. B.T. Batsford Ltd. p. 10. ISBN 0-7134-8846-8.&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="18168" LastEditDate="2019-10-13T22:51:23.160" LastActivityDate="2019-10-13T22:51:23.160" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26614" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26611" CreationDate="2019-10-12T10:45:01.347" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Probably for a few reasons: First, it is too slow in a sharp opening. Second, it does nothing to develop the k-side in an opening that is renowned for many games that the black king gets caught in the center. Third, it does little to control the center, and in particular, d4. Forth, it is too early to determine if the Bc8 will go to b7 or a6, which is somewhat unusual in that opening anyway.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Overall, to me, it just feels like b6 is going to be putting at least one piece on a wrong square. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2019-10-12T10:45:01.347" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26615" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26611" CreationDate="2019-10-12T10:52:01.543" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's not that unpopular amongst off-beat lines that can emerge from the Sicilian defense, on top which it has a natural tendency to transpose to Owen defense type of positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As to why it's not as popular as Sicilian mainlines, much similar to &lt;code&gt;1.b3&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;1...b6&lt;/code&gt; openings, &lt;code&gt;1...c5 2...b6&lt;/code&gt; is not a sound starting setup strategically, for the following summarised reasons:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;From opening theory principles:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;2...b6&lt;/code&gt; does not contribute to kingside development. King safety in Sicilian structures is of paramount importance as the opening easily leads to very open play where: white's 4 minor pieces are efficiently and centrally developed, central files become semi-open, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;2...b6&lt;/code&gt; is not an effective developing move either, that is to say, it does not pose any immediate threats to white. As opposed to e.g. a &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/26359/uncovering-the-accelerated-dragon-opening/26360#26360&quot;&gt;Dragon Sicilian&lt;/a&gt; development (diagram below), where the coordination of knight on &lt;code&gt;c6&lt;/code&gt; and bishop on &lt;code&gt;g7&lt;/code&gt; come with tempo as white has a number of targets on that long diagonal and black's quickly finishing development and will be in time to either create space on the queenside or play the &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt; advance. So it being a passive non-effective developing move, it gives free vital play to white.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;It resolves the address of your king, as the early &lt;code&gt;b6-c5&lt;/code&gt; setup makes it very unlikely for black to castle queenside, and that's useful information for white! And generally, the reason why kingside fianchettos tend to be stronger and more important early on than queenside ones, is because the structure provides a good fortress for the king!&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(&lt;em&gt;Diagram for 2nd point&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [title &quot;Dragon Sicilian example&quot;]&#xA; [fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 g6 5.Nc3 Bg7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;From a Sicilian opening theory point of view&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;2...b6&lt;/code&gt; is inconsistent with what the Sicilian defense aims to achieve: The Sicilian, unlike the French defense, it is an active type of defense where black aims to claim their own share of central space control, not immediately challenging white's light square control (provided with &lt;code&gt;1.e4&lt;/code&gt;) but instead, focusing their play more on the dark squares. With this in mind, it is clear that &lt;code&gt;b6-Bb7&lt;/code&gt; are not assisting black's cause in dark square control.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;b6-c5&lt;/code&gt; setup tends to be a decent structure when the &lt;code&gt;c5&lt;/code&gt; pawn cannot easily be challenged, much like the white pawn setup in English or &lt;code&gt;1.b3&lt;/code&gt; type openings with &lt;code&gt;b3-c4-e3&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;c4-d3-g3.&lt;/code&gt; But as you yourself pointed out, &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt; advance is happening immediately for white and black's forced to capture at once as to not provide white with the complete control of the sweet centre.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;1...c5&lt;/code&gt; is already a queenside, non-central-pawn commitment, but its aim is justified as it offers to trade a non-central &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/25100/conceptually-what-makes-the-sicilian-opening-sensible-for-black/25101#25101&quot;&gt;&lt;code&gt;c&lt;/code&gt; pawn for white's important central &lt;code&gt;d2&lt;/code&gt; pawn&lt;/a&gt;. But &lt;code&gt;2...b6&lt;/code&gt; has no such immediate justification, it's a move away from the centre, and by itself does not provide control over any important squares.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The latter point is really important when dealing with Sicilian: as it stands, even in the mainlines, white always has the lead in both development and central control and black is always playing catch-up at best. So &lt;code&gt;b6&lt;/code&gt; in that sense is really putting black even further behind in development. Again as explained earlier, the light square control that &lt;code&gt;Bb7&lt;/code&gt; provides is really of minimal relevance for black at the beginning considering white's natural setup in the Sicilian. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;All the last couple of points translate into: the later your knights can be centrally developed, the later your castling is prepared, the more difficult you are going to find it to create any threats against white to balance the game. And playing a Sicilian defense, you have to be able to create threats, or at least have strong prospects in doing so. These are fundamentally different from an opening like the Caro or French. For inspiration, I highly encourage you to study the following game by Kasparov, which truly epitomises the kind of play the Sicilian opening aims to achieve. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(&lt;em&gt;note the very early pawn sacrifice to resolve the Moraczy bind, and the active piece development that follows after &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt;, gradually taking more and more options from white, no tempo is wasted on a slow non-developing move&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [title &quot;Karpov - Kasparov 1985 match game 16&quot;]&#xA; [fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 e6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nc6 5.Nb5 d6 6.c4 Nf6 7.N1c3 a6 8.Na3 d5 9.cxd5 exd5 10.exd5 Nb4 11.Be2 Bc5 12.O-O O-O 13.Bf3 Bf5 14.Bg5 Re8 15.Qd2 b5 16.Rad1 Nd3 17.Nab1 h6 18.Bh4 b4 19.Na4 Bd6 20.Bg3 Rc8 21.b3 g5 22.Bxd6 Qxd6 23.g3 Nd7 24.Bg2 Qf6 25.a3 a5 26.axb4 axb4 27.Qa2 Bg6 28.d6 g4 29.Qd2 Kg7 30.f3 Qxd6 31.fxg4 Qd4+ 32.Kh1 Nf6 33.Rf4 Ne4 34.Qxd3 Nf2+ 35.Rxf2 Bxd3 36.Rfd2 Qe3 37.Rxd3 Rc1 38.Nb2 Qf2 39.Nd2 Rxd1+ 40.Nxd1 Re1+ 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Last but not least, here's one possible continuation for &lt;code&gt;c5-b6&lt;/code&gt; which is cherry-picked to emphasise how quickly it can go wrong for black as they are behind in every aspect of development:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[title &quot;Concrete example&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 b6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Bb7 5. Nc3 Nf6 6. e5 Nd5 7. Nxd5 Bxd5 8. Nb5 Bb7 9. Bg5 Qc8 (9...h6 10. Nd6+) (9...d6 10. Nxd6+) 10. Qe2 e6 11.O-O-O&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3594" LastEditorUserId="3594" LastEditDate="2019-10-12T11:16:23.840" LastActivityDate="2019-10-12T11:16:23.840" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26616" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-10-12T12:16:52.687" Score="2" ViewCount="309" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am using Anki to study chess. I use Chesstempo's viewer. My question is: How can I make arrows and squares with color on the board?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20303" LastEditorUserId="2470" LastEditDate="2019-10-12T20:57:28.790" LastActivityDate="2019-10-14T12:24:19.223" Title="How do I make arrows and colored squares using Chesstempo's viewer?" Tags="&lt;software&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26617" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26616" CreationDate="2019-10-12T12:24:19.853" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I do not think that it is currently possible. Here is a list of features, and while a couple are close, that looks like a future enhancement. Here is a &lt;a href=&quot;https://chesstempo.com/pgn-viewer.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;link&lt;/a&gt; to the original source.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Features in current version&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Multiple games per PGN file&#xA;Multiple boards per page&#xA;PGN comments/annotations&#xA;Recursive Annotation Variations (i.e. alternative lines)&#xA;FEN tag supported for arbitrary starting positions&#xA;Support for subset of Numerical Annotation Glyphs (NAGs, e.g. ? !?)&#xA;Multiple board size and piece styles&#xA;Option for automatically playing through all game moves&#xA;Alternative move display formats&#xA;CSS controlled layout&#xA;Animated piece moves&#xA;Optional Row and column labels&#xA;Drag and drop piece moves (to make next move in game)&#xA;**Optional Highlighting of from/to squares&#xA;Optional Highlighting of valid squares when dragging pieces**&#xA;Display of taken pieces&#xA;Read moves from PGN file on server or embed PGN directly into webpage&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Features to be added in future versions&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Crosstable support&#xA;**Visual hints such as move direction arrows etc**&#xA;Record moves mode with PGN output&#xA;Allow embedded board snapshots in move display&#xA;Configurable Board flipping (current version auto-flips if first mover is black).&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2019-10-12T12:24:19.853" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26618" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19737" CreationDate="2019-10-12T15:37:54.787" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The longest, &lt;strong&gt;trivial&lt;/strong&gt; (trivial in terms of this question that is) known forced wins where White has just a knight or a bishop are 48 moves and 38 moves,  respectively. These records can be seen in Grigory Popov’s Russain &lt;a href=&quot;http://superproblem.ru/archive/S_record-N.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&amp;quot;Chess Book Of Records&amp;quot;&lt;/a&gt; on superproblem.ru.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Patrick O’Shea, The Problemist 1989, 1st Prize, Mate In 48&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;8/p2N4/p7/p7/p7/K5pp/1p3npk/6bn w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Ne5 b1=N+ 2. Ka2 Nd2 3. Ka1 Nb3+ 4. Kb1 Nd2+ 5. Ka2 a3 6. Ka1 Nb3+ 7. Kb1 a2+ 8. Kxa2 Nd2 9. Ka1 Nb3+ 10. Kb1 Nd2+ 11. Ka2 a4 12. Ka1 Nb3+ 13. Kb1 Nd2+ 14. Ka2 a3 15. Ka1 Nb3+ 16. Kb1 a2+ 17. Kxa2 Nd2 18. Ka1 Nb3+ 19. Kb1 Nd2+ 20. Ka2 a5 21. Ka1 Nb3+ 22. Kb1 Nd2+ 23. Ka2 a4 24. Ka1 Nb3+ 25. Kb1 Nd2+ 26. Ka2 a3 27. Ka1 Nb3+ 28. Kb1 a2+ 29. Kxa2 Nd2 30. Ka1 Nb3+ 31. Kb1 Nd2+ 32. Ka2 a6 33. Ka1 Nb3+ 34. Kb1 Nd2+ 35. Ka2 a5 36. Ka1 Nb3+ 37. Kb1 Nd2+ 38. Ka2 a4 39. Ka1 Nb3+ 40. Kb1 Nd2+ 41. Ka2 a3 42. Ka1 Nb3+ 43. Kb1 a2+ 44. Kxa2 Nd2 45. Ka1 Nb3+ 46. Kb1 Nd2+ 47. Ka2 Nb1 48. Nf3#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;ChristopherJeremy Morse, The Problemist 1978, Mate In 38&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;8/2p2p2/5p2/1B3p2/5p2/p2n4/kp1K1p2/b4r2 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Bc4+ Kb1 2. Bxd3+ Ka2 3. Bc4+ Kb1 4. Bxf1 Ka2 5. Bc4+ Kb1 6. Kd1 f3 7. Kd2 f4 8. Kd1 f5 9. Kd2 f6 10. Kd1 c6 11. Kd2 c5 12. Kd1 f1=Q+ 13. Bxf1 Ka2 14. Bc4+ Kb1 15. Kd2 f2 16. Kd1 f3 17. Kd2 f4 18. Kd1 f5 19. Kd2 f1=Q 20. Bxf1 Ka2 21. Bc4+ Kb1 22. Kd1 f2 23. Kd2 f3 24. Kd1 f4 25. Kd2 f1=Q 26. Bxf1 Ka2 27. Bc4+ Kb1 28. Kd1 f2 29. Kd2 f3 30. Kd1 f1=Q+ 31. Bxf1 Ka2 32. Bc4+ Kb1 33. Kd2 f2 34. Kd1 f1=Q+ 35. Bxf1 Ka2 36. Bc4+ Kb1 37. Kd2 a2 38. Bd3#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-05-02T21:20:39.287" LastActivityDate="2021-05-02T21:20:39.287" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26619" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26624" CreationDate="2019-10-13T03:54:42.210" Score="9" ViewCount="11849" Body="&lt;p&gt;I came across the following game and was surprised to find that it was played between players with 2200+ ratings:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/8AAmx.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/8AAmx.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How do players of level 2200+ lack the very basics of opening principles to play a game like that? In general, how to beat a professional player with only a few moves in a well-prepared opening?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16626" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2019-10-16T03:14:54.980" Title="Is this really played by 2200+ players?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;blunder&gt;&lt;kings-gambit&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26620" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26619" CreationDate="2019-10-13T05:47:14.407" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Anyone can make a mistake. Masters don't make many that are this bad this early in the game, but it does happen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't agree with your statement that this game demonstrates that White &quot;lack[s] the very basics of opening principles&quot;. He traded a wing pawn for a center pawn, which is very much in line with opening principles. It's just that the move loses tactically to Qh4+. g3 doesn't work like it would after 1.e4 e5 2.f4 Qh4 because the f-pawn is no longer on f4 to block the queen from going from h4 to e4. It's a blunder, but it's not really a violation of basic opening principles. (And if you say that it's a violation of opening principles simply to make a third pawn move without moving a piece, then I'll point out that 3.exd5, which also moves a pawn again, is the most common and highest scoring move from that position.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The game is 45 years old between two players who weren't GM or IM level, and I doubt anyone really knows the details at this point. Yes, you would &lt;em&gt;think&lt;/em&gt; that a master playing the King's Gambit would know the Falkbeer well enough to avoid that mistake. But 2200-level players are generally not professionals. The explanation is likely that he simply misremembered which pawn to take. Perhaps he expected some other line, or even some other opening altogether (maybe his opponent usually played the Sicilian, for example.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2019-10-13T05:47:14.407" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26621" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-10-13T06:38:12.813" Score="1" ViewCount="138" Body="&lt;p&gt;I played this game and was wondering, is this a checkmate pattern with a name?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/VDxm7m.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/VDxm7m.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16064" LastEditorUserId="3594" LastEditDate="2019-10-14T09:42:55.483" LastActivityDate="2019-10-14T09:42:55.483" Title="What kind of checkmate pattern is this?" Tags="&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;patterns&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26622" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26621" CreationDate="2019-10-13T09:33:53.237" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, it does not have a name. For a list of the names of most common patterns, Wikipedia has a good article &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Checkmate_pattern#Epaulette_mate&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2019-10-13T09:33:53.237" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26623" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26636" CreationDate="2019-10-13T10:06:03.207" Score="6" ViewCount="2316" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why isn't 1.d4 Nf6 2.d5 a good move? It gains space in the center. As beginners we are told that after 1.d4, 1...d5 directly opposes White's ambitions in the center, stopping d4-d5 (similarly, in some way, to 1.e4 1...e5) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastEditorUserId="3594" LastEditDate="2019-10-14T17:20:00.427" LastActivityDate="2019-10-22T00:30:02.913" Title="Why not 1.d4 Nf6 2.d5?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;pawn-structure&gt;&lt;1.d4&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26624" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26619" CreationDate="2019-10-13T10:08:40.027" Score="24" Body="&lt;p&gt;In short, after some investigation, I do not believe that white was a 2200 player is the real answer. First, I found it odd that it says he was exactly 2200. This is the only tournament I can find that he ever played, and it was an Olympiad, which had to be FIDE rated. He was also from Brazil, which was not a strong chess region in the world at that time. It was also at a time that FIDE ratings started at 2200. I strongly suspect that it was used simply because the tournament director had to use it for rating purposes only, and there was no other rating he could use.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That final position has been reached in my database 9 times. The losing move, 3.fe has been played a whopping 37 times, once by a 2149, but mostly by players 1900 and below. These statistics tend to bolster the idea that he was just a weak player, and that was not his real rating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That is my real answer, but I have other thoughts on the matter if we were to assume that there are Masters, who have lost easily.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I started playing just a few years after that game, and it starts with the fact that it was a VERY different time. There were only books back then to study from, and not everyone had access to a decent library...in third-world countries, especially. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a Master, who has never relied on opening theory myself, rather just using an understanding of opening pawns structures, I can tell you that it is easy to find yourself in a position that is very unfamiliar to you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also agree with DM that 2200 is hardly a professional....even 2400 is not in most cases, but they may earn a living teaching.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lastly, another problem is that that early in the game, your sense of danger is not as keen. I once played a 2015 player in a team match. Here was that game. I have won a good number of tournament games in under 10 moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [Title &quot;Godin-Cotreau Team Tournament, 1988&quot;]&#xA;    [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. f4 d5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. e3 c5 4. Bb5+ Nbd7 5. Ne5 $2 a6 6. Nxd7 axb5 $1 7. Nxf8 $4 Bg4 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2019-10-13T10:08:40.027" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26625" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26623" CreationDate="2019-10-13T10:23:32.910" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this case, because you probably cannot maintain it, and it will become weak. The principles of not making too many pawn moves, and developing your k-side and pieces quickly take precedence. It may also be too early to determine that d5 will be the most useful move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;   [Title &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. d4 Nf6 2. d5 e6 3. c4 (3. Nc3 Bb4 4. dxe6 fxe6) exd5 4. cxd5 Bb4+ 5. Nc3 (5. Bd2? Nxd5) 5... O-O {Black is already slightly ahead in development} 6. Nf3 d6 {White has had to artificially isolate the d-pawn, and it is weak. He also still had to develop the k-side, and could easily come under attack.}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S. To answer Trolly's question below: While the position is only slightly better for black, and hardly lost, his evaluation of the position is not really correct for several reasons. First, black is ahead in development right now, and white is surely going to need to make some concessions in order to finish developing in that position. Second, being ahead in development, there is little chance that white will be able to exploit any current weaknesses black may have anytime soon...you have to be able to get at a weakness to be able to attack it. If white does castle king-side, then the open rook-file is actually useful for black. Lastly, and this is very important, black may play d5 next move, and all of a sudden, d4 is a threat depending on what white's next move is. He may also get a big center after d5 with a subsequent e5. How exactly do you propose to castle queen-side with both Q and B wanting the d2 square? (give a sample line) because I really do not see it happening as easily as you think, and black may just throw in Bc3 if you have to capture with the b-pawn, and to prevent that is going to make white develop unnaturally.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2019-10-14T12:57:45.360" LastActivityDate="2019-10-14T12:57:45.360" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26626" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8317" CreationDate="2019-10-13T11:44:48.150" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;How about a solution that doesn't involve deviating from rules of chess?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You could simply say that putting your king in check or moving it into check is an illegal move, and that 2nd illegal move loses the game (or 1st or 3rd illegal depending on how liberal or strict you want to be). This is actually used in tournaments.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for motivation for the checkmate rule, you could say you win only by making the opposing king surrender, but not by killing him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(sidenote: &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;satranj&lt;/a&gt; the precursor chess, had variant were the win was by capturing opponent's king. In all variations of early satranj, capturing all other pieces or stalemate were ways to win)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14678" LastActivityDate="2019-10-13T11:44:48.150" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26627" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26623" CreationDate="2019-10-13T22:14:12.497" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;That's the Indian Game: Pawn Push Variation. It's not super common but it's fine. Most common defense (per chess.com opening explorer) is 2. ... c5 and a transposition to the Benoni.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your preparation should include some lines that are not at all common but have served black well in the chess.com database:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;... e5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;... c6.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you're looking to get off the beaten path this is a pretty good route with some potential. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My view is that if you're not playing at master level all you're looking for is a playable opening position where you don't get crushed by someone else's preparation. That's slightly exaggerated but not much!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13154" LastActivityDate="2019-10-13T22:14:12.497" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26628" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26623" CreationDate="2019-10-14T00:16:31.987" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't remember where I read it, but this piece of general principle applies: &lt;strong&gt;In the opening, gaining space is great, but the priority is to develop your pieces&lt;/strong&gt;. 2. d5 does indeed gain space, but it does nothing for development (White's pieces still have the same lines available to them). Furthermore, 2. d5 actually strains White's position because the d5-pawn is now under attack from the knight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Consider the position after 2...e6. Black has developed two pieces (pawn &amp;amp; knight), while White only has one. So Black is ahead in development. If White captures on e6 now, after 3...fxe6, Black would still have two pieces developed, while White has zero. But if White doesn't capture on e6, how to defend the pawn? White obviously can't play e4 because of ...Nxe4, and Black threatens ...Bb4 against both Nc3 and c4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In short, 2. d5 marks out space, but it overextends White's position. White simply isn't ready to defend such an advanced outpost. Develop pieces first, and then only think about marching up the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastActivityDate="2019-10-14T00:16:31.987" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26630" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26623" CreationDate="2019-10-14T02:53:02.807" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The drawback of 2. d5 is that it moves a pawn twice before other pawns and pieces have moved. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As Black, I would counter with 2... c6, attacking the d5 pawn a second time (1... Nf6 already attacked it once). If White exchanges, 3. d5xc6  Nxc6, White has lost a lot of time moving the pawn a third time, and allowing Black to develop both knights. If White tries to defend the pawn with say, c4, it remains under heavy attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastActivityDate="2019-10-14T02:53:02.807" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26631" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26619" CreationDate="2019-10-14T03:08:02.787" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This sometimes comes from playing unfamiliar openings. 2. f4 (King's gambit) is nowadays such; it was played much more commonly 100 years or more ago. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It has a hidden &quot;flaw&quot; for White, the ability of Black's queen to check at h4. White must keep the pawn on f4 to protect the pawn e4 from this threat. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The mistake can come from lack of experience. A century ago, &quot;good&quot; players would not make this mistake, nowadays, it's possible that a good player might. It's also possible that the 2200 rating was rounded &quot;up&quot; to the minimum rating for the tournament. But the fact of the matter is that the King's gambit was tricky for both sides when it was played around the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. Some of the best players in the world were caught in various traps, although slightly less obvious ones.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17" LastEditorUserId="17" LastEditDate="2019-10-16T03:14:54.980" LastActivityDate="2019-10-16T03:14:54.980" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26632" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26635" CreationDate="2019-10-14T03:32:26.110" Score="1" ViewCount="666" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am developing a program that analyzes games sequentially, i.e. one game after another.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Below are the parameters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Engine: Stockfish 10&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Threads: 2&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hash Table: 4000&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Depth: 30&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is about when to use the command: &quot;setoption name Clear Hash.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Should it be used after each position is analysed? This means that each position would have a &quot;fresh&quot; hash at the beginning of the analysis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or should it be used after each game is analysed? What are the differences?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20311" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-10-14T04:43:44.033" LastActivityDate="2021-05-27T05:55:08.373" Title="When to use Clear Hash" Tags="&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;programming&gt;&lt;computer-chess&gt;&lt;uci&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26633" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16918" CreationDate="2019-10-14T05:01:36.803" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;This question can be answered from the angle of computer chess as well, when it might actually be more illustrative. The shortest decisive game ever played in the unofficial World Computer Chess Championship is &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.tcec-chess.com/archive.html?season=15&amp;amp;div=3&amp;amp;game=45&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this 20-move victory by Arasan over AllieStein&lt;/a&gt;. Computers report their depths, e.g. on move 16 AllieStein had a depth/selective depth of 38/54 - indicating it was searching 19+ moves ahead - and yet it was mated four moves later. Why?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The answer is simple: pruning. Some lines a computer (and a human) simply doesn't consider very seriously. For example, take this line:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;   [Title &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. e4 d6 2. Qg4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Everyone, including complete beginners, should be able to calculate this far, and yet nobody analyzes the position after 2...Bxg4 for obvious reasons. White is completely lost. Accordingly, we &quot;prune&quot; - we don't consider the lines that arise after this position. If we are White we don't do it because we're not crazy, and if we are Black we don't do it because we assume White isn't crazy (i.e. we only start analyzing it &lt;em&gt;after&lt;/em&gt; they play it). Pruning lets us focus our attention on the main moves in the position and analyze those to greater depths.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However sometimes this kind of pruning can miss the key move. Perhaps White isn't actually giving up a queen for free, and there is some deep tactical motif that compensates. We would never find out, because we pruned the move; but perhaps the opponent didn't prune the move, found it was sound, and played it. In that case we can easily lose. Take a look at the position in the Arasan vs. AllieStein game, after 17...Rfb8. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;1r4k1/p1p1qp2/Q1p2p1p/3P4/8/2N1bP2/PrP3PP/K2R1B1R w - - 1 18&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;AllieStein projected this principal variation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol start=&quot;18&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Bd3 Qc5 19. Qxc6 Qa3 20. Qxf6 Bg5 21. Qd4 Be3 22. Qf6 Bg5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Evaluating it as -2.69. Meanwhile Arasan, when it played 17...Rfb8, projected this principal variation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol start=&quot;17&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;.. Rfb8 18. Qa5 Qe5 19. f4 Qxf4 20. d6 Bd4 21. dxc7 Rxc2 22. Bb5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When AllieStein played 18. Bd3, Arasan's eval shot up. This indicates it had pruned 18.Bd3 as inferior. Its reply, 18...Qb4, was not the move AllieStein predicted, indicating AllieStein had pruned 18...Qb4 as inferior. But after Arasan played 18...Qb4, AllieStein realized it had blundered, and was mated a few moves later.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Something similar to this happens all the time for humans as well. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Technical note:&lt;/strong&gt; AllieStein is actually a MCTS-based engine, for which the word &quot;pruning&quot; does not apply very well. However, the gist of it remains: AllieStein simply didn't see (or didn't ascribe enough importance to) 18...Qb4, which is why it got mated in spite of searching 38/54 ply ahead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastEditorUserId="15223" LastEditDate="2019-10-31T03:47:29.487" LastActivityDate="2019-10-31T03:47:29.487" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26634" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26619" CreationDate="2019-10-14T07:00:24.143" Score="17" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;White (Rigaud) did not have a Fide rating.&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Until 1981, the Fide rating floor was 2200, which means that any rated player had at least 2205 and that non-rated players taking part in a Fide-rated event were given a provisionnal rating of 2200. This is the case of Rigaud in Nice 1974.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In other words, 2200 only means that the player was unrated. This was pretty common in the Olympiads, especially as very few players (~1000 worldwide) had a rating in 1974.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus Rigaud real level might be anywhere between nowadays-equivalent 1000 Elo and candidate-master level. In case he was a strong amateur, his horrendous third move might be due to mechanical play in opening, fingerfehler (fxe5 instead of exd5), touch-move rule or whatever. In any case, not a great day for him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastActivityDate="2019-10-14T07:00:24.143" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26635" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26632" CreationDate="2019-10-14T08:07:45.080" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;If your goal is to get the highest quality of analysis, then the short answer is &quot;never&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason is that if you analyze similar positions within a game, then the existing hash table entries can still be valuable for move ordering and evaluation, because the same positions might be encountered somewhere in the search tree again.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you switch to a new game, then the hash should be cleared, but in that case Stockfish already does it implicitly when it receives the &lt;code&gt;ucinewgame&lt;/code&gt; command. In fact, in Stockfish &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/blob/80d59eea392fc073f6d0ba29cb9a97e3d705ee58/src/uci.cpp#L229&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;code&gt;ucinewgame&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/a&gt; does exactly the same as &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/blob/80d59eea392fc073f6d0ba29cb9a97e3d705ee58/src/ucioption.cpp#L40&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;code&gt;setoption name Clear Hash&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15415" LastActivityDate="2019-10-14T08:07:45.080" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26636" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26623" CreationDate="2019-10-14T08:45:43.740" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;It shouldn't be so much a question of why, but rather &lt;em&gt;how to&lt;/em&gt; approach understanding a move like &lt;code&gt;2.d5.&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Otherwise one can endlessly ask questions of this nature and you cannot realistically be expected to learn every single of them independently. So shift your focus onto learning to adopt the strategic mindset and how to reason about opening theory. This will be vital to your improvement in chess understanding.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No matter what your level may be, simply try to apply your chess theory knowledge and assess the benefits and concessions of a certain move, so go back to the basics of chess and opening theory and simply ask yourself questions about the position in terms of (&lt;em&gt;list not exhaustive and the order doesn't imply importance&lt;/em&gt;):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Time&lt;/strong&gt;: how many tempi are you behind/ahead w.r.t to your opponent, for instance by comparing the number of developed pieces.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Space&lt;/strong&gt;: how much territory you control, in particular, in the center and the sweet centre (&lt;code&gt;e4-d4-e5-d5&lt;/code&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Material count&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;King safety&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Pawn structure&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now for your example, the 1st, 2nd and last points are sufficient (but all 3 needed) to explain why a move such as &lt;code&gt;2.d5&lt;/code&gt; is a poor commitment strategically. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Now before you read further, please bear in mind that strategy in chess is never so black and white: opening theory is a battle of ideas between the two players, and focusing on one as aspect alone (e.g. time) is almost always wrong, the trick is in the balance of them and in realising which aspect ought to be more priotorised in a given position. Therefore, inherently asking questions of the nature &quot;why is x or y bad or not played?&quot; is somewhat the wrong way of going about chess understanding, instead formulate your questions into &quot;how do I gain more space? how do I secure a better post for my knight? what would happen if I played x here? what do I gain what do I give up? etc.&quot; What and how questions in general (not just in chess) can be more concretely handled. For these questions (such as this post), try to get to an answer on your own, even if you get to the wrong conclusion, you'll still have learnt more than by just getting the digested answer somewhere or by someone else.&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Time&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You've spent 2 moves on the same pawn in a row, overly advancing it when black hasn't even committed to any pawn moves. So not only they will have equalized tempo wise, but you have now gifted them a target on &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt;, which they will exploit by developing with threats against the pawn. In other words, as user &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/26625/3594&quot;&gt;PhishMaster&lt;/a&gt; has concisely said it, black now leads the game, as they have the ability to create threats.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Space&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The reason &lt;code&gt;e4,d4&lt;/code&gt; setups are desired, specially when they can be both achieved, is due to the control they provide over the sweet centre, namely &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;e5.&lt;/code&gt; The 4 squares of the sweet centre are the most important squares on the board as essentially: they maximise your options of rerouting pieces between the two flanks, from the centre an attack on either flank can be backed, and pieces have a higher relative value when centralised: since not only they have the max number of moves but they secure space both in your camp and in your opponent's. By playing &lt;code&gt;2.d5&lt;/code&gt; you are giving up control of the sweet centre, and are now controlling secondary central squares &lt;code&gt;c6-e6.&lt;/code&gt; Below, the green square shows the centre, and in red the sweet centre.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/VdBwem.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/VdBwem.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Pawn Structure&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;There are various ways one can define a weak pawn, one of them is: if the pawn &lt;strong&gt;cannot move&lt;/strong&gt;, is &lt;strong&gt;isolated&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;can be attacked&lt;/strong&gt;. When you advance all the way to &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt;, black's plan becomes resolved and will be to achieve those 3 and simply render your pawn weak, and you'll either have to trade it (so all tempi is wasted) for a non-central pawn, or lose it. As to how it could become isolated, this is typically achieved by &lt;em&gt;undermining the back-chain defense&lt;/em&gt; of the pawn, see e.g. how black approaches French structures, or the Benko gambit (see diagrams below). To read more on why often times overly advanced pawns are more prone to becoming weak, have a look at the discussions &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/23687/3594&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; which are quite relevant.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Diagrams&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Attacking and undermining a fixed pawn chain (&lt;strong&gt;left:&lt;/strong&gt; French defense, &lt;strong&gt;right:&lt;/strong&gt; Benko gambit):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/HkJkKm.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/HkJkKm.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/2tomHm.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/2tomHm.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Two diagrams for two mainlines that can transpire after your &lt;code&gt;2.d5&lt;/code&gt; idea, showing how easily that advanced &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt; pawn can become a weakness (&lt;strong&gt;left:&lt;/strong&gt; end-position of &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/26625/3594&quot;&gt;PhishMaster's suggested line&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;right:&lt;/strong&gt; an alternative approach):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/NTa9zm.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/NTa9zm.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/aqugSm.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/aqugSm.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3594" LastActivityDate="2019-10-14T08:45:43.740" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26637" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26616" CreationDate="2019-10-14T12:24:19.223" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This chess diagram generator &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.apronus.com/chess/diagram/editor/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.apronus.com/chess/diagram/editor/&lt;/a&gt; allows you to create diagrams with colored arrows and colored selected squares. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/mDVEy.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/mDVEy.png&quot; alt=&quot;sample chess diagram with colored arrows and squares&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3456" LastActivityDate="2019-10-14T12:24:19.223" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26638" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26604" CreationDate="2019-10-14T14:48:39.593" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;When comparing two lines with the help of the engine, it often helps to play around with the moves by switching them between different lines and analyze the difference. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Compare for example&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1. e4 e6 2. d4 a6 3. c4 d5 4. Nc3&lt;/strong&gt; (borrowing Stockfish's preferred third move) &lt;strong&gt;dxe4 5. Nxe4&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e6 2. d4 a6 3. c4 d5 4. Nc3 (4. exd5) dxe4 5. Nxe4 Bb4+ 6. Nc3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1. e4 e6 2. d4 a6 3. Nc3 d5&lt;/strong&gt; (borrowing Stockfish's preferred answer from the &quot;worse&quot; line) &lt;strong&gt;4. Nf3 dxe4 5. Nxe4&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e6 2. d4 a6 3. Nc3 d5 4. Nf3 dxe4 5. Nxe4 Bb4+ 6. c3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the first line, &lt;strong&gt;5...Bb4+&lt;/strong&gt; is nasty, White is basically forced to block that check by &lt;strong&gt;6. Nc3&lt;/strong&gt; (d4 is undefended after &lt;strong&gt;6. Bd2&lt;/strong&gt; and the c-pawn is obviously missing, too).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the second line, &lt;strong&gt;6. c3&lt;/strong&gt; is an easy answer to &lt;strong&gt;5...Bb4+&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Conclusion: Playing &lt;strong&gt;c4&lt;/strong&gt; first makes playing &lt;strong&gt;Nc3&lt;/strong&gt; more tricky. In fact, Stockfish instead suggests &lt;strong&gt;4. exd5&lt;/strong&gt; as the best continuation in the first line. But does White really &lt;em&gt;want&lt;/em&gt; to capture right away (instead of developing the other knight like in the fourth move of the second line - never mind that he still has not developed the first one)? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13433" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-12-14T20:55:32.110" LastActivityDate="2019-12-14T20:55:32.110" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26639" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26623" CreationDate="2019-10-14T17:44:48.243" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, the move gains space but willingly weakens control over key dark squares (c5 and e5). Black may continue:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2...e6 3.c4 Bc5, with no problems whatsoever. Black has developed two pieces and White's spent three tempi just to set up a pawn on d5 (which would arguably be better back on d4).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-10-14T17:44:48.243" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26640" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19503" CreationDate="2019-10-15T03:59:45.383" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think we can at least set a maximum for the number of knights needed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First off, the special cases. Checkmate is impossible on a 3x3 (or smaller) board. The knights cannot control the middle square and can thus never give checkmate. On a 4x4 board, the board is so small that if there are 4 knights and the king starts in the middle, the king is next to one of the knights and may be able to take it immediately and fork the remaining 3 for an easy draw, or if you move the king to the corner so it doesn't start in check, it starts the game immediately stalemated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the following diagram, the black pawns represent squares that the king cannot cross:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;3k4/8/8/ppp2ppp/2pppp2/NN4NN/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you imagine that pattern continuing, each pair of knights is controlling 6 files.  So, to make a wall covering the entire board, you would need 2 knights for every 6 files. An additional 2 knights could ensure that the wall can slowly advance with no gaps. The wall can continue to advance until the opposing king is pinned to the back rank, and after that checkmate should be easy. So, on an NxN board of size at least 5, a maximum of &lt;code&gt;ceiling(N/6) * 2 + 2&lt;/code&gt; knights should be enough to checkmate. On a 300x300 board, which contains 90,000 squares, 102 knights would therefore be sufficient. (This implies a maximum of 6 knights needed on a regulation 8x8 board, which I'm pretty sure is more than what is actually needed - 4 seems like it would be enough.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are probably better methods which could reduce this number, but I give it as a starting point.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Are they fast enough to surround opponent's king in very limited &lt;strong&gt;constant&lt;/strong&gt; count for various finite board sizes&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It could never be constant (and that part won't change even if the side with the knights also has a king.) After all, only 2 knights (or a king) can chase the king, and 2 knights (or a king... or even 2 knights &lt;em&gt;and&lt;/em&gt; a king) cannot force checkmate, so at the very least the opposing king could run until it hit the edge of the board, and the amount of moves that takes is a function of the board size. Therefore, no checkmating method could be faster than O(N). The method I give of advancing a wall seems to be O(N^2) since the wall has further to go and takes longer to advance the bigger the board is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2019-10-15T03:59:45.383" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26641" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26604" CreationDate="2019-10-15T06:18:01.257" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, I would not trust the engine in a position where not that much is happening. It has no clue what it's talking about. If you are going to trust it anyway, at least try to see what the answer to your &quot;inaccurate move&quot; is suggested to be.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I think it's kind of right in this case: &lt;strong&gt;3.c4&lt;/strong&gt; appears to fight for the center, but I'd say it makes your fight for the center more difficult. Compare for instance &lt;strong&gt;3.Nf3 d5?! 4. e5!&lt;/strong&gt; with the lines given by Annatar, where it's not a good idea for White to play e5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White could here take a chance to develop its pieces, probably with &lt;strong&gt;3.Nf3&lt;/strong&gt;. If ...b5 is no threat, &lt;strong&gt;3.Nc3&lt;/strong&gt; would also be OK. &lt;strong&gt;3.Be3&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;3.Bd3&lt;/strong&gt; are fine but a bit more &quot;committing&quot;. Flexibility is probably another reason against &lt;strong&gt;3.c4&lt;/strong&gt; (you won't be able to take the pawn backwards, so your queenside will remain a bit weaker)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you check your King's Indian example, most engines will probably suggest &lt;strong&gt;2.Nf3&lt;/strong&gt; (or even &lt;strong&gt;2.Nc3!?&lt;/strong&gt;) rather than &lt;strong&gt;2.c4&lt;/strong&gt; unless they are using an opening book (engines have had a &quot;pro-development-bias&quot; for decades). I'd like to add that the situation is indeed quite different as the oppponent's dark-squared bishop will not go to b4, for instance, as in the lines by Annatar, so one of the main inconvenientes of playing c4 is not anymore.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a final remark on general opening principles (which only partially applies to this case), please try to differenciate between central control and an overextended center. Just because we have a lot of pawns in it, it doesn't mean we are winning the fight for the center. You may want to have a look at some Black victories in the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessopening?eco=d85&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Grünfeld's main-line&lt;/a&gt; or the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1567929&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Four pawns attack&lt;/a&gt; for some illustrative games&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastEditorUserId="18809" LastEditDate="2019-10-15T06:30:38.907" LastActivityDate="2019-10-15T06:30:38.907" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26642" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18810" CreationDate="2019-10-15T06:42:35.050" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The answer is probably &lt;strong&gt;NO&lt;/strong&gt;, although there is no way to &quot;prove&quot; that (yet). Zugzwang positions exist, but they appear with many fewer pieces in the board or in &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1102400&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;some special situations&lt;/a&gt; that are definitely not forced from the starting position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &quot;statistical evidence&quot; suggested by some answers is not something to take seriously, as samples are small and respond only to how humans play, which is far from perfect (take games by two complete novices and you won't see any advantage for White in classical chess)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastActivityDate="2019-10-15T06:42:35.050" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26643" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4695" CreationDate="2019-10-15T19:11:13.367" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's 2019-12 now and 5 years after the original question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Does any such thing exist (webcam/video to pgn converter)? A&#xA;prototype maybe?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;see &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/WolfgangFahl/play-chess-with-a-webcam/issues/19&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://github.com/WolfgangFahl/play-chess-with-a-webcam/issues/19&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/WolfgangFahl/play-chess-with-a-webcam/issues/22&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://github.com/WolfgangFahl/play-chess-with-a-webcam/issues/22&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;which are both closed by now. See &lt;a href=&quot;http://lichess.bitplan.com&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://lichess.bitplan.com&lt;/a&gt; for a game successfully recorded. Join &lt;a href=&quot;https://gitter.im/play-chess-with-a-webcam/community&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://gitter.im/play-chess-with-a-webcam/community&lt;/a&gt; to discuss&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Has anyone attempted such a feat and shared their research?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes - so far I found some 35 research papers and some 10 open source solutions and one commercial offering&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.1  &lt;a href=&quot;http://wiki.bitplan.com/index.php/PlayChessWithAWebCam/Papers&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://wiki.bitplan.com/index.php/PlayChessWithAWebCam/Papers&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.2. &lt;a href=&quot;http://wiki.bitplan.com/index.php/PlayChessWithAWebCam#Open_Source_Projects&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://wiki.bitplan.com/index.php/PlayChessWithAWebCam#Open_Source_Projects&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.3. &lt;a href=&quot;http://wiki.bitplan.com/index.php/PlayChessWithAWebCam#Commercial&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://wiki.bitplan.com/index.php/PlayChessWithAWebCam#Commercial&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://wiki.bitplan.com/index.php/PlayChessWithAWebCam&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://wiki.bitplan.com/index.php/PlayChessWithAWebCam&lt;/a&gt; is another project&#xA;aiming at the goals stated by you. The project was started 2019-10-15 and in a few hours I already found a lot of resources e.g. this Question&#xA;Some two months later I have updated my answer (see links above)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Are there obvious limitations that make this project unlikely to succeed?&#xA;I can only answer from my own experience with a similar project I did 31 years ago see &lt;a href=&quot;http://wiki.bitplan.com/index.php/MagneticSensorChessBoard1987&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://wiki.bitplan.com/index.php/MagneticSensorChessBoard1987&lt;/a&gt;.&#xA;At that time i tried to create a chess board that would detect moves. I used magnets&#xA;in the wooden pieces and reed contacts. The key to success was using a chess engine&#xA;that new &quot;the rules&quot; to be able to concentrate on movements alone and not having&#xA;to detect individual pieces. As outlined in an answer above promotions to non queen&#xA;pieces might be one of the edge usecases that are difficult. Detecting the motion of&#xA;pieces via picture differences is a well understood problem.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess engines and UCI compatible GUIs are also available these days. So the problem&#xA;is more an integration problem these days then solving the individual detail issues.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A major obstacle is the difference between a &quot;prototype&quot; and a product. See e.g. &#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.nandanbanerjee.com/files/ICCVR-08AUG12-011%20paper.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.nandanbanerjee.com/files/ICCVR-08AUG12-011%20paper.pdf&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a paper that is even older than this question but far from a product that you can buy&#xA;at a reasonable price.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Would you buy it if it existed?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes. When I bought a new chess board a few days ago I was looking for one that&#xA;could record moves and it was still around 500 EUR. As it looks the hardware cost&#xA;will be well below 150 EUR these days including a decent chess board and pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The software might well be opensource and free (as in free beer) soon. I'll update&#xA;this answer accordingly.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20322" LastEditorUserId="20322" LastEditDate="2019-12-28T14:32:36.753" LastActivityDate="2019-12-28T14:32:36.753" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26644" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26619" CreationDate="2019-10-15T20:23:00.077" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to this &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.olimpbase.org/players/y0gywkid.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;source&lt;/a&gt;: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The ELO of O.W. Rigaud was 1476, having lost 7 out of 7 games.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20329" LastActivityDate="2019-10-15T20:23:00.077" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26645" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26632" CreationDate="2019-10-16T06:21:42.977" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;A hash table is used to store evaluations/information for a position, so that evaluating it later is either instantaneous or much more efficient. If you let your engine think on a certain position for a while, the positions it thinks of when searching ahead are stored in its table. This is useful when you make a move on the current position and reach a new position for Stockfish to analyse (since its already &quot;seen&quot; it in its analysis).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So when analyzing a certain game, do not reset the hash table. You could reset it when moving on to a new game though, especially if the new game starts off with different opening moves than the previous game. This is because most/all of the positions analysed in the previous game will be irrelevant, and will just take up space in the hash table.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-10-16T06:21:42.977" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26646" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26623" CreationDate="2019-10-16T06:58:26.127" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The ideal pawn center is with pawns on e4 and d4. Yes, a pawn on d5 is more advanced and controls more space but it isn't necessarily better. In fact, you could argue that it's weaker on d5 because it has less control over the center. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You have to look at the trade offs- &#xA;d5 gains space but loses control of c5 and e5, weakens c4 and e4 and at the same time wastes a developing move. Is that slight gain in space worth everything you're giving up? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, white wastes a move to weaken his pawn structure and is falling behind in development. That's why its not that great of a move. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastEditorUserId="19861" LastEditDate="2019-10-22T00:30:02.913" LastActivityDate="2019-10-22T00:30:02.913" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26647" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26611" CreationDate="2019-10-16T07:40:47.890" Score="2" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Lack of kingside development.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If you want a queenside fianchetto there are better lines. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;b6 creates a problem in how to develop the queenside knight. Normally after Nc6, black can recapture with the b pawn but in this line black can't. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2019-10-16T07:40:47.890" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26648" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26359" CreationDate="2019-10-16T07:51:31.573" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The accelerated dragon attempts to play d5 in one move while the dragon plays d6 first so a later d5 would lose a tempo by moving the d pawn twice. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Given that the dragon often becomes a race as to which side can mate the other first, the extra tempo is a huge advantage. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, playing the accelerated dragon allows white other options not available in the standard dragon.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2019-10-16T07:51:31.573" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26649" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26650" CreationDate="2019-10-16T14:59:06.460" Score="4" ViewCount="1162" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am looking for a way to have my C++ program communicate with Stockfish. An ideal solution would use the compiled version and my program would send commands to the .exe which would return the results. I have looked extensively and have come across suggestions for pipes or the use of the system function but I am not sure how either of those work and if it's possible to have information returned to my C++ program. I am running on Windows. Any suggestions on what method to use and direction on how to apply that method would be greatly appreciated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20332" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-10-16T15:25:46.163" LastActivityDate="2019-10-16T15:25:46.163" Title="What is the best way to interface with Stockfish in a C++ program?" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26650" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26649" CreationDate="2019-10-16T15:15:00.630" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The code required for this is platform dependent, so it may be pragmatic to use a third party API to handle inter-process communication for you. Boost provides &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.boost.org/doc/libs/1_64_0/doc/html/process.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;code&gt;Boost.Process&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/a&gt; and Qt provides &lt;code&gt;QtProcess&lt;/code&gt;, both of which allow for communication via stdin and stdout. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Otherwise, you will have to directly interact with platform specific APIs, such as &lt;code&gt;CreateProcess&lt;/code&gt; on Windows and &lt;code&gt;fork&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;pipe&lt;/code&gt;, etc. on Linux.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once you are able to communicate with the engine, you just need to follow the &lt;a href=&quot;http://wbec-ridderkerk.nl/html/UCIProtocol.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;UCI Protocol&lt;/a&gt; (which is used by Stockfish) to communicate with the engine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10075" LastActivityDate="2019-10-16T15:15:00.630" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26651" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19040" CreationDate="2019-10-16T18:45:59.280" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think it is primarily because they are the easiest subject to write about, especially with computers today, and thus, beginners see so many opening books that they believe they should be buying opening books.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Frankly, for most players below 2200 (prodigies excepted), I believe that this is the wrong approach totally. There is a difference between studying openings, which usually means rote memorization, and studying opening pawn structures. Learning opening pawn structures teaches one how to play various openings and what the general plans should be.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Rather than memorizing opening moves where you are on your own when your 1200-rated opponent doesn't know book; it teaches you HOW to play the chess opening, and what you are trying to achieve, in general. When you know this, it is much harder to be left out on your own. You will also pick up specific lines along this path.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some examples of these books are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;The Ideas Behind the Chess Openings&quot; by Ruben Fine&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;Pawn Structure Chess&quot; by Soltis (it has many mistakes, but the general ideas are usually very good.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;Chess Opening Essentials&quot; (volumes 1-4) by various authors at New in Chess&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Chess Structures: A Grandmaster Guide by GM Mauricio Flores Ríos&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2019-10-16T18:45:59.280" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26652" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16306" CreationDate="2019-10-16T19:00:34.850" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Although &quot;Logical chess: Move by move&quot; by Irving Chernev is a fantastic book, and that may, indeed, be a great place to start, I am not sure that there is any one book that you can get by with.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I were to name one book, and only one book, it would be &quot;1001 Winning Chess Sacrifices and Combinations, 21st Century Edition&quot; by Fred Reinfeld.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most chess games between weak players are decided by who drops the last piece, and this book would help you win more material, and thus, win more games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That said, I actually recommend starting with its companion volume, &quot;1001 Brilliant Ways to Checkmate&quot; instead. I picked the &quot;&quot;1001 Winning Chess Sacrifices and Combinations&quot; over this book only because the positions occur more often in games than cool checkmates. That said, this is an easier book to start learning combinations with.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I recommend doing 50 per day, spending no more than two minutes per move on each problem. In pencil, write down next to the problem how easy you found it on a scale of 1-5 because you will do these books multiple times. That immersion method has worked very well for me. I took a friend, who was about 38 at the time, from 1000 to 1850 on ICC in three months following this method.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2019-10-16T19:00:34.850" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26653" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14640" CreationDate="2019-10-16T19:13:38.687" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I still credit Ludek Pachman's trilogy &quot;Complete Chess Strategy&quot; for first making me understand any chess strategy. It was the difference for me between being an 1800, and when I became a Master.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2019-10-16T19:13:38.687" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26654" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9406" CreationDate="2019-10-16T21:05:32.530" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;This has been one of my main two openings since it became popular in the 1980's again. With strong computers today, they say, and I agree with them, that black is virtually winning after the following line:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  [fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 e5 5.Nb5 d6 6.Bg5 Qxg5 7.Nc7+ Kd8 8.Nxa8 Nf6 {already -2.05 on Stockfish} 9. Nc3 Nd4! 10. h4 {best per four engines} (10. Qd2 Qxd2 11. Kxd2 b6) Qf4 11. g3 (11. Bd3 Be6 {and there is still nothing to stop the roundup of the Na8.}) Qf3 12. Qxf3 Nxf3 13. Kd1 {is given as best, and the Na8 soon falls.}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is clear that black's development combined with his soon-to-be material advantage (Na8 falls), makes this winning for black, and there really isn't even much counterplay to make it interesting.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The problem earlier is that the Qg5 is very actively posted, e4 is weak, and the move Nc6-d4 is not only keeping the white queen from being active due to c2 being weak, but it blocks white from getting at many critical weak squares like d5, d6, and the d8 square where the black king is. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2019-10-16T21:05:32.530" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26655" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12904" CreationDate="2019-10-16T21:16:10.033" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Unless you really want a particular book, I actually do not recommend online used book stores. They typically realize that a chess book is out-of-print, and price it accordingly...meaning high.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The single best place to find an out-of-print chess book is eBay. Most books, unless INCREDIBLY rare, get sold here at least periodically.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Login to your account, and search for the book you are looking for. Get a sense for how much it goes for (search completed and sold listings too for a more accurate estimate). Then save your search (this is why you need to login). The saved search will now email you every time a new one becomes available. If the condition and price are to your liking, buy it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have a book that I want to get a copy of, and while somewhat hard-to-find, I still get new listings every few days. I have passed so far because some are listings by online used book stores, and they price it high as I mentioned above, and a few, I passed on because I am a collector, and am willing to wait for an excellent specimen. I do not just want &quot;good&quot;. Most of these book sellers want close to $100, but one recently sold for about $30. They can be found.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2019-10-16T21:16:10.033" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26656" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1482" CreationDate="2019-10-16T21:38:10.333" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Coming to the party late.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Firstly I do not think it’s possible to validate 100% that a position is legal as the questioners asks. There are tens of thousands of retroanalytic problems which dance creatively on the border of legality and some of the reasons why a position is illegal are extremely subtle. I believe that the problem of legality is likely to be NP-complete (as the board size scales) although I haven’t seen any published results along those lines. Certainly features such as impostors, retro-shielding, tempo (both in races and in parity), blocking, castling right disruption, en passant and Ceriani-Frolkin promotions (including exotica such as Schnoebelen) as well as such recondite matters as dead position rule are not going to yield to simple rules.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So given that this broad program is likely unachievable, how far should one go in checking candidate positions?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it’s for a conventional program to support orthodox over the board play then it might be appropriate to have checks as suggested in the top answers to pick up some typos like board size not right - that’s a common one if the engine does not support altered board sizes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A programmer may enjoy specifying further legality checks but I’ve found from using many diagramming tools that less is more from a UX perspective.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I may want to show a mating matrix for example, which would only be a partial position. It’s distracting to insist that the uninvolved king be shown.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or I may want to show a range of endgame positions in which one side has a definite win. This may involve having numerous bKs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even knowing that one is just focusing on forward play analysis for non-fairy chess only, I think validation should be modest.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It’s not possible to 100% validate whether a position is legal, but why should validation matter? We can play chess whether or not the position happens to derive from the starting position (so-called “game array”). There might be a very interesting position to analyse but it just happens that it’s illegal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example there’s a welll-known class of endgame zugzwang positions with wBa1 wPb2. Even tablebases include these kinds of positions because it’s more trouble to exclude them than include them, and losing them throws away interesting new information.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or if I’m in the middle of constructing a problem, I might have e.g. 19 black pieces. That’s fine - I can try to reduce them later. Some published compositions have illegal diagrams. The idea may simply not be achievable with a sound diagram. According to the chess problem conventions (the Codex) legality is not required for soundness.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally - I’ve corrected hundreds of diagram errors in working with a database over the years, but only a tiny fraction resulted in illegality. Typically, it’s a piece on an adjacent square: still completely legal. If programmer effort is spent to help avoid transcription errors, e.g. by enabling easy import/export of different formats, including images, that would be more valuable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The point I’m making is that rarely do I think “oh I’m glad the program is checking legality” but often I think “why did the programmer feel they need to check legality? It stops me from doing what I need to do here.”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can’t imagine my perspective being popular in this thread but it’s a sincere answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So beyond checking for SQL injection etc, at most I would check just that forward moves can work in the engine which is going to be consulted, e.g.:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is there at most 1 king on each side?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Are there no pawns on the first or eighth rank?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is the side to move not giving check already?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is sensible defensive programming and there’s no reason to go further.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If that’s three YESes then we can play chess forwards from this diagram which is much more important than legality. And even this short list of conditions one might need to loosen sometimes (rex multiplex, dummy pawns, lese majeste).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8201" LastEditorUserId="8201" LastEditDate="2021-01-15T06:52:20.180" LastActivityDate="2021-01-15T06:52:20.180" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26657" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5235" CreationDate="2019-10-17T13:31:25.283" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is an old question, but it brings up a very relevant chess point that no one above has touched on: &lt;strong&gt;In any position, allowing the area of the board you are playing in to become locked is usually positional suicide.&lt;/strong&gt; Once your area is locked, the only hope is a sacrifice to open it...in this case, it will never come to fruition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The computer only gives this as slightly worse for black, but as 5 and then 10 and 15 good moves are played, the eval is going to skyrocket. This is virtually lost already since you cannot attack h5 easily (Kg7 and Rh8 if necessary).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your feeling that you are going to get &quot;squashed to death&quot; is not wrong. The best plan is probably to evacuate the Kc1 over to the locked k-side, and hope to be able to defend what is soon to be a weak queen-side. I am not optimistic since you do not have as much space to maneuver there as black does, and your pieces will be fighting for the same squares.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2019-10-17T13:31:25.283" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26658" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26660" CreationDate="2019-10-17T15:58:14.887" Score="2" ViewCount="550" Body="&lt;p&gt;Bobby Fischer has been quoted many, many times. What did Bobby Fischer mean when he said &quot;My opponents make good moves too. Sometimes I don't take these things into consideration.”?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13147" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2019-10-17T17:56:31.723" LastActivityDate="2019-10-19T16:45:21.430" Title="What did Bobby Fischer mean in this quote?" Tags="&lt;fischer&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26659" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-10-17T17:02:27.377" Score="6" ViewCount="214" Body="&lt;p&gt;The evaluation functions for chess usually includes chess specific knowledge. However, Zillions of Games is able to play any game based only on a description of how the pieces move and winning/losing/draw conditions. And as I see, does quite a good job.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Engines like Fairy-Max can only play chess-like games, which includes many assumptions in its design that do not need to be generalised. But when making a generic game engine (which I dream of doing), the engine simply can't assume almost anything.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I got a nudge in the right direction with the post &lt;em&gt;'ab-initio' piece values&lt;/em&gt; on TalkChess. Yet it does not provide the whole picture.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, how do generic game engines (like Axiom Development Kit, which is an independent engine that plugs into Zillions; or even the very Fairy-Max) evaluate position?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit 1&lt;/strong&gt;: I found some more information in the 1993 paper by Barney Pell entitled &lt;em&gt;A Strategic Metagame Player for General Chess-Like Games&lt;/em&gt; (found it from the &quot;General Game Playing&quot; page on chessprogramming.org).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19919" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-10-17T22:17:45.033" LastActivityDate="2019-10-21T10:52:52.857" Title="How do generic game engines work?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;programming&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26660" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26658" CreationDate="2019-10-17T17:48:23.570" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;It means that even he, Bobby Fischer, was susceptible to overlooking his opponent's good replies.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From the book, &quot;Counterplay: An Anthropologist at the Chessboard&quot;, here is a quote on page 74:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;So intense was Fischer's concentration, and so single-minded his intent, that he would sometimes become immersed in his own ideas at the board and forget certain possibilities available to his opponent. &quot;Yet possessing a tremendous will to win,&quot; Elie Agur writes of Fischer, &quot;he might have &quot;forgotten' his opponent at times, carrying out his plans as though no obstacle could be put up to stop them.&quot; Or to quote the man himself: &quot;My opponents make good moves too--Sometimes I don't take these things into consideration.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You are right that this is widely quoted, and attributed to him, but I would love to find where and when he said this exactly. I suspect it was in response to a game that he lost or drew. That I have been unable to find so far.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2019-10-17T18:11:00.830" LastActivityDate="2019-10-17T18:11:00.830" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26661" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26659" CreationDate="2019-10-17T20:41:36.697" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't know about Zillions specifically, but it's a reasonably good strategy in most games to maximise your own flexibility of action while minimising your opponent's.  This is certainly true for chess; there are competent chess engines (ie. strong enough to beat an amateur consistently) which use only material value and mobility for evaluation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Beale Effect (ie. minimax with random position evaluations) yields a reasonably good chess engine with a modest depth of search, plateauing around 2000 ELO.  This relies entirely on a second-order effect of mobility, ie. you're most likely to find the highest random value in a part of the game tree that branches a lot.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would not be surprised, therefore, to find that Zillions uses either a random evaluation or one based on mobility.  The value of a piece, after all, is strongly correlated with its mobility.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19281" LastActivityDate="2019-10-17T20:41:36.697" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26662" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26612" CreationDate="2019-10-18T02:45:19.080" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There isn't any way to give a definitive answer but I do believe he contributed to it. The thoroughness that covers such a basic concept lets you know that the author is very strong player. If you were that thorough in every aspect of your game you would probably be challenging for the world championship. That, in and of itself, is a lesson. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;People say the book is simple but I guarantee most sub 2000 players will miss those tactics in 99% of their games. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2019-10-18T02:45:19.080" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26663" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-10-18T06:06:13.687" Score="4" ViewCount="957" Body="&lt;p&gt;If f2 and f7 are the weakest squares on the board, if the f-file the weakest file on the board? For example, other than attacking f2 and f7, is there a theoretical advantage in dominating the f-file?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20340" LastActivityDate="2019-10-21T08:12:34.023" Title="What is the weakest file on the board?" Tags="&lt;positional-play&gt;&lt;evaluation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26664" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26666" CreationDate="2019-10-18T06:45:30.700" Score="6" ViewCount="866" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would like to know why it is so disadvantageous to have an advanced artificially isolated pawn when it can be exchanged by another pawn.&#xA;I refer to situations where a side cannot mantain such square with a pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples:&#xA;In the Caro-Kann, after 1.e4 c6 2. e5 d6 3.exd6?!&#xA;What is so wrong with this last move?&#xA;Is it a matter of tempos (White lost two moves to go to e5 only to be exchanged ) or is there any more fundamental reason?&#xA;I know that the common thing to do for White is trying moving pawns to d4 (maybe f4, though it d be weakening).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another example, for instance is when Black c pawn is on c5 (with a White pawn on d4) and then it is pushed to c4 before recommended. Then if White can play b3, Black tries to play b5, a6. Why not simply trade this pawn already?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16771" LastEditorUserId="18475" LastEditDate="2019-10-20T23:06:54.880" LastActivityDate="2019-10-21T08:07:10.597" Title="Artificially isolated pawn in the Caro-Kann" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;pawns&gt;&lt;caro-kann&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26665" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26663" CreationDate="2019-10-18T07:04:02.697" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The f2/f7 squares lose some significance after castling has occurred. The square is no longer protected by just the king - the rook now also protects it. But a f2/f7 pawn with a king on g1/g8 might be pinned by a bishop, which sometimes results in tactical opportunities.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Generally, you should attempt to control the center of the board. The f-file is not the center, but it is adjacent to the center. It might make sense to try to control the f-file if it is open or half-open (or if you plan to make it that way) but that's true of any open file. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the file is not open or half-open, then it probably makes more sense to look at the individual squares rather than the file as a whole. If White has a pawn on e4, that pawn controls f5, but it also means that pawn can never control f4 (so f4 might be weak.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2019-10-18T07:04:02.697" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26666" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26664" CreationDate="2019-10-18T07:48:13.110" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;The shortest explanation I can think of: if you play 1.e4 and 2.e5, presumably you want that pawn there for a &lt;em&gt;reason&lt;/em&gt;. If you then immediately trade it off, you've lost whatever you were trying to achieve, like maybe space or central control.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the case with ...c5-c4 followed by b2-b3: again presumably you want that pawn to be there for some reason (queenside space?). If instead you allow simply cxb3 axb3, then:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You don't have your pawn anymore&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;White has got rid of his a-pawn in return, rook pawns are least valuable pawns (can only capture one direction)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;White has freed his a1 rook&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;White still has a single groups of pawns, while yours are split in the a/b pawn &quot;island&quot; and the c/d/e/f/g/h &quot;island&quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By adding ...b5/a4/a6/axb5/axb5/bxc4/bxc4 black also frees his rook and gets rid of the a and b pawns that could otherwise become weak later. And the c-pawn that you presumably wanted on c4 to gain space is still there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I disagree that 3.exd6 is bad. White doesn't have good options there. After 1.e4 c6, 2.e5 is a bad move. It can't be maintained there and it doesn't help with the main goals in the opening (development, control of the center, and preventing the other side from achieving those).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2019-10-18T07:48:13.110" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26667" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26679" CreationDate="2019-10-18T12:11:48.180" Score="3" ViewCount="371" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have two weight files, one with a size of 6MB and the other &lt;a href=&quot;http://lczero.org/get_network?sha=8e36e7bb2f857eadf3163cb5d6cc3c5800fac0eba5951f8b1e51e3b732ee938b&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;45MB&lt;/a&gt; (files is listed &lt;a href=&quot;http://lczero.org/networks/http://lczero.org/networks/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;). The problem is that when I start to compute a move, it takes too much time, especially when I use the larger weight file. Below I start lc0 with the larger weight file&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;$&amp;gt; ./build/release/lc0 --weights=/weights/weight-4305&#xA;       _&#xA;|   _ | |&#xA;|_ |_ |_| v0.23.0-dev+git.9bac230 built Oct 17 2019&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and compute a move&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;position fen rnb1kb1r/pp1p1ppp/4pn2/q7/3NP3/2N5/PPP2PPP/R1BQKB1R w KQkq - 3 6&#xA;go  wtime 59000 btime 59000&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I get &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Loading weights file from: /weights/weight-4305&#xA;Creating backend [blas]...&#xA;Using Eigen version 3.3.5&#xA;BLAS max batch size is 256.&#xA;info depth 1 seldepth 1 time 193 nodes 1 score cp 44 hashfull 0 nps 5 &#xA;tbhits 0 pv d4b3&#xA;bestmove d4b3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This takes approximately 3 seconds. Now, when I do this computation again, it seems to take even more time&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;position fen rnb1kb1r/pp1p1ppp/4pn2/q7/3NP3/2N5/PPP2PPP/R1BQKB1R w KQkq - 3 6&#xA;go  wtime 59000 btime 59000&#xA;info depth 2 seldepth 2 time 4957 nodes 3 score cp 44 hashfull 0 nps 0 tbhits 0 pv c1d2 a7a6&#xA;bestmove c1d2 ponder a7a6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I use the smaller weight file it takes about 1 seconds. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my case I would like to use lc0 to play 1 minute games, so these delays are way to huge. For example, I'm also using Stockfish which doesn't have these issues. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would like to play 1 minutes games with lc0, but with these slow computation times it is not possible. Is there a way to speed things up?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to see it yourself, I've published &lt;code&gt;lc0&lt;/code&gt; on my &lt;a href=&quot;https://cloud.docker.com/repository/list&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;DockerHub&lt;/a&gt;, so you can try it out yourself&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Using the smaller weight file:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;$&amp;gt; docker run --rm -it jeanluca/leela-chess-zero:1.0.2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And to run the one using the bigger weight file&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;$&amp;gt; docker run --rm -it jeanluca/leela-chess-zero:latest&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After you have entered one of the above commands you can simply past the positions into the terminal and see the result&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, to get an idea of how I've build lc0, here is my dockerfile&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From jeanluca/base:latest&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;RUN apt update &amp;amp;&amp;amp; apt install clang-6.0 ninja-build pkg-config protobuf-compiler libprotobuf-dev meson -y &amp;amp;&amp;amp;\&#xA;git clone https://github.com/LeelaChessZero/lc0.git &amp;amp;&amp;amp;\&#xA;cd lc0 &amp;amp;&amp;amp; ./build.sh -Dblas=true -Deigen=true&#xA;COPY ./weights /weights&#xA;CMD [&quot;/lc0/build/release/lc0&quot;, &quot;--weights=/weights/weight-4305&quot;, &quot;--threads=4&quot; ]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19338" LastEditorUserId="19338" LastEditDate="2019-10-20T08:58:51.277" LastActivityDate="2019-10-20T08:58:51.277" Title="Lc0 gets slower if weight file gets bigger" Tags="&lt;performance&gt;&lt;leela&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26669" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26664" CreationDate="2019-10-18T15:20:37.827" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;To be frank, you hit the nail on the head: &quot;White lost two moves to go to e5 only to be exchanged&quot;. After some explanation, in the last paragraph, I will give some basic lines as to why exchanging is probably best already.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White is not developing, and since he cannot maintain the pawn on e5 easily, it is not good. That whole line starting with 2.e5 is also questionable. I have never seen that played, and with good reason.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your second example, c4 is also not a good move since it also wastes time, and can be attacked at the head with b3 and if b5, then a4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There was a similar question recently, &quot;Why not 1.d4 Nf6 2.d5?&quot;. Again, to move a pawn early in the opening a second time is usually not good, but the underlying question is &quot;can you maintain it there?&quot;. If not, it is probably bad. In the 1.d4 Nf6 2.d5? question, I showed that it would come under attack quickly, and could not be maintained. Compare that to normal Benoni 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 c5 3. d5. C5 took away one of the potential attackers of d5 by passing that square, and black played a second move also losing a tempo, so it is OK.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your line 1.e4 c6 2. e5, it is hard to maintain e5 already after d6. E4 is clearly not good after de de Qd1. Nf3 is easy equality for black after de Ne5 Nd7 challenging the Ne5. And f4 just looks horrible positionally.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2019-10-18T15:20:37.827" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26670" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26663" CreationDate="2019-10-18T15:29:48.100" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have heard that a million times, but in practice, unless you are really careless with your development, and your king gets stuck in the center, they rarely play a role right out of the opening. Later in the game, I have seen many games where f7 gets pounded on, and if you already happen to have the open f-file (f2 can also fall under attack, but it is less common), that is nice, but in a real game, it is usually a B on the a2-g8 diagonal with a rook or two on the 7th, and any other supporting pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You have to also realize that only a few select openings really aim at f7. You can rule out all but a few k-pawn openings, in most cases.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In short, develop normally, and IF you see the opportunity to pressure f7/f2 naturally, and it makes sense, then go for it. I would not develop artificially trying to strive to make something out of that just because f2/f7 have been called the weakest squares.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is no weakest file that I can see.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2019-10-18T15:29:48.100" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26671" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26664" CreationDate="2019-10-18T16:03:06.213" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In chess you want to play for advantage.  Your moves may seem playable, but they are far from optimal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.e4 c6&#xA;2.e5?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sending a foot soldier beyond the central line ahead of his forces can't be a good strategy.  In fact, openings like the Alekhine's 1...Nf6 seek to tempt that pawn forward.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Goals in the opening are typically to occupy and/or control the center.  From there you are able to launch attacks at each sector of the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your second example of a c5 pawn going to c4 (not taking the d4 pawn) then trading itself for a b3 pawn:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In essence you are trading your c-pawn for whites a-pawn when the c-pawn should have happily traded for the d-pawn.  It is all about the center.  If c5-c4 made sense it was to gain something in that region and thus it needs to be maintained with b7-b5 etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Pawns are the soul of chess&quot;,  They dictate the terrain of the battlefield and should be moved with care.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2019-10-18T16:03:06.213" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26672" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26673" CreationDate="2019-10-18T19:56:49.507" Score="7" ViewCount="1149" Body="&lt;p&gt;A minor controversy regarding advertised and allowed time controls has broken out on a chess mailing list I subscribe to. A one-day tournament scheduled for tomorrow advertises specifically as five rounds of G/30, and a member of the mailing list has claimed that any player can therefore demand G/30 (as opposed to G/25 d5), regardless of their opponent's wishes. The last time I played in this particular tournament, I asked the organizer if I could insist upon G/25 d5, and he said that it's my right to do so under USCF rules. Is this true, or does the fact that the tournament listing states G/30 (and doesn't mention an alternate time control) mean that I should actually be forfeited if I request a delay and my opponent refuses?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20344" LastEditorUserId="10075" LastEditDate="2019-10-21T10:49:32.867" LastActivityDate="2019-10-21T10:49:32.867" Title="If a tournament advertises G/30, can either player demand G/25 d5?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;time-control&gt;&lt;uscf&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26673" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26672" CreationDate="2019-10-18T20:13:09.027" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;You don't have grounds to demand the time control you like. In practice I suppose that if your opponent agrees, you could get away with using whatever time control you both want as long as the game finishes on time, which is the main point the organizers care about.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One thing that the USCF rules do cover is what to do if the stipulated time control has a delay or increment and the only available clock doesn't support it. In that case the &quot;base time&quot; should be used instead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However: did the advertisement say just say &quot;G/30&quot;, or was it &quot;G/30 d0&quot;? Because according to the USCF, &quot;If the organizer fails to specify an increment or delay time in the time control (which may be zero to indicate no increment or delay), the minimum recommended delay specified in rule 5E shall apply.&quot; The minimum recommended delay for 30 minutes is 5 seconds, so the way I read that, if it was advertised only as &quot;G/30&quot;, you'd have grounds to demand G/30 d5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12523" LastEditorUserId="12523" LastEditDate="2019-10-18T20:24:20.720" LastActivityDate="2019-10-18T20:24:20.720" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26674" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4994" CreationDate="2019-10-18T20:16:35.167" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is no need for a special book on this, which is why you cannot find one that covers it much. The reason is that it simply transposes to most normal lines, but just avoids the Botvinnik Nge2 line that you are trying to avoid. There is one line that white can try that breaks from standard theory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After 3...Be7, white really has only two main choices:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;ol start=&quot;4&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;cd ed 5. Bf4, and therefore you avoid the main line with Bg5. It can continue with 5...c6 6. e3 {still trying to play Bd3 and Nge2} Bf5, and you have avoided it.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;ol start=&quot;4&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Nf3, and you have avoided the line you wanted to, and it transposes&#xA;to mainline stuff right away.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Considering option two goes right back into mainline, the only one that anyone would consider wanting to write about is option one, and there is just not enough material that remains independent from the mainline to warrant it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Soltis covers 3...Be7 in his book &quot;Transpo Tricks in Chess&quot; on page 130. He notes: &quot;On the minus side, this order denies Black non-... .i.e7 variations, such as the Cambridge Springs, Vienna and Botvinnik.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2019-10-18T20:57:22.950" LastActivityDate="2019-10-18T20:57:22.950" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26675" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26672" CreationDate="2019-10-18T20:28:17.537" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;If the tournament advance publicity specifies G/30 with no delay, then that is the time control.  There is nothing in the USCF rulebook that would give you or your opponent either grounds to request a different time control, nor discretion to agree to a different time control.  Per USCF rule 5B1c and 5B2, the time control really should appear in the tournament advance publicity as &quot;G/30 d/0&quot;, but in practice the absence of &quot;d/0&quot; is generally understood to mean &quot;no delay&quot;.  &lt;em&gt;(EDIT:  However, itub's answer is correct, rule 5E2 does specify that if the absence of delay or increment is not explicitly stated, the minimum recommended delay &quot;shall apply&quot; - note that &quot;shall&quot; indicates that there is no discretion, it is just a fact... - which would mean that the time control that should actually be played should be G/30 d/5.)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7147" LastEditorUserId="7147" LastEditDate="2019-10-18T21:00:45.830" LastActivityDate="2019-10-18T21:00:45.830" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26676" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26672" CreationDate="2019-10-18T20:32:15.320" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;You are close, but not quite right.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I just spoke with a friend of mine, who has been a tournament director for over 40 years, USCF Senior TD Henry L. Terrie III (Hal Terrie). He told me that when you post a USCF tournament, you need to specify the delay, or it is assumed to be 5 seconds.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, while you cannot demand G/25 d5, you can demand G/30 d5 since it was not specified. That is the only variance you can demand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5B2: Advanced publicity time controls need to contain both the base time control and the delay/increment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5E2: Organizer fails to specify increment or delay: Subrule added to new rule 5E with wording addressing the lack of a specified increment or delay.&#xA;If the organizer fails to specify an increment or delay time in the time control (which may be zero to indicate no increment or delay), the minimum recommended delay specified in rule 5E shall apply.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is in the PDF download &lt;a href=&quot;https://new.uschess.org/news/7th-edition-rule-book-chapters-now-available-download/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;here for &quot;Chapters 1, 2, and 11 Combined&quot;.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2019-10-18T20:42:18.683" LastActivityDate="2019-10-18T20:42:18.683" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26679" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26667" CreationDate="2019-10-19T05:33:47.667" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The bigger weights file corresponds to a larger Neural Network, which means more computation per node, but better evaluation per node.This is expected, and there is nothing that can make a bigger NN as fast as a smaller NN. The best solution is to use a small NN for blitz time control. I would personally recommend LD2 (available at Lc0.org/LD2)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17100" LastActivityDate="2019-10-19T05:33:47.667" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26680" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26659" CreationDate="2019-10-19T11:50:05.160" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Check out the Zillions clone and learn for yourself.&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessv.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chessv.org/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even just a simple material eval function beats the majority of players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9684" LastActivityDate="2019-10-19T11:50:05.160" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26681" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26556" CreationDate="2019-10-19T12:05:59.013" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You've got a big list, but you forgot disambiguate moves.  N1f3, N1f3+, N1f3#, Qd6d4...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to include all possible Algebraic moves, you need to increase your list at least tenfold.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9684" LastActivityDate="2019-10-19T12:05:59.013" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26682" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26710" CreationDate="2019-10-20T01:45:45.950" Score="16" ViewCount="2577" Body="&lt;p&gt;75 move rule says&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;9.6 If one or both of the following occur(s) then the game is drawn: (...) any series of at least 75 moves have been made by each player without the movement of any pawn and without any capture.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This rule can be read to mean that the game ends after 75 moves without capture or pawn move and anything that occurs after that doesn't matter. Let's say I defend a pawnless endgame and over 75 moves pass without capture. I don't realize it and a few moves later I'm about to be checkmated and resign. The scoresheet is signed as a loss. Then I count the moves and see that 75 moves were exceeded. Am I right that I can claim that the game had ended in a draw before I resigned and my resignation has no effect? I think FIDE rules could be clearer on this point, but is this interpretation valid?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bonus question: if the game is in rapid with no scoresheets, but with video recording, such as at top level tournments, could a player who resigned make the same kind of claim and request counting moves from DGT or video to ascertain that 75 moves have passed?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20349" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-01T15:02:10.267" LastActivityDate="2020-04-01T15:02:10.267" Title="Does the FIDE 75-move rule apply after checkmate or resignation?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;fide&gt;&lt;claim-draw&gt;&lt;75-move-rule&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26683" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26682" CreationDate="2019-10-20T01:52:37.967" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, checkmate or resignation ends the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;9.6 says that if you have 75 moves or a 5-fold repetition, that the game is automatically drawn, and that no one needs to claim it. That said, checkmate still ends the game, so if that happens on the 75th move, it is over.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You still need to realize that you have made the appropriate number of moves, and if you have hit 75, you do not need to claim it by going to the arbiter and making the formal claim, but you still need to point it out to your opponent. If he disagrees, he can summon the arbiter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;9.6 If one or both of the following occur(s) then the game is drawn:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;9.6.1 the same position has appeared, as in 9.2.2 at least five times.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;9.6.2 any series of at least 75 moves have been made by each player without the movement of any pawn and without any capture. If the last move resulted in checkmate, that shall take precedence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5.1.1 The game is won by the player who has checkmated his opponent’s king. This immediately ends the game....&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5.1.2 The game is won by the player whose opponent declares he resigns. This immediately ends the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Again, the same for your bonus question: If you resign or get mated, it is too late. The game is just over.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S. Stalemate also immediately ends the game...not backsies. :) Also, this rule, while a bit strange, is primarily intended to give the arbiter a method of ending a game without having to have a player request it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-10-20T10:02:18.907" LastActivityDate="2019-10-20T10:02:18.907" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26684" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26685" CreationDate="2019-10-20T01:56:13.710" Score="2" ViewCount="258" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't quite understand this. I like playing chess, and I'm working to improve, but I still am likely very much a novice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyway, I played a game where I won in 9 moves, but I'm curious why the engine suggested the &quot;best move&quot; it did.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My game was as follows (I was playing as white):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. d4 Nf6 3. dxe5 Nxe4 4. Qe2 Bb4+ 5. c3 Bc5 6. Qxe4 O-O 7. Be3 b6 8. Bd3 Bb7 9. Qxh7#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The engine suggested during analysis that a better move than Bd3 (move 8) was Qxa8.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I acknowledge I still have much to learn about the game, strategy, etc. But I'm curious why this is the better move. After Bd3 I'm easily set up for a checkmate if the opponent doesn't do g6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does Qxa8 set up something I don't realize? Am I missing a line? What's going on there?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20350" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-10-26T14:17:55.210" LastActivityDate="2019-10-26T14:17:55.210" Title="Trying to figure out why the engine suggested this move" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26685" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26684" CreationDate="2019-10-20T02:10:00.753" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;On my quad-core running Stockfish 10, the evals are very close, but Bd3 is preferred, and to me, I agree since you develop a piece with tempo, black defends the mate, and then you still take on a8 winning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is really about the same, but Bd3 is slightly better on my engine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically, your intuition is right, and maybe your engine or computer are not as strong...or maybe even mine is not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2019-10-20T02:10:00.753" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26686" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26682" CreationDate="2019-10-20T10:13:14.470" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In short: Art. 5 lists situations that end the game immediately. Checkmate, stalemate, resignation, draw by agreement, dead position. Those end the game even if it is not noticed. All other ends need a valid claim (2nd irregular move) or at least someone who observes it (flag fall). And that is the case here: Art. 9.6 says that the game is drawn in the cases of 9.6.1 and 9.6.2., but it fails to say „This immediately ends the game.“ So if a game is finished by a situation of Art. 5 before 9.6 is stated by a player or arbiter, the result according Art. 5 counts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your resignation, if happened before any reclamation of a draw according 9.6, finishes the game immediately, both in a tournament game and (bonus question) in a rapid game. That cannot be changed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20096" LastActivityDate="2019-10-20T10:13:14.470" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26687" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26682" CreationDate="2019-10-20T10:20:33.363" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;http://arbiters.fide.com/images/stories/downloads/2018/Arbiters-Manual-2018-v1.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Laws of Chess&lt;/a&gt; (I'm giving a link to the version in the Arbiter's Handbook because FIDE have Munged their own site) do give a definitive answer but it takes some searching to find. The key appears in the section on the Chess clock!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;6.2.1 During the game each player, having made his move on the chessboard, shall stop his own clock and start his opponent‟s clock&#xA;  (that is to say, he shall press his clock). This “completes” the move.&#xA;  A move is also completed if:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  6.2.1.1 &lt;strong&gt;the move ends the game (see Articles 5.1.1, 5.2.1, 5.2.2, &lt;em&gt;9.6.1 and 9.6.2&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/strong&gt;,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We turn to 9.6.1 and 9.6.2 -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;9.6 If one or both of the following occur(s) then the game is drawn:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  9.6.1 the same position has appeared, as in 9.2.2 at least five times.    &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;9.6.2 any series of at least 75 moves have been made by each player without the movement of any pawn and without any capture. If the last&#xA;  move resulted in checkmate, that shall take precedence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Checkmate or resignation occurred &lt;em&gt;after&lt;/em&gt; the 75 moves hence the game had already ended and provided the rules of the competition allow for appeals / claims then your claim of a draw is valid. Note that if you wait too long the decision is not going to be reversed. For instance if the results have already been sent to FIDE for rating then it is way too late. If you notice 10 minutes after the game then you should still be able to appeal and claim the draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that had you been paying attention then you would have claimed the draw after 50 moves. After 75 moves it is the arbiter who is supposed to be paying attention and you should not have to take any action. It is his responsibility to pay attention and step in to declare the game drawn. The only reason you have to take action and appeal in this case is to correct the mistake of the arbiter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-10-20T10:26:21.880" LastActivityDate="2019-10-20T10:26:21.880" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26689" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26682" CreationDate="2019-10-20T19:14:29.160" Score="5" Body="&lt;h2&gt;Signed scoresheets matter&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The other answers go into detail of what would be the correct result of the game. However, that is irrelevant because you say &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The scoresheet is signed as a loss.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And FIDE laws 8.7 state &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;At  the  conclusion  of  the  game  both  players  shall  sign  both  scoresheets,  indicating  the  result  of  the  game.  Even  if  incorrect,  this  result  shall  stand,  unless  the  arbiter  decides  otherwise.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the FIDE laws are quite clear that if you signed the (potentially incorrect) result there, that's the official result of the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2488" LastActivityDate="2019-10-20T19:14:29.160" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26690" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26684" CreationDate="2019-10-21T07:50:33.780" Score="0" Body="&lt;ol start=&quot;8&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Qxa8 wins a rook and is almost certainly a won game for white. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Bd3 threatens mate but is easily countered. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Always assume your opponent makes the best reply. Making a move and hoping your opponent doesn't see the reply is &quot;hope chess&quot; and won't get you very far. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2019-10-21T07:50:33.780" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26691" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26664" CreationDate="2019-10-21T08:07:10.597" Score="1" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I have no idea what you mean by &quot;artificially isolated pawn&quot; esp when there is no iso pawn in the pawn structure in the position given. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Black is roughly equal because no matter what white plays d5 is at least equal in the center. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'll explain it this way: Black is equal because white has no advantage. Why does white have no advantage? Because white wasted two moves. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2019-10-21T08:07:10.597" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26692" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26663" CreationDate="2019-10-21T08:12:34.023" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;No such thing as a &quot;weak file&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Different pieces move in different ways. Open files do allow rooks to come into the game however. So, in that sense, a weak file would be whatever is open and can be dominated by heavy pieces.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2019-10-21T08:12:34.023" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26693" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26659" CreationDate="2019-10-21T10:52:52.857" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the 1980's I read a book &quot;How to get the most out of your chess computer&quot; by chess master and computer scientist David Levy. It is somewhat dated because engines like Alpha Zero have brought new ways of playing chess. But for a generic chess engine it's still a useful book. Levy explains that engines use a brute force ply search. A ply is one half move: white or black making a move. Then he explained the &quot;horizon effect&quot; which was the main weakness of chess computers at that time; from my games against current generaic engines on sites like FICS [free internet chess site] that are rated approx 2000 I still see The Horizon effect: it means that  the engine's ply search ends and it assesses the outcome wrongly, often disastrously. In endgames this was the most common time for it; a human can work out that in 30 moves there's a won endgame by looking at the aspects of the potition rather than calculating. An engine, at least a generic one, can't easily do that. More advanced engines like Fritz or Stockfish find clever ways of beating the horizon effect but that's a whole other discussion. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3495" LastActivityDate="2019-10-21T10:52:52.857" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26694" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26695" CreationDate="2019-10-21T12:13:53.967" Score="4" ViewCount="687" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the 90's I was reading British Chess Magazine. I remember an article about the new title of &quot;Club Master&quot;: a title given for strong chess performance at a club level. I have no idea what FIDE rating, if any, was required. I think that the British Chess Federation [BCF] gave the title rather than FIDE. Can someone still get this title? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3495" LastActivityDate="2019-10-21T13:09:41.417" Title="Can someone still get the title of &quot;Club Master?&quot;" Tags="&lt;titles&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26695" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26694" CreationDate="2019-10-21T13:09:41.417" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes. According to the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.englishchess.org.uk/master-points-system/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;ECF website&lt;/a&gt; it costs £10 and a number of different titles are available for ECF members:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(a) &lt;strong&gt;Chess Maestro&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  A player must achieve a grade of at least 95&#xA;  on any ECF official grading list.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  (b) &lt;strong&gt;Team Master&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  A player must achieve a grade of at least 120 on any ECF official grading list.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  (c) &lt;strong&gt;Club Master&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  A player must achieve a standard play A or B grade of at least 145 on an ECF official grading list.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  (d) &lt;strong&gt;County Master&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  A player must achieve a standard play A grade of at least 170 on an ECF official grading list.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  (e) &lt;strong&gt;Regional Master&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  A player must achieve a standard play A grade of at least 185 in two successive seasons on ECF official grading lists (note – grades must be 12 months apart e.g. July 2012, July 2013).&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  (f) &lt;strong&gt;National Master&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  A player must achieve a standard play A grade of at least 200 in two successive seasons on ECF official grading lists (note – grades must be 12 months apart e.g. July 2012, July 2013).   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2019-10-21T13:09:41.417" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26696" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26684" CreationDate="2019-10-21T18:39:31.443" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'll go along with Qxa8 wins a rook right now, as opposed to one move later. But you're about to discover something about chess engines, which will be useful later on, no matter how good you get at chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The line the intrigues me is 8. Qxa8 Nc6 with the idea of trapping the Q out of play for a while. What can Black get from that? So perhaps at this point, when the engine suggests Qxa8, explore what it is the engine sees by going ahead and playing it and then playing a response that might make sense, and see what the computer wants to continue with.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then, once you think you've milked everything you can learn about the computer's suggestion, go back to the position and make your move (8.Bd3) and see what the computer wants to play against it. (8. ... g6 isn't necessarily the only response you'll want to explore, btw. You could use your engine to explore the ramifications of 8. ... f5 while you're at it; will the king flight through f7 work well enough to save the rook? I'll leave that as a fun question for you to answer on your own.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While you do that, you may discover than one of the most useful things about an engine is they never get tired of playing different moves from a position. So when you get to a position where you disagree with the engine, you can play the position out multiple times with multiple responses; the engine will patiently show you what it's seeing for each of those lines. And the more different continuations you play out, the more you will understand what's going on in the position, and the better you will know what to play when positions similar to it arise in your future games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The object, after all, is not to learn how the engine works, but to understand chess; and the engine can be a useful tool for that. Use it to explore the position and you can find out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="657" LastActivityDate="2019-10-21T18:39:31.443" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26697" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="251" CreationDate="2019-10-22T00:45:34.163" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;First of all, EVERY reasonable chess opening is focused on the center in the first few moves. Even hypermodern are focused on the center even if they don't play for it directly. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why is it important? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White has the first move advantage and there are a finite number of squares on the board. If white can turn his first move advantage into controlling more squares than the opponent then white can have a sustainable advantage. Otherwise, white's advantage will dissipate into nothing as the game goes on. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You could say why doesn't white grab space on the wing? The reason is that the opponent can grab more on the other side. If you play 1.g4 and I respond with 1...d5 I'm at least equal because I control more of the board. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another way to look at it is this. Whenever you put a game into an engine it gives you a score. That score is based on the value of the pieces. The value of the pieces is based on their mobility and their mobility is based on control of space specifically in the center.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2019-10-22T00:45:34.163" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26698" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1702" CreationDate="2019-10-22T02:04:31.067" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, learn the game backwards. This was an idea popularized by Capablanca and is the heart of the &quot;Soviet system&quot;. Learn endgames first. Then learn middle games to reach winning endgames. Then pick your openings to reach favorable middle-games. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as openings, use the one move a game technique. Create a skeleton opening (I would say 8 moves deep and top three variations each line). After that, play what you think is the best move. If the move you choose is bad, look up what the main lines are and make a better choice. This way you are learning and not memorizing and the fact that you are using your own ideas will lead to a lot of original play. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2019-10-22T02:04:31.067" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26699" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13652" CreationDate="2019-10-22T02:33:23.380" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You have to understand the time. There was a cold war going on and chess was very important to the Soviets who saw chess as proof that their far-left system of government was better. The Soviets would spare no expense to win at chess and used innumerable armies of analysts to analyze every single move Fischer made from the time he was 15. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Fischer was smart enough to realize this and realized he was facing a Kobayashi Maru of sorts. (ie an unwinnable game). There is no way one man can out-analyze an entire country full of thousands of players analyzing his games. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, Fischer realized the only solution was to take a break so he could analyze his own lines without other's doing the same. That's what he did and he came back the strongest player in history. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, after beating Spassky Fischer was faced with a choice. He could play Karpov, who he was undoubtedly better than, and eventually lose the title when the soviet analysts caught up with him. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or, he could retain the title and ensure that that the Soviets never won the &quot;real&quot; title by beating the proven best player in the world. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The part B of that was that Soviet champions would often dictate unfavorable conditions to challengers. By Fischer standing firm to his conditions, he created an environment where he demonstrated their hypocrisy which paved the way for future non-soviets.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bottom line, Fischer was playing two chess games. One at the board and the other metaphorical geopolitical chess game. By not playing, he won both. Few people may realize the subtlety of his genius and that is what makes him the GOAT. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2019-10-22T02:33:23.380" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26700" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26713" CreationDate="2019-10-22T02:36:51.860" Score="18" ViewCount="7126" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recently played an endgame as Black in which I thought up a silly, but effective, to advance my doubled pawns. Here is the relevant part of the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;8/6p1/2p2kp1/1p1p4/p2P2K1/P1P5/1P6/8 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Kf4 g5+ 2. Kg4 g6 3. Kg3 Kf5 4. Kf3 g4+ 5. Kg3 g5 6. Kg2 Kf4 7. Kf2 g3+ 8. Kg2 g4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then White ran out of time and I won.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We were both down to the seconds on the clock, and I thought that this was a good idea. That was because I thought, “Why must I think, when I can just herd the White king down the board is a systematic manner that saves me from wasting too much time on future thought?”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, was my “caterpillar” plan really a good strategy in this endgame situation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-12T22:22:42.293" LastActivityDate="2020-08-12T22:22:42.293" Title="Was this “caterpillar” strategy a good way to advance my pawns?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;&lt;doubled-pawn&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26701" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26700" CreationDate="2019-10-22T02:49:42.773" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;White is in zugzwang so the basic idea of forcing white back using the pawns for extra tempos is perfectly correct. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You still need to figure out how to queen without stalemating but you have the right idea. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2019-10-22T02:49:42.773" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26702" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4844" CreationDate="2019-10-22T02:59:16.670" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The idea you're missing is the idea that a move by you restricts your opponent's choices. You aren't just playing to make good moves but also to restrict your opponent from making good moves. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would compare it to a game of musical chairs. Whoever controls more chairs wins the game. Same thing in chess. It is as much of an advantage to prevent your opponent from controlling a square as it is to control it yourself. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e4 prevents black from obtaining an equal share of the center. e3 doesn't. Black can respond to e3 with e5, d5 and possibly many other moves and control at least as much of the center. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2019-10-22T02:59:16.670" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26703" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8973" CreationDate="2019-10-22T03:09:03.210" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Objectively 1...d5 is better because it grabs control of the center. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Practically, most people will respond to 1. Nf3 with an opening they have worked out and are familiar with even if it is not objectively best. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2019-10-22T03:09:03.210" CommentCount="11" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26704" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5632" CreationDate="2019-10-22T03:24:51.097" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The semi-slav is the perfect compliment to the CK however it might be more tactical than what you want. The slav is good but drawish. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would recommend playing 1...c6 against everything and working out the transpositions. The Slav is probably fine for what you want but if that opening is too passive the semi-slav gives you a more aggressive game. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you don't like that, you have your choice of the QGD (1...d5), various Indian defenses (1...Nf6) or the flexible (1...e6)  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On a side note, the colle for white fits very well with the CK/Slav ideas as black. A rep of colle/slav/ck is pretty simple to learn and reaches similar positions from both sides. It's all built around the same pawn structures. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2019-10-22T03:24:51.097" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26705" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12287" CreationDate="2019-10-22T04:24:08.007" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;This position is won for black. A king can't stop stop two connected passed pawns. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't know who Tim Krabbé is but any beginner should be able to see this a won position for black in about 30 seconds. Even if white creates a passed pawn on the kingside, he can't stop black's connected passed pawns and black has tempo moves.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At the very least white might be able to draw but anyone who claims this is winning for white has no idea what they're talking about. If I'm wrong show me the analysis. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2019-10-22T04:24:08.007" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26706" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6048" CreationDate="2019-10-22T04:30:10.007" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If white has both the opposition and the king is in front of the pawn it's won otherwise it's a draw. There are a few exceptions but in general it is that simple. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2019-10-22T04:30:10.007" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26707" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26700" CreationDate="2019-10-22T09:37:25.197" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It was a very sensible strategy. You never have to worry about stalemate because at the key moment, like round about now, your king can head over to the queenside to take the pawns on b2 and a3 and then queen your a pawn while your opponent is busy taking your g pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2019-10-22T09:37:25.197" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26708" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26700" CreationDate="2019-10-22T09:38:25.023" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;Overall, that is totally fine, and it worked great. That said, without a detailed calculation of any promotion and stalemate possibilities on the k-side, the easiest win will be running to b2 and just queening the a-pawn since you may well have to do that anyway. That is best done with the p on g6 still far away, and white cannot ignore it, so he has to go take that first, and that is VERY slow.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My initial instinct was to run to b2 much earlier. It is simpler.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S. Also, as Taemyr first mentioned, and then OverlordAlex, there really is no stalemate threat since even if you get to g2+; Kg1 Kg3; white still has b3 ab; a4 b2; a5 b1=Q and mate. I should not have even worried about that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  [FEN &quot;8/6p1/2p2kp1/1p1p4/p2P2K1/P1P5/1P6/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Kf4 g5+ 2. Kg4 g6 3. Kg3 Kf5 4. Kf3 g4+ 5. Kg3 Ke4 6. Kxg4 Kd3 7. Kg5 Kc2 8. Kxg6 Kxb2 9. Kf6 Kxa3 10. Ke6 Kb3 11. Kd6 a3 12. Kc6 a2 13. Kd5 a1=Q&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2019-10-22T15:32:34.173" LastActivityDate="2019-10-22T15:32:34.173" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26709" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26700" CreationDate="2019-10-22T09:47:46.713" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;It was OK, but unnecessary. You could have left your &quot;back&quot; pawn on the starting square to make your opponent lose more time while going to capture it. Then you are free to go into the queenside to take all of his pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The endgame is easily won anyway so there is no one road do victory, though. For instance, you could end up with your pawns leaving the White king with no moves, forcing him to give his panws away (but beware of stalemate!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastEditorUserId="18809" LastEditDate="2019-10-22T11:38:28.100" LastActivityDate="2019-10-22T11:38:28.100" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26710" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26682" CreationDate="2019-10-22T09:51:23.100" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is my email conversation with the head of the FIDE Arbiter's Commission, Laurent Freyd.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In essence, for now, until they add a clarification, and arbiter would be correct ruling either way. That said, he says that he teaches new arbiters that once the game has ended, they do not go back and change the result after the fact. In other words, they still lean toward mate ending the game or resignation ending the game is final so if that clarification is ever issued, it is clear what that would be.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;When the game reached a point where it's finished in a way that all actors observed that end and agree - let's not change it back after analysis.&quot; (full text quoted in context below)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Dear Mr. Freyd,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The other day on Stack Exchange Chess, a question about FIDE rules came up. We got several answers, including two conflicting answers from two FIDE arbiters. Although the circumstances would be very rare, I am hoping that you can resolve this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The question was “Does the FIDE 75-move rule (9.6) apply after checkmate or resignation?” There is further explanation in the body of the question, but summing it up, a game is proceeding, and although it is not noticed at the time, 75 moves passed, and let’s say, of the 81st move of no pawns moving or captures, one side is checkmated or resigns. Almost immediately, the losing person realizes that 75 moves had passed, and believes that the game immediately ended there, and he files a protest that the game was officially over at move 75 so the result should be changed to a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which takes precedence? Rule 5.1.1 “The game is won by the player who has checkmated his opponent’s king. This immediately ends the game”, or 9.6 “If one or both of the following occur(s) then the game is drawn” since that had occurred first?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Did the game immediately end on the 75th move of no pawns moving or captures, or since no one noticed, upon the checkmate or resignation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you for clarifying this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks for your email.&#xA;Article 9.6.2 states &quot;If the last move resulted in checkmate, that shall take precedence.&quot;&#xA;In the case when none of the players claimed before (let's remember that they are already allowed to claim a draw from the 50th move without capture or pawn move), nor the arbiter identified that 75 moves or more were played in that same context, I believe it makes sense to keep the result decided by the players. I would make the parallel with a football game where one camp was off-side but scored a goal, while the referees wouldn't see it. The goal remains, even if the video shows after the match that the context of play was not supposed to allow the goal to be validated by the referee.&#xA;Of course, if the arbiter sees that the limit is passed, he MUST stop the game with a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I agree with you that there are 2 different ways of thinking about such questions:&#xA;- either consider that there's one truth, which would impact a result even after a game is finished. e.g. a kid's game where one of the players gets checkmated, none of the opponents understand it, continue the game, then the same player checkmates his opponent: with that philosophy, the result would be changed as the analysis of the game would show a &quot;first checkmate&quot; earlier in the game.&#xA;- or consider that a game is a flow of events, and the truth is what the different actors (players, arbiters) understand and see, so it may happen that some events aren't seen. e.g. you played 80 moves without pawn move or piece capture and a checkmate is observed (as a result of a legal move, of course), then checkmate stands: with that philosophy, you don't expect to reconstruct a game to validate its result.&#xA;My preference goes to the latter option, as it keeps responsibility on the players to understand what's going on in their own game and creates less complications when treating the end of the game with the arbiter (who sometimes can't find out all irregularities or detailed facts of all the games he has to supervise at once).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I hope this helps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Best regards,&#xA;Laurent FREYD&#xA;Chairman - FIDE Arbiters' Commission&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One last clarification: Are you saying that an arbiter could rule either way and be correct?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think yes, until we publish a &quot;philosophical statement&quot; on the fact that we use &quot;available facts&quot; at the moment of the action, rather than post mortem seeking absolute truth, to make a final decision. Although, I'm really uncomfortable with the &quot;post mortem&quot; approach and when I teach arbiters, I always mention such cases as &quot;too bad nobody saw anything, but that's life. I don't expect to transform arbiters into players analysing the game after it is finished. When the game reached a point where it's finished in a way that all actors observed that end and agree - let's not change it back after analysis.&quot; (of course, except if a proof of cheating is found or something like that, but then it is not anymore a simple change of result, it is a sanction).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Best regards,&#xA;Laurent FREYD&#xA;Chairman - FIDE Arbiters' Commission&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2019-10-22T09:51:23.100" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26711" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-10-22T11:10:58.033" Score="8" ViewCount="429" Body="&lt;p&gt;I played in a blitz tournament. It was an official FIDE tournament, so ratings should be calculated. I wasn't rated before that tournament. It was played over 11 rounds with a rematch so you could earn 22 points. I had 11 points, but after the event I am still not rated in blitz. Everyone else in tournament has changed their ratings. Why didn't I get a FIDE rating? What do. I need to do to get FIDE blitz rating?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If someone can check, &lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/calculations.phtml?id_number=21889090&amp;amp;period=2019-11-01&amp;amp;rating=2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; is my result from this tournament&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20368" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-10-22T17:10:11.257" LastActivityDate="2019-10-22T17:10:11.257" Title="FIDE rating in blitz" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;fide&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26712" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26711" CreationDate="2019-10-22T12:11:04.667" Score="6" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Why didn't I get a FIDE rating?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Probably because you didn't meet the requirements to get a rating. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;em&gt;FIDE Rating Regulations effective from 1 July 2017&lt;/em&gt; (sorry no link currently because FIDE have munged their site and you have to search withing the site):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol start=&quot;7&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Official FIDE Rating List&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;7.1 On the first day of each month, the QC shall prepare a list which incorporates the rated play during the rating period into the previous list. This shall be done using the rating system formula.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;7.11 The rating period (for new players, see 7.14) is the period where a certain rating list is valid.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;7.12 The following data will be kept concerning each player whose rating is at least 1000 as of the current list:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  FIDE title, Federation, Current Rating, ID Number, Number of games rated in the rating period, Date of Birth, Gender and the current value of K for the player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;7.13 The closing date for tournaments for a list is 3 days before the date of the list; tournaments ending before or on that day may be rated on the list.&#xA;  Official FIDE events may be rated on the list even if they end on the last day before the list date.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;7.14 A rating for a player new to the list shall be published only if it meets the following criteria:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;7.14a If based on results obtained under 6.3, a minimum of 5 games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;7.14b If based on results obtained under 6.4, a minimum of 5 games played against rated opponents.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;7.14c The condition of a minimum of 5 games need not be met in one tournament. Results from other tournaments played within consecutive rating periods of not more than 26 months are pooled to obtain the initial rating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;7.14d &lt;strong&gt;The rating is at least 1000&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;7.14e The rating is calculated using all his results as if they were played in one tournament (it is not published until he has played at least 5 games) by using all the rating data available.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Without more information it is not possible to say exactly why you didn't get a rating. If you can give a link to the tournament and your real name it would be possible to have a look and see why.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT&lt;/strong&gt;: Thank you for giving details of the tournament that you played in.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It was played on 12th October 2019. This will be rated in the list that comes out on 1st November. In the meantime FIDE have recorded that they expect your blitz rating to be 1503. You can see &lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/card.phtml?event=21889090&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;. They don't know yet for sure because maybe you played in another tournament and they didn't get the tournament report file yet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What do I need to do to get FIDE blitz rating?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically you need to score at least 0.5 points against at least 5 players who are already FIDE rated at blitz in one or more FIDE rated blitz tournaments over a period of 26 months or less and get a rating of at least 1000.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to calculate your initial rating then FIDE provide an &lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/calculator_rp.phtml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;initial rating calculator&lt;/a&gt; in a part of their site which has not yet been munged.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you think you satisfied these requirements and still didn't get a blitz rating you can email the chairman of the &lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/fide_directory.phtml?content=6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Qualification Commission&lt;/a&gt;, Nick Faulks (armadillo@northrock.bm) or the secretary, Alex Holoczak (alexholowczak@gmail.com).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-10-22T16:26:07.957" LastActivityDate="2019-10-22T16:26:07.957" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26713" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26700" CreationDate="2019-10-22T14:05:26.217" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;tl;dr: &quot;Yes.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Discussion:&#xA;Technically, this position is governed by the basic concept of the &quot;Outside Passed Pawn&quot; and the winning method is to use that pawn to restrict the opposing king's ability to defend the other pawns on the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The purest expression of that concept is in David's answer, which is to just use the one pawn and leave the other as a Damoclean Sword dangling over the head of your opponent's king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But, given the special case of this situation (you actually have &lt;em&gt;two&lt;/em&gt; outside passed pawns, not just one) you could also decide play it strictly as a single g-pawn endgame, but with tempo move in hand. To do this, you would use the caterpillar's &quot;head&quot; (the lead g-pawn) along with your king to drive the opposing king backwards to the back rank. (While doing this, when your king moves beside your pawn, keep it to the center -- f file -- side of your g-pawn.) When that is accomplished (let's say your K reaches f3, the pawn g3 and your opponent's K goes to f1 to prevent your king from advancing in front of the pawn) you simply push the g-pawn forward to g2 and when he moves to g1 to block the advance of the pawn, then you move the rearmost g-pawn from g7 to g6, leaving your opponent the choice of getting out of the way of your lead g-pawn and letting it queen, or moving one of his other pawns and letting you create a queen from one of your other pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would probably have played it that way, simply because it seems the least complicated to me, but there are multiple winning ideas in this position, and none of them are objectively better than any other. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="657" LastActivityDate="2019-10-22T14:05:26.217" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26714" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21614" CreationDate="2019-10-22T14:24:38.110" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;What I always used to do (this was back before the PC was invented, when dinosaurs walked the earth) was set up my magnetic travel set with the position of the game, and make the actual game moves on it, then set up a regular chessboard on the table and play through all the analysis of the game on it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That way I always had a reference of what the game position was, so it was never lost and I could return to it easily if my analysis went too far afield. And that also meant I could use the &quot;analysis set&quot; to chase down any other variations that I was curious about that the author didn't mention, as well as follow the author's analysis better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="657" LastActivityDate="2019-10-22T14:24:38.110" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26716" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26721" CreationDate="2019-10-22T17:02:34.217" Score="19" ViewCount="3245" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the latest &lt;a href=&quot;https://old.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=208&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Laws of Chess&lt;/a&gt; the arbiter is supposed to step in and declare the game drawn if 75 moves are played by both sides with no captures and no pawn moves. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It would be understandable if this happened in blitz or rapid where the players are not recording the moves. It would also be understandable in games played by weaker player who may not know the rules. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Has it ever happened in a game of standard chess with a 30 second increment where the players have to record the moves and where at least one of the players is a GM?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-01T15:02:00.947" LastActivityDate="2020-04-01T15:02:00.947" Title="Has the 75 move draw rule ever been invoked in a FIDE rated standard game involving a GM?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;fide&gt;&lt;draw&gt;&lt;75-move-rule&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26717" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26716" CreationDate="2019-10-22T19:16:13.607" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I tried a search using ChessBase for players over 2400, and then sorted the result by length, but there were too many games because you cannot filter out blitz and rapid. The overwhelming majority of the games were blitz. I sent them a suggestion regarding adding a title filter and changing the filter for time control.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Looking down the sorted list at the non-blitz games, the games I did look at manually, despite many being almost 200 moves long, continued to have pawn moves until they drew for other reasons. They were not just moving and moving with no progress.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That said, it will be hard to prove either way unless someone happened to witness it, but I tend to doubt it. If a GM game goes that long, it is because one side is pressing, and the other side is probably experienced enough to be looking for the 50th move, and well-aware of what move number is the drawing move number at least roughly. If the player were that much weaker that he does not know the rules (at least the 50-move rule), it is doubtful he would be holding a GM for 75 moves anyway.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not a perfect answer, but if it has not happened, it is hard to prove a negative.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2019-10-22T19:16:13.607" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26718" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26724" CreationDate="2019-10-22T19:31:28.297" Score="4" ViewCount="148" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was looking at the computer analysis for a game I played and I need some help to understand a line found by the computer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After a balanced game (started with a Torre Attack) we arrived at the following position:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Kwcey.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Kwcey.png&quot; alt=&quot;mid game starting position&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You see at the bottom the line suggested by the computer instead of my 23..h6 (that didn't lead anywhere in the end).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This interesting line starts with 23..f3 24. Nxf3. I understand why eventually we arrive at the position below with 27..Be6. But the computer suggests 28.a4 instead of moving the rook. Can you please explain the engine analysis here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ugioY.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ugioY.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why doesn't White, for example, exchange their rook with Black’s rook and then play 29. Qe2?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20375" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-10-22T19:58:46.943" LastActivityDate="2019-10-23T14:03:02.427" Title="Explaining middle game computer analysis" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;middlegame&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26719" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26718" CreationDate="2019-10-22T19:38:03.437" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the first position, f3 is good because it will open the white K after Nxf3 Bg4 then Bxf3 or maybe Rf3 in some cases as the light squares will be very weak (the analysis gave up the Nf3 with Ne5 immediately since the position was so bad that giving up a piece was &quot;best&quot;...if that is best, then it is dead lost). What is left is a HUGE Nc5 compared to a pathetic Bc2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the second diagram, you still have that Nc5 vs. the Bc2, but white is already down a piece. That is just lost, and a matter of time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2019-10-22T19:47:56.853" LastActivityDate="2019-10-22T19:47:56.853" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26720" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26700" CreationDate="2019-10-22T19:50:45.603" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;From the end position without the queenside pawns White can move to g1, claim the opposition, and have a draw.  If you had just advanced the front g pawn until it got to g3 you would have g6 available to take the opposition and queen the front g pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="956" LastActivityDate="2019-10-22T19:50:45.603" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26721" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26716" CreationDate="2019-10-22T21:03:05.890" Score="21" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;Northumbria Masters&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Newcastle&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2018.02.18&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;8&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Britton, Richard L&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Hebden GM, Mark L&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;C89&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;2255&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;2454&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1/2-1/2&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Ba4 Nf6 5. O-O Be7 6. Re1 b5 7. Bb3 O-O 8. c3 d6 9. h3 Nb8 10. d4 Nbd7 11. Nbd2 Bb7 12. Bc2 Re8 13. Nf1 Bf8 14. Ng3 g6 15. a4 c5 16. d5 c4 17. Bg5 Nc5 18. Qd2 Be7 19. Be3 Qc7 20. Rf1 bxa4 21. Bxc5 Qxc5 22. Rxa4 a5 23. Rfa1 Nd7 24. h4 Qc7 25. h5 Nc5 26. R4a3 Reb8 27. Qc1 Bc8 28. Nf1 Bg4 29. N1h2 Bd7 30. Nf1 a4 31. Ne3 Bb5 32. g3 Qd8 33. Kg2 Rb7 34. Qd2 Rab8 35. Rh1 Qc8 36. Raa1 Bd7 37. hxg6 fxg6 38. Nxc4 Bg4 39. Ne1 Nxe4 40. Bxe4 Qxc4 41. Qd3 Qxd3 42. Nxd3 Bd7 43. Nb4 Rxb4 44. cxb4 Rxb4 45. Bc2 Rxb2 46. Bxa4 Bf5 47. Rhe1 Bg5 48. Bd1 Bd2 49. Ra8+ Kg7 50. Ra7+ Kf6 51. Re2 Bd3 52. Rxh7 Bxe2 53. Bxe2 e4 54. Rh4 Ke5 55. f3 exf3+ 56. Kxf3 Kxd5 57. Bc4+ Kc5 58. Bd3 Be1 59. Rc4+ Kd5 60. Rc2 Rb3 61. Ke2 Ke5 62. Bxg6 Bxg3 63. Rd2 Bf4 64. Rd5+ Ke6 65. Rd3 Rb8 66. Be4 Rf8 67. Bd5+ Ke5 68. Kd1 Rc8 69. Ke2 Rc2+ 70. Kd1 Rh2 71. Bc6 Kf5 72. Bd5 Rb2 73. Bf3 Be5 74. Bd5 Rb4 75. Rf3+ Kg4 76. Rd3 Bd4 77. Rf3 Bc5 78. Kc2 Ra4 79. Rf1 Ra3 80. Bb3 Be3 81. Bd5 Bf4 82. Rd1 Kf5 83. Rd3 Ra5 84. Bf3 Ra1 85. Kb2 Re1 86. Kb3 Rc1 87. Kb2 Rc5 88. Kb3 Be5 89. Bd5 Bf6 90. Bg2 Ke5 91. Bh1 Rc1 92. Bg2 Bd8 93. Bf3 Bb6 94. Rd1 Rc5 95. Bg2 Ra5 96. Kb4 Ra2 97. Bh1 Re2 98. Rd5+ Ke6 99. Rd1 Be3 100. Kc4 Bf2 101. Bf3 Ra2 102. Bh1 Ra4+ 103. Kb5 Rh4 104. Bd5+ Ke5 105. Bg2 Rh8 106. Rd5+ Ke6 107. Rd2 Bg3 108. Rd3 Bf4 109. Bf3 Rb8+ 110. Kc4 Rc8+ 111. Kb3 Rc5 112. Bg2 Ke5 113. Bf3 Bh2 114. Bg2 Bg1 115. Rd1 Bd4 116. Re1+ Kf6 117. Rd1 Be5 118. Rd3 Rc1 119. Bd5 Rg1 120. Rf3+ Kg5 121. Rd3 Rg4 122. Bf3 Rh4 123. Bd5 Bd4 124. Rf3 Bc5 125. Rd3 Kf5 126. Bg2 Bd4 127. Rd1 Ke6 128. Re1+ Kd7 129. Rh1 Rf4 130. Rh7+ Ke6 131. Rh6+ Bf6 132. Rh5 Rd4 133. Bh3+ Kf7 134. Rh7+ Kf8 135. Be6 Be5 136. Kc2 Bg7 137. Rh3 Ke7 138. Bb3 Rg4 139. Bd5 Kd7 140. Rb3 Rg5 141. Rb7+ Kc8 142. Rb5 Rg3 143. Rb3 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The last capture was 62...Bxg3. The game ended on move 143. Rb3 after the Chief Arbiter asked one of the Deputy Chief arbiters, who knew both players well, to step in and stop the game. A few moves late but they were blitzing out the moves. Fortunately nothing untoward happened in the extra 5 moves, like mate or a resignation, and the arbiter wasn't called upon to make a tricky decision ;-)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2019-10-22T21:03:05.890" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26722" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5632" CreationDate="2019-10-23T03:21:46.073" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I agree with a previous answer that it's hard, and maybe pointless, to seek a similar defense to the Caro Kann when facing 1.d4. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But for your other requirements of positional solidity what about The Old Indian defense? &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Indian_Defense&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Indian_Defense&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;The Old Indian is solid and respectable; it was played by Grandmasters such as Lothar Schmidt. In fact looking at his games now he played it a lot and described it as his &quot;old friend.&quot; It's objectively fine; it's just lacks the hair raising tactics of the King's Indian.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3495" LastActivityDate="2019-10-23T03:21:46.073" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26723" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5632" CreationDate="2019-10-23T07:56:49.227" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some good ideas in the rest of the answers, but I'd like to add that if you like positions in the Panov attack, you should probably try the Queen's Gambit Declind, perhaps the Tarrasch variation. You'll get to plenty of isolated 'd' pawns from there, playing both with and against it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Slav Defence appears to look like a Caro-Kann, but more often that not it looks nothing like it unless you allow your opponent to play &lt;strong&gt;e4&lt;/strong&gt;, which is often not a good idea, as you'll probably have a worsened version of the classical Caro-Kann&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastActivityDate="2019-10-23T07:56:49.227" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26724" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26718" CreationDate="2019-10-23T13:37:53.700" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;After:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;23 ..f3 24 Nxf3 Bg4 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You are threatening Bxf3 to win a piece, since the g2 pawn is pinned. So sacrificing the f3 pawn gives you great initiative and attacking options, and keeps white pinned down.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even if white moves the king to avoid the pin, with say Kf1, you can take in f3 with the rook and if white captures back with the pawn Bh3 is mate:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;2br1rk1/p5pp/1p1p2q1/1PnRp1N1/2P1Pp1P/P7/2B1QPP1/4R1K1 b - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. f3 Nf3 2. Bg4 Kf1 3. Rf3 gxf3 4. Bh3#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Running the king to the other way, h1, is also equally bad, because Rf4 becomes undefendable:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;2br1rk1/p5pp/1p1p2q1/1PnRp1N1/2P1Pp1P/P7/2B1QPP1/4R1K1 b - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. f3 Nf3 2. Bg4 Kh1 3. Bxf3 gxf3 4. Rf4 Qf1 5. Rxh4 Qh3 6. Rxh3#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So as you can see, the attack becomes quite strong, so the engine suggests white to sacrifice the knight to gain counter attacking options, and not lose on the spot. Even though the position is still lost regardless.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I understand why eventually we arrive at the position below with 27..Be6. But the computer suggests 28.a4 instead of moving the rook&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why doesn't White, for example, exchange their rook with Black’s rook and then play 29. Qe2?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well the exchange sacrifice on d5 isn't particularly bad considering the position, and how the d file becomes closed, but you get even further down material. Also other than Rxd8 you only have Rd6 to not sacrifice the exchange but that loses instantly to Rxd6 followed by Qxf2+ leading to mate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The answer to &amp;quot;Why not Rxd8?&amp;quot; is: The engine didn't have enough time to think. The suggested move by Stockfish 10 in this position is in fact Rxd8 followed by either Qe3 or Qe2, as you can see in the following picture:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/D7vY2.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/D7vY2.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15224" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2019-10-23T14:03:02.427" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26725" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26726" CreationDate="2019-10-23T15:07:53.623" Score="10" ViewCount="405" Body="&lt;p&gt;While reading about Paul Morphy's games I have come across several instances of phrases like  &quot;playing his fellow townsmen at odds of Knight or Rook&quot; or  &quot;he extended his offer of Pawn and move to any member of the club&quot; or &quot;Morphy extended the challenge at Pawn and move to him also&quot;. It sounds like some sort of handicap arrangement.  Can you tell me what these phrases mean and if anything like this is done these days?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20381" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-02-06T03:29:02.843" LastActivityDate="2020-09-10T13:57:09.383" Title="Puzzling phrases" Tags="&lt;history&gt;&lt;morphy&gt;&lt;handicap&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26726" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26725" CreationDate="2019-10-23T15:31:27.010" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is being talked about are called &lt;strong&gt;Odds Games&lt;/strong&gt;, which are indeed handicaps. It is not a common practice these days.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here’s a quote from &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessvariants.com/other.dir/oddschess.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chessvariants.com&lt;/a&gt; that gives the right idea.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“During the 18th &amp;amp; 19th centuries, it was common to give odds in chess games, which means the practice of giving some advantage to the player with lesser skill. Odds giving can also be an interesting way to play with a computer program whose skill level differs from your own. You can also play the games in pairs, with the winner being the player who checkmates in fewer moves.”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The phrase &amp;quot;playing his fellow townsmen at odds of Knight or Rook&amp;quot; meant that Morphy gave up a rook or a knight in the starting position. As an example, here is a well known &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1238144&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;game&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Paul Morphy-Alonzo Morphy, New Orleans, 1850&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/1NBQKBNR w Kkq - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Nf6 4. Ng5 d5 5. exd5 Nxd5 6. Nxf7 Kxf7 7. Qf3+ Ke6 8. Nc3 Nd4 9. Bxd5+ Kd6 10.  Qf7 Be6 11. Bxe6 Nxe6 12. Ne4+ Kd5 13. c4+ Kxe4 14.Qxe6 Qd4 15. Qg4+ Kd3 16. Qe2+ Kc2 17. d3+ Kxc1 18. O-O#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The other phrase “or Morphy extended the challenge at Pawn and move to him also&amp;quot; means that the stronger player was Black and had no f7 pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here’s an &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1238137&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;example game&lt;/a&gt; from this &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chesscollection?cid=1015076&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;collection&lt;/a&gt; of odds game with “a pawn and a move” in addition to rook odds.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Charles Maurian-Paul Morphy, New Orleans, 1854&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;1nbqkbnr/ppppp1pp/8/8/4P3/8/PPPP1PPP/RNBQKBNR w KQk - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 e6 2.c4 Nc6 3.d5 Ne5 4.f4 Ng6 5.Be3 Bb4+ 6.Nc3 e5 7.Qh5 Nf6 8.Qg5 Be7 9.f5 Nxd5 10.Qh5 Nxe3 11.Kf2 O-O 12.Kxe3 Bg5+ 13.Kf3 Nf4 14.Qg4 h5 15.Qg3 Bh4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-09-10T13:57:09.383" LastActivityDate="2020-09-10T13:57:09.383" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26727" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5046" CreationDate="2019-10-24T01:53:11.777" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure if I (or anyone that has answered) understands your question correctly. But I would assume you want to know how to avoid middle-game positions early in a game.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To answer the question: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Playing aggressively and creating threats while developing your own pieces leaves your opponent behind in development and still struggling to complete the opening goals. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Preventing the opponent from castling. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2019-10-24T01:53:11.777" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26728" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26754" CreationDate="2019-10-24T10:20:55.023" Score="14" ViewCount="2633" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have read in several sources, it's a important to be able instantly say what colour a square has or for example, if two pieces are on the same diagonal/rank/file, if their squares are given. And this skill can be learned by specific exercise for visualisation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this true?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it important to learn this skill isolated from other chess improvement learning?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17458" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2019-10-24T14:45:54.277" LastActivityDate="2019-10-28T15:54:38.250" Title="Learning to visualize the board" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;visualization&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26729" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26728" CreationDate="2019-10-24T11:37:55.900" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Welcome to stackexchange and thanks for your question. I would love to be able to visualise the board, especially those pesky diagonals, but I don’t seem any closer to that than when I was younger.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can manage general strategic thinking without a board but the geometrical stuff doesn’t stick. Rows and files are ok, but e.g. sequences of knight moves are tricky.  When I have the board in front of me, I can visualize the geometry pretty well, but it’s still hard to see the position several moves ahead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I think of a square like f5, I know it’s light because the letter is even while the number is odd. But I had to think about it and got it wrong. I am using numbers rather than visualisation here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I taught myself in bridge to count the cards. But even after several years it’s not intuitive. I use my auditive memory, but it still requires concentration that perhaps would be better spent analysing the play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I would say that visualising the board can be helpful, but not if it requires significant conscious attention. I heard recently that GM John Nunn has a photographic memory which brings effortless visual recall -not just of an empty board but of the game in play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What exactly are the techniques recommended to you please?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8201" LastEditorUserId="8201" LastEditDate="2019-10-24T20:40:05.967" LastActivityDate="2019-10-24T20:40:05.967" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26730" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26728" CreationDate="2019-10-24T11:38:44.237" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is my opinion that knowing off the top of your head whether f4 is a light or dark square is not all that important. During a game, the board is right there in front of you. You can simply look to see its color. And you don't have to know whether the square is named g1 to see that it's on the same file as g8.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, being able to instantly see that two pieces are (or will be) on the same diagonal/rank/file is important. For example, if two enemy pieces are on the same diagonal, a bishop may be able to fork them, pin them, or skewer them, depending on the position. If your rook is on the same file as the enemy king or queen with another piece in between, you may be able to move that piece for a discovered attack, or, if it's an opposing piece in between, attack it again because it is pinned.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2019-10-24T11:38:44.237" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26731" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26728" CreationDate="2019-10-24T12:57:38.047" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is not specifically for diagonals, but this is how I learned to visualize the board. I am not sure that I agree that you should be able to know what color a particular square is. I have been playing tournaments for 40 years this year, more than 30 at the master level, and I still do not think about the color of squares at all with regards to calculation (sure when it comes to making my bishop bad, and other positional elements). I just know where my pieces are, and with experience, where they can go. If I can visualize the former, then the latter is easy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is related to tactics, but specifically meant to be different. You can use a different book, but I started with Chernev's &quot;Combinations, the Heart of Chess&quot;. The reason I used this book is that many of the examples are longer than normal, but not full game length, and they are interesting and fun. Some get to be 20 moves, or more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Except maybe on short ones, you are not trying at all to solve them. ALL you are trying to do is keep the position in your head accurately, including sub-variations that are given. When you have visualized it well enough that you think you have it right, put it on a board, and see how well you really did visualize the position, especially, the final position. As you get better at this, you can use full-length games. Again, unlike tactics training, you are just trying to visualize where the pieces are.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another fun book to do this with is Chernev's &quot;1000 Best Short Games of Chess&quot; since it starts with 4 moves and gradually goes up to 25 max. The only problem is both books I mentioned used descriptive notation, and if that is a problem, you will need to find other interesting shortish games to do this with.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Again, I suggest trying to visualize the whole board. If you do that, you will also see diagonals more clearly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2019-10-24T12:57:38.047" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26732" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26428" CreationDate="2019-10-24T19:19:10.387" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;See &lt;a href=&quot;http://wiki.bitplan.com/index.php/Raspberry_PI_Chessboard_Camera&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://wiki.bitplan.com/index.php/Raspberry_PI_Chessboard_Camera&lt;/a&gt; for some background information and links on a related project.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See &lt;a href=&quot;http://wiki.bitplan.com/index.php/PlayChessWithAWebCam&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://wiki.bitplan.com/index.php/PlayChessWithAWebCam&lt;/a&gt; for a project that currently migrates an older solution that has an Arena interface. See e.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/WolfgangFahl/play-chess-with-a-webcam/blob/master/src/uci.py&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://github.com/WolfgangFahl/play-chess-with-a-webcam/blob/master/src/uci.py&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which would be the link that is most close to an answer to your question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am a committer of the new fork and intend to go more general. You are invited to get in touch and file an &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/WolfgangFahl/play-chess-with-a-webcam/issues/new&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;issue&lt;/a&gt; for your needs. I also think it might be worthwile to integrate your efforts and the above project. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20322" LastActivityDate="2019-10-24T19:19:10.387" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26733" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26728" CreationDate="2019-10-24T20:11:28.943" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe that figuring out colors of squares is a good exercise, and it is not so important to know what color a square is per se, but how it is tied to a concept in chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, what color is &lt;code&gt;g7&lt;/code&gt;? It is dark right, this is where black dark-squared bishop resides after fianchetto.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What about &lt;code&gt;b4&lt;/code&gt;? When I think of &lt;code&gt;b4&lt;/code&gt; I think of the Evan's Gambit, white is sacrificing a pawn to control the center and develop quickly by attacking Black's &lt;strong&gt;dark-squared&lt;/strong&gt; bishop, and therefore, &lt;code&gt;b4&lt;/code&gt; must be dark as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="307" LastEditorUserId="307" LastEditDate="2019-10-28T03:15:17.343" LastActivityDate="2019-10-28T03:15:17.343" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26734" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26735" CreationDate="2019-10-25T02:10:57.650" Score="0" ViewCount="827" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I tell the engine to find the best move with &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;go movetime 1 depth 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I expect it allows itself to take up to about 1 ms to make it's move. But what's the difference between that and the &lt;strong&gt;Slow Mover&lt;/strong&gt; option: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;option name Slow Mover type spin default 84 min 10 max 1000&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Looking at &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.talkchess.com/forum3/viewtopic.php?t=42308&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this post from 2008&lt;/a&gt; it seems like perhaps &lt;strong&gt;Slow Mover&lt;/strong&gt; was implemented before the &lt;strong&gt;movetime&lt;/strong&gt; option?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20391" LastActivityDate="2019-10-25T17:48:46.787" Title="What's the difference between movetime and the Slow Mover option?" Tags="&lt;stockfish&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26735" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26734" CreationDate="2019-10-25T17:48:46.787" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;When you pass &lt;code&gt;movetime&lt;/code&gt; to an engine via UCI, you're telling it to override any time management algorithms it might have, and to instead spend exactly &lt;code&gt;x&lt;/code&gt; milliseconds analysing the position. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When playing games, the UCI &lt;code&gt;movetime&lt;/code&gt; parameter typically isn't specified. Instead, the engine is told how much time each player has left on their clock (and the increment, if any). This allows the engine to decide how much time to use with its own time management.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;code&gt;Slow Mover&lt;/code&gt; option is used to tell the engine how you would like it to manage time. It only means something in a game situation (i.e. when &lt;code&gt;movetime&lt;/code&gt; isn't specified). Higher values will tell the engine, broadly, to use &quot;more time&quot;, but it does not control the exact amount of time that is used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10075" LastActivityDate="2019-10-25T17:48:46.787" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26736" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19911" CreationDate="2019-10-25T22:32:49.550" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know this is quite old, but I'm building a tool that can be used to train for that. It should be out in a couple of days. If you want to talk about it, you can join my discord server: &lt;a href=&quot;https://discord.gg/7hZwq9j&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://discord.gg/7hZwq9j&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13040" LastActivityDate="2019-10-25T22:32:49.550" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26737" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1876" CreationDate="2019-10-26T00:46:01.180" Score="0" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;There are better lines for black than the Fried Liver. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Even if you do choose it, black is probably equal albeit after a long theoretical battle. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2019-10-26T00:46:01.180" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26738" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24089" CreationDate="2019-10-26T00:53:59.127" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;4...d5 5. exd5, Na5 is not only fine for black but probably equal. Black's active piece play is enough compensation for the pawn. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In chess, you need to learn how to play actively. I've never seen anyone get past the 1400-1500 level without understanding that. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Me personally, I don't feel like I play my best unless I'm down a pawn. I would choose the black side in this line and so would likely every GM alive. There's a reason this isn't played at GM level. If you want to prove the entire chess wrong play the white side of this against sf until you get the point. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2019-10-26T00:53:59.127" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26739" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26740" CreationDate="2019-10-26T00:56:43.040" Score="3" ViewCount="216" Body="&lt;p&gt;While &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/730/why-would-one-promote-a-pawn-to-a-knight/24295#24295&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; asks for &lt;strong&gt;a&lt;/strong&gt; reason/any reason in general, I wish to make a list of &lt;strong&gt;numerous&lt;/strong&gt; posssible unique reasons.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I already have an exhaustive list of my own. Are there any more possible reasons out there? Can any of these be generalized further? If you can come up with another reason, please give an example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My List-Practical Game Examples Are Used If Possible&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To give checkmate&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;William Strum-John McManus, Eastern Open, Washington, District hof Columbia USA, 12/29/1997&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[startply &quot;78&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. f4 exf4 3. Nf3 Be7 4. Bc4 Bh4+ 5. Kf1 Nh6 6. Nc3 O-O 7. d4 Ng4 8. Nxh4 Qxh4 9. Qe2 Nc6 10. Bxf4 Nxd4 11. Qd2 Qf6 12. Nd5 Qd8 13. Qxd4 d6 14. h3 c6 15. hxg4 cxd5 16. Qxd5 Be6 17. Qh5 Bxc4+ 18. Kf2 h6 19. g5 Qb6+ 20. Be3 Qxb2 21. Rac1 Kh7 22. gxh6 g6 23. Qd1 Qf6+ 24. Qf3 Qxf3+ 25. gxf3 Rfe8 26. a3 d5 27. exd5 Bxd5 28. Rcd1 Be6 29. c3 b6 30. Rh4 Rac8 31. Rf1 f6 32. f4 Rf8 33. Kg3 Rc4 34. Bd4 g5 35. fxg5 fxg5 36. Re1 Bg4 37. Re7+ Kg6 38. h7 Rf3+ 39. Kxg4 Rfxc3 40. h8=N#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To avoid checkmate&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Kaan Kucuksari-Alexander Betaneli, Rilton Cup 2016/17, Stockholm Sweden, 1/4/2017&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[startply &quot;142&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. c4 e6 4. g3 dxc4 5. Bg2 Bb4+ 6. Bd2 a5 7. O-O O-O 8. Qc2 Nc6 9.  Qxc4 Qd5 10. Qd3 Qf5 11. Qxf5 exf5 12. a3 Bxd2 13. Nbxd2 Be6 14. e3 Bd5 15. Rac1 Rfd8 16. Rfd1 a4 17. Ne5 Bxg2 18. Kxg2 Nxe5 19. dxe5 Nd5 20. e4 fxe4 21. Nxe4 Kf8 22. Kf3 c6 23. Nd6 Rd7 24. Ke4 Rad8 25. Rd4 Nf6+ 26. Ke3 Ne8 27. Nf5 g6 28. Rxd7 Rxd7 29. Nd4 Re7 30. f4 f6 31. Nf3 Nd6 32. Kd4 Nf5+ 33. Kc5 Rd7 34. exf6 Rd5+ 35. Kb6 Rb5+ 36. Kc7 Ne3 37. Re1 Nd5+ 38. Kd6 Nxf6 39. Re6 Ne8+ 40. Kd7 Rd5+ 41. Kc8 Nd6+ 42. Kc7 Nf7 43. Re2 Rd3 44. Ne5 Nxe5 45. fxe5 Rb3 46. Kd7 Rd3+ 47. Ke6 b5 48. Rf2+ Kg8 49. Rc2 Rb3 50. Kd6 b4 51. axb4 Rxb4 52. e6 Kf8 53. Rxc6 Rd4+ 54. Ke5 Rd2 55. Rc8+ Ke7 56. Rc7+ Ke8 57. Rxh7 Rxb2 58. Kf6 Rf2+ 59. Kxg6 a3 60. h4 Rf3 61. g4 Rf4 62. g5 Ra4 63. Rd7 a2 64. Rd1 a1=Q 65. Rxa1 Rxa1 66. h5 Ke7 67. h6 Kxe6 68. h7 Ra8 69. Kh6 Kf5 70. g6 Kf6 71. g7 Ra1 72. g8=N+ Kf7 73. h8=N+ Kxg8 74. Ng6 Rg1 75. Ne5 Kf8 76. Kh5 Ke7 77. Ng4 Ke6 78. Kg5 Rf1 79. Kg6 Rf8 80. Nh6 Ke5 81. Kg5 Ke4 82. Kg4 Rf1 83. Kg5 Rh1 84. Nf7 Kd5 85. Kf6 Rf1+ 86. Kg6 Ke6 87. Ng5+ Ke7 88. Kh5 Kf6 89. Ne4+ Ke5 90. Ng3 Rf4 91. Kg5 Rf8 92. Kg4 Rf4+ 93. Kg5 Rf7 94. Kg4 Rf8 95. Nh5 Rh8 96. Ng3 Rb8 97. Nh5 Rb4+ 98. Kg5 Ra4 99. Ng3 Rc4 100. Nh5 Rc8 101. Kg4 Rg8+ 102. Kf3 Rg6 103. Ng3 Rg5 104. Ne2 Rf5+ 105. Ke3 Rh5 106. Kf3 Rh2 107. Ng3 Ra2 108. Ne2 Ra3+ 109. Kg4 Rb3 110. Ng3 Re3 111. Nf5 Re4+ 112. Kg5 Rf4 113. Ng3 Rb4 114. Nf5 Rb8 115. Nh6 Ke4 116. Nf7 Rb5+ 117. Kf6 Kf4 118. Nd6 Re5 119. Nf7 Rd5 120. Ke6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To create a potential/have a mating threat&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Vladimir Eduardovich Akopia-Sergey Karjakin, 4th FIDE Grand Prix, Nalchik Russia, 4/21/2009 &quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[startply &quot;140&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 a6 6. Be3 Ng4 7. Bg5 h6 8. Bh4 g5 9. Bg3 Bg7 10. h3 Nf6 11. Qf3 Qb6 12. O-O-O Nc6 13. Nxc6 Qxc6 14. Be2 Nd7 15. Nd5 Ne5 16. Qa3 b5 17. h4 Be6 18. hxg5 Rc8 19. Rd2 hxg5 20. Rxh8+ Bxh8 21. Qe3 Nc4 22. Bxc4 bxc4 23. c3 f6 24. Qa7 Bd7 25. f3 Bg7 26. Nb6 Rd8 27. Qxa6 Be6 28. Qa7 Kf7 29. Nd5 Bxd5 30. exd5 Qa8 31. Qc7 Rc8 32. Qd7 Rh8 33. Qe6+ Kf8 34. a3 Rh1+ 35. Rd1 Rxd1+ 36. Kxd1 Qa4+ 37. Kd2 Qb3 38. Kc1 Qb6 39. Be1 Qg1 40. g4 Qf1 41. Qe4 Ke8 42. Kd2 Kd8 43. Qe2 Qh1 44. Kc2 f5 45. gxf5 Qh3 46. Qxc4 Qxf3 47. Qd3 Qg2+ 48. Kb3 g4 49. a4 Be5 50. a5 Qg1 51. Qb5 Qxe1 52. a6 Qa1 53. Qb8+ Kd7 54. Qb5+ Kd8 55. Qb6+ Kc8 56. Qc6+ Kd8 57. Qa8+ Kd7 58. Qc6+ Kd8 59. Qa8+ Kd7 60. Qb7+ Kd8 61. Qb8+ Kd7 62. a7 Qd1+ 63. Kb4 Bxc3+ 64. Kxc3 Qc1+ 65. Kb3 Qd1+ 66. Kb4 Qe1+ 67. Kb5 Qf1+ 68. Kb6 Qg1+ 69. Ka6 Qa1+ 70. Kb7 Qc1 71. a8=N&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To give a double check/checkmate that wouldn’t work otherwise due to the discovered attacker being attacked.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Avetik Grigoryan-Tigran L. Petrosian, Lake Sevan GM, Martuni Armenia, 7/11/19&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[startply &quot;99&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Nf3 d5 2. d4 c6 3. c4 Nf6 4. e3 e6 5. Bd3 Nbd7 6. Nbd2 dxc4 7. Nxc4 c5 8. O-O Be7 9. e4 cxd4 10. e5 Nd5 11. Nxd4 Nc5 12. Bc2 O-O 13. a3 a5 14. Qg4 f5 15. Qg3 Qe8 16. Bg5 a4 17. Bxe7 Qxe7 18. Rfd1 Ne4 19. Bxe4 fxe4  20. Nd6 e3 21. fxe3 Bd7 22. Rac1 Bc6 23. h3 h6 24. Kh2 Kh7 25. Rf1 Nb6 26. Nxc6 bxc6 27. Rxf8 Rxf8 28. Rxc6 Nd5 29. Qg4 Nxe3 30. Qe4+ Nf5 31. g4 Qh4 32. gxf5 Qf2+ 33. Qg2 Qf4+ 34. Kh1 exf5 35. e6 Qe5 36.Nc4 Qe1+ 37.Kh2 Rf6 38.Qg1 Qe4 39.Qg2 Qf4+ 40.Qg3 Qe4 41.Rc5 Rxe6 42.Qf2 f4 43. h4 f3 44.h5 Qg4 45.Qc2+ Re4 46.Nd6 f2 47. Rf5 Qg1+ 48. Kh3 Qg4+ 49. Kh2 Re2 50. Qd3 f1=N+&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To give a check and gain a tempo&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Hikaru Nakamura-Vladimir Kramnik, Chess Olympiad, Istanbul Turkey, 9/6/19&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[startply &quot;122&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Nf3 Nf6 2. g3 g6 3. Bg2 Bg7 4. c4 c6 5. d4 d5 6. cxd5 cxd5 7. Nc3 Ne4 8. Qb3 Nxc3 9. bxc3 O-O 10. Nd2 e6 11. e4 Nc6 12. O-O Na5 13.  Qd1 Qc7 14. Qf3 b6 15. Ba3 Rd8 16. e5 Ba6 17. Rfe1 Rac8 18. Bb4 Bh6 19. Qd1 Nc6 20. Ba3 Na5 21. Bb4 Nc6 22. Ba3 Na5 23. Nb1 b5 24. h4 Nc6 25. Bc5 Qb8 26. Qe2 Na5 27. Nd2 Rxc5 28. dxc5 Qc8 29. Nf3 Qxc5 30. Nh2 Bg7 31. h5 g5 32. h6 Bxh6 33. Qh5 Bg7 34. Qxg5 Nc6 35. Ng4 Qe7 36. Qxe7 Nxe7n37. a4 d4 38. axb5 Bxb5 39. Rxa7 d3 40. Rxe7 d2 41. Rd1 Be2 42. Ne3 Bxe5 43. c4 h5 44. Ra7 h4 45. Ra2 Bxd1 46. Nxd1 hxg3 47. fxg3 Bxg3 48. c5 f5 49. Ra7 e5 50. c6 e4 51. Bh3 Rc8 52. Ra6 Rf8 53. Ra5 f4 54. Kf1 e3 55. Ke2 Rf6 56. Ra8+ Kg7 57. Ra7+ Rf7 58. Rb7 Kf6 59. Kf3 Re7 60. Rxe7 Kxe7 61. c7 e2 62. c8=N+ Kf6 63. Kxe2 Ke5 64. Nb6 Kd4 65. Bg2 Be1 66. Nd5 Ke5 67. Nb4 Bh4 68. Nd3+ Kf5 69. Kxd2 Kg4 70. Ke2 Bf6 71. N1f2+ Kg3 72. Bf3 Bd8 73. Ne4+ Kh4 74. Ne5 Bc7 75. Ng6+ Kh3 76. Ne7 Bd8 77. Nf5 Bb6 78. Kf1 Kh2 79. Bg4 f3 80. Nh4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To gain a perputual check&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Niclas Huschenbeth-Robin Swinkels, Bundesliga 2007/08, Godesberg Germany, 2/9/2008&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[startply &quot;64&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 Nc6 6. Bg5 e6 7. Qd2 a6 8. O-O-O Bd7 9. f3 Be7 10. Be3 h5 11. Kb1 Qc7 12. Nxc6 Bxc6 13. Ne2 d5 14. e5 Nd7 15. f4 Bb5 16. g3 g6 17. Bg2 Bxe2 18. Qxe2 b5 19. h3 Bc5 20. Bxc5 Qxc5 21. g4 Nb6 22. b3 Rb8 23. Qd2 Nc4 24. bxc4 bxc4+ 25. Ka1 c3 26. Qd4 Qa3 27. Rb1 Rb2 28. Bxd5 exd5 29. Qxd5 O-O 30. e6 Rfb8 31. exf7+ Kg7 32. Qe5+ Kh7 33. f8=N+ Rxf8 34. Qc7+ Kh8 35. Qe5+ Kh7 36. Qc7+&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To stop a perputual check&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Anatoly Karpov-Jan Timman, SWIFT Tournament 1st, Brussels Belgium, 3/24/1986&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[startply &quot;172&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Nf3 Nf6 2. c4 b6 3. g3 c5 4. Bg2 Bb7 5. O-O g6 6. d4 Bg7 7. Nc3 Ne4 8. Nxe4 Bxe4 9. d5 e5 10. Qb3 O-O 11. Bh3 Bxf3 12. Qxf3 f5 13. e4 f4 14. Qd1 d6 15. Bd2 a5 16. Qa4 Bh6 17. Rac1 Bg5 18. Rc2 Kh8 19. a3 Ra7 20. Be1 Qe8 21. Qxe8 Rxe8 22. Bd2 Na6 23. Rb1 Rf8 24. Rc3 Kg7 25. Bg4 Raf7 26. Rb3 Rb8 27. Bd1 h5 28. h4 Bh6 29. g4 hxg4 30. Bxg4 Kf6 31. Kf1 Rfb7 32. Ke1 Bf8 33. Rh3 Rh7 34. Ke2 Be7 35. h5 gxh5 36. Rxh5 Rxh5 37. Bxh5 Rg8 38. Bf3 Rh8 39. Bg4 Nc7 40. Bd7 Kf7 41. Ra1 Bg5 42. Bc3 Ke7 43. Bf5 Bf6 44. Rd1 Ra8 45. Kd3 Rh8 46. Be1 Ra8 47. Bd2 Rh8 48. Rc1 Ra8 49. Rc3 Rh8 50. Rb3 Na8 51. Ke2 Bg5 52. Be1 Rh1 53. Bc8 Bh4 54. Bd2 Rh2 55. Be1 Rh1 56. Bb7 Nc7 57. Bc6 Kd8 58. Bd2 Rh2 59. Be1 Rh1 60. Ba4 Kc8 61. Bc3 Rh2 62. Rxb6 Rxf2+ 63. Kd3 Rf3+ 64. Kc2 Rg3 65. Rxd6 f3 66. Rh6 f2 67. Rh8+ Kb7 68. Bc6+ Ka6 69. Rf8 Rg8 70. Rf3 Rg3 71. Rf5 Rg5 72. Rf7 Rg7 73. Rf3 Rg3 74. Rf5 Rg5 75. Rf8 Rg8 76. Rf7 Rg7 77. Rxg7 f1=Q 78. Rxc7 Qxc4 79. a4 Qxe4+ 80. Kb3 Be1 81. d6 Qh4 82. Bb5+ Kb6 83. Rc6+ Kb7 84. d7 Bxc3 85. bxc3 c4+ 86. Rxc4 Qe1 87. d8=N+ Ka7 88. Rc7+ Kb8 89. Rd7 Qb1+ 90. Kc4 Qf1+ 91. Kd5 Qf3+ 92. Kd6 Qf8+ 93. Ke6 Qh6+ 94. Kxe5 Qe3+ 95. Kd6 Qf4+ 96. Kc5 Qe3+ 97. Kc4 Kc8 98. Nf7 Qe4+ 99. Kc5 Qe3+ 100. Kc6 Qxc3+ 101. Kb6 Qe3+ 102. Ka6 Qe6+ 103. Nd6+ Kb8 104. Rd8+ Kc7 105. Rc8+&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To guard an otherwise unguardable square (whether to protect a piece, stop a checkmate threat, or to take away a flight square away from the enemy king)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Michael Adams-Anthony Miles, Tilburg, Tilburg Netherlands, 11/17/1993&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[startply &quot;179&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 g6 6.Be2 Bg7 7.O-O O-O 8.Bg5 Nc6 9.Nb3 a6 10.Re1 b5 11.Bf1 h6 12.Bh4 e6 13.Qd2 Qc7 14.Rad1 Rd8 15.f4 Bb7 16.a3 Rac8 17.f5 Ne5 18.fxe6 fxe6 19.Nd4 Qe7 20.Nf3 g5 21.Bf2 Nxf3+ 22.gxf3 Nh5 23.Bd4 Bxd4+ 24.Qxd4 Qf8 25.Qe3 Rc7 26.Ne2 Rf7 27.Bh3 Bc8 28.Rf1 Kh8 29.Bg4 Nf4 30.Nxf4 Rxf4 31.Rd2 Qf7 32.Bh3 Rf8 33.Bg2 Bb7 34.Rfd1 d5 35.h3 Kg8 36.c3 Qg7 37.Qb6 Qf7 38.Qe3 Rf6 39.e5 Rf5 40.Rd4 Qg7 41.Re1 Bc6 42.h4 Be8 43.Rg4 Bh5 44.Rg3 g4 45.Qd4 Kh8 46.fxg4 Rf4 47.Qe3 Rxg4 48.Rxg4 Bxg4 49.Rf1 Bf5 50.Kh2 Kh7 51.Qg3. Qxg3+ 52.Kxg3 Rg8+ 53.Kf2 Rg4 54.h5 Rg5 55.Bf3 Bc2 56.Re1 Kh8 57.Re3 Bh7 58.Ke2 Kg7 59.Kd2 Kf8 60.Re2 Ke8 61.Rg2 Rxe5 62.Rg7 Be4 63.Bxe4 Rxe4 64.Rh7 Rh4 65.Rxh6 Ke7 66.Rh8 Kf6 67.h6 Ke5 68.h7 a5 69.Rb8 Rxh7 70.Rxb5 Ke4 71.Rxa5 Rh2+ 72.Kc1 Kd3 73.Kb1 Rh1+ 74.Ka2 Kc2 75.a4 Rh8 76.Ra6 e5 77.Re6 e4 78.Ka3 Rb8 79.b4 Kxc3 80.b5 Rd8 81.b6 d4 82.Rxe4 d3 83.Re1 d2 84.Rd1 Rd3 85.b7 Kc2+ 86.Ka2 Rd8 87.Rxd2+ Kxd2 88.a5 Kc2 89.a6 Rd6 90.b8=N Rd5 91.Ka3 Kc3 92.Ka4 Kc4 93.Nc6 Rd1 94.Na5+ Kc5 95.Nb3+ Kb6 96.a7 Kxa7 97.Kb4 Kb6 98.Kc3 Rh1 99.Nd4 Rh4 100.Nb3 Kc6 101.Nd4+ Kd5 102.Nb3 Rc4+ 103.Kd3 Ra4 104.Kc3 Ra8v105.Kd3 Rh8 106.Kc3 Rh7 107.Kb4 Rh3 108.Na5 Rh4+ 109.Kb5 Kd4 110.Nc6+ Kd5 111.Nb4+ Kd6 112.Na6 Rh5+ 113.Kb6 Rd5 114.Nc7 Rd1 115.Nb5+ Kd5 116.Nc7+ Ke5 117.Nb5 Rc1 118.Nc7 Kd4 119.Nb5+ Kd5 120.Nc7+ Kd6 121.Nb5+ Kd7 122.Nd4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To give a fork&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;George Alcock MacDonnell-Henry Edward Bird, London England, 1874&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[startply &quot;43&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. f4 exf4 3. Nf3 g5 4. h4 g4 5. Ne5 h5 6. Bc4 Nh6 7. d4 d6 8. Nd3 f3 9. g3 f5 10. Nc3 fxe4 11. Nxe4 Nf5 12. Kf2 Be7 13. Nf4 Rh7 14. Ng6 d5 15. Nxe7 dxe4 16. Nd5 Be6 17. Bg5 Bxd5 18. Bxd8 e3+ 19. Kg1 Bxc4 20. Bg5 f2+ 21. Kh2 e2 22. Qd2 f1=N+ 23. Rhxf1 exf1=N+ 24. Rxf1 Bxf1 25. Qe1+ Ne7 26. Qxf1 Nbc6 27. d5 Rf7 28. Qc4 Ne5 29. Qxc7 Nf3+ 30. Kg2 Rc8 31. Qa5 Rxc2+ 32. Kf1 Nxg5+ 33. Ke1 Nf3+ 34. Kd1 Rd2+ 35. Kc1 Nxd5 36. a3 Rc7+ 37.Kb1 Nc3+ 38.bxc3 Re7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To avoid a fork&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Vladlen Yakovlevich Zurakhov-Alexander Koblents, URS-ch sf, Tbilisi USSR, 1956&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[startply &quot;112&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Bg5 dxe4 5.Nxe4 Be7 6.Bxf6 gxf6 7.Nf3 b6 8. Bc4 Bb7 9.Qe2 c6 10.O-O Nd7 11.a4 f5 12.Ng3 Kf8 13.Bxe6 fxe6 14.Qxe6 Nf6 15.Nxf5 Bc8 16.Qe5 Bxf5 17.Qxf5 Qd5. 18.Qf4 Rg8 19.Rae1 Rg4 20.Qh6+ Kg8 21.Rxe7 Qxf3 22.g3 Rg6 23.Qh3 Qg4 24.Qxg4 Rxg4 25.c3 Re4 26.Rxe4 Nxe4 27. Re1 Re8 28.f3 Nd6 29.Rxe8+ Nxe8 30.Kf2 Nd6 31.b3 b5 32.Ke3 bxa4 33.bxa4 Nc4+ 34.Ke4 Kf7 35.d5 c5 36.f4 a5 37.f5 Nb6 38.d6 Ke8 39.f6 Kf7 40.Ke5 Nd7+ 41.Kd5 Kxf6 42.g4 c4 43.Kc6 Ke6. 44.g5 Nf8 45.h4 Nd7 46.h5 Ne5+ 47. Kc7 Kf5 48.Kb6 Ke6 49.Kxa5 Kxd6 50.Kb6 Nd7+ 51.Kb5 Kc7 52.Kxc4 Ne5+ 53. Kd5 Nf3 54.g6 hxg6 55.hxg6 Nh4 56.g7 Nf5 57.g8=N Kb6 58.Kc4 Ne3+ 59.Kb3 Nd5 60.c4 Nc7 61.Nf6 Ne6 62.Ne4 Nc7 63.Nf2 Ne6 64.Nd3 Nd4+ 65.Kc3 Ne2+ 66.Kb4 Nd4 67.c5+ Ka6 68.Kc4 Nf5 69.Kd5 Kb7 70.Nb4 Ne3+ 71.Kd4 Nf5+ 72. Kc4 Ne3+ 73.Kb5 Kc7 74.a5 Nf5 75.Nd5+ Kb7 76.c6+ Ka7 77.c7 Kb7 78.a6+ Ka7 79.c8=N+ Kb8 80.Kb6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To avoid a discovered attack on the newly born piece&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Vladimir Antoshin-Vladimir Simagin, Moscow USSR, 1952&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[startply &quot;88&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Nf3 Nf6 2.b3 g6 3.Bb2 Bg7 4.g3 O-O 5.Bg2 a5 6.O-O d6 7.d4 a4 8.c4 Nbd7 9.Qc2 c5 10.e4 cxd4 11.Nxd4 Qb6 12.Nb5 axb3 13.axb3 Rxa1 14.Bxa1 Nc5 15.Bd4 e5 16.Be3 Ng4 17.Bg5 f6 18.Bc1 f5 19.h3 Nf6 20.exf5 Bxf5 21.Qd1 Bxb1 22.Be3 Ba2 23.Qc2 Bxb3 24.Qxb3 Nxb3 25.Bxb6 Nd2 26.Rc1 Bh6 27.Rc2 Nfe4 28.Nc3 Nxc3 29.Rxc3 e4 30.Bc7 Rc8 31.Bxd6 b5 32.c5 b4 33.Rc2 b3 34.Rb2 Kf7 35.h4 Ra8 36.c6 Nc4 37.Bxe4 Ra1+ 38.Kg2 Nxb2 39.Bd5+ Ke8 40.Bxb3 Rc1 41.Bd5 Nc4 42.Bb8 Na5 43.c7 Ke7 44.Bf3 Nc4 45.c8=N+ Kf8 46.Nd6 Ne5 47.Ne4 Nxf3 48.Kxf3 Bg7 49.Bf4 Rc2 50.Ng5 Kg8 51.Be3 Bf6 52.Kg2 Be7 53.Kf3 Bc5 54.Bxc5 Rxc5m55.Kg2 Rc3 56.Nh3 Ra3 57.Ng1 Kg7m58.Nf3 Kf6 59.Ng5 h6 60.Nh3 Kf5 61.Nf4 Rb3 62.Nh3 Ke4 63.Nf4 Rb6 64.Nh3 Rf6 65.Ng1 Kd3 66.Nf3 Rd6 67.Ne5+ Ke2 68.Nf3 Rd5 69.Ng1+ Kd3 70.Nh3 Ke4 71.Nf4 Rd6 72.Nh3 Rb6 73.Nf4 g5 74.hxg5 hxg5 75.Nh3 g4 76. Nf4 Rb1 77. Ng6 Re1 78.Nf4 Rd1 79.Ng6 Ra1 80.Nf4 Ra2 81.Ng6 Kd4m82.Nf4 Ra6 83.Ne2+ Kd3 84.Nf4+ Kc3 85.Nd5+ Kd2 86.f3 Rd6 87.Nf4 Ke3 88.fxg4 Rd2+ 89.Kh3 Kf3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To create a discovered attack&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [Title &quot;Frank James Marshall-William Ewart Napier, Brooklyn, 1898&quot;]&#xA; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA; [startply &quot;98&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 d5 2.c4 e5 3.cxd5 Qxd5 4.Nf3 exd4 5.Nxd4 Bc5 6.e3 Bxd4 7.exd4 Nc6 8.Be3 Nf6 9.Nc3 Qa5 10.Bb5 Bd7 11.O-O O-O 12.a3 Ne4 13.Nxe4 Qxb5 14.Nc5 Rad8 15.Qd2 Bc8 16.Rac1 b6 17.Ne4 Nxd4 18.Bxd4 c5 19.Qg5 Rxd4 20.Nf6+ Kh8 21.f4 Qxb2 22.Rce1 Rd2 23.Ne4 f6 24.Qg3 Qd4+ 25.Nf2 Qd8 26.Re3 Bf5 27.Rfe1 Rd7 28.Qf3 Rg8 29.g4 Bg6 30.f5 Bf7 31.h4 c4 32.Qh3 Re8 33.Rxe8+ Bxe8 34.Qe3 Bf7 35.g5 Rd5 36.Ng4 fxg5 37.Ne5 Bg8 38.hxg5 Rd2 39.g6 h6 40.Nf7+ Bxf7 41.gxf7 Kh7 42.Qg3 Rd6 43.Qg4 c3 44.Re8 Rd1+ 45.Kf2 Rd2+ 46.Ke1 Rd1+ 47.Qxd1. Qh4+ 48.Kf1 Qh1+ 49.Kf2 Qxd1 50.f8=N+ Kg8 51.Ng6+ Kf7 52.Rf8#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To win a piece without a fork&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Suat Atalik-Anthony Miles, Iraklion Greece, 1993&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[startply &quot;59&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.e4 d6 5.f3 O-O 6.Be3 c5 7.Nge2 Nc6 8.Qd2 e6 9.Rd1 b6 10.Bg5 Ba6 11.d5 Ne5 12.b3 h6 13.Be3 exd5 14.Nxd5 Nxd5 15.Qxd5 b5 16.cxb5 Bxb5 17.Nc1 Bc6 18.Qd2 f5 19.Qxd6 Qe8 20.Qxc5 fxe4 21.f4 Nd3+ 22.Nxd3 exd3 23.Kf2 Rc8 24.Qc4+ Kh8 25.Qxd3 g5 26.Rc1 Rd8 27.Qe2 gxf4 28.Bc5 f3 29.Qxe8 fxg2+ 30.Bxf8 gxh1=N+ &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To gain a skewer&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;5Q2/8/8/4p3/p1k1P3/B1p1K3/2PpP3/4r3 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d1=N+ Kf3 2. Rf1+ Kg4 3. Rxf8&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To avoid a skewer (pretending that the example doesn’t end in mate)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Gawain Jones-Danny Raznikov, Isle of Man Masters, Douglas Isle of Man, 10/12/2014&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[startply &quot;136&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 a6 6. Be3 Ng4 7. Bg5 h6 8. Bh4 g5 9. Bg3 Bg7 10. Be2 h5 11. h4 gxh4 12. Bxh4 Nc6 13. Nb3 Be6 14. Qd2 Qb6 15. Nd5 Bxd5 16. exd5 Nce5 17. c3 Ng6 18. Bf3 Rc8 19. Bg5 N6e5 20. Bxg4 hxg4 21. Rxh8+ Bxh8 22. O-O-O Kd7 23. Qc2 Rg8 24. Qf5+ Kd8 25. Be3 Qb5 26. Bd4 Qd7 27. Qh7 Rf8 28. f4 gxf3 29. gxf3 Bf6 30. Qe4 Rh8 31. f4 Qg4 32. Nc5 dxc5 33. Bxe5 Bxe5 34. Qxe5 Rh4 35. Rf1 f6 36. Qe4 Qd7 37. Qg2 Kc7 38. Qf2 Qb5 39. Re1 Rh7 40. Qg3 Kb6 41. b3 Ka7 42. Qf2 Ka8 43. Qc2 Rg7 44. Kb2 Qd7 45. Qe4 Qg4 46. Ka3 Qd7 47. Rh1 Ka7 48. Rh2 Qd6 49. Re2 Rg4 50. Qxe7 Qxe7 51. Rxe7 Rxf4 52. Rc7 Kb6 53. Rc8 Rf3 54. Kb2 Rd3 55. c4 f5 56. Kc2 Rh3 57. b4 cxb4 58. d6 Rh7 59. Kb3 Ka5 60. Rc7 Rh3+ 61. Kc2 Rh2+ 62. Kd3 Kb6 63. c5+ Kb5 64. d7 Rh1 65. Ke2 Rh2+ 66. Ke3 Rh3+ 67. Kd4 Rh1 68. Rxb7+ Kc6 69. d8=N#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To gain a waiting move&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Mate in 4, T. Siers and H. Wittwer, British Chess Federation, 1935/36&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;1R6/Pn6/K6p/7P/8/4NNp1/6P1/7k w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. a8=N Nc5+ 2. Ka7 Nb7 3. Nc7 Nc5 4. Rb1#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To block another piece&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Luke McShane-Levon Aronian, London Chess Classic, 12/4/2012&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[startply &quot;136&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.O-O Be7 6.d3 b5 7.Bb3 d6 8.a4 Bd7 9.c3 O-O 10.Nbd2 Na5 11.Bc2 c5 12.Re1 Re8 13.Nf1 Nc6 14.Ne3 b4 15.h3 Rb8 16.Nc4 Be6 17.Bb3 h6 18.Be3 bxc3. 19.bxc3 d5 20.exd5 Nxd5 21.Qc2 e4 22.dxe4 Nxe3 23.Rxe3 Rxb3 24.Qxb3 Na5 25.Nxa5 Bxb3 26.Nxb3 Qb6 27.Nbd2 Qb2 28.Rae1 Rd8 29.Nf1 c4 30.Ne5 Bc5 31.Rf3 Qb3 32.a5 Rd6 33.Nxf7 Rf6 34.Rxf6 gxf6 35.Nxh6+ Kf8 36.Ng4 Qxc3 37.Rd1 Qb4 38.Nxf6 Kf7 39.Nd5 Qb2 40.Nde3 c3 41.Rd5 Be7 42.Rf5+ Ke8 43.g4 c2 44.Nxc2 Qxc2 45.Ng3 Qc7 46.Nh5 Bd8 47.Kg2 Qc6 48.Re5+ Kf7 49.g5 Qa4 50.h4 Bxa5 51.Rf5+ Ke6 52.Nf4+ Kd7 53.f3 Qc2+ 54.Kh3 Qf2 55.Kg4 Be1 56.Ng6 a5 57.Rf7+ Kd8 58.e5 a4 59.e6 Bb4 60.e7+ Bxe7 61.Nxe7 Qc5 62.Kh5 a3 63.Kh6 a2 64.g6 Qc4 65.Nf5 a1=Q 66.Rf8+ Kc7 67.g7 Qc6+ 68.Kh7 Qxf3 69.g8=N Qh5+ 70.Ngh6 Qe5 71.Ng7 Qxh4 72.Rf7+ Kb6 73.Nf5 Qee4 74.Kg6 Qe6+ 75.Kg7 Qg5+ 76.Kf8 Qc8#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To avoid stalemate&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Iroda Khamrakulova-Ekaterina Ubiennykh, WJun Women, Athens Greecd, 8/24/2001&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[startply &quot;154&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 exd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nxc6 bxc6 6. e5 Qe7 7. Qe2 Nd5 8. c4 Nb6 9. Nd2 Bb7 10. b3 O-O-O 11. Bb2 g5 12. O-O-O Bg7 13. h4 h6 14. g3 c5 15. Rh2 Rde8 16. f4 d6 17. Re1 Kb8 18. Bg2 Bxg2 19. Qxg2 gxf4 20. gxf4 Rhg8 21. Qe4 dxe5 22. fxe5 Qe6 23. Rhe2 Bh8 24. Nf3 Rg4 25. Qd3 Kc8 26. Re3 Bg7 27. Kb1 Rd8 28. Qc2 Bf8 29. Re4 Rg3 30. Rf4 Be7 31. Qf5 Rf8 32. Rf1 Kd7 33. Bc1 a5 34. Rd1+ Kc8 35. a4 Rh3 36. Rf1 Kd7 37. Bd2 Rb8 38. Ka2 Rg3 39. Bxa5 Rg2+ 40. Ka3 Ke8 41. Ne1 Rg3 42. R1f3 Qxf5 43. Rxf5 Bxh4 44. Rxf7 Rxf3 45. Rxf3 Bg5 46. Nd3 Be7 47. Nf4 Kd7 48. Rd3+ Kc6 49. Ng6 Bg5 50. Bd2 Rg8 51. Bxg5 Rxg6 52. Bf6 Nd7 53. Rf3 h5 54. Rf5 Rh6 55. Bg5 Re6 56. Bf4 h4 57. Rh5 Nf8 58. Bh2 Nd7 59. a5 Kb7 60. Rxh4 Ra6 61. b4 cxb4+ 62. Kxb4 Re6 63. Rh5 Ka6 64. c5 c6 65. Bf4 Re8 66. Rh6 Nxe5 67. Bxe5 Rxe5 68. Rxc6+ Kb7 69. Rb6+ Ka7 70. Kb5 Rh5 71. Rg6 Rh7 72. a6 Rf7 73. Rg5 Re7 74. Rd5 Rg7 75. c6 Rg1 76. c7 Rg8 77. Rd8 Rxd8 78. cxd8=N Kb8 79. Kb6 Ka8 80. Ne6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To get stalemated&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;r4b2/4pPpP/4P1Pp/6pK/6P1/8/1k6/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. h8=N Ra1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is simply the strongest move in the position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Schweber-Wexler, Buenos Aires Argentina, 1964&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot; &quot;]&#xA;[startply &quot;90&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 e6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 a6 5. Bd3 Qc7 6. O-O Nf6 7. Qe2 d6 8. f4 Nbd7 9. Kh1 Be7 10. c4 b6 11. Nc3 Bb7 12. Bd2 O-O 13. Rae1 Rad8 14. Bb1 Rfe8 15. f5 exf5 16. Nxf5 Bf8 17. Bg5 Rc8 18. Nh6+ gxh6 19. Bxf6 Nxf6 20. Rxf6 Bg7 21. Qg4 Re5 22. Rxh6 Qe7 23. Nd5 Qg5 24. Qxg5 Rxg5 25. Ne7+ Kf8 26. Nxc8 Bxh6 27. Nxd6 Bc6 28. Rf1 Be8 29. Nf5 Bg7 30. Nxg7 Kxg7 31. Kg1 Rc5 32. Bd3 Bd7 33. Kf2 Be6 34. b4 Rc7 35. Rc1 Kf6 36. Ke3 Ke5 37. a3 f6 38. c5 b5 39. a4 bxa4 40. Bxa6 a3 41. b5 a2 42. b6 Rg7 43. b7 Rg8 44. c6 Kd6 45. c7 a1=Q 46. c8=N+ Rxc8 47. bxc8=N+&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-10-26T14:06:06.890" LastActivityDate="2020-04-28T19:29:39.200" Title="List of numerous possible reasons to promote to a knight" Tags="&lt;knights&gt;&lt;pawn-promotion&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26740" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26739" CreationDate="2019-10-26T00:59:46.903" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It can be a useful under promotion in opening traps. For instance there is a known trap line in the Albin Counter Gambit with a winning knight promotion. It's called the Lasker trap: &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albin_Countergambit&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albin_Countergambit&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w Qkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. c4 e5 3. dxe5 d4 4. e3 Bb4+ 5. Bd2 dxe3 6. Bxb4 exf2+ 7. Ke2 fxg1=N+&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3495" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-23T01:35:32.403" LastActivityDate="2020-04-23T01:35:32.403" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26741" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24009" CreationDate="2019-10-26T01:04:56.347" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The line given by Allure is the standard refutation of the Danish however the line given by Hamish might be even better. That line was played by Capablanca and I don't realistically see white having any winning chances. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2019-10-26T01:04:56.347" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26742" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2515" CreationDate="2019-10-26T01:31:56.923" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Obviously, the Dutch and Tarrasch are your best choices. The Dutch is similar to the openings you named: King's gambit, Latvian and KID. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The KID, Grunfeld, Benoni and Benko all require a lot of theory. The Dutch reaches similar positions with vastly less time spent on learning openings. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Openings like the Budapest are fine but require a very specific move order which means you'll have to learn another opening if white doesn't choose that specific move order.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2019-10-26T01:31:56.923" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26744" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19911" CreationDate="2019-10-26T07:44:28.640" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a web site with this type of training:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://tailuge.github.io/chess-o-tron/public/quiz.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://tailuge.github.io/chess-o-tron/public/quiz.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Click on &quot;Loose pieces&quot; in right menu.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17458" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-04T16:54:02.650" LastActivityDate="2020-03-04T16:54:02.650" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26745" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19911" CreationDate="2019-10-26T07:54:58.297" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Years ago in correspondence chess games, I used to write down with a negative value the pieces that attack mine and with a positive value, that of the pieces that defended it.&#xA;Two open source programs identify the boxes under attack and with colors, differentiate those that are equally defended from those at risk. These are SCID and Arena.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1766" LastActivityDate="2019-10-26T07:54:58.297" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26746" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1929" CreationDate="2019-10-26T19:31:49.053" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here’s another &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1605964&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;game&lt;/a&gt; that uses a similar tatic to the Kasparov gamen in  @RemcoGerlich‘s answer. The knight move also resulted in resignation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Luka Leni-Le Quang Liem, Aeroflot Open, Moscow Russia, 2/10/2011&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;[startply &amp;quot;83&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Nf3 g6 2. c4 Bg7 3. e4 c5 4. d4 cxd4 5. Nxd4 Nc6 6. Be3 Nf6 7. Nc3 O-O 8. Be2 d6 9. O-O Bd7 10. Rc1 Nxd4 11. Bxd4 Bc6 12. f3 Nd7 13. Be3 a5 14. b3 Nc5 15. Qd2 Qb6 16. Nb5 Rfc8 17. Kh1 Qd8 18. Nd4 Bd7 19. Rfd1 h5 20. Bf1 Kh7 21. Ne2 Bc6 22. Nf4 Bh6 23. Qf2 Qh8 24. Rc2 Qf6 25. Nd5 Bxd5 26. Rxd5 Bxe3 27. Qxe3 Qa1 28. Kg1 Nd7 29. Qg5 Nf6 30. Rxa5 Qd4+ 31. Rf2 Rc5 32. Qxc5 dxc5 33. Rxa8 h4 34. b4 cxb4 35. Ra5 Nh5 36. Rd5 Qe3 37. Rd3 Qa7 38. Rd5 Ng3 39. c5 e6 40. Rd7 Qxc5 41. Rxf7+ Kh6 42. Rxb7 Nh1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes something bad can be a “win” if it becomes a novelty. Here’s an example of such an &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1282941&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;“excellent”&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://timkr.home.xs4all.nl/admag/trpaard.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;corner knight&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Samuel Reshevsky-George Nelson Treysman, Championship of America, New York 1938, ‘The Treysman Horse’&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. g3 Bb4+ 4. Bd2 Qe7 5. Bg2 O-O 6. Nf3 d5 7. Qc2 Ne4 8. O-O Nxd2 9. Nbxd2 c6 10. e4 Bxd2 11. Nxd2 dxe4 12. Nxe4 Nd7 13. c5 e5 14. dxe5 Nxe5 15. Rfe1 Ng6 16. Nd6 Qc7 17. f4 Bd7 18. f5 Nh8 19. Re7 b6 20. b4 bxc5 21. Qxc5 Rad8 22. b5 Qb8 23. a4 cxb5 24. axb5 Bc8 25. Rc7 Qb6 26. Qxb6 axb6 27. Rc6 g6 28. g4 h5 29. h3 hxg4 30. hxg4 Kg7 31. Kf2 Bd7 32. Rxb6 Rb8 33. f6+ Kh6 34. Kg3 Kh7 35. Rxb8 Rxb8 36. g5 Rb6 37. Ra6 Rb8 38. Bc6 Bf5 39. Ra8 Rxa8 40. Bxa8 Bd3 41. b6 Ba6 42. Bb7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lastly, take a look at this funky, informal game taken from &lt;a href=&quot;https://timkr.home.xs4all.nl/chess2/diary_7.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Tim Krabbe’s Diary Entry #128&lt;/a&gt; in which each knight visits a corner!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Lewis-D'Aloisio, High School Tournament, San Rafael, 1975 &amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 Bb4 4. Qb3 Nc6 5. Nf3 d5 6. Bg5 dxc4 7. Qxc4 Qd5 8. e3 Ne4 9. Qxb4 Nxb4 10. Nxd5 Nc2+ 11. Kd1 Nxa1 12. Nxc7+ Kd7 13. Nxa8 Nxf2+ 14. Kc1 Nxh1 15. Ne5+ Ke8 16. Bb5+ Kf8 17. Nc4 f6 18. Bh4 g5 19. Be1 Ke7 20. Bb4+ Kd8 21. Nd6 Bd7 22. Nf7+ Ke8 23. Nxh8&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-09-10T18:33:50.973" LastActivityDate="2020-09-10T18:33:50.973" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26747" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17130" CreationDate="2019-10-26T20:20:52.903" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know this is an old question, but online chess and over the board chess for blitz, lightning and sometimes quick games are not the same type of game. I shall explain why.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Premoving a skilled player in lightning and blitz as the clock runs down will bite the honest skilled player much more than a less skilled time player with low rating. It will never reflect their weaker over the board play. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first big reason is that we get to &lt;em&gt;see them pick up their piece&lt;/em&gt; and make a bad sac. The idea of “bishop takes pawn for zero compensation followed by premoved castling&quot; will never happen in over the board. It only happens in online lightning time scrambles.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This alternate playing style allows a less skilled player to play in a nonsensical fashion and refute your premoved skill play. Over the board play, on the other hand, makes a decent player unable to premove without fearing premoves and quick rating loss.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am master level chess player, and yet I’m a 1900 rated online lightning player. Over the board lightning players I crush are people I know, and they beat me online doing the same thing. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If both players do not use premove, the contrast between not seeing a piece touched and moved to a square and the time delay to place it on the a square makes a large difference.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The next big reason is the mouse move. The speed of the Internet connection, such as lag like on  chess.com (where I’m rated 1900 in lightning and 2240 in blitz), the piece I move delays as it hesitates every singe move. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In conclusion, do not view quick online chess as anything comparative to quick over the board games, as they truly are NOT the same thing. The longer the game, the more comparative to over the board it becomes. End rant here. :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20406" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-10-26T21:41:23.710" LastActivityDate="2019-10-26T21:41:23.710" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26748" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="874" CreationDate="2019-10-26T22:13:26.960" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think something like this is the easiest solution. The set-up takes &lt;strong&gt;16 moves,&lt;/strong&gt; but then it's only two more moves to checkmate and you don't need a computer to verify it. This is almost the same as Akavall's set-up, except that a knight is posted on c4 instead of g4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. a4 null 2. d4 null 3. h4 null 4. Nf3 null 5. Na3 null 6. Nd2 null 7. Ne4 null 8. Nc4 null 9. Qd2 null 10. Qf4 null 11. Ra3 null 12. Re3 null 13. Rhh3 null 14. Rhf3 null 15. g3 null 16. Bh3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But you can stop after &lt;strong&gt;only 14 moves,&lt;/strong&gt; and Stockfish announces a forced mate in 7.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. a4 null 2. d4 null 3. h4 null 4. Nf3 null 5. Na3 null 6. Nd2 null 7. Ne4 null 8. Nc4 null 9. Qd2 null 10. Qf4 null 11. Ra3 null 12. Re3 null 13. Rhh3 null 14. Rhf3 d6 (14... d5 15. Qxf7+ Kd7 16. Ne5#) 15. Qxf7+ Kd7 16. Nc5+ dxc5 (16... Kc6 17. Na5+ Kb6 18. Qb3+ Kxa5 19. Qb5#) 17. Ne5+ Kd6 18. dxc5+ Kxc5 19. Qc4+ Kd6 (19... Kb6 20. Qb5#) 20. Qd4+ Ke6 21. Nd3#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2299" LastEditorUserId="2299" LastEditDate="2019-10-27T03:05:07.520" LastActivityDate="2019-10-27T03:05:07.520" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26749" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19633" CreationDate="2019-10-27T05:34:15.467" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you don't mind playing on mobile, chesspuzzleblitz.com has a playable database and it lets you compete. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, chessbluders.org and www.yacpdb.org are great resources too. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20407" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-10-27T12:53:25.237" LastActivityDate="2019-10-27T12:53:25.237" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26750" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1929" CreationDate="2019-10-27T10:58:29.450" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Nimzovich is usually the go to guy for weird requests, so I'm surprised nobody posted&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;Dresden&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Dresden GER&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;1926.04.09&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;1926.04.04&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;5&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Aron Nimzowitsch&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Akiba Rubinstein&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;A34&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;91&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. c4 { Notes by Raymond Keene. Awarded the prize for the&#xA;best-played game.} c5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. Nc3 d5 4. cxd5 Nxd5 5. e4&#xA;Nb4 6. Bc4 e6 7. O-O N8c6 8. d3 Nd4 9. Nxd4 cxd4 10. Ne2 a6&#xA;11. Ng3 Bd6 12. f4 O-O 13. Qf3 Kh8 14. Bd2 f5 15. Rae1 Nc6&#xA;16. Re2 Qc7 17. exf5 exf5 18. Nh1 {!! A wonderful idea. White&#xA;has in mind the manoeuvre Nh1-f2-h3-g5, in conjunction with&#xA;Qh5, as a method of assaulting the position of Black's&#xA;king. When I first read My System I was so impressed by this&#xA;game that I deliberately created situations in my next few&#xA;games where the move Ng3-h1 was possible, in the belief that&#xA;this mystical retreat would somehow result in a miraculous&#xA;increase of energy in my position, irrespective of whatever&#xA;else may have been happening on the board at the time.}&#xA;18...Bd7 19. Nf2 Rae8 20. Rfe1 Rxe2 21. Rxe2 Nd8 22. Nh3 Bc6&#xA;23. Qh5 g6 24. Qh4 Kg7 25. Qf2 {Another brilliant idea. The&#xA;threat to the d-pawn forces Black to withdraw either his queen&#xA;or his king's bishop from the defence of his kingside. }&#xA;25...Bc5 26. b4 Bb6 27. Qh4 {Back again and with redoubled&#xA;strength. } 27...Re8 {Or 27...Rf6 28 Ng5 h6 29 Nh7 +- }&#xA;28. Re5 {!} Nf7 {If 28...Rxe5 29 fxe5 Qxe5 30 Qh6+ or 28...h6&#xA;29 g4 hxg4 30 f5 Qxe5 31 f6+ Qxf6 32 Qxh6 mate. These&#xA;beautiful variations are just an indication of what&#xA;Nimzowitsch saw. } 29. Bxf7 Qxf7 30. Ng5 Qg8 31. Rxe8 Bxe8&#xA;32. Qe1 {! A decisive change of front. } 32...Bc6 33. Qe7+ Kh8&#xA;34. b5 {!! Who would expect the death-blow to come from this&#xA;quarter? If Black plays 34..axb5 he is mated as follows: 35&#xA;Ne6 h5 36 Qf6+ Kh7 37 Ng5+ Kh6 38 Bb4! In view of this,&#xA;Rubinstein elects to surrender a piece but that too is&#xA;obviously without hope.} 34...Qg7 35. Qxg7+ Kxg7 36. bxc6&#xA;36...bxc6 37. Nf3 c5 38. Ne5 Bc7 39. Nc4 Kf7 40. g3 Bd8&#xA;41. Ba5 Be7 42. Bc7 Ke6 43. Nb6 h6 44. h4 g5 45. h5 g4 46. Be5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Taken from &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1007481&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1007481&lt;/a&gt; - I have no idea where the annotations are originally from&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7726" LastActivityDate="2019-10-27T10:58:29.450" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26751" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1929" CreationDate="2019-10-27T18:15:31.353" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I thought this one was interesting.  White sacrifices the exchange and recaptures with a knight to a1. And the knight plays a critical role a few moves later when it, too, is sacrificed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;66. ch-RUS 2013&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Nizhny Novgorod RUS&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2013.10.05&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;1.1&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Kramnik, Vladimir&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Shomoev, Anton&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;2796&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;2579&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;A05&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;2013.10.05&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteTitle &quot;GM&quot;]&#xA;[BlackTitle &quot;GM&quot;]&#xA;[Opening &quot;Reti opening&quot;]&#xA;[Startply &quot;20&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Nf3 Nf6 2.g3 b6 3.Bg2 Bb7 4.O-O e6 5.d3 d5 6.Nbd2 g6 7.c4 Bg7 8.b4 Ne4 &#xA;9.cxd5 exd5 10.Nb3 Bxa1 11.Nxa1 Nd6 12.Bg5 f6 13.Bf4 a5 14.bxa5 Rxa5 15.&#xA;Qc2 c5 16.Nb3 Ra7 17.Nxc5 bxc5 18.Qxc5 Ra6 19.Rb1 Nd7 20.Qe3+ Kf7 21.Bxd6 &#xA;Ba8 22.Qf4 Re8 23.Nd4 Rxa2 24.Bh3 Raxe2 25.Nxe2 Rxe2 26.Qh6 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I liked this one because Black puts a knight in the corner before any of his other pieces have even moved. Who needs development?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;XXIII SuperGM&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Morelia/Linares MEX/ESP&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2006.03.05&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;10&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Vallejo Pons, Francisco&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Bacrot, Etienne&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;2650&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;2717&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;D24m&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;2006.02.18&quot;]&#xA;[Startply &quot;21&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Nf3 d5 2.d4 Nf6 3.c4 dxc4 4.Nc3 a6 5.e4 b5 6.e5 Nd5 7.a4 e6 8.axb5 Nb6 &#xA;9.Ng5 h6 10.Nge4 axb5 11.Rxa8 Nxa8 12.Nxb5 Nb6 13.Be3 Nc6 14.Be2 Bb4+ 15.&#xA;Nbc3 O-O 16.g4 Bb7 17.O-O Ne7 18.Nd2 Bxc3 19.bxc3 Ned5 20.Qc1 Nxe3 21.fxe3&#xA;Qg5 22.Rf4 Nd5 23.Re4 Ne7 24.Rf4 Ng6 25.Rf2 Qxe3 26.Nb3 Qxc1+ 27.Nxc1 c5 &#xA;28.Bxc4 cxd4 29.Rb2 Bf3 30.cxd4 Rc8 31.Rc2 Be4 32.Nd3 Nf4 33.Rd2 Nh3+ 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2019-10-27T18:15:31.353" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26753" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6257" CreationDate="2019-10-28T04:29:09.990" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;First off, the exchange is fine. There's quite a bit online claiming there's a refutation of the entire defense in that line. Regardless a well-timed d5 push can create a lot of problems for black. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Secondly, I used to play the Alekhine's and the line I hated to see was the 4 pawns. White can really force black to show he knows what he's doing in that line.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lastly, there's nothing wrong with 2. Nc3. Aim for a Vienna gambit if 2,,,e5 which is solid but tricky for black but otherwise white can still play for an advantage. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2019-10-28T04:29:09.990" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26754" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26728" CreationDate="2019-10-28T15:54:38.250" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I suspect that the advise to do exercises visualization in this way is tied to the development of computers/internet as it is easy to program/check your &quot;progress&quot; and it makes for a neat feature on a website. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Still, I don't see what point there is in learning the color of squares independent of any other chess knowledge. No doubt having this knowledge helps, but as with tactics you want to know this subconsciously and in connection with actual game play/analyzing variations, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my experience knowing what color each square is comes naturally as you play and analyze more games. When replaying games try to visualize variations in your mind without actually moving the pieces on the board. You will pick up the names of squares but what's much more important will for instance learn what squares lie on a diagonal (and are therefore attacked by a queen/bishop on that diagonal).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Learning by just playing/analyzing could for instance go as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You notice that a black light-squared bishop in many games goes from c8 to g4 to pin a white knight on f3 to the white queen on d1. The bishop is often kicked away by h3 and occasionally the game continues with Bh5, g4, Bg6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From this very common maneuvre you learned that all the squares: c8, g4, f3, d1, h3, g4, h5, g6 are light color. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You will notice many other similar patterns in openings. For instance in the Kings Indian Defense black puts the central pawns on dark squares (d6, e5) that are blocked by white pawns on light squares (c4, d5, e4), etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My advise would be: unless you have unlimited time, you will likely get more by spending your chess time doing tactics puzzles or by watching/reading commented/annotated master games than by learning what color the square c6 is....&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2019-10-28T15:54:38.250" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26755" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12743" CreationDate="2019-10-28T19:33:11.677" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is now an app called Chesscraft on Google play which allows custom boards and pieces. It plays reasonably well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17788" LastActivityDate="2019-10-28T19:33:11.677" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26756" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12609" CreationDate="2019-10-28T23:12:45.497" Score="2" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://sourceforge.net/projects/codekiddy-chess/files/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;15 million games in misc databases on sourceforge&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.kingbase-chess.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Kings Base by Pierre Havard&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://gorgonian.weebly.com/pgn.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Gorgonians big game collection&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://smallchess.com/Games/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Misc Collections someone scraped from chessgames.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://theweekinchess.com/twic&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;TWIC latest games downloads&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15049" LastActivityDate="2019-10-28T23:12:45.497" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26757" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26759" CreationDate="2019-10-28T23:47:23.143" Score="4" ViewCount="194" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have an old &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.spacious-mind.com/html/1850_deluxe_version_a.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Radio Shack 1850 Electronic Chess Computer&lt;/a&gt;, which I would like to know the ELO rating each level plays at. The instructions just give average number of seconds per move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I figure I would play it against &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.tchessgame.com/pro.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;tChess Pro&lt;/a&gt; on my iPad, which the engine can be set to a specific ELO rating. When I find they are both winning about the same number of games I can check what level tChess is at and that will be about what the 1850's rating is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Question is, how many games would be a good sample before I make that call? Obviously if one dominates the other, I'll have to tweak the levels and retry.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20391" LastActivityDate="2021-01-30T19:22:18.637" Title="How many games to get a good idea of computer chess board rating?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;computer-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26758" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24238" CreationDate="2019-10-29T00:03:33.383" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not exactly &quot;custom&quot; images but it has over 50 piece designs and 6 board sizes. You can make a &quot;remix&quot; version, as Scratch calls it and replace the piece designs with whatever you like, same goes with the board. The project is here: &lt;a href=&quot;https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/339815697/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/339815697/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: I've made a new HD Version of this project, it only supports an 8x8 board size but there are now over 160 piece designs and all of them are fully HD! You can use it here: &lt;a href=&quot;https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/343444076/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/343444076/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20428" LastEditorUserId="20428" LastEditDate="2019-11-12T23:51:40.897" LastActivityDate="2019-11-12T23:51:40.897" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26759" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26757" CreationDate="2019-10-29T00:17:45.383" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is no perfect answer here. First, and it is for a reason, FIDE says that you need 9 games to have an established rating, but the USCF says you need 25. Obviously, the more games, the closer the rating will be to accurate. That said, to really get a more accurate rating, you also need to vary the competition, and have it play against various rated humans.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think that it is probably too weak to pair up against any modern computer program that is rated. It would get slaughtered, and not help you determine how strong it really is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would say at least 10.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2019-10-29T00:17:45.383" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26761" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24183" CreationDate="2019-10-29T19:11:29.227" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It may be hard to accept, but losing is the best way to learn and improve. Think of each game as a lesson. The one-time world champion Jose Capablanca said you had to lose 10,000 games to learn chess. You should also record your games and go over them later to see what you did wrong and how you could have improved upon your play.  Having a stronger player look at them is also a good idea.  Studying annotated master games is also recommended.  And don't take your losses so seriously.  They are not a measure of your worth.  They just show that you have more to learn.  Chess is not a quick study.  If you want to see your progress, you must play other players too.  I'm sure there are some at your skill level.  You can even do that online if necessary.  Be sure to start with slower games though, not speed chess. You need time to think and make plans. Unless you are one of the few who are professional players, chess is just a game.  It has many pleasures. Enjoy it! I have played since 1948 (I'm 83), and although I went through periods of losses as you are doing, I persevered and have never regretted it.  Just playing can be fun and intellectually satisfying.  Think of it as problem solving. In fact working on problems in itself can be fun as well as educational. Chess has been one of the enduring joys of my life. Don't give up on it.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastActivityDate="2019-10-29T19:11:29.227" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26762" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2515" CreationDate="2019-10-29T22:17:10.847" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is going to be kind of general, because there's a lot of territory to explore, and space limitations reduce me to doing not much more than pointing at some of the landmarks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There might be something for you in either the Cambridge Springs or the Vienna Variation of the QGD. I know, the Queen's Gambit Declined is thought to be so barren, but both of these (as well as the Meran in the Semi-slav) can create some serious tactical threats.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With Cambridge Springs the early Queen sortie to a5 creates some interesting threats not only on the queen-side but against a white Bishop on g5 as well. It's quite easy for White to drop material if they're unaware. (The most famous of those is the simple trap: 1 d4 d5 2. c4 Nf6 3. Nc3 e6 4 Bg5 Nbd7 when attempts to win the pawn result in white losing a piece: 5 cd5 ed5 6 Nxd5 Nxd5 7 Bxd8 Bb4!) But there are plenty more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. Bg5 Nbd7 5. cxd5 exd5 6. Nxd5 Nxd5 7. Bxd8 Bb4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With all the QGD lines, though, you need to have something to stir up trouble against the exchange variations. If you look at that line and can't find anything you like, then I'd recommend staying away from them and trying for something like a Nimzo-indian beginning that transposes into the QGD lines (like the Vienna) later. (Black begins with something like Nf6 and e6 or b6 with a d5 coming later, on the 3rd or fourth move.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you start digging in, you might find some lesser-known sidelines (Manhattan variation?) that create enough tension to keep you satisfied. You might even find you like them as much as e-pawn lines. Look at games by Grandmasters like Larry Christensen who create lots of attacking positions from d-pawn openings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="657" LastActivityDate="2019-10-29T22:17:10.847" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26763" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15050" CreationDate="2019-10-30T02:06:05.597" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I first learn an opening I work out the main lines in a sort of skeleton format. I generally go about 8 moves and then look at the key variations. I then write out the main ideas (actually type out but whatever works for you). Then I play a lot of blitz games adding to my analysis and knowledge as I go. After a certain point you'll realize you know the opening better than almost everyone you play. That's when I go in and fine tune things. Analyze your weaker lines, look at results etc. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To answer your other questions: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I would approach everything as new to avoid getting locked into tunnel vision. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Analyze your games. Break it down by end of theory, end of opening, middle-game and endgame. Evaluate the positions using engines and databases, books and any other resources you have. Ask yourself where you're struggling the most. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The same way as anything else. You can look at reviews or whatever or maybe check them out at a library or read samples online. If I'm going to spend time on an opening I want several books and then I'll check their quality based on the other books, engines and databases. I'm more concerned with the openings themselves than the books. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I like having books to explain ideas. You could probably learn everything without the books but it would take longer. Plus, it's nice to have Silman explain that specific position rather than guess at it yourself based on what you learned from his books. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;It depends entirely on the opening. I once studied Alekhine's defense and within roughly 3-4 hours I was scoring better than I ever had with any e4 defense. On the other hand something like the Dragon or Najdorf probably takes a lifetime commitment. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's no such thing as a London vs a KID. Every position has one opening. A 2100 rated player should know that. I get what you're saying system vs system but still at your level you should understand each position is unique. Systems are only general ideas. I would be completely shocked if someone could reach your level and not understand how to handle transpositions. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At your level you really should be at the point where you start putting together a cohesive rep and deciding whether or not you want to &quot;specialize&quot; in a specific opening like the Najdorf or Dragon or whether it's a better use of your time to learn other openings. A lot of it depends on your goals. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastEditorUserId="19861" LastEditDate="2019-10-30T02:14:44.310" LastActivityDate="2019-10-30T02:14:44.310" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26764" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12862" CreationDate="2019-10-30T02:51:25.737" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;With white play 1. e4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If black plays 1...e5 play 2. Bc4. From here you've cut out a lot of theory (ie petrovs, philidors, latvian etc) If you want something simple just play a basic formation with f4, d3 etc. Otherwise you can transpose to a wide variety of openings like the Italian (incl evans), King's gambit, Vienna, Scotch gambit etc. There is a lot of variety here. The modern bishop's opening is considered the the second best theoretical 1.e4,e5 opening behind the Ruy. There's a lot of flexibility here plus you're aiming your strongest attacking piece at black's weakest square on move 2. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;vs the Sicilian the Alapin gives the most &quot;bang for the buck&quot; meaning the best winning chances for the least amount of study time. This opening (the Alapin) can give you winning chances against the best players in the world yet also gives you a very active position against lesser players. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;vs. the French either the exchange or advance is fine and both fit well with the Alapin Sicilian. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;vs. the ck play the panov-botvinnik. Similar in structure to the Alapin   and is the best chance for an open game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;vs g6 and d6- I would play either the Austrian or the 150 attack. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;vs. Alekhine's the exchange variation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;vs everything else- generally play d4 and the main lines. I'll mention the BMD vs the Scandinavian is a strong attacking choice and fits well with the other openings I've mentioned. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As black- vs e4- the best starter opening is 1.e4, d5 2. exd5 Qxd5 3. Nc3, Qa5 (or Qd8). You can get a playable game against almost anybody and the positions are open and tactical with very little to learn. After you feel you want something else play 1...e5 and aim for a Ruy variation other than 3...a6. I would play the classical with Bc5 but there are plenty of other choices. Against everything else look for lines that play d5 quickly. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;vs. d4 and everything else play either the Tarrasch or Dutch. Both are complete systems (ie playable against everything), simple to learn and lead to active, tactical positions.  The Tarrasch fits well with the IQP positions I mentioned earlier like the Alapin, French exchange and pan-bot. The Dutch fits well with f4 openings like the king's gambit or vienna gambit. Both openings have been played at high levels and are probably good enough to reach GM level with. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anything I haven't mentioned stick to your basic opening principles of center, development and king safety and you'll be fine.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastEditorUserId="19861" LastEditDate="2019-10-30T02:58:37.747" LastActivityDate="2019-10-30T02:58:37.747" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26765" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1103" CreationDate="2019-10-30T03:16:11.737" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both Silman's books and Nimzo's My System are must reads once you've reached about 1900 and are looking to take your game to the next level. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you're below 1900 trying to understand positional play is like doing calculus without understanding basic addition and subtraction. Tactics are the fundamentals of chess. Nothing else will make sense without a strong understanding of tactics. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2019-10-30T03:16:11.737" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26766" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9737" CreationDate="2019-10-30T04:37:19.727" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I disagree with anyone saying engines can't help. Not only can they give you the right answer in any situation but they can show you why your answer was wrong. It's like having the world's strongest player sitting right next to you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I learned chess by playing against Chessmaster. Because of the way it plays I feel I'm better in the endgame than virtually anyone I play and I feel I'm pretty accurate tactically because engines hold you to that standard. Playing against people makes a person sloppy and prone to play for traps. Playing against both people and engines helps you to improve at the fastest rate. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastEditorUserId="19861" LastEditDate="2019-10-30T04:43:24.830" LastActivityDate="2019-10-30T04:43:24.830" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26767" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25069" CreationDate="2019-10-30T05:27:32.727" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both are important but I believe tactics are more fundamental. That is, tactics can help to understand certain endgames but endgames aren't really going to help you understand tactics. Sure, there are isolated endgame positions where you might learn a tactical trick but how much of that is applicable to the rest of your game? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2019-10-30T05:27:32.727" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26768" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12551" CreationDate="2019-10-30T05:37:38.163" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my experience, attempting to teach things is a very effective way of learning. There's a difference between understanding things on a high, abstract level and having a deep intuitive sense of what things mean. A lot of people claim to understand things but can't demonstrate it when asked to. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Einstein once said something similar: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“You do not really understand something unless you can explain it to your grandmother.”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2019-10-30T05:37:38.163" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26769" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24183" CreationDate="2019-10-30T06:12:35.907" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;If the rating difference is large (say, 400+ points), then you probably aren't going to beat them much so odds games and playing other players seem like the best idea. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, if you are closer in rating you should stand a decent chance of winning so in that case I would say look for opening ideas, try to improve overall and analyze each ga       01me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2019-10-30T06:12:35.907" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26770" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-10-30T08:20:46.933" Score="5" ViewCount="219" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are different opinions on analysing your games with an engine. Some say you shouldn't use an engine at all, and others say you can use it, but you should do your own analysis first. Most say that you shouldn't use the engine without a manual analysis first.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But what can you learn from an engine analysis? They can point out tactical mistakes, but if the mistakes imply you must correctly play a long variation, and you don't manage this, the whole variation fails. But of course, often the mistakes are easy to see. But I have started to ask myself, how valuable is this at pointing out tactical mistakes? Often I can find the easy mistakes by myself, and the hard ones are probably above my understanding.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe the engine is more useful for endgame? But even so, it can be hard to understand the engine moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the opening I think an opening-db or opening books are much better then the engine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The best option is to probably analyse games with a stronger player/coach, but I do not have that option. You can also try to get help from players on sites, asking for help with analysis. I have tried this on chess.com several times, but I have gotten very few answers. I am trying Chess Stack Exchange to see if I get more responses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I found &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/blog/CharlyAZ/a-hardcore-guide-to-analyze-your-chess-games&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this article&lt;/a&gt; that has lots of good advice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17458" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-02T14:18:25.867" LastActivityDate="2020-03-02T14:18:25.867" Title="Usefullness of analysing ones own games with an engine" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26771" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26770" CreationDate="2019-10-30T10:01:53.787" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I guess a lot of it depends on how strong you are. I understand what I am trying for in my games, but that does not always mean that I am efficient in achieving the aim. Sometimes, the computer shows me a good line quickly. In addition, I am human, and short of being Carlsen, and even he misses things, the computers is great for pointing out what you miss, but not really great teachers. If you are rated 1000, and have little positional understanding, then it is really not going to teach you much beyond any forcing lines you missed, so I would not spend a great deal of time with it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Personally, I do not spend a lot of time analyzing with a computer, and in fact, just a few minutes per game, more as a blunder-check to show me obvious things that I missed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I do not think that they are great for positional lines as what looks good to a human is often not what the computer suggests. In concrete, forcing lines, they are the best. Again, you can look at Carlsen since he often does not play the optimum move per the computer (although he does more than any other human still), but he clearly has a concrete plan in mind in most cases.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The days of computers playing endgames poorly is long gone, even if you can find exceptions here or there...especially with tablebases, which play endgames with less than 6 or 7 pieces perfectly. That said, sometimes, their hidden resources are very deep and are very specific to the position, so they do not help you gain any long-term knowledge. I cannot find the game again, but just the other day, a GM could have saved a draw in a rook endgame with Rd3 instead of the natural Ra3 (maybe b3). There was a peculiarity way down the road that no human would be expected to see, so he missed it. The odds of that coming up again are minimal, and certainly even less if you are an average player. Sure, it is interesting to look at, and to get the &quot;truth&quot;, but how helpful that is in the long run is debatable. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The best way that computers can help in the endgame is if you have previously studied some aspect of the endgame, and you feed the computer a similar position, and play against it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2019-10-30T10:01:53.787" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26772" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26774" CreationDate="2019-10-30T11:21:24.117" Score="19" ViewCount="4295" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to the FIDE Laws of Chess:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;4.4 If a player having the move:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  4.4.1 touches his king and a rook he must castle on that side if it is legal to do so&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  4.4.2 &lt;strong&gt;deliberately touches a rook and then his king he is not allowed to castle on that side on that move&lt;/strong&gt; and the situation shall&#xA;  be governed by Article 4.3.1&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yesterday in the semi-finals of the Chess960 World Championships in the following position Nepomniatchi tried to castle kingside by first picking up his rook to move it off the king's destination square (g1) to f1, the rook's destination square and then moving the king to g1. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The arbiter ruled in accordance with 4.4.2 that he was not allowed to castle kingside and the king must stay on e1 and he got a bad position. Later, after &lt;a href=&quot;https://twitter.com/chess24com/status/1189224327994052608&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;an appeal&lt;/a&gt;, this was overruled and &lt;a href=&quot;https://twitter.com/chess24com/status/1189228348217724928&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;they replayed the game&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [title &quot;Neponiatchi - So, 2019 Chess960 1/2 final&quot;]&#xA; [fen &quot;2nr1r1k/pb1n1pqp/1p2p1p1/1N1pN3/5P2/1P4P1/P2PPQ1P/2R1K1RB w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Jonathan Tisdall, &lt;a href=&quot;https://twitter.com/GMjtis/status/1189229273418260485&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;on Twitter&lt;/a&gt;, reported that:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;According to organizer Jøran Aulin-Jansson, the rook being on g1, the&#xA;  king destination, caused enough confusion to overturn the strict&#xA;  ruling&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This raises the question: &lt;strong&gt;In such situations how can the player legally castle on the side where the rook starts on the king's destination square?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One humorous, though impractical at short time limits, solution was suggested &lt;a href=&quot;https://twitter.com/bondegnasker/status/1189469446139797505&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even more impractical was &lt;a href=&quot;https://twitter.com/ChessProblem/status/1189239004530663424&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;MrDodgy's suggestion&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A true pro would pick up the rook from g1, toss it up in the air,&#xA;  slide the king to g1 and the rook would land dead centre of f1.  Press&#xA;  the clock, lean back in chair.  Flex.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Still illegal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-11-01T11:41:27.400" LastActivityDate="2019-11-01T12:14:42.363" Title="How can you castle legally in Chess960 when the castling rook is on the king's destination square?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;castling&gt;&lt;chess960&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26773" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26772" CreationDate="2019-10-30T11:26:43.267" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;I saw this in the chess news on a couple of sites, and it seems pretty simple to me. Pick up the K, and move it to g1, simultaneously pushing the rook off the g1 square. Then move the rook to its proper square.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In any case, you should pick up the K first, and then if you also want to pick up the rook, grab it second, and move them simultaneously. Either way, you are in compliance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2019-10-30T11:26:43.267" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26774" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26772" CreationDate="2019-10-30T11:38:53.350" Score="18" Body="&lt;p&gt;The FIDE Laws of Chess actually cover this with a recommendation without mentioning the problem.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;II.3.2.5.1 When castling on a physical board with a human player, it&#xA;  is recommended that the king be moved outside the playing surface next&#xA;  to his final position, the rook then be moved from its starting&#xA;  position to its final position, and then the king be placed on his&#xA;  final square&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first time I read this I though &quot;What a daft thing to suggest? Who is going to do that?&quot; but now I see the point.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The FIDE Laws of Chess go on to state:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;II.3.2.7 Notes&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  II.3.2.7.1 To avoid any misunderstanding, it may be useful to state &quot;I am about to&#xA;  castle&quot; before castling.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Suppose Nepomniatchi had read that before and said those words before castling, would the arbiter have allowed him to castle the way he did?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, it looks like this was thought of when the rules were written and they were written accordingly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For practical play there is a simpler solution. According to 4.4.1 touching the king then the rook must be followed by castling. In cases where either the rook is on the king's square or the king is on the king's square just touch king then rook and then make the move. This solves all the associated problems.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="20163" LastEditDate="2019-11-01T12:14:42.363" LastActivityDate="2019-11-01T12:14:42.363" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26775" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26772" CreationDate="2019-10-30T12:52:07.577" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are two problematic cases in Chess960 castling:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;(1) rook starts on king’s destination square.&#xA;(2) king starts on king’s destination square.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is not beyond the wit of man for the FIDE Laws to handle those cases explicitly. Maybe a future version of the rules will do so.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However the most important FIDE rule here is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Too detailed a rule might deprive the arbiter of his freedom of judgement&#xA;  and thus prevent him from finding the solution to a problem&#xA;  dictated by fairness, logic and special factors.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It must be difficult to rule in the excitement of such a situation. But had not GM So generously agreed to draw the game, the ruling could have effectively terminated the semi-final. The moral for players is to remain calm, and exercise opportunities for appeal. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8201" LastEditorUserId="8201" LastEditDate="2019-10-30T14:01:04.670" LastActivityDate="2019-10-30T14:01:04.670" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26776" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26772" CreationDate="2019-10-30T23:55:48.883" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;Touch your king, then your rook.  By rule 4.4.1, you are now required to castle.  You can now move the king and rook to their proper squares however you like, since you are already forced into a specific move and any subsequent piece touches can't change that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2944" LastEditorUserId="2944" LastEditDate="2019-10-31T05:26:13.297" LastActivityDate="2019-10-31T05:26:13.297" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26777" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24882" CreationDate="2019-10-31T00:58:41.820" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's a simple answer. You've done all you can to avoid understanding how to play in the opening and now you're stuck. With white you play a system opening and with black you memorize lines.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The solution is to get back to basics and understand your opening principles of center, development and king safety. Stop trying to avoid theory and actually learn why you're making these moves. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2019-10-31T00:58:41.820" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26778" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1884" CreationDate="2019-10-31T01:18:06.350" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can get to about 2000 with no knowledge of theory at all and probably about 2300 with very limited knowledge as long as you have a firm grasp of opening principles and are strong in the other areas of your game. .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Above 2300 the game is much different. Your opponents aren't going to make many mistakes very often so the advantage out of the opening (or lack thereof) will determine the game to a large extent.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2019-10-31T01:18:06.350" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26779" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21570" CreationDate="2019-10-31T01:33:59.887" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;1.d4 grabs control of the center while 1.c4, e5 leaves black at least equal and maybe slightly better. From a purely objective standpoint it is all about control of the center. If we played a game between two perfect engines d4 would be the better move. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However 1.c4 does have a lot of practical advantages. There are lots of transpositional possibilities and white may be able to force the game into lines where he is more familiar. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2019-10-31T01:33:59.887" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26780" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24448" CreationDate="2019-10-31T01:45:29.743" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The English opening is pretty bad as a choice for beginners. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For one, the things beginners need to learn (center, development, king safety) are less important in a positional opening like this and it will lead to lagging weaknesses that you don't understand. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For another the English is extremely complex both because of transpositions and positional understanding. I think all of that time could be spent on getting better. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lastly, you need to learn to play actively to improve. Beginners tend towards defensive openings but that's the exact opposite of what you should be doing. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2019-10-31T01:45:29.743" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26781" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26784" CreationDate="2019-10-31T06:47:47.877" Score="5" ViewCount="476" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a speculative question since I don't know if such an engine is even plausible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The idea: we'll start Stockfish and Leela at the same time using both my CPU and GPU. Within a fraction of a second, both engines will output principal variations. Then we use the other engine's principal variations to influence our search. For example, suppose Stockfish wants to play 1. e4 and Leela wants to play 1. d4. Using this, we move 1. e4 up Leela's &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessprogramming.org/Move_Ordering&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;move ordering&lt;/a&gt;, and do the same for 1. d4 and Stockfish.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In other words, both engines use the other engines' principal variation to influence their search, such that both engines is preferentially searching the other engine's principal variation. Then, combine the results from both engines, e.g. if the engines agree then play the move, and apply other heuristics if they don't. The idea seems straightforward to extend if the principal variations are the same up to 5 moves ahead, etc, and it also sounds obvious that it should produce a stronger engine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This kind of engine would still be reliant on Leela and Stockfish individually, but be able to take advantage of both CPU and GPU resources. As far as I know there's no engine that does this (GPU engines already use some CPU power, but it's small; CPU engines don't use the GPU at all). So: does this idea work? If so, has anyone tried it? If not, why not?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastEditorUserId="15223" LastEditDate="2019-10-31T06:53:23.587" LastActivityDate="2019-11-02T18:39:17.233" Title="Is it possible to combine CPU and GPU engines to use the other's principal variation?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;leela&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26782" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26783" CreationDate="2019-10-31T06:58:19.810" Score="17" ViewCount="5756" Body="&lt;p&gt;I see it all the time on the net. Some players play, for example, a 15-minute game with a 10-second increment, and they finish the game with more time than what they started with! I've heard players doing this even in OTB tournaments- games that could go on for hours on end.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it because they are perhaps too impulsive? (And if so, why not just play bullet?). Or do they like to just use their gut? Is it also a bit an ego thing, as in, &quot;I can beat this guy even if I don't think at all!&quot;. Or is it also a part of their strategy, they want to get their opponent in time trouble?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So what are the possible reasons why they play so quick?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20442" LastEditorUserId="7792" LastEditDate="2019-10-31T22:56:46.267" LastActivityDate="2021-04-04T05:35:08.603" Title="Players who play fast in longer time control games" Tags="&lt;time-control&gt;&lt;time-management&gt;" AnswerCount="8" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26783" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26782" CreationDate="2019-10-31T08:39:28.530" Score="29" Body="&lt;p&gt;As I commented, there are several reasons why people play fast, among them:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One of the reasons I often see is fear of time trouble. Many amateurs are not really aware of whether the time they have left will &quot;be enough&quot;, so start to move way too fast early on. They won't feel confident to play faster games either for that same reason.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It could be the case that your opponents are using your time to think if you take too much time, so when it's their turn they've already anticipated your move and figured out how to answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other players want a challenge, so they will play a game in 5 minutes against an opponent who has 15.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The list could be infinite...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastActivityDate="2019-10-31T08:39:28.530" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26784" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26781" CreationDate="2019-10-31T09:15:58.503" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;This seems to be somehow LeelaFish's approach:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/killerducky/lc0/wiki/LeelaFish&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://github.com/killerducky/lc0/wiki/LeelaFish&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More about it here (and probably on more posts in the same forum):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.talkchess.com/forum3/viewtopic.php?t=70803&amp;amp;start=10&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.talkchess.com/forum3/viewtopic.php?t=70803&amp;amp;start=10&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9179" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-10-31T16:07:55.990" LastActivityDate="2019-10-31T16:07:55.990" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26785" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26782" CreationDate="2019-10-31T09:42:22.733" Score="17" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I see it all the time on the net&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It also happens a lot over the board. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are two main reasons players play the moves very fast when they have a lot of time:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;They are in their preparation and the game may conclude (with a win&#xA;or pre-arranged draw) before they leave their preparation. You often see this at the highest levels.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;They are sufficiently far along the autism spectrum to have problems maintaining a long attention span.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the second point there is an English IM who will often finish a G90+30 FIDE rated game with only 5 minutes gone on the clock. I played in the same club team as him when he was about 10 or 11 years old (and he was obviously much weaker). At the time the only way I could beat him was to play deliberately slowly and avoid tactics. If he was bored then mistakes were far more likely to come. When he was interested he was very quick and very good, far too good for me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now there is a player for a club in the same league that I play in who clearly also has the same Asperger's-like medical problem. A few years ago I played him in a 10+5 rapid tournament. He wrote the moves down and won on time with more than 3 minutes left on the clock albeit in a probably losing but very complicated position, far too complicated for me in a rapid game. When I played him again a year or so later at standard time controls I won because I could use the extra time while his condition prevented him from doing so.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-10-31T23:03:14.053" LastActivityDate="2019-10-31T23:03:14.053" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26786" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26782" CreationDate="2019-10-31T10:25:24.313" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the biggest reason is that using your time efficiently is an acquired skill just as learning tactics is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you are not as strong, you do not know as much, and thus, you do not have as much to think about. As you acquire more overall chess skill, you have more to think about, and thus, you spend more time thinking. It is also a matter of practice. The more practiced you are, the better you are at time management.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, there is another factor, and that is the proliferation of kids in chess. When I started playing 40 years ago, there were virtually no kids playing. I was the kid at age 18 back then. Now, they seem make up at least half of chess players at the tournaments I have been to lately. Kids naturally think very quickly, and thus, they do not need as much time to think as I do now at age 58 (in a few weeks). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2019-10-31T10:25:24.313" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26787" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26770" CreationDate="2019-10-31T13:45:15.347" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've done it both ways (computer first, and human first) and I think you can learn either way. The important step is &quot;human last,&quot; meaning the human needs to go over the computer's analysis to be sure they understand it, because that's where a lot of the learning occurs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I'm going to start with myself analysing, then I will play through it, trying to get a feel for when the game turned on me (assuming it was a loss, I find most of my problems with losing games comes from not recognizing those potential &quot;turning points&quot; in the game until the chance has passed). If I missed a tactical shot, I'll ask myself why I didn't see it; maybe that answer will point to a flaw in my approach to analysing a position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then, when that's done (or when I start with the computer) I'll let the computer loose on the position, probably overnight. At every point where the computer and player disagreed, I'll try to understand what the point of dispute is. Possibly it's something, possibly it's just a matter of taste. (IOW, maybe the player's choice differs from the computer's only in the path, not the result; the simplest example is a difference between a forced 8-move checkmate and the forced 5-move checkmate the computer saw. Same result, different path to it.) The important part of this phase is I arrive at some understanding of the computer's point.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe it &lt;em&gt;is&lt;/em&gt; that the computer sees this long variation; if it's the kind of variation only a computer can play well, I take that as a sign I don't want to go down that path, and I should look for a clearer course.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's always possible I don't end up understanding every point the computer has. Or, even more probable, I misunderstand it, drawing the wrong conclusion. I know that happens, and I'm sure I carry in my head many examples of that of which I'm currently not aware. That's called &quot;being human&quot; -- all I can expect is those misunderstandings will be cleared up at some future point in my study.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But the point is in trying to understand them. From that effort comes the fertilizer that enables your chess understanding to grow and prosper.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I prefer to start doing the analysis on my own, these days, and only start with the computer when I don't have time. But you can make your own choice which way to start, I think either works well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="657" LastActivityDate="2019-10-31T13:45:15.347" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26788" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26770" CreationDate="2019-10-31T17:06:55.120" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;First of all it kind of depends on your playing strength, but every player can benefit at least a bit from an engine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Personally I use the engine for the following analysis:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Opening preperation: I play out different variations of my opening with the engine running. I do this so I dont miss any critical good moves of my opponents. For myself I dont necessarily chose the best engine move, but the move I think fits my style the best. At the end I check if I like the position and what the engine says of it. I dont care about +- 0.2, as long as I feel the position is good for me.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Open issue control: If I play 10+0 or 15+15 online, I dont analyze every game by hand afterwards. But I will go for a quick engine run and check, what kind of mistakes I made (if there are any). This way, I get a overview about my typical mistakes and know where I can improve. I also check, if I followed my prepared opening ideas (if present) and how the position developed. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;For club games, I will always first analyze them by hand. The time spent depends a lot about the position and how many ideas I find which are worth analyzing (or ideas I had in the game but could not calculate due to time). Of course I will analyze my mistakes I spot myself. Afterwards I will run the engine and check if I missed any mistakes. In addition I will play out some lines of the engine which I find intresting. Afterwards I think about, wheither I could have spotted it during the game and if it was something I could play myself, regarding the resulting position.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In general, I think an engine gives you intresting insights, but you should always remember, that you dont have to be able to play like the engine. So the engine will find some lines, which you should dismiss, because they are too hard for you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For additional benefit, you can use a book to improve. I will sit down with a chess book go over some content and later on use the engine to double check the ideas I learned in the book.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18963" LastActivityDate="2019-10-31T17:06:55.120" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26789" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24183" CreationDate="2019-10-31T19:05:55.783" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I began playing chess in school in 7th grade and lost my first game in four moves. For the first year and one half I didn't win a single game against anyone. That brings us to the middle of my 8th grade year. We had a chess ladder and I wanted to be on the 10th spot (of 10 total). I was due to challenge the 10th spot that day but my opponent was home ill from school and did not show. We had a rule you could challenge up to two spots up on the ladder and the person holding the 9th spot was there that night. I challenged him and won. Since then I climbed the ladder to the 1st spot. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm now 45 years old but I can tell you I am grateful for that 1 1/2 year of losses and I am grateful I didn't give up. I learned that there must be more to chess than winning and losing. That, or I'm a glutton for punishment. I do believe that this story adds credence to Garry Kasparov's quote: &quot;Current success is the greatest enemy of future success.&quot; You may be losing repeatedly but I can guarantee you that you are storing up valuable lessons along the way. Hopefully, you too, will score your first victory against this opponent and it will be the change in momentum and the gain in confidence needed to start off a series of wins and your story might help encourage others in the same boat.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8134" LastActivityDate="2019-10-31T19:05:55.783" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26790" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26782" CreationDate="2019-10-31T19:13:26.363" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's also a possible strategy to play with the opponent's mind by playing quick and ideal (or &lt;em&gt;unexpected&lt;/em&gt;) moves, though it can be very risky and backfire.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Depending on how mentally strong a player is, seeing a few quick and ideal moves done in a succession by the opponent may pressure their mind. If they cannot cope up with the pressure, a blunder may be made even while having much time left.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another way is to play quick moves that end with an unexpected move. This may surprise the opponent even more, make them thinking something else unrelated to the game (like &quot;why did they play &lt;em&gt;that&lt;/em&gt; move?&quot;) and wasting more time thinking if they miss some obvious moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, if the opponent is not provoked and still stays calm, then it may backfire to the player if the (unexpected) moves are actually not good moves since they are practically reducing their winning chance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7792" LastEditorUserId="7792" LastEditDate="2019-11-01T07:53:00.883" LastActivityDate="2019-11-01T07:53:00.883" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26791" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26792" CreationDate="2019-10-31T22:55:42.640" Score="2" ViewCount="227" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 Nf6 2. Bf4 c5 3. e3 Qb6 4. Nc3 cxd4 5. exd4 Qxb2 6. Nb5 Na6 7. a3 Nd5                  8. Bc4 { I'm aware this was a blunder because of Nc3, but fortunately they didn't see it} 8... Nxf4 9. Rb1 Qxb1 10. Qxb1 Nxg2+ 11. Kf1 Nf4 12. Qc1 Ng6 13. Qe3 e6 14. Nf3 b6 15. Qe4 { This was the big mistake.} 15... Rb8 16. Nxa7 Bb7 17. Qe3 Bd6 18. Nb5 Bf4 19. Qc3 { This was another blunder, I had some hopes of creating discoveries against g7, but it ended up walking into a pin next move and the tactics worked against me because of it} 19... Rc8 20. Ne5 O-O 21. Nxd7 Bxh1 22. Nxf8 Nxf8 23. f3 { I had calculated this as trapping his bishop a few moves prior, not realising they had Bxh2... doh} 23... Bxh2 24. Qd3 Ng6 25.Nc3 Nf4 26. Qe4 Bg2+ 27. Kf2 Nc7 28. Bd3 f5 29. Qb7 Rd8 30. Qxb6 Bh3 31. Nb5 Nfd5 32. Qc6 Bf4 33. Nxc7 Nxc7 34. Bc4 Kf7 35. a4 Rxd4 36. Bb3 Rd2+ 37. Ke1 Rh2 38. Qd7+ Kg6 39. Bxe6 Rh1+ 40. Ke2 Rh2+ 41. Ke1 Bg3+ 42. Kd1 Rh1+ 43. Ke2 Bf1+ 44. Ke3 f4+ 45. Ke4 Nxe6 46. Qxe6+ Kh5 47. Qf5+ Kh6 48. Qe6+ g6 49. Qf6 Bh3 50.Qf8+ Kh5 51. Qg7 Bf5+ 52. Ke5 Re1+ 53. Kf6 Bh4+ 54. Kf7 Re7+ 55. Kg8 Be6+ 56.Kxh7 Rxg7+ 57. Kxg7 g5 58. a5 Bd5 59. a6 Bxf3 60. a7 Ba8 61. c4 f3 62. c5 f2 63. c6 Bxc6 64. Kf6 f1=Q+ 65. Ke5 Ba8 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've been trying to break 1700 on rapid for a while now. I just played this game where I was winning, but threw my advantage away on move 15.&#xA;15. Qe4 was the big mistake. I was winning up until then. I played it quickly as it just felt natural, stopping his bishop from fianchettoing. I knew that he had very little moves. He can't move the knight on a6, the knight on g6 can only go to e2, he can only move the dark-squared bishop to e2 and can't move the light-squared bishop. I assumed I could just take the a7 pawn when he moved his rook (I couldn't obviously), but after looking at it I understand why, as it develops his dark-squared. The thing is that the computer gives h4 as the best move here, and I don't really know why. I'm assuming it's to try and creates weaknesses on the kingside, but how are you supposed to know when to do that, and why is it better?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20442" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-11-01T00:09:29.323" LastActivityDate="2019-11-01T15:24:59.123" Title="Why is h4 a good move here?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26792" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26791" CreationDate="2019-11-01T00:04:20.793" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, I assume that you mean 15.h4 (not h5).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If so, the main reason is that a lot of master-level chess is restricting your opponent's pieces, or in this case, even driving them back. The Ng6 has no good squares, and h5 driving to to a worse square is threatened. If 15...Be7; 16.h5 Nf8, and not only has the Ng6 been driven back, and still has no good squares, but now the Rh8 is doing nothing, and white may get a direct attack against the Ke8, which is stuck in the middle. A specific line is 15.h4 Be7; 16.h5 Nf8; 17.Rg1 g6; 18.Ng5 with the threat of Qf3 hitting f7 and the Ra8. If Bg5 then the dark squares are critically weak.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That leaves only 15.h4 h5, but then 16.Rg1 Bb7; 17.Bd3 already has critical threats since black's king is not going to have anywhere safe to hide, and if the N retreats, we are back to similar ideas as above (Nf7 and the Rh8 problems).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as how you know when to do this, there is no hard-and-fast rule, but in this case, you have to realize that the pieces can be restricted, which is pure analytical work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S. Let me also reference chapter 7 from the book &quot;Find the Right Plan with Anatoly Karpov&quot; (beware of this book in that the title in Russian is &quot;Plan and Evaluation&quot;, and the book really is not really much about planning). The title of chapter 7 is: &quot;The most important law of chess&quot;. That &quot;law&quot; is: &quot;&lt;strong&gt;Restricting the mobility of your opponent’s pieces (and in association with this: domination by your own) – is the most important law of chess.&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That is the primary thing that is going on with 15.h4. In conjunction with that is the weak K, and the fact that the Ke8, in essence, divides the board k-side and q-side, and prevents pieces from helping out the other side.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2019-11-01T15:24:59.123" LastActivityDate="2019-11-01T15:24:59.123" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26793" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26782" CreationDate="2019-11-01T08:21:22.877" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's a long list indeed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One of the reasons I prefer such games over bullet games is it gives me a buffer. If I encounter a tricky situation, I have time to think about it. In Bullet games, you &lt;em&gt;must&lt;/em&gt; play fast. In longer games, it's optional. If I don't need much time for the first 10 moves, I may still need a lot of it for the next 10. Especially with online chess where you often don't know your opponent, there's a major risk something unexpected will happen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19803" LastActivityDate="2019-11-01T08:21:22.877" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26794" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26772" CreationDate="2019-11-01T09:44:25.360" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Stian Yttervik made a comment that I think deserves to be expanded into a full answer. (I have changed the wording somewhat. That is not Stians fault)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just pretend that the King is capturing the Rook.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In other words: Move the King first. Use the King to gently push the Rook off-center and firmly place the King where it should be.  Then move the Rook where it should be.  Hit the clock.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9188" LastActivityDate="2019-11-01T09:44:25.360" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26795" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24183" CreationDate="2019-11-01T13:38:02.597" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think that the only way out of this situation is to seriously work at improving your chess, and possibly start beating him from time to time. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastActivityDate="2019-11-01T13:38:02.597" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26796" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26782" CreationDate="2019-11-01T15:54:12.897" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't see my situation pointed out by anyone here, so I'll add an answer:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have been, for quite some time, playing only (online, of course) bullet games. On &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chess.com&lt;/a&gt;, out of 3889 games, 3192 are bullet. And on &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;lichess&lt;/a&gt; I have 2634 bullet games out of 3215 total games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Recently, I decided that I want to stop playing bullet, and I started focusing on blitz and rapid games. However, after about 500 games, I still finish most 5+0 games with more than 3 minutes and a half on the clock, and if I play 15+10 chances are that I will end with more than 15 minutes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's not strategy in it, I'm not trying to deceive the opponent or to buy some &quot;buffer time&quot; for the mid and end game, I have just been playing bullet for such a long time that my brain is &quot;wired&quot; this way and rarely I take more than 10/15 seconds to think I move. I even play fast in correspondence games!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20453" LastActivityDate="2019-11-01T15:54:12.897" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26797" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26801" CreationDate="2019-11-01T19:29:20.603" Score="7" ViewCount="641" Body="&lt;p&gt;My first question. :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am watching the Fischer Random World Championship with Magnus Carlsen and Wesley So, and I am wondering how they determine the starting position?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it software that picks, or do they start left to right, and pull pieces out of a bag? Or is it some other way?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2019-11-01T20:31:23.787" LastActivityDate="2019-11-04T13:43:19.087" Title="How do they determine the starting position for Fisher Random / Chess 960?" Tags="&lt;chess960&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26798" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26799" CreationDate="2019-11-01T20:11:50.797" Score="2" ViewCount="205" Body="&lt;p&gt;Knight promotion is the second most common promotion. Most of the time it is to give an otherwise undeliverable check. But it doesn’t always come with check. Statistically speaking, what percentage of knight promotions come with check and percentage doesn’t come with check?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-11-29T19:54:37.657" LastActivityDate="2020-11-29T19:54:37.657" Title="Knight promotion percentages" Tags="&lt;statistics&gt;&lt;knights&gt;&lt;pawn-promotion&gt;&lt;check&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26799" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26798" CreationDate="2019-11-01T20:27:37.603" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;ChessBase allows you to search for positions with promotions to each piece, with or without check. In the Mega 2019 database, there are 8,266,473 games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In those games, there are 486,622 promotions to queen; 7,223 promotions to knight; 1,486 promotions to bishop; and 9,606 promotions to rook. Of the 7,223 promotions to knight, 5,733 came with check, or 79.3%. Bonus: Of the 5,733 knight promotions with check, 106 were mate on the move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, Mega does not have every game, but this can give you a pretty close idea.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2019-11-01T20:27:37.603" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26800" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26797" CreationDate="2019-11-01T20:50:50.350" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Many professional-grade chess clocks are capable of randomly choosing a valid Chess960 starting position and describing it to the players.  I suspect that in many tournaments, this is how it's done.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is also possible to choose the position using other sources of randomness, such as rolling dice.  Standard gaming dice sets include not only 6-sided cube dice (known as d6), but 8-sided, 10-sided, 12-sided, 20-sided, and 4-sided types as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A Chess960 position can be fairly chosen using 2d4 of contrasting colours (to choose the positions of the bishops), a d6 (to place the Queen on the remaining squares), and a d10 (to place the knights).  The rooks and king are placed on the three remaining squares, with the king in the middle.  This procedure also corresponds to the method of deriving a position from a position ID &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fischer_Random_Chess_numbering_scheme#Direct_derivation&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;outlined here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19281" LastActivityDate="2019-11-01T20:50:50.350" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26801" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26797" CreationDate="2019-11-01T20:50:57.657" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;8.4.3. Drawing of positions&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;● Set up of the pieces will be decided by a drawing made by Fischer Random Generator&#xA;software with all players present 15 minutes before the start of the first game of&#xA;each time control. This setup then will be used for both games. The players will&#xA;attend this drawing, and will then be given time before the start of play to confer&#xA;with a second.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Found in the download here: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.frchess.com/regulations&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.frchess.com/regulations&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Interestingly, if the classical position is picked then they pick again.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20454" LastEditorUserId="20454" LastEditDate="2019-11-04T13:43:19.087" LastActivityDate="2019-11-04T13:43:19.087" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26803" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26782" CreationDate="2019-11-01T21:38:54.680" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;From my personal experience - I'm one of those people who generally plays fast even in long time controls, and a lot of it is because I don't really know what to do with all that time...  Usually I'll look at a position for a minute, maybe two at the most, and play whatever is the best move I see - because my own experience is that at that point I'm not going to see anything better, no matter how long I think about the position.  I kind of get &quot;tunnel vision&quot; on whatever I see quickly, and no matter how hard I try to look at other things, I keep going back to whatever I saw quickly and trying to figure out how to make that work.  I play in a league where the time control is 30/90, SD/60, and I routinely finish my games with only 20 to 30 minutes used off of my clock.  I know this is bad (I lose a lot of my games...), but I'm still trying to figure out how to break out of that pattern.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7147" LastEditorUserId="7147" LastEditDate="2019-11-02T01:35:57.540" LastActivityDate="2019-11-02T01:35:57.540" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26804" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26805" CreationDate="2019-11-01T22:16:12.760" Score="3" ViewCount="140" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 { Shockingly, I did not play 1.a3} 1... e6 2. d3 c5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This can still transpose into the main line with 3...d5. But I played a game with this yesterday, and my opponent played Nc6, d6, g6, Bg7, Nge7, e5, h6, O-O and eventually built up towards playing f5 (not in that order though). I'm assuming that that was theory, since he blitzed it out pretty quickly and got a slight advantage. I’m wondering if anyone knows how to play against it. Does anyone know how play against it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20442" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-11-01T22:51:52.017" LastActivityDate="2019-11-02T14:35:09.537" Title="Playing against the 2...c5 systems in the Kings Indian Attack against the French" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;french-defense&gt;&lt;kings-indian-attack&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26805" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26804" CreationDate="2019-11-02T14:35:09.537" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I will try to give a few ideas based on the limited information, and trying to follow some common sense regarding development and the moves your opponent played.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA; 1. e4 e6 2. d3 c5 3. Nf3 Nc6 4. g3 (4. Be2 g6 {4...d5!} 5. O-O Bg7 6. c3 Nge7 7. Be3 d6 8. d4) 4... g6 5. Bg2 Bg7 6. O-O Nge7 7. c3 d6 8. Re1 e5 9. a3 O-O 10. b4 a6 11. Be3 b6 12. Nbd2 h6 13. Rb1 Be6 14. Qc2 *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am not a big fan of the King's Indian Attack. Frankly, your opponent's response, which I like a lot, with an early g6 tends to really blunt the main k-side attacking premise that makes this opening fun for white sometimes, and thus, the main reason to play it. The other thing is that in this c5 variation, black always can go for the normal Sicilian &quot;equalizing&quot; move, d5 with little trouble.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The fact is that your second move cedes space to black from a very early stage, so it is hard to believe that you will be able to gain an advantage out of the opening. You might want to hide your intentions a little more too with 2.Nf3, 3.g3, and only then, play d3 before showing your hand. He might not play a line with g6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As to what to do, because g6 really makes it hard to attack his king as in the main lines, the line I gave sets you up to play the re1 to d1 and the ra1 to b1 and eventually to play bc. If he opens the b-file, you will try to play on it, and you are probably better placed to use it, or if he opens the d-file, you can play for d4. If you really do not have play on the k-side, you have to look at the center and q-side.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2019-11-02T14:35:09.537" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26806" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-11-02T17:02:20.483" Score="2" ViewCount="225" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've installed scid yesterday and was wondering how to visualize an engine line on the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My approach is the following: setting up a position on the board by clickng &quot;&lt;strong&gt;Game&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; -&gt; &quot;&lt;strong&gt;New Game&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;, then starting the engine and stoping it after some time. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At &quot;&lt;strong&gt;Analysis&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; window you can see variations that the engine came up with. How can I visualize some of these variations? I've tired clicking on &quot;&lt;strong&gt;Add variation&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; as well as &quot;&lt;strong&gt;Add variations&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; but nothing happened. If I click on &quot;&lt;strong&gt;Add move&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; only one move is added (which is logical, haha, bud doesn't give me any clue on how to use this feature). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/lS3kL.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/lS3kL.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20459" LastEditorUserId="20459" LastEditDate="2019-11-02T17:08:27.130" LastActivityDate="2019-11-02T20:20:12.160" Title="Scid vs PC: how to visualize engine line on the board?" Tags="&lt;scid&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26807" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26808" CreationDate="2019-11-02T18:05:11.067" Score="5" ViewCount="609" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have to hold a lesson for B-Trainers about the law of chess, and I have to tell them what has changed in the last years. While I’m quite sure that I can teach the actual LoC (that’s what I regularly do), I cannot remember older versions in every detail. FIDE rules commission has an archive, but my browser shows me only a blank page for the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=171&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;2014 LoC&lt;/a&gt;. Can someone provide a readable link to the archive?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20096" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2020-06-01T18:02:04.923" LastActivityDate="2020-06-01T18:02:04.923" Title="FIDE Laws of Chess pre-2017" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;fide&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26808" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26807" CreationDate="2019-11-02T18:07:24.607" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think this is what you want. The last one, specifically, however, it is worth putting in the others, which are useful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://old.fide.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://old.fide.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://old.fide.com/fide/handbook.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://old.fide.com/fide/handbook.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://old.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=32&amp;amp;view=category&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://old.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=32&amp;amp;view=category&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-11-02T18:47:22.780" LastActivityDate="2019-11-02T18:47:22.780" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26809" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26781" CreationDate="2019-11-02T18:39:17.233" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Part of this can be accomplished with Chessbase GUI. There is an option called cloud analysis. It is thougt to use engines in the cloud additional to your own engine. It ever could be used with two local engines, one determining the 1-n main variants, the other to evaluate the variants. A third engine could make proposals for answers to the main moves and so on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With brute force engines like Stockfish, each engine needs CPU threads and RAM for caching. Loading more than one engine would reduce the rating of each of them. I haven’t tried, but it might be that you can run Leela and p.e. Stockfish in this scenario without reducing performance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One of the engine would use the proposals of the other, but not the other way. So it is only a partial answer to your question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20096" LastActivityDate="2019-11-02T18:39:17.233" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26810" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26807" CreationDate="2019-11-02T19:49:01.660" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessarbitersassociation.co.uk/index.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess Arbiters Association&lt;/a&gt;, which you can join as an associate member, keeps &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessarbitersassociation.co.uk/html/laws_historic.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;records of the laws&lt;/a&gt; going back, in the case of FIDE, to the first set of &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessarbitersassociation.co.uk/French_Text.docx&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE laws in French in 1928&lt;/a&gt; and in general the laws back as far as the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessarbitersassociation.co.uk/Il_Gioco_de_gli_scacco__Carrera_1617.docx&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;1617 version in Italian by Carrera&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2019-11-02T19:49:01.660" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26811" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26806" CreationDate="2019-11-02T20:20:12.160" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You need to bring up the separate &quot;Analysis board&quot; by clicking on the icon in the strip&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/gegv7.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/gegv7.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2019-11-02T20:20:12.160" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26812" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12394" CreationDate="2019-11-02T23:17:13.450" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What are some guidelines for playing in this situation, or top player&#xA;  games that give a clear demonstration of possible plans?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is probably worth starting off by recommending two books.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Understanding Chess Endgames&lt;/em&gt; by John Nunn is generally excellent but he has a couple of short sections on B+pawns v N+pawns and BN+pawns v BB+pawns.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Practical Endgame Play - beyond the basics&lt;/em&gt; by Glenn Flear is also very good and devotes about 60 pages to minor piece endings where both players have 2 minor pieces along with some pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Bishop v Knight&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;In the situation you describe with an open center and pawns on both sides of the board a number of things are key:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;King activity - the king is worth 4 pawns in the endgame but works at close range. If your opponent's king is active but yours isn't then you are effectively a piece down&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Knight outpost - with no pawns in the center this is tricky. If the player with the knight can establish the knight on an outpost near the center on the opposite colour to the bishop life will be much easier. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Pawns on opposite colour to opponent's bishop - if the player with the knight can put all his pawns on squares of the opposite colour to the bishop then the bishop can't attack them and he can play for two results.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;2 Bishops v Bishop+Knight&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is very difficult for the side with the knight. Again king activity is very important but the problem for the side with the knight is that the two bishops can combine to harry the king. There are no safe squares. The player with the two bishops, on the other hand, can often waltz his king up the board on the squares of the opposite colour to his opponent's bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Furthermore, no pawn is safe whereas the opponent's pawns can only be attacked by the bishop if they are on the right colour. The side with the knight will likely want to put his pawns on the same colour as his bishop. That way his pawns will be much easier to defend and there will be much less to fear from a trade of one pair of minor pieces. Again, try and establish an outpost for the knight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In both cases the side with the extra bishop wants to use that advantage to attack the opponent's pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just as important as, if not even more important than, knowing what plans you want to try and execute is knowing what the plans are for your opponent. Often the route to victory lies in first thwarting your opponent's plans.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2019-11-02T23:17:13.450" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26813" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18463" CreationDate="2019-11-03T08:43:16.160" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Another method for exporting games from DroidFish is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Enter the game on a new board&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Long press the &quot;M&quot;, then choose &quot;File&quot;, then &quot;Save game to PGN file&quot;. Create a new file if you don't have one already&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;This file can be found on your device's storage under &lt;code&gt;/DroidFish/pgn&lt;/code&gt;.  I accessed it with AirDroid but you could use any file manager app or even USB connection.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This will work for multiple games in one file.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4223" LastActivityDate="2019-11-03T08:43:16.160" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26815" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-11-04T16:06:01.697" Score="11" ViewCount="3543" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1044351&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Fischer&lt;/a&gt; played 22. Nxd7, which seems strange since the knight looked very good. Why did he play it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [Title &quot;Fischer-Petrosian, Buenos Aires (7) 1971, 10/19/1971&quot;]&#xA; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA; [startply &quot;42&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;  1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 e6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 a6 5. Bd3 Nc6 6. Nxc6 bxc6 7. O-O d5 8. c4 Nf6 9. cxd5 cxd5 10. exd5 exd5 11. Nc3 Be7 12. Qa4+ Qd7 13. Re1 Qxa4 14. Nxa4 Be6 15. Be3 O-O 16. Bc5 Rfe8 17. Bxe7 Rxe7 18. b4 Kf8 19. Nc5 Bc8 20. f3 Rea7 21. Re5 Bd7 22. Nxd7+ Rxd7 23. Rc1 Rd6 24. Rc7 Nd7 25. Re2 g6 26. Kf2 h5 27. f4 h4 28. Kf3 f5 29. Ke3 d4+ 30. Kd2 Nb6 31. Ree7 Nd5 32. Rf7+ Ke8 33. Rb7 Nxf4 34. Bc4 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user20471" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2019-11-04T16:23:01.920" LastActivityDate="2019-11-05T01:31:40.483" Title="In Fischer-Petrosian 1971 game 7, why did Fischer give up his good knight for a bad bishop?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;fischer&gt;&lt;bad-bishop&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26816" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26815" CreationDate="2019-11-04T16:11:52.840" Score="17" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a very famous position. Well, here are some reasons, and there are quite a few:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Since this was a Candidate’s Match to qualify to play Spassky, it comes down to exact calculation above all. Fischer calculated that it was good, and his judgement bore out since the game only lasted another 12 moves. Here are some things that probably contributed to this judgement.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It was clear that black had to take with the Ra7 so as not to lose d5, and after that, neither black rook remains well placed since the Ra8 cannot leave the Pa6 undefended, and either the Rd7 or the Nf6 is stuck defending d5. D5 also limits the scope of the Rd7, in particular. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It also leaves the Pa6 particularly weak since the Bd7 might have been able to defend it. GM Mikhail Suba is famous for saying &quot;Bad bishops defend good pawns!&quot; In addition, when you look at the minor pieces that are left, the Bd3 versus the Nf6 is clearly in favor of the B and its nice scope. It is of note that if black tries to liquidate the Pa6 weakness with a5, white can just push, creating a dangerous passer.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Lastly, and most importantly in this position, the white Ra1 immediately takes the only useful file, the c-file, with an immediate threat of Rc6, thus black played Rd6 stopping it, which allowed white to take the 7th rank.&#xA;In all fairness, the computer finds both 22.a4 and 22.Rc1 stronger by about half a pawn, but Fischer’s method is clear, and very straightforward.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="17238" LastEditDate="2019-11-05T01:31:40.483" LastActivityDate="2019-11-05T01:31:40.483" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26817" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-11-04T16:49:07.073" Score="4" ViewCount="138" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 g6 6. Be3 Bg7 7. f3 O-O 8. Qd2 Nc6 9. Bc4 Bd7 10. O-O-O Rc8 11. Bb3 Ne5 12. h4 Qa5 13. h5 Nxh5 14. g4 Nf6 15. Bh6 Bxh6 16. Qxh6 Rxc3 17. bxc3 Qxc3 18. Nf5 Bxf5 19. gxf5 Nc4 20. Bxc4 Qxc4 21. fxg6 fxg6 22. Rdg1 Kf7 23. Rh4 Rc8 24. Rh2 Qc3 25. Rgh1 Rc4 26. Qf4 h5 27. Rg2 Qa1+ 28. Kd2 Qxh1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I had seen the 16. ... Rxc3 sacrifice before but I thought that somehow I could manage.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The idea of 18. Nf5 was to threaten mate and create weaknesses. If 18... gxf5, then the idea  is to bring the rook to g1 and slowly create problems for Black.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;ol start=&quot;27&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Rg2 is my mistake where I lost the rook on h1.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Other than these mistakes. what went wrong theoretically? I like the Yugoslav attack against the Dragon.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11904" LastEditorUserId="18475" LastEditDate="2019-11-04T22:31:28.827" LastActivityDate="2019-11-04T22:31:28.827" Title="Sicilian Dragon" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;sicilian-dragon&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26818" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-11-04T17:18:10.620" Score="2" ViewCount="236" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was sent a database of over 3000 mate-in-2 puzzles; however, most of them (almost 2200 of them) only have the first move provided as a solution.  I am hoping that I will not have to go back and add the variations for the second move manually.  Is there a way to have ChessBase add the rest of the analysis?  I was hoping the Tactical Analysis would do this, but it just checks the first move and says &quot;yep, it is the best one&quot; without providing the variations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20473" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-30T18:23:58.217" LastActivityDate="2020-03-30T18:23:58.217" Title="ChessBase Tactics Database" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;chessbase&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26819" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26817" CreationDate="2019-11-04T18:47:19.710" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;For starters, 13.Kb1 is considered the main line and scores at 73% to only 51% for 13.h5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In general, I do not think it is very good to ever allow the Rc3 exchange sac there. In the main line, 13.Kb1 Nc3 14.Bc4 Rc4 15.g4 Rfc8, Karpov already would play 16.Nde2 there (or a very similar position), and he won some great games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;19.gf was already a big mistake since now you never have g5 moving the N off f6. It is clear that after 18...Bf5, you were not going to win down the g-file, so you have to look at the position anew.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lastly, I think there is a very great possibility you were playing a computer. Every move was the Stockfish's first choice, even the positionally odd 26...h5. While I can see its point now, I doubt any human would play that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2019-11-04T18:47:19.710" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26820" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26818" CreationDate="2019-11-04T19:19:23.433" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Deep Analysis option does this, however, it takes forever, and you have to do each game/problem one at a time. Sorry to say, that it probably is not worth it, but it does add in most, if not all, the subvariations. Sorry, I do not have better news, but I do not think there is an easy way for you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is just for reference on how to use ChessBase Tactical Analysis on a large number of games, but here is that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, open the database. I am not sure how well this will work with 3000 games, so you may have to break them up by 100's, but you can test that yourself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, once the database is open, click on the first game you want, and hold the Shift key down while selecting the last game you want. That should highlight many games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Right click on them, and select &quot;Tactical Analysis&quot;. Once the box comes up, set the following: Time for 1 second, Coarse, Store Evaluations, and deselect &quot;Erase old annotations&quot; and training. &quot;Replace&quot; should be selected. Replace saves the new analysis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2019-11-04T20:19:36.580" LastActivityDate="2019-11-04T20:19:36.580" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26821" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26822" CreationDate="2019-11-04T19:48:48.760" Score="13" ViewCount="4483" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to the FIDE Laws of Chess:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;11.3.1 During play the players are forbidden to use any notes, sources of information or advice, or analyse any game on another chessboard.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Streamers and banter blitz players often draw lines and arrows on the board while discussing what moves they are thinking about. Here is &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTWKVc5Oc-I&amp;amp;feature=youtu.be&amp;amp;t=493&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Eric Rosen doing exactly that&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Surely this is every bit against the rules as using an engine?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If Wesley So can be defaulted for basically writing notes saying things like &quot;Must try harder&quot; why is this allowed?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4399" LastEditDate="2021-04-03T13:31:28.270" LastActivityDate="2021-04-03T13:31:28.270" Title="Are banter blitz players who draw arrows on the board during the game breaking the FIDE Laws of Chess?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;fide&gt;&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;wesley-so&gt;&lt;streaming&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26822" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26821" CreationDate="2019-11-04T20:16:55.607" Score="31" Body="&lt;p&gt;I agree that it would break the FIDE rules against note taking, but this is not a FIDE tournament; it is online blitz on Lichess, so FIDE rules need not apply. You'd have to look at the &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/terms-of-service&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Lichess terms of service&lt;/a&gt; instead. They say&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Cheating&lt;/strong&gt;. We define this as using any external assistance to strengthen your knowledge and, or, calculation ability to gain an unfair advantage over your opponent. Some examples would include computer engine assistance, opening books (except for correspondence games), endgame tablebases, and asking another player for help, although these aren’t the only things we would consider cheating.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The definition is open-ended so it's really up to the Lichess administrators to interpret. Does drawing an arrow on the board during a blitz game &quot;strengthen your calculation ability?&quot;. Perhaps, but one could also argue that it makes you waste precious time, so it is probably more of a handicap than anything else. More importantly, just the fact that the Lichess user interface supports drawing arrows during a game (something which I had never noticed, despite being a frequent user!) may reasonably be interpreted as implying that the administrators approve of that use.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't think the &quot;banterers&quot; who stream their games draw arrows as a calculation aid, but rather to communicate their ideas to their audience. I'd love to hear from anyone who uses this feature and finds it helpful while playing blitz for non-streaming purposes. (Arrows might be more useful for correspondence chess, but there you are definitely allowed to use analysis boards, opening books, notes, etc., so arrows shouldn't be a problem.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12523" LastEditorUserId="12523" LastEditDate="2019-11-04T20:50:19.050" LastActivityDate="2019-11-04T20:50:19.050" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26823" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12327" CreationDate="2019-11-05T00:09:04.573" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Bringing out the queen early is bad only if it can be attacked&lt;/strong&gt;. Here're some examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 d5 2. exd5 Qxd5 3. Nc3 Qe5+? 4. Be2 Nf6 5. Nf3 Qf5? 6. O-O&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black's position is a wreck because White has managed to develop with tempo two times (3. Nc3 and 5. Nf3), and is threatening to do it yet again (with an eventual d4-Bd3, gaining time yet again while opening the e-file for the f1-rook). These moves are &quot;free&quot; because while White is developing pieces, Black has to respond to the attack on the queen. This is why the standard move in this opening is 3...Qa5, which places the queen on a square which cannot be easily attacked.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However if the opponent cannot attack the queen, it's perfectly fine to bring out the queen early.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 exd4 4. Nxd4 Nxd4? 5. Qxd4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this line of the Scotch, okay, now White's queen is in the center, but Black can't attack it. If Black could still play ...Nc6, then yes, the queen is vulnerable, but the knight isn't there anymore. Black could play ...c5, but that permanently weakens the d5-square and after White moves the queen, Bc4 and Nc3 would turn Black's &quot;gain of time&quot; into seppuku.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another, more sophisticated example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 e6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nc6 5. Nc3 Qc7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once again Black has developed his queen early, but White has no good way to attack it. Playing Ndb5 or Ncb5 doesn't gain much time because the knights are already developed, and Black will regain the tempo eventually with ...a6. If White could play Bf4, then 5...Qc7 would be bad, but the line 6. Ndb5 Qb8 7. g3 (forcing Bf4) a6 8. Bf4? e5 would lose White a piece.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Conclusion: in the opening, feel free to develop your queen where it's active &lt;em&gt;as long as it cannot be easily attacked&lt;/em&gt;. If the opponent pieces can leap into battle by attacking the queen, don't do it. If they can't, by all means.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastActivityDate="2019-11-05T00:09:04.573" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26824" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12326" CreationDate="2019-11-05T09:30:46.857" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think this is not about Retrograde Analysis in the sense of the Sherlock Holmes style puzzle of tracing the history of the game. Instead it’s about figuring out how to reach some tactical objective which may occur in the future position. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don’t think there is any magic answer to this. If one plays well positionally, then tactical opportunities will emerge, like flowers in a meadow. But how can one realise them? Partly I think that the questioner’s starting point is exactly right: to set goals. If one doesn’t have goals then maybe one will not see the opportunities. But got to be open to everything. Maybe winning queen is impossible but winning a minor piece is enough. One win is enough in any position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then seeing the path is a combination of logic and imagination. In a recent position, I was sure there was no way forward for me. But then suddenly I realised that if I used a lone knight pawn in an unfamiliar way - as a blocker for bishop escaping from the corner - then everything became possible. What a beautiful game this is!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Enjoy your games, and the process of learning&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8201" LastActivityDate="2019-11-05T09:30:46.857" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26825" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26827" CreationDate="2019-11-05T10:20:10.717" Score="17" ViewCount="2010" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've noticed that the most common reason for me to lose a game is not lack of knowledge but failure to observe whats happening on the board. This is specially true for rapid games but it happens in slow chess as well. In a recent game i moved a rook to a square where it was captured on the next move for free, although i spent several minutes before making that move! It also happens that i &quot;forget&quot; that a piece is defending something and move it away, or i don't see my opponents threat, even if it is straight forward. When doing tactics puzzles it happens sometimes that i look at it for several minutes and then suddenly realize something like &quot;oh, i have a passed pawn in the top left corner on the board!&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If i could observe more quickly &amp;amp; accurately and reduce the amount of gross blunders i would win a lot more games, specially rapid games. What do you do to improve your observation skill and blunder less? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20442" LastActivityDate="2019-11-06T21:58:17.207" Title="Improving the observation skill &amp; making less blunders" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;blunder&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26826" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26825" CreationDate="2019-11-05T11:00:30.827" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;One of the most important things we tell players who are a bit above beginner level is to have a checklist they go through before making each move. It looks like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;checks&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;captures&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;threats&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;opponent's threats&lt;br&gt;&#xA;...&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;blunder check&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, as part of their move selection, they first look to see if they can give a check. If so they calculate the results. Then they look for pieces they can capture and do the same. Then threats they can make. Then threats that the opponent can make, etc. Finally when they have chosen their move they check that it isn't a blunder.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The mere fact that they are looking over the whole board for these possibilities increases general awareness. This helps to combat the &quot;chess blindness&quot; that causes the errors you describe.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Having such a routine is particularly important at slower rates of play because it is easy when trying to execute a plan (or even just playing an opening you know) to play moves on autopilot. Your opponent makes a slightly unusual move and you ignore it, continue with your plan and blunder. In rapid and blitz it obviously becomes much more difficult to follow this routine because of the time constraints but if it has become a habit at longer time controls it will be easier to do a quick version at quicker time controls.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that very strong players can also make such blunders. They spend a long time thinking about their move, can't find a move, think of a move at the last minute and play it without checking. Here is an example from the recent St Louis tournament where Leiner Dominguez did just that and resigned next move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[title &quot;Ding Liren v Leiner Dominguez, St Louis 2019&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;q3rbk1/1Q3Rpp/1R2p3/4B3/3P4/5N1P/5nPK/r7 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Rxa7?? 2. Qxa7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2019-11-05T11:00:30.827" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26827" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26825" CreationDate="2019-11-05T12:02:13.963" Score="21" Body="&lt;p&gt;I will go back to what Artur Yusupov, three-time World Championship Candidate, former top-10 player,  and one of the greatest living trainers recommends in the first book of his 10-volume series. In volume one, &quot;Boost Your Chess - Build Up Your Chess&quot;, chapter 9, which is two-move mates, including composed problems:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The aim of this lesson is to improve your calculation of short&#xA;  variations. &lt;strong&gt;It is more important to find a lot of options in the&#xA;  first few moves than to calculate moves long variations.&lt;/strong&gt; Most mistakes occur in the early moves in variations. What&#xA;  is the use of calculating a long and correct variation if your&#xA;  opponent has a much better reply on move one?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;You must develop your skill at calculating short variations, while at the same time taking into account the possibilities available to&#xA;  your opponent.&lt;/strong&gt; This skill should reduce blunders.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Exercises with mate in two moves are very well suited for training in&#xA;  the art of calculating short variations with great accuracy.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sub&gt;Emphasis as written, not mine.&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I will take this one step further with my own suggestion. Try to train yourself that before you make every move, look at EVERY move your opponent has. I am not saying that you are calculating anything. You are simply looking at it so you consider it. It will do two things: If you are hanging a piece, just looking at it will usually &quot;hit you in the face like a brick&quot;, and second, I have done many combination problems over the last 40 years, and sometimes, when I cannot figure it out, and look at the answer, I realize immediately that had I just LOOKED at the move, I would have seen the combination.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, again, you are not trying to calculate, just consider every move. You will be amazed at what you register immediately.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2019-11-06T21:58:17.207" LastActivityDate="2019-11-06T21:58:17.207" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26828" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26829" CreationDate="2019-11-05T12:15:52.930" Score="42" ViewCount="15170" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Blitz games, with very little time left for both players, is it acceptable to keep on checking the opponent and waste their time and win the game on time? Is that true sportsmanship?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17193" LastEditorUserId="15223" LastEditDate="2019-11-05T20:12:32.463" LastActivityDate="2020-05-22T18:08:08.747" Title="Is it sportsmanlike to waste opponents' time by giving check at the end of the game?" Tags="&lt;check&gt;&lt;blitz&gt;&lt;time-management&gt;&lt;ethics&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26829" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26828" CreationDate="2019-11-05T12:20:19.597" Score="74" Body="&lt;p&gt;That only works in blitz time controls with no increment. If you accept games with no increment you are basically agreeing that flagging is part of the game and sportsmanlike. If you personally find it unsporting then always play with an increment and decline challenges with no increment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2019-11-05T12:20:19.597" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26830" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26828" CreationDate="2019-11-05T12:23:12.783" Score="24" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;waste their time&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it's clear that they are able to win within the time they have left, this could be considered bad sportsmanship. However, in those situations the number of remaining checks is usually quite low.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;win the game on time&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If that's a possibility, I'd say it's perfectly fine to play on if you're losing on the board. At the beginning of the game, both players get the same amount of time to &lt;strong&gt;finish the game&lt;/strong&gt;, not just to &lt;strong&gt;obtain a winning position&lt;/strong&gt;. Time management is an important part of the game, and if you fail at it, you deserve as much to lose as you do with failing to obtain a good (or drawn) position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2019-11-05T12:23:12.783" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26831" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26828" CreationDate="2019-11-05T12:34:18.213" Score="44" Body="&lt;p&gt;In blitz, time is a major factor in the game, and it is fine to try and win on time. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you used too much time, and your opponent thinks he can flag you, there is nothing wrong with that. It is part of the game. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2019-11-05T12:34:18.213" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26832" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-11-05T14:34:46.350" Score="1" ViewCount="39" Body="&lt;p&gt;In chess classes, I have been told either that king is worth an infinite amount of points or 10 points. What is the actual material-worth of the king piece?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20480" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2019-11-05T14:44:13.857" LastActivityDate="2019-11-05T14:44:13.857" Title="How much is the king worth material-wise?" Tags="&lt;kings&gt;&lt;point-value&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="4" ClosedDate="2019-11-05T14:44:40.340" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26833" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26828" CreationDate="2019-11-05T20:31:02.703" Score="37" Body="&lt;p&gt;Time is a resource in blitz chess, as much as or even more so than material. If it isn't unsportsmanlike to capture your opponent's material, how is it unsportsmanlike to capture their time? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In blitz chess, there is often a time-endgame. Otherwise pointless checks and random-looking moves are part of this endgame. From my perspective, this is part of what makes blitz &lt;em&gt;fun&lt;/em&gt;. I have lost many blitz games because my opponent found ways to make me burn precious seconds responding to annoying checks at the end of the game, and have never thought of them as bad players for doing so.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15148" LastEditorUserId="15148" LastEditDate="2019-11-05T20:36:19.230" LastActivityDate="2019-11-05T20:36:19.230" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26834" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26835" CreationDate="2019-11-05T20:41:46.660" Score="6" ViewCount="370" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessprogramming.org/Perft_Results#Position_2&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this position&lt;/a&gt; in the Chess Programming Wiki. It's a perft calculation. In the depth 2 the results informs that there are 3 checks. But I just able to find 2 checks:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Kf1 hxg2+&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Kf1 Bxe2+&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;r3k2r/p1ppqpb1/bn2pnp1/3PN3/1p2P3/2N2Q1p/PPPBBPPP/R3K2R w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Where is the third check?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;May look stupid, but I really can't find it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19648" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-11-05T20:58:25.863" LastActivityDate="2019-11-05T21:08:50.830" Title="There are three checks in this position?" Tags="&lt;check&gt;&lt;perft&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26835" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26834" CreationDate="2019-11-05T21:01:05.173" Score="7" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Kd1 Bxe2+ looks like it is another depth 2 check&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2019-11-05T21:08:50.830" LastActivityDate="2019-11-05T21:08:50.830" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26837" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26838" CreationDate="2019-11-05T21:22:26.253" Score="2" ViewCount="57" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this position &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1007985&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;from Alekhine-Lasker, Zurich 1934&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;r4rk1/pp3ppp/1qpQ1n2/4nN2/8/1B2P3/PP3PPP/2R2RK1 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Rae8 2. Ne7+ (2. Rc5 Nfd7) Kh8 3. Qxe5 Ng8&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's Black to play. So  if 18...Rae8, then how can White continue to get an advantage? &lt;br&gt;&#xA;If 19.Ne7+ Kh8  20.Qxe5 Ng8, Black seems to get the piece back with a good position. &lt;br&gt;&#xA;Also 19.Rc5 Nfd7 doesn't seem to lead anywhere. I'm I missing anything here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19759" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-11-05T21:47:07.257" LastActivityDate="2019-11-05T21:52:25.583" Title="Analysis on Alekhine-Lasker 1934, after 18.Qd6" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26838" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26837" CreationDate="2019-11-05T21:35:50.160" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;After 20...Ng8 21. Nc6! Re5 22. Ne5 and wins f7 too due to the dual threats of Nd7 and Nf7, both winning the exchange. So, 22...Nf6 is forced, and white is just winning there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is going to be Q vs. R, B, and two pawns; but the problem is that white will control both files, and the black K is still not safe.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;r4rk1/pp3ppp/1qpQ1n2/4nN2/8/1B2P3/PP3PPP/2R2RK1 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Rae8 2. Ne7+ (2. Rc5 Nfd7) Kh8 3. Qxe5 Ng8 4. Nxc6! Rxe5 5. Nxe5 Nf6 {forced} 6. Nf7 Kg8 7. Rfd1 {is crushing since you cannot take on f7 due to mate with Rc8}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2019-11-05T21:52:25.583" LastActivityDate="2019-11-05T21:52:25.583" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26840" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26855" CreationDate="2019-11-06T01:46:25.010" Score="6" ViewCount="176" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chessbase published an &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.chessbase.com/post/nankai-university-chess-invitational-2019&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;article&lt;/a&gt; today about the &quot;World Prestigious University Chess Invitational Tournament&quot; which includes this line:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The tournament will use the Berg's counter-attack system, and will be ranked after eleven rounds in five days. Each team shall comprise three players (two men and one woman), one captain, and one coach. The time control is 25 minutes plus 15 seconds per move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is Berg's counter-attack system? I tried searching for it, but didn't find anything.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastActivityDate="2019-11-06T12:07:42.663" Title="What is Berg's counter-attack system?" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26841" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-11-06T05:43:38.927" Score="5" ViewCount="282" Body="&lt;p&gt;So, I am returning to chess after not playing for about 10 years. I learned the basic rules when I was in elementary school and then didn't play for a while. I am starting to get back into chess and am wondering where I should start.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just for reference here is what I know:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;How to set up the board&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;How the pieces move&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;How Castling works&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;How Check/Checkmate works&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Other basic rules needed to play at a beginner level&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20492" LastActivityDate="2021-04-16T12:18:37.557" Title="Where should I start?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;beginner&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26842" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19110" CreationDate="2019-11-06T06:12:04.507" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It depends on the position but in the second position you gave sf has white with a clear advantage. In the first position sf has it -.9 but black is up a pawn  which means the eval is based on black's material advantage. Positionally, white is a little better. I'm not sure where you're getting that white is worse positionally. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2019-11-06T06:12:04.507" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26843" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="573" CreationDate="2019-11-06T06:28:52.517" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you are an inexperienced player (&amp;lt;1900) you should castle quickly. Yes, you may get crushed occasionally by a stronger player but you probably will lose those games anyway. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Players above 2000 can get away with leaving their kings in the center (usually)because they understand the types of positions they can get away with it in and can see the attacks coming several moves ahead. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have a very aggressive style and I can guarantee I'm far more likely to win against inexperienced players if they don't castle. In fact, a large part of my rep is devoted to preventing the opponent from castling. I will sac pawns in a heartbeat and often pieces to keep the king in the center. That should tell you something. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2019-11-06T06:28:52.517" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26844" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="885" CreationDate="2019-11-06T06:45:36.380" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Piece values are largely based on the mobility of the pieces. ie a queen is more valuable than a rook because a queen can move to more squares. In fact, you could almost break it down to a mathematical formula (number of moves=piece value)except for certain circumstances like the knight's jumping ability or the fact that bishops are locked onto one color that would throw the formula off a little. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's inane to try and list all of the possibilities when simply understanding the concept will give you a far better understanding. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2019-11-06T06:45:36.380" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26845" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7949" CreationDate="2019-11-06T07:14:49.770" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;First of all, it took Bobby Fischer about 10 years to become a GM. He was one of the greatest geniuses the game has seen. A 1900 on chess.com isn't much. Fischer was probably playing at that level at age 7. So, assuming you're one of the greatest geniuses in human history you're looking at about 8 years to become a GM. But, that's not going to be completely accurate because Fischer was 15 when he became a GM and you would be well past your physical prime. Also, you have to remember that children learn faster than adults. A child will learn their first language within their first few years of life but if they tried to do the same thing as an adult they could spend decades and never reach the same level of proficiency. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first thing to ask yourself is if you have the talent. Your IQ would need to be in the 180+ range. You should be able to calculate faster than anyone you play and have a very, very good memory. There are players who meet all of that who can't make a living at the game so why should you starting so late be an exception? That's the bare minimum considering your age. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Second, you would need to spend roughly 16 hours a day (7 days a week, 52 weeks a year) for the next decade. If you have a job or a girlfriend (or want to) you should give up now. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Third, you would need to compensate for the fact that you would be past your physical prime and the fact that children learn much faster. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, if you've done all of that you should still realize that I've only talked about reaching GM level NOT becoming a professional. Many (most?) Gms don't make a living playing chess. Only elite players like Carlsen can do that. There's still a big difference between reaching GM and being an elite player who can make a living at it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On a side note, you conceivably could make a living writing books or teaching etc. without reaching GM but there aren't a whole lot of guys who can do that and the money isn't that great. If you could become at least a strong IM and are very good at communicating and marketing yourself you might be able to become a professional that way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastEditorUserId="19861" LastEditDate="2019-11-06T07:21:29.303" LastActivityDate="2019-11-06T07:21:29.303" CommentCount="13" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26846" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26841" CreationDate="2019-11-06T08:16:48.980" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, you need to get some experience. Go to a chess club if you can and if not, go play some games on the Internet. For your first games, I'd suggest you to play only with what you know right now. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After every game, review it and think about what you could have done better (by yourself, not with engine assistance) Later on, it won't be necessary to review every single game, as you'll be able to identify which ones are the most interesting.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You'll soon realize that you will be losing a lot of games because of tactical blunders (missing a mate combination, hanging a piece...) You can work on that by training tactics. 15 minutes a day solving tactical puzzles will have a big impact a few months down the line. Tthere are plenty of books and sites you can use as a source for those. Tactics will also give you a good grasp on what role piece activity plays in chess (you'll only have favourable tactics in your games if you place your pieces in active squares)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once you can play a good amount of games without losing/missing a winning chance very time because of a blunder, it will be worth it to start thinking about more &quot;advanced&quot; topics like opening theory, endgames, pawn structures...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And of course if you can afford a professional coach, that always helps!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastActivityDate="2019-11-06T08:16:48.980" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26847" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8100" CreationDate="2019-11-06T08:54:16.617" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, you say it's inefficient but in reality it's the most efficient way for adults to learn anything. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You use the word &quot;memorize&quot; which is not accurate at all. Pattern-recognition is not the same thing as memorization. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It sounds like you have a very flawed understanding of what MDLM was saying. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2019-11-06T08:54:16.617" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26848" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-11-06T08:59:07.307" Score="5" ViewCount="1471" Body="&lt;p&gt;I often enjoy being able to play (online) chess with premoves activated. However, I wondered from the beginning why multiple premoves at once weren't allowed. Example: where my opponent's queen is next to his king and I premove to take his queen (provided he does not move his own queen first) then why can't I additionally guess that he will take back with his king and also premove &lt;strong&gt;his&lt;/strong&gt; king to take my queen? As long as my opponent is still thinking, I should be allowed to premove as many moves as I want – at least I think this would be a nice variant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20494" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2019-11-06T09:38:35.283" LastActivityDate="2019-11-06T11:44:15.517" Title="Multiple premoves" Tags="&lt;online-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26849" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26848" CreationDate="2019-11-06T09:38:19.520" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Pre-moving is not a chess variant; it's a &lt;em&gt;feature&lt;/em&gt; of several online chess sites. You can't pre-move in over-the-board games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's up to the owners of those chess sites to decide where their development budget goes to. If you know what your opponent is going to do, they probably know it too and can quickly make their next move, before you have the chance to make multiple pre-moves. Situations where you would actually benefit from being able to make multiple pre-moves are probably rare enough that they do not want to spend time/energy/money on such a feature.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2019-11-06T09:59:56.507" LastActivityDate="2019-11-06T09:59:56.507" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26850" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26848" CreationDate="2019-11-06T10:06:53.310" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Example: where my opponent's queen is next to his king and I premove&#xA;  to take his queen (provided he does not move his own queen first) then&#xA;  why can't I additionally guess that he will take back with his king&#xA;  and also premove his king to take my queen?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can only premove your own moves. You can guess that he will take back with his king but not make the move for him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One variant of chess where you can do the equivalent of multiple premoves and where it is common is correspondence chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is common to not just send one move as a reply to your opponent but a number of different sequences of several moves from which your opponent can choose or can play something completely different. This has the same effect as premoving in online chess of speeding up the game and gaining time on the clock albeit for both players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2019-11-06T10:06:53.310" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26851" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26848" CreationDate="2019-11-06T11:26:26.440" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I should be allowed to premove as many moves as I want&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Wherever you play, it is their site, and their rules, so they get to decide what to implement. I agree with Glorfindel that it is relatively rare that most players would want to take the chance on multiple premoves as you do, so why bother programming it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If this is important to you, then I suggest sending the site a suggestion. They might implement it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2019-11-06T11:26:26.440" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26853" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26848" CreationDate="2019-11-06T11:44:15.517" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Many sites allow you to do multiple premoves. The site is free to allow a single premove, multiple ones, or ban them completely&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastActivityDate="2019-11-06T11:44:15.517" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26855" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26840" CreationDate="2019-11-06T11:53:22.460" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;From the article:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The participants are listed here in the order of registration:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;The united team of Japan Universities&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Moscow State University&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;University of Missouri&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;University of New South Wales&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;University College London&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Harvard University&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Princeton University&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;University of Toronto&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Saint Louis University (two teams)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;University of Oxford&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Nankai University of China (Host team)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, 11 teams. For an all-play-all that would require 11 rounds where one team has a bye in each round.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The article goes on to say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The tournament will use the Berg's counter-attack system, and will be&#xA;  ranked after eleven rounds in five days.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, yes, 11 rounds. The standard way of pairing such a tournament would be to use the Berger tables. The FIDE Arbiters Commission publishes an &lt;a href=&quot;http://arbiters.fide.com/images/stories/downloads/2018/Arbiters-Manual-2018-v1.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Arbiter's Handbook&lt;/a&gt; which, amongst a lot of other information, includes a section which lists the Berger pairing tables for various numbers of players. The table for 11 or 12 players is given on page 66:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;11 or 12 players:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Rd 1: 1-12, 2-11, 3-10, 4-9, 5-8, 6-7.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Rd 2: 12-7, 8-6, 9-5, 10-4, 11-3, 1-2.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Rd 3: 2-12, 3-1, 4-11, 5-10, 6-9, 7-8.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Rd 4: 12-8, 9-7, 10-6, 11-5, 1-4, 2-3.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Rd 5: 3-12, 4-2, 5-1, 6-11, 7-10, 8-9.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Rd 6: 12-9, 10-8, 11-7, 1-6, 2-5, 3-4.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Rd 7: 4-12, 5-3, 6-2, 7-1, 8-11, 9-10.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Rd 8: 12-10, 11-9, 1-8, 2-7, 3-6, 4-5.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Rd 9: 5-12, 6-4, 7-3, 8-2, 9-1, 10-11.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Rd 10: 12-11, 1-10, 2-9, 3-8, 4-7, 5-6.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Rd 11: 6-12, 7-5, 8-4, 9-3, 10-2, 11-1.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Berg's counter-attack system&quot; looks like a 3rd rate Google translation. I susupect this article was given to chessbase and they included it without any checking. It is not &quot;Berg's counter-attack system&quot; it should be &quot;Berger pairing table&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-11-06T12:07:42.663" LastActivityDate="2019-11-06T12:07:42.663" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26856" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26858" CreationDate="2019-11-06T15:37:19.480" Score="27" ViewCount="8355" Body="&lt;p&gt;The following quote has been attributed to many chess masters; &quot;Chess is 90% tactics&quot; - from Teichmann to Capablanca. It has also been said that 90% of the games are decided on tactics and tactics are the foundation of positional play. And many other similar statements.&#xA;My question is should a player commit 90% (or most) of their time on tactics as a recipe for improvement? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19491" LastActivityDate="2019-11-09T02:41:32.330" Title="&quot;Chess is 90% tactics&quot; - should a player focus more on tactics in order to improve?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26857" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26856" CreationDate="2019-11-06T16:47:46.287" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am going to answer yes, you should spend most [90%] of your time on tactics. Provided that this is done in the right way. There are different kinds of tactics for different reasons. Tactics in the endgame aim to queen a pawn, unless there are no pawns left which changes the aim to checkmate or forcing a drawn position. Tactics in the middlegame are different again; there is usually a positional aspect involved in attacking only when you are ready; for instance you can attack an exposed king. Tactics in the opening are the least common, at least to be decisive tactics, and are often best left to later because sound, balanced development is better. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;IN short the context of a tactic and the purpose of it also matters. That's why I don't like Reinfeld tactics sets that have isolated tactics. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3495" LastActivityDate="2019-11-06T16:47:46.287" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26858" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26856" CreationDate="2019-11-06T16:49:04.687" Score="37" Body="&lt;p&gt;Although I agree that chess is 90% tactics when actually playing at the board, it really depends on where you are strenght-wise as to how much time you spend on tactics. By the way, when they use the word &quot;tactics&quot; there, I would say &quot;tactics and calculation&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you are beginning, I firmly believe that spending 90% of your time on tactics will be the best use of time, and you will get your biggest bang-for-the-buck time-wise. I once guided a 38-year-old from 1000 to 1850 on ICC in just three months by having him do 50 tactics problems per day, spending no more than two minutes per problem. He did nothing but tactics during that time, and play. I firmly believe in that immersion method of learning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you get stronger, let's say, 1800, you need to start spending more time learning about position. That will continue forever, but it becomes much more refined as you get stronger. You should still spend a lot of time doing tactics. I have found that even 2100 players are not that strong tactically, and even as a 2200+ for decades, I miss too much.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you become a strong master, in particular GM, they need to work on openings more than any other group since so much is won at that level based on preparation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2019-11-06T16:54:26.867" LastActivityDate="2019-11-06T16:54:26.867" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26859" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26841" CreationDate="2019-11-06T18:11:46.643" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been a &quot;life-long beginner&quot; - my USCF rating hovered around 900 for years and years, and just playing OTB chess wasn't helping to improve my ability because I was losing almost every game, for years (though usually against players rated much higher than me, so it didn't affect my rating much).  It was a long time before I made even a minimal plan to actually improve - so my situation is/was not totally different from yours.  I can't tell you what's best for you.  What I can tell you is what worked for me:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Watching chess classes on YouTube.  The Saint Louis Chess Club has some amazing classes on YouTube.  There was a series of classes called &quot;Beginner Breakdown&quot; that was incredibly helpful for me.  It mainly consists of looking at novice level games - games that have situations that you or I could conceivably get into - and seeing what mistakes were made (and what should have been done instead).  GM Ben Finegold also did a series of kids' classes while he was a GM In Residence at the Club, I found those extremely helpful as well, for the same reasons.  And both of these series are actually entertaining as well as informative, so they kept me engaged very effectively.  Don't feel funny about consuming instructional materials aimed at kids.  It's about level of chess ability, not age (and I know many of the kids that were in these classes when they were recorded were probably rated higher I was).  I can also tell you that the chess instructional videos on YouTube that are the least effective for me are the ones where the &quot;video&quot; is just a screencast of playing through games using Chessbase or something, with an unseen narrator describing the game.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Tactics, tactics, tactics...  Find novice to intermediate level tactics problems and work them.  A lot of them.  On a daily basis.  I worked through all of the problems in the &quot;Tactics Time&quot; books by Tim Brennan and Anthea Carson.  These books were great because they are tactics studies from novice to intermediate level games.  They are not studies from grandmaster games where you have to calculate ahead 6 or 8 moves to see the solution, they're problems from games played by people at &quot;our level&quot;, and situations like what we might face - and they're solvable by people at our level of ability.  Going through these books is even easier and more convenient if you get the Kindle versions, and you can work through a couple of problems at a time while waiting in line at the store, riding on the train, or whatever.  Also, the Lichess site / app is a fabulous never-ending source of tactics studies, and I also find that they're easily consumable by novice to intermediate level players, and with the app on a mobile phone you can do a couple of studies at a time, anywhere you happen to be.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This was (and still is) really my whole study plan.  Just doing these two things (and playing OTB chess in tournaments when I have the chance), I (finally!) was able to pull my USCF rating up by about 200 points in the space of a year or so, and my &quot;Training&quot; rating on Lichess is now over 1700 (though how that might correspond to actual play - if it even corresponds at all - is difficult to say).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7147" LastActivityDate="2019-11-06T18:11:46.643" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26860" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26856" CreationDate="2019-11-06T18:20:26.253" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;As others have mentioned, I think it depends on where you are at as a player. In the very beginning, I would say you need to know some very basic strategy right after you learn the rules, i.e. before the &quot;tactical stuff&quot;. Examples are not mindlessly wasting tempi and controlling the center of the board. As for tactics: when my dad and I played together during my childhood, he won against me as often as I did against him. When I was 24, however, I bought a little book called &quot;Chess Combinations&quot; (pretty much only tactics), read through it, and my dad has never beaten me once since... that was over 20 years ago. So that was probably the single best time investment I ever meade. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That said, I think investigating advanced strategies such as when to recognize pawn formations as weak; how to take advantage of the bishop pair, etc. becomes just as invaluable when progressing to higher levels. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20494" LastActivityDate="2019-11-06T18:20:26.253" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26861" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26825" CreationDate="2019-11-06T18:26:15.490" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yep, a very important problem. It essentially boils down to how well you know tactics and your command of chess geometry, but there are few shortcuts you can use, without having to perform a ton of cross-checks every time you make a move. &#xA;I try to keep a picture in my head, based on the strategic plan that I've used for the game, which lines are controlled by me and which by my opponent. For example, if your black Q is on b6, with the open file in front of it and a7-g1 diagonal open, then it should be safe for your pieces to step onto those squares. Conversely, if your opponent's rook is on the open a file, and you are considering putting a piece on it, performing a quick check against that matrix will raise a warning.&#xA;Another useful thing is to have a general habit of not leaving pieces unprotected, so that when you blunder a piece you at least get something back. It won't work so well in the endgame with a lot fewer pieces on the board, but it's quite helpful in the opening and middlegame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15509" LastActivityDate="2019-11-06T18:26:15.490" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26862" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26864" CreationDate="2019-11-06T20:41:28.613" Score="5" ViewCount="721" Body="&lt;p&gt;In theory, a player could advance all eight of their pawns to the end of the board, promoting them all. In my own experience, games with more than two promotions on one side have been vanishingly rare, and getting two promotions has been uncommon.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Has a player ever actually promoted all eight of their pawns? If not, what's the maximum number of pawn promotions that a player has achieved in regular competitive play?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14122" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-11-06T22:55:48.580" LastActivityDate="2020-06-02T00:51:59.383" Title="What is the maximum number of promoted pawns ever achieved in a competitive game?" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;pawn-promotion&gt;&lt;records&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26864" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26862" CreationDate="2019-11-06T22:39:32.410" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;In &lt;a href=&quot;https://timkr.home.xs4all.nl/records/records.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Tim Krabbe’s chess records&lt;/a&gt;, Krabbe gives a game where the Black player promoted four of their pawns, the most one player has ever gotten in a professional game, and only one where it has happened. It is also notable for being one of few games with 6 promotions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The game can also be viewed &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess-db.com/public/game.jsp?id=319872.321290.68413696.23608&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here at ChessDB.com&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Alena Kubikova-Vaclav Novy, 9th Open, Czech Republic, 2003&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3  g6 6. Be3 Bg7 7. f3 O-O 8. Qd2  Nc6 9. Bc4 Bd7 10. O-O-O Rc8 11. Bb3 Ne5 12. h4 h5 13. Kb1 a5 14. Bg5 Rc5 15. g4  hxg4 16. f4 Nc4 17. Bxc4 Rxc4 18. e5 Bc6 19. Nxc6 Rxc6 20. exf6 exf6 21. Nd5  fxg5 22. hxg5 Rc5 23. Nf6+ Bxf6 24. Qh2 Re8 25. Qh7+ Kf8 26. gxf6 Qxf6 27. Qh8+  Ke7 28. Rde1+ Re5 29. Qxf6+ Kxf6 30. fxe5+ dxe5 31. Kc1 Kg5 32. Rh7 f5 33. Rxb7  g3 34. Kd2 Kg4 35. Rb3 f4 36. c4 e4 37. c5 e3+ 38. Kd3 Rd8+ 39. Ke4 g2 40. c6 e2  41. c7 Rc8 42. Rc3 f3 43. Ke3 Kg3 44. Rc5 Re8+ 45. Kd2 Kf2 46. c8=Q Rxc8 47.  Rxc8 g1=Q 48. Rxg1 Kxg1 49. Rc1+ Kf2 50. b3 g5 51. a3 g4 52. b4 axb4 53. axb4 g3  54. b5 g2 55. b6 g1=Q 56. Rxg1 Kxg1 57. b7 f2 58. b8=Q e1=Q+ 59. Kc2 Qe2+ 60.  Kc3 Qe3+ 61. Kb4 f1=Q&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Regarding informal OTB games, however, 5 promotions is the most that I currently know of from &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1483315&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Manuel Matto-Anastasia Mossiaguine, Gibraltar Chess Festival, Gibraltar England&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nc3 Nf6 3. Nf3 Nc6 4. Bc4 Bb4 5. d3 O-O 6. a3 Ba5 7. Bd2 d6 8. h3 Bd7 9. b4 Bb6 10. Bg5 h6 11. Be3 Bxe3 12. fxe3 a6 13. O-O Qe7 14. Qe1 Ne8 15. Nd5 Qd8 16. Qg3 Nf6 17. Nxf6 Qxf6 18. Nh4 Qe7 19. Ng6 Qe8 20. Nxf8 Qxf8 21. Rxf7 Qxf7 22. Bxf7+ Kxf7 23. Rf1+ Kg8 24. Qg6 Kh8 25. Rf7 Rg8 26. Rxd7 b5 27. Rxc7 Nb8 28. Qxd6 Kh7 29. Qxe5 Kh8 30. Rxg7 Rxg7 31. Qxb8+ Kh7 32. Qb6 Rg6 33. Qxg6+ Kxg6 34. Kf2 Kf6 35. d4 Ke6 36. Kf3 Kf6 37. Kf4 h5 38. g4 h4 39. c3 Kg6 40. Ke5 Kf7 41. Kd5 Ke7 42. Kc6 Kd8 43. Kb6 Kc8 44. Kxa6 Kc7 45. Kxb5 Kd6 46. c4 Ke6 47. Kc5 Kf6 48. Kd5 Kg6 49. Ke5 Kh6 50. Kf5 Kg7 51. Kg5 Kf7 52. Kxh4 Kg6 53. e5 Kf7 54. d5 Ke7 55. c5 Kd7 56. b5 Kc7 57. a4 Kb7 58. a5 Ka7 59. e4 Kb7 60. a6+ Kc7 61. b6+ Kd7 62. c6+ Ke7 63. d6+ Kf7 64. Kg5 Kg7 65. e6 Kh7 66. Kf6 Kg8 67. g5 Kf8 68. h4 Ke8 69. h5 Kf8 70. g6 Kg8 71. h6 Kh8 72. a7 Kg8 73. b7 Kf8 74. c7 Ke8 75. d7+ Kf8 76. e7+ Kg8 77. e5 Kh8 78. e6 Kg8 79. e8=N Kh8 80. e7 Kg8 81. a8=R Kh8 82. b8=B Kg8 83. c8=R Kh8 84. d8=N Kg8 85. Ng7 Kh8 86. Be5 Kg8 87. h7+ Kh8 88. Nf7+ &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-06-02T00:51:59.383" LastActivityDate="2020-06-02T00:51:59.383" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26865" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26841" CreationDate="2019-11-06T23:53:15.830" Score="4" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Just for reference here is what I know:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;How to set up the board&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;How the pieces move&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;How Castling works&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;How Check/Checkmate works&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Other basic rules needed to play at a beginner level&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's a good start. The next thing you need to know is how to win a won game. That starts with learning the basic checkmates. So you need to learn how to checkmate with &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;King+2 Rooks v King&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;King+Rook v King&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;King+Queen v King&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;King+2 Bishops v King&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;KQ v K can be tricky because of stalemate possibilities. Make sure you bear this in mind. Practice these until you can do them almost without thinking. It's nice to know that if you reach one of these positions in a blitz game with just 5 seconds on the clock that the point is in the bag.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Next up in learning how to win won games is playing king and pawn endgames. You will need to learn about the opposition and how to force a pawn through to queening. Start with just king+1 pawn v king. Sometimes it is a win, sometimes it is a draw. Find out when it is a draw and learn how to win the positions when it is a win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The big advantage in learning in this order is that earlier in the game when when it is more complicated you know what you are aiming for and you know that if you can get there then you can win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2019-11-06T23:53:15.830" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26866" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5186" CreationDate="2019-11-07T11:33:09.573" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;When this question was asked in April 2014 the question to be answered in deciding whether or not to allow this would have been &quot;Can other people also hear the music?&quot; If &quot;Yes&quot; then it is disturbing and not allowed. If &quot;No&quot; then no problem.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, events, technology and the rules have moved on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;http://arbiters.fide.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Arbiters Commission&lt;/a&gt; publishes the &lt;a href=&quot;http://arbiters.fide.com/fide-arbiters-magazine.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Arbiters' Magazine&lt;/a&gt; twice a year. In the &lt;a href=&quot;http://arbiters.fide.com/images/stories/downloads/2016/FIDE_Arbiters_Magazine_No_3_-_August_2016.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;August 2016 edition&lt;/a&gt; it related the story of a visually handicapped player who used an earphone to relay moves. It reported:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The cheating method was simply an electronic earpiece that was&#xA;  actually a Bluetooth device. This was not noticed until the player had&#xA;  posted consecutive tournament results that were astronomically better&#xA;  than before. He scored only 50% at novice level, but then within a&#xA;  year, while still unrated he won a rated section 8/9, and then again&#xA;  scored 8/9 with a performance rating near FM-level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;These 18 games were fully analyzed, and he was caught with&#xA;  continuously high correlations to chess engines, especially Rybka.&#xA;  Therefore, he was asked to take chess testing. At first, he accepted,&#xA;  “naked if necessary”, but then he eventually declined, saying that he&#xA;  has stopped studying, and that his abilities have thus dropped off&#xA;  dramatically. All of these games have since been adjudged lost.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now the FIDE Laws of Chess say this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;11.3.2.1 During a game, a player is &lt;strong&gt;forbidden to have any electronic device&lt;/strong&gt; not specifically approved by the arbiter in the playing venue.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;However, the regulations of an event may allow such devices to be&#xA;  stored in a player’s bag, provided the device is completely switched&#xA;  off. This bag must be placed as agreed with the arbiter. Both players&#xA;  are forbidden to use this bag without permission of the arbiter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As arbiters we are warned to look out for these devices. Smart watches are usually banned. Old fashioned digital watches are still mostly OK. Earpieces are not. Of course all of these things may be permitted in certain lower level competitions with the arbiter's permission. But if you wear an earpiece because you have hearing problems you should first get permission from the arbiter or remove it during the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Wearing an earpiece to listen to music is definitely not allowed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2019-11-07T11:33:09.573" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26867" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26682" CreationDate="2019-11-07T11:51:22.537" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Apparently this has occurred in real life and the FIDE Arbiters Commission has delivered their verdict in an article in their twice yearly FIDE Arbiters' Magazine. In the &lt;a href=&quot;http://arbiters.fide.com/images/stories/downloads/2018/FIDE_Arbiters_Magazine_No_7_-_September_2018.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;September 2018 edition&lt;/a&gt; it reports on an occurrence in the &amp;quot;First Saturday tournament in Hungary&amp;quot; in May 2018 in a game between IM Akshat Khamparia (IND) and IM Bo Li (CHN).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is how it was reported:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After one of the moves by IM Li, he stopped the clock, and said to the&#xA;Chief Arbiter “repetition”. The Chief Arbiter immediately rejected&#xA;this improperly attempted draw claim.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are basically two ways to properly attempt draw claims. In&#xA;general terms, these two ways are either BEFORE your move or AFTER&#xA;your opponent’s move:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;9.2.1 The game is drawn, upon a correct claim by a player having the move, if the&#xA;same position for at least the third time (not necessarily by a repetition of&#xA;moves):&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;9.2.1.1 is about to appear, if he first writes his move, which cannot be changed, on&#xA;his scoresheet and declares to the arbiter his intention to make this move, or&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;9.2.1.2 has just appeared, and the player claiming the draw has the move.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Chief Arbiter attempted to explain the above articles to IM Li,&#xA;but there seemed to be a language barrier. A few moves later, IM Li&#xA;did the same thing, and again, the Chief Arbiter rejected this&#xA;improperly attempted draw claim.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The game continued, and IM Khamparia eventually won by checkmate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At this point, even if there had indeed been a threefold repetition&#xA;during the game, as it was never properly claimed, the result would&#xA;have remained 1-0.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, after the game, IM Li and the Chief Arbiter were attempting&#xA;to discuss the situation, but it was challenging due the language&#xA;barrier. Regardless, IM Li eventually said “FIVE!” to the Chief&#xA;Arbiter. Of course, that changes everything!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to the relatively new Article 9.6.1:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;9.6 If one or both of the following occur(s) then the game is drawn:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;9.6.1 the same position has appeared, as in 9.2.2 at least five times&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;It is critical to note that this case is NOT a question of whether checkmate is more IMPORTANT than fivefold repetition. The question is&#xA;what happened FIRST. If fivefold repetition had occurred, then that&#xA;ended the game at that moment!&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;There is no game after this point !&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Chief Arbiter checked, and there had indeed been fivefold&#xA;repetition, at moves 60, 62, 68, 73 and 75. It can be challenging to&#xA;catch fivefold repetitions!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The result was changed to a draw.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2019-11-07T11:51:22.537" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26868" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26856" CreationDate="2019-11-07T14:50:48.303" Score="18" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's another famous quote you need to pair with &quot;Chess is 90% tactics.&quot; Spielmann was reported to remark, after hearing one too many people exclaiming about an Alekhine combination, &quot;I could find those combinations myself, just as easily, if I had his positions. But I never get those positions!&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And that's the rub. The game-winning tactics you see in the tactics books don't just magically appear in every game. Those that are not directly caused by blunders are the end result of planning and preparation, the kind of work missing from most tactics books.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How you devote your study time should change as you progress. Since it is the tactical stroke that is the culmination of any strategic plan in chess, you have to be able to recognize them when they arrive at the board, know what seeds they grow from. So as you begin in chess, you should devote 90% or more of your time to tactics.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But as your skill grows, and you more easily recognize the opportunities, the focus of your study should shift, reducing the time devoted to tactics and increasing the time devoted to studying strategic play, until you can as easily recognize the points in the position before you that call for long-term planning and maneuvering to create weaknesses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's a sliding scale, and I think the actual time amounts can be individualistic; maybe Player A (USCF 1800) needs more strategic study than Player B (USCF 1600). Use your own games to inform you. When you're missing lots of tactical opportunities over the board, you should probably bias your study time to more tactics. If lost opportunities are the cause of a minority of your losses, then you need to include more strategic planning exercises in your study.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess is 90% tactics; I'm sure of that because I've only seen a very few games that have ended without a major tactical flourish. But, especially among good players, those tactical flourishes would never have happened without the strategic planning that brought them about.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By all means study tactics; every player I've ever met could use more of that (Botvinnik once said &quot;I need to be better at two-move combinations&quot;). But remember tactics need to be supported if you want to be more than just another coffehouse player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="657" LastActivityDate="2019-11-07T14:50:48.303" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26869" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-11-07T16:47:52.203" Score="4" ViewCount="251" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm looking for chess software (free or otherwise) that will allow me to completely clear the board and set it up as I wish in order to analyze a specific situation. All of the chess puzzle software I've seen seems to have only pre-loaded positions to solve.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20512" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2019-11-07T17:25:07.420" LastActivityDate="2019-11-08T14:48:00.427" Title="Chess software that enables you to set up a position from scratch?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;software&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26870" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26869" CreationDate="2019-11-07T16:49:08.637" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;ChessBase, or even the lesser priced Fritz, allow you to do that. Just open a board, and type in &quot;S&quot;, and it will let you put in whatever position you want. (They both allow you to then analyze from there.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/oIGis.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/oIGis.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2019-11-07T16:54:47.477" LastActivityDate="2019-11-07T16:54:47.477" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26871" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26869" CreationDate="2019-11-07T20:09:24.990" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You don't mention what platform you are using, but on Android I use the &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.pereira.analysis&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Analyze This&lt;/a&gt;&quot; app - it lets you set up positions from scratch, and also use an engine to analyze.  There is a free version of the app, and a paid &quot;Pro&quot; version.  In the free version, the only available engine is Stockfish; in the &quot;Pro&quot; version, you can add other UCI engines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7147" LastActivityDate="2019-11-07T20:09:24.990" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26872" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26856" CreationDate="2019-11-07T20:35:52.000" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The statement is probably correct, but dangerous if taken the wrong way. Tactics are born out of strategy, and, during the game, you might be spending 90% of your time trying to find those tactics, but it will be fruitless if your strategic plan sucks. It should not mean that you must be spending 90% of your time studying tactics. Strategy comes first, if you master that the tactics will come easy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15509" LastEditorUserId="15509" LastEditDate="2019-11-08T16:29:16.257" LastActivityDate="2019-11-08T16:29:16.257" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26873" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-11-08T04:18:24.447" Score="0" ViewCount="130" Body="&lt;p&gt;Typical arguments for the longest possible game of chess take a form something like this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) Each player moves their knights back of forth 49 times&#xA;2) Each player moves one pawn forward one square and repeats the knight shuffling.&#xA;3) Once all pawns are on the 4th and 5th ranks, ....&#xA;and so on. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I,we found estimates around 9000. I'm interested in the longest possible game of chess, with the restriction that the players are actually trying to win, and not cooperating to make the longest possible game allowable by the rules. We might call this the longest realistic game of chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since the above argument totally breaks down, what are some new considerations that might allow us to lower the upper bound on the longest realistic game of chess?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11694" LastActivityDate="2020-04-29T18:20:23.023" Title="Longest non-cooperative game of chess" Tags="&lt;theory&gt;&lt;mathematics&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="7" ClosedDate="2019-11-08T14:30:38.467" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26874" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26869" CreationDate="2019-11-08T05:23:10.980" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Most general-purpose chess software has this feature, usually under &quot;Edit Board&quot; or similar menu entries.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On Linux, usually there are two components to the software which are developed independently - a board program and a playing engine; the latter acts as an opponent or an analyser.  The board program, such as Scid or Xboard, is where you would look for the board setup functions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On Windows, the popular chess engines usually come with their own board front-ends.  Crafty is a decent free option.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's also possible to use an online browser-based platform such as LiChess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19281" LastActivityDate="2019-11-08T05:23:10.980" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26875" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26873" CreationDate="2019-11-08T07:19:43.460" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The longest game I've ever found in tournament play is Nikolic - Arsovic, played in Belgrade in 1989. You can watch it &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1268705&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;. It ended in a draw after 269 moves in a rook+bishop-vs-rook endgame&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastEditorUserId="18809" LastEditDate="2019-11-08T07:38:40.520" LastActivityDate="2019-11-08T07:38:40.520" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26876" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26873" CreationDate="2019-11-08T12:57:14.097" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If, in some chess position, one side can win against any defence, then we may ask what the least n, where the winning side can guarantee to checkmate in n moves or fewer, against any defence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Analysis of seven-piece positions has brought to light some positions where n is as large as 549, for example &lt;a href=&quot;http://tb7.chessok.com/articles/Top8DTM_eng&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this one in KQPKRBN&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Presumably if the number of units allowed on the board were increased, there'd be positions whose shortest wins are even longer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But for a game to reach such a position, one side must have already blundered a half-point (supposing that the initial position is a draw with best play). So long as neither player blunders into a position where the other player can force a win, how do you decide which possible moves are co-operative and which are not?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10380" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-29T18:20:23.023" LastActivityDate="2020-04-29T18:20:23.023" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26877" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26869" CreationDate="2019-11-08T14:48:00.427" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Lichess as a website - as mentioned by Chromatix - offers the &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/editor&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Board editor&lt;/a&gt; online and in the &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/mobile&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;app&lt;/a&gt;. Lichess is free software.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11948" LastActivityDate="2019-11-08T14:48:00.427" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26878" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2206" CreationDate="2019-11-08T16:58:11.497" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The important point here is knowing what initiative is and recognizing when you have it. To me, initiative is not just making your opponent make forced moves by, e.g., chasing the Q up the board with a couple of minor pieces where in the end the Q settles on a nice square but your pieces are uncoordinated and sit in useless spots. As soon as that happens, your so called initiative is gone and the tables turn. &#xA;I think of initiative as having obtained tempi that can be used to build a better position, along the lines of the usual strategic considerations: space, coordination, pawn structure. Also, having targets in the opponent's camp is important in ensuring that your plan has teeth. &#xA;Once you have those long-term advantages, you can use them to do more of the same: advance pawns, improve coordination, increase mobility, add targets or increase pressure on existing ones, or improve king safety.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15509" LastActivityDate="2019-11-08T16:58:11.497" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26879" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26841" CreationDate="2019-11-08T18:38:31.143" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You don't mention whether you prefer studying chess with books or at the computer, so I'll toss a couple of ideas at you for both.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Books&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;Russia Chess House has some good beginning tactics books (Chess School 1a and 1b) with a thousand or so basic positions, showing some elementary checkmates and basic tactics. They make a pretty good starting out resource, if you can find them. Then there's C.J.S. Purdy's Guide To Good Chess which can help fill in the instruction gaps (the Chess School books have no text, just positions to solve).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Computer&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;I haven't seen CT-Art For Beginners, but everything I've seen about CT-Art tells me it's probably good. There's a couple of other basic tactic trainers out there to work with as well, for example Chess Tactics For Beginners. I like that series (Originally from Convekta, most of the time these days I see them coming from Chess King) because they run in several modes (a Learning mode that is typically divided into &quot;Theory&quot; and &quot;Practice&quot; and a &quot;Testing&quot; mode where they give you pretty much nothing except the position and who is to move) so you can work through the app on different levels of detail; as your strength improves, you can move up, or drop back down if you need some extra help in certain areas. On iOS, at least, the app itself is free, and it has 10%-20% of the positions in it unlocked. Once you decide this works for you, you can unlock the entire app for typically $5-10.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Play against other players, and try to play against folks a little better than you. (Most humans don't have the patience to play a lot and never win, so it helps if they're just a little better than you, not grandmaster level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As your skill progresses you can move up to harder tactical puzzle books or to CT-Art (the main app can find hard enough puzzles to make a master sweat). Keep track of how you're losing games. Do you overlook opponent's tactical chances? Work a little more on tactics. Are you confused about what to do in certain positions? Look in online databases for other games in those positions and see what others have played.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One bit of advice I got a long time ago was to pick two players, one from the past and one playing today, and simply play through a few games of theirs every day. When you start out, don't spend a lot of time analysing them. Just play through them like a watching a movie. Eventually you'll notice you &lt;em&gt;are&lt;/em&gt; thinking a little about the positions. What you're doing there is essentially loading your brain with chess patterns played by those grandmasters; creating &quot;landmarks&quot; in unfamiliar territory that your brain will start to use to find its way through it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Revisit those games as you improve, and this time you'll be thinking a little more about the positions, because your brain has already started to connect the patterns together. Each time you revisit them, dig a little deeper into them, as  you improve you'll be better able to spot the why's of a move. That approach helps keep you from being discouraged. Back when I was a novice, I didn't know how to begin analysing a GM game; had no idea what was going on. But as I played over more and more games, I started to connect the ideas, and I could start reasoning. First it was &quot;this is a typical move in this position&quot; and then it became &quot;this move keeps white from occupying an outpost&quot; and so on. By not demanding too much at the start, it was easier for me to stay interested.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Certain ideas and positions will catch your fancy; don't be afraid to depart from your planned study and follow them. They're indicators of the kind of chess you like to play, the beginning shape of your own style. Just as no one plays like Nakamura except Nakamura, no one will play like you, except you. Follow and see where it leads you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="657" LastActivityDate="2019-11-08T18:38:31.143" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26880" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26856" CreationDate="2019-11-09T00:15:17.683" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you track why you lose, where you missed a win, what stage (opening, middle, ending) etc. it will help you know what you need to spend the most time on. As most have said, that will probably be tactically for a lot of your games at the beginning. But if you keep track of it, then you might find you lose in longer calculation in the ending, as opposed to finding something creative in the middle game. If you do that, the data will tell you what you need to work on and help kill bad habits before they become ingrained.     &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20524" LastEditorUserId="20524" LastEditDate="2019-11-09T02:41:32.330" LastActivityDate="2019-11-09T02:41:32.330" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26881" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2206" CreationDate="2019-11-09T02:42:05.460" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, develop your pieces quickly in the opening. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Second, look to gain time. A lot of times people will exchange or move a piece back when that piece is attacked but if you can defend it by developing a piece you are gaining time. For example the line, 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Nf6 4. Ng5 d5 5. exd5 Na5 6. Bb5+ Bd7 7. Qe2 white is defending the bishop by developing the queen. There are other ways to gain time but that should give an example. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Third, look to create threats even when you are on the defensive. In the above line, notice that the queen is attacking the e-pawn also. Attacking and defending at the same time is critical to maintaining the initiative. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Fourth, learn to ignore the opponents threats if they aren't real threats. Learn to calculate things out accurately. If you can mate in 3 and the opponent will take four moves why do you care about what your opponent is doing?   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastEditorUserId="19861" LastEditDate="2019-11-09T03:08:57.427" LastActivityDate="2019-11-09T03:08:57.427" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26882" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12797" CreationDate="2019-11-09T03:07:09.040" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I reached 1900 I rebuilt my game from the ground up starting with the endgame, then middle-game and then openings. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2019-11-09T03:07:09.040" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26883" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="914" CreationDate="2019-11-09T03:24:22.073" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, to an extent. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's best to learn openings chronologically. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you're just starting out you should look at the era before Morphy. As you get better  you can look at more modern openings. Doing it that way way you can see how the ideas build on the previous generation's ideas. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tal is probably most appropriate for the 1800-2200 range.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2019-11-09T03:24:22.073" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26884" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24922" CreationDate="2019-11-09T13:21:30.273" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;While it's a gambit by Black, what about Tal's gambit?  Black is scoring 55% in 228 grandmaster and elite correspondence games after 1 e4 c5; 2 f4 d5; 3 exd5 Nf6.  I'd call Black doing better than 50% in that many top games an advantage.  (And 55% is better than Black's score in any of the main non-gambit responses to 2 f4.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20527" LastActivityDate="2019-11-09T13:21:30.273" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26885" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26887" CreationDate="2019-11-09T13:51:20.513" Score="5" ViewCount="296" Body="&lt;p&gt;Including but still obstructed by occupied squares, what is the maximum number of squares on a 16x16 board that 8 queens and 8 &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nightrider_(chess)&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;nightriders&lt;/a&gt; can collectively attack at least once each? Even if attacking all 256 squares isn't possible, the maximum number still interests me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm unsure what tags to use for this, or if maybe I should've went to the mathematics SE for this one; please suggest additional tags and let me know if this question would better fit the mathematics SE.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16577" LastEditorUserId="16577" LastEditDate="2019-11-16T22:19:36.110" LastActivityDate="2019-11-16T22:19:36.110" Title="What is the maximum number of squares 8 queens and 8 nightriders can attack on a 16x16 board?" Tags="&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;mathematics&gt;&lt;unorthodox-pieces&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26886" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26885" CreationDate="2019-11-09T13:51:20.513" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is my best attempt thus far, which I believe attacks 236 (all but 20) squares. I used the staircase solution for 8 queens on the central 8x8 region in order to consequentially fully cover the 4 adjacent 8x4 side regions while putting many diagonals through the corner 4x4 regions. Then I placed the nightriders so as to not obstruct any of the queens' lines while also having each nightrider attack 1 unique queen each, by placing them towards the center of the long diagonals still within the corner 4x4 regions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/SjLrM.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/SjLrM.png&quot; alt=&quot;My personal best attempt at placing 8 queens and 8 nightriders on a 16x16 board so as to attack as many squares as possible&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16577" LastActivityDate="2019-11-09T13:51:20.513" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26887" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26885" CreationDate="2019-11-09T17:53:10.523" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's possible to attack all squares.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Q - queen&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;N - nightrider&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yellow background - attacked only by a queen&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Red background - attacked only by a nightrider&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Orange background - attacked by pieces of both types&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/HBf2f.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/HBf2f.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Queens are placed such that 5 longest diagonals in each direction are attacked.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This can be done with just 6 queens, so 2 are redundant and result in queens attacking queens by diagonals. So 4 queens are attacked by other queens, 4 are not. I added nightriders on the edge of the board such that the missing squares are also attacked. Placing nightriders on the edge doesn't block any of the queens' attacks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One can also see that the nightriders attacking queens could be placed in other ways, so there is more than one solution. An interesting question would be-how many?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;edit. now correct...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19415" LastEditorUserId="19415" LastEditDate="2019-11-09T22:13:28.830" LastActivityDate="2019-11-09T22:13:28.830" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26888" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26892" CreationDate="2019-11-09T19:13:25.427" Score="5" ViewCount="477" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to a &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1666-5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;paper published in Nature&lt;/a&gt; Google has developed a quantum computer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Abstract&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The promise of quantum computers is that certain computational tasks&#xA;  might be executed exponentially faster on a quantum processor than on&#xA;  a classical processor. A fundamental challenge is to build a&#xA;  high-fidelity processor capable of running quantum algorithms in an&#xA;  exponentially large computational space. Here we report the use of a&#xA;  processor with programmable superconducting qubits to create quantum&#xA;  states on 53 qubits, corresponding to a computational state-space of&#xA;  dimension 2^53 (about 10^16). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Measurements from repeated experiments sample the resulting&#xA;  probability distribution, which we verify using classical simulations.&#xA;  Our Sycamore processor takes about 200 seconds to sample one instance&#xA;  of a quantum circuit a million times—our benchmarks currently indicate&#xA;  that the equivalent task for a state-of-the-art classical&#xA;  supercomputer would take approximately 10,000 years. This dramatic&#xA;  increase in speed compared to all known classical algorithms is an&#xA;  experimental realization of quantum supremacy for this specific&#xA;  computational task, heralding a much-anticipated computing paradigm.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On a cautionary note, Google's central claim, that they have performed in 200 seconds computation that would take current state-of-the-art supercomputers 10,000 years is disputed by IBM in a &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.ibm.com/blogs/research/2019/10/on-quantum-supremacy/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;blog post&lt;/a&gt; which claims that:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;We argue that an ideal simulation of the same task can be performed on&#xA;  a classical system in 2.5 days and with far greater fidelity. This is&#xA;  in fact a conservative, worst-case estimate, and we expect that with&#xA;  additional refinements the classical cost of the simulation can be&#xA;  further reduced.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3 minutes 20 seconds to perform what would take 2.5 days is still pretty impressive and presumably up-scaling would produce (exponentially) better results. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that quantum computing is not so well suited to linear processing, such as would typically be used to generate tablebases, but is ideally suited to highly parallel processes like those used in AlphaZero.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does this advance mean we can look forward to a vastly improved AlphaZero?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-11-09T20:21:58.063" LastActivityDate="2020-12-22T19:01:44.183" Title="Does Google's new quantum computer mean we will soon have a more powerful AlphaZero?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;alphazero&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26889" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24922" CreationDate="2019-11-10T02:37:55.237" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Most gambits are going to reach equality at best since even the best openings struggle to maintain a minuscule advantage. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If there is opening it would be when the opponent plays an inferior move like 1.f4 in From's gambit. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If there is a gambit that can play for an advantage I would think it would be Evan's gambit although strangely Stockfish doesn't see black's best line no matter how long you give it to think and the line it does give is not that great.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have been playing around with the BMD lately and it looks like white can maintain an edge there although I would imagine it has more to do with the weakness of theory in that line since it is rarely played in modern times. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2019-11-10T02:37:55.237" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26890" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2937" CreationDate="2019-11-10T02:44:15.413" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Maybe black hopes the practical advantages give him a better chance. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or maybe black just likes the position. I, myself, would much rather be down a pawn and dictating the position than up a pawn and defending.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2019-11-10T02:44:15.413" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26891" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19068" CreationDate="2019-11-10T02:58:52.153" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sometimes there's some practical value in taking a line others feel is unplayable and making it somewhat playable. At best, you should be aiming for a line that gives the opponent lots of chances to go wrong but allows you drawing chances if the opponent plays perfectly. I could give ideas but your opponent could be reading this too. It's best to come up with your own ideas. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some examples though: &#xA;I recall Silman analyzing Damiano's defense and concluding that black's side was playable. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I remember years ago playing a Fried Liver as white on FICS. My opponent was undoubtedly using an engine. I lost and lost badly but that just goes to show what you can do if you analyze deeply enough. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I sometimes play the Englund gambit (1.d4, e5) as black. I can equalize about 99% of the time. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2019-11-10T02:58:52.153" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26892" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26888" CreationDate="2019-11-10T06:42:20.530" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;TLDR: &lt;strong&gt;No&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Reasoning: Quantum Computers in the short to medium term only have some very specific things efficiently (factoring and discrete log and a few others). The algorithm google showed &quot;quantum supremecy&quot; on is basically simulating a random quantum circuit to generate random numbers, which is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;about as favorable an algorithm as you could imagine&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;completely useless as an algorithm since there are plenty of simpler random number generators&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;probably not even quantum supremecy achieved &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.ibm.com/blogs/research/2019/10/on-quantum-supremacy/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;IBM paper&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For general tasks, quantum computers achieve a quadratic speedup assuming a large enough quantum computer (compared to exponential or more speedup for the demonstrated problem). Furthermore, to even run a basic chess evaluation function on a quantum computer you would need at least an order of magnitude more qbits than state of the art (probably way more, but I'm hedging).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Overall, quantum computers now are at about the same stage as computers were in the 1800s. It will be a while before they are useful for anything, and chess is highly unlikely to be something they are ever used for seriously.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17100" LastActivityDate="2019-11-10T06:42:20.530" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26893" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-11-10T13:07:19.047" Score="2" ViewCount="1216" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am trying to write a program to learn how to play chess. I have heard of programs that you can enter in a set of weights for certain parameters such as rook value, queen value and bishop mobility. And then, the program will output what move it thinks you should make given the state of the board, based on these weights.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I will then use a genetic algorithm to find some good weights.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could anyone explain to me how this evaluation function actually works? How does it go from the weights to actually deciding what move it should make?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or could someone at least link me to such a program?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20533" LastActivityDate="2019-11-11T05:45:16.417" Title="Chess evaluation function" Tags="&lt;evaluation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26894" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26893" CreationDate="2019-11-10T15:25:57.357" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Maybe there's a simple program out there for didactic purposes, I don't know. But if not, you could have a look at Stockfish, which is open-source, and is a serious, competitive chess engine. You can find the &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;sourcecode on Github&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, I bet you could learn more about evaluation functions and find some other pointers by browsing the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessprogramming.org/Main_Page&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess Programming Wiki&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12523" LastActivityDate="2019-11-10T15:25:57.357" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26895" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26893" CreationDate="2019-11-10T16:53:04.640" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The evaluation function of a chess programs returns a score for a given chess position in a static way. By &quot;static&quot; I mean it won't have into account, v. g., whether the queen is attacked, or if a check mate is about to happen (that part is done within the search function of the program).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most eval functions are based on the value of a single pawn. If you take a look at &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/emdio/secondchess/blob/master/secondchess.c&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Seconchess' source code&lt;/a&gt; you'll find stuff like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;#define VALUE_PAWN 100&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;#define VALUE_KNIGHT 310&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;#define VALUE_BISHOP 320&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;#define VALUE_ROOK 500&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;#define VALUE_QUEEN 900&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So for a given position, the eval function counts how many pawns, knights, etc. there are of one side (black or white) and it just sums them up. Then it makes the same for the other side and the final score is the difference between white and black scores.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Secondchess is a very simple chess engine, and so is its eval function. It only takes into account the material on the board and adds an extra bonus/malus for the position of each piece on the board. For example, a knight in D4 has a bonus of +15, and a knight in H1 has a &quot;malus&quot; of -40. (This info is stored in the array &quot;pst_knight[64]&quot;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you can imagine, serious chess engines have hundreds (thousands?) of these values; for doubled pawns, for rooks on open columns,  pieces mobility, king safety... And it also take into account the phase of the game; opening, middle game, endgame. And yes, tuning these values is such an important and difficult task. Some techniques exist for optimizing these values, being &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessprogramming.org/CLOP&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;CLOP&lt;/a&gt; one of them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;About the question &quot;How does it go from the weights to actually deciding what move it should make?&quot;. Ok, from the weights, you get the score of a single position, and using a search method (usually &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessprogramming.org/Alpha-Beta&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;alpha/beta&lt;/a&gt; is the way to go) you find out the best move from a certain position. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is another simple chess program for beginners; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.tckerrigan.com/Chess/TSCP/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Tom's Simple Chess Program&lt;/a&gt;. But take into account this one is not free software.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;github&lt;/a&gt; you can find many chess engines in several languages.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, as far as I know, the place to go for chess programming questions is &lt;a href=&quot;http://talkchess.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://talkchess.com&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9179" LastActivityDate="2019-11-10T16:53:04.640" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26896" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26897" CreationDate="2019-11-11T02:24:02.033" Score="3" ViewCount="422" Body="&lt;p&gt;The title may be a little misleading. My question is, how do I become or begin to become a player who is in the FIDE system? Is there a specific process I must go to, specific tournaments, steps I must take etc. to &quot;get my foot in the door&quot; of the FIDE system. I'd like to play in official tournaments and all the like, but I am not sure how to start.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20535" LastActivityDate="2019-11-11T13:19:12.643" Title="How do I &quot;Get My Foot in the Door&quot;?" Tags="&lt;fide&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2019-11-11T11:53:33.993" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26897" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26896" CreationDate="2019-11-11T02:47:00.520" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Updated. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You need to play in FIDE-rated events. Even playing one game would get you in the system (meaning they would be aware of your existence), but you would not be officially rated until you played at least 5 games against FIDE-rated players, during the course of 26 months, and be rated over 1000. It no longer appears as if you need and minimum score.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For more of the detailed points, check out the &lt;a href=&quot;https://old.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=197&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Handbook here&lt;/a&gt;, specifically under section 7.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2019-11-11T13:19:12.643" LastActivityDate="2019-11-11T13:19:12.643" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26898" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-11-11T04:06:44.007" Score="6" ViewCount="2526" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why is the Exchange French considered so drawish since it is very early in the game, so it seems like there would be a lot more play left. A lot of lower rated players play it against me, although I am not that strong myself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user20520" LastActivityDate="2019-11-11T10:24:04.933" Title="Why is the Exchange French considered drawish?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;french-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26899" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26898" CreationDate="2019-11-11T04:09:45.517" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, first, when you are lower-rated, there really is no opening that can be considered drawish since it takes a fair amount of skill to be able to draw at will. That is often a skill associated more with the Grandmaster ranks, and maybe some solid IMs too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Assuming that someone has the skill to draw, it really comes down to the ability to exchange pieces to get to an even endgame, mostly the rooks on the e-file, but also the Bc1 might go to f4, when black will want to trade off the well-placed piece rather than keep the B on e7, where it inhibits the rook trades I just mentioned. This trade is advantageous to white since although his B is not super bad, it is still technically a bad B for good B exchange that might be most troublesome for black if they get to certain endgames later.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another thing that is interesting is that the Exchange French has a quite a number of players, who have overwhelming scores with it. None other than Kasparov played it three times in tournament games against Bareev, Short, and Kortchnoi. He scored 2.5/3. Other undefeated GMs include: GM Najat Abassov was 4/5, Michael Adams 4.5/5,  GM Dmitry Andreikin 6.5/9 (and there are plenty more, but it would have been a project to keep going). GM Etienne Bacrot had one loss, but has a record of 13 wins, 1 loss, and 3 draws with it as white. I think that this is because there can be significant danger if your opponent assumes that you are trying to draw, when you are really trying to win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I played 1.e4 until I was 1935 USCF, and I played a line of the Exchange French with an early Qf3 that I found Kortchnoi had played with success. My OTB record with that was 6 wins, 1 loss (In the very first game with this as a 1700, in a winning position, I let my queen get trapped…oops).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Granted, my opponents were weaker then, but what I found was that black never paid enough attention to the e-file, which was their downfall. The other point is comfort: Many French players do not like this type of position, while white must be reasonably happy since he is playing it. Having “your kind of position” is a major part of winning chess. I would double the pawns on f6, and take the file, and just win; or trade a N for a B on e6, and what was left was bad. Here are examples of each.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[title &quot;Kevin Cotreau 1735 - Terry Messa 1830, Cole Younger Open, 1984&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. exd5 exd5 4. Bd3 Nc6 5. c3 Bd6 6. Qf3 Qe7+ 7. Ne2 Nf6 8. Bg5 Be6 9. O-O h6 10. Bxf6 gxf6 11. Ng3 O-O-O 12. Nf5 Bxf5 13. Bxf5+ Kb8 14. Nd2 Qf8 15. Rae1 Qg7 16. Re3 Ne7 17. Bh3 Ng6 18. g3 c6 19. Rfe1 h5 20. Bg2 h4 21. Nf1 hxg3 22. fxg3 Nf8 23. Re8 Ne6 24. Rxd8+ Rxd8 25. Ne3 Ng5 26. Qg4 Re8 27. Kf2 Ne6 28. Qf3 Qg6 29. Nxd5 Rh8 30. Nxf6 Rxh2 31. Nd7+ Kc8 32. Ne5 Bxe5 33. Rxe5 Qc2+ 34. Re2 Qg6 35. Kg1 Rh6 36. Re1 Qf6 37. Qxf6 Rxf6 38. Bh3 Kd7 39. Rf1 Rxf1+ 40. Kxf1 Ke7 41. Bxe6 Kxe6 42. Kf2 Kf5 43. Kf3 a5 44. g4+ Kg5 45. c4 f5 46. gxf5 Kxf5 47. Ke3 b6 48. a4 Kf6 49. Ke4 Ke6 50. d5+ Kd6 51. Kd4 cxd5 52. cxd5 Ke7 53. Ke5 Kd7 54. d6 Ke8 55. Ke6 Kd8 56. d7 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[title &quot;Kevin Cotreau 1735 - Gary Field 1940, NH Amateur, 1984&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.exd5 exd5 4.Bd3 Bd6 5.c3 c6 6.Qf3 Be6 7.Ne2 Qc7 8.Bf4 Ne7 9.O-O Nd7 10.Nd2 Ng6 11.Bxd6 Qxd6 12.Bxg6 hxg6 13.Qg3 Qe7 14.Rfe1 O-O-O 15.Nf4 Qf6 16.Re3 Rde8 17.Rae1 Nf8 18.Nf3 {idea Ng5} 18...Nh7 19.Nxe6 fxe6 20.Qd6 Nf8 21.Ne5 Qf4 22.h3 Rd8 23.Qe7 (23.Qc5! Kb8 24.Rf3 Qd2 25.Rf1+– {The ideas of Rf7 followed by Nc6, or Nf7 are unstoppable.} 25...Nd7 (25...Qxb2 26.Nf7 Nd7 27.Qd6+ Kc8 28.Nxh8 Rxh8 29.Qxe6+–) 26.Qd6+ Kc8 27.Rf7) 23...Qh4 24.Qxh4 (24.Qa3! Kb8 25.Nf7+–) 24...Rxh4 25.Rf3 Re8 26.Rxf8 Rxf8 27.Nxg6 Rff4 28.Nxh4 (28.g3?? Re4) 28...Rxh4 29.Rxe6 Kd7 30.Rg6 c5 31.Rxg7+ Kc6 32.dxc5 a5 33.Rg4 Rh5 34.b4 a4 35.Rd4 Re5 36.Kf1 Re6 37.f4 Re3 38.f5 Rxc3 39.f6 Rc1+ 40.Ke2 Kd7 41.Rxd5+ Ke6 42.Rd2 Kxf6 43.Kd3 Kg5 44.Rc2 Ra1 45.Kc4 Rb1 46.Rc3 {To prevent a2 and Rb2.} 46...Rb2 47.Ra3 Rxg2 48.Rxa4 Kh4 49.b5 Kxh3 50.Ra3+ Kh4 51.c6 Rg4+ 52.Kc5 Rg5+ 53.Kb6 bxc6 54.bxc6 Rg6 55.Kb7 1–0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ultimately, if you find this to be a real problem, then you might want to just play something else when facing players, who are much lower-rated since most higher-rated players probably will not play it to begin with.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-11-11T10:24:04.933" LastActivityDate="2019-11-11T10:24:04.933" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26900" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26898" CreationDate="2019-11-11T05:43:49.640" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The exchange variation of the French defense has symmetrical pawn structures with an open file. Symmetrical pawn structures make it difficult to create imbalances which lead decisive games. Then the rooks and/or queen will get exchanged along the open file. Fewer pieces coupled with a balanced position is drawish.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9321" LastActivityDate="2019-11-11T05:43:49.640" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26901" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26893" CreationDate="2019-11-11T05:45:16.417" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think this: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessprogramming.org/Sunfish&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.chessprogramming.org/Sunfish&lt;/a&gt; is definitely the easiest Engine to learn from ...Written in Python in like 100 lines and plays strong enough to get the concept. I am in the same boat as you and this helped me a ton. Good luck.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20537" LastActivityDate="2019-11-11T05:45:16.417" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26902" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26898" CreationDate="2019-11-11T07:32:51.397" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;At lower levels, it's certainly not drawish as there is a chance to use the outpost in the open file (as well as some manoeuvering towards the f5 (f4 for Black) square, which is great for knights), and games with opposite-side castles are possible. A c4 (or ...c5) break is also possible turning the position into an isolated central pawn one, which isn't more drawish than any other position&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At top-level play, it tends to be drawish because of the symmetrical pawn structure and the open file (where a lot of trades will happen). Many minor piece endgames with a small advantage for either side will often result in a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastActivityDate="2019-11-11T07:32:51.397" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26903" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26904" CreationDate="2019-11-11T14:34:39.437" Score="2" ViewCount="206" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would like to get some explanations on the mistakes and blunders of my &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/Igx7Fhzu/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;game&lt;/a&gt; posted below.&#xA;My Lichess rating is around 1770, so I do not know if the mistakes of the game are hard to spot for my level or not. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am more interested in getting an explanation about why the moves are bad, rather than which are the best moves (I can do that with the computer).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;bird67-chessAlleyne, Lichess, 11/9/19&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 d5 { C40 Elephant Gambit } 3. exd5 c6?! { (0.74 → 1.78) Inaccuracy. Best move was Qxd5. } (3... Qxd5 4. Nc3 Qc5 5. Bb5+ c6 6. Ba4 Nf6 7. O-O Be7 8. h3) 4. dxc6?! { (1.78 → 0.85) Inaccuracy. Best move was Nxe5. } (4. Nxe5 Qxd5 5. d4 Nf6 6. c4 Qd8 7. Nc3 c5 8. Be3 Bd6) 4... Nxc6 5. Nc3 Nf6 6. Bb5 e4 7. Bxc6+ bxc6 8. Ne5?? { (0.95 → -0.59) Blunder. Best move was Qe2. } (8. Qe2 Bf5 9. Nxe4 Nxe4 10. d3 Qe7 11. dxe4 Qxe4 12. Qxe4+ Bxe4) 8... Qd6? { (-0.59 → 0.55) Mistake. Best move was Qd4. } (8... Qd4 9. f4) 9. d4 Ba6 10. Be3 Rb8 11. Rb1?! { (0.10 → -0.54) Inaccuracy. Best move was b3. } (11. b3 Rd8) 11... Be7?! { (-0.54 → 0.00) Inaccuracy. Best move was Qc7. } (11... Qc7 12. Ne2) 12. f3?! { (0.00 → -0.72) Inaccuracy. Best move was Bf4. } (12. Bf4 Nd5) 12... exf3? { (-0.72 → 0.68) Mistake. Best move was Nd5. } (12... Nd5 13. Nxd5 cxd5 14. fxe4 dxe4 15. c4 O-O 16. Qa4 Rfc8 17. O-O f6 18. c5 Qe6 19. d5) 13. Qxf3 c5? { (0.34 → 1.50) Mistake. Best move was O-O. } (13... O-O 14. Qxc6 Rbc8 15. Qxd6 Bxd6 16. Kd2 Bb4 17. Kc1 Bb7 18. Nd3 a5 19. Re1 Bxg2 20. Bg5) 14. Ne2?? { (1.50 → -0.61) Blunder. Best move was Nc6. } (14. Nc6) 14... cxd4 15. Bf4?? { (-0.18 → -1.78) Blunder. Best move was Qc6+. } (15. Qc6+ Kf8 16. Bf4 Qxc6 17. Nxc6 Re8 18. Nxe7 Kxe7 19. Nxd4 Kd7+ 20. Kd2 Ne4+ 21. Kc1 Nf2) 15... Qb4+? { (-1.78 → -0.64) Mistake. Best move was Rc8. } (15... Rc8) 16. Kd1? { (-0.64 → -2.15) Mistake. Best move was c3. } (16. c3 dxc3) 16... O-O 17. Nc6 Bb7?? { (-2.59 → 1.64) Blunder. Best move was Bxe2+. } (17... Bxe2+) 18. Bxb8?? { (1.64 → -1.26) Blunder. Best move was Nxb4. } (18. Nxb4 Bxf3 19. Bxb8 Bxg2 20. Rg1 Rxb8 21. Na6 Rb6 22. Rxg2 Nd5 23. Kd2 Rxa6 24. Rg4 d3) 18... Bxc6 19. Qxc6 Qxb8 20. Nxd4?? { (-0.99 → -5.76) Blunder. Best move was Qf3. } (20. Qf3) 20... Rd8?? { (-5.76 → 0.00) Blunder. Best move was Qf4. } (20... Qf4) 21. c3 Qf4?? { (0.00 → 1.92) Blunder. Best move was Nd5. } (21... Nd5 22. Kc2 Ne3+ 23. Kd3 Ng4 24. Kc2) 22. Qf3?? { (1.92 → 0.00) Blunder. Best move was Kc2. } (22. Kc2) 22... Qg5?? { (0.00 → 3.65) Blunder. Best move was Rxd4+. } (22... Rxd4+ 23. cxd4 Qxd4+ 24. Ke2 Qc4+ 25. Qd3 Qg4+ 26. Kf1 Qf4+ 27. Ke1 Qb4+ 28. Kd1 Qg4+ 29. Qe2) 23. Rf1?? { (3.65 → 1.53) Blunder. Best move was Kc2. } (23. Kc2 Qg6+) 23... Bc5 24. Ke1?? { (2.07 → -1.14) Blunder. Best move was Rc1. } (24. Rc1) 24... Ng4?? { (-1.14 → 0.74) Blunder. Best move was Qe5+. } (24... Qe5+ 25. Qe2 Bxd4 26. cxd4 Qxd4 27. Rxf6 Qxf6 28. Rd1 Rb8 29. Rd2 g6 30. Qf2 Qe6+ 31. Kf1) 25. Qxf7+?! { (0.74 → 0.00) Inaccuracy. Best move was Rd1. } (25. Rd1) 25... Kh8 26. Rf5?? { (0.00 → -16.83) Blunder. Best move was Qf4. } (26. Qf4 Qe7+ 27. Kd2 Bxd4 28. Qxg4 Bxc3+ 29. Kxc3 Qe3+ 30. Kb4 Rd4+ 31. Qxd4 Qxd4+ 32. Ka3 Qd6+) 26... Qe3+ 27. Kd1 h6?? { (-13.91 → 0.00) Blunder. Best move was Qd3+. } (27... Qd3+) 28. Kc2?? { (0.00 → -9.63) Blunder. Best move was Rxc5. } (28. Rxc5 Rxd4+ 29. Kc2 Rd2+ 30. Kb3 Qxc5 31. Qe8+ Kh7 32. Qe4+ Kh8) 28... Bxd4 29. cxd4 Qe4+ 30. Kd2?! { (-10.54 → Mate in 3) Checkmate is now unavoidable. Best move was Kb3. } (30. Kb3 Rb8+ 31. Ka3 Qxb1 32. Rb5 Qd3+ 33. b3 Qxb5 34. Qc4 Qxc4 35. bxc4 Ne3 36. Ka4 Nxc4) 30... Rxd4+ 31. Kc3 { White resigns. } 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks in advance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16771" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-11-11T20:06:54.980" LastActivityDate="2019-11-14T03:07:01.170" Title="Elephant gambit game analysis" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26904" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26903" CreationDate="2019-11-11T16:32:22.837" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think there are a few things here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When playing a gambit line that maybe you do not know, the first thing I would recommend is not necessarily taking it. Either 3.Ne5 or even 3.d4 look safer.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;On move four, you had the choice of taking two pawns, one that developed his N, and the other, which took a center pawn. The center P was easily the right way to go since you could then support it with d4.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;After that, you totally neglected your king's safety. 5.Bb5 followed by a quick 0-0 was in order.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;9.d4 letting him keep your king in the center with Ba6 was close to the fatal mistake practically. Your position according the computer is still OK, and might even have a small plus, but as a human, it is all but impossible to play accurately there. You need to keep that idea in mind: Is a position easy or difficult to play? Tal made a living giving the other guy a position that was tough to play, even if Tal's sacrifices were not always sound.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I liked that you played Rb1 instead of b3 weakening the dark squares. That was very good as that additional weakness might have been fatal.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When under attack, you should always be looking for ways to trade down, especially trading queens, thus missing the obvious 14.Qc6 hurt. You were virtually winning there.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The rest was really just tactical miss after tactical miss by both sides.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lastly, after going through that with my computer and Stockfish compared to the lichess engine, I would say that you need to take some of the evals with a grain of salt. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;  1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 d5 3. exd5 c6 4. dxc6 (4. Nxe5) 4... Nxc6 5. Nc3 (5. Bb5) Nf6 6. Bb5 e4 7. Bxc6+ bxc6 8. Ne5 (8. Qe2) 8... Qd6 (8... Qd4 9. Nxc6 Qc5) 9. d4 (9. Nc4) Ba6 10. Be3 Rb8 11. Rb1 Be7 12. f3 exf3 13. Qxf3 c5 14. Ne2 (14. Qc6+) cxd4 15. Bf4 (15. Qc6+) 15... Qb4+ 16. Kd1 (16. Bd2) 16... O-O Nc6 Bb7 18. Bxb8 (18. Nxb4 Bxf3 19. Bxb8 Bxg2 20. Rg1 Rxb8 21. Na6 Rb6 22. Rxg2 Rxa6 23. Nxd4) 18... Bxc6 19. Qxc6 Qxb8 20. Nxd4 Rd8 (20... Qf4 21. c3 Ne4 22. Nf3 Rd8+ 23. Kc2 Qf5) 21. c3 Qf4 22. Qf3 Qg5 (22... Rxd4+ 23. cxd4 Qxd4+ 24. Kc2 Qc4+) 23. Rf1 Bc5 24. Ke1 Ng4 25. Qxf7+ Kh8 26. Rf5 Qe3+ 27. Kd1 h6 28. Kc2 (28. Rxc5) 28... Bxd4 29. cxd4 Qe4+ 30. Kd2 Rxd4+ 31. Kc3 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2019-11-11T17:13:27.153" LastActivityDate="2019-11-11T17:13:27.153" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26905" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26907" CreationDate="2019-11-11T19:39:46.433" Score="6" ViewCount="144" Body="&lt;p&gt;How do games of players that are not so well known, or not huge events end up in Chessbase and other databases? What are the different ways that games are cataloged? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If they are not playing on an electronic board in a televised event, are carbon copies being deposited in a box and someone is inputting all the moves? I have played in tournaments with many lesser known GMs and IMs but it hasn't appeared to be any obvious mechanism for how games might end up in one of the databases. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3118" LastActivityDate="2019-11-11T21:19:01.767" Title="How do OTB games end up in databases?" Tags="&lt;database&gt;&lt;otb-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26906" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-11-11T19:44:27.577" Score="7" ViewCount="1876" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is it called when your opponent opens with their pawns in a zigzag formation, leaving the front line defended by the back? (Pawn Chain) Also what is the best way to counter this move?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/d83Ue.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/d83Ue.png&quot; alt=&quot;chess diagram&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20543" LastEditorUserId="20543" LastEditDate="2019-11-12T23:29:22.210" LastActivityDate="2019-11-14T10:51:20.893" Title="Opening Moves: Pawn Chains and Countering Attacks" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;pawn-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26907" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26905" CreationDate="2019-11-11T21:19:01.767" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is a &lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/tournament_details.phtml?event=181252&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;link to the FIDE record for a norm tournament&lt;/a&gt; where I was the chief arbiter. Two or three lines up from the bottom it says &quot;PGN file&quot; and next to it is a &lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/view_games.phtml?event=181252&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;brownish icon&lt;/a&gt;. If you click on it you can see a list of all the games with the possibility to play through them in a PGN viewer or to download them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is a link to a &lt;a href=&quot;http://chess-results.com/tnr478518.aspx?lan=1&amp;amp;art=1&amp;amp;rd=7&amp;amp;fed=SCO&amp;amp;turdet=NO&amp;amp;flag=30&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;low level (Minor) tournament&lt;/a&gt; I played in a few weeks ago. Towards the bottom of the header it says &quot;Games: &lt;a href=&quot;http://chess-results.com/PartieSuche.aspx?lan=1&amp;amp;id=50023&amp;amp;tnr=478518&amp;amp;art=3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;There are 59 games available for download&lt;/a&gt;&quot;. Clicking on the link gives you options to download games by round or to download all the entered games for the tournament.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These games have been entered and uploaded by arbiters and their assistants (cue for you to say &quot;Thank you, arbiters!&quot;). Some of this work (norm events) is done because it is a FIDE requirement. Some of it (like the low level tournament I played in) is done out of the goodness of the arbiters' hearts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Generally speaking if you enter a tournament and the scoresheets provided are single copy then your game won't end up in an online database and if it is a two-copy scoresheet then it will. The two-copy scoresheets cost more and a tournament organiser would not waste money on them unless the games were to be recorded and uploaded.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;People who run websites that include all the games they can find have written bots which crawl the web (or at least select parts of it) looking for PGNs which they download and add to their collection for their website or database.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2019-11-11T21:19:01.767" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26908" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26906" CreationDate="2019-11-11T21:29:14.653" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What is it called when your opponent opens with their pawns in a&#xA;  zigzag formation, leaving the front line defended by the back? (Pawn&#xA;  Chain)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Erm ... I think you've answered your own question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;what is the best way to counter this move?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Every pawn chain has a base and a head. The standard way of attacking them is to attack one or the other or both with pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The classic example is the Advance French Variation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. e5 c5 {attacking the base of the pawn chain} 4. c3 Nc6 5. Nf3 Bd7 6. a3 f6 {attacking the front of the pawn chain}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here the black move 3. ... c5 attacks the base of the pawn chain at d4, so white extends the pawn chain with 4. c3. Then a few moves later black attacks the head of the pawn chain with 6. ... f6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The idea is to try and break up the pawn chain and neutralise it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2019-11-11T21:29:14.653" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26909" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-11-11T21:59:03.790" Score="2" ViewCount="128" Body="&lt;p&gt;As I understand it, engines use so-called &quot;bitboards&quot; to generate the current position &amp;amp; possible moves. I'm wondering if any engine uses the pawn bitboard to refine its search and eval.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To illustrate what I mean, suppose this is the current pawn structure:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/8/8/2p5/1pPp4/pP1P4/P7/B7 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this pawn structure, impose massive penalties for the Bishop on a1 because it's more or less permanently stuck.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/1pp4p/p2p4/3Pp1p1/2P1Pp2/5P2/PP4PP/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this pawn structure, as White, prioritize searching variations that include the moves b4-c5, and as Black, prioritize searching variations that include h5-g4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't know how many possible pawn bitboards are there, but presumably not too many arise in serious play (a couple hundred perhaps) and one could have handwritten functions for all of them. Some bitboards could even be duplicated, e.g. in the second bitboard it doesn't matter if Black's pawn is on h7 or h6, general plans for both sides remain the same. If there are no special plans for the current pawn structure, one could also default to the current search/eval algorithms.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Question: Is this idea feasible? If so, are there any engines that use it? If not, why not?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT&lt;/strong&gt;: seems to me that traditional engines could really use something like this, e.g. in &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.tcec-chess.com/archive.html?season=17&amp;amp;div=cpul1redtest1&amp;amp;game=29&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this game&lt;/a&gt; no less an engine than Stockfish falls into this trap, when in spite of having a firmly entombed bishop, it thought its position was superior.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;2r3k1/p2n1r2/4q3/2Pp2b1/PP4p1/B4pPp/2Q2P1P/R2R2KB w - - 1 30&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastEditorUserId="15223" LastEditDate="2020-01-29T03:28:04.867" LastActivityDate="2020-01-29T03:28:04.867" Title="Can engines use the current pawn structure to refine its search/eval?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;pawn-structure&gt;&lt;evaluation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26910" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26906" CreationDate="2019-11-11T22:30:36.453" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is, indeed, called a &quot;pawn chain&quot;. It does not have any other special designation. There is no single best way to counter any specific pawn chain, as it is much more complex than that. Here is a bit on that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pawn chains, and where you attack them, is the basis for all opening play. Where the pawns on both sides clash is called a pawn break. Knowing where your pawn break is, and which one is feasible, is the difference between having a freer game for your pieces, and being smothered to death.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Part of that is also knowing if you should extend the pawn chain, and thus, change the point of attack for your pawn break.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;  1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. e5 c5 4. c3 Nc6 5. Nf3 Nge7 6. Bd3 Nf5 7. O-O Be7 8. Bc2 c4? 9.b3 b5 10.a4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here extending the pawn chain, intending b5-b4, is too slow due to the undefended rook on a8. The q-side is about to open up much to white's favor.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You have to realize that changing the pawn break, and moving it up one file, while usually great in principle, it also is much slower, so especially if your pawn break is on the q-side, and your opponent is breaking on your k-side, his could become much more dangerous much more quickly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Learning about opening pawn structures, and the pawn breaks associated with them, can be learned in the following books:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;“&lt;em&gt;Complete Chess Strategy&lt;/em&gt;” volumes 1,2 and 3 by Ludek Pachman. (This teaches about many basic plans, and what you are striving for with your pieces and pawns, especially. THIS is what made me a master.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;“&lt;em&gt;Pawn Structure Chess&lt;/em&gt;” by Andy Soltis. (This extends the above to specific opening structures.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;“&lt;em&gt;Chess Structures: A Grandmaster Guide&lt;/em&gt;” by Mauricio Flores Rios (This is an extension of “Pawn Structure Chess”, and is deeper, and covers more structures. It is outstanding especially if you have already covered “&lt;em&gt;Complete Chess Strategy&lt;/em&gt;”.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://thechessworld.com/articles/middle-game/15-must-know-chess-pawn-formations/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Here is a good link with some basics.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="4509" LastEditDate="2019-11-14T10:51:20.893" LastActivityDate="2019-11-14T10:51:20.893" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26911" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-11-12T17:57:01.380" Score="7" ViewCount="252" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_on_a_really_big_board&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;rose&lt;/a&gt; is a piece that is best described as a &quot;circular &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nightrider_(chess)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;nightrider&lt;/a&gt;&quot;, able to reach up to 32 other squares from the center of a 13x13 area by making consecutive knight jumps in a rotating fashion in a single move as long as no landing square en route is occupied. Incidentally, this rotating movement allows it to essentially pass a turn by returning to the square which it started its move from if it's completely unobstructed along at least 1 circle; though it obviously does not protect itself this way. I'll provide a diagram to illustrate its movement capabilities:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9uB8r.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9uB8r.png&quot; alt=&quot;A diagram illustrating the movement capabilities of a rose&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With 16 roses, including but still obstructed by squares occupied by other roses except the square occupied by an observed rose itself; what is the maximum number of squares on an otherwise clear 16x16 board that can be double-attacked while all 256 squares are attacked at least once each? For the purposes of this question, a square that is attacked 3 or more times does not count for anything more than a square that is attacked twice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I feel I should note that I personally have yet to find an arrangement that attacks all 256 squares at least once by my own efforts; the very corners of the board in particular appear to require poor positioning in order to reach. However, seeing as 16 roses times 32 squares a single rose can theoretically attack creates a theoretical max of 512 attacks; I will be very surprised if an arrangement that meets the &quot;attack each square at least once&quot; prerequisite actually doesn't exist. If it should seem that this is the case, I would like an explanation as to why.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16577" LastEditorUserId="16577" LastEditDate="2019-11-16T22:20:05.967" LastActivityDate="2021-01-28T17:17:08.667" Title="16 roses, 16x16 board; maximum double-attacked squares while all 256 squares are attacked at least once?" Tags="&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;mathematics&gt;&lt;unorthodox-pieces&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="7" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26912" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-11-12T21:45:07.393" Score="2" ViewCount="74" Body="&lt;p&gt;It should have been announced on September 23. But still, nothing on the FIDE website has appeared. Does anyone know who won in all 3 categories?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20547" LastEditorUserId="8472" LastEditDate="2019-11-12T22:13:09.060" LastActivityDate="2019-11-12T22:23:13.993" Title="Who won the FIDE Chess Clock Contract Bidding?" Tags="&lt;fide&gt;&lt;chess-clocks&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26913" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26912" CreationDate="2019-11-12T21:57:18.960" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to the &lt;a href=&quot;https://fide.com/news/113&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE website&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;FIDE is pleased to announce that, in compliance with the published&#xA;Bidding Procedure, it completed the scoring of offers submitted for&#xA;the chess clock contract tender. &lt;strong&gt;The winners have been determined,&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;conditional on the manufacturers' signing binding contracts with FIDE&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, FIDE have chosen a winner but the winners have not yet signed a binding contract.&#xA;Presumably the contract is still being negotiated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note this earlier link from August 2019 - &lt;a href=&quot;https://old.fide.com/images/stories/NEWS_2019/FIDE_News/20190805-FIDE-Bidding_procedure-ChessClocks.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://old.fide.com/images/stories/NEWS_2019/FIDE_News/20190805-FIDE-Bidding_procedure-ChessClocks.pdf&lt;/a&gt; - defining the bidding process giving the following schedule:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;9. Bidding Timeline&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;9.1 Bidding starts August 05, 2019.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;9.2 End of inquiry period for bidders August 15, 2019.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;9.3 FIDE publishes responses August 23, 2019.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;9.4 Deadline for bidders to submit bids September 10, 2019.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;9.5 FIDE announces the winner(s) September 23, 2019.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;9.6 &lt;strong&gt;Deadline for winner(s) to sign a contract September 30, 2019&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;9.7 &lt;strong&gt;Contract(s) shall come into force October 01, 2019&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;9.8 Contract(s) effective through September 30, 2022.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to the schedule published in August it was planned that contracts would have been signed and come into effect by now. Perhaps over optimistic on the part of FIDE.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Assuming that contracts have been signed and &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/forum/view/chess-equipment/who-won-the-fide-chess-clock-contract-bidding&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE are keeping it secret or are too lazy&lt;/a&gt; to update their website would be very foolish. For a start the winners would almost certainly publish the fact widely.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2019-11-12T22:23:13.993" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26914" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-11-13T00:53:30.970" Score="2" ViewCount="55" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.ficsgames.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FICS Games Database&lt;/a&gt; there are currently 1,525 &quot;computers stored&quot;. Such accounts are indicated by a &quot;(C)&quot; after the username. However, this suffix does not seem to be recorded in the database.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is an outdated list here: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.freechess.org/Help/HelpFiles/computer_list.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.freechess.org/Help/HelpFiles/computer_list.html&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Where do I find a recent, complete list of the usernames of all 1525 &quot;computers stored&quot;? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20548" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2020-09-01T07:56:41.847" LastActivityDate="2020-09-01T07:56:41.847" Title="Where to find a list of the computer stored in the FICS Games Database?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;database&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26915" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26916" CreationDate="2019-11-13T03:42:39.527" Score="1" ViewCount="243" Body="&lt;p&gt;I played a game as Black some months ago on &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/analysis/game/daily/229154698?tab=report&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chess.com&lt;/a&gt; in which I made a rather amusing, in my opinion at the least, queen trade. I won the game in the end, but only after being a bastard and promoting to a bishop twice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;kassabian-Rewan Demontay, Friendly June U1200, chess.com, June 10-July 1, 2019&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[startply &quot;33&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. d4 exd4 3. Qxd4 Nc6 4. Qd1 d6 5. b3 Be6 6. Bb2 Nf6 7. Bxf6 Qxf6 8.  h4 Be7 9. Nd2 O-O-O 10. g3 d5 11. Rb1 dxe4 12. f4 exf3 13. Rh2 Bg4 14. Rf2 Bc5  15. Rxf3 Bxf3 16. Ngxf3 Rhe8+ 17. Be2 Qxf3 18. Nxf3 Rxd1+ 19. Kxd1 Nd4 20. Nxd4  Bxd4 21. Bg4+ Kd8 22. Kd2 Bf2 23. Rd1 Bxg3 24. Kc3+ Ke7 25. Rd3 Be5+ 26. Kc4 Kf6  27. b4 Re7 28. Rf3+ Kg6 29. Kd3 h5 30. Bf5+ Kh6 31. Be4 b6 32. a4 f6 33. Rf2 Bg3  34. Rg2 Bxh4 35. Rg6+ Kh7 36. Rxf6+ Kg8 37. Bd5+ Kh8 38. Rf8+ Kh7 39. Be4+ Kh6  40. c4 Bf6 41. Ra8 g5 42. Rxa7 g4 43. b5 g3 44. c5 h4 45. cxb6 cxb6 46. Ra6 Rd7+  47. Ke3 Bg5+ 48. Kf3 Rf7+ 49. Ke2 Rf2+ 50. Ke1 Bd2+ 51. Kd1 Ba5 52. Ra8 Kg5 53.  Rg8+ Kf4 54. Rf8+ Ke3 55. Rxf2 Kxf2 56. Bd5 g2 57. Bxg2 Kxg2 58. Ke2 h3 59. Kd3  h2 60. Ke4 h1=B 61. Ke5 Kf2 62. Kd6 Ke3 63. Kc7 Bd5 64. Kb8 Bb3 65. Ka7 Bxa4 66.  Ka6 Kd4 67. Kb7 Bxb5 68. Ka7 Kc5 69. Kb7 Be8 70. Ka6 Be1 71. Kb7 b5 72. Ka6 b4 73. Ka5 b3+ 74. Ka6 b2 75. Ka7 b1=B 76. Kb7 Bc6+ 77. Ka7 Kd6 78. Kb8 Kd7 79. Ka7 Bf2+ 80. Ka6 Bd3+ 81. Ka5 Be1+ 82. Kb6 Bb4 83. Ka7 Bcb5 84. Kb6 Kc8 85. Ka7 Bc5+ 86. Ka8 Be4#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The computer gives a question mark to my move ‘17... Qxf3?’. Why is this so? The only downside to it is that I lose an exchange, but on the other hand the game becomes more simplified and easier to play. Is the loss of an exchange the reason, or are there other factors at play?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Additionally, why doesn’t the engine suggest 36. Rg4+ to pick up Black’s dark sqaure bishop? And why is 36... Rex4 the best move versus Kg8 or Kh8?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-11-29T19:36:36.877" LastActivityDate="2020-11-29T19:36:36.877" Title="Why doesn’t the computer like my odd queen trade?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;&lt;queens&gt;&lt;captures&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26916" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26915" CreationDate="2019-11-13T04:30:08.623" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;Losing an exchange is itself enough to make the move weak.&#xA;You go from being up R+P for N, which is a winning advantage,&#xA;to up just one pawn with opposite color Bishops, which&#xA;could often be drawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The move is also weak because you let White off the hook:&#xA;you were on the attack against White's exposed King,&#xA;so the trade of Queens made the position &quot;easier to play&quot; -- &#xA;for White.  Instead of giving up material&#xA;just to trade your active Qf6 for White's passive Qd1&#xA;(it has only one move!), try involving the in the attack&#xA;your Nc6 (your only piece not already aiming at the Ke1),&#xA;or trading it for one of White's defenders.&#xA;Either 17...Ne5 or 17...Nd4 should win quickly:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;17 ... Ne5 actually threatens the Nf3: after Nxf3+, both defenders&#xA;(Nd2,Be2) will be pinned.  What's more, the Nf3 itself is &quot;pinned&quot;&#xA;in that if it moves (say 18 Nxe5) then 18 ... Qf2 is mate!&#xA;White has no real defense; if 18 Kf1 then simply Nxf3 19 Bxf3 Rxd2&#xA;20 Qxd2 Qxf3+ and mate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;17 ... Nd4 adds the threat against the Be2; now White can defend&#xA;for a move with 18 Nxd4, but 18 ... Qxd4 restores the threat Qf2#&#xA;and White might as well resign (19 Qc1 Qf2+ 20 Kd1 Qxe2#).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After 36 Rxf6+? Rxe4 simply wins a piece: if 37 Kxe4 then Black takes on f6,&#xA;and if the Rf6 moves then Rxb4.  The alternatives &quot;Kg8 or Kh8&quot;&#xA;are not equivalent: 36 ... Kh8?? would have allowed 37 Rf8#!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8860" LastActivityDate="2019-11-13T04:30:08.623" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26917" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26915" CreationDate="2019-11-13T04:38:02.460" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The computer says you're ahead after the move you played. But you're only up a little, and you ended up with only a rook and opposite-colored bishops along with the pawns. You still have to work for the win; it's not like the extra pawn ices the win for you in the simplified position.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason that the computer considers it a mistake is that you had much better moves you could have played. Most of White's pieces are either on the back rank or pinned, and tactics are all over the place.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Look at 17...Bb4, for example. It hit the pinned knight (and pins it again!) and Qxf3 is a real threat now because that knight can't recapture. If White tries Kf1, the d2 knight falls because the f3 knight becomes pinned. Or, did you consider 17...Rxd2? If Nxd2, Qf2#. If Qxd2, Bb4 pins and wins the queen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Additionally, why doesn’t the engine suggest 36. Rg4+ to pick up Black’s dark sqaure bishop? And why is 36... Rex4 the best move versus Kg8 or Kh8?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After 36.Rg4+ Rxe4 Rxe4, White wins an exchange rather than a bishop. And Black has three connected passed pawns, which will be hard to stop. It still might be the move I'd play, though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After 36.Rxf6+ Rxe4 Black wins the bishop outright. (Obviously not 38...Kh8?? Rf8#.) White can either save his rook or capture Black's; he can't do both. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2019-11-13T04:38:02.460" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26919" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26909" CreationDate="2019-11-13T14:23:13.643" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Something very similar is doubtless encoded into AlphaZero and Leela's neural network evaluators, which are very positional.  Most conventional Minimax engines, by contrast, are stronger at tactics and can therefore search very deeply.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pawn structure is indeed a factor in most of the top engines' evaluation.  This might take the relatively simple form of rewarding connected pawns and penalising isolated and doubled pawns.  The pawn bitboards are mainly a means of recognising when the pawn structure changes (which happens relatively infrequently once established) and recalculating that factor of the evaluation, thereby saving some calculation time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, the pawn structure does not directly lead to the bishop mobility analysis you note in your first example.  This would be deferred to threat and control maps, which would put any of the bishop's legal moves low on the priority list for further analysis, since they leave the bishop on a threatened square with no support.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19281" LastActivityDate="2019-11-13T14:23:13.643" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26920" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-11-13T15:51:14.440" Score="3" ViewCount="1391" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am trying to write a program that will give out every possible move for every piece (one move deep) given the state of a board. I have already done this such that it works with everything except check. It will allow the king to move itself into check, and it will allow a piece to be moved out of the way such that it places the king in check. I can't think of an efficient way of removing these moves from the set of moves I generate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am storing the board as a list of lists, where each list is a row on the board. Black is at the top and white is at the bottom. Lowercase is black, uppercase is white.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P = pawn, R = rook, N = Knight, Q = Queen, K = King.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, the starting board looks like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;board = [[&quot;r&quot;, &quot;n&quot;, &quot;b&quot;, &quot;q&quot;, &quot;k&quot;, &quot;b&quot;, &quot;n&quot;, &quot;r&quot;],&#xA;         [&quot;p&quot;, &quot;p&quot;, &quot;p&quot;, &quot;p&quot;, &quot;p&quot;, &quot;p&quot;, &quot;p&quot;, &quot;p&quot;],&#xA;         [&quot;&quot;, &quot;&quot;, &quot;&quot;, &quot;&quot;, &quot;&quot;, &quot;&quot;, &quot;&quot;, &quot;&quot;],&#xA;         [&quot;&quot;, &quot;&quot;, &quot;&quot;, &quot;&quot;, &quot;&quot;, &quot;&quot;, &quot;&quot;, &quot;&quot;],&#xA;         [&quot;&quot;, &quot;&quot;, &quot;&quot;, &quot;&quot;, &quot;&quot;, &quot;&quot;, &quot;&quot;, &quot;&quot;],&#xA;         [&quot;&quot;, &quot;&quot;, &quot;&quot;, &quot;&quot;, &quot;&quot;, &quot;&quot;, &quot;&quot;, &quot;&quot;],&#xA;         [&quot;P&quot;, &quot;P&quot;, &quot;P&quot;, &quot;P&quot;, &quot;P&quot;, &quot;P&quot;, &quot;P&quot;, &quot;P&quot;],&#xA;         [&quot;R&quot;, &quot;N&quot;, &quot;B&quot;, &quot;Q&quot;, &quot;K&quot;, &quot;B&quot;, &quot;N&quot;, &quot;R&quot;]]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So for example, &lt;code&gt;board[7][2]&lt;/code&gt; is &lt;code&gt;&quot;B&quot;&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The moves are stored as a list of lists, where each sub list contains the current coordinates of the piece and a list of all available moves for said piece.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;[[[1, 0], [[2, 0], [3, 0]]], ...]&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As the pawn at &lt;code&gt;1, 0&lt;/code&gt; can move forward either once or twice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These are then stored in two separate lists, &lt;code&gt;white_moves&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;black_moves&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, I think the best way to prevent the king from moving into check is seeing if any of the moves generated for the king are in the opponent's moves, and then removing them from the king's moves if they are.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Like&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;king_moves = set(king_moves) - set(enemy_moves)&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I can't think of a good way of determining if the movement of one of our pieces will result in the king being exposed and thus in check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: I also need to deal with situations like this&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/NiB8E.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/NiB8E.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20552" LastEditorUserId="20552" LastEditDate="2019-11-13T16:11:39.103" LastActivityDate="2021-04-29T13:57:13.920" Title="Program that will give all available moves given the state of a board, including check" Tags="&lt;programming&gt;&lt;check&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26921" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26920" CreationDate="2019-11-13T16:52:43.003" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;You seem to be writing a move generator.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Conventionally, a set of legal moves is generated by first generating a list of pseudo-legal moves (i.e. all moves which could be made, ignoring the fact that the king needs special treatment) and then filtering out moves which leave the king in check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/blob/master/src/movegen.cpp#L353-L370&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;legal move generator in Stockfish&lt;/a&gt; (one of the strongest chess engines) does exactly this - &lt;code&gt;moveList&lt;/code&gt; is initialised to a list of pseudo-legal moves, which is then iterated over to filter out illegal moves with &lt;code&gt;pos.legal&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can implement the detection of legal moves by simply 'making the move' (creating a board state after the move) and then checking if any piece attacks the king, though of course more efficient implementations are possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10075" LastActivityDate="2019-11-13T16:52:43.003" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26922" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26906" CreationDate="2019-11-14T01:57:49.567" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's a lot of ways to describe the position (such as closed) but no specific name. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How to play in the position- &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) First of all you want to make favorable minor piece exchanges. Generally knights are going to be better in these types of structures especially if they can find advanced outposts. White's g2 bishop is an example of a &quot;bad&quot; bishop and is practically worthless in the given position. White should either trade it or make it active. If, for example, the bishop were on f5 it would be a much more active piece. But since there isn't any way to to improve its mobility without a significant change in pawn structure, white should be looking to trade the bishop and black to avoid the trade at all costs. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) Exploit the weak squares- weak squares are those that can't be defended by pawns. In this case white is weak on the dark squares so black should look to trade for white's dark square bishop and place his pieces on the undefended dark squares. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) Pawn breaks- Both sides should be looking for pawn breaks. Rooks are completely useless without open or semi-open files. The only real pawn break here for both sides is the h-file. (although black might be able to pull something off with c6 followed by d5). Both sides should looking to move their heavy pieces to control the h-file since once the break is made you need to be able to control the open file. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4) Attack the base of the pawn chain- In this case there is no true base but black should be looking to attack the pawns that can't be defended by other pawns (ie backward) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I were black I'd be looking at a plan like Qf7 followed by Ne7. Then looking at the minor pieces and pawn breaks. From e7 the knight can go to c6 supporting the d4 knight or g6 eyeing both h4 and f4. Black's heavy pieces can also swing to the h-file very quickly. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I were white I would try to develop and coordinate my pieces, then make some favorable exchanges and try to reach an equal game. a5 looking to pressure the b-pawn looks like it could be feasible at some point but white probably needs to coordinate his pieces better first.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2019-11-14T01:57:49.567" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26923" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5934" CreationDate="2019-11-14T02:30:57.317" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, an off-beat opening like this isn't going to help you improve. You might get some cheap wins but you aren't learning anything. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I've never seen this gambit and am fairly intrigued by it. The natural moves that you're likely to see (e5,Nc3,d3) score really bad for white. White can only really play 3.exf5 after which 3...d5 wins the pawn back, gives black an equal share of the center and a lead in development. The resulting pawn structure reminds of a mirror-image Boleslavsky structure in the Sicilian in that black could get receive a very good endgame if he could get e5 in and trade it for white's d-pawn. I'm not sure how all the tactics work out (especially after 5. Bb5) but it looks interesting enough to take a look at especially given how little theory there is in 1...Nc6. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2019-11-14T02:30:57.317" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26924" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26903" CreationDate="2019-11-14T03:07:01.170" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;After 13...c5 white had a pretty big advantage. After that there are wide swings between both sides for the rest of the game with the advantage changing 6 times. That means the opening had zero effect on the outcome of the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That being said, 8. Ne5 was a pretty weak move. After 8...Qd4 how are you going to both protect the knight and prevent black playing Bc5 threatening mate? 9. f4 is the only reasonable answer but white is struggling at point. Black has a strong initiative and white is playing for equality. Better is either 7. Qe2 or 8. Qe2. In both cases, white is eliminating the threat of capturing the knight by pinning the pawn and creating his own threat by bringing two pieces (and potentially a third w/Ng5) against black's pawn which is only defended once. Since the f8 bishop is dark squared it can't develop and defend the pawn at the same time. Black is forced to either develop and get his king to safety (losing the pawn) or try and protect the pawn which will likely leave him with an overextended attack and lagging behind in development. Long story short, after Qe2 white has the initiative and an advantage but after 8. Ne5 is handing over the initiative and struggling for equality.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2019-11-14T03:07:01.170" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26925" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8329" CreationDate="2019-11-14T03:13:42.450" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here’s &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1100774&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;another&lt;/a&gt; fantastic game where Black sacficed all four minor pieces, almost in sucession, in order to get a checkmate!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Glucksberg-Miguel Najdorf. Warsaw Poland, 1929, ‘The Polish Immortal’&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[startply &quot;25&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 f5 2.c4 Nf6 3.Nc3 e6 4.Nf3 d5 5.e3 c6 6.Bd3 Bd6 7.O-O O-O 8.Ne2 Nbd7 9.Ng5 Bxh2+ 10.Kh1 Ng4 11.f4 Qe8 12.g3 Qh5 13.Kg2 Bg1 14.Nxg1 Qh2+ 15.Kf3 e5 16.dxe5 Ndxe5+ 17.fxe5 Nxe5+ 18.Kf4 Ng6+ 19.Kf3 f4 20.exf4 Bg4+ 21.Kxg4 Ne5+ 22.fxe5 h5#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastActivityDate="2019-11-14T03:13:42.450" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26926" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16306" CreationDate="2019-11-14T03:30:01.290" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;A first book should give you a very broad understanding. While some books that cover specific areas (like tactics books) might be excellent 2nd or 3rd books, they don't cover the entire game. Other books (like Chernev's) give great examples but don't explain the fundamentals of getting there. That would be like getting a collection of brilliantly solved math problems but no explanation of how to add and subtract. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My recommendation would be Learn Chess: A Complete Course by C. H. O'D. Alexander. I admit the book may be hard to read because of its tedious British style but it literally takes you from how the pieces move to some fairly advanced middle-game concepts that I rarely see covered outside of books that are aimed from the 2000+ crowd. If you read that book and play through it I have no doubt you will be an above average player and win more games than you lose. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you don't like that recommendation, at least look at books that cover the entire game at a very basic level. I'll add the Chessmaster software series is very good too.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2019-11-14T03:30:01.290" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26927" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6434" CreationDate="2019-11-14T03:51:00.677" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;On a similar note, here is a &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.yacpdb.org/#327955&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;pretty problem&lt;/a&gt; forces Black to take all eight pieces and two pawns in order to give checkmate with the last pawn!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Julio César Infantozzi, Mate In 16 Moves&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;R1n2N2/4pk1B/2Q1r2B/2K2b2/Rr1n2P1/1q1P1PP1/4N2b/8 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Qe8+ Kxe8 2. Rxc8+ Kf7 3. Bg8+ Kxg8 4. Ng6+ Kh7 5. Rh8+ Kxg6 6. Nf4+ Kf6 7. Rf8+ Ke5 8. Bg7+ Rf6 9. Bxf6+ exf6 10. Re8+ Ne6+ 11. Rxe6+ Qxe6 12. Ng6+ Bxg6  13. f4+ Rxf4 14. gxf4+ Bxf4 15. Re4+ Bxe4 16. d4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Additionally, I found another problem in a Dutch &lt;a href=&quot;https://timkr.home.xs4all.nl/admag/woest.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;article by Tim Krabbe&lt;/a&gt; where White gives away four queens, two rooks, and two knights to also give mate with the last pawn. The most heaviest bag of material sacrificed in a chess problem ever!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Mate in 13 Moves, Gerhad Josten, Tim Krabbe “ONSTERFELIJKE WOESTHEID”, 2000&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;1q4r1/1bp2pQ1/3Q4/1Kp1pr2/1n1pkp1p/RQ1RN3/nbnP4/QN6 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Kc4 cxd6 2. Nc3+ Nxc3 3. Qh1+ f3 4. Qxh4+ Rf4 5. Qhh7+ f5 6. Qxb7+ Qxb7 7.  Qxb7+ d5+ 8. Qxd5+ Ncxd5 9. Nxd5 Nxd5 10. Re3+ Ncxe3+ 11. Qxe3+ Nxe3+ 12. Rxe3+  dxe3 13. d3#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-09-02T22:12:30.843" LastActivityDate="2020-09-02T22:12:30.843" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26928" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="571" CreationDate="2019-11-14T04:44:21.277" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I could give you a meaningless answer with lots of mindless fluff and diagrams that fail to answer what you're actually asking. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or I could give you a very simple answer quoted from the greatest player of all time that gets right to the point: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Concentrate on material gains. Whatever your opponent gives you take, unless you see a good reason not to.&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;RJF&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To elaborate on what Fischer said, If you refuse material without understanding why, you will become one of those players who are still stuck at 1200 after tens of thousands of games played because you sit back and do nothing the entire game never improving and never understanding why. However, if you take the material you will either be rewarded for calculating correctly or you will get a lesson from a much stronger player. Either way you will improve. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2019-11-14T04:44:21.277" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26929" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26931" CreationDate="2019-11-14T13:57:24.620" Score="3" ViewCount="311" Body="&lt;p&gt;I suspect the following game in the European Club Champioship between David Howell and Pentala Harikrishna set a number of records.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[title &quot;Howell, David W L vs Harikrishna, Pentala&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. Bb5+ Nc6 4. O-O Bd7 5. Re1 a6 6. Bxc6 Bxc6 7. d4 cxd4 8. Nxd4 Nf6 9. Nxc6 bxc6 10. c4 e6 11. Nc3 Be7 12. b3 Nd7 13. Be3 c5 14. Bf4 Qc7 15. Qd2 Rd8 16. Rad1 Ne5 17. Bxe5 dxe5 18. Qc2 O-O 19. Rxd8 Rxd8 20. Rd1 Rd4 21. Ne2 Rxd1+ 22. Qxd1 Qa5 23. a4 Qb4 24. g3 g6 25. Kg2 Kf8 26. Qd3 Qb7 27. Ng1 f5 28. f3 Ke8 29. Nh3 Qd7 30. Qxd7+ Kxd7 31. Nf2 Bd6 32. Nd3 Kc6 33. Kh3 a5 34. Kg2 Kd7 35. Kf2 Kc6 36. Ke2 Bc7 37. Nf2 Bd8 38. Nd1 Bg5 39. Nc3 Bc1 40. Nd1 Kd6 41. Kf1 Bd2 42. Ke2 Bc1 43. Kf1 Bd2 44. Kg2 Ke7 45. Kh3 Kd6 46. Nf2 Be3 47. Nd3 Bg5 48. Kg2 Be3 49. Kh3 Bg5 50. Kg2 Be3 51. g4 Bg5 52. Kg3 f4+ 53. Kf2 Bd8 54. Kg2 g5 55. Kh1 Bc7 56. Kg1 Kc6 57. Kf1 Bd6 58. Ke1 Bc7 59. Kd1 Bd6 60. Kc1 Bc7 61. Kb1 Bd6 62. Ka1 Bc7 63. Ka2 Bd6 64. Kb2 Bc7 65. Kc2 Bd6 66. Kd2 Bc7 67. Ke2 Bd6 68. Kf2 Bc7 69. Kg2 Bd6 70. Nf2 Be7 71. Nh1 Bd6 72. Kh3 Be7 73. Nf2 Bd6 74. Nd1 Be7 75. Nc3 Bd6 76. Nb5 Be7 77. Na7+ Kb7 78. Nb5 Kc6 79. Kg2 Bf8 80. Na3 Bd6 81. Nc2 Bc7 82. Na1 Bd6 83. Kh1 Bc7 84. Kg2 Bd6 85. Kf1 Bc7 86. Ke2 Bd6 87. Kd1 Bc7 88. Kc2 Bd8 89. Kc1 Bc7 90. Nc2 Bd6 91. Kb2 Be7 92. Ne1 Bd6 93. Ka3 Be7 94. Ka2 Bd6 95. Nd3 Bc7 96. Nf2 Bd6 97. Ka1 Be7 98. Kb2 Bd6 99. Kb1 Be7 100. Kc2 Bd6 101. Kd3 Be7 102. Ke2 Bd6 103. Kf1 Be7 104. h3 Bd6 105. Kg2 Be7 106. Nd3 Bd6 107. Kf2 Bc7 108. Ke2 Bd6 109. Kd2 Bc7 110. Kc2 Bd6 111. Kb2 Bc7 112. Ka2 Bd6 113. Ka1 Bc7 114. Kb1 Bd6 115. Kc1 Bc7 116. Kd1 Bd6 117. Ke1 Bc7 118. Kf1 Bd6 119. Kg1 Bc7 120. Kh1 Bd6 121. Nc1 Bc7 122. Na2 Bd6 123. Nc3 Be7 124. Nb5 Bf8 125. Na7+ Kb7 126. Nb5 Kc6 127. Kg1 Be7 128. Kf1 Bf8 129. Ke1 Be7 130. Kd1 Bf8 131. Kc1 Be7 132. Na3 Bd6 133. Nc2 Be7 134. Kd2 Bd6 135. Ke2 Be7 136. Kf2 Bd6 137. Kg2 Be7 138. Kh2 Bd6 139. Na1 Be7 140. Nc2 Bd6 141. Ne1 Be7 142. Nd3 Bd6 143. Nb2 Be7 144. Kh1 Bd6 145. Kg2 Be7 146. Nd1 Bd6 147. Nf2 Be7 148. Kg1 Bd6 149. Kh1 Be7 150. Kg2 Bd6 151. Kh2 Be7 152. Nd3 Bd6 153. h4 h6 154. Kh3 Bc7 155. Kg2 Bd6 156. Kf1 Bc7 157. Kg2 Bd6 158. Ne1 Be7 159. Kh3 Bd6 160. Kh2 Be7 161. Ng2 Bd8 162. Kh3 Be7 163. Kh2 Bd8 164. Kh3 Be7 165. h5 Bd8 166. Kh2 Be7 167. Kh1 Bd8 168. Kg1 Be7 169. Kf1 Bd8 170. Ke1 Be7 171. Kd1 Bd6 172. Kc1 Be7 173. Kb1 Bd6 174. Ka1 Be7 175. Ne1 Bd6 176. Nd3 Bc7 177. Nf2 Bd6 178. Nh3 Be7 179. Ka2 Kd6 180. Kb2 Kc6 181. Kc2 Kd6 182. Kd2 Kc6 183. Ke2 Kd6 184. Kf2 Kc6 185. Kg2 Kd6 186. Kh2 Kc6 187. Nf2 Bd6 188. Nd3 Bc7 189. Kh3 Bd6 190. Kg2 Bc7 191. Kf1 Bd6 192. Ke2 Bc7 193. Kd1 Bd6 194. Kc2 Bc7 195. Kb1 Bd6 196. Ka2 Bc7 197. Kb2 Bd6 198. Kc1 Bc7 199. Kc2 Bd6 200. b4 cxb4 201. Kb3 Bc7 202. c5 Bb8 203. Kc4 Bc7 204. Nc1 Bd8 205. Nb3 Bc7 206. Kd3 Bd8 207. Ke2 Bc7 208. Kf1 Bd8 209. Kg2 Bc7 210. Kh1 Bd8 211. Kh2 Bc7 212. Kg1 Bd8 213. Kf2 Bc7 214. Ke1 Bd8 215. Kd2 Bc7 216. Kc1 Bd8 217. Kb2 Bc7 218. Ka1 Bd8 219. Ka2 Bc7 220. Kb1 Bd8 221. Kc2 Bc7 222. Kd1 Bd8 223. Ke2 Bc7 224. Kd3 Bd8 225. Kc4 Bc7 226. Nc1 Bd8 227. Nd3 Bc7 228. Kb3 Bb8 229. Ka2 Bc7 230. Ka1 Bb8 231. Ka2 Bc7 232. Kb1 Bb8 233. Kc2 Bc7 234. Kb2 Bb8 235. Kc1 Bc7 236. Kd1 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Starting from move 79 Harikrishna moved his bishop 46 times consecutively. Is this a record for a FIDE rated standard time control game?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a follow up: By my reckoning (please correct me in the comments if I'm wrong) Harikrishna moved this bishop a total of 192 times. Is this also a record for a FIDE rated standard time control game?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-11-14T18:19:43.757" LastActivityDate="2020-04-06T15:46:44.170" Title="Longest sequence of moves by one player with the same piece?" Tags="&lt;fide&gt;&lt;famous-games&gt;&lt;records&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26931" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26929" CreationDate="2019-11-14T18:02:36.803" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The record for most consecutive moves by a piece in a FIDE rated (it's FIDE at the least) event is &lt;strong&gt;80 moves by a rook&lt;/strong&gt;, starting on move 67. It happened in the game &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1417562&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yueh Wei Po- Arora&lt;/a&gt; during the 37th Chess Olympiad. It was a draw in the end. This record is on Tim Krabbe's page for chess records of course.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [Title &quot;Yueh Wei Po-Arora, 37th Chess Olympiad, Turin Italy, 6/2/2006&quot;] &#xA; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA; [startply &quot;133&quot;] &#xA;&#xA;1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 Bg7 4. e4 d6 5. Nf3 Bg4 6. Be2 O-O 7. O-O Bxf3 8. Bxf3 c6 9. Be3 Nbd7 10. Qd2 Qc7 11. a4 a5 12. Be2 e5 13. dxe5 Nxe5 14. f4 Neg4 15. Bxg4 Nxg4 16. Bd4 f5 17. Bxg7 Kxg7 18. Qd4+ Kg8 19. Rad1 Rad8 20. exf5 gxf5 21. h3 Nf6 22. Rfe1 d5 23. cxd5 Nxd5 24. Nxd5 Rxd5 25. Qc4 Qf7 26. Rxd5 cxd5 27. Qd4 Rc8 28. Rd1 Rc4 29. Qxd5 Qxd5 30. Rxd5 Rxf4 31. Rxa5 Rb4 32. Rb5 Rxa4 33. Rxb7 Rd4 34. Kf2 Rd3 35. Ke2 Rg3 36. Kf2 Rd3 37. b4 Rb3 38. b5 Kh8 39. b6 Kg8 40. g3 h6 41. h4 Kh8 42. Rb8+ Kg7 43. b7 Kh7 44. Ke2 Kg7 45. Kd2 Kh7 46. Kc2 Rb4 47. Kc3 Rb1 48. Kc4 Kg7 49. Kd5 Rb3 50. Ke5 Rb5+ 51. Kd6 Rb3 52. Kc7 Rc3+ 53. Kb6 Rb3+ 54. Kc5 Rb1 55. Kc4 Rb2 56. Kc3 Rb1 57. Kc2 Rb4 58. Kc3 Rb1 59. Kd4 Rb2 60. Ke5 Rb5+ 61. Ke6 Kh7 62. Kf6 h5 63. Kg5 Kg7 64. Kxh5 f4+ 65. Kg4 fxg3 66. Kxg3 Kh7 67. Kg4 Rb4+ 68. Kg5 Rb5+ 69. Kf6 Rb6+ 70. Ke7 Rb4 71. Kd7 Rb2 72. Kc7 Rc2+ 73. Kb6 Rb2+ 74. Kc5 Rb1 75. Kc4 Rb2 76. Kc3 Rb1 77. Kc2 Rb4 78. Kc3 Rb1 79. Kd4 Rb2 80. Ke5 Rb1 81. Kf6 Rb6+ 82. Kf7 Rb1 83. Ke7 Re1+ 84. Kd6 Rd1+ 85. Kc5 Rc1+ 86. Kb4 Rb1+ 87. Ka5 Ra1+ 88. Kb4 Rb1+ 89. Ka3 Rb5 90. Ka2 Rb4 91. Ka3 Rb1 92. Ka4 Rb2 93. Ka5 Rb1 94. Ka6 Ra1+ 95. Kb6 Rb1+ 96. Kc7 Rc1+ 97. Kd8 Rd1+ 98. Ke8 Re1+ 99. Kf8 Rf1+ 100. Ke7 Re1+ 101. Kf6 Rf1+ 102. Kg5 Rb1 103. Kf6 Rb6+ 104. Kg5 Rb5+ 105. Kg4 Rb4+ 106. Kf3 Rb3+ 107. Ke4 Rb4+ 108. Ke5 Rb1 109. Kd4 Rb2 110. Kc3 Rb6 111. Kc4 Rb1 112. Kd4 Rb4+ 113. Kc5 Rb2 114. h5 Rb1 115. Kd5 Rb2 116. Ke6 Rb1 117. Kf6 Rb6+ 118. Kg5 Rb5+ 119. Kg4 Rb4+ 120. Kf5 Rb5+ 121. Kf4 Rb4+ 122. Kg3 Rb3+ 123. Kf2 Rb2+ 124. Ke3 Rb3+ 125. Ke2 Rb2+ 126. Kd3 Rb3+ 127. Kd4 Rb4+ 128. Kc3 Rb1 129. Kd4 Rb2 130. Ke3 Rb1 131. Kf2 Rb2+ 132. Kf3 Rb3+ 133. Ke2 Rb2+ 134. Kd3 Rb1 135. Kd4 Rb2 136. Ke5 Rb1 137. Kf6 Rb6+ 138. Kf5 Rb5+ 139. Ke6 Rb4 140. Rf8 Rxb7 141. Rf5 Ra7 142. Kf6 Rb7 143. Kg5 Ra7 144. h6 Rb7 145. Kh5 Ra7 146. Rg5 Rb7 147. Rc6 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-06T15:46:44.170" LastActivityDate="2020-04-06T15:46:44.170" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26932" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26595" CreationDate="2019-11-14T22:46:21.183" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found a &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1899420&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;game&lt;/a&gt; in which AlphaZero wins the game mostly due to the major activity of the knights in the middlegame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Jeremy, from ChessNetwork, made a &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UN5ZFQv21mw&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;great anaylsis&lt;/a&gt; on the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;AlphaZero-Stockfish, London England, 2017&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nf3 b6 4. g3 Bb7 5. Bg2 Bb4+ 6. Bd2 Bxd2+ 7. Qxd2 d5 8. O-O O-O 9. cxd5 exd5 10. Nc3 Nbd7  11. b4 c6 12. Qb2 a5 13. b5 c5 14. Rac1 Qe7 15. Na4 Rab8 16. Rfd1 c4 17. Ne5 Qe6 18. f4 Rfd8 19. Qd2 Nf8 20. Nc3 Ng6 21. Rf1 Qd6 22. a4 Rbc8 23. e3 Ne7 24. g4 Ne8 25. f5 f6 26. Nf3 Qd7 27. Qf2 Nd6 28. Nd2 Rf8 29. Qg3 Rcd8 30. Rf4 Nf7 31. Rf2 Rfe8 32. h3 Qd6 33. Nf1 Qa3 34. Rcc2 h5 35. Qc7 Qd6 36. Qxd6 Rxd6 37. Ng3 h4 38. Nh5 Ng5 39. Rf1 Kh7 40. Nf4 Rdd8 41. Kh2 Rd7 42. Bh1 Rd6 43. Ng2 g6 44. Nxh4 gxf5 45. gxf5 Rh8 46. Nf3 Kg7 47. Nxg5 fxg5 48. Rg2 Kf6 49. Rg3 Re8 50. Bf3 Rdd8 51. Be2 Rf8 52. Bg4 Nc8 53. Bf3 Rfe8 54. h4 Rh8 55. h5 Rhe8 56. Bg2 Ne7 57. h6 Rh8 58. Rh3 Rh7 59. Kg1 Ba8 60. Nd1 g4 61. Rh5 g3 62. Nc3 Ng8 63. Ne2 Rxh6 64. Nxg3 Rxh5 65. Nxh5+ Kf7 66. Kf2 Nf6 67. Nxf6 Kxf6 68. Rh1 c3 69. Rc1 Rh8 70. Rxc3 Kxf5 71. Rc7 Kf6 72. Bf3 Rg8 73. Rh7 Rg6 74. Bd1 Rg8 75. Rh6+ Ke7 76. Rxb6 Kd7 77. Rf6 Ke7 78. Rh6 Rg7 79. Rh8 Bb7 80. Rh5 Kd6 81. Rh3 Rf7+ 82. Ke1 Bc8 83. Rh6+ Kc7 84. Rc6+ Kb8 85. Rd6 Bb7 86. b6 Ba6 87. Rxd5 Rf6 88. Rxa5 Rxb6 89. Kd2 Bb7 90. Rb5 Rf6 91. Bb3 Kc7 92. Re5 Ba6 93. Kc3 Rf1 94. Bc2 Rh1 95. a5 Kd6 96. e4 Bf1 97. Rf5 Bg2 98. Rf4 Rc1 99. Kb2 Rh1 100. a6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-05-31T23:50:59.823" LastActivityDate="2020-05-31T23:50:59.823" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26933" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26950" CreationDate="2019-11-15T08:23:59.803" Score="28" ViewCount="6485" Body="&lt;p&gt;Suppose all the pieces are on the board. Does there exist a position such that &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A) one of the players can't make any move (a stalemate)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B) neither player can make any move (a double stalemate)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20563" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-05T01:11:21.007" LastActivityDate="2020-04-05T01:11:21.007" Title="Stalemate situation with all pieces on the board" Tags="&lt;problems&gt;&lt;stalemate&gt;&lt;mathematics&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26934" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26933" CreationDate="2019-11-15T09:10:03.017" Score="55" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/stalemate-on-move-12-with-all-the-pieces-on-the-board&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Here&lt;/a&gt; is an example of a 12-move game after which White (to move) is stalemated. All 32 units (pieces and pawns) are still on the board. The original version of this concept game was created by Charles Henry Wheeler, and published in Sunny South in 1887, according to &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/winter08.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Edward Winter's C.N. 3679&lt;/a&gt;. Samuel Loyd is often, and wrongly, given credit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 e5 2.Qd2 e4 3.Qf4 f5 4.h3 Bb4+ 5.Nd2 d6 6.Qh2 Be6 7.a4 Qh4 8.Ra3 c5 9.Rg3 f4 10.f3 Bb3 11.d5 Ba5 12.c4 e3 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10380" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-11-20T13:00:59.153" LastActivityDate="2019-11-20T13:00:59.153" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26935" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26933" CreationDate="2019-11-15T10:13:34.390" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;To answer the second part of your question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Suppose all figures are on the board. Does there exist a transposition of figures such that both of the opponents can't do any move (a stalemate)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No, this is not possible. Pieces are simply too mobile for this, so for a stalemate you need to hem them in (like the white queen in @RosieF's answer) or pin them on the king. You cannot use pins for a double stalemate, since that would imply the pinning piece can move and it's not stalemate for the other player. (That piece could be pinned itself, but there's no way to make a circular pin.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2019-11-15T10:13:34.390" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26936" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26933" CreationDate="2019-11-15T12:38:29.167" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;The question has two parts to it, and Rosie F perfectly answers the first part. Regarding &lt;strong&gt;only&lt;/strong&gt; the &lt;strong&gt;second part&lt;/strong&gt;, the question asks for any possible position where all 32 pieces are stalemated, disregarding legality of such positions. @im_so_meta_even_this_acronym's wonderful answer proves that it indeed possible.&#xA;However, I want to focus specifically on only legal positions just for fun. I thank @TonyK and many others for helping contribute to the quality of my answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Speaking specifically about legal positions the &lt;strong&gt;best possible&lt;/strong&gt; answer is that 32 pieces cannot be stalemated.  The &lt;strong&gt;known&lt;/strong&gt; maximum number of pieces that can be &lt;strong&gt;legally&lt;/strong&gt; stalemated is &lt;strong&gt;30&lt;/strong&gt;.  I have two examples. Remember, these are just &lt;strong&gt;records&lt;/strong&gt;, with the ability to be improved upon.  Please do try to understand that I am not contradicting any other answers-I am delving into a &lt;strong&gt;single area&lt;/strong&gt; that no other answer covers (i.e. I am speaking of &lt;strong&gt;only&lt;/strong&gt; mutual &lt;strong&gt;legal&lt;/strong&gt; stalemates. &lt;strong&gt;Illegal&lt;/strong&gt; positions with 32 pieces have been proven to exist in another answer.) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I found the below first position &lt;a href=&quot;https://pdb.dieschwalbe.de/search.jsp?expression=probid=%27P0002838%27&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;30 Stalemated Pieces, Gustavus Charles Reichhelm Brentano's Monthly 01/1882&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;rqrb4/nbk1p3/p1p1P3/PpP3p1/1P3pPp/3p1P1P/3P1KBN/4BRQR w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;@Laska also &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/18945/mutual-stalemate&quot;&gt;found&lt;/a&gt; another legal position that has 30 stalemated pieces, with a promoted piece.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;brnbKRRN/qnk1pBN1/rb1pPpPp/p1pP1P1P/PpP5/1P6/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I do suppose that it would need to proven that 30 it is the maximum under the particular &lt;strong&gt;condition&lt;/strong&gt; that I have chosen. I have two &quot;&lt;strong&gt;&quot;semi-proofs&quot;&lt;/strong&gt; that illustrate that it just might be the limit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Firstly, all pawns must be spread across the board, facing each other through the 2nd to 7th ranks. The only way to really block pieces in is to use the king, and the pawn arrangements that can be used to block the king &lt;strong&gt;and&lt;/strong&gt; the pieces is very limited. The 1882 position does this extremely well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Take a look at the two following &lt;a href=&quot;https://pdb.dieschwalbe.de/search.jsp?expression=probid=%27P1182050%27or%20probid=%27P1106809%27&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;positions.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Edgar Fielder, British Chess Magazine, 1938, Only 1 Out Of 32 Pieces Can Move&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;brn1BRRB/qknQpKNp/rb1pPp1N/p1pP1PpP/P1P3P1/1p6/1P6/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Thomas R. Dawson, The Chess Amateur 1923, Only Two Possible Moves For All 32 Pieces&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;qrrb2n1/nbk1p3/p1p1Pp1p/PpP2P1P/1P1p4/BK1P2p1/QRB3P1/NRN5 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These two problems show just how constrained possible pawn structures can be. Finding one that prevents all possible moves is a tough task. The 1882 position does this very nicely, with only two knights left out of the fun. While it is not definitive, it &lt;strong&gt;almost&lt;/strong&gt; certainly shows that 30 is the limit for a legal position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Secondly, if you want an authoritative source for 30 for the record, as late as 2013, even Anatoly Karpov gave the the &lt;strong&gt;1882&lt;/strong&gt; as the record in his book &lt;a href=&quot;https://books.google.com/books?id=Exq_CAAAQBAJ&amp;amp;pg=RA3-PA28&amp;amp;lpg=RA3-PA28&amp;amp;dq=mutual+stalemate+with+all+pieces&amp;amp;source=bl&amp;amp;ots=HYJGizVDPF&amp;amp;sig=ACfU3U15thrKMjw9BOQcoO9e2o_JljpDuQ&amp;amp;hl=en&amp;amp;sa=X&amp;amp;ved=2ahUKEwjV_IGSp_LlAhUuHjQIHTEOBiU4ChDoATAJegQICRAB#v=snippet&amp;amp;q=Only%20two%20knights%20have%20left%20the%20board.&amp;amp;f=false&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Finding The Right Plan&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He does give this nice proof game for it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Nf3 Nc6 2. Nc3 Nf6 3. Nb5 Ng4 4. h3 a6 5. Na7 Nh2 6. Rxh2 Rxa7 7. g4 b5 8. Bg2 Bb7 9. e4 d5 10. Ke2 Kd7 11. Qg1 Qb8 12. b4 g5 13. Bb2 Bg7 14. Rf1 Rc8 15.  Bd4 Be5 16. Rh1 Ra8 17. Nh2 Na7 18. f3 c6 19. Bf2 Bc7 20. Be1 Bd8 21. Kf2 Kc7  22. a4 h5 23. a5 h4 24. c4 f5 25. c5 f4 26. e5 d4 27. e6 d3 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Feel free to tell my of any more &quot;semi-proof/proof&quot; that can be added to this list.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-11-18T20:25:43.157" LastActivityDate="2019-11-18T20:25:43.157" CommentCount="14" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26938" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26939" CreationDate="2019-11-15T20:08:29.283" Score="5" ViewCount="458" Body="&lt;p&gt;I received the &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/training/61506&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;following tactics puzzle&lt;/a&gt; on lichess.org. Even though, I ended up solving it correctly, I am still not clear about the move &lt;code&gt;2. Ng5&lt;/code&gt;, because this loses the Queen. What prevents &lt;code&gt;2. Qe2&lt;/code&gt;, which would save the White Queen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;lichess puzzle 61506&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;rn2k3/1b1p1p1N/4pBrb/qp2P3/3P3P/pP1Q4/P4PP1/R2K1B1R b q - 2 19&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Be4 2. Ng5 Bxd3 (2. Qe2 *)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20569" LastEditorUserId="7147" LastEditDate="2019-11-15T21:57:03.547" LastActivityDate="2019-11-16T02:47:50.493" Title="What is White's motivation to give up the Queen?" Tags="&lt;puzzles&gt;&lt;lichess&gt;&lt;forced-move&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26939" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26938" CreationDate="2019-11-15T20:45:08.380" Score="5" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What prevents 2. Qe2, which would save the White Queen?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White's problem is the mating threats from the bishop battery and queen after Qc3. For instance:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;lichess puzzle 61506&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;rn2k3/1b1p1p1N/4pBrb/qp2P3/3P3P/pP1Q4/P4PP1/R2K1B1R b q - 2 19&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Be4 2. Qe2 Qc3 3. Rb1 Qxd4+ 4. Ke1 Qc3+ 5. Kd1 Bxb1 6. Bg5 Rxg5 7. hxg5 Bxh7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and White is lots of material down and still facing mate threats (Qa1)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-11-15T23:21:04.290" LastActivityDate="2019-11-15T23:21:04.290" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26940" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26938" CreationDate="2019-11-16T02:47:50.493" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The other &quot;motivation&quot; is that it is simply the best move per the computer, that is if a computer can have a &quot;motivation&quot;, per se. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That is a problem with tactics problems on Lichess, Chess.com, and ChessBase.com...they often do not take into consideration the best human response, which may be harder for the human to see to the end, but the eval is not as good to the computer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That happens a lot in their tactics problems. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2019-11-16T02:47:50.493" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26941" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26942" CreationDate="2019-11-16T06:08:11.303" Score="11" ViewCount="2288" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was playing on chesstempo and came across the following setup:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;k1r4r/p6p/5p2/3Q4/1R5P/PPqn4/3N1P2/1K1R4 b - - 1 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With black to move. I was unable to solve this tactic - it seemed to me the best move was to place the queen on b2. In my mind this was mate. The queen is defended by the knight on d3 so the king could not escape.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, the tactic said this was the wrong move. I ran it through chessbase and it was the same result.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why is queen to b2 the wrong move here? The correct move was rook to c6, but I have no idea why.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17358" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-11-16T09:06:28.563" LastActivityDate="2019-12-06T10:54:28.547" Title="Beginner Tactics - Why Isn't This Mate?" Tags="&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;beginner&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26942" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26941" CreationDate="2019-11-16T06:22:17.490" Score="16" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;1...Qb2&lt;/code&gt; is not a legal move because black is in check; &lt;code&gt;1...Rc6&lt;/code&gt; blocks the check. Another alternative to block the check is &lt;code&gt;1...Qc6&lt;/code&gt;, but that would drop the knight on &lt;code&gt;d3&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;k1r4r/p6p/5p2/3Q4/1R5P/PPqn4/3N1P2/1K1R4 b - - 1 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Rc6 (1... Qc6 2. Qxd3)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="307" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-11-16T09:09:48.440" LastActivityDate="2019-11-16T09:09:48.440" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26943" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26941" CreationDate="2019-11-16T09:18:50.443" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Black is in check, so Black is forced to deal with that first.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black can't move out of check and can't take the checking piece so their only option is to block it. If Black blocks it with the Queen (Qc6) then White can take their knight which ends the immediate checkmate threat and leaves White up on material.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If Black blocks it with the rook (Rc6) then White still has to deal with the checkmate threats by Qb2 and Qc2. It seems to me that all White's options from this point result in a loss of material for White.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If (after Black plays Rc6) White use their rook or queen to check Black on their back rank then Black just captures the attacker with their rook. This leaves Black up on material and does nothing about the checkmate threat. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If White captures Black's rook with their queen (Qxc6+) then Black captures their queen with theirs (Qxc6). White gave up their queen in exchange for Black's rook.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Rc4 by White blocks the threat of mate by Qc2 but does nothing about the threat of mate by Qb2, so that doesn't help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nc4 by White mitigates the immediate threat of mate, but Black can capture their rook with their knight (Nxb4) reinstating the threat of a mate by Qc2. To stop that threat White pretty much has to capture Black's knight with their pawn (axb4).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8888" LastEditorUserId="10380" LastEditDate="2019-12-06T10:54:28.547" LastActivityDate="2019-12-06T10:54:28.547" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26944" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="302" CreationDate="2019-11-16T22:40:18.060" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Steer the game into positions you like. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The exchange French is not drawish below master level. White can unbalance the position with c4. Plus, French players hate seeing the exchange as much as you hate seeing the French so there's a psychological advantage too. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Alapin Sicilian leads to similar pawn structures but is extremely sound and very active for white. Engines love the Alapin. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The best advice though is to beat the openings you hate and in that way encourage the opponent to choose new openings. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2019-11-16T22:40:18.060" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26945" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2019-11-16T22:45:18.060" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;This tag is for questions asking about or revolving around unorthodox pieces, otherwise known as &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairy_chess_piece&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&quot;fairy pieces&quot;&lt;/a&gt;. Some common examples of such pieces include but are not limited to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_(chess)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&quot;amazon&quot;&lt;/a&gt;, a queen+knight compound;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princess_(chess)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&quot;archbishop&quot;&lt;/a&gt;, a bishop+knight compound also commonly called a &quot;princess&quot; and sometimes a &quot;cardinal&quot; or &quot;janus&quot;;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empress_(chess)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&quot;chancellor&quot;&lt;/a&gt;, a rook+knight compound also commonly called an &quot;empress&quot; or &quot;marshal&quot;;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nightrider_(chess)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&quot;nightrider&quot;&lt;/a&gt;, a piece which may make multiple knight-steps (n2-1 steps) in the same direction in one move as long as the landing squares along the way are unobstructed;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mann_(chess)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&quot;mann&quot;&lt;/a&gt;, a piece which moves exactly as the king does but is not counted as royal (cannot be checked or checkmated and may move into an attacked square) and also commonly called a &quot;commoner&quot; or &quot;guard&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16577" LastEditorUserId="16577" LastEditDate="2019-11-16T22:58:41.460" LastActivityDate="2019-11-16T22:58:41.460" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26946" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2019-11-16T22:45:18.060" Score="0" Body="Questions about or involving pieces not used in orthodox chess; such as but not limited to the nightrider, archbishop, chancellor, and or amazon. Such pieces are also often referred to as &quot;fairy pieces&quot;." OwnerUserId="16577" LastEditorUserId="16577" LastEditDate="2019-11-16T22:58:27.620" LastActivityDate="2019-11-16T22:58:27.620" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26947" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="758" CreationDate="2019-11-16T22:52:47.333" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Against d4 both the Tarrasch defense and Dutch are extremely simple to learn and give black active positions. The main benefit to both though is that they are playable against everything except 1.e4. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;vs.1.e4 you seem to play a lot of the types of openings you want to avoid. I would play 1...e5 and choose a variation against the Ruy other than 3...a6. The Schliemann is very aggressive and Bird's is unorthodox but perfectly playable. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The bottom line is find positions you like and then find the openings that lead to those positions. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2019-11-16T22:52:47.333" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26948" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13432" CreationDate="2019-11-16T22:59:45.107" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Find lines similar to your black openings. For example, a French player might play 1. e3. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I don't see the point in throwing away white's advantage so early in a game. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2019-11-16T22:59:45.107" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26949" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4894" CreationDate="2019-11-16T23:07:56.587" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;vs e4 play the sicilian and you are are essentially playing the same opening reversed that you play with white. Find the variations you are comfortable with and go from there. The Kan is a very safe variation that scores pretty well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;vs. d4 I would play the Tarrasch which is essentially a queen's gambit reversed. If not, you should look at how you develop your king's bishop as white. Fianchetto openings are going to be different from more standard development. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2019-11-16T23:07:56.587" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26950" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26933" CreationDate="2019-11-17T00:12:55.203" Score="18" Body="&lt;p&gt;Disclaimer: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessvariants.com/usualeq.dir/msapansw.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;This solution&lt;/a&gt; is not reachable from the starting position, and is not reachable in a game of Chess960 (thanks Rewan!).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;3bBNRN/2pPpPKQ/2P1P1PR/7P/p7/rp1p1p2/qkpPpP2/nrnbB3 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why does the solution here not work?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is clearly not reachable from the starting position (because of the bishops stuck on the first rank), but the question does not state the position must be legal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19429" LastEditorUserId="19429" LastEditDate="2019-11-17T01:50:38.340" LastActivityDate="2019-11-17T01:50:38.340" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26953" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16306" CreationDate="2019-11-17T13:12:42.267" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are four categories of chess books. Many books fall into several of these categories of course.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Tactics&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Middlegame strategy&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Annotated games collections&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Openings&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tactics are the most essential, and give the most bang for the buck. There are plenty to choose from. I like the classic &lt;em&gt;1001 Winning Chess Sacrifices and Combinations&lt;/em&gt; by Fred Reinfeld.  Victor Henkin's &lt;em&gt;1000 Checkmate Combinations&lt;/em&gt; is an excellent less well known book by a Russian author.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Middlegame books are extremely useful to understand strategy and positional theory. My two favorites are Jeremy Silman's &lt;em&gt;Reassess Your Chess&lt;/em&gt;, and Sunil Weeramantry's &lt;em&gt;Best Lessons of a Chess Coach&lt;/em&gt;.  Weeramantry's book is lighter than the Silman book.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I enjoy annotated game collections.  For example, Larry Christiansen's &lt;em&gt;Storming the Barricades&lt;/em&gt; is a wonderful read, and the games are fun to play through. Likewise, Gary Lane's &lt;em&gt;How to Attack in Chess&lt;/em&gt; is awesome.  Some books, such as Garry Kasparov's &lt;em&gt;My Great Predecessors&lt;/em&gt; series, are too complex for me to follow, with too many variations and too much analysis.  You do have to find books at your level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I find opening books helpful if I find myself stuck playing the same sorts of games.  For example, for years I found it much easier to play in the center than from the wings.  I decided I needed to learn some fianchetto openings.  I remember thinking &quot;What is the point of the Pirc anyway&quot;?  &quot;How does it even work&quot;?  So I bought Lev Alburt's book &lt;em&gt;Pirc Alert&lt;/em&gt;.  I read some of it, and started 30 or so games as black to practice it.  Eventually I realized why the opening &quot;works&quot;, and I started winning some games with it.  However, the many games I lost taught me more about the opening than the book did.  But the Alburt book got me started.  It definitely expanded my chess repertoire.  I don't really need to work through all of the Pirc book.  I do take it off the shelf now and then.   When studying openings you can get stuck in a mode of trying to memorize moves. That's no substitute for actual tactics and strategy.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20580" LastEditorUserId="20580" LastEditDate="2019-11-17T13:52:00.763" LastActivityDate="2019-11-17T13:52:00.763" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26954" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24910" CreationDate="2019-11-17T14:09:24.023" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You probably found all of this on your own already, but here is what I've learned:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &quot;Golden Database&quot; can be downloaded in many formats, one of them as a tab separated text file. If you have made a program already, coding the import of the file should be trivial. Each line consists of:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;LASTNAME,FIRSTNAME(S)   USCFID  EXPIRYDATE  STATE   RATING  OTHERRATING&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These files have certain limitations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Only room for 2 ratings, so 2 files is provided with either speed or &#xA;blitz rating as the 2nd.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Fields have limited lengths, so long names might be cut off.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Rating numbers can come in many variants, 1234/12 means the rating is&lt;br&gt;&#xA;based on 12 games, while I forget what 1122* means. (Provisional?)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Ratings can be texts as well, like 'Unrated' or 'Duplicate', etc.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If not you, then I hope this helps someone else...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="849" LastActivityDate="2019-11-17T14:09:24.023" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26955" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="302" CreationDate="2019-11-17T16:40:45.007" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;From my (rated around 2200) experience, which might be useful to you...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I used to spend little time on studying opening theory and almost exclusively played the Kings Indian Attack for which you need to know virtually nothing. Playing the KID as black also helped. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then at some point I decided to study some proper openings ... 1. e4 was my choice. Since there is an awful lot of opening theory to learn I chose a step by step approach: learning some openings in reasonable depth. Currently this entails: the Sicilian Najdorf, Dragon, Caro Kann, Ruy Lopez/Spanish. Still I haven't gotten around studying the French and all the other Sicilians.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In cases where I face the French or an unknown (to me) Sicilian I chicken out and switch to a KIA-type set up. So for instance a game could go 1. e4 e6 2. d3 d5 3. Nd2...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is not great but works for me for the time being.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So my advise would be: yes, you should certainly study openings. Particularly the Sicilian if you like open tactical positions. For the time being you could consider a KIA setup or alternatively pick some easier to learn lines such as the French exchange variation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2019-11-17T16:40:45.007" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26957" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9354" CreationDate="2019-11-18T23:25:57.720" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here are some more &lt;strong&gt;extreme&lt;/strong&gt; situations to consider. The first two diagrams are merely for completeness.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Grigory Popov, 1st-5th Prize, Vladislav Tarasiuk-50 JT 2018, Mate In 33&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;5B2/PPPPPPPP/q7/3rppp1/2p4p/3p3n/5p2/3N1Kbk w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. a8=Q! Qa5 2. Qxa5 Rxa5 3. b8=Q Ra1 4. Qa8+ Rxa8 5. e8=Q Ra1 6. Qa8+ Rxa8 7. Ba3 Rxa3 8. g8=Q Ra1 9. Qa8+ Rxa8 10. c8=Q Ra1 11. Qc6+ e4 12. Qa4 Rxa4 13. h8=Q Rb4 14. Nc3 Rb2 15. d8=Q Re2 16. Nxe2 dxe2+ 17. Kxe2 Kg2 18. Qa1 Nf4+ 19. Kd2 f1=N+ 20. Kc3 Ne2+ 21. Kxc4 Be3 22. f8=Q Neg3 23. Qfa3 Nd2+ 24. Kb5 Bf4 25. Qd1 Ndf1 26. Qa2+ Nd2 27. Qaxd2+ Bxd2 28. Q8xd2+ Kh3 29. Qf2 e3 30. Qxe3 f4 31. Qf2 Nf1 32. Qdf3+ Ng3 33. Q2g2#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;https://pdb.dieschwalbe.de/1381570&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;The Die Schwalbe Chess Problem Database&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Karlheinz Bachmann, Die Schwalbe 4/1998, Mate In 9&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;8/PPPPPP2/7K/4rP2/8/6Pp/4Nprp/5Qnk w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e8=R Rxf5 2. f8=R Rc5 3. c8=R Ra5 4. a8=R Rd5 5. d8=R Rb5 6. b8=R Rh5+ 7. Kxh5 Rxg3 8. Nxg3#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;https://pdb.dieschwalbe.de/P1008344&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;The Die Schwalbe Chess Problem Database&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;David Zimbeck, Die Schwalbe 2/2003, Mate In 6&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;5bbk/PPPPPB1p/4p2N/4p1PN/1q2P1R1/R4K2/3r4/6BQ w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. exf8=B Qxf8 2. d8=B Rxd8 3. cxd8=B Qxd8 4. b8=B Qxb8 5. axb8=B Bxf7 6. Bxe5#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;https://pdb.dieschwalbe.de/P1255069&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;The Die Schwalbe Chess Problem Database&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Andre Cheron, Journal de Geneve 2/4/1964, Mate In 8&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;N7/PPPPPPPP/K1k3rB/b1pnnb1p/8/1r6/pp3p2/7q w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. b8=N+ Rxb8 2. axb8=N+ Kd6 3. c8=N+ Ke6 4. d8=N+ Bxd85. exd8=N+ Kf6 6. g8=N+ Rxg8 7. hxg8=N+ Kg6 8. f8=N#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;https://pdb.dieschwalbe.deP1294157/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;The Die Schwalbe Chess Problem Database&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-02-06T18:42:50.993" LastActivityDate="2021-02-06T18:42:50.993" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26958" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21489" CreationDate="2019-11-19T02:24:59.930" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have found examples of the open cases from Laska's answer, with the first one being an old composition and the second one a modern one. To answer the question directly, the occurrence percentages of these cases happening are also 0%.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Case #1&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Gyula Breyer, Magyar Sakkvilag, 1918, White To Play And Win&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;1N1bknbr/2p1Pn1p/2K1Rp1p/4pP1B/p3p3/p3P1N1/P6P/8 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Addendum 4/20/2020: This problem is actually cooked and promoting to a black queen, as Breyer originally intended, doesn’t work. See the analysis &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/29633/gyula-breyer-joke-composition-cooked/29635#29635&quot;&gt;here.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This brilliant composition can be found on the &lt;a href=&quot;http://superproblem.ru/archive/raznoe/S_umor-1.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;SuperProbblem website,&lt;/a&gt;, a Google Books preview of &lt;a href=&quot;https://books.google.com/books?id=XCkJzeG4D-oC&amp;amp;pg=PA84&amp;amp;lpg=PA84&amp;amp;dq=gyula+breyer+1918&amp;amp;source=bl&amp;amp;ots=EgkxEk-VM8&amp;amp;sig=ACfU3U2H3RKf4oXvLFODmAcDnWPY4Bm3uQ&amp;amp;hl=en&amp;amp;sa=X&amp;amp;ved=2ahUKEwiFjaeUhfXlAhVLIqwKHTR8CzAQ6AEwBXoECAgQAQ#v=onepage&amp;amp;q=gyula%20breyer%201918&amp;amp;f=false&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Outrageous Chess Problems&lt;/a&gt;, and in the &lt;a href=&quot;https://pdb.dieschwalbe.de/P1372243&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Die Schwalbe Databse&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Case #2&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;James Malcom, PDB Website 2020, Mate In 2&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;1k1K3r/3Q2P1/1N6/8/8/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Moving the White or blocking the rook's check does not mate in time, nor does any promotion to a White piece, since it is then stalemate. Promotion to a Black piece doesn't mate in time either, so someting must be done. The solution is for White must promote to a Black pawn! This avoids stalemate and Black has no interference with 2. Qc7#. This problem comes from the &lt;a href=&quot;https://pdb.dieschwalbe.de/P1375482&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Die Schwalbe Database&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also found a fun retrograde analysis &lt;a href=&quot;https://pdb.dieschwalbe.de/P1380851&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;problem&lt;/a&gt; that relates to Case #2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Addendum 10/30/2020-While browsing on PDB, I find an improved version of what was previously here, so it has been shown in place along with a revised solution, of course.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Andrew Buchanan &amp;amp; James Malcom, PDB Website 12/10/2020, Mate In 2 Moves&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;8/1N1B4/kPpK4/PN6/8/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Solution: 1. bxc7 en passant! Kxb7 2. c8=Q.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Explanation&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What was Black's last move? The b5 pawn couldn't have come from anywhere, and the Black king has no prior move being in an illegal double check. Nor could come from a square that a White piece is occupying. Therefore Black's last move must have been c8-c6! This is possible because White formerly promoted into a Black pawn! Black then must have done a double-step for their last move, so therefore the en passant capture is a valid solution!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The 2018 FIDE laws state: &amp;quot;3.7.2 on its first move the pawn may move as in 3.7.1 or alternatively it may advance two squares along the same file, provided that both squares are unoccupied.&amp;quot; Hence, Black's newborn 8th rank pawn, which has never been moved before, reserves the right to commence a double-step on its first move, and likewise White receives the right to capture it en passant as they do with a 7th rank pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-11-18T05:22:25.597" LastActivityDate="2020-11-18T05:22:25.597" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26961" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-11-19T20:06:33.333" Score="7" ViewCount="4774" Body="&lt;p&gt;As title above states, who are currently the strongest non-professional chess players? By this, I mean players who have a full-time job outside of chess. For example, I remember German GM Georg Meier mentioning in an interview in 2018 that he has a full-time job in a bank.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-11-19T20:18:32.990" LastActivityDate="2019-12-21T11:49:15.330" Title="Who are the strongest non-professional GMs?" Tags="&lt;grandmaster&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26962" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26961" CreationDate="2019-11-19T20:36:51.447" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luke_McShane&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Luke McShane&lt;/a&gt; is one possibility. He is currently (19th Nov 2018) rated 2675, and works in the financial sector.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7726" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2019-11-20T15:18:37.837" LastActivityDate="2019-11-20T15:18:37.837" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26963" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26961" CreationDate="2019-11-19T20:46:54.510" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;GM Tal Shaked is a Distinguished Engineer at Google, though he hasn't played organized chess in quite some time (but his rating puts him at #1423 in the world right now...).  I was going to mention Luke McShane as well (as mentioned in another answer to this question); I'm not sure what exactly he's doing right now, his LinkedIn profile hasn't been updated since 2014.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7147" LastActivityDate="2019-11-19T20:46:54.510" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26964" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26961" CreationDate="2019-11-19T21:46:46.483" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;Up until recently, that title would have gone to Teimour Radjabov without question in my mind. Since April of 2015 until last month, he has only played 149 games. That is not many for a top-flight GM over four and a half years. That said, he just won the right to play in the Candidate's, so he may becoming more active again.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Quite a number of old GMs were musicians and engineers. GM Mark Taimanov was also famous as top concert pianist in the Soviet Union. Mikhail Botvinnik was famous for being an electrical engineer and computer scientist while also being the world champion at the same time. Dr. Ruben Fine was a Doctor of psychology. GM Helmut Pfleger of Germany is an MD.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.chessbase.com/author/lars-bo-hansen&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;GM Lars Bo Hansen is 2560, and is an Assistant Professor of Sport Management and Business Strategy at Florida Institute of Technology in Melbourne, Florida.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As stated by Ian Bush, Luke McShane is considered the strongest with an outside full-time job, but I am not sure I would give him the title &quot;of strongest non-professional GM&quot; based solely on that as he plays a fair amount, and has played 182 games in the same time frame as I listed for Radjabov. Based on that, and the 100-point difference, I still have to go with Radjabov.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://billwall.phpwebhosting.com/articles/doctors.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Here is a cool list of chess players, who have doctorates.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2019-11-20T21:24:03.060" LastActivityDate="2019-11-20T21:24:03.060" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26965" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-11-19T22:07:22.187" Score="3" ViewCount="121" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the below position, I'm playing as Black and it's my turn. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/8/1K6/2P5/1P6/8/8/6kq b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've recently gotten back into chess, and this one is driving me crazy. I can't seem to figure a way to win, only draw.  I don't appear to be able to get my king close enough. Can I win as Black? Any ideas would be great! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20604" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-11-19T23:17:26.530" LastActivityDate="2019-11-19T23:20:29.177" Title="Can I win as black here?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26966" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26965" CreationDate="2019-11-19T22:18:10.907" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, it is really an easy win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first move is 1...Qe4; 2.Kg4 Kc7, and note that white cannot make any progress without losing one of the pawns, leaving an easy win since your Q can get to g8 after winning the first pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;qk6/8/8/6P1/5P2/6K1/8/8 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Qe4 2. Kg4 Kc7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is with it going the other way. It is harder, no question, but the first thing is to get the queen in front of the pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;8/8/1K6/2P5/1P6/8/8/6kq b - - 0 0&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1... Qa8 2. c6 Qb8+ 3. Kc5 Kf2 4. b5 Ke3 5. b6 Qe5+ 6. Kc4 Qa5 7. c7 Qa6+ 8. Kd5 Qb7+ 9. Kd6 Kd4 10. Kd7 Kc5 11. Kd8 Qxb6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2019-11-19T23:03:52.920" LastActivityDate="2019-11-19T23:03:52.920" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26967" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-11-19T23:00:01.533" Score="7" ViewCount="1616" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;6k1/1pp1b1p1/p6p/8/6P1/P6n/1PB5/2K1B3 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've played this out quite a few times, but no joy.&#xA;Trying to get my endgame back to a reasonable level, after years not playing!!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20604" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-11-20T12:42:04.097" LastActivityDate="2019-11-20T18:24:44.457" Title="For white - anything but a draw?" Tags="&lt;bishop-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26968" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26967" CreationDate="2019-11-19T23:09:50.253" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;Assuming it is even white to move there, the real question is can white avoid the loss, and I would say the answer is &quot;no&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White is down two pawns, and black has the means to create passed pawns on both wings. This is just lost.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2019-11-19T23:09:50.253" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26970" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26967" CreationDate="2019-11-19T23:50:34.623" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Two pawns down you are doing well to get a draw. Your best chance is an opposite-coloured bishop endgame. At all costs you must prevent black from exchanging bishops or exchanging knight for light-squared bishop when you will be completely lost.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What you have going for you in the starting position is that black's knight is badly placed on the edge of the board. I would probably start with Bf5 to tickle the white pawns on the queenside and follow up with bringing my king over to the kingside where I want to use my king and bishops to try and force a black bishop for knight exchange when drawing chances are good.. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2019-11-19T23:50:34.623" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26971" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27000" CreationDate="2019-11-20T04:34:41.407" Score="13" ViewCount="4699" Body="&lt;p&gt;Wikipedia's article on &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threefold_repetition#Karpov_versus_Miles&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;threefold repetitions&lt;/a&gt; gives a story about an incorrect threefold claim by Karpov against Miles:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The clause about the right to capture en passant and the right to castle is a subtle but important one. In a game between grandmasters Anatoly Karpov and Tony Miles (Tilburg 1986), Karpov had less than five minutes remaining on his clock in which to finish a specified number of moves or forfeit the game. He claimed a draw by repetition after checking his scoresheet carefully, whereupon it was pointed out to him that in the first occurrence of position, Black's king had had the right to castle, whereas in the second and third it had not. Tournament rules stipulated that a player be penalized with three minutes of their time for incorrect claims, which left Karpov's flag on the verge of falling. By then, Miles had taken the draw ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What if, instead of five minutes left, Karpov only had two minutes? Does he instantly lose on making the incorrect claim?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastActivityDate="2019-11-21T20:42:17.620" Title="What happens if a player suffers a time penalty but doesn't have enough time left?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;tournament&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26973" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26961" CreationDate="2019-11-20T08:26:50.623" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;GM Michael Adams is often listed as a top non professional GM. His current rating is 2694. I am not sure if he is officially a non professional chess player anymore, but for many years he was competing in top tournaments while being a stock trader. At one point he was even number 4 in the world and has competed in some canditates tournaments. This was often commented on in tournaments he was taking part in.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20607" LastEditorUserId="20607" LastEditDate="2019-11-20T12:47:39.413" LastActivityDate="2019-11-20T12:47:39.413" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26974" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26971" CreationDate="2019-11-20T08:26:51.947" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't know how it was done back then. He'd probably had lost the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nowadays, time penalties are always applied by adding time to the opponent, rather than taking it from the penalized player&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastActivityDate="2019-11-20T08:26:51.947" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26975" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26971" CreationDate="2019-11-20T11:34:03.930" Score="18" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to the &lt;a href=&quot;https://old.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=208&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Laws of Chess&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;12.9 Options available to the arbiter concerning penalties:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;12.9.1 warning,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;12.9.2 increasing the remaining time of the opponent,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;12.9.3 reducing the remaining time of the offending player,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;12.9.4 increasing the points scored in the game by the opponent to the maximum available for that game,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;12.9.5 reducing the points scored in the game by the offending person,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;12.9.6 declaring the game to be lost by the offending player (the arbiter shall also decide the opponent’s score),&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;12.9.7 a fine announced in advance,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;12.9.8 exclusion from one or more rounds,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;12.9.9 expulsion from the competition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In such situations, for a first offence, the arbiter would always add time for the opponent. He would never reduce the time for the player. Only if it were a third or later infraction of the same rule and the player had been warned would more serious action be taken like defaulting the player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a general principle in the arbiting world, which is seen in the move away from allowing quickplay finishes, that the actions or decisions of the arbiter should not decide the game. &lt;strong&gt;Reducing the player's time to less than zero would do just that and would never be done.&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2019-11-20T11:34:03.930" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26976" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-11-20T13:45:54.263" Score="5" ViewCount="128" Body="&lt;p&gt;In &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1044662&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Damanovic-Fischer&lt;/a&gt;, it seems like the move played, 66.  bxa4+, made it easy for Fischer. Wasn't 66. Ke3 better?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;       [Title &quot;Damanovic- Fischer, 1970,&quot;]&#xA;       [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;       [startply &quot;130&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;       1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 c5 3. Nf3 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nc6 5. Nc3 g6 6. e4 d6 7. Be2 Nxd4 8. Qxd4 Bg7 9. Be3 O-O 10. Qd2 Be6 11. f3 Rc8 12. Nd5 Nd7 13. O-O Nc5 14. Rac1 a5 15. b3 Bxd5 16. cxd5 Qb6 17. Rc4 Qa7 18. Rc2 Bh6 19. f4 Rc7 20. g3 b6 21. Rfc1 Bg7 22. Bb5 Qa8 23. Qe2 e5 24. dxe6 fxe6 25. Rd1 Rd8 26. Bd4 Bxd4+ 27. Rxd4 e5 28. fxe5 dxe5 29. Rxd8+ Qxd8 30. Bc4+ Kg7 31. Bd5 Nd7 32. Qf2 Rxc2 33. Qxc2 b5 34. Kg2 b4 35. Qc6 Nf6 36. Kf3 Qd7 37. Qxd7+ Nxd7 38. Ke3 Kf6 39. Kd3 Nb6 40. Bc6 Ke7 41. h4 h6 42. Ke3 Nc8 43. Kd3 Nd6 44. Ke3 Kd8 45. Kd3 Kc7 46. Ba4 Kb6 47. Ke3 Kc5 48. Bd7 Kb6 49. Ba4 Kc7 50. Kd3 Kd8 51. Bc6 Ke7 52. Ke3 Ke6 53. Kf3 Kf6 54. g4 g5 55. h5 Ke7 56. Ke3 Kd8 57. Kd3 Kc7 58. Ba4 Kb6 59. Bd7 Kc5 60. Ba4 Nc8 61. Be8 Ne7 62. Ke3 Ng8 63. Bd7 Nf6 64. Bf5 Kb5 65. Kd3 a4 66. bxa4+ 66... Kxa4 67. Kc4 Ka3 68. Kc5 Kxa2 69. Kxb4 Kb2 70. Kc5 Kc3 71. Kd6 Kd4 72. Ke6 Nxe4 73. Kf7 Nf2 74. Kg6 e4 75. Kxh6 e3 76. Kg7 e2 77. h6 e1=Q 78. h7 Qe7+ 79. Kg8 Ne4 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user20471" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-11-20T14:58:50.523" LastActivityDate="2019-11-24T10:52:41.290" Title="In Damanovic-Fischer, 1970, wasn't 66. Ke3 better?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;fischer&gt;&lt;bad-bishop&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26977" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26976" CreationDate="2019-11-20T14:04:14.007" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;This was played almost at Fischer’s height of strength, so he almost surely would have won anyway after 66.Ke3 also. I think that white thought two things by playing 66.ba. First, that it reduced the number of pawns, which is almost always good when you are in a worse, or losing, endgame. Second, that the bishop might be able to defend a2 along the a2-g8 diagonal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After 66.Ke3, white will fall into zugzwang due to his bad bishop, or at least, he believed he would. If that happens, the black knight can do some pretty fancy high stepping. This is what I found, but it turns out there actually is a miracle draw, but it is doubtful that any human would have put his B on a4 (to stop Nc4; bc b3 queening).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, I guess, considering that miracle possibility, the answer is a firm &quot;yes, it would have been better&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/8/5n1p/1k2pBpP/pp2P1P1/1P1K4/P7/8 w - - 0 66&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Ke3 a3 2. Kd3 Kc5 3. Ke3 Ne8 4. Kd3 (4. Bd7 Nd6 5. Ba4) 4... Nd6 5. Bd7 Nc4 6. Be8 Nb2+-+&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At the end of the line, the N either gets Nd1-c3-a2 or the Kc5 gets to d4. In either case, winning easily.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2019-11-20T17:06:41.453" LastActivityDate="2019-11-20T17:06:41.453" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26980" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26967" CreationDate="2019-11-20T17:56:01.960" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Analysis by an engine shows at least 3 moves valuated around -1.0, so a draw is expectable. The engine went to Depth 36&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Engine Evaulation: -0.86&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;6k1/1pp1b1p1/p6p/8/6P1/P6n/1PB5/2K1B3 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Be4 b6 2.b4 a5 3.bxa5 Bxa3+ 4.Kc2 bxa5 5.Bxa5 Bd6 6.Bd5+ Kf8 7.Bc3 Nf4 8.Bf3 Kf7 9.Kd2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Engine Evaulation: -0.91&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;6k1/1pp1b1p1/p6p/8/6P1/P6n/1PB5/2K1B3 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Bf5 b6 2.b4 Ng5 3.Kd1 Nf3 4.Bc3 Bf6 5.Bd2 Kf7 6.a4 Nxd2 7.Kxd2 a5 8.b5 Ke7 9.Be4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Engine Evaulation: -.97&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;6k1/1pp1b1p1/p6p/8/6P1/P6n/1PB5/2K1B3 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Kd1 Bf6 2.Be4 c6 3.b3 Bc3 4.Bg3 Be5 5.Bg2 Bxg3 6.Bxh3 g6 7.a4 a5 8.Bg2 Kf7 9.Ke2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20611" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-11-20T18:24:44.457" LastActivityDate="2019-11-20T18:24:44.457" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26982" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26971" CreationDate="2019-11-20T19:32:51.497" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know the game mentioned in the question was played under FIDE rules, but if it had been played under USCF rules, there are a few places in the rule book that specifically call for a penalty of a time deduction for some infractions.  They all either state, or imply, that a player's time should never be reduced to zero by means of a time penalty.  The most severe is for disturbing noises during play (such as a cell phone ringing), where &quot;First offense standard penalty is to subtract 10 minutes or half the remaining time from a player's clock, whichever is less&quot;.  There is a time subtraction penalty for making an incorrect draw claim, which the rules state is &quot;up to one minute from the claimant's remaining time&quot; - I don't think a tournament director would subtract a full minute if the player only had one minute or less on the clock, though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7147" LastActivityDate="2019-11-20T19:32:51.497" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26983" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-11-20T21:19:52.937" Score="12" ViewCount="13865" Body="&lt;p&gt;After 1. d4 d5 2. c4 c6 3. Nf3, Black usually plays Nf6  or e6 (which blocks his light-square bishop) and I wonder if it is possible for him to adopt the ideas from the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_System&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;London System&lt;/a&gt; and play Bf5 before e6. This is a rare move but I wonder if it is sound. After all, black is one tempo down compared with the London System by white. But is black's position solid enough to compensate this? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/kkYC0.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/kkYC0.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/CB695.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/CB695.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16626" LastActivityDate="2019-11-22T09:36:45.693" Title="Can black play the London system?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;queens-gambit&gt;&lt;slav-defense&gt;&lt;london-system&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26984" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26983" CreationDate="2019-11-20T21:47:48.190" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;That is the Slav, but the problem for black in many of these lines, and specifically immediately, is that if 3...Bf5, then 4.cd cd 5.Qb3 forces you to sacrifice d5 or b7 since 5...b6 just loses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;         [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;         1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.Nf3 Bf5 4.cxd5 cxd5 5.Qb3! b6? 6.e4! (6.Nc3) Bxe4 (6...dxe4 7.Ne5+-) 7.Ne5 a6 8.Ba6! Ra6 9.Qb5 Nd7 10.Nd7! Qd7 (10...Ra5?? 11.Nf6++#) 11.Qxa6+-&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is just one example, and white can also play it more quietly with 6.Nc3 instead of 6.e4, but no matter how you do it, it is either the loss of a pawn with insufficient compensation, or worse, death on the light squares.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lastly, you can try to postpone Bf5, but the same basic ideas are still strong later, or you lose a tempo with a6 putting you two tempi down on the same white opening. Basically, the answer is &quot;no&quot;, the position cannot withstand the attempt to bring the B out early there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S. I just looked at your picture again, and noticed the computer eval listed, and that +.73 is modest. It will probably grow after just a few moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2019-11-21T11:49:27.530" LastActivityDate="2019-11-21T11:49:27.530" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26985" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26983" CreationDate="2019-11-20T21:48:04.493" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I tried this about 15 years ago and after 4. cd cd 5. Qb3 I was soon in a world of pain. I've never tried it since.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. c4 c6 3. Nf3 Bf5 4. cxd5 cxd5 5. Qb3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is no good way to defend the b pawn and white's minor pieces flow effortlessly into the attack. Nc3, Bf4, maybe Ne5 at some stage, either e3 or even e4, followed by Bb5. Nb5 then c7 may also be on the cards. White can just generate too many threats far too quickly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't remember how the game went after Qb3. Mercifully the healthy mind suppresses deeply painful experiences. Just like touching a hot stove I know not to do it again.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2019-11-20T21:48:04.493" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26986" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26983" CreationDate="2019-11-20T22:55:05.933" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;strong&gt;London Defensive System&lt;/strong&gt; is actually a named line in the &lt;strong&gt;Réti Opening&lt;/strong&gt;. And yes, it is very playable. You don't see this very often nowadays, because White will try to stop Black from playing it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is a famous game Réti - Lasker, 1924, in which Lasker went for this line and won convincingly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Look at the position after &lt;code&gt;9.Nbd2&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Sg7AH.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Sg7AH.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/study/PI8tnkhk/B43Hsge1#17&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;my analysis&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Note how both sides have developed their minor pieces: The bishops are free to move, not blocked by pawns. The knights protect each other and control important central squares.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Black has made good use of the extra tempo White needed for the double fianchetto and completed their development first.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  However, White can trade off a knight for Black's (bad) light-squared bishop whenever they want. This means Black has to come up with an active move right now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Important motifs here are the e2-e4 break by White (which Réti didn't play, unfortunately), and a queenside break per &lt;code&gt;b5&lt;/code&gt; by Black if possible. In this game Lasker played the aggressive (and not very accurate e6-e5). A rare move that can be punished with e2-e4 immediately. The point is that Black has to take with &lt;code&gt;dxe4&lt;/code&gt;, and after &lt;code&gt;Nxe4 Nxe4 dxe4&lt;/code&gt; Black's bishop on &lt;code&gt;d6&lt;/code&gt; is hanging and has to move – losing another tempo. So don't fall for that. :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;New York&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;it New York USA&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;16&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;1924.??.??&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Reti, Richard&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Lasker, Emanuel&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;2550&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;2720&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Nf3 d5 2.c4 c6 3.b3 Bf5 4.g3 Nf6 5.Bg2 Nbd7 6.Bb2 e6 7.O-O Bd6 8.d3 O-O 9.Nbd2 e5 10.cxd5 cxd5 11.Rc1 Qe7 12.Rc2 a5 13.a4 h6 14.Qa1 Rfe8 15.Rfc1 Bh7 16.Nf1 Nc5 17.Rxc5 Bxc5 18.Nxe5 Rac8 19.Ne3 Qe6 20.h3 Bd6 21.Rxc8 Rxc8 22.Nf3 Be7 23.Nd4 Qd7 24.Kh2 h5 25.Qh1 h4 26.Nxd5 hxg3+ 27.fxg3 Nxd5 28.Bxd5 Bf6 29.Bxb7 Rc5 30.Ba6 Bg6 31.Qb7 Qd8 32.b4 Rc7 33.Qb6 Rd7 34.Qxd8+ Rxd8 35.e3 axb4 36.Kg2 Bxd4 37.exd4 Bf5 38.Bb7 Be6 39.Kf3 Bb3 40.Bc6 Rd6 41.Bb5 Rf6+ 42.Ke3 Re6+ 43.Kf4 Re2 44.Bc1 Rc2 45.Be3 Bd5  0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8472" LastActivityDate="2019-11-20T22:55:05.933" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26987" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26992" CreationDate="2019-11-21T02:23:52.670" Score="14" ViewCount="3476" Body="&lt;p&gt;In an endgame I played as Black, after the rooks were exchanged, the below position was reached. A funky stalemate quickly ensued.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/5ppk/5p1p/8/3K1P2/6P1/7P/8 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;[startflipped &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Kg6 2. Ke4 Kh5 3. h3 g5 4. f5 g4 5. h4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It was a simple endgame to me. as Black, I had an extra pawn and was closer to my pawns then White. I would just exchange pawns and promote my extra. I though that I would win until I stumbled into an unexpected stalemate. Not a big deal, mistakes happen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But when I put the position into Lichess, surprise, surprise, it was actually a draw! It turns out that White will be able to lock in Black, using Black's doubled pawns against them, and forever keep Black king imprisoned for eternity, thereby drawing the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What could I do, without computer analysis, to determine that this and similar endgame positions are a draw? What endgame principles are there/exist that would help? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastActivityDate="2019-11-22T23:06:02.870" Title="How to tell that this is a draw" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;draw&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26989" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26987" CreationDate="2019-11-21T07:16:46.117" Score="11" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I had an extra pawn and was closer to my pawns then White&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems you simply overestimated these two factors. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An extra pawn alone is not a decisive advantage, it matters a lot where it is located. If the f7 pawn was on a7, you'd win. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The kings are actually positioned to your disadvantage, White's is nicely centralized and yours is stuck in the corner. If the White king was on g2 and yours on e4, you'd win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;But most of all, chess endgames are concrete&lt;/strong&gt;. If you shift the whole position one file to the left, the engine does indeed see black winning! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What makes your position a draw is the unfortunate pawn formation: Your own doubled pawns trap your own king in the corner, while White's are flexible enough to shut the position from the front. And as said, his king is well positioned, it can either block the escape of yours via d8 or assist his own pawns in preventing the frontal breakthrough. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13433" LastEditorUserId="13433" LastEditDate="2019-11-21T07:38:44.587" LastActivityDate="2019-11-21T07:38:44.587" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26990" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26994" CreationDate="2019-11-21T07:33:39.230" Score="6" ViewCount="238" Body="&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;{[%evp 0,17,14,14,14,-25,-15,-15,7,7,55,48,48,48,472,228,802,802,804,771]} &#xA;1. e4 e5 2. f4 exf4 3. Bc4 Qh4+ 4. Kf1 Bc5 5. d4 Bb6 6. Nf3 Qg4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What's the meaning of these numbers when used together with &lt;code&gt;%evp&lt;/code&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20615" LastActivityDate="2019-11-21T11:05:01.150" Title="What's the meaning of &quot;%evp&quot; in a PGN comment?" Tags="&lt;pgn&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26991" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26987" CreationDate="2019-11-21T10:06:06.007" Score="5" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What endgame principles are there/exist that would help?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You need to learn to recognise which pawn formations allow you to force a passed pawn and which don't.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The pawn formation on the kingside is almost identical to the queenside pawn formation in the Berlin Defence which is known to be unable to force a passed pawn. No passed pawn = no win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2019-11-21T10:06:06.007" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26992" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26987" CreationDate="2019-11-21T10:27:54.713" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;To be frank, I was a little surprised that this was a draw per the computer from move one all the way through to your stalemate. You did not make a mistake. My initial thought was to play the black king to g8-f8-e7, but the problem is that white can keep the K out of e7 with his own king, or keep you on the back rank, or force you to make pawn moves that are not good for you. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The biggest problem is that you do have a doubled pawn, and thus, cannot make a passed pawn. His three pawns very efficiently hold up your four pawns. Simply moving the Pf6 to e6, and the computer immediately registers -153!, a clear win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are no hard-and-fast rules about pawn endings as they are notorious for being very specific, and requiring exact calculation, but here are some basic pawn endgame principles.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Centralize your king as quickly as possible.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Try to create a passed pawn, especially an outside passed pawn.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Watch out for the opposition (when the other guy has to give way, and move aside).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Pawn endgames with an extra pawn and pawns on both sides are usually won. You create a passed pawn on the side with the extra pawn, then assuming you cannot queen it outright, at the right moment, abandon it and run to the other side and take all the opponent's remaining pawns.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Watch out for the rook pawn. Assuming that the pawn cannot queen outright, the defender can draw if he gets in front of it, regardless of opposition. If you are in front of it, let's say with a white h-pawn, he can draw if he gets to f8 even.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Lastly, a great K+P vs. K almost rule (there are a few exceptions) is that &lt;strong&gt;you need to be in front of the pawn and have opposition to win&lt;/strong&gt;. See the second diagram.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/8/8/2k5/6KP/8/8/8 b - - 0 0&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1...Kd6 2.Kg5 Ke7 3.Kg6 Kf8 4.Kh7 (4.h5 Kg8 5.h6 Kh8 6.h7=) Kf7 5.h5 Kf8 6.h6 Kf7 7.Kh8 Kf8 8.h7 Kf7= {Stalemate.}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is rule 6: Per the rule, white to move draws, but black to move loses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    [FEN &quot;8/4k3/8/4K3/4P3/8/8/8 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;    1...Ke8 2.Ke6! {keeping the opposition} Kd8 3.Kf7 Kd7 4.e5+- {and the pawn cannot be stopped}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2019-11-21T10:27:54.713" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26993" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26995" CreationDate="2019-11-21T10:57:35.070" Score="2" ViewCount="216" Body="&lt;p&gt;The main question I have is about a game I played. What do I need to know about how to take a piece so that my opponent's king can no longer castle?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the following game, I played Bxd2+ to do so. The Stockfish lines seem nonhuman. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;r1b2rk1/1p3ppp/2pp4/p1q1p1bN/P1P1P3/1PP3Q1/3N1PPP/R3K2R b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Bxd2+ {I played this to keep the king in the center.} (1... Bh6 2. Nf6+ Kh8 3. Qh4 d5 4. g4 Qe7 5. g5 gxf6 6. gxh6 Rg8 7. cxd5 cxd5 8. exd5 {Why would black want this?}) (1... f6 2. Nxg7 Kh8 3. Nh5 Rg8 4. Qd3 Bxd2+ 5. Qxd2 {Why would black give up the g7 pawn and then take the knight allowing the queen to capture back instead of what I played forcing the king to move?})&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20442" LastEditorUserId="9025" LastEditDate="2019-11-29T15:17:42.640" LastActivityDate="2019-11-29T15:17:42.640" Title="When should you trade to prevent castling?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;castling&gt;&lt;exchange&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26994" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26990" CreationDate="2019-11-21T11:05:01.150" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;A similar question was asked by GM Tony Kosten on the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chesspub.com/cgi-bin/chess/YaBB.pl?num=1543899946/24&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chesspub forum&lt;/a&gt; back in January:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Looking at the last set of PGN files I received, at the beginning is a&#xA;  new tag followed by lots of numbers, like:   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;{[%evp&#xA;  0,96,30,30,22,1,30,2,2,-9,-3,-44,23,23,21,32,41,37,44,23,22,18,26,11,22,&#xA;  -4,0,-1,8,7,7,14,9,5,16,8,38,16,22,19,25,54,19,19,22,22,22,20,20,20,24,-18,24,&#xA;  -53,-53,-61,-61,-56,-23,-20,41,41,39,39,35,30,44,44,33,50,70,70,75,75,75,75,75,&#xA;  56,60,59,62,56,68,56,50,48,48,40,46,60,49,30,48,47,47,59,46,56,57]} &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I assume ChessBase 15 generates this when it quickly analyses games&#xA;  when you open them. However, is this a standard PGN code, can other&#xA;  chess programs read it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The original PGN standard was created and published in 1994 by Stephen J Edwards. Here is a copy of his original standard: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.saremba.de/chessgml/standards/pgn/pgn-complete.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Portable Game Notation Specification and Implementation Guide&lt;/a&gt;. By 2001 he had dropped out of the project when &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.enpassant.dk/chess/palview/enhancedpgn.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this supplement&lt;/a&gt; was published to the PGN standard. There it defined a new embedded command string which would be marked by a starting &quot;[%&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;3.2 A generalised format for embedding commands in comments.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  3.2.1 Position&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  An embedded  command may occur at any position in a standard PGN comment, ie  between { } . For example: {Optional leading&#xA;  comments [%clk 1:05:23] optional trailing comments} where  [%clk&#xA;  1:05:23]  is the embedded command string.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;3.2.2 Structure The command string is structured as follows.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A leading tag of [% A command name consisting of one or more&#xA;  alphanumeric characters. A space character. Either a single parameter&#xA;  or a comma delimited list of parameter values. A closing tag of ]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, &quot;[%evp&quot; is an embedded command, first seen in Chessbase 15 output. As such it is Chessbase 15-specific until such time as Chessbase publish how they use it, at which time other pgn producers/consumers can start using it too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My speculation, FWIW, is that it is part of Chessbase's &quot;Chess Position Trainer&quot; and is intended for Chessbase internal use only.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2019-11-21T11:05:01.150" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26995" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26993" CreationDate="2019-11-21T11:11:26.413" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The problem with that move is a number of things.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You gave up the bishop pair.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;His attack on your king is stronger than yours on his king, and you traded off a defender.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You have no time to go after his king since yours is threatened with mate on the move.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Already with three minors traded, his threats aside, there might not be enough firepower to attack his king with impunity.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Keeping a king in the center is only part of the idea behind keeping a king in the center. You need to be able to open more lines to attack it, and that also requires having other pieces that are already somewhat trained on the opposing king already. Once the king is stuck, you either need to be able to open lines immediately with pawn play, or an additional sacrifice. If you cannot do that, you should question the trade, and ask if you are simply trading your good piece, in this case a B with some good scope, for a worse piece, in this case a barely-developed Nd2. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your line with 1...Bh6, your line is best play for white per the computer, and in that line, white is barely holding it together. At the end, there is 8...Rg4 9.Qh5 Bd7, and that is advantageous for black, so that is why he would want that. Black's K is quite safe on h8 there, but where does white go with his? The Qh5 is also not comfortable, and in some lines Rf4 and Bg4 are threats. White is walking a very fine line there. From there, if black can find a way to open the position just a little, the white king will come under a strong attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;r1b2rk1/1p3ppp/2pp4/p1q1p1bN/P1P1P3/1PP3Q1/3N1PPP/R3K2R b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Bh6 2. Nf6+ Kh8 3. Qh4 d5 4. g4 Qe7 5. g5 gxf6 6. gxh6 Rg8 7. cxd5 cxd5 8. exd5 Rg4 9. Qh5 Bd7 {White is walking a very fine line here. From here, if black can find a way to open the position just a little, the white king will come under a strong attack.}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2019-11-21T16:09:35.187" LastActivityDate="2019-11-21T16:09:35.187" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26996" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="26997" CreationDate="2019-11-21T11:21:50.687" Score="4" ViewCount="232" Body="&lt;p&gt;So I was reading &lt;a href=&quot;https://archive.org/stream/64GreatChessGames/An%20Opening%20Repertoire%20for%20the%20Positional%20Player_djvu.txt&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&quot;An Opening Repertoire for the Positional Player&quot;&lt;/a&gt;, by Gufeld and Kalinich, and found the title's assertion. And I just can't think why after &quot;1. e4 e5 2. Nc3&quot;, d6 would be bad for black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, I find it as a playable option in the Lichess Master database, &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/analysis&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://lichess.org/analysis&lt;/a&gt;&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9179" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2019-11-21T11:50:50.507" LastActivityDate="2019-11-21T11:50:50.507" Title="How does the move order 1. e4 e5 2. Nc3 &quot;rule out Philidor's Defence 2...d6&quot;?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;books&gt;&lt;philidor-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26997" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26996" CreationDate="2019-11-21T11:36:08.433" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;While d6 is passive, it is probably not the end of the world there at levels below Master. After Nc3, it is not so much that it &quot;rules out Philidor's Defense&quot; as when white played 2.Nc3, it became a Vienna opening proper.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More typically, when white plays the Vienna, he is looking to attack, and often plays an early f4. With f4 played, you can see how you might want your Bf8 on c5, and after d6, you already ruled that out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2019-11-21T11:36:08.433" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26998" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-11-21T11:56:37.310" Score="1" ViewCount="287" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was playing the popular Puzzle Rush game on chess.com (3-minute version), and the game stopped when I missed the second puzzle (I had 8 seconds left on the clock). The statement is &quot;Three strikes and you are out!&quot;, and it usually complies.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I must clarify that &lt;strong&gt;this is not the updated version of Puzzle Rush&lt;/strong&gt;, which started at 9 a.m. Pacific time on &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/news/view/new-puzzle-rush-chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Thursday, November 21&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/OjYmh.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/OjYmh.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Puzzle Rush stopped&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's the second time I’ve seen this happen.&#xA;I am wondering if there is a special rule that I have missed, or if it is just a bug.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15365" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-11-21T15:45:59.117" LastActivityDate="2020-09-09T04:40:41.797" Title="Why did Puzzle Rush stop at the second fail?" Tags="&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;puzzles&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="26999" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27001" CreationDate="2019-11-21T20:39:47.543" Score="8" ViewCount="715" Body="&lt;p&gt;I find this particular final position from a personal game intriguing. Even though there's a material advantage, there's no clear path to the victory. Does anyone have any good ideas on how to crack this nut?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;Liga CS Jug&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Niska Banja&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2016.10.15&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;8&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Bojkovic&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Djokic&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1/2-1/2&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;B41&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;2234&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;2329&quot;]&#xA;[Source &quot;Analyze This (Free)&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[startply &quot;130&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 e6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 a6 5. c4 Nf6 6. Nc3 Qc7 7. Be2 b6 8. O-O Bb7 9. Qd3 Nc6 10. Nxc6 Bxc6 11. a4 h5 12. h3 Bc5 13. Bg5 Qe5 14. Bxf6 gxf6 15. Bf3 a5 16. Rfd1 Kf8 17. b3 Rg8 18. Ne2 Rd8 19. Rac1 Ke7 20. Rc2 Bd6 21. Kf1 Bc5 22. Nc3 Rg5 23. Re2 Kf8 24. Ree1 h4 25. Nd5 Kg7 26. Ne3 Qf4 27. Ng4 Kf8 28. Qc3 Bb4 29. Qxf6 Qxf6 30. Nxf6 Ke7 31. Ng4 Bxe1 32. Kxe1 d6 33. Ne3 Bb7 34. Ke2 Re5 35. Rd4 Rg8 36. Ng4 Rc5 37. Ne3 Rd8 38. Rd2 Ba8 39. Rd4 Re5  1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3558" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-11-21T21:09:15.590" LastActivityDate="2019-11-22T04:30:30.767" Title="How to “crack” this position?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27000" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26971" CreationDate="2019-11-21T20:42:17.620" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;As the game took place in 1986, the 1985 version of the FIDE Laws of Chess is applicable. You have to consider Art. 10.5, 10.11, and 10.12.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Art. 10.12 (b) states: if the claim is found to be incorrect, the arbiter shall then add five minutes to the claimant's used time. If this means that the claimant has overstepped the time limit, his game will be declared lost. Karpov was lucky that the Tournament Rules reduced time penalty to 3 min.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Today’s decision would be: The opponent would be rewarded a 2 min time bonus.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are no automatic time reducing penalties anymore. The arbiter may decide, however, in the case of 12.9 to subtract an amount from a player’s time of reflection (12.9.3). Of course, he would not subtract more than the remaining time, but to declare the game lost (12.9.6). But you never know ... some arbiters might feel otherwise, and they are allowed to, unless you claim a violation of the preface of the LoC (sound judgement) :-)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20096" LastActivityDate="2019-11-21T20:42:17.620" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27001" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26999" CreationDate="2019-11-21T21:32:12.313" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have been looking at this with a fairly strong computer for about 15 minutes (and the judgment of having been a Master for 30+ years and forcing in plausible lines), and I am convinced that this is a positional draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White is obviously worse per the computer eval, but he can keep the position exactly as it is by either moving his K from e2 to d3 and back (sometimes f1 if there is a threat to take on g2), or his Rd4 back and forth to d1 if black moves the Re5 away so e4 is not hanging. So, that leaves only to look at what can black do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You have to look at black's pawn breaks. Clearly, b5 is out as cb actually leaves white better. d5 just loses. f5, which would be the standard try, is never any good because after ef and the bishop trade on f3, that will leave a monster N to go to d5, and that will also keep black tied to the weak pawn on b6. That only leaves the attempt to double rooks on the g-file, and sacrifice on g2, but it is already defended twice, and can even be over-protected with Kf1 if it looks like it might work for black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lastly, on top of b6 being weak if f5 gets played, h4 also becomes an immediate target along the fourth rank.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My opinion is that if black tries to win, especially with f5, he is probably going to be worse, and it will be he, who is fighting for the draw. Sorry, I just do not think that there is a way to crack that nut. Try too hard, and you might break an egg though. :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2019-11-22T04:30:30.767" LastActivityDate="2019-11-22T04:30:30.767" CommentCount="12" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27002" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26983" CreationDate="2019-11-22T09:36:45.693" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Playing ...Bf5 against the Queen's Gambit is quite possible, and is known as the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltic_Defense&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Baltic&lt;/a&gt; defense. GM &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Igors_Rausis&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Igors Rausis&lt;/a&gt; has had decent results with it decades before getting involved in a cheating scandal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In its ideal form, you play 2...Bf5 before committing your c-pawn, keeping ...Nc6 as an option, and possibly defending Pd5 with ...e6&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, if White has already threatened your d5 pawn with 1.d4 d5 2.c4, you have to consider, after 2...Bf5, the immediate capture 3.cd5, when Black continues with the shocking 3...Bb1 and the play becomes lively, but quite different from your usual London system !&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In case there is no pressure against d5 and you have time for both 2...Bf5 and 3...e6, Black is more solid. A quarter of a century ago was played the famous &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1085871&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;gem&lt;/a&gt; Kramnik-Shirov, Linares 1994.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastActivityDate="2019-11-22T09:36:45.693" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27003" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-11-22T14:44:16.610" Score="4" ViewCount="103" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to the &lt;a href=&quot;https://old.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=208&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Laws of Chess&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;12.9 Options available to the arbiter concerning penalties:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;12.9.1 warning,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;12.9.2 increasing the remaining time of the opponent,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;12.9.3 reducing the remaining time of the offending player,&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;12.9.4 increasing the points scored in the game by the opponent to the maximum available for that game,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;12.9.5 reducing the points scored in the game by the offending person,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;12.9.6 declaring the game to be lost by the offending player (the arbiter shall also decide the opponent’s score),&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;12.9.7 a fine announced in advance,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;12.9.8 exclusion from one or more rounds,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;12.9.9 expulsion from the competition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In a FIDE rated competition (or one in which the FIDE laws apply) when is it appropriate to apply a time reduction as a penalty?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know of one such, which I will give as a separate answer. I would like to know if there are more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2019-11-24T14:03:22.727" Title="When is it appropriate for the arbiter to reduce a player's time?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;fide&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27004" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27003" CreationDate="2019-11-22T14:53:32.857" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to the &lt;a href=&quot;https://old.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=208&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Laws of Chess&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;8.1.1 In the course of play each player is required to record his own moves and those of his opponent in the correct manner, move after&#xA;  move, as clearly and legibly as possible, in the algebraic notation&#xA;  (Appendix C), on the ‘scoresheet’ prescribed for the competition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Israel a lot of the leagues play on a Saturday between 10 am 2 or 3 pm. Obviously all of the people who play have religious beliefs which are consistent with this, unlike Samuel Reshevsky who &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.jta.org/1955/07/05/archive/u-s-chess-star-refuses-to-play-on-sabbath-in-moscow-delays-game&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;refused to play on the Sabbath&lt;/a&gt;. There are, though, a very small number of players who's beliefs allow them to play chess on the Sabbath but not write the moves down because that resembles the work of a scribe, could therefore be construed as work, and is there fore forbidden to them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this situation it has been agreed with the the arbiters overseeing the competition that these players may be excused the requirements of article 8.1.1 but must suffer a time penalty of 10 minutes. So, in a 90+30 game (all moves in 90 minutes with a 30 second increment from move 1) they start with 80 minutes on the clock plus increment instead of 90.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is actually mentioned in article 8.1.6:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;8.1.6 If a player is unable to keep score, an assistant, who must be acceptable to the arbiter, may be provided by the player to write the&#xA;  moves. &lt;strong&gt;His clock shall be adjusted by the arbiter in an equitable&#xA;  way.&lt;/strong&gt; This adjustment of the clock shall not apply to a player with a&#xA;  disability.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is worth noting that players with disabilities are not subject to this time penalty. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've applied this principle in mid-week tournaments where a player has refused from move 1 to write the moves down and also refused to give an explanation. Such a solution is obviously preferable to trying to coerce the player or to exclude the player from the competition, both of which would be highly undesirable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-11-22T15:00:17.077" LastActivityDate="2019-11-22T15:00:17.077" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27005" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-11-22T15:40:49.357" Score="4" ViewCount="223" Body="&lt;p&gt;On move 19 Carlsen played Nd5. Why didn't Nepo win the pawn with Nxd5? If Bx, then Qxb4, or if px, then Qxb4 attacks the Bc4 still and Bxa6 then Nc5 and move the rook.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA; [Event &quot;Tata Steel Rapid &amp;amp; Blitz&quot;]&#xA; [Site &quot;Kolkata&quot;]&#xA; [Date &quot;2019.11.22&quot;]&#xA; [Round &quot;2.3&quot;]&#xA; [White &quot;Carlsen, Magnus&quot;]&#xA; [Black &quot;Nepomniachtchi, Ian&quot;]&#xA; [Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA; [ECO &quot;B51&quot;]&#xA; [WhiteElo &quot;2870&quot;]&#xA; [BlackElo &quot;2773&quot;]&#xA; [PlyCount &quot;87&quot;]&#xA; [EventDate &quot;2019.??.??&quot;]&#xA; [EventType &quot;blitz&quot;]&#xA; [WhiteTeam &quot;Norway&quot;]&#xA; [BlackTeam &quot;Russia&quot;]&#xA; [WhiteTeamCountry &quot;NOR&quot;]&#xA; [BlackTeamCountry &quot;RUS&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;  1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. Bb5+ Nd7 4. d4 cxd4 5. Qxd4 a6 6. Be2 Ngf6 7. O-O e5 8. Qe3 Nc5 9. Nfd2 b5 10. c4 bxc4 11. Nc3 Bb7 12. Bxc4 Be7 13. b4 13... Ne6 14. Nb3 Rc8 15. Na5 Qd7 16. Qd3 O-O 17. Be3 Bd8 18. Nxb7 Qxb7 19. Nd5 Nc7 20. Nxf6+ Bxf6 21. Rab1 Rfd8 22. Rfd1 h6 23. f3 Qc6 24. Qb3 Qe8 25. a4 Rb8 26. b5 axb5 27. axb5 Ne6 28. b6 Bg5 29. Bf2 Nd4 30. Bxd4 exd4 31. Rxd4 Rdc8 32. b7 Rc5 33. Bd5 Qe7 34. Rc4 Qc7 35. Rxc5 dxc5 36. g3 Bf6 37. Kg2 Qe7 38. Qb6 Be5 39. Qc6 Kh7 40. f4 Bd4 41. Qc8 Qd6 42. Qf5+ Kh8 43. Kh3 Qa6 44. e5 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user20471" LastActivityDate="2019-11-22T22:21:27.677" Title="Carlsen vs. Nepo this morning, why didn't Nepo win the pawn?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;carlsen&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27006" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27005" CreationDate="2019-11-22T15:49:31.677" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The solution to that is much easier than it looks, and a fairly common type of position in practical play. After 19.Nd5! taking the nice outpost square, if black responds with 19…Nd5 then white can simply play 20.Bd5 Qb4, then Qxa6 just leaves black positionally lost despite even material. In positions like that where you have a rook behind the a-pawn, and the bishops both pointing at the queenside, the pawn on a2 is going to run fast and hard, and soon cost black heavy material.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;  1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. Bb5+ Nd7 4. d4 cxd4 5. Qxd4 a6 6. Be2 Ngf6 7. O-O e5 8. Qe3 Nc5 9. Nfd2 b5 10. c4 bxc4 11. Nc3 Bb7 12. Bxc4 Be7 13. b4 13... Ne6 14. Nb3 Rc8 15. Na5 Qd7 16. Qd3 O-O 17. Be3 Bd8 18. Nxb7 Qxb7 19. Nd5 Nxd5? 20. Bxd5 Qxb4 21. Qxa6 {And from here, it is easy to see what kind of troubles black has.}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2019-11-22T15:49:31.677" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27007" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26987" CreationDate="2019-11-22T16:59:06.643" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this situation, as a defender needing a draw, you just need to ask yourself: &quot;Can I keep the pawns doubled?&quot; Or, as an attacker trying to win,: &quot;Can I undouble my pawns?&quot; The &quot;yes&quot; answer will mean you should be able to succeed in the respective task.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15509" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-11-22T23:06:02.870" LastActivityDate="2019-11-22T23:06:02.870" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27008" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27015" CreationDate="2019-11-22T19:37:35.813" Score="2" ViewCount="78" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would like to know what compensation White gets after the pawn sacrifice 6. b4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/V8ePb.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/V8ePb.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To me, giving back the pawn just for a tempo, i.e. Bb5, does not seem to be enough.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16771" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2019-11-22T23:27:16.083" LastActivityDate="2019-11-22T23:27:16.083" Title="Idea behind sacrifice pawn" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;sacrifice&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27009" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-11-22T21:04:44.487" Score="10" ViewCount="678" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was White in this position, and Black had just played f6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;r1bqkb1r/ppppn1pp/2n2p2/1B2p3/4P3/5N2/PPPP1PPP/RNBQ1RK1 w kq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I played c3 to prepare a push of d4 and strike the center.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When analyzing this position later, the engine suggested that 5. d4 Nxd4 6. Nxd4 exd4 7. Qxd4 was superior (+1.7) than my 5. c3 (+0).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't really understand what White advantage has in this line. In general, I don't really know when I should exchange the d4 pawn in the Ruy Lopez and what benefit I get from such exchanges of central pawns. Can anyone help me understand?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19115" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2019-11-22T23:27:00.833" LastActivityDate="2019-11-27T04:05:11.723" Title="Advance of d4 in the Ruy Lopez" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;ruy-lopez&gt;&lt;center&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27010" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27008" CreationDate="2019-11-22T21:45:58.810" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;My very amateur analysis would be that if Nxb4, then c3 Nc6 Qa4 then attacks the Bishop, potentially providing support to the c5 pawn and removing the pin on the f3 Knight, allowing it to attack e5 which is now undefended by Black's Knight due to the newly made pin by the queen. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16427" LastEditorUserId="16427" LastEditDate="2019-11-22T22:04:02.967" LastActivityDate="2019-11-22T22:04:02.967" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27011" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27014" CreationDate="2019-11-22T22:00:16.763" Score="7" ViewCount="1166" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have faced this fairly often in quite a few openings, but there seems to be a theme with players putting their Bishop on a square like h6, supported by a queen and attacking the fianchettoed Bishop next to the castled King.&#xA;What are the ideas behind this? Is it something I should be bringing into my own gameplan and if so is taking the fianchettoed Bishop a good thing to do? It seems to me to be the only point in putting it there. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16427" LastActivityDate="2019-11-24T23:17:30.227" Title="Is it good to take a fianchettoed Bishop?" Tags="&lt;fianchetto&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27012" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27009" CreationDate="2019-11-22T22:04:55.433" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;f6 is a shockingly bad move which badly weakens black's kingside and does nothing for his development.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;d4 would take advantage of this and keep the initiative. c3 is a weak move which gives black the time he needs to strike in the now reinforced center and justify his previous bad play. Black can play d5 and suddenly it is black who has the initiative. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;r1bqkb1r/ppppn1pp/2n2p2/1B2p3/4P3/5N2/PPPP1PPP/RNBQ1RK1 w kq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. c3 (1. d4 exd4 2. Nxd4 Nxd4 3. Qxd4 Nc6 4. Qd1) d5! 2. exd5 Qxd5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now black is threatening Bg4 and O-O-O and he will have a fine game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In general, I don't really know when I should exchange the d4 pawn in&#xA;  the Ruy Lopez and what benefit I get from such exchanges of central&#xA;  pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Apart from just knowing the opening moves it is also important to understand two other things:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Your plans&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Your opponent's plans&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In general in king's pawn openings any time black can play d5 successfully he has equalised and the opening has been a success. You need to understand this and make sure you don't allow this without extracting some other concession from black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2019-11-22T22:04:55.433" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27013" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27011" CreationDate="2019-11-22T22:11:20.437" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are a few benefits behind exchanging off the fianchettoed bishop. For this example, I'll assume the stage is Black's kingside after ...g6 and ...Bg7 are played.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Weakening the surrounding squares. Without the fianchettoed bishop, the squares weakened by pushing the pawn (such as h6 and g7 when Black plays ...g6) are less protected.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Making the enemy king more vulnerable. Without the bishop, Black's castle is slightly compromised due to pushing ...g6 and having no piece on g7 to fill the gap.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Minimizing the opponent's influence along the long diagonal. A bishop on g7 often exerts strong pressure along the h8-a1 diagonal.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But there are also drawbacks behind doing the exchange for you:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It takes time. Often you must spend two whole tempi (e.g., Qd2, Bh6) to exchange bishops. In a time sensitive position, this may be a bad idea.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It's possible your bishop is better than your opponent's, which means exchanging actually favours them. For example, say you have a White bishop on e3 that is unobstructed along the c1-h6 and g1-a7 diagonals. Meanwhile, assume Black's g7-bishop is blocked in by a White pawn on e5. Here your bishop is clearly superior, so the benefits of exchanging off the fianchettoed bishop may not be worth it.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastEditorUserId="12873" LastEditDate="2019-11-24T23:17:30.227" LastActivityDate="2019-11-24T23:17:30.227" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27014" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27011" CreationDate="2019-11-22T22:12:54.960" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are two reasons for doing this and immediately taking the fianchettoed bishop is not one of them:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Provoke Black into playing BxB when you hope to follow up with Ng5, drive the f6 knight away and then mate on h7 &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Prevent black from playing h5 until you have been able to play h2-4-5 to pry open the&#xA;black king's position.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It can even be worth sacrificing the exchange with h5, Nxh5 Rxh5 to smash open the black citadel.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2019-11-22T22:12:54.960" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27015" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27008" CreationDate="2019-11-22T22:19:43.700" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I simply do not agree with your computer there. It is probably a bit of the &quot;horizon effect&quot;, which is when a computer plays a bad move because it puts the refutation beyond its ability to calculate, or &quot;horizon&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White played this opening every passively, and really should be looking to break up black's center so he is not smothered, and b4 does not seem the way to do that. It is very short-sighted by white to try and keep c5, especially when it puts him behind in development. Per my computer, (quad-core 2.9Ghz with 24 GB of RAM), there are a bunch of moves there, and b4 is fourth on the list per Stockfish 10 on my computer. The other candidate moves are c4! (the best in my opinion), h3, and even Nb3 since e4 h3 is good for white.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;6.b4?! Nxb4 5.Bb5? {h3, c4, or Rb1 are all still better per my beast) Nc6 6.h3 Bf3 7.Qf3 Bc5 8.c4 Nf6 and while white has some compensation for the pawn, it is not enough. Black is slightly better as white may win the pawn back soon, but black remains slightly better placed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;      [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;     1. d4 d5 2. Nf3 c5 3. dxc5 Nc6 4. e3 Bg4 5. Nbd2 e5 6. b4?! (6. c4!) (6. h3) (6. Nb3 e4? 7. h3 Bxf3 8. gxf3 {and white is just a pawn up.}) Nxb4 7. Bb5+?! (7. c4!) (7. h3) (7. Rab1 {are all better}) Nc6 8. h3 Bxf3 9. Qxf3 Bxc5 10. c4 Nf6 11. cxd5 Qxd5 12. Qxd5 Nxd5 {Black's pieces are all very nicely placed here, and the Nd2 is passive.} 13. Bb2 O-O-O 14. Rc1? Bb4 {is the tactical justification.}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2019-11-22T22:19:43.700" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27016" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27005" CreationDate="2019-11-22T22:21:27.677" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;After 1...Nxd5 2.Bxd5 Qxb4 3.Qxa6 White has a clear advantage. He has two very nice bishops and an outside passed pawn on the a-file. Black's d6-pawn is a clear weakness, his bishop on d8 lacks prospects, and the list goes on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, Stockfish actually gives 1...Nxd5 as its top choice, with 1...Nc7 coming in as a close second. In either case though, it says White is better by roughly a pawn and a half.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-11-22T22:21:27.677" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27017" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27009" CreationDate="2019-11-22T22:24:29.947" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The moves ...Nge7 and ...f6 slow down Black's development and he will need a few tempi to castle. Meanwhile, White is already castled and is sufficiently developed. This gives you enough incentive to blast open the centre with d4, since Black is ill-equipped to respond effectively.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Normally pushing d4 like this without c3 in the Ruy Lopez isn't a good idea. However, this is an exception because of how inefficiently Black is developing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastEditorUserId="12873" LastEditDate="2019-11-24T04:31:40.393" LastActivityDate="2019-11-24T04:31:40.393" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27018" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27009" CreationDate="2019-11-22T22:30:09.823" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, I agree that f6 is both weakening and a waste of time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The real crux of the matter is that in most double-king pawn openings, white tries to play d4 and after the trade e5xd4, he tries to outpost a N on d5, which exerts great pressure on black. If black can play d5, and I do not agree that he has the initiative there after the better d3, he does get easy equality with plenty of space.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In both this opening, and in most Sicilians, you should be on the lookout for when black can play d5. If he gets it in, then he usually has gained equality, so you want to think prophylactically, and play moves that inhibit d5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your plan of trying to put two pawns in the center is admirable, but if it were possible, it would be excellent, however, it is just not possible there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2019-11-22T22:30:09.823" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27019" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27020" CreationDate="2019-11-22T23:58:27.910" Score="2" ViewCount="154" Body="&lt;p&gt;Games with two knight promotions are extremely rare, but a few have existed. In an &lt;a href=&quot;https://timkr.home.xs4all.nl/chess2/cql.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;article&lt;/a&gt; of his, Tim Krabbe stated that, about the game &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1156733&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Zurakhov - Koblentz&lt;/a&gt;, &quot;This is one in only 5 games with two serious Knight-promotions. 57.g8N is the only winning move, and also a rare non-checking Knight-promotion. 79.c8N is not the only winning move, but in human terms: the best move.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He states that there are 5 double knight promotion games, but I have only ever found four on chessgames.com. Here is my list, in order of date.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1075750&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;MacDonnell-Bird, 1874&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1156733&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Zurakhov-Koblent, 1956&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1747606&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Schweber - Wexler, 1964&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;This is the only game with two Knight promotions that were the strongest move. Promotions to Queen would have been equally strong, but as the Knight promotions were checks, they were more obvious, and therefore genuine.&quot; -&lt;a href=&quot;https://timkr.home.xs4all.nl/records/records.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Tim Krabbe&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1859385&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Kucuksari-Betanli, 2017&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can anyone find anymore games that feature two knight promotions?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastActivityDate="2019-11-25T01:17:00.623" Title="Games with two knight promotions in them" Tags="&lt;knights&gt;&lt;pawn-promotion&gt;&lt;famous-games&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27020" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27019" CreationDate="2019-11-23T01:09:45.707" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not all the games are by strong players, let alone, players, who are well-known, but here is a complete list in the Mega 2019 database. If you would like to see a particular game, or two, I can post the PGN, and add it to this answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This one is interesting since one of players is famous, and both promotions happened so early in the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [Event &quot;Greenhills op&quot;]&#xA; [Site &quot;Greenhills&quot;]&#xA; [Date &quot;1989.??.??&quot;]&#xA; [Round &quot;?&quot;]&#xA; [White &quot;Valdez, P.&quot;]&#xA; [Black &quot;Xu, Jun&quot;]&#xA; [Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA; [ECO &quot;A25&quot;]&#xA; [BlackElo &quot;2510&quot;]&#xA; [PlyCount &quot;44&quot;]&#xA; [EventDate &quot;1989.07.??&quot;]&#xA; [EventType &quot;swiss&quot;]&#xA; [EventRounds &quot;12&quot;]&#xA; [EventCountry &quot;PHI&quot;]&#xA; [SourceTitle &quot;EXT 2010&quot;]&#xA; [Source &quot;ChessBase&quot;]&#xA; [SourceDate &quot;2010.11.25&quot;]&#xA; [SourceVersion &quot;1&quot;]&#xA; [SourceVersionDate &quot;2010.11.25&quot;]&#xA; [SourceQuality &quot;1&quot;]&#xA; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. c4 e5 2. Nc3 Nc6 3. g3 g6 4. Bg2 Bg7 5. d3 d6 6. Rb1 f5 7. Bd2 Nf6 8. b4 O-O 9. b5 Ne7 10. Nf3 h6 11. O-O Be6 12. Qc1 Kh7 13. h3 Qc8 14. Kh2 Bf7 15. c5 g5 16. Qa3 g4 17. cxd6 gxf3 18. dxe7 fxg2 19. exf8=N+ Bxf8 20. Qa4 gxf1=N+ 21. Rxf1 Qd8 22. Qh4 Nd5 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/4LeAa.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/4LeAa.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is a list of links to all of the games, minus the ones already in the question, from the list in order of date. Most of them are either the 365chess or chess-db databases. N/A is used for games that have not been found.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.365chess.com/game.php?gid=2081734&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Kiili-Katajainen,1990&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1149879&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Valdez-Xu, 1989&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.365chess.com/game.php?gid=20818750&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Natri-Salokangas, 1990&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.365chess.com/game.php?gid=2085357&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Kosonen-Vuori, 1990&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.365chess.com/game.php?gid=2085612&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Dobos-Lehtivaar, 1990&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.365chess.com/game.php?gid=2009990&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Korhonen-Eskola, 1991&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.365chess.com/game.php?gid=2010072&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Lehto-Ketola, 1991&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.365chess.com/game.php?gid=1636919&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Carpenter-Scott, 1994&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.365chess.com/game.php?gid=1666986&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Myc-Walach, 1994&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.365chess.com/game.php?gid=1502262&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Sintici-Zubavicius, 1995&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.365chess.com/game.php?gid=1537864&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Norqvist-Kochetkov, 1995&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.365chess.com/game.php?gid=1122597&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Richards-Fongers, 1997&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Rasmussen-Arnkilde, 1997-N/A&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.365chess.com/game.php?gid=784065&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Doettling-Euler, 1999&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.365chess.com/game.php?gid=857636&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Quintero-Bognar, 1999&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.365chess.com/game.php?gid=568600&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Mellem=Borchgrevink, 2000&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.365chess.com/game.php?gid=243184&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Reich-Lauer, 2002&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.365chess.com/game.php?gid=2895199&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Choma-Karstens, 2004&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.365chess.com/game.php?gid=3014243&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Urbisaglia-Del Cont Bernard, 2004&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Vajcner-Vancat, 2006-N.A&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Polok, Jagodzinski, 2006-N/A&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.365chess.com/game.php?gid=3417098&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Moura-Goncalves, 2006&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.365chess.com/game.php?gid=3524500&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Hager-Specht, 2007&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;KaunzingerSternheimer, 2008-N/A&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Huszar-Gerendas, 2008-N/A&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Kast-Becker, 2010-N/A&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess-db.com/public/game.jsp?id=4199014.24123900.46865408.26682&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Khamko-Prosvetov, 2010&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess-db.com/public/game.jsp?id=4655630.1628313.3949568.26695&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Hapke-Uksini, 2010&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bango-Bango, 2011-N/A&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Simo-Volna, 2011-N/A&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Woehl-Schwab, 2012-N/A&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess-db.com/public/game.jsp?id=376370.387347.25627136.27940&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Effenberger-Barak, 2013&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.365chess.com/game.php?gid=3910779&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Bellahcene-Barbot, 2014&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess-db.com/public/game.jsp?id=448125.2026562.106763776.28857&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Lokwani-Lee, 2015&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess-db.com/public/game.jsp?id=14536510.14544261.8321024.28866&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Radenic-Fikus, 2015&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessbomb.com/arena/2015-uka-german/03-Fridman_Daniel-Svane_Rasmus&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Fridman-Svane, 2015&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess-db.com/public/game.jsp?id=2900165.2918978.137428736.28912&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Popchev-Dyulgerov, 2015&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess-db.com/public/game.jsp?id=22713042.2193310.46342656.29998&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Davanso-Jenidarchiche, 2018&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-11-25T01:17:00.623" LastActivityDate="2019-11-25T01:17:00.623" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27021" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27022" CreationDate="2019-11-23T06:05:52.563" Score="5" ViewCount="630" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have heard about &quot;chronological order&quot; in chess. But I don't know what it is exactly. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can someone tell me what this is?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20267" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-11-23T15:11:20.863" LastActivityDate="2019-11-25T07:13:13.067" Title="What is &quot;Chronological Order&quot; in chess?" Tags="&lt;terminology&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27022" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27021" CreationDate="2019-11-23T10:35:01.457" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chronological order is just the order, in time, in which you do things. The &quot;chronological order&quot; in which you move can make a big difference in chess and there are two obvious areas where this applies:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;openings&lt;br&gt;&#xA;You want to play a particular opening but avoid some unpleasant (for you) lines. Examples would be replying to 1. d4 with 1... e6 intending 2... f5 to play the Dutch but avoid the Staunton Gambit (2. e4 from White). Or playing the moves 1. d4 2. c4 3. Nf3 instead of 1. d4 2. c4 3. Nc3 which would allow the Nimzowitsch Defence.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;tactics&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Consider this position.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Normally you check for - 1) checks 2) captures 3) threats. One obvious move, Rxh6+, is a check and a capture. If black responds with Kg8 then Rg5 is checkmate. But black will play Kg7, not Kg8, and then take the rook on h6, so it doesn't work. Reversing the order, playing Rg5 first, leads to checkmate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [fen &quot;r4r1k/pbp2p2/3np2p/1p2R3/3P1P2/b1PB3R/P1Pb2PP/6K1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. Rxh6+ (1. Rg5 null 2. Rxh6++) 1... Kg7! 2. Rg5+? Kxh6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="18806" LastEditDate="2019-11-25T07:13:13.067" LastActivityDate="2019-11-25T07:13:13.067" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27023" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27021" CreationDate="2019-11-23T11:23:26.973" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;To be frank, chronological order is not really a chess thing as much as a general thing that is just defined by English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In 40 years of playing, and reading (at my peak, I had 1800 chess books, and have read 300 cover to cover), that is the first time I have heard the term &quot;chronological order&quot; attempted to be used as a pure chess term.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So to be clear, what I am saying is that it is not a standard chess term, however, it is a common general English term (speaking as a native English speaker) that can be applied to chess or anything else. The person, who wrote that was just using common English lexicon, not common chess lexicon, and it does, indeed, mean &quot;the order in time that you do things&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S. To back this up, I also just searched 615 digital chess books, and &quot;chronological order&quot; was found in 20 books, however, after looking at every one of them, and how it was used, it was just used to describe layouts of the material in the book....still not as a pure chess term.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2019-11-24T02:15:49.373" LastActivityDate="2019-11-24T02:15:49.373" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27024" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27033" CreationDate="2019-11-23T17:30:38.507" Score="5" ViewCount="447" Body="&lt;p&gt;I once had 1800 chess books before I sold off about 600 of the least-good ones and doubles (I used to buy entire collections from people, so you get some stuff you do not want).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know an IM friend of mine has thousands of books, and that Karpov is said to have a massive library (although I cannot find confirmation of this, or how many), but who has the largest library of chess books?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even the top few would be interesting to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2020-01-02T08:31:28.093" Title="Who has the biggest chess library?" Tags="&lt;books&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27026" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-11-23T21:41:23.520" Score="8" ViewCount="1113" Body="&lt;p&gt;I like to play the Caro-Kann as black, and in response to the advance variation play 3... c5!? This works really well for me (~1800 USCF), but as I've gotten better I'm being forced to deal with the response which is common at higher levels, which is 4. dxc5! Nc6 leading to a position which I've found uniquely uncomfortable (and after only 4 moves!):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;r1bqkbnr/pp2pppp/2n5/2PpP3/8/8/PPP2PPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 1 5&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although the computer thinks Black is okay (stockfish depth 29: +0.5) this opening feels very different from other variations of the Caro-Kann and as such I've felt recently that I should study the variation in more detail, but I've really struggled to become more comfortable in this position despite putting more time into this position than almost any other in my repertoire. Here are the reasons that I can see why I'm having trouble:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Fundamentally, black is cramped and down a pawn. Worse, in many variations persist for a long time even with perfect play. Proving compensation seems very hard.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;There are a bazilion ways white can play which keep this cramping theme - at almost every move there are 5 moves within a half evaluation point of each other, and my opponents tend to break from the &quot;main lines&quot; that I can see in opening explorers very quickly. Memorizing moves &amp;amp; responses feels fairly futile past a couple moves, and these lines usually don't lead to what I'd call a &quot;comfortable&quot; position.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If I'm not very careful, White's queen-side majority can create passed pawns and with such a cramped position, this can prove deadly. I've lost several games in this fashion.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I've struggled to find much theory or discussion of this position since 3... c5 is it's a 10-to-1 side-line of the main Caro-Kann (although I'm probably just not looking in the right places). The couple books I've looked at don't cover 3... c5.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, I'm looking for some advice from more experienced players. How can I study / improve this opening? Am I thinking about something wrong here? Is this just a fundamentally uncomfortable position (and probably the reason 3... c5 isn't the main line) and I should just accept that and play a different opening if it's too much? Should I just bunker down and spend a lot of time memorizing lines to guide myself through the opening stages here? I've struggled to gain much insight by looking at pro games (and this &lt;strong&gt;is&lt;/strong&gt; played occasionally at the highest level), but maybe I should try harder at a that? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15395" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2019-11-23T23:14:03.870" LastActivityDate="2019-11-23T23:42:07.503" Title="Caro-Kann advance variation w/ 3. c5 dxc5" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;caro-kann&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27027" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27026" CreationDate="2019-11-23T22:02:47.050" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;This line, the &lt;strong&gt;Botvinnik-Carls Defense&lt;/strong&gt;, is my pet opening as Black. :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The critical move after &lt;code&gt;4.dxc5&lt;/code&gt; is &lt;code&gt;e6&lt;/code&gt;! If White tries to hold the pawn with &lt;code&gt;Be3&lt;/code&gt;, you answer that with &lt;code&gt;Nd7&lt;/code&gt;. In many lines after that you have a way to get the pawn back or get the bishop pair and a much better pawn structure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See the annotated example below.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Result &quot;*&quot;]&#xA;[Annotator &quot;https://lichess.org/@/fuxia&quot;]&#xA;[UTCDate &quot;2019.11.23&quot;]&#xA;[UTCTime &quot;21:48:33&quot;]&#xA;[Variant &quot;Standard&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;B12&quot;]&#xA;[Opening &quot;Caro-Kann Defense: Advance Variation, Botvinnik-Carls Defense&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. e5 c5 { The very early c5 is the beginning of the Botvinnik-Carls Defense. Instead of Bf5, Black tries to undermine White's center pawns immediately. White now has to make an important decision: to take or not to take. Looks like a gambit, but Black will very likely get this pawn back. } 4. dxc5 e6 { And not Nc6! } 5. Nf3 { Give the c-pawn back immediately, protect the center pawn on e5 instead. } (5. Be3 { One way to cling to that pawn. The same as in the 4…Nc6 line above. } 5... Nd7 { My recommendation. Attack c4 again. } { [%cal Gf8c5,Gd7c5] } (5... Nh6 { One of the main lines, but I really don't like the situation after Bxh6. GM Chirila played that once against me, and I had to face a very strong kingside attack. } { [%cal Gh6f5,Gf5e3] })  (5... Ne7 { Again, the same motif: Try to attack White's bishop on e3 with the knight. This is slow tough. } { [%csl Gf5][%cal Ge7f5,Gf5e3] } 6. c3 { Now White can dream about an exchange of that bishop on d4. This would restore its center pawns. } { [%cal Re3d4] } 6... Nd7 { Well, the other pawn is tasty too. } { [%cal Gd7e5] } 7. Nf3 { Black is really missing the light-square bishop here. This is the reason why the 4…Nc6 is so attractive for Black. } { [%cal Rf3e5] } 7... Nf5 { A nice move that creates attacks all over the place. } { [%cal Gf5e3,Gf8c5,Gd7c5] }) 6. Bb5 { prevents that for now. a6 doesn't help, because after Ba4 Black cannot play b5. } 6... Ne7 { Develop instead. } { [%csl Gf5][%cal Ge7f5,Gf5e3] } 7. c3 (7. Nf3 Nf5 8. b4 Nxe3 9. fxe3 a5 10. c3 Be7 11. O-O O-O 12. a3 Qc7 13. Bxd7 Bxd7 14. Qd4) 7... a6 8. Bxd7+ Bxd7 9. Nf3 Nf5 { [%cal Gf5e3,Gf8c5] } 10. Qd2 (10. Bd4 Nxd4 11. cxd4 b6! { Now it is a gambit. } 12. cxb6 Qxb6 { [%cal Gb6b2] } 13. Qb3) 10... Nxe3 11. Qxe3)  (5. a3 Bxc5 { Recapture, and have a nice game. }) 5... Bxc5 6. Bd3 Ne7 7. Qe2 { The best move according to Stockfish 8, depth 40. Rarely played. But e5 will be under fire soon. } { [%cal Re2e5,Rf3e5,Re2b5] } (7. O-O Nbc6 8. a3 (8. Bf4 Ng6 9. Bg3 O-O)) 7... Nbc6 { [%cal Gc6e5,Ge7g6,Bg6e5,Gd8c7,Bc7e5] } 8. O-O Bd7 { Prepare for pins from b5. This might be a novelty already. Then engine likes it more than Ng6 or 0-0. } *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In general, I think this line is Black's best response to &lt;code&gt;3.e5&lt;/code&gt;. And if you play it correctly, you get a very solid position and chances to develop a strong center.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8472" LastActivityDate="2019-11-23T22:02:47.050" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27028" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-11-23T23:31:20.117" Score="4" ViewCount="154" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to learn more about rook and pawn endgames because they are very common. But it’s such a broad subject - where should I even begin?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, I do know of the Philidor and Lucena positions, but are there any other fundamental endgames positions I should know? Or should I take a different approach to getting started here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks so much!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20642" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-11-30T10:45:10.453" LastActivityDate="2019-12-02T06:19:27.517" Title="Rook and Pawn Endgames" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27029" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27026" CreationDate="2019-11-23T23:42:07.503" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;OK, after reading your reply to my question above, I can more accurately answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, contrary to Fuxia's comment, the move you played, 4...Nc6, is actually more popular now at higher levels than Botvinnik's 4...e6. To quote GM John Shaw's 2016 book:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;4...Nc6 is more popular these days and can be viewed as slightly more ambitious, as well as somewhat riskier. It can lead to exceptionally&#xA;  sharp play....&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus, based on your answer above, I would not play 4...Nc6 since it simply does not suit your style. If you are going to play 3...c5, then I would play 4...e6 as it leads to more positional lines, that are easier to understand. Also, not that you are old, but if you are having problems with blundering, going into sharp lines with 4...Nc6 may be suicide.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is what I would recommend:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;  1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. e5 c5 4. dxc5 e6 5. Nf3 (5. Be3 Nh6! {This is actually very positional since if white takes, most of the lines favor the black bishops.}) (5. a3!? {Shaw}) Bxc5 6. Bd3 Nc6 7. O-O Nge7 {with the idea Ng6, Qc7, and maybe f6 after O-O. Also, instead of Qc7, you can also play Bb6-c7 with the same type of pressure on e5.}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, in any case, that is barely touching the surface. If you want to play that line, you will need to look at more specific material. Here are some study materials.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;Opening Repertoire: The Caro-Kann&quot; by IM Jovanka Houska (chapters 9-11)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;Playing 1.e4: Caro-Kann, 1...e5 &amp;amp; Minor Lines&quot; by GM John Shaw (chapter 2).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;Practical Black Repertoire with d5, c6. Volume 2 The Caro-Kann and Other Defences&quot; by GM Alexei Kornev (chapter 6+7)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All three books have advantages, and all are pretty new, having been published in 2015, 2016, and 2017 respectively.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2019-11-23T23:42:07.503" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27030" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26976" CreationDate="2019-11-24T10:52:41.290" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You are correct, 66.bxa4+ is an inaccuracy and gives Black a winning advantage. Stockfish gives 66.Ke3 a -0.64 evaluation, which remains constant as it quickly reaches higher depths of searching (+depth 60). This indicates the game was probably objectively a draw if White hadn't captured on a4 (though it wouldn't have been fun).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-11-24T10:52:41.290" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27031" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27003" CreationDate="2019-11-24T13:03:42.427" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The matter of Art. 12.9 is delicate. There is no rule of thumb when to choose one penalty over another. So the values taken from the preface prevail: necessary competence, sound judgement, absolute objectivity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In some cases, the Laws of Chess (LoC) don’t let the arbiter choose from 12.9 but give a fixed penalty (e.g. 7.5.5, 9.5.3, 11.3.2.2). In other cases, there is international custom as you describe in your answer. A penalty of 10 min for a player who does not write with sound reasons but without disability is quite usual. It is recommended for every arbiter to read a lot about such decisions to get a feeling for appropriate penalties.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But in the end, every case is special. You have to consider all circumstances, look at all rules, and make a decision. If you give a time penalty for a player, you consider his offence worse than one where you would give his opponent additional time but not so bad that you will give the opponent additional points. Other arbiters might make other decisions, but this is OK. If of interest, I could give you an example where every possible decision (1-0, drawn, 0-1) is considered correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I myself have never given a time penalty, and I cannot imagine a case where I would. So I was taught when I still learned, and I never met a fellow arbiter who said that he did. But that’s only the limited experience of me and some others, and cannot be generalized.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20096" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-11-24T14:03:22.727" LastActivityDate="2019-11-24T14:03:22.727" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27032" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13391" CreationDate="2019-11-24T13:21:50.190" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think it's in bad taste. If hopelessly outnumbered like queen down then in such situations winning on time leaves a bitter after taste.&#xA;But then chess is fiercely competitive so not many would be willing to be gracious&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20645" LastActivityDate="2019-11-24T13:21:50.190" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27033" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27024" CreationDate="2019-11-24T15:20:55.090" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_libraries&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Public&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The three significant public chess libraries are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The John G. White Chess and Checkers Collection at Cleveland Public&#xA;  Library has the largest chess and draughts [chequers for those in the&#xA;  US] library in the world, with over 32,000 chess books and over 6,000&#xA;  bound volumes of chess periodicals. It was started with the donation&#xA;  of a quarter of a million dollars and 11,000 books from John G.&#xA;  White's private library upon his death.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The Chess &amp;amp; Draughts collection at the Bibliotheca Van der&#xA;  Linde-Niemeijeriana (part of the Koninklijke Bibliotheek, the National&#xA;  Library of the Netherlands). The second largest public chess&#xA;  collection in the world is built on the donations of the private chess&#xA;  libraries of Antonius van der Linde, Meindert Niemeijer and G.L.&#xA;  Gortmans. &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.kb.nl/en/resources-research-guides/kb-collections/collections-by-theme/chess-and-draughts-collection&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;It contains about 30,000 books&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The M.V. Anderson Chess Collection held at &lt;a href=&quot;https://guides.slv.vic.gov.au/chess&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;State Library Victoria&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;  (Melbourne, Australia) is the largest public chess collection in the&#xA;  Southern hemisphere. This contains in excess of 12,000 books and many&#xA;  journal and newsletter titles. Additional titles are added each year.&#xA;  It is based around M.V. Anderson's personal collection of 6700 volumes&#xA;  donated between 1959 and 1966.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Private&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Grandmaster Lothar Schmid of Bamberg, Germany reportedly owned the&#xA;  world's largest private collection of chess books and memorabilia. In&#xA;  1992, Hooper and Whyld stated that Schmid's chess library &quot;is the&#xA;  largest and finest in private hands, with more than 15,000 items&quot;. In&#xA;  2008, Susan Polgar stated that Schmid &quot;has over 20,000 chess books&quot;.&#xA;  Dirk Jan ten Geuzendam states that Schmid &quot;boasts to have amassed&#xA;  50,000 chess books.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;David DeLucia's chess library contains 7,000 to 8,000 chess books, a&#xA;  similar number of autographs (letters, score sheets, manuscripts), and&#xA;  about 1,000 items of &quot;ephemera&quot;. DeLucia's library contains such items&#xA;  as &quot;a 15th-century Lucena manuscript, score-sheets ranging from&#xA;  Fischer's Game of the Century against Donald Byrne to all the games of&#xA;  the 1927 New York tournament, eight letters by Morphy, over a hundred&#xA;  Lasker manuscripts, Capablanca's gold pocket watch, [and] the contract&#xA;  of the 1886 Steinitz-Zukertort world championship match&quot;. Ten&#xA;  Geutzendam opines that DeLucia's collection &quot;is arguably the finest&#xA;  chess collection in the world&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Former World Champion Anatoly Karpov has a large chess stamp&#xA;  collection. He has a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatoly_Karpov#Hobbies&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;private chess library of over 9000 books&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-11-24T15:22:25.877" LastActivityDate="2019-11-24T15:22:25.877" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27034" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27011" CreationDate="2019-11-24T16:37:01.630" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As an additional note related to the idea of weakening squares around the king, it is only worth spending the tempi if the pawn adjacent to the &quot;fianchetto triangle&quot; is pushed. So, for example, if black fianchettoed its dark bishop and pushed the e pawn to e6 or e5, it's worth it to trade the bishop because the dark squares around black king are permanently weakened. On the other hand, if his pawns are e7-f7-g6-h7, that e pawn sitting on its original square, will normally compensate for the bishop's absence in dark-square protection duties.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15509" LastActivityDate="2019-11-24T16:37:01.630" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27035" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27042" CreationDate="2019-11-24T20:04:34.607" Score="7" ViewCount="1395" Body="&lt;p&gt;I downloaded a bunch of games from &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.kingbase-chess.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Kingbase&lt;/a&gt; which included the below game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;FSIM November 2018&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Budapest HUN&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2018.11.06&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;4.4&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Farago, Sandor&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Li, Hong&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;2216&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;2337&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;B80&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;2018.11.03&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 Nf6 4.Nc3 cxd4 5.Nxd4 a6 6.f3 e6 7.Be3 b5 8.a3 Bb7 &#xA;9.g4 h6 10.h4 Nc6 11.Nxc6 Bxc6 12.Rg1 Nd7 13.g5 hxg5 14.hxg5 Be7 15.Qd2 &#xA;Rh7 16.O-O-O Nf8 17.f4 Qa5 18.f5 e5 19. null Nd7 20.Kb1 Rb8 21.Nd5 Qxd2 22.&#xA;Rxd2 Bxd5 23.Rxd5 Rh4 24.Bd3 Rh3 25.Ba7 Rb7 26.Bf2 Rh2 27.Be3 Rh3 28.Re1 &#xA;Nb8 29.f6 gxf6 30.gxf6 Bxf6 31.Rxd6 Bg7 32.Rd5 Nc6 33.Bd2 f6 34.Rg1 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm confused about the notation in move 19 . I couldn't find any reference on how to interpret it. According to &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.365chess.com/tournaments/FSIM_November_2018_2018/43020&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;another source&lt;/a&gt; the tournament ended after move 18.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At first I thought maybe the time ran out and they decided to finish the game just for fun, But then why didn't White make the next move, and not black?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Different PGN replayers display this game differently. Gnome-chess refuses to display the game with move 19, while &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/analysis&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chess.com analysis&lt;/a&gt; interprets it as an empty move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16333" LastEditorUserId="9192" LastEditDate="2019-11-25T07:28:28.437" LastActivityDate="2019-11-29T23:38:31.790" Title="What happened in this game between Hong Li and Sandor Farago in the FSIM November 2018?" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;pgn&gt;&lt;notation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27036" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27035" CreationDate="2019-11-24T20:34:36.957" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I do not think that the game just ended there. It is more likely that the second source simply could not handle the null move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a bit unusual that it would be so through, but looking at the subsequent moves, we can rule out almost every move there, and figure out what had to have been played.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The available moves on move 19 are: Kb1, Qd2 moves, Rd1, Be3 moves, Bf1 moves, Rg1 moves, and the one of the k-side pawns move to the sixth rank. It is doubtful that either the a-pawn, or b-pawn moved as both players are Masters, and those are horrible moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;We know that it was not Kb1 since that moved on move 20.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;We know that the Qd2 did not move since it was exchanged on d2 on move 21.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;We know it was not the Rd1 since it recaptured the queen on move 22.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It is highly doubtful that the Be3 moved since f2 would have been the only square, and it later moved when attacked on move 24...Rh3.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;This is my guess that the B went to e2 since it is literally the only move left.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It cannot be that the Rg1 moved since it later moved Re1 on move 28.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It cannot be the k-side pawns moving since they got traded on move 29.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The last possibility is that there was an error in the scoresheet prior to the null move, and whoever was recording this just moved on from there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the First Saturday Chess Tournament web site, where this was played, &lt;a href=&quot;http://firstsaturday.hu/1811/CB/im/games/dgt_chesstheatre.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;the game viewer lists this scoresheet after this move as &quot;unreadable&quot;.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Update: Based on Evargalo's Qd4 move hypothesis, that probably should be the accepted answer as it makes great sense positionally.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2019-11-25T14:42:25.777" LastActivityDate="2019-11-25T14:42:25.777" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27037" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27038" CreationDate="2019-11-24T20:43:08.333" Score="5" ViewCount="482" Body="&lt;p&gt;The longest possible normal game of chess has been &lt;a href=&quot;https://wismuth.com/chess/longest-game.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;calculated&lt;/a&gt;, but I want to know what the longest possible game of &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/variant/horde&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Horde Chess&lt;/a&gt; is. What makes this an interesting case is the crazy amount of pawn moves and captures there are that allow the game to be extended for a very long time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the sake of the question, as to avoid answers of &amp;quot;infinity,&amp;quot; the 75-move will be in effect. Captures and pawn moves will be labeled as &amp;quot;marks&amp;quot; for simplicity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for calculating the longest possible game, White needs to promote a pawn to gain waiting moves. This takes 4 moves at the least.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/1PP2PP1/PPPPPPPP/PPPPPPPP/PPPPPPPP/PPPPPPPP w kq - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. b6 a6 2. b5 Ra7 3. bxa7 Nc6 4. a8=Q&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The promotion is our first mark. After this, White has 184 marks in pawn moves. All but one piece can be captured for 31 more marks. (184+31+1)*75 gives us 16200 moves for the White piece alone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Each Black pawn should be able to get at least two moves given that White captures properly, so that's 16 marks from all Black pawns. Additionally, each Black piece (minus a rook from the opening) is a mark, minus the king. (14+16)*75=2250. After all of the marks are done, the Black king and the last White piece can duke it out for another 75 moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;16200+2250+75=&lt;strong&gt;18525 moves&lt;/strong&gt;, give or take a ply or two for parity switches, as a &lt;strong&gt;lower bound.&lt;/strong&gt; I'm sure that there are ways to give Black more pawn moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can anyone refine my starter pack calculations and find the longest possible Horde Chess Game?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-04-30T03:07:23.983" LastActivityDate="2021-04-30T03:08:18.630" Title="Longest possible game of Horde Chess" Tags="&lt;problems&gt;&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;mathematics&gt;&lt;75-move-rule&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27038" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27037" CreationDate="2019-11-25T00:29:38.793" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;EDIT: Final calculation matches actual proof game exactly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That’s a nice new chess-math question, which deserves wider circulation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Begin by promoting a White pawn as quickly as possible, because until that happens, White is just haemorrhaging pawn moves. Now can promote a second pawn more slowly. This promoted piece is captured by Black pawn to open a file, and the first file's promotions can happen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Scheme: axb to let all wPs from the a-file promote, then bxa+bxa to let all remaining wPs from the b-file promote, then cxb to let all wPs from the c-file promote, and so on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One player is the active one, moving pawns. This player can also capture spare officers with officers. But pawns can never be captured before they promote (hugely expensive) and there are only 2 captures by wPs and 9 captures by bPs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are in principle 188+36+48+15=287 marks (captures &amp;amp; pawn moves). However, we lose 9 for Black pawn captures, 2 for White pawn captures, and 5 for pawn moves leading to the first White promotion. So there are really just 271 marks. So if the count begins after 4. a8=?, we have a total length of 20328.5 moves minus 0.5 for each parity switch.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So how many parity switches must there be? White is the first active player, then need two switches to promote the pawns from any file. So that's 16 switches, and White has promoted all his h-file pawns. A 17th switch is required for Black to capture these.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What impact does dead position have? If it applies literally, then Black cannot win if he has lost all his units, because he can't capture the last White unit. So let's suppose that Black winning &amp;quot;counts&amp;quot; as checkmate for DP purposes. That gives a total of 20320.0 moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The final proposed total is hence: &lt;strong&gt;20320.0 moves&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An actual animated proof game has been constructed which achieves this total: &lt;a href=&quot;https://pdb.dieschwalbe.de/P1370701&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://pdb.dieschwalbe.de/P1370701&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8201" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-04-30T03:08:18.630" LastActivityDate="2021-04-30T03:08:18.630" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27040" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27035" CreationDate="2019-11-25T07:00:28.180" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have an alternative hypothesis. When I looked at the game before move 19, it seemed to me that White has a big advantage by pushing &lt;code&gt;f6&lt;/code&gt;. Indeed, &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/analysis/standard/r3kn2/4bppr/p1bp4/qp2pPP1/4P3/P1N1B3/1PPQ4/2KR1BR1_w_q_-_0_19&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Stockfish (10+) agrees&lt;/a&gt;. It could be that Black resigned after move 18, but one or both of them was curious as to whether Black could save the game if given an extra move, so they continued playing after skipping White's turn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One way to block &lt;code&gt;f6&lt;/code&gt; is indeed &lt;code&gt;Nd7&lt;/code&gt;, after which White's threat of &lt;code&gt;f6&lt;/code&gt; is completely nullified and White no longer has a big advantage, &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/analysis/standard/r3k3/3nbppr/p1bp4/qp2pPP1/4P3/P1N1B3/1PPQ4/2KR1BR1_w_q_-_1_20&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;in agreement with Stockfish&lt;/a&gt;, and now is better off playing &lt;code&gt;Kb1&lt;/code&gt; to preemptively protect against &lt;code&gt;b4&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Incidentally, &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/analysis/standard/r3kn2/4bppr/p1bp4/qp2pPP1/4P3/P1N1B3/1PPQ4/2KR1BR1_b_q_-_0_19&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Stockfish (at least at depth 20) thinks&lt;/a&gt; Black's best extra move should be not &lt;code&gt;Nd7&lt;/code&gt; but &lt;code&gt;b4&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although it is hard to believe that illegal moves after a game could make it into a database, it is also a bit hard to believe that White moved &lt;code&gt;Be2&lt;/code&gt; (a rather poor move) and that Black would just resign after White's move 34, since there is no clear advantage for White at that point (except being 1 pawn up).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I suppose the best way to know for sure is to ask the players themselves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9192" LastEditorUserId="9192" LastEditDate="2019-11-25T07:32:34.097" LastActivityDate="2019-11-25T07:32:34.097" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27042" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27035" CreationDate="2019-11-25T12:58:18.593" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Best guess: the mistake occured before, on move 15&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Entry errors are frequent when games are entered into a software, especially if they are not entered by one of the players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here the operator must have made an error &lt;em&gt;before&lt;/em&gt; move 19, reached an anomaly, and couldn't solve the mystery (or didn't have time to try, there are other games to be saved). In such occurence, entering a null move solves the issue, even if it makes some future users wonder what exactly happened during the game. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Only one of the players, or someone with access to the handwritten gamescore, could answer with 100% certainty, so I cannot be totally affirmative, but I am pretty sure the error occured on move 15. This must be how the game went:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;FSIM November 2018&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Budapest HUN&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2018.11.06&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;4.4&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Farago, Sandor&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Li, Hong&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;2216&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;2337&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;B80&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;2018.11.03&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 Nf6 4.Nc3 cxd4 5.Nxd4 a6 6.f3 e6 7.Be3 b5 8.a3 Bb7 &#xA;9.g4 h6 10.h4 Nc6 11.Nxc6 Bxc6 12.Rg1 Nd7 13.g5 hxg5 14.hxg5 Be7 15.Qd4 &#xA;Rh7 16.O-O-O Nf8 17.f4 Qa5 18.f5 e5 19. Qd2 Nd7 20.Kb1 Rb8 21.Nd5 Qxd2 22.&#xA;Rxd2 Bxd5 23.Rxd5 Rh4 24.Bd3 Rh3 25.Ba7 Rb7 26.Bf2 Rh2 27.Be3 Rh3 28.Re1 &#xA;Nb8 29.f6 gxf6 30.gxf6 Bxf6 31.Rxd6 Bg7 32.Rd5 Nc6 33.Bd2 f6 34.Rg1 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;15.Qd4&lt;/strong&gt;, instead of 15.Qd2, is a very logical move, centralizing the queen and hitting the Pg7 left unprotected by Black's last move, 14...Bf8-e7. It is also a typical move when a Nd4-Nc6 exchange occurs in the Najdorf with the wQ still on d1.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;It doesn't take a lot of stretch for an handwritten &quot;Qd4&quot; to be mistaken for &quot;Qd2&quot; (another plausible move) by the operator. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Then the operator won't meet any incoherence before move 19, when he finds 19.Qd2 written on the scoresheet but, puzzlingly, the queen already stands on d2. If the explanation doesn't jump to his eyes, using the &lt;em&gt;null move&lt;/em&gt; feature of the software (most probably Chessbase) is the simplest way to deal with it. I have done that often myself when entering kids' games whose scoresheets I couldn't decipher.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;By the way, 19.Qd2 is the obvious choice if the queen comes from d4, attacked by Black last move, 18...e6-e5. The whole game looks very coherent in this version (but that Black is positionnally outplayed pretty fast, with 22...Bxd5? a very suspect choice).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The most important argument in favor of 15.Qd4, in my opinion, is that it gives an explanation for the otherwise mysterious move 15...Rh7 played by Black: he simply protected his pawn. If 15.Qd2 had been played, 15...Rh7 would be a very, very weird decision (instead of any of the logical developing moves 15...Qc7, 15...Nf8, 15...Rc8, 15...Nb6, 15...g6 or 15....Qa5).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastEditorUserId="14079" LastEditDate="2019-11-29T23:38:31.790" LastActivityDate="2019-11-29T23:38:31.790" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27043" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-11-25T15:30:11.453" Score="24" ViewCount="9685" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was playing a game on Lichess the other day and all the sudden the system ended the game, awarded me the victory, and said &quot;Cheating by White detected&quot;.    How in the world could you cheat on the Lichess site ?    Does anyone know what this means?    My  rating  is 1250 ...... who would bother to cheat against me ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20653" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-11-25T20:14:56.027" LastActivityDate="2020-04-14T14:44:56.087" Title="Cheating On Lichess?" Tags="&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;cheating&gt;&lt;lichess&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27044" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27043" CreationDate="2019-11-25T16:43:18.580" Score="27" Body="&lt;p&gt;How could you cheat? This is what the &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/terms-of-service&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Lichess terms of service&lt;/a&gt; say about it:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Cheating&lt;/strong&gt;. We define this as using any external assistance to&#xA;  strengthen your knowledge and, or, calculation ability to gain an&#xA;  unfair advantage over your opponent. Some examples would include&#xA;  computer engine assistance, opening books (except for correspondence&#xA;  games), endgame tablebases, and asking another player for help,&#xA;  although these aren’t the only things we would consider cheating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The most common form of cheating is using an engine. I don't know the details of what Lichess does, but cheating detection can consist of comparing a player's moves to those proposed by various engines, and based on statistical analysis one can come up with criteria for when the player's moves were &quot;suspiciously similar&quot; to an engine's.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lichess also allows people to register bot accounts, but those must be clearly labelled as bots. So I suppose that another form of cheating could be to create a bot account and pretend that it is a human.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also found &lt;a href=&quot;https://web.archive.org/web/20160610172814/http://en.lichess.org/qa/258/all-about-cheating-questions-and-answers&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this old FAQ&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol start=&quot;4&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;How are cheaters identified?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Using the suspicious games themselves. The degree to which computer players differ in playing style and strength, to most human opponents&#xA;  that rely on them, is in most cases enough to reverse-engineer&#xA;  information from the game beyond what moves were made.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Using the player's other games. A player's profile shows all their games, including games where it is apparent that there was no&#xA;  cheating. Games where a player cheated and games where a player did&#xA;  not cheat have very different results when reviewing them using a&#xA;  chess engine (or Lichess' computer analysis feature).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Using the player's history. On every player's profile are public graphs of rating and average history, game database exports upon&#xA;  request, and win to loss ratio.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Time statistics. Anyone can see the public time consummation information for games, i.e., the time-per-moves.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;A statistical analysis of the suspected user's playing behaviour. This statistical analysis is only visible to the lichess team.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Copying and pasting the suspicious game(s) into an engine and seeing how similar the moves are.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12523" LastEditorUserId="12523" LastEditDate="2019-11-25T16:48:29.770" LastActivityDate="2019-11-25T16:48:29.770" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27046" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27056" CreationDate="2019-11-25T21:00:11.380" Score="21" ViewCount="8852" Body="&lt;p&gt;I searched this online and couldn't find sufficient answers.&#xA;Is there a topic in chess that includes machine learning and would be sufficient for a PhD thesis? I was thinking of utilizing a CNN that tells you the correct move based on the current position (and previous couple of moves) without calculating all the tree branch moves ahead. Would this be feasible?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20657" LastEditorUserId="20657" LastEditDate="2019-11-25T22:00:29.027" LastActivityDate="2019-12-28T02:02:16.330" Title="Chess PhD topic in machine learning?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="8" CommentCount="15" FavoriteCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27047" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18878" CreationDate="2019-11-25T21:10:59.970" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, I think you are looking for a hard-and-fast rule that does not exist since it really depends on the position. There still can be some guiding factors.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the Karpov game above, which only lasted another 6 moves, it turns out that literally every white piece was an attacker, and was necessary for the attack to succeed, so the original question about whether Nf3 and Re1 were attackers, the answer was &quot;yes&quot;, even if the Re1 was indirectly attacking by defending the other rook going to e8.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would also say that it is not really related to a pure ratio. Sometimes, it can be a simple majority of one more attacker than there are defenders, and not all defenders are equal in every position. That said, if you have a 5 or 6 pieces bearing down on the opposing king position, and there are only one or two defenders, there is almost always going to be something there. You can safely go by instinct in such a case, even if you do not see your attack clearly all the way to the end.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For each position, when trying to figure this out, determining which pieces are attackers is usually not as hard as figuring out which ones are defenders. That is because, depending on the position, sometimes a pawn may be a defender, but other times it really is not, as in the Karpov game above f7 did nothing to defend. Also, you have to consider that the defending king also counts as a defender of itself: If you sacrifice so much material to the point that it is just your queen left, and there is no mate or win of material, the queen, just as in a pure K vs K+Q ending, cannot win without some support against the king it was attacking. You really have to judge what pieces can really help defend, and which ones only appear to be in the vicinity to help. Be especially aware when the opposing queen is way offside, and cannot get back to help. That alone, is often a deciding factor.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You also need to look at how pieces combine. For example, if you have a queen and knight attacking a castled black king with only the three pawns as cover, they can be very powerful with the knight on f5, and the queen on g5, and they might be able to go it alone. If it were instead a bishop on d3, and that same queen, then g6 might stop you cold without maybe many more attackers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also use this principle more when worrying about my own king safety rather than my opponents, but that is more that my positional style does not lend itself to attacking Morphy-style. It may also be because all-out attacks do not occur every game, but we always have to think about king safety.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  [Event &quot;Tilburg&quot;]&#xA;  [Site &quot;Tilburg&quot;]&#xA;  [Date &quot;1994.??.??&quot;]&#xA;  [Round &quot;5&quot;]&#xA;  [White &quot;Karpov, Anatoly&quot;]&#xA;  [Black &quot;Georgiev, Kiril&quot;]&#xA;  [Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;  [ECO &quot;D58&quot;]&#xA;  [WhiteElo &quot;2780&quot;]&#xA;  [BlackElo &quot;2615&quot;]&#xA;  [EventDate &quot;1994.09.??&quot;]&#xA;  [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;  1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nf3 d5 4. Nc3 Be7 5. Bg5 h6 6. Bh4 O-O 7. e3 b6 8. Be2 Bb7 9. Bxf6 Bxf6 10. cxd5 exd5 11. b4 c6 12. O-O Qd6 13. Qb3 Nd7 14. Rfe1 Be7 15. Rab1 a5 16. bxa5 Rxa5 17. a4 Re8 18. Bf1 Bf8 19. Qc2 g6 20. e4 dxe4 21. Nxe4 Qf4 22. Bc4 Bg7 23. Re2 c5 24. d5 Raa8 25. Rbe1 Rad8 26. Qb3 Ba8 27. g3 Qb8 28. d6 Rf8 29. Bxf7+ Rxf7 30. Neg5 hxg5 31. Nxg5 Rdf8 32. Re8 Qxd6 33. Qxf7+ Kh8 34. Ne6 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2019-11-25T21:28:33.033" LastActivityDate="2019-11-25T21:28:33.033" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27048" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27046" CreationDate="2019-11-25T21:15:59.970" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;A couple of ideas:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Does chess help kids do better in school? That question has long been debated.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Do certain businesses with chess players, especially strong chess players, have an advantage in certain types of business, like finance?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2019-11-25T21:15:59.970" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27049" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27055" CreationDate="2019-11-25T22:24:33.653" Score="7" ViewCount="650" Body="&lt;p&gt;Who is the oldest person to become a GM via norms and hitting 2500 in rating? In other words, the standard way that most GMs achieve the title.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This would rule out any of the old masters pre-FIDE, and I also want to rule out those, who become a GM directly as a result of winning the World Senior Championship (like GM Larry Kaufman, for example).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-04-01T13:59:02.473" LastActivityDate="2020-04-01T13:59:02.473" Title="Who is the oldest person to become a GM via norms and hitting 2500 in rating?" Tags="&lt;fide&gt;&lt;titles&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27050" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27051" CreationDate="2019-11-25T22:37:48.980" Score="4" ViewCount="136" Body="&lt;p&gt;Does anyone have any suggestions for intermediate chess books? Tactics or endgames would be the topic that I'd mainly like to focus on!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20642" LastActivityDate="2019-11-25T22:46:40.303" Title="Intermediate Chess Books" Tags="&lt;books&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27051" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27050" CreationDate="2019-11-25T22:46:40.303" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You cannot go wrong with the Yusupov and Aagaard series of books. Both are tremendous. Yusupov's books cover everything, and not in any order, so one day, you will get some tactics, endgames, and maybe even some opening stuff. They are very varied.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yusupov was a top-10 player, multiple-time candidate, and considered one of the greatest trainers living today.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You might also like Quality Chess' &quot;The Woodpecker Method&quot;, which is an immersion course in tactics.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can find them &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.qualitychess.co.uk/sections/13/special_offers/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;New in Chess also has a lot of books aimed at the intermediate market:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Improve Your Chess Pattern Recognition&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Train Your Chess Pattern Recognition&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Strategic Chess Excercises&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Complete Manual of Positional Chess volumes 1 and 2.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some of these are not tactics, but they are still problems that are designed to have you analyze.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2019-11-25T22:46:40.303" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27053" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18878" CreationDate="2019-11-25T23:23:01.300" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm definitely far from the best chess player on Earth, but from my experience and lessons from coaches, pawns are almost always the best defenders, but not always. Watch for defended pieces, and your opponent trying to remove the defender of those pieces / squares to take advantage of the &quot;hole&quot; that's left behind.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you can piece together the kind of web / job that your pieces are doing, and what &quot;holes&quot; they might make if they're removed then it should help make more sense with adding defenders or calculating trades!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some tactics practice and looking at some more popular games might help you develop these ideas for your own games as well =)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20642" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-06T16:43:16.843" LastActivityDate="2020-03-06T16:43:16.843" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27054" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27046" CreationDate="2019-11-25T23:59:37.487" Score="17" Body="&lt;p&gt;You might be interested in &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AlphaZero&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;AlphaZero&lt;/a&gt; and its derivatives. AlphaZero is the original neural-network based chess engine; since then there have been various other attempts (Leela Chess Zero, AllieStein, the recent Fat Fritz ...) to replicate AlphaZero's ideas. The key paper to read is &lt;a href=&quot;https://science.sciencemag.org/content/362/6419/1140&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this one&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The data right now seems to indicate that although these neural network engines are very strong, the conventional chess engine Stockfish is still the strongest engine on the planet on consensus equal hardware. That said, the situation is fluid; a few months ago Leela was probably the strongest.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I do not know if there's enough material here for a PhD project, but there's a great deal of territory to cover.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastActivityDate="2019-11-25T23:59:37.487" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27055" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27049" CreationDate="2019-11-26T00:13:05.857" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;The oldest player for whom I can find supporting evidence is &lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/card.phtml?event=4146042&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Nikolai Shalnev&lt;/a&gt; who was 57 when he got his third GM norm in the &lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/individual_calculations.phtml?idnumber=4146042&amp;amp;rating_period=2001-07-01&amp;amp;t=0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Spring 2001 tournament&lt;/a&gt; in Odessa at which point his FIDE rating was 2550.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to his &lt;a href=&quot;https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolai_Shalnev&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;(German) Wikipedia entry&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Shalnev trägt seit 2001 den Großmeister-Titel. Die dritte Norm für&#xA;  den Titel des Großmeisters hat er beim Turnier Spring 2001 in Odessa&#xA;  erfüllt, wo er mit 9,5 Punkten aus 12 Partien siegte.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Translated:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Shalnev has the Grandmaster title since 2001. He obtained the third grandmaster norm in the Spring 2001 tournament in Odessa, which he won with 9.5 points out of 12 games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2019-11-26T07:42:54.003" LastActivityDate="2019-11-26T07:42:54.003" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27056" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27046" CreationDate="2019-11-26T00:56:42.743" Score="50" Body="&lt;p&gt;You have little chance in your dissertation of surpassing state of the art chess engines. Perhaps you could find a hook which hasn't been explored so much. One idea is to train your program to play &lt;em&gt;amateur chess&lt;/em&gt; in a convincing way. Can a program pass a sort of chess &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_test&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Turing Test&lt;/a&gt; where a human-player couldn't tell if they were playing an AI or playing a player rated e.g. 1600? When I play computer chess programs with a level setting at a level that I can actually beat, there is something not quite right about it. The program is deliberately hobbled (so I can beat it) in such a way that it sometimes makes blunders that a human player of the target level is unlikely to do, but at other times it still makes moves which seem just too good for that level. Trying to imitate &lt;em&gt;human&lt;/em&gt; chess-playing rather than targeting optimal chess-playing seems like an interesting AI problem. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15148" LastActivityDate="2019-11-26T00:56:42.743" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27057" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27059" CreationDate="2019-11-26T06:17:48.870" Score="15" ViewCount="6561" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have played chess since a very young age and my tactics are very developed in my opinion. However, I never bothered to read chess related books about opening or related theory. This often leads to interesting games as I don't follow well known openings which throws off my opponents. Would it be a good idea for me to enter a tournament with an entry fee in the hopes of winning prize money? Or would I get completely crushed by my opponents? I am roughly a 1900 ELO rated player - checked online.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20657" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-12-28T21:51:13.343" LastActivityDate="2020-01-01T09:48:44.880" Title="Chess Tournaments Without Studying Theory?" Tags="&lt;theory&gt;&lt;tournament&gt;" AnswerCount="11" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27059" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27057" CreationDate="2019-11-26T07:58:24.360" Score="33" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is nothing wrong in entering a tournament if you have the time and if you can afford the entry fee.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I think you should really consider your first tournament as a discovery experience and enjoy the pleasure of chess and the atmosphere of the tournament rather than worry at once about winning prize money.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Whether you can win something depends a lot on the specifics of the tournament, the field, and of course your own level. I wouldn't put too much faith in online estimates of your strength: real-life chess is quite different. Playing your first tournament will actually give you a much better evaluation of where you stand vis-à-vis competition chess, and the experience will probably make you pretty stronger for your second one!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In a typical Swiss-system open tournament, you won't get crushed in all your games: whether your 1900-elo online estimation translates to real-chess 1900, or 1700, or 1500, there are many players of every level entering such events, and there will almost certainly be some opponents that you can beat. Probably you will get crushed in a few games, but not throughout the tournament, and you will have your revenge in others.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some tournaments have prize money for unrated players. This may be a nice plus at the end, or a goal to aim for if your are well-placed before the last couple of games. But don't worry about it at the starting line, concentrate on your chessboard!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, studying chess, reading books or training is up to you. It certainly doesn't hurt to play over some grandmaster's games collection, for instance. In any case, don't overestimate the importance of opening theory: it does help, but you wouldn't be the first tournament player to reach decent results without delving into it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Welcome in the world of competitive chess and have a nice tournament!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastEditorUserId="16806" LastEditDate="2019-12-03T07:11:26.843" LastActivityDate="2019-12-03T07:11:26.843" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27060" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27057" CreationDate="2019-11-26T10:06:15.687" Score="15" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Would it be a good idea for me to enter a tournament with an entry&#xA;  fee?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Absolutely! Playing over-the-board chess tournaments is a lot of fun. There is social interaction which is almost completely absent in online play and it will be good for you to compare your level of play with other players in &quot;real&quot; chess. You can also learn a lot in post-game discussions with your opponents.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;in the hopes of winning prize money?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Hope&quot; is good. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Expectation&quot; could be misplaced. I'm afraid there is a word which comes up in the chess world - &quot;sandbagging&quot;. If there are sandbaggers in the tournament you enter then you won't win money. You hope you pick a tournament with none of these players and you might be in with a chance. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An example of something which looks suspiciously like this activity is available &lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/individual_calculations.phtml?idnumber=1250043&amp;amp;rating_period=2017-11-01&amp;amp;t=0&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;. In one month the player gained 72 rating points by scoring 5.5/7 against players with an average rating of 1947 in a tournament with generous prize money and also managed to lose 91 rating points in another tournament by losing 5 games in a row against players with an average rating below 1385 (3 players had ratings more than 400 points below the player's rating and so their ratings were rounded up to be just 400 points below).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Juniors or very young players are also a (more legitimate) danger to your hopes of winning money. The problem there is that they are often improving very rapidly and their rating lags a long way behind their playing level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thirdly, you are unrated yourself. Many tournaments which have rating limits (you must be below a certain level to enter) will allow you to enter but not win a prize.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2019-11-26T10:06:15.687" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27061" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27057" CreationDate="2019-11-26T11:41:38.123" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;You should play because you want to play, not for the money.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At 1900, you might win some money here or there, but it will not be a lot, and will likely only offset your costs just a little as you are much more likely to spend more on entry fees, books, online subscriptions, etc. There is a lot of competition at any level, so you may win some money sometimes, and not other times. Also, be aware that 1900 online is not usually close to 1900 in over-the-board play, and may be off by 200 points, or more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It also takes a while to get used to playing in tournaments, and that experience cannot be discounted. When I first started playing, the stress before each game would get me sick. Over time, I overcame that, but that is one example, and it is something that you need to get over with experience.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as not knowing theory, you are talking to someone, who hates theory. I got to 2298 knowing very little except how to play opening pawn structures. Understanding what you should be trying to achieve is more important than knowing exact moves that you do not understand, especially when your opponent is not going to follow book for 30 moves. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Learning about opening pawn structures, and the pawn breaks associated with them, can be learned in the following books:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;“&lt;em&gt;Complete Chess Strategy&lt;/em&gt;” volumes 1,2 and 3 by Ludek Pachman. (This teaches about many basic plans, and what you are striving for with your pieces and pawns, especially. THIS is what made me a master.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;“&lt;em&gt;Pawn Structure Chess&lt;/em&gt;” by Andy Soltis. (This extends the above to specific opening structures.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;“&lt;em&gt;Chess Structures: A Grandmaster Guide&lt;/em&gt;” by Mauricio Flores Rios (This is an extension of “Pawn Structure Chess”, and is deeper, and covers more structures. It is outstanding especially if you have already covered “&lt;em&gt;Complete Chess Strategy&lt;/em&gt;”.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/26906/opening-moves-pawn-chains-and-countering-attacks/26910#26910&quot;&gt;Here is a good link with some basics.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In any case, good luck with your first tournament.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2019-12-28T11:44:42.320" LastActivityDate="2019-12-28T11:44:42.320" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27062" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27069" CreationDate="2019-11-26T12:19:42.323" Score="4" ViewCount="1430" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are some situations in chess where a pawn push in the center is the most played move, and also the one suggested by engines. However this is not done for winning material, but just for trading pawns. One such example arises from the Philidor Defense:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 exd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;3. d4&lt;/code&gt; is the move I'm talking about, and the game after that move usually continues like in the PGN above.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I don't fully understand the advantages that White gains by exchanging its &lt;em&gt;d&lt;/em&gt;-pawn for Black's &lt;em&gt;e&lt;/em&gt;-pawn, ending in the position shown above. They are both central pawns controlling central squares. Can someone tell me some insight or considerations I'm probably missing?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18674" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2019-11-26T16:04:46.133" LastActivityDate="2019-11-27T11:31:47.330" Title="Pawns pushes in the center" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;pawns&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27063" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27046" CreationDate="2019-11-26T13:14:32.657" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think a cool project which mixes chess and machine learning is to build a chess bot for 4 players chess. Such variant can be played on chess.com and if I remember correctly, they don't have particularly strong bots at the moment. Probably the most fun would be to use reinforcement learning and let the bot learn by playing against human players on the website.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20213" LastActivityDate="2019-11-26T13:14:32.657" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27064" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27046" CreationDate="2019-11-26T13:20:38.563" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am not a computer scientist. But I have been a chess computer enthusiast since the 1980's. My first engine was a tabletop Novag in about 1988. I read David Levy's book &quot;how to get the most out of your chess computer&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The two traditional weaknesses in chess engines have always been &#xA;[1] The horizon effect. David Levy describes it as being like a man in a maze who shines a torch at night. The man looks ahead and thinks that there is a clear path forward. But just past the &quot;horizon&quot; of vision the maze turns and has a dead end. Chess computers, like this dead end, see 8 moves ahead and think that they have a win. But 9 moves ahead they have a dead loss. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[2] Endgames. This is where [1] is most severe. Because to even a relative novice human player, we can see that a pawn will be pushed from its start square and make a queen and win the game. But to early chess computers that was far too many moves to see that!! Early chess computers struggled to win even totally won endgames. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, obviously in 2019 engines like Fritz and Stockfish and Alphazero manage [1] and [2] much better than my 1980's Novag. Levy's horizon effect is a bit dated. But it still applies. A few weeks ago I used it to beat an engine. I tricked the engine into thinking that it was rook ahead. But at my leisure I could over 20 moves get the material back easily and have a won endgame. The engine was probably about 2000ish. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I had to suggest any Phd on machine learning and chess, I'd like to see one done on the endgame. Instead of filling the engine with huge endgame tables, what about taking classic endgame themes in Fine's Basic chess endings and conducting machine learning? A Lucena endgame for instance. Or some classic endgames from World Championship matches? Or endings with a million checks such as queen and pawn endings? I sincerely believe that there is a lot of new ground in endgames. I don't think for a moment that machine or human learning has covered everything in chess; endgames don't get the degree of attention that openings or middlegames get. Ideas in endgames have also developed. Steintz made it look like a pawn majority closer to the king was enough to have a won endgame. Alekhine showed that wasn't necessarily the case if you had other dynamic factors. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd be interested in seeing how you go! I like the previous suggestion of trying to realistically imitate weaker human play rather like a Turing test. I've noticed that with engines; they make weak moves  that a human wouldn't make when set to a lower level. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3495" LastActivityDate="2019-11-26T13:20:38.563" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27065" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27062" CreationDate="2019-11-26T13:40:47.863" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;White has for sure achieved various advantages:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The white knight at d4 is well centred&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Black's pawn at d6 blocks the bishop on f8 from developing&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Black will probably complete development by putting bishop on e7, knight from b8 to d7 and castling, which is a solid but cramped position for a long time&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;From a practical standpoint white's position is easier to play. Plans are easier to find. White could castle either king or queenside, or could eventually look at playing f4 with an e5 central crush through. In a tournament game with a clock running white would have a nice practical position and black has to find a plan somewhere&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For all the above white playing d4 and letting the pawns exchange [d pawn for e pawn] is all worth it for white. It was the cramped, unambitious move 2...d6 that made it worth it for white.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3495" LastEditorUserId="18674" LastEditDate="2019-11-27T08:24:38.123" LastActivityDate="2019-11-27T08:24:38.123" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27066" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27062" CreationDate="2019-11-26T13:44:15.317" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Warning: I am only 1800 rated in lichess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I believe one reason for playing 3.d4 is that after the exchange on d4. White has a majority of pawns in the kingside which is one of the reasons to later mount an attack on the kingside.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If Black tries to hold on to the square d5 with Nc6(Nd7), White can then play Bb5 putting under attack once again the d5 pawn. Then, Black is probably more or less forced to exchange on d4 as defending the d5 pawn with Qe7 looks bad for Black. The black-coloured bishop has bad prospects and even after fianchettoing, White could probably close the center with d5 and then it is claear it will be hard for Black to activate its bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16771" LastActivityDate="2019-11-26T13:44:15.317" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27067" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27046" CreationDate="2019-11-26T13:56:48.177" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are plenty of possible Phd-topics that connect chess and machine learning. The more interesing and feasible ones have nothing to do with building better engines. Here are some ideas:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Human players have a particular playing style. Is it possible to learn to extract some metric of style from games that allows to assign games to players with a certain probability? &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Can you use this model to simulate games by any particular player?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Humans play chess via an intuitive feel for the position. Engines used to just calculate on top of a simple evaluation function. Is it possible to use Leela's NNs to give an output that matches human intuition regarding stuff like &quot;king safety&quot;, &quot;lead in development&quot;, &quot;weak squares&quot;, etc?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Can you use this output to create automatic annotations that provide insight to humans beyond: This is the best line and this is the evaluation of the resulting position?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Language models like GTP-2 are getting extremely good at modelling text. There are roughly a billion online chess games availabe for free. Can you use this massive dataset to train a transformer model to play chess without ever having seen a chess board, just by learning from pgn?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Can you distinguish between female and male players just by analysing their moves?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2019-11-26T13:56:48.177" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27068" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18763" CreationDate="2019-11-26T13:57:13.743" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Recently I had a memorable position where Black could win White's bishop with a fork:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[White &quot;Ben Cassidy&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;furrykef&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;8/p1p1k3/1p3pK1/1P1nP3/7P/3B4/8/8 b - - 1 46&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1...Nf4+ 2.Kg7 Nxd3?? 3.exf6+&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;...and suddenly Black is in deep trouble, because White's pawn on f6 is unstoppable and it will become a queen. It's almost always correct to win a piece when possible, but &quot;almost always&quot; is not &quot;always&quot;!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The key is to look at what your opponent can do to you after you make your move or sequence of moves. Otherwise, you might be walking into a trap!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3079" LastActivityDate="2019-11-26T13:57:13.743" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27069" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27062" CreationDate="2019-11-26T16:04:18.150" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;The main ideas behind d4 serve several purposes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It threatens dxe5 winning material.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It opens up your pieces, like the Bc1, in particular.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It gains space since the trade on d4 leaves white with a pawn that is more central than black's d6 pawn.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;And probably most important, and this is typical of many&#xA;double-king-pawn openings, and that is that it is easier to inhibit&#xA;black from playing the freeing d5 move. If he manages that move&#xA;soon, he has generally solved all his opening problems, and the two&#xA;center files will open up, and the major (heavy) pieces will be&#xA;traded.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2019-11-27T11:31:47.330" LastActivityDate="2019-11-27T11:31:47.330" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27071" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27046" CreationDate="2019-11-26T20:55:15.567" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Have you considered something like general game play? If you can train an AI to be good at both chess and other board based games (with the same network) you could show some interesting results.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.aaai.org/ocs/index.php/AAAI/AAAI12/paper/viewFile/4935/5300&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;This paper explores that concept for MCTS&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://science.sciencemag.org/content/362/6419/1140.abstract&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;This article explores the concept in RL.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20665" LastActivityDate="2019-11-26T20:55:15.567" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27072" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27088" CreationDate="2019-11-26T21:25:09.553" Score="4" ViewCount="235" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Motivation:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am trying to make a basic AI agent that can play chess against an opponent. The goal is to see how good it can become through the use of machine learning later on and also learn the fine details in chess that are hidden from us when we just play it, such as evaluation parameters. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Code:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is what I have so far:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;import chess, chess.pgn, time, math, io&#xA;import numpy as np &#xA;&#xA;from selenium import webdriver&#xA;from selenium.webdriver.common.keys import Keys&#xA;from selenium.webdriver.common.action_chains import ActionChains&#xA;from selenium.webdriver.support.ui import Select&#xA;&#xA;piece_values = {'P': 10, 'N': 30, 'B': 30, 'R': 50, 'Q': 90, 'K': 100, 'p': -10, 'n': -30, 'b': -30, 'r': -50, 'q': -90, 'k': -100}&#xA;&#xA;# These are all flipped&#xA;position_values = {&#xA;        'P' : np.array([ [0.0,  0.0,  0.0,  0.0,  0.0,  0.0,  0.0,  0.0],&#xA;                        [5.0,  5.0,  5.0,  5.0,  5.0,  5.0,  5.0,  5.0],&#xA;                        [1.0,  1.0,  2.0,  3.0,  3.0,  2.0,  1.0,  1.0],&#xA;                        [0.5,  0.5,  1.0,  2.5,  2.5,  1.0,  0.5,  0.5],&#xA;                        [0.0,  0.0,  0.0,  2.0,  2.0,  0.0,  0.0,  0.0],&#xA;                        [0.5, -0.5, -1.0,  0.0,  0.0, -1.0, -0.5,  0.5],&#xA;                        [0.5,  1.0, 1.0,  -2.0, -2.0,  1.0,  1.0,  0.5],&#xA;                        [0.0,  0.0,  0.0,  0.0,  0.0,  0.0,  0.0,  0.0] ]),&#xA;&#xA;        'N' : np.array([[-5.0, -4.0, -3.0, -3.0, -3.0, -3.0, -4.0, -5.0],&#xA;                       [-4.0, -2.0,  0.0,  0.0,  0.0,  0.0, -2.0, -4.0],&#xA;                       [-3.0,  0.0,  1.0,  1.5,  1.5,  1.0,  0.0, -3.0],&#xA;                       [-3.0,  0.5,  1.5,  2.0,  2.0,  1.5,  0.5, -3.0],&#xA;                       [-3.0,  0.0,  1.5,  2.0,  2.0,  1.5,  0.0, -3.0],&#xA;                       [-3.0,  0.5,  1.0,  1.5,  1.5,  1.0,  0.5, -3.0],&#xA;                       [-4.0, -2.0,  0.0,  0.5,  0.5,  0.0, -2.0, -4.0],&#xA;                       [-5.0, -4.0, -3.0, -3.0, -3.0, -3.0, -4.0, -5.0] ]),&#xA;&#xA;        'B' : np.array([[-2.0, -1.0, -1.0, -1.0, -1.0, -1.0, -1.0, -2.0],&#xA;                       [-1.0,  0.0,  0.0,  0.0,  0.0,  0.0,  0.0, -1.0],&#xA;                       [-1.0,  0.0,  0.5,  1.0,  1.0,  0.5,  0.0, -1.0],&#xA;                       [-1.0,  0.5,  0.5,  1.0,  1.0,  0.5,  0.5, -1.0],&#xA;                       [-1.0,  0.0,  1.0,  1.0,  1.0,  1.0,  0.0, -1.0],&#xA;                       [-1.0,  1.0,  1.0,  1.0,  1.0,  1.0,  1.0, -1.0],&#xA;                       [-1.0,  0.5,  0.0,  0.0,  0.0,  0.0,  0.5, -1.0],&#xA;                       [-2.0, -1.0, -1.0, -1.0, -1.0, -1.0, -1.0, -2.0] ]),&#xA;&#xA;        'R' : np.array([[ 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0,  0.0],&#xA;                       [ 0.5, 1.0, 1.0, 1.0, 1.0, 1.0, 1.0,  0.5],&#xA;                       [-0.5, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, -0.5],&#xA;                       [-0.5, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, -0.5],&#xA;                       [-0.5, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, -0.5],&#xA;                       [-0.5, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, -0.5],&#xA;                       [-0.5, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, -0.5],&#xA;                       [ 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.5, 0.5, 0.0, 0.0,  0.0]]),&#xA;&#xA;        'Q' : np.array([[-2.0, -1.0, -1.0, -0.5, -0.5, -1.0, -1.0, -2.0],&#xA;                       [-1.0,  0.0,  0.0,  0.0,  0.0,  0.0,  0.0, -1.0],&#xA;                       [-1.0,  0.0,  0.5,  0.5,  0.5,  0.5,  0.0, -1.0],&#xA;                       [-0.5,  0.0,  0.5,  0.5,  0.5,  0.5,  0.0, -0.5],&#xA;                       [-0.5,  0.0,  0.5,  0.5,  0.5,  0.5,  0.0, -0.5],&#xA;                       [-1.0,  0.5,  0.5,  0.5,  0.5,  0.5,  0.0, -1.0],&#xA;                       [-1.0,  0.0,  0.5,  0.0,  0.0,  0.0,  0.0, -1.0],&#xA;                       [-2.0, -1.0, -1.0, -0.5, -0.5, -1.0, -1.0, -2.0]]),&#xA;&#xA;        'K' : np.array([[ -3.0, -4.0, -4.0, -5.0, -5.0, -4.0, -4.0, -3.0],&#xA;                       [ -3.0, -4.0, -4.0, -5.0, -5.0, -4.0, -4.0, -3.0],&#xA;                       [ -3.0, -4.0, -4.0, -5.0, -5.0, -4.0, -4.0, -3.0],&#xA;                       [ -3.0, -4.0, -4.0, -5.0, -5.0, -4.0, -4.0, -3.0],&#xA;                       [ -2.0, -3.0, -3.0, -4.0, -4.0, -3.0, -3.0, -2.0],&#xA;                       [ -1.0, -2.0, -2.0, -2.0, -2.0, -2.0, -2.0, -1.0],&#xA;                       [  2.0,  2.0,  0.0,  0.0,  0.0,  0.0,  2.0,  2.0 ],&#xA;                       [  2.0,  3.0,  1.0,  0.0,  0.0,  1.0,  3.0,  2.0 ]])}&#xA;&#xA;class LichessBot:&#xA;    def __init__(self, fen):&#xA;        self.fen = fen&#xA;        self.bot = webdriver.Firefox(executable_path=r'geckodriver.exe')&#xA;&#xA;    def initialize(self):&#xA;        bot = self.bot&#xA;        bot.get('https://lichess.org/editor/rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR_w_KQkq_-')&#xA;        time.sleep(3)&#xA;        analysis = bot.find_element_by_css_selector(&quot;.actions &amp;gt; a:nth-child(2)&quot;).click()&#xA;        time.sleep(1)&#xA;&#xA;    def gameSelect(self, fen):&#xA;        bot = self.bot&#xA;&#xA;        fen_area = bot.find_element_by_class_name(&quot;analyse__underboard__fen&quot;)&#xA;        bot.execute_script('arguments[0].setAttribute(&quot;value&quot;, arguments[1]);', fen_area, fen)&#xA;&#xA;        # Refresh the page to enter new fen number properly every time&#xA;        fen_new = bot.find_element_by_class_name(&quot;analyse__underboard__fen&quot;).get_attribute('value').replace(' ', '_')&#xA;        bot.get('https://lichess.org/analysis/standard/{}'.format(fen_new))&#xA;&#xA;    def gameReturn(self):&#xA;        bot = self.bot&#xA;&#xA;        fen_return = bot.find_element_by_class_name(&quot;analyse__underboard__fen&quot;).get_attribute('value')&#xA;        time.sleep(1)&#xA;        return fen_return&#xA;&#xA;def positionEvaluation(position, piece_values=piece_values, position_values=position_values):&#xA;    # Position of pieces is not taken into account for their strength&#xA;    if position_values == 'None':&#xA;        total_eval = 0&#xA;        pieces = list(position.piece_map().values())&#xA;&#xA;        for piece in pieces:&#xA;            total_eval += piece_values[str(piece)]&#xA;&#xA;        return total_eval&#xA;&#xA;    else:&#xA;        positionTotalEval = 0&#xA;        pieces = position.piece_map()&#xA;&#xA;        for j in pieces:&#xA;            file = chess.square_file(j)&#xA;            rank = chess.square_rank(j)&#xA;&#xA;            piece_type = str(pieces[j])&#xA;            positionArray = position_values[piece_type.upper()]&#xA;&#xA;            if piece_type.isupper():&#xA;                flippedPositionArray = np.flip(positionArray, axis=0)&#xA;                positionTotalEval += piece_values[piece_type] + flippedPositionArray[rank, file]&#xA;&#xA;            else:&#xA;                positionTotalEval += piece_values[piece_type] - positionArray[rank, file]&#xA;&#xA;        return positionTotalEval&#xA;&#xA;def minimax(position, depth, alpha, beta, maximizingPlayer, bestMove = 'h1h3'):&#xA;    if depth == 0 or position.is_game_over():&#xA;        return positionEvaluation(position, piece_values, position_values), bestMove&#xA;&#xA;    if maximizingPlayer:&#xA;        maxEval = -np.inf&#xA;        for child in [str(i).replace(&quot;Move.from_uci(\'&quot;, '').replace('\')', '') for i in list(position.legal_moves)]:&#xA;            position.push(chess.Move.from_uci(child))&#xA;            eval_position = minimax(position, depth-1, alpha, beta, False)[0]&#xA;            position.pop()&#xA;            maxEval = np.maximum(maxEval, eval_position)&#xA;            alpha = np.maximum(alpha, eval_position)&#xA;            if beta &amp;lt;= alpha:&#xA;                break&#xA;        return maxEval&#xA;&#xA;    else:&#xA;        minEval = np.inf&#xA;        minMove = np.inf&#xA;        for child in [str(i).replace(&quot;Move.from_uci(\'&quot;, '').replace('\')', '') for i in list(position.legal_moves)]:&#xA;            position.push(chess.Move.from_uci(child))&#xA;            eval_position = minimax(position, depth-1, alpha, beta, True)&#xA;            position.pop()&#xA;            minEval = np.minimum(minEval, eval_position)&#xA;            if minEval &amp;lt; minMove:&#xA;                minMove = minEval&#xA;                bestMin = child&#xA;&#xA;            beta = np.minimum(beta, eval_position)&#xA;            if beta &amp;lt;= alpha:&#xA;                break&#xA;&#xA;        return minEval, bestMin&#xA;&#xA;# # To check evaluation&#xA;# board = chess.Board()&#xA;# print(positionEvaluation(board))&#xA;# quit()&#xA;&#xA;# Initialize and set up position&#xA;lichess = LichessBot('rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq -')&#xA;lichess.initialize()&#xA;&#xA;board = chess.Board()&#xA;fen = board.fen()&#xA;lichess.gameSelect(fen)&#xA;&#xA;while not board.is_game_over():&#xA;    if board.turn == True:&#xA;        print('\n[INFO] Your Turn\n=========================')&#xA;        fen_new = fen&#xA;        while fen_new == fen:&#xA;            fen_new = lichess.gameReturn()&#xA;        board = chess.Board(fen_new)&#xA;&#xA;    else:&#xA;        print('[INFO] AI\'s Turn\n')&#xA;        minimaxEval, bestMove = minimax(board, 4, -np.inf, np.inf, False)&#xA;        print(&quot;AI Evaluation: {}\nAI Best Move: {}&quot;.format(minimaxEval, bestMove))&#xA;        board.push(chess.Move.from_uci(bestMove))&#xA;        print(&quot;{}\n=========================&quot;.format(board))&#xA;        fen = board.fen()&#xA;        lichess.gameSelect(fen)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is what the code does:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Open firefox terminal and go to lichess.org&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Enter the analysis mode for a starting chess position&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Wait for human player to make a move &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Send the FEN to the python program to make that move&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Apply minimax algorithm with corresponding depth and position values to evaluate the position and decide the best move&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Make this move in the python program&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Get the FEN of the current position&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Play the best move on the board by pasting FEN into the analysis on lichess&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Right now this only lets me play as the white pieces (computer algorithm works on the black pieces). My question, although it seems basic, is how to make it so that at the start I have the choice of which side to choose? It seems like the minimax algorithm is baised towards computer playing with the black pieces and any attempt I make to adjust this failed to work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Output:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is what a typical output on the console would look like while the game is going on.&#xA;Nothing special happens when the game ends, I plan to include a summary of the game and outcome later on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/snTy8.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/snTy8.png&quot; alt=&quot;Console output during a game&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As can be seen, I make sure to double check that the moves are correctly registered by printing the board setup position in the console output after every move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Final Note:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am aware the evaluation metric and maybe even the efficiency of the algorithm might not be the best but these will be adjusted once all the fine details, such as the one posted in the question, are answered. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20657" LastEditorUserId="20657" LastEditDate="2019-11-27T18:29:17.323" LastActivityDate="2019-11-29T00:25:46.747" Title="Minimax algorithm - Play with Black pieces?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;chess-ai&gt;&lt;minimax&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27073" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27043" CreationDate="2019-11-26T21:31:41.250" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you go on chess.com you will see that you can analyze games in a lot of detail. This analysis can compare to state of the art chess engines and determine whether your moves were &quot;human-like&quot; in their accuracy (for each piece) or if you simply made &quot;engine-like&quot; moves. For example, if each one of your moves was classified as the best possible move in that position - that would raise a flag especially if your rating is nowhere near the engine that would struggle to make those moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On that note, if you play on lichess (slow games), your opponent could theoretically use the board editor and analysis tools to make your moves and see what the computer would do in response. Then they would simply play those moves against you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20657" LastActivityDate="2019-11-26T21:31:41.250" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27074" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-11-27T00:07:46.463" Score="1" ViewCount="86" Body="&lt;p&gt;The FIDE Handbook has a section called &lt;a href=&quot;https://old.fide.com/component/handbook/?id=48&amp;amp;view=category&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Regulations on Seminars &amp;amp; Title Award for Organizers&lt;/a&gt; where it describes what you need to do to get the FIDE International Organizer title. It says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Scope / Mission: To get the FIDE licence for the organisation of FIDE,&#xA;  Continental and International tournaments.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, I know that the title is not a requirement to organize a low level FIDE rated tournament because I have done so in my club along with another player who also has no organizer title.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is: is it a requirement for high level tournaments and if so, where is the border between requiring the title and not needing it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-11-28T13:30:41.300" LastActivityDate="2019-11-28T13:52:59.797" Title="Is the FIDE International Organizer title required to organize high level FIDE tournaments?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;fide&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27075" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27078" CreationDate="2019-11-27T02:44:44.077" Score="10" ViewCount="3033" Body="&lt;p&gt;In a reply to another question, I made an explicit presumption that under FIDE Laws, a player can move as soon as the opponent’s move has been made. But someone wondered if this was this really correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Laws make a distinction between a move being ‘made’ and a move being ‘completed’ (when the clock has been hit). As far as I can tell, the former (under which the waiting player is said to ‘have the move’) is sufficient for allowing the next player to move. But there is no rule which says you can move when you have the move, maybe because it’s deemed too obvious.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as I can see the following scenarios are legitimate:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;A: move&#xA;B: move&#xA;B: hit clock but nothing happens&#xA;A: hit clock&#xA;B: hit clock&#xA;&#xA;A: move&#xA;B: move&#xA;A: move&#xA;A: hit clock&#xA;B: move&#xA;B: hit clock&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And might as well list a related scenario:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;A: move&#xA;B: wait for A to realise&#xA;A: hit clock&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I am not an arbiter. Can a player move before their opponent hits the clock?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8201" LastEditorUserId="8201" LastEditDate="2019-11-27T07:45:57.470" LastActivityDate="2019-11-27T09:25:28.680" Title="Can a player move before his opponent hits the clock?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;fide&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27076" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27075" CreationDate="2019-11-27T03:37:19.043" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to rule 1.2:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The player with the light-coloured pieces (White) &lt;strong&gt;makes&lt;/strong&gt; the first move, then the players move alternately, with the player with the dark-coloured pieces (Black) &lt;strong&gt;making&lt;/strong&gt; the next move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note the word &amp;quot;makes&amp;quot;/&amp;quot;making&amp;quot;. The past tense of this word is &amp;quot;made&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then if we skip ahead a little:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4.7 The move is considered to have been &lt;strong&gt;made&lt;/strong&gt; in the case of:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4.7.1  a capture, when the captured piece has been removed from the chessboard and the player, having placed his own piece on its new square, has released this capturing piece from his hand,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is no requirement that the clock be hit for a move to have been made. And once the move has been made, &amp;quot;the players move alternately.&amp;quot; Nothing in the rules prohibits the next player from moving at that point.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2019-11-27T03:37:19.043" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27077" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27009" CreationDate="2019-11-27T04:05:11.723" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Ruy Lopez is a very flexible and therefore subtle opening. Black has a wide choice of replies and really has a kind of initiative in that the onus is on White to find a good response to whatever Black does. I take it that this game began with 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 Ne7. This is the Cozio Defence. This has never been all that popular, but it has at least one Grandmaster proponent. This is Alexey Dreev, and you might like to look at his online e-book. It has also been played by Levon Aronian ans Sergey Karjarkin&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A critical line is 4.Nc3 g6 5.d4 exd4 6.Nd5 and there is a lot going on that is quite different from the lines that been discussed.&#xA;In your game you played 4.0-0 which cannot be a bad move but is not quite as ambitious as the line above. The timing of Whites push to d4 is very critical in this line. Your opponents move of 4..f6 is well-motivated to hold the center, but badly timed. There is a line in the Steinitz Defence Deferred (3..a6 4.Ba4 d6 5.Bxc6+ bxd6 6.d4 and now ..f6 is the book move. It is safer after the exchange on c6 because White has given up his light squared bishop. But in your game, ..f6 was badly timed because you still have that nice Bishop and the immediate d4 forces Black to give up the center. This is not so much a matter of tempi, but Blacks pawn structure does not then fit with any nice pattern of development.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A great deal could be said about the niceties of d4 in the Lopez. You might try playing the Cozio yourself. You will puzzle almost every opponent below master strength.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastActivityDate="2019-11-27T04:05:11.723" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27078" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27075" CreationDate="2019-11-27T09:25:28.680" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is no requirement to wait until the opponent has pressed the clock before making your move. However issues can arise with getting the increment to which the player is entitled for every move made if the clock is not pressed and this is spelled out in the &lt;a href=&quot;https://old.fide.com/component/handbook/?id=208&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Laws of Chess&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;6.2.1 During the game each player, having made his move on the chessboard, shall stop his own clock and start his opponent’s clock&#xA;  (that is to say, he shall press his clock). This “completes” the move.&#xA;  A move is also completed if:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;6.2.1.1   the move ends the game (see Articles 5.1.1, 5.2.1, 5.2.2, 9.6.1 and 9.6.2), or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;6.2.1.2 the player has made his next move, when his previous move was not completed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;6.2.2 A player must be allowed to stop his clock after making his move, even after the opponent has made his next move. The time between&#xA;  making the move on the chessboard and pressing the clock is regarded&#xA;  as part of the time allotted to the player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From 6.2.1.2 it is clear that is fine for player B to make his move before player A has pressed the clock to complete his previous move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From 6.2.2 it is clear that in that case player A is entitled to press the clock for that move even after player B has made a quick move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The act of pressing the clock fulfils two functions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It &quot;completes&quot; the move. This is important because an illegal move is&#xA;not punishable and can be retracted without penalty if the move&#xA;hasn't been completed.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It is the action which gives the player the increment to which he is entitled.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2019-11-27T09:25:28.680" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27079" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27080" CreationDate="2019-11-27T09:34:29.337" Score="9" ViewCount="1123" Body="&lt;p&gt;A long time ago I used to play OTB blitz chess at a chess club. We  had club blitz tournaments  [5 mins each with no increment because the clocks were old-school chess clocks]. I was new to blitz. I had a habit when taking off material, such as an exchange, of pressing my clock with my hands still on the board and being yet to take off the material. This ate into my opponent's time. One strong opponent who was an official chess arbiter once responded by pressing my own clock and saying &quot;move on your own time&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I agree that my habit was wrong. I tried to stop doing it. Where in the FIDE laws of chess would it cover this habit? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3495" LastEditorUserId="1761" LastEditDate="2019-11-27T14:59:38.860" LastActivityDate="2019-11-27T14:59:38.860" Title="Which FIDE rule forbids pressing the clock before taking captured pieces off the board?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;fide&gt;&lt;time-management&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27080" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27079" CreationDate="2019-11-27T10:01:00.230" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;It sounds like you were breaking the rules on several fronts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to the &lt;a href=&quot;https://old.fide.com/component/handbook/?id=208&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Laws of Chess&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;6.2.3 A player must press his clock with the same hand with which he made his move. It is forbidden for a player to keep his finger on the&#xA;  clock or to ‘hover’ over it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You would probably be punished under the illegal move rules:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;7.5.2 If the player has moved a pawn to the furthest distant rank, pressed the clock, but not replaced the pawn with a new piece, the&#xA;  move is illegal. The pawn shall be replaced by a queen of the same&#xA;  colour as the pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;7.5.3 If the player presses the clock without making a move, it shall be considered and penalized as if an illegal move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;7.5.4 If a player uses two hands to make a single move (for example in case of castling, capturing or promotion) and pressed the clock, it&#xA;  shall be considered and penalized as if an illegal move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;7.5.5 After the action taken under Article 7.5.1, 7.5.2, 7.5.3 or 7.5.4 for the first completed illegal move by a player, the arbiter shall give two minutes extra time to his opponent; for the second&#xA;  completed illegal move by the same player the arbiter shall declare&#xA;  the game lost by this player. However, the game is drawn if the&#xA;  position is such that the opponent cannot checkmate the player’s king&#xA;  by any possible series of legal moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It sounds like you were either moving with one hand and pressing the clock - 6.2.3 or using two hands to make the move - 7.5.4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2019-11-27T10:01:00.230" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27081" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27057" CreationDate="2019-11-27T10:24:58.327" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a partial answer that I started as a comment to the (now-accepted) answer: Prepare yourself mentally that you may lose against somebody much weaker, purely due to the stress of the new.  When walking up to a tournament area --- whether game table, dojo, ring, field, or other, --- you find out how you deal with that stress... &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just having to write down your moves on paper may fluster you, throwing off the rest of your composure &amp;amp; then you start thinking about what the spectators and opponent is thinking, you don't lose focus so much as focus on the wrong things. And then maybe the second or third game, all falls in place; you still have almost the same adrenalin shot but you find it clears your head.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or on the other hand, you may find yourself completely in your element, a natural at competing, beating superior but less stress-resistant opponents! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But this in itself is a value to competing: learning how you deal with such stress, and then learning to better deal with it; the benefits of this clearly extend to other situations (inspections, management at work, courtroom appearances, ... ), and may inform you if you should search or avoid such situations. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your mileage may vary. But the tournament prize money is (beyond practical considerations like repaying fees and costs) irrelevant, 'peanuts' to the non-financial benefits in the various answers given.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18020" LastActivityDate="2019-11-27T10:24:58.327" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27082" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27079" CreationDate="2019-11-27T12:48:31.417" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Brian's fine answer already established you were breaching some rules, but here are some more basic FIDE rules:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;4.6&lt;/strong&gt; [...] The  move  is  then considered  to  have  been made:&#xA;  a. in  the  case  of  a  capture,  when  the  captured  piece  has  been  removed from  the  chessboard  and  the  player,  having  placed  his  own  piece  on  its  new square,  has  released this capturing piece from his hand&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So you haven't finished making your move yet if you haven't removed the piece. And there is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;6.7a.&lt;/strong&gt; During  the  game  each  player, &lt;strong&gt;having  made  his  move  on  the  chessboard&lt;/strong&gt;,  shall  stop  his  own  clock  and  start  his  opponent’s  clock. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Emphasis mine) You can't stop your clock when your move isn't even made yet, of course.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2019-11-27T12:48:31.417" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27084" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26611" CreationDate="2019-11-27T15:33:41.850" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I’m surprised that nobody has mentioned the problem after ..b6 of developing Black’s Queen. One point of ..c5 is to give her effective development suares at c7, b6 and a5. 2..b6 takes away two of those options and severely limits Black’s possilities for counterattack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-11-27T20:17:24.983" LastActivityDate="2019-11-27T20:17:24.983" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27085" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-11-27T20:40:48.243" Score="3" ViewCount="546" Body="&lt;p&gt;How do you meet d4-d6 when your opponent &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;doesn’t&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; play the Old Indian, and the setup is d6-Nbd7-e5, which is Pirc territory? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 d6 2. null Nd7 3. null e5 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When this happens, can I play the London System, possibly with d4-Bf4, and so forth?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11644" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-12-04T10:46:31.023" LastActivityDate="2019-12-04T10:46:31.023" Title="Meeting d4-d6 from White's perspective" Tags="&lt;london-system&gt;&lt;pirc-defense&gt;&lt;old-indian&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27086" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27085" CreationDate="2019-11-27T22:14:08.213" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;When this happens, can I play the London System, possibly with d4-Bf4,&#xA;  and so forth?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Simple answer is &quot;Yes, provided you play 3. Nf3&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 d6 2. Bf4 Nd7 3. Nf3 e5 4. dxe5 dxe5 5. Nxe5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just leaves black a pawn down for no compensation. So, black can't play 3 ... e5&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2019-11-27T22:14:08.213" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27087" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19674" CreationDate="2019-11-28T01:32:15.550" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;I discovered a game from a few weeks ago features a &lt;strong&gt;forced mate in 13 moves&lt;/strong&gt; that was &lt;strong&gt;actually played&lt;/strong&gt; out on the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The game in question is &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1978667&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Dubov-Svane&lt;/a&gt;, and the claim for the mate in 13 comes from Agadmator’s &lt;a href=&quot;https://youtu.be/cocbOmTO3ac&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;analysis video&lt;/a&gt; of the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Testing the given position with the chess.com engine yields a mate in 13, so Agadmator is correct. But Black made a mistake in the real game, shortening the game, but overall, it is still a forced mate in 13 moves in my opinion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What Black should have played is included as a sideline.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Daniil Dubov-Rasmus Svane. European Team Championship, Batumi, Georgia, 10/31/19&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[startply &quot;58&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. c4 e6 2. Nc3 d5 3. d4 Nf6 4. Nf3 Be7 5. Bf4 O-O 6. e3 b6 7. Qc2 Ba6 8. O-O-O dxc4 9. Ng5 Nc6 10. a3 g6 11. h4 Bd6 12. g3 Qe7 13. h5 e5 14. hxg6 hxg6 15. Bg2 exf4 16. Bxc6 fxg3 17. Kb1 Rad8 18. f4 Bc8 19. Rde1 Kg7 20. Nd5 Nxd5 21. Rh7+ Kg8 22. Rxf7 Rxf7 23. Qxg6+ Kf8 24. Qh6+ Rg7 25. Bxd5 Ke8 26. Qh5+ Kd7 27. Qh3+ Ke8 28. Qh5+ Kd7 29. Be6+ Kc6 30. Qf3+ Kb5 31. Bxc4+ Ka5 32. Qd5+ Bc5 33. b4+ Ka4 34. Qg2 (34... Bf5+ 35. Ka2 Rd5 36. Qxd5 Qd7 37. Qb7 a5 38. Ne4 Bxd4 39. exd4 Bxe4 40. Qxe4 Qf5 41. Qxf5 axb4 42. Bb3#) Bxb4 35. Qc6+ Kxa3 36. Bb3 Bd7 37. Qc1+ Kxb3 38. Qc2+ Ka3 39. Qa2#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-11-28T02:02:26.023" LastActivityDate="2019-11-28T02:02:26.023" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27088" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27072" CreationDate="2019-11-28T01:53:29.947" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are two simple adjustments that need to be made for this to work properly with the computer playing the white pieces. I'm not totally familiar with the interfaces you're using so bear with me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;while not board.is_game_over():&#xA;    if board.turn == True:&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This if statement is used to determine at which point the computer starts evaluating moves and at which point it waits for user input. By changing this to&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;while not board.is_game_over():&#xA;    if board.turn == False:&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We can make the computer evaluate moves on white's turn instead of black's. Obviously it would be best to handle this with a value that wasn't hardcoded so that based on some user input we could determine which side the user wanted to play. I'll leave that as an exercise for the reader (since you're using selenium perhaps it's possible to detect when the player flips the board around).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now onto the minimax algorithm. The minimax function itself is doing what it is meant to do, however your evaluation function is locked into evaluating &lt;em&gt;black's&lt;/em&gt; position on the board. This means that even though the computer is controlling white's pieces, it is still trying to make black have the best position. This is due to the piece values and the position tables that you are using.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The simple fix for this is something like the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;def minimax(position, depth, alpha, beta, maximizingPlayer, bestMove = 'h1h3'):&#xA;    if depth == 0 or position.is_game_over():&#xA;        if (computer == &quot;BLACK&quot;):&#xA;            return positionEvaluation(position, piece_values, position_values), bestMove&#xA;        else:&#xA;            return -1*positionEvaluation(position, piece_values, position_values), bestMove&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Where &quot;computer&quot; is some variable you've defined that stores the current player that the computer is evaluating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We simply invert the evaluation when white is being controlled and the minimax algorithm gives the expected results.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20678" LastEditorUserId="20678" LastEditDate="2019-11-29T00:25:46.747" LastActivityDate="2019-11-29T00:25:46.747" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27090" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27085" CreationDate="2019-11-28T05:08:23.850" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you like playing the London system, then it is playable:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.d4 d6 2.Nf3 Nd7 3.Bf4. Now if Black plays 3...g6 then you just go for 4.e3, 5.h3, 6.Be2, etc. And as Brian noted, 3...e5 is poor.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, if you don't like the London then you need another line. If you want to remain completely in d4 waters then you could go for:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.d4 d6 2.Nf3 Nd7 3.c4 e5 4.Nc3. Now against most moves Black can play (4...Nf6, 4...g6, 4...c6, etc) you just play 5.e4. And on 4...exd4, you recapture with 5.Nxd4 and then fianchetto with 6.g3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-11-28T05:08:23.850" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27092" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27094" CreationDate="2019-11-28T07:56:22.410" Score="16" ViewCount="3533" Body="&lt;p&gt;If I took a legal chess position, to what extent could an engine work out the previous moves? [in some other board games such as Othello such game reconstruction is done easily with an engine.] &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3495" LastEditorUserId="15989" LastEditDate="2019-11-28T08:47:23.047" LastActivityDate="2019-12-01T13:55:23.370" Title="Could a chess engine do retro analysis?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;retrograde-analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="9" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27093" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27092" CreationDate="2019-11-28T08:18:12.527" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Current engines can't do this at all. Calculating backwards is quite different from calculating forward. Pieces come into existence instead of being taken. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But you could certainly adapt engines to be able to perform well on this task.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2019-11-28T08:18:12.527" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27094" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27092" CreationDate="2019-11-28T08:44:03.793" Score="16" Body="&lt;p&gt;Engines like Stockfish and Komodo are not able to work out the previous moves, because that is not what they are programmed for.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, it is vanishingly unlikely that anybody can ever program an engine that works out legal previous moves. The logic of working out whether a possible previous move is legal or not is extremely difficult.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To start with, &lt;strong&gt;how do we list possible previous moves?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Possible previous moves, called retractions (if we ignore legality for a second) are easily found algorithmically - every piece retracts as it moves in forward chess (except pawns), and they could also &quot;uncapture&quot; an enemy unit - pawn, knight, bishop, rook or queen. e.g. wBc4 takes pawn on f7 in reverse looks like the bishop moving from f7 to c4, with a black pawn appearing on f7.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pawns move 1 square backwards, and uncapture one square diagonally backwards. (You can figure out what the double step looks like.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With regard to checks, one can retract into what looks like &quot;check&quot; in regular chess, and one must always retract to never leave the opponent in &quot;check&quot;. (So if the previous example of wBc4xbPf7 checks the black king on e8, it required white to retract the bishop to remove the &quot;check&quot;.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Uncastling is easy to visualise (and adds the constraint that the king or rook cannot retract again). Un-en-passant is hard to describe and forms the basis of many classic retro problems. Unpromotion is again easy to visualise.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So listing all potential retractions is not difficult, from a programming standpoint. &lt;strong&gt;The incredibly difficult part is determining which retractions are legal.&lt;/strong&gt; There are many reasons why a retraction cannot be legal, ranging from simple (retracting an uncapture to leave 9 black pawns on the board, for instance) to highly convoluted (cf. most retrograde analysis problems, see &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.janko.at/Retros/index.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;the Retro corner&lt;/a&gt;.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See for instance &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/19973/beautiful-retrograde-analysis-problem-by-alexsey-a-troitsky&quot;&gt;this problem by Troitsky&lt;/a&gt; on Chess.SE, and my accompanying answer to it. A lot of logic goes into proving that there is in fact only one legal retraction by black, and this is not obvious, involving counting pawn captures, considering their order, and tempo constraints.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To write an engine to perform such a task, one must be able to elucidate the human logic behind it in such a way that a computer can execute the logic. This simply does not seem possible at all, given that &quot;legality of retractions&quot; is far more nebulous than &quot;legality of forward chess moves&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15989" LastActivityDate="2019-11-28T08:44:03.793" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27095" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27057" CreationDate="2019-11-28T10:57:24.980" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;play because chess is fun. You will lose more money than you gain in chess unless you are very strong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18738" LastActivityDate="2019-11-28T10:57:24.980" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27096" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27085" CreationDate="2019-11-28T11:04:29.647" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I wouldn't recommend London against 1...d6 or 1...g6. They can do 1.d4 d6 2.Nf3 g6 3.Bf4 Bg7 4.e3 Nd7 5.h3 (or whatever) e5 which is if anything more comfortable for black imho. Black normally has to do some contortions such as Nfd7 to get e5 in whereas now he gets it in one go.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Play 2.e4 and learn some small amount of theory in one of the main lines (whichever suits your style best) - will give you a nice position without too much work.&#xA;If opponent continues with Nbd7 etc. (Philidor) then you could choose between the sharp Shirov Gambit (1.d4 d6 2.e4 Nf6 3.Nc3 Nbd7 4.Nf3 e5 5.g4) or play positionally with 1.d4 d6 2.e4 Nf6 3.Nc3 Nbd7 4.Nf3 e5 5.Bc4 with ideas of 0-0,Re1 a4 Ba2 (prophylaxis against b5 and Nb6 and d5 ideas) and a small pull.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18738" LastActivityDate="2019-11-28T11:04:29.647" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27097" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-11-28T11:39:08.027" Score="3" ViewCount="57" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am currently working on a small side project and want to write a chess tournament manager in Haskell. To properly set up the data structures I am wondering what the possible results of a chess game are.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/FIDE/handbook/C04Annex2_TRF16.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;TRF (tournament report file) specification&lt;/a&gt; by FIDE describes the following eight (single player) results:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Regular Game&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Win&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Draw&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Loss&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Unrated Results (game lasted more than one move)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;4&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Win (unrated)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Draw (unrated)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Loss (unrated)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Forfeit Results&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;7&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Forfeit Win&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Forfeit Loss&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not considering (pairing allocated) Byes, this would amount to 8x8 = 64 theoretically possible combinations, most of which are probably nonsensical or extremely rare. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I think the combination &lt;code&gt;(Draw, Loss)&lt;/code&gt; exists for example when one player doesn't have sufficient material to end the game and the other one gets disqualified by the arbiter. Maybe even &lt;code&gt;(Forfeit Loss, Loss)&lt;/code&gt; exists, when player A does not arrive to the game and player B offends the arbiter and thus gets his game counted as a loss.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So which combinations exist additionally to the following obvious ones?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;{(1, 3), (2, 2), (3, 1), (4, 6), (5, 5), (6, 4), (7, 8), (8, 7)}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3664" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-11-28T12:51:31.793" LastActivityDate="2019-11-28T12:53:35.267" Title="Possible game result combinations in a FIDE tournament report file" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;fide&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27098" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27092" CreationDate="2019-11-28T12:26:34.303" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I’ve decided to expand this to a more general survey of the applicability of engines to various retro sub-genres.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess engines (e.g. Stockfish) are good at trying out all the moves going forward in a position but famously bad at abstracting general features such as fortresses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the same way you can easily try retracting possible least moves just by making pieces move backwards, hatch opposing pieces instead of capturing them, and run away from opposing kings that are “checking” them. The difficulty is in abstracting general&#xA;features to find out whether the position can be derived from the starting position. The distinction between legal moves and legal positions is the key here and is a distinction made in the FIDE Laws as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Proof games&lt;/strong&gt; One retro domain that has enjoyed great success with engines is proof games. These are like retro problems except that you’ve been given the additional information of the expect number of moves. This notion of clock simplifies the retro process enormously, in a similar way that Othello games can be deduced because one knows the exact number of moves. Some people regard them as forward stipulations because you do start from the game array and can play forwards, but they are generally viewed as retros. Leading engines in this space are Natch, Euclide, Popeye and for fairy problems Jacobi.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;General retros&lt;/strong&gt; There are fewer engines for general retro problems. These work by allowing the solver to specify constraints that are deduced by a human solver. Jacobi does this within the envelope of some notional number of moves, but the best I know is the enigmatic Rawbats, a tool only used by its maker Mario Richter, and known only by its results in augmenting its developer’s skills.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Helpmate retractors&lt;/strong&gt; There is a big opportunity for someone computerate to build a simple retraction engine which just tries retracting recent moves, without worrying about global legality, and then plays forwards like a regular problem engine. Such an engine, combined with a little human common sense, would be able to validate the hundreds of helpmate retractor compositions which are currently untestable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I want to finish by mentioning two retros areas which are less amenable to engine assault.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Problems based on conventions&lt;/strong&gt; One is the domain of retro conventions: castling, en passant and other related rules. Combining a logical reasoning system with a chess engine has not been done, and in some cases there are deep ambiguities in the conventions themselves. This work is normally left for the human to solve, but in principle if the conventions could be grounded logically, it would be an interesting research topic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Defensive retractors&lt;/strong&gt; The other difficult genre of retro composition contains the highly technical defensive detractors of various kinds. These essentially involve playing chess backwards in a competitive way, and questions of position legality are normally the key without which the problems compositions make little sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8201" LastEditorUserId="8201" LastEditDate="2019-11-29T08:12:21.410" LastActivityDate="2019-11-29T08:12:21.410" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27099" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27092" CreationDate="2019-11-28T12:28:26.803" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Basically, the answer is &quot;no&quot;, and that will probably never change.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am going to compare this to tablebases since it seems relevant due to how they are made compared to what you ask in your question. I realize they are different in certain other aspects.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tablebases, which are databases of perfect endgame play, are computed in exactly that way that you are asking: They start at the final position, and work back to the possible original position. Of course, they start from the end of the game when there are only currently 7 pieces, or less, left on the board, including kings. You can see how this is actually is MUCH easier than your question, yet it is still a HUGE undertaking for computing power as we currently know it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With only 7 pieces, it not only takes an incredible amount of time to solve even one position, and it takes a WHOPPING 140+ terabytes to store all 7-man tablebases. It took years to do this. You can see how adding even a few more pieces, this grows exponentially. Due to the extreme computing-power cost, we are not even close to starting 8-man tablebases, and it is estimated that they would take over 10 petabytes to store in their entirety. Even though you are not trying to solve every position with 32 pieces, you can see how trying to go from the end of a game back to the original 32-piece starting position is not feasible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only question is if could they program in the human tendency to play in various ways to prune the search, but I doubt that very much, as even then, the numbers are huge.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2019-11-28T12:28:26.803" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27100" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27097" CreationDate="2019-11-28T12:40:41.120" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;One additional set of result combinations arises if you are unrated but about to get a rating and you play a rated player. Then, because you are unrated, the game will not be rated for your opponent but, because it forms part of your results which give you a rating, it will be rated for you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hence, you can add (1,6), (2,5) and (3,4)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS I've edited the title of your question because the original was almost identical to this already answered question - &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/12403/what-are-the-possible-results-of-a-game&quot;&gt;What are the possible results of a game?&lt;/a&gt;. However you are asking something different.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-11-28T12:53:35.267" LastActivityDate="2019-11-28T12:53:35.267" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27101" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27074" CreationDate="2019-11-28T13:52:59.797" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It looks like the answer is &quot;No&quot; because &lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/card.phtml?event=34404449&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Arkady Dvorkovich&lt;/a&gt;, who has no organizer title, was the chief organizer for the &lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/tournament_details.phtml?event=222540&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Grand Prix Series Riga- 2019&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/tournament_details.phtml?event=225311&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Grand Prix Series Riga- 2019 Blitz Tie-breaks&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/tournament_details.phtml?event=222541&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Grand Prix Series 2019 Rapid Tie-breaks&lt;/a&gt; tournaments.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However there is an additional &lt;em&gt;paid&lt;/em&gt; position for &quot;FIDE World Events&quot; called a &quot;FIDE Technical Director&quot;. The role is described &lt;a href=&quot;https://old.fide.com/component/handbook/?id=49&amp;amp;view=category&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;FIDE Technical Director (FTD) is the overall observer of a FIDE&#xA;  World Event&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;The FIDE Technical Director FTD is appointed by FIDE and must be a licensed International Organizer&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Main duties of the FIDE Technical Director&quot;   &#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;To be responsible for the communication with the Organizer after the approval and circulation of the tournament regulations.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;To check before the start of the competition if the organization adheres to FIDE standards.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;To check if the Organizer provides to the participants the conditions offered in the bid and described in the event invitation.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;To be contacted by the National Federations as the FIDE Representative.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;To ensure the contact of the competitions according to FIDE rules and regulations&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;By the end of the competition to send his report to FIDE including and comparing the final evaluation with the bid-evaluation.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Organizer provides the following conditions to the FIDE Technical Director:&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Single room (FB- 3 meals) 2 days before the start of the competition till departure&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Air-travel expenses &amp;amp; transportation to the venue&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;FIDE pays to the FIDE Technical Director the stipend in accordance with the Financial Guidelines for the Technical Officials.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2019-11-28T13:52:59.797" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27102" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27103" CreationDate="2019-11-28T15:00:32.717" Score="9" ViewCount="1381" Body="&lt;p&gt;Garry Kasparov has been an unsuccessful politician and there have been several successful politicians who have also been quite good chess players, but have any of them achieved the IM or GM title?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some candidates who didn't quite make it -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Nathan Sharansky, who according to &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natan_Sharansky&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;his Wikipedia page&lt;/a&gt;, was the champion of Donetsk at 15, and who &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.nytimes.com/1996/10/16/world/kasparov-beaten-in-israel-by-russians.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;beat Garry Kasparov in a simul&lt;/a&gt; in 1996 has never even had a rating. He was in the Israeli parliament and government in the late 90's, round about the time he beat Kasparov.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I was sure that I read somewhere that Kirsan Ilyumzhinov who, as well as being FIDE president was also president of the former Soviet republic of Kalmykia, was a master level chess player. According to &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirsan_Ilyumzhinov&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;his Wikipedia page&lt;/a&gt; he was champion of Kalmykia at the age of 14. But according to his &lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/card.phtml?event=34123811&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE rating profile&lt;/a&gt; he has only ever played in &lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/individual_calculations.phtml?idnumber=34123811&amp;amp;rating_period=2012-05-01&amp;amp;t=2&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;one FIDE rated blitz&lt;/a&gt; in 2012 where he scored 2.5/7 against opponents with an average rating of 1954 for a performance rating of 1852.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;British member of parliament, Angela Eagle, was according to &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angela_Eagle&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;her Wikipedia page&lt;/a&gt;, British girls under 18 champion in 1976 but, again, she never got a FIDE rating let alone a title.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-05-01T20:34:50.873" Title="Which titled players (IM or GM) have also been successful politicians?" Tags="&lt;titles&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27103" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27102" CreationDate="2019-11-28T15:12:49.047" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dana_Reizniece-Ozola&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Dana Reizniece-Ozola&lt;/a&gt; holds the title of Woman Grandmaster (2001) and is a politician who served as Minister of Economics (2014–2016) and Minister of Finance (2016–2019) of the Republic of Latvia. In the Olympiad of 2016, &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1831940&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;she beat Hou Yifan&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Perhaps not a minister, but in chess he reached the absolute top: &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatoly_Karpov&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;former World Champion Anatoly Karpov&lt;/a&gt;. He's member of the Russian parliament since 2005.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another example is &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktorija_%C4%8Cmilyt%C4%97&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;GM Viktorija Čmilytė&lt;/a&gt;. She was European women's champion in 2011 and a member of the Lithuanian parliament since 2015.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One more example is &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loek_van_Wely&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;GM Loek Van Wely&lt;/a&gt;. He was rated among the world's top ten in 2001 with a rating of 2714. He's elected for the Dutch parliament in 2019, so it's still hard to say whether he's a successful or unsuccesful politician.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4588" LastEditorUserId="4588" LastEditDate="2019-11-28T15:43:17.213" LastActivityDate="2019-11-28T15:43:17.213" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27104" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27046" CreationDate="2019-11-28T15:29:02.597" Score="4" Body="&lt;h3&gt;Feasibility of non-search based approaches&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm going to talk about the feasibility of using a non-search based approach. Immediately, some questions that come to mind:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Does there exist a good &lt;code&gt;static_eval&lt;/code&gt; function that takes a &lt;code&gt;(Position, PlayerTurn)&lt;/code&gt; and returns some &lt;code&gt;Score&lt;/code&gt;? ¹&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Small changes in positions can often lead to massive differences in evaluation.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Search is not solely used by chess engines. &lt;strong&gt;Humans extensively use search too&lt;/strong&gt;, albeit for a far smaller amount of nodes.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In theory, any large enough model (e.g. with some multiple of 6^64 parameters) can exactly represent a function &lt;code&gt;perfect_eval : (Position, PlayerTurn) -&amp;gt; {Win, Loss, Draw}&lt;/code&gt;. But we only have access to finite space and time, so we desire a function &lt;code&gt;static_eval : (Position, PlayerTurn) -&amp;gt; Score&lt;/code&gt; instead. Your proposed formulation &lt;code&gt;cnn_eval : (Position, PlayerTurn) -&amp;gt; Move&lt;/code&gt; is roughly the same, but without having to choose the &lt;code&gt;argmax&lt;/code&gt; of candidate moves in a position. However, it's a bit easier to talk about how &lt;code&gt;static_eval&lt;/code&gt; behaves, so I'll stick with that for the rest of this answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's say we've managed to find ourselves a good &lt;code&gt;static_eval&lt;/code&gt; function. Consider &lt;em&gt;all moves&lt;/em&gt; in this position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;3qr1k1/1b1rbp2/p2p2p1/1p1np3/4P3/P2BB2Q/1PP3PP/4RR1K w - - 0 22&#xA;&#xA;1. Rxf7 Kxf7 2. Qh7+ Ke6 3. exd5+ Kxd5 4. Be4+ Kxe4 5. Qf7 Bf6 6. Bd2+ Kd4 7. Be3+ Ke4 8. Qb3 Kf5 9. Rf1+ Kg4 10. Qd3 Bxg2+ 11. Kxg2 Qa8+ 12. Kg1 Bg5 13. Qe2+ Kh4 14. Bf2+ Kh3 15. Be1 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most of the moves are terrible, right? (b4, a5, Qe6, ...) So clearly, small deviations in its input &lt;code&gt;Position&lt;/code&gt; should result in big differences in its evaluation. But this means that the &quot;surface&quot; that &lt;code&gt;static_eval&lt;/code&gt; represents is very, very bumpy. This is fine if there's a structure to that bumpiness, preferably one that can be represented within our space and time constraints. Personally, I think chess is complex enough and the surface too bumpy that modelling it with our very limited space constraints is going to be very challenging. In the above position, the obvious move is to regain material with exd5. But as Wei Yi shows, if you search sufficiently deep, you'll realize that Rxf7 is winning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think another argument against an approach which does not consider a search tree is that humans themselves can take a quick glance at a position and change their minds after some calculation. In the following following position, it is easy to assume that black is winning due to his many threats. But after discovering a simple tactical sequence (starting with Qxf8+), it's clear that white mates in 4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;5rk1/3R1p1p/2p2p2/1q2nB2/5B2/QP3nP1/4rP1P/R4K2 w - - 2 34&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Another idea&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So if search is so important, why can human grandmasters play reasonably correct games being limited in the number of nodes they consider? Human &quot;static evaluations&quot; might be far more time-intensive, but they are typically far more useful than the static evaluations performed by traditional chess engines. There is a tradeoff in evaluation time and accuracy, and until recently, chess engines have significantly preferred low evaluation times in order to search the most nodes they can.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/23774/1090&quot;&gt;@konsolas puts it&lt;/a&gt;,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Neural networks operate much more slowly than handcrafted evaluation functions. In the TCEC Superfinal, Leela Chess Zero, running on two GPUs each with dedicated tensor cores, is able to search around 60 thousand positions per second. By contrast, Stockfish, on a single core on my PC, searches over 2 million positions per second.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think a more fruitful endeavor than completely abandoning search is to experiment with more expensive evaluation methods, but with a smaller number of nodes traversed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More interesting ideas that people have tried can be found &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/5056/is-there-a-chess-engine-that-does-not-use-brute-force-search&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;¹ Naturally, one also needs to input a &lt;code&gt;State&lt;/code&gt; parameter to handle rules like castling, en passant, and 50-move rule.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1090" LastActivityDate="2019-11-28T15:29:02.597" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27105" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-11-28T23:46:50.127" Score="4" ViewCount="45" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am looking for software preferably local interface on windows, to play  human+engine against engine with access to search parameters such as depth and &quot;greed&quot; or dismissal factor (controlling pruning).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One side would have an engine proposing moves to a human player against another usually stronger engine. This could be the same engine with better parameters choices.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Open source preferred, engine could be stockfisch, but i am more looking for the interface that would allow such games, human interaction at each move, and compilation of data from those games.  GUI preferred but CLI if only solution.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, if existing software that can handle engine on one side could be modded to be bi-directional that way, with pause at each turn, that would be something i could work with (some SDK allowing that).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19332" LastEditorUserId="19332" LastEditDate="2019-11-28T23:52:39.013" LastActivityDate="2019-11-28T23:52:39.013" Title="Human assisted handicapped engine against engine, adjustable parameters" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;software&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27106" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18076" CreationDate="2019-11-29T00:25:34.520" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes there are some numbers that can (sort of) represent the value of castling.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you let Stockfish or any other strong engine analyze the starting position, it will generally come to the conclusion that White has roughly a +0.50 advantage. But if you use an opening book (1. Nf3 Nf6 2. Rg1 Ng8 3. Rh1 Nf6 4. Ng1 Ng8 5. Nc3 Nf6 6. Rb1 Ng8 7. Ra1 Nf6 8. Nb1 Ng8) which lets Black castle but not White, the advantage actually flips around, and the starting position advantages Black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Check these games out:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.tcec-chess.com/archive.html?season=16&amp;amp;div=vsob3&amp;amp;game=45&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Stockfish-Xiphos&lt;/a&gt;. The starting position, except White can't castle while Black can. Stockfish's starting eval at depth 31/48 is -0.20. (Yes Stockfish wins anyway, but it is &lt;em&gt;Stockfish&lt;/em&gt;, the strongest conventional engine in the world, playing)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.tcec-chess.com/archive.html?season=16&amp;amp;div=vsob3&amp;amp;game=17&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Xiphos-Stockfish&lt;/a&gt;. The reverse game. Xiphos plays 1. Nc3 evaluating the position as 0.00, while Stockfish is -0.84 at depth 36/52.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.tcec-chess.com/archive.html?season=16&amp;amp;div=sf&amp;amp;game=1&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;AllieStein-Stockfish&lt;/a&gt;. Played from the opening position with both sides able to castle. AllieStein gave 0.43 advantage to White at depth 18/57.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.tcec-chess.com/archive.html?season=16&amp;amp;div=sf&amp;amp;game=2#/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Stockfish-Alliestein&lt;/a&gt;. The reverse game, Stockfish gave White a 0.47 advantage in the opening position at depth 38/59.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastEditorUserId="15223" LastEditDate="2019-11-29T03:51:25.843" LastActivityDate="2019-11-29T03:51:25.843" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27107" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27092" CreationDate="2019-11-29T00:31:00.437" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;No.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First and foremost, engines (and everybody) play against some other also (an human player, another engine, even themselves with the opposing color). They may &lt;em&gt;guess&lt;/em&gt; the probable move(s) of the other actor, but they do not get too far. They pick a good move and the other actor's move helps them to narrow the range of possibilities.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Reversing a game position is a different problem, as you need to &lt;em&gt;know&lt;/em&gt; both players moves to solve it. You do not know if the moves were good or bad, or even if they made sense, you only know that they were legal. In that sense, rebuilding the game would be more akin to &quot;solving&quot; chess (getting all possible solutions of a game from the start position).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Additionally, even if you strengthen the requirements (&quot;let's guess that each player always played the move with the best analisis by the current engine&quot;) you have lots of situations where several possible predecessor states do appear. Just guess&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;rnbqkbnr/pp1p1ppp/8/8/3p/N7/PPP1PPPP/R1B1KBNR w - - 1 13&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does this come from?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d3 c5 2. d4 e5 3. Na3 exd4 4. Qxd4 cxd4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or from? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d3 c5 2. d4 e5 3. Na3 cxd4 4. Qxd4 exd4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In both cases black's last move is its the strongest one, yet it does not serve you to decide which was the previous board situation. As the analysis expands backwards, the possibilities multiply.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20689" LastActivityDate="2019-11-29T00:31:00.437" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27108" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27110" CreationDate="2019-11-29T06:16:36.777" Score="3" ViewCount="242" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm a hobbyist chess programmer. I've built a few engines from scratch, had lots of fun, and am generally pretty proud of what I've made (I estimate ~1400-1500 though it's hard to tell).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was very excited when I found out you can make a bot account on lichess. After a few hours of messing around, I successfully played a game against Stockfish running on my computer through the lichess interface, so I think I (sort of) know how to connect an engine to my bot account. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, for all the engines I've made in the past, I have made my own board representation and move in/output. Obviously I'll need to make some modifications to them in order to connect them to lichess. When connecting Stockfish to my account, I used the Stockfish .exe file you can download online. The lichess interface accepted it, so I'm guessing there's some semi-standard way to make interface with engines. I would like to make one of these interfaces. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Questions: am I correct that there is a standard way to interface with an engine? If so, how would you go about making one? Are there any good guides to doing so?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or perhaps more generally: how would you adapt a &quot;from scratch&quot; engine to play on lichess?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm almost entirely self taught programming wise, and am very conscious of the gaping holes in my understanding of computers/programming. Pointing me to any resources would be very helpful. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20581" LastActivityDate="2019-12-26T12:33:45.490" Title="File format/interface for home-brew engines (and implementation in lichess)" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;programming&gt;&lt;lichess&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27109" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27108" CreationDate="2019-11-29T07:24:22.320" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The standard way to connect a chess engine to anything is the &lt;a href=&quot;http://wbec-ridderkerk.nl/html/UCIProtocol.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;UCI - the universal chess interface.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It specifies how the output (and input) of an engine should be structured to be understood by an UI or any other interface. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2019-11-29T07:24:22.320" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27110" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27108" CreationDate="2019-11-29T07:34:48.600" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are plenty resources available. First of all, you may be interested in the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Chess_Interface&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Universal Chess Interface&lt;/a&gt; protocol. This is a text protocol that many engines use. A compiled list is available &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.sdchess.ru/Engines_UCI_top.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The protocol specification is available for download &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.shredderchess.com/download.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; (last link on the page).&#xA;There is also a &lt;a href=&quot;https://python-chess.readthedocs.io&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;python implementation&lt;/a&gt; of the protocol.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Last but not least, there exists a &lt;a href=&quot;https://python-lichess.readthedocs.io&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;lichess API implementation in Python&lt;/a&gt;, so you could talk to lichess directly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20569" LastActivityDate="2019-11-29T07:34:48.600" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27111" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23163" CreationDate="2019-11-29T08:07:43.533" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The first thing to do is to look at the characteristics of the position rather than looking for the best move. The more you play the easier this gets. My first reaction is &quot;white's position has its problems&quot;: the knight at e2 blocks white's bishop, and white's queen has done a lone ranger job when it would be better on d2; on d2 the queen would be acting like the dark squared bishop that white has not got. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;None of those problems are huge. But they do mean that white has to be careful. Thus my intuition would make me as white reluctant to move the queen again by playing Qg7. Qg7 just gives black what black wants; white wastes a move with the queen and stopping black castling on the kingside doesn't achieve that much for white. Black isn't in any immediate danger with a king in the centre. Black will just go...b4, the knight has no good squares to move to from c3, and then black can go..Ba6 or..Qa5 and I even prefer black slightly then. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I like Kasparov's 10.a3 to prevent ..b4. I also would have looked at 10.Ng3 , unblocking white's bishop and making a later..Ba6 not possible. 10.Qd2 is also worth a look; it's a least a better move than 10 Qg7?! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3495" LastActivityDate="2019-11-29T08:07:43.533" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27112" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6424" CreationDate="2019-11-29T12:19:23.913" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The most reputable chessboard company I know is chessbazaar.com. They are the finest crafters of chess pieces and boards and they do it at the lowest price in the industry. the quality is not compromised.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20697" LastActivityDate="2019-11-29T12:19:23.913" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27113" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23163" CreationDate="2019-11-29T14:24:59.870" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;As mentioned in the other answers, the move 10. Qg7 will lose a tempo. The only advantage that such a  move could give is the following: this forces the rook to move and prevents the castle for the remaining of the game. But here, the Queen in h6 already prevents the castle and there is no immediate option to force the Queen to move. To sum up, for 10. Qg7:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Advantage: the Blacks cannot castle anymore.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Inconvenient: loss of a tempo.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And we have seen that the advantage is not a real one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="411" LastActivityDate="2019-11-29T14:24:59.870" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27114" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27115" CreationDate="2019-11-29T16:02:19.663" Score="8" ViewCount="327" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would like to know the reason behind the very weakening move g4 recommended by Stockfish in this position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/vWuM2.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/vWuM2.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16771" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-21T20:28:08.620" LastActivityDate="2020-03-21T20:28:08.620" Title="Weakening g4 move" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27115" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27114" CreationDate="2019-11-29T17:48:26.120" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, I am amazed. I thought that it would be another case of a free online engine just not being that strong, but my Stockfish, and Deep Rybka, both like g4 there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know I would never have played that move in a million years since the eval is very close to other more normal moves like Re1, but here is what it sees.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It thinks that you can get in g5 when h5 is forced since hg loses by force, and you cannot allow gh there. After h5, that pawn becomes weak and will be lost. As you force in even just a few moves the computer thinks is best, the eval continues to grow, and it leads to a won position almost by force.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are, of course, many other tries, but they also lead nowhere for black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;  1. d4 h6 2. c4 e6 3. e4 Bb4+ 4. Nc3 Ne7 5. Nf3 Ng6 6. Bd3 O-O 7. O-O Bxc3 8. bxc3 b6 9. g4 c5 10. g5 h5 (10... hxg5 11. Nxg5 $18) 11. Ne1 d5 (11... h4 $2 12. f4 $18) 12. cxd5 exd5 13. Qxh5 $18 Nc6 14. f4 {and you can see that black is lost.}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2019-11-29T17:48:26.120" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27116" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27092" CreationDate="2019-11-29T18:33:11.220" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;As others have said, current engines are not meant to do that. But from a theoretical computer science perspective, it is &quot;possible&quot;, although likely unfeasible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just like a &quot;forward&quot; chess engine can search at most a few (dozens?) moves in the future (because the possibilities explodes exponentially), a backwards engine would suffer from the exact same limitation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think enumerating all legal backwards move from a given board state is relatively simple (contrary to what others have said), but the number of possibilities explodes exponentially the farther back we go.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyway, since the number of board states is finite, it is theoretically &quot;possible&quot; to write such a program: given enough time, a computer will analyze every possible state and eventually concludes with a valid game up to that point (it is non-unique; many games can lead to the same state), or conclude that such position is impossible (even if it takes many times the age of the universe to get there, hence the quotes on &quot;possible&quot;). This is what we computer scientists call a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Undecidable_problem&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;decidable problem&lt;/a&gt;. Such approach is probably not feasible (as it is certainly not feasible for &quot;forward chess&quot;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But modern chess engines does not blindly enumerates every possibility. Instead they use very advanced heuristics to decide the likelihood of a movement, and they perform very well against humans. It seems to me that similar heuristics and techniques can be used to create a backwards game of chess in a software that works at least sometimes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10782" LastEditorUserId="10782" LastEditDate="2019-11-29T18:38:25.580" LastActivityDate="2019-11-29T18:38:25.580" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27117" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27118" CreationDate="2019-11-29T19:54:14.783" Score="5" ViewCount="397" Body="&lt;p&gt;Two days ago, I played, a &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/umZW5dmM/black#11&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;game&lt;/a&gt; as Black and after the analysis I was quite surprised to see that the computer suggested, in several moves throughtout the game, the move d5. In this position I think Black should develop first with g6 (what I played) and solve the situation in the center later.&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/sPMHW.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/sPMHW.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think the justification for this move is that it dismantles White center but I am not sure why it should not wait until later in the game. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As Black, I always try to keep a pawn on e5 (in this case) on c5. Can someone confirm this and explain me the Pirc Defense idea behind this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks in advance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16771" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2019-11-29T23:36:24.323" LastActivityDate="2019-11-30T01:38:35.057" Title="Playing d5 in the Pirc defense" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;pirc-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27118" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27117" CreationDate="2019-11-29T20:19:10.937" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;In most early-stage Pircs, black is slightly worse, so of course, the computer will prefer any move that equalizes, or in this case, gives you a slight advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White is not well-placed in the center due to the pin on the Nf3, and the Bd3 interferes with the Qd1's protection of the center (d4) too. Black can effectively &quot;blow-up&quot; the center here, which leaves him at least equal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It comes down to specific tactics here, and d5 works. If you wait, white may play d5, and your opportunity would be lost.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One more note: I do not play e4, so I don't think about this much, but in many e4 openings, black wants to get in the equalizing d5, thus you don't usually see the bishop on d3 since it makes d5 easier to achieve. It is usually on e2, c4, or b5, so Bd3 was probably not best. In d4 openings, which I play, Bd3 is common, but black already has d5 in, so it is fine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;  1. e4 d6 2. d4 Nf6 3. Bd3 e5 4. c3 Bg4 5. Nf3 Nc6 6. Be3 d5 7. Nbd2 (7. exd5 Qxd5 {The black queen is now well-placed, and threatens e4.}) 7... dxe4 8. Nxe4 exd4 9. cxd4 Nxe4 10. Bxe4 Bb4+ 11. Kf1 $15&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2019-11-30T01:38:35.057" LastActivityDate="2019-11-30T01:38:35.057" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27119" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27117" CreationDate="2019-11-29T21:53:36.270" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Playing ...d5 isn't your typical Pirc idea, although it can be played under the right circumstances. In the diagram, White's d3-bishop and f3-knight are vulnerable to a potential ...e4 push. In addition, your g4-bishop provides some tactical possibilities by pinning the knight. Concretely speaking, everything just works nicely for an immediate challenge in the centre. It's not so much that ...d5 is a &quot;Pirc move&quot;, but rather that it just works well in this particular position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You are correct that normally you wouldn't play like this so early on in the Pirc, but one must always adapt if the position calls for it (in any opening). Also, with the bishop on g4 you won't really be able to get a satisfactory Pirc position by playing normally anyway. In both the Pirc and King's Indian type structures, it's very important for Black to retain his light-squared bishop (in order to fight for the weakened light-squared complex). If White is given control over the light squares so early on, you'll be facing an upward struggle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-11-29T21:53:36.270" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27120" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27114" CreationDate="2019-11-29T21:58:00.443" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;White has a wealth of factors working to his advantage:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A lead in development.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A massive centre.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Having control over the dark squares.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These factors allow him to get away with pushing g4. Sure, it weakens the f4- and h4-squares, but his dark-squared bishop can defend them (and Black lacks a dark-squared bishop of his own). There's also the fact that the h6-pawn acts as a hook. If the game continues g5 hxg5 Bxg5, both sides' kingsides have been opened a bit. Then, White could use the g-file with Kh1-Rg1, and suddenly Black's king is actually in more danger than White's.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When one side has a number of advantages, there often comes a moment like this one where he can &quot;cash in&quot; and gain concrete results for it. What's the point of having a number of strategic advantages if they're never eventually used in an offensive manner?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-11-29T21:58:00.443" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27121" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27092" CreationDate="2019-11-30T07:23:33.517" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's true that starting from the target position, searching for possible previous moves will probably be infeasible. However, there is an approach that could yield a reasonable game that hits the target position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In normal chess engines, the computer scores each position with some criteria, such as how many pieces it has remaining. The purpose of the score is to decide how likely it is to win from that position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One could instead use a different set of scoring criteria, such as how many pieces are in correct places, and whether the set of remaining pieces matches the target.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Placing two such engines playing a normal forwards-game against each other could probably generate a game that ends up in the target position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Extra:&lt;/strong&gt; A fun extension would be to use the normal scoring for predicting opponent's moves and the target scoring for chess engine's own moves. This way the plays-for-target chess engine would try to force a plays-for-win opponent to end up in the specific position. Of course this would only be possible for a small subset of positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20703" LastEditorUserId="20703" LastEditDate="2019-11-30T07:28:51.440" LastActivityDate="2019-11-30T07:28:51.440" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27122" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-11-30T10:16:57.110" Score="6" ViewCount="679" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm solving mate-in-2 puzzles from the Polgar 5334 problems book. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many of these are composed problems, and are hard (for me) to solve. Often I have to spend 10-15 minutes before finding the solution. Many time I don't find the solution in a reasonable time, and give up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How useful are these problems for improvement, compared with solving more &quot;normal&quot; puzzles? And if they are useful, how much time should you spend on trying to find the solution? Are there some general procedure you should follow in order to find the solution fast?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17458" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-04T22:12:37.403" LastActivityDate="2020-04-04T22:12:37.403" Title="Useful solving composed mate-in-2 problems?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;problems&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27123" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27122" CreationDate="2019-11-30T13:46:31.023" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am going to re-post my exact answer to the question &quot;Improving the observation skill &amp;amp; making less blunders&quot; with this preamble, because if you use them in this manner, you can cut down on mistakes early in calculation. Of course, this can be very helpful. If you learn to do this effectively, and as a matter of course in tournament games, you should see improvement.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In addition, you will see common patterns repeated, even if finding the first &quot;key move&quot; is difficult. I think scanning all possible moves, and not necessarily calculating deeply, depending on your current skill level, can lead to your solving these more quickly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is that answer:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I will go back to what Artur Yusupov, three-time World Championship Candidate, former top-10 player,  and one of the greatest living trainers recommends in the first book of his 10-volume series. In volume one, &quot;Boost Your Chess - Build Up Your Chess&quot;, chapter 9, which is two-move mates, including composed problems:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The aim of this lesson is to improve your calculation of short&#xA;  variations. &lt;strong&gt;It is more important to find a lot of options in the&#xA;  first few moves than to calculate moves long variations.&lt;/strong&gt; Most mistakes occur in the early moves in variations. What&#xA;  is the use of calculating a long and correct variation if your&#xA;  opponent has a much better reply on move one?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;You must develop your skill at calculating short variations, while at the same time taking into account the possibilities available to&#xA;  your opponent.&lt;/strong&gt; This skill should reduce blunders.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Exercises with mate in two moves are very well suited for training in&#xA;  the art of calculating short variations with great accuracy.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sub&gt;Emphasis as written, not mine.&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I will take this one step further with my own suggestion. Try to train yourself that before you make every move, look at EVERY move your opponent has. I am not saying that you are calculating anything. You are simply looking at it so you consider it. It will do two things: If you are hanging a piece, just looking at it will usually &quot;hit you in the face like a brick&quot;, and second, I have done many combination problems over the last 40 years, and sometimes, when I cannot figure it out, and look at the answer, I realize immediately that had I just LOOKED at the move, I would have seen the combination.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, again, you are not trying to calculate, just consider every move. You will be amazed at what you register immediately.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2019-11-30T13:46:31.023" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27124" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-11-30T16:52:08.007" Score="45" ViewCount="10841" Body="&lt;p&gt;Vladimir Kramnik has proposed &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/article/view/no-castling-chess-kramnik-alphazero&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;on chess.com&lt;/a&gt; that castling be banned for the good of the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are the kinds of objective points that might be made for &amp;amp; against this idea? Based on these, do you think that Kramnik's idea can succeed?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am keen to avoid this becoming merely opinion-based. But it's such an interesting idea that it must be worth discussing. I do have a perspective, but am keen to hear others' ideas first.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8201" LastEditorUserId="8201" LastEditDate="2019-12-02T13:26:32.697" LastActivityDate="2021-01-19T03:26:09.770" Title="What are pros and cons around banning castling?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;rules&gt;&lt;fide&gt;&lt;castling&gt;" AnswerCount="8" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27125" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27124" CreationDate="2019-11-30T17:26:23.737" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;My 2 cents - it's a very stupid idea, on a par with Nigel Short's suggestion to change stalemate into a win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are two very good reasons not to do it:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It would completely change opening theory&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;There are already 959 alternatives if you want to have a form of chess which is similar to the standard format but with different start positions which gives a lot more scope for innovation than just banning castling. There is now a world champion in this who is not called Carlsen.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Short (pardon the pun), it is a solution to a problem which doesn't exist / already has a solution (959 solutions).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2019-11-30T17:26:23.737" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27126" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27092" CreationDate="2019-11-30T18:31:19.267" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;From the pure theoretical point of view: Yes, it is possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You just need to play forward all possible games until you find at least one game that contains the current position. Then you use the moves it played forward to do your retro analysis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But you cannot &lt;strong&gt;just&lt;/strong&gt; do it, as the amount of possible games is huge. So this point is only a proof, that it is possible in theory. In practice, the question is if it is tractable in a reasonable time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I suppose it is tractable by extending some of the current planning methods, but the details are not straightforward. I would recommend asking the question if an AI can achieve this at &lt;a href=&quot;https://ai.stackexchange.com&quot;&gt;https://ai.stackexchange.com&lt;/a&gt;, as it is an interesting question about game AIs and may spark some quite interesting answers on that site.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20705" LastActivityDate="2019-11-30T18:31:19.267" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27127" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27124" CreationDate="2019-11-30T18:36:32.380" Score="26" Body="&lt;p&gt;It would certainly allow for more attacks due to kings being stuck in the center, but fundamentally changing the game, which in a way dumbs it down, is not good. It would be less complex. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also do not want to think that I spent 40 years of my life studying something only to have it changed. I do not want the rug pulled out from under me like that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2019-11-30T18:36:32.380" CommentCount="12" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27128" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27630" CreationDate="2019-11-30T18:43:52.543" Score="8" ViewCount="516" Body="&lt;p&gt;I started playing chess long before the Internet or even computers were tools that could help you learn chess. Trainer GM Arthur Yusupov believes that you should set up every position on a board, and study it that way (he even puts this in the forward of most of his books).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Recently, I have been doing tactics on one of the various sites I belong to, and I found that it is way too easy to just move the pieces and guess at the answer compared to when I read a book, and have to really think about what the answer is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which is more a effective way of learning and why?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="18475" LastEditDate="2019-12-03T16:07:08.013" LastActivityDate="2019-12-28T17:35:49.163" Title="Is online chess learning as effective as using books?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;online&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27129" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27085" CreationDate="2019-11-30T23:27:10.003" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Planning to play the Old Indian (Be7 for black) against the London System has no bite since white can control e5 more easily. The Be7 does not aim at e5, of course, but as important, it inhibits Re8, and its control of e5 also. So minus two pieces helping play e5, and you are not likely to get that freeing move in. You would also have to play (after d6) e6 since e5 loses a pawn to any reasonable white development, Be7, and only then, figure out how to enforce e5 gaining some space in the center. In reality, you would probably have to play for c5 instead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a defense against the London System, the King's Indian (g6 and Bg7) is much more logical since the Bg7 can help fight for control of e5, and the Re8 immediately helps too with a potential e5. In those lines, white usually plays Bf4, but then h3, and Bh2 to anticipate black's eventual e5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2019-11-30T23:27:10.003" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27130" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27131" CreationDate="2019-11-30T23:58:30.653" Score="10" ViewCount="531" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is a fun puzzle I found some time ago. It was created by Karl Fabel in 1952 and published in Rätselstunde.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Goal&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[title &quot;White to move and NOT checkmate in one!&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;B5KR/1r5B/6R1/2b1p1p1/2P1k1P1/1p2P2p/1P2P2P/3N1N2 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is honestly one of the most unique puzzles I ever saw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It will take some time to find the solution but it is very satisfying once you do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Hopefully there is a way to post a comment with your guesses without spoiling the fun for others. Please use &lt;code&gt;&amp;gt;!&lt;/code&gt; to hide your post and prevent spoilers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20657" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-04T22:12:58.767" LastActivityDate="2020-04-04T22:12:58.767" Title="Uniquely Satisfying Puzzle" Tags="&lt;problems&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="7" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27131" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27130" CreationDate="2019-12-01T00:02:01.610" Score="8" Body="&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Cute puzzle. Rc6 solves it. :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/SEFkQ.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/SEFkQ.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-01-08T21:29:38.613" LastActivityDate="2020-01-08T21:29:38.613" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27132" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27124" CreationDate="2019-12-01T05:01:07.587" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a chess composer myself, it would be extremely upsetting. Over two centuries, give or take, worth of wonderful art would be slammed into dust, now entirely useless somewhat. What's to do with it all now if castling is banned? Banning castling would be like burning down the Library of Alexandria-hudrends of years of work would be lost for many people.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-12-01T17:51:53.453" LastActivityDate="2019-12-01T17:51:53.453" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27133" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27124" CreationDate="2019-12-01T07:50:04.273" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have no real preference either way, but I'll point out that Kramnik based his argument on AlphaZero playing against itself. Because of &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TCEC_Season_15#Games_43/44&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;AlphaZero's style&lt;/a&gt;, it might not be the case that these no-castling games end up in complicated positions more often.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here're two &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.tcec-chess.com/archive.html?season=16&amp;amp;div=vsob1&amp;amp;game=25&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;more&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.tcec-chess.com/archive.html?season=16&amp;amp;div=vsob1&amp;amp;game=53&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;games&lt;/a&gt; to add using the no-castling rule, played in the TCEC viewer-submitted opening bonus games. Komodo (the second-strongest traditional engine) plays against Scorpio, one of the newer NN engines (objectively, it's likely weaker than Leela, Allie, Fat Fritz, and Stoofvlees). To this patzer's eye, they do look pretty complicated, adding more evidence for Kramnik's position. Caveat: because Scorpio is also an NN engine, it might play more similarly to AlphaZero.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Scorpio&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Komodo&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1/2-1/2&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Nf3 Nf6 2. Nc3 Nc6 3. Rg1 Rg8 4. Rb1 Rb8 5. Rh1 Ra8 6. Ra1 Rh8 7. Ng1 Ng8 8. Nb1 Nb8 9. c4 c5 10. Nf3 Nc6 11. d4 cxd4 12. Nxd4 g6 13. e4 e5 14. Nc2 Bc5 15. Nc3 Kf8 16. Rb1 a5 17. h4 d6 18. Bg5 Qe8 19. h5 h6 20. hxg6 fxg6 21. Be3 Be6 22. f3 Kg7 23. Qd2 h5 24. Na3 Nd4 25. Nab5 Nxb5 26. Nxb5 Qe7 27. Bg5 Nf6 28. a3 a4 29. Kd1 Qf7 30. Rc1 Rac8 31. Rc2 Rc6 32. Kc1 h4 33. Be2 h3 34. gxh3 Nh5 35. h4 Ng3 36. Rd1 Kh7 37. Qe1 Nxe2+ 38. Qxe2 Rf8 39. Rc3 Bb4 40. axb4 Bxc4 41. Rxc4 Qxc4+ 42. Qxc4 Rxc4+ 43. Kb1 Rxb4 44. Nxd6 Rxf3 45. Rd2 a3 46. Ka2 b5 47. bxa3 Rbb3 48. Ne8 Rxa3+ 49. Kb1 Rfb3+ 50. Kc1 Rc3+ 51. Rc2 Kg8 52. Nd6 Rxc2+ 53. Kxc2 b4 54. Bf6 Kf8 55. Bxe5 Ke7 56. Nb7 Rh3 57. Bd6+ Kf6 58. Bxb4 Rxh4 59. Bc3+ Ke6 60. Kd3 Rh3+ 61. Kd4 g5 62. Nc5+ Kf7 63. Nd3 Ke6 64. Bd2 Kf6 65. Ne5 Rb3 66. Ba5 Ke6 67. Nd3 Rb1 68. Bc3 Kf6 69. Kd5+ Kg6 70. Bd4 g4 71. e5 Kf7 72. Bf2 Rd1 73. Ke4 Rf1 74. Bh4 Rh1 75. Bg5 Rd1 76. Nf4 Re1+ 77. Kf5 g3 78. Bd8 Rh1 79. Bb6 Rf1 80. Kg4 Rb1 81. Ba5 g2 82. Nxg2 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Reverse game:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Komodo&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Scorpio&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Nf3 Nf6 2. Nc3 Nc6 3. Rg1 Rg8 4. Rb1 Rb8 5. Rh1 Ra8 6. Ra1 Rh8 7. Ng1 Ng8 8. Nb1 Nb8 9. d4 d5 10. c4 dxc4 11. e3 e6 12. Nc3 a6 13. a4 b6 14. Bxc4 Nf6 15. e4 Nc6 16. Nge2 Nb4 17. f3 c5 18. Be3 cxd4 19. Nxd4 Bc5 20. Qb3 Qc7 21. Rc1 Ke7 22. a5 Bd7 23. axb6 Qxb6 24. e5 Nfd5 25. Nxd5+ exd5 26. Bb5 Ke8 27. Nf5 Qxb5 28. Nxg7+ Kf8 29. Bxc5+ Kxg7 30. Qxb4 Qxb4+ 31. Bxb4 a5 32. Bc3 Be6 33. Kd2 Kg6 34. Ra1 a4 35. Ra3 Rhc8 36. h3 Kg5 37. Ke3 Rc4 38. g4 h5 39. f4+ Kh6 40. f5 Bd7 41. Bd4 Kg5 42. h4+ Kxg4 43. e6 Be8 44. Rf1 Rb4 45. Rf4+ Kg3 46. Ra1 Rb3+ 47. Bc3 a3 48. Rg1+ Kh2 49. Rgf1 d4+ 50. Rxd4 axb2 51. Rf2+ Kg3 52. Rf3+ Kh2 53. Rd2+ Kg1 54. Rg3+ Kh1 55. Kf2 Kh2 56. Rdd3 b1=Q 57. Rh3# 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Update&lt;/strong&gt;: Chessbase reports that a tournament between fairly-strong players (about 2300-2400) &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.chessbase.com/post/the-first-ever-no-castling-chess-tournament-results-in-89-decisive-games&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;resulted in 89% decisive games&lt;/a&gt;. Caveat: because the format is new, one would expect more decisive games. If no castling chess became the standard, theory &lt;em&gt;will&lt;/em&gt; develop, openings will become more refined, and we should expect draws to increase in frequency.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastEditorUserId="15223" LastEditDate="2020-01-20T03:36:43.907" LastActivityDate="2020-01-20T03:36:43.907" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27134" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27124" CreationDate="2019-12-01T09:40:22.800" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;Pros: Tal will rise from the dead in excitement at castling not being allowed. &#xA;Cons: Fischer will also rise from the dead in excitement. &#xA;Undecided: Petrosian will have many of his masterpieces, where he castled late as was his style, left to not be worth as much. How does he feel about this? Who knows? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In all seriousness, this would make the advantage of playing White much bigger. Opening theory would develop a lot more gambits for White. I expect that after a year there would be an irresistible call to modify the rules over checkmate; one way would be to make checkmate only possible after 20 moves and any checkmate before then is a draw. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I agree with previous posts; if people want a chess variant there are many already. Just for laughs, if I had to ask myself &quot;what would be the fairest way of having castling not allowed?&quot; maybe if you give a check then from then on castling is allowed. It could be more interesting still if there was a move limit ; after the check you get 10 moves of allowable castling. Or for a crazy idea, allow castling anywhere for the whole game but the king and rook have to be vertically spaced for squares. That would be weird lol. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Good question for laughs at least.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3495" LastActivityDate="2019-12-01T09:40:22.800" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27135" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27092" CreationDate="2019-12-01T13:25:27.067" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;While it might not be currently possible to write an AI that does better than humans, there are some relevant programs under the &quot;retro, programy, úlohy&quot; subheading &lt;a href=&quot;http://members.chello.cz/chessproblems/links0.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11326" LastEditorUserId="11326" LastEditDate="2019-12-01T13:55:23.370" LastActivityDate="2019-12-01T13:55:23.370" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27136" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27137" CreationDate="2019-12-01T14:23:32.993" Score="4" ViewCount="157" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the most amazing chess position you have seen?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have been wanting to ask this question for a while, but feared it would be closed. Since the &quot;Uniquely Satisfying Puzzle&quot; and &quot;What is the most complex chess problem?&quot; questions were not closed, I am going to post it. I hope that this is not voted closed as it is a chance to share some amazing positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please post only one position per answer, but feel free to answer multiple times.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2019-12-01T14:36:28.167" Title="What is the most amazing chess position you have seen?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;studies&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="12" FavoriteCount="2" ClosedDate="2019-12-01T17:17:39.830" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27137" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27136" CreationDate="2019-12-01T14:27:00.790" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;White to win. L Kubbel 1927&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;8/8/1p6/kp3p2/p7/1PP1p2B/5p2/5R1K w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;&#xA; 1. Ra1 $1 {Threatening Bf1 stopping the pawns.} e2 2. Bf1 $1 e1=Q 3. Rxa4+! bxa4 4. b4#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2019-12-01T14:27:00.790" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27138" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27136" CreationDate="2019-12-01T14:31:14.740" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;White to move and draw. Y. Afek 1978&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;8/5N1p/8/b6p/7P/6KP/7R/4kr2 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. Ne5 $1 {Rf7 and Bc7 are both threatened.} Bc7 2. Rh1 $3 Rxh1 (2... Bxe5+ 3. Kg2 Rxh1 4. Kxh1 {And while black is up a piece, and can win all of white's pawns, this is a known drawn position since the white king cannot be ousted from the corner of the &quot;wrong&quot; bishop.}) 3. Kg2 Rf1 4. Nd3+ $1 Ke2 5. Nc1+ $1 Ke1 6. Nd3+ Ke2 7. Nc1+ Rxc1 {Stalemate!!}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2019-12-01T14:31:14.740" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27139" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27136" CreationDate="2019-12-01T14:33:16.617" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;A missed variation from the game Najer-Nepomniachi, Moscow 2006. Black to move and win. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;5rk1/3R1p2/4p2p/4P1pP/2q4r/P1n1BQ2/2P2PP1/4R1K1 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1... g4 2. Qg3 Qf1+ $3 3. Rxf1 (3. Kxf1 Rh1#) 3... Ne2#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2019-12-01T14:33:16.617" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27140" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27136" CreationDate="2019-12-01T14:36:28.167" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;And one last one from a real game. Black to move and win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [Date &quot;2003.??.??&quot;]&#xA; [White &quot;Ibrahim&quot;]&#xA; [Black &quot;Ibarra&quot;]&#xA; [FEN &quot;3q4/1p1n1pk1/p1r1p1p1/2P1Pn1p/1P1N1P2/B5rP/5RPK/Q3R3 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1... Nxd4 $1 2. Kxg3 (2. Qxd4 Rxa3 3. Rd1 Qh4 {is just up a piece.}) 2... Qh4+ $3 3. Kxh4 Nf5+ 4. Kg5 Nf8 5. g4 {and there is no defense to....} Nh7#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2019-12-01T14:36:28.167" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27141" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27128" CreationDate="2019-12-01T22:58:37.093" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are four major ways people learn-reading books, doing it for practice, hearing it explained, or watching demonstrations. Not everybody learns best with the same approach.  The answer is that it depends.  People can choose what method works best for them. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20711" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-12-27T19:42:02.763" LastActivityDate="2019-12-27T19:42:02.763" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27142" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12839" CreationDate="2019-12-02T02:02:32.967" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Forget about becoming a professional.  Do you know how many grandmasters there are that are working at minimum wage?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Play for fun instead. &#xA;You need to learn one opening really well and learn tactics along with playing endgames.  Later, you can focus on pawn structures and positional play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are some other esoteric subjects but until you are GM level they won't help you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wouldn't recommend playing blitz or speed chess slower than G15 until you are ready to plateau.  But do not play super slow tournaments either, as G30 should be the slowest you play.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The best practice is the old way, which is exactly ten seconds per move.  No more no less!  Start at 15 or 20 seconds at first if ten is too fast.  That forces you to take enough time to see the board and make  a sensible move.  You will do so much better in time trouble with that practice.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20712" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2019-12-02T11:08:48.620" LastActivityDate="2019-12-02T11:08:48.620" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27143" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14092" CreationDate="2019-12-02T02:04:56.707" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you want to improve focus on ONE opening, don't try to learn many of them, especially if totally different styles.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You need to learn how to play endgames and tactics as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you get over  an 1800 FIDE rating add advanced things like pawn structures and positional play. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20712" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-12-02T02:11:41.100" LastActivityDate="2019-12-02T02:11:41.100" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27144" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15050" CreationDate="2019-12-02T02:07:52.900" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I mastered the Nimzo-Indian when I was relatively new to playing chess, by playing every game of the 1953 candidates tournament l, which had the top grandmasters playing to compete for the world championship.  It turned out that the bulk of the games were Nimzo-Indians.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would recommend getting game collections and recent tournament books of GM games and play only those games with the opening that you picked to master. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20712" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-12-02T02:14:04.490" LastActivityDate="2019-12-02T02:14:04.490" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27146" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27028" CreationDate="2019-12-02T06:19:27.517" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Before consulting a book, try reading the Wikipedia article on &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rook_and_pawn_versus_rook_endgame&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;rook and pawn endgames&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you mention, it's a very broad topic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastActivityDate="2019-12-02T06:19:27.517" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27147" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27124" CreationDate="2019-12-02T08:34:39.477" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;This answer will focus on chess as it is played, rather than subdomains like composition or engine development.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Castling is a move that usually accomplishes at least one of two things:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It gets the king to safety.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It develops the rook.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or both, in just one move. As castling stands now, it requires one move to reach a position that would otherwise take three moves. This accelerates the game considerably, where a player can get king safety &lt;em&gt;and&lt;/em&gt; an attack quickly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[As an aside, historically, the current version of castling is not the first. There have been several others during the 16th to 18th century, like swapping the king and rook directly, or &quot;free castling&quot; (put the king and rook somewhere on the squares between them, inclusive.) They all had a slightly different flavour from modern castling and are interesting in their own right, but the effect is the same, returning to the two points above.]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The effect of banning castling would be to remove this acceleration of the game. However, it does not automatically make the game slow or boring. I draw from my experience of shogi for this part regarding openings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In the opening, the choice between king safety and rapid attack would be even more pronounced than before. This would of course radically change opening theory (move sequences), but also opening strategy (what to prioritise).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Players could consider spending several moves adopting structures that allow the king to walk from the centre into safety in the wings. This multi-move strategy is termed &quot;castling&quot; in shogi (unfortunate name), and is a large and varied part of opening strategy.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;There would be options to forgo this &quot;castling&quot; in favour of immediate attack, leaving the king in the centre. This is clearly double-edged.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If executing &quot;castling&quot;, players would have to be cautious - the king remains fairly vulnerable for a while, and players have to maintain flexibility to avoid being caught off guard during this.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, shogi is its own completely different game (drops make it more akin to crazyhouse chess than regular chess), but the general ideas behind its opening strategy would seem applicable to no-castling regular chess, hence why I refer to it in this answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is certain though is that this change would have the desired effect: opening theory (move sequences) would need to be completely revised as many lines hinge on castling quickly. Opening strategy would also change to an extent, where the balance between king safety and rapid development adds another dimension to the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, endgame theory would not change (barring a tiny handful of composed studies). Middlegame skill and general &quot;chess skill&quot; would be also largely untouched, perhaps even promoted in importance as the game would for a while rely more heavily on piece coordination and chess sense than on opening lines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This no-castling change seems interesting and has the advantages of (a) not changing endgame theory, unlike the stalemate = win suggestion often brought up, and (b) not changing pattern recognition, unlike chess960 which yields unfamiliar positions from the get-go.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15989" LastActivityDate="2019-12-02T08:34:39.477" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27149" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11195" CreationDate="2019-12-02T11:08:30.660" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can play bughouse at chess.com but they chatban you for comments that they already filter (so your comment doesn't go through, and then they chatban you so you can't use communication buttons.)  it's a bad service.  Don't pay them.  FICS won't ban you&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20717" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-12-02T11:20:14.003" LastActivityDate="2019-12-02T11:20:14.003" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27150" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8443" CreationDate="2019-12-02T11:33:45.750" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sicilian is not in my repertory and I want to include it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I haven't read it yet, but after reading other books by GM De la Villa and some feedback I have read, I would recommend blindly &lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.amazon.es/Dismantling-Sicilian-Complete-Modern-Repertoire/dp/9056917528&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&quot;Dismantling the Sicilian: A Complete Modern Repertoire for White&quot;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user18196" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T16:50:23.523" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T16:50:23.523" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27151" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27153" CreationDate="2019-12-02T12:01:47.820" Score="7" ViewCount="1044" Body="&lt;p&gt;Wikipedia page for GM Granda from Peru says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Julio Granda does not study opening theory. He has said that he has&#xA;only read a chess book, the third volume of the General Chess Treaty&#xA;of Roberto Grau. Anyway, he admits reading magazines and reviewing the&#xA;Informant, which together with his excellent memory and assimilation&#xA;capacity, has allowed him to win important tournaments and titles.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Google translation from &lt;a href=&quot;https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julio_Granda&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;spanish wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this possible? Can one become a master without studying theory at all?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user18196" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2020-03-02T13:53:30.067" Title="Is it possible to reach master level without studying theory?" Tags="&lt;books&gt;&lt;grandmaster&gt;&lt;study&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27152" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27151" CreationDate="2019-12-02T12:45:59.863" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Absolutely, although I do not agree that Julio Granda is a good comparison since it sounds like he has a near-eidetic memory (close to photographic). It sounds like he also absorbs enough that he has, indeed, learned a lot of theory even if not through sitting down and opening books or a computer. I do believe that to get to the IM and GM ranks, you do need to study theory, or you will lose too many games in the opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for becoming a &quot;normal&quot; Master, I am one, who never studied theory. That said, you still need to learn how to play opening pawn structures, and their basic plans. I got to 2298 USCF, and I know incredibly little about theory, but I do understand what I am aiming for in my openings, and what to do should both my opponent and I end up on our own theory-wise.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lastly, the difference is that there is a huge difference between IM/GM and we mortal &quot;PhishMasters&quot; (fish, aka phish, among masters).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2019-12-02T12:45:59.863" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27153" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27151" CreationDate="2019-12-02T14:48:57.183" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Anything is possible.  The real question is how likely are you and most people to do it that way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And it depends on what you call 'theory'.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I read NO theory. But I read a lot of practical books on openings, tactics, end games, pawn structure, positional play, yada yada.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They claim that an AI program learned to play Go by playing itself.  I do not know anyone humans that have done that.  We might if we lived millions of years but in reality humans can't do it that way.  Most humans learn by seeing how others,  who win doing it, have done it;  and try to improve on that if possible using the basic tools they learned from practical books.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20712" LastActivityDate="2019-12-02T14:48:57.183" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27154" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-12-02T16:12:01.313" Score="4" ViewCount="399" Body="&lt;p&gt;Knowing nothing but the rules of chess, I'd like to start learning a bit more. Some kind of tutorial app for my Android smartphone would be perfect as I can use it anywhere. The app should give &lt;strong&gt;theoretical explanations&lt;/strong&gt; of basic concepts and thinking patterns (like controlling the center, pawn structure etc.) and preferably mix in a lot of &lt;strong&gt;example positions to solve.&lt;/strong&gt; Free would be great, but I also would't have a problem with paying up to 10€ if it's worth it. Any suggestions?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20719" LastActivityDate="2021-01-03T20:13:01.683" Title="What are good Android apps to learn chess from scratch?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;beginner&gt;&lt;android&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27155" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27154" CreationDate="2019-12-02T16:39:53.827" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would suggest LiChess. It is free (of charge and ads) and it has a website + android app. You can practice vs other opponents, solve tactic puzzles. They also have a learning section, where you can learn about simple strategic concepts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18963" LastActivityDate="2019-12-02T16:39:53.827" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27156" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="468" CreationDate="2019-12-02T20:16:22.820" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;How big is the tournament?  How many people, how long?&#xA;What type of tournament will it be?  How often will it be re-run?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Before PCs I ran moderately sized tournaments quite easily with just 5x8 cards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Computers are great for really big tournaments and to stop complaints that the director was biased;  but they are not needed for a smaller more friendly tournament.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20724" LastActivityDate="2019-12-02T20:16:22.820" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27157" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27159" CreationDate="2019-12-02T20:38:53.340" Score="15" ViewCount="4717" Body="&lt;p&gt;From here:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/8095/what-is-the-best-age-to-learn-chess&quot;&gt;What is the best age to learn chess?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;it seems that consensus is that that kids can start learning chess at almost any age. From around 5 years old they are big enough to learn the names of the pieces and the rules for how each piece moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/6225&quot;&gt;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/6225&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;it is suggested to not push kids to learn chess, but to lead by example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/5208/where-can-i-start-to-learn&quot;&gt;Where can I start to learn?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;there are tips for how adults can learn chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;My question is&lt;/strong&gt;: Assuming you have an interested child age 5 - 10, how do you practically suggest teaching chess? Does it make most sense to just start playing with setting up all the pieces, or are there smaller &quot;games&quot; that one can/should start with?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20725" LastEditorUserId="10867" LastEditDate="2020-06-01T17:06:41.007" LastActivityDate="2020-06-01T17:06:41.007" Title="Where to start with a child learning chess?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;puzzles&gt;&lt;teaching&gt;&lt;children&gt;" AnswerCount="11" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27159" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27157" CreationDate="2019-12-02T21:47:49.917" Score="12" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Does it make most sense to just start playing with setting up all the&#xA;  pieces, or are there smaller &quot;games&quot; that one can/should start with?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It doesn't really matter the age of the person learning to play, there is no point in starting with a full set. There is just far too much to take in and make sense of. The first thing to do is to teach them how to win!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, first teach them how king, queen and rook move and then teach the basic mates -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;KRR v K&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;KR v K&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;KQ v K&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And I would do it in that order because it is the easiest and it is the way to introduce concepts like checkmate, king not allowed to move into check, two rooks working together, opposition, king and one rook working together, stalemate (to be avoided with KQ v K).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Next I would go on to KP v K, when you can win, when it is a draw and how to win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then I would go on to a game which many people start with (but there is no checkmate, so less fun IMHO) and that is 8 pawns v 8 pawns. Winner is the first to get a pawn to the other side or to &quot;stalemate&quot; the opponent - i.e. the opponent is the first to run out of moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After that I would reintroduce the kings and major pieces before finally going on to the full game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can see I'm working backwards here because that way the learner first learns where they should be aiming to get to and what to when they get there in stages starting from the destination.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="12523" LastEditDate="2019-12-04T11:53:14.667" LastActivityDate="2019-12-04T11:53:14.667" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27160" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27154" CreationDate="2019-12-02T22:06:19.697" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Free online course full of interactive puzzles &lt;a href=&quot;https://szachydzieciom.pl/?lang=en&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://szachydzieciom.pl/?lang=en&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Especially, the &lt;a href=&quot;https://szachydzieciom.pl/?page_id=61627&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Basic Rules Section&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3456" LastEditorUserId="3456" LastEditDate="2019-12-06T13:07:03.757" LastActivityDate="2019-12-06T13:07:03.757" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27161" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27157" CreationDate="2019-12-02T22:33:35.307" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Teach them how the pieces move. Teach them checkmate with two rooks. Let them play some ridiculously easy computer for a while. Gradually introduce more advanced stuff (K+R vs K, K+Q vs K, the idea that you should put your pawns in the middle, the four move checkmate, the two move checkmate)&#xA;Mini games are also very good for kids - putting a queen in the middle of the board and giving them a knight and asking them to do lots of knight paths, for example putting the knight on a3 and asking them to get it to f1 without going on a square the queen can take. For more advanced ones you can get them to do it mentally but that requires co-ordinates&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/H7P6p.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/H7P6p.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chessplus.net/the-bishop-and-pawns-game/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://chessplus.net/the-bishop-and-pawns-game/&lt;/a&gt; is another good one&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once they've got a bit more experience (can do four move checkmate and the two rooks vs king etc) then making up very simple mate in twos helps their calculation a lot. Then maybe they are ready for Seirawan's Winning Chess Tactics and How to Beat Your Dad at Chess. Both really good books but not for absolute beginners.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18738" LastActivityDate="2019-12-02T22:33:35.307" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27162" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27154" CreationDate="2019-12-02T23:12:55.253" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why waste your money when you've got free video repository like Youtube.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Watch this &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAIQyoPcjNM&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;video&lt;/a&gt;, i think this is perhaps the best video i've ever come across to learn chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some applications on playstore will definitely come handy:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.chess&amp;amp;hl=en&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.chess&amp;amp;hl=en&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.chessking.android.learn.ctforbeginners&amp;amp;hl=en&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.chessking.android.learn.ctforbeginners&amp;amp;hl=en&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=uk.co.aifactory.chessfree&amp;amp;hl=en&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=uk.co.aifactory.chessfree&amp;amp;hl=en&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are many options on playstore but this three were one of the best options.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20727" LastActivityDate="2019-12-02T23:12:55.253" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27163" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27157" CreationDate="2019-12-03T06:22:08.743" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I started playing chess with 4y old - by just observing.&#xA;My father played with himself and used books to replay Grandmaster games (and he still does it nowadays he's 82y old). - , at first I was not allowed to touch the pieces but he explained me the game slowly, until I understood everything, and started to play against him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So in my opinion, just play the game and the kid will learn - learning by doing, it's not magic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20728" LastActivityDate="2019-12-03T06:22:08.743" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27164" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27157" CreationDate="2019-12-03T10:20:25.853" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You teach them chess the same way chess has always been taught: you give them the board, tell them the rules, and let them figure it out from there. As the saying goes, &quot;10 minutes to learn, a lifetime to master&quot;. If they want to go into more detail to become a competitive chess player, provide them with the resources to do so, but there's no need to teach them about strategies or tactics otherwise.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18993" LastActivityDate="2019-12-03T10:20:25.853" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27165" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27157" CreationDate="2019-12-03T11:16:02.537" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;I tend to disagree with the other answers that suggest starting with just a few pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Kids absorb so much, so quickly. When my daughter was 4, she used to just watch me so she got some familiarity with the shapes of the pieces, but there was no teaching at this time. When she was 5, I taught her the names of the pieces, and then how they all moved. I did this all at one time. This took only a day or two of short sessions, and she had it. Then I taught her the special moves, castling and en passant, so she knew the game already, at least the rules.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We would play regularly, but the only problem is, and this varies from child to child, she really did not have a great interest in the game. If you can solve this, that is something because I am not the only parent, who I have heard say this. In middle school, the chess club at her school had an amazing 40 kids, so she would go to that and play. She would be proud when I would teach them, but even then, she only wants to play very sporadically.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2019-12-03T11:16:02.537" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27166" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27157" CreationDate="2019-12-03T11:32:01.850" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I learnt to play chess around that age with Pritchard's &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.amazon.co.uk/Begin-Chess-Right-David-Pritchard/dp/0716021005&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Begin Chess&lt;/a&gt;, later moving on to &quot;The right way to play chess&quot;. Both of these books should be available on amazon, and although they were written in the 1970s they stand the test of time in my opinion. I can highly recommend them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Begin Chess starts off teaching the ways different pieces move, full of exercises that have solutions at the back (e.g. place 4 queens on a 4x4 corner of the board so that none attacks any other one), and then goes into more detail on openings and endings. My own experience was that I found the openings part a bit confusing (I had a lot of &quot;why&quot; questions that the book didn't answer) but the part on endings was really logical and made sense, at least after spending several afteroons on King + Pawn vs. King.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user20732" LastActivityDate="2019-12-03T11:32:01.850" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27167" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27157" CreationDate="2019-12-03T12:27:11.860" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I learnt &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draughts&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Draughts/Checkers&lt;/a&gt; first. I can't say if it's optimal, but it certainly got me used to playing on square boards and diagonal takes/captures such as with pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16716" LastActivityDate="2019-12-03T12:27:11.860" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27168" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27057" CreationDate="2019-12-03T15:09:32.650" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;No.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Entering tournaments to make money is a fools errand.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is much cheating that occurs in them.  And plenty of us 1900 players  (real 1900 federation rated not the fake online ratings) also deviate from the book to befuddle those who only know the book and think that the book is always right.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And since we do know theory and have good tactics too you will be surprised at  your results if you play actual rated 1900 players.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastActivityDate="2019-12-03T15:09:32.650" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27169" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9323" CreationDate="2019-12-03T15:13:46.970" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The physical demands of GM chess for a game day is higher than pro sports.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess Life in the late 50s (early 60s?) had an article by a PhD psychologist who actually measured physiological results of playing in tournaments.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The scheduling has to do with other factors of holding a tournament as TV revenues are not a major concern for the organizers. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastActivityDate="2019-12-03T15:13:46.970" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27170" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27175" CreationDate="2019-12-03T16:12:49.560" Score="7" ViewCount="1020" Body="&lt;p&gt;After watching a series of ChessBase India videos on YouTube, it is clear that GM's can easily remember 100s (possibly 1000's) of positions. Look at this one example by Vidit Gujrathi: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UebAM1CDxn8&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UebAM1CDxn8&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question: For amateurs, what are some good strategies to try to recognize a position and understand which opening it came from?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="764" LastActivityDate="2020-03-06T18:08:06.907" Title="Looking for tips on memorizing positions" Tags="&lt;memorization&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27171" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27173" CreationDate="2019-12-03T17:39:36.970" Score="2" ViewCount="182" Body="&lt;p&gt;I came across Anderssen's &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immortal_Game&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;'immortal game'&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. f4 exf4 3. Bc4 Qh4+ 4. Kf1 b5&#xA;5. Bxb5 Nf6 6. Nf3 Qh6 7. d3 Nh5 8. Nh4 Qg5&#xA;9. Nf5 c6 10. g4 Nf6 11. Rg1 cxb5 12. h4 Qg6&#xA;13. h5 Qg5 14. Qf3 Ng8 15. Bxf4 Qf6 16. Nc3 Bc5&#xA;17. Nd5 Qxb2 18. Bd6?&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was curious to know whether &lt;code&gt;Bd6&lt;/code&gt; is really a good move or not. &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/analysis/standard/rnb1k1nr/p2p1ppp/3B4/1pbN1N1P/4P1P1/3P1Q2/PqP5/R4KR1_b_kq_-_1_18&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;StockFish 10+&lt;/a&gt; does not think it is all that great. At the default depth 18 it evaluates it wrongly (strangely it gave different values whenever I forced reevaluation, but typically between -4 and -5), but even at depth 29 it still evaluates it as 0, with main line &lt;code&gt;18... Qxa1+ 19. Ke2 Qb2 20. Bxc5 Qxc2+ 21. Kf1 Qxc5 22. Qf4 Kd8 23. Nd6 f6 24. g5&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But it seems even &lt;code&gt;18... Qxa1+ 19. Ke2 Bxg1 20. e5&lt;/code&gt; is not too bad for Black, and I think continues:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. f4 exf4 3. Bc4 Qh4+ 4. Kf1 b5&#xA;5. Bxb5 Nf6 6. Nf3 Qh6 7. d3 Nh5 8. Nh4 Qg5&#xA;9. Nf5 c6 10. g4 Nf6 11. Rg1 cxb5 12. h4 Qg6&#xA;13. h5 Qg5 14. Qf3 Ng8 15. Bxf4 Qf6 16. Nc3 Bc5&#xA;17. Nd5 Qxb2 18. Bd6? Qxa1+ 19. Ke2 Bxg1 20. e5 Ba6&#xA;21. Nc7+ Kd8 22. Nxa6 Qc3 23. Bc7+ Qxc7 24. Nxc7 Nc6&#xA;25. Nxa8&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems Black is not really dead yet. Am I missing some subtleties?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also noticed that the wikipedia article has an apparently inconsistent footnote [6], which implies that &lt;code&gt;18...Qxa1+&lt;/code&gt; is better because it likely leads to &lt;code&gt;19. Ke2 Bxg1 20. e5.&lt;/code&gt;, but this is precisely the same position that Anderssen reached in the actual game, which the article says led to Black's defeat...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9192" LastActivityDate="2019-12-04T10:58:27.423" Title="Anderssen's 'immortal game'" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;sacrifice&gt;&lt;master-games&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27172" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27124" CreationDate="2019-12-03T17:45:48.623" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Who cares? Let 1,000 flowers bloom.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are already a bunch of popular variants so arguing from tradition is pointless at best. Does anyone play Chess 960 exclusively? King of the Hill? If they do, then those are valid creations of clearly high interest to them. If not exclusively, then still clearly fun for them. If not quite so, just eventually of passing interest, then they shall pass.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This too. It would either make it or it wouldn't. If some site programs it, and doesn't shoot for exclusivity, exposure might find lots of fans. I'm actually curious at the moment whether average players would be happier the &quot;magic&quot; move isn't there to upset their plans or if they'd be more dismayed that it isn't easy to hide the king and get the rook out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Personal bet? It would unbalance the game enough to have the practical effect that folks cut the middle game rather short, choosing to trade off the moment anything goes wrong since attacks might be much more &quot;blitzkrieg&quot; than currently (excepting the good Mr. Fisher's legacy (which includes Chess 960, I believe)) and the risk tolerance might be fairly low when it's not just &quot;now I have a sucky game and have to fight hard for a draw&quot; but rather &quot;geez, nowadays an attack like that might be two moves away from slaughtering me where I used to have five, six moves to wish I could trade down.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But who knows? Wonder what was said when letting the pawn move two spaces on its first move or when castling was first introduced?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Baseball used to go four strikes and fouls counted the whole way, not just to one strike short of striking out. Anyone not build a kitty of money for someone who lands on Free Parking? Not truly identical, but tweaks that worked out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let it exist, see if it takes over. If so, maybe it should have. If not, what got hurt?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20734" LastActivityDate="2019-12-03T17:45:48.623" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27173" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27171" CreationDate="2019-12-03T18:13:14.060" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You are correct that 18.Bd6? is, indeed, not the best move (the simple Re1! threatens Nc7-a8 winning on material). Bd6 has widely been considered a mistake for many years now. Black holds with 18...Qxa1+ 19.Ke2 Qb2! 20.Bc5 Qc2 21.Kf1 Qc5 22.Qf4 and black has several moves that are equal, but in the last few moves, it is white that has to find the only moves along the way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;rnb1k1nr/p2p1ppp/3B4/1pbN1N1P/4P1P1/3P1Q2/PqP5/R4KR1 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1...Qxa1+ 2.Ke2 Qb2! 3.Bc5 Qc2 4.Kf1 Qc5 5.Qf4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, this was played at a time where &quot;romantic chess&quot; was still at its peak, and winning practically was not their mindset. It was sacrifice, and if your opponent offered pieces, you took them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lastly, with computers getting stronger every year, who knows, maybe 18...Qa1 will eventually still be found to be winning for white, but that is a moot point since Re1 kept the material and the attack.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-12-04T10:58:27.423" LastActivityDate="2019-12-04T10:58:27.423" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27174" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27157" CreationDate="2019-12-03T18:31:32.057" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I learned chess in grade school, with other kids who were learning too. This is the best way because it's a peer-oriented activity -- kids playing with other kids.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There wasn't a chess &quot;club&quot; so much as a pre-allotted chess &quot;time&quot; when any kid could come and sit down at a table and start playing chess with another classmate. The whole thing was supervised by a teacher, who went from pair to pair and gave brief advice and then moved onto the next player pair. Usually there were about ten to twelve students at the tables.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We were all 10 years old. Fifth grade. There's no reason to try to impose chess on a younger child. The child should be old enough to step back and see the activity as a past-time, and not become addicted or obsessed by it. 10 years old is a good age to also decide &quot;I don't like chess.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do I play chess today? No.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20735" LastActivityDate="2019-12-03T18:31:32.057" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27175" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27170" CreationDate="2019-12-03T18:31:38.797" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;You really have a couple of questions here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, when it comes to memorization in chess, it has been shown that the more positions you have seen, the more likely you are to remember other positions. I remember once that GM  Susan Polgar was given some random chess positions, and she remembered the &quot;normal&quot; ones exceptionally well, however, when the positions were more random, she remembered at a rate that was roughly what anyone else remembered them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are books, unrelated to chess, that deal with learning to memorize better. I would love to see &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.chessbase.com/post/how-to-keep-things-in-your-mind-an-interview-with-world-memory-champion-simon-reinhard&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Master Simon Reinhard, World Memory Champion&lt;/a&gt;, write a book on memorizing specifically aimed at chess memorization.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are a couple more articles specifically on memorization that you might find interesting.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.chessbase.com/post/memory-techniques-the-peg-system-part-one&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Memory Techniques: the Peg system (Part One)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.chessbase.com/post/memory-techniques-the-peg-system-part-two&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Memory Techniques: the Peg system (Part Two)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.chessbase.com/post/memory-techniques-the-chess-equation&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Memory Techniques: the chess equation&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your second question, &quot;what are some good strategies to try to recognize a position and understand which opening it came from?&quot;, is more about applying any memorization techniques to learning opening pawn structures, and the plans that are associated with them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are many books on this from the very basic, &lt;a href=&quot;https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/9056913409&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&quot;Chess Opening Essentials: The Complete Series&quot; by New In Chess&lt;/a&gt; to the classic &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/1849940703&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Pawn Structure Chess&quot; by GM Andy Soltis&lt;/a&gt; to the more advanced, and outstanding, &lt;a href=&quot;https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/1784830003&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&quot;Chess Structures: A Grandmaster Guide&quot; by GM Mauricio Flores Rios&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These types of books teach you what you are aiming for in the opening, in general, and thus, when your opponent does not play &quot;book&quot; moves, you are not just lost with no idea what to do. You just have to read these types of books, and absorb some of the positions, and then you are back to the experiment with GM Polgar, even if not on the same level. You will begin to memorize, and recognize more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-06T18:08:06.907" LastActivityDate="2020-03-06T18:08:06.907" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27178" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27170" CreationDate="2019-12-03T20:23:02.427" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;World champion Lasker said that he did not memorize anything that he could deduce for himself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You need to know the BASIC tactical positions and mates but you do not need to memorize thousands of positions.  If you have seen the position and understand the motif then you will be able to do it in similar positions in your games. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As to world champions and GMs they do not memorize the positions but they use pattern recognition to realise it is there then they can easily see the full combination to play. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastEditorUserId="20721" LastEditDate="2019-12-03T20:31:52.197" LastActivityDate="2019-12-03T20:31:52.197" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27179" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27157" CreationDate="2019-12-03T21:40:38.663" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I wouldn't &quot;force feed&quot; them, but if they display any interest, I would just start by naming the pieces and gradually showing them how they move.  This is the course I followed with my wife's 5 year old grandson.  But he didn't really display a lot of interest, so I abandoned that project.  I do however teach the youngsters at our chess club, some in the 5-10 year old range, following that same course.  First we learn the pieces and how they move, as well as the initial board set-up.  But I don't rush them into play. I always try to keep the training fun and interesting.  I explain the goal of the game is to checkmate the king, showing some simple checkmates, and how that goal should be reached by a process of attrition barring the unlikely opportunity for a quick finish.  I then show them basic tactics (forks, pins, discovered attacks) as the method to gain a  material advantage, explaining the relative value of the pieces. Then I show them basic endings and engage them interactively in these so they know what to ultimately do with an advantage.  When I think they're ready to try a game, I give them material odds and critique them as we go along, pointing out major mistakes they are potentially making, such as giving away material for nothing. I also give them some basic general strategy, such as quick development, early castling, play toward the center, etc. &#xA; Then when I think they are ready, I let them play each other, going over the games later to point out errors and what they could have done instead.  I never push them, and let them enjoy themselves.  I consider chess first and foremost a game, to be played for fun and intellectual stimulation.  If they display  enough ability and want to pursue competitive tournament play later on, they can decide that for themselves then.         &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastEditorUserId="7657" LastEditDate="2019-12-04T16:33:49.470" LastActivityDate="2019-12-04T16:33:49.470" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27180" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27154" CreationDate="2019-12-03T22:49:32.673" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;As for anything, just try YouTube app: I find this series of videos by Chess network particularly good.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLQsLDm9Rq9bHKEBnElquF8GuWkI1EJ8Zp&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLQsLDm9Rq9bHKEBnElquF8GuWkI1EJ8Zp&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12554" LastActivityDate="2019-12-03T22:49:32.673" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27181" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27170" CreationDate="2019-12-04T02:17:38.510" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Simply you memorize just like everything else, repeat the opening positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The most common method to recognize the opening is by the pawn structure.  Since it's suggested that you only move a couple of pawns in the opening, although there are exceptions such as &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1282302&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1282302&lt;/a&gt;, the opening can be reduced to a few openings based upon where the pawns are and which are exchanged.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9684" LastActivityDate="2019-12-04T02:17:38.510" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27182" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27157" CreationDate="2019-12-04T04:49:30.210" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Kids learn quickly - so I'd start with a full game (perhaps without special moves like castling or en passant until they've got the hang of the basics) and in a few games they'll get the idea. Just point out when the move they're trying to make is invalid, or offer occasional suggestions if they're stuck.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Don't play too seriously. They'll enjoy any game much more if ever win. Not all the time of course, but it's important. Also, you should do it in such a way that it isn't blatantly obvious - you want them to enjoy the excitement of noticing they can capture your queen (that you've left vulnerable for the last 4 turns) or generally getting you into check. That's engaging, and fun. Kids like that stuff.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Dad used to do this and I didn't notice until years later when I was actually good at the game and started to beat him for real. Pondering on previous games at that point clued me onto it, but at that point I already enjoyed chess. So job done!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14730" LastActivityDate="2019-12-04T04:49:30.210" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27183" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27157" CreationDate="2019-12-04T12:18:08.737" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I learned on the excellent set « No Stress Chess », which introduces Chess concepts in ways I’ve never seen before.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The game comes with a two-sided board (one shows where all the pieces start, and includes an « opening position » to help get things started). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Players have a few « levels » to choose from, each of which involve using cards to move pieces. Players typically draw, and play one of one or more cards in their hand. Each card has a piece (pawn) and their movement options detailed. Levels increase options by increasing hand size.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because of the structure, one can take interesting risks in the game—check, checkmate, and castling are left for « real chess », so you must actually &lt;em&gt;capture&lt;/em&gt; the king to win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I’ve used this with adults too and it works well. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18769" LastActivityDate="2019-12-04T12:18:08.737" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27184" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26487" CreationDate="2019-12-04T14:07:27.800" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't know for sure on this, but if you go on &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Lichess&lt;/a&gt;, there is an option to add 15 seconds to your opponent's clock in live chess, I do not know with computer chess. I usually use &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess.com&lt;/a&gt;'s live chess VS a bot.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20467" LastActivityDate="2019-12-04T14:07:27.800" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27186" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27192" CreationDate="2019-12-04T15:00:51.343" Score="3" ViewCount="154" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would like to know what is the reason why g5 is a necessary move for Black. I now see that what I played Bd7 is horrible as it hangs a pawn on d6 after Qb4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I cannot see why I should weaken the f5 pawn just to threaten the Queen which after Qb4 is out of danger.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/oVAZT.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/oVAZT.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16771" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-12-04T17:58:48.883" LastActivityDate="2019-12-04T18:35:02.653" Title="The move g5 in this position" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27188" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27191" CreationDate="2019-12-04T15:50:45.477" Score="14" ViewCount="7242" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was watching &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWX9xpdR1TE&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; video on Youtube of an Armageddon game between Vladimir Kramnik and Garry Kasparov which happened in 1995. It can be seen that Kasparov is using both of his hands for some moves. (For example, around the times 9:39, and 9:48)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My understanding is this is illegal.&#xA; Why is it allowed here? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Was this legal in the past? Or is it legal in any format of chess like Armageddon here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18273" LastEditorUserId="8201" LastEditDate="2019-12-04T17:59:46.150" LastActivityDate="2019-12-05T15:52:17.533" Title="Was playing with both hands ever allowed in chess?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;history&gt;&lt;fide&gt;&lt;otb-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27189" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27188" CreationDate="2019-12-04T16:31:08.130" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes.  In  the past that was not part of the rules.  Forcing use of one hand gives an  advantage to the person with the clock on the side of their handedness.     &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Otherwise the player has to reach across the board to toggle the clock after having moved. This takes longer and blocks their view which is a big handicap in short time games as well as time scrambles in slow tournament games. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One should be able to move with one hand and then hit the clock with the other. The problem was that some people might hit the clock during or even just before the move with the other hand. There is no perfect fix for the problem except computers that do all the time keeping automatically after sensing the completed move on the board or maybe even using AI and video to verify the move was done and legal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastEditorUserId="20721" LastEditDate="2019-12-04T18:01:27.623" LastActivityDate="2019-12-04T18:01:27.623" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27191" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27188" CreationDate="2019-12-04T17:46:02.190" Score="22" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Was playing with both hands ever allowed in chess?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, before 1997. Hence in 1995 Kasparov was not breaking the rules.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The key article in the the FIDE Laws of Chess is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Article 4:&lt;/strong&gt; The act of moving the pieces&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;4.1   Each move must be made with one hand only.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This first appeared in the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessarbitersassociation.co.uk/FIDE_Laws_of_Chess_97.docx&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;1997 edition of the FIDE Laws of Chess&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessarbitersassociation.co.uk/FIDE_Laws_1993.docx&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;previous edition, in 1993&lt;/a&gt;, did not have this rule.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2019-12-04T17:46:02.190" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27192" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27186" CreationDate="2019-12-04T17:59:50.257" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I agree that f5 is irrelevant. A weakness is only a weakness if it can be exploited.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The main reason that g5 works here is that it can force the N away from f3, and then your N can go to d4 with not only a direct threat of Nxc2, which is VERY inconvenient to defend, and the more decisive threat of Nf3!. These threats are so strong that the computer thinks that Qd6 allowing Nf3 is best by two whole pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It all comes down to forcing tactics that are favorable to black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;r1b2rk1/pp4qp/2ppn1p1/5p2/7Q/1PNP1N1P/1PP3P1/R3R1K1 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1... g5 2. Qb4 g4 3. hxg4 fxg4 4. Nd2 Nd4 5. Qxd6 Nf3+ $1 6. gxf3 gxf3+ 7. Kf2 Qg2+ 8. Ke3 f2 {Is crushing.}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2019-12-04T18:35:02.653" LastActivityDate="2019-12-04T18:35:02.653" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27193" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2671" CreationDate="2019-12-04T18:08:00.397" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is real chess?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In tournaments if you make an illegal move you have to take it back.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;In casual club games it is often allowed so the game can continue while being more interesting.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In some online forums it is allowed if both people agree.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When ratings are involved I do not know of any place where take-backs are allowed.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastActivityDate="2019-12-04T18:08:00.397" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27198" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6491" CreationDate="2019-12-05T06:02:21.057" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;That is all very silly. It the KG is as fine in most lines for top players as much as for amateurs. The computer gives equal or tiny negative in most lines, plus in others. But does so when white is down a pawn. That means that it considers that White has an attack advantage that is equal to a pawn. Equal from a computer when you have gambited a pawn means it is a good line. &#xA;If you read the rubbish people write on these forums you would think that if you played it against a gm over 2500 that you just lose by force. That isn't true at all, there are many wins and heaps of draws against super GMs in the last 30 years. Yes if you go into some terrible line in the fischer defence you can get a horrid position where you are fighting for a draw, but there are many options for white that avoid this. And if you look at super GM games in last 30 years with the KG, you will see that almost none of the GMs play the so called critical lines from black, likely because they are only super critical if you are a computer or are playing correspondence chess. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20752" LastActivityDate="2019-12-05T06:02:21.057" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27199" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15992" CreationDate="2019-12-05T12:09:33.257" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would say no.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In an interview with GM Illescas, who was on the IBM team, I remember that he said Kasparov complained Deep Blue was not designed to beat a GM, it was designed to specifically beat him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As the question says with the exact same configuration, I would say no because Deep Blue didn't include Carlsen’s games in its database in 1996 for an obvious reason.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user18196" LastEditorDisplayName="user18196" LastEditDate="2019-12-05T16:09:10.890" LastActivityDate="2019-12-05T16:09:10.890" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27200" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27188" CreationDate="2019-12-05T15:52:17.533" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recently ran a &quot;blitz&quot; chess tournament, where each player had to make all their moves in five minutes, and interpreted the rule to be you must push the clock with the same hand you moved with, but made no effort to say you always had to use the same hand for every move. This just stopped the players from having a hand hovering over the clock while they moved with another to save the time on their clock. Taking a turn with either hand was valid as long as only one hand was involved in the turn (both moving a piece and pressing the clock). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which matches the top answer here, &quot;4.1 Each move must be made with one hand only.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20759" LastActivityDate="2019-12-05T15:52:17.533" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27201" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2687" CreationDate="2019-12-05T17:02:17.847" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;But most players are much smarter with how they do it by using  other ways than you suggest.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Two GMs could agree to play a tame opening that is known to be  drawish then settle for a draw after 20 moves or whatever the current rule limit is.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Personally I think they should have to play at least 40 moves if not the whole game until a  draw is the only legal outcome due to lack of material or stalemate. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastEditorUserId="20721" LastEditDate="2019-12-05T18:21:01.477" LastActivityDate="2019-12-05T18:21:01.477" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27202" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2687" CreationDate="2019-12-05T18:43:58.820" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am not proud about it, but I am gonna confess once at last round of a 3rd category regional tournament I was virtually classified with a draw for playing in 2nd category and my opponent also classified, needing both the 1/2 point, and we agree a draw before the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We were from the same club and another player I met on University ask me directly to do it because my opponent had hardly being trying to classify for 2nd league for three years.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my defense I will say I felt stronger than my opponent and the player who suggested it was a 2200 that had introduced me in the club I didn't want to contradict.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We didn't prepare anything special. Just we played both a closed non attacking opening and at move 30 or so a draw was offered and accepted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know an arbiter on my region once gave two zeros for a premature draw, but truly it is difficult to fight against this because you can deeply prepare a draw agreement without being suspicious. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user18196" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T16:50:01.817" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T16:50:01.817" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27203" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22827" CreationDate="2019-12-05T18:45:06.523" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;The earliest Armageddon games I can find go back to the Women's World Chess Championship 2001, and the FIDE World Championship in 2002, which GM Ruslan Ponomariov won. This is probably a fairly complete list since Armageddon really only lends itself to knock-out tournaments or matches, and the question did ask primarily about GMs and Armageddon. There might be the occasional country championship that goes to tiebreaker, which I did not find, similar to when GM Irina Krush lost to IM Anna Zatonskih in 2008 for the U.S. Women’s Championship in a controversial finish.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, while these stats may not be 100% complete, they can give a good idea about the overall statistics.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am amazed by the results of this: Out of the 48 games I found, 24 were 1-0, 15 were 0-1, and 9 were ½-½. If you look at that both the 0-1 and ½-½ count as wins for black, then the result was exactly 24-24. Seemingly quiet a fair tiebreaker system.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is the data I used to compile this estimate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;FIDE World Chess Championship 2002&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This was the only FIDE World Championship to use Armageddon during the period of when Kasparov broke off with the title until it was unified in 2006. Prior to this, in 1998 and 2000, they continued playing additional blitz games, and in 2005, FIDE reverted to a double-round-robin tournament.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;GM Zoltan Gyimesi defeated GM Stuart Conquest 4-3 in round one. Gyimesi had white 1-0. &#xA;GM Emil Sutovsky defeated GM Alonso Zapata 4-3 in round one. Sutovsky had white 1-0.&#xA;GM Lazaro Bruzon defeated GM Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu 4-3 in round one. Bruzon had white 1-0.&#xA;GM Jaan Ehlvest defeated GM Ilia Smirin 4-3 in round three. Ehlvest had white 1-0.&#xA;GM Alexey Shirov defeated GM Veselin Topalov 4-3 in round four. Shirov had black 0-1.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess World Cup 2005&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;GM Yuri Shulman defeated GM Vadim Zvjaginsev 3.5-3.5 in round one. Shulman had black ½-½.&#xA;GM Predrag Nikolić defeated GM David Navara 3.5-3.5 in round one. Nikolić had black ½-½.&#xA;GM Sergey Erenburg defeated GM Zviad Izoria 4-3 in round one. Erenburg had black 0-1.&#xA;GM Evgeniy Najer defeated GM Shakhriyar Mamedyarov 4-3 in round two. Najer had white 1-0.&#xA;GM Yuri Shulman defeated GM Vadim Zvjaginsev 3.5-3.5 in round two. Shulman had black ½-½.&#xA;GM Sergei Tiviakov defeated GM Oleg Korneev 4-3 in round two. Tiviakov had white 1-0.&#xA;GM Loek van Wely defeated GM Alexander Moiseenko 4-3 in round two. van Wely had white 1-0.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess World Cup 2007&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;GM Michael Roiz defeated GM Varuzhan Akobian 4-3 in round one. Roiz had white 1-0.&#xA;GM Konstantin Sakaev defeated GM Nikita Vitiugov 4-3 in round one. Sakaev had black 0-1.&#xA;GM Zhou Jianchao defeated GM Andrei Volokitin 4-3 in round two. Zhou had white 1-0.&#xA;GM Kiril Georgiev defeated GM Rustam Kasimdzhanov 4-3 in round two. Georgiev had white 1-0.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess World Cup 2009&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This year, by some accounts a mistake, the tiebreaker was changed to four rapid games, then up to five pairs of blitz games, and only then, Armageddon. Not surprising, but there were no Armageddon games, however, GM Varuzhan Akobian did defeat GM Pavel Tregubov 9-7, just one game short of Armageddon.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess World Cup 2011&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Starting this year, they went back to the previous tiebreak format, but with two shorter 10+10 rapid games added after the 25+10 rapids.&#xA;GM Yuri Drozdovskij defeated GM Alexander Motylev 5-4 in round one. Drozdovskij had white 1-0.&#xA;GM Leinier Domínguez Perez defeated GM Igor Lysyj 5-4 in round three. Domínguez Perez had white 1-0.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess World Cup 2013&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;GM Evgeny Tomashevsky defeated GM Alejandro Ramírez 5-4 in round one. Tomashevsky had white 1-0.&#xA;GM Julio Granda defeated GM Hrant Melkumyan 5-4 in round one. Granda had black 0-1.&#xA;GM Daniil Dubov defeated GM Ruslan Ponomariov 5-4 in round two. Dubov had white 1-0.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess World Cup 2015&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;GM Gabriel Sargissian defeated GM Mateusz Bartel 4.5-4.5 in round one. Sargissian had black ½-½.&#xA;GM Michael Adams defeated GM Viktor Láznička 5-4 in round two. Adams had white 1-0.&#xA;GM Hikaru Nakamura defeated GM Ian Nepomniachtchi 5-4 in round three. Nakamura had black 0-1.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess World Cup 2017&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;GM Levon Aronian defeated GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave 5-4 in the semi-finals. Aronian had white 1-0.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess World Cup 2019&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;GM Anish Giri defeated GM Evgeniy Najer 5-4 in round two. Giri had black 0-1.&#xA;GM Yu Yangyi defeated GM Nikita Vitiugov 5-4 in the quarter-finals. Yu had white 1-0.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Women's World Chess Championship 2001&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note: I could not confirm the format with 100% accuracy. I am reasonably guessing that this used the same format as the men, and the women in 2008, which I could confirm. In addition, the brackets had the 4-3 results as in the men’s tournaments.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;GM Zhu Chen defeated GM Maia Chiburdanidze 4-3 in the semi-finals. (no data)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Women's World Chess Championship 2004&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;GM Peng Zhaoqin defeated IM Joanna Dworakowska 4-3 in round one. Pend had black 0-1.&#xA;WGM Ketino Kachiani defeated WGM Nguyễn Thị Thanh An 3.5-3.5 in round one, Ketino Kachiani had black ½-½.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;IM Tatjana Vasilevich defeated WGM Xu Yuanyuan 4-3 in round one. Vasilevich had black 0-1.&#xA;IM Lilit Mkrtchian defeated then WGM Monika Soćko 4-3 in round one. Mkrtchian had white 1-0.&#xA;Then WGM Kateryna Lagno defeated then untitled Ekaterina Atalik 4-3 in round two. Lagno had black 0-1.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Women's World Chess Championship 2006&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;None.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Women's World Chess Championship 2008&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;IM Elisabeth Pähtz defeated WGM Ilaha Kadimova 4-3 in round one. Pähtz had white 1-0.&#xA;GM Monika Soćko defeated WGM Sabina-Francesca Foisor 4-3 in round one. Soćko had white 1-0.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Women's World Chess Championship 2010&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then IM Harika Dronavalli defeated then IM Mariya Muzychuk 4-3 in round three. Harika had black 0-1 (on time in a lost position!).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Women's World Chess Championship 2012&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This was the first year of the extended tiebreaker with the rapid 10+10 games added.&#xA;Then IM Mariya Muzychuk defeated WGM Cristina Adela Foișor 4.5-4.5. Muzychuk had black ½-½.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Women's World Chess Championship 2015&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;GM Tatiana Kosintseva defeated WGM Mary Ann Gomes 5-4 in round one. Kosintseva had black 0-1.&#xA;Then WGM Aleksandra Goryachkina defeated IM Lilit Mkrtchian 5-4 in round one. Goryachkina had white 1-0.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Women's World Chess Championship 2017&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;IM Anastasia Bodnaruk defeated WGM Mitra Hejazipour 5-4 in round one. Bodnaruk had white 1-0.&#xA;GM Tan Zhongyi defeated GM Anna Ushenina 4.5-4.5 in round two. Zhongyi had black ½-½.&#xA;IM Nino Khurtsidze defeated then IM Nino Batsiashvili 5-4 in round two. Khurtsidze had black 0-1.&#xA;GM Tan Zhongyi defeated GM Harika Dronavalli 5-4 in the semi-finals. Tan had black 0-1.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Women's World Chess Championship 2018&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;GM Kateryna Lagno defeated WGM Natalia Pogonina 5-4 in round three. Lagno had white 1-0.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;US Women’s Championship 2008&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then IM Anna Zatonskih defeated IM Irina Krush 3-2. Zatonskih was black, and white flagged, 0-1.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.chessbase.com/post/us-women-s-armageddon-reactions-from-our-readers&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.chessbase.com/post/us-women-s-armageddon-reactions-from-our-readers&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;World Chess Armageddon Series 2019&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nepomniachtchi -Karjakin 0-1&#xA;Radjabov-Karjakin ½-½&#xA;Radjabov-Dubov 1-0&#xA;Radjabov-Kramnik ½-½&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessbomb.com/arena/2019-world-chess-armageddon-series&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.chessbomb.com/arena/2019-world-chess-armageddon-series&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2019-12-05T18:45:06.523" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27204" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22827" CreationDate="2019-12-05T19:27:46.980" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The answer is no, as theere is data.  But it has not even been aggregated.&#xA;Nobody is known to have done meaningful statistics on that data.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Armageddon is somewhat arbitrary as it tries to balance the effect of time versus the probability that black could draw or win so as to have a definitive play off winner instead of a long long string of drawn games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But it is still a stretch to say that it truly represents the 'winner' of a tournament or a match at a much longer time control.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-04-18T17:24:15.913" LastActivityDate="2021-04-18T17:24:15.913" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27206" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-12-06T17:18:58.877" Score="11" ViewCount="2034" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to ask about whether using and adopting a rarely used opening makes you a stronger player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I just started playing online chess (Lichess) a year ago, and as a beginner, I used to play the common 1.e4 as the opening in all my games. I found that by doing so I was stuck around 1300-1400 (below average rating at the website). Last month, I read an article about different openings, and suddenly switched to regularly use the 1.a3 Opening (usually starting 1.a3 2.b4 when white, and 1.h6, 2.g5 when black, using the bishop to occupy the diagonal), and my rating suddenly went up to 1700-1800, and stayed there. I found that by using this opening made the middle-game much easier to play, making my opponents make more mistakes than usual compared to the typical 1.e4. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this normal? Or does it happen to anyone if they suddenly want to switch to a different, more rarely-used opening?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19217" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-12-06T18:57:02.657" LastActivityDate="2019-12-06T19:18:52.707" Title="Does using a less common opening make you a stronger player?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;online-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27207" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27206" CreationDate="2019-12-06T17:41:22.807" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;No.  But it tends to negate the book memorization that other players use to do better in the opening.  A really good player will gain a bigger advantage if you deviate from usual moves, but many players will do poorly as they do not understand openings and have to use their book moves to do well.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;OTOH  some book moves are plain wrong. And if you deviate there you can gain an advantage.  This is why GMs go over openings and try to use prepared variations to gain an edge.  If they get the opponent into making a normal but less good move based on more and deeper analysis then they can gain an edge in that game.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At such a low level as you were on LI chess it is a perfect example of what I noted above in the first paragraph.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note again that the advantage will fade as you play yet better players.  Don't LI ratings go up to 3000 or so which I think I recall seeing once. 1800 LIchess  I will guess is closer to USCF 1200 to 1500 max and is still below the average for tournament players.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastActivityDate="2019-12-06T17:41:22.807" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27208" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27206" CreationDate="2019-12-06T17:45:48.527" Score="18" Body="&lt;p&gt;In general, less common openings tend to give weaker opponents issues, since they have yet to properly grasp many fundamental ideas of opening play and middlegame strategy, and if they don't know the concrete lines they may very well end up completely lost from a nonstandard opening position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But a nonstandard opening doesn't make you into a stronger player just because you have good results on lower levels. In the end, you will hit a plateau with the nonstandard opening as well, when your opponents get sufficiently strong. Don't forget that these nonstandard openings are nonstandard for a reason: with correct play from your opponent, you're very unlikely to get any advantage, and you may even be running a serious risk of getting in trouble out of the opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With that being said, nonstandard openings are not to be written off completely, and at the 1700-1800 lichess rating range they can be quite a potent weapon, catching many players completely off-guard.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8300" LastActivityDate="2019-12-06T17:45:48.527" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27209" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25092" CreationDate="2019-12-06T18:02:12.793" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Google turned up many ways to read or convert DBF files as well as detailed descriptions of the contents.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See the gory details here&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.dbf#File_architecture_overview&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.dbf#File_architecture_overview&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and yet more gory here:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.dbase.com/Knowledgebase/INT/db7_file_fmt.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.dbase.com/Knowledgebase/INT/db7_file_fmt.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;with more details still at this site&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://web.archive.org/web/20150323061445/http://ulisse.elettra.trieste.it/services/doc/dbase/DBFstruct.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://web.archive.org/web/20150323061445/http://ulisse.elettra.trieste.it/services/doc/dbase/DBFstruct.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;yet another view of the DBF file&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.dbf2002.com/dbf-file-format.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.dbf2002.com/dbf-file-format.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-12-06T21:49:23.380" LastActivityDate="2019-12-06T21:49:23.380" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27210" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27206" CreationDate="2019-12-06T18:06:35.087" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;No. In general, the answer is that less-common openings are less-common for a reason, and that reason is that they either lead only to game with no opportunity for an advantage, or the closely-related plain old equal game, or a worse game...sometimes, much worse.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The problem with them is that if you have any ambition, and get to a certain level, you end up having to start all over again with your openings, and at that point, you lack years of experience that you passed over while playing garbage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am not sure how old you are, or what style you tend to play (tactical, positional, or both), but I suspect that what really happened is that what you were playing did not fit your style, and it does more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, maybe you were playing 1.e4, and getting open tactical games, but you are older. Well, older people, and I am one now, cannot compete tactically against kids. Switching to a3, and even h3, leads the game down more positional roads in many cases, even though they are not best. If this is the case, you might be better off just switching from 1.e4 to 1.d4 or 1.c4, which are both positional in nature.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lastly, you are also discounting one more possibility, and that is that many chess players plateau at times, but later get over that. Maybe, you simply got stronger. Some players get to a certain rating, and then stay there for a while, but later, they gain points. At your level, there is a lot of opportunity to learn a lot, and thus, get over the hump, and gain real strength and rating points. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2019-12-06T18:06:35.087" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27211" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27206" CreationDate="2019-12-06T19:18:52.707" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;Any time you learn how to play a new opening system that is very different to what you are used to playing you become a stronger player. To play the new opening successfully you will have to learn what are the typical pawn structures you get in that opening, which pieces you should develop where and what the plans are for your side and for the opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That kind of stuff is always going to help you improve and get stronger. It doesn't have to be with less common openings either. If you are an e4 player, then learning how to play d4 openings will improve your chess and vice versa. It will also give you more flexibility which also makes you a stronger more difficult opponent for the other players you face.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance, if you are comfortable with both e4 and d4 openings and you play a Dutch player who likes to reply to d4 with e6 before playing f5 to avoid the Staunton Gambit you can switch by playing e4 instead of c4 as your second move and black better be comfortable playing the French or he's in trouble.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2019-12-06T19:18:52.707" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27212" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="984" CreationDate="2019-12-06T19:32:48.870" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Depends on where you live.  In US forget FIDE tournaments until you are very strong and like to travel.  There are many USCF tournaments.  To maximise your initial rating you should play in a national open not a local tournament.  If the local players, which often happens, are low rated compared to their real ability then you will start out with a lower rating too.  And that happens in many smaller cities and towns where not enough people have played against those in the large cities where the stronger players tend to all go play at. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are in Europe then FIDE tournaments are easier to find. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastActivityDate="2019-12-06T19:32:48.870" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27213" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27154" CreationDate="2019-12-07T09:21:54.387" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I play at Lichess and I also recommend it, but another good free app I use for tactics exercises is &lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.chesstempo.mobile&amp;amp;hl=es&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;ChessTempo&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is just my preference. I find the collection of problems better. Lichess exercises are taken from blitz games analyzed by Stockfish. They are fine and free, but sometimes the selection they do with code is not accurate for a human.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The advantage Lichess has is when you do an exercise you can check the engine. This is useful to realize why the line you played fails. At ChessTempo this is not possible, but on messages you can read from other users why the solution and not any other alternative works. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also use ChessTempo for my correspondence games, where you are allowed to  check a database, to chose my moves in the opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user18196" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T16:49:26.473" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T16:49:26.473" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27215" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27217" CreationDate="2019-12-07T17:07:02.647" Score="15" ViewCount="2336" Body="&lt;p&gt;I play correspondence daily. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My reason to do it is I am weak in openings and I can survive to the middlegame because I have access to databases; and I want to learn how to survive the opening and to play properly at 90+30 over-the-board games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do you think playing correspondence is a good way to improve?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are the pros and cons of spending time playing correspondence?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user18196" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-12-07T17:14:36.910" LastActivityDate="2019-12-09T02:29:55.713" Title="Pros and cons of playing correspondence chess" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;correspondence-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27216" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27215" CreationDate="2019-12-07T17:33:28.943" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is traditional correspondence and now a version played over the internet.  You appear to be talking about the internet version. For me there is no real advantage. You might find it less stressful to take more time for a move.  Con is that you will really not improve by doing that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to play OTB better then you will need to learn openings.  Pick ONE  and master it for white.  Have a defense for black.  Learn both of them and do not try to learn others.  There are just too many.  Learning principles is better than memorizing moves but you should be familiar with your openings so you do not waste clock time at OTB.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should also learn basic tactics so you can recognize them OTB and not have to hope you can discover them on your own during a game.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Next you should learn end games. Finally learn middle game and positional strategy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You learn by studying not by playing any speed chess.  You improve by playing people just slightly higher rated while also spending time learning so your rating improves faster. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20773" LastActivityDate="2019-12-07T17:33:28.943" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27217" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27215" CreationDate="2019-12-07T17:39:23.987" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to friends who play correspondence chess they report the following benefits:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Variety - you play lots of games all at the same time. Although you might not match &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_Bloodgood&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Claude Bloodgood&lt;/a&gt;, who allegedly had hundreds of games in play at the same time when his postage costs were paid for by the US taxpayer because he was on death row, you will play all your games in a round robin at the same time. So, if you are playing in a 10 player double round robin you play all 18 games at the same time.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You have time and motivation to learn, particularly openings. With typically several days per move you can do serious research into the openings you choose to play, learning the ideas and plans for both sides. Unlike over-the-board you do this during the game when it can affect the result not after when you have already lost.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You eliminate blunders. All your moves are checked by the engine.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You learn how to use engines properly. Again this happens during the game not like OTB after. I often run my finished games through the engine to spot blunders and missed tactics. You will be looking for interesting ideas in games still in progress. You will be checking out the engines 3rd or 4th suggested move because it looks really interesting.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All of these things will help improve your OTB chess by making you think more deeply and intelligently about your moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Funnily enough my correspondence playing friends don't think their are any cons! I'm not so sure. From the pleasure perspective they miss out on the adrenaline rush of blitz and even just the excitement of bad moves by either side. If I play a really good move I like to see my opponent sweat. That just doesn't happen in correspondence chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2019-12-07T17:39:23.987" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27218" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27215" CreationDate="2019-12-07T18:56:22.087" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;Frankly, the biggest con is that today's correspondence game has turned into computer vs. computer contests. So yes, you learn how to use the computer well, but you may as well play your own computer daily since there is very little difference.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2019-12-07T18:56:22.087" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27219" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-12-07T21:21:46.880" Score="3" ViewCount="268" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm new to chess. In the position below, lichess analysis says that Nxd5 is the best move for white. But can't black just capture the knight afterwards with his pawn and threaten white's pawn and rook in the top right hand corner after white's knight is dead? What makes Nxd5 the best move here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;r3k3/p5R1/p1p4r/2bbp2p/8/P1N3KN/1P5P/R7 w q - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20774" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-12-07T22:24:06.123" LastActivityDate="2019-12-08T17:52:59.773" Title="Why is white's best play Nxd5 here?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27220" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27219" CreationDate="2019-12-07T21:50:10.250" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, you have to understand that computers sometimes play non-human moves because they see things that humans most times do not. It probably sees threats to the white king based on the black bishop pair.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this position, white is just lost, and those bishops on d5 and c5 working together are incredibly strong, so trading off one of them is desirable. What makes it a little strange is that it gives black connected passed pawns, but they are hard to maintain, let alone advance, due to the active white rooks, and unfortunate black Ra8, but it still does not change the outcome.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, the Ra8 is not lost to Nd5 cd; Rg8 Bf8; Rf1 Ke7, but it does tie black up some, which is another reason that Nd5 was best. It is hard to finish his development.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;r3k3/p5R1/p1p4r/2bbp2p/8/P1N3KN/1P5P/R7 w q - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. Nxd5 cxd5 2. Rg8+ Bf8 3. Rf1 Ke7 4. Rf5 {with a little counterplay that requires accuracy from black} Rf6! 5. Rxh5 (5. Rxe5? Kf7 6. Rh8 Bd6 7. Rxa8 Bxe5+ 8. Kg2 Bxb2 9. Rxa7 Kg6-+)  Rc8! 6. Rxe5 Kd7!! 7. Rd5 Bd6+ 8. Rxd6+ Rxd6 9. Rg7 Kc6 10. Rxa7 Kb6 {with an easy win from here}  &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2019-12-07T22:18:57.417" LastActivityDate="2019-12-07T22:18:57.417" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27221" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27219" CreationDate="2019-12-07T22:13:57.680" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;After the recapture white moves his rook to f1 and then next move to the seventh rank (f7).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;r3k3/p5R1/p1p4r/2bbp2p/8/P1N3KN/1P5P/R7 w q - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Nxd5 cxd5 2. Rf1 null 3. Rff7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that by 2.Rf1, white threatens 3.Rg8+. Also, this brings the other rook into play. The game may be still lost, but this probably gives better fighting chances.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastEditorUserId="14678" LastEditDate="2019-12-08T17:52:59.773" LastActivityDate="2019-12-08T17:52:59.773" CommentCount="12" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27222" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-12-08T02:15:33.017" Score="2" ViewCount="198" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have a DGT 2010 Limited Edition chess clock (red version from 2013) and I want to know the market value.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can't find any listings for it on ebay or chess shop websites, other than old pages from 2013, and the item is &quot;unavailable&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So what's it worth?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qz9Ez.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qz9Ez.png&quot; alt=&quot;DGT 2010 Limited Edition (Red Color)&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20777" LastEditorUserId="20777" LastEditDate="2019-12-08T08:37:39.957" LastActivityDate="2019-12-11T01:09:41.690" Title="What is a DGT 2010 Limited Edition chess clock worth?" Tags="&lt;chess-clocks&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27223" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27222" CreationDate="2019-12-08T03:01:54.797" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;These are still very common, so not worth a lot. Considering that the more recent [&quot;DGT 3000 Limited Edition&quot; clock can be bought for $59.93][1], at least it held its value, but no more. Don't be fooled by &quot;Limited Edition&quot;...it does not equate to &quot;rare&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S. Sorry, I did not pickup on the difference...they both looked red to me, but I see it now. Frankly, I still do not think it is going to make it valuable unless you wait many years, but you can do a couple of things to find out what it is really worth now:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Put it up for sale on eBay and start high with the price, but if you do, only use a &quot;Buy It Now&quot;. If you put it up for bid, you will definitely get a lot less. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Set up an eBay search that sends you an email every time there is a new listing. Eventually, someone is sure to be selling one, and you will get an idea of what it is worth when it sells.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2019-12-08T10:35:40.217" LastActivityDate="2019-12-08T10:35:40.217" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27224" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27222" CreationDate="2019-12-08T04:32:07.837" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is worth what a willing buyer would pay you. For what it's worth, I would prefer a new clock at the $60 noted above.  For me to even consider buying it the price would have to be  about $10.  And that is assuming it works fine. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You could try listing it on Craigs List for what you are willing to take and see if anyone will buy it.  Or you could try that on ebay with a reserve price. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One thing putting me off is the rocker arm.  If it was the touch button I would be more interested.  But this is just me and a random sample of one.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Other people might value it more.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-12-11T01:09:41.690" LastActivityDate="2019-12-11T01:09:41.690" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27225" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27226" CreationDate="2019-12-08T14:40:03.577" Score="2" ViewCount="296" Body="&lt;p&gt;I hope this is the right place to post this question. So I like to implement things myself without using libraries and one of my first projects was a chess engine and I would like to improve this one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I got multiple questions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;How are transposition tables used? Usually the serch algorithm has a&#xA;  fixed depth so we cannot &quot;evaluate&quot; non-leafs with the transposition&#xA;  tables, right? So the only purpose would be to hash the board&#xA;  evaluation of the leafs. Is this correct?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I am using Java without multithreads. Is it worth to look into magic bitboards and switch to C++? They seem to be pretty messy at the first glance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;How many nodes per second are realistic to reach with a &quot;simple&quot; engine. I got up to 1E6. I know that Stockfish reaches 80E6. Is it more worth to improve on nodes per second or on the algorithm itself?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am very happy for any help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20782" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2019-12-08T18:54:17.497" LastActivityDate="2019-12-08T18:54:17.497" Title="Use of transposition tables in chess engines" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27226" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27225" CreationDate="2019-12-08T15:02:44.507" Score="2" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Depends on the program and how they implemented it. Many have memorized openings and transpositions later on in the game are usually short enough that the depth of analysis handles it.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Not for me.  But I am old school when it comes to programming.  You may or may not like C++.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Nodes/sec depends on the hardware, opsys, language, and your coding.  The algorithm is far more important for good results. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastActivityDate="2019-12-08T15:02:44.507" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27227" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-12-08T15:28:53.583" Score="23" ViewCount="58200" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have heard the Bongcloud opening mentioned on chess.com, but I have never heard of that. Is this a real opening, and if so, what is it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user20520" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-06T01:29:23.847" LastActivityDate="2020-08-06T02:33:28.500" Title="What is the Bongcloud opening?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;terminology&gt;&lt;bongcloud&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27228" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27227" CreationDate="2019-12-08T15:31:34.270" Score="25" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Bong-Cloud opening is a joke opening that is meant to give your opponent a chance, and also it is meant to show contempt for your opponent. You play it because you think you are much stronger than they are. It is, obviously, not a good opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;GM Hikaru Nakamura is one of the jokesters, who plays this from time to time. There are multiple YouTube videos showing him playing this. Here is &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kttctaODjP0&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;one&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S. Another chess.com joke you might hear is a reference to the the &amp;quot;Botez Gambit&amp;quot;. It is a joke about WFM Alexandra Botez, who drops her queen a lot.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA; &#xA; 1. e4 e5 2. Ke2? {The Bong-Cloud!}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="15223" LastEditDate="2020-08-06T02:33:28.500" LastActivityDate="2020-08-06T02:33:28.500" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27229" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27219" CreationDate="2019-12-08T16:40:46.327" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;(Disclaimer: this is basically a (hopefully) developed form of yobamamama's answer with some opinions of my own thorwn in. The latter is the reason why I decided to write this up an independent answer. Feel free to edit or combine with yobamamama's answer)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, I think the move is reported as best &lt;em&gt;not for its merit; but it might be actually forced&lt;/em&gt;. Black is threatening 1.__ h4+ 2.Kg4 Be6+ 3.Kg5 (3.Kf3 Bxh3) 4.Be3+. To stop this threat, other than 1.Nxd5, white has following options (may not be exhaustive)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;a) 1.Ng1 (this retreat looks like  a very reasonable move here)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;b) 1.Re1 (this look a kicking back move; may not work)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;c) 1.Ng5 (risky)&lt;br&gt;&#xA;[The move 1.Rf1 is not good enough. Black can play 1.__ h4+ 2.Kg4 Be6+ 3.Kg5 Be3+ 4.~f4 Rh8]&lt;br&gt;&#xA;[I think 1.Ng5 is risky due to 1.__ Kf8; i am not sure about this]  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Coming back to the move 1.Nxd5 cxd5&lt;/strong&gt;.&#xA;Now, 2.Rf1 seems to be superior to outright 2.Rg8+ suggested by Phishmaster(at least when you play against a human player). Note that 2.Rf1 threatens 3.Rg8+. This ties up black's options for a practical game (still, options 3.Rh8 and 3.Rd8 look good for black).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;r3k3/p5R1/p1p4r/2bbp2p/8/P1N3KN/1P5P/R7 w q - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Nxd5 cxd5 2. Rf1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14678" LastActivityDate="2019-12-08T16:40:46.327" CommentCount="3" CommunityOwnedDate="2019-12-08T16:40:46.327" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27231" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-12-08T18:03:44.050" Score="14" ViewCount="4422" Body="&lt;p&gt;How do Grandmasters think in an unknown position and make the best move?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11904" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-02T13:59:29.237" LastActivityDate="2020-03-02T13:59:29.237" Title="Positional thinking by Grandmasters" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;&lt;grandmaster&gt;&lt;calculation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27233" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27231" CreationDate="2019-12-08T18:12:44.903" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;GMs think differently.  Most players would use pattern recognition, intuition, and calculation of variations for candidate moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some GMs will often think past the board and consider the opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They also do other things that are beyond my pay grade. I read about GM thinking once and it convinced me to give up that goal. I  just enjoyed playing as I could not think like they did in what. To me, it was somewhat contradictory and illogical in ways. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-12-11T01:14:49.730" LastActivityDate="2019-12-11T01:14:49.730" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27234" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27231" CreationDate="2019-12-08T18:52:16.890" Score="35" Body="&lt;p&gt;When a GM, or even lesser strong players reach a position that is totally unfamiliar, they have to break it down into components. They evaluate the following for BOTH sides. In general, a lot of this is done subconsciously by strong players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Material, and what pieces are better. Sometimes a well-placed knight can be better than a rook, for example.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Can any of the pieces be shut out of play?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;King safety.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Are there any direct threats?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Pawn structure and any corresponding weaknesses. (like doubled pawns, but not all doubled pawns are weak or bad as sometimes they provide great protection...more in the endgame can they really be a big problem, but you have to judge this carefully.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;How many pawn islands does each side have? (less is usually better)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Where are the pawn majorities? (Usually a q-side pawn majority is easier to mobilize)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Passed pawns.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Who has more space?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Who better controls the center?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Are there open lines, and who can control them?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Are there half-open files that you can put pressure down?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Strong outposts like being able to put a knight on d6, or a bishop on h6. This can disrupt communication between the two sides of the board, and make defense moving from one side to the other very difficult.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Any colored square weaknesses, like being weak on the light or dark squares.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Any lead in development for either side.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Which trades are good for me, and bad for him? (exchanges are one of the least written about subjects in chess, but they are one of the most important factors in chess as you get stronger. Too bad it has not been translated, but there is a book in Russian called &quot;The Encyclopedia of Exchanges&quot;.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Related to number 16, and that is who has the better endgame if certain trades happen?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, based on these factors, players weigh them based on experience and importance, and then they come up with a list of candidate moves, and they calculate likely continuations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I might have missed a point, but that is a pretty complete list.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2019-12-08T20:39:44.507" LastActivityDate="2019-12-08T20:39:44.507" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27235" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6061" CreationDate="2019-12-08T20:17:18.800" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;When it comes to actual thinking I can only speak for myself.   I think in descriptive notation.  But there was no algebraic notation when I first played in tournaments.  Algebraic was done to better communicate moves without error to more players in all languages.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In descriptive notation errors were frequent because people are careless and do not realize that EG a bishop can make the obvious capture but also legally capture something else.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also in descriptive notation, there are many abbrevs for the pieces in the various languages.  Algebraic avoids having to know the language the game was written in. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These days more people probably think in algebraic because that is what they were taught when they learned the game.  For me I can think in it for a few moves to discuss a position but for a whole game EG like when I played blindfold against others  ,  it would not be possible.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And I suspect that those on the black side have a harder time doing what is symmetric for those of us using descriptive notation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastActivityDate="2019-12-08T20:17:18.800" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27236" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22231" CreationDate="2019-12-08T20:25:54.683" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Epsilon! &#xA;[That is a math joke!]  Say zero if you are not a mathematician:)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Playing randomly, you are guaranteed to lose.  [Again random as mathematicians and most English speakers would use that word.]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you played your best then you might win, as it has happened. But the probability is extremely small.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-12-11T01:13:11.797" LastActivityDate="2019-12-11T01:13:11.797" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27237" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8684" CreationDate="2019-12-08T20:28:20.743" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;GMs do disagree on what move to make, but the reason for making it is likely to be how they chose to tell us what the move did for our edification more than any major disagreement on that move itself, other than would it have been their first choice. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-12-13T23:05:06.463" LastActivityDate="2019-12-13T23:05:06.463" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27238" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27231" CreationDate="2019-12-08T21:37:40.257" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Depends a lot from player to player and also position to position I think.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The fundamental is that their intuition (built up from studying and playing and solving a lot) will suggest a few moves (or occasionally only one) and they will calculate those moves (candidate moves) and pick whichever they think is best based on calculation and evaluation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They might find more candidate moves suggest themselves whilst they are calculating the first ones.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18738" LastActivityDate="2019-12-08T21:37:40.257" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27239" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-12-08T22:25:45.197" Score="4" ViewCount="928" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm working on a chess AI for a school project and I am looking into ways to identify the current phase of a board, meaning the opening, middlegame, and  endgame. I have seen an article explaining &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessprogramming.org/Tapered_Eval&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Tapered Evaluation&lt;/a&gt;, however I don't really understand what the point of this is. I want to be able to change my overall board evaluation heuristic depending on what state the game is in. This way, in the middlegame, I can prioritize king protection and development and other strategies.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20786" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-12-08T23:50:57.253" LastActivityDate="2019-12-12T12:16:06.810" Title="Help with game phase identification" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;programming&gt;&lt;evaluation&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27240" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27239" CreationDate="2019-12-08T23:25:05.190" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The definition of &quot;the middlegame&quot; is a somewhat gray area.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's no commonly-accepted, sharply-defined definition for when the middlegame starts/ends.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I suggest you start with one of these definitions, test it, and refine it if it gives poor results:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Middlegame Definition #1:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Castling has occurred, OR&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;10 moves have been played&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Middlegame Definition #2:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;One player's rooks are connected, OR&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;12 moves have been played&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Middlegame Definition #3:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;One player has castled AND has moved all minor pieces at least once AND has moved at least 1 pawn, OR&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;12 moves have been played&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The endgame is generally defined as being &quot;when the Kings are ready to join the battle&quot;, which usually occurs when there are few pieces left on the board. Start with defining the endgame as when there are 12 pieces left on the board and improve it if that definition ever fails.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user17003" LastEditorDisplayName="user17003" LastEditDate="2019-12-09T00:38:43.527" LastActivityDate="2019-12-09T00:38:43.527" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27241" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27239" CreationDate="2019-12-09T01:16:31.043" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is no sharp definition that would say x moves and y moves is where.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The opening is pretty much over when you have exhausted moves that have been played so many times by many players. It could be short if someone makes an unusual move, or, for a very long time, play some extremely old lines especially when GMs want to play safe for a draw.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Endgames would tend to start when there is really not enough material to mount a mating attack by force.  Just trading queens is not enough if all the other pieces are still in play.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But none of this should matter to an AI program.  They are just arbitrary identifiers to help indicate the stage of the game. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A good AI program would evaluate the position independently of what stage you thought the game was in.  Not doing so would lead to a number of places that give weird results.  Anyway, isn't AI supposed to determine those weightings for itself based on the position?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The problem is you can't train AI with enough examples to really make AI work the way it normally does.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-12-11T01:17:09.193" LastActivityDate="2019-12-11T01:17:09.193" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27242" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22231" CreationDate="2019-12-09T01:57:12.707" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Funnily enough, there is some way to calculate this probability, and it's not vanishingly small. Reference: &lt;a href=&quot;http://tom7.org/chess/weak.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Elo World, a framework for benchmarking weak chess engines&lt;/a&gt;. This is more of a parody paper than anything, but the gist is that one can easily code weak chess engines and get them to play against strong ones millions of times.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To illustrate, some of the weak engines used are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;random_move&lt;/em&gt;. Self-explanatory, and directly relevant to this question.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;same_color&lt;/em&gt;. When playing White, put pieces on White squares; when playing Black, put pieces on Black squares. If all pieces are already on the &quot;right&quot; color, make a random move.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;generous&lt;/em&gt;. Move so as to maximize the number of possible captures the opponent can make on our pieces. The more valuable the piece we're giving away, the more weight we give to that move.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;reverse_starting&lt;/em&gt;. &quot;This player thinks that the board is upside-down, and as white, tries to put its pieces where black pieces start.&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(I did say it's a parody paper, right?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There're also a few serious engines. The strongest one playing is Stockfish1m. This is Stockfish, the strongest traditional chess engine, when asked to play a move after 1 million nodes (this means move after it has searched exactly 1 million positions). Exactly how strong this is I don't know. I know I can beat Stockfish 1 node fairly easily, but at 1 million nodes it's obviously a lot stronger, and it's likely strong enough to crush most humans.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If we assume that Stockfish1m is about as strong as a grandmaster, then there's an interesting table on the last page. Unsurprisingly there are many engines that are worse than random_move, and unsurprisingly Stockfish1m is the strongest engine. random_move is a full 2200 elo weaker than Stockfish1m, &lt;em&gt;but&lt;/em&gt; it has a nonzero chance of winning a tournament between all these engines. In fact, p(random_move winning tournament) is 0.00000462. Small, but not zero. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Caveat: This isn't a direct head-to-head probability of random_move beating Stockfish1m.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Caveat #2: I am not completely sure where the line between the parody and the serious work is. It's possible the author is spoofing the use of Markov probabilities here, because p(random_move winning) = 0.00000462 sounds awfully large. Naively, I'd have expected something several orders of magnitude smaller.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit&lt;/strong&gt;: I've convinced myself that the above is part of the satire. Here's a back-of-the-envelope calculation for the probability of random_move winning. If we assume that the grandmaster will never resign (and they presumably won't, since a random mover can always blunder a game) then the game might take 80+ moves to end in a mate, probably longer. Chess has a branching factor of about 35. Therefore, the random move needs to make &quot;hit&quot; roughly 35^(80) times in a row to win, making the odds around 10^(-123) against.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastEditorUserId="15223" LastEditDate="2019-12-11T22:58:48.960" LastActivityDate="2019-12-11T22:58:48.960" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27243" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27215" CreationDate="2019-12-09T02:29:55.713" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;My understanding of modern correspondence chess is that it's mostly a computer vs. computer slugfest. Everyone will be using computer assistance - in arenas where computers are &amp;quot;banned&amp;quot;, there are many, many cheaters - and the winner is the one who feeds their computer better ideas (although they are very strong, computers still have blind spots where human input improves their play). Playing without computers is suicide. Even with it it's very time intensive if you want to win at the highest level, because chess is probably drawn with best play and humans operating a strong computer are so close to perfect that it's very hard to win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because so much of your time is spent working with your computer, and you won't have a computer in OTB play, you probably won't improve a lot by playing correspondence chess. However, you will learn a lot about openings, because opening preparation is where the biggest edge in correspondence chess comes from.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Quoting &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.chessbase.com/post/correspondence-chess-and-correspondence-database-2018&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;top US Correspondence Chess player Wolf Morrow&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;DN: Many players of the past were correspondence chess players. I think also today it's quite important, for improving to practice correspondence chess. What's your opinion about this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;WM: It depends on what you want to get out of modern correspondence chess. For me, I found it's a great tool to learn new openings or get a better understanding of main lines. As a result of my CC games, I'm more familiar with the Sicilian Sveshnikov than I would have ever learned as a passing interest in say a chess book or video on the subject. I've also heard and actually seen for myself that top OTB GMs will often use winning approaches taken directly from correspondence games, and then they get all the credit for coming up with this 'brilliant' new novelty to win the game. As I said, I've seen this happen on more than one occasion, and I say to myself &amp;quot;Uhh, no. He didn't invent that move, it was played 3 years ago on ICCF and we CC players are quite familiar with it&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2019-12-09T02:29:55.713" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27245" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27239" CreationDate="2019-12-09T08:46:17.213" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think you don't need this. You shift from opening to middle game when your opening book for this line runs out.&#xA;The middle-end phase is less relevant in AI, and your algorithm will handle those the same. You could define a line, e.g. when your search depth could be increased over some threshold, because the board has only a handful of pieces left, but I don't think it's an important change.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19997" LastActivityDate="2019-12-09T08:46:17.213" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27246" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27247" CreationDate="2019-12-09T13:12:05.173" Score="22" ViewCount="15139" Body="&lt;p&gt;While browsing the Chess Stack Exchange and Puzzling Stack Exchange sites, I've come across several instances where people have found loopholes in the rules of chess, causing these loopholes to be patched out eventually. In fact, while reading through the current (since Jan 1 2018) FIDE Laws of Chess, I noticed the following paragraphs:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3.7.1 The pawn may move forward to the square immediately in front of it on the same file, provided that this square is unoccupied, or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3.7.2 on its first move the pawn may move as in 3.7.1 or alternatively it may advance two squares along the same file, provided that both squares are unoccupied, or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3.7.3 the pawn may move to a square occupied by an opponent’s piece diagonally in front of it on an adjacent file, capturing that piece.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now I'm curious about the wording of these paragraphs, especially the phrase &amp;quot;in front of it&amp;quot;. This &amp;quot;front&amp;quot; direction is not defined or mentioned anywhere in the Laws. Its usual meaning is &amp;quot;towards the rank furthest away from the pawn's initial location&amp;quot;, but what if it weren't?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Suppose &amp;quot;front&amp;quot; is taken to mean the facing of the physical pawn (imagine figurine pieces with a clearly identifiable &amp;quot;front&amp;quot;). In that case, if a pawn is placed facing a different direction than usual, White could move a pawn to a lower rank or capture on a lower rank. Moving along the same rank is forbidden by the wording of 3.7.2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are two examples I'm thinking of:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.e4(facing e3) e5 2.e4e3&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.e4 d5 2.e5(facing d5) d4 3.e5xd4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this case, it could even be technically permitted to rotate a pawn (changing what is &amp;quot;in front of it&amp;quot;) using &amp;quot;j'adoube&amp;quot; before moving it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Alternatively, the &amp;quot;front&amp;quot; direction could be defined as the direction the player is facing. However, in this case, Article 2 insufficiently defines how the chessboard is to be placed:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.1 The chessboard is composed of an 8 x 8 grid of 64 equal squares alternately light (the ‘white’ squares) and dark (the ‘black’ squares).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The chessboard is placed between the players in such a way that the near corner square to the right of the player is white.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[...]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.3 The initial position of the pieces on the chessboard is as follows: [depiction of standard positions]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is not mentioned which pieces start closer to which player, so according to this interpretation it is technically not illegal to start with the white pieces on the side of the board closer to Black. &amp;quot;Front&amp;quot; would then mean that pawns could only move one step (assuming you get the pieces out of the way), but not promote afterwards (since the promotion rank is defined in paragraph 3.7.5.1 as &amp;quot;the rank furthest from its starting position&amp;quot;). Alternatively, a player could rotate the chessboard by 180° before moving.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm aware that all this is nitpicking the rules, of course that's not the intended way to play chess, I get that. So here's the question I'm actually interested in: Suppose that during a FIDE tournament, some player makes a move that is legal only by one of the above interpretations of the rules. How would this situation be resolved properly, considering Articles 11 and 12 of the Laws?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20793" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-30T22:18:49.557" LastActivityDate="2020-08-30T22:18:49.557" Title="Is rotating a pawn so that it faces a different direction and then moves in that direction technically permitted according to the 2018 FIDE Laws?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;fide&gt;&lt;pawns&gt;&lt;loopholes&gt;" AnswerCount="9" CommentCount="17" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27247" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27246" CreationDate="2019-12-09T13:45:51.610" Score="56" Body="&lt;p&gt;This sort of thing is what the Preface of the Laws of Chess is for:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;PREFACE&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The Laws of Chess cannot cover all possible situations that may arise&#xA;  during a game, nor can they regulate all administrative questions.&#xA;  Where cases are not precisely regulated by an Article of the Laws, it&#xA;  should be possible to reach a correct decision by studying analogous&#xA;  situations which are discussed  in  the  Laws. The  Laws  assume &#xA;  that  arbiters  have  the  necessary  competence,  sound  judgement&#xA;  and absolute objectivity. Too detailed a rule might deprive the&#xA;  arbiter of his freedom of judgement and thus prevent him from finding&#xA;  the solution to a problem dictated by fairness, logic and special&#xA;  factors.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;FIDE appeals to all chess players and federations to accept this view.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No, the laws don't define what the square in front of a pawn is. But arbiters have freedom of judgement to deal with that kind of omission from the rules.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And there is no way an arbiter will let you move a pawn in an illegal way during a FIDE tournament based on this argument.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It will just be treated as an illegal move (some bonus time for the opponent, have to make a legal move with the pawn if possible, and if it happens a second time the game is lost).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2019-12-09T13:45:51.610" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27249" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27251" CreationDate="2019-12-09T14:11:07.817" Score="1" ViewCount="97" Body="&lt;p&gt;The following is a winning middlegame for White from Capablanca's Chess Fundamentals. It's white to play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    [FEN &quot;2nb1rk1/1pqrnppp/p2p4/2pQ1N2/6P1/1P1B1N1P/P3RP2/3R2K1 w - - 0 0&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;    1. Nxe7+ Bxe7 2. Rxe7 Nxe7 3. Bxh7+ etc.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wonder about 2...g6. In this case White only wins material right?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20794" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-03-06T23:59:57.613" LastActivityDate="2020-03-06T23:59:57.613" Title="Winning middlegame?" Tags="&lt;middlegame&gt;&lt;winning&gt;&lt;capablanca&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27250" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8250" CreationDate="2019-12-09T15:13:50.253" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;...c5 followed by ...Qa5 is indeed a very important trick in the Pirc defense in order to reach a dragonlike pawn structure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, it can only work &lt;em&gt;after&lt;/em&gt; you have developed your bishop to g7, adding pressure on the dark squares.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Compare&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&#xA;1. d4 d6 2. e4 Nf6 3. Nc3 g6 4. Nf3 Bg7 5. Be2 c5 6. dxc5 Qa5 7. cxd6? Ne4!&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;where Black has a huge advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&#xA;1. d4 d6 2. e4 Nf6 3. Nc3 g6 4. Nf3 c5? 5. dxc5 Qa5 6. cxd6 Ne4?! 7.Qd4! Nf6 (7...Nxc3 8. Qxh8!) 8.dxe7 Bxe7 9.Bg5 Nc6 10.Bb5 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White wins because the fork on h8 and e4 refutes Black premature display of activity, and she will keep at least one extra pawn. 7...Nxc3 can be countered simply by 9.bc3, but more audaciously by 8.Qxh8! when no discovered check brings any relief to Black for her huge material loss.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;7...Nf6 saves the piece but not the game after 8.dxe7 Bxe7 9.Bg5 Nc6 10.Bb5, when White has a full extra pawn and some initiative.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastEditorUserId="14079" LastEditDate="2020-02-15T23:18:59.060" LastActivityDate="2020-02-15T23:18:59.060" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27251" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27249" CreationDate="2019-12-09T15:23:23.377" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, after 2...g6 black is only a bishop behind and not immediately checkmated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But that doesn't matter much for the result -- being a full piece behind is also enough to resign. &lt;em&gt;And&lt;/em&gt;, that he stays a piece behind is immediately obvious -- white takes a bishop, black doesn't take back. So that doesn't really need to be explained.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, what happens after 2...Nxe7 (or 2...Rxe7 for that matter) is not as obvious, so it's pointed out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is related to the concept of &lt;em&gt;critical moves&lt;/em&gt;. To decide whether some move is good, there are some things that are important to look at more deeply and some things that aren't (2...g6 doesn't need further calculation, it's obvious that white wins). In a sense the question whether the initial position is winning depends more on whether 2...Nxe7 wins than on whether 2...g6 wins, &lt;em&gt;even if&lt;/em&gt; the position after 2...g6 isn't quite as immediately lost as after 2...Nxe7.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2...Nxe7 is a &lt;em&gt;critical move&lt;/em&gt; in a sense 2...g6 is not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2019-12-09T15:23:23.377" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27252" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27253" CreationDate="2019-12-09T16:10:16.783" Score="3" ViewCount="562" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the position below:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qO6is.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qO6is.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was Black and I was not sure how to proceed. Finally, I decided to play aggressively with g5. I know it was too risky and weakening, but I did not see what else to do. After checking the computer suggestions, it looks like Black should only shuffle its pieces around Re8 Qf8... &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is that all Black can do? What are your thoughts on this position?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks in advance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16771" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-12-09T17:04:50.023" LastActivityDate="2019-12-10T08:28:26.777" Title="Can Black play for a win here?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27253" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27252" CreationDate="2019-12-09T17:00:50.840" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can black play for a win? Heck yes! This is totally won for black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I did not even realize you were up a pawn at first, and I was thinking there is a clear plan here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, here is the analysis of the position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You are up a pawn.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You have the better minor piece.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;White is weakened on the queen-side since black can put a piece on c4, and b3 is just horrible then leaving c3 super weak, so that cannot be played.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;f4 has also weakened white's king-side.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Black has a clear, and simple plan.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is the plan for black:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Black's play is on the queen-side. He will gradually push the pawns, carrying out a &quot;minority attack&quot;. That is when a smaller number of pawns push and trade down against a larger number, leaving the larger number with one remaining, but weak, pawn.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Play Rc4 right now so there is no time for Nd4 hanging f4 to Bxf4.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Bring the other rook to c8, and then the Q goes to f8 and over to the queen side too.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The Bd6 might even redeploy to g7 to provide additional defense against any white all-out attack on your king, while still hitting the queen-side.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Then play a6 (or maybe a5 in one go), b5, a5 and then b4. After trades, white will be left with either a b-pawn or c-pawn, which can be attacked by the black major pieces, and possibly the black bishop. It is possible that the black major pieces will have to be redeployed to help execute b4, for example a Rb8, or the queen helping. It is also possible that one might go to a8 to take control of that file after some trades.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Win the extra pawn, and then push your central pawns and win.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This plan is very common, and even if black were not up a pawn here, this would still be much more pleasant for him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2019-12-10T08:28:26.777" LastActivityDate="2019-12-10T08:28:26.777" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27254" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27252" CreationDate="2019-12-09T18:14:50.577" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Do’h! Of course black can play for a win.  This would be more slow positional play then by tactics, but with the extra pawn it should be a matter of technique as they say. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would look at doubling rooks bringing the queen to the queenside and attacking with the pawns.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-12-09T18:31:31.883" LastActivityDate="2019-12-09T18:31:31.883" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27256" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27246" CreationDate="2019-12-09T18:24:22.990" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Front is meant to be the next square that the pawn could normally advance to unless it were making a diagonal capture.  Pawns and pieces per se have no front or back.  Maybe FIDE should define it that way for people who want to be lawyers and pick at the rules. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-12-11T01:18:04.797" LastActivityDate="2019-12-11T01:18:04.797" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27257" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27266" CreationDate="2019-12-09T18:30:32.923" Score="5" ViewCount="1197" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am currently trying to implement a basic chess engine and got to the following point:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have got Alpha-Beta Pruning implemented and extended it with a transposition table. To further increase stability I implemented Quiescence Search and this is where I ran into problems.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The result clearly looked better but the required time for this was out of this world.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was using Alpha-Beta pruning with a depth of 6 half-moves. Each evaluation was carried out by Quiescence Search. Without limiting the allowed depth of the Quiescence Search, my program ran for multiple minutes without any result. I limited the depth of the Quiescence Search 10 half-moves and got to the following result for the second move:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;visited nodes:   6915527     &#xA;quiescent nodes:   104313894    &#xA;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt; 79502 ms &amp;lt;&amp;lt;&amp;lt;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Without Quiescence Search (the listed quiescent nodes are the leafs of the main tree)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;visited nodes:   8472808    &#xA;quiescent nodes:   4978606    &#xA;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt; 9227 ms &amp;lt;&amp;lt;&amp;lt;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can see that the Quiescence Search takes up most of the time. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What could I do to improve the time my engine needs?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;private double alphaBetaSearch(double alpha, double beta, int currentDepth) {&#xA;    _visitedNodes ++;&#xA;    long zobrist = _board.zobrist();&#xA;    double transposition = transpositionLookUp(zobrist, currentDepth);&#xA;    if(!Double.isNaN(transposition)){&#xA;        return transposition;&#xA;    }&#xA;&#xA;    List&amp;lt;Move&amp;gt; allMoves = _board.getAvailableMoves();&#xA;    if(currentDepth == _depth || allMoves.size() == 0 || _board.isGameOver()){&#xA;        double val = Quiesce(alpha, beta,quiesce_depth );&#xA;        transpositionPlacement(zobrist, currentDepth, val);&#xA;        return val;&#xA;    }&#xA;&#xA;    orderer.sort(allMoves,currentDepth,zobrist,_transpositionTable_pv);&#xA;&#xA;    for (Move m : allMoves) {&#xA;        _board.move(m);&#xA;        double score = -alphaBetaSearch(-beta, -alpha, currentDepth + 1);&#xA;        _board.undoMove();&#xA;        if (score &amp;gt;= beta) {&#xA;            transpositionPlacement(zobrist, m);&#xA;            return beta;&#xA;        }&#xA;        if (score &amp;gt; alpha) {&#xA;            transpositionPlacement(zobrist, m);&#xA;            alpha = score;&#xA;            if (currentDepth == 0) {&#xA;                _bestMove = m;&#xA;            }&#xA;        }&#xA;    }&#xA;&#xA;    transpositionPlacement(zobrist, currentDepth, alpha);&#xA;&#xA;    return alpha;&#xA;}&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;private double Quiesce(double alpha, double beta, int depth_left) {&#xA;    _quiesceNodes ++;&#xA;    _evaluatedNodes ++;&#xA;    double stand_pat = evaluator.evaluate(_board) * _board.getActivePlayer();&#xA;    if(depth_left == 0){&#xA;        return stand_pat;&#xA;    }&#xA;    if( stand_pat &amp;gt;= beta)&#xA;        return beta;&#xA;    if( alpha &amp;lt; stand_pat )&#xA;        alpha = stand_pat;&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;    List&amp;lt;Move&amp;gt; allMoves = _board.getAvailableMoves();&#xA;&#xA;    for(Move m:allMoves){&#xA;        if(m.getPieceTo() * m.getPieceFrom() &amp;lt; 0){&#xA;&#xA;            _board.move(m);&#xA;            double score = -Quiesce( -beta, -alpha, depth_left-1);&#xA;            _board.undoMove();&#xA;&#xA;            if( score &amp;gt;= beta )&#xA;                return beta;&#xA;            if( score &amp;gt; alpha )&#xA;                alpha = score;&#xA;        }&#xA;    }&#xA;&#xA;    return alpha;&#xA;}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20782" LastEditorUserId="20782" LastEditDate="2019-12-10T17:20:56.177" LastActivityDate="2019-12-10T17:20:56.177" Title="Chess engine: Quiescence Search increases required time by a factor of 20" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;time-management&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27258" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27257" CreationDate="2019-12-09T19:02:44.907" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am speculating that you have too many quiet positions to continue with the quiescence checking, especially at that extra depth.   You will have to limit the number of extra quiescent moves you check or get a faster computer; or be willing to wait longer for an answer.    &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastActivityDate="2019-12-09T19:02:44.907" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27259" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27271" CreationDate="2019-12-09T20:02:49.220" Score="24" ViewCount="14287" Body="&lt;p&gt;From years of being student, researcher, and practitioner of chess, I feel like it possesses completeness and elegance that are found in mathematical proofs and theories. Thus, it seems only natural to imagine that it should be possible to describe chess in mathematical terms. By that I mean an elegant description, like a compact set of formulas or a proof that chess belongs to such and such field of mathematics. Intuitively, it feels like it should be able to fit in group theory. Does anyone know what attempts have been made in this regard? I would like to specifically exclude engines, neural networks, and the like from the discussion because, despite the obvious success in increasing the quality of play, those attempts do not constitute theoretical proof.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15509" LastEditorUserId="15509" LastEditDate="2019-12-09T21:32:46.327" LastActivityDate="2021-01-20T07:33:17.900" Title="Has anyone attempted to characterize chess mathematically?" Tags="&lt;theory&gt;&lt;mathematics&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="9" FavoriteCount="12" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27260" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27259" CreationDate="2019-12-09T22:09:53.287" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not really.   At least not serious mathematicians. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is covered somewhat in Game Theory but other  approaches like Group Theory do not seem to fit;  although there might some higher dimensional non-linearish type description that could be found.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So Algebra which includes Groups,  and Topology too,  seem to be out but perhaps it could fit in Analysis if somebody cared enough to try it.  But that would an advanced mathematician who would be more likely to attempt a better problem that would lead to their PhD and a job teaching.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastActivityDate="2019-12-09T22:09:53.287" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27261" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5199" CreationDate="2019-12-09T22:13:15.190" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was a tournament player who was far better than 90% of those who play competitively.&#xA;I also did 5 years of graduate school work in math. I found nothing of math value from playing chess. Your mileage may vary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastEditorUserId="2765" LastEditDate="2019-12-10T10:42:33.993" LastActivityDate="2019-12-10T10:42:33.993" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27262" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24359" CreationDate="2019-12-09T22:19:18.223" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Nobody knows.  It is beyond our ability to count even with computers.&#xA;The best you can do is statistically over all players to try to estimate the final result.  Note that bad play which patzers make will tend to make the numbers move towards a more even black-white split and I suspect fewer draws. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastActivityDate="2019-12-09T22:19:18.223" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27263" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27246" CreationDate="2019-12-10T03:09:06.153" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a good question, as much as some may be instinctively frustrated by it, because finding room for improvement in rulesets is useful and can prevent future issues where arbitration is required.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My understanding is that &quot;front&quot; is defined by the piece's colour, not it's rotational orientation. This is consistent with the definition of &quot;last rank&quot; in the case of queening a pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I'm not familiar enough with the FIDE ruleset to know where (if anywhere) this is mentioned.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20796" LastActivityDate="2019-12-10T03:09:06.153" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27266" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27257" CreationDate="2019-12-10T04:44:44.847" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Because you said&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Without limiting the allowed depth of the Quiescence Search, my program ran for multiple minutes without any result&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm assuming that you haven't implemented any capture ordering in your quiescence search. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you don't do this, you allow your computer to calculate rather silly situations very deeply. For instance, say I have one capture: my queen takes your (defended) pawn. This is obviously a bad choice, and we want your computer to recognize this quickly. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You could simply recapture (choice A), but you have another capture available (choice B) your bishop takes my pawn. Say for the sake of example that these are the only two available captures. You now have two options for searching these moves:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First B, then A&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you search B first, my queen might have the option to take another piece (now that it has moved to a different square). You'll call the quiescence function again (maybe your bishop can now take another piece) and after that, maybe my queen can take yet another piece. You're calling the quiescence function over and over again. It'll have to end at some point, but when you're doing this for &lt;em&gt;every&lt;/em&gt; leaf node, this takes time. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First A, then B&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you search A first, I will no longer have a queen with which to take pieces, meaning I am substantially less likely to have to have more captures available, meaning your quiescence search will likely stop here. Then, when you inevitably search B, you will be much more likely to create a beta cutoff because capturing the queen with a pawn was given a very high value.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hopefully this illustrates the importance of move ordering in quiescence search.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The way we typically do this is with MVV/LVA, which stands for &quot;most valuable victim, least valuable attacker,&quot; which does exactly what it sounds like. For each capture, compute the value of the victim minus the value of the attacker, then search the largest captures first. This should massively reduce your qsearch times.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All this being said, limiting your qserach is sometimes a legitimate thing to do, (is it &lt;em&gt;actually&lt;/em&gt; useful to see the 10th capture in a row?) but first you should see how the capture ordering shakes out, then make a decision.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope it helps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20581" LastEditorUserId="20581" LastEditDate="2019-12-10T08:02:54.693" LastActivityDate="2019-12-10T08:02:54.693" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27267" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27259" CreationDate="2019-12-10T05:09:39.020" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here are some starting spots in reading up on Game theory which is the mathematical tool that would be most appropriate for making claims about chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.math.harvard.edu/~elkies/FS23j.03/zermelo.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;This&lt;/a&gt; is a light history of early game theory. Chess is a &quot;perfect information game&quot; and there are some interesting things one can claim about this category of games. See &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zermelo%27s_theorem_(game_theory)&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; for example. &#xA;I would also read up on Claude Shannon. &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shannon_number&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Shannon's number&lt;/a&gt; gives a bound on game complexity tree. For standard chess we have an intractable puzzle but you could make a smaller variants and solve these smaller games. Here's an example of &lt;a href=&quot;https://arxiv.org/pdf/1307.7118v1.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt;. The authors claim to have solved a smaller 5x5 variant of chess. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16384" LastActivityDate="2019-12-10T05:09:39.020" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27268" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27257" CreationDate="2019-12-10T05:22:05.933" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The point of a quiescence search(QSearch) is to get a better static evaluation.  By the number of nodes your searching, it seems that your just extending your main search function.  By limiting your QSearch to only captures, promotions and maybe checks, you should greatly reduce the QSearch.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An interesting observation is that QSearch is the function mainly used to call the evaluation function.  This is the most time consuming function, so the QSearch would account for the most time used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://members.home.nl/matador/Inside%20Rebel.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://members.home.nl/matador/Inside%20Rebel.pdf&lt;/a&gt; is a useful reference.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note:  By providing some code, it would be easier to suggest a better answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9684" LastActivityDate="2019-12-10T05:22:05.933" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27270" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27246" CreationDate="2019-12-10T06:33:47.657" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &quot;on the same file&quot; language already takes care of this.&#xA;2.4 The eight vertical columns of squares are called ‘files’&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Moving based on some notional &quot;facing'&quot; of the pawn would take the pawn off the file.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20799" LastActivityDate="2019-12-10T06:33:47.657" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27271" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27259" CreationDate="2019-12-10T07:38:12.863" Score="34" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are many different aspects of chess which can be formalized mathematically. Since the 19th century at least, chess has been mined as a resource to drive mathematical innovation. So when talking about a mathematical &lt;strong&gt;characterization&lt;/strong&gt; of chess, it's not a single modeling that we are talking about, which grabs every feature, but rather a number of models, in which the power of each is paradoxically in the &lt;strong&gt;letting go&lt;/strong&gt; of some aspect of chess which is not relevant for that analysis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Perhaps the earliest success (not counting the counting :-) of grains of rice on a chessboard) was Zermelo's Theorem (yes by one of the founders of ZF Set Theory) which states that in chess &quot;either White can force a win, or Black can force a win, or both sides can force at least a draw&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Combinatorial Game Theory (developed by celebrated mathematicians John H. Conway, Elwyn Berlekamp and Richard Guy) has been successfully applied to chess. A couple of assumptions in this theory go against its general applicability to chess though. One is that a win in CGT is solely if your opponent can’t move which does not address stalemate. Secondly there is the notion of “entailing move” (e.g. check) where if one person plays, the other player must respond rather than the first player playing again. But Noam Elkies has derived some non-trivial results in chess endgames by computing their CGT value - references given in his chess page &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.math.harvard.edu/~elkies/chess.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.math.harvard.edu/~elkies/chess.html&lt;/a&gt;: &quot;On Numbers and Endgames&quot; and &quot;Higher Nimbers [sic] in Pawn Endgames on Large Chessboards&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You mentioned group theory - well curiously the set of combinatorial games under composition does form an abelian group! To be fair, the two obstacles mentioned above do prevent chess itself from behaving in this way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a massive amount of combinatorial work which has been done around the chessboard. Vaclav Kotesovec has published online an 800 page book &lt;strong&gt;just&lt;/strong&gt; on the subject of non-attacking chess pieces (generalizing the 8 queens problem massively). See &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.kotesovec.cz/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.kotesovec.cz/&lt;/a&gt; for the link. This is related to Magic Squares, Experimental Design, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is also, starting in Finland with Eero Bonsdorff, a long lineage in path enumeration chess problems, counting the number of ways that a position can be reached. This often involves the analysis of Standard Young Tableaux, which also underpin representation theory of symmetric groups. Fibonacci numbers, Catalan numbers and Euler numbers are all frequently found here, together with other combinatorial identities whose realization can be found lurking in ingenious chess compositions. See &lt;a href=&quot;https://pdb.dieschwalbe.de/search.jsp&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://pdb.dieschwalbe.de/search.jsp&lt;/a&gt;, and type g='mathematics' in the search box.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The knight's tour problem is also famous for helping to push the study of Hamiltonian graphs, and particularly the challenge of counting the number of such objects. See &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.mayhematics.com/t/t.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.mayhematics.com/t/t.htm&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The theory of computation also asks about whether chess is determinate. This is all about arranging sets of pieces in much bigger boards to try to make machines that are equivalent to Turing machines. This brings us to the subject of the limits of computation, which is where I would make the point that if a mathematical theory characterized chess completely, then we should be no more able to reason with it than we are to play at chess itself. That might allow us to escape some of the linguistic challenges of the current laws (e.g. whether pawns can be oriented).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think there is also research value in a mathematical description of how chess conventions apply consistently to chess problems including fairy chess. Guus Rol has a very ambitious  program which reduces each turn to “micro-phases” and claims to be able to determine with great accuracy how fairy conditions interact in complex “retro-active” situations, where both retro and forward logic is necessary. I don’t know if he will ever complete his theory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I personally would like to see a more modest theory, which treats each move as atomic and although it doesn’t cover fairy chess so well, at least can cover retro-active aspects of problem conventions such as castling and e.p. Even that has not been done yet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The mathematical physicist Roger Penrose published a chess position about 2 years ago which was intended to argue his long-held position that there is a fundamentally different kind of reasoning displayed by humans than an AI grounded in &quot;computable functions&quot; can demonstrate. See &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.chessbase.com/post/a-chess-problem-holds-the-key-to-human-consciousness&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.chessbase.com/post/a-chess-problem-holds-the-key-to-human-consciousness&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even though the theory of random graphs, and Monte Carlo analysis has been applied very successfully to engines, particularly the most recent generation, I don't think this disqualifies it from being considered a mathematical theory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is also a linear algebra approach to counting moves and positions. “If chess is a graph, what is its maximum eigenvalue?” is a very real and interesting question. See Francois Labelle's site at &lt;a href=&quot;http://wismuth.com/chess/statistics-games.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://wismuth.com/chess/statistics-games.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Linear algebra can be applied successfully to other chess related questions e.g. how many ways are there for a rook to move from a1 to h8 in exactly n moves? How about a king?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For many years, Noam Elkies &amp;amp; Richard Stanley have been collaborating on a book on chess and mathematics. I don't know when it will finally emerge, or whether they have given up on this. But &quot;The Mathematical Knight&quot; given on Noam's chess page linked earlier perhaps gives a foretaste of that book. Richard Stanley is one of the leading lights in Combinatorics: see &lt;a href=&quot;http://www-math.mit.edu/~rstan/chess/queue.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www-math.mit.edu/~rstan/chess/queue.pdf&lt;/a&gt;, and Noam's birthday article &lt;a href=&quot;https://arxiv.org/pdf/math/0508645.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://arxiv.org/pdf/math/0508645.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is also already a book &quot;Mathematics and Chess&quot; by Miodrag S. Petkovic, but I am not familiar with its contents.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some of these ideas are listed in a Wikipedia page: &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Mathematical_chess_problems&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Mathematical_chess_problems&lt;/a&gt;, and there's a more specific page &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_chess_problem&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_chess_problem&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If anyone else has other examples of chess and mathematics, please mention them in comments and I will try to incorporate them in this response. If anyone has links that illustrate the topics I am mentioning, please add them, thanks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally: math.stackexchange.com has 62 pages of chess entries!?!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8201" LastEditorUserId="8201" LastEditDate="2019-12-25T22:49:53.510" LastActivityDate="2019-12-25T22:49:53.510" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27273" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27246" CreationDate="2019-12-10T08:55:52.003" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;No matter how a chess piece is shaped, FIDE rules do not define &quot;front&quot; or any other direction relative to the orientation of the piece. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess pieces do not have a front, rear, direction of advance, and so forth. Only the board has these. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20803" LastActivityDate="2019-12-10T08:55:52.003" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27274" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27246" CreationDate="2019-12-10T10:48:19.060" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's another loophole with 3.7.3 and it happens when you turn the pawn's front to the left or to the right. You can then capture opponent's piece at the diagonal at the previous rank. Since it's at the adjacent file, the move is a &quot;bona fide!&quot; chess move. ex: white pawn at e4 turning to left and  capturing Knight at d3. &#xA;These loopholes can be removed by introducing  an amendment 3.7.xx like &quot;pawns can not move to a lower rank with the exception of 'en-passant' law, where they're technically moved by the opponent one rank below and captured, if the opponent prefers at the immediate move after the two square move of the pawn.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20807" LastActivityDate="2019-12-10T10:48:19.060" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27275" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27259" CreationDate="2019-12-10T14:15:53.410" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd hate to say it, but mathematically speaking chess as we play it is very boring. It is a perfect information game, without any non-determinism, for two alternating players. This means that chess is either a win for white, a win for black, or a draw. The optimal strategy for chess is trivial and known: minimax. As far as maths is concerned, chess is solved.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15806" LastActivityDate="2019-12-10T14:15:53.410" CommentCount="13" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27276" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27246" CreationDate="2019-12-10T15:21:52.263" Score="19" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is no loophole. Rules 3.7.1 to 3.7.4 allow pawns to move forwards along the same file, or diagonally forwards onto an adjacent file.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only argument here seems to be that &quot;forwards&quot; is not explicitly defined but it is implicitly defined by 3.7.5.1 which beings with the following quote: &quot;When a player, having the move, plays a pawn to the rank furthest from its starting position&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As the pawn can only move forwards and we know that a pawn can reach the rank furthest from its start position, then forwards must mean &quot;towards the rank on which his opponent's king was set up&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The diagram accompanying 3.7.3 also make it clear which direction forwards is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;3.7.1 The pawn may move forward to the square immediately in front of it on the same file, provided that this square is unoccupied, or&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  3.7.2 on its first move the pawn may move as in 3.7.1 or alternatively it may advance two squares along the same file, provided that both squares are unoccupied, or&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  3.7.3 the pawn may move to a square occupied by an opponent’s piece diagonally in front of it on an adjacent file, capturing that piece.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/WH7Dc.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/WH7Dc.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;sub&gt;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;https://old.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=208&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://old.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=208&amp;amp;view=article&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even if for some bizarre reason you were to setup the board with the white pieces next to the black player and vice versa, there is no ambiguity as to which direction &quot;front&quot; is. For a white pawn, forwards is always towards the rank where the black king was set up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are also no rules allowing for any sort of rotation of a piece, so even if you had say the viking style chess pieces where the pawn model itself has a face, the direction in which the pawn model faces has no meaning in the rules.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20811" LastEditorUserId="15793" LastEditDate="2019-12-11T09:37:39.707" LastActivityDate="2019-12-11T09:37:39.707" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27277" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13387" CreationDate="2019-12-10T15:45:47.530" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Possibly is what my intuition says,  but it would take a lot of analysis to know what best play result should be.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;OTOH  with real people it could easily be a win if they have time pressure in a tournament.  Maybe even if not pressure just insufficient time to really do a full scale  in depth analysis of all the nuances. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If black takes the pawn and white exchanges B for N then we have a R+P endgame with white a pawn up but black's king in front of the potential passed pawn.  That would be very hard to win.  But computer analysis might show it is possible. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastActivityDate="2019-12-10T15:45:47.530" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27278" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21908" CreationDate="2019-12-10T15:51:14.853" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I only played the first half and saw no obvious really bad moves.  I would say you just got slowly outplayed positionally.  Considering the rating difference your play was not bad at all.  As they say, after you lost the pawn it was just a matter of technique. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastActivityDate="2019-12-10T15:51:14.853" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27279" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9371" CreationDate="2019-12-10T15:55:35.033" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;That is &lt;em&gt;A&lt;/em&gt; plan.  Whether it is best or even good depends on the actual opening and position. Remember the hypermodern approach is to let them have the center but attack it usually with fianchettoed bishops.  Which plan is best?  Depends on a lot of other factors. Including the opponent. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastActivityDate="2019-12-10T15:55:35.033" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27280" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-12-10T16:18:56.170" Score="2" ViewCount="273" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the opening stage, are there any moves that are perfectly sound but are not book moves? Here a book move, is defined in Wikipedia as follows: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Opening moves that are considered standard (often catalogued in a reference work such as the Encyclopaedia of Chess Openings) are referred to as &quot;book moves&quot;, or simply &quot;book&quot;. Reference works often present move sequences in simple algebraic notation, opening trees, or theory tables.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By a sound move, I mean a move that is completely reasonable in a certain opening position and does not create any weaknesses. (There may be a better definition, but you probably know what I mean.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16626" LastActivityDate="2019-12-11T01:08:03.980" Title="Are there any moves in the opening stage that are perfectly sound but not book moves?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;theory&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27281" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27280" CreationDate="2019-12-10T17:12:27.707" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Depends what you mean by sound.  And what book you think is the authority.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could a computer beat that move?  Maybe.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Would a person beat it? Much less likely.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are many playable moves that are not in the book.  I found an absolutely sound one that is not in the book and always gives some advantage.  I also found an excellent one for time limited OTB play that gives a good winning percentage. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Eventually every good move will be played and should end up in the book.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-12-11T01:08:03.980" LastActivityDate="2019-12-11T01:08:03.980" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27283" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="133" CreationDate="2019-12-10T17:16:56.490" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Pick ONE opening and specialise in it.  Do not worry about any other openings. For black that is a bit harder but you can find sound defenses to limit how much you need to know. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Play over GM games with that opening.  Play every one you can find.  Be totally familiar with all the usual variations and how the middle games turned out. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastActivityDate="2019-12-10T17:16:56.490" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27284" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19068" CreationDate="2019-12-10T17:22:17.287" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;A qualified yes.   I played in Philadelphia in the mid 50s and ran into a weird opening that is probably sound if not the best and had trouble with it. Turns out it was very popular in the Philly area but unheard of , back then, anywhere else. Now it is in opening books and even has a name. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastActivityDate="2019-12-10T17:22:17.287" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27285" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27246" CreationDate="2019-12-10T17:52:59.350" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;The official PDF of the FIDE Laws of Chess includes illustrations of the legal moves for each piece.  These clearly show the white pawn moving &quot;up&quot; the file (including the two-square move from the starting rank), and the black pawn moving &quot;down&quot; (only one square, because it's shown away from the starting rank).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Moving the pawn along a rank is explicitly ruled out by the text, which mentions movement only along the file except for captures, which always occur in the adjacent files on the next rank.  The definition of &quot;rank&quot; and &quot;file&quot; is given in Article 2.4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The direction of &quot;forward&quot; from the starting rank is unambiguous, since no fewer than &lt;em&gt;three&lt;/em&gt; movement rules involving the pawn only make sense for one along-file direction for each player.  These are 3.7.b (double move permitted from the starting rank; this would land off-board if reversed), 3.7.d (the en-passant rule, which requires pawns of opposite colour to approach each other on adjacent files), and 3.7.e (promotion upon reaching the furthest rank from the starting rank, which would be impossible if only allowed to move away from it).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The very concept of a &quot;forward direction&quot; being mentioned in the movement rules, but no provision being made in those rules for rotating or reversing that direction, indicates clearly that the direction implied by the above paragraph is invariant for all subsequent pawn moves as well.  That which is not explicitly permitted is implied to be forbidden.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Furthermore, FIDE tournaments are normally conducted with standard Staunton-style pieces, in which the pawn is rotationally symmetric and has no apparent &quot;front&quot;.  Indeed only the knights and bishops lack this property, but unlike the pawn they have rotationally symmetric movement patterns.  The rules do not explicitly mention Staunton pieces except in the context of visually impaired players (who must identify pieces by touch), but providing an exotic form of chess pieces for a tournament game would be highly irregular, and could legitimately be considered unfair in itself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I do agree that an explicit definition of &quot;forward&quot; would make a precise interpretation easier to arrive at purely from the text.  This could be &quot;along the file, towards the rank furthest from the player&quot;.  This is unambiguous even for Black, since Article 2.1 places the board between the players and specifies its orientation (though even this could be improved, since it doesn't specify that the players must sit on the side of the board at which their pieces start).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19281" LastEditorUserId="19281" LastEditDate="2019-12-10T18:16:56.203" LastActivityDate="2019-12-10T18:16:56.203" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27286" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15516" CreationDate="2019-12-10T19:56:18.390" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It was not ever a Caro.  It was the start of one of many less used defenses.  Often I see it turn into a variation of the hedgehog.  Sometimes it becomes a kings indian.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastActivityDate="2019-12-10T19:56:18.390" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27288" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27259" CreationDate="2019-12-10T20:56:47.213" Score="-4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess isn't the sort of object that mathematicians are interested in studying. Mathematicians care about problems that are in some way infinite: either infinite objects or finite objects of which there are infinitely many examples. Chess is completely finite. There is only one chess, it uses a finite board, there are finitely many possible positions. If chess is played rationally (and we can't hope to characterize it without that assumption) then games are finite in length. &quot;Rational&quot; basically means that either player will claim a draw as soon as they have the right to, and that means that games are less than about 5900 moves, which means there are only finitely many games.  A mathematician might study the prime numbers, but they're not going to study the single number 1827368429.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To a mathematician, &quot;solve chess&quot; is just a calculation, and mathematicians aren't interested in calculations. The fact that it's a culturally important calculation might encourage somebody to try, but it's hard to see anybody having the time to do something so complicated. It's the sort of thing that would take decades of full-time work and, if you failed, you'd have basically nothing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2789" LastActivityDate="2019-12-10T20:56:47.213" CommentCount="15" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27289" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27280" CreationDate="2019-12-10T22:11:59.163" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Obviously, you are not the first chess player to think about alternatives to the 'book moves'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think it is a solid assumption that all possible moves that deviate from the book move have been considered by someone already, and probably by someone with some playing strength.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;So either those moves are good enough (equivalent) to 'book moves' and therefore they would have made it in the books by now, or they are (considered) at least slightly inferior.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you consider playing an inferior move, you will have to balance the expected 'loss' from the inferiority against the potential 'gain' from forcing your opponent into a non-book variant (which &lt;em&gt;you&lt;/em&gt; have analyzed in depth before, and he probably didn't). Depending on his strength in 'book openings' compared to his strength in 'think-yourself', this might be a good deal for you or not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that this is not an uncommon idea - nearly all chess players I know have taken this approach from time to time, and more or less successful. Try it, but don't expect your opponent to be shocked out of his mind.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13230" LastActivityDate="2019-12-10T22:11:59.163" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27290" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27280" CreationDate="2019-12-10T22:22:30.173" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, not because there are not things that are not sound, but virtually every early divergence, if at all good, has been played...and virtually every bad divergence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2019-12-10T22:22:30.173" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27291" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27246" CreationDate="2019-12-11T06:24:59.667" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sorry I am late to this party.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The question is about how FIDE resolves this issue. I can only answer about chess problems. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although the text says that they only apply to over-the-board chess, I know from discussions with a FIDE rules writer that they have been concerned about their responsibilities as owners of a document which problemists will take seriously, maybe even more literally than players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For over-the-board chess there are arbiters to help interpret the language, but what about the poor lost lambs who are fairy chess enthusiasts who want to know what happens if you change the rules. E.g. if a pawn ends up on a1 somehow, how can it move?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is always possible to read text in multiple ways. Some are just silly e.g. suppose the players are bridge players. Or suppose the pieces melt in the middle of a game and occupy multiple squares. Some of these silly ideas can form the basis of so-called joke problems. See “Outrageous Chess Problems” by Bert Hochberg for many of these.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A couple more points about your idea.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If pawns can be rotated then we can’t assume in a problem that a pawn in second rank can necessarily make double move. It might already have moved and after rotation come back to the second rank again.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If a pawn has been rotated some angle which is not a multiple of 90 degrees, it won’t be able to move at all. Maybe this is what a dummy pawn is?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8201" LastEditorUserId="8201" LastEditDate="2019-12-12T06:10:51.757" LastActivityDate="2019-12-12T06:10:51.757" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27292" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22231" CreationDate="2019-12-11T06:38:02.120" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;For question 2, it might be best to combine yourself and random play. As you stated, you are blind to some good moves, and a GM could probably beat you with rook odds. So you might as well let random computer play until you are a queen up, then play at your strength to convert that to a win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7002" LastActivityDate="2019-12-11T06:38:02.120" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27293" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27295" CreationDate="2019-12-11T11:49:39.547" Score="9" ViewCount="2233" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;rn1qkbnr/ppp1pppp/8/8/2B3b1/2N2N2/PPPP1PPP/R1BQK2R b KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1...Nf6 2.Bxf7+ Kxf7 3.Ne5+ Kg8 4.Nxg4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's black to move. There is a trap: 1...Nf6 2.Bxf7+ Kxf7 3.Ne5+ Kg8 4.Nxg4 and white wins a pawn (from Capablanca's Chess Fundamentals). I wonder how do you get to the initial position. The only way I've thought of involves black playing a bad opening, moving a piece twice. For instance:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot; w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 d5 2.exd5 Qxd5 3.Nc3 Qd8 4.Nf3 Bg4 5.Bc4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a more natural way to get to the position?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20794" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-12-11T13:47:49.430" LastActivityDate="2019-12-12T08:49:12.620" Title="How do you get to this trap position?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;opening-traps&gt;&lt;capablanca&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27294" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27293" CreationDate="2019-12-11T12:22:39.203" Score="4" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 d5 2.exd5 Qxd5 3.Nc3 Qd8&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Above is a playable line of the Scandinavian defense. 3...Qa5 and maybe also 3...Qd6 are more popular, but Qd8 isn't horrible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The tactical trick itself is more general. It can occur, for example, in the following gambit line: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 dxe4 4.f3 exf3 5.Nf3 Nf6 6.Bc4 Bg4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastEditorUserId="4362" LastEditDate="2019-12-12T08:49:12.620" LastActivityDate="2019-12-12T08:49:12.620" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27295" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27293" CreationDate="2019-12-11T12:27:28.627" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your proposal is a plausible way to get to that position. I wouldn't call the Scandinavian &quot;bad&quot; just because it moves a piece twice. It's perfectly playable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When the trap was played in the following game, it was the knight rather than the queen which moved twice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Site &quot;Sao Paulo (Brazil)&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;1973.??.??&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Nobrega Adaucto Da &quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Barata Hemar&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 d5 2. exd5 Nf6 3. Nc3 Nxd5 4. Bc4 Nf6 5. Nf3 Bg4 6. Bxf7+ Kxf7 7. Ne5+ Kg8&#xA;8. Nxg4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And by the way, you have to be a little careful when playing this. Someone once tried this on me, but the position was slightly different:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 d5 2.exd5 Qxd5 3.Nc3 Qa5 4.d4 c6 5.Nf3 Nf6 6.Bc4 Bg4 D 7.Bxf7+?&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And now after Kxf7 8.Ne5+, Black has Qxe5+ 9.dxe5 Bxd1 and will end up with an extra minor piece.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastEditorUserId="12629" LastEditDate="2019-12-11T12:40:26.233" LastActivityDate="2019-12-11T12:40:26.233" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27296" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27293" CreationDate="2019-12-11T15:44:10.100" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The initial way you gave is the overwhelming favorite way to get to that in the Mega Database. Out of the 72 games, that move order occurred 59 times (three times, white played Nf3, and only after did Nc3 Qd8 get played).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The other 13 times, saw Nd5; Bc4 Nc6 as in the game below. That game was the only one that had an ECO code of B02 somehow, with the rest all being B01.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once, instead of taking Kxf7, black played Kd7.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [Event &quot;FIN-ch U18&quot;]&#xA; [Site &quot;Finland&quot;]&#xA; [Date &quot;1989.??.??&quot;]&#xA; [Round &quot;?&quot;]&#xA; [White &quot;Koskela, Niina&quot;]&#xA; [Black &quot;Kosonen, Marko&quot;]&#xA; [Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA; [ECO &quot;B02&quot;]&#xA; [PlyCount &quot;39&quot;]&#xA; [EventDate &quot;1989.??.??&quot;]&#xA; [EventRounds &quot;7&quot;]&#xA; [EventCountry &quot;FIN&quot;]&#xA; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. e4 d5 2. exd5 Nf6 3. Nc3 Nxd5 4. Nf3 Bg4 5. Bc4 Nf6 6. Bxf7+ Kxf7 7. Ne5+ Kg8 8. Nxg4 Nc6 9. d3 Qd7 10. Nxf6+ exf6 11. O-O Kf7 12. Bf4 h5 13. h4 Be7 14. Ne4 Rag8 15. c3 Ke8 16. Re1 Kd8 17. d4 g5 18. hxg5 fxg5 19. Bh2 Rg6 20. d5 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The one game with Kd7.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [Event &quot;NOR-chT&quot;]&#xA; [Site &quot;Karasjok&quot;]&#xA; [Date &quot;2008.01.11&quot;]&#xA; [Round &quot;1.3&quot;]&#xA; [White &quot;Takle, Dan&quot;]&#xA; [Black &quot;Lanes, Mikal&quot;]&#xA; [Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA; [ECO &quot;B01&quot;]&#xA; [WhiteElo &quot;2220&quot;]&#xA; [BlackElo &quot;1249&quot;]&#xA; [PlyCount &quot;23&quot;]&#xA; [EventDate &quot;2008.01.11&quot;]&#xA; [EventType &quot;team-tourn&quot;]&#xA; [EventRounds &quot;5&quot;]&#xA; [EventCountry &quot;NOR&quot;]&#xA; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. e4 d5 2. exd5 Qxd5 3. Nc3 Qd8 4. Bc4 Nf6 5. Nf3 Bg4 6. Bxf7+ Kd7 7. Ne5+ Kc8 8. Nxg4 Nbd7 9. d4 c6 10. O-O Nb6 11. Be6+ Nbd7 12. Ne5 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2019-12-11T15:44:10.100" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27299" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17541" CreationDate="2019-12-11T23:10:15.410" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Three examples listed by James Eade in &lt;em&gt;Chess for Dummies&lt;/em&gt; (&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/the-worst-losers-in-chess-history&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;excerpt here&lt;/a&gt;):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Alexander Alekhine once resigned a game by picking up his king and hurling it across the room. (This incident is also mentioned by &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesshistory.com/winter//extra/violence.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Edward Winter&lt;/a&gt;.)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Aron Nimzowitsch once lost a game which cost him first place in the tournament, and apparently got up on a table and shouted: &quot;Why must I lose to this idiot?&quot; The game is &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1007226&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;, you can see various remarks about it in the comments section.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;An unnamed Danish player once lost his queen after a finger slip. That night, he slipped back into the tournament hall and cut the heads off all the queens.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastActivityDate="2019-12-11T23:10:15.410" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27300" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17541" CreationDate="2019-12-11T23:23:55.253" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In a game I was personally playing in, my opponent was a first-time tournament attendee.  It was an early round and I would say the position on the board was about equal.  But my opponent made a blunder that left him open to a mate-in-one, which I found.  He got angry, and used his arm to sweep the pieces off the board, on to the floor.  Then he stormed out of the tournament hall.  He did not come back for the next round, I don't think he ever played another tournament game again.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've seen (as a spectator) a well known local player in our city get upset with himself during a game because he blundered in a good position - he picked up the clock and threw it hard against a wall, breaking it.  Fortunately (sort of...), it was his own clock.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7147" LastEditorUserId="7147" LastEditDate="2019-12-12T17:54:01.470" LastActivityDate="2019-12-12T17:54:01.470" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27301" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28473" CreationDate="2019-12-11T23:47:47.497" Score="3" ViewCount="990" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the maximum number of moves away from checkmate that a player can be where checkmate is guaranteed? There are many positions that are a guaranteed win for a player if played perfectly, right? (Obviously there is not a guaranteed win from the first move). My question is: &lt;em&gt;What is the furthest amount of moves one can be from guaranteed checkmate, when the shortest amount of moves to checkmate is taken?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's assume you are white and have, say, a bishop and a knight left and black is down to just the king. (there is a way to get checkmate with a bishop a knight, so checkmate is assumed to be &lt;em&gt;guaranteed&lt;/em&gt;). Now, one set of moves could take say 40 moves to get checkmate from this point, but the least number is say 19 moves away. Now, my question is asking what the most amount of moves to guaranteed checkmate is, but you have to take the route to checkmate that has the least amount of moves, so 19 would be the case &lt;em&gt;from the point where the bishop and knight are the only pieces other than the kings left&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I apologize for the lengthiness of this question, I couldn’t think of a good way to ask what I’m asking. This question derived from wondering if black or white could win every time from the first move but obviously that isn’t the case. The main question is at the end of my first paragraph.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: 50 moves without a pawn push or a capture does not trigger a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20742" LastEditorUserId="26425" LastEditDate="2021-02-03T09:15:01.020" LastActivityDate="2021-05-06T08:20:23.437" Title="What is the farthest away a game can be from a guaranteed checkmate?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;records&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="8" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27302" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27301" CreationDate="2019-12-12T00:10:39.750" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;I doubt that anyone will be able to give you a definitive answer beyond this one, but the longest known win from the end of a game is a famous 549-move 7-piece tablebase win. Until we get to 8-piece tablebases, this is probably the longest anyone can prove.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can see that position, and all 549 moves &lt;a href=&quot;http://tb7.chessok.com/probe/3/61&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2019-12-12T00:10:39.750" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27303" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27304" CreationDate="2019-12-12T05:10:52.810" Score="3" ViewCount="203" Body="&lt;p&gt;I had been playing mostly on chess.com. Recently I moved to Shanghai, and chess.com is really unstable here. I had numerous abandoned games due to disconnection, and I can check that my internet is ok during the disconnection countdown. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe due to internet censorship? But surely a chess site can't be sensitive...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could players in mainland China recommend a more reliable site please?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7002" LastActivityDate="2019-12-12T07:54:48.023" Title="Which chess server is most stable in mainland China?" Tags="&lt;online-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27304" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27303" CreationDate="2019-12-12T07:54:48.023" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I suspect it is more about your Internet connection than which chess server you are connecting to.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was watching the recent Nakamura-Duda quarter final in the speed chess championship, and Nakamura, who is known to have a great connection, was playing from a hotel somewhere but had connection issues, and lost a game. He continued virtually the whole match with no video feed due to this. The only thing that changed was his connection. Other Chinese players in the tournament have also had problems.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many places are famous for their bad Internet, and that is the likely culprit, not the server you are connecting to.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That said, with a bad connection, the Internet Chess Club, and its predecessor, the Free Internet Chess Server, both use protocols that are require very little bandwidth to have a decent connection. I doubt there are any servers that require less as they are UNIX-based, and were started at a time when bandwidth was nothing compared to today.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2019-12-12T07:54:48.023" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27305" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27308" CreationDate="2019-12-12T09:38:16.327" Score="13" ViewCount="3071" Body="&lt;p&gt;The celebrated British mathematician and lover of public transport, Simon Norton, was one of those who passed in 2019. He was the subject of a wonderful &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/aug/24/genius-in-my-basement-review&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;biography&lt;/a&gt; and one of my favourite human beings: an amazing and innocent man. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He was not a particular fan of chess, but here is a tiny gem due to him. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;How many ways are there to arrange 5 knights on a 5x5 toroidal chessboard so that &lt;a href=&quot;http://mathworld.wolfram.com/KnightsProblem.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;none of them attack one another&lt;/a&gt;?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;“Toroidal” means the board has no edges. You can leave on the left and just appear in the board on the right. You can leave at the top and just appear at the bottom. And vice versa.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT:&lt;/strong&gt; Jörg P. has totally nailed it, so I have to give him the green tick. But his solution doesn't give any insight as to &lt;em&gt;why&lt;/em&gt; the number is what it is. So I guess that's a bonus question: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Bonus question:&lt;/strong&gt; why do you get this number &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/27308/3594&quot;&gt;(120)&lt;/a&gt;? &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8201" LastEditorUserId="8201" LastEditDate="2019-12-13T00:31:26.650" LastActivityDate="2020-07-17T06:15:56.740" Title="Arrange 5 non-attacking knights on a 5x5 toroidal board" Tags="&lt;problems&gt;&lt;knights&gt;&lt;mathematics&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="9" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27306" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27239" CreationDate="2019-12-12T12:16:06.810" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a rough estimate, I've once seen the definition that the endgames begins when each side's pieces has a strength of 13 or less (counting 9 for queen, 5 for rook, 3 for bishop/knight and ignoring pawns) Can't remember the source, though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The opening is often said to end when all of the pieces are developped, but it's not always so clear. You may want to alow one piece to stay on its starting square and call it the middlegame already&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastActivityDate="2019-12-12T12:16:06.810" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27307" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27324" CreationDate="2019-12-12T14:30:20.470" Score="3" ViewCount="123" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have been running the chess club at the local high school, which I graduated from 40 years ago. As part of it, I have been giving free lessons.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have had several problems, and I am looking for suggestions on how to overcome them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;There are very different levels of strength. We had a core group, but recently, an entire sports team started showing up. They decided to stay, and play, while they wait for their practice to start. They are much weaker than the rest, but they still enjoy it. Interest in the lessons within this group is mixed.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Some kids miss meetings, so when they come back, they have missed a lesson. If this were an actual academic class, I could have them make it up, but that does not work so well when you are trying to keep it fun. That said, they get behind, and I don't want to move on without them.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;New kids show up, and have missed everything.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Lastly, the time is limited to about 1:45 each Friday.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have some ideas, but I thought I would get some from you before I mention them. The core group really has some interest, and have been enjoying learning more about the game. We might like to eventually form a team.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2019-12-27T19:31:02.317" Title="Ideas for giving chess lessons at school for differing levels of playing strength?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;teaching&gt;&lt;team&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27308" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27305" CreationDate="2019-12-12T15:11:32.217" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is my answer :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Spoiler alert: Answer is in a comment in the last line of the code block&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;using System;&#xA;&#xA;namespace Toroidal5Knights&#xA;{&#xA;    class Program&#xA;    {&#xA;        static int solution = 0;&#xA;        static bool[,] board = new bool[5, 5];&#xA;&#xA;        static int[] dx = { -1, 1, 2, 2, 1, -1, -2, -2 };&#xA;        static int[] dy = { -2, -2, -1, 1, 2, 2, 1, -1 };&#xA;&#xA;        static int Wrap(int position)&#xA;        {&#xA;            if (position &amp;gt;= 5) return position - 5;&#xA;            if (position &amp;lt; 0) return position + 5;&#xA;            return position;&#xA;        }&#xA;        static bool PlacePossible(int posX, int posY)&#xA;        {&#xA;            for (int i = 0; i &amp;lt; dx.Length; ++i)&#xA;            {&#xA;                if (board[Wrap(posX + dx[i]), Wrap(posY + dy[i])]) return false;&#xA;            }&#xA;            return true;&#xA;        }&#xA;        static void SolveFiveKnights(int posX, int posY)&#xA;        {&#xA;            if (posY &amp;gt;= 5)&#xA;            {&#xA;                if (IsSolution())&#xA;                {&#xA;                    PrintSolution();&#xA;                    solution++;&#xA;                }&#xA;                return;&#xA;            }&#xA;            if (posX &amp;gt;= 5)&#xA;            {&#xA;                SolveFiveKnights(0, posY + 1);&#xA;                return;&#xA;            }&#xA;&#xA;            if (PlacePossible(posX, posY))&#xA;            {&#xA;                board[posX, posY] = true;&#xA;                SolveFiveKnights(posX + 1, posY);&#xA;                board[posX, posY] = false;&#xA;            }&#xA;            SolveFiveKnights(posX + 1, posY);&#xA;            return;&#xA;        }&#xA;        static bool IsSolution()&#xA;        {&#xA;            int count = 0;&#xA;            for (int i = 0; i &amp;lt; 5; ++i)&#xA;            {&#xA;                for (int j = 0; j &amp;lt; 5; ++j)&#xA;                {&#xA;                    if (board[i, j]) count++;&#xA;                }&#xA;            }&#xA;            return count == 5;&#xA;        }&#xA;        static void PrintSolution()&#xA;        {&#xA;            Console.WriteLine(&quot;~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~&quot;);&#xA;            for (int i = 0; i &amp;lt; 5; ++i)&#xA;            { &#xA;                for (int j = 0; j &amp;lt; 5; ++j)&#xA;                {&#xA;                    if (board[i, j])&#xA;                    {&#xA;                        Console.Write(1);&#xA;                    }&#xA;                    else&#xA;                    {&#xA;                        Console.Write(0);&#xA;                    }&#xA;                }&#xA;                Console.WriteLine();&#xA;            }&#xA;            Console.WriteLine(&quot;~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~&quot;);&#xA;        }&#xA;        static void Main(string[] args)&#xA;        {&#xA;            SolveFiveKnights(0, 0);&#xA;            Console.WriteLine(solution);&#xA;        }&#xA;    }&#xA;}&#xA;// So the number of solutions is 120.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20838" LastEditorUserId="20838" LastEditDate="2019-12-12T15:16:08.673" LastActivityDate="2019-12-12T15:16:08.673" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27310" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27305" CreationDate="2019-12-12T18:54:54.040" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are essentially six solutions that are rotationally and translationally unique.  Two of them yield five translations and five more rotated translations each, for a total of twenty:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;NNNNN&#xA;.....&#xA;.....&#xA;.....&#xA;.....&#xA;&#xA;N....&#xA;.N...&#xA;..N..&#xA;...N.&#xA;....N&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The remaining four unique solutions can be translated to each of the 25 positions on the board, but are rotationally symmetric, giving a combination of 100 solutions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;..N..&#xA;.....&#xA;N.N.N&#xA;.....&#xA;..N..&#xA;&#xA;.....&#xA;..N..&#xA;.NNN.&#xA;..N..&#xA;.....&#xA;&#xA;N...N&#xA;.....&#xA;..N..&#xA;.....&#xA;N...N&#xA;&#xA;.....&#xA;.N.N.&#xA;..N..&#xA;.N.N.&#xA;.....&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This yields the total of 120 solutions found by @JörgP.'s program.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19281" LastEditorUserId="19281" LastEditDate="2019-12-13T00:30:48.687" LastActivityDate="2019-12-13T00:30:48.687" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27311" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27305" CreationDate="2019-12-12T18:55:32.933" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;Label the squares with two-number labels as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;4,2 0,3 1,4 2,0 3,1&#xA;1,0 2,1 3,2 4,3 0,4&#xA;3,3 4,4 0,0 1,1 2,2&#xA;0,1 1,2 2,3 3,4 4,0&#xA;2,4 3,0 4,1 0,2 1,3&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then two knights may occupy two squares x,y and X,Y iff those squares' first numbers x and X are different and their second numbers y and Y are different.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Regard these numbers as modulo 5. Then the two-times table is as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA; y 0 1 2 3 4&#xA;2y 0 2 4 1 3&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So if y and Y are different, so also are 2y and 2Y.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If we have a solution, then what happens if we move each knight from x,y to x,2y? The knights' x's were all different from each other, and each x remained the same, so they remain all different from each other. Their y's were all different from each other, and different y's are still different after they get doubled, so they remain all different from each other. So the result is a solution.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What does this doubling of the y's correspond to on the board? Magnifying it by a factor of sqrt(2) linearly, and turning it 135 degrees clockwise. Having magnified a solution once, we may magnify a second time (two magnifications double the solution linearly and turn it through 90 degrees) and a third, but a fourth magnification results in the original again.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We may start with this solution&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;. . . . .&#xA;. . n . .&#xA;. n n n .&#xA;. . n . .&#xA;. . . . .&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and magnify it 0, 1, 2 or 3 times, yielding a total of 4 solutions. In each case, the rows can be be cyclically permuted in any of 5 ways, as can the columns, to yield 25 cyclic permutations of each of these 4 solutions, for a total of 100.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In addition we have the following solution&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;. . . . .     &#xA;. . . . .     &#xA;n n n n n     &#xA;. . . . .     &#xA;. . . . .     &#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This, too, may be magnified 0, 1, 2 or 3 times, yielding a total of 4 solutions. Each of these 4 solutions has only 5 cyclic permutations, for a total of 20 cyclic permutations from these 4 solutions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This makes a grand total of 100 + 20 = 120.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As Jörg P. has shown, there are no more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10380" LastEditorUserId="8201" LastEditDate="2019-12-14T05:48:32.880" LastActivityDate="2019-12-14T05:48:32.880" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27312" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17541" CreationDate="2019-12-12T20:12:57.443" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Being rated, 1700 I played against a 1880 and he lost essential material. He shot down all the pieces and they fell on the floor. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We were playing om four boards, it was a club match, and my club partners and opponents were amazed because of the noise. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After that, we were winning the match 2-1. It was last round and we were virtually classified for next league, while the club of this guy was not going to promote to next league because they needed to beat us at the match.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The last game ended on a blunder of the player of the club of my angry opponent, so we won 3-1, classifying ourselves. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He started to shout to his club partner: &quot;How can you play that?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I felt a lot of embarrassment. He had the eyes &#xA;flushed. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I go to tournaments for fun and because chess is good for my brain; I don't understand why some people take an amateur sport so seriously.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user18196" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T16:48:22.417" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T16:48:22.417" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27313" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17541" CreationDate="2019-12-12T22:10:06.750" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Trash talking during a game and calling the opponent fish or patzer.  Usually only seen during casual games with relatively fast time controls.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have seen it with IMs and GMs doing it , usually I think in 'fun' without an evil intent, but sometimes it is definitely meant to win unfairly especially when they  have money on the game. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastActivityDate="2019-12-12T22:10:06.750" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27314" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27305" CreationDate="2019-12-12T22:33:56.213" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;I noticed a simplification of @RosieF's solution:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Label the squares with two-number labels as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;4,2 0,3 1,4 2,0 3,1&#xA;1,0 2,1 3,2 4,3 0,4&#xA;3,3 4,4 0,0 1,1 2,2&#xA;0,1 1,2 2,3 3,4 4,0&#xA;2,4 3,0 4,1 0,2 1,3&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Then two knights may occupy two squares x,y&#xA;  and X,Y iff those squares' first numbers x and X are different and&#xA;  their second numbers y and Y are different.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since there are 5 knights and only 5 different numbers in each direction, that means that every x-value must be occupied by a knight, and each of the possible y-values must be assigned to one of those knights.  If we sort the knights' coordinates by their x-value, then list only the y-value, then we wind up with some permutation of the numbers from 0 to 4.  Every valid placement of the knights produces a permutation of the numbers 0-4, and every permutation of those numbers corresponds to a valid arrangement of the knights.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The total number of valid arrangements of the knights is thus 5!, or 120.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2944" LastActivityDate="2019-12-12T22:33:56.213" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27315" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27305" CreationDate="2019-12-13T04:28:47.330" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;(EDIT: substantially revised because I hadn't thought carefully enough about Rosie F's labeling. The result is even cooler!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks for all the great answers. I would like to add my own solution.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's key to label squares in the torus, as Rosie F and Brilliand did:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;4,2 0,3 1,4 2,0 3,1&#xA;1,0 2,1 3,2 4,3 0,4&#xA;3,3 4,4 0,0 1,1 2,2&#xA;0,1 1,2 2,3 3,4 4,0&#xA;2,4 3,0 4,1 0,2 1,3&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But we can do more than just label the squares: we can view the labeling as a map (transformation) from the torus to itself!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Suppose we fix the centre cell 0,0 as an origin (and relabel 3 &amp;amp; 4 to -2 &amp;amp; -1 respectively). Let's track what happens to the straight lines under the labeling map. There are 6 straight lines each of 4 cells running through this origin. 6x4+1 = 25: check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The lines come in 3 pairs:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;vertical &amp;amp; horizontal for rooks&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;dexter &amp;amp; sinister for bishops (terminology from heraldry: maybe related to the line through which a right-handed swordsman would commonly sweep his sword?)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;left-turn &amp;amp; right-turn for knights (knight moves forward 2, then turns left or right)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Labelings are completely determined by two values: e.g. where to place 1,0 &amp;amp; 0,1, and we build up everything from there linearly. In particular, Rosie F started with:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;1,0 -&gt; -2,1 &#xA;0,1 -&gt; -2,-1&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This maps both the rook lines to knight lines. Now adding/subtracting these gives:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;1,1 -&gt; 1,0&#xA;1,-1 -&gt; 0,2&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So we are mapping bishop lines to rook lines. And adding another dose of &amp;quot;rook&amp;quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;2,1 -&gt; -1,1&#xA;1,2 -&gt; -1,-1&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And hence we are also mapping knight lines to bishop lines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since R-&amp;gt;N-&amp;gt;B-&amp;gt;R, we can view knights and bishops as just being rooks in other frames of reference. The number of ways to arrange 5 non-attacking rooks is obviously 5!, so the same must be true for 5 non-attacking knights - and &lt;strong&gt;also true for 5 non-attacking bishops&lt;/strong&gt;!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are 480 possible labelings (known to their close friends as GL(2,5)). Each gives a frame of reference from which to view the antics of chess pieces. From some, e.g. bishop lines are fixed, while knights and rooks are swapped (e.g. 1,0-&amp;gt;-2,-1 &amp;amp; 0,1-&amp;gt;1,-2). Others are much more alien, and pieces behave like chimerae (e.g. a combination of vertical rook and dexter bishop). It follows that even for these weird &amp;quot;half-man-half-biscuit&amp;quot; pieces, the number of ways that 5 can appear is exactly 120.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: generalize to larger boards&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What happens if we generalize to different size boards? Let's say we have a pxp toroidal board, where p is an odd prime (in order to avoid division issues). Then through any point Z there are p+1 lines (with gradients 0,1,...,p-1 and infinity. Each line contains p points, including Z. Check: (p-1)(p+1) + 1 = p^2 ok&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any non-singular 2x2 matrix will map the points A (1,0) &amp;amp; B (0,1) to any two points C, D which are not collinear with O (0,0). But this defines a mapping from the lines including OA &amp;amp; OB to the lines including OC &amp;amp; OD, if we ignore the precise points mapped to.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Doing some counting, there are (p^-1)(p^-2p) non-singular matrices and any pair of lines through the origin are mapped to any other pair of lines by (p-1)^2 matrices. There are thus (p-1)p line-to-line mappings, which is what you would expect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In larger boards, knights will not have a role, as they are &amp;quot;local&amp;quot; in action and can only access 8 squares. But nightriders are relevant to consider. Their lines are not as symmetric as rooks or bishops: a nightrider accesses twice as many lines, or twice as many squares. We would have to compare the left-nightrider and the right-nightrider with rook and bishop to have pieces of equivalent power.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If p=7, then there are 8 lines through any point: rook, bishop and nightrider cover them all. If p=11, then we get 4 more lines due to a unit we can call camelrider. (If a knight's move is (2,1) then a camel's is (3,1).)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/LPSsu.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/LPSsu.png&quot; alt=&quot;Examples for p=5,7,11&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8201" LastEditorUserId="8201" LastEditDate="2020-07-17T06:15:56.740" LastActivityDate="2020-07-17T06:15:56.740" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27316" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27318" CreationDate="2019-12-13T08:41:11.813" Score="4" ViewCount="149" Body="&lt;p&gt;From various sources (some of which I have mentioned below) I have heard Vishy Anand's 27th move in game 9 of 1995 world chess championship match against Gary Kasparov , which was an exchange sacrifice is considered to be one of his greatest moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/GDYNC.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/GDYNC.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Link to the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1018624&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;game&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Kasparov accepted the sacrifice, but had to resign game  8 moves later.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Obviously due to my incompetence, I fail to see the merit of the move.&#xA;I checked with engines, neither stockfish is recommending the move nor engine is giving any significant improvement in evaluation of the position in favour of white after the move compared to before the move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are the merits of this move?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What improvements does this move bring for white?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sources:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Anand's new book &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.amazon.in/dp/9351951502&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Mind Master&lt;/a&gt;&quot; mentions this game and the move. (I have not read book)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Chessbase India has a series of YouTube videos asking different top grandmasters to guess some of Anand's famous moves by showing the position.&#xA;This game and position is featured there in the videos.&#xA;Link to Magnus Carlsen's video is &lt;a href=&quot;https://youtu.be/acVvkz4MsKc&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; and this position is discussed around time 1:10&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Popular Chess YouTube channel of Agadmator covers this &lt;a href=&quot;https://youtu.be/AkkmT4sJ47A&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;game&lt;/a&gt; and infact this position is the thumbnail of the video. But still don't explain why this move is important or how it improves things for white. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18273" LastEditorUserId="18273" LastEditDate="2019-12-18T09:30:04.220" LastActivityDate="2019-12-18T09:30:04.220" Title="What are the merits of Anand's exchange sacrifice in game 9 of 1995 World Chess Championship?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;sacrifice&gt;&lt;anand&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27317" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27342" CreationDate="2019-12-13T08:57:09.840" Score="3" ViewCount="114" Body="&lt;p&gt;Do transposition databases exist the way tablebases do? Would an engine be able to take advantage of a pre-calculated TD? Is there a benefit to players when studying if they had access to pre-calculated positions?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What I am imagining is a sort of Wikipedia for chess positions. Rather than focusing on perfect endgames or history of play, the emphasis would be on the position itself rather than the moves leading up to it. Users would then “kibitz” the individual positions, with popular ones rising to the top based on visits or appearance in games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does something like this already exist? I’m aware this is similar to some of the features of “Let’s Check” from Chessbase. I’m thinking open, like tablebases are.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And on that note, are there any proprietary table bases?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20341" LastActivityDate="2019-12-13T23:12:02.533" Title="Are there any sources of massive transposition tables?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;database&gt;&lt;transpositions&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27318" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27316" CreationDate="2019-12-13T10:48:50.297" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, the obvious answer is that taking it leaves white with two connected passers (possibly after a future a6). That is incredibly strong since they control so many central squares, and threaten to advance strongly at any moment. This keeps the opponent tied down, and constantly worried about their advance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I once saw Joel Benjamin sac a whole piece just for connected passers on the 5th. I think it was at the 1985 World open versus Sandeep Joshi, a prodigy at the time. It has been a long time, but they were so strong, i don't think that he never moved them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Frankly, the other point behind it is that white is going to double rooks. Kasparov was wrong, at least practically, to take. In his notes to the game, Anand give Nxd5 two question marks, and recommends waiting with 27...h5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2019-12-13T11:46:32.690" LastActivityDate="2019-12-13T11:46:32.690" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27319" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27320" CreationDate="2019-12-13T12:51:05.237" Score="4" ViewCount="143" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Capablanca's &quot;Chess Fundamentals&quot; this symmetrical oppening is considerd.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Bb5 Bb4 5.O-O O-O 6.d3 d6 7.Bg5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The author then claims that a long analysis shows that black is forced to 7...Bxc3 since otherwise 8.Nd5 is winning for white. Where can I find this analysis? My engine doesn't seem to find the winning moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20794" LastActivityDate="2019-12-13T15:09:50.447" Title="Symmetrical opening" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;1.e4&gt;&lt;capablanca&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27320" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27319" CreationDate="2019-12-13T13:26:01.223" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, the great Capablanca aside, Bc3 is not forced at all. It is considered the slightly preferred move by Stockfish 10 on my computer, which is fairly strong. In the Mega 2019 database, it occurs 1788 times, and has a winning percentage for white of 54.5%.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Almost equal per the computer (both eval at 0.00, but initially 7...Bc3 is a little better for black at -.07, but then it levels out), and the second most common move per Mega 2019, is 7...Ne7. It actually wins only 47.7% of the time for white but with a much stronger average level of competition at 2271-2288 (these are the average ratings for white and black in that line) compared to 2200-2177 for Bc3. This means that it may actually be a better practical continuation for black. Further study would be required actually examining the games, and deciding what it best for you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other alternatives for black at move 7 seem to be much worse.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lastly, you have to realize that the book was originally written in 1921, so a lot has changed in 99 years (OK, 99 years next month, but he probably did not write it all in December), and overall chess understanding has improved exponentially in that time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, I believe that he might have been influenced by some traps that were well-known then where black continues to try to copy white:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. Bb5 Bb4 5. O-O O-O 6. d3 d6 7. Bg5 Bg4 8. Bxf6 gxf6 (8... Qxf6 9. Nd5 Qd8 {Other moves are no better} 10. Bxc6 bxc6 11. Nxb4 a5 12. Nxc6 Qe8 13. Ncxe5 dxe5 14. h3 $18) 9. Bxc6 bxc6 10. h3 $16 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is another similar copying trap that may have also been on his mind, although it is from a slightly different variation with the bishops on c4 and c5, but it is fun to see. After 11Ne7+, black can no longer copy, and is done!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. Bc4 Bc5 5. d3 d6 6. O-O O-O 7. Bg5 Bg4 8. Nd5 Nd4 9. Qd2 Qd7 10. Bxf6 Bxf3 11. Ne7+ {black can no longer copy} Kh8 12. Bxg7+ Kxg7 13. Qg5+ Kh8 14. Qf6#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These four knights games were more common then, but the teeth have been taken out of them over the many years since.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2019-12-13T15:09:50.447" LastActivityDate="2019-12-13T15:09:50.447" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27321" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-12-13T16:04:14.423" Score="4" ViewCount="151" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[title &quot;Portisch-Radulov, Moscow 1977&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;2r2rk1/pb1n1ppp/1ppqp3/8/2PPQ3/1P3NP1/P4PBP/R2R2K1 w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Doesn't 16.c5 just lose a pawn?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user20848" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-12-13T17:39:14.367" LastActivityDate="2019-12-13T17:39:14.367" Title="Portisch-Radulov, Moscow 1977. Doesn't 16.c5 lose a pawn?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27322" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27321" CreationDate="2019-12-13T16:05:43.230" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The short answer is “no” due to the tactics after 16. c5 bxc5 17. dxc5 Nxc5? 18. Qb4 Qe7 19. Rdc1 winning the piece. This is a famous combination from some books I have read.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The position is really a lot deeper than just that tactic, and it is worth mentioning that great move, and why Portisch played it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, even though not all of this came to fruition, Portisch probably thought about a lot of this. c5 did the following things:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It deadened the Bb7 on the more important h1-a8 diagonal. It might still have found a home on the f1-a6 diagonal, but there it would not be anywhere near as effective on that diagonal since there was nothing to attack there. It made it a partially bad bishop. Later, on move 25, Portisch also made the great decision to trade on d5, leaving a good N vs. bad B. That affected the game to the end when he finished with a pretty combination.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although black will get control of d5 with Nf6-d5, with tempo even due to the Qe4, the d6 square looks like a very nice spot for the Nf3-d2-c4-d6. It might take four moves to get there, but it would have been very powerful on that square. It turns out that how the game played out, Portisch preferred to put the Nf3 on e5, where it still was intolerable, and kept black tied to c6. Note that, as Fischer said, you have to give squares to get squares; but I will add that if they are for knight outposts, usually it is a good trade if your knight outpost is much deeper in the opponent’s territory that his is in yours. So, giving up d5, which is not even on your side of the board, in exchange for an outpost on e5 or d6, it is a good trade in most cases. It can really divide the board for your opponent when it is posted that deeply on the other side of the board. As it turned out, black felt forced to weaken his king-side and dark squares further with f6 because the Ne5 was so well-placed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [Event &quot;EU Team-ch06 Final&quot;]&#xA; [Site &quot;Moscow&quot;]&#xA; [Date &quot;1977.04.??&quot;]&#xA; [Round &quot;6.1&quot;]&#xA; [White &quot;Portisch, Lajos&quot;]&#xA; [Black &quot;Radulov, Ivan&quot;]&#xA; [Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA; [ECO &quot;E08&quot;]&#xA; [WhiteElo &quot;2625&quot;]&#xA; [BlackElo &quot;2500&quot;]&#xA; [PlyCount &quot;79&quot;]&#xA; [EventDate &quot;1977.04.13&quot;]&#xA; [EventType &quot;team-tourn&quot;]&#xA; [EventRounds &quot;7&quot;]&#xA; [EventCountry &quot;URS&quot;]&#xA; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. Nf3 Nf6 2. g3 e6 3. Bg2 Be7 4. O-O O-O 5. c4 d5 6. d4 c6 7. Qc2 b6 8. Rd1 Nbd7 9. b3 Bb7 10. Nc3 Rc8 11. e4 dxe4 12. Nxe4 Nxe4 13. Qxe4 Qc7 14. Bf4 Bd6 15. Bxd6 Qxd6 16. c5 Qe7 (16... bxc5? 17. dxc5 Nxc5? {This makes it worse} 18. Qb4 Qe7 19. Rdc1 $18) 17. b4 Rfd8 18. Qc2 Nf6 19.Ne5 Nd5 20. a3 b5 21. Be4 g6 22. h4 a5 23. bxa5 Ra8 24. a4 b4 25. Bxd5 Rxd5 26. Rab1 f6 27. Ng4 Rad8 28. Rxb4 Bc8 29. Ne3 R5d7 30. Rb8 e5 31. d5 cxd5 32. c6 Rd6 33. c7 Rf8 34. Rxd5 f5 35. Qc5 Re6 36. Qxe7 Rxe7 37. Rxc8 Rxc8 38. Rd8+ Re8 39. Rxe8+ Rxe8 40. Nd5 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2019-12-13T16:47:43.600" LastActivityDate="2019-12-13T16:47:43.600" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27323" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19571" CreationDate="2019-12-13T17:47:57.790" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;No.  Q+N  can run rings around two rooks, especially passive ones like yours will be protecting , or trying to protect, your pawns. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastActivityDate="2019-12-13T17:47:57.790" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27324" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27307" CreationDate="2019-12-13T18:28:08.360" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You could record your lessons for class consumption. This would be useful for students who miss lessons. Please make sure if it's legal to record group lessons in your school though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9423" LastEditorUserId="9423" LastEditDate="2019-12-13T23:21:21.000" LastActivityDate="2019-12-13T23:21:21.000" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27325" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27307" CreationDate="2019-12-13T18:55:57.590" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess website at school summarizing lessons along with other school related chess info.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Point to chess websites for more that they can use especially if they missed.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Advanced kids play while you help newer ones catch up.  What do you do with that much time anyway?  They want to play not hear lectures.&#xA;Go to each game and give pointers as appropriate to specific players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Rotate openings, tactics, mates, end games,  other topics.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess is not so much  like math where everything builds so neatly on the other stiff so you do not really get behind except in the sense that you have already done more and so have moved forward.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Have a range of problems from easy to hard each time,  so that everybody can do some and learn some each session.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;End the semester or year with a tournament.  Swiss style.  Analyze the games and see what they need to learn most next semester/year.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastActivityDate="2019-12-13T18:55:57.590" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27326" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-12-13T19:07:13.023" Score="1" ViewCount="109" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;White to move&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;5r2/5q1k/6pp/1p2P3/1P2p2P/6RK/3Q1P2/8 w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can’t seem to win here, no matter what I do. Is the position really that bad for me as White?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20604" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-12-13T21:01:55.397" LastActivityDate="2019-12-14T13:47:31.050" Title="Winning as white is a struggle!" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27327" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27350" CreationDate="2019-12-13T20:03:53.387" Score="5" ViewCount="347" Body="&lt;p&gt;As title above states, what was/were the first &quot;Opening Repertoire&quot; book/s? I remember that opening books of the 1970s and early 1980s weren't actually repertoires for White or Black, but treatises on the various openings and defences. Now the concept of &quot;opening repertoire&quot; is very popular. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-12-13T21:00:27.043" LastActivityDate="2019-12-14T17:09:07.143" Title="What was the first &quot;Opening Repertoire&quot; book?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;books&gt;&lt;repertoire&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27328" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-12-13T20:20:07.147" Score="2" ViewCount="78" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is a wasted tempo in the opening for Black with an early ...a6 or ...h6 really dangerous? For example, in the following opening:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 a6 (or 3...h6)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or in the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 a6 (or 3...h6)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or in the English Opening: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.c4 a6 (or 1...h6) &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And so on. Is Black's position really compromised, or can he afford to do that without much trouble? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-12-13T20:56:13.253" LastActivityDate="2019-12-14T00:16:32.083" Title="Is a wasted tempo with an early ...a6 or ...h6 by Black in the opening really compromising?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27329" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-12-13T20:27:57.593" Score="4" ViewCount="668" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've noticed that sometimes beginners play 1. e4 e6 2. d4 d6 as Black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e6 2. d4 d6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As strange as it may seem, I find it difficult to play vs this neglected defense. Is it better to increase central control with an early 3. c4 (neglecting piece development) or to follow-up with 3. Nc3? Then, assuming Black continues to neglect the center, would you follow-up with an early f2-f4, or would you prefer piece development with an early Nf3? Any ideas would be much appreciated. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-12-13T20:58:47.840" LastActivityDate="2019-12-14T00:26:17.840" Title="How to play vs the 1...e6 and 2...d6 Pawn structure?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27330" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27329" CreationDate="2019-12-13T20:47:44.550" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;By choosing these moves black is giving you a lot options, and you are free to choose what you prefer with a good game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most aggressive is probably &lt;code&gt;Nc3&lt;/code&gt; followed by &lt;code&gt;f4&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;Nf3&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;Bd3&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;0-0&lt;/code&gt;, and looking for attack on the king's side, with &lt;code&gt;f5&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt; depending on what black does.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But more positional approach with &lt;code&gt;c4&lt;/code&gt; is totally fine. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another alternative is to fianchetto the light squared bishop, and maybe eventually play f4. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just play the game that fits your style.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="307" LastActivityDate="2019-12-13T20:47:44.550" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27331" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27326" CreationDate="2019-12-13T21:30:04.640" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes.  It should be hard for white to win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Material is even.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;No obvious positional advantages. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why should you have an easy win?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black is threatening to win a pawn.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You are going to lose at least one pawn but might be able to get some counterplay to hold the draw.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why do you think white should win at all?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And yes, white's position is bad. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After Kg2 then black plays Qe7 and forks two pawns which should be hard to counter. After Rg2 black can check on f5 and win a pawn. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastEditorUserId="20776" LastEditDate="2019-12-13T22:16:14.103" LastActivityDate="2019-12-13T22:16:14.103" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27332" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27327" CreationDate="2019-12-13T21:34:17.623" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Practical Chess Openings had openings in the 50s &amp;amp; 60s like Modern Chess Openings had later, and others have now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I suspect there were some opening books that go back a lot further but they would have been more limited. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also recall a few, not many, books that specialised in a given opening.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-12-14T17:09:07.143" LastActivityDate="2019-12-14T17:09:07.143" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27334" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27328" CreationDate="2019-12-13T21:41:50.687" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;That early the answer is usually yes against a good player.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Don't know the level of your opponents, but not everybody can take advantage of those type moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In that English there is less risk it is wasted but still not one of the better moves.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastActivityDate="2019-12-13T21:41:50.687" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27335" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27326" CreationDate="2019-12-13T21:50:02.527" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The position is roughly equal. The problem for both sides, but it is a little worse for white, is king safety. That is the overwhelming positional factor here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Kg2 and Qd4 is the best plan for white here to counter the threat on f2. It is positionally mutually difficult to do anything since both queens and rooks must keep defending soft spots. Trying to do more, and you likely get mated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is a short sample line with notes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;5r2/5q1k/6pp/1p2P3/1P2p2P/6RK/3Q1P2/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;&#xA; 1. Kg2 {to defend f2} Qf5 {activating the queen a little} 2. Qd4 {also activating the queen a little, but keeping an eye on f2 at the same time} Rf7 3. Qb6 {keeping black thinking about the white queen taking on g6 and then mate} Kg7 {pass} 4. Kg1 {pass, and not much progress can be made.}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2019-12-13T21:50:02.527" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27336" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27329" CreationDate="2019-12-13T21:50:41.787" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Create a pawn center and develop your pieces.  A breakthrough should be easy when you have prepared for it.  I would play 3 f4 next then develop some pieces before more pawn moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One master wrote to have 4 pawns in these positions and you can always break through.  Black will be cramped so even if you have to sac a piece you can end up winning in the middle game as black will have rooks that are not both in play and the other pieces will be less useful too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastActivityDate="2019-12-13T21:50:41.787" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27337" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17858" CreationDate="2019-12-13T21:59:34.907" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;First have a good position. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Play positionally and get a position where the attack will work.  You can not just decide to go out and attack from the gitgo. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or else become a tactical genius and learn how to make complex sacrifices that will not sound offer chances to win.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your play was poor in the example. But black was not especially red hot either.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On 9 you should play NxB to double his pawns and get the two bishops.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On 5 you should play Qxd8 and win a pawn or else black cannot castle for some positional advantage.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T17:05:37.730" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T17:05:37.730" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27338" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27327" CreationDate="2019-12-13T22:11:03.480" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This might be the first one: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.amazon.co.uk/Opening-Repertoire-Attacking-Player-Chess/dp/0713431377&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&quot;Opening Repertoire for the Attacking Player&quot;&lt;/a&gt; by David Levy and GM Raymond Keene. It was first published in 1976.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is another in a similar format: &lt;a href=&quot;https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/0890580200&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&quot;The Chess Opening for You: A Complete System for White and Black&quot;&lt;/a&gt;. It was first published in 1975.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2019-12-13T22:11:03.480" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27339" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24470" CreationDate="2019-12-13T22:22:01.763" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;They were considered and rejected as so bad as to not be worth more effort. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastActivityDate="2019-12-13T22:22:01.763" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27340" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18418" CreationDate="2019-12-13T22:31:05.657" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have never lost against this and only a handful of people have tried it on me.  Straightforward development does the job very nicely.  Be patient and just play positionally and black will get a good game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nc6 protects the pawn.  Threatening Nf6 attacking the queen and gaining the initiative.  White could try Bc4 to get a mate but P-g3 stops that and white has a misplaced queen and trouble developing the king side horsey as well as it could have been. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastActivityDate="2019-12-13T22:31:05.657" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27341" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27327" CreationDate="2019-12-13T22:45:02.423" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recall reading My System by Nimzovich.  That must have predated the 1970ish books noted.  Assuming repertoire means what it seems to mean otherwise PCO would have been earlier than 1970ish. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It would appear to have been a series of booklets later put into the form of a single book circa 1930s. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I still suspect there were earlier books from Italy and europe. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastEditorUserId="20776" LastEditDate="2019-12-13T23:33:06.990" LastActivityDate="2019-12-13T23:33:06.990" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27342" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27317" CreationDate="2019-12-13T23:12:02.533" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;What you're talking about is basically opening books. If an engine has access to hard-set evaluations of common positions fairly early on in the game, then it can play better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But having a pre-made transposition table/database of positions occurring far after the opening isn't useful, since the chance of reaching any particular position late in the game is extremely low. Unless this position is part of theory, in which case it would be in an opening book.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-12-13T23:12:02.533" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27343" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9885" CreationDate="2019-12-13T23:39:21.190" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes.  You can use online info instead of books. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But you should focus on ONE opening.  Master it. You will need to know offshoots but you do not need to know every opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At only 1400s uscf I would suggest you focus on playing GM games with the openings you prefer.  Play every one you can find.  Get used to seeing what moves they make in the opening and what they did in the middle games.  Play enough of those and you will just instinctively know what a really good move is in your games. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are books with games from tournaments but they may not have the openings you want.  Do not get distracted playing over games with openings that you do not play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are a number of online databases with games and they are indexed.  Play everything you can find that is the opening you chose. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastActivityDate="2019-12-13T23:39:21.190" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27344" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24401" CreationDate="2019-12-13T23:46:41.503" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess is addictive.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes you can improve more by not playing online.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But your LIFE would improve even more than your chess if you gave it up or at least made it a very casual hobby instead of trying to improve your game more.  You will NOT be a GM.  I guarantee it.  And if you did, they are a dime a dozen these days.  So if you are not in the handful of top world players you will not make any money at chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;WHY are you playing chess at all?  Your list pretty much says chess is messing up your REAL LIFE.  If you are logical enough to play chess well you are logical enough to know you should stop playing. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, chess is addictive, so find some professional help to break that addiction. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;@user19048&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastActivityDate="2019-12-13T23:46:41.503" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27345" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27328" CreationDate="2019-12-14T00:16:32.083" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;At such an early stage, there is plenty of room for speculation, but the answer is that it can be dangerous in some positions, and not so dangerous in others. I will go into detail in a moment. The biggest drawback of playing those moves so early is that you are not yet sure if they will fit into, and if they will be useful (very important), as the position develops. A good rule of thumb is to play moves that you know you will need earlier, and then see what other moves fit in with your plan as the game has developed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the first position, you have a double-king-pawn opening, aka an open game. It is called an open game for a reason...because the position will be very open. Very open positions often rely on tactics and tempo, so losing a tempo on move three could easily evolve into a lost game by move 15. I would say in that position, it is the most dangerous.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the second and third positions, both are closed games, and thus, losing a tempo is not as likely to be fatal. Again, whether you can make a6 valuable in those positions, it is not clear. In either case, even if it does not lead to an immediate win, I would expect white to have a MUCH better chance at obtaining a solid +/- out of the opening, instead of the more typical +/= or =.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2019-12-14T00:16:32.083" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27346" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27329" CreationDate="2019-12-14T00:26:17.840" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The plan with Be3, f3, Qd2, g4 and h4 seems to be very strong. Obviously, not too many strong players play this as black, but here are a few games. I think the most important thing is to be patient, and develop reasonably, and only then, try to break through and attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is the highest-rated game in this opening, by far, in the Mega 2019 database.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [Event &quot;CZE-ch op&quot;]&#xA; [Site &quot;Plzen&quot;]&#xA; [Date &quot;1999.??.??&quot;]&#xA; [Round &quot;?&quot;]&#xA; [White &quot;Voloshin, Leonid&quot;]&#xA; [Black &quot;Novotny, Jiri&quot;]&#xA; [Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA; [ECO &quot;C01&quot;]&#xA; [WhiteElo &quot;2422&quot;]&#xA; [BlackElo &quot;2280&quot;]&#xA; [PlyCount &quot;61&quot;]&#xA; [EventDate &quot;1999.??.??&quot;]&#xA; [EventType &quot;swiss&quot;]&#xA; [EventRounds &quot;9&quot;]&#xA; [EventCountry &quot;CZE&quot;]&#xA; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. d4 d6 2. e4 e6 3. Be3 g6 4. Nc3 Ne7 5. Qd2 h6 6. f3 Bg7 7. O-O-O Nd7 8. g4 a6 9. h4 b5 10. Kb1 Bb7 11. Nce2 Nb6 12. Ng3 d5 13. exd5 Nc4 14. Qf2 c5 15. f4 Nxe3 16. Qxe3 cxd4 17. Qf2 Nc6 18. Nf3 Rc8 19. Bd3 Qa5 20. f5 Nb4 21. a3 Nxd3 22. Rxd3 Bf8 23. fxe6 fxe6 24. Nxd4 Be7 25. Nxe6 Rc4 26. Rf1 Rh7 27. Nf8 Rg7 28. Nxg6 Rxg4 29. Nxe7 Rxe7 30. Qf8+ Kd7 31. Qf5+ 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The level of competition goes way down quickly, but here is another good example that is textbook.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [Event &quot;POL-chT 2nd League&quot;]&#xA; [Site &quot;Wysowa&quot;]&#xA; [Date &quot;2003.09.13&quot;]&#xA; [Round &quot;10&quot;]&#xA; [White &quot;Nowak, Dominika&quot;]&#xA; [Black &quot;Milanowska, Agata&quot;]&#xA; [Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA; [ECO &quot;C01&quot;]&#xA; [WhiteElo &quot;2182&quot;]&#xA; [PlyCount &quot;47&quot;]&#xA; [EventDate &quot;2003.09.06&quot;]&#xA; [EventType &quot;team-swiss&quot;]&#xA; [EventRounds &quot;11&quot;]&#xA; [EventCountry &quot;POL&quot;]&#xA; [WhiteTeam &quot;Bytom Szombierki&quot;]&#xA; [BlackTeam &quot;Pawlowice GKS Pniowek 74&quot;]&#xA; [WhiteTeamCountry &quot;POL&quot;]&#xA; [BlackTeamCountry &quot;POL&quot;]&#xA; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. e4 e6 2. d4 d6 3. Be3 Nc6 4. Nc3 Nf6 5. f3 Be7 6. Qd2 O-O 7. g4 e5 8. d5 Nb4 9. a3 Na6 10. Nge2 b6 11. Ng3 Bb7 12. h4 Re8 13. g5 Nd7 14. Nf5 Bf8 15. h5 f6 16. g6 h6 17. Bh3 Bc8 18. Bxh6 gxh6 19. g7 Bxg7 20. Nxg7 Kxg7 21. Rg1+ Kf7 22. Qxh6 Rh8 23. Rg7+ Ke8 24. Qg6+ 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2019-12-14T00:26:17.840" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27348" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27327" CreationDate="2019-12-14T07:52:25.040" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;How to Think Ahead In Chess&quot; by I.A. Horowitz and Fred Reinfeld was published in 1951. For white it covers the Stonewall attack. For black its the Sicilian dragon and the Lasker variation of the Queens gambit declined.  An odd combination of openings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9321" LastActivityDate="2019-12-14T07:52:25.040" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27349" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27327" CreationDate="2019-12-14T10:59:49.187" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;In 1561 Ruy Lopez (pronounced Rue-y Lopeth) de Segura (1530-1580) wrote Libro de la invencion liberal y arte del juego del Axedrez, por Ruy-Lopez de Sigura, clerigo, vezino dela villa Cafra. He wrote the book in response to Damiano's book.  It contains 66 games.  In 1584, his book was translated into Italian by Gio. Dominico Tarsia and printed at Venice by Cornelius Arrivabene.  In 1655, it was translated into French and published at Brussels.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://billwall.phpwebhosting.com/articles/oldtexts.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://billwall.phpwebhosting.com/articles/oldtexts.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9684" LastActivityDate="2019-12-14T10:59:49.187" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27350" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27327" CreationDate="2019-12-14T11:18:40.937" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1939:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;em&gt;White to Play and Win&lt;/em&gt; by &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weaver_W._Adams&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Weaver Adams&lt;/a&gt;. Adams believed that 1.P-K4 (1.e4) wins by force. In this book he presents his recommendations for White against the various Black defenses. For example, against 1...e5 he recommended the Bishop's Opening 2.Bc4. He continued to revise his system and write more books, e.g., he switched from 2.Bc4 to 2.Nc3 in his 1946 book &lt;em&gt;Simple Chess&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2299" LastActivityDate="2019-12-14T11:18:40.937" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27351" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27305" CreationDate="2019-12-14T11:52:47.330" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is an answer in simple terms without coding. 120 because assuming there is one way to configure the pieces and the board is torodial and there are 25 squares 5 of which that are occupied by knights leaving 20 left. then the knights can occupy all remaining squares since the board is essentially infinite due to the torodial nature. plus they can occupy the four other squares that knights are currently on by rotating with other knights thus giving each knight 24 other squares to occupy  5*24=120 i believe this works.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20854" LastActivityDate="2019-12-14T11:52:47.330" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27352" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9885" CreationDate="2019-12-14T12:10:14.947" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;At your level which is close to mine you should be still be focused  on not leaving pieces hanging to prevent opposition from getting easy tactic attacks. Pawn structures and learning the color of the squares your knights are on and looking for two more powerful pieces to be on opposite colors or preventing your pieces from being forked. This seems to be a reoccurring theme for your level. Make a habit to notice the color and look at opposite color pieces every move if the game time permits. Until it is automatic even if you don't get caught often in this fork which is doubtful your competition will at that level. I am amazed how often i miss seeing this opportunity. To much opening line study is a poor use of time. A lot of that understanding and memorization will be done by the time you actually need it to progress further. Pick one for white and just some basic understanding of for black for one like sicillian like you have done and focus on cleaning up your blunders&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20854" LastActivityDate="2019-12-14T12:10:14.947" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27353" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27307" CreationDate="2019-12-14T13:37:10.083" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Relate the moves for chess to the strategy of the sport they play as I am sure a  really good analogy can be found like setting picks for basketball or football has endless comparisons for forks skewers and pins It also may help them in there sport to visualize better from chess tactics so win win. If they are weaker players than these concepts will represent the largest progression to there game anyway. good luck&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20854" LastActivityDate="2019-12-14T13:37:10.083" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27354" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27326" CreationDate="2019-12-14T13:47:31.050" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;move queen to D6 THAT GUARDS F2 DUE TO CM &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20854" LastActivityDate="2019-12-14T13:47:31.050" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27355" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27356" CreationDate="2019-12-14T15:33:10.957" Score="5" ViewCount="1405" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am new to chess, so I have some difficulties on understanding some concepts. For example, by watching games usually I hear that a player has a winning position, or a better position respect to the other player. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But how do I understand if my position is good? What are the signs that a overall position of the pieces on the board is a good position? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks in advance&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20804" LastEditorUserId="20868" LastEditDate="2019-12-16T18:52:15.727" LastActivityDate="2019-12-16T18:52:15.727" Title="What is a winning position in chess?" Tags="&lt;positional-play&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27356" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27355" CreationDate="2019-12-14T16:28:08.283" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not easy to answer in great detail.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In General checkmate is a winning position as are the positions from the moves leading up to that happening.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any position the opponent resigns in is a winning position.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;That usually agrees with your feeling you have a won position but sometimes opponents see ghosts and resign anyway.  A 'good' position that confuses the opponent would seem to be a winning position if it makes them resign or even just blunder away material.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A complex but unclear position with the opponent having little time on his clock may pressure them to either resign or to blunder and then resign.  Or they may lose on time anyway when the flag falls [or these days the red light comes on].  So a position where the opponent can not make his moves before the flag drops is a winning position even though without any time limit it might be lost. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In general with sufficient material advantage the win should be a matter of technique.  So any position that allows for a combination to win material could be a winning position and usually is but not always.  Clearly sacrifices are often made to get a winning attack so in such cases material is irrelevant.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Leading up to those types of positions are less clear positions that are merely one with an 'advantage' not yet winning.  More space, better piece positions, time advantage both useful moves ahead or on the clock, or 'initiative' are more likely to lead to winning positions and then to won positions and finally a win.  These factors are subject to surprise tactics as well as not being followed up properly so as to continue building the advantage until it is overwhelmingly a win.  So while good, they are not yet properly called winning. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To summarize, a winning position depends on many factors, but whether it is called winning or not depends on the judgement of the person evaluating the position.  And sometimes those persons are wrong.  Also each player has a different spot in the gray area where they would call it winning instead of just having an advantage. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastActivityDate="2019-12-14T16:28:08.283" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27357" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27355" CreationDate="2019-12-14T16:37:28.377" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is very broad, but what is winning is very related to your strength. I have seen plenty of beginners, who could not win even up a full queen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, a beginner might need a queen, or more, to be able to win a position. I have been a &quot;regular&quot; Master for more than 30 years, so it might just one pawn, but the right pawn. :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By comparison, I used to read Garry Kasparov's notes to his games in the Informants, and he would use the symbol +- (winning) in positions that looked barely better to me. His sense of winning, of course, was correct, but it was much more refined than mine. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All of this still means only so much in practice because as they say, &quot;the hardest thing to do in chess is win a won position&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Understanding when your position is good or won simply comes with time, study, and practice. It is too open a subject to be more specific. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-12-14T17:10:23.103" LastActivityDate="2019-12-14T17:10:23.103" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27358" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1844" CreationDate="2019-12-14T16:37:51.930" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I started with P-K4 openings (e4) as they had no algebraic notation back then.  That is what our beginner books started teaching in the 50s.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After playing over every game in the 1953 candidates tournament that had 16 GMs in a double round robin for the world championship I started playing d4.  I was an 'expert' with the Nimzo after seeing so many GM games with it, but then black started playing many other defenses so I was working harder to find good moves. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Later I switched back to e4.  It is just easier and more natural with less burden on my memory.   More fun too:)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Surprisingly I am now more positional with my e4 games and much less tactical than when I first started playing. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-12-14T17:08:32.177" LastActivityDate="2019-12-14T17:08:32.177" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27359" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4787" CreationDate="2019-12-14T16:44:18.047" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Almost any main line black defense can be made open if white does not want a closed game.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only opening(s) I am aware of that are always closed (at least til the middle game)  are those I know as hedgehogs with black moving no pawn past the 3rd rank and developing pieces on the second.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a very poor setup unless you are playing beginners as a good player will find a way to break through and win easily thanks to the space and development advantages. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastActivityDate="2019-12-14T16:44:18.047" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27360" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9852" CreationDate="2019-12-14T19:00:30.067" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It depends on your style and preference for type of game.  Do you want open, closed, semi open?  Do you want slash and burn tactical or do you want quiet slow positional or something in between.  Do you want complex positions or more simpler and quieter ones?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Match the opening to your style and preferences.  Then when you know what type of opening is your best style there will be a book for it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you do not like e5  then I would suggest you look at d3 or c3 and see how they fit.  If not a match then c5 or nf6.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastActivityDate="2019-12-14T19:00:30.067" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27361" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-12-14T19:09:02.717" Score="3" ViewCount="406" Body="&lt;p&gt;Way back when, Hans Berliner worked for IBM.  I met him at an IBM data center one time, but he worked in the Federal division and just used the center for a demo. I had known him from the Washington Chess Divan earlier.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know he had done a computer program to help with chess. It was the first as far as I can tell. This was in the days when the s/360 was ruling the market, and there were no PCs, and pdp8s and the like were not up to the job although they did cause IBM a lot of grief by their cheap price and what they could do for small special-purpose jobs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The question I always had was did Hans use the IBM computers to assist his game when he won the ICCF world championship? I know that Hans was very good as a player,  but was he &lt;strong&gt;so&lt;/strong&gt; good that he could have won the ICCF world championship without the computer's help? It is certainly possible, but having a really good computer analysis on some tough positions had to be helpful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-04-14T20:14:37.420" LastActivityDate="2021-04-15T16:33:53.453" Title="Did Hans Berliner win the world ICCF championship using computer help?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;world-championship&gt;&lt;cheating&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27362" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27361" CreationDate="2019-12-14T19:23:01.577" Score="17" Body="&lt;p&gt;Short of asking a deceased man, I would say that the answer is &quot;no way&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He won the 5th World Correspondence Chess Championship in 1965. Computer chess, if it existed at all, was not strong at all. Even with mainframe-type hardware back then, it paled on comparison to the first Chess Challengers of the early 1980's, and they were only rated about 1200 then.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My first chess computer in 1985, and it was the strongest and most expensive on the marker at the time, was only about 1600. There is no way that you could win against correspondence Grandmasters with that type of help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would say, fairly confidently, that is was all his work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2019-12-14T19:23:01.577" CommentCount="16" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27363" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2696" CreationDate="2019-12-14T19:28:14.587" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not all software runs on all hardware.  Software makes the hardware happen.  The tournament should be between hardware/software SYSTEMS as an entity just like it is done. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastActivityDate="2019-12-14T19:28:14.587" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27364" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25328" CreationDate="2019-12-14T19:34:15.213" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Ratings depend on the time limit, the players, the method of rating. They are not comparable unless the factors are all the same.  They do not cross boundaries meaningfully.  And all of them are just statistical approximations of how good a player is at a given point in time.  Players improve, some grow older and and do not play as  well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastActivityDate="2019-12-14T19:34:15.213" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27366" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27368" CreationDate="2019-12-14T19:41:01.947" Score="3" ViewCount="174" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am new to chess and I am playng mostly online at sites like chess.com. Now I have a rate around 800, so it is still low, but my problem is that improving my skills is getting hard. The arrival to the rate 800 has been quite quick, but now I feel like I am stucking often to the same moves and the same way of reasonings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How could I improve my skills? And most of all how can I improve my mental elasticity in playing chess in order to be a better player?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks in advance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20804" LastActivityDate="2019-12-14T22:09:36.360" Title="Improving my skills is getting harder" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;theory&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27367" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25348" CreationDate="2019-12-14T19:43:06.457" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can't speak to FIDE as their use of ratings is relatively newer, but I recall that the USCF had once taken a couple of years to publish ratings   because it was done by hand and the guy was busy or procrastinated in doing it.  Or maybe there had been so many tournaments at once that it just took him that long to catch up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once computers came into common use the ratings happened a lot more frequently.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastActivityDate="2019-12-14T19:43:06.457" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27368" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27366" CreationDate="2019-12-14T20:01:18.220" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It really depends on whether you are willing to do the work, but I have tried this with people before, and it has worked extremely well. Most weaker players are initially weak because they lose material so often and easily.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, I believe strongly in an immersion-type training program. If I give you 20 problems, and you get 100%, you only learned 20 problems. If I give you 150, and you only get a 66.6%, you still learned 100 problems, or five times what you did when you got only 20 problems. I firmly believe that the more you see in a short period of time, the more you will learn. In this case, I am advocating quantity over quality.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is based on my own personal experience, and is based on my learning Russian in the Air Force. The first night, I got 20 words to learn, but by the end of 47 weeks, we got about 300 words every other night. I also had a friend, who was 38 at the time, and he went from 1000 to about 1850 on the Internet Chess Club in three months doing what I am about to recommend.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am not a fan of the chess.com and other site tactics programs for a couple of reasons. First, they are checked by computers, and often take the computer route in the defense portion of the solution, rather than the human path. Second, they are not well grouped by theme.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I still love the grouping on the two Fred Reinfeld books, &lt;a href=&quot;https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/193649082X&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&quot;1001 Brilliant Ways to Checkmate, 21st Century Edition&quot;&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/1936490870&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&quot;1001 Winning Chess Sacrifices and Combinations, 21st Century Edition&quot;&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You start with the 1001 checkmates book because the first chapter is queen sacrifices, so you have two big hints: Give up the queen, and checkmate. Now, I want you to try to do 50 per day (25 minimum though), spending no more than two minutes on each problem trying to figure it out. If you do not get it, just look at the answer, and play it out on a board, if necessary. You may not have gotten it right, but you have absorbed something. Write in pencil next to the diagram 1-5, with one being that you solved it easily, and five that you had no idea.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Go through the whole book at 50 per day. You can skip the last chapter on composed mates if you want. Do the same with the 1001 sacrifices book.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, you have read both, and have rated how easily you got them. Go back ans read the both books again in the same order. They are both grouped so well, that you will start to pick up on themes better than ever.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Funny, in early 2019, a new book, &lt;a href=&quot;https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/1784830542&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&quot;The Woodpecker Method&quot;&lt;/a&gt; came out, and recommends a very similar method to the one that I have been recommending for over 30 years.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have found over the years that even guys, who are 2000-2100 over-the-board, are still not that great tactically, so keep doing this, and as you get better with your two original books, pick different tactics books for some variety. We never stop practicing that, and calculation, in general.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, as you get better, there is a lot more to learn about opening pawn structures (search my other posts about this), and of course, the endgame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2019-12-14T20:01:18.220" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27370" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27366" CreationDate="2019-12-14T22:09:36.360" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The best way to improve is stop playing.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;You will learn a lot faster playing over GM games than playing patzers on chess.com or any web site.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Start studying books on the basics.  Learn ONE opening well.  Practice tactics daily.  Play over GM games daily, especially ones that use the opening you want to learn. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you improve some then look at endings, and keep up with your opening and tactics pracice;  later on move to pawn structure,  positional play; and later on psychology and playing the player not the board. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Won't be as much fun that way but it will make you improve. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You will learn more by stretching just a little bit to solve tactics or in tournament games when you go back to them.  Try to play people 100-200 points higher but no more and only less if forced to by being matched against them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My experience is that perfect practice makes perfect and making many mistakes while playing more positions only reinforces bad habits and hurts improvement. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastActivityDate="2019-12-14T22:09:36.360" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27371" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="941" CreationDate="2019-12-14T22:17:09.680" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I played over the entire book of BCE by Fine.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You need to know K&amp;amp;P  and also  r&amp;amp;p endgames cold. &#xA;You should know principles of endgames.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can you mate with B+N against K?  You should play that until you can visualize the squares and drive the king to the side and then to the correct corner and finally mate.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should learn all the basic mating positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want then skip the rare ones like K+2N vs K+P which is only mate in certain pawn positions. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastActivityDate="2019-12-14T22:17:09.680" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27372" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17863" CreationDate="2019-12-14T22:21:21.057" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It may be time to start learning positional play.  Most positions do not favor a tactical attacking approach,  at least until you have built up a better position so that it would work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Put your pieces in better locations. Create weaknesses in your opponents structure. Wait until the position is ripe so that tactics can decide.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lastly, learn endgames.  You won't beat everybody in the middle game.  A lot of games go on a long time and the end game is just as important if nobody wins earlier. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-12-14T22:44:44.133" LastActivityDate="2019-12-14T22:44:44.133" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27373" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21847" CreationDate="2019-12-14T22:33:21.700" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have not analyzed it in detail, but you played several moves that I consider inferior.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The answer to the OP's question is that you are not yet strong enough to win with that position against a 2000 rated player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I suspect a computer analysis would show you a number of moves that would differ from what you actually did. It might just be me but I would look at the moves 37. Rb3 or Rh3 to avoid the perpetual check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-12-14T22:44:05.923" LastActivityDate="2019-12-14T22:44:05.923" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27374" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27384" CreationDate="2019-12-15T13:02:46.027" Score="3" ViewCount="243" Body="&lt;p&gt;At one of the chess league fixtures recently, one of the players was writing moves in advance of moving the pieces on the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As per the FIDE rule &lt;a href=&quot;https://handbook.fide.com/chapter/E012018&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;8.1.2&lt;/a&gt; it's forbidden to do so, but in practice what's the penalty for the player who does it? Should it be a verbal warning and loss of the game on a subsequent attempt or something else?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20856" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-12-15T14:29:04.933" LastActivityDate="2019-12-16T08:53:45.243" Title="Penalty for violating FIDE rule 8.1.2 - writing moves in advance" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;fide&gt;&lt;annotation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27376" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-12-15T15:24:59.983" Score="5" ViewCount="356" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am visiting New York City from Moscow. How can I find tournaments there?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user20857" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2019-12-15T15:42:10.567" LastActivityDate="2019-12-15T15:42:10.567" Title="Finding New York City tournaments as a visitor from Moscow" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27377" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27376" CreationDate="2019-12-15T15:27:48.833" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Most tournaments in the U.S. are not FIDE-rated, but there are some. Your best best are the more-common USCF-rated tournaments. You would have to join the USCF as part of that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They have a list of tournaments &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.uschess.org/tlas/upcoming.php&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;. Just pick the state you want, in this case, New York.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2019-12-15T15:27:48.833" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27378" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9171" CreationDate="2019-12-15T16:44:10.307" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Excellent explanation of stalemate by Pavan, but I think there was still some confusion in the original post about checkmate too. Here is the logical way I try to think about it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A king attacked by an enemy piece is called &amp;quot;in check&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's illegal to play a move so that your king is in check (either by moving king into check, or by shifting a pinned piece out of the line).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you have no legal moves, for whatever reason, then the game is certainly OVER. But how?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If your king is already in check, then it's CHECKMATE and you've lost.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If your king is NOT in check, then it's STALEMATE and it's a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8201" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2019-12-15T16:44:10.307" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27379" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27124" CreationDate="2019-12-15T17:09:20.533" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Thanks to everyone for their replies. As the original questioner, I've deliberately come late to this party.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think it's instructive (and fun) to look at GM Kramnik's arguments from the perspective of the collectable card game Magic the Gathering. Think what you may about Magic, its developers are the absolute experts in rule changes, since they've been doing it continually since 1993. How might an imaginary Magic Developer respond to Kramnik's (paraphrased) arguments?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Kramnik: (1) There are two related problems: too many draws and opening theory carries on too long into the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Imaginary Magic developer: &amp;quot;YES absolutely. We try in Magic to avoid draws and drawish positions, which are anathema to player fun. The too lengthy opening theory in chess shows clearly that the format is too nearly &amp;quot;solved&amp;quot; and needs refreshing. You poor guys!&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Kramnik: (2) Chess960 won't interest spectators, won't interest some players, and is not &amp;quot;aesthetic&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Imaginary Magic developer: &amp;quot;NO WAY. Fischer's genius invention of Chess960 is the nearest that chess has to the concept of &amp;quot;printing new Magic cards&amp;quot;. It's a great way to expand the game and make it fresh for players and spectators. The recent World Championships in this format was a resounding success, with commentators on the edge of their seats right from the beginning of the game. It must be very difficult for professional chess players, who have invested their lives and bet their economic future on a particular form, to contemplate their main asset being devalued by Chess960, when there are always newcomers and computers to adapt to the new formats quicker. This is really hard, but I don't think you can use this point anecdotally to argue against Chess960. And I think you confuse &amp;quot;aesthetic&amp;quot; with &amp;quot;familiar&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;We Magic developers are sensitive to the views of the pro player community, because we understand that where they lead the rest of the community can follow. But we can't let a key format decay indefinitely.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Kramnik: (3) Chess would benefit at top levels from banning castling .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Imaginary Magic developer: &amp;quot;This is a very interesting proposal. We are alert to the playability of formats, and will sometimes step in to ban powerful cards if the format is not healthy. We particularly focus on the balance between attack and defence, and here arguably the classic chess format is suffering, due the capability of computers and players to find better defences against (sacrificial) attacks. Castling is a powerful card, a kind of &amp;quot;Black Lotus&amp;quot;, offering &amp;quot;three tempi for one&amp;quot;. Castling also resembles the pattern of recent conditional Magic cards, in that there are some preconditions that you need to satisfy, but those are the kind of things that you would want to do anyway (develop minor pieces, avoid checks). So the preconditions aren't really a downside. Only a player of Carlsen's calibre has been able to reliably eke wins out of drawish positions: which is what needs to be done if romantic-style attacks cannot be successful. So here we do need to shift the balance from control to aggro.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Removing castling at the top levels of chess is an elegant proposal, and may help fix draws. But we don't want to separate the game the Pros play from the game that our paying public plays. And banning one kind of move can only refresh chess opening theory as a short-term side effect. Ultimately chess need to &amp;quot;print new cards&amp;quot; with Chess960. This is the real future of chess.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Castling by the way sits uncomfortably in Chess960 anyway (even top GMs don't know how touch move works with it) and is arguably unnecessary. We Magic developers are alert to fussy rules and would try to get rid of castling in Chess960. Since Chess960 is new, we don't lose any history by so doing. Of course, castling breaks left-right symmetry, so there would be only 480 effectively distinct positions.”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8201" LastEditorUserId="8201" LastEditDate="2021-01-19T03:26:09.770" LastActivityDate="2021-01-19T03:26:09.770" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27381" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1390" CreationDate="2019-12-15T18:14:21.197" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Absent a specific rule I would allow it as tournament director. The rules say you can NOT ANALYSE with another set meaning to move pieces on it to aid your visualzation.  So looking at a blank board is fine as you are not moving pieces on it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that blind players are allowed a separate board and get to touch the pieces to know where they are as long as they do not move them for analysis.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-12-15T18:57:59.283" LastActivityDate="2019-12-15T18:57:59.283" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27382" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27383" CreationDate="2019-12-15T19:05:04.913" Score="10" ViewCount="2650" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have just started learning to play chess and I find it really interesting to learn. I would like to learn as much as possible in order to become a good player. I looked on Youtube, trying to find games to watch that can teach me how to play. In particular my idea is to watch a lot of games in order to understand how the best players in the world think while playing. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, can someone suggest some games to watch that are considered remarkable games?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20804" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-12-15T19:38:59.397" LastActivityDate="2019-12-17T20:48:28.163" Title="What are some games I can watch to become better in playing chess?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;learning&gt;&lt;famous-games&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27383" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27382" CreationDate="2019-12-15T19:33:35.227" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, by far the most popular chess YouTuber is &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCL5YbN5WLFD8dLIegT5QAbA&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Agadmator&lt;/a&gt;. His channel does a nice job of going over famous games, and explaining them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other good videos are what are called &quot;banter blitz&quot;. Banter blitz is when players, and you want to watch Masters, explain what they are thinking aloud as they are playing. You can then get a better idea of what we see, and what we are striving for. You can search &quot;banter blitz&quot; on YouTube. There are even many games by World Champion, Magnus Carlsen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That actually gets into a deeper question, and that is if modern games are as easy to learn from, and I think the answer is &quot;no&quot;. The problem is that in modern chess, everyone at the top level is so good, that even if one player is a weaker 2650 GM compared to the 2750 GM he is playing, both have a deep understanding of chess. They both counter each other's plans too effectively, that you cannot see a clear path from the beginning of a plan to the end of a plan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That is one of the reasons that the older greats like Lasker, Capablanca, and Alekhine are great to study. They often played strong players, but still players that were in a different class, so you could see a clear plan from beginning to end, and the opponent put up resistance, but minimal resistance (I mean positionally, speaking). This also allowed these greats to annotate these games very clearly, showing you what they were trying to achieve, and exactly how they did it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2019-12-15T20:08:26.207" LastActivityDate="2019-12-15T20:08:26.207" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27384" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27374" CreationDate="2019-12-15T20:36:55.090" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;As always: It depends ;-) FIDE tells us that it is not allowed to write moves in advance, so the arbiter HAS to give a penalty. He may choose from those in Art. 12.9 considering the circumstances. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Normally, writing in advance gives no advantage and does not disturb anyone, so I would give a warning. If the player is new to tournament chess, I even would give several warnings, as a warning is not the same as a yellow card in soccer, where the 2nd is automatically a red card. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Against a regular player, 2nd time I would give his opponent 2 minutes additional time. If the arbiter changes the clock, most players take it for a sign that declaration of a loss is near. And that would be the consequence at the third time, especially if one regards Art. 11.7.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I think that a trainer/parent/stronger player looks at the move and give signs, I will declare the game lost at once.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20096" LastActivityDate="2019-12-15T20:36:55.090" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27385" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27382" CreationDate="2019-12-15T20:37:13.763" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would suggest to play over GM games from a book.   It goes at your pace.  Easy to see,  no audio problems like so many videos have.&#xA;Easy to go back if you want to see the last couple moves again.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Whilst playing GM games is very useful.  Especially if you concentrate on one opening.  But if you really want to improve then you will need to look at openings, end games, tactics, and later pawn structure, positional play, psychology, and more. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastActivityDate="2019-12-15T20:37:13.763" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27386" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-12-15T23:12:31.333" Score="2" ViewCount="2901" Body="&lt;p&gt;Imagine the following position: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;3k4/7p/7K/3B4/8/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White is played by Stockfish in DroidFish and black by human (me). We both have 15 seconds.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After a few moves, white bishop or king gets the black pawn and... &quot;Game over,draw by impossibility of mate!&quot;... It is logical, due to the fact that there isn't mate position with two kings and one bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I repeated the experiment sometimes and the same result happened... So, I wonder, why doesn't Stockfish flag me? Isn't it smarter to wait 50 moves for drawing with the hope to flag me without getting the pawn? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are many possible mate positions without getting the pawn. I imagined one if pawn is promoted to knight and then: white king g3, white bishop h3, black king h1 and black knight f3. Black to move. Black knight to g1 and white bishop to g2 checkmate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;8/8/8/8/8/5nKB/8/7k b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1...Ng1?? 2. Bg2#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, it is not more logical in these cases, engines to try to flag the opponent? Maybe in a game between two engines it is meaningless, but in the case of engine vs human, I think it isn't so illogical.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is your opinion?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20863" LastEditorUserId="15223" LastEditDate="2019-12-16T07:34:23.073" LastActivityDate="2019-12-16T10:49:48.210" Title="Why doesn't Stockfish (DroidFish) try to flag me?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27387" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27386" CreationDate="2019-12-15T23:20:11.833" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;They are programmed to play the best chess, and there is simply no programming added in that attempts to account for the opponent being low on time. The way it played it was the best chess-wise. A human might try to flag you, but not the computer. Personally, I like it that way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2019-12-15T23:20:11.833" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27388" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5941" CreationDate="2019-12-16T01:28:54.413" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;A really good engine would use variable values depending on the situation and position.  With position often counting more for evaluation than mere material although both are important and their weights would change too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At the gitgo a good start is P=1, N=3, B=3 , R=5,  Q=10,  K=max value the computer can handle.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastActivityDate="2019-12-16T01:28:54.413" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27389" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23052" CreationDate="2019-12-16T01:40:41.377" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;A bright 1000 player could learn to do it,  I have seen IMs that could not.   Most club players cannot do it.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastActivityDate="2019-12-16T01:40:41.377" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27390" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16539" CreationDate="2019-12-16T01:48:15.053" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As actually worded the answer to the OP is two.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As apparently intended, no number is sufficient in some cases.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Generally you only need a very few to do fair pairings.  Or as fair as is possible in a particular case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I used to be a TD before computers and all you need is cards with names/ratings and results so far, and a pencil.  With a little bit of planning ahead, and common sense to pair from the extremes to the middle not the middle out or top to bottom.  EG round one you alternate w/b given to players in order of round 1 pairings. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastActivityDate="2019-12-16T01:48:15.053" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27391" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5941" CreationDate="2019-12-16T05:42:52.153" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Rybka/Komodo/Houdini are not open source and their values aren't readily available, but the current strongest conventional engine, Stockfish, &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/blob/master/src/types.h#L182-L186&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;uses these values&lt;/a&gt; (lines 182-186):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PawnValueMg   = 128,   PawnValueEg   = 213,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;KnightValueMg = 781,   KnightValueEg = 854,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BishopValueMg = 825,   BishopValueEg = 915,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;RookValueMg   = 1276,  RookValueEg   = 1380,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;QueenValueMg  = 2538,  QueenValueEg  = 2682,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &amp;quot;Mg&amp;quot; column is value during the mid-game, and the &amp;quot;Eg&amp;quot; column is for the endgame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you might guess, these numbers are empirically tuned.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2019-12-16T05:42:52.153" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27392" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27386" CreationDate="2019-12-16T05:45:09.383" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Generally, the computer plays the moves leading to the best objective result. Taking the pawn or doing what you said both lead to a draw objectively, so there's no big reason to prefer one over the other.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are some adjustments that can be made to the engine, such as getting it to avoid repetitions early on (even if going for the early draw makes sense objectively). However, doing what you said would be hoping for a specific scenario occurring many moves down the road, and it could only really happen if you were trying to lose.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastEditorUserId="12873" LastEditDate="2019-12-16T10:49:48.210" LastActivityDate="2019-12-16T10:49:48.210" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27393" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27374" CreationDate="2019-12-16T08:53:45.243" Score="5" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Should it be a verbal warning and loss of the game on a subsequent&#xA;  attempt or something else?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It depends entirely on the circumstances, although a player would never be defaulted for the specific reason of writing the move before playing it. (I will return to this point at the end)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A big part of the problem is that years ago young players were taught to write the move down, do a final blunder check and then make the move. If the blunder check revealed a problem or they just had second thoughts they changed what was written and made the new move. This is the nub of &quot;making notes&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, if as an arbiter, I'm observing a game and the player is consistently writing the move, pausing for reflection then making the move then I will step in and warn him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the player is just writing the move and then immediately playing the move then I will not intervene unless the opponent complains but I will speak to player after the game and tell him that what he is doing is against the rules and tell him not to do it again. This is a general principle for very minor infractions when the arbiter intervening would disturb the players unwarrantedly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Coming back to what I said at the beginning, that a player would never be defaulted for this, we can look at what happened in the Wesley So case which is analagous. He wasn't writing moves down but writing advice to himself about how to play. He was defaulted after 3 warnings but he was not defaulted for writing notes. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He was defaulted for ignoring the instructions of the arbiter which is something different and, in the extreme case that a player continued writing moves down before making them after several warnings from the arbiter, this would also happen. The player would be defaulted for ignoring the instructions of the arbiter. It may look as if it is the same thing but it is not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2019-12-16T08:53:45.243" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27394" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-12-16T09:19:04.907" Score="8" ViewCount="7278" Body="&lt;p&gt;A very common model in programming is the Finite State Machine (FSM) (see &lt;a href=&quot;https://gamedevelopment.tutsplus.com/tutorials/finite-state-machines-theory-and-implementation--gamedev-11867&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here for a great worked example.)&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;Is a FSM a good way to model chess? What are the best ways to go about it? What chess features can be put in; what should be left out?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have no big knowledge of computer science or engineering, or even chess programming, so I was wondering about this question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastEditorUserId="8201" LastEditDate="2019-12-17T19:18:19.390" LastActivityDate="2019-12-21T13:14:11.670" Title="Is a Finite State Machine a good way to model chess?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;rules&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;computer-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="10" CommentCount="17" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27395" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27394" CreationDate="2019-12-16T09:39:56.160" Score="22" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, I think so.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You'd have all possible board positions as states (so lots of states, but finite). &#xA;The starting position as an initial state. Legal moves as links between the states (so the &quot;alphabet&quot; would consist of all possible moves). Positions that end the game like checkmate, stalemate and dead positions as accepting states.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the end you'd get the set of all possible chess games as the language that is accepted by the machine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How you'd work this out formally with things like illegal moves, the 50- and 75- move rules, describing a list of legal moves formally et cetera are left as exercises for the reader.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Draw offers, and games ending in other external ways like a mobile phone going off should probably be left out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2019-12-16T09:39:56.160" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27396" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27394" CreationDate="2019-12-16T10:46:25.760" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;It’s very useful for problemists to think of chess as a finite state machine. The state can comprise:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;what kind of pieces are on each square&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;who has the move?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;castling rights&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;en passant capability&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You really want this to be the scope of state, primarily because it’s in the Laws in Article 9.2 as the basis for defining repetition of position!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a subtlety here because while castling rights just depend upon whether K&amp;amp;R have moved (or arguably R has been captured), en passant capability depends on whether the e.p. can be executed. (There might be some pin or check preventing it.) So a look-ahead is needed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We have been lavish in our supply of states, but we can be more sparing in our definition of the alphabet. We can define a move just by indicating two squares, source and target, and then we can interpret that to give a unique move (including castling and e.p.). Of course in most cases no move exists between the two squares, and other cases, the move is illegal due to check. This is fine according to FSM practice. Conceptually we can consider that each position affords a set of legal moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is natural to allow arrangements of pieces on the board to be states, even those which represent illegal positions. Some positions look normal, but are in fact illegal - fine these are ok. Positions which have zero or one king, or player to move already giving check are easy. However positions where one player has pawns on the first or eighth rank suggest that a pawn might start on other ranks too, and then we would have to track additional state for each pawn to see whether it is entitled to a first move double hop. The starting square may also affect whether it can promote when it reaches the 8th rank. And we also have questions about what happens when a player has multiple kings. But in principle, defining movement in illegal positions is the best approach. The only difference between a legal and an illegal position is whether it can be rooted in the initial Game Array - a trivial enough feature but sometimes very hard to determine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are terminals at checkmate and stalemate positions, but to decide whether a position is dead requires looking forward into the future of the game, and so we don’t want to lose that later tree. It doesn’t make deadness any less real to say that it’s emergent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;50/75 move and draw by repetition rules are also surely outwith the state machine. The former might be embedded in the state machine, but the latter can’t be, so might as well just record the sequence of states from the beginning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In most cases this beginning is the Game Array, but for composed problems the beginning is a later points, and we may need conventions to tell us how to decide the detailed game state and history.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What’s the point of doing all this? One of the issues with chess problems (particularly fairy ones) is that the rules and conventions are not quite clear. To pick a random example: does Dead Position rule have visibility of 50 move &amp;amp; 75 move status? The problem world doesn’t have arbiters to tell us what the FIDE rules are perhaps trying to say. If we just say ah well it doesn’t matter leave up to is individual cases, then we create a fog of uncertainty which stops retrograde analysis from achieving its full potential.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Where expert problemist Guus Rol would now take us is to break down each transition (move) into a journey of micro-phases. This allows for more subtle management of fairy conditions. My own feeling is that this should be grounded in a simpler model as I describe here which is kind of a Base Camp for his later Explorations. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: Others can confirm whether chess can be represented in a FSM. The unique angle I am trying to take is &lt;em&gt;how&lt;/em&gt; should one approach this: what makes sense to embed within the machine and what should be built on top. The real complexity I did not mention is managing multiple possible retro histories which is necessary for many retrograde analysis problems. The only practical way forward for this is state=position in the FIDE sense. This is not a requirement for over the board chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are two main paradigms for retrograde analysis: RS &amp;amp; PRA. Either of them may be a suitable candidate for lattice theory analysis, which has not been done in a systematic way. The best explanation is given here &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.janko.at/Retros/Glossary/Castling-and-En-passant.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.janko.at/Retros/Glossary/Castling-and-En-passant.htm&lt;/a&gt;.&#xA;Werner Keym’s article contains some classic and difficult retros.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not thinking to automate the solution of retro problems, but just to define a language to represent their solution formally would be a great start.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm ignoring over-the-board events such as click click, write move, touch move, resignation, draw offer, draw claim etc, to focus on the compositional side. Note there is an interesting race condition possible where two players resign about the same time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8201" LastEditorUserId="8201" LastEditDate="2019-12-17T06:25:30.050" LastActivityDate="2019-12-17T06:25:30.050" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27397" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27394" CreationDate="2019-12-16T10:54:51.757" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;In a sense, yes I would say so. There are an incredibly large number of states/positions chess can be in, but this number is finite. And to get from one state to another, some action is taken. If you're in one state, you can choose from multiple actions to reach another state.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-12-16T10:54:51.757" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27398" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27382" CreationDate="2019-12-16T13:07:10.883" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the best channel to watch chess games on is PowerPlayChess. GM King has the talent to make little storyies out of very complex games that help in learning how grandmasters play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20864" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-12-16T13:23:45.013" LastActivityDate="2019-12-16T13:23:45.013" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27399" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27394" CreationDate="2019-12-16T14:00:27.563" Score="20" Body="&lt;p&gt;Finite state machines can be described as the recognizers of &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_language&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;regular languages&lt;/a&gt;. You could perhaps identify chess with the set of all possible game records. For example &lt;code&gt;f3e5g4Qh4#&lt;/code&gt; (the fool's mate) is one of the shorter strings in this language. Since this language has a finite alphabet and all words have bounded length (with the upper bound somewhere in the vicinity of 35,000 since there is a maximum game length of under 6000 moves (assuming the 50-move draw rule) and most moves take 6 letters to encode)). Thus the language of chess is a finite language, hence it is trivially regular and thus recognized by a FSM.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15148" LastActivityDate="2019-12-16T14:00:27.563" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27400" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22641" CreationDate="2019-12-16T16:07:51.827" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Everybody learns in a different way.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I found that playing at exactly ten seconds per move, which was the original speed chess standard before these digital clocks,  forced me to think 20 seconds and then make a decision and move.  Note you think during the opponents ten seconds as well as yours before you actually move.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My observation is that current speed chess with clocks at 10SD even with a delay is counterproductive.  If you play that way then it should be closer to 15SD to a max of 30SD.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And I would suggest that G1 minute plus delay of ten seconds would be even better.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastActivityDate="2019-12-16T16:07:51.827" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27401" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8772" CreationDate="2019-12-16T16:17:19.793" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Learn to make decisions!  Budget your time so you use enough but not too much on a given move in normal situations.  When a problem arises then you can take longer but still  you have to make a decision without using too much time as that would make later moves more rushed and less good for all of them. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Practice.  Play at exactly a short time per move so you learn to think enough, but do not dawdle on deciding and moving.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastActivityDate="2019-12-16T16:17:19.793" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27402" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18324" CreationDate="2019-12-16T16:21:49.380" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are about a half dozen things you need to improve.  See which one is weakest then focus on that area.  When that is improved then repeat and improve your next weakest area.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If everything is equal then look at openings picking ONE to use all the time,  tactics, end games,  positional play,  pawn structures, psychology. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastActivityDate="2019-12-16T16:21:49.380" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27403" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12983" CreationDate="2019-12-16T16:36:22.383" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As noted they are in 200 point brackets which is about the amount where the higher player usually beats the lower.  They look like USCF except for the nonsense about IMs and GMs but omits the really lower classes that go down much farther. Also the comments appear to be  yours as they are not accurate. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know 800 rated players. I thought I saw that they went as low as 100 for an absolute beginner.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;USCF used to have their own titles above master such as SM = senior master and perhaps another but usually that level player has moved on to FIDE tournaments and would have a FIDE title and FIDE rating.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At one time the tournament average for all players was 1500.  That changed with rating inflation in the 60s &amp;amp; 70s perhaps later.  They have  made at least one adjustment to try to keep the average where it had been.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These days with all the learning materials and web sites actual playing strength of a current 1500 player would be closer to 1800 in the 50s.  But would still be class C average in tournaments. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that most online ratings are way much higher than USCF would say for the same player.  And that online ratings would associate more closely to the 1950s values than what current players would achieve.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastActivityDate="2019-12-16T16:36:22.383" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27404" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22100" CreationDate="2019-12-16T16:46:15.603" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;New or used?  Hardcover, softcover,  or ebook?&#xA;Most hardcovers are in the range of 28usd +/-&#xA;Most , not all, soft and ebooks are priced closer to 15 +/ and 10 +/-&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Amazon has popularity rankings which only relate to current sales.&#xA;You should go by reviews not ratings or price.  Be sure the content is what you will find useful. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastActivityDate="2019-12-16T16:46:15.603" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27406" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27411" CreationDate="2019-12-16T17:14:42.530" Score="2" ViewCount="240" Body="&lt;p&gt;I play a lot of online chess, but I am a federated player whose objective is to play well over-the-board games with 3D pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;During my hourly tactics exercises I turn on the computer and do it in the big screen because my results are better than on the smartphone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For timed games I also play with the PC, as I am quicker with the mouse than with the finger.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I also play correspondence daily; I use to have 20 games in progress. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am getting used to analyze and make the moves on my smartphone, when I am not at home, or when I feel too much lazy to turn on the computer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know the best is to analyze on a physical chess board, which I sometimes do on correspondence when the position is interesting. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But my question is if I should be less lazy and turn on the computer when analyzing deeply with the analysis board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know, in deep, this is a neurology question, but at neurosciences SE they would say it is a question for a chess teacher or highly rated player as there are not specific neurology studies on it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just asking, as a 7 years old student could ask: &quot;Teacher, should I always play on the PC or I can use my smartphone playing on the free net?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user18196" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T16:43:36.530" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T16:43:36.530" Title="Is it inadvisable to analyze or play long chess games on a smartphone?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;board-vision&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27407" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25092" CreationDate="2019-12-16T18:24:20.147" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Years ago I worked with these as just a hobbyist. I downloaded a resource document about an old piece of software called Tournament Administrator. The source site is gone, but the Internet Wayback Machine still had it from 2006 (2008 corrupted):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://web.archive.org/web/20060622121352/http://www.georgejohn.bcentralhost.com:80/GeorgeJohn/Chess/USCF/Computer/Current/Appendix_E1_TA_files.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://web.archive.org/web/20060622121352/http://www.georgejohn.bcentralhost.com:80/GeorgeJohn/Chess/USCF/Computer/Current/Appendix_E1_TA_files.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can't find any resource for newer USCF file formats. Good luck!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20867" LastEditorUserId="20867" LastEditDate="2019-12-16T18:40:48.387" LastActivityDate="2019-12-16T18:40:48.387" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27408" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27394" CreationDate="2019-12-16T18:45:59.587" Score="12" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;may the game of chess be considered a finite state machine?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes; this is a good insight. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A FSM is an abstract model of computation with the following characteristics:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The machine begins in a known &quot;start state&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The machine accepts a sequence of inputs&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Each input is interpreted in the context of the current state&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Each input causes an update to the current state; the update depends &lt;em&gt;only&lt;/em&gt; on the current game state and the input.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Some states are &quot;stop states&quot;, which cause the machine to stop.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;There is a strict upper bound on the size of the state and the number of possible inputs.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is the last feature which makes the machine a &lt;em&gt;finite&lt;/em&gt; state machine. That is, if we &lt;em&gt;numbered&lt;/em&gt; each individual state that the machine could &lt;em&gt;possibly&lt;/em&gt; be in, there would be a &lt;em&gt;largest&lt;/em&gt; such number. Maybe larger than the number of atoms in the universe, but still finite.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We can then model a game of chess as an FSM. The start state is the starting board. The inputs are legal moves -- including moves such as &quot;I resign&quot; -- and each move updates the state of the board. Some states are &quot;stop states&quot; -- we call these &quot;white has checkmate&quot;, &quot;black is in stalemate&quot;, &quot;black resigned&quot;, and so on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Moreover, &lt;strong&gt;any&lt;/strong&gt; game that has these characteristics can be modeled as an FSM; all you need is finite game state and inputs that predictably update game state.  For example, if we consider putting a limitation on poker such that the total number of chips available to all players totals less than, say, a hundred trillion -- or any other finite number -- then poker can also be modeled as a FSM. We have a starting state: the number of players, the chip counts of each player and the shuffled deck. We have rules which update the state -- bets and calls and folds and so on -- and we have states which stop the game. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But if we modeled poker as having no limits on the total number of chips available, then technically it would stop being an FSM; if players may have &lt;em&gt;any&lt;/em&gt; number of chips then no finite amount of information characterizes &lt;em&gt;every&lt;/em&gt; poker game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is interesting to think about games that are &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; FSMs; I already noted that games where there is some unbounded number are not FSMs. Consider a card game where a player could at some point take an action which causes the deck to be shuffled. In this case we have a &lt;em&gt;non-deterministic state transition&lt;/em&gt;, and that would make it technically not an FSM... but maybe there is a way around that:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What about dice-based games? Those are random, so it would appear that they are not FSMs, but we can cleverly make them FSMs by making each player's rolls an &lt;em&gt;input&lt;/em&gt;, just one that is not &lt;em&gt;chosen&lt;/em&gt; by the player. And the same then goes for other randomized game elements such as card shuffles.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess is a particularly good candidate to be treated as an FSM because there is no randomness, and indeed, &lt;em&gt;no hidden state at all&lt;/em&gt;. Both players know the entire state of the game at all times.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3064" LastEditorUserId="3064" LastEditDate="2019-12-16T20:00:12.467" LastActivityDate="2019-12-16T20:00:12.467" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27409" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27394" CreationDate="2019-12-16T19:49:02.433" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;You could possibly associate an FSA with recognition of a valid chess game (the language being recognized by the FSA being the set of all valid chess games) by associating an FSA state with a pair of values: (1) a possible board configuration and (2) a value that specifies the next player who would be moving. (The 2nd value might be option given the color coding of the pieces.) Each of these pairs would only be connected with a transition if there was a valid game move available to join them.  A valid game would be a series of legal moves. The definition of this FSA &lt;em&gt;as such&lt;/em&gt; would be prohibitively large, I would guess. I'm not sure how it would compare to, say, an FSA for moves on the Rubik's cube, which would require 43 quintillion states in its definition (although there are many possible stating states in that game). A stack machine would be an enormous improvement for modeling a game of chess.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20869" LastActivityDate="2019-12-16T19:49:02.433" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27410" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16426" CreationDate="2019-12-16T20:56:22.583" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;All publishers have their own software and standards for publishing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are you self publishing and printing your own book?  If not then you must ask whoever will print or publish the book what their requirements are.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I was a small publisher looking at this I just used a chess font and arranged the diagrams myself.  But that was several decades ago.  Now there is fancier software to help book layout including chess specific ones. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-12-16T21:09:54.650" LastActivityDate="2019-12-16T21:09:54.650" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27411" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27406" CreationDate="2019-12-16T21:01:14.973" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Advisable to use smartphone?  Not really. Okay occasionally if you must look at a position. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you noted a PC is more helpful to seeing the board and planning your moves.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have found no difference between using PC screen adjusted to my preferences and using a real chessboard with physical items on it.&#xA;For me the difference between chess sets and boards is more than the difference between my preferred set and board and the PC screen with my choice of size and font. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that moving the men on your phone or pc will negate any OTB experience for a tournament that you would get by analyzing without moving them to improve your analysis vision for 'real' chess in an OTB tournament. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastActivityDate="2019-12-16T21:01:14.973" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27412" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-12-16T21:13:46.677" Score="2" ViewCount="169" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm new here and I found a book called Logical Chess by Chernev. Is this a great book to start if you are a beginner and you only know how to move pieces but not how to develop them? I'm having a hard time looking at my games and I do not understand where I'm wrong and why I placed the bishop or knight in the D file,E file,etc.&#xA;I can understand way better in books than in games with the computer analysis or another method.&#xA;If this is not a good book what else would you recommend me? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20871" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2019-12-17T22:13:55.197" LastActivityDate="2019-12-17T23:43:03.063" Title="Books for beginners who have hard time understanding positions of pieces?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;books&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27413" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27412" CreationDate="2019-12-16T21:26:39.943" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can find very basic beginners books that will give you some information.  Usually for one or two specific openings.  They won't really tell  you why explicitly the way the OP states it,  but will tell you in general how they fit with the opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My experience was that playing over GM games taught me much more than these beginner books. I played over several hundred in a short period of time and found that I had essentially mastered the nimzo as that was played so much in that tournament the games were from and now I intuitively knew what moves were good and had a general idea of the type of position that would result. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So playing over all the GM games you can find on the ONE opening you like will do more to help you.  If  you do not feel ready for that then read some not quite as basic books on openings and what you should be doing.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Take a look at an online database that gives many moves along with the outcome statistics.  Is your choice one of the most popular?  Is your choice compatible with a good winning result?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If there were only one totally correct move the game would be dead now. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastActivityDate="2019-12-16T21:26:39.943" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27414" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19272" CreationDate="2019-12-16T21:34:04.810" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The simple correct answer is get better books that match your needs.&#xA;At your level you need opening PRINCIPLES not openings per se. And a lot more practice with fundamentals. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also do tactics like &lt;a href=&quot;https://chesstempo.com/chess-tactics.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://chesstempo.com/chess-tactics.html&lt;/a&gt;  .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And study simple endgames.  First principles and then problems/studies.  Include basic mates as well as K+P and K&amp;amp;R endings.   Then move to more complex endgames. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastActivityDate="2019-12-16T21:34:04.810" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27415" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27412" CreationDate="2019-12-16T21:43:46.113" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Frankly, what you are asking is not a short-term goal. It really is about leaning chess, and it takes many years. When you ask why you are putting pieces on certain squares, that is called positional chess, and most people only start to absorb that after they are considerably stronger than beginner. There is no one, or even a few, books that will get you there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What you really need to do is start with tactics books. Those are books that have problems that are forced series of moves leading to advantage. When you do enough of these, you will start to absorb some &quot;pattern recognition&quot;. Much of chess is learning many positions, and then applying them so similar positions that arise in your actual games. In addition, these tactics books will help you to start thinking ahead, and in particular, to lose less pieces. At the begging level, most often, it is who loses the least pieces, rather than who wins the most pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are many, many, books on tactics, but if you are beginning, you want very basic tactics books. Do not shy away from books that are aimed at kids. That is more marketing since it really does not matter if you are a kid or adult, and what matters more is your level of understanding, which is limited to how the pieces move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are some books that I use for teaching kids, actually high school kids, so they are like young adults:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/0963961403&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess Tactics for Students&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/1901983994&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess Tactics for Kids&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/1901983056&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;How to Beat Your Dad at Chess&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/9056913301&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Power Chess for Kids: Learn How to Think Ahead and Become One of the Best Players in Your School&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let me add one recommendation that I use often to novices: In the beginning of the game, always ask yourself: &quot;What piece haven't I moved yet?&quot; You want to get all your pieces out since it is hard to win if you are playing with one or two pieces, and he is playing with 4-5. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2019-12-16T21:43:46.113" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27416" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27417" CreationDate="2019-12-16T22:03:18.873" Score="17" ViewCount="8036" Body="&lt;p&gt;In 2018, Magnus Carlsen played a &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1913200&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;rapid game on chess.com&lt;/a&gt; agaisnt Grandmaster Aleksey Dreev in which his opening move was 1. Nh3. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Magnus Carlsen-Alexey Dreev, Pro Chess League, chess.com INT, 2/24/2018&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Nh3 Nh6 2. f4 d5 3. Nf2 Ng4 4. e3 Nxf2 5. Kxf2 c5 6. b3 Nc6 7. Bb5 Bd7 8. Bb2 a6 9. Bd3 Qc7 10. Nc3 e6 11. Qh5 Be7 12. Rhf1 Bf6 13. Kg1 Nb4 14. Rac1 Nxa2 15. Rce1 Nb4 16. f5 e5 17. e4 c4 18. Nxd5 Nxd5 19. Bxc4 Nb4 20. c3 Nc6 21. Qxf7+ Kd8 22. Ba3 Be8 23. Qd5+ Qd7 24. Bd6 Be7 25. Bxe7+ Kxe7 26. Qc5+ Qd6 27. Qb6 Bd7 28. d4 Nd8 29. Qa5 Nc6 30. Qa2 Kd8 31. Rd1 Kc7 32. Qf2 Rad8 33. b4 Rhf8 34. b5 axb5 35. Bxb5 g6 36. f6 Kb8 37. Bc4 Bc8 38. Bd5 Be6 39. Bxe6 Qxe6 40. d5 Qd6 41. Ra1 Kc7 42. dxc6 Qxc6 43. Ra5 Kb8 44. Qa7+&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does that prove that opening Nh3 is sound, or was it just a psychological play to take a slightly weaker player out of the book? Does it show that Carlsen is that much better because he can get away with such moves? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-12-16T22:24:02.653" LastActivityDate="2019-12-21T12:20:56.583" Title="Carlsen beat a high ranking GM with 1 Nh3. Conclusions?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;psychology&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="10" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27417" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27416" CreationDate="2019-12-16T22:21:17.933" Score="38" Body="&lt;p&gt;It was one game in online rapid. You cannot deduce from one game that 1.Nh3 is sound or not sound. Carlsen was actually MUCH worse out of the opening, and just outplayed Dreev later. It really means nothing other than Carlsen is currently much stronger.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most likely 1.Nh3 is not good, and this is unusual for a first move: Stockfish already evals this as -.62 at a depth of 50.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2019-12-21T12:20:56.583" LastActivityDate="2019-12-21T12:20:56.583" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27418" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27416" CreationDate="2019-12-17T03:36:50.353" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;Carlsen is the strongest player in the world. He can get away with playing sub-par openings against average GMs because of the large difference in strength. Granted, Dreev is above your average GM, but still the gap in their playing levels is huge. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.Nh3 is one of the worst moves White can play, and Carlsen probably chose it for fun. The fact that Dreev answered with 1...Nh6 showed he wasn't taking the game that seriously either.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-12-17T03:36:50.353" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27419" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4687" CreationDate="2019-12-17T04:08:52.210" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Play less usual non book lines he would have memorized.  Be aggressive.  VERY aggressive.  Wait for a mistake. Then crush him.  And if no 'mistake' you should have a winning attack.  Maybe worst case you win an easy end game.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Myself, I would prefer to play to be sure to win rather than risk not winning by trying to achieve that  win fast. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastActivityDate="2019-12-17T04:08:52.210" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27420" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27406" CreationDate="2019-12-17T06:42:47.177" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know the scope of the question is not health related but there are concerns for the levels of electromagnetic radiation that we are exposed to from our phones. It is a minor carcinogen in some high doses at least in lab rats. But to answer the real question I think anywhere you play is a bonus and will help but recreating as close as possible the actual environment for which you hope to compete is ideal but if the option   is less practice then use the phone but adjust the times to allow for your slower plays but you need actual times to get used to the appropriate timing so everyday make sure you get some big screen time at actual or faster speeds than you will face&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5504984/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5504984/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20854" LastEditorUserId="20854" LastEditDate="2020-01-05T23:03:43.133" LastActivityDate="2020-01-05T23:03:43.133" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27421" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27382" CreationDate="2019-12-17T06:50:57.573" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I got the perfect link for ya its the start of a series of videos by IM John Bartholemew geared for lower rated players and going up into the 2000s eventually very well explained extremely helpful for any rating as there are several videos in the series its entitled climbing the chess ladder starts sub 1000 really helped me a lot enjoy &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2huVf1l4UE&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2huVf1l4UE&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20854" LastActivityDate="2019-12-17T06:50:57.573" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27422" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27394" CreationDate="2019-12-17T08:30:13.963" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess game IS a finite state machine, by definition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then again, the number of possible states is rather large and there is an even greater number of strategies that both players can follow.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Spare for some endspiels, these numbers generally exceed the modern computational capabilities, so the game is usually NOT modelled as a FSM.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20878" LastActivityDate="2019-12-17T08:30:13.963" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27423" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1498" CreationDate="2019-12-17T16:21:42.603" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In your specific case, maybe they felt sorry for you and wanted to increase your rating so you would feel better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe they were drunk and did NOT throw the game. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Online ratings are not that meaningful.  Maybe they were not as good as it appeared.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe their kid hacked their account and played with their parent’s rating, which was much higher than theirs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And no, this is not common.  Cheating is common.  But throwing games like this is rare.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20883" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-12-17T17:41:23.453" LastActivityDate="2019-12-17T17:41:23.453" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27424" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27416" CreationDate="2019-12-17T20:35:04.377" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;It does not prove that the opening is sound, but it does make a case for a successful practical opening. If your question is really &quot;Should I try this myself?&quot;, the answer is &quot;yes&quot;, because - especially under accelerated time controls - an element of surprise can be a huge factor.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15509" LastActivityDate="2019-12-17T20:35:04.377" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27425" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27382" CreationDate="2019-12-17T20:48:28.163" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;If a game has a recognized name, you would do well to study it. Some widely acclaimed examples include:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immortal_Game&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;The Immortal Game&lt;/a&gt; (Aderssen vs. Kieseritzky, London 1851)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evergreen_Game&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;The Evergreen Game&lt;/a&gt; (Anderssen vs. Dufresne, Berlin 1852)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opera_Game&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;The Opera Game&lt;/a&gt; (Morphy vs. Rufus and Dufus, Paris 1858)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levitsky_versus_Marshall&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;The Gold Coin Game&lt;/a&gt; (Levitsky vs. Marshall, Breslau 1912)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hastings_1895_chess_tournament#Notable_games&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;The Battle of Hastings&lt;/a&gt; (Steinitz vs. von Bardeleben, Hastings 1895)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Game_of_the_Century_(chess)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;The Game of the Century&lt;/a&gt; (Fischer vs. Byrne, New York 1956)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20884" LastActivityDate="2019-12-17T20:48:28.163" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27426" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27412" CreationDate="2019-12-17T23:43:03.063" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I learned a lot about this subject from GM Yasser Seirawan's book, &lt;em&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/1857443853&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Winning Chess Strategies&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt;, which has a chapter on exactly this topic of where to put pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastActivityDate="2019-12-17T23:43:03.063" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27427" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13101" CreationDate="2019-12-18T04:11:44.810" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Did you have a plan?   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Later at move 19ff I would not have gone at the King side but would have been active on the Queen side and center.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Earlier as noted above Nc6 was not good.  Just play Qd7 and let him trade if he wants.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastActivityDate="2019-12-18T04:11:44.810" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27428" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27433" CreationDate="2019-12-18T04:38:59.257" Score="5" ViewCount="289" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.chessbase.com/post/jerusalem-grand-prix-2019-r2d2&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;From the Chessbase article covering the Jerusalem GP&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After day one of the quarter-finals finished with disappointingly short draws on all boards, FIDE Press Officer Anastasiya Karlovich made a point of asking the players about the controversial decision to choose pragmatism over combativeness. Wesley So responded impassively, pointing out that &amp;quot;one of us has to win&amp;quot; in the end. This is simply a logical consequence of using the knock-out format in events with so much at stake. Or, as Maxime Vachier-Lagrave put it:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;I understand the frustration from the point of view of the spectators, but for me it's about something else, it's about qualifying for the Candidates, so for this one I cannot be entertaining, at least not if it diminishes my chances.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Elite players are unwilling to take risks to give themselves the best chances to qualify for the Candidates, so they play short draws. Okay (I'd even say it's quite logical).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But if they're going to play short draws, why bother with actually playing out the short draw on the board? Just skip the classical games and go straight to Rapid. Or if elite players play short draws in Rapid as well, skip that too and go straight to Blitz.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Conceivably some elite players might want to fight it out in classical games, but it doesn't sound too hard to accommodate them. Ask them before the match if they prefer to draw the classical games, and if either of them say no, let the match go ahead. But if they say yes, just save everyone the disappointment (not to mention the $$$) and play Rapid/Blitz, which sounds like a much more sensible use of time. One could even use the time freed up to, e.g., play more Rapid tiebreakers, get the players to commentate, or even give public simuls.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why haven't elite tournaments done this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2019-12-21T07:09:40.600" Title="If elite players prefer to play short draws in knockout competitions, why not skip them and go straight to tiebreaks?" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27429" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27434" CreationDate="2019-12-18T08:43:19.397" Score="2" ViewCount="238" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a beginner in chess, and I am trying to learn how to play well. I am rated 800 in Chess.com, so I have a really low rating, and I am trying to improve it. I was playing a game and I have been in a position which I considered a good position in my opinion, but since it is the point of view of a beginner I would like to have a comparison with someone who is better than me at playing since the perception of what is a good position changes depending on the player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was almost at the beginning of the game and this was my position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;rn2kb1r/ppp2ppp/5n2/7q/4NPb1/3P1N2/PPP1B2P/R1BQK2R w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I had the white pieces and in this case is black turn to move. It was still the beginning so I am not sure it is possible to evaluate if the position is good or not at this early stage of the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it a good position? And which in your opinion would be the best move in this case?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was thinking about moving the pawn in f4 to f5 in order to try to move the bishop to g5, which seems to me another good position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What do you think? Thanks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20804" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-12-18T16:16:50.773" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T15:17:57.973" Title="Analysis of a position of a low rated player in order to improve" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;theory&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27430" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27" CreationDate="2019-12-18T09:40:48.393" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Android app &lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.pereira.analysis.paid&amp;amp;hl=en&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Analyze This Pro&lt;/a&gt; (there is a free version too) has a feature to annotate and even comment on games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18273" LastActivityDate="2019-12-18T09:40:48.393" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27431" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27416" CreationDate="2019-12-18T09:49:06.783" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let's remember that the late Tony Miles, at the 1980 European Championship, played 1... a6 as Black vs. Karpov's 1. e4, and won.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Single games mean nothing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="446" LastEditorUserId="2941" LastEditDate="2019-12-18T13:35:14.390" LastActivityDate="2019-12-18T13:35:14.390" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27432" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14829" CreationDate="2019-12-18T10:13:12.817" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I do not agree with the first answer saying that blindfold chess does not involve visualising real pieces. On the contrary, I create a 'real' analogy of a chess board with pieces, etc, and interactively update it and manipulate it during the game. I can, however, do it much better using descriptive rather than algebraic notation. This is probably because the pieces take on a more 'real' aspect compared to the sterile numbers in the algebraic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20891" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2019-12-18T12:22:04.607" LastActivityDate="2019-12-18T12:22:04.607" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27433" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27428" CreationDate="2019-12-18T10:31:52.047" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is because there are tournament regulations, including the format, which are published before the tournament starts. You cannot really change that after a certain point, like players accepting invitations.. In addition, although certain players are amenable to draw because they believe they are better at faster time controls, by FIDE rules, they cannot technically agree to a draw before the game starts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, they might sit down at the board, and play some moves to see if they actually like how the game has started, and actually press on if they like what the see.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think that what you are asking, if they tried to do it, it might be more complex in practice, and might also have unforeseen consequences, since everyone should play be the same rules. You cannot really have some players playing it, and others opting out since everyone should play the same tournament. Nevertheless, they could change the pre-tournament regulations and try it to find out if it works.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2019-12-18T12:57:51.577" LastActivityDate="2019-12-18T12:57:51.577" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27434" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27429" CreationDate="2019-12-18T10:56:10.963" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The first thing that comes to mind is that your king-side has been weakened quite a bit, but thankfully, it is your move. If it were black to move, you would be all but lost after 1...Nxe4 2. dxe4 Nc6, and Rd8 next since your queen would be forced away from your king, and it would likely perish to an attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;rn2kb1r/ppp2ppp/5n2/7q/4NPb1/3P1N2/PPP1B2P/R1BQK2R b KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1...Nxe4 2. dxe4 Nc6 3. null Rd8&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this position, even with you having the first move, I would still say that the position is more difficult for you. If you let it think for a moment, Stockfish rates it as slightly better for you, but if you do not play the EXACT best moves, it is easy to end up with black better. That is generally a sign that your position is not so great in practice since we are not computers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Especially in the opening, you should post the moves that led up to this because I would say that you have made mistakes, and it is probably more important to correct those than worry about a position that is already tricky to play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this position, you have a few moves that do not lose immediately: Ng3, Be3, and Nf6+. The computer likes Ng3 the best and I will give that as the primary variation. The computer is not 100% sure about this variation, and often changes its evaluation on what is the best move for both sides as you go along, but you can see that many of the moves are not human. In cases like that, you are likely to play moves that are worse because you want to play positions that are easier to find good moves for you, and that make it difficult for your opponent to find them. Tal made a living off this principle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;rn2kb1r/ppp2ppp/5n2/7q/4NPb1/3P1N2/PPP1B2P/R1BQK2R w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. Ng3 Qa5+ (1... Qg6 $4 2. f5 Bxf5 3. Nh4) (1... Qh6 2. f5 Qh3 3. Bf1 Bxf3 4. Qxf3 Qh4 5. Qxb7 $18) 2. Bd2 Qb6 3. Ng5 Bd7 4. Bh5 Nxh5 5. Qxh5 g6 6. Qe2+ Be7 7. Bc3 O-O 8. Qe5 f6 9. Qd5+ Kh8 10. O-O-O {And finally, it is clear that white is much better}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-12-18T16:19:41.487" LastActivityDate="2019-12-18T16:19:41.487" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27436" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27394" CreationDate="2019-12-18T12:38:40.523" Score="2" Body="&lt;h2&gt;An answer from a programmer&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I stumbled across this and thought an answer from a programmer would be useful here. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While a chess board could be represented as a set of finite states, this would not be practical due to the sheer number of them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, the logic of the game contains specific steps - the game client is often implemented using an FSM. Because the actions the player takes have to follow certain rules, its easy to implement those (any many other turn based games) using an FSM.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The client sits in a particular state while you plot your move. We could call that &quot;planning&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then you select a piece, and the client could give a list of moves available to be selected. The &quot;Moving&quot; state.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once you select a move, the client can animate the move. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then you switch to &quot;waiting&quot; in which the other client performs the same steps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once checkmate occurs or the game cannot continue, we switch to the &quot;scoring&quot; state.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The board itself is definately stateful and while technically finite, this is not the same as an FSM, because we aren't writing the states, and the rules of transfer between states, in advance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;What about AI&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although having pre-coded states for every position of the board is not possible, an AI is capable of mapping many thousands of moves ahead of time and building a large FSM. In this case, it's then using the properties each state has to determine a move. Technically a finite state machine although not in the same definition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20893" LastActivityDate="2019-12-18T12:38:40.523" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27437" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27438" CreationDate="2019-12-18T13:13:12.970" Score="2" ViewCount="62" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am trying to learn to play chess, but it is not an easy task. I am playing as much as possible and try to watch games an reading in order to learn. I am playng on Chess.com, and a lot of times I find myself in this position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;r1bqkb1r/pp2pppp/2np1n2/2p5/2B1P3/2NP1N2/PPP2PPP/R1BQK2R b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am black, and it is my turn to move. The sequence of moves is the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ArAU2.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ArAU2.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;on the left there are the moves white did, and on the right there are my moves, so black's moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From this position my move was e5, but I am not sure it is a good move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the best move in this position? And can I correct something in my sequence of moves so far? Thanks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am a beginner, so I have a lot to learn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20804" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-12-18T16:05:01.657" LastActivityDate="2019-12-18T16:05:01.657" Title="Analysis of a position in order to find the best move" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;theory&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27438" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27437" CreationDate="2019-12-18T13:25:25.277" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, your move e5?? was a blunder. 6.Ng5 won a valuable pawn after the forced 6...Be6 7.Nxe6 fxe6 8.Bxe6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White's opening is not very ambitious when he does not play d4, so you would probably have an easier time getting in the &quot;standard&quot; Sicilian freeing move d5. When black gets that move in, he is usually equal, if not better. So instead of 5...e5??, 5...e6 was better helping to achieve that goal of d5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the final position, after 6.Bg5, Be7 looks best, but you already weakened d5 a lot, so in most cases, black will trade on f6, and sink a very powerful knight onto the d5 square.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you are finding, learning how to play the game does not take long, but learning to play well can take a lifetime (depending on your goals).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Nc3 d6 4. Bc4 Nf6 5. d3 e5 (5... e6 6. O-O Be7 7. Bf4 (7. Be3 $4 d5 $1 8. exd5 exd5 9. Bb5 d4 {A typical trap}) 7... d5 8. Bb5 O-O {and it is, as we say, &quot;a position&quot;...black has equalized}) 6. Bg5 Be7 7. Bxf6 Bxf6 8. Nd5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2019-12-18T13:25:25.277" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27439" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5194" CreationDate="2019-12-18T14:42:04.387" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not by playing. And cheating is rampant so you would be a fool to try that.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to make money there are a few sites that help connect teachers to students.  Both local students as well as others online.&#xA;So how good are you and are you willing to work to make money or are you a gambler.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you must gamble them william hill in UK probably takes bets on chess tournaments but they now block people in usa from even accessing what bets are available.  EU access might be okay or  you could move to UK.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I used to like to LOOK at the odds they had for some things like US elections.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastActivityDate="2019-12-18T14:42:04.387" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27440" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27429" CreationDate="2019-12-18T14:46:24.577" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would worry more about looking at GM games to get a feel for what good moves are.  Also look at typical bad things beginners do; but do not worry about analysing bad games as that is not really useful.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You want to be making better moves so  you are never in a position like those bad games and won't care about those moves.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T15:17:57.973" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T15:17:57.973" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27441" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27428" CreationDate="2019-12-18T14:48:31.170" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Or why not skip blitz and use ratings or just flip a coin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They should make them play games until somebody wins one.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastActivityDate="2019-12-18T14:48:31.170" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27442" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27394" CreationDate="2019-12-18T16:31:47.217" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes! Since there are a finite number of states, and you can move between these states based on the chess rules. There is a neat page, which visualizes possible moves in a connected graph, so that is already 90% of what you would do if you'd program a state machine.&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/3095i.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/3095i.png&quot; alt=&quot;graph visualization of opening&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessroots.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.chessroots.com/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20899" LastActivityDate="2019-12-18T16:31:47.217" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27443" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-12-18T16:44:26.667" Score="7" ViewCount="188" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is it a good habit for an amateur to always try to play the best move (according to his best calculation), instead of sometimes purporsely play an inferior move hoping that his opponent does not know how to take advantage of it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, this implies avoiding playing slightly inferior but playable lines such as the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruy_Lopez,_Exchange_Variation&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;exchange variation&lt;/a&gt; of Ruy Lopez, &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King%27s_Gambit&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;the king's gambit&lt;/a&gt;, or (as black) the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen%27s_Gambit_Accepted&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;queen's gambit accepted&lt;/a&gt;, or setting up a trap which objectively is not the best move in a particular position, but when your opponent does not see through it, you gain some advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I personally feel that purposefully playing an inferior move may be helpful with obtaining advantages (and therefore winning chances) in a particular game, but may not be the best strategy, if not harmful, to one's life-long learning process of chess&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, is it a good habit for an amateur to always try to play the best move?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/22257/should-you-always-try-your-best-play-as-if-your-opponent-is-a-grandmaster&quot;&gt;This question&lt;/a&gt; is related. But my question is more about improving one's chess strength instead of winning a particular game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16626" LastActivityDate="2019-12-23T15:15:43.000" Title="Is it a good habit for an amateur to always try to play the best move (according to his best calculation and knowledge)?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;ruy-lopez&gt;&lt;kings-gambit&gt;&lt;queens-gambit-accepted&gt;&lt;opening-traps&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27444" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27443" CreationDate="2019-12-18T17:25:40.997" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a complicated question since chess is very complicated, and both board, and time, factors may be part of a decision.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Overall, yes, you should always play the best move probably 99% of the time. If there is a second alternative, but it is not much worse, and you think that your opponent might get caught up somehow, you can consider it. If it is genuinely just bad, then no, avoid it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Recently, in a game, I was playing someone well below me, and I played a move that sacrificed two pawns, but I played it knowing it was incredibly dangerous, and that he did not have enough time to figure it out. Well, my reasoning was sound until the tournament director walked by, and realized that the increment was set wrong, and was going to add time. My opponent, graciously, offered a draw, which was accepted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is one more case that I can think of, and that is if you know the style of your opponent. Let's say he is known not to defend well, and you have the choice between a positional move, and an attacking, but maybe not sound, move. If you are a good attacker, then it might be worth it given his known weaknesses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Those first openings that you listed are not really inferior, but rather, might not give as much opportunity for an opening advantage, especially the King's Gambit. That is mitigated at lower levels, where opening theory is not memorized as deeply. The QGA is a bit more dangerous as it, generally, does cede a definite slight plus to white.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So situational chess is a thing, but do not go overboard playing horrible moves that can bite you. Also, everything is out the window if you are significantly worse: In that case, do whatever you can to complicate the position, and make it tricky for your opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as improving one's strength, and game-situation aside, yes, you should always try to find the best move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2019-12-18T17:45:50.053" LastActivityDate="2019-12-18T17:45:50.053" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27445" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-12-18T18:32:33.673" Score="3" ViewCount="60" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a teacher, and don’t really play much. My students like chess and I want to send them to some safe chess sites for kids. Recommendations?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user20902" LastActivityDate="2019-12-18T18:36:16.020" Title="Recommendations for kids sites" Tags="&lt;teaching&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27446" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27445" CreationDate="2019-12-18T18:36:16.020" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have a few.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chesskid.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess Kid&lt;/a&gt; is part of chess.com, which is the largest chess site in the world. There are both free and paid memberships.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another great site is &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesskids.org.uk/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;ChessKids Academy&lt;/a&gt;. They have come very basic lessons for newcomers, and the best thing is that it is free.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.kidchess.com/play-chess/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Kid Chess&lt;/a&gt; also has some nice material that is free.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All of these sites have components for both the players, and the adults, who are helping them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2019-12-18T18:36:16.020" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27447" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12568" CreationDate="2019-12-18T20:40:02.180" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I like c5 for these positional reasons: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You are one step closer to activating your knight, which you cannot at the moment because the pawn would hang.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Forcing a bishop trade that will allow you to put the rook on the 7th and attack both e and a pawns, also avoiding the N fork on d6.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Reducing the number of attackers on your K (minus the bishop), while not reducing your defences because Q can perform bishop's duties from f6.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;20...g5, barring computer tactics is suicidal IMO, because you are undeveloped with a kingside attack on the way, and what do you do, expose your King some more?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15509" LastEditorUserId="15509" LastEditDate="2019-12-18T20:48:22.050" LastActivityDate="2019-12-18T20:48:22.050" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27448" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27462" CreationDate="2019-12-18T20:45:11.470" Score="8" ViewCount="4586" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am confused why you cannot move into a check when it can force your opponent to capture your king and expose theirs. In such a case why is there no extra move to result in a draw?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the &quot;Racing Kings&quot; variant, if white reaches the end of the board, black has an additional move to force a draw if they also reach the end of the board on that move. However, this does not seem to be the case in standard chess which seems to put black at a disadvantage. That is black must &quot;defend&quot; and white seems to have an advantage since it &quot;attacks&quot; from the very beginning of the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is an example of what I mean:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;8/8/2k5/3R4/2r1PK2/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it is black to move, why can't they capture the rook (d5)?&#xA;This would force white to recapture with the pawn and open up the king to a check from black's rook. Since black started second, it should have the chance to capture the king and force a draw. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20657" LastEditorUserId="20657" LastEditDate="2019-12-19T02:53:43.500" LastActivityDate="2020-01-02T19:47:25.963" Title="Moving into check for a draw as black, why is it illegal? Comparison to Racing Kings" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;check&gt;&lt;claim-draw&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27449" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27451" CreationDate="2019-12-18T22:07:39.737" Score="24" ViewCount="3824" Body="&lt;p&gt;I often hear this term thrown around when people are analyzing chess, but I don't really know what it means. I assume it's a generic term that means to play defensively, or to set up for the future. If that's what it means, how do I learn when it's time to do that, and how to do that? If the meaning is more precise than that, what is it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7438" LastActivityDate="2019-12-25T04:01:24.563" Title="What does it mean to play &quot;positionally&quot;, and how do you train that?" Tags="&lt;positional-play&gt;&lt;terminology&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27450" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27449" CreationDate="2019-12-18T22:37:00.160" Score="16" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think of game time decisions as yin-yang of tactics vs strategy (or positional play). In that order, tactics are the move-by-move calculations with the aim of achieving material gains (or preventing material losses if you are defending). Positional considerations are your intellectual efforts that do not involve precise calculations, but rather have the goal of achieving advantages that are &lt;strong&gt;expected&lt;/strong&gt; to bring material gains long term. To summarize, the difference between the two is a concrete result vs an expected result.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15509" LastActivityDate="2019-12-18T22:37:00.160" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27451" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27449" CreationDate="2019-12-18T22:47:39.027" Score="23" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are three general types of players: Positional, tactical, and universal, which is being adept and comfortable in both positional and tactical games. Tactical means that you love open positions that require a lot of calculation, and often include all-out attacks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Positional chess is generally slower, and you work to build small advantages by placing your pieces and pawns on good squares. Using your pieces and pawns effectively, you gradually hope to create pressure and threats that force small (or large, if you are lucky) weaknesses in your opponent's position. Once you have one small advantage, you can often accumulate more small advantages, and with the accumulation of these small advantages, you hope to turn that into one big advantage with a final winning tactical maneuver, or &quot;tactical shot&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I gave a very detailed list of positional elements in &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/27231/positional-thinking-by-grandmasters/27234#27234&quot;&gt;this post&lt;/a&gt;. Be aware that positional sense is one of the last things that a chess player develops, and it takes a lot of time to develop. Most players are pretty experienced by the time they really start to understand this well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2019-12-18T22:47:39.027" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27452" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27448" CreationDate="2019-12-18T23:31:12.903" Score="18" Body="&lt;p&gt;Those are just the rules of the game. You could absolutely try to make the case that moving into check in such a situation should be legal, but playing by those rules wouldn't be chess anymore (it would be some variant).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You could also ask why stalemate is a draw and not a win, even though the latter result would make more sense in a real battle. These are simply the rules.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-12-18T23:31:12.903" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27453" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27448" CreationDate="2019-12-19T00:43:26.553" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;It’s probable that White has some strategic advantage from going first. I never thought of your suggestion to give a losing player a “last-dying blow” might be a solution to this imbalance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now that I consider it, I think that it would not be desirable. Chess has too many draws anyway. That’s a much greater perceived issue than the white/black question. Your idea wouldn’t just turn White wins into draws but also Black wins.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, White’s advantage is strategic. If it translates into ability to checkmate with risk of last dying blow, then with a little more work it can probably translate into checkmate with no risk of last dying blow. So the issue and suggested solution are too separated&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this perspective helps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8201" LastEditorUserId="8201" LastEditDate="2019-12-19T02:43:01.680" LastActivityDate="2019-12-19T02:43:01.680" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27454" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27455" CreationDate="2019-12-19T01:04:11.070" Score="13" ViewCount="2958" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is this move clearly losing for white? Chessgames.com shows 1 win and 2 losses for white only, and I could not find any other reference for this move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20903" LastActivityDate="2019-12-21T06:36:58.527" Title="How bad is 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. a3?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27455" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27454" CreationDate="2019-12-19T02:15:17.903" Score="16" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. a3?&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No, it is not clearly losing, but I would say that the question mark is appropriate. You have to understand that white, by the nature of going first, can afford to waste a move in many early opening positions without it being a losing move. What it does though is it usually throws away any chance at gaining an advantage, and that is because you cannot be sure that the wasted move, in this case 3.a3?, will be helpful to your position as the position develops. In general, in the opening, you want to play moves that you KNOW will help you and that you know you want to play...you cannot know that about a3. a3 also does nothing to fight for the center. At best, you might play an early b4 trying to get play in the Wing Gambit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the Mega Database, there are actually 35 games, but the average rating for white and black is only 1796 to 1768, so that should tell you a lot: Strong players do not think it is good, even if not losing. For the record, white only scores a 37.1% with 3.a3?, but again, anything can happen between 1700s.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2019-12-19T02:15:17.903" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27456" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27448" CreationDate="2019-12-19T04:22:41.507" Score="17" Body="&lt;p&gt;I will answer from a different perspective: why Racing Kings (RK) has a rule to allow black a chance to draw, and why the same logic doesn't apply to chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;What is Racing Kings (RK)?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Background for those unfamiliar with RK: Both sides start with all pieces (no pawns), arranged on the first 2 ranks of the chessboard, white on the right, black on the left. The win condition is to get the kings from their initial squares on h2/a2 to any square on the 8th rank. Checks are forbidden --- no move is allowed to leave &lt;em&gt;either&lt;/em&gt; king in check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The rules as stated above, favour white heavily. Having one tempo is critically important when a game can be as short as six moves. In order to negate some of this advantage, if white moves the king to the 8th rank &lt;em&gt;and&lt;/em&gt; black can do the same immediately, the game is drawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;How serious is white's advantage in RK?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even with the added draw rule for black, &lt;em&gt;RK still favours white&lt;/em&gt;. In &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/analysis/racingKings&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;practical play on lichess&lt;/a&gt;, eyeballing the opening explorer tells us white still wins more than black overall, even limiting the games to top players (2000+ site RK rating). The imbalance is around 48% to 41% with about 11% draws. This empirically shows white's advantage, and it would be even more lopsided without the draw rule. (And if there were long time control games, the draw percentage would be much, much higher. Such is internet blitz.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Aside from game statistics, further evidence of the imbalance is the opening theory. 1. Kg3 lines have been very deeply analysed by the community and by Stockfish, and the outcome is that black can just about hold a draw with precise play (the theory can run 20 moves deep at times). The other best first moves 1. Bd4, 1. Nxc2 and 1. Kh3 are slightly less theoreticised, but deep engine analysis and practical play strongly suggests they are drawn too (again, with precise play).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So even with the draw rule in RK, black is still just holding on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Should regular chess have this rule?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At the top level of regular chess, we have a far higher percentage of draws already. It is also clearly nowhere near as imbalanced as the &quot;raw&quot; form of RK without the draw rule. For balance reasons, the rule proposed here (allowing black to move into check in certain circumstances) should not be introduced to regular chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15989" LastActivityDate="2019-12-19T04:22:41.507" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27457" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27454" CreationDate="2019-12-19T05:14:54.270" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's pretty bad but not close to losing. 3.a3 has been chosen in 34 games in my database, and scores around 38%. Stockfish at depth 28 gives an evaluation of about 0.14. So objectively speaking the game is equal after 3.a3 and White can't seriously hope for an advantage. It's also not one of those openings which you might play to trick your opponent, since pushing the a-pawn isn't threatening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-12-19T05:14:54.270" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27458" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-12-19T07:25:57.310" Score="3" ViewCount="79" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the current FIDE Grand Prix tournament in Jerusalem the &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess24.com/en/watch/live-tournaments/jerusalem-fide-grand-prix-2019/1/6/9&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;first round match between Pentala Harikrishna and Sergey Karjakin&lt;/a&gt; ended in a tied score, 4.5-4.5, but Karjakin won because the last game was an armageddon game with him as black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the 1950's &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Chess_Championship#FIDE_system_(1949%E2%80%931963)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Botvinnik &quot;won&quot; two world championship matches&lt;/a&gt; as defending champion with a score of 12-12, one in 1951 against Bronstein and again in 1954 against Smyslov. At the time there were no tie-breaks for world championship matches. Instead the defending champion retained the title.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That makes 3 matches. Are there any more?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2019-12-19T09:28:38.657" Title="How many matches have there been at the top level which have ended up with a tied score and a winner?" Tags="&lt;records&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27459" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27458" CreationDate="2019-12-19T09:28:38.657" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;As @Remellion pointed out, the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chess.pl?tid=55128&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;1987 Kasparov - Karpov world championship match&lt;/a&gt; also finished in a tie, 12-12, with Kasparov retaining the title.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That chessgames.com link leads on to the 1910 Lasker vs Schlechter world championship match that finished 5-5 with Lasker retaining the title. The interesting story of the match is told &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chess.pl?tid=54100&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;. With one game to play Schlechter was leading 5-4 and only needed a draw to become world champion. Instead of playing safe he played for the win but after a game lasting 11 hours spread over 3 days he lost and Lasker retained the title.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another tied game which had a winner was the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chess.pl?tid=87187&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;1983 Smyslov - Hübner Candidates Quarterfinal Match&lt;/a&gt; which ended 5-5 and then was extended with 4 full length tie-break games (all draws) for a final score of 7-7. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The match was held in Velden, Austria, about 500 meters from the Casino Velden and so to decide the winner they used the roulette wheel. If the ball fell into a black number Hübner would be the winner and if red then Smyslov. The first spin saw the ball end up in zero (no colour) so a second spin was needed which landed in red, so Smyslov won the match. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Robert Byrne, &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.nytimes.com/1983/05/08/arts/chess-should-chance-decide-the-outcome-of-a-match.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;reporting in the New York Times&lt;/a&gt;, thought this was very unfair and proposed that more rapid games should be used to break ties when the tie-break games at the regular time control failed to produce a winner. Perhaps this was the first time rapid games had been suggested as a tie-break mechanism?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, that takes the total up to 6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2019-12-19T09:28:38.657" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27460" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27428" CreationDate="2019-12-19T13:08:27.507" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Ask them before the match if they prefer to draw the classical games, and if either of them say no, let the match go ahead. But if they say yes, just save everyone the disappointment (not to mention the $$$) and play Rapid/Blitz.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If one of those players who said &quot;no&quot; makes it to the final, they'd be at a disadvantage: having played more and longer games, their level of mental exhaustion would be higher, compared to a player who skipped games. It'd be like a tennis match where one of the players endured 20 matches and the other one only played 10.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;This would lead to every player opting out of classical games to ensure that they don't play more games than necessary.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Which would lead to tournaments being only Rapid and Blitz.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Which would lead to GMs adapting their play style, strategies etc. to better fit Rapid/Blitz, basically abandoning classical play.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And then some GMs would look for a short draw in the Rapid games to avoid risks, too. Which would lead to somebody asking &quot;Why bother with actually playing out the short draw on the board? Just skip the Rapid games and go straight to Blitz/Bullet.&quot;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;And then somebody would think &quot;Why bother with Blitz&quot; etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And in the end, the goal of tournament chess would shift from &quot;checkmate the enemy King&quot; to &quot;make your opponent's clock run out before yours&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If elite tournaments have not done this &lt;em&gt;yet&lt;/em&gt;, it's probably because there are still enough players that don't want chess to become that kind of game. But who knows, maybe that's the future of elite chess? Super fast games that can be easily scheduled and promoted on social media, and consumed by the public in the form of 2-minute YouTube clips?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15793" LastActivityDate="2019-12-19T13:08:27.507" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27461" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27449" CreationDate="2019-12-19T21:10:14.550" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;As the term goes, it's about planning one's play according to the potentials of the position: which means, to name a few, taking note of the weak points, of the potential improvement of our pieces (e.g. establishing a permanent central post for a knight) and of the prospects the pawn skeleton offers. This allows us to compose a strategic plan that aims to achieve a &lt;em&gt;positional&lt;/em&gt; edge (e.g. induce a weakness or secure a square for a piece).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As an example for a case of playing positionally according to the &lt;em&gt;pawn structure&lt;/em&gt;, consider the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen%27s_Gambit_Declined#Exchange_Variation:_4.cxd5_exd5&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;exchange variation of the QGD&lt;/a&gt;, where a typical positional consideration would be to play for the minority attack as white in order to trade the minority queenside pawns for black's pawns and in the process induce a weakened pawn on &lt;code&gt;c6&lt;/code&gt; for black. See the diagram below which can occur after: &lt;code&gt;1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.cxd5 exd5 5.Bg5 c6 6.Qc2&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/PFYx1m.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/PFYx1m.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Example game: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1140696&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Seirawan vs Tal 1983&lt;/a&gt;, white successfully executes the minority attack and maintains pressure on the &lt;code&gt;c6&lt;/code&gt; weakness until the end of the game (always stopping &lt;code&gt;c5&lt;/code&gt; which would allow black to get rid their weak point).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a side-note that even the &lt;code&gt;Qc2&lt;/code&gt; move here by white is a positional move: it prevents black from establishing a good light square bishop with &lt;code&gt;Bf5,&lt;/code&gt; that option ruled out, the &lt;code&gt;c8&lt;/code&gt; bishop really struggles to become useful in this structure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another example of playing &lt;em&gt;positionally,&lt;/em&gt; pertaining to both establishing a strong central piece by considering the induced weakpoints in the established pawn structure, consider the following Sicilian Najdorf position where black has opted for the &lt;code&gt;d6-e5&lt;/code&gt; setup and therefore weakning their light squares, in particular the &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt;. So, by taking note of that, one of white's main plans in such positions is to exploit that weakness and establish a permanent knight on &lt;code&gt;d5.&lt;/code&gt; See the diagram below sketching one such plan:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/KApB9m.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/KApB9m.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;How do we make it permanent? The idea is to trade all of black's potential defenders of the &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt; square, namely: the knights and the light square bishop. See e.g. this game between &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1883735&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;MVL and Nepomniachtchi 2017&lt;/a&gt;, where MVL successfully accomplishes this very plan.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In short, to play &lt;em&gt;positionally&lt;/em&gt; is to make stratetigc plans according to the potentials of the position in terms of pawn structure, piece effectiveness, king safety, etc. Though bear in mind positional and tactical play always go hand in hand as the latter is always needed to concretely execute the former.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for ways to train your positional understanding: study games of professional players and try to understand their decision makings and what they aimed for (like the above examples), ask yourself a lot of questions in the openings you play and study (what are the moves trying to achieve at a basic level), and try to think of your own positions in terms of principles such as &lt;em&gt;pawn structure&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;effective pieces&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;king safety&lt;/em&gt; and so on. In terms of examples of players whose games you could look into, Vladimir Kramnik, Mikhail Botvinnik, Emanuel Lasker, Alexandra Kosteniuk ,Yasser Seirawan, come to mind, but of course there are many others to consider.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For more examples of positional type of discussions, you might also find these posts helpful: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/q/23892/3594&quot;&gt;Understanding Kramnik's play in game 1 of Candidates 2018&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/q/23857/3594&quot;&gt;Caruana vs Carlsen game 10 (WCC) why not &lt;code&gt;18…Nxb6?&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3594" LastEditorUserId="3594" LastEditDate="2019-12-19T21:17:45.320" LastActivityDate="2019-12-19T21:17:45.320" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27462" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27448" CreationDate="2019-12-19T21:51:41.803" Score="23" Body="&lt;p&gt;Imagine a variation of chess without the rules about check and checkmate, where a player wins simply when he captures his opponent's king. In this variation, &lt;code&gt;Kxd5&lt;/code&gt; loses the game to &lt;code&gt;exd5&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Turns out, that's more or less how real chess works. The objective is to capture the opponent's king. If your king is under attack, you must deal with that threat. If there's no way to remove the threat, then you lose.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The explicit rule that you must end your move not in check (both by eliminating the check if you're in check, and by not moving into check) and the rule that ends the game with checkmate simply ensure that the king is never actually captured. Check can almost be seen as a safety measure for weaker players who might not notice that their king is under attack. Notice that announcing check is not actually in the rules, and grandmasters never do it. The rule is effectively unnecessary for experts. And checkmate is sort of like the game forcing a resignation when the result is inevitable, much like how experts will resign when they see that their opponent has forced mate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If we think of the rules of check this way, then it's clear why &lt;code&gt;Kxd5&lt;/code&gt; is illegal: your opponent would take your king, and the fact that his own king becomes exposed is irrelevant because the game is over.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17600" LastActivityDate="2019-12-19T21:51:41.803" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27463" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27454" CreationDate="2019-12-19T22:13:38.973" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Other posters have shared database and Stockfish results, but I would prefer just to talk strategy. What, exactly, is your plan with 3. a3 ? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If you want to play b2-b4, you can already do that on move 3; it's called the Wing Gambit, and though it does not have a sterling reputation, you'll find masters who have won games with it, and can study those games.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Why do those masters who have played the Wing Gambit not play a3 first? Generally it's because a3 is a do-nothing move. Even if you get to play b4, black doesn't have to trade there, and if he doesn't, then you've given him a free move to execute his strategy.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;What, then, is black's strategy? To fight for the dark squares in the center, specifically d4. The move a3 doesn't do anything to hinder that strategy. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So with those points in mind, I think Black has several good moves here. First, you have all of the normal Sicilian moves, like 3...Nc6, 3...e6, 3...a6, or 3...Qc7. Preparing a fianchetto of either bishop, 3...b6 or 3...g6, seems fine. But also you might be giving Black a chance to fight for d4 more directly with 3...e5!?. If Black has so many viable moves, it doesn't seem like you've gained anything over a normal Sicilian.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13930" LastActivityDate="2019-12-19T22:13:38.973" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27464" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-12-19T23:39:04.130" Score="21" ViewCount="4436" Body="&lt;p&gt;I notice Lc0 is &lt;a href=&quot;https://postimg.cc/rRkX7Bzw&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;especially good against Stockfish in French / Slav pawn structures&lt;/a&gt;. However, I don't understand why.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here're a couple of games where Leela smoothly outplays Stockfish. Can anyone explain what Stockfish is doing wrong?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/computer-chess-championship#event=ccc11-finals&amp;amp;game=64&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Link to this game displaying Lc0 &amp;amp; Stockfish PVs / evals for each move&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;CCC11 Finals (30|5)&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2019.12.19&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;1&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Lc0&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Stockfish&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;C04&quot;]&#xA;[GameDuration &quot;01:12:46&quot;]&#xA;[GameEndTime &quot;2019-12-19T07:33:45.057 PST&quot;]&#xA;[GameStartTime &quot;2019-12-19T06:20:58.414 PST&quot;]&#xA;[Opening &quot;French&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;247&quot;]&#xA;[TimeControl &quot;1800+5&quot;]&#xA;[Variation &quot;Tarrasch, Guimard Main line&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Nd2 Nc6 4. Ngf3 Nf6 5. e5 Nd7 6. Nb3 a5 7. a4 b6 8. h4 Bb7 9. c3 Qc8 10. h5 h6 11. Be3 Ba6 12. Nc1 Nd8 13. Rh3 Qb7 14. Rg3 b5 15. Nd3 Nc6 16. Be2 bxa4 17. Qxa4 Rb8 18. Bc1 Bb5 19. Qd1 Qb6 20. Kf1 Ne7 21. Nh4 c5 22. Nxc5 Nxc5 23. dxc5 Bxe2+ 24. Qxe2 Qxc5 25. Kg1 Qb5 26. Qd1 Nc6 27. Nf3 Qb6 28. Nd4 Bc5 29. Be3 Bxd4 30. cxd4 Kf8 31. Qg4 Rh7 32. Bxh6 Qxd4 33. Bxg7+ Ke8 34. h6 Rxb2 35. Qxd4 Nxd4 36. Rh3 Nb3 37. Ra4 Nd2 38. g4 Nc4 39. g5 Rb7 40. Rc3 Ke7 41.Kg2 Rb8 42. Bf6+ Kd7 43. Kg3 Rb1 44. Kh3 Rg1 45. Kh2 Rb1 46. Kg2 Rb5 47. Kg3 Nd2 48. Kg4 Nc4 49. Ra1 Kc6 50. Kh5 Kc5 51. g6 fxg6+ 52. Kxg6 Rbb7 53. Bg7 Rxh6+ 54. Bxh6 Kd4 55. Rg3 Rb8 56. Bg7 Ke4 57. Re1+ Kd4 58. Kf7 Kc5 59. Kxe6 a4 60. Kf5 Re8 61. e6 Nd6+ 62. Kg6 d4 63. e7 Rg8 64. Kh7 Ra8 65. Rg4 d3 66.Rd1 Re8 67.Rxd3 Nb7 68. f3 Kb5 69. f4 Rxe7 70. f5 Re1 71. f6 Rf1 72. Rdd4 a3 73. Rb4+ Kc6 74. Ra4 Nd6 75. Rxa3 Kb5 76. f7 Nxf7 77. Kg6 Nd8 78. Rb3+ Kc5 79. Rc3+ Kb5 80. Rc8 Nc6 81. Re8 Kc5 82. Rg5+ Kd6 83. Bf6 Rf2 84. Rf5 Ra2 85. Kf7 Ra7+ 86. Kf8 Rd7 87. Rh5 Rb7 88. Rh6 Rb5 89. Kg7 Rb1 90. Kg8 Kc5 91. Rh7 Rb3 92. Rh8 Kd6 93. Kf7 Rb7+ 94. Kg6 Rb3 95. Kf5 Kd7 96. Re4 Rf3+ 97. Kg5 Kd6 98. Rh6 Kd5 99. Re1 Kc4 100. Rh7 Rb3 101. Rc1+ Kd5 102. Rd7+ Ke6 103. Rd2 Rb5+ 104. Kg6 Ne5+ 105. Bxe5 Rxe5 106. Rg1 Ke7 107. Rgg2 Re6+ 108. Kg7 Re5 109. Rde2 Kd6 110. Rxe5 Kxe5 111. Kf7 Kd4 112. Ke6 Ke4 113. Rg4+ Kd3 114. Ke5 Ke3 115. Rd4 Kf3 116. Re4 Kg3 117. Rf4 Kh3 118. Kf5 Kg3 119. Kg5 Kh3 120. Rg4 Kh2 121. Kh4 Kh1 122. Kg3 Kg1 123. Rf4 Kh1 124. Rf1# 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/computer-chess-championship#event=ccc11-finals&amp;amp;game=56&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Another game where Stockfish &lt;em&gt;just&lt;/em&gt; manages to hold the draw.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;CCC11 Finals (30|5)&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2019.12.18&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;1&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Lc0&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Stockfish&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1/2-1/2&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;B12&quot;]&#xA;[GameDuration &quot;01:31:03&quot;]&#xA;[GameEndTime &quot;2019-12-18T23:02:39.927 PST&quot;]&#xA;[GameStartTime &quot;2019-12-18T21:31:35.992 PST&quot;]&#xA;[Opening &quot;Caro-Kann&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;384&quot;]&#xA;[TimeControl &quot;1800+5&quot;]&#xA;[Variation &quot;Advance Variation&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. e5 Bf5 4. Ne2 e6 5. Ng3 Bg6 6. h4 h6 7. h5 Bh7 8. Bd3 Bxd3 9. Qxd3 c5 10. c3 Ne7 11. f4 Na6 12. Ne2 Nc6 13. a3 c4 14. Qc2 Qd7 15. Nd2 O-O-O 16. Nf3 Be7 17. g4 Rdf8 18. Be3 Nc7 19. f5 Kb8 20. Ng3 a6 21. O-O Bd8 22. Rf2 Re8 23. Raf1 Rhg8 24. Kg2 Ka8 25. Bc1 Kb8 26. Kh3 Ka8 27. f6 gxf6 28. exf6 Rh8 29. Ne5 Nxe5 30. dxe5 Nb5 31. Bf4 Bb6 32. Qd2 Bxf2 33. Rxf2 Na7 34. Bxh6 Nc6 35. Bf4 Qd8 36. Nf1 Nb8 37. Nh2 Nd7 38. Nf3 Nc5 39. Qe3 Ne4 40. Re2 Reg8 41. Qd4 Qc7 42. Be3 b5 43. Rg2 Rh7 44. Kh4 Rgh8 45. Rg1 Qd7 46. Ra1 Rb8 47. Ng5 Nxg5 48.Kxg5 Qc7 49. Kf4 a5 50. Rh1 Rbh8 51. Kg3 Kb7 52. Rb1 a4 53. Rh1 Ka6 54. Rh4 Kb7 55. Bg1 Kc8 56. Rh3 Rg8 57. Be3 Kd7 58. g5 Rgh8 59. Kg4 Rg8 60. Rh4 Kc8 61. Bf2 Kd7 62. Bg1 Kd8 63. Be3 Kc8 64. Rh2 Kb8 65. Rh1 Kc8 66. Rh4 Kd7 67. Bf2 Kc8 68. Rh1 Kb7 69. Bg1 Ka6 70. Rh2 Rhh8 71. Be3 Rc8 72. Rh4 Rcg8 73. Rh3 Kb7 74. Rf3 Kc8 75. Qc5 Qxc5 76. Bxc5 Kd7 77. g6 Ke8 78. Kg5 Rh7 79. Rf1 Rhh8 80. g7 Kd7 81. Kh4 Rh7 82. Kg5 Kc6 83. Bf8 Kc7 84. Rd1 Kd7 85. Bb4 Ke8 86. Be7 Rhh8 87. Bc5 Rh7 88. Ra1 Kd7 89. Be7 Ke8 90. Bb4 Rhh8 91. Bc5 Kd7 92. Bf8 Rh7 93. Bd6 Kd8 94. Bf8 Kd7 95. Rd1 Rhh8 96. h6 Rh7 97. Kh5 Kc6 98. Rg1 Kd7 99. Rg5 Ke8 100. Bd6 Kd7 101.Bb4 Kc6 102. Ba5 Kc5 103. Bc7 Kc6 104. Bd6 Kb7 105. Rg1 Kc6 106. Rd1 Kd7 107.Bc5 Kc6 108. Bf2 Rc8 109. Rg1 Rg8 110. Bd4 Kc7 111. b4 cxb3 112. Rg4 Kb7 113.Bf2 Kc7 114. Rd4 Rb8 115. Be3 Kd7 116. Bg1 Rd8 117. Rf4 Ra8 118. Rg4 Rc8 119. Rd4 Rb8 120. Bf2 Kc6 121. Rf4 Ra8 122. Bd4 Rb8 123. Rg4 Rg8 124. Rg5 Kc7 125. Rg4 Kc6 126. Rg3 Kb7 127. Rg2 Kc6 128. Rg4 Kc7 129. Rg5 Kc6 130. Rg4 Kb7 131. Rg3 Kc8 132. Rg6 Kd7 133. Rg3 Ke8 134. Rg4 Kd8 135. Rg5 Kc7 136. Rg3 Kd7 137.Rf3 Rc8 138. Rf2 Re8 139. Rf4 Rc8 140. Rf2 Kc6 141. Rf4 Kd7 142. c4 bxc4 143.Bc3 Rg8 144. Ba1 Kc6 145. Rd4 Rc8 146. Bc3 Rb8 147. Bb2 Kd7 148. Rg4 Rg8 149.Rd4 Kc6 150. Bc3 Rc8 151. Rg4 Rg8 152. Bd4 Kc7 153. Bb2 Kc6 154. Rd4 Kc5 155.Ba1 Kc6 156. Rd2 Kc5 157. Rd1 Rb8 158. Bd4+ Kc6 159. Rg1 Rg8 160. Rg5 Kc7 161.Rf5 Rc8 162. Rf1 Kc6 163. Rd1 Kb5 164. Bc3 Kc6 165. Ba1 Kd7 166. Rg1 Rg8 167.Rd1 Kc6 168. Bb2 Rc8 169. Rd2 Kd7 170. Bc3 Rg8 171. Ba1 Kc6 172. Rd1 Rc8 173.Rd2 Rg8 174. Rd1 Re8 175. Bc3 Rg8 176. Rd2 Ra8 177. Rd1 Rg8 178. Bb2 Kc5 179.Rd4 Kc6 180. Rd2 Rc8 181. Rg2 Rg8 182. Bd4 Kb5 183. Rg5 Kc6 184. Rg1 Kc7 185.Rg2 Kd7 186. Rf2 Ke8 187. Rd2 Kd7 188. Rg2 Kc7 189. Rg4 Kc6 190. Rg2 Kb5 191.Rg1 Ka5 192. Rg2 Rb8 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only common observation I've made is that it seems these games involve Stockfish not castling kingside. If the opening book forces it to do so, it doesn't get into scrapes like this as much. &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/computer-chess-championship#event=ccc11-finals&amp;amp;game=46&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Example game where Stockfish drew a French with kingside castling without too much drama&lt;/a&gt;. It seems in the first game that a lot of action happened on the queenside while Stockfish declined to castle kingside (which makes sense, doing that seems foolhardy at best against a Rook on g3), but White's superior kingside space eventually led to a win in material. Game 2, the queenside was less of a battleground, but again White's superior kingside space led to a big advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What plans should Stockfish have used in either game? Where did Stockfish go wrong?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I realize that, of course, Stockfish and Leela are way way better than the best humans, so I'm not looking for concrete lines here - just general plans that Stockfish should have tried. In particular (and especially for correspondence chess players), at which point should one look for improvements in Black's play?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastEditorUserId="15223" LastEditDate="2020-04-27T10:35:36.180" LastActivityDate="2020-04-27T10:35:36.180" Title="Why is Leela so good at beating Stockfish in the French/Slav?" Tags="&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;computer-chess&gt;&lt;french-defense&gt;&lt;slav-defense&gt;&lt;leela&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="8" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27465" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27464" CreationDate="2019-12-20T02:34:43.403" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, it is a small sample, but assuming that there are a lot more games like these, I think it could be the following things.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, I am not sure when we first humans first decided that space was an advantage, but for as long as I have been playing, it has been a known factor. Both of these openings cede space compared to double-king-pawn openings and double-queen-pawn openings. It is notable that in both games above, white played e5 taking the space that was offered.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think what we are seeing at such a high level is confirmation that space is maybe a larger factor than we previously believed, possibly even decisive. If one program can dismantle such a strong opponent with its one major advantage being space, it may just be THE single biggest reason. I have always loved openings that give me a space advantage, and have had very good results, but of course, we are human, and cannot execute like Leela can, so we don't win every time proving the value beyond all doubts like the machines soon may.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also think that having that space may lead directly to more activity, and the cramped king-sides in both these games were expertly exploited. I think that in both games, black did not castle simply because it was already tactical suicide, and not castling, in and of itself, was not the reason for the loss...the damage was already done. I am not sure that all variations of these openings would see that as decisively as these games since not all allow e5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hopefully, that is a start to answering your question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2019-12-20T02:34:43.403" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27466" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27464" CreationDate="2019-12-20T02:58:55.980" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;Because of the enormous skill difference between these computers and humans, any kind of analysis will inevitably be post-hoc. We can tell ourselves stories about how &quot;Stockfish should have [insert plan],&quot; (and I'm sure some people here will) but ultimately I think that any story we could come up with would be flawed at the level of Leela/Stockfish. This isn't to say our ideas are worthless, just that they are very likely to not tell the whole story. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I recognize that this is a bit of a &quot;Who are we to judge god?&quot; response to the problem of evil, but I stand by it. In the world of chess, gods are real. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That being said, I do think I can provide a (speculative) answer to the question stated in the title: why is leela so good at beating stockfish in the french caro kann? I realize this isn't &lt;em&gt;exactly&lt;/em&gt; the answer you were going for, but I think it's interesting&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Classical engine (eg stockfish) work by (smart) brute force. They leverage their computational power to compute many, many positions and beat you with calculation. In the 80s, early 90s, if you were a decent player, you could abuse this fact by steering the game into positions where calculation is less helpful. This usually meant closed positions with an unclear path to victory--without an obvious way to improve the position within the next x moves, computers don't know what to do, and make silly decisions. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But that was awhile ago. Computers are now much faster, and our algorithms much stronger. We've optimized the hell out of our engines, and it shows in the performance. However, I suspect classical engines still suffer from the same problems as before: in positions with no clear path forward, calculation just isn't as useful. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In particular, look at the position after move 9 in the first game. What do you do as black? Stockfish can certainly play this position very, very well (due to years of optimization), but I doubt to the same standard as it does open ones. Leela, being (partially) a neural net, doesn't rely &lt;em&gt;as&lt;/em&gt; heavily on calculation, and (if we're anthropomorphizeing) has a better grasp of long-term &quot;thinking.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So this would be my guess: leela does better in french/caro kann positions because they have unclear lines of progress. This plays into leela's strengths and Stockfish's weaknesses.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would be curious to see if there are any examples of stockfish losing to leela in open, tactical games. The previous section would benefit from attempted falsification.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20581" LastActivityDate="2019-12-20T02:58:55.980" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27467" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-12-20T03:14:35.833" Score="3" ViewCount="83" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to create a program for personal use but also maybe for publishing it on the web, in order to detect the top players with respect to elo and age. There will be two cases:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A) In this case, someone will choose one of top players. There will be an output - answer: What was the first elo rating that he passed by being the youngest player ever to reach that rating or maybe a list of all these numbers, because there may be many and on which date and at which age age. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: Magnus Carlsen. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Output (not real-true): At the age of 8 years and 3 months old, in February 2002, he was the youngest player ever that passed the elo 2098. At the age of 11 years and 7 months old in June 2005, he was the youngest player ever that passed the elo 2202. Etc... (maybe in that case there will also be a choice to show the dates and elo numbers in which he was the second youngest or third etc.. .). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B) In this case, someone will choose an elo number, for example 2804. There will be an output - answer: Who was the youngest player who passed this number and on which date - age. Or maybe a list with all the players who passed this number sorted from youngest to oldest. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: 2804&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Output (not real - true):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) Magnus Carlsen, 21 years and 2 months old, in August 2012.&#xA;2) Garry Kasparov, 27 years and 5 months old, in January 1990.&#xA;etc.. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can you give me some guidelines and advice how to go on? Maybe there is already something like that? Are there some resources I can take some historical databases from? I think it needs (relatively) easy programming or not so much? Also is it possible to use the live numbers from live 2700, including decimal digits and dates (for example, 2758.7 in 9 October 2015), or it should be better to start with the official fide round ratings per month? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In any case, if I create this program do you think it will be good to publish it on a website? Nonprofit or there can be a respectful low income from ads on it? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tia.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20863" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-12-21T09:48:48.673" LastActivityDate="2019-12-21T09:48:48.673" Title="Creating program for finding top players with respect to elo and age" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;programming&gt;&lt;fide&gt;&lt;elo&gt;&lt;websites&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27468" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27464" CreationDate="2019-12-20T03:46:28.457" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;Generally speaking, Leela tends to have a better &quot;intuition&quot; and Stockfish is very good at brute force calculations. So in a structure like the French/Caro-Kann, where calculation becomes less important and strategy becomes more important, Leela will tend to do better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-12-20T03:46:28.457" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27469" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27467" CreationDate="2019-12-20T04:40:22.133" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Assuming you can find a database with the data you want, this is a very straightforward programming exercise. In particular, Python is made for this kind of stuff. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are successful in making it, then by all means publish it on a website, but there's absolutely no way ad revenue will come anywhere near offsetting the cost of the domain name, not to mention the time/energy you spend on it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20581" LastActivityDate="2019-12-20T04:40:22.133" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27470" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5483" CreationDate="2019-12-20T06:51:10.363" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If the goal of the game were stalemate instead, &lt;strong&gt;the game would still be more or less the same as chess&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In chess, in order to win, one tries to get some kind of superiority (material, space, position) and win from there by forcing the opponent to yield more and more until no resistance is possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In most chess variants, a key principle is to be able to force your opponent around by establishing some kind of superiority. (Exactly the same!) After all, once you have a winning position it is easy to do anything thereafter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Indirect proof 1: Consider the variants antichess and losing chess (captures must be played if available, win condition is to lose all your own units; in antichess additionally kings are not royal.) It is well-known that getting a material advantage is almost always the correct way to play for a win. The resulting extra mobility eventually lets you force your opponent to take all your pieces in a single final burst, or to arrive at a winning material-up endgame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Indirect proof 2: I cite the club correspondence game &lt;a href=&quot;http://amici.iccf.com/issues/issue_04/issue_04_paris_marseilles_corr_1880.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Paris - Marseille, 1878&lt;/a&gt;. Paris took white and started without a queen. Black's goal was to &lt;em&gt;force white to deliver checkmate&lt;/em&gt;; white tried to &lt;em&gt;avoid&lt;/em&gt; mating black. The game looks remarkably normal for a long way, until black's advantage is sufficient to start forcing white around.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I claim, if from an advantageous position one can force the opponent to deliver mate against their will, what more difficult would forcing stalemate be?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Date &quot;????.??.??&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;*&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNB1KBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Paris&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Marseilles&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;correspondence 1878; white gives queen odds, black plays for selfmate&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 d5 2.Nc3 c6 3.Nf3 g6 4.e4 e6 5.e5 Bb4 6.Bd2 Bxc3 7.Bxc3 b5 8.h4 h5 9.O-O-O a6 10.Ng5 f5 11.g3 Nh6 12.Bd3 Nf7 13.Bxf5 gxf5 14.Nxf7 Kxf7 15.Bd2 Nd7 16.Rhe1 c5 17.dxc5 Nxc5 18.Bg5 Qg8 19.Re3 Bb7 20.Rc3 Rc8 21.Be3 Nd7 22.Bd4 Rxc3 23.bxc3 a5 24.Kd2 a4 25.Rb1 Ba6 26.Rg1 Qg4 27.Rb1 Rc8 28.Rb4 Rc4 29.Rxc4 dxc4 30.a3 f4 31.Kc1 fxg3 32.fxg3 Qxg3 33.Kb2 Qxh4 34.Kc1 Qe1+ 35.Kb2 Qd1 36.Ba7 Nxe5 37.Bc5 h4 38.Bd4 Nc6 39.Be3 e5 40.Bf2 h3 41.Bg3 e4 42.Bf4 Ke6 43.Bg3 e3 44.Bf4 e2 45.Bg3 Kd7 46.Bh2 e1=Q 47.Bf4 Qee2 48.Bg3 Qdxc2+ 49.Ka1 Qf1+ 50.Be1 Qd2 51.Kb1 h2 52.Ka1 h1=Q 53.Kb1 Qf8 54.Ka1 Qxa3+ 55.Kb1 Qad6 56.Ka1 Qf6 57.Kb1 Kc7 58.Ka1 b4 59.Kb1 b3 60.Ka1 Kb6 61.Kb1 Ka5 62.Ka1 Ne7 63.Kb1 Nc8 64.Ka1 Bb5 65.Kb1 Qa6 66.Ka1 Nb6 67.Kb1 Qh7+ 68.Ka1 Qxc3+ 69.Bxc3# &#xA;*&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Getting an advantageous position (exactly the same as normal chess) would be the simplest way to force stalemate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15989" LastActivityDate="2019-12-20T06:51:10.363" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27471" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27428" CreationDate="2019-12-20T08:18:58.400" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Elite players are unwilling to take risks to give themselves the best chances to qualify for the Candidates, so they play short draws. Okay (I'd even say it's quite logical).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not quite. As it stands, aiming for short draws with white is a costly strategy: you may then fail to equalize as black if your opponent does not return the favour. Ironically, this is exactly what happened to Vachier-Lagrave in the last World Cup. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, some players may still be willing to pay that cost for one reason or another, but its is generally not true that they do it &lt;em&gt;en masse&lt;/em&gt;. I checked the statistics of last three World Cups from round 3 onwards (to exclude too uneven pairs) and 55% of matches do have decisive games in classical portion, and obviously a sizable fraction of the others have fighting draws. Similarly, the decisive classical game rate at the current Grand Prix is at the moment at 24%, which is a bit lower than last two GPs (28% and 31% respectively), but not dramatically so. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If one could  agree to two draws in classical free of cost, then it would be different - it would be usually beneficial to do so in the match of equal players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17330" LastEditorUserId="17330" LastEditDate="2019-12-20T08:24:38.910" LastActivityDate="2019-12-20T08:24:38.910" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27473" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27477" CreationDate="2019-12-20T09:09:40.437" Score="4" ViewCount="489" Body="&lt;p&gt;In &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1913200&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this game&lt;/a&gt;, Magnus Carlsen made an unusual poor first move &lt;code&gt;Nh3&lt;/code&gt;. Presumably, it was to throw off his opponent, especially since the game was under fast time controls, so that is understandable. But I cannot understand why he played another poor move after that. Why &lt;code&gt;f4&lt;/code&gt;? Why not &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;g3&lt;/code&gt; (with their obvious benefits)? Is &lt;code&gt;1. Nh3 Nh6&lt;/code&gt; so frequently used that he needs to make two poor moves in a row to make sure his opponent has no preparation? More concretely, is there any potential positional gain by &lt;code&gt;f4&lt;/code&gt;? As far as I can tell, &lt;code&gt;f4&lt;/code&gt; only serves to expose the king and delay development of all the pieces...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Nh3 Nh6 2. f4 d5 3. Nf2 Ng4 4. e3 Nxf2 5. Kxf2 c5 6. b3 Nc6 7. Bb5 Bd7 8. Bb2 a6 9. Bd3 Qc7 10. Nc3 e6 11. Qh5 Be7 12. Rhf1 Bf6 13. Kg1 Nb4 14. Rac1 Nxa2 15. Rce1 Nb4 16. f5 e5 17. e4 c4 18. Nxd5 Nxd5 19. Bxc4 Nb4 20. c3 Nc6 21. Qxf7+ Kd8 22. Ba3 Be8 23. Qd5+ Qd7 24. Bd6 Be7 25. Bxe7+ Kxe7 26. Qc5+ Qd6 27. Qb6 Bd7 28. d4 Nd8 29. Qa5 Nc6 30. Qa2 Kd8 31. Rd1 Kc7 32. Qf2 Rad8 33. b4 Rhf8 34. b5 axb5 35. Bxb5 g6 36. f6 Kb8 37. Bc4 Bc8 38. Bd5 Be6 39. Bxe6 Qxe6 40. d5 Qd6 41. Ra1 Kc7 42. dxc6 Qxc6 43. Ra5 Kb8 44. Qa7+&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9192" LastActivityDate="2019-12-20T11:40:31.890" Title="Is there a reason for MC's second move?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;carlsen&gt;&lt;rapid&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27474" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23356" CreationDate="2019-12-20T09:53:22.607" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think it very simple: if you point to something which is under your hand, it is much more convenient to use your middle finger. It seems a bit awkward, but more &quot;natural&quot; to your hand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20914" LastActivityDate="2019-12-20T09:53:22.607" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27475" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27473" CreationDate="2019-12-20T10:33:21.697" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Nh3 already, after the first move, does not have a good square, so he created one, f2. If he plays it to g5 after d5, then why did it not just go to f3? You don't want to move it back to g1 either. The worst though is moving it to f4 where it is sure to get knocked around and lose development time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think is also was consistent with his desire to take an online rapid game down an untraveled road. I think that if he were in front of you, he would tell you not to play either move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2019-12-20T10:51:41.263" LastActivityDate="2019-12-20T10:51:41.263" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27476" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27448" CreationDate="2019-12-20T11:13:42.510" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The question assumes that White has an inherent advantage and that therefore Black should have an extra chance to draw by &quot;winning&quot; on the same move number.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;white seems to have an advantage since it &quot;attacks&quot; from the very beginning of the game&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is not true generically in games (&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-player_and_second-player_win&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-player_and_second-player_win&lt;/a&gt;) - there are games where the second player can force a draw or even force a win.  It is not proven which category chess falls into.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In any case, any advantage for white is not sufficiently large to make such a rule necessary.  (Unlike racing kings where the advantage for white is considerable.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20915" LastActivityDate="2019-12-20T11:13:42.510" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27477" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27473" CreationDate="2019-12-20T11:35:27.367" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;2.f4 is a poor move, just like 1.Nh3 was. 1.Nh3 puts White at roughly -0.50; then, after 1...Nh6 White comes back to around 0.3. If Carlsen had played 2.d4, like you said, he would have maintained this evaluation. Instead, 2.f4 brings things down to -0.4ish.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A reason behind 2.f4 is to bring the knight back to f2, but it's still a bad move. As I mentioned in the previous question on this game, Carlsen was clearly just having fun in an online rapid game. There was no deep strategy involved. If he wanted to play some deceptive variation with the sole intention of winning, you would have seen something far more impressive than this from the world champion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to analyze Carlsen's games in order to learn from them, please take a look at ones he's played in serious super-GM tournaments. Trying to glean knowledge from an online game in the PRO league isn't worthwhile (especially when 1.Nh3 is the first move).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastEditorUserId="12873" LastEditDate="2019-12-20T11:40:31.890" LastActivityDate="2019-12-20T11:40:31.890" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27478" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-12-20T12:05:46.810" Score="3" ViewCount="69" Body="&lt;p&gt;So after checking the &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/LeelaChessZero/lc0/wiki/Lc0-options&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;wiki&lt;/a&gt; it seems the parameter &quot;--playouts&quot; allows to chose the number of playouts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But when I try it on my laptop it just fails:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;$ ./lc0 -w meangirl-7.pb.gz --playouts 5&#xA;&#xA; v0.23.0-dev+git.f600c66 built Nov 10 2019&#xA;Unknown command line flag: --playouts.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So maybe it's an outdated option and/or there's a different way to change this parameter?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9179" LastActivityDate="2020-08-29T09:35:45.130" Title="How to reduce the number of playouts on LeelaChessZero?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;leela&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27479" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27467" CreationDate="2019-12-20T17:10:56.583" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Are there some resources I can take some historical databases from?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You need two sets of data:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Rating data for the players going back as far as possible in time&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Date of birth data for the players&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are two very good sources which will help a lot with ratings and help a little with dates of birth. The bad news regarding dates of birth is that in the modern age full dates of birth are generally not published because of security risks. If you are going to try and steal somebody's identity with a view to stealing their money then full date of birth is one of the key components.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;FIDE published about &lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/download.phtml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;19 years of rating data&lt;/a&gt; which is available for download. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.olimpbase.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Olimpbase&lt;/a&gt; have &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.olimpbase.org/Elo/data/elo1967-2001.zip&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;data available for download&lt;/a&gt; going back another 30 years.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Olimpbase data has both ratings and full date of birth data but is very &quot;dirty&quot;. You will need to &quot;clean&quot; it before you can use it to remove duplicate data and resolve players with the same name, the same player with different names (women players who got married, perhaps more than once, and changed their names and also just typos in the data).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The FIDE data is also a bit &quot;dirty&quot; in the early years but gets cleaner in later years. You will have much less data to &quot;clean&quot;. It has year of birth only so getting the full date of birth for players will involve a lot more work digging through resources like Wikipedia.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I think it needs (relatively) easy programming or not so much?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A major task will be extracting the data you need from your data sources. This will be a massive task. I would suggest you design a relational database for your needs and populate it from your data sources after first cleaning the data. Once this is done answering the questions you want is a relatively straightforward matter of writing some simple database queries and running them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-12-20T17:50:05.530" LastActivityDate="2019-12-20T17:50:05.530" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27480" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-12-20T19:35:55.563" Score="10" ViewCount="576" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would like to know why playing Bf5, allowing White to exchange the white-squared bishops, doubling Black's pawns is good for Black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In such situation, castling on either side seems quite unsafe for Black given its weaknesses of b6, h6 and probably f6 later on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Plus, I am not sure eliminating the White bishop is a good reason, as it is not particularly dangerous in such a position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/SEw7M.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/SEw7M.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;l&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16771" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-12-20T20:53:51.017" LastActivityDate="2019-12-21T12:07:48.830" Title="Why is Bf5 good in this position?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;exchange&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27481" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27480" CreationDate="2019-12-20T21:02:24.093" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;After the exchange of white squared bishops black will play e6 cementing the center, leaving all his pawns on white squares. The white squared bishop is Black's bad piece in these structures and conversely it is white's best piece. The exchange very much favours black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With black pawns on d5 and f5 white isn't going to be opening the center any time soon so the black king is safe in the center. Black has at least equalised.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="307" LastEditDate="2019-12-21T00:40:53.203" LastActivityDate="2019-12-21T00:40:53.203" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27482" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27480" CreationDate="2019-12-20T22:50:14.940" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, it is just one way to play it. It is not really better or worse than other plans at this juncture.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Really, the big problem is that I am not a fan of 7...g6 since what is the Bf8 really going to do on g7? It is biting on granite, and is better placed on e7 defending the k-side, and eyeing the white q-side, or even Bd6 eyeing a trade for the active Bf4. Bf4 is technically a bad bishop, but it is already outside the pawn chain, and active, so it is OK to trade it off. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Bg7 would gain activity if you could ever get in e5, but I do not see that happening. After just a few more normal developing moves (Bg7; Nf3) this already scores at about 70% for white in the Mega 2019 database, so even practically speaking, g6 and Bg7 is not a plan I would want to defend with.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Brian is right, and I have mentioned this before, about trading off a bishop when you can place all the remaining pawns on the opposite color of the traded bishop. If you trade off the light-squared bishop, being able to place all the pawns on the light squares keeps control of them is one favorable aspect of the position. I disagree with him to the extent that this &quot;very much favors black&quot;, otherwise we would see this a lot more often.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is just one plan that, in reality, has pluses and minuses like most plans. This is very common in the slav lines where black plays Bg4xNf3 with the pawns on c6-d5-e6. It unbalances the position, so if you need a win, this is one thing to consider as a plus; but you have to keep in mind that you did cede the bishop pair, so you have to be incredibly careful about allowing the position to open up later. In practice, the side with the bishop pair almost always is able to open the position eventually, often in the endgame, so you have to make thing happen, or keep everything under tight control to prevent that. Often it is ideal to try and trade the other bishop for its equal counterpart, at least destroying the opponent's bishop pair.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2019-12-21T12:07:48.830" LastActivityDate="2019-12-21T12:07:48.830" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27483" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27454" CreationDate="2019-12-21T06:36:58.527" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's not a good move because it wastes a tempo and doesn't really accomplish anything. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, it's not a horrible move because white still has a tiny advantage due to his better center and his lead in development (at least for now). Theoretically white could argue that since d5 is the equalizing move for black in the sicilian and black has &quot;lost&quot; a move playing d6 that white could possibly gain that tempo back. However, a3 doesn't give white anything at all so gaining the tempo back is one giant moot point. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe there's an advantage in playing a waiting move and waiting for Nc6 before Bb5 but there should be several waiting moves that at least accomplish something. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Typically, the Sicilian is a battle between white's dynamic advantages and black's long-term advantages. If white plays slowly, black should be able to equalize fairly easily and take control of the initiative. That's probably the biggest reason something like this isn't played at high levels. Aside from that though there are several moves that accomplish everything a3 does but do other things as well. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2019-12-21T06:36:58.527" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27484" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27449" CreationDate="2019-12-21T07:05:08.427" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Positional play means to play for small advantages in the position rather than for material or a direct attack on the king. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are a lot of books that go in-depth on the subject. I'll try to keep it simple though. A lot of positional play revolves around improving the mobility of one's own pieces while restricting the mobility of the opponent's. By doing that you increase the &quot;power&quot; of your pieces. There are other concepts as well such as pawn structure, weak squares etc. The basic idea though is to slowly build small advantages until your advantage over the opponent leads to a won game. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It doesn't really mean to play defensively. There are positional openings that build towards attacks. At higher levels, the lines between being a positional player and a tactical player become blurred. For example, you might put your knight in a strong outpost and then use that to create an attack. Really good players don't try to put things in boxes like that. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;set up for the future&quot; might be a little more accurate although I would argue that positional play is playing for now as well even if someone is focused on long-term advantages. Also, there are dynamic positional advantages too like development and the initiative. In those cases the positional player is playing for short term advantages. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2019-12-21T07:05:08.427" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27485" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27428" CreationDate="2019-12-21T07:09:40.600" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It has been said that the result of a game between GM of equal strength is a draw. Therefore, to increase the proportion of decisive games, the group of contestants could be increased to include greater ELO dispersion and allow with a Swiss system earn points by way of decisive games. Occasionally a GM ties with a lower category player.&#xA;Another measure is to vary the accounting of points, without altering the rules of chess. For example, that those who tie must lose points instead of splitting the full point, because in the end it is a self gift to overcome the round; It could also be allowed in the tournament rules that each player choose one or two breaks, without affecting his score and of his contestant. We will have to analyze and test the most appropriate system.&#xA;But what is definitive, is that the Armagedon system must be eliminated to define the winner. It's like after playing with strategy, cunning and psychology, to see who have the fastest hands.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1766" LastActivityDate="2019-12-21T07:09:40.600" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27486" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16175" CreationDate="2019-12-21T07:14:44.090" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;Sharp&quot; just means tactically complex. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In a sharp position you may have 2 or 3 moves to choose from and most other moves will lose the game immediately or at least leave you with a significant disadvantage. Generally, the same will be true for your opponent. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In a quiet position (the opposite of sharp) you could throw pretty much any move out there and it's not going to drastically change things.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2019-12-21T07:14:44.090" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27487" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27480" CreationDate="2019-12-21T07:22:35.463" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The engine has three moves at .8 and a fourth at .9. It isn't saying Bf5 is good. it's saying that it doesn't see that Bf5 is better or worse than the alternatives. The depth is pretty low though so I would give it some time to sort those four moves out. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That being said, while Bf5 does double black's pawns it also trades off black's bad bishop and gives black complete control of e4. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2019-12-21T07:22:35.463" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27488" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27443" CreationDate="2019-12-21T07:37:03.143" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a fairly simple question, really. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Beyond the opening, you should always try to play the best move. Playing for traps will hinder your development. You learn by playing what you think is the best move and then analyzing why it isn't. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your openings choices, however, should be primarily concerned with what you're learning and how you're improving rather than what the best move is. The Ruy for example is the best objective choice for white after 1.e4 however it is strategically complex and requires a large understanding of theory. It would be a mistake for a beginner to try and tackle it. Non-professionals should always consider the trade-off between theory and objective analysis and choose appropriate openings. Lower rated players should look more at tactical/classical openings because those are the openings that will help you improve. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2019-12-21T07:37:03.143" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27489" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27429" CreationDate="2019-12-21T07:57:47.707" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It would be interesting to see the game itself. I'm guessing you moved the f pawn and didn't defend against Qh4+ which is a common beginner mistake. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From here I'd probably play Be3 because it stops most of what black might want to do and develops a piece. Nxf6+ is probably reasonable. It's not a bad idea to trade pieces when you're being attacked especially if you can inflict long term weaknesses like doubled pawns. The engine likes Ng3 and it's probably the strongest move. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White isn't bad in this position but his position is a little loose and there are lots of chances for him to go wrong. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2019-12-21T07:57:47.707" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27490" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26961" CreationDate="2019-12-21T11:49:15.330" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mir_Sultan_Khan&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Malik Mir Sultan Khan&lt;/a&gt; had beaten world champion Capablanca and many other strong players. He was literally playing like a machine against Capablanca. (check out the match &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSYpwQYXbKE&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;). But it seems like the chess world had forgotten him forever :(&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Malik Mir Sultan Khan (1905 – 25 April 1966) was the strongest chess master of his time from Asia. A servant from British India, he travelled with Colonel Nawab Sir Umar Hayat Khan (Sir Umar), his master, to Britain, where he took the chess world by storm. In an international chess career of less than five years (1929–33), he won the British Championship three times in four tries (1929, 1932, 1933), and had tournament and match results that placed him among the top ten players in the world. Sir Umar then brought him back to his homeland, where he gave up chess and returned to his humble life. David Hooper and Kenneth Whyld have called him &quot;perhaps the greatest natural player of modern times&quot;.&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mir_Sultan_Khan&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;1&lt;/a&gt; Although he was one of the world's top players in the early 1930s, FIDE, the World Chess Federation, never awarded him any title (Grandmaster or International Master).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20740" LastActivityDate="2019-12-21T11:49:15.330" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27491" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27394" CreationDate="2019-12-21T13:14:11.670" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;As you flagged your question with „rules“, i will try an answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I do not think that a FSM is an appropriate model. Of course, you have a big but finite number of states. There are advantages and disadvantages of that model, there are better computer scientists than me to explain this. My point: The number of transitions might be infinite.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To make this clear, you have to define „chess“. I hope we will agree that chess is defined by the Laws of Chess by FIDE. Those contain mainly two parts: The Basic Rules of Play (Art. 1 – 5) and Competition Rules (Art. 6 – 12, Appendices, and Guidelines).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To go from the initial position to the position after 1.e4, there are several transitions. 1.Nf3 Nf6 2.Ng1 Ng8 3.e4 is one of them. You see the problem.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to the Competition Rules, esp. Art 9.6, the number of transitions is limited and finite because after the 5th occuring of a position, the game ends drawn, and FSM is a fine model.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But if you only apply the Basic Rules, then repetition of positions is possible &lt;em&gt;ad infinitum&lt;/em&gt;. And for an infinite number of transition, a &lt;strong&gt;Finite&lt;/strong&gt; State Machine can &lt;em&gt;per definitionem&lt;/em&gt; be no model.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20096" LastActivityDate="2019-12-21T13:14:11.670" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27492" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27493" CreationDate="2019-12-21T14:00:24.430" Score="14" ViewCount="8343" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have read many times that Bobby Fischer had an IQ of 180. Did he really have that high of an IQ? Does anyone have proof that he was ever even tested (like a citation from an early book about him)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sure, Fischer was an intelligent guy, but I tend to think that someone once made up that number, and it just stuck. Lately, I have seen the same, suspiciously rounded, number given to Kasparov and Carlsen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A 180 IQ is so rare that most people have probably never met someone, who was officially tested, with such a high IQ. Thus, maybe they just assumed it must be super high, and threw out a number. 180 is in the 99.9999712895 percentile. 140 is already considered a genius and is in the 99.3790320141 percentile.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How can one even tell by just listening to his interviews if he was that intelligent? Is there any legitimate way to prove that claim or disprove it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-03-19T22:20:33.887" LastActivityDate="2021-03-19T22:20:33.887" Title="Did Fischer really have a 180 IQ?" Tags="&lt;history&gt;&lt;famous-players&gt;&lt;fischer&gt;&lt;iq&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27493" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27492" CreationDate="2019-12-21T15:09:46.437" Score="17" Body="&lt;p&gt;From &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.quora.com/What-was-Bobby-Fischers-IQ&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Quora: What was Bobby Fischer's IQ?&lt;/a&gt; (2018):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Short answer: In 1958, when Fischer sat a Stanford-Binet test at the age of 15, &lt;strong&gt;his score was 180-187.&lt;/strong&gt; But in today’s terms, Bobby Fischer’s IQ should be &lt;strong&gt;148–155 on the Fifth edition of the Stanford-Binet test&lt;/strong&gt;, and &lt;strong&gt;150-160 on the WISC-V/WAIS-IV tests&lt;/strong&gt; administered by Mensa.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only reference provided for the 180-187 score is a link to the webpage &lt;a href=&quot;http://bobbyfischer.net/bobby02.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;The Mind of Bobby Fischer&lt;/a&gt; by Frank Brady where it states that &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In previous writings I have cited Fischer's I.Q. as in the range of 180, a very high genius. My source of information is impeccable: a highly regarded political scientist who coincidentally happened to be working in the grade adviser's office at Erasmus Hall - Bobby Fischer's high school in Brooklyn - at the time Fischer was a student there. He had the opportunity to study Fischer's personal records and there is no reason to believe his figure is inaccurate. Some critics have claimed that other teachers at Erasmus Hall at that time remember the figure to be much lower; but who the teachers are and what figures they remember have never been made clear.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The given rationales for the deflation of the score per today's standard are the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/current_use.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Flynn effect&lt;/a&gt; based on a &lt;a href=&quot;https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1984-11828-001&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;large meta-analysis&lt;/a&gt; that every year general intelligence increases by 1/3 IQ points, and the revised editions of the S-B test.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14767" LastEditorUserId="14767" LastEditDate="2019-12-21T15:19:32.260" LastActivityDate="2019-12-21T15:19:32.260" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27494" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-12-21T15:56:43.503" Score="7" ViewCount="647" Body="&lt;p&gt;I hope this kind of question is allowed. In any case, I want to clarify that there is no intention for racism or political arguments, etc. It is just a sincere wonder from the anthropological point of view.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the nationality of the Azerbaijani players Mamedyarov and Radjabov?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do they identify as Azerbaijanis, which is a Turkic nationality, or as Russians who happen to live in Azerbaijan? I think they speak Russian as native language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are they Russian Jews living in Azerbaijan? I think this is a possible, and at the same time, very complicated issue in anthropology.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are they Azerbaijani Jews who just learned Russian as a second foreign language?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20863" LastEditorUserId="20863" LastEditDate="2019-12-21T16:17:07.243" LastActivityDate="2019-12-23T00:18:54.723" Title="Nationality of the Azerbaijan Shakhriyar Mamedyarov and Teimour Radjabov" Tags="&lt;history&gt;&lt;famous-players&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27495" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27494" CreationDate="2019-12-21T16:52:31.870" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have read a lot about them over the years, and I have never heard anything that would lead me to believe that they are anything but true Azerbaijanis, and have both played under that flag forever. Both were born in Azerbaijan while it was still part of the Soviet Union.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Speaking Russian is simply explained by the fact that since both born in Azerbaijan while it was still a republic of the Soviet Union, and no matter where you lived, or your ethnicity, Russian was the official language of the Soviet Union. You might have been bilingual, but you spoke Russian with the masses. I would imagine that even after the Soviet Union fell, they did not automatically switch away from that since it was so pervasive, and easy to talk to more people with.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have never seen anything written about them being Jewish and the country has a demographic of 97.4% Muslim, 1.1% Christian, and 1.0% None, making that all the more unlikely.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I worked as a Russian translator from 1980-1988 while in the military.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2019-12-21T17:01:11.107" LastActivityDate="2019-12-21T17:01:11.107" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27496" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27" CreationDate="2019-12-21T18:13:15.467" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can get a good free PGN Viewer app from&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://pgnchessbook.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;PGN ChessBook&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which comes with the very strong Stockfish analysis engine built in. It has some good tools for analyzing games, as described on &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://pgnchessbook.org/gamesfindblunders/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Automatic blunder check and game annotation features&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The best annotated PGN game collections I could find were also added to my website at&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://pgnchessbook.org/pgn/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Annotated PGN download page&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It took me several days to find these. There are 950+ annotated games in “.pgn” files and I added every world championship match game ever played.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19786" LastEditorUserId="19786" LastEditDate="2019-12-21T18:41:54.563" LastActivityDate="2019-12-21T18:41:54.563" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27497" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-12-21T18:54:41.277" Score="2" ViewCount="87" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am studying from Lazlo Polgar's &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.amazon.in/Chess-5334-Problems-Combinations-Games/dp/1884822312&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&quot;Chess: 5334 Problems, Combinations, and Games&quot;&lt;/a&gt;, there are positions with heavy material imbalance for example like a lone King against Queen, 2 Knights and King under the category to find mate in 2 or 3 moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some of them are not easy for me even after few minutes to find mate with the given 2 or 3 moves but I can easily do in 4 or 5 moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In cases like this with large material imbalance why should I spend my energy and time in finding the fastest sequence if I can do the same with slightly more number of moves?&#xA;What do I gain by knowing the fastest sequence?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18273" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2019-12-24T19:10:39.787" LastActivityDate="2019-12-26T02:05:20.800" Title="What is the advantage in knowing the fastest winning sequence if I can win with few more moves than fastest sequence?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;study&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27498" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27492" CreationDate="2019-12-21T21:23:58.440" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;No.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I met Fischer twice at age 11 and 13.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He displayed nothing at all, which indicated he was not any sort of genius. Back then, his chess was still only good, not outstanding.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He was more an idiot savant who exceeded at one thing and was quite average at best at so many other, more important, things than chess. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20925" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-12-21T22:57:55.227" LastActivityDate="2019-12-21T22:57:55.227" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27499" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-12-21T23:58:52.797" Score="7" ViewCount="855" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have just played a game in which there was a thematic sacrifice of the b pawn. I cannot understand why this is useful. The opening of the file cannot be attacked by White as apart from Black bishop, there is also the a pawn that could defend it if needs be.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/esdnS.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/esdnS.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please check the link of the game below as Stockfish suggests this move later in the game too.&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/Ak6GNtwL/white#38&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://lichess.org/Ak6GNtwL/white#38&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16771" LastActivityDate="2019-12-22T03:28:38.237" Title="B pawn sacrifice" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27500" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27499" CreationDate="2019-12-22T00:21:58.793" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;Looking at the engine output, it seems that after Black plays cxb4, White can play a3. If Black takes, this opens up the b-file, and if White is allowed to play axb4, that opens the a-file. Either way, lines towards the Black king will open up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2019-12-22T00:21:58.793" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27501" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27499" CreationDate="2019-12-22T03:28:38.237" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just a point, but my eye was first attracted to the move h4, keeping the Bh7 entombed for a long time, but there is much better still. If there were not a direct attack, this would be a highly favorable idea since many games have been won at the highest level by excluding just one piece from participating in the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;b4 is, indeed, much better, since it opens the way for Qa4. There are a lot of choices for black to try to defend, but the computer does not like any of them. I will give a few that try to make a sensible try at defending.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Kc8 is incredibly weak there, especially combined with that big pawn on h7 that looks like a bishop, and the f7 weakness. Even the Bf8 cannot really do anything. When it goes to d6, it really attacks nothing, or bc gains a tempo for the attack. In short, the black king is defenseless.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;2kr1b1r/2q2p1b/p1p1p1pp/2p3P1/2PpP1N1/1P1P1N1P/P5P1/R2Q1RK1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;&#xA; 1. b4 $1 (1. h4 hxg5 2. hxg5 Be7 3. b4 {Still can be played with great force.}) 1... cxb4 (1... hxg5 2. Qa4 Kb7 (2... f5 3. Nge5 a5 4. Nxc6 Rd6 5. Nfe5 cxb4 6. a3 $18) 3. bxc5 Bxc5 4. Rab1+ Ka7 5. Nfe5 Rdf8 (5... Rc8 6. Rxf7 Be7 7. c5 {And Rb6.}) 6. Nxc6+ $18) 2. Qa4 Kb7 (2... a5 3. Nge5 c5 4. a3 Bd6 5. axb4 $1 Bxe5 6. Nxe5 Qxe5 7. Rxf7 Qd6 8. Qxa5 $18) 3. a3 a5 4. Rfb1 h5 5. Nge5 c5 6. axb4 cxb4 7. Nxf7 Qxf7 8. Qxa5 $18 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2019-12-22T03:28:38.237" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27502" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27504" CreationDate="2019-12-22T05:41:31.153" Score="8" ViewCount="304" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a position from the main tabia of Catalan Opening:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;rnbq1rk1/ppp1bppp/4pn2/8/2pP4/5NP1/PP2PPBP/RNBQ1RK1 w - - 0 7&quot;]&#xA; [StartPly &quot;12&quot;]&#xA; 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. g3 d5 4. Nf3 Be7 5. Bg2 O-O 6. O-O dxc4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The main move for white is 7. Qc2 with the intention of grabbing a pawn back on c4; however, the same result can be achieved with 7. Qa4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why is 7. Qc2 so much more popular? (~10:1 ratio in BigDatabase from Chessbase, with 10065 vs 1186 as of Dec 21, 2019)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does Qc2 prevent some lines that Qa4 does not? Isn't the idea behind both of them the same?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Reason for asking: I am playing Catalan with both black and white, and study the theory on the materials from Victor Bologan. In the materials, I have, the 7. Qa4 idea is not mentioned; however, I often face it, and wonder if there is any particular idea (or even concrete line) that I should be aware of.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10570" LastEditorUserId="20569" LastEditDate="2020-02-06T14:07:56.970" LastActivityDate="2020-02-06T14:07:56.970" Title="Difference between 7. Qc2 vs 7. Qa4 in the Catalan" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;1.d4&gt;&lt;catalan&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27504" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27502" CreationDate="2019-12-22T08:48:10.007" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;As you mentioned, 7.Qc2 a6 8.Qxc4 and 7.Qa4 a6 8.Qxc4 lead to the same position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, after 7.Qc2 a6, white has the option to play 8.a4, which is recommended by GM Avrukh in &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.qualitychess.co.uk/products/1/249/grandmaster_repertoire_1a_-_the_catalan_by_boris_avrukh&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Grandmaster Repertoire 1A: The Catalan&lt;/a&gt;. According to the &lt;a href=&quot;https://chesstempo.com/game-database.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Game Database of ChessTempo&lt;/a&gt;, 8.a4 is a bit more popular than 8.Qxc4.&#xA;Having the choice of 8.a4 and 8.Qxc4 is probably the main reason why 7.Qc2 is played so much more often than 7.Qa4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, 7.Qc2 allows 7....b5, a move that became popular on the highest level only recently. For example, see &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1966344&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Ding Liren-Carlsen&lt;/a&gt;.&#xA;So, if white prefers to play 8.Qxc4 after 7....a6, it makes sense to choose 7.Qa4, which occurred in &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1990896&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Caruana-Duda&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After 7.Qa4, there are some sidelines you might consider as black: 7....Qd5 (played in &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1940944&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Adly-Aronian (blitz)&lt;/a&gt;) and 7....b6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;      [StartPly &quot;12&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;      [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;      1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.g3 d5 4.Nf3 Be7 5.Bg2 O-O 6.O-O dxc4 7.Qc2 (7.Qa4 a6 (7...b6)(7...Qd5) 8.Qxc4) a6 (7...b5) 8.a4 (8.Qxc4)&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4588" LastEditorUserId="4588" LastEditDate="2020-02-06T08:55:36.853" LastActivityDate="2020-02-06T08:55:36.853" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27506" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23684" CreationDate="2019-12-22T10:12:46.033" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is slow. At a time you should be developing and getting the rest of your pieces out, you play c4, meaning that eventually to get your standard play with b5-b4, you will need to finish your development, then move your queen again, and only then get in b5-b4. That gives time for white to do a lot of different things, depending on how you develop. You will also have to take the time to play Ne4 almost immediately so you can play f5 since if white gets in e4 first, that is also going to be super advantageous to him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is a common mistake to change the base of the pawn structure in the opening, slowing one's play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2019-12-22T10:12:46.033" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27507" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21484" CreationDate="2019-12-22T10:58:01.730" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Most engines are weak in certain types of endgame, unless they are provided with an endgame tablebase (EGTB) or sufficient search depth to reliably find the way to the best mate, draw or conversion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EGTBs tend to be fairly large (eg. about 1GB for the Syzygy 5-man set, and exponentially larger for 6 and 7 man sets) so might not be installed by default.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19281" LastActivityDate="2019-12-22T10:58:01.730" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27508" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27492" CreationDate="2019-12-22T11:23:09.607" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;First of all, that test is considered by some psychologists a pseudoscience that doesn't measure intelligence at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have Asperger disorder and hypercalculia as Bobby supposedly had. I once did the test after coming from a pub, having drunk a couple of beers, and I scored 133. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Far from being a genius, I am very stupid in most of facets of life; that test just measures one of the nine types of intelligence (logical-mathematical).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Ktfw6.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Ktfw6.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://blog.adioma.com/9-types-of-intelligence-infographic/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Source&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't know if Bobby scored 180, but I can trust it. Why so? My top pick on tactics trainer is 2400 on chess.com (while I am a poor 1800 ELO player, my spatial intelligence is really bad). Bobby probably would reach &gt;3000 on tactics, and probably demolish that test, being close to the highest possible score, 200. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I guess many GMs or intelligence officers could score 180 if I got 133 drunk. Carlsen has 2900 ELO in blitz games, that tells a bit about his genius on logical intelligence and that test is also timed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user18196" LastEditorDisplayName="user18196" LastEditDate="2020-04-27T16:40:53.060" LastActivityDate="2020-04-27T16:40:53.060" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27509" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-12-22T13:49:48.003" Score="3" ViewCount="102" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm using Nalimov tablebases with Fritz14 and it basically works. Just one strange problems occurs: The engine doesn't mate because the final mating move isn't sorted correctly. It look like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;+- (#2) move1&#xA;+- (#2) move2&#xA;= (0.00) move3&#xA;= (0.00) move4&#xA;# (#0) move5  (mating move)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've tried to replace/rename TBAccess.dll several times as mentioned somewhere else, but the programm won't start, just displaying the message &quot;TBAccess.dll seems to be corrupted&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any ideas? Does it work with older ChessBase products only?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20930" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T20:42:39.460" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T20:42:39.460" Title="ChessBase Nalimov tablebases" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;tablebases&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27510" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27509" CreationDate="2019-12-22T14:54:28.333" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Apparently Fritz 14 is capable of reading the newer Syzygy format tablebases.  Certainly the latest Fritz can.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These tend to take up less space than Nalimov format, which used a simpler compression scheme designed for the benefit of older computers.  For example, the 5-man tablebases take over 7GB in Nalimov format but under 1GB in Syzygy format.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I suggest trying Syzygy before giving up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19281" LastActivityDate="2019-12-22T14:54:28.333" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27512" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27513" CreationDate="2019-12-22T18:13:19.463" Score="10" ViewCount="879" Body="&lt;p&gt;4... Nxb4 is never played on chesstempo database for +2200 players games, being Bxb4 the most popular move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/yPZ1W.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/yPZ1W.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't find any significant change after capturing the pawn with the knight unless after 5. c3, black can play Na6 supporting an eventual c5 to block the a3-f8 diagonal. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If 5...Nc6 it looks the same position as 4...Bxb4 5. c3 Bc5&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stockfish evaluates 4... Nxb4 as =:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/C0ubG.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/C0ubG.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why doesn't this move appear on databases is what I am wondering.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user18196" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2019-12-22T19:59:53.710" LastActivityDate="2019-12-23T03:01:28.900" Title="Why 4... Nxb4 is not played in Evans gambit?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;gambits&gt;&lt;evans-gambit&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27513" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27512" CreationDate="2019-12-22T18:25:32.550" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;It comes down to flexibility. In most cases, Nb4 will end up in the same position, as you said, but Bb4 give you at least two more common alternatives, and a couple less common ones.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Bc5 4. b4 Nb4 5. c3 Nc6 (5...Na6?) 6. d4 exd4 7. cxd4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Compare this with this line where black can play Ba5, Be7, Bc5, and even Bd6 have been played a fair amount of times. It is, generally, favorable to make your opponent worry about more options.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Bc5 4. b4 Bb4 5. c3 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2019-12-22T18:25:32.550" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27514" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1375" CreationDate="2019-12-22T19:37:06.583" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found a &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1306169&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;game&lt;/a&gt; where castling takes place on the &lt;strong&gt;40th move&lt;/strong&gt; in a postion that is truly that of an endgame. Tim Krabbe lists as the &lt;a href=&quot;https://timkr.home.xs4all.nl/chess/mfm101110.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;103rd most fantastic move&lt;/a&gt; in chess history.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Viktors Pupols-Jerald Meyers, Lone Pine California USA, 3/13/1976&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[startply &quot;78&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 Nf6 2.Nf3 c5 3.d5 g6 4.c4 b5 5.cxb5 a6 6.bxa6 Bxa6 7.Nc3 Bg7 8.Bg5 h6 9.Bd2 O-O 10.h3 e6 11.dxe6 fxe6 12.Qc2 g5 13.g4 Nc6 14.Nd1 Nd4 15.Nxd4 cxd4 16.h4 d3 17.exd3 Rc8 18.Qa4 Bb7 19.Rh3 Bc6 20.Qa5 Qxa5 21.Bxa5 Nxg4 22.hxg5 hxg5 23.Rg3 Nh2 24.Be2 Bf3 25.Bc3 g4 26.Bxg7 Kxg7 27.Ne3 Kf7 28.Nxg4 Bxg4 29.Bxg4 Rc2 30.Bd1 Rxb2 31.Rh3 Rg8 32.Rg3 Rh8 33.Be2 e5 34.a4 d5 35.a5 e4 36.dxe4 dxe4 37.a6 Nf3+ 38.Bxf3 exf3 39.Rxf3+ Ke7 40.O-O-O Ra2 41.Re1+ Kd7 42.a7 Ra8 43.Rf7+ Kd6 44.Ree7 Rc8+ 45.Kd1 Rc5 46.Rd7+ Ke6 47.Rh7 Rca5 48.Ke1 R5a4 49.Kf1 Ra1+ 50. Kg2 R4a3 51.Rhe7+ Kf6 52.Rb7 R3a2 53.Rh7 Ke6 54.Rb6+ Kd5 55.Rh5+ Kc4 56.Rb7 Rxa7 57.Rxa7 Rxa7 58.Re5 Kd4 59.f4 Rg7+ 60.Kf3 Rg1 61.Re8 Kd5 62.f5 Kd6 63.Kf4 Kd7 64.Re2 Rg8 65.Ra2 Ke7 66.Ke5 Rb8 67.Rh2 Rb5+ 68.Kf4 Kf7 69.Kg5 Rb6 70.Rh7+ Kf8 71.Ra7 Rc6 72.Ra8+ Kf7 73.Rb8 Ra6 74.Rb1 Rc6 75.Rb7+ Kf8 76.f6 Rc1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastActivityDate="2019-12-22T19:37:06.583" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27515" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27512" CreationDate="2019-12-22T19:40:09.803" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;After 4...Nxb4 5.Nxe5 looks like a very strong reply, gaining the important e5 Pawn almost for free and posing an immediate threat to f7.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastActivityDate="2019-12-22T19:40:09.803" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27516" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27122" CreationDate="2019-12-22T22:19:26.467" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not  useful at all.  They never show up in real games and your time is wasted.  You should be studying tactics problems from real games if you want to improve. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20925" LastActivityDate="2019-12-22T22:19:26.467" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27517" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27494" CreationDate="2019-12-23T00:18:54.723" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is in addition to PhishMaster's answer elsewhere:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/players/shakhriyar-mamedyarov&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.chess.com/players/shakhriyar-mamedyarov&lt;/a&gt;, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov was born in Sumgait, Azerbaijan SSR, Soviet Union, on April 12, 1985. He is the Azerbaijan’s top player, and has becaome the only player ever to win the World Junior Championship twice (winning it in 2003 and 2005). He became a Grandmaster in 2002.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/players/teimour-radjabov&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.chess.com/players/teimour-radjabov&lt;/a&gt;,  Teimur Radjabov was born in Baku, Azerbaijan SSR, Soviet Union, on March 12, 1987, the same city as former world champion Garry Kasparov. By 2001, he had earned his Grandmaster norms (at young age of 14) and was competing in Group B of the Corus Tournament at Wijk aan Zee.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is noteworthy that when he was 16 years old, Radjabov was one of seven participants at Linares 2003. In that tournament, in perhaps one of the most famous games of his career, Radjabov has defeated Garry Kasparov (his fellow Baku native) in 39 moves with the black pieces. The game has been voted the best of the tournament. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Along with other fellow Azerbaijani players, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov and Teimur Radjabov have led their nation to gold medals in the 2013 and 2017 European Team Chess Championship. The two represent the nation’s best chance at a world champion among the current crop of top players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20936" LastActivityDate="2019-12-23T00:18:54.723" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27518" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="487" CreationDate="2019-12-23T00:51:40.750" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;For any beginner, the process will be a success if the instructor can relay the fundamental truth about chess: the game is, at it's core, numeric and is all about accumulation of small advantages. We all know what this small advantages consist of: material, piece activity, pawns, king safety, but that comes next.&#xA;As the simplest pedagogical example of my main point, have the place place knight in the corner and count the squares it can reach. Then repeat when it's in the center. Let them reason (with your help) which N is stronger.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15509" LastActivityDate="2019-12-23T00:51:40.750" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27519" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27512" CreationDate="2019-12-23T02:57:53.020" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my database it actually appears in 131 games, or roughly 1.5%.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The move also isn't objectively bad. But it's unpopular partly because it unnecessarily limits Black's options. After 4...Nxb4 5.c3, Black is practically forced to play 5...Nc6, which transposes to 4...Bxb4 5.c3 Bc5 (as you mentioned). Meanwhile, after 4...Bxb4 5.c3, Black has many options (5...Ba5, 5...Be7, 5...Bd6, or 5...Bc5).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's also the issue that 4...Nxb4 looks unnatural. The knight should generally stay on c6 where it guards the key centre squares e5 and d4. Finally, some people might think allowing 5.Nxe5 is much better for White, even though it actually gives Black a winning advantage after 5...Qf6!.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastEditorUserId="12873" LastEditDate="2019-12-23T03:01:28.900" LastActivityDate="2019-12-23T03:01:28.900" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27520" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27522" CreationDate="2019-12-23T05:08:16.140" Score="10" ViewCount="9519" Body="&lt;p&gt;I’ve been having this problem for a while and every answer on the Internet I see is &quot;Oh just dont be too confident.” But that’s not the issue I have as I try my hardest in all my chess games. I’m rated 1600 on average. Lately I’ve been swinging to 1660 as I practice every day. I regularly crush 1300-1500 players and find my favorite games are against those in the 1600 range because I feel it’s the most even of a match for me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, when I play on chess.com (I have an account there from when I first started playing) I’m playing 800-900 rated players, and I easily have a 30% win rate. I cannot even begin to understand why the play I see from scholastic rated players trumps that of 1600 rated players without a single doubt.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This must have some kind of outside source, as when I play OTB chess with actual players who are most likely around 800-900 I have no problem beating them and enjoy sharing with them the good/bad moves of the game we played. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pardon the salt, I know losing is part of the game but it feels pretty awful to work really hard and get good at chess just to be consistently beaten by beginners. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20938" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-12-23T13:00:51.737" LastActivityDate="2019-12-24T07:45:32.973" Title="Losing to low rated players" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;online-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="8" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27521" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27520" CreationDate="2019-12-23T08:28:13.283" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, if your statistics are accurate (and not just based off games you remember), then there are a few possibilities:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) The 1300-1500 players you play in OTB in your area are overrated. Or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) The 800-900 players online are underrated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, if you think you're good at chess but are beaten by these players online, are they really beginners? Online ratings especially at a low level aren't always representative of playing strength.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-12-23T08:28:13.283" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27522" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27520" CreationDate="2019-12-23T12:58:49.007" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;A rating of 1600 shows the progress you made since starting that account, but (no offense) it isn't really that high either.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1600-rated players also blunder and make mistakes, even when playing against 900-rated ones. I expect a 1600-rated player to blunder less.&#xA;A 1600-rated player that drops a queen, or misses a fork, or whatever will still have a difficult time against a 900-rated player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Comparing your level with the one from your opponents only means that you make less mistakes and less blunders, and are better at capitalizing on the play of your opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is a bad indicator of who will win the game, at least on these levels. Once you get in the 2100+ rating range, it will say something about the possible outcome.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13141" LastActivityDate="2019-12-23T12:58:49.007" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27523" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27520" CreationDate="2019-12-23T13:54:26.570" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;A couple things come to mind: First, you may have a subconscious let down when playing weaker players. Try to concentrate more, and make sure you use your time well against them. Try to stay ahead on the clock.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The other thing is &quot;WHEN do you lose to them&quot;? When I was younger, I was a KILLER blitz player then, and I would often win 10 in a row against even competition that was my level OTB, but I would start to falter after that. Of course, this was not hard-and-fast rule every time, but mental fatigue sets in; and for me, it was around that 10th game. If you are losing to them after having played for quite a while already, that may also explain it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2019-12-23T13:54:26.570" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27524" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27525" CreationDate="2019-12-23T14:37:52.637" Score="28" ViewCount="5086" Body="&lt;p&gt;While anyone can answer this, I do have official FIDE arbiters in mind.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am following a &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/whats-the-worst-way-youve-lost-a-chess-game?page=1&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;discussion&lt;/a&gt; on chess.com about the worst way you have lost a game. Someone related this story:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;This didn't happen to me, but it's the worst way to lose a chess game&#xA;  that I ever witnessed:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I was playing in a tournament in Saint John, NB. It was raining&#xA;  outside, and there were a few spectators circulating around the&#xA;  playing hall... very likely, they just came in to get out of the rain.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A player (let's call him &quot;White pieces&quot;) at the table next to mine had&#xA;  just played his King from g1 to h1, to get out of an awkward pin on&#xA;  the c5-g1 diagonal. His opponent made his reply, and it was White's&#xA;  move again.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A spectator wearing a heavy raincoat turned away from the game, and&#xA;  the corner of his coat clipped the White King (sitting on h1) and&#xA;  knocked it off the table. White pieces reached down to pick the King&#xA;  up and set it back on the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;His opponent said &quot;Touch move&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The tournament director upheld his claim. White pieces was forced to&#xA;  move his King, and the only available square was right back to g1...&#xA;  back into the pin on the diagonal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;White lost the game a few moves later; as much because the &quot;touch&#xA;  move&quot; incident had left him completely demoralized as because of the&#xA;  two wasted moves K(from g1)-h1 and then back to g1.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I replied that I could not believe any reasonable TD/Arbiter would enforce that, but someone replied that that is what the rule says. I believe that intent to move it matters, so I am still skeptical. What would the rules say that apply and how would you rule?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a note, another similar post regarded someone accidentally knocking over his king, and the opponent saying that it amounted to resignation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also would not mind a USCF interpretation if anyone has one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="18475" LastEditDate="2019-12-26T10:35:03.333" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T16:54:23.747" Title="Should a player be forced to move a piece that he has picked up after a spectator knocked it off the board?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;fide&gt;&lt;pieces&gt;&lt;uscf&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="10" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27525" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27524" CreationDate="2019-12-23T14:51:20.437" Score="30" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am not an arbiter, but here's what the rules say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Rule 4.3 (emphasis added)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;if the player having the move touches on the chessboard, &lt;strong&gt;with the intention of moving or capturing&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think it should be clear to any reasonable person that picking up a piece that was knocked down by a spectator does not imply intent to move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Perhaps the arbiter went with an overly narrow interpretation of &quot;accident&quot;, though, from 4.2.2:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Any other physical contact with a piece, except for clearly accidental contact, shall be considered to be intent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would still argue that picking up a piece that was knocked down is an accident according to the spirit of the rules. Obviously the piece &lt;em&gt;must&lt;/em&gt; be &quot;adjusted&quot; since it's not just a matter of centering it a little bit on its square, but of picking it up from the floor. Therefore the intent to &quot;adjust&quot; is implied.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The USCF rules are similar in that they refer to intent to move, but additionally, there is a rule that might have helped in this case: 10H says &quot;there is no penalty for touching a piece that is off the board&quot;. The main idea given the rest of the paragraph concerns promotion, but I think it would also apply here. (And I just noticed that the FIDE wording on the rule also says &quot;on the chessboard&quot;. I don't know how I missed that the first time!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12523" LastEditorUserId="12523" LastEditDate="2019-12-23T18:26:30.470" LastActivityDate="2019-12-23T18:26:30.470" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27526" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27529" CreationDate="2019-12-23T15:03:46.273" Score="7" ViewCount="1818" Body="&lt;p&gt;This happened to someone else recently in a time scramble during an OTB game. His opponent promoted a pawn and placed a Queen of the wrong color on the board. He was corrected by the player and the game continued for a bit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was wondering what the rules say about this situation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So if your opponent promotes a pawn to a Queen and accidentally places your Queen on the board instead of his own, can you claim a win because of an illegal move? And if you don't claim, but continue to play on without correcting the situation, is that Queen officially yours?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13141" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-12-23T18:16:09.600" LastActivityDate="2019-12-25T20:52:34.733" Title="FIDE rules when opponent accidentally promotes to your Queen" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;fide&gt;&lt;pawn-promotion&gt;&lt;illegal-move&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27527" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27443" CreationDate="2019-12-23T15:15:43.000" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recently had a game against a player rated about 200 points higher. With black, after my opponents 14th move 14. Bd2, I had to make a difficult decision, as my king was still on e8, and my opponent had half-open e- and d-files. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/kv0rK.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/kv0rK.png&quot; alt=&quot;after 14. Bd2&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One candidate move was 14. ... O-O, which is also the move the computer recommended later. Instead, I played 14. ... h5 !? (with the idea to play Ng4 later, if possible, or maybe g7-g5-g4 and/or h5-h4-h3). I preferred this move because I recently worked at improving my understanding of such positions. Of course this also means that I considered my winning chances higher in that type of position (I actually won that game), but additionally, I could practice what I had learned recently, so I think that this also helped me to improve.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Regarding openings: I believe that by playing certain &quot;inferior&quot; lines, a player can greatly improve. Consider the kings gambit (which is mentioned in the question), the Morra, the danish gambit, the Traxler - all these openings emphasize tactical patterns, for example a weakness on f2/f7  is a recurring pattern. By playing such openings, you will also learn to look out for such patterns, which is always helpful (also in many other lines).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20941" LastActivityDate="2019-12-23T15:15:43.000" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27528" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27526" CreationDate="2019-12-23T15:32:49.073" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;That would be an illegal move, so rule 7.5.1 should apply - when it is found that an illegal move has been completed, the position before that move shall be reinstated.&#xA;And yes, you can claim a win due to the illegal move (assuming that in the given situation an illegal move loses - usually when the opponent already made another illegal move before), just as it is also an illegal move to move the pawn to the last rank without replacing it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20941" LastEditorUserId="20941" LastEditDate="2019-12-25T20:52:34.733" LastActivityDate="2019-12-25T20:52:34.733" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27529" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27526" CreationDate="2019-12-23T16:00:39.937" Score="12" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;So if your opponent promotes a pawn to a Queen and accidentally places&#xA;  your Queen on the board instead of his own, can you claim a win&#xA;  because of an illegal move?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No, you can't. There is no illegal move until the player either presses the clock or makes another move (after the opponent has moved).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is what the &lt;a href=&quot;https://old.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=208&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Laws of Chess&lt;/a&gt; have to say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;3.7.5.1   When a player, having the move, plays a pawn to the rank furthest from its starting position, he must exchange that pawn as&#xA;  part of the same move for a new queen, rook, bishop or knight &lt;strong&gt;of the&#xA;  same colour&lt;/strong&gt; on the intended square of arrival.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;3.10.2    A move is illegal when it fails to meet the relevant requirements of Articles 3.1 – 3.9&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;6.2.1 During the game each player, having made his move on the chessboard, shall stop his own clock and start his opponent’s clock&#xA;  (that is to say, he shall press his clock). &lt;strong&gt;This “completes” the&#xA;  move.&lt;/strong&gt; A move is also completed if:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;6.2.1.1   the move ends the game (see Articles 5.1.1, 5.2.1, 5.2.2, 9.6.1 and 9.6.2), or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;6.2.1.2 the player has made his next move, when his previous move was not completed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;7.5.1 &lt;strong&gt;An illegal move is completed once the player has pressed his clock&lt;/strong&gt;. If during a game it is found that an illegal move has been&#xA;  completed, the position immediately before the irregularity shall be&#xA;  reinstated. If the position immediately before the irregularity cannot&#xA;  be determined, the game shall continue from the last identifiable&#xA;  position prior to the irregularity. Articles 4.3 and 4.7 apply to the&#xA;  move replacing the illegal move. The game shall then continue from&#xA;  this reinstated position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;7.5.5 After the action taken under Article 7.5.1, 7.5.2, 7.5.3 or 7.5.4 for the first &lt;strong&gt;completed&lt;/strong&gt; illegal move by a player, the arbiter shall give two minutes extra time to his opponent; for the&#xA;  second &lt;strong&gt;completed&lt;/strong&gt; illegal move by the same player the arbiter shall&#xA;  declare the game lost by this player. However, the game is drawn if&#xA;  the position is such that the opponent cannot checkmate the player’s&#xA;  king by any possible series of legal moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, first of all, yes, promoting to the wrong piece is an illegal move (3.7.5.1 and 3.10.2)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Secondly, just making an illegal move does not attract any penalty (other than having to make a legal move with the piece touched or captured). The move only attracts punishment when it is completed (7.5.1 and 7.5.5) by pressing the clock or making a subsequent move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thirdly, you cannot claim a win for the first completed illegal move, only for the second (7.5.5). This rule now also applies to rapid and blitz.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;And if you don't claim, but continue to play on without correcting the&#xA;  situation, is that Queen officially yours?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At standard time controls, no. According to 7.5.1 the position before the illegal move must be reinstated and a legal move made.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, rapid and blitz are different.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Appendix A. Rapid chess&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A.4.2 If the arbiter observes an action taken under Article 7.5.1,&#xA;  7.5.2, 7.5.3 or 7.5.4, he shall act according to Article 7.5.5, provided the opponent has not made his next move. If the arbiter does&#xA;  not intervene, the opponent is entitled to claim, provided the&#xA;  opponent has not made his next move. &lt;strong&gt;If the opponent does not claim&#xA;  and the arbiter does not intervene, the illegal move shall stand and&#xA;  the game shall continue.&lt;/strong&gt; Once the opponent has made his next move,&#xA;  an illegal move cannot be corrected unless this is agreed by the&#xA;  players without intervention of the arbiter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Appendix B. Blitz&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;B.4 Otherwise, play shall be governed by the Rapid chess Laws as in&#xA;  Article A.2 and A.4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In rapid and blitz the standard rules for punishment only apply if there are conditions which will only occur in very high level tournaments, if then. These are that the moves are recorded independently and there are enough arbiters (one per 3 games at rapid and one per game at blitz) to properly see what is going on. Otherwise article A.4 applies and you can keep your extra queen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2019-12-23T16:00:39.937" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27530" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21592" CreationDate="2019-12-23T18:53:48.453" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would not normally answer this, but the real answer was deleted by its author for some reason, and is hidden. I also think that the original -3 for the question was more due to the original poster not being a native English speaker so I edited that too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is from the game Diaz Carias-Cordovil, 1966 Olympiad. Black resigned after 30.Bh6+, which is the first move of the solution. After Black’s forced Rxh6, White will play Qe5#.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [Event &quot;Olympiad-17 Final C&quot;]&#xA; [Site &quot;Havana&quot;]&#xA; [Date &quot;1966.11.13&quot;]&#xA; [Round &quot;9&quot;]&#xA; [White &quot;Diaz Carias, Salvador&quot;]&#xA; [Black &quot;Cordovil, Joao Maria&quot;]&#xA; [Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA; [ECO &quot;C50&quot;]&#xA; [StartPly &quot;58&quot;]&#xA; [EventDate &quot;1966.11.04&quot;]&#xA; [EventType &quot;team-tourn&quot;]&#xA; [EventRounds &quot;13&quot;]&#xA; [EventCountry &quot;CUB&quot;]&#xA; [SourceTitle &quot;MCD&quot;]&#xA; [WhiteTeam &quot;Venezuela&quot;]&#xA; [BlackTeam &quot;Portugal&quot;]&#xA; [WhiteTeamCountry &quot;VEN&quot;]&#xA; [BlackTeamCountry &quot;POR&quot;]&#xA; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 Be7 4. d4 d6 5. h3 exd4 6. Nxd4 Nf6 7. Nc3 O-O 8. O-O Nxe4 9. Nxc6 bxc6 10. Nxe4 d5 11. Bd3 dxe4 12. Bxe4 Rb8 13. Qf3 c5 14. Rd1 Bd6 15. Bd2 Qh4 16. Bc3 f5 17. Bd5+ Kh8 18. Re1 f4 19. Re2 h5 20. Rae1 Bg4 21. Re6 Bxe6 22. Rxe6 Rf6 23. Qe4 Rbf8 24. Rxf6 Rxf6 25. Qe8+ Kh7 26. Qg8+ Kh6 27. Be4 Rg6 28. Qh8+ Kg5 29. Bxg7 Be7 30. Bh6+ (30. Bh6+ Rxh6 31. Qe5#) 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2020-06-01T09:33:23.800" LastActivityDate="2020-06-01T09:33:23.800" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27531" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27520" CreationDate="2019-12-23T19:16:20.260" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;On chess.com, a rating of 1200 is around 70th to 80th percentile of active players in that time control.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So someone 900 or 800 is probably ABOVE AVERAGE in that time control, (50th percentile), drawing from the pool of active players on chess.com, who are probably stronger and more sophisticated than normal people.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also you might be less used to crazy and aggressive play. You will have to calculate and defend accurately to beat &quot;coffeehouse&quot; style play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20947" LastActivityDate="2019-12-23T19:16:20.260" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27534" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27520" CreationDate="2019-12-23T21:16:30.060" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Since it seems your 1600+ rating is over the board (OTB) and the times you tend to lose to players with ratings much lower than yours is when you play online, I will mention a possibility not raised yet: Playing online is not the same for everyone as playing OTB. I myself suffer from this; I find I'm a stronger player OTB than online. There are other people I've talked to who find this about their play. Not surprisingly, there are also people who say they play better online than OTB.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The following is a bit of speculation about my own issues playing online that might prove helpful - or at least informative - for others. When I'm sitting across from an opponent with a board and pieces between us, the game seems more &quot;real&quot; and I concentrate better. Online play presents a different feel - there's no opponent to see and the board and pieces are just pixels on a screen. Part of my issue may be that I  played computer chess for years before I started playing over the Internet; thus I'm accustomed to taking back a move if I miss something in computer chess. Even though I try to remind myself that I can't take back a move, I just don't seem to maintain concentration as well when playing online.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="224" LastEditorUserId="224" LastEditDate="2019-12-23T21:32:18.580" LastActivityDate="2019-12-23T21:32:18.580" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27535" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27520" CreationDate="2019-12-23T21:40:24.073" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;What ratings and at what speed.  Ratings are not transferable between different types of chess, organizations doing the ratings, and the speed of the time control.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You might be 1600 somewhere but those 800 people you lose to in their usual arena might be 2000 if they played where you got your 1600.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Compare apples to oranges including time control and where the rating is from. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20948" LastActivityDate="2019-12-23T21:40:24.073" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27536" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14210" CreationDate="2019-12-23T22:51:34.833" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Playing blitz makes you worse at rapid and longer games because you get used to playing moves that aren’t well thought out. Additionally, it trains you to think quickly instead of deeply. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20950" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-12-24T01:10:42.423" LastActivityDate="2019-12-24T01:10:42.423" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27537" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27520" CreationDate="2019-12-23T23:02:57.427" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's also mathematically perfectly normal to lose sometimes against lower ranked players. I'm not sure what formula you used for your (and your opponents rating) but often it's the case that a 200 rating difference means you with 9 out of 10 games. - That's still quite a few losses, and due to people remembering blunders more than average games, you might see a confirmation bias.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also at larger elo differences elo becomes less accurate. In Elo rated chess any rating below 1000 is scrapped and you're supposed to reset your rating, otherwise the mathematical underlying principle breaks down.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18943" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-12-24T07:45:32.973" LastActivityDate="2019-12-24T07:45:32.973" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27538" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14210" CreationDate="2019-12-23T23:45:05.863" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It depends on the exact time control and type.&#xA;I went straight from zip to 1750 USCF by playing weekly at the club in their lightning tournaments. Every 10 seconds a buzzer or bell rings and you have to move immediately.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Games looked more like movies.  You had enough time to plan decently and to make your move.  They taught a lot more than playing one slow game in that evening.  Plus the fun and incentive of playing a full RR and seeing your results.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I blame the electric clocks and all the oddball add ons and delays for making blitz chess bad for most players trying to improve. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Perhaps a slower time control would have been better e.g. 20-30 seconds per move.  But ten was the standard back then before electric clocks. The alternative was SD10 using push button mechanical clocks.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would say that now playing G15SD would be near the sweet spot.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;My friends now want to play G10 +delay4.  They often run out of time near the end while I usually have a few minutes left.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Playing exactly ten seconds a move trains you to both think and to move promptly.  I suspect that regular OTB trains people to take lots of time and then they get into time trouble and have problems.&#xA;Too many people do not pace themselves and use their time wisely.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Clock management is a key to playing OTB well.  It does no good to get an advantage by taking lots of time early only to lose the game later on when you have time trouble. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While blitz may help with play during time trouble, it also tends to make you impulsive and move too fast early on.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My experience says if you want to do well at OTB then do not play blitz but do play at faster time controls like exactly ten seconds per move or at G15SD.   G30SD would be the slowest I would suggest if you truly want to improve.  Perhaps if your clock does this you could try delay5+5second add on per move to try to simulate the exactly ten second time control.  The problem with both add ons and delays alone is that when the other person moves immediately you do not get the extra time to think like the old must move only on and not before the ten second bell chimed, and that it is possible to save up too much time to be good for training purposes. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20948" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-12-24T07:41:51.190" LastActivityDate="2019-12-24T07:41:51.190" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27539" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27545" CreationDate="2019-12-24T04:57:16.810" Score="5" ViewCount="326" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am trying to improve my chess and I spend about one hour in morning doing tactics and around one and half hour in evening studying endgames.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am following this schedule for about 2 months now and during this time I have not played any chess games. &#xA;Problem is if  I play chess i get less time to look into chess studies.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My thought process is as I am losing many games in lichess and all, I will finish this studies (at least to an extend) and will go back to play chess with my new knowledge in couple of months.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Am I doing this wrong? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How can I go about this? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18273" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-04T16:58:03.493" LastActivityDate="2020-03-04T16:58:19.333" Title="How important is playing chess games while you are working on to improve your chess?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;study&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27540" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27524" CreationDate="2019-12-24T05:18:59.117" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;When did this happen?  Because there is no reasonable interpretation of the current rules by which a TD should have upheld the touch-move claim.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I went back and looked at the 3rd Edition rulebook, and it doesn't say that a piece has to be &quot;on the chessboard&quot; to count for touch-move.  So in 1987, a TD who was being a &quot;strict constructionist&quot; about the rules might have upheld a touch-move claim in this situation, though I do not think it would have been reasonable to do so.  Even then, it was understood that the rule book can't cover all possible situations, and the TD had leeway to make reasonable interpretations of the rules.  I definitely would not have upheld a touch-move claim in this situation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If this was recent, the TD's ruling was clearly incorrect, and the player should have appealed the ruling.  Even in 1987, they probably should have appealed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[EDIT:  I'm not a FIDE Arbiter, but I am a USCF TD, so my response is from a USCF-centric viewpoint and refers to the USCF rulebook...]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7147" LastEditorUserId="7147" LastEditDate="2019-12-24T05:51:26.233" LastActivityDate="2019-12-24T05:51:26.233" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27541" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17265" CreationDate="2019-12-24T10:15:37.577" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;In 2019 sinquefield cup round 8 &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1971763&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;game&lt;/a&gt; between Sergey Karjakin and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave , MVL allowed Karjakin to checkmate him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;MVL was appreciated for his sportsmanship.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18273" LastActivityDate="2019-12-24T10:15:37.577" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27543" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17624" CreationDate="2019-12-24T15:37:01.320" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Everything leading up to move 20 is fine: you played with a plan, gained piece activity and space. However, with 20. Ne4 you'd started to wander. You should have taken advantage of your advanced post on e6 and the fact that the rook on e file is tied to the defense of e7. 20.  Re6! The threat is to double up on e-file, but if exchange sac is accepted, you would get a dominant position after placing the N on d5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15509" LastActivityDate="2019-12-24T15:37:01.320" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27544" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27539" CreationDate="2019-12-24T16:24:50.207" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recall an article in the  old Chess Life that said the best way to improve was to stop club play for a year and study.  For you Lichess is the same as club play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Until you are near average in rating there is little  value to playing anyone.  All you do is pick up bad habits from bad players.  Or get clobbered and learn nothing. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think you are overdoing it a bit.  45 minutes on tactics and another 45 on end games would be useful.  If you can really do more without getting tired or bored then go for it but that is time you are not doing other things that are useful besides chess.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would say wait until you score really well on tests for tactics and end games then start playing against people who are about 50-100 points over your rating.  And do not play blitz.  Play short games with enough time to think without being rushed too much.  G15SD is about right for you.  G30 would be the highest. For now G10 even with delay would be a bit too fast. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20961" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-04T16:58:19.333" LastActivityDate="2020-03-04T16:58:19.333" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27545" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27539" CreationDate="2019-12-24T18:41:36.173" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Personally, I think that you have a very solid plan. When I was up-and-coming, I would study a lot every day, but I would only play about two tournaments a year. Up to a certain point, I would pick up about 200 rating points per tournament in the beginning, and later about 100. Of course, as I got over 2000, that slowed down some. Back then, we did not have the Internet, so I would also go to the local chess club for about three hours one night per week.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would point out that former World Champion, Mikhail Botvinnik, was a big proponent of studying a lot, and only then, playing. Unfortunately, you can still have too much of a good thing, and I believe his rust showed itself when he lost to Tal in 1960.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S. I also think it is fantastic that you spend so much time studying the endgame. I read Ruben Fine's &quot;Basic Chess Endings&quot; cover to cover as an 1100 player, and to this day, it has still influenced my endgame play. The great thing about endgame work is that not much of it ever changes, and thus, it stays with you for a lifetime.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2019-12-24T18:41:36.173" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27546" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-12-24T19:15:12.723" Score="-2" ViewCount="206" Body="&lt;p&gt;I developed a bot. It had a 100% win rate and my account was banned. I need to get it to make mistakes but can't force Stockfish to do it. How can I modify Stockfish to make mistakes?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20963" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-12-24T19:54:34.930" LastActivityDate="2019-12-24T20:33:48.350" Title="How to force Stockfish to make mistake" Tags="&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;uci&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ClosedDate="2019-12-24T23:04:59.827" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27547" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27539" CreationDate="2019-12-24T19:37:03.577" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would say that it is important to play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Playing regularly keeps me in touch with reality of my abilities and exposes my weaknesses, and learning after a loss sticks better. For example, let's say I tried minority attack and really butchered it, during the game I might not be really sure about what went wrong, but after analyzing the game, I could see that I was pretty much clueless, then studying minority attack from videos or books would stick better. If I was studying a chapter &quot;Minority Attack&quot; without a loss, I could've (I know I would), overestimate my abilities, in the sense of: &quot;Oh, I would've figured it out&quot;, and end up with superficial understanding. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, it is important to keep over the board tactics ability refreshed. If I don't play and just do puzzles, I would feel rusty and make blunders.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Carlsen emphasizes the importance of playing in his tips:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMaaHd7aFIs&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Top 13 chess tips&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMaaHd7aFIs&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;5 tips for beginners&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="307" LastActivityDate="2019-12-24T19:37:03.577" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27548" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27546" CreationDate="2019-12-24T20:33:48.350" Score="1" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;setoption name Skill Level value 1&#xA;go&#xA;setoption name Skill Level value 20&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20963" LastActivityDate="2019-12-24T20:33:48.350" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27550" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27551" CreationDate="2019-12-25T01:48:17.387" Score="5" ViewCount="12808" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have a few questions about engine use detection at online games on chess.com:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Let's say both players are rated 1800 on chess.com online play and&#xA;they make &lt;code&gt;n&lt;/code&gt; number of moves in a game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;White&lt;/strong&gt; has &lt;strong&gt;90%&lt;/strong&gt; accuracy due to very decent moves, while &lt;strong&gt;black&lt;/strong&gt; has an accuracy of &lt;strong&gt;97.5%&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If &lt;code&gt;n &amp;gt; 20&lt;/code&gt; (less likely to be good moves by fluke), does this&#xA;  accuracy score mean that black cheated?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From my understanding the accuracy also depends on the number of moves made. For example, if you only made 3 moves and followed a well known opening your score will be 100% and that is not suspicious. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Thus, at what &lt;code&gt;n&lt;/code&gt; does the accuracy start to matter when it comes to&#xA;  detecting a cheat?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Chess.com seems to not act upon reports of cheating players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Does this mean that those players did not cheat?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;How to escalate the situation to avoid losing those valuable games?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, some players cheat in crucial games in tournaments where a win allows them to advance over you.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What stops someone from turning on a chess engine, when they&#xA;  have a losing position, until they gain an advantage (at which point&#xA;  they play without the engine)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This seems like it would be impossible to detect as there will be&#xA;typical moves (normal moves they make) from their previous games, with a few amazing moves sprinkled in.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20657" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-01-08T18:15:50.023" LastActivityDate="2020-08-04T22:15:50.220" Title="chess.com Analysis &quot;Accuracy&quot; - What score is computer like for a given rating?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;cheating&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27551" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27550" CreationDate="2019-12-25T02:29:33.643" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;It depends a lot on the opening and the players.&#xA;I have played several 'perfect' games when the opening was one I knew and the opponent made less than perfect moves making my choices obvious.  I have also played some games with much worse results.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can NOT conclude anything from one game or even a few games. &#xA;I was a statistician but this is not an area I have expertise with but I suspect that you may need hundreds or thousands of games to make that accuracy thing meaningful and yet may still have a wide error band on it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20968" LastActivityDate="2019-12-25T02:29:33.643" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27552" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23585" CreationDate="2019-12-25T02:44:18.530" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The winner is the person who makes the next to last mistake.&#xA;Centipawns are meaningless although an interesting guide to how you played and also to make you feel good when you get a low score.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20968" LastActivityDate="2019-12-25T02:44:18.530" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27553" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27449" CreationDate="2019-12-25T04:01:24.563" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The three elements of chess were initially cosidered to be space (position), time (development) and force (material.  Of these, material is generally considered to be the most important.  But if you are about to be checkmated, it doesn't matter how many pieces you may be ahead by. Thus, a positonal or space advantage can be considered as having control of an important part of the board.  Controlling the center for example will give you a positional advantage in the sense that you will have more freedom of movement to develop your pieces and manuever them into favorable positions. Such an advantage will facilitate your developing an attack against the enemy king.  Controlling more space with a positional advantage will also tend to restrict your opponent's ability to mount a successful defense. And it's almost axiomatic that tactics tend to flow from a better position.    &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastActivityDate="2019-12-25T04:01:24.563" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27554" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27550" CreationDate="2019-12-25T04:35:04.927" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm a 1400-1500 rated blitz player on chess.com. Looking through my archives, I see that just this month I had a 34 move game, at a 3 2 time control, where I was rated at a 97.4% accuracy. And I know I wasn't cheating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I look at my recent daily games (where I'm rated higher, around 1900) I see a 46 move game where I was rated at 99%.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can't tell anything from a single game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2019-12-25T04:35:04.927" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27555" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8123" CreationDate="2019-12-25T10:07:45.877" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, Brainfish 221119 Depth 16 can beat Carlsen even if it only runs at 2000 Kn/s in the starting position. Brainfish 221119 depth 16 has an 2820 ELO rating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This 2820 ELO Rating is Standard Rating, not Rapid or Blitz Rating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20972" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-12-25T13:24:55.317" LastActivityDate="2019-12-25T13:24:55.317" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27556" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23585" CreationDate="2019-12-25T10:47:41.990" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you aren't a very strong player - by which I mean Master level - then Stockfish is regularly going to find significantly better moves than you do, simply because it can look further ahead in the game with more insight (even if given only a few seconds to think per move).  So don't be ashamed of losing &quot;only&quot; 80 centipawns per move on average relative to Stockfish.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The important point in this game is that you played better than your opponent, who was also not a very strong player.  So while you didn't exploit your position and available tactics to the utmost possible, you did so &lt;em&gt;well enough&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Along with the analysis, Lichess should have identified specific moves where Stockfish thought each player made particularly big mistakes.  If you select these moves, and look at the &lt;em&gt;variation&lt;/em&gt; from the actual game that the engine suggested, you might be able to spot a reason why the suggested move was better.  Most likely there was a weakness that you opened in your position, but which your opponent failed to exploit, so check &lt;em&gt;their&lt;/em&gt; mistakes too - as the engine will certainly choose lines which exploit those weaknesses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19281" LastActivityDate="2019-12-25T10:47:41.990" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27558" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21908" CreationDate="2019-12-25T18:14:02.437" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Positional play had some inaccuracies.  Bf4 was a loss of tempo.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that white morphed the position into a more Ruy like formation which is positional. The two knights tends to be more tactical which you did not see in this game. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But you lost material which made the difference.  So the key error was tactical. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastActivityDate="2019-12-25T18:14:02.437" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27559" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6090" CreationDate="2019-12-25T18:20:50.967" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your best move is resign and start another game.&#xA;If you insist on playing on the QxR on e1 is least worst.&#xA;But after QxRwith check you will still lose the horsie, leaving you a Q and an exchange down.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastActivityDate="2019-12-25T18:20:50.967" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27560" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11031" CreationDate="2019-12-25T18:33:51.847" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The move 12. Nh5, losing a knight, is what lost the game. The rest, as they say, is a matter of technique. If you thought that was a sound sacrifice then you need to study more openings and tactics. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;17&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;g4 was bad for black.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You missed 19. d5, winning another bishop. Additionally, you should not have let black play to open up the kingside by letting your pawn attack the queen. and pawn together. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black putting the king on a5 was asking to be mated and end it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White opened poorly.  You should have been more aggressive in punishing that. And made fewer mistakes than white did.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White played poorly.  Clearly you played even less good. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-12-25T21:25:42.360" LastActivityDate="2019-12-25T21:25:42.360" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27561" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-12-25T19:32:17.177" Score="0" ViewCount="79" Body="&lt;p&gt;How is this a &lt;strong&gt;draw by three-fold repetition&lt;/strong&gt;? Following my last move, the app notified me of a draw by three-fold repetition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;...&quot;]&#xA;1.Nf3 Nc6 2.Nc3 h6 3.d3 Nd4 4.Qd2 a6 5.Qe3 Nf6 6.Qxd4 Rb8 7.Qh4 d5 8.Qd4 a5 9.Qxd5 Rh7 10.Qxa5 Qd6 11.Qd5 e5 12.Qxd6 Rh8 13.Qxe5+ Kd8 14.Qd5+ Bd7 15.Qf5 h5 16.Qxh5 Rh6 17.Qxh6 Ng4 18.Qh4+ Kc8 19.Qxg4 Be7 20.Qxg7 Be6 21.Qxf7 Bb4 22.Qxe6+ Kd8 23.Qc4 Bf8 24.Qf4 Ke7 25.Qxf8+ Kd7 26.Qxb8 Ke7 27.Qxb7 Kf6 28.Qxc7 Kg6 29.Qc4 Kg7 30.Ng1 Kf8 31.Nb1 Kg7 32.Qc3+ Kg6 33.Qd2 Kf6 34.Qd1 Kf5 35.Qd2 Kg4 36.Qe3 Kh5 37.d4 Kg6 38.c4 Kf7 39.b4 Kg8 40.a4 Kf8 41.Qa3 Ke8 42.e4 Kd7 43.Qf3 Kc8 44.Qf5+ Kb7 45.f4 Kc7 46.g4 Kb8 47.h4 Kc7 48.a5 Kc6 49.a6 Kd6 50.a7 Kc7 51.a8=R Kb6 52.R8a4 Kb7 53.b5 Kb8 54.b6 Kb7 55.Qd5+ Kb8 56.b7 Kc7 57.Qe5+ Kd7 58.b8=R Kc6 59.Rbb4 Kd7 60.Qb5+ Kd6 61.c5+ Ke7 62.c6 Kf7 63.c7 Kf8 64.c8=R+ Ke7 65.Rcc4 Kd8 66.d5 Ke7 67.d6+ Kf8 68.d7 Kg7 69.d8=R Kg6 70.Rdd4 Kh6 71.Qd5 Kh7 72.e5 Kg7 73.e6 Kh6 74.e7 Kh7 75.e8=R Kh6 76.Ree4 Kg6 77.f5+ Kg7 78.f6+ Kh8 79.f7 Kg7 80.f8=R Kg6 81.Rff4 Kh7 82.Qh5+ Kg8 83.Rf3 Kg7 84.Rfh3 Kg8 85.Ree3 Kf8 86.Re2 Kg8 87.Reh2 Kg7 88.Rd1 Kf8 89.Bf4 Ke7 90.Rcc3 Kf6 91.Rcf3 Ke6 92.Rbb2 Ke7 93.Rbg2 Ke6 94.Rgg3 Ke7 95.R4a2 Ke6 96.Rag2 Kf6 97.g5+ Kf5 98.g6+ Kf6 99.g7 Ke7 100.g8=R Kf6 101.Rga8 Ke7 102.R8a2 Kf6 103.Raf2 Ke7 104.Qg5+ Kf7 105.h5 Ke6 106.h6 Kf7 107.h7 Ke6 108.h8=R Kf7 109.Be5+ Ke6 110.Qg4+ Kxe5 111.Qh4 Ke6 112.Rb8 Ke5 113.Rbb2 Ke6 114.Rdd2 Ke5 115.Rde2+ Kd6 116.Rbd2+ Kc6 117.Rdd3 Kb7 118.Rde3 Kc8 119.Rf4 Kb8 120.Nf3 Kb7 121.Nd4 Kc8 122.R4f3 Kb8 123.Re4 Kb7 124.Ree3 Kb6 125.Bc4 Kc7 126.Ba6 Kb8 127.Bb7 Kc7 128.Bd5 Kb8 129.O-O Kc7 130.Na3 Kd6 131.Nab5+ Kd7 132.Rae1 Kc8 133.R4e3 Kb8 134.Na3 Kc8 135.Nb1 Kc7 136.Na3 Kd6 137.Nb1 Kc5 138.Nc2 Kxd5 139.Nca3 Kc5 140.Nc4 Kc6 141.Ne5+ Kb6 142.Nd7+ Kb5 143.Nc5 Kxc5 144.Na3 Kb6 145.Nb5 Ka5 146.Na7 Ka6 147.Rd4 Kb7 148.Rde4 Ka8 149.Ref4 Kb7 150.Rfg4 Kb6 151.Nc6 Kc7 152.Na7 Kb7 153.Nb5 Kb8 154.Nd6 Ka7 155.Nb5+ Kb8 156.Nc7 Kc8 157.Na8 Kb7 158.Nc7 Kb6 159.Nd5+ Kb7 160.Nb6 Kc6 161.Nc8 Kb7 162.Ne7 Kb8 163.Nc8 Kxc8 164.Qd8+ Kxd8 165.Kh1 Kd7 166.Ra1 Kd8 167.Ree1 Kc7 168.Reb1 Kc6 169.Ree1 Kd6 170.Rec1 Ke6 171.Rff1 Kd6 172.Rfd1+ Ke7 173.Rff1 Ke6 174.Rfe1+ Kf6 175.Rgg1 Kf5 176.R3g2 Kf6 177.Rga4 Kf5 178.Rha3 Kf6 179.Rga2 Kf7 180.Rhb2 Kf6 181.Kh2 Kf5 182.Kh3 Kf6 183.Kh4 Kf5 184.Kg3 Kf6 185.Kf4 Kf7 186.Ke4 Ke7 187.Kd5+ Kd8 188.Rh2 Kd7 189.Rh1 Kd8 190.Rf2 Kd7 191.Rff1 Kd8 192.Rah3 Kd7 193.Rhe3 Kd8 194.R4a3 Kd7 195.Rad3 Kd8 196.Re4 Kd7 197.Rd4 Kd8 198.Kc5+ Kc8 199.Kd5+ Kd7 200.Ke5+ Ke7 201.Kf5+ Kf8 202.Kg5+ Kg7 203.Kh5+ Kh8 204.Kg5+ Kg7 205.Kf5+ Kf8 206.Ke5+ Ke7 207.Kd5+ Kd8 208.Kc5+ Kc8 209.Kb5+ Kb8 210.Ka5+ Ka8 211.Kb5+ Kb7 212.Kc5+ Kc7 213.Kd5+ Kd8 214.Ke5+&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20973" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2019-12-25T23:23:25.887" LastActivityDate="2019-12-25T23:23:25.887" Title="How is this a “draw by three-fold repetition”?" Tags="&lt;threefold-repetition&gt;&lt;claim-draw&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27562" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27561" CreationDate="2019-12-25T19:47:49.610" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your diagram does not work on my computer.  Draw by repetition is when a player repeats the SAME &lt;em&gt;POSITION&lt;/em&gt; 3 times.&lt;br&gt;&#xA; They do not have to repeat immediately during only three moves. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Same means same person on move, nothing different like castling or pawn moves or captures.   Position can take several moves to come back to the same one and the in between positions do not matter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am not going to play over that game on my physical board to find it but if the computer said so then there were three repetitions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Look at the position after your moves 200 206 and 214 and see if the position is not the same with the same person having moved. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastEditorUserId="20776" LastEditDate="2019-12-25T20:06:39.200" LastActivityDate="2019-12-25T20:06:39.200" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27563" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27561" CreationDate="2019-12-25T20:28:55.647" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;FIDE rules, 5.1:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;d. The game may be drawn if any identical position is about to appear or has appeared on the chessboard at least three times. (See Article 9.2)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;FIDE rules, 9.2:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The  game  is  drawn  upon  a  correct  claim  by  the  player  having  the  move,  when  the  same  position, for at least the third time &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;(not necessarily by a repetition of moves)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;: &#xA;  ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The emphasis is mine, and that's what happened here. The position was repeated 3 times, but the moves weren't. However,  that is still a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19142" LastActivityDate="2019-12-25T20:28:55.647" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27566" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27524" CreationDate="2019-12-25T21:39:05.657" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am not an arbiter, but I find existing answers lacking in detail.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This particular rule became stricter on July 1, 2017.  Until then, the relevant rules read:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;4.2&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Provided that he first expresses his intention (for example by saying “j’adoube” or “I adjust”), only the player having the move may adjust one or more pieces on their squares.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;4.3&lt;br&gt;&#xA;   Except as provided in Article 4.2, if the player having the move touches on the chessboard, with the intention of moving or capturing: [...]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In those times, player's intention was theoretically the sole basis of making the arbiter's decision about a touch-move claim.  The rule even guaranteed the right to adjusting the pieces, conditioned on expressing the intention to adjust the pieces somehow prior to touching them.  That didn't mean that a player's claim about their intention would have been automatically accepted by the arbiter; the player would have to explain how they expressed their intention, and even if they actually said &quot;j'adoube&quot;, there could have been a dispute over whether this was said &lt;em&gt;first&lt;/em&gt;, i.e., before actually touching the piece or right after.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In case of a piece lying on the floor, under those rules, the intention to adjust would be considered unambiguously expressed by diving under the table and picking the piece up there; note also that the rule doesn't extend to pieces lying off the chessboard.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Arbiters tended to enforce touch-move, but some players got away with high profile situations widely believed to be violations of touch-move because it is difficult to rule about &quot;intention&quot; with certainty.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On July 1, 2017, the following stricter wording was adopted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;4.2.1 &#xA;  Only the player having the move may adjust one or more pieces on their squares, provided that he first expresses his intention (for example by saying “j’adoube” or “I adjust”).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;4.2.2 &#xA;  Any other physical contact with a piece, except for clearly accidental contact, shall be considered to be intent.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;4.3&#xA;  Except as provided in Article 4.2, if the player having the move touches on the chessboard, with the intention of moving or capturing:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;4.3.1 &#xA;  one or more of his own pieces, he must move the first piece touched that can be moved&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[...]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It may appear to us laymen that little changed.  However, this &lt;em&gt;update&lt;/em&gt; of rules was commonly understood by arbiters at that time as a directive to decide any gray cases toward assuming intention to move on the part of the player who has touched a movable piece on the chessboard.  If the prior rules generated some false negatives (getting away with very fast violations of touch-move), then the new rules might be expected to generate some false positives (punishing someone for failing to say the equivalent of &quot;j'adoube&quot; in a situation where they should ideally have been trained to say it automatically).  I believe that extremely strict enforcement is more likely to happen in top tournaments and less likely in fun events or young players' tournaments, but in the end it is still up to the arbiter who doesn't always have a video recording of the situation available.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From my perspective, this particular question most likely does not concern a case of &lt;em&gt;touching&lt;/em&gt; a piece on the chessboard.  Most likely, the piece was just &lt;em&gt;held&lt;/em&gt; while it was being repositioned; it might also have been dropped from a height to the chessboard, or dropped and then touched again, or held, let loose and then touched again.  So the touch-move rule might or might have be available for consideration, and the arbiter may not have seen the exact minute movements of the hand which could have made the dispute just another gray area case in their mind, so perhaps they automatically went with assuming the intention to move as dictated by rule 4.2.2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BTW, it would be a mistake to claim &quot;clearly accidental contact&quot; if challenged like this.  That phrase is never referring to any accidental contact between pieces and spectators; &quot;clearly accidental contact&quot; refers to cases like the &lt;em&gt;player&lt;/em&gt; toppling down one piece by their elbow while clearly reaching for another one with their hand.  Claims of &quot;intention to adjust&quot; and &quot;clearly accidental contact&quot; are logically incompatible with each other.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An active player playing by the new rules should ideally say &quot;j'adoube&quot; or the equivalent between picking up the piece from the floor and repositioning it onto the chessboard.  This should become an automatic instinct these days, a more important one (rating wise) than being able to mate with a bishop and a knight under time pressure.  Another important instinct is staying calm and factual and trying to claim one's own transparency of intention in case of any dispute about the intention.  Of course, it would be poor sportsmanship on the part of the opponent to claim lack of expression of intention to adjust if there was no doubt whatsoever about the intention to adjust itself; and an arbiter still has some freedom about what to consider &quot;expression of intention to adjust&quot; in a given situation.  They will normally have to rely on claims and counterclaims as to the facts of the case as made by the players themselves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9555" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T16:54:23.747" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T16:54:23.747" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27567" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-12-25T21:42:07.550" Score="11" ViewCount="2815" Body="&lt;p&gt;If one of my pieces is &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/q/27524&quot;&gt;knocked off the board unintentionally&lt;/a&gt;, do I need to place it back on the board?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can I continue to play with one or more pieces not on the board (but still have it in effect - for example a rook that was on &lt;code&gt;A1&lt;/code&gt; but has been knocked off the board still &quot;watches&quot; the vertical and horizontal)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can I place it back on the board only when I intend to move it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20975" LastEditorUserId="18475" LastEditDate="2019-12-26T10:35:18.463" LastActivityDate="2019-12-26T17:31:40.980" Title="Can a player be forced to adjust a piece?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;fide&gt;&lt;pieces&gt;&lt;uscf&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27568" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="659" CreationDate="2019-12-25T21:43:04.737" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a very old question, but the reason is that this is an easy draw at that level, despite the pawn minus for black. The main reason is that black is quite active, and has a monster B on d5. The eventual pa4 move by black will most likely lead to the liquidation of the queen-side, or the Ra1 will need to remain passive to defend a pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In addition, the Pd3 and Ph4 are very weak, as is g2 should the N move, and white wishes to bring his king to the center. Lastly, black may even consider Bxf3 leaving white with so many weak pawns, that one is sure to drop, and that would actually leave white fighting for the draw. Lastly, even black's king is better placed for the endgame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in other words, there is plenty of compensation for the missing pawn, and both preferred to go to tiebreaks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2019-12-25T21:43:04.737" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27569" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27567" CreationDate="2019-12-25T22:25:24.973" Score="18" Body="&lt;p&gt;When FIDE tournament rules apply: If you displace one or more pieces – knocking off the board, intentionally or unintentionally, is a displacement – you have to re-establish the correct position on your own time (Art. 7.4.1). While it is not specifically mentioned, I would say that you have to do this at once; if you wait, that could be regarded as an attempt to &quot;distract or annoy the opponent&quot; (&lt;a href=&quot;https://handbook.fide.com/chapter/E012018&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Art. 11.5&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In a regular game, if you proceed while the incorrect position is on the board, any move will be regarded as irregular, the correct position before the knocking off will be reinstated, the game will continue from that position, the arbiter will set the clock and give penalties. In rapid and blitz games, after the opponent made a move, the game will continue without the &quot;vanished&quot; piece.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;USCF might have additional rules.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20096" LastEditorUserId="28" LastEditDate="2019-12-26T17:31:40.980" LastActivityDate="2019-12-26T17:31:40.980" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27570" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2600" CreationDate="2019-12-25T22:31:46.210" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Old question, but up my alley, so I am going to give you my opinion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, Stockfish 10 evaluates this as roughly equal (-.08 at a depth of 35), but that is not really the end of the story. White is down a solid pawn, but only down on the eval by -.08? Well, that means that he has +.92 in positional compensation, assuming that black tries to keep the pawn, so let's look at that positional compensation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;People are not computers, so while it is almost equal, virtually no strong player would want to play black there since it looks dangerous. The best move for white is 4.Bg5!, which inhibits black's development even more since it prevents e6 and developing the king-side, or after the relatively-forced Nf6, it will threaten to get the pawn back, but we will talk about that later. If black tries to get by without Nf6, it may even be worse.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Bc8 has been made bad, and the king-side has been weakened grossly by f5. So, not only has the h5-e8 diagonal been weakened some, but also the a2-g8 diagonal will be a nice for a Bc4 move in the near future. None of those things appeal to a human Master's eye since experience tells me that black's position would be very dangerous if he tries to keep the material.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason this variation for white is not more popular is that with best play, white only gets his pawn back with no real advantage. The reason this position is not more popular for black is that if you are going to defend this, there is a much better way with Bf5 soon that does not weaken the king-side with f5?!, so why do that? The best defense is generally considered to be the Gunderam Defense, which starts with 5...Bf5. Here is a sample line, and it is considered very solid for black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA; 1. d4 d5 2. e4 dxe4 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. f3 exf3 5. Nxf3 Bf5 6. Bc4 e6 7. O-O c6 8. Ne5 Bg6 9. Bg5 Be7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2019-12-25T22:31:46.210" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27571" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="593" CreationDate="2019-12-25T22:54:27.043" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I cannot find Nunn's criticism, but if it were about calculation errors, then fine; but I suspect it was not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think that Nunn has been a GM so long, and was probably weak enough to enjoy that book for about one day when he was 6 years old he went by that level so quickly, that he could not appreciate it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think it was a great book. Sure, it is light and fluffy, but it was not meant for anyone at the serious-student level yet. It is a nice first introduction into positional play: WHY we play certain moves. I feel that any harsh criticism of this classic work in unwarranted based on what it is trying to accomplish.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2019-12-25T22:54:27.043" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27572" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26612" CreationDate="2019-12-25T23:44:53.093" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes and no.  I knew Fischer.  I doubt that he was cabable of writing a book like that.  What likely happened is that Two good , not great, players, who could write well, worked with Bobby and his ideas to create the book.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now the real question is why.  Was it because Bobby was hurting for money?   Or did some friends impose on him to use his name to help them make some money?  Otherwise I see no reason for it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastActivityDate="2019-12-25T23:44:53.093" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27575" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27497" CreationDate="2019-12-26T02:05:20.800" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is no advantage if your goal is to improve your OTB rating.   The time wasted solving a problem in fewer moves would be better spent learning things that you could use in your games. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastActivityDate="2019-12-26T02:05:20.800" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27576" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25027" CreationDate="2019-12-26T02:07:29.640" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The OP had two different patterns.  One is simple mate with two pieces attacking two files.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The other one is just a pin and a back rank rook mate. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastActivityDate="2019-12-26T02:07:29.640" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27578" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14085" CreationDate="2019-12-26T10:49:15.620" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In a fast time control I look to win.  Mate is one way to win, but if it uses up time then I would take the easier faster way to win.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;OTB I would spend some time looking for a mate but would not obsess about it if there were an obvious sure winning line.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Better to spend time training tactics and mates and combinations off the clock so next time mate  will be easier to spot. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastActivityDate="2019-12-26T10:49:15.620" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27579" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27585" CreationDate="2019-12-26T10:52:23.590" Score="13" ViewCount="6211" Body="&lt;p&gt;The arrival of strong chess engines as Stockfish, Houdini or Rybka allow top players to deeply prepare lines in openings or to study better endgames.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would expect a rating increase of top players. However, Kasparov's top score from 1999 is still the second best rating score of all time and Karpov and Fischer are still in the top twenty historical rated players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/uPLV3.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/uPLV3.png&quot; alt=&quot;Enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_top_chess_players_throughout_history&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.computerchess.org.uk/ccrl/404/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;those engines have a 3600 Elo&lt;/a&gt;, shouldn't top players have profited from it to leave Kasparov's 2851 score in 1999 far away?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And shouldn't more than 18 players surpass Fischer's 2785 in 1972?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user18196" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-02T17:52:42.293" LastActivityDate="2020-03-02T17:52:42.293" Title="Why have engines not increased top rated chess players' Elo?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;rating&gt;&lt;history&gt;&lt;elo&gt;&lt;statistics&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27581" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27579" CreationDate="2019-12-26T11:01:19.470" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;People are not computers.  They learn and memorize as much as possible but they can not do as much as a computer can nor as fast.  The top players are doing everything they can but they can not do it all like the computer does. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastActivityDate="2019-12-26T11:01:19.470" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27582" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27579" CreationDate="2019-12-26T11:03:50.910" Score="9" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If those engines have a 3600 Elo, shouldn't top players have profited from it to leave Kasparov's 2851 score in 1999 far away?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No. The main effect of engines and also the internet has been to democratise chess. The top players have always had access to top level evaluation and knowledge. For lower level players that kind of knowledge, analysis, position evaluation, endgame knowledge was very difficult to acquire. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is important because higher level players gain rating points by beating lower level players. If those lower level players are harder to beat because of increased access to the analysis and knowledge that engines and the internet provide then it actually becomes harder to reach higher levels as measured by rating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorDisplayName="user18196" LastEditDate="2019-12-27T09:52:44.260" LastActivityDate="2019-12-27T09:52:44.260" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27583" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27108" CreationDate="2019-12-26T12:33:45.490" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/team/lichess-bots&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://lichess.org/team/lichess-bots&lt;/a&gt; has the documentation you are looking for. If you just want the gui you can embed it like in the project used by &lt;a href=&quot;http://lichess.bitplan.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://lichess.bitplan.com&lt;/a&gt;. If you want to do moves it depends on the programming language you are using. For python e.g. there are ready to use libraries:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/rhgrant10/berserk&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://github.com/rhgrant10/berserk&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/ShailChoksi/lichess-bot&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://github.com/ShailChoksi/lichess-bot&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a committer of &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/WolfgangFahl/play-chess-with-a-webcam&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Play Chess With a WebCam&lt;/a&gt; i'll also point you to the implementation within this project see: &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/WolfgangFahl/play-chess-with-a-webcam/blob/master/pcwawc/lichess.py&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;lichess.py&lt;/a&gt; and the tests for it &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/WolfgangFahl/play-chess-with-a-webcam/blob/master/tests/test_lichess.py&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;test_lichess.py&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20322" LastActivityDate="2019-12-26T12:33:45.490" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27584" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27567" CreationDate="2019-12-26T12:39:59.677" Score="17" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to the Laws of Chess:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;7.4.1  If a player displaces one or more pieces, he shall re-establish the correct position in his own time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, in this situation, it is not the &lt;em&gt;player&lt;/em&gt; who displaced one or more pieces. I believe that another rule would therefore be in effect:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;7.6  If, during a game it is found that any piece has been displaced from its correct square, the position before the irregularity shall be reinstated. If the position immediately before the irregularity cannot be determined, the game shall continue from the last identifiable position prior to the irregularity. The game shall then continue from this reinstated position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note the use of passive voice. If 7.4.1 doesn't apply, then it doesn't matter how it got displaced and it doesn't matter how it gets put back, but the position shall be reinstated, and the game shall continue from the reinstated position. This implies that you can't move until it is reinstated (otherwise you wouldn't be continuing from that position.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And, of course, you're allowed to stop the clock and call the arbiter if such a thing happens.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;7.4.2  If necessary, either the player or his opponent shall stop the chessclock and ask for the arbiter’s assistance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2019-12-26T12:39:59.677" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27585" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27579" CreationDate="2019-12-26T13:19:11.520" Score="25" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think they certainly have increased their ELO, but more importantly, their overall chess strength. ELO is only a rating relative to others in the pool so it may tend to go up more slowly if everyone in the pool gets better, which they have collectively.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, you need to take an average of the top players, rather than look at just two incredibly special players, Kasparov, and Carlsen, and their peak ratings. Fischer was a total anomaly for his time, and again, you cannot base a lot on one person. Humans probably have a limit mentally much the way runners will eventually hit a speed wall that they cannot break. It is the Bell Curve in action: Easy to make progress in the middle, but harder on the end.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ChessBase, and the first strong engine, KnightStalker (aka Fritz 1.0, renamed at version 2.0) came out in 1990, and the Internet was still in its infancy. In January of 1990, there were only two players over 2700, Karpov at 2730, and Kasparov at 2800. Today, there are 37 players over 2700, and of those, three are over 2800.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have been playing for a long time, and anyone, who knows my handle, has seen me watching relays of the top tournaments on ICC for more than 20 years, and I can say that it is not just inflation from having actually watched the level of play improve over the years. Players at the Master-level, including even normal Masters, are MUCH better now due to the tools available today than the tools available when I first became a Master.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I first started playing, all we had was books, and a local club. Today, I can logon virtually any day, and play a GM. I was also a ranked tennis player as a teenager, and I can tell you from that experience, playing better competition makes you better, so being able to logon and play stronger players than ever has increased the overall level of play. In addition, we now have ChessBase, and a database of about 8.3M games that can be sorted efficiently and studied. We also have engines, as noted in the question, and they certainly have also added to our chess knowledge, and fundamentally changed how the top players prepare. Lastly, I mentioned books, and as an avid collector (I had 1800 at my peak), I can tell you that even the quality of the material in books is on another level since when I started.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I cannot tell you what proportion of all these advances have played toward X-number of rating points increase, but I can tell you that without a doubt, they all have lead to players at the top levels, and even down some, being much better overall.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2019-12-26T13:19:11.520" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27586" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14085" CreationDate="2019-12-26T14:04:26.283" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;“When you see a good move, look for a better one”.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;strong&gt;Emanuel Lasker.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course blitz is different, but you were playing with a 10 second increment and with no time hurries. Any excuse why you didn't take some time to calculate the checkmates. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user18196" LastActivityDate="2019-12-26T14:04:26.283" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27587" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18590" CreationDate="2019-12-26T14:21:25.163" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Try &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.tryit.in/blindchess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.tryit.in/blindchess&lt;/a&gt;.&#xA;It's a very simple interface where you can play against an engine at different difficulty level by just keying in the moves in algebraic notation and see the board as and when you want.&#xA;Full disclosure: I am the tool developer! :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20984" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-12-26T14:41:43.043" LastActivityDate="2019-12-26T14:41:43.043" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27588" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27589" CreationDate="2019-12-26T15:18:00.257" Score="6" ViewCount="402" Body="&lt;p&gt;Following up on a question regarding &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/27567/can-a-player-be-forced-to-adjust-a-piece&quot;&gt;piece adjustment after an accident&lt;/a&gt;, I was wondering if there is &lt;strong&gt;a rule which forces someone to neatly place their pieces on the board&lt;/strong&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am asking in the context of a psychological (nasty) war: if you place your pieces away from the center of the square (but still obviously within the square), the general mess can be unsettling to someone (it would certainly be for me) and give you unfair advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20986" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-12-26T16:00:32.163" LastActivityDate="2019-12-26T17:16:52.493" Title="Can a player be forced to neatly center their pieces on the board?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;psychology&gt;&lt;pieces&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27589" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27588" CreationDate="2019-12-26T16:58:07.783" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;OK, welcome to chess.stackexchange. First off with such FIDE questions need to bear in mind their &amp;quot;golden rule&amp;quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Laws of Chess cannot cover all possible situations that may arise during a game, nor can they regulate all administrative questions. Where cases are not precisely regulated by an Article of the Laws, it should be possible to reach a correct decision by studying analogous situations which are regulated in the Laws. The Laws assume that arbiters have the necessary competence, sound judgement and absolute objectivity. Too detailed a rule might deprive the arbiter of his freedom of judgement and thus prevent him from finding a solution to a problem dictated by fairness, logic and special factors.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We also have:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;7.4.1  If a player displaces one or more pieces, he shall re-establish the correct position in his own time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;7.4.3   The arbiter may penalise the player who displaced the pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the words &amp;quot;displaces&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;correct&amp;quot; are not defined, but they are kind of obvious for an arbiter to interpret, and the arbiter also has access to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;11.1 The players shall take no action that will bring the game of chess into disrepute.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;11.5 It is forbidden to distract or annoy the opponent in any manner whatsoever. This includes unreasonable claims, unreasonable offers of a draw or the introduction of a source of noise into the playing area.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bearing all this in mind, I think the player who tries this trick on is heading for a quick penalty. Hope this helps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8201" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2019-12-26T17:16:52.493" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27590" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27588" CreationDate="2019-12-26T16:58:53.793" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;No. &#xA;That is subjective and personal. &#xA;You may adjust anything during your move.&#xA;You cannot make the other player adjust them to your liking. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It would be interesting to see an adjustment battle going on when each player took his clock time to RE-adjust all the pieces to their liking every move. Might not work too well at speed chess:)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wonder if an arbiter could find another rule about doing something to annoy their opponent if it did happen. And which one would be punished. I hope both of them for being twits.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastActivityDate="2019-12-26T16:58:53.793" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27593" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2313" CreationDate="2019-12-26T18:26:19.073" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;xboard can be installed via &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.macports.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;macports&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;sudo port install xboard&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;if you run into trouble with your fonts see &lt;a href=&quot;http://wiki.bitplan.com/index.php/XBoard#MacOS_.2F_macports&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;XBoard page on wiki.bitplan.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20322" LastEditorUserId="20322" LastEditDate="2019-12-26T18:51:42.657" LastActivityDate="2019-12-26T18:51:42.657" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27594" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27597" CreationDate="2019-12-26T18:46:50.063" Score="8" ViewCount="1291" Body="&lt;p&gt;With all the questions lately about pieces being knocked off the board, being forced to adjust a fallen piece, etc., it made me think of this common scenario.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Players often adjust more than their own pieces if one is particularly off-center. Is it OK per the rules to adjust your opponent's pieces, and what if he objects?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can you do it anyway, and then when it is his move, he can readjust them to be off-center? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In practice, I doubt many people would have a real problem unless one player is constantly doing this, but it made me wonder.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2019-12-27T14:23:02.617" Title="Is it OK to adjust your opponent's pieces, and what if he objects?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;fide&gt;&lt;pieces&gt;&lt;uscf&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27595" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26920" CreationDate="2019-12-26T19:06:59.987" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is some Pascal Source code from &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.verysource.com/code/9881792_1/LMOVEGEN.PAS.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Borland 1985&lt;/a&gt; that uses an AttackTab to determine whether a figure is attacked or not. Since you are interested in the algorithm this code might give you some insight. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately I don'get the syntax highlighting to work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;MoveGenerator&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;MODULE MoveGenerator;&#xA;{$speed}&#xA;{$include: 'types.inc'}&#xA;VAR [EXTERN]&#xA;{$include: 'var.inc'}&#xA;&#xA;{&#xA;± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ±&#xA;&#xA;  MOVGEN.CH  include module for SCHACH.PAS&#xA;  Last modified:  01/12/85&#xA;&#xA;  This module contains the Move generator and various other&#xA;  procedures.&#xA;&#xA;± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ±&#xA;}&#xA;&#xA;{ Tables for calculating whether a Piece Attacks a Square }&#xA;TYPE&#xA;  SetOfPiece = BYTE;&#xA;  BitTabType = ARRAY[King..Pawn] OF SetOfPiece;&#xA;CONST&#xA;  BitTab =BitTabType (1,2,4,8,#10,#20);&#xA;&#xA;VAR   { A constant, which is calculated in CalcAttackTab.&#xA;        Gives the squares which a Piece in the middle of the&#xA;        table can Move to }&#xA;      AttackTab : ARRAY[-#77..#77] OF&#xA;                    RECORD&#xA;                       { A set of King..Pawn.&#xA;                         Gives the Pieces, which can&#xA;                         Move to the Square }&#xA;                       PieceSet :  SetOfPiece;&#xA;                       Direction: INTEGER;  { The Direction from&#xA;                                              the Piece to the Square }&#xA;                    END;&#xA;&#xA;PROCEDURE CalcAttackTab;&#xA;{ Calculates AttackTab }&#xA;VAR   Dir:    DirType;&#xA;      Sq :   INTEGER;&#xA;       i :   BYTE;&#xA;BEGIN&#xA;   FOR Sq:=-#77 TO #77 DO&#xA;      WITH AttackTab[Sq] DO&#xA;      BEGIN&#xA;         PieceSet:=0;&#xA;         Direction:=0;&#xA;      END; { with }&#xA;   FOR Dir:=7 DOWNTO 0 DO&#xA;   BEGIN&#xA;      FOR i:=1 TO 7 DO&#xA;         WITH AttackTab[DirTab[Dir]*i] DO&#xA;         BEGIN&#xA;            IF Dir&amp;lt;4 THEN&#xA;               PieceSet:=BitTab[Queen]+BitTab[Rook]&#xA;            ELSE&#xA;               PieceSet:=BitTab[Queen]+BitTab[Bishop];&#xA;            Direction:=DirTab[Dir];&#xA;         END;&#xA;      WITH AttackTab[DirTab[Dir]] DO&#xA;         PieceSet:=PieceSet+BitTab[King];&#xA;      WITH AttackTab[KnightDir[Dir]] DO&#xA;      BEGIN&#xA;         PieceSet:=BitTab[Knight];&#xA;         Direction:=KnightDir[Dir];&#xA;      END;&#xA;   END;&#xA;END; { CalcAttackTab }&#xA;&#xA;FUNCTION PieceAttacks(APiece : PieceType;&#xA;                      AColor : ColorType;&#xA;                      ASquare,&#xA;                      Square :  SquareType) : BOOLEAN;&#xA;{ Calculates whether APiece placed On ASquare Attacks the Square }&#xA;VAR   Sq : EdgeSquareType;&#xA;BEGIN&#xA;   IF APiece = Pawn THEN&#xA;      { Pawn Attacks }&#xA;      PieceAttacks := abs(Square - ASquare - PawnDir[AColor]) = 1&#xA;   ELSE&#xA;      { Other Attacks: Can the Piece Move to the Square? }&#xA;      WITH AttackTab[Square - ASquare] DO&#xA;         IF (PieceSet AND BitTab[APiece]) &amp;lt;&amp;gt; 0 THEN&#xA;            IF (APiece = King) OR (APiece = Knight) THEN&#xA;               PieceAttacks := TRUE&#xA;            ELSE&#xA;            BEGIN&#xA;               { Are there any blocking Pieces in between? }&#xA;               Sq := ASquare;&#xA;               REPEAT&#xA;                  Sq := Sq + Direction;&#xA;               UNTIL (Sq = Square) OR (Board[Sq].Piece &amp;lt;&amp;gt; Empty);&#xA;               PieceAttacks := Sq = Square;&#xA;            END&#xA;         ELSE&#xA;            PieceAttacks := FALSE;&#xA;END { PieceAttacks };&#xA;&#xA;FUNCTION Attacks(AColor : ColorType;   Square : SquareType) : BOOLEAN;&#xA;{ Calculates whether AColor Attacks the Square }&#xA;&#xA;FUNCTION PawnAttacks(AColor: ColorType; Square: SquareType):&#xA;            BOOLEAN;&#xA;{ Calculates whether AColor Attacks the Square with a Pawn }&#xA;VAR   Sq: EdgeSquareType;&#xA;BEGIN&#xA;   PawnAttacks:=TRUE;&#xA;   Sq := Square - PawnDir[AColor] - 1;   { Left Square }&#xA;   IF (Sq AND #88) = 0 THEN&#xA;      WITH Board[Sq] DO&#xA;         IF (Piece = Pawn) AND (Color = AColor) THEN RETURN;&#xA;   Sq := Sq + 2;                       { Right Square }&#xA;   IF (Sq AND #88) = 0 THEN&#xA;      WITH Board[Sq] DO&#xA;         IF (Piece = Pawn) AND (Color = AColor) THEN RETURN;&#xA;   PawnAttacks := FALSE;&#xA;END; { PawnAttacks }&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;VAR   i :  IndexType;&#xA;&#xA;BEGIN { Attacks }&#xA;   Attacks := TRUE;&#xA;   IF PawnAttacks(AColor,Square) THEN   { Pawn Attacks }&#xA;      RETURN;&#xA;   { Other Attacks:  Try all Pieces, starting with the smallest }&#xA;   FOR i := OfficerNo[AColor] DOWNTO 0 DO&#xA;      WITH PieceTab[AColor,i] DO&#xA;         IF IPiece &amp;lt;&amp;gt; Empty THEN&#xA;            IF PieceAttacks(IPiece,AColor,ISquare,Square) THEN&#xA;              RETURN;&#xA;   Attacks := FALSE;&#xA;END { Attacks };&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;PROCEDURE CalcCastling(InColor : ColorType; VAR Cast : CastType);&#xA;{ Calculates whether InColor can castle }&#xA;&#xA;FUNCTION Check(Square : SquareType; InPiece : PieceType) : BOOLEAN;&#xA;{ Checks whether InPiece is placed On Square and has never moved }&#xA;VAR&#xA;  Dep : DepthType;&#xA;BEGIN&#xA;  Check := FALSE;&#xA;  WITH Board[Square] DO                           { Check Square }&#xA;    IF (Piece = InPiece) AND (Color = InColor) THEN&#xA;    BEGIN&#xA;      Dep := Depth - 1;                            { Check all moves }&#xA;      WHILE MovTab[Dep].MovPiece &amp;lt;&amp;gt; Empty DO&#xA;      BEGIN&#xA;        IF MovTab[Dep].New1 = Square THEN RETURN;&#xA;        Dep := Dep - 1;&#xA;      END;&#xA;      Check := TRUE;&#xA;    END;&#xA;END; { Check }&#xA;&#xA;VAR   Square : SquareType;&#xA;BEGIN&#xA;   Square := 0;&#xA;   IF InColor = Black THEN Square := #70;&#xA;   Cast :=[];&#xA;   IF Check(Square + 4,King) THEN&#xA;   BEGIN                                                        { Check King }&#xA;      IF Check(Square  ,Rook) THEN Cast := Cast +[Long];      { Check a-Rook }&#xA;      IF Check(Square + 7,Rook) THEN Cast := Cast +[Short];   { Check h-Rook }&#xA;   END;&#xA;END { CalcCastling };&#xA;&#xA;FUNCTION RepeatMove(MOVE : MoveType) : BOOLEAN;&#xA;{ Check if Move is a Pawn Move or a capture }&#xA;BEGIN&#xA;  WITH MOVE DO&#xA;    RepeatMove := (MovPiece &amp;lt;&amp;gt; Empty) AND (MovPiece &amp;lt;&amp;gt; Pawn)&#xA;                 AND (Content = Empty) AND NOT Spe;&#xA;END; { RepeatMove}&#xA;&#xA;FUNCTION FiftyMoveCnt : INTEGER;&#xA;{ Counts the Number of moves since Last capture or Pawn Move.&#xA;  The game is a Draw when FiftyMoveCnt = 100 }&#xA;VAR   Cnt : INTEGER;&#xA;BEGIN&#xA;  Cnt := 0;&#xA;  WHILE RepeatMove(MovTab[Depth - Cnt]) DO&#xA;    Cnt := Cnt + 1;&#xA;  FiftyMoveCnt := Cnt;&#xA;END;&#xA;&#xA;FUNCTION Repetition(Immediate : BOOLEAN) : INTEGER;&#xA;{ Calculates how many times the position has occured before.&#xA;  The game is a Draw when Repetition = 3.&#xA;  MovTab[Back..Depth] contains the previous moves.&#xA;  When Immediate is set, only Immediate Repetition is checked }&#xA;&#xA;VAR   LastDep,CompDep,TraceDep,CheckDep,SameDepth : DepthType;&#xA;      TraceSq,CheckSq : SquareType;&#xA;      RepeatCount : INTEGER;&#xA;LABEL 10;&#xA;BEGIN&#xA;   Repetition := 1;&#xA;   RepeatCount := 1;&#xA;   SameDepth := Depth + 1;                     { Current position }&#xA;   CompDep := SameDepth - 4;          { First position to compare }&#xA;   LastDep := SameDepth;&#xA;   { MovTab[LastDep..Depth] contains previous relevant moves  }&#xA;   WHILE RepeatMove(MovTab[LastDep - 1]) AND&#xA;         ((CompDep &amp;lt; LastDep) OR NOT Immediate) DO&#xA;      LastDep := LastDep - 1;&#xA;   IF CompDep &amp;lt; LastDep THEN RETURN;     { No Repetition Possible }&#xA;   CheckDep := SameDepth;&#xA;   REPEAT&#xA;      CheckDep := CheckDep - 1;           { Get Next Move to test }&#xA;      CheckSq := MovTab[CheckDep].New1;&#xA;      TraceDep := CheckDep + 2;          { Check if Move has been }&#xA;      WHILE TraceDep &amp;lt; SameDepth DO&#xA;      BEGIN&#xA;        IF MovTab[TraceDep].Old = CheckSq THEN GOTO 10;&#xA;        TraceDep := TraceDep + 2;&#xA;      END;&#xA;&#xA;      { Trace the Move backward to see whether&#xA;        it has been 'undone' earlier }&#xA;      TraceDep := CheckDep;&#xA;      TraceSq := MovTab[TraceDep].Old;&#xA;      REPEAT&#xA;         IF TraceDep - 2 &amp;lt; LastDep THEN RETURN;&#xA;         TraceDep := TraceDep - 2;&#xA;         WITH MovTab[TraceDep] DO  { Check if Piece has been moved before }&#xA;            IF TraceSq = New1 THEN&#xA;               TraceSq := Old;&#xA;      UNTIL (TraceSq = CheckSq) AND (TraceDep &amp;lt;= CompDep + 1);&#xA;      IF TraceDep &amp;lt; CompDep THEN                      { Adjust evt. CompDep }&#xA;      BEGIN&#xA;        CompDep := TraceDep;&#xA;        IF ODD(SameDepth - CompDep) THEN&#xA;        BEGIN&#xA;          IF CompDep = LastDep THEN RETURN;&#xA;          CompDep := CompDep - 1;&#xA;        END;&#xA;        CheckDep := SameDepth;&#xA;      END;&#xA;   { All moves between SameDepth and CompDep have been checked,&#xA;     so a Repetition is Found }&#xA;   10 : IF CheckDep &amp;lt;= CompDep THEN&#xA;      BEGIN&#xA;         RepeatCount := RepeatCount + 1;&#xA;         Repetition := RepeatCount;&#xA;         IF CompDep - 2 &amp;lt; LastDep THEN RETURN;&#xA;         SameDepth := CompDep;               { Search for more repetitions }&#xA;         CompDep := CompDep - 2;&#xA;         CheckDep := SameDepth;&#xA;      END;&#xA;   UNTIL FALSE;&#xA;END { Repetition };&#xA;&#xA;FUNCTION KillMovGen(MOVE : MoveType) : BOOLEAN;&#xA;{ Tests whether a Move is Possible.&#xA;&#xA;   On entry :&#xA;      Move contains a full description of a Move, which&#xA;      has been legally generated in a different position.&#xA;      MovTab[Depth - 1] contains Last performed Move.&#xA;&#xA;   On RETURN :&#xA;      KillMovGen indicates whether the Move is Possible&#xA;}&#xA;VAR   CastSq  : SquareType;&#xA;      Promote : PieceType;&#xA;      CastDir : CastDirType;&#xA;      Cast    : CastType;&#xA;BEGIN&#xA;   KillMovGen := FALSE;&#xA;   WITH MOVE DO&#xA;   BEGIN&#xA;      IF Spe AND (MovPiece = King) THEN&#xA;      BEGIN&#xA;         CalcCastling(Player,Cast);         { Castling }&#xA;         IF New1 &amp;gt; Old THEN&#xA;            CastDir := Short&#xA;         ELSE&#xA;            CastDir := Long;&#xA;&#xA;         IF CastDir IN Cast THEN   { Has King or Rook moved before? }&#xA;         BEGIN&#xA;            CastSq := (New1 + Old) DIV 2;&#xA;            { Are the squares Empty? }&#xA;            KillMovGen := (Board[New1].Piece = Empty) AND&#xA;                          (Board[CastSq].Piece = Empty) AND&#xA;                             ((New1 &amp;gt; Old) OR&#xA;                             (Board[New1 - 1 ].Piece = Empty)) AND&#xA;                          { Are the squares unattacked? }&#xA;                          NOT Attacks(Opponent,Old) AND&#xA;                          NOT Attacks(Opponent,New1) AND&#xA;                          NOT Attacks(Opponent,CastSq);&#xA;         END;&#xA;      END&#xA;      ELSE&#xA;      IF Spe AND (MovPiece = Pawn) THEN&#xA;      BEGIN&#xA;         { E.p. capture }&#xA;         WITH MovTab[Depth - 1] DO&#xA;            { Was the Opponent's Move a 2 Square Move }&#xA;            IF MovPiece = Pawn THEN&#xA;               IF abs(New1 - Old) &amp;gt;= #20 THEN&#xA;                  { Is there a Piece On the Square? }&#xA;                  WITH Board[MOVE.Old] DO&#xA;                     IF (Piece = Pawn) AND (Color = Player) THEN&#xA;                        KillMovGen := MOVE.New1 = (New1 + Old) DIV 2;&#xA;      END { if }&#xA;      ELSE&#xA;      BEGIN&#xA;         IF Spe THEN                      { Normal test }&#xA;         BEGIN&#xA;            Promote := MovPiece;            { Pawnpromotion }&#xA;            MovPiece := Pawn;&#xA;         END;&#xA;&#xA;         { Is the Content of Old and New1 squares correct? }&#xA;         IF (Board[Old].Piece = MovPiece) AND&#xA;            (Board[Old].Color = Player) AND&#xA;            (Board[New1].Piece = Content) AND&#xA;           ((Content = Empty) OR&#xA;            (Board[New1].Color = Opponent)) THEN&#xA;&#xA;            IF MovPiece = Pawn THEN             { Is the Move Possible? }&#xA;               KillMovGen := (abs(New1 - Old) &amp;lt; #20) OR&#xA;                             (Board[(New1 + Old) DIV 2].Piece = Empty)&#xA;            ELSE&#xA;               KillMovGen := PieceAttacks(MovPiece,Player,Old,New1);&#xA;         IF Spe THEN&#xA;            MovPiece := Promote;&#xA;      END;&#xA;   END { with };&#xA;END; { KillMovGen }&#xA;&#xA;{ Movegeneration variables }&#xA;&#xA;VAR&#xA;      Buffer :        ARRAY[1..80] OF   { Buffer (generated moves) }&#xA;                        MoveType;&#xA;      BufCount,BufPnt : 0..80;            { Counters for Buffer    }&#xA;&#xA;PROCEDURE InitMovGen;&#xA;{ The movegenerator.&#xA;  InitMovGen generates all Possible moves and places them&#xA;  in a Buffer. MovGen will then Generate the moves One by One and&#xA;  place them in Next.&#xA;&#xA;  On entry :&#xA;     Player contains the Color to Move.&#xA;     MovTab[Depth - 1] the Last performed Move.&#xA;&#xA;  On RETURN :&#xA;     Buffer contains the generated moves.&#xA;&#xA;     The moves are generated in the order :&#xA;        Captures&#xA;        Castlings&#xA;        Non captures&#xA;        E.p. captures }&#xA;&#xA;PROCEDURE Generate;&#xA;   { Stores a Move in Buffer }&#xA;BEGIN&#xA;  BufCount := BufCount + 1;&#xA;  Buffer[BufCount] := Next;&#xA;END; { Generate }&#xA;&#xA;PROCEDURE PawnPromotionGen;&#xA;{ Generates Pawnpromotion }&#xA;VAR   Promote : PieceType;&#xA;BEGIN&#xA;  WITH Next DO&#xA;  BEGIN&#xA;    Spe := TRUE;&#xA;    FOR Promote := Queen TO Knight DO&#xA;    BEGIN&#xA;      MovPiece := Promote;&#xA;      Generate;&#xA;    END;&#xA;    Spe := FALSE;&#xA;  END;&#xA;END; { PawnPromotionGen }&#xA;&#xA;PROCEDURE CapMovGen;&#xA;   { Generates captures of the Piece On New1 using PieceTab }&#xA;VAR   NextSq,Sq : EdgeSquareType;&#xA;  i :  IndexType;&#xA;BEGIN&#xA;  WITH Next DO&#xA;  BEGIN&#xA;    Spe := FALSE;&#xA;    Content := Board[New1].Piece;&#xA;    MovPiece := Pawn;                   { Pawn captures }&#xA;    NextSq := New1 - PawnDir[Player];&#xA;    FOR Sq := NextSq - 1 TO NextSq + 1 DO IF Sq &amp;lt;&amp;gt; NextSq THEN&#xA;    IF (Sq AND #88) = 0 THEN&#xA;      WITH Board[Sq] DO&#xA;        IF (Piece = Pawn) AND (Color = Player) THEN&#xA;        BEGIN&#xA;          Old := Sq;&#xA;          IF (New1 &amp;lt; 8) OR (New1 &amp;gt;= #70) THEN&#xA;            PawnPromotionGen&#xA;          ELSE&#xA;            Generate;&#xA;        END;&#xA;         { Other captures, starting with the smallest Pieces }&#xA;    FOR i := OfficerNo[Player] DOWNTO 0 DO&#xA;      WITH PieceTab[Player,i] DO&#xA;        IF (IPiece &amp;lt;&amp;gt; Empty) AND (IPiece &amp;lt;&amp;gt; Pawn) THEN&#xA;          IF PieceAttacks(IPiece,Player,ISquare,New1) THEN&#xA;          BEGIN&#xA;            Old := ISquare;&#xA;            MovPiece := IPiece;&#xA;            Generate;&#xA;          END;&#xA;      END { with };&#xA;END; { CapMovGen }&#xA;&#xA;PROCEDURE NonCapMovGen;&#xA;{ Generates non captures for the Piece On Old }&#xA;VAR&#xA;   First,Last,Dir : DirType;&#xA;   Direction      : INTEGER;&#xA;   NewSq          : EdgeSquareType;&#xA;&#xA;LABEL 10;&#xA;BEGIN&#xA;  WITH Next DO&#xA;  BEGIN&#xA;    Spe := FALSE;&#xA;    MovPiece := Board[Old].Piece;&#xA;    Content := Empty;&#xA;    CASE MovPiece OF&#xA;      King,&#xA;      Knight : FOR Dir := 7 DOWNTO 0 DO&#xA;               BEGIN&#xA;                 IF MovPiece = King&#xA;                    THEN NewSq := Old + DirTab[Dir]&#xA;                    ELSE NewSq := Old + KnightDir[Dir];&#xA;                 IF (NewSq AND #88) = 0 THEN&#xA;                   IF Board[NewSq].Piece = Empty THEN&#xA;                   BEGIN&#xA;                     New1 := NewSq;&#xA;                     Generate;&#xA;                   END;&#xA;               END;&#xA;      Queen,&#xA;      Rook,&#xA;      Bishop : BEGIN&#xA;                 First := 7;&#xA;                 Last := 0;&#xA;                 IF MovPiece = Rook   THEN First := 3;&#xA;                 IF MovPiece = Bishop THEN Last := 4;&#xA;                 FOR Dir := First DOWNTO Last DO&#xA;                 BEGIN&#xA;                   Direction := DirTab[Dir];&#xA;                   NewSq := Old + Direction;&#xA;                   { Generate all non captures in&#xA;                         the Direction }&#xA;                   WHILE (NewSq AND #88) = 0 DO&#xA;                   BEGIN&#xA;                     IF Board[NewSq].Piece &amp;lt;&amp;gt; Empty THEN GOTO 10;&#xA;                     New1 := NewSq;&#xA;                     Generate;&#xA;                     NewSq := New1 + Direction;&#xA;                   END;&#xA;            10 : END;&#xA;               END;&#xA;      Pawn :   BEGIN&#xA;                 New1 := Old + PawnDir[Player];    { One Square forward }&#xA;                 IF Board[New1].Piece = Empty THEN&#xA;                   IF (New1 &amp;lt; 8) OR (New1 &amp;gt;= #70) THEN&#xA;                     PawnPromotionGen&#xA;                   ELSE&#xA;                   BEGIN&#xA;                     Generate;&#xA;                     IF (Old &amp;lt; #18) OR (Old &amp;gt;= #60) THEN&#xA;                     BEGIN&#xA;                       New1 := New1 + (New1 - Old); { Two squares forward }&#xA;                       IF Board[New1].Piece = Empty THEN Generate;&#xA;                     END;&#xA;                   END;&#xA;               END;&#xA;    END { case };&#xA;  END { with };&#xA;END; { NonCapMovGen }&#xA;&#xA;VAR&#xA;  CastDir : CastDirType;&#xA;  Sq      : EdgeSquareType;&#xA;  Index   : IndexType;&#xA;&#xA;BEGIN { InitMovGen }&#xA;   WITH Next DO                    { Reset the Buffer }&#xA;   BEGIN&#xA;      BufCount := 0;&#xA;      BufPnt := 0;&#xA;      { Generate all captures starting with captures of&#xA;        largest Pieces }&#xA;      FOR Index := 1 TO PawnNo[Opponent] DO&#xA;         WITH PieceTab[Opponent,Index] DO&#xA;            IF IPiece &amp;lt;&amp;gt; Empty THEN&#xA;            BEGIN&#xA;               New1 := ISquare;&#xA;               CapMovGen;&#xA;            END;&#xA;      Spe := TRUE;                           { Castling }&#xA;      MovPiece := King;&#xA;      Content := Empty;&#xA;      FOR CastDir := Short DOWNTO Long DO&#xA;         WITH CastMove[Player,CastDir] DO&#xA;         BEGIN&#xA;            New1 := CastNew;&#xA;            Old := CastOld;&#xA;            IF KillMovGen(Next) THEN Generate;&#xA;         END;&#xA;&#xA;      { Generate non captures, starting with pawns }&#xA;      FOR Index := PawnNo[Player] DOWNTO 0 DO&#xA;         WITH PieceTab[Player,Index] DO&#xA;            IF IPiece &amp;lt;&amp;gt; Empty THEN&#xA;            BEGIN&#xA;               Old := ISquare;&#xA;               NonCapMovGen;&#xA;            END;&#xA;      WITH MovTab[Depth - 1] DO               { E.p. captures }&#xA;         IF MovPiece = Pawn THEN&#xA;            IF abs(New1 - Old) &amp;gt;= #20 THEN&#xA;            BEGIN&#xA;               Next.Spe := TRUE;&#xA;               Next.MovPiece := Pawn;&#xA;               Next.Content := Empty;&#xA;               Next.New1 := (New1 + Old) DIV 2;&#xA;               FOR Sq := New1 - 1 TO New1 + 1 DO&#xA;                 IF Sq &amp;lt;&amp;gt; New1 THEN&#xA;                   IF (Sq AND #88) = 0 THEN&#xA;                   BEGIN&#xA;                     Next.Old := Sq;&#xA;                     IF KillMovGen(Next) THEN Generate;&#xA;                  END;&#xA;            END;&#xA;    END { with };&#xA;END; { InitMovGen }&#xA;&#xA;PROCEDURE MovGen;&#xA;{ Place Next Move from the Buffer in Next.&#xA;  Generate ZeroMove when there is No more moves }&#xA;BEGIN&#xA;   IF BufPnt &amp;gt;= BufCount THEN&#xA;      Next := ZeroMove&#xA;   ELSE&#xA;   BEGIN&#xA;      BufPnt := BufPnt + 1;&#xA;      Next := Buffer[BufPnt];&#xA;   END;&#xA;END; { MovGen }&#xA;&#xA;END.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20322" LastActivityDate="2019-12-26T19:06:59.987" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27596" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27594" CreationDate="2019-12-26T19:16:59.527" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You are permitted to adjust any piece when it is your move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If one opponent was careless and never centered a piece after a move there should be no problem if you adjust it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the piece was reasonably placed and you did it anyway, or if you adjusted it for some quirk like wanting the horsies to face forward or sideways then the arbiter might consider that as an attempt to annoy or upset the opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastActivityDate="2019-12-26T19:16:59.527" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27597" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27594" CreationDate="2019-12-26T19:19:04.883" Score="6" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is it OK per the rules to adjust your opponent's pieces?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;YES&lt;/strong&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The rules are clear:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;4.2.1 Only the player having the move may adjust one or more pieces on their squares, provided that he first expresses his intention (for&#xA;  example by saying “j’adoube” or “I adjust”).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;4.2.2 Any other physical contact with a piece, except for clearly accidental contact, shall be considered to be intent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When it is your turn, you may adjust the pieces. There is no distinction between your pieces and your opponent's pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The next article makes it clear by implication that both your and your opponent's pieces are covered by this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;4.3 Except as provided in Article 4.2, if the player having the move touches on the chessboard,with the intention of moving or capturing:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;4.3.1 one or more of his own pieces, he must move the first piece touched that can be moved&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;4.3.2 one or more of his opponent’s pieces, he must capture the first piece touched that can be captured&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;4.3.3 one or more pieces of each colour, he must capture the first touched opponent’s piece with his first touched piece or, if this is&#xA;  illegal, move or capture the first piece touched that can be moved or&#xA;  captured. If it is unclear whether the player’s own piece or his&#xA;  opponent’s was touched first, the player’s own piece shall be&#xA;  considered to have been touched before his opponent’s.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you touch one of your opponent's pieces without saying &quot;I adjust&quot;, or the equivalent in your language, then you must capture it. By implication, if you did say &quot;I adjust&quot; or &quot;j'adoube&quot;, then you may adjust it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What if he objects?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Call the arbiter. Make sure you ask for extra time (2 minutes) for the disturbance your opponent caused you. A good arbiter should give you this automatically unless there were extenuating circumstances.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;When it is his move, he can readjust them to be off-center?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As long as he first says &quot;I adjust&quot; or &quot;j'adoube&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once, in a mischievous mood, when helping the arbiter set up the room before playing in a competition I deliberately positioned the knights, on all the boards I set up, either one facing forward and one backward or the left knight facing left and the right knight facing right (i.e. both knights facing away from the action). Most of the players, being at least mildly OCD, would have adjusted the pieces before the game, regardless, even if the pieces were perfectly placed :-).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="28" LastEditDate="2019-12-27T14:23:02.617" LastActivityDate="2019-12-27T14:23:02.617" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27598" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23481" CreationDate="2019-12-26T20:29:57.433" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;What you need to be looking for is two things:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Someone, who is a professional coach, and who has many lessons that he has developed over the years. This is the most important thing.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Someone, who has a very good understanding of your style as you see it. If you are a positional player, there is A LOT to still learn at your rating, so you would want to find a player, who is very strong positionally. It still would not hurt to take different lessons with an attacking player so you also develop that aspect of the game.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At your level, most any player above 2200 FIDE would probably do well, again, as long as they are not just dabbling in coaching. In most cases, you really are looking at FM and above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With the advent of the Internet, there are coaches all over the world now competing for your money, and some live in places where your money goes a long way, so you can get more hours for less than ever. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One last thing, and that is that coaches can point you in the right direction, and explain things, but still, most learning is done on your own, so your progress will really depend on how much time you put in when you are home alone working on your game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2019-12-26T20:29:57.433" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27599" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27579" CreationDate="2019-12-26T20:50:27.893" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;The question is apparently based on a misunderstanding of how ELO ratings work. There is &lt;strong&gt;absolutely no mechanism&lt;/strong&gt; by which the overall increase in players' strength would lead to increase in their ELO. The actual value of the ELO rating bears no meaning; nor does the comparison of ELO at distant times. The only thing that has direct relevance is the &lt;em&gt;difference in simultaneous&lt;/em&gt; rating between players. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If tomorrow FIDE decided to add a constant, say, 500 points, to every player's rating, essentially nothing would change - the outcomes of games would lead to the same increments in ratings, so the rating dynamics would be the same, just at +500 points level. And the computers will provide no basepoint - their ELO is relative to human players, so they will play at 3600 rather than 3100. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The same applies if such a constant were somehow added or subtracted gradually due to natural processes - e. g., expansion of rated players' base, players becoming inactive with higher rating than they started with, etc. And this, apparently, did happen as we witnessed rating inflation until recently. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similarly, if all the players suddenly, or gradually, start playing stronger, &lt;em&gt;without a change of their relative strength&lt;/em&gt;, there is no reason to expect a change in rating dynamics. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17330" LastActivityDate="2019-12-26T20:50:27.893" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27600" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="270" CreationDate="2019-12-26T21:10:07.983" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would not call it &quot;white's better bishop&quot;, but it is considered crucial to a king-side attack in most cases. Without it, black can defend his king-side a lot more easily.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You have to consider that &quot;Logical Chess Move by Move&quot; is a very beginning-level book and is meant to show clear games, often between players of significantly different strengths, and many of the games are very old, from a time when king-side attacks were more commonly allowed. We simply do not think the same way today as defense is a lot better, but it is hard to get an attack on the black king without it...in general.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I only answered to post that rule of thumb about the light-squared bishop usually being crucial to an attack on the black king-side.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2019-12-26T21:10:07.983" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27601" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23481" CreationDate="2019-12-26T21:11:43.127" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The rating is not as important as their teaching ability and also their experience.  Do they have a full curriculum that was developed and tested for teaching?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They should probably be only about 200 points above your rating which would make them more understandable to you than some super GM who talks way over your head and charges way too much.  With computers to guide you both you do not need a highly rated coach as well as a person who can teach and coach you effectively.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are under 1800, even with some good results against higher players recently, getting to WIM would still be a hard thing to do.  It could be done depending on your ability and willingness to work hard at achieving it. But you will have to beat those players consistently not just occasionally to gain the title.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastActivityDate="2019-12-26T21:11:43.127" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27602" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13199" CreationDate="2019-12-26T21:15:18.717" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;At blitz you need to agree to whatever rules you are playing unless it is in an official tournament with stated rules.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is no rule until you all have established one.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;So none of those 'rules' you mention are real rules unless you both agree to them after the fact.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should have had a spare queen to put on ASAP not use a rook upside down. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Better to avoid problems than to try to fix them after they happen. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastActivityDate="2019-12-26T21:15:18.717" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27603" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27579" CreationDate="2019-12-27T05:44:39.657" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;A few things:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) Ratings overall tend to rise due to inflation of more players entering the pool, rather than the average playing strength of players increasing. If everyone becomes better by some factor due to engines, why would top players' ratings increase? They're now playing opponents who have also gotten stronger by roughly the same amount.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) Kasparov, Karpov, and Fischer are anomalies of a sort (Kasparov especially), considering they are all world champions. And still, they only occupy 3/20 spots on the list - all other ratings were achieved in the modern era.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) Engines are making people stronger, but not to a huge extent. People aren't able to extract all the strength out of an engine, we just see the moves it recommends.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In summary, engines make people somewhat stronger, but in any case this wouldn't be reflected in the ratings. The pool of players is a closed system: everyone getting stronger doesn't benefit one player/group of players in particular. The way the ratings rise (at all levels) is from more people joining the system.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: one way you would see some increase purely due to engines is in a hypothetical scenario where we played against another group of people who didn't have access to our engines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT 2: Point 1 may not be entirely correct (see the discussion in the comments).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastEditorUserId="12873" LastEditDate="2019-12-28T19:31:04.760" LastActivityDate="2019-12-28T19:31:04.760" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27604" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27605" CreationDate="2019-12-27T11:15:30.033" Score="10" ViewCount="2183" Body="&lt;p&gt;Numerous times I’ve read that it’s illegal to use an upside down rook to represent a promoted queen because “it’s still a rook”. Does that imply that I can begin the game with my rooks upside down? They are still rooks; they are still centred on their squares. Sorry for semi-frivolous question but I would enjoy to read the authoritative answer. Thanks so much!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: Or maybe one could use an upside down rook to indicate the castling right is gone on that side, if the rook has wandered away from its starting square and then returned :D Practical! Almost sensible! :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8201" LastEditorUserId="8201" LastEditDate="2020-09-18T17:33:45.390" LastActivityDate="2020-09-18T17:33:45.390" Title="Can I place my rooks upside down at the beginning of the game?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;rooks&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27605" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27604" CreationDate="2019-12-27T11:46:26.273" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;The FIDE laws of chess say nothing about upside-down rooks. However, starting with upside-down rooks is silly and if your opponent complains that it is annoying, I would expect the claim to be upheld.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;11.5 It is forbidden to distract or annoy the opponent in any manner whatsoever.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://handbook.fide.com/chapter/E012018&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://handbook.fide.com/chapter/E012018&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The proper way of dealing with a missing queen (or any other piece) needed for promotion is to stop the clock and call the arbiter for assistance. However, the upside-down rook tradition comes from less formal settings, or maybe lower-budget situations where no arbiters with spare pieces in their pockets are close at hand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is interesting to note that the USCF rules explicitly allow the use of upside-down rooks for promotion:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;8F7. &lt;strong&gt;Promoted piece not available.&lt;/strong&gt; If the desired piece is not available to replace a promoted pawn, the player may stop both clocks in order to locate that piece and place it on the board. A player who cannot quickly find such a piece may request the assistance of the director. It is common practice, however, to play using an upside-down rook for a second queen. In the absence of the player’s announcement to the contrary, an upside-down rook shall be considered a queen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just, Tim. US Chess Federation’s: Official Rules of Chess, 7th Edition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12523" LastActivityDate="2019-12-27T11:46:26.273" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27606" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4422" CreationDate="2019-12-27T12:08:50.347" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Thanks for the question. If an officer could indeed be captured en passant, then one would need to undo any capture it had just made, which is potentially awkward. This doesn't apply to pawns, because the famous double hop is defined to be a non-capturing move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8201" LastActivityDate="2019-12-27T12:08:50.347" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27607" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11197" CreationDate="2019-12-27T12:19:57.167" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Beyond the other good reasons given, if ratings were indeed to be adjusted during the course of a tournament, it's tougher for players to estimate the impact of tie-breakers, which depend upon ratings, and to plan strategically. Tournaments might be be perceived as more of a &quot;lottery&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8201" LastActivityDate="2019-12-27T12:19:57.167" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27608" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11197" CreationDate="2019-12-27T14:07:08.157" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the major reason is historical - it was easier to calculate in the pre-computer era. All you need to do is, for each player, compute rating average of the opponents and look up one value from a table. Also, making a miscalculation, you only need to re-compute the rating of one player, while in the other model one mistake could affect the whole thing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17330" LastActivityDate="2019-12-27T14:07:08.157" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27609" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19681" CreationDate="2019-12-27T14:55:29.783" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Practice.  This may include other exercises outside chess to help your brain with visualization.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Start with simple end games like KBN vs K and do a checkmate.  You will be forced to visualize the squares covered to succeed.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Solve tactical problems. You will need to see squares that pieces cover in that exercise too. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastActivityDate="2019-12-27T14:55:29.783" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27610" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12203" CreationDate="2019-12-27T15:00:28.707" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not sure who looks down their noses. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I lost to an IM who played me not the board.  He had helped me improve and he said players will always avoid a discovered check.  In our game I knew the drawing move was to allow the discovered check but I avoided it and lost.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is useful in complex positions to cause stress.  And if  you know an opponent usually tends to do a certain type of move and you see that move would fail then playing the man may work better than making the theoretical best move in a given position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can not play the man all the time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And as to kids who always attack. That is just what immature kids do. They are not playing the man at all.  They are just playing that way because they dont know how to play better, yet. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastActivityDate="2019-12-27T15:00:28.707" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27611" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27604" CreationDate="2019-12-27T15:09:31.473" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Article 2.3 of the FIDE Laws of Chess says this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;2.3 The initial position of the pieces on the chessboard is as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and is followed by a picture which looks like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Notice that all four rooks are the right way up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Can I place my rooks upside down at the beginning of the game?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course you &lt;em&gt;can&lt;/em&gt;. However if one of the arbiters sees this they will automatically &quot;correct&quot; the rooks so that what they see looks the same as shown in article 2.3. So will, I suspect, any opponent. As a one-off your action will be unlikely to attract any penalty. If repeated during the game you are likely to receive a warning at first with penalties escalating if you persist.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2019-12-27T15:09:31.473" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27614" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-12-27T15:27:50.527" Score="4" ViewCount="659" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the Stonewall Dutch Defense, why does white play b3 and Ba3? Should I try to avoid it, or does it not matter?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Nf3 e6 2. d4 f5 3. g3 Nf6 4. Bg2 d5 5. O-O Bd6 6. b3 O-O 7. c4 c6 8. Ba3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user20848" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-12-27T15:37:04.170" LastActivityDate="2019-12-31T17:16:00.387" Title="In the Dutch Defense, why does white play b3 and Ba3?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;dutch-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27615" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27614" CreationDate="2019-12-27T15:35:13.143" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The main reason is to exchange black's good bishop, and what would probably end up being white's bad bishop after a later e3. Another common way of doing this is Bg5xNf6. This also highlights black's dark-square weakness problem that he will have to watch out for for quite a while.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This exchange on a3 leaves black's other bad bishop on c8 more markedly bad, and the e5 square more weakened. After the exchange on a3, black can, and usually should, gain a tempo with Qe7, and the white Na3 will redirect to Nc2-e1-d4 (or sometimes via Nc2-b4-d3) to further control e5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This scores well in my database at 67% for white, but many of the games are between players of disparate ratings. At the higher levels, it seems that black can hold equality, so I would say that if you are stronger, there is no need to avoid it, but if you are weaker against a good positional player, you might want to try to get in Qe7 earlier to make Ba3 harder, but white still has a4 then. I am not sure you can really, and totally avoid it if that is the plan white chooses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2019-12-27T15:35:13.143" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27616" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27614" CreationDate="2019-12-27T15:36:45.393" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the pawn structure of the Stonewall Dutch the light squared bishop is the sick piece in black's position and the dark squared bishop is the star. If white can exchange the dark squared bishops then white already stands much better because of all the resulting weak dark squares in black's position, particularly e5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Consequently it is a mistake for black to reply to 6. b3 with O-O allowing Ba3. Essential is Qe7 to prevent Ba3 and the subsequent trade of black's best piece. An early b6 is probably also important for black to allow the plan of a4 followed by Ba3 anyway by white to be answered by c5 blocking the exchange, possibly with Nbd7 to reinforce c5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2019-12-27T15:41:13.130" LastActivityDate="2019-12-27T15:41:13.130" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27617" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4830" CreationDate="2019-12-27T16:23:08.073" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The question remains a bit vague, but the suggestion in a couple of answers was that the most arrangements of pieces would be &quot;reachable&quot; (by which they mean in FIDE laws terms &quot;legal&quot; i.e. that can be arrived at by a sequence of legal moves). The supporting argument was the behaviour with 6 pieces. There just isn't much opportunity for illegality with 6 pieces, but the number of arrangements increases exponentially as the number of pieces on the board increases, so the 6-piece behaviour is not statistically relevant. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More importantly, 6-piece behaviour is also highly untypical. &lt;a href=&quot;https://mathoverflow.net/questions/138133/what-proportion-of-chess-positions-that-one-can-set-up-on-the-board-using-a-leg&quot;&gt;The mathoverflow.net version of the question&lt;/a&gt;, which @GloriaVictis sensibly pointed us to in a comment, has a much more rigorous question and answers, and shows by detailed analysis that almost all arrangements of chess pieces are illegal. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What they do seem to miss even in mathoverflow is that the notion of position includes who has the move and also castling and en passant capability, and that increases both the number of positions and the proportion which are illegal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8201" LastActivityDate="2019-12-27T16:23:08.073" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27618" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27876" CreationDate="2019-12-27T16:46:19.353" Score="2" ViewCount="179" Body="&lt;p&gt;I consider the mobility score of a board to be the number of legal moves one player could make less the number of legal moves the other player could make.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;8/7k/2Q2K2/8/6b1/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Using the board above, white king has 3 legal moves, white bishop has 9 legal moves, black king has 4 legal moves, and black queen has 11 legal moves. According to white, the mobility score of this board is &lt;code&gt;(3 + 9) - (4 + 11) = 12 - 15 = -3&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the maximum mobility score possible of a board which is not a terminal case (checkmate, stalemate, draw) keeping consideration for a legal number of pieces (ie. maximum of 9 queens, 2 rooks, 2 bishops, 2 knights, 1 king of each color)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't really care if the board configuration is impossible to get to (it's probably possible to have 9 queens on the board and not be a checkmate/stalemate, but not possible to get to that state without a checkmate/stalemate), I only care that the configuration is legal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've written a chess engine which uses a heuristic which considers the mobility score of a board. I want to know the maximum possible mobility score so I can better define the value of a checkmate, check, etc. There's no point in setting a checkmate to, say, 200, if the mobility score of a board can exceed this, yet I don't want to define a checkmate as an arbitrary number: it need only be the highest mobility score plus one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21004" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-05-28T22:00:36.733" LastActivityDate="2020-05-28T22:00:36.733" Title="What is the highest mobility score of a board without a checkmate, stalemate, or draw?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;problems&gt;&lt;evaluation&gt;&lt;mathematics&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27619" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18031" CreationDate="2019-12-27T17:07:16.170" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I had people play this against me but instead of 4...f4?  I play Nf6 and have done well.  Maybe my opponents were not that good.  Or maybe white really gained nothing with his bishop foray to KN5 so early. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastActivityDate="2019-12-27T17:07:16.170" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27620" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14000" CreationDate="2019-12-27T17:13:09.437" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Makes no sense as stated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Either you have the initiative and use it to improve your position or you do not have the initiative and you are responding to the other players moves rather than forcing them to respond like would happen if you did have the initiative.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White starts with the initiative but it can swing back and forth depending how well each side plays; and except for the first early moves it has nothing to do with white/black it has only to do with having/not_having the initiative. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastActivityDate="2019-12-27T17:13:09.437" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27621" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18031" CreationDate="2019-12-27T17:46:34.957" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Honestly, I'd put to use the study you've already done, and play the other side of the Stonewall with a move in hand. Have a look through your preparation to play the Stonewall Attack, and see what ideas from Black seem to be the soundest, seem to give you the move trouble, and play for those sorts of positions with the White pieces. If Your opponent continues with the Stonewall Dutch, then you're in territory you're already familiar with, and you have an extra move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Always look to re-use the work you've already done as often as possible when starting out. You really don't truly understand a position well until you've played it from both sides. I went a few years playing the Pirc/King's Indian as Black and opening Nf3 as white, heading for KIA positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="657" LastActivityDate="2019-12-27T17:46:34.957" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27622" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12326" CreationDate="2019-12-27T18:03:13.697" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Wrong objective.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lack of practice on good problems should trapping the queen ever be possible at all.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;There is no way to just plan moves to win their queen from the beginning of the game. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyway your objective is to mate the king.  You should figure out how to do that not try to capture their queen.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And that is rarely achievable until you have obtained advantages in material or position to allow that final assault.  Going all out for mate from the gitgo will normally result in a loss against good players although it might work on beginners who cannot defend well. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastActivityDate="2019-12-27T18:03:13.697" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27623" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-12-27T18:03:31.870" Score="2" ViewCount="76" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why was 20.Qe3 so good in &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1031765&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Botvinnik-Sorokin&lt;/a&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It doubles the pawns, and doesn’t do much else.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user20848" LastActivityDate="2019-12-27T18:10:46.377" Title="Why was 20.Qe3 so good in Botvinnik-Sorokin?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;botvinnik&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27624" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27623" CreationDate="2019-12-27T18:10:46.377" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;First of all, it was played by Botvinnik, a strong World Champion, and one of the most logical players ever, so it clearly has to do more than just let black ruin the white pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It does many things:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It trades off black’s best piece, the active Qc5, and it cannot be&#xA;avoided with Qc7? Nxe5!. Trading your opponent's active pieces is very desirable, and I suspect this was the primary motivation for Botvinnik even looking at Qe3.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Despite the fact that those pawns have been weakened, they control&#xA;many critical squares. They are also very hard to get at, so&#xA;although they may matter in the endgame, black cannot attack them&#xA;anytime soon, and other factors will be much more important.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;This is a principle that is not seen often, and often missed by&#xA;weaker players, but sometimes when you trade down material when attacking,&#xA;particularly, trading off a good defender, it allows the remaining pieces to&#xA;strengthen, and they become unopposed. In this case, the doubled&#xA;rooks are now monsters, and white’s significant lead in development&#xA;is going to show even more.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;How does black develop the Bc8? In the game, he chose g4 but soon&#xA;actually had to strengthen white’s pawns after all.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Lastly, black is going to have a hard time defending e5, and it is&#xA;attacked immediately.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The minor weakness, that black can't even get near, was nothing compared to the weaknesses that were exposed when the black queen was no longer on the board to defend them. In short, the Qc5 was the glue that held the black position together, and without it, there was no defense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA; [Event &quot;URS-ch07 Final&quot;]&#xA; [Site &quot;Moscow&quot;]&#xA; [Date &quot;1931.10.25&quot;]&#xA; [Round &quot;2&quot;]&#xA; [White &quot;Botvinnik, Mikhail Moisevich&quot;]&#xA; [Black &quot;Sorokin, Nikolay Tikhovich&quot;]&#xA; [Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA; [ECO &quot;D60&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. d4 d5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. c4 e6 4. Nc3 Nbd7 5. Bg5 Be7 6. e3 O-O 7. Bd3 c6 8. O-O a6 9. a4 dxc4 10. Bxc4 c5 11. dxc5 Bxc5 12. Qe2 h6 13. Bh4 Be7 14. Rfd1 Nh5 15. Bxe7 Qxe7 16. Rd2 Nb6 17. Rad1 Qc5 18. Ba2 Nf6 19. e4 e5 20. Qe3 Qxe3 (20...Qc7? 21. Nxe5!) 21. fxe3 Bg4 22. a5 Nc8 23. Rc1 Bxf3 24. gxf3 Ne7 25. Nd5 Nc6 26. Nxf6+ gxf6 27. Rd7 Rab8 28. Kf2 Nxa5 29. Rcc7 Rbc8 30. Rxf7 Rxc7 31. Rxc7+ Kh8 32. Bd5 b5 33. b3 Rd8 34. Kg3 f5 35. Kh4 fxe4 36. fxe4 Rd6 37. Kh5 Rf6 38. h3 Rd6 39. h4 Rb6 40. Kg4 Rf6 41. Ra7 Rb6 42. Re7 Rd6 43. Rc7 Rf6 44. Ra7 Rb6 45. Rc7 Rf6 46. Kh5 Rd6 47. Bf7 Rf6 48. Bg6 Nxb3 49. Kxh6 Rf8 50. Rh7+ Kg8 51. Rg7+ Kh8 52. Bf7 Rxf7 53. Rxf7 Kg8 54. Kg6 Nd2 55. Rd7 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2019-12-27T18:10:46.377" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27625" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14000" CreationDate="2019-12-27T18:45:50.333" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You may have answered your own question with the phrase White &quot;succumbed to Black's superior development.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, one should never be concerned about &quot;playing as white&quot; or &quot;playing as black.&quot; One should play according to the needs of the position; if your opponent is better developed (whether white or black) you should seek to neutralize the affect of that by keeping the position closed, and exchanging their developed pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my earlier years, I was brought up short by the question being asked by the master helping me analyse my recent loss, &quot;&lt;em&gt;He&lt;/em&gt; sacrificed. Why are &lt;em&gt;you&lt;/em&gt; attacking?&quot; Up until that point I thought that was just the way chess was played; bring out my pieces and start throwing them at my opponent's king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should only be on the attack if there's a reason in the position. From your description, it seems like you recognize White lacked a reason to attack, so White should have reined in his aggression until such a reason arrived at the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="657" LastActivityDate="2019-12-27T18:45:50.333" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27626" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27307" CreationDate="2019-12-27T19:31:02.317" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I decided that I would break the class into two groups.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I will teach the real beginners during the first half of the club's time, and the slightly more advanced players during the second half of the club's time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In addition, I will be printing out materials that I deem relevant, so if kids miss a lesson, they can take it home with them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I simply do not really have the time to do more, but if I did, then I would probably like the idea of recording the sessions YouTube-style, and posting them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2019-12-27T19:31:02.317" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27627" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-12-27T19:55:14.023" Score="9" ViewCount="2506" Body="&lt;p&gt;I keep reading about adjournments in books, but why don't we use them anymore? They seem like cool analysis sessions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user21006" LastActivityDate="2019-12-28T16:30:17.513" Title="Why are there no more adjournments?" Tags="&lt;history&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27628" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27627" CreationDate="2019-12-27T19:56:54.990" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;Primarily because computers have rendered adjournments obsolete. In addition, with the advent of digital clocks with delay or increment, it is much more fair to have people play it out over the board. It is much better to have the players decide it than having a team of people helping them overnight, or nowadays, a strong computer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2019-12-27T19:56:54.990" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27629" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4830" CreationDate="2019-12-27T20:21:03.033" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I agree that the number is very low. Namely 0.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A legal position is defined as a position reachable by regular moves.&#xA;Your diagrams do not show legal positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21007" LastActivityDate="2019-12-27T20:21:03.033" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27630" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27128" CreationDate="2019-12-27T21:33:35.990" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have found that reading books makes one concentrate more, and the material is usually covered more in-depth. I think that the &quot;in-depth&quot; part of this is what is important. The explanations are usually much better, and geared toward learning something more permanently.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I find that my work on a famous chess site that you buy materials has been much more shallow. I can click, and it does not matter if I get it right since it shows me what I did wrong immediately. Instead, when I read a book, I really have to think hard since a book does not spit out the answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also just found &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.quora.com/Should-I-still-study-chess-from-a-book&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this Quora question&lt;/a&gt;, and the level of players answering is astoundingly high, and they all seem to agree that books are still the way to go.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2019-12-28T17:35:49.163" LastActivityDate="2019-12-28T17:35:49.163" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27631" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27128" CreationDate="2019-12-27T21:56:08.363" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I also learned primarily from books.  I think much more deeply when setting up a position and working through a book rather than online.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Books&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I feel that books are best for more positional or strategic learning where taking my time has the most benefit.  &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I use books when there is a specific aspect that I want to learn such as pawn structures or rook endings.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Online&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I prefer to do tactics online because I feel it is beneficial to do as many as possible rather than think deeply most of the time.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I do not learn from videos&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I find online is a great way to have a chess coach or team as I do not live in a city and there is little chess community here.  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When I don't know what I want to learn I like to look at online study guides to get ideas.  Then sometimes I buy a book.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Additional Thoughts&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Often people ask how to improve but to not say what kind of chess they want to improve at.  If you are trying to improve at physical board play then it is more beneficial to have a physical board.  How to improve at Blitz not the same as improving at Postal.  If you only play online then only training online is fine, otherwise include some physical board study&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17425" LastActivityDate="2019-12-27T21:56:08.363" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27632" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27614" CreationDate="2019-12-27T21:58:14.670" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;When you look at the position, you see a horrible light Bishop for Black, and you see a dark Bishop for White that doesn't have a whole lot to do, effectively. It's biting on the d-pawn, its 'natural prey' (the Black Knight on f6) cannot be effectively pinned, as the queen will be wanting to slide to e8 in this position anyway, so what's it going to do?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The idea of trying to force the exchange of Black's dark Bishop by effectively pinning it against the Rook is very attractive. It's more effective against the old stonewall lines, when the Bishop is on e7, because in this line Black can, effectively, get a free Queen move in by moving it to e7, forcing White into spending another tempo to achieve the aim.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's a worthy aim, simply because of how mind-achingly bad Black's other Bishop is. But it's not a winning aim. Black can get some free development playing off the misplaced Knight on a3, and where's it going to go? It can't meaningfully get to b5, or really even c4. Back home to b1 or c2 aren't really attractive, and the only other choices are something like Qc1 or letting go of the tension in the center with c5. (It should be noted that the central tension is one of White's weapons against Black's buildup for a wing attack, so dropping it is kind of a big thing; I've been known to try and tease White into doing that with ...Qd6 simply because of how much stronger that makes an eventual ...e5. Depends on how you feel about double-edged positions whether you'll like that idea. White can get an interesting steamroller going on the Queenside if Black isn't paying attention.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The best thing I can say for it is it can be effective against a lot of Dutch players who haven't spent time thinking the unthinkable: How do they attack without their chief weapon, the Kingside Bishop? Having to answer that question can throw a lot of Stonewall players off their game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, it does relieve one of the major issues with the Dutch, which is that Black has one more minor piece than they have room for, and that extra space can be handy as the pieces roll out. If Black has learned to be flexible, their game still has a lot of play in it (one reason why this isn't seen more often in high-end play).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you're looking for a good anti-Dutch line, I've always felt the lines based around Nh3/Bf4 offer more than the b3/Ba3 ones. YMMV.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="657" LastActivityDate="2019-12-27T21:58:14.670" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27633" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27128" CreationDate="2019-12-27T22:20:53.463" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Partly it depends upon your learning style, but also I'd note that part of the problem with the tactics site you mentioned isn't the computer. It's you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Seriously, there's nothing stopping you from sitting and thinking about the position on the screen the same as with the position on a board. Nothing except you, that is. And in an age where more and more chess play will be online, it might be a good idea to use it to train yourself not to do that with positions on a screen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yusupov's rule is good; think about the position, figure the whole continuation out before you move, and if it takes you more than 10 minutes, either set it aside to come back to later or look up the solution. Just do that on the tactical site; if your personal style doesn't let you do that then yes, I'd say you shouldn't try using that kind of Internet site for anything other than entertainment. Doesn't mean it's bad; doesn't mean &lt;em&gt;you're&lt;/em&gt; bad. Just means you two aren't suited to each other so you'd best agree to date other people (chess sites).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When it comes to learning chess, it's more important &lt;em&gt;what&lt;/em&gt; you do than &lt;em&gt;where&lt;/em&gt; (or how) you do it. build up a library of positions you understand, learn to recognize when that combination is lying under than thin coverlet waiting to be exposed. Understanding and pattern recognition are what's important, not the road you travelled to meet them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm old school; I learn best when I'm holding the pieces in my hand, developing the muscle memory along with the chess memory. Shirov, OTOH, once said in an interview that he doesn't even &lt;em&gt;own&lt;/em&gt; a chess set. I'd be a fool to say my way is better than his. I'm fairly certain I'd learn more from him in a hour without a board than he would from me if we spent all day at one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For some people it's easier to recognize a pattern when they've trained themselves on it using the same kind of pieces as they would use in the game; they can even get thrown off by slight changes in design or size. Others could use silverware and condiment containers on a checkered tablecloth. Your best way forward is to learn what sort of learner &lt;em&gt;you&lt;/em&gt; are, and leverage that. Maybe use some spare cycles here and there to expand your learning approaches, but in the main stick with what works for you. Less wasted energy that way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="657" LastActivityDate="2019-12-27T22:20:53.463" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27634" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27627" CreationDate="2019-12-27T22:24:36.433" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Adjournments &lt;em&gt;are&lt;/em&gt; still used but very rarely.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They are deprecated and this is shown by the path that the &lt;a href=&quot;https://old.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=208&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Laws of Chess&lt;/a&gt; have taken over the years in prescribing their use.In the previous incarnation of the laws they were covered in an appendix. In versions before that in the main body. In the discussions preceding the release of the current rules there was a move to remove them but the English Chess Federation argued in favour of retaining them for one more cycle because there was at least one league in London which still used them. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The compromise was that a new section was created in the Laws after the appendices called &quot;Guidelines&quot;. The rules governing adjournments were moved to &quot;Guidelines 1&quot;. This section is scheduled for retirement in the next release of the rules unless the ECF successfully petition for a further extension.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Guidelines 3&quot; covers quickplay finishes which is also destined for the dustbin. Both practices made sense before the advent of digital clocks and the use of increment/delay but really have no place in the 21st century because both practices introduce an element of avoidable unfairness. In the age of engines any adjourned game is going to be decided by the engine not the imagination, wit, ability and knowledge of the two players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since (fingers crossed) this section is likely to disappear from the rules soon and isn't too long it is perhaps worth reproducing:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Guidelines I. Adjourned games&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I.1.1 If a game is not finished at the end of the time prescribed for&#xA;  play, the arbiter shall require the player having the move to ‘seal’&#xA;  that move. The player must write his move in unambiguous notation on&#xA;  his scoresheet, put his scoresheet and that of his opponent in an&#xA;  envelope, seal the envelope and only then stop the chessclock. Until&#xA;  he has stopped the chessclock the player retains the right to change&#xA;  his sealed move. If, after being told by the arbiter to seal his move,&#xA;  the player makes a move on the chessboard he must write that same move&#xA;  on his scoresheet as his sealed move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I.1.2 A player having the move who adjourns the game before the end of&#xA;  the playing session shall be considered to have sealed at the nominal&#xA;  time for the end of the session, and his remaining time shall so be&#xA;  recorded.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I.2. The following shall be indicated upon the envelope:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I.2.1 the names of the players,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I.2.2 the position immediately before the sealed move,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I.2.3 the time used by each player,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I.2.4 the name of the player who has sealed the move,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I.2.5 the number of the sealed move,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I.2.6 the offer of a draw, if the proposal is current,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I.2.7 the date, time and venue of resumption of play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I.3 The arbiter shall check the accuracy of the information on the&#xA;  envelope and is responsible for its safekeeping.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I.4 If a player proposes a draw after his opponent has sealed his&#xA;  move, the offer is valid until the opponent has accepted it or&#xA;  rejected it as in Article 9.1.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I.5 Before the game is to be resumed, the position immediately before&#xA;  the sealed move shall be set up on the chessboard, and the times used&#xA;  by each player when the game was adjourned shall be indicated on the&#xA;  clocks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I.6 If prior to the resumption the game is agreed drawn, or if one of&#xA;  the players notifies the arbiter that he resigns, the game is&#xA;  concluded.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I.7 The envelope shall be opened only when the player who must reply&#xA;  to the sealed move is present.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I.8 Except in the cases mentioned in Articles 5, 6.9, 9.6 and 9.7, the&#xA;  game is lost by a player whose recording of his sealed move:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I.8.1 is ambiguous, or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I.8.2 is recorded in such a way that its true significance is&#xA;  impossible to establish, or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I.8.3 is illegal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I.9 If, at the agreed resumption time:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I.9.1 the player having to reply to the sealed move is present, the&#xA;  envelope is opened, the sealed move is made on the chessboard and his&#xA;  clock is started,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I.9.2 the player having to reply to the sealed move is not present,&#xA;  his clock shall be started; on his arrival, he may stop his clock and&#xA;  summon the arbiter; the envelope is then opened and the sealed move is&#xA;  made on the chessboard; his clock is then restarted,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I.9.3 the player who sealed the move is not present, his opponent has&#xA;  the right to record his reply on the scoresheet, seal his scoresheet&#xA;  in a fresh envelope, stop his clock and start the absent player’s&#xA;  clock instead of making his reply in the normal manner; if so, the&#xA;  envelope shall be handed to the arbiter for safekeeping and opened on&#xA;  the absent player’s arrival.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I.10 Any player who arrives at the chessboard after the default time&#xA;  shall lose the game unless the arbiter decides otherwise. However, if&#xA;  the sealed move resulted in the conclusion of the game, that&#xA;  conclusion shall still apply.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I.11 If the regulations of an event specify that the default time is&#xA;  not zero, the following shall apply: If neither player is present&#xA;  initially, the player who has to reply to the sealed move shall lose&#xA;  all the time that elapses until he arrives, unless the regulations of&#xA;  an event specify or the arbiter decides otherwise.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I.12.1 If the envelope containing the sealed move is missing, the game&#xA;  shall continue from the adjourned position, with the clock times&#xA;  recorded at the time of adjournment. If the time used by each player&#xA;  cannot be re-established, the arbiter shall set the clocks. The player&#xA;  who sealed the move shall make the move he states he sealed on the&#xA;  chessboard.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I.12.2 If it is impossible to re-establish the position, the game&#xA;  shall be annulled and a new game shall be played.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I.13 If, upon resumption of the game, either player points out before&#xA;  making his first move that the time used has been incorrectly&#xA;  indicated on either clock, the error must be corrected. If the error&#xA;  is not then established the game shall continue without correction&#xA;  unless the arbiter decides otherwise.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I.14 The duration of each resumption session shall be controlled by&#xA;  the arbiter’s timepiece. The starting time shall be announced in&#xA;  advance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4358" LastEditDate="2019-12-28T16:30:17.513" LastActivityDate="2019-12-28T16:30:17.513" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27635" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27627" CreationDate="2019-12-27T22:38:37.960" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The question doesn't indicate what context it's being asked in, but at least in the US (in USCF events), adjournments are generally not used because most tournaments are played using sudden-death time controls.  This makes it easy to predict (at least approximately) when a round will end, because a player can't get an additional time period by completing a certain number of moves.  Once the time period expires in a sudden-death time control, the game is over, regardless of how many moves have been made.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7147" LastActivityDate="2019-12-27T22:38:37.960" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27636" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27637" CreationDate="2019-12-27T22:45:54.177" Score="4" ViewCount="330" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are there women only tournaments for lower rated players? There are many for top women, but not for me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can't seem to find any, but it would be fun. Can anyone help?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user20520" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2019-12-27T22:50:35.280" LastActivityDate="2019-12-28T03:28:48.103" Title="Are there women only tournaments for lower rated players?" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27637" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27636" CreationDate="2019-12-27T23:43:48.617" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;It may depend on your location, but such tournaments do exist. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.uschess.org/assets/msa_joomla/XtblMain.php?201908186972&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;2019 Texas Women's Chess Championship&lt;/a&gt; had some low-rated players. The &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.uschess.org/msa/XtblMain.php?201911035872.4-12694989&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;2019 Wisconsin Junior Open&lt;/a&gt; had a females-only section, with any female juniors from Wisconsin eligible to play in it, regardless of rating.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Upcoming, the U.S. Women’s Open will be in June in Las Vegas, and seeing as how there are U1400 prizes, it clearly isn't just for elite players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2019-12-27T23:43:48.617" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27638" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27682" CreationDate="2019-12-28T01:22:41.523" Score="2" ViewCount="699" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chokergame.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Choker (chess + poker)&lt;/a&gt; was released recently as a mobile app. It is a game where players have a round of poker to bet on cards they draw. They then use these cards to play chess and win the bets. It's 1 on 1, like regular chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;My concern is that choker is not quite balanced in that I think it happens too frequently that one of the players has a really strong hand in that the other ends up being down a piece.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Another reason I think this is especially due to the fact that you cannot see your opponent's pieces until they place all of them. (However, this does not seem to be the case in the most recent version of the app.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Also, there's that you can't quite have 2 pieces of the same &amp;quot;suit&amp;quot; (there are pre-chess-promotion and demotion rules) or even place the pieces except pawns anywhere on our side besides the 1st 2 rows.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Question: Is this a balanced game?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sub-questions: What are the probabilities of the hands in choker? How far apart are the 2 player's hands on average? Do the promotion/demotion rules make choker less balanced?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20657" LastEditorUserId="4399" LastEditDate="2021-04-02T11:53:48.413" LastActivityDate="2021-04-02T11:53:48.413" Title="Is Choker balanced?" Tags="&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;choker&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="11" ClosedDate="2021-02-13T23:21:42.643" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27639" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27636" CreationDate="2019-12-28T03:28:48.103" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is not that much demand.  Tournaments are money making efforts for the sponsors.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to play at a low level then just enter an open section limited to the rating you can play at.  Many tournaments have lower rated sections that go way down in ratings,  some only have two sections  and some may only have one due to small amount of people expected.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;NOTE that your chances are bigger of finding one as the tournament size increases. Clearly the best would be at national tournaments followed by large regional ones.  Then large major cities and possibly may also some selected states.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;USCF magazine should list all tournaments with the section ratings they offer. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastActivityDate="2019-12-28T03:28:48.103" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27640" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23896" CreationDate="2019-12-28T03:40:40.780" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;For a round robin, the only rule is to ensure that everybody gets paired each round, or only one odd player is out and that changes each round.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a simple formula to do it.  It is different for odd/even number of players.  You do not need any tables as you can generate one as easily as locating an existing table. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only trick is to ensure White/Black is assigned evenly but that is also trivial to do with paper and pencil.  If you set up a blank crosstable with the players listed down and opponents across  then the main diagonal down from the left has Xs as nobody plays themselves.  The trick is to then put a dot in the square for those who get black.  Do every other square on the upper right.  Then on the bottom left do the same thing but on the same diagonals not done &#xA;on the upper right as each player must have a different color when they play!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If  you were sophisticated you could try to seed the players and then arrange the players numbers so the pairing formula would tend to match higher players near the end to keep it more interesting. As far as I know that was never done, and I have directed or seen the pairing for those when I played in or directed for many round robin tournaments.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is possible that FIDE may have other rules.  I only did/played in USCF tournaments. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastEditorUserId="20776" LastEditDate="2019-12-28T03:50:34.860" LastActivityDate="2019-12-28T03:50:34.860" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27641" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24869" CreationDate="2019-12-28T03:48:07.287" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;No.  Chess is a game of skill and everybody is treated equally.&#xA;Because women tend to be weaker there are some women only tournaments. But  for the other classes like you noted there is no real reason to do it, and there are not likely enough players to deserve a special tournament or even a section.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most open tournaments   are open to anybody who signs up and pays the fees.  There may be tournaments that limit entry to certain ratings.  Most are limited to lower ratings.  A few are limited to the top players.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastActivityDate="2019-12-28T03:48:07.287" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27643" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23896" CreationDate="2019-12-28T04:04:21.313" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Example for ten players - old style:&#xA;n=10&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1   2   3   4   5&#xA;6   7   8   9    &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You go until n-1 and start over, n/2 numbers each line:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1   2   3   4   5&#xA;6   7   8   9   1&#xA;2   3   4   5   6&#xA;7   8   9   1   2&#xA;3   4   5   6   7&#xA;8   9   1   2   3&#xA;4   5   6   7   8&#xA;9   1   2   3   4&#xA;5   6   7   8   9&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then you basically ignore the left-most numbers and start the same procedure from the end to start.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; 1 |    2 9     3 8     4 7     5 6&#xA; 6 |    7 5     8 4     9 3     1 2&#xA; 2 |    3 1     4 9     5 8     6 7&#xA; 7 |    8 6     9 5     1 4     2 3&#xA; 3 |    4 2     5 1     6 9     7 8&#xA; 8 |    9 7     1 6     2 5     3 4&#xA; 4 |    5 3     6 2     7 1     8 9&#xA; 9 |    1 8     2 7     3 6     4 5&#xA; 5 |    6 4     7 3     8 2     9 1   &amp;lt;- start here&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then the 10 (n):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; 1 (10) |   2 9     3 8     4 7     5 6&#xA; (10) 6 |   7 5     8 4     9 3     1 2&#xA; 2 (10) |   3 1     4 9     5 8     6 7&#xA; (10) 7 |   8 6     9 5     1 4     2 3&#xA; 3 (10) |   4 2     5 1     6 9     7 8&#xA; (10) 8 |   9 7     1 6     2 5     3 4&#xA; 4 (10) |   5 3     6 2     7 1     8 9&#xA; (10) 9 |   1 8     2 7     3 6     4 5&#xA; 5 (10) |   6 4     7 3     8 2     9 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For each player color change nearly all rounds.&#xA;Gives also a nice obvious cross table. Also lots of math in the system.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21007" LastActivityDate="2019-12-28T04:04:21.313" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27644" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1405" CreationDate="2019-12-28T06:00:38.743" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let's pick a random tournament I found individual board results for - the &lt;a href=&quot;https://bayareachess.com/static/pairings/usatw/index.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;2017 US Amateur Team West&lt;/a&gt;. The maximum average rating for this tournament was 2200, rather than 2000, but it should still be instructive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For this tournament, the average ratings by board (not including unrated players) were:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Board 1: mean 1874.24, median 1949, max 2592, min 1026&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Board 2: mean 1723.98, median 1804, max 2390, min 683&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Board 3: mean 1593.78, median 1634.5, max 2242, min 551&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Board 4: mean 1465.19, median 1532.5, max 2163, min 119&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Alternate: mean 1590.6, median 1769, max 2058, min 748&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most teams came nowhere near the rating limit. 48 of the 65 teams had an average rating of under 2000, while just 17 had an average rating of 2000 or more. All of the top 15 placing teams had an average rating of 2000 or more. So, the first, and most obvious, strategy for winning is to have lots of rating points on your team.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Winning first place on tiebreaks was BAC TEAM 1. The ratings of their players were 2471, 2390, 2242, and 1673.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Coming in second place (with the same record and same total game points as the first place team, and drawing against them head to head) was BCS WU HOO! The ratings of their players were 2284, 2201, 2162, and 2085, with an alternate rated 2016.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Clear third (losing only to the top team, by a score of 1.5-2.5) was BRIGHT CHESS KING, with players rated 2218, 2180, 2086, and 2050.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I find it interesting that, of the top 3 teams, one had 3 players above 2200, one had 2 players, and one had 1. This seems to show that multiple different team makeups are viable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2019-12-28T06:00:38.743" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27645" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27646" CreationDate="2019-12-28T09:30:42.237" Score="17" ViewCount="5571" Body="&lt;p&gt;Has there ever been a grandmaster-level win where the queen of the side that won did not move nor get taken throughout the game?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I feel like this is possible even at such a level as the side whose queen does not move could still castle but would need to position their rooks, knights and bishops very tactfully.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14767" LastEditorUserId="14767" LastEditDate="2019-12-28T18:04:07.583" LastActivityDate="2019-12-30T08:29:53.330" Title="Has there ever been a grandmaster-level win where a queen did not move nor get taken throughout the game?" Tags="&lt;queens&gt;&lt;master-games&gt;&lt;otb-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27646" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27645" CreationDate="2019-12-28T11:33:50.677" Score="25" Body="&lt;p&gt;As noted in the first comment to your question, there are certainly a lot of draws. To narrow it down to reasonable games that were wins, I searched the Mega 2019 Database for games with both players above 2500, and wins with moves between 4-10. It returned 131 games. Of those games, whether due to the remaining moves simply not being transmitted, someone losing for some reason like time or forfeit, or just the wrong result being reported, most were still bogus and equal at the end.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I went through the games quickly looking at the final position looking for games that were truly lost. I also left out a few Internet games that were clear premove/mouseslips like a GM hanging his Qd8 on move 6 to a Bg5. One game might have been legitimate, but a touch-move error with an ill-timed Rg1, so I also left that game out. I found these games that made sense. One has a very instructive tactic!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's start off with the least interesting example with a rare case of GM blindness, and simply blundering a piece.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA; [Event &quot;Bad Homburg&quot;]&#xA; [Site &quot;Bad Homburg&quot;]&#xA; [Date &quot;1997.07.31&quot;]&#xA; [Round &quot;6&quot;]&#xA; [White &quot;Lutz, Christopher&quot;]&#xA; [Black &quot;Dautov, Rustem&quot;]&#xA; [Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA; [ECO &quot;B12&quot;]&#xA; [WhiteElo &quot;2590&quot;]&#xA; [BlackElo &quot;2595&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. e5 c5 4. dxc5 e6 5. Be3 Nh6 6. Nf3 Nc6 7. c3 Nf5 8. Bf4 Bxc5 9. Bd3 Nh4 10. Nbd2 Nxg2+ 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The second game has a very cool tactic that I have seen a few times. White calculated cxd7+ expecting Qxd7 and then capturing on e2, but forgot about Nxd7 leaving the Bg5 hanging.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA; [Event &quot;Kolkata op 3rd&quot;]&#xA; [Site &quot;Kolkata&quot;]&#xA; [Date &quot;2018.05.21&quot;]&#xA; [Round &quot;8&quot;]&#xA; [White &quot;Sengupta, Deep&quot;]&#xA; [Black &quot;Narayanan, Srinath&quot;]&#xA; [Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA; [ECO &quot;D00&quot;]&#xA; [WhiteElo &quot;2563&quot;]&#xA; [BlackElo &quot;2525&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. d4 Nf6 2. Bg5 d5 3. e3 c6 4. Bd3 Bg4 5. Ne2 Nbd7 6. f3 Bh5 7. O-O Bg6 8. c4 e6 9. cxd5 Bxd3 10. dxc6? Bxe2 (10...Bxe2 11.  cxd7+ Nxd7!) 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And the last game is between the most famous players, although it is a rapid game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;&quot;]     &#xA; [Event &quot;EU-ch Rapid-30'&quot;]&#xA; [Site &quot;Cap d'Agde&quot;]&#xA; [Date &quot;1996.??.??&quot;]&#xA; [Round &quot;?&quot;]&#xA; [White &quot;Leko, Peter&quot;]&#xA; [Black &quot;Ehlvest, Jaan&quot;]&#xA; [Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA; [ECO &quot;B07&quot;]&#xA; [WhiteElo &quot;2630&quot;]&#xA; [BlackElo &quot;2660&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. e4 g6 2. d4 Bg7 3. Nf3 d6 4. c3 Nf6 5. Bd3 O-O 6. O-O c5 7. h3 Nc6 8. d5 Na5 9. Re1 e5 10. b4 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2019-12-28T11:33:50.677" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27647" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27652" CreationDate="2019-12-28T12:58:31.560" Score="5" ViewCount="420" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am setting the question from black's perspective, but it holds the same for white too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many times in my personal games a position arises where a Bishop along the b1-h7 diagonal and a Queen on the h-file put pressure on the h7 square, sometimes even threatening a straight checkmate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not considering cases of using other pieces to defend h7, both pawn moves g7-g6 and h7-h6 prevent this threat.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is out of these two pawn moves, under my conditions, what is the decisive factor in choosing one over other?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For representative purposes I am using a position from round 9 match between &#xA;Jan-Krzysztof Duda and Alexei Shirov that happened last day (27th December 2019) at world rapid chess championship, but my question is on general ideas of this threat by queen and bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;r1bqr1k1/pp3ppp/2pb1n2/3n4/3P3Q/P1NB1N2/1P3PPP/R1B2RK1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18273" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-12-28T21:50:39.307" LastActivityDate="2019-12-28T21:50:39.307" Title="Is h6 or g6 better to defend the h7 square against a combined attack by a queen and bishop?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27648" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24867" CreationDate="2019-12-28T13:08:13.907" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The other answers cover this question well, but it is interesting that not all programs do not understand this is a draw. I plugged this into my computer, and as a ChessBase Premium member, I also have access to cloud engines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One of those cloud engines evaluated this as a draw almost instantaneously. I only wish there were more information than simply &quot;New Engine&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/gxy8x.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/gxy8x.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2019-12-28T13:08:13.907" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27649" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27647" CreationDate="2019-12-28T13:25:22.437" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, there is no hard-and-fast rule, but if I were to generalize, probably Pg6 in more cases as it blunts the incredibly dangerous Bd3. Playing h6 in some positions invites Bxh6 in many cases.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the game you reference, Shirov played h6, but he also knows that Bh6 gh; Qh6 ideas will immediately be met by Bf8-g7, which is a common saving idea. In other words, he was prepared because his previous developing moves were good.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black's best plan was obvious and it was to trade down, which Shirov did. The position was dangerous, and trading is the most common plan in such positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the given position, black also has a couple of addition pluses that make h6 preferable, and they are that he can trade material on c3, potentially reducing white's attacking chances, and the biggest one is the Re8 controls the file, and allowed for the Bf8-g7 defense previously mentioned. Often these attacks for white require a rook-lift, with Re1-e3-g3(or h3), but it is clear that is impossible here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Shirov only lost as the result of a blunder later in a winning position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA; [Event &quot;World Rapid 2019&quot;]&#xA; [Site &quot;Moscow RUS&quot;]&#xA; [Date &quot;2019.12.27&quot;]&#xA; [Round &quot;9.11&quot;]&#xA; [White &quot;Duda, Jan-Krzysztof&quot;]&#xA; [Black &quot;Shirov, Alexei&quot;]&#xA; [Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA; [WhiteElo &quot;2758&quot;]&#xA; [BlackElo &quot;2684&quot;]&#xA; [PlyCount &quot;111&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. c4 c6 2. Nf3 d5 3. e3 Nf6 4. Nc3 Nbd7 5. Qc2 e5 6. cxd5 Nxd5 7. Bc4 Nb4 8. Qe4 Bd6 9. O-O O-O 10. d4 Re8 11. a3 Nf6 12. Qh4 exd4 13. exd4 Nbd5 14. Bd3 h6 15. Bd2 Nxc3 16. bxc3 Bg4 17. a4 Bxf3 18. gxf3 Nd5 19. Qg4 Qf6 20. Rab1 Bf4 21. c4 Bxd2 22. cxd5 Rad8 23. dxc6 Rxd4 24. Be4 bxc6 25. Rb7 Rxa4 26. Bh7+ Kxh7 27. Qxa4 Qxf3 28. Qc2+ f5 29. Qxd2 Re6 30. Rc1 Rg6+ 31. Kf1 Qh1+ 32. Ke2 Re6+ 33. Kd3 Rd6+ $4 (33... Qf3+ {Wins the queen.}) 34. Kc3 Qf3+ 35. Qe3 Qd5 36. Rg1 Qa5+ 37. Kb3 Qd5+ 38. Kb2 Rd7 39. Rxd7 Qxd7 40. Ra1 c5 41. Qxc5 Qd2+ 42. Kb3 Qd3+ 43. Kb4 Qd2+ 44. Ka4 Qf4+ 45. Ka5 Qd2+ 46. Ka6 Qd3+ 47. Kxa7 Qd7+ 48. Ka6 Qd3+ 49. Ka5 Qd2+ 50. Ka4 Qf4+ 51. Ka3 Qf3+ 52. Qe3 Qa8+ 53. Kb2 Qb8+ 54. Kc2 Qxh2 55. Ra5 Qc7+ 56. Qc5 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2019-12-28T20:16:26.150" LastActivityDate="2019-12-28T20:16:26.150" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27650" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27057" CreationDate="2019-12-28T16:15:20.997" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;What chess theory?  How much theory?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Back when I started playing in tournaments there was very little material to help learn &quot;theory&quot;.   What passed for theory was very basic information and simple problems.  Underpromoting to a horsie was the hardest I recall.  Good books on tactics would have helped but I did not have any of those. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Later I found a copy of a book on openings which was interesting but not that useful except in postal chess. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am not sure how I developed my skills but it may have mostly just been by playing tournaments.  Some was reading anything I could find to help learn more principles which might be called theory.  I did find a book on endings which I devoured and that definitely helped. Openings were very basic and I used ability with tactics to get my way through them and usually get a better game. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyway like @Edwina Oliver noted above, and others had similar sentiments,  you will not make money playing in tournaments.  It is a zero sum game. You make money by being so good that they pay you to show up and compete for prizes. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I knew one kid who had won money in his first very small club tournament.  He then figured he would always be making money so he started playing in more tourneys.  The next one I saw he was complaining that he did not make anything at all because the prize for second/third had been split between two players tied for second  and he though since he was third in numerical scores  he should have gotten the third place money even though he was 4th in people scoring. There were only 3 prizes and about ten people in the event.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do you need theory to play and do well.  No.&#xA;Will you need some theory to play better.  yes.&#xA;And will you make money playing in tournaments.  Not until you are a tippy top GM.  GMs are a dime a dozen.  I see them playing in every medium sized tournament trying to make a living.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastActivityDate="2019-12-28T16:15:20.997" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27651" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27057" CreationDate="2019-12-28T16:24:20.210" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was 18, and never played in a tournament so was unrated.  As a new player I could have played in a low division and won a prize.  I played in the open division and got to play against local champions.  Seeing how I did against the best was one of my primary goals.  I learned a lot.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What I didn't expect was an introduction to chess culture.  They way folks reviewed games, the nightly blitz battles, all those chess books was new to me.  The gathering around an interesting game. Have fun!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17425" LastActivityDate="2019-12-28T16:24:20.210" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27652" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27647" CreationDate="2019-12-28T17:15:45.863" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Ignoring your example game here are a few things I think about.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;..g6 weakens the dark squares around the castled king.  Have a plan for protecting those squares.  for example, do you have a dark squared bishop that can get to g7?  Look out for direct attack on f7.  for example, White queen on b3, bishop on c4 and rook on an open f-file.  Can you prevent this set-up?  Keep the f-file closed?  ..g6 can be a great prophylactic against and white knight on g3.  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;..h7 this is less weakening as the 6th rank squared are still protected by pawns.  Can also keep White pieces off of g5 ( but look out for sacrifices ).  the h7 pawn can be used by White to open up the castled king with g2-g4-g5.  Can you prevent this, are your threats faster than whites?  can you play ..h5 safely?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17425" LastActivityDate="2019-12-28T17:15:45.863" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27653" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27647" CreationDate="2019-12-28T17:55:28.927" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is NO answer.  It all depends on the exact position. You defend differently, then white will attack differently.  The better move would be what worked best against the person you are playing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Playing p-h6  stops the horsie from moving to N5 to attack h7, but opens up the BxP sacrifice to break through.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Playing p-g6 blocks the sacrifice on h7 but weakens the position without a fianchettoed bishop on g7.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;And it would make B-g5 a real problem for you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastActivityDate="2019-12-28T17:55:28.927" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27654" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27645" CreationDate="2019-12-28T20:34:10.333" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is another decisive game where neither queen moved:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;36th Olympiad&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Calvia ESP&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2004.10.17&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;2004.10.15&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;2&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Alexander Morozevich&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Viktor Korchnoi&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;C77&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;2758&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;2601&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;25&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Ba4 Nf6 5. d3 b5 6. Bb3 Bc5&#xA;7. Nc3 d6 8. Nd5 Ng4 9. O-O Na5 10. Bg5 f6 11. Bd2 Nxb3&#xA;12. axb3 c6 13. Ba5 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="307" LastActivityDate="2019-12-28T20:34:10.333" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27655" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27057" CreationDate="2019-12-28T20:59:38.580" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you've never played OTB tournaments, don't be misguided by your online rating. I had about 1700 online rating when I entered my first tournament: I was crushed losing to 1300 and even to 1100's. Tournament play is a different beast, with more time think expect a lot better quality play from the opposition than what you are used to seeing. Money or not, you should definitely play, it's totally amazing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15509" LastActivityDate="2019-12-28T20:59:38.580" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27658" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8505" CreationDate="2019-12-28T23:11:00.003" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Fluctuation in results is more normal for lower rated players than experienced GMs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1900 is rather in the middle of the range, and since that is online, it is slightly to the lower end.   Although you would be almost near the average of OTB players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You need more practice and less playing especially blitz type games online.  Try playing at G10-15SD with no addons or delays.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastActivityDate="2019-12-28T23:11:00.003" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27659" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19822" CreationDate="2019-12-28T23:32:34.820" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Rated 2050 where?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Is that FIDE OTB?;   or some online site with inflated ratings?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One old GM said to sit on your hands.  That was to keep you from moving impulsively until you really thought about the position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You need to train yourself to slow down and be sure before you move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would add that you need to stop playing blitz if you care about your OTB ability.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastActivityDate="2019-12-28T23:32:34.820" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27660" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="698" CreationDate="2019-12-28T23:33:48.420" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Did not help me.  I used my OTB skills to be able to play blindfold.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have seen no data that blindfold play helps your OTB skills. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastActivityDate="2019-12-28T23:33:48.420" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27661" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9964" CreationDate="2019-12-28T23:38:16.333" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;When your new rating,  over a large number of games , has a minimum rating that is higher than your previous highest rating then you are sure you have improved.   A handful of games  and certainly less than a year in elapsed time unless you play tournaments every month if not more often are not that significant. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastActivityDate="2019-12-28T23:38:16.333" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27662" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="11095" CreationDate="2019-12-28T23:40:21.713" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There was one psychologists site studying such things who had a sample test that would estimate your rating.  While you really need to play enough games OTB and get a real FIDE rating you could use that site to estimate your rating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Alternatively you could play at some online sites and subtract a few hundred points to roughly estimate your FIDE rating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;NOTE that the rating depends a lot on the time control!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastActivityDate="2019-12-28T23:40:21.713" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27663" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12664" CreationDate="2019-12-29T00:07:07.097" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;For an analysis of master games, check out &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/user/AGADMATOR&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;agadmator's Chess Channel&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He shows why the &quot;obvious&quot; move shouldn't be played, and then explains the more subtle, but better move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He keeps it interesting by sometimes adding jokes in, and sometimes asks the viewer what the best move is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This channel is mainly for expanding knowledge, not learning how to play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19142" LastEditorUserId="19142" LastEditDate="2019-12-29T03:45:59.080" LastActivityDate="2019-12-29T03:45:59.080" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27664" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12664" CreationDate="2019-12-29T00:11:27.223" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/user/RosenChess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;IM Eric Rosen&lt;/a&gt; has a YouTube channel in which he frequently posts stream supercuts and game analyses. His content is less focussed than other &quot;learning resource&quot; style channels, but his videos contain lots of information on different aspects of the game (particularly for lower level players).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;His videos also happen to be very entertaining.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10075" LastActivityDate="2019-12-29T00:11:27.223" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27665" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-12-29T08:03:42.333" Score="1" ViewCount="107" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have recently been playing a lot of games against the Computer level 9 on chess.com(not to be confused with Komodo 9). It is actually a reasonably difficult computer I would say rated definitely over 2200. I have been taking the King's Indian approach quite often due to the closed center it establishes and the strategic ideas that are brought into the position. The computer makes mindless moves since it doesn't have any plan and it underestimates&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21014" LastActivityDate="2019-12-29T11:48:46.833" Title="What is the most effective way to beat the computer at chess?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27666" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27665" CreationDate="2019-12-29T08:11:04.697" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Computers have a few advantages over us: speed, memory, and they don't make mistakes (based off the code they're written on). This allows them to go very far ahead in the search tree, navigating the tree perfectly. However, with an engine you estimate to be around 2200, you may have advantages in position evaluation and intuition. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With this in mind, there are a few things you can do:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) Aim for positions where a high search speed isn't as important. Closed positions are ideal, as you mentioned.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) Try to drive the game towards positions that you feel comfortable evaluating. An engine rated only 2200 may have an advantage in a concrete tactical position, despite its vastly reduced search depth compared to an engine like Stockfish. But in a positional structure you have experience with, you may have the advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) Don't go too far out of your way to play differently though. If you get carried away with this, you'll only be playing the opponent and not the game. One reason Kasparov ran into trouble against Deep Blue was that he figured a computer wouldn't make a calculation mistake. If you yourself are around 2000-2200, you already have a decent chance of scoring against a 2200 player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-12-29T08:11:04.697" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27667" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-12-29T09:55:23.850" Score="0" ViewCount="457" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have had good positions with the Hippopotamus opening with its Kings Indian structure(ranging up to +3 in evaluation) but in the end, the tactical superiority of the computer always gets in the way and I end up losing or drawing the game. The computer I am talking about is Computer Level 9 on Chess.com(Not to be confused with Komodo 8). My playing style is very tactical and aggressive, but I doubt that would work well against stronger Level 10. The openings that I am looking for are openings that are very positional in the beginning, but they also offer counterplay in the middlegame. Please suggest openings for white and black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21014" LastActivityDate="2019-12-31T22:39:18.883" Title="What is the most effective openings to beat a 2200-2400 rated computer at chess?(With White and Black)" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;engines&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27668" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27638" CreationDate="2019-12-29T10:49:36.040" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am referring to the following &lt;a href=&quot;https://chokergame.com/rules/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;rules&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;My concern is that this is very unfair to one of the players as often&#xA;  even strong hands are not strong enough and end up being down a piece.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's calculate the material imbalance of one million random hands (sorry, it would have been too much hard for me to program the promotion and demotion rules).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;import itertools&#xA;import random&#xA;import matplotlib.pyplot as plt&#xA;import numpy as np&#xA;&#xA;deck = [1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,9,9,9,9]&#xA;&#xA;cardCombinations = list(itertools.combinations(deck, 5))&#xA;&#xA;arrayUnbalance = []&#xA;&#xA;for i in range (1000000):&#xA;    randomHandWhite = random.randint(0, len(cardCombinations)-1)&#xA;    randomHandBlack = random.randint(0, len(cardCombinations)-1)&#xA;    unbalance = abs(sum(cardCombinations[randomHandWhite])-sum(cardCombinations[randomHandBlack]))&#xA;    arrayUnbalance.append(unbalance)&#xA;&#xA;plt.hist(arrayUnbalance, bins=range(0,30,1))&#xA;plt.show()&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ExW4P.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ExW4P.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The imbalance is always an even number. I think this is because all values are odd and all subtractions results in an even number.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;s&gt;~12%&lt;/s&gt; ~14% of hands are equal and perfectly playable, but titled players could find them drawish.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;s&gt;~22%&lt;/s&gt; ~27% of hands are unbalanced +2, and at a medium level the weak side can play for a draw to recover half of the pot, especially if you play the white pieces.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;s&gt;~66%&lt;/s&gt; ~59% of hands are resigning positions at my level.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/27682/18196&quot;&gt;After D M calcs&lt;/a&gt; with the full rules&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Another reason I think this is especially due to the fact that you&#xA;  cannot see your opponent's pieces until they place all of them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.queenloop.choker&amp;amp;hl=es_419&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Where I play&lt;/a&gt; this is not the case. Players place the pieces in turns and you can see where your opponent is placing the pieces. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A minor consideration is that black has a slight disadvantage in this step of the game, as white's last piece can create forks and gain material (it is white's turn).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Also, why can't we pre-move or have more than 2 pieces of the same&#xA;  &quot;suit&quot; or even place the pieces anywhere on our side rather than first&#xA;  2 rows?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I agree pre-moves are important when you play a 3 minutes (end)game on a smartphone. I would like the site I play allow them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A player with three bishops or knights would be a bit weird in my opinion. To place two bishops in the same color square is not allowed. I find it logical as promotions to bishops or knights are rare in chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To allow pawns to be placed on the 7th rank would alter the poker part. I like your idea of allowing the rest of pieces to be placed on all rows, the chess game would become more aggressive, but maybe this would give white a big advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After that, I think a titled player could not profit his chess skill to beat a top poker player (maybe Nakamura would do). With a medium chess knowledge the poker player would beat the chess player &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.pokernews.com/news/2018/03/chess-francisco-vallejo-pons-poker-tax-dispute-30327.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;as they do at Texas holdem&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another problem I see is there are no online cash games at the moment. And what happens when you play poker with no cash? Everybody goes all-in with trash. You don't learn anything. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you wish to play a serious game against a casual poker player and a 1800 rated chess player, you can add me as a friend on the app, my nickname is briest-man.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ay, my level the game is funny. You can create threats when you place the (white) pieces and you have not a lot of time to finish the endgame. I profit my chess skill to beat players with my poker level, but weaker than me. I can stay on the site not paying any penny for the virtual chips. I wish there were cash games to play at low tables. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user18196" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T16:47:49.713" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T16:47:49.713" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27669" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27645" CreationDate="2019-12-29T11:04:10.063" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a relatively long one (37 moves) with the white queen keeping on d1 during the whole game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Belgrade Invest&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Belgrade&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;1991.??.??&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Damljanovic, Branko&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Kamsky, Gata&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;2585&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;2595&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;A09&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;1991.11.??&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;73&quot;]&#xA;[EventType &quot;tourn&quot;]&#xA;[EventRounds &quot;11&quot;]&#xA;[EventCountry &quot;YUG&quot;]&#xA;[EventCategory &quot;15&quot;]&#xA;[Source &quot;ChessBase&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Nf3 d5 2.g3 c5 3.Bg2 Nc6 4.O-O e5 5.c4 d4 6.d3 Nf6 7.e3 Be7 8.Re1 Nd7 9.Na3        O-O 10.Nc2 a5 11.Rb1 f5 12.exd4 cxd4 13.a3 a4 14.Bd2 Bf6 15.Bb4 Re8 16.Nd2 Kh8     17.c5 e4 18.dxe4 Nde5 19.f4 Nd3 20.e5 Nxe1 21.Nxe1 Be7 22.Nc4 Be6 23.Nd6 Bxd6 24.cxd6 Nxb4 25.axb4 Qb6 26.Nd3 a3 27.bxa3 Rxa3 28.Nc5 d3 29.Kh1 Ba2 30.Rc1 Qxb4 31.Nxd3 Qb5 32.Nc5 b6 33.d7 Rd8 34.e6 bxc5 35.e7 Qb8 36.exd8=Q+ Qxd8 37.Rxc5 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White sacrifices the exchange and breaks through with two connected passed pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5784" LastActivityDate="2019-12-29T11:04:10.063" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27670" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27665" CreationDate="2019-12-29T11:48:46.833" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Even if you want to beat a computer, if it out-rates you by a lot, expect to lose a lot more than you win. If it out-rates you by enough, you still might not win at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While you definitely want closed positions, I do not know that the King's Indian will do that enough since there are too many ways to open the position up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My main suggestion is to study the games of Hikaru Nakamura versus computers. He used to play on ICC versus computers A LOT, and he was probably the most successful player I have ever seen play computers. I would emulate his openings, and go from there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2019-12-29T11:48:46.833" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27671" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27676" CreationDate="2019-12-29T13:18:43.507" Score="18" ViewCount="2801" Body="&lt;p&gt;This question is prompted by an incident in today's World Blitz championship in Moscow as described and &lt;a href=&quot;https://twitter.com/ChessbaseIndia/status/1211149111023374336&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;shown in this tweet&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What happened was that Nakamura made a move, pressed the clock, on the way back from pressing the clock his hand caught his rook and knocked it off the board about 10 cm. He immediately picked up the rook and replaced it. This maybe took half a second. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;His opponent, Sergei Zhigalko, thought for about 12 seconds before having a long look around, presumably to see if an arbiter was watching the game. Then after another 2 or 3 seconds he gestures over to the arbiter to call him to the board and indicates something with his hand. Finally 22 seconds after the incident he reaches out to pause the clocks. There then follows a long discussion between the players and the arbiters which suggests that Zhigalko was trying to claim an illegal move before the game continues with no action taken.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nakamura acted perfectly correctly here IMHO, but what should he have done differently if instead of displacing the piece a few inches he had knocked it onto the floor requiring several seconds to retrieve and replace the piece? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="18475" LastEditDate="2020-03-07T02:03:19.177" LastActivityDate="2020-03-07T02:03:19.177" Title="What should a player do in blitz if he knocks a piece on to the floor after pressing the clock?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;blitz&gt;&lt;pieces&gt;&lt;chess-clocks&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27672" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6464" CreationDate="2019-12-29T13:19:03.093" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Late to the party for this question, but there is one more aspect of team chess that is very important that may, or may not, be considered etiquette; but it is definitely a firm guideline for team chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Don't lose. A draw is always fine, but try not to lose ever. Of course, this is not always possible, but playing on a team has a lot more responsibility than just playing for yourself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know that sounds funny since your opponent is trying to beat you, but you have to try to play positions that do not give you a high chance of losing, which puts your team behind the eight-ball. If you are a wild, out-of-control attacker, I probably do not want you on my team.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have played a lot of team chess over the years, including being a multiple winner of the Northeast Chess League (it was a thing in NH and Massachusetts a long time ago), and finishing second in the open section of the U.S. Amateur Team East tournament in 1993.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In both of these events, you have only four boards, so losing forces your teammates to go 2.5/3 in the remaining games if they want to win the match. This is, obviously, a tall order.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So keep that in mind when picking teammates, and when you play in team tournaments.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2019-12-29T13:19:03.093" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27673" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27667" CreationDate="2019-12-29T13:52:03.630" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Wrong question.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to beat a 2200-2400 opponent then you need to be a 2200-2400 level player. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The hippopotamus type openings are doomed to failure according to one old GM.  I find them very easy to beat but then  I do not usually play 2400 rated people.  OTOH they are not tactical type openings at all. Nor are they very aggressive.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;If you want to play hardball tactics then play a more open type of opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should master ONE basic opening and play that one.  It is not the opening that wins,  it is the player making the moves that wins or loses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should look at the French defense for black if you want to play that style.  For white try a Reti.  Or even just the Ruy. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A  Sicilian would be better but is much harder to learn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastActivityDate="2019-12-29T13:52:03.630" CommentCount="12" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27674" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27645" CreationDate="2019-12-29T13:55:22.950" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just happened to be reviewing the 2013 World Championship match a few days ago and asked myself a similar question because in round 9 Carlsen won without moving his queen or bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1737896&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Anand vs Carlsen - Round 9&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Event &amp;quot;Anand - Carlsen World Championship Match&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Site &amp;quot;Chennai IND&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Date &amp;quot;2013.11.21&amp;quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &amp;quot;2013.11.07&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Round &amp;quot;9&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Result &amp;quot;0-1&amp;quot;]&#xA;[White &amp;quot;Viswanathan Anand&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Black &amp;quot;Magnus Carlsen&amp;quot;]&#xA;[ECO &amp;quot;E25&amp;quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &amp;quot;?&amp;quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &amp;quot;?&amp;quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &amp;quot;56&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.f3 d5 5.a3 Bxc3+ 6.bxc3 c5 7.cxd5 exd5 8.e3 c4 9.Ne2 Nc6 10.g4 O-O 11.Bg2 Na5 12.O-O Nb3 13.Ra2 b5 14.Ng3 a5 15.g5 Ne8 16.e4 Nxc1 17.Qxc1 Ra6 18.e5 Nc7 19.f4 b4 20.axb4 axb4 21.Rxa6 Nxa6 22.f5 b3 23.Qf4 Nc7 24.f6 g6 25.Qh4 Ne8 26.Qh6 b2 27.Rf4 b1=Q+ 28.Nf1 Qe1 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21025" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2019-12-30T08:29:53.330" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27675" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27671" CreationDate="2019-12-29T13:56:56.363" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I do not know what FIDE and their rules are,   but for our local games I would just push the clock and tell the other player to put all the pieces on the board properly before any of my time gets used up at all. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unless it was a FIDE match AND FIDE rules specified a specific action then I would not be waiting around wondering if an arbiter is watching. Too much risk that your flag falls and then straightening it all out will be hard and may not go in your favor.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastActivityDate="2019-12-29T13:56:56.363" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27676" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27671" CreationDate="2019-12-29T14:11:05.947" Score="19" Body="&lt;p&gt;The relevant section from the rules would be Article 7.4.1:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If a player displaces one or more pieces, he shall re-establish the&#xA;  correct position in his own time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The rules do not specify a certain procedure, but what I have seen happening in practice is: Player A knocks a piece over on his opponent's time. Player B is now allowed to press the clock to make sure he does not lose time. After the correct position has been reestablished, player A will press the clock again so player B has the move. I certainly don't feel the rules mandate that the arbiter needs to be summoned in this case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the displacement caused an unusual disturbance or the affected player is &lt;em&gt;very&lt;/em&gt; low on time (&amp;lt;10sec), as an arbiter I would consider applying Article 12.5 regarding external disturbances and add something in the range of 20-30 seconds to the clock of the affected player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The following objections could be raised, although I feel they are rather academic in nature:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It would be in the spirit of the rules if the person displacing the pieces would stop their opponent's clock and start his own again. However, I have never seen this happening and it may well be inadvisable to do that just for practical reasons, depending on the circumstances.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If the game is played with increment, the additional two clock presses add time to the players' clocks. Therefore, the clock settings (times and move counter) would be incorrect after such an incident. However, at least in the German-speaking chess community, Article 6.10.2 is generally considered to only apply in cases where there is a non-negligible time difference. As a rule of thumb, it should take an arbiter at most one minute to adjust clock settings. If the time differential to be corrected is smaller, the arbiter should not interfere. Additionally, the move counter of the clock is not a reliable indicator of the number of moves played.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the comments, Article 7.5.3 has been mentioned:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If the player presses the clock without making a move, it shall be considered and penalized as if an illegal move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This article has been added fairly recently to make sure a player can be penalized for pressing the clock for no reason. It should not be applied if the player enforces the rules.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Making a move and then expecting to correct the position of a displaced piece defeats the purpose of the rule: The distraction by the missing piece is immediately affecting the other player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2715" LastEditorUserId="2715" LastEditDate="2020-01-02T20:10:01.313" LastActivityDate="2020-01-02T20:10:01.313" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27677" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27679" CreationDate="2019-12-29T22:50:43.563" Score="7" ViewCount="1418" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the longest sequence of moves (by both White and Black) wherein White attempts to move one of their pieces from one square to another? Assume Black makes every move optimal towards the purpose of keeping White’s piece from reaching its intended square, but that it is nevertheless possible, in a finite number of moves, for White to achieve their purpose. If a complete response is impossible or impractical, partial/shorter responses are welcome. Both sides must have a king and pawns on the first rank of each side may do a double step.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, say that White’s goal is to get their King from e1 to g1 and can only achieve this through castling due to an unimpeded Black Rook on the second rank, but Black has an unimpeded Bishop on a6 controlling f1. White must remove the Bishop or the Rook from the diagonal in order to castle, which may take many moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sorry if my question is vaguely worded or unclear in any way- I’ve never before written a chess-related problem. Also, feel free to edit the question or tags- all constructive criticism is welcomed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21032" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-13T00:46:24.083" LastActivityDate="2021-01-17T06:26:17.293" Title="Longest Sequence For Any Piece To Reach A Certain Square" Tags="&lt;theory&gt;&lt;problems&gt;&lt;mathematics&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27678" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27677" CreationDate="2019-12-29T23:54:45.527" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It depends on the exact position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If white only has the king left, and in your position black only their rook, bishop and king, then it would take forever. Or at least untill the 50 move rule kicks in.  Give black more pawns and each one of their moves could add another 50 to the duration. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With more pieces and or pawns it might take more or less time. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, let’s say it’s White to move the queen’s rook pawn to a8 from the normal starting position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is no way black can keep it from getting captured. Thus the pawn never gets to a8. The   number of moves is equivalent to infinity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-12-30T03:51:09.740" LastActivityDate="2019-12-30T03:51:09.740" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27679" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27677" CreationDate="2019-12-30T00:07:50.280" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;Thanks for the fun question, and welcome to CSE! For this kind of construction problem, the king is obviously the piece to choose.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Addendum 10/12/2020: The position that used to be here proved defective, so here is a new position, Unfortunately over a hundred moves had to be cut. Here is my new offering of &lt;strong&gt;336 moves,&lt;/strong&gt; with the White king &lt;strong&gt;going to b7&lt;/strong&gt;,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;me, chess.stackexchange.com 10/12/2020, White forces Black to let their king move to b7 in  336 moves&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;Kb1n1b1k/b1p1pBp1/1pPpPpPp/pPpppppp/ppp1p1p1/8/8/pppppppp w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Be8 Kg8 2. Bd7 Kh8 3. Bc8 Kg8 4. Ba6 Kh8 5. Bb7 Kg8 6. Bc8 Kh8 7. Bd7 Kg8 8. Be8 Kh8 9. Bf7 a3 10. Be8 Kg8 11. Bd7 Kh8 12. Bc8 Kg8 13. Ba6 Kh8 14. Bb7 Kg8 15. Bc8 Kh8 16. Bd7 Kg8 17. Be8 Kh8 18. Bf7 a2 19. Be8 Kg8 20. Bd7 Kh8 21. Bc8 Kg8 22. Ba6 Kh8 23. Bb7 Kg8 24. Bc8 Kh8 25. Bd7 Kg8 26. Be8 Kh8 27. Bf7 a4 28. Be8 Kg8 29. Bd7 Kh8 30. Bc8 Kg8 31. Ba6 Kh8 32. Bb7 Kg8 33. Bc8 Kh8 34. Bd7 Kg8 35. Be8 Kh8 36. Bf7 a3 37. Be8 Kg8 38. Bd7 Kh8 39. Bc8 Kg8 40. Ba6 Kh8 41. Bb7 Kg8 42. Bc8 Kh8 43. Bd7 Kg8 44. Be8 Kh8 45. Bf7 b3 46. Be8 Kg8 47. Bd7 Kh8 48. Bc8 Kg8 49. Ba6 Kh8 50. Bb7 Kg8 51. Bc8 Kh8 52. Bd7 Kg8 53. Be8 Kh8 54. Bf7 b2 55. Be8 Kg8 56. Bd7 Kh8 57. Bc8 Kg8 58. Ba6 Kh8 59. Bb7 Kg8 60. Bc8 Kh8 61. Bd7 Kg8 62. Be8 Kh8 63. Bf7 c3 64. Be8 Kg8 65. Bd7 Kh8 66. Bc8 Kg8 67. Ba6 Kh8 68. Bb7 Kg8 69. Bc8 Kh8 70. Bd7 Kg8 71. Be8 Kh8 72. Bf7 c2 73. Be8 Kg8 74. Bd7 Kh8 75. Bc8 Kg8 76. Ba6 Kh8 77. Bb7 Kg8 78. Bc8 Kh8 79. Bd7 Kg8 80. Be8 Kh8 81. Bf7 c4 82. Be8 Kg8 83. Bd7 Kh8 84. Bc8 Kg8 85. Ba6 Kh8 86. Bb7 Kg8 87. Bc8 Kh8 88. Bd7 Kg8 89. Be8 Kh8 90. Bf7 c3 91. Be8 Kg8 92. Bd7 Kh8 93. Bc8 Kg8 94. Ba6 Kh8 95. Bb7 Kg8 96. Bc8 Kh8 97. Bd7 Kg8 98. Be8 Kh8 99. Bf7 d4 100. Be8 Kg8 101. Bd7 Kh8 102. Bc8 Kg8 103. Ba6 Kh8 104. Bb7 Kg8 105. Bc8 Kh8 106. Bd7 Kg8 107. Be8 Kh8 108. Bf7 d3 109. Be8 Kg8 110. Bd7 Kh8 111. Bc8 Kg8 112. Ba6 Kh8 113. Bb7 Kg8 114. Bc8 Kh8 115. Bd7 Kg8 116. Be8 Kh8 117. Bf7 d2 118. Be8 Kg8 119. Bd7 Kh8 120. Bc8 Kg8 121. Ba6 Kh8 122. Bb7 Kg8 123. Bc8 Kh8 124. Bd7 Kg8 125. Be8 Kh8 126. Bf7 d5 127. Be8 Kg8 128. Bd7 Kh8 129. Bc8 Kg8 130. Ba6 Kh8 131. Bb7 Kg8 132. Bc8 Kh8 133. Bd7 Kg8 134. Be8 Kh8 135. Bf7 d4 136. Be8 Kg8 137. Bd7 Kh8 138. Bc8 Kg8 139. Ba6 Kh8 140. Bb7 Kg8 141. Bc8 Kh8 142. Bd7 Kg8 143. Be8 Kh8 144. Bf7 d3 145. Be8 Kg8 146. Bd7 Kh8 147. Bc8 Kg8 148. Ba6 Kh8 149. Bb7 Kg8 150. Bc8 Kh8 151. Bd7 Kg8 152. Be8 Kh8 153. Bf7 e3 154. Be8 Kg8 155. Bd7 Kh8 156. Bc8 Kg8 157. Ba6 Kh8 158. Bb7 Kg8 159. Bc8 Kh8 160. Bd7 Kg8 161. Be8 Kh8 162. Bf7 e2 163. Be8 Kg8 164. Bd7 Kh8 165. Bc8 Kg8 166. Ba6 Kh8 167. Bb7 Kg8 168. Bc8 Kh8 169. Bd7 Kg8 170. Be8 Kh8 171. Bf7 e4 172. Be8 Kg8 173. Bd7 Kh8 174. Bc8 Kg8 175. Ba6 Kh8 176. Bb7 Kg8 177. Bc8 Kh8 178. Bd7 Kg8 179. Be8 Kh8 180. Bf7 e3 181. Be8 Kg8 182. Bd7 Kh8 183. Bc8 Kg8 184. Ba6 Kh8 185. Bb7 Kg8 186. Bc8 Kh8 187. Bd7 Kg8 188. Be8 Kh8 189. Bf7 f4 190. Be8 Kg8 191. Bd7 Kh8 192. Bc8 Kg8 193. Ba6 Kh8 194. Bb7 Kg8 195. Bc8 Kh8 196. Bd7 Kg8 197. Be8 Kh8 198. Bf7 f3 199. Be8 Kg8 200. Bd7 Kh8 201. Bc8 Kg8 202. Ba6 Kh8 203. Bb7 Kg8 204. Bc8 Kh8 205. Bd7 Kg8 206. Be8 Kh8 207. Bf7 f2 208. Be8 Kg8 209. Bd7 Kh8 210. Be8 Kg8 211. Bd7 Kh8 212. Bc8 Kg8 213. Ba6 Kh8 214. Bb7 Kg8 215. Bc8 Kh8 216. Bd7 Kg8 217. Be8 Kh8 218. Bf7 f5 219. Be8 Kg8 220. Bd7 Kh8 221. Bc8 Kg8 222. Ba6 Kh8 223. Bb7 Kg8 224. Bc8 Kh8 225. Bd7 Kg8 226. Be8 Kh8 227. Bf7 f4 228. Be8 Kg8 229. Bd7 Kh8 230. Bc8 Kg8 231. Ba6 Kh8 232. Bb7 Kg8 233. Bc8 Kh8 234. Bd7 Kg8 235. Be8 Kh8 236. Bf7 f3 237. Be8 Kg8 238. Bd7 Kh8 239. Bc8 Kg8 240. Ba6 Kh8 241. Bb7 Kg8 242. Bc8 Kh8 243. Bd7 Kg8 244. Be8 Kh8 245. Bf7 g3 246. Be8 Kg8 247. Bd7 Kh8 248. Bc8 Kg8 249. Ba6 Kh8 250. Bb7 Kg8 251. Bc8 Kh8 252. Bd7 Kg8 253. Be8 Kh8 254. Bf7 g2 255. Be8 Kg8 256. Bd7 Kh8 257. Bc8 Kg8 258. Ba6 Kh8 259. Bb7 Kg8 260. Bc8 Kh8 261. Bd7 Kg8 262. Be8 Kh8 263. Bf7 g4 264. Be8 Kg8 265. Bd7 Kh8 266. Bc8 Kg8 267. Ba6 Kh8 268. Bb7 Kg8 269. Bc8 Kh8 270. Bd7 Kg8 271. Be8 Kh8 272. Bf7 g3 273. Be8 Kg8 274. Bd7 Kh8 275. Bc8 Kg8 276. Ba6 Kh8 277. Bb7 Kg8 278. Bc8 Kh8 279. Bd7 Kg8 280. Be8 Kh8 281. Bf7 h4 282. Be8 Kg8 283. Bd7 Kh8 284. Bc8 Kg8 285. Ba6 Kh8 286. Bb7 Kg8 287. Bc8 Kh8 288. Bd7 Kg8 289. Be8 Kh8 290. Bf7 h3 291. Be8 Kg8 292. Bd7 Kh8 293. Bc8 Kg8 294. Ba6 Kh8 295. Bb7 Kg8 296. Bc8 Kh8 297. Bd7 Kg8 298. Be8 Kh8 299. Bf7 h2 300. Be8 Kg8 301. Bd7 Kh8 302. Bc8 Kg8 303. Ba6 Kh8 304. Bb7 Kg8 305. Bc8 Kh8 306. Bd7 Kg8 307. Be8 Kh8 308. Bf7 h5 309. Be8 Kg8 310. Bd7 Kh8 311. Bc8 Kg8 312. Ba6 Kh8 313. Bb7 Kg8 314. Bc8 Kh8 315. Bd7 Kg8 316. Be8 Kh8 317. Bf7 h4 318. Be8 Kg8 319. Bd7 Kh8 320. Bc8 Kg8 321. Ba6 Kh8 322. Bb7 Kg8 323. Bc8 Kh8 324. Bd7 Kg8 325. Be8 Kh8 326. Bf7 h3 327. Be8 Kg8 328. Bd7 Kh8 329. Bc8 Kg8 330. Ba6 Kh8 331. Bb7 Kg8 332. Bc8 Kh8 333. Bd7 Kg8 334. Be8 Kh8 335. Bf7 Nxc6 336. Kb7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for a &lt;strong&gt;legal&lt;/strong&gt; position, &lt;strong&gt;111 moves&lt;/strong&gt; is the longest I have come up with so far. White wants to move their king to any square as soon as possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;me, chess.stackexchange.com 30/12/2019, White forces Black to allow a White king move in 111 moves&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;5b1k/2p1pBp1/1pPpPpPp/1P1p4/8/7b/5n1P/3n2K1 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Be8 Kg8 2. Bd7 Kh8 3. Bc8 Kg8 4. Ba6 Kh8 5. Bb7 Kg8 6. Bc8 Kh8 7. Bd7 Kg8 8. Be8 Kh8 9. Bf7 d4 10. Be8 Kg8 11. Bd7 Kh8 12. Bc8 Kg8 13. Ba6 Kh8 14. Bb7 Kg8 15. Bc8 Kh8 16. Bd7 Kg8 17. Be8 Kh8 18. Bf7 d3 19. Be8 Kg8 20. Bd7 Kh8 21. Bc8 Kg8 22. Ba6 Kh8 23. Bb7 Kg8 24. Bc8 Kh8 25. Bd7 Kg8 26. Be8 Kh8 27. Bf7 d2 28. Be8 Kg8 29. Bd7 Kh8 30. Bc8 Kg8 31. Ba6 Kh8 32. Bb7 Kg8 33. Bc8 Kh8 34. Bd7 Kg8 35. Be8 Kh8 36. Bf7 d5 37. Be8 Kg8 38. Bd7 Kh8 39. Bc8 Kg8 40. Ba6 Kh8 41. Bb7 Kg8 42. Bc8 Kh8 43. Bd7 Kg8 44. Be8 Kh8 45. Bf7 d4 46. Be8 Kg8 47. Bd7 Kh8 48. Bc8 Kg8 49. Ba6 Kh8 50. Bb7 Kg8 51. Bc8 Kh8 52. Bd7 Kg8 53. Be8 Kh8 54. Bf7 d3 55. Be8 Kg8 56. Bd7 Kh8 57. Bc8 Kg8 58. Ba6 Kh8 59. Bb7 Kg8 60. Bc8 Kh8 61. Bd7 Kg8 62. Be8 Kh8 63. Bf7 f5 64. Be8 Kg8 65. Bd7 Kh8 66. Bc8 Kg8 67. Ba6 Kh8 68. Bb7 Kg8 69. Bc8 Kh8 70. Bd7 Kg8 71. Be8 Kh8 72. Bf7 f4 73. Be8 Kg8 74. Bd7 Kh8 75. Bc8 Kg8 76. Ba6 Kh877. Bb7 Kg8 78. Bc8 Kh8 79. Bd7 Kg8 80. Be8 Kh8 81. Bf7 f3 82. Be8 Kg8 83. Bd7 Kh8 84. Bc8 Kg8 85. Ba6 Kh8 86. Bb7 Kg8 87. Bc8 Kh8 88. Bd7 Kg8 89. Be8 Kh8 90. Bf7 h5 91. Be8 Kg8 92. Bd7 Kh8 93. Bc8 Kg8 94. Ba6 Kh8 95. Bb7 Kg8 96. Bc8 Kh8 97. Bd7 Kg8 98. Be8 Kh8 99. Bf7 h4 100. Be8 Kg8 101. Bd7 Kh8 102. Bc8 Kg8 103. Ba6 Kh8 104. Bb7 Kg8 105. Bc8 Kh8 106. Bd7 Kg8 107. Be8 Kh8 108. Bf7 Bg2 109. h3 Ng4 110. hxg4 h3 111. Kh2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Addendum 12/23/2020: It turns out that for &lt;strong&gt;legal positions&lt;/strong&gt;, longer lengths can actually be achieved by instead using a pawn as the designated piece. Here is my the new record of &lt;strong&gt;124 moves.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;me, chess.stackexchange.com 12/30/2019, White forces Black to allow their h7 pawn to move in 123 moves&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;7k/p1pN2pP/2p3p1/8/p5p1/P1p2PP1/2P2P1b/5K1N w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Nf8 gxf3 2. Ke1 Bg1 3. Kd1 Bh2 4. Kc1 Bg1 5. Kb1 Bh2 6. Ka2 Bg1 7. Ka1 Bh2 8. Kb1 Bg1 9. Kc1 Bh2 10. Kd1 Bg1 11. Ke1 Bh2 12. Kf1 a6 13. Ke1 Bg1 14. Kd1 Bh2 15. Kc1 Bg1 16. Kb1 Bh2 17. Ka2 Bg1 18. Ka1 Bh2 19. Kb1 Bg1 20. Kc1 Bh2 21. Kd1 Bg1 22. Ke1 Bh2 23. Kf1 a5 24. Ke1 Bg1 25. Kd1 Bh2 26. Kc1 Bg1 27. Kb1 Bh2 28. Ka2 Bg1 29. Ka1 Bh2 30. Kb1 Bg1 31. Kc1 Bh2 32. Kd1 Bg1 33. Ke1 Bh2 34. Kf1 c5 35. Ke1 Bg1 36. Kd1 Bh2 37. Kc1 Bg1 38. Kb1 Bh2 39. Ka2 Bg1 40. Ka1 Bh2 41. Kb1 Bg1 42. Kc1 Bh2 43. Kd1 Bg1 44. Ke1 Bh2 45. Kf1 c4 46. Ke1 Bg1 47. Kd1 Bh2 48. Kc1 Bg1 49. Kb1 Bh2 50. Ka2 Bg1 51. Ka1 Bh2 52. Kb1 Bg1 53. Kc1 Bh2 54. Kd1 Bg1 55. Ke1 Bh2 56. Kf1 c6 57. Ke1 Bg1 58. Kd1 Bh2 59. Kc1 Bg1 60. Kb1 Bh2 61. Ka2 Bg1 62. Ka1 Bh2 63. Kb1 Bg1 64. Kc1 Bh2 65. Kd1 Bg1 66. Ke1 Bh2 67. Kf1 c5 68. Ke1 Bg1 69. Kd1 Bh2 70. Kc1 Bg1 71. Kb1 Bh2 72. Ka2 Bg1 73. Ka1 Bh2 74. Kb1 Bg1 75. Kc1 Bh2 76. Kd1 Bg1 77. Ke1 Bh2 78. Kf1 g5 79. Ke1 Bg1 80. Kd1 Bh2 81. Kc1 Bg1 82. Kb1 Bh2 83. Ka2 Bg1 84. Ka1 Bh2 85. Kb1 Bg1 86. Kc1 Bh2 87. Kd1 Bg1 88. Ke1 Bh2 89. Kf1 g4 90. Ke1 Bg1 91. Kd1 Bh2 92. Kc1 Bg1 93. Kb1 Bh2 94. Ka2 Bg1 95. Ka1 Bh2 96. Kb1 Bg1 97. Kc1 Bh2 98. Kd1 Bg1 99. Ke1 Bh2 100. Kf1 g6 101. Ke1 Bg1 102. Kd1 Bh2 103. Kc1 Bg1 104. Kb1 Bh2 105. Ka2 Bg1 106. Ka1 Bh2 107. Kb1 Bg1 108. Kc1 Bh2 109. Kd1 Bg1 110. Ke1 Bh2 111. Kf1 g5 112. Ke1 Bg1 113. Kd1 Bh2 114. Kc1 Bg1 115. Kb1 Bh2 116. Ka2 Bg1 117. Ka1 Bh2 118. Kb1 Bg1 119. Kc1 Bh2 120. Kd1 Bg1 121. Ke1 Bh2 122. Kf1 Bg1 123. Kxg1 Kg7 124. h8=Q+&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-01-17T06:26:17.293" LastActivityDate="2021-01-17T06:26:17.293" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27680" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19107" CreationDate="2019-12-30T00:15:16.150" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you follow engine tournaments, you'll find that although computers are very strong, there are still times when they do the most stupid of things. Here's an example from the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.tcec-chess.com/archive.html?season=16&amp;amp;div=sf&amp;amp;game=80&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;most recent TCEC superfinal&lt;/a&gt; between Stockfish and AllieStein.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;2b1r3/6r1/p2p1k1p/Pp1PpP1P/1Pp2pP1/2P2P2/1K2R1B1/3R4 w - - 23 149&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Stockfish&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;AllieStein&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Try analyzing the position yourself before looking at what the engines say. What would you give this position?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you said 0.00, I completely agree with you. After all, White can't make progress - all the pawns are firmly wedged. The only thing White can do is play g5, but that's just going to lose several pawns. Meanwhile Black is just as stuck. White can easily defend the pawn on d5. The only pawn break Black has is ...e4, but that will actually lose the game by not just throwing a pawn, but also opening lines for White to make inroads.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, if you look at the engine evals, Stockfish gave +0.90, and AllieStein gave -0.50. If you look at the charts of how the evals vary, you'll see they're straight horizontal lines (at least Stockfish's is - AllieStein, being a neural network engine, has a less consistent but still mostly horizontal eval). This is what computer chess viewers derogatorily call &quot;horizone&quot;. The engines aren't smart enough to realize they're not making progress. They will happily shuffle until the 50-move rule helps them realize that it's a draw. This kind of fortress situation is quite common, but can be avoided. If you're a human piloting Stockfish, you can see this fortress come up several moves before, realize that Stockfish is heading into a horizone, and choose a different move that keeps some winning chances in the position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But that's not all humans can contribute! As it turns out, AllieStein spotted an ingenious way to make progress. Check out what happened 15 moves later. By this time, Stockfish had realized it wasn't making progress, and its eval had dropped to +0.38. Meanwhile AllieStein's eval had increased to -0.79. And then there happened ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;2b3r1/8/p2p3p/Pp1PpPrP/1Pp1RpP1/2P2Pk1/2K5/3R1B2 w - - 53 164&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Stockfish&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;AllieStein&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. Ree1 Kxf3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What kind of fanatic plays 164...Kxf3? Is AllieStein insane? Who the hell ventures into enemy territory with a lone king to grab pawns anyway? Black can't even back off through g5 because the square is currently blocked.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you're a human piloting AllieStein, you'd immediately realize this is a pivotal moment. Either AllieStein is seeing something profound, or it's making a huge blunder. Before actually making the move, you'd try out variations to see what might happen. You might not be strong enough to tell yourself, but AllieStein is sufficiently powerful to tell that within a few moves Black's so-called advantage has cratered. After 164...Kxf3 165. Be2+, Black is dangerously close to being checkmated. 165...Ke3 166. Rf1 threatens Rf3+, Re1 and Bd1 checkmate. Black is forced to take desperate measures like ...Bxf5, after which his position collapses. AllieStein on its own didn't see this, and lost this game. But human + AllieStein is likely to have avoided this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is just an example of the more obvious ways a human can contribute. Correspondence players will be able to say more, since they get familiar with their engine's strengths &amp;amp; weaknesses, and feed their engine ideas on how to get to their strongest positions while avoiding the opponent's. From what I've gathered talking to correspondence players, the odds are that they will draw against someone playing only engine moves (since chess is a draw after all), but they won't lose either, and they will score wins. That's where humans can contribute.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastActivityDate="2019-12-30T00:15:16.150" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27681" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6446" CreationDate="2019-12-30T01:05:32.113" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;No.  It will likely hurt your OTB ability. If you want to really improve then play Go.  Go is so much harder than chess that when you come back to chess you will feel much more confident with your moves. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is like bulking up at the gym. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastActivityDate="2019-12-30T01:05:32.113" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27682" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27638" CreationDate="2019-12-30T01:44:11.147" Score="7" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;My concern is that this is very unfair to one of the players as often even strong hands are not strong enough and end up being down a piece. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But in regular poker, the hand would simply be over at this point. If you're looking for a fair chess game, just play chess!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I included the promotion/demotion/palace/empress rules and simulated a million hands, and came up with the following material imbalances:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;0   : 141731&#xA;2   : 268811&#xA;4   : 223876&#xA;6   : 154819&#xA;8   : 94144&#xA;10  : 54601&#xA;More: 62018&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is slightly more equal than without those rules, but it's still rather imbalanced. The median hand will give one side a +4 advantage. I think the idea is that someone is supposed to fold during the betting if there is a large difference between the hands; this may reduce the number of uncompetitive chess games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think this variation may be somewhat useful for those who are &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; able to consistently win an early endgame position with a +2 or +4 advantage. Given that you probably don't get a lot of time to play the game, it may also be useful for practicing being in time trouble at the end of the game. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But there are probably better ways you could practice your endgame.  In the end, it's worth playing if, and only if, you have fun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2019-12-30T01:44:11.147" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27684" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6464" CreationDate="2019-12-30T03:46:10.127" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Proper etiquette is to obey the rules including the spirit of them and not try to game them for advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Usually players have to play boards in order of their ratings.  And except for wide open events there is an average maximum or possibly actual maximum/minimum ratings allowed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Normally you all play in one room so you can see all the games.  What you are not supposed to do is talk about them and give help to your teammates.   As I have said many times, cheating is rampant in chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you win quickly what you do is up to you and to a lesser extent what your team mates want you to do.  I usually stay to see who wins the match.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you leave the hall you can usually return but that might depend on the event and venue.  My events were usually local and more casual so there were no restrictions. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You have full contact with your teammates.  But you are usually required not to discuss any games you are involved in.  We often discussed other matters especially if our games had ended and we were waiting around. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Rules and etiquette would require you to make phone calls outside. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And any of this can be overwritten by specific rules for a given event and its location. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastActivityDate="2019-12-30T03:46:10.127" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27685" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27687" CreationDate="2019-12-30T05:33:15.500" Score="7" ViewCount="1268" Body="&lt;p&gt;Note: this is another rules-lawyering question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I first ask for an official source I am calling into question the phrasing of the rules. Then I consider a few plausibly official sources, and point out a loophole (unsurprisingly not the first time castling has come under fire) - is my reading correct?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Preamble: Is there an official source for the rules on Chess960 castling?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Common knowledge at this point is that castling in Chess960 can be informally described as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the king and rook end on the same squares as in regular chess,&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the king and rook should not have moved before,&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the squares the king and rook need to &quot;slide through&quot; must be empty,&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the king should not be in, or pass through, or end in check.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;(And the castling cannot be made with a promoted rook).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How about an official source?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well, one would start by looking at the &lt;a href=&quot;https://handbook.fide.com/chapter/E012018&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Laws of Chess&lt;/a&gt; as usual; the section Guidelines II is on Chess960 Rules. Disappointingly, only articles II.3.2.5.2 (specifying king and rook final squares) and II.3.2.7.4 (specifying passed-through squares must be vacant) seem relevant; no mention is made of the king being in or passing through check. So we assume that regular article 3.8.2 (specifically 3.8.2.2.1) applies to cover those.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Alternate sources would be Wikipedia (which cites for some reason &lt;a href=&quot;https://dwheeler.com/essays/Fischer_Random_Chess.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;dwheeler.com&lt;/a&gt;), and &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/article/view/how-to-castle-in-fischer-random-chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;the organisers of the recent World Fischer Random Chess Championships, chess.com&lt;/a&gt;. Those read largely the same as the FIDE Laws.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The loophole&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Consider the following position in Chess960. (wKb1, wRb1, bKe8, bRa1).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;4k3/8/8/8/8/8/8/rR2K3 w Q - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Assume also that it's white's turn, and the white king and rook have never moved before. Can white castle left? Applying a little common sense, the answer is no (if we make the move, the white rook goes to d1 and the white king ends in check on c1).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;However, according to every ruleset above (FIDE, Wikipedia, chess.com), all the criteria for castling have been met.&lt;/strong&gt; In particular, in the diagram position, the black rook does not attack c1 nor d1, so the king is not moving through check. The relevant clause of the FIDE Laws is 3.8.2.2.1:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[Castling is prevented temporarily] if the square on which the king stands, or the square which it must cross, or the square which it is to occupy, is attacked by one or more of the opponent's pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which is not the case in the diagram.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One way out of this would be to invoke article 3.9.2 of the FIDE Laws:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;No piece can be moved that will either expose the king of the same colour to check or leave that king in check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which by unfortunate phrasing, is ambiguous in the context of castling, which is &quot;A move of the king and either rook of the same colour...&quot; (Article 3.8.2), i.e. a move of &lt;em&gt;two pieces&lt;/em&gt;. &lt;strong&gt;In the diagram position, moving the king alone, or the rook alone, will not expose the white king to check.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I call attention to this loophole here. To summarise this question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Is there an official source for castling in Chess960?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Is there an error in my reading of the rules that there is a loophole?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15989" LastEditorUserId="4399" LastEditDate="2021-04-19T09:38:05.747" LastActivityDate="2021-04-19T22:22:08.457" Title="Official rules for castling in Chess960? (Is there a loophole?)" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;castling&gt;&lt;chess960&gt;&lt;loopholes&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27686" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22648" CreationDate="2019-12-30T07:35:00.757" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;e4 isn't as popular because when you play e4 black can actually defend his extra pawn for quite some time, but with e3 if black is keen on actually defending his pawn he will lose material and will be left with a worse position due to (1.d4,d5 2.c4, dxc4 3. e3, b5 4. a4, c6 5. axb5, cxb5 6. Qf3!) and white wins a piece or a rook.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21014" LastActivityDate="2019-12-30T07:35:00.757" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27687" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27685" CreationDate="2019-12-30T08:05:42.597" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;Hi thanks for your questions Remellion. I have a better answer for Q2 than Q1, but bottom line there is no loophole in the FIDE Laws.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(1) I don't know of and can't locate any other official source of Chess960 rules other than FIDE rules.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(2) There is a &lt;strong&gt;second&lt;/strong&gt; place in the FIDE rules where we are told how naughty it is to leave a king in check:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;FIDE Law 1.4.1 Leaving one’s own king under attack, exposing one’s own king to attack and also ’capturing’ the opponent’s king is not allowed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This would apply independently of the number of pieces involved in the castling. So there is no loophole.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8201" LastEditorUserId="8201" LastEditDate="2019-12-30T08:13:35.157" LastActivityDate="2019-12-30T08:13:35.157" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27688" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-12-30T08:18:57.097" Score="3" ViewCount="378" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is interesting that Turing worked with some of the best British chess players among them Golombek and Alexander. I am not sure how to characterize it, but he is considered a creative genius at a level and was certainly very important and successful in the code-breaking efforts during WW2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He would play with Golombek, who I think could allow Turing to change color at a point of his choosing during the game. Although, I am not sure of the constraints; maybe it was up to a certain move. Golombek could then beat Turing from Turing's presumably losing position. I have never played at those odds, but I can't imagine, assuming that Golombek was playing to win, that Turing had much of a position, to begin with. On the other hand, perhaps, Golombek would try to keep a more or less even game so that he had chances. Anyway, I really wonder how weak of a player Turing was and if perhaps some of his games survive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17420" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-04-16T19:49:00.553" LastActivityDate="2021-04-16T19:49:00.553" Title="How bad of a chess player was Alan Turing?" Tags="&lt;history&gt;&lt;famous-games&gt;&lt;odds&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27689" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27677" CreationDate="2019-12-30T08:49:22.810" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The best example I could find in PDB is &lt;a href=&quot;https://pdb.dieschwalbe.de/P1330620&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this one&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Theodor Steudel: Problemkiste 66, Dec 1989, no. 2339. Za6 in 12&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;8/1p1p1p2/1P1P1P1P/8/p7/p1p1p1p1/2P1P1P1/k1K w K - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.h7 a2 2.h8=N a3 3.Ng6 fxg6 4.f7 g5 5.f8=N g4 6.Ne6 dxe6&#xA;7.d7 e5 8.d8=N e4 9.Nc6 bxc6 10.b7 c5 11.b8=N c4 12.Na6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Far greater lengths are possible in series-problems.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10380" LastActivityDate="2019-12-30T08:49:22.810" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27690" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27685" CreationDate="2019-12-30T14:25:40.483" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can’t see the diagrams on mobile, but having read &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;or the square which it is to occupy&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;the white king ends in check on c1&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would say FIDE covers the scenario: the square which the king is to occupy is attacked if the king would end in check, no?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or is the issue that the unique 960 arrangement means that the rook previously blocked the check somehow? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18769" LastActivityDate="2019-12-30T14:25:40.483" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27691" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18941" CreationDate="2019-12-30T15:24:05.987" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;USCF had a similar rating system in the 1950s.  But it was all manual and rating lists came out infrequently.  After that a number of people have tried to improve on it.  USCF has even changed their version a couple of times.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Arpad Elo was a big factor in improving all the systems and I supect that  the FIDE version now is closer to his than USCF as USCF also has to handle all ratings down to 100 which beginning grade school kids may have while FIDE has the easier job of just ranking the very top players whose ability is not rapidly changing. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One early change USCF added was to adjust for kids who were improving fast and older people reluctant to play them because they would lose more points than they could gain if the ratings had correctly matched their abilities. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All rating systems have the problem of correctly estimating the first rating they give a player as well as allowing for new players learning and improving fast.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One thing none of them seem to have done explicitly that I recall is to readjust the average rating every year.  I think USCF may have done that once or twice possibly while making changes to how their ratings are computed.  The USCF tournament average used to be about 1500.  Tournaments  tend to remove the very weak beginners from distorting ratings so if they included everybody the average setting might not work as well.  But for the top players FIDE could do it    IF  they had a problem but their ratings for top players tends to stay more stable overall. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastEditorUserId="9025" LastEditDate="2020-02-01T04:52:19.013" LastActivityDate="2020-02-01T04:52:19.013" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27693" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27685" CreationDate="2019-12-30T17:16:12.940" Score="6" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One way out of this would be to invoke article 3.9.2 of the FIDE Laws:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No piece can be moved that will either expose the king of the same colour to check or leave that king in check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yep, that seems entirely unambiguous to me. You can't leave your king in check after your move. (Your objection seems to be predicated on the idea that a move that touches &lt;em&gt;two&lt;/em&gt; pieces can be said in some sense to have touched &lt;em&gt;no&lt;/em&gt; pieces, and I think that's just wrong. You might with more grounding claim that article 3.9.2 permits you to end your turn in check if you got there by moving a &lt;em&gt;pawn&lt;/em&gt;, since a pawn is &amp;quot;no piece&amp;quot;! :))&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;FIDE's Chess960 rules also state explicitly that when you castle, usually it's by moving two pieces one after the other:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;II.3.2.1 double-move castling: by making a move with the king and a move with the rook, or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;II.3.2.2 transposition castling: by transposing the position of the king and the rook, or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;II.3.2.3 king-move-only castling: by making only a move with the king, or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;II.3.2.4 rook-move-only castling: by making only a move with the rook.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So in your particular example, it's the &amp;quot;move with the rook&amp;quot; (II.3.2.1) that exposes its king to check (3.9.2) and is thus disallowed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I admit that if you use that wording as gospel, then you have to point out that &amp;quot;transposing the position of the king and the rook&amp;quot; doesn't literally &amp;quot;move&amp;quot; either of the pieces; it just &amp;quot;transposes&amp;quot; them without using the word &amp;quot;move.&amp;quot; So you could still ask your question about&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;4k3/8/8/8/8/8/8/r1RK4 w Q - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In that case, we'd just have to fall back on common sense: that you can't move your king into check, period. Notice that &lt;a href=&quot;https://dwheeler.com/essays/Fischer_Random_Chess.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;David Wheeler states&lt;/a&gt; that &amp;quot;the king may not be in check after castling&amp;quot; falls naturally out of the FIDE rules, without feeling the need to justify it any further:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[...] castling may only occur under the following conditions, which are extensions of the standard rules for castling:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Unmoved: The king and the castling rook must not have moved before in the game, including castling.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Unattacked: All of the squares between the king's initial and final squares (including the initial and final squares) must not be under attack by any opposing piece.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Vacant: All the squares between the king's initial and final squares (including the final square), and all of the squares between the rook's initial and final squares (including the final square), must be vacant except for the king and castling rook.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These rules have the following consequences: [...]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The king may not be in check before or after castling.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For what seem like &amp;quot;better&amp;quot; rules of castling, see &lt;a href=&quot;http://web.archive.org/web/20060109191043/https://www.schemingmind.com/journalarticle.aspx?article_id=18&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;John Kipling Lewis's &amp;quot;Castling in Chess960: An appeal for simplicity&amp;quot;&lt;/a&gt; (2005).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14163" LastEditorUserId="14163" LastEditDate="2021-04-19T22:22:08.457" LastActivityDate="2021-04-19T22:22:08.457" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27695" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-12-30T19:14:34.870" Score="2" ViewCount="426" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have several databases (openings) in ctg format that I use with Fritz or with Chessbase. I would like to use them with Arena, which need abk format. Is the ctg to abk conversion possible?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20949" LastEditorUserId="20949" LastEditDate="2019-12-30T22:39:03.687" LastActivityDate="2019-12-31T00:43:07.640" Title="Convert ctg to abk" Tags="&lt;chessbase&gt;&lt;fritz&gt;&lt;arena&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27697" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-12-30T21:01:46.427" Score="9" ViewCount="2565" Body="&lt;p&gt;I played a game at chess.com and the endgame was KNN vs KP. When the pawn was captured, the server automatically give a draw due to &quot;insufficient material&quot;. I am confused about chess.com's insufficient material standard here:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If &quot;insufficient material&quot; means neither player could possibly give checkmate by a series of legal moves, then KNN vs K should not be draw by insufficient material as checkmate is still theoretically possible.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If &quot;insufficient material&quot; means checkmate cannot be forced, then with some rare exceptions, the server should give draws to almost all KR vs KR or KQ vs KQ games, which I have never observed. Similarly by the same principle, many KP vs K game will be automatically terminated as a draw once a drawing position is reached.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So what is the standard here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16626" LastActivityDate="2020-01-01T00:39:35.593" Title="Chess.com insufficient material draw" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;draw&gt;&lt;knights&gt;&lt;knight-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27698" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-12-30T21:05:51.380" Score="10" ViewCount="2480" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmar_Mednis&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Edmar Mednis&lt;/a&gt; stated that in KNN vs K endgame, the inability to force checkmate is &quot;&lt;strong&gt;one of&lt;/strong&gt; the great injustices of chess&quot;. The phrase &quot;one of&quot; seems to indicate there are other injustices in his mind.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, what are other great injustices of chess?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16626" LastActivityDate="2019-12-31T07:06:55.907" Title="What are the &quot;great injustices of chess&quot;?" Tags="&lt;knight-endgame&gt;&lt;quotations&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ClosedDate="2019-12-31T19:14:20.040" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27699" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27698" CreationDate="2019-12-30T22:03:46.550" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is probably not only about position, but how about playing for 7 hours, and you are positionally killing your opponent, and you slip up, throwing away all that work?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are a couple positions that still probably qualify:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;7k/7P/8/6K1/4B3/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You would think that white should be able to win, but no.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or black here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;6K1/5P2/6q1/8/8/8/1k6/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. Kh8=&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2019-12-30T22:39:20.107" LastActivityDate="2019-12-30T22:39:20.107" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27700" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27697" CreationDate="2019-12-30T22:08:46.313" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;The rules applied on chess.com are explained &lt;a href=&quot;https://support.chess.com/article/128-what-does-insufficient-mating-material-mean&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;. Basically the rule says that if there are no pawns and the material is insufficient &lt;em&gt;to force a mate on the lone king&lt;/em&gt;, then the game is declared a draw. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is contrary to FIDE rules and leads to some positions that are actually winning by force being declared draws, as &lt;a href=&quot;https://twitter.com/nigelshortchess/status/1211667068472430593?s=20&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;noted here by Nigel Short.&lt;/a&gt; Actually, KNN vs KP with the pawn blocked far away from promotion square is one example; it is a win but will be declared a draw if the side with the pawn flags. I guess the reason the online servers adopt these rules is that these positions are very rare, and flagging e. g. with one minor piece each would be quite common if allowed (and very ugly).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17330" LastEditorUserId="17330" LastEditDate="2019-12-31T11:10:21.723" LastActivityDate="2019-12-31T11:10:21.723" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27701" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27697" CreationDate="2019-12-30T22:27:21.367" Score="16" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, simply put, they chose to follow the USCF &quot;Article 14: The Drawn Game rule 14E: Insufficient material to win on time, 14E3: King and two knights.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While it is not a forced mate, there is a mating position that is possible, thus they could have easily followed the FIDE rule, and allowed the side with the knights to continue playing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It was probably a judgment call, and one that was made so more players would not be put off by having to play easily drawn positions for 50 moves. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I do not know if it is coincidence that you asked this today, but in the 2019 World Blitz Championship just this morning, there was a big to-do concerning Magnus Carlsen and Alireza Firouzja.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The game was up and down, but then Alireza Firouzja had a winning advantage, but in the final position below, the position was theoretically drawn when Alireza Firouzja knocked a piece over, and while resetting it, he flagged. Should it be a draw since Magnus had no pawns, or a win because there is a possible mating position? Well, after an appeal, and the rules were clear, the game was awarded to Magnus.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is the final position, and I will show a sample line, no matter how far fetched, that shows the rule in action. THESE MOVES WERE NOT PLAYED.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;8/4k3/4P3/3B2P1/4P1K1/8/3b4/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. Kh5 Bc3 2. Kh6 Bd2 3. Kh7 Bxg5 4. Kh8 Kf8 5. e7+ Bxe7 6. Bg8 Bg5 7. Bh7 Bf6#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The fact that this is even possible, no matter how unlikely, is why Alireza Firouzja lost under the rules. Although this is an unfair example of the rules working badly in a given position, they have to be consistent, and there may be other positions that would not be so unfair. it would be hard in practice to say, &quot;this is OK here, but not there&quot;. They have existed in the past, but rules for different positions (like extending the 50-move rule to 100 moves for certain positions) have never worked well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-12-31T00:27:34.130" LastActivityDate="2019-12-31T00:27:34.130" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27702" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27703" CreationDate="2019-12-30T23:12:43.407" Score="3" ViewCount="80" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd like to approach this topic as a way to improve my visualization skills. What are the best ways to improve this skill?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have a few blindfolded games at the club level that managed to make it into the mid-game, but as  for solving positions or tricky tactics I'm lost.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20642" LastActivityDate="2019-12-30T23:23:48.403" Title="Blindfold Chess" Tags="&lt;blindfold-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27703" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27702" CreationDate="2019-12-30T23:22:51.283" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Blindfold chess is really a very good way to help with visualization since it forces you to do just that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That said, it is difficult in the beginning, and takes practice. Before you jump in with both feet, you might want to start with a smaller exercise that practices the same skills. That is, find interesting games that are relatively short (under 25 moves), and practice reading them without a board, but REALLY keeping the position in your head. Read the entire game in your head, including light notes, and then at the end, set it up on a board, and play it out and see how it compares to what you had in your mind's eye. The goal of this is not to actually analyze...you are just visualizing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you get better, then feel free to try and play full games blindfolded.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2019-12-30T23:22:51.283" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27704" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27702" CreationDate="2019-12-30T23:23:48.403" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I played and even won blindfold games.  But I did not do a lot of them.  What helped me was descriptive notation.  That made it so much easier and logical to visualize the board.  I would never have been able to play with the algebraic notation.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What you really need is a way to ensure remembering the moves andor the current board position.  I suspect that goes more to psychology and other factors than to chess. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastActivityDate="2019-12-30T23:23:48.403" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27705" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2729" CreationDate="2019-12-30T23:26:02.697" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not in the casual games I played, and mostly won.   Nor in an exhibition by an IM that I helped by relaying moves to the IM and making his responses on the boards.  He played 6 games simultaneously.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Having a list of the moves virtually undoes the blindfold aspect of playing.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastActivityDate="2019-12-30T23:26:02.697" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27706" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27697" CreationDate="2019-12-30T23:38:58.770" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Because you cannot mate with KNN vs K but you can mate, in certain positions, with KNN vs K&amp;amp;P, the game was a draw as soon as you took the pawn. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lesson: If you have KNN let them keep at least one pawn, preferably one close to their 2nd rank and also the edge of the board. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-12-31T01:38:36.433" LastActivityDate="2019-12-31T01:38:36.433" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27707" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27695" CreationDate="2019-12-31T00:43:07.640" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I answered this question earlier on this site.  Is there some way to search?  The best I could say with my research is that there is a program being written to do it but it is not out yet.   And google says according to one source to do a double conversion such as with a program like fritz to change it going in and export it different coming back out. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastActivityDate="2019-12-31T00:43:07.640" CommentCount="14" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27708" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27698" CreationDate="2019-12-31T00:49:23.950" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can think of some:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Time trouble causing blunders in general.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Objectively you can have an advantage, but then having to convert/transform it could require an impractical level of calculation (such that no human could ever realistically win over the board with such an advantage).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Some argue stalemate in general is wrong. Why should trapping the king be a draw, but trapping the king while simultaneously threatening it be a win? This doesn't match how a real battle would be like.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think he said that though more of as an expression, not with any serious implications.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-12-31T00:49:23.950" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27709" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27711" CreationDate="2019-12-31T01:40:20.223" Score="2" ViewCount="130" Body="&lt;p&gt;Usually in a particular opening position, if move A is more popular (in GM games) than move B, then either move A is objectively better than move B, or move A is equally good as move B. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there any examples of moves that move A is more popular than move B in GM games but move B is objectively better?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16626" LastActivityDate="2019-12-31T04:20:03.483" Title="Are there any moves that are more popular in databases of GM games but are objectively inferior?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;database&gt;&lt;statistics&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27710" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-12-31T01:42:23.430" Score="20" ViewCount="2999" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morphy_number&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Morphy number&lt;/a&gt; is a measure of how closely a chess player is connected to Paul Morphy (1837–1884) by way of playing chess games. It's analogous to the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erd%C5%91s_number&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Erdős Number&lt;/a&gt; for mathematicians.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;People who played a chess game with Morphy have a Morphy number of 1. Players who did not play Morphy but played someone with a Morphy number of 1 have a Morphy number of 2. People who played someone with a Morphy number of n have a Morphy number of n+1.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my case, in the early 1980s, I played Jonathan Penrose in a simultaneous exhibition, the cosmic significance of which was unknown to me at the time. Penrose is one of the few living MN3 players, having &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1156232&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;played Savielly Tartakower in 1950&lt;/a&gt;, who &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1455250&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;played James Mortimer in 1907&lt;/a&gt;, who &lt;a href=&quot;https://chesscafe.com/the-skittles-room/morphy-numbers-revisited/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;played Paul Morphy himself &amp;quot;hundreds of times&amp;quot; from 1853&lt;/a&gt;. So that gives me MN4. A bit lucky: if I hadn't got that connection to Penrose, I might be hard-pressed to find my number.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Jonathan’s brother is the celebrated physicist, Roger Penrose.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So how does someone go about finding their Morphy number more systematically? Has anyone data-mined chess games databases from this perspective? Have any results been published? What are the paths implied in &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morphy_number&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;the Wikipedia article linked above&lt;/a&gt; from the MN1 to MN2 to ... to MN5 players listed there? And what's the expected MN for an active player today?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Has anyone else here managed to figure out their MN?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8201" LastEditorUserId="8201" LastEditDate="2021-03-04T12:45:55.490" LastActivityDate="2021-03-04T12:45:55.490" Title="How can someone find their Morphy number?" Tags="&lt;history&gt;&lt;database&gt;&lt;morphy&gt;" AnswerCount="9" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27711" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27709" CreationDate="2019-12-31T02:17:32.120" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;It really depends on how broadly you want to define the openings. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, while not popular at that level, GMs have played the Smith Morra. Of course, a standard open Sicilian is better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The same goes for those, who have played the King's Gambit when trying for the Ruy Lopez is better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Ruy Lopez is probably objectively better than the Italian Game, but we saw the Italian played the last two days at times in the World Rapid and Blitz events.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The same goes for the Benoni, Benko, and Dutch. They are not horrible, but there is a reason the do not dominate high-level opening play. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anytime a GM needs to win, and plays a sharp opening that is not objectively best, and that happens a lot.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am sure there are plenty of examples that are deeper into the opening, but this already shows how common it is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lastly, many GMs play sidelines, and have pet openings that are not considered best. They play them when they need an imbalance, and to win. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2019-12-31T02:17:32.120" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27712" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27710" CreationDate="2019-12-31T02:19:46.870" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is no magical way of finding it, of course, you just have to know the history of the people that you have played and then you can deduce your Morphy number. Of course, it is highly likely that the chain never reaches Morphy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21014" LastActivityDate="2019-12-31T02:19:46.870" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27713" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27710" CreationDate="2019-12-31T02:40:34.527" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;You'd have to find a list of players Morphy has played. Then, you'd research as many players who played each of those players. This can all be done by searching by player in a large database. Eventually you'd have a large tree, and the problem comes down to an optimal search algorithm.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You'd search &quot;branches&quot; with a more likely chance of giving you a small Morphy number. This means looking at players who have played more games over their career. For example, if some player A was one of Morphy's opponents who played the most games, you'd look at him first. Then, find one of Player A's opponents (call him B) who played the most games in his lifetime, and look at him first. If doing this recursively with B never leads to you (or gives a poor Morphy number), go on to C: the opponent of player A who played the second most games. If eventually you find all of Player A's opponents don't lead to you, meaning Player A isn't connected to you, go on to the opponent of Morphy who had the second most games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But it's still a massive job to search. Even if you find a link to yourself, you need to prove/justify that it's the smallest link. Perhaps you could organize all these players into a tree and write a program to efficiently search it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastEditorUserId="12873" LastEditDate="2019-12-31T02:46:59.443" LastActivityDate="2019-12-31T02:46:59.443" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27714" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17320" CreationDate="2019-12-31T02:57:27.660" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;This looks like a win for black. They should play Kc8, not Kc7, ans then they can bring the king up. White can never take the pawn as it will just move. If the knight moves onto the d-file,then the rook takes it and the pawn runs for a touchdown.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the? position if black plays Kc7?, then white wins the pawn and the rook vs knight endgame would be tougher to win if at all. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-12-31T03:29:30.747" LastActivityDate="2019-12-31T03:29:30.747" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27715" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-12-31T03:25:53.723" Score="4" ViewCount="71" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there an analysis of World Champion games, with the help of engines, that shows statistics like percentage of best moves played, blunders made, creative moves which computers can only see at high depths, and etc? There might be some bias in this analysis since solid players, at least to me, will play objectively better moves since the positions that arise are simpler.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21014" LastEditorUserId="12873" LastEditDate="2019-12-31T04:10:20.207" LastActivityDate="2019-12-31T11:58:10.800" Title="Is there an analysis of World Champions' games that shows the statistics of their game?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;statistics&gt;&lt;master-games&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27716" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27715" CreationDate="2019-12-31T04:14:20.600" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not that I know of. You could do this yourself for each world champion, taking a sample size of something like 20-30 games for each. That may give you fairly good statistics, since as the sample size goes above that there won't be any dramatic changes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's a good point to mention the bias, but in who's favour this works isn't clear. If world champions get in tougher positions, there tend to be fewer acceptable moves (meaning the number of choices to match with the engine's best choice is smaller). But in a solid position, there are often many acceptable moves (and you need to find the one the engine likes best).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-12-31T04:14:20.600" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27717" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27709" CreationDate="2019-12-31T04:20:03.483" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In general, no. The games between players of higher levels (going from beginner --&gt; amateur --&gt; master --&gt; grandmaster --&gt; correspondence) tend to be better, and they are what usually dictate theoretical trends. If there was some well known line that was dubious, a GM couldn't get away with playing it often because their GM opponent would be prepared.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There could be a dubious line that was more popular at higher levels, but in this case the sample size would most likely be small (meaning the move is a surprise weapon). If many GM games featured this dubious line, it wouldn't be a surprise weapon anymore.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Playing good openings can be thought of as a necessary condition for reaching the highest levels of chess. If you consistently start the game poorly, you most likely won't reach those levels in the first place (or won't be able to maintain your status there). There may be some rare GMs who can get away with this against their contemporaries, but such a style of playing would never work in correspondence (the de facto highest level of play).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-12-31T04:20:03.483" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27718" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25280" CreationDate="2019-12-31T04:49:09.487" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It depends a lot since if you are playing a bullet game then he might expect blunders so he might not be resigning so, in this case, it is a little rude to ask him to resign. On the other hand, if it's a rapid or classical game and your opponent isn't resigning then perhaps it's disrespectful on his part. I would still say that you shouldn't be asking people to resign either way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21014" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-04T18:24:46.230" LastActivityDate="2020-03-04T18:24:46.230" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27719" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27698" CreationDate="2019-12-31T07:06:55.907" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;One thing I think is an injustice of chess is the rule enabling a player being able to get a 50-move draw even if their position is lost. (A &quot;blessed loss&quot; position; a &quot;cursed win&quot; from the point of the other player, who deserved the chance to try to execute a win.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10380" LastActivityDate="2019-12-31T07:06:55.907" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27720" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27724" CreationDate="2019-12-31T11:08:12.550" Score="17" ViewCount="3035" Body="&lt;p&gt;Having spent the last couple of days watching the Rapid and Blitz World Championships I became, once again curious about the following subject.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In some circumstances, especially in blitz games, it can be a slight but significant advantage to be able to perform the move as quickly as possible in a physical or mechanical sense. Now, playing a lot certainly gives confidence and ease, and there are some simple principles (such as short moves cost less time), but I was wondering if some players actively and in a structured way train this aspect of the game. To make this question answerable let me ask specifically: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there any  books or other sources that discuss ways to train and to improve carrying out moves quickly (in a physical or mechanical sense)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I would also be interested in slightly more anecdotal answers on this subject. My primary intent was to ask this for over the board games, but I aspects specific to online games are also welcome. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12255" LastActivityDate="2019-12-31T15:11:05.887" Title="Do some chess players actively train moving the pieces on the board quickly?" Tags="&lt;training&gt;&lt;blitz&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27721" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25245" CreationDate="2019-12-31T11:46:44.010" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;No answers here, and I haven’t seen any solution in the rest of the world. So I thought I would post a work-in-progress here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First let’s take a baby step. Which player is the one who has all these adventures?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Suppose that it’s White. Then the pawn which moves in W9 (White’s 9th move) makes 3 moves to reach the sixth rank. In addition, another pawn makes 5 moves to promote. This must have been the same pawn which executed the earlier en passant. And finally there is the castling. That exhausts 9 moves. So that means that the two or three officers which blocked the castling has to have been cleared out by Black helpful captures. Black made 2 pawn moves for en passant purposes, so that means 6 moves remain for raiding. It can’t have been a promotion because that uses 5 moves and to capture the neighbour would use the 6th, implying the promotion was to R or Q which would disturb his majesty wK. And clearly it wasn’t original R or Q which captured the officer next to wK. Capturing with N requires 4 moves to reach and 1 to retreat. So the other white officer can’t be captured. So by elimination the pieces must have been captured by black bishops. Each bishop requires 2 moves to arrive and one to run away, but in addition black’s first move did not contribute to any of this. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So we have proved that White was not the player who had all the adventures. It must have been Black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let’s see how the budget works out if Black is the protagonist. Black promotes, taking 5 moves including a promotion. There is 1 for castling and 1 for B8 pawn move prior to e.p. So 7 out of 8 moves are accounted for.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand White has 1 move to feed the Black e.p., 3 for the pawn which executes the White e.p. That’s 4 out of 9. But White is required to go capture at least one of the Black bank rank officers. (Another might move away using the Spare Black move.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could Black have castled on the queen side? In this case white must have captured two Black officers at home. With only 5 moves this can’t have been pawn or knight. Two bishops require too many moves to escape after. So at least one raider must have been R or Q. This means that the raider would capture N&amp;amp;B, while bQ shielded bK, and both later ran away. Can’t&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can’t quite exclude this one corner case right now, although it seems unlikely. The other, easier possibility is that Black castled on kingside. &#xA;If Black did castle kingside then the earlier argument about White castling applies. So one of the two Black officers must run from the back rank.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore in either case we have exhausted the Black moves, and can conclude  that bK did not move after castling and was mated on g8 or just possibly on c8. So the final e.p. was discovered check. Since the castling rook doesn't move after the castling is complete, the discovered checkmate can't just be for bishop/queen on the diagonal. It must be rook/queen checkmate on the file as the old e.p. double checkmate is only available if the king were on 6th rank.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That all seems reasonable: indeed some actual creative thinking maybe required to progress further!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8201" LastEditorUserId="8201" LastEditDate="2019-12-31T18:50:24.223" LastActivityDate="2019-12-31T18:50:24.223" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27722" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27715" CreationDate="2019-12-31T11:58:10.800" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, there are such studies. You can check &lt;a href=&quot;https://content.iospress.com/articles/icga-journal/icg0012&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this recent paper&lt;/a&gt; and references therein for the older ones. Various ideas have indeed been tried in order to quantify the &quot;complexity&quot; of position (e. g., in terms of complexity of search tree or dynamics of the evaluation function as the depth grows), but I think you better read the papers if you are interested in details. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17330" LastActivityDate="2019-12-31T11:58:10.800" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27723" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27720" CreationDate="2019-12-31T12:13:03.680" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't know the answer to your question on over the board games but in online games, it is good to have a  mouse with a fast response time for blitz and bullet. In online chess, the dragging and clicking of the pieces just comes with practice. I don't think that players actually specifically practice moving pieces over the board, but just play a lot of over the board blitz games and that skill just comes with it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21014" LastActivityDate="2019-12-31T12:13:03.680" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27724" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27720" CreationDate="2019-12-31T15:11:05.887" Score="17" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm a FIDE master and in my experience I've never come across any material on how to physically move pieces faster. There's not a lot you have to do: pick up the piece, move your arm to where you want to move the piece, and let go. As you play more this becomes second nature, to the point where training wouldn't make much sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for short moves costing less time, this usually isn't a factor in blitz/bullet games; the exception is when you're about to flag and just need to make moves quickly. Then moving a piece 1-2 squares can be better than moving it across the board. Also, if you move pieces that are physically closer to the clock, you can save very small (but possibly precious) amounts of time. So for Black it would be moving pieces on the right side of the board, and for White the left side. Again, such strategies would only be implemented when you're down to literally a few seconds.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2019-12-31T15:11:05.887" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27725" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27057" CreationDate="2019-12-31T16:10:19.097" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;First of all, don't trust the online ratings. I've been rated by various digital arenas as much as 600 points more than my &quot;real&quot; rating. There's an inherent variability in rating systems, such that even two systems based on the exact same equations can come up with divergent ratings for the same player. (Elo, the man the international rating system is named for, described rating chessplayers as trying to measure the depth of a rapidly moving stream with a yardstick suspended from a Willow branch in the wind. There's too many variables to do it accurately.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That having been said, go ahead and play tournament chess. Opening theory is overrated when your opponents are rated under 2000, maybe even 2200. A good feel for the game will serve you better than a dozen opening books. I can't tell you how many times I've emerged from the opening with the worse game, only to win in the end. Go, play, and enjoy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just be prepared for reality to give you a cold, hard, slap in the face. Decades ago, when I started playing in organized events, I discovered a completely new world. I'd won most every game I'd played up until that point; it took 4 tournaments to win my second game. Not saying this will happen to you, just warning you to be prepared to handle it if it does.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But here's a definite advisory: the good tournament players will not be put off by deviations from opening theory; only the ones whose opening preparation consists solely of memorization. Bent Larsen once observed that a player that has memorized the moves will win more than one who hasn't, but the player who understands the position will win more than both of them. In any mid-size or larger, non-scholastic, tournament you will find a good proportion of those.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tactical strength is the foundation of chess; don't mistake it for the whole edifice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="657" LastActivityDate="2019-12-31T16:10:19.097" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27726" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16874" CreationDate="2019-12-31T17:13:29.883" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Never heard of such a tournament. It would be a nightmare for arbiters to figure out when problems arise.  It would require someone keeping track of the moves and maybe a board in a separat room. And there is not a lot of demand by players to play blindfold in tournaments.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;NOTE  that if you record the moves on paper then that is not really blindfold chess anymore as you can play over them in your head should you forget the position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My casual games always had someone with us to check for illegal moves and more importantly ambiguous moves which were an instant loss.  note:  we used descriptive notation back then and ambiguous moves were common even with OTB players and their score sheets. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An occasional game was plenty for most of us as we would not want to do a tournament that way. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastActivityDate="2019-12-31T17:13:29.883" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27727" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27685" CreationDate="2019-12-31T17:57:29.123" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You have found out all relevant rules, which are the Laws of Chess, including Guideline II. As expected, the wording of the rules seems not to cover that case. In Guideline II, some special cases of castling are considered, but not this one, so Article 3 applies. Article 3 deals with regular chess, and in regular chess your case simply is not possible. Your last resort is 3.9.2, which describes the move of ONE piece. This all is correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now have a look at 3.8.2: &quot;This is a move of the king and either rook of the same colour along the player’s first rank, &lt;strong&gt;counting as a single move of the king&lt;/strong&gt;.“ This should solve your problem.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Additionally, I refer to the preface. Even if the rules would contain a loophole, it is obvious that it is intended that a player may not exhibit his king to an attack. The preface states: &quot;Where cases are not precisely regulated by an Article of the Laws, it should be possible to reach a correct decision by studying analogous situations which are regulated in Laws.“ So no arbiter will allow white to castle in that position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20096" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2019-12-31T18:44:44.843" LastActivityDate="2019-12-31T18:44:44.843" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27728" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-12-31T18:46:51.390" Score="1" ViewCount="276" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am aware of the &lt;a href=&quot;https://pypi.org/project/python-chess/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;python chess&lt;/a&gt; and chesslink &lt;a href=&quot;https://domschl.github.io/python-mchess/doc/build/html/index.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;mchess&lt;/a&gt; work but would like to attempt to interface it with &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/lichess-org/api&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;lichess.org&lt;/a&gt;.  My purpose would be to play others on lichess using my Millenium board. &#xA; The API's I've found for lichess seem to be for a chess engine interface rather than external hardware.  Any guidelines on where to find other similar work (like how DGT may do it)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21049" LastEditorUserId="7147" LastEditDate="2020-01-01T21:04:02.950" LastActivityDate="2020-01-01T22:25:06.070" Title="How to write an interface to lichess for a millenium board using chesslink?" Tags="&lt;programming&gt;&lt;computer-chess&gt;&lt;lichess&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27729" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-12-31T18:54:03.527" Score="-1" ViewCount="636" Body="&lt;p&gt;I’m new to chess.&#xA;How is this checkmate?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;Dec 31 2019&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;User 21050 (Lvl 3 500pts)&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Computer (Level 20 3000+pts)&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Nf3 a5 2.Ng5 h5 3.Nxf7 g6 4.Nxh8 g5 5.Ng6 Ra6 6.Ne5 Bh6 7.Nf3 c6 8.Nxg5 c5 9.Nf3 Qc7 10.e3 Rg6 11.Bd3 Bg5 12.Bxg6+ Kd8 13.Bxh5 d5 14.Nxg5 Qc6 15.O-O b6 16.d3 Qb7 17.Bd2 Bf5 18.e4 Qd7 19.exf5 e6 20.fxe6 d4 21.Qe2 b5 22.Qe4 a4 23.Qxd4 Qd6 24.Qxc5 Qf8 25.Qxb5 Qe8 26.Qxa4 Qe7 27.Qb4 Qa7 28.Qa4 Na6 29.Qxa6 Ne7 30.Qxa7 Ng6 31.Qg7 Nh8 32.Qxh8+ Ke7 33.Qh6 Kd8 34.e7+ Kc7 35.e8=B Kb8 36.Bb5 Ka8 37.d4 Kb7 38.d5 Kb8 39.d6 Kb7 40.d7 Kc7 41.d8=B+ Kb8 42.Bf6 Kb7 43.Bd4 Kb8 44.Ba4 Kc7 45.c4 Kb7 46.B4e3 Kc7 47.Bb5 Kc8 48.Bc6 Kc7 49.Bd5 Kb8 50.Be4 Kc7 51.Bc2 Kd7 52.Be2 Kc8 53.Ba7 Kd8 54.Bb6+ Kc8 55.Bc7 Kd7 56.Bd6 Kc6 57.Bc5+ Kd7 58.Bd6 Kd8 59.Be7+ Kc8 60.Bd8 Kxd8 61.a4 Ke8 62.c5 Kd7 63.Bf5+ Kd8 64.Bd7 Kxd7 65.c6+ Ke7 66.c7 Ke8 67.c8=B Ke7 68.Bf5 Kd8 69.Bc2 Kc7 70.b4 Kc8 71.a5 Kd7 72.b5 Kc7 73.a6 Kb8 74.a7+ Kc8 75.a8=B Kc7 76.Bc6 Kd8 77.Bd5 Ke7 78.Ba2 Kd8 79.b6 Ke7 80.b7 Kd8 81.b8=B Ke7 82.Be5 Kd8 83.Bb2 Kd7 84.f4 Ke8 85.f5 Kd7 86.f6 Kc6 87.f7+ Kd7 88.f8=B Ke8 89.Bc5 Kd8 90.Bf2 Kc7 91.g4 Kd8 92.h4 Ke8 93.Ne6 Kd7 94.Nf4 Kc8 95.Ne6 Kb8 96.Nc7 Kxc7 97.g5 Kb7 98.g6 Kc7 99.g7 Kd8 100.g8=B Kc8 101.Bgd5 Kb8 102.Bg2 Kc8 103.Qg6 Kb8 104.h5 Kc7 105.h6 Kc8 106.h7 Kd8 107.h8=B Kd7 108.Bhe5 Ke7 109.Bh2 Kd8 110.Bfg3 Kd7 111.Rf7+ Kc8 112.Rf8+ Kd7 113.Rf6 Ke7 114.Re6+ Kd8 115.Qg4 Kc8 116.Re7+ Kd8 117.Re8+ Kxe8 118.Nc3 Kd8 119.Nd5 Ke8 120.Ne7 Kd8 121.Nc8 Ke8 122.Ne7 Kf8 123.Ng6+ Ke8 124.Nf8 Kd8 125.Nd7 Ke7 126.Nf6 Kf8 127.Rf1 Ke7 128.Rf5 Kd8 129.Re5 Kc7 130.Re8+ Kb6 131.Rb8+ Ka7 132.Ra8+ Kb6 133.Rc8 Ka7 134.Bh4 Kb6 135.Bhf4 Ka7 136.Bfg5 Kb6 137.Rc7 Kxc7 138.Nd7 Kd6 139.Nf6 Ke7 140.Ne8+ Kf8 141.Ba1 Kxe8 142.Bcb1 Kf8 143.Bc1 Ke8 144.Bd1 Kf8 145.Bcb2 Ke8 146.Bdc2 Kf8 147.Be1 Ke8 148.Bgc1 Kf8 149.Bed2 Ke7 150.Bf1 Kf8 151.Be2 Ke7 152.Bed1 Ke8 153.Qg8+ Kd7 154.Qd8+ Kxd8 155.Be2 Kd7 156.Bdc3 Ke8 157.Be3 Kd8 158.Bcd2 Kc7 159.Bcb3 Kc8 160.Bbd3 Kd7 161.Bbc2 Kc8 162.Ba3 Kd7 163.Bad4 Kc8 164.Bab2 Kc7 165.Bf2 Kd8 166.Be4 Ke7 167.Bg2 Kd8 168.Bde3 Ke8 169.Bf4 Kf8 170.Bh2 Ke7 171.Kf1 Kd8 172.Ke1 Ke8 173.Kd1 Kd8 174.Bhg3 Kd7 175.Bh3+ Kd8 176.Bf3 Ke8 177.Bfe3 Kd8 178.Bdc3 Ke8 179.Bd3 Kd8 180.Ba3 Ke8 181.Bb3 Kd8 182.Ba7 Ke8 183.Ba6 Kd8 184.Ba5+ Ke8 185.Ba4+ Kf7 186.Ke2 Kg8 187.Kd3 Kg7 188.Bgf2 Kg6 189.Bf1 Kh6 190.B3e2 Kh7 191.Bed1 Kg8 192.Bdb3+ Kh8 193.Bfe1 Kg7 194.Bec3+ Kh6 195.Be2 Kh7 196.Bed1 Kh6 197.Bdc2 Kh5 198.Ba2 Kg4 199.Ba1 Kg3 200.Kd4 Kf3 201.Be4+ Kg4 202.Ba8 Kg3 203.B6b7 Kf4 204.Bac6 Kg3 205.Bad5 Kg4 206.Kd3 Kh5 207.Bf3+ Kg5 208.Be3+ Kh4 209.Bg2 Kh5 210.Bf2 Kg5 211.Bad4 Kh5 212.Bgf3+ Kg6 213.Bce4+ Kf7 214.Bbd5+ Ke8 215.Bac6#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21050" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-16T18:01:45.370" LastActivityDate="2020-04-16T18:01:45.370" Title="How is this checkmate? I’m new to chess" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;checkmate&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27730" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27729" CreationDate="2019-12-31T19:09:47.937" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;do'H!   black is in check.  black king has no moves to get out of check as all other squares it can move to are covered.  black has no other pieces to use to stop the check with.  how new are you to chess?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Admittedly I only looked at the end position and did not wade through all the moves to see if a draw could have occurred earlier.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastEditorUserId="20776" LastEditDate="2019-12-31T19:41:07.547" LastActivityDate="2019-12-31T19:41:07.547" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27731" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14214" CreationDate="2019-12-31T19:16:51.333" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Who is on move?  If it is white to move this looks won for white. If it is black you need to get the king on the Qside to hold a draw. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;NOTE:  human analysis not done by computer.  It might be wrong but OTB that is what I expect to happen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastActivityDate="2019-12-31T19:16:51.333" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27732" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27729" CreationDate="2019-12-31T19:26:14.727" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Actually this looks like a draw by the 50 move rule.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;FIDE &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;9.3 The game is drawn, upon a correct claim by the player having the move, if:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;b. the last 50 consecutive moves have been made by each player without&#xA;  the movement of any pawn and without any capture.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17425" LastActivityDate="2019-12-31T19:26:14.727" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27733" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27729" CreationDate="2019-12-31T19:34:46.100" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;After white's move &lt;code&gt;215. Bac6#&lt;/code&gt;, the black king is now in check and all of the black's possible moves (&lt;code&gt;d8&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;f8&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;d7&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;e7&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;f7&lt;/code&gt;) are illegal since they result in check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The result is checkmate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20973" LastEditorUserId="20973" LastEditDate="2020-04-16T17:45:45.607" LastActivityDate="2020-04-16T17:45:45.607" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27734" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27710" CreationDate="2019-12-31T19:48:45.400" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;I never heard of the 'Morphy number' until I read your post.  I found that my Morphy number is 5.  Here is how I did it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I started with &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morphy_number&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After looking at the list I realized that my best bet was the simul where I played John Donaldson.  I still regret not pushing the pawn after preparing it so well...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I looked at other American players John would have played and found that he played Reshevsky at &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.365chess.com/players/John_W_Donaldson/?p=1&amp;amp;start=600&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Lone Pine 1981&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Per Wikipedia Reshevksy's number is 3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17425" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2020-01-02T09:55:22.767" LastActivityDate="2020-01-02T09:55:22.767" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27736" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27697" CreationDate="2019-12-31T20:19:34.960" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Unless the opponent has at least one pawn (in KNN vs K), you are not able to reach checkmate because stalemate should occur first. This is the reason that the position is a draw. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, in KNN vs KP or KNN vs KPP, for example, there is some possibility that the pawn can take away moves from its own King. This is why the checkmate can sometimes be forced.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21053" LastEditorUserId="9847" LastEditDate="2020-01-01T00:39:35.593" LastActivityDate="2020-01-01T00:39:35.593" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27737" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27710" CreationDate="2019-12-31T20:48:42.057" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I had a similar problem not long ago, though not chess related. If I were to pattern this solution off of that one, I would consider storing Morphy in an SQL table along with all of his opponents, along with all of their opponents, and so on, in a parent/child relationship. So you would have one table with two columns (id and parent_id). id would be the child of parent_id and any id could be a parent_id, child id or both. So if Morphy is &lt;code&gt;parent_id=1&lt;/code&gt; and he played ids 2-10, you might have&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;parent_id  |  id&#xA;1          |  2&#xA;1          |  3&#xA;1          |  4&#xA;&#xA;etc.&#xA;&#xA;2          |  25&#xA;2          |  28&#xA;&#xA;etc.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The last row would be you. Perhaps you are &lt;code&gt;id=1,100,000&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1,000,000  |  1,100,000&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Say this table is call chess_players, you could then recursively query this table to get your id and all of your ancestor parent_ids. Something like this&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;with recursive cte (id, name, parent_id) as&#xA;(&#xA; select     id,&#xA;            parent_id&#xA; from       chess_players&#xA; where      parent_id = 1 and id=1100000 -- Morphy is the parent and you are the child&#xA; union all&#xA; select     p.id,&#xA;            p.parent_id&#xA; from       chess_players p&#xA; inner join cte&#xA;         on p.parent_id = cte.id&#xA;)&#xA;select * from cte;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You will then see all of the parent_ids of your id number all the way up to Morphy's parent_id of 1. I suppose this is your Morphy count and you could use this technique for anyone in your chess_players table.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm thinking you could probably scrape a database like &lt;a href=&quot;https://chessgames.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chessgames.com&lt;/a&gt; to populate your table.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8134" LastEditorUserId="8134" LastEditDate="2019-12-31T21:30:08.390" LastActivityDate="2019-12-31T21:30:08.390" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27738" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27667" CreationDate="2019-12-31T22:39:18.883" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You're looking at this the wrong way. As you say yourself:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;the tactical superiority of the computer always gets in the way and I end up losing or drawing the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus, it's really not a matter of opening choice: the computer is better tactically. The best hope you have of beating this computer is getting better tactically. Chess is a game of tactics, so ultimately tactics will serve you better in the long run.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That doesn't mean a good opening strategy won't help. The Sicilian has a reputation of being a better for black than other openings. Consequently, the queen's pawn is considered better by some for white because it stops the Sicilian.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But again, the best strategy is less about opening choice and more about learning to follow through with that opening to the middle-game, and the endgame by extension. And the best way to getting better at this is by getting better at tactics.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even if you are good at tactics already, then try to get faster, and more accurate. This will ultimately help you in the long run.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;tl;dr: My recommendation is Sicilian for black, Queen's pawn for white, and just simply drilling tactics.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18599" LastActivityDate="2019-12-31T22:39:18.883" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27739" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2019-12-31T23:02:19.940" Score="2" ViewCount="80" Body="&lt;p&gt;I saw the game Firouzja vs Carlsen in world blitz championship in which Carlsen flagged Firouzja. Carlsen won because even though he had only a bishop, there could be a possible mate position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am asking if there a chess position in which both players have at least one piece, not including the kings, and there is no possible future mate position?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An obvious one is if both players having only one bishop moving on the same color squares. But is there something else?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am actually looking for a complicated position, not obvious to humans at all, which needs something like 30-50 moves deep analysis for proving there is no any possible mate position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20863" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2019-12-31T23:11:45.543" LastActivityDate="2019-12-31T23:28:41.147" Title="A position in which there is no possible checkmate" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;dead-position&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ClosedDate="2019-12-31T23:23:48.367" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27740" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27739" CreationDate="2019-12-31T23:15:09.427" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think that is limited to just a few positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A lone king vs. king.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;king and bishop vs. king.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A king and bishop vs. king and same colored bishop as the other side.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A king and multiple bishops of the same color vs. king.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A king and knight vs. king.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Any barrier position, where neither side can cross over to the other side.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even king and knight vs. king and knight you can get a mating position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is a wonderful position that I &quot;stole&quot; from chess.com that illustrates why that FIDE rule exists. Yes, it was probably not fair for Carlsen to get the full point, but imagine having this position, and not getting the full point.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;6rk/4NP2/7K/8/8/8/b7/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;  1. fxg8=Q+ Bxg8 {By USCF, and chess.com rules, this is a draw here.} 2. Ng6#&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;&#xA; [FEN &quot;6nk/5N2/6K1/8/8/8/8/8 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2019-12-31T23:28:41.147" LastActivityDate="2019-12-31T23:28:41.147" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27741" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4925" CreationDate="2020-01-01T00:00:28.947" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Early on, chess is clearly just a game, but as you advance competitively, its character changes. For me, that change happened when I was about 1800-2000.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was a ranked (state, not nationally) junior tennis player in the early 1970's, so I know what a sport feels like, and master-level chess takes just as much out of me as tennis did when I was a kid. Part of that is because I cannot sit still, and thus, I walk around a lot between moves, but most of it is just the tension.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In addition, the competitive day in chess is longer than most other sports. It is not uncommon for round one to start at 9 a.m., and sometimes I finish the second game at 10 p.m. at night.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just because you do not run a 100-yard dash during the game, that does not mean that your body is not working harder physically, even though you cannot see it overtly. During the first Karpov vs Kasparov match during 1984-1985, Karpov, not a big man to begin with, lost 22 pounds during the course of the 5-month match due to the stress and other factors. They said he looked like &quot;death&quot; at the end of the match.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In a recent &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.espn.com/espn/story/_/id/27593253/why-grandmasters-magnus-carlsen-fabiano-caruana-lose-weight-playing-chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;ESPN article&lt;/a&gt; on Fabiano Caruana, they noted &quot;In October 2018, Polar, a U.S.-based company that tracks heart rates, monitored chess players during a tournament and found that 21-year-old Russian grandmaster Mikhail Antipov had burned 560 calories in two hours of sitting and playing chess -- or roughly what Roger Federer would burn in an hour of singles tennis.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They also said this, which is phenomenal: &quot;a chess player can burn up to 6,000 calories a day while playing in a tournament.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, while the tennis burned more calories, the chess certainly was no slouch in that regard, and we play a lot longer. If chess is not a physical sport, even if it is not obvious, why is fitness so important? It would not be if it were not a sport. Mental exertion, clearly, also manifests itself physically.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2020-01-01T00:00:28.947" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27742" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4272" CreationDate="2020-01-01T00:04:39.420" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It really depends on where you live, and who is there. Some can be very good.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For years, in Boston, well Cambridge really, there was a player, who was a regular at the &quot;Square&quot;, Harvard Square to be precise. It is right across from the famed university, and IMs have been known to congregate there at times.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Murray Turnbull was about 2350 USCF when I would play him, so obviously, he would beat most comers. I would stop by when down there, mostly to show off to a girlfriend, or later, my daughter, what it was like for me to play blitz.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2001/05/murray-turnbull-chess-master/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Here is a link to a story about him.&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.masschess.org/chess_horizons/chess-horizons-article.aspx?ch_uid=212&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Here is an article about the Square.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2020-01-01T00:04:39.420" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27744" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7955" CreationDate="2020-01-01T03:35:24.727" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;If KNN vs KP is a win in some cases then white has to be able to corner the black king while the other knight blockades the pawn.&#xA;After cornering the king the other knight releases the pawn and then moves over to do the mate.  That was one end game that I did not bother memorizing. But logic says KN vs K can corner the king otherwise the mate would not be possible if the other knight can do it before the pawn can queen.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastActivityDate="2020-01-01T03:35:24.727" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27745" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7955" CreationDate="2020-01-01T04:04:10.983" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;No.  If that were possible then KN could stalemate the lone King by force&#xA;(WTM 1 Nb5, 2 Na7, 3 Nc6; BTM Kb7 2 Kc6 Ka8 3 Kb5! Ka7 4 Ka5 etc.),&#xA;and I already checked (as reported in &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/13120/can-a-king-and-a-knight-force-stalemate-against-a-lone-king/13465#13465&quot;&gt;this answer&lt;/a&gt;)&#xA;that stalemate cannot be forced in general.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8860" LastActivityDate="2020-01-01T04:04:10.983" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27746" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27749" CreationDate="2020-01-01T07:20:22.197" Score="3" ViewCount="253" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Bc5 4. c3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When white plays 4. c3 and prepares to push d4 to get a massive center, how is it possible to prevent them from doing so, or at least put a lot of pressure on the center with it? I don't have trouble dealing with this in longer time controls because I can find ways attack the center, but how do I deal with this in blitz? When with the black's side I feel like playing against the Evan's gambit without being up a pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21014" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-01-02T12:41:23.947" LastActivityDate="2020-09-17T19:38:18.530" Title="How to counter white's attempt to get a massive center in the Giucco Piano?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;italian-game&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27747" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27688" CreationDate="2020-01-01T09:01:29.793" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;A similar question was asked on &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.quora.com/How-strong-of-a-chess-player-was-Alan-Turing&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;another forum&lt;/a&gt; a few years ago, and the answer that was given was &lt;em&gt;&quot;Alan Turing wasn’t a very strong chess player at all. He was probably at the level of a beginner. He certainly knew the rules of the game, but not much more.&quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Wikipedia &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turochamp&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;notes&lt;/a&gt;, regarding the chess program that Turing and a colleague designed, &lt;em&gt;&quot;... the algorithm is primarily designed around the decision to take a piece or not; according to Turing, the resulting gameplay produces a low level game of chess, which he considered commensurate with his self-described average skill level at the game.&quot;&lt;/em&gt;  According to the article, Turing's algorithm (it's really difficult to call it a &quot;program&quot;, as it never ran on any actual computer - Turning only ever &quot;ran&quot; it on pencil and paper) only looked two half-moves ahead, applied a static evaluation function to each resulting position, and selected as the next move whichever one led to the highest average evaluation after the following half-move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7147" LastEditorUserId="7147" LastEditDate="2020-01-01T09:22:29.753" LastActivityDate="2020-01-01T09:22:29.753" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27748" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27057" CreationDate="2020-01-01T09:48:44.880" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It could be very interesting, but you can expect your opponents to get a theoretical advantage out of the openings I would say anywhere from +0.8 to +2. However, at your current level, the individuals with whom you are playing against might not be able to keep that advantage all the way to the endgame or even the late middlegame. So I would say that if you have strong middlegame and endgame skills you can stabilize his/her advantage, but you have to of course expect inferior moves from the opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21014" LastActivityDate="2020-01-01T09:48:44.880" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27749" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27746" CreationDate="2020-01-01T10:58:40.180" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;c3 by white is called the Moller Attack. The reason you do not see it at high levels is that the sting has been taken out of it over the years. Basically, it comes down to breaking up the center with Nxe4, or hitting back in the center with d5, before white can finish developing and fortify the center.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are a few lines you need to know.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Bc5 4. c3 Nf6 5. d4 exd4 6. cxd4 (6. e5 d5 7. exf6 dxc4 8. fxg7 Rg8 9. O-O Qf6 10. Re1+ Be6 11. Bg5 Qxg7 12. g3 h6 13. Bh4 Qg4 {and black is quite safe, and much better}) Bb4+ 7. Nc3 (7. Bd2 Bxd2+ 8. Nbxd2 d5 9. exd5 Nxd5 10. Qb3 Nce7 11. O-O O-O 12. Rfe1 c6) 7... d5 (7... Nxe4 8. O-O Bxc3 9. d5 Bf6 10. Re1 Ne7 11. Rxe4 d6 12. Bg5 Bxg5 13. Nxg5 h6 14. Qe2 hxg5 15. Re1 Be6 16. dxe6 f6 17. Re3 c6 18. Rh3 Rxh3 19. gxh3 g6 20. Qf3 Qa5 21. Rd1 Qe5) 8. exd5 Nxd5 9. O-O Be6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And you play a standard isolated queen-pawn position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The main line I gave with 7...d5 is probably not as good at taking on e4, but that line is much more dangerous and has a number of side roads that white can try.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-01-01T15:43:22.043" LastActivityDate="2020-01-01T15:43:22.043" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27750" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27710" CreationDate="2020-01-01T11:07:45.813" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Morphy numbers are something new to me. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is the degrees of detachment little world marvel for chess players. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was looking Gligoric and discovered he had a Morphy number of 3. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So Morphy (1837-1884) has a Morphy number zero. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any individual who played him has a Morphy number of 1. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any individual who played a Morphy number 1 has a Morphy number 2, etc. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I played John Littlewood in a simul. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;John Littlewood had played Botvinnik who has an MN of 3. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That gives me an MN of 5. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anand, Kramnik, and Gelfand additionally have MNs of 5. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Little world I have just 5 degrees of partition from Morphy who was conceived in 1837.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21058" LastActivityDate="2020-01-01T11:07:45.813" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27751" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17258" CreationDate="2020-01-01T11:57:51.980" Score="5" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;So as soon as X resigns, Y resigns as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the arbiter can establish this then player X's resignation, coming first, ends the game and player Y wins:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;5.1.2 The game is won by the player whose opponent declares he resigns. This immediately ends the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But suppose the resignation really is simultaneous? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Such a real world case was considered by &lt;em&gt;Bozidar Kazic&lt;/em&gt; in his book &lt;em&gt;The Chess Competitor's Handbook&lt;/em&gt;. Player A moved an unmoved pawn forward two squares, realised that he had allowed a devastating en passant capture, and resigned. Meanwhile player B overlooked the en passant possibility, thought that he was getting mated, and resigned.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The conclusion was that the resignation from player B took precedence because it was his turn to move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-01-01T11:57:51.980" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27752" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7768" CreationDate="2020-01-01T12:33:03.527" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What does the chief arbiter do?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is what the &lt;a href=&quot;https://old.fide.com/FIDE/handbook/Competition_Rules.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Competition Rules&lt;/a&gt; say about the role of the Chief Arbiter:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;3 The Chief Arbiter (CA)&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3.1 The duties of the CA are as specified in particular by the Laws of Chess, General&#xA;Regulations for Competitions, Anti-cheating Guidelines and so on.&#xA;During the event he also:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(1) has to keep the record of each round&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(2) to oversee the proper course of the competition&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(3) to ensure order in the playing venue&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(4) to ensure players’ comfort during play   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3.2 Prior to the start of the competition:   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(1) he may draw up additional rules in consultation with the CO [Chief Organizer];&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(2) he shall check all the conditions for play, including the playing venue, playing area, lighting, heating, air conditioning, ventilation, noise, security and so on.;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(3) he must acquire through the CO all the necessary equipment, ensure a sufficient&#xA;number of arbiters, auxiliary technical staff and assistants are engaged and ensure&#xA;that conditions for the arbiters are satisfactory.    &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Whether the playing conditions meet the requirements of these FIDE Rules is his final decision.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3.3 In case of different opinion between CA and CO regarding interpretation of the Laws of Chess, it is assumed that opinion of CA takes priority.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3.4 At the conclusion of the event the CA shall report as appropriate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;what is the difference between him and a regular arbiter?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As somebody who has been both the chief arbiter in a norm event (an event where players can gain IM and GM norms if they play well enough) and been a low level arbiter in a local club event I can tell you that there is an enormous difference.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The chief arbiter has a managerial role because he or she is responsible for the smooth running of the tournament. The low level arbiter is just responsible for doing what the chief arbiter told/asked him to do. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To be sure, the chief arbiter can delegate some of the tasks to subordinate arbiters and in a large tournament will do so, but the responsibility if something goes wrong is with the chief arbiter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;For example Anand and Carlsen had to meet him behind closed doors&#xA;  before the world championship started.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With only two players in the competition it makes complete sense for the two players to have a private meeting with the chief arbiter beforehand to make sure that the chief arbiter fulfils his obligations regarding 3.1 and 3.2 above and that there is clarity between the three main protagonists.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-01-01T12:33:03.527" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27753" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27754" CreationDate="2020-01-01T13:25:25.883" Score="3" ViewCount="384" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let's say you have a position where you can win the opponent's queen in one move and you know he will resign; or you play a combination that is technically stronger since it forces mate, but it takes 8 moves, some of which are hard to see, so you do not think your opponent will resign on the spot.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which is really better?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2020-01-02T04:30:34.710" Title="Which is better, going for checkmate, or forcing immediate resignation?" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;queens&gt;&lt;resigning&gt;&lt;combinations&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27754" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27753" CreationDate="2020-01-01T15:43:29.150" Score="5" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;you play a combination that is technically stronger since it forces mate, but it takes 8 moves, some of which are hard to see&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If they're hard to see, &lt;em&gt;chances are that you've missed something as well&lt;/em&gt;. Therefore, take the queen. You might miss the opportunity to finish the game in a beautiful way, but you can always save that for the post-mortem analysis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only reason not to take it would be if you're low on time and are not sure you can finish off the game, even being a queen ahead. But I wonder how you would see the mate in 8 then :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2020-01-01T15:46:01.533" LastActivityDate="2020-01-01T15:46:01.533" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27755" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27746" CreationDate="2020-01-01T16:27:07.717" Score="-5" Body="&lt;p&gt;In short  you counterattack and fight hard not roll up into a fetal position.  See the gory details above by Phishmaster.  N-KB3 = Nf6  by black is the strongest although d6 actually has a slightly better game-theory type result favoring it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-09-17T01:14:45.320" LastActivityDate="2020-09-17T01:14:45.320" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27756" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27758" CreationDate="2020-01-01T16:31:43.743" Score="8" ViewCount="1583" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the 19th round of the World Chess Blitz Championship in Moscow, Russia, Magnus Carlsen faced Alireza Firouzja with black. Alireza lost on time while he was trying to restore a piece he dropped.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's said that he made multiple appeals to the CA IA Takis Nikolopoulos. What exactly happened and what was the final outcome of the game?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17823" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-04-01T14:04:14.177" LastActivityDate="2020-04-01T14:04:14.177" Title="What exactly happened in the Open World Blitz Championship in game Carlsen-Alireza?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;fide&gt;&lt;tournament-directors&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27757" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14985" CreationDate="2020-01-01T16:36:42.987" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;cbh is a FILE created by ChessBase, a program used for replaying chess games; saves header information about played chess games; saved with several other files that together comprise the total database and must be copied with the other files in order for the database to function properly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you don't want to copy the CBH file and all corresponding files, you can bundle all of them together in a .CBV file using ChessBase or Fritz.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Looks like you uploaded the wrong file.  Should have used a CBV. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;NOTE: You can open ChessBase databases using the free ChessBase Reader program.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastActivityDate="2020-01-01T16:36:42.987" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27758" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27756" CreationDate="2020-01-01T16:39:25.923" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;As you said, Alireza Firouzja lost on time while he was trying to restore a piece he dropped. He appealed, but the appeal was denied. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It was denied for several reasons.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, he appealed about Magnus uttering one frustrating word earlier in the game. That was denied because had he wanted to appeal that, he had to do it right then and there, but he did not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He questioned whether the clock was in proper operating order, but that was also denied.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He was declared lost because, no matter how unlikely, there was a position that Magnus could mate him in.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Paragraph 6.9 of the FIDE Laws of Chess state:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The game is drawn, if the position is such that the opponent cannot&#xA;  checkmate the player’s king by any possible series of legal moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is my understanding that the formal appeal was on the Magnus' utterance as Alireza Firouzja had already been shown the rule in the rule book, so I do not believe that he formally appealed that part of the ruling. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-01-01T16:51:30.013" LastActivityDate="2020-01-01T16:51:30.013" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27759" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27710" CreationDate="2020-01-01T18:07:06.077" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;As far as an algorithmic answer goes, if you can get a set of games into a pandas dataframe (Python), the following code should get you the Morphy numbers, unless I've messed up somewhere:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;def get_distances(games, &#xA;                  starting_player = 'James Morphy', &#xA;                  max_depth = 100,&#xA;                  white_col_name = 'white'&#xA;                  black_col_name = 'black')&#xA;    player_nums = {starting_player:0}   &#xA;    games_left = pd.DataFrame(index = games.index)&#xA;    games_left[['white','black']] = games[[white_col_name, black_col_name]]&#xA;    for current_depth in range(max_depth):&#xA;        known_players = set(player_nums.keys())&#xA;        numbered_white = games_left.white.isin(known_players)&#xA;        numbered_black = games_left.black.isin(known_players)&#xA;        new_white = games_left.loc[numbered_black &amp;amp; (~numbered_white)]            &#xA;        new_black = games_left.loc[numbered_white &amp;amp; (~numbered_black)]&#xA;        new_players = set(new_white.white).union(set(new_black.black))&#xA;        if not new_players:&#xA;            return {'player_nums': player_nums, &#xA;                    'result': 'Ran out of connections'}&#xA;        for player in new_players:&#xA;            player_nums[player] = current_depth+1&#xA;        games_left = games_left.loc[~(numbered_white | numbered_black)]&#xA;        if games_left.shape[0] == 0:&#xA;            return {'player_nums': player_nums, &#xA;                    'result': 'Analyzed all games'}&#xA;    return {'player_nums': player_nums,  &#xA;            'result':  'Reached maximum depth'}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This gets the Morphy number for everyone. Getting just yours is &quot;almost as hard&quot; (for some definition of &quot;almost as hard&quot;) as getting all the Morphy numbers. This gets the numbers for a fixed data set. If you want to update the numbers as more games are played, you can just keep rerunning the program, but there's probably some tweaks you can make to make updating more efficient. Also, there have been comments suggesting people think that calculating the Morphy number would have an exponential complexity with respect to the depth number, but as long as the number of games is fixed, this algorithm has polynomial complexity with respect to the number of games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More information here: &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dijkstra%27s_algorithm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dijkstra%27s_algorithm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15221" LastActivityDate="2020-01-01T18:07:06.077" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27760" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12439" CreationDate="2020-01-01T19:20:19.283" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It depends on the book and your needs/interests.  Some are worthless some have value for a new player who can use that content to improve.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The good news is that old chess books are dirt cheap.  The bad news is that sorting through all the books available from vaious sites like amazon, ABE, individual sellers,  and annual sales at our local club is a real chore.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With all the free/cheap content online it is hard to see how a 40 year old book can compete other than on cheaper prices.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastActivityDate="2020-01-01T19:20:19.283" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27761" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27728" CreationDate="2020-01-01T20:58:35.890" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As you've seen, the &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/api&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Lichess API&lt;/a&gt; only allows bots to use the API functions that make moves in an ongoing game.  As far as I can tell, this is intentional; the API requires that anything that can generate moves in a game by some means other than human interaction on the Lichess site must be flagged as a bot.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which means (again, as far as I can tell...), the only way to do what you want to do would be to create some kind of intermediary between the e-board and Lichess that actually mimics the actions a human would take during a game (such as simulating mouse clicking and movement on a game's web page).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I personally would not know where to start if I were trying to do this, and I also don't know if doing something like this would trip Lichess's anti-cheating detection in any way.  But it appears that this is what you'd have to do in order to play on Lichess using an e-board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7147" LastEditorUserId="7147" LastEditDate="2020-01-01T22:25:06.070" LastActivityDate="2020-01-01T22:25:06.070" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27762" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27802" CreationDate="2020-01-01T22:29:22.400" Score="4" ViewCount="124" Body="&lt;p&gt;Inspired by a &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/27677/longest-sequence-for-any-piece-to-reach-a-certain-square/27689?noredirect=1#comment42689_27689&quot;&gt;recent question&lt;/a&gt;, what is the longest possible sequence before White can make a certain capture? Basically, White is trying to capture a chosen piece, and Black optimally defends that piece from capture.  But White will be able to capture it in a finite number of moves. However, the positon must be legal, i.e. it is possible to reach &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The longest sequence I have come up with is &lt;strong&gt;156 moves&lt;/strong&gt;. White wants to capture Black’s bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;2Bk4/p2P2pp/2pPp3/8/p7/P1p1p1P1/2P1P1Pb/5K1N w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Ke1 Bg1 2. Kd1 Bh2 3. Kc1 Bg1 4. Kb1 Bh2 5. Ka2 Bg1 6. Ka1 Bh2 7. Kb1 Bg1 8. Kc1 Bh2 9. Kd1 Bg1 10. Ke1 Bh2 11. Kf1 a6 12. Ke1 Bg1 13. Kd1 Bh2 14. Kc1 Bg1  15. Kb1 Bh2 16. Ka2 Bg1 17. Ka1 Bh2 18. Kb1 Bg1 19. Kc1 Bh2 20. Kd1 Bg1 21. Ke1 Bh2 22. Kf1 a5 23. Ke1 Bg1 24. Kd1 Bh2 25. Kc1 Bg1 26. Kb1 Bh2 27. Ka2 Bg1 28. Ka1 Bh2 29. Kb1 Bg1 30. Kc1 Bh2 31. Kd1 Bg1 32. Ke1 Bh2 33. Kf1 c5 34. Ke1 Bg1  35. Kd1 Bh2 36. Kc1 Bg1 37. Kb1 Bh2 38. Ka2 Bg1 39. Ka1 Bh2 40. Kb1 Bg1 41. Kc1 Bh2 42. Kd1 Bg1 43. Ke1 Bh2 44. Kf1 c4 45. Ke1 Bg1 46. Kd1 Bh2 47. Kc1 Bg1 48. Kb1 Bh2 49. Ka2 Bg1 50. Ka1 Bh2 51. Kb1 Bg1 52. Kc1 Bh2 53. Kd1 Bg1 54. Ke1 Bh2 55. Kf1 e5 56. Ke1 Bg1 57. Kd1 Bh2 58. Kc1 Bg1 59. Kb1 Bh2 60. Ka2 Bg1 61. Ka1 Bh2 62. Kb1 Bg1 63. Kc1 Bh2 64. Kd1 Bg1 65. Ke1 Bh2 66. Kf1 e4 67. Ke1 Bg1 68. Kd1 Bh2 69. Kc1 Bg1 70. Kb1 Bh2 71. Ka2 Bg1 72. Ka1 Bh2 73. Kb1 Bg1 74. Kc1 Bh2 75. Kd1 Bg1 76. Ke1 Bh2 77. Kf1 g6 78. Ke1 Bg1 79. Kd1 Bh2 80. Kc1 Bg1 81. Kb1 Bh2 82. Ka2 Bg1 83. Ka1 Bh2 84. Kb1 Bg1 85. Kc1 Bh2 86. Kd1 Bg1 87. Ke1 Bh2 88. Kf1 g5 89. Ke1 Bg1 90. Kd1 Bh2 91. Kc1 Bg1 92. Kb1 Bh2 93. Ka2 Bg1 94. Ka1 Bh2 95. Kb1 Bg1 96. Kc1 Bh2 97. Kd1 Bg1 98. Ke1 Bh2 99. Kf1 g4 100. Ke1 Bg1 101. Kd1 Bh2 102. Kc1 Bg1 103. Kb1 Bh2 104. Ka2 Bg1 105. Ka1 Bh2 106. Kb1 Bg1 107. Kc1 Bh2 108. Kd1 Bg1 109. Ke1 Bh2 110. Kf1 h6 111. Ke1 Bg1 112. Kd1 Bh2 113. Kc1 Bg1 114. Kb1 Bh2 115. Ka2 Bg1 116. Ka1 Bh2 117. Kb1 Bg1 118. Kc1 Bh2 119. Kd1 Bg1 120. Ke1 Bh2 121. Kf1 h5 122. Ke1 Bg1 123. Kd1 Bh2 124. Kc1 Bg1 125. Kb1 Bh2  126. Ka2 Bg1 127. Ka1 Bh2 128. Kb1 Bg1 129. Kc1 Bh2 130. Kd1 Bg1 131. Ke1 Bh2  132. Kf1 h4 133. Ke1 Bg1 134. Kd1 Bh2 135. Kc1 Bg1 136. Kb1 Bh2 137. Ka2 Bg1 138. Ka1 Bh2 139. Kb1 Bg1 140. Kc1 Bh2 141. Kd1 Bg1 142. Ke1 Bh2 143. Kf1 h3 144. gxh3 gxh3 145. Ke1 Bg1 146. Kd1 Bh2 147. Kc1 Bg1 148. Kb1 Bh2 149. Ka2 Bg1 150. Ka1 Bh2 151. Kb1 Bg1 152. Kc1 Bh2 153. Kd1 Bg1 154. Ke1 Bh2 155. Kf1 Bg1 156. Kxg1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Dows anyone know of a longer such sequence, or possibly create a longer one?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-04T21:29:36.460" LastActivityDate="2020-04-04T21:29:36.460" Title="Longest sequence before a certain capture" Tags="&lt;problems&gt;&lt;mathematics&gt;&lt;captures&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27763" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9546" CreationDate="2020-01-01T23:49:34.027" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Catalan, Grunfeld, and Sicilian Accelerated Dragon:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Fianchetto the King Bishop&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Attack the center with your d and c pawns&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also g3 and g6 vs everything is probably the most universal system possible. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have also used the Nimzo Bogo Queen's Indian and Nimzo Larsen Attack with the French.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Kings's Indian, Pirc, and King's Indian Attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17740" LastActivityDate="2020-01-01T23:49:34.027" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27764" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27746" CreationDate="2020-01-02T00:56:01.483" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Even though Black is fine in this line (if you know the relevant theory), you can avoid it by playing the 3...Nf6 move order. Then:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;4.d3 Bc5 transposes to a quiet Italian where White won't be pushing an early d4.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;4.Nc3 Bc5 transposes to the Four Knights.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are some active moves White can play against 3...Nf6 to avoid transposing into standard systems with ...Bc5, but they aren't that impressive:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;4.d4 exd4 5.e5 d5 6.Bb5 Ne4 7.Nxd4 Bd7 is balanced.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;4.Ng5 is the Fried Liver Attack. After 4...d5 5.exd5 Na5! 6.Bb5+ c6 7.dxc6 bxc6, Black gets an initiative for the pawn.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2020-01-02T00:56:01.483" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27765" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27768" CreationDate="2020-01-02T03:28:15.240" Score="8" ViewCount="1752" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[title &quot;R vs B+B&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;8/4rpkp/6p1/8/8/4BBP1/5PKP/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The engine says that this endgame is winning for white(+2.5). Is there a technique that could be used to win this for white. I understand that the ideal position for black to draw this game would be to have 0 pawns on the board which would then with the best play be a draw. If there was a passed pawn in this for white the escorting of the pawn to the final rank would be achieved with the bishop maneuvers. However, in this case, the pawns are on the same side of the board. Are the engines missing some sort of fortress position or is there a winning technique?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21014" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2020-01-02T10:37:09.103" LastActivityDate="2020-01-02T12:09:38.527" Title="What is the technique to win and endgame R vs B + B?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;passed-pawn&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27766" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27765" CreationDate="2020-01-02T03:47:33.060" Score="-4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would say the engine is just an engine not perfection.  White is up one 'point' for material.  Maybe two if you count the two bishops versus rook as another one.  Not sure why the engine would say 2.5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And I see no way to force a win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With zero pawns black sacs the rook for a bishop == 1/2  1/2&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No way for white to force a passed pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black puts the king on N1 or g8.&#xA;Black can keep the white king from being a threat.&#xA;The bishops can not do anything by themselves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I will defer to @Phishmaster if he has a plan but I do not see any and was fairly good at end games back when I played tournaments. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastActivityDate="2020-01-02T03:47:33.060" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27767" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27753" CreationDate="2020-01-02T04:30:34.710" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It could be risky since you don't know what you have missed, but on the other hand, if you are low on the clock say under 10 minutes you might just have to go for the checkmate if the time control is also distant. Although playing while being a Queen up shouldn't be difficult even if you are a queen up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21014" LastActivityDate="2020-01-02T04:30:34.710" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27768" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27765" CreationDate="2020-01-02T05:57:27.403" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The key is to create weaknesses in Black's position, while also not exchanging off too much material. For example, if you exchanged down and got a K+B+B+h-pawn vs K+R, Black could sacrifice his rook for your dark-squared bishop, resulting in the wrong bishop drawn endgame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My strategy would be to fix Black's pawns on a certain colour complex, ideally keeping all the pawns on the board. Then with all the pawns fixed, there will be at least one weak pawn for you to attack. In this situation, the bishop on the colour of the pawn will exert pressure, while the other bishop will control key squares around the pawn. For example, if Black's pawns were fixed on f6-g5-h6, your dark-squared bishop would put pressure on the f6-pawn, and then you could plant your light-squared bishop on g6 (covering f7, h7, and f5).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then, you'd advance your king to help both bishops in their tasks (i.e., attacking the weak pawn(s) and controlling other important squares). Your king and other bishop (the one not on the colour of the weak pawn) could try to box out Black's rook, preventing it from defending the pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Squeezing your opponent in such endgames requires patience. You want to make progress, but at the same time don't want to compromise by making exchanges. A difficult part in trying to win this endgame is dealing with Black's rook checking your king from the side. You can use one bishop to block, but then the rook could go back to defending the weak pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2020-01-02T05:57:27.403" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27769" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27024" CreationDate="2020-01-02T06:06:15.380" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some good stuff about chess libraries but let's face it, the great libraries are hundreds of kilometres/miles away from where many of us live. I collect and have seen the M.V. Anderson Chess Library in Melbourne Australia 4 times over 30 years and examined the websites of Cleveland and The Hague. Trouble is many books are kept in storage offsite and one needs days notice to get to them. No random browsing works now, though still pleasant. Libraries are good to use but the pressure of time is always there. The SLNSW has a 1 hour time limit on computer research. Bit sad but life. It is good to write articles based on one's library and great when it can be uploaded onto Edward Winter's 'Chess Notes' or Karel Mokry's site. One feels that progress is being made.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21061" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2020-01-02T08:31:28.093" LastActivityDate="2020-01-02T08:31:28.093" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27770" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27765" CreationDate="2020-01-02T11:22:51.947" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Of course, this should be a win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is how future GM Robert Cvek did it as a 2265-rated player starting at move 33. The position is not exactly the same, but it is pretty close.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He struggled for a little bit in the beginning, but then, he managed to bring his king up using the bishops to block the rook checks as Initial Ignorance mentioned, and then it was over.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA; [Event &quot;CZE-ch U20&quot;]&#xA; [Site &quot;Usti nad Labem&quot;]&#xA; [Date &quot;1996.??.??&quot;]&#xA; [Round &quot;6&quot;]&#xA; [White &quot;Cvek, Robert&quot;]&#xA; [Black &quot;Neuman, Petr&quot;]&#xA; [Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA; [ECO &quot;E62&quot;]&#xA; [WhiteElo &quot;2265&quot;]&#xA; [BlackElo &quot;2215&quot;]&#xA; [PlyCount &quot;173&quot;]&#xA; [EventDate &quot;1996.??.??&quot;]&#xA; [EventType &quot;tourn&quot;]&#xA; [EventRounds &quot;9&quot;]&#xA; [EventCountry &quot;CZE&quot;]&#xA; [EventCategory &quot;3&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;&#xA; 1. Nf3 Nf6 2. d4 g6 3. g3 Bg7 4. Bg2 O-O 5. O-O d6 6. c4 c6 7. Nc3 Qa5 8. a3 Be6 9. Nd2 Qa6 10. d5 cxd5 11. cxd5 Bd7 12. Nb3 Rc8 13. e4 b5 14. Be3 Qb7 15. Bd4 a5 16. e5 dxe5 17. Bxe5 b4 18. axb4 axb4 19. d6 Rxa1 20. Bxb7 Rxd1 21. Nxd1 Re8 22. dxe7 Bb5 23. Bd6 Bxf1 24. Kxf1 Nfd7 25. Ne3 Bxb2 26. Nd5 Bf6 27. Nc5 Kg7 28. Nxd7 Nxd7 29. Bxb4 Nb6 30. Nxb6 Bxe7 31. Bc6 Rb8 32. Bxe7 Rxb6 33. Bf3 f6 34. Bc5 Rb5 35. Be3 Rb2 36. Bd5 Rb5 37. Bc6 Rb2 38. Kg2 Ra2 39. Bd5 Ra5 40. Bf3 Ra2 41. g4 h6 42. h4 Ra5 43. Kg3 Rb5 44. Be2 Ra5 45. Kf3 Rd5 46. Ke4 Ra5 47. Bd4 g5 48. Kf3 Ra3+ 49. Kg2 Kg6 50. Be3 Kg7 51. Bc4 Rc3 52. Bd5 Rd3 53. Be4 Ra3 54. Bf5 Rb3 55. Bc5 Rc3 56. Bd6 Rc6 57. Bg3 Rc4 58. f3 Ra4 59. Be4 Ra2+ 60. Kh3 Re2 61. Bd6 Rb2 62. Kg3 Rb6 63. Bc7 Rb3 64. Kh3 Ra3 65. Bg3 Rb3 66. Kg2 Rb2+ 67. Kf1 Ra2 68. Bd3 Rb2 69. Be2 Rb4 70. h5 Rb3 71. Kf2 Ra3 72. Bc4 Rc3 73. Bd5 Rd3 74. Be4 Ra3 75. Ke2 Rb3 76. Bd3 Ra3 77. Ke3 Rb3 78. Kd4 Ra3 79. Be4 Ra5 80. Bd6 Rb5 81. Bc5 Ra5 82. Kd5 Rb5 83. Kc6 Ra5 84. Bd6 Ra6+ 85. Kd7 Ra7+ 86. Ke8 Ra5 87. Bf8+ 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2020-01-02T11:22:51.947" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27771" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5798" CreationDate="2020-01-02T11:43:40.323" Score="3" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;For fun.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;To mix things up.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;To get the opponent out of book early.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;To hide preparation if they have an upcoming match (highest level players online).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;To allow a lower-rated player a chance at winning.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Disdain for the opponent: &quot;I can play crap, and STILL beat you like a drum!&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;They are drunk...it happens.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2020-01-02T11:43:40.323" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27772" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27765" CreationDate="2020-01-02T12:01:17.077" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a complement to previous answers, notice that although this endgame should be a theoretical win for the bishops, it is not as straightforward a technical task as one might think.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even at the highest level, in a World Championship Match, Black has been able to &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1848605&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;save&lt;/a&gt; his skin. The stakes were very high, since this rapid game was played during the tiebreak when the players were still tied.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA; [Event &quot;Carlsen - Karjakin World Championship Match&quot;]&#xA; [Site &quot;New York, NY USA&quot;]&#xA; [Date &quot;2016.11.30&quot;]&#xA; [EventDate &quot;2016.11.11&quot;]&#xA; [Round &quot;13.2&quot;]&#xA; [Result &quot;1/2-1/2&quot;]&#xA; [White &quot;Magnus Carlsen&quot;]&#xA; [Black &quot;Sergey Karjakin&quot;]&#xA; [ECO &quot;C50&quot;]&#xA; [WhiteElo &quot;?&quot;]&#xA; [BlackElo &quot;?&quot;]&#xA; [PlyCount &quot;167&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.O-O Nf6 5.d3 O-O 6.a4 a6 7.c3 d6&#xA; 8.Re1 Ba7 9.h3 Ne7 10.d4 Ng6 11.Nbd2 c6 12.Bf1 a5 13.dxe5 dxe5&#xA; 14.Qc2 Be6 15.Nc4 Qc7 16.b4 axb4 17.cxb4 b5 18.Ne3 bxa4&#xA; 19.Rxa4 Bxe3 20.Bxe3 Rxa4 21.Qxa4 Nxe4 22.Rc1 Bd5 23.b5 cxb5&#xA; 24.Qxe4 Qxc1 25.Qxd5 Qc7 26.Qxb5 Rb8 27.Qd5 Rd8 28.Qb3 Rb8&#xA; 29.Qa2 h6 30.Qd5 Qe7 31.Qe4 Qf6 32.g3 Rc8 33.Bd3 Qc6 34.Qf5&#xA; Re8 35.Be4 Qe6 36.Qh5 Ne7 37.Qxe5 Qxe5 38.Nxe5 Ng6 39.Bxg6&#xA; Rxe5 40.Bd3 f6 41.Kg2 Kh8 42.Kf3 Rd5 43.Bg6 Ra5 44.Ke4 Rb5&#xA; 45.h4 Re5+ 46.Kd4 Ra5 47.Kc4 Re5 48.Bd4 Ra5 49.Bc5 Kg8 50.Kd5&#xA; Rb5 51.Kd6 Ra5 52.Be3 Re5 53.Bf4 Ra5 54.Bd3 Ra7 55.Ke6 Rb7&#xA; 56.Kf5 Rd7 57.Bc2 Rb7 58.Kg6 Rb2 59.Bf5 Rxf2 60.Be6+ Kh8&#xA; 61.Bd6 Re2 62.Bg4 Re8 63.Bf5 Kg8 64.Bc2 Re3 65.Bb1 Kh8 66.Kf7&#xA; Rb3 67.Be4 Re3 68.Bf5 Rc3 69.g4 Rc6 70.Bf8 Rc7+ 71.Kg6 Kg8&#xA; 72.Bb4 Rb7 73.Bd6 Kh8 74.Bf8 Kg8 75.Ba3 Kh8 76.Be6 Rb6 77.Kf7&#xA; Rb7+ 78.Be7 h5 79.gxh5 f5 80.Bxf5 Rxe7+ 81.Kxe7 Kg8 82.Bd3 Kh8&#xA; 83.Kf8 g5 84.hxg6 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White pieces were played by a grandmaster who is considered as one of the very best endgame players in History.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastEditorUserId="14079" LastEditDate="2020-01-02T12:09:38.527" LastActivityDate="2020-01-02T12:09:38.527" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27774" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-01-02T13:15:56.677" Score="-1" ViewCount="551" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am learning to play chess, and I am focusing my attention on the Sicilian defense. Many people says is one of the best openings against e4 when playing with black, and I think also it is a good opening. But sometimes, if I play it, I get weak in the queen side, and so I vulnerable to attacks there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I was wondering which are the benefits and the drawbacks of the Siciclian defense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can somebody help me?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20804" LastActivityDate="2020-01-02T13:43:08.827" Title="What are the benefits and the drawbacks of the Sicilian defense" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;theory&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2020-01-02T13:48:10.400" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27775" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27774" CreationDate="2020-01-02T13:43:08.827" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Sicilian defense is a very strong opening that gives very complicated and rich positions. Before I talk about the drawbacks and the advantages I want to point out that if by attack you mean attack on your king then I must say that you should never castle queenside when playing the Sicilian defense. However, I think that you mean that white exerts pressure on you Queenside. I would recommend that you push b5 early on and fianchetto the bishop on b7 such that it is defending the a6 pawn. With this, it's possible to place the rook on c8 and to put pressure on white's queenside.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Playing the Sicilian defense has a lot of possibilities and advantages, but it can be quite frustrating especially when you first start playing it and don't know much of the ideas and lines. Below I have attempted to divide categorize the advantages and disadvantages.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Advantages: 2 central pawns, Queenside pawn storm, and Strong exchange sacrifices&#xA;Disadvantages: Rapid development from white, Kingside attack from white, and passive looking setup from black&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would highly recommend getting sharper on your tactics if you are intending to play the Sicilian in your games. There are a variety of websites such as Lichess and Chess.com where you can do this. The Sicilian defense often leads to razor-sharp positions. Learn from people who play the Sicilian defense against you as well. Wish you the best of luck!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21014" LastActivityDate="2020-01-02T13:43:08.827" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27776" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-01-02T14:19:20.987" Score="9" ViewCount="3764" Body="&lt;p&gt;Who is the best chess player with Down Syndrome? Wiki says that the mental ability of a person with Down Syndrome equals to this of a healthy person 8 or 9 years old. So, are there some players with this syndrome, as there are many admirable healthy players at the age of 8-9?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the elo ceiling in that case? Is it possible a &quot;Magnus Carlsen with Down Syndrome&quot; to get in 2000 or 2200 elo?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What about other types of intellectual disabilities?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20863" LastEditorUserId="12629" LastEditDate="2020-01-18T18:22:03.993" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T16:47:02.250" Title="Best chess player with Down Syndrome" Tags="&lt;psychology&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27777" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27776" CreationDate="2020-01-02T14:58:13.787" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are a lot of titled players with high functioning autism.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One known is GM David Navara, but there are others. &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/forum/view/chess-players/did-bobby-fischer-have-aspergers-syndrome&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;It is discussed if Bobby Fischer was Asperger too&lt;/a&gt;. There was a buzzing Magnus Carlsen was autistic too, but &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.quora.com/Is-Magnus-Carlsen-autistic&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;looks false according to Quora&lt;/a&gt;. Another example of GM that looks to be autistic is GM Julio Granda from Peru.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for Down Syndrome, they have not the abilities an Asperger has, but they can learn how to play chess competitively.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Subramaniam Karaan, from India, &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.thehindu.com/features/metroplus/society/this-21yearold-with-down-syndrome-faces-every-challenge-head-on/article7641773.ece&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;has Down Syndrome&lt;/a&gt;, and &lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/card.phtml?event=5096812&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;he is rated 1806 when I write on FIDE list&lt;/a&gt;. He is also rated 1832 in blitz, and &lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/id.phtml?event=5096812&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;was close to reach 2000 in 2015&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user18196" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T16:47:02.250" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T16:47:02.250" CommentCount="15" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27778" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27710" CreationDate="2020-01-02T15:05:58.167" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Pseudocode to iteratively compute morphy number.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;assume you have a database with a table plays of two columns x and y where a row indicates two indeviduals who have played one another.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;_morphy = {}&#xA;def Morphy(name):&#xA;&#xA;   if name == 'Morphy':&#xA;      return 0&#xA;&#xA;   if name in _morphy:&#xA;      return _morphy[name]&#xA;&#xA;   _morphy[name] = math.inf&#xA;   score = math.inf&#xA;   results = execute(select x, y from plays where x=name or y=name)&#xA;   for x, y in results:&#xA;      if x == name:&#xA;         score = min(score, Morphy(y) + 1)&#xA;      elif y == name:&#xA;         score = min(score, Morphy(x) + 1)&#xA;&#xA;   _morphy[name] = score&#xA;   return score&#xA;&#xA;print(Morphy('Jar Jar Binks'))&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21068" LastEditorUserId="21068" LastEditDate="2020-01-02T15:20:08.490" LastActivityDate="2020-01-02T15:20:08.490" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27779" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27780" CreationDate="2020-01-02T17:24:55.397" Score="2" ViewCount="141" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am looking at 1.c4 Nf6 2.g3 d5 3.Bg2 dxc4 4.Nf3 and Chessbase's Powerbook 2019 only proposes 4...c6, 4...g6, 4...a6, 4...Nbd7, 4...Qd6 or 4...Be6 whereas Fritz 17 64bits latest update using Stockfish 10 64bits finds this line :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/wSYIF.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/wSYIF.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.c4 Nf6 2.g3 d5 3.Bg2 dxc4 4.Nf3 Nc6 5.Qa4 Nd7 6.Qxc4 e5 7.O-O Be7 8.b3 Nb6 9.Qc2 O-O 10.Bb2 Nb4 11.Qc3 f6 12.a3 Nc6 13.d3 Be6 14.Nbd2 Qd7 15.Rac1 Rfd8 16.Qc2 a5 17.Rfd1 Bd5 18.Re1 Bf7 19.Ne4 h6 20.Nfd2 Be6 21.Red1 Bd5 22.Nc5 Bxc5 23.Qxc5 Bxg2 24.Kxg2 Kh8&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Either the quality of the Powerbook 2019 is not that high, either Stockfish 10 64bits is cracking, which I doubt. Am I right or do I miss a parameter ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20949" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-30T18:25:18.667" LastActivityDate="2020-03-30T18:25:18.667" Title="Early line in english opening not in the chessbase powerbook 2019 but seen by stockfish 10 64bits under latest fritz" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;chessbase&gt;&lt;english-opening&gt;&lt;fritz&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27780" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27779" CreationDate="2020-01-02T17:33:03.247" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I also have PowerBook 2019, and Stockfish 10, and I can confirm what you found, but there is an explanation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The moves suggested in the PowerBook are from actual human games. They are intended, specifically, to give the computer a human opening book, rather than it just playing on its own. You will find these games in the database Powergames2019 that came with the product.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This goes back to the old days, when computers were not as strong as they are today. It was then beneficial to have a human opening book. Today, one could make the argument that it is not so necessary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S. For the record, Masters have a natural proclivity not to block the c-pawn, either as white or black in closed openings since you need to play c5 so often to try and free your game. That is the reason the Chigorin is not so popular.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2020-01-02T17:33:03.247" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27781" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27779" CreationDate="2020-01-02T17:44:52.737" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;All engine/computer combinations have different strengths/weaknesses. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That is a relatively  minor line and 5 .. Bd7 is better than Nf7 and was played by Bistric vs. Mestrovic ½-½ in 2001.   Looks more like a difference in the opening databases as much as anything else.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or it could be a slight improvement to a weaker variation because the algorithm or evaluation technique changed.  Whether it is enough to help a GM win with is another issue.  I suspect other factors would determine the outcome of the game more than the engine or computer. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastActivityDate="2020-01-02T17:44:52.737" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27782" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17012" CreationDate="2020-01-02T17:55:13.827" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It depends.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;One key is having the wrong parents and not being smart enough or being naturally capable of  playing at a high level. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other factors would be when did they start learning?&#xA;How effectively were the training materials they chose?&#xA;How determined were they to improve?&#xA;How much time did they use for their training. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other factors would also come in but those are major ones determining  how fast and how far someone can go with their chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastActivityDate="2020-01-02T17:55:13.827" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27783" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19554" CreationDate="2020-01-02T18:01:16.290" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It all depends on the quality of the experience. And also the frequency although quality is more important. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Playing vs the strongest engine will not help you learn and improve as much as more focused training will.  You need to play someone/thing slightly better than you to improve. Playing GMs won't help you learn unless they are also giving you lessons AT THE LEVEL you can understand and use. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Perfect practice makes perfect.  Making the same mistakes over and over will not help you improve.  Most players get to their level and stay there until they get old. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One old chess publication had an article saying that to improve you should give up playing for a year.  Focus on learning that actually helps you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Playing is a minor part of improving.  You need to focus on learning basic tactics, end games, and slightly more advanced ideas such as pawn structure, positional play, as well as openings.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastActivityDate="2020-01-02T18:01:16.290" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27784" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-01-02T18:11:10.817" Score="-6" ViewCount="132" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is good advice and what were myths and whizdumb of the internet that kept you from improving as much/fast as you could have?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Play more games?&#xA;NO!  Focused training helps more than playing random games.&#xA;Perfect practice makes perfect not making unpunished mistakes against other weak players. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Studying more openings?&#xA;NO.&#xA;You need to focus on one opening for white and black.  And MASTER them.  Learning lots of openings gives you more openings with less ability in each of them.  END GAMES will help more than learning more openings.  And tactics are also needed to help play middle games better when using a clock. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-01-08T18:14:17.987" LastActivityDate="2020-01-08T18:14:17.987" Title="Myths and conventional WhizDumb of the internet" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;learning&gt;&lt;training&gt;&lt;study&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="12" ClosedDate="2020-01-02T23:19:48.843" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27785" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27786" CreationDate="2020-01-02T18:12:26.430" Score="3" ViewCount="271" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;3Q4/8/k7/5p2/q2p1Pp1/2p3P1/K1P5/3R4 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I recently started playing chess and was doing some puzzles online. It says that this move is checkmate but I don't see why white can't move to b1. Can someone please explain?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21069" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-01-02T18:27:00.177" LastActivityDate="2021-03-04T02:41:00.940" Title="Is this checkmate?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;checkmate&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27786" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27785" CreationDate="2020-01-02T18:19:54.240" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, the white king can still move to b1.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That said, Kb1 Qb4+; any Qb2 is mate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;3Q4/8/k7/5p2/q2p1Pp1/2p3P1/K1P5/3R4 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. Kb1 Qb4+ 2. Ka2 Qb2# &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2020-01-02T18:19:54.240" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27789" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27448" CreationDate="2020-01-02T19:47:25.963" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Short answer is: In Classical Chess you are forbidden to put (or leave) your king in check (if you can't avoid it, you lose).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's exactly the reason you can't put your king in check merrily (even in the event you think you can win by leaving your king in check &quot;just for a moment&quot;) because you'd need an immediate second move to take it from danger (a second move that you don't have since in classical chess you can make only one move per turn).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, in the example you show, the above mentioned rule &lt;strong&gt;applies&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;em&gt;even if the offending piece (in this case a pawn) is pinned.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason is, the king is the only piece that never leaves the checkboard (can't be &quot;captured&quot;), so there's no need for the offending piece to take possession of the square the king is in (as it happens when capturing). In other words, immovility caused by the pin in this case is &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; a limiting issue and the above rule (&lt;em&gt;&quot;no king in check because&quot;&lt;/em&gt;) prevails.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(TBH long time ago I made myself this identical question ;-) )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21070" LastActivityDate="2020-01-02T19:47:25.963" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27791" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27784" CreationDate="2020-01-02T22:54:29.407" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think that the biggest myth about chess is the one that you actually pointed out in your question. I am talking about the one about learning openings before learning endgames. I am a strong believer that endgames contribute much to your play than openings and openings. As the great chess player Capablanca pointed out that Endgames can be studied independently while Openings and the Middlegame must be studied with the knowledge of a possible ending. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21014" LastActivityDate="2020-01-02T22:54:29.407" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27792" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-01-02T22:59:48.300" Score="9" ViewCount="832" Body="&lt;p&gt;In point 3 of &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/17019&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; answer RemcoGerlich implies that a good way to improve, for a class player, would be to develop the skill of “[taking] any position and [figuring] out what’s going on”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems to me this is the kind of observation that has been made quite often before. Is there any kind of resource that provides a collection of positions for this purpose? Preferably ordered by difficulty and with some annotations to check your own analysis against.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Clearly, there are books about the middlegame but the ones that I know talk about various topics in isolation (providing positions which revolve solely around the topic of that chapter) and not about general analysis. (Not that I would like such a collection of positions to only include middlegame positions but this example comes the closest to what I have in mind.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am also not looking for tactical puzzles. There are plenty of books and apps that provide them. In case of a tactical puzzle it’s very clear what’s going on in the position: there’s an immediately winning tactic. (Or sometimes a single drawing move. But mostly it’s clearly one or the other.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Annotated games could possibly be used for this, but it’s not trivial to select the positions that would be of interest for this without reading the annotations. Also, the strategical themes wouldn’t change so often during a single game so the amount of practice positions derived from an annotated game is quite low relative to the effort required to find them – clearly a selection by a renowned chess teacher would be far superior.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ideally, I’m looking for a collection of positions that are decidedly not tactical and that have various strategical themes in them so the reader may analyse and evaluate the position, afterwards checking with the provided annotations. They don’t need to have a clear best move, it would be enough to just try and find all important themes and get a good sense of which side is better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="674" LastEditorUserId="674" LastEditDate="2020-01-03T11:16:44.507" LastActivityDate="2020-01-03T18:23:45.060" Title="Is there some resource of non-tactical positions to practice analysing?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;learning&gt;&lt;evaluation&gt;&lt;study&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="7" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27793" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27792" CreationDate="2020-01-02T23:19:31.403" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I looked at my library, and opened up a number of books. The old Dvoretsky books really do not do this much, but the &quot;School of Future Champions&quot; and &quot;School of Chess Excellence&quot; series do have many sections that just say &quot;white (or black) to play&quot;, and nothing more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other Dvoretsky books that do that significantly are &quot;Recognizing Your Opponent's Resources&quot;, which has 154 such examples. Also, &quot;Chess Lessons&quot; and &quot;Maneuvering: The Art of Piece Play&quot;. That said, all of Dvoretsky's books are quite advanced, and you need to be above 2000 OTB, preferably 2200, to really benefit. His last book, &quot;Chess Tests&quot;, was nothing but positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A couple of other tough books, but not as tough as Dvoretsky, are the classic &quot;The Best Move&quot; by Hort and Jansa, and &quot;Test Your Chess Skills&quot; by Sarhan Guliev and Logman Guliev. Again, both are a bit advanced, but still OK for a wider range of players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My recommendation for most players are two outstanding series of books. The Yusupov series &quot;Build up/Boost/Chess Evolution&quot;. There are 10 books in the series, and in each one, there is a lesson, and then a series of 12 test exercises for each lesson with just who is to move. The first four books are not simple, but they are accessible to players of a very wide range of OTB ratings. They get harder after that. This series is like having your own former top-10 GM as your teacher.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The other is the Jacob Aagaard series &quot;Grandmaster preparation&quot;. There are 6 in this series, and there are many problems within each book. One of these books is even called &quot;Grandmaster Preparation - Calculation&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Start with the first four Yusupov books, and go from there, is my recommendation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S. The Yusupov books cover everything, from opening to tactics, to endgames, to positional play, as you specifically asked about.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.P.S. NoseKnowsAll mentioned Silman below, and Silman posts a lot of articles he writes on chess.com. While not all are position-related, he does a lot about pawn structures, and other positions. You can find them &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/member/silman&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; (click &quot;More&quot; at the bottom to see more of his articles to find the ones you want).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-01-03T01:47:23.307" LastActivityDate="2020-01-03T01:47:23.307" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27794" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27792" CreationDate="2020-01-03T01:54:04.920" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am currently working through &lt;code&gt;Karpov Move by Move&lt;/code&gt;  One nice thing about this books is that it stops to ask a question sometimes.  Often the question is &quot;how do you access this position&quot;  and then goes on to discuss that answer.  And of course reviewing Karpovs games is helpful for anyone thinking about positional play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17425" LastActivityDate="2020-01-03T01:54:04.920" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27795" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1609" CreationDate="2020-01-03T04:35:58.067" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a nice story attached to the 1960 Tal-Botwinnik match. They adjourned after 40 moves and began analysing the game so far. Botwinnik had got his Queen offside and Tal had numerous exciting sacrifices to look at but had not played any of them. In the analysis, Tal was trying to find out if any of them would have worked, but noticed after a while that Botwinnik was not contributing much to this. Eventually he said, Mikhail, you were not looking at this were you? and Botwinnik replied No, I was working out that I wanted to exchange Rooks but not Queens. None of the answers here mentions anything like this. Everyone starts with a move and calculates forward. Botwinnik started with a goal and worked backwards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastActivityDate="2020-01-03T04:35:58.067" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27796" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27800" CreationDate="2020-01-03T11:36:45.530" Score="13" ViewCount="2609" Body="&lt;p&gt;I see players in international tournaments taking pieces in the following fashion: first they take off the board the piece they intend to take, and only then, with the same hand, they move their taking piece in the square occupied by the removed piece (except in en passant, of course).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was taught to take pieces using a single hand movement instead: I move my taking piece to the square of the piece to be taken and remove that in the same time putting it off the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since I think that the first method is more time consuming, I am assuming that it is the only legal method to take pieces, while mine must be illegal. Am I wrong? Or does it depend on the particular policy of each tournament?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2690" LastEditorUserId="18475" LastEditDate="2020-01-05T22:31:15.343" LastActivityDate="2021-01-16T15:43:49.027" Title="What is the correct hand movement to capture a piece?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;captures&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27797" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27796" CreationDate="2020-01-03T12:30:49.900" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe either way is fine.  I have seen both, but not in blitz.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;FIDE&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;4.6 When, as a legal move or part of a legal move, a piece has been released on a square, it cannot be moved to another square on this move. The move is then considered to have been made:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;a. in the case of a capture, when the captured piece has been removed&#xA;  from the chessboard and the player, having placed his own piece on its&#xA;  new square, has released this capturing piece from his hand&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17425" LastActivityDate="2020-01-03T12:30:49.900" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27798" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27796" CreationDate="2020-01-03T12:46:20.103" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to the &lt;a href=&quot;https://old.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=208&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Laws of Chess&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;4.1 Each move must be played with one hand only.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In other words, the &quot;correct&quot; hand movement is one which uses only one hand. The order in which the opponent's piece is removed and the player's own piece moved to the capturing square is irrelevant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that once the captured piece has left the board it doesn't matter which hand is used to place it on the side. It is perfectly legal, for instance, to lift the piece from the board with the right hand, immediately transfer it to the left hand and carry it to the side of the board with the left hand whilst simultaneously moving the capturing piece to the capture square with the right hand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Something similar applies with promotion. The promoted piece must be placed on the board with the same hand that removes the pawn from the board but it is perfectly legal to pick up a queen, say, with one hand whilst removing the pawn with the other and to transfer the queen from one hand to the other before placing it on the promotion square.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-01-03T12:46:20.103" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27800" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27796" CreationDate="2020-01-03T14:33:07.543" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;Short answer: Their movement is cleaner than yours, but not more legal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Longer: When you shove aside a piece with your capturing piece, it risks affecting the placement of the pieces around it. It also risks accidentally causing you to touch other pieces, bringing some other conflict into the game. So, all things considered, your way risks causing more issues than their way, but neither way is more legal than the other.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="657" LastActivityDate="2020-01-03T14:33:07.543" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27801" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21366" CreationDate="2020-01-03T16:03:04.160" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Correctly made premoves save a lot of time. In addition, best bullet players just have a better neurological makeup - meaning faster decision-making and reflexes - than us, mere mortals, do. You also need to have a good mouse and fast internet. For some insights of what it takes to win in blitz and bullet at the high level just watch, for example, Nakamura's streams on Youtube.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15509" LastActivityDate="2020-01-03T16:03:04.160" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27802" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27762" CreationDate="2020-01-03T17:09:58.750" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Fun concept! I think you can at least retract a couple of moves from your extended example: R: 1. a5-a4 a2-a3 2. a6-a5 fxRg3 3. fxNe6 Nf8xRe6+&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8201" LastActivityDate="2020-01-03T17:09:58.750" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27803" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1609" CreationDate="2020-01-03T17:40:13.030" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is what I do after I get out of preparation: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Check for threats against me&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;If none or I judge them to be insignificant:&#xA;      Look for weaknesses in the opponents position and then look for tactics to attack them&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;If none:&#xA;      Move a or h pawn (to create weaknesses and per Aronyan's advice: &quot;If you don't know what to move, move a or h pawn&quot;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;If, for physical, tactical, or positional reasons 3. is not available, improve king safety.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15509" LastEditorUserId="15509" LastEditDate="2020-01-03T18:51:30.823" LastActivityDate="2020-01-03T18:51:30.823" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27804" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27792" CreationDate="2020-01-03T18:23:45.060" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have found Silman's Lessons in Strategy 1 and 2, available at &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/lessons/strategy&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chess.com&lt;/a&gt; quite good. They do contain some &quot;tactics&quot; as well, but similar to as in a real game, you wouldn't know which positions have a tactical or a strategical solution. Besides, you might also be required to analyze whether the position resulting from the tactic will result in a strategic advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The other lessons on chess.com are probably also quite good, but I prefer Silman's, as they provide thorough analysis both of the wrong and the correct moves, contrary to many of the other lessons.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21065" LastActivityDate="2020-01-03T18:23:45.060" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27806" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27796" CreationDate="2020-01-03T19:46:11.583" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Either method is completely fine, do whichever you're more comfortable with. There are a few &quot;pros&quot; and &quot;cons&quot; of each, but they're more or less non-factors:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Taking the piece you intend to capture off first may look more &quot;precise&quot;, since the other way involves scraping the pieces together. There's also the small issue of touch move. What if at the very last minute you change your mind? If you've touched your piece first, you'll have to move that piece somewhere. Meanwhile, if you've touched your opponent's piece first, you'll have to capture it (with either the piece you intended or another piece, if one's available). In such a scenario, the method you use will probably give you a higher degree of freedom on average.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2020-01-03T19:46:11.583" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27807" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21366" CreationDate="2020-01-03T19:51:58.157" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;When you see moves happening in milliseconds, this is usually do to premoves. Players pre-select the move they want before it's there turn, and the server does their move immediately. I believe it used to take 0.1 seconds before, but now it might be even less time (I'm not too sure).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I've often played out an opening in only 2-3 seconds without premoves. If you know the theory, or it's just a middlegame position that doesn't require any calculation, moves can be played very quickly. Basically muscle memory and instinct. It also helps to hover the piece over the square you want to move it before your opponent makes their move, so all you have to do is drop the piece. Of course, if your opponent is also moving at the same speeds you are, this isn't always possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2020-01-03T19:51:58.157" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27808" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-01-03T20:37:42.167" Score="4" ViewCount="361" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am writing a legal move generator, and the last piece of the puzzle is preventing pinned pieces from being moved such that the king will be in check. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have read a lot of posts here and on stackoverflow and the only answers given seem to be vague references to stockfish's code which I can't seem to decipher or an incomplete explanation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am writing my generator in Python and would really appreciate a detailed explanation of an approach I can take.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21080" LastActivityDate="2020-01-04T00:05:13.900" Title="How to calculate pinned chess moves" Tags="&lt;programming&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27809" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27808" CreationDate="2020-01-03T21:22:10.437" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are two approaches:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) For the piece in question you're considering to move, look at the vector going through it to the king. For example, if they king and the piece are separated horizontally/vertically, look at the line going through it to the king. Is there an enemy rook/queen on this line, such that your piece is currently between it and your king? Or, if the piece is on a diagonal from the king, see if there's an enemy bishop/queen on this diagonal. However, if your piece moves along this vector (and thus continues blocking your king), it's fine. For example, assume your king is on h8, your queen is on e5, and the opponent's bishop is on a1. There's an enemy piece on the a1-h8 vector (which your queen and king are on), so moving the queen off this vector/diagonal is illegal. But moving the queen along the vector (e.g., anywhere from b2 to g7) won't violate the pin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) The simpler approach is a general purpose illegal move checker. Make a list of all pseudo-legal moves, and then check each to see if it results in an illegal position where your king is en prise. This encompasses what you're trying to do with not moving a pinned piece out of the way, since it would result in an illegal position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2020-01-03T21:22:10.437" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27810" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27848" CreationDate="2020-01-03T22:31:54.130" Score="7" ViewCount="233" Body="&lt;p&gt;I happen to be playing a game where I am up in material, but my position is weak (several pieces are trapped and cannot be developed). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have some lines of very slow development I can play where I can't see far enough to know the outcome. I see a line where I can make a substantial material sacrifice but still be up in material, and end in a much better position. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't recall seeing any general rules of thumb that could help me determine if this type of sacrifice would be worth it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there general rules or a resource that could help me understand scenarios like this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2711" LastActivityDate="2020-01-06T16:45:42.773" Title="Is there a set of general rules of material sacrifice?" Tags="&lt;sacrifice&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27811" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27810" CreationDate="2020-01-03T22:52:00.270" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have to be honest: Your question is very strange for a few reasons.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, if your development is that retarded, it is not very likely that you would have such a sacrifice in the first place. In addition, in your hypothetical, you calculate that you would end up in material and position, so of course, you would play it, especially if everything else was as bad as it sounds.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It might be more interesting if you were judging it because it was unsound, but just gives you a shot at fighting back.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are no hard-and-fast rules, but basically, it comes down to pure calculation, especially if you have to sacrifice multiple pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only rule of thumb I can give you is that, assuming you are attacking the opposing king, you count the pieces that are defending, including the king, and count the attackers, or pieces that can be brought into the attack quickly (like a rook lift). You need more attackers than defenders.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2020-01-03T22:52:00.270" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27812" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27808" CreationDate="2020-01-04T00:05:13.900" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;This answer expounds on Inertial Ignorance’s #2. The idea is that you make pseudo-legal moves (moves according to piece movement, not accounting for legality) then check for legality. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The way we’ll do this is by making the move, then looking at the square of the king. Loop through all squares to the right of the king (starting from the closest square) and stop at the first piece. If it’s an opponent’s rook or queen, the move was illegal. Similarly do this for the other directions, including diagonals and knight moves. If it “passes” all the tests, it’s legal (assuming you’ve also checked the other weird rules regarding castling/en passant)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This will give you your first “general” legality check. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Assuming you’re using this to build an engine, this will be something you want to optimize a LOT (though Python really isn’t he language for this). To give you an idea: run through a bunch of games and find the directions which the king is checked from most often, then loop through those directions first.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20581" LastActivityDate="2020-01-04T00:05:13.900" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27813" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27820" CreationDate="2020-01-04T01:52:38.463" Score="8" ViewCount="845" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;2r3k1/5pp1/1q1bpn1p/pB1pN3/P2P4/5R2/1P3PPP/3Q2K1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Rxf6 Qc7 2. Rf3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a puzzle (and its solution) I found on lichess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I simply do not see the expected logic of this puzzle. The Qc7 move doesn't do much from my POV, and refraining from following up with gxf6 also doesn't make sense as that move wins a rook, and while it does open the king up to check, that check doesn't force any other captures, nor does it lead to mate. In fact, when I analyse the game with an engine, it even prefers gxf6 over Qc7.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7438" LastEditorUserId="19465" LastEditDate="2020-01-05T02:28:38.703" LastActivityDate="2020-01-05T02:28:38.703" Title="Why is this the solution to this puzzle?" Tags="&lt;puzzles&gt;&lt;lichess&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27814" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27813" CreationDate="2020-01-04T03:26:12.317" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm going to assume you meant ...Qc7 instead of ...Qc6, since the latter move blunders the queen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After 1...gxf6 2.Qg4+, Black has three moves:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) 2...Kf8 loses the queen to 3.Nd7+.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) 2...Kh7 leads to mate after 3.Bd3+ f5 4.Bxf5+ exf5 5.Qxf5+ Kh8 (5...Kg7 6.Qxf7+ &#xA;Kh8 7.Ng6#) 6.Qf6+ Kg8 7.Qxf7+ Kh8 8.Ng6#.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) 2...Kh8 is Black's best move. After 3.Nxf7+ Kh7, White must play 4.g3 to keep his advantage. In this position White has a knight and pawn for a rook, but Stockfish evaluates as over +4. White's immediate threat is to play Qh5-Qxh6+, but there's also some ideas with Bd7-Bxe6 or Qxe6. You can analyse this position further with your engine if you want.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stockfish thinks 1...Qc7 is very slightly a better move than 1...gxf6, but it basically evaluates them at the same (both are +4 for White). Here such small differences in evaluation aren't that relevant. In a practical game with humans of course 1...gxf6 should be preferred. In the line after 1...Qc7 2.Rf3 Bxe5 3.dxe5 Qxe5, White is up a bishop for a pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, I'm curious about the level of this problem. For line 3 I gave, some calculation after the position I stopped at is still needed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastEditorUserId="12873" LastEditDate="2020-01-05T02:18:15.377" LastActivityDate="2020-01-05T02:18:15.377" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27815" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27816" CreationDate="2020-01-04T09:58:51.880" Score="18" ViewCount="7445" Body="&lt;p&gt;From &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/17102/qn-in-attacking-k&quot;&gt;this question&lt;/a&gt;, the couple queen + knight is strong in attacking the opponent's king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I searched why the knight combines better than the bishop with a queen, and all I could find, from &lt;a href=&quot;https://thechessworld.com/articles/middle-game/when-is-a-knight-better-than-a-bishop/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this article&lt;/a&gt;, is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;Knights cooperate better than bishops with the queen, as the two&#xA;  pieces complement each other and will control the position better.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can you explain why?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user18196" LastEditorUserId="21106" LastEditDate="2020-01-06T14:23:15.440" LastActivityDate="2021-05-20T14:33:40.127" Title="Why does a knight combine better with the queen than a bishop does?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;knights&gt;&lt;queens&gt;&lt;bishops&gt;" AnswerCount="12" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27816" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27815" CreationDate="2020-01-04T10:23:45.330" Score="24" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is a fairly short and simple explanation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They can combine to attack any square, not just squares on one color. As part of that they can also shift the attack better from one square to another.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-01-04T10:25:12.230" LastActivityDate="2020-01-04T10:25:12.230" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27817" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27815" CreationDate="2020-01-04T10:54:53.923" Score="16" Body="&lt;p&gt;One of the ways I teach kids how knights move is to put the queen and the knight on the same square. The knight can go to the nearest squares that the queen can't go to.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is this unique complimentary nature of the two pieces which means that they form such a potent combination. With queen plus any other piece this is missing and there is a duplication of function. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As an aside, something similar applies to the two bishops, although they obviously are always on different coloured squares. This explains why two bishops are generally worth more than 2 x one bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-01-04T10:54:53.923" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27818" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27875" CreationDate="2020-01-04T11:32:18.910" Score="3" ViewCount="635" Body="&lt;p&gt;DroidFish has an rtb folder that should be used for wdl and dtz syzygy endgame tables. For the six pieces tables it represents roughly 80+60Gb and as I my phone has only 64Gb as internal memory, I would like to put the files on a SD card and make DroidFish point to them, but it does not seem to be possible. Is it really the case ? If not, how should I do ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20949" LastActivityDate="2020-01-10T00:17:12.670" Title="DroidFish's rtb folder's file placed somewhere else" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;android&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27819" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27815" CreationDate="2020-01-04T13:54:26.063" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;John Watson's &quot;Secrets of Modern Chess Strategy&quot; contains a section titled &quot;Folklore or Reality? Queens and Knights&quot; John lists some folks that say Queen and Knight are better&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Capablanca&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Shirov&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Silman&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And refers to Steve Meyer's book &quot;Bishop vs Knights&quot; which also says the Queen + Knight is better.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am currently playing through &quot;Karpov move by move&quot; which has &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;..it is well established that queen and knight can create threats more efficiently than queen and bishop&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;John makes a few points.  I will simplify his points here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;examples of the superiority of queen + knight over queen + bishop are usually examples of a better knight and a bad bishop.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Statistical analysis shows a very slight superiority of the queen + knight which can be explained by the stronger side choosing queen + knight in the belief that queen + knight is superior.  that is, the queen + knight side was already winning.  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;John concludes&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;...the idea of the advantage of queen and knight over queen and bishop seems to be one of those folkloric bits of wisdom/mythology of at most extremely limited validity, and quite possibly none whatsoever.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I cannot do justice to John's analysis in this post.  If you like statistical analysis and questioning of accepted wisdom I recommend this book.  I especially enjoyed the section on the two bishops. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17425" LastEditorUserId="17425" LastEditDate="2020-01-04T15:23:32.487" LastActivityDate="2020-01-04T15:23:32.487" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27820" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27813" CreationDate="2020-01-04T17:20:29.313" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a lot more to this, and this is really not a great tactics problem as much as it is a continuing the attack problem. The difference is that with a tactic problem, you can see the result all the way to the end. Other positions, you have just a feel for it, and you know that you are probably winning, but you have to play what you can calculate, you get there, and then you calculate more of the attack. Often, you do this while calculating places you could take a forced draw if it is not working out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A great example of that is the game &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.chessbase.com/post/tactic-blog-oliver-reeh-2020_01_e&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Dubov-Svane (here with copyrighted annotations)&lt;/a&gt;, which I will give below. It was one of the best games of the year.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The move Qc7 is an example of why I am not a fan of online puzzles that have been computer checked, but no strong player has evaluated. After Rf6, if you do not take, you simply lose, and thus, Qc7 is not even an option to consider. The only lines that are important are the ones that include gf, but more importantly, the ones that include Bxe5, which comes closer to defending for a human than any other move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;2r3k1/5pp1/1q1bpn1p/pB1pN3/P2P4/5R2/1P3PPP/3Q2K1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. Rxf6 Bxe5 {This may be the most testing try in practice.} (1... gxf6 2. Qg4+ Kh7 (2... Kh8 3. Nxf7+ Kh7 4. g3 {The threat is Qe6.} Bb8 5. Qh4 Kg7 6. Qxh6+ Kxf7 7. Qh7+ Kf8 8. Qh8+ Kf7 9. Qxc8 $18) (2... Kf8 $2 3. Nd7+ Ke7 4. Nxb6 Rc1+ 5. Bf1 $18 {This is obviously important to see.}) 3. Bd3+ f5 4. Bxf5+ exf5 5. Qxf5+ Kh8 6. Qf6+ Kh7 7. Qxf7+ Kh8 8. Ng6#) 2. dxe5 gxf6 3. exf6 Kf8 (3... Kh8 4. Qd2 Kh7 5. Bd3+ Kg8 6. Qxh6 $18) (3... Kh7 4. Qd3+ Kh8 5. Qd2 Kh7 6. Bd3+ Kg8 7. Qxh6 $18) 4. Qd2 Rc6 5. Qxh6+ Ke8 6. g3 d4 {It is clear that that is heading to a queend ending, so maybe d4 would give some counter-chances under slightly more favorable circumstances.} 7. Qh7 d3 8. Qg8+ Kd7 9. Qxf7+ Kc8 10. Qg8+ Kb7 (10... Kc7 11. Qg7+ Kb8 (11... Kd6 12. Qe7+ Ke5 13. Bxc6 Qxc6 14. f7 d2 15. Qg5+ Ke4 16. Qe3+ Kd5 17. Qxd2+ $18) 12. Bxc6 Qxc6 13. f7 $18) 11. Bxc6+ Qxc6 12. Qh7+ Kb6 13. Qxd3 {There are other lines in here, but this line represents a moves that try to fight back until it is finally over totally.}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is that fantastic attack my Danil Dubov, which illustrates my point. Dubov most likely did not see everything from move 22 through to move 39, but rather, he saw chunks at a time, and there were probably places he could have bailed out with a draw. This type of attack, while containing tactics, is not one big tactic. I would describe the problem above in the same way, assuming that black played the best practical defense with 1...Bxe5 trying to keep equal material while trading off the key Ne5 attacker.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [Event &quot;EU-chT 22nd&quot;]&#xA; [Site &quot;Batumi&quot;]&#xA; [Date &quot;2019.10.31&quot;]&#xA; [Round &quot;7.4&quot;]&#xA; [White &quot;Dubov, Daniil&quot;]&#xA; [Black &quot;Svane, Rasmus&quot;]&#xA; [Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA; [ECO &quot;D37&quot;]&#xA; [WhiteElo &quot;2699&quot;]&#xA; [BlackElo &quot;2592&quot;]&#xA; [PlyCount &quot;77&quot;]&#xA; [EventDate &quot;2019.10.24&quot;]&#xA; [EventType &quot;team-swiss&quot;]&#xA; [EventRounds &quot;9&quot;]&#xA; [EventCountry &quot;GEO&quot;]&#xA; [WhiteTeam &quot;Russia&quot;]&#xA; [BlackTeam &quot;Germany&quot;]&#xA; [WhiteTeamCountry &quot;RUS&quot;]&#xA; [BlackTeamCountry &quot;GER&quot;]&#xA; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. c4 e6 2. Nc3 d5 3. d4 Nf6 4. Nf3 Be7 5. Bf4 O-O 6. e3 b6 7. Qc2 Ba6 8. O-O-O dxc4 9. Ng5 Nc6 10. a3 g6 11. h4 Bd6 12. g3 Qe7 13. h5 e5 14. hxg6 hxg6 15. Bg2 exf4 16. Bxc6 fxg3 17. Kb1 Rad8 18. f4 Bc8 19. Rde1 Kg7 20. Nd5 Nxd5 21. Rh7+ Kg8 22. Rxf7 Rxf7 23. Qxg6+ Kf8 24. Qh6+ Rg7 25. Bxd5 Ke8 26. Qh5+ Kd7 27. Qh3+ Ke8 28. Qh5+ Kd7 29. Be6+ Kc6 30. Qf3+ Kb5 31. Bxc4+ Ka5 32. Qd5+ Bc5 33. b4+ Ka4 34. Qg2 Bxb4 35. Qc6+ Kxa3 36. Bb3 Bd7 37. Qc1+ Kxb3 38. Qc2+ Ka3 39. Qa2# 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S. The only &quot;logic&quot; to it is that someone, who was not that strong fed it to a computer, and posted only the computer's best moves, but not the ones that would challenge a human the most.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2020-01-04T17:20:29.313" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27821" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27813" CreationDate="2020-01-04T17:37:11.887" Score="-5" Body="&lt;p&gt;It wins a piece.   If you take the rook black gets mated in two more moves else he wins the queen too if you try to avoid the mate. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastActivityDate="2020-01-04T17:37:11.887" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27822" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27796" CreationDate="2020-01-04T20:46:45.457" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The first method that you describe is cleaner, but only after a bit of practice. Therefore, many players use it to convey an intimidating air of experience.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastActivityDate="2020-01-04T20:46:45.457" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27823" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27810" CreationDate="2020-01-04T21:04:50.173" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;As @PhishMaster says, there are no hard-and-fast rules, and it does all come down to calculation, but everyone, of any strength, encounters situations beyond their ability to calculate. They then fall back on intuition, and rules of thumb. One of those rules says that activity, as opposed to material gain, is often more valuable than you think it is. This simply translates to &quot;dont be greedy&quot; and just as in life you have to figure out for yourself what that means. So make the scrifice or dont, but in either case try to learn from the outcome. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastActivityDate="2020-01-04T21:04:50.173" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27824" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27815" CreationDate="2020-01-04T21:09:03.607" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Steve Meyer, in his book Bishop v Knight, concludes the final chapter of the book, &quot;Capablanca's Theorem – ♕+♘ is better than ♕+♗ in the Ending&quot;, as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Verdict:&lt;/strong&gt; Capablanca's intuitive insight into the advantage of queen and knight vs queen and bishop in the ending is correct. While general positional methods of evaluation are still important, the attacking force of the queen and knight can be very fierce, particularly in blocked positions or those featuring fewer pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But John Watson, in his book &quot;Secrets of Modern Chess Strategy&quot;, chapter &quot;Minor-Piece Issues&quot; claims that the examples are one-sided. He continues:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;My own view, just from looking at a lot of examples, is as follows:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  a) an unusually large proportion of ♕+♘ vs ♕+♗ games are drawn;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  b) most games which are won by either side, as in the examples mentioned above, are characterized by that side having one or more rather obvious other advantages&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, and this might make the theorem a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy, he notes:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;One proviso I have already noted above is that the side with the queen and knight (in the pure ♕+♘ vs ♕+♗ case) tended to be a bit stronger, for whatever reason. That alone might account for the small statistical edge for the ♕+♘. Moreover, as explained in the Introduction to this book, a perception of the superiority of queen and knight may well lead players who are in already advantageous but complex positions to convert them into what they view as a safer ♕+♘ vs ♕+♗ advantage. This would skew the percentages in favour of the ♕+♘.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2020-01-04T21:09:03.607" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27825" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27810" CreationDate="2020-01-04T23:33:48.137" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You sacrifice material to gain an edge in position that is worth more than the material.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mate is often the motivator for much sacrificing of material.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tactics where you regain the material plus more material andor more positional advantage may  occur.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Least often would be for just positional advantage, although it does happen.  This might be in a mostly closed position where a rook is sacrificed for a knight.  That leads to essentially a material imbalance which could lead to an easier win.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Very rarely but top players &lt;em&gt;might&lt;/em&gt; give up a little material for more space or advantage in time.  But this takes careful analysis to be sure the advantage does not disappear.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They say a pawn is worth 3 tempi.  But only if you use them to good effect. More likely to work in open positions where tactics will rule rather than a closed position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the example of the OP you seem to be on the other side of that sacrifice to gain positional advantage.  If you can't see how to just develop and win then perhaps you are going to be mated and just cannot see it yet.   It seems really odd that you are up so much that you can make a 'substantial' sacrifice and still be ahead.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Was it really a sacrifice or just two very low rated players playing badly and your opponent played worse (unless he does have a mate!).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why did your opponent sacrifice so much material and just how did he bottle up your pieces so you cannot develop them easily?  How did you let that happen in the first place?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We need more info.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;It would help a lot if you posted the position in question. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastActivityDate="2020-01-04T23:33:48.137" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27826" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27815" CreationDate="2020-01-05T02:36:06.470" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;A knight and queen complement each other because they each do what the other can't. The queen can move like a rook and bishop combined, but it can't move in L-shapes and jump over other pieces. The logic here is that a bishop or rook can't help the queen so much since a queen can already move like them, but the knight has something the queen doesn't.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, it's a big generalization to say a knight is always better than a queen for working with a bishop. In close quarters combat (say when being close to the enemy king), a knight is indeed better with the queen. But in an open game in general, a bishop can be better simply by being worth slightly more than a knight in general. The point is that Queen + Knight can be better when trying to accomplish a short-term attacking goal, where range isn't an issue.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2020-01-05T02:36:06.470" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27827" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9446" CreationDate="2020-01-05T10:22:04.310" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Exeter chess club provides a good overview of all the systems against the English &lt;a href=&quot;https://exeterchessclub.org.uk/content/ideas-behind-english-opening&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://exeterchessclub.org.uk/content/ideas-behind-english-opening&lt;/a&gt; .. including some positional setups:&#xA;* Reversed Closed Sicilian&#xA;* with Semi-Slav pawn structure (as an alternative)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21087" LastActivityDate="2020-01-05T10:22:04.310" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27828" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27815" CreationDate="2020-01-05T13:00:15.860" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;One way to look at it is this: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;If you add bishops to a queen, you are adding to an ability that she already possesses, which is attacking on diagonals (which is a 45 deg attack).&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Bishops practice their abilities each over its own color.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Bishops cannot protect one another directly.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If one bishop is captured, then the &quot;union&quot; of the bishops and queen is damaged greatly, since now the minor piece can only assist on &lt;em&gt;one color&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;If you add knights to a queen, you are adding an ability that she does not possess, the L attack (which is attacking at about 60 or 30 deg).&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Knights practice their abilities on both colors, attacking one color at a time.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Knights can protect one another.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If one knight is captured, the minor piece can still assist on both colors.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21088" LastActivityDate="2020-01-05T13:00:15.860" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27829" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27854" CreationDate="2020-01-06T00:54:55.067" Score="2" ViewCount="2925" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have faced &lt;code&gt;1...c6&lt;/code&gt; as a reply to my &lt;code&gt;1.d4&lt;/code&gt; quite a few times recently, and this makes me wonder why people play this as oppose to &lt;code&gt;1...d5&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In addition to playing the Slav with &lt;code&gt;2.c4&lt;/code&gt;, I have an option of playing the Caro-Kann with &lt;code&gt;2.e4&lt;/code&gt;, so I have an extra option and black has nothing in return that I can see.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;1...c6&lt;/code&gt; happens at top level, but fairly rarely (9th most popular response, behind &lt;code&gt;1...Nc6&lt;/code&gt; according to lichess database).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why do some players choose this move order?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="307" LastActivityDate="2020-01-06T20:57:10.743" Title="What does black achieve with 1.d4 c6?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;caro-kann&gt;&lt;slav-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27830" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27829" CreationDate="2020-01-06T01:05:13.073" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;You're right that players who choose 1...c6 must be fine with the Caro-Kann, which is one reason why it's not that popular. However, there are some people who are fine with the Caro-Kann, and so the move gets played occasionally. In the case of 2.c4, there aren't many benefits I can see for Black. He has the option of playing a la King's Indian with ...Nf6, ...d6, etc, but it wasn't necessary to start with 1...c6 to do this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There may be some minor benefits to 1...c6, but they're not obvious to me. This is why the move isn't played often.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2020-01-06T01:05:13.073" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27831" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24411" CreationDate="2020-01-06T01:35:15.813" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Actually, the rest of the game did not go well for White. It seems to me that Na4 was a bit optimistic. White was hoping to play a gambit but does not really have enough initiative to justify playing on a pawn down, so if he does give up a pawn he must try to regain it. Putting the N on a4 gives the pawn but makes it harder to regain. Black then grabs the pawn and White then neither regains it nor develops any initiative. As various people have said, Bb2 does have its merits, but perhaps only as the better prospect in a position already a bit inferior.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastActivityDate="2020-01-06T01:35:15.813" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27832" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27829" CreationDate="2020-01-06T03:24:10.407" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would add one little thing to Inertial Ignorance's answer: The reason it is so unpopular is probably that the Caro seems more passive than the Slav, and I say this as a long-time Caro player. E4 openings, being more open games, give white more chance to pressure black is what I mean. Still why let your opponent dictate what line you will play when you can be the one to choose?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-01-06T03:43:21.153" LastActivityDate="2020-01-06T03:43:21.153" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27833" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27815" CreationDate="2020-01-06T05:32:02.857" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Knights are harder to defend by pawns. In the rare events that you are attacking an open K, Q+B is equally lethal as Q+N. However two connected pawns can hold Q+B for a few turns or until new attackers come while Q+N has a higher chance to penetrate on their own.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7002" LastActivityDate="2020-01-06T05:32:02.857" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27834" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27836" CreationDate="2020-01-06T08:01:54.090" Score="6" ViewCount="878" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numeric_Annotation_Glyphs&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Numeric Annotation Glyphs&lt;/a&gt;, or NAGs for short, are tokens defined by &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.saremba.de/chessgml/standards/pgn/pgn-complete.htm#c10&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;the PGN standard&lt;/a&gt; to allow concise annotation of moves. They consist of a dollar sign ($) followed by a number, e.g. $1 means &quot;good move&quot; (like !), $22 means &quot;white is in zugzwang&quot;, and $115 means &quot;black has played the middlegame very poorly&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That said, I have never seen them actually being used in practice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question: Are NAGs actually used at all?&lt;/strong&gt; Publications, engines, books, software, does anything or anyone out there actually make use of these today?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Clarification: I know certain software &lt;em&gt;support&lt;/em&gt; NAGs, but that's just it: providing support, and not actually using them in practice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15989" LastActivityDate="2020-01-06T15:13:20.433" Title="Does anything actually use numeric annotation glyphs (NAGs)?" Tags="&lt;pgn&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27835" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23385" CreationDate="2020-01-06T09:15:54.340" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can get a good free offline analysis tool (for Windows 10 only) from here&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://sourceforge.net/projects/pgn-chessbook/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;PGN ChessBook&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which comes with the Stockfish analysis engine built in. &#xA;It has some good tools for finding blunders and automatically annotating games, as described on&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://pgnchessbook.org/gamesfindblunders/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Blunder check features&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A good free cross platform offline tool, also from SourceForge is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://sourceforge.net/projects/chessx/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;ChessX&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which has been around for years, and personally I find its easier to use than &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://sourceforge.net/projects/scid/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Scid&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which is the most popular because it has so many useful features.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19786" LastEditorUserId="19786" LastEditDate="2020-01-06T09:52:37.513" LastActivityDate="2020-01-06T09:52:37.513" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27836" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27834" CreationDate="2020-01-06T10:39:31.920" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, ChessBase does more than just support them, it definitely uses them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since I got here, due to how I write notation, de instead of dxe4, for example, I used to have problems getting the FEN board here to work. Now, I have figured it out, but I still input my answer into a ChessBase board first, including annotations, and then Home&gt;Copy Game, paste it here, edit the header information as needed, format the header as needed by this site, and remove a few extraneous spaces that the copy process adds.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is no symbol for &quot;$115 means &quot;black has played the middlegame very poorly&quot; in ChessBase, but those other common symbols are definitely in my pasted PGN.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I created this totally bogus game, but it shows what it looks like when properly formatted, and then the original PGN with NAGs. This was copied from ChessBase, and I just needed to remove spaces that appear when pasting. It is interesting that the last one, $143 did not work as did not the ones at move 4...f5 and 5. Nxf5. Maybe this PGN reader on SEC does not support all of them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. e4 $1 $14 e5 $4 2. d4 $13 exd4 $22 3. Nf3 $8 Nc6 $3 4. Nxd4 $40 f5 $44 5. Nxf5 $138 d5 $32 6. exd5 $146 Ne5 $132 7. Bb5+ $140 (7. Be2 $142) (7. Bc4 $143)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;e4 $1 $14 e5 $4 2. d4 $13 exd4 $22 3. Nf3 $8 Nc6 $3 4. Nxd4 $40 f5 $44 5.&#xA;Nxf5 $138 d5 $32 6. exd5 $146 Ne5 $132 7. Bb5+ $140 (7. Be2 $142) (7. Bc4 $143)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2020-01-06T10:39:31.920" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27837" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24411" CreationDate="2020-01-06T13:13:51.487" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;After 8. Nxb6 axb6, white is more or less forced to play 9. Bb2 anyway. With the bishop gone, d4 is no longer hanging, but after other moves, 9. ... Nxb4 could be a threat due to the pin of the a-pawn (10. axb4 Rxa1). (Of course 9. c3 would also prevent Nxb4, but that is clearly inferior)&#xA;After 9. Bb2, Black will make his 9th move, which could be 9. ... Nf6, 9. ... Nce7, 9. ... Nge7 etc. (though the last one looks quite bad now, because the knight on c6 has nowhere to go).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If white plays 8. Bb2 first, black of course cannot reply 8. ... axb6. He can also not prevent 9. Nxb6, so he will make another move. 8. ... Nge7 and 8. ... Nf6 look reasonable, possibly also 8. Nce7 (although d5 might be an idea for white - however as you can see these are the same moves black would have to consider on his 9th move if white took right away). &#xA;Anyway white can now see how black continues, and then decide whether or not to take the bishop on the next move. In the game, 8. ... Nf6 happened, after which white decided not to take the bishop. This is reasonable, because taking the bishop right away is better after Nge7. He didn't even take after 9. c4 a6, although 10. Nxb6 axb6, as pointed out by Brian, is probably an option. After 10. g3 however he got a very good game due to the useless black bishops, but on his 13th move, white blundered with a strange rook move (13. Ra2??) that doesn't seem to make any sense (13. Nac3 followed by Nxe4 would have been the correct idea, or 13. c5 possibly followed by 14. Nac3), and was worse, but later managed to escape into a drawn ending (it is good to know that rook+rook pawn + bishop pawn (on the same wing) vs. rook is usually a draw!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20941" LastActivityDate="2020-01-06T13:13:51.487" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27838" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-01-06T14:27:42.267" Score="4" ViewCount="304" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am about 1400. I was wondering if I should pay for Kasparov's MasterClass, but I am not sure if it is worth the money.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Has anyone bought this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user21006" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-01-08T18:13:45.327" LastActivityDate="2020-01-08T18:13:45.327" Title="What level of player is Kasparov's MasterClass suited for?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;teaching&gt;&lt;kasparov&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27839" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27838" CreationDate="2020-01-06T14:30:24.933" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have seen the materials in the program, and they are for players well below your level of play. I am not sure that they are even for a 1000 player since they are very basic. While he uses positions, they are more about teaching basic terminology and showing various themes, but on a very basic level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, here is one position that you are to find 5 different skewers (Bf3, Bb3, Qg2, Qh1, and Rh5). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;6n1/1r6/8/q2k4/8/7R/7Q/3B1K2 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The most “difficult” problems are really no more than two- or three-move tactics like this one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;5rk1/p3P2p/1p4pb/q7/3N4/1P4Pb/PB3Q1P/6KR b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1... Qe1+ 2. Qxe1 Be3+ 3. Qxe3 Rf1#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The vast majority of these problems are very famous, and can be found in other books. He does give book recommendations, but they are ones that have been recommended here many times already, including by myself. He has some practical advice about how to study, but again, it is mostly common sense that may have seen recommended already right here on SEC.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, Kasparov is great, and if you were much weaker, I would have a different opinion, but my verdict is that you probably would be wasting your money.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2020-01-06T14:30:24.933" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27840" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27841" CreationDate="2020-01-06T14:59:20.373" Score="7" ViewCount="3762" Body="&lt;p&gt;Bobby Fischer:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;e4 -- best by test.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the current theory or trend in theory behind this statement?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We have seen huge strides taken in chess AI in the past two years. How is this affecting opening theory regarding the &quot;best first move&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21088" LastActivityDate="2020-01-06T15:31:59.790" Title="What is the opening value of 1. e4 in 2020?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;1.e4&gt;&lt;fischer&gt;&lt;chess-ai&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27841" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27840" CreationDate="2020-01-06T15:02:33.757" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's still one of the best moves White can play. There's no clear consensus on whether 1.e4 or 1.d4 is better, but it's played frequently at the top level. Due to advancements in theory, I'd say 1.e4 isn't regarded quite as highly as it was in the past, but again it's most likely White's best/second best move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Advancements in AI aren't really affecting theory on the first move. Games from AlphaZero/Leela are good for new ways of thinking in the middlegame or late opening, but they're not changing our fundamental opening understanding.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT - also, technically 1.e4 isn't &quot;best by test&quot; currently. In my database it scores 52.8%, while 1.d4 scores 54.4%. But to be fair, 1.e4 has been played in roughly 1.5 million more games, and the types of players who favour 1.e4/1.d4 may differ.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastEditorUserId="12873" LastEditDate="2020-01-06T15:31:59.790" LastActivityDate="2020-01-06T15:31:59.790" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27842" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27834" CreationDate="2020-01-06T15:13:20.433" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Lichess also uses them. When using the &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/study&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Study&lt;/a&gt; feature of Lichess, you can manually annotate a game with any of these symbols:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Jq6Qw.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Jq6Qw.png&quot; alt=&quot;Screenshot from Lichess study page&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you then export your study or study chapter as a PGN file, it will include the annotations using NAG notation. Only the six traditional suffix annotations (!, ?, !!, ??, !?, ?!) are represented directly, without dollar signs, since PGN also supports that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12523" LastActivityDate="2020-01-06T15:13:20.433" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27843" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27840" CreationDate="2020-01-06T15:13:24.233" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Since 1.e4 and 1.d4 are considered equal by most experts, the value will really depend on your style: If you are a tactical player, you are more likely to get the types of positions that you favor. I am older, and a positional player, so I play 1.d4 for the same reason: I tend to get more positional games, and I am a pretty good positional player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Whether an opening is truly equal, or even if you have a slight advantage, the real advantage is getting a position that you are comfortable with and have experience with, and that your opponent is less comfortable with. If you are in a tactical position, and the position is technically equal, but you stink at tactics, and are sure to make a mistake, it could be thought of as not equal for you, regardless of whether a computer likes it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We see Carlsen all the time just trying to avoid book, and get &quot;his&quot; positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2020-01-06T15:13:24.233" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27844" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27840" CreationDate="2020-01-06T15:29:55.983" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;No. AI has not changed the evaluation of 1pe4. AI is too limited to be able to see far enough into the game to evaluate the first move that accurately. Best you can do is estimate it even with AI.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The best we can do ourselves is look at top GM results. At the highest levels it gives white 9% more wins but over 50% draws. Net scoring white to black is 55% to 45%.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For all players , meaning good players in tournaments not beginners and casual club players, e4 gives white under 7% advantage with just under 30% draws. Net is just under 53% for white to 47% for black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And at the very highest levels white seems to do better than when used by players at lower levels.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What seems to matter more than the opening is the players themselves: How good they are, what type of position they prefer to play, and other intangible factors such as what moves followed e4 as all the other various openings would have their own statistics too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The paucity of games by high rated players also colors the results. There are lots of games with e4, but only a handful starting with 1d3 even though ALL of those games were won by white. Does that make d3 the best first move? NO! It means that nakamura used it a few times and beat 4 other players with it. One was Carauna! Does that mean that d3 is the best first move? NO! It might mean that 1...Nf6 by carauna was not the best reply. Or it might mean that later on nakamura outplayed carauna and the previous moves were just fine after the position became a KID played by white with an extra tempo.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastActivityDate="2020-01-06T15:29:55.983" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27845" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27838" CreationDate="2020-01-06T15:35:18.930" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;My experience says those lessons are about right for a true 1400 player. The real question is whether the OP is really 1400 or whether that is some online inflated rating and if so then these lessons might just be a stretch but could still be good for them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That said, much depends on the OP’s style of learning. And what their budget is. It might be better to buy selected books that are easier to use and research says most people learn better from books than from a course like this. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some GM name does not mean the lessons are good. Some GMs play well but cannot teach well. It would be good to check reviews of others who bought and used the course before deciding. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastEditorUserId="674" LastEditDate="2020-01-07T00:59:37.647" LastActivityDate="2020-01-07T00:59:37.647" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27846" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27829" CreationDate="2020-01-06T15:46:35.287" Score="2" Body="&lt;h2&gt;At low/medium level&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Convenience&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At sub-master level, most people don't have a broad opening repertoire, they will always play one specific defense against 1. e4 and one against 1. d4. Most of them will also try to reduce the amount of theory to learn. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some will pick both the Caro-Kann and the Slav as these two defenses for some transpositional synergy. Then the idea behind 1...c6 is that if you &lt;em&gt;always&lt;/em&gt; play that move anyways, either on move 1 or move 2, you might as well always play it at move 1, since you are fine with either 2. c4 or 2. e4. By not occupying d5, you are actually in a way daring White to play one of these moves - instead of some weird Queen's Pawn system that you are not as comfortable with. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;At top level&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;To throw off your opponent.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At GM level, giving away your intentions to play only very specific openings can be seen as close to a mistake - you allow your opponent to freely choose the opening they have prepared better, which on average will probably not help you. But it's a strong psychological message: &quot;I am confident I can beat you anyways&quot;, which can work in its own completely different ways. Sometimes, people like Carlsen even open their game with strange things as 1. Na3 and still win - 1...c6 can be seen as something between this and a &quot;normal&quot; opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13433" LastActivityDate="2020-01-06T15:46:35.287" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27847" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27815" CreationDate="2020-01-06T16:39:57.227" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The bishop is in general, a weak end game piece. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In some end games the bishop is more valuable than a knight, but this is only if the bishop is your only piece that can move an arbitrary distance in a single move. That's an important end game function for being able to snatch pawns while still providing pressure from a distance. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As long as this &quot;spooky action at a distance&quot; function is covered by some other piece, the knight is generally stronger, which is why it pairs better with a queen. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2525" LastActivityDate="2020-01-06T16:39:57.227" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27848" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27810" CreationDate="2020-01-06T16:45:42.773" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Development: One pawn == three moves&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's one example, if those are the kind of things you're looking for.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But there's another issue in this as well. What do &lt;em&gt;you&lt;/em&gt; play well? I've known players who turn down activity for material because they're more comfortable maneuvering in tight positions than attacking, and they do it well enough that many attackers will fall short against them, despite the fact that &quot;objectively&quot; they should have taken the other path.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Merely being told that a pawn is worth three moves doesn't help if you're not comfortable being down a pawn, or if you can't find three moves you think are good enough, so your own capacities have to play into that sort of calculation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's why the common answer to this sort of question is that through game experience you develop an &quot;intuition&quot; about those sort of equivalences.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you're looking for more details like this, Alburt and Lawrence's book &quot;Chess Rules of Thumb&quot; is a possible source. IIRC, Chess.com has a page on them as well. And there's an old book by Horowitz and Mott-Smith called &quot;Point-Count Chess&quot; that tries to turn these sorts of things into numbers. If you're looking for a more recent reference, Gambit has published a couple of books by Erik Kislik that touch in this area, taking advantage of Al Lawrence's new suggested piece values to create a logical structure for reasoning about advantages and disadvantages in chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In one sense, your question might boil down to &quot;Rules to Play Winning Chess,&quot; and chess, at the moment, doesn't have that sort of quick path to winning consistently. There's too much variety, both in the game and in the players, to make that really possible. But if we're to learn anything from the recent rise of AlphaZero and Leela it's that smallish differences in material don't mean as much as we traditionally thought they did. So learn what it is &lt;em&gt;you&lt;/em&gt; play well (and badly) and use that to guide these sorts of decisions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="657" LastActivityDate="2020-01-06T16:45:42.773" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27849" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-01-06T16:48:27.933" Score="5" ViewCount="353" Body="&lt;p&gt;Say I am playing as white and I strongly prefer closed positions while my opponent strongly prefers open positions. To what extent do I have control over this? Will the game more likely end with a closed position or an open position? What are my strategies if I want to keep the position closed?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I am playing black, does this change the answer to the questions above?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16626" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-01-07T01:08:44.590" LastActivityDate="2020-01-07T01:08:44.590" Title="To what extent is the openness/closedness of positions determined by white? By black?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;closed-position&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27850" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27849" CreationDate="2020-01-06T16:52:53.530" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;In general White has more freedom of choice due to going first. He can play a move that is slightly suboptimal and still be around equal. But if Black does the same thing, he could quickly find himself in a bad position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, it's obviously not always necessary to play dubious moves in order to get the kind of position you want. In general you should play openings that lead to closed/open positions. In the former case 1.d4 makes more sense, and 1.e4 for the latter. As Black, you could meet 1.d4 with something like the Grunfeld if you like open positions, or with the KID if you prefer closed positions. For 1.e4, the French/Caro lead to more closed positions, while the Sicilian has a higher chance of leading to an open position. Of course, these are just examples.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2020-01-06T16:52:53.530" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27851" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27849" CreationDate="2020-01-06T17:09:51.773" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both players have some control.  Neither one alone can dictate it.  If they try they risk getting an inferior position albeit of the type they want.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One example is the hedgehog type openings.  They tend to be closed just because it takes longer for white to prepare to open things up. But in the long run they do not do as well, in my experience, when playing other people, as opposed to playing a computer.   So was it really closed or just delayed?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The french tends to be closed but white can play a more open position by the exchange variation.  Although this might tend to be more drawish.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastActivityDate="2020-01-06T17:09:51.773" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27852" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27122" CreationDate="2020-01-06T18:55:08.730" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;How helpful is high-diving if you want to become a better competitive swimmer? They are separate competitive Olympic sports, which both happen to take place in a swimming pool. In chess, both game-playing and problem-solving are recognized by FM, IM and GM tiers of certification.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See the attached &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.chessbase.com/post/43rd-world-chess-solving-championship-vilnius-2019&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chessbase report of this year's world chess solving championship&lt;/a&gt;. All the British team at least are also long-standing over-the-board GMs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Answering the original questions directly: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(1) Utility? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My own experience is that designing &amp;amp; solving helpmates &amp;amp; retros has probably been detrimental to my over-the-board skills. It's all too easy to leave a piece hanging because the assumption at the back of my mind is that the opponent is co-operating! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Perhaps if I had focused on direct mates and endgame studies, there might have been more improvement in my game-playing. I agree with another reply about the likely value of direct mates in 2 in moderation for developing short-term analysis skills.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(2) Time allocation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For a mate in 2, I aim for about 10 minutes, but it's quite variable. Definitely having a time in mind helps me focus. Longer problems take longer, of course, but it's not exponential: for mates in 5+, there is usually a single solution path to be found, which is iteratively defended against by the opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(3) Techniques?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are definitely techniques for solving composed problems faster, but those often have little applicability to over-the-board chess. For example, if there is a long line to be evaluated, which clearly can begin with either of two alternative moves, that the line can be immediately dismissed, because if the problem is sound, there will be just one unique solution.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another technique is to look for artistic effects which seem to be embedded in the piece arrangement. For example, is there a key square which several pieces (e.g. pawn, rook, bishop) might occupy in separate lines in order to block the other two pieces? This so-called Grimshaw theme could well be main point of the problem.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It would be total madness to analyze a game in this way, so these tricks are not convertible to over-the-board chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Final point: the same certifications (FM, IM, GM) are also available for chess problem composition. Not sure this has any direct analogy in the swimming world!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8201" LastEditorUserId="8201" LastEditDate="2020-01-06T19:01:01.933" LastActivityDate="2020-01-06T19:01:01.933" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27853" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27871" CreationDate="2020-01-06T20:30:30.313" Score="2" ViewCount="185" Body="&lt;p&gt;I got a question in school in which I have to get the highest score possible by adding pieces on a 6x6 board like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/kxYTx.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/kxYTx.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The rules are that they are the same color and may never attack each other, and that pieces on my board must also be on yours in the same position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are the point values:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Queen(D)15 points&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Rook(R)15 points&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Kings(K)10 points&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bishop(B)=9 points&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Knight(H)=5 points&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pawn=0 points&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My highest value was 97 by placing 8 bishops.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21114" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-05T01:10:41.667" LastActivityDate="2020-04-05T01:10:41.667" Title="What is the highest value of pieces on this particular 6x6 board, without any of them attacking each other?" Tags="&lt;problems&gt;&lt;point-value&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27854" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27829" CreationDate="2020-01-06T20:57:10.743" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Of course you must be ready to play the Caro-Kann if you answer 1. d4 with 1. ... c6. But that is a sound opening - so why not, if you already play it against 1. e4? You will probably be better prepared for the Caro-Kann than your opponent, who after all started with 1. d4. If I was a d4 player, I surely would play 2. c4, hoping to enter the Slav. &#xA;In that case, blacks most popular choice is 1. d5, but other moves are also possible. Black might play for a setup with d6, g6, Bg7, with or without Nf6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is also the interesting Malinoise defence, 1. d4 c6 2. c4 b5!?, which has been played by GM Rogers from Australia and IM Jadoul from Belgium. This should at least be a nice surprise weapon.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Playing 1. ... c6 might also be an idea against London system players, e.g. 1. d4 c6 2. Nf3 Qc7!? has been played a few times - not the best of course, but at least it is a nasty surprise for any white player who planned 3. Bf4. Might be worth a try against certain opponents (especially among London system players, there are some who don't know how to play without their beloved Bf4)&#xA;The accelerated London system 1. d4 c6 2. Bf4 could be answered with 2. ... Qb6!?, when white has to decide whether or not to sacrifice the pawn on b2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20941" LastActivityDate="2020-01-06T20:57:10.743" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27855" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27853" CreationDate="2020-01-06T21:02:53.313" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The max is 90 +Q + K  =  105 + K as  I understand the problem.  You can place six rooks at 15 each. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then if you replace any of the rooks with a Q you lose two rooks by being attacked by that new queen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I get 115 max as I &lt;em&gt;can&lt;/em&gt; put six rooks on the board with the K and Q. &#xA;And no piece is attacking any others.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Final answer:  115&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4k3&#xA;7r&#xA;r7&#xA;2r5&#xA;5r2&#xA;6r1&#xA;1r6&#xA;3q4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastEditorUserId="20776" LastEditDate="2020-01-06T21:24:52.380" LastActivityDate="2020-01-06T21:24:52.380" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27856" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27853" CreationDate="2020-01-06T21:08:49.760" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have found a slightly higher value of &lt;strong&gt;98&lt;/strong&gt; by replacing a bishop with a king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/z5bz3.gif&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/z5bz3.gif&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can create images of various board sizes like this at &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.apronus.com/chess/pgnviewer/?w=6&amp;amp;h=6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Apronus.com&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastActivityDate="2020-01-06T21:08:49.760" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27857" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16038" CreationDate="2020-01-07T00:01:54.287" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is it winnable?  Maybe.  Against a person that could happen.  Against a good engine more unclear.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The final result is past the horizon that people and likely machine can compute.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I see white getting at least a draw.  And I can see that white might win.  I would not resign nor accept a draw with white.  Not against a human.  I would keep playing and trying to win.  Keeping the possibility of perpetual in reserve.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would first look at what seems to be the possibilities that would arise.  It will depend a lot on how black chooses to play. I can see black ensuring the draw if he does not try to win. But it is still hard to tell what will happen with certainty. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastActivityDate="2020-01-07T00:01:54.287" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27858" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8960" CreationDate="2020-01-07T00:08:34.207" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Always take the material unless there is a very clear reason not to.&#xA;White has nothing that is worth the horsie that he can do to you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;next play bn5 and pk3 and then develop your other pieces.  of course if white takes your pawn with the qp then trade queens first. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastActivityDate="2020-01-07T00:08:34.207" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27859" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27849" CreationDate="2020-01-07T01:08:03.740" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a very complex question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, by nature of moving first, white can clearly control whether the game is open, or not, more than black can, but black does have a say next. If white plays, 1. d4, 1. c4, 1. Nf3, or even moves like b3 or g3, we know that the game tends to be more closed than after 1.e4. After 1. d4, for example, black can attempt to play openings that are more open, like the Benoni or Benko. I do not know that I consider the King’s Indian more open as much as it is simply more complex, usually requiring operations from white to be on the queenside, while black plays on the kingside. That said, white has lines in response that are more positional than the Classical King’s Indian, which features all out attacks on opposite sides of the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think that if you are white, it is relatively easy to steer the game to more closed, and positional, positions even in openings like the King’s Indian, by playing a variation with g3, for example. If you are black, it is clearly much harder to keep the position closed if white wants to play 1 e4, and open it up. There is a reason they categorize many openings with 1. e4 “open games”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think your strategies to keep things closed with black when white plays 1. d4 are relatively straight forward, especially since you can assume that white likes that type of position too, but what do you do against 1. e4? I think that you can play the French or Caro, but even something like the Kan Sicilian with 1 e4 c5 2 Nf3 e6 3 d4 cxd4 4 Nxd4 a6 keeps things more quiet, than playing a typical open Sicilian.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What do these openings all have in common? Of course, these are not all exactly the same for every position, but they all tend to have either less pawn breaks. You almost always have to allow one pawn break, or clash of pawns, but if you do not acquiesce to multiple pawn breaks, there is less likelihood that the position will open a lot. Pawn breaks usually lead to pawn trades, which leads to a more open position, so try to avoid pawn clashes if you are trying to keep the position closed. That said, they are not unavoidable, and you have to judge whether you need to fight back for space. If you sit back forever, you will be smothered to death eventually. The goal is like the Hedgehog where you sit back, and develop, and only then, start to fight back with your pawn break.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although I have never thought about your question directly, I think we all make these choices subconsciously when we are developing our opening repertoire. I certainly play 1. d4, and usually g3 to get the Catalan lately, knowing that the game will be more closed and positional. It is funny that relatively few of my opponents play the open Catalan with cd, and prefer c6 as a rule…that suits me fine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Again, this is very complex, and there are no hard-and-fast rules, so I may have missed something, but hopefully, I gave you some food for thought.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2020-01-07T01:08:03.740" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27860" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-01-07T02:46:44.123" Score="2" ViewCount="91" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is it possible to view or obtain old versions of the FIDE Laws of Chess?  I would like to trace the history of when various rules were added or modified.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The FIDE handbook only goes back as far as the &lt;a href=&quot;https://handbook.fide.com/chapter/E01pre2014&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;2009-2014 rules&lt;/a&gt; as far as I can see.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4223" LastActivityDate="2020-01-07T03:44:14.910" Title="Old versions of FIDE laws of chess?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;history&gt;&lt;fide&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ClosedDate="2020-01-07T10:44:27.487" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27861" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26807" CreationDate="2020-01-07T02:59:41.593" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The only source I know is &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.janko.at/Retros/Glossary/index.htm#Rules&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;The Retro Corner&lt;/a&gt;.&#xA;Unfortunately, it hasn’t been kept up to date, but together with the FIDE site itself, it should give you coverage back to 1977.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The rules are hardly perfect, but there have been continual improvements in writing quality over time. Specific changes have mainly been in various kinds of draws, and filling various funny holes (e.g. Pam-Krabbé castling).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For further back than 1977, I would approach a proper chess historian. Hope this helps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8201" LastEditorUserId="8201" LastEditDate="2020-01-07T03:44:14.910" LastActivityDate="2020-01-07T03:44:14.910" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27862" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26807" CreationDate="2020-01-07T03:41:40.757" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://aekphotography.co.uk/CAA/html/laws_historic.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;This site&lt;/a&gt; appears to have old rules of chess, FIDE and otherwise&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I do not attest to the accuracy or completeness of this site&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17425" LastActivityDate="2020-01-07T03:41:40.757" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27863" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27864" CreationDate="2020-01-07T04:15:07.493" Score="4" ViewCount="112" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am trying to figure out an algorithm to extract the number of each piece that both black and white have from a PGN file. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Right now I have all of the moves tokenized(i.e. c(&quot;e4&quot;, &quot;d6&quot;, &quot;Nc3&quot;, &quot;f5&quot;, &quot;exf5&quot;, &quot;Bxf5&quot;, &quot;Qh5&quot;, &quot;g6&quot;...), but I'm not sure where to proceed next. So far I know that identifying the &quot;x&quot; characters is necessary, but I am not sure what to do as the notation only identifies the capture square, and not what type of piece is captured.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21037" LastActivityDate="2020-01-07T04:53:40.613" Title="How to count pieces from PGN notation?" Tags="&lt;programming&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27864" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27863" CreationDate="2020-01-07T04:53:40.613" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;You'd have some data structure, such as a 2-D 8x8 array, storing the current piece in each square of the board. Everytime you read a new move, update the array appropriately. Then, when you see a capture like &quot;exf5&quot;, check what piece is stored in the &quot;f5&quot; square of the array.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You'll have to be careful with en passant captures. For example, in the case of 1.e4 c5 2.e5 d5 3.exd6, you should be checking the element in the array 1 row above (for d5). In order to detect when an en passant has occurred, see if a pawn captured on to an empty square. For example, 3.exd6 is White's e5-pawn capturing on to the empty d6-square, so it must be en passant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2020-01-07T04:53:40.613" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27865" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27815" CreationDate="2020-01-07T05:29:53.297" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I feel that many people before me have already answered the question, but I just want to add another dimension to the entire scenario. If you had to choose pieces which would be the trickiest and most difficult to calculate variations for it would probably by the queen and the knight. This isn't an objective answer, but it is just a point to take into consideration.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21014" LastActivityDate="2020-01-07T05:29:53.297" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27866" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27870" CreationDate="2020-01-07T05:39:43.090" Score="2" ViewCount="263" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was thinking about creating a personalized chess database for my correspondence chess play. What sorts of contents are useful to put in it and is there any big difference in having your own database versus just using one from online. The main factor that contributed me to do this was to deepen my opening knowledge of certain openings. I am open to any other reasons why I should or shouldn't create one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21014" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-30T18:34:30.397" LastActivityDate="2020-03-30T18:34:30.397" Title="What to put in a personal chess database?" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;database&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27867" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27866" CreationDate="2020-01-07T05:50:29.020" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Do you mean a personal database of selected games? If that's the case, you're better off getting one of the databases with millions of games in it, since you can just search that for what you need.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2020-01-07T05:50:29.020" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27868" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27866" CreationDate="2020-01-07T10:03:27.357" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The question is why only one database?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have a database of my own games, and a second for casual games I find interesting. You could have one for your OTB games, and correspondence games, for example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Beyond that, you could have a database of both your white and black repertoire. This is very common among higher-rated players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lastly, if you are really into openings like an IM friend of mine, who has written about 10 books, you could have a database for every opening you want to study in-depth. This is a good thing to keep separate since it just makes it easier to manage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I currently have in excess of 10 personal databases that I have created in ChessBase, and MANY more if you include other databases I have that are purchased.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2020-01-07T10:03:27.357" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27869" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27815" CreationDate="2020-01-07T11:44:59.743" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The problem for the knight in the endgame is that it cannot protect a pawn that is protecting it, like the bishop can. So while Knight + Queen is better than Bishop + Queen, often the fact that a number of pawns will be present can tip the balance back to the bishop. This is especially true if the player with the bishop forces an exchange of queens.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20382" LastActivityDate="2020-01-07T11:44:59.743" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27870" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27866" CreationDate="2020-01-07T16:21:28.437" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;For correspondence I keep a database of my personal opening book that I extend whenever I encounter a new move.  I include notes on things like why I chose a particular line and both numeric and verbal position assessment.  I also include select text from books or other databases that discuss that position. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17425" LastActivityDate="2020-01-07T16:21:28.437" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27871" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27853" CreationDate="2020-01-07T16:47:25.783" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/cCH0p.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/cCH0p.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This was the correct answer with 100 points!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21114" LastActivityDate="2020-01-07T16:47:25.783" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27872" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8544" CreationDate="2020-01-07T16:55:42.013" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chesstempo.com has the best I have found for free online. &#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chesstempo.com/game-database.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://chesstempo.com/game-database.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also has index by opening, player, and comments.&#xA;Plus other features.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you will pay then chessbase is the best I have seen but I have not bought it to verify what it actually does have. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastActivityDate="2020-01-07T16:55:42.013" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27873" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2653" CreationDate="2020-01-07T20:29:43.313" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As trivial as it sounds, learn the board first. To the point where you can instantly identify any square just by randomly pointing at it. This will make memorizing easier by abstracting the board component while trying to &quot;burn&quot; a game into your brain.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15509" LastActivityDate="2020-01-07T20:29:43.313" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27874" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27815" CreationDate="2020-01-07T20:56:03.443" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;One thing Q + B can do that Q + N cannot is to threaten remote squares. They can also, among other things, completely control two adjacent diagonals, which is a lot of territory. I vote Q + B.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15509" LastEditorUserId="15509" LastEditDate="2021-05-20T14:33:40.127" LastActivityDate="2021-05-20T14:33:40.127" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27875" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27818" CreationDate="2020-01-07T23:50:23.053" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let &lt;code&gt;\path\to\endgame\tablebase\files&lt;/code&gt; be ... the path to endgame tablebase files. This means that the directory should contains only tablebase files, and not for instance folder for up to 5 pieces tablebase files and a folder for 6 pieces tablebase files. The files are .rtbw or .rtbz files. (These are Syzygy files, I don't know how it works for Gaviotta files (for which DroidFish provides the gtb folder) but I guess it works the same.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The .rtbw files store win/draw/loss information including, where applicable, information on the 50-move rule. During the search only the .rtbw files are accessed. These files are &quot;two-sided&quot;: they store information for both white to move and black to move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The .rtbz files store the distance-to-zero: the number of moves to the next capture or pawn move. These files only need to be accessed when the root position has 6 pieces or less. They are &quot;single-sided&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyway, all these files for up to 6 pieces endgames are in the folder &lt;code&gt;\path\to\endgame\tablebase\files&lt;/code&gt; and now you should make DroidFish point to it. This takes place in DroidFish in &quot;Settings --&gt; Endgame Tablebases --&gt; Syzygy Directory&quot; where you have to put the complete path -- don't forget the &quot;\&quot; the path necessarily starts with.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It may be stupid as you already put files in that folder so you think you know its path, but beware as for instance on my samsung galaxy, the application &quot;My Files&quot; (the samsung file explorer) gives me a wrong path : if I use the path it gives to me, I don't see that tablebase are used by the engine in analysis mode :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/YMTE0.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/YMTE0.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;as in the last line there is only &quot;d:35/55 3:g4 t:431.7 n:1935M nps:4483k h:99&quot; and no &quot;tb:x&quot; in it. Recall that &quot;d&quot; is the depth of analysis expressed in number of moves, &quot;3:g4&quot; at this point indicates that the third best move is g4, &quot;t&quot; is the time spent on the analysis so far, expressed in seconds, &quot;n&quot; is the number of nodes the engine searched through, &quot;nps&quot; is the current number of nodes the engine searches through per second and &quot;h&quot; divided by 10 gives you how full in percent the hashtable is, in previous picture's case it is therefore 9.9% full. (These notations and definition are UCI engines standards.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason is that the &quot;My Files&quot; application does not give the absolute path to the folder. To get the absolute path to the folder, you have to use for instance the &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.speedsoftware.explorer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Explorer&lt;/a&gt;&quot; application which, while you browse, will display the absolute path the to place you browsed at.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Example for a folder placed in the hard disk of my phone : &lt;code&gt;/storage/emulated/0/DroidFish/rtb&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Example for a folder placed in the micro sd card plugged in my phone : &lt;code&gt;/storage/3661-6463/Syzygy&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;code&gt;/storage/emulated/0/DroidFish/rtb&lt;/code&gt; is a vanilla DroidFish folder that you should use if you have place enough on your phone's harddisk. In &lt;code&gt;/storage/3661-6463/Syzygy&lt;/code&gt; the &lt;code&gt;/storage/3661-6463&lt;/code&gt; is the absolute path of my micro sd card and the &lt;code&gt;Syzygy&lt;/code&gt; is the folder I created in it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I give all these precisions about paths because what is for instance provided &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chess2u.com/t5347p15-droidfish&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; does not work in my case. So beware, the absolute path (internal or external = on the sd card) depends on your device.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When it works, the analysis looks like :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/FF5vu.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/FF5vu.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and you see the &quot;tb:15&quot; bit in the last analysis line, showing that the tablebased are used. The &quot;tb&quot; indicates the current number of tablebase consultations/hits by the engine. Sadly, even as Stockfish provide dtm and dtz information, they are not printed in droid fish analysis part and as far as I know there's no option allowing to tweak this ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have a samsung galaxy s9+ with 64Gb of internal memory and a 250Gb micro sd card that contains 150Gb of endgame tablebase files versus a samsung galaxy s10+ with 1Tb of internal memory containing the same 150Gb of tablebase files and I don't see any real difference of performance. It's just a tiny bit slower on the s9+ when the analysis depth gets bigger, but nothing major. In any cases, it will crush any human more than 99% of the time on average. ;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20949" LastEditorUserId="20949" LastEditDate="2020-01-10T00:17:12.670" LastActivityDate="2020-01-10T00:17:12.670" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27876" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27618" CreationDate="2020-01-08T00:39:34.127" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sorry for the late answer, but here’s “my” suggestion of a total mobility &lt;strong&gt;215&lt;/strong&gt; in a legal configuration. White has 216 total moves, minus away one for Black’s only legal move for total.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;1Q5R/4Q1K1/B1Q5/B4Q2/N2Q4/pQ4Q1/pn2Q3/krQ4R w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This position was originally created by &lt;a href=&quot;https://pdb.dieschwalbe.de/search.jsp?expression=probid=%27P1182014%27&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;William Shinkman&lt;/a&gt; as the record for the most mates in two. This position’s mobility will be very hard to beat, as it has no checkmate/stalemates in one, in addition to how the known maximum for any move is &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/4490/maximum-possible-movement-in-a-turn/8392#8392&quot;&gt;218&lt;/a&gt; contains so many checkmating/stalemating move that it won’t work here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastActivityDate="2020-01-08T00:39:34.127" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27877" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16597" CreationDate="2020-01-08T03:40:50.380" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Play at least 10 of the same type of problems at one sitting so your brain gets better at seeing the underlying pattern and remembering it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Repeat as needed after two days until  you have no problem with that type of problem.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you are positive that it is burned into your memory then repeat after a month to be sure.  If you are okay then occasionally review as fits your needs. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If not then repeat from the first graf. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastActivityDate="2020-01-08T03:40:50.380" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27878" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27879" CreationDate="2020-01-08T14:34:09.267" Score="6" ViewCount="1503" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would like to know why playing d5 in these two positions is useful for me (Black).&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/jfKD5.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/jfKD5.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/beZFB.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/beZFB.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16771" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-01-17T20:30:43.950" LastActivityDate="2020-01-17T20:30:43.950" Title="D5 move closing my bishop activity" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27879" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27878" CreationDate="2020-01-08T14:39:09.800" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;You do not have enough control of e4, and if white gets to play e4-e5 here, your king is a goner. It is an absolute must here to stop that plan, and the only way to do it is d5. Making your Bb7 bad for now pales in comparison to letting your king get mated, or loss of significant material, which will happen after e4-e5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2020-01-08T14:39:09.800" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27880" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27878" CreationDate="2020-01-08T16:43:09.067" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Other than controlling the e4-square (as noted by PhishMaster), there are some additional reasons ...d5 could be useful, which I'll list below. But even if these reasons didn't exist, ...d5 would still be best since controlling e4 is necessary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) It gives Black's queen more space.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) It controls the c4-square, potentially stopping White from playing Nc4 (and discouraging c4). These moves aren't dangerous now, but they could be later on. For example, if you want to play a move like ...Bd6 at some point, avoiding Nc4 would be nice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) In general, it gives Black more influence in the centre, simply by virtue of pushing a pawn to d5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You're right that the move blocks in the b7-bishop, but in a way it also increases the piece's strength. Now the bishop's control of e4 actually means something, since Black has a good chance to fight for it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But note that if you want to exchange off the bishop, this could be done with ...a5 + ...Ba6 (eliminating White's dangerous d3-bishop); notice how without a pawn on d5, White could easily meet this with c4. In addition, another plan for you after ...d5 is ...Nce8-...Nd6, further clamping down on e4. Putting your knights on f6 and d6 is an important theme against the Stonewall structure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2020-01-08T16:43:09.067" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27881" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27885" CreationDate="2020-01-08T17:01:28.170" Score="3" ViewCount="1268" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am creating a chess AI using the minimax method with alpha-beta pruning. I am trying to understand how the alpha-beta pruning works, but I can't get my head around it when it comes to chess where you set a certain search depth.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How do minimax with alpha-beta solve sacrificing a piece for advantage 2-3 moves ahead? Won't it just look at the position at the sacrifice and immediately discard that branch as bad, therefore missing the good &quot;sacrifice&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I thank you in advance for any clarifications or advice on improvements. Here is my code so far:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;def minimax(board, depth, alpha, beta, maximizing_player):&#xA;&#xA;    board.is_human_turn = not maximizing_player &#xA;&#xA;    children = board.get_all_possible_moves()&#xA;&#xA;    if depth == 0 or board.is_draw or board.is_check_mate:&#xA;        return None, evaluate(board)&#xA;&#xA;    best_move = random.choice(children)&#xA;&#xA;    if maximizing_player:&#xA;        max_eval = -math.inf&#xA;        for child in children:&#xA;            board_copy = copy.deepcopy(board)&#xA;            board_copy.move(child)&#xA;            current_eval = minimax(board_copy, depth - 1, alpha, beta, False)[1]&#xA;            if current_eval &amp;gt; max_eval:&#xA;                max_eval = current_eval&#xA;                best_move = child&#xA;            alpha = max(alpha, current_eval)&#xA;            if beta &amp;lt;= alpha:&#xA;                break&#xA;        return best_move, max_eval&#xA;&#xA;    else:&#xA;        min_eval = math.inf&#xA;        for child in children:&#xA;            board_copy = copy.deepcopy(board)&#xA;            board_copy.move(child)&#xA;            current_eval = minimax(board_copy, depth - 1, alpha, beta, True)[1]&#xA;            if current_eval &amp;lt; min_eval:&#xA;                min_eval = current_eval&#xA;                best_move = child&#xA;            beta = min(beta, current_eval)&#xA;            if beta &amp;lt;= alpha:&#xA;                break&#xA;        return best_move, min_eval&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21129" LastEditorUserId="8201" LastEditDate="2020-01-11T08:20:23.690" LastActivityDate="2020-01-11T15:01:01.440" Title="Minimax with alpha-beta pruning for chess" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;programming&gt;&lt;minimax&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27882" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2020-01-08T17:22:34.400" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-01-08T17:22:34.400" LastActivityDate="2020-01-08T17:22:34.400" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27883" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2020-01-08T17:22:34.400" Score="0" Body="Minimax is a kind of backtracking algorithm that is used in decision making and game theory to find the optimal move for a player, assuming that your opponent also plays optimally. It is widely used in two player turn-based games such as Tic-Tac-Toe, Backgammon, Mancala, Chess, etc." OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-01-08T17:22:34.400" LastActivityDate="2020-01-08T17:22:34.400" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27884" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21771" CreationDate="2020-01-08T18:06:35.300" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can't use minimax properly with this sort of problem.  The problem is that you cannot see far enough and evaluate that position accurately enough to know.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You will need to make assumptions and do pruning to be able to compute enough into the future to have a reasonable assessment, and then you have to hope that  your pruning was good enough that there are no nasty surprises.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It works well for the majority of positions but you cannot guarantee you have the absolute best answer. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastActivityDate="2020-01-08T18:06:35.300" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27885" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27881" CreationDate="2020-01-08T18:11:43.003" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;No.  You have to go to the end of that branch to decide if it is bad. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;pruning is done to help make the problem computationally feasible.  But there are risks that you might have eliminated a better branch.  That depends how far out you look and how good your algorithm is to assess the position before you trim it.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Cutting anything after only a few moves will lead to poor results in many cases.   The farther you go the better the results. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Perfection is not possible.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You have to trade off time, complexity, and other factors to determine your optimum approach to deciding which branches, and how far you will  go down that rabbit hole searching for the answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can do everything at a small depth.  You can do a few things at enormous depth.  The best approach is in the middle somewhere , where you do enough branches far enough. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastActivityDate="2020-01-08T18:11:43.003" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27886" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="10991" CreationDate="2020-01-08T18:35:41.950" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It depends what your goal is.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Play for win or play for best average result?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;6d4 will win about 33% and draw 48% for a score of about 57% vs 43% for black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;6f4 will win about 50% and draw 25% for a score of about 62.5% vs 37.5%&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The difference is that trying for the higher winning score increases you chances of losing in that particulr game a net 6%.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In theory you play f4 but in practice  for a single game, especially a tournament that only has a small number of rounds compared to your entire lifetime of playing,  it might make sense to try to avoid the loss more than to try to win a bit more. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Fischer went all out to win every game.  Will that strategy work for you too?   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Depending on your style you might look ahead to the endgame and see which pawn move might result in the preferable position.  If you plan to slash and burn attack and take  your chances in the end game  then you may play f4 to maximise your chance of outright winning.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To directly answer the OP:  Yes.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;White should play one of those moves as they get better results than the alternatives. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No top GM (2700+) plays that variation per chess tempo DB.   And I would prefer to deviate much sooner.  It all comes down to other factors like style, preference, and what your objective is.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastActivityDate="2020-01-08T18:35:41.950" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27887" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27878" CreationDate="2020-01-08T21:30:44.373" Score="-5" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are multiple ways in which d5 could be useful here. The obvious answer is because it grabs grip on the e4 square. It also prepares the advance of the c pawn to c4 which will lock down white's LightSquared bishop. If you aren't comfortable keeping your bishop like this for portions of the middlegame then you can play h6 to force the knight back and capture it. Then you can play d5 and potentially c4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21014" LastActivityDate="2020-01-08T21:30:44.373" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27888" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1377" CreationDate="2020-01-08T23:06:04.983" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The free Excel add-in Chess Ranking Assistant found at &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.add-ins.com/free-products/chess-ranking-assistant.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.add-ins.com/free-products/chess-ranking-assistant.htm&lt;/a&gt; uses the glicko system and is menu driven for easy of use. It is designed for chess clubs&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21130" LastActivityDate="2020-01-08T23:06:04.983" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27889" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27895" CreationDate="2020-01-09T02:31:00.983" Score="4" ViewCount="155" Body="&lt;p&gt;Lichess has leaderboards for every variant of chess and also every single time control of the standard variant except for Correspondence chess. Does anybody know where to see the leaderboard for Correspondence chess on Lichess and if so how?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21014" LastActivityDate="2020-01-09T11:29:52.113" Title="Is there a way on lichess to see the Correspondence chess rankings?" Tags="&lt;lichess&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27890" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23563" CreationDate="2020-01-09T04:25:27.280" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are some fools who will call you a cheater no matter what.  I played one guy who made 4 blunders and other mistakes then accused me of cheating when I won.  Said he was going to report it and file a complaint.   I hope he did.  They would have laughed at him or worse for being so stupid.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have played 4 (almost) perfect games on LI but was not accused of cheating in them by the opponent or their computer AI watchdog.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;It is easy to play really good classical games when the opponent makes inferior moves.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would not worry unless you are cheating.  Do not use or even have open anything that could make LI suspect you are cheating.  You would need to open any other chess sites on another PC even if you were not cheating as LI will see them on yours and then presume you were cheating. Or look up what you want to see after the game not during.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastActivityDate="2020-01-09T04:25:27.280" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27891" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27878" CreationDate="2020-01-09T05:50:57.467" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In addition to the other answers, I want to point out that closing your Bishop's activity isn't important here:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Your bishop isn't active. Sure it's got an open diagonal, but it's not generating any threats. In the first position, you could play Bxf3 but then White would just recapture with the Queen and you've not achieved anything. In the second position, it's not like you are able to mount a kingside attack. The Bishop attacking g2 does absolutely nothing then.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Your bishop's activity is &quot;low quality&quot;. White is easily ready to counter the activity. If White gets to play e4 then your bishop effectively becomes useless even though you haven't blocked the diagonal.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In other words, you don't actually lose much by playing d5. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastActivityDate="2020-01-09T05:50:57.467" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27892" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1377" CreationDate="2020-01-09T07:30:15.023" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.icu.ie/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Irish Chess Union&lt;/a&gt; has &lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.icu.ie/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;its rating web application&lt;/a&gt; fully released as Open Source and it's available on GitHub: &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/ninkibah/icu_ratings_app&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://github.com/ninkibah/icu_ratings_app&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17341" LastActivityDate="2020-01-09T07:30:15.023" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27893" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-01-09T08:55:15.043" Score="3" ViewCount="384" Body="&lt;p&gt;Suppose a player with ELO rating X has improved (for simplicity, without playing in tournaments) and she is now actually playing at the level X+N. How many games will it typically take for her rating to reach the level X+N, depending on N? Is there a quantitative research into that?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17330" LastEditorUserId="17330" LastEditDate="2020-01-09T09:23:51.080" LastActivityDate="2020-01-23T18:29:38.650" Title="How long does it take for Elo rating to reflect changes in player's strength?" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27894" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27893" CreationDate="2020-01-09T10:13:33.403" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The way FIDE rating (and rating change) is calculated is described in &lt;a href=&quot;https://old.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=197&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Rating Regulations effective from 1 July 2017&lt;/a&gt;. For an already rated player the calculations for working out the rating change are given in section 8.5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From here it can be seen that how fast a rating changes for a given performance depende on the &quot;k factor&quot;. This is defined in 8.56:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;8.56 K is the development coefficient.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  K = 40 for a player new to the rating list until he has completed events with at least 30 games.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  K = 20 as long as a player's rating remains under 2400.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  K = 10 once a player's published rating has reached 2400 and remains at that level subsequently, even if the rating drops below 2400.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  K = 40 for all players until their 18th birthday, as long as their rating remains under 2300.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  If the number of games (n) for a player on any list for a rating period multiplied by K (as defined above) exceeds 700, then K shall be the largest whole number such that K x n does not exceed 700.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are the relevant sections of 8.5 describing the calculations:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;8.5 Determining the rating change for a rated player&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;8.51 For each game played against a rated player, determine the difference in rating between the player and his opponent, D.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;8.54 A difference in rating of more than 400 points shall be counted for rating purposes as though it were a difference of 400 points.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;8.55 (a) Use table 8.1(b) to determine the player’s score probability PD&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  (b) ΔR = score – PD. For each game, the score is 1, 0.5 or 0.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  (c) ΣΔR x K = the Rating Change for a given tournament, or Rating period.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As to your question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;How many games will it typically take for her rating to reach the&#xA;  level X+N, depending on N?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Table 8.1(b) is non-linear so as well as depending on the k factor the number of games also depends on N in a non linear fashion. So, you will have to perform separate calculations for different values of N.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is an example for N=100. How many games would a player require to draw against players on average 100 points higher to raise the rating by 100 points?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In that case, according to table 8.1(b), PD = 0.36. So, ΔR = 0.14 and the number of games required for a 100 point rating gain = 100 / 0.14 / k.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For k = 10 number of games = 72&lt;br&gt;&#xA;For k = 20 number of games = 36&lt;br&gt;&#xA;For k = 40 number of games = 18     &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-01-09T10:13:33.403" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27895" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27889" CreationDate="2020-01-09T11:07:01.147" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is funny that they do not have it listed &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/player&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;, as you mentioned.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I just took a guess, and changed the end of the URL to &quot;correspondence&quot;, and got the top 200 just like the others.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/player/top/200/correspondence&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://lichess.org/player/top/200/correspondence&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorDisplayName="user18196" LastEditDate="2020-01-09T11:29:52.113" LastActivityDate="2020-01-09T11:29:52.113" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27896" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-01-09T11:40:48.667" Score="2" ViewCount="725" Body="&lt;p&gt;Please help me or give me the correct terms to find it out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What I want is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Play chess against an engine or repeat an existing game&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;For my current move, I want an analyser to analyse my move, and a visualiation (not only text) to show me (better) alternatives.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What I tried:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I installed SCID, with Stockfish, and loaded some PNG games or, doing: 'serious game' and play against stockfish&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I can see some analysis text running at a window. However, that is sort of exhausting. &#xA;What I want: having an arrow that shows me what to move where; after I have done my move.&#xA;Either by: analysing my move, and showing a better alternative. Or, showing me what the player (whose game I just play) was doing&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My questions: how is it called, what I want? Does this exist, especially a visualization?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is not necessary to use SCID, however, I failed to install SCID vs PC and Lukas Chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21135" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2020-01-09T13:52:06.673" LastActivityDate="2021-02-17T23:07:03.080" Title="SCID vs ChessBase - play, analyse, visualization - ubuntu" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;chessbase&gt;&lt;scid&gt;&lt;linux&gt;&lt;visualization&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27897" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-01-09T12:31:39.083" Score="20" ViewCount="7581" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am not new to the game of Chess. I have been (casually) playing it for over a decade, and I would like to get better at it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know the basic rules of the game very well, I understand basic tactics (forks, pins, skewers, zugzwang), good bishops vs. bad bishops, center advantage, etc, and I believe my core principles are pretty good. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I do not have any actual theory memorized, and I believe I miss out on some positions. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would like to understand the game better and get to 1500 by the end of the year. I am willing to put in time and effort. What resources/books would you recommend? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21136" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-02T13:55:24.330" LastActivityDate="2020-05-12T19:56:46.267" Title="How to improve from ~1200?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;books&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="13" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27898" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27897" CreationDate="2020-01-09T12:38:41.923" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;at 1200 I strongly believe You are wrong about all your core assumptions about your understandings; or if you really have those strategic/positional understandings you must start to do tactics - at least 1h of puzzle solving per day will make best improvement for 1200 player anyway.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and forget about spending time on theory until you are at least 1800, preferably 2000+ - I personally know multiple GM's who never in their life specifically studied opening theory but their top ELO was 2600+. I also never did and my top ELO was 2400 over the board and 2600 in correspondence chess. Understanding the base principles of game will make you choosing good move in opening in 90+% of time. There are cases when deep tactical analysis overthrow base concepts, you can get caught by variant to get worse position or miss bigger advantage but that can still happen even if you study openings hard - not that big loss here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17448" LastEditorUserId="17448" LastEditDate="2020-01-09T12:45:36.273" LastActivityDate="2020-01-09T12:45:36.273" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27899" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27897" CreationDate="2020-01-09T12:59:00.080" Score="33" Body="&lt;p&gt;@Arka Mukherjee, I find most players under 2100 weak tactically, so at 1200, you are certainly weaker than you understand you are. I do not say that to be mean, but just as a very logical person, who has been a reasonably strong player for over 30 years.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At your level, memorizing theory is mostly a waste of time. In 40 years of playing, I cannot tell you how many weaker players I have seen that carry around an arm full of opening books, but they never progress. You do not need to memorize openings when your opponent is not going to play them because he has not memorized them. You need to understand opening pawn structures. Chess Opening Essentials: The Complete Series (Volumes 1 - 4) is a very basic way to start this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is, of course, on a different level, but I recently read something about Kramnik training young prodigies, and one of them played an opening he saw a higher-rated GM play, and he imitated the play by rote, but soon went astray. He did not understand, at least on the much higher level he was at. Understanding is the key.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Beyond that, tactics are the most important thing you can do. Most chess games between weak players are decided by who drops the last piece, and these books would help you win more material, and thus, win more games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I recommend starting with &quot;1001 Brilliant Ways to Checkmate&quot;, and then &quot;1001 Winning Chess Sacrifices and Combinations&quot; (21st Century Editions) by Reinfeld.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I recommend doing 50 per day, spending no more than two minutes per move on each problem. In pencil, write down next to the problem how easy you found it on a scale of 1-5 because you will do these books multiple times. That immersion method has worked very well for me. I took a friend, who was about 38 at the time, from 1000 to 1850 on ICC in three months following this method.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2020-01-09T12:59:00.080" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27900" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27896" CreationDate="2020-01-09T13:52:11.633" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I suggest that you simply use a browser, and play online at chess.com, lichess.com, or chess24.com. While chess.com and chess24.com have paid versions too, all three have the ability to create an account, and play online, including against computers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You also have the option to use online engines to analyze your games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2020-01-09T13:52:11.633" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27901" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27897" CreationDate="2020-01-09T14:54:44.187" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your first task should be to get better at tactics. It's one thing to understand what a pin is and why it works, for example, but it's quite another to be able to spot the circumstances under which it's advantageous for you to use it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So my first advice to you would be to work out solutions to tactical puzzles found in books or software. There's a series of books from Russia Chess House called &quot;Chess School&quot; (vols 1a, 1b, 2, 3) which set out 500+ tactical puzzles.They start at levels good for 1200 and go on up to 2000+ by the third book. They're not the only ones, but they're the ones I usually use when I'm teaching. If you'd rather use software, the best is CT-Art, which has grown into a series, or the &quot;Chess Tactics for ...&quot; series. Both were originally created by Convekta (the company that makes Chess Assistant) and I've seen them for Windows desktops as well as iPhones/iPads, not sure if they're around for other devices.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But the point is not so much to use those specific tools as to start loading your brain with patterns of how the various tools in your tactical tool box can be used. Learning those patterns well will help you spot them quickly when they show up on your board, and the goal is to learn them so well it takes next to no effort at all to spot the possibility of one existing; the idea will just pop up when you see the position. It's OK to have to spend time calculating to see if the idea actually works, it's spotting the main idea of the combination almost immediately that matters. It might take a while, and the effect might surprise you. I remember spending weeks working through the chapter on pins in the Informant's Encyclopedia Of Chess Middlegames, a few positions every day. The next tournament I was astonished at how many pins were showing up in my games; I suddenly could not only see the pins, but knew which ones I could really make use of and how.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another thing to do for tactical study is to play over games from some early chess masters, from Morphy to Andersson, to Pillsbury to Colle and Speilmann, and on through players like Alekhine, Bronstein, and Tal. The idea is not to study the games deeply, but play them over like a &quot;chess movie&quot; and just enjoy the fireworks. Each player will drill into you the themes they've employed, whether it's Speilmann's use of the two bishops or Morphy's exploitation of time or Rubinstein's &quot;feel&quot; for the right place to set his pieces before the action begins. Just watching, you'll begin to soak it up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Spending a lot of time on opening theory at this point is wasteful, but thinking about it a little won't hurt and can help you. The most important thing to remember about the opening is that your main task in it is to reach a playable middlegame, one where your tactical study will pay off. Feel free to experiment with many different openings; just don't go into a deep dive into any of them. When your opponent plays a line you haven't seen, take a few minutes and look it up after the game; don't waste precious skill development time preparing for moves you never see over the board. You have other things to work on. Your prime goal in opening study is to avoid traps (something tactical knowledge will help with) and keep from losing the game in the opening; so long as you're still playing at the end of the opening phase, you're passing the test.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At this point also spend some time on basic endgames, especially pawn endings. Learn the techniques of winning pawn endgames so well that when your tactis win you an extra pawn, you can confidently know you'll win even if all the rest of the pieces disappear. That's quite useful, because if your tactics have won you the exchange, for example, the simplest and easiest way to win is to give back the exchange to win a pawn, and win with the pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you're looking for a &quot;time budget&quot; I'd say 50% tactics, 30% endgames, and 20% openings for a study plan, and you could easily profit by adding time to tactical study at this point at the expense of opening study. It doesn't matter who comes out of the opening with a better position, after all, if you can outplay them tactically at that point and win the endgame. And as your tactical ability improves, you could take some of the time you used to spend on tactics and spend it on endgames. Only when you've mastered those should you start spending more time on openings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Look at it this way, any non-fatal mistakes you make in the opening can be fixed in the middlegame, and non-fatal mistakes there can be fixed in the endgame, you can count on this being true so long as you can play those phases better than your opponent. Extensive opening theory knowledge becomes more useful as your opponents get better; at levels below 1800-2000, it's not very necessary. And if you keep experimenting with new openings, by the time you get to the point where you need to spend time in theory, you'll have a better feel for the middlegame positions you like to play, and are good at, so you'll have a better idea of which openings you'll want to study.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="657" LastActivityDate="2020-01-09T14:54:44.187" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27902" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-01-09T15:38:47.343" Score="3" ViewCount="2477" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure if it's called friends or just users I am following. When I press on my profile there's a section which allows me to see the users that are following me but I'm looking for the one's I'm following in a list. I can also just search the username and it suggests them from the drop down search bar but I'm looking for a list of all of them. Maybe someone knows where it is or if there's a URL that can get me there?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21134" LastActivityDate="2020-01-09T15:44:46.527" Title="Where can I see all my friends on lichess?" Tags="&lt;lichess&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27903" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27902" CreationDate="2020-01-09T15:44:46.527" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;When you go to followers there's a button for following.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also found the URL:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/@/USERNAME/following&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://lichess.org/@/USERNAME/following&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21134" LastActivityDate="2020-01-09T15:44:46.527" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27904" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23563" CreationDate="2020-01-09T15:47:31.840" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;No. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Plenty of honest players who will sometimes get the centipawns you are describing in 3 minute or even one minute games. Don't worry about opponent's cheating - it's an unhelpful distraction and lichess algorithm will catch them eventually and refund the rating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is also the danger of people making false accusations with good intentions - cheat detection is not a simple issue (read FIDE anti cheating expert Ken Regan's blogs and presentations but good luck understanding them without a maths PhD)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Centipawns is quite a bad measure anyway - ignores difficulty of moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18738" LastActivityDate="2020-01-09T15:47:31.840" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27905" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27897" CreationDate="2020-01-09T16:06:51.827" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;1200 on what scale?  Elo USCF  some inflated online site??&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You do not need theory at all.&#xA;What you need is useful tactics training. &#xA;And you need endgames.  That will help you more than theory.&#xA;Do one theme at a time and repeat ten-15 times that day.&#xA;Come back in a couple of days and repeat it.&#xA;When you know it cold then wait several weeks and try again.&#xA;Come back regularly but let the time between reviews get longer as your ability to do them easily requires.  The goal is to spot the patterns in your games without thinking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After that focus on pawn structure and ONE opening system as white and one with black. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastActivityDate="2020-01-09T16:06:51.827" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27906" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21253" CreationDate="2020-01-09T18:51:28.777" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;They are not really lower.  That depends on the person.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most lower rated players train the wrong way to be able to play speedier chess well, or at least better than very slow chess games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;GMs can play speed chess quite well and most would not have a lower speed rating than for slow OTB games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Exacerbating the problem is digital clocks with all their weird add ons delays and similar gimmicks that drastically change the effect of playing faster on different people and their ratings.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;OTOH  I know a mere NM whose published speed rating is higher than his OTB.  So again,  it depends a lot more on the person than the ratings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also Exacerbating is the lumping of widely different speeds and related ability into one very wide category for the ratings.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With more rating categories the ability vs speed would be better shown although for most players there will be a maximum where they are as good as they can be so slowing down the time control would not raise their ratings more.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastActivityDate="2020-01-09T18:51:28.777" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27907" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26543" CreationDate="2020-01-09T18:56:51.290" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;No.  They are used because too few people have faster ratings in many tournaments.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They are generally as accurate for pairing as other rating would be although some players do play better at fast speeds so it would not be as good as truly VALID speed ratings for ALL players would be.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They might actually be better as the speed rating bracket covers way too wide a time to be valid.  As I recall it varies from,  which for me would be virtually postal to way too fast to play well.  My sweet spot is in the bracket but at one  extreme  I would do a little worse and at the other terrible bad. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastActivityDate="2020-01-09T18:56:51.290" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27908" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27909" CreationDate="2020-01-09T19:00:20.363" Score="5" ViewCount="1712" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was playing this game in-person with someone and I was white. My opponent had a pawn on a7 and kept moving his king back and forth  between c6 and d6 at least 3-4 times while I maneuvered my bishop around the board to capture his pawn on a7 to make room for my past pawn. After I captured his pawn on a7 he moved his king back to d6 and claimed it was a draw because at that time he had moved his king back and forth on the same 2 squares 6 times. I understand the 3 fold repetition but his king had other squares to move and wasn't in a perpetual check. Was this a valid draw?&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/JQtqe.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/JQtqe.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21141" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-01-10T03:57:02.520" LastActivityDate="2020-01-10T03:57:02.520" Title="Was this a valid draw?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;claim-draw&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27909" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27908" CreationDate="2020-01-09T19:02:36.063" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, it was not a draw. For a draw by three-fold repetition, the exact position, and all of the possible moves (castling and en passant, which since en passant can only happen on the move, in essence, it requires a fourth repetition of the position), have to be repeated three times.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It was clearly a case of your opponent not really knowing the rules.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems like he was somewhat confusing, and mixing, three-fold repetition with the 50-move rule, which requires 50 moves of just moving around without a pawn move or capture with repeating the position three times.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S. The repetitions do not need to be consecutive. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-01-09T19:41:39.007" LastActivityDate="2020-01-09T19:41:39.007" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27910" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15889" CreationDate="2020-01-09T19:05:31.197" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Absolutely!   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The problem is that players do not play enough players in other regions to even out discrepancies due to number of kids and how fast they improve.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And while perhaps fixed/improved now,  initial ratings make a huge difference.  If everybody played in a national or big regional open for their first games they would have a higher rating than if they only played a small local tournament.  This was a big problem early on in the ratings.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also good players tend to group in the same places.  EG  When I played back when most of the masters were in NY.  Some states might have a couple but the bulk of them were in NYC area where the TWO major chess clubs were.   In DC there was one good club but the strength was far below NY.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some states just do not attract people so they will have fewer strong players who like all people would prefer better weather and jobs where they live. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I played in tournaments the south was always much easier then in the north.  I was in DC which was middlish between those.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The same is true for Bridge players. The ones in the south are much easier and many people only get their LifeMaster (bridge) title after retiring to Florida where the competition is easier.  Partly due to aging but overall the southern players are noticeably weaker. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastEditorUserId="20776" LastEditDate="2020-01-09T19:17:21.140" LastActivityDate="2020-01-09T19:17:21.140" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27911" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-01-09T21:28:32.963" Score="2" ViewCount="295" Body="&lt;p&gt;I coded (with visual studio 2019 on windows 10) an ultra naive chess engine that complies with UCI engine interface rules. Before starting to develop it in more fancy ways, I want to make sure that I can debug my code via using my engine from a chess GUI. Hence I decided to debug it with &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.playwitharena.de/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Arena&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I tried the following two standard debugging methods :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;In the properties of the project used to compile my engine I put (the path to) arena.exe in the command to execute when the debug is launched, and then, when debug is triggered and arena opened, I load in Arena a new engine corresponding to my engine, I put breakpoints in my code but each has a &quot;no symbols loaded&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I launch Arena, I load a new engine in it, the engine being the compiled debug version of my engine, and then in visual studio I make an &quot;attach to process&quot; and add Arena as process to attach to. Then the breakpoints in my code in visual studio have also &quot;no symbols loaded&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Am I missing something or not?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am not sure if CSE is the most suitable place to post this question but I wanted to give it a try before maybe posting on &lt;a href=&quot;https://gamedev.stackexchange.com/&quot;&gt;gamedev.stackexchange.com&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Precision 1.&lt;/strong&gt; I have the same problem if I take StockFish's source code, compile it in a console project in Visual Studio 2019 and try to do as explained above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Precision 2.&lt;/strong&gt; I also finally posted on SE here &lt;a href=&quot;https://stackoverflow.com/questions/59687256/debugging-a-console-chessengine-exe-used-in-another-application-a-chess-gui&quot;&gt;https://stackoverflow.com/questions/59687256/debugging-a-console-chessengine-exe-used-in-another-application-a-chess-gui&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20949" LastEditorUserId="20949" LastEditDate="2020-01-10T18:39:25.907" LastActivityDate="2020-01-10T18:39:25.907" Title="Debugging my chess engine through the Arena GUI" Tags="&lt;programming&gt;&lt;uci&gt;&lt;arena&gt;&lt;windows&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27912" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-01-10T01:30:11.163" Score="28" ViewCount="7964" Body="&lt;p&gt;He won the Russian championship 5 times, so why wasn’t he a grandmaster? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user21148" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-06-11T12:34:37.980" LastActivityDate="2020-08-18T04:52:48.747" Title="Why wasn’t Rashid Nezhmetdinov a grandmaster?" Tags="&lt;history&gt;&lt;grandmaster&gt;&lt;famous-players&gt;&lt;titles&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27913" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27912" CreationDate="2020-01-10T01:39:59.303" Score="55" Body="&lt;p&gt;Rashid Nezhmetdinov, aka “Super Nezh”, was clearly GM strength, having a plus score in the 20 games he played against World Champions, including a plus score against his friend, Tal. He was also a five-time Russian champion (this title predates the Soviet Union, and is not the same as champion of the Soviet Union).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was a Russian linguist in the Air Force during the cold war (1980-1988), and all of my Russian teachers were “off the boat” as they say, meaning they were natives of the Soviet Union, so we heard many stories about life there, and Nezhmetdinov’s story is not uncommon: Lack of favor.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;During his peak years, Nezhmetdinov only managed to play outside of the Soviet Union one time, and he finished second to Korchnoi at Bucharest 1954, which again showed that he was strong enough to be a GM. Unfortunately, strength is not the only factor in getting a title. FIDE has long had in place title rules that were designed to make sure that federations could not manipulate titles, thus you have to play x-number of other titled players, and x-number of players from other countries. So, back then, it was harder to get titles because there were not as many titled players as there are today.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Typically, in the Soviet Union, there were also “favorites”, and they were people, who were Communist Party members, or related to those, who were. If you were not a favorite, you could not travel abroad freely as you can today, and they lived behind what was called “The Iron Curtain”. The Party also worried a lot about players defecting, so in essence, your whole country was a prison of sorts. There were exceptions, who were not Party members, but who were so talented that they could bring the Party great favor and prestige, especially when it made the West look bad. Nevertheless, I read somewhere that Nezhmetdinov was a low-level party member, but he was also not a prodigy as were the Tals and Spasskys of the time.  As great as Rashid Nezhmetdinov was, he had huge flaws in his game, and thus, he would probably never become World Champion, and the top chess players knew it, and thus, the Party did not favor him. If you were not given the opportunity, you cannot succeed. He was also an ethnic minority, a Tatar, which also surely played a role in this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Personally, I would love it if FIDE would posthumously award Nezhmetdinov the Grandmaster title. He is easily the best player ever not to get the title, during the era of titles. I have since written an email to FIDE President, Arkady Dvorkovich, regarding the possibility of posthumously awarding Rashid Nezhmetdinov the GM title. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For anyone, who does not know of Super Nezh, I suggest you search for some of his games. He has what might be the greatest queen sacrifice ever.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was asked in comments why black resigned after 33. Ke2, so I added a sample line just showing where to put the white pieces, and how that will eventually lead to an easy win, and Chernikov knew it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [Event &quot;Rostov on Don&quot;]&#xA; [Site &quot;Rostov on Don&quot;]&#xA; [Date &quot;1962.??.??&quot;]&#xA; [Round &quot;?&quot;]&#xA; [White &quot;Nezhmetdinov, Rashid&quot;]&#xA; [Black &quot;Chernikov, Oleg L&quot;]&#xA; [Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA; [ECO &quot;B35&quot;]&#xA; [PlyCount &quot;65&quot;]&#xA; [EventDate &quot;1962.??.??&quot;]&#xA; [EventType &quot;game&quot;]&#xA; [EventRounds &quot;1&quot;]&#xA; [EventCountry &quot;URS&quot;]&#xA; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 g6 5. Nc3 Bg7 6. Be3 Nf6 7. Bc4 O-O 8. Bb3 Ng4 9. Qxg4 Nxd4 10. Qh4 Qa5 11. O-O Bf6 12. Qxf6 Ne2+ 13. Nxe2 exf6 14. Nc3 Re8 15. Nd5 Re6 16. Bd4 Kg7 17. Rad1 d6 18. Rd3 Bd7 19. Rf3 Bb5 20. Bc3 Qd8 21. Nxf6 Be2 22. Nxh7+ Kg8 23. Rh3 Re5 24. f4 Bxf1 25. Kxf1 Rc8 26. Bd4 b5 27. Ng5 Rc7 28. Bxf7+ Rxf7 29. Rh8+ Kxh8 30. Nxf7+ Kh7 31. Nxd8 Rxe4 32. Nc6 Rxf4+ 33. Ke2 (33. Ke2 a6 34. c3 Rf7 35. Nb4 a5 36. Nc6 a4 37. a3 Kg8 38. Be3 Kf8 39. Nd4 Rb7 40. h4 Ke7 41. Bf4 d5 42. g3 Kf6 43. Kd3 Rb6 44. Bg5+ Ke5 45. Nf3+ Ke6 46. Kd4 Rb8 47. Ne5 Rg8 48. Bf4+- {and Kc5 next wins}) 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-01-10T17:09:08.807" LastActivityDate="2020-01-10T17:09:08.807" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27914" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27912" CreationDate="2020-01-10T01:43:49.020" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;If one is not a GM then apparently they did not satisfy the written FIDE rules for getting to be a GM.  Maybe russia had their version of GM titles for players like USA does with USCF.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Was his rating 2500+ ??&#xA;Did he play in enough tournaments with enough GMs with enough rounds and score well enough enough times ??&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Clearly not since he died in 1974 when the requirements were slightly different, AND he was getting too old to keep scoring well enough.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Back when he may have been that strong they did not award the GM titles like they do now.  The modern system did not start until 1953.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Before 1950, the term grandmaster was sometimes informally applied to world class players. The Fédération Internationale des Échecs (FIDE, or International Chess Federation) was formed in Paris in 1924, but at that time did not award formal titles.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The answer is that he was in the wrong place at the wrong time to get the GM title even though he may have been that strong. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;FIDE Titles&#xA;The most prestigious titles are granted by FIDE, which is the World Chess Federation. These titles require high FIDE ratings, and the highest titles also require strong performances in tournaments against other elite players. Once granted, FIDE titles are not taken away from players, even if their performance drops. The FIDE titles and their requirements are as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Candidate Master: This title is awarded to any player with an established FIDE rating of 2200 or higher. This is the least prestigious title awarded by FIDE.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;FIDE Master (FM): The FIDE Master title is awarded to any player who establishes a FIDE rating of at least 2300. Many international junior tournaments also award the FIDE title to winners; for instance, one may earn the FM title by winning a section at the Pan-Am Youth Games, even if they do not meet the rating requirement.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;International Master (IM): To earn the IM title, a player must normally have an established FIDE rating of 2400. However, players must also prove their strength by having sufficiently strong results in (normally) three tournaments against very strong competition. Like the FM title, however, there are potential shortcuts to winning the IM title, such as by being the runner-up at the World Junior Championship.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Grandmaster (GM): The GM title is the most difficult title to earn for any chess player. To become a grandmaster, a player must establish a FIDE rating of at least 2500. Also, he or she must go through the same norms process required of an IM, but with a higher standard required to achieve each norm. Only a few tournaments award a GM title outside of this system; winning the World Junior Championship or the World Senior Championship are two ways in which a player might earn the GM title despite not otherwise qualifying for it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastActivityDate="2020-01-10T01:43:49.020" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27915" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27918" CreationDate="2020-01-10T05:04:50.130" Score="7" ViewCount="346" Body="&lt;p&gt;My lichess puzzle rating (tactics) is around 2100, while my game rating is only around 1400, so I'm pretty sure that means my positional play is utterly trash. There aren't any positional puzzles out there, and when reviewing games, I'm utterly clueless on anything positional since I haven't the slightest idea on how to evaluate a position, and guides on positional play seem abstract to me. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I get by in life by memorizing sicilian opening lines and copying how IMs and GMs develop their pieces, but this only gets me past the early middlegame, and I'm essentially locked out of playing any opening except the ones I've carefully reviewed, like the modern, sicilian, and english.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was wondering if there was a systematic way like a routine or checklist to determine a better position and a good positional moves, or if it was all dependent on pattern recognition. In other words, help please!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21149" LastEditorUserId="307" LastEditDate="2020-01-10T19:41:07.940" LastActivityDate="2020-01-10T20:19:48.277" Title="I am 1400, how do I improve my positional play?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="7" ClosedDate="2020-01-10T13:02:41.113" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27916" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27911" CreationDate="2020-01-10T09:47:16.387" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Did you set she compiler / linker flags correctly? (&lt;code&gt;/DEBUG&lt;/code&gt; in the linker, &lt;code&gt;/Od&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;/Zi&lt;/code&gt; in the compiler - which flags did you set?) Is the pdb-file located in the same directory as the executable? You can also manually load the pdb after breaking in your code and see, if symbols appear. If not, look at the flags.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To avoid the &quot;attach to process&quot;, you can also put a&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;__debugbreak();&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in your code. This also avoids any mishaps with choosing the wrong process to attach to.&#xA;I would probably put the break somewhere where the &quot;uci&quot; command is handled.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But both methods to attach the debugger are valid and should normally work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7651" LastActivityDate="2020-01-10T09:47:16.387" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27917" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27915" CreationDate="2020-01-10T12:20:20.947" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;My two cents on this is to study lots of classic games - chess.com articles by GSerper and especially Bryan Smith are an excellent place to start. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The book Chess Training for Post Beginners is also excellent (the title is misleading - I learnt a tonne when I was 2100) - gives you a review of all the main positional elements (bishop pair, good knight vs bad bishop...)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18738" LastActivityDate="2020-01-10T12:20:20.947" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27918" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27915" CreationDate="2020-01-10T12:41:04.447" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Positional thinking &lt;em&gt;is&lt;/em&gt; more abstract than tactics.  If there could be an algorithm for positional thinking then positional thinking would be like tactical thinking and not something else.  However, there are thinking steps like noticing weak squares.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I suggest starting with a pawn structure book.  Soltis' &quot;Pawn Structure Chess&quot; is a classic and the book that changed my game all those years ago.  I really like &quot;Chess Structures - A grandmaster guide&quot; by Mauricio Flores Rios as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I believe it is best to start with looking at isolani positions as positional considerations are clear there, As I recall both books start with isolani.  After that skip to the chapters with the structures you play and start trying out the ideas in your games.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Think about what the ideal placement of your pieces would be in the position separate from how to get them there.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These books may have unintended consequences.  After I read &quot;Pawn Structure Chess&quot; I switched from 1.e4 to 1.d4 because I was more likely to get isolani and hanging pawns structures and outplay my opponents who didn't know about these things.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17425" LastEditorUserId="17425" LastEditDate="2020-01-10T20:19:48.277" LastActivityDate="2020-01-10T20:19:48.277" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27919" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14720" CreationDate="2020-01-10T16:56:07.897" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;For me it was decades of experience and not trying to slash and burn to a win with tactics like I was tempted to do when I first started out.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Along the way it was examples where I was forced to sacrifice the exchange to avoid worse things,  and discovered that I had a much better position than the material loss as I ended up winning.  Seeing how the minor piece beat a rook in some positions helped me appreciate positional play better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More recently playing an expert rated player he made less aggressive although not outright passive moves in the opening so I gained some tempi and had more space. Through the game the advantages kept growing until I won. The total lack of tactics and seeing that game as a whole helped me appreciate positional play more and realize that now I am doing more of that and relying less on tactics. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Takeaway is that is is partially a mindset.  If you do not like positional play and always look for tactics you will not improve your positional play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You need to learn how pawn structure affects the play and also study endgames which are not as slash and burn tactical as many players prefer in the opening and middle game which distracts them from positional considerations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Remember if you do not win in the middle game you will have to play the end game.  End games will help you plan ahead in the middle game so that you can do  better.  Often I have not castled and have been able to move my king into the center at the end game several moves ahead of the opponent thus giving myself a big positional edge.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastActivityDate="2020-01-10T16:56:07.897" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27920" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21777" CreationDate="2020-01-10T17:16:02.207" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;f5 was definitely premature.  You need to   develop better  before you start attacking especially in a positional type game. &#xA;Nothing wrong with f4 but f5 was not called for yet. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do you realize that you are essentially in a sicilian not a KID?&#xA;Would looking at it differently , not as English nor KID,  help your perspective to see other ideas better?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why not d4 instead of d3 at move 8?  Would your reason for that decision help you see a better plan for later?  For my taste  you are too worried about your d3 after move 12.  What was the point of 13 b3?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The last half of the game followed from the opening and needs no special analysis. Build on a better foundation not patch cracks in the building later. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What was the time control?  Was anyone in time pressure?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastActivityDate="2020-01-10T17:16:02.207" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27922" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="3991" CreationDate="2020-01-10T19:22:29.787" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The question is essentially meaningless.  Tactics and moves all depend on which line and which variation of which opening happened to be done by BOTH white and black with their moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You need to focus on ONE opening and learn it well. You are a long way from being strong enough to want to use tactics for a quick win somehow.  Stronger players will outtactic you.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You need to learn to play a complete solid game and only use tactics when they are the correct thing to do.  Too many players want to go with slash and burn tactics when they are just starting out.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That might work against weaker players but it wont move you from 1300 to 1700, let alone 1900 or higher.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just what are these so called tactical openings you get caught in?&#xA;Openings either tend to be open, closed, or semi open.  With early tactics more likely in the open type openings.  If you have trouble with tactics then maybe you need to move to a more closed type opening.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Better yet learn end games, pawn structure, and the rest of the techniques and info to make you a better player.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You will not go much past 1300 if all you do is tactics. And you seem to be getting beaten with that approach anyway.  So sorry, but just because you love tactics, does not make that the way to go if you want to get a higher rating. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastActivityDate="2020-01-10T19:22:29.787" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27923" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23367" CreationDate="2020-01-11T03:32:58.027" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Good for who?&#xA;Short answer no.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;If it were good more people would be playing it.&#xA;It is more an example of a slash and burn tactical player that should fall short if black plays carefully.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you play really weak players there is a good chance they will make mistakes and fold like a broken chair. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Against a better player White gets the material back but black gains tempi chasing the White Queen and will have the two bishops plus a slightly better center.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Minor positional advantage to black should make up for castling by hand instead of the normal way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Will a super deep computer analysis change the assessment?  Who knows? Who cares?  The game is played by people not computers and anything can happen depending on many factors. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastActivityDate="2020-01-11T03:32:58.027" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27924" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-01-11T06:10:54.087" Score="5" ViewCount="1251" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a lichess user who would like to be able to use my 8C/16T processor to the best of my ability, and yet when I start up a chess engine only one of my cores is working on stockfish the rest are either doing very very little of just nothing at all. Why is this happening and how can I fix it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am using Linux (Ubuntu 18.04 LTS)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is what I was told on lichess forums:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both javascript.options.shared_memory and dom.postMessage.sharedArrayBuffer.withCOOP_COEP have to be set to true.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a very new linux user... how do I actually implement this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21158" LastEditorUserId="21158" LastEditDate="2020-01-11T06:41:48.347" LastActivityDate="2020-01-11T12:58:13.923" Title="Stockfish 10 working on only 1 core at a time" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;lichess&gt;&lt;linux&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27925" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27924" CreationDate="2020-01-11T07:35:23.343" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Those appear to be options to set &lt;em&gt;in your Web browser,&lt;/em&gt; which is effectively the platform that LiChess runs on.  You don't mention which browser you're using…&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chrome uses multiple cores and thereby searches many more nodes per second, without any special attention.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On my Mac, Firefox uses only one core, even after entering the settings you mention (using &lt;code&gt;about:config&lt;/code&gt;).  However, the Linux version responds well to these settings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Obviously, a native chess engine would be more efficient still.  This wouldn't integrate with LiChess, however.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19281" LastEditorUserId="19281" LastEditDate="2020-01-11T12:51:44.880" LastActivityDate="2020-01-11T12:51:44.880" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27926" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27924" CreationDate="2020-01-11T12:05:06.970" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I will have to take them at their word that just setting those settings will fix your problem, but here is how you do that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In the URL bar, type &quot;about:config&quot; (without the quotes) and hit enter.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Click &quot;Accept the Risk and Continue&quot; (this is just because your local computer does not have an SSL certificate from an accepted authority)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You will get a warning &quot;Changing these preferences can impact Firefox performance or security&quot;, but click &quot;Show all&quot; which will bring up the &quot;Advanced Preferences&quot; page.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You can either scroll down until you find those settings, or you can use the search function, but find them, and change them to &quot;True&quot; using the button to the very right that looks something like opposite arrows.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Restart the browser just in case, and try again.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Good luck.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S. Although I doubt it, what you see may be a bit different since I just did that on a Windows version of Firefox, so adapt as necessary. This has less to do with being a Linux user than the browser itself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.P.S. It appears that this only works on certain operating systems. @Chromatix determined that it does not work on a Mac, but does on Ubuntu.  I determined that it does not work on Windows 10, and the slider for the number of cores is missing. I then installed Chrome, and it did work on Windows 10. We both determined that it appears to limit you to four cores, regardless of how many your PC has.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-01-11T12:58:13.923" LastActivityDate="2020-01-11T12:58:13.923" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27927" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12272" CreationDate="2020-01-11T13:11:42.247" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In general, it's preferable to recapture with the weakest piece available.  If nothing else, this means that you lose the least material in the event of a sequence of recaptures on the same square.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this particular case, putting the more powerful piece in that position would open up the possibility of Black forking two pieces on the next move.  By using the pawn instead, it is only a fork of a piece and a pawn, and it's relatively easy to keep the piece alive and sacrifice only the pawn - upon which the Queen is still available to recapture the piece, winning the exchange.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19281" LastActivityDate="2020-01-11T13:11:42.247" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27928" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16158" CreationDate="2020-01-11T15:00:25.507" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You could try&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://pgnchessbook.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;PGN ChessBook&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which is a free app that can be installed from SourceForge or from the Windows app store.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It finds blunders, then automatically annotates games by inserting variations and adding comments to the blunder moves, as described on&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://pgnchessbook.org/gamesfindblunders/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Automatic game annotation features&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And in this YouTube video&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJpre9WO9Sk&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;How to annotate games automatically using PGN ChessBook&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course &lt;a href=&quot;https://shop.chessbase.com/en/cat_root&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;ChessBase&lt;/a&gt; and several other paid apps can also do this, but they can be expensive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19786" LastEditorUserId="19786" LastEditDate="2021-03-01T16:44:36.230" LastActivityDate="2021-03-01T16:44:36.230" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27929" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27881" CreationDate="2020-01-11T15:01:01.440" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In alpha/beta pruning, you &lt;em&gt;only prune when further search cannot affect the outcome.&lt;/em&gt; In particular this means there will be &lt;em&gt;no loss of information&lt;/em&gt; when you transition from MinMax to alpha/beta. There is only upside to alpha/beta (in contrast to other, more aggressive pruning methods).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The fundamental idea of alpha/beta pruning is that once you discover a branch to be inferior, there's no sense in figuring out &lt;em&gt;exactly how inferior&lt;/em&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's how we'll do it: (When &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; using NegaMax) You can think of alpha as the maximum of all white (maximizing) ancestor's max_eval, and beta as the minimum of all black (minimizing) ancestor's min_eval. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, say you're searching a white node, w, and you discover the max_eval to be &lt;em&gt;larger&lt;/em&gt; than beta. White is maximizing, so we know that the value of w can only go up. Then we are guaranteed that the value of w is larger than beta.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This means that this (white) node must have a (black) ancestor with min_eval &lt;em&gt;smaller&lt;/em&gt; than the value of w, by definition of beta. Let's think more about this: because that black ancestor has min_eval smaller than w, it is guaranteed the option of a move with value min_eval. But w has value &lt;em&gt;larger&lt;/em&gt; than min_eval. That black ancestor will &lt;em&gt;always&lt;/em&gt; choose the lower one, so it doesn't matter how much larger w is. From the perspective of that black ancestor, w and w+100 are the exact same: worse. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then, there's no reason to continue searching w: it can't possibly affect the outcome of the algorithm, so we prune the tree.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is the only situation in which the alpha/beta algorithm prunes: when the outcome of further search cannot possibly affect the result. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If all of that is confusing, I really don't blame you. This is a topic that deserves lots of pictures and a few pages of explanation, not a few paragraphs. imo there aren't any great resources online, but if you (or anyone else) would like to contact me, I have something that might be helpful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20581" LastActivityDate="2020-01-11T15:01:01.440" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27930" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8444" CreationDate="2020-01-11T20:32:39.253" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;TDs have a wide latitude within some reasonable guidelines for a specific event. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sounds more like sour grapes that your team/players did not do as well as you wished and  you are trying to find an excuse to blame the director. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;THAT SAID  not all TDs are equally capable.  Too many new ones make stupid mistakes that make pairings difficult later on.  Even experienced TDs who try to avoid the problems may have them anyway based on the actual outcomes of games which do not always go strictly by ratings.  Upsets happen and they can cause color assignment problems that might ripple into groups that should be paired getting moved to/from the adjacent group. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In general pairings should go first by actual results, and within ties then by rating,  and how players from the same/team school are handled should be spelled out in the tournament announcement. TDs need to avoid pairing players twice,  and to avoid unbalanced W/B assignments, and to some lesser extent 3B in a row  even if it does not unbalance the W/B ratio by an extra game.   I am unaware of tiebreaks in the future at the end of the tournament being a consideration but maybe recent rules changes added that.  At some point any players  may need to play to have a  fair tournament result especially if they are individuals not teams being paired. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A - a fair amount but not carte blanche&#xA;B - not to me&#xA;C - n/a&#xA;D - n/a but yes manipulation can happen and has happened but is not                        a real problem&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are far worse problems extant than TD pairing manipulation.&#xA;Cheating by players is prevalent.  It is worse now with more ways to do it.  When I played the GM I played and who cheated had to go to the mens room to read the books and notes he hid in a stall.  He got caught doing that a tournament later that year.  I thought it was odd he took a dump after every move.  I was naive and did not suspect cheating until after he got caught later. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why are you so concerned?  Was there a big money prize on the line?&#xA;Did you all lose a big trophy that would help the schools prestige?&#xA;It should not be ratings as that goes to the game results not tie break.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastActivityDate="2020-01-11T20:32:39.253" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27931" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16631" CreationDate="2020-01-11T20:44:30.693" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;NO!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Trying would be comparing kumquats and kummerbunds and be meaningless.&#xA;Chess playing strength has improved steadily over the past few centuries.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So an objective test is impossible as so many players are dead.  It is hard enough to know who is the best player today and that will likely change next year or so, just like it has done in the past. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You would need to get all the players in the same tournament at the same time and have enough games to come up with a winner who could reasonably be called best.  And that might depend on the time control as well as luck and who got W/B when against who as you would need a swiss to be able to run the tournament in a reasonable amount of time.  The days of have 16 let alone 64 or 256 GMs in a double round robin are long gone.  And with fewer players there will be arguments that somebody good got left out who would have won. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastActivityDate="2020-01-11T20:44:30.693" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27932" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-01-11T21:57:33.413" Score="2" ViewCount="122" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am wondering the best opening moves are for both white and black, because I have won games with the pawn move 1. d2-d4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21167" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-01-12T15:45:29.547" LastActivityDate="2020-01-12T15:45:29.547" Title="What are some of the best chess opening moves, for white and black?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="12" ClosedDate="2020-01-11T22:54:40.060" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27934" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-01-12T01:30:10.190" Score="23" ViewCount="2334" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1060292&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Ivanchuk vs Anand game (1992)&lt;/a&gt;, the game leads into an endgame after lots of exchanges, which by no means looks (to me at least) winning for black: they both have 2 rooks, 2 bishops, and black has a rather awkward pawn structure in the center with the doubled f-pawns and the light square holes. Nonetheless, Anand decided to trade his bishop by playing Bc4 (shown in diagram below), and managed to win the game afterwards quite convincingly and rather seamlessly!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;But what is Anand's plan with the move Bc4? And how is it that black could suddenly build such a strong edge in the endgame thereafter? &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Diagram:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [title &quot;Ivanchuk vs Anand 1992&quot;]&#xA; [fen &quot;1r2k2r/4bp2/p2pbp2/1p2p3/4P1P1/P3B3/1PPR3P/1K3BR1 b k - 0 20&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1...Bc4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15078" LastActivityDate="2020-01-12T23:25:21.157" Title="Understanding Anand's Bc4 move vs Ivanchuk 1992" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;&lt;anand&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27936" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8220" CreationDate="2020-01-12T01:41:20.977" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Against a human it could certainly happen.  Black should not resign!&#xA;But against a computer maybe,  my intuition say no.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More importantly is how good are white and black at endgames.  That could be worth more than a pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would play on as white and expect to win.  But I always expect to win endgames:)  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would play on as black and expect to draw.  But I am confident in my endgame play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastActivityDate="2020-01-12T01:41:20.977" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27937" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8375" CreationDate="2020-01-12T01:51:13.450" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Win?   What are you serious?  This looks like a draw at best for white.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You would have had to play a lot better a lot earlier for white to have chance to win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You were done when you lost that pawn and then let black move to f4 later&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;at 25 you should have left the horsie on c3 and got you other rook to the kingside asap by going ra2.  after that depends what black did. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastActivityDate="2020-01-12T01:51:13.450" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27938" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27934" CreationDate="2020-01-12T02:03:24.810" Score="28" Body="&lt;h2&gt;In short, the key idea is to &lt;strong&gt;prevent white from playing &lt;code&gt;h2-h3&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;!&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;Bc4&lt;/code&gt; forces the exchange of light square bishops, and thus, sets up &lt;code&gt;Rh3&lt;/code&gt; which blocks the &lt;code&gt;h2&lt;/code&gt; pawn and keeps both the &lt;code&gt;h2&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;g4&lt;/code&gt; pawns weak.&#xA;Concretely, the only piece currently covering &lt;code&gt;h3&lt;/code&gt; is the light squared bishop on &lt;code&gt;f1&lt;/code&gt;, so by trading the bishop with &lt;code&gt;Bc4&lt;/code&gt;, which white cannot prevent as &lt;code&gt;Bg2&lt;/code&gt; leaves &lt;code&gt;h2&lt;/code&gt; hanging, white has no immediate means (e.g. a rook on &lt;code&gt;g3&lt;/code&gt; would prepare &lt;code&gt;h3&lt;/code&gt; but it's too slow) of preventing black's imminent &lt;code&gt;Rh3&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/nFeMMm.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/nFeMMm.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Black's bigger idea is to create two connected central passed pawns!&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More precisely, the plan is: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;to pressure &lt;code&gt;g4&lt;/code&gt;, and binding white's rooks to the defense of &lt;code&gt;g4&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;h2&lt;/code&gt;,&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;bring the king to &lt;code&gt;e6&lt;/code&gt; to prepare the &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt; advance to trade the &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; pawn, then go back to &lt;code&gt;e6&lt;/code&gt; and similarly prepare trading white's &lt;code&gt;g4&lt;/code&gt; pawn with &lt;code&gt;f5&lt;/code&gt;,&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;after which black is left with a passed &lt;code&gt;f&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;e&lt;/code&gt; pawn, that is, two connected passed pawns!&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/wXjkAm.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/wXjkAm.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Suppose &lt;code&gt;Bc4&lt;/code&gt; is not played, then white gets to play &lt;code&gt;h3&lt;/code&gt;, and thus maintaining their bind on light squares and killing black's prospect of&#xA;creating two connected passers. &#xA;In the game itself, Ivanchuck decided to trade the &lt;code&gt;g&lt;/code&gt;-pawn quickly (by advancing it to &lt;code&gt;g5&lt;/code&gt;) in order to get rid of one of his weak pawns, after which Anand still managed to execute his plan as all he had to ensure was trading the &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; pawn by playing &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt;. Here's the position that transpired in the actual game, where Anand's plan has been executed to perfection:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/BNrPjm.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/BNrPjm.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Quite an exemplary game showing Anand's deep positional understanding: note the move &lt;code&gt;Bc4&lt;/code&gt; a priori undermines a couple of chess principles:&#xA;it willingly trades black's only good bishop, after which black is left with a hemmed-in dark squared bishop vs white's active one. Moreover, black allows&#xA;their queenside pawns to become shattered into 2 (isolated) islands, and in doing so having less chance of dominating&lt;sup&gt;1&lt;/sup&gt; &lt;code&gt;2-vs-3&lt;/code&gt; on the queenside. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In spite of all these at-first-glance-unfavourable aspects of the move, Anand beautifully realised controlling the &lt;code&gt;h3&lt;/code&gt; square outweighs them all, since preventing white's &lt;code&gt;h2-h3&lt;/code&gt; pawn advance to support &lt;code&gt;g4&lt;/code&gt; is the only way black can maintain the prospect of active play in the pawn skeleton that had transpired, as we discussed above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's the game itself:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [title &quot;Continuation after 20...Bc4&quot;]&#xA; [fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA; [startply &quot;40&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 Nc6 6. Bg5 e6 7. Qd2 a6 8. O-O-O h6 9. Be3 Nxd4 10. Bxd4 b5 11. f3 Qa5 12. a3 e5 13. Be3 Be6 14. Kb1 Be7 15. g4 Rb8 16. Nd5 Qxd2 17. Nxf6+ gxf6 18. Rxd2 h5 19. Rg1 hxg4 20. fxg4 Bc4 21. b3 Bxf1 22. Rxf1 Rh3 23. Re2 Kd7 24. g5 Ke6 25. gxf6 Bxf6 26. Bd2 Be7 27. Be1 f6 28. Bg3 d5 29. exd5+ Kxd5 30. Rf5 Kc6 31. Ref2 Rh6 32. Kb2 Kd7 33. Re2 Bd6 34. Rf3 Rc8 35. Be1 Ke6 36. Rd3 Rh7 37. Rg3 Bc5 38. Ka2 Rd7 39. Rc3 Rcc7 40. h4 Rd1 41. Bf2 Bd6 42. Rg3 e4 43. Rxe4+ Be5 44. Rxe5+ fxe5 45. Kb2 Rd2 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;sup&gt;&lt;sup&gt;1&lt;/sup&gt;: &lt;em&gt;Domination&lt;/em&gt; in this context means: the side with the minority (less pawns) achieving a setup (e.g. a blockade) where neither of the majority pawns of the opponent can (easily) advance. Typical to the Sicilian pawn structure on the queenside, one such setup could be white's pawns being on &lt;code&gt;a2-b3-c2&lt;/code&gt; and black's pawns pinning down on dark squares with &lt;code&gt;a5-b4.&lt;/code&gt; For an example see the setup by Caruana (as black) in his &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1818557&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;candidates game vs Karjakin&lt;/a&gt; (e.g. around move &lt;code&gt;22&lt;/code&gt;), where indeed one of his positional mistakes in that game was to give up the domination with &lt;code&gt;26...a4.&lt;/code&gt; &lt;/sup&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3594" LastEditorUserId="3594" LastEditDate="2020-01-12T02:12:30.930" LastActivityDate="2020-01-12T02:12:30.930" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27939" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27130" CreationDate="2020-01-12T08:42:48.900" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The only pieces white can move are the two knights, one of its rooks, and one of its bishops. None of the pieces can move without giving check. The black King cannot move to avoid that check, so the checking piece must be captured. That leaves only the rook as an option. If the rook moves it exposes a bishop to give check. The bishop is attacked by a black rook which is pinned. Thus the white rook must move to unpin the black rook.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9531" LastActivityDate="2020-01-12T08:42:48.900" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27940" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27941" CreationDate="2020-01-12T11:09:26.560" Score="9" ViewCount="783" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;Understand your openings, not just memorize lines&quot; is a common advice given to a club level player. However, most opening books are still organized around lines, amended with some explanations that may or may not yield &quot;understanding&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wonder if there are books on opening theory organized around tactical or strategic motives that are shared between many openings. Rather than having chapters such as &quot;&lt;em&gt;Rubinstein French&lt;/em&gt;&quot; or &quot;&lt;em&gt;Ruy Lopez&lt;/em&gt;&quot;, this book might have, for example, sections named &quot;&lt;em&gt;Pinning Nf6 with Bg5&lt;/em&gt;&quot;, &quot;&lt;em&gt;To exchange or not to exchange a bishop for a knight to double opponent's pawns&lt;/em&gt;&quot;, &quot;&lt;em&gt;f7/f2 weakness&lt;/em&gt;&quot;, etc., that would explore how a similar strategic or tactical motive arises and compares across the openings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17330" LastActivityDate="2020-01-13T15:20:23.817" Title="Books on opening theory organized around tactical/strategic motives, not opening lines" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;books&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27941" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27940" CreationDate="2020-01-12T12:16:36.520" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;You might be looking for two separate, but related types of books.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, and I have an extensive library, I could find no books that do not organize the openings somewhat by sub-variation. The problem is that the ideas between various sub-variations of a specific opening, like the French, are just too different to lump into one chapter, so the answer to your basic question is &quot;no&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The books that come to mind for learning opening pawn structures, and that is what you want, include the following books. These are the strategic ideas. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;Chess Opening Essentials: The Complete Series (Volumes 1 - 4)&quot; (by&#xA;various GM authors, it is fairly basic, but it covers virtually all&#xA;openings and the basic ideas)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;The Ideas Behind the Chess Openings: Algebraic Notation&quot; (by GM Rueben Fine, it is old, but still covers many openings, and the basic ideas have not changed)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;Pawn Structure Chess&quot; (by Andrew Soltis, it contains many errors, but the basic ideas are sound)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;Chess Structures: A Grandmaster Guide&quot; (by GM Mauricio Flores Rios, this is the best of them all, but it is more advanced, and should be read after one, or more, of the above books. It does not cover as wide a variety as some of the books above)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The other type of books you might find helpful are books that are in the &quot;Tactics in the X-opening&quot; type books. These obviously cover the common tactics ideas of your question (f2/f7, as well as other soft spots, etc.). Some of these include:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;Tactics in the Grunfeld&quot; by GM Genady Nesis&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;Tactics in the King's Indian&quot; by GM Genady Nesis&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;Tactics in the Sicilian&quot; by GM Genady Nesis&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;Tactics in the French&quot; by GM Genady Nesis&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;There is a whole 9-volume series called &quot;Catastrophes &amp;amp; Tactics in the Chess Opening&quot;, which are grouped by opening, by GM Carsten Hansen&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;Tactics In the chess Opening&quot;, a 6-volume series by GMs A. C. van der Tak, Friso Nijboer, and Geert van der Stricht. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="9179" LastEditDate="2020-01-12T15:21:13.750" LastActivityDate="2020-01-12T15:21:13.750" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27942" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27934" CreationDate="2020-01-12T12:55:09.287" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;Phonon's answer is great, and I might not otherwise try to add anything, but I thought that adding Anand's own words might be worthy. In particular, of note, is that his &quot;bad&quot; Be7 holds his position together while his rooks go to work. This is not uncommon in Sicilian lines with d6 and e5 (and f6), and worth remembering if you play similar lines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, here are Anand's own words about 20...Bc4!! (his own exclams): &quot;In time to stop white getting some sort of fortress in the kingside. Black's `bad' bishop will protect his pawns while he exchanges towards connected h and g passers.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wonder if he meant e and f passers, but he also, clearly, envisioned that e and f would be come strong, and he only gave one up before they started to roll because it forced the win of the exchange.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lastly, Anand notes that had white exchanged on c4, with 21. Bc4 bc 22. Rd5 trying to go after a5 or c4 (after Ra5-a4), he intended to stop all counterplay with Rb5 (the computer likes the immediate Rxh2 as over +2).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [title &quot;Ivanchuk vs Anand 1992 variation&quot;]&#xA; [fen &quot;1r2k2r/4bp2/p2pbp2/1p2p3/4P1P1/P3B3/1PPR3P/1K3BR1 b k - 0 20&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1...Bc4 2. Bxc4 bxc4 {idea c3-+} 3. Rd5 Rb5 {Anand, but equal per the computer} (3...Rh2 4. Ra5 Re2 5. Rg3 Kd7 6. Rxa6 Rh8 {with an overwhelming advantage due to the active rooks, and unsafe white king.})&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2020-01-12T12:55:09.287" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27943" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27940" CreationDate="2020-01-12T13:37:38.793" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;One way is to play through many, many games in your openings and see the ideas.  Some opening books include many complete games.  I do this on the rare occasion that I want to start using a new opening system as my primary opening. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17425" LastActivityDate="2020-01-12T13:37:38.793" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27945" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27949" CreationDate="2020-01-13T03:14:29.473" Score="18" ViewCount="2397" Body="&lt;p&gt;Although I have known the rules of chess since I was little, I only actually started playing it in May or June 2019, so about 6 or 7 months ago. When I started I had a Lichess classical rating of around 1100 (at my lowest I got to 1000!). With some peaks and bad moments, I did manage to increase my rating quite consistently over the months, and I have recently gotten to 1900. This was very satisfactory for me, since I really studied hours per day and worked very hard in order to improve.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nevertheless, I find that I can't really move on now! I got stuck on 1900. This happened to me before at a 1500 rating; at that point, after being stuck for weeks, I studied Nimzovich's &quot;My System&quot;, which was what allowed me to break the 1600 rating mark and continue to improve. I wonder if there is perhaps a book, a practice routine or something that could help me, like Nimzovich did when I was stuck in 1500, to 'step up' and break the 2000 rating mark.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I do know that what I most need to improve is my endgame (and I'm working on it and improving little by little). Does anybody experienced something like this? If so, what books, routines or approaches to the game helped to break the curse?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21110" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-01-13T04:39:39.430" LastActivityDate="2021-04-16T11:31:28.223" Title="Advice for breaking Lichess's 2000 rating mark" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;rating&gt;&lt;lichess&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="21" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27946" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27948" CreationDate="2020-01-13T06:26:05.110" Score="2" ViewCount="1270" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am trying to run the chess solving program &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/thomas-maeder/popeye&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Popeye&lt;/a&gt;, but I am failing to understand how to start the program on Windows.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is an &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/thomas-maeder/popeye/releases/download/v4.81/py-engl.txt&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;English guide&lt;/a&gt;, and this is all of what is tells you to do:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Starting popeye:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Change the name of your preferred executable to py.exe&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To operate it from the terminal:                py&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To solve problems recorded in file XX:          py XX&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm basically illiterate when it comes to code. Can anyone explain how to start Popeye?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2020-06-16T13:35:21.397" Title="Failing to understand how to start Popeye" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;software&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27947" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27946" CreationDate="2020-01-13T06:54:53.763" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;For those interested, you can download the exe from &lt;a href=&quot;https://sourceforge.net/projects/popeye-chess/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://sourceforge.net/projects/popeye-chess/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's no reason to alter the name of the executable.&#xA;You have to enter command prompt.  On windows this is done by running cmd.exe, or you can use a dos emulator.&#xA;When you're in the folder which contains the popeye.exe file, you can start the program by typing popeye.  However, the program is &quot;dumb&quot; and you need to provide more parameters.  The first parameter is the file which contains the puzzle(s).  There are three other parameters, but they're not needed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, the command &quot;popeye puzzle.pgn&quot; starts the popeye program and tells it to solve the puzzles in the puzzle.pgn file.  The program should produce a generic file with the answer(s) and misc. info about what the program did.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is another method, but that is more restrictive and not really worth mentioning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is the method on a Windows OS.  For Linux, Apple, or other OS the procedure is slightly different, but users of these OSes normally are already familiar with these methods. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9684" LastActivityDate="2020-01-13T06:54:53.763" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27948" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27946" CreationDate="2020-01-13T08:38:13.640" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;To ease the burden of typing, what I do is this: I have a file containing chess-related commands I have run. I keep this file in a directory I can easily find. Most times I want to do a chess-related command, it's a slight variant of one I ran earlier, e.g. to run Popeye on some other input file. So I'd replace the old input file name with the new one, resulting in something like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;D:&#xA;cd &quot;D:\games\by game\chess\problems\Popeye&quot;&#xA;C:\Progra~1\Popeye\pywin64 Smith_h#3.pyin&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;C:\Progra~1\Popeye\pywin64&lt;/code&gt; is just where I installed the Popeye executable on my Windows PC. Replace this with whatever is the file name (including drive-letter and full path) of where you've installed the Popeye executable on yours.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The parameter &lt;code&gt;Smith_h#3.pyin&lt;/code&gt; you see there is the name of the file which Popeye is to read. As it stands, that command would run Popeye, read that file and write its output to the command-prompt window. This is what that Popeye documentation was referring to when it said &quot;To solve problems recorded in file XX&quot;. By XX they mean the name of the file in which you have written the Popeye commands that describe the problems(s) you want Popeye to solve. That Popeye documentation describes the Popeye commands which you need to put into the input file to describe a problem to Popeye.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to capture this output in a file, here are two ways to do it. One is to specify the output file in the command, e.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;C:\Progra~1\Popeye\pywin64 Smith_h#3.pyin &amp;gt; Smith_h#3.pyout&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This would redirect output to &lt;code&gt;Smith_h#3.pyout&lt;/code&gt; but would not write anything to the window while Popeye is running. Another is to put the Popeye command&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;prot Smith_h#3.pyout&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in Popeye's input. This would redirect output to the specified output file &lt;em&gt;and&lt;/em&gt; write it to the window as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10380" LastActivityDate="2020-01-13T08:38:13.640" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27949" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27945" CreationDate="2020-01-13T09:44:25.607" Score="32" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;PhishMaster's Complete Guide To Improvement&quot;: What to study, and how.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Every player has times where they &quot;plateau&quot;, and have trouble moving on, but they usually get past it eventually if they are continuing to study. Sometimes, it is a matter of patience.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is a set of comprehensive answers to questions I previously gave in various chunks, that are now combined, and will include how to break 2000.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, this outline is more for the average player, who still may be very decent, but is not likely to be become a professional.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Beginners up to 1800, it is mostly about tactics: Tactics, tactics, and more tactics. I have found that even players, who are 2100, are not as strong at tactics as they think they are. I also found that having a very strong dose of endgames, even when I got my first rating of 1036 USCF back in 1980, has stuck with me all the way through being a Master. I still love Fine's &quot;Basic Chess Endings&quot; (any mistakes in it as far overshadowed by the principles that it puts forth).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For tactics, I actually recommend starting with Reinfeld's &quot;1001 Brilliant Ways to Checkmate&quot;, and then &quot;1001 Winning Chess Sacrifices and Combinations&quot;. I firmly believe in good groupings of themes in the beginning, rather than sites that totally randomize your study. I also firmly believe in immersion, in other words, doing a lot in a short period of time. It just sticks better as far as I am concerned.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I recommend doing 50 per day, spending no more than two minutes per move on each problem. In pencil, write down next to the problem how easy you found it on a scale of 1-5 because you will do these books multiple times. That immersion method has worked very well for me. I took a friend, who was about 38 at the time, from 1000 to 1850 on ICC in three months following this method.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Around 1800, people start getting more clued in on positional play, and start picking up more on that. I still love Ludek Pachman's trilogy: &quot;Complete Chess Strategy&quot;. That was the first time I started to see real plans enter into my games, and I still credit that trilogy with making me a Master. For the first time, I started to really grasp pawn play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, around 1800, I also think that players need to understand HOW to play opening pawn structures instead of focusing on memorizing openings that when their opponent deviates, they are lost and on their own. For this, books like Soltis' &quot;Pawn Structure Chess&quot; (a really bad book if you are looking at it with a computer, but the underlying principles are very strong), and Mauricio Flores Ríos' book &quot;Chess Structures: A Grandmaster Guide&quot; is a fantastic book that expounds upon what was in the Soltis book, and does it a lot better, but also at a higher level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Starting at 2000, assuming you have a shot at 2200 and higher, you are going to start needing specific openings, and memorization as you face stronger competition. All along, you should have been still studying more and more endgame material as you will also need that when you face &quot;monsters&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Over 2200, you are talking about in-depth refinement of what you have learned. A lot of people buy the Dvoretsky books before they are ready, and now is the time that you are just getting started to be ready for those. They will help with small details, and a lot of it above 2200 is analyzing better and better, so not only will his books refined and expand your knowledge, they are hand-picked difficult problems that need a lot of deep analysis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once at 2400, if you have not already had a professional coach, you probably will need one to really gain a lot more strength. In addition, if you have a kid, who is super talented, and clearly going places, it is also probably a good idea for them to have a professional coach at a lower rating, and younger age to get the most benefit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is a list of areas of study, and what to read while doing them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;To help with basic visualization, read these books without a board, including sub-variations. If you are not sure how well you did, then put them on a board, and compare the board to your mind’s eye. In the beginning, I expect that you will have more on the board than not.&#xA;a.  “Combinations, the Heart of Chess” by Irving Chernev&#xA;b.  “1000 Best Short Games of Chess” by Irving Chernev (The games start short at only four moves, and gradually work up to 25 moves.)&#xA;c.  After these, you will still probably need work on visualization, so pick fun combination books to do in your head, concentrating on visualizing the final position rather than finding the solution. Solutions are in the next group.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;To help with both basic visualization and tactical vision, do at least 25 problems per day, but preferably 50, spending no more than two minutes per move before looking at the answer. You will repeat these books at least twice over time. This alone, is why most players never get stronger…they drop pieces.&#xA;a.  “1001 Brilliant Ways to Checkmate”, 21st Century Edition by Fred Reinfeld&#xA;b.  “1001 Winning Chess Sacrifices and Combinations”, 21st Century Edition by Fred Reinfeld&#xA;c.  Continue with any of the multitude of tactics books or trainers out there doing as many as you can each day.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Endgame. Play all of these out on a board, not in your head.&#xA;a.  “100 Endgames You Must Know: Vital Lessons for Every Chess Player” by Jesus de la Villa (Try to memorize this book, especially rook endgames since they are the most common.)&#xA;b.  “The 100 Endgames You Must Know Workbook: Practical Endgame Exercises for Every Chess Player” by Jesus de la Villa&#xA;c.  “Basic Chess Endings” by Ruben Fine (Although there are mistakes that have been show by both humans and computers over the years, this book shows more about the plans and what you are striving for than most endgames books. Read all the sub-endgames since they reinforce the main endgames.&#xA;d.  “Dvoretsky’s Endgame Manual” (aka DEM. This is THE single greatest chess book ever written, in my opinion, and it is very advanced, but if you have reasonably mastered the above two books, this is the next step).&#xA;e.  “Tragicomedy in the Endgame: Instructive Mistakes of the Masters” by Mark Dvoretsky (This is, in essence, the workbook for DEM, giving practical positions of the material in DEM.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Pawn Structures, and how to play chess, in general. A lot of chess is “what pawn break am I looking for, and how do I accomplish it?” These answer that in depth.&#xA;a.  “Complete Chess Strategy” volumes 1,2 and 3 by Ludek Pachman. (This teaches about many basic plans, and what you are striving for with your pieces and pawns, especially. THIS is what made me a master.)&#xA;b.  “Pawn Structure Chess” by Andy Soltis. (This extends the above to specific opening structures.)&#xA;c.  “Chess Structures: A Grandmaster Guide” by Mauricio Flores Rios (This is an extension of “Pawn Structure Chess”, and is deeper, and covers more structures. It is outstanding especially if you have already covered “Complete Chess Strategy”.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Positional Chess. Play these out on a board and you will start to get a better feel for evaluating positions correctly.&#xA;a.  “Positional Chess Handbook” by Israel Gelfer (The quality of the printing in this book is not very good, but the content is excellent.)&#xA;b.  “Your Kingdom For My Horse” by Andy Soltis (This is all about exchanging, a little-covered, but incredibly important topic in chess. Frankly, Soltis is a LAZY writer, and when you read his books with a program running, you will find ALL KINDS of mistakes, but the prose, and general principles he is teaching are still valid, and in this case, hard to find in any other book. (There is a Russian-only book called &quot;Encyclopedia of Exchanges&quot; if you are capable of reading it.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You will note that unlike the backpack of a typical 1200-player, there is not a single opening book listed here. That is because you are learning HOW to play chess, rather than memorizing lines that you get to the end of, and have no idea why you are there, or why it is good or bad. Most of your opponents, until you get to 2200, won’t know much about book, and you will both be on your own early on, so the one, who understands what you should be trying for, and who does not lose his pieces (tactics), will win the game most of the time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In general, read the above list in order within any category, but you should have the visualization, tactics, endgame, and pawn structures categories all going at one time. As you start to really understand the structures more, then add in the last, “positional chess” category.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-01-13T10:08:32.547" LastActivityDate="2020-01-13T10:08:32.547" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27950" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-01-13T12:03:53.527" Score="5" ViewCount="3295" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am an amatuer chess player and I want to know the difference between Elo rating and FIDE rating (for example, a 2500 Elo rating is needed for GM title).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21186" LastEditorUserId="21184" LastEditDate="2020-01-13T15:36:20.333" LastActivityDate="2020-01-13T20:45:13.110" Title="Elo rating and fide rating" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27951" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27950" CreationDate="2020-01-13T12:26:06.000" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;To make GM, a 2500 FIDE rating is needed, among other thing. But there is not a separate &quot;Elo rating&quot; which is also needed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Elo rating is a generic term for any rating system based on the work of Arpad Elo. It's also often used as shorthand for FIDE rating. If someone says their rating is 2500 Elo, that normally means 2500 FIDE.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2020-01-13T12:26:06.000" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27952" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27950" CreationDate="2020-01-13T13:28:31.270" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Elo rating system is a rating system for two-person, zero-sum games based on the assumption that performance is normally distributed. That is, a player's performance is expected to follow a normal distribution. For FIDE the mean = the player's rating and standard deviation = 2000/7 = 285.7. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It was developed by Arpad Elo and first implemented by the USCF at a meeting in St Louis (where else?) in 1960. So, the USCF rating system is the original Elo rating system. It was later adopted by FIDE in 1970. Many other federations also implement Elo rating systems and it is also used in other sports, for instance soccer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It has since been discovered that players' performances are not strictly normally distributed. Lower rated players have a better chance of an upset result against higher rated players than their ratings suggest and so the basic system has been tweaked by different federations (including FIDE) over the years. Varying k factors are one variable that is changed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Elo rating systems predict &lt;em&gt;relative&lt;/em&gt; performance, not absolute performance. Hence FIDE, USCF, Lichess, Chess24 ratings, although all elo rating systems, are not comparable. All you can say is that if player A has a higher rating in one implementation than player B then you expect that in a different implementation player A will again have a higher rating than player B although it is not certain. The likelihood will depend on the difference in ratings and the standard deviations of the systems. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, the bottom line is that Elo rating is a &lt;em&gt;system&lt;/em&gt; of rating and FIDE rating is a particular &lt;em&gt;implementation&lt;/em&gt; of Elo rating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-01-13T13:28:31.270" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27953" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9538" CreationDate="2020-01-13T14:23:34.873" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think Chaturanga grew up at a time when there were three kinds of auxiliary troops: elephants, cavalry and chariots, which were deployed on the wings. With one general, that makes 7. However an odd number would mean that the elephants of one side are on the same colour square. So one can rationalise eight as the sweet number.&#xA;However Chinese chess is 9x10 and Japanese Chess is 9x9 so what do I know?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8201" LastActivityDate="2020-01-13T14:23:34.873" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27954" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27950" CreationDate="2020-01-13T14:31:38.147" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;From your context, there is no difference between the two. &quot;Elo&quot; (From Arpad Elo, a professor at Marquette University and president of one of the two organizations that merged to form the US Chess Federation back in 1939 -- IIRC he chaired the meeting that resulted in the merger) when used by in the context of FIDE titles typically refers to the FIDE rating system. Professor Elo created the rating system used by FIDE, and was responsible for calculating the FIDE ratings in the initial years after its adoption. You can read a description of his original system in his book &quot;The Rating Of Chessplayers Past and Present.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Professor Elo created his system with the numeric range it has in order to cause the least amount of disruption to the USCF, which was at the time using the Harkness system; his preference was for a two-digit system as he thought four digits implied a greater precision than the system was capable of.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's not surprising that some who came later would tweak the system, given Elo's own view of its precision. But as he observed in his book, the real problem with any rating system is that it's trying to predict human behavior without taking into account factors that would affect it. As a measure of past performance it works. As a predictor of the outcome of a single game, it leaves too much out of the equation to be more than mildly indicative.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: My memory was wrong. It was Elo's successor, Kirk Holland, that chaired the merger meeting.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="657" LastEditorUserId="657" LastEditDate="2020-01-13T20:45:13.110" LastActivityDate="2020-01-13T20:45:13.110" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27955" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-01-13T14:55:08.557" Score="5" ViewCount="442" Body="&lt;p&gt;When discussing whether chess is a sport, I have often used that Karpov lost a reported 22 pounds (10 kg.) during the match as a point to show that chess can be physical. While 22 pounds is significant, I think it is even more significant because Karpov was a man with a very slight stature, meaning it was a much higher percentage of his total weight than if he had been a 250-pound man, but nowhere have I ever been able to find what his initial weight was.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does anyone know Karpov's initial weight at the start of that match, or even his final weight, which would also tell us that information?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://tartajubow.blogspot.com/2017/09/aborted-karpov-kasparov-match-of-1984.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Here is one such story.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2020-01-13T21:31:12.237" Title="During the 1984-1985 Karpov-Kasparov match, what was Karpov's initial weight?" Tags="&lt;kasparov&gt;&lt;karpov&gt;&lt;match&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27956" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2889" CreationDate="2020-01-13T15:16:51.647" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, this was unequivocally not refuted. First, I would consider a line &quot;refuted&quot; if it led to a significant advantage, and there was nothing you could do about it...it is forced. That is definitely not the case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For a very brief moment in time, this appeared to be slightly better for white, but black has since found plenty of resources with Na5, and it has been played many times since, even by some very strong Grandmasters. One of the latest games is Nakamura-Naiditsch from 2018. Another recent game between two highly-rated players is Gelfand-Hammer Palma de Mallorca 2017 (1/2)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [Event &quot;Olympiad-43&quot;]&#xA; [Site &quot;Batumi&quot;]&#xA; [Date &quot;2018.10.02&quot;]&#xA; [Round &quot;8.3&quot;]&#xA; [White &quot;Nakamura, Hikaru&quot;]&#xA; [Black &quot;Naiditsch, Arkadij&quot;]&#xA; [Result &quot;1/2-1/2&quot;]&#xA; [ECO &quot;A29&quot;]&#xA; [WhiteElo &quot;2763&quot;]&#xA; [BlackElo &quot;2721&quot;]&#xA; [PlyCount &quot;73&quot;]&#xA; [EventDate &quot;2018.09.24&quot;]&#xA; [EventType &quot;team-swiss&quot;]&#xA; [EventRounds &quot;11&quot;]&#xA; [EventCountry &quot;GEO&quot;]&#xA; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. c4 e5 2. Nc3 Nf6 3. Nf3 Nc6 4. g3 Bb4 5. Bg2 O-O 6. O-O e4 7. Ng5 Bxc3 8. bxc3 Re8 9. f3 e3 10. d3 d5 11. Qb3 Na5 12. Qa4 c6 13. cxd5 cxd5 14. f4 Bg4 15. Nf3 Nc6 16. h3 Bd7 17. Qa3 Nh5 18. Kh2 Qf6 19. Nd4 Nxd4 20. cxd4 g5 21. fxg5 Qxg5 22. Qd6 Bc6 23. h4 Qg7 24. Bh3 f5 25. Rf3 Rad8 26. Qb4 f4 27. gxf4 Qc7 28. Ba3 Nxf4 29. Qe1 Nxh3+ 30. Qg3+ Qxg3+ 31. Rxg3+ Kh8 32. Kxh3 Re6 33. Rf1 Rg8 34. h5 h6 35. Rxg8+ Kxg8 36. Kh4 Ba4 37. Bc1 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In that game, black was never worse than the tiniest of white pluses that you see in every sound opening, and by move 19, black was actually better. In fact, per Mega 2020, in the 48 games played in this line since white won 16, black won 20, and 12 draws. The average rating for white was 2386, and for black 2410.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It would seem that this opening holds up quite well for black even to this day, and my modern computer with Stockfish agrees.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2020-01-13T15:16:51.647" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27957" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27940" CreationDate="2020-01-13T15:20:23.817" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You're rare. (Like me, as it happens; I would judge whether an opening book was worth purchasing by the ratio of text to moves -- the more text, the more likely I was to buy it.) Unfortunately for you, and me, most players would rather be spoon-fed lines to memorize than work on understanding, so that's where the money goes when it comes to opening books. You'll probably need to look in used sites like bookfinder.com for most of what I reference here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Shaun Talbot's How To Play the Ruy Lopez is the poster-child for what you're after. It splits the Ruy up according to position, and then starts to cover ideas from those positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Gligoric wrote a book on the Nimzo-Indian with a smattering of that approach as well, focusing more on a typical position of the opening and plans and variations from there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Jonathan Rowson wrote Understanding The Grunfeld for Gambit Publications; while it definitely has a lot of explanatory text about positions and plans, it's also more variation-focused than the ones above. Still, you might find what you're looking for there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I forget which publisher now, but there was one that ran a series of opening books &quot;Mastering xxx with the read and play method&quot; which tended towards that approach as well. It had a stronger emphasis on variations than the previous books, but still covers typical formations and plans.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bronstein On The King's Indian is another approach: he covers each piece individually, what squares it typically goes to in the KID and what its purpose is in going there. Lots of plans and ideas, almost &lt;em&gt;no&lt;/em&gt; variations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most of those were never as commercially successful as the ones with variations, so they may be hard to find. A more successful line would be the &quot;Starting Out ...&quot; series from Everyman. They're still heavily focused on variations, but they include typical plans from the resulting positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A dark horse in all this might be the two-volume Mastering the Endgame from Shereshevky and Slutsky, wich covers typical endgames arising from some openings and how to play them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's hard to begin understanding openings on your own when you're a club player, mainly because you're not sure where/how to start, so you doubt what you build on that. Hopefully, this can get you started out, so you can start building your own understanding without worrying about the foundation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="657" LastActivityDate="2020-01-13T15:20:23.817" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27958" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-01-13T16:32:29.280" Score="6" ViewCount="244" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the first round of the ongoing Wijk aan zee Masters tournament, &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess24.com/en/watch/live-tournaments/tata-steel-masters-2020/1/1/7&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Firouzja won vs Kovalev&lt;/a&gt;. Apparently, right out of the opening white had gained a winning edge. In particular, somewhere around 16...c4 it seems to be where black went somehow wrong (computers also favoring white there). But from the opening point of view, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;how can Kovalev's 16...c4 be so bad that white has already a substantial edge? Was this a mix-up in the opening variations? First glance, it seems b5 is indeed weak as c4 frees d4 square for the knight, but can we not hold on to the b5 pawn differently? for example with Qb6? &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Position at move 16:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [title &quot;Firouzja vs Kovalev 16...c4&quot;]&#xA; [fen &quot;r2qrbk1/1b3pp1/p2p1n1p/1p1P4/Pnp1P3/5N1P/1P1N1PP1/RBBQR1K1 w - - 0 17&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15078" LastActivityDate="2020-01-14T08:40:20.163" Title="Firouzja vs Kovalev: what went wrong for black in the opening?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;&lt;ruy-lopez&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27960" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27958" CreationDate="2020-01-13T16:47:49.120" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;We can only imagine that he somehow had a human moment, and messed up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The normal move instead of 16...c4 is 16...Nd7 17.Ra3 and only then 17...c4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The way it was played, it was almost the forced loss of a pawn. He had the option of Qb6, but it left him with a miserable position anyway.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;r2qrbk1/1b3pp1/p2p1n1p/1ppP4/Pn2P3/5N1P/1P1N1PP1/RBBQR1K1 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... c4?  (1... Nd7 {Preparing f5 immediately so that the Nb4 can come back to d5 after any trade of pawns.} 2. Ra3 c4 3. axb5 axb5 4. Nd4 Qb6 {And black is doing well.}) 2. Nd4 (2. Nf1 {The computer thinks this is even better since the Nb2 is susceptible to Bd2 forcing Nd3 which will lead to the loss of a pawn.}) 2... Qb6 3. N2f3 bxa4 (3... g6 4. Be3 {And this is very uncomfortable for black due to the weakness on b5, and the unfortunate queen.}) 4. Rxa4 a5 {And black's queenside is wrecked.}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-01-13T17:18:43.693" LastActivityDate="2020-01-13T17:18:43.693" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27961" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27963" CreationDate="2020-01-13T16:48:05.163" Score="36" ViewCount="11281" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm really a beginner in chess, and I just know the rules. So many times in the game I have no idea what should I do. None of my pieces are in danger and I don't have any strategies.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What should I do at this point? Make a worthless move, like moving a pawn? Try to make some space for my knights and bishops?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21188" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-01-13T17:20:06.237" LastActivityDate="2021-04-16T12:21:02.303" Title="What should I do when I have no ideas and no strategies?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;learning&gt;&lt;beginner&gt;" AnswerCount="12" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27962" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27958" CreationDate="2020-01-13T16:57:56.257" Score="7" Body="&lt;h2&gt;tl;dr: Wrong move order by black in the opening: the c4 advance must be prefaced with Nd7 in the played Zaitsev variation.&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That said, and although your hunch about the early &lt;code&gt;c4&lt;/code&gt; is correct, I'm afraid there's no simple answer that immediately explains why the immediate &lt;code&gt;c4&lt;/code&gt; is bad and why &lt;code&gt;Nd7&lt;/code&gt; is so crucial, since the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruy_Lopez&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Ruy Lopez&lt;/a&gt; and the Zaitsev are highly theoretical openings and thus, all about nuances and concrete assessments. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;In any case, here's an attempt to answer it in a simplified manner.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Bit of context first:&lt;/strong&gt; the game started out as a classical Ruy Lopez which then transitioned into &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruy_Lopez#Zaitsev_Variation:_9.h3_Bb7&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;the Zaitsev variation&lt;/a&gt;. Then in particular after &lt;code&gt;11...Bf8&lt;/code&gt;, Firouzja opted for the older system with &lt;code&gt;12.a4&lt;/code&gt; which is &#xA;a variation rich in theory dating specially back to the Kasparov-Karpov games (see e.g. 1990 games). Instead of &lt;code&gt;12.a4&lt;/code&gt;, nowadays the more go-to and modern&#xA;option is &lt;code&gt;12.d5.&lt;/code&gt; So, seeing &lt;code&gt;12.a4&lt;/code&gt; might have come as a bit of a surprise. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Fast-forwarding to the key moment of the opening, in the &lt;code&gt;a4&lt;/code&gt; variation white often waits out the &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt; advance until black has played &lt;code&gt;c5.&lt;/code&gt; Then after &lt;code&gt;15...c5 16.d5&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;the main and key move by black is to play &lt;code&gt;Nd7&lt;/code&gt; (diagram below): which concretely prepares either options of &lt;code&gt;c4&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;f5&lt;/code&gt;:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/aSdZdm.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/aSdZdm.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;c4&lt;/code&gt; (left diagram): with ideas of establishing either a knight or a protected advanced pawn on &lt;code&gt;d3&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;f5&lt;/code&gt; (right diagram): directly undermining the defense of the &lt;code&gt;d5.&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/k211lm.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/k211lm.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/VKUt7m.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/VKUt7m.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, Kovalev played the immediate &lt;code&gt;c4&lt;/code&gt; advance &lt;strong&gt;without&lt;/strong&gt; the inclusion of &lt;code&gt;Nd7&lt;/code&gt;, this was the &lt;strong&gt;main inaccuracy&lt;/strong&gt;! The problem is black's losing a pawn in the all ensuing lines without any dynamic or positional compensation for it. Let's see some of these lines in the annotated diagram below:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [title &quot;16.c4 without Nd7&quot;]&#xA; [fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA; [StartPly &quot;33&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Ba4 Nf6 5. O-O Be7 6. Re1 b5 7. Bb3 d6 8. c3 O-O 9. h3 Bb7 10. d4 Re8 11. Nbd2 Bf8 12. a4 h6 13. Bc2 exd4 14. cxd4 Nb4 15. Bb1 c5 16. d5 c4 17. Nd4 {b5 pawn is attacked twice now} Nd7 {this is what happened in the game, but Nd7 here is too late} (17...Qb6 {an attempt to directly defend the pawn, but the queen ends up being completely misplaced as we'll see and too far away from the kingside.} 18. N2f3 {defending the d4 knight and preparing Be3} g6 19. Be3 Qc7 {side-stepping the discovery} (19...bxa4 {just for the sake of discussion, let's see how black loses by force if they do not side step the discovered threat and take on a4 instead} 20. Ne6 Qb5 21. Nxf8 Rxf8 22. Qd4 {and white's kingside attack is too much to parry as the king on g8 is defenceless}) 20. axb5 {winning the b5 pawn if black recaptures, so only chance is to take on e4 instead} Nxe4 21. Ne6 {and white's nearly winning already as black's position is collapsing after fxe6 Bxe4. Ne6 is a thematic move in these structures with the pawn on d5.} ) 18. axb5 axb5 19. Rxa8 Bxa8 20. Nxb5 Qb8 21. Na3 {c4 is falling next, as happened in the game} Nd3 22. Re3 Nxc1 23. Qxc1 g6 24. Naxc4 {rest of the game is not included here}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In contrast, here's how the variation usually continues when &lt;code&gt;c4&lt;/code&gt; is prefaced by &lt;code&gt;Nd7&lt;/code&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [title &quot;Correct move order: Nd7 before c4, actually setting up Nd3&quot;]&#xA; [fen &quot;r2qrbk1/1b3pp1/p2p1n1p/1ppP4/Pn2P3/5N1P/1P1N1PP1/RBBQR1K1 b - - 0 16&quot;]&#xA; [startflipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1...Nd7 {black entertains both options of f5 and c4 after Nd7} 2. Ra3 {These are nuanced moves which were specially polished in Kasparov-Karpov games of 90's. Ra3 is a multi-faceted move, moving the rook to a protected square so that axb5 axb5 lines do not force white to exchange rooks at once, moreover activates the rook along the 3rd row both additional coverage of d3 square and potential rook swings to kingside} c4 3. axb5 axb5 4. Nd4 Rxa3 5. bxa3 Nd3 {black appears to be losing a pawn nonetheless, however as demonstrated by Morozevich among others, black is in fact able to maintain the awkwardly advanced d3 pawn with Nc5 which gives black sufficient dynamic compensation for the pawn} 6. Bxd3 cxd3 7. Re3 Nc5 {and black is well on time with Nc5 as opposed to what transpired in the game where black delayed Nd7 to after c4!} 8. Nxb5 {not white's best choice} (8. Bb2 {white's best choice here is not to take the pawn as that gives black too much counter-play.}) Qa5 9. Nd4 Qc3 {and Qa1 threats are constantly in the air. Additionally, the knight on d2 is bound to the defense of the e4 pawn. Black is clearly better.}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It would go beyond the scope of this post to exhaust all possible sub variations both with and without &lt;code&gt;Nd7&lt;/code&gt;, however I hope the above discussion and lines clarify the importance of the inclusion of &lt;code&gt;Nd7&lt;/code&gt; (and the playability of the ensuing lines) in contrast to the inaccurate early &lt;code&gt;c4&lt;/code&gt; without &lt;code&gt;Nd7&lt;/code&gt; as happened in the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3594" LastEditorUserId="3594" LastEditDate="2020-01-14T08:40:20.163" LastActivityDate="2020-01-14T08:40:20.163" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27963" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27961" CreationDate="2020-01-13T17:23:56.370" Score="38" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is very hard to answer since the question is very broad, but in the opening, always ask yourself &quot;what piece haven't I moved out yet?&quot; If you move pieces twice or three times in the opening, and I am developing each one after only one move, soon you will be fighting with only two or three pieces against me with 5 or 6. You will not win that way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other than that, ask yourself what pieces of yours are not defended, and make sure they are safe; and conversely, look at what your opponent has that is undefended, and see if you can take advantage of that. Not losing pieces is the biggest problem for weak players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-01-13T17:29:31.993" LastActivityDate="2020-01-13T17:29:31.993" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27964" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27961" CreationDate="2020-01-13T17:30:42.533" Score="17" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some typical things to look out for in the middle game in order to develop a plan... This assumes that it is a relatively quiet position without any imminent tactics that need to be taken care of first. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Are all my pieces developed and on active squares (if not, how can piece activity be improved?)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Does my oppenent have any weak pawns (typically isolated pawns) that I could aim for?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If the center is blocked, are there any pawn breaks I should go for?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If you play some sort of opening, learn not only the concrete moves but (rather) the general idea. For instance if (like many beginners) you often end up playing e4, e5, Nf3, Nc6, most of the time white wants to play d4 later on, perhaps first supported by c3. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Look at the board from your opponent's point of view. Are there any plans that you need to prevent?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA; - &#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2020-01-13T17:30:42.533" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27965" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27961" CreationDate="2020-01-13T17:41:23.550" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;The general rule of thumb is &lt;strong&gt;improve the worst placed piece&lt;/strong&gt;. I would be reluctant to move pawns without any purpose because you are likely to create a weakness. I would rather make a do nothing move, it is often could be a rook move on a back rank, as long as it really doesn't do anything; this move you can always &quot;undo&quot; (unlike the pawn moves!). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Wrong plan is often better than no plan, try to come up at least with something. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And after the game, make sure to go back and study the position. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="307" LastEditorUserId="307" LastEditDate="2020-02-23T04:56:24.920" LastActivityDate="2020-02-23T04:56:24.920" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27966" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27955" CreationDate="2020-01-13T21:31:12.237" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;That's a lot, if validated. Karpov was rather slight at the time, something around 60kg or less, so that represents something under 20% of his body weight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And actually, that's consistent with other facts, given that was a 50+ game match. Fabiano Caruana says he can drop around 10% of his body weight during a difficult tournament. (Said to an ESPN reporter.) Robert Sapolsky, a Stanford researcher, has measured some players at burning 6000 calories per day in a tournament.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another unverified data point is Rustam Kasimdzhanov losing 17 pounds at the 2004 championship.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A lot was made of this recently, made &quot;sexy&quot; because Magnus Carlson sought the advice of Olympic trainers for his physical conditioning, but it's not a new discovery. Petrosian would also drop a lot of weight during the championship match cycle, and other champions like Botvinnik and Spassky made getting in physical condition an important part of their match preparation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ESPN, NPR (&quot;The Chess Grandmaster's Diet&quot;), Men's Health, seems like every magazine got in on it last year.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't have anything verifiable on the Karpov bit, but the other work I've seen, taken with the comment from Caruana, means I'll accept it as true until someone can disprove it. It's been verified to happen to players other than Karpov, so why not him?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="657" LastActivityDate="2020-01-13T21:31:12.237" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27967" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27961" CreationDate="2020-01-14T10:04:19.643" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The strategy is a very deep concept which requires creativity and understanding. It is important to understand the mechanics of certain types of positions and this can be achieved by looking at different varieties of top grandmaster games especially ones where the players have a different type of style. Sometimes even then you have to look at the tiny details in the position and come up with ways in which to play to take advantage of them. Savielly Tartakower once said &quot;Tactics is knowing what to do when there is something to do. Strategy is knowing what to do when there is nothing to do&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21014" LastActivityDate="2020-01-14T10:04:19.643" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27968" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27961" CreationDate="2020-01-14T11:30:26.703" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;The tip I learned from Jeremy Silman's &quot;Reassess your chess&quot; series was that, if you can't find a weakness in the opponent's position, &lt;strong&gt;you should actively be trying to create a weakness.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, in closed positions it happens pretty often that all your pieces are developed and in &quot;good&quot; positions, but you still have no attack.  When this happens, you should look at the position and ask yourself what sorts of weaknesses you could create.  Can you push some pawns to reduce your opponent's space?  Does their pawn structure have any potential weak points you could put pressure on?  Can you lock their minor pieces in?  How quickly can you open up the center or the flanks for an attack?  The answers to these questions will determine what you should do next.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="52" LastEditorUserId="52" LastEditDate="2020-01-14T16:09:10.903" LastActivityDate="2020-01-14T16:09:10.903" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27969" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-01-14T13:31:30.140" Score="4" ViewCount="258" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess24.com/en/watch/live-tournaments/tata-steel-masters-2020/3/1/5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;In round 3, Firouzja and Artemiev&lt;/a&gt; played a very interesting Caro-Kann game, with white constantly trying to open up the position even at the cost of pawns, in order to exploit black's exposed king position, which indeed proved to be decisive and white won.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems that in these Caro-Kann structures, white has to be really careful not to lose the center pawns with some combinations. For example in the game, after white castled, I noticed that although at first glance it seems the &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt; pawn can be won after &lt;code&gt;Nxg3, fxg3, Nxe5&lt;/code&gt; using the pin, but white has the &lt;code&gt;Na4&lt;/code&gt; intermezzo first dislocating the queen then winning the knight on &lt;code&gt;e5.&lt;/code&gt; Here it is diagrammed:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [title &quot;e5 not really hanging&quot;]&#xA; [fen &quot;r3kb1r/pp1n1pp1/1qp1p1b1/4PnBp/2BP3P/2N3N1/PP3PP1/2RQ1RK1 b kq - 2 12&quot;]&#xA; [startflipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1...Nxg3 2. fxg3 Nxe5 3. Na4 Qc7 4. dxe5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This one I could figure out. But what I don't get is, instead of going after the &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt; pawn, after castling, couldn't black have won the &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt; pawn which is doubled attacked by the knight on &lt;code&gt;f5&lt;/code&gt; and the queen&#xA;on &lt;code&gt;b6&lt;/code&gt;, while only being defended once with the queen:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [title &quot;why didn't black take on d4 here?&quot;]&#xA; [fen &quot;r3kb1r/pp1n1pp1/1qp1p1b1/4PnBp/2BP3P/2N3N1/PP3PP1/2RQ1RK1 b kq - 2 12&quot;]&#xA; [startflipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1...Qxd4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Why couldn't black take on &lt;code&gt;d4?&lt;/code&gt; Is it simply because after &lt;code&gt;Qxd4 Qxd4 Nxd4&lt;/code&gt; white has sufficient positional compensation considering all the pieces are actively posted and black's still behind in development? or are there simply direct tactics preventing &lt;code&gt;Qxd4&lt;/code&gt; altogether?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15078" LastActivityDate="2020-01-14T13:54:21.920" Title="Tactics in Firouzja's game round 3" Tags="&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;middlegame&gt;&lt;caro-kann&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27971" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27961" CreationDate="2020-01-14T13:36:20.893" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;Advice I give to complete beginners is to &lt;code&gt;place your pieces so that they point at your opponents king&lt;/code&gt;. Ignore any pieces and pawns between your pieces and the King. When playing against another beginner who has no plan this is a good strategy.  This strategy has the benefit of helping learn about the power pieces exert across the board even when seemingly blocked.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you understand the other advice given in the other answers than throw this advice away and use the better advice.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my experience this is advice that beginners can understand.  Unlike ideas such as &lt;code&gt;the center is important&lt;/code&gt; which many find confusing at first.  It is great to improve your worst piece, but how to you know which one that is?  A beginner can understand &lt;code&gt;get all of you're pieces out early&lt;/code&gt;, but much more experienced beginners  have a difficult time doing that.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17425" LastActivityDate="2020-01-14T13:36:20.893" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27972" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27969" CreationDate="2020-01-14T13:54:21.920" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Good job on the first tactic: indeed &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt; is not really hanging in that line due to &lt;code&gt;Na4.&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for the &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt; pawn, although even in the line you suggest (with the exchange of queens) white stands a tad better, the &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt; pawn is in fact &lt;strong&gt;tactically defended!&lt;/strong&gt; Considering that you do not mention any computer evaluations and have tried to tackle the problem on your own (which is excellent!), I reckon you're more interested in not just seeing the solution but to also see how to get there, so let's walk through it together. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To recognise the combination, take note of black's weakpoints around the king:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;king stuck in the center,&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the dark the square holes around black's king, &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the bishop taking away the &lt;code&gt;e7-d8&lt;/code&gt; squares, and the potential of a smothered type of mate were the knight to land on &lt;code&gt;c7&lt;/code&gt;,&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the open &lt;code&gt;d&lt;/code&gt;-file (thanks to &lt;code&gt;Qxd4&lt;/code&gt;) and the fact that the &lt;code&gt;d7&lt;/code&gt; knight is only defended once by the king (therefore vulnerable to direct tactics).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With these in mind, now try to find forcing moves (captures, checks, threats of mate or gain of material, etc.) that exploit these weaknesses and see if you can make them work concretely. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first move that comes to mind, challenging all the aforementioned weaknesses at once, is &lt;code&gt;Nb5,&lt;/code&gt; with the double threat of attacking the queen and mating on &lt;code&gt;c7.&lt;/code&gt; Rather interestingly, &lt;code&gt;Nb5&lt;/code&gt; works out beautifully: if black doesn't capture on &lt;code&gt;b5&lt;/code&gt;, then they lose on the spot due to dark square weaknesses. And if they do capture the knight, then they end up further opening the position (as &lt;code&gt;cxb5-Bxb5&lt;/code&gt; open the critical &lt;code&gt;a4-e8&lt;/code&gt; diagonal towards the king) and lose due to the compromised king position and lack of defenders (in turn caused by lack of development). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's see how all this pans out concretely: (&lt;em&gt;no time to cross check the lines with a computer, I leave that up to you!&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [title &quot;Lines after 12...Qxd4&quot;]&#xA; [fen &quot;r3kb1r/pp1n1pp1/1qp1p1b1/4PnBp/2BP3P/2N3N1/PP3PP1/2RQ1RK1 b kq - 2 12&quot;]&#xA; [startflipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1...Qxd4 2. Nb5 cxb5 (2...Qxd1 3. Nc7#) (2...Qb6 3. Nxf5 exf5 {loses on the spot as it allows e6 opening the e-file} (3...Bxf5 4. Nd6+ Bxd6 5. Bxe6 {A real blow to black's position! Note Qxd6 at once doesn't work due to Qc5} fxe6 (5...Bxe6 6. Qxd6 {now Qxd6 works as the c5 square is guarded by the rook on c1}) 6. Qxd6 {only way to avoid mate without losing the queen is to make a run for it via f7} Kf7 7. Qxd7+ Kg8 {and white's clearly winning thanks to the domination of the bishop and queen, e.g. after Rcd1 Kh7 Qf7 wins the e6 pawn}) 4. e6 Nf6 5. exf7+ Bxf7 6. Re1+ Ne4 7. Nd6+ Bxd6 8. Qxd6 {and black has to sacrifice their queen to avoid mate}) 3. Bxb5 a6 (3...Qxd1 4. Rfxd1 f6 5. exf6 gxf6 6. Rxd7 a6 {threatening to win the rook after Ba4 b5} 7. Ne4 {Nf6 threatened with mate} Be7 8. Rxe7+ Kxe7 9. Bxf6+ Kf7 10. Rc7+ Kf8 11. Bxh8 axb5 12. a3 {and white's completely winning, being up a healthy pawn, better piece coordination, while black's king remains exposed and the 3 isolated pawn islands are useless offering no prospect of counter-play.}) 4. Qxd4 Nxd4 5. Bxd7+ Kxd7 6. Rfd1 f6 7. Rxd4+ Ke8 8. exf6 gxf6 9. Bxf6 Rh7 10. Re1 Rc7 {baiting white to take on e6 with Rxe6+ Kf7 and white's rook defending the bishop will be easily overloaded} 11. Bg5 {calmly side-stepping the double attack with Kf7} Bf7 12. Ne4 {and white's advantage is once again decisive: clear pawn up, all 4 pieces perfectly coordinated against black's king stuck in the center, meanwhile all of black pieces are bound defensively, and both the e6 and h5 pawns are extremely weak and will fall soon with slow technical play.}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;What a beautiful tactical adventure! This makes for excellent practice of both tactics and calculations.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's worth noting that in some of the lines discussed above, black is not necessarily getting checkmated or even being necessarily a piece down, instead, the position becomes heavily damaged and black ends up at least a clear pawn down, all of which is more than enough of an edge to win considering the caliber of players we are talking about. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, Artemiev need not necessarily have calculated all the above lines to realise &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt; is not in fact hanging. Instead and particularly for players of such strength, they either have seen it before in a game or in preparation, or based on their strong intuition they simply smell the overwhelming dangers that could arise if they went pawn hunting with their king stuck in the center. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Last but not least, calculating very forcing lines (such as the above) is in fact the easiest type of calculations due to their inherent nature of being &lt;em&gt;forcing&lt;/em&gt; (their branch outs are limited and the remaining lines are very concrete thus requiring less positional judgement). Meaning that e.g., performing all the above calculations over the board is quite feasible for strong players, and somewhat even trivial for super GMs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3594" LastActivityDate="2020-01-14T13:54:21.920" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27973" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27961" CreationDate="2020-01-14T16:51:04.287" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Note: everything I'm saying is assuming you're playing white. Everything is also true for black, you just have to reverse the rank numbers. I'm also using algebraic notation; if you're unfamiliar there are a lot of resources.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the opening, your goal should be to control the center with pawns (if your opponent lets you, play &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; as your first moves), get your bishops and knights developed, castle, and finally develop your queen. After you do all of this, your rooks will be &quot;connected&quot;, meaning they're both on your back rank and protect each other, and are ready to slide over to good files.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you're in an opening and don't know what to do, refer to this checklist. If you have an undeveloped bishop or knight, develop it, even if you don't have a specific plan for it. Getting knights to &lt;code&gt;c3&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;f3&lt;/code&gt; is common, especially &lt;code&gt;Nf3&lt;/code&gt; (in many lines, a knight on &lt;code&gt;c3&lt;/code&gt; blocks the c-pawn, so either you play &lt;code&gt;c4&lt;/code&gt; first, or you develop that knight to &lt;code&gt;d2&lt;/code&gt; instead).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The game transitions to the middle game when both of you have done at least most of this. During the middle game, you may be fighting for control over the center, and trying to engineer advantageous trades, either by tactics that win material, or by trading a bad piece of yours for a good piece of theirs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you're in a middle game and don't know what to do, here's a checklist of ideas:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Take inventory of the pieces trying to control the middle and see if you can improve there. Maybe your opponent has a center pawn that he's defending twice, and you're attacking twice. Can you attack it again? This is one of the most basic tactics to keep track of: number of attackers vs. number of defenders. If you have more attackers, then you can trade everything down and end up on top (maybe--if one of those attackers is your queen, then you don't want to lose that in the melee). A LOT of middle game tactics at the high level just boil down to this, with more advanced ideas like &lt;em&gt;overworked pieces&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;removing the defender&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Look for tactics. Can you employ a &lt;em&gt;fork&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;pin&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;skewer&lt;/em&gt;, etc? Even if you don't have one of those maneuvers cleanly, can you at least move towards threatening something like that, forcing your opponent to use moves to defend?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Simply improve pieces. Rooks on your back rank love to be on files where you don't have a pawn (&lt;em&gt;open&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;half-open&lt;/em&gt; files). Knights love to be on &lt;em&gt;outposts&lt;/em&gt;, which are squares that are forward in the position (4th rank or further), defended by a pawn, and unattackable by an opposing pawn. Bishops love to be on long diagonals, meaning that they're somewhere safe on your side but pointing across the board at important things (if Black has castled kingside, a bishop on &lt;code&gt;b2&lt;/code&gt; can be deadly). If you don't have a plan, simply putting a piece on a good square is a good thing to do.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Trade off your bad pieces for their good pieces. Does your opponent have a killer bishop like I described above? Do you have a knight that you don't know what to do with? Trade them!&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Do you have major pieces (rooks, queen, king) that are aligned with your opponent's pieces? Maybe your queen is still on its starting square &lt;code&gt;d1&lt;/code&gt;, your opponent has moved a rook to &lt;code&gt;d8&lt;/code&gt;, and there are a bunch of pieces in the middle. If there's a big melee and all of those pieces in the middle get cleared out, your opponent might end up with a clear shot at your queen. So maybe a good move is to move the queen somewhere else.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And of course, you have to think of all of these things from your opponent's perspective too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The game transitions to the endgame once a lot of material has been traded down. Endgames vary wildly and I'm not sure how much general advice I can give briefly. If the endgame has equal (or nearly equal) material, it's common that the strategy is to try to promote a pawn (while keeping your opponent from doing so). You have to try to get a &lt;em&gt;passed pawn&lt;/em&gt;, a pawn that can't be attacked by opposing pawns any more, and then escort it to glory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you have more pieces left than your opponent, it's often advantageous to trade down. For example, if you have a rook and a bishop and your opponent has only a bishop, trading the bishops may make winning easier. With more pieces on the board, you might be vulnerable to tactics, but your opponent won't have any tactics if he doesn't have any pieces!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you have fewer pieces than your opponent, then you probably have to try to fight for a draw. In general, one way to do this is to try to take all of their pawns so they can't promote. For example, if your opponent has a bishop and some pawns, and you only have pawns, he will probably be able to use that bishop to help promote a pawn. But if you can manage to trade off all of the pawns, then a king-bishop vs. king endgame is a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Make a worthless move, like moving a pawn?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Careful! Pawn moves can have extreme consequences. Every time you move a pawn, you're undefending squares. For example, consider the common structure where White has castled kingside and still has the pawns on &lt;code&gt;f2&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;g2&lt;/code&gt;, and &lt;code&gt;h2&lt;/code&gt;. Sometimes we have to play &lt;code&gt;g3&lt;/code&gt; for defense, but after that, Black can put a piece on &lt;code&gt;f3&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;h3&lt;/code&gt; and it can't be attacked.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17600" LastActivityDate="2020-01-14T16:51:04.287" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27974" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27961" CreationDate="2020-01-14T17:14:51.280" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Study more and play less.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Learn about pawn structure. &#xA;Play over GM games to see what they do.&#xA;Some common ideas may occur to you to try. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Look for weaknesses you can attack.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Look for your weaknesses you could defend better. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can you attack the king?  Can you expand for space?  Can you put pieces on squares with more mobility closer to the enemy?  Can you set up a tactical position to win material?   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do not move pawns without a reason.  Do not make worthless moves unless you are in zugzwang. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Study positional play for more ideas on what to do in quiet positions like you describe. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastActivityDate="2020-01-14T17:14:51.280" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27975" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-01-14T22:34:42.067" Score="4" ViewCount="161" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are there any sort of equations for how much of a handicap one should receive to make a game between two players with differing Elo ratings as balanced as possible?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There might be a time equation to determine how much more time one player should receive in relation to the other. Or, an equation to determine how many more points one player should be up in relation to the other at the start of the game. Or, an equation that factors in both a time and point handicap. (When I refer to points, I am not referring to Elo. Rather, I am referring to point difference given from an engine analysis.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If there's some way to translate point difference towards probability of winning then making a point handicap equation should be fairly easy, since one can figure out the probability of winning given the Elos of the players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(I realize there are questions similar to this question. I have seen those questions, and they were not asking for the specifics that I am asking for.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21208" LastActivityDate="2020-01-14T23:04:23.930" Title="Equation for Handicap" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;rating&gt;&lt;elo&gt;&lt;handicapping&gt;&lt;handicap&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27976" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27975" CreationDate="2020-01-14T23:04:23.930" Score="4" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Are there any sort of equations for how much of a handicap one should&#xA;  receive to make a game between two players with differing Elo ratings&#xA;  as balanced as possible?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The short answer is &quot;No&quot;, there is no scientific equation, but it doesn't stop people from trying.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance, our club runs an annual handicap tournament in which it tries to produce a practical answer to this question. The rules for the tournament are &lt;a href=&quot;http://southshieldschessclub.co.uk/history/friends-trophy-roll-call/friends-bowl-rules/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Players are first put into numbered bands according to their grading&#xA;  with the highest graded players in band 1 and lower graded players in&#xA;  bands 2 and upwards. Then the handicap when two players meet is&#xA;  determined from the following table according to the difference&#xA;  between the players’ bands.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;0 – no handicap, first named player in the draw has white&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  1 – colour, player in the higher band number has white&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  2 – 2 moves, player in the higher band number has white and makes two moves instead of one to start the game&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  3 – f pawn and move, player in the higher band number has white, remove f7 pawn&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  4 – f pawn and 2 moves, remove f7 pawn, player in the higher band number has white and makes two moves instead of one to start the game&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  5 – knight, remove b1 knight, player in the lower band number has white&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  6 – rook, remove a1 rook, player in the lower band number has white&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  7 – queen, remove d1 queen, player in the lower band number has white&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  8 – queen and knight, remove b1 knight, remove d1 queen, player in the lower band number has white&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  9 – queen and rook, remove a1 rook, remove d1 queen, player in the lower band number has white   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically if the rating difference is less than 100 then the players are in the same band, a band difference of 1 equates to a 100 to 199 rating point difference, 2 band = 200 - 299 difference, 3 band = 300 - 399 difference, etc. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In recent years the winner's rating has varied between about 1500 and 2000 so it doesn't seem to favour any particular level although from experience I would say with large handicaps there is a definite skill for each player in adjusting how they play in terms of risk-taking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-01-14T23:04:23.930" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27977" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27983" CreationDate="2020-01-15T05:03:57.317" Score="9" ViewCount="2829" Body="&lt;p&gt;In blitz games, I sometimes have to choose between sharper positions that I suspect will put me at some slight positional advantage and positions easily played by my side but difficult for my opponent which, if they play correctly, they should win.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, I might have the option to exchange down to a queen versus rook endgame where I have a 1-minute time advantage or go for a rook and bishop versus rook endgame where I have the extra bishop but where I might have to use up a lot of time to get there.  Given that choice it seems to me that holding a rook versus queen endgame is relatively easy if my opponent is under time pressure (assuming the endgame is not easily converted into the Philidor position) but winning the bishop endgame is less certain.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That said, when I start sacrificing material for no real advantage except to temporarily solve my opponent's most recent attack, it seems to me that my opponent is likely to get irritated that I am trying just to win on time.  I'm not sure what the appropriate etiquette is in such situations regarding play, however.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12955" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-04T17:27:45.697" LastActivityDate="2020-03-04T17:34:23.847" Title="Is it bad form to go for a lengthy but losing endgame that you suspect will be winning on time?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;etiquette&gt;&lt;blitz&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="8" ClosedDate="2020-01-15T19:22:20.710" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27978" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27977" CreationDate="2020-01-15T07:54:31.827" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is nothing wrong with winning on time. You just have to understand the risk losing game by position. In a competition time is also the factor. To avoid brutal play on time Fisher and similar time controls where invented, but if your competition uses old style controls without increment is totally fine to win on time, especially a blitz game. Managing ones time is required skill of tournament player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17448" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-04T17:34:23.847" LastActivityDate="2020-03-04T17:34:23.847" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27979" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27982" CreationDate="2020-01-15T09:01:17.630" Score="21" ViewCount="2356" Body="&lt;p&gt;After move 10 in the main line of Caro Kann, black has already moved its light-squared bishop four times, while white manages to develop quite a bit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What exactly is blacks compensation for the lack of development?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Startply &quot;21&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 dxe4 4. Nxe4 Bf5 5. Ng3 Bg6 6. h4 h6 7. Nf3 Nd7 8. h5 Bh7 9. Bd3 Bxd3 10. Qxd3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18832" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-01-15T12:10:06.997" LastActivityDate="2020-01-15T14:05:10.570" Title="What is black’s compensation in the main line of the Caro Kann?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;caro-kann&gt;&lt;development&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27980" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27979" CreationDate="2020-01-15T09:50:24.110" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;The main reasons it is OK for black is that he is still down only one tempo in piece development, but he has traded off his bad bishop for white's good bishop, and his position is still very solid so he will catch up in development eventually. The downside is that white has more space. Black can eventually fight back with c5 after finishing his development, which is the key to the opening from black's perspective. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have played the Caro for decades, and it is very solid, but you have to be very patient, and well-prepared, or it is easy to get rolled over due to white's space.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are a few examples from the highest level. The first, is black successfully hitting back with c5, breaking up the white center. The second and third are Kasparov showing how white can successfully use the kingside pawns (I am posting these primarily to show that my comment below about h5 not really  being weak is accurate).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [Event &quot;Corsica Masters 5th&quot;]&#xA; [Site &quot;Bastia&quot;]&#xA; [Date &quot;2001.10.30&quot;]&#xA; [Round &quot;2.2&quot;]&#xA; [White &quot;Leko, Peter&quot;]&#xA; [Black &quot;Anand, Viswanathan&quot;]&#xA; [Result &quot;1/2-1/2&quot;]&#xA; [ECO &quot;B19&quot;]&#xA; [WhiteElo &quot;2739&quot;]&#xA; [BlackElo &quot;2770&quot;]&#xA; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 dxe4 4. Nxe4 Bf5 5. Ng3 Bg6 6. h4 h6 7. Nf3 Nd7 8. h5 Bh7 9. Bd3 Bxd3 10. Qxd3 e6 11. Bf4 Bb4+ 12. c3 Be7 13. O-O-O Ngf6 14. Kb1 O-O 15. Ne5 c5! {breaking up white's center} 16. Ne4 cxd4 17. Qxd4 Nb6 18. Nxf6+ Bxf6 19. Qe4 Qe7 20. Ng4 Rfd8 21. Nxf6+ Qxf6 22. Be3 Rxd1+ 23. Rxd1 Nd5 24. Bd4 Qf4 25. Qxf4 Nxf4 26. g4 b5 27. Kc2 Nd5 28. Kb3 a6 29. a4 f6 30. Ra1 Rb8 31. axb5 axb5 32. Ra7 e5 33. Rd7 exd4 34. Rxd5 dxc3 35. bxc3 g6 36. hxg6 Kg7 37. Kb4 Kxg6 38. Rxb5 Re8 39. c4 Re4 40. f3 Rf4 41. Rd5 Kf7 42. Rd3 f5 43. gxf5 h5 44. Kb5 h4 45. c5 Rxf5 46. f4 Rh5 47. Rh3 Ke6 48. Kb6 Rh6 49. c6 Kd5 50. Rd3+ Ke4 51. Rh3 Kxf4 52. Kb7 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The next game shows the structure I mentioned in the comment below. Kasparov did not actually break through on the kingside, but he used the cramping threats on the kingside to eventually attack the queenside! Anand might have been able to draw in a couple of places, but that is no easy feat against the great Kasparov. A beautiful rook ending by Kasparov.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [Event &quot;Linares 20th&quot;]&#xA; [Site &quot;Linares&quot;]&#xA; [Date &quot;2003.03.01&quot;]&#xA; [Round &quot;7&quot;]&#xA; [White &quot;Kasparov, Garry&quot;]&#xA; [Black &quot;Anand, Viswanathan&quot;]&#xA; [Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA; [ECO &quot;B19&quot;]&#xA; [WhiteElo &quot;2847&quot;]&#xA; [BlackElo &quot;2753&quot;]&#xA; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. Nd2 dxe4 4. Nxe4 Bf5 5. Ng3 Bg6 6. h4 h6 7. Nf3 Nd7 8. h5 Bh7 9. Bd3 Bxd3 10. Qxd3 Ngf6 11. Bf4 e6 12. O-O-O Be7 13. Kb1 O-O 14. Ne4 Nxe4 15. Qxe4 Nf6 16. Qe2 Qd5 17. Ne5 Qe4 18. Qxe4 Nxe4 19. Rhe1 Nf6 20. g4 Rfd8 21. Be3 Bd6 22. f3 Rac8 23. c4 a5 24. a4 Nd7 25. Bd2 Bc7 26. Bc3 Nxe5 27. dxe5 c5 28. Kc2 Rxd1 29. Kxd1 Rd8+ 30. Ke2 Rd7 31. f4 Bd8 32. f5 Bg5 33. f6 b6 34. Ra1 Rd8 35. Ra3 gxf6 36. Rb3 Bf4 37. Rxb6 Bxe5 38. Bxe5 fxe5 39. Rb5 Rd4 40. Rxc5 Rxg4 41. b3 Rg3 42. Rxe5 Rxb3 43. Rxa5 f5 44. Ra8+ Kg7 45. c5 Rc3 46. Rc8 Ra3 47. c6 Rxa4 48. Re8 Rc4 49. Rxe6 f4 50. Rg6+ Kh7 51. Kd3 Rc5 52. Kd4 Rc1 53. Ke4 Rc4+ 54. Kd5 Rc3 55. Kd4 Rc1 56. Ke4 Rc4+ 57. Kf3 Kh8 58. Rxh6+ Kg7 59. Rd6 Kh7 60. Kg4 Kg7 61. Rd7+ Kf6 62. c7 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lastly, here is a game that made an big impression on me when I first read Kasparov's notes to in in his book, &quot;The Test of Time&quot;. How he used the kingside pawns was amazing, and his final move shows how dangerous they are. I will use a few of Kasparov's own annotations for the demonstrative points about the pawn play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [Event &quot;EU Team-ch07 Final&quot;]&#xA; [Site &quot;Skara&quot;]&#xA; [Date &quot;1980.01.26&quot;]&#xA; [Round &quot;7.8&quot;]&#xA; [White &quot;Kasparov, Garry&quot;]&#xA; [Black &quot;Vukic, Milan&quot;]&#xA; [Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA; [ECO &quot;B19&quot;]&#xA; [WhiteElo &quot;2595&quot;]&#xA; [BlackElo &quot;2460&quot;]&#xA; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. Nd2 dxe4 4. Nxe4 Bf5 5. Ng3 Bg6 6. h4 h6 7. Nf3 Nd7 8. h5 Bh7 9. Bd3 Bxd3 10. Qxd3 e6 11. Bd2 Qc7 12. O-O-O Ngf6 13. Ne4 O-O-O 14. g3 Nxe4 15. Qxe4 Be7 16. Kb1 Rhe8 17. Qe2 Bd6 18. Rhe1 Re7 19. c4 c5 20. Bc3 Nf6 21. Ne5 cxd4 22. Rxd4 Bxe5 23. Rxd8+ Qxd8 24. Bxe5 Rd7 25. Bc3 Qb6 26. g4 Qd6 27. f3 a6 28. a4 Qd3+ 29. Kc1 Kc7 30. Qxd3 Rxd3 31. Rf1 Kc6 32. Kc2 Rd7 33. a5! {+- &quot;the ending, in my opinion, is lost for Black - he is markedly cramped, and the balance of forces remaining on the board is the ideal one for White.&quot; - Kasparov} Ne8 34. Re1 Rd6 35. f4 Nf6? {&quot;One can understand Vukic aiming to prevent g4-g5, after which the sacrifice at g7 becomes a possibility in various lines, e .g. 35...Kd7 3 6 g5 Rc6 37 Rdl + Kc8 38 BXg7! But, engaged in a difficult defence, the Yugoslav grandmaster forgot for an instant about the defects of his pawn structure and the unfortunate position of his rook at d6. The retribution followed immediately.&quot;} 36. Bxf6 gxf6 37. Rd1 {&quot;Black resigns, since in the pawn ending White creates passed pawns on both flanks.&quot;} (37. Rd1 Rxd1 38. Kxd1 Kc5 39. g5 fxg5 40. fxg5 hxg5 41. h6 {wins}) 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This final position, and the ability to create a passed pawn on the king side, combined with the pawn move f6 in the second game to do the same (after gf ef and later g5) is why this structure is very strong for white.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-01-15T14:05:10.570" LastActivityDate="2020-01-15T14:05:10.570" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27981" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27979" CreationDate="2020-01-15T09:50:35.617" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;solidity (c6+e6 pawn structure is hard to break down)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;h5 pawn can be weak in endgame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White can have king safety issues if black castles kingside and plays b5 (black has king safety issues too there :) )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18738" LastActivityDate="2020-01-15T09:50:35.617" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27982" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27979" CreationDate="2020-01-15T10:33:15.903" Score="22" Body="&lt;p&gt;At a basic level, what we want from an opening and a defense, is: we want to be fighting for the center squares &lt;strong&gt;(1)&lt;/strong&gt;, we're trying to develop our pieces and get good squares for them &lt;strong&gt;(2)&lt;/strong&gt;, and thirdly, we want to have a safe king &lt;strong&gt;(3)&lt;/strong&gt;. This is as modest a expectation as one can have for a &lt;em&gt;good&lt;/em&gt; opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now roughly speaking, there are two types of defenses (say e.g. against 1.e4): First type: we attack the pawn on &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt;, like the Scandinavian, the French, and the Caro-Kann,..., in other words, any defense where we immediately set out to immediately attack the pawn on &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; is the &lt;em&gt;first&lt;/em&gt; type of defense. The second type of defense is to leave the &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; pawn alone and basically, black's saying I'll go and take my fair share of the center, typical example is the Sicilian (&lt;code&gt;1...c5&lt;/code&gt; first dark-square claim). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In diagram you've posted, we see a typical Caro-Kann structure where black's trumps are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;we have successfully managed to exchange one of white's central pawns (&lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt;), which was the primary goal of our defense.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;There's definite prospect for challenging white's 2nd central pawn (&lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt;) with a timely &lt;code&gt;c5&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt; advance in the middlegame. And the &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt; square is a nice post for a knight.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In case white aims for &lt;code&gt;c4&lt;/code&gt; to control &lt;code&gt;d5,&lt;/code&gt; then &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt; being in a semi-open file, becomes a bit of a soft spot which black can target, and the extra expansion on the queenside by white means their queenside castling is less likely or at least less safe. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So it's fair to say expectation &lt;strong&gt;(1)&lt;/strong&gt; is ticked off. &lt;strong&gt;Now onto (2)&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Black is clearly behind in development: white has 5 developed pieces (pawns and nonpawns), black has 3, moreover, white's ready to castle kingside and 1 tempo away from queenside castling whereas black's kingside castle is at least 3 tempi away. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;However, thanks to our successful neutralisation of the &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; pawn, the central struggle has quieted down, and our path to finishing development is rather clear (and resolved for the most part), namely: &lt;code&gt;e6-Nf6-Be7-O-O.&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It's not just that we are finishing development, but we are in fact achieving decent piece activity: most importantly, the knight on &lt;code&gt;f6&lt;/code&gt; which plays both a very important defensive role for the king, and provides good central control. The &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt; square could in certain cases be a good outpost for either the knight or even sometimes the queen. In case of the former, then &lt;code&gt;f6&lt;/code&gt; square becomes free for our &lt;code&gt;d7&lt;/code&gt; knight to jump to.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The knight on &lt;code&gt;d7&lt;/code&gt; is not poorly placed as it is ideally placed to eye both &lt;code&gt;c5&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt;, the two pawn advances black will be aiming for next in order to challenge white's &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt; pawn (dark-square control).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Same holds for the bishop, which more importantly, is not hemmed-in inside our own structure.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These points tick off expectation &lt;strong&gt;(2)&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;strong&gt;Now onto (3)&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;As said, we have no trouble in castling kingside, where the king will be well protected by our minor pieces (knight on &lt;code&gt;f6&lt;/code&gt;, bishop &lt;code&gt;e7&lt;/code&gt; and knight on &lt;code&gt;d7&lt;/code&gt; which can go to &lt;code&gt;f8&lt;/code&gt; if need be).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Thanks to white's over-advancement of the &lt;code&gt;h&lt;/code&gt; pawn all the way to &lt;code&gt;h5&lt;/code&gt;, their prospect of exploiting our hook &lt;code&gt;h6&lt;/code&gt; on the kingside is not so easy anymore. Ideally, to exploit the &lt;code&gt;h6&lt;/code&gt; advance when pushing against the king, is to have the &lt;code&gt;h4-g4&lt;/code&gt; setup. All to say, tempo-wise, white is sufficiently away from amassing a major threat on our kingside. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Last but not least, white has no means of decoying our minor piece defense on the kingside, and the somewhat weakened light squares are less of a concern since the respective bishops have been traded off.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These points all suggest that we have in fact a solid structure and our kingside castling remains safe, so &lt;strong&gt;(3)&lt;/strong&gt; is ticked off as well. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In conclusion, we have seen why the structures that emerge from Caro-Kann (in particular for the posted variation) are solid and more importantly, we see that black's opening has successfully achieved our 3 basic expectations, so we can give ourselves a tap on the back and claim to have played a successful defense. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Extra bonus aspects about the position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The queen can easily swing over to the queenside &lt;code&gt;b6&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;a5&lt;/code&gt; and create threats, in general you want to be inducing additional pawn advances from white on the queenside to make it more difficult for them to castle safely on the queenside. So manoeuvres like &lt;code&gt;Qa5&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;Qb6&lt;/code&gt; are much needed!&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The &lt;code&gt;d&lt;/code&gt;-file is semi-open for black, which gives us a pressure point and rook activity. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The &lt;code&gt;c5&lt;/code&gt; advance (and sometimes &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt;) should be a part of your middlegame strategy in order to neutralise white's remaining central pawn and dark square control. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The &lt;code&gt;h5&lt;/code&gt; pawn can sometimes be a real weakness, that you can easily target.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A queenside expansion is almost always perfectly valid.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Last but not least, I highly encourage you to study Caro-Kann games for inspiration. For example, look into the games of Vassily Ivanchuk, Jovanka Houska, Yasser Seirawan or Aleksandra Goryachkina, who've produced many instructive Caro-Kann games.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3594" LastActivityDate="2020-01-15T10:33:15.903" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27983" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27977" CreationDate="2020-01-15T12:47:10.767" Score="17" Body="&lt;p&gt;All is fair in love, war, and blitz (at least with regards to winning on time, and short of outright cheating).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In blitz, time is a major factor in the game, and it is fine to try and win on time in any situation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you used too much time, and your opponent thinks he can flag you, there is nothing wrong with that. It is part of the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have seen Grandmasters check with a queen right next to the opposing king that can be taken for free to win on time, just because it requires that split second to realize what happened.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S. If someone does not like being flagged, they can always play with an increment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-01-15T12:56:29.260" LastActivityDate="2020-01-15T12:56:29.260" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27984" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27961" CreationDate="2020-01-15T13:43:49.520" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;This answer is a little indirect but it helped my wife get a better grasp of chess and now no longer sees any board state as just a bunch of useless moves. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you have someone you play with regularly ask them to give you a handicap by verbalizing what they are thinking on their move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-ex: &quot;I can move my pawn up two getting control of the center, putting pressure on your knight and rook... But then your knight could fork my queen and rook... I have two pieces putting pressure on your center pawn and if I get another in position I could make a beneficial exchange... That bishop on the left hand side is not defended and could be taken advantage of...&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;During your turn, the opponent doesn't speak, allowing you to form your own strategy and build your skills. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Essentially their strategy becomes an open book for you to look through which also makes for a more competitive game between the two of you. I find (as the more experienced player) playing passively (not to your fullest) teaches little to nothing to the new player while playing with your true skill makes for a one sided game that no one has fun with. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Seeing what goes through a better chess players mind will help you figure out what you should be looking for or thinking about on your turn. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the beginning you can ask questions to understand the opponents statements but once you start understanding them, just sit back and absorb.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm by far not a good chess player (compared to most regular players) but being the open book opponent it also helped me with my game. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The general key points/pointers found in other answers here, should with time be revealed to you as you play more games in this format. I think you'll have a better grasp of them when you see them in action / being used by your opponent and what position it then puts you in.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Note: only works with an honest player who will blurt out every single thought that goes through their mind. No pre-processing / filtering. Every move considered and eventually discarded is useful information to a new player)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21213" LastEditorUserId="21213" LastEditDate="2020-01-15T14:05:25.700" LastActivityDate="2020-01-15T14:05:25.700" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27985" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27961" CreationDate="2020-01-15T17:22:58.123" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Start reading some books for beginners such as those by Seirawan. The idea is simply that the author will often explain the rationale behind a move in the book, and just by reading those you will be exposed to tactical and strategic motifs that you will see occurring in your own games. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, reserve a little time during your study hours for solving puzzles. Websites such as chess.com has a good variety of puzzles for beginners, and the puzzles will gradually become more difficult as you become more adept at solving those. The idea here is that you will start to see patterns in your own games similar to what you saw in the puzzles, and this will give you more ideas on the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21218" LastActivityDate="2020-01-15T17:22:58.123" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27986" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27987" CreationDate="2020-01-15T20:32:08.347" Score="16" ViewCount="3627" Body="&lt;p&gt;The opening move 1. Nf3 is considered as a perfectly sound opening and it is popular, but not nearly as popular as 1.e4 and 1.d4. Here are my thoughts about this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;In most openings, white will make the move Nf3 sooner or later. Since white needs this move (in most cases) anyway, why not make it the first move?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;White has much flexibility with 1. Nf3. Here are a few examples:&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For 1. Nf3 Nf6, white may reply with either 2.c4, transferring to the English or 2.d4, transferring to Queen's Pawn Game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For 1. Nf3 d5, white may continue with 2.d4, transferring to Queen's Pawn Game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For 1. Nf3 c5, white may reply with either 2.c4, transferring to the English or 2.e4, transferring to Sicilian. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At the same time, white is not afraid of some weird replies such as 1. Nf3 e5 as replying this with 2. e4 is perfectly fine for white. Capturing the pawn may be fine for white as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why then is 1.Nf3 not nearly as popular as 1.e4 and 1.d4?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16626" LastEditorUserId="3594" LastEditDate="2020-03-10T13:38:50.210" LastActivityDate="2020-03-10T13:38:50.210" Title="Why is 1. Nf3 not nearly as popular as 1.e4 and 1.d4?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;reti-opening&gt;&lt;space&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="13" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27987" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27986" CreationDate="2020-01-15T21:01:56.447" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is funny since 1.Nf3 scores better than any other opening move per Mega 2020 at 55.5% winning percentage for white, compared to only 52.8% for 1.e4, 54.3% for 1.d4, and 54.4% for 1.c4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think a lot of it is psychological regarding the types of positions that can arise. 1.Nf3 is the most fluid of all the moves I mentioned, and I think that players simply like more concrete play than not. It also reduces what you need to memorize, or understand, if you go straight into a specific pawn formation with d4, e4, or c4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also think that at the lower levels, that fluidity can lead to positions that players, both players, but since it is white's choice, that he/she specifically is not as comfortable with since he/she can end up on his/her own in a hurry. You need to know A LOT more about transpositions into other openings, which is a major undertaking. The play is also more complicated, which drives weaker players away more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At the upper levels, meaning 2700s, I do not believe that they are afraid of getting lost in the opening as easily, but there still may be an underlying desire to play &#xA;&quot;their&quot; openings, so they play more concretely.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One thing I do not believe is that after 1.Nf3 that 1...e5 is a valid response. White, having played 1.Nf3 probably likes d4/c4 openings, so is not likely to go into a double-king-pawn opening, but still has a great response:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. Nf3 e5? 2. Nxe5!&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks for the gumball, Mickey! (from an old U.S. commercial for a Mickey Mouse gumball machine)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Based on my discussion with Phonon below, I am adding this chart that shows the flexibility of each main opening move that aims for the closed openings (d4/c4/Nf3). At the higher levels, this is a main reason, but at lower levels, I still believe that it is more about psychology, and believing that immediate occupation of the center is crucial. At lower levels this also can often put your opponent on unfamiliar grounds,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qQfHP.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qQfHP.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-01-16T01:17:14.617" LastActivityDate="2020-01-16T01:17:14.617" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27988" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27986" CreationDate="2020-01-15T22:54:03.283" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Questions of this nature seem to have become a reoccurring theme recently here on chess SE, but that's a good thing because understanding basic opening ideas is understanding fundamentals of chess strategy. So let's tackle the question from this angle, in an attempt to objectively relate the merit of first moves for white to their popularity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why &lt;code&gt;1.e4,&lt;/code&gt; &lt;code&gt;1.d4,&lt;/code&gt; &lt;code&gt;1.Nf3&lt;/code&gt; etc, for such questions it helps to think at the most basic and fundamental level. &#xA;Before comparing these first move candidates, we need a few notions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;(In the scope of this post, brevity and basics are of essence. Thus, the discussed concepts should be taken with a grain of salt when applied to high level chess, where decision making in the opening is an entirely different matter, partly due to the extremely high level of targeted preparation).&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In chess, to establish an edge as the side that makes the first move of the game, you need to be dictating roughly the flow of the game, which means playing a greater role than your opponent &#xA;in the type of positions that may emerge from the opening. On the one hand, this means the particular set of pawn skeletons that can arise, and on the other hand,&#xA;what choices are you taking away from your opponent. &#xA;In other words, you should try to impose your own agenda and prevent your opponent's as much as possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Territory and central squares:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, what is it that we want from an opening to begin with? Briefly, we want to have a fair share of the center, to have effectively posted minor pieces (both defensively and offensively), and a safe king (number one priority). Most relevant for your question, is the fight over central squares, so let's limit our discussions mostly to that. To clarify the used concepts and terminology, consider the following diagram:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/sOXXQm.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/sOXXQm.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;strong&gt;red&lt;/strong&gt; rectangles show each side's &lt;strong&gt;territory&lt;/strong&gt;. The &lt;strong&gt;green&lt;/strong&gt; rectangle highlights the &lt;strong&gt;16 central squares&lt;/strong&gt;, and the &lt;strong&gt;4 blue-highlighted squares&lt;/strong&gt; inside it show the &lt;strong&gt;sweet center&lt;/strong&gt;, i.e., the 4 most important squares on the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's now go a tad deeper into what is meant by &lt;em&gt;fight over the central squares,&lt;/em&gt; and establish some sort of rough baseline:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;We want to be controlling as much of the 16 central squares as possible, and most importantly the 4 sweet central squares &lt;code&gt;e4,d4,e5&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;d5.&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Think of pawns as space creators: the pawn backbone is really what defines the mobility and effectiveness of your other pieces.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The ideal scenario of &lt;em&gt;controlling the center&lt;/em&gt; is: to have our own pawns centrally established in the center (&lt;code&gt;e4,d4&lt;/code&gt;) and have our opponent's respective&#xA;central pawns traded for our own non-central pawns (like black typically does in the Sicilian, trading their &lt;code&gt;c7&lt;/code&gt; pawn for white's &lt;code&gt;d2&lt;/code&gt;, which in itself is a favourable trade for black since the more central a pawn is, &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/25101/3594&quot;&gt;the higher its relative value&lt;/a&gt;). &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Now of course this is the ideal, and as such we never fully get there, nonetheless it is what we're ultimately fighting towards.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Next comes: what makes pawns established in the sweet center so good? In short, pawns in the center provide space and support for our knights to be posted centrally (thus most effective) and while also making it more difficult for our opponent to achieve the same ideal minor piece posts. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Moreover, the 4 central squares maximise your options of rerouting pieces between the two flanks, from the centre an attack on either flank can be backed, and pieces have a higher relative value when centralised: because not only do they acquire their maximum mobility (max number of moves) but they also secure space both in both camps.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Basic comparison of first moves:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With these kinds of ideas in mind, let's now compare the 3 first moves &lt;code&gt;1.e4&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;1.d4&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;1.Nf3&lt;/code&gt; and do the tally:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;&lt;code&gt;1.e4&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Occupies &lt;strong&gt;one&lt;/strong&gt; square (&lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt;) in the sweet center, provides control over &lt;strong&gt;two central&lt;/strong&gt; squares (&lt;code&gt;d5,f5&lt;/code&gt;) in our opponent's camp, while activating &lt;strong&gt;two&lt;/strong&gt; of our pieces (a kingside bishop and our queen)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;&lt;code&gt;1.d4&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Similarly, occupies &lt;strong&gt;one&lt;/strong&gt; square (&lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt;) in the sweet center, provides control over &lt;strong&gt;two central&lt;/strong&gt; (dark) squares, while activating again &lt;strong&gt;two&lt;/strong&gt; pieces (a queenside bishop and our queen). Compared to &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt;, the queen activity is less relevant (as &lt;code&gt;d2,d3&lt;/code&gt; squares are not really useful queen squares) and the bishop is not a kingside one, which matters a tad less than kingside bishop, since kingside development is to be priotorised in order to establish a safe king as fast as possible, and before committing to any attack. But all in all, it's still as good as &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; in terms of the central space it provides.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;&lt;code&gt;1.Nf3&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Occupies &lt;strong&gt;zero&lt;/strong&gt; squares in the sweet center (only eyes &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt;), provides control over only &lt;strong&gt;one&lt;/strong&gt; of our opponent's central squares (&lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt;), while activating &lt;strong&gt;no&lt;/strong&gt; other piece with the spent tempo. So clearly, it's not as cost efficient as our two previous options in terms of how we're investing our extra tempo. Naturally then, as a first move, it gives plenty of choices to our opponent for the type of structures they could aim for, which means a portion of our edge as white being first to dictate the game has been given away. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In diagrams:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ggr2Em.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ggr2Em.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/EYwJrm.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/EYwJrm.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/8rWfwm.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/8rWfwm.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus, with these comparisons made purely at a very basic level, it stands to reason that &lt;code&gt;1.e4&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;1.d4&lt;/code&gt; ought to be white's best investments of the extra tempo and explain their popularity. Anything else would be forfeiting some part of our advantage as white one way or the other. But bear in mind, we're talking at the core and most basic possible level, meaning, these ideas alone don't translate into whose winning or losing. In actuality of real games, things are never that simple, and our decisions will depend on many factors including our mood, preferences, opponent's preferences, and so on .... &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes, we just want to get a normal position, and don't really care about that small plus white has early on, then moves such as &lt;code&gt;1.Nf3&lt;/code&gt; become perfectly valid options. Particularly, when one is trying to avoid heavy theory or simply not walk into the opponent's preparation, then openings such as the English &lt;code&gt;1.c4&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;1.Nf3&lt;/code&gt; become ever so viable, as they are less committal (and thus less critical) and can still transpose to a wide range of structures.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3594" LastActivityDate="2020-01-15T22:54:03.283" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27989" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27986" CreationDate="2020-01-16T00:14:12.343" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The first moves 1. Nf3, 1. d4, 1. e4 and 1. c4 are all good. It is a matter of taste which one you prefer, as they usually lead to different types of position. All these moves have their advantages and disadvantages.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After 1. Nf3, you have to consider the black replies 1. ... d5, c5, Nf6 at least. 2. c4 is a fine continuation in all these cases. Of course, you could play c4 first, but then you'd need to be prepared for 1. c4 e5. If you don't like that, that is an advantage of 1. Nf3. On the other hand, you must be willing to play either the Reti (1. Nf3 d5 2. c4), or a different second move in case of 1. ... d5. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You also suggest 2. d4 against 1. ... d5 or Nf6. Of course that move is fine, but after 1. d4 d5, most players don't play 2. Nf3, but 2. c4. If the plan is to enter the London system, Colle, or Torre attack, you could as well play d4 first - there is little black can do to prevent 2. Nf3. Possibly c5 - then you must decide whether you prefer 1. Nf3 c5 or 1. d4 c5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But of course you don't have to play 2. c4 or 2. d4. Actually the second most popular second move for white after 1. Nf3 is 2. g3, followed by 3. Bg2 and an early 0-0 - the Kings Indian Attack. Often, white plays d3, e4 and Nbd2 later. This is also a solid setup. But it is surely not to everyones taste, and some players prefer to reach it after 1. e4 only after certain black responses (especially against the french).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So much for the value of 1. Nf3, you can hopefully see that it takes some options from both you and your opponent, while allowing others, and you must decide which ones you want to allow or prevent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Regarding the option to enter an open sicilian: don't overestimate that. There is a lot of theory to learn in that opening, only to meet the third most common option black has on his second move. I'd consider this an option against certain opponents only. In general, this kind of flexibility isn't worth much. Instead of having the possibility to transpose into multiple openings, it is better to concentrate on fewer openings which you really know - at least as an amateur. (If you want to surprise your opponent, &quot;really know&quot; can include side lines you can enter on a later move)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20941" LastActivityDate="2020-01-16T00:14:12.343" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27990" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27961" CreationDate="2020-01-16T03:13:54.160" Score="1" Body="&lt;h2&gt;Learn Basic Tactics&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When playing against other beginners, basic chess tactics are very effective — and a lot of fun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you don’t know about discovered attacks, pins, skewers, and forks, learn about them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Winning Chess Tactics&lt;/em&gt; by Seirawan is a great resource.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Attack the King&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Focus on attacking the king when you can. Beginners’ defenses are weak enough that is usually the quickest route to victory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More advanced players may attack the weakest piece, but save that concept for later in your chess development.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Study chess openings&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the first few moves, learning and following well-established openings is the best plan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are lots of online resources for this. Just google: chess openings&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14164" LastActivityDate="2020-01-16T03:13:54.160" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27991" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27992" CreationDate="2020-01-16T08:59:50.247" Score="5" ViewCount="264" Body="&lt;p&gt;in my minimax function I have a first few lines looking something like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;children = board.get_all_possible_moves(board)&#xA;&#xA;if depth = 0 or board.is_check_mate or board.is_draw:&#xA;    return None, evaluation(board)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The problem is that it takes time to calculate the children one &quot;extra time&quot; if the depth is 0 and the position is not draw or check mate. However, I want to know if the board state at depth 0 is check mate or draw. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As of now I detect check mate and draw by the following logic:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;if not possible_moves:&#xA;    if board.is_check:&#xA;        board.is_check_mate = True&#xA;    else:&#xA;        board.is_draw = True&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a better way of finding whether a posisiton is check mate or not? Without having to calculate the opponents possible moves first, to save time in the minimax recursive function. Thank you in advance. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21129" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2020-01-17T13:44:42.520" LastActivityDate="2020-01-17T13:44:42.520" Title="Minimax check(mate) detection" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;check&gt;&lt;minimax&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27992" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27991" CreationDate="2020-01-16T10:30:42.703" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your approach is correct. Stockfish does it as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/blob/master/src/search.cpp&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/blob/master/src/search.cpp&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;if (rootMoves.empty())&#xA;{&#xA;  rootMoves.emplace_back(MOVE_NONE);&#xA;  sync_cout &amp;lt;&amp;lt; &quot;info depth 0 score &quot;&#xA;            &amp;lt;&amp;lt; UCI::value(rootPos.checkers() ? -VALUE_MATE : VALUE_DRAW)&#xA;            &amp;lt;&amp;lt; sync_endl;&#xA; }&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There shouldn't be much penalty in performance, because:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You will always need to generate candidate moves anyway&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Your code should maintain a bitboard (or other data structure) for the pieces checking the king. You will always need this information in your evaluation.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Consequently, what you're doing is just checking information that you already have.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2020-01-16T10:30:42.703" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27993" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="80" CreationDate="2020-01-16T10:52:56.443" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is more on the condition to consider&#xA;The King and Rook have to be on the same rank, otherwise Pam-Krabbe castling would be possible.&#xA;Pam-Krabbe castling is basically a vertical castling, where the king would castle with a promoted pawn. This is not allowed anymore. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18832" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-01-16T13:24:25.087" LastActivityDate="2020-01-16T13:24:25.087" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27994" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27995" CreationDate="2020-01-16T11:40:04.220" Score="15" ViewCount="447" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are several sites that give you a tactics rating changing while you solve or fail the exercises.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How do they calculate the problems rating?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do they use engines to calculate the difficulty or strong players evaluate the difficulty exercise by exercise?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user18196" LastActivityDate="2020-08-06T22:19:56.207" Title="How are online tactic exercises ratings calculated?" Tags="&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;rating&gt;&lt;online&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27995" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27994" CreationDate="2020-01-16T11:57:07.347" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;A typical way to do it is to treat puzzles the same as players and rate them based on whether they &quot;win/lose&quot; and the rating of the &quot;opponent&quot;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ChessTempo has a nice explanation &lt;a href=&quot;https://chesstempo.com/faq.html#tactics&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; copied below:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The rating system is inspired by an idea implemented at the Chess&#xA;  Tactics Server. CTS treats both problem solvers and the problems as&#xA;  opponents with their own ratings and adjusts their rating after&#xA;  problem completion (or failure) based on the Glicko ratings system.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;For blitz style games, time taken to solve problems is considered and&#xA;  an extra bonus is given for problems solved quickly. The solver gets a&#xA;  larger rating increase for problems solved quicker than one standard&#xA;  deviation from the average time taken for that problem. For problems&#xA;  solved faster than average but less than one standard deviation from&#xA;  the average, the normal Glicko based adjustment is made. If the&#xA;  problem is solved in slower than average time then the Glicko rating&#xA;  adjustment is reduced in proportion to how much slower than average&#xA;  the problem was solved. Very slow solutions may result in losing&#xA;  rating points, however you will never lose more points than you would&#xA;  if you simply got the problem wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;When calculating the average time taken on a problem, only correct&#xA;  solutions are included, time taken from incorrect attempts are not&#xA;  used to calculate the average time a problem takes to solve.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;It is important to note that after a recent change to time handling in&#xA;  blitz mode, time taken after the first move is punished more severely&#xA;  than time taken before making your first move. The intention of this&#xA;  feature is to discourage 'incremental' guessing to try and solve a&#xA;  problem, rewarding users who sum up the situation before making their&#xA;  move sequence. Users who prefer to use an incremental approach may&#xA;  still do so, however their rating will be lower than users at the same&#xA;  level who think out the solutions first.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Normal Glicko adjustments are made for standard ratings with no&#xA;  penalty for time taken. Problems marked incorrect cause the rating of&#xA;  that problem to increase and the solver's rating to decrease as&#xA;  dictated by normal Glicko rating calculations. Normal Glicko&#xA;  adjustments are also made for blitz problems that are marked wrong&#xA;  (i.e. the time taken in blitz is ignored when making rating&#xA;  adjustments for incorrect problems).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17425" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2020-01-16T12:26:01.813" LastActivityDate="2020-01-16T12:26:01.813" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27996" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="27997" CreationDate="2020-01-16T12:28:31.530" Score="2" ViewCount="140" Body="&lt;p&gt;Today I have played a &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/BVQ1RCC3/black#19&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;game&lt;/a&gt; and the following position was reached:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;rn1qk2r/p4ppp/1p2bb2/1Q1pp3/8/3P2P1/PP2PPBP/RN2K1NR b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Nd7 2. Bxd5 a6 3. Qb3 Nc5 4. Bc6+ Ke7 5.Qa3 Rc8 6. Bg2 Qd6 7. Nd2 e4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I quickly thought that covering the check with the knight would hang a pawn, but it seems that there is so much to it.&#xA;After 10. ...Nd7 11. Bxd5 a6 12. Qb3 Nc5 13. Bc6+ Ke7 14.Qa3 Rc8 15. Bg2 Qd6 16. Nd2 e4, Black is still a pawn down but apparently it is compensation enough for Black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I am unable to see why the pawn sacrifice is justified for a small lead in development which White can finish in at most 2 moves with Nf3 and O-O.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16771" LastEditorUserId="3594" LastEditDate="2020-01-16T14:16:51.133" LastActivityDate="2020-01-16T15:54:13.810" Title="Is my positional pawn sacrifice justified?" Tags="&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;&lt;sacrifice&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27997" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27996" CreationDate="2020-01-16T14:12:47.207" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Word of advice regarding the screenshot of lichess you had posted in the OP: Whenever you're checking with an engine, try to limit the number of best variations to 1-2 lines, as the more variations you choose the more distributed the allocated resources of the engine become and the less accurate the displayed evaluation.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black here is clearly better thanks to the dominant central control, the bishop pair (both developed too) and the extra piece white develops for you with their &lt;code&gt;Qb5+&lt;/code&gt; check. So even before &lt;code&gt;Bxd5,&lt;/code&gt; as things stand, black has the lead in time (development) and in space. Therefore, white's best bet is to at least try and win a pawn, in order to claim some sort of compensation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;However, I am unable to see why the pawn sacrifice is justified for a&#xA;  small lead in development which White can finish in at most 2 moves&#xA;  with Nf3 and O-O.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If this was really the case then indeed white would be safely getting away with the snapped pawn, but therein lies the problem: if white plays it correctly, their best bishop retreat option is to &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; and not &lt;code&gt;g2&lt;/code&gt;, and although black has lost their castling right they've gained a huge initiative on the kingside starting from &lt;code&gt;g5&lt;/code&gt; (aimed for &lt;code&gt;g4&lt;/code&gt;) to boot the knight to a passive square and launch the kingside pawn avalanche. Let's just see some of these variations:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [title &quot;Analysing variations after 11.Bxd5&quot;]&#xA; [fen &quot;r2qk2r/p2n1ppp/1p2bb2/1Q1pp3/8/3P2P1/PP2PPBP/RN2K1NR w KQkq - 2 11&quot;]&#xA; [startflipped &quot;1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1.Bxd5 a6 {our aim is to boot the queen away from the defense of the bishop} 2.Qb3 Nc5 3.Bc6+ {intermezzo check: only move to not lose material immediately} Kf8 {the king is even well placed on f8 as there are literally no foreseeable threats against it.} 4.Qd1 Rc8 5.Bg2 {a poorer choice than Be4, as the continuation shows white will be losing material very quickly if black's e-pawn is not blocked} (5.Be4 {white's best chance, to maintain the position somewhat closed and block the e-pawn} g5 {important positional move, to aim for g4 as quickly as possible exploiting the bishop and knight's awkward placement on e4-f3. With the knight booted away from f3, black is ready to launch an all out attack on the kingside with h5-g4 if white were to castle} 6.Nf3 g4 7.Nfd2 h5 8.O-O h4 {next to our bishops, our rook on h8 is perfectly placed to assist in the attack. The conversion from here is technically simple, and as soon as white retreats with Bg2 we have e4 ready. So there's no easy consolidation for white's king.}) e4 6.Nc3 (6.dxe4 Qxd1+ 7.Kxd1 Bxb2 {wins trivially}) exd3 {white's center and king safety are becoming further comprised, white has 5 active and well posted pieces in an open position against a king stuck in the center.} 7.Nf3 (7.exd3 Nxd3+ 8.Kf1 Bxc3 9.bxc3 Bc4 10.Ne2 Qf6 11.f4 Nxf4 12.gxf4 Qxf4+ 13.Ke1 Re8 14.Bf1 Qf3 15.Rg1 Qxc3+ 16.Kf2 Qe3+ 17.Kg2 Bxe2 {and the win is trivial from here.}) dxe2 8.Qxd8+ Rxd8 9.Kxe2 Bc4+ 10.Ke1 Nd3+ {and black wins trivially as further loss of material is unavoidable thanks to the comprised king position}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So you see, black is comfortably cashing in their lead in development and space in all the variations ensuing from &lt;code&gt;Bxd5,&lt;/code&gt; and converting them into winning positions. And in most cases, the moves sort of play themselves considering how natural black's initiative and attack are as we saw in the diagram. Thus, all in all, we consistently come to the conclusion that the pawn sacrifice starting from &lt;code&gt;Nd7&lt;/code&gt; is perfectly sound. I encourage you to practice playing these lines and the ones we haven't considered yet against the computer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3594" LastActivityDate="2020-01-16T14:12:47.207" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27998" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-01-16T14:19:38.163" Score="2" ViewCount="125" Body="&lt;p&gt;I noticed that when I play online I play much better than when I play facing a chess board. I suspect this is due to my table being tall so my angle of view isn't the best one. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I was wondering if the height of the table and chairs are also more or less the same in tournaments. Does it happen to you too?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21153" LastActivityDate="2020-01-16T15:33:54.140" Title="Angle of view of the board" Tags="&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;board-vision&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="27999" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27998" CreationDate="2020-01-16T14:42:50.120" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;There definitely could be something to this. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My father, and a friend of mine, were air traffic controllers. They both told me that you generally want a smaller screen so you can see everything at once.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The friend was also a chess player, and we talked about how big you wanted the chess app or browser to display the board. It does seem to make sense that if it is smaller, that you can see everything, and thus, not miss something that is in your periphery vision.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can very easily see that translating to a larger physical board that you see the pieces on an angle, if playing on a computer is your normal way of playing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, there may, or may not, be studies about this in similar situations; but I figure if the U.S. government trains their people about this, there is probably something to that even if I do not have the source material they base it on. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-01-16T15:33:54.140" LastActivityDate="2020-01-16T15:33:54.140" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28000" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27998" CreationDate="2020-01-16T14:43:56.177" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I suspect this is due to my table being tall so my angle of view isn't the best one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Online ratings are usually inflated or higher than over-the-board rating system. I remember I achieved an 2300+ on chessclub.com, but my FIDE is much less. There were  GMs over 3200+ on the system, but they were just about 2600 FIDE level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are you sure you &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;really&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; performed stronger online?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2020-01-16T14:43:56.177" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28001" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27996" CreationDate="2020-01-16T15:54:13.810" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;My Stockfish on a fairly strong computer found your exact line as best also, but I am going to continue it out a little.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You wrote: &quot;I am unable to see why the pawn sacrifice is justified for a small lead in development&quot;, but the reality is that you have a HUGE lead in development since the immediate threat is Nd3 ed Qa3 and Bxa1, and other moves allow black to increase his attack with tempo. This is a common thing in positions with a development lead, and it important to factor in when looking at a development lead...it is not enough just to count moves to catch up in many positions. Also, with e4!, black is going to rip open the game before white can finish developing and react. This is a good principle to understand...strike hard and early when you have a significant development lead. Quiet play will let the opponent catch up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black is not just better...black is won here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA; 1. g3 d5 2. d3 e5 3. Bg2 Nf6 4. Bg5 Be7 5. Bxf6 Bxf6 6. c3 Be6 7. Qb3 b6 8. c4 c6 9. cxd5 cxd5 10. Qb5+ Qd7 (10... Nd7! 11. Bxd5 a6 12. Qb3 Nc5 13. Bc6+ Ke7 14. Qa3 Rc8 15. Bg2 Qd6 16. Nd2 e4! {opening the position before white can finish developing} 17. Rb1 (17. dxe4 Nxe4 18. Qxd6+ (18. Qe3 Qxd2+ 19. Qxd2 Nxd2 20. Kxd2 Rhd8+ 21. Ke3 Bxb2) 18... Nxd6 19. Ngf3 Bxb2 20. Rd1 (20. Rb1 Bxa2 $1 21. Rxb2 Rc1#) 20... Bxa2) (17. Nxe4 $4 Nxe4 18. dxe4 Qxa3 19. bxa3 Bxa1) 17... exd3 18. e3 b5 19. Ngf3 Rhd8 {With two bishops, a pawn on d3 that is super annoying, and the Qa3 is quite uncomfortable, this is just won for black.}) 11. Qxd7+ Nxd7 12. Nd2 Rc8 13. Nh3 O-O 14. O-O g5 15. f4 gxf4 16. gxf4 Kh8 17. f5 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2020-01-16T15:54:13.810" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28002" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25333" CreationDate="2020-01-16T18:12:04.690" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;You are playing way too many games at once!  Stop doing that!!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Better yet,  stop playing completely, and start studying until you are much stronger.  1400 online is a pretty low rating compared to the complete set of all chess players,  and very low to those who compete online,  and even lower for those who play OTB tournaments. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is  your prioritized list of goals for your life?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I suggest God, Family, Self, job, retirement, country, ...,  and finally chess.   You need to make your own list looking at the far future as well as the near future and not just today.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What value is chess providing?  Is it worth the time and effort??&#xA;Do  you want to get better?  Do you just enjoy playing and don't care about your rating??   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Clearly for burnout you need to resign at least 45 of those games and then phase them out while you  move into the plan the questions above helped you make.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastActivityDate="2020-01-16T18:12:04.690" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28003" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28004" CreationDate="2020-01-16T18:41:05.207" Score="3" ViewCount="207" Body="&lt;p&gt;Today I played as White in an interesting &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/C3f2QIP3/white#49&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;bullet game&lt;/a&gt; in which a strange “fight” occurred.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 e6 2. Nf3 b6 3. e4 Bb7 4. Bd3 g6 5. Be3 Bg7 6. Nc3 Qe7 7. Qd2 Nc6 8. a3 a5 9. h3 h5 10. Qe2 Bh6 11. Bxh6 Nxh6 12. Qe3 Nb8 13. e5 Ng8 14. Qd2 d6 15. exd6 cxd6 16. Qe3 Nf6 17. Ne4 Ba6 18. Bxa6 Nxa6 19. Nxf6+ Qxf6 20. Qd3 Nc7 21. Qe3 Kd7 22. Nd2 Rae8 23. Nb3 Nd5 24. Qd3 e5 25. O-O-O Nf4 26. Qf3 Qg5 27. dxe5 Rxe5 28. g3 Ne2+ 29. Kb1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;During the game, it seemed, to me at he least, that were playing out a “fight” of who would castle first. In my thoughts, it is advantageous to castle on the same side as the other side, so we tried to make each other castle first to know each others intentions. In other words, it was a drawn out tempo play revolving around who would castle first. This fight lasted in my game until Black played 21... Kd7.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is not about my game, but about this concept of such a castling fight. What should be done if you find yourself in one? Are their any strageties for these situations? Finally, have there been any top level games where a, preferably somewhat extended, castling fight occurred?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-01-17T04:47:09.813" LastActivityDate="2020-01-17T19:51:14.250" Title="About castling “fights”" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;castling&gt;&lt;master-games&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28004" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28003" CreationDate="2020-01-16T19:01:26.527" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You may have been in a fight or not.  Top players do not fight that way they make the moves best for their position.  Sometimes they delay castling but not to fight the opponent.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This seems to be a tactic used by weaker players who might want to mount an attack on the other king.  The position should decide whether that is the best strategy or not. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not sure why you two  did it that way as there had to be better moves available.  it looks more like you all were struggling to just make moves so did what you did. So  being a bullet game might explain some of the moves that I would not have considered.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That said I would have just moved the white king up earlier and not castled at all as there is no danger of an attack and it would ensure that my king has an endgame advantage should black castle.   I note that is what black did to white later.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But then I would have made a number of different moves earlier on that would have changed the entire game making the question moot:)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastEditorUserId="20721" LastEditDate="2020-01-16T19:07:38.477" LastActivityDate="2020-01-16T19:07:38.477" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28005" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12603" CreationDate="2020-01-16T19:13:57.353" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It depends on what you call average/normal and just how good you are.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only strategy guaranteed to work is just to keep making better moves than they do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are at all decent then you should be able to beat a non experienced player just by playing well.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should be more concerned about what a very experienced or very good player is going to do to you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would say what you need more than a magic strategy is to study the basics of tactics, end games, pawn structure, and learn one opening well.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-01-16T19:19:47.457" LastActivityDate="2020-01-16T19:19:47.457" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28006" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28021" CreationDate="2020-01-16T19:49:46.267" Score="3" ViewCount="624" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't know how to import chess.pgn on Python.&#xA;I searched everywhere, but I didn't find anything. Can anybody here help me? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21231" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-03-04T21:24:23.380" LastActivityDate="2020-03-04T21:24:23.380" Title="How to install chess.pgn on python?" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;pgn&gt;&lt;python&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28007" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-01-16T19:54:13.810" Score="9" ViewCount="3411" Body="&lt;p&gt;At my school, we play with a time limit, and the winner is decided based on points (for example, a pawn is 1, a rook 5, a knight 3).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's say my queen is taken by my opponent, scoring 9 points. If I get my pawn to the other end and exchange it for a queen, do they lose those points?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21232" LastEditorUserId="2470" LastEditDate="2020-01-19T05:37:31.633" LastActivityDate="2020-01-19T05:37:31.633" Title="When a game is cut short and the winner is determined by material, do points still count if they're from promoted pawns?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;point-value&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28008" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28007" CreationDate="2020-01-16T19:56:01.813" Score="24" Body="&lt;p&gt;Points in chess mean nothing with respect to the actual play of the game with regards to the rules. They are only a reference to give players a general sense of what value each piece has relative to the next piece.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In essence, if you lose your queen, 9 points, but promote a pawn, you gain 9 points minus one for the pawn, so you would still be down one in material, but again, that is just a relative reference to give you an idea where you stand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These relative point values are estimates, and depending on who you talk to, they may vary. Here is a list of various values that strong players have assigned over the years &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/article/view/chess-piece-value&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;. Bobby Fischer said that the bishop was worth 3.25 because he loved bishops.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-01-16T20:00:44.887" LastActivityDate="2020-01-16T20:00:44.887" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28009" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25333" CreationDate="2020-01-16T20:31:21.300" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;It may sound little counter intuitive, but taking little break from chess can help you. Invest time into other hobbies. Also, watching games of older masters (Tal , Morphy, etc.) , who play quite attractivly, attacking chess also sparked some extra joy in me and reminded me why I have started to play this game after all. :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21234" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-01-16T20:47:08.040" LastActivityDate="2020-01-16T20:47:08.040" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28010" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28007" CreationDate="2020-01-16T20:53:36.230" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Material, aka “points,” is just one factor in deciding who is ahead.  There is time, space, material, position, tactics, zugzwang and other things that will determine who is doing better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your school needs to stop counting points as it is, by itself, meaningless. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you have a time limit, then limit the game time so that it finishes before the limit. Otherwise, some player will gain a pawn and then just sit to win by one point.  So get clocks and use them to limit the time each player can take so the game ends by the time of your period that you have to play. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-01-16T21:15:35.037" LastActivityDate="2020-01-16T21:15:35.037" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28011" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28006" CreationDate="2020-01-16T21:33:07.240" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;First you need to install this library:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;pip install python-chess&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And make sure you're using the right &lt;code&gt;pip&lt;/code&gt;, because still in some Linus distros &lt;code&gt;pip&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;python&lt;/code&gt; are &lt;code&gt;python 2.x&lt;/code&gt; and for &lt;code&gt;python 3.x&lt;/code&gt; you should use &lt;code&gt;pip3&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;python3&lt;/code&gt;. If you want to check try this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;pip --version&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You will see an output like this that will tell you what python you're using, in my case it's 3.8:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;pip 19.2.3 from /usr/lib/python3.8/site-packages/pip (python 3.8)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21188" LastEditorUserId="15989" LastEditDate="2020-01-17T09:34:23.680" LastActivityDate="2020-01-17T09:34:23.680" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28012" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-01-16T22:52:11.613" Score="4" ViewCount="172" Body="&lt;p&gt;How do you do deal, with losing your concentration during a chess match? Then making a bad blunder? I constantly lose concentration. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21167" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-29T15:33:02.400" LastActivityDate="2020-03-29T15:33:02.400" Title="How do you deal with you losing your concentration" Tags="&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;psychology&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28013" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28007" CreationDate="2020-01-16T23:01:41.993" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;As has been said, in ordinary chess the points do not count, and the only person who can definitively tell you your school's rules is your chess coach.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But that said, the purpose of looking at the points is to be a quick way to answer the question, &quot;who is winning this game?&quot; So if you promote, it makes sense to take away those points (and give him a point for a pawn instead, since that pawn is now off the board.) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's say you have a pawn and your opponent has a rook. Your opponent is winning the game, because a rook is stronger than a pawn. But if you promote the pawn to a queen, now you are winning the game, not your opponent; you have a queen and they have a rook, and a queen is stronger than a rook. It wouldn't make sense to declare them the winner just because your queen is a promoted one. You shouldn't have to think back the whole game to remember what was taken at the time; you should be able to just look at what's on the board at the end.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2020-01-16T23:01:41.993" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28015" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-01-16T23:24:48.333" Score="8" ViewCount="3647" Body="&lt;p&gt;I heard that Kasparov called some strong player a talented amateur? Who was that? Thanks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user20902" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-01-16T23:39:55.817" LastActivityDate="2020-01-16T23:39:55.817" Title="Who did Kasparov call a talented amateur?" Tags="&lt;history&gt;&lt;kasparov&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28016" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28015" CreationDate="2020-01-16T23:26:58.063" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;I will answer in the first line of the next paragraph, but there is a lot of history that happened right around the time Kasparov made this comment, so I will add in some of that too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At the Tilburg tournament in November 1997, Kasparov was not known for holding his tongue, and he called Grandmaster Shirov, who was 2700 and 8th in the world, a &quot;talented amateur&quot;. Shirov did not appreciate the remark. Kasparov’s comment is ironic since it was only about a year later that Shirov would upset Kramnik in a match (5.5-3.5) to win the right to play Kasparov for the PCA (Professional Chess Association) World Championship in 1998, but the match never took place because there was no sponsor since Intel, and later Linares organizer Luis Rentero, pulled out, and the money could not be secured. The PCA collapsed. Shirov was probably not without blame as it is alleged that he refused to play since his cut was too small.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My opinion is that if you are not champion, you should play, and if you win, then you have more leverage…get paid big down the line. That said, it is a big stretch to think that Shirov would have beaten Kasparov anyway as Shirov was Kasparov’s “customer”, meaning that Kasparov beat him like a drum throughout their career. The lifetime record was 16 wins, 15 draws, and zero losses for Kasparov.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After this happened, a new sponsor, BrainGames.com, was eventually secured for a Kasparov match, but unfortunately, the sponsor tried to sign Anand to play Kasparov, but this fell through too. Shirov was naturally upset that he was not signed, and called Anand a “pickpocket”, and he felt that Kasparov had to play him before he played any other matches. It turned out that since even that match never took place, Kasparov ultimately played Kramnik in 2000, and well, we know how that turned out: Kramink, a heavy underdog, used the Berlin Defense to the Ruy Lopez, and won by a score of 8 1/2–6 ½. Anand would go on to win the separate FIDE World Championship knockout event that year as Kasparov had previously broken away with the classical title in 1986.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-01-16T23:39:34.980" LastActivityDate="2020-01-16T23:39:34.980" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28017" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28012" CreationDate="2020-01-17T00:14:16.027" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I started writing this before your comment that it is online chess. My answer is geared more toward over-the-board tournament chess. I will add a little blurb specifically about online chess at the bottom, but a lot of this applies to both.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a lot to your question. Primarily how you deal with it comes down to experience and practice. The unfortunate part is that everyone gets that experience all too often. The initial key to not getting into that situation as often is to try to stay calm and relaxed when you play, and use your time wisely, and do not get into deep time trouble.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first question is how bad is the error? If it is bad enough that you lose the game, you have to just put it behind you, and prepare mentally for the next game. I find that while I take the game seriously, because it is not my profession, I do not take it too seriously, and therefore, I can put it behind me easily. Do not beat yourself up over something that you can no longer control.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it is a mistake during the game, and not so bad that you lose, that is different. It is important to mention that sometimes you will make a losing mistake that is not obvious to your opponent, but you see it. It is important to keep an absolute poker face so you do not clue your opponent in that there is something there. When you make that type of error that you have to get in the habit of buckling down and trying that much harder at the board until the end of the game. Staying as positive as possible is important.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other ways you can cut down on such “accidents” are making sure that you sleep and eat well. I would be careful of eating a lot of carbohydrates, or you might go into a fog that I call a “carb coma”. I also think that reading short exciting games without a board, but absolutely keeping the position in your head, will help your concentration before you even sit down at the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For online chess, you will lose games…a lot of games, but they really do not matter much, so put it behind you, and click rematch, and move on to the next game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the end, practice, practice, practice.  Good luck!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2020-01-17T00:14:16.027" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28018" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28003" CreationDate="2020-01-17T02:03:56.510" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let's ignore the whole &quot;fight&quot; aspect for now and consider why we castle in the first place. The key advantage of castling is that you 1) bring your rook to the center, and (more importantly) 2) get your king to safety. Exceptions apply of course, but usually, you're looking to castle on the side where the opponent isn't going to attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The other thing to remember is that the opponent's king is usually going to be behind a wall of pawns. If you're going to launch an attack, you'll want to advance your pawns to break apart that pawn shield. Of course, the opponent is also thinking the same thing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The position of your king influences these plans. Consider your game position after 21. Qe3. If Black plays 21...O-O, then 22. O-O-O intending Rdg1, h4, g4 etc becomes a legitimate plan for you. This doesn't mean it's a good plan - Black can also play Rfc8, Rab8 and b5-b4 etc - but it's a legitimate option. Similarly if Black plays 21...O-O-O, then 22. O-O followed by a queenside pawn advance becomes a legitimate plan for you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What if, after 21...O-O, you decide to play 22. O-O? Then neither player will be attacking on the kingside (advancing your king's pawn shield is not a good idea unless the opponent absolutely cannot mount an attack on your king). The game's battleground moves to the queenside and it'll take on a strategic theme where direct attacks don't happen. The same goes if you meet 21...O-O-O with 22. O-O-O.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore choosing which side both players castle into changes the strategic character of the game, and accordingly the available plans. You'll want to consider these before deciding where to castle. For example, in your specific game, you could decide that 21. O-O is a fine move because if Black plays 21...O-O-O and attempts to attack your king, your queenside counterplay will be faster (I'd bet on it; Black's queenside has vulnerable squares plus you have a pawn majority on that wing). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastActivityDate="2020-01-17T02:03:56.510" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28019" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="573" CreationDate="2020-01-17T03:04:48.500" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;What dilemma?&#xA;You castle because there are NO other moves that are pressing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You castle because you have a need to unite your rooks and/or put you king in a safer location.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You castle because it is the best move in that position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You do not castle to put a check in some box on a list.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your opponent has been putting his pieces on the best squares, not moving them to one side expecting you to castle there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You know you can put your pieces in front of your king too, right?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most games are not won by an attack on the king.  They are won by the total position leading to material and a won endgame.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastEditorUserId="20721" LastEditDate="2020-01-17T21:57:57.630" LastActivityDate="2020-01-17T21:57:57.630" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28020" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28012" CreationDate="2020-01-17T09:08:16.220" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;First and most important is Your physical form.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's where most opinions on chess and good chess players are wrong - all top chess players take care of their physical form - very popular are swimming, tennis, table-tennis, football(soccer for Americans).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also you have to sleep well, enough but not too much. Don't eat too much before game - also makes you sleepy. In classic game stand-up and have a walk every now and then to make blood circulate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Being fit helps you to keep concentration. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17448" LastActivityDate="2020-01-17T09:08:16.220" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28021" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28006" CreationDate="2020-01-17T09:43:06.493" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you've already installed python-chess via pip/conda/choco or your favourite package manager, then to use chess.pgn, in your .py files just call &lt;code&gt;from chess import pgn&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;import chess.pgn&lt;/code&gt;. You have to explicitly write either import, even if you already have &lt;code&gt;import chess&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then you can use it like&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;from chess import pgn&#xA;&#xA;with open(&quot;my_pgn_file.pgn&quot;, &quot;r&quot;) as pf:&#xA;    game = pgn.read_game(pf)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I had used &lt;code&gt;import chess.pgn&lt;/code&gt; instead, then I call it by changing the last line to &lt;code&gt;game = chess.pgn.read_game(pf)&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15989" LastActivityDate="2020-01-17T09:43:06.493" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28022" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34241" CreationDate="2020-01-17T18:40:35.270" Score="3" ViewCount="630" Body="&lt;p&gt;I cloned StockFish from GitHub and did a &lt;code&gt;make&lt;/code&gt; inside the &lt;code&gt;src&lt;/code&gt; folder and found that supported archs are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;x86-64-bmi2             &amp;gt; x86 64-bit with pext support (also enables SSE4)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;x86-64-modern           &amp;gt; x86 64-bit with popcnt support (also enables SSE3)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;x86-64                  &amp;gt; x86 64-bit generic&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;x86-32                  &amp;gt; x86 32-bit (also enables SSE)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;x86-32-old              &amp;gt; x86 32-bit fall back for old hardware&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;ppc-64                  &amp;gt; PPC 64-bit&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;ppc-32                  &amp;gt; PPC 32-bit&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;armv7                   &amp;gt; ARMv7 32-bit&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;general-64              &amp;gt; unspecified 64-bit&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;general-32              &amp;gt; unspecified 32-bit&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I want to build as optimized as possible for my samsung galaxy s10+ running having an arm64-v8a exynos9820 processor.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which archs should I choose? Will they be optimized as they could be when I build  for x86-64-bmi2 for my 64bits ubuntu? If not, how could I optimize them?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(The rather simple idea is that I want to build it to have it as optimized as possible for my mobile phone.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20949" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-11T11:49:12.113" LastActivityDate="2021-02-21T18:14:37.713" Title="Compile StockFish optimized for arm64-v8a" Tags="&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;programming&gt;&lt;android&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28023" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28003" CreationDate="2020-01-17T19:51:14.250" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd question whether its &quot;advantageous&quot; to castle on the same side as your opponent. Often it's safer, but that's not always the case and even so &quot;safer&quot; does not mean &quot;advantageous.&quot; Remember, when you castle on the same side as your opponent, that means they've also castled on the same side as you; it can't be &quot;advantageous&quot; for both of you at the same time. Any advantage you have has to lay elsewhere; advantages come from imbalances, not similarities.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most of the top players know which side their opponent is going to castle on within the first half-dozen or so moves, because the castling choice is indicated by the characteristics of the position on the board. It's very rarely that a player pushes their g-pawn one step forward and &lt;em&gt;doesn't&lt;/em&gt; castle king-side, for example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The position itself will tell you where it's advantageous to castle. Black will only rarely castle Queen-side in the Stonewall Dutch or the Sicilian Dragon, no matter where White castles. It just doesn't make positional sense to castle anywhere but king-side in those kind of positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My answer, as you might guess, is &quot;Don't find yourself in one.&quot; If you intentionally delay castling, you delay completing your development because you can't connect your rooks until you've castled. An advantage often lies in being the first to complete your development, meaning being the last to castle may often work against you, not for you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="657" LastActivityDate="2020-01-17T19:51:14.250" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28024" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28025" CreationDate="2020-01-17T19:57:14.790" Score="1" ViewCount="141" Body="&lt;p&gt;Today, I played this game in which I played the Queen’s Indian Defense. This position was reached:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/93oeM.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/93oeM.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I played Be7, which is a correct move. I wonder however, why Black isn’t  forced to play Bb7 in order to prevent e4? If White wants to, after exchanging on f6, they can play e4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Compare it to my recently question regarding the move d5 by White in a Pirc Defense:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/fQpPU.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/fQpPU.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When is preventing e4 no longer a priority for Black?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the Pirc Defense I even possessed a pawn in the 5th file which means I still had certain control over the center and yet in the Indian where I had no control of the center with advanced central pawns, e4 can be allowed. Why?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16771" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-01-17T20:29:03.813" LastActivityDate="2020-01-17T20:29:03.813" Title="Why isn’t Black forced to prevent e4 in this Queen’s Indian Game?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;queens-indian&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28025" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28024" CreationDate="2020-01-17T20:13:06.290" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a huge difference here, and that is first, that you will get the bishop pair for white's big center, but also that your Bf6 is beautifully placed for they typical black move in the Queen's Indian, c5, which will cut across the a1-h8 diagonal. Also, the white center can be successfully attacked.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the other example from the other question, cxd4 does not break up the center at all, and there was still the danger to the black king with e4-e5. You can see that in your game today, e4-e5 allows the queens to be traded, and will actually leave e5 vulnerable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nf3 b6 4. Bg5 Be7 5. Nc3 (5. Bxf6 $6 Bxf6 6. e4 d6 7. Nc3 Bb7 8. Be2 c5 {Breaking up the center or if d5, making the Bf6 a monster.} 9. d5 Qe7 10. O-O O-O 11. Re1 Nd7 12. Qc2 Ne5 {And black is very comfortable.}) 5... d5 6. e3 Bb7 7. Be2 Nbd7 8. O-O dxc4 9. Bxc4 O-O 10. Ne5 Nxe5 11. dxe5 Ne4 12. Bxe7 Qxe7 13. Nxe4 Bxe4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, while Be7 is not technically wrong, it is not in the spirit of that opening, and is a bit passive. Here is a typical line fighting for, and keeping control of e4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nf3 b6 4. Bg5 Bb7 5. Nc3 Bb4 6. e3 h6 7. Bh4 g5 8. Bg3 Ne4 9. Qc2 Bxc3+ 10. bxc3 d6 11. Bd3 f5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-01-17T20:28:44.050" LastActivityDate="2020-01-17T20:28:44.050" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28026" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15006" CreationDate="2020-01-17T22:10:18.820" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You castle opposite because your king would be safer.&#xA;Or because you will have an endgame edge due to king position in a game that is not going to be decided by an attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Less often you do it to gain a tempo.  I have castled long to check the black king on the queens home square after an exchange.  That brought the rook to a good file and moved my king to safety and united my rooks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You might do it to bring another rook to the attack faster without having to move your king out of the way after castling on the side of your attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You might do it to facilitate an attack on the other king but that is also not a routine thing to do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2021-02-25T18:09:43.440" LastActivityDate="2021-02-25T18:09:43.440" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28027" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24952" CreationDate="2020-01-17T22:28:59.880" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Atari 2600 has bugs which make the higher levels unrateable. It is reputed to be slightly better than Microchess, according to a &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/blog/BenRedic/retro-computer-chess-part-4-atari-video-chess-1979&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chess.com article&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Atari had a very limited book which makes it weaker than current approaches. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An ESTIMATE of the strength is as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Level Time Rating(?):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;8        10       700&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1        15       800&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2        30      1000&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3        45      1100&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4       165      1300&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5       195      1350&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;6       720        ??&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;7     36000        ??&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-01-18T00:50:11.330" LastActivityDate="2020-01-18T00:50:11.330" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28028" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24492" CreationDate="2020-01-18T00:09:15.187" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not much.  Certainly not against non GMs.  There is a bit more chance involved between those both at the highest levels.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would estimate that given 5 minutes a top GM would beat most players up to 2200 possibly higher.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With one minute there is too much nimbleness involved to move and hit the clock that the numbers become more meaningless.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Low ranked players often do much worse playing at speed chess variations whether bullet blitz fast or whatever.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastActivityDate="2020-01-18T00:09:15.187" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28029" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26757" CreationDate="2020-01-18T00:10:58.323" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Statistically , based on comments from my stat prof at the uni,  I would say it would take at least 5 games but in practice that might easily be ten or 100 depending on many exogenous factors. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastActivityDate="2020-01-18T00:10:58.323" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28030" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28022" CreationDate="2020-01-18T00:40:28.023" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://forum.armbian.com/topic/9862-info-how-to-compile-the-actual-64bit-version-of-stockfish-chess-engine/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://forum.armbian.com/topic/9862-info-how-to-compile-the-actual-64bit-version-of-stockfish-chess-engine/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Seems to show that you have to hack it to get it to compile at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17425" LastActivityDate="2020-01-18T00:40:28.023" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28031" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19554" CreationDate="2020-01-18T01:16:27.810" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Everybody hits their maximum.  That may depend on talent,  study, playing, amount of time available, as well as interest in getting better.  So while most players improve at first, they all hit their limit.  And then when they get really old they start to come back down.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;200-300 is a fairly narrow range of results that accounts for the randomness of that player as well as his opponents.  Some people have off days.  Others get a bluebird fumblefinger and an easy win.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastActivityDate="2020-01-18T01:16:27.810" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28032" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12296" CreationDate="2020-01-18T01:22:19.527" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;No.  Ratings depend on the time control, as well as the pool of players being rated.  And that latter depends a lot on how many games against other players occur to mix the results so they are meaningful. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Too many players play too many games against the same players or sub pool which prevents ratings from being more accurate.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Next would be the rating method used.  Many online ratings use their over version that is different from FIDE or USCF.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And whatever online rating you have it will be way higher than your OTB rating would be at that same time control.  And for weaker players it will be even yet a lot more lower than  if you played OTB at slow tournament controls. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want an ELO rating then play in ELO-rated tournaments. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-04T18:21:30.373" LastActivityDate="2020-03-04T18:21:30.373" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28034" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-01-18T12:24:00.900" Score="6" ViewCount="138" Body="&lt;p&gt;In &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess24.com/en/watch/live-tournaments/tata-steel-masters-2020/6/1/6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;yesterday's Tata Steel&lt;/a&gt; tournament in this game between Dubov and Artemiev this position was reached:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[title &quot;Dubov - Artemiev Tata Steel 2020&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;r1r5/1p1q1pk1/2n1p1p1/2RpP2p/p2P3P/P1Q3P1/1P3P2/2R1N1K1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The position is one square/piece away from being a &quot;reverse checkers&quot; position with every piece for one player on one colour and every piece for the other player being on the other colour. Black's king would need to be on a white square (g8 or h7) to be a full &quot;reverse checkers&quot; position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In an endgame with just a few pieces this would be an everyday occurrence but in positions where both sides have at least 12 pieces, as here, has a full &quot;reverse checkers&quot; position ever been achieved in a FIDE rated standard time control game between two grandmasters?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-03-07T00:01:39.800" LastActivityDate="2020-03-07T00:01:39.800" Title="Full &quot;reverse checkers&quot; position in GM game with 12 or more pieces per player?" Tags="&lt;grandmaster&gt;&lt;patterns&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28035" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28038" CreationDate="2020-01-18T15:54:34.693" Score="7" ViewCount="702" Body="&lt;p&gt;A decoy or deflection typically lure an opponent's piece &lt;em&gt;away&lt;/em&gt; from a square. What is it called when you sacrifice in order to lure/force an opponent &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;to&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; a certain square in order to prevent another piece escaping? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is a bad example that I've made that shows the idea. The reason it's bad is because the lure isn't actually needed since d8 is already attacked by the black rook.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;3r1rk1/ppp2ppp/8/2b5/4P1RP/5q2/PPQ5/RN2KN2 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Rd1+ 2. Qxd1 Qf2#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18029" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-06-12T18:38:42.590" LastActivityDate="2020-09-03T20:44:12.850" Title="Term for sacrifice that causes opponent to block an escape square?" Tags="&lt;terminology&gt;&lt;sacrifice&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28036" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28007" CreationDate="2020-01-18T16:09:27.277" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;As others have pointed out, the points values themselves are merely an initial value to get you started.  Over many many years, people have found that &lt;em&gt;generally&lt;/em&gt; trading three pawns for a bishop is a fair trade.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The point values are just a tool to get you started.  They're a way for you to not make mistakes by trading valuable pieces for less valuable pieces.  But really, its the entire position that matters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Consider this hypothetical.  Your opponent has a pawn on the 7th rank.  On the next turn, they can promote it to a queen.  You have the potential to trade a rook for that pawn.  Is it a good trade?  The &quot;5 points for a rook&quot; versus &quot;1 point for a pawn&quot; fails to account for the position.  In this intentionally extreme example, trading a rook for a pawn may be a great trade, because it puts you in a better position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Indeed, it can be even more extreme.  You can construct some clever back-rank mate problems where a pawn promoting to a queen or a rook is checkmate.  If you can't get out of it otherwise, it would be worth sacrificing three, four, or even five whole pieces just to prevent that pawn from promoting.  Checkmate trumps any and all point calculations, always.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6885" LastActivityDate="2020-01-18T16:09:27.277" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28037" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17791" CreationDate="2020-01-18T16:14:37.817" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You cannot.   They all have characteristics of open/closed between the two extremes so constitute a fuzzy type of set or a statistical sort of categorization.  There is no way to declare absolute that a position is either open or closed when many (most?) are in the vague area of semiclosed/semiopen as nobody tries to define quarter or 3/4 closed/open or finer fractional/decimal categories. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastActivityDate="2020-01-18T16:14:37.817" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28038" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28035" CreationDate="2020-01-18T16:17:46.737" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;What you are looking for is called &quot;attraction&quot;. That is, you attract a piece to a specific square. One of the most famous types of attraction is seen in this example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;r1b2rk1/pp2pp1p/1qp3p1/4Q3/1n1N4/1P6/PBP2PPP/R4RK1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. Qg7+ Kxg7 2. Nf5+ Kg8 3. Nh6#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chesstempo.com/tactical-motifs.html#attraction&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Here is a nice link with another example.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is also exactly a deflection since you deflected the queen away from f2. By the way, 1...Bf2 2. Qxf2 Rd1 also the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are two examples of what Rewan Demontay described as &quot;self-blocking&quot; below. In the first, a study by Nimzovich, it is what I believe the OP is asking for. The other is another type of self-blocking move, but it is not the opponent that forces it. This is more common in some endgame tactics to draw where one side walls the king in so it will be a stalemate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;5rn1/2N1npk1/R7/4P3/8/4P3/Q7/K6R w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. Rg6+ $3 fxg6 (1... Nxg6 2. Qxf7+ Rxf7 (2... Kxf7 3. Rh7#) 3. Ne6#) 2. Qf7+ $3 Rxf7 (2... Kxf7 3. Rh7#) 3. Ne6#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is the other self-block, but for another reason.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;8/r6k/3r3p/5p1K/5P2/p6P/Q7/8 w - - 0 0&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. h4 Rd1 2. Qf7+ Rxf7 {Stalemate}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-01-18T21:37:36.350" LastActivityDate="2020-01-18T21:37:36.350" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28039" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28035" CreationDate="2020-01-18T19:30:14.180" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;As far as I know, the term for a sacrifice that causes a player to block an escape square called a “selfblock,” altough it is a type of selfblock.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For a &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.yacpdb.org/#327955&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;composed example&lt;/a&gt;, here is one that shows the idea. White sacrifices a pawn on  d4 and a rook on e4 and this causes Black to move their pieces to those squares, thus taking away escape squares from the Black king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Julio César Infantozzi, Mate In 16 Moves&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;R1n2N2/4pk1B/2Q1r2B/2K2b2/Rr1n2P1/1q1P1PP1/4N2b/8 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Qe8+ Kxe8 2. Rxc8+ Kf7 3. Bg8+ Kxg8 4. Ng6+ Kh7 5. Rh8+ Kxg6 6. Nf4+ Kf6 7. Rf8+ Ke5 8. Bg7+ Rf6 9. Bxf6+ exf6 10. Re8+ Ne6+ 11. Rxe6+ Qxe6 12. Ng6+ Bxg6  13. f4+ Rxf4 14. gxf4+ Bxf4 15. Re4+ Bxe4 16. d4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can find more such chess problems &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.yacpdb.org/#search/ODg4ODg4ODgvLy8vLy8vLy8vU2VsZmJsb2NrLCAvLy8xLzEvMS8w/1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;, and there is even a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.chessbase.com/post/problem-che-the-self-block&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;ChessBase article&lt;/a&gt; on the subject.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I found a game where this actually occurs, pulled from this &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chesscollection?cid=1006488&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chessgames collection.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Tigran Levonovich Petrosian-Ara Minasian, 66th Armenian Championship, Yerevan Armenia, 3/19/2006&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;[startply &amp;quot;56&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 Nf6 4. O-O Nxe4 5. Qe2 Ng5 6. Nxg5 Qxg5 7. d4 Qe7 8. dxe5 Nd4 9. Qd3 Qxe5 10. Bd2 Ne6 11. Re1 Qd6 12. Qh3 Be7 13. Bd3 c6 14. Nc3 Qc7 15. f4 g6 16. g4 O-O 17. f5 Ng5 18. Qe3 Bf6 19. Rf1 d5 20. fxg6 d4 21. gxh7+ Kg7 22. Qe1 dxc3 23. Bxc3 Qb6+ 24. Kh1 Bd4 25. Qh4 Ne6 26. Qf6+ Bxf6 27. Bxf6+ Kh6 28. Rf5 Ng7 29. Rh5+ Nxh5 30. g5#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White “sacrifices” their rook to h5 with a check, which in turn causes Black to move their knight there, depriving the king of an escape square, aka a selfblock.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-09-03T20:44:12.850" LastActivityDate="2020-09-03T20:44:12.850" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28040" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28044" CreationDate="2020-01-19T06:06:55.423" Score="3" ViewCount="129" Body="&lt;p&gt;In round 7 of the Tata Steel Masters 2020, there was a game between Anand and Carlsen. Anand had the upper hand out of the opening but they drew on move 54. Instead, Anand missed 54.Rb4! Nxc7 55. Rc4 leading to this forced position. Stockfish 10 at depth 37 evaluates at +1.47. If this were the case what would be the technique to win such an ending? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [Event &quot;Tata Steel Masters&quot;]&#xA; [Site &quot;Wijk aan Zee&quot;]&#xA; [Date &quot;2020.01.18&quot;]&#xA; [Round &quot;7&quot;]&#xA; [White &quot;Anand, Viswanathan&quot;]&#xA; [Black &quot;Carlsen, Magnus&quot;]&#xA; [Result &quot;1/2-1/2&quot;]&#xA; [ECO &quot;B31&quot;]&#xA; [WhiteElo &quot;2758&quot;]&#xA; [BlackElo &quot;2872&quot;]&#xA; [Annotator &quot;DF&quot;]&#xA; [PlyCount &quot;114&quot;]&#xA; [EventDate &quot;2020.??.??&quot;]&#xA; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 g6 4. O-O Bg7 5. c3 Nf6 6. Re1 O-O 7. d4 a6 8. Bd3 d5 9. e5 Ne8 10. dxc5 Bg4 11. Be2 Nc7 12. Nbd2 a5 13. h3 Bc8 14. Bd3 Ne6 15. Nb3 a4 16. Nbd4 Nxc5 17. Bc2 Qa5 18. Bd2 Rd8 19. Qc1 Ne6 20. b4 Qc7 21. Nxc6 bxc6 22. Be3 c5 23. bxc5 Nxc5 24. Qa3 Ne6 25. Rab1 d4 26. Nxd4 Bxe5 27. Nb5 Qc6 28. Rb4 Bb7 29. Be4 Qd7 30. Bxb7 Qxb7 31. Rxa4 Bf4 32. Rxa8 Rxa8 33. Qb3 Bxe3 34. Rxe3 Nf4 35. Rf3 Qe4 36. Kh2 Nd5 37. c4 Qe5+ 38. g3 Nf6 39. a3 Ne4 40. Qc2 Ng5 41. Re3 Qc5 42. h4 Ne6 43. Qe2 Rc8 44. Rc3 h5 45. Kg2 Kf8 46. Qe4 Kg8 47.  d5 Qb6 48. a4 Qa6 49. c5 Qxa4 50. c6 Rd8 51. Qc4 Qxc4 52. Rxc4 Rb8 53. c7 Rc8 54. Rb4 (54. Rc1 {Was played and draw agreed.}) 54... Nxc7 55. Rc4 Nxb5 56. Rxc8+ Kg7 57. Kf3 Nd6 $16&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21014" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-01-19T11:24:17.360" LastActivityDate="2020-01-19T15:05:02.417" Title="How would the evaluation of the engine suggested endgame in the Anand vs Carlsen game be determined?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;carlsen&gt;&lt;anand&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28041" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28043" CreationDate="2020-01-19T08:59:54.823" Score="8" ViewCount="1596" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was looking through the titular variation and am confused why there are no master games with 9.dxc5. Is it simply because white doesn't want to give up the central pawn, even if they can gain a material advantage? Is that pawn that valuable in this type of game? I'd also guess that maybe the material advantage is pretty temporary since it will be hard to defend the c pawn afterward. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Opening as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. d4 Nf6 &#xA;2. c4 g6&#xA;3. Nc3 d5&#xA;4. cxd5 Nxd5&#xA;5. e4 Nxc3&#xA;6. bxc3 Bg7 &#xA;7. Bc4 O-O&#xA;8. Ne2 c5 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10779" LastActivityDate="2020-01-20T06:21:22.067" Title="Why doesn't white take after 8..c5 in the Grünfeld, Spassky variation?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;1.d4&gt;&lt;grunfeld-defense&gt;&lt;spassky&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28042" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28041" CreationDate="2020-01-19T09:35:13.387" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;it's actually impossible to keep the material advantage since after 9.dxc5 black has the move 9...Qa5 which puts a second attacker to the c3 pawn and also prepares to recapture the c5 pawn. All that white would be doing is giving up the strong center which is a huge deal in this line of the Grunfeld. Black, on the other hand, would be left with a more active queen and a 2 to 1 advantage on the Queenside. Hope this helps!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21014" LastActivityDate="2020-01-19T09:35:13.387" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28043" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28041" CreationDate="2020-01-19T11:15:08.537" Score="18" Body="&lt;p&gt;9.dxc5? is a horrible positional blunder.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Grunfeld for black allows white a big center, and his idea is to chip away at it, or force it to advance, and then chip away at it. That center controls a lot of nice squares, and is very desirable. 9.dxc5? by white voluntarily does what black is trying to achieve in a very bad way, and worse, it turns the Bg7 into a monster. In exchange for that, you cannot even keep the pawn as black can win it two ways. It is so bad that in 5099 games in the Mega 2020 database, no one has ever played it. In addition, the eval on Stockfish goes from about +.70 to -.67 instantly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black can win back the pawn with Qa5, but even stronger is 9...Nd7, and the N will have an incredible c5 square as its base. I have added notes to the following line regarding other positional advantages, so be sure to read them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 d5 4. cxd5 Nxd5 5. e4 Nxc3 6. bxc3 Bg7 7. Bc4 O-O 8. Ne2 c5 9. dxc5? Nd7 10. O-O (10. c6 Ne5 $1 11. Qxd8 (11. cxb7 Qxd1+ 12. Kxd1 Bxb7 13. Bb3 Nd3 14. Be3 Rac8 15. Kc2 Rfd8 {There are a million ways white can play from here, but they are all losing and black is all over him.}) 11... Rxd8 {And the N gets to d3 with great effect positionally or this...} 12. c7 Rd7 13. Bb5 Rxc7 {With a huge advantage.}) 10... Nxc5 11. Qc2 Bd7 12. Rd1 Qc7 {And white has big problems down the c-file, the Bc4 is in danger (if black trades for it, the two bishops are a winning advantage in this open position), and the Ne2 is not even well-placed.}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-01-19T13:00:41.673" LastActivityDate="2020-01-19T13:00:41.673" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28044" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28040" CreationDate="2020-01-19T11:45:11.387" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, despite the big eval, it is still probably equal in the long run with best play. In the games below, the weaker side often weakened the position, making easier for the stronger side to win. When in doubt, it is probably not a good idea to move pawns while defending.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is of note that Anand, and I am sure this is not accidental here, has the optimal kingside pawn setup with f7-g6-h5. Remember that setup as it makes it hard for white to get a passed pawn, or otherwise attack the black pawns. That black also has an e-pawn makes it better here. I will give a couple of games below without the e-pawn that white managed to win just to show some possible ideas.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Again, it is still likely drawn, but if white were to be able to do anything, it is clear that e7 and f7 are the black soft spots, so any successful plan would involve the rook attacking them, most likely with a king walk to the eight rank somehow. This type of king walk ins not uncommon in some endgames with all the pawns on one side. That said, it is definitely worth playing on here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I could not find any games with the pawn on e7 (I did find some with the pawn on e3, and colors reversed after, and added the wins below), but I did find a three games with the pawn on e6 that were all drawn, with one by famous players (the other two are not worth showing as one was between lower-rated players, and the other between low 2400s, but in blitz). In the first, you can see Najdorf successfully defend by tying down white to f2 and then advancing his central pawns. Despite the draw, I am a bit skeptical of how black played based on some of the games below.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [Event &quot;Venice&quot;]&#xA; [Site &quot;Venice&quot;]&#xA; [Date &quot;1948.??.??&quot;]&#xA; [Round &quot;?&quot;]&#xA; [White &quot;Euwe, Max&quot;]&#xA; [Black &quot;Najdorf, Miguel&quot;]&#xA; [Result &quot;1/2-1/2&quot;]&#xA; [ECO &quot;D72&quot;]&#xA; [PlyCount &quot;102&quot;]&#xA; [EventDate &quot;1948.??.??&quot;]&#xA; [EventType &quot;tourn&quot;]&#xA; [EventRounds &quot;13&quot;]&#xA; [EventCountry &quot;ITA&quot;]&#xA; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. g3 Bg7 4. Bg2 d5 5. cxd5 Nxd5 6. e4 Nb6 7. Ne2 Nc6 8. d5 Nb8 9. Nbc3 c6 10. O-O cxd5 11. exd5 O-O 12. Qb3 N8d7 13. a4 Ne5 14. a5 Nbd7 15. Be3 Ng4 16. Bd4 Bxd4 17. Nxd4 Ngf6 18. a6 Nc5 19. axb7 Bxb7 20. Qb5 Qb6 21. Rfe1 Rfe8 22. b4 Na6 23. Nc6 Kf8 24. Qc4 Nc7 25. Na4 Qb5 26. Qxb5 Nxb5 27. Nc5 Bxc6 28. dxc6 e6 29. Nd7+ Ke7 30. Nxf6 Kxf6 31. c7 Nxc7 32. Bxa8 Rxa8 33. Ra5 Nd5 34. Rb1 Rb8 35. Rxa7 Rxb4 36. Rxb4 Nxb4 37. h4 h5 38. Kg2 Nc6 39. Rd7 Ne5 40. Rc7 Ng4 41. Kf3 Nh6 42. Kf4 Nf5 43. Ke4 Nh6 44. Rc3 Ng4 45. Rf3+ Ke7 46. Kd4 f5 47. Kc3 e5 48. Kd2 e4 49. Ra3 Nxf2 50. Ra6 Kf7 51. Ke3 Nd3 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are a couple of games without the extra e-pawn just to show some similar games that white won. The first is close to how I imagined trying to win, and the second shows black not defending too well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [Event &quot;Warsaw AIG Life rapid 9th&quot;]&#xA; [Site &quot;Warsaw&quot;]&#xA; [Date &quot;2009.12.20&quot;]&#xA; [Round &quot;11&quot;]&#xA; [White &quot;Sergeev, Vladimir&quot;]&#xA; [Black &quot;Lind, Jan Olov&quot;]&#xA; [Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA; [ECO &quot;A48&quot;]&#xA; [WhiteElo &quot;2428&quot;]&#xA; [BlackElo &quot;2209&quot;]&#xA; [PlyCount &quot;129&quot;]&#xA; [EventDate &quot;2009.12.19&quot;]&#xA; [EventType &quot;swiss (rapid)&quot;]&#xA; [EventRounds &quot;13&quot;]&#xA; [EventCountry &quot;POL&quot;]&#xA; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. d4 Nf6 2. Nf3 g6 3. Bg5 Bg7 4. Nbd2 c5 5. e3 b6 6. c3 O-O 7. h3 Bb7 8. Bd3 d6 9. O-O Nbd7 10. a4 a6 11. Qe2 Qc7 12. e4 e5 13. dxe5 dxe5 14. Rfd1 Rfe8 15. Bc2 Nf8 16. Nc4 Re6 17. Bxf6 Bxf6 18. Bb3 Rd8 19. Rxd8 Qxd8 20. Rd1 Qc7 21. Ne3 Rd6 22. Bd5 Ne6 23. Qc4 h5 24. h4 Kg7 25. g3 Qd7 26. Ra1 Bxd5 27. Nxd5 b5 28. axb5 axb5 29. Qe2 c4 30. Qe3 Rxd5 31. exd5 Qxd5 32. Re1 Nc5 33. Nxe5 Na4 34. Re2 Bxe5 35. Qxe5+ Qxe5 36. Rxe5 Nxb2 37. Rxb5 Nd1 38. Rc5 Nxc3 39. Rxc4 Nd5 40. Rc6 Nf6 41. Kg2 Ng4 42. Ra6 Ne5 43. Kf1 Ng4 44. Ke2 Ne5 45. f3 Nd7 46. Ke3 Nf6 47. Kd4 Ng8 48. Ke5 Nh6 49. Kf4 Ng8 50. Ra7 Nf6 51. Ra5 Ng8 52. g4 hxg4 53. fxg4 Nf6 54. g5 Nd7 55. Ke4 Nf8 56. Ra6 Nd7 57. Kd5 Nf8 58. Rd6 Nh7 59. Kc6 Nf8 60. Kc7 Nh7 61. Kd8 Kf8 62. Rb6 f6 63. Rb7 Kg8 64. Rxh7 fxg5 65. Rh6 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And the second:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [Event &quot;Belgrade Trako&quot;]&#xA; [Site &quot;Belgrade&quot;]&#xA; [Date &quot;1995.??.??&quot;]&#xA; [Round &quot;5&quot;]&#xA; [White &quot;Ostojic, Nikola&quot;]&#xA; [Black &quot;Nestorovic, Dejan&quot;]&#xA; [Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA; [ECO &quot;D85&quot;]&#xA; [WhiteElo &quot;2465&quot;]&#xA; [BlackElo &quot;2415&quot;]&#xA; [PlyCount &quot;105&quot;]&#xA; [EventDate &quot;1995.03.??&quot;]&#xA; [EventType &quot;tourn&quot;]&#xA; [EventRounds &quot;13&quot;]&#xA; [EventCountry &quot;YUG&quot;]&#xA; [EventCategory &quot;9&quot;]&#xA; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 d5 4. cxd5 Nxd5 5. e4 Nxc3 6. bxc3 Bg7 7. Bb5+ c6 8. Ba4 O-O 9. Ne2 c5 10. O-O Nc6 11. Be3 Qc7 12. Qc2 Na5 13. Qc1 Bd7 14. Bxd7 Qxd7 15. Bh6 cxd4 16. Bxg7 Kxg7 17. cxd4 Rac8 18. Qe3 b6 19. Rad1 Rc2 20. d5 Rxa2 21. Nd4 Kg8 22. Rd3 Nc4 23. Qc1 Rc8 24. Nc6 Rxc6 25. Qb1 Rd2 26. Rxd2 Nxd2 27. dxc6 Qxc6 28. Rc1 Qb7 29. Qd3 Nxe4 30. Qd8+ Kg7 31. Rc7 Qa6 32. Qd4+ Nf6 33. Rxe7 h5 34. h3 Qa5 35. Qc4 Qd5 36. Qxd5 Nxd5 37. Rxa7 Kf6 38. Kf1 Ke6 39. h4 Kf6 40. g3 Ke6 41. Ke2 Nf6 42. Kd3 Ng4 43. Ra2 Kf5 44. Rb2 Ne5+ 45. Kd4 Nd7 46. Kd5 Nf6+ 47. Kd6 Ne4+ 48. Ke7 g5 49. Kxf7 gxh4 50. gxh4 Nc5 51. Rxb6 Nd3 52. Rb3 Ne5+ 53. Kg7 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I found two more wins but with colors reversed and with the e-pawn. The first win is by the venerable Yermo, who is a great endgame expert. In this game, you see Yermo try to get a passer with f6, and g5, but when white does not trade, he grabs space instead. Then you see the king walk again hitting the soft spots. This is probably the game you should imitate. If there were a &quot;textbook example&quot;, I would probably use this one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [Event &quot;Western Pacific op 3rd&quot;]&#xA; [Site &quot;Burbank&quot;]&#xA; [Date &quot;2005.03.26&quot;]&#xA; [Round &quot;3&quot;]&#xA; [White &quot;Kretchetov, Alexandre&quot;]&#xA; [Black &quot;Yermolinsky, Alex&quot;]&#xA; [Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA; [ECO &quot;E11&quot;]&#xA; [WhiteElo &quot;2326&quot;]&#xA; [BlackElo &quot;2570&quot;]&#xA; [PlyCount &quot;146&quot;]&#xA; [EventDate &quot;2005.03.25&quot;]&#xA; [EventType &quot;swiss&quot;]&#xA; [EventRounds &quot;5&quot;]&#xA; [EventCountry &quot;USA&quot;]&#xA; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nf3 Bb4+ 4. Bd2 c5 5. Bxb4 cxb4 6. g3 O-O 7. Bg2 d6 8. O-O Re8 9. a3 bxa3 10. Rxa3 Nc6 11. Nc3 a5 12. Nb5 Na7 13. Nxa7 Rxa7 14. b4  b6 15. Qc2 Qc7 16. Rfa1 Bb7 17. Nd2 Bxg2 18. Kxg2 e5 19. dxe5 Rxe5 20. Nf3 Re4 21. bxa5 Rxa5 22. Rxa5 bxa5 23. Qd2 Qxc4 24. e3 a4 25. Qxd6 Re8 26. Nd4 h5 27. h3 Ra8 28. Ra3 Ne4 29. Qe5 Nd2 30. Qb5 Qxb5 31. Nxb5 Nc4 32. Rc3 a3 33. Rxc4 a2 34. Rc1 a1=Q 35. Rxa1 Rxa1 36. h4 g6 37. Nd4 Kg7 38. Nf3 Ra2 39. Nd4 Kf6 40. Kf3 Rb2 41. Ne2 Ke5 42. Nf4 Rd2 43. Ne2 Rd6 44. Nf4 Rf6 45. Kg2 Ke4 46. Nh3 Kd3 47. Ng1 Ra6 48. Nf3 f6 49. Kf1 Ra5 50. Kg2 g5 51. Kf1 g4 52. Nd4 Ra6 53. Nb5 Rb6 54. Nd4 Kd2 55. Kg1 Rb1+ 56. Kg2 Rd1 57. Ne6 Ke1 58. Nf4 Rd2 59. Kg1 f5 60. Nxh5 Rxf2 61. Nf4 Ra2 62. h5 Kd2 63. Kf2 Kc3+ 64. Kg1 Kc4 65. Ng6 Kd5 66. Nf4+ Ke4 67. h6 Ra6 68. h7 Rh6 69. Ne6 Kxe3 70. Ng5 f4 71. gxf4 Kxf4 72. Ne6+ Kg3 73. Ng5 Kh4 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And IM Tania Sachdev, who was not an IM at the time, being beaten by a fellow IM.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [Event &quot;Olomouc Proclient Cup&quot;]&#xA; [Site &quot;Olomouc&quot;]&#xA; [Date &quot;2004.07.08&quot;]&#xA; [Round &quot;6&quot;]&#xA; [White &quot;Sachdev, Tania&quot;]&#xA; [Black &quot;Gavrilov, Alexei V&quot;]&#xA; [Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA; [ECO &quot;E18&quot;]&#xA; [WhiteElo &quot;2240&quot;]&#xA; [BlackElo &quot;2441&quot;]&#xA; [PlyCount &quot;118&quot;]&#xA; [EventDate &quot;2004.07.04&quot;]&#xA; [EventType &quot;tourn&quot;]&#xA; [EventRounds &quot;11&quot;]&#xA; [EventCountry &quot;CZE&quot;]&#xA; [EventCategory &quot;2&quot;]&#xA; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nf3 b6 4. g3 Bb7 5. Bg2 Be7 6. O-O O-O 7. Nc3 Na6 8. Bf4 d6 9. Rc1 Re8 10. a3 c5 11. dxc5 bxc5 12. Qc2 Qb6 13. Rfd1 d5 14. cxd5 exd5 15. Nh4 d4 16. Na4 Qb5 17. Bxb7 Qxb7 18. Nf5 Nd5 19. Bd6 Bg5 20. Bxc5 Bxc1 21. Rxc1 Nxc5 22. Nxc5 Qb6 23. Nxd4 a5 24. Qb3 Qxb3 25. Ncxb3 Nb6 26. Rc5 Na4 27. Rxa5 Nxb2 28. Rxa8 Rxa8 29. Nb5 Nc4 30. Kg2 Nxa3 31. Nxa3 Rxa3 32. Nd4 g6 33. e3 Kg7 34. h4 Kf6 35. Nf3 h5 36. Ng5 Ra7 37. Kf3 Ke5 38. Nh3 Ra2 39. Nf4 Kf5 40. Nd3 Ra3 41. e4+ Ke6 42. Ke3 f6 43. f4 f5 44. exf5+ gxf5 45. Kd4 Kd6 46. Kc4 Ra1 47. Ne5 Rg1 48. Nf3 Rxg3 49. Nd4 Rg4 50. Nxf5+ Ke6 51. Nd4+ Kf6 52. Kd3 Rxf4 53. Ke3 Rxh4 54. Nf3 Ra4 55. Kf2 Kf5 56. Kg3 Ra3 57. Kg2 Kf4 58. Ng1 Kg4 59. Ne2 Ra2 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-01-19T12:22:02.870" LastActivityDate="2020-01-19T12:22:02.870" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28045" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-01-19T13:55:37.587" Score="3" ViewCount="150" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there any script (any language) that can make a chess tree from an EPD file? Or what algorithm (any example) should be use to create it on my own?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am looking for one like the Chessbase opening tree window. The EPD evalulation should be such that it is sorted by eval, but how I tell comp what position is first and what position is next one. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT:&#xA;tree example&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/GhZhw.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/GhZhw.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21255" LastEditorUserId="21255" LastEditDate="2020-01-19T17:51:12.450" LastActivityDate="2020-02-19T19:38:38.350" Title="A script that can create a chess tree from an EPD file" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;programming&gt;&lt;fen&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28046" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28040" CreationDate="2020-01-19T15:05:02.417" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Averbakh provides the following plan in an example with three pawns per side, i.e., no e-pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Use King and Rook to restrict the knights mobility  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Begin a pawn storm to cramp Black to the maximum extent&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Advance the King to the f7 pawn decides the game&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I doubt whether step 3 works with the e-pawn, but trying to win would look similar with the e-pawn. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is Averbakh's example game for this technique&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;Saltsjöbaden Interzonal&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Stockholm SWE&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;1948.07.29&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;1948.07.16&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;9&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Laszlo Szabo&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Petar Trifunovic&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;D19&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;119&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.Nc3 dxc4 5.a4 Bf5 6.e3 e6 7.Bxc4 Bb4 8.O-O O-O 9.Qe2 Bg4 10.h3 Bxf3 11.Qxf3 Nbd7 12.Rd1 e5 13.d5 Bxc3 14.dxc6 e4 15.Qf5 bxc6 16.bxc3 Qc7 17.Ba3 c5 18.Bd5 Rab8 19.Bxe4 g6 20.Qf3 Qe5 21.Bc6 Qxc3 22.Bb5 Qe5 23.Rab1 Qe6 24.Qe2 Rfc8 25.Rbc1 Rc7 26.Rc2 a6 27.Bc4 Qc6 28.Bb2 Qxa4 29.e4 Rxb2 30.Rxb2 Ne5 31.Rc1 Nxc4 32.Rxc4 Qc6 33.Rb8+ Kg7 34.Qb2 Qe6 35.Rb6 Rc6 36.Rxc6 Qxc6 37.e5 Nd5 38.Qc1 Qe6 39.Rxc5 Qxe5 40.Qd1 Nc3 41.Rxe5 Nxd1 42.Ra5 Nc3 43.Kf1 Nb5 44.Rxa6 Nc3 45.Rc6 Nd5 46.Ke2 h6 47.Kf3 Nf6 48.Kf4 Nd7 49.Rc7 Nf6 50.Ke5 Nh7 51.Rc6 Kf8 52.f4 Kg7 53.Rd6 Nf8 54.g4 Nh7 55.h4 Nf8 56.f5 gxf5 57.gxf5 h5 58.Rd1 Nh7 59.Rg1+ Kh8 60.Kd6 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17425" LastActivityDate="2020-01-19T15:05:02.417" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28047" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19066" CreationDate="2020-01-19T17:53:20.570" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Fischer was in dire straits for money.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And he was a little less an arrogant kiddie brat at that age. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastActivityDate="2020-01-19T17:53:20.570" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28048" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13652" CreationDate="2020-01-19T18:00:56.310" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Fischer was immature and had mental problems as well as difficulty relating to people in normal ways.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He was extremely arrogant and thought he could dictate what he thought was proper for WC prizes and terms of match conditions. &#xA;When they refused to meet his terms and conditions he just quit. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In some ways he was brilliant but in others his EQ was very very low.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastActivityDate="2020-01-19T18:00:56.310" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28049" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28055" CreationDate="2020-01-20T01:03:30.683" Score="7" ViewCount="2660" Body="&lt;p&gt;With the exception of checkmate and mate-in-x positions, what is the highest centipawn score that a chess position might obtain upon Stockfish evaluation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a practical question because there are situations where one would want to normalize position scores to [-1, 1]. As a starting point I wrote a small script that evaluates the positions (depth=10) found in 100 PGNs and found the highest score to be 3396. Is there an upper bound (or lower bound for negative scores)? Does the evaluation depth effect the bound?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: I've selected the answer provided by Chromatix because it solves the problem that motivated my question. For those who are curious about the actual bounds, it's worth noting that looking at approx. 400k positions from grandmaster games I found that the highest and lowest centipawn scores were 7881 and -7658, again, using Stockfish (depth=10).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21094" LastEditorUserId="21094" LastEditDate="2020-01-20T23:30:53.137" LastActivityDate="2020-01-21T00:49:30.830" Title="Stockfish: What is the maximum (minimum) centipawn score that a position might be evaluated at?" Tags="&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;evaluation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28050" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28049" CreationDate="2020-01-20T01:46:36.997" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Arbitrarily High.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No bound except some position which is unknown.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes depth affects the maximum bound some.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastActivityDate="2020-01-20T01:46:36.997" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28051" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22880" CreationDate="2020-01-20T03:31:57.613" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Statistics show that with 2200+ players&#xA;Nf3 wins about 55.5% of the time&#xA;with draws = 1/2 and win = 1 ,  loss =  0 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And&#xA;Na3 wins 68% of the time &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But with 2400+ it goes to &#xA;55%&#xA;75% respectively&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;at 2600+  nobody plays Na3&#xA;and Nf3 drops to 54% winning &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;YMMV&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastActivityDate="2020-01-20T03:31:57.613" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28052" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9637" CreationDate="2020-01-20T03:35:59.380" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Nobody knows HOW important it is.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Statistically White seems to do better indicating that it gives white some advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;OTOH  it is possible that when the game is solved it will show that moving first is not good as you committed yourself first allowing black to achieve a win.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That does not seem likely based on results so far, but it is still theoretically possible. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastActivityDate="2020-01-20T03:35:59.380" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28053" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28041" CreationDate="2020-01-20T03:41:27.287" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;When you get more experience and appreciate positional play instead of just slash and burn tactics and material advantage then you would see that the move is terrible bad and has no advantages for white.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When the dust settles black will have the initiative and material will be even and  white has a weak isolated pawn. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastActivityDate="2020-01-20T03:41:27.287" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28054" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28041" CreationDate="2020-01-20T06:21:22.067" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;With 9. dxc5, you are giving up your central pawn duo, taking on doubled pawns, fracturing your queenside pawn structure, etc. Obviously this is not ideal, and you would only do this if you get some kind of material compensation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But you don't get any material compensation. After 9...Qa5, you can't simultaneously defend the c3- and c5-pawns. You'd be stuck with all the positional concessions without material to compensate. Even if Black didn't have 9...Qa5, after ...Nd7 and ...Rac8 (or ...Rfc8), you won't be able to keep the c5-pawn (the c3-pawn, for that matter, would also be vulnerable).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In short, 9. dxc5 would be a massive positional blunder, weakening the position for no gain.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastActivityDate="2020-01-20T06:21:22.067" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28055" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28049" CreationDate="2020-01-20T10:52:04.850" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;The best way to normalise a centipawn score to [-1,+1] range is using a sigmoid function, as that closely approximates the likelihood of a given centipawn advantage converting to a win, and avoids the need to identify a strict maximum or minimum.  This is discussed &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessprogramming.org/Pawn_Advantage,_Win_Percentage,_and_Elo&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19281" LastActivityDate="2020-01-20T10:52:04.850" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28056" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28075" CreationDate="2020-01-20T12:09:10.077" Score="2" ViewCount="2430" Body="&lt;p&gt;On Windows 10 I have installed the latest versions of Arena (v3.5.1) and the Lc0  engine (v0.23.1). However I have only found one weights.pb file that it will accept. The one in the link in &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/24754/leela-chess-zero-weight-files&quot;&gt;this Q&amp;amp;A&lt;/a&gt;. But this seems rather weak, Stockfish beats it every time and it seems to make silly mistakes, particularly in the end game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have downloaded and unpacked several weights files from the &lt;a href=&quot;http://lczero.org/networks/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Lc0 Networks page&lt;/a&gt; but they all give errors, mostly wrong format or wrong version, even those with today's date.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can anyone suggest&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What am I doing wrong? Am I downloading from the wrong place? The wrong file?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Where I can download a strong set of weights that will work with my version?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To try and give the additional information suggested by Phonon 37 in their comment:-&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The version of SF I'm using is that which comes bundled with Arena, Stockfish_9_x64. Both engines are configured to run with 12 &quot;common max CPU cores&quot; under the UCI tab -  Options for all UCI Engines. (I've got a Ryzen 8+8 core CPU) They are paired together in the default Engines &gt; Tournament with 10 rounds of 5 minute games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But the real problem isn't that SF beats Lc0 10-0, it's before they even get to play. Lc0 rejects all but one weights file when I am in (F11) Engine Management &gt;  Details, change the -w configuration on the command line and watch it throw the error in the debug window (F4) when I click on &quot;Start this engine right now!&quot;. If I could solve this, I could try some different weights until I find one I like.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21257" LastEditorUserId="21257" LastEditDate="2020-01-20T14:49:56.330" LastActivityDate="2020-01-21T05:11:34.110" Title="Lc0 weights file" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28057" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28056" CreationDate="2020-01-20T14:58:50.677" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Leela chess zero engine  aka LC0  is a neural net aka NN based attempt to learn to play   chess.  Arena is a graphical interface aka GUI to interact with it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why doesnt it do better against Stockfish?   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Add a 30 move opening book and a similar one for endgames and then train the NNs better longer and you will do better against Stockfish.&#xA;LC0 is self learning so the more training the better it gets.  Using a pretrained network is also possible. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As to weights file used to train it there are many factors in play.  Win10 is frequently a problem itself.  How big and fast is your PC?&#xA;Have you killed all the  crapware that interferes with running things?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It could be a bug in the version of LC0 you are using.  V3.2 is the latest stable version and you should try that one.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It could be in problems with the formatting of the Pb file used for weighting.  Maybe you have errors in downloading. There are many reasons why software does not work like  you expect. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have found oodles of pb files.  WHERE did you download yours from?  Didn't you find many many pb files from the same place you got the LC0 from?  Try some from here:  &lt;a href=&quot;http://lczero.org/networks/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://lczero.org/networks/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The name will be some long hash string, for example: b82f0b34b96c8f38f68ee97703b4149ab976122ca9bed6120f9dea88d733d266&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Rename to &quot;weights&quot; (for convenience).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Place in the same directory with the lc0 application. On a Mac this is /Users/[username]/lc0/build/release/.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The file will be found automatically after opening lc0 in the command line.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that the latest network is not always the strongest. To find a strong network ID, check the &quot;Test30&quot; tab in the Google Doc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastEditorUserId="20721" LastEditDate="2020-01-20T15:04:59.453" LastActivityDate="2020-01-20T15:04:59.453" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28058" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28059" CreationDate="2020-01-20T16:14:05.730" Score="5" ViewCount="377" Body="&lt;p&gt;I get a lot of weaker players, who opt out of main lines, and they play 5.Nxc6?! against me. It has seemed to happen a lot lately. Why is that bad, and why shouldn’t white play that?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note: This is more of a teaching question as I intend to answer my own question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 e5 5. Nxc6?!&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-01-20T16:25:39.597" LastActivityDate="2020-01-25T09:58:58.887" Title="The Sicilian Defense Kalashnikov Variation: Why shouldn’t white play 5.Nxc6 here?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;&lt;kalashnikov&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28059" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28058" CreationDate="2020-01-20T16:15:42.977" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, it is important to know that in many Sicilian positions, not just the Kalashnikov, if black gets in d5, he has equalized, and has a very free game. Thus, taking on c6 helps black reinforce the center, and he will often get in d5 soon. White following up the trade with Bc4, which scores only 20% for white despite white out-rating black 2376 to 2192 per Mega 2020, makes it that much more impactful if black does get in d5 since white will be forced to lose yet another tempo.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In addition, black will soon play Rb8 with a lot of pressure against b2, or if white plays b3, there will be chronic weaknesses on the queenside dark squares, and that could lead to Bb4xc3, and e4 may hang under certain circumstances. Black will also eventually get long-term pressure down both the b- and c-files, combines with a5-a4, should white exchange after an eventual d5 by black. These pawns may look strong, and they would be in the endgame, but in the middlegame, they are just huge targets on open files.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, of note is that in most situations, if white plays the natural Bg5, either simply h6 wins the bishop pair, or Qa5 can get out of the pin tactically.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 e5 5. Nxc6 bxc6 6. Bc4 (6. Nc3 Nf6 7. Bg5 $6 Rb8 8. Rb1 h6 9. Bxf6 (9. Bh4 $4 Qa5 10. Bxf6 Rxb2 $1 11. Kd2 Bb4 12. Rxb2 Bxc3+ 13. Kc1 Qa3 $19) (9. Bd2 d5 $17) 9... Qxf6 10. Bc4 Bc5 11. O-O O-O 12. Qe2 Bd4 13. Na4 d5 14. exd5 Bf5 15. dxc6 Qxc6 16. Nc3 Rfc8 {With huge pressure for the pawn.}) 6... Nf6 7. Nc3 Bb4 (7... Bc5 $5 {Is also possible, with the idea Bd4.}) 8. O-O O-O 9. Bg5 h6 10. Bh4 g5 11. Bg3 Qe7 12. Qd3 Rd8 13. Rfe1 d6 {And although white is holding it together, it is still not pleasant. The Bg3 is not doing much, the Qd3 is not comfortable being opposed by the Rd8, and black will continue trying to create weaknesses on the queenside with Rb8.}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2020-01-20T16:15:42.977" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28060" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16723" CreationDate="2020-01-20T16:31:07.960" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your assumption about it being favorable for white is flawed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I end up in such positions because I do not like what would happen when I might deviate to avoid it.  Nothing wrong with the Lange if black just plays 6...pd5&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See comments by Seth Projnabrata above that pretty well summarizes the true situation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastActivityDate="2020-01-20T16:31:07.960" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28061" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15819" CreationDate="2020-01-20T17:10:11.110" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Because it is a game and a contest/struggle.  The opponent makes moves that are good for him not the moves in the favorite line you memorized.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stop figuring out why his move is 'wrong' and figure out what your best move and plan is and then do that.  Chances are that his move is quite good even if not the theoretical best.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You do not keep making your same memorized moves.  You do not waste time figuring out why his move is wrong.  You spend some time to figure out what is a good move for you. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Using principles and checking tactics is more useful than obsessing about book lines you think are 'correct'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You have beginners syndrome.  When you improve and gain experience these sorts of moves will not bother you. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastActivityDate="2020-01-20T17:10:11.110" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28062" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15819" CreationDate="2020-01-20T17:27:35.930" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Nothing. You stick to chess principles, and while you are learning openings you need to study why openings are played in a way they are, whats the idea behind the opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21234" LastActivityDate="2020-01-20T17:27:35.930" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28063" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28064" CreationDate="2020-01-20T20:19:47.517" Score="4" ViewCount="113" Body="&lt;p&gt;After 1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.Nc3 e6 5.e3 Nbd7 6.Qc2 Bd6 White can play the so-called Shabalov-Shirov Gambit‎ with 7.g4!? on the grounds that 7...Nxg4 allows 8.Rg1 and the important g7 Pawn is going to fall. Of course this is not a forced win by White, but this Gambit puts certainly some pressure on Black. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My main question is: why is Black always playing 5...Nbd7 and 6...Bd6 (or in reverse order) and not 5...Bd6 and 6...0-0, after which 7.g4 could be more safely accepted  with 7...Nxg4 (the g7 Pawn is no longer &lt;em&gt;en prise&lt;/em&gt; after 8.Rg1)? Is there any particular reason for playing 5...Nbd7 or 6...Nbd7 before castling?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastActivityDate="2020-01-20T20:51:58.730" Title="Move orders in the 6.Qc2 Anti-Meran Semi-Slav" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;1.d4&gt;&lt;queens-gambit&gt;&lt;semi-slav&gt;&lt;shabalov-shirov-gambit&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28064" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28063" CreationDate="2020-01-20T20:38:47.447" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;A lot of opening play is about what you are trying to avoid. While sharp, black does quite well against 7.g4. In reality, the quieter lines seem to have much more venom if the figures in Mega 2020 are to believed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In addition, with the move order you mention, white can get e4 in very early, or can play the Karpov line among other choices. The main line I am giving scores at 73.4% compared to only 56.2% for Shirov's g4. I think that g4 was a great surprise weapon, but now, it has been analyzed sufficiently with computers, and it no longer the great threat it once was. Black can respond with the best move, h6 instead of taking on g4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. d4 d5 2. c4 c6 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. Nc3 e6 5. e3 Bd6 (5... Nbd7 6. Qc2 Bd6 7. g4 {The Shirov Gambit.} h6!) 6. Bd3 (6. Qc2 O-O 7. Be2 Nbd7 8. O-O {Karpov's favorite line.}) 6... O-O 7. e4 dxe4 8. Nxe4 Nxe4 9. Bxe4 Nd7 10. O-O Nf6 11. Bc2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-01-20T20:51:58.730" LastActivityDate="2020-01-20T20:51:58.730" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28065" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28068" CreationDate="2020-01-20T20:57:25.667" Score="2" ViewCount="178" Body="&lt;p&gt;What are the main ideas and tactical themes behind the early h2-h4 attack vs. the Gruenfeld? I mean, the 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 d5 4.h4 (or 4.Nf3 Bg7 5.h4, which seems to me a fairly related line) variations? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastEditorUserId="8472" LastEditDate="2020-03-09T22:13:44.350" LastActivityDate="2020-03-09T22:13:44.350" Title="Ideas and tactics behind the 4.h4 (or 5.h4) attack vs. the Gruenfeld?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;1.d4&gt;&lt;grunfeld-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28066" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24917" CreationDate="2020-01-20T21:08:41.067" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Saying men are better than women in chess (and therefore perhaps smarter) due to the number of super GMs is baseless conjecture. Considering the set of male players is far larger than the set of female ones, of course it follows that most of the players in the top 100 will be mainly male.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A better metric would be taking the average rating of all male players and comparing it to the average rating of all female players, and if I had to guess I'd say these numbers would be around even. But this isn't a perfect test either, since the sample size of female players will be magnitude(s) smaller.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, back when Judit Polgar played, she competed actively with the top players of the era (and managed to beat multiple world champions).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2020-01-20T21:08:41.067" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28067" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28079" CreationDate="2020-01-20T21:10:31.217" Score="5" ViewCount="289" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recently found this incredibly elongated chess board on the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/erelju/every_time/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;/r/gaming subreddit&lt;/a&gt;, with this image:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/DuYgd.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/DuYgd.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There was &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/erelju/every_time/ff36csf/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;a comment thread&lt;/a&gt; discussing the potential strategies of playing on this board, with some consensus that rooks and queens become much more important due to their ability to attack from across the board, and that the 50-move rule would be triggered due to the size of the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this the only viable strategy for this sort of board?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21261" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-01-20T22:37:00.130" LastActivityDate="2020-01-22T09:39:59.300" Title="What sort of strategies unfold on this elongated board?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;chessboards&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28068" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28065" CreationDate="2020-01-20T21:51:01.160" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, I think that a lot of it is simply to get away from the heavier theory of other lines. Stockfish does not think highly of this move, and it does not make sense that such a move would be best from a purely theoretical standpoint. From a practical standpoint, that is another ball of wax since some of the positions get very messy. After all, who does not get a little queasy when the opponent starts throwing the h-pawn at you?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White's idea is pretty straight forward: It is obviously to prepare a direct attack against the black king, and there are actually lines that black voluntarily castles into to it. I do not believe that theory has come up with a definitive evaluation just yet. Can black play a line that will render h4 semi-useless, or not? I am skeptical that this is good for any advantage, or worse.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Despite the aggressive intentions, the lines below show that black has a lot of counter-punching available in the position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is a couple of lines with my comments on the early 4.h4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 d5 4. h4 c5 {This has to be best just striking back in the center will full force. This seems to render h4 pointless for now since there is clearly not going to be any king of direct attack with the center so open.} (4... dxc4 {This would be the most principled move, meeting a flank attack with action in the center, but it is not well-prepared, and white gets too much center.} 5. e4 c5 6. d5) (4... c6 {This is a line, but it seems passive, and seems to fall right into white's plans as far as I am concerned.}) 5. dxc5 d4 {Leading to a very complex game.} 6. Nb5 e5 $1 7. b4 Nc6 8. Bg5 Nxb4 9. Bxf6 Qxf6 10. Nc7+ Kd8 11. Nxa8 Bf5 12. Rc1 Bxc5 {And black is probably better.}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are some lines and comments on 5.h4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;  1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 d5 4. Nf3 Bg7 5. h4 {Unlike the last line, c5 does not work so well here so white seems justified in throwing in Nf3 also before 5.h4.} dxc4 $1 (5... c5 $2 6. dxc5 {And because there is no d4, black will struggle to regain the pawn.}) 6. e4 {And black has several ideas here.} c5 $1 {Striking back at the center is the main line.} (6... O-O {In this line, black says, &quot;I am ahead in development, so I do not see how your attack will work.} 7. h5 Nxh5 8. Bxc4 Bg4 9. Be3 e5 (9... Nc6 $5) 10. dxe5 Nc6 {Was Morozevich-Popov Moscow blitz 2013.}) 7. d5 {And there are three moves from here, 0-0, Qa5, and b5!? The last two are very complex.} b5 $5 {For example.} 8. Nxb5 $2 Qa5+ 9. Nc3 Nxe4 10. Bd2 (10. Qa4+ $4 Qxa4 11. Nxa4 Bd7 $19) 10... Nxc3 11. Qc1 Nd7 $17 (11... Nxa2 $5)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2020-01-20T21:51:01.160" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28069" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28070" CreationDate="2020-01-20T23:27:46.833" Score="5" ViewCount="532" Body="&lt;p&gt;What are some typical mistakes in 1700 rated games on Lichess, and what ways are there to correct them? I usually play blitz and bullet games. Occasionally I play. OVB and longer formats. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21234" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-01-20T23:56:38.967" LastActivityDate="2020-01-21T19:13:13.090" Title="1700 rated games-On mistakes and how to correct them" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;lichess&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28070" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28069" CreationDate="2020-01-20T23:46:40.730" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Even at 1700, the vast majority of your mistakes are going to be tactical errors...especially at the faster controls. The only way around that is to start studying and practicing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There may be some people, who can benefit from online tactics, but am of the belief that they lend themselves toward the trainee being shallow, and often the answers are the computer answer, not the human answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am a firm believer in books, so get yourself some good tactic books that are well-categorized. It is better to study specific categories at one time, pins, skewers, etc. I still love the Fred Reinfeld 1001 books.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Try to do 50 per day, spending no more than two minutes per problem. Note in pencil on a scale from 1-5 how easy you found the problem because you will do them again in the future. The more time you spend on tactics, the less you will lose online.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One last thing, and that is I have found that even mid-level players think they are pretty good at tactics, but it is my experience that they are not. I am no longer above 2200 USCF, but even when I was, I always felt I could be stronger at that, and general calculating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2020-01-20T23:46:40.730" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28071" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15819" CreationDate="2020-01-21T00:16:58.200" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is it best for me to stop and eat clock time figuring out why the wrong move is wrong?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No, you should learn before the match what the responses to deviations are. If you don't know why deviations are &quot;wrong&quot; and how to punish them, then you don't really know the opening.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15221" LastActivityDate="2020-01-21T00:16:58.200" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28072" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28049" CreationDate="2020-01-21T00:49:30.830" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The maximum possible non-mate Stockfish eval is +153. It indicates a forced line leading to an endgame tablebase win. See Wikipedia article on game 65 of the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TCEC_Season_14#Superfinal&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;TCEC Season 14 superfinal&lt;/a&gt;, and &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.tcec-chess.com/archive.html?season=14&amp;amp;div=sf&amp;amp;game=65&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;the game itself&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't understand Stockfish's code very well, but if you can read C++ you can try deciphering Stockfish's &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/blob/master/src/search.cpp&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;search algorithm&lt;/a&gt; yourself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastActivityDate="2020-01-21T00:49:30.830" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28073" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28074" CreationDate="2020-01-21T03:40:21.917" Score="9" ViewCount="3019" Body="&lt;p&gt;As I understand it, &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endgame_tablebase#Computer_chess&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;8-piece endgame tablebases&lt;/a&gt; have been in development for many years. The big issue is the sheer number of positions that are possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there any attempts at making a &quot;practical&quot; endgame tablebase, where the search is only over positions that might matter in actual games? For example, a KQQQ vs KB endgame is a 6-piece position, but it's trivial for the side with three queens to win even without a tablebase, so one should not need to devote actual computing power to solving it. Yes, there might be exceptions, but they would be so rare that focusing on the much more interesting and practically important endgames (e.g. KQP vs KRB) would be more productive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastActivityDate="2020-01-21T19:00:23.653" Title="Are there attempts at creating practical endgame tablebases?" Tags="&lt;tablebases&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28074" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28073" CreationDate="2020-01-21T04:19:57.083" Score="16" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a contradiction in terms in &quot;only&quot; generating practical endgame tablebases. We have to understand how tablebases are generated to see why.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tablebases are generated by working backwards from the final mating/drawing positions, &quot;retracting&quot; moves rather than playing them forward. First, every possible final position is exhaustively listed. Then from each, we &quot;retract&quot; (take back) moves that could have been played. In doing so, we know a possible outcome of the resulting position (by playing forward to the final position again). Do this for all positions, and we know the ideal outcome of all of them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now what is a retraction? Pieces move backwards, so everything moves as in normal chess except pawns. Pieces can uncapture other pieces, leaving an extra piece on the board. Notably, &lt;em&gt;pieces can unpromote into pawns&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Herein lies the problem. &lt;strong&gt;If you want to evaluate the &quot;practical&quot; endgames, you need to know all the final positions that could lead to them by retractions&lt;/strong&gt;. If we agree KPPP v KB is a practical endgame (seems so), then we need to know the outcome of &lt;em&gt;all&lt;/em&gt; KQQQ v KB endgames, since it might be the case that the only winning line is to reach a winning KQQQ v KB endgame. It is necessary to do these &quot;trivial&quot; endgames in order to do the practical ones.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Preemptive counter-counterargument: not all KQQQ v KB positions are winning. Think of stalemates. This is another reason why we cannot handwave and say &quot;all positions with this material balance are winning&quot;.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Furthermore, the absurd KQQQ v KB might be necessary to correctly generate results for KQPP v KQBP or some dramatic pawn race endgame. If you don't check all the possible final positions (even absurd ones), you can never be sure that you didn't miss the only winning/drawing line.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only possible &quot;optimisation&quot; of this sort you can do is to not generate, say K+6 v K endgames (which I think was the case for the 7-men tables, they skipped K+5 v K until everything else was done.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15989" LastActivityDate="2020-01-21T04:19:57.083" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28075" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28056" CreationDate="2020-01-21T05:11:34.110" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Since you didn't specify some things, I'm just going to give instructions from scratch. Since you didn't specify which version of lc0 you downloaded, make sure that it's 23.2 (from &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/LeelaChessZero/lc0/releases&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://github.com/LeelaChessZero/lc0/releases&lt;/a&gt;). If you only have a cpu you want &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/LeelaChessZero/lc0/releases/download/v0.23.2/lc0-v0.23.2-windows-cpu-dnnl.zip&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://github.com/LeelaChessZero/lc0/releases/download/v0.23.2/lc0-v0.23.2-windows-cpu-dnnl.zip&lt;/a&gt;. For cpu only, the best net is no longer LD2, although it's still pretty strong. A current list of best nets of different sizes is at &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/LeelaChessZero/lc0/wiki/Best-Nets-for-Lc0&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://github.com/LeelaChessZero/lc0/wiki/Best-Nets-for-Lc0&lt;/a&gt;. At time of writing, current best 10b net is probably 58599 (&lt;a href=&quot;https://lczero.org/get_network?sha=2b482ff696e3a4032be1b7477567661527a9fac4166591167bf0a71183f9a669&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://lczero.org/get_network?sha=2b482ff696e3a4032be1b7477567661527a9fac4166591167bf0a71183f9a669&lt;/a&gt;). Based on what you were reporting, I'm guessing you probably had an old version of lc0 that is incompatible with newer nets. It will likely still be a few hundred elo worse than SF without a gpu, but it should at least put up a fight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some other minor things to consider:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Lc0 currently has weird time management when playing without an increment. This is a known bug that really should be fixed.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Default lc0 settings are for 2 threads iirc. Setting it to the number of cores you have is better with a cpu, but worse with a gpu.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You will probably get faster advice in the future by asking in the #help channel of the lc0 discord.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I hope this helps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17100" LastActivityDate="2020-01-21T05:11:34.110" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28076" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1433" CreationDate="2020-01-21T05:36:55.790" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Tablebases add only a little elo to computers. The amount added is small enough that for many years &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.andscacs.com/en/en_index.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Andscacs&lt;/a&gt; was one of the strongest engines around without endgame tablebases (it still doesn't have them implemented). Even for other engines with tablebase support implemented I'm pretty sure you can not provide it with an endgame tablebase, and they'll play almost as well. Sure, you lose some elo by not having tablebases, but not a lot (I don't know exactly how much, but I'd be surprised if it's more than 10 elo).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The brief answer to whether computers can win KQ vs. KR and KBN vs. K is &lt;em&gt;yes&lt;/em&gt;. Consider, Stockfish on reasonably strong hardware will easily be operating at 10 million positions per second. How many KQ vs KR positions are there? Stockfish will search them all in a couple of seconds. There's no doubt that Stockfish without a tablebase will easily beat a tablebase at this endgame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastActivityDate="2020-01-21T05:36:55.790" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28077" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28058" CreationDate="2020-01-21T08:19:03.523" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;While PhishMaster's answer is correct, we shouldn't forget about the importance of the &lt;strong&gt;d5&lt;/strong&gt; square. If it wasn't for its weakness, Black would play &lt;strong&gt;...e5&lt;/strong&gt; every single time in the Sicilian. By playing &lt;strong&gt;Nxc6&lt;/strong&gt;, we are allowing Black to get rid of the main downside of his position, while also reinforcing his presence in the center.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As pointed out by Akawall, &lt;strong&gt;5. Nb5&lt;/strong&gt; forces  Black to play &lt;strong&gt;5...d6&lt;/strong&gt;, in which case the Black-squared bishop cannot join the fight for the &lt;strong&gt;d5&lt;/strong&gt; square (via &lt;strong&gt;b4&lt;/strong&gt;) The only alternative would be to allow White to put a piece on &lt;strong&gt;d6&lt;/strong&gt; which is not pleasant either&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-01-21T10:24:15.297" LastActivityDate="2020-01-21T10:24:15.297" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28079" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28067" CreationDate="2020-01-21T10:00:38.197" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;As soon as you change the chessboard in chess, you have to re-assess the relative value of the pieces, as a piece's value is directly affected by its mobility and scope. Note that this is already the case in game on the conventional 8-by-8 boards since how much activity our pieces can benefit from depends on how much space we control, which itself depends on the pawn structure, etc. So in any game, the relative values are changing constantly based on the configuration of the pieces. Thus, to answer your question about finding viable strategies, we first have to develop a good feel for how the values of our pieces are being affected when placing them on a longer board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What we seem to have is an &lt;code&gt;l-by-8&lt;/code&gt; chessboard where &lt;code&gt;l&lt;/code&gt; denotes the length of the elongated side (units being a square's side, or simply the count of squares). Since we've only scaled one dimension of the board, here the vertical one, then only pieces that move vertically (or generally laterally) can benefit from the scaling of the board, as they gain mobility (number of legal moves available to them) &lt;em&gt;proportionally&lt;/em&gt; to &lt;code&gt;l.&lt;/code&gt; The only pieces that satisfy this kind of movement are the queen and the rooks, so clearly: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Rooks and queens are the most important pieces here and have a higher relative value to the other pieces (for &lt;code&gt;l&amp;gt;8&lt;/code&gt;) w.r.t the known relative values on a &lt;code&gt;8-by-8&lt;/code&gt; chessboard. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So in short, the scope of our queens and rooks become greater on the longer board and whatever strategy we adopt, should emphasise the activity (and protection) of these pieces, specially early on if we are to achieve any small advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Now let's see how much the other pieces are affected:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Bishops:&lt;/strong&gt; since we don't scale the board in both dimensions (and thus not changing the long diagonals), bishops's scope remains roughly the same. For example, when centralised they will have at most 14 legal moves on an empty board, while they have 13 on the &lt;code&gt;8-by-8.&lt;/code&gt; Moreover, they will have to go through a long zigzag across the board until they see the opponent's pieces (so they cost many tempi). Most importantly, we &lt;strong&gt;no&lt;/strong&gt; longer have long diagonals that &lt;strong&gt;span the board&lt;/strong&gt;, i.e., bishop fiachetti are much less meaningful now since they cannot eye the opponent's kingside or queenside, let alone taking away squares from their camp. So bishops, despite being still fast pieces, seem to be less effective on a longer board.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Knights:&lt;/strong&gt; Knights as always are rather very slow pieces, and here it's the same. So naturally, for their activation they will cost us even more tempi that the bishops. Moreover, their scope is not affected by the scaling of the board (it would if &lt;code&gt;l&amp;lt;8&lt;/code&gt;). So everything being the same, just placed on a longer board, will render knights into even slower pieces, thus their relative value suffers as well w.r.t the &lt;code&gt;8-by-8&lt;/code&gt; case. Lastly, knights are particularly good when they can be estalished centrally and on permanent outposts: i.e. a square that is well covered by our own pawns but impossible to attack by our opponent's respective pawns. However, since the longer board means the pawns take &lt;code&gt;l&lt;/code&gt; times longer to advance to anywhere near our opponent's camp, we will not be able to create meaningful outposts for our knights anytime soon. So, early on specially, knights seem to be rather useless.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Pawns:&lt;/strong&gt; as already hinted at in the previous point, pawns will be ever slower the longer the board is. This means for a good chunk of the early game, we cannot secure any valuable space with our pawns. More importantly, there are no pawn moves that take away squares (and thus options) from our opponent's camp at the beginning, which makes a strong case for the fact that on an &lt;code&gt;l-by-8&lt;/code&gt; board with &lt;code&gt;l&lt;/code&gt; much larger than &lt;code&gt;8,&lt;/code&gt; white's extra tempo becomes negligible and the game is already equal from the get-go. For the contrasting case of &lt;code&gt;8-by-8&lt;/code&gt; see e.g. the &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/27988/3594&quot;&gt;discussions here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Kings:&lt;/strong&gt; King safety becomes funny to judge now, on the one hand, one can argue the king is even safer on the &lt;code&gt;l-by-8&lt;/code&gt; since our opponent's pieces are so far away which makes it very difficult for any threats to be made, which gives us lots of tempi to re-arrange our pieces however we want. On the other hand, if we are to start a long journey with our pieces to eventually reach the opponent's side, our king might be left stranded far away from our coverage and thus rather exposed (e.g. as soon as bishops, rooks and queens can sneak through the structure to reach our king). And if all this means that we need to &lt;em&gt;collectively&lt;/em&gt; move our pieces towards the enemy, so they can constantly eye one another, then our advancement speed is bottlenecked by that of the king's... What is roughly the same, is the fact that the board still has edges, so castling our king so it can be tucked away to a corner and only accessible from one side is still possible, but how much of protection that offers, is hard to judge.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Rooks and queens:&lt;/strong&gt; We have already covered those in the starting discussions.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;So in a nutshell, our reassessment of the pieces is:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Rooks and queens are made even stronger relative to the other pieces.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Knights and pawns are made weaker since their mobility is not affected and they have only become slower (since it takes longer for them to cross the board and reach the opponent's side).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Bishops are neither here nor there: their scope is roughly the same (e.g. in terms of legal moves) but they are still quite fast pieces, and with a few zigzags they can cross the board and create threats or coordinate eventually with our heavy pieces. So they remain strong, but less than their worth on an &lt;code&gt;8-by-8&lt;/code&gt; board since there are no long diagonals spanning the board. But clearly among minor pieces, they are definitely much stronger than knights on the elongated board.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Two basic strategies to consider:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now that we have a better idea for how the relative value of our pieces is being affected by elongating the board, we have a better chance of finding good strategies. The obvious things that come to mind:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Use your early tempi to quickly activate your queen and rooks in order to already pose threats to your opponent, e.g. by being the first in having an active rook, you will be the first to slow down the advance of your opponent's pawns, and that ought to be your first easy way of gaining a small plus. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Once your heavy pieces activated, I see two separate options: &lt;strong&gt;(1)&lt;/strong&gt; creating a small squad and moving that towards the opponent's side or &lt;strong&gt;(2)&lt;/strong&gt; moving collectively all of our pieces across the board, which is safer since our king is less likely to become stranded compared to &lt;strong&gt;(1)&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's delve bit deeper into each:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;In (1)&lt;/strong&gt;: say your two bishops, the two rooks and the queen, that's a 5 piece squad that can coordinate an attack against your opponent rather quickly, either to win material, or to try and bait tension on one side, and sneak through on the other side with a heavy piece. Infiltrating behind your opponent's pieces and winning potentially lots of material, this is more the middle game since we're assuming our opponent's pieces are somewhat close to the center of the board. Admittedly, this strategy resembles more what typically occurs in the strategy game &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratego&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Stratego&lt;/a&gt;, where pieces have well-defined ranks which acts as their strength (a lower rank cannot capture a higher one etc), and thus, one typical strategy is to infiltrate our opponent's camp with a small squad of high ranked pieces and mop up their pieces (assuming we know where the bombs are...).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;In (2)&lt;/strong&gt;: ultimately, once the gap in space between our pieces and our opponent's have become smaller, the gameplay will approach that of the conventional chess on an &lt;code&gt;8-by-8&lt;/code&gt; board, and thus we can adopt our usual mindset and conventional strategies become viable again, which means we'll have a more &lt;em&gt;normal&lt;/em&gt; game than in &lt;strong&gt;(1)&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3594" LastEditorUserId="3594" LastEditDate="2020-01-22T09:39:59.300" LastActivityDate="2020-01-22T09:39:59.300" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28080" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28058" CreationDate="2020-01-21T10:45:50.260" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;This answer does not use modern analysis.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One can always consult the old masters for advice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One of the first epic rivalries in chess was between an Irishman and a Frenchman: Alexander McDonnell and Louis Charles Mahé de la Bourdonnais. In the course of their six-match slugfest in 1834, this opening line arose thrice, with de la Bourdonnais taking 2 points out of 3 from the black side. What did he do?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All three games went &lt;code&gt;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 e5 5. Nxc6?! bxc6&lt;/code&gt;, a surprisingly modern opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1001160&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this game&lt;/a&gt;, de la Bourdonnais' control of d5 and d6 was solid enough that he could forgo castling, play ...Ke7, and barrel down the kingside. Black had some attacking potential while white could not break through in the centre because the c6-pawn guarded d5 and b5; black's attack eventually petered out and he managed to hold a draw against white's slow queenside attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;London&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;1834&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Alexander McDonnell&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Louis Charles Mahe De La Bourdonnais&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 e5 5.Nxc6 bxc6 6.Bc4 Nf6 7.Bg5 Bc5 8.O-O h6 9.Bxf6 Qxf6 10.Nc3 a5 11.Kh1 d6 12.Qd2 g5 13.Rad1 Ke7 14.Na4 Bd4 15.Qd3 h5 16.Qb3 h4 17.f3 h3 18.g3 Bd7 19.c3 Rab8 20.Qc2 Ba7 21.Qd2 Rhg8 22.b3 Rbd8 23.Nb2 Rg7 24.Be2 Qg6 25.Nc4 Bc5 26.Nxa5 Rb8 27.b4 Bb6 28.Nc4 Qf6 29.Nxd6 Rgg8 30.Nxf7 Be6 31.Nd6 Rgd8 32.c4 Bxc4 33.Bxc4 Rxd6 34.Qxd6+ Qxd6 35.Rxd6 Kxd6 36.Rb1 Bd4 37.Bf1 Ra8 38.Bxh3 Rxa2 39.Bg2 Rb2 40.Rxb2 Bxb2 41.Bf1 Ke6 42.Kg2 Kf6 43.Kh3 Bc3 44.b5 cxb5 45.Bxb5 Bd4 46.Kg4 Be3 47.h4 gxh4 48.Kxh4 Bc5 49.Kg4 Bf2 50.f4 Bd4 51.Kf3 Bc3 52.Kg4 Bd4 53.Kh5 Bf2 54.Kg4 Bd4 55.Bd3 Be3 56.Kf3 Bd2 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1001164&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;next example&lt;/a&gt; is a little different; early tactics saw mass exchanges down the e-file and yielded an entirely different sort of game, which again ended up drawn. Instead of &lt;code&gt;9...Nxe4&lt;/code&gt; (which yields equality anyway), black could have tried other options to achieve the usual plan of ...d5 in the Sicilian. (Although in 1834, it was not &quot;usual&quot; in the slightest...)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;London&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;1834&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Alexander McDonnell&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Louis Charles Mahe De La Bourdonnais&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 e5 5.Nxc6 bxc6 6.Bc4 Nf6 7.Qe2 Be7 8.Nc3 O-O 9.Bg5 Nxe4 10.Bxe7 Nxc3 11.Qxe5 Re8 12.O-O Qxe7 13.Qxc3 d5 14.Bd3 Qd6 15.Rad1 Bd7 16.Qd4 c5 17.Qh4 g6 18.c3 Bc6 19.f4 c4 20.Bb1 Re2 21.Rf2 Rae8 22.f5 Qe5 23.Rdf1 Qe3 24.fxg6 fxg6 25.Qf6 Rxf2 26.Qxf2 Kg7 27.Qxe3 Rxe3 28.Kf2 Re5 29.Re1 Rxe1 30.Kxe1 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And for those who know the classics, &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1001165&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this game is the one you've been waiting for since starting to read this answer&lt;/a&gt;. It is downright famous, and everyone should take a look. It is said that the problem with &lt;code&gt;5. Nxc6?!&lt;/code&gt; is in allowing black to strengthen the centre with more pawns -- and just look at the final position for the culmination of that strategy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;London&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;1834&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Alexander McDonnell&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Louis Charles Mahe De La Bourdonnais&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 e5 5.Nxc6 bxc6 6.Bc4 Nf6 7.Bg5 Be7 8.Qe2 d5 9.Bxf6 Bxf6 10.Bb3 O-O 11.O-O a5 12.exd5 cxd5 13.Rd1 d4 14.c4 Qb6 15.Bc2 Bb7 16.Nd2 Rae8 17.Ne4 Bd8 18.c5 Qc6 19.f3 Be7 20.Rac1 f5 21.Qc4+ Kh8 22.Ba4 Qh6 23.Bxe8 fxe4 24.c6 exf3 25.Rc2 Qe3+ 26.Kh1 Bc8 27.Bd7 f2 28.Rf1 d3 29.Rc3 Bxd7 30.cxd7 e4 31.Qc8 Bd8 32.Qc4 Qe1 33.Rc1 d2 34.Qc5 Rg8 35.Rd1 e3 36.Qc3 Qxd1 37.Rxd1 e2 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: game 3 had an error in the PGN (2..Nc6 was 2..c6 instead)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15989" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-01-25T09:58:58.887" LastActivityDate="2020-01-25T09:58:58.887" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28081" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28045" CreationDate="2020-01-21T10:58:52.793" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have seen two softwares that does what you wish. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesspositiontrainer.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess Position Trainer&lt;/a&gt; is one of them. The other is &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.bookup.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;bookup&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Those softwares reads games in pgn and files containing epd positions with its evaluations in centipawns.  This files contains the leaf nodes positions, generated by Chess Position Trainer for instance. You later analyze the epd file. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I use &quot;GradualTest ver. 2.6&quot; for this purpose. This program feeds the positions to an engine and writes the results to another file. I import the resulting file and the evaluations are added at the leaf positions. Later, the program propagates the valuations to the upstream positions, up to the root, applying the minimax algorithm.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both programs are the best I have seen. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1766" LastActivityDate="2020-01-21T10:58:52.793" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28082" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28083" CreationDate="2020-01-21T11:28:01.833" Score="3" ViewCount="1522" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was looking at &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/czhdj87l/black#129&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this game on Lichess&lt;/a&gt;, where it says &quot;Checkmate is now unavoidable. Best move was Kc4.&quot; As far as I can tell, checkmate was already unavoidable, including after &lt;code&gt;Kc4&lt;/code&gt;. Namely, Black can move &lt;code&gt;Ke3,Ke2,Rf3,Kf1,Kg2,g3&lt;/code&gt; and then either &lt;code&gt;gxh2&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;Rxg3&lt;/code&gt; according to White's next move, leading to a won end-game. Am I missing something?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9192" LastActivityDate="2020-01-21T23:13:36.397" Title="Why does Lichess mark this move as &quot;?!&quot;?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;pawn-promotion&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28083" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28082" CreationDate="2020-01-21T11:34:17.080" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is no valid human reason. The difference between Kc4 (mate in 12), and Kc2 (mate in 10) is fairly irrelevant. It simply appended the &quot;?!&quot; based on the algorithm that 10 is slightly worse than 12. Either way, it is, indeed, a simple win from there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, my plan would be Rd7, then bring the king to h1/g1, and only then, bring the rook over via the f-file to take on h2. The longer you can keep the white king out, the less you have to calculate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In general though, if the situation were different, and the material were more even, you might not want to box your king into the smaller area.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;1B6/8/8/8/4k1p1/2Kr3p/7P/8 w - - 0 0&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. Kc2 (1.Kc4)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-01-21T11:39:31.437" LastActivityDate="2020-01-21T11:39:31.437" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28084" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28086" CreationDate="2020-01-21T17:07:26.590" Score="4" ViewCount="464" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am still learning chess (been playing ~6 months steadily now and am at ~1300) and have recently been enjoying correspondence chess with a 3 day time control. I find it gives me time to really analyze each move without the pressure of time that I get with blitz games. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have been trying to learn new openings in detail, mostly using opening explorer in lichess or chess.com. As most of you probably know, it breaks down the most popular moves in the opening from games played and gives the % outcome of white wins/black wins/draw for each move. This is an amazing resource for someone like myself who doesn't have lines memorized yet, but is it unethical to refer to these resources during a daily game?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would never refer to an engine for a current game and the opening explorer is only showing the data for games that have been played, not evaluating positions, but I still wonder if it would be wrong to use. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the general consensus of the online chess community on this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21083" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-02-16T11:02:29.967" LastActivityDate="2020-02-16T11:02:29.967" Title="Is it ethical to refer to opening book for the first few moves of a correspondence game?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;rules&gt;&lt;correspondence-chess&gt;&lt;ethics&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ClosedDate="2020-01-21T17:51:28.330" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28085" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28084" CreationDate="2020-01-21T17:11:46.617" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All correspondence chess always allowed written materials. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now they may also allow computers, and AFAIK also do so  as it would be impossible to know if someone was using one or not. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many people now complain that CC is just one computer versus another. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I always suspected that Hans Berliner had used a computer when he worked at FSD in Gaithersburg for IBM as he showed some computer chess programs at the DPD datacenter in DC.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You need to be careful with what looks like winning percentages in those databases.  I have found you can pick the move that seems the best and then the next move by the opponent he has options that are better than what you thought you had picked. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastActivityDate="2020-01-21T17:11:46.617" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28086" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28084" CreationDate="2020-01-21T17:12:56.977" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ICCF: Says nothing about it, or assistance of any kind, and you can even use computers legally. &lt;a href=&quot;https://iccfwebfiles.blob.core.windows.net/rules/2019/THE%20ICCF%20LAWS%20OF%20CORRESPONDENCE%20CHESS%2001.01.2019.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Here are their rules.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;USCF: &quot;3. You may consult chess books and periodicals but not other players.&quot; &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.uschess.org/content/view/7521/397/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Here are their rules.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With regards to the ICCF rules, my guess is that they just decided it was too hard to police computer used, so they just allow it. Books have always been permitted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-01-21T17:18:36.463" LastActivityDate="2020-01-21T17:18:36.463" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28087" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28073" CreationDate="2020-01-21T18:53:17.900" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is difficult to define the exact boundary of practical vs. impractical.  However, you can define this for yourself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/syzygy1/tb&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this project&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can decide what you want to generate like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;rtbgen KQRvKR&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, as Remellion mentioned, there is a dependency between the different tables.  For KQRvKR to function you will also need KQvKR, KRvKR and others so you would have to manage that yourself.  I used this to create a pawn only table base since I didn't want to keep a full 6 or 7 piece tablebase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17425" LastEditorUserId="17425" LastEditDate="2020-01-21T19:00:23.653" LastActivityDate="2020-01-21T19:00:23.653" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28088" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28069" CreationDate="2020-01-21T19:13:13.090" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recommend Dan Heisman's &quot;The World's Most Instructive Amateur Game Book&quot; which has 30 amateur heavily annotated games grouped by useful sections like &quot;Too Fast&quot; and &quot;Too Slow&quot;  for time management.  If you are often mystified by GM commentary like &quot;...and Black is clearly better.&quot; then this book may be for you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most of these are in the 1400 - 1800 range.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some quotes from the introduction:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Many amateur tournament players are superior to the average chess book purchaser&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Typical mid-level tournament players often play strategically interesting games&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17425" LastActivityDate="2020-01-21T19:13:13.090" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28089" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22806" CreationDate="2020-01-21T21:29:09.963" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You should ignore FIDE.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Drop your membership.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Never play in their tournaments again.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Clearly they need  you more than you need them.&#xA;Quitting will show them who is boss. &#xA;So be the modern day Fischer and refuse to deal with them till they see it your way. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastActivityDate="2020-01-21T21:29:09.963" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28090" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28082" CreationDate="2020-01-21T23:13:36.397" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;On Lichess, inaccuracies are denoted &lt;code&gt;?!&lt;/code&gt;, mistakes by &lt;code&gt;?&lt;/code&gt; and blunders by &lt;code&gt;??&lt;/code&gt;. You can click on the `x inaccuracies/x mistakes/ x blunders' to move between these.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The move was inaccurate since it reduced a forced mate from 16 moves (Kc3) to 13 moves. Lichess marks inaccuracies for large checkmate sequences, since humans aren't expected to find these.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21265" LastActivityDate="2020-01-21T23:13:36.397" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28091" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20011" CreationDate="2020-01-22T00:01:45.067" Score="-6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Learn to play the Ruy correctly.   h3 is needed before castling. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastActivityDate="2020-01-22T00:01:45.067" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28092" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-01-22T05:11:25.430" Score="3" ViewCount="1329" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have only recently started correspondence chess and I &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.chessbase.com/post/better-than-an-engine-leonardo-ljubicic-1-2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;have&lt;/a&gt; &#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.chessbase.com/post/better-than-an-engine-leonardo-ljubicic-2-2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;read&lt;/a&gt; that engines are allowed in correspondence chess. I definitely do know that the world champions of correspondence chess have said that using engines to a 100% degree is a bad idea.  My question is this: What is the most efficient way to use engines in this format of chess? Any experiences would be helpful!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21014" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-01-22T12:21:51.073" LastActivityDate="2020-01-22T12:21:51.073" Title="In what ways is it the best to use a computer in correspondence chess?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;correspondence-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28093" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28092" CreationDate="2020-01-22T05:23:04.483" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is by no means complete, but here's a few things.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Use at least 2 engines. More different is generally better. Lc0 and SF would be an obvious pair.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Especially with leela, look at the point of view of the engine. Dig into disagreements.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Realize most of your games will be draws&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Make sure you have tuned your engines for long time control. For leela, that typically means using a bigger net since you will have plenty of time to get nodes.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17100" LastActivityDate="2020-01-22T05:23:04.483" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28094" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24662" CreationDate="2020-01-22T06:10:45.347" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I leave a partial answer for interested parties:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Scidb (&lt;a href=&quot;http://scidb.sourceforge.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Scidb is a Chess Information DataBase&lt;/a&gt;) is a chess information database. (Great sentence.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It supports some variants (3-check, King of the Hill, Anti/Suicide/Giveaway/Losers, and Crazyhouse), as well as 960 starting. It is currently still in development, and is available only for Linux systems at the moment, requiring a build from source. (It might work on Windows with an appropriate environment configured.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately, it doesn't support the variant I'm interested the most in (Atomic) and is limited to Linux (I do run Linux, but would prefer not to grapple with it as mine runs from an external HDD).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Further answers would be appreciated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15989" LastActivityDate="2020-01-22T06:10:45.347" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28095" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28092" CreationDate="2020-01-22T10:44:32.093" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Obviously, as long as they are permitted within the rules of the organization, here is how I would use a computer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, realize that different programs are better at different things, and I will divide them into two categories. I heard GMs Peter Svidler and Jan Gustafsson discuss this during the Firouzja-Carlsen game just yesterday.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first program is for opening play, and that is where Leela shines. I have not had much experience with this program, but Jan mentioned that it can, apparently, blunder at times. They both agreed that Stockfish is still the king of analyzing in the middlegame. I watch a lot of relays of top tournaments, and I follow along with Stockfish, and it is currently the best program out there for the middlegame, and the best part is that it is free.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The next thing is that in most circumstances, I only look at the top two lines (in ChessBase, you can click the little plus/minus sign in the engine box to add/remove the number of lines). I would probably increase this to the top 5 lines for correspondence since there may be a line that fits in better with what you are trying to do, so you can, at least, know to explore it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Next, in the opening, it helps if you have a good understanding of the opening pawn structure, and the typical plans that are played. As you get into the opening, look at a bunch of GM games from a database to see what they have done before you decide on your moves. Have Stockfish going while looking at them...you never know what you might find if it pops up an unusual eval.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lastly, and the stronger you are, the easier this is, and the better you will be at it, but you want to play &quot;advanced chess&quot;. &quot;Advanced chess&quot; is term for using both the computer and your knowledge to pick the best move. In its infancy, Anand was considered the best at this, and there were a few tournaments where these top players were allowed to use a computer. &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_chess&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Here is an article.&lt;/a&gt; As part of this cyborg play, and this is the key, you want to force in certain series of the computer's best moves or even some of your own human moves, so, in essence, the program only starts analyzing from that point.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, if you and I are playing and we are on move 28, and you just let your computer analyze from there, it may analyze out to move 38. Not bad, but if I am able to force in 7 likely moves based on my 40 years' of experience and the computer's evaluation along the way, and only then let it think uninterrupted, I start at move 35, and might get to move 45.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are evaluating a position based on the end result at move 38, but I am evaluating it based on move 45, 7 moves later; I am much more likely to be successful, and win the game.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That is how I would use one if I played correspondence chess. Frankly, I am too impatient so I was never into correspondence in the old days of postcards, but the advent of computers really turned it into more machine versus machine, so that really killed any chance I would get into this in the future; but to each his own. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2020-01-22T10:44:32.093" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28096" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28098" CreationDate="2020-01-22T12:01:49.117" Score="32" ViewCount="8858" Body="&lt;p&gt;How to make chess community and environments more welcoming to women/girls?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess is not a sport/game of choice for most women. The following two nice answers discuss why -- &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/24921/14678&quot;&gt;one,&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/24949/14678&quot;&gt;two&lt;/a&gt;. These are answers given to a question stated in an unfortunately intimidating way. There is a related phenomenon of more girl players dropping out from kids who took part in a club/academy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Irrespective of gender, I do respect people's decision not to choose chess, or move on to something else. Still, I have two questions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1. How can chess community encourage girls/women to pursue chess?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Women titles may be a good idea in this direction. Anything else?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;2. How can a chess club encourage girls/women to pursue chess?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;(To give the context that I am interested in: I am talking about a chess club in an institute where many girl students study)&#xA;Any nice ideas?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was thinking about activities with a social side such as human chess where a 'counselor' decides which piece to move but the piece gets to decide what move to make. Admittedly, this is more like a fun event than a chess event; But, that is for better I think. But, would this help to this aim?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS: I would be happy to get yours answers to &lt;strong&gt;questions 1 &amp;amp; 2&lt;/strong&gt;, rather than diverging to arguments on whether this is needed or not (Even better to explicitly state which question you are answering). I respect your opinion, but if your differ on the assumptions made in the question, it would be better to express them as comments to the question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note: I am not sure whether women tag is correct here. But gender tag seems to be unused.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14678" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2020-04-09T15:25:37.107" Title="How can we make chess community welcoming to women/girls?" Tags="&lt;clubs&gt;&lt;women&gt;" AnswerCount="11" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28097" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28096" CreationDate="2020-01-22T12:47:24.057" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;Before I start, I will quote &quot;Batgirl&quot; who responded to a similar question on chess.com: &quot;Why do you think it's necessary to have more ladies playing chess?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think if someone is interested, great, but I am not convinced that this needs to be looked at as a gender issue. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I do think that it is beneficial to kids, in general, and it is necessary to start them young if you are going to get high volumes of interest. I think that the single best way to get kids involved, including girls, is if you can convince an elementary school that it will help kids learn in other subjects, and thus, make it a class a few times per week. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There have been studies going all the way back to the Soviet Union supporting this theory. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is very ambitious, but I would start there because if you are successful, you will affect the lives of many children, including many girls, in a  positive way. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-01-22T13:45:04.653" LastActivityDate="2020-01-22T13:45:04.653" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28098" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28096" CreationDate="2020-01-22T14:22:08.527" Score="49" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Addendum to address the misunderstandings that have become apparent in the comments:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is being discussed here, is not to encourage women to play chess against their will or to fulfill some other agenda. It's about the fact that there exists an active &lt;strong&gt;discouraging&lt;/strong&gt; attitude towards women in the chess world. Namely, the disrespectful attitude that players have become accustomed to, the dismissal of female players in media coverage and in the literature, the cultural bias against women playing chess (even in the west mind you) where either from childhood girls are told chess is not for them, and similarly in society. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Examples will help: &lt;em&gt;(I'll avoid giving names and titles, the intent here is not to disparage people/clubs/books etc, but to give the reader an idea of the explicit discouragement that exists)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Go to any local club, almost irrespective of where you live, what you will typically witness is: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Players acting in dismay when resigning against a female player, commonly not agreeing to stay for post-mortem analysis (neither of which they have a problem with against male players), their fellow colleagues laughing at their friend for losing to a woman. This attitude is witnessed and passed on to the younger generation: boys constantly mock one another saying &quot;haha you lost to a girl&quot;, which means this idea has already been seeded in their heads that boys are supposed to be smarter than girls. Coaches and trainers making comments to (boys) team about them being able to beat anyone in the women's team. Team coaches favoring to select men players to complete their team despite there being stronger female players in the club. Your typical first encounter with your teammates is &quot;oh so you're the exception to the rule, it's nice to see women play chess...&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the media coverage and literature, often there's a clear disregard towards women, e.g. books starting off in their preface by saying &quot;they will refer to a hypothetical chess player as a he for as long as there hasn't been a female world champion!&quot; In other words, they're saying &quot;I'll start respecting women in chess when they become one day world champion.&quot; Or worse, books trying to give analogies for a chess concept and including sexist remarks such as: &quot;For the lady chess player, I would use the comparison with buying clothes corresponding to latest fashion...&quot;. And sadly, the list goes on and on... A lot of these things are not just inherent to the chess world.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So as things stand, the scene is not at an equal footing for men and women, instead, female chess players are being constantly disheartened from playing the game they love, or being discouraged from pursuing it. So the discussions here are not about &lt;em&gt;preferential treatment&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;it's about fighting against the clear bias that exists and how to give boys and girls equal chance and same level of enthusiasm to find out about this beautiful game.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Luckily, not all is lost, nowadays there are many players both men and women who are actively fighting and making a difference in this matter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;End of addendum.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your first suggestion of separated events already sets the wrong agenda, and here I'll try to focus mostly on this aspect. Not only does the separation create the false assumption in young players' minds that the two genders cannot play at the same level, but it also lowers the number of competitions and the diversity in opponents.This would be a major setback, considering that as is there are currently far less girls getting into chess due to wrongly seeded cultural biases. I strongly recommend reading &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/nov/30/chess-grandmaster-women-only-tournament-play-men&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Judit Polgar's article&lt;/a&gt; on the importance of mixed competitions. However, as pointed out in the comments by user &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/users/11712/greg-martin&quot;&gt;Greg Martin&lt;/a&gt; (see addendum 3), one shouldn't be completely dismissive towards female-only events either, as they do provide an inclusive safe-space to start competing in.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So first suggestions I'd have are: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Level the playing field: Organize mixed events! There should be no separation between men and women in chess, which is a purely intellectual endeavor, just like fields of mathematics or biology are.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Create a healthy environment: Prevent wrong biases from being perpetuated, as a coach or parent. Don't call a girl being good at chess as being &lt;em&gt;the exception.&lt;/em&gt; Be encouraging towards children, and have same level of considerations towards boy and girls playing the game. If you teach or analyse games for a group of people, don't be dismissive towards the games played by your female students, and provide studies and coverage of high level chess from a diversified set of players, irrespective of their gender. This increase the chances of each of your students in finding both a playing style closer to their own and also a character that resonates with them.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;To be encouraging and to popularize the game, it is absolutely mandatory to stand up against assumptions against gender bias which can makes themselves apparent in how we talk about chess players (e.g. not assuming a hypothetical chess player is male, see these discussions &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.meta.stackexchange.com/a/669/15078&quot;&gt;(1)&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.meta.stackexchange.com/a/691/15078&quot;&gt;(2)&lt;/a&gt; on the matter), how we write about the game (many famous chess books start outright making sexist remarks in their preface towards a potential female reader), and in our ways and manners when playing the game (related, &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.meta.stackexchange.com/a/669/15078&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Instead of being encouraging towards women, often even the high ranking renown players feel entitled to make the utmost ungrounded misogynistic comments about women in the game. I quote below from an article on the Guardian, titled &quot;&lt;em&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/nov/20/world-chess-championship-women-magnus-carlsen&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;The World Chess Championship is thrilling. But where are the women?&lt;/a&gt;&quot;&lt;/em&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;More concerning is the realisation that these unproven arguments are&#xA;  not confined to the niche world of online chess communities.&#xA;  High-ranking male chess players have a long history of making&#xA;  disparaging and misogynistic remarks about women and chess. &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.theguardian.com/observer/osm/story/0,,870785,00.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Bobby&#xA;  Fischer&lt;/a&gt;, in what would turn out be one of his tamer offensive&#xA;  opinions, suggested in a 1963 interview that women were terrible chess&#xA;  players because “they’re not so smart”. Half a century later the men&#xA;  are still at it, with British grandmaster Nigel Short &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/20/nigel-short-uk-grandmaster-men-hardwired-better-chess-players-women&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;arguing in 2015&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;  that women are simply not “hardwired” to play chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As J. Polgar &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/nov/30/chess-grandmaster-women-only-tournament-play-men&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;argues&lt;/a&gt;, a healthier competitive scene is beneficial to raising the level of play, for all players! This is important both for 1. achieving a level of normalcy in people being or becoming passionate about the game of chess irrespective of their gender, similar to how education (in any field) should be pursuable on an equal footing without bias or restraint, and 2. it helps create role models and idols for girls finding out about the game. On the topic of absence of female world champions and idols, I further quote from &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/nov/20/world-chess-championship-women-magnus-carlsen&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;the previous article&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The real reason behind the absence of a female world champion,&#xA;  however, has less to do with crude biological reductionism than simple&#xA;  statistical science. &lt;a href=&quot;http://eprints.maths.manchester.ac.uk/1225/1/bilalic09.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;A recent study&lt;/a&gt; has argued that the dearth of&#xA;  women in top chess tournaments is to be expected, given the gender&#xA;  disparity in participation at all levels of the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The authors analysed the population of about 120,000 players active in&#xA;  a single country, with a ratio of male to female participants of 16:1.&#xA;  Their findings highlighted that 96% of the difference in ability&#xA;  between genders could be explained by the fact that extreme values&#xA;  from a large sample are likely to be far larger than those from a&#xA;  small one. In other words, there have been more men represented at the&#xA;  world championship because more men play chess. This, in turn, means&#xA;  that a higher number are bound to reach the skill level of Carlsen and&#xA;  Caruana.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If – then – we want to see a woman win the World Chess Championship,&#xA;  we first must address the lack of female participation in the game.&#xA;  The reasons behind this are complex, and likely manifold, but let us&#xA;  focus here on just one: the lack of prominent female chess players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;There are no real female role models for young girls, even though&#xA;  women have been playing chess for a really long time (the first&#xA;  official Women’s World Chess Championship, for instance, was held in&#xA;  1927). There are, of course, female players who have been recognised&#xA;  for their outstanding skill, such as the Polgar sisters and the&#xA;  current women’s number one, Hou Yifan. Yet these women aren’t assigned&#xA;  the same level of importance within chess’s historical narrative as&#xA;  men such as José Capablanca, Garry Kasparov, Fischer and Carlsen. As&#xA;  all the “heroes” of chess are men, women are taught from an early age&#xA;  to associate good chess with being male.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If we have any hope of addressing this, we need to raise the public&#xA;  profile of female chess players. Alongside the news features on&#xA;  Carlsen, we need to run one on Hou. We need to cover the Women’s World&#xA;  Chess Championship with the same fervour as the “main” world&#xA;  championship – or at the very least we need to, you know, actually&#xA;  cover it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Some women have already made attempts to address the discrepancy in&#xA;  media coverage and to raise the profile of female chess players. Take,&#xA;  for instance, the Chilean chess player and musician Juga, who is&#xA;  currently releasing music exploring her identity and experiences as a&#xA;  woman in chess. By branching out, she is able to both boost her&#xA;  reputation within the traditional community as well as drawing&#xA;  attention to female players among audiences who have had less exposure&#xA;  to the world of chess tournaments. It seems that this may be just the&#xA;  time to bring about the endgame of male-dominated chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Addendum 2: Parallel with esports&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As mentioned earlier, these issues are not &lt;em&gt;inherent&lt;/em&gt; to the chess world. On a much larger scale, same issues of toxic behaviour towards female gamers and sexism permeate the online gaming world and its underlying industry.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To read more on the topic, below are a select of articles I recommend reading:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jul/29/fornite-world-cup-100-finalists-female-gamer-esports-pro-sexism&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Not one of the Fortnite World Cup's 100 finalists was a woman. Why?&lt;/a&gt; - From The Guardian&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://blog.annemunition.tv/i-am-not-a-unicorn-i-am-a-gamer-cca20fc04d0a&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;I Am Not a Unicorn. I Am a Gamer.&lt;/a&gt; By AnneMunition&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.theguardian.com/games/2019/sep/17/gaming-metoo-moment-harassment-women-in-games&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;'This industry has a problem with abuse': dealing with gaming's #MeToo moment&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Addendum 3: important role of separated events&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;User &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/users/11712/greg-martin&quot;&gt;Greg Martin&lt;/a&gt; makes an important point regarding the adverse effects of taking abrupt measures in abolishing female-only events. I quote the comment here (as comments might not be lasting in SE)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;One point of disagreement (in a sea of things on which we definitely&#xA;  agree): Polgar certainly is promoting participation in mixed&#xA;  tournaments, but that is not the same as being against participation&#xA;  in female-only tournaments, and I would suggest not dismissing them so&#xA;  quickly. One of the characteristics of systemic sexism is that it&#xA;  creates situations for which there is no great solution. Having&#xA;  female-only events is not great, but not having them is also not great&#xA;  (you have described many of the reasons why). Feeling included is a&#xA;  very powerful aspect of the situation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15078" LastEditorUserId="15078" LastEditDate="2020-01-28T11:48:45.097" LastActivityDate="2020-01-28T11:48:45.097" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28099" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28100" CreationDate="2020-01-22T14:43:38.900" Score="1" ViewCount="154" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;3r4/p1p1kp2/1pn1b2p/4P1p1/P3pN2/2P1P1B1/2P2PPP/R5K1 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1...Nxe5 {This was the original question with black to move.} (1...gxf4) (1...Rd2)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;NB: Black's knight was on C6 and has just moved to e5 and captured a pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I'm a beginner, playing the chess.com app on level 5 and periodically turning 'show best moves' on and off. I'm playing white; I got my white knight cornered on h3 so at the computer's suggestion moved it to f4, fully expecting black's pawn on g5 to capture it. It's what I would do. But instead black moves Rd2. Surprised, I try again on level 20; this time black moves Nxe5. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why are Rd2 and Nxe5 better than gxf4?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21269" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-01-22T15:00:00.083" LastActivityDate="2020-01-22T15:08:57.330" Title="Why doesn't the computer take my knight?" Tags="&lt;pawn-structure&gt;&lt;pieces&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28100" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28099" CreationDate="2020-01-22T14:49:47.310" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;New answer based on the updated question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As it turns out, Stockfish finds all of these moves, Nxe5, gxf4, and Rd2 all almost dead equal. Let's look at why.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It still finds gxf4 a hair better than the others, and I would normally prefer the piece myself in most cases, but not here. I like Rd2. I have included notes in the following game, so read them as you click on the moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;3r4/p1p1kp2/1pn1b2p/4P1p1/P3pN2/2P1P1B1/2P2PPP/R5K1 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1... gxf4 {Is not so simple since you are not just winning a piece.} (1... Nxe5 2. Ne2 Kf6 3. Nd4 Rd5 4. Nb3 Rd7 {And black is dominating the position.} 5. a5 Bxb3 6. cxb3 b5 7. Bxe5+ Kxe5 {Trying to head to a rook ending, which can be notoriously drawish, but white is so passive, black should win.}) (1... Rd2! {This would be my preference. It is strong, and wins a pawn. The Bg3 remains passive, and the N has to go to h5, and be out of play too.}) 2. Bh4+ Kf8 3. Bxd8 Nxd8 4. exf4 {Winning two pieces for the rook.}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This was my original answer based on the original position given after Nxe5, but seemingly given as black to move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is no reason chess-wise. gxf4 is, indeed, the best move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The answer is that you have it on Level 5, and I assume there are higher levels. The computer on level 5 is handicapped, and thus, it intentionally throws in less good moves as part of its programming to give the player a chance. For example, that may mean that it selects the second-best, or worse, move based on certain circumstances that are met based on the programming.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stockfish, the strongest program that is widely available, says that gxf4 is -4.76, compared to -2.02 for Rd2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-01-22T15:08:57.330" LastActivityDate="2020-01-22T15:08:57.330" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28101" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28099" CreationDate="2020-01-22T15:05:03.010" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;If I understood correctly, the knight was on &lt;code&gt;c6&lt;/code&gt; and you play &lt;code&gt;Nf4&lt;/code&gt; whilst having a pawn on &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt; still (which is important as it prevents &lt;code&gt;f6&lt;/code&gt; by black after &lt;code&gt;gxf4 Bh4+&lt;/code&gt;). In this case, &lt;code&gt;gxf4&lt;/code&gt; is not necessarily the best as it leads to the exchange of B+N for a rook an a pawn (see below), which gives white some chances, despite it still being better for black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [title &quot;Game position before Nf4, white to move&quot;]&#xA; [fen &quot;3r4/p1p1kp2/1pn1b2p/4P1p1/P3p3/2P1P1BN/2P2PPP/R5K1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. Nf4 gxf4 2. Bh4+ Ke8 3. Bxd8 Kxd8 4. exf4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Instead, considering that white's lacking both coordination and activity, and the fact that black has all pieces centrally established and controls the only open file, it might be simpler (and even best) to not create an imbalance (like the line we saw above) and aim to maintain the assured edge by avoiding an over simplification that might be hard to judge and playing against white's shattered queenside pawn structure. Here's one possible continuation to exemplify:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [title &quot;Game position before Nf4, white to move&quot;]&#xA; [fen &quot;3r4/p1p1kp2/1pn1b2p/4P1p1/P3p3/2P1P1BN/2P2PPP/R5K1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1.Nf4 Nxe5 2.Ne2 Kf6 3.Nd4 Rd5 4.Kf1 Rc5 5. Ra3 Bd7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3594" LastActivityDate="2020-01-22T15:05:03.010" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28102" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28096" CreationDate="2020-01-22T15:10:31.660" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Get female teachers to teach chess. Find somebody that can inspire other women. Give them a safe space. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The worst thing you can do is invite women to play chess, and then they show up to a class with 20 guys and a male teacher. Yeah, that ain't going to work. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21271" LastActivityDate="2020-01-22T15:10:31.660" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28103" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="484" CreationDate="2020-01-22T16:13:44.547" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your problem is  meeting people who play chess.  Google is a good starting place.  Look for clubs.  Also consider travel to tournaments. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Try meetup.  Check with libraries and churches and schools at all levels.  It may be informal not an official club that plays.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Look in the park when the weather is good. Put an ad on craigslist.  Ads on bulletin boards.  Ask people.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Play with a set in public.  Coffee shops and malls. People will see you and may want to play.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These days many prefer to play online instead of in person.  Try it.&#xA;Also there are apps and programs that play well. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T16:11:11.610" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T16:11:11.610" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28104" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4004" CreationDate="2020-01-22T16:19:35.853" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Depends what you call a club. Some are big some are small.   Some are formal some informal. Some are official and affiliated with FIDE or USCF or some NCF.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your very open ended question would include anything that they themselves call a club.  So counting everything that thinks they are a club then the answer is 42087.   Can not be disproven.  And there is no official list of them anyway so it can not be proven either.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is very much an opinion question which some mods randomly delete but at other times they ignore. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastActivityDate="2020-01-22T16:19:35.853" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28105" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18387" CreationDate="2020-01-22T16:23:19.113" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Two questions two answers:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Join a club?  Not if you want to improve.&#xA;You need to study a lot more before you start playing for fun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Estimate of strength?  Looking at the sample game I would guess the range of ~1400 USCF but it could be a LOT lower or somewhat higher depending on several full games.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastActivityDate="2020-01-22T16:23:19.113" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28106" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8466" CreationDate="2020-01-22T16:28:04.460" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It depends.  What kind of chess club and in what country.&#xA;In USA you do not sign anything for almost every club.  Some may be part of another organization that might require signing something but nothing that would stop you from going to another club to play for them.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;FIFA clubs are different because they are team sports and may also have to follow FIFA rules.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Dont know cant say but there are some FIDE type clubs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should ask your club what is needed and have a lawyer look at anything  you sign.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastActivityDate="2020-01-22T16:28:04.460" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28107" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28096" CreationDate="2020-01-22T17:40:19.210" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to the statistics, which can be extracted from the &lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/download.phtml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;latest FIDE players list&lt;/a&gt;, female participation rate in FIDE rated chess (100 x No. of active female players / No. of active players) = 15.56%. However there is considerable variation between different federations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Looking at federations with more than 1200 active players we see female participation rates varying between 3.04% (Denmark) and 40.37% (Mongolia). Clearly come federations or societies are &quot;getting it right&quot; and some are not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is a list of the &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Top 10 &quot;worst offenders&quot;:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Federation&lt;/strong&gt;  &lt;strong&gt;Participation Rate&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA; Denmark    3.04&lt;br&gt;&#xA; Finland    4.42&lt;br&gt;&#xA; Netherlands    4.59&lt;br&gt;&#xA; Ireland    4.61&lt;br&gt;&#xA; Norway 5.20&lt;br&gt;&#xA; Argentina  5.69&lt;br&gt;&#xA; Israel 6.17&lt;br&gt;&#xA; Switzerland    6.61&lt;br&gt;&#xA; Austria    6.80&lt;br&gt;&#xA; Sweden 7.10   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And here are the &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Top 5 Good Guys:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Federation&lt;/strong&gt;  &lt;strong&gt;Participation Rate&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA; Malaysia   28.47&lt;br&gt;&#xA; Vietnam    30.89&lt;br&gt;&#xA; Sri Lanka  34.91&lt;br&gt;&#xA; United Arab Emirates   34.97&lt;br&gt;&#xA; Mongolia   40.37   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Surprisingly the 10 &quot;worst offenders&quot; are all amongst the most emancipated countries in the world. They are the countries where women have the most opportunities to live full and fulfilling lives. As for the top 5 &quot;good guys&quot;, well, women in society in those countries don't have it so good. Their rights are not respected. They are not allowed to lead full, emancipated lives. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This gives us the answer to the question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;How to encourage women/girls to take up chess?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Very simple. If we want female participation in chess to increase then the best way in those &quot;benighted&quot; countries with low participation rates is to turn the clock back, reduce women's rights in society so that chess is one of only a very limited number of options available to them. Then they will have little choice but to participate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course there is another possibility. We could just stand back and applaud women's greater common sense in prioritising what is important in their lives and deciding that they have better things to do than waste their time playing chess. We could celebrate women's much greater freedom to choose. I know which one I prefer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-09T15:25:37.107" LastActivityDate="2020-04-09T15:25:37.107" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28108" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-01-22T18:39:25.007" Score="4" ViewCount="212" Body="&lt;p&gt;Should FIDE be the one to promote chess.  Or USCF and other national NCFs?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Should it be tournament promoters who profit from more players attending?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it the job of local clubs to promote chess?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All of the above??&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have seen local clubs fail because they promote chess instead of promoting the club for the benefit of the players in their town.  I see small towns have successful clubs with no dues and many rated events with dozens of players ,  when some larger cities charge too much, throw the dues money around like they printed it, and rarely have a rated tournament which is usually very poorly attended. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Clearly tournament promoters need to promote chess so they can generate profits. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;FIDE needs to promote chess with less urgency as they are the one in charge of chess and the size is less important to them, but still significant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;National federations would tend to be in the middle although IMHO leaning more to needing the members to pay dues so they can survive and thrive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now I see that some schools promote chess.  WHY?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-02-09T20:39:28.933" LastActivityDate="2020-02-09T20:39:28.933" Title="Who is best at promoting chess?" Tags="&lt;clubs&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ClosedDate="2020-01-29T20:17:14.550" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28109" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-01-22T18:52:30.417" Score="-1" ViewCount="179" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess has survived for thousands of years.  Do we need to make special efforts to promote it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Should anyone bother to promote chess other than FIDE?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-02-09T20:39:51.603" LastActivityDate="2020-02-09T20:39:51.603" Title="Does chess need promoting at all?" Tags="&lt;fide&gt;&lt;clubs&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28110" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28108" CreationDate="2020-01-22T19:10:53.750" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Simple answer: it is everybody's job to promote chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;FIDE stands for &quot;Fédération Internationale des Échecs&quot; which stands for &quot;International Chess Federation&quot;. It is their job to promote international chess - &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;World Championships&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Candidates tournaments&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Continental Championships&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Olympiads&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is the job of the national federations to promote chess at the national and regional level -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;National Championships&lt;br&gt;&#xA;National Leagues&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Regional Championships&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Regional Leagues&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is the job of clubs and their affiliates (in some countries the national federation is also run completely by the clubs) to promote chess at the local level&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Local Leagues&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Local congresses&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is the job of internet companies to promote chess online (although FIDE and the federations sometimes like to try as well)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is the job of rich sponsors to fill in the gaps and provide the icing on the cake. Here I'm thinking of lucrative, major opens like the Isle of Man, Gibraltar and the big events run out of St Louis Chess club (and bankrolled by Rex Sinquefield) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No one group of organizers is best overall. It would be ridiculous for FIDE to try and run every minor city league. It would be equally ridiculous for clubs to run the World Championships.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that I haven't mentioned entrepreneurs for the simple reason that making money from organizing chess tournaments, while possible, is extremely difficult. Whoever can crack the TV market and turn chess into a sport with the same televisual appeal as soccer deserves to be a billionaire.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-01-22T19:10:53.750" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28111" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28109" CreationDate="2020-01-22T19:25:13.237" Score="5" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Does chess need promoting at all?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only way a chess tournament happens is if one or more people organize it. If nobody promotes chess then there will only be sporadic individual games. There will be no organized tournaments.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Should anyone bother to promote chess other than FIDE?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are tens of thousands of chess clubs in the world. Suggesting that FIDE should, or even could, organize just the annual club championships of these tens of thousands of clubs is ludicrous. That can only be done by members of those clubs. Similarly local leagues can only be organized by groups of clubs coming together and agreeing league rules, fixtures and structures. It is just not feasible for one international body to do that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Football has massive amounts of money from television and even FIFA doesn't have the resources to organize local leagues in one country let alone the world. The idea that the impoverished chess world could even attempt to do that just makes no sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Of course some people will promote chess. But they do it for their own&#xA;  benefit not just so that chess will survive&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is completely wrong. There is very little money in chess. The vast majority of people who organise tournaments are older players who know they have taken much out of the game over the decades and want to give something back. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My club is a good example. Our tournament organiser is in his 8th decade. He doesn't get paid anything. He organises 3 competitions during the season, an open club championship, a rating limited club championship (roughly under 1450) and a handicap tournament. There are no entry fees and no prizes. The winner of each competition has their named engraved on a club trophy and gets to keep it on their mantlepiece for a year. These tournaments are for club members only. Annual club membership works out at about $6.50 at current exchange rates.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Out of season during the late spring and summer I organise and run weekly themed blitz tournaments, no entry fee, no prizes, no rating. Two or three times a year I organise and run club 9 round FIDE rated blitzes, again, no entry fee, no prizes, but, yes, rated. These are primarily for club members but non-members are welcome (warning, we may try and poach you!). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once a year the club organises a 9 round FIDE rated blitz in a large venue with invitations to players throughout the region. Entry fee converts to about $13. Our club chairman runs around trying to raise sponsorship from local businesses to cover the prize fund and I suspect dips into his own pocket to subsidise any shortfall.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Our club pays in two local leagues. The committees which run those leagues are composed of players from those clubs who give up their time for free to make it happen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't think what I have described is extraordinary. I think it is how chess works at a local level in most of this country and, I suspect, in most of the world. To work like this it just needs a few public spirited individuals, usually old, who want to give something back to the game which they have loved for many years.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2020-01-22T22:16:15.337" LastActivityDate="2020-01-22T22:16:15.337" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28112" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22700" CreationDate="2020-01-22T20:30:32.947" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Having run clubs and tournaments and seen it done I suggest the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Focus on fun play.  That is what club members want.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Have some optional tournaments but do not force people to play in them or ban them from casual games when they occur.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Keep costs LOW.  Cover only expenses you cannot avoid.  Prizes for tournaments should come from entry fees not club dues.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We sponsored TEAM tournaments for all local colleges and one for all in the region.  They went well.  Serious players enjoyed them.  Casual players were not hurt by them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Poll your members and see if they do want something else.  Most clubs do not poll and most members are happy playing, but if you did something special on occasion, many folks  will generally attend.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many (most?) players do NOT want to have to pay for USCF or NCF dues.&#xA;So if you have tournaments for the club they should be unrated unless you do your own local ratings. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ladders can be useful if done right.  Many are done poorly and discourage people from playing.  'Winners' should be those who score the most points.  That encourages playing and  playing more so as to accumulate more points.  Clearly give fewer for beating low rated players and more for beating higher ones but do not subtract anything for losing as that discourages playing.   Ladders done by win/loss and forcing people to play when they do not want to are counterproductive.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastActivityDate="2020-01-22T20:30:32.947" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28113" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28096" CreationDate="2020-01-22T22:48:41.203" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;Maybe, for the most part, people are people and some like chess and some do not. Worrying about gender is irrelevant. People doing what they like, does not need to be &quot;fixed.&quot; My wife and daughter are fair players but neither even came to a tournament I ran. And that is okay.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20759" LastActivityDate="2020-01-22T22:48:41.203" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28114" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24273" CreationDate="2020-01-22T23:10:25.870" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Good question, but rest assured, the most important part has already been achieved! Namely, you've taken full notice of a pattern in how you often lose your games. To remedy the problem of avoiding combinatorial/tactical blunders can be a somewhat systematic (thus definitely achievable) process, so it's definitely the easier part.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Always check for forcing moves:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These typically are, ordered according to priority:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Checks:&lt;/strong&gt; clearly, the most forcing moves are checks, without exception and almost in a computer like manner you should exhaust the list of checks your opponent can give. Example (1).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Captures:&lt;/strong&gt; Take note of the possible captures in the position, it shouldn't matter how crazy it might appear at first glance (like giving up a queen for a rook, but a mating threat might be following, example (2))&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Positional gains:&lt;/strong&gt; Relative to the first two, this one's admittedly rather vaguely defined. However, as a shortcut, let's simply treat them as possible combinations in the position, which I will further elaborate below.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Types of combinations to consider:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Checkmating combinations:&lt;/strong&gt; This is the easiest combination to understand, as it is purely concrete and when it works, immediately decisive.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The combination to win material:&lt;/strong&gt; Can be any forced sequence of moves, e.g. starting from a bait (a sac'ed pawn), which ends in winning or trapping more important material. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The third type, is the toughest, the &lt;strong&gt;strategic combination:&lt;/strong&gt; again it might start from a forced sequence, but for a specific type of a goal, such as creating the king's position vulnerable, or in contrast to create a defensive setup, it might be to an exchange sac opening up the position for our pieces or permanently damaging our opponent's light/dark squares, it might also be a sequence that creates a weak pawn or one that ends up with you having an endgame with a bishop pair, and the list goes on. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;How to efficiently check for all these:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Keep calculating variations&lt;/strong&gt; both on your own and your opponent's time, irrespective of how winning or equal you might find the position.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Keep taking mental notes about positional aspects&lt;/strong&gt; of the position throughout the game, namely anticipating critical moments where: the pawn formation might change, or potential of changing it thereof (e.g. noticing a minority attack could be achieved, &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/27461/3594&quot;&gt;see here&lt;/a&gt; for more details), the king safety can be compromised (either by a pawn advance, a sacrifice, or a simple trade of a good defensive piece guarding the king), and last but not least, the combo of pieces (bishop pair, Q+N vs Q+B, etc). &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Keep asking yourself questions&lt;/strong&gt; about your opponent's decisions, no matter how strange they might appear sometimes: e.g. &quot;why did they play &lt;code&gt;a6&lt;/code&gt;? what are they trying to prevent?&quot; or &quot;why are they not resolving the center?&quot; ... Again this helps keep you sharp during the game and not relax too early (and miss simple ideas). &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Take note of whether one of your defensive pieces are possibly getting &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overloading_(chess)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;overloaded&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Take note of tactical themes:&lt;/strong&gt; hanging/attacked pieces, pinned pieces, discoveries, etc. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Step up your tactics training!&lt;/strong&gt; Sounds obvious but this really should be part of your daily practice no matter the level of play. This will not only add to you bag of tactical ideas and motifs, but it will also prevent your calculation skills from getting rusty.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;And finally, &lt;strong&gt;don't make assumptions about variations that you'd like to see occur&lt;/strong&gt;, instead consider your opponent's alternative options specially when making a committal decision in the game.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, for the promised examples of (1) and (2), here's one where both are combined:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [title &quot;Meier vs Kramnik 2013&quot;]&#xA; [fen &quot;1r3bk1/2R2pp1/p3p3/4q3/Qn2N2p/5BP1/4PPKP/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA; [startflipped &quot;1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1.Qd7 {Here's the position of interest, white's last move Qd7 both defends the rook on c7 and creates a threat on f7} Qf5 {Kramnik defends f7 with Qf5 while also preparing h3+} 2.g4 {Meier notices that black is playing a potentially dangerous game allowing the battery against f7 and having only their queen as defender. White then try to decoy the queen from defense of f7} Qf4 3.g5 {Setting up a neat combination with Nf6+, which is a tactic of type (1) that Meier is planning for, a move that would blind the queen's access to f7} Nd5 {casually played by Kramnik, almost in a manner suggesting he's missed Nf6+, but it is in fact a bait} 4. Nf6+ {let's first see the candidate lines I reckon white had anticipated, namely gxf and Nxf} Nxf6 (4...gxf6 {other losing line} 5.Qxf7+ Kh8 6.Qh7#) (4...Qxf6 {!!! Here's our case (2), white had simply dismissed the crazy possibiliy of queen taking on f6 instead of pawn or knight. The queen sacrifice comes with a checkmating combination, surprisingly of the backrank type despite white's fiachetto pawn formation!} 5.gxf6 {clearly then seeing the previous line, white cannot take the queen, so game continued as follows} (5.Qxd5 Qg6 6.Qe5 Rb5 {and with g5 falling white resigned soon thereafter.}) Nf4+ 6.Kf1 Rb1+ {and mate is unavoidable.}) 5.Qxf7+ Kh8 6.gxf6 Qxf6 7.Qh5+ Qh6 8.Qxh6+ gxh6 9.Ra7 {likely a draw, despite black's shattered pawn structure.}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To finish, I leave you with a problem (though relatively simple so it mimics what you might have experienced in your game), where to recognise the combination in a real game we would:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;take note that white has back rank issues&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;rook on &lt;code&gt;f4&lt;/code&gt; is attacked by the queen&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;and our rooks are doubled along the open e-file&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These already bring to mind: forcing moves such as captures and checkmating combinations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [title &quot;black to play and win&quot;]&#xA; [fen &quot;4r1k1/p3rppp/2pqb3/2p4Q/N2p1R2/1P1P4/P1P3PP/5R1K b - - 4 24&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3594" LastActivityDate="2020-01-22T23:10:25.870" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28115" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18908" CreationDate="2020-01-22T23:36:40.487" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Nowadays more and more resources complementary to books are appearing, in particular video series and online lectures. For the (advanced) Ruy Lopez I definitely recommend watching and studying &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess24.com/en/learn/advanced/video/the-6-d3-spanish-according-to-svidler/introduction-to-the-6-d3-spanish&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;The Spanish &lt;code&gt;6.d3&lt;/code&gt; by Peter Svidler:&lt;/a&gt; not only he covers the variation at great depths but his approach and way of explaining teach a great deal about how to tackle Spanish structures in general. Very insightful and fun to watch!&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Next to that, and on a somewhat different tangent of the Spanish, there's &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5BQbcJHiqs&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yasser Seirawan's lecture on the Berlin defense&lt;/a&gt; (mostly) from white's point of view as he studied the Carlsen vs Anand game 11 of 2014 in which Carlsen clinched the match. The explanations go to great depths and are highly instructive.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3594" LastActivityDate="2020-01-22T23:36:40.487" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28116" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28096" CreationDate="2020-01-23T00:08:14.427" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is a story that was on the web some years ago, but seems to no longer be available.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An elementary school teacher formed a chess club in the school.  According to him, around fourth grade, the girls in the club started dropping out because they tended to be more interested in communication and cooperation than in competition.  And around fifth grade, the boys started dropping out because there were no girls.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To mitigate this problem, he invented a chess variant with both competition and cooperation—a team would cooperate to compete with another team.  He called it &lt;strong&gt;Pi Chess&lt;/strong&gt;.”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://web.archive.org/web/20170625101518/http://pi-chess.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://web.archive.org/web/20170625101518/http://pi-chess.com/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.facebook.com/Pi-The-Chess-Game-of-the-21st-Century-208519166298175/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.facebook.com/Pi-The-Chess-Game-of-the-21st-Century-208519166298175/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I created a three-person chess variant about nine years ago, he (or the company marketing it) gave me enough pieces in three colors to use with my game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, the current owner of the last few sets says the above story is false.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21036" LastEditorUserId="21036" LastEditDate="2020-01-24T01:53:12.077" LastActivityDate="2020-01-24T01:53:12.077" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28119" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28096" CreationDate="2020-01-23T02:48:26.337" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here's an idea: why don't you ask them?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just find some women and ask them: &quot;Are you interested in chess at all? No? Why not? You are? Then why aren't you involved in tournaments? Why do you think there aren't more women playing chess? What do you think could be done to change that? Does it even bother you at all?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the statistics that get thrown around are even half correct then chances are that everyone (or almost everyone) involved in commenting on and answering this question is &lt;em&gt;likely&lt;/em&gt; to be male, which means you'll &lt;em&gt;probably&lt;/em&gt; only get a male viewpoint by asking here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Don't ask the donkey what's wrong with the horse, get the answer from the horse's mouth.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4146" LastActivityDate="2020-01-23T02:48:26.337" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28120" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28121" CreationDate="2020-01-23T11:35:42.750" Score="7" ViewCount="214" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Portable Game Notation (PGN) specification appears to contradict itself regarding the valid characters that may appear in a symbol token.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From [1], section 7, quote:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A symbol token starts with a letter or digit character and is immediately followed by a sequence of zero or more symbol continuation characters. These continuation characters are letter characters (&quot;A-Za-z&quot;), digit characters (&quot;0-9&quot;), the underscore (&quot;_&quot;), the plus sign (&quot;+&quot;), the octothorpe sign (&quot;#&quot;), the equal sign (&quot;=&quot;), the colon (&quot;:&quot;), and the hyphen (&quot;-&quot;) ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or, to put it more concisely, a symbol token conforms to the regular expression &lt;code&gt;/^[A-Za-z0-9][A-Za-z0-9_+#=:-]*/&lt;/code&gt;.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, this definition explicitly precludes the game draw termination marker &lt;code&gt;1/2-1/2&lt;/code&gt;.  Quoting again from [1], section 8.2.6:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Each movetext section has exactly one game termination marker; the marker always occurs as the last element in the movetext. The game termination marker is a symbol that is one of the following four values: &quot;1-0&quot; (White wins), &quot;0-1&quot; (Black wins), &quot;1/2-1/2&quot; (drawn game), and &quot;*&quot; (game in progress, result unknown, or game abandoned).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The string &quot;1/2-1/2&quot; very obviously does not meet the definition of a symbol token, so either:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a) the solidus character ('/', 0x2f) should have been included in the definition of symbol continuation characters, but the author failed to do so, or;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;b) game termination markers should not be considered symbol tokens, but rather a distinct type of token which is separate from symbol tokens, and the author failed to indicate this, or;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;c) I have completely misunderstood the wording of the specification, and am an idiot.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Somebody has screwed up here, and either it's me, or it's Steven J. Edwards.  Hopefully it's me.  Personally I think (a) is the most likely of the three but perhaps I've missed something.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.saremba.de/chessgml/standards/pgn/pgn-complete.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.saremba.de/chessgml/standards/pgn/pgn-complete.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21281" LastEditorUserId="21281" LastEditDate="2020-01-23T12:06:48.093" LastActivityDate="2020-01-23T13:41:58.870" Title="Does the PGN specification mistakenly omit solidus (/) for symbol tokens?" Tags="&lt;programming&gt;&lt;pgn&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28121" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28120" CreationDate="2020-01-23T12:28:18.707" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;You are right, the text as written there isn't exactly correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It also says that the marker is a symbol and lists &lt;code&gt;*&lt;/code&gt; as one of the options, even though &lt;code&gt;*&lt;/code&gt; is a token on its own and also cannot occur in a symbol.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That said, the meaning is clear enough, 1/2-1/2 is a valid termination marker. How you solve this in your code is up to you. As it's hard to add &lt;code&gt;1/2-1/2&lt;/code&gt; as a token on its own (would need lookahead to disambiguate it from symbol &lt;code&gt;1&lt;/code&gt; et cetera), it's probably easiest to add '/' to the possible symbol characters, yes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2020-01-23T12:28:18.707" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28122" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28096" CreationDate="2020-01-23T12:41:08.850" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Look at it from a broader perspective. Address the bad behavior wherever it appears, regardless of who it is being aimed at.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21285" LastActivityDate="2020-01-23T12:41:08.850" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28123" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2489" CreationDate="2020-01-23T13:31:02.007" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Facing the chessboard, the Queen should be on the fourth square of the first rank (row) and the colour of the Queen should be the same as the colour of that square. (If the colours are different, rotate -90 or +90 degrees the chessboard.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The King of a given color is on the square immediateley next to the square of the Queen of the same color and that is not taken by a light piece.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20949" LastEditorUserId="20949" LastEditDate="2020-01-24T10:11:29.360" LastActivityDate="2020-01-24T10:11:29.360" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28124" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28120" CreationDate="2020-01-23T13:41:58.870" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I agree the spec is ambiguous.  This &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/antlr/grammars-v4/blob/master/pgn/PGN.g4&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;antlr grammar&lt;/a&gt; uses your option b&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;game termination markers should not be considered symbol tokens, but&#xA;  rather a distinct type of token which is separate from symbol tokens,&#xA;  and the author failed to indicate this&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the grammar I find &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;SYMBOL&#xA;: [a-zA-Z0-9] [a-zA-Z0-9_+#=:-]*&#xA;;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;separate from termination&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;game_termination&#xA; : WHITE_WINS&#xA; | BLACK_WINS&#xA; | DRAWN_GAME&#xA; | ASTERISK&#xA; ;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17425" LastActivityDate="2020-01-23T13:41:58.870" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28125" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-01-23T14:22:15.350" Score="3" ViewCount="128" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why did Fischer play 17...c4 here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;r4rk1/1q1n1pp1/4b2p/p1pp4/8/Q2NP3/PP2BPPP/R4RK1 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Doesn’t it make the bishop e6 a lot worse? I would have played rfb8 instead, but I am not Fischer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user20848" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2020-01-23T15:33:47.383" LastActivityDate="2020-01-23T16:35:15.920" Title="Why did Fischer play 17.c4 here?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;pawn-structure&gt;&lt;fischer&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28126" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28125" CreationDate="2020-01-23T14:32:20.833" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Every move has pros and cons. Move a pawn, for example, and you gain space, and control squares; but you also weaken squares. The trick is to accurately determine if you will be able to use your pros better than your opponent can use your new-found weaknesses against you. Always remember that a “weakness” is only a weakness if your opponent can get at it, and use it against you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this position, 17…Rfb8 is also a very good move, but Stockfish definitely prefers c4. After 17…c4, Fischer decided that the immediate pressure on b2 was more important than making the bishop worse. In addition, when the Nd3 moved to f4, from there, it really could only trade itself off for that bad bishop in most situations. As in the game, because white did not take immediately on e6, the bishop went to f5, and deprived the white rooks of the b1 square, and thus, a method of defending the pawn on b2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It was almost inevitable that white would lose a pawn. As it was played, after 21…g5, white felt compelled to give up the piece altogether seeing the variation 22. Nh5 Ne4 23. Rc2 Qb4 paralyzing white.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I do not know if you are reading “My 60 Memorable Games”, but this is game 34 in that book, and the game was titled, “Hanging pawns unhung”. Lastly, it is interesting to note that Fischer thought that the best move was 19. Nxe6 getting rid of the “bad” bishop, giving the variation: 19. Nxe6 fxe6 20. Bg4 Ra6! 21. b3! cxb3 22. axb3 Qxb3 23. Qe7 Nf8 24. Ra3 Qb4 25. Qxb4 Rxb4 26. Be2 Ra7 27. Rfa1 a4 28. Bd1 “with good drawing chances”, but 21…Qb4! Stopped the queen from taking up the active position deep in the black camp, and threatens cxb3 with a strong passed pawn, since it exposes an attack on the hanging Bg4. Per Stockfish Qxb4 is forced, and is probably close to lost in my opinion due to the incredibly weak white queenside.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [Event &quot;Interzonal-05&quot;]&#xA; [Site &quot;Stockholm&quot;]&#xA; [Date &quot;1962.03.04&quot;]&#xA; [Round &quot;22&quot;]&#xA; [White &quot;Bertok, Mario&quot;]&#xA; [Black &quot;Fischer, Robert James&quot;]&#xA; [Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA; [ECO &quot;D59&quot;]&#xA; [PlyCount &quot;62&quot;]&#xA; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. d4 d5 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 Be7 4. Nf3 Nf6 5. Bg5 O-O 6. e3 h6 7. Bh4 b6 8. cxd5 Nxd5 9. Bxe7 Qxe7 10. Nxd5 exd5 11. Be2 Be6 12. O-O c5 13. dxc5 bxc5 14. Qa4 Qb7 15. Qa3 Nd7 16. Ne1 a5 17. Nd3 c4 18. Nf4 Rfb8 19. Rab1 (19. Nxe6 fxe6 20. Bg4 Ra6 $1 21. b3 $1 {Fischer's !} cxb3 (21... Qb4 $1 {Not letting the Qa3 get active.} 22. Qxb4 axb4 {And white is in huge trouble.}) 22. axb3 Qxb3 23. Qe7 Nf8 24. Ra3 Qb4 25. Qxb4 Rxb4 26. Be2 Ra7 27. Rfa1 a4 28. Bd1 $15) 19... Bf5 20. Rbd1 Nf6 21. Rd2 g5 22. Nxd5 (22. Nh5 Ne4 23. Rc2 Qb4 {Winning positionally.}) 22... Nxd5 23. Bxc4 Be6 24. Rfd1? Nxe3! 25. Qxe3 Bxc4 26. h4 Re8 27. Qg3 Qe7 28. b3 Be6 29. f4 g4 30. h5 Qc5+ 31. Rf2 Bf5 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-01-23T15:42:17.050" LastActivityDate="2020-01-23T15:42:17.050" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28127" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28128" CreationDate="2020-01-23T15:28:20.797" Score="27" ViewCount="5067" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have heard &quot;fianchetto&quot; for four decades now, and I have always pronounced it &quot;fēənˈCHetō&quot;, but I have heard many people also pronounce it &quot;fēənˈketō&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is of Italian origin, so I am wondering if there are any Italians out there, especially natives, or anyone really, who can tell me what is the true, and proper, pronunciation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-01-23T15:33:30.997" LastActivityDate="2020-05-01T22:30:05.367" Title="How is &quot;fianchetto&quot; really pronounced?" Tags="&lt;terminology&gt;&lt;fianchetto&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28128" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28127" CreationDate="2020-01-23T15:40:18.747" Score="33" Body="&lt;p&gt;While I'm not sure exactly how &quot;fēənˈketō&quot; would be pronounced (I'm not a native English speaker), that's more correct as to the pronunciation of the &quot;ch&quot; (following the Italian pronunciation).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The pronunciation written in English would be something like &lt;code&gt;fee-ahn-keh-toh&lt;/code&gt;, with the accent on the third syllable (&lt;code&gt;keh&lt;/code&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I just found this &lt;a href=&quot;https://forvo.com/word/fianchetto/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;website&lt;/a&gt; in which there are actual recordings of italian (I hope) people pronouncing it. It sounds pretty good to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20795" LastEditorUserId="20795" LastEditDate="2020-01-23T15:43:14.847" LastActivityDate="2020-01-23T15:43:14.847" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28129" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28127" CreationDate="2020-01-23T15:44:55.760" Score="26" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fianchetto&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In chess, the fianchetto (/ˌ&lt;strong&gt;fiænˈtʃɛtoʊ&lt;/strong&gt;/; &lt;strong&gt;Italian:&#xA;  [fjaŋˈketto]&lt;/strong&gt; &quot;little flank&quot;) is a pattern of development ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hence English speakers pronounce the &quot;ch&quot; as in &quot;chess&quot; and Italian speakers as in &quot;kettle&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which suggests that there is no &quot;true, and proper, pronunciation&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2020-01-23T15:50:22.903" LastActivityDate="2020-01-23T15:50:22.903" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28130" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28127" CreationDate="2020-01-23T15:46:54.113" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;When in Rome speak Roman.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They may say fi an Ket oh  in Italy,  but the rest of the world says fi an CHet oh.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Words change meanings and pronounciations over time and the majority usage eventually wins out.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I always have heard fi an Chet oh and that is how I say it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastActivityDate="2020-01-23T15:46:54.113" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28131" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28125" CreationDate="2020-01-23T16:35:15.920" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Every move has plusses and minuses.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Fischer does not want to be tied down defending the pawn which would tie up his pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;c4 attacks the horsie, and blocks whites bishop making it less good now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;it allows for black to attack on b2 by moving his rook.  it also opens up c5 for the horsie to use at some point. &#xA;it attacks b3 so white will have trouble moving the pawn up and defending it after its capture. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;overall it is a good positional move improving blacks chances.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastActivityDate="2020-01-23T16:35:15.920" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28132" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22616" CreationDate="2020-01-23T17:05:15.187" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;NO.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can not let you king be checked or mated by your moving.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It would be called error, senior moment, carelessness, fumblefinger, or some other term depending on the commentator as there is no standard word for trying to move a piece pinned against your king. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastActivityDate="2020-01-23T17:05:15.187" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28133" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6019" CreationDate="2020-01-23T17:08:19.677" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I call it silly.  I do not want a computer I beat helping me.  It gives the human no advantage at all. I would want the computer I cannot beat helping me against yet another computer. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastActivityDate="2020-01-23T17:08:19.677" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28134" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27893" CreationDate="2020-01-23T18:29:38.650" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It depends.  Ability changes constantly.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Ratings only reflect performance history not ability per se. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How accurately do you want it to reflect the true ability at this moment?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are you improving rapidly like many kids do?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Do you play a lot of rated games?   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If your strength was not changing and your opponents did not change andor play erratically then ten games would give you a fair approximation, and 100 would give you an answer within the margin of error of all the other factors influencing it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your example ten would give you a fair idea and 100 a good one.&#xA;But it would depend on how big an improvement and what sort of tournaments you played in.  Open tournaments against a wide range of opponents is best as in a national swiss open.   Playing in small local tournaments only and  you might never get a true answer.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastActivityDate="2020-01-23T18:29:38.650" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28135" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-01-23T19:39:23.313" Score="18" ViewCount="6650" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was watching &lt;a href=&quot;https://youtu.be/3cS9tYp_6Lw?t=680&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;an agadmator video&lt;/a&gt; explaining a game between two chess engines, and at one point in the video after a knight move, agadmator talks about how that knight then became &quot;basically a monster knight&quot;, and therefore must be taken. He then talks more about some other games involving &quot;monster knights&quot;, but never really explains what he means by &quot;monster knight&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My common sense is telling me that a &quot;monster knight&quot; is simply a knight that is well positioned, but from the way that agadmator talked about the concept, it seemed to me like there is a more precise definition of what makes a &quot;monster knight&quot;. I googled around for a definition and didn't find it anywhere, hence why I am asking it here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, what's a &quot;monster knight&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7438" LastActivityDate="2020-01-24T16:17:51.350" Title="What is a &quot;monster knight&quot;?" Tags="&lt;positional-play&gt;&lt;knights&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28136" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28135" CreationDate="2020-01-23T19:44:33.650" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is no standard nor official definition.  Normal folks would take it to be a VERY well placed and powerful knight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have sacked a rook for a knight and gotten huge advantages, but that depends on the specific position.  Sometimes that knight can maneuver to where rooks and bishops have problems and can be the balance of power for a mating attack with the queen alone or with another piece.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the video’s position the you linked, the knight is on a strong square and supported by two pawns.  However it  can be easily taken, so it is not as strong as if it were there and could remain.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-01-23T20:54:12.503" LastActivityDate="2020-01-23T20:54:12.503" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28138" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17826" CreationDate="2020-01-23T21:01:56.680" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;No.  No move will level the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does not really matter as Black is lost.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is almost zugzwang for black. &#xA;White is up a rook and can continue developing &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After the horsie takes the pawn black can easily protect then get on with finishing white off easily.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastActivityDate="2020-01-23T21:01:56.680" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28139" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2584" CreationDate="2020-01-23T21:09:12.883" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the computer has two moves that evaluate equally it has to make a random choice which one to use. And if the depth is low or other factors keep it from making the best move then the first to make a mistake will likely lose.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the end it is the next to last mistake that actually loses a game. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Clearly a computer PROGRAM can beat the same PROGRAM even if on the same computer hardware and each is made to play the other. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Often the games will be draws but wins are possible although should be rare with really good engines let loose to the max they can do even if it takes a lot of time. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastActivityDate="2020-01-23T21:09:12.883" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28140" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="234" CreationDate="2020-01-23T21:16:45.883" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Logical fallacy.&#xA;Assumes the consequence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It may be good and it may not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have mated many opponents who had a fianchettoed B in front of their king. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastActivityDate="2020-01-23T21:16:45.883" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28141" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15122" CreationDate="2020-01-23T21:25:15.027" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Bad question.&#xA;You have no attack,  especially on the king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Castle 0-0 and get on with the game positionally.&#xA;There is not enough material to do any attacking especially the king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Castle long  and White will have the attacking chances such as they are. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You are a pawn up but with bishops of opposite colors.  This will be hard to win no matter what you do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastActivityDate="2020-01-23T21:25:15.027" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28142" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28135" CreationDate="2020-01-23T21:29:08.557" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is not technically a pure chess term, but is not an uncommon description for a very powerful knight. It is simply English, and your common sense thoughts were right on the money.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is just a description for a knight that is beautifully positioned, and that controls a lot of key territory on the board, and is often, but not always, unassailable. Sometimes, you can trade it off, but at a cost.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lastly, and this is important, it must control enough of the board to make life difficult for the other side. Sometimes, you can have an optically beautiful piece (not just a knight), but it attacks nothing important, so it is not really a strong piece. I have seen knights on d5 in certain positions that while optically great, they did not combine with any other pieces actually threaten black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-01-23T22:18:48.950" LastActivityDate="2020-01-23T22:18:48.950" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28143" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28135" CreationDate="2020-01-23T23:22:08.670" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;The concept of a knight which is so powerfully placed (generally on e6/e3) that the game wins itself dates, according to &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/extra/knightoutpost.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Winter&lt;/a&gt;, from: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;An observation by Zukertort after 26 Ne6 in the simultaneous game&#xA;  Steinitz v Maas, London, 5 November 1873:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;‘&lt;em&gt;The appearance of the knight at K6 [e6 for white, e3 for black] is generally, for the opponent,&lt;/em&gt;&#xA;  &lt;em&gt;the proper signal to strike his colours.&lt;/em&gt;’&#xA;  Source: City of London Chess Magazine, May 1874, pages 97-98&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is the game extract:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[title &quot;Steinitz v Maas, London, 5 November 1873&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;3q1rk1/1rb3pp/b2p1p2/n2P1N2/1p1NP3/2p1B3/P4PPP/1Bn1Q1RK w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Ne6 Qe8 2. Bxc1 Rf7 3. g4 Qa4 4. g5 c2 5. gxf6 cxb1=Q 6. Nh6+ Kh8 7. Nxf7+ Kg8 8. Rxg7++&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More from Winter:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;When the game Steinitz v von Bardeleben, Hastings, 1895 was shown in a&#xA;  ‘Chess Movies’ article on page 336 of the November 1949 Chess Review,&#xA;  the following comment referred to 19 Ne6:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;‘A knight at K6 is like a bone in the throat, says Steinitz.’&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;For the same attribution, see I.A. Horowitz’s books How to Win in the&#xA;  Chess Openings (New York, 1951), page 44, and How to Win at Chess (New&#xA;  York, 1968), page 50, but where did Steinitz make the comment?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;From page 212 of the first volume of Kasparov’s Predecessors series,&#xA;  before 16 Ne6 in Lasker v Capablanca, St Petersburg, 1914:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;‘... the knight at e6 will be like a bone in his throat!’&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2020-01-24T13:19:23.137" LastActivityDate="2020-01-24T13:19:23.137" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28144" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28147" CreationDate="2020-01-24T00:23:32.127" Score="2" ViewCount="325" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was playing this game with white&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/INsUhHEO&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://lichess.org/INsUhHEO&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was losing, so I was happy to see the 3-position draw button appearing, which I clicked.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But after, reviewing the game, I couldn't see a reason for that to happen, I see only 2 repetition...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Where am I wrong?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21296" LastActivityDate="2020-01-24T01:39:08.440" Title="draw game on lichess after 2 repetitions?" Tags="&lt;draw&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2020-01-24T11:03:18.490" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28145" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28144" CreationDate="2020-01-24T00:31:56.933" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Ok I found it sorry, the third one was the NEXT move, the button appears just before (make sense)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;sorry for the stupid question :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;good night&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21296" LastActivityDate="2020-01-24T00:31:56.933" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28146" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28135" CreationDate="2020-01-24T00:32:10.663" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Check out this position, from &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1067175&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Anatoly Karpov vs. Garry Kasparov (1985)&lt;/a&gt; after 20...Rc8. Does that knight on d3 look like a monster to you? It's practically single-handedly paralyzing White's position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;2rqr1k1/5pp1/p2b1n1p/3P1b2/Np6/3n1BB1/PP1Q1PPP/1N1R1RK1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastEditorUserId="15223" LastEditDate="2020-01-24T01:56:36.670" LastActivityDate="2020-01-24T01:56:36.670" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28147" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28144" CreationDate="2020-01-24T01:39:08.440" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The same position appeared after 56. Kf8, 58. Kf8 and 60. Kf8 -- 3 repetitions of the position (not moves).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15989" LastActivityDate="2020-01-24T01:39:08.440" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28148" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25222" CreationDate="2020-01-24T03:31:11.593" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;No.  It may implicitly 'know' internally but none of them explicitly tell you there is/are/couldbe transpositions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastActivityDate="2020-01-24T03:31:11.593" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28149" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24712" CreationDate="2020-01-24T03:34:55.837" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;For over 2700 rated players,  statistically the draw rate is slightly under 50%.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For all over 2200 ,  the rate is just under 40%, statistically.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastActivityDate="2020-01-24T03:34:55.837" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28150" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18641" CreationDate="2020-01-24T03:40:33.013" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;My first rating was 1750 and I had no coach.&#xA;I read the few books I could find.&#xA;But that did include BCE, and My System.&#xA;A few, not many, others.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What helped me most was playing at EXACTLY ten seconds a move every week in the Divan's tournament.  That forces you to both think before, and decide not just react,  which is good training.  First for taking some time to think, and also for not taking too much time which helps  with clock management and avoiding time problems.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At mandatory wait ten seconds and then mandatory move at ten seconds  you see games playing like they were movies.  That helps a lot in analysing what works and what problems you have.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tactics training and end games are crucial.  16oo can be done without positional training.  Some openings are useful but principle are better than variations at that level. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastActivityDate="2020-01-24T03:40:33.013" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28151" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28135" CreationDate="2020-01-24T05:27:00.883" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't know if there is any standard definition for 'Monster knight' in chess world, But as someone who has seen tons of Agadmator chess videos I can say with confidence that what he means by a monster knight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A knight usually on 6th rank (or 3rd) which cant be kicked away by pawns (i.e no pawns in the adjacent files, or if there are pawns they are advanced beyond 6th rank)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Opponent don't have a bishop of the same color of the square where knight is sitting.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Opponent don't have a knight which can be traded with this 'monster knight', or if he has a knight, its far away or busy doing some other things.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18273" LastEditorUserId="18273" LastEditDate="2020-01-24T05:38:45.750" LastActivityDate="2020-01-24T05:38:45.750" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28152" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28154" CreationDate="2020-01-24T07:18:15.300" Score="21" ViewCount="6205" Body="&lt;p&gt;From Wikipedia,  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;While blindfold chess has been recommended in moderation by many sources as a method of increasing one's playing strength, simultaneous blindfold exhibitions were officially banned in 1930 in the USSR as they were deemed to be a health hazard. Mikhail Botvinnik also warned against it.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Should I actively not play blindfold chess? Are there any health risks?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21021" LastActivityDate="2020-01-25T08:59:58.670" Title="Is blindfold chess bad for the health?" Tags="&lt;blindfold-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28153" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28096" CreationDate="2020-01-24T09:23:51.270" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my (somewhat outdated and German specific experience) there is only two ways to attract new young chess players to a club. This is family ties and community building (youth work).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Incidentally most of the great female chess players I meat had a family history of active chess playing parents. Which is not a very wide audience, but a chess club certainly has to start recruiting in the families of their own members. (And this obviously only works if there is a reliable, age appropriate, engaging, structured offering).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This might already attract more interested outsiders, because those children might recommend and drag in friends.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And the second thing is an active youth work, offering fun/engaging activities like trips, organizing parties and generally working in relationship with schools. It certainly helps here to have female mentors or at least mentors who don't creep out females.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21300" LastActivityDate="2020-01-24T09:23:51.270" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28154" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28152" CreationDate="2020-01-24T09:58:10.113" Score="36" Body="&lt;p&gt;No.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The main reason behind this train of thought was that they thought that blindfold chess may contribute to going crazy. They looked at Morphy and Pillsbury as their primary examples. Lasker, specifically, thought that blindfold chess made Pillsbury go mad, but we now know it was syphilis. Other than just plain incorrect assumptions like Lasker's, this is an incredibly small sample size no matter how you cut it, and we are talking about judging this on 90+-year-old &quot;science&quot;, if you can call it that. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This not only does not make any sense in the modern day, but it has been debunked by at least USCF NM, and noted psychologist, &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Chabris&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Christopher Chabris&lt;/a&gt; from Harvard. The paper can be found &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chabris.com/Chabris2005b.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Blindfold chess is good for your chess vision, so feel free to practice it in moderation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S. We have in more recent times, from 1992-2011, had the Melody Amber blindfold tournaments for the the top players in the world including Karpov, Kramnik, Anand, and Carlsen. If modern science even remotely believed that blindfold was bad for you, these guys would not have played.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-01-24T10:51:20.647" LastActivityDate="2020-01-24T10:51:20.647" CommentCount="11" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28155" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28156" CreationDate="2020-01-24T10:50:17.467" Score="5" ViewCount="489" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is that position always a draw? I've tried to play it few times and I always end with lone bishop or a stalemate&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;8/3k3/p7/2Pb4/PP6/2KP4/8/8 w KQkq - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17650" LastEditorUserId="3594" LastEditDate="2020-01-24T11:09:51.510" LastActivityDate="2020-01-24T11:16:39.773" Title="Is this K+4P vs KB+P endgame drawn?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;bishop-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28156" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28155" CreationDate="2020-01-24T10:59:22.320" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;You cannot get a definitive answer, but in all likelihood, 99.99% it is a draw no matter who is to move (I am the type of person, who never says I am positive unless there is 100% proof, and that is impossible here, however likely).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The overwhelming factor in this position is that the black bishop does not control the a1 square, so even if white had no pawns, it would be a draw. It is clear that white can also never break the blockade either if black just plants his king on c6. It would remind me of an opposite color bishop blockade, but white has no bishop. Just Kc6, and Bd5-h1 with an easy draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only reasonable exception would be if somehow white played a5, and later was zugzwanged into having to play b5 (like eventual stalemating the king on a1, forcing b5. That said, just avoid a5 (white can actually play b5 right now if on the move to avoid that issue).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems like a pretty easy draw either way to this long-time Master.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S. My Stockfish at a depth of 48 still reads 0.00&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-01-24T11:16:39.773" LastActivityDate="2020-01-24T11:16:39.773" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28157" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28155" CreationDate="2020-01-24T11:04:10.467" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes this should be drawn because: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;White has pawns only on one side of the board, and thus cannot overload the bishop (which can sometimes be achieved if you have pawns on both flanks).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Black king is well positioned to blockade the pawn advance, and in particular preventing the white king to get to &lt;code&gt;c5&lt;/code&gt; and cover the two connected passers.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;b5&lt;/code&gt; will always we met with &lt;code&gt;a5&lt;/code&gt; fixing the weak pawn on &lt;code&gt;a4&lt;/code&gt; which can be targeted by the bishop as soon as the king start chasing the bishop. And of course blacks keeps the pawn by playing &lt;code&gt;a5&lt;/code&gt;, i.e., white cannot simply ignore the queenside and roam around the board chasing the bishop.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Concretely, here are a few ways the game can proceed, in all of which black holds comfortably:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [title &quot;Trying some possible continuations&quot;]&#xA; [fen &quot;8/3k3/p7/2Pb4/PP6/2KP4/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. b5 a5 2. c6+ (2. Kd4 Bb3 3. Kc3 (3. c6+ Kd6 {again not allowing Kc5}) Bxa4 4. Kc4 Bd1 {and black holds trivially as white king cannot leave the a-pawn running.}) Kc7 3. Kd4 Kd6 (3...Bb3 {cannot allow Kc5 after c6 has been played, else white will be able to advance the connected pair of b-c pawns and win} 4. Kc5 Bxa4 5. b6+ {white wins}) 4. c7 (4. Kc3 Be6 {and black simply sits, white cannot make progress without losing pawns.}) Bb7 {and the c pawn is lost next.}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3594" LastActivityDate="2020-01-24T11:04:10.467" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28158" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28096" CreationDate="2020-01-24T12:13:35.163" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I landed on this topic from the sidebar on the right, so I'm not a member of the competitive chess community, but I am familiar with this question from other games and hobbies.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My suggestion is to look outside of chess to other communities and find out what has worked and what has not. This question is far from unique to chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To perhaps start the search, I found this after a little bit of searching...&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://kotaku.com/the-makers-of-magic-the-gathering-say-theyre-trying-to-1833274912&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;The Makers of Magic: the Gathering Say They're Trying to Make It Less of a Boys' Club&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21302" LastEditorUserId="21302" LastEditDate="2020-01-24T12:24:05.770" LastActivityDate="2020-01-24T12:24:05.770" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28159" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28127" CreationDate="2020-01-24T13:17:56.450" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm Italian and I can confirm the pronounces posted on this site: &lt;a href=&quot;https://forvo.com/word/fianchetto/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://forvo.com/word/fianchetto/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21303" LastActivityDate="2020-01-24T13:17:56.450" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28160" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28220" CreationDate="2020-01-24T13:49:33.713" Score="3" ViewCount="251" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have been implementing a chess engine myself and it is playing pretty good but it seems to calculate way too many nodes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was looking at this post: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.talkchess.com/forum3/viewtopic.php?t=67884&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Stockfish nodes&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And tested it with my engine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Nc3[48.0]:     depth: 01(+0)    time[m:s:ms]: 00:00:059 total:        64    terminal :        21    fullNodes:        22    qNodes:        21&#xA;d3[-5.0]:      depth: 02(+0)    time[m:s:ms]: 00:00:006 total:       157    terminal :        48    fullNodes:        61    qNodes:        48&#xA;Nc3[43.0]:     depth: 03(+0)    time[m:s:ms]: 00:00:010 total:       771    terminal :       224    fullNodes:       323    qNodes:       224&#xA;Nc3[-5.0]:     depth: 04(+0)    time[m:s:ms]: 00:00:010 total:      1494    terminal :       415    fullNodes:       664    qNodes:       415&#xA;Nc3[15.0]:     depth: 05(+0)    time[m:s:ms]: 00:00:010 total:      2827    terminal :       787    fullNodes:      1253    qNodes:       787&#xA;Nc3[-10.0]:    depth: 06(+0)    time[m:s:ms]: 00:00:029 total:     11695    terminal :      3128    fullNodes:      5439    qNodes:      3128&#xA;Nf3[15.0]:     depth: 07(+0)    time[m:s:ms]: 00:00:163 total:    100382    terminal :     28074    fullNodes:     44234    qNodes:     28074&#xA;Nf3[-1.0]:     depth: 08(+0)    time[m:s:ms]: 00:00:205 total:    152551    terminal :     42087    fullNodes:     68377    qNodes:     42087&#xA;Nf3[6.0]:      depth: 09(+0)    time[m:s:ms]: 00:01:267 total:   1594238    terminal :    451868    fullNodes:    690326    qNodes:    451956&#xA;Nf3[-5.0]:     depth: 10(+0)    time[m:s:ms]: 00:00:982 total:   2470195    terminal :    690833    fullNodes:   1087889    qNodes:    691153&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(These are results for a search to depth 10 using iterative deepening and no quiescence search.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically at depth 10, the amount of nodes I am searching is almost 100 times the amount of nodes stockfish has searched.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Enabling transpositions brings this number down to 1.5 million which is still way more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe some information about my search: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;- PVSearch&#xA;- LMR: if node is one of the first 4 or a capture, no reduction is done.&#xA;       if depth &amp;gt; 4, I reduce by depthLeft/3&#xA;       else I reduce by 1.&#xA;- Move ordering:&#xA;       I sort the moves in the following order:&#xA;       pv moves &amp;gt; good captures &amp;gt; killers &amp;gt; bad captures &amp;gt; no captures&#xA;- Null moves&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One problem is that I do not use bitboards for move generation so I do not know if a move puts the king into check or not. (legal moves are only used for the first 2 plys)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I do not know how I could further decrease the amount of nodes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is this only the effect of a hyper-aggressive LMR? What else should I&#xA;  try?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;UPDATE:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I just tested some things and realised that I sort the pv move first every time I sort the moves. So I implemented that the pv move should only be sorted first if and only if it is the first node (like the left most node in the tree).&#xA;I went down to 150000 nodes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20782" LastEditorUserId="20782" LastEditDate="2020-01-24T15:20:07.673" LastActivityDate="2020-01-28T19:54:09.680" Title="Moves per depth in search engines" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28162" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28152" CreationDate="2020-01-24T15:15:57.257" Score="-3" Body="&lt;p&gt;No.  Not the way the Russians thought anyway.   It may raise your BP as you have trouble playing well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have played, and won, blindfold games. &lt;em&gt;They do not increase your strength.&lt;/em&gt; But they are harder and not in a  useful way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The truth is that you have to play well first, to be able to do blindfold chess at all.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2020-01-25T08:59:58.670" LastActivityDate="2020-01-25T08:59:58.670" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28163" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28135" CreationDate="2020-01-24T16:08:50.360" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Consider black's e4 knight in this following position. If black moves the knight, white will experience a discovered check from the light-squared bishop. Is that scary? It's frightening! For instance, a move like &lt;code&gt;1.Qh3&lt;/code&gt; can be met with &lt;code&gt;Nf2+&lt;/code&gt;, double attacking the king and the queen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[title &quot;Variation from lanturegge vs sicariusnoctis (Bullet)&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;r6r/pp1n1kp1/2pp2b1/7p/2PPn2b/4P3/PPK1B1Q1/R1B5 w - - 1 18&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Qh3 Nf2+! 2. Kc3 Nxh3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How many squares is such a knight attacking? Well, there's the 8 squares that a centralized knight can move to in one jump:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/xrE32.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/xrE32m.png&quot; alt=&quot;one knight jump&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But because of the discovered check, the knight effectively attacks all squares that it can move to within two jumps:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/7poox.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/7pooxm.png&quot; alt=&quot;two knight jumps&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's 35 squares. That's more than half the board. In fact, taking away the knight changes the computer evaluation by 13 points. (After moving the white king out of check.) That's more than a measly 9 point queen!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the white queen were to rest on &lt;em&gt;any&lt;/em&gt; of these squares, then black could convert this tactical advantage into a material one and capture that queen!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1090" LastEditorUserId="1090" LastEditDate="2020-01-24T16:17:51.350" LastActivityDate="2020-01-24T16:17:51.350" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28164" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5062" CreationDate="2020-01-24T19:28:30.300" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know this is a super old question. I made a program that outputs all the positions a knight can be relative to starting position within six moves(which happens to be the maximum number of moves needed to get anywhere) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;0: (0, 0) &#xA;1: (2, 1) &#xA;2: (2, 0) (3, 3) (4, 2) (3, 1) (1, 1) (4, 0) &#xA;3: (3, 2) (5, 4) (4, 1) (3, 0) (6, 1) (6, 3) (4, 3) (5, 0) (1, 0) (5, 2) &#xA;4: (7, 3) (6, 4) (5, 5) (6, 6) (7, 1) (4, 4) (6, 0) (6, 2) (7, 5) (2, 2) (5, 1) (5, 3) &#xA;5: (7, 4) (6, 5) (7, 0) (7, 6) (7, 2) &#xA;6: (7, 7)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Number on the left is turn number, and the list on the right corresponds to all the positions the knight can be in with duplicate positions removed (we don't care that you can go back to your starting position for example, these are the shortest paths to each of these positions). Also, no negative numbers are represented. For example 2,1 -2,1, 2,-1 and -2,-1 are all considered the same position. Also the biggest number is always shown first. For example (4,2) means the night can move 4 spaces in some direction, and then 2 in an orthogonal direction. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One more caveat is that these numbers are the theoretical minimum with no pieces in the way, and a theoretical infinite plane to work with. That is, to achieve this could potentially require moves that exit the game board and come back. I think it only requires exiting in rare cases. For example, if you're in a corner of a board and want to move 1,1 toward the center, the 2 moves that should be able to do this require you going out of bounds first. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Memorizing this is probably not that useful, but there's some interesting takeaways that may be worth noting. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, it takes a whole 3 moves to move a knight 1 square forward. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2525" LastEditorUserId="2525" LastEditDate="2020-01-24T19:43:02.230" LastActivityDate="2020-01-24T19:43:02.230" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28165" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28127" CreationDate="2020-01-24T19:39:03.683" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Italian, c is pronounced like English &quot;ch&quot; or &quot;tsh&quot; before &quot;i&quot; and &quot;e&quot; and like &quot;k&quot; (unaspired) before &quot;a&quot;, &quot;o&quot;, and &quot;u&quot;.  If you want it as &quot;k&quot; before &quot;i&quot; and &quot;e&quot;, you add an &quot;h&quot; in between, if you want it as &quot;tsh&quot; before &quot;a&quot; (and probably the other dark vowels as well), you add an &quot;i&quot; in between that is not (or hardly) being pronounced.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similar with &quot;g&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So ciabatta is &quot;tshah-baht-tah&quot;, giotto is &quot;jot-to&quot;, Giuseppe is &quot;ju-sep-pe&quot;, fianchetto is &quot;fee-ahn-ket-to&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user21310" LastActivityDate="2020-01-24T19:39:03.683" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28166" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19292" CreationDate="2020-01-24T21:11:41.973" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;At 1500 openings are not your problem.  Trying to play tactical slash and burn is a problem and a poor strategy for improving.  You may like them but they are not the best approach.  And when you play someone better they will skin your cat quickly.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Go for solid openings off the main lines that everybody plays.  Use principles to guide your moves not trying for gambits and tactics.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If all  you want to do is stay at 1500 and have fun without improving then ignore this advice and keep playing like you do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastActivityDate="2020-01-24T21:11:41.973" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28167" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26453" CreationDate="2020-01-25T02:31:20.437" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;White has a possible way to break in.  Just one way.&#xA;But there is a   risk that white might lose if he does that. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but the b on h8 is dead so it really does not cost that much to try.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have not analysed in depth so you run through an engine if you care.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;horsies on a3 and c3,   bishop on b2 or c1  and Q on d3 or e2 or f1.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and it looks like q on e2  and the b on c1   would be the easiest with the other moves needed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;would have to do this subtly so black does not move his horsie to c7 which will take 3 moves and then guard the b5 pawn with the queen taking one more move.  maybe start with q b2  and a horsie to a3&#xA;then move the b to look like you are blocking the q from the a file.&#xA;move white q to its square then maneuver the other horsie into position. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;white will have to act dumb and do funny maneuvers to get to the point where he move for the break before black is ready.  no guarantees but it could happen. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;finally&#xA;sac a horsie for the pawn on b5&#xA;win a second pawn&#xA;advance pawns on band c files &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastActivityDate="2020-01-25T02:31:20.437" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28168" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25039" CreationDate="2020-01-25T02:34:06.577" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is endgame theory?   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Endgames are just special cases and principles that have been worked out over analysis of millions of end game positions and then codified into categories of similarities. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And it is not easy as there are many special cases and exceptions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You will have to do all that by yourself  for  your new nuclear version of chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastActivityDate="2020-01-25T02:34:06.577" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28169" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28176" CreationDate="2020-01-25T07:02:03.140" Score="6" ViewCount="439" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm a little confused about this. I know pawn structure and centralization of the king is essential in the endgame and I also know that activity, especially from the rooks is very important. Playing with little space also seems to create far too much tactical problems, although it often seems playable according to computer engines that I use to look at the match after it's over (playable not very pleasant to play with so little space). However, it seems that there is not much strategy beyond trying to be the one with the superior minor piece or superior rook or superior king and the better structure and going after the square and pawn weakness.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know there's some endings with mating attacks against the king, but this usually requires rook on the 7th/2nd, at least two pieces, a safe king (to prevent forks and a perpetual check), and a weak opposing king. Sacrifices might not necessarily be required, but often are. These conditions are a bit hard to get even against players that are not very good. I suppose all these advantages for a mating attack on the end would have to be forced in the middle game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, I know the strategy and some cool tactics can also revolve around passed pawns and piece imbalances or space (lack of space) and I also know there's some interesting piece sacrifices, like those you do with exchanging a minor piece for 2 pawns but you get to lock all the opponent's pieces and kill counterplay. Zugzwang is also pretty cool. But still, maybe I'm just not very good at positional sacrifices and tactics to try to make things more interesting, however it seems to me that it is very hard to materialize a win in very balanced endings, even against some poor, but not so poor players. So, there's more to endings that I don't know? Maybe trying to force complex theoretical endings could make things more interesting? (Not sure if I would know how to do that and even so my opponent can just know the solution for such theoretical ending too?). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyway, another point is about king safety. With one rook and 3 minor pieces on both sides around I'm usually scared of king centralization, while with one rook and 2 minor pieces around on both sides I'm usually in doubt of whether I should centralize my king or not. Any easy tips to assess the safety of a king which is not on the first rank? Also, I was watching a blitz match between Hikaru and another GM and I noticed really a lot of pawn pushs, knight moves, just some rook moves and even fewer king moves by both sides, maybe they were just trying to do fast chess and that's the strategy somehow, but it made me really curious. Finally, can you quickly think in situations where the endgame king is more needed in the flank than in the centre? Situations where it is not so obvious why, like passed pawns running to queen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21318" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2020-01-25T20:41:10.793" LastActivityDate="2020-01-27T13:34:44.497" Title="What is important in the endgame besides centralization and activity?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28170" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28169" CreationDate="2020-01-25T14:31:10.820" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You seem to have everything covered.  Do you have a sample game to share?  Perhaps the challenge is to know when to convert one kind of advantage to another, or lack of knowledge of the basic end game positions like &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;in a KRP vs KR ending when the pawn is on the fifth rank and the enemy&#xA;  king is cut off by one file...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe it is just that endgames are hard.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Endings are my favorite part of the game, if I am studying I most often am studying endings.  It may also be my weakest phase of the game when I lose won positions because I miscounted a tempo 12 moves out.  Somehow I seem better at counting tempos against weaker opponents.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17425" LastActivityDate="2020-01-25T14:31:10.820" CommentCount="11" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28171" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28169" CreationDate="2020-01-25T14:46:45.863" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Winning!  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is where you convert those small positional advantages into an actual win.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mating happens but is rare as the theme.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Promoting a pawn is a big theme in many endgames.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Gaining material so you can promote a pawn is important and often involves tactics.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Subtlety such as the opposition and timing is important in many endgames.  What looks like a choice of equal moves can be the choice between winning and losing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You seem too scared to move your king into the endgame.  I will move mine much earlier than you note.  I often wont castle or castle long so I can get my king to the center faster than the other side when we get to the end game.  Of course you do need to ensure they cant launch an attack that would work.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You need to learn more specialized positions to win in close games.&#xA;Know what can win and what only draws will guide you to getting to the winning type position instead of ending up with a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most players are weak in end games.  Learning them will boost your rating way up.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Knowing end games will help you plan your middle game so as to arrive at a winning endgame not a losing or drawing one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And you do need to know basic mates in case you get to such a position.  And yes I have had KBN vs K in an OTB game.  It takes a little work to figure out how to mate or you could study it and know the ideas well for when you do get that ending.  KNN vs KP is a rare bird and has very special cases for winning.  But if you can see how to corner the other king with your KN then you can release the pawn blocked by the 2nd horsie and move it to mate before they Q the pawn and can start checking  you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What  you need is to read some books on endgames and see how they are done to better understand that what you think is not that accurate as stated in the first question post. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastActivityDate="2020-01-25T14:46:45.863" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28172" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22175" CreationDate="2020-01-25T14:52:22.517" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;More tactical training.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After you have been mated that way once and mated the other king with it a couple of times you will always see it immediately.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That mate is so obvious to me now that I see it at a glance.&#xA;Other mates may take some time to calculate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do all the smothered mate type tactics problems from some online site and you should be good to go.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastActivityDate="2020-01-25T14:52:22.517" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28173" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15306" CreationDate="2020-01-25T15:00:45.600" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Points are irrelevant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Points vary all over the place depending on the actual position.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;KR vs K has more useful mobility and work together easily to mate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;KBB take more effort as you cannot remove a file/rank from the other kings possible moves so you have to think and envision squares that are covered by the Bs.  This takes more effort than visualizing a rook and the squares it covers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;KBN is just the same but trickier as you envision the covered squares.  Top GMs see squares covered at a glance. Most weaker players have to work and count them to see what is happening. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastActivityDate="2020-01-25T15:00:45.600" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28174" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28096" CreationDate="2020-01-25T17:11:20.673" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Those who play chess do it for the fun of it, not to satisfy the fevered dreams of some gender-centric ideologue. Why is there this ceaseless push to pathologize social circles populated by men? There is nothing stopping you crybullies in building the chess clubs of your own desires.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Quit treating society like a petri dish and humans like cattle!!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21326" LastActivityDate="2020-01-25T17:11:20.673" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28175" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28160" CreationDate="2020-01-25T21:39:13.983" Score="-3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Too many nodes?  As long as the response time is fast enough then more nodes is better. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastActivityDate="2020-01-25T21:39:13.983" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28176" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28169" CreationDate="2020-01-26T00:05:24.323" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your question meanders a lot, but I think what you are asking is, “What factors other than king centralization and piece activity are crucial to the endgame?”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have highlighted three areas below in bold that not more important than the other areas discussed, but just that they are not often discussed, so you can take note of them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You hit on a lot of them in your question, so I may reiterate some of them here. The first thing is that endgames, despite their simplicity, require an incredible amount of calculation. They tend to be very specific in nature, and often we see that moving a piece to a specific but seemingly equal square, often a rook, is the difference between winning, drawing, or even losing. There are A LOT of mistakes made in endgames, even by the greatest of players. So, in essence, your comment about there not being much strategy is both true, and not true. You must keep the strategic things below in mind, but ultimately, as in much of chess, it comes down to brute-force calculation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ultimately, you are not going to get a set of catch-all rules for the endgame, but I will compile a list of things that you need to think about, but only endgame study and experience will allow you to prioritize them for any specific position you may end up having so you can, hopefully, calculate the proper course you should take. I will say that focusing on this area of the game, and taking many opponents into the endgame by trading, you will win a lot of points. I have only recently started to go to local clubs again after many years, and I have been playing a lot of 1800-2000 players in blitz, and while I often beat them like a drum in the middlegame, occasionally, they manage to stay equal until the endgame, but only then, they make mistakes and lose equal endgames. Being a bit older now, I can say that while I overlook things in the middlegame, and even hang material from time to time, I do not recall any of them ever outplaying me in an endgame and actually winning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;One thing that you touched upon that is SO important, that I feel compelled to discuss, is how much of higher-level chess is about trading off your bad pieces for your opponent’s good pieces. This is in the opening, middlegame, and endgame. Entire plans are often based on this key point, and games are frequently decided by this one factor. Listening to GM Peter Svider’s broadcasts on chess24.com, he often discusses this specific to a position in passing. It is like a masterclass listening to him, in general, so I cannot recommend it enough.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, here is as complete a list of endgame factors to consider as I can compile.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;You must know basic theoretical endgames. The book “100 Endgames You Must Know: Vital Lessons for Every Chess Player” by GM Jesus de la Villa, and its companion workbook, are highly recommended for this aspect. Since we are all looking for positions that are familiar to us, you will be aiming for positions in this book most of the time, whether as the player, who is trying to win, or the player, who is trying to hold the game and draw. Knowing some of the famous drawing positions like your opponent having a bishop and rook-pawn, but the bishop does not control the queening square (obviously with your king able to get to the queening square) are critical to good endgame play. Or, knowing that you can still draw in some queen versus lone pawn positions if the pawn is a bishop- or rook-pawn on the 7th with your king nearby is another example.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Planning: Be prepared to plan strategically based on the factors that follow below. If the position is quiet, you will simply have to decide where you want your pieces, and how to get them there in the best manner. This planning starts in the middlegame, and thinking about active transitions into the endgame.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Extra material, whether an extra pawn, or trying to convert an exchange (for example, knowing that rook and pawns versus knight and pawn endings are often some of the easiest to win).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;You have probably heard this a million times, but when up in material, trade pieces, not pawns as the pawn’s value increases when there is less material on the board.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Conversely, if you are behind, you want to trade pawns in the hope that it will leave your opponent with a single pawn that will be impossible to promote, or maybe that you can sacrifice a lone remaining minor piece for it, leaving an immediate drawn ending.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Strange material imbalances. Sometimes, and this is always scary, is a piece for three connected passers. This is a VERY general rule, but knowing that if the three passers are at 3rd, 4th, and 5th rank is usually a draw, but further back, they are a loss (assuming other material still on the board for the side with the piece), and on the 4th, 5th and 6th, often a win.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;King Position, often centralization, but also the ability to shoulder the other king out (that means to keep the king from approaching, or forcing him to take a longer route so you gain a tempo or two), or is the king cut off (often in rook endings), or even the ability to go where the other king cannot follow because he would be going outside the square. &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess24.com/en/watch/live-tournaments/tata-steel-challengers-2020/11/1/5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;For example, just yesterday, Smirnov resigned to Anton Guijarro because he could go wide, and Smirnov could not stop him by following since h5 would win.&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The opposition in pawn endings.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Piece activity, and as you said, often rooks (on the 7th), but a bad bishop is another common example of a piece that can have limited activity, especially when tied down to defending its own pawns. This can often lead to the closely-related zugzwang, a frequent visitor in bad-bishop endings.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Weak squares: Just because the middlegame has passed, that does not mean that you cannot still think about weak squares. The famous &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1119725&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Cohn-Rubenstein, St. Petersburg 1909&lt;/a&gt;, endgame comes to mind. Rubinstein made a beeline to the weak square h3, and then advanced his kingside pawns, leaving him with the better, and winning, king position.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Pawn structure: This includes protected passed pawns, damaged structures, the ability to create a passed pawn, especially an outside passed pawn, and pawn islands. Are all the pawns on one side of the board, making it more likely the game will be draw? Corollary to my last sentence: Knowing that the structure f2-g3-h4 makes it hard for the opponent to make a passed pawn, even when down 4-3 pawns all on that same side, thus this is often desirable.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Advanced pawns and the threat of promotion (or actual promotion), both for queening directly, but also for just tying down the opposing side, and keeping them busy. Having an advanced pawn when down a pawn, or even more material, can also be an equalizing factor since it forces the opponent to be tied down to prevent the pawn from queening.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The ability, even at the cost of a pawn sacrifice, to create two passed pawns that are far separated, often in opposite colored bishop endings. In &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1143956&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Topalov-Shirov, Linares 1998&lt;/a&gt;, Shirov uncorked one of the greatest moves in chess history, 47…Bh3!!, with the sole goal of creating passed pawns so far apart that Topalov’s bishop could not deal with them.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Unbalanced pawns when up a pawn: This is a very crucial topic, and one that is not often discussed. If you have an extra pawn, such as 2 to one for your opponent to 3 to one for you, you have the opportunity to create two passed pawns to your opponent’s one passed pawn. This strength is amplified if they are connected. This factor, which happens in rook endgames frequently, can make an endgame a lot worse than it otherwise might appear material-wise.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Tactics: There are more tactics in endgames than most people realize, but they mostly do not make it into most tactics books since they are more bare-bones tactics. When an endgame position is very complex, you cannot use basic principles, and you must calculate the same way you would a complex middlegame position. Coincidentally, right now, I am reading the only book I know of that is dedicated to endgame tactics, “Van Perlo's Endgame Tactics: A Comprehensive Guide to the Sunny Side of Chess Endgames”.  This book, in its fourth edition, is a labor of love, and covers tactical areas including pawn breakthroughs, zugzwang motifs, bare-bones mating attacks, and stalemate tricks among others. I highly recommend it.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The drawing tendencies of rook endgames. There is an old Savielly Tartakower (sometimes attributed to Tarrasch) saying that “all rook endgames are drawn”. Obviously, that is not true, but it is just an exaggeration about their drawing tendencies, and you need to keep that in mind when trying to win or draw.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Opposite-colored bishops, and their drawing tendencies. In opposite-colored bishop endings, the stronger side still wants to put their pawns on the opposite color of their bishop, but the weaker side may actually want to put their pawns on the same color as their bishop since it can be defended so easily now.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Bad bishops (opposing either a good bishop or a good knight). Try to avoid placing pawns on the same color as your bishop at all costs if your opponent has a same-colored bishop as you, or a knight.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Good knights in blocked positions (often opposing a bad bishop).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Bad knights (they do not defend well against rook pawns).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Having two bishops in the endgame is often a decisive factor.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Fortresses. We often see this in opposite-colored bishop endings, but there are many in other endgames too.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Another thing that I see a lot: Players, who are winning a close ending, but they take the time to hunt an extra pawn, when they could be taking that time to push their own pawns that much further. I mostly see this in rook endings. Sure, take the extra pawn if it is a direct part of your plan, or it is getting in the way of a direct part of your plan, or because it is actually dangerous to you; but otherwise think first about pushing your pawn(s). Imagine how many pawns you will be able to take later if you are up a piece. You may not get the chance if you went pawn hunting for the sake of pawn hunting.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The famous Shereshevsky quote: “Do not hurry”. Often an endgame is drawn, but you can lull your opponent into making a mistake by entering a position that looks similar to one that you have previous had during the game, but there is a small difference. Your opponent loses their sense of danger, and you pounce. Of course, there are times where time is of the essence, and you must act immediately, but if the position is semi-locked, this strategy can be useful.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Aim for endgames that you are familiar with, and know how to win. This goes back to my very first point: Know basic theoretical endgames.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-01-26T11:32:16.693" LastActivityDate="2020-01-26T11:32:16.693" CommentCount="13" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28177" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28169" CreationDate="2020-01-26T00:27:14.710" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are two key factors in endgames which you haven't touched on. These are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Calculation&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Evaluation&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You need to be able to calculate very well. The endgame is generally the best area of the game for computers because calculation is basically what computers do best. Excellent calculation will allow you to work out the consequences of your alternative moves&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once you have calculated what you think will/may happen in a particular situation then you need to be able to quickly evaluate the resulting position and decide if it is one you want to aim to reach or one to avoid.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ultimately most endgames come down to either rook, pawns plus king or pawns plus king and you need to learn the different possible king, rook and pawn structures and how to win them (no point in knowing the position is won if you don't know how!) or how to draw them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For king and pawns endgames you need to understand:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Passed pawns and how to create them&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opposition_(chess)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;opposition&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zugzwang&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Zugswang&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;: positions where the player to move has to make a losing move&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangulation_(chess)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Triangulation&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;: taking advantage of superior mobility to force zugswang&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corresponding_squares&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Corresponding squares&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;: if your opponent moves the king to a certain square you have to move your king to a specific square&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/blog/Michel2426/mined-squares&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Mined squares&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;: squares you must avoid moving your king to and conversely your opponent must avoid moving his king to. Usually moving to a &quot;mined square&quot; allows the opponent to make a move which forces zugswang&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-01-26T00:27:14.710" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28178" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-01-26T14:25:36.470" Score="8" ViewCount="2781" Body="&lt;p&gt;I hate standard chess. Sitting there on your ass for hours on end obsessing over every single little move... it's a nerd's game. It's often talked about as being a game of intelligence, but there's a reason why computers are so much better at chess than humans, while there's no robot out there creating breakthroughs in mathematics or science. Because it's not about intelligence, it's tedious calculation and nothing else. Ultimately, all it comes down to is doing the calculations and memorizing the lines. It's a game for computers, not for humans.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is for this exact reason that so many games end in draws. Because there's a limit to the degree that we humans can calculate and memorize lines, hence the best players are often equally good at it, hence nobody is at an advantage, hence it's a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I'm fascinated by bullet chess, or as a maximum, 3 minute blitz. Now, this is a game for humans. It's not about how nerdy you are with your calculations, it's about something that is a bit more ... intangible. It's about &lt;em&gt;instinct&lt;/em&gt;... &lt;em&gt;intuition&lt;/em&gt;, ... a certain feel for the flow of the game. These are human notions that you can't program into a computer, and that's what makes it so fascinating to me. I mean, a computer can play bullet too, but importantly, the computer does not think of bullet like a human does. The human plays it differently. However, in standard chess, both the human and the computer are doing the same thing: endless calculations. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So with that in mind, my question is, how good can you get at bullet chess, without playing standard chess at all? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For what it's worth, I am ranked 2300 on lichess (bullet), 2000 (3-min blitz) and 1800 (10-min rapid). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21333" LastActivityDate="2021-03-20T16:11:25.503" Title="How good can you get at bullet chess without playing standard?" Tags="&lt;bullet-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28179" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28178" CreationDate="2020-01-26T14:35:42.533" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Been there done that,  done both.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You won't be much better than you can do OTB.&#xA;Most players will be a few hundred rating points lower.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Top GMs can play speed chess almost as good as they do OTB.&#xA;Most people play much worse.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How well you do at fast chess depends on how well you play.&#xA;You would do much better if you played at a fixed increment that you must take between moves.  In the old days that was ten seconds and we had weekly tournaments which greatly improved my OTB ability and kept me out of time trouble. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bullet is its own game.  If you enjoy it then go for it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should consider G10  and even tournaments at G30SD if you truly want to improve and also play slightly slower blitz games. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do  you have an OTB rating?  I will guess that if you do not and start playing OTB it will be closer to 1500 or less.  But you could be that genius that does really well. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastActivityDate="2020-01-26T14:35:42.533" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28180" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28178" CreationDate="2020-01-26T14:47:40.147" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think that bullet is a skill that is half chess, but half is simply the ability to think and move quickly, which is the domain of young people. Yes, you can clearly get very good at it relative to your standard level of play. Your ratings seem to prove that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I still question whether bullet is really good for your chess on a deeper level, but you do not seem to care about that, so if you are having fun, by all means, enjoy it. Nevertheless, this may still ultimately make you plateau permanently since bullet is very shallow in terms of depth of understanding. Plateaus vary from person to person, so just how good you can get will ultimately be something that you will have to just play and find out where you stand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you ultimately want to improve your depth of understanding, you do not have to choose between sitting there for hours, and bullet. You can play more using controls that are more of a happy medium.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2020-01-26T14:47:40.147" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28181" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28184" CreationDate="2020-01-26T21:13:01.500" Score="25" ViewCount="6210" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there any way to take knight and save rook at same time?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please do tell name, so I can search on YouTube.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 f6 3. Nxe5 fxe5 4. Qh5+&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21325" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-01-26T21:51:47.470" LastActivityDate="2020-08-16T02:33:04.967" Title="Can anyone tell me name of this opening where knight is sacrificed?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28182" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28181" CreationDate="2020-01-26T21:26:46.473" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;The opening you are after is Damiano Defense: &lt;code&gt;1.e5 e4 2.Nf3 f6&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that after &lt;code&gt;3. Nxf3 fe?&lt;/code&gt; is a mistake, &lt;code&gt;3...Qe7&lt;/code&gt; keeps the material equal. There is no way to take the knight and save the rook as far as I know.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="307" LastActivityDate="2020-01-26T21:26:46.473" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28183" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28181" CreationDate="2020-01-26T21:35:20.463" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The knight is not sacrificed. If black takes it then he will regret it. The best is to lose the rook and have a bad position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To answer the other half of your question: Ke7 saves the rook but leads to a terrible position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After QxP+, black has to play Kf7, then white moves Bc4+. It's all downhill from there until Black is mated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-08-16T02:33:04.967" LastActivityDate="2020-08-16T02:33:04.967" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28184" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28181" CreationDate="2020-01-26T21:47:18.930" Score="33" Body="&lt;p&gt;As Akavall said correctly, it is the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damiano_Defence&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Damiano Defense&lt;/a&gt;, and is named after Pedro Damiano (1480–1544).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since he answered the basic question about the name, I would not normally, but there is an additional part to the question, so I am going to add that 2...f6? is virtually a forced loss, no matter how you play it, and here is the analysis. So, no you cannot take the knight, and save the rook, or worse happens.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 f6 3. Nxe5 fxe5 $2 (3... Qe7 4. Nf3 Qxe4+ 5. Be2 d5 6. O-O {And black is already dead on the e-file. The immediate threat is Bb5+ and Re1 winning the queen. The ugly Ne7 is the best move here.} Ne7) 4. Qh5+ Ke7 (4... g6 5. Qxe5+ Qe7 6. Qxh8 Qxe4+ 7. Kd1 $18) 5. Qxe5+ Kf7 6. Bc4+ d5 (6... Kg6 7. Qf5+ Kh6 8. h4 $1 Qe7 9. d3+ g5 10. hxg5+ Kg7 11. Bd2 d5 12. Bc3+ Nf6 13. gxf6+ {And mates in four.}) 7. Bxd5+ Kg6 8. h4 h6 (8... h5 9. Bxb7 Bd6 10. Qa5 Nc6 11. Bxc6 Rb8) 9. Bxb7 Bd6 (9... Bxb7 10. Qf5#) 10. Qb5 Nf6 11. Bxa8 $18&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-01-26T23:20:59.870" LastActivityDate="2020-01-26T23:20:59.870" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28185" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28127" CreationDate="2020-01-26T21:48:51.200" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Fianchetto&lt;/em&gt; is commonly pronounced in English as /fiænˈ&lt;strong&gt;tʃ&lt;/strong&gt;ɛtoʊ/ (soft &lt;em&gt;ch&lt;/em&gt; as in &quot;cherry&quot;) but the original Italian word is pronounced /fjaŋˈ&lt;strong&gt;k&lt;/strong&gt;etto/ (hard &lt;em&gt;ch&lt;/em&gt; as in &quot;chaos&quot;). Note the word is cognate to English &lt;em&gt;flan&lt;strong&gt;k&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is common for terms borrowed from other languages to take on 'erroneous' pronunciations if the inherited orthography is ambiguous e.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;pistachio&lt;/em&gt; (Italian: /k/; English /tʃ/)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;bruschetta&lt;/em&gt; (Italian: /sk/; English: /ʃ/)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15647" LastEditorUserId="15647" LastEditDate="2020-05-01T22:30:05.367" LastActivityDate="2020-05-01T22:30:05.367" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28186" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30154" CreationDate="2020-01-26T21:49:07.537" Score="4" ViewCount="273" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am working on my chess engine and wanted to finally implement magic bitboards to get a huge increase in performance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically I was writing a method to check if a number can be used as a magic for a given attack mask. I took a look at this table: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessprogramming.org/Best_Magics_so_far&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;best magics&lt;/a&gt; and tried to verify if these can actually be used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I tested it with the index 48 (rook on a7). I should probably say that I am working in Java and there are no unsigned values but this is not a problem because all shift-operations still work the same and the given magic for a7 is positive anyway.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I took the mask and populated it with some random blockers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;mask:                     random blockers:&#xA;&#xA;00000000                  00000000&#xA;01111110                  00110010&#xA;10000000                  10000000&#xA;10000000                  10000000&#xA;10000000                  10000000&#xA;10000000                  00000000&#xA;10000000                  00000000&#xA;00000000                  00000000&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I then took the magic number (0x48FFFE99FECFAA00) and took the random blockers bitboard and multiplied them. the result and the shifted result looks like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;result                    shifted&#xA;&#xA;00000111                  00000000                           &#xA;00011110                  00000000&#xA;10011110                  00000000&#xA;01010101                  00000000&#xA;00000000                  00000000&#xA;00000000                  00000000&#xA;00000000                  11100000&#xA;00000000                  11000000&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The problem here is that the amount of bits does not equal the one of the random blockers which is a problem because the bits in shifted result must be the same as the amount of bits in the random blockers bitboard. Also different random blockers inputs resulted in the same output.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Can somebody verify this? Where did I go wrong?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Also I was wondering how long it takes to generate the magic numbers.&#xA;  My code was running for a few seconds and did not find a single one (I&#xA;  checked about one thousand). What is the density of valid magics?&#xA;  1/1000 ? 1/10000000?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;My last question is: Why are people trying to reduce their tables sizes of magics? I keep seeing this and people seem to have a real battle about who can go below x kByte. Is there a specific reason for this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I found the problem with the magics. I compared the shifted result and they were the same for some blockers. but these had the same actual attack set.&#xA;I am very happy for any kind of help!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20782" LastEditorUserId="20782" LastEditDate="2020-01-27T08:54:52.977" LastActivityDate="2020-06-26T17:03:58.993" Title="Are these magics wrong?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;programming&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28187" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19292" CreationDate="2020-01-26T23:30:25.077" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;At that rating level, you’re better served by playing simple openings and concentrating on getting better at chess in general, so any opening, offbeat or mainline, that requires weeks or months of study is sub-optimal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Spend your chess study time learning chess tactics and endgames, spend enough time on the opening to understand what you should have played last game instead of preparing for a line that may never end up on your board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="657" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-04T17:08:11.473" LastActivityDate="2020-03-04T17:08:11.473" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28188" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28178" CreationDate="2020-01-26T23:42:06.310" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;My friends and I used to play chess everyday before school started in high school. We were all more or less novices, knew the rules and nothing more, absolutely terrible lol. Our games were probably between a 3-0 and 5-0 min control. We didn't really measure the time we just knew we had between 25-30 mins to play a few games before classes started. I remember thinking chess games were supposed to be an hour long ordeal or more, and that we were somehow breaking an unholy rule for our fast games, didn't care though, they were a lot of fun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I graduated 11 years ago, and since then i've played online, 1 and 3 min only games. Initially i played a few 10min and even 5 min games but i quickly learned how ridiculously easy it is for people to cheat, (yeah i cheated a few times too, i was still new to the game and a sore loser... lol). Anyway since then, i've learned all my tactics and pattern recognition from just playing and watching other really strong players play. ChessNetwork (Jerry), Kingscrusher, agadmator and the ChessBrahs have been my main influences on Youtube and Twitch. The ChessBrahs Eric and Aman really pushed me to get better because they're so damn good and entertaining lol. Currently i'm 2135 bullet 2148 blitz on Lichess, and can easily maintain a 2100 rating in both. On Chess.com i'm 1950 bullet and 2018 blitz and can easily maintain and 2000-2050 rating in both. &quot;SoDamnMetal&quot; on both sites, hit me up for a game sometime. I feel like the cheaters are much more abundant on chess.com and my ping is not so good there either for some reason even though i live in the US. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Literally everything i know about chess is from bullet and blitz games and i find it hilarious how many people who get frustrated in bullet/blitz tournaments and say you absolutely cannot get better at chess through these time controls. These are the kind of people that rattle off theory and opening book moves like they're rain man or the next Bobby Fischer or something but you look at their profile and they're rated 1200-1500 xD. I know 0 about theory and openings, I believe the core of chess is tactics and pattern recognition, and your only limit is how much practice you put into them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd like to get into a rapid and standard time control eventually but idk, the ease of cheating kind of has me jaded, plus the thrill of chess for me is the high octane, low time controls. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21337" LastActivityDate="2020-01-26T23:42:06.310" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28189" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19292" CreationDate="2020-01-27T03:18:01.003" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;An opening repertoire for someone who has no time to study should not aim at getting an advantage, but aim instead to create situations in which you feel at home and in which your opponent will have difficulty taking you out of that &quot;comfort zone&quot;&#xA;As White the combination of d4 and Bf4 has been called the businessman's opening for just that reason. As Black the Center Counter is a reasonable choice against 1.e4 Although White can often get an advantage by precise play, your present opponents are unlikely to be able to do that. But do avoid being purely passive. Against 1.d4, there is a lot to be said for the Dutch. You will almost certainly get the structure that you like (Stonewall or Leningrad).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do not worry that this repertoire is unlikely to take you to the highest levels. You are not going there anyway unless your life takes a turn giving you more time to study, so worry about it then.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastActivityDate="2020-01-27T03:18:01.003" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28190" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28169" CreationDate="2020-01-27T04:05:15.630" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Much wisdom in all of the above, but nobody has yet mentioned &lt;em&gt;the principle of two weaknesses&lt;/em&gt;. If the weaker side has a weak pawn that can be attacked, they will be limited in their freedom to manoeuvre, and may be squeezed into zugzwang. However the defender may be able  to maintain a defence (Just by keeping a B on a certain diagonal for example) However, if there are two weaknesses, the attacker can often play against both of them, which makes a passive defence much tougher. A strong strategy is to create and attack one weakness and, while the ddefender is tied down to defending it, create the second weakness. This often requires a pawn thrust, so pawn movesmust remain available.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While on the topic, I have to mention the glorious proverb that &quot;nothing is weak if it cannot be attacked&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastActivityDate="2020-01-27T04:05:15.630" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28192" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28219" CreationDate="2020-01-27T05:00:18.830" Score="5" ViewCount="166" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am trying to write a simple chess engine in Javascript. It performs very slowly but I have finally rooted down the problem to check detection. How might I speed up this check detection? If you have any questions or need any clarifications feel free to ask.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Check detection takes approximately 10-20 milliseconds.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is the code:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;function availableInvalidSpots(board, player) {&#xA;    let validPositions = [];&#xA;    let playerPositions = getAllPieces(player, board);&#xA;    for (position = 0; position &amp;lt; playerPositions.length; position++) {&#xA;        validPositions.push(getUncheckedMoves(playerPositions[position], board));&#xA;    }&#xA;    return validPositions;&#xA;}&#xA;&#xA;function getPiecePosition(piece, board) {&#xA;    for (rowCount = 0; rowCount &amp;lt; 8; rowCount++) {&#xA;        for (columnCount = 0; columnCount &amp;lt; 8; columnCount++) {&#xA;            if (board[rowCount][columnCount].pieceName == piece) {&#xA;                return {&#xA;                    x: columnCount,&#xA;                    y: rowCount&#xA;                };&#xA;            }&#xA;        }&#xA;    }&#xA;}&#xA;&#xA;function getPlayerInfo(pieceType) {&#xA;    return (pieceType == blackPieces ? {&#xA;        king: &quot;blackKing&quot;,&#xA;        opponent: whitePieces&#xA;    } : {&#xA;        king: &quot;whiteKing&quot;,&#xA;        opponent: blackPieces&#xA;    });&#xA;}&#xA;&#xA;function setPlayerInfo(player, board) {&#xA;    let PLAYER = getPlayerInfo(player);&#xA;    let opponent = PLAYER.opponent;&#xA;    king = PLAYER.king;&#xA;    kingPosition = getPiecePosition(king, board);&#xA;    opponentMoves = availableInvalidSpots(board, opponent);&#xA;}&#xA;&#xA;function isPlayerInCheck(player, board) {&#xA;    setPlayerInfo(player, board);&#xA;&#xA;    for (opponentMove = 0; opponentMove &amp;lt; opponentMoves.length; opponentMove++) {&#xA;        for (square = 0; square &amp;lt; opponentMoves[opponentMove].move.length; square++) {&#xA;            if (opponentMoves[opponentMove].move[square].to.x == kingPosition.x &amp;amp;&amp;amp; opponentMoves[opponentMove].move[square].to.y == kingPosition.y) {&#xA;                return true;&#xA;            }&#xA;        }&#xA;    }&#xA;    return false;&#xA;}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21341" LastEditorUserId="15989" LastEditDate="2020-01-27T06:49:03.517" LastActivityDate="2020-01-28T19:31:11.657" Title="How can I speed up my check detection in Javascript?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;programming&gt;&lt;check&gt;&lt;performance&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28193" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-01-27T05:03:24.057" Score="3" ViewCount="868" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there any easy way to know you can win a pawn just by applying pressure on the opening? So, if you guys can help me with examples of winning pawns just by applying pressure on each phase, opening, middle game and endgame, I would be very grateful. Also, when to apply pressure on the endgame?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks for the attention.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: Sorry for writing mistakes, it is really hard to write on the phone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21318" LastEditorUserId="21318" LastEditDate="2020-01-27T05:38:33.853" LastActivityDate="2020-01-27T15:43:12.023" Title="About how to win a pawn by applying pressure-Looking for examples" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;pawns&gt;&lt;winning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28194" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-01-27T08:00:32.417" Score="6" ViewCount="1121" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can anyone kindly guide me on how White has won in this picture of the end of an OTB game?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/5tIdu.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21343" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-01-27T08:52:16.370" LastActivityDate="2020-01-27T12:53:30.660" Title="How is White winning in this OTB position?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;winning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28195" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28224" CreationDate="2020-01-27T08:03:59.297" Score="2" ViewCount="100" Body="&lt;p&gt;In scid on the go on android, latest version, I would like to search for a given pawn structure in the current database.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In &quot;search&quot; then &quot;search current board&quot; the closest to &quot;search a pawn structure&quot; would be &quot;same material, all pawns on same squares&quot;, but it will obviously not provide what I am looking for. Plus, the &quot;search current board&quot; would concern ... the current board, while I would rather prefer to search directly the database. For this we have the &quot;search&quot; then &quot;search header&quot; menu, but it doesn't contain searching for a given pawn structure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Am I missing something or is this not possible in Scid on the go on android ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(I am not putting the scid tag as this is not a question related to scid (where searching for a pawn structure is by the way possible) but to the android app scid on the go.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20949" LastEditorUserId="20949" LastEditDate="2020-01-27T18:08:28.987" LastActivityDate="2020-01-29T12:36:10.100" Title="Pawn structure search in Scid on the Go" Tags="&lt;android&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28197" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28194" CreationDate="2020-01-27T10:24:51.583" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the picture, it could be either the two simply agreeing to the draw, or black resigning, depending on who has the move. Both are typically followed by a handshake.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White to move is a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;8/3k4/5p2/3K1P1p/7P/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. Kc5 {The only move} Kc7 {Again the only move.} 2. Kd5 Kd7= {Both sides are forced to repeat here, and it is a draw.}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, black to move loses as black has to cede space, and then material.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;8/3k4/5p2/3K1P1p/7P/8/8/8 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1... Ke7 2. Kc6 Ke8 3. Kd6 Kf7 4. Kd7 Kf8 5. Ke6 Kg7 6. Ke7 Kg8 7. Kxf6 Kf8 8. Kg5 Kf7 9. Kxh5 Kf6 10. Kg4 $18&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-01-27T12:53:30.660" LastActivityDate="2020-01-27T12:53:30.660" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28198" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28193" CreationDate="2020-01-27T10:35:40.227" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am sorry to say that the answer is &quot;no&quot;, there is no &quot;easy way&quot; to apply pressure and win a pawn in the opening, otherwise, at the top level of chess, the game would be won every time. That is what positional chess is about: You gradually improve your position until the opponent can no longer save all of the material.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A theorem of chess is that you must be better to &quot;attack&quot;, or even to apply pressure in a specific area of the board, you have to be better in that area. Being better in a specific area of the board, or the whole board, is a result of good positional chess on your part, or bad positional chess by your opponent. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Usually, players do not start getting a good grasp of positional chess until they are about 1800 over the board (not just online).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Probably the easiest way to win pawns is to cram thousands of tactics problems, and get better at those, so when your opponent drops material, then it is easy to see it, and take it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am not going to get into a long explanation of positional chess since there are currently 374 other questions about it, and I know that I have discussed it at length before, but &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/27945/advice-for-breaking-lichesss-2000-rating-mark/27949#27949&quot;&gt;I will leave you with one link to a question I answered.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-01-27T11:51:32.747" LastActivityDate="2020-01-27T11:51:32.747" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28199" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28193" CreationDate="2020-01-27T12:45:56.143" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's possible to win a pawn in the opening, but because it is the &lt;em&gt;opening&lt;/em&gt; (i.e. heavily analyzed), you can't do it by force. You can only do it if the other side lets you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Two Knight's Defense with 4. Ng5 is effectively a pawn-up opening for White, although it's not obvious. You might want to take a look.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Nf6 {Starting position of the Two Knights} 4. Ng5 {This practically wins a pawn by force, but Black gets active counterplay in compensation.} d5 {It's this or the even more audacious and tactical 4...Bc5, giving up the f7-pawn for activity.} 5. exd5 Na5 {5...Nxd5?! is a &quot;well-known bad move&quot;, since White gets to play 6. d4 or O-O opening the center intending a straightforward attack. 5...Nd4 and b5 are alternatives} 6. Bb5+ c6 7. dxc6 bxc6 8. Be2 {Safe square for the Bishop while retaining freedom of mobility for the d-pawn. White could also play 8. Qf3, which wins a second pawn, but after 8...Rab8 Black has some very dangerous compensation.} h6 {Gaining time.} 9. Nf3 e4 {Gaining more time} 10. Ne5 {Black is down a pawn and has the inferior pawn structure, but is way ahead in development, and can now try 10...Qc7, 10...Qd4, 10...Bd6 or 10...Bc5 to try for an initiative before White consolidates.}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastActivityDate="2020-01-27T12:45:56.143" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28200" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28194" CreationDate="2020-01-27T12:48:41.117" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Assuming it's black to move this is a very simple win. White has the opposition and a strong king position. I would recommend reading up on the opposition. White can effectively &quot;push&quot; the black king back because black has no alternative. A decent endgame player will see this as a win almost instantly. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2020-01-27T12:48:41.117" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28201" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28169" CreationDate="2020-01-27T13:34:44.497" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You're overthinking a lot of details and missing the big picture. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first thing you look at in an endgame is the pawn structure. How many pawns on each side, passed pawns, potential passed pawns etc. Where are you able to create a passed pawn and how are you able to turn that into a win. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Only after that do you consider the pieces. Try to trade into a favorable endgame. A lot of that comes down to understanding basic endgames and what wins and what doesn't. For example I would avoid a bishop of opposite colors ending if I'm playing for a win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once you've done all that and centralized your king and created a passed pawn now what? If your opponent can defend that pawn you need to create a second weakness to break down the position. If you have the superior position to begin with it shouldn't be that hard. Continue breaking down their position until they can't stop you. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The other thing I would say would be to rely more on raw calculation and less on general rules of thumb. With fewer pieces in the endgame you can usually calculate things much deeper than you could in an opening or middle game. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2020-01-27T13:34:44.497" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28202" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24493" CreationDate="2020-01-27T14:44:30.527" Score="5" Body="&lt;h2&gt;&lt;code&gt;3.Nd2&lt;/code&gt; is more exact as it maintains flexibility over the &lt;code&gt;c&lt;/code&gt;-pawn!&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How that might be relevant becomes clearer when considering specific cases, for instance, as &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/24494/3594&quot;&gt;pointed out by fuxia&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;code&gt;3.Nd2&lt;/code&gt; avoids the possibility of &lt;code&gt;3...g6.&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More precisely, in view of the concrete &lt;code&gt;3...g6&lt;/code&gt; option:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;&lt;code&gt;3.Nc3&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;Nc3&lt;/code&gt; blocks the &lt;code&gt;c&lt;/code&gt;-pawn and allows black to comfortably aim for the solid kingside fianchetto setup with &lt;code&gt;3...g6&lt;/code&gt;, providing the &lt;code&gt;g7&lt;/code&gt; bishop decent scope on the long &lt;code&gt;a1-h8&lt;/code&gt; diagonal along which multiple&#xA;white targets stand. Although the immediate &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt; response in an attempt to close the diagonal is possible, black is well able to keep playing on the dark squares and undermine white's &lt;code&gt;d4,e5&lt;/code&gt; setup with early &lt;code&gt;f6, c5&lt;/code&gt; and white has to &#xA;invest extra tempo to reinforce with &lt;code&gt;c3&lt;/code&gt;. Moreover, white often ends up with a temporarily (until &lt;code&gt;f4&lt;/code&gt; can be played) weak isolated pawn on &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;which black should target.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;With the fiachetto'ed bishop on &lt;code&gt;g7&lt;/code&gt;, black wants to keep the play on the &lt;em&gt;dark squares&lt;/em&gt; and further enable their bishop. In view of this, the delayed advance of the &lt;code&gt;c2&lt;/code&gt;-pawn means white is slower in shifting the central tension over to &lt;em&gt;light squares&lt;/em&gt;, which in turn means black gets comfortable equalising chances, as their fight for the center goes unchallenged.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For a demonstration of the &lt;code&gt;3.Nc3 g6&lt;/code&gt; line, first game that springs to mind is &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/QZvleaPA&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Smyslov vs Seirawan&lt;/a&gt;, where black benefited from a better fight for the center, exploiting the pressure on the long diagonal and white's delayed &lt;code&gt;c&lt;/code&gt;-pawn advance to trade the &lt;code&gt;c7&lt;/code&gt; for the &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt; pawn and establish a pawn majority in the center (see the diagrams below, progression from left to right). And black proceeded to draw the game comfortably while having the better endgame (dominating white's pawns on the queenside after &lt;code&gt;c4-b5&lt;/code&gt; conceding an outpost to the &lt;code&gt;d7&lt;/code&gt; knight).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/kVZlSm.jpg&quot; width=&quot;220&quot; height=&quot;220&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/FtWxzm.jpg&quot; width=&quot;220&quot; height=&quot;220&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Kkf2Nm.jpg&quot; width=&quot;220&quot; height=&quot;220&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Caption:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Left:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt; is not firmly defended and cannot be reinforced with &lt;code&gt;c2-c3&lt;/code&gt;, thus remains prone to exchanges with the &lt;code&gt;c7-c5&lt;/code&gt; pawn followed by the &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt; advance.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Middle and right:&lt;/strong&gt; White's &lt;code&gt;Ne2, c4&lt;/code&gt; has been too slow (green), thus, black finds a timely resolution of white's central pawns (red), after which black achieves a  clear pawn majority (right diagram) in the center (blue).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;&lt;code&gt;3.Nd2&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;3.Nd2&lt;/code&gt; instead of &lt;code&gt;Nc3&lt;/code&gt;, maintains flexibility over the &lt;code&gt;c&lt;/code&gt;-pawn, in particular, it prevents &lt;code&gt;3...g6&lt;/code&gt; as white can readily strike in the center (with &lt;code&gt;c4&lt;/code&gt;) and immediately challenge black on the light squares (diagram below), specially in reply to black setups typified by the pervious diagrams.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/FXdDM.jpg&quot; width=&quot;250&quot; height=&quot;250&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Alternatively, if instead of an early &lt;code&gt;f6&lt;/code&gt; black opts for &lt;code&gt;Bg4&lt;/code&gt; pinning the &lt;code&gt;f3&lt;/code&gt; knight and undermining &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt;'s defense, then white has the important fortifying option of &lt;code&gt;c2-c3&lt;/code&gt; readily available. Therefore, after &lt;code&gt;3.Nd2&lt;/code&gt;, the &lt;code&gt;g7&lt;/code&gt; bishop stands poorly on the long diagonal which renders the whole &lt;code&gt;3...g6&lt;/code&gt; option much less attractive for black.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/h8G9j.jpg&quot; width=&quot;250&quot; height=&quot;250&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In contrast to the game against &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasily_Smyslov&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;V. Smyslov&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatoly_Karpov&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Karpov&lt;/a&gt; never extended the same kindness towards &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yasser_Seirawan&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Seirawan&lt;/a&gt; and always played the more exact &lt;code&gt;3.Nd2&lt;/code&gt; (example games: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1066994&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;(1)&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1067000&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;(2)&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1067004&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;(3)&lt;/a&gt;). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3594" LastActivityDate="2020-01-27T14:44:30.527" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28203" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28193" CreationDate="2020-01-27T15:43:12.023" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You cannot apply pressure on an opening.  You apply pressure on a weakness which may or may not occur in the opening. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sorry there is no magic way to win a pawn in the opening or the other guys would already have been doing that and there would be no point to ever playing the game. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you have an edge in position you might be able to apply pressure to win material in the middle game. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the end it is more likely to be tactical than applying pressure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastActivityDate="2020-01-27T15:43:12.023" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28205" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9815" CreationDate="2020-01-27T20:00:10.743" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It means that OTB it would take you a long time to figure out the best move and that you are still likely to choose the wrong one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastActivityDate="2020-01-27T20:00:10.743" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28206" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28221" CreationDate="2020-01-27T21:38:05.333" Score="2" ViewCount="209" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would like, if possible, for someone to provide a code snippet of a basic logic to access a Polyglot book file. I'm having trouble finding the file format documentation, so I don't know how to access it and use it in the code. I'm making a chess game and would like to use the books to support features in the game. If not too much trouble, I would rather have a c# code sample, since it's the language I'm fluent with right now. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21348" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-01-28T17:23:12.603" LastActivityDate="2020-01-28T20:30:03.463" Title="How to use a Polyglot book in C# with a chess engine" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;engines&gt;&lt;books&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28208" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2584" CreationDate="2020-01-28T00:15:48.883" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are two separate questions in the OP. Addressing both of them:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;So is it possible to expect different results from computer vs same computer on the same machine?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, because chess engines aren't completely deterministic. See &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/19482/randomness-in-engine-play&quot;&gt;this question&lt;/a&gt;. The answers to that question deal with traditional engines. The newer neural-network based engines are less random than traditional engines, but still not completely deterministic, for similar reasons.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I wanted to see if a computer can beat the same computer, on the same machine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Absolutely. The reason is simply that every move narrows the search tree. For example if you run Shredder in the starting position, it'll be searching everything from 1. e4 to 1. Na3. It'll eventually conclude that 1. Na3 is inferior to 1. e4, and not play 1. Na3, but it will still search 1. Na3. This is computing power that isn't going to searching the main branch. When Shredder is playing Black, it already knows what its opponent's first move is. It won't have to search for a response to 1. Na3 because those positions aren't happening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That said, the most likely result of a computer vs. computer game is a draw, so chances are you'll need to play several times before you get a decisive result.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you're interested, check out the Stockfish testing ground &lt;a href=&quot;http://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Fishtesting&lt;/a&gt;. Fishtesting tests new Stockfish patches against the old &quot;master&quot; version, accepting the patch if it beats the old version. As of time of writing, &lt;a href=&quot;http://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests/view/5e2f426aab2d69d58394fcec&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; is the most recent finished test. Note the results (in the yellow box at the top):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Total: 52195 W: 10011 L: 9955 D: 32229&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The new version played 52,195 games against the old one, winning 10,011 times and losing 9,955 times, with 32,229 draws.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T15:23:08.833" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T15:23:08.833" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28209" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14319" CreationDate="2020-01-28T02:39:15.737" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;That 3...d5 move is terrible for black.&#xA;And not many masters tried that bad move 3...d5. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;replying 4.0-0 is a mistake. a bad mistake. &#xA;white instead playing 4.p-d4 won every game played by masters.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would have played 4.nxp in reply to 3...d5 which wins at least a pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In one of the master games he played that knight takes move,  a move later, after 4.d4  and then after black had played 4...dxe4.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I prefer my pawn structure better with the move sequence I used. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There may be a name for this somewhere by somebody but I do not know what it is other than 'irregular' defense to Ruy. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastEditorUserId="14079" LastEditDate="2020-01-29T15:34:17.340" LastActivityDate="2020-01-29T15:34:17.340" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28210" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28212" CreationDate="2020-01-28T03:45:32.447" Score="25" ViewCount="8499" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there a first move for white in Chess960 in which white can immediately blunder a piece or lose a significant advantage (say -2.0 or so)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21350" LastEditorUserId="3594" LastEditDate="2020-03-11T16:33:58.943" LastActivityDate="2021-05-25T18:49:12.070" Title="What is the worst opening move in Chess960 for White?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;engines&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;programming&gt;&lt;chess960&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28212" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28210" CreationDate="2020-01-28T10:43:30.887" Score="41" Body="&lt;p&gt;This calls for some scripting, so here's my first hasty attempt at it ;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's a quick way you can do the search on your own in &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.python.org/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;python&lt;/a&gt;, using &lt;a href=&quot;https://stockfishchess.org/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;code&gt;stockfish 10&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/a&gt; and only the &lt;a href=&quot;https://python-chess.readthedocs.io/en/latest/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;code&gt;python-chess&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/a&gt; package. &lt;strong&gt;All open-source and free-software!&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Briefly, what the script will do:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Consider all 960 positions, one at a time&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;For each position, it scans over all legal white moves&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;For each move, it evaluates the position with a engine ponder time given by user (e.g. 1 second)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If the evaluation is below the given threshold (e.g. &lt;code&gt;-2.0&lt;/code&gt;) then it shows the board, the FEN, the move and the evaluation. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;At the end everything will be saved in a text file, so you don't need to log the printouts in the terminal.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Examples found running the script for first 5 chess960 positions&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's showcase it for the first &lt;code&gt;5&lt;/code&gt; chess960 positions where:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The evaluation threshold is set to &lt;code&gt;-1.0&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The ponder time is &lt;code&gt;1.0&lt;/code&gt; second per move.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are the found cases: &lt;em&gt;(below is the saved results in a textfile, first column is the chess960 position FEN, 2nd column the move whose evaluation fell below the threshold, and the 3rd column is the corresponding evaluation)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;bbqnnrkr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/BBQNNRKR w KQkq - 0 1    g4  -2.19&#xA;bqnbnrkr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/BQNBNRKR w KQkq - 0 1    g4  -1.51&#xA;bqnnrbkr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/BQNNRBKR w KQkq - 0 1    g4  -1.66&#xA;qbbnnrkr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/QBBNNRKR w KQkq - 0 1    g4  -1.35&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;&lt;code&gt;1.g4&lt;/code&gt; seems to be commonly the worst move among the first 5 setups.&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Not so surprising, since in all the so far considered chess960 positions, namely the first 5, the king stands on the usual kingside (specifically, on &lt;code&gt;g1&lt;/code&gt;).&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Thus, &lt;code&gt;1.g4&lt;/code&gt; is a highly weakening move with the king on &lt;code&gt;g1.&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are the positions (&lt;strong&gt;updated&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;em&gt;3 more examples found by running script longer&lt;/em&gt;):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/uSaI8.png&quot; width=&quot;200&quot; height=&quot;200&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;sup&gt;&lt;i&gt; eval = -2.19 &lt;/i&gt;&lt;/sup&gt;&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/bTXge.png&quot; width=&quot;200&quot; height=&quot;200&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;sup&gt;&lt;i&gt; eval = -1.51 &lt;/i&gt;&lt;/sup&gt;&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/bBsT5.png&quot; width=&quot;200&quot; height=&quot;200&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;sup&gt;&lt;i&gt; eval = -1.66 &lt;/i&gt;&lt;/sup&gt;&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Tj7Wn.png&quot; width=&quot;200&quot; height=&quot;200&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;sup&gt;&lt;i&gt; eval = -1.35 &lt;/i&gt;&lt;/sup&gt;&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/t4Ljo.png&quot; width=&quot;200&quot; height=&quot;200&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;sup&gt;&lt;i&gt; eval = -2.8 &lt;/i&gt;&lt;/sup&gt;&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/WbBBO.png&quot; width=&quot;200&quot; height=&quot;200&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;sup&gt;&lt;i&gt; eval = -2.07 &lt;/i&gt;&lt;/sup&gt;&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/2a3BX.png&quot; width=&quot;200&quot; height=&quot;200&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;sup&gt;&lt;i&gt; eval = -2.12 &lt;/i&gt;&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Continue the search on your own using the script&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To go over all 960 positions takes a lot of time and computational resources. So I leave it up to you and other if they are interested, to run the script for longer ponder times, to scan all 960 positions, and to play with the evaluation threshold of interest. To do that on your own, here's the python script, using &lt;code&gt;Python 3.7.4&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;python-chess 0.30.1&lt;/code&gt;, and &lt;code&gt;Stockfish 10&lt;/code&gt; (place the engine file in same folder as the script):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;import chess&#xA;import chess.engine&#xA;import os&#xA;import sys&#xA;&#xA;arguments = sys.argv&#xA;pondertime = float(arguments[1])&#xA;evalthreshold = float(arguments[2])&#xA;#here we assume the engine file is in same folder as our python script&#xA;path = os.getcwd()&#xA;#Now make sure you give the correct location for your stockfish engine file&#xA;#...in the line that follows by correctly defining path&#xA;engine = chess.engine.SimpleEngine.popen_uci(path+'/'+'stockfish-10-64')&#xA;&#xA;lsfens = []&#xA;lsmoves = []&#xA;lsevals = []&#xA;&#xA;numberofpos = 960&#xA;&#xA;for i in range(numberofpos):&#xA;    board = chess.Board.from_chess960_pos(i)&#xA;    print('Currently analysing the position below')&#xA;    print(board)&#xA;    print('--------')&#xA;    for el in board.legal_moves:&#xA;        info = engine.analyse(board, chess.engine.Limit(time=pondertime), root_moves=[el])&#xA;        t = str(info[&quot;score&quot;])&#xA;        if t.startswith('#'):&#xA;                print(str(board.san(el)),&quot; eval = mate in &quot;, t)&#xA;        else:&#xA;            if round(int(t)/100.,2)&amp;lt;evalthreshold:&#xA;                print('Starting 960 position index: ', board.chess960_pos())&#xA;                print('Position FEN: ',board.fen())&#xA;                print(str(board.san(el)),&quot; eval = &quot;, round(int(t)/100.,2))&#xA;                lsfens.append(board.fen())&#xA;                lsmoves.append(str(board.san(el)))&#xA;                lsevals.append(str(round(int(t)/100.,2)))&#xA;    print('--------------------------------------')&#xA;&#xA;engine.quit()&#xA;&#xA;with open('FoundPositions_Pondertime_'+str(pondertime)+'_threshold_'+str(evalthreshold)+'.txt', 'w') as file:&#xA;    for i in range(len(lsfens)):&#xA;        file.write(lsfens[i]+'\t'+lsmoves[i]+'\t'+lsevals[i]+'\n')&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;How to run the script:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Copy paste the code into a textfile and save it with a name like &lt;code&gt;960evaluator.py&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Make sure you have python3 installed, similarly for &lt;code&gt;python-chess&lt;/code&gt; module (see &lt;a href=&quot;https://pypi.org/project/python-chess/#installing&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;here for installation&lt;/a&gt;) and have downloaded &lt;a href=&quot;https://stockfishchess.org/download/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;the stockfish binary for your OS&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Place the engine file and the script in the same folder, and open a terminal in that folder&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Run the script with the command &lt;code&gt;python 960evaluator.py 1.0 -2.0&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Note the &lt;strong&gt;first argument&lt;/strong&gt; you give after the script name is the &lt;strong&gt;ponder time&lt;/strong&gt; per move in seconds. The higher the ponder time value, the more accurate the evaluation.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The &lt;strong&gt;second argument&lt;/strong&gt; is the &lt;strong&gt;evaluation threshold&lt;/strong&gt;: that is, all positions with 1st move evaluations below the given value (in this example &lt;code&gt;-2.0&lt;/code&gt;) will be printed in terminal and saved at the end (you could do the saving while running so you can crash the script without losing the so far found cases).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Again, the found cases will be printed in terminal as they are found, but also saved in a text file placed in same folder as your script.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The terminal printouts will look like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Currently analysing the position below&#xA;b b q n n r k r&#xA;p p p p p p p p&#xA;. . . . . . . .&#xA;. . . . . . . .&#xA;. . . . . . . .&#xA;. . . . . . . .&#xA;P P P P P P P P&#xA;B B Q N N R K R&#xA;--------&#xA;Starting 960 position index:  0&#xA;Position FEN:  bbqnnrkr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/BBQNNRKR w KQkq - 0 1&#xA;g4  eval =  -2.19&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Have fun scanning, though do so with caution: &lt;strong&gt;running chess engines for long times on personal machines is bit risky as it quickly heats up!&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3594" LastEditorUserId="3594" LastEditDate="2020-01-28T13:40:07.137" LastActivityDate="2020-01-28T13:40:07.137" CommentCount="18" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28213" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28210" CreationDate="2020-01-28T11:02:11.777" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;You said &quot;blunder a piece&quot; or &quot;lose significant advantage&quot;, so how about mate since that is even worse? I could only find a few, but here they are.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since it takes at least two moves for there to be any interaction between pieces, I am going to start there, and use some logic, but I could still only find a very few.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, you have to keep in mind that traditional chess can, and has, been one of the starting positions in actual competitions, so this horrid opening comes to mind first as a logical starting place.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. g4 e6 2. f4 Qh4#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From that, we know that THE worst openings have to be mates of white in two moves (it still takes three moves for white to mate black). Of course, you can have the famous two-move mate that on the other side too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From here, I am just going to use pictures since I am not sure how PGN/FEN works for Chess 960.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/a8zV1.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/a8zV1.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is another mate with the queen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/kZd79.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/kZd79.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is another that is similar. I could just move this over a file, but I will not add any more like this with the king just hemmed in by rooks since you get the idea.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ePa1h.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ePa1h.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2020-01-28T11:02:11.777" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28214" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28218" CreationDate="2020-01-28T11:56:28.407" Score="10" ViewCount="431" Body="&lt;p&gt;Trawling through the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.saremba.de/chessgml/standards/pgn/pgn-complete.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;PGN standard&lt;/a&gt;, I was surprised by two of the specifications:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.saremba.de/chessgml/standards/pgn/pgn-complete.htm#c6&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;escape mechanism&lt;/a&gt; triggered by &lt;code&gt;%&lt;/code&gt; at the start of a new line:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;There is a special escape mechanism for PGN data. This mechanism is triggered by a percent sign character (&quot;%&quot;) appearing in the first column of a line; the data on the rest of the line is ignored by publicly available PGN scanning software. This escape convention is intended for the private use of software developers and researchers to embed non-PGN commands and data in PGN streams.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A percent sign appearing in any other place other than the first position in a line does not trigger the escape mechanism.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.saremba.de/chessgml/standards/pgn/pgn-complete.htm#c5&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&quot;rest of line&quot; comment&lt;/a&gt; initiated by a semicolon &lt;code&gt;;&lt;/code&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Comment text may appear in PGN data. There are two kinds of comments. The first kind is the &quot;rest of line&quot; comment; this comment type starts with a semicolon character and continues to the end of the line. [...]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They surprised me because I have never encountered them in any PGNs I've found &quot;in the wild&quot;, so to speak. &lt;strong&gt;Has anyone encountered PGNs where these (escape mechanism or semicolon comments) are used?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15989" LastActivityDate="2020-01-28T17:08:53.790" Title="Does any PGN actually use the '%' (escape) or ';' (rest of line comment) mechanisms?" Tags="&lt;pgn&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28215" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24493" CreationDate="2020-01-28T14:37:47.210" Score="-4" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is subtle and positional.  It avoids lines white does not want to see and does it without any drawbacks that are significant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastActivityDate="2020-01-28T14:37:47.210" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28216" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28210" CreationDate="2020-01-28T16:12:08.020" Score="-5" Body="&lt;p&gt;NO.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The pawns are still in front of the pieces.&#xA;Only the piece placement has been changed.&#xA;No pawn move will be as bad as you asked.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastActivityDate="2020-01-28T16:12:08.020" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28217" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28214" CreationDate="2020-01-28T16:42:55.150" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I do not know about the semicolon, as ChessBase does not seem to use it, but based on the standard, that may be an either/or thing, and everyone has just opted for the braces, {}, when programming.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, the percent sign is used regularly by ChessBase preceding the moves of an annotated game, and sometimes within the annotations also. I am not going to give entire games since they are copyrighted, but if you go to Mega2020, and click on &quot;Annotated Games&quot;, select a game, and then click Home&gt;Copy game, and paste it into Notepad, you will find that most, if not all, have something like what is below before move one. I have not found one that does not have it, but I am not going to do this for many thousands of games just to be positive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have no idea what it all means, but this might be what you are talking about. If not, please comment, and I will delete my answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;{[%evp 17,89,-32,13,-6,21,-7,12,-12,30,10,24,-7,20,-20,27,12,27,-19,0,-30,33,0,&#xA;0,-56,-20,-86,17,6,17,0,27,-52,-32,-59,62,-86,10,-2,48,0,47,34,53,0,8,0,124,66,&#xA;141,72,227,206,535,535,751,746,748,748,740,740,742,745,736,740,800,801,29988,&#xA;29989,29989,29990,29990,29982,29991,29980]} 1. e4 c5 2. Nc3 Nc6 3. Nge2 g6 4.&#xA;d4 cxd4 5. Nxd4 Bg7 6. Nb3 Nf6 7. Be2 d6 8. O-O O-O 9. Re1 b6 {etcetera - PhishMaster}&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here was another example with times.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;{[%evp 0,9,32,32,13,-10,-5,6,25,35,23,7]} 1. d4 {[%emt 0:00:03]} d5 {[%emt 0:&#xA;00:28]} 2. c4 {[%emt 0:00:08]} e6 {[%emt 0:00:00]} 3. Nc3 {[%emt 0:00:07]} c5 {&#xA;[%emt 0:00:05]} 4. cxd5 {[%emt 0:00:09]} exd5 {[%emt 0:00:19]} 5. dxc5 {&#xA;[%emt 0:00:05]} d4 {[%emt 0:04:20]} 6. Na4 {[%emt 0:00:07]} Bxc5 {[%emt 0:04:&#xA;40]}&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2020-01-28T16:42:55.150" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28218" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28214" CreationDate="2020-01-28T17:08:53.790" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can use the percent sign to comment out a line of text in your PGN file (&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.overleaf.com/blog/619-tip-of-the-week-add-inline-or-margin-comments-to-your-pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;similar to Latex&lt;/a&gt;). For example, if you'd like to include personal comments that categorize the games within the database, such as &lt;code&gt;% Games to study later&lt;/code&gt;. All such lines &lt;strong&gt;starting&lt;/strong&gt; with &lt;code&gt;%&lt;/code&gt; will not be interpreted by a PGN parser, so you can safely leave self-notes or other comments (that you might want to later parse in a script) in a PGN database. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An example of such a PGN file:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;% Interesting games from Wijk aan zee&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 Nf6 4. d3 d6 5. c3 a6 6. Ba4 Be7 7. O-O O-O 8. Re1&#xA;Re8 9. Nbd2 Bf8 10. h3 b5 11. Bc2 Bb7 12. d4 g6 13. a3 Nb8 14. d5 c6 15. c4 Nbd7&#xA;16. a4 Qc7 17. b3 Rec8 18. Ra2 bxc4 19. bxc4 a5 20. Nf1 Ba6 21. Ne3 Nc5 22. Nd2&#xA;cxd5 23. cxd5 Rab8 24. Ba3 Qd8 25. Qf3 h5 26. Raa1 Bh6 27. Rab1 Rxb1 28. Rxb1&#xA;Kg7 29. Nef1 h4 30. Ne3 Bf4 31. Nef1 Qc7 32. g3 hxg3 33. fxg3 Bh6 34. h4 Qd7 35.&#xA;Kg2 Nxa4 36. Bxa4 Qxa4 37. Bxd6 Qd4 38. Qf2 Qxf2+ 39. Kxf2 Bxf1 0-1&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;% Caro-Kann games:&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c6 2. Nf3 d5 3. Nc3 Bg4 4. h3 Bxf3 5. Qxf3 Nf6 6. Be2 e6 7. O-O dxe4 8.&#xA;Nxe4 Nxe4 9. Qxe4 Nd7 10. d4 Nf6 11. Qd3 Qc7 12. Rd1 Be7 13. c4 O-O 14. Be3 Rfd8&#xA;15. Qb3 Rd7 16. Bf3 Rad8 17. a3 h6 18. g3 b6 19. Kg2 c5 20. Qc3 a5 21. Rac1 cxd4&#xA;22. Bxd4 Ne8 23. h4 Bf6 24. Bxf6 Nxf6 25. b4 axb4 26. axb4 Rxd1 27. Rxd1 Rxd1&#xA;28. Bxd1 Kf8 29. Bf3 Ke7 30. c5 bxc5 31. bxc5 Kf8 32. Qb4 Ne8 33. Qb6 Qe5 34.&#xA;Bc6 Ke7 35. Bxe8 Kxe8 36. c6 Qd6 37. Kg1 g5 38. h5 f5 39. Qb7 Qd1+ 40. Kg2 Qd5+&#xA;41. Kh2 Qd4 42. Kg1 Qd1+ 43. Kg2 Qd5+ 44. Kh2 Qd4 45. Kg1 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can experiment with this by loading the PGN file (like the above) on for example &lt;a href=&quot;https://chesstempo.com/pgn-viewer.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;chesstempo&lt;/a&gt; in order to sanity check the parsing, and see that those lines are indeed correctly ignored.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for annotations and the use of the semicolon see &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/15626/3594&quot;&gt;this answer&lt;/a&gt; by &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/users/12/andrew&quot;&gt;Andrew&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Briefly, the semicolon is another way of indicating move annotations but it's not efficient as it requires including redundant characters and line-skips per annotation, e.g.:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1. d4; closed system &#xA;1...d5 2. c4 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;instead of &lt;code&gt;1. d4 {closed system} d5 2. c4&lt;/code&gt;. And the semicolon notation is rarely supported by PGN parsers. So the use of curly brackets &lt;code&gt;{}&lt;/code&gt; is always recommended, as it's well supported, simple and intuitive to use and less prone to mistakes in the notation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3594" LastActivityDate="2020-01-28T17:08:53.790" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28219" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28192" CreationDate="2020-01-28T19:31:11.657" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It looks like your engine is using very simple for loop and arrays. Your code simply loop over again and again, possibly repeat each search iteration.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That’s obviously not good. Chess engine can’t run fast if it has to loop like that. If the position had no check surely all CPU time wasted?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My recommendation is change your data structure to a bitboard. Bitboard will allow you run check detection quickly, just do a AND the pieces your opponent can attack and your king position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2020-01-28T19:31:11.657" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28220" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28160" CreationDate="2020-01-28T19:54:09.680" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There’s no reason for you to scale down your engine doors if it’s fast. Why would you do that?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am sure Talkchess used to have a post about how chess engines report searched nodes differently. I can’t find it now it was a few years ago. Read it before... their search function is not good.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are interested in the difference you will need to read the SF source make sure how they increment the node counter is consistent to yours. Also you may want to test SF on your own machine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2020-01-28T19:54:09.680" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28221" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28206" CreationDate="2020-01-28T20:30:03.463" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sorry, I don't have C# code. Can we do it in C++?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/Warpten/Fruit-2.1/blob/master/src/book.cpp&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://github.com/Warpten/Fruit-2.1/blob/master/src/book.cpp&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Polyglot book is defined like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;struct entry_t {&#xA;   uint64 key;&#xA;   uint16 move;&#xA;   uint16 count;&#xA;   uint16 n;&#xA;   uint16 sum;&#xA;};&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You may want to wrap the C++ code inside your C#. How to do that is out of scope here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2020-01-28T20:30:03.463" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28222" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28238" CreationDate="2020-01-29T03:51:14.963" Score="6" ViewCount="212" Body="&lt;p&gt;The overall arrangement of the pieces in Chess960 seems so weird that I have a question about it Should be castling at all?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21318" LastEditorUserId="21318" LastEditDate="2020-01-29T17:17:54.847" LastActivityDate="2020-05-15T18:50:02.357" Title="Is castling good in Chess960?" Tags="&lt;castling&gt;&lt;chess960&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28223" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28210" CreationDate="2020-01-29T04:38:41.727" Score="18" Body="&lt;p&gt;Using @Phonon's Python script, I was able to determine that the worst move is &lt;code&gt;1. g4??&lt;/code&gt; from the &lt;code&gt;BBQRNNKR&lt;/code&gt; starting configuration, or &lt;code&gt;1. b4??&lt;/code&gt; from its mirror image.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This evaluates to &lt;code&gt;-2.5&lt;/code&gt; in one second of Stockfish search.  Not quite a minor piece, but still a substantial handicap to recover from.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why is this position so powerful for the opponent?  The black Queen is able to threaten the advanced pawn as soon as its way is unblocked by &lt;code&gt;1. … d5&lt;/code&gt;; once there, White is in check after move 2!  Then, after &lt;code&gt;3. … Qxf2&lt;/code&gt; Black is able to fork several of White's pieces on the back rank, possibly including the other Rook.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This line begins:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1. …     d5&#xA;2. c3    Qxg4+&#xA;3. Ng3   b6&#xA;4. d4    c5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Additionally the black Bishops have similarly direct lines to the white Kingside Rook and its pawn.  White can defend, but doing so immobilises several pieces and thus loses a lot of development tempo.  He also no longer has a viable pawn structure in front of his King.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The above is not even Stockfish's &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/analysis/chess960/bbqrnnkr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/BBQRNNKR_w_kqKQ__-_0_1#1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;preferred line&lt;/a&gt; for Black:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1. …     h5&#xA;2. gxh5  b6&#xA;3. Ng3   Ne6&#xA;4. Ng2   c5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;…after which Black has a Rook on a semi-open file, two Bishops pointing at White's King and several pieces (which, as predicted, are pinned down in defensive positions), and a quite acceptable pawn structure and control of the centre.  White has none of these things.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Extending the analysis time to 5 seconds, the evaluation of this position and its mirror image deepen to &lt;code&gt;-2.79&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;-2.81&lt;/code&gt; respectively.  Their nearest rivals are around &lt;code&gt;-2.54&lt;/code&gt; at this level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19281" LastEditorUserId="19281" LastEditDate="2021-05-25T18:49:12.070" LastActivityDate="2021-05-25T18:49:12.070" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28224" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28195" CreationDate="2020-01-29T10:02:47.527" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a not missing anything and it is indeed not possible, confirmed by the app programmer, which pointed to me the repository of its app :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/gkalab/scidonthego&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://github.com/gkalab/scidonthego&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and saying that he won't provide any support/modifications except bug correction for scid on the go in the future. He is by the way happy to receive pull requests from other contributors, I will give it a try if I can spare time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20949" LastEditorUserId="20949" LastEditDate="2020-01-29T12:36:10.100" LastActivityDate="2020-01-29T12:36:10.100" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28225" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-01-29T14:55:30.810" Score="32" ViewCount="4342" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am currently studying the Tarrasch Defense &lt;code&gt;1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 c5&lt;/code&gt;, and naturally I've stumbled upon many Kasparov games as he frequentloy and quite successfully employed this opening throughout his career. In particular, in the game &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1070068&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Yasser Seirawan vs Garry Kasparov (1983)&lt;/a&gt;, a remarkable endgame position transpires:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [title &quot;Seirawan-Kasparov 1983, position of interest after move 47.f5&quot;]&#xA; [fen &quot;8/8/5p2/p1k2P1p/Pp2P2P/3K4/8/8 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA; [startflipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1...Kc6 2.Kc4 Kc7 3.Kd3 Kd7 4.Ke3 Kc6 5.Kd3 Kc5 6.Ke3 b3 7.Kd3 Kb4 8.e5 Ka3 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Kasparov wins this game, but his technique goes very quickly beyond me and I'm struggling to understand the maneuvers that followed, particularly, black starts retreating towards the 7th rank and then returns to &lt;code&gt;c5&lt;/code&gt;, and only then advances the &lt;code&gt;b&lt;/code&gt; pawn after white has to make a move away from the  its current &lt;code&gt;d3&lt;/code&gt; square. My questions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Did white miss any drawing chances in this position?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What was the plan underlying black's retreating king march?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Given this starting position, is one already able to recognize a winning pattern for black?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;My attempt with this question is to learn more about how to reason about such endgame and to understand how Kasparov composed this (to me counterintuitive) plan.&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15078" LastEditorUserId="3594" LastEditDate="2020-02-05T22:00:01.577" LastActivityDate="2020-03-05T11:31:43.603" Title="Demystifying Seirawan-Kasparov 1983 king and pawn endgame" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;pawn-endgame&gt;&lt;planning&gt;&lt;kasparov&gt;&lt;zugzwang&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28226" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28225" CreationDate="2020-01-29T15:39:41.173" Score="59" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this game Kasparov is showing a perfect demonstration of the triangulation technique in order to Zugzwang the white king. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To be in a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zugzwang&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Zugzwang&lt;/a&gt; means, any move loses or more generally, worsens your position, and one cannot simply pass the turn and maintain the position. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the diagrammed position, the key idea to spot is that white would be in Zugzwang if it was their turn to move. Let's see how by playing the position &#xA;assuming it's white's turn again after &lt;code&gt;47.f5&lt;/code&gt;: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [title &quot;(1) Same position as in the question, but white to move&quot;]&#xA; [fen &quot;8/8/5p2/p1k2P1p/Pp2P2P/3K4/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1.Ke3 {only move giving us some resistance} (1.Kc2 Kd4 {e pawn falls and black wins}) (1.e5 fxe5 2.f6 Kd6 {black's in time and wins}) (1.Ke2 Kd4 2.Kf3 b3 {b pawn promotes}) b3 (1...Kc4 2.e5 {and white draws}) 2.Kd3 Kb4 3.e5 Ka3 {last key move, stopping white's king from preventing b2, and black promotes first and with check, which wins trivially.}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Having spotted the winning idea when it's white to move, next comes the question of &lt;em&gt;how to achieve this Zugzwang position?&lt;/em&gt;&#xA;Essentially, black needs to find a way to pass the turn, that is, intentionally lose a tempo in order to have the same position but it being white's turn. This is called the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangulation_(chess)&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;triangulation&lt;/em&gt; technique&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Before unraveling Kasparov's triangulation plan, let's have a typical triangulation exercise:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Triangulation in Kings and pawns endgame:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the diagrammed position below, black has the opposition as it is white to move. One sign that triangulation might be possible to achieve is to realise that one king has &lt;em&gt;fewer&lt;/em&gt; squares than the other one. Here, black has only 2 squares &lt;code&gt;d7,c6&lt;/code&gt; in order to stop the advance of the &lt;code&gt;c&lt;/code&gt; pawn and shoulder the white king simultaneously, while its counterpart, the white king, has 3 squares &lt;code&gt;d5,e5,d4.&lt;/code&gt; So to pass the turn, the triangulation goes as: &lt;code&gt;1.Ke5 Kc6 2.Kd4 Kd7 3.Kd5&lt;/code&gt; and mission accomplished: &lt;strong&gt;white has the opposition now as it is black to move&lt;/strong&gt;. The resulting  opposition is winning as black is in Zugzwang: all 4 legal moves &lt;code&gt;Ke7, Ke8, Kd8, Kc8&lt;/code&gt; are losing (convince yourself as an exercise). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/TMHsjm.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/TMHsjm.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Kasparov's triangulation:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similar to our previous example: black has to achieve the same position but with white to move, so we need to waste a tempo and pass the turn. This immediately calls for a triangulation scheme! Its feasibility here lies again in the fact that white's king has fewer squares than black's. See the diagram below: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qKDUnm.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qKDUnm.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;where green shows black's triangulation plan, red shows black's threats, and blue shows white's only available squares, since:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;anything past the 4th row (e.g. white king chasing the black king) loses to the &lt;code&gt;b&lt;/code&gt; pawn promoting, &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;Kd4&lt;/code&gt; constantly loses to &lt;code&gt;Kd6&lt;/code&gt; (black has opposition and thus, wins the e4 pawn), &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;and finally descending to the 2nd rank (e.g. &lt;code&gt;1...Kc2&lt;/code&gt;) gives free access to the &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt; square for black, which again loses trivially (as white cannot defend both the &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; pawn and stop the &lt;code&gt;b&lt;/code&gt; pawn). &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, white only has the &lt;code&gt;c4,e3&lt;/code&gt; squares, i.e. fewer squares than black's king, which means the basic requirement for a successful triangulation is met, and we should be able to reach the desired position with white to move! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now let's see the plan in action (annotated diagram):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [title &quot;(3) Kasparov's triangulation and Zugzwang&quot;]&#xA; [fen &quot;8/8/5p2/p1k2P1p/Pp2P2P/3K4/8/8 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA; [startflipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1...Kc6 2.Kc4 Kc7 3.Kd3 (3.Kd4 Kd6 {and black has the opposition and wins as Ke5 can no longer be prevented}) Kd7 {the Zugzwang is already achieved: Kc4 leads to Kc6 Kd4 Kd6 black winning, and Ke3 completes black's triangulation as we will see} 4.Ke3 Kc6 5.Kd3 Kc5 {and triangulation completed: same position we started off from but with white to move! Black wins, the Zugzwang situation was discussed in diagram (1).}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Final remarks:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What a beautiful endgame! Don't be discouraged by the difficulty of these endgames, nor misled by the simplified depiction of the triangulation scheme above. Endgames, in particular kings &amp;amp; pawn ones, are known to be notoriously concrete and counterintuitive. Moreover, judging whether a successful triangulation is possible, is often far from being a simple matter. For example, in the above we constantly had to make sure all the other lines for white were indeed losing and that white's best bet lied in dancing along &lt;code&gt;c4-d3-e3,&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;em&gt;only then&lt;/em&gt; it made sense to compare which king has fewer squares! There's no singular-universally valid rule of thumb that tells us whether a triangulation leading to putting the opponent's king in Zugzwang exists or not. There are only signs, which need to be carefully considered.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The execution of these techniques, and the conversion of such endgames can never be achieved &lt;em&gt;intuitively&lt;/em&gt;, one mis-step and all our advantage and efforts are out the window. For instance, in the game as you showed in your diagram, &lt;code&gt;8...Ka3&lt;/code&gt; is in fact the &lt;em&gt;only&lt;/em&gt; move that wins! To improve, focus on expanding your knowledge of endgame techniques (opposition, triangulation, Philidor/Lucena positions, etc), and in practical play, in order to recognise whether a combination exists, like in the Kasparov game, the mindset generally is: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;spot an idea (e.g. is it Zugzwang if I pass? like in the above game) &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;calculate relevant variations (see if technically the found idea is achievable, e.g. in the above: can I achieve a successful triangulation?)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Evaluate the final positions in your calculations (like we did above for all the discussed losing variations)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3594" LastActivityDate="2020-01-29T15:39:41.173" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28227" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4733" CreationDate="2020-01-29T16:32:21.333" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is positional to help black achieve equality.  The steinitz defense forces black to give up the center or lose a pawn.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is one alternative to try.  The cozio is okay but not quite as good at achieving equality as good.   The berlin defense is another solid option slightly better than morphy a6.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bb4 by black has one of the better scoring statistics. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;f5 g6  Bc5  and many other moves give black a chance about as good as a6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So  do you prefer a given line,  want to get away from the most played variations, or what?  You gotta defend somehow.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastActivityDate="2020-01-29T16:32:21.333" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28229" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28242" CreationDate="2020-01-29T17:28:20.957" Score="1" ViewCount="479" Body="&lt;p&gt;To make my engine more efficient, I am writing my engine such that it uses bit-boards in its move generation. But I have a question, suppose I have a rook move mask centered at a specific spot, how might I transpose the rook mask so that it shows the moves for a different position? eg:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;from this mask:&#xA;[&#xA;    [0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0],&#xA;    [0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0],&#xA;    [0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0],&#xA;    [0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0],&#xA;    [1, 1, 1, &quot;R&quot;, 1, 1, 1, 1],&#xA;    [0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0],&#xA;    [0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0],&#xA;    [0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0]&#xA;];&#xA;&#xA;to this mask:&#xA;[&#xA;    [0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0],&#xA;    [0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0],&#xA;    [0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0],&#xA;    [0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0],&#xA;    [0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0],&#xA;    [1, 1, 1, &quot;R&quot;, 1, 1, 1, 1],&#xA;    [0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0],&#xA;    [0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0]&#xA;];&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you need any clarifications regarding the question feel free to ask.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21341" LastEditorUserId="21341" LastEditDate="2020-01-30T03:30:30.067" LastActivityDate="2020-01-30T13:32:11.767" Title="Chess move generation with bit boards in Javascript" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;programming&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28230" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28225" CreationDate="2020-01-29T17:43:44.987" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a stunning endgame.  It is impressive how Kasparov perfectly used reserve tempi to reach the winning position in the diagram where triangulation is all that remains after Seirawan's &lt;code&gt;40. e4??&lt;/code&gt; which was the last move of time-control. After this Seirawan is lost.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Seirawan annotates this game in his book full of stories &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/1857445872&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess Duels : My Games with the  World Champions&lt;/a&gt;.&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Kasparov annotates this game in his book &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/1857446720&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Garry Kasparov on Garry Kasparov, Part 1.&lt;/a&gt;&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17425" LastEditorUserId="3594" LastEditDate="2020-03-05T11:31:43.603" LastActivityDate="2020-03-05T11:31:43.603" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28233" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14458" CreationDate="2020-01-29T19:37:12.750" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Its one variation.  Would work better with black B on d6.  Not that it is bad just different. And other moves seem slightly better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B-d3  and  pxp  would both work much better statistically.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would have played differently earlier on with black so this position would not be a consideration.  And as you note most games will vary widely the farther you get from the opening few moves. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastActivityDate="2020-01-29T19:37:12.750" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28234" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19348" CreationDate="2020-01-29T19:51:03.703" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Depends how good you all are.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At the highest GM level o-o has the highest winning statistics by far.&#xA;At lower levels it fairs much worse where d3 or nxe5 results are better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can you play the rest of the game like a GM then go for 0-0  but if not then perhaps you should still play d3 as d4 does not do well in actual play by all players.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastActivityDate="2020-01-29T19:51:03.703" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28236" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14458" CreationDate="2020-01-29T22:24:47.080" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;C5 is a move I generally don't like, because it realeses a tension in the center that is generally healthy to have in order to dispute the advantage (and tactics may always lurke when pawns are in contact!). With this said, there are in deed positions in which giving up this tension in exchange of a lot of space is reasonable, usually when the b6 breakthrough has been weakened (by a6/a5 or c6, for example). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would recommend a careful analysis before playing c5; it gains valuable space, but gives up valuable tension. Only the specific characteristics of the position, in conjuction with the style of chess you like to play, will determine if this is worth it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21110" LastActivityDate="2020-01-29T22:24:47.080" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28237" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28240" CreationDate="2020-01-30T05:32:35.777" Score="15" ViewCount="2645" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recently finished a tournament &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/analysis/game/daily/248817582&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;game&lt;/a&gt; on chess.com as Black that ended in a draw. It was a knight (me) vs. bishop endgame with pawns strewn across the board. Here is the entire game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;jasonhaller-RewanDemontay, NARWHALS Winter Daily Tournament! - Round 1, chess.com, 1/21/2020&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;6k1/1pn3p1/p1p1p1p1/2Pp4/PP1P4/4P3/1B4PP/5K2&amp;quot;]&#xA;[startply &amp;quot;55&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. c4 e6 4. Nc3 Bb4 5. Qc2 Nf6 6. e3 O-O 7. a3 Bxc3+ 8. Qxc3 Bd7 9. Bd3 Qe7 10. c5 a6 11. b4 Na7 12. O-O Bb5 13. Re1 Bxd3 14. Qxd3 c6 15. Nd2 Nb5 16. a4 Nc7 17. Bb2 Rfe8 18. Nf3 Rab8 19. Ne5 Nd7 20. f4 Nxe5 21. fxe5 f5 22. exf6 Qxf6 23. Rf1 Qg6 24. Qxg6 hxg6 25. Rae1 Rf8 26. Rxf8+ Rxf8 27. Rf1 Rxf1+ 28. Kxf1 Kf7 29. Kf2 Kf6 30. Kf3 Ne8 31. Kf4 g5+ 32. Kg4 Kg6 33. g3 Nf6+ 34. Kf3 Ne4 35. h3 Kf5 36. g4+ Kf6 37. Bc1 g6 38. a5 Nc3 39. Bd2 Ne4 40. Be1 Kg7 41. h4 Kh6 42. Bg3 Nxg3 43. Kxg3 gxh4+ 44. Kxh4 g5+ 45. Kg3 Kg6 46. Kf3 Kf6 47. e4 Kg6 48. exd5 exd5 49. Ke3 Kf6 50. Kf3 Kg6 51. Kg3 Kf6 52. Kf3 Kg6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;During the game, I thought that was a draw from the moment the rook were exchanged, as I knew I would able to enable a blockade on the kingside, and that White couldn't do much with a bishop that was opposite the color of my pawns. It was be a bit of fight to me, since I had somewhat bad doubled pawns in my opinion, but I managed to pull it off.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, after the game, I checked the game with the engine, and it reported that my move 34... Ne4 was it mistake that drew that game! Instead, my only winning move, and the best move as well of course, was 34... Kf5!. This is a complete surprise to me. As far as computer analysis goes, it seems that Black is able to bust through White's camp, and the rest is an easy endgame. (By the way, I played 35... Kf5 to provoke White to check me with their pawn, which they did.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The fact that it was a knight vs. bishop endgame seems to be muddled my thinking. What could I have missed in the position to let such as easy win slip? What should I do to be able to find such winning ideas more easily and calculate them out? Additionally, was there anything else that I missed during my game, and how corectly did I play it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-04-30T12:44:30.920" LastActivityDate="2021-04-30T12:44:30.920" Title="The difficulty of finding the winning idea in this knight versus bishop endgame" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;learning&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28238" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28222" CreationDate="2020-01-30T05:38:29.560" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, castling is good, especially when you are about to be attacked by say, a knight and queen, a king castling to the other side is very good. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21373" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-01-30T05:50:16.490" LastActivityDate="2020-01-30T05:50:16.490" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28239" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28237" CreationDate="2020-01-30T09:21:54.850" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, cheer up, this is not an easy endgame and you should not kick yourself for missing a winning move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That said, it is possible to see that 34...Kf5 is your best bet. I'm not a particularly strong player, but:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The queenside is locked. You can't make progress based solely on the pawn structure. If White plays a5 you'll never get through. Given enough time (and you deciding to just sit on your hands) White could engineer a b5 cxb5 axb5 axb5 followed by Kb4-xb5 breakthrough, but that's of course not going to happen anytime soon.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;White's bishop is x-raying e5. You can't play that either without losing a pawn.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Therefore, your only chance of a breakthrough is on the kingside. Unfortunately you have doubled pawns here, but you also have points of entry on e4 and g4 (White's bishop being so bad is a plus for you). However, to access these points, you need to force White's king away, and you need to stop White from playing g4. Given a few more moves he can play h3-g4, and afterwards the position is just drawn.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With this in mind, Kf5 suggests itself. You set up to play g4 next move. If White moves his king, you play Kg4 and win. White has to play 35. h3, and after 35...g4+ 36. hxg4 Nxg4, the game is still alive. You need more insight to find a plan to make progress from this position (if you don't see it, the computer quickly points out a plan), but at least it's not dead drawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastActivityDate="2020-01-30T09:21:54.850" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28240" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28237" CreationDate="2020-01-30T10:25:05.413" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Note: This is an analysis of the position at move 34. Obviously, White's play in the beginning of the endgame was poor and he should never have entered such trouble.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black's advantage is clear and long-lived because he has the better minor piece, a knight vs a bad bishop with a locked center. Whether this advantage is enough for a win requires analysis, of course.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black has a great stronghold on e4, and your reflex to place the knight there seems very natural, but... this is rather the right plan in the middlegame, not in the endgame !&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In a minor piece endgame, the best piece to place on a central stronghold is not the knight anymore (as in the middlegame, or in most multi-pieces endgames with rooks), but the king ! As long as it remains safe, the king on the stronghold is centralized, attacks the pawns around it, and often threatens to invade the enemy camp.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This principle is very often applied in isolani endgames. Imagine Black has an isolated pawn on d5. If we still have rooks, White will gladly place his knight on d4, blocking the pawn and controling a bunch of important squares, and try to generate play down the c-file. But what happens if rooks are exchanged and Black has no control of d4 ? The winning plan usually becomes Nd4-e2, Kd3-d4, Ne2-c3, and Pd5 will soon fall. The king, not the knight, makes the decisive threats from d4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This applies to your game. Just place the bK on e4 and you will see that White is doomed to passive defense of Pe3 and of the entry squares d3 and f3. That's why the right plan on move 34 is to try and gain access to e4 for your king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;34...Kf5 threatens 35...g4+ followed by ...Ke4, so 35.h3 seems forced. However, you then make use of your doubled g-pawn to open the way with 35...g4+ 36.hg4 Ng4 and there are three plans to expel the wK from f3:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;bring your second g-pawn to g4. Then you can reach a position with Ke4, Pg4, Nf5 vs Ke2, Bf2 that is actually a zugzwang with White to play. How to give him the tempo, however, is not obvious. Most probably you will have to go for e6-e5, dxe5, Kxe5, Kd3, and try to gain access to the fourth rank again. Some winning chances, but my feeling is that White will hold if there is no refinement before ; I will stop the analysis here for now.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With an animated diagram:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;jasonhaller-RewanDemontay&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;6k1/1pn3p1/p1p1p1p1/2Pp4/PP1P4/4P3/1B4PP/5K2&quot;]&#xA;[startply &quot;67&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. c4 e6 4. Nc3 Bb4 5. Qc2 Nf6 6. e3 O-O 7. a3 Bxc3+ 8. Qxc3 Bd7 9. Bd3 Qe7 10. c5 a6 11. b4 Na7 12. O-O Bb5 13. Re1 Bxd3 14. Qxd3 c6 15. Nd2 Nb5 16. a4 Nc7 17. Bb2 Rfe8 18. Nf3 Rab8 19. Ne5 Nd7 20. f4 Nxe5 21. fxe5 f5 22. exf6 Qxf6 23. Rf1 Qg6 24. Qxg6 hxg6 25. Rae1 Rf8 26. Rxf8+ Rxf8 27. Rf1 Rxf1+ 28. Kxf1 Kf7 29. Kf2 Kf6 30. Kf3 Ne8 31. Kf4 g5+ 32. Kg4 Kg6 33. g3 Nf6+ 34. Kf3 Kf5 35.h3 g4+ 36.hxg4+ Nxg4 37.Bc1 Nf6 38.Bd2 g5 39.Bc3 g4+ 40.Ke2 Ke4 41.Be1 Ng8 42.Bf2 Ne7 43.Bg1 Nf5 44.Bf2 e5 45.dxe5 Kxe5 46.Kd3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;try to check with the knight, keeping Pg7 on place. If you can get a similar position with Ke4, Nf5, you are certainly winning because you have spared yourself tempo-moves with the Pg7. It means that White has to prevent such plan by playing g4 himself when his king still stand on f3, but then the Pg4 himself will become a weakness.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If White waits passively:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;jasonhaller-RewanDemontay&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;6k1/1pn3p1/p1p1p1p1/2Pp4/PP1P4/4P3/1B4PP/5K2&quot;]&#xA;[startply &quot;67&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. c4 e6 4. Nc3 Bb4 5. Qc2 Nf6 6. e3 O-O 7. a3 Bxc3+ 8. Qxc3 Bd7 9. Bd3 Qe7 10. c5 a6 11. b4 Na7 12. O-O Bb5 13. Re1 Bxd3 14. Qxd3 c6 15. Nd2 Nb5 16. a4 Nc7 17. Bb2 Rfe8 18. Nf3 Rab8 19. Ne5 Nd7 20. f4 Nxe5 21. fxe5 f5 22. exf6 Qxf6 23. Rf1 Qg6 24. Qxg6 hxg6 25. Rae1 Rf8 26. Rxf8+ Rxf8 27. Rf1 Rxf1+ 28. Kxf1 Kf7 29. Kf2 Kf6 30. Kf3 Ne8 31. Kf4 g5+ 32. Kg4 Kg6 33. g3 Nf6+ 34. Kf3 Kf5 35.h3 g4+ 36.hxg4+ Nxg4 37.Bc1 Nf6 38.Bd2 Nh7 39.Bc3 Ng5+ 40.Ke2 Ke4 41.Be1 Nf7 42.Bf2 Nh6 43.Bg1 Nf5 44.Bf2 g6 45.a5 g5 46.g4 Nh6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;then Black wins a pawn and the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But if White reacts with g4:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;jasonhaller-RewanDemontay&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;6k1/1pn3p1/p1p1p1p1/2Pp4/PP1P4/4P3/1B4PP/5K2&quot;]&#xA;[startply &quot;67&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. c4 e6 4. Nc3 Bb4 5. Qc2 Nf6 6. e3 O-O 7. a3 Bxc3+ 8. Qxc3 Bd7 9. Bd3 Qe7 10. c5 a6 11. b4 Na7 12. O-O Bb5 13. Re1 Bxd3 14. Qxd3 c6 15. Nd2 Nb5 16. a4 Nc7 17. Bb2 Rfe8 18. Nf3 Rab8 19. Ne5 Nd7 20. f4 Nxe5 21. fxe5 f5 22. exf6 Qxf6 23. Rf1 Qg6 24. Qxg6 hxg6 25. Rae1 Rf8 26. Rxf8+ Rxf8 27. Rf1 Rxf1+ 28. Kxf1 Kf7 29. Kf2 Kf6 30. Kf3 Ne8 31. Kf4 g5+ 32. Kg4 Kg6 33. g3 Nf6+ 34. Kf3 Kf5 35.h3 g4+ 36.hxg4+ Nxg4 37.Bc1 Nh6 38.Bd2 Nf7 39.g4+ Kg5 40.Kg3 e5 41. dxe5 Nxe5 42.e4+ Kf6 43.exd5 cxd5 44. b5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White has some counterplay and should draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;So the most dangerous plan is probably to gain even more space with e6-e5-e4, place the king on g4, and target Pg3.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It looks promising:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;jasonhaller-RewanDemontay&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;6k1/1pn3p1/p1p1p1p1/2Pp4/PP1P4/4P3/1B4PP/5K2&quot;]&#xA;[startply &quot;67&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. c4 e6 4. Nc3 Bb4 5. Qc2 Nf6 6. e3 O-O 7. a3 Bxc3+ 8. Qxc3 Bd7 9. Bd3 Qe7 10. c5 a6 11. b4 Na7 12. O-O Bb5 13. Re1 Bxd3 14. Qxd3 c6 15. Nd2 Nb5 16. a4 Nc7 17. Bb2 Rfe8 18. Nf3 Rab8 19. Ne5 Nd7 20. f4 Nxe5 21. fxe5 f5 22. exf6 Qxf6 23. Rf1 Qg6 24. Qxg6 hxg6 25. Rae1 Rf8 26. Rxf8+ Rxf8 27. Rf1 Rxf1+ 28. Kxf1 Kf7 29. Kf2 Kf6 30. Kf3 Ne8 31. Kf4 g5+ 32. Kg4 Kg6 33. g3 Nf6+ 34. Kf3 Kf5 35.h3 g4+ 36.hxg4+ Nxg4 37.Bc1 e5 38. Bd2 {38. dxe5 Nxe5+} e4+ 39.Kg2 Nh6 40.Kh3 {40.Be1 Kg4 41. Bf2 Nf5} Nf7 41. Bc3 Ng5+ 42.Kh4 Nf3+ 43.Kh3 Kg5 {Ng1}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black's winning chances are very serious. This third plan would be my favorite choice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Computer analysis will refine this and probably prove me wrong more than once, but it also spoils all the fun of searching for the truth...&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastEditorUserId="14079" LastEditDate="2020-03-05T16:43:36.417" LastActivityDate="2020-03-05T16:43:36.417" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28241" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28237" CreationDate="2020-01-30T11:07:42.793" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your evaluation of the position is incorrect, and you are not better, so the idea that you have a win is out of the question with decent play. The white bishop is only partially bad. If he gets in e4, there are really only two pawns then fixed on dark squares. In fact, my initial gut feeling is that it is you, who has more opportunities to go wrong due to the fact that there are pawns on both sides, and your opponent has the bishop to your knight. In addition, he as potential breaks at e4 and b5. You need to act immediately to get your optimal setup, and alleviate any danger.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Again, I still think with best play, it should be a draw, and in the next few moves, because white does not quite have the time to get in the optimal setup. Here are the initial plans for both sides.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White should immediately play g4, putting another pawn on the opposite color of the bishop and denying the black king the f5 square, play the bishop to c3-e1-g3, and play the king to d3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black should play Ne8-f6-e4, and g4. If you did not have the e4 square, you would probably be in trouble. This gives him the opportunity to keep the kingside blocked and and, if allowed, to play Nc3 forcing a5 and clarifying one side of the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is really an easy draw for both sides.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I put quite a few written notes in the following, so read them too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [Event &quot;?&quot;]&#xA; [Site &quot;?&quot;]&#xA; [Round &quot;?&quot;]&#xA; [White &quot;?&quot;]&#xA; [Black &quot;?&quot;]&#xA; [Result &quot;1/2-1/2&quot;]&#xA; [ECO &quot;E33&quot;]&#xA; [PlyCount &quot;104&quot;]&#xA; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. d4 d5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. c4 e6 4. Nc3 Bb4 5. Qc2 Nf6 6. e3 O-O 7. a3 Bxc3+ 8. Qxc3 Bd7 9. Bd3 Qe7 10. c5 a6 11. b4 Na7 12. O-O Bb5 13. Re1 Bxd3 14. Qxd3 c6 15. Nd2 Nb5 16. a4 Nc7 17. Bb2 Rfe8 18. Nf3 Rab8 19. Ne5 Nd7 20. f4 Nxe5 21. fxe5 f5 22. exf6 Qxf6 23. Rf1 Qg6 24. Qxg6 hxg6 25. Rae1 Rf8 26. Rxf8+ Rxf8 27. Rf1 Rxf1+ 28. Kxf1 Kf7 29. Kf2 (29. g4 g5 30. Bc3 Ne8 31. Be1 Nf6 32. h3 Ne4 33. Ke2 $11 {And it is clear that white cannot get the optimal setup.}) (29. Bc3 Ne8 30. Be1 Nf6 31. Bg3 Ne4 32. Be5 Nc3 33. a5 g5 $11 {With a clear draw.}) (29. h3 Ne8 30. Bc3 Nf6 31. Be1 Ne4 32. Ke2 Kf6 33. Kd3 g5 $11) 29... Kf6 $2 {Already showing that this ending is more dangerous to black. While centralizing the king is often a primary concern in an endgame, black should have recognized that his Nc7 is not so good, AND that e4 is a prime square, and immediately found Ne8-f6-e4. This blocks that route.} 30. Kf3 $6 (30. e4 $1 {+.97 Stockfish 11. Despite the eval, this still looks equal to me since it is still almost a fortress, and hard for white to get past the 5th rank.} g5 31. g4 Kg6 32. Ke3 Na8 $1 33. Bc3 b5 $11) 30... Ne8 (30... g5) 31. Kf4 (31. e4 {Again trying to improve the bishop, and take space is the right idea.}) 31...g5+ 32. Kg4 Kg6 33. g3 $4 Nf6+ 34. Kf3 Ne4 $4 (34... Kf5 {Threatening g4 and Ke4. This is a very difficult ending to win, but Stockfish evals most of the following around -4.} 35. h3 g4+ 36. hxg4+ Nxg4 37. Bc3 e5 38. Bd2 Nh6 39. dxe5 Ng4 40. e6 Ne5+ 41. Kf2 Kxe6 42. Ke2 Kf5 43. Be1 Ke4 44. Bc3 g6 45. Bb2 Nc4 46. Bd4) 35. h3 Kf5 36. g4+ Kf6 {Finally black has the optimal setup, and there is no danger of losing anymore, but the missed win is also long gone.} 37. Bc1 g6 38. a5 $6 {Even though there is no win, this is bad on general principles: First, you never want to make your bishop worse, so although it harms nothing here, it was a bad instinct. Second, and again, it was not going to happen in this game, but throwing away the pawn break also is not a good instinct.} Nc3 39. Bd2 Ne4 40. Be1 Kg7 41. h4 $2 {Again, no real harm, but white needs to recognize that from here, he is only potentially going into a good knight versus bad bishop, so he should keep things locked up to deny the black king any entry squares.} Kh6 42. Bg3 Nxg3 43. Kxg3 gxh4+ 44. Kxh4 g5+ 45. Kg3 {Fortress.} Kg6 46. Kf3 Kf6 47. e4 Kg6 48. exd5 exd5 {Fortress.} (48... cxd5 $4 {Of course this is horrible, but it represents a common tactic.} 49. b5 $1 {Idea c6.} axb5 50. c6 bxc6 51. a6 b4 52. a7 b3 53. a8=Q b2 54. Qb7 $18) 49. Ke3 Kf6 50. Kf3 Kg6 51. Kg3 Kf6 52. Kf3 Kg6 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-01-30T11:43:32.713" LastActivityDate="2020-01-30T11:43:32.713" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28242" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28229" CreationDate="2020-01-30T13:22:37.023" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the beginning, they thought that using a right shift (or a left shift), but they found that, as with other systems, bit would fall off the board.  To correct this, they computed every move from each square for each piece.  This takes a performance hit only when the page loads.  The other alternative they tried was to just load precomputed bitboards which increases the data slightly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've developed a system which has drawbacks including being slightly slower, but it's easier to understand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First you need three arrays:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;const int movement[64] ={&#xA;&#xA;17171, 50075, 50075, 50075, 50075, 50075, 33179, 32905, &#xA;&#xA;18231, 51199, 59391, 59391, 59391, 59391, 41471, 41165, &#xA;&#xA;20279, 57343, 65535, 65535, 65535, 65535, 45567, 45261, &#xA;&#xA;20279, 57343, 65535, 65535, 65535, 65535, 45567, 45261, &#xA;&#xA;20279, 57343, 65535, 65535, 65535, 65535, 45567, 45261, &#xA;&#xA;20279, 57343, 65535, 65535, 65535, 65535, 45567, 45261, &#xA;&#xA;20023, 24319, 32511, 32511, 32511, 32511, 14591, 12493,&#xA;&#xA; 3110, 23662, 15470, 15470, 15470, 15470, 14446, 12364&#xA;&#xA;};&#xA;&#xA;const int dir[16] ={&#xA;    8, 1, -8, -1, 9, -7, -9, 7, 17, 10, -6, -15, -17, -10, 6, 15&#xA;};&#xA;&#xA;const int key[16] = {&#xA;    1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128,&#xA;    256, 512, 1024, 2048, 4096, 8192, 16384, 32768&#xA;};&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is constructed so that if the first bit (&lt;code&gt;key[0]&lt;/code&gt;) is set, then the relative movement of &lt;code&gt;+8&lt;/code&gt; (&lt;code&gt;dir[0]&lt;/code&gt;) is possible;  (Showing this in hex would display the relative values better.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The move generation is six functions each containing about 9 lines each.  The bitboard generation is shorter and faster, but harder to implement.  Using &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessprogramming.org/Magic_Bitboards&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;magic bitboards&lt;/a&gt; is even faster, but it's even harder to understand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9684" LastEditorUserId="3594" LastEditDate="2020-01-30T13:32:11.767" LastActivityDate="2020-01-30T13:32:11.767" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28243" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-01-30T17:13:12.537" Score="1" ViewCount="59" Body="&lt;p&gt;What criteria do they use to give chess pieces names? Wow do they came out with pieces names like king, queen, bishop, knight, rook and pawn?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21380" LastActivityDate="2020-01-30T17:13:12.537" Title="Confusion with chess pieces names" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2020-01-30T18:28:33.843" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28245" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28252" CreationDate="2020-01-31T02:20:15.287" Score="2" ViewCount="2083" Body="&lt;p&gt;Leela Chess Zero is a neural-network based chess engine trained entirely from self play (that's why it has the word &quot;zero&quot; in its name). Leelenstein uses the same binary,* but a &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.patreon.com/jjosh&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;different method&lt;/a&gt; to train its neural network, utilizing supervised learning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The latest results indicate that &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/computer-chess-championship#event=ccc1217-lc0-vs-leelenstein-finals&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Leela is stronger than Leelenstein&lt;/a&gt;. Why?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm especially interested in an explanation of why the zero approach is better than the supervised learning approach, if it is indeed superior (presumably it is, or I don't see why Leela would win in the first place).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*As I understand it, NN-engines need two things to operate: the binary file, and the neural network itself. Leela and Leelenstein share the same binary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastActivityDate="2020-01-31T14:38:37.507" Title="Why is Leela better than Leelenstein? (as of January 2020)" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;computer-chess&gt;&lt;leela&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28246" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28254" CreationDate="2020-01-31T04:13:56.510" Score="2" ViewCount="493" Body="&lt;p&gt;In a previous question I asked, linked here: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/28192/how-can-i-speed-up-my-check-detection-in-javascript&quot;&gt;How can I speed up my check detection in Javascript?&lt;/a&gt; I was told to implement bit-boards to speed up my engine. I can say that bit-boards have improved my performance from being able to generate 500 moves/second to 10-15 thousand moves/second, but I have a question, how can I make my implementation of bit-boards faster?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is the code for the move generation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;const board = [&#xA;    [&quot;c&quot;, &quot;h&quot;, &quot;b&quot;, &quot;q&quot;, &quot;k&quot;, &quot;b&quot;, &quot;h&quot;, &quot;c&quot;],&#xA;    [&quot;p&quot;, &quot;p&quot;, &quot;p&quot;, &quot;p&quot;, &quot;p&quot;, &quot;p&quot;, &quot;p&quot;, &quot;p&quot;],&#xA;    [&quot;&quot;, &quot;&quot;, &quot;&quot;, &quot;&quot;, &quot;&quot;, &quot;&quot;, &quot;&quot;, &quot;&quot;],&#xA;    [&quot;&quot;, &quot;&quot;, &quot;&quot;, &quot;&quot;, &quot;&quot;, &quot;&quot;, &quot;&quot;, &quot;&quot;],&#xA;    [&quot;&quot;, &quot;&quot;, &quot;&quot;, &quot;&quot;, &quot;&quot;, &quot;&quot;, &quot;&quot;, &quot;&quot;],&#xA;    [&quot;&quot;, &quot;&quot;, &quot;&quot;, &quot;&quot;, &quot;&quot;, &quot;&quot;, &quot;&quot;, &quot;&quot;],&#xA;    [&quot;P&quot;, &quot;P&quot;, &quot;P&quot;, &quot;P&quot;, &quot;P&quot;, &quot;P&quot;, &quot;P&quot;, &quot;P&quot;],&#xA;    [&quot;C&quot;, &quot;H&quot;, &quot;B&quot;, &quot;Q&quot;, &quot;K&quot;, &quot;B&quot;, &quot;H&quot;, &quot;C&quot;]&#xA;];&#xA;&#xA;function createMoveMask(mask, board, type, centerPosition) {&#xA;    let x = centerPosition.x;&#xA;    let y = centerPosition.y;&#xA;    let moveMask = [&#xA;        [0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0],&#xA;        [0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0],&#xA;        [0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0],&#xA;        [0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0],&#xA;        [0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0],&#xA;        [0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0],&#xA;        [0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0],&#xA;        [0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0]&#xA;    ];&#xA;&#xA;    let blockedBitMask = getOccupiedSquares(board, type);&#xA;&#xA;    if (type == &quot;blackPieces&quot;) {&#xA;        var capturableSquares = getOccupiedSquares(board, &quot;whitePieces&quot;);&#xA;    } else {&#xA;        var capturableSquares = getOccupiedSquares(board, &quot;blackPieces&quot;);&#xA;    }&#xA;&#xA;    switch (mask) {&#xA;        case &quot;north&quot;:&#xA;            for (row = y - 1; row &amp;gt;= 0; row--) {&#xA;                if (blockedBitMask[row][x] == 1) {&#xA;                    break;&#xA;                } else if (capturableSquares[row][x] == 1) {&#xA;                    moveMask[row][x] = 1;&#xA;                    break;&#xA;                }&#xA;                moveMask[row][x] = 1;&#xA;            }&#xA;            break;&#xA;&#xA;        case &quot;south&quot;:&#xA;            for (row = y + 1; row &amp;lt; 8; row++) {&#xA;                if (blockedBitMask[row][x] == 1) {&#xA;                    break;&#xA;                } else if (capturableSquares[row][x] == 1) {&#xA;                    moveMask[row][x] = 1;&#xA;                    break;&#xA;                }&#xA;                moveMask[row][x] = 1;&#xA;            }&#xA;            break;&#xA;&#xA;        case &quot;east&quot;:&#xA;            for (col = x + 1; col &amp;lt; 8; col++) {&#xA;                if (blockedBitMask[y][col] == 1) {&#xA;                    break;&#xA;                } else if (capturableSquares[y][col] == 1) {&#xA;                    moveMask[y][col] = 1;&#xA;                    break;&#xA;                }&#xA;                moveMask[y][col] = 1;&#xA;            }&#xA;            break;&#xA;&#xA;        case &quot;west&quot;:&#xA;            for (col = x - 1; col &amp;gt;= 0; col--) {&#xA;                if (blockedBitMask[y][col] == 1) {&#xA;                    break;&#xA;                } else if (capturableSquares[y][col] == 1) {&#xA;                    moveMask[y][col] = 1;&#xA;                    break;&#xA;                }&#xA;                moveMask[y][col] = 1;&#xA;            }&#xA;            break;&#xA;&#xA;        case &quot;northEast&quot;:&#xA;            row = y - 1;&#xA;            col = x + 1;&#xA;            while (row &amp;gt;= 0 &amp;amp;&amp;amp; col &amp;lt; 8) {&#xA;                if (blockedBitMask[row][col] == 1) {&#xA;                    break;&#xA;                } else if (capturableSquares[row][col] == 1) {&#xA;                    moveMask[row][col] = 1;&#xA;                    break;&#xA;                }&#xA;                moveMask[row][col] = 1;&#xA;                row -= 1;&#xA;                col += 1;&#xA;            }&#xA;            break;&#xA;&#xA;        case &quot;northWest&quot;:&#xA;            row = y - 1;&#xA;            col = x - 1;&#xA;            while (row &amp;gt;= 0 &amp;amp;&amp;amp; col &amp;gt;= 0) {&#xA;                if (blockedBitMask[row][col] == 1) {&#xA;                    break;&#xA;                } else if (capturableSquares[row][col] == 1) {&#xA;                    moveMask[row][col] = 1;&#xA;                    break;&#xA;                }&#xA;                moveMask[row][col] = 1;&#xA;                row -= 1;&#xA;                col -= 1;&#xA;            }&#xA;            break;&#xA;&#xA;        case &quot;southEast&quot;:&#xA;            row = y + 1;&#xA;            col = x + 1;&#xA;            while (row &amp;lt; 8 &amp;amp;&amp;amp; col &amp;lt; 8) {&#xA;                if (blockedBitMask[row][col] == 1) {&#xA;                    break;&#xA;                } else if (capturableSquares[row][col] == 1) {&#xA;                    moveMask[row][col] = 1;&#xA;                    break;&#xA;                }&#xA;                moveMask[row][col] = 1;&#xA;                row += 1;&#xA;                col += 1;&#xA;            }&#xA;            break;&#xA;&#xA;        case &quot;southWest&quot;:&#xA;            row = y + 1;&#xA;            col = x - 1;&#xA;            while (row &amp;lt; 8 &amp;amp;&amp;amp; col &amp;gt;= 0) {&#xA;                if (blockedBitMask[row][col] == 1) {&#xA;                    break;&#xA;                } else if (capturableSquares[row][col] == 1) {&#xA;                    moveMask[row][col] = 1;&#xA;                    break;&#xA;                }&#xA;                moveMask[row][col] = 1;&#xA;                row += 1;&#xA;                col -= 1;&#xA;            }&#xA;            break;&#xA;    }&#xA;    return moveMask;&#xA;}&#xA;&#xA;function getOccupiedSquares(board, type) {&#xA;    let occupiedSquares = [&#xA;        [0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0],&#xA;        [0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0],&#xA;        [0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0],&#xA;        [0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0],&#xA;        [0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0],&#xA;        [0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0],&#xA;        [0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0],&#xA;        [0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0]&#xA;    ];&#xA;&#xA;    if (type == &quot;blackPieces&quot;) {&#xA;        for (row = 0; row &amp;lt; 8; row++) {&#xA;            for (col = 0; col &amp;lt; 8; col++) {&#xA;                if (&#xA;                    board[row][col] == &quot;q&quot; ||&#xA;                    board[row][col] == &quot;k&quot; ||&#xA;                    board[row][col] == &quot;c&quot; ||&#xA;                    board[row][col] == &quot;h&quot; ||&#xA;                    board[row][col] == &quot;p&quot; ||&#xA;                    board[row][col] == &quot;b&quot;&#xA;                ) {&#xA;                    occupiedSquares[row][col] = 1;&#xA;                }&#xA;            }&#xA;        }&#xA;    } else {&#xA;        for (row = 0; row &amp;lt; 8; row++) {&#xA;            for (col = 0; col &amp;lt; 8; col++) {&#xA;                if (&#xA;                    board[row][col] == &quot;Q&quot; ||&#xA;                    board[row][col] == &quot;K&quot; ||&#xA;                    board[row][col] == &quot;C&quot; ||&#xA;                    board[row][col] == &quot;H&quot; ||&#xA;                    board[row][col] == &quot;P&quot; ||&#xA;                    board[row][col] == &quot;B&quot;&#xA;                ) {&#xA;                    occupiedSquares[row][col] = 1;&#xA;                }&#xA;            }&#xA;        }&#xA;    }&#xA;    return occupiedSquares;&#xA;}&#xA;&#xA;function castleMoves(board, position, type) {&#xA;    let north = createMoveMask(&quot;north&quot;, board, type, position);&#xA;    let south = createMoveMask(&quot;south&quot;, board, type, position);&#xA;    let east = createMoveMask(&quot;east&quot;, board, type, position);&#xA;    let west = createMoveMask(&quot;west&quot;, board, type, position);&#xA;&#xA;    let moves = [&#xA;        [0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0],&#xA;        [0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0],&#xA;        [0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0],&#xA;        [0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0],&#xA;        [0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0],&#xA;        [0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0],&#xA;        [0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0],&#xA;        [0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0]&#xA;    ];&#xA;&#xA;    for (row = 0; row &amp;lt; 8; row++) {&#xA;        for (col = 0; col &amp;lt; 8; col++) {&#xA;            moves[row][col] = &#xA;            north[row][col] |&#xA;            south[row][col] |&#xA;            east[row][col] |&#xA;            west[row][col];&#xA;        }&#xA;    }&#xA;&#xA;    return moves;&#xA;}&#xA;&#xA;function bishopMoves(board, position, type) {&#xA;    let northEast = createMoveMask(&quot;northEast&quot;, board, type, position);&#xA;    let northWest = createMoveMask(&quot;northWest&quot;, board, type, position);&#xA;    let southEast = createMoveMask(&quot;southEast&quot;, board, type, position);&#xA;    let southWest = createMoveMask(&quot;southWest&quot;, board, type, position);&#xA;&#xA;    let moves = [&#xA;        [0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0],&#xA;        [0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0],&#xA;        [0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0],&#xA;        [0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0],&#xA;        [0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0],&#xA;        [0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0],&#xA;        [0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0],&#xA;        [0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0]&#xA;    ];&#xA;&#xA;    for (row = 0; row &amp;lt; 8; row++) {&#xA;        for (col = 0; col &amp;lt; 8; col++) {&#xA;            moves[row][col] = &#xA;            northEast[row][col] |&#xA;            southEast[row][col] |&#xA;            northWest[row][col] |&#xA;            southWest[row][col];&#xA;        }&#xA;    }&#xA;&#xA;    return moves;&#xA;}&#xA;&#xA;function queenMoves(board, position, type) {&#xA;    let northEast = createMoveMask(&quot;northEast&quot;, board, type, position);&#xA;    let northWest = createMoveMask(&quot;northWest&quot;, board, type, position);&#xA;    let southEast = createMoveMask(&quot;southEast&quot;, board, type, position);&#xA;    let southWest = createMoveMask(&quot;southWest&quot;, board, type, position);&#xA;    let north = createMoveMask(&quot;north&quot;, board, type, position);&#xA;    let south = createMoveMask(&quot;south&quot;, board, type, position);&#xA;    let east = createMoveMask(&quot;east&quot;, board, type, position);&#xA;    let west = createMoveMask(&quot;west&quot;, board, type, position);&#xA;&#xA;    let moves = [&#xA;        [0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0],&#xA;        [0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0],&#xA;        [0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0],&#xA;        [0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0],&#xA;        [0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0],&#xA;        [0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0],&#xA;        [0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0],&#xA;        [0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0]&#xA;    ];&#xA;&#xA;    for (row = 0; row &amp;lt; 8; row++) {&#xA;        for (col = 0; col &amp;lt; 8; col++) {&#xA;            moves[row][col] = &#xA;            north[row][col] |&#xA;            south[row][col] |&#xA;            east[row][col] |&#xA;            west[row][col] |&#xA;            northEast[row][col] |&#xA;            northWest[row][col] |&#xA;            southEast[row][col] |&#xA;            southWest[row][col];&#xA;        }&#xA;    }&#xA;&#xA;    return moves;&#xA;}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you need any clarifications regarding the question or the code, feel free to ask.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21341" LastActivityDate="2020-01-31T15:45:33.950" Title="Faster bit-board implementation in Javascript" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;programming&gt;&lt;performance&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28247" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28237" CreationDate="2020-01-31T05:23:06.697" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;After the Rook exchange you were clearly better. White has a very bad Bishop (which is much less valuable than your Knight) and no opportunity for initiative. Your doubled Pawn is no disadvantage because it cannot be attacked. Both your King and your Knight threaten to infiltrate the weak light squares. Your Knight can walk all over the board while White can only watch and wait. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That need not add up to a win for Black, but it calls for careful defence by White, who really did not understand his own weakness. As people have said, g4 would make everything safe, but after g3 Blacks chances became very good. Cat and mouse play might be appropriate, but the cat must make a bit of an effort. Just putting pieces on good squares and hoping that White blunders is not how GMs win these positions. A serious winning attempt can only come from penetration on the light squares. A good endgame player will focus as much ingenuity on this as he would on a sacrificial attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To illustrate, after 37.Bc3, in @Phishmasters alternate line, ..e5, freeing the White Bishop is quite inappropriate. Much more purposeful is ..g5, and then for example 34.Bd2 Nh6 35. Be1 g4+ 36.Ke2 Ke4 37. Bd2 Nf7 38. Be1 Ng5 39. Bd2 Nf3 (Black makes the most of his present advantages before looking for anything more) 40.Bc1 (40.Bc3 Ng1+ 41.Kf1 Kd3) e5 41.dxe5 Nxe5 42.Bb2 Nc4 43. Bd4 Na3! 44. Kd2 (otherwise ..Nc2) Kf3 with an easy win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is the sort of thing Black must try for and the sort of thing that White must try to avoid. As the winning side, do not hurry. Be prepared to repeat the position several times as you become familiar with it. Do not make any capture or pawn move until you are quite sure it is correct. Give priority to keeping White cramped and passive. Make use of all your assets. (in addition to his bad Bishop and weak white squares, Whites Q-side pawns are overextended and about to drop off) so take time to make a complete survey of them. Play over some of Korchnoi's games..&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although you may want to kick yourself for messing this position up, you have a lot of potential to learn from it because it is not just a position from a textbook, but it actually happened to you. Good luck!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastActivityDate="2020-01-31T05:23:06.697" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28248" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28249" CreationDate="2020-01-31T09:26:52.560" Score="4" ViewCount="748" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would like to have Stockfish to selfplay 10 games starting from a given position. Game should end after 10 moves. From the python-chess documentation there is an example of playing only one such game, starting from the initial position. Thanks in advance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;import chess&#xA;import chess.engine&#xA;&#xA;engine = chess.engine.SimpleEngine.popen_uci(&quot;/usr/bin/stockfish&quot;)&#xA;&#xA;board = chess.Board()&#xA;while not board.is_game_over():&#xA;    result = engine.play(board, chess.engine.Limit(time=0.1))&#xA;    board.push(result.move)&#xA;&#xA;engine.quit()&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21386" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-03-04T21:20:00.703" LastActivityDate="2021-02-09T15:32:14.160" Title="Python script to let stockfish selfplay 10 games from a given position" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;programming&gt;&lt;uci&gt;&lt;python&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28249" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28248" CreationDate="2020-01-31T10:08:07.290" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;This should get you started, up to you to add extra features based on your objective (such as saving the games and moves, etc.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;import chess&#xA;import chess.engine&#xA;import os&#xA;import sys&#xA;&#xA;arguments = sys.argv&#xA;pondertime = float(arguments[1]) #first argument: ponder time in sec&#xA;maxmoves = int(arguments[2]) #2nd argument: max number of desired moves&#xA;gamecount = int(arguments[3]) #3rd argument: max number of games to play&#xA;#here we assume the engine file is in same folder as our python script&#xA;path = os.getcwd()&#xA;#Now make sure you give the correct location for your stockfish engine file&#xA;#...in the line that follows by correctly defining path&#xA;engine = chess.engine.SimpleEngine.popen_uci(path+'/'+'stockfish-10-64')&#xA;&#xA;dictsidetomove = {True:'white',False:'black'}&#xA;notationdict = {True:'.', False:'...'}&#xA;&#xA;for i in range(gamecount):&#xA;    board = chess.Board() #give whatever starting position here&#xA;    while not board.is_game_over() and board.fullmove_number&amp;lt;=maxmoves:&#xA;        result = engine.play(board,chess.engine.Limit(time=pondertime))&#xA;        print(dictsidetomove[board.turn]+' played '+str(board.fullmove_number)+notationdict[board.turn]+str(board.san(result.move)))&#xA;        board.push(result.move)&#xA;    print('Iteration '+str(i+1)+'-----')&#xA;    print(board)&#xA;    print('Final position FEN: ',board.fen())&#xA;    print('-----')&#xA;&#xA;engine.quit()&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's an example running it for engine time of &lt;code&gt;0.1&lt;/code&gt; sec, &lt;code&gt;10&lt;/code&gt; move game, and &lt;code&gt;1&lt;/code&gt; game to be played only:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;python selfplay.py 0.1 10 1&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Printed output:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;white played 1.e4&#xA;black played 1...d5&#xA;white played 2.exd5&#xA;black played 2...Qxd5&#xA;white played 3.Nf3&#xA;black played 3...Nf6&#xA;white played 4.Nc3&#xA;black played 4...Qd6&#xA;white played 5.d4&#xA;black played 5...a6&#xA;white played 6.Bd3&#xA;black played 6...Nc6&#xA;white played 7.O-O&#xA;black played 7...Bg4&#xA;white played 8.Ne4&#xA;black played 8...Nxe4&#xA;white played 9.Bxe4&#xA;black played 9...O-O-O&#xA;white played 10.Be3&#xA;black played 10...g6&#xA;Iteration 1-----&#xA;. . k r . b . r&#xA;. p p . p p . p&#xA;p . n q . . p .&#xA;. . . . . . . .&#xA;. . . P B . b .&#xA;. . . . B N . .&#xA;P P P . . P P P&#xA;R . . Q . R K .&#xA;Final position FEN:  2kr1b1r/1pp1pp1p/p1nq2p1/8/3PB1b1/4BN2/PPP2PPP/R2Q1RK1 w - - 0 11&#xA;-----&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3594" LastActivityDate="2020-01-31T10:08:07.290" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28250" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28251" CreationDate="2020-01-31T13:35:07.263" Score="2" ViewCount="234" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've blundered and had this played on me before. Is there a specific name for the mate?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/8/8/8/1n6/8/qPP5/1KR5 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21021" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-01-31T13:45:57.377" LastActivityDate="2020-01-31T15:00:19.077" Title="What's this mate called?" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;patterns&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28251" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28250" CreationDate="2020-01-31T13:52:14.067" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;It does not have any special name. I have been playing for 40 years, and I have never seen it given any specific name.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is a very good &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Checkmate_pattern&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;list of named mates&lt;/a&gt;, and as you can see, your position is not among them. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2020-01-31T13:52:14.067" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28252" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28245" CreationDate="2020-01-31T14:38:37.507" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;As far as I can see Leelenstein is mostly derivative of Leela. It uses a fraction of the games produced by Leela's self-play to get to a similar playing strength. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Given that most of these games have also been used to train Leela, there is little reason to expect Leelenstein to be better. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically Leela produces customized trainingsdata via self-play, Leelenstein uses games produced by other engines, which may or may not be consistent with each other.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After self-play Leela uses the data in a supervised fashion. Leelenstein is not a different approach. It's the same approach, only skipping the step of producing its own trainingsdata. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2020-01-31T14:38:37.507" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28253" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28250" CreationDate="2020-01-31T15:00:19.077" Score="-8" Body="&lt;p&gt;The only  real  name it has is &amp;lt;&amp;lt;   CHECK mate!   &gt;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe somebody somewhere gave it a label, but if so it did not stick.&#xA;Most likely during  a speed game and somebody said somely like the patzer got mated. So maybe locally, for a brief time, it was the patzers mate.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastActivityDate="2020-01-31T15:00:19.077" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28254" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28246" CreationDate="2020-01-31T15:39:32.973" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The real speed in bitboards is created by precomputing the bitboards for every instance.  This means that you already have the attacked squares for a rook on d4 and every other piece on every square.  Even faster is to use magic bitboards, but that is too complicated for a forum.  Although both are written in c, I suggest Crafty to understand bitboards better, and Stockfish for magic bitboards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note, most chess engines using bitboards keep the position in a bitboard.  To get the occupied bitboard, they just or together all the piece bitboards.  You're using an array for the position and trying to create these bitboards at each move generation, which is wasting more time than is saved from using the bitboard operations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An alternative which is easier to understand with just a modest speed hit, I suggest a system described here.&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/28229/chess-move-generation-with-bit-boards-in-javascript/28242#28242&quot;&gt;Chess move generation with bit boards in Javascript&lt;/a&gt;  (In c, I timed the move generation in a 32,000 loop and it took only 32 ms.  In Javascript it will be much slower, but it should be efficient enough.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9684" LastEditorUserId="9684" LastEditDate="2020-01-31T15:45:33.950" LastActivityDate="2020-01-31T15:45:33.950" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28255" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28260" CreationDate="2020-01-31T19:30:44.443" Score="3" ViewCount="183" Body="&lt;p&gt;Rapid ratings cover a very wide range of time controls and bump up against regular (where games are dual rated) as well as blitz time controls.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the average time for USCF rapid games that are rated in USCF tournaments?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Comments on the validity of the extremes are also welcome. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2020-01-31T21:25:14.810" LastActivityDate="2020-02-01T05:16:27.480" Title="What is the average speed in tournaments for USFC rapid chess ratings?" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;statistics&gt;&lt;uscf&gt;&lt;rapid&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28256" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28255" CreationDate="2020-01-31T21:24:40.777" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Rapid ratings cover a very wide range of time controls and bump up&#xA;  against regular (where games are dual rated)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is perhaps worth spelling these out for those outside the US who are unfamiliar with USCF time controls. According to the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.uschess.org/docs/gov/chessrules/US_Chess_Rule_Book-Online_Only_Edition_chp_1_v7.1-7.19.19.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;USCF's Official Rules of Chess&lt;/a&gt; (thanks, DM, for the link!):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;5C. Ratable time controls.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;There are three rating systems: Regular (slow), Quick (fast) and&#xA;  Blitz. For the purposes of rating G/minutes and inc/seconds (or&#xA;  d/seconds), add minutes (mm) and seconds (ss) for total playing time&#xA;  for each player. That is, total time equals minutes plus (seconds&#xA;  times 60) or mm+ss; e.g.: G/60 d/5 = 60+5 = 65 minutes total playing&#xA;  time for each player. Multiple time controls add all mm for each&#xA;  control: mm = mm(1) + mm(2) + . . . .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Regular only:&lt;/strong&gt; Total playing time for each player is greater than 65 minutes (mm+ss &gt; 65).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Dual (both regular and quick):&lt;/strong&gt; Total playing time for each player is from 30 to 65 minutes (30 &amp;lt; mm+ss &amp;lt;65).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Quick only:&lt;/strong&gt; Total playing time for each player is more than 10 and less than 30 minutes (10 &amp;lt; mm+ss &amp;lt; 30)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;For Regular, Dual and Quick the primary time (mm in minutes) must be&#xA;  at least 5 minutes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Blitz: Total playing time for each player is from 5 to 10 minutes&#xA;  inclusive and the primary time control must be at least 3 minutes. 5 &amp;lt;&#xA;  mm+ss &amp;lt; 10 All rounds must use the same time control.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;USCF used to have a rapid range of G10 to G30. What these latest limits do is to bring them much closer to the FIDE time controls. According to the &lt;a href=&quot;https://old.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=208&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Laws of Chess&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Appendix A. Rapid chess&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A.1 A ‘Rapid chess’ game is one where either all the moves must be&#xA;  completed in a fixed time of more than 10 minutes but less than 60&#xA;  minutes for each player; or the time allotted plus 60 times any&#xA;  increment is of more than 10 minutes but less than 60 minutes for each&#xA;  player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The advantage of the USCF system is that there are no gaps whereas for FIDE there can be gaps according to the ratings of the players. According to &lt;a href=&quot;https://old.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=197&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Rating Regulations effective from 1 July 2017&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1. Rate of Play&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1.1 For a game to be rated each player must have the following minimum periods in which to complete all the moves, assuming the game lasts 60&#xA;  moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Where at least one of the players in the game has a rating 2200 or&#xA;  higher, each player must have a minimum of 120 minutes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Where at least one of the players in the game has a rating 1600 or&#xA;  higher, each player must have a minimum of 90 minutes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Where both of the players in the game are rated below 1600, each&#xA;  player must have a minimum of 60 minutes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So if at least one player is rated 2200 or higher time controls between G61 and G119 are not eligible for any rating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If at least one player is rated 1600 or higher time controls between G61 and G89 are not eligible for any rating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Comments on the validity of the extremes are also welcome&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The English Chess Federation follows the example of FIDE for its definition of rapidplay - G10 &amp;lt; time control &amp;lt; G60 but follows the example of the USCF and doesn't have the gap between rapid and standard for moderately rated players and above. G60 and above is rated as standard regardless of rating/grading.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Having the definition of quick/rapid chess include time controls between G30 and G60 seems to me to be just &quot;filling the gap&quot;&lt;/strong&gt; because I have never come across a rapidplay with a time control greater than G30. Note that the time control in the &lt;a href=&quot;https://ruchess.ru/en/championship/detail/2019/king_salman_world_rapid_blitz_championships_2019/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;World Rapid &amp;amp; Blitz Championships 2019&lt;/a&gt; was G15+10 (equivalent to G25):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;RAPID: Swiss system, 15 rounds in the open event and 12 rounds in the&#xA;  women's event. Time control: 15 minutes + 10 seconds increment per&#xA;  move, starting from move 1.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The fastest rapid time control I have ever seen was G10+5 (equivalent to G15). Here in Europe the usual rapid time controls are G10+5, G15+5, G15+10, G20+10 and the occasional G30.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2020-01-31T22:45:01.647" LastActivityDate="2020-01-31T22:45:01.647" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28257" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28258" CreationDate="2020-02-01T00:20:58.547" Score="5" ViewCount="360" Body="&lt;p&gt;I often hear people say &quot;I have my pawns on the dark/light squares like I'm supposed to&quot; or something similar. I have no idea what actually dictates which squares to try to place your pawns though. Does it depend on the bishops the opponent has or doesn't have or is it more in relation to the opponents pawn structure? Or is it something else completely?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21083" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-02-01T00:54:48.080" LastActivityDate="2020-02-02T09:20:28.600" Title="How do I decide what color squares to place my pawns on?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;pawns&gt;&lt;pawn-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28258" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28257" CreationDate="2020-02-01T00:59:11.130" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a very complicated subject since there are a lot of other factors that come into play so I will give some examples, but there are no general rules that apply in all circumstances.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, let's take this common opening structure from the Slav. In this equal position, black wanted in imbalance, and traded off the light-squared bishop, so in order to keep some control of the light squares, he played e6. In addition to wanting to keep some control of the light squares, it also does not contribute to potentially making the Bf8 bad later.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. d4 d5 2. c4 c6 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. e3 Bg4 5. h3 Bxf3 6. Qxf3 e6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Next, lets talk about an endgame position with a bishop versus a knight or a same-colored bishop. In general, you do not want to put pawns on the same color of the bishop as that makes the bishop &quot;bad&quot;. A bad bishop lacks scope due to its own pawns, and in addition, it often leads to zugswang.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is a position that is equal, but one bad move putting a pawn on the same color as the bishop, and it is over. In addition to limiting the Bf8, it weakened the light squares, and in many positions, it might have given white another target to attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;5b2/3kpp2/1p1p4/5P2/3K2P1/1PP3B1/8/8 b - - 0 0&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1... f6 $4 2. Kd5 Bh6 3. Bf2 Kc7 4. c4 Bf4 5. Ke6 Kd8 6. Bxb6+&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An exception might be if all the pawns are compact, and you want a draw. Consider this position where black plays e5, but then can put the king on the unassailable e6 square. Even losing f6 here would lead to a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;8/4k3/4pp2/8/4P2B/2b2P2/8/5K2 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1... e5 2. Ke2 Ke6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Next, let's talk about opposite colored bishops. In general, if you are winning, you want your pawns on the opposite color as your bishop, but often if you are worse, it is fine to put the pawns on the same color as the bishop since they cannot be attacked by two pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note in this ending how white advances the pawns, but always only when they can both stay on the light squares.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;8/8/3k4/1b6/3PP3/4K3/8/4B3 w - - 0 0&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. Bb4+ Ke6 2. d5+ Ke5 3. Bc3+ Kd6 4. Kd4 Be2 5. e5+ Kd7 6. e6+ Ke7 7. Ke5 Kd8 8. d6 Bb5 9. Ba5+ Ke8 10. Kd5 Ba4 11. Kc5 Kf8 12. d7 {and queens}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This last one is an example of the latter type discussed above. Black is worse, and has multiple ways to draw, but the immediate f5 makes it virtually impossible for white to win, let alone attack any of the black pawns. At best, they will trade some, and black will sacrifice the bishop for the last pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;8/4kp2/2b1p3/8/8/4B1P1/3KPP2/8 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1... f5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Summing up, and these are VERY general rules, most of the time, you want the pawns on the opposite color of your bishop, or if you are going to trade a bishop, trade the one that is of the same color as most of your pawns. Occasionally, you may find positions where you are worse, but the bishop can defend everything well if the pawns are on the same color, especially in opposite-colored-bishop endings, but if they are not opposite colored, you must look out for positions that are ripe for zugswang, so be VERY careful breaking the first rule about putting them opposite your bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lastly, in opposite-colored-bishop endings, if you are winning, keep them on the opposite color of your bishop, or they will be easily blockaded, but if you are worse, and trying to draw, often you can create a fortress by putting them on the same color as the bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2020-02-01T00:59:11.130" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28259" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14319" CreationDate="2020-02-01T04:30:32.093" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;...d5 is seen in a number of variations, though not this early. Probably the earliest is in a line from Cordel’s that GM Konikowski concocted in some correspondence games (3. ... Bc5 4. c3 d5). Grab them from one of the online databases; some of them are wonderfully complex studies of the kind of pitfalls White can stumble into.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Typically, when it shows up in the early phases of the opening, the idea for Black is some enterprising piece play that can catch White unawares if he’s not careful. Typical ideas involve a Queen sortie to either f6 or g5, getting the Queen off the hot seat at d8, often with gain of tempo (from g5 she eyes g2, and from f6 she protects the e-pawn as well as defends c6). Paired with the now freed Bf8, and the light squared B on d6 or c5, White needs to be careful about trying to hard to overrun Black. The lines are highly tactical, and probably not all that sound, but if Black is sharp enough, White can often get lost in the complexities of the position. There are enough resources in the position for a good coffeehouse player to cause a great deal of trouble.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My first impression is this is too early to be really dangerous, so if you feel sharp enough, or Black is clumsy, you should be able to enter in to the melee and come out ahead. If not, straightforward development will see White through to an advantage. (That’s the main problem with attempts like this to wrest the initiative from White; White can typically ignore the bait, make solid moves, and still come out with the better position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="657" LastActivityDate="2020-02-01T04:30:32.093" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28260" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28255" CreationDate="2020-02-01T05:16:27.480" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;But in practice what is the average encountered in all or most tournaments? Or even a distribution for high endish , low endish, middling value? And which of those is prevalent?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.uschess.org/datapage/events-rated.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;This page&lt;/a&gt; will let you see every tournament that was rated in a particular state in a particular month. It takes a little effort from there to click through and see what the time controls were for each tournament. Going through all of them is too much for me, but I decided to take a couple of sample states. Looking at every quick rated tournament in December 2019 and January 2020 in Wisconsin, the time controls were:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;G60 d5 (7 events)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;G45 d5 (2 events)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;G30 d5 &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;G26 d3 (3 events)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;G25 +4 &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, if you add the increment/delay to the time, half were 65 minute games (the maximum allowable for dual-rated games) and 4 out of the other 7 were 29 minute games (the maximum allowable for quick-rated-only games). The average was about 50.4 minutes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now let's look at a larger state. Florida had the following quick rated tournaments in December 2019:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;G60 d5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;G55 d5 &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;G50 d5 &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;G45 round 1 G60 rounds 2-3 &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;G40 +10&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;G40 d5 (4 events)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;G30 d5 (4 events)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;G25 +10&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;G25 d5 (10 events)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;G24 d5 &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;G20 d5 (3 events)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;G15 d5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As was the case with Wisconsin, most of these were dual rated events; games well below 30 minutes were rare. But in Florida, it seems that 30 minute games (the minimum allowable for dual-rated) were the most common. The 65 or 29 minute games that were the most common in Wisconsin were rare here; only one of each of those were played. The average was about 36.5 minutes. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you combine the two states, then the time controls were as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Time  Number of tournaments&#xA;65    8&#xA;60    1&#xA;55    1&#xA;50    4&#xA;45    4&#xA;35    6&#xA;30    10&#xA;29    5&#xA;25    3&#xA;20    1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It would seem, then, that which time controls are popular depends on your area. But in both states, there tended to be many tournaments right at the edge of where the events would be dual rated, at 65 or 30/29 minutes. The average was about 41 minutes, and the median was 35. There weren't many tournaments that were towards the low end of what can be quick rated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2020-02-01T05:16:27.480" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28261" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5228" CreationDate="2020-02-01T07:15:49.487" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Neither the &quot;starting out&quot; nor the &quot;move by  move&quot; series are good enough. The only books I know which meet most of the Op's requirements are the &quot;mastering with the read and play method&quot; books by Ponzetto and Berlin, McDonald etc. Another book that does a good job is &quot;how to play the Sicilian defence by Levy&quot;. If one reads these books one would really know how to play the openings and would be ready to and able to study databases and reference books easily.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21397" LastEditorUserId="15989" LastEditDate="2020-02-01T08:07:45.957" LastActivityDate="2020-02-01T08:07:45.957" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28262" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28263" CreationDate="2020-02-01T14:23:19.967" Score="6" ViewCount="244" Body="&lt;p&gt;Pawn structure seems to be one of the key areas that a player needs to know well to be able to have a high rating.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are the best ways to learn how to best use pawns and pawn structure?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastEditorUserId="15989" LastEditDate="2020-02-01T16:30:23.823" LastActivityDate="2020-02-01T16:30:23.823" Title="What are good resources to use to learn how to best use pawns and pawn structures?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;books&gt;&lt;pawns&gt;&lt;pawn-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28263" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28262" CreationDate="2020-02-01T15:18:47.237" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;A lot of chess is “what pawn break am I looking for, and how do I accomplish it?” These answer that in depth.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;“Complete Chess Strategy” volumes 1,2 and 3 by Ludek Pachman. (This teaches about many basic plans, and what you are striving for with your pieces and pawns, especially. This made a light go off in my head, and THIS is what made me a master.)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;“Pawn Structure Chess” by Andy Soltis. (This extends the above to specific opening structures.)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;“Chess Structures: A Grandmaster Guide” by Mauricio Flores Rios (This is an extension of “Pawn Structure Chess”, and is deeper, and covers more structures. It is outstanding especially if you have already covered “Complete Chess Strategy”.)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have not read this yet, but another book that seems to be right up that alley by a renowned player is &quot;Winning Chess Middlegames: An Essential Guide to Pawn Structures&quot; by GM Ivan Sokolov (2706 peak rating and #16 in the world in 2004).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, the original book in this genre was &quot;Pawn Power&quot; by Hans Kmoch, but he used a lot of funky terms.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-02-01T15:24:29.873" LastActivityDate="2020-02-01T15:24:29.873" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28264" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19758" CreationDate="2020-02-01T16:01:07.443" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Selling used books is tough.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Selling specialized old used books is even harder.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ebay is not a good way to go.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Craigs list can work IF you have chess players in your area.&#xA;Possibly through clubs if they would post a notice on their site.&#xA;Maybe craigs list in big areas if you can get enough to also pay for shipping.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Give them away and take a tax break?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Take them to big tournaments and display them where many people can see them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sell en masse to a book dealer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Whatever you do you will not get much for them.  Unless you are desperate it is hardly worth the effort. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastActivityDate="2020-02-01T16:01:07.443" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28265" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-02-01T16:23:30.653" Score="2" ViewCount="93" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Gheorghiu-Timman 1982, how did Timman decide to play 34…d5? It seems like an amazing move to find.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;2r5/p1r2b2/1p1p1k1p/PP2ppp1/2P2P2/3KP1P1/2RN3P/2R5 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1... d5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user20848" LastActivityDate="2020-02-01T16:48:50.493" Title="How did Timman decide on d5 in this position?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28266" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28265" CreationDate="2020-02-01T16:29:57.197" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is impossible to know what is in the mind of the person playing. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Based on the position, my instinct as if playing blitz,  it looks like white wins a pawn or ties down all of whites pieces so the black K can raid the Qside pawns. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A computer analysis may find differently especially if it can find a better move to start with.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not sure that it is that  aamazing a  move to find as it seems rather obvious and takes little analysis to say go ahead and do it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastActivityDate="2020-02-01T16:29:57.197" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28268" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-02-01T16:40:36.413" Score="4" ViewCount="296" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this position (diagram), there have been two games where White played 14.Kh1 followed by 15.Be3, then Qe1 and Bf2.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What is the idea behind 14.Kh1 and the other kingside moves when Black is not developing anything strong on the kingside? &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The opening was the King's Indian Defense Bayonet Attack.  Black himself had played 13...Ne7-g8, with the Knight apparently headed for f6 and possibly h5.  Clearly Black is playing on the kingside, and White has ideas of a2-a4 and cxd6 on the queenside. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The position in FEN is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;r1bq1rnk/ppp3bp/3p2p1/2PPpp2/1PN1Pn2/2N2P2/P3B1PP/R1BQ1RK1 w - - 0 14&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;for those who wish to paste it and make a search of the 6 games with this position. By the way, Stockfish 11 (at depth 49) also evaluates favorably towards Kh1 and Be3:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [title &quot;First line, with Stockfish 11 (depth 49) evaluation = 0.95&quot;]&#xA; [fen &quot;r1bq1rnk/ppp3bp/3p2p1/2PPpp2/1PN1Pn2/2N2P2/P3B1PP/R1BQ1RK1 w - - 0 14&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. Kh1 fxe4 2. fxe4 Nf6 3. Be3 b6 4.c6 h5 5.a4 Ng4 6.Bg1 a6 7.Bf3 Kg8 8.Rb1 Bh6 9.Qc2 Qe7 10.b5 axb5 11.Nxb5 Ba6 12.Rb3 Nf6 13.Rfb1 Rab8 14.Ra1 h4 15.Ne3 N6h5 16.Bf2 Bc8 17.Nc4 Ba6 18.Be3 Ng3+ 19.Kg1 Ngh5 20.Bxh5 gxh5 21.Kh1 Qg7 22.h3 Ra8 23.Rbb1 Bxb5 24.axb5 Rxa1 25.Rxa1 Qg3 26.Bg1 Qd3 27.Qxd3 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And Be3:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [title &quot;Second line, with Stockfish 11 (depth 49) evaluation = 0.68&quot;]&#xA; [fen &quot;r1bq1rnk/ppp3bp/3p2p1/2PPpp2/1PN1Pn2/2N2P2/P3B1PP/R1BQ1RK1 w - - 0 14&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1.Be3 Qg5 2.g3 Nxe2+ 3.Qxe2 f4 4.Bd2 Qe7 5.cxd6 cxd6 6.a4 Nh6 7.Nd1 Nf7 8.Nf2 Ng5 9.Ra3 Bd7 10.Kg2 Rac8 11.b5 h5 12.Na5 Rc2 13.Rc1 Rxc1 14.Bxc1 Bg4 15.Bd2 Kg8 16.Nc4 Bd7 17.Rc3 Rc8 18.Qd1 h4 19.g4 Be8 20.Rc2 a6 21.Bb4 axb5 22.Nxd6 Rxc2 23.Qxc2 bxa4 24.Qc8 Bf8 25.Nc4 Qxb4 26.Qxe8 Qxc4 27.Qxg6+ Kh8 28.Qxg5 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Update:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After depth 50/83, Stockfish 11 likes 14.Kh1 second best and calculates that White can stand up to any attack on the kingside and so chooses to proceed with 14.a4 followed by cxd6, though it still likes Be3:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;+/- (0.97): 14.a4 Nf6 15.Be3 g5 16.cxd6 cxd6 17.Rc1 Qe7 18.Re1 fxe4 19.Nxe4 N6xd5 20.Bxf4 Nxf4 21.Qxd6 Qe8 22.Ne3 g4 23.fxg4 Be6 24.Rcd1 Rd8 25.Qxd8 Qxd8 26.Rxd8 Rxd8 27.g3 Nxe2+ 28.Rxe2 Rd4 29.Nc5 Bc8 30.Rc2 b6 31.Nb3 Rd8 32.Nd2 Bh6 33.Ndc4 Be6 34.Kf2 Rc8 35.Kf3 Bxe3 36.Nxe3 Rxc2 37.Nxc2 Bb3 38.Ne3 Bxa4 39.Ke4 Bc6+ 40.Kxe5 a5 41.bxa5 bxa5 42.Kd6 Be4 43.Nc4 Kg7 44.Kc5 Kf6 &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;+/- (0.78): 14.Kh1 h5 15.Bd2 fxe4 16.fxe4 Nf6 17.a4 Ng4 18.h3 Nh6 19.Qe1 Bd7 20.Rg1 Nf7 21.Be3 g5 22.Bf1 h4 23.Be2 a6 24.Rf1 Rb8 25.Rb1 Qf6 26.b5 dxc5 27.Bxc5 Rfc8 28.Ne3 Bf8 29.Bxf8 Rxf8 30.Bg4 Bxg4 31.Nxg4 Qe7 32.bxa6 bxa6 33.Qf2 Nd6 34.Qa7 Ra8 35.Qc5 Qg7 36.Qc6 Nh5 37.Rxf8+ Rxf8 38.Qxa6 Ng3+ 39.Kh2 Ndxe4 40.Nxe4 Nxe4 &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I will test out the novelty 14.a4 (never played in this position before) and see if Stockfish 11 playing White wins against itself with depth 50+ for each move.  I am curious to see how strong Black's kingside attack really is, keeping in mind the answers given so far that suggest there can be a strong attack there for Black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6960" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T15:11:27.530" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T15:11:27.530" Title="Understanding Kh1 and Be3 in the King's Indian Defense Bayonet Attack" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;kings-indian&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28269" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19758" CreationDate="2020-02-01T16:45:10.873" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have bought and sold about 800 books on eBay (about 650 sold, and 150 bought), and it is still probably the single best place to get a wide chess-playing audience for your books that are for sale.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The real issue is if your books are really any good. I bought two books from eBay that I am waiting for right now: One is just a book that is near-and-dear to my heart, that is a first edition hardcover from 1964 in like-new condition, and the other is a very coveted book by Igor Khenkin about checkmating patterns in like-new condition. The problem is that most of what I see on eBay is junk, often in fair condition at best, and then on top of that, it is overpriced.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If your books are in nice condition, and somewhat valuable (search sold listings on eBay to get an idea what it is really worth, and also used listings on Amazon, although they are prices from dealers, so a bit high, but they can still give you an idea if is is a $10 book or a $200 book, or worthless), then it can be worth it to sell them individually.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you have a bunch of old Dover or Tartan books that were mass produced, then they are not going to be worth much. Typically, these were cheaply made, and thus, they did not wear well over time. You need to realize that they might only be worth a couple of bucks each, and thus, you should bundle them, and price them accordingly. There are a lot of people out there with these books trying to sell them, so there is a lot of competition, so price will be king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One last factor is the material in the books, and this relates to the age of the books. Today's books are better than ever, and much better at teaching, so not only will they be in better condition since they are newer, but they will have more coveted material. They will be worth more. Opening books do not age well unless they explain well, and are aimed at mid-level players, rather than cutting-edge analysis. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Craigslist is just a step up from yard sale prices, and unless your books are those junk books to be sold in lots, I would not recommend it for selling collectible, or any decent book.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2020-02-01T16:45:10.873" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28270" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-02-01T16:45:11.400" Score="1" ViewCount="60" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there a list of all features that are available on some chess clock?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I played speed chess last week and somebody had an old clock with features I had never heard of before. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So add, delay, both, count up, count down, hourglass,  bell every 10 seconds,  restricted to occurring after some move number,  whatever.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What would be on  a complete list of all chess timer features?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-02-01T17:03:13.490" LastActivityDate="2020-02-01T17:41:41.243" Title="Is there a list of ALL features that are available on some chess clock?" Tags="&lt;chess-clocks&gt;&lt;equipment&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28271" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28265" CreationDate="2020-02-01T16:48:50.493" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this position, black clearly is better with heavy pressure down the c-file, but it is clear that c4 is also well defended, and that black cannot bring any additional pressure on c4 except with d5. So, can black do anything else like try and infiltrate with Kg6-h5? I ran some logical lines with Stockfish, but they are labyrinth-like, and while it is clear that black is still the one pushing, nothing was clear. In those lines, black also has to be on the lookout for possible e4 attempts by white, and also axb6 axb6, Ra1-a6 lines that can gain great counterplay should black win b6, and start pushing the b5 pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;d5 is a way to increase the advantage, and clarify the position. Timman also saw that the white knight was no match for the good bishop, and better black king position. Gheorgiu should have avoided that at all costs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [Event &quot;Olympiad-24&quot;]&#xA; [Site &quot;Valetta&quot;]&#xA; [Date &quot;1980.11.25&quot;]&#xA; [Round &quot;5&quot;]&#xA; [White &quot;Gheorghiu, Florin&quot;]&#xA; [Black &quot;Timman, Jan H&quot;]&#xA; [Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA; [ECO &quot;E32&quot;]&#xA; [WhiteElo &quot;2605&quot;]&#xA; [BlackElo &quot;2600&quot;]&#xA; [PlyCount &quot;106&quot;]&#xA; [EventDate &quot;1980.11.20&quot;]&#xA; [EventType &quot;team-swiss&quot;]&#xA; [EventRounds &quot;14&quot;]&#xA; [EventCountry &quot;MLT&quot;]&#xA; [WhiteTeam &quot;Romania&quot;]&#xA; [BlackTeam &quot;Netherlands&quot;]&#xA; [WhiteTeamCountry &quot;ROU&quot;]&#xA; [BlackTeamCountry &quot;NED&quot;]&#xA; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 Bb4 4. Qc2 O-O 5. a3 Bxc3+ 6. Qxc3 b6 7. Bg5 Bb7 8. e3 d6 9. f3 Nbd7 10. Bd3 c5 11. Ne2 Rc8 12. O-O Ba6 13. b4 cxd4 14. Qxd4 h6 15. Bxf6 Qxf6 16. Qxf6 Nxf6 17. Rac1 Nd7 18. Rfd1 Ne5 19. b5 Bb7 20. f4 Nxd3 21. Rxd3 Rfd8 22. Rdc3 Rc5 23. Nd4 Rdc8 24. Nb3 R5c7 25. a4 Bd5 26. Nd2 f5 27. Kf2 Kf7 28. g3 Ke7 29. Ke2 e5 30. Kd3 Be6 31. a5 g5 32. Nb3 Kf6 33. R3c2 Bf7 34. Nd2 d5 (34... Kg6 35. axb6 axb6 36. Ra1 $11) 35. fxe5+ (35. axb6 axb6 36. Ra2 $2 dxc4+ 37. Kc3 Rc5 {And black is too fast.}) 35... Kxe5 36. cxd5 $2 {Going into the bishop versus knight ending was clearly hopeless.} (36. axb6 $1 axb6 37. c5 $1 Rxc5 (37... bxc5 38. Nf3+ Kf6 39. Kd2 Bh5 40. Nd4 Ke5 41. Nc6+ {And if black hopes to win, he will need to sacrifice the exchange here.}) 38. Rxc5 Rxc5 39. Rxc5 bxc5 40. Kc3 Kd6 41. Nb3 c4 42. Nd4 Kc5 (42... Bg6 43. Kb4) 43. Nxf5 $11 {This leads to an ending that is possibly holding, but would have been very hard to find at the board.}) 36... Rxc2 37. Rxc2 Rxc2 38. Kxc2 Kxd5 39. axb6 axb6 40. Kc3 Bh5 41. Nb3 Be8 42. Kb4 Ke4 43. Nd2+ Kxe3 44. Nc4+ Ke2 45. Nxb6 f4 46. gxf4 gxf4 47. Nd5 f3 48. Nc3+ Ke1 49. Ne4 f2 50. Nxf2 Kxf2 51. Kc5 Bd7 52. b6 Bc8 53. Kd6 h5 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2020-02-01T16:48:50.493" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28272" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28268" CreationDate="2020-02-01T17:00:58.083" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the Bayonet line speed is critical.  White wants to crush on the queenside, Black wants to crush on the Kingside and mate.  Every move must either accelerate your plan or slow your opponents plan. Ideally it will do both.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I disagree with your assessment.  Black's attack is coming and plays itself by pawnstorm.  White cannot stop it, White can only slow it and accelerate on the queenside.  Move like Kh1 and Bc1-e3-f2 slow Black down.  White's dark square bishop also supports c5.  It is nice to play the bishop to f2 to avoid a future ..f4 with tempo and hinders moves like ..Qh4.  Black often plays Rf8-f7-g7 with ..Bf8 where the Rook on g7 slows White on the queenside and accelerates Black on the Kingside.  So Kh1 sidesteps this black rook on the g-file.  It also makes room for Rg1 or Bg1 as needed for defense and gets out of the way of any checks from the Black Knight on f4. That is a lot of benefits for one move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also be aware that Computers are not very good at assessing Bayonet positions as they miss the strength of Black coming assault.  While the position may be objectively equal, I prefer to play black.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17425" LastEditorUserId="17425" LastEditDate="2020-02-01T17:12:05.417" LastActivityDate="2020-02-01T17:12:05.417" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28273" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28268" CreationDate="2020-02-01T17:10:56.420" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found the games, and you have to take them with a grain of salt since one was between a 2150, and someone who was not even FIDE rated. The second was between two 2360's, which I find a bit suspicious. I am going to post that second game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can tell you the basic ideas behind each move, but I am not sure that they were strung together in an optimal manner. This whole line is pretty rare, and as of Ng8, there is only one GM game in Mega2020.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The idea behind:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Ng8 - The knight is not well positioned on e7, so it is going to g8-f6-h5 to join in the attack. In addition, it will over protect the Bg7 should it go to h6 in an attempt to trade off the bad bishop.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Kh1 - To make room for the Be3-g1 maneuver, which did not happen in these games, in an attempt to avoid the potential trade of the Be3 for the Bg7 (after Bh6).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In both cases, in the game below, the Qe1 and Bf2 were to overprotect the g3 square since a Nh5 often sacrifices itself there, and it can be incredibly dangerous. Based on this common idea, I do not think that Kh1 fit in with this position.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is one of the games with the maneuvers you mentioned.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [Event &quot;Paks Atom Cup GM 1st&quot;]&#xA; [Site &quot;Paks&quot;]&#xA; [Date &quot;1996.??.??&quot;]&#xA; [Round &quot;?&quot;]&#xA; [White &quot;Vukanovic, Sasa&quot;]&#xA; [Black &quot;Molnar, Bela&quot;]&#xA; [Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA; [ECO &quot;E97&quot;]&#xA; [WhiteElo &quot;2360&quot;]&#xA; [BlackElo &quot;2360&quot;]&#xA; [PlyCount &quot;108&quot;]&#xA; [EventDate &quot;1996.09.??&quot;]&#xA; [EventType &quot;tourn&quot;]&#xA; [EventRounds &quot;13&quot;]&#xA; [EventCountry &quot;HUN&quot;]&#xA; [EventCategory &quot;7&quot;]&#xA; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. Nf3 g6 2. c4 Bg7 3. e4 d6 4. d4 Nf6 5. Nc3 O-O 6. Be2 e5 7. O-O Nc6 8. d5 Ne7 9. b4 Nh5 10. c5 Nf4 11. Nd2 f5 12. f3 Kh8 13. Nc4 Ng8 14. Kh1 Nf6 15. Be3 N6h5 16. Qe1 Nxe2 17. Qxe2 f4 18. Bf2 Rg8 19. cxd6 cxd6 20. Nb5 Bf8 21. Rfc1 b6 22. a4 Ba6 23. Nc3 g5 24. b5 Bc8 25. a5 Rb8 26. axb6 axb6 27. Na4 g4 28. Ncxb6 g3 29. Rxc8 Rxc8 30. Nxc8 gxf2 31. Qxf2 Qxc8 32. b6 Be7 33. Qb2 Qd7 34. b7 Rb8 35. Nc5 Qc7 36. Ne6 Qc4 37. Kg1 Nf6 38. Rc1 Rxb7 39. Rxc4 Rxb2 40. Rc7 Ng8 41. g3 fxg3 42. hxg3 h6 43. Rd7 Kh7 44. f4 Kg6 45. fxe5 dxe5 46. d6 Bf6 47. Rc7 Rb6 48. Rd7 Kh5 49. Nc7 Rb7 50. Kf2 Kg6 51. Kf3 h5 52. Ke3 Nh6 53. Kd3 Nf7 54. Kc4 Nxd6+ 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only GM game from 13...Ng8, so you can see how they played it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [Event &quot;Gashimov Memorial 3rd&quot;]&#xA; [Site &quot;Shamkir&quot;]&#xA; [Date &quot;2016.05.28&quot;]&#xA; [Round &quot;3&quot;]&#xA; [White &quot;Safarli, Eltaj&quot;]&#xA; [Black &quot;Mamedov, Rauf&quot;]&#xA; [Result &quot;1/2-1/2&quot;]&#xA; [ECO &quot;E97&quot;]&#xA; [WhiteElo &quot;2664&quot;]&#xA; [BlackElo &quot;2655&quot;]&#xA; [PlyCount &quot;55&quot;]&#xA; [EventDate &quot;2016.05.26&quot;]&#xA; [EventType &quot;tourn&quot;]&#xA; [EventRounds &quot;9&quot;]&#xA; [EventCountry &quot;AZE&quot;]&#xA; [EventCategory &quot;20&quot;]&#xA; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 Bg7 4. e4 d6 5. Nf3 O-O 6. Be2 e5 7. O-O Nc6 8. d5 Ne7 9. b4 Kh8 10. c5 Nh5 11. Nd2 Nf4 12. Nc4 f5 13. f3 Ng8 14. cxd6 cxd6 15. Be3 Bh6 16. a4 Bd7 17. Nb5 Bxb5 18. axb5 fxe4 19. fxe4 Nxe2+ 20. Qxe2 Rxf1+ 21. Rxf1 Bxe3+ 22. Qxe3 Nf6 23. Qh3 Nxe4 24. Qg4 Nf6 25. Qe6 Ne4 26. Qg4 Nf6 27. Qe6 Ne4 28. Qg4 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2020-02-01T17:10:56.420" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28274" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28270" CreationDate="2020-02-01T17:41:41.243" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I do not think that you will find a &lt;strong&gt;complete&lt;/strong&gt; list that compares all features between all companies. The closest you might get would be an article that reviews chess clocks, and compares them. I will tell you how I picked my new clock, since it still involves finding the information you are seeking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I got back into chess in the last year, I bought a new digital clock since it was time, and I only had some nice old analog clocks. I went to the major manufacturers, DGT, VTEK, and Chronos, and their websites.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Virtually all chess clocks have these basic features today. Using a blitz game of 5-3 as an example, this is how they work:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Fischer’s clock – The clock starts at 5:03, runs down to 5:01 and after the move ends up on 5:04.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Bronstein’s clock – The clock starts at 5:03, runs down to 5:01 and returns to 5:03 after the move.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Time delay – The clock is paused at 5:03 and nothing changes after the move.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For more on this, I pulled this from &lt;a href=&quot;https://chessentials.com/best-chess-clocks/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this nice article&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Beyond that, most of the features have nothing to do with chess. They are more along the lines of how many pre-programmed time settings are there, how many personalized time controls you can program in, what is the quality of the materials it is made of, brand reputation, and is it FIDE certified?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Those things, you just have to compare from clock to clock, and there are a lot of reviews out there comparing chess clocks to guide you. You can also look at the manuals to get an idea.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I, ultimately, went with a DGT3000 primarily because it is FIDE certified, and is the clock that you see at all the international events. &lt;a href=&quot;https://digitalgametechnology.com/index.php/support1/manuals/clocks/dgt3000&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;You can look at the manual here&lt;/a&gt;, and see a lot more about the features.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2020-02-01T17:41:41.243" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28275" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28276" CreationDate="2020-02-01T18:09:24.483" Score="5" ViewCount="147" Body="&lt;p&gt;All chess clocks time the match. Some just time, some add delays, some add on, and other have variations for TIMING.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What else might be a factor in deciding to buy a clock that is primarily for personal use at speed chess in a club, cafe, or park,  but also useful should one play in tournaments? For examples, cost,  reliability, and ease of use are some factors. What would be the features that would help guide a purchase?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There might be other subtler ones, so a complete list for consideration is what is asked for.  Comments on why would be useful too.  EG what value does some certification add, if any.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am thinking there could be easily a dozen or more of these NON-FUNCTIONAL characteristics. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-02-01T18:16:38.460" LastActivityDate="2020-02-05T01:05:03.223" Title="What are some non-functional features of a chess clock that would help choose the best for ones use?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;chess-clocks&gt;&lt;equipment&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28276" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28275" CreationDate="2020-02-01T19:09:24.957" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well I learned way more than I wanted to know about other considerations than mere timing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This table may be collapsed into a long string of text&#xA;someone please edit if that happens &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Cost&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Size&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Accuracy&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Precision&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Ease of use&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Color&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Battery Life&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Reliability&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Ruggedness&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Toggle method&lt;br&gt;&#xA;maintenance required&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Flag display&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Analog/digital&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Shape&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Aesthetic&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Ease of setting&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Read out type&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Safety against accidental reset&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Counts moves&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Useful for other than chess  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Timing variations&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA; - pre/post add&lt;br&gt;&#xA; - pre/post delay&lt;br&gt;&#xA; - fischer&#xA; - bronstein&lt;br&gt;&#xA; - hourglass - seesaw&lt;br&gt;&#xA; - byo-yomi&lt;br&gt;&#xA; - canadian OT&lt;br&gt;&#xA; - guillotine&lt;br&gt;&#xA; - bonus timing&lt;br&gt;&#xA; - different periods timings&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;custom settings -MODIFY built in&lt;br&gt;&#xA;custom settings NEW&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Number of custom settings  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastEditorUserId="1766" LastEditDate="2020-02-03T05:26:50.567" LastActivityDate="2020-02-03T05:26:50.567" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28278" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-02-01T22:16:28.960" Score="1" ViewCount="100" Body="&lt;p&gt;I see many sellers selling dozens  of clocks that claim to be FIDE certified/approved.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Reading FIDE info I see what is required ,  and it mentions approved clocks,  but I cannot find an actual list of what clocks FIDE has actually approved and made available for guidance so as to buy approved clocks without taking the word of some seller. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-02-01T22:34:05.613" LastActivityDate="2020-02-01T22:36:33.253" Title="Just where is the list of FIDE approved clocks?" Tags="&lt;fide&gt;&lt;chess-clocks&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28279" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28278" CreationDate="2020-02-01T22:36:33.253" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is the document that includes that. See section 5.5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/FIDE/handbook/Standards_of_Chess_Equipment_and_tournament_venue.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.fide.com/FIDE/handbook/Standards_of_Chess_Equipment_and_tournament_venue.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2020-02-01T22:36:33.253" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28280" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-02-01T23:05:27.413" Score="1" ViewCount="84" Body="&lt;p&gt;The approved list seems to be rather old:&#xA;5.5. The electronic chess clocks endorsed by the FIDE&#xA;5.5.1. DGT XL (year 2007)&#xA;5.5.2. DGT 2010 (year 2010)&#xA;5.5.3. Silver Timer (year 2007)&#xA;5.5.4. Sistemco (year 2009)&#xA;5.5.5. DGT 3000 (year 2014)&#xA;5.5.6. CE Clock (year 2017)&#xA;5.5.7. KK9908 Clock (year 2017)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How often does FIDE review what clocks are available.  The only ones on that list that I might consider are very old now.  There are many better ones available. When will FIDE update that list?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-02-09T20:38:01.383" LastActivityDate="2020-02-09T20:38:01.383" Title="How often does FIDE review clocks to update their approved list?" Tags="&lt;fide&gt;&lt;chess-clocks&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28281" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28282" CreationDate="2020-02-01T23:42:37.690" Score="29" ViewCount="16020" Body="&lt;p&gt;In a recent (online) game in which I had black, my opponent played an opening variation with which I was unfamiliar. That, a very aggressive attack, and lack of adequate time to think through my moves had me down a pawn and in poor position as we entered the middle game. While I wasn't yet in major time trouble, they had significantly more time on their clock also.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After a relatively long time before their 15th move, I got the end of game sound and pop up window. The first thing I noticed was that my opponent had taken another pawn and put me in check with their queen. For just an instant, I thought I was being told that I had lost. However, I had multiple ways out of check so knew that couldn't be correct. Then I realized that my opponent had resigned so fast after making their move that the move and end of game signal appeared on my computer simultaneously. Apparently they hadn't seen that I had a knight guarding the square to which they had moved their queen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Presumably my opponent resigned because they had hung their queen and realized it right after making the move. While that mistake devastated their chances of winning the game, to me it felt unsporting for them to have resigned so abruptly, when many pieces were still on the board (in addition to the two pawns I had lost, the only pieces off the board were from a bishop/knight trade).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is a resignation like this bad sportsmanship? Or should I just accept it as part of the game after such a significant mistake? (For reference, both of us are rated in the 1100's.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="224" LastEditorUserId="18475" LastEditDate="2020-02-02T11:39:21.913" LastActivityDate="2020-06-27T23:01:24.243" Title="Is it poor sportsmanship to resign immediately after a major blunder early in the game?" Tags="&lt;resigning&gt;&lt;sportsmanship&gt;" AnswerCount="8" CommentCount="9" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28282" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28281" CreationDate="2020-02-01T23:48:10.107" Score="67" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is totally normal, and actually, I would consider it good sportsmanship, but that is a bit relative to your level of play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Among masters, if someone blunders even a piece, they know that their master opponent will have no problem converting, so to play on could be considered rude and a waste of time. That said, they have the right to, and if they do, you don't really complain about it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At MUCH lower levels, sometimes players are not strong enough to win, even up a queen, so playing on may make sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In either case, it is your opponent's right to resign a position they do not want to play. Take the rating points, and smile. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2020-02-01T23:48:10.107" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28283" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28281" CreationDate="2020-02-01T23:52:42.530" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is good sportsmanship and your opponent would be very happy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, you do not have to do that and are permitted to keep playing without dishonor.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Indeed I saw an expert toss a queen against a lower rated player and did not resign.  In the end, after a long endgame he managed to win.&#xA;He kept improving his position and won some material along the way and was helped by less than good moves by his opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And it depends on the situation too.  You may see you are lost but he may not.  It is always good to have a poker face and keep playing in case they miss the best reply and  you can recover most if not all the ground you lost. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastEditorUserId="20915" LastEditDate="2020-02-03T15:44:12.303" LastActivityDate="2020-02-03T15:44:12.303" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28284" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28280" CreationDate="2020-02-02T00:00:05.593" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;They seem to have just finished the process literally YESTERDAY, but the new clocks have not made it into that list.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You would think that there would be a set of criteria that a company would have to meet, and if met, then they would get approval, but it appears to be more of a &quot;money thing&quot; than a &quot;this-clock-is-good&quot; thing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I remembered looking for that when I was buying my clock, and they appear to do it as a bidding process, in other words, the companies pay for the right; and if they pay enough, they are approved.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/news/77&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.fide.com/news/77&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/news/346&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.fide.com/news/346&lt;/a&gt; (Note the date: Friday, 31 Jan 2020)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2020-02-02T00:00:05.593" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28285" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-02-02T00:54:40.620" Score="1" ViewCount="151" Body="&lt;p&gt;USA does not have a lot of FIDE tournaments.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there any locations that have them more often than some small areas that may only hold one and never do another one?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-02-02T01:26:13.153" LastActivityDate="2020-02-02T11:49:09.590" Title="What locations in the USA have FIDE approved tournaments frequently?" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;fide&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28286" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-02-02T00:57:30.343" Score="3" ViewCount="171" Body="&lt;p&gt;It seems odd , except maybe not for FIDE, that they announced the winners who BID to be the official clock.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now they they have selected them do we need to buy those to play in FIDE tournaments?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would feel better if they had tested the clocks to ensure they were good quality and worth the money we pay for them instead of awarding the seal of approval to the high bidders. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;None of the clocks they selected were on my list that I was considering to select my choice  to buy. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Details at:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/news/346&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.fide.com/news/346&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;The right for certain models of chess clocks to be designated as a “Chess Clock Recommended by FIDE for National Federations” has been granted to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;DGT 2010 model and DGT 3000 model (both manufactured by Digital Game Technology);&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Chess Evolution Classic model (manufactured by Chess Evolution Kft.);&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Leap KK 9908 model (manufactured by Shenzhen Huibo Industrial and Trading Co., Ltd).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-02-02T01:26:42.287" LastActivityDate="2020-02-02T11:32:05.570" Title="Now that FIDE has just announced BIDDING winners to be the official FIDE clock does that mean we have to buy those to play in their tournaments?" Tags="&lt;fide&gt;&lt;chess-clocks&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28287" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28286" CreationDate="2020-02-02T11:32:05.570" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Now they they have selected them do we need to buy those to play in&#xA;  FIDE tournaments?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Certainly not! FIDE has never required players to buy any equipment to play in FIDE tournaments. We players have never been required to buy any clocks, sets, pieces, memorabilia, etc. The only two things we have to pay for are the appropriate level of membership of our national federations or associations and the entry fees charged by the organisers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I would feel better if they had tested the clocks to ensure they were&#xA;  good quality and worth the money we pay for them instead of awarding&#xA;  the seal of approval to the high bidders.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You appear to be ignorant of the &lt;a href=&quot;https://old.fide.com/images/stories/NEWS_2019/FIDE_News/20190805-FIDE-Bidding_procedure-ChessClocks.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Chess Clock Bidding Procedure&lt;/a&gt;. Not surprising given the lack of clarity of much of the FIDE site particularly after the latest munged redesign.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are some relevant sections of the bid document:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;11. Evaluation Methodology&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;11.1 The evaluation methodology used by FIDE for this ITB is based on “the lowest-cost / highest-reward, substantially compliant offer”&#xA;  approach.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;11.2 FIDE will determine which offers are substantially compliant, and will reject noncompliant offers. Compliance refers to whether or not&#xA;  the offer substantially meets the quantitatively and qualitatively&#xA;  defined criteria as per the requirements and other qualification&#xA;  criteria as stated in the ITB documents.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;11.3 FIDE will choose the lowest-cost / highest-reward offer among the substantially compliant offers. Various factors such as the price of&#xA;  the goods, the full life-cycle costs and service costs will be taken&#xA;  into account.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;11.4 All evaluation criteria use by FIDE are non-discriminatory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;11.5 FIDE will use three main categories of evaluation criteria: (1) formal, (2) technical and qualification, (3) financial.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;11.6 Formal criteria allow checking for compliance with specific mandatory requirements in the present ITB. Offers that do not meet the&#xA;  formal criteria will be rejected.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;11.7 Technical and qualification criteria are derived from the requirements as well as from qualification conditions. FIDE has&#xA;  developed technical and qualification criteria for evaluation&#xA;  according to a weighted scoring.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;11.8 Financial criteria include payments to FIDE, royalties to FIDE, and guaranteed prices for FIDE purchases.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that what is being bid for is primarily marketing rights:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;2. General Provisions&lt;/strong&gt;    ...&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  2.3 FIDE shall grant the winner(s) a non-exclusive right to use the FIDE logo in conjunction with the words “FIDE Championship Clock”,&#xA;  “Official FIDE Chess Clock” and/or “Chess Clock Recommended by FIDE&#xA;  for National Federations” for one or more models included in the bid.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;2.4 This right shall be granted for three (3) years starting October 01, 2019, and ending September 30, 2022.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;2.5 The rights to use the FIDE logo and the clock designations as per Clause 2.3 above shall be provided to the winner(s) in consideration&#xA;  for:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  a) lump-sum payments to be made to FIDE for each model of the chess clocks that&#xA;  are included in the bid;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  b) royalties to be paid to FIDE for each wholesale or retail sale of chess clocks that&#xA;  are included in the bid for the whole duration of the contract;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  c) &lt;strong&gt;an obligation to supply chess clocks to FIDE and/or national chess federations at&#xA;  a fixed price or/and with discount from the standard market price&lt;/strong&gt; (royalties as per&#xA;  subcl (b) hereof do not apply for such supplies).&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  ...&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  2.7 &lt;strong&gt;FIDE retains the right to freely certify other chess clocks for competition use after testing&lt;/strong&gt;. However, no other chess clocks could be&#xA;  designated as the “FIDE Championship Clock” or the “Official FIDE&#xA;  Chess Clock” prior to the expiry of the three-year period, i.e.,&#xA;  September 30, 2022.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;2.8 FIDE shall use the model(s) designated as the “FIDE Championship Clock” in its top-level competitions (Chess Olympiad, World&#xA;  Championship Match, Candidates Tournament, World Cup, Grand Prix)&#xA;  during this three-year period. No more than one bidder shall be&#xA;  declared a winner for this designation.  Bidding Procedure – August&#xA;  05, 2019.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;2.9 FIDE shall use the model(s) designated as the “Official FIDE Chess Clock” in its other official competitions included in the FIDE&#xA;  Calendar (e.g., World Seniors Ch., World Team Ch., World Youth Ch.)&#xA;  during this three-year period.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;2.10 &lt;strong&gt;FIDE will make available its development fund, subject to certain criteria established solely by FIDE, to subsidize, in whole or&#xA;  in part, the purchases by its member federations of the clock models&#xA;  designated as the “Chess Clock Recommended by FIDE for National&#xA;  Federations”&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In other words, clocks which win the bid must be available to member federations at subsidized prices. Other clocks which meet FIDE's technical specifications and which are consequently approved separately by FIDE may be used in ordinary level FIDE competitions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-02-02T11:32:05.570" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28288" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28285" CreationDate="2020-02-02T11:49:09.590" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;All FIDE rated tournaments have to be registered in advance with FIDE. Once registered with FIDE they appear on the FIDE website. The page for the USA is &lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/tournament_list.phtml?moder=ev_code&amp;amp;country=USA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you can see the US is very poorly served for FIDE rated tournaments. The main centers are New York, San Francisco, LA and St Louis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-02-02T11:49:09.590" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28290" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-02-02T11:55:40.147" Score="13" ViewCount="1938" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am currently studying the classical game of &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1917432&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Fabiano Caruana vs Hou Yifan played in 2018&lt;/a&gt;. The game ended in a fighting draw, but for the most part of the ending, starting from move &lt;code&gt;55&lt;/code&gt; onward (see diagram), black was a pawn up, in a knight vs bishop and 4 vs 3 pawn structure. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [title &quot;Fabiano Caruana vs Hou Yifan 2018&quot;]&#xA; [fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA; [startply &quot;110&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. Nxe5 d6 4. Nf3 Nxe4 5. Nc3 Nxc3 6. dxc3 Be7 7. Be3 O-O 8. Qd2 Nd7 9. O-O-O Nf6 10. h3 c5 11. Bf4 Be6 12. a3 d5 13. Ng5 Bd7 14. g4 Bc6 15. Bg2 Re8 16. Qd3 Bd6 17. Qg3 Bxf4+ 18. Qxf4 h6 19. Nf3 Qb8 20. Qxb8 Raxb8 21. Nd2 Re2 22. Rhf1 b6 23. Rde1 Rbe8 24. Rxe2 Rxe2 25. Kd1 Re6 26. f4 Kf8 27. Re1 Ke7 28. Rxe6+ Kxe6 29. Ke2 g5 30. fxg5 hxg5 31. Nf3 Ne4 32. Ke3 f6 33. Bf1 Nd6 34. Nd2 f5 35. gxf5+ Nxf5+ 36. Kf2 Ke5 37. Nf3+ Kf4 38. Ne1 c4 39. Ng2+ Ke5 40. Be2 Ba4 41. Bd1 Be8 42. Bg4 Bg6 43. Be2 Nd6 44. Ne3 Ne4+ 45. Kf3 Nf6 46. Kf2 Bf7 47. Ng2 Be6 48. h4 Ne4+ 49. Kf3 Bh3 50. hxg5 Nxg5+ 51. Kg3 Bxg2 52. Kxg2 Ne6 53. Kf2 Nc5 54. Bh5 Na4 55. Be8 Nxb2 56. Ke2 a6 57. Kd2 b5 58. Bh5 Na4 59. Bf7 Nc5 60. Kc1 Ne6 61. Kb2 Nf4 62. Be8 Ke4 63. Bc6 Ke3 64. Bb7 a5 65. Kc1 Ne2+ 66. Kb2 Kd2 67. Bxd5 Nxc3 68. Bc6 Nd1+ 69. Kb1 Ne3 70. Be4 c3 71. Bh7 Nc4 72. Ka2 Ne5 73. Be4 Ke3 74. Bh7 Nc6 75. Bg6 Kd2 76. Be4 Nd4 77. Kb1 Kd1 78. Bd5 Nf5 79. Be4 Ne3 80. Bg6 Kd2 81. Bd3 Nc4 82. Ka2 Nb6 83. Kb1 Nc4 84. Ka2 a4 85. Bg6 Kc1 86. Bd3 Nd6 87. Ka1 Nb7 88. Ka2 Nc5 89. Bf5 Na6 90. Bg6 Kd2 91. Bh7 Nb8 92. Bd3 Nc6 93. Bxb5 Nd4 94. Bxa4 Nxc2 95. Kb3 Nd4+ 96. Kc4 Nc2 97. Kb3 Ne3 98. Kb4 c2 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, at a first glance, I can see that other than being a pawn up, black is also positionally better, since:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The white king stands defensively throughout the game, the black king is well active and centralised. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;the white pawns are two isolated islands, and doubled on the c-file.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;there are only pawns on one side of the board (queenside), which makes the bishop's long-ranged scope less effective.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Black has a healthy pawn chain, with remaining flexibility in how they want to fix the pawn structure.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;And once the pawn structure fixed, the knight can be a threat to pawns on both colours, while the bishop's limited to light-squares.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With all these in mind, my question is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Was this endgame really a drawn one, or did Hou Yifan miss a win?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15078" LastActivityDate="2020-02-02T19:58:41.340" Title="Knight vs bishop endgame in Fabiano Caruana vs Hou Yifan 2018" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;planning&gt;&lt;bishop-endgame&gt;&lt;knight-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28291" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28290" CreationDate="2020-02-02T12:27:32.187" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;You left out THE single biggest factor in the position, at least initially: The knight has zero mobility. That said, she did, indeed miss two opportunities to win involving a queening scenario, but they were very tricky for a human.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I remember this endgame when they played it, and now, the winning idea comes back to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [Event &quot;Grenke Chess Classic 5th&quot;]&#xA; [Site &quot;Karlsruhe/Baden-Baden&quot;]&#xA; [Date &quot;2018.04.06&quot;]&#xA; [Round &quot;6&quot;]&#xA; [White &quot;Caruana, Fabiano&quot;]&#xA; [Black &quot;Hou, Yifan&quot;]&#xA; [Result &quot;1/2-1/2&quot;]&#xA; [ECO &quot;C42&quot;]&#xA; [WhiteElo &quot;2784&quot;]&#xA; [BlackElo &quot;2654&quot;]&#xA; [PlyCount &quot;196&quot;]&#xA; [EventDate &quot;2018.03.31&quot;]&#xA; [EventType &quot;tourn&quot;]&#xA; [EventRounds &quot;9&quot;]&#xA; [EventCountry &quot;GER&quot;]&#xA; [EventCategory &quot;20&quot;]&#xA; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. Nxe5 d6 4. Nf3 Nxe4 5. Nc3 Nxc3 6. dxc3 Be7 7. Be3 O-O 8. Qd2 Nd7 9. O-O-O Nf6 10. h3 c5 11. Bf4 Be6 12. a3 d5 13. Ng5 Bd7 14. g4 Bc6 15. Bg2 Re8 16. Qd3 Bd6 17. Qg3 Bxf4+ 18. Qxf4 h6 19. Nf3 Qb8 20. Qxb8 Raxb8 21. Nd2 Re2 22. Rhf1 b6 23. Rde1 Rbe8 24. Rxe2 Rxe2 25. Kd1 Re6 26. f4 Kf8 27. Re1 Ke7 28. Rxe6+ Kxe6 29. Ke2 g5 30. fxg5 hxg5 31. Nf3 Ne4 32. Ke3 f6 33. Bf1 Nd6 34. Nd2 f5 35. gxf5+ Nxf5+ 36. Kf2 Ke5 37. Nf3+ Kf4 38. Ne1 c4 39. Ng2+ Ke5 40. Be2 Ba4 41. Bd1 Be8 42. Bg4 Bg6 43. Be2 Nd6 44. Ne3 Ne4+ 45. Kf3 Nf6 46. Kf2 Bf7 47. Ng2 Be6 48. h4 Ne4+ 49. Kf3 Bh3 50. hxg5 Nxg5+ 51. Kg3 Bxg2 52. Kxg2 Ne6 53. Kf2 Nc5 54. Bh5 Na4 55. Be8 Nxb2 56. Ke2 a6 57. Kd2 b5 58. Bh5 Na4 59. Bf7 Nc5 60. Kc1 Ne6 61. Kb2 Nf4 62. Be8 Ke4 63. Bc6 Ke3 64. Bb7 a5 (64...Kd2 $1 65. Bxa6 Nd3+ 66. Kb1 (66. cxd3 d4 {Queens.}) Ne1 67. Bxb5 Kxc3 68. Ba4 Kd2 69. Kb2 d4 70. Kb1 Nxc2 71. Bxc2 d3 72. Ba4 c3 $19) 65. Kc1 Ne2+ 66. Kb2 Kd2 (66... Nf4 $1 67. Bc6 Kd2 68. Bxb5 Ne2 69. Bd7 Nxc3 70. Bc6 d4 71. Be8 Nd1+ 72. Kb1 Ne3 73. Bg6 c3 74. a4 Nxc2 75. Bxc2 d3 76. Bb3 c2+ $19) 67. Bxd5 Nxc3 68. Bc6 Nd1+ 69. Kb1 Ne3 70. Be4 c3 71. Bh7 Nc4 72. Ka2 Ne5 73. Be4 Ke3 74. Bh7 Nc6 75. Bg6 Kd2 76. Be4 Nd4 77. Kb1 Kd1 78. Bd5 Nf5 79. Be4 Ne3 80. Bg6 Kd2 81. Bd3 Nc4 82. Ka2 Nb6 83. Kb1 Nc4 84. Ka2 a4 85. Bg6 Kc1 86. Bd3 Nd6 87. Ka1 Nb7 88. Ka2 Nc5 89. Bf5 Na6 90. Bg6 Kd2 91. Bh7 Nb8 92. Bd3 Nc6 93. Bxb5 Nd4 94. Bxa4 Nxc2 95. Kb3 Nd4+ 96. Kc4 Nc2 97. Kb3 Ne3 98. Kb4 c2 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-02-02T12:32:58.467" LastActivityDate="2020-02-02T12:32:58.467" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28292" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28290" CreationDate="2020-02-02T12:32:45.003" Score="16" Body="&lt;p&gt;This was a great game! &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hou_Yifan&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Hou Yifan&lt;/a&gt; brilliantly outplayed her opponent  &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fabiano_Caruana&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Fabiano Caruana&lt;/a&gt; in a very positional middle game, and mind you using the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petrov&amp;#39;s_Defence&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Petroff's defence&lt;/a&gt; in the opening, which is Caruana's specialty by any stretch of the word! The endgame was very tricky, and Caruana proved his resilience and held the game to a draw in a very resourceful way, despite there having been missed chances for black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The short answer is: &lt;strong&gt;yes&lt;/strong&gt; there was at least one key moment where black had a forced win in the &lt;code&gt;N+4p vs B+3p.&lt;/code&gt; Having traded into a better endgame, pawn up and knight vs bishop, one of the critical moments of the game was after white's &lt;code&gt;64.Bb7&lt;/code&gt; move, harassing black's pawn backbone which all lie on light-squares, at this moment black had in fact the possibility of achieving a &lt;strong&gt;pawn breakthrough&lt;/strong&gt;, and create a passer!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [title &quot;Position after white's inaccurate 64.Bb7&quot;]&#xA; [fen &quot;8/1B6/p7/1p1p4/2p2n2/P1P1k3/1KP5/8 b - - 13 64&quot;]&#xA; [startflipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To see the pawn breakthrough, the idea to spot is: noting that white's bishop is locked out of play by black's pawns on light-squares, once the black king gets to &lt;code&gt;d2&lt;/code&gt;, the two kings on &lt;code&gt;b2&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;d2&lt;/code&gt; are in opposition, and had there been no white blockaders on &lt;code&gt;c2-c3&lt;/code&gt;, black would just advance their own &lt;code&gt;c&lt;/code&gt; pawn and promote (diagram):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/yQuTW.jpg&quot; width=&quot;250&quot; height=&quot;250&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the question is: how could we create this desired pawn breakthrough, or in other words, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Can white's &lt;code&gt;c2-c3&lt;/code&gt; pawns be removed after Kd2?&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First key move is &lt;code&gt;Nd3+!!&lt;/code&gt; The knight sacrifice removes the &lt;code&gt;c2&lt;/code&gt; blockader, and if white were to accept the sacrifice, then &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;removes the 2nd blockader (&lt;code&gt;c3&lt;/code&gt;) and black's &lt;code&gt;c&lt;/code&gt; pawn advance with check and promotes since the bishop is too slow in reaching the &lt;code&gt;a4-d1&lt;/code&gt; diagonal to eye &lt;code&gt;c2.&lt;/code&gt; Summary in diagrams:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/YCDcE.jpg&quot; width=&quot;220&quot; height=&quot;220&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/7AaoA.jpg&quot; width=&quot;220&quot; height=&quot;220&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/g6Eiw.jpg&quot; width=&quot;220&quot; height=&quot;220&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;But does white have to take the knight on d3?&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well, let's consider the only reasonable king move: &lt;code&gt;Kb1&lt;/code&gt;, as anything else just leaves both &lt;code&gt;c&lt;/code&gt; pawns hanging to black's king. Then, the same pawn breakthrough on the &lt;code&gt;c&lt;/code&gt;-file can be achieved, with the difference now that we first &lt;em&gt;win&lt;/em&gt; the &lt;code&gt;c2&lt;/code&gt; pawn with &lt;code&gt;Ne1-Nxc2&lt;/code&gt; and then play &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt;. Let's see in diagrams:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/7Z3xC.jpg&quot; width=&quot;220&quot; height=&quot;220&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/0ss1B.jpg&quot; width=&quot;220&quot; height=&quot;220&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/FuzEk.jpg&quot; width=&quot;220&quot; height=&quot;220&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and black again promotes a pawn on the &lt;code&gt;c&lt;/code&gt;-file, as in the rightmost diagram: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;if white takes on &lt;code&gt;c4&lt;/code&gt; then &lt;code&gt;dxc3+ Ka2&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;Nd4&lt;/code&gt; wins by preventing &lt;code&gt;Bb3&lt;/code&gt; and the &lt;code&gt;c&lt;/code&gt; pawn runs.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;instead, if white plays &lt;code&gt;Ba4&lt;/code&gt; immediately to cover &lt;code&gt;c2&lt;/code&gt;, then &lt;code&gt;dxc3+ Ka2&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;Nd4&lt;/code&gt; wins again since now black has two &lt;code&gt;c&lt;/code&gt; pawns and white's bishop can only be sacrificed for one of them.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And here's a summary of all the discussed variations:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [title &quot;Pawn breakthrough for black&quot;]&#xA; [fen &quot;8/1B6/p7/1p1p4/2p2n2/P1P1k3/1KP5/8 b - - 1 1&quot;]&#xA; [startflipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1... Kd2 {key starting move of the winning line, attacking both white pawns and covering the path for a pawn to promote along the c file.} 2. Bxa6 (2. Bc8 {an attempt to immediately re-route towards the defense of c2, but it is too slow and irrelevant as Nd3 still works} Nd3+ 3. Kb1 {cxd3 loses similarly to d4} Ne1 4. Bf5 Nxc2 5. Bxc2 Kxc3 {and black's connected passers win easily.}) Nd3+ 3. cxd3 (3. Kb1 Ne1 4. Bxb5 Nxc2 {Nxa3+ fork threatened} 5. Kb2 d4 6. Bxc4 (6. cxd4 c3+ 7. Ka2 Nb4+ 8. axb4 c2) (6. Ba4 dxc3+ 7. Ka2 Nd4 {and one of the c pawns promotes}) dxc3+ 7. Ka2 Nd4 {preventing Bb3 and c-pawn runs}) d4 4. cxd4 c3+ 5. Ka2 c2 {and black promotes}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So it's safe to say, &lt;code&gt;Kd2&lt;/code&gt; followed by &lt;code&gt;Nd3+&lt;/code&gt; was winning by force. What a beautiful pattern!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that, at the stage of the game that we are talking about here (around move &lt;code&gt;64&lt;/code&gt;), the players were playing by rote as they were relatively low on time, so Hou Yifan played the very natural &lt;code&gt;a5&lt;/code&gt; in reply to &lt;code&gt;Bb7&lt;/code&gt; (which in hindsight now we know to have been a blunder) and the winning pawn breakthrough was missed. She might have considered it but maybe couldn't work out all the details, e.g. the lines where white doesn't accept the sacrifice. Therefore, they played pragmatically considering their energy and remaining time on the clocks. Admittedly, even with more time, these strange pawn breakthroughs are never easy to spot, and tend to require a more relaxed mindset (like when one solves studies, and thus &lt;em&gt;knows&lt;/em&gt; there's something to be found), and are often times missed/dismissed in practical play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Reminds me of Kramnik vs Anand (world championship 2008), where Anand found a beautiful breakthrough in this position: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [title &quot;black to play and win&quot;]&#xA; [fen &quot;8/1R3p1p/4pk2/8/PP3pn1/8/5PPP/2r2BK1 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA; [startflipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The analysis is left to the reader ;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3594" LastActivityDate="2020-02-02T12:32:45.003" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28293" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28290" CreationDate="2020-02-02T19:58:41.340" Score="-5" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is a draw.&#xA;Black can protect the horsie.  And then his pawn chain but then:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is no viable way to force a pawn through where it wont be captured leaving K+N vs K.  Which is a draw. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastActivityDate="2020-02-02T19:58:41.340" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28294" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28281" CreationDate="2020-02-02T20:00:57.690" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;You have no way to know what your opponent was thinking. Maybe the move was intended to be a brilliant queen sacrifice, but then he/she realized the flaw in the plan. Or maybe it was just a slip of the mouse!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it had been my blunder, I would probably have waited to see if you actually took the queen or decided it must be a trap and ignored it, but resigned immediately if you did take it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't think you can draw much conclusion either way about &quot;sportspersonship&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20002" LastActivityDate="2020-02-02T20:00:57.690" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28295" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28275" CreationDate="2020-02-02T20:04:48.830" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don’t think that it is possible to answer the question objectively. For ME, the main non-functional characteristic is the user interface. I prefer DGT-style UI, and i try to avoid Silver-style UIs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, robustness is an important factor. A random drop or an emotional blow may not destroy a clock.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As i choose my clock for it’s functional characteristics, and there is ATM only one clock that fits my needs, the above non-functional characteristics would be k.o. criteria; everything else would be a mere nice-to-have list.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your list in your answer contains a lot of functional characteristics (e.g. bronstein/fischer delay). Perhaps we have different views on functional/non-functional. Could you clarify yours?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20096" LastActivityDate="2020-02-02T20:04:48.830" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28296" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14105" CreationDate="2020-02-02T20:05:02.247" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You should stick one ONE opening for white and black.  That still leaves a lot of ground to be familiar with but does cut it down enough so you have a much better chance of doing better than if you tried to really learn many different openings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now as to HOW to decide,  one teacher had a preference test he gave.  It asked many questions and then suggested the type of opening that would work best for your natural inclinations.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would say start with open closed and semiopen. &#xA;Which type do you like best.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then look at what openings fit that category, and narrow it down by games you have played or other factors you seem to like in similar position types.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then focus on just those openings. One for white and one for black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastActivityDate="2020-02-02T20:05:02.247" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28298" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28299" CreationDate="2020-02-03T12:14:57.750" Score="17" ViewCount="8024" Body="&lt;p&gt;I wonder what is considered to be a polite way of giving mate on board. Should one announce the checkmate? If so, should one press the clock after making the move, or stop it, or simply do nothing? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or should one press the clock silently as if it's a normal move and then wait until the opponent realizes (if they haven't yet) and shakes hands?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17330" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-02-03T13:18:52.227" LastActivityDate="2020-02-05T17:31:21.047" Title="What's the etiquette for giving checkmate on board?" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;etiquette&gt;&lt;otb-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28299" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28298" CreationDate="2020-02-03T12:51:58.650" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;Checkmate ends the game immediately, so there is no need to press the clock after it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Best is to play it as a normal move, look at your opponent and usually they'll shake hands. You can say &quot;checkmate&quot; as you move or if he doesn't immediately realize. Just don't overdo it :-)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes you mistakenly think it's checkmate. I once did (in extreme time trouble) and said &quot;checkmate!&quot;. My opponent shook hands and I had won our club's cup final. Until a spectator pointed out he could just capture a pawn with his king -- the checkmate pattern I thought we had would have worked had it been &lt;em&gt;his&lt;/em&gt; pawn... He didn't want to play anymore and said I had won as I he had resigned, but this is still a bad taste in my mouth twenty years later.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So be certain if you're going to announce it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2020-02-03T12:51:58.650" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28300" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28298" CreationDate="2020-02-03T13:03:10.440" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's nothing impolite about delivering checkmate in the same fashion that you'd make any other move. If anything, e.g. in formal games and when there's no risk of losing on time, it might be considered bad etiquette by the losing player to continue playing on in a completely hopeless position, instead, players usually resign before the checkmate occurs (see also &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/28281/is-it-poor-sportsmanship-to-resign-immediately-after-a-major-blunder-early-in-th&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; for related discussions on etiquettes fo resigning or playing on). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As to what the right etiquette for giving checkmate is, there isn't really much to it and you've basically already summed it up, that is &lt;em&gt;(in the following order, with first two points being most important assuming a formal game):&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Typically, one simply delivers the checkmating move, &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;presses the clock (a move counts as officially registered [*] once the clock is pressed while your flag hasn't dropped). &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;and wait for your opponent to realise the checkmate if they haven't yet (also typically further signalled by making eye contact), &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;at which point they will extend their hand for the final handshake of the game and scoresheets are signed.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On a more fun note, sometimes resigning before checkmate can become a bit awkward too when the losing player realises checkmate is imminent having missed a combination, like in this game between &lt;a href=&quot;https://youtu.be/DfgAdHivP8c?t=453&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Nepomniachtchi and Sarin&lt;/a&gt;, and sometimes delivering it can be plainly awesome like &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtcjx0EDz3M&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Ivanchuk checkmating the world champion&lt;/a&gt; ;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[*]: This is to be on the safe side (in case the move wasn't actually checkmating), even though as pointed out by &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/users/1761/jik&quot;&gt;JiK&lt;/a&gt; in comments, according to &lt;a href=&quot;https://handbook.fide.com/chapter/E012018&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE rules (6.2.1.1)&lt;/a&gt; if a move ends the game, it is &lt;em&gt;completed&lt;/em&gt; by default, i.e., pressing the clock is no longer necessary when it is either a checkmate or stalemate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3594" LastEditorUserId="3594" LastEditDate="2020-02-04T12:31:26.070" LastActivityDate="2020-02-04T12:31:26.070" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28301" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28298" CreationDate="2020-02-03T14:07:07.657" Score="24" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is really a question for fairly low-rated players, who tend to play things out to the bitter end. If you are reasonably strong, the only reason your opponent does not resign earlier is that he thought you played such a good game that he allows you to execute the checkmate (I have done this), or thinks that the final position is beautiful, and saw it coming.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A very good example of the latter is this game between Peter Svidler and Magnus Carlsen at Grenke this past year (2019), where Peter allowed mate on the board. Note the BIG smiles on the faces of both players in &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_fCkpY6dx8&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this video&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the end, it is just common sense and human decency: Just be humble, nice, and say &quot;checkmate&quot; politely, and shake hands. Treat the person the way you would want to be treated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [Event &quot;Grenke Chess Classic 6th&quot;]&#xA; [Site &quot;Karlsruhe/Baden Baden&quot;]&#xA; [Date &quot;2019.04.28&quot;]&#xA; [Round &quot;8&quot;]&#xA; [White &quot;Svidler, Peter&quot;]&#xA; [Black &quot;Carlsen, Magnus&quot;]&#xA; [Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA; [ECO &quot;B30&quot;]&#xA; [WhiteElo &quot;2735&quot;]&#xA; [BlackElo &quot;2845&quot;]&#xA; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Nc3 e5 4. Bc4 Be7 5. d3 d6 6. Nd2 Nf6 7. Nf1 Nd7 8. Nd5 Nb6 9. Nxb6 axb6 10. c3 O-O 11. Ne3 Bg5 12. O-O Kh8 13. a3 f5 14. Nxf5 Bxc1 15. Rxc1 Bxf5 16. exf5 d5 17. Ba2 Rxf5 18. Qg4 Rf6 19. f4 exf4 20. Qg5 Qf8 21. Qxd5 Rd8 22. Qf3 Ne5 23. Qe4 Ng4 24. Rce1 Ne3 25. Rf2 Re8 26. Qxb7 g5 27. Rfe2 g4 28. Rf2 Qh6 29. Qc7 Ref8 30. h3 gxh3 31. g3 fxg3 32. Rxf6 h2+ 33. Kh1 g2# 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2020-02-03T14:07:07.657" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28303" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5099" CreationDate="2020-02-03T15:53:43.737" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The value of anything is exactly what a willing buyer is willing to pay to a willing seller.  There is no other way to determine value.  Value can not be imputed by some authority who says that is what something is worth.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the end it is supply and demand that sets the value. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When there are multiple sellers and or buyers then the value will depend on how many items are available for sale. Auctions work for scarce items to determine value.  Competition by sellers works for plentiful commodity items.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastActivityDate="2020-02-03T15:53:43.737" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28304" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-02-03T16:19:12.330" Score="9" ViewCount="2957" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are a number of ways a clock can fail during a game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Battery runs out, player pushes button by mistake and resets it,  falls on floor and breaks, kiddie smashes toggle button hard with captured queen and clock stops [I have seen that kiddie type of hitting the clock hard with a piece usually a queen on several occasions], yada yada.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So what happens if in the middle of a game the clock stops working correctly?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This would clearly impact games more that are nearing the end and players are in time pressure,   as well as for speed games where the delay in correcting the problem would have more significance than at the beginning of a long slow OTB game. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-04-01T14:05:29.900" LastActivityDate="2020-04-01T14:05:29.900" Title="What happens should a clock fail during the game?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;fide&gt;&lt;chess-clocks&gt;&lt;uscf&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28305" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28304" CreationDate="2020-02-03T16:29:54.963" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;Per FIDE rules 6.10a and 6.10b (I am including the latter since it is so closely related in that it can require the arbiter to adjust the times based on judgment):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;6.10 a. Every indication given by the clocks is considered to be conclusive in the absence of any  evident  defect.  A  chess  clock &#xA;  with  an  evident  defect  shall  be  replaced.  The  arbiter  shall &#xA;  replace  the  clock  and  use  his  best  judgment  when  determining &#xA;  the  times to be shown on the replacement chess clocks&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;6.10 b. If  during  a  game  it  is  found  that  the  setting  of  either  or  both  clocks  was  incorrect,  either player or the&#xA;  arbiter shall stop the clocks immediately. The arbiter shall install&#xA;  the  correct  setting  and  adjust  the  times  and  move  counter. &#xA;  He  shall  use  his  best  judgement when determining the correct&#xA;  settings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Per USCF rules:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;16 O. Defective clocks. Every indication given by a clock is considered&#xA;  to be conclusive in the absence of evident defects. A player who&#xA;  wishes to claim any such defect must do so as soon as aware of it. A&#xA;  clock with an obvious defect should be replaced, and the time used by&#xA;  eachplayer up to that time should be indicated on the new clock as&#xA;  accurately as possible. The director should use judgment in&#xA;  determining what times shall be shown on the new clock. A director who&#xA;  decides to subtract time from one or both players shall leave that&#xA;  player(s) with the greater of either five minutes to the time control&#xA;  or at least one minute for each move the player still needs to meet&#xA;  the time control.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Again, I am going to include this since it is closely related, and is akin to what I posted for FIDE above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;16 P. Erroneously set clocks.An erroneously set clock should be&#xA;  handled in the same fashion as a defective clock. As in 16O, the&#xA;  director should use judgment in deciding whether to make time&#xA;  adjustments. The most common situation of this type involves an analog&#xA;  clock set to expire at 7:00 rather than the correct 6:00. This is best&#xA;  handled by pointing out to both players that the time control expires&#xA;  at 7:00. Clocks can also be reset for the correct time controls and&#xA;  the correct elapsed timefor each player.Sometimes this hour difference&#xA;  is not pointed out and there is an eventual time claim. Even though&#xA;  the clock may show 6:00 with a flag down, or the signaling device on a&#xA;  delay or digital clock indicates a flag fall, if the total elapsed&#xA;  timeshown for both players is about an hour more than possible,&#xA;  considering when the game started, the player should not be forfeited,&#xA;  and should be given the hour in question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2020-02-03T16:29:54.963" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28306" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28304" CreationDate="2020-02-03T16:41:53.823" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;This was more of a problem with the earlier generation (early 2000's) of digital clocks. One of them had a fault which meant that if you gave it a bit of a smack then the battery might jiggle inside, momentarily interrupting the electricity supply and it would reset. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The post 2010 clocks don't have this problem, probably they just fitted a small capacitor to maintain current. Nevertheless most arbiters with more than a few years experience will be familiar with the problem and what to do, having probably handled the situation several times in the past.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The arbiter knows the start time, the current time, the increment and the current move number. From this he can work out how much game time is left. This remaining time is split equally between the two players, the clock adjusted appropriately and the game restarted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Variations on this scenario can occur if the arbiter has recently had cause to write down the times of the clocks and thereby take into account different amounts of time taken, however this information has to be very fresh to be fair since somebody who was 5 minutes ahead on the clock quarter of an hour ago could easily be 5 minutes behind now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If both players have been recording the time and have up to date time notations which match then these could be used. If only one player has such notations then they can only be used if both players agree.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the clock is faulty it should be replaced and this entails a follow up rule for tournament organisers, that they should have several spare, working clocks with good batteries available.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also worth noting that for more critical games the arbiter should move the players away from the board while sorting out the problem. Calculating the adjustments to be made and replacing the clock will take a couple of minutes and if the players are allowed to sit in front of the board then this could confer an unfair advantage in additional thinking time for one of the players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2020-02-03T16:46:15.193" LastActivityDate="2020-02-03T16:46:15.193" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28307" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28281" CreationDate="2020-02-03T17:42:47.080" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;This issue is not specific to chess. In any game where it can become obvious at some point who will win or lose it is a matter of opinion as to whether the obviously losing side should quit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The side of &quot;The loser should just quit and we should save ourselves the time or perhaps start a new game&quot; side has fairly logical and straightforward reasoning. It seems other answerers here are in that boat, but it is certainly not an open-shut case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For many people, not playing until the end ruins the entire game. I generally prefer to play to the very last move, even if it is completely obvious that I will win or lose before then.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I quit because I'm losing, I feel like I didn't actually lose, I just quit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I win because my opponent quits, I feel like I didn't actually beat them, they just quit. This ruins the victory for me. It feels hollow, sometimes worse than not having played at all. It is the other player's right to quit, but it is also my right to be frustrated that they do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes I have asked people to please play the last few moves if they quit at a spot that would take less than a minute or two to finish. Just as the loser has the right to not finish, I have the right to ask them to please finish, but I cannot force the matter. I have had people refuse my request to finish, and there is nothing that can be done about it other than politely accepting and walking away annoyed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is nothing unsportsmanlike about wanting to finish a game you start. There are plenty of people who feel like they need to finish.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the summary answer to your question is that it is neither definitely sportsmanlike nor definitely unsportsmanlike. What makes it sporting or not is the manner in which it is done, though in an online game with little or no communication it is mostly a matter of opinion and opinions vary wildly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20819" LastActivityDate="2020-02-03T17:42:47.080" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28308" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28281" CreationDate="2020-02-03T21:08:51.553" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;tl;dr No, not bad sportsmanship at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Details: When you're sure you're going to lose, why waste your time and your opponent's time? Cash the game in and maybe be able to get in an extra game in whatever playing session you're in? And let your opponent do the same?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My personal practice is I'll resign if I have confidence my opponent knows how to win the position on the board. Sometimes I'll make my opponent play a couple of moves more, just to see if they actually do. Play well enough, and I'll resign; give me a reason to believe you won't, and I'll play on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can't speak to what was in your opponent's mind to resign like that, but one possibility is being so angry with themself as to just want the game to be over so they could forget it and move on, and not have to look at that mistake any longer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On a wider note, this is the first time I've ever heard someone question the sportsmanship of resigning; it's always been complaints about the bad sportsmanship of continuing to play on. (One player, after a blunder, asked if I minded them playing it out, because they wanted to see how a game with that kind of advantage could be won -- young player, advantage was two exchanges. I didn't mind, if you're curious.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="657" LastActivityDate="2020-02-03T21:08:51.553" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28309" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28326" CreationDate="2020-02-04T03:08:29.383" Score="2" ViewCount="140" Body="&lt;p&gt;Does the bishop pair compensate for doubled pawns if there are no rooks to attack with the bishops in the endgame?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21318" LastEditorUserId="21318" LastEditDate="2020-02-04T17:12:29.733" LastActivityDate="2020-02-05T17:11:36.943" Title="Structure-better structure or bishop pair in the endgame?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;pawn-structure&gt;&lt;doubled-pawn&gt;&lt;bishop-pair&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28310" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28311" CreationDate="2020-02-04T09:29:46.513" Score="11" ViewCount="2095" Body="&lt;p&gt;I reached the position below in a recent tournament game&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;Recent Tournament&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Deepest, Darkest Oxfordshire&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;Feb 2020&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Ian Bush&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;A Young Victim&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteELO &quot;~1850&quot;]&#xA;[BlackELO &quot;~1850&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;C55r&quot;]&#xA;[StartPly &quot;52&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nf6 4.d4 exd4 5.e5 d5 6.Bb5 Ne4 7.Nxd4 Bd7 8.Bxc6 &#xA;bxc6 9.O-O Bc5 10.f3 Ng5 11.Be3 Qe7 12.f4 Ne4 13.Nd2 Nxd2 14.Qxd2 O-O 15.&#xA;Nb3 Bxe3+ 16.Qxe3 f6 17.Nc5 fxe5 18.fxe5 Be6 19.Rae1 Rxf1+ 20.Rxf1 Rf8 21.&#xA;Rxf8+ Kxf8 22.Nb3 Bd7 23.Qc5 Ke8 24.Qxe7+ Kxe7 25.Nc5 Bf5 26.c3 h6 27.Kf2 Bc8&#xA;28.Ke3 Bf5 29.Kd4 Bb1 30.a3 Bc2 31.Na6 Bb3 32.Nc5 Bc4 33.Ke3 Ba2 34.Kf4 Bb1&#xA;35.h4 Bc2 36.g3 Bb1 37.Nb3 g6 38.Nd4 Kd7 39.b4 Bd3 40.a4 Bb1 41.a5 Bd3 42.Nb3&#xA;Bc4 43.Nc5+ Ke7 44.h5 gxh5 45.Kf5 Be2 46.Kg6 Bd1 47.Kxh6 Be2 48.Kg5 Bg4&#xA;49.Nb3 Bd1 50.Nd4 Kd7 51.Kf6 Ke8 52.Nxc6 a6 53.e6 Bg4 54.e7 Bd7 55.Nd4 Bh3&#xA;56.Ne6 Bxe6 57.Kxe6 h4 58.gxh4 d4 59.cxd4 c5 60.d5 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Though I ultimately won I have to admit a good part of it was waiting for my opponent to make a mistake - my opinion was that only black could lose this one so I'd try and slowly improve things waiting for a mistake in a difficult position, and then hopefully pounce. But is there a better plan which does not involve my opponent being cooperative and I can just win whatever he does? Sample variations to illustrate ideas would be appreciated - especially as this is a thematic endgame from the opening I use, and so I would like to learn how to play it better. I should also say I saw at various points how I could win a Q side pawn or two but was worried it was taking my wonderful knight out of play and sometimes saccing the e5 pawn to get 2 Q side pawns, which again I was not convinced was a good bargain - was I being too cautious?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For what it is worth both he and me are about 1850 FIDE (converted from ECF), and my plans to improve the position were&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Get everything on black squares so he doesn't have any targets &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Edge my pawns forward making them closer to queening when the breakthrough occurs&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Plant the king on d4 or f4 again for the breakthrough&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Combine varying the angle of attack of the knight against the Q side pawns with threats of e6 to try and win one or more of his Q side pawns&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7726" LastEditorUserId="3594" LastEditDate="2020-02-14T09:45:58.617" LastActivityDate="2020-02-14T09:45:58.617" Title="Good Knight Against Bad Bishop Endgame - A More Constructive Plan?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;&lt;knights&gt;&lt;bishops&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28311" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28310" CreationDate="2020-02-04T10:37:47.203" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, the good: You are probably winning this throughout the game, and thus, improving your position gradually was the perfect plan. It also was one of the best examples of Shereshevsky's &quot;Do Not Hurry&quot; principle that I have ever seen. Black could do nothing, so gradually improving, and eventually converting, was perfect since you had all the time in the world. Having this much time is, obviously, not that common in chess, which leads me to the next paragraph.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, for the bad, and you even allude to in in your question when you said &quot;was I being too cautious?&quot; I do not know if this is a pattern in all your games, but you showed a lack of calculating when it was just winning, and a lack of action. You need to work on concrete play. In games where you do not have that much time, that might be the difference between winning and drawing, or worse.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am not trying to be hard on you, but rather, just to point this out. In fact, just yesterday, I read &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/blog/LogoCzar/how-i-became-a-national-master&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this article&lt;/a&gt;, and you might find it helpful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are my notes to the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;Recent Tournament&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Deepest, Darkest Oxfordshire&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;Feb 2020&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Ian Bush&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;A Young Victim&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteELO &quot;~1850&quot;]&#xA;[BlackELO &quot;~1850&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;C56&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;119&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Nf6 4. d4 exd4 5. e5 d5 6. Bb5 Ne4 7. Nxd4 Bd7 8. Bxc6 bxc6 9. O-O Bc5 10. f3 Ng5 11. Be3 Qe7 12. f4 Ne4 13. Nd2 Nxd2 14. Qxd2 O-O 15. Nb3 Bxe3+ 16. Qxe3 f6 17. Nc5 fxe5 18. fxe5 Be6 19. Rae1 Rxf1+ $2 {This was, indeed, way too cooperative. The Be6 should blockade the pawn, and the rooks should seek counterplay on the queenside.} (19... Rfb8 20. b3 Rb5) 20. Rxf1 Rf8 $2 {I am tempted to give this positional lemon two question marks. } 21. Rxf8+ Kxf8 22. Nb3 (22. b4 {Is typical here, not wasting time, but since there is no good way of avoiding getting the queens off, it is worth it.}) 22... Bd7 23. Qc5 Ke8 24. Qxe7+ Kxe7 25. Nc5 (25. c3 $1 {A little refinement preventing d4 since Ke6 does not help.} Ke6 $2 26. Nc5+ Kxe5 $4 27. Nxd7+) 25... Bf5 (25... d4 26. Kf2 Bf5 {Black is still worse, but finally with some potential for counterplay.}) 26. c3 h6 27. Kf2 Bc8 28. Ke3 Bf5 29. Kd4 $18 {THE perfect initial setup.} Bb1 30. a3 (30. a4 $1 {Concrete play.} g5 31. a5 Bg6 32. Na6 Kd8 33. Nb8 Be8 34. Kc5 {And just wins.}) 30... Bc2 31. Na6 Bb3 32. Nc5 (32. Nb8 $1 {Again, you avoid concrete play.} Ba4 33. Kc5 Ke6 34. Nxc6 a6 35. Nb4 Kxe5 36. Nxa6 c6 37. Nb8 $18) 32... Bc4 33. Ke3 Ba2 34. Kf4 Bb1 35. h4 Bc2 36. g3 Bb1 37. Nb3 g6 38. Nd4 $6 {Although it loses a pawn for black, you allow counterplay, and the one move black has been trying to play the whole game, c5. It still wins, but unless you calculated it all well, it is not a move I would allow here.} Kd7 (38... c5 39. Nb5 c6 40. Nxa7 Kd7 {The computer has no doubt you are winning, but if I got here in my calculations, I would worry about the semi-trapped knight here, and even after e6+, I get it out, will the extra pawn still be winning.} 41. e6+ Kxe6 42. Nxc6) 39. b4 Bd3 40. a4 Bb1 41. a5 Bd3 42. Nb3 Bc4 43. Nc5+ (43. Nd4 Bd3 44. g4 Bb1 45. h5 g5+ 46. Ke3 {And Nf5 or e6 will win.} Be4 47. e6+ Kd6 48. e7 Kxe7 49. Nxc6+ $18 Kd7 50. Nxa7 c6 51. b5 cxb5 52. Nxb5 Kc6 53. Nd4+ Kb7 54. Nf5) 43... Ke7 44. h5 $1 gxh5 45. Kf5 Be2 46. Kg6 Bd1 47. Kxh6 Be2 48. Kg5 Bg4 49. Nb3 Bd1 50. Nd4 Kd7 51. Kf6 Ke8 52. Nxc6 a6 53. e6 Bg4 54. e7 (54. b5 $1 {Again, concrete play.} Be2 55. b6 {And queens.}) 54... Bd7 55. Nd4 Bh3 56. Ne6 Bxe6 57. Kxe6 h4 58. gxh4 d4 59. cxd4 $6 (59. h5 {While not technically a mistake, you should have seen this common mating pattern easily.} dxc3 60. h6 c2 61. h7 c1=Q 62. h8=Q#) 59...c5 60. d5 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2020-02-04T10:37:47.203" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28312" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28310" CreationDate="2020-02-04T10:40:01.440" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;What a beautiful domination of black's king by the knight and pawn setup on &lt;code&gt;c5,e5,&lt;/code&gt; white is essentially up a king in this endgame!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Given that black is completely unable to create any threats, you have all the tempi to centralize your king and aim for a specific setup thereafter. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One potentially simpler plan that springs to mind is, targeting black's weak pawn on &lt;code&gt;c6.&lt;/code&gt; The problem for black is, they cannot prevent your king from getting to the &lt;code&gt;c5&lt;/code&gt; square, and once you do, all that remains is to reroute your knight to also target &lt;code&gt;c6&lt;/code&gt; and win the pawn. Once &lt;code&gt;c6&lt;/code&gt; falls, then you win the &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt; pawn, or the &lt;code&gt;a7&lt;/code&gt; pawn with your knight shortly after, depending on how black plays it. Here's a diagram roughly summarising our plan:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9T19J.jpg&quot; width=&quot;350&quot; height=&quot;350&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;sup&gt;&lt;i&gt; green: our basic setup, then, blue: the knight reroute to c6  &lt;/i&gt;&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Additionally, you want to have your &lt;code&gt;a&lt;/code&gt; pawn as close to the promotion square as possible, then black can never really afford losing the &lt;code&gt;a7&lt;/code&gt; pawn, which means &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt; will have to be given up [*]. For the feasibility of this advance, note that once you play &lt;code&gt;a4&lt;/code&gt;, which is also covered by your knight on &lt;code&gt;c5&lt;/code&gt;, black can never paly &lt;code&gt;a5&lt;/code&gt; to block your &lt;code&gt;a&lt;/code&gt; pawn on light squares, since after &lt;code&gt;a5&lt;/code&gt;, white will force a passer along the &lt;code&gt;a&lt;/code&gt;-file with &lt;code&gt;b4&lt;/code&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/jfTkB.jpg&quot; width=&quot;350&quot; height=&quot;350&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;sup&gt;&lt;i&gt; a4 can never be met with a5: white creates a passer.  &lt;/i&gt;&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, here are a few lines, showcasing how our plan can be concretely executed:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [title &quot;concrete assessment of our queenside plan to target c6&quot;]&#xA; [fen &quot;8/p1p1k1p1/2p4p/2NpPb2/8/2P5/PP4PP/6K1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1.Kf2 Bc8 2.Ke3 Bf5 3.Kd4 Bb1 (3...Bc8 {this is a line to show that in case black decides to keep the bishop on c8 preventing Na6 of our mainline, we simply achieve the same setup except c6 is targeted via Nd3 to Nb4.} 4.a4 Kd8 {black is trying to pretend there's a fortress and will only make waiting king moves, because what else can be done ...} 5.a5 Ke7 6.Nd3 Ke6 7.Nb4 Bd7 8.Kc5 Kxe5 9.Nxc6+ Ke6 10.Nxa7 {can already stop here since the win is easy from here, but let's try a few more moves} Ba4 11.a6 Kd7 12.b3 {distracting the bishop from the control of c6, so we can reroute knight to a5 and promote} Bxb3 13.Nc6 Ba4 14.Na5) 4.a4 Bc2 (4...a5 5.b4 {black cannot prevent the creation of a passer along the a file.}) 5.a5 Bf5 6.Na6 Bc8 (6...Kd8 7.Nb8 Bd7 8.Kc5 {and c6 falls anyhow, this is even a worse version than Bc8 Ke6 for black.}) 7.Nb8 {and our main setup has been established, c6 will fall forcibly.} (7.Nxc7 {would be a terrible blunder and completely inconsistent with our plan. The blunder lies in that our knight would be trapped. We want to target c6 no matter what black does.}) Bd7 {an attempt to try and hold on to the pawn} 8.Kc5 Ke6 9.Nxc6 a6 (9...Bxc6 Kxc6 {loses trivially as our king is too fast in mopping up the remaining queenside pawns and our a pawn promotes quickly.}) 10.Nb4 {either a6 or d5 fall next, and the conversion is trivial thereafter.}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Try to play further with these kinds of lines to see if you can find any means for black to challenge our main plan. These endgames can be a lot of fun to mull over :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[*]: since after your knight takes on &lt;code&gt;c6&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;a6&lt;/code&gt; will have to be played to keep the &lt;code&gt;a&lt;/code&gt; pawn, thus, the bishop is overloaded by the defense of two isolated pawns on light squares: &lt;code&gt;a6&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3594" LastActivityDate="2020-02-04T10:40:01.440" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28313" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28309" CreationDate="2020-02-04T11:33:26.050" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It depends on the position, but a bishop is generally considered strong of play is on both sides of the boards and it's an open board. I would think that a sample position would help to understand what are you trying to point out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21014" LastActivityDate="2020-02-04T11:33:26.050" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28314" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28310" CreationDate="2020-02-04T15:39:31.650" Score="-3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Looks like an easy win for white.  You have to be careful how you do it but getting the k to the qside to pick up the rook pawn or else win the bishop as you advance the kpawn without the black king to stop it because it is guarding the rook pawn.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;putting your pawns on black squares first could block your king from getting to the q side &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastActivityDate="2020-02-04T15:39:31.650" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28315" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14473" CreationDate="2020-02-04T15:48:00.910" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;First you need to prove that someone can force a promotion.  That is far from obvious.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then you would need to prove that it is not , with best play, always a blocked position with the same player making the last move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I suspect that this is just a puzzle that could be solved by computer that shows there is one best outcome that is always the same. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastActivityDate="2020-02-04T15:48:00.910" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28316" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28281" CreationDate="2020-02-04T15:59:17.547" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can resign after a blunder if you want, but what happens most common is that they wil wait for you to capture the queen, then resign&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastActivityDate="2020-02-04T15:59:17.547" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28317" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5238" CreationDate="2020-02-04T18:22:56.053" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;To directly answer the OP as asked looking for a general answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;NO.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And it is unlikely you will get to choose.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In many cases if they wish to give up the bishop pair you may have to take the doubled pawns and have nothing to say  about it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastActivityDate="2020-02-04T18:22:56.053" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28318" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14473" CreationDate="2020-02-04T19:24:28.223" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The common version of the rules for pawns-only chess (or pawn wars) states that the stalemated player loses, see &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessvariants.com/diffsetup.dir/pawnsonly.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.chessvariants.com/diffsetup.dir/pawnsonly.html&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/8755/is-the-result-in-mini-chess-known-with-perfect-play/23275&quot;&gt;Is the result in mini-chess known with perfect play?&lt;/a&gt;. In the latter thread you can also find the outcome of the game with perfect play in case you are interested.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15415" LastActivityDate="2020-02-04T19:24:28.223" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28319" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28275" CreationDate="2020-02-05T00:58:53.847" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;For me, and the events I play in (and direct), my needs for functional characteristics are fairly simple - I'd like a clock to support at least a primary and a secondary time control (so it kind of has to have a move counter to be able to do that), with delay and increment settings.  Most clocks on the market today have those (with the notable exceptions of the DGT 1001 and the DGT Easy [not the Plus model]).  So my ultimate choice is going to be driven by the non-functional characteristics.  As indicated by the OP in a comment on this question, getting these wrong can render the functional characteristics non-useful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The non-functional characteristics that I personally find important are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Quality and size of display.  I want to be able to read the clock from some distance away, without glare.  So many clocks I've seen get this wrong - if you're not right at the board, it can be very difficult to read the clock (both due to display size, and glare).  In currently available clocks, I believe the DGT 3000 does this best.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;For the way the player presses the clock, it would be nice if it was an actual button (well, two buttons), that actually go up and down (like an analog clock) so you can tell who's on move, and preferably with some real tactile feedback so you can know you pressed the button.  Touch sensors, I can never tell if I've actually stopped my clock.  The DGT &quot;see-saw&quot; doesn't really do it for me, as it can be difficult to see who is on move from some distance away (partly because of the color of the &quot;see-saw&quot; bar...)  My choices for best here would be the Saitek Mephisto Competition / Competition Pro clocks (sadly no longer produced).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Well constructed, able to take a certain amount of punishment (in terms of rough use in blitz, or drops from tabletop height), and doesn't feel like it's going to fall apart in my hand when I press the clock (I'm looking at you, Excalibur Game Time / Game Time II...).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Ease of setting and changing the clock.  I'd really like to have at least a chance of being able to set a clock without having a manual or cheat-sheet with me.  Chronos and Z-Mart clocks are nightmares to me - especially as a TD, if I have to update a clock due to a time penalty or something, I'm just going to have to hope that the clock's owner knows how to do it.  I know that if all you've got for user input is three buttons (which includes the two buttons that the players use to press the clock), it's sort of challenging, but still...&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Battery type and life.  I certainly want the batteries to last as long as possible, preferably, preferably for at least a couple of years of play.  The batteries in my Saitek clocks last practically forever (or at least that's what it seems like to me...), but if I suddenly realize I have to change them during or immediately before an event - they're C cells, and I'm probably not going to be carrying a spare set of those around with me.  The DGT 3000 uses AA cells, and it's perfectly reasonable to have spares of those in my chess bag, though I'm not sure how long those batteries last in that clock.  I would presume the worst battery life would be with clocks that use LED displays like the Z-Mart clocks, but that's just a guess on my part.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My &quot;daily driver&quot; chess clocks that meet my non-functional requirements best are my Saitek Competition and Competition Pro clocks.  I've just recently acquired a DGT 3000 and may try to switch to that for a while to see how I like it...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7147" LastEditorUserId="7147" LastEditDate="2020-02-05T01:05:03.223" LastActivityDate="2020-02-05T01:05:03.223" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28320" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13982" CreationDate="2020-02-05T06:43:21.367" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess Openings Wizard can produce output that is sort of the transpose of the MCO format. This isn't exactly what you want, but it might suffice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More detail:&#xA;Chess Openings Wizard (COW), by &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.bookup.com/home/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Bookup.com&lt;/a&gt;, are apps (Mac, Windows, iOS, Android) for training yourself in your opening repertoire that&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;[r]ather than store lists of games, Chess Openings Wizard stores chess theory in trees of positions, much the way theory is recorded in books such as the Encyclopedia of Chess Openings and the Encyclopedia of Chess Endgames. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It comes in a cheaper (&quot;Express&quot;) and in a more-expensive (&quot;Professional&quot;) version. According to the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.bookup.com/catalog/comparison-chart/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Comparison Chart&lt;/a&gt;, the Professional version &quot;prints ECO/BCO-style sheets of analysis.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ECO and BCO refer to &quot;Encyclopedia or Chess Openings&quot; and &quot;Batsford Chess Openings,&quot; respectively.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Apparently the format of ECO/BCO is sort of the transpose of the type of table used in MCO (which you referenced in your question). From Steven Lopez, &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.chessbase.com/post/table-views-and-printouts-in-chebase-9&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Table views and printouts in ChessBase 9&lt;/a&gt;,&quot; Chess News, August 31, 2006:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Books like Modern Chess Openings use a columnar format: the variations are printed in columns on the page -- you start at the top of the page and work your way down. The majority of other compendiums such as the Encyclopedia of Chess Openings, Batsford Chess Openings, and Nunn's Chess Openings use a table format in which the variations are read from left to right across the page. If a variation starts with the same move (or moves) as the one immmediately above it on the page, spaces are left blank to designate that the moves are the same as the variation above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17203" LastEditorUserId="17203" LastEditDate="2020-02-05T07:05:47.300" LastActivityDate="2020-02-05T07:05:47.300" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28321" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28325" CreationDate="2020-02-05T09:00:55.207" Score="2" ViewCount="895" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am interested in doing some analyses of chess games using the neural network trained for Lc0. To that end I need to be able to turn PGN into the right kind of input vectors and to load and use the neural network trained for Leela chess. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is whether there is python code for this somewhere. Especially for the first step, using the neural network shouldn't be a problem. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Alternatively an explanation of how the input vectors are computed might enable me to write it myself. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-03-04T21:20:11.187" LastActivityDate="2021-04-11T08:08:20.087" Title="Is there Python code to use the Leela neural network?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;programming&gt;&lt;pgn&gt;&lt;leela&gt;&lt;python&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28322" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-02-05T14:39:03.420" Score="22" ViewCount="10270" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was playing and I am pretty sure that my opponent was talking about the game with his friend in another language. I don’t speak the language, but you can tell. What should I have done?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user21437" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-20T19:45:03.767" LastActivityDate="2020-03-20T19:45:03.767" Title="I was playing a tournament and some kids were talking about the game in a foreign language" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;cheating&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28323" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28322" CreationDate="2020-02-05T14:42:24.277" Score="28" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, you should inform the tournament director, and let that person handle it. There is a parental instinct that makes me want to just take the kid aside, and say something privately first, but since that can be misconstrued, do not do that, and let the TD handle it. I am sure that they will mention it, or warn the kids, and hopefully it will be done with.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I speak Russian, and in times gone by, I would hear some of them discuss games that were not mine, and it was not so much about specific calculations, but still. Thankfully, it was not common, but it still violates the rules, and needs to be dealt with. In my case, they were always adults, who should have known better. In your case, you have kids, who often just have not been taught well enough yet, and hopefully a stern word of warning will end this before it is evolves into intentional cheating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Playing kids is hard enough: To have to play two of them in tandem is for the birds. :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-02-05T14:58:44.610" LastActivityDate="2020-02-05T14:58:44.610" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28324" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28322" CreationDate="2020-02-05T14:59:05.977" Score="17" Body="&lt;p&gt;Hi Liam and welcome to chess.stackexchange. I am sorry that you had this experience. If this tournament was played under FIDE rules, then the following articles are directly relevant:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;11.3.1 During play the players are forbidden to use any notes, sources of information or advice, or analyse any game on another chessboard.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;11.5 It is forbidden to distract or annoy the opponent in any manner whatsoever.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;12.7 [...] Spectators are not allowed to interfere in a game. The arbiter may expel offenders from the playing venue.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;12.2 The arbiter shall:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;12.2.1 ensure fair play,&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;12.2.2 act in the best interest of the competition,&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;12.2.3 ensure that a good playing environment is maintained,&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;12.2.4 ensure that the players are not disturbed,&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;12.2.5 supervise the progress of the competition,&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;12.2.6 take special measures in the interests of disabled players and those who need medical attention,&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;12.2.7 follow the Anti-Cheating Rules or Guidelines&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should therefore at the time call the arbiter and explain the situation so he can take the corrective steps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The arbiter should stop the clock (although the player has the right to do this prior to calling the judge too). The judge has absolute discretion under the laws, to come to the best solution. A wide number of different circumstances can have led to the complaint, with varying levels of penalty appropriate, and different clues are available. If cheating is suspected then a substantial interruption may be required for investigation&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8201" LastEditorUserId="8201" LastEditDate="2020-02-07T10:22:20.917" LastActivityDate="2020-02-07T10:22:20.917" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28325" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28321" CreationDate="2020-02-05T15:49:32.020" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Python utilities for experimenting with Leela Chess Zero a neural network based chess engine: &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/glinscott/leela-chess/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://github.com/glinscott/leela-chess/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here: &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/so-much-meta/lczero_tools&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://github.com/so-much-meta/lczero_tools&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;This allows you to run the network in Python on specific board positions via python-chess, and get policy/value outputs. (Works with pytorch, and is also able to run the network using the tfprocess training module included in Leela).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/dkappe/leela-chess-weights/wiki/Supervised-Learning&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://github.com/dkappe/leela-chess-weights/wiki/Supervised-Learning&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;A newer, faster tool for converting pgn to training data can be found here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastActivityDate="2020-02-05T15:49:32.020" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28326" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28309" CreationDate="2020-02-05T17:11:36.943" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;More often than not, the Bishop pair will compensate for doubled pawns in an endgame.&#xA;Your unopposed bishop would have to be pretty bad (and therefore your overall position) if it's influence did not compensate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In general doubled-pawns are not that bad if you have active piece play.  Look at the games from the Kasparov-Short world championship match.  Nigel Short repeatedly had doubled crappy looking pawns but because his pieces were active Kasparov was not able to capitalize on their weakness; this fact was well commented at the time. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2020-02-05T17:11:36.943" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28327" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28298" CreationDate="2020-02-05T17:31:21.047" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It usually “checkmate, endgame, thanks for the game”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21438" LastActivityDate="2020-02-05T17:31:21.047" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28328" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8846" CreationDate="2020-02-05T18:50:14.383" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;YES!!!!!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lombardy cheated against me in the Eastern Open round 4.&#xA;He was a GM and had been world junior champ.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He got caught cheating a couple of tournaments later.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He kept books and notes in a mens room stall and would go look at them every move.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wish I had followed him and busted him sooner by having the proof only back then no cell phone cameras and I did not have a regular camera with me. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastActivityDate="2020-02-05T18:50:14.383" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28329" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12925" CreationDate="2020-02-05T18:53:00.513" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Cheating is rampant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have seen what the OP mentions on occasion.  But it was not that common back when I was playing tournaments.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That may still happen some now,  but there are so many other ways to cheat that are happening that such help is relatively small compared to the other helps used. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastActivityDate="2020-02-05T18:53:00.513" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28330" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22006" CreationDate="2020-02-05T18:57:29.957" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;That is not a checkmate. The opponent is right in taking the offending pawn &lt;em&gt;en passant&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21439" LastActivityDate="2020-02-05T18:57:29.957" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28332" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-02-06T02:14:22.987" Score="-1" ViewCount="322" Body="&lt;p&gt;One famous case of fixed chess games is the Keres vs. Botvinnik World Championship 1948. I ran across this  example while looking for other such chess games from history.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is known that Stalin was a chess player and an admirer of Keres. On the basis of this, the rumor has been that Stalin made a deal with Keres. The story goes that Keres’ life would be spared. Keres, the Estonian, would not be executed the way that Petrov, the Latvian, had been. In return for sparing his life, Keres agreed that a Russian player would become World Chess Champion and that Keres would never be world champion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Was such a deal really made? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The five games between Botvinnik and Keres were remarkable because they seem to be the worst series of five games ever played between two grandmasters. Even the strongest grandmaster will occasionally make a horrible blunder. However, these games between Keres and Botvinnik did not merely contain a few outright blunders. Rather, they exuded weakness throughout. They looked like games between two Class A players, or possibly between two experts having a bad day. However, Keres and Botvinnik were two of the strongest players in the world.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By far the worst game of the five was the last game, in which Botvinnik lost to Keres. By winning this game, Keres was able to catch up with Reshevsky and tie for third. Keres played a patzer opening, always known to be bad. Botvinnik played like an absolute rank beginner. The presumed reason is that Botvinnik had already clenched first place and the World Chess Championship. Since Keres had thrown the first four games to Botvinnik, Botvinnik was obliged to throw one back to make the final result of 4-1 in favor of Botvinnik look more reasonable and to give Keres a share of third-place prize money.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there evidence of any other deals to help a given player or country win?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Rumors are rife about many such games involving Russians in the 40’s, 50,’s and perhaps even the 60’s.  But what about other players from other countries, perhaps doing it for personal benefit rather than to help political leaders?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This theory is laid out &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.anusha.com/keres-bo.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T15:08:14.340" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T15:08:14.340" Title="Fixed games in chess-is it real or just a conspiracy theory? If real, how bad is it?" Tags="&lt;theory&gt;&lt;history&gt;&lt;master-games&gt;&lt;cheating&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28333" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28336" CreationDate="2020-02-06T02:32:36.027" Score="8" ViewCount="1413" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just found this rating list below while looking for other items.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I vaguely remember hearing about WCC.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What happened to them? All I find now for WCC is 'world chess championship'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Apparently they both rated top players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Combined Top 100 - January 1999 FIDE and WCC Chess Rating Lists&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note: The 1999 FIDE World Chess rating came late and contained errors. This is the fourth and presumably the final version of the FIDE top 100 list.&#xA;UPDATE: The Combined rating lists for July 1999 are posted at &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.gmchess.spb.ru/ratings/july99.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.gmchess.spb.ru/ratings/july99.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Rank    Name                    Country FIDE Rating Name                WCC Rating&#xA;1       Kasparov, Gary          RUS     2812        Kasparov, Garry     2803&#xA;2       Anand, Viswanathan      IND     2781        Anand, Viswanathan  2750&#xA;3       Kramnik, Vladimir       RUS     2751        Kramnik, Vladimir   2724&#xA;4       Shirov, Alexei          ESP     2726        Shirov, Alexei      2712&#xA;5       Morozevich, Alexander   RUS     2723        Kamsky, Gata        2701&#xA;6       Adams, Michael          ENG     2716        Leko, Peter         2693&#xA;...........&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2020-02-06T11:28:38.893" Title="What happened to the WCC?" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;history&gt;&lt;world-championship&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28334" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-02-06T03:57:19.020" Score="3" ViewCount="56" Body="&lt;p&gt;Berliner won this tournament.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Chess life/review reported it.  Newspapers reported it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Eastern Open in 1956 was Thanksgiving weekend in the YMCA in DC.  Berliner won it.  Rossolimo, Lombardy, Fischer, Feurstein, Nash, Sloan, Adams, Marchand, Di Camillo, and many well known names played.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sam Sloan claims to have a picture of the crosstable and posted it somewhere but I cannot find it on his web site.&#xA;   (Sloan has)  a photograph taken of the completed wall chart of this tournament. The reason that this is important is that all records of this tournament have been virtually lost. With this photo (which is poor and faded but perhaps could be enhanced) it might be possible to reconstruct the entire record of this historically important event. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This event was not advertised, rated or recognized by the USCF. The tournament announcement, which was mailed to me as a member of the Virginia State Chess Federation, states: &quot;If you wish them to rate your play, you arrange it.&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Perhaps the reason for this was that both the notorious professional criminal, Whitaker, the organizer and director, and, to some extent, E. Forry Laucks, the financier, were &quot;persona non grata&quot; with the USCF at the time. This, plus the fact that high guaranteed prizes were offered, including a $250 guaranteed cash first prize, made this one of the strongest, if not the strongest, open Swiss tournament held in the U.S. during this period. It was top heavy with strong players and had few weak players. Only 56 players participated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The tournament was won by Berliner, with Rossolimo, Lombardy, Fischer and Feuerstein tied for second. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyone know where a copy of the players and results can be found?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The 1961 eastern open had an even stronger field and was reported in chess life (scroll down)  &lt;a href=&quot;http://uscf1-nyc1.aodhosting.com/CL-AND-CR-ALL/CL-ALL/1961/1961_07.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://uscf1-nyc1.aodhosting.com/CL-AND-CR-ALL/CL-ALL/1961/1961_07.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;Eliot Hearst edged out both Berliner and Benko to win the 1961 EO.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastEditorUserId="20721" LastEditDate="2020-02-06T04:26:19.807" LastActivityDate="2020-02-06T04:26:19.807" Title="Where to find cross table for 1956 Thanksgiving weekend Eastern Open?" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;history&gt;&lt;uscf&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28335" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28333" CreationDate="2020-02-06T07:54:49.090" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Based on &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.anusha.com/rat-july.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;a similar list found on anusha.com&lt;/a&gt;, which is titled&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Combined July 1998 FIDE and WCC (PCA) World Chess Rating Lists&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This table enables comparison between the official FIDE Rating list and the WCC list (formerly known as the PCA list) developed by Ken Thompson. For example, Anatoly Karpov is ranked number 5 and is rated 2725 on the FIDE list but is ranked only number 8 and rated only 2687 on the WCC list.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;it looks like it was a list maintained by the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professional_Chess_Association&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Professional Chess Association&lt;/a&gt; which existed as a separate international chess organization besides FIDE between 1993 and 1996.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2020-02-06T07:54:49.090" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28336" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28333" CreationDate="2020-02-06T11:28:38.893" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;The WCC was the &quot;World Chess Council&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It was formed in 1998 by Kasparov after the collapse of the PCA (Professional Chess Association) in 1995. It was Kasparov's fourth attempt at an organization separate from FIDE.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It organized the candidates match between Kramnik and Shirov in 1998, which Shirov surprisingly won (5.5-3.5), and he was slated to play Kasparov for the title. The match never happened since the organization collapsed during the negotiations when the organization lost its sponsors, and folded.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The best detailing of the events of that time that I have found can be found &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.mark-weeks.com/chess/9899gkix.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;. (Note that this outstanding site has many more pages of history, so click the &quot;next&quot; and &quot;previous&quot; buttons at the bottom to read more. I would love to just cut-and-paste it, but it is copyrighted material, so you will have to go visit the site.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also find a little information &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Development_of_the_World_Chess_Championship#Split_title_1993%E2%80%932005&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2020-02-06T11:28:38.893" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28337" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28332" CreationDate="2020-02-06T11:44:46.303" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I added a link to this theory in your question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reality is that there is no debate as to whether the Soviet government ordered players to throw games, the only question is &quot;did it happen here?&quot; Chess was considered proof of Soviet superiority, and they took dominating, and holding the world title, very seriously.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other than that link, GM Larry Evans is probably the originator of this theory, and it appears that he came up with it on his own after analyzing the games. He wrote about this in Chess Life in &lt;a href=&quot;http://uscf1-nyc1.aodhosting.com/CL-AND-CR-ALL/CL-ALL/1996/1996_All.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;October 1996&lt;/a&gt; (page 40 of that issue, or roughly page 956/1232 of the pdf file)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/fl-xpm-2000-04-23-0004210617-story.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Here is a shorter story regarding this matter.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The fact is that this would have been a closely-guarded state secret, so unless the KGB, now FSB, decides to declassify the files, we will never know for sure if GM Evans was correct, but I still would not have put it past them, or Stalin personally, to do this. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-02-06T11:55:53.603" LastActivityDate="2020-02-06T11:55:53.603" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28338" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28339" CreationDate="2020-02-06T12:50:42.113" Score="6" ViewCount="1335" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am still at the beginning in playing chess, and I often encounter the following situation. Consider this sequence of moves:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. e4 d5 2. e5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Presuming that I am the black player, how do I respond to this? Additionally, is 2. e5 a good move to do as white?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20804" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-02-06T13:17:29.197" LastActivityDate="2020-02-08T14:04:16.210" Title="Doubt on how move as black after pawn in e5" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;theory&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28339" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28338" CreationDate="2020-02-06T13:04:35.480" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, 2.e5 by white is probably not the strongest pure chess move, but it does have a huge advantage in that black is likely to be suprised by it. Anytime you can take your opponent out of his element, that is a small victory. In 40 years of playing, I have never seen that move played there, so that is saying something.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is no question that 2.exd5 is the best move. It is one of the reasons that the Scandinavian Defense, aka the Center-Counter Defense, is considered sub-standard at higher levels. It is generally just considered a &quot;tricky&quot; opening, but it is also tactical in nature for those, who want that type of game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.e5 is likely to lead to French-Defense-type positions, which is a much more solid defense for black, so playing 2.e5 is not best, but there is nothing wrong with it chess-wise other than not being the objectively best move. That is where the intangibles of the game come into play, and black is not as likely to be as well versed in the French as white is there. That can easily outweigh the fact that 2.exd5 is better. I ALWAYS strive to take my opponent into a position they are not as comfortable as I am.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as what you are to do from there, you will play c5, maybe get the Bc8 out first (maybe even on that very move 2...Bf5), and then play e6, Nd7, Nge7-c6, Be7, and Qb6 but that is all very general. You will need to be careful putting your king on the short side as it may come under a big attack, but that is still where you want it if safe. Lastly, if you are going to face this often, I suggest you study the Advanced French, and use an engine to see if there are improved versions with Bf5 or Bg4 early.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are a billion branches here, but here is a sample line I just ran on the computer. Black ends up slightly better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. e4 d5 2. e5 Bf5 3. d4 e6 4. Nf3 c5 5. c3 Nd7 6. Be2 Ne7 7. O-O Nc6 8. Be3 Be7 9. Nbd2 O-O {With the Bf5 able to go back to g6, if necessary, your kingside is pretty safe.} 10. a3 a5 $15&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-02-06T13:37:50.380" LastActivityDate="2020-02-06T13:37:50.380" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28340" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28338" CreationDate="2020-02-06T13:25:49.223" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;2.e5 should give black a very comfortable game. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Consider that 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 is a common line, the French defense. After 1.e4 d5 2.e5 black will get a similar setup to a French defense without the big strategic liability that is the closed-in Bc8. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the French the cramped kingside and bad Bc8 often leads to kingside attacks by white or at least strategic suffering. If black is able to put the bishop to f5, there won't be the typical greek gift Bxh7 sacrifices that are a common danger to black in the French.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because black hasn't wasted time on e6, he also has the option of grabbing some space in the center with c5 and possibly d4. White won't get the same grip on the central squares that lead to strategic suffering in many French positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2020-02-06T13:25:49.223" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28341" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28338" CreationDate="2020-02-06T15:49:05.000" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Bf5 give black a big edge; Pc5 gives black a good game as replies.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;whites e5 was poor.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;pxp is best for white. &#xA;nc3 is least worst alternative for white instead of pxp&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastEditorUserId="20721" LastEditDate="2020-02-06T16:14:46.760" LastActivityDate="2020-02-06T16:14:46.760" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28342" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-02-06T16:02:46.683" Score="2" ViewCount="171" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sometimes chess tempo works.  Sometimes it does not.  Seems random. Is there another database that is completely reliable that is as big as chess tempo?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am looking for a DB that gives the moves with winning percentage or else percent results for  WDL for each move. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-02-06T17:41:17.960" LastActivityDate="2020-02-08T14:17:50.307" Title="Why does chess tempo fail at random; what is the biggest free database online that is reliable" Tags="&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;database&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28343" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28342" CreationDate="2020-02-06T16:13:56.587" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This fits the bill perfectly, and ChessBase is incredibly reliable:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://database.chessbase.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://database.chessbase.com/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You will have to create a free account, and there are features that are premium, but for winning percentages, it has that for free. I am logged into this with a free account and you can see the percentages in the screenshot.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/v7HBe.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/v7HBe.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is what it looks like with my paid account (just the right portion of the screen changed, so I only took a screenshot of that).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Wo76X.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Wo76X.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chessgames.com also has what you are looking for in terms of percentages here, but with much fewer games: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/explorer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/explorer&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-02-06T16:21:57.253" LastActivityDate="2020-02-06T16:21:57.253" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28344" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5394" CreationDate="2020-02-06T16:25:48.003" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;To answer the last part of your question.&#xA;at the all games level  white gets in the low 40s at that position &#xA;but if white played differently on the next move he could get 70s%&#xA;[so why does white play those other moves at all ?   !! ]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;at the 2700 level white wins 85% but that is based on very small statistical sample.  there must be a reason it is played so little. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastActivityDate="2020-02-06T16:25:48.003" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28345" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16012" CreationDate="2020-02-06T16:28:32.550" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Winning percentages are weighted with win=1  draw=1/2  and loss=0.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It does not tell you how often white wins outright.  You need wins to win a tournament not lots of draws.  So players will play moves to improve outright winning chances while risking losses.  That skews the statistics some.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically they are meaningless until you get to the end of the chain and know the actual result.  But they are interesting and useful as a general guide.   But they are not absolute guarantees of anything. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastActivityDate="2020-02-06T16:28:32.550" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28346" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23786" CreationDate="2020-02-06T16:31:06.010" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;They are a useful guide to the beginner to decide which are the better moves to consider and which ones are not worth the effort.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They are merely the statistical result on many games and do not guarantee anything about the current game if you choose that move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The results are skewed as you need outright wins to win a tournament not just a good winning percentage.  Playing for wins results in some losses too.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It would be better if they showed average score percentage as well as the win loss draw numbers.  And sort them by winning score for comparison fairly to the sorted by average winlossdraw ; versus as shown in the  OP which uses popularity of move to sort the display.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastActivityDate="2020-02-06T16:31:06.010" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28347" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28332" CreationDate="2020-02-06T16:40:23.597" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think this kind of thing belongs in the same category as discussions over &quot;Could Morphy beat Lasker?&quot; At one point it might have been provable (given a little different history Morphy might have survived to play Lasker, or at least Steinitz) but that train has left the station. It's a judo question, meaning your answer typically depends on which way you're already leaning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At best the claim the 1948 games were fixed is controversial; there are, after all, zero facts supporting the contention, only opinions. Personally, I doubt they were. You could use some of the same techniques that claim to &quot;prove&quot; the Keres fix was in to &quot;prove&quot; that Spassky threw the 1972 match, after all. But the sheer number of shenanigans the Soviets pulled back in those days gives undeserved credence to those kind of theories, so we keep seeing them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's a lot of speculation about Botvinnik's reign. Up against the theories surrounding both the Keres and the Bronstein games, we seem to have denials from both of the losers that it happened for any reason other than chess play. (I think it was in Sorceror's Apprentice that Bronstein even hinted that he woke up the morning of that game thinking about how his life would change as champion, and he didn't think it would be for the better, but that's my memory again, so could easily be wrong.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As to the wider speculation, that some unspecified chess games in some tournaments have been fixed: of course it's true. Games have been fixed and will continue to be fixed, both at the local levels and at world chess levels. It's why FIDE had the old 30-move rule and why the Sophia rules on draw offers were created. Seirawan discovered a great line in the Pirc that led to a forced draw by repetition, and it's been used by GMs wanting a day off. GM's have been disciplined for &quot;selling points&quot; in the past, throwing games for money in order to raise a local player's rating, or to help them achieve norms. (Point-shaving happens in chess, just as in other contests; wherever there's money there's fraud.) The Soviet players in the Interzonals were known to use games against each other as extra &quot;rest days,&quot; and Korchnoi has reported in his autobiography on how the delegation was requested to &quot;help&quot; a pre-selected player finish higher than the Westerners. While that &lt;em&gt;may&lt;/em&gt; have had an effect on the selection of a challenger, did that really help Botvinnik keep the title longer than he should have? Who knows? Only Botvinnik and his opponents, and they aren't talking. (I had hopes Averbakh was going to write about it before he died; he was in position to know a lot about those, but no, so far he's kept his silence. Which leaves us having to choose the cause of that silence; is it because he wants to keep the secrets or because there &lt;em&gt;were&lt;/em&gt; no secrets?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How large of an effect did this have? Hard to tell, because actual certainty in any of these &quot;fixes&quot; is hard to achieve. Only those involved know what was in their mind, whether they played a bad move to throw the game or because they were fatigued and just blundered. Like Kasparov against Deep Blue, even the best of players will have inexplicably bad games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So we continue to recycle the theories, with no hope of ever actually knowing, especially when everyone involved directly is dead and none appear to have left anything behind in writing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="657" LastActivityDate="2020-02-06T16:40:23.597" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28348" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28338" CreationDate="2020-02-06T16:49:31.283" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Look at the position. It's quite analogous to the French Defense, Advance Variation, but without Black having hemmed in his light-squared Bishop. It looks easy for Black to transpose into the Caro-Kann advance as well as the French, or even into the Nimzovitch Defense (1 e4 Nc6) so you could start looking there for lines you feel comfortable playing. My personal preference as Black in this would be the C-K advance, but that's simply because I know the C-K lines better than the others, YMMV. As for White, I don't have a preference because I wouldn't play e5; I think it's a mistake to be the first one to release tension in the center. If I were feeling adventurous, I'd play 2. d4 and head for Blackmar-Diemer, otherwise I'd swap pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="657" LastActivityDate="2020-02-06T16:49:31.283" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28349" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-02-06T17:31:18.747" Score="2" ViewCount="187" Body="&lt;p&gt;What just do seconds add to a players preparation for a BIG match?   Do they use engines to help them prepare better surprising moves?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Wouldn't a room full of powerful computers running around the clock help prepare better than seconds?  Or do the seconds only transfer info from computers to the Player in the match. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T15:01:03.443" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T15:01:03.443" Title="Top players have seconds to help them prepare. Do they also use engines looking to prepare lines for surprise value?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;time-management&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28350" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28349" CreationDate="2020-02-06T17:55:18.330" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Seconds, and the players themselves, absolutely use engines to help them find moves, but you cannot just let an engine run and think that it will spit out useful things. There would be too much information, and most of it useless.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, nowadays, more and more, elite players are resorting to using Leela and Fat Fritz (neural network type programs) since they tend to be better at finding better opening moves. Stockfish is still the king when it comes to brute-force analysis in the middlegame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Second, if you assume that the game is relatively equal from the opening, just letting a computer run theoretically should not find anything except a lot of equal lines since it will only analyze best moves for both sides. You need human intervention.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That is where the second comes in. Most seconds are very strong GMs with a great depth of theoretical opening knowledge and understanding, and they look at a position, and come up with an idea that they want to test in the player's main lines, and they basically play &quot;advanced chess&quot;, combining their great human understanding with the computer's immense analytical ability. Of course, it is not impossible that they will stumble upon a clearly winning line, but at that level, both sides have thoroughly checked their opening repertoire with computers, and the players have such a strong positional understanding, that it is highly unlikely they would play something that weak in the first place, computer-checked, or not. They are simply looking for new move that leads small advantages that lead to an uncomfortable game for the opponent...a game they can press for a long time, hoping that it will create an unforced error.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2020-02-06T17:55:18.330" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28351" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26888" CreationDate="2020-02-06T18:39:45.500" Score="-3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;No!&lt;/strong&gt; But maybe someday. Quantum computers are overhyped as much as AI. For the near future, they are a hope on the drawing board somewhere.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-12-22T19:01:44.183" LastActivityDate="2020-12-22T19:01:44.183" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28352" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23786" CreationDate="2020-02-06T19:41:16.710" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;tl;dr Not reliably, no.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Every single database suffers from the exact same flaw (among others) when calculating winning percentage -- the bias introduced when lines are refuted. Players, especially today's players, will react far more quickly to a change in evaluation than the database results will. When the evaluation of a line changes, the lines players go into will change before the db accumulates enough data to make a big difference in the score.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's say there's a variation that has traditionally favored White. When you look at the winning percentages for it, you'll see a big White plus (let's say it's 50 wins, 80 draws, and 10 losses, for about 64%). Now a GM unveils a novelty 6 moves into it that completely reverses the evaluation. Word spreads, and let's say the next results show 1 win, 1 draw and 4 losses for White, at which point White decides to move on to greener pastures.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The line is bad for White, as those games revealed, which is why White stopped letting it happen. But there are more games in the db without the new idea than with it, so the winning percentage still shows an edge for White until you travel 6 more moves down the tree. That same position which before was 63%, now shows 62%, still a really good edge to White, yet its current state of results is more like 25% for White, very little short of disastrous.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can try min/maxing from a deeper level to try and solve this, or you can limit chronologically the games you search, but both approaches while lessening that effect, will introduce biases of their own in the data.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bottom line is never trust the win percentages from a db. They're useful as &lt;em&gt;one&lt;/em&gt; indicator of the quality of a variation, but there are other considerations that can outweigh them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's no real utility in even searching for an &quot;objective&quot; best move, because you're human. You will play some positions better than others because you like them and understand them better than others. So you may conceivably get better results playing an objectively worse alternative. No one plays every position with the same skill; it's a goal top players strive for, but no one attains. Spassky lost the 1966 match with Petrosian in part because he tried to be that universal player, tried in some games to &quot;out-Petrosian Petrosian.&quot; so to speak. He didn't try that approach in 1969, and instead concentrated more on what &lt;em&gt;he&lt;/em&gt; did best, and won.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="657" LastActivityDate="2020-02-06T19:41:16.710" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28353" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-02-07T16:04:52.710" Score="2" ViewCount="78" Body="&lt;p&gt;Saw an answer and it had been upvoted. &#xA;Person answering had a large rep on stack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The term used that was not explained is: &#xA;'Combustion Point' (of a game)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is just what does 'combustion point' of a game mean?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Intuitively to a native speaker it would seem to mean something major like a disaster happened.  That does not seem to fit as it was applied to all games around move 26 per the OP it answered. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastActivityDate="2020-02-07T16:12:24.307" Title="What is the 'combustion point' of a game? This was in an upvoted answer" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;engines&gt;&lt;database&gt;&lt;terminology&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28354" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28353" CreationDate="2020-02-07T16:12:24.307" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The question you mention is here: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/5820/in-chessbase-12-when-viewing-an-opening-tree-why-do-all-the-games-always-stop/5824#5824&quot;&gt;In ChessBase 12, when viewing an Opening Tree, why do all the games always stop near move 26?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Personally, I think it is just a general English statement he used to describe the middle, and most heated analytically, part of the game based on the context. I doubt anyone else would repeat it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Frankly, if I downvoted a lot, I would probably have downvoted that answer since it does not really begin to answer the question. The real answer is either the user was doing something wrong, and should have been shown how to do it (probably not), or simply that was the way it was in the code because that is where they arbitrarily cut off the opening, and cannot be changed (probably).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S. If I were to ever describe a part of a chess game as such, it would be where everything came to a head, and the tactics started to fly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2020-02-07T16:12:24.307" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28356" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28363" CreationDate="2020-02-07T18:35:42.847" Score="3" ViewCount="208" Body="&lt;p&gt;How big a rating difference would be needed to justify odds games of:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1 pawn and move&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2 knight&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3 rook&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These are odds that Morphy gave to weak players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Has chess improved that much since Morphy that the odds would not be feasible to give to anyone other than absolute beginners?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-02-09T20:38:53.830" LastActivityDate="2020-02-09T20:38:53.830" Title="How big a rating difference between TOP GM and a patzer would be equivalent to odds games?" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;handicap&gt;&lt;odds&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28359" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22288" CreationDate="2020-02-07T21:20:38.090" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Since the GM would also use an engine then he should win as he can add his own judgement to what the computer suggests.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I still say Hans Berliner used an IBM 360 to help him win the world correspondence championship.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastActivityDate="2020-02-07T21:20:38.090" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28360" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28338" CreationDate="2020-02-08T14:04:16.210" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;2...Bf5 is equal. It's a French defense with the bad bishop outside the pawn chain. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2...c5 is equal too. Black wins about 60% of the time from that position. It could transpose into French lines or it could go other directions depending on what white does. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2...e6 would just transpose to the French which isn't bad but is inferior to playing 2...Bf5 and reaching the same positions without the bad bishop. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2...d4 is probably fine too but doesn't accomplish much. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2...Nc6 would be a mistake because the N blocks the c pawn. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Kingside play (f6, g6) looks a little premature&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2020-02-08T14:04:16.210" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28361" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28342" CreationDate="2020-02-08T14:17:50.307" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.365chess.com/opening.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.365chess.com/opening.php&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;is probably the best free database. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chessgames.com is good but will often stop you from going too deep into lines if you don't have a membership. It does have some useful search features though. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lichess.org has a database but it includes site games and doesn't have as many high level games as some other sites. Still it could be useful if you're not prepping for 3+ hour tourament games. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2020-02-08T14:17:50.307" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28362" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16726" CreationDate="2020-02-08T15:14:46.613" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;play in a national tournament and win it.  your rating WILL go UP. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastActivityDate="2020-02-08T15:14:46.613" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28363" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28356" CreationDate="2020-02-08T15:21:44.270" Score="5" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Has chess improved that much since Morphy that the odds would not be feasible to give to anyone other than absolute beginners?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is certainly not the case. Kasparov played a master-level player in 2001 giving move and two pawn odds, and won 2.5-1.5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In 2008, Larry Kaufman &lt;a href=&quot;http://rybkaforum.net/cgi-bin/rybkaforum/topic_show.pl?tid=4249#pid60839&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;wrote&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;...the Elo equivalent of a given handicap degrades as you go down the scale. A knight seems to be worth around a thousand points when the &quot;weak&quot; player is around IM level, but it drops as you go down. For example, I'm about 2400 and I've played tons of knight odds games with students, and I would put the break-even point (for untimed but reasonably quick games) with me at around 1800, so maybe a 600 value at this level. An 1800 can probably give knight odds to a 1400, a 1400 to an 1100, an 1100 to a 900, etc. This is pretty obviously the way it must work, because the weaker the players are, the more likely the weaker one is to blunder a piece or more. When you get down to the level of the average 8 year old player, knight odds is just a slight edge, maybe 50 points or so. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Kaufman also &lt;a href=&quot;https://archive.is/20120630212329/http://home.comcast.net/~danheisman/Articles/evaluation_of_material_imbalance.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;wrote&lt;/a&gt; in a 1999 article that a pawn was worth about 200 rating points at master level, and a knight in the opening position was worth about 700, meaning &quot;a FIDE 2115 (USCF 2165) player would be a fair opponent&quot; to Kasparov given knight odds. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2020-02-08T15:21:44.270" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28364" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1303" CreationDate="2020-02-08T16:49:56.167" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You could come up with many more complicated ways to measure performance but that would not adequately fix the INCONSISTENCY and VARIABILITY of lower rated players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Furthermore, ratings are not at all accurate at low levels because there is insufficient mixing of the competition.  Top GMs play themselves which is a much much smaller group than those rating club level players worldwide or even in one large country.  For that matter a small country should have more weak players than the total of ALL GMs in the world. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And ratings only estimate PAST PERFORMANCE, which as the ads say is no guarantee of future performance.  Kids improve, a lot; and GMs get old and usually slightly weaker.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastActivityDate="2020-02-08T16:49:56.167" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28365" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-02-08T17:48:20.723" Score="7" ViewCount="240" Body="&lt;p&gt;So, in a tournament, my daughter recently had a case where her opponent made a move and declared checkmate. She acquiesced, shook his hand, and then realized it wasn't actually a checkmate. They continued the game until she actually checkmated him, at which point he said, &quot;Well, you shook hands..&quot; and claimed the victory in the tournament.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can see both sides of this, but I am really not sure what the official ruling in a case like this would be. Anyone have any thoughts?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21457" LastActivityDate="2020-02-09T03:22:25.573" Title="Inaccurate checkmates?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;checkmate&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28366" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28365" CreationDate="2020-02-08T18:07:08.153" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It all depends.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What tournament where when?&#xA;Who ran it?&#xA;What rules were being used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;FIDE would require signing the score sheet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Shaking hands means nothing except you like spreading germs around.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If he kept playing on after she did that would pretty much prove it was not mate and overrule any claims that she resigned. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your kid should refer to&#xA;&quot;&quot;&amp;lt;&amp;lt;&#xA;21F3. Facts are not agreed upon.&#xA;If the facts are not agreed upon, the director should proceed as follows:a. A director who is satisfied that the facts have been ascertained should rule accordingly.&#xA;b. A director who is unable to satisfactorily determine the facts must make a ruling that will permit play to continue.&#xA;See also 1C2, Director discretion; &#xA;&quot;&quot;&gt;&gt;&quot;&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;say the facts are not agreed on.  Use the position on the board as proof.  and ask also for a ruling on the facts and also if needed IC2  Director discretion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Especially since this is a kiddie tournament the TD should not award the win even if there was a meaningless handshake to the person who made an erroneous claim. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Depending on other factors they might caution the claimant against making claims so as to win improperly and to let the other person realize that it is actually or else  move as in this case when it was not mate. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Situations like this emphasize the need to know ALL the rules if one is going to play in a tournament. Some groups may modify the rules or elaborate on them. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Start here:&lt;a href=&quot;https://new.uschess.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/US-Chess-Rule-Book-Online-Only-Edition-Chapters-1-2-11-1-1-20-1.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://new.uschess.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/US-Chess-Rule-Book-Online-Only-Edition-Chapters-1-2-11-1-1-20-1.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastEditorUserId="20721" LastEditDate="2020-02-08T20:03:08.837" LastActivityDate="2020-02-08T20:03:08.837" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28369" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16726" CreationDate="2020-02-08T18:51:26.847" Score="0" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Can I reset my rating and become unrated again?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the USCF, no. Even if you stop paying your dues and become inactive, you still keep your rating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In FIDE, it &lt;em&gt;is&lt;/em&gt; possible to lose your rating. The minimum rating is 1000, and if you go below this, you become unrated and can get a new rating. However, it is unethical to purposely lose games to lower your rating. It also may take longer than you think; the fastest way to lose rating points is to lose to someone rated below you, but any player significantly weaker than you would be unrated, and losing to an unrated player does nothing to lower your rating. It would likely take multiple tournaments, plus another tournament to get a new rating. And what happens if the tournament where you get a new rating is a poor one? Are you going to throw a bunch more games and do it again?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's no need to lose your rating. Just improve the one you have. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;defeating higher rated players will not give me much of a push. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In FIDE, the &quot;K&quot; value which determines how fast your rating changes is high for your first 30 games, or if you have not reached your 18th birthday (if your rating is below 2300). If you are within either of those, your rating will still change relatively quickly; a single win against an opponent rated the same as you would get you 20 points, and a win against some rated higher would get you more. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the USCF, your rating will also change more quickly if you have few games played.  Even if you've played too many games for this to apply, it also changes more quickly for low rated players. Also, in the USCF you get &quot;bonus&quot; rating points if your performance at a tournament is significantly better than what your rating would predict. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's take an example to see how this would work for you. Let's say that you have 15 games already played, your current rating is 1166, and that in your next tournament you face 4 players each rated 1300. In FIDE you would gain about 69 points if you went 3/4 against that opposition, or about 109 points if you went 4/4. In the USCF, you would gain about 138 points for going 3/4, or about 233 points for going 4/4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, even if you are currently underrated, your rating will quickly get to a proper level if you just play in a few more tournaments.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2020-02-08T18:51:26.847" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28370" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-02-08T20:07:23.577" Score="2" ViewCount="995" Body="&lt;p&gt;Especially in kiddie games, mates are often missed or supposed mates are not really mates. What would the TD declare such misguided claims of mate? What should a TD do if adults did the same thing?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-30T22:09:20.827" LastActivityDate="2020-08-30T22:09:20.827" Title="Would an erroneous claim of mate be considered as annoying the opponent, cheating, an illegal move, or something else?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;tournament-directors&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28371" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16726" CreationDate="2020-02-08T20:18:38.487" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are two possibilities:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Your rating is more-or-less accurate or too high.  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Your rating is vastly too low. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If we are in situation 1, then your solution is to play more chess and thereby get better at chess, which will get you into situation 2. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If we are in situation 2, then you will win far more games than your rating would suggest, so your rating will increase rapidly until the problem solves itself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In either case, the solution is the same - &lt;strong&gt;play more chess&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21459" LastActivityDate="2020-02-08T20:18:38.487" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28372" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28370" CreationDate="2020-02-08T20:18:51.847" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, kids and adults, the rules are the same, so there is no difference there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What you are asking about goes beyond just the rules: It comes down to intent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Whether an adult, or kid, there could be an erroneous claim; and if it is really just that, then the TD should just fix it assuming it is caught in time. It is just a mistake. Other types of mistakes would be similar.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This might be hard to prove, but it an opponent did it just to cheat or annoy, then yes, that would be a breach of the rules, and should be penalized. The real question is how do you prove that? Short of the person having done it before, or bragging about it, I cannot see how a TD would impose sanctions upon someone for what otherwise looks like a human mistake. I think the TD has to assume it is a mistake unless otherwise proven, which again, may be next to impossible. Even without that proof, if the TD suspects, a warning may be in order that future incorrect claims may be sanctioned. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2020-02-08T20:18:51.847" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28373" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14483" CreationDate="2020-02-08T21:25:03.373" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;find the TD and give them your scoresheet and say your opponent is MIA.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastActivityDate="2020-02-08T21:25:03.373" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28374" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2020-02-09T00:37:44.807" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-02-09T00:37:44.807" LastActivityDate="2020-02-09T00:37:44.807" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28375" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2020-02-09T00:37:44.807" Score="0" Body="tournament director/directing " OwnerUserId="20721" LastEditorUserId="20721" LastEditDate="2020-02-09T09:36:21.820" LastActivityDate="2020-02-09T09:36:21.820" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28376" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28365" CreationDate="2020-02-09T03:22:25.573" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Checkmate ends the game - there is no agreement/concession involved. If it’s not checkmate the game has not ended. And a handshake is not a move which needs to be “retracted”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the error was only realised significantly later, then maybe it’s a different case. I can see that an arbiter might deem the handshake to be a resignation. But that’s not the case here: they just played on and did not mark the scoresheets.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your daughter does not need to be an expert in the rules (which cannot not be exhaustive in any case) but does need the reflex to call the arbiter or tournament director in any kind of dodgy situation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8201" LastActivityDate="2020-02-09T03:22:25.573" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28378" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28384" CreationDate="2020-02-09T13:57:59.833" Score="10" ViewCount="3726" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have an upcoming tournament and I already started to prepare, but I have some questions about tournament play:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;How to do better in tournament games&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Should I adjust to my opponents' play&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Do I need to study every player or just work on things ( opening repertoire, tactics,... )&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15655" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T17:17:03.493" Title="How to be a better tournament player?" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28379" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5611" CreationDate="2020-02-09T14:04:51.540" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some have tried it.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But it distorts the game and is illogical for game results although useful to help tournaments create more interest for sponsors.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A win and a loss against a player once with white and once with black has to be equal to two draws against the player again with equal colors for each.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastActivityDate="2020-02-09T14:04:51.540" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28380" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5611" CreationDate="2020-02-09T14:52:27.910" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You're confusing score with score.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Except for the game score (notation) and commentary, there's no real to show the action on the board.  Even a material balance could be misleading, as we'd need to differentiate between a sacrificial attack and a lucky mate when losing badly.  We do have an external indicator, ratings*, which, by the difference, can suggest the difficulty of play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There have been suggestions to alter the score (game result), but these were to reduce the number of (GM) draws.  The only accepted suggestion was to give a win more points for a win that two draws, mainly the 3-1-0 scoring system.  A favorite was to split the point 0.4-0.6 as black has a harder time earning that draw.  Another, misunderstood, system was to split the point based upon the rating difference.  A lower rated player would receive more of the point as his effort in drawing the game could be considered greater.  (Or the opposite is the the higher rated player has the &quot;duty&quot; to make a more decisive result.)  An infeasible system of having a third party judge the game and decide who deserved more points.  This could result in the losing player earning more points.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*Rating effects what we assume.  In a professional game, a 0-0 score makes us infer that the goalie was exceptional or the players were good at defense.  If the game was played by beginners, we might assume that they bumbled every play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9684" LastActivityDate="2020-02-09T14:52:27.910" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28381" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28378" CreationDate="2020-02-09T15:17:20.560" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a beginner, you should focus on the basics of chess to help improve your overall chess. I'm amazed at the number of hanging queens at the lower level.  As you improve, the tactics become harder and the strategy deeper.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's often suggested that the purpose of an opening is to get you to a playable middlegame.  Once you become 2000+ (USCF), you can study openings to try for an early advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, you have to react to you opponents' play OTB, but studying their games for some weakness is normally useless below the GM level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9684" LastActivityDate="2020-02-09T15:17:20.560" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28382" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28378" CreationDate="2020-02-09T15:31:48.783" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;An oft neglected aspect of tournament play is time management.  Have a plan for time management and practice it.  You should be using most of your time available most of your games.  There are many other things to consider like honing your thought process but I find that time management is often forgotten.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is an article on &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chesscafe.com/text/time.txt&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;time management&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17425" LastActivityDate="2020-02-09T15:31:48.783" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28383" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24217" CreationDate="2020-02-09T17:43:47.090" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The problem, and it really comes down to feel and analysis, is primarily that your king position can be compromised indefinitely.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In addition, virtually all of your pieces are not &quot;harmoniously&quot; placed, meaning they do not help each other out at all. In every line, they just get in each other's way, and nothing defends each other. In chess, we sometimes have a piece that is not defended, but you either cannot develop, or you have multiple pieces that are not protected, or weakly defended. Combine that with a king that can be pushed around, and attacked from random squares, white is sure to win the material back via a double-attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Specifically, the Rh8 is hanging in some lines; the only place the Bf8 can go to is g7, where it also hangs; the Qb6 is in the way of the king running away to that square; d5 hangs allowing white to push the king to worse squares, including one that allows more tactics with e4; and even the Nc6 can be attacked strongly, and when removed, it allows tactics on that Rh8 I mentioned.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White almost has enough material just winning the two pawns, and seeing that d5 is probably a goner. Add in your king position, and loose pieces, it was an easy call to play Ng5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are some sample lines:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;r1b1kb1r/pp2p1pp/1qn2p2/3p4/3P1B2/1P2PNP1/P4PBP/R2Q1RK1 b kq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1... g5 2. Nxg5 fxg5 3. Qh5+ Kd8 4. Bxg5 Be6 (4... Bf5 5. Bh4 (5. Bxe7+ $4 Nxe7 ) 5... Bg6 6. Qxd5+ Ke8 (6... Kc8 7. Rac1 Kb8 8. Rxc6 Qxc6 9. Qe5+ Qc7 10. Qxh8 )) 5. Rac1 (5. e4 {Is also great.} Nb4 (5... Nxd4 6. Rad1) 6. a3 Nd3 7. Rad1 Nb2 8. Rd2 Qxb3 9. Rb1) 5... Bg7 6. Rc5 Qc7 7. Bxd5 Bxd5 8. Rxd5+ Kc8 9. Bf4 e5 10. dxe5 Qe7 11. Qf5+ Kc7 12. e6+&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-02-09T18:49:57.547" LastActivityDate="2020-02-09T18:49:57.547" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28384" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28378" CreationDate="2020-02-09T18:01:39.530" Score="19" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you are this &lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/profile/987751&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Janjic, Slobodan P&lt;/a&gt;, I would say that you need to do tactics, tactics, and more tactics. Try to do 50 per day, spending no more than 2 minutes per tactic. At the lower mid-levels, it really comes down to who loses a piece first most of the time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I want to suggest that as you do the tactics, REALLY try to concentrate as you do them, and do not just play a move that looks good, and hope that you are right....REALLY see it through to the end, and try to visualize what it going on...don't play &quot;hope chess&quot; (I HOPE this works).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I covered this in depth for all rating levels &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/27945/advice-for-breaking-lichesss-2000-rating-mark&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2020-02-09T18:01:39.530" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28385" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28378" CreationDate="2020-02-09T18:09:21.220" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;First learn the rules, ALL the rules, for the tournament, organization, and local sponsors holding the event. Use them to protect yourself and avoid being taken advantage of off the board. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Never play blitz. Do play faster chess but with minimum time for each move and also a cap on the move TIME that forces you to think first but not dawdle. The old exactly ten seconds per move like the Washington Chess Divan and other clubs used is perfect to be confident if you should get into time trouble. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Clock management. You can NOT afford to just sit and think excessively on A few moves so you get into time trouble. Use the time you need but do not overdo it so that you do not have time you need for other moves. Learn to make a decision. The faster play with fixed max/min per move, not blitz, is a good way to make this second nature. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Think on your opponent's time. You should not need a lot of your time if you do that and then the opponent will be having time trouble and more likely to blunder. If you can get 15 minutes left to 5 in an even position, it is like adding 200 points to your rating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Learn one opening well. Learn end games well. Learn tactics. The other stuff will come with experience. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For most tournaments you will just play some stranger. You can't prepare for them. If it is a club tournament you should already know the players and there is no need to do more preparation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Play your game. You have to adjust to whatever type position you have but you have a say in the way the opening goes and the type position that will result in the middle game. Knowing your one opening well will allow you to ensure you get the type position you want in the majority of cases. If you do not like wide open slash and burn tactics you may have to accept that style or else have some prepared defenses that would blunt that approach and give you a game you like. Knowing the typical crap that beginners like shows you the openings you need to also know enough so they don't win early because you made a mistake. E.g. Evans Gambit, Scotch Game, Max Lange, and the like you also need to know cold for black. You will not play those as white. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your first tournament, when you are ready, should be the biggest and strongest one you can play in. That will maximize your initial rating from which all you later ratings stem from. Play for wins do not give draws willy-nilly because you are afraid of losing. Of course, if you can't win, then a draw is better than a loss. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T17:17:03.493" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T17:17:03.493" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28386" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24217" CreationDate="2020-02-09T19:41:30.257" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Looks like a sac by either bishop or knight takes that pawn, then qh5+.&#xA;Would have to be calculated to see that the follow up gives white enough, though he gets 2 pawns anyway.&#xA;Its kind of an engine, or master like move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21466" LastActivityDate="2020-02-09T19:41:30.257" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28387" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-02-09T19:47:30.760" Score="7" ViewCount="405" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.e5 c5 4. dxc5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't want to play 3...bf5 instead, but this &lt;code&gt;4.dxc5&lt;/code&gt; line in the Advance Variation gives me so much trouble, whether they go with &lt;code&gt;5.Be3, 5.a3&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;5.Nf3.&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What's a good way for black to deal with this &lt;code&gt;4.dxc5&lt;/code&gt; line?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21466" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-02-14T19:00:38.997" LastActivityDate="2020-02-14T19:00:38.997" Title="Why does 4.dxc5 work well for white in the Advance variation of Caro-Kann?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;caro-kann&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28388" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28387" CreationDate="2020-02-09T19:57:44.717" Score="-10" Body="&lt;p&gt;Does not appear to work well to me.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;RELATIVE TO OTHER MOVES &#xA;white e5 is poor&#xA;pxp is worse &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black should have played Bf5 not pc5&#xA;and then whites best is c3 not the moves you gave&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the problem you encounter with the moves given?&#xA;How would you handle the panov attack?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To answer your last part after pxp  black should play nc6 as the least worst alternative. That yields about a 44% result rate. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastEditorUserId="20721" LastEditDate="2020-02-09T21:29:59.137" LastActivityDate="2020-02-09T21:29:59.137" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28389" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28387" CreationDate="2020-02-09T20:04:21.683" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, I would wonder why you do not want to play 3...Bf5 first? That is the most common move, and the most natural.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3...c5 almost forces you to gambit a pawn, and if you are not comfortable playing very tactical positions down a pawn, you will want to avoid the immediate c5 in the future (it is still the move you will want to play eventually to free your game, but you will want to prepare it so you are not just losing a pawn for play).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After 3...c5 4 dxc5, here is the main line. (There are a fair amount of written prose notes in the comments below, so make sure you read those too.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. e5 c5 4. dxc5 Nc6 5. Bb5 (5. Nf3 Bg4 6. c3 e6 (6... Bxf3 7. Qxf3 Nxe5 8. Bb5+ Nc6 9. O-O $16) (6... Nxe5 $4 7. Nxe5 $1 Bxd1 8. Bb5+ Qd7 9. Bxd7+ $18) 7. Be3 Nge7 8. Nbd2 Nf5 9. Bd4 $14 Nfxd4 $2 10. cxd4 Nxd4 $4 11. Qa4+ $18) 5...e6 6. Be3 Nge7 7. c3 Bd7 8. Bxc6 Nxc6 9. f4 {And there are several moves here, most requiring black to be a pawn down. In exchange for that, black has the bishop pair, the white king has been weakened with f4, and black is slightly ahead in development, so you have to play very actively.  Here, I would recommend either b6, or the main book move, g5. a5 is also possible trying to round up c5 at some point.} g5 (9... b6 10. cxb6 axb6 {And now, you also have an open rook file, and can aim for b5-b4 after getting the Bf8 out. you may also play the Bf8 to c5 with the idea that if white trades, you will have strong pressure for the pawn down the a-file and b-file...a bit like the Benko, but reversed.}) 10. fxg5 Nxe5 (10... h6 $5 {Has been played.}) 11. Nf3 {With a wild game with chances for both sides.}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2020-02-09T20:04:21.683" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28390" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28481" CreationDate="2020-02-09T21:49:27.120" Score="1" ViewCount="380" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chesstempo seems to have two pages for database display.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This one works at random: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chesstempo.com/game-database.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://chesstempo.com/game-database.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes it shows the moves in sequence of most usage and then the probability of WDL.  Other times it shows nothing. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This one seems to work all the time: &lt;a href=&quot;https://old.chesstempo.com/game-database.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://old.chesstempo.com/game-database.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;What is the difference between the two databases?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does that 'old.' refer to the database or to old code to display the database?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems to me that the 'old' UI works right and the new one is full of bugs.  Or is there some other features I am missing.  Still need an answer to &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/q/28342/20569&quot;&gt;the related question here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastEditorUserId="20569" LastEditDate="2020-02-10T10:05:04.860" LastActivityDate="2020-02-16T00:54:01.200" Title="Whats the difference between these chess tempo databases" Tags="&lt;database&gt;&lt;online&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28391" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28378" CreationDate="2020-02-09T22:22:13.020" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;As far as tournament-specific stuff goes (that is: things that are not equivalent to &quot;just playing chess better&quot;), I see a lot of people getting flustered and trying to change how they're playing during the tournament (say, they'll lose to a particular opening, then try to play that same opening in their next game, and lose due to lack of familiarity with said opening). The solution here is to resist that urge, and just play the chess that you can play well, and try to ignore the pressure from factors external to the game you're currently playing. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21459" LastActivityDate="2020-02-09T22:22:13.020" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28392" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28390" CreationDate="2020-02-09T23:41:53.700" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;They are currently exactly the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Typically, when a website does the old.sitename.com, it is to allow people to temporarily use the old format of a recently-updated website. Over time, they phase out the old one in most cases. The underlying data, such as a database, does not change at all during this transition, just the aesthetics and layout of the webpage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this case, it looks like they already phased out the old version, but simply kept the URL for convenience: They are currently exactly the same. To prove this, I did the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I opened each page in Firefox (but you could use any web browser), and right-clicked the page, and selected &quot;View Page Source&quot;, which shows you all of the data that is used to render the webpage. I selected all the text for each document, and pasted it into a Word document. It was of note that viewing the page source, each one had 2576 lines...exactly the same. Once in Word, each document had 54 pages, and exactly 6017 words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I then took both documents, &quot;Old&quot; and &quot;New&quot;, and used the site copyleaks.com to compare them. As you can see from the screenshot, as I expected from the previous data I mentioned above, they are exactly the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ZgIBl.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ZgIBl.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2020-02-09T23:41:53.700" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28393" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28395" CreationDate="2020-02-10T06:31:19.683" Score="8" ViewCount="2491" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have a blitz rating of 1900 on Lichess and I can't seem to improve from there. My road to 1900 was fairly quick, but I have been stuck in 1900. My Classical rating is higher than this, so I know that it is a problem with shorter time controls. I have noticed that I spend too much time throughout the game and that is the reason. Can someone please explain how do I manage my time well throughout the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21014" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T17:08:36.307" Title="How to improve blitz chess rating?(Time management)" Tags="&lt;blitz&gt;&lt;time-management&gt;&lt;online-blitz&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28394" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28396" CreationDate="2020-02-10T11:35:45.573" Score="4" ViewCount="122" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here's a position in a chess puzzle:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;White to move&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;5rk1/p7/Q1n3pp/3q1p1n/2B2P2/4P2P/P5rK/R4R2 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The rook had captured a pawn, resulting in a check. The rook is supported by the Queen, but the Queen itself is pinned by the bishop and hence will not be able to protect the rook if the King takes it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Shouldn't King-captures-Rook be a valid move in this case?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21471" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-02-10T13:34:47.963" LastActivityDate="2020-02-10T13:34:47.963" Title="Capturing (almost) free piece by King" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;pins&gt;&lt;king-safety&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ClosedDate="2020-02-10T14:06:09.863" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28395" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28393" CreationDate="2020-02-10T11:51:19.083" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;Blitz is a bit of a different chess &quot;animal&quot;. In order to play blitz well, you need a few things, and that is great tactical vision, good time management, and some positional skill so you can make decent moves quickly in quieter positions. It also helps to be young because you think faster when you are young.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first part to getting better is obvious, and that is work diligently on your tactics. Do a lot of them in a short period of time for the best results. I also recommend reading games, especially fun tactical ones, without a board. This will also help your vision.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as time goes, personally, I hate falling behind on the clock at any time control, but it is more crucial in blitz. If you do fall behind, it cannot be by too much...ever. You simply have to play fast, and keep an eye on the clocks at all times to stay ahead on time, or at least, close. Only every now an then, can you afford a longer think.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The positional skill comes with time, and reading a lot of books about pawn structures, and other positional elements will help with this. I strongly recommend the Yusupov series of books as they cover all areas of the game. This may not be good for your regular play and long-term chess development, but also if you play openings that have very standard places for the pieces, like the Stonewall, or London System, you can save time in the opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lastly, you just need to play a lot, although this may not be conducive to your classical rating as you can become shallow. Personally, while it is fun, for a serious player, blitz is not the best think for your game (Botvinnik agreed), but it can be especially useful for testing out your openings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S. I know that 3-0 is a common control, but you can also play 3-2, or 5-3, which is still fast, but gives you a little more time to think. Conversely, you could also play some bullet, and when you go back to regular blitz, it will feel like you have a lot of time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is actually a whole book on the subject &lt;a href=&quot;https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/0967775205&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;. For the record, although I have a lot of books, I do not have this one, so it may, or may not, be any good.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Again, be aware that this may not be good for your tournament chess, if you play tournaments.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-02-10T12:57:06.273" LastActivityDate="2020-02-10T12:57:06.273" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28396" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28394" CreationDate="2020-02-10T11:54:23.793" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, absolutely not. You are putting your king in check first from the Qd5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you think about this way: Who could take the other king first since that really is what checkmate is? In this case, Kxg2 Qxg2 captured the white king first, and only after would Bxg8 take the black king...White lost the king first.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your thought also does not hold up to logic: White makes an illegal move, so black cannot?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2020-02-10T11:54:23.793" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28397" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27961" CreationDate="2020-02-10T14:11:21.777" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you look at a position and find yourself saying, &amp;quot;None of my pieces are in danger and there is nothing to do&amp;quot;, you should consider you are probably missing something. Most chess positions are not so safe there is nothing that can be improved. A lot of the time there is something urgent that needs fixing, or an opportunity to take something from your opponent. But it is hard to learn to see these things.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My suggestion is to get practice evaluating positions by studying &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/training&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;the puzzles on Lichess&lt;/a&gt;. They are drawn from real-world games so they look like positions you will see in real life. A lot of these may look perfectly quiet but there is a tactic that wins an exchange, picks up a piece, or just mates. Working through some of these should give you a new awareness of things to look out for.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since you say &amp;quot;I just know the rules&amp;quot;, try going through the &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/learn#/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess basics section on Lichess&lt;/a&gt; as well to see if you are missing anything, it is a very thorough introduction that covers basic tactics.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18368" LastEditorUserId="18368" LastEditDate="2021-01-17T00:14:55.087" LastActivityDate="2021-01-17T00:14:55.087" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28398" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28393" CreationDate="2020-02-10T14:46:28.620" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are multiple factors involved.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To improve blitz you must first improve your regular chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Clock management.  You must make every move at the rate necessary to finish the game without flagging and never take more time for any move that that average.  Learn to move at your time quota and not faster nor slower. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your brain.  It has a maximum speed it can work well.  If yours is slow due to old age then you will need to use longer time controls.&#xA;Playing faster then it can recognize things will cause mistakes and you will lose thus not improve your rating. &#xA;When I was young I could play 5SD very well.  When I was older I could still play 7.5SD, but when I was really old I had trouble at 10SD although did fairly well anyway but not as good as I had in the past. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tactical skill.  You must immediately recognize any and all tactics without having to think.  That should be as easy as reading your name and knowing what the words said.  Do more tactics practice until you are at the GM level or higher. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Openings.  You must know them cold and avoid getting caught in early traps with 'obvious' moves that were bad.  Or know enough oddball openings that are not too bad to use for blitz to avoid their traps. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;End games.  You must master end games so you can finish them off quickly before your time runs out in a long game.  Know all the mates cold so you don't need to think about them. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you also want to improve your OTB tournament play then do NOT play blitz.  Play speedy chess but with at least ten seconds per move on average for the whole game.  And use those ten seconds up,  not make hasty moves.  Learn to pace yourself.  See Clock Management above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your classical rating and  your blitz rating online will not correlate meaningfully. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastEditorUserId="20721" LastEditDate="2020-02-10T14:51:41.433" LastActivityDate="2020-02-10T14:51:41.433" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28399" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5744" CreationDate="2020-02-10T15:00:13.383" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Neither.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The best way to advance is to play at a fixed time per move where you must wait the time before moving and when time is up you must move.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In ancient times of the 50s (1950s) they played tournaments at ten seconds per move.  Playing in those every week got my first OTB rating starting several hundred points higher than those who did not play and then tried OTB.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ten seconds is a stretch for most people at first.  Most adapt quite well when they learn to make decisions not dawdle.  But if you must then even 20 seconds would work.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It makes  you learn to wait before moving not do whatever comes to mind instantly.  It also trains you to move quickly so time trouble wont bother you.  More likely you will think  on their time and move relatively quickly so never get near time trouble although they will.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastActivityDate="2020-02-10T15:00:13.383" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28400" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4111" CreationDate="2020-02-10T15:02:52.323" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Practice by playing at a fixed time per move.  Ten seconds is good, you could use 20 if ten is too fast. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Time up means you must move but also you must wait for time to be up to make your move.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;this will train you to think some and avoid problems with fast moves that are bad.  It also helps you move quickly in time trouble which wont happen often if  you train this way.  Usually you will be thinking on their time then moving soon so they are the ones who will have time trouble unless they also train like you did. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastActivityDate="2020-02-10T15:02:52.323" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28401" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="883" CreationDate="2020-02-10T16:30:05.497" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I find &lt;em&gt;Secrets of Pawnless Endings&lt;/em&gt; (Gambit, 2002) by John Nunn (pages 49 to 69) to be the ultimate reference about the KQvKR ending. All steps needed to force Philidor's 1777 position are described precisely, each position showing how to reduce to a previously seen position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The book of course covers stalemate cases (which are all obvious) and what I call &quot;perpetual check attractors&quot;, that is, positions that allow the KR side to force a position where the R will be able to give perpetual check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20949" LastEditorUserId="10867" LastEditDate="2020-02-10T20:39:43.757" LastActivityDate="2020-02-10T20:39:43.757" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28402" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28393" CreationDate="2020-02-10T19:59:37.823" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am not an expert, but I would say blitz is 'art' part of chess. It requires a few skills to be good.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Time management&lt;/strong&gt; is obviously very important as there is not much time in a blitz game.&#xA;I have few tips about time management, and you should know that most important ones are &lt;strong&gt;not to waste so much time in opening&lt;/strong&gt;, &#xA;&lt;strong&gt;not to waste too much time in forced moves ( exchanges, threats and checks )&lt;/strong&gt;, &#xA;&lt;strong&gt;play ONLY lines you are sure about, that are familiar to you&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Knowing basic patterns&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;Well, there is not so much to talk about this, better you recognise patterns, faster will you find a move.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Doing a lot of tactics&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;Tactics have a lot of impact in a blitz game. Most of the blitz players are just good tacticians, and that is giving them a head start.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Knowing basic endgames&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;This is important too, even if blitz games are fast and many of them ends in the middlegame, but if you come to the endgame, the deciding thing is resourcefulness, knowing of endgame principles and a bit of skill of fast-moving, especially if there is bonification ( like 3+2 or 5+5 ).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That would be just a short guide, more you play, better you are. I hope this would help you, maybe we can play, on lichess.org or on chess.com In both sites my username is Slobodan007.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15655" LastEditorUserId="15655" LastEditDate="2020-02-10T20:04:40.130" LastActivityDate="2020-02-10T20:04:40.130" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28403" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-02-10T21:06:43.123" Score="8" ViewCount="7352" Body="&lt;p&gt;How do GMs &amp;quot;play the man, not the board&amp;quot; as some books say? Would that work for club level players or could they use other methods? Prepared variations? Trash talk?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are the ways one can play the man but not the board that are they legal under FIDE rules and would not be called annoying the opponent or the like?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-08-17T01:57:05.170" LastActivityDate="2020-08-17T01:57:05.170" Title="How do GMs “play the man, not the board”?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;psychology&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28404" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28403" CreationDate="2020-02-10T22:11:00.737" Score="26" Body="&lt;p&gt;As you mentioned, playing the man can mean several different things, but before I answer I want to say that no one can become a better player by only playing the man - objectivity is the number 1 priority. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many top-level GMs do play the man and the most notable example I can give is the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_World_Chess_Championship_2000&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Kasparov-Kramnik match in 2000&lt;/a&gt;. Kramnik knew that Kasparov disliked queenless middlegames, so he put the Berlin into his opening arsenal. Kramnik also played d4 in his match because Kasparov was known to be a deadly Najdorf player (it should be noted that Kramnik did play e4 at that time). Another example that I can think of is a younger player taking advantage of an older player's fatigue and grinding the position down for hours. These are the main ways that GMs play the man as far as I know.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21014" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-02-11T19:51:04.400" LastActivityDate="2020-02-11T19:51:04.400" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28405" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28403" CreationDate="2020-02-10T23:47:40.883" Score="21" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's all Sun Tzu; If the player is a tactician, play positional.  If the player is positional, play tactical.  If the guy is booked up in a line -- don't play into it unless you have a surprise... &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is not about off the board antics.  Is the guy out of form or a little sick?  Then make the game long and complicated...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then as SubhanKhan mentioned: at the supreme level they look for any little detail.  GM Gufeld loved his dark-square bishop so much, if you traded it off he would take a draw...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastEditorUserId="14202" LastEditDate="2020-02-17T17:48:08.650" LastActivityDate="2020-02-17T17:48:08.650" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28406" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28407" CreationDate="2020-02-11T01:34:00.037" Score="3" ViewCount="114" Body="&lt;p&gt;People have been lamenting the draw-death of chess for ages, with various suggestions on how to get past that. SALC-armageddon comes from this &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.sp-cc.de/nn-longtime-testing.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;website&lt;/a&gt; by a computer chess fan who's been playing several NN engines against other NN engines. Note the special rule:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;SALC Armageddon means: White is allowed to castle short, only and Black is allowed to castle long, only (=SALC (Short And Long Castling)). And all draws are counted as a win for Black (=Armageddon), because these castling-rights are a advantage for White. So, there are no draws anymore. And no draw-death of computerchess. Read more and download more Armageddon stuff in the &quot;Armageddon openings&quot;- section of my website.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Amazingly, this seems to lead to 50-50 games where neither side has an advantage:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Games        : 3000 (finished)&#xA;&#xA;White Wins   : 1492 (49.7 %)&#xA;Black Wins   : 1508 (50.3 %)&#xA;Draws        : 0 (0.0 %)&#xA;Unfinished   : 0&#xA;&#xA;White Score  : 49.7 %&#xA;Black Score  : 50.3 %&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Has this tiebreak rule been seriously discussed and/or tried in human play? If it really is 50-50 for both sides, it could even take over as the main format in classical tournaments.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastActivityDate="2020-02-11T01:48:05.900" Title="Has SALC-armageddon been seriously discussed?" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28407" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28406" CreationDate="2020-02-11T01:48:05.900" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think it is clear that it has not been seriously discussed, and it is not likely to.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, at the highest level, the elite have spent their entire lives getting that good, and draws are just a part of it. There can also be beauty in draws as far as I am concerned. Overall, I doubt that they want to learn to play a different game just because it uses some of the same rules.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Second, Kramnik recently proposed a variant with no castling at all, and the kids they were coaching even played an informal tournament. It has not been heard from since. If Kramnik, and his idea was mostly panned in the comments to the various articles I read, cannot get a variant to be widely accepted, it probably is not going to happen on some very unknown website by someone no one has ever heard of.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lastly, chess, while not a big industry in the grand scheme of things, still is an industry; and the people with money, who back it, are generally adverse to change for risk of losing any money they may have invested.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At best, and it would take a long time to gain the necessary popularity, if one of the main servers like chess.com were to pick it up as a variant, and it were to gain HUGE popularity there, something might happen...I would not count on it though. I have been around for a long time, and variants are still looked upon with disdain by most.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;People do not like change, in general, and they love chess. It is not a problem at the lower levels, so it is not likely to catch on en mass, and work its way up. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2020-02-11T01:48:05.900" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28408" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-02-11T03:13:48.323" Score="3" ViewCount="194" Body="&lt;p&gt;The fate of chess has been discussed for a long time and in recent years it has become more and more common. Examples of this include the 2018 World Chess Championship(12 draws) and the 2016 World Chess Championship(10 draws). It has become a problem to the degree that now major super tournaments such as Altibox Norway have a straight-up Armageddon for breaking ties. I was wondering if the idea of having classical time control Armageddon (say white 90 minutes and black 120 minutes) has been debated. What would be the advantages and disadvantages of having such a game? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21014" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T14:59:10.693" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T14:59:10.693" Title="Classical Time Control Armageddon?" Tags="&lt;time-control&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28409" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28408" CreationDate="2020-02-11T03:31:19.653" Score="-6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not debated nor seriously considered.   Just changing time controls will not change the results significantly.  Only at the VERY top levels are draws a problem. Stats show that there are plenty of wins and losses for more normal people.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Far better to stop playing such slow games.  And get rid of all those delays and add ons that confuse people so they can't do proper clock management. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Play more games that are shorter and the results would be more meaningful.  G30SD no delay no add ons is plenty of time for anyone. &#xA;Clock management would still be necessary.  G15SD+0+0 would be good for ordinary people.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Play more games not fewer games because they are too bleeping long.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess is not a game it is a puzzle, albeit complicated one.  Maybe tippy top GMs have solved it like tittattoe but for the VAST bulk of all people it will still be fun if it did not take so long to play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For me anything over G30SD is like postal chess and just takes too much time.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastEditorUserId="20721" LastEditDate="2020-02-11T03:50:31.483" LastActivityDate="2020-02-11T03:50:31.483" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28410" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28416" CreationDate="2020-02-11T05:05:44.577" Score="2" ViewCount="151" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was wondering if there certain setups with pieces, pawns, or both which avoid perpetual checks. I know an important setup is the one below where it's essentially a fortress type of a position for white. Are there any other ways to avoid perpetual checks. The reason I am asking for this is that in endgames I often blunder perpetual.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/WfzTQ.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/WfzTQ.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21014" LastActivityDate="2020-02-11T13:22:21.597" Title="What are the specific setups to avoid perpetual checks(Queen)?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;queen-endgame&gt;&lt;perpetual&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ClosedDate="2020-02-20T10:12:02.813" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28411" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-02-11T08:32:01.750" Score="4" ViewCount="491" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am looking for a very simple Chess Clock (simple design - see picture) to use from the phone browser WITHOUT having to download an app. I already know apps who have this I am looking for a &lt;strong&gt;web version&lt;/strong&gt;! &#xA;This is an example for a good &lt;em&gt;app&lt;/em&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Im4tds.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Im4tds.png&quot; alt=&quot;This is a very good example of an app&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/MH7TJm.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/MH7TJm.png&quot; alt=&quot;Chess Clock app design&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.online-stopwatch.com/full-screen-chess-clock/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; is an example of a bad web version with bad design and too many distractions, looks especially bad on mobile:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/6GzNdm.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/6GzNdm.png&quot; alt=&quot;mobile version of bad web version example&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21134" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2020-02-11T18:47:11.997" LastActivityDate="2020-03-28T15:56:55.270" Title="Is there a web version of a chess clock for mobile phones without (distracting) advertisements?" Tags="&lt;chess-clocks&gt;&lt;websites&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28412" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28411" CreationDate="2020-02-11T10:18:44.223" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Best Solution:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chessclock.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chessclock.org&lt;/a&gt; - add the website to the home screen on your phone and tilt the phone to the side&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Added in the comments: &lt;a href=&quot;http://chessclock.iphonemarks.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chessclock.iphonemarks.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Original suggestions:&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.skakur.dk/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;skakur.dk&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ksloan.net/chessclock/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;ksloan.net/chessclock&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14767" LastEditorUserId="14767" LastEditDate="2020-03-28T15:56:55.270" LastActivityDate="2020-03-28T15:56:55.270" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28413" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-02-11T10:31:16.397" Score="2" ViewCount="213" Body="&lt;p&gt;A while ago I asked a question about how to let Stockfish play 10 games with itself for a limited number of moves:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/28248/python-script-to-let-stockfish-selfplay-10-games-from-a-given-position/28249#28249&quot;&gt;Python script to let stockfish selfplay 10 games from a given position&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This question was brilliantly answered by the user Phonon.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now I would have a followup question. Since the games are starting from the same position, I would like to avoid to clean the hash memory, as I understand Stockfish does every time it starts a new game. Ideally, even the first game should avoid the hash table clearing since I might have analyzed the position before starting the self match and I would like to keep the information saved in the hash memory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a way to do that?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks in advance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21386" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T14:58:47.207" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T14:58:47.207" Title="How to get stockfish to play a selfmatch without clearing the hash table between games" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28414" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28413" CreationDate="2020-02-11T11:48:44.147" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I would like to keep the information saved in the hash memory. Is&#xA;  there a way to do that?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, there is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stockfish is &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/official-stockfish&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;open source&lt;/a&gt;. So you can examine the code, modify it, recompile and rebuild.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What you need to do is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Find where Stockfish creates and uses the cache&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Modify the code to save the cache to disk when the game finishes&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Modify the code to optionally (you won't want to do it for every new game) load the cache from disk for a new game&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-02-11T11:48:44.147" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28415" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28408" CreationDate="2020-02-11T13:05:36.123" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would tend to think that you are the very first person to propose that, mostly because I really do not think it would work for this reason:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even with the control you proposed, 90 minutes to 120, the guy with 90 minutes still has A LOT of time to think not only on his time, but also on the opponent's time. That makes draw odds a MUCH larger advantage at that control than in blitz.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I tried thinking about alternative controls that might even it up some, but they would have to be so unbalanced, that the players would be playing under radically different time controls like 15 or 30 minutes to two hours. Whatever the control, you would need to create a situation where white with the extra time has some reasonable chance to out-think black and win, and that is hard at that level to begin with, but it is all but impossible with that much extra time that black can think on while white is thinking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2020-02-11T13:05:36.123" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28416" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28410" CreationDate="2020-02-11T13:22:21.597" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;It would be very helpful if you would post a couple of those games you mentioned that you gave up perpetual check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would say, &quot;no&quot;, there are no stock positions that are meant to avoid perpetual check (at least I cannot think of any now that I would call &quot;common&quot;). You just have to be careful, and be aware of king safety. Sometimes, you just cannot avoid it either as it is a valid component of defense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I will say that one common setup in queen endings is the following type of position. White has managed to post the queen very centrally, and it can go either from the h1-a8 diagonal, as it is now, to prevent checks; or as it helps the a-pawn move forward, it can move to the g1-a7 diagonal to defend e3, and help advance the pawn from there. It is critical to note that with rooks on the board, the white king's lack of safety would probably prevent this, keeping a white rook passive on the first, and allow black to setup counterplay against the passer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;8/5pk1/q5p1/P2Q3p/7P/6P1/5PK1/8 w - - 0 0&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. Qd4+ Kh7 2. Qb6 {And the passer moves on}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2020-02-11T13:22:21.597" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28417" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28393" CreationDate="2020-02-11T14:41:32.857" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I used to be pretty high up on chess.com bullet (1 min), what seemed to help me the most was:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Tactics, ChessTempo is a fantastic site to use but there are many. Counter-intuitively, I would recommend not focusing on being fast, just go for correct solutions however long it takes you to be sure. Massively improves vision and pattern recognition.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Go back over your games with an engine, there are a bunch of free ones you can download. go through move by move to see your mistakes and follow lines of play you didn't consider&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Opening lines, I'm terrible at actually learning these, so my focus was always taking my opponent off book with weird openings. Being more familiar with an opening immediately puts you in the lead time wise.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Turn on premove if you haven't already&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21484" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T17:08:36.307" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T17:08:36.307" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28418" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28419" CreationDate="2020-02-11T16:13:08.083" Score="4" ViewCount="264" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What positional considerations must be made in order to come up with a plan for White in this position?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What are the ideas behind the central squares and weaknesses that must be analyzed for both sides?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; r2q1rk1/1b1nbppp/pp2pn2/2p5/2PP4/2NBBN1P/PP3PP1/R2Q1RK1 w - - 3 12&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16771" LastEditorUserId="3594" LastEditDate="2020-02-11T21:09:19.747" LastActivityDate="2020-02-11T21:09:19.747" Title="Analysis of a middlegame out of the Queen's Pawn Game: Zukertort Variation" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28419" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28418" CreationDate="2020-02-11T17:25:56.490" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The position is basically still quite equal, although black has a tiny bit less space to maneuver, so the first order of the day is to develop the Qd1, and bring the rooks to the center. The position is still VERY fluid in the center, so it is impossible to say about one plan that &quot;this is THE plan&quot;. Also, a fluid center makes it very hard to develop a kingside attack, even though you have some pieces that are aimed that way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After developing the queen and rooks, you should either look to double rooks on the d-file, or you may try to expand on the queenside with a3, and b4...if possible. This is hard right now because it may leave c4 very weak, which is why in the main line below, I played b3 instead. You need to watch out for b5 in any similar opening because the Nc3 now hangs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another idea is to try to occupy the outpost on e5 with a piece. That is impossible now, but depending on how black plays, it might be possible. That plan is not going to be 100% effective because black can always play c5xd4, reducing white's influence on e5. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other than development, &lt;strong&gt;your main plan is mostly prophylaxis&lt;/strong&gt;. Black is trying to trade down some to gain breathing room, so you want to play moves that make that tougher to trade pieces, or at least trade fewer pieces. With the potential for open files on the d-file, and e-file (if you played d5, which is another move both sides need to consider on every move for now), it is likely that at least one set of rooks will come off the board. You do not want to trade because you have more good squares for your pieces, and thus, more room to maneuver.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is a sample line that white was successful in finishing development, and limiting trades...for now. Now that d5 is no longer possible, black will reposition the Re8 and try to trade material down the d-file. It is still equal per the computer. There are many more lines, and possibilities at this early stage, but hopefully, I have given you enough ideas on how to adapt to any other changes black's play throws at you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the end, I suspect that if you have any advantage, it may be a slight endgame advantage where you get one rook on the open d-file, and maybe a minor piece each left...the file being the major plus, along with b6/a6 being targets. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;r2q1rk1/1b1nbppp/pp2pn2/2p5/2PP4/2NBBN1P/PP3PP1/R2Q1RK1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. Qe2 Qc7 2. Rad1 Rac8 (2... Rfd8 {Getting ready to immediately liquidate the center is also possible.} 3. d5 $6 exd5 4. cxd5 b5 $15) 3. Rfe1 Rfe8 {This anticipates d5 prophylactically.} (3... Rfd8 4. d5 exd5 5. Nxd5 Bxd5 $1 6. cxd5 b5 $11) 4. b3 (4. dxc5 $6 Nxc5 5. Bc2 Ncd7 $1 6. Nd2 (6. b3 b5 $1 $17) 6... Ne5 7. Na4 b5 8. Nb6) 4... cxd4 (4... b5 $6 5. cxb5 cxd4 6. Bxd4 $16) 5. Bxd4 h6 {But with some play for both sides}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-02-11T17:56:08.793" LastActivityDate="2020-02-11T17:56:08.793" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28420" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28418" CreationDate="2020-02-11T18:03:15.270" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some observations:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Trading a wing pawn for a center pawn is usually desirable as it can lead to a central pawn majority (which can lead to central occupation). &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;More space is usually considered an advantage.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From the above it appears White should see if d4-d5 can work. Black can't immediately win the pawn because of Bxh7 trick, but maybe he can win it more slowly.  Anyway that is analysis required based on the positional considerations.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the analysis shows that White cannot play d5 then he has to allow the trade of his d-pawn for the c-pawn in which case he needs to consider ways of stopping Black from playing a future e6-e5 (after the trade of blacks c-pawn for whites d-pawn the e5 square can be of high importance).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2020-02-11T18:03:15.270" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28423" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-02-11T21:17:30.640" Score="2" ViewCount="248" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have a followup question to my previous thread:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/28248/python-script-to-let-stockfish-selfplay-10-games-from-a-given-position/28249#28249&quot;&gt;Python script to let stockfish selfplay 10 games from a given position&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are some engines that allow you to set a command that imposes that the hash memory is never cleared among games. For instance the Sugar program by Marco Zerbinati has this UCI command that can be done from the command line:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;setoption name NeverClearHash value true &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I tried to do this command in python-chess library but apparently it doesn't work:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;engine.options[&quot;NeverClearHash&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How can I set the option &quot;NeverClearHash&quot; to &quot;true&quot; in Python?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21386" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-03-04T21:21:27.557" LastActivityDate="2020-03-04T21:21:27.557" Title="How can I send a UCI command to a chess engine in Python?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;uci&gt;&lt;python&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28424" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28403" CreationDate="2020-02-11T22:22:29.143" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;While the other answers are great at addressing what playing the man means, this one will be more about your initial question about helping at the club level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I do not think playing the man is as viable of a strategy for a club level player.  The reason it works at a higher level is that GMs already have the appropriate skill level to compete with each other normally and there is more readily available information about opponents/they play against each other often enough to get a read on their play style.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are a few issues with this at a club level that make it a non-viable strategy:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;There are many more people who play at a club level than at a GM level.  Odds are, outside of your own club's members, you will not be playing the same person on a regular enough basis to ascertain their style.  This makes playing the man a more research oriented ordeal that would take up far too much time for you as an individual to do and could be spent on your fundamentals or strategy.  I would not recommend it unless you are going to a tournament and are the underdog in a match up against a player that has a lot of publicly accessible match information available.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If you are part of a club, you probably love the game and want to actually improve.  You are already dedicating more time than most on the game and thinking about it strategically.  Playing the man would be considered a cheesy strategy by most people and is not something that makes you improve.  Also, to echo what I stated above, you'd realistically only play your own club members enough to get an idea of another players play style.  It's never worth cheesing a practice opponent since that is the time to work on your own game and actually improve.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I do not think there is anything wrong with a cheesy strategy for a single person or playing the man in general.  It is actually great for higher level players to think this way because it shows their passion for the game and their observational prowess.  For lower ranked players, it is relatively useless and even those who are very attached to their ELO or ranking should stay away from playing the man except for in select situations detailed in the first point.  A stable ELO with slow but steady improvement is far better than being a swingy player who wins underdog matchups and loses to lower ranked players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21488" LastActivityDate="2020-02-11T22:22:29.143" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28425" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28429" CreationDate="2020-02-11T23:51:42.537" Score="6" ViewCount="1785" Body="&lt;p&gt;A &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.chessbase.com/post/cairns-cup-2020-r3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;ChessBase report&lt;/a&gt; for the ongoing Cairns Cup gives this paragraph:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The first game to finish was Humpy Koneru versus Ju Wenjun. Out of an English Opening, Humpy quickly found herself out of book with the white pieces. The Indian was on the back foot but managed to keep things under control until a repetition took place starting on move 19. Later on, she explained that it is difficult to face someone who comes from preparing for a world championship match, as their level of preparation is particularly impressive after such an important contest.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The implication is that Ju Wenjun is likely to be very &quot;booked up&quot; for a while after the world championship match, but only for a while, and she'll be easier to face some time in the future.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;How long does it take until Ju Wenjun is no longer very &quot;booked up&quot;?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Why doesn't Ju Wenjun stay very booked up for as long as she's playing professionally? &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T14:58:00.657" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T14:58:00.657" Title="How long does it take to use opening preparation at top level?" Tags="&lt;preparation&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28426" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28423" CreationDate="2020-02-12T00:02:43.667" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, engine.options[&quot;NeverClearHash&quot;] is wrong on two counts.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;It is &lt;em&gt;engine.option&lt;/em&gt;, not &lt;em&gt;engine.options&lt;/em&gt; and that command queries the value rather than sets it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To set the value you have to do something like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;engine.configure({&quot;NeverClearHash&quot;: 1})&lt;br&gt;&#xA;or perhaps:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;engine.configure({&quot;NeverClearHash&quot;: true})&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Good programmers are never too proud to read &lt;a href=&quot;https://python-chess.readthedocs.io/en/latest/engine.html#options&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;the manual&lt;/a&gt;. I wholeheartedly recommend it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2020-02-12T09:49:55.223" LastActivityDate="2020-02-12T09:49:55.223" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28427" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28425" CreationDate="2020-02-12T00:13:14.230" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Since I play the same openings, I'm always booked up, although I still need to refresh some of the side lines.  Just like I will always know addition, but need to refresh the higher math functions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At higher levels, the GMs have to changes openings to surprise their opponent and hope for some advantage.  Once this line is played and the surprise is spent, the player, especially against that opponent, is considered to no longer be booked up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As one of the classic exceptions is the 2000 Championship.  Kasparov was known to be booked up on six to nine main line openings.  Kramnik was booked up on only versed in three, but his knowledge was deeper (more moves) and more familiar. Many commentators that Kasparov's arrogance prevented him from switch to a system he knew better [between the two of them] instead of trying to defeat the &quot;Berlin Wall&quot;, and that lost him the championship.  &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/28403/how-do-gms-play-a-man-not-the-board&quot;&gt;HOW do GMs play a man not the board?&lt;/a&gt; gives a better explanation of this match.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9684" LastActivityDate="2020-02-12T00:13:14.230" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28428" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28425" CreationDate="2020-02-12T00:13:45.933" Score="5" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;How long does it take until Ju Wenjun is no longer very &quot;booked up&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Top players have outstanding memories so it takes a very long time for the actual memories of the booking up to fade. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, theory moves on quite fast. When you &quot;book up&quot; you are essentially bringing yourself up to date with the latest theory and ideally coming up with some new (computer tested) ideas that will give you an edge. Once your novelty is played it is no longer a novelty and the value of the &quot;booking up&quot; diminishes. Even worse, an earlier move may be superseded by an improvement by another player. When that happens that &quot;booked up&quot; knowledge is essentially worthless at the top level because players will be diverging from your booked up knowledge.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Why doesn't Ju Wenjun stay very booked up for as long as she's playing&#xA;  professionally?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At the top level players try and stayed &quot;booked up&quot; but as pointed out that knowledge goes stale quite quickly and so the booking up process has to be continuous. There is an enormous amount of work involved and so that work tends to be targeted for maximum benefit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-02-12T00:13:45.933" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28429" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28425" CreationDate="2020-02-12T01:02:39.483" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;As Brian noted, theory can move on quickly, but that does not remotely mean that everything that was prepared is lost in a short period of time. I think that the biggest issue was just that prepping for the world championship was much more intense, and rigorous, so Ju is going to be that much more prepared, and thus, a much more dangerous opponent than usual for while, but not just because of opening preparation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, I disagree that just because they have outstanding memories, that they do not forget much...virtually all memories do fade, and it can take a long time to use some prep. There is also the enormous volume that they have to memorize compared to a club player. They certainly do not forget the basics, but it is easy to transpose a couple of moves when you are already deep into the opening. I have read about this happening many times, and in the first round of Tata Steel 2020 just last month, it happened to &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1990206&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Vladislav Kovalev in the first round versus Alireza Firouzja&lt;/a&gt;, and Kovalev went down without a fight (he played 16...c4? when he needed 16...Nd7 17.Ra3, and only then 17...c4). It can happen to the very best: &lt;a href=&quot;https://twitter.com/fabianocaruana/status/532164560757997568?lang=en&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Here is a tweet&lt;/a&gt; from Caruana talking about Magnus forgetting his prep. They memorize SO much that it is still human to forget things that they have not looked at for a while.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It can also take years sometimes to be able to use an opening surprise. I remember reading on at least one occasion, it took Kasparov years to use some prep, and I have heard numerous such stories about top players in my 40 years of tournament chess. Here is a &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/fl-xpm-1999-09-19-9909170859-story.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;link to a story&lt;/a&gt; about Kaspy waiting years, and using some prep against Michael Adams. &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1011316&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;That game can be found here&lt;/a&gt;, and 14.Qh4 was the novelty.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also think that there is another huge factor that Humpy did not touch upon, and that is that when you play a major round robin (relative to your rating), or in this case, a world championship match, it is so intense, and the level of play is so high, that you usually come out much sharper than normal. I played a couple of round robins against all strong masters, and I felt like I was better than ever when I was done each of them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, professional players at this level continue to work on their openings, maybe daily, but it is doubtful that it is quite as intense as when she was preparing for the match. In essence, she still stays fairly booked up at all times.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2020-02-12T01:02:39.483" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28430" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28425" CreationDate="2020-02-12T03:30:37.847" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Depends what you mean by booked up.  Normally top GMs prepare for the openings they will play and also those that the opponent will likely play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The normal lines in those openings the will always know.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The problem is the special surprises and prepared lines they 'booked up' on.  Once they have been used the opponent will also be prepared and often come up with counter surprises. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So they will always be booked up on their openings.  They will never catch up with new theory and moves in their openings.  And especially surprises/prepared_variations will be old news after they are used. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How long depends on how long it is until they actually use the new surprise or someone else finds it and uses it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are many opening surprises in book lines.  I know of two that I use often.  One is known but apparently not widely enough.  The other seems to be a total bug in the analysis as it always works and nobody else seems to be playing it.  But it does depend somewhat on the level you play at.  Not many magazines printing my games for others to find out.  When a top GM has a surprise the word should get out fast and many others will be analyzing it so the surprise value is gone.  And they may have new surprises  in the follow ups. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastEditorUserId="20721" LastEditDate="2020-02-12T03:45:30.800" LastActivityDate="2020-02-12T03:45:30.800" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28431" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-02-12T04:04:59.743" Score="6" ViewCount="1385" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I play chess on say lichess.org, I can see whether my move is good or not according to Stockfish. I can see why some moves are obvious blunders or mistakes, but for some other moves I don't really know why said move is bad/good. Is there a heuristic or engine or some rules I can use to see why a move is good or bad? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21021" LastEditorUserId="3594" LastEditDate="2020-03-16T11:01:35.063" LastActivityDate="2020-03-16T11:29:18.843" Title="How would I know why a move is good or not?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28432" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22779" CreationDate="2020-02-12T04:06:32.403" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;Although the responses all were intended to answer the question, they all fell slightly short.  The 75-move rule was implemented so that an arbiter could adjudicate a game as drawn in a clearly drawn position when both players were electing to play on, hoping that their opponent would falter.  Usually in cases where a draw was as good as a lost for both players, i.e. a win would secure prize money, a draw would win no prize money. Arbiters have a life too. ;&amp;gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21491" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-09-14T02:27:28.860" LastActivityDate="2020-09-14T02:27:28.860" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28433" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28403" CreationDate="2020-02-12T07:22:52.857" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Disclaimer: I am mainly answering the 2nd question (Would that work for club level players or could they use other methods?).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, it is possible for a club level player to play the man. First, I would like to clarify that playing the man is not the exact opposite of objective play. There is even a certain intersection between them in human vs human games! Playing the opponent refers to bringing in the psychology factor which makes sense because you are playing against a human after all. And it is widely used in all levels of play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thorough analysis may point out that a sacrifice/gambit is not sound, but playing that posiiton in the defensive against an aggressive player is another thing. Think about Tal's games (&quot;There are two types of sacrifices: correct ones and mine.&quot; -Tal). In an interview Kramnik attributed his good record agaist Kasparov to his mindset.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Quote from &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/article/view/vladimir-kramnik-interview-im-not-afraid-to-lose&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Vladimir Kramnik Interview: 'I'm Not Afraid To Lose'‎&lt;/a&gt; (emphasize mine).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I don’t care about losing. I enjoy the process, and it doesn’t make any difference if I win or lose. ...............................................&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;em&gt;Qn: Do you think this mindset helped you during your career?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  I think so, because with my approach to chess, I was never intimidated or felt afraid of anyone. I think this particularly helped against Garry, whenever we played. &lt;strong&gt;I could clearly see that whenever other players faced him, there was a fear, up to the point of panic&lt;/strong&gt;. For me this was always quite strange. Of course Garry was a special player, and I’ve always had deep respect for his chess, but when you play any opponent, you’re just playing a game. You can lose, but so what?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some top-level players have used surprise as a weapon against strong players. I hesitate to give example games for this and similar tricks employed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One way club-level players play the man is to stop opponent's plans in the track (one needs to have an ability to measure opponents and see their plan to do so; not so easy). Some players do this even when opponent's plan doesn't seem so good. This aims to bring down their confidence instead of annoying them (which by the way shows a clear lack of sportsmanship).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And now to justify that there is an intersection between playing your opponent and objective play, ...&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Many players would prefer to steer the game to a position which the opponent doesn't like though objectively they may be perfectly fine.  This 'objective part' of this decision is that you want to control where the game goes (in terms of style, or personal preferences). Also, when you are not in a position to control the game, the 'objectively' best strategy is not to let your opponent achieve their goals either. An example is to make sure that your opponent cannot make use of the (semi)open file he/she possess. A distant example is neutralizing your lack of space by exchanging minor pieces (this would be considered an objective decision usually; but this strategy is not objective in all crammed-like positions). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14678" LastActivityDate="2020-02-12T07:22:52.857" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28434" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-02-12T08:32:10.920" Score="6" ViewCount="1111" Body="&lt;p&gt;The King's Indian attack is my choice of opening. I choose this because more often I would prefer games where the actual clash between the sides is delayed (rather than outright in the opening). My friends have recommended me to prepare myself with more aggressive lines in the KIA. He specifically talked about pawn storming ideas (possibly with sacrificing a pawn) starting with h4. But, I guess this is not practical always.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Is there a way to play King's Indian attack aggressively against most systems adopted by black?&lt;/strong&gt; (I don't mean same attacking plan irrespective of opponent's system). &lt;strong&gt;If yes, how?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I personally prefer double-edged games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS: There is a book on KID: King's Indian Warfare by Ilya Smirin. Is there a book of this sort on KIA?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14678" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T14:57:37.490" LastActivityDate="2020-08-04T05:26:23.847" Title="How to play king's indian attack aggressively?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;aggressive-play&gt;&lt;kings-indian-attack&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28435" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22335" CreationDate="2020-02-12T08:38:32.943" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;As for tournaments with swiss system, all computer programs are paid. That's why I decided to create a freeware program (REALLY free). Name of my program is VinczeSwiss. The VinczeSwiss program is available for download at: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.zzsvysocina.cz/download/vinswiss.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.zzsvysocina.cz/download/vinswiss.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the package &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.zzsvysocina.cz/download/vinswiss.zip&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.zzsvysocina.cz/download/vinswiss.zip&lt;/a&gt;, there is documentation en_algorithm.htm&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My (swiss) algorithm is simple, but it is not (exactly) according to FIDE regulations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21493" LastActivityDate="2020-02-12T08:38:32.943" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28436" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-02-12T08:52:02.513" Score="1" ViewCount="111" Body="&lt;p&gt;all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My name is Roman Vincze. I play chess (&lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/profile/324906&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://ratings.fide.com/profile/324906&lt;/a&gt;) and I'm also a programmer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for tournaments with swiss system, all computer programs are paid. That's why I decided to create a freeware program (REALLY free (as Lichess)). Name of my program is VinczeSwiss. The VinczeSwiss program is available for download at: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.zzsvysocina.cz/download/vinswiss.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.zzsvysocina.cz/download/vinswiss.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The VinczeSwiss program is not (for now?) FIDE certified, but can be used now for tournaments without sending to ELO. The VinczeSwiss program has its own (recursive) pairing function, but can also use the external pairing engine JaVaFo.jar. When using JaVaFo.jar, the VinczeSwiss program is fully compatible with FIDE pairing rules! Languages of VinczeSwiss program: now only English and Czech (in package &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.zzsvysocina.cz/download/vinswiss.zip&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.zzsvysocina.cz/download/vinswiss.zip&lt;/a&gt;, there are files english.txt and czech.txt).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you will like the VinczeSwiss program, I would like to ask you:&#xA;would a some chess player and a native speaker translate file english.txt into another language (German, Spanish, French ... ...)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can you use program VinczeSwiss and send me your opinion / feedback/ ideas? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21493" LastActivityDate="2020-02-12T08:52:02.513" Title="VinczeSwiss - the new FREEWARE program for swiss pairing - help me please with the translation" Tags="&lt;swiss-pairing&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="3" ClosedDate="2020-02-12T09:48:50.827" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28437" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14937" CreationDate="2020-02-12T09:23:46.993" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Dynamism is at the heart of King's Indian attack (like many other openings). You cannot be fixed on always going for the kingside or alway going for the queenside. You have to be flexible with respect to all options including kingside, queenside, both sides or center conflict. Also bear in mind that it is a modern opening after all. So, regarding center and general plans, it shares traits of many other modern openings (see chapter 6 of Fine's book &quot;The ideas behind chess openings&quot; for instance). But, beware: the theory of modern openings have changed from its inception (esp. with respect to importance of center).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In some variations, you can strike back at the center in better circumstances than the opening (timing is important for this). Sometimes, you can even push the e4 pawn to e5 (this opportunity doesn't come often. This push will simply loss the pawn (and center dreams) more often). When the center is kind-of fixed, the typical pawn-structure advises white to go for a kingside attack, and black to go for a queenside attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See section C of &lt;a href=&quot;http://exeterchessclub.org.uk/content/playing-white-against-odd-black-defences-after-1e4-3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;exeterchessclub's openings page&lt;/a&gt; for a short overview. For more detailed one, read chapter 7 of &quot;Winning chess openings&quot; (extra read: 1st para. of chapter 5 of the same book).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14678" LastActivityDate="2020-02-12T09:23:46.993" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28438" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28431" CreationDate="2020-02-12T10:17:39.307" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;As far as I know, there is no engine that does what you are looking for. An engine is a program that does nothing more than take certain positional and material elements into account, and gives it an evaluation. It does not break down the elements and show you how it evaluated each of them. Sometimes, it can be obvious because the analysis is a clear win of material, but most of chess is more deeply hidden than that....sometimes VERY deeply hidden.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I found a site that does what you are asking. It takes those evaluations, and tries to put words and understanding to the numbers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You it on one of the problems with chess-analysis software for weaker players, and that is that it just shows the strongest move per the computer, without any explanation why. There are some programs, like the ChessBase programs that, using their &quot;Tactical Analysis&quot; feature, attempt to give some explanation to the moves, but they are all wanting.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That said, decodechess.com seems to do better than most for newbies. As a USCF Master, the explanations are pretty good from what I can see, and the underlying &quot;engine&quot; is the same Stockfish that you use. Although a premium account is $99/year (right now, 50% off with the promo code &quot;getserious&quot;. for the record, I have no affiliation with the site, nor am I a member), you can create an account, and &quot;decode&quot;, or analyze three games per day for free. If you like it, I would jump on the promo.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2020-02-12T10:17:39.307" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28439" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28434" CreationDate="2020-02-12T11:05:23.637" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I looked you up on FIDE's website, and as a roughly 1500-player, the KIA naturally fits your question &quot;How to play king's indian attack aggressively?&quot; If you play it correctly, it already IS an aggressive opening. You cannot get any more aggressive than an opening that basically says &quot;I want to mate your king&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reality is that at higher levels, it is mostly de-fanged, and considered only good for equality, which is why you do not see Carlsen, and other world champions, play it often (at best). At the top levels, it is played mostly as a surprise opening, typically, to avoid home preparation, or when a player just wants a playable game where the opponent is mostly on their own. Generally, black is considered to have adequate defensive systems that should render that attack harmless. However, black cannot underestimate white's kingside attacking chances, and even GMs can make mistakes in that opening, and lose to an attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can play the KIA against the main black 1.e4 defenses: The Sicilian, French, and Caro-Kann. It becomes more difficult to get the type of game you want if black knows what you typically play, and plays and early g6, Bg7, and 0-0. It is just harder to go for mate against that setup.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as books go, there are dozens of books on the KIA. For your level, I would focus on books that explain the ideas rather than rely heavily on regurgitating a ton of theory. I have many books, but unfortunately, during a move, I lost most of my opening books, so I literally have no books on this opening, but if I were to recommend two book just based on a search, I would try these two: &lt;a href=&quot;https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/1857449886&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&quot;King's Indian Attack: Move by Move&quot; by GM Neil McDonald&lt;/a&gt;, and &lt;a href=&quot;https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/1857443942&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&quot;Starting Out: King's Indian Attack&quot; by GM John Emms&lt;/a&gt;. They seem to be more of the explaining type (you can look at the first few pages on Amazon). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A word of warning: If you have any real intentions of trying to get to 2200, you may find that you have to develop a new opening repertoire from scratch at some point, as this opening is will limit your chess development in the long run since you will be easy to prepare for.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2020-02-12T11:05:23.637" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28440" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28431" CreationDate="2020-02-12T14:35:48.630" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Engine will rate a move as bad when it leads to a disadvantage that can be exploited (sometimes only by a very strong player). There's a myriad of ways in which you can weaken your position and there's no heuristic that guarantees you'll be able to avoid them (that's the beauty of the game!). I'd suggest doing an analysis of the game and following the variation with the help of the engine. Often the answer on what the threat was reveals itself quite within couple / several moves!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21496" LastActivityDate="2020-02-12T14:35:48.630" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28442" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28431" CreationDate="2020-02-12T15:38:02.720" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Heuristics can only get you so far, at the end of the day chess is a highly contextual game which means, in order to understand why a given move is &lt;em&gt;good&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;bad,&lt;/em&gt; you can never do without the concrete assessment of lines of play that can arise from that move. Obviously, one cannot go to arbitrary depths in the calculations, so at some point you need to make a judgement, based on your experience and positional understanding, and stop your calculations and evaluate the reached positions. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the one hand, learning more about chess principles will render your calculations more efficient, as you'll get better at dismissing the irrelevant move candidates. It will also allow you to evaluate more accurately the intermediate and end positions that you reach at the end of your calculations. On the other hand, experience and practice will improve your tactical awareness, calculation speed and the depth you can see without moving the pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When it comes to understanding why an engine evaluates a move as &lt;em&gt;good&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;bad&lt;/em&gt;, if at first according to your calculations and your knowledge of chess principles it is not clear to you, then you should simply rely on the concrete lines of play and explore them with/without the engine. In other words, in a live analysis session, simply play out the main lines that ensue &lt;strong&gt;with&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;without&lt;/strong&gt; the move you're trying to understand, then compare them. The comparison will better highlight the impact of the move on the consequent positions. This does not mean you can expect to understand any move in any positions, because chess is a highly complex game, and with time, as you get better at it, you'll discover deeper concepts and layers of reasoning behind a move or plan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These discussions basically mean that in order to evaluate a move, concrete play and principle-based assessment of positions will always and unavoidably go hand in hand. Think of for instance how we find positional combinations (other combinations would be mating ones, or ones that win material) in chess: First we &lt;strong&gt;spot an idea&lt;/strong&gt; (e.g. doubling our opponent's pawns), then we &lt;strong&gt;calculate the relevant variations&lt;/strong&gt; (such as the repercussion of intermezzo check moves), and last, we &lt;strong&gt;evaluate the final positions&lt;/strong&gt; (e.g. in terms of king safety, material balance, pawn structure etc). Therefore to find a combination, the concrete and positional assessment are both required.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's end with an example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A typical Dragon position, and say we played the move &lt;code&gt;8.Qd2&lt;/code&gt; in the diagram below, and afterwards learned that the engine did not like it at all. Then we see the engine suggests immediately &lt;code&gt;8...Ng4!!&lt;/code&gt; attacking the bishop on &lt;code&gt;e3&lt;/code&gt; first chance given! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/3XKeg.jpg&quot; width=&quot;250&quot; height=&quot;250&quot;&gt; &lt;sup&gt;&lt;i&gt; A strategic blunder by white to allow the trade of the dark-squared B for a N. &lt;/i&gt;&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Strategically, if the trade of the &lt;code&gt;g4&lt;/code&gt; knight with the &lt;code&gt;e3&lt;/code&gt; bishop happens, then black will stand really well thank to their dark squared bishop dominating the long diagonal. So we realise &lt;code&gt;8.Qd2&lt;/code&gt; was premature as first  we needed to secure the &lt;code&gt;g4&lt;/code&gt; square with e.g. &lt;code&gt;8.f3&lt;/code&gt; then &lt;code&gt;Qd2&lt;/code&gt; can be played having ensured we preserve our dark-squared bishop. This entails the principled approach to understanding &lt;code&gt;Ng4,&lt;/code&gt; since the dark-squared bishop is vital to black's play in the Dragon variation of the Sicilian.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Next question should be: &quot;but can white really not avoid the trade by some dynamic play?&quot; By their nature, these questions cannot be answered by the mere application of chess principles, instead, one needs to concretely go through some of the possible lines of play for white and see what kinds of positions they are leading too. For instance, starting from &lt;code&gt;9.Nxc6&lt;/code&gt; with the idea to play &lt;code&gt;Bd4&lt;/code&gt; trading the bishops in case of &lt;code&gt;9...bxc6&lt;/code&gt; (left diagram, green marks white moves, red black's). But then we need to step back again, and consider what if black recaptures on &lt;code&gt;c6&lt;/code&gt; with the &lt;code&gt;d&lt;/code&gt; pawn (right diagram) and thus preventing &lt;code&gt;Bd4&lt;/code&gt;? Then we need to assess which side has a better development and minor piece coordination after the trade of queens, and the fun continues... &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/MMNwm.jpg&quot; width=&quot;250&quot; height=&quot;250&quot;&gt; &lt;sup&gt;&lt;i&gt; 9...bxc6 &lt;/i&gt;&lt;/sup&gt;&#xA;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/bjkCE.jpg&quot; width=&quot;250&quot; height=&quot;250&quot;&gt; &lt;sup&gt;&lt;i&gt; 9...dxc6 &lt;/i&gt;&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [title &quot;Sicilian Dragon, example 1: why 8.Qd2 is bad?&quot;]&#xA; [fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA; [startply &quot;15&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 g6 5. Nc3 Bg7 6. Be3 Nf6 7. Bc4 O-O 8. Qd2 Ng4 9. Nxc6 dxc6 (9...bxc6 10. Bd4) 10. Qxd8 Rxd8 11. Bf4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3594" LastEditorUserId="3594" LastEditDate="2020-03-16T11:29:18.843" LastActivityDate="2020-03-16T11:29:18.843" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28445" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-02-13T10:25:28.073" Score="22" ViewCount="6076" Body="&lt;p&gt;On various occasions in commentaries or interviews, e.g. during the World Championship commentary with Peter Svidler and Anish Giri, I've heard the Dorfman method being mentioned. I then learned that this method, devised by the well-established chess player and trainer &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josif_Dorfman&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Iossif Dorfman&lt;/a&gt;, is in some sense an algorithmic way of finding good candidate moves. Iossif Dorfman has written two books on the matter, namely, &lt;a href=&quot;https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/2957289024&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;The Method in Chess&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/2847350020&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;The Critical Moment&lt;/a&gt;, both of which seem to be out-of-print and highly expensive. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These seem to be inspired by the much older works of &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_Steinitz&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;W. Steinitz&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Euwe&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;M. Euwe&lt;/a&gt;, and &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aron_Nimzowitsch&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;A. Nimzowitsch&lt;/a&gt;. His method, although not necessarily being a follow-up (I don't know), is a formal approach to evaluating positions and finding the best moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Considering the books are basically inaccessible at the moment, this post is merely an attempt to find out what the method entails at a basic level. So I was wondering if someone could briefly shed some light on what the method is all about.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15078" LastEditorUserId="1947" LastEditDate="2020-02-14T16:40:14.113" LastActivityDate="2020-04-16T04:04:27.613" Title="What is the Dorfman method in chess?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;books&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28446" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28445" CreationDate="2020-02-13T10:45:54.157" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;The Method in Chess&quot; is a regressive scale of factors that you can use to evaluate a position. Here they are in order:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;King safety, which is more important than all the others combined.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Material, and various material correlations, like Q+N vs. Q+B. He also goes into a new one B+B+N vs. B+N+N, and which pieces you should aim to trade off.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Who has the better position after a queen trade.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Pawn formation&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The books are very rare (I happen to have both, and when I bought them, I gave a set of them to my friend, but now, they are worth a fortune), but &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess24.com/en/learn/advanced/video/the-method-in-chess/intro-12&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Dorfman recently released a series of 9 videos (and an intro) on chess24.com&lt;/a&gt;. You can join, even for a month, and watch them as part of your membership, or you have the option to buy them outright.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the videos, which I happen to be watching right now, he also talks a lot about dynamic vs. static advantages, and when you have a dynamic advantage, you must act fast or it can evaporate. Also, if you are worse, and you do not act dynamically to change your situation, you are destined to lose.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am on the 4th video now, but I know that he also talks a lot about outposts, which is the next video, and has been mentioned a lot in the previous videos.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In &quot;The Critical Moment&quot;, he talks about the following (the names of the chapters):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The static position of the king&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The king may be attacked&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The concept of a secure shelter&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The exchange of material (a subject that is neglected in chess writings-PhishMaster)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Modification of the pawn structure&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He also has discussed some of this in the first four videos in passing. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2020-02-13T10:45:54.157" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28447" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28445" CreationDate="2020-02-13T10:48:27.913" Score="19" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;This is not a book review, nor is it an opinionated account of the method. I've never really used this method per se, but have read/heard about it,&#xA;so hopefully my rough summary here doesn't do disservice to the merits of the method.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Dorfman method is a two-fold scheme for finding good moves. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;The static elements&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first fold is the static elements of the position. These are 4 elements in decreasing priority:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The king position&lt;/strong&gt;: whose king is better positioned and protected. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Material correlation&lt;/strong&gt;: material balance, and combination of pieces. For instance, Dorfman considers 2 knights + bishop as being often more effective than 2 bishops + knight since the former can triply coordinate on the colour of the bishop.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Which side will stand better after a potential trade of queens&lt;/strong&gt;. This depends on which side has a more active queen, and whose endgame play is favourable.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Pawn structure&lt;/strong&gt;. Central outposts, number of pawn islands, pawn weaknesses, pawn majority, doubled-pawns, domination of light/dark squares such as the grip provided with the Moraczy bind, etc.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Dynamic play&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The second fold is short-term play provided by &lt;em&gt;dynamic play&lt;/em&gt;, which roughly constitutes:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Being ready to opt for extreme measures, such as piece sacrifices,&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Create threats,&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Preventing a king from getting castled,&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Drastic change of pawn structure, and liquidations,&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Quick pawn advances on either flanks.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;etc.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Critical moments of a game&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The scheme then is basically: At each critical moment of the game, each player has to decide whether to play statically, i.e. to improve their longterm play, or play dynamically &#xA;for short-term advantages to possibly stir up the static balance of the position. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Critical moments are defined as moments when there can be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;a possible &lt;strong&gt;exchange of pieces&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;a &lt;strong&gt;change&lt;/strong&gt; in the pawn structure, &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;and the existence of &lt;strong&gt;forced&lt;/strong&gt; sequences of moves.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;The Method&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At each such critical juncture in the game, the method says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Study the static balance of the position in order to decide whether to play dynamically or not.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The balance constitutes comparing the 4 elements one-by-one between the two sides, starting from highest priority.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;One side is deemed &lt;em&gt;statically better&lt;/em&gt; if it stands better in any of the &lt;em&gt;higher&lt;/em&gt; priority elements. For instance, if king positions are about the same, but one side has a stronger material correlation, then that side stands statically better even though they might be worse in the 3rd and 4th elements of the static balance.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The side with a favourable static balance should play slowly and find moves that further improve their longterm &lt;em&gt;static&lt;/em&gt; advantages.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Conversely, the side being statically worse, should opt for dynamic play and establish a short-term advantage, in order to ultimately stir up the static balance in their favour.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Ideally, the dynamic play should aim to establish an advantage in terms of a higher priority static element. For instance, if we are statically worse because our &lt;strong&gt;material correlation&lt;/strong&gt; (2nd element) is worse, then by playing dynamically we should try to worsen our opponent's king position relative to ours, i.e., establish an edge in a static element &lt;em&gt;higher&lt;/em&gt; in priority than the one we're doing worse in. So in this example that higher priority would be the &lt;strong&gt;king position&lt;/strong&gt; (1st element).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Related material and further reading:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The two books: &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josif_Dorfman#Books&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;The Method in Chess, and The Critical Moment.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.gmsquare.com/Reviews/CriticalMomentAldrich.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;A review&lt;/a&gt; by &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_Today&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess Today&lt;/a&gt; of the I. Dorfman books, also containing discussed examples from the book.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/article/view/what-does-dorfman-has-to-say-on-planning&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;An article on the method&lt;/a&gt; by Iryna Zenyuk on &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;chess.com&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess24.com/en/learn/videoseries?filter=dorfman&amp;amp;lang=en,fr&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;English and French video series&lt;/a&gt; on &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess24.com/en&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;chess24.com&lt;/a&gt; with &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josif_Dorfman&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;I. Dorfman&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurent_Fressinet&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Laurent Fressinet&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Gustafsson&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jan Gustafsson&lt;/a&gt; explaining the method.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3594" LastActivityDate="2020-02-13T10:48:27.913" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28448" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-02-13T11:30:27.853" Score="1" ViewCount="1999" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why does Black take the knight on d5 on his 9th move instead of saving the Queen by moving to a4? Is it because then on the next move white plays Nxc7+ followed by NxR?&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/6AxTZ.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/6AxTZ.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;board&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21506" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2020-02-13T16:36:53.450" LastActivityDate="2020-02-13T16:36:53.450" Title="Why not save the queen by playing Qa5-a4?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28449" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28448" CreationDate="2020-02-13T11:47:16.003" Score="18" Body="&lt;p&gt;Because that was the move that the computer saw lost the least material. The BEST you can do there is just get two minor pieces for the queen. It gets worse after Qa4. Even just Nxc7 wins so much material that it is easy, but there is even better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. e4 d5 2. exd5 Qxd5 3. Nc3 Qa5 4. Bc4 Nf6 5. d3 Bg4 6. f3 Bf5 7. Bd2 e6 8. Nge2 Nc6 9. Nd5 Qa4 10. Bb5! (10.Nxc7) {And the queen is still trapped, or the Ra8 is lost...at least.} Qh4+ (10... Qxb5 11. Nxc7+ Kd7 12. Nxb5) 11. g3 Qh5 12. Nef4 (12. Nxc7+ Kd7 13. Nf4 Qh6 14. Nxa8) 12... Qh6 13. Nxe6 {And it is just over.}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-02-13T13:56:57.623" LastActivityDate="2020-02-13T13:56:57.623" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28451" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28453" CreationDate="2020-02-14T04:15:25.700" Score="1" ViewCount="85" Body="&lt;p&gt;Hello fellow chess players. I've recently returned to the learning of this game, and as I forgot several ideas on deep mechanics, I read (again) &quot;My System&quot;, from Nimzowitsch, and found it very useful, but I want to learn more about pawn structures and positional ideas. Would you recommend me some books? Thanks a lot. :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21503" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T14:55:06.640" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T14:55:06.640" Title="Advanced Pawn Structure books" Tags="&lt;positional-play&gt;&lt;pawn-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2020-02-14T10:14:29.430" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28452" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28457" CreationDate="2020-02-14T05:07:16.203" Score="4" ViewCount="239" Body="&lt;p&gt;Feel free to share more than one book. I'm very interested in understanding better those preparatory moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21318" LastEditorUserId="3594" LastEditDate="2020-02-14T11:13:41.997" LastActivityDate="2020-02-20T10:36:47.473" Title="Can anyone recommend a positional book focused on preparing pawn breaks?" Tags="&lt;positional-play&gt;&lt;books&gt;&lt;pawn-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28453" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28451" CreationDate="2020-02-14T05:35:24.353" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the chess youtuber with the channel that goes by the name of Hanging Pawns has a lot of good explanations about structure/openings. I downloaded a very nice book about it, but I suspect that I'm not yet on the appropriate level to concentrate on it, the book is called: Chess Structures: A Grandmaster Guide - by Mauricio Flores Rios. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21318" LastEditorUserId="10075" LastEditDate="2020-02-15T17:16:06.983" LastActivityDate="2020-02-15T17:16:06.983" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28454" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12664" CreationDate="2020-02-14T05:55:54.677" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;FedaMaster brings you guys one of the most entertaining and educative chess channel.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess stream videos regarding combinations, tactics, interesting blitz games against established GMs and also commentary on chess games are also available on this youtube channel.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Strongly Recommended to subscribe &lt;a href=&quot;https://youtu.be/y38OFhyCKsA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://youtu.be/y38OFhyCKsA&lt;/a&gt;  :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21511" LastActivityDate="2020-02-14T05:55:54.677" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28455" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26611" CreationDate="2020-02-14T09:56:18.940" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;One important point not yet mentioned: If you look at other Sicilian lines, black generally tries to play b5. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B5 is useful for a variety of reasons: It might harass the Nc3, support a knight coming to c4 or be part of a pawn storm against the long castle. It fights the Maroczy-bind and the aggressive development Bc4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because b5 is so ubiquitous in Sicilian lines, b6 is very likely to turn out a waste of tempo. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2020-02-14T09:56:18.940" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28456" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22971" CreationDate="2020-02-14T10:22:27.153" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is a complete list of pawn structure books divided into two categories, opening, and general pawn play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;Chess Structures: A Grandmaster Guide&quot; by GM Mauricio Flores Rios is the single best book on OPENING pawn structures currently out there, but it misses some.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;Pawn Structure Chess&quot; by GM Andy Soltis is VERY weak in the analysis, but the general ideas still hold up.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;The Ideas Behind the Chess Openings, Algebraic Edition&quot; by GM Reuben Fine&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;Chess Opening Essentials&quot; by New in Chess Four Volumes cover every opening, but each one is done fairly lightly, so this is a true beginner's guide.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is a list of books on general pawn play. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;“Complete Chess Strategy” volumes 1,2 and 3 by Ludek Pachman. (This teaches about many basic plans, and what you are striving for with your pieces and pawns, especially. This made a light go off in my head, and THIS is what made me a master.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;Winning Pawn Structures&quot; by GM Alexander Baburin&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;Understanding Pawn Play&quot; in Chess by GM Drazen Marovic&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;Dynamic Pawn Play in Chess&quot; by GM Drazen Marovic&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;Winning Chess Middlegames: An Essential Guide to Pawn Structure&quot; by GM Ivan Sokolov&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;Chess Middlegame Strategies Volume 2&quot; by GM Ivan Sokolov&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;The Power of Pawns: Chess Structure Fundamentals for Post-beginners&quot; by GM Jörg Hickl&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;Isolani Strategy: Strengths and Weaknesses of the Isolated Queen's Pawn&quot; by GMs Adrian Mikhalchishin, Alexander Beliavsky, Oleg Stetsko&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;And the original book on the subject, but it uses some weird terms: &quot;Pawn Power&quot; by IM Hans Kmoch&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-02-14T10:41:42.407" LastActivityDate="2020-02-14T10:41:42.407" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28457" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28452" CreationDate="2020-02-14T10:43:51.343" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;@Marcelo, it really depends on what you mean by &quot;preparing&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you mean that VERY specifically &quot;what specific moves&quot; in every case, that is too general, and there are no such books. If you mean that as &quot;how do I play for a pawn break&quot;, in general, then you are really just asking about pawn play, and pawn structures.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is a fairly complete list of books about opening pawn structures and pawn play, in general.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;Chess Structures: A Grandmaster Guide&quot; by GM Mauricio Flores Rios is the single best book on OPENING pawn structures currently out there, but it misses some.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;Pawn Structure Chess&quot; by GM Andy Soltis is VERY weak in the analysis, but the general ideas still hold up.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;The Ideas Behind the Chess Openings, Algebraic Edition&quot; by GM Reuben Fine&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;Chess Opening Essentials&quot; by New in Chess Four Volumes cover every opening, but each one is done fairly lightly, so this is a true beginner's guide.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is a list of books on general pawn play. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;“Complete Chess Strategy” volumes 1,2 and 3 by Ludek Pachman. (This teaches about many basic plans, and what you are striving for with your pieces and pawns, especially. This made a light go off in my head, and THIS is what made me a master.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;Winning Pawn Structures&quot; by GM Alexander Baburin&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;Understanding Pawn Play&quot; in Chess by GM Drazen Marovic&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;Dynamic Pawn Play in Chess&quot; by GM Drazen Marovic&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;Winning Chess Middlegames: An Essential Guide to Pawn Structure&quot; by GM Ivan Sokolov&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;Chess Middlegame Strategies Volume 2&quot; by GM Ivan Sokolov&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;The Power of Pawns: Chess Structure Fundamentals for Post-beginners&quot; by GM Jörg Hickl&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;Isolani Strategy: Strengths and Weaknesses of the Isolated Queen's Pawn&quot; by GMs Adrian Mikhalchishin, Alexander Beliavsky, Oleg Stetsko&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&quot;Understanding Maroczy Structures&quot; by GMs Adrian Mikhalchishin and Georg Mohr&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;And the original book on the subject, but it uses some weird terms: &quot;Pawn Power&quot; by IM Hans Kmoch&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-02-14T10:50:03.913" LastActivityDate="2020-02-14T10:50:03.913" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28458" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28459" CreationDate="2020-02-14T12:11:11.287" Score="4" ViewCount="251" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [Site &quot;Valencia&quot;]&#xA; [Date &quot;1475&quot;]&#xA; [White &quot;Franci de Castellvi&quot;]&#xA; [Black &quot;Narcis Vinyoles&quot;]&#xA; [Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA; [startply &quot;36&quot;]&#xA; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. e4 d5 2. exd5 Qxd5 3. Nc3 Qd8 4. Bc4 Nf6 5. Nf3 Bg4 6. h3 Bxf3 7. Qxf3 e6 8. Qxb7 Nbd7 9. Nb5 Rc8 10. Nxa7 Nb6 11. Nxc8 Nxc8 12. d4 Nd6 13. Bb5+ Nxb5 14. Qxb5+ Nd7 15. d5 exd5 16. Be3 Bd6 17. Rd1 Qf6 18. Rxd5 Qg6?? 19. Bf4 Bxf4 20. Qxd7+ Kf8 21. Qd8# 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A notable game in chess history is Scachs d'amor, recording a game of chess in the 15th century close to the current rules of the game. It does so in the form of a poem (&lt;a href=&quot;https://ca.wikisource.org/wiki/Scachs_d%27amor&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;original text&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.scachsdamor.org/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;English translation&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most of the game shows reasonable play, if not exactly modern. But when it comes to this move, it simply seems pointless. Consider for example the alternative 18. ... c3, which ultimately wins back some lost material for black, possibly giving better chances to secure a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In any case, Castellvi quickly takes advantage of this, mating a handful of moves later.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What motivates 18 ... Qg6??&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some speculation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is it some (misguided) attempt at an offence by black, and in that case, what could Vinyoles have tried to achieve? Or is there some subtle difference from the modern rules, leaving this an acceptable move?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The game is somewhat artificial, acting as a tutorial for the rules of the game. Is this move necessary to show of an important rule to the reader?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Maybe it is for some kind of artistic purpose? The poem follows a strict form, and is divided in 64 stanzas. Does this awkward move somehow help achieving this form? Or does a formulation like &quot;Queen’s check mate in the house of the other Queen&quot; add something of value by allegory?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21513" LastActivityDate="2020-02-14T12:18:00.743" Title="Franci de Castellvi - Narcis Vinyoles 18. ... Qg6??, a blunder by black?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;history&gt;&lt;queens&gt;&lt;famous-games&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28459" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28458" CreationDate="2020-02-14T12:18:00.743" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;These players are just pretty weak. 5...Bg4 should already have been punished by Bxf7, many more blunders follow. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Qg6 is a double attack against c2 and g2, that's probably motivation enough. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2020-02-14T12:18:00.743" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28460" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28461" CreationDate="2020-02-14T13:09:01.280" Score="3" ViewCount="402" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am on a path to improve my chess and as of now I have phased it out to &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;tactics&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;endgames&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tactics I can say with confidence I had good improvement in the last 8 months or so. About endgame, I kind of crammed the &quot;100 endgames you must know&quot; by Jesús de la Villa. &#xA;but still, a lot to go to understand all the intricacies.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now I am onto the thought that I should look into improving my positional play as well. Dealing with positions that have no direct threat &#xA;and at the same time don't have any straightforward target is very difficult for me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not considering going through books of annotated games over board, because of time constraints I thought I will watch chess videos and maybe even watch the same video more than once to study them deeply.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So that's why I have this question: what are some of the most instructive positional games covered in Agadmator's YouTube channel that I should be studying?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18273" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2020-02-14T16:03:13.540" LastActivityDate="2020-02-14T17:19:43.420" Title="What are some of the most instructive positional games covered in Agadmator's YouTube channel?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28461" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28460" CreationDate="2020-02-14T17:00:56.157" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm very fond of agadmator, but you must understand that his channel aims at entertainment, not education, and you will hardly learn as much as you would with other type of contents. I &lt;strong&gt;strongly&lt;/strong&gt; recommend that you check out the lessons on the Saint Louis Chess Club Youtube channel, it has incredibly lessons and many of them on positional play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, you can check good analysis on some of Karpov's best games by Yasser Seirawan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVBxUIDoy5Q&amp;amp;t=1241s&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;This video&lt;/a&gt;, for example, is an excellent lesson on positional play. Another excelent choice is this &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRmT4pnzD9I&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;one&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Take a look at all the content on this channel and you will not regret it. Of course, it is not as &quot;fun&quot; and the videos are longer than agadmator's, but on an educational level you will enjoy them a lot.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21110" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-02-14T17:19:43.420" LastActivityDate="2020-02-14T17:19:43.420" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28462" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28387" CreationDate="2020-02-14T18:58:40.677" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;First time I saw this approach was in the Tal-Botvinnik return match in 1961, my thought was &quot;it wastes a move heading for the French Defence,&quot; but it has some sting in it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black isn't really giving away a pawn, White can't hold the extra pawn without development issues (...Nd7 pretty much ensures the pawn comes back, if not immediately, then soon, if it worries you, though ...Nc6 will exert more pressure on White's split pawns).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What you're opting for, when keeping this line closed, over Bf5 is keeping your light bishop (in the Bf5 lines, White can pretty much force that off the board at will) even though it gets blocked in with the e6-pawn, moving some of your strategic ideas towards the French and away from the C-K.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You're giving up a tempo, yes, but the game becomes sharper. White becomes the first person to release the tension in the center, which frees up Black's game a little, so you're looking to capitalize on the freedom. Like any good French player, you need to be prepared to keep that light-square bishop at home for a long time while you play against the e-pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Meanwhile, if the idea of letting the pawn hang for a while doesn't bother you, ...Nc6 instead of ...e6 can lead into some Queen's Gambit like positions with the colors reversed (keep aware of the tactical shot ...Qh4, you might be able to use it to threaten stragglers on the Q-side, like Keith Arkell did in a recent Senior Championship. Another of Arkell's ideas is to quickly swap the light Bishop for White's Knight before pushing ...e6, if the opportunity permits, at which point Black has a better pawn structure than White, and may even have the better game going forward; it's the French Defence without the bad French Bishop. In the ...Bf5 lines it's usually a Bishop trade, oftentimes trading a bad Bishop for a useful Knight is the better option.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's really not all that bad (I find it hard to conceive that &lt;em&gt;anything&lt;/em&gt; Botvinnik came up with is truly bad) but it caters to a different style of play than the more fashionable ...Bf5 lines. Arkell, Anand, Ponomariov, and Tarjan have all essayed it recently. Like pretty much any opening, White gets a slight pull if they play it right, but you're always &quot;playing uphill&quot; as Black, so don't let it worry you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's a few ideas for you to look at; go have a look at games from the French Advance and see what ideas you find there that appeal to you. Keith Arkell seems to be a common practitioner of the line today, have a look at some of his games from the Pro Chess League. There's scope for play here, if it's to your taste. But only you can answer for that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="657" LastActivityDate="2020-02-14T18:58:40.677" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28463" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28466" CreationDate="2020-02-15T03:10:02.110" Score="8" ViewCount="399" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm new to English chess notation and have never read or heard chess commentary in a broadcast or publication form.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to decipher the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.bell-labs.com/usr/dmr/www/ken-games.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;following commentary&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ICGA's footnote to caption:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ACM CCC, Washington DC, Round 4, Dec. 5th, 1978: ECO C48, Four Knights. 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. Bb5 Nd4 5. Bc4 Bc5 6. Nxe5 Qe7 7. Bxf7+ Kf8 8. Ng6+ hxg6 9. Bc4 Nxe4 10. O-O Rxh2!! {cf. the photo} 11. Kxh2 {hastening the loss} Qh4+ 12. Kg1 Ng3 13. Qh5 {ineffectual delay} gxh5 14. fxg3+ Nf3# {perhaps uniquely blocking a check, giving a double check and mating simultaneously; &amp;quot;the most beautiful combination created by a computer program to date... computer chess witnessed the start of a new era.&amp;quot; (Levy and Newborn, 1991)}.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think I have figured out the series of moves in paired notation. But what does the parenthesized part (e.g. {hastening the loss}, {ineffectual delay}, etc.) exactly refer to? Are they a part of commentary (spoken during the match) or additional information that has been added afterward?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21521" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-06-20T17:49:18.973" LastActivityDate="2020-06-20T17:49:18.973" Title="Question on chess commentary in written form" Tags="&lt;terminology&gt;&lt;notation&gt;&lt;match&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28464" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28463" CreationDate="2020-02-15T03:18:36.487" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;The  comments in braces means that the move before had the effect noted in that set of  { }s  .  It is just annotating the game to explain the moves. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It may have been spoken during the match if it were broadcast,  but it was definitely  printed in the game summary later at the link you provided to bell labs.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The !!  means that the move was excellent, often unexpected, and winning. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this case the #  means mate.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastEditorUserId="20721" LastEditDate="2020-02-15T03:30:52.070" LastActivityDate="2020-02-15T03:30:52.070" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28465" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18856" CreationDate="2020-02-15T06:14:42.157" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Tony explained why d3 is a good move.  Brian explained why &quot;hope chess&quot; is bad in general, so I'll answer the question, &quot;Is 1 ... Kg7 itself a bad move, and why?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In chess, the your most valuable commodity is moves.  Every move must work toward your victory.  If you play a chancy move and it doesn't work, your opponent is strengthening his or her position. At a critical time, this can turn a crushing victory into a draw, or a draw into a crushing loss.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The short of it is, Kg7 is as almost bad as giving away a bishop for nothing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I chose the move 1 ... f5 from your position.  Like Kg7, it forgoes ... d3 and allows white to blockade the pawn.  Unlike Kg7, it achieves 4 separate goals of strategic value.  Afterward, I let Next Chess Move (running stockfish on 1 CPU core) play both sides.  After f5, black is an anaconda suffocating its prey.  White has no truly good moves for the rest of the game, and only a handful of self-directed moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;r1bqr1k1/pp5p/2nb1p2/2p5/Q1Pp2pN/1P4B1/P3BPPP/4RRK1 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... f5 {consolidates the pawns, expands the king-side pawn space, and forces:} &#xA;2. Bxb6 Qxb6 {the trade favors black due to the strength of white's bishop.  In addition it comes with tempo.  Essentially, black gets a free move of development.} &#xA;3. Bd3 Bd7 {In this line, Bd3 comes too late.  Black plays Bd7 and unites the rooks, forcing white to concede the open file.  Further, the x-ray attack on the queen will produce another move with tempo.} &#xA;4. Rd1 Nb4 {Knights are strongest on the 5th and 6th ranks with pawn support.  The knight now controls several squares inside of white territory.}&#xA;5. Qa3 f4 {f4 was a goal of f5.  Pawns are strongest side-by side, and this pawn-space strangles any thoughts of white activity on the king-side.}&#xA;6. Bb1 Re2&#xA;7. Qc1 Nxa2 {White's pieces are stuck on defense.  The only piece with immediate offensive prospects is the white bishop.}&#xA;8. Bxa2 Rxa2&#xA;9. g3 Re8 {Black activates the remaining rook.  All of black's pieces are in dynamic positions and black's pawn space is suffocating.  From here, things just get worse and worse for white.}&#xA;10. Ng2 f3&#xA;11. Nf4 Bf5 {One of few positive moves for white in the game.}&#xA;12. b4 Rc2&#xA;13. Qa3 c5xb4&#xA;14. Qxa7 b6&#xA;15. Nh5 Re7&#xA;16. Qa4 Rce2&#xA;17. Qa8 Rd7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At this point, Next Chess move's evaluation is hovering around -5.0, meaning that black is functionally a rook ahead.  It doesn't stop there.  White has no prospects, while black has two passed pawns and active, cooperating pieces and plenty of space to work in.  Black ultimately queens two of the pawns, one to win material and one permanently.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In comparison, here's  how Kg7 plays out:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;r1bqr1k1/pp5p/2nb1p2/2p5/Q1Pp2pN/1P4B1/P3BPPP/4RRK1 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Kg7  {evaluation goes from -3.6 to -0.77, a full piece in difference.}&#xA;2. Bd3 Bxg3 {The trade is forced, or black will lose the bishop and the game after 3 RxR.} &#xA;3. h2xg3 Bd7 {This time, black is playing without the tempo gain from f5.} &#xA;4. Qa3 Rxe1 {The trade momentarily concedes the open file to white.}&#xA;5. Rxe1 Qf8 &#xA;6. Qc1 Re8&#xA;7. Bf5 Qf7 {Black's pieces are stuck on defense.  Black is successfully contesting the open file, but the position is nearly equal.}&#xA;8. Qd1 h5&#xA;9. Rxe8 Bxe8 {Now black has no more active pieces.  The positions are still nearly equal.}&#xA;10. Qc1 Bd7&#xA;11. Bb1 Ne5 {One of the few positive moves for black in this game.}&#xA;12. Qa3 Qf8&#xA;13. Qxa7 Bc6&#xA;14. Qa5 d3 {Black finally threatens to advance the pawn, but it's much too late.}&#xA;15. Qc7+ Qf7&#xA;16. Nf5+ Kg6&#xA;17. Nh4+ Kg6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Draw by repetition.  White can't let up, or ... d2 wins the game.  Black can't move anywhere but Kg6 and Kg7, or the queen is lost.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So that is the harm of moving 1... Kg7.  It gives white time to stabilize, equalize, and find a draw in a game where black should achieve a crushing victory.&#xA;You should notice that many of the moves are found in both games.  But the slight change in timing changes everything about the outcome.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21524" LastEditorUserId="15989" LastEditDate="2020-02-15T08:22:33.597" LastActivityDate="2020-02-15T08:22:33.597" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28466" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28463" CreationDate="2020-02-15T08:30:06.110" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is what all of that means:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;ICGA's footnote to caption: &quot;There is a picture above all this, and they are just noting the game that had been played in the picture. The ICGA is the &lt;a href=&quot;https://icga.org/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;International Computer Games Association&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;ACM CCC&quot;, Is the name of the tournament/organizers of the tournament, &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.acm.org/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Association for Computing Machinery&lt;/a&gt;&quot; &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://cra.org/ccc/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Computing Community Consortium&lt;/a&gt;&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Washington DC, Round 4, Dec. 5th, 1978&quot; was the location, the 4th round in the tournament, and the date.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;ECO C48&quot; is the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_chess_openings&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Encyclopedia of Chess Openings classification code&lt;/a&gt; for the opening of the game: C48 - Four Knights: 4.Bb5, replies other than 4...Bb4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;the most beautiful combination created by a computer program to date... computer chess witnessed the start of a new era.&quot; (Levy and Newborn, 1991).&#xA;This was a quote from the book &lt;a href=&quot;https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/B0026QP89Y&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&quot;How Computers Play Chess&quot;&lt;/a&gt; by noted early computer chess pioneer &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Levy_(chess_player)&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;International Master David Levy&lt;/a&gt; and Monty Newborn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The rest of it is just commentary, and most likely, it was not during the game. &quot;cf.&quot; is the common English abbreviation for &quot;compare&quot; coming from the Latin: confer/conferatur, the plus sign &quot;+&quot; is the common symbol for &quot;check&quot;, &quot;!!&quot; is the common symbol for an extraordinary move&quot;, and the pound sign &quot;#&quot; is the common symbol for checkmate. &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_annotation_symbols&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;You can find a complete list here.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While most people today would use parenthesis &quot;()&quot; instead of braces &quot;{}&quot; first, they were just used to set off the comments, and to embed one within the other.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Summing up, the only thing that you will find common going forward is the general tournament/data information, but especially the ECO codes (not that you need to memorize them, but you will see them often), and especially the chess annotation symbols. Those chess annotation symbols are something that you should learn if you are going to read a lot about chess in the future.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. Bb5 Nd4 5. Bc4 Bc5 6. Nxe5 Qe7 7. Bxf7+ Kf8 8. Ng6+ hxg6 9. Bc4 Nxe4 10. O-O Rxh2 {cf. the photo.} 11. Kxh2 {hastening the loss.} Qh4+ 12. Kg1 Ng3 13. Qh5 {ineffectual play.} gxh5 14. fxg3+ Nf3#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2020-02-15T08:30:06.110" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28467" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28471" CreationDate="2020-02-15T10:52:10.590" Score="6" ViewCount="1072" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[White &quot;White (to move)&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Black&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;rnq1kb1r/ppp3pp/4pn2/4N3/2QP4/2N2P2/PPP3PP/R1B1K2R w KQ - 0 13&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this position, White can still castle, but Black cannot (having moved the king twice). Stockfish 10+ (depth 18) assures me that White has an advantage of +6.1, but I am unable to really see why the advantage is so great. I tried some continuing lines of play but Black can hold on to roughly equal material for a long time, so I do not even know how much of the advantage is due to a future tactical threat or merely a superior position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am hoping that there is some simple reasoning that is humanly understandable and does not require looking at all possible lines of play for the next 10 moves. Anyone can help?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9192" LastActivityDate="2020-11-29T16:00:31.100" Title="How do I understand White's +6 advantage here?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;&lt;advantage&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28468" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28470" CreationDate="2020-02-15T11:07:42.923" Score="4" ViewCount="497" Body="&lt;p&gt;I currently have a function which returns the closed off squares for a piece in a particular position based on pieces blocking it. This function iterates over the rays of a piece and is sufficiently fast, but can use a lot of improvement since it accounts for most of the time taken in the move generation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have been recently researching on how I can optimise this function and came across this &quot;trick&quot;:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessprogramming.org/Subtracting_a_Rook_from_a_Blocking_Piece&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.chessprogramming.org/Subtracting_a_Rook_from_a_Blocking_Piece&lt;/a&gt; which conveniently uses a formula to instantly get all the moves for a rook. Is there a similar &quot;trick&quot; to generating moves for a bishop while accounting for the blocking pieces?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you need any clarifications regarding the question, feel free to ask.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21341" LastActivityDate="2020-02-15T12:36:58.397" Title="Is there a method to efficiently generate moves for bishops?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;programming&gt;&lt;bishops&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28469" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28467" CreationDate="2020-02-15T11:18:27.940" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;So, the simple way to reason out that white is winning is to look at the safety of black's king. White has a very simple plan of developing their bishop to g5, castling and then breaking open the center (either with d5 or with f4-f5, the latter seeming a bit stronger since it forces the a2-g8 diagonal open for white's queen to cause mayhem). After this, white's rooks will be placed on the central files, leaving black's king in mortal danger.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If we try to find moves that hold on for the moment for black, then it's possible to play the bishop out to either e7 or d6, or it's possible to move pawns. Note that no matter what black tries to do, they cannot prevent white from realizing their plan. Black is simply too passive and tied down (due to their obligation to defend e6)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A major problem for black is of course that they cannot castle to put their king to safety, but it's worth noting that even if black still had the option of castling, the kingside wouldn't be a very safe haven due to the f4-f5 break, since the e6 pawn would then be pinned and lost immediately with the black king on g8.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8300" LastActivityDate="2020-02-15T11:18:27.940" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28470" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28468" CreationDate="2020-02-15T12:36:58.397" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Move generators in modern engines do this with lookup tables, which are indexed by the square of the slider and a bitboard representing occupied (impassable) squares that might block the movement of the piece.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are two main ways of compressing the huge set of possible occupancy bitboards into a reasonable size. &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessprogramming.org/Magic_Bitboards&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Magic Bitboards&lt;/a&gt; are often used, which involve multiplying the occupancy bitboard by 'magic' numbers, which are chosen because they empirically map the set of possible occupancy bitboards into a dense range.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A more modern way depends on the PEXT instruction which is available in newer x86 processors. &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessprogramming.org/BMI2#PEXTBitboards&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;PEXT bitboards&lt;/a&gt; allow for the lookup table to be mapped to an even denser range, and also improves lookup times on processors which can run PEXT quickly. However, PEXT is very slow to emulate on older processors, and also &lt;a href=&quot;http://talkchess.com/forum3/viewtopic.php?t=67432&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;seems to be particularly slow on Ryzen processors&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10075" LastActivityDate="2020-02-15T12:36:58.397" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28471" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28467" CreationDate="2020-02-15T13:55:06.913" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;It really is about king position, but also about how it affects the evaluation &lt;strong&gt;when it programmatically adds up the and compares the differences in mobility for each side's pieces. This is where you get the huge difference&lt;/strong&gt;, and I think this is what you are looking for.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In each of the following lines, deemed best by Stockfish 11, you can see how little the black pieces can move. in particular, it is of note that in each case, the Ra8 and the Qc8 hardly move, and when the Qc8 finally does, it is just to sacrifice itself, or loses material on the move. The same for the Ra8 in the main line that follows. By comparison, look at the mobility of every white piece. The difference is enormous.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;rnq1kb1r/ppp3pp/4pn2/4N3/2QP4/2N2P2/PPP3PP/R1B1K2R w KQ - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. Bg5 Be7 2. f4 Nbd7 (2... c6 3. O-O Nbd7 4. Rae1 Rf8 5. Nd3 Nb6 6. Qb3 Nbd5 7. f5 exf5 8. Nxd5 cxd5 9. Nf4 Rf7 10. Bxf6 gxf6 11. Rf3 Kf8 12. Rg3 Bd6 13. Ne6+ Qxe6 14. Rxe6 Bxg3 15. Qa3+ Kg8 16. Qxg3+ Rg7 17. Qd6) (2... Rf8 3. O-O Nbd7 4. Rae1 Nb6 5. Qd3 c6 6. f5 exf5 7. Rxf5 Kd8 8. Rff1 Qe6 9. Ng6 Qc4 10. Nxf8 Bxf8 (10... Qxd3 11. Ne6+ Kd7 12. cxd3) 11. Rxf6 gxf6 (11... Qxd3 12. Rxf8+ Kc7 13. Bf4+ Kd7 14. Rf7+ Kd8 15. Bg5+ Kc8 16. Re8#) 12. Bxf6+ Kc7 13. Be5+ Kd8 14. Qxh7 Nd7 15. Rf1 Qb4 16. Qh4+ Kc8 17. Qg4 Kd8 18. Qh4+ Be7 19. Qh8+ Nf8 20. a3 Qxb2 21. Rxf8+ Bxf8 22. Qxf8+ Kd7 23. Qf7+ Kd8 24. Bf6+ Kc8 25. Qe8+ Kc7 26. Qe7+ Kb6 27. Na4+) (2... Nc6 3. O-O Nxe5 4. fxe5 Nd5 5. Nxd5 exd5 6. Qxd5 Bxg5 7. Qf7+ Kd8 8. Qxg7 Be3+ 9. Kh1 Re8 10. Qf6+ Re7 11. d5 Bd4 12. Qg5 Ke8 13. Qh5+ Kd7 14. Qg4+ Ke8 15. Qxd4) 3. O-O Nb6 4. Qd3 Nfd7 5. Bxe7 Nxe5 6. dxe5 Kxe7 7. f5 Qd7 8. Qg3 Ke8 9. Rad1 Qf7 10. fxe6 Qe7 11. Ne4 Rd8 12. Nd6+ cxd6 13. exd6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2020-02-15T13:55:06.913" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28472" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28467" CreationDate="2020-02-15T14:51:59.867" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The advantage is positional.  It is not material nor tactics that are about to happen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is harder for many players to understand positional advantages.  But the computer understands is quite well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most average players see material advantages but only see positional when it is a looming mate or other drastic advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Looking at every line of play would not make it clearer if you are not able to grok the positional advantage.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What may make it clearer is more experience.  Some people never reach that level.  Some like Fischer get their quickly.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The big thing here is that black cannot castle and his king is in the middle. Black has an isolated pawn that needs defending.  White owns the centre.  White is better developed. And white is a pawn up.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes,  black can defend quite well here, and with club players might even draw.  But between GMs or computers it is just a matter of technique and white should win without any problems. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Technique is that magic ingredient GMs use to convert a positional advantage to a win.  Although often in the end a positional advantage will result in tactics that win material too and sometimes mate. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastEditorUserId="20721" LastEditDate="2020-02-15T15:04:10.943" LastActivityDate="2020-02-15T15:04:10.943" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28473" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27301" CreationDate="2020-02-15T16:32:37.213" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;The position with the longest known sequence away from checkmate has a mate in &lt;strong&gt;553 moves&lt;/strong&gt;. It is a computer verified extension of the famous 549 mover (as mentioned in @Phishmaster's answer) found by &lt;a href=&quot;https://youtu.be/GC3oecykcC8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Lutz Neweklowsky&lt;/a&gt;. By &amp;quot;verified,&amp;quot; I mean Stockfish agrees with the moves that occur until a 7-piece position occurs, and then we know 100% it is correct from there. While we can't know for sure that the first 4 moves are 100% the best, since 14-piece databases aren't here yet, it is best to accept them as it is at the limit of our technological capabilities. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sorry for the late promise fulfillment @Phishmaster. :D&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that I have flipped Lutz's position to reflect (hehe) the original position of the 549.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Mate In 553 Moves&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;1n6/2kP2Q1/5KP1/6B1/1r5b/6q1/7R/1r2b2R w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d8=Q+ Kxd8 2. Rxh4 Rxh4 3. Rxh4 Qxh4 4. Bxh4 Bxh4+ 5. Kf5 Rb5+ 6. Kg4 Rb4+ 7. Kf3 Nd7 8. Qh8+ Ke7 9. g7 Bf6 10. g8=N+ Ke6 11. Qh3+ Kd6 12. Kg2 Rb2+ 13. Kf1 Rb1+ 14. Ke2 Rb2+ 15. Kd1 Rb1+ 16. Kc2 Rb2+ 17. Kc1 Rb5 18. Qh6 Rc5+ 19. Kb1 Rb5+ 20. Ka2 Ra5+ 21. Kb3 Rf5 22. Ka3 Rf3+ 23. Ka2 Ke6 24. Qh7 Ne5 25. Nh6 Rf2+ 26. Kb1 Rf4 27. Qg8+ Kd6 28. Ka2 Nc6 29. Ng4 Bd4 30. Qg6+ Kd5 31. Qg5+ Ke4 32. Kb1 Nb4 33. Qe7+ Kd3 34. Qh7+ Ke2 35. Qh2+ Kf3 36. Qh3+ Ke4 37. Qg2+ Kd3 38. Qg3+ Ke4 39. Qe1+ Kd3 40. Qd1+ Ke4 41. Qe2+ Kd5 42. Kc1 Kd6 43. Qh2 Nd5 44. Kd2 Bc3+ 45. Ke2 Bd4 46. Qh6+ Kd7 47. Qh7+ Kc6 48. Qg8 Kc5 49. Kd3 Nb4+ 50. Kd2 Nd5 51. Qc8+ Kd6 52. Nh6 Bc3+ 53. Ke2 Re4+ 54. Kf2 Rf4+ 55. Kg1 Bd4+ 56. Kh2 Ne3 57. Qd8+ Kc6 58. Qe8+ Kc5 59. Nf7 Rf2+ 60. Kh3 Rf3+ 61. Kh4 Rf5 62. Nh6 Rf1 63. Qa8 Kb4 64. Kh5 Kc3 65. Qc8+ Kd3 66. Kg6 Rf2 67. Qa8 Rf1 68. Qb8 Kd2 69. Qb3 Ke2 70. Qb5+ Kd2 71. Qg5 Kc2 72. Kh7 Kd3 73. Qb5+ Kc3 74. Qa5+ Kd3 75. Qg5 Rf6 76. Qb5+ Ke4 77. Qb7+ Kd3 78. Qd7 Kc3 79. Qe8 Kd2 80. Qb5 Kc2 81. Qe2+ Kc3 82. Qh5 Rf1 83. Qg6 Rf6 84. Qe4 Kc4 85. Qe8 Kd3 86. Ng8 Rf1 87. Ne7 Rh1+ 88. Kg6 Rg1+ 89. Kf7 Rf1+ 90. Ke6 Rf6+ 91. Kd7 Bc5 92. Nc6 Nd5 93. Nd8 Rd6+ 94. Kc8 Ne7+ 95. Kc7 Nd5+ 96. Kb7 Rb6+ 97. Kc8 Ne7+ 98. Kd7 Nd5 99. Qe1 Rd6+ 100. Kc8 Be3 101. Qd1+ Ke4 102. Qc2+ Kd4 103. Qa4+ Ke5 104. Qh4 Kf5 105. Qh3+ Ke4 106. Nf7 Rc6+ 107. Kd8 Kd4 108. Ke8 Rc7 109. Kf8 Bf4 110. Qe6 Ra7 111. Qe2 Be3 112. Qg4+ Kc5 113. Qc8+ Kd4 114. Qb8 Kd3 115. Kg8 Rc7 116. Qb5+ Kd4 117. Qa4+ Kc5 118. Qa6 Kd4 119. Kf8 Bd2 120. Qf1 Bc3 121. Kg7 Rc6 122. Kg8 Nf6+ 123. Kf8 Rc8+ 124. Kg7 Ne4 125. Qb5 Ke3+ 126. Kh7 Rc7 127. Qb6+ Rc5 128. Qe6 Kf4 129. Qh6+ Kf3 130. Qh3+ Ke2 131. Kg8 Rc6 132. Kf8 Bb4+ 133. Kg7 Bc3+ 134. Kg8 Rf6 135. Qh4 Kd3 136. Nd8 Kd4 137. Qg4 Ke5 138. Qe2 Kf4 139. Qc4 Kf3 140. Qb3 Kf2 141. Ne6 Ke3 142. Qa2 Rf3 143. Qc2 Be5 144. Qd1 Bc3 145. Qc1+ Kd3 146. Nf4+ Kc4 147. Ng2 Rf2 148. Nh4 Nf6+.149. Kg7 Ne4+ 150. Kg6 Rf6+ 151. Kh5 Kd4 152. Qd1+ Ke3 153. Qb1 Bd2 154. Ng6 Ng3+ 155. Kh6 Bc3 156. Qc1+ Kd3 157. Qg1 Ne4 158. Kh7 Rd6 159. Kg8 Rd8+ 160. Kf7 Rd7+ 161. Ke6 Rd6+ 162. Ke7 Bf6+ 163. Ke8 Rd8+ 164. Kf7 Rd7+ 165. Ke6 Rd6+ 166. Kf5 Rd5+ 167. Kf4 Bg5+ 168. Kg4 Ke2 169. Qa7 Bd2 170. Qe7 Rg5+ 171. Kh3 Ke3 172. Nh4 Rg3+ 173. Kh2 Rg4 174. Qa3+ Bc3 175. Qa7+ Ke2 176. Ng2 Be5+ 177. Kg1 Nd2 178. Qf2+ Kd1 179. Kh1 Bd4 180. Qe1+ Kc2 181. Qe2 Re4 182. Qh5 Nf1 183. Qd5 Nd2 184. Qf5 Kd1 185. Nf4 Be5 186. Qh5+ Kc2 187. Ng6 Bf6 188. Kg2 Bg5 189. Qh7 Kd1 190. Qh8 Be3 191. Qh5+ Kc2 192. Nh4 Bd4 193. Nf5 Be5 194. Qe8 Rg4+ 195. Kh3 Re4 196. Qc8+ Kd1 197. Qc5 Nc4 198. Nh6 Nd2 199. Ng4 Bd4 200. Qb5 Rf4 201. Kh4 Be3 202. Qd3 Bd4 203. Kh5 Re4 204. Qa3 Rf4 205. Qd6 Re4 206. Nh6 Bf2 207. Kg6 Rc4 208. Qe5 Bb6 209. Qg3 Rc6+ 210. Kg7 Rc4 211. Nf7 Bc7 212. Qg1+ Kc2 213. Nh6 Be5+ 214. Kg8 Re4 215. Nf5 Bf4 216. Qh1 Be5 217. Qh3 Kd1 218. Kf8 Bf4 219. Qg4+ Ke1.220. Qg2 Be5 221. Qh1+ Ke2 222. Ke8 Bg3+ 223. Kd7 Bf2 224. Ne7 Rd4+ 225. Nd5 Kd3 226. Kc6 Rh4 227. Qg2 Rc4+ 228. Kb5 Be3 229. Qh1 Bc5 230. Qh7+ Ke2 231. Qh5+ Ke1 232. Kc6 Bd4+ 233. Kd6 Bf2 234. Kd7 Rd4 235. Qh1+ Ke2 236. Ke6 Rh4 237. Qg2 Rc4 238. Ke7 Nf3 239. Qh3 Re4+ 240. Kd8 Rd4 241. Qh5 Bg3 242. Qe8+ Be5 243. Qb5+ Kf2 244. Kc8 Re4 245. Kb7 Bd4 246. Qc6 Rg4 247. Ka6 Rg7 248. Nb4 Re7 249. Nd3+ Ke3 250. Qc1+ Ke4 251. Nb4 Re5 252. Qb1+ Ke3 253. Qc2 Rc5 254. Qd3+ Kf4 255. Qe2 Kg3 256. Qe7 Rh5 257. Nd3 Rh6+ 258. Ka5 Rh4 259. Qe6 Bc3+ 260. Ka6 Bd4 261. Qc6 Be3 .262. Qe8 Bd4 263. Qb8+ Kg2 264. Qg8+ Kh3 265. Qg6 Rg4 266. Qc6 Kg3 267. Qc7+ Kh3 268. Nf4+ Kh4 269. Qd6 Kg3 270. Ng6+ Kf2 271. Qe6 Rg1 272. Nf4 Ra1+ 273. Kb7 Ra7+ 274. Kb8 Ra3 275. Qe2+ Kg3 276. Nd3 Rb3+ 277. Kc8 Rb6 278. Qe4 Rf6 279. Kd7 Bc3 280. Nc5 Bd4 281. Ne6 Be5 282. Ng5 Bb2 283. Qe3 Kg4 284. Ne4 Rf7+ 285. Kc6 Rf5 286. Nf2+ Kg3 287. Nd3 Be5 288. Kd7 Rf7+ 289. Ke8 Rf5 290. Qc5 Kg4 291. Nf2+ Kg5 292. Qd5 Kg6 293. Nd3 Bg7 294. Qe4 Kg5 295. Ke7 Bd4 296. Kd7 Rf6 297. Kc8 Rf8+ 298. Kb7 Rf7+ 299. Ka6 Rf6+ 300. Ka5 Bc3+ 301. Ka4 Ra6+ 302. Kb5 Ra5+ 303. Kb6 Rf5 304. Qe7+ Kg6 305. Qe8+ Kg5 306. Kb7 Bd4 307. Qe7+ Kh5 308. Qe4 Rf7+ 309. Ka6 Rf6+ 310. Kb5 Kg5 311. Nb4 Be5 312. Nd5 Rf5 313. Qe3+ Kh5 314. Ka6 Rf7 315. Qf2 Ng5 316. Qc2 Nf3 317. Qc8 Kg5 318. Qe6 Rf5 319. Kb7 Bd4 320. Qe7+ Bf6 321. Qe3+ Kh5 322. Qe4 Kg5 323. Nc7 Nd4 324. Qg2+ Kh5 325. Nd5 Nf3 326. Ne3 Rf4 327. Qh3+ Nh4 328. Qe6 Kg5 329. Qd5+ Kg6 330. Qd6 Kg5 331. Qc5+ Kg6 332. Qc7 Kg5 333. Nd5 Rf3 334. Qc1+ Kg4 335. Ne3+ Kg5 336. Nc4+ Rf4 337. Nb6 Kg4 338. Qd1+ Kg3 339. Nd5 Rf3 340. Qd2 Kg4 341. Ne3+ Kh5 342. Nc4 Bg5 343. Qd1 Bf4 344. Nb6 Bg3 345. Nd7 Kg5 346. Qd5+ Rf5 347. Qe4 Rf4 348. Qe7+ Kg4 349. Qe6+ Kf3 350. Nf6 Kg2 351. Qd5+ Kh2 352. Ne4 Nf5 353. Ng5 Nd6+ 354. Kb6 Bf2+ 355. Kc7 Bg3 356. Kd7 Nf5 357. Qd2+ Rf2 358. Qd1 Rf4 359. Qe2+ Rf2 360. Qh5+ Kg2 361. Kc6 Rc2+ 362. Kd5 Rd2+ 363. Kc4 Rf2 364. Qh3+ Kg1 365. Kb4 Rf1 366. Ka5 Rf4 367. Ka6 Ra4+ 368. Kb5 Rf4 369. Ka5 Rf2 370. Qh8 Kg2 371. Qc3 Rf4 372. Qd2+ Kf1 373. Qd5 Nd4 374. Kb6 Bf2 375. Kc7 Rh4 376. Qe5 Kg2 377. Ne4 Kf3 378. Nd2+ Kg2 379. Qd5+ Kh2 380. Kb7 Rh7+ 381. Ka6 Rh6+ 382. Ka5 Rh4 383. Qd6+ Kh3 384. Qd7+ Kg2 385. Qb7+ Kg3 386. Qg7+ Rg4 387. Nf1+ Kh3 388. Qd7 Kh4 389. Qh7+ Kg5 390. Qg7+ Kf4 391. Qc7+ Kg5 392. Nd2 Rf4 393. Qg7+ Kf5 394. Nc4 Nf3 395. Nd6+ Ke6 396. Ne8 Kf5 397. Ka6 Bd4 398. Nd6+ Ke6 399. Qg8+ Kf6 400. Qh7 Ke6 401. Ne4 Kd5 402. Qb7+ Ke6 403. Ng3.Be5 404. Qb3+ Kd6 405. Qb6+ Ke7 406. Ne4 Kf7 407. Qh6 Kg8 408. Qe6+ Kh8 409. Qe7 Rf5 410. Kb6 Bg7 411. Ng3 Rf6+ 412. Kb5 Nd4+ 413. Kc4 Rc6+ 414. Kd3 Rc3+ 415. Ke4 Rc6 416. Qe8+ Kh7 417. Kd3 Rd6 418. Qh5+ Kg8 419. Ne4 Rd8 420. Ke3 Bh6+ 421. Kf2 Rf8+ 422. Kg2 Kh7 423. Ng3 Ne6 424. Qh4 Ng7 425. Qe4+ Kg8 426. Qd5+ Kh7 427. Qd6 Rf7 428. Qd3+ Kg8 429. Qd5 Bc1.430. Kh3 Ba3 431. Kg4 Be7 432. Qc4 Kf8 433. Qc8+ Ne8 434. Nf5 Rf6 435. Qd7 Rf7 436. Qd3 Bf6 437. Qe3 Be7 438. Qh6+ Kg8 439. Qh1 Rh7 440. Qd5+ Kf8 441. Kf3 Nf6 442. Qe5 Ne8 443. Ke2 Bf6 444. Qd5 Rf7 445. Kd2 Bg5+ 446. Kc2 Rc7+ 447. Kb2 Bf6+ 448. Kb1 Rh7 449. Qf3 Ra7 450. Qb3 Rc7 451. Qb4+ Kf7 452. Qb6 Rd7 453. Qb3+ Kf8 454. Nh6 Rg7 455. Qa3+ Be7 456. Qf3+ Bf6 457. Ng4 Ke7 458. Kc2 Rg5 459. Qe3+ Kf7 460. Qb3+ Kf8 461. Qe6 Bg7 462. Ne3 Re5 463. Qb6 Bf6 464. Ng4 Rf5 465. Qe6 Rf4 466. Qc8 Bd4 467. Qd7 Bg7 468. Ne3 Rf2+ 469. Kb1 Rf7 470. Qc8 Rc7 471. Qa6 Rd7 472. Qa3+ Kf7 473. Qb3+ Kf8 474. Qb4+ Nd6 475. Qf4+ Kg8 476. Nd5 Nf7 477. Qc4 Ra7 478. Nf4 Rb7+ 479. Kc2 Rb2+ 480. Kd1 Rb6.481. Qc8+ Kh7 482. Qc7 Rd6+ 483. Ke2 Kg8 484. Qe7 Bf8 485. Qe8 Ng5 486. Qc8 Rf6  487. Qg4 Bh6 488. Nh5 Re6+ 489. Kf1 Re5 490. Qc8+ Bf8 491. Qc2 Re6 492. Qa2 Kh7 493. Qg2 Kh6 494. Qh1 Rb6 495. Nf4+ Kg7 496. Qh5 Nh7 497. Qg4+ Kf7 498. Qd7+ Be7 499. Qd5+ Kf8 500. Ne6+ Ke8 501. Qh5+ Kd7 502. Ng7 Nf6 503. Qf5+ Kc7 504. Qe5+ Kd7 505. Qd4+ Kc7 506. Qe3 Nd5 507. Qe5+ Kc6 508. Nf5 Rb7 509. Qe4 Kc5 510. Qc2+ Kb6 511. Qb3+ Kc6 512. Nd4+ Kc5 513. Qxb7 Kxd4 514. Kf2 Ke4 515. Qb1+ Kd4 516. Qg6 Bf6 517. Kf3 Be7 518. Qg1+ Kc4 519. Qg4+ Kc5 520. Ke2 Nf6 521. Qf5+ Kd4 522. Qf4+ Kd5 523. Kf3 Ke6 524. Qc4+ Kf5 525. Qa6 Nd7 526. Qd3+ Ke6 527. Qe3+ Kd6 528. Kf4 Nc5 529. Kf5 Bf8 530. Qf3 Nd7 531. Qc3 Ke7 532. Qd4 Ke8 533. Ke6 Nc5+ 534. Kd5 Nd7 535. Kc6 Nb8+ 536. Kb6 Nd7+ 537. Kc7 Nc5 538. Qc4 Be7 539. Qg8+ Bf8 540. Kc6 Na6 541. Qe6+ Be7 542. Qc8+ Kf7 543. Qxa6 Ke6 544. Qd3 Bg5 545. Qe4+ Kf6 546. Kd6 Bd2 547. Qe5+ Kg6 548. Ke6 Bg5 549. Qf5+ Kh5 550. Qf3+ Kh6 551. Qf7 Bh4 552. Kf5 Bg5 553. Qg6#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="20742" LastEditDate="2021-02-03T09:14:07.490" LastActivityDate="2021-02-03T09:14:07.490" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28474" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28475" CreationDate="2020-02-15T17:18:13.233" Score="2" ViewCount="115" Body="&lt;p&gt;My last serious attempt to get into chess ran into a basic difficulty with the program: with a bit of work, I got to a point where I could beat difficulty 1 or 2 on a scale of 10, but got consistently clobbered when I took on difficulty 3. I have subsequently looked, but not found, chess programs where I can normally find a difficulty that lets me win, say, 40%-60% of the time, and this remains true when I incrementally learn to improve my game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What, if any, chess engines out there offer finer gradations in the level of difficulty? It would be nice to have engines that offer more than one realistic way of offering an easier opponent. And ideally make mistakes that would make actual sense as an understandable mistake in a game of chess, not arbitrarily weakening the opponent by e.g. having a 1 out of n chance of making a random legal move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21531" LastActivityDate="2020-02-15T18:42:40.437" Title="What programs (preferably open source) offer play against a computer with fine-grained difficulty-related adjustments?" Tags="&lt;beginner&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28475" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28474" CreationDate="2020-02-15T17:29:50.447" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;My favorite program for this is &lt;a href=&quot;https://appadvice.com/app/chess-tiger-pro/423198259&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess Tiger Pro&lt;/a&gt; This is a paid app.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can set difficulty in 50 elo point increments.  Some programs, such as shredder, allow you to set exact rating number.  I like Chess Tiger Pro because it seems to play poorly better than other programs.  I mean more human like mistakes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17425" LastActivityDate="2020-02-15T17:29:50.447" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28476" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28474" CreationDate="2020-02-15T18:35:55.610" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;None.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are not that many programs designed to do that and most engines are intended to find the best move and have the highest rating.  And it would also depend on how  consistent you are and how often you make mistakes.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Fine grain difficulty is hard to do as there are way too many variables in the person playing.  And controlling the program is also not trivial to achieve that goal. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Depending on your weaknesses, and the programs shortcomings, any program may or may not be too  hard/easy for you.  And your inconsistency may make that program change from day to day. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your best chance is to look for one with some range of difficulty that occasionally makes weak moves on purpose;  or else find a program that has a finer range of how far ahead the program will look.  That would change the amount of time the program would need to maintain its set level which could become too long for you to accept. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know of at least one program that does make mistakes on purpose. There may well be some more.  But if they are easy enough for you to win 40-60% of the time is a question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Winning at the rate you would prefer would mean that the 'rating' of both you and the program were about the same.   Hopefully you would learn to play better and then be winning so much that you think the program is too easy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So would that program still have enough control over its difficulty for you?  You might need yet another program to find the sweet spot you desire.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Best would be for  you to try improving your ability and to play in Quads of players who have similar ratings.  Pairings are made based on the people with the closest ratings so you should have good matches like  you want.  Whether you win too much or too little depends on your variability as well as theirs.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another good bet is for you to play online and get a rating.  Then you could find players or events that fit your skill level and get the type of win/loss ratio that you think is good for your goals.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want a program then there is a long list of them here&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_chess_software#Chess-playing_programs_for_personal_computers&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_chess_software#Chess-playing_programs_for_personal_computers&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Check reviews and see if any of them do what you want to do.&#xA;Alternatively you could try an engine that gives you control over how it works and customize it  yourself. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastEditorUserId="20721" LastEditDate="2020-02-15T18:42:40.437" LastActivityDate="2020-02-15T18:42:40.437" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28477" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-02-15T18:59:47.710" Score="18" ViewCount="6940" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know this is very basic question, but I just started playing and want to know. How do you set up king and queen the right way?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Heading&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I generally get confused between the King and Queen and what square they start from. I recently read this about &lt;a href=&quot;https://chessboardsetup.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chess setup&lt;/a&gt;. I just want to be sure, as I am still confused.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21532" LastEditorUserId="12478" LastEditDate="2020-02-17T18:32:27.633" LastActivityDate="2020-02-18T11:53:26.267" Title="What is right way to set up King &amp; Queen In the beginning of game?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;learning&gt;&lt;pieces&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28478" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28477" CreationDate="2020-02-15T19:02:23.250" Score="18" Body="&lt;p&gt;It starts with the board being setup correctly, and that means a light square in the right-hand corner. Then, the queens each go on their own color.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-02-18T11:53:26.267" LastActivityDate="2020-02-18T11:53:26.267" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28479" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28477" CreationDate="2020-02-15T19:06:53.607" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;First the board must be correct.&#xA;Put the white square in the right hand corner nearest to you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then put the queens on their color in the center of the board on the row closest to you.  White queen on white. Black queen on Black. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally put the kings next to the queens in the center of the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That link you gave is not that useful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the rest of the men:&#xA;The first row corners near you have a rook on them.  Next to the rooks are the horsies aka knights.  Next between the knights and the  K/Q are the bishops.  Finally in front of those there are 8 pawns on the 2nd row. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastEditorUserId="20721" LastEditDate="2020-02-15T22:58:27.827" LastActivityDate="2020-02-15T22:58:27.827" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28480" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22448" CreationDate="2020-02-15T23:12:16.560" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is basically meaningless compared to the initial game  itself. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You could have them play pingpong or checkers or do something else to see who should &quot;win&quot;.  Whatever the result it has no bearing to what actually happened at the game of chess AT THE INITIAL TIME CONTROL.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What would be better is to get rid of the delays and increments and just reduce the initial time control to a more reasonable amount like G60SD for world championship,  G30SD for most tournaments, G15SD for smaller tournaments and more average players.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;THEN PLAY MORE GAMES so that one draw is not that significant to the results.  With more games pairings in tournaments become fairer too. &#xA;Even better have everybody play two games instead of one so each player gets one White and One black. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastActivityDate="2020-02-15T23:12:16.560" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28481" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28390" CreationDate="2020-02-16T00:54:01.200" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Apparently the issue is cookies.  You must get a cookie as you go to chesstempo.  If cookies get deleted then refreshing the page   fails.  Still need to check whether that is true if  you try  to load a brand new page withOUT any cookies.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Verified.  Killed cookies and the current page then reloaded it and it worked.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unclear why cookies only kills showing the moves but the rest of the database and chesstempo features still seem to work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastActivityDate="2020-02-16T00:54:01.200" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28482" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-02-16T01:03:05.030" Score="24" ViewCount="6762" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know that the great Judit Polgar defeated Kasparov, but he was no longer World Champion at that point. She defeated Anand, but he was not yet World Champion at that point. She defeated Kasimdzhanov, but his championship wasn't undisputed because of the FIDE-PCA split. And so on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Has a woman ever defeated a reigning undisputed World Chess Champion in classical chess?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21534" LastActivityDate="2021-03-14T00:36:57.033" Title="Has a woman ever defeated a reigning undisputed World Chess Champion in classical chess?" Tags="&lt;women&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28483" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28482" CreationDate="2020-02-16T02:11:13.930" Score="32" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sorry, but the answer is &quot;no&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I used ChessBase and the Mega 2020 database to search various combinations of players, focusing primarily on Women's World Champions, Judit Polgar, Hou Yifan, Vera Menchik from the 1920's and 1930's, Lyudmila Rudenko, Elisaveta Bykova, Olga Rubtsova, Nona Gaprindashvili, and Maia Chiburdanidze. I stopped after Maia Chiburdanidze with the exception of Polgar and Yifan since I would have remembered a victory by the more recent Women's World Champions starting with Xie Jun next. With the exception of Vera Menchik, who played Capablanca a number of games, none of the old Soviet women ever played any of the world champions. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Given that you were looking for a defeat of a sitting world champion in classical, no woman has ever done that yet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only ones to ever beat men, who already had been world champions, were Judit Polgar's victories over Karpov in classical at Hoogeveen in 2003, and Chorus in 2003, and the Champions League in 2007 (still the only victories by any woman in classical over even a former World Champion), and 8 wins in rapid, and a few blitz. Also, she beat Kasparov in rapid at the World Rapid Championship in 2002. She also had one rapid victory over Magnus Carlsen in 2012 in Mexico City, but that was a year before he won the title.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hou Yifan had two wins over Kramnik at the Media Kings Rapid in 2016. She also has had some victories in blitz.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;After a bunch of back-and-forth comments below, I was asked to add my&#xA;  methodology to the answer, which I agreed to do. I do not claim my&#xA;  answer to be worthy of a scientific study and the scrutiny that would&#xA;  be associated with it. I was just trying to give a reasonably educated&#xA;  answer to the question. Whether I missed a rapid game against a former&#xA;  World Champion in my list, that is possible, but that was also just&#xA;  supplemental information I provided, and was not really part of the&#xA;  answer to the OP’s question since the question was officially only&#xA;  about classical chess. I would also take classical chess to mean&#xA;  over-the-board in a tournament since for it to mean anything, it had&#xA;  to be serious chess (this is not to be confused with relays of OTB&#xA;  tournaments, where the games are not really being played on the&#xA;  Internet).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;First, it is important to understand that if no woman has ever beaten&#xA;  a sitting World Champion in classical chess, it would be asking to&#xA;  prove a negative, so you can always some up with a “what if” situation&#xA;  that I did not search for. I had to draw the line somewhere, and I&#xA;  drew the line based on my searches of the best women players of their&#xA;  times (and all the world champions of their eras they may have faced),&#xA;  my fairly extensive knowledge of chess history, and 40 years of&#xA;  reading MANY sources on a once monthly (before the Internet, when all&#xA;  I was “Chess Life” and “New in Chess” magazine), and since the&#xA;  Internet, I read an average of three sites per day, every day&#xA;  (currently chessbase.com, chess.com, and chess24.com, and twic and&#xA;  chessninja in the past).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;It is also important to know, and this is where the history comes in,&#xA;  that the best women of the generations prior to the Polgar sisters,&#xA;  were MUCH weaker, often only in the 2300-2400 range, but it was also&#xA;  before the ELO system existed, so that is an estimate. I also know&#xA;  that back then, men simply did not play women virtually at all…Vera&#xA;  Menchik was the exception.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;All of the major advances in women’s chess strength to the Grandmaster&#xA;  level have come during my lifetime, when I was active playing, and&#xA;  actively reading the sources I referenced above, so I also ask for a&#xA;  little common sense: This would have been HUGE news, as was Polgar&#xA;  beat Kasparov in RAPID. I cannot find anything on Google about a woman&#xA;  beating a sitting World Champion in classical chess. I would not have&#xA;  missed it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Lastly, World Champions since Fischer have been 2700+, and there are&#xA;  only two women, who reasonably have had a shot at beating a World&#xA;  Champion in classical, and a lot of that is due to opportunity and&#xA;  invitations to elite events: Judit Polgar, and Hou Yifan, so you&#xA;  really do not have to look much further than their games, which limits&#xA;  the searching a lot.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-02-17T21:44:50.333" LastActivityDate="2020-02-17T21:44:50.333" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28485" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28467" CreationDate="2020-02-16T08:28:30.403" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I checked the position on Lichess' analysis and looked at the source code on Github. On Lichess' engine, the evaluation is &lt;strong&gt;+5.8&lt;/strong&gt; (Stockfish 10+ depth 22). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If we give castling rights to the black king, the evaluation drops to &lt;strong&gt;+3.4&lt;/strong&gt;.  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If we then take out the pawn on f3 (restore material balance), the evaluation drops to &lt;strong&gt;+3.1&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If it's black's move (one tempo given to Black and taken away from white), the evaluation drops further to &lt;strong&gt;+1.6&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If we now put the black Queen back to d1, the evaluation drops to &lt;strong&gt;+0.8&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If we put the center pawn back on d2, the evaluation is now &lt;strong&gt;+0.3&lt;/strong&gt;, which is more or less the starting evaluation for a chess game.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From this we can infer that the main factors in this evaluation are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;King safety&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Development/mobility and initiative &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Material imbalance (one extra pawn)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;space (defined by Stockfish as the number of safe squares on your side - the area behind your pawns counts double) &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17476" LastActivityDate="2020-02-16T08:28:30.403" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28486" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28489" CreationDate="2020-02-16T09:00:35.563" Score="6" ViewCount="532" Body="&lt;p&gt;If your time is up on a timed game, but your opponent has only a king, the game is drawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does this rule apply to online correspondence games?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user18196" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T14:51:23.840" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T14:51:23.840" Title="Your time is up on an online correspondence game but your oponnent has only his king; is it a draw?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;draw&gt;&lt;correspondence-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28487" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28488" CreationDate="2020-02-16T09:37:20.743" Score="26" ViewCount="7035" Body="&lt;p&gt;I occasionally think it might be fun to play a chess variant that is exactly the same as regular chess, except that it is permitted to capture your own pieces as well as your opponent's pieces - so, for example, if your king was alone on the back rank with some pawns in front of it, and your opponent moved a rook or queen to the back rank and that attacking piece could not be legally captured (which would be checkmate in normal chess), it might be possible in such a variant to escape checkmate if the king could &quot;capture&quot; one of it's own pawns in front of it.  In the way I imagine this variant, &quot;friendly&quot; pieces captured in this way would be removed from play permanently, just as an opponent's piece would be - so (in this example), you've jettisoned some of your own material (which is now gone for good), but at least you were able to save yourself from checkmate...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can imagine other scenarios where it might also be useful to give up some of your own material by &quot;capturing&quot; it like this, in support of the greater good....&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this a known chess variant, does it have a name that people might recognize?  I've tried searching around and haven't been able to locate any discussions of a variant like this - but I can't be the first person to think about this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just as full disclosure, the only variant I really know anything about is bughouse, I'm not familiar with other variants, so I'm not sure I'm even Google searching for the right words...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7147" LastActivityDate="2021-01-16T04:18:02.043" Title="Is there a name for a chess variant where you are allowed to capture your own pieces?" Tags="&lt;chess-variants&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28488" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28487" CreationDate="2020-02-16T09:51:11.510" Score="21" Body="&lt;p&gt;In German, we would call this &quot;Schlagschach&quot;. The &lt;a href=&quot;https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schachvariante#Schlagschach_oder_Capturechess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;German Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt; translates this to &quot;Capturechess&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I could not find an English resource that describes this variant.&#xA;But there is a &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/quottake-your-own-piecesquot-chess-variant&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;thread on chess.com&lt;/a&gt; where someone asked about the exact same thing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit&lt;/strong&gt;: Thanks to @bitchaser who dug that thread more thoroughly and found a link to another page that calls this variant &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessvariants.com/difftaking.dir/selfeliminator.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Self-Eliminator&lt;/a&gt;&quot;, which states:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;John Gallicano and Steve Mann invented this variant in 1997.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is also a &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessvariants.com/play/erf/SelfElim.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Java applet on that page&lt;/a&gt;, which is not easy to use nowadays, since for security reasons, modern browsers just don't support Java applets anymore.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I hope, this is not too off-topic for Chess.SE, but for those of you, who are interested, here follows a short instruction on how to run the game, nonetheless:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;first, make sure you have the tool &lt;code&gt;appletviewer&lt;/code&gt; on your PC. If not, you have to install the Java 8 JDK or earlier, since the tool is deprecated since Java 9. Make sure, it's the &lt;em&gt;JDK&lt;/em&gt;, not &lt;em&gt;JRE&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;second, download the following files of the applet and put them all in the same folder:&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessvariants.com/play/erf/SelfElim.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.chessvariants.com/play/erf/SelfElim.html&lt;/a&gt; (the html code is enough, no pictures, CSS or scripts are required)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessvariants.com/play/erf/SelfElim.class&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.chessvariants.com/play/erf/SelfElim.class&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessvariants.com/play/erf/EasyChss.class&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.chessvariants.com/play/erf/EasyChss.class&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessvariants.com/play/erf/Chsq.class&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.chessvariants.com/play/erf/Chsq.class&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessvariants.com/play/erf/Chmo.class&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.chessvariants.com/play/erf/Chmo.class&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessvariants.com/play/erf/CB10_10.class&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.chessvariants.com/play/erf/CB10_10.class&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;last, navigate to that folder and run the following command in a terminal: &lt;code&gt;appletviewer file:SelfElim.html&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The applet should pop up and show you the game screen:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/jH9Sa.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/jH9Sa.png&quot; alt=&quot;applet screenshot&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20569" LastEditorUserId="20569" LastEditDate="2020-02-19T06:34:35.277" LastActivityDate="2020-02-19T06:34:35.277" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28489" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28486" CreationDate="2020-02-16T11:22:36.597" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Note: This was answered before the OP edited the question, and specified it was an online competition. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;https://iccfwebfiles.blob.core.windows.net/rules/2019/THE%20ICCF%20LAWS%20OF%20CORRESPONDENCE%20CHESS%2001.01.2019.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;ICCF (international) rules&lt;/a&gt;, yes, it is still a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;6.7 Except where one of  the Articles 5.1 or 5.2 applies, if a player does not complete the prescribed number of moves in the allotted time, the game is lost by the player. &lt;strong&gt;However, the game is drawn, if the position is such that  the opponent cannot checkmate the player’s king by any possible series of legal moves.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.uschess.org/content/view/7521/397/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;USCF rules&lt;/a&gt; are more convoluted. First, there is a special rule 11 in national events that if someone oversteps the time limit, they are not forfeited, but rather penalized five days reflection time on the succeeding 10 moves/30 day time control. They lose the second time this happens. (Plus there are entire sets of rules for specific national events linked on that page)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Otherwise, they also follow the &lt;a href=&quot;https://new.uschess.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/US-Chess-Rule-Book-Online-Only-Edition-Chapters-1-2-11-1-1-20-1.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;traditional USCF rules of chess&lt;/a&gt;, so yes, it would also be a draw in that case too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;14D. Insufficient material to continue. The game is drawn when one of the following endings exists as of the most recently determined legal move, in which the possibility of a win is excluded for either side.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;14D4. &lt;strong&gt;No legal moves leading to checkmate by opponent. There are no legal moves that could lead to the player being checkmated by the opponent.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-02-16T19:55:28.567" LastActivityDate="2020-02-16T19:55:28.567" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28490" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18046" CreationDate="2020-02-16T11:37:16.640" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://caissabase.co.uk/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Caïssabase&lt;/a&gt; is one of the biggest and best.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From the website:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;What is Caïssabase?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I got back into Chess a year or two back I couldn't find a decent&#xA;free regularly updated database of Chess games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are some good ones out there like Kingbase and Millionbase (not&#xA;updated anymore).&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;...&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;What is in Caïssabase?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;CURRENTLY 4.02 MILLION GAMES&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I started from the following databases/sources.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Millionbase&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Kingbase&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;I then merged in all of the TWIC back issues up to the date on the archive as well as all the master games from pgnmentor.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;...&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;What about curation?&lt;/strong&gt;    Glad you asked. Roughly I followed these rules.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Removed all duplicates&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Removed all games with less than 5 moves&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Aimed for all games to have one (or both) players at least master strength&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Fixed names and event spellings where possible&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Inserted ELO's where known&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Inserted extended ECO opening codes&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;...&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;Legal/Copyright&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Where I live facts are not copyrightable, Chess moves played in a game are facts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You'll notice there are no comments on any of the games as comments are copyrightable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The latest download is from September 2019, so perhaps the intention of a monthly download is proving a bit too much. Meanwhile I've downloaded it for use with &lt;a href=&quot;http://scidvspc.sourceforge.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Scid vs PC&lt;/a&gt; and will be a grateful user.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: There is a new download available as of 14th November 2020 with a &lt;a href=&quot;https://twitter.com/caissabase/status/1327686420274802691&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;new goal&lt;/a&gt; of updating once a quarter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2020-11-16T11:44:59.930" LastActivityDate="2020-11-16T11:44:59.930" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28491" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28477" CreationDate="2020-02-16T17:02:56.943" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Turn board so that dark square in the bottom left.&#xA;Put queen on her own color, king on opposite color that he is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White player sees queen, king, from their left to right.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black player sees king, queen from their left to right.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21544" LastActivityDate="2020-02-16T17:02:56.943" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28492" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28493" CreationDate="2020-02-16T20:24:27.050" Score="0" ViewCount="221" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the name of the chess piece in a variant game where there is a piece that moves like the queen AND a knight?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a name for this variant?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-02-17T16:17:54.253" LastActivityDate="2020-02-17T16:17:54.253" Title="Chess variants-Anyone recall the name for one that has a &quot;superpiece&quot; with the movements of the queen and knight?" Tags="&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;unorthodox-pieces&gt;&lt;identify-this&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28493" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28492" CreationDate="2020-02-16T21:22:49.347" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_chess_variants&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia variants page&lt;/a&gt;, there does not seem to be a variant with a specific name, but there are several variants that use the queen-knight hybrid, which is &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_(chess)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;called an Amazon&lt;/a&gt; (appropriate name, and combines rook+bishop+knight movement abilities). So maybe just &quot;Amazon chess&quot; would make sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Amazon is used in the following variants (copied from the Wikipedia page above):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Maharajah and the Sepoys&lt;/strong&gt;: Black has a complete army, and White only one piece: the maharajah (Amazon).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Musketeer Chess&lt;/strong&gt;: A commercial variant, inspired from Seirawan Chess. This variant introduces 10 fairy pieces: archbishop, chancellor, hawk (different rules from Seirawan Chess), elephant (different rules from Seirawan Chess), leopard, cannon (different from Xiangqi), unicorn, fortress, spider, and amazon (also called dragon in this game). Players have a choice of 2 pieces among the 10 possible and method used to introduce them during the game.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Wolf Chess&lt;/strong&gt;: On an 8×10 board, with fairy pieces wolf (empress), fox (princess), nightrider, sergeant (almost a Berolina pawn), and elephant (amazon). By Arno von Wilpert (1943).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are also the following hybrid pieces:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empress_(chess)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Empress (rook+knight)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princess_(chess)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Princess (knight+bishop)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The traditional Queen (rook+bishop)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2020-02-16T21:22:49.347" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28494" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28487" CreationDate="2020-02-16T22:47:54.540" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;Browsing the &quot;modest variants&quot; at chessvariants.com, I found &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessvariants.com/rules/option-suicide-chess&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Option Suicide Chess&lt;/a&gt; by A. Black as the closest match. Besides self-capture it allows also captureless removal of own pieces and even self-capture with removal of the own capturing piece.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3819" LastActivityDate="2020-02-16T22:47:54.540" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28495" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28487" CreationDate="2020-02-17T02:30:25.203" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a variant called 'Recycle Chess' which allows that.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;You can play it at &lt;em&gt;brainking&lt;/em&gt;: &lt;a href=&quot;https://brainking.com/en/GameRules?tp=98&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://brainking.com/en/GameRules?tp=98&lt;/a&gt;; it's actually a lot of fun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13230" LastActivityDate="2020-02-17T02:30:25.203" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28496" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-02-17T04:10:16.047" Score="7" ViewCount="1187" Body="&lt;p&gt;When defending against 1. e4, I'm a French Defense player. I enjoy the French Defense very much, and my win rate with it is fairly good. Lately, though, I've been wanting to explore new defenses, only to spice my game up (I'm getting bored of the typical positions that come out of the french, as wild as some of them may be).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I consider the french to be solid, yet not flexible. By this I mean that the usual French setups are hard to break and resilient, but offer little strategical freedom (this is, there are few logical strategical plans that actually fit the position). It is as if I'm playing all my games with the same two or three long-term plans, not because of lack of imagination, but because this are the plans that usually emerge as logical in the typical positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In opposition to this, I'm looking for a new defense that prioritizes flexibility above all, even if not as solid as the french.  An opening that offers a wide variety of strategical ideas and creative play. The Sicilian is a candidate, but there are too many variations to learn and I'm not interested on it at the moment. I'm considering also the Pirc Defense, which I believe to be also flexible enough. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can anyone recommend a flexible defense against 1. e4? Comments on the mere ideas of flexibility/solidity in the defensive setup are welcome too, as of course these relates to the actual question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21110" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T14:50:37.580" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T14:50:37.580" Title="Flexibility over solidity? Defending against 1. e4" Tags="&lt;french-defense&gt;&lt;1.e4&gt;&lt;defense&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="9" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28497" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28496" CreationDate="2020-02-17T04:45:21.140" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;It sounds like you are drawn to the pirc so try it out and see.  The pirc/modern is very flexible and if you play the king's indian that you can transpose into that if White plays c4 to make a universal system.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I like the fluidity of being able to see how my opponent sets up first and then respond.  I like the dynamic potential.  Rather than backward black's position feels like a &quot;coiled spring&quot; ready to lash out.  I haven't been blown off the board with e2-e4-e5 and h2-h4-h5 in a while so I think I am getting the hang of the direct assault lines.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17425" LastActivityDate="2020-02-17T04:45:21.140" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28498" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28482" CreationDate="2020-02-17T05:17:19.720" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;This answer is mainly intended as an exposition of PhishMaster's answer, which I'm confident is correct, if we treat the OP as only including serious games (this excludes random games on the internet which nobody recorded the moves of).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In recorded chess history, men have been significantly stronger than women. The gap is usually quite large, for example as of time of writing the highest-rated male chess player is &lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/top.phtml?list=men&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;World Champion Magnus Carlsen&lt;/a&gt; at 2862 rating, while the highest-rated female chess player is &lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/top.phtml?list=women&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Hou Yifan&lt;/a&gt; at 2664. This is an elo gap of 198 points, which means that in a match between the two, Carlsen is expected to score about 76/100.* The gap is very large, so much so that top invitationals usually have only male players. It's not that the organizers don't want to invite women, but rather that any woman participating would very likely be a metaphorical punching bag.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In recorded chess history, there are three exceptions to the above - women of exceptional strength whom tournament organizers are happy to invite. If you imagine all female chess players' rating as a Bell curve, these women would be way out in the extremes. The three are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Vera Menchik. She &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vera_Menchik#Legacy&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;crushed her female contemporaries&lt;/a&gt; so badly that world champion Alexander Alekhine said it's unfair to require her to defend her Women's World Champion title against such inferior opposition.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Judit Polgar. Widely considered the greatest female player of all time, she is the only woman to have played in an exclusive 8-player &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIDE_World_Chess_Championship_2005&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;world championship&lt;/a&gt;**, and she reached a peak world ranking of 8. The gap between her and her closest female rivals was &lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/toparc.phtml?cod=82&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;about 150 elo&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Hou Yifan. Though not as dominant as Judit Polgar was (currently she leads 2nd-ranked Ju Wenjun by &lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/top.phtml?list=women&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&amp;quot;only&amp;quot; 81 points&lt;/a&gt;), she is still light years ahead of all her female rivals.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Accordingly, if one is going to look for wins by a woman over a male world champion, one would start by examining the games of these three players. The fact that none of them beat a reigning world champion at classical time controls makes it pretty damn likely that no woman has ever done it, and I would be prepared to metaphorically eat my hat if someone can find a counterexample.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That said, Vera Menchik, Judit Polgar and Hou Yifan have all beaten top-class grandmasters. Vera Menchik won these &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1042325&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;two&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1258406&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;games&lt;/a&gt; against future world champion Max Euwe. These games were played in 1930-1931, four years before Euwe became world champion, and at a time when he was one of the most credible challengers for the championship. Judit Polgar won &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1009882&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this game&lt;/a&gt; against future world champion Viswanathan Anand in 1999, when Anand was ranked #2 in the world. Finally, Hou Yifan has &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1870992&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;defeated Fabiano Caruana&lt;/a&gt; in 2017. Caruana has never been world champion, but he was (current champion) Carlsen's opponent in the 2018 match, and that match ended drawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;tl; dr: no woman has yet beaten a reigning undisputed world chess champion in a serious game, under classical time controls - but some have come close.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*In chess, a win is worth 1 point, a draw is worth 1/2 points, and a loss is worth 0. An example of how the score could reach 76/100 is if Carlsen wins 52 times and the remaining 48 games are drawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;**Usually the world championship is decided in one-on-one match play. During this period in which Judit Polgar played in the world championship, there was some turmoil in the chess world and FIDE (the organizing body of chess) experimented with other formats, such as the 8-player double round robin Judit played in. There were also 128-player knockout world championships, which because of their size &amp;amp; format (knockouts are by nature more random) are much less prestigious.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastEditorUserId="15223" LastEditDate="2020-08-26T04:53:13.367" LastActivityDate="2020-08-26T04:53:13.367" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28499" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28496" CreationDate="2020-02-17T09:55:37.303" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I see your point clearly and I was once in your place as well in deciding the right opening for me. I would hate to choose the character of the position over objectivity. There are only 4 objectively sound replies to 1. e4. Those being 1...e5, 1...e6, 1...c5, and 1...c6. All the others are in theory suboptimal. I would say that the best way to get a flexible position is to not contest the center with the pawns and the most extreme version of this is the Hippo(Not the best choice). If you got good results with the french you should also with the Caro-Kann and it's a little more flexible. Remember to choose objectivity over character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21014" LastActivityDate="2020-02-17T09:55:37.303" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28500" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28496" CreationDate="2020-02-17T14:35:41.573" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You want too much.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Either play d6  or the sicilian. &#xA;Else just play e5   when they play e4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in spite of erroneous claims e5 is as solid a defense as any other first move and it gives you those different positions you say you prefer over the limited french strategy type positions. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastActivityDate="2020-02-17T14:35:41.573" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28501" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18989" CreationDate="2020-02-17T16:01:53.990" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is a local rule and is not that popular outside a few small areas.&#xA;In Spain there was a 20 move rule.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;THE rule is 50 moves, per the laws of chess,  without any captures or pawn moves.  In special cases more moves are allowed because of the difficulty of mating. One example is the wKKN vs KP endgame in which one knight blocks the pawn from moving while the remaining KN corner the other king then the other knight starts moving to give mate before the black pawn can queen and start checking. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-02-17T16:17:20.643" LastActivityDate="2020-02-17T16:17:20.643" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28502" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-02-17T17:51:01.510" Score="2" ViewCount="147" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have the Mega Database 2020 from ChessBase and ChessBase 15. I am using ChessBase 15 to search the Mega Database 2020, my search criterion being all games ended through a KPvK (king and pawn vs. king) up to white/black symmetry.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For this I open the Mega Database in ChessBase 15 and I do &quot;Filter List --&gt; Material&quot;. The best I can achieve so far is :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/w5Nr0.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/w5Nr0.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(If I click on &quot;No pieces&quot; as I should, it resets the &quot;Total&quot; four cases, and I don't understand why, so that I am not sure that my filter does exactly want I and gives me all games I really want. I checked on &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.chessbase.com/support-kb/content/details/1053/Material_searches_with_ChessBase&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.chessbase.com/support-kb/content/details/1053/Material_searches_with_ChessBase&lt;/a&gt; but it did not help very much, but that is another question ...)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This gives a list of games, and if I click on the line corresponding to a game, the position appears for instance as follows :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/dsqWQ.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/dsqWQ.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We see that the board is automatically set up to the position of game defined by the ply where the KPvK (up to colour symmetry) begins.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Is it possible to export all of these positions in a database, retaining the ply move plus players, dates and others usual information?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This could allow to create a KPvK training database. Of course, it is somewhat trivial regarding the nature of the ending, but the principle would be useful for other types of endings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20949" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-30T18:24:27.693" LastActivityDate="2020-03-30T18:24:27.693" Title="Export KPvK endings positions (up to black/white symmetry) from ChessBase 15 using python-chess" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;chessbase&gt;&lt;python&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28503" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28496" CreationDate="2020-02-17T18:06:25.330" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recommend e6 Sicilians.  You could even use the move order 1.e4 e6 2.d4 c5.  There are a lot of transpositional possibilities.   If you look at some great player who played the French a lot, see what other defense they used;  Petrosian for example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is important to have some Sicilian understanding and if you are in a must win situation against a White player who wants a draw then the Sicilian is a must. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What you play against d4 openings could also steer your choice.  For example, if you play the King's Indian Defense, then Pirc/Modern lines could have some knowledge overlap.  If you play the Slav, then the Caro-Khan makes since...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another important element is what will you enjoy studying.  Personally I played the Najdorf Sicilian exclusively for a long time, but I loved Tiger's Modern (a repertoire book by Tiger Hillarp Persson) so much I adopted the Modern (There is a newer edition called The Modern Tiger).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;here is a recent book with good reviews for you:&#xA;The Sicilian Taimanov (Grandmaster Repertoire)&#xA;by Antonios Pavlidis | Sep 7, 2019&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2020-02-17T18:06:25.330" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28504" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28477" CreationDate="2020-02-17T18:46:11.050" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The queen's dress must match her shoes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That fashion statement reminds the player that the color of the queen, which is presumably the clothing on the queen's body, needs to match the square she stands on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I grant to people that this may seem sexist.  But I that remember struggling, many years ago, to recall if the king got his way, or the queen got her way.  But from the day that I first heard this story that the fashion-sensitive queen is the one who cared more about what she looked like, I never again forgot which piece goes on its own color.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15661" LastActivityDate="2020-02-17T18:46:11.050" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28505" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7949" CreationDate="2020-02-17T20:00:40.667" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes.  Your train has already left the GM station. &#xA;Next stop 'expert' in USCF terms if you study and play seriously for ten years.  You might even make NM.  Forget IM and GM.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you expect to make a living from it you will need to already have a big bank account to use to keep eating until you make GM assuming that you could.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it likely?  Not really based on statistics.  Look at all the chess players and what a small percent are GMs.  And these days GMs are a dime a dozen going from  one small regional tournament to the next every week trying to eke out a living. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You are starting late.  Most prodigies, that make GM easily, start before age 10.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Playing chess regularly will guarantee that you do NOT make GM.  You will need to STUDY chess regularly to achieve that.  And play serious chess often OTB not speed  chess on any web site.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1900 on chess.com does not mean much.  Nor does winning a local tournament.  And was that a real OTB tournament or one online?  And just how strong were the rated players in that tournament???&#xA;You need to go to a large national tournament and see how you do there and what your provisional REAL USCF or FIDE Rating is.  Then see how far away 2800 looks from there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1 - Never too late to be ambitious.  But as the saying goes we grow too soon old and too late smart.  Is trying to be a GM worth throwing your life away?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2 - 5 yrs to GM from where you are is delusional unless you are a true genius and spend all your time on doing it.  ALL your time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3- You may not doubt  your learning ability or memory but there is more to it than just memorizing Chess Base.  And while chess,  music, and computers tend to be easy for the same sort of people that does not mean everyone can do all of those well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4 - You cannot afford the time unless you are single and hit the lottery.  If you are married then you have epsilon approaching zero chance. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5 - Fischer did more like 60-80 hours a week. 40 hours a week prep and also a job would be unlikely.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;6 -  You need to make the GM norms so you would need a LOT of INTERNATIONAL tournaments to be able to make GM. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;7  3-4 tournaments a year at highest level might work if you were ready to try to get the title.  Your problem will be  getting to the point where you can play other GMs at all. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;8 - 5 years is wildly optimistic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;9 -  USCF and FIDE list tournaments. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;10 -  Good luck finding enough GM tournaments without a lot of travel.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;11 -  You have to pay to play if you want to play at the top level.  The other GMs want big prize funds that are paid for by folks like you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;12 - Good luck with that.  Until you are so good you get invited to play then you will be playing the others like you who paid the big fee to enter so they too could play GMs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;13 -  1900 on chess.com  -- for the speeds you play at on chess.com -- would translate to something like a FIDE rating of 1200 for OTB.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You need to play in a real, strong open, OTB tournament and find out how good  you really are.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastEditorUserId="20721" LastEditDate="2020-02-17T22:05:24.200" LastActivityDate="2020-02-17T22:05:24.200" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28506" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28502" CreationDate="2020-02-17T20:56:59.650" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;To be honest, I am not 100% sure what you are asking for by &quot;up to white/black symmetry.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think this solution will help you find what you are looking for. Theme keys are not enabled by default in ChessBase. There are amazingly detailed Theme, Tactics, Strategy, and Endgame keys built into Mega 2020 (and prior versions).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Take a look at the difference in the tabs with the theme keys enables. Once you have them enabled, you can take whatever games you want, and put them in the clipboard, and export the clipboard to a new database.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ARw3O.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ARw3O.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Next under File&gt;Options&gt;Misc, check the &quot;theme keys box&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Xkb33.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Xkb33.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/2SFnN.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/2SFnN.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/X6DHq.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/X6DHq.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2020-02-17T20:56:59.650" CommentCount="12" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28507" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28487" CreationDate="2020-02-17T23:05:40.947" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are several such chess variants.&#xA;One is &quot;&lt;strong&gt;free capture chess&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; which is almost the same as &quot;&lt;strong&gt;bicapture&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; (only different in the way to check the own king). In german the first one is called &quot;&lt;strong&gt;Reformschach&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;. &#xA;For the german definition see&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.dieschwalbe.de/lexikon.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.dieschwalbe.de/lexikon.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All this kind of funny variations are used in chess problems.&#xA;Actually I know only one problem using free capture chess, see &lt;a href=&quot;https://pdb.dieschwalbe.de/P1317666&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://pdb.dieschwalbe.de/P1317666&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8083" LastActivityDate="2020-02-17T23:05:40.947" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28508" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28515" CreationDate="2020-02-18T01:37:44.447" Score="13" ViewCount="4659" Body="&lt;p&gt;In recording a game, one typically does not record offering draws (if yes, how and is it required?) while one does indicate that a particular move gives a check by using + (or ++ for double checks).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am wondering if this is logical. In fact, it is not difficult to tell whether a move gives a check (or a double check) or not but once a draw offer is not recorded, it is virtually impossible to know it by reading the moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16626" LastEditorUserId="16626" LastEditDate="2020-02-18T01:53:25.730" LastActivityDate="2020-02-18T10:24:31.547" Title="Why is offering draw not recorded but giving a check recorded?" Tags="&lt;draw&gt;&lt;notation&gt;&lt;check&gt;&lt;double-check&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28509" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-02-18T01:46:21.943" Score="2" ViewCount="151" Body="&lt;p&gt;If I understand correctly, once player A makes a draw offer, the opponent player B retains the right to accept the draw offer as long as player B does not rejected it verbally, or touch a piece with the intention of moving or capturing it. So technically player B may spend as much time as he has left on the clock, say 60 minutes, before accepting the draw offer and once the draw offer is made, player A is not allowed to withdraw it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So what is the longest record of waiting time before a draw offer is accepted?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16626" LastActivityDate="2020-02-18T02:01:30.107" Title="What is the longest wait before a draw offer is accepted?" Tags="&lt;draw&gt;&lt;records&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28510" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28508" CreationDate="2020-02-18T01:47:31.683" Score="20" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both recording checks and draw offers are personal preference, and neither is required in your notation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I actually do record both checks as &quot;&lt;strong&gt;+&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; or &quot;&lt;strong&gt;++&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;, and draw offers as &quot;&lt;strong&gt;(d)&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;. I know I am not the only one to note draw offers as I have friends, who do the same. I also record times.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The purpose of the notation is so you, or the arbiter, can play back over the game, and neither notation addition is really relevant for that purpose. I just like to know for my own edification if I go back later.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;FIDE rules actually reference draw offers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;8.1b The scoresheet shall be used only for recording the moves, the times of the clocks, offers of a draw, matters relating to a claim and&#xA;  other relevant data.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-02-18T01:55:23.200" LastActivityDate="2020-02-18T01:55:23.200" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28511" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-02-18T01:52:28.290" Score="14" ViewCount="4059" Body="&lt;p&gt;When my opponent makes a draw offer,  I will consider whether to accept this draw offer or not and this consideration could take very long, say 20 minutes or more. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is a good etiquette now to tell my opponent that I am neither declining nor accepting this draw offer; instead, I simply need more time to consider it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To tell my opponent to &quot;wait&quot;? Or simply remain silent while considering? Or something else?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16626" LastActivityDate="2020-02-18T10:35:38.693" Title="How to indicate that &quot;I need more time to consider your draw offer&quot; in a formal game?" Tags="&lt;draw&gt;&lt;etiquette&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28512" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28511" CreationDate="2020-02-18T01:56:56.987" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;You have until you decide to say yes or you make a move which says no.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You do not need to tell the opponent anything until that time.&#xA;There is no rush on your part.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He should not be talking to you about it after he makes the offer.&#xA;If he pressures you then complain to the TD. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastEditorUserId="20721" LastEditDate="2020-02-18T01:58:35.983" LastActivityDate="2020-02-18T01:58:35.983" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28513" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28509" CreationDate="2020-02-18T02:01:30.107" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are no records of that.  We can possibly  tell of some long ones we heard of but the question cannot be answered for THE LONGEST wait. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastActivityDate="2020-02-18T02:01:30.107" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28514" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14395" CreationDate="2020-02-18T03:27:36.570" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some kids are taught to never accept a draw nor to resign.  They insist on being mated.  Guessing they dont expect you to accept a draw either. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I had one keep playing when he was down a QBN and insisted that I mate him.  I only played that kid once.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If there was no money on the game (or rating points)  I would just say I am leaving the game is a draw.  GOODBYE and never play them again.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But are you sure it was actually a draw.  An alleged expert came up to my game last week and said its a draw.  I said it is a clear win for my side. NOTE: This was a fun game at the club.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I won after another 20 moves.  Needless to say this expert is great at middle game sacs and attacks but he knows little to nothing about endgames.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If he would learn openings a little better and learn endgames he could be a NM or maybe SNM.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastActivityDate="2020-02-18T03:27:36.570" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28515" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28508" CreationDate="2020-02-18T10:24:31.547" Score="19" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to the &lt;a href=&quot;https://old.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=208&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Laws of Chess&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Appendix C. Algebraic notation&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;C.12 The offer of a draw shall be marked as (=)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As with a number of the laws regarding recording of the moves this is not strictly enforced by arbiters. I did once play in a tournament in which a very junior arbiter delivered a short harangue to us players telling us to record draw offers. I'm not sure anyone paid much attention.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The serious point about recording draw offers is what do you do if an opponent disturbs you by repeatedly offering draws? If you complain to the arbiter then the first thing the arbiter is going to do (if he or she is any good) is ask you to point out on your scoresheet the moves where the draw offers were made. If you haven't recorded any draw offers on your scoresheet then you will be wasting your time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-02-18T10:24:31.547" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28516" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28511" CreationDate="2020-02-18T10:35:38.693" Score="18" Body="&lt;p&gt;The polite way to react to a legally made (opponent moves, offers draw and then presses the clock) draw offer which you are not going to immediately accept is to say something like &quot;I'll think about it&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In a team competitions it is quite common for the player offered the draw to stand up and go and look at his teammates' games to see the standing in the match before making a decision which affects team success. This is allowed even though it is the player's turn to move. You are not glued to your seat when it is your turn but you must not leave the &quot;playing area&quot; - generally the room where the event is taking place. You may even ask your team captain if you may accept the draw (unless the competition rules specifically forbid this). You may follow or reject your captain's advice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is also acceptable, though less polite, to completely ignore your opponent as you may be tempted to do if they are offering a draw in a lost position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-02-18T10:35:38.693" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28517" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28502" CreationDate="2020-02-18T10:53:35.760" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I used the following python script using &lt;a href=&quot;https://python-chess.readthedocs.io/en/latest/#&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;code&gt;python-chess&lt;/code&gt; library&lt;/a&gt; :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;import chess&#xA;import chess.pgn&#xA;&#xA;def KPvK_up_to_symmetry_export_to_FEN_func(pgn_file_path, nb_games, output_pgn_file_name):&#xA;    output_pgn = open(output_pgn_file_name,&quot;w+&quot;)&#xA;    games = 0&#xA;    pgn_file = open(pgn_file_path, encoding=&quot;utf-8-sig&quot;)&#xA;    while nb_games == 0 or games &amp;lt; nb_games:&#xA;        game = chess.pgn.read_game(pgn_file)&#xA;        board = game.board()&#xA;        has_wanted_position = False&#xA;        wanted_fen = &quot;&quot;&#xA;        for move in game.mainline_moves():&#xA;            board.push(move)&#xA;            fen = board.board_fen()&#xA;&#xA;            nb_p = fen.count(&quot;p&quot;)&#xA;            nb_P = fen.count(&quot;P&quot;)&#xA;&#xA;            nb_n = fen.count(&quot;n&quot;)&#xA;            nb_N = fen.count(&quot;N&quot;)&#xA;&#xA;            nb_b = fen.count(&quot;b&quot;)&#xA;            nb_B = fen.count(&quot;B&quot;)&#xA;&#xA;            nb_r = fen.count(&quot;r&quot;)&#xA;            nb_R = fen.count(&quot;R&quot;)&#xA;&#xA;            nb_q = fen.count(&quot;q&quot;)&#xA;            nb_Q = fen.count(&quot;Q&quot;)&#xA;&#xA;            nb_k = fen.count(&quot;k&quot;)&#xA;            nb_K = fen.count(&quot;K&quot;)&#xA;&#xA;            no_pieces = ((nb_n == 0) and (nb_N == 0) and (nb_b == 0) and (nb_B == 0) and (nb_r == 0) and (nb_R == 0) and (nb_q == 0) and (nb_Q == 0))&#xA;&#xA;            cond = ((nb_k == 1) and (nb_K == 1) and (nb_P == 1) and (nb_p == 0)) #KPvK&#xA;            cond_symmetrical = ((nb_k == 1) and (nb_K == 1) and (nb_P == 0) and (nb_p == 1)) #KvKP&#xA;&#xA;            #cond = (nb_B == 2 and nb_b &amp;lt; 2)&#xA;            #cond_symmetrical = (nb_b == 2 and nb_B &amp;lt; 2)&#xA;&#xA;            if ((cond or cond_symmetrical) and no_pieces):&#xA;                has_wanted_position = True&#xA;                wanted_fen = board.fen()&#xA;                break&#xA;            else:&#xA;                continue&#xA;        #We are out of the loop on game moves, with a FEN or with nothing (if the game hasn't the ending we want)&#xA;        if (has_wanted_position):&#xA;            for header_key, header_value in game.headers.items():&#xA;                output_pgn.write(&quot;[&quot; + header_key + &quot; \&quot;&quot; + header_value + &quot;\&quot;]&quot;)&#xA;                output_pgn.write(&quot;\n&quot;)&#xA;            output_pgn.write(&quot;[FEN \&quot;&quot; + wanted_fen + &quot;\&quot;]&quot;)&#xA;            output_pgn.write(&quot;\n&quot;)&#xA;            output_pgn.write(&quot;\n&quot;)&#xA;        games += 1&#xA;    output_pgn.close()&#xA;    return None&#xA;&#xA;nb_games_total = 1523849&#xA;KPvK_up_to_symmetry_export_to_FEN_func(r&quot;C:\CHESS\PYTHON\megadatabase2020.pgn&quot;, nb_games_total, &quot;megadatabase2020_KPvP.pgn&quot;)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I did this for the pgn file I got from chessbase by exporting to text PGN my whole megadatabase 2020. Executing this script will produce a pgn file containing positions, that I'll be able to use back in chessbase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20949" LastEditorUserId="20949" LastEditDate="2020-02-18T18:56:09.260" LastActivityDate="2020-02-18T18:56:09.260" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28518" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28477" CreationDate="2020-02-18T11:12:47.513" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;King belongs to &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;e&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; file and Queen belongs to &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;d&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; file. &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;1st&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;8th&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; rank for the White and Black pieces respectively. As simple as that. Exception is Fischer Random Chess aka Chess960. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;More precisely-&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the file names are not present or for some reason you are unaware of the notations, look for the opposite colored centered square for the King on the top and bottom. Look for the other centered square for the Queen. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;White King&lt;/strong&gt; - Black center&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;White Queen&lt;/strong&gt; - White center. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Black King&lt;/strong&gt; - White center&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Black Queen&lt;/strong&gt; - Black center.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7245" LastActivityDate="2020-02-18T11:12:47.513" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28520" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-02-18T21:09:41.363" Score="8" ViewCount="2752" Body="&lt;p&gt;I need help clarifying the abbreviations and acronyms used in endgame tablebases. Just what do DTM, DTZ, DTC, DTR, DTZ50, DTZR mean?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-02-18T23:26:46.003" LastActivityDate="2020-02-18T23:26:46.003" Title="What do DTM, DTZ, DTC, DTR, DTZ50, and DTZR mean?" Tags="&lt;terminology&gt;&lt;tablebases&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28521" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28520" CreationDate="2020-02-18T21:15:36.980" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;In various endgame tablebases, the terms mean as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Depth to Mate.   For each position that is represented, 'DTM' indicates the theoretical value, and the number of winner's moves to 'Mate' if won/lost - assuming that the winner is minimizing and the loser is maximizing DTM.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;DTC&#xA;Depth to Conversion 'Conversion' is the changing of the force on the board, by capture and/or Pawn-conversion. For each position that is represented, 'DTC' indicates the theoretical value, and the number of winner's moves to the goal of 'Won Conversion' if won/lost - assuming that the winner is minimizing and the loser is maximizing DTC.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;DTZ&#xA;Depth to Zeroing (of the ply count) The ply-count is zeroed if and only if a Pawn is pushed or a capture is made. For each position that is represented, 'DTZ' indicates the theoretical value, and the number of winner's moves to the goal of 'Win and ply-count zeroed' if won/lost - assuming that the winner is minimizing and the loser is maximizing DTZ.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;DTZ50&#xA;Depth to Zeroing (of the ply count) in the context of the 50-Move Rule The DTC, DTM and DTZ metrics do not consider the current FIDE 50-move rule whereby a game in which no irreversible moves have been played for 100 plies can be claimed as a draw by the player 'on move'. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;DTR&#xA;Depth by the (k-move) Rule 'The Rule' referred to here is a notional set of k-move rules. For each position that is represented, 'DTR' indicates the theoretical value and, for won/lost positions, the least k for which DTZk is not draw - assuming that the winner is minimising and the loser is maximising DTR. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;DTZR&#xA;Depth to Zeroing move, give that DTR is being minimaxed If DTR = draw, then DTZR = draw. Otherwise, Otherwise DTRZR indicates the theoretical value, and the number of winner's moves to the zeroing of the ply count, given that the two sides are minimaxing first DTR and then DTZR. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;DTZR would be used in conjunction with DTR to progress a deep win in the context of a k-move rule because DTR can remain unchanged over a sequence of moves. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-02-18T21:20:51.227" LastActivityDate="2020-02-18T21:20:51.227" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28522" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28524" CreationDate="2020-02-18T21:38:32.573" Score="2" ViewCount="134" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sometimes I see a move or serial of moves described as &quot;artificial&quot;  What does this mean?  Here is one example, comments by Kasparov on move 10. ..cxd4.  Taken from &quot;Garry Kasparov on Garry Kasparov, Part1&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Later Black sometimes also tried the rather artificial 10...Bg4 11.d5 Rd8 12.Qb2 Bxf3 13.gxf3 Ne5 { (Yusupov-Anand, 6th match game, Wijk aan Zee 1994; I.Sokolov-Topalov, Sarajevo 2001)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;Moscow-4teams&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Moscow URS&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;1981.02.??&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;1&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Garry Kasparov&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Oleg Romanishin&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;D85&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;????.??.??&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 d5 4.cxd5 Nxd5 5.e4 Nxc3 6.bxc3 Bg7 7.Nf3 c5   8.Be3 Qa5 9.Qd2 Nc6 10.Rc1 cxd4 ( 10...Bg4 11.d5 Rd8 12.Qb2 Bxf3 13.gxf3 Ne5 ) 11.cxd4 Qxd2+ 12.Kxd2 O-O 13.d5 Rd8 14.Ke1 Na5 15.Bg5 Bf6 16.Bd2 b6 17.Rc7 Bg4 18.Ba6 e6 19.Ng5 Be5 20.Rxf7 exd5 21.f4 Bg7 22.f5 dxe4 23.Bxa5 bxa5 24.Bc4 Bc3+ 25.Kf2 e3+ 26.Kg3 Be5+ 27.Kxg4 Rd4+ 28.Kh3 Rxc4 29.f6 Bxf6 30.Rxf6 Re8 31.Re1 e2 32.Kg3 Ra4 33.Kf2 Rxa2 34.Ne6 a4 35.Rb1 a3 36.Rb7 e1=Q+ 37.Kxe1 Rxg2 38.Rg7+ Kh8 39.Rgf7 h5 40.Kf1 Rxh2 41.Rxg6 Rxe6 42.Rxe6 Kg8 43.Rxa7 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17425" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T14:48:34.430" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T14:48:34.430" Title="What is an &quot;artificial&quot; move?" Tags="&lt;annotation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28523" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28522" CreationDate="2020-02-18T21:47:31.440" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;An artificial move would   parry the immediate threat (if it didn't it would just be a bad move) but looks strange to an experienced player. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Artificial castling ,aka castling by hand, results in the position that would have been achieved by castling if that move were legally possible.  EG  the king or rook may have moved  already but then end up in the same position as if castling had happened. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastActivityDate="2020-02-18T21:47:31.440" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28524" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28522" CreationDate="2020-02-18T21:50:36.097" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;An artificial move is one that does not fit in with what would be typical of the plan. It means &quot;unnatural&quot; given the position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the game above, Bg4 is unusual, and only played 5.5% of the time in that position. Typically, 10...cxd4 is played there in an overwhelming majority of games, and the Bc8 often ends up on the d7 square as more suitable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2020-02-18T21:50:36.097" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28525" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12591" CreationDate="2020-02-18T21:55:22.973" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It means that he has won 6 and lost two (or equivalent scores with draws included) going into the last round and the game being shown was the last round game. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastActivityDate="2020-02-18T21:55:22.973" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28526" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14395" CreationDate="2020-02-19T00:45:10.080" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Might not be what you're thinking of, but &lt;strong&gt;mind games&lt;/strong&gt;. I quote from the Wikipedia article on the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Chess_Championship_2010&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;World Chess Championship 2010&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Topalov demanded that the match be played in silence ... Anand replied that he would not comply, prompting Silvio Danailov, Topalov's manager, to say &quot;If Vishy doesn't agree to the rules he will be forced to, because Topalov will not offer him a draw and he will not speak to him.&quot; [and by implication will ignore any draw offer by Anand]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/chess/7624286/Chess-players-get-silent-treatment-in-1.7m-tournament.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;cited source&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Somehow they still managed to draw game 10 by mutual agreement, but the rest of the draws all came from 3-fold repetitions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastActivityDate="2020-02-19T00:45:10.080" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28528" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28529" CreationDate="2020-02-19T02:09:42.920" Score="11" ViewCount="2747" Body="&lt;p&gt;One of the most interesting openings, in my opinion, is the Kings Indian Defense (KID). 2-4 decades ago it used to be very popular at the top level with Bobby Fischer and Garry Kasparov using it regularly. Even a few years ago it used to be quite popular with Radjabov and Nakamura having it in their repertoires. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why has it started to go out of fashion at the elite level, and especially with the Neural Network engines on the rise? Leela has been able to use it quite effectively. Nakamura said in an &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tY3uu1b6Ytc&amp;amp;feature=emb_logo&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;interview&lt;/a&gt; that the Kings Indian is lost for black. What are the drawbacks of the openings that prevent it from being seen at the top level?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The Interview is from 2015 Sinquefield cup after Hikaru obliterated Wesley So with the Kings Indian&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21014" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-02-19T02:13:59.837" LastActivityDate="2020-02-21T15:38:32.833" Title="Why don't we see more Kings Indian Defenses in top level chess?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;master-games&gt;&lt;kings-indian&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28529" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28528" CreationDate="2020-02-19T02:19:13.717" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is simply not as solid as other openings, mostly because it cedes too much space, and especially with the advent of computers: White has simply found more ways to press black. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In a 2017 interview, Magnus Carlsen did not think too highly of it. &#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/news/view/carlsen-wins-2017-chess-com-isle-of-man-international&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&quot;If he had wanted a worse position, he would have played the King’s Indian,&quot; Carlsen said.&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nevertheless, it still gets played at the highest level from time to time, probably mostly as a surprise weapon. Here is a recent search of Mega 2020 (I previously searched incorrectly, and have edited this). This is from 2015-2020, sorted by rating first, and then date. You can see that despite the quote above, even Carlsen has played it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/gqT6r.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/gqT6r.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-02-19T10:39:09.190" LastActivityDate="2020-02-19T10:39:09.190" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28530" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28532" CreationDate="2020-02-19T03:23:59.010" Score="5" ViewCount="2870" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[startply &quot;5&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 e5 2. dxe5 Qh4 3. Nf3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I reached this position after following the line for the Englund Gambit. Lichess says that this is known as the Mosquito Gambit. Is it a joke opening, or does it have some hidden ideas, making it useful?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21526" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-10-07T23:31:37.183" LastActivityDate="2020-10-07T23:31:37.183" Title="The Mosquito Gambit" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;learning&gt;&lt;beginner&gt;&lt;gambits&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28531" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29128" CreationDate="2020-02-19T03:42:13.050" Score="3" ViewCount="243" Body="&lt;p&gt;Capturing an enemy piece while castling has been &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/8667/is-capturing-a-piece-while-castling-legal&quot;&gt;illegal&lt;/a&gt; for many decades, and the concept has been solidified in chess history.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But what effects would it have if it were allowed? First, some ground rules.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1). Captures may only take place on the squares where the king and rook land, for obvious reasons. As such, castling cannot be done of an enemy is on b2/b8.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2). The king and rook are capable of both capturing when castling, since it just makes sense that they should be able to.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3). Castling with capture if the king is in check is allowed, as it is merely a complicated capture, one of the 3 ways to get out of check. This is not castling out of check in my opinion.  The king may also castle if their square is occupied by a checking piece, as that is not castling into check, but a long-range capture for the king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, to bring everything together, castling in this position is perfectly legal given that the king and rook have not moved before. The king is moving onto a checking piece's square, the checking piece is being taken by the rook, and both the king and rook are capturing on their landing squares.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;8/8/8/8/8/8/8/R1qqK2k w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. O-O-O+ {White takes both queens with check, thereby winning the game!}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note-in this position, the Black queen reached their current squares via promotion and/or capture.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What effect, in endgames and middlegames in particular, would this have on chess, if capturing while castling was legal? What kinds of tactics would become obsolete, and what new ones could arise? To keep them question limited, only a few examples are needed for a sufficient answer. Good, solid examples in which the differences between present rules and these new ones determine, down to the bone, who wins would be appreciated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lastly, does anyone know of a joke problem that has been created using this concept?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-11-29T19:44:34.773" LastActivityDate="2020-11-29T19:44:34.773" Title="What effects would being able to capture while castling have?" Tags="&lt;theory&gt;&lt;castling&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28532" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28530" CreationDate="2020-02-19T04:04:59.940" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is safe to say that it is nothing more than a joke.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, as a reasonably strong player, I cannot see any redeeming reason to play that...no tricks, no nothing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Second, in Mega 2020, there are only three games out of more than 8 million total, which I will give below; and looking at them, it is clear that black did not take any of them seriously. Maybe the most amazing thing about them is that one game was actually played by the famous Grandmasters Tony Miles and Robert Huebner, but that was only a 5-move draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lastly, and I had never even cracked this book before, but I have the famous Stefan Bucker series in German on the Blackmar-Diemar Gambit, and the companion volume on the Englund. Bucker does not even mention 2...Qh4 in the Englund book.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [Event &quot;Interpolis-09&quot;]&#xA; [Site &quot;Tilburg&quot;]&#xA; [Date &quot;1985.09.13&quot;]&#xA; [Round &quot;12&quot;]&#xA; [White &quot;Miles, Anthony John&quot;]&#xA; [Black &quot;Huebner, Robert&quot;]&#xA; [Result &quot;1/2-1/2&quot;]&#xA; [ECO &quot;A40&quot;]&#xA; [WhiteElo &quot;2560&quot;]&#xA; [BlackElo &quot;2620&quot;]&#xA; [PlyCount &quot;9&quot;]&#xA; [EventDate &quot;1985.08.28&quot;]&#xA; [EventType &quot;tourn&quot;]&#xA; [EventRounds &quot;14&quot;]&#xA; [EventCountry &quot;NED&quot;]&#xA; [EventCategory &quot;15&quot;]&#xA; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. d4 e5 2. dxe5 Qh4 3. Nf3 Qa4 4. Nc3 Qa5 5. e4 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Game 2 might just have been very weak children.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [Event &quot;Brasileiro U18&quot;]&#xA; [Site &quot;Brazil&quot;]&#xA; [Date &quot;1999.??.??&quot;]&#xA; [Round &quot;?&quot;]&#xA; [White &quot;Becker, Gabriel&quot;]&#xA; [Black &quot;Zap, Felipe&quot;]&#xA; [Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA; [ECO &quot;A40&quot;]&#xA; [PlyCount &quot;30&quot;]&#xA; [EventDate &quot;1999.??.??&quot;]&#xA; [EventType &quot;tourn&quot;]&#xA; [EventRounds &quot;10&quot;]&#xA; [EventCountry &quot;BRA&quot;]&#xA; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. d4 e5 2. dxe5 Qh4 3. Nf3 Qe4 4. Nc3 Qg6 5. Qd3 Qc6 6. e4 Bc5 7. Be3 Bb6 8. Bxb6 cxb6 9. Be2 Nh6 10. O-O Na6 11. Qd5 Qxd5 12. exd5 Ng4 13. Nd4 h6 14. Bxa6 O-O 15. Bd3 Re8 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And the last game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [Event &quot;LIB-ch&quot;]&#xA; [Site &quot;Beirut&quot;]&#xA; [Date &quot;2007.07.26&quot;]&#xA; [Round &quot;2&quot;]&#xA; [White &quot;Aramali, Ohannes&quot;]&#xA; [Black &quot;Zahr, Hassan&quot;]&#xA; [Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA; [ECO &quot;A40&quot;]&#xA; [PlyCount &quot;39&quot;]&#xA; [EventDate &quot;2007.07.25&quot;]&#xA; [EventType &quot;swiss&quot;]&#xA; [EventRounds &quot;9&quot;]&#xA; [EventCountry &quot;LBN&quot;]&#xA; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 e5 2. dxe5 Qh4 3. Nf3 Qb4+ 4. c3 Qb5 5. e4 Qa5 6. Bc4 Na6 7. O-O c6 8. Ng5 Nh6 9. Qf3 Qxe5 10. Nxf7 Rg8 11. Nxe5 Rh8 12. Bxh6 gxh6 13. Qf7+ Kd8 14. Rd1 Nb8 15. Na3 Bxa3 16. bxa3 Re8 17. Qf6+ Kc7 18. Qd6+ Kb6 19. Rab1+ Ka5 20. Qb4# 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-02-19T04:21:03.577" LastActivityDate="2020-02-19T04:21:03.577" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28533" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28530" CreationDate="2020-02-19T05:50:15.410" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Normally you sacrifice material for the initiative or a positional compensation, but this opening clearly has nothing in it and all you are doing by bringing the queen out early is allowing white to gain a tempo on it. I would say it's like a Scandinavian a pawn down and the Scandinavian by itself is quite bad.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21014" LastActivityDate="2020-02-19T05:50:15.410" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28534" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9758" CreationDate="2020-02-19T14:41:13.847" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The most likely reason is you.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;You are not as good as your opponents.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;That would be the obvious reason.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Perhaps also that the KIA does not really fit your chess abilities as well as some other opening.  Do you win at higher rates against the same people with a different opening?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastActivityDate="2020-02-19T14:41:13.847" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28535" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9118" CreationDate="2020-02-19T14:57:34.280" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found two games since 2010 by players &gt; 2600.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One in 2018, and one in 2013.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One reply by black was d5 the other e5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black had the overwhelming win ratio for all of the ones with that opening. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastActivityDate="2020-02-19T14:57:34.280" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28537" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-02-19T16:42:08.430" Score="1" ViewCount="126" Body="&lt;p&gt;What studies have compared effectiveness for thinking by chess players using descriptive vs algebraic notation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T14:47:55.887" LastActivityDate="2020-09-07T00:11:43.607" Title="Are there studies showing that descriptive notation is easier to use for blindfold than algebraic notation?" Tags="&lt;psychology&gt;&lt;notation&gt;&lt;studies-published-report&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="15" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28538" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2020-02-19T17:02:55.473" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not to be confused with the activity of studying, as in &quot;studying chess&quot;, or &quot;studies&quot;, as in the realm of chess composition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-02-19T17:02:55.473" LastActivityDate="2020-02-19T17:02:55.473" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28539" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2020-02-19T17:02:55.473" Score="0" Body="This is for questions about studies, meaning a published report.&#xD;&#xA;&#xD;&#xA;For example: &quot;The university released a study showing that chess helps children learn in school.&quot;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-02-19T17:02:55.473" LastActivityDate="2020-02-19T17:02:55.473" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28540" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23295" CreationDate="2020-02-19T17:09:17.937" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The general rule back then was to disambiguate first rather than with the result of the move when two or more of the same pieces could have been moved to the square in question. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your example n/4-n5+ [or n/3-n5] would have been used to show that  the horsie on Q4 was the one that moved.  The person moving the pieces while playing over the game needs to know which one to move as they only later will then look at the entire board to see if there was check or other things that might have otherwise disambiguated the pieces. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastActivityDate="2020-02-19T17:09:17.937" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28541" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28543" CreationDate="2020-02-19T18:45:26.687" Score="33" ViewCount="27206" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have heard many people saying, “Hah! I beat Stockfish,” and one saying, “I am the best chess player ever! I beat Stockfish.” So I wonder if it is possible, just to know whether I should try to beat it. I tried to play it once; I barely played 25 moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15655" LastEditorUserId="417" LastEditDate="2020-02-20T19:07:31.773" LastActivityDate="2020-09-05T00:52:35.703" Title="Is Stockfish 11 (level 20) beatable?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;computer-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="9" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28542" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28541" CreationDate="2020-02-19T18:59:09.237" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;People who say they beat Stockfish did it at a low level, with a fast time control so Stockfish could not do its best, and perhaps also on slower computers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can Stockfish be beat at high level on fast computer with long time control?  Of course, but it would likely take another computer program to do it.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Remember that Stockfish was rated at 3388 as of July 2017 and would be even stronger now.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T17:10:47.467" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T17:10:47.467" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28543" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28541" CreationDate="2020-02-19T18:59:23.170" Score="61" Body="&lt;p&gt;The answer is that they either played it on some very handicapped mode, they took back A LOT of moves, or they are probably lying. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stockfish 11 is &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.computerchess.org.uk/ccrl/404/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;currently rated about 3607&lt;/a&gt;, and that is in standard chess. Computer programs are typically even HARDER to beat for humans at even faster controls.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a reason elite humans have not played matches against computers for a long time: even the Carlsens of the world cannot beat them any more. According to the ELO winning expectancy calculator, there is currently a 745 point difference between Stockfish 11 and Carlsen, and per the chart, that gives the computer a 99.5439696% chance of winning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note: The ratings used above are from different rating pools, and thus, are not truly directly comparable, but used as a rough estimate of what would happen between the computer and Carlsen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="28" LastEditDate="2020-02-20T16:59:31.607" LastActivityDate="2020-02-20T16:59:31.607" CommentCount="16" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28544" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28045" CreationDate="2020-02-19T19:38:38.350" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not exactly. Both Chess Position Trainer and Chess Openings Wizard (the successor of Bookup) can create a tree manually or importing a PGN, export the positions to EPD, and import the evaluations from EPD, but won't create positions from an EPD, so they can't create trees from EPD.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21567" LastActivityDate="2020-02-19T19:38:38.350" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28545" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1749" CreationDate="2020-02-19T21:34:21.377" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;When you analyze a position, you are in essence &quot;playing against yourself&quot;, deciding which is the best response to each move.  That can't help but be beneficial, if only to enhance your analysis skills.  And when you go over a game after it is finished, looking for your mistakes, that's basically what you're doing as well.  Strong players do this all the time.  As a result, I would consider these forms of &quot;playing against yourself&quot; to be beneficial. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T18:47:02.343" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T18:47:02.343" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28546" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28541" CreationDate="2020-02-19T21:41:46.963" Score="41" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's absolutely beatable, but not by an unassisted human. Anyone who claims to have done so is either lying or stacked the deck super heavily in their favor (e.g., by having Stockfish search only to depth 2). &quot;Slow computer&quot; isn't good enough - Stockfish 11 running on 1999 hardware would still have handily beaten Kasparov. You will need help from another engine to win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's a recent game Stockfish lost to Leela Chess Zero.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Trillion-Node Throwdown II Tiebreaker (30|5)&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2020.02.18&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;1&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Lc0&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Stockfish&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;A41&quot;]&#xA;[GameDuration &quot;01:13:46&quot;]&#xA;[GameEndTime &quot;2020-02-18T11:44:09.048 PST&quot;]&#xA;[GameStartTime &quot;2020-02-18T10:30:22.171 PST&quot;]&#xA;[Opening &quot;Queen's Pawn&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;199&quot;]&#xA;[TimeControl &quot;1800+5&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 d6 2. Nc3 Nf6 3. e4 e5 4. Nf3 Nbd7 5. Bc4 Be7 6. O-O O-O 7. a4 c6 8. Re1 Re8 9. Ng5 Rf8 10. Nf3 h6 11. h3 Re8 12. a5 Qc7 13. Be3 exd4 14. Nxd4 Bf8 15. Bf4 Rb8 16. Bg3 b5 17. axb6 axb6 18. b4 b5 19. Bb3 Bb7 20. Re3 Ne5 21. Bh4 Nfd7 22. f4 Nc4 23. Rg3 g6 24. f5 Kh7 25. e5 Ndxe5 26. Ne4 Be7 27. Nf6+ Bxf6 28. Bxf6 Qd7 29. Ne6 Rxe6 30. fxe6 Qxe6 31. Qf1 Re8 32. Bxe5 dxe5 33. Rc3 e4 34. Bxc4 bxc4 35. Qxc4 Qd7 36. Qc5 h5 37. Re3 Qd2 38. Qc3 Qd8 39. Ree1 Qc7 40. Qd4 f5 41. Rad1 Kh6 42. Qd7 Re7 43. Qxc7 Rxc7 44. h4 Ba6 45. Rd8 Bb5 46. Kf2 Rf7 47. Rd4 Ba4 48. Rc4 Bb5 49. Rc5 Ba6 50. g3 Bb7 51. Ke3 Rd7 52. Ra1 Kg7 53. Ra7 Kf7 54. Rc4 Bc8 55. Rxd7+ Bxd7 56. Rd4 Ke7 57. Rd1 Be6 58. Ra1 Kd7 59. Ra5 Kd6 60. c3 Bb3 61. Ra8 Be6 62. Ra7 Kd5 63. Rg7 f4+ 64. gxf4 Bf5 65. Rc7 Kd6 66. Ra7 Kd5 67. Ra6 Bd7 68. b5 cxb5 69. Rxg6 Bc8 70. Rg5+ Ke6 71. Rxh5 Kf6 72. Rxb5 Bh3 73. f5 Bg4 74. Kxe4 Bh5 75. Ke3 Be8 76. Rb4 Kxf5 77. h5 Kg5 78. h6 Kxh6 79. c4 Kg5 80. c5 Kf5 81. Rd4 Bb5 82. Rd5+ Ke6 83. Kd4 Bf1 84. c6 Ba6 85. c7 Bc8 86. Rd8 Bd7 87. c8=Q Bxc8 88. Rxc8 Kd7 89. Ra8 Ke6 90. Ra5 Kd6 91. Re5 Kc6 92. Rd5 Kb6 93. Rc5 Kb7 94. Kc4 Ka6 95. Rc6+ Ka7 96. Kb5 Kb7 97. Rc5 Ka7 98. Kc6 Ka6 99. Kc7 Ka7 100. Ra5# 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If these people insist they can still beat Stockfish 11 unaided, challenge them to prove it live. You can probably offer them odds of pawn and move and they'll still lose (they won't even draw). If they actually manage to win, it'll be big news. Here's &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.chessbase.com/post/amateur-beats-rybka-blindfold-while-hell-freezes-over&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;an example&lt;/a&gt; of a claimed win from 2011, at a time when computers were already unbeatable by humans. As ChessBase put it, &quot;Believe it or not? Not, of course. Definitely not.&quot; Pointedly, the guy making the claim was later &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andriy_Slyusarchuk#Forgery_and_fraud&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;convicted of fraud&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T17:11:02.423" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T17:11:02.423" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28547" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-02-20T00:17:59.470" Score="4" ViewCount="114" Body="&lt;p&gt;Descriptive notation seems to be limited to certain languages like English, and I found a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Descriptive_notation&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia article&lt;/a&gt; that mentions Spanish and French.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have never seen a Russian book that uses Descriptive, and in fact, I can go back to the 1800's in Russian books, and they all use Algebraic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In particular, I would like to see a list of languages that used Descriptive before finally adopting Algebraic, but I would also be interested in a list that have always used Algebraic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2020-02-20T00:38:59.193" Title="Did any other language than English ever use Descriptive notation? Which languages have always used Algebraic?" Tags="&lt;history&gt;&lt;books&gt;&lt;notation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28548" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28547" CreationDate="2020-02-20T00:33:19.420" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Originally there was ONLY descriptive and it was used in ALMOST ALL languages, if not actually in ALL of them.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Each language used the letter from their words for the pieces to use to describe moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EG  Spanish would say AxT  for Bishop takes Rook&#xA;French and other languages used their words to identify the letter for the pieces. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I never saw Russian magazines using algebraic before it became the standard but they may have been part of the movement to transition away from descriptive. Can't speak to Russian books as I never had any of those.  And  I am positive that if you go back far enough that descriptive was the only method used. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And I never saw algebraic used anywhere until long after the 50s.  Not sure when it became popular but it did take a while to displace descriptive and really needed FIDE to make it happen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Michael West noted elsewhere a German book for Carlsbad 1923 and said he had no problem playing through the games. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastEditorUserId="20721" LastEditDate="2020-02-20T00:38:59.193" LastActivityDate="2020-02-20T00:38:59.193" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28549" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1824" CreationDate="2020-02-20T01:05:19.230" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Descriptive notation was just the easy shorthand for writing out the moves in detail or even starting to abbrev them until the minimal amount of description remained. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastActivityDate="2020-02-20T01:05:19.230" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28550" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28541" CreationDate="2020-02-20T02:49:41.260" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would say it is practically unbeatable by a human player when running according to the TCEC hardware, but theoretically, it could be since chess has so many possibilities that we only completely understand it when only 7 pieces are on the board(Endgame Tablebases). Another fact is that these tablebases were created by supercomputers. I am certainly sure that it could be beaten by non-human players especially Neural Networks. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21014" LastActivityDate="2020-02-20T02:49:41.260" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28552" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28555" CreationDate="2020-02-20T05:53:12.463" Score="5" ViewCount="332" Body="&lt;p&gt;I read that during Kasparov's long chess career he always avoided the Marshall attack with Anti-Marshalls (h3 and a4). This seems very counter-intuitive to me since the positions that arise from the opening are very double-edged which seem to favor him. I at first thought that it was because he found it hard to get an advantage out of it, but then again he didn't mind facing the Berlin defense to which he basically got no advantage out of. Could someone please help me understand why he never faced the Marshall attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Kasparov avoided the Marshall in classical time format&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21014" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T14:45:36.963" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T14:45:36.963" Title="Why did Kasparov avoid the Marshall Attack?(With White)" Tags="&lt;ruy-lopez&gt;&lt;attack&gt;&lt;kasparov&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28553" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28554" CreationDate="2020-02-20T07:37:25.977" Score="1" ViewCount="751" Body="&lt;p&gt;Recently when I was on Lichess, somebody pointed out in chat that Stockfish calculated advantage based on what it considered as the best move for both sides. However, when we play the best moves (moves suggested by Stockfish), the advantage changes, which means that the advantage cannot be solely calculated assuming best moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, the advantage cannot be calculated based on some kind of weighted mean of the possible moves either since Stockfish clearly spots winning strategies such as 'Mate in n' for sufficiently small n.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To make the previous paragraph clear, assume that white has mate in 1, and assume that white has 2 legal moves. Also assume that if white doesn't play the move of checkmate, then black has a forced move that is also mate. In this scenario, if we were taking average, advantage would be zero since random moves would give 50% win chance for white and 50% for black. However, Stockfish would show #1.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So how does Stockfish calculate advantage?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT : This question is not asking how the engine finds the best moves. I am familiar with the decision tree method that engines implement to do so. The question is about the 'advantage' value that the engine evaluates. @SubhanKhan 's comment clarifies why the advantage value changes after performing the best move. Does the engine evaluate advantage solely based on the best moves then?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21569" LastEditorUserId="21569" LastEditDate="2020-02-20T08:59:08.403" LastActivityDate="2020-02-20T09:33:41.517" Title="How does Stockfish calculate advantage?" Tags="&lt;stockfish&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2020-02-20T10:08:55.633" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28554" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28553" CreationDate="2020-02-20T09:33:41.517" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Good Question! The reason that the evaluation changes when you put in the engine's best moves is because as you do this the computer gets to look deeper into the future. This is the same as if you were thinking for 10 minutes on a position and saw that it was a draw, but when you look for 30 minutes you get to a deeper conclusion realizing that it's actually a draw. Another evidence I have for this is when you let the computer think on a position for a long period of time(say 1 hour) It usually reaches a different evaluation than the initial evaluation. I hope it helps!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21014" LastActivityDate="2020-02-20T09:33:41.517" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28555" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28552" CreationDate="2020-02-20T10:22:46.340" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;It comes down to one main thing, but there are other factors that probably played a part too. The main thing is that despite the nature of the Marshall attack, it is considered drawish at the highest levels. At lower levels, of course, it is a double-edged game where anything can happen. And while they are double-edged, white is on the defensive, not where Kasparov liked to be.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is, clearly, a lot of theory to learn, but it is doubtful that Kasparov was put off by that since he had the reputation as the most prepared player in history at that time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With the advent of computers, the Marshal has been analyzed to the N-th degree (meaning a lot), and most of the time, black has enough initiative to hold the draw, or better if white is not prepared. Kasparov, being Kasparov, probably felt like &quot;why should I allow that possibility when I can probably play a line that you do not get the initiative, and we keep more pieces on the board, and I can simply outplay you in the long run? I am Kasparov, after all.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lastly, and I touched on this already, but it is simply not Kasparov's style: He is the player, who loves to play with the initiative, so why play into a line that neutralizes his greatest strength? He did not, and I confirmed that by searching Mega 2020, and you are correct: There is not one game in there where he allowed it, and that includes faster time controls. That is not a practical way to play good chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-02-20T12:05:38.843" LastActivityDate="2020-02-20T12:05:38.843" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28558" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28452" CreationDate="2020-02-20T10:36:47.473" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;But it is hard to believe there is no chess book just about&#xA;  preparatory moves, especially with the pawns. This is the very soul of&#xA;  chess in my opinion&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason is that it is a small subject. That is not to say that there are not several excellent chapters in different books dealing with this subject.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Far away the best such is the very first chapter of Axel Smith's excellent &quot;&lt;em&gt;Pump up your Rating&lt;/em&gt;&quot; titled &quot;&lt;em&gt;No Pawn Lever - No Plan&lt;/em&gt;&quot;. The book is aimed at strong intermediate level players (roughly 2000 rating) for whom developing effective plans is the next step up. Smith starts his book with pawn levers because it is often one of the main areas which weaker players often actively avoid. They try and resolve tension rather than try and create tension to their advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-02-20T10:36:47.473" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28559" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-02-20T12:36:12.653" Score="4" ViewCount="215" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are there examples of chess games where the exact losing move has been found only with the help of engines?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Better still, games where the exact losing move cannot be found even by the best current engines?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20224" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-02-20T14:56:48.203" LastActivityDate="2020-02-21T00:46:52.387" Title="The difficulty of finding the exact losing move" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;calculation&gt;&lt;famous-games&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28560" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28559" CreationDate="2020-02-20T15:05:43.533" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, but...&#xA;Nobody will agree on all of  them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If two PERFECT computers played you could not tell the losing move or else it would be the first move. But I suspect a perfect game would be a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason why moving loses is a myth is that the game is played by imperfect humans.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;THE losing move is the next to last mistake.  But what if a mistake confuses the opponent who resigns.  What if the so called losing move wins this time but loses against another player in another game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Except for the grossest of blunders it will be next to impossible to declare ONE move as THE losing move. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastActivityDate="2020-02-20T15:05:43.533" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28561" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28566" CreationDate="2020-02-20T19:06:38.817" Score="0" ViewCount="286" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to make a Twitch stream channel with my friend, and I want to know what the experience is like. Can explain it better to me or share their knowledge and experience?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15655" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-02-20T19:16:11.693" LastActivityDate="2020-02-20T23:04:34.540" Title="What is it like to be a Twitch chess streamer?" Tags="&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;chess-videos&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2020-02-20T22:27:43.947" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28562" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28561" CreationDate="2020-02-20T19:22:31.390" Score="-3" Body="&lt;p&gt;For too many it feels like spewing streams into the void with nobody watching.&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17541600&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17541600&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just how many people are out there watching at all?&#xA;How many streamers are there?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So how does it feel to stream stuff into the great bit bucket of the cosmos?  That strictly depends on you and your psychological problems.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Personally I would feel stupid wasting my time doing it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Twitch.tv is a video-game broadcasting and viewing platform where viewers can &quot;donate&quot; to their favorite players. ... Video game players broadcast themselves playing the game, usually with an audio commentary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would feel more stupid wasting my money on it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do I have to pay for twitch?&#xA;Select Subscribe | $4.99 to choose the default monthly subscription fee of $4.99 USD. Or, pick All Paid Tiers to choose the $9.99 or $24.99 payment option and see a list of perks for each subscription tier.Jul 1, 2019&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastEditorUserId="20721" LastEditDate="2020-02-20T19:28:16.770" LastActivityDate="2020-02-20T19:28:16.770" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28563" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28567" CreationDate="2020-02-20T20:07:51.133" Score="14" ViewCount="5920" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am about to play a master. This is an important game, and I want to win it. What should I do and how to prepare? Is there something special I can do, such as special openings, sharp lines, etc.?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15655" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-01-11T18:09:10.537" LastActivityDate="2021-01-11T18:09:10.537" Title="How to play against higher rated (much stronger) players" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;preparation&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28564" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28563" CreationDate="2020-02-20T20:30:25.100" Score="17" Body="&lt;p&gt;Objectively speaking there is nothing special you can do. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just do the regular preparation: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;refresh your opening repertoires or specifically the opening you expect to have on the board&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;analyze your opponent's playing style and if possible play so as to avoid their strengths (e.g. play open tactical position if you see that your opponent prefers closed positions)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;do regular tactics training etc.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;eat healthy food, go to bed early, do some sports&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;play as good as you can...&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the opponent is much much stronger, don't expect too much. You are not going to do wonders by just a preparation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you like to gamble, you could prepare a non-standard side-line opening which might surprise your opponent and if you are lucky, you might get an advantage. Still that's risky as typically those openings are somewhat unsound if your opponent knows what they are doing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T17:09:32.810" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T17:09:32.810" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28565" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28563" CreationDate="2020-02-20T20:39:19.353" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It depends how good you are.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Are you a near master?  Are you much weaker?&#xA;If the player is much stronger you need to play for the draw and make him take chances which cause him to lose.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you know the master and he always uses certain openings then for sure brush up on those and what defenses/attacks you might use.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you know what his style is then you can try for openings that deny him his natural advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If  you know his personality you might be able to find a way to throw him off his game with things off the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Get a good nights sleep.  Do not worry about the game.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Relax and play your best to maximise your chances. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is no guarantee that you will beat anybody. &#xA;Just play your best and play solid not taking stupid chances.  Go into the game being willing to take a draw.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;But &lt;em&gt;IF&lt;/em&gt; the opportunity arises then be willing to go for the win.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Fischer played to win every game from the first move.  For more ordinary players that style is way too risky. Especially if you are playing someone much better than you. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastActivityDate="2020-02-20T20:39:19.353" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28566" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28561" CreationDate="2020-02-20T21:51:00.893" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, it would be interesting to know what your goals with the channel will be. If it is to have enough revenue that it can become your job, you will need to offer something that others are not already offering, or do what they are doing a lot better. You need some kind of &quot;angle&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For most chess channels, the angle is that they are Grandmasters, and since I looked you up on FIDE.com for another question previously, I know that you are far from that (I am not trying to be mean there). The other channels that are very popular by weak players also have something in common: Cute girls with good personalities. Alexandra Botez and Gold Dust Tori come to mind. Frankly, Tori is so weak, I could not imagine watching her although I have seen her for a few minutes here or there when a chess.com broadcast I was watching ended, and my channel was &quot;raided&quot; (users that are automatically transferred to another channel). Be prepared to change your approach after some time if you not getting any followers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am not saying that you cannot do it, but you will need to find something that makes you very unique. One idea for someone else might be: If you had been about half your age, like 6, it could have been to follow the little boy from novice through to Grandmaster, and grow with him. You are considering trying to stream with a partner. Partners seem to do well here (and on radio and television). A partner allow for more conversation, and for you to bounce things off each other.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once you have your idea, then there is patience, and promotion. Assuming that you want to make money (if just for fun to have a channel, then all bets are off...just have fun), you would need to understand that it would be a job. You will need to spend many hours streaming for little, or no, money in the beginning until you have a following. Unlike YouTube, Twitch is more about live playing against various opponents, and you discussing what it going on for the audience.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Did I mention that it is a job? (Yes, I know I did.) You would need to take it seriously, and be consistent about your streaming, and that means probably every day, 7 days a week in the beginning. Famous streamers, like Hikaru Nakamura, can take stream as they like since people will show up when they show up (Naka puts his schedule on Twitter, for example).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Promotion. You will need to learn how to promote your channel via social media so people can find you among the multitude of channels. You will need to read books and websites from experts on how to do that. I do not know much about this, but you would need to find out how the system for &quot;raids&quot; works. That might be about building personal relationships, aka partnerships, so established channels are willing to let you take their audience when they are done.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is a numbers game: You will need follower first, and then maybe they can turn into subscribers. Not all subscriptions cost money since Amazon owns Twitch, and they allow Prime members one free subscription per month. I usually back chess.com or Naka, personally with my Prime membership.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wish you good luck if you try to do this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.axs.com/tips-for-becoming-a-twitch-video-game-streamer-134521&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&quot;Tips for becoming a Twitch video game streamer&quot;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-02-20T23:04:34.540" LastActivityDate="2020-02-20T23:04:34.540" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28567" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28563" CreationDate="2020-02-20T22:05:21.327" Score="19" Body="&lt;p&gt;Unless you have gotten much stronger than your 1542 FIDE rating, you have to realize that your odds of winning are not very good. It is fine to be realistic, but just do not let that overwhelm your emotions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You want to keep calm, and do not be afraid. I would not be afraid at all if I were playing Magnus Carlsen. Oh sure, I know what the result is likely to be as I am not crazy, but there is no point in having any fear, and I would just try to play the best chess I can.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It helps if you are white, but if possible, I would aim for a position where I can reasonably gambit a pawn, or two, for a wild tactical position. If you play a quiet position where your master opponent's stronger positional skill is not challenged, you are destined to lose. On the other hand, even low-level masters can make tactical errors, and over look something.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you have a lot of time to prepare for him, like in a one-game-per-week tournament, go over every game of his you can get your hands on with a computer. It is not likely, but you might find some opening move that he has played that is a hidden blunder, and if so, you could aim for that position again.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although rare, lightening does strike. Here is a game that I still recal reading during my first year of playing. This is from the 1980 U.S. Open, and a 1621 player, &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1609849&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;W Stanley Davis, beat GM John Fedorowicz&lt;/a&gt;, who was rated 2479 at the time, so good luck. Please note that it was an aggressive, tactical game. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is from the December 1980 issue of Chess Life, and I took it from the free &lt;a href=&quot;https://new.uschess.org/chess-life-digital-archives/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;archives the USCF now puts out online&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Js8SR.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Js8SR.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-02-20T22:54:59.773" LastActivityDate="2020-02-20T22:54:59.773" CommentCount="16" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28568" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28552" CreationDate="2020-02-20T23:06:31.353" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Kasparov is an attacking player.  He is not going to go into lines which allow his opponent to attack.  Nowhere in Kasparov's repertoire will you find him choosing to defend for material.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He has a much greater advantage just avoiding forcing book lines where his opponent will obviously be well prepared.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lastly, he is not choosing the Spanish Torture, as the Ruy Lopez is known, to not torture his opponent; let him go free for a measly pawn?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2020-02-20T23:06:31.353" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28569" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-02-20T23:16:22.923" Score="11" ViewCount="2011" Body="&lt;p&gt;London System is an opening for white, that goes d4, Bf4, e3, Nf3, Nd2, c3. The move order generally doesn't matter too much and there are lots of ways to transpose into this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, what I want to know now, &lt;strong&gt;is the horizontally mirrored way also a valid system?&lt;/strong&gt; White will play e4, Bc4, d3, Nc3, Ne2, f3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Note this is not the same as the Italian Game because there, the g Knight goes to f3 instead of e2.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So is this a real system, and if so, what is its name? I'd like to read more about it and its theory. Is it sound? Are there way more traps white has to watch out for?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8509" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-02-20T23:19:01.453" LastActivityDate="2020-02-21T09:53:25.653" Title="Is there a horizontally mirrored London System, and what is it called?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;london-system&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28570" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28528" CreationDate="2020-02-20T23:30:29.953" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Nakamura is known to run at the mouth.  KID is certainly not losing.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess in general at the top level is more solid; Berlin's instead of Sicilians.  It is just a trend.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Notice how Carlsen wasn't dominating with double-king-pawn as Black, but when he prepared the Sveshnikov his score soared.  People thought they could go after his Sicilian... It's the same with the King's Indian.  Radjabov is the top KID proponent and he does very well, but at the top they don't want to play 35 moves of book.  They are more about minute edges in the endgame and that is not in the spirit of the KID. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Having said that, there is ton's of theory which make it not fun for Black.  The Bayonet attack doesn't let Black try to mate White while White wins on the Queen-side in a bunch of other mainlines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;UPDATE:&lt;/strong&gt;  Firouzja is playing the KID right now in the Prague Chess Festival; would a 2700 player play it if he thought it was losing?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastEditorUserId="14202" LastEditDate="2020-02-21T15:38:32.833" LastActivityDate="2020-02-21T15:38:32.833" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28571" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28569" CreationDate="2020-02-20T23:36:32.863" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;The answer is no since f3 would never be played there by any strong player as it is weakening, but has no compensating advantages.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That is very close to some virtually-impossible-to-get-to lines in the Bishop's Opening/Vienna game since unlike the queen-pawn London, black has many more ways to throw a wrench into the attempt to play moves without thinking. In an idea world where black cooperates, in the Bishops's, white can try to play for that setup, but would  play f4, which has the advantage of attacking the black center, and opening the f-file.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can see from this contrived variation that black has many better options, and is not likely to just submit to white's desire to play a London on the kingside. In no case would f3 be good.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. e4 e5 2. Bc4 Nf6 3. d3 Nc6 4. Nc3 Be7 (4... Na5 $1 {Blows up the whole idea. }) (4... Bc5 $1 5. Nge2 d6 6. O-O a6 7. Kh1 $2 Ng4 {So it is impossible to get in f4 here.}) 5. Nge2 d6 6. O-O (6. a3 $1) 6... O-O 7. f4 (7. a3 $1) &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [fen &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/2B1P3/2NP1P2/PPP1N1PP/R1BQK2R w KQ - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2020-02-21T09:53:25.653" LastActivityDate="2020-02-21T09:53:25.653" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28572" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28569" CreationDate="2020-02-20T23:40:12.497" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Unaware of any special name given to that full sequence of moves, especially as a 'system' as opposed to an opening variation name.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;f3 is a major mistake and would not be played except by beginners. there is a difference between qp and kp setups so that they cannot be mirrored well like  you asked. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some of the previous move sequences do have a name.  It would roughly fit in the bishops opening or some others depending on what black did. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I found some  games of 2500+ players using those moves up to f3 which is terrible bad and white won 3 of the ones I tracked in detail  based on most likely moves according to one tablebase. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which I suspect is that winning is more because of the unusualness than the soundness.  The position at that point is dead even and any winning came much later from other moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The opening is unusual but playable although apparently not at the GM level for black which further reinforces my belief that the value comes from what happens later and depends how both sides play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastActivityDate="2020-02-20T23:40:12.497" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28573" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18160" CreationDate="2020-02-20T23:58:34.020" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It really depends on what happens after those first few opening moves.&#xA;London is solid but passive.  I have no trouble against it.  But you have to respond to the later moves in a way to gain an advantage. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is no slash and burn sacrifice and attack counter to the london. It is a quite positional game. So take advantage of the white bishop position and whatever other moves white uses. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would typically play on the Qside instead of a K attack but it all depends what ELSE white does. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastActivityDate="2020-02-20T23:58:34.020" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28574" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28528" CreationDate="2020-02-21T00:22:54.397" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;While the KID is a good opening if you want an exciting game and good winning chances as black, these benefits come at a cost. The KID is not a solid opening when compared to many other ways for black to meet queenside pawn openings from white, and there is a wide variety of tricky lines that white can choose from to try for a serious advantage out of the opening. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some of these setups by white are very sharp, forcing black to know a huge amount of concrete lines by heart not to immediately fall into a lost position (I'm thinking mainly of the various ways to play the Mar del Plata variation for white, including - but not limited to - Kramnik's dreaded bayonet attack)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other setups are more strategic in nature, trying to utilize the space advantage that black hands over in the beginning of the game. In this list, we include the Sämisch, the Petrosian, and the Makogonov systems (not to mention the various fianchetto systems that white can try, which is another can of worms that black has to deal with). All of these systems pose serious strategic problems for the black side, and black needs not only a solid understanding of the arising position, but must also know a ton of spectacular &quot;only moves&quot; to defend properly (see the game between Svidler and Griscuk from the candidates 2013; if Grischuk hadn't played the seemingly outrageous 12...Nxc4! he would have found himself in deep, deep trouble).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want a good indication of how much effort and time a top level player would need to put in to play the KID consistently with confidence, you may want to look at the book series &quot;Kotronias on the King's Indian&quot;. In this series, Kotronias needs more than 2000 pages of concrete analysis to demonstrate that there is no clear refutation to the KID.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With all this being said, the KID is certainly not a bad opening (a claim supported by the analysis done by Kotronias). But the problem with playing it at the highest level is that black is risking a lot when playing it, and would be risking even more by including it in their main repertoire (leaving themselves open to some seriously nasty preps by their world-class opponents; this is something that MVL does by only playing his absolute pet Najdorf and Grünfeld against basically anything, and sometimes he suffers for it). Therefore, most players at the top level who are comfortable playing the KID only use it as a surprise weapon (or if they're playing shorter time controls), or if they're in a must-win situation where the difference between a draw and a loss is irrelevant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8300" LastActivityDate="2020-02-21T00:22:54.397" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28575" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28559" CreationDate="2020-02-21T00:46:52.387" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sure, examples exist. E.g. &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Chess_Championship_2018#Game_6:_Carlsen%E2%80%93Caruana,_%C2%BD%E2%80%93%C2%BD&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Game 6 of Carlsen-Caruana&lt;/a&gt;, World Chess Championship 2018:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;5k2/8/5pK1/3B1P1P/3n4/8/3b4/8 w - - 6 67&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;67&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Kg6? loses, but no human would have found the refutation.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for games where the exact losing move cannot be found even by the best current engines - I spoke to a correspondence chess expert recently, and I'm confident they don't exist. Given a decisive game, an expert correspondence chess player will always be able to find the losing move, but it will not be trivial, and a lot of analysis is required.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastActivityDate="2020-02-21T00:46:52.387" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28576" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28563" CreationDate="2020-02-21T01:11:35.527" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;These two general strategies might be effective:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Get into a tactical melee. In a slow positional game where the 2nd-best move is only a little worse than the best move, you're practically bound to lose. But if you get into a sharp position where a blunder is fatal, and opponent blunders first, you can still win.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Scorched earth policy hoping to get into a very drawish position while exchanging everything. If opponent is much better than you, they might feel pressured to win, and if the position simply doesn't allow for it then they might overpress and lose.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That said, since they are much stronger than you, you should expect to lose. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastActivityDate="2020-02-21T01:11:35.527" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28577" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-02-21T03:18:31.543" Score="4" ViewCount="246" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm currently trying to determine if a player on average plays more aggressive or defensive games. To do this I wanted to look at a game from that player, then average the amount of aggressive moves vs defensive moves. But the real issue is identifying if a move is aggressive or defensive. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am looking for a method to determine if it's aggressive or defensive using a Machine learning/AI type algorithm, rather then having a bunch of if-else statements. I've seen this other &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/16262/how-to-determine-objectively-if-a-move-is-passive-or-aggressive&quot;&gt;question&lt;/a&gt; regarding this topic. In an answer to that question, user @HelloWorld recommended to use something called the &quot;Monte-carlo tree search&quot;. I've done some basic research of the search, and I don't understand what they mean by &quot;margin error&quot;. Can someone explain what that means and how it ties to this topic?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also if you have any other algorithms to determine if a move is passive or aggressive, I'd love to hear it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21575" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T14:44:58.227" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T14:44:58.227" Title="Programmatic method to determine if a move is passive or aggressive" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;style&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28578" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28563" CreationDate="2020-02-21T05:55:22.490" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;In his book &quot;Chess for Tigers&quot;, Simon Webb says that the best thing to do is to drag the elephant into the swamp. In other words, aim for complications, where the stronger player has a chance to make a mistake.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In a similar vein, a local player wrote an article about his rise in rating, and his advice was to make the stronger player beat you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both of these methods have worked for me to upset stronger players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9025" LastActivityDate="2020-02-21T05:55:22.490" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28579" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28577" CreationDate="2020-02-21T07:26:34.727" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The idea of an aggressive move and passive move is quite intuitive to my knowledge, but here is the general outline for whether a move is aggressive or not(These are very general and in some cases don't work):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Aggressive: 2 square pawn move, pawn move which threatens a piece, moves which threaten common tactics(pin, fork, skewer, etc...), checkmate threats, aim to open up position, avoiding queen trade, and more..., flank pawn moves, sacrifices, and etc...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Passive: 1 square pawn moves, Retreating moves, aim to close position, aiming at queen trades, and etc...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Assign a value to each of these categories positive being aggressive and negative being passive. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: A knight retreats and attacks the opponent's queen. A retreating move could be -10 and attacking the queen could be +15. This would give that move a value of +5. The rest is just as you said averaging for the entire game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21014" LastActivityDate="2020-02-21T07:26:34.727" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28580" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28577" CreationDate="2020-02-21T08:31:47.577" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Other algorithms for solving chess problems are min-max algorithm. What it does it tries to maximize your position and to minimize opponent's moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More detailed info:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/minimax-algorithm-in-game-theory-set-1-introduction/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/minimax-algorithm-in-game-theory-set-1-introduction/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19970" LastActivityDate="2020-02-21T08:31:47.577" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28581" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-02-21T10:18:32.300" Score="3" ViewCount="339" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rules_of_chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;, one of the conditions of castling is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The king and the rook must be on the same rank (Schiller 2003:19).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is because of a loophole that would occur otherwise:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Without this additional restriction, it would be possible to promote a. pawn on the e-file to a rook and then castle vertically across the board (as long as the other conditions are met). This way of castling was &quot;discovered&quot; by Max Pam and used by Tim Krabbé in a chess puzzle before the FIDE rules were amended in 1972 to disallow it. See Chess Curiosities by Krabbé.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I understand this rule like this: Only the two original rooks (not promoted rooks) can partake in castling. Is there any loophole in this understanding of mine?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21577" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-19T15:40:52.847" LastActivityDate="2020-04-19T15:40:52.847" Title="Castling Rules-Does “The king &amp; rook must be on the same rank.”=&quot;Only original rooks can do castling.&quot;?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;castling&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28582" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28581" CreationDate="2020-02-21T13:56:05.017" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;No.  You got it right.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The King can only castle if the K and R is on its original square and each has never moved,  the king is not in check, and the king does not move through a check, and it is your move so you can move. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I remember that puzzle. Guy at worked showed me a mate in one.&#xA;Which was impossible.  I finally guessed he was a true patzer and thought you really could castle with a promoted rook on the king file.&#xA;So I did that and got the puzzle right.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It was hard to conceive of castling that way but the rules got fixed to make sure it would never happen.  As if it could happen in a real game and not a puzzle-problem. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastActivityDate="2020-02-21T13:56:05.017" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28583" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16199" CreationDate="2020-02-21T14:59:50.043" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Seirawan explains why he could not be world champion in his book &quot;Chess Duels My Games With The World Champions&quot;  In the section titles &quot;World Champion Seirawan?&quot; My summary is that he did not play at world champion strength consistantly enough and that he has interests other than chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I highly recommend this book to any Seirawan fan.  I also grew up in the pacific northwest in the 80's.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17425" LastActivityDate="2020-02-21T14:59:50.043" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28584" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28563" CreationDate="2020-02-21T15:38:26.197" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Exactly how you'd play any other game. Adjusting from the strongest elements of your game (that is: the ones that you play normally) will only make you play worse than your rating, reducing your chances of winning. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21459" LastActivityDate="2020-02-21T15:38:26.197" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28585" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28577" CreationDate="2020-02-21T16:39:09.273" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;By &quot;margin error&quot;, i.e. &quot;margin of error&quot;, HelloWorld probably means the standard deviation of the distribution of results, possibly implying that an aggressive move will converge on a result faster than a passive move. One way to classify using that idea would be to calculate the length of a game following each candidate move, sort in ascending order, and label the ones in the top half &quot;aggressive&quot; and the rest &quot;passive&quot;. This way you can label all moves in a given game and decide whether a player is passive or aggro.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15509" LastEditorUserId="15509" LastEditDate="2020-02-21T17:31:55.333" LastActivityDate="2020-02-21T17:31:55.333" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28586" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-02-21T16:43:27.573" Score="1" ViewCount="60" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to implement a handicap for my engine and I'm struggling with it. I using alpha-beta pruning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my current approach I set a variance variable in centipawns and let the engine choose a move in the variance range. An example with white to move and variance = 5;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;25 d2d4 d5d7 ...&#xA;23 e2e4 e5e7 ...&#xA;20 b1c3 e5e7 ...&#xA;18 g1f3 d5d7 ...&#xA;...&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this case the engine can choose between the first three moves cause they are all in range of 20-25. A random move of those three is picked, all other moves are ignored.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I implemented this and let it run against my &quot;best move engine&quot;. To my surprise in 200 games the &quot;best move engine&quot; wins like 95% of the time. Which is in my opinion way to high.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As I dove deeper I realized that the &quot;variance engine&quot; picks sometimes totally blunder moves. Like sacking a queen without any compensation. I triple checked the code for picking the &quot;random&quot; move in the variance range. Its perfectly fine. So I think my alpha-beta is the problem here. Some questions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Should alpha-beta in general be capable of implementing something like variance picking. If so, what could I have done wrong or what am I missing?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is there another way of implementing a handicap for an engine. Couldn't really find anything on the internet.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21579" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T14:44:38.567" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T14:44:38.567" Title="Alpha-beta add variance/handicap" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;programming&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28587" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28586" CreationDate="2020-02-21T16:50:30.327" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Does not sound to high to me.  Actually I would expect higher.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1&#xA;Depends on all the other things your code does and how.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2&#xA;Some make mistakes at random.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You could limit how far you look into the future too. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Try making 2nd best (or slightly less good)  moves but only when there are many closely evaluated ones.  Avoid those bad queen sacs by just picking a really bad one when there are not really any other good alternatives. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastActivityDate="2020-02-21T16:50:30.327" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28588" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28590" CreationDate="2020-02-21T19:57:30.187" Score="1" ViewCount="510" Body="&lt;p&gt;The setup is ChessBase 15 with the mega database 2020. I look in it for the Najdorf starting position &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;rnbqkb1r/1p2pppp/p2p1n2/8/3NP3/2N5/PPP2PPP/R1BQKB1R w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;as follows :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I double click the Mega Database 2020 to open it&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When done I click on filter list, which opens the window :&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/N58dz.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/N58dz.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I click on position to get :&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/773sf.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/773sf.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;4&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I click on &quot;OK&quot;, and then I get : &quot;No games found&quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What am I doing wrong ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS : I know that I can play the position and look into reference (after having selected the mega database 2020 as reference database) to get all games having this position, but I don't want to do it that way. (Imagine a position resulting after 32 moves for instances, don't want to play them all.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20949" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-30T18:24:50.533" LastActivityDate="2020-03-30T18:24:50.533" Title="Searching for a position in the mega database 2020 with ChessBase 15" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;chessbase&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28589" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28577" CreationDate="2020-02-21T20:02:17.527" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;As described here the min-max algorithm is used in order to get the best strategy from any position in games, and therefore in chess. It uses tree ordering of the moves and each layer in the tree describes another player's move. The leaves at the bottom of the tree are the &quot;values&quot; gained from reaching this position with the sequence of moves from going down the tree. The algorithm assumes that the other player is playing his best possible moves also.&#xA;This algorithm was used for example in Deep Blue, but the problems were that the branching factor of each node in the tree gets huge after couple of moves. So this is very hard to calculate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the matter of your question, I don't think you could gain any knowledge about passive/agressive moves from min-max algorithm, as it only tells you the best moves (not knowing if it was passive or agressive).&#xA;I think a better approach to determine wether a move is agressive or passive will be tagging a large amount of moves in different positions in the game (with tags being 'passive'/'agressive') and training a Neural Network to determine if a new move that it never saw is passive or agressive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20620" LastEditorUserId="20620" LastEditDate="2020-02-22T09:26:34.010" LastActivityDate="2020-02-22T09:26:34.010" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28590" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28588" CreationDate="2020-02-21T20:37:15.043" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am not sure what you are doing wrong. I get plenty of games that way. It is possible you did a previous search that still has some residual information in the &quot;search mask&quot; (this is what ChessBase traditionally called the search feature).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I will first show you how to do that and get results, and then I will show you one or two better ways. First, as you noted, it is important to make sure that the Mega 2020 database is the &quot;reference database&quot;. I am going to include full instructions since you may not be the only person to read this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To set Mega 2020 as the reference database, right-click on it, and open the properties. Click the the &quot;Reference-DB&quot; box&quot;, and click &quot;OK&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/7thfQ.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/7thfQ.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Next, rather than set the position in the search mask, I suggest that you open a blank board and enter in your Najdorf position. 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cd 4.Nd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, open the search mask, and click &quot;Reset&quot; first, and then &quot;Copy Board&quot;. Then click &quot;OK. This returns 200,471 games for me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9RKen.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9RKen.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That said, I really only use this feature when I am looking for generic positions. For example, all positions with pawns on f2, g3, and h4, etc. If I am looking for all Naijdorfs, there are much better ways to get them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, you could use the opening keys, and drill down, and open the specific ECO keys that you are looking for.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Next, from any opening position, you can use the &quot;Find Novelty&quot; function. To use this feature, you right-click the board, and click &quot;Find Novelty&quot; or the shortcut is &quot;Shift+F6&quot; (the picture I added is in German as I took it from the help file...it is hard to get a screenshot because the menu closes). You can then sort by the &quot;Notation&quot; column. For many years, this was the best way, but they have since added a much better way if you are looking for a specific position. You mentioned that you do not want to do this, but I have no idea why that would be. I am still going to add this in for others, who may read this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/FcY7f.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/FcY7f.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/8d7Lz.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/8d7Lz.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Enter the position, and simply click the &quot;Reference&quot; tab. You can then refine it by the next move, or just go down to the games at the bottom, and start clicking. It also gives you information about the scoring percentages, and notable players, who played it. For me, this has become the best way to search for specific positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have also been using this method as I watch the &quot;Method in Chess&quot; videos on chess24.com. GM Dorfman mentions the names of the players when he starts, but often it is hard to know the name he said. So, I plug in the starting position, click &quot;Reference&quot;, and if you go in far enough, it has limited the number of names enough that you can pick them out of a list even if you could not spell them, and enter them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/T6TTs.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/T6TTs.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2020-02-21T20:37:15.043" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28591" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-02-21T21:18:27.413" Score="1" ViewCount="190" Body="&lt;p&gt;Wired magazine recently said&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Most remarkably, AlphaZero uncovered new approaches to the game that&#xA;  dazzled chess experts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just what was unique about alpha zero that was so dazzling?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T14:43:55.153" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T14:43:55.153" Title="What was it that AlphaZero did that dazzled experts?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;alphazero&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28592" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30416" CreationDate="2020-02-21T21:22:22.650" Score="2" ViewCount="239" Body="&lt;p&gt;Games with two en passants in them are are uncommon, and games with three are exceeding rare, and four has never been achieved as far as I know.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I only know of four games with three en passant captures in them, with game #2 arguably being the most famous one because of Tim Krabbe.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1776547&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;A S Segal-K H Podzielny, 1980&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1086879&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Kudrin-R Douven, 1989&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1369975&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;G N Gopal-S Zhigalko, 2005&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1411242&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Naiditsch-B Predojevic, 2006&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can more games with three en passants that exist be found?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-30T20:46:09.360" LastActivityDate="2020-08-30T20:46:09.360" Title="Games with three en passants" Tags="&lt;en-passant&gt;&lt;famous-games&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28593" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-02-21T21:22:53.457" Score="2" ViewCount="449" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I [Kasparov]  can look at AlphaZero’s games and understand the&#xA;  potential weaknesses. And I believe it has made some inaccurate&#xA;  evaluations, which is natural.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason he says that is AlphaZero uses statistics of ALL games to determine piece value.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which pieces did he specifically mention?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What other shortcomings does alpha zero have that humans could exploit?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T14:43:33.090" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T14:43:33.090" Title="What was one shortcoming of alpha zero that Kasparov noted?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;alphazero&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28594" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13308" CreationDate="2020-02-21T21:44:52.413" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Definitely.  I played over every game from the 1953 Candidates tournament that had 16 top GMs vying to qualify for the world championship that would find a new champ as the old one had died. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The biggest value was in the openings as I learned every variation of the nimzo as it was one of the most popular openings that year. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But having played thorough every note and variation as well as every game I am sure that I picked up a lot more by osmosis that helped my play.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While there were some interesting tactics, it would help to play over collections of tactics by THEME on a web site.   Playing over many of the same theme will fix that pattern into your brain to more easily recognize if it shows up in your games. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Likewise while endings were interesting you really need to devour a good end game book like BCE or whatever else is newer now that might be better. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Fischer and other top grandmasters regularly play over every game in tournament collections to see what they can learn and also for weaknesses they can exploit when they play other people in a tournament. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Based on my experience and what GMs do I have to say that if you play over grandmaster games it has to benefit  your play.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastActivityDate="2020-02-21T21:44:52.413" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28595" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28593" CreationDate="2020-02-21T21:53:42.407" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, as great as Kasparov is, compared to AlphaZero, even he is a patzer; so for him to say that he sees weaknesses, he may be correct, but it could also be, simply, that AlphaZero is playing at a level beyond even his great understanding, and with positional/tactical minutia we, humans, have yet to realize are important, or cannot see at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.wired.com/story/defeated-chess-champ-garry-kasparov-made-peace-ai/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;interview&lt;/a&gt;, he only mentioned bishops versus knights, saying:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I can look at AlphaZero’s games and understand the potential&#xA;  weaknesses. And I believe it has made some inaccurate evaluations,&#xA;  which is natural. For example, it values bishop over knight. It sees&#xA;  over 60 million games that statistically, you know, the bishop was&#xA;  dominant in many more games. So I think it added too much advantage to&#xA;  bishop in terms of numbers. So what you should do, you should try to&#xA;  get your engine to a position where AlphaZero will make inevitable&#xA;  mistakes [based on this inaccuracy].&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note: I believe the 60 million games he mentions are all games played against itself as it was teaching itself how to play, rather than a database of human games. After all, Mega 2020, has only 8 million games in it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also found this &lt;a href=&quot;https://science.sciencemag.org/content/362/6419/1087&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;article&lt;/a&gt; that Kasparov penned, in which he said:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;But in my observation, AlphaZero prioritizes piece activity over&#xA;  material, preferring positions that to my eye looked risky and&#xA;  aggressive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Considering the recent question, &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/28541/is-stockfish-11-level-20-beatable&quot;&gt;&quot;Is Stockfish 11 (level 20) beatable?&quot;&lt;/a&gt;, and that AlphaZero destroyed a recent, although previous, version of Stockfish, I do not believe that you will find any weaknesses that any human will be able to exploit. That will be the domain of the next, stronger, computer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2020-02-21T21:53:42.407" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28596" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28591" CreationDate="2020-02-21T22:11:18.350" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I could find nothing that would support that statement beyond that it taught itself in a day. This is speculation, but I believe it explains that line in the article.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After researching the author, I found that he is a technology writer, who got a Bachelor of Science from the University of Kent, and later a degree in journalism from University of the Arts London. He currently writes for &quot;Wired&quot;, and previously wrote for the MIT Technology Review. Despite that, I could not find a FIDE rating from when he lived in Europe, nor a USCF rating now that he lives in Cambridge Massachusetts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I get the sense that it could be a &quot;civilian&quot;, meaning a guy, who likes chess, but plays chess very casually, who is trying to write an article, and not really understanding the subject fully. It is akin to watching people on TV try to sound like they know about chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think he was simply using his own words to regurgitate the amazement that we chess players all felt when we heard that AlphaZero taught itself in a day, and already could beat the best program, Stockfish.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2020-02-21T22:11:18.350" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28597" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25126" CreationDate="2020-02-21T23:07:01.013" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You would find more slow openings like the hedgehog in reverse.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There would be more fianchettoes and knights on bishop 3.&#xA;Then k&amp;amp;q on 2nd rank with a rook moved to middle to let the king slide to the side to be safer when appropriate. Might cause delayed castling and affect the choice of side the king runs to.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-05-02T14:25:24.510" LastActivityDate="2021-05-02T14:25:24.510" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28598" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28600" CreationDate="2020-02-22T02:56:41.713" Score="2" ViewCount="218" Body="&lt;p&gt;Essentially I'm just trying to create a somewhat efficient chess ai using an Alpha Beta Pruning approach for a future neural network to train against. I know I could use an existing program but this is a learning experience and I want to write the code for myself. Essentially the entire program is based on this pseudocode for the Alpha Beta algorithm&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;function alphabeta(node, depth, α, β, maximizingPlayer) is&#xA;    if depth = 0 or node is a terminal node then&#xA;        return the heuristic value of node&#xA;    if maximizingPlayer then&#xA;        value := −∞&#xA;        for each child of node do&#xA;            value := max(value, alphabeta(child, depth − 1, α, β, FALSE))&#xA;            α := max(α, value)&#xA;            if α ≥ β then&#xA;                break (* β cut-off *)&#xA;        return value&#xA;    else&#xA;        value := +∞&#xA;        for each child of node do&#xA;            value := min(value, alphabeta(child, depth − 1, α, β, TRUE))&#xA;            β := min(β, value)&#xA;            if α ≥ β then&#xA;                break (* α cut-off *)&#xA;        return value&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The way I've chosen to represent the game state which I found was both somewhat easy to understand and an efficient manner to represent the boards is as an array of bitboards one for each piece type and color. Creating and organizing this system was simple enough but I can't find an as straight forward answer to the question of a decently efficient but both not incredibly complicated way to loop through all the possible moves. And second, a more accurate and efficient way to determine the score of the board. I can think of ways such as storing the opponent's possible attack points to look for checks but even then looking for a check every time seems very inefficient. In addition to this, I can't conceive a good way to add all the possible moves every piece can take because of all the extra cases. For example, a pawn can move forward or if its the first turn move 2 forward or if theirs a piece diagonal to it it can take it. Hard coding all this would be very disorganized so what I guess what I'm looking for is a system that will work generally but also not be widely inefficient. If anyone has suggestions that would be greatly appreciated. This is a version of my code stripped of all the different experiments I tried.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;public class Board {&#xA;    long[] board = new long[12];&#xA;&#xA;    public Board() {&#xA;        /**&#xA;         * The board array is a set of 12 bitboards&#xA;         * each a different kind of peice and color&#xA;         * - Even indexes are white odd indexes are black&#xA;         * - The order of peices is order of points &#xA;         *   Pawn, Knight, Bishop, Rook, Queen, King&#xA;         * - The board is defined in this order (rook or index 6)&#xA;         * &#xA;         *  8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1&#xA;         * -----------------&#xA;         *  0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0&#xA;         *  0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0&#xA;         *  0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0&#xA;         *  0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0&#xA;         *  0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0&#xA;         *  0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0&#xA;         *  0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0&#xA;         *  1 0 0 0 0 0 0 1&#xA;         *  &#xA;         *  - otherwise described as &#xA;         *  0b0000000100000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001L;&#xA;         */&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;        // Pawns&#xA;        // White&#xA;        board[0] = 0b00000010_00000010_00000010_00000010_00000010_00000010_00000010_00000010L;&#xA;        // Black&#xA;        board[1] = 0b01000000_01000000_01000000_01000000_01000000_01000000_01000000_01000000L;&#xA;&#xA;        // Knights&#xA;        // White&#xA;        board[2] = 0b00000000_00000001_00000000_00000000_00000000_00000000_00000001_00000000L;&#xA;        // Black&#xA;        board[3] = 0b00000000_10000000_00000000_00000000_00000000_00000000_10000000_00000000L;&#xA;&#xA;        // Bishops&#xA;        // White&#xA;        board[4] = 0b00000000_00000000_00000001_00000000_00000000_00000001_00000000_00000000L;&#xA;        // Black&#xA;        board[5] = 0b00000000_00000000_10000000_00000000_00000000_10000000_00000000_00000000L;&#xA;&#xA;        // Rooks&#xA;        // White&#xA;        board[6] = 0b00000001_00000000_00000000_00000000_00000000_00000000_00000000_00000001L;&#xA;        // Black&#xA;        board[7] = 0b10000000_00000000_00000000_00000000_00000000_00000000_00000000_10000000L;&#xA;&#xA;        // Queens&#xA;        // White&#xA;        board[8] = 0b00000000_00000000_00000000_00000000_00000001_00000000_00000000_00000000L;&#xA;        // Black&#xA;        board[9] = 0b00000000_00000000_00000000_00000000_10000000_00000000_00000000_00000000L;&#xA;&#xA;        // Kings&#xA;        // White&#xA;        board[10] = 0b00000000_00000000_00000000_00000001_00000000_00000000_00000000_00000000L;&#xA;        // Black&#xA;        board[11] = 0b00000000_00000000_00000000_10000000_00000000_00000000_00000000_00000000L;&#xA;    }&#xA;&#xA;    public void generateMoves() {&#xA;    }&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;    public String getBoard() {&#xA;        long fullBoard = 0;&#xA;        for(int i = 0; i &amp;lt; board.length; i++) {&#xA;            fullBoard |= board[i];&#xA;        }&#xA;        return Long.toBinaryString(fullBoard);&#xA;    }&#xA;}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21588" LastEditorUserId="21588" LastEditDate="2020-02-22T04:01:44.207" LastActivityDate="2020-02-22T06:50:06.620" Title="Best way to loop through all possible moves (Alpha Beta)?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;programming&gt;&lt;alphazero&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28599" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28586" CreationDate="2020-02-22T05:56:33.337" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Even one minor error could cost the game against a perfect opponent, so 95% losing rate is generous.  However, I don't understand how the &quot;best move&quot; engine could lose any games in the second trail.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The ABSearch could be modified, but it's easier to perform this at the RootSearch function.  Since the arrays for the current moves and their respective scores are present here, it's easy to implement, and the RootSearch should be able to self-correct on future moves better than anything done in the current ABSearch.  (This is really messy.  Sorry.)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I've seen three ways to limit strength.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a.  Make a weak move at a specific interval.  When playing against its sponsors, a computer was told to make a random king move every 10 moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;b.  The computer wasn't allowed to make a move in which the eval was above a threshold.  So, for a drawing computer, the computer wouldn't make a move where the eval was above a pawn or had to make a mistake to lower the eval to below this range.  This i similar to your variance, but instead of within the top range, it's a final eval of +- a pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;c.  The chess engine Galahad (I can't find its source anymore.) allowed you to change some eval constants.  Lowering the penalty for a weakness, such as doubled pawns, does lower its strength, but not in a dramatic manner.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/vollmerm/TrappyBeowulf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Trappy Beowulf&lt;/a&gt; trys to implement a more human engine where it does try for traps instead of the best move.  I haven't read the code, so I can't explain how it accomplishes this, but I assumed that it goes for simple, one move threats, and when this threat is parried, the positions is slightly worse.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I&quot;d like to give a special thanks to the four examples and the OP for thinking out of the box.  Not just trying to be the best, but for being usable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT:  A better example is &quot;c&quot; would be a piece-square value.  By adjusting this variable, you could make the computer think that g3 is a better square for the knight than e5.  This could be used to make the computer decentralize pieces or make them more defensive.  Changing the pawn protection around the king values, you could make the computer make these weakening moves and test your attacking skills.  The options are only limited by your imagination.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9684" LastEditorUserId="9684" LastEditDate="2020-02-23T04:05:33.030" LastActivityDate="2020-02-23T04:05:33.030" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28600" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28598" CreationDate="2020-02-22T06:50:06.620" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The questions are difficult to understand, and I assume that you are looking for:&#xA;1) A way to loop through moves during the AB search (when in bitboard format).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) How to eval the board in the bitboard format.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The simple answer is to look at the code for &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.craftychess.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Crafty Chess&lt;/a&gt;.  This is a good and heavily commented source code.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9684" LastActivityDate="2020-02-22T06:50:06.620" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28601" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28604" CreationDate="2020-02-22T10:13:55.440" Score="7" ViewCount="818" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.f4 exf4 3.Nf3 c5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What's the refutation of Black's unusual third move, or anyway the best way to play against it? Which is stronger, the Open Variation 4. d4 cxd4 5. Bxf4, or the Closed Variation 4. Bc4 Nc6 5. d3?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If there is no refutation (as seems to be the case), then why is 3...c5 hardly ever played, or mentioned in the books? Is it because there are so many good lines against the King's Gambit that nobody needed another one? Is it that the people who like to play c5 usually play it on the first move?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2299" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-30T18:36:07.357" LastActivityDate="2020-03-30T18:36:07.357" Title="1. e4 e5 2. f4 exf4 3. Nf3 c5 — Sicilian Defense to King's Gambit?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;&lt;kings-gambit&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28602" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28601" CreationDate="2020-02-22T11:07:34.393" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;White's f4 sacrifices a pawn for rapid development and the possibility of an attack against the uncastled black king. c5 as a response from black addresses none of the issues in his position and just wastes a move making the gambit all the more effective. White's plan remains on track - Bc4, O-O, win the pawn back on f5 and smash through on f7.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-02-22T11:07:34.393" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28603" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28601" CreationDate="2020-02-22T12:22:37.053" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It does make sense because even the computer says black is better ( -0.5 ) after full development and entering in the middlegame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3...c5 is a very good move through because it takes d4 square for your pawn. 4. c3 is stupid because you must continue with development and attacking. It gives black an equal or even better position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Look at this line: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]   &#xA; 1. e4 e5 2. f4 exf4 3. Nf3 c5 4. Bc4 Nc6&#xA;    5. d4 cxd4 6. Bxf4 Nf6 7. O-O Nxe4 8. Ne5 Nxe5&#xA;    9. Bxe5 d5 10. Qh5 g6 11. Qf3 f6 12. Bxd4 Bf5&#xA;    13. Bb3 Bb4 14. c3 Ba5 15. Re1 Qd6 16. g4 Bc7&#xA;    17. Qg2 Be6 18. Nd2 O-O-O 19. Nxe4 dxe4 20. Bxe6+ Qxe6&#xA;    21. Rxe4 Qf7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Computer says it is 0, but my evaluation is that black has a secure king and already started Kingside attack, while white king is almost opened up and white has not attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15655" LastEditorUserId="7726" LastEditDate="2020-02-22T12:26:56.523" LastActivityDate="2020-02-22T12:26:56.523" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28604" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28601" CreationDate="2020-02-22T12:30:11.653" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;My initial reaction is that 3...c5 is very weak just by looking at it, which is why it is so rare. The ECO key that comes with ChessBase's Mega databases is very detailed, but even this does not even have its own specific sub-key.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are 112 games in Mega 2020 database with 3...c5. The most popular response, played in 87 of the 112 games was 4.Bc4, which had a winning percentage of 64.9%, followed by 4.d4, which was played in 17 games and had a winning percentage of 61.8%). 4.d3 (6 games/33.3%) and 4.Nc3 (2 games/50.0%) were also played.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Obviously, 4.Bc4 and 4.d4 are the choices, but you also have to think about what to play stylistically: If you play the King's Gambit, you like open, tactical, positions, so it does not make sense to play the latter two moves at all unless they eventually become the natural move to finish development later. You still want to strive for the quick development of the kingside, and play down the f-file and open center.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3...c5 is weak, but as I looked through the games, the only plan that white needs to fear is the Be7 and g5 plan (possibly g5 first), holding the pawn. Black scored in the 40-50% range in most of those lines. That might bode well for the 4.d4, and early Bxf4 plan by white.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now that I have discussed what humans play, I am going to see what Stockfish 11 says. After looking at many lines, a lot of which are below, but that is only a small fraction of what I actually looked at, I cannot say that Stockfish found any pure refutation, but I suspect that the you will do well following the main line because if black plays 3...c5, it is because black is a weak player to start with...deny black holding f4, and you will probably win most of the time as the human stats above show.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4.Bc4 and 4.d4 early on both come in with the same evals, but as the depth gets deeper (depth 33), 4.Bc4 is preferred by Stockfish, but they are both the typical minor pluses that computers typically give white in the opening, about +.5, but as I force in lines, and go deeper, everything levels out a lot. Here are some sample lines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One last note about the play: The reason that white can play the early Bc4 in these lines, and not worry about g5, it that it seems tactically refuted if black tries to save it. White is playing a gambit line, so I was not really worried about trying to get the pawn back simply because we are down a pawn, but the computer might be; nevertheless, I was concerned because it gets in the way of developing the Bc1 and opening the f-file, so I did lean toward recovery.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please note that there are also extensive comments within these lines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. e4 e5 2. f4 exf4 3. Nf3 c5 4. Bc4 Nc6 5. d3 {This is Stockfish's favorite, and is indicative of trying to stop the early g5 plan. It still is not the most human move, which I will also cover.} (5. d4 cxd4 6. Bxf4 Nf6 7. O-O Nxe4 8. Bd5 $1 {This leads to mind-boggling complications.} (8. Re1 d5 $17) 8... Nf6 9. Ng5 Nxd5 10. Nxf7 Qf6 (10... Kxf7 11. Qh5+ Ke6 12. Nc3 {And the other rook comes in and wins...+8.}) 11. Bg5 Qg6 12. Qe1+ Be7 13. Bxe7 Ne3 14. Rf2 Nxe7 15. Nxh8) (5. O-O $6 {This is slow, but leads to typical positions.} g5 6. d4 cxd4 7. Bxf7+ (7. g3 $5) 7... Kxf7 8. Nxg5+ Qxg5 9. Bxf4 Qg6 10. Be5+ Ke8 11. Bxh8 b6 {With wild play that the computer likes barely for black, but I do not believe that a human will survive.}) 5... Bd6 $5 (5... g5 $2 6. h4 g4 7. Ng5 $18) (5... Be7 6. Bxf4 Nf6 7. Nc3 d6 8. O-O O-O 9. Qd2 $16) 6. O-O Nf6 (6...Nge7 $4 7. Ng5 O-O 8. Qh5 $18) 7. Nc3 (7. Qe1 $5) (7. e5 $2 {This does not work due to tactics and threats of smothered mate, and the Qd1 and Bc1 hanging if the queens get traded.} Nxe5 8. Re1 O-O 9. Nxe5 Bxe5 10. Rxe5 d5 11. Bb3 c4 12. dxc4 Ng4 13. Re2 dxc4 14. Qxd8 Rxd8 15. Nc3 cxb3 16. axb3 g5 $17) 7... O-O 8. Bd2 a6 9. a4 {And the computer thinks this is roughly equal, but white is more fun to play.}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-02-22T12:39:26.680" LastActivityDate="2020-02-22T12:39:26.680" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28605" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28608" CreationDate="2020-02-22T14:01:50.953" Score="9" ViewCount="1579" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found three different questions here on SEC that asked what Stockfish 8's rating was for the match against AlphaZero, but none that asked what AlphaZero's rating should have been after (if it had been in a rated event, and assuming that it previously had an established, not provisional, rating).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stockfish 8 was rated 3378 at the time per the official rating list. There was some dispute that it was handicapped, but since we cannot really factor that in accurately, it is better to ignore that for now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2020-02-23T21:48:28.617" Title="Knowing that AlphaZero beat Stockfish 8 (28 wins, 0 losses, and 72 draws), what would AlphaZero's rating be?" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;computer-chess&gt;&lt;alphazero&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28606" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28601" CreationDate="2020-02-22T14:14:14.093" Score="-3" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is no obvious refutation other than white wins in the end.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Certainly not a single move !! as shown in the tournament book recap. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess Tempo shows black doing well with it but those games are from all players 2200 and down.  Looking at some of them,  white was nowhere near 2200 with the moves they made.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The key point is that nobody above 2200 plays c5 as black.  [maybe a few  do in a bigger database]&#xA;So the refutation comes down more to the players ability to beat an inferior move.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With no top GMs showing the way you will need to use a good engine to find the refutation.   But I suspect it will be too subtle for you to duplicate OTB when your opponent makes yet another deviation from the normal moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Following good chess principles and developing and then improving whites position until tactics decides or you win the end game would be a good strategy. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I never made GM so while I would be tempted to play b4 here I would likely just play nb3 bb4 and then pq3 to have a better position and edge in development while black has awkward pawns and a king in a weak position.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastActivityDate="2020-02-22T14:14:14.093" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28607" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28605" CreationDate="2020-02-22T14:18:26.537" Score="-6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Statistically it should be about  3450 +/- 200  but it depends on the fine print of the rating system.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;SEE edit where another site estimates 3750!!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does game order matter?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Are they all rated as a group at the end?&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Are their special rules for rating matches like USCF used to have?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And it depends on how accurate the statistical assumptions the rating system is based on were to begin with. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I love when non statisticians weigh in with nonsense reasons why that number is wrong.  Perhaps I should have put a +/- error band on it initially. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From another site I found this estimate&#xA;I estimate AlphaZero's playing strength at around 3750. Computer ratings are pretty compatible with FIDE, since we know Stockfish can beta Carlsen 3,000 times out of 100, making its 3441 or whatever accurate. &#xA;...&#xA;It was also incorrectly thought that the positional sacrifice had been refuted by correct evaluations, but AlphaZero blew that out of the water. It plays more like Alekhine. Now when I train with Stockfish I don't treat the evaluations as gospel the way I might have before. &#xA;...&#xA;What AlphaZero really shows is the value of othinking for yourself unless you want to be like th ecarbon-copy players who get to 2700 at age 14 and barely 2750 a decade later.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastEditorUserId="20721" LastEditDate="2020-02-23T21:48:28.617" LastActivityDate="2020-02-23T21:48:28.617" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28608" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28605" CreationDate="2020-02-22T14:28:29.773" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;+28, =72, -0 corresponds to a score of 64%.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The &lt;a href=&quot;https://old.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=197&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Rating Regulations effective from 1 July 2017&lt;/a&gt; give details for calculating rating differences in table 8.1a. According to that table a fractional score of 0.64 corresponds to a rating difference of 102. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hence if Stockfishes rating is 3378 then AlphaZero's is 3378+102 = 3480&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-02-22T14:28:29.773" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28609" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28605" CreationDate="2020-02-22T14:35:54.603" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.3dkingdoms.com/chess/elo.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Here's an online calculator for this&lt;/a&gt;. 28 wins, 0 losses, and 72 draws is an elo difference of exactly 100. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do remember that this score +28 =72 -0 score was against a handicapped version of Stockfish. In the full paper, AlphaZero scored +155 =839 -6, which is an elo difference of 52.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastActivityDate="2020-02-22T14:35:54.603" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28610" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13308" CreationDate="2020-02-22T14:44:31.383" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Definitely. In my experience, I've had several &quot;aha&quot; moments watching GMs play. At times watching their games, but also hearing them comment and articulate the thought process,  allowed me to gain insights that I would never have attained on my own.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One recent example: watching a Nakamura Youtube video when he said in the opening: &quot;What kind of structure do I want to play?&quot; triggered an avalanche of thoughts in my head that amounted to a realization that determining the pawn structure early on is, firstly, in your hands, and secondly, paramount to the rest of the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Great question, I definitely agree that getting into the mind of the genius is a great part of the joy of chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15509" LastEditorUserId="15509" LastEditDate="2020-02-22T15:01:17.043" LastActivityDate="2020-02-22T15:01:17.043" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28611" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28614" CreationDate="2020-02-22T15:35:24.967" Score="4" ViewCount="230" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the 50s Eliot Hearst printed the results of a study in &quot;Chess Life and Review&quot; (A private publication by I A Horowitz editor later merged into the USCF's monthly magazine, and later renamed &quot;Chess Life&quot;) that showed the impact playing chess had on things like BP and heart rate. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there any more current studies that elaborate on those and extend the study to other ways chess affects humans?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Especially interested in more long term items as well as game time impacts that one could prepare for in advance.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastEditorUserId="20721" LastEditDate="2020-02-22T16:09:58.317" LastActivityDate="2020-10-25T04:35:42.000" Title="Are there any current studies on the physical effects of playing chess?" Tags="&lt;studies-published-report&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28612" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-02-22T15:42:24.567" Score="3" ViewCount="102" Body="&lt;p&gt;CL&amp;amp;R had an article about how Fischer trained at a spa in the Adirondacks for an upcoming match.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One thing he did was swim and also hold his breath for as long as he could.  Not sure that latter was good. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Recent reports have Caruana and Chirila going for long runs, playing tennis, basketball, and also swimming.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anand does 2 hours of cardio each night to help stop him from dreaming about chess.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Carlsen went to the Olympic center with his father and they had him change his diet.  Less orange juice with sugar and substitute a mix of chocolate/regular milk.   He also trained by skiing and hired a personal chef to balance his carbs protein, and calcium.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Carlsen even optimized his sitting position.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Further he reduced his schedule to about 7 tournaments a year instead of about 13.  And took time off after each to recuperate.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So GMs do many things other than study chess.  Are there any books or good articles prescribing what would be best for training our bodies to play tournaments not just learning chess more itself. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T14:41:12.163" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T14:41:12.163" Title="Are there any books pamphlets or articles on how to train to play at GM level?" Tags="&lt;books&gt;&lt;training&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28613" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28612" CreationDate="2020-02-22T16:00:35.437" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I do not think that there are any books devoted specifically to this topic, probably since the subject is not big enough, and most physical training is covered by books devoted to that subject, in general (not with chess in mind). The topic may be touched upon in other books.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, probably first to take a modern approach to training the body was Kasparov, and his trainer goes into that in his two-volume series on Kasparov's development. In fact, on the cover of volume 2, you can see a picture of them running. Even so, the book does not spend a lot of time on this aspect as most people are more concerned with the purely chess aspects of his training.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.newinchess.com/en_US/coaching-kasparov-year-by-year-and-move-by-move-volume-i-2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Coaching Kasparov, Year by Year and Move by Move, Volume I + 2 by Alexander Nikitin.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I believe that Botvinnik was probably the first to espouse the benefits of physical training SERIOUSLY, and I have seen this written about in passing, but again, there was not enough material for a whole book.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.si.com/vault/1961/05/08/581688/the-young-botvinnik&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Here is a nice article on Botvinnik on &quot;Sports Illustrated&quot;.&lt;/a&gt; It discusses his physical training a little.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessmaniac.com/physical-fitness-and-chess-players/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Here is another webpage that discusses the training activities of various modern GMs.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is another very good article on the subject. &lt;a href=&quot;https://woochess.com/en/blog/how-physical-activity-can-help-you-play-chess-better&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&quot;How physical activity can help you play chess better?&quot;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-02-22T16:16:24.407" LastActivityDate="2020-02-22T16:16:24.407" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28614" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28611" CreationDate="2020-02-22T16:29:28.700" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found a study from 2015 that seems to go into a lot of various aspects of chess and how it affects us physically.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.hilarispublisher.com/open-access/biochemistry-and-psychology-of-chess-and-classical-physical-exercise-concurring-or-conflicting-evidence-2161-0673-1000158.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&quot;Biochemistry and Psychology of Chess and Classical Physical Exercise:Concurring or Conflicting Evidence?&quot;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am going to block-quote their &quot;Abstract&quot;, which gives an overview, but you might want to read the full paper, which is only 10 pages long. It is fairly interesting.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Abstract&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Chess is a competitive sport in the classical meaning of the word. One&#xA;  of the most important factors for chess and sport competence is the&#xA;  accumulated time of training. In order to obtain a high level of&#xA;  competence, chess layers and athletes alike must spend up 10 years of&#xA;  specific training.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In chess and classical sport energy needed for brain activity is first&#xA;  derived from glycogen stores in brain, muscles and liver and later&#xA;  from adipose tissue. Both, chess and classical sport rely on shared&#xA;  energy from glycogen and fat.When  the  brain  needs  additional &#xA;  energy,  muscles  and  liver  share  energy  with  the  brain.  When &#xA;  muscles  need additional energy, brain complies with the request of&#xA;  muscles. Energy expenditure, O2 uptake and CO2 production during chess&#xA;  games are similar to those obtained during a marathon. Mental and&#xA;  physical fatigue begin with similar metabolic states: deprivation of&#xA;  glycogen. During competitive chess, athletes must be in good physical&#xA;  condition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Mental profiles of chess players and other athletes correlate with&#xA;  processes such as attention, conflict control,memory, motivation and&#xA;  recognition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In chess there exists no gender-specific excellence; glycogen&#xA;  availability, however, is less developed in female chess players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In chess and in classical sports, the brain, spinal cord, nerves and&#xA;  muscles cooperate in complete harmony. The brain commands everything:&#xA;  in chess the figures, in sport the cellular receptors (baro-,&#xA;  lactate-, gluco-, metabo-,chemo-, thermo-, respiratory-) “send”&#xA;  signals via eyes or metabolic changes to the brain. The brain then&#xA;  decides,what to do: in chess, the player moves a figure; in sports,&#xA;  muscles react according to demand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Physical exercise or chess must be defined by a motor activity&#xA;  completely controlled by the central nervous system (CNS) in&#xA;  combination with a specific competence. In chess as well as in&#xA;  physical exercise, physical stress prepares brain to cognitive&#xA;  stimulation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;With respect to biochemical, physiological, neuronal and psychological&#xA;  aspects, chess is equals classical physical exercise and must be&#xA;  recognized as sport.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is another article, &lt;a href=&quot;https://thechessworld.com/articles/healthpsycology/7-surprising-health-benefits-of-playing-chess/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&quot;7 Surprising Health Benefits of Playing Chess&quot;&lt;/a&gt;, that lists various benefits that can are certainly physically related, and cites the sources.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2020-02-22T16:29:28.700" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28616" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-02-23T00:00:54.073" Score="9" ViewCount="1432" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just read &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/28605/knowing-that-alphazero-beat-stockfish-8-28-wins-0-losses-and-72-draws-what&quot;&gt;this question&lt;/a&gt; and it made me wonder: when setting up such a game/comparison - shouldn't you try to level the computing capacity field? Or at least limit how much energy each &quot;player&quot; is allowed to use (and then let each team optimize within that limit). Otherwise, isn't it just a matter of building the biggest computer? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20008" LastActivityDate="2020-02-24T03:51:54.167" Title="Level the field when letting computers play against each other" Tags="&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;alphazero&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28617" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28616" CreationDate="2020-02-23T00:06:50.280" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Should we limit human players who play by how much they weigh or their IQ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is no point in so called 'levelling the field' when computers play each other.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is much more than building the biggest computer that determines who wins.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Software makes the hardware happen.   And how well they came up with the software and how well they determined the algorithms to guide the software as well as practical tricks they use like having table bases or pitting two machines against each other to help them learn faster are more important than the hardware. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Limiting energy would only mean that they would use different compuer chip technology that has nothing to do with chess. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your suggestion would change what is being optimized and what most people care about are how well the computers play not how much electricity they use. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However since the real concern is the software the latest championship had these rules for software: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The rules for the World Chess SOFTWARE  Championship state that competing programs must run on machines with identical hardware specifications. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastEditorUserId="20721" LastEditDate="2020-02-23T00:18:05.347" LastActivityDate="2020-02-23T00:18:05.347" CommentCount="11" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28618" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28616" CreationDate="2020-02-23T00:17:55.587" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, you are right.  So computer competitions will have rules about compute to keep things level.  For example the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/news/view/announcing-the-new-computer-chess-championship&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chess.com computer championship&lt;/a&gt;  uses this specification:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;CPU Engines:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;CPUs: 2 x Intel Xeon Platinum 8168 @ 2.70 GHz 33 MB L3   &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Cores: 48 physical (96 logical)   &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;RAM: 256GB DDR4-2666 ECC Registered RDIMM  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;SSD: 2x Crucial MX300 (1TB) in RAID1   &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;OS: Windows Server 2016&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;GPU Engines:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;GPU: 4x Tesla V100 (64 GB GPU memory) &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;CPU: Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;E5-2686 v4 @ 2.30 GHz Cores: 16 physical (32 virtual) &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;RAM: 256 GB&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17425" LastActivityDate="2020-02-23T00:17:55.587" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28619" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28616" CreationDate="2020-02-23T04:18:47.173" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;You absolutely should, which is why the two most important computer chess tournaments (&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/computer-chess-championship&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;CCC&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://tcec-chess.com/#/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;TCEC&lt;/a&gt;) both make all competitors play on the &quot;same&quot; hardware. &quot;Same&quot; in inverted commas because the recent advent of neural-network engines like AlphaZero, which run best on GPUs, meant that it's no longer fair to play on exactly the same hardware for everyone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can see the result of not using equal hardware from the 2019 WCCC results, which Komodo won. Komodo is &lt;a href=&quot;https://ccrl.chessdom.com/ccrl/4040/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;almost a hundred elo&lt;/a&gt; behind Stockfish when run on equal hardware (and Stockfish doesn't play in the WCCC, because it's not a commercial engine and doesn't have full-time staff to attend the event).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The situation right now is traditional engines run on the same CPUs, NN engines run on the same GPUs, and whenever traditional engines play against NN engines, they run on consensus fair hardware. &quot;Fair&quot; here is a very controversial word, because there are several different measures of what is fair that I'm glossing over. Suffice to say unless you are a hardware expert yourself, I'd just trust the admins of CCC and TCEC to use something that's fair.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit&lt;/strong&gt;: to illustrate the impact of hardware, here's the list of hardware the competitors played at in the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessprogramming.org/WCCC_2019#Participants&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;2019 WCCC&lt;/a&gt;. Note Jonny ran on 1200 (!) cores, and it just barely edged out Ginkgo, which was running on 1/20 of the cores. In &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.tcec-chess.com/archive.html?season=14&amp;amp;div=1&amp;amp;game=1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;TCEC Season 14&lt;/a&gt;, the two engines played with the same hardware in Division 1, and Ginkgo comfortably finished ahead of Jonny in spite of multiple crashes (which happen because Ginkgo doesn't run well at 43 cores; they result in auto-losses).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also see that these games were played is Division 1, not even Division Premier. Many of the strongest engines in the world simply don't participate in WCCC. I don't know the exact reasons why, but I'm confident hardware is a major issue for participants. In turn, this lack of participation is partly why the community don't take the WCCC very seriously.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastEditorUserId="15223" LastEditDate="2020-02-24T03:51:54.167" LastActivityDate="2020-02-24T03:51:54.167" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28620" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28612" CreationDate="2020-02-23T04:35:41.317" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Long time ago (near 1975 ) The Grand Master &lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleksandr_K%C3%B3tov&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Alexander Kotov&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; wrote two excellent books:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;Think Like a Grand Master and 2. Train Like a Grand Master. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;edited: I forgot Play like a Grand Master.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't know if there are web copies availabe. I studied the first and was self-promoted from Elo 1870 to Elo 2195 in 1976. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21592" LastEditorUserId="21592" LastEditDate="2020-02-23T04:43:57.543" LastActivityDate="2020-02-23T04:43:57.543" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28621" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28612" CreationDate="2020-02-23T05:10:47.137" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The book &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;Why We Sleep&lt;/em&gt; by Matthew Walker&lt;/strong&gt; might be relevant. It is about the (immense) benefits of sleep on learning and concentration, and the damage that comes from not getting enough high-quality sleep. Acute or chronic sleep deprivation can have very harmful effects on athletic performance and concentration, and conversely sleep is literally &lt;em&gt;needed&lt;/em&gt; to consolidate memories and learn skills. It also talks about how the quality of sleep declines with age and how this can be overcome.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On another note, a Botvinnik quote comes to mind: &quot;&lt;em&gt;If you want to become world champion, never play in open tournaments&lt;/em&gt;.&quot; He thought that playing others who were much weaker or stronger than oneself can be detrimental to one's morale and thought process. The old cliche is that to get stronger, one should try to play people slightly stronger than oneself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you've noted, cardio exercise seems to be a trend among top GMs. Cardio can induce growth of the hippocampus, which is relevant for short-term memory. Chess learning is very much about the ability to memorize patterns, so cardio exercise is very useful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another trend among top &quot;mind-sports&quot; athletes, including high-stakes poker player Jason Koon, is to  reduce the amount of refined carbohydrates in one's diet. They are said to impair concentration. Instead, it is better to rely on energy from healthy fats, such as those found in nuts, olive oil, and fish (or, in Carlsen's case, milk).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user21593" LastActivityDate="2020-02-23T05:10:47.137" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28622" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8923" CreationDate="2020-02-23T16:32:30.627" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you can get great learning value from playing correspondence chess (which usually nowadays allows engine use) or not, depends on your determination to use it as a learning device. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's assume, as you state, that you are a 1200 rated player, that you have no particular opening preparations, that you have a high error rate if it comes to tactics and that you know a few strategic elements (like open lines, importance of central squares...) and that you have nearly now deeper endgame knowledge (but you do know how to mate with a rook or a queen).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are many areas, you will not be able to efficiently train, given the slow pace of correspondence chess. With 40 days for 10 moves, you will not reach endgames any time soon, for example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, first step is to make a list of what you can actually learn best with correspondence chess. Then focus only on those aspects, while you should try to find other means to train the other aspects. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here my list, what you can learn best from (engine assisted) correspondence chess:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Your basic understanding of positions. Before you turn on the engine, take 10 minutes and try to figure out your sorted list of candidate moves. Write down what you expect to happen and also try to verbally express your thoughts. Then, one by one, analyze your chosen moves with the engine and figure out when you were right and when you were wrong (and why you were wrong). Then, try to understand the engines best moves (especially if they were not in your move list). Once you have a bit of practice, depending on position, you would be done in like 15min - 60min with all of the above. And that should give you a move to make (you play for learning, not to become CC world champion, after all). Whatever time you have left, use it on non-correspondence chess training.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Finding your opening repertoire. If you run multiple cc games in parallel, pick a number of different openings, which might interest you or deem you strong and study each of them as you decide for your opening moves (while still in an opening book). Over time, you will find out, which positions are fun and interesting for you and you will get a foundation of a repertoire for white and black.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The rest of your training should be tactics (hint: there are great puzzles on lichess and other chess servers), endgames and just playing (not bullet - something like 10min per game or even slower and a few blitz games (3+2 or 5min) - so you get fresh ideas about which openings give you trouble and to train reduce your blunder rate). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my opinion, this his how the brain needs to tackle new tasks: Repetition, exploration and just seeing a lot of good examples. Try to find a good mix of those things and try not to waste time (by playing too much blitz or alike) and have fun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7223" LastActivityDate="2020-02-23T16:32:30.627" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28623" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28616" CreationDate="2020-02-23T16:53:20.907" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It really comes down to the purpose of the event.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it is a championship that is trying to determine who wrote the best software, and not just the strongest hardware/software combination, then you want to even up the hardware as best as possible so the software is the determining factor. The winner determines the best software.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it is a demonstration or exhibition match, like the AlphaZero-Stockfish match, or the Kasparov-Deep Blue match years ago, and it is all about just crushing the opponent and winning at all costs, all bets are off, and you can expect to see massive, and outrageous, hardware builds.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2020-02-23T16:53:20.907" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28624" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28626" CreationDate="2020-02-23T17:33:30.557" Score="3" ViewCount="1295" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was playing chess with an opponent. He had his queen in front of his king. I attacked the queen and he moved her, exposing his king directly to my rook. It was my turn to move, not his. We couldn't decide if this was a checkmate. We know that  moving one's king into check is illegal. What happens however, if one removes a piece in front of his/her King and exposes him to checkmate unintentionally, as in this instance? If it's illegal to do this, but the player makes this move anyway, is he required to take back the move and move differently, or does the game automatically end? Thanks in advance. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21596" LastActivityDate="2020-02-23T18:24:38.957" Title="Illegal move or checkmate?" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;illegal-move&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2020-02-24T10:27:44.597" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28626" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28624" CreationDate="2020-02-23T18:16:23.967" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;It was illegal to move the queen here (and any piece in general) if that move put the king in check from another of the opponents pieces. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the player tried to move the queen here they have to put it back and make a legal move. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that in some nonstandard variation most usually of the blitz speed type the special rules allow you to take the king and win if they make that illegal move.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some other variations may allow claiming a win if an illegal move is made.  I have played blindfold games where that illegal move was a loss by the special rules for that variation of chess. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastEditorUserId="20721" LastEditDate="2020-02-23T18:24:38.957" LastActivityDate="2020-02-23T18:24:38.957" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28627" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8923" CreationDate="2020-02-23T18:23:35.180" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It might.  It depends how you use the game to augment your study and how you apply what you did study to make moves in the game&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just playing is nice for experience but not really that useful when compared to study of openings, tactics, end games, tactics, strategic items like pawn structure, and tactics -- at your level of ability.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastActivityDate="2020-02-23T18:23:35.180" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28629" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28616" CreationDate="2020-02-23T21:40:31.030" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are a number of reasonable things you could set as constant, which is probably why they have experts determine the rules in a fundamentally arbitrary but hopefully fair fashion. Energy is one, but some other options would be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Hardware cost.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;FLOPS (floating point operations per second). &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I suspect (although my info is limited) hardware cost and energy would help neural network neural based devices, while a flops based metric would benefit classical engines, because GPUs tend to provide great FLOPS/watt and FLOPS/$ -- metrics that CPUs sacrifice for the ability to go (relatively) quickly through branchy logic. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An argument against using a simple metric is that it might induce behavior that doesn't advance the state of the field in an interesting direction. If you ask for performance/watt or performance/$, people start asking questions like &quot;what about an FPGA or ASIC,&quot; and eventually it becomes a competition in brute force and low level tuning, rather than interesting new ideas. Plus people wouldn't be able tinker with the engines at home if they needed specific devices to do so. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is better to have experts in the field push toward interesting results, IMO. Although &quot;energy limited on commodity hardware&quot; might be fun. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20872" LastActivityDate="2020-02-23T21:40:31.030" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28630" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-02-23T21:57:00.503" Score="0" ViewCount="93" Body="&lt;p&gt;Ratings are a paradox.   Mathematically they seem to dependent on other factors than ability.  Yet people are obsessed with their rating as if it defines them as a person somehow. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are their any papers that discuss the many problems that all current rating systems have along with their shortcomings and the ASSUMPTIONS that were used in deciding how to create a rating system.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there any statistical studies showing the distribution of wins/draws based on rating differences that have been validated and show whether the assumptions used in FIDE tables and other places are accurate?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;OTOH  Ratings are useful and 'close enough for government work'&#xA;But they fall far short of what many people believe about them. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T14:40:39.267" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T14:40:39.267" Title="Are there any papers that highlight the problems with rating systems?" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;statistics&gt;&lt;studies-published-report&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28631" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28630" CreationDate="2020-02-23T23:11:11.717" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's a bit old, but &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.glicko.net/research/crs.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this paper&lt;/a&gt; from 1995 by Mark Glickman (creator of the Glicko rating system) discusses some of the rating systems in use at the time, including the ones used by the USCF, FIDE, and the PCA. In it, several issues are mentioned, such as rating inflation/deflation, regional variations in ratings, variations in time controls, and the advantage of White. There's some other interesting stuff in there, like how natural ratings variation means that a stronger player will have a less than predicted actual performance against weaker players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not everything in it is still accurate. For example, at one point it states that the USCF rates events in the order they are received rather than the order in which they were played, but currently the USCF will re-rate the more recent event if an older event is submitted to it, so that is no longer a problem with that system. It also states that FIDE has a minimum rating of 2000, and that is no longer the case. The paper also obviously doesn't discuss any of the more recent systems. But it may be a good starting point.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2020-02-23T23:11:11.717" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28632" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5537" CreationDate="2020-02-24T01:39:24.350" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;No.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That is not an improvement just a scale change.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What would improve it is requiring people to play more frequently or lose points and also normalizing the average every 6 months or more so that the average is always at a fixed number.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I used 2000 as the average in the 60s when I was doing ratings and the ratings went from 0 to 4000.   Nobody ever got close  to zero and nobody got close to 4000 so that worked well for us. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastEditorUserId="20721" LastEditDate="2020-02-24T01:47:27.337" LastActivityDate="2020-02-24T01:47:27.337" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28633" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14317" CreationDate="2020-02-24T01:46:38.473" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes.  But it depends what the competition is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Vegas and all bookies use point spread or dollar odds to make bets come out even. They start with their estimates (unpublished) of the rankings of the teams.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Baseball has its own rankings which depend on the pitchers for the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can (or used to)  be able to see power rankings that were published.   USA today used to (may still) print the power rankings for college football teams and also for basketball.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The guy who provided them had a system and I saw it described once.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that for football the ratings gain less the bigger the win is so that running up the score is not helpful for getting a bigger rating.&#xA;This is to keep the power rankings meaningful as the football probability of a win depends on the difference in the power rankings.&#xA;EG  if one team is favored by 20 points they are 99% likely to win, if the spread is 3 points then it is about a 55% chance for the higher to win. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should look at sports gambling and see how they do power ratings for something similar to the type events you are interest in. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastActivityDate="2020-02-24T01:46:38.473" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28634" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28635" CreationDate="2020-02-24T01:59:09.827" Score="2" ViewCount="264" Body="&lt;p&gt;I do know for certain that on ICCF engines are allowed, but the question is whether analyzing the position with a human is allowed? I know that on chess.com if you let someone play on your profile you will get banned. The reason is that if it's allowed I am planning to post a question regarding my current position on a game on the ICCF. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21014" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-02T14:01:44.793" LastActivityDate="2020-12-06T04:19:16.860" Title="ICCF rule for analyzing position with another human" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;rules&gt;&lt;correspondence-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28635" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28634" CreationDate="2020-02-24T02:01:37.137" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, it is legal. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ICCF: Says nothing about it, or assistance of any kind, and you can even use computers legally. &lt;a href=&quot;https://iccfwebfiles.blob.core.windows.net/rules/2019/THE%20ICCF%20LAWS%20OF%20CORRESPONDENCE%20CHESS%2001.01.2019.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Here are their rules.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;USCF: &quot;3. You may consult chess books and periodicals but not other players.&quot; &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.uschess.org/content/view/7521/397/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Here are their rules.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With regards to the ICCF rules, my guess is that they just decided it was too hard to police computer used, so they just allow it. Books have always been permitted. Human assistance also. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2020-02-24T02:01:37.137" CommentCount="14" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28636" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28637" CreationDate="2020-02-24T02:23:00.033" Score="2" ViewCount="1980" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was analyzing the following position for one of the correspondence games that I am playing. In the position, white is up 2 pawns and with my limited understanding, I can't see any real compensation for black. I checked with Stockfish 10 at depth 29 and it evaluated the position as +0.63. I also checked with Komodo 13.2 which gives the position as +0.50 at depth 25. My question is basically on what is the compensation that black has for the 2 extra pawns or is there, in reality, no compensation and I didn't let the computer go into a higher depth.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is the position(Black to move):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;r1br2k1/pp3pbp/6p1/4P3/5P1P/2N1P3/PP4P1/R1B1KR2 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21014" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2020-02-24T10:52:21.363" LastActivityDate="2020-02-25T02:55:51.213" Title="Queenless Imbalanced Middlegame" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;middlegame&gt;&lt;evaluation&gt;&lt;sacrifice&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28637" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28636" CreationDate="2020-02-24T03:54:44.140" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, I don't think that there is any doubt that black has significant compensation, but clearly, black is still trying to hold this, not win it when talking two computers playing each other. I believe that between two humans, I would probably prefer black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you have an eval that says +.63 for white, but black is down two pawns, you have to realize that it means that black has roughly 1.37 in positional compensation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White obviously has the two pawns, but black has the two bishops in a relatively open position, is ahead in development with the Rd8 already controlling the file, and h4 is a target that at the very least can be used to gain a tempo. Lastly, the g4 square is a wonderful spot for the Bc8, and helps control the open file. Also, the Rf1 is poorly placed, and the Bc1 currently does not have a bright future. One of the extra pawns, although I am going to trade it off, is currently doubled.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I analyzed this using a computer, and it is a VERY difficult position to get a handle on because so many of the moves are almost equal in the evaluations. In each case, what I did was let it get to a depth of 33-37 using Stockfish 11, and then I would advance the game by a move and force in the best move, and then let it get to a depth of 33-37 again, and so on. So, by the time I got to the 16th move of the variation, it was still looking 35+ ply ahead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is the variation I found, and I have notes as to why the moves are being played. At the end, it is still only +.41, and despite the two pawns minus, it is hard to believe that white can win due to black's incredible activity, and the Kg8 will enter the game soon.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;r1br2k1/pp3pbp/6p1/4P3/5P1P/2N1P3/PP4P1/R1B1KR2 b Q - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1... f6 2. e4 Bg4 3. e6 (3. exf6 Bxf6 4. g3 Bxc3+ 5. bxc3 Rd3 6. Kf2 Re8 7. e5 Rc8 {and black is almost winning...f5 is already the only move so white can play Bf4 next defending g3.}) Bxe6 4. Kf2 Rd3 (4... Bg4 5. Be3 Rd3 6. Rfe1) 5. Rd1 (5. Be3 Bg4 6. Rac1 Re8) 5... Rxd1 6. Nxd1 Rc8 7. Nc3 f5 8. e5 Bf8 {Ba3 threat.} 9. Bd2 a5 {Idea a4-a3.} 10. Ke1 {To prophylactically protect the Bd2 after a4; Na4 Rc2} Bc5 11. Rd1 Be7 $1 {Only after a2 is undefended does this combined with a4 work.} 12. g3 a4 $1 13. Nxa4 (13. a3 Bb3) 13... Rc2 14. Rc1 Rxc1+ 15. Bxc1 Bxa2 16. Nc3 Bc4 $14 {Nd1 +.41.}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-02-25T02:55:51.213" LastActivityDate="2020-02-25T02:55:51.213" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28638" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28636" CreationDate="2020-02-24T06:32:35.847" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;First of all, white's pieces don't have much mobility. The B has one legal move, the queen's rook also only has one move, the king's rook only has four moves and none of them are particularly good. The king is kind of in the way. White is going to have to spend some time coordinating his pieces. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Second, black has the two Bishops. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Third, white's pawns are doubled and there is no clear way to advance them in the short term. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There isn't not enough compensation for two pawns but certainly black's more active position is worth at least a pawn, maybe a little more and that's what the engines are saying. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2020-02-24T06:32:35.847" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28639" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-02-24T07:23:54.297" Score="3" ViewCount="622" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess Position Trainer allows you to do leaf node evaluation and then minimax the results after that. Is it possible to install Chess Position Trainer on Linux? (I tried under mine, but couldn't), or is there any other software for Linux that can do minimax nodes?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21255" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-02-24T14:13:02.000" LastActivityDate="2020-02-24T19:02:51.723" Title="Chess Position Trainer on Linux or Minimax on Linux" Tags="&lt;linux&gt;&lt;minimax&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28640" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28636" CreationDate="2020-02-24T11:20:10.567" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;The formula for winning a position at this stage of the game when you are 2 pawns up goes like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Swap the pieces off, or at least enough to make stage 2 possible&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Create a passed pawn&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Queen the pawn&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The problem here is that white is struggling to complete development and black is the one who has all the control. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Black controls the open d file&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Black can control the d1 square next to white's king by Bg4&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Black controls the white squares&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Black's g7 bishop potentially controls the a1-g8 diagonal and if the f7 and e5 pawns are exchanged then this could be very painful for white&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Black's development is almost complete while it is hard to see how white can get any of his pieces to good squares any time soon without losing material. The white queenside rook and bishop don't look like they are going to be playing an active role for a while.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In short, white is probably going to have to give up material just to get to stage 1 alive. The question remains can white complete stage 1 and still have prospects of stage 2, creating a passed pawn? The low evaluation of about 0.5-0.6 suggests that there are some chances but everything is still to play for.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-02-24T11:20:10.567" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28641" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28636" CreationDate="2020-02-24T14:34:56.833" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;When you get those results from an engine that shows the game is essentially even while you see a two pawn difference then that means you do not fully understand the value of positions.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black has the two bishops. &#xA;With Bg4 he will control the file his rook is on and finish his mobilization. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White will have problems getting his pieces onto useful squares. &#xA;The white bishop is bad as whites pawns block the bishop&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black will double rooks on the queen file threatening a pawn and the bishop if white moves it to d2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;p-f6 will be double edged freeing the black bishop but giving white a potential passed pawn in the late endgame. White could advance the behind 3 pawn to reblock the bishop.  black should wait on that move until rooks and  other bishop are deployed. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Overall it is a tough position with a lot  of play and white has a minimal edge that might matter between computers but not so much between people who actually do the moves. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are black  I suggest you offer a draw. Especially since you have been getting outside help by posting the question about an ongoing ICCF game online.  If you are white I suggest you offer a draw and hope black takes it.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastEditorUserId="20721" LastEditDate="2020-02-24T17:07:17.533" LastActivityDate="2020-02-24T17:07:17.533" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28642" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28639" CreationDate="2020-02-24T14:44:13.243" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are oodles of programs for linux.  Take your choice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stockfish runs on linux.  And many other places too. &#xA;It is open source so you can modify the code to do what you want.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These are rated 'best' chess aps for Linux:&#xA;PyChess Advanced chess client following the GNOME Human Interface Guidelines   /////&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Cute Chess  Graphical user interface, command-line interface and library   /////&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Raptor  Chess interface for freechess.org (FICS) /////&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stockfish   Strong open source chess engine /////&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Crafty  Highly competent chess engine  /////&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Scid    Shane's Chess Information Database /////&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;SOSS    Chess pairing software /////&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ChessDB Based on Scid with some enhancements /////&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Jin Java based graphical client for internet chess servers /////&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;jose    Database with a graphical front-end for viewing and editing games /////&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Knights Chess game for the KDE desktop environment /////&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Xiphos  UCI chess engine with modern search techniques and multithreading /////&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;SCID and ChessX run on Linux as does SCIDvsPC&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are many fine engines for LINUX.&#xA;Stockfish and Critter are popular with one reviewer. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastActivityDate="2020-02-24T14:44:13.243" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28643" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28634" CreationDate="2020-02-24T16:00:33.213" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I played in ICCF, the rules were any sort of reference help other than another person was allowed.  That was mainly books back then. I had wondered if Berliner had used his IBM access to help win the world championship in the '60s.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now understand that they specifically allow computers as well as books.  There is no way for them to know if someone is using another person. So the only thing stopping it is your ethics and conscience.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why bother playing postal chess if you are average and then getting someone to help you?  And if you are a top player, then good luck finding someone who could help you better than you and your computer can do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-12-06T04:19:16.860" LastActivityDate="2020-12-06T04:19:16.860" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28644" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28639" CreationDate="2020-02-24T17:19:53.247" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sorry, no. Chess Position Trainer only runs on Windows 7, 8, and 10.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See the system requirements &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesspositiontrainer.com/index.php/en/download&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You could consider a virtual machine running Windows on a Linux host, but it will not run natively.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2020-02-24T17:19:53.247" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28645" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28639" CreationDate="2020-02-24T19:02:51.723" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have not tried it, but you might be able to install Chess Position Trainer under Linux using WINE.  I haven't looked at WINE in a long time, but it's apparently a lot better than it was ~10 years ago when I last tried to do anything with it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7147" LastActivityDate="2020-02-24T19:02:51.723" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28646" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13492" CreationDate="2020-02-24T19:24:45.517" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;As far as I understand it, tablebase positions are any positions with 7 pieces or less since that ismthe current limit. Chess composers have a knack for creating problems with unique solutions, as well as problems with 7 pieces or less, which are known as miniatures.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I looked for long “miniatures” in chess problem databases that had a unique solution for both White and Black, i.e. there are no alternative moves at any point nor are their any promotion duals.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as I have searched, here is the longest unique tablebase mate in &lt;strong&gt;39 ply long&lt;/strong&gt;, and it was found at the &lt;a href=&quot;https://pdb.dieschwalbe.de/search.jsp?expression=APIECES%3D7+AND+STIP+%3D+%27%2320%27+AND+G%3D%27Studies%27&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Schwalbe PBD&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Victor Cuciuc, E191 diagrammes, 8/5/1984, Mate In 20 Moves&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;8/P7/8/8/8/n6q/2p2K2/r6k w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. a8=Q+ Kh2 2. Qb8+ Kh1 3. Qb7+ Kh2 4. Qc7+ Kh1 5. Qc6+ Kh2 6. Qd6+ Kh1 7. Qd5+ Kh2 8. Qe5+ Kh1 9. Qxa1+ Nb1 10. Qa8+ Kh2 11. Qb8+ Kh1 12. Qb7+ Kh2 13. Qc7+ Kh1 14. Qc6+ Kh2 15. Qd6+ Kh1 16. Qd5+ Kh2 17. Qe5+ Kh1 18. Qe1+ Qf1+ 19. Qxf1+ Kh2 20. Qg2#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While there are longer miniatures with queen “staircases,” as this problem uses, they do not have unique lines all the way through.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With just &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.yacpdb.org/#72493&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;6 pieces&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;31 ply&lt;/strong&gt; is the longest sequence that I know of.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Johannes Steinmüller, Schach 12/1996&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;8/3p4/8/8/8/p1p5/2K5/k4N2 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Ng3 Ka2 2. Ne2 Ka1 3. Nc1 d5 4. Ne2 Ka2 5. Nxc3+ Ka1 6. Ne2 Ka2 7. Nd4 Ka1 8. Nc6 Ka2 9. Nb4+ Ka1 10. Kc1 d4 11. Nc2+ Ka2 12. Nxd4 Ka1 13. Kc2 Ka2 14. Ne2 Ka1 15. Nc1 a2 16. Nb3#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-06-03T15:40:03.623" LastActivityDate="2020-06-03T15:40:03.623" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28648" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-02-25T00:38:05.107" Score="6" ViewCount="453" Body="&lt;p&gt;If a Woman Grandmaster (WGM) transitions to a man, does he retain the WGM title?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Related, but not part of this question: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/24851/are-there-any-rules-for-transgender-players-in-chess&quot;&gt;Are there any rules for transgender players in chess?&lt;/a&gt; which establishes that if a male GM transitions to a woman, she does not instantly acquire the WGM title, but says nothing about the reverse situation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-02-25T03:00:50.730" LastActivityDate="2020-02-25T03:00:50.730" Title="If a Woman Grandmaster (WGM) transitions to a man, does he retain the WGM title?" Tags="&lt;gender&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28653" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28648" CreationDate="2020-02-25T01:09:48.470" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;FIDE has not ruled on that possibility yet.  No national federation is known to have ruled on that yet. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A related case is going to the US Supreme court that might influence how others do eventually rule should such an event ever actually happen. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastActivityDate="2020-02-25T01:09:48.470" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28658" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-02-25T02:39:52.207" Score="3" ViewCount="2091" Body="&lt;p&gt;Shouldn't 1...Nf8 win here too? Why not?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;r2qk2r/pp1nnp1N/4p1pQ/3pP3/4b1PP/P1B5/1PP1B3/R3KR2 b Qq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1...Nf8??&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user21611" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-20T15:23:09.190" LastActivityDate="2020-03-20T15:23:09.190" Title="Chess.com's daily problem-Why doesn't 1...Nf8 win the Nh7?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;puzzles&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28659" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28658" CreationDate="2020-02-25T02:41:06.807" Score="19" Body="&lt;p&gt;Frankly, you overlooked a major detail...Nf6+ in reply is mate. It is important to notice your &quot;opponent's&quot; moves too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;r2qk2r/pp1nnp1N/4p1pQ/3pP3/4b1PP/P1B5/1PP1B3/R3KR2 b Qq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1... Nf8 $4 (1... Ng8! 2. Qg7 (2. Nf6+ Qxf6 $1) 2... Qxh4+ 3. Kd2 Qxh7) 2. Nf6#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2020-02-25T02:41:06.807" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28661" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28601" CreationDate="2020-02-25T05:56:05.800" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;3...c5 is terrible here. It weakens the d6 and d5 squares and leaves black with a backward d-pawn. White will play d4 at some point leaving black with an IQP and white with a superior center. Black has no way to equalize against reasonable play. Typically, in a Sicilian black doesn't play e5 because holding back the e-pawn gives black potential control over d6 and d5.  The one exception would be the Boleslavsky pawn formation however you'll notice that only works if black can keep the e pawn at e5 (because of the resulting endgame).  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As white I would just play Bc4 followed by 0-0. If black plays Nf6 then e5 and there isn't anything black can do. After that, decide if you want to play the immediate d4 or play c3 followed by d4. Stockfish seems to think black is okay trying to hold the pawn with g5 but I see this as a position where black is going to have to fight very hard just to get a draw. In my opinion, this is what you hope for as white. You have an active position that gives black plenty of chances to go wrong but if black plays perfectly you should still be able to draw. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T17:07:00.247" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T17:07:00.247" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28662" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8984" CreationDate="2020-02-25T06:29:36.260" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I used to play this a lot as black and the line that worried me most was 1. e4 e5 2. f4 d5 3. exd5 e4 4. d3 Nf6 5. dxe4 Nxe4. White is completely fine here and if black presses too hard it can become a wildly tactical position where black is just struggling to survive. If you're confident in your tactics, you should be okay but that depends a lot on your analysis and who you're playing against. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you just want something simple that avoids theory 3.Nf3, dxe4 4. Nxe5 is perfectly playable. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bb5+ trying to trade off the pawn is extremely common but I wouldn't recommend it. Black's position is very active &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2020-02-25T06:29:36.260" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28663" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28577" CreationDate="2020-02-25T09:54:13.023" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Rather than using the engine evaluation, I suggest you to review how the engine evaluate threats and how you could capture such data. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance, a possible activity or aggresive order from more to less could be: A mate threat &gt; loss of material &gt; loss of space &gt; overloading a piece &gt; weakening the King's castle &gt; pawns doubled &gt; mobility reduced &gt; piece with reduced mobility &gt; piece  distance to own king, etc. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An aditional element is how an engine determines which pieces or squares are insuficiently defended or attacked and how this was changed with the previous move. In a elementary book I read moves were classified as attacking moves, defending moves or developing moves. Later I learned that we must consider also in-between moves in dinamic positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1766" LastActivityDate="2020-02-25T09:54:13.023" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28664" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15752" CreationDate="2020-02-25T11:51:26.670" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As already said, 3. fxe5 ?? is a terrible blunder after which the computer's evaluation drops from about equal to -5 (in Black's favor).&#xA;The correct reply by Black is to play Qh4+:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;    [FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/ppp2ppp/8/3pP3/4P3/8/PPPP2PP/RNBQKBNR b KQkq - 0 3&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;    3... Qh4+ 4. g3 Qxe4+ 5. Qe2 Qxh1&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The correct play is 3. exd5 by White, after which, Black has the choice to play the &quot;true&quot; counter gambit, probably unsound, but tricky:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;    [FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/ppp2ppp/8/3pp3/4PP2/8/PPPP2PP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 3&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;    3. dxe5 e4 4. d3 Nf6&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And White can claim a small advantage here.&#xA;A safer option for Black is to capture on f4, and you get a balanced game, not really a gambit anymore though !&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;    [FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/ppp2ppp/8/3pp3/4PP2/8/PPPP2PP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 3&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;    3. dxe5 exf4&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With a very safe position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Check &lt;a href=&quot;https://pawnbreak.com/getting-started-with-the-kings-gambit/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this article about the King's gambit&lt;/a&gt; for more details about this particular trap, and about the King's gambit in general.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2076" LastEditorUserId="2076" LastEditDate="2020-02-25T11:56:29.887" LastActivityDate="2020-02-25T11:56:29.887" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28666" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14149" CreationDate="2020-02-25T15:46:20.670" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not really.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;You would need to play it out to the end to be sure.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And even then there would be questions like what if at move 77  I did this move instead of that move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even engines would not be definitive.  But if you played the position out a thousand times between two engines you could get a statistical answer but still not likely to be definitive like the OP implied. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That said, my intuition says white could win and should at least draw.  OTB especially blitz ,I would be trying for that mate and expecting a perpetual at worse. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would play Q-Q2  (qd2 for the kiddies:)  and look at the bishop taking the king rook pawn followed by Be4.  Black might  play P-KB4&#xA;[Pf4] to hold on but his position would not be as good and white could ultimately win.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastEditorUserId="20721" LastEditDate="2020-02-25T15:51:57.063" LastActivityDate="2020-02-25T15:51:57.063" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28667" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8121" CreationDate="2020-02-25T15:58:58.917" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;ICCF  hosts postal play and has various competitions including THE world championship for postal.  Check out &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.iccf.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.iccf.com/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The USCF also hosts the old CL&amp;amp;R postal games now that they have taken  over that old magazine via a merger with CL.  Check out &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.uschess.org/content/blogcategory/82/393/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.uschess.org/content/blogcategory/82/393/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I suspect that their postal play is via the internet with longer clock time than OTB not the old fashioned snail mail that added many days or weeks to the allowed time.   You had to answer in 3 days of receipt back then but could think during the mails transit to gain more clock time in effect. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastActivityDate="2020-02-25T15:58:58.917" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28668" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28676" CreationDate="2020-02-25T16:33:30.363" Score="1" ViewCount="458" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's no information as to why it's called a draw. Some of my students start to take out a pencil and paper and literally draw in the middle of the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why is it called a draw?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13147" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-02-25T16:34:50.393" LastActivityDate="2020-06-11T17:27:38.887" Title="Why is it called a draw?" Tags="&lt;history&gt;&lt;draw&gt;&lt;terminology&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28669" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28668" CreationDate="2020-02-25T16:42:16.067" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;draw (n.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;c. 1400, &quot;act of pulling,&quot; from draw (v.). Meaning &quot;game or contest that ends without a winner,&quot; is attested first in drawn match (1610s), but the signification is uncertain origin; some speculate it is from withdraw. Hence, as a verb, &quot;to leave (a game, etc.) undecided,&quot; from 1837.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.etymonline.com/word/draw&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.etymonline.com/word/draw&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13147" LastActivityDate="2020-02-25T16:42:16.067" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28670" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="94" CreationDate="2020-02-25T16:42:50.240" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Typically, White wants to play the King's gambit to play some crazy lines, full of sacrifices and double-edged play like the Kieseritzky Gambit:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;    [FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;    1. e4 e5 2. f4 exf4 3. Nf3 g5 4. h4 g4 5. Ne5 Nf6&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With a messy position on move 5 already !&#xA;And there are so many lines like that if Black is ready to accept the challenge. But that is a big IF.&#xA;First, there is this defense advocated by Fischer everyone is mentioning that seems to be OK for black:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;    [FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;    1. e4 e5 2. f4 exf4 3. Nf3 d6&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This move d6 simply removes the e5-square for the Knight, and this alone makes White's attack harder to carry on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I think that, really, what can discourage White to play the King's gambit, especially at higher level, is that Black can simply opt for an early d7-d5 setup, that usually gives a full (and quite boring) equality:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;    [FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;    1. e4 e5 2. f4 d5 3. exd5 exf4&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And honestly, after these 3 move, it is hard to see how White can attack...&#xA;Check my &lt;a href=&quot;https://pawnbreak.com/getting-started-with-the-kings-gambit/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;introduction on the King's gambit&lt;/a&gt; if you want to get an idea on how to play this nevertheless interesting opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2076" LastActivityDate="2020-02-25T16:42:50.240" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28671" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6429" CreationDate="2020-02-25T16:53:39.140" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you are trying to &lt;strong&gt;neutralize&lt;/strong&gt; your opponent's initiative in the King's gambit (rather than fighting for the advantage but accepting a high risk of losing), I suggest to play a quick d7-d5, which is usually enough to remove most of the danger:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;    [FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;    1. e4 e5 2. f4 d5 3. exd5 exf4&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Don't play the Falkbeer counter-gambit with 3... e4 if your goal is to neutralize ! 3... exf4 is much safer&#xA;Interestingly it can transpose into the so-called Modern defense :&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. f4 exf4 3. Nf3 d5&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And you can find the d7-d5 idea in the 3. Bc4 variation of the King's gambit:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;    [FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;    1. e4 e5 2. f4 exf4 3. Bc4 d5 4. Bxd5 Nf6&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With a very solid position as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But it is true that the King's gambit is a very complex opening from a tactical standpoint and it is easy to get lost in the complications.&#xA;Check my &lt;a href=&quot;https://pawnbreak.com/getting-started-with-the-kings-gambit/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;overview on the King's gambit&lt;/a&gt; if you are interested to learn more !&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2076" LastActivityDate="2020-02-25T16:53:39.140" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28672" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28668" CreationDate="2020-02-25T18:04:00.923" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;draw (v.)&#xA;&quot;give motion to by the act of pulling,&quot; c. 1200, drauen, spelling alteration of Old English dragan &quot;to drag, to draw, protract&quot; (class VI strong verb; past tense drog, past participle dragen), from Proto-Germanic *draganan &quot;to draw, pull&quot; (source also of Old Norse draga &quot;to draw, drag, pull,&quot; Old Saxon dragan &quot;to carry,&quot; Old Frisian drega, draga, Middle Dutch draghen &quot;to carry, bring, throw,&quot; Old High German tragan &quot;carry, bring, lead,&quot; German tragen &quot;to carry, bear&quot;), from PIE root *dhregh- (see drag (v.)).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sense of &quot;make a line or figure&quot; (by &quot;drawing&quot; a pencil across paper) is from c. 1200. Meaning &quot;remove or extract (a weapon) by pulling&quot; is from late 12c., originally of a sword. Sense of &quot;to pull (a bowstring)&quot; is from c. 1200. To draw a criminal (drag him at the tail of a horse to the place of execution) is from c. 1300.&#xA;Meaning &quot;select one (from a number of lots, etc.)&quot; is from c. 1300. Sense of &quot;bring (a crowd, an audience, etc.) by inducement or attraction&quot; is from 1580s. Of a ship or boat, &quot;to displace (a specified amount) of water,&quot; 1550s. In card-playing, &quot;to take or receive (a card),&quot; by 1772; draw-poker is by 1850. To draw out &quot;lengthen, protract&quot; is from 1550s; to draw the line in the figurative sense of &quot;make a limit&quot; is by 1793. To draw blood is from c. 1400.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The difference between [Draw Poker] and Poker is, that the player can draw from the pack as many cards as he may wish,--not exceeding five,--which must be given him by the dealer; but previous to drawing he must take from his original hand the game number as he may wish to draw, and lay them in the centre of the table. [&quot;Bohn's New Hand-Book of Games,&quot; Philadelphia, 1850]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;draw (n.)&#xA;c. 1400, &quot;act of pulling,&quot; from draw (v.). Meaning &quot;game or contest that ends without a winner,&quot; is attested first in drawn match (1610s), but the signification is uncertain origin; some speculate it is from withdraw. Hence, as a verb, &quot;to leave (a game, etc.) undecided,&quot; from 1837.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Colloquial sense of &quot;anything that can draw a crowd&quot; is from 1881 (from the verb in the related sense). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Alternatively:&#xA;Taking out paper and pencil and starting to draw in the middle of the game sounds like they are in kindergarten and bored with the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Clearly you should be teaching them to use at least fingerpaint with multicolors to keep them interested.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or you could tell them it is not a draw but a tie although then they might pull out rope and start making knots. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastEditorUserId="10075" LastEditDate="2020-02-29T19:16:52.187" LastActivityDate="2020-02-29T19:16:52.187" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28673" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5870" CreationDate="2020-02-25T21:56:08.453" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The King's gambit is probably not refuted, but Black has several good replies to it. White's goal is certainly to play a sharp game with a quick attack and Black can either oblige and try to outplay White on such lines:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;    [FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;    1. e4 e5 2. f4 exf4 3. Nf3 g5 4. h4 g4&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is the start of some crazy lines, and anything can happen here.&#xA;Of course, there is the Fischer move, but it is not necessarily a forced win for Black, just a good game:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;    [FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;    1. e4 e5 2. f4 exf4 3. Nf3 d6&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;d6 is just a waiting move that prevents White's Knight to jump on e5 later on.&#xA;But Black also have a whole family of defenses based on a quick d7-d5 that levels things immediately and let Black with a safe position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;    [FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;    1. e4 e5 2. f4 exf4 3. Nf3 d5&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All that to say that Black has many interesting ways to fight that give him at least equality on perfect play. If you are interested, check my article on the &lt;a href=&quot;https://pawnbreak.com/getting-started-with-the-kings-gambit/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;many ways to play the King's gambit&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2076" LastActivityDate="2020-02-25T21:56:08.453" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28674" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-02-26T00:23:22.957" Score="4" ViewCount="346" Body="&lt;p&gt;ICCF uses pure numerical notation counting each square by row and column  eg  11 to 88.  So Pd4 often written just d4 -  would be 2224 so there can never be any confusion should two pieces be able to move to the same square. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If One used that notation in an OTB tournament would FIDE accept it or would that be a problem?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T14:39:18.310" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T14:39:18.310" Title="Does FIDE or USCF allow ICCF type numerical notation instead of the so called algebraic?" Tags="&lt;fide&gt;&lt;notation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28675" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28678" CreationDate="2020-02-26T00:29:49.447" Score="8" ViewCount="2322" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm a Queen's Gambit player and quite often I find myself against the King's Indian Defense. Usually all the lines of the Queen's Gambit that lead to a closed center with white playing d5 (King's Indian, Benoni, etc.) result uncomfortable for me; the light-squared bishop is very ugly, I can't seem to exploit my space advantage and black's knights are generally able to exert a great deal of pressure on e4, while I can't really find the precise way to position mines. Perhaps these is because I play badly against the Kings Indian, since I never studied it and I really ignore the general strategic ideas of its main position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;r1bq1rk1/pppn1pbp/3p1np1/3Pp3/2P1P3/2N2N2/PP2BPPP/R1BQ1RK1 b - - 0 8&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This would be a very typical game. What are some key strategical ideas I should know about this position? What is white plan, and what are some correct ways to execute it? I usually lose positionally, not by checkmate. Just get a worse position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21110" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-04T20:15:02.253" LastActivityDate="2021-01-24T01:35:26.043" Title="Beating the King's Indian Defense: strategic ideas?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;kings-indian&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28676" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28668" CreationDate="2020-02-26T00:44:03.857" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I do not think that you will ever get a definitive answer. I did find an interesting article of a dedicated etymology site &lt;a href=&quot;https://mashedradish.com/2016/10/10/why-do-we-call-a-tie-a-draw/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I will quote part of it here:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;By the Oxford English Dictionary’s (OED) reckoning, the earliest&#xA;  record of draw, as in a contest that ends with no winner, comes in&#xA;  reference to an 1856 US chess match. Over the next few decades,&#xA;  writers marked off draw with quotes or italics, which shows the word&#xA;  was novel. The word was familiar by the 1870s. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;This draw is short for draw-game, which the OED finds for a “tie” by&#xA;  1825. A draw-game, in turn, is a variation on a drawn battle or drawn match. The OED dates drawn match to a 1610 letter from English&#xA;  diplomat Sir Dudley Carleton: “It concluded, as it is many times in a&#xA;  cock pit, with a drawn match; for nothing was in the end put to the&#xA;  question.” (Before pilots occupied them, game-cocks fought in&#xA;  cockpits.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Why such a battle or match is characterized as “drawn” is unclear:&#xA;  Indeed, etymology often ends in draws. Drawn may be clipped from&#xA;  withdrawn, as in fighters who have withdrawn from the battlefield.&#xA;  Withdraw, “to take back or away,” features an old and original sense&#xA;  of the preposition with, “against,” even though it now, ironically&#xA;  enough, means “together.” Draw, meanwhile, is related to drag. And&#xA;  withdraw itself might be a calque, or loan translation, of Latin’s&#xA;  retrahere, “to retract.”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That is probably as close as you will get.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2020-02-26T00:44:03.857" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28677" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28674" CreationDate="2020-02-26T00:48:03.813" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Neither appears to allow numerical notation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://old.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=208&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE requires algebraic notation.&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Article 8: The recording of the moves&#xA;  8.1.1     &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In the course of play each player is required to record his own moves&#xA;  and those of his opponent in the correct manner, move after move, as&#xA;  clearly and legibly as possible, in the algebraic notation (Appendix&#xA;  C), on the ‘scoresheet’ prescribed for the competition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.uschess.org/docs/gov/chessrules/US_Chess_Rule_Book-%20Online_Only_Edition_v7.1-1.2.11-7.19.19.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;The USCF prefers algebraic, but also permits descriptive or &quot;computer notation&quot;.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;ol start=&quot;15&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;The Recording of Games15A. Manner of keeping score.In the course of play each player is required to record the game (both the player’s&#xA;  and the opponent’s moves), move after move, as clearly and legibly as&#xA;  possible, on the scoresheetprescribed for the competition. Algebraic&#xA;  notationis standard, but descriptive or computer notation is&#xA;  permitted.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I cannot find a definition for &quot;computer notation&quot; in their rules.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2020-02-26T00:48:03.813" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28678" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28675" CreationDate="2020-02-26T02:06:37.940" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;You do not say why you lose: Are you being beaten positionally, or are your opponents successfully attacking your king? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This a VERY difficult question to answer since it is such a large opening to cover (the Vassilios Kotronias books on the King's Indian from Quality Chess are 5 volumes!).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically, what you are looking to do is play on the queenside, and prepare c5 in most lines of the King's Indian, and open the c-file, and penetrate with your pieces. Black, especially in the classical main line, is looking to attack your king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are being beaten positionally, then you really need to study the ideas behind the opening more closely, and that is way beyond the scope of this question. If you are being beaten by all-out assaults, then you need to either learn a lot more theory, or do what I do sometimes: Play g3 and Bg2 lines, which make it more difficult for direct attacks to succeed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the position you gave, it is black to move, and he can plant the N on c5, and fortify it with a5, which stops the immediate b4 since Nc5 gains time by attacking e4. I am going to give a few lines to give you an idea of how play might go, but I also think that you should vary on move 8 with 8.Qc2, which is more flexible (make sure you read the extensive note after 9.d5 explaining why this ends up better). 6...Nbd7 is rare for a reason, and your 8.d5 does nothing to try and punish it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nf3 Bg7 4. Nc3 d6 5. e4 O-O 6. Be2 Nbd7 {This is very rare, and can lead to an excellent game for black if white just plays by rote. White should vary on move 8.} 7. O-O e5 8. d5 (8. Qc2 $1 c6 9. d5 {And black has a lot of options, but this is a better setup for white to combat them. One of the following happens: The c-file gets opened and white gets better chances to use the queenside; or a Rd1 will pressure the d6 pawn if black does not exchange; or if that pressure on d6 forces c5, then a3, and b4 will be possible (with Rb1), all the time while black is denied the c5 square for the Nd7.} (9. Be3 {Is also good, but you need to know a lot of theory.})) 8... Nc5 9. Qc2 a5 {Eventually, white wants b3, a3, Rb1, and b4, but you must be careful of tactics with the Rb1 and Nxe4 ideas followed by Bf5. For example:} 10. Bg5 (10. Rb1 $4 Nfxe4 11. Nxe4 Nxe4 12. Qxe4 Bf5 $19) (10. a3 $2 {This is why b3, a3, and only later b4. It cripples the white queenside.} a4) 10... h6 11. Be3 b6 12. Nd2 Bg4 (12... Ng4 13. Bxg4 Bxg4 14. a3 $1 {And b4 next since a4 loses a pawn.} a4 15. Bxc5 bxc5 16. Nxa4 {But black does have some compensation after Qg5.} Qg5 17. f3 Bd7 18. Nc3) 13. f3 Bd7 14. b3 Nh5 15. Rfe1 {To prepare Bf1 after nf4, and white will continue with a3 and b4.}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the end, it is about opening the queenside while not getting mated. You want to defend any kingside threats as economically as possible, while trying to distract black on the queenside. If you penetrate quickly, and actively, any attack is often doomed to fail.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2020-02-26T02:06:37.940" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28681" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28683" CreationDate="2020-02-26T03:44:48.333" Score="0" ViewCount="150" Body="&lt;p&gt;I wonder what happened to the CCLA. Did the CCLA get folded into ICCF or USCF  or just go out of business?  Did it merge with yet some other chess group?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-05-21T16:32:06.690" LastActivityDate="2021-05-21T16:32:06.690" Title="What happened to the CCLA?" Tags="&lt;correspondence-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28683" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28681" CreationDate="2020-02-26T03:54:09.333" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;They appear to still be active. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.serverchess.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.serverchess.com/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2020-02-26T03:54:09.333" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28684" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28675" CreationDate="2020-02-26T04:04:01.720" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is a big opening with many possibilities.  I suggest that you try some other set up than the one you show.  I find that I do better with a Saemisch type set up for white usually arrived via blacks 1 ...d6 to my 1 pe4 not 1... nf3 responding to 1 d4. And then transposing to a KID.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are many other set ups that could work for you.  It will take your looking at the options and trying the ones you think fit your style and then see how you do with them. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastActivityDate="2020-02-26T04:04:01.720" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28685" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28686" CreationDate="2020-02-26T12:31:49.020" Score="3" ViewCount="1811" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to practice with the app &lt;a href=&quot;https://f-droid.org/en/packages/jwtc.android.chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://f-droid.org/en/packages/jwtc.android.chess&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why does the black king go to f8, and not Kh7 instead?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;r2rb3/1p2RBk1/2pP1ppR/p7/P7/7P/1q3PP1/3Q2K1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. Rxg6+ Kf8 (1...Kh7) 2. Rg8#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21626" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T14:37:40.357" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T14:37:40.357" Title="Why does the black king evade to f8, and not to h7?" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;problems&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28686" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28685" CreationDate="2020-02-26T12:35:00.527" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;Kh7 would also result in mate due to Qh5. So both moves are equally &quot;good&quot; Kf8 Rg8 maybe was seen as less obvious than Qh5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2020-02-26T12:35:00.527" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28687" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28675" CreationDate="2020-02-26T15:02:51.267" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;As as KID player with the black pieces, I can say that the exchange variation (taking dxe5 instead of pushing d4-d5) definitely is not the one I desire to face. Much of the dynamic play I'm looking for disappears there. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12953" LastActivityDate="2020-02-26T15:02:51.267" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28688" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23613" CreationDate="2020-02-26T21:38:12.150" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You are saying that you do not see why White should attack on the Kingside as &quot;White does not have a majority of pawns in the kingside.&quot;.&#xA;This assumes that attacking means starting a sort of pawn storm in every case, but that is not correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It may sound weird, but in Isolani positions, you have better attacking prospects mostly because your pawn does not get in the way of your attacking pieces. See the illustration below:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;    [FEN &quot;6k1/pp3ppp/4p3/4N3/3P4/1B5Q/PP3PPP/2BRR1K1 w Q - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here your pieces are just perfectly placed to attack. Your Knight and your Bishop are putting pressure on f7. Your c1 Bishop can quickly move to g6 or even h6. One of your rooks can be transferred to the third rank quickly (on g3 or h3). Attacking is just easier for you. Note that the pieces will carry the attack, not the pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now imagine the same position with a pawn on e3 instead:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;    [FEN &quot;6k1/pp3ppp/4p3/4N3/8/1B2P2Q/PP3PPP/2BRR1K1 w Q - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This may not seem huge, but your e3 pawn blocks both your Bishop on c1 and prevents any Rook lift to the third rank: your attack is much harder to carry on now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Carrying the attack is not an easy task though, and you often need to combine an attack on the f7 weakness and a Rook lift along the third rank, topics that I tackle in my post about &lt;a href=&quot;https://pawnbreak.com/attacking-with-the-isolated-queens-pawn/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;how to attack with the Isolated Queen's Pawn&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2076" LastActivityDate="2020-02-26T21:38:12.150" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28689" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28690" CreationDate="2020-02-27T16:06:42.897" Score="16" ViewCount="5081" Body="&lt;p&gt;As an amateur chess player, I have been pondering this question for quite a bit now:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In case of an amateur playing against a Grandmaster, what strategy would lengthen inevitable defeat?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am assuming that a Grandmaster will &lt;em&gt;always&lt;/em&gt; beat an amateur; I suppose that it is possible to find exceptions, but they will be so rare as to be negligible. My question is partly constrained by the following observations: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The amateur will have a significantly higher chance of &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; choosing the best possible move in any given situation.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The Grandmaster is playing as if they were playing against a Master or another Grandmaster.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this case, will the amateur be able to lengthen their defeat by always playing what they &lt;em&gt;believe&lt;/em&gt; is the best possible move (which the Grandmaster is likely to anticipate with experience), or by using strategies that are not encouraged but objectively make the game more difficult for the Grandmaster (eg. always going for the kill regardless of piece value, a queen for a queen)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or would it benefit the amateur to play an entirely random move every turn, since it would prevent the amateur from taking the bait/accepting the gambit?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21637" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2020-02-27T17:50:00.753" LastActivityDate="2020-02-28T09:29:06.833" Title="What is the best strategy for an amateur to last as many moves as possible against a GM?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;grandmaster&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28690" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28689" CreationDate="2020-02-27T16:10:28.880" Score="21" Body="&lt;p&gt;It really depends on what you mean by &quot;lengthen&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am not a GM, but as an &quot;ordinary&quot; Master, I have played 1700s before, who were lost by move 10, but the game still took 50 moves to finish. If you are trying to stay equal longer, that is a harder question to address.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are just taking about purely lengthening the game, then you are looking to trade material. Endgames naturally take longer to play out. Again, they may still be lost for many moves, but they can take 40-50 more moves to execute the opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In reality, if you want a shot at being one of those statistical upsets, you want a complicated position, possibly at the cost of a pawn, where you are the aggressor. You are still likely to lose, but at least you have a &quot;puncher's chance&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S. I do not recommend playing randomly. That is a recipe for making MUCH WORSE moves, which will be punished that much more severely. Unless it is an actual good move that is buried deeply, and that a strong player overlooked, a &quot;random move&quot; is really just a move that we discounted already, usually for good reasons. Playing moves that strong players do not consider strong, is not a good recipe for success. When I encounter such a random move, it is usually just bad, and I try to adjust to take advantage of whatever new weakness was created.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.P.S. Based on your comment, and clarification, in the comment below, there is probably nothing you can do that will guarantee that you will stay equal longer other than if you have prepared the game with a chess database, and guess the line that the GM ultimately will play. A GM is going to be MUCH stronger positionally, and tactically. They simply analyze and understand much better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That leads me back to my last comment above, and that is you want a complicated position. They will probably outplay you there too, but that is the only way you have a prayer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-02-27T17:47:59.243" LastActivityDate="2020-02-27T17:47:59.243" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28691" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28689" CreationDate="2020-02-27T17:48:05.237" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you want to last as long as possible against a much stronger player, whether GM or not, then you have to do the same kind of things a GM would do playing against another GM, with one minor amendment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, a GM would prepare for his opponent. You should do the same. Go to chess-db.com (or your favourite chess database) and download a pgn file of all their games. A gm would also try to play on his territory not his opponent's. If you know what colour you will be then see what the GM plays against your repertoire. Look through all his games against your favourite line(s) and prepare so you can at least reach an equal middlegame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Second, in the game once you reach the end of your preparation change your approach from what you normally do and do something which stronger players do all the time, play prophylactically.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Whenever it is your turn ask yourself first what the point of your opponent's last move was. What is he trying to do? What are his plans? Rather than try and think up plans of your own try and stop your opponent's plans. Here is where you appreciate the second reason for preparing and fighting the battle of familiar ground.You should be familiar with the plans for both sides. This should help you frustrate your opponent's plans.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Third, if you don't see a way to stop your opponent's plan, because it is not clear what that is, then look for moves which strengthen your position, which make your position more solid, harder for your opponent to attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, suppose you reach not only an equal endgame but one in which you can't see any way your opponent can win, maybe something like a fortress. Don't lose sight of the objective! Your objective is not to win. It is to make the game last so long that it ends up in a draw. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If there really is no way for your opponent to break through then he will try and tempt you. He will apparently weaken his position to try and lure you into giving up defence and going on to the attack. Don't be fooled! Don't start thinking you might win. You won't, but you might easily find a way to lose. Keep on defending. You are happy to repeat. You are happy to shuffle back and forth in your defensive position. Be patient. In his other games the GM is much more patient than you. Match him for patience.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-02-27T17:48:05.237" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28693" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28694" CreationDate="2020-02-27T23:26:28.573" Score="8" ViewCount="3378" Body="&lt;p&gt;When a white pawn and a black pawn are touching on a file, what is it called?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17301" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-02-27T23:40:00.447" LastActivityDate="2020-02-28T19:49:51.007" Title="What is it called when opposite colored pawns up against each other?" Tags="&lt;pawns&gt;&lt;pawn-structure&gt;&lt;terminology&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28694" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28693" CreationDate="2020-02-27T23:29:24.663" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think what you're asking about is referred to as a &quot;blocked pawn&quot;.  There is &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/2529/exact-definition-of-a-blocked-pawn&quot;&gt;another question&lt;/a&gt; here that asks basically the same question, except in reverse...  A pawn can also be blocked by another of the opponent's pieces, rather than another pawn.  In either case, it can't make any progress unless the pawn/piece blocking it somehow goes away, or unless an opportunity arises for it to capture on an adjacent file.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7147" LastEditorUserId="7147" LastEditDate="2020-02-27T23:31:42.260" LastActivityDate="2020-02-27T23:31:42.260" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28695" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28693" CreationDate="2020-02-27T23:31:50.423" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/forum/view/chess-equipment/pawn-power-in-chess-by-hans-kmoch-glossary-of-terms&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this post&lt;/a&gt;, pawns that block each other are called a &quot;ram&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2020-02-27T23:31:50.423" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28696" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28693" CreationDate="2020-02-28T00:05:14.893" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;With the exception of Hans Kmoch's attempt to give it a name, which never caught on (I have never seen anyone else use it anywhere), they really do not have a name that I have even seen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I probably have seen this referred to mostly as &quot;two opposing pawns&quot;, but that is really just English rather than a specific chess term.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2020-02-28T00:05:14.893" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28697" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28698" CreationDate="2020-02-28T01:06:39.123" Score="2" ViewCount="323" Body="&lt;p&gt;Nearly every era has its opening trends like at the beginning of the millennia the Berlin started to become the trend and so much that e4 was starting to be avoided. With the 2018 world chess championship and Carlsen scoring, numerous wins with it the Sveshnikov is getting into fashion again. Even in the old days of Capablanca and Alekhine practically only Queens Gambit declines and Ruy Lopezes were seen. My question is basically where are the opening trends going as we go into the new decade?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21014" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T14:36:42.943" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T14:36:42.943" Title="Where are the opening trends heading at the start of the decade?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;theory&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28698" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28697" CreationDate="2020-02-28T01:26:28.523" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;With e4, a few that come to mind are the Rossolimo Sicilian, often to avoid Magnus' Sveshnikov, and the Najdorf never goes away. The Italian game, and the Ruy Lopez is another that never goes away (Magnus has 180 games as white alone with it).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With d4, the Catalan is still popular along with the various Queen's Gambit lines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Obviously, very few things every go totally out of style unless they are totally busted, but to come up with the list, I used ChessBase to do &quot;dossiers&quot; on Carlsen, Caruana, Ding, and So; and then I looked at what they played the most, and ignore openings with lesser quantities of games. They seem to mostly play very traditional openings that take direct control of the center.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: First, I think that the Berlin was on a level all by itself due to Kramnik's successes, and because every top player plays 1...e5 a lot, and because the Ruy Lopez is so difficult to defend. I just finished watching &quot;The Method in Chess&quot; Videos literally just yesterday, and in one of the last two, GM Dorfman made a comment about how the Ruy is just &quot;statically worse&quot;, and that black is mostly confined to the last three ranks, and white can choose to play on the kingside, center, or queenside, meaning that black always has to be that much more vigilant about white's intentions in any of the three areas. The Berlin solved that at the cost of a slightly inferior endgame, and thus, it solved it for A LOT of elite players. Therefore, it also got played a lot more often than most other opening trends.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I looked through my New in Chess Yearbooks, which are basically surveys of opening theory, and it mostly confirmed what I wrote above. Here is a list of players, who have played each of the following openings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What I did to get this information was plug in the position I knew was popular from reading about chess over the last few years, and the Yearbooks, and then clicked on the Reference Database (Mega 2020) in ChessBase, and then sorted by ELO rating, and paged down to see what elite players played it. If they played it just once or twice, I did not include them. Nakamura was on the edge for a few of them, but I noted that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Rossolimo with white: Carlsen, MLV, Aronian, Nakamura, Anand, Caruana, and Giri. I sorted the following search to bring up Carlsen's games as black to show how they are trying to avoid his Sveshnikov (far right in the picture), but he also has played it against Radjabov, Gelfand, and Dubov, among others.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Jhlqa.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Jhlqa.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sveshnikov as black: Carlsen, Caruana, Grischuk, and Radjabov.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Najdorf as black: Carlsen, MLV, Ding, Grischuk, Anand, Giri, Grischuk, and again, Nakamura dabbles.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Italian Game with white: Carlsen (19 games), Caruana, Ding, So, MLV, Giri, Anand, Karjakin, Nepo, Aronian, and even Nakamura has played it a few times.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Ruy Lopez with white, and all have played it A LOT...more than any other opening I could find: Carlsen, Caruana, So, MLV, Anand, Topalov (even as recently as 2015), Anand, Giri, and Nakamura some. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you can see, while the top players may avoid one of the above, they are all very popular overall.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-02-28T13:44:19.867" LastActivityDate="2020-02-28T13:44:19.867" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28699" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28689" CreationDate="2020-02-28T09:29:06.833" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm interpreting the question as &quot;how to last as many moves as possible before the computer eval breaches [some high number]&quot;. In this scenario, try:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Preparing and memorizing some long opening line, the longer the better. After all, each move in your home preparation also counts!&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Watch for tactics. Blundering a piece is the easiest way to lose (positional blunders are not usually as devastating). Make sure you defend all your pieces, make &lt;em&gt;luft&lt;/em&gt; early to forestall back rank mates, and look at all the captures &amp;amp; checks at your opponent's disposal.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastActivityDate="2020-02-28T09:29:06.833" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28700" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-02-28T17:03:06.443" Score="7" ViewCount="123" Body="&lt;p&gt;An acquaintance whose family was from Turkey, told me that the pieces move the way do based on ideas about Persian warfare.  Moving in a rank or file was considered earthly, and moving diagonal was heavenly.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The king and advisor (queen) are combination of earthly and heavenly power. They are both equal in power, but the king can only move one space at a time, because he is burdened with the weight of command.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The pawns must move in an earthly way, but can only capture with the help of god (so the capture is diagonal like the bishop).  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Everything else is fuzzy: There was something about why the pawn's first move could be one or two spaces.  I can't remember anything about the knights.  There was a reason rooks where earthly.  There was also a bit about why castling goes the way it does, and why pawns can be promoted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does this ring a bell with anyone?  It was a cool story, and I'd like to hear the whole thing again.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21643" LastActivityDate="2020-02-28T17:51:31.890" Title="&quot;Back story&quot; of the pieces legal moves" Tags="&lt;history&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28701" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28700" CreationDate="2020-02-28T17:51:31.890" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your acquaintance is right, and wrong to some degree, since before chess went to Persia, its precursor is considered to have been invented in India. It was based on troop movements there, so they had already been established by then, even if they were later modified.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is taken from Wikipedia &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_chess#Origin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Precursors to chess originated in India during the Gupta Empire.&#xA;  There, its early form in the 6th century was known as chaturaṅga,&#xA;  which translates as &quot;four divisions (of the military)&quot;: infantry,&#xA;  cavalry, elephantry, and chariotry. These forms are represented by the&#xA;  pieces that would evolve into the modern pawn, knight, bishop, and&#xA;  rook, respectively.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2020-02-28T17:51:31.890" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28703" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28693" CreationDate="2020-02-28T19:49:51.007" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;For the scenario where one pawn is on the second rank and the other is its sixth rank but cannot be captured by a pawn on an adjacent file, YouTube vlogger Kingscrusher coined the term &quot;thorn pawn&quot;.  The chess engine Leela Zero seems to establish thorn pawns quite frequently as part of its strategy, and they can be amazingly effective at limiting enemy mobility.  If e.g. Black has castled kingside and the king is at g8, a thorn pawn at g6 can make it impossible for Black to establish f7, g7, or h7 as escape squares.  If White keeps a rook ready to pounce on the eighth rank, Black will have to keep a rook &lt;em&gt;on&lt;/em&gt; the eighth rank.  Unless or until Black can resolve that situation, White's thorn pawn will enormously upgrade the playing strength of White's rooks and downgrade the playing strength of Black's.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2698" LastActivityDate="2020-02-28T19:49:51.007" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28704" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-02-28T22:36:52.983" Score="6" ViewCount="235" Body="&lt;p&gt;One important opening principle is to develop your pieces and being ahead in development is the aim of the opening. In the following opening, white is obviously ahead in development (developed the queen and both knights, one of them in a centre square) but black seems to be fine:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.Nd2 dxe4 4.Nxe4 Bf5 5.Ng3 Bg6 6.h4 h6 7.Nf3 e6 8.Ne5 Bh7 9.Bd3 Bxd3 10.Qxd3 Nf6 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/uhAvD.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/uhAvD.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16626" LastActivityDate="2020-02-29T10:21:16.560" Title="Why black is happy with slow development?" Tags="&lt;caro-kann&gt;&lt;development&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="0" ClosedDate="2020-02-29T08:31:36.970" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28705" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28704" CreationDate="2020-02-28T22:51:38.477" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;I do not know that I would say &quot;happy&quot;, but in chess, there are pluses and minuses to every move we make, and on top of that, there are exceptions to many positional concepts. We see GMs move pieces twice in the opening all the time when there is a good reason.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, as to that specific position, black is, indeed, somewhat behind in development, but has compensating factors. In particular, black has traded the bad bishop for white's good bishop, and the exchange of light-squared bishops makes most kingside attacks very difficult to execute, and in the Caro, with less space, that is a concern. The c6 and e6 pawns are well-placed to help control the light squares since the bishop was traded. Black's remaining bishop is probably a little better than white's, and contributes well to the defense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In addition, black is incredibly solid, so black has the time to finish development safely, and then to break back with c5. It is almost impossible to prevent c5 later.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lastly, black is normally down one tempo, but here it is two. Black had no choice but to play Bh7 when white played Ne5. How is being behind in development normally punished? By opening the position. That is virtually impossible here, so black is content (the word I would use instead of &quot;happy&quot;) to be behind en development temporarily.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: I am going to move a few more things from my comments below to the answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One more thing that compensates is that the Ng3 is not well-placed, and often goes to e4 later, giving back a tempo. You also might look at h4 as a potential weakness, but it is rare in practice that it is a factor in that sense...it usually is not weak, but cramps black's kingside.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Development is not the overriding factor in this line, or similar lines...it is that white has more space, which is why black must eventually chip away at the center with c5. If not, it will probably be a slow strangulation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-02-29T10:21:16.560" LastActivityDate="2020-02-29T10:21:16.560" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28706" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16582" CreationDate="2020-02-29T16:26:53.107" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Aka Durkin Opening.&#xA;I would tend to agree with some of the negative comments re Na3 as the first move: Knights tend to be most effective when they have a stable central post ie are protected and cannot be kicked away by a pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, another way of looking at Na3 as a first move for White is that you are in effect playing as Black but with an extra move in hand. Playing a first move as white like a3 or h3 is like this too. In principle these moves as White cannot be bad as such but you may just be handing the initiative to Black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But assuming you decide to try 1.Na3, if you can drive subsequent play so that the Na3 Knight can find a secure spot at c4 or c2 then the move may have the virtue of getting your opponent out of book early and also strengthen your centre.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Remember, Tony Miles played 1.....a6 as his first move with Black against Anatoly Karpov and beat him in a fine game!&#xA;Karpov may even have been World Champ at the time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13074" LastActivityDate="2020-02-29T16:26:53.107" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28707" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28668" CreationDate="2020-02-29T16:31:07.407" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The word is also related to &quot;draught&quot;, this disambiguation quite possibly comes from it. Tigran Petrosian once used a metaphor &quot;to find an oasis in the desert&quot; to describe Kasparov's ability to unbalance a drawish position and find a win (in a game against Korchnoi, if memory serves).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15509" LastEditorUserId="15509" LastEditDate="2020-06-11T17:27:38.887" LastActivityDate="2020-06-11T17:27:38.887" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28708" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23983" CreationDate="2020-02-29T21:54:57.077" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As already said in some answers, 4. Nc3 is relatively harmless as it transposes into the four Knights game. It is a shame because developing the Knight on c3 might seem very logical (it follows the generic principles of the opening !).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Instead, 4. O-O is forcing Black to play a committal move, as 4... Be7 leaves Black with an unpleasant position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;    [FEN &quot;r1bqkb1r/pppp1ppp/2n2n2/1B2p3/4P3/5N2/PPPP1PPP/RNBQ1RK1 b kq - 5 4&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;    4... Be7 5. Nc3 d6 6. d4&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And White is doing more than fine here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So Black doesn't really have any other choice than burning bridges in some way (actually, Black is doing fine, of course) and go for 4... Nxe4 that changes the pawn structure and makes the game a lot less symmetrical, going into the Berlin endgame in which White can at least press.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;    [FEN &quot;r1bqkb1r/pppp1ppp/2n2n2/1B2p3/4P3/5N2/PPPP1PPP/RNBQ1RK1 b kq - 5 4&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;    4... Nxe4 5. d4 Nd6 6. Bxc6 dxc6 7. dxe5 Nf5 8. Qxd8 Kxd8&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With just too much theory here, but that's another story !&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To know more about how to press with White on the Berlin defense, my &lt;a href=&quot;https://pawnbreak.com/the-amazing-berlin-defense/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Berlin defense memo&lt;/a&gt; explores many solutions, including 5. d4 but also 5. Re1, and one move earlier, the possibility 4. d3:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;    [FEN &quot;r1bqkb1r/pppp1ppp/2n2n2/1B2p3/4P3/5N2/PPPP1PPP/RNBQK2R w KQkq - 4 4&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;    4. d3&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Such a modest-looking move, yet the other real possibility to play for a win with White !&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2076" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2020-03-01T17:17:03.087" LastActivityDate="2020-03-01T17:17:03.087" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28710" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28714" CreationDate="2020-03-01T21:58:25.183" Score="1" ViewCount="112" Body="&lt;p&gt;This line of the Petrov defense can often lead to opposite side castling and the general rule for that is attacks happening on both sides of the board. However, I noticed that it's very difficult to attack black in the Petrov defense. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is basically this: In what way should I play to get an advantage against this line of the Petrov defense, whether it should be in a dynamic or positional manner?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. Nxe5 d6 4. Nf3 Nxe4 5. Nc3, Nxc3 6. dxc3 Be7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21014" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-02T13:46:48.870" LastActivityDate="2020-03-02T13:46:48.870" Title="How should white push for advantage in the Nimzowitsh attack of the Petrov's defense?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;&lt;attack&gt;&lt;petroff-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28712" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28713" CreationDate="2020-03-01T22:20:25.983" Score="7" ViewCount="3295" Body="&lt;p&gt;Watching this video, it seemed after the highlighted point in the video that black was doomed, but from my view it was just materiel?  After the exchange, white would have taken a rook and the queen (and trading white's own queen) leaving black only a bishop vs. two white rooks.  Is that why black resigned?  Obviously at that point black would have been at a big disadvantage.  But I'm curious if there was a compelling mate opportunity for white above and beyond the materiel advantage.  Here's the video:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://youtu.be/APJ5E1wXB3g?t=1631&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://youtu.be/APJ5E1wXB3g?t=1631&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Also, I'm confused why the YouTube video refers to this as a &quot;Queen sacrifice&quot; since the queen wasn't in fact sacrificed?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21662" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-02T18:53:40.440" LastActivityDate="2020-03-02T18:53:40.440" Title="Why did black resign in this game?" Tags="&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;resigning&gt;&lt;queen-sacrifice&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28713" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28712" CreationDate="2020-03-01T22:32:39.000" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;Because he is losing the Rh8, and at that level, that is an EASY win. It is also worse than that as mate is coming in a few moves. Even without the almost immediate mate, being down a pawn and an exchange is a lot of material.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, although black did not take it, white did offer a queen sac on move 24.Qg7, but had it been taken, a new queen would have appeared next move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;2q4r/2rbkp2/4pQpP/pp4P1/4P3/5P2/PPPR4/2K4R b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1... Kf8 2. Qxh8+ Ke7 3. Qf6+ Kf8 4. h7 {And mate after a couple of spite checks on c2.}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is the full game:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [Event &quot;EU-ch rapid&quot;]&#xA; [Site &quot;Tallinn&quot;]&#xA; [Date &quot;2019.12.05&quot;]&#xA; [Round &quot;1&quot;]&#xA; [White &quot;Aizenberg, Benny&quot;]&#xA; [Black &quot;Guseinov, Gadir&quot;]&#xA; [Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA; [ECO &quot;B77&quot;]&#xA; [WhiteElo &quot;1995&quot;]&#xA; [BlackElo &quot;2691&quot;]&#xA; [PlyCount &quot;55&quot;]&#xA; [EventDate &quot;2019.12.05&quot;]&#xA; [EventType &quot;swiss&quot;]&#xA; [EventRounds &quot;13&quot;]&#xA; [EventCountry &quot;EST&quot;]&#xA; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 g6 5. Be3 Nf6 6. Nc3 Bg7 7. Bc4 O-O 8. Bb3 d6 9. f3 Bd7 10. Qd2 Nxd4 11. Bxd4 b5 12. h4 a5 13. Nd5 Nxd5 14. Bxg7 Kxg7 15. Bxd5 Rc8 16. h5 Rh8 17. O-O-O Qb6 18. g4 e6 19. h6+ Kf8 20. Bb7 Qxb7 21. Qxd6+ Ke8 22. Qd4 Rg8 23. Rd2 Rc7 24. Qg7 Rf8 25. Qxh7 Ke7 26. Qg7 Qc8 27. g5 Rh8 28. Qf6+ 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-01T22:43:26.130" LastActivityDate="2020-03-01T22:43:26.130" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28714" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28710" CreationDate="2020-03-01T23:50:20.200" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I noticed that it's very difficult to attack black in the Petrov&#xA;  defense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That is why it is popular at the elite levels: It is super-solid. The character of the game is going to depend on black, and the choice of where to castle. If black castles short, since white castles long, it is going to be an all-out pawn storm on opposite wings, and the person, who calculates, and attacks, better will win. in practice, white has fared better there, scoring about 70% per the Mega 2020 database compared to about 60% in the other lines where both sides castle long. It is a much more dangerous choice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When both sides castle long, the game definitely becomes more positional since both sides have relatively safe kings. It will come down to things like h4, and Ng5 by white, and if that Ng5 can either be traded for the Be6, gaining the two bishops, or if white can force black to capture the Ng5 with the Be7(Bf6), again, gaining the two bishops. White has doubled pawns, but they are not a big deal, and in fact, they give white more maneuvering room since he has an extra semi-open file to use. If white can post a piece, maybe the Bf1-c4-d5 on d5, if may force a concession c6, weakening the black queenside. After c6, d5 is often forced, and then white can hit at that center with c4 if timed right.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If this type of semi-positional game occurs, it is not quite the same as the positional games that occur in d-pawn openings. The positions are much more fluid than those with blocked centers, so there is much more calculating, and by that, I mean exact calculation, and positional evaluation. And, black is more cramped.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lastly, of course there is the open e-file. no matter what, it is likely to lead to the trade of the rooks, because neither side can afford to let the other dominate the only fully open file, and not contest it. In positions that have only one open file, if you can fully control it, it is often a decisive factor. In the distant past, when I played e4, I &quot;made a living&quot; playing the Exchange French, and often, before my opponents knew it, I owned the e-file, and the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the end, white's slight space advantage is probably why the 60% winning percentage, but it requires patience, and there is no &quot;do this and get an advantage&quot; rule. I would try to read through a bunch of white wins in the line, and see how the games played out, and try to emulate the ones you liked the most.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. Nxe5 d6 4. Nf3 Nxe4 5. Nc3 Nxc3 6. dxc3 Be7 7. Be3 Nc6 8. Qd2 Be6 9. O-O-O Qd7 (9... O-O 10. h4 Ne5 11. Ng5 Qd7 12. Kb1 {With an all-out opposite sides attack.}) 10. Kb1 Bf6 11. h4 O-O-O 12. Ng5 Bf5 13. Bc4 Ne5 14. Bd5 {And the game has become semi-positional.}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2020-03-01T23:50:20.200" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28715" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28716" CreationDate="2020-03-02T01:25:03.467" Score="13" ViewCount="3513" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am going to ask and answer this question since I played in one for the first time in almost 40 years yesterday, and because I find it surprising that no one has asked this previously.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, &quot;what is a &quot;tornado&quot; in chess?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2020-03-02T12:06:20.230" Title="What is a &quot;tornado&quot; in chess?" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;terminology&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28716" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28715" CreationDate="2020-03-02T01:26:46.480" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;I do not know if this term is used in other countries, but in the U.S., a “tornado” is a swiss chess tournament with four rounds in one day, typically at a sudden death in 60 minutes time control. It was probably given that nickname because your mind is spinning from so much chess in one day.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I played in the “Queen City Tornado” yesterday, and there were rounds at 10 a.m., 1 p.m., 3:30 p.m., and 6 p.m.. It makes for a very long day.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2020-03-02T01:26:46.480" CommentCount="12" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28717" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28718" CreationDate="2020-03-02T02:33:33.890" Score="2" ViewCount="217" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have another question I am going to ask and answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The other day, I was watching a chess24 video, and GM Jan Gustafsson mentioned the “Gufeld Bishop”. What is the “Gufeld Bishop”?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-02T13:59:51.413" LastActivityDate="2020-03-02T13:59:51.413" Title="What is the “Gufeld Bishop”?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;history&gt;&lt;grandmaster&gt;&lt;terminology&gt;&lt;bishops&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28718" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28717" CreationDate="2020-03-02T02:40:40.673" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Eduard Gufeld was a Ukrainian Grandmaster, who died in 2002. He was a noted expert on the King’s Indian Defense, and wrote two books on it. He won many brilliant games with the KID, and the “Gufeld Bishop” was when the Bg7 came alive, and got great scope, on the a1-h8 diagonal to become a “monster” piece (one that dominated the board, and was hard to oppose)…often on d4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are references to the naming of the Bg7 as the “Gufeld Bishop”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/chess/article756910/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/chess/article756910/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.debestezet.nl/catalog/images/PDF/Art%20of%20the%20kings.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.debestezet.nl/catalog/images/PDF/Art%20of%20the%20kings.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://seagaard.dk/review/eng/bo_misc/ba_the_search_for_mona_lisa.asp?katid=bo&amp;amp;productid=1&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://seagaard.dk/review/eng/bo_misc/ba_the_search_for_mona_lisa.asp?katid=bo&amp;amp;productid=1&lt;/a&gt;..&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, here are a few games with the “Gufeld Bishop” in action.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the first, Gufeld, uses a nice tactic to come to d4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [Event &quot;Kiev Avantgard-ch&quot;]&#xA; [Site &quot;Kiev&quot;]&#xA; [Date &quot;1960.??.??&quot;]&#xA; [Round &quot;3&quot;]&#xA; [White &quot;Sakhanovich, YV.&quot;]&#xA; [Black &quot;Gufeld, Eduard&quot;]&#xA; [Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA; [ECO &quot;E82&quot;]&#xA; [PlyCount &quot;48&quot;]&#xA; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 Bg7 4. e4 d6 5. f3 O-O 6. Be3 b6 7. Qd2 c5 8. d5 Re8 9. Bd3 e6 10. Nge2 a6 11. a4 exd5 12. exd5 Nbd7 13. O-O Ne5 14. Ng3 Nxd3 15. Qxd3 Ng4 16. Bf4 (16. fxg4 Rxe3 17. Qxe3 $4 Bd4) 16... Bd4+ 17. Kh1 Nxh2 $1 18. Nge4 (18. Kxh2 Qh4#) 18... Nxf1 19. Rxf1 Qh4+ 20. Bh2 Bf5 21. Qd2 Bxe4 22. Nxe4 Rxe4 23. fxe4 Be5 24. g4 Re8 {And after black trades everything off on h2, Re4 will leave black up two pawns, and more will follow.} 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the second, the Bishop is unopposed, and when black finally rips open the f-file, it is the straw that breaks the camel’s back.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [Event &quot;Goodricke op 03rd&quot;]&#xA; [Site &quot;Kolkata&quot;]&#xA; [Date &quot;1992.??.??&quot;]&#xA; [Round &quot;2&quot;]&#xA; [White &quot;Agarwal, Brajesh&quot;]&#xA; [Black &quot;Gufeld, Eduard&quot;]&#xA; [Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA; [ECO &quot;E84&quot;]&#xA; [WhiteElo &quot;2260&quot;]&#xA; [BlackElo &quot;2490&quot;]&#xA; [PlyCount &quot;44&quot;]&#xA; [EventDate &quot;1992.01.??&quot;]&#xA; [EventType &quot;swiss&quot;]&#xA; [EventRounds &quot;11&quot;]&#xA; [EventCountry &quot;IND&quot;]&#xA; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 Bg7 4. e4 O-O 5. Be3 d6 6. f3 Nc6 7. Nge2 a6 8. Qd2 Rb8 9. g4 b5 10. Ng3 e5 11. d5 Nd4 12. Bxd4 exd4 13. Nce2 d3 14. Qxd3 bxc4 15. Qd2 Nxg4 16. fxg4 Rxb2 17. Qf4 Rxe2+ 18. Bxe2 Bxa1 19. Bxc4 Bc3+ 20. Kf2 Be5 21. Qf3 Qh4 22. Be2 f5 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And in the last, he used the nice tactic with e4, then maneuver Ba4, pinning the Nb3 to the queen, so he could trade it off, and gain control of d4 again.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [Event &quot;Tbilisi&quot;]&#xA; [Site &quot;Tbilisi&quot;]&#xA; [Date &quot;1985.??.??&quot;]&#xA; [Round &quot;?&quot;]&#xA; [White &quot;Azmaiparashvili, Zurab&quot;]&#xA; [Black &quot;Gufeld, Eduard&quot;]&#xA; [Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA; [ECO &quot;E94&quot;]&#xA; [WhiteElo &quot;2460&quot;]&#xA; [BlackElo &quot;2470&quot;]&#xA; [PlyCount &quot;72&quot;]&#xA; [EventDate &quot;1985.??.??&quot;]&#xA; [EventType &quot;tourn&quot;]&#xA; [EventRounds &quot;9&quot;]&#xA; [EventCountry &quot;URS&quot;]&#xA; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 Bg7 4. e4 d6 5. Be2 O-O 6. Nf3 e5 7. d5 Na6 8. O-O Nc5 9. Qc2 a5 10. Bg5 h6 11. Be3 b6 12. Nd2 Bg4 13. f3 Bd7 14. Rfe1 Nh5 15. g3 f5 16. exf5 gxf5 17. f4 Qe8 18. fxe5 dxe5 19. Bxc5 $6 {Gaining the pawn structure, but poorly judging how strong the Bg7 would become. King safety is always the number one priority in chess.} bxc5 20. Nb3 f4 21. Qd1 Nf6 22. Bd3 Ng4 23. Ne4 Qh5 24. Re2 f3 25. Rf2 Nxf2 26. Nxf2 e4 $1 27. Bxe4 Ba4 $1 {Gaining d4 permanently.} 28. d6 c6 29. Qd2 Bxb3 30. axb3 Bd4 31. Bxc6 Qh3 32. Bd5+ Rf7 33. Bxf3 (33. Bxf7+ $4 Kf8 $1 {And mate on g2 is unavoidable.}) 33... Rxf3 34. Qxd4 Rxg3+ (34...cxd4?? 35. Nxh3) 35. hxg3 Qxg3+ 36. Kh1 Qf3+ (36...cxd4? 37. Rg1 {Black still wins, but has to think about the passers...this is just easier.}) 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2020-03-02T02:40:40.673" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28724" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2020-03-02T18:54:29.257" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;For tactics that involve a queen sacrifice, whether accepted, or not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-02T18:54:29.257" LastActivityDate="2020-03-02T18:54:29.257" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28725" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2020-03-02T18:54:29.257" Score="0" Body="For tactics that involve a queen sacrifice, whether accepted, or not." OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-02T18:54:29.257" LastActivityDate="2020-03-02T18:54:29.257" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28726" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28728" CreationDate="2020-03-02T21:40:49.557" Score="6" ViewCount="864" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was looking back at a &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess24.com/en/watch/live-tournaments/london-chess-classic-2017/6/1/3&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;game&lt;/a&gt; played between Hikaru Nakamura and Magnus Carlsen at the 2017 London Chess Classics in which Hikaru employed the Scotch game and played very creatively getting a winning advantage at one point. In the end, however, he failed to win it and the game ended in a draw. If any of you haven't seen it yet, I recommend to check it out since it's a real bloodbath!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There have also been many great players who have used it such as Garry Kasparov who never lost a single game with it! I have been wondering why it isn't used at the top level for a long time, but never got a chance to ask it. Could someone please explain why it isn't used at the top level?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21014" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-03-02T21:57:13.267" LastActivityDate="2020-09-07T06:46:46.363" Title="Popularity of the Scotch Game" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;carlsen&gt;&lt;scotch-game&gt;&lt;aggressive-play&gt;&lt;nakamura&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28727" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28729" CreationDate="2020-03-02T22:10:05.907" Score="2" ViewCount="595" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was viewing a top-level Correspondence chess game on ICCF between an International Master and a Senior International Master. They both had over 100 days on their clocks and they were in the following position with black to move:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;r2r2k1/p1q2ppp/1p2pn2/8/2P5/1P3NP1/P3QP1P/3RR1K1 b - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems that with so much time on their clocks and with the use of top-level engines and concrete analysis there is no way that white is pushing for anything here. I have also seen other games like this and my question is essentially why are they playing on in such positions?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21014" LastEditorUserId="4186" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T14:34:00.720" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T14:34:00.720" Title="Pushing for Advantage with White in Correspondence chess" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;correspondence-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28728" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28726" CreationDate="2020-03-02T22:55:25.990" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think you are on to something, and statistically, there is a very good reason to play the Scotch over the Ruy Lopez, but that might not be all there is to it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think that the main reason is that we are taught that the Ruy Lopez is THE most classical opening, and is the best. I have seen that mindset in SO many books written by the top players over the years, in particular, Karpov. Also, I was watching &quot;Method in Chess&quot; videos recently, and GM Dorfman said that white is statically better because white has more space, and black is confined to three ranks, and white can play on the kingside, center, or queenside, and thus, black must always be on the lookout. I think that is just what classical Soviet players were taught, and that mindset has not been broken among the elite, especially since so many of them became trainers in other countries after the breakup of the Soviet Union.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Statistically, you are right on the money.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All the top players I looked at had similar results to Kasparov, meaning an overwhelming plus score with it. I left out Anand, Aronian, So, MLV, and Grischuk from the following list since they played it so few times (less than 6 each), it was clear that their reason was simply surprise.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Carlsen 11-1-6 (wins-losses-draws) 78%&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Caruana 5-0-6 72%&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Nepomniachtchi 34-6-29 70%&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Nakamura 13-6-7 63%&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These are against all players, and the problem is that in Carlsen's case, in particular, is most of the games were from when he was not the Carlsen we know today, and I could have left him out. Caruana's games were virtually all against elite competition!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then I decided to search only for all games in the Mega 2020 database with players both above 2700, and then the stats fell dramatically down to a typical winning percentage for white, 58% even (53-25-97, 175 games total).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I then did the same thing for 2700 players playing the Ruy Lopez, there were 2366 games with a breakdown of 580-373-1412, or only 54%.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That is still a healthy plus for the Scotch, but maybe the Soviets still were right, and that the only reason the stats for the Scotch are so good is that the opponent was not expecting it as much. Also, I did not attempt to look at hundreds of games to identify where the games where lost. It might have just been due to other circumstances.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-02T23:02:37.773" LastActivityDate="2020-03-02T23:02:37.773" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28729" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28727" CreationDate="2020-03-02T23:14:00.087" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is no doubt that this position is currently equal, and should end in a draw, but white has two pluses that are might make it worth playing on, at least for a while.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, there e5 square, and the Nf3 can outpost there and possibly create some discomfort for black. Black does not have a similarly strong square for the Nf6. Note that if black ever kicks the Ne5, then e6 is weak, and if it then moves forward, then the a2-g8 diagonal is weakened....little concessions is what white wants to add up into a big concession.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Second, white has the possibility of creating a passed pawn on the queenside here. In the Capablanca days, they thought that having that extra queenside pawn was a huge advantage, but over the years, it has become more clear that it can be dealt with.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reality is that the rooks should come off, and should white then try to mobilize the queenside majority, black will probably throw the h-pawn forward, and use the queen, h-pawn, and knight to try to create enough threats to draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the end though, and I know that in correspondence with computers, it is less likely, but people do make mistakes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2020-03-02T23:14:00.087" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28730" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-03-03T02:22:32.440" Score="32" ViewCount="14621" Body="&lt;p&gt;In a amateur game, black offered a handshake and white shook hands with him and neither spoke any word and the game ended. Later they had a dispute whether the game is a draw or a win for white. Black claimed that his offering of a handshake was a draw offer and when white shook hands, white accepted his draw offer. White claimed that black's offering of a handshake was a resignation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is an amateur game and there is no game record. So what should the arbiter do in this situation? Here are a few possibilities:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Claim this game as a draw.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Claim this game as win for white.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Try recovering the position when the game ended and ask them to keep playing from there. (This option may not be feasible as without a game record, they may not agree with the position)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Order a rematch.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit&lt;/strong&gt;: I do not remember for sure but it may be a position that is obviously a draw but it appears one side is losing to an inexperienced player. For example, King at the corner vs rook pawn + bishop of &quot;wrong colour&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16626" LastEditorUserId="14473" LastEditDate="2020-03-05T15:24:36.440" LastActivityDate="2020-03-05T15:24:36.440" Title="Game ended with a handshake" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;draw&gt;&lt;etiquette&gt;&lt;resigning&gt;&lt;winning&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="7" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28731" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28730" CreationDate="2020-03-03T03:22:43.897" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Based on the comments to the question above, there is no offical ruling body governing the rules, therefore, the guy running the tournament is the final authority. It is really up to his judgment. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I were he, and there were time, I would try to see if we could reestablish the position, and finish from there. If not, I would declare a draw. I would not order a rematch unless there was some other great reason that was not listed above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lastly, I would make sure that I taught them the rules.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T03:38:59.397" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T03:38:59.397" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28732" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28734" CreationDate="2020-03-03T03:40:44.000" Score="2" ViewCount="54" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm writing an EPD (Extended Position Description) parser and I have a doubt about what numbers means at end of &quot;predicted variation&quot; opcode.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Look the follow EPD sample:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;rq2r1k1/5pp1/p7/4bNP1/1p2P2P/5Q2/PP4K1/5R1R w - - bm Nxg7 BT-2630.1; ce 182; acs 0; acn 106652; pv 1.Nxg7 Kxg7 2.Qxf7+ Kh8 3.Qh7+ Kxh7 4.Rf7+ Kg6 5.Rf6+ Bxf6 6.h5+ Kxg5 (38.748) 112.9; c0 depth=8&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As its possible to notice, the opcode &lt;code&gt;pv&lt;/code&gt; ends with numbers &lt;code&gt;(38.748) 112.9&lt;/code&gt;. That &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I started from the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessprogramming.org/Extended_Position_Description&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;article in the Chess Programming Wiki&lt;/a&gt;. There I found some related materials, like the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.saremba.de/chessgml/standards/pgn/pgn-complete.htm#c16.2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;PGN specification&lt;/a&gt;, that have a more elaborated EPD documentation an some links to &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.stmintz.com/ccc/index.php?id=137052&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;EPD entries examples&lt;/a&gt;. However, I can't find any explanation about the meaning of the numbers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does anyone have some material with a more elaborated documentation about the EPD (or PGN) format?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19648" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T14:33:27.000" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T14:33:27.000" Title="What do the numbers mean at the end of predicted variation opcode in and EPD entry?" Tags="&lt;pgn&gt;&lt;fen&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28733" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-03-03T06:14:35.003" Score="5" ViewCount="174" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am 1.5 points clear of the field, and my last-round opponent is in a must-win situation for a prize. Is there a mathematically/statistically proven way for me to take advantage of this state of affairs to maximize my own winning chances?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A sub-question of this is: Has anyone studied the phenomenon of must-win situations in sport? What was their conclusion for the side who is not must-win?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21677" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T14:32:44.337" LastActivityDate="2020-03-04T13:41:56.470" Title="How to exploit an opponent must-win situation" Tags="&lt;statistics&gt;&lt;psychology&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28734" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28732" CreationDate="2020-03-03T07:01:18.210" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;On a strict reading of the EPD spec, the example shown is malformed; the &lt;code&gt;pv&lt;/code&gt; opcode should &lt;strong&gt;only&lt;/strong&gt; contain a list of moves, not any commentary on it, which should be moved to other opcodes.  Indeed the move numbers should not be there either, only raw SAN moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I assume that some naive EPD author has simply dumped the output of an engine into it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Indeed &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.stmintz.com/ccc/index.php?id=137127&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;following the discussion&lt;/a&gt; from your (fixed) examples link, the first reply seems to agree with me:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Crafty has an option to clean up epd (called epdpfdr) that produces&#xA;  EPD output that most programs can read.  You have a few errors in your&#xA;  output below.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;…&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;No numbers in the pv!&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Like this: &lt;code&gt;Nxg7 Kxg7 Qxf7+ Kh8 Qh7+ Kxh7 Rf7+ Kg6 Rf6+ Bxf6&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Also (a common mistake) is to put &lt;code&gt;...&lt;/code&gt; in the front of the pv when it&#xA;  is black to move.  This is not allowed.  You did not do that, but I&#xA;  just wanted to mention it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;…&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;This stuff:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;    &lt;code&gt;(73.507) 130.7;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  is not allowed except in the comments field.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19281" LastEditorUserId="19281" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T10:15:11.413" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T10:15:11.413" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28735" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28730" CreationDate="2020-03-03T07:49:01.613" Score="45" Body="&lt;p&gt;From my experience (small to medium central European Opens), offering a handshake without words is a commonly accepted form of resignation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The handshake is not part of any official rules. However, there is some reasoning behind it:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You shake hands &lt;em&gt;after&lt;/em&gt; the game ended (just as you do before it starts). So you only start extending your hand once that end is &quot;set in stone&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you extend your hand without a concrete reason on the board for an end of the game (checkmate, stalemate, 3-fold repetition etc.), you silently imply the other possible reason: That you just resigned, which is possible unilaterally. The &quot;silently&quot; part is the reason why this is done this way: It's less disturbing for neighbouring boards than saying &quot;I resign&quot; or laying down your king (in many piece sets, you can't make sure that it doesn't start rolling around). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you instead wanted to only offer a draw, the game would not have ended (yet), as your opponent still has to accept. Thus, extending your hand makes no sense yet. But conversely, if you (properly by words) offer a draw, now your opponent may offer a silent handshake! Because once they (silently) agree to your draw offer, the game is over, and they can indicate this by stretching out their hand. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, this &quot;implied&quot; way of ending games, even if it is more polite to other ongoing games, has the drawback that lead to the question here: It requires that both players are on the same page of what is actually implied. Even more problematic than the question are for example cases where one side saw a 3-fold repetition and implied &quot;draw&quot;, but the other didn't see the repetition and assumed &quot;resignation&quot;. Probably not the case here, it sounded like neither mentioned anything else but resignation or free draw offer. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: Because the question came up why the players would act this way, there are some thinkable scenarios:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Black was dishonest. He deliberately acted ambiguously to trick White (in the hope that the arbiter would be convinced of his story that he only wanted to offer a draw). (correct result: 1-0)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Black was very inexperienced. Sometimes, weaker and especially younger players have the habit of always offering a draw before they resign (sometimes no matter how lost their position is), in the vague hope that the opponent is nice or doesn't see how winning they are. The handshake genuinely was intended to be a draw offer that White misinterpreted. (correct result: 1-0 with a degree of uncertainty. In my opinion, White should not be punished for acting in good faith, while Black with certainty did not offer a draw the correct way and thus has the weaker case).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It was actually White who was dishonest. We don't know the position. Maybe it wasn't actually all that winning and White exploited Black's naivete of not explicitly offering a draw by words. (correct result: 1/2-1/2)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All these cases are mostly applicable to amateur tournaments. Top (and even advanced) players know that they just look like fools if they offer draws in lost positions or try to cheat that way. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To know which of these cases applies, we need more information (for example, what was each player's rough evaluation of the final position, how reasonable can we expect both players treat handshakes as resignations/draw offers? etc.). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13433" LastEditorUserId="13433" LastEditDate="2020-03-04T07:02:23.743" LastActivityDate="2020-03-04T07:02:23.743" CommentCount="15" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28736" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-03-03T08:19:18.053" Score="-1" ViewCount="123" Body="&lt;p&gt;Wikipedia says:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;It prevents a pawn from using the two-square advance to pass an&#xA;  adjacent enemy pawn without the risk of being captured.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;… which I understand. But why would this be a rule? After all, the pawn that is on the opposing side of the board is closer to being queened. &#xA;Is the en passant rule to promote offensive attack? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21679" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T14:32:11.440" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T18:29:52.973" Title="Why is there an en passant move?" Tags="&lt;en-passant&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2020-03-03T09:05:22.717" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28737" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28736" CreationDate="2020-03-03T08:58:26.140" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The en passant rule is supposed to minimize the effect of the rule change of the double step. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically, people thought it was boring to always make two moves that almost deterministically follow each other, because at the time you always sought to occupy the center, so they combined two moves into one. The same also happened with castling. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But these two moves are still treated like they are single moves made right one after another. Viewed like this, en passant is not actually a rule that was introduced, it was just a logical consequence of making two moves as one. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T18:29:52.973" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T18:29:52.973" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28738" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17331" CreationDate="2020-03-03T09:12:04.863" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Looking at the descriptions of patterns from &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Checkmate_pattern&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;, this exactly fits &quot;Mayet's mate&quot;. The section on Andersen's mate suggests opinion is divided as to whether Mayet's is a form of Andersen's or a distinct pattern.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21223" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T09:12:04.863" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28739" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28730" CreationDate="2020-03-03T09:54:24.570" Score="-3" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is an argument to be made that the players simply abandoned the game. As far as the rules go, handshakes don't mean anything. Nothing was said. The players just stopped playing and put away the pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Handing out a &lt;code&gt;0 - 0&lt;/code&gt; result where both sides lose might be appropriate, at least it won't happen again then.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Often, players resign without saying anything, by just offering to shake hands. This shouldn't happen as it might lead to problems like this question, but it does happen. It &lt;em&gt;also&lt;/em&gt; happens that players offer a draw in the exact same way, especially in endgames where only they could win. It can equally lead to problems if a malicious opponent decides to interpret the offer as resignation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;We don't know which of the situations is applicable,&lt;/em&gt; so we have to look at the rules. Seen from that viewpoint, the players just stopped playing their game and got rid of the evidence. If there is more knowledge of which scenario is more likely, then we can use that. But with only the question, we can't.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastEditorUserId="924" LastEditDate="2020-03-04T15:29:53.173" LastActivityDate="2020-03-04T15:29:53.173" CommentCount="11" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28740" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28730" CreationDate="2020-03-03T12:55:08.463" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Based on what @Annatar said, it may be interesting to know what was the situation on the board :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1 - Was white obviously winning ?&#xA;2 - Was there an obvious draw, such as a pat a few moves down the line ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If 1, Black is either inexperienced or tried something fishy by asking for a draw while losing. So White wins.&#xA;If 2, then maybe it was reasonable of Black to ask for what was, to him, obvious. So ruling a draw is reasonable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It would be weird if it's neither of those situations (obvious draw or obvious loss). You wouldn't offer a draw in a situation where nothing is resolved.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21681" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T12:55:08.463" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28741" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5877" CreationDate="2020-03-03T15:23:46.917" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I used to read an old book about openings written by Ludek Pachman. It was probably published in 1980 though I am not sure of that because I read a translation... anyway, I digress :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The interesting part of his analysis started after those standard moves&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;    [FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;    1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 Nf6 4. O-O Nxe4 5. d4&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At this point, he mentions that 5... exd4 is bad and mentions two moves. First, 5... Be7 that he recommends (I think he puts a (!) evaluation to it):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;    [FEN &quot;r1bqkb1r/pppp1ppp/2n5/1B2p3/3Pn3/5N2/PPP2PPP/RNBQ1RK1 b kq - 0 5&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;    5... Be7&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Funnily, this move is now only rarely seen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And, to comment the famous line that Kramnik revived in 2000:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;    [FEN &quot;r1bqkb1r/pppp1ppp/2n5/1B2p3/3Pn3/5N2/PPP2PPP/RNBQ1RK1 b kq - 0 5&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;    5... Nd6 6. Bxc6 dxc6 7. dxe5 Nf5 8. Qxd8+ Kxd8&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He mentions that this line cannot really be recommended as Black has some troubles finishing his development: the rooks are not connected, and also White's Kingside majority seems more efficient than Black's queenside majority. I guess this statement reflects the general feeling about this opening at that time: hard to play in practice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't have the book next to me so I cannot really check my memories, but it should be close.&#xA;So, kudos to Kramnik for having gone beyond this impression and proved that the whole line was playable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2076" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T15:23:46.917" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28742" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-03-03T18:32:09.287" Score="9" ViewCount="823" Body="&lt;p&gt;A friend and I tried playing this variant yesterday.  My question is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Surely someone has looked at this before.  Does it have a standard name?  Or is there something obviously wrong with it that my friend and I missed?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes this kind of drastic change to the rules produces a game that is obviously no good.  (Consider the variant in which the board is turned into a torus; White has already lost, or perhaps wins immediately  with 1. QxK, depending on how you look at it.)  This variant didn't seem to have an obvious failure, and we had a good time playing one game and seeing how the tactics differed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Specifically, the variant we played was:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;All pieces move and capture the same as in standard chess, except:&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Up to two pieces may occupy the same square.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A piece may move &lt;em&gt;into&lt;/em&gt; an occupied square, but not &lt;em&gt;through&lt;/em&gt; it.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A piece moving into a square occupied by two pieces of the opposite color may capture either, but not both.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Pieces of opposite colors sharing a square do not threaten one another.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So for example, it was legal for White to open with 1. Rh2, and have the rook and pawn sharing h2.  Having done this they could then continue on the following move with 2. Rh4.  But 1. Rh4 was&#xA;illegal.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since every chess variant imaginable has been tried out, I expect this one has also.  I'd like to read about it, but I don't know what to search for.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21687" LastEditorUserId="21687" LastEditDate="2020-03-03T18:49:51.757" LastActivityDate="2020-12-02T16:12:47.323" Title="Variant in which two pieces can occupy a single square" Tags="&lt;chess-variants&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28743" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28754" CreationDate="2020-03-03T19:26:21.347" Score="2" ViewCount="242" Body="&lt;p&gt;Say that I currently have a board, and then on that board I move my e2 pawn to e4. I'm looking for a way to get the engine to predict the X amount of best moves for black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know how to predict the best move given a position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;result = engine.play(board, chess.engine.Limit(time=0.1))&#xA;board.push(result.move)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But that only predicts the number 1 best move. I want a list containing the second, third ... X best moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How would I do that?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21575" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-03-04T21:17:10.283" LastActivityDate="2020-03-04T21:17:10.283" Title="PythonChess - Get engine to predict a list of the best moves in a position" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;programming&gt;&lt;python&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28744" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-03-03T20:01:23.643" Score="9" ViewCount="895" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm looking to create a structured chess practice routine.  So far I have been solving &lt;em&gt;some&lt;/em&gt; puzzles, played &lt;em&gt;some&lt;/em&gt; games and watched &lt;em&gt;some&lt;/em&gt; lessons every day. I emphasize some because it has not been very structured, which is what I want to change&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm planning to practice 30 minutes each weekday and an hour every day in the weekend. What exactly I should do in those minutes is what I am wondering about.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How do you recommend I structure my chess practice?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: My blitz rating on chess.com where I play the most is 936.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20769" LastEditorUserId="20769" LastEditDate="2020-03-10T18:31:11.153" LastActivityDate="2020-03-10T18:31:11.153" Title="How to create a good practice routine?" Tags="&lt;training&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28745" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28744" CreationDate="2020-03-03T20:20:40.667" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;For now, I am going to assume that you are a somewhat weaker player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If that is the case, virtually 90% of your time should be spent on tactics for now, but you want to find them grouped by category, so you are constantly solving similar problems. Try to do 50 per day, spending no more than two minutes per problem.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In addition to that, you want to find a good endgame course, like &lt;a href=&quot;https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/1890085103&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&quot;Silman's Complete Endgame Course&quot;&lt;/a&gt;. At times, when you want a break from the tactics, start reading through that book page by page. Frankly, do not try to deeply study it at first. You should prefer to just see many, many, examples played out, and try to absorb as much as you can by osmosis, rather than deeply studying at first. There are a few things that need to be memorized, like how to draw K+P vs. K when your lone king is in front of the pawn, or the Lucena position to win certain rook endgames, or Philidor's position to draw certain rook endgames.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lastly, you can also spend some time with opening pawn structure books, like Soltis' &lt;a href=&quot;https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/1849940703&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&quot;Pawn Structure Chess&quot;&lt;/a&gt;. There are analysis mistakes in it galore, but the overall ideas are sound, and will teach you HOW to play chess rather than trying to memorize opening theory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Spend most of your time on the tactics, but take breaks, and dabble in the other two. As you get stronger, things will change.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also read &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/27945/advice-for-breaking-lichesss-2000-rating-mark&quot;&gt;my answer here&lt;/a&gt; for more advice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T20:20:40.667" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28746" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28730" CreationDate="2020-03-03T22:17:18.200" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;USCF and FIDE rules state that a draw should be made after the move but before hitting the clock. If those conditions have not been met, then the handshake could considered a resignation offer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://new.uschess.org/news/just-rules-draw-offer-blues/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://new.uschess.org/news/just-rules-draw-offer-blues/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3445" LastActivityDate="2020-03-03T22:17:18.200" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28748" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="548" CreationDate="2020-03-04T03:16:44.670" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;For me, it really depends on the situation, and my opponent.  If my opponent is skilled (or at least, better than me...), and even I can see that my opponent has a clear (though possibly not immediate) win and that it's just a matter of grinding it out, I'll normally resign.  It saves us both a lot of fatigue and time, and I can use the extra time to go outside the tournament site and go get something to eat.  ;-)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If my opponent is more around my own level, and my own situation isn't utterly hopeless, I'll wait longer to resign, because you never know when the opponent is going to blunder.  The winner of any chess game is whoever makes the next to the last mistake...  I've played out (and won) a number of games in this type of situation, where I'm down a couple pieces plus maybe a few pawns in the middle game, and my opponent just &quot;out of the blue&quot; hangs their queen or something.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I see that my opponent is in the process of executing a particularly pretty checkmate, I'll play it out.  They worked for it, they deserve to see it played out on the board, and they deserve to take home a scoresheet with the complete checkmate sequence on it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One situation I &lt;em&gt;never&lt;/em&gt; resign in, though, is when my opponent has a massive material advantage, such as multiple pieces against either a bare king, or against a bare king and maybe a few pawns.  At this point, I'll start trying to drive towards stalemate.  My assumption is if my opponent has that much of a material advantage and I'm still not checkmated, they may not actually have a plan, and they may not be paying a lot of attention to stalemate possibilities.  I have managed to &quot;steal&quot; half a point out of games like this on a number of occasions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7147" LastActivityDate="2020-03-04T03:16:44.670" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28750" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28733" CreationDate="2020-03-04T12:42:24.387" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Daniel Moskovich asked:&#xA;Is there a mathematically/statistically proven way for me to take advantage of this state of affairs to maximize my own winning chances?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Generally, one should always play the actual position one faces on the board: you do not know in advance what your opponent intends to open with.&#xA;You suspect your opponent must play for a win so will take risks suggesting a gambit opening and aggresive tactical play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One strategy could be to pass the fight to Black with a noncommital move like 1.Nf3 or even 1.b3.&#xA;Some of the Catalan systems played by Kramnik are worth a look at.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe even be really provocative and try 1.a3 or 1.h3 the strategy being to then mimic as far as possible Black's moves ie in effect making Black play against him/her self.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although you are White you are then in effect playing as Black but with an extra move in hand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At the very least your opponent will be discombobulated and any prepared lines they have ready for you will be redundant.&#xA;Also, this strategy may gain you time on the clock!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13074" LastActivityDate="2020-03-04T12:42:24.387" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28751" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28733" CreationDate="2020-03-04T13:41:56.470" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;One thing is that you may adjust your opening choice, knowing that any forced draws are wins for you. For instance as white against the Najdorf, 6.Bg5 has many lines that contain forced draws, and black may be used to playing lines where he would welcome them. Now he has to avoid them and that may force him to play inferior lines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That said -- if this makes you play openings you generally don't play, you will probably just find yourself in a sharp position that you don't know well, which is the last thing you want. And in the given tournament situation, the opponent may already be looking for openings he doesn't have any games in a database with, to avoid any special opening preparation altogether.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2020-03-04T13:41:56.470" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28752" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28753" CreationDate="2020-03-04T15:46:46.870" Score="5" ViewCount="232" Body="&lt;p&gt;To give a picture of my level: I started playing chess fairly recently (8 months ago). I knew the rules before, but haven't played since childhood. I developed a huge passion for it and studied very, very hard and with a lot of commitment. I have 2080 Lichess elo on Classical time formats, which is decent but still not fantastic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my college, I was invited this year to represent my faculty on the University Chess Olympiads, and I became part of a team of very experienced players, all of which play tournaments since a very young age (I'm 21 and I have only played two very casual tournaments!).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This Friday we will face another university on a friendly competition, and this will be my first tournament as a member of my University team. Of course I want to do well, since I want to make a good impression on my team members, prove them that inviting me to the team was not a mistake, but I have too little experience on OTB tournaments.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My first tournament I did well, winning 4 and losing 6 games (I was 1700 Lichess elo then). My second and last tournament I did HORRIBLE, losing 6 out of 6 games (!) and falling fully under the pressure and tension of the tournament. I was 1900 Lichess elo then. My nervousness was such that I lost won positions, or hang pieces, things that I do not do (except rare exceptions)  when I play on Lichess. That was the first realization I had that OTB tournaments, with all their pressure, and playing comfortably from my couch, where two completely different worlds.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With all this said in order for you to understand my background and chess experience I ask: how can I prepare for an OTB tournament? I really want to do decently this Friday, and I need to keep my head cool and control my nerves. Advises for this tournament beginner?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21110" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-05T19:35:04.370" LastActivityDate="2020-03-05T21:58:50.320" Title="Preparing for an OTB tournament: I must do well!" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;preparation&gt;&lt;otb-chess&gt;&lt;team&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28753" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28752" CreationDate="2020-03-04T16:01:44.830" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, from a pure chess standpoint, you are probably as close to prepared as you will be since there is only so much you can learn between now and Friday.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The most important things will be to get a good night's sleep, and the cardinal rule in a team tournament is &quot;don't lose&quot;. I know that sounds funny, since it seem obvious, but if you have a four-board team, and you lose, then the remaining three players have to go 2.5/3 to win the match. What that means is that, in practice, you cannot play too wildly since wild play can put the team in a very bad position. Stay solid, and if you can win, great; but be satisfied with a draw if you really do not have anything more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as the nerves are concerned, they are a problem; but you will find that the more you play, the more you will get used to tournament play, and the nerves will subside.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lastly, at the board during the game except for obvious recaptures, and assuming you have the time, just BRIEFLY consider every reply your opponent has before you make your move. In other words, I am going to play Ng5, but for a second, I just scan every move my opponent can make. I am not analyzing, but subconsciously, if I left something hanging, I often notice it. This will hopefully cut down on the one-, or two-move, blunders&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-04T16:09:26.927" LastActivityDate="2020-03-04T16:09:26.927" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28754" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28743" CreationDate="2020-03-04T18:45:04.750" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the world of chess engines, what you're looking for is called &lt;strong&gt;multi-PV&lt;/strong&gt; (multiple principal variations): telling the engine to look for and return up to &lt;em&gt;n&lt;/em&gt; best moves and the associated principal variations for each. (&quot;Up to&quot; because sometimes there's only 1 legal move in a position.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In python-chess, this is part of the &lt;a href=&quot;https://python-chess.readthedocs.io/en/latest/engine.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;engine protocols&lt;/a&gt;, as one of the optional parameters when calling &lt;code&gt;engine.analyse()&lt;/code&gt;. From the documentation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;class chess.engine.EngineProtocol&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;coroutine analyse( [...] )&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;multipv – Optional. Analyse multiple root moves. Will return a list of at most multipv dictionaries rather than just a single info dictionary.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;code&gt;.analyse()&lt;/code&gt; method tells the engine to analyse the position, returning a &lt;a href=&quot;https://python-chess.readthedocs.io/en/latest/engine.html#chess.engine.PlayResult.info&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;dictionary of information&lt;/a&gt;, which includes among other things the moves of the principal variation. Specifying for instance &lt;code&gt;.analyse(multipv = 3)&lt;/code&gt; will tell the engine to return a list of (up to) 3 such dictionaries -- the first moves in the &lt;code&gt;pv&lt;/code&gt; value of each dictionary should be what you are looking for.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15989" LastActivityDate="2020-03-04T18:45:04.750" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28755" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-03-04T20:04:29.617" Score="2" ViewCount="676" Body="&lt;p&gt;I try to access the Stockfish engine via Python, but only get bestmove = a2a3. &#xA;If I enter the same commands into the MAC-terminal, the engine calculates the correct move. &#xA;Can anyone help me, please ? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My Python code is: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;p = subprocess.Popen('/Applications/TigerJython/LuChess/Stockfish/stockfish-11-mac/Mac/stockfish-11-64', stdin=subprocess.PIPE,&#xA;                     stdout=subprocess.PIPE,&#xA;                     stderr=subprocess.STDOUT)&#xA;&#xA;p.stdin.write(&quot;uci\n&quot;)&#xA;p.stdin.write(&quot;ucinewgame\n&quot;)&#xA;p.stdin.write(&quot;position startpos moves e2e4 e7e5\n&quot;)&#xA;p.stdin.write(&quot;go infinite\n&quot;)&#xA;p.stdin.flush()&#xA;print(p.communicate())&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The result is shown below:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;('Stockfish 11 64 by T. Romstad, M. Costalba, J. Kiiski, G. Linscott&#xA;id name Stockfish 11 64\nid author T. Romstad, M. Costalba, J. Kiiski, G. Linscott&#xA;&#xA;option name Debug Log File type string default&#xA;option name Contempt type spin default 24 min -100 max 100&#xA;...&#xA;uciok&#xA;bestmove a2a3&#xA;None&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21700" LastEditorUserId="21700" LastEditDate="2020-03-08T13:25:09.500" LastActivityDate="2020-03-08T13:25:58.287" Title="Communication with Stockfish engine via Python" Tags="&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;programming&gt;&lt;python&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28756" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8041" CreationDate="2020-03-04T20:11:06.743" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It does not have a name as far as I have ever read.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That said, what you are describing is not that rare. You are calculating, and the first move is obvious, so you start really calculating at the second move, and when you are done with your calculations, you play the second move, a blunder, first.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have read about that many times over 40 years, and I have done it myself an an occasion or two.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All you can do is before you execute your move, slow down, and take one last momentary fresh look at the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2020-03-04T20:11:06.743" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28757" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-03-04T21:02:53.397" Score="2" ViewCount="115" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to write a simple code that is capable of reading a PGN file and searching for moves and comments throughout the variant tree. However, I have not been successful, I have not yet been able to understand how I access the moves for a particular variant outside the main line.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is an example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Reading the game from the pgn file below:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[Event &quot;?&quot;]&lt;br&gt;&#xA;[Site &quot;?&quot;]&lt;br&gt;&#xA;[Date &quot;????.??.??&quot;]&lt;br&gt;&#xA;[Round &quot;?&quot;]&lt;br&gt;&#xA;[White &quot;Study&quot;]&lt;br&gt;&#xA;[Black &quot;Variant Caro-Kann&quot;]&lt;br&gt;&#xA;[Result &quot;1/2-1/2&quot;]&lt;br&gt;&#xA;[ECO &quot;B12&quot;]&lt;br&gt;&#xA;[Annotator &quot;Joao Paulo&quot;]&lt;br&gt;&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;10&quot;]&lt;br&gt;&#xA;[EventDate &quot;2020.03.04&quot;]&lt;br&gt;&#xA;[SourceDate &quot;2020.03.04&quot;]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. e5 {Variant 1} (3. exd5 {Variant 2} cxd5 4. Nf3 Nd7 (4... Nf6 {Variant 2.2} 5. c4 dxc4 6. Bxc4 e6) 5. Nc3 Ngf6) (3. Nc3 {Variant 3} dxe4 4. Nxe4 Nd7 5. Nf3 Ngf6) (3. Nd2 {Variant 4} dxe4 4. Nxe4 Nf6 5. Nxf6+ gxf6) 3... Bf5 4. Bd3 Bxd3 5. Qxd3 e6 1/2-1/2   &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Using the following code:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;-------------------------------------------------------------------------- &#xA;import chess&#xA;import chess.pgn&#xA;pgn = open(&quot;pgns/Variants Caro-Kann.pgn&quot;)&#xA;game = chess.pgn.read_game(pgn)&#xA;bd = game.board()&#xA;node = game&#xA;ct = 0;&#xA;while not node.is_end():&#xA;    print('Current Move')&#xA;    print(node.variations[0].move)&#xA;    print(node.starts_variation())&#xA;    bd.push(node.variations[0].move)&#xA;    node = node.variations[0]&#xA;    print(bd)&#xA;    print(node.starts_variation())&#xA;    print(node.comment)&#xA;    if node.is_end() == 0:&#xA;        print('Next Move')&#xA;        print(node.variations[0].move)&#xA;--------------------------------------------------------------------------&#xA;How could I access the bids for the entire variant tree (variants: 2, 2.2, 3 and 4)?&#xA;I would appreciate your help.&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21702" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2020-03-04T21:23:40.297" LastActivityDate="2020-03-05T04:06:38.880" Title="Question on how to access a move on a line outside the main line using python-chess" Tags="&lt;programming&gt;&lt;pgn&gt;&lt;python&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28758" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2020-03-04T21:18:47.980" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-03-04T21:18:47.980" LastActivityDate="2020-03-04T21:18:47.980" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28759" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2020-03-04T21:18:47.980" Score="0" Body="Python is a general purpose and high level programming language. You can use Python for developing desktop GUI applications, websites and web applications. " OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-03-04T21:18:47.980" LastActivityDate="2020-03-04T21:18:47.980" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28760" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28761" CreationDate="2020-03-04T21:42:47.803" Score="8" ViewCount="2194" Body="&lt;p&gt;As title above states, why isn't the &quot;English Attack&quot; popular vs. the Sicilian Kan? I mean the White setup in the Open Sicilian with Be3, Qd2, f3 and eventually g4 and h4. As far as I know, it is fairly popular vs. the Najdorf, the Scheveningen, the Classical, the Taimanov, and the Dragon (in which case it is named &quot;Yugoslav Attack&quot;). But vs. the Kan, almost nobody, at least at top level, plays it. Is there a specific reason for this fact, or it is just a matter of &quot;fashion&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-05T01:31:18.843" LastActivityDate="2020-03-05T01:31:18.843" Title="Why isn't the English Attack popular vs. the Sicilian Kan?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;&lt;1.e4&gt;&lt;english-attack&gt;&lt;sicilian-kan&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28761" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28760" CreationDate="2020-03-04T22:20:22.673" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The English attack is only true mainline for the d6 Sicilian. The reason behind this is that in the e6 Sicilian variation, it's a lot easier for black to pressure your center and break through with a quicker d5. Specifically, black can play a fast Bb4 (pinning your knight and therefore influencing the all important e4 and d5 squares), and break out with d5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;] &#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 e6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 a6 5. Be3?! Nf6 6. Nc3 Bb4! 7. f3 O-O 8. Qd2 d5!&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even if black is worried about the pawn structure changing with white playing e4-e5 after d5, then he is fine too if he plays Qc7 instead of O-O to cover the e5 square. Regardless of the exact move order, as soon as black gets in the d5 break, then it's black who is slightly better out of the opening, not white. This English attack setup is too slow against the Kan. Instead of Be3 and a later f3, Bd3 is often used to defend the e4 point and avoid most of the sting out of the Bb4 pin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3884" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-03-04T22:27:53.240" LastActivityDate="2020-03-04T22:27:53.240" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28762" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28760" CreationDate="2020-03-05T00:00:58.230" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;While NoseKnowsAll has a great answer, there is a little more, and it comes down to this one thing: &lt;strong&gt;It is just impossible to play a good version of the English Attack due to Bb4 by black at the right time.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even if you are careful about move order, and play Nc3 first, and then Be3, and Qd2, it is still very dangerous to castle queenside. It is easy to see from the diagram below, which is a valid line, that black is doing well if white castles long as intended, and Bb4 may be a part of it. The counterattack comes in pretty fast, and white's winning percentage in the position is only 46.6%.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With a pawn on d6, black does not ever have that possibility.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;  1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 e6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 a6 5. Nc3 Qc7 6. Be3 Nc6 7. Qd2 Nf6 8. f3 b5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2020-03-05T00:00:58.230" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28763" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28757" CreationDate="2020-03-05T04:06:38.880" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you want to access every node, then you're basically iterating over the game tree. A straightforward recursion will get you there, something like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;def traverse(node):&#xA;    # do whatever stuff you want for the node here&#xA;    print(node.move)&#xA;    # terminating condition&#xA;    if (node.is_end()):&#xA;        return&#xA;    # recursion&#xA;    for child_node in node.variations:&#xA;        traverse(child_node)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And to use it, call &lt;code&gt;traverse(game)&lt;/code&gt; where &lt;code&gt;game&lt;/code&gt; is the root node of your game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15989" LastActivityDate="2020-03-05T04:06:38.880" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28764" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28765" CreationDate="2020-03-05T04:21:28.670" Score="2" ViewCount="621" Body="&lt;p&gt;I analyzed the following position with both Stockfish 10 and Komodo 13.2. The 2 monster engines evaluated it at a dead draw at 0.00. Is this really the case or does either side have some sort of an advantage? Notice that in the position black is up 2 pawns although they aren't pawns to feel happy about. White has the bishop pair and a rook on an opening file. Compared to black's rook which is undeveloped. I would also be interested to know what is a neural network's(Leela) evaluation of the position is any of you have it downloaded.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My take: White is down 2 pawns, but he has the bishop pair, and black's pawn structure on the queenside is deteriorated. White also has a very active rook which can maneuver itself between the 2 open files to exert pressure. However, the main idea that I noted was the there are 2 open files so black can play King f7 and bring the rook over one of them. Perhaps the biggest compensation that white has is the massive space advantage due to the strong center. My take is that it should be equal, but can someone explain it better because the engine might not be right?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;White to move&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;4k2r/p1p1n2p/B1p1bpp1/8/4PP2/B7/6PP/3R2K1 w k - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21014" LastEditorUserId="4186" LastEditDate="2020-03-09T20:25:16.640" LastActivityDate="2020-03-09T20:25:16.640" Title="Queenless Imbalanced Middlegame(2)" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;middlegame&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28765" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28764" CreationDate="2020-03-05T04:43:54.047" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;My initial impression was that in a practical game, white would win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it were not for the plan that the computer found, my impression would be that Rb1-b7, and winning back one pawn, with the remaining weak pawns, white would then likely win back the second, and just be clearly better. White is also ahead in development, and has an incredibly strong bishop pair, as you mentioned. Lastly, if the black king went to f7, as soon as it did, if white could take on c7, the Rh8 will be forced to go to e8, and it will be hard to break that pin. This would be very bad. I had a position once as white that could have ended up in this dream scenario, but my opponent played differently, and I ultimately won tactically instead. That game definitely influenced my initial, and shallow, assessment of the position. My initial, cursory, assessment was wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, that I turn on the computer, it took the wind out of my idea immediately, and it is a likely draw for one reason: It is a positional standoff, and immediately, which white should force. With the Rb1 plan, which Stockfish 11 thought was best, black threatens to play Kd7 and Nc8, which defends everything. As soon as black plays Kd7, white needs to play Rd1 forcing the king back, and then can return to b1 with the same threat forcing a repetition. If black does not find that plan, white likely wins, but frankly, it would not be hard for a strong player to find. My initial thoughts were just from a quick glance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White can try to move around, and induce a black mistake; but there are also many more pitfalls for white than black, and white could also make a mistake. You can never lose sight of the fact that you are two pawns down, and must be careful that there may be a defense that will leave you begging for a draw…if you are lucky.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The evaluation of the position is such:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black has two pawns, and that is really the major redeeming quality of the position from black’s perspective. It helps that the weaknesses are close to home, which usually makes them more defendable, and the king is close enough to help with that. The white bishops are a bit unfortunately placed for a Bc5xa7 idea due to the move Ra8 winning, so it will take at least an extra move for that plan to work. Black has the possibility of Kd7 and Nc8 holding it together if Rb1 by white, and even with the potential loss of a7, black is up a pawn with a compact structure. White must be careful not to overplay his hand, or the extra pawns could become decisive. The Nc8 is the hero of black’s defense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White has the two bishops, and a very weakened black queenside to go after. The Rd1 is more active for now, and the Rh8 is out-of-play for now, but might get out in time. The Kg1 is going to be the more active king. It is very important that the Pe4 takes the squares f5, and d5. especially, away from the black pieces. Black is, clearly, on the defensive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With such a material imbalance, it comes down to very concrete calculation, which computers are particularly good at, and I believe the evaluation; however, there is room for both sides to play on, but to do so leaves the game on a razor’s edge. Black could slip up, and white’s activity could be decisive, but if white is not accurate, the material could have the last word, and from the lines below, this is the more-likely scenario.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The obvious plans for white are Rb1-b7, Bc5 and trying to capture on a7, and bringing the K to the center or queenside via d4 can c5 (it turns out that this is a fantasy though). Some of these might combine with a plan of Bb7-c6. Black’s plans are mostly reactionary to whatever white plays, but some are based on f5, securing the d5 square, or Nc8-d6 or b6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After seeing the variations below, white easily has enough activity to compensate for the two-pawns deficit, but as the variations show, mostly due to the incredibly well-placed Ne7-c8, no more. To play for more is risking having to play a long defense for white.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In conclusion, I found many positions that white was either worse, or losing outright, but none that white was better. After analyzing this in depth, it is my opinion that with best play, white has absolutely nothing, and has a significantly higher risk of losing than black does, which I found counterintuitive and surprising.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After looking at the lines, as long as black sees the Kd7 and Nc8 plan in response to Rb1, which is fairly easy, he has no risk of losing. After looking at the lines, based on my years of experience, between two strong players, I did not see any moves that were particularly difficult for black to find. White should force the draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;4k2r/p1p1n2p/B1p1bpp1/8/4PP2/B7/6PP/3R2K1 w k - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. Kf2 {It is the Kf2 plan that offers white the least losing chances.} (1. Bc5 {The Bc5 plan.} Kf7 $15 {For example.} 2. Rb1 Rd8 3. Kf2 (3. Rb7 $2 Rd1+ 4. Kf2 Rc1 5. Be3 (5. Bxe7 Kxe7 6. Rxc7+ Kd6 7. Rxh7 Ra1 8. Bf1 a5) 5... Rc2+ 6. Kf3 Bc8 7. Rxa7 Bxa6 8. Rxa6 Rc3 9. Ke2 f5 10. Kd2 (10. exf5 Nxf5 $17) 10... Rc4 11. exf5 Nxf5 12. Ra7 Ke6 13. Rxc7 h5 {And although equal, black is to be preferred.}) 3... f5 $1 4. Rb7 Rd7 5. e5 Nd5 6. g3 Nc3 7. Ke3 Nb5 8. Bxb5 cxb5 9. Rxa7 (9. Rxb5 $2 Rd5 $15) 9... c6= {But why would white want to play for this?}) (1. Bb7 $2 {The Bb7 plan immediately is just too slow.} Bc8 $1 (1... Kf7 {Is also good.} 2. Rc1 Bd7 3. Ba6 Re8 4. Bc5 f5 5. exf5 Nxf5 6. Bxa7 Ra8 7. Ra1 $1 Nd6 8. Bf2 Be6 $15) 2. Bxc8 Nxc8 3. Bb4 {Only move, and try to figure out why OTB.} Rg8 {Preparing to activate the rook, and black is better. There is no need to continue the analysis as it is clear that black is much better placed than at the beginning when white still had the two bishops, so white should have just forced the repetition.}) (1. Rb1 Kd7 2. Rd1+ {And white can force the repetition.} (2. Rb7 $6 {First, the Rb7 plan, which is trying to push too hard, and black is already at least equal.} Nc8 (2... Ra8 {Is also possible with the idea of Nc8-d6 or b6.} 3. Bc5 Nc8 4. Rb2 {And white is already forced to retreat or see the Rb7 get shut out of play, and maybe later, trapped.} Nb6 5. Rd2+ Ke8 6. Bb7 Rb8 7. Bxc6+ Bd7 8. Bxb6 Bxc6 9. Bxc7 Rb1+ 10. Kf2 Bxe4 $15) 3. Rb8 {Already having to bail out.} (3. Bc5 $4 Nd6 4. Bxd6 {Almost forced since e4 hangs.} (4. Rb4 Re8 {And black is winning now, and free. E4 is very weak.} 5. e5 fxe5 6. fxe5 Nf7 $19 {And d5 is now available for the Be6.}) 4... Kxd6 5. Rxa7 Rb8 6. Be2 Rb2 $17 {With a huge advantage that is almost winning.}) 3...Rd8 {Forcing white to bail out into the worse side of the draw, for example...} 4. Bxc8+ (4. Kf2 $2 Nb6 $17) 4... Rxc8 5. Rxc8 (5. Rb1 $2 Re8 {Again, aiming at e4.}) 5... Kxc8 6. Be7 f5 7. e5 Kd7 8. Bc5 a5 {Still equal, but why go for this when there is much easier?}) 2... Ke8 3. Rb1=) 1... Kf7 (1... Nc8 2. Rc1 Kd7 3. Rd1+ Ke8 (3... Nd6 $4 4. e5 $16) 4. Bb7 Bd7 5. Bc5 $2 Nd6 $1 6. Bxd6 cxd6 7. Rxd6 Ke7 8. Rd1 a5 9. Ra1 Rb8 10. Ba6 c5 $1 11. Rxa5 $4 Ra8 $19) 2. Rb1 (2. Bc5 $2 f5 3. exf5 Nxf5 $17 {And black has solved all his problems.}) 2...Rd8 3. Rb7 {There are too many lines to give them all, but black has no problems.} Rd7 4. Rxa7 f5 5. e5 Nd5 6. g3 Nc3 7. Bb4 Ne4+ {Or Nb5 or Nd5.} 8. Ke3 c5 9. Ba5 c6 10. Rxd7+ Bxd7=&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-09T16:17:53.207" LastActivityDate="2020-03-09T16:17:53.207" CommentCount="17" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28766" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28768" CreationDate="2020-03-05T07:45:45.880" Score="11" ViewCount="1151" Body="&lt;p&gt;I started coaching a child (11 yo) part-time.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Has to be said that I am passionate about chess, and I am myself 1992 ELO and am new to coaching, but I like sharing and explaining.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At first I was helping him to prepare before the tournaments and we went through different ideas specially preparation for his opponents. I have noticed this was too much and it's going too broad... &lt;br&gt;&#xA;To be also said that his level is good, he understand main strategies, ideas and he's pretty good at tactics as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have proposed him to create an opening repertoire.&lt;br&gt; I was thinking at something very narrow but solid and expandable. I know what type of positions he enjoys playing, so opening will be easy to select, the only &lt;strong&gt;problem&lt;/strong&gt; is I don't know how to start the process of teaching him this. &lt;br&gt;&#xA;(Myself I never had a coach so I have learned alone mostly by practicing, and I don't really have a great repertoire, so I cannot use my repertoire creation as experience to help him)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do I need some tools, some special ways of starting with specific lines, ideas? &lt;br&gt;&#xA;How does a professional coach teaches a child a chess repertoire, step by step?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10210" LastEditorUserId="10867" LastEditDate="2020-06-01T16:28:33.413" LastActivityDate="2020-06-01T16:28:33.413" Title="As a coach what is the process to create a repertoire for a child?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;repertoire&gt;&lt;children&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28767" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28742" CreationDate="2020-03-05T10:33:49.420" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I did not find any information about this variation you are proposing which is interesting, but i do think it is equivalent to a 3D chess game where the board is &lt;strong&gt;8x8x2&lt;/strong&gt; and the third dimension will be the &quot;stacking&quot; of the two pieces together on the same square.&#xA;Then when a piece moves, say for capturing one piece out of the two on the e5 square, it could choose between capturing on e5,1 or e5,2 .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, just a thought on a thing to consider when playing it: if there is a situation where white has king on a1,1 and queen on b2,1 and black with a king on e5,1 and a knight on e5,2 - if Qxe5,2 then it will be a stalemate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20620" LastEditorUserId="14079" LastEditDate="2020-03-05T10:56:43.730" LastActivityDate="2020-03-05T10:56:43.730" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28768" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28766" CreationDate="2020-03-05T12:26:38.587" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;A repertoire is not built overnight, and for most players, having a deep theoretical knowledge is not required. They simply need to understand opening pawn structures.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That said, if this child is showing a great deal of aptitude, it may be worth adding this to your study regime earlier than I would normally recommend. I have seen two prodigies up close, and I will share what I have seen: I have known GM Josh Friedel since he was 6 or 7, and his first coach, who was the first player that I REALLY wanted to beat, has been a close friend for 40 years, so I know that he taught Josh openings even at a very young age.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My second encounter with a prodigy is the amazing 8-year-old Ryan Sun, who is now already rated above 2000 (and plays stronger than that). I faced him in my first game back after 16 years, and again, just this past weekend. I went 0-2, but in our game this weekend, it was especially clear that he was well-versed in the opening. So, for certain kids, who are gaining strength at an incredible pace, they do need a repertoire early since they will soon be facing players, who are booked up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unless you are an expert at opening play, you need to do one of two things at a certain point: Pass him off to a stronger coach. In Josh's case, he &quot;graduated&quot; from my friend to a GM coach, I think at around age 11. The other option is to buy repertoire books, that were written by grandmasters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For kids, who calculate like little computers, you probably want books that focus on aggressive repertoires, typically 1.e4 as white, the Sicilian Defense as black versus 1.e4, and then a GM-suggested repertoire versus 1.d4. There are a lot of such repertoire books out there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I hope this helps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Below, the original poster asks about how to prepare to present the material, and how to prepare to present it, and I added a comment. I will that here too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Usually, those books are pretty complete repertoires, and you need to go through a good portion of the book to make sure you cover everything. So, take each chapter, and they do not have to be in order (for example, if the first chapter is oddball sidelines, that is not the place to start), and read it yourself, and get a feel for the plans and ideas; and then start presenting them chapter by chapter until you are done with the book. He will not have to memorize everything, but this way, he will be exposed to all of it. Just keep building on that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-09T16:20:42.193" LastActivityDate="2020-03-09T16:20:42.193" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28769" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28766" CreationDate="2020-03-05T16:38:29.383" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;I know what type of positions he enjoys playing, so opening will be easy to select.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In that case the hardest part is already behind you. Let me suggest the following strategy: &lt;strong&gt;Copy the repertoire of a grandmaster&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pick a high-level player would style you think would fit you pupil. The correct pick should be a principled player, who uses regularly the same openings, and who plays quite a lot. For instance, in my practice as a teacher I have copied parts of the repertories of GMs Leko, Gelfand, Kozul, Tomashevsky... Avoid guys like Ivanchuk, Carlsen (at least pre-2015 Carlsen) or Rapport who just try everything !&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then, if you have chosen a Najdorf player (say, MVL) as a model for Black, you can then answer most choices just by looking at MVL games: What to do against 6.Bg5 in the Najdorf ? Well, MVL plays 6...e6, let's study a couple of his games. What do you against the closed Sicilian ? Let's see how MVL copes with it, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You don't have to copy the whole repertory of course, GMs often have several pet variations in every openings. MVL also plays 1...e5, but if you decided to copy his Sicilian repertory it is already well enough, an 11-years old doesn't need as broad a repertory as a top-level player. Nor as deep, of course, don't bother about novelties after move 15.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are the advantages ? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Your repertory is super &lt;strong&gt;reliable&lt;/strong&gt;. If a top player trusts it, it will not be refuted at club level. Moreover, if one line is in theoretical trouble after some novelty, you can just see how your model GM copes with it: if he deviates earlier, just follow his lead.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Your repertory will be &lt;strong&gt;coherent&lt;/strong&gt;. The GMs has thought a lot about transpositions and tricky move orders (which are clearly not what you want to lose time on while teaching). You can trust him for his answer to 1.Nf3 will not lead you by transposition into a 1.d4 opening you know nothing about.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;While building his repertory, you pupil will have to study high-level games. They are the best examples for him to make &lt;strong&gt;progress&lt;/strong&gt; not only in his opening play, but also in the middlegame and in the endgame.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If your chosen model is active enough, especially if he plays a lot online, you can expect him to have faced most variations and sub-variations, and you can easily collect his games so that your repertory will be quite &lt;strong&gt;complete&lt;/strong&gt;. If really there is a line no-one has ever played against him, you can always switch to another player or to a reference book.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If you are not sure whom to pick, give a selection of games from 3 or 4 GMs for your pupil to replay. There will probably be one he likes more than the others...&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastEditorUserId="14079" LastEditDate="2020-03-06T07:04:27.497" LastActivityDate="2020-03-06T07:04:27.497" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28770" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28752" CreationDate="2020-03-05T19:49:57.117" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You have stage fright. Experienced actors will tell you that you &lt;em&gt;should&lt;/em&gt; have stage fright. Something is missing in you if you don't. They will tell you that this is what gets you excited and lifts you to do your very best.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I suggest that you think for a bit about what is good about being nervous. Don't avoid nerves, make use of them!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-05T20:40:36.033" LastActivityDate="2020-03-05T20:40:36.033" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28771" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28752" CreationDate="2020-03-05T21:58:50.320" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can only give one piece of advice that I think is too important not to stress:&#xA;Demanding too much from yourself never ends well!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While it is good to be ambitious and setting goals for oneself, there is always a&#xA;real danger in letting those goals become demands. It puts you under a huge amount of self-imposed pressure and it will most likely make you panic and blunder rather than help you stay more alert and sharp in your play. When reading your title I just couldn't help but notice that you wrote that you &lt;strong&gt;MUST&lt;/strong&gt; do well rather than &lt;strong&gt;WISH&lt;/strong&gt; to do well; I really don't recommend this mindset, since I've managed to do incredibly poorly with it in the past.&#xA;The last thing I would note on this topic is that you should treat every game independently, and not let your ambitions for the overall result affect what you want out of the game. Win/draw/loss in the previous games don't matter. Don't bring those results as baggage for the next game you play, it can only serve as a distraction.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another note on nerves during actual play: do not get over-excited!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you're playing a game, a calm head is more likely to help you find good moves and avoid blunders than if you're too excited. This means that even if you're totally winning you should take some deep breaths to get your emotions in check so that you don't get too eager and play too quickly; I've had many wins turn sour because of this. Conversely, if you're in a difficult position you're more likely to find a good defense if you're calm instead of in a state of panic. Stay as objective as possible and try to avoid having your evaluation of the position be colored too much by your emotions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8300" LastActivityDate="2020-03-05T21:58:50.320" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28772" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28773" CreationDate="2020-03-05T23:18:12.337" Score="9" ViewCount="2239" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. c4 g6 2. d4 Nf6 3. Nc3 d5 4. Nf3 Bg7 5. cxd5 Nxd5 6. e4 Nxc3 7. bxc3 c5 8. Be3 Qa5 9. Qd2 Nc6 10. Rb1 a6 11. Rc1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this line of the Grunfeld, White has played 10. Rb1 followed by 11. Rc1. Why? If White wants the rook on c1, why not just play 10. Rc1? What is the benefit of provoking 10...a6 first?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastActivityDate="2020-08-04T01:09:14.697" Title="Mysterious rook move in the Grunfeld" Tags="&lt;grunfeld-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28773" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28772" CreationDate="2020-03-06T00:00:32.977" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, and you probably know this, but for other people reading this, I should spell this out: White is playing on the queenside and in the center, and black is trying to chip away at that center to permanently weaken it. Most of the play by white here is very concrete and prophylactic, specifically, trying to prevent black from breaking up the center. A lot of this has been developed over decades of grandmaster play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus, in general, many moves by black on the queenside help white make inroads by giving up squares. For example, a6 and b5 is often met by a4 at some point, tearing the queenside apart for the white pieces where they are much more active. By threatening Rb5, white either forces cxd4 immediately, or the slight weakening of the b6 square. That is significant since the Rf8 often comes to d8, and Bb6 is then a potential threat. Both lines are given below, and the subtle 10.Rc1 gives white a slightly better chance at an advantage. I followed the main lines that were played the most in ChessBase's Mega 2020 database.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now compare these two main lines with 10.Rc1, and then with almost the same line after 10.Rb1 b6 and then 11.Rc1. I think they will shine light on how forcing that subtle weakness makes a difference in black's options.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. c4 g6 2. d4 Nf6 3. Nc3 d5 4. Nf3 Bg7 5. cxd5 Nxd5 6. e4 Nxc3 7. bxc3 c5 8. Be3 Qa5 9. Qd2 Nc6 10. Rb1 {With the threat of Rb5.} (10. Rc1 cxd4 11. cxd4 Qxd2+ 12. Kxd2 O-O 13. d5 Rd8 14. Ke1 Na5 15. Bg5=) 10... a6 (10... cxd4 11. cxd4 O-O 12. Qxa5 Nxa5 13. Bd3 Rd8 14. Ke2 Bg4 15. d5 e6 16. Bg5 f6 17. Bd2 $14) 11. Rc1 cxd4 12. cxd4 Qxd2+ 13. Kxd2 O-O 14. d5 Rd8 15. Ke1 Na5 $4 (15... Nb4? 16. Bd2 $1 a5 (16... Nxa2 17. Rc2 $18) 17. a3 Na6 18. Bxa5 $16) (15... Ne5 16. Nxe5 Bxe5 17. f4 $14 (17. Bb6 $5)) 16. Bb6 $18 {This dramatically shows how the weakening of b6, by means of the subtle 10.Rb1 first, changed black's options.}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2020-03-06T00:00:32.977" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28774" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28772" CreationDate="2020-03-06T00:06:15.087" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;Peter Svidler explains this in his excellent video series and &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess24.com/en/learn/advanced/ebook/the-gruenfeld-according-to-svidler/21&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;e-book on the Grünfeld&lt;/a&gt; (Premium access only).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The point is the &lt;strong&gt;initiative&lt;/strong&gt;. This move discourages black from playing &lt;code&gt;11...cxd4&lt;/code&gt;, because that would lead to a very uncomfortable situation for black: After &lt;code&gt;12.cxd4 Qxd2+ 13.Kxd2 O-O 14.d5 Rd8 15.Ke1&lt;/code&gt;, there is no good square for the knight. &lt;code&gt;15...Na5&lt;/code&gt; is now impossible, because the bishop can go to b6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And this is the reason why Svidler follows Avrukh's recommendation to play &lt;code&gt;11...Bg4&lt;/code&gt; in this case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[ECO &quot;D85&quot;]&#xA;[Opening &quot;Grünfeld Defense: Exchange Variation&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 d5 4. cxd5 Nxd5 5. e4 Nxc3 6. bxc3 Bg7 7. Be3 c5 8. Nf3 Qa5 9. Qd2 Nc6 10. Rb1 a6 11. Rc1 cxd4 (11... Bg4 { Recommended by Avrukh and Svidler } 12. d5 Rd8) 12. cxd4 Qxd2+ 13. Kxd2 O-O 14. d5 Rd8 15. Ke1 Nb4 (15... Na7 { Best move according to Stockfish. Has never been played. })  (15... Ne5 16. Nxe5 Bxe5 17. f4 Bb2 18. Rc2 Ba3)(15... Na5?? 16. Bb6!) 16. Bd2 a5 17. a3 Na6 *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8472" LastActivityDate="2020-03-06T00:06:15.087" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28775" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27170" CreationDate="2020-03-06T00:58:29.787" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;well, I should say there is a bit more discussion here to be made.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1- are you looking to memorize an opening line?&#xA;2- are you looking to recognize a position?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to recognize more positions, you should study and spent more time on the game. the more you study chess, the better you understand patterns and can identify the famous positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;for memorizing opening line, there is a two part to this.&#xA;1- for some positional opening, some general understanding of piece placement and pawn structures should be enough, with minimum lines to memorize, with high emphasize on general understanding and middle game forms. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2- for more sharp opening, you should literally remember all the sharp lines, and one mistake could be fatal.&#xA;in this case, repetition and spaced repetition could be very helpful. maybe use chess base opening drill or chessable move trainer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In short, dedicate more time to chess and study every single day, even if very small amount of time (15 min).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14130" LastActivityDate="2020-03-06T00:58:29.787" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28776" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-03-06T01:45:06.857" Score="6" ViewCount="158" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is my understanding that a castling move cannot occur if the king / rook moved. However, in the case where a rook and king move but end up in their original spots, can a castling move occur?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21713" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-06T12:56:59.120" LastActivityDate="2020-03-06T12:56:59.120" Title="Castling question" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;castling&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="0" ClosedDate="2020-03-06T07:20:10.573" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28777" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28776" CreationDate="2020-03-06T01:51:37.377" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sorry, no. Once either has moved, it can no longer be involved in castling. An unmoved king, and the other unmoved rook can still castle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2020-03-06T01:51:37.377" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28778" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28776" CreationDate="2020-03-06T04:02:59.383" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The answer is NO. Neither the King nor the Rook on the side you want to castle should not had moved previously AND there is one important fact, the Rooks should be on the initial position rank!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There were some lacks in rules of castling in chess history and some people made fun of this by creating funny joke puzzles like this one:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/TxE4z.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/TxE4z.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An example was composed by Tim Krabbé and relied on a loophole that existed in the definition of castling. In the diagram, White must mate in three moves. The solution begins 1. &lt;strong&gt;e7,&lt;/strong&gt; then the main variations are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1... Kd3 2. e8=Q gxf3 (other moves allow Qe2#) 3. 0-0-0#&lt;br&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;1... Kxf3 2. e8=R! (an underpromotion), and now:&lt;br&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;2... d4 3. 0-0#&lt;br&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;2... Kg2 3. 0-0-0-0#!&lt;br&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the last variation, White castles with his newly promoted rook, moving his king to e3 and the rook to e2. Under the rules of chess at the time, this move was arguably legal because the rook had not moved yet. &lt;strong&gt;Afterward, FIDE amended the rules to require that the castling rook must occupy the same rank as the king&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joke_chess_problem&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joke_chess_problem&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10210" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2020-03-06T04:13:44.633" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28779" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28780" CreationDate="2020-03-06T06:39:45.847" Score="2" ViewCount="3916" Body="&lt;p&gt;How many positions per second can the Sesse supercomputer analyze?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21014" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-03-06T19:22:49.883" LastActivityDate="2020-03-06T19:22:49.883" Title="Sesse supercomputer" Tags="&lt;computer-chess&gt;&lt;calculation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28780" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28779" CreationDate="2020-03-06T10:50:49.340" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Obviously, it depends on the position. Since it is not running now, I relied on a Google search, and looked at some images. I am not going to post them since they are copyrighted, but you can do a Google search, and click on images, and find these in order.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the first, a Carlsen-So game (dead link), after 49.b3, and endgame, Sesse is looking at 49,582,886/nodes per second.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the second, &lt;a href=&quot;https://twitter.com/tarjeijs/status/1051844415780732929&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Carlsen-Donchenko&lt;/a&gt; (players not shown in the photo), a middlegame, Sesse is looking at 17,380,039/nodes per second&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In a third, &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnJEfJPuaSA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Carlsen-Caruana&lt;/a&gt;, another endgame, but with more pieces on the board than the first example, Sesse is looking at 27,800,515/nodes per second.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In a forth, &lt;a href=&quot;https://twitter.com/chess24com/status/1003337910920376320&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;So-Carlsen&lt;/a&gt;, another middlegame, Sesse is looking at 15,699,501/nodes per second.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was ready to post my answer, but then I found another one, &lt;a href=&quot;https://grueneselent.blogspot.com/2018/11/sesse-der-norwegische-supercomputer.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Caruana-Carlsen&lt;/a&gt;, a middlegame, and Sesse is looking at 82,657,387/nodes per second!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, you can see it really varies a lot, and depends on how complicated the position, but if you are looking for a high-end number, at least 82 million seems to be a good answer, but it could easily be higher.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2020-03-06T10:50:49.340" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28781" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28779" CreationDate="2020-03-06T12:12:49.920" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Wikipedia's article on the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Chess_Championship_2018#Live_analysis&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;World Chess Championship 2018&lt;/a&gt; has the following line on Sesse:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The games were analysed live by the Sesse computer, running Stockfish. The computer uses a 20-core 2.3 GHz Haswell-EP CPU, which is significantly more powerful than standard computers, but not at supercomputer level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;TCEC Stockfish is currently playing with 88 cores and runs at ~200 million nodes per second. If each core contributes exactly the same amount of nps, Sesse should get about 45 million nps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And yes, 20 cores is significantly more powerful than common personal computers, but very, very far from supercomputer level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastActivityDate="2020-03-06T12:12:49.920" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28783" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19461" CreationDate="2020-03-07T00:34:00.490" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, they can. Running the computer at &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/analysis&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;www.chess.com/analysis&lt;/a&gt; (which is Stockfish 10) to depth = 47, this is the principal variation and recommended move:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;19.Re1 Kxh6 20.h4 f6 21.Be3 Bf5 22.Rad1 Qa3 23.hxg5+ fxg5 24.Qh4+ Kg6 25.Qh1 Kg7 26.Bc1 Qc5 27.Be3 (0.00)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Playing 19. Re1 is always one of Stockfish's top 3 options, too. Further, keep in mind that Stockfish 10 is old, we now have Stockfish 11, and Stockfish dev is even stronger.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That said, do be careful about taking AlphaZero's proposed moves as gospel. It's very possible it is wrong, and the position after 18...g5 is drawn or even lost for White. We will never know for sure unless and until we have tablebases. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastActivityDate="2020-03-07T00:34:00.490" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28785" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28791" CreationDate="2020-03-07T09:53:04.780" Score="14" ViewCount="4778" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is it possible to create a &quot;pawn box&quot; as shown below (using legal moves and the help of black) in standard chess? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The positions don't need to be exactly as shown, and there can be more pieces on the board if required.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/1k6/3PPP2/3P1P2/3PPP2/8/8/2K5 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that this is, of course, not too difficult in &lt;em&gt;horde&lt;/em&gt; chess as a black knight can remove the central pawn in the box.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14767" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2020-03-07T10:21:02.680" LastActivityDate="2020-03-08T00:46:59.343" Title="Is the &quot;Pawn Box&quot; possible in standard chess?" Tags="&lt;pawns&gt;&lt;problems&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28786" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28785" CreationDate="2020-03-07T10:10:16.843" Score="20" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is one simple solution:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.c4 d5 2.cxd5 e6 3.dxe6 f6 4.g4 g6 5.g5 Ne7 6.gxf6 Nd5 7.e4 Nc3 8.bxc3 Qd4 9.cxd4 b5 10.d5 b4 11.a3 c6 12.axb4 c5 13.bxc5 Bd6 14.cxd6 g5 15.h3 g4 16.hxg4 Rg8 17.f3 Rg5 18.f4 Rf5 19.gxf5 Na6 20.d4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More moves can be added to reach the exact position with no other pieces other than kings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-03-07T10:10:16.843" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28787" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28789" CreationDate="2020-03-07T11:23:36.487" Score="8" ViewCount="625" Body="&lt;p&gt;I read a couple of poker books and I thought I could win, which was not the case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Fortunately for me I have a decent chess level, 1930 in rapid, and I simply changed poker books for chess books and returned to the club. I have not lost a lot, but I realized if I don't win money why play something I enjoy less than my favourite game since I was a child.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As the game is helping me not to gamble, I wonder if it is documented from a medical point of view similar cases where chess helped.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user18196" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2020-03-07T11:56:36.507" LastActivityDate="2020-03-07T14:08:31.097" Title="Is chess a good game to fight against gambling addiction?" Tags="&lt;psychology&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28788" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28785" CreationDate="2020-03-07T11:37:21.980" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is really not difficult. Brian gave you one example, but you could imagine many more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is quite obvious that in order to achieve the &quot;box&quot; as given, white needs to capture 10 black pieces. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Out of the 16 black pieces, all but the black king can help in achieving the box by letting themselves being captured.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The black a and h pawns don't seem at first all that useful as white wants to capture towards the center, however they could still help if they first capture white pieces then sacrificing themselves on say the b,c or  f,g files. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A more interesting question could be: On which part of the board can you achieve such a box?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Trying to answer my own question (I label the box by its central square). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;box on h-file not possible because of border&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;box on g-file not possible (too many captures necessary)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;box on f-file (I count 14 captures, so possible)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;box on e-file possible, see example by Brian&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;files a-d don't need to be considered separately because of symmetry (a is the same as h, b the same as g, etc)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So in summary, it should be possible to create such box for white on the squares: c5, c6, d4, d5, d6, e4, e5, e6, f5, f6. Similarly for black on the mirrored squares: c3, c4, d3, d4, d5, e3, e4, e5, f3, f4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastEditorUserId="11629" LastEditDate="2020-03-07T21:14:46.583" LastActivityDate="2020-03-07T21:14:46.583" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28789" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28787" CreationDate="2020-03-07T14:08:31.097" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have seen plenty of people, who are addicted to chess, as it can become very time consuming if you take it seriously. So yes, it could easily help people swap an addiction that most would see as potentially more detrimental for one that is more healthy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2020-03-07T14:08:31.097" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28790" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-03-07T18:26:41.147" Score="4" ViewCount="142" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been playing Kraton Chess, which is basically standard chess except there are 96 different possible starting positions that are similar to the standard starting position. All the rules of standard chess are in Kraton Chess including castling with no additional rules.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have some interest in studying the possible starting positions in order to play quicker and stronger in my openings. I might memorize some potential moves to play, but I'm mostly interested in understanding the elements of the position. Understanding elements of a position would help me understand what I should be thinking about in my openings. For example, a pawn having no support in the starting position might be an element worth remembering. Does anyone have any advice on how to go about this? Also, if I do memorize moves, should I just memorize whatever an engine suggests?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's not critical to know what Kraton Chess is to answer the question. But if you're interested, Kraton Chess has two main differences to Chess960. The king must start on the E file, and rooks can't start on the D or F files. (This improves castling.) The possible starting positions must have an equal chance of being chosen for each game, and the game must start right after the position is chosen. Kraton Chess is more thoroughly described in this post, although it is long: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.reddit.com/r/chessvariants/comments/f20xgw/kraton_chess/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.reddit.com/r/chessvariants/comments/f20xgw/kraton_chess/&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21208" LastActivityDate="2020-06-10T08:28:07.273" Title="How to Create Positional Theory" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;learning&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;chess-variants&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28791" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28785" CreationDate="2020-03-08T00:46:59.343" Score="23" Body="&lt;p&gt;As @BrianTowers showed, it can be done. Here’s a shorter proof game for the fun of it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. h4 g5 2. hxg5 f5 3. g4 Nf6 4. gxf6 d6 5. gxf5 Be6 6. f4 Bb3 7. axb3 c5 8. e4 c4 9. bxc4 d5 10. cxd5 e6 11. dxe6 Na6 12. b4 Nc5 13. bxc5 Qd5 14. c4 Bd6 15. cxd6 Rf8 16. cxd5 Rh8 17. d4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastActivityDate="2020-03-08T00:46:59.343" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28792" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-03-08T02:12:46.293" Score="2" ViewCount="128" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was looking at the interesting career of Bela Berger. On &lt;a href=&quot;https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-215084438/listen&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; oral history site, Bela Berger talks in an interview.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is a quote from the site:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;Berger, international chess master, speaks about learning to play chess as a child in Hungary; becoming a professional chess player; coming to Australia in 1957; becoming an international master in 1963; playing in Philippines, 1967; correspondence, blitz and blindfold chess; preparing for tournaments; personality of chess players; and the future of chess.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was particularly interested in his comments about blindfold chess where he says he did not see the board and pieces as such, but experienced them as &quot;pulsating energies&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I had previously heard comments from Ivanchuk along similar lines. Not very enlightening for me!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Berger comments that he could play as many as 10 games at a time blindfolded.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could  anyone who experience with,  or knowledge of, such feats tell me what blindfold players &quot;see&quot; on the board?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13074" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-03-08T04:00:03.147" LastActivityDate="2020-09-02T11:22:08.957" Title="Bela Berger and Blindfold Chess: What do players &quot;see&quot; on the board?" Tags="&lt;history&gt;&lt;blindfold-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28793" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28794" CreationDate="2020-03-08T02:47:29.220" Score="3" ViewCount="95" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the following position white is down the exchange, but up a pawn. Stockfish 10 and Komodo 13.2 evaluate it at 0.00. My Question is essentially which side has the advantage(if any) and if so how would that side push for a win. I don't necessarily trust the engine in this position as it's a very imbalanced position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;5rk1/6p1/2p2r2/p1pp2N1/P4P2/1P1P2P1/2P1R1K1/8 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;[StartPly &quot;3&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Rb8&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21014" LastEditorUserId="4186" LastEditDate="2020-03-09T02:07:15.490" LastActivityDate="2020-03-09T08:26:10.083" Title="Queenless Imbalanced Middlegame(3)" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;middlegame&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28794" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28793" CreationDate="2020-03-08T04:39:23.463" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, I think that your lack of faith in strong computers is misplaced. My Stockfish 11 quickly gets up to a depth of over 40 ply, and still reads 0.00. Just because a position is imbalanced, it does not mean they are wrong. It would be a truly exceptional case at that depth for them to be wrong. That said, regarding your sentence about who has the advantage, it is clear that only black can legitimately try to win this. White should have no prayer of winning this, but nevertheless, as with any position, if you try too hard, you can lose; and I give several lines below where it is possible for black to push too hard, and lose, or at least, be worse. I have pushed like that in similar positions myself, so I can relate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The evaluation of the position is such:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White has one pawn for the exchange, but has several other pluses. For example, not only does white have the move, in essence, white sometimes might have two moves since black might eventually have deal with the threat of Re8 mate in some lines (right now, Rf8 would work if the Rb8 moves off the back rank). Related to that, the Ng5 is a monster for now, and combines nicely with the Re2, which will be seen in a number of lines below, and white owns the file. Black also has very weak pawns spread out over three pawn islands, which give white a lot of targets to counterattack. Lastly, and we see this in a few lines, if g7 drops, the connected passers on g3 and f4 gain a lot of strength, and provide ample counterplay.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In contrast, black has the exchange, and the possibility of c4 seriously weakening the white queenside. Ideally, black should want to trade a set of rooks since R vs. N endings with pawns on both sides are often among the easiest endings to win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are a virtually unlimited number of possibilities here since they all read 0.00, so you can go down any number of paths, but that demonstrates that the computer sees a GREAT NUMBER of defensive resources since white is very active. That is not to say that there is not the opportunity for a lot of play. Equal here does not equal a &quot;dead draw&quot; by any means.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am going to give the two main plans that I can see for black: Trying to trade a set of rooks, and playing c4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;1r4k1/6p1/2p2r2/p1pp2N1/P4P2/1P1P2P1/2P1R1K1/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. Kf3 Rff8 (1... c4 2. dxc4 dxc4 3. bxc4 $1 {This look very weakening, but white is active enough to maintain the balance.} Rb4 4. Re8+ Rf8 5. Re7 {Only move.} Rxc4 6. Ne6 Rf6 (6... Rf7 $2 7. Re8+ Kh7 8. Ng5+ Kg6 9. Nxf7 Kxf7 10. Rc8 Rxc2 11. Kg4=) 7. Rxg7+ Kh8 8. Re7 Kg8 (8... Rxc2) 9. Rg7+ Kh8 10. Re7= Rxc2 $2 11. g4 $16) 2. Ne6 Rfe8 3. Nxc5 Rxe2 4. Kxe2 Kf7 5. c3 Ke7 6. Kf3 Rh8 (6... d4 7. cxd4 Kd6 8. f5 Kd5 9. Ke3 Re8+ 10. Ne6 g6 11. g4 gxf5 12. gxf5 Re7 13. Kf4=) 7. Nb7 Kd7 8. d4 Rh2 9. Nc5+ Kd6 10. b4 axb4 11. cxb4 Rb2 12. a5 Rxb4 13. a6 Rb2 14. f5 Kc7 15. Ne6+ Kd6 {Only move.} (15... Kb6 $4 16. Nxg7 Kxa6 17. f6 Rb8 18. Ne6 $18) 16. Nxg7 c5 17. dxc5+ Kxc5 18. g4 Ra2 19. Ne8 Ra3+ (19... Rxa6 $4 20. f6 $18) 20. Kf4 Ra4+ 21. Kg5 (21. Kf3=) 21... Rxa6 22. f6 Ra7 23. Kg6 d4 24. f7 Rxf7 25. Kxf7 d3 26. Nf6 Kd4 27. g5 d2 28. g6 d1=Q 29. g7 Qb3+ 30. Kg6=&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2020-03-08T04:39:23.463" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28795" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28796" CreationDate="2020-03-08T06:52:29.760" Score="17" ViewCount="2729" Body="&lt;p&gt;Which standard openings in chess usually pave the way for an early queen trade in the game? In other words, which opening has a high probability of exchanging the queens in the opening itself? Does any opening contain queen trade as a part of standard theory?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21569" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-08T10:32:22.897" LastActivityDate="2020-03-08T19:49:29.927" Title="Trading queens in the opening" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;books&gt;&lt;queens&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28796" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28795" CreationDate="2020-03-08T10:14:00.760" Score="21" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is not opening that usually paves the way for a queen trade. There are plenty of specific lines that allow for it, but it takes cooperation from your opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first line that comes to mind is hugely popular at the GM level: The Berlin in the Ruy Lopez.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA; 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 Nf6 4. O-O Nxe4 5. d4 Nd6 6. Bxc6 dxc6 7. dxe5 Nf5 8. Qxd8+ Kxd8&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another one, but that is only particularly popular at club level is the King's Indian Exchange Variation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 Bg7 4. e4 d6 5. Nf3 O-O 6. Be2 e5 7. dxe5 dxe5 8. Qxd8 Rxd8&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;GM Edmar Mednis wrote a book called &quot;From the Opening into the Endgame&quot;, which covers a lot of early transitions to the endgame, including quite a few lines that were popular, and lead to an early queen trade, but again, you cannot force your opponent to allow the queens to come off.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are a few of the lines covered.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Grunfeld&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 d5 4. cxd5 Nxd5 5. e4 Nxc3 6. bxc3 c5 7. Nf3 Bg7 8. Be3 Qa5 9. Qd2 {Can lead to an early exchange of queens on d2.}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This line in the English was hugely popular in the 1980's.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. c4 Nf6 2. Nc3 d5 3. cxd5 Nxd5 4. Nf3 g6 5. e4 Nxc3 6. dxc3 Qxd1+ 7. Kxd1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another Ruy Lopez Exchange line that was popular in the 1980's.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Bxc6 dxc6 5. O-O f6 6. d4 exd4 7. Nxd4 c5 8. Nb3 Qxd1 9. Rxd1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The French Tarrasch Variation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Nd2 c5 4. exd5 exd5 5. Bb5+ Bd7 6. Qe2+ Qe7 7. Bxd7+ Nxd7 8. dxc5 Qxe2+ 9. Nxe2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Modern.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. e4 g6 2. d4 Bg7 3. c4 d6 4. Nc3 e5 5. dxe5 dxe5 6. Qxd8+ Kxd8&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is not impossible to trade in the Pirc, but it leads to a position that white has a 75% winning percentage, and it not in the spirit of the type of position that black wants when playing the Pirc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. e4 d6 2. d4 Nf6 3. Nc3 g6 4. Nf3 Bg7 5. Be2 O-O 6. O-O e5 $6 7. dxe5 dxe5 8. Qxd8 Rxd8 9. Bg5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And one last one, first played by the great Capablanca as black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. e5 Bf5 4. Bd3 Bxd3 5. Qxd3 Qa5+ 6. c3 Qa6 7. Qxa6 {Avoiding the exchange of queens makes it difficult to develop.} Nxa6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Petrov.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. Nxe5 d6 4. Nf3 Nxe4 5. Qe2 Qe7 6. d3 Nf6 7. Bg5 Qxe2+ 8. Bxe2 Be7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-08T12:24:26.867" LastActivityDate="2020-03-08T12:24:26.867" CommentCount="16" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28797" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28803" CreationDate="2020-03-08T10:27:40.897" Score="26" ViewCount="5819" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is known that the minimum number of moves required for checkmate is 2 moves (4 half moves) resulting in a victory for Black. However, what is the minimum number of moves required for stalemate? Clearly, this would take a lot more moves since no piece from one party must be able to move, thus it must either be captured, pinned or completely blocked.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21569" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2020-03-08T14:15:10.227" LastActivityDate="2020-03-08T16:08:18.180" Title="What is the fastest way to reach stalemate?" Tags="&lt;stalemate&gt;&lt;records&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28800" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28755" CreationDate="2020-03-08T13:25:58.287" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The Problem was p.communicate(), which kills the subprocess. The interaction with the engine works well with the following code:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;def put(command, inf_list, tmp_time):&#xA;&#xA;    engine.stdin.write(command+'\n')&#xA;    engine.stdin.flush()&#xA;    time.sleep(tmp_time)&#xA;&#xA;    if command &amp;lt;&amp;gt; &quot;quit&quot;:&#xA;&#xA;        engine.stdin.write('isready\n')     &#xA;        engine.stdin.flush()&#xA;&#xA;        while True:&#xA;            text = engine.stdout.readline().strip()&#xA;&#xA;            if text == 'readyok':&#xA;                break&#xA;&#xA;            elif text !='':&#xA;                inf_list.append(text)&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;inf_list = []&#xA;put('uci', inf_list, 0)&#xA;put('setoption name Hash value 8192', inf_list, 0)&#xA;put('ucinewgame', inf_list, 0)&#xA;put('position fen rq3r2/2pbppk1/3p1np1/1N5p/1n1PP2P/2N2P2/PP1Q2P1/R3KB1R w KQ - 3 15', inf_list, 0)&#xA;put('go movetime=3000', inf_list, 4)&#xA;put('stop', inf_list, 0)&#xA;put('quit', inf_list, 0)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21700" LastActivityDate="2020-03-08T13:25:58.287" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28801" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28880" CreationDate="2020-03-08T13:36:06.950" Score="2" ViewCount="343" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;The Vulture&quot; is an off-beat line of the Benoni, and while I have seen many off-beat lines over the years, I cannot see any redeeming qualities in this opening if white plays the natural 4.Qc2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stefan Bucker wrote a book on it &lt;a href=&quot;https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/1852232935&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does anyone see ANYTHING hopeful here for black?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 c5 3. d5 Ne4 4. Qc2 Qa5+ 5. Nd2 Nd6 6. e4 g6 7. b4 $1 Qxb4 (7... cxb4 8. Nb3 Qc7 9. Bb2 Rg8 10. Nf3 (10. Bd3 {Or this attempt to keep the N from f5.} b5 11. c5 Nc4 12. Bxc4 bxc4 13. Qxc4 $16) 10... f6 (10... Bg7 11. Bxg7 Rxg7 12. c5 Kf8 13. Rc1 Ne8 14. Bb5 $18) 11. e5 fxe5 12. Bxe5 Bg7 13. Bxg7 Rxg7 14. c5 Nf5 15. Rc1 $18) 8. Rb1 Qa5 9. Bb2 Rg8 10. Bc3 Qc7 11. Bd3 f6 12. e5 fxe5 13. Ngf3 Bg7 14. Ng5 $18 e4 15. Bxe4 $1 $18&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2020-03-15T13:42:05.353" Title="Can anyone find any redeeming qualities in &quot;The Vulture&quot;?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;modern-benoni&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28803" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28797" CreationDate="2020-03-08T14:12:14.737" Score="36" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Loyd&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Sam Loyd&lt;/a&gt;, a famous puzzle composer, created this 10 move, 19 ply, stalemate game over 100 years ago. I found it via Google, in &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/forum/view/game-showcase/fastest-stalemate-known-in-chess&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this post&lt;/a&gt; by AndersElborg on chess.com. Most black pieces are blocked, which saves some moves because those pieces don't need to be captured.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[StartPly &quot;19&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e3 a5 2.Qh5 Ra6 3.Qxa5 h5 4.h4 Rah6 5.Qxc7 f6 6.Qxd7+ Kf7 7.Qxb7 Qd3 8.Qxb8 Qh7 9.Qxc8 Kg6 10.Qe6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-03-08T16:08:18.180" LastActivityDate="2020-03-08T16:08:18.180" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28806" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28793" CreationDate="2020-03-08T19:54:31.897" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would much prefer to play Black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Rb4, then pawn c4 looks like a very promising break.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;But then I am not a GM.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21737" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2020-03-09T08:26:10.083" LastActivityDate="2020-03-09T08:26:10.083" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28807" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28809" CreationDate="2020-03-09T00:17:35.277" Score="35" ViewCount="8586" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are there any over-the-board tournaments open only to persons over 18?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Everywhere I go it's like a school field trip, more than half the players are from some elementary or middle school, all parents in tow. And as I am in the ~1600 rating range myself, I end up playing nothing but kids and I find it unpleasant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First of all, it's a no-win situation. If you beat them, you feel like a bully taking candy from a baby.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most of the time it's fine, but I've had a few very negative experiences, especially:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;A kid about 9 years: he played a fantastic opening against me, he was&#xA;up a pawn and had a crushing position. He proceeds to go get all his&#xA;friends to look at the board, all snickering. Then, I fight back and&#xA;when he realizes I'm about to win his rook and take the initiative he&#xA;breaks out into tears, like inconsolable. It was horrible. The TD&#xA;awarded me the game as forfeit.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;A kid about 14 years old: He plays really fast, and I go up a knight&#xA;and have a good attack going. It's a complex position but I'm easily&#xA;going to be able to finish it. He proceeds to get up, walk around for&#xA;20 minutes (game 60 time control), comes back, makes a move, then&#xA;gets up again, another 10 minutes, and on and on until he had a few&#xA;mins left and then he played to the end (I won easily.) It was&#xA;ridiculous. I complained to the TD but he said there's nothing he&#xA;could do.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I can't play tournaments anymore, it's unpleasant. Are there any tournaments that are open to only adults?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21741" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-09T00:45:28.230" LastActivityDate="2020-03-10T06:12:41.637" Title="Tournaments for adults only?" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="7" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28808" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28810" CreationDate="2020-03-09T00:19:52.363" Score="3" ViewCount="189" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is not much to add to the question. Quite simply, does USCF still pay for the FIDE Master application fee?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4260" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-09T16:38:09.080" LastActivityDate="2020-03-09T16:38:09.080" Title="Does USCF still pay for the FIDE Master application fee?" Tags="&lt;fide&gt;&lt;uscf&gt;&lt;titles&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28809" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28807" CreationDate="2020-03-09T00:44:49.020" Score="20" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are definitely some, but they are, clearly, not the norm as most organizers want to get the most players they can, and thus, make the most money they can.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are a few links of places that have regular adult tournaments. Some of these tournaments have gone by, but if they did them before, they probably would do them again. There are surely more, but I am not going to try to track down every one of them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, and I am one now, there are also senior events for those over 50; so you have something to look forward to.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Starting a local club that does one game per week, and excluding kids, might also work for you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I do feel your pain. I got whacked by the number one 8-year-old in the country a week ago. His behavior was totally fine, but kids are always so underrated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.berkeleychessschool.org/programs/adult-chess-tournaments/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Berkeley, California&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.austinchesstournaments.com/faq#RVI_adult&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Austin, Texas&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://njscf.org/october-19-20-adult-only-fide-swiss/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;New Jersey&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.georgiachess.org/event-2471084&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Tucker, Georgia&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2020-03-09T00:44:49.020" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28810" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28808" CreationDate="2020-03-09T02:08:10.757" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Per Chris Bird, the USCF's &quot;FIDE Events Manager&quot;, the USCF only pays for GM, IM, WGM, and WIM titles. FM(WFM) and CM(WCM) are the responsibility of the player. The USCF still applies on your behalf, but you pay the fee.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The fees are currently as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Grandmaster/WGM: 330 Euro&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;International Master/WIM: 165 Euro&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;FIDE Master/WFM: 70 Euro&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Candidate Master/WCM: 50 Euro&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-09T02:57:26.380" LastActivityDate="2020-03-09T02:57:26.380" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28812" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28807" CreationDate="2020-03-09T04:14:38.637" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;There aren't many, but there are some. Sometimes, oddly enough, it can help to find a largish &lt;em&gt;scholastic&lt;/em&gt; event and see if there's a corresponding adult event at the same time. For example, Wisconsin holds the Wisconsin Junior Open every year. And, at the same time and location (but on a different floor), they also hold the Veteran's Tournament, which is only open to adults.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2020-03-09T04:14:38.637" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28813" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28807" CreationDate="2020-03-09T12:58:32.913" Score="18" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are tournaments for &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.chessbase.com/post/golden-age-of-us-chess-for-players-ages-50-and-older&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;50+ years old&lt;/a&gt;.  This is great as you can avoid immature 30 year olds.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17425" LastActivityDate="2020-03-09T12:58:32.913" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28814" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-03-09T13:12:30.470" Score="1" ViewCount="142" Body="&lt;p&gt;What sequence of opening moves can include most different named Openings or Defenses by transpositions?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, I just played a bullet game that went:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.d4 e5 2. e4 d6 3. Nf3 Nc6 4. Bb5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this sequence, we have, in just four moves:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Queen’s Pawn Opening;&#xA;Englund Gambit;&#xA;King’s Pawn Opening;&#xA;Center Game;&#xA;Philidor’s Defense;&#xA;Ruy Lopez;&#xA;Steinitz Defense to the Ruy Lopez;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Very interesting is also:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.e4 d5 2.d4 c6 (or 2...e6), and so on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there any other similar (or better) examples of this kind?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastEditorUserId="8291" LastEditDate="2020-03-09T13:26:15.273" LastActivityDate="2020-06-14T20:50:33.250" Title="Most different openings by transpositions?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;defense&gt;&lt;transpositions&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28817" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30078" CreationDate="2020-03-09T21:16:28.913" Score="2" ViewCount="202" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/28797/what-is-the-fastest-way-to-reach-stalemate&quot;&gt;well known&lt;/a&gt; that the fastest stalemate is in 19 ply. But what is the fastest possible if all pieces, not pawns, may be shuffled at will on their first ranks? This will be difficult since there is much to consider, but 19 ply is certainly beatable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-31T18:19:22.880" LastActivityDate="2020-08-31T18:19:22.880" Title="What rearrangent of the starting position's pieces, in any manner, has the fastest stalemate?" Tags="&lt;problems&gt;&lt;stalemate&gt;&lt;records&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28819" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28821" CreationDate="2020-03-10T04:45:49.330" Score="3" ViewCount="155" Body="&lt;p&gt;By top women players, I mean the players who regularly participate in top women-only invitationals, e.g. the ongoing Women's Grand Prix Lausanne. Some names would be Nana Dzagnidze, Mariya Muzychuk, Ju Wenjun, Aleksandra Goryachkina (Hou Yifan is clearly not playing professionally right now since she is studying at Oxford University). By &quot;professionally&quot; I mean whether they treat chess as a full-time job.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do the current top women players play professionally, or only as a hobby?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastActivityDate="2020-03-10T08:37:06.657" Title="Do the top women players play professionally?" Tags="&lt;women&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28820" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28807" CreationDate="2020-03-10T06:06:45.383" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you find yourself in the UK, the &lt;a href=&quot;https://union.ic.ac.uk/rcc/chess/2020/03/central-london-chess-congress-at-imperial-college-may-2020/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Central London Chess Congress&lt;/a&gt; at Imperial College has an over-18's policy due to licensing restrictions on the venue. It is, not just for this reason, one of my favourite events on the chess calendar.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1816" LastEditorUserId="1816" LastEditDate="2020-03-10T06:12:41.637" LastActivityDate="2020-03-10T06:12:41.637" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28821" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28819" CreationDate="2020-03-10T08:37:06.657" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think there is no doubt that the answer is &quot;yes&quot;. The question is whether they are particularly successful at it, or not; and whether they have to supplement tournament winnings with other activities like teaching.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In addition, a common use of the term &quot;professional&quot; in sports is if someone gets paid, and the Grand Prix consists of four events with prizes in each ranging from 3,000 Euros to 20,000 Euros, and the overall prize standings at the end from 2,500 Euros to 15,000 Euros for the standings winner. So they do get paid, and thus, are professionals, at the very least, technically.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That said, I think that most may have their participation in tournaments and income supplemented beyond teaching, most probably by national federations, but organizers may also offer incentives to attract top women players. The Grand Prix pays the women's travel expenses, and lodging &lt;a href=&quot;https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-asS4PFRZZyGkTYdzhp5As2XOJhLjLf4/view&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;(Section 5.2)&lt;/a&gt;, for example. Some may even pay modest appearance fees, but these would surely be few, and far between.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;WGM Natalia Pogonina's manager, Peter Zhdanov, wrote &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/article/view/earnings-of-top-women-chess-players2&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; that &quot;Saratov State Law Academy helps WGM Natalia Pogonina by paying for some of her chess trips&quot;. Again, it always seemed like she is, or was, one of the &quot;professionals&quot;, but how successful was she? Based on what Peter Svidler told me about men a long time ago, I would guess that it is a rough life financially without some kind of outside sponsorship.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Things have changed for men, but around 20 years ago, Peter Svidler told me on ICC that with the exception of world championships (same for the women today as the recent women's world championship had a prize fund of 500,000 Euros), at that time, even the top 10 men only earned around $50,000 per year. Of course, at that level for men, you really cannot do it part-time, and supplement with lessons since it requires that much dedication. Judit Polgar, clearly, did nothing but chess, and in 2015, Hou Yifan only earned an &lt;a href=&quot;https://medium.com/@jayrhl/the-scoop-behind-chess-grandmaster-earnings-79e71d4cb4a0&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;estimated $265,000&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While it is relative, these women are at the same level as the men, meaning at the very top when competing against their own gender, and I cannot see how they would be doing it part-time any less than a man could in the top 10. Most of the women in the Lausanne Grand Prix are grandmasters, and to be a grandmaster, for most, is a full-time occupation at the &quot;top&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, this is all discussing being a professional primarily from tournament winnings. The Internet today makes it easier for anyone, even weak players, to start a Twitch channel, and develop a following, and earn a living if they are good at attracting an audience.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S. I found it very difficult to find hard sources with quotes about how top women chess players sustain their careers, but I did put what I could find, and the rest is just common-sense analysis from reading over the many years. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2020-03-10T08:37:06.657" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28822" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28825" CreationDate="2020-03-10T12:11:13.177" Score="10" ViewCount="1010" Body="&lt;p&gt;Black to play and find a plan:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA; [StartFlipped &quot;1&quot;]&#xA; [StartPly &quot;25&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Ba4 Nf6 5. O-O b5 6. Bb3 Bc5 7. c3 d6 8. h3 O-O 9. Qe2 Bb7 10. d3 Ne7 11. Be3 Bxe3 12. fxe3 Ng6 13. Nbd2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I often find myself in positions like this in blitz games and I think it's only a matter of time until it happens in a long OTB game. I know that I'm playing this wrong, but I couldn't figure out how to approach this position in general. Playing an early d5 is bad because it weakens c5 too much and gives white an excellent square for his knight on e4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I tried using Stockfish to find a plan here, but it doesn't seem like the engine has a clue about what's going on. Sometimes it just moves about aimlessly and you cannot make out a plan. One move Stockfish suggests is 13. ... a5, followed by 14.a4 c6 and 15. ... Qb6, with the idea of getting play via the b-file. That all looks nice and good, but if white doesn't take on b5 and opens the b-file, black is just sitting there and doing nothing. So, I'm not really convinced yet. My question is thus two-fold: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What's black's best plan in this position? &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Should I maybe avoid taking on e3 on move 11 to keep some more dynamic possibilities?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12604" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-03-10T14:36:17.250" LastActivityDate="2020-03-10T15:36:47.853" Title="Finding a plan in the Archangels Spanish when white plays Be3 to exchange the dark-squared bishop" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;ruy-lopez&gt;&lt;planning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28823" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2020-03-10T13:35:54.253" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="3594" LastEditorUserId="3594" LastEditDate="2020-03-10T13:35:54.253" LastActivityDate="2020-03-10T13:35:54.253" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28824" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2020-03-10T13:35:54.253" Score="0" Body="Questions relating to territory controlled by each side." OwnerUserId="3594" LastEditorUserId="3594" LastEditDate="2020-03-10T13:35:54.253" LastActivityDate="2020-03-10T13:35:54.253" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28825" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28822" CreationDate="2020-03-10T13:38:20.090" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a lot to this...some of it is pure chess, and some of it is how you approach the game. I love a practical approach that does not give my opponent the opportunity to really seize the initiative. It is a little like prophylactic thinking for one move, but on the scale of the whole game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What I mean, and what I am getting at is that despite it being the computer's first choice, I do not like taking on e3 to begin with. In the lines I will give below, black has various plans, but white is going to be able to have too much say in what plans black can choose from, due to the potential for a strong attack by white on on the kingside. In other words, what black tries to do will be the direct result of how white maneuvers. That is true in many positions, but here black may play a5-a4 and is it to slow, or after axb5 cxb5 have to play something else to open the queenside, or in other lines, Qb6 is good, but in others, it looks dangerous. White has a lot of say in that...too much for my liking in a practical situation. In general, I also do not like to give my opponent the chance to attack my king at all. Of course, this whole line is virtually equal per the computer, so from a pure chess standpoint, it is fine to play, but we are human, and one slip-up, and we can find ourselves in deep trouble.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That said, I like the idea of deviating with 11...Ng6!? It sets white some difficult practical positional problems right away, and even the resulting positions seem easier to play for black. White will play a4, and open the queenside, but black will get pressure on the kingside. I will also give some lines that you can look at in the exact variation that you posted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are also fairly extensive written notes in the variations below, not just moves, so do not pass them by.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Ba4 Nf6 5. O-O b5 6. Bb3 Bc5 7. c3 d6 8. h3 O-O 9. Qe2 Bb7 10. d3 Ne7 (10... h6 {is more common here, but I like your move better since it does not open the f-file, and make f5 harder to defend after Nh4 by white.} 11. Be3 Bxe3 12. fxe3 Na5 13. Bc2 c5) 11. Be3 Bxe3 (11... Ng6 $5 {This might solve your dilemma by avoiding the positions that you are not having good results in, and setting some pitfalls for your opponents. Personally, I do not favor positions that may give my opponent an attack, so in general, I do not like opening the f-file here.} 12. Bxc5 dxc5 {And c4 is a real positional threat, as well as Nf3, which they are more likely to worry about.} 13. Qe3 $2 {There is no time for this.} (13. g3 $2 {Stopping Nf4, but ignoring the more potent idea.} Qd7 14. Kh2 c4 15. Bc2 cxd3 16. Bxd3 c5 $15) (13. Rd1 Nf4 14. Qe3 Qd6 15. Bc2 N6h5 {With good play on the kingside. I prefer this with the idea of Rad8, and maybe Qg6, Bc8 and f5 at some point. From a practical point of view, this is much easier to play for black.} 16. g3 $2 {Trying to catch a knight.} Nxh3+ 17. Kh2 f5 $1 18. Kxh3 (18. Bb3+ Kh8 19. Kxh3 f4 20. Qe2 Qh6 21. Kg2 fxg3 22. fxg3 Qg6 23. Qf2 c4 $19) 18... f4 19. Qe2 fxg3 20. fxg3 Qh6 21. Kg2 Qg6 22. Qf2 Nf4+ 23. Kf1 Nh3 24. Qg2 Rxf3+ 25. Qxf3 Rf8 26. Qxf8+ Kxf8 $19) (13. Nbd2 $2 Nf4 14. Qe3 Qxd3 15. Nxe5 (15. Qxc5 $2 Nxe4 16. Nxe4 (16. Nxe5 $4 Qxf1+ 17. Rxf1 Nxc5) 16... Qxe4 17. Qxe5 Qxe5 18. Nxe5 Bxg2 $19) 15... Qxe3 16. fxe3 Ng6 $17) (13. Bc2 Nf4 14. Qe3 Qd6 15. Rd1 {Transposes to the Rd1 line.}) 13... c4 $1 14. dxc4 Nxe4 $15) 12. fxe3 Ng6 13. Nbd2 a5 14. a4 c6 15. Qf2 (15. Rf2 bxa4 16. Bxa4 (16. Rxa4 Ba6 17. Bc2 Qb6 {Compared to the note below, I do not mind this as much here since the Queen is denied f3-g3.} 18. b3 d5 {With good play.}) 16... Qb6 {Idea d5.} 17. Nc4 Qc7 {Again, with d5 next.}) 15... Rb8 {Planning axb4, or Bc8/Ba6, or even d5 in some cases.} (15... Qb6 {The computer's first move, but one that &quot;feels&quot; dangerous to me since you would be removing the queen from from the defense of the Kg8. I prefer a move that threatens to open the queenside, but without doing leaving the king's defense.})&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2020-03-10T13:38:20.090" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28826" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2020-03-10T13:43:41.480" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="3594" LastEditorUserId="3594" LastEditDate="2020-03-10T13:43:41.480" LastActivityDate="2020-03-10T13:43:41.480" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28827" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2020-03-10T13:43:41.480" Score="0" Body="A common attacking setup by white distinguished by 6.Be3 in the Sicilian Najdorf: 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6" OwnerUserId="3594" LastEditorUserId="3594" LastEditDate="2020-03-10T13:43:41.480" LastActivityDate="2020-03-10T13:43:41.480" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28828" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2020-03-10T13:44:38.393" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="3594" LastEditorUserId="3594" LastEditDate="2020-03-10T13:44:38.393" LastActivityDate="2020-03-10T13:44:38.393" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28829" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2020-03-10T13:44:38.393" Score="0" Body="Questions relating to the Grünfeld Defense: 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 d5" OwnerUserId="3594" LastEditorUserId="3594" LastEditDate="2020-03-10T13:44:38.393" LastActivityDate="2020-03-10T13:44:38.393" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28830" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2020-03-10T13:45:49.153" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="3594" LastEditorUserId="3594" LastEditDate="2020-03-10T13:45:49.153" LastActivityDate="2020-03-10T13:45:49.153" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28831" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2020-03-10T13:45:49.153" Score="0" Body="Questions relating to the Kan variation in the Sicilian opening: 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 e6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 a6" OwnerUserId="3594" LastEditorUserId="3594" LastEditDate="2020-03-10T13:45:49.153" LastActivityDate="2020-03-10T13:45:49.153" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28832" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28822" CreationDate="2020-03-10T13:48:37.913" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the final position, the black pieces are pointed toward the king side, so logic says that you should attack there.  The two obstacles are the bishop pinning the &lt;code&gt;f-pawn&lt;/code&gt; and the control provided by the doubled &lt;code&gt;e-pawns&lt;/code&gt;.  Stockfish pushes the &lt;code&gt;a-pawn&lt;/code&gt; to chase away the bishop and uses the queen to apply pressure on &lt;code&gt;e3&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Of5Fq.jpg&quot; width=&quot;250&quot; height=&quot;250&quot;&gt; &lt;sup&gt;&lt;i&gt; Pressuring and exploiting white's dark-square weaknesses &lt;/i&gt;&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I prefer the immediate &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt;.  This neutralizes the bishop and forces white to decide between exposing a weak pawn on &lt;code&gt;d3&lt;/code&gt;, accepting the isolated and doubled &lt;code&gt;e-pawns&lt;/code&gt;, or liquidating the center with &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt;.  It's possible to delay the &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt; break with the restraining move &lt;code&gt;c5&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ZjSCP.jpg&quot; width=&quot;250&quot; height=&quot;250&quot;&gt; &lt;sup&gt;&lt;i&gt; Quick d5 break: challenging white's light-square control &amp;amp; backward pawns. &lt;/i&gt;&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On move &lt;code&gt;11.Be3&lt;/code&gt;, exchanging bishop seems to be the only move for black.  Allowing white to exchange ruins you pawn structure.  The weaknesses on &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;c5&lt;/code&gt; are greater than the exposed &lt;code&gt;d3&lt;/code&gt; pawn weakness.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/lVv0n.jpg&quot; width=&quot;250&quot; height=&quot;250&quot;&gt; &lt;sup&gt;&lt;i&gt; Trade of bishops on c5 leaves black with 2 weakened pawns. &lt;/i&gt;&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9684" LastEditorUserId="3594" LastEditDate="2020-03-10T15:36:47.853" LastActivityDate="2020-03-10T15:36:47.853" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28833" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28742" CreationDate="2020-03-10T21:30:12.090" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Pierre-Françoys Brousseau found &lt;a href=&quot;https://boardgamegeek.com/blogpost/63635/crowded-chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;a similar variant on Guy T Shafer's blog “Insane Chess”&lt;/a&gt;.   It says:                                                                                                                             &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;h3&gt;Crowded chess&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Requires standard chess set &amp;amp; board. Pieces setup, and capture as normal.                                                                       &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Pieces move as normal, except any 2 non-pawn pieces of the same&#xA;  color may share the same square. Men cannot pass through an&#xA;  occupied square: pieces are blocked by men as usual. But you may&#xA;  pass your own piece in 2 turns (one to move onto the occupied&#xA;  square, another to move off that square). Pawns may never share a&#xA;  space with any piece.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a little different from our variation, in which pieces of opposite colors may share space, and pawns may share space.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately there is no real discussion there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21765" LastActivityDate="2020-03-10T21:30:12.090" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28834" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28837" CreationDate="2020-03-11T01:09:17.153" Score="6" ViewCount="672" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am beginning to study the Winawer variation (&lt;code&gt;1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Bb4&lt;/code&gt;), mainly because the only line I actually know against &lt;code&gt;3.Nc3&lt;/code&gt; is the Rubinstein (&lt;code&gt;3...dxe4&lt;/code&gt;), which is very dry and boring to my taste. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have studied the main line, and I'm beginning to appreciate the key ideas of the Winawer, but still I would like to ask to more experienced &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Defence&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;French defense&lt;/a&gt; players what are the key ideas, notes and/or concepts I should keep in mind while studying (and playing!) this sharp variation? This will make me study with better fundamentals and play with more precision, I hope.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21110" LastEditorUserId="3594" LastEditDate="2020-03-16T10:58:29.197" LastActivityDate="2020-03-16T10:58:29.197" Title="French defense: Key ideas on the Winawer" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;french-defense&gt;&lt;winawer-variation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28835" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-03-11T11:17:12.663" Score="1" ViewCount="389" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have a repertoire stored in Chessbase and currently export these as PGNs when updated, and train them in ChessTempo for its spaced repetition. I do not like the Chessbase repertoire training feature, as it doesn't let me go through my entire repertoire.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Enter Chess Position Trainer. I am battling through the manual during the evaluation period. My questions are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a) can you train your entire repertoire in one swoop? Or are you forced to choose each opening module and train one at a time? I am thinking along the lines of ChessTempo's white/black repertoire with spaced repetition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;b) does anyone have a decent workflow for exporting Chessbase repertoires and importing them into CPT? If I make small adjustments in Chessbase, how much destruction will I cause to my current CPT repertoire my importing that new PGN? I understand that it will add new positions, but will it delete old unused ones?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many thanks in advance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18321" LastActivityDate="2020-03-12T11:40:51.383" Title="Chess Position Trainer in Conjunction with Chessbase or Similar" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;training&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28836" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28834" CreationDate="2020-03-11T12:32:07.677" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was not sure that I could answer this question because there are so many non-standard types of positions in the Winawer, and it covers entire books. I am primarily going to discuss the famous main line, and what its basic ideas are for both sides.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The main line is where white plays an early Qg4, and attacks the black kingside. The main ideas for both sides in their simplest forms are that white is trying to take on g7 and h7, and eventually queen the h-pawn...simplistic, but accurate, but nevertheless, a long way from fruition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the meantime, black is playing to rip apart the center with c5, cxd4/dxc3, castle long, and take on e5, sometimes via a sacrifice (with the queen on c7 and after f4 by white) to attack the white king, which is usually stranded in the center. After this potential sacrifice, there may also be tactical ideas against the wayward white queen trapping it. If black can open the center successfully, and make the center pawns count by advancing them, and using the center to open lines to the white king, the white king will not be safe and often perish. Obviously, this general plan is VERY tactical, and requires a lot of book knowledge, and calculation during the game once you have left book. This main line is so sharp (even the description sounds sharp) that there are not a lot more generalities that I can add since they are very specific to the positions that arise.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The problem is what happens when white, and this happens a lot at lower levels, decides not to play into that mainline scheme because of being afraid of theory? There is too much here, and goes beyond the scope of one SE question. That leaves a lot of different possibilities from not playing either e5 (Anti-Winawer with cxd5, Bd3, or even Qd3 among others) or a3 (Semi-Winawer with Bd2 primarily) at all, to exchanging on d5, which bring up radically different plans. White can also play positionally with Nf4 and a4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Instead of 4...c5, you can also opt for 4...Ne7, which aims for a more closed game, and to avoid the sharpest lines, but I tend to think that black does well playing the main line.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As I looked at my library, and looked up books specifically on the Winawer, I found two books that I would recommend.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I do not own this book, but based on the Amazon &quot;Look Inside&quot; feature, it is one of the most impressive opening books I have ever seen in terms of spelling out the ideas, especially in a complicated opening:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/9056913271&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&quot;The Wonderful Winawer: Strategic Ideas &amp;amp; Surprise Weapons for Dynamic Chess Players&quot;&lt;/a&gt; by GM Viktor Moskalenko&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The second book, &lt;a href=&quot;https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/0805039066&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&quot;Winning With the French&quot;&lt;/a&gt;, and I do own this one, is by GM Wolfgang Uhlmann, who was probably THE authority on the French during his peak years, and never played anything but the French in response to 1.e4 during his career (or so they say). The book is exclusively taken from 60 of his games, and the explanations are very good, but watching how a master of this opening handles it will be invaluable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lastly, I also suggest studying the games of Viktor Kortchnoi, another noted expert on the French.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2020-03-11T12:32:07.677" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28837" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28834" CreationDate="2020-03-11T14:14:13.793" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Since the question is posed very generally, I'll only give a rough overview of some of the more typical ideas behind the Winawer for black. I'll mostly focus on positions after &lt;code&gt;4.e5&lt;/code&gt; as that is the key line allowing white to fight for an advantage out of the opening. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It must be noted that the ideas tend to vary somewhat greatly depending on which specific variation of the Winawer we consider, as there are quite different ways the opening can continue after &lt;code&gt;1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.e5&lt;/code&gt;, namely:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The advance variation with &lt;code&gt;4...c5,&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The other advance variation with &lt;code&gt;4...Ne7&lt;/code&gt;,&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The Petrosian variation with &lt;code&gt;4...Qd7&lt;/code&gt;, etc.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/DEtmt.jpg&quot; width=&quot;250&quot; height=&quot;250&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's start with &lt;code&gt;4...c5,&lt;/code&gt; and consider the following typical position of the Winawer, arising after &lt;code&gt;5.a3 Bxc3+ 6.bxc3:&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/IupFV.jpg&quot; width=&quot;250&quot; height=&quot;250&quot;&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Strategic assessment:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;First of, black has willingly decided to give up their dark-squared bishop, so white has the bishop pair. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In turn, this has allowed black to damage white's pawn structure.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In particular, the pawn structure favours black in the endgame thanks to white's isolated &lt;code&gt;a-pawn&lt;/code&gt; and the doubled &lt;code&gt;c-pawns.&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Although black is clearly behind in space control, the central pawn structure makes it very difficult for white to actually open up the position. The position remaining closed favours black as white has the bishop pair and is getting their pieces more effectively developed than black is able to. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Black's main two weaknesses are: the &lt;code&gt;c8&lt;/code&gt; bishop having no simple prospect of getting effectively developed, and the highly weakened kingside caused by giving up the &lt;code&gt;f8&lt;/code&gt; bishop and the inability to establish the kingside knight on the ideal &lt;code&gt;f6&lt;/code&gt; square, which is prevented by white's early &lt;code&gt;e5.&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The two aforementioned aspects are what makes the advance variation with &lt;code&gt;4.e5&lt;/code&gt; favourable for white, as these weaknesses offer white a tangible and concrete edge to play with. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;From black's perspective, these difficulties in parrying a kingside attack or finishing development effectively means, on the one hand, black has to be ready to opt for dynamic remedies to solve their problems, such as the poisoned &lt;code&gt;g7-pawn&lt;/code&gt; continuation to answer white's early &lt;code&gt;Qg4.&lt;/code&gt; On the other hand, black has to know and recognise a lot of positional combinations in order to defend against white's various attacking options. These combinations are typically in the form of very subtle manoeuvres that at first glance appear to completely undermine all opening principles. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With that, let's have a look at some of these subtleties you need to be definitely aware of when playing the Winawer. To understand their necessity, we must first develop a feel for where white's best attacking chances lie. Consider again the following typical structure, but this time after black's best move 6th move, &lt;code&gt;6...Ne7:&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;White has three main &lt;em&gt;active&lt;/em&gt; continuations here:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;7.a4:&lt;/code&gt; with the idea to develop the &lt;code&gt;c1&lt;/code&gt; bishop to &lt;code&gt;a3&lt;/code&gt; and quickly exert pressure on black's dark-square weaknesses. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;7.h4:&lt;/code&gt; a quick advance on the kingside to either play &lt;code&gt;h5&lt;/code&gt; (often followed by &lt;code&gt;g4&lt;/code&gt;) to boot black's &lt;code&gt;e7&lt;/code&gt;  knight from the key light-square posts &lt;code&gt;g6-f5.&lt;/code&gt; Additionally, advancing the pawn to &lt;code&gt;h6&lt;/code&gt; is also possible, to either damage black's pawn structure after &lt;code&gt;gxh6&lt;/code&gt; or to further weaken the dark-squares after &lt;code&gt;g6.&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;7.Qg4:&lt;/code&gt; immediately exploiting black's weakened kingside and in particular the undefended &lt;code&gt;g7&lt;/code&gt; pawn.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/wWcTi.jpg&quot; width=&quot;250&quot; height=&quot;250&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Important typical manoeuvres for black:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To prevent an early &lt;code&gt;7.a4&lt;/code&gt;, black has the option to play &lt;code&gt;6...Qa5&lt;/code&gt; (instead of &lt;code&gt;6...Ne7&lt;/code&gt;) with tempo as &lt;code&gt;c3&lt;/code&gt; is attacked, with the idea to block next the &lt;code&gt;a-pawn&lt;/code&gt; with &lt;code&gt;Qa4!&lt;/code&gt; Indeed this looks dubious at first as the queen is being used as a blockader, but in fact on top of the blockade, the black queen is also well-established for creating counter-attacks on the queenside and in the center. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/hO8vg.jpg&quot; width=&quot;250&quot; height=&quot;250&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After &lt;code&gt;6...Ne7,&lt;/code&gt; in reply to white's &lt;code&gt;7.Qg4&lt;/code&gt;, as opposed to the more risky lines with &lt;code&gt;7...O-O,&lt;/code&gt; black has the option of playing the Poisoned Pawn variation, which after &lt;code&gt;7...Nbc6&lt;/code&gt; entails: Sacrificing the &lt;code&gt;g7&lt;/code&gt; pawn for a quicker development, queenside castling, and dynamic play:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/LT6jL.jpg&quot; width=&quot;250&quot; height=&quot;250&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A typical continuation is: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [title &quot;Poisoned Pawn Variation:&quot;]&#xA; [fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA; [startply &quot;13&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 Bb4 4. e5 c5 5. a3 Bxc3+ 6. bxc3 Ne7 7. Qg4 Nbc6 8. Qxg7 Rg8 9. Qxh7 cxd4 10. Ne2 Qc7 11. f4 dxc3 12. Qd3 d4 13. Nxd4 Nxd4 14. Qxd4 Bd7 15. Rg1 Nf5 16. Qf2 {black is a pawn down but has decent positional compensation thanks to white's compromised king position, the well-established knight on f5 and the white's g2 pawn against which black can continue to mount pressure with Qc6-Qd5-Bc6.}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Petrosian variation starting from &lt;code&gt;4...Qd7&lt;/code&gt; (instead of &lt;code&gt;4...c5&lt;/code&gt;) looks really dubious at first since: we're developing our queen by blocking our own bishop, and even before having developped our minor pieces. But in fact, &lt;code&gt;Qd7&lt;/code&gt; is a really useful &lt;strong&gt;multi-purpose&lt;/strong&gt; move: it prevents &lt;code&gt;Bb5+&lt;/code&gt; and prepared to trade the light-square bishops with &lt;code&gt;b6-Ba6&lt;/code&gt; and it indirectly defends the &lt;code&gt;g7&lt;/code&gt; pawn against &lt;code&gt;Qg4.&lt;/code&gt; Since with the queen on &lt;code&gt;d7&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;Qg4&lt;/code&gt; can be replied with &lt;code&gt;f5&lt;/code&gt;, a &lt;em&gt;discovered defense&lt;/em&gt; if you will :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/P38GJ.jpg&quot; width=&quot;250&quot; height=&quot;250&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And the list goes on... But you see the pattern behind these subtleties: they are all backed by highly concrete ideas and thus, far from a mere application of opening principles. These are things you need to take into account if you really want to adopt playing the Winawer, these systems are not everyone's cup of tea.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Summarised notes&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Again, this was simply a rough overview, attempting to bring to your attention the kinds of positions and manoeuvres you need to get yourself accustomed to if you want to start playing the Winawer. Let's finish by summarising mostly black's trumps in the Winawer:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Black ensures the center remains closed with early trade on &lt;code&gt;c3&lt;/code&gt; leading to the typical pawn structure of &lt;code&gt;c2-c3-d4-e5&lt;/code&gt; for white and &lt;code&gt;(c5)-d5-e6&lt;/code&gt; for black. White has the lead in space and has the bishop pair, so it's vital to keep the position closed, unless a liquidation is possible.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The early trade on &lt;code&gt;c3&lt;/code&gt; gives black, statically, the better pawn structure and it leaves white with an isolated &lt;code&gt;a-pawn&lt;/code&gt; and doubled &lt;code&gt;c-pawns.&lt;/code&gt; Thus, typically, early liquidations towards an endgame are better for black, but of course white should not allow that.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;With all of white's central pawns fixed on dark-squares, black can undermine the pawn chain with &lt;code&gt;c5&lt;/code&gt; and can easily mount further pressure on &lt;code&gt;c3&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt; pawns (moves such as &lt;code&gt;Nbc6, Ne7-Nf5, Qb6, Qa5&lt;/code&gt;).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;However, dark-squares can also easily be black's undoing in the Winawer, specially, if black is unable to create a clear counter-play and white manages to force further dark-square weaknesses on the kingside, then white's queen and dark-squared bishop coordination can become dominant and decisive. See e.g. &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/mMHaCooj&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Hou Yifan's instructive win against Kramnik in the Winawer&lt;/a&gt;, an absolute dark-square domination.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;As for instance advertised in the Poisoned pawn variation, black commonly has the option of also castling queenside to finish development, and play actively.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Black's main worries in the Winawer are: how to &lt;strong&gt;parry the induced dark-square weaknesses&lt;/strong&gt;, and how to complete development, in particular, &lt;strong&gt;the king position and the locked out &lt;code&gt;c8&lt;/code&gt; bishop&lt;/strong&gt;. If white plays passively early on, and allows you to comfortably resolve these, then you'll have equalised, if not even a bit better because of the pawn structure.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Exploit white's exposed queenside in order to create counter-play by targeting white's pawns, in particular the &lt;code&gt;a4&lt;/code&gt; square, which if occupied by either the &lt;code&gt;c8&lt;/code&gt; (&lt;code&gt;Bd7-Ba4&lt;/code&gt;) bishop or queen (&lt;code&gt;Qa5-Qa4&lt;/code&gt;), &lt;code&gt;c2&lt;/code&gt; can be targeted and more importantly black prevents the &lt;code&gt;a4-Ba3&lt;/code&gt; setup for white as discussed earlier.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Also note that lines where white sacrifices their &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; pawn do not really work, and you need to be ready to refute them. For instance, after &lt;code&gt;1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 Bb4 4. a3&lt;/code&gt;, (instead of &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt;), black stands even slightly better after: &lt;code&gt;4...Bxc3+ 5. bxc3 dxe4 6. Qg4 Nf6 7. Qxg7 Rg8.&lt;/code&gt; Similarly for &lt;code&gt;4.Ne2&lt;/code&gt;, which allows black to comfortably equalise: &lt;code&gt;4. Ne2 dxe4 5. a3 Be7 6. Nxe4 Nf6&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;As a whole, the Winawer can be a very dynamic weapon to play for a win as it can lead to highly imbalanced positions and still bears some hanging fruits to be discovered.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;As a general recommendation for learning about ideas underlying a specific opening, make sure to spend a lot of time studying games of experts of the opening you're interested in. Look into the games of for example, &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chess.pl?yearcomp=exactly&amp;amp;year=&amp;amp;playercomp=black&amp;amp;pid=&amp;amp;player=Bronstein&amp;amp;pid2=&amp;amp;player2=&amp;amp;movescomp=exactly&amp;amp;moves=&amp;amp;opening=&amp;amp;eco=C16&amp;amp;result=&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;D. Bronstein&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chess.pl?pid=14075&amp;amp;playercomp=black&amp;amp;eco=C16&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Y. Seirawan&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chess.pl?playercomp=black&amp;amp;pid=16149&amp;amp;eco=C16&amp;amp;title=Petrosian%20playing%20French,%20Winawer%20(C16)%20as%20Black%20&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;T.V. Petrosian&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chess.pl?yearcomp=exactly&amp;amp;year=&amp;amp;playercomp=black&amp;amp;pid=&amp;amp;player=smyslov&amp;amp;pid2=&amp;amp;player2=&amp;amp;movescomp=exactly&amp;amp;moves=&amp;amp;opening=&amp;amp;eco=C16&amp;amp;result=&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;V. Smyslov&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chess.pl?yearcomp=exactly&amp;amp;year=&amp;amp;playercomp=black&amp;amp;pid=&amp;amp;player=caruana&amp;amp;pid2=&amp;amp;player2=&amp;amp;movescomp=exactly&amp;amp;moves=&amp;amp;opening=&amp;amp;eco=C16&amp;amp;result=&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;F. Caruana&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chess.pl?yearcomp=exactly&amp;amp;year=&amp;amp;playercomp=black&amp;amp;pid=&amp;amp;player=zhukova&amp;amp;pid2=&amp;amp;player2=&amp;amp;movescomp=exactly&amp;amp;moves=&amp;amp;opening=C15-C19&amp;amp;eco=&amp;amp;result=&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;N. Zhukova&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3594" LastActivityDate="2020-03-11T14:14:13.793" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28839" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-03-11T23:07:35.193" Score="1" ViewCount="173" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm black and it's my turn. I'm playing in the Arena chess player against Stockfish.&#xA;This is my current board:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[startply &quot;31&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 d5 2. exd5 e6 3. dxe6 fxe6 4. Nf3 Nf6 5. Bc4 c6 6. O-O Bc5 7. d4 Bb6 8. Re1 O-O 9. Nc3 Nbd7 10. Ng5 Ne5 11. dxe5 Qxd1 12. Nxd1 Ng4 13. Nxe6 Bxf2+ 14. Nxf2 b5 15. Bb3 Nxf2 16. Nc7+&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I want to play &lt;strong&gt;Rb8&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1rb2rk1/p1N3pp/2p5/1p2P3/8/1B6/PPP2nPP/R1B1R1K1 w - - 2 17 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but I keep getting errors telling me that's illegal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;HOW IS THIS ILLEGAL??&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21775" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-12T11:10:58.220" LastActivityDate="2020-03-12T11:10:58.220" Title="How is this move illegal?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;check&gt;&lt;illegal-move&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28840" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28839" CreationDate="2020-03-11T23:22:51.593" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;It turns out I was in check:&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/tRb7w.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/tRb7wm.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21775" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2020-03-12T07:47:25.220" LastActivityDate="2020-03-12T07:47:25.220" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28841" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5888" CreationDate="2020-03-12T02:43:03.303" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here's an easy mate in 20 with a unique solution&#xA;(which becomes a very easy mate in 19 after the first move):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Noam D. Elkies, Chess Stack Exchange 2020&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;6bn/p4p1k/p4Ppp/p7/p3K1P1/P4N2/1P6/7n w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8860" LastActivityDate="2020-03-12T02:43:03.303" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28842" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2020-03-12T10:21:38.630" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="3594" LastEditorUserId="3594" LastEditDate="2020-03-12T10:21:38.630" LastActivityDate="2020-03-12T10:21:38.630" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28843" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2020-03-12T10:21:38.630" Score="0" Body="Questions relating to the Winawer variation of the French Defense: 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Bb4" OwnerUserId="3594" LastEditorUserId="3594" LastEditDate="2020-03-12T10:21:38.630" LastActivityDate="2020-03-12T10:21:38.630" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28844" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28835" CreationDate="2020-03-12T11:40:51.383" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;a) can you train your entire repertoire in one swoop? Or are you&#xA;  forced to choose each opening module and train one at a time?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;you have to choose the opening you want to train.  However, you have control of what is included in an &quot;opening&quot;  The only constraint is that White and Black must be separate.  So you could have a single &quot;white&quot; opening and a single &quot;black&quot; opening to train.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have two white openings and three black openings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17425" LastActivityDate="2020-03-12T11:40:51.383" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28845" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28847" CreationDate="2020-03-12T18:29:20.710" Score="5" ViewCount="2210" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Cozio defense arises after these moves:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 Nge7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At first, this looks like just another dubious opening, but I found it surprisingly hard to prove an advantage with white. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 Nge7 4. O-O g6 5. c3 Bg7 6. d4 exd4 7. cxd4 d5 8. exd5 Nxd5 9. Re1+ Be6 10. Bg5 Qd6 11. Nbd2 O-O&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is not clear how white should proceed. There are many options, but black has several different ideas and can quite easily general counter-play. Going 12. Ne4 Qb4 13.Bxc6 bxc6 seems like the most principled approach, but black is just fine in these lines. He can drum up quite interesting play judging from the grandmaster games I looked at. This line:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 Nge7 4. Nc3 g6 5. d4 exd4 6. Nd5 Bg7 7. Bg5 h6 8. Bf6 Bxf6 9. Nxf6+ Kf8 10. O-O &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;is given by some FIDE-Master on YouTube, but I'm also not very convinced. I just fail to see white's advantage in this position. So, I have two questions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Why is the Cozio defense played so rarely?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What is, in your opinion, the best way to secure an advantage against it as white?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12604" LastEditorUserId="7726" LastEditDate="2020-03-13T08:32:31.563" LastActivityDate="2020-03-15T11:26:27.063" Title="Why is the Cozio defense in the Ruy Lopez not played more often and what's white's best try to defeat it?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;ruy-lopez&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28846" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-03-12T21:35:11.413" Score="11" ViewCount="5529" Body="&lt;p&gt;I like watching Hikaru's youtube videos. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;His commentary on the games is very descriptive, unlike other players that stay quiet for most of the game. Hikaru's always talking, letting you know what's going on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, one strange thing I've noticed is the COMPLETE absence of any sort of online interaction with Magnus. He's uploaded hundreds of videos, yet none contain matches against Carlsen. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I thought this was strange, since I know Carlsen plays a lot online too, and Hikaru's got matches with a lot of other top players, but never Carlsen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The other day, I noticed a youtube comment in his video that said &quot;play Carlsen&quot;, and somebody responded with &quot;we don't mention that name here&quot;, and it got tons of upvotes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I am clearly out of the loop here: what's going on? Why is Hikaru actively (seemingly) avoiding Carlen online?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21785" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-03-12T21:52:39.540" LastActivityDate="2020-03-13T13:28:06.973" Title="Why does Hikaru Nakamura avoid Carlsen?" Tags="&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;carlsen&gt;&lt;chess-videos&gt;&lt;nakamura&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2020-03-13T13:34:49.503" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28847" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28845" CreationDate="2020-03-12T21:53:31.743" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;The major reason is that it is played so rarely is that if white does not comply and take on c6, the Ne7 is poorly placed blocking the Bf8, and if the knight goes to g6, that just does not look like a good square either. In addition, it does not really help get in d5 since white gets there first with d4, or it just loses a pawn. Since that is not possible, the Bf8 must go to g7 where it just seems out of place with what most Spanish players are used to, and prefer. Also, most of the lines are still slightly better for white, even if they are subtle in nature.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are three moves that are played on move four with a very high frequency: 0-0, c3, and Nc3. Nc3 seems like the best to me since it thinks very prophylactically, and stops d5 for a long time. In addition, the winning percentages for each move are 53.1%, 56.8%, and 62.6% respectively pre the Mega 2020 database.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I tend to like double e-pawn positions that white has more space because black has a d6 pawn. You can then eventually post the Nc3 on d5, cramping black further. I am going to propose that you play 4.Nc3, and aim for such a position since the plans for white are aggressive, and clear. In addition, I like positions with more space, in general, since I think that it makes it harder on your opponent in a practical game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Despite my recommendation, I am going to add in some of the other lines so you can look at them, and decide if you prefer any of them. The other lines are also quite good, but they are also much more nuanced, and require very patient, and precise, positional play, compared to the main 4.Nc3 line I am proposing, which involves either a direct attack, or bringing the rooks to the center, and slowly advancing the kingside pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 Nge7 4. Nc3 (4. c3 g6 5. d4 exd4 6. cxd4 d5 7. exd5 Nxd5 8. O-O Bg7 9. Re1+ Be6 10. Bg5 Qd6 {Transposes to 4.0-0.}) (4. O-O g6 5. c3 Bg7 6. d4 exd4 7. cxd4 d5 8. exd5 Nxd5 9. Re1+ Be6 10. Bg5 Qd6 11. Nbd2 O-O 12. Ne4 Qb4 13. Bxc6 bxc6 14. Qc1 Rfe8 15. Bd2 Qb6 16. Nc5 Bf5 17. b3 {With a very positional game revolving around the control of c5.}) 4... g6 (4... d5 $4 5. exd5 Nxd5 6. Nxe5 Nxc3 7. dxc3 Qxd1+ 8. Kxd1 $16) 5. d4 exd4 6. Nxd4 (6. Nd5 {Another main line.} Bg7 (6... Nxd5 $2 7. exd5 Qe7+ 8. Kf1 Ne5 (8... Qb4 $2 9. Qe2+ Ne7 10. Bg5 Bg7 $2 11. Re1 $18) 9. Qxd4 Bg7 10. Bf4 f6 11. Re1 $16) 7. Bg5 h6 8. Bf6 Bxf6 (8... Kf8 9. Bxg7+ Kxg7 10. Bxc6 Nxc6 11. Nxd4 $16) 9. Nxf6+ Kf8 10. Qd2 $14) 6... Bg7 7. Nxc6 $5 (7. Be3 O-O 8. Qd2 d5 9. O-O-O dxe4 10. Bxc6 Nxc6 11. Nxc6 Qxd2+ 12. Bxd2 bxc6 13. Nxe4 Bf5 14. Rhe1 Rfe8 15. Ng3 Be6 16. b3 $14) 7... Nxc6 8. Be3 O-O 9. Qd2 d6 10. O-O-O $14&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2020-03-12T21:53:31.743" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28848" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28846" CreationDate="2020-03-12T21:54:27.087" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;There was there match in the 2017 chess.com speed chess championship final, but I think that it has to do with Carlsen mainly playing on chess24 and lichess while Hikaru plays on chess.com(mainly). This is not to say that Hikaru tries to avoid playing Carlsen in general as they both had huge fighting games together. An example I can give is their game from the London Chess Classics 2017.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21014" LastActivityDate="2020-03-12T21:54:27.087" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28849" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-03-13T07:41:08.147" Score="0" ViewCount="2290" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have an Android app that uses precompiled binary files of Stockfish. There are both arm64-v8a and armeabi-v7a binary files for direct use in version 10.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On Stockfish site there's however not such an update for latest SF 11 for months!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://stockfishchess.org/download/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://stockfishchess.org/download/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the way to go now, are we supposed to wait or is it no longer supported?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't want to make any additional steps like compiling source code myself, as long as it's not absolutely necessary. I am currently also not overly interested in supporting custom engines in my app.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I found it to be very comfortable to use these binaries. Or did Android Stockfish turn to something else?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I checked some talk chess forum but I am not part of it, I don't know people there and downloading whatever executable thing from unknown sites just because someone says it's replacement of Stockfish seems a bit loose and unresponsible to users of my app. That's why I am still running on SF10.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11609" LastActivityDate="2020-03-14T17:59:28.870" Title="Stockfish 11 for Android - binaries" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;programming&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28850" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28846" CreationDate="2020-03-13T13:28:06.973" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;To be clear, Hikaru is not actively avoiding Carlsen. It's just that their affiliations make them play on different sites.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hikaru has a partnership/sponsorship deal with chess.com whereby one of the stipulations is that he plays exclusively on chess.com.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Magnus Carlsen has invested in Chess24 (among other chess-related sites), and he will default to that site for regular content in order to drive more traffic there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've followed both players closely, and I've seen no indication that they are actively avoiding each other. In fact, both players will always seek out the best possible opponent that is currently online whenever they make content. But playing on different sites, they will very rarely play each other.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Carlsen will, however, often play leagues and tournaments on different sites, including both chess.com and lichess.org. For instance, you'll often find him as a contender in the monthy Titled Arena tournaments on lichess. For instance, he won &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/tournament/feb19lta&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;last month's tournament&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another example, though I believe this was before his investment in chess24, he competed with Hikaru in the final of chess.com's GM Blitz Battle. You can see their whole match here: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UuehyRf88ac&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UuehyRf88ac&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Disclaimer: Just because I haven't seen any clear indication of &lt;em&gt;active&lt;/em&gt; avoiding, doesn't mean that there isn't any. I just haven't seen any reason to believe that is the case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21789" LastActivityDate="2020-03-13T13:28:06.973" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28851" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-03-13T16:02:01.813" Score="1" ViewCount="50" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am trying to setup an online chess game that shows a custom message at the end of the match. The game would need to be setup as a human vs. the computer. Does anyone know of an online website that allows you to do this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21792" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-03-13T16:36:54.330" LastActivityDate="2020-03-13T20:43:13.490" Title="Custom message for an online chess game" Tags="&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;websites&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28852" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-03-13T16:38:01.267" Score="4" ViewCount="599" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I played a game on chess.com and then ran the analysis afterward, the computer said that the pawn move c6 was incorrect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [title &quot;Black to play&quot;]&#xA; [fen &quot;r1b2rk1/p1p2p1p/5p2/2bNq3/8/8/PPP1BPPP/R2Q1RK1 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA; [startflipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1... c6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't understand why the move is considered a missed win. Can anyone explain why?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21763" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-03-13T17:53:51.900" LastActivityDate="2020-03-13T17:53:51.900" Title="Why is pawn c6 is not winning here and what is the missed win for black?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;winning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28853" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28852" CreationDate="2020-03-13T16:44:56.257" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;Look at the diagram. The engine tells you the best move (Rd8). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The idea behind that move is that it pins the white knight to the queen and at the same time attacks the knight a second time. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Moving the knight white would lose the queen (for a rook).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If white tries to defend the knight (with c4, Bc4 or Bf3), black would play c6 attacking the pinned knight with a pawn.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the idea is: first pin, then win the knight with c6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you play c6 first, white could just retreat the knight to c3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is worth memorizing this theme (pin a piece, then attack it again) as it is quite common. Also works with diagonal pins by queen/bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastEditorUserId="11629" LastEditDate="2020-03-13T17:18:34.550" LastActivityDate="2020-03-13T17:18:34.550" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28854" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28851" CreationDate="2020-03-13T20:43:13.490" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just checked three of the major sites: Chess.com, Chess24.com, and Lichess.com, and none of them seem to support this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is close, but not just online, but The Internet Chess Club, aka ICC, lets you do this, but only using the newest client, &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessclub.com/software-download/icc-for-windows&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;ICC for Windows&lt;/a&gt;&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://support.chessclub.com/hc/en-us/articles/235680607--How-do-I-automatically-say-Thank-You-ICCforMac-Windows-&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Here are the instructions&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And here is a screenshot.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/bHHFl.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/bHHFl.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2020-03-13T20:43:13.490" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28855" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24950" CreationDate="2020-03-13T22:36:31.043" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In chess, in general, you want to avoid the opponent's strengths, however, playing something you totally do not understand is not OK, either. I recently played something that I was not used to against a GM, and got soundly outplayed. In that game, 1.d4 d6, I decided that I would try the Kaprov line of the Pirc, and played 2.e4, even though I am not an e4-player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you opponent is a known tactical player, it pays to steer the game to a more positional approach, and vice versa. That said, you still need to play things that you understand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S. &quot;The Game of the Century&quot; was an English after 1.Nf3 Nf6 2.c4, but Fischer was black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;During the 1972 match, Fischer playing 1.c4 was definitely to take Spassky out of his primary preparation, and make them both play mano a mano, but of course, both those players understand virtually all positions so they can get away with such tactics.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2020-03-13T22:36:31.043" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28856" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-03-14T00:59:30.703" Score="2" ViewCount="1571" Body="&lt;p&gt;After playing on lichess.org I have been reviewing my games as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Ask for a computer evaluation (Stockfish)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Look at the graph and investigate any wild swings in computer analysis&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Try to understand why a particular move was a blunder&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While this seems to work, it's a very negative approach as it doesn't seem to find any &lt;em&gt;good&lt;/em&gt; moves that I've made.  For example, at my level (Blitz ~1230) I might win a game because I laid a trap which my opponent failed to see.  Stockfish of course sees through the trap and the evaluation shows I made a suboptimal move even though against this particular opponent it resulted in me winning a piece.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there any way to find good moves that I made, rather than just non-mistakes?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21794" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-21T20:24:30.243" LastActivityDate="2020-03-21T20:24:30.243" Title="How can I use stockfish to find good moves, instead of just bad moves?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;learning&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;evaluation&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28857" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28856" CreationDate="2020-03-14T01:33:34.373" Score="3" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;it doesn't seem to find any good moves that I've made&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You are expecting too much is the real issue here, so don't be so hard on yourself. First, and I do not say this to be mean, but your level of play is going to contain mostly bad moves, but they look that much worse because you are being evaluated by a silicon beast. Keep in mind that Stockfish is FAR superior to the World Champion, so it is going to find better moves on almost every move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please try not to take the evaluations so hard. Look at them, but stop beating yourself up over them. I have been a USCF Master for well over 30 years, and Stockfish thinks I am an idiot too. :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That said, focus on more tactics problems. I was at the high school club I run today, and a few are probably about the same strength as you are, and even one that is better, but the amount of tactical errors is astounding, so keep working on those.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I recommend trying to do 50 per day all within one topic, like pins, skewers, or deflection, for example. Spend no more than two minutes per problem. If you are going to do them online, REALLY try to avoid the mouse until you have really solved it in your head, and are not just moving a piece, and hoping that the computer confirms your &quot;guess&quot;. The key is solving not guessing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2020-03-14T01:33:34.373" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28858" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-03-14T01:55:41.323" Score="6" ViewCount="613" Body="&lt;p&gt;What happens if a player dies at the board? What is the ruling? I am interested in both FIDE and/or USCF rules.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I seem to recall about 40 years ago, when reading my first copy of the USCF rule book, that per USCF rules the position would be adjudicated (a result ruling was made based on the position on the board at the time), but of course, it was so long ago, I could be remembering that incorrectly now. I can no longer find anything about that situation for either USCF or FIDE anywhere.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The deceased person does not care, so it would seem natural to award the other player the win since eventually the flag would fall anyway.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;During the game CM Kurt Meier versus Alain Patience Niyibizi at the 2014 Olympiad, CM Meier died at the board, but the game was a draw, and I am not sure why, whether it was an act of sportsmanship, or rules.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In another more publicized case, Nikolaos Karapanos played a brilliant game against Israeli IM Dan Zoler, and died during a time scramble. Remarkably, Zoler, is a medical doctor, who tried to revive his opponent, and who was lost on the very final move, graciously resigned the position later in an act of truly commendable sportsmanship.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So if anyone knows, I would appreciate any light you may shed on this situation, which has happened all too often.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2020-06-22T18:56:22.633" Title="What happens if a player dies at the board? What is the ruling?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;fide&gt;&lt;uscf&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28859" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28856" CreationDate="2020-03-14T17:55:40.867" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sorry, computer engines are not designed to think like a human. It's a machine, it's written to play strong chess. There is no intelligence in there to think like that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &quot;good moves&quot; you mentioned were actually bad moves at Stockfish's level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2020-03-14T17:55:40.867" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28860" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28849" CreationDate="2020-03-14T17:59:28.870" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Stockfish is a free project, people don't work for financial returns. Unfortunately, that would mean your request might never be honoured. As a programmer with technical skills, you are expected to compile the code yourself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sorry, this is how a free open source project work. They give you the code for free, so you just have to do some works.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2020-03-14T17:59:28.870" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28861" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28858" CreationDate="2020-03-14T21:37:04.020" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;USCF rules.&#xA;This is a case that is decided by the director's discretion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;18G. Adjudications.&lt;/strong&gt;  Only under emergency circumstances may a director permanently adjudicate a game; that is, declare a result based upon best play by both sides.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An interesting rule is:&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;15G.  Ownership of scoresheets&lt;/strong&gt;  The scoresheets of all games in a tournament are the property of the sponsoring organization(s).&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This means that even if you bring you own scoresheet, once you take notation, it belongs to someone else, and you taking it home is theft.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9684" LastEditorUserId="9684" LastEditDate="2020-03-29T22:39:27.550" LastActivityDate="2020-03-29T22:39:27.550" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28862" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28856" CreationDate="2020-03-14T22:33:47.860" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Run Stockfish in multi-PV mode. This makes Stockfish suggest multiple moves. If the move you chose is preferred by Stockfish to others, then it's a &quot;good move&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastActivityDate="2020-03-14T22:33:47.860" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28863" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28865" CreationDate="2020-03-15T00:50:03.257" Score="6" ViewCount="1345" Body="&lt;p&gt;How many grandmasters have been stripped of their grandmaster titles? I heard about a GM in the bathroom who had his taken away, and was wondering what other circumstances have resulted in a GM losing their title.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21797" LastEditorUserId="2946" LastEditDate="2021-01-18T07:46:35.167" LastActivityDate="2021-01-18T07:46:35.167" Title="How many grandmasters have been stripped of their titles?" Tags="&lt;history&gt;&lt;fide&gt;&lt;grandmaster&gt;&lt;cheating&gt;&lt;titles&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28864" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-03-15T00:56:19.750" Score="23" ViewCount="10106" Body="&lt;p&gt;For example, instead of capturing (and therefore exchanging) the queen on d8, white moved his queen from d1 to d7, and black can capture this queen for free. This is very likely the result of a misclick by white. Another example is moving the king for no reason in the opening stage. In this case, is it considered good etiquette for black to offer the draw, instead of taking advantage of white's misclick?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some possible exceptions: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;My position is already winning before my opponent's misclick.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;My position is still losing even after my opponent's misclick.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;My opponent made a blunder which does not seem to be a  misclick.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;My opponent demonstrated bad sportsmanship before misclicking.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In all above four cases, I will not offer draw. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16626" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-03-17T16:46:06.087" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T08:52:46.343" Title="In a online game, is it considered good etiquette to offer a draw when the opponent obviously misclicked?" Tags="&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;etiquette&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28865" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28863" CreationDate="2020-03-15T00:56:34.720" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;After doing some checking, it seems that this is a relatively new phenomenon. Before the advent of technology, and strong chess playing programs on smartphones, it does not appear that any GMs had ever been stripped of their titles until GM Gaioz Nigalidze, at least that I could find.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaioz_Nigalidze&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Gaioz Nigalidze&lt;/a&gt; was stripped of his GM title after being caught with a phone in a bathroom stall at the 2015 Dubai Open. He had been suspected for some time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The case that you probably read about was GM Igors Rausis. Last year, Rausis made international news when he was caught doing the same thing in a bathroom stall at the Strasbourg Open. His behavior and meteoric rating increases over the course of 6 years had put him on the radar for a long time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This seems to have set a good precedent as far as I am concerned as there is no room for cheating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S. I found this &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/news/view/nigalidze-verdict-3-year-ban-gm-title-stripped-4875&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;interesting post&lt;/a&gt; that, believe it or not (at least in the case of Nigalidze) claimed he could earn the title again if he completed the norms in the future; but the official &lt;a href=&quot;https://ethics.fide.com/images/stories/Ethics_case_7_2015_Decision.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE ethics report&lt;/a&gt; does not mention the possibility either way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-01-18T05:13:20.640" LastActivityDate="2021-01-18T05:13:20.640" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28866" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28864" CreationDate="2020-03-15T01:03:06.140" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;The most common term for that is actually a &quot;mouse-slip&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mouse-slips are dealt with differently by different players. There is no right or wrong answer since it is a personal decision. Some players on the Internet Chess Club used to put in their notes &quot;no takebacks&quot;, meaning that if you had a mouse-slip, it was too bad for you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For me, when I played blitz online, I played for fun, and I liked to be nice, but it would depend on the position. If the person were already dead lost, and maybe should already resign, I might just keep that queen, but otherwise, I would offer a takeback on ICC. You are also correct that if the opponent already had a bad reputation with me, I also might not be as inclined to give a takeback.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since chess.com does not have takebacks, as for what I would do today, you can substitute a draw offer instead. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How you handle it is really up to you, and how you feel about the exact circumstances of the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-16T15:47:09.737" LastActivityDate="2020-03-16T15:47:09.737" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28867" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-03-15T01:53:21.780" Score="6" ViewCount="2528" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why did Carlsen resign in the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1983200&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;position&lt;/a&gt; shown below? (blitz game played in the London Chess Classic GCT Finals)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can't white help the pawn queen after &lt;code&gt;Ke3&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;Kd3&lt;/code&gt; then &lt;code&gt;Kd4&lt;/code&gt;? I must be missing something.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Magnus Carlsen-Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, London Chess Classic GCT Finals, London England 12/02/2019&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[startply &quot;108&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 Nf6 2. Nf3 g6 3. Nbd2 d5 4. b3 Bg7 5. Bb2 a5 6. a4 O-O 7. e3 Bf5 8. Be2 Nc6 9. O-O Nb4 10. Ne1 Ne4 11. c3 Nxd2 12. Qxd2 Nc6 13. Nd3 e5 14. Nxe5 Nxe5 15. dxe5 Bxe5 16. Rfd1 Qd6 17. Ba3 c5 18. Qxd5 Qxd5 19. Rxd5 Bxc3 20. Rad1 Bb4 21. Bxb4 cxb4 22. Bc4 Be6 23. Rb5 Rfd8 24. Rd4 Rac8 25. Rxd8+ Rxd8 26. Kf1 Bxc4+ 27. bxc4 Rd2 28. Rxb7 Ra2 29. c5 Rxa4 30. Ke2 Ra3 31. c6 Rc3 32. c7 Kg7 33. Ra7 b3 34. Rxa5 Rxc7 35. Rb5 Rc2+ 36. Kf3 b2 37. Rb6 h5 38. h3 Kf8 39. g4 h4 40. g5 Ke7 41. e4 Kd7 42. Ke3 Kc7 43. Rb5 Kc6 44. Rb8 Kc5 45. f4 Kc4 46. f5 Kc3 47. Kf4 Rg2 48. fxg6 fxg6 49. e5 Re2 50. Rb6 Kc2 51. Rc6+ Kd1 52. Rd6+ Kc1 53. Rc6+ Rc2 54. Rb6 Rc4+&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user20471" LastEditorUserId="3594" LastEditDate="2020-03-15T16:48:04.940" LastActivityDate="2020-03-16T19:56:39.940" Title="Understanding Carlsen's resignation in the rook and pawn endgame vs MVL" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;pawn-promotion&gt;&lt;carlsen&gt;&lt;rook-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28868" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28867" CreationDate="2020-03-15T04:04:28.427" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;While it may appear that White can whisk around Black's rook and promote, there is a indeed problem that you have missed: Black can promote first!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White's king is currently in check from Black's rook, so the monarch must be moved to either the f3 or e3, cutting the king off from half of the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since White lost a tempo moving their king, Black now promotes their passed b-pawn to a queen, threatening a variety of mating sequences. White must give up their rook for the newly born queen, a practically forced move. After Black recaptures, they are a full rook up. White has a passed pawn, but it will be soon be taken down by Black's superior firepower, cementing a total loss for White and a victory for Black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is a sample game, Stockfish generated at Depth 53, that shows how Black will be able to systematically suppress and restrict the White king to eventually win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/8/1R4p1/4P1P1/2r2K1p/7P/1p6/2k5 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Kf3 b1=Q 2. Rxb1+ Kxb1 3. e6 Rc6 4. Kg4 Rxe6 5. Kxh4 Re4+ 6. Kg3 Kc2 7. Kf2 Kd2 8. Kf3 Kd3 9. Kg2 Ke3 10. Kg3 Ke2 11. Kg2 Re3 12. h4 Re4 13. Kg3 Ke3 14. h5 gxh5 15. Kg2 Rg4+ 16. Kh3 Rxg5 17. Kh4 Kf4 18. Kh3 Rg4 19. Kh2 Ke3 20. Kh1 Kf2 21. Kh2 Rh4#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I hope that this helps you understand the endgame better!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="4466" LastEditDate="2020-03-15T21:16:59.757" LastActivityDate="2020-03-15T21:16:59.757" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28869" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28867" CreationDate="2020-03-15T04:37:46.270" Score="13" Body="&lt;h2&gt;Intuitive plan&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Notice that black's last check is pushing the white king one row away from their passed &lt;code&gt;e-pawn.&lt;/code&gt; Once black promotes the &lt;code&gt;b-pawn,&lt;/code&gt; white will have to give up the rook for it. After which white's king is simply not in position to cover the advance of the &lt;code&gt;e-pawn&lt;/code&gt; and therefore additional tempi will have to be spent with king moves to try and reach the pawn, during which the rook can first simply capture white's &lt;code&gt;h-pawn&lt;/code&gt; and only then sacrifice itself for the &lt;code&gt;e-pawn.&lt;/code&gt; Then black's &lt;code&gt;h-pawn&lt;/code&gt; promotes and wins trivially. Now let's see how all this pans out concretely &lt;em&gt;(no matter how strong the intuition might be, in endgames one must always primarily rely on concrete calculations in order to realise whether our ideas or plans can actually be optimally implemented).&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Annotated diagram&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [title &quot;A simple continuation showcasing why white is lost here&quot;]&#xA; [fen &quot;8/8/1R4p1/4P1P1/2r2K1p/7P/1p6/2k5 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. Ke3 b1=Q 2. Rxb1+ Kxb1 3. Kd3 (3. e6 {blunders the e pawn away} Rc6 4. e7 Re6+) Ra4 4. Ke3 {again, the pawn advance would simply leave it hanging, so white has to make king moves while not allowing black to get behind the pawn} Ra3+ 5. Kd4 Rxh3 6. e6 Rh1 7. Kd5 h3 8. e7 Re1 9. Kd6 Rxe7 {though black doesn't even have to sacrifice the rook here, but it's simply a practical way of going about it, and in-line with our original plan} (9...h2 {much more accurate continuation as we can in fact keep our rook since white's tactically losing their queen immediately upon promotion, in fact you might find this line easier to calculate} 10. Kd7 h1=Q 11. e8=Q Qd5+ 12. Kc8 Rxe8+) 10. Kxe7 h2 {and it's easy to judge that black's winning here since the promoted queen is well in time to get to white's promotion square g8 and then simply bring the king over. I'll include this sequence} 11. Kf6 h1=Q 12. Kxg6 Qb7 {cutting off the king from accessing the 7th row} 13. Kf6 (13. Kh6 Qf7 14. g6 Qg8) Qh7 14. g6 Qg8 {and now black simply brings the king and wins the pawn}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3594" LastActivityDate="2020-03-15T04:37:46.270" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28870" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28890" CreationDate="2020-03-15T05:53:42.250" Score="9" ViewCount="3441" Body="&lt;p&gt;I’d like to render a 2D chessboard image and save it after the last move as a PNG or JPEG from a given PGN file on a Linux console. How can I do this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have a PGN file and I want to get a screenshot of the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Seems to be a simple task but I can’t find a solution for it which is scriptable on the Linux console.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S. The wording &quot;simple task&quot; seems to be annoying for some readers here. Being not a native speaker I have a hard time to understand this nuance but I by no mean want to step on anybody's feet. Coming from a Linux console background I have the feeling that this should be doable on the console with ease. But that I haven't found the tool to do it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21799" LastEditorUserId="21799" LastEditDate="2020-03-15T16:15:59.497" LastActivityDate="2020-03-15T16:37:30.630" Title="Render a chessboard from a PGN file" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;pgn&gt;&lt;chessboards&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28871" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28875" CreationDate="2020-03-15T07:03:42.257" Score="0" ViewCount="317" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the traditional queen's gambit, white offers their c pawn to the e5 pawn, threatening to take back with their f bishop and enjoying a central pawn advantage. My response is to play symmetrically, that way I can learn how to play it by defending against it first, so I reject the c pawn and offer my own pawn on c5 in response. I also like to place my knight on c6 after that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A  common opening theme is for a bishop to pin a knight and a royalty piece, inhabilitating the knight and threatening to double up a pawn thus weakening the castle pawns. My tipical response is to block with my bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it possible to respond to both of these threats simultaneously in the same way that I respond to them individually? This is important because it would simplify my opening book significantly. The main challenge is that the f bishop is overloaded with the task of defending the thematic c pawn and the f knight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Consider the following game:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. d4 d5 2. c4 e6 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. Bg5 c5 5. e3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would ideally delay c5, but I want to keep the example simple here. My dilemma is, how do I develop my f bishop? I can't move it to d6 because after:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. d4 d5 2. c4 e6 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. Bg5 c5 5. e3 Bd6 6. dxc5 Bxc5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would have wasted a turn moving my bishop twice in a row, and I would have to waste another one if I ever want to move my queen or protect against a Knight attacking my f6 knight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can't move my bishop to e7 either because after:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. d4 d5 2. c4 e6 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. Bg5 c5 5. e3 Be7 6. Nc3 O-O 7. Bxf6 Bxf6 8. dxc5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And recapturing that pawn seems very awkward, all pieces are 2 moves away, and c5 is not a particularly good place for any piece to be, especially if cxd5 and the c file is open for white's a rook. At any rate the main theme of the opening is broken.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My best answer so far is to play b6, so that my c5 pawn will have 2 defenders. If after c5 my opponent immediately takes my pawn, I recapture with my bishop,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. d4 d5 2. c4 e6 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. Bg5 c5 5. e3 b6 6. dxc5 Bxc5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However if I my bishop had already developed to its knight-guarding spot, I take with my b pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. d4 d5 2. c4 e6 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. Bg5 c5 5. e3 b6 6. Nc3 Be7 7. dxc5 bxc5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21800" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-15T12:04:11.677" LastActivityDate="2020-03-15T12:04:11.677" Title="Queen's gambit declined: is it too late to counter-offer my c pawn if white pins my f-knight? Will this overload my f bishop?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;queens-gambit-declined&gt;&lt;pins&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="12" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28872" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28870" CreationDate="2020-03-15T09:11:14.260" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think calling it a &quot;simple task&quot; in order for someone to give you the code for free is very polite imo.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On top of that, is surely doable, but its not a simple task. It requires implementing a class to handle the graphic representation, and another class to do the &quot;translation&quot;. Also there are quite a couple of factors to take into consideration. If you don't have the knowledge to even start to do it, you should hire someone to do it for you then. Afaik, this forum is for helping coders who are actually doing the work, and are stuck in a specific part of their project; its not a codewish fountain for everyone to ask for free implementations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21801" LastActivityDate="2020-03-15T09:11:14.260" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28873" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28867" CreationDate="2020-03-15T09:17:01.373" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;In short, the plan you proposed is possible, but it is just too slow, even if black allows it, which is not mandatory. If black permits it, here is a simple win that, although I checked it with a computer, I could see it in my head fairly easily, which means those two could see it that much more easily.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;8/8/1R4p1/4P1P1/2r2K1p/7P/1p6/2k5 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Ke3 b1=Q 2. Rxb1+ Kxb1 3. Kd3 Rc8 $1 4. Kd4 Kc2 5. Kd5 Kd3 6. e6 Ke3 7. Kd6 (7. Ke5 Re8 8. Kf6 Kf4 9. Kf7 (9.Kxg6 Rxe6+ 10. Kh5 Kg3-+) Ra8 10. Kxg6 Rg8+ 11.Kf7 Rxg5 {and Re5 next.}) Kf4 8. e7 Kxg5 9. Kd7 Ra8 10. e8=Q Rxe8 11. Kxe8 Kf4 12. Kf7 Kg3 13. Kxg6 Kxh3 14. Kf5 Kg3 15. Ke4 h3 16. Ke3 h2 17. Ke2 h1=Q $19&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As I was checking my line with a computer, another line it suggested contained a common valuable theme in some rook endings where the king is cut off on a rank, but the pawn is not advanced enough: If the pawn moves forward, you can attack it with the rook, it advances, and then you can get behind it, and take it the next move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After 3...Ra4!, there are only two plans: To move the king around until black gets close to g2 with the king, or to advance the pawn, which shows the common theme I mentioned.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;8/8/1R4p1/4P1P1/2r2K1p/7P/1p6/2k5 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. Ke3 b1=Q 2. Rxb1+ Kxb1 3. Kd3 Ra4 {What can white do here? There are only two plans: Move the king back and forth until black brings the king to g2, or to advance the pawn eventually.} 4. e6 (4. Ke3 Kc1 5. Kf3 (5. Kf2 Re4 $19) 5... Kd1 6. Ke3 Ke1 7. Kf3 Kf1 8. Ke3 Kg2 $19) 4... Ra6 5. e7 Re6 $19&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-16T19:56:39.940" LastActivityDate="2020-03-16T19:56:39.940" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28874" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-03-15T09:29:59.983" Score="4" ViewCount="2032" Body="&lt;p&gt;I previously asked how to use polyglot in c# with a chess engine. My question then was not accurate. What I want to know is, what property(ies) of the bin file object I need to do the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I will parse a FEN string, then, I will access a property of this bin file that will allow me to generate a FEN string that's hopefully linked to a move, whether this move is in a pgn string of a game, or saved as a specific data struct. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then I will compare my parsed string with such FEN string obtained by accessing a property of the bin file object.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then, when I find a match, I will use another method to obtain the next immediate move, which is the one the computer should do, according to the game from which the move was obtained after finding a FEN matching the one I parsed in the first place.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, I guess a pseudo code would look like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; string extractedMove;&#xA; string parsedFEN = &quot;...&quot;;&#xA; object bookBytes = File.Read(pathofthebookfile);&#xA;&#xA;  string GetFENOutOfBook (string FENvalue)&#xA;{ &#xA;   return  bookBytes.Find(FENproperty/Fenkey =&amp;gt; FENvalue);&#xA;}&#xA;&#xA;  public void GetMove ()&#xA;{&#xA;   extractedMove = bookBytes.moves[GetFENOutOfBook(parsedFEN)].ToString();&#xA;}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So can someone point me in the right direction to do this? I just need to know what properties I need to work with of the polyglot book bin file so I can create the logic to extract the move. Thanks in advance!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21801" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-03-15T14:00:09.963" LastActivityDate="2020-12-11T11:06:53.527" Title="How to use Polyglot opening book bin file" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;programming&gt;&lt;books&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28875" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28871" CreationDate="2020-03-15T09:53:14.520" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are a lot of different defenses to the Queen's Gambit Declined, but in most of them, you do not need to worry too much about white trying to take on c5, and holding it since it is very difficult to keep in most lines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am going to post some basic lines that lead to different variations, and some comments about each. This material will give you a very basic look at how you can play as black, and if you choose a line, I would gladly expound upon it, but the topic as a whole, can cover entire books. I mention the Ragozin with Bb4, for example, and I recently got a 351-page book on that one line alone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are a lot of notes to the moves, so make sure you read those as you go through this in the viewer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. d4 d5 2. c4 e6 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. Bg5 c5 {If you play an early c5, then white might opt to give you an isolate pawn, and force you to play the Tarrasch Defense, which scores a sky-high 73.5% for white in the Mega 2020 database.} (4... Bb4+ {This is the Ragozin Defense, which also has drawbacks like giving up the bishop pair, or certain structural weaknesses, but in exchange for piece activity. Note that had white played the move order with 3.Nc3, white also has the option of Qa4+ since Bb4 is not check, thus it would force Nc6 blocking the c7 pawn.}) (4... Be7 {The traditional QGD, where black completes development, and only then is prepared to hit back in the center with c5, or play other lines with the freeing Ne4, or cxd4. In this line, you need to be prepared to play the Exchange Variation, which is very popular at the club level, and leads to the minority attack.} 5. cxd5 (5. e3 O-O 6. Nc3 Nbd7 7. Rc1 c6 8. Bd3 dxc4 9. Bxc4 Nd5 10. Bxe7 Qxe7 {Is one of the lines, for example.}) 5... exd5 6. Nc3 c6 7. Qc2 O-O 8. e3 Nbd7 9. Bd3 Re8 10. O-O Nf8 11. Rab1 {Preparing the &quot;Minority Attack&quot; (attacking the majority of pawns on the queenside with a lesser number) with b4-b5, weakening the black queenside.}) 5. Nc3 (5. cxd5 exd5 6. Nc3) 5... Nc6 (5... cxd4 $1 6. Nxd4 Be7 (6... e5 $1 {This is very active, and scores well for black with white winning only 42% of the time per the Mega 2020 Database. It would require learning a fair amount of theory though.}) 7. e3 O-O 8. cxd5 Nxd5 9. Bxe7 Nxe7 10. Be2 Nbc6 $14) 6. e3 Be7 7. dxc5 {This is a main line, but you do not need to capture back with the bishop right away.} Bxc5 {The line you gave.} (7... O-O $1 8. cxd5 (8. Qc2 $1) 8... exd5 9. Be2 (9. Bxf6 Bxf6 10. Nxd5 Bxb2 11. Rb1 Ba3 {And black will get back c5 with a good game, but white is still slightly better.} 12. Bd3 $1) 9... Be6 10. O-O Bxc5 11. Rc1 {With a typical Tarrasch.})&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It was starting to get too deep for one board, so I put the answers to your edited question in this board. Again, make sure you look at the prose that is include with the various lines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. d4 d5 2. c4 e6 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. Bg5 c5 {I feel like this is just too early for my solid style.} 5. e3 Be7 (5... Bd6 6. cxd5 exd5 7. Nc3 Be6 {And having moved the bishop twice is not that big a deal, but you have to be prepared to play the Tarrasch which requires good opening preparation due to the fact that you have the isolated pawn, and you need to know how to get the piece activity that is associated with it. I have a student at the high school club that I run, who plays this all the time, but I have been telling him lately to avoid it since it does not fit his style. If you are a player, who likes very complicated open positions and play 1.e4, the Tarrasch might be for you.}) (5... b6 $4 {A positional blunder since it wastes too much time, and weakens the light squares heading toward the king. It is almost losing since your king is not developed.} 6. cxd5 Qxd5 (6... exd5 7. Bxf6 Qxf6 8. Nc3 {And there is no good way to defend d already.} Be6 $2 9. Bb5+ {The light squares come into play.} Nd7 10. dxc5 (10. Bxd7+ Kxd7 11. dxc5 Bxc5 12. Nxd5 Bxd5 13. Qxd5+ Kc7 14. O-O $18) 10... bxc5 11. Nxd5 Qxb2 12. Rb1) 7. Bxf6 gxf6 8. Nc3 {With a winning position.}) 6. Nc3 O-O 7. Bxf6 $2 {Giving up the bishop pair since you cannot really win c5 is not good. Black will give it back, and you will have a huge weakness on c3 on an open file.} Bxf6 8. dxc5 $2 {This makes it worse.} Bxc3+ 9. bxc3 Qa5 10. Rc1 dxc4 11. Bxc4 Qxc5 12. Qd4 Qe7 13. O-O Nd7 14. Rfd1 Nc5 15. Ne5 b6 {With the slightly better position after Bb7, and the rooks coming to the center.}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-15T11:57:34.557" LastActivityDate="2020-03-15T11:57:34.557" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28876" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28871" CreationDate="2020-03-15T10:32:25.947" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You are overcomplicating your question by misusing a lot of terminology you apparently don't understand. There is no countergambit here nor is there an offer of a pawn nor is the bishop overloaded. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a very simple position and black has several choices that are equal or near equal: Be7, dxc4, c6, Nbd7 and Bb4+ are perfectly playable. White isn't threatening anything. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2020-03-15T10:32:25.947" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28877" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28845" CreationDate="2020-03-15T11:17:39.800" Score="1" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Black is blocking his bishop. White has a lead in development and the option of c3 at some point. White should be able to maintain an advantage for some time. Black is going to have to spend at least one tempo playing either Ng6 or g6 to free his bishop and castle. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The line is probably inferior to playing Bc5 first or Nf6. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The line you gave isn't very good. 4. Nc3 is a mistake because it blocks the c pawn. I would just play 4. 0-0. White furthers his development and keeps all of his options open while black doesn't have anything all that great to play and will be forced to show his cards so to speak. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That being said I think the line is playable below master level. It avoids a lot of theory and most players aren't going to be able to make any use out of the small positional advantage.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastEditorUserId="19861" LastEditDate="2020-03-15T11:26:27.063" LastActivityDate="2020-03-15T11:26:27.063" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28878" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28864" CreationDate="2020-03-15T11:33:47.030" Score="29" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just to offer a different answer: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No. No takebacks, no draw offers. In short time controls this is part of the game. It's the same as a blunder under pressure. I pressured the opponent on either time or position, and the person cracked and made a mistake.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or your other example, of moving the king instead of castling in the beginning: That's what one get for trying to blitz out moves. Might save you a second here and there, but the risk is these mis-clicks. That's a price my opponent will have to pay, can't have the cake and eat it too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;sup&gt;(For longer time controls (1h+) I might think trying to salvage the game is the right choice, but I only really play 5min and below)&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20163" LastActivityDate="2020-03-15T11:33:47.030" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28879" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28766" CreationDate="2020-03-15T11:58:31.443" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let him play what he wants to play. If it's a mistake show him why. He will develop his own ideas and have a good understanding of a wide range of openings. That's how you create a strong, young player. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2020-03-15T11:58:31.443" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28880" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28801" CreationDate="2020-03-15T12:21:39.837" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;3...Ne4 is kind of pointless. The idea is to play Nd6 controlling e4 and attacking the c4 pawn. The only other options are Nf6 losing a tempo or f5 in a weird Dutch-like position. White is maintaining an advantage after 3...Nd6 4.e4 though. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It avoids theory I guess. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastEditorUserId="19861" LastEditDate="2020-03-15T13:42:05.353" LastActivityDate="2020-03-15T13:42:05.353" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28881" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24950" CreationDate="2020-03-15T13:03:15.177" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The answer is it depends. You're actually asking a couple of different questions though. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First of all, a narrow vs. a broad rep. Most players are probably better off steering their games into a narrow rep where they limit the opponent's responses and steer the game into positions they know. However, because of engines, I don't believe you can be a competitive international player nowadays playing that way. If your goal is 2400+ you really need to be comfortable in all positions and play a broad rep. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The other aspect is whether or not to choose openings based on the opponent. In terms of general opponents I would at least consider the psychology. For example, I recommend the French exchange to a lot of players precisely for the reason that most French players hate playing against it. If you're talking about specific opponents then it really depends on the value of a win vs. the amount of time spent analyzing it and how comfortable you are with the resulting positions. You have to ask yourself if it's worth it to spend X number of hours studying a line and what the potential gain of that knowledge is. ie is 50 hours of study worth it to beat a specific player? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2020-03-15T13:03:15.177" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28882" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28864" CreationDate="2020-03-15T13:14:53.377" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I consider that managing your mouse is one of the skills of online chess.  I'll take the win. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17425" LastActivityDate="2020-03-15T13:14:53.377" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28883" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4527" CreationDate="2020-03-15T13:16:45.663" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Objectively, black is lost but that's not the question you asked. You asked if it was possible that black could someone win the game. Obviously, the answer is yes. Theoretically white could drop his queen on the next move. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think black's best chances are to consolidate his pieces, castle queenside and use the weak light squares to generate an attack. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2020-03-15T13:16:45.663" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28884" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28563" CreationDate="2020-03-15T13:36:45.957" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Play aggressively and in positions you're comfortable with. They expect you to play passively and those are easy wins for them. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In most situations you would steer towards tactics over position. Tactical ability peaks fairly young while positional knowledge tends to grow over time. A master is most likely going to be past his tactical peak and relying more on his positional play. It would be almost unheard of for a player like you to beat a master positionally but it's always possible they could make a tactical mistake.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you have examples of their games you can prep lines using an engine. However, you should make sure you know what you're doing. Don't play a line just because an engine or book says it's good. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2020-03-15T13:36:45.957" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28885" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6067" CreationDate="2020-03-15T14:02:13.847" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The line you play is fine. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After 5.b5, Bxc5 the position favors black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;bxa5 leaves white with a crap pawn structure. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;5&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;a3 just loses a pawn for white &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White has nothing after 4...a5&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastEditorUserId="19861" LastEditDate="2020-03-15T14:07:57.393" LastActivityDate="2020-03-15T14:07:57.393" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28886" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2435" CreationDate="2020-03-15T14:36:20.347" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The classical/cordel is a very good choice against the Ruy Lopez. I switched to the sicilian for exactly this reason but this is what I would play if I hadn't .Black avoids the main lines but gets an active position. I think 4...Nf6 is the most natural choice here. Black develops a piece, prepares to castle and attacks the e4 pawn. 4...Bb6 doesn't really accomplish anything. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Can someone show me, at which point does black take the initiative from white??&quot; &#xA;It's difficult to take the initiative if white doesn't make a mistake. This line though avoids theory and puts pieces on active squares. You are positioning yourself to pounce on the first white mistake. That's the best you can hope for as black. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastEditorUserId="19861" LastEditDate="2020-03-17T03:09:56.017" LastActivityDate="2020-03-17T03:09:56.017" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28887" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9197" CreationDate="2020-03-15T14:48:54.633" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are no legal pawn moves &#xA;The rooks are useless without open files. &#xA;The dark square bishop could move to d8 but that's easily defended. &#xA;The only option is to sac the light square bishop for two pawns but that could take some maneuvering. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's pretty much drawn. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2020-03-15T14:48:54.633" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28888" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28870" CreationDate="2020-03-15T15:57:31.503" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, of course it's possible. I've done it a lot professionally. However, there is no tool that just takes a PGN chess game and convert it into images. You will need to do some programming, not very hard.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is a link on how one can generate machine learning data set on chess. You should be able to reuse the code. I highlighted the part that will relate to your problem.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/Elucidation/tensorflow_chessbot&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://github.com/Elucidation/tensorflow_chessbot&lt;/a&gt; has an example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/6TzKI.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/6TzKI.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;General steps:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Parse your PGN file with Python python-chess. Very easy, trust me.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Use your parsed FENs. Follow the workflow above.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2020-03-15T15:57:31.503" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28889" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28874" CreationDate="2020-03-15T16:24:13.167" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have every reason to believe your approach is wrong and will lead to disaster. I'm saying it as someone who make softwares to work on Polyglot books (www.smallchess.com).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You are &lt;strong&gt;strongly&lt;/strong&gt; advised &lt;strong&gt;NOT&lt;/strong&gt; to do all the hard works like what I did before. Just wrap the C++ Polyglot code in your C#! Your time should be on your C# engine, not this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Polyglot, although open source is not something you would like to port to C# unless you are super motivated. Why? Polyglot has bunch of hash keys. Screenshot on my source code:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/11hKh.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/11hKh.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There was never any good documentation on Polyglot, it existed mainly in source code. Today, not many people really know how that does (including myself). I understand only part of it, by reading source code.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That was the comment I wrote to myself when I started using Polyglot many years ago:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    /*&#xA;     * A PolyGlot book move is encoded as follows:&#xA;     *&#xA;     * bit  0- 5: destination square (from 0 to 63)&#xA;     * bit  6-11: origin square (from 0 to 63)&#xA;     * bit 12-13-14: promotion piece (from KNIGHT == 1 to QUEEN == 4)&#xA;     *&#xA;     * Castling moves follow &quot;king captures rook&quot; representation. So in case&#xA;     * book move is a promotion we have to convert to our representation, in&#xA;     * all other cases we can directly compare with a Move after having&#xA;     * masked out special Move's flags that are not supported by PolyGlot.&#xA;     */&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Polyglot works like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Given a position, convert to a hash key. I have my screenshot for the conversion&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/DT1YO.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/DT1YO.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Use the key to locate an entry in the book using binary search&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Read the entry from (2)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Extract the chess move like:&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/nMsmp.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/nMsmp.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2020-03-15T16:24:13.167" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28890" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28870" CreationDate="2020-03-15T16:37:30.630" Score="19" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can use the &lt;a href=&quot;https://python-chess.readthedocs.io/en/latest/svg.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;SVG rendering functionalities&lt;/a&gt; of &lt;a href=&quot;https://python-chess.readthedocs.io/en/latest/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;python-chess&lt;/a&gt;. This will allow you to create a SVG-formatted visualisation of any board position loaded using python-chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;FEN to SVG&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, given a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forsyth%E2%80%93Edwards_Notation&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;FEN&lt;/a&gt; as input (say we save our python script as &lt;code&gt;boardtosvg.py&lt;/code&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Using python3 and the python-chess library version &lt;code&gt;0.30.1&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;import chess&#xA;import chess.svg&#xA;import sys&#xA;&#xA;arguments = sys.argv&#xA;fen = str(arguments[1])&#xA;&#xA;board = chess.Board(fen)&#xA;boardsvg = chess.svg.board(board=board)&#xA;f = open(&amp;quot;BoardVisualisedFromFEN.SVG&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;w&amp;quot;)&#xA;f.write(boardsvg)&#xA;f.close()&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Example, FEN: &lt;code&gt;'rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/4P3/8/PPPP1PPP/RNBQKBNR b KQkq e3 0 1'&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Command to run your script from the terminal:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;python boardtosvg.py 'rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/4P3/8/PPPP1PPP/RNBQKBNR b KQkq e3 0 1'&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Saved file &lt;em&gt;(in case you cannot open SVGs, you can at least use a browser such as chrome to view the file)&lt;/em&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/YTucDm.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/YTucDm.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Position from a PGN to SVG&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similarly, if the input is a PGN file, then here's how you'd for istance save the SVG of the last position of the game (you can extend this to saving the position at any move):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;import chess&#xA;import chess.svg&#xA;import chess.pgn&#xA;import sys&#xA;&#xA;arguments = sys.argv&#xA;pgnfilename = str(arguments[1])&#xA;&#xA;#Read pgn file:&#xA;with open(pgnfilename) as f:&#xA;    game = chess.pgn.read_game(f)&#xA;#Go to the end of the game and create a chess.Board() from it:&#xA;game = game.end()&#xA;board = game.board()&#xA;boardsvg = chess.svg.board(board=board)&#xA;f = open(&amp;quot;BoardVisualisedFromPGN.SVG&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;w&amp;quot;)&#xA;f.write(boardsvg)&#xA;f.close()&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Example, PGN of &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1333302&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Adams vs Kasparov 2005&lt;/a&gt;: &lt;code&gt;adams_kasparov_2005.pgn&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;python boardtosvg.py 'adams_kasparov_2005.pgn'&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Saved file:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/pOZrAm.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/pOZrAm.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now all that is left to do is to convert the so-created SVG files to PNG, which you can also do in python, see the solutions in the link below:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://stackoverflow.com/q/6589358/4511762&quot;&gt;Convert SVG to PNG in Python&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3594" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2020-03-15T16:37:30.630" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28891" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28864" CreationDate="2020-03-15T18:01:52.980" Score="28" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is perfectly good etiquette. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Something similar happened in an Amber blindfold &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1488162&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Gelfand - Kramnik&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. c4 c6 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. e3 Bg4 5. h3 Bxf3 6. Qxf3 e6&#xA;7. Nc3 Nbd7 8. Bd2 Bb4 9. Bd3 O-O 10. a3 Ba5 11. O-O Re8&#xA;12. b4 Bc7 13. cxd5 exd5 14. b5 Nf8 15. bxc6 bxc6 16. Qd1 Ne6&#xA;17. Qa4 c5 18. Nb5 Bb6 19. dxc5 Nxc5 20. Qc2 Nfe4 21. Bb4 Nxd3&#xA;22. Qxd3 Qd7 23. Nc3 Qe6 24. Qxe4 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;In case you wonder if the final move of the blindfold game between Boris Gelfand and Vladimir Kramnik was really 24.Qxe4 and if the result was nevertheless a draw despite White blundering his queen, we can tell you that in both cases the answer is affirmative. In the position after his 23rd move, Kramnik was expecting Gelfand to play 24.Nxe4 and after this move he intended to offer a draw. However, due to a ‘fingerfehler’, Gelfand didn’t move the knight to e4 but his queen. Kramnik understood what had happened and having no wish to win in such a manner he offered a draw anyhow. As Gelfand put it after the game: ‘He is a gentleman.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="307" LastActivityDate="2020-03-15T18:01:52.980" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28892" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-03-15T18:02:29.283" Score="1" ViewCount="35" Body="&lt;p&gt;When most pieces are gone, inevitable checkmates often occur and are usually presented in the form &lt;em&gt;x&lt;/em&gt; moves until checkmate. However, what is the biggest valid possibility of &lt;em&gt;x&lt;/em&gt;. (&lt;em&gt;By valid I mean that it is possible to get to in a game.&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21803" LastActivityDate="2020-03-15T18:02:29.283" Title="What is the longest amount of moves before an inevitable checkmate?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;checkmate&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2020-03-15T19:18:43.363" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28893" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28864" CreationDate="2020-03-16T00:52:42.947" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;First of all, if an opponent misclicks, you should also misclick to draw up the score... second, if the game is very impoortant, then you should win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21807" LastActivityDate="2020-03-16T00:52:42.947" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28894" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28900" CreationDate="2020-03-16T06:09:37.453" Score="2" ViewCount="337" Body="&lt;p&gt;It has been asked the longest mate that includes draw rules &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/21723/what-longest-number-of-moves-for-a-forced-mate-position-including-draw-rules0&quot;&gt;is&lt;/a&gt;, and it is known what the longest tablebase mate &lt;a href=&quot;http://tb7.chessok.com/articles/Top8DTM_eng&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;is&lt;/a&gt;. However, what is the longest tablebase mate, i.e. 7 pieces or less, that accounts for the 50-move rule?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So far, I have looked at Kirill Kryukov's &lt;a href=&quot;http://kirill-kryukov.com/chess/longest-checkmates/longest-checkmates.shtml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;page&lt;/a&gt; for longest mates for up to 6 pieces. I looked for positions where White has at least two pawns and tested to see if they are a &quot;cursed&quot; win or not in &lt;a href=&quot;https://syzygy-tables.info/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Sygyzy&lt;/a&gt;, along with checking &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.shredderchess.com/online-chess/online-databases/endgame-database.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Shredder&lt;/a&gt; for the DTM. &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/editor/8/8/8/8/8/8/8/8_w_-_-_0_1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Lichess&lt;/a&gt; is great for playing out the moves so they can be copy and pasted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The 5-piece endgame KPPKQ has the longest sequence I know of so far, with a DTM of 248 ply. Here is the full sequence to show how White must be able to make a pawn move every so often to reset the 50-move counter in order to win. I added on an extra move for each side, so the current record is &lt;strong&gt;250 ply.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/4q3/5P1Q/8/8/8/k1K1P3/7q w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. fxe7 Qxh6 2. e8=Q Qh7+ 3. Kc3 Qc7+ 4. Kd4 Qb6+ 5. Kd5 Qb3+ 6. Ke4 Qd1 7. e3 Qe2 8. Kf4 Qf2+ 9. Kg5 Qg1+ 10. Kf6 Qf2+ 11. Kg7 Qb2+ 12. Kh7 Qb7+ 13. Kh6 Qb6+ 14. Kg5 Kb3 15. Kf5 Qc5+ 16. Kf6 Kc2 17. Qe4+ Kc1 18. Kf7 Qh5+ 19. Ke7 Qc5+ 20. Kd7 Qa7+ 21. Ke8 Qb8+ 22. Kf7 Qc7+ 23. Qe7 Qc4+ 24. Qe6 Qc7+ 25. Kf6 Qc3+ 26. Qe5 Qc6+ 27. Ke7 Qb7+ 28. Kd8 Qa8+ 29. Kd7 Qa4+ 30. Ke7 Qb4+ 31. Ke6 Qc4+ 32. Qd5 Qc8+ 33. Ke7 Qc7+ 34. Kf6 Qc3+ 35. Qd4 Qc8 36. Kf7 Qb7+ 37. Kg6 Qc6+ 38. Kf5 Qb5+ 39. Kf4 Qf1+ 40. Ke4 Qg2+ 41. Ke5 Qg5+ 42. Ke6 Qg8+ 43. Kd7 Qf7+ 44. Kc6 Qe8+ 45. Kc7 Qf7+ 46. Kb6 Qb3+ 47. Kc6 Qe6+ 48. Kc5 Qc8+ 49. Kb4 Qb7+ 50. Kc3 Qc6+ 51. Qc4 Qf3 52. Kd4+ Kd2 53. Qd3+ Ke1 54. e4 Qf6+ 55. Kc5 Qe7+ 56. Kb6 Qe6+ 57. Ka5 Qa2+ 58. Kb5 Qb2+ 59. Kc6 Qe5 60. Qd5 Qh8 61. Qf5 Qe8+ 62. Kc5 Qe7+ 63. Kc4 Qc7+ 64. Qc5 Qf4 65. Qd4 Qf7+ 66. Kc3 Qf3+ 67. Kb2 Qg2+ 68. Ka1 Qf3 69. e5 Ke2 70. Ka2 Qc6 71. Ka3 Qf3+ 72. Kb4 Qb7+ 73. Kc4 Qc6+ 74. Qc5 Qa4+ 75. Kd5 Qd7+ 76. Qd6 Qb5+ 77. Ke6 Qb3+ 78. Qd5 Qb6+ 79. Kf5 Qf2+ 80. Kg5 Qg1+ 81. Kh6 Qe3+ 82. Kh5 Qh3+ 83. Kg6 Qg4+ 84. Kf6 Qh4+ 85. Kf7 Qh5+ 86. Ke7 Qg5+ 87. Kd7 Qf5+ 88. Kd6 Qf8+ 89. Kc7 Qf4 90. Kb6 Ke3 91. e6 Qb8+ 92. Kc5 Qc7+ 93. Qc6 Qe5+ 94. Kb6 Qb8+ 95. Ka6 Qe5 96. Qd7 Qa1+ 97. Kb6 Qb2+ 98. Qb5 Qf6 99. Qd5 Ke2 100. Kc6 Qg6 101. Kd7 Qg4 102. Qe5+ Kf2 103. Ke7 Qg8 104. Qf5+ Ke1 105. Kd7 Qa8 106. e7 Qa4+ 107. Kd6 Qa6+ 108. Ke5 Qb5+ 109. Kf6 Qe8 110. Qe6+ Kd1 111. Kg7 Kc1 112. Qf7 Qa4 113. e8=Q Qd4+ 114. Qf6 Qg4+ 115. Kh7 Qh3+ 116. Qh6+ Qxh6+ 117. Kxh6 Kd1 118. Qe3 Kc2 119. Kg5 Kb1 120. Qd2 Ka1 121. Kf4 Kb1 122. Ke3 Ka1 123. Kd3 Kb1 124. Kc3 Ka1 125. Qb2#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Who knows of/can find a longer such sequence? Additionally, if you are able to, give the moves for the position along with your answer please.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-17T00:31:23.220" LastActivityDate="2020-04-17T00:31:23.220" Title="What is the longest tablebase win that includes draw rules?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;tablebases&gt;&lt;records&gt;&lt;50-move-rule&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28895" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28867" CreationDate="2020-03-16T10:04:42.557" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Imagine there'd be no other pawns on the board, except for the b2 pawn and the e5 pawn. Then ask yourself the question: is black's position won? If the answer is yes, there is no need for calculation, right? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The answer is yes, because of an elementary (yet crucial) manoeuvre: keeping the black rook on the fourth rank, thereby cutting off the enemy king. This is seen very often in rook vs. pawn endings and important to bear in mind. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Explanation&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So black promotes the pawn and white plays Kd3 after. Then black goes Ra4. After e6 black plays Ra6 and white can not defend the pawn and thus loses it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21810" LastActivityDate="2020-03-16T10:04:42.557" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28897" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28742" CreationDate="2020-03-16T16:16:36.570" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Ralph Betza has a series of &quot;crowd&quot; games, but they don't quite match what you have in mind.  The closest is the note in &quot;Multiple Occupancy Miscellany&quot;, section &quot;Crowd Capture&quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What happens when you make a capturing move that ends on a square where there is more than one enemy piece? Many rules are possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The simple cases are that you capture&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ul&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;one enemy piece, chosen by the attacker (in this case multicolored crowds are common),&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;all enemy pieces, as in Troll Chess&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;All pieces, friend or foe,&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;No pieces at all.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessvariants.com/boardrules.dir/multocc.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.chessvariants.com/boardrules.dir/multocc.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessvariants.com/boardrules.dir/crowded1.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.chessvariants.com/boardrules.dir/crowded1.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessvariants.com/boardrules.dir/crowded2.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.chessvariants.com/boardrules.dir/crowded2.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessvariants.com/boardrules.dir/fifo-chess.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.chessvariants.com/boardrules.dir/fifo-chess.html&lt;/a&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other Betza games where multi-occupancy shows up, but isn't perhaps the main attraction:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessvariants.com/other.dir/pasgl312-chess.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.chessvariants.com/other.dir/pasgl312-chess.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessvariants.com/diffmove.dir/firefighter-chess.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.chessvariants.com/diffmove.dir/firefighter-chess.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18278" LastActivityDate="2020-03-16T16:16:36.570" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28898" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-03-16T17:36:38.280" Score="10" ViewCount="406" Body="&lt;p&gt;Due to the Coronavirus, all chess tournaments and activities have been canceled in my area. At the same time, I've got a lot of time on my hands right now and would like to work on my chess. I have got access to a lot of training material, which includes a vast library of chess books on tactics, openings, endgames, and positional play. I'm rated about 2050 FIDE. Here are my main questions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What do you think is the best time control to play online to improve? I have found that rapid games (10 minutes each) don't leave a lasting impression, meaning I quickly forget what happened and probably also don't learn much from it. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Have you tried improving mainly via online chess and can share your experiences? If not, do you know anyone who has done that?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Should I set up a real board while playing online to recreate the OTB experience?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;How much training per day do you recommend? I plan on working between 1-2h every day on chess and playing long games regularly.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12604" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-16T19:30:37.747" LastActivityDate="2021-03-18T19:24:05.107" Title="Improving your chess without access to OTB tournaments" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;training&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28899" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28898" CreationDate="2020-03-16T19:04:47.873" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Overall, I like your plan. Addressing them, not in order though, and adding some thoughts along the way:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How much training per day do you recommend? I plan on working between&#xA;1-2h every day on chess and playing long games regularly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's face it, the more time, the better in terms of really getting better. Spending two hours per day is a lot for a non-professional, and is a great commitment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Should I set up a real board while playing online to recreate the OTB&#xA;experience?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I love this idea because I think that playing online, even at slower controls, leads to the click-first-then-think mentality. I see this mentality a lot with the chess.com daily puzzle and many weak players saying &amp;quot;easy&amp;quot; when they &amp;quot;solve&amp;quot; a super-hard study. They got through it, but they clicked until the puzzle accepted the move, rather than truly seeing the solution and then clicking it in.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Have you tried improving mainly via online chess and can share your&#xA;experiences? If not, do you know anyone who has done that?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What do you think is the best time control to play online to improve?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I really cannot say that I have because most of my improvement took place long before the advent of the Internet, but I did use an old standby: Face-to-face training games with a friend, who was rated similarly at the time. I do not see why you cannot find a player online, who is interested in doing this with you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As part of this, I want suggest that you use a long time control (like 40/2 60/1) so you have time to really train your thought process. You should even use notes regarding things that you want to make sure you want to address in your thought-process training. I am not talking about notes regarding specific moves, but notes about the things you want to train as part of your practice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, as I have been getting back into OTB play, here is a list of things that I want to look for. My list might help you, but you should add your own items to it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Pay more attention to leads in development, and open the position when I am ahead in development. Pay attention to tempi, and not just in the opening.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Every few moves, or after a major change, look at every move for both sides.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Think more about the pluses and minuses of each piece, and how well they are, or are not, placed. What squares do they deny the opponent’s pieces?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What square do I want for my piece, and how do I conquer it?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When beginning to calculate, ask “what is hanging?”  Also ask if there are any double attacks or pieces that can be drawn into a double attack by a sac.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When I find a good move, just look at the other moves to make sure there is not a better one.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Look for pieces in a line so a pin might win.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When calculating a tactical sequence, make sure that you properly evaluate the final position, and that there is no extra counterplay left. Before making the final move, think about all his possible moves as in number one above.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Think more about going after the opponent’s King.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Think more about how to gain space by pushing pawns on either flank, that is play on both sides of the board, if possible.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Ask what is my worst piece, and where is its best square, and move it there.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Ask what pieces should I trade? What is my weak piece and what is his strong piece?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When lacking space, think more about trading.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Ask myself, “what is his moving trying to accomplish?” and “what can he do after I move? (look at all his possible moves as in the mate-in-two problems)” “What is his plan if I were he?”&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What structure am I playing for?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When accepting or changing a structure, see if the pieces are misplaced on either side with regards to helping the structure, and enforcing or containing pawn breaks.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When the opponent’s pieces are misplaced, open the position.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Look more at opening the position when I have the two Bs.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In conjunction with asking “where is my pawn break?”, look more at pushing my pawn majorities when I have them.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Think more about dynamic play when I have static deficiencies, or am worse.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Think more about resulting endgames.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2020-03-16T19:04:47.873" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28900" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28894" CreationDate="2020-03-16T19:25:14.347" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I randomly came &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/8664/longest-dtm-in-the-endgame-kqppkq?rq=1&quot;&gt;across&lt;/a&gt; the endgame KQPPKQ and I decided to plug it into &lt;a href=&quot;https://syzygy-tables.info/?fen=8/4k3/8/Q7/8/7P/P7/K1q5_w_-_-_0_3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Sygyzy&lt;/a&gt; for the heck of it. To my surprise, it was not cursed win! With a further ply added, it is a new record of &lt;strong&gt;364 ply&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;7q/4k3/8/Q7/8/7P/P7/Q1K5 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Qxa1+ 2. Kc2 Qd4 3. Qe1+ Kf7 4. Qf1+ Kg7 5. Qg2+ Kh8 6. Qa8+ Kh7 7. Qb7+ Kh6 8. Qc6+ Kh5 9. Qe8+ Kg5 10. Qg8+ Kh6 11. Qe6+ Kh7 12. Kb3 Qd3+ 13. Kb4 Qd2+ 14. Kb5 Qd3+ 15. Qc4 Qf5+ 16. Kb6 Qf2+ 17. Kb7 Qf3+ 18. Kc7 Qa3 19. Kb6 Kh8 20. Qd4+ Kh7 21. Qd7+ Kg6 22. Qe6+ Kh5 23. Qd5+ Kg6 24. Kb5 Qb2+ 25. Kc6 Qc3+ 26. Kd7 Qg7+ 27. Kd6 Qf8+ 28. Kc7 Qf2 29. Kc6 Qe2 30. Kd7 Qf2 31. Qe6+ Kg7 32. Kc6 Qf3+ 33. Kb6 Qa3 34. Qb3 Qd6+ 35. Ka7 Qc5+ 36. Kb7 Qe7+ 37. Ka8 Qd8+ 38. Qb8 Qh4 39. Qb7+ Kf8 40. Qc8+ Ke7 41. Kb8 Qa4 42. Qc5+ Kd8 43. Qg5+ Ke8 44. Qe3+ Kf8 45. Qf3+ Ke7 46. a3 Qc4 47. Ka7 Qd4+ 48. Kb7 Qd7+ 49. Kb6 Qd4+ 50. Kb5 Qb2+ 51. Kc5 Qc2+ 52. Kd5 Qd2+ 53. Ke4 Qc2+ 54. Kf4 Qc7+ 55. Ke3 Qa7+ 56. Ke2 Qa6+ 57. Kf2 Qd6 58. Kf1 Qd4 59. Ke2 Qa4 60. Qc3 Ke8 61. Kf3 Qh4 62. Qc8+ Ke7 63. Qg4 Qf6+ 64. Qf4 Qa1 65. Qe3+ Kf8 66. Kg2 Qb1 67. Qf4+ Kg8 68. Qc4+ Kh8 69. Qd4+ Kg8 70. a4 Qg6+ 71. Kf2 Qf5+ 72. Kg3 Qg6+ 73. Kf4 Qf7+ 74. Kg5 Qe7+ 75. Qf6 Qd7 76. Qg6+ Kh8 77. Qh5+ Kg7 78. Qg4 Qd5+ 79. Qf5 Qd8+ 80. Kf4 Qd2+ 81. Kg3 Qe3+ 82. Qf3 Qg1+ 83. Kf4 Qc1+ 84. Kg4 Qc4+ 85. Qf4 Qe6+ 86. Kf3 Qb3+ 87. Kf2 Qb6+ 88. Kg3 Qg6+ 89. Kh4 Qh7+ 90. Kg4 Qg6+ 91. Qg5 Kh8 92. Kf4 Qf7+ 93. Qf5 Qc4+ 94. Qe4 Qc1+ 95. Kf5 Qc8+ 96. Qe6 Qc2+ 97. Kf6 Qf2+ 98. Ke7 Qc5+ 99. Qd6 Qa7+ 100. Qd7 Qc5+ 101. Ke6 Qc4+ 102. Ke5 Qc5+ 103. Ke4 Qc2+ 104. Kd5 Qd1+ 105. Ke6 Qe1+ 106. Kd6 Qb4+ 107. Kc7 Qf4+ 108. Kb6 Qb8+ 109. Kc5 Qe5+ 110. Qd5 Qe7+ 111. Kb6 Qb4+ 112. Qb5 Qd4+ 113. Kb7 Qe4+ 114. Kc8 Qe6+ 115. Kb8 Qg8+ 116. Ka7 Qg7+ 117. Ka8 Qg2+ 118. Qb7 Qxh3 119. a5 Qc3 120. a6 Qc4 121. Qb2+ Kh7 122. Qb6 Qc8+ 123. Ka7 Qc4 124. Kb7 Qe4+ 125. Qc6 Qb4+ 126. Ka7 Qf4 127. Qc8 Qg3 128. Ka8 Qd6 129. Qc2+ Kh6 130. Kb7 Qb4+ 131. Kc6 Qa3 132. Kb5 Kg7 133. Qc7+ Kh8 134. Qc8+ Kh7 135. Qd7+ Kg8 136. a7 Qb3+ 137. Ka6 Qa3+ 138. Kb7 Qb4+ 139. Kc7 Qc4+ 140. Kd8 Qh4+ 141. Qe7 Qd4+ 142. Kc8 Qc4+ 143. Kb8 Qb5+ 144. Qb7 Qe5+ 145. Ka8 Qc5 146. Qb3+ Kf8 147. Kb7 Qe7+ 148. Ka6 Qd6+ 149. Qb6 Qd3+ 150. Kb7 Qd7+ 151. Ka8 Qd5+ 152. Kb8 Qe5+ 153. Kb7 Qe4+ 154. Qc6 Qe7+ 155. Kb8 Qe5+ 156. Ka8 Kg8 157. Qc4+ Kh7 158. Qd3+ Kh8 159. Qd8+ Kh7 160. Kb7 Qb5+ 161. Qb6 Qd5+ 162. Qc6 Qb3+ 163. Kc7 Qg3+ 164. Qd6 Qc3+ 165. Kd7 Qf3 166. Kc8 Qe4 167. Kb8 Qb1+ 168. Kc7 Qc1+ 169. Kd7 Qh1 170. Qc6 Qh3+ 171. Kd8 Qh4+ 172. Kc8 Qb4 173. Qb7+ Qxb7+ 174. Kxb7 Kg7 175. a8=Q Kg6 176. Kc7 Kf5 177. Qa4 Ke5 178. Qg4 Kd5 179. Qf4 Kc5 180. Qe4 Kb5 181. Qd4 Ka5 182. Kc6 Ka6 183. Qb6#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Additionally, the longest sequence I have found so far for a position with no pawns in it is &lt;strong&gt;182 ply&lt;/strong&gt;, with one ply added on to the endgame KBBKNN, pulled from &lt;a href=&quot;http://centaur.reading.ac.uk/34268/1/chessendrec.pgn&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; list of record PGNs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;2n5/8/3B4/8/3K3n/1B6/6Q1/2k5 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Nxg2 2. Ba3+ Kd2 3. Bb4+ Ke2 4. Bc4+ Kf3 5. Bd5+ Kg3 6. Ke4 Nb6 7. Be6 Na4 8. Bb3 Nb6 9. Bc5 Nd7 10. Bd6+ Kh4 11. Be7+ Kh5 12. Be6 Nb6 13. Bc5 Na8 14. Bd7 Kh6 15. Bh3 Nh4 16. Be7 Ng6 17. Bd8 Kg7 18. Be6 Kf8 19. Kd4 Nf4 20. Bf5 Kf7 21. Ke5 Ng6+ 22. Kd6 Nf4 23. Bc8 Kg6 24. Ke5 Nd3+ 25. Kd4 Nc1 26. Bb7 Kf5 27. Ke3 Nb3 28. Bxa8 Nc5 29. Ba5 Nd7 30. Bb7 Ke6 31. Kd4 Nf6 32. Bc8+ Ke7 33. Bf5 Kf7 34. Ke5 Ne8 35. Be6+ Kg6 36. Bd8 Ng7 37. Bb3 Nh5 38. Kd6 Ng7 39. Kd7 Kf5 40. Ke7 Kf4 41. Bc7+ Ke3 42. Bb6+ Kd3 43. Bf7 Nf5+ 44. Ke6 Ne3 45. Bg6+ Ke2 46. Be4 Nc4 47. Bd4 Nd2 48. Bg6 Kf3 49. Kf5 Ke2 50. Kf4 Nb3 51. Bb6 Nd2 52. Bd8 Nb3 53. Ke5  Nd2 54. Be8 Nf3+ 55. Kf4 Nd4 56. Ke4 Nb3 57. Bh5+ Kd2 58. Bf6 Nc1 59. Bg6 Ne2 60. Bg5+ Kc3 61. Ke3 Nc1 62. Bh4 Kb4 63. Be1+ Ka4 64. Kd4 Kb3 65. Bd2 Na2 66. Bf5 Kb2 67. Kc4 Ka3 68. Be3 Kb2 69. Bd4+ Ka3 70. Bg7 Nc1 71. Bg4 Na2 72. Bd1 Nc1 73. Kc3 Na2+ 74. Kc2 Ka4 75. Kb2+ Kb4 76. Kxa2 Kc4 77. Bc2 Kc5 78. Bb3 Kc6 79. Ka3 Kc5 80. Ka4 Kc6 81. Kb4 Kc7 82. Kc5 Kd7 83. Bf8 Kc7 84. Ba4 Kb7 85. Kb5 Ka7 86. Kc6 Ka6 87. Kc7 Ka5 88. Bd7 Ka6 89. Bb4 Ka7 90. Bc8 Ka8 91. Bb7+ Ka7 92. Bc5#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-04T15:29:22.170" LastActivityDate="2020-04-04T15:29:22.170" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28901" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-03-16T20:50:31.020" Score="5" ViewCount="1153" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was watching the chess24.com video on endgames with Mark Dvoretsky, and the video “Plus-equal mode | Part 1” covered the game Tony Miles-Simon Webb, Birmingham 1975, and we quickly get to the double-rook endgame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [Event &quot;Birmingham Zetters&quot;]&#xA; [Site &quot;Birmingham&quot;]&#xA; [Date &quot;1975.04.08&quot;]&#xA; [Round &quot;11&quot;]&#xA; [White &quot;Miles, Anthony John&quot;]&#xA; [Black &quot;Webb, Simon&quot;]&#xA; [Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA; [ECO &quot;A05&quot;]&#xA; [SetUp &quot;1&quot;]&#xA; [FEN &quot;2r5/p4rkp/5pp1/5q2/3Q4/6P1/P4PKP/1R1R4 b - - 0 23&quot;]&#xA; [PlyCount &quot;82&quot;]&#xA; [EventDate &quot;1975.03.27&quot;]&#xA; [EventType &quot;tourn&quot;]&#xA; [EventRounds &quot;15&quot;]&#xA; [EventCountry &quot;ENG&quot;]&#xA; [EventCategory &quot;6&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;&#xA; 1... Rc2 2. a3 Qc5 3. Rb3 Qxd4 4. Rxd4 Re7 5. Ra4 Kf7 6. Ra6 Rce2 7. Rb4 Rd7 8. Rba4 Ree7 9. g4 h5 10. gxh5 gxh5 11. R4a5 Kg6 12. h4 Rc7 13. Rg5+ Kf7 14. Rxh5 Kg7 15. Rf5 Rf7 16. Kg3 Rc3+ 17. f3 Rc1 18. Rfa5 Rcc7 19. Kg4 Rc4+ 20. f4 Rcc7 21. Kf5 Rb7 22. a4 Rbc7 23. h5 Rb7 24. h6+ Kxh6 25. Rxf6+ Kg7 26. Rxf7+ Kxf7 27. Ra6 Rc7 28. Kg5 Kg7 29. f5 Rd7 30. a5 Rc7 31. Rd6 Kf8 32. Rd8+ Ke7 33. Rh8 Kd6 34. Kg6 Rc1 35. Ra8 Ke5 36. Re8+ Kf4 37. f6 Rg1+ 38. Kf7 Ra1 39. Kg7 Kf5 40. f7 Rg1+ 41. Kf8 Kg6 42. Re6+ 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although Webb had the pawn on f6 already, GM Jan Gustafsson mentioned at one point that he wanted to play h5 several times, somewhat setting up the desirable formation. Black hesitated, and white played the common stopping move to that setup, g4! This led to black getting impatient, and playing h5 himself, which led to creating another weakness.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So just why is that f7-g6-h5 setup so important?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S. I should have added that the point of this question is &quot;how to draw the 4-3 rook endgame on the kingside, and how that pawn setup is so important.&quot; It is also important that it is before the pawns have net and passed each other, as this is very typical in OTB play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-17T10:47:01.653" LastActivityDate="2020-03-17T10:47:01.653" Title="Why is the f7-g6-h5 pawn complex so important for black in rook endgames?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;rook-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28902" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28901" CreationDate="2020-03-16T20:56:49.100" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a very common rook endgame at higher levels, and it is considered very important to know how to defend it at the 2000-rating level and above, and maybe even a little lower.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The answer as to why the f7-g6-h5 formation is so important is that it combines a relatively safe pawn structure for hiding the black king, and it makes it almost impossible with best play for white to obtain a passed pawn without trading down to the last pawn, which is a draw. Sometimes, white is allowed to create a passed h-pawn, but it is still an easy draw. Lastly, with a pawn on f7, in some lines of defense, it provides a black rook with the solid e6 square, keeping the white king from wandering to d7 and then e8 attacking f7.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Consider these classic 4 versus 3 pawns rook endgames as the primary reason. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are a couple of rook endgames at the highest level that show the proper classical defense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [Event &quot;Moscow Chess for TV&quot;]&#xA; [Site &quot;Moscow&quot;]&#xA; [Date &quot;2019.06.14&quot;]&#xA; [Round &quot;3.2&quot;]&#xA; [White &quot;Dubov, Daniil&quot;]&#xA; [Black &quot;Radjabov, Teimour&quot;]&#xA; [Result &quot;1/2-1/2&quot;]&#xA; [ECO &quot;E12&quot;]&#xA; [WhiteElo &quot;2700&quot;]&#xA; [BlackElo &quot;2759&quot;]&#xA; [SetUp &quot;1&quot;]&#xA; [FEN &quot;8/5pkp/6p1/4P3/1r3P2/R5PP/6K1/8 b - - 0 38&quot;]&#xA; [PlyCount &quot;85&quot;]&#xA; [EventDate &quot;2019.06.10&quot;]&#xA; [EventType &quot;k.o.&quot;]&#xA; [EventRounds &quot;6&quot;]&#xA; [EventCountry &quot;RUS&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1... h5 2. Kf3 (2. Kh1) 2... Rc4 3. Rb3 Ra4 4. Rc3 Rb4 5. Ra3 Rc4 6. g4 hxg4+ 7. hxg4 Rc1 8. Ra7 Rf1+ 9. Ke4 Rg1 10. Kf3 Rf1+ 11. Kg3 Rg1+ 12. Kh4 Re1 13. Kg5 Re2 14. Re7 Re4 15. Ra7 Re1 16. Ra6 Re2 17. Ra1 Re3 18. Ra5 Re1 19. Ra7 Re2 20. Ra5 Re1 21. Rb5 Re2 22. Kh4 Re1 23. f5 gxf5 24. gxf5 Rf1 25. Kg5 Rg1+ 26. Kf4 Rf1+ 27. Ke4 Re1+ 28. Kd5 Rf1 29. f6+ Kg6 30. Kd6 Ra1 31. Rb7 Ra6+ 32. Kd5 Ra5+ 33. Ke4 Ra4+ 34. Kd5 Ra5+ 35. Kd4 Ra4+ 36. Kc5 Ra5+ 37. Kd6 Ra6+ 38. Ke7 Re6+ 39. Kf8 Rxe5 40. Rxf7 Re6 41. Kg8 Re8+ 42. Rf8 Rxf8+ 43.  Kxf8 Kxf6 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And a second game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [Event &quot;ESP-chT Div Honor&quot;]&#xA; [Site &quot;Monzon&quot;]&#xA; [Date &quot;2016.10.02&quot;]&#xA; [Round &quot;7.4&quot;]&#xA; [White &quot;Bacrot, Etienne&quot;]&#xA; [Black &quot;Anton Guijarro, David&quot;]&#xA; [Result &quot;1/2-1/2&quot;]&#xA; [ECO &quot;E17&quot;]&#xA; [WhiteElo &quot;2692&quot;]&#xA; [BlackElo &quot;2630&quot;]&#xA; [SetUp &quot;1&quot;]&#xA; [FEN &quot;2r3k1/5p2/6p1/3R3p/8/2N1P1P1/5P1P/5K2 b - - 0 34&quot;]&#xA; [PlyCount &quot;84&quot;]&#xA; [EventDate &quot;2016.09.26&quot;]&#xA; [EventType &quot;team-tourn&quot;]&#xA; [EventRounds &quot;7&quot;]&#xA; [EventCountry &quot;ESP&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;&#xA; 1... Rxc3 2. Ke2 Kg7 3. f3 Ra3 4. e4 Kf6 5. Rd3 Ra2+ 6. Rd2 Ra3 7. Kf2 Rb3 8. f4 Ra3 9. Rb2 Kg7 10. e5 h4 11. gxh4 Rh3 12. Kg2 Rxh4 13. Kg3 Rh8 14. Rb7 Re8 15. Kg4 Re6 16. h4 Ra6 17. h5 gxh5+ 18. Kxh5 Rh6+ 19. Kg5 Rg6+ 20. Kf5 Ra6 21. Kg4 Ra1 22. Kg5 Rg1+ 23. Kf5 Rg6 24. Ke4 Rg1 25. f5 Re1+ 26. Kd5 Rf1 27. f6+ Kg6 28. Rb3 Ra1 29. Rg3+ Kf5 30. Kd6 Ra6+ 31. Ke7 Ra7+ 32. Kf8 Kxe5 33. Kg7 Kf5 34. Rf3+ Ke6 35. Rf1 Rb7 36. Rh1 Ra7 37. Re1+ Kf5 38. Re7 Ra6 39. Rb7 Rc6 40. Rxf7 Kg5 41. Rf8 Ra6 42. Rf7 Rc6 43. Rf8 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2020-03-16T20:56:49.100" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28903" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28901" CreationDate="2020-03-16T22:27:07.820" Score="6" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;So just why is that f7-g6-h5 setup so important?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Compare the two pawn structures below, one on the kingside where Black has achieved the f7-g6-h5 structure and one on the queenside where White has achieved an advanced equivalent pawn structure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/p4p2/Pp3Pp1/1Pp3Pp/2P4P/8/8/8 b - - 0 23&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now imagine kings on the board and one minor piece, say a knight for each side. White has more space, Black less so White is attacking. How could White win? How could Black defend?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well, on the queenside Black has to guard against a sacrifice on b6. If White sacrifices on b6 then Black needs to be in the square of the White pawn on a6. That means no closer to the center than c7 or c8. Otherwise the piece capturing on b6 can't be taken.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now look on the kingside and ask the same question. This time the equivalent sacrifice is on g6 and the Black king has to be no further away from the action than e6 or d6. Note that f5, taking the sacrificed piece with the king, is also possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e6, d6 and f5 are much closer to the center of the board than c7 and c8. Clearly if Black faces a situation on one side of the board like that on the kingside with pawns and rooks elsewhere on the board his king will be able to both defend and be much better placed for action, much more active, than if he faces the same situation but with pawns arranged as on the queenside.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-03-16T22:27:07.820" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28904" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28864" CreationDate="2020-03-17T00:30:29.863" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;An alternative if you want to be nice when your opponent misclicks is to make a waiting move. You might still benefit a bit from the tempo, but certainly not as much as if you had taken advantage of the blunder. For example, if White played Qd7 when the intent was clearly Qxd8, Black might play a relatively innocent move such as ...a6, so White can then play the intended Qxd8.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[Note: the above specific example might not be possible if the black king is in e8, as is likely the case! :-)]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12523" LastEditorUserId="12523" LastEditDate="2020-03-19T12:35:59.847" LastActivityDate="2020-03-19T12:35:59.847" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28905" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-03-17T11:13:15.790" Score="4" ViewCount="184" Body="&lt;p&gt;With FIDE moving forward with the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candidates_Tournament_2020&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Candidates Tournament 2020&lt;/a&gt;, in my opinion against better judgment, they have announced what &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/news/view/coronavirus-testing-at-fide-candidates-chess-tournament&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;medical screenings will be done&lt;/a&gt;, but have they announced what would happen should one of the players test positive for COVID-19 during the tournament?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There were over 400 people at the opening ceremony yesterday, and I think it would be a public relations nightmare if one of the players contracts it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="8472" LastEditDate="2020-03-27T02:37:35.100" LastActivityDate="2020-03-27T02:37:35.100" Title="Is there any word on what will happen to the Candidates Tournament 2020 if one of the players tests positive for COVID-19 (coronavirus)?" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;world-championship&gt;&lt;candidates&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28906" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28907" CreationDate="2020-03-17T13:47:59.993" Score="6" ViewCount="239" Body="&lt;p&gt;From move 37-43 my plan was to convince my opponent to open the position for me with f4.  This worked.  If they did not oblige then I was going to walk my king to c7 to free up my rook from defense of the b-pawn and start pushing kingside pawns.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Often I feel that winning is natural and I only have questions about games I lose.  Here I kept feeling there may be simpler plan that I didn't find. Can you suggest alternate plans?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Happy to receive feedback on any part of the game.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[White &quot;NN&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Michael West&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;B07&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 g6 2.d4 Bg7 3.Nc3 d6 4.Be3 a6 5.a4 Nf6 6.h3 O-O 7.Nf3 Nc6 8.Qd2 e5 9.d5 Ne7 10.Be2 Bd7&#xA;11.a5 c6 12.Bb6 Qb8 13.O-O c5 14.Rab1 Nc8 15.Rfe1 Nxb6 16.axb6 a5 17.Qe3 Qd8 18.Nb5 Qxb6&#xA;19.c4 Bxb5 20.cxb5 Qd8 21.Bc4 Nh5 22.g3 b6 23.Kg2 Ra7 24.b3 Qe7 25.Re2 Re8 26.Ne1 Qf8 &#xA;27.Nd3 f6 28.Rf1 Bh6 29.Qf3 Rf7 30.Nb2 Ng7 31.Na4 Rb8 32.Qd3 f5 33.f3 fxe4 34.Qxe4 Nf5 &#xA;35.Ref2 Ne3+ 36.Kh2 Nxf1+ 37.Rxf1 Qe7 38.Kg2 Kf8 39.Nc3 Bd2 40.Nd1 Ra8 41.Nb2 Qg5 42.Kh2 Rb8&#xA;43.Na4 Ke7 44.f4 Qf5 45.Qe2 Bb4 46.fxe5 Qxf1 47.exd6+ Kd8 48.Qxf1 Rxf1 49.Bxf1 Kd7 &#xA;50.Kg2 Kxd6 51.Bc4 Bd2 52.Kf3 Bg5 53.Nc3 Rf8+ 54.Ke2 Ke5 55.Na4 Rf6 56.Nb2 Kd4 &#xA;57.Nd3 a4 58.Ne1 Kc3 59.Nf3 Rxf3 60.Kxf3 a3 61.b4 Kxc4 62.bxc5 Kxc5 63.Ke4 a2 &#xA;64.Ke5 a1=Q+ 65.Ke6 Qf6+ 66.Kd7 Qd8+ 67.Ke6 Qe7# 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17425" LastActivityDate="2020-03-17T17:36:42.717" Title="Is there a better winning plan from move 37?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;planning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28907" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28906" CreationDate="2020-03-17T15:16:58.763" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I annotated the whole game, and a few things stuck out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first is a lesson for all players, and that is in this game, white was supposed to be playing on the queenside, and black had play on the kingside. White allowed the play on the queenside to be blocked, and thus had to just wait for the axe to fall on the other side of the board. You can never let the side where your play is to become blocked. The only exception is when you have a good piece sacrifice that you see coming to break up the locked pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The second is that you really should have had a better feel for f5 in that position. It was screaming to be played, and had white not locked the queenside, your play may have been too slow. I do not know that you would not have played it differently, but f5 was screaming to be played.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lastly, and this is probably something that you have seen in print before, and that is I think that maybe you cashed in a little too early taking the exchange. Sure, it was winning, but I might have just kept up the pressure for a while longer. In the line that I give to move 38, which plays out the plan below, but with stronger moves for white (in particular, repositioning the N to the kingside, and then to e4), you can see that while winning, it is still a bit of a tough nut to crack. Had you kept that strong knight and that passive Rf1, something easier might have popped up since defending that would not be fun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as plans go after taking the exchange, I definitely would have looked at bishop moves that kept that knight on a4, like Be4-d4 if given the opportunity, and moved the king to c7 defending everything over there. You might have had to put a rook on e7 first to stop f4 in some cases. Then move all the major pieces to the kingside, and work on opening it up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are very extensive written notes in the lines below. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. e4 g6 2. d4 Bg7 3. Nc3 d6 4. Be3 a6 5. a4 Nf6 6. h3 O-O 7. Nf3 Nc6 8. Qd2 e5 9. d5 Ne7 10. Be2 Bd7 11. a5 c6 (11... Nh5 $5 {This seems more in line with the spirit of the black's kingside play.} 12. g4 Nf4 13. Bxf4 exf4 14. Qxf4 Rb8 $1 {Only now that the Bg7 exerts incredible influence over the white queenside is this opening over there justified.} 15. Qd2 b5 16. axb6 Rxb6 17. Ra2 f5 $1 $11 {With play all over the board.}) 12. Bb6 Qb8 (12... Qe8 {This is very in the spirit of a fianchetto defense, and is often seen in the King's Indian. From e8, the queen will defend the Nh5 after Nh5 and f5.} 13. dxc6 $2 Bxc6 {And there is no time to win d6.}) 13. O-O (13. b4 $2 cxd5 14. exd5 e4 $19) 13... c5 14. Rab1 $2 {A mistake, but already in a tough position after letting the Bb6 get shut in.} (14. Ra3 $1 Nc8 15. Rb3) 14... Nc8 15. Rfe1 $2 {As often happens, one mistake follows another.} (15. Qe3 Nxb6 16. axb6 Qd8 17. Nd2 Qxb6 18. b4 {With good counterplay.}) 15... Nxb6 16. axb6 a5 {I do not understand this. First, not going after the free pawn, and second, it gives up the b5 square for no reason.} 17. Qe3 Qd8 18. Nb5 $2 (18. Nd2 {Seems much more natural.}) 18... Qxb6 19. c4 Bxb5 20. cxb5 Qd8 $1 $19 {This is now already positionally won for black beyond just the pawn. black can always seal the queenside, and continue the attack on the kingside where white has nothing to do but wait for the execution. The only plan for white might be if black gets careless, and allows a timely b4, but as long as black is careful, b4 axb4 is just the loss of a second pawn.} 21. Bc4 Nh5 22. g3 b6 {There is no real need for this yet. Bring the Qd8 out, and prepare f5.} 23. Kg2 Ra7 24. b3 Qe7 $2 {This does not spoil things, but you want the rooks on the f-file, or maybe g-file, and this puts the queen in the way.} (24... f5 {Or Kh8 first.} 25. exf5 gxf5 {And that the computer wants to trade queens here for white is a very good sign for you. You have a killer bishop compared to the pathetic piece on c4, an extra pawn, and most of white's pawns are weak.} 26. Qg5 Qxg5 27. Nxg5 Kh8 28. Ne6 Rg8 {As good as this bishop is, you do should not mind leaving just that Nh5 versus that Bc4.} 29. Nxg7 $2 Raxg7 {And Nf6, and h5 winning.}) 25. Re2 Re8 $2 {The clear plan is f5 soon, so why does the rook move from the potential open file? I see your plan with Qf8 and Bh6, which is admirable, but after f5, and the almost forced ef gf, the Bg7 will come to life and get to d4 soon. See my recent question about the &quot;Gufeld Bishop&quot;, and if it gets to d4, it will be a knockout.} 26. Ne1 Qf8 27. Nd3 f6 (27... f5 {Again, is almost winning.}) 28. Rf1 Bh6 29. Qf3 Rf7 30. Nb2 Ng7 31. Na4 Rb8 32. Qd3 f5 33. f3 fxe4 {This does not feel right giving up the e4 square. I would have looked for a more patient move that gradually built up the attack on the kingside.} (33... Nh5 $1 {Bringing the N back into play with tempo. The threat is Bf4 winning.} 34. Qd1 Qe7 {Idea Qg5 with ominous threats.}) 34. Qxe4 Nf5 35. Ref2 Ne3+ (35... Be3 $1 36. Re2 Bd4 {And the troublesome knight is stuck. Now, you can bring your king to c7, and have what is almost an extra minor piece on the kingside.}) 36. Kh2 Nxf1+ $6 {Cashing in too early in my opinion. Your position is so strong, that an exchange is not enough.} 37. Rxf1 Qe7 38. Kg2 (38. Nb2 Kf8 39. Kg2 Ke8 40. h4 Kd7 41. Nd1 Kc7 42. Nf2 Rbf8 43. Nh3 (43. Ng4 Bf4 $1 $19 44. gxf4 Rxf4 45. Qe1 e4 46. Nh2 Rxh4 {And wins easily.}) 43... Qf6 (43... Qd7 44. Be2 Qf5 45. Nf2 Qxe4 46. Nxe4 Be3 47. Rd1 h6 48. Rd3 Bd4 49. Rd2 Rg7 50. Rd3 g5 51. h5 {And you still need to break through.}) 44. Bd3 Bd2 45. Rd1 {And it is still hard to breakthrough.}) 38... Kf8 39. Nc3 Bd2 (39... Qg5 40. Rf2 Qe3 41. Qxe3 Bxe3 42. Re2 Bd4 43. Ne4 Ke7 44. h4 Ra8 45. Ng5 Rg7 46. Ne6 Rgg8 47. Ra2 {And white is still hanging on by a thread.}) 40. Nd1 Ra8 41. Nb2 Qg5 42. Kh2 Rb8 (42... Bc3 $1 {Idea Bd4 so if the Na4 moves, you can trade it off leaving an extra piece to attack the kingside.} 43. Na4 (43. Nd3 a4 $19) 43... Bd4) 43. Na4 Ke7 (43...Be3 {Again, this plan.}) 44. f4 $2 {This makes it easy for black,and is the final mistake. Here, it was white, who lost patience.} Qf5 45. Qe2 Bb4 {And this is now out of play really.} 46. fxe5 Qxf1 47. exd6+ Kd8 48. Qxf1 Rxf1 49. Bxf1 Kd7 50. Kg2 Kxd6 51. Bc4 Bd2 52. Kf3 Bg5 53. Nc3 Rf8+ 54. Ke2 Ke5 55. Na4 Rf6 56. Nb2 Kd4 57. Nd3 a4 58. Ne1 Kc3 59. Nf3 Rxf3 60. Kxf3 a3 61. b4 Kxc4 62. bxc5 Kxc5 63. Ke4 a2 64. Ke5 a1=Q+ 65. Ke6 Qf6+ 66. Kd7 Qd8+ 67. Ke6 Qe7#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-17T17:36:42.717" LastActivityDate="2020-03-17T17:36:42.717" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28908" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28898" CreationDate="2020-03-17T21:32:28.937" Score="6" Body="&lt;h2&gt;What do you think is the best time control to play online to improve?&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Whichever time control is enough such that you'll be happy to &lt;strong&gt;spend at least 15 minutes analyzing the game afterwards&lt;/strong&gt;. For most of us, that rules out blitz because such games begin to feel &quot;disposable.&quot; I find 2+30 or 15+15 to be good enough here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Have you tried improving mainly via online chess and can share your experiences?&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Limit your activity. Pick one thing to study/work on for each month.&lt;/strong&gt; Maybe this month is tactics? In which case only study tactics this month. Find books on it and read them. If you find something else that interests you, make a note about it &lt;em&gt;for a future month&lt;/em&gt; and return your tactics study. &lt;strong&gt;This gives you time to actually invest in a subject, get to grips with it and, importantly, make progress.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Too often we spend one evening doing this, then the next day we look at that, etc. and the overall pattern is a mess. There's no long-term structure and we never spend enough time on something to actually surpass our current level and develop mastery.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Should I set up a real board while playing online to recreate the OTB experience?&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No, it's not worth it, and you'll quickly find yourself ignoring the real board and looking at the digital on - that is, after all, how you find out whether it's your turn. I setup a board for some books and that appears to be enough to keep me &quot;used&quot; to looking at one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;How much training per day do you recommend? I plan on working between 1-2h every day on chess and playing long games regularly.&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I recommend that you first start small. The important thing not studying 1-2 hours, but studying every day. Dedicating yourself to 1-2 hours a day is too much unless you already have that habit. &lt;strong&gt;Start with 30 minutes, but do that 30 minutes &lt;em&gt;every day&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/strong&gt; If you want to study longer, that's fine, do so, but only commit to the 30 minutes and &lt;em&gt;actually do it every day&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Once you have the habit&lt;/strong&gt; of studying every day then, and only then, &lt;strong&gt;gradually increase the time you commit to.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21823" LastEditorUserId="21823" LastEditDate="2020-03-17T21:37:42.550" LastActivityDate="2020-03-17T21:37:42.550" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28909" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28864" CreationDate="2020-03-17T22:04:10.743" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I like to enjoy my Chess. Equally so, I like my opponent to enjoy their Chess too. If I feel like a miss-click has spoiled the fun or if I'm winning &lt;em&gt;because&lt;/em&gt; of a miss-click, then I'll offer the draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's a simple test for this: after that miss-click, will you feel bad about winning the game? Check-in with yourself about it. Your conscience is perfectly capable of determining the correct course of action &lt;em&gt;for you&lt;/em&gt; in any given moment. Generalizing this is only going to cause suffering!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21823" LastActivityDate="2020-03-17T22:04:10.743" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28910" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28856" CreationDate="2020-03-17T22:34:09.840" Score="4" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is there any way to find good moves that I made, rather than just non-mistakes?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Actually, in most cases, it's doing this already. The reason your moves aren't showing up is probably that they're not actually good moves!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;the evaluation shows I made a suboptimal move even though against this particular opponent it resulted in me winning a piece&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The computer doesn't care about the &quot;narrative&quot; of the game. It looks at the position and evaluates the moves that are available.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;I recommend picking one move per game that the computer shows as &quot;non-optimal&quot; and asking yourself: &lt;em&gt;What factors in this position do I need to notice before I'd make this move?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To answer this question is usually very difficult. There is something about the position that you've missed or misunderstood, and it may take you a few minutes (probably more than 5, it has sometimes taken me more than an hour) of investigation before you figure it out. &lt;strong&gt;That is how you use Chess computers.&lt;/strong&gt; They're a tool that can help you evaluate a position. They're not a tool to reassure you that a sub-optimal, albeit romantic, move was actually good.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21823" LastActivityDate="2020-03-17T22:34:09.840" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28911" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1295" CreationDate="2020-03-18T04:35:40.690" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is an API for this now at following url: &lt;a href=&quot;https://uschessapi.azurewebsites.net/api/player/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://uschessapi.azurewebsites.net/api/player/&lt;/a&gt;{Id}&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this case {Id} = USCF Member Id&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Following is an example request/response:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Request - &lt;a href=&quot;https://uschessapi.azurewebsites.net/api/player/13197795&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://uschessapi.azurewebsites.net/api/player/13197795&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Response(JSON) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;{&quot;memberId&quot;:&quot;13197795&quot;,&quot;name&quot;:&quot;JEREMY KRASIN&quot;,&quot;regularRating&quot;:&quot;1828&quot;,&quot;quickRating&quot;:&quot;1818&quot;,&quot;blitzRating&quot;:&quot;1765&quot;,&quot;fideRating&quot;:&quot;1749&quot;}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Right now just returns Regular, Quick, Blitz, and Fide ratings as well as name. If anyone has any questions feel free to message me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21825" LastActivityDate="2020-03-18T04:35:40.690" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28912" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-03-18T05:05:05.340" Score="6" ViewCount="153" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to the article &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/nov/15/armenia-chess-compulsory-schools&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Armenia makes chess compulsory in schools&lt;/a&gt;, Armenia made chess mandatory in school for the sake of discipline. A lot of people in the real world don't work together to organize plans properly and really suffer the consequences later so I suspect Armenia figured that kids need to get disciplined in order to grow up as a person who works harder to organize plans. Maybe the Carnegie foundation did some research on it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As an extra note, I found out about the Carnegie foundation from the question &lt;a href=&quot;https://matheducators.stackexchange.com/questions/875/what-does-math-education-research-know-about-difficulty-vs-effectiveness&quot;&gt;What does math education research know about difficulty vs. effectiveness?&lt;/a&gt; Maybe some day, there will be some Stack Exchange users who will be very willing and able to adopt an advanced research technique with one another. Then through that technique, they might eventually eventually find a connection between this question and the question &lt;a href=&quot;https://matheducators.stackexchange.com/questions/875/what-does-math-education-research-know-about-difficulty-vs-effectiveness&quot;&gt;What does math education research know about difficulty vs. effectiveness?&lt;/a&gt; through my reference to it in this question and then help direct Stack Exchange users to many very similar questions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13189" LastEditorUserId="13189" LastEditDate="2020-06-02T15:58:05.557" LastActivityDate="2020-06-03T13:00:25.370" Title="Is there research on how successfully chess can discipline children?" Tags="&lt;teaching&gt;&lt;children&gt;&lt;studies-published-report&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28913" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28856" CreationDate="2020-03-18T05:41:19.950" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;If after making a move the engine’s score for the position is virtually unchanged - it’s good move!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21826" LastActivityDate="2020-03-18T05:41:19.950" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28914" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8036" CreationDate="2020-03-18T08:45:04.227" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I use the &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/editor&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Lichess Board editor&lt;/a&gt;. It has drag and drop, and click and place and it provides the FEN to any position. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21827" LastActivityDate="2020-03-18T08:45:04.227" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28915" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28916" CreationDate="2020-03-18T13:56:49.030" Score="5" ViewCount="255" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why is that at 10:44 of the video, 10...f6 leads to a disaster? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://youtu.be/BrbChWI89ek&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://youtu.be/BrbChWI89ek&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Nf6 4. d4 exd4 5. O-O Nxe4 6. Re1 d5 7. Bxd5 Qxd5 8. Nc3 Qa5 9. Nxe4 Be7 10. Bg5 f6?&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21830" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-20T15:21:34.573" LastActivityDate="2020-03-20T15:21:34.573" Title="In this YouTube video, the author says that 10...f6 &quot;leads to disaster&quot;...Why?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;two-knights&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28916" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28915" CreationDate="2020-03-18T14:25:59.543" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The video's author might be overstating it by calling it a &quot;disaster&quot; as there is no clear knockout blow.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nevertheless, white is clearly better, and the attack will continue with best play, but it requires accuracy or the extra piece may tell the final tale. White will remain down a piece for two pawns, and will probably win a third in the near future due to the indefensible black king. Here is a couple of sample lines, but since neither side is forced, there are many other possibilities.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Nf6 4. d4 exd4 5. O-O Nxe4 6. Re1 d5 7. Bxd5 Qxd5 8. Nc3 Qa5 9. Nxe4 Be7 10. Bg5 f6 11. Nxf6+ gxf6 (11... Kf7 12. Ne4 {And white is not down any material, and the attack will continue. The black king is just too open.} Re8 13. Bxe7 (13. Nxd4 {Or this.} Bd7 14. Bd2 Qb6 15. Qh5+ Kg8 16. Nf3 {Idea Qd5+ and taking the Bd7.} Nb4 17. Neg5 Qg6 18. Qxg6 hxg6 19. Rxe7 Rxe7 20. Bxb4 $18) 13... Rxe7 14. Neg5+ Kg8 (14... Kf8 15. Rxe7 Nxe7 16. Nxh7+ Kg8 17. Nhg5 Bg4 18. Qxd4 Bxf3 19. Nxf3 Qd5 20. Qg4 $18) 15. Qd3 g6 16. Qc4+ Kf8 17. Rxe7 Kxe7 18. Qf7+ Kd8 19. Re1) 12. Bxf6 Rf8 13. Bxe7 Nxe7 14. Qxd4 Qb6 15. Qc3 Bf5 16. Rad1 Rd8 {This is clearly the best move here.} 17. Rxe7+ $1 Kxe7 18. Qe5+ Qe6 19. Qxc7+ Rd7 20. Qc5+ Rd6 21. Re1 Be4 22. Ng5 Qd5 23. Qe3 Qd4 24. Qxe4+ Qxe4 25. Nxe4 {And the position has finally clarified.}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-18T14:34:24.600" LastActivityDate="2020-03-18T14:34:24.600" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28917" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-03-18T20:08:46.090" Score="6" ViewCount="189" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is from a tactics puzzle I encountered today. The given solution was 1. Qxf6 gxf6 2. Bxf6#,” but to me 1... Ne6 seems to halt white in his tracks, even if it does give up a rook.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My moves as white were clearly not optimal, as it &quot;feels&quot; like there should be a better way for white to bring this game to a checkmate&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After 1... Ne6, how should white continue?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;3rrn1k/pp4pb/2pQ1n1p/q3B3/3P3P/1BP3N1/PP3P2/R3R1K1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Qxf6 gxf6 (1... Ne6 2. Bxe6 Rg8 3. Bxg8 Rxg8 4. Qxh6) 2. Bxf6#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11943" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-03-18T21:19:00.010" LastActivityDate="2020-03-18T21:19:00.010" Title="How can white force a quick win here?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;puzzles&gt;&lt;winning&gt;&lt;queen-sacrifice&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28918" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28917" CreationDate="2020-03-18T20:21:12.780" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, Ne6 staves off mate, but it does not stave off the loss for long, but more importantly, &lt;strong&gt;it does not demonstrate the main point of the tactic&lt;/strong&gt;, which is why they continue with the &quot;worse&quot; gxf6 in the solution.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Technically speaking, the computer thinks that after 1.Qxf6, that 1...Qc7 is the &quot;best&quot; move, in which case, black should just resign anyway after 2.Qxf8+ Rxf8 3.Bxc7.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There was an error in your analysis that lengthens the game also. 3. Bxg8 allows black to take the queen, and win back some of the material, but does not change the outcome.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S. This is a common phenomenon, but sometimes in reverse too. You will see site do this, which I believe is correct since you are trying to teach the main point of a tactic; but I have also seen sites use the computer moves as the main line, and thus, miss the point of the tactic from a human perspective.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  [FEN &quot;3rrn1k/pp4pb/2pQ1n1p/q3B3/3P3P/1BP3N1/PP3P2/R3R1K1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;  1. Qxf6 Ne6 2. Bxe6 Rg8 3. Qf7 {But you are up two pieces, and the attack continues with Nh5 next.} (3. Bxg8 $4 gxf6 4. Bxf6+ Kxg8 5. Bxd8)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-18T20:27:22.417" LastActivityDate="2020-03-18T20:27:22.417" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28919" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29107" CreationDate="2020-03-18T20:59:36.180" Score="20" ViewCount="1599" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a story I have found across the Internet of an endgame between two players, usually named as Capablanca versus an extraterrestrial of some sort. According to  the &lt;a href=&quot;https://ajedrez.fandom.com/es/wiki/La_leyenda_de_Capablanca_y_el_marciano&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Spanish chess Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;, the story is used as a demonstration of the logic behind pawn promotion rules.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Whoever the players, and whatever the story’s circumstances,  the fantasy game more or less goes as follows.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The Tale&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Player B challenges Player A to a game of chess, which Player A agrees to. Player A plays as White, and Player B as Black. An endgame is reached is which Player A has a great material advantage. Seeing an easy win, they play Kc2, planning on playing Bd4#.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;8/P7/BB5P/8/5NN1/3K4/p6p/k7 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Kc2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, Player B, not properly knowing the rules of promotion somehow, sees a defense and plays 1... h1=K!. The point is that Bd4# will checkmate one king, but stalemate the other, drawing the game. Player A argues over the concept that a pawn can “promote to any piece,” but soon grudgingly agrees with Player B’s view of the rules.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then Player A, after some thought, has an idea and takes advantage of Player B’s interpretation of the rules. Player A plays 2. a8=BK!, promoting a White pawn to a Black king. Player B obligingly plays Kb8, the only legal move with their newfound king. Player A then plays 3. h7 and 4. h8=Q###, checkmating all three kings at the same time, thus winning the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;k6Q/8/BB6/8/5NN1/8/p1K5/k6k w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, the origin of this tale is unclear to me, as it is often given with no sources. Additionally, most sources are in Spanish (or at least the ones the feature Capablanca are), so that might be indicative of its history. So far, the earliest date I have traced it to on the web is &lt;a href=&quot;https://burritos.wordpress.com/category/curiosidades/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;2007&lt;/a&gt;, and the earliest video is from &lt;a href=&quot;https://youtu.be/n21uDllcUSI&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;2009&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Given that Capablanca became well-known in 1901 at the least for his match against Juan Corzo, the story is at least from then, if not started later in his life, the story is over a century old then. It might also a retelling from the 19th century with his name attached to it, since numerous chess guides came without &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/21212/when-if-ever-was-it-a-rule-that-pawn-promotion-was-optional&quot;&gt;fully defined promotion rules&lt;/a&gt; and chess composers of the era took advantage of it to produce numerous &lt;a href=&quot;https://pdb.dieschwalbe.de/search.jsp?expression=K=%27Joke%20promotion%27&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;joke problems&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does anyone of the origin of this basic tale as I presented, ignoring the player names and story circumstances, or an early appearance of it at the least?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;UPDATE #1: I found an even earlier mention circa 2004 from &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/player/andrew_soltis.html?kpage=2#kibitzing&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; chessgames.com thread. In the linked page, the chessgames user &amp;quot;Phony Benoni,&amp;quot; in their 2006 reply to a 2004 comment, said that the tale in question is featured in the book &lt;strong&gt;Chess To Enjoy by Andrew Soltis&lt;/strong&gt;, which was published in 1978. So this puts the tale back as least 42 years. Someone will need to check the book for the composer or other information though, as Phoni Benoni merely gives the source. This is a great lead, however. Also, in the page before, in the initial 2004 post by user metriktracer, another source given is vaguely sourced as one of Andre Soltis's Chess Life columns from quote &amp;quot;twenty years ago or so.&amp;quot; That might be another sweetspot if to be located.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another 2004 reference is an &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesschat.org/showthread.php?2125-How-Capablanca-beat-the-devil/page2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Australian forum&lt;/a&gt;, this time with Capablanca against the devil. Now GM George Koltanowski appears to be another suspect for the composer: his name is also mentioned in the above linked chessgames.com thread. According to a comment on a paywalled video that &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chesslecture.com/video.php?id=1159&amp;amp;screen=0&amp;amp;nav=a%20holiday%20tale&amp;amp;use=all&amp;amp;dir=down&amp;amp;sort=date&amp;amp;skill=Any&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;features the tale&lt;/a&gt;, &amp;quot;GM Koltanowski told a similar story in one of his books. The Kolty character is Jesse's [the person who made the said paywalled video] way of giving Koltanowski credit for the story idea and ending composition.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;UPDATE #2: I contacted Siegfried Hornhecker, author of the ChessBase article linked in @Phishmaster’s answer, to see if he knew anything about the problem. He took another look at the original publication that he quoted story from. I was told that the Amatzia Avni 2017 article, from the Enlgish magazine &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.chessbase.com/author/chess-magazine&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;CHESS&lt;/a&gt; lists &lt;strong&gt;Chess To Enjoy by Andrew Soltis&lt;/strong&gt; as its source for the problem. With two different appearances of the book as the source, it seems that the book may very well be the source; all it needs is for someone to check the it to see what it says.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The earlier mentioned George is indeed a &lt;a href=&quot;https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Koltanowski&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;real person&lt;/a&gt; who composed many &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.yacpdb.org/#search/ODg4ODg4ODgvS29sdGFub3dza2ksIEdlb3JnZS8vLy8vLy8vLy8vLzEvMS8xLzA=/1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;problems&lt;/a&gt;, with most being from the 60’s and 70’s. This still leaves him very much as a possible author. He also. has more credence that Yuri. Dorogov, I think. A scan of problems revealed &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.yacpdb.org/#341817&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.canadatype.com/cc/puzzlingside/archives/Puzzling_Side_027_Three_Multiplexes.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Rex Multplex problem&lt;/a&gt;,  which is a fairy chess condition allowing for mate to multiple kings. The given source is a humor book he wrote called &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C9BKJA_enUS812US812&amp;amp;hl=en-US&amp;amp;ei=-4GGXvXyA5rKtQb4mJGwDA&amp;amp;q=Chessnicdotes&amp;amp;oq=Chessnicdotes&amp;amp;gs_lcp=ChNtb2JpbGUtZ3dzLXdpei1zZXJwEAM6AggpOgQIHhAKUNsLWIsSYNYSaABwAHgAgAGhAogBtwSSAQUwLjIuMZgBAKABAQ&amp;amp;sclient=mobile-gws-wiz-serp&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chessnicdotes&lt;/a&gt;, which means that he had at least the mentality to be the author.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;UPDATE #3: @user5713492’s answer has traced the tale even further to a column by Andrew Soltis in &lt;strong&gt;Chess Life, 1972 issue&lt;/strong&gt;, 6 years earlier than his book. Many thanks once more!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This also lines up with what chessgames.com user metricktracer said in the aforementioned chessgames.com &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/player/andrew_soltis.html?kpage=1#kibitzing&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Andrew Soltis page&lt;/a&gt;, emphasis mine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“Hey fellas. twenty years ago or so, in &lt;strong&gt;his chess life column&lt;/strong&gt;, he showed a problem with a UFO theme, wherein the losing side (the aliens)not havinig been given the rules properly, promoted a pawn to a king in order to avoid mate, but the contactee was able to checkmate both kings with a single move. this was so clever I actually carried it around for a couple years in my pocket. anyone know of this old gem?” - metriktracer, 4/13/2004&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There followed this comment to it that is an amusing, supposed origin story for how Solits got the tale himself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“It was based on a real event. A teacher had mislead his student by not specifying which pieces a pawn could promote to. So during a practice game, the student attempted to promote his pawn to a king. When the master tried to correct the problem, the student rebuffed him and demanded that they finish the game with the new (or old, depending how you look at it) rules. So the teacher managed to checkmate both his student's kings at the same time. This amusing event later found itself into Soltis' hands apparently. I thought it was pretty cool too, although I don't think the game is in this db. It is probably too hard for the viewer to understand the idea of three kings on the board, although I could be wrong.” - Benjamin Lau, 4/13/20004&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I’ve concluded that Yuri Dorogov is the composer after reading the sourced Andrew Soltis book; see my new answer for the deductive reasoning. Also, this problem has appeared on the &lt;a href=&quot;https://pdb.dieschwalbe.de/search.jsp#P1375156&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Schwalbe Database&lt;/a&gt; in the meantime.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="14079" LastEditDate="2020-10-08T14:20:14.343" LastActivityDate="2020-10-08T14:20:14.343" Title="What is the origin, or a early appearance, of this famous chess tale?" Tags="&lt;history&gt;&lt;pawn-promotion&gt;&lt;capablanca&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28921" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28919" CreationDate="2020-03-19T00:41:08.277" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found a few references, but the best one was &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.chessbase.com/post/study-of-the-month-2018-07&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this article&lt;/a&gt; on chessbase.com that seems to attribute it to Yuri Dorogov, who was born in in 1947. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From that article, it is still not 100% clear if Dorogov created the puzzle and story, or was just the name of the person the creator used in the story, but Dorogov is a real person. This is a quote from the article:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Yuri Dorogov’s story mentioned in the Avni article is too funny to not&#xA;  retell quickly here. It's white to play and win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Again, this could mean either his actual work, or the story about him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It probably had nothing to do with Capablanca, and someone just changed it later to add the famous World Champion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S. I am tending to lean now toward it being Dorogov's actual composition as I found references in Russian chess books to his other compositions. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.accademiadelproblema.org/archivio/RIVISTE/Estero/Handbook%20of%20Chess%20Composition/Handbook%20of%20Chess%20Composition%20%202013.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;He is an FIDE FM of chess composition&lt;/a&gt; (search Jurij Dorogov). I found four of his other compositions dated from 1970-1977, thus, I would tend to think that this was also from that general time frame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-19T08:53:20.850" LastActivityDate="2020-03-19T08:53:20.850" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28922" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28923" CreationDate="2020-03-19T05:29:40.450" Score="4" ViewCount="684" Body="&lt;p&gt;Recently I started playing Alekhine's Defense and I really like, especially the Scandinavian Variation (the line with strong centralized queen and an annoying knight to kick it around).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I want to know if any current day top players play this opening so that I can study their games for improvement. If they play the Scandinavian variation, then it will be the icing on the cake.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. e4 Nf6 2. Nc3 d5 {The Scandinavian variation.}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21526" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-19T08:59:40.827" LastActivityDate="2020-03-19T10:22:21.570" Title="Contemporary Alekhine Defence Players" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;famous-players&gt;&lt;alekhines-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28923" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28922" CreationDate="2020-03-19T06:57:58.640" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Ivanchuk has played several games in the Scandinavian variation of the Alekhine. You can find the games for example &lt;a href=&quot;https://old.chesstempo.com/gamedb/opening/37&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;, if you sort by black Elo.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2020-03-19T06:57:58.640" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28924" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28922" CreationDate="2020-03-19T09:19:36.447" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I searched the Mega 2020 database, and then ordered the results by black's ELO rating, and as you might imagine, there are not many games at the highest levels since so few strong players play the Alekhine's Defense. There are only 5 games where black was rated above 2700 so you are not going to have a lot of high-level study material.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is also hard to make any real determination about the opening since most of the games were in blitz, and in the two that were not, there was a great disparity in the levels of the players, so take that into account when deciding on your repertoire.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Wesley So played it once by transposition in blitz: 1.Nc3 Nf6 2.e4 d5. Other than that, Ivanchuk played it three times, but two games were in blitz, and Giri once OTB. Nakamura (also in blitz) and Kortchnoi (draw vs. Hug) both played it once as 2600-players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [Event &quot;chess.com Speed&quot;]&#xA; [Site &quot;chess.com INT&quot;]&#xA; [Date &quot;2019.10.03&quot;]&#xA; [Round &quot;1.21&quot;]&#xA; [White &quot;Mamedyarov, Shakhriyar&quot;]&#xA; [Black &quot;So, Wesley&quot;]&#xA; [Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA; [ECO &quot;B02&quot;]&#xA; [WhiteElo &quot;2767&quot;]&#xA; [BlackElo &quot;2767&quot;]&#xA; [PlyCount &quot;50&quot;]&#xA; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. Nc3 Nf6 2. e4 d5 3. e5 d4 4. Nce2 Nfd7 5. e6 Nf6 6. exf7+ Kxf7 7. Nf3 Nc6 8. Nf4 e5 9. Bc4+ Ke8 10. Ne6 Bxe6 11. Bxe6 Qe7 12. Bb3 e4 13. Ng5 d3 14. O-O Nd4 15. cxd3 exd3 16. Bf7+ Kd8 17. Bc4 Qc5 18. Nf7+ Ke8 19. Re1+ Be7 20. b3 Rf8 21. Re5 Ne2+ 22. Kf1 Qd4 23. Ba3 Ng8 24. Bxd3 Rxf7 25. Qxe2 Qxa1+ 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And the Giri game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [Event &quot;EU-Cup 28th&quot;]&#xA; [Site &quot;Eilat&quot;]&#xA; [Date &quot;2012.10.14&quot;]&#xA; [Round &quot;4.2&quot;]&#xA; [White &quot;Galego, Luis&quot;]&#xA; [Black &quot;Giri, Anish&quot;]&#xA; [Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA; [ECO &quot;B02&quot;]&#xA; [WhiteElo &quot;2485&quot;]&#xA; [BlackElo &quot;2730&quot;]&#xA; [PlyCount &quot;52&quot;]&#xA; [EventDate &quot;2012.10.11&quot;]&#xA; [EventType &quot;team-swiss&quot;]&#xA; [EventRounds &quot;7&quot;]&#xA; [EventCountry &quot;ISR&quot;]&#xA; [WhiteTeam &quot;Jutes of Kent&quot;]&#xA; [BlackTeam &quot;SHSM-64&quot;]&#xA; [WhiteTeamCountry &quot;ENG&quot;]&#xA; [BlackTeamCountry &quot;RUS&quot;]&#xA; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. e4 Nf6 2. Nc3 d5 3. exd5 Nxd5 4. Bc4 c6 5. Nf3 Bg4 6. h3 Bh5 7. d3 e6 8. Ne4 Nd7 9. Ng3 Bb4+ 10. Kf1 Bg6 11. Qe2 Be7 12. Bd2 a5 13. h4 h6 14. Bxd5 cxd5 15. Bc3 O-O 16. a4 Rc8 17. h5 Bh7 18. Nd4 Bf6 19. Nb5 e5 20. Nd6 Rc6 21. Ndf5 d4 22. Be1 Kh8 23. Kg1 Re8 24. Kh2 Bg5 25. Bd2 Bxd2 26. Qxd2 Qf6 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The most recent Ivanchuk game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [Event &quot;EU-Cup 32nd&quot;]&#xA; [Site &quot;Novi Sad&quot;]&#xA; [Date &quot;2016.11.09&quot;]&#xA; [Round &quot;4.1&quot;]&#xA; [White &quot;Petenyi, Tamas&quot;]&#xA; [Black &quot;Ivanchuk, Vassily&quot;]&#xA; [Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA; [ECO &quot;B02&quot;]&#xA; [WhiteElo &quot;2443&quot;]&#xA; [BlackElo &quot;2733&quot;]&#xA; [PlyCount &quot;68&quot;]&#xA; [EventDate &quot;2016.11.06&quot;]&#xA; [EventType &quot;team-swiss&quot;]&#xA; [EventRounds &quot;7&quot;]&#xA; [EventCountry &quot;SRB&quot;]&#xA; [WhiteTeam &quot;Dunajska Streda&quot;]&#xA; [BlackTeam &quot;Ashdod&quot;]&#xA; [WhiteTeamCountry &quot;SVK&quot;]&#xA; [BlackTeamCountry &quot;ISR&quot;]&#xA; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. e4 Nf6 2. Nc3 d5 3. e5 Nfd7 4. e6 fxe6 5. d4 c5 6. Nf3 Nc6 7. Bb5 g6 8. h4 Bg7 9. Bxc6 bxc6 10. Ng5 Nf6 11. h5 gxh5 12. Bf4 O-O 13. Be5 Qe8 14. Nf3 cxd4 15. Bxd4 e5 16. Bxe5 Qg6 17. Qe2 Bg4 18. O-O-O Bh6+ 19. Kb1 Nd7 20. Bg3 e5 21. Qa6 Bf5 22. Nh4 Bxc2+ 23. Ka1 Qf6 24. Rde1 e4 25. Qe2 Bd3 26. Qxh5 Bg7 27. Qg4 Ne5 28. Bxe5 Qxe5 29. Rh3 Rf4 30. Qg3 Raf8 31. Ng6 hxg6 32. Qxg6 Qf6 33. Qh7+ Kf7 34. Qh5+ Qg6 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And a couple of games from 2016 by Ivanchuk.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [Event &quot;Beijing Sportaccord blitz&quot;]&#xA; [Site &quot;Beijing&quot;]&#xA; [Date &quot;2014.12.13&quot;]&#xA; [Round &quot;30&quot;]&#xA; [White &quot;Harikrishna, Pentala&quot;]&#xA; [Black &quot;Ivanchuk, Vassily&quot;]&#xA; [Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA; [ECO &quot;B02&quot;]&#xA; [WhiteElo &quot;2727&quot;]&#xA; [BlackElo &quot;2704&quot;]&#xA; [PlyCount &quot;92&quot;]&#xA; [EventDate &quot;2014.12.13&quot;]&#xA; [EventType &quot;tourn (blitz)&quot;]&#xA; [EventRounds &quot;30&quot;]&#xA; [EventCountry &quot;CHN&quot;]&#xA; [EventCategory &quot;20&quot;]&#xA; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. e4 Nf6 2. Nc3 d5 3. exd5 Nxd5 4. Nf3 g6 5. g3 Bg7 6. Bg2 Nb6 7. O-O Nc6 8. a4 a5 9. Nb5 O-O 10. d4 Be6 11. Re1 Bd5 12. Bf4 Rc8 13. c3 Qd7 14. b3 Rfd8 15. Qc2 e6 16. Rad1 Ne7 17. Bg5 c6 18. Na3 h6 19. Bf4 Nf5 20. h4 Qe7 21. Qb2 c5 22. dxc5 Qxc5 23. Nb5 Bxc3 24. Nxc3 Qxc3 25. Qe2 Qxb3 26. Rb1 Bxf3 27. Bxf3 Qa3 28. Bxb7 Nd5 29. Be5 Nc3 30. Qc2 Nxb1 31. Bxc8 Nd2 32. Bb7 Qb4 33. Rd1 Qxb7 34. Rxd2 Rxd2 35. Qxd2 Qb6 36. Bc3 e5 37. Bxe5 Qc5 38. Bc3 Kh7 39. Bxa5 Nxg3 40. Qe3 Qxa5 41. Qxg3 Qxa4 42. Kg2 Qe4+ 43. Kh2 h5 44. Kg1 Qg4 45. Qxg4 hxg4 46. Kg2 Kh6 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And the only loss in the group.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [Event &quot;Beijing Sportaccord blitz&quot;]&#xA; [Site &quot;Beijing&quot;]&#xA; [Date &quot;2014.12.13&quot;]&#xA; [Round &quot;2&quot;]&#xA; [White &quot;Radjabov, Teimour&quot;]&#xA; [Black &quot;Ivanchuk, Vassily&quot;]&#xA; [Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA; [ECO &quot;B02&quot;]&#xA; [WhiteElo &quot;2734&quot;]&#xA; [BlackElo &quot;2704&quot;]&#xA; [PlyCount &quot;56&quot;]&#xA; [EventDate &quot;2014.12.13&quot;]&#xA; [EventType &quot;tourn (blitz)&quot;]&#xA; [EventRounds &quot;30&quot;]&#xA; [EventCountry &quot;CHN&quot;]&#xA; [EventCategory &quot;20&quot;]&#xA; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. e4 Nf6 2. Nc3 d5 3. exd5 Nxd5 4. Nf3 g6 5. g3 Bg7 6. Bg2 Nb6 7. O-O Nc6 8. a4 a5 9. d4 O-O 10. Be3 Bf5 11. Qe2 Nb4 12. Rac1 c6 13. Ne5 N6d5 14. Nxd5 Nxd5 15. Bd2 Qb6 16. Bc3 Rad8 17. Rfe1 Rfe8 18. h3 h5 19. Rcd1 Qc7 20. Rc1 c5 21. dxc5 Nxc3 22. bxc3 Qxc5 23. c4 b6 24. Qe3 Qxe3 25. Rxe3 Rd2 26. Nc6 Kf8 27. Rb3 Bd7 28. c3 Bxc6 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-19T10:22:21.570" LastActivityDate="2020-03-19T10:22:21.570" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28925" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28927" CreationDate="2020-03-19T10:49:33.097" Score="10" ViewCount="1594" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;rnb1k2r/ppppqppp/4p2n/4P3/2PP4/2PB1N2/P4PPP/R1BQK2R w KQkq - 3 9&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was just post-analyzing a game of mine with an engine and to my surprise in the position displayed above, it didn't even consider taking the knight on &lt;code&gt;h6&lt;/code&gt; as one of the top few moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can someone explain me why that is? In many positions where the opponent's knight goes to &lt;code&gt;a6&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;h6&lt;/code&gt; it's beneficial to take with an undeveloped bishop and I'm not sure why it's not here. It doubles my opponent's outer pawns which seems quite bad to me especially when he's likely to castle king side. Instead the engine prefers castling which allows the knight to go to &lt;code&gt;f5&lt;/code&gt; next square which seems like an OK square for the knight. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is my dark squared bishop that important in this position or what's the idea behind this?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21834" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-19T20:40:25.200" LastActivityDate="2020-03-20T09:27:38.153" Title="Why is Bxh6 not preferred here?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28926" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28925" CreationDate="2020-03-19T11:03:09.050" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;The main reason is, simply, not that Bxh6 is bad, but that the computer, being so strong sees that many more lines that are crushing for white. After looking at it with a computer, what I saw is that black simply cannot finish development without serious concessions....much more than Bxh6, which did not even make the top 5. That is the answer to the question &quot;Why?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S. One other comment, and I mentioned this in an &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/28906/is-there-a-better-winning-plan-from-move-37&quot;&gt;answer the other day&lt;/a&gt;, but it also comes down to &quot;cashing in too early&quot;. You have a lot of strong pieces, and black is very unfortunately placed, the Qe7 in particular, and these pieces when working together will win material eventually. Keep your threats, and build the pressure. Learning when to cash in on an advantage, and when to keep up the pressure, is a skill that is not often discussed in chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, many weaker players, and I am not lumping you in to this since I do not know your level of play, but they tend to see doubled pawns as the end-all-be-all of chess. Some doubled pawns are bad, and some are not. Here, they would not be great, and h6 is lost by force if white wants it, but there is just so much more to be had in this position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;rnb1k2r/ppppqppp/4p2n/4P3/2PP4/2PB1N2/P4PPP/R1BQK2R w KQkq - 0 9&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 9. O-O (9. Bxh6 gxh6 10. O-O O-O 11. Qd2 f5 12. exf6 (12. Qxh6 Qg7 {And you still have to win.}) 12... Rxf6 {And you do have a large advantage, but not as much as you could have.}) 9... Nf5 10. a4 {And it is impossible for black to develop effectively.} Na6 {This is best per the computer, but only delays the problems of finishing development.} (10... b6 11. Be4 c6 12. Ba3 {With a winning position.} d6 $2 13. Bxf5 exf5 14. exd6 $18) (10... d6 11. Bxf5 exf5 12. exd6 Qxd6 (12... cxd6 13. Re1 Be6 14. d5 $18) 13. Ba3 $18 {And Re1 and d5 next should black block.}) (10... O-O 11. Bc2 d6 12. Qd3 g6 13. Bg5 {With a crushing position.})&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-19T11:28:03.837" LastActivityDate="2020-03-19T11:28:03.837" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28927" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28925" CreationDate="2020-03-19T11:07:53.503" Score="21" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is my dark squared bishop that important in this position or what's&#xA;  the idea behind this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, your dark squared bishop is very important in this position. Your opponent doesn't have one, so yours is unopposed. Furthermore you have the minor advantages of the two bishops.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Doubling your opponent's pawns isn't as big a plus as you imagine in this position. Yes, it weakens Black's kingside but it also opens the g file for his rook which could, in the short term, more than compensate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, you have some very good threats with your bishop against the awkwardly placed Black queen. They don't quite work immediately but both Bg5 and Ba3 could be very embarrassing with the right preparation. A move like Qb3 prepares both and could be a good move to start with.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-03-19T11:07:53.503" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28928" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-03-19T12:05:34.223" Score="1" ViewCount="83" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there any resource where you could just plug in the positions of all the pieces on the board and, for example, see an annotated page where different people or computer-generated bots have analyzed the strengths of various possible moves?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21838" LastEditorUserId="23152" LastEditDate="2020-04-19T13:57:39.067" LastActivityDate="2020-04-26T13:04:46.377" Title="Is there any resource where you can look up a board position and read a number of suggested moves?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28929" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28936" CreationDate="2020-03-19T17:27:53.243" Score="7" ViewCount="1193" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can any of the higher rated players here (1500+) talk about their thought process during a game so I can improve my own?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, my own process goes like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Am I hanging a piece with this move?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Does this move create a hole in my camp?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Can the opponent put me in a nasty fork after this move?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21840" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2020-03-20T10:10:46.750" LastActivityDate="2020-03-20T10:10:46.750" Title="Chess thought process" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;learning&gt;&lt;board-vision&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28930" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28929" CreationDate="2020-03-19T17:42:46.633" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;The first thing is that you should have a general idea where your play is, whether on the queenside, center, or kingside. Your plan as to where your place your pieces, and how you open that part of the board is going to be based on the opening pawn structure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it is later in the game, you want to try to figure out where the opponent is weakest. From there, you want to figure out which of your pieces you can aim at that weakness. This is called &quot;planning&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From there, you have to analyze the best order of moves to move your pieces to attack that weakness, while taking into account your own weaknesses, knowing that your opponent will be trying to do the same to you. Sometimes, you have to just wait and defend if you are much worse.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A lot of this is intuitive based on your level of play, but from there, you just have to calculate variations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lastly, as I have gotten older, and tend to miss obvious things more, I like to look at every possible move for both sides, no matter how absurd a move seems. I am not analyzing them, but sometimes, it is just that simple consideration of a move that makes me see a tactic I might have missed, or a mistake I am about to make. I am only talking about spending seconds total looking at all the moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mark Dvoretsky and Artur Yusupov, and I think I have seen other strong GMs say it, say that most calculation errors happen in the first couple of moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2020-03-19T17:42:46.633" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28931" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28932" CreationDate="2020-03-19T21:13:48.150" Score="1" ViewCount="616" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;r3kb1r/ppqn1ppp/2p1pn2/4Nb2/2BP4/2N5/PPPBQPPP/2KR3R b kq - 0 10&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This position is taken from super GM game, so I am fully aware that Black might be busted here and that this question might remain unanswered. Please try to post only relevant comments and answers, i.e. ones that demonstrate a path to equality for Black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-20T01:27:36.140" LastActivityDate="2020-03-20T16:39:57.190" Title="Can Black reach full equality?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;scandinavian-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28932" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28931" CreationDate="2020-03-19T22:38:51.210" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, black is hardly busted here, and Stockfish 11 confirms this with both 10...Be7 and 10...b5 being 0.00 at a depth of 30. 10...Bb4 is also reasonable. That said, as I force in the moves it believes are best, it eventually sometimes thinks white has a slight pull, which is not surprising given the clear space advantage. At the same time, in practice, per the Mega 2020 database, the white wins 72.3% of the time from this position, so unless you play like a computer, you still may lose, and there are a virtually infinite set of possibilities for white to play while black is walking a fine line all the way. This is a line I would try to avoid in practice, and keep out of my repertoire as a matter of course.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I do not play the Scandinavian, but I have played the Caro-Kann for a long time, and this is very similar to one of the main lines, and what I can say about both is that white has more space, and that is not going away for a while, and thus this is always a little uncomfortable for black...a typical plus-equals position. In both, black must finish development, especially securing the king here since it is vulnerable to tactics, and then eventually break back with c5. Other times, it ends up an opposite-side attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most players here have played 10...Nxe5, which is horrible from both a Stockfish perspective at +1.3, and a winning percentage perspective at 82.2% for white. It is not a good move in a practical game as it solidifies white's space advantage with tempo, and puts the Bf5 at risk immediately to 10...Nxe5 11. dxe5 Nd5 12. g4 Bg6 13. f4 with a solid advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You cannot get a 100% answer to your question as it is too early in the opening to say as it is with virtually every reasonable opening where white has a small space advantage. It will always feel like white has a small advantage until it eventually levels out...or doesn't. That is chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is very close to equal, and super GMs would hold it, so the way I would play it is the solid 10...Be7. After that, there are basically two plans for white. To move the Bc4 to b3, playing prophylactically, or to play Rhe1, and eventually expand on the kingside.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are an incredible amount of possibilities here, but this will give you a place to start.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S. In a position like this, and this one is not unique, there are so many reasonable lines that it is unclear which is best for the stronger side, and thus, there are literally millions of possibilities from the moment you play 10...Be7 in just the next few moves. In cases like this, now that you have a place to start, you will need to spend a lot of time on your own with a computer not just to get a few more specific lines, but also to get a feel for the plans and move orders that may occur. Since you cannot possibly memorize every possibility, you are almost certainly going to end up on your own sooner than later, and what you need to develop is a sense of HOW to play the position correctly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;  1. e4 d5 2. exd5 Qxd5 3. Nc3 Qa5 4. d4 Nf6 5. Nf3 c6 6. Bc4 Bf5 7. Bd2 Nbd7 8. Qe2 Qc7 9. O-O-O e6 10. Ne5 Be7 11. Bb3 {Prophylactically avoiding b5.} (11. Rhe1 O-O 12. Bf4 Bd6 13. Kb1 Nd5 {And this is equal but for the one move I cannot imagine anyone playing.} 14. Bxd5 exd5 15. Nxd7 Bxd7 16. Bxd6 Qxd6 17. Qe7 Qc7 $14 {But it is the smallest of edges as rooks will soon be traded.}) 11... h5 $1 {Securing the Bf5 from g4.} 12. Bf4 Bd6 13. Rhe1 a5 {Equal per the computer, and with good counterplay.} &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are some lines based on your supplemental questions in the comments.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. e4 d5 2. exd5 Qxd5 3. Nc3 Qa5 4. d4 Nf6 5. Nf3 c6 6. Bc4 Bf5 7. Bd2 Nbd7 8. Qe2 Qc7 9. O-O-O e6 10. Ne5 Be7 11. f3 (11. f4 $6 {This is just too slow, and leads to black being better.} b5 12. Bd3 (12. Bb3 h5 13. Rde1 {And if the computer thinks that this is best, something has definitely gone wrong for white.} Nb6 $17) (12. g4 Nxe5 13. fxe5 Nxg4 14. Bd3 (14. Bb3 a5 $17) 14...Bxd3 15. cxd3 h5 $15) 12... Bxd3 13. Nxd3 b4 $15) (11. h4 {Again, too slow.} b5 12. Bd3 Bxd3 13. Nxd3 a5=) (11. h3 b5 12. Bb3 (12. g4 Bxc2 13. Bxe6 Bxd1 14. Bxf7+ Kf8 15. Rxd1 Nxe5 16. dxe5 Kxf7 17. exf6 Bxf6= {Up an exchange, but white has activity. It is dynamically equal.} 18. Qf3 (18. g5 Be5 19. Qf3+ Kg8 20. Qe4 {Transposes.}) 18... Kg8 19. g5 Be5 20. Qe4 Rd8 21. Kc2 Qe7 22. f4 Bd6) 12... a5 13. g4 Bg6 14. g5 (14. Nxg6 hxg6 15. a4 b4 16. Ne4 Nxe4 17. Qxe4 Nf6 $14 {White has maybe the tiniest of edges here. The Bb3 is not really well-placed.}) 14... Nd5 15. Bxd5 $1 (15. Nxd5 exd5 16. Nxg6 hxg6 17. Rde1 Nb6 18. a3 a4 19. Ba2 Kd8 20. h4 Bd6=) 15... exd5 16. Bf4 Qb7 17. Rhe1 (17. Nd3 Bxd3 18. Rxd3 Nf8 19. Be5 Ng6 20. Bxg7 Nf4 21. Qd2 Nxd3+ 22. Qxd3 Rg8 23. Qxh7 Bxg5+ 24. f4 $3 {To lure the B to a square that Qf5+ is a threat later.} (24. Kb1 $2 O-O-O 25. Qf5+ Qd7 26. Qxg5 f6 27. Qxf6 Rxg7 $17) 24... Bxf4+ 25. Kb1 O-O-O 26. Bf6 Bd6 27. Bxd8 Rxd8 28. Rf1 Rf8 $14 {But almost equal.}) 17... O-O $1 18. Nxg6 fxg6 19. Qxe7 Rxf4 $14 {But black has good counterplay against the weak pawns.}) 11... h5 12. Bf4 (12. Bd3 {The computer likes this move, but I cannot imagine that it gives white a lot.} Bxd3 13. Nxd3 b5=) 12... b5 13. Bb3 (13. Ng6 Bd6 14. Bxd6 Qxd6 15. Nxh8 bxc4 {And Ke7 next.}) 13... Bd6 14. Kb1 a5 {With complicated play for both sides that the computer says it equal.}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-20T16:39:57.190" LastActivityDate="2020-03-20T16:39:57.190" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28933" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28939" CreationDate="2020-03-20T02:27:27.790" Score="1" ViewCount="35" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the position at 14:28 of &lt;a href=&quot;https://youtu.be/DMcDNVSXyd0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; video, why can't black just make the move f6? I wish to know as it was stated in the video that black will lose the other rook.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;2k3r1/ppp1qpPp/2n1b3/2b3B1/2ppN1P1/8/PPP2P1P/R2QR1K1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21830" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-03-20T03:34:06.103" LastActivityDate="2020-03-20T09:04:40.923" Title="Moving f6 pawn in Max Lange Attack" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;italian-game&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28934" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-03-20T02:37:00.887" Score="4" ViewCount="233" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am looking for chess &lt;strong&gt;freeware&lt;/strong&gt; that &lt;strong&gt;ideally&lt;/strong&gt; has the following facilities, and I am wondering what compromises I'll need to accept. I am also requesting the results of your experiences.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;List Of Needs&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;It needs to be similar to what the old Window software called &lt;strong&gt;Chessbd&lt;/strong&gt; provided. I would like the gui to allow creating a (2nd) &lt;strong&gt;variations&lt;/strong&gt; window.  The image below illustrates what I am looking for.&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/KEHRE.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/KEHRE.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I would like to be able to &lt;strong&gt;paste&lt;/strong&gt; pgn (from the clipboard), so that if I'm examining a game from another source, I don't have to save the pgn to a file and then load the file.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I would prefer it if the software allows connection to a separate engine. If not, I want the software to have its own engine.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I would prefer it if the software allows a connection to endgame tablebases.  &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I would prefer it if the software allows connection to opening book. If not, I want the software to have its own book.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;My main PC is Fedora, with Wine, and a secondary PC runs Windows 10 (for other reasons).  I use TeamViewer (freeware) for remote access to the secondary pc from the Fedora pc.  I therefore would mildly prefer linux compatible or linux-wine compatible.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I appreciate any insights.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Addendum - Arena chess&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First of all, thanks to djnavas for his answer re Arena chess.  I just spent some time with Arena and &lt;strong&gt;I was very impressed with it.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Unfortunately, unless I am mistaken, it will not do what I want.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I installed and ran Arena, entered &lt;code&gt;setup&lt;/code&gt; to enter a position, and then &#xA;selected &lt;code&gt;Edit&lt;/code&gt; in the &lt;code&gt;Navigation Bar&lt;/code&gt;.  This allowed me to turn off the engine(s) &#xA;and make the moves for both sides.  After entering a few moves, I selected &#xA;&lt;code&gt;Options : Variation Board&lt;/code&gt;.  &lt;strong&gt;Unfortunately&lt;/strong&gt;, the Variation Board did &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;permit me to &lt;strong&gt;manually add a variation.&lt;/strong&gt;  Further, the Variation Board did &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;provide &lt;strong&gt;its own pgn-list-window.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;For those of you who want to experience what I am looking for:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you &lt;strong&gt;google&lt;/strong&gt; : &lt;code&gt;Chessbd&lt;/code&gt; you will see the following link: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.dfong.com/chessbd/index.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.dfong.com/chessbd/index.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I just downloaded and started to run slic26v8.exe (i.e. the downloaded Chessbd installer) in Fedora 30, under wine. It looks like the installer was going to work.  In another forum, a user responded that slic26v8.exe would not run under Windows 7.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you can't get the installer to work, can you provide free cloud storage (or any other facility) for me to upload a zip file that looks like it will be less than 10mb?  If so, I can upload the zip, you can download-unzip it, then try it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of particular note are the Alt-V command that will create an analysis window at any desired point in the mainline pgn, and the Alt-3 command which will append a scrollable pgn sub-window to the analysis window. This way, you can observe the pgn as you are manually trying different variations.  These variations are automatically added to the&#xA;mainline pgn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you close the Variations window, you revert back to the main window. Then you can traverse backwards or forwards to a different point in the pgn.  When traversing, if you reach a position with a variation, the gui &#xA;gives you the choice which move to select.  At any point while traversing, you can open a new variations window, via Alt-V.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Addendum 2 - ChessPad 2 and Arena Chess&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks again to djnavas for the continued interest.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I tried ChessPad 2 in Fedora 30, via Wine.  Invoking its [Help:Help Topics] menu option seemed to indicate that Help is not available.  Anyway, experimenting, after setting up a position and manually playing a few moves for both sides, &lt;strong&gt;I was unable to leave the display board open and start a second display board.&lt;/strong&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Am I missing something here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;...I suggest you to start not with a position, but instead with a pgn&#xA;  from the start position... &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Questions/comments:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Does &quot;start position&quot; refer to the position at the start of an &#xA;actual game?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If not, what does &quot;start position&quot; refer to and how could such a strategy &lt;em&gt;approach&lt;/em&gt; duplicating the functionality of Chessbd in Arena Chess, or something like it?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If so, this would not be practical for examining (for example) a chess endgame study.  Getting past that, again, how could such a strategy &lt;em&gt;approach&lt;/em&gt; duplicating the functionality of Chessbd in Arena Chess, or something like it?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17862" LastEditorUserId="17862" LastEditDate="2020-04-18T01:41:34.763" LastActivityDate="2020-04-18T01:41:34.763" Title="Looking for special chess freeware" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;pgn&gt;&lt;tablebases&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28935" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-03-20T04:00:48.463" Score="2" ViewCount="83" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the position at 15:29 of &lt;a href=&quot;https://youtu.be/DMcDNVSXyd0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; video, what are some possible variations the line starting with the move 12...Qe5 that lead to an advantage for white?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Bc5 4. d4 exd4 5. O-O Nf6 6. e5 d5 7. exf6 dxc4 8. Re1+ Be6 9. Ng5 Qd5 10. Nc3 Qf5 11. Nce4 O-O-O 12. g4 Qe5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21830" LastEditorUserId="9025" LastEditDate="2020-03-20T15:17:38.000" LastActivityDate="2020-03-20T15:17:38.000" Title="Variation in Max Lange Attack" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;italian-game&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="8" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28936" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28929" CreationDate="2020-03-20T05:41:13.733" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would recomend getting tips on how to think from CJS Purdy's &lt;a href=&quot;http://beginchess.com/2007/02/06/purdys-thinking-system/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;blog&lt;/a&gt;; see the associated links on the right hand pane.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;CJS Purdy was the first World Correspondence Chess Champion. Bobby Fischer praised his didactic abilities.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My view is that the basis of winning chess revolves around the double threat. (A triple threat is rarer but even better!) The double threat may be directed at your opponent's material but may also be directed at certain key squares in the position. You must be able to see quickly all the basic double attacks such as the pattern of forks each piece is capable of and of course the possible double attacks your opponent could unleash!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your thought process will vary depending on whether it is your move or your opponent's move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13074" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2020-03-20T10:10:38.740" LastActivityDate="2020-03-20T10:10:38.740" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28937" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28942" CreationDate="2020-03-20T06:06:04.223" Score="5" ViewCount="2107" Body="&lt;p&gt;So I've been looking at the &quot;Game of the Century&quot; between &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/study/oh3EZUl5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Bobby Fischer and Donald Byrne&lt;/a&gt;. There's something I can't get over.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In move 18, that queen is tempting, but there's also a knight on c3 that is not immediately protected.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;That knight on c3 appears to be hanging&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;r3r1k1/pp3pbp/1qp1b1p1/2B5/2BP4/Q1n2N2/P4PPP/3R1K1R w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a reason, which I don't see, why White shouldn't just take the knight here? It seems to me that this takes the wind out of the sails of most of Black's attacks. It appears Black has no good way to recover, as Black still has to move his queen or lose it and the knight. And there's suddenly not a lot of good spaces to move it to either.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18599" LastEditorUserId="15223" LastEditDate="2020-03-21T08:29:46.497" LastActivityDate="2020-03-21T08:29:46.497" Title="Is Bobby Fischer hanging a knight?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;fischer&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28938" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28937" CreationDate="2020-03-20T06:35:24.053" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;After white takes the knight, black could play Qxc5 and then white couldn't retake with xc5 as the d-pawn is pinned to the white queen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21526" LastActivityDate="2020-03-20T06:35:24.053" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28939" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28933" CreationDate="2020-03-20T09:04:40.923" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;After &lt;code&gt;f6&lt;/code&gt; White takes with the bishop and Black loses a piece (bishop on &lt;code&gt;c5&lt;/code&gt; since &lt;code&gt;d6&lt;/code&gt; square is attacked by the white knight and &lt;code&gt;f8&lt;/code&gt; is attacked by the white pawn; no other piece is protecting the bishop).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastActivityDate="2020-03-20T09:04:40.923" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28940" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28925" CreationDate="2020-03-20T09:27:38.153" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;You have the bishop pair plus that dark knight at h6 is not at a good position. Taking that knight may also open the g-file giving an opening for the rook at h8 to attack while leaving the Dark King at the center. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Exchanging that dark square bishop may weaken the pawn island on the dark squares.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21846" LastActivityDate="2020-03-20T09:27:38.153" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28941" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28929" CreationDate="2020-03-20T09:51:42.190" Score="2" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What are the priorities/responsibilities of my pieces?(there are times where a piece is protecting more than a single square.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is there a move that can force the opponent a certain move? If there is, how can I take advantage of it?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is there a move that has multiple purposes?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;How will my opponent respond to my move?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is the sacrifice worth it?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These are the questions I ask myself when I play long games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21846" LastActivityDate="2020-03-20T09:51:42.190" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28942" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28937" CreationDate="2020-03-20T10:13:56.337" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would not normally answer this question since the other answer points out the basis for the first move of the variation, but only the first move. It left out why white is so lost in that variation, and why Byrne did not play it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At the end of both lines below, there are written notes explaining the resulting position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [Event &quot;New York Rosenwald-03&quot;]&#xA; [Site &quot;New York&quot;]&#xA; [Date &quot;1956.10.17&quot;]&#xA; [Round &quot;8&quot;]&#xA; [White &quot;Byrne, Donald&quot;]&#xA; [Black &quot;Fischer, Robert James&quot;]&#xA; [Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA; [ECO &quot;D97&quot;]&#xA; [PlyCount &quot;82&quot;]&#xA; [EventDate &quot;1956.10.07&quot;]&#xA; [EventType &quot;tourn&quot;]&#xA; [EventRounds &quot;11&quot;]&#xA; [EventCountry &quot;USA&quot;]&#xA; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. Nf3 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 Bg7 4. d4 O-O 5. Bf4 d5 6. Qb3 dxc4 7. Qxc4 c6 8. e4 Nbd7 9. Rd1 Nb6 10. Qc5 Bg4 11. Bg5 Na4 12. Qa3 Nxc3 13. bxc3 Nxe4 14. Bxe7 Qb6 15. Bc4 Nxc3 16. Bc5 Rfe8+ 17. Kf1 Be6 18. Bxb6 (18. Qxc3 Qxc5 19. dxc5 (19. Rc1 Bxc4+ 20. Qxc4 Qf5 {And in this position, it is particularly hard to get the white king out because g3 is impossible due to Qxf3 (and if it moves or becomes defended, then Qh3 sealing in the Rh1), and again white is down a pawn with the worse minor piece, d4 is weak, and white is behind in development with a weak king. That the queens did not come off exacerbate that issue.}) 19... Bxc3 20. Bxe6 Rxe6 {And white is lost because he is down a pawn, the black bishop is much better than the white knight, both a2 and especially c5 are weak, and white is behind in development and has to deal with getting the Rh1 out. One more thing that would probably come into play also is that with the dark-squared bishop, f2 is particularly vulnerable too.}) 18... Bxc4+ 19. Kg1 Ne2+ 20. Kf1 Nxd4+ 21. Kg1 Ne2+ 22. Kf1 Nc3+ 23. Kg1 axb6 24. Qb4 Ra4 25. Qxb6 Nxd1 26. h3 Rxa2 27. Kh2 Nxf2 28. Re1 Rxe1 29. Qd8+ Bf8 30. Nxe1 Bd5 31. Nf3 Ne4 32. Qb8 b5 33. h4 h5 34. Ne5 Kg7 35. Kg1 Bc5+ 36. Kf1 Ng3+ 37. Ke1 Bb4+ 38. Kd1 Bb3+ 39. Kc1 Ne2+ 40. Kb1 Nc3+ 41. Kc1 Rc2# 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2020-03-20T10:13:56.337" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28944" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28946" CreationDate="2020-03-20T11:41:06.830" Score="13" ViewCount="2463" Body="&lt;p&gt;So I'm an (unranked, but ~1500 on lichess) amateur who's been working on developing my opening strategy for some time, and I've basically been using the King's Gambit for a variety of reasons:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It is easy to play and fairly straightforward&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Castling opens my kingside rook, which I tend to use a lot&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Most casual players are unfamiliar with the technicalities of the gambit&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While I may not be using the King's Gambit for the most optimal reasons, I am fairly comfortable with it and usually play the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;e4 e5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;f4 exf4&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Nf3&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After this I pretty much know all the major strategy, and can also play against some of the more common defenses (classical defence, Falkbeer Counter Gambit, etc).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What really gets me, however, is when players just ignore the gambit altogether and do something like&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Nf3 Nc6&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now what am I supposed to do? I know that these are not good moves and will be appropriately penalized, but I often find it frustrating because all of a sudden I am placed in an unsure position. This particular case has happened to me several times in the past, but players often also play other strange moves like &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Nf3 d6&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What would I attempt when players simply ignore the Gambit (i.e. neither accept nor defend?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21637" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-20T17:21:46.633" LastActivityDate="2020-03-20T17:21:46.633" Title="What to play if someone ignores your King's Gambit?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;gambits&gt;&lt;kings-gambit&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28945" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28935" CreationDate="2020-03-20T12:09:07.213" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In that position, 12...Qe5 is the main line since the other lines all lead to clear advantages for white. 12...Qd5 and 12...Qg6 are forced losses in short order, while 12...Qg4, even though not best, it leads to crazy lines, which I also added to the analysis. Even then, there are a thousand more lines, but I added in only some of the most reasonable alternatives. If you wonder about about a line that was not included in a tactical sequence of captures, there is probably some obvious win that you should be able to find with a little thought.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After 12...Qe5, there are only two decent moves for white, which both lead to roughly equal games, but it is still incredibly complicated: 13.Nxe6, which is the main move, and even 13.fxg7 is not bad.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I used both my database, and what it shows has been played before, and a fairly strong computer running Stockfish 11 to come up with these lines. There is A LOT of stuff here, and I do not recommend trying to memorize all of it if that is your goal, but you can play through it and just enjoy some of the tactics.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In super tactical lines like this, especially as you get stronger, many players memorize a few of the main branches of such lines, but they know that if the opponent varies from them, that there is something there, and spend more time to try to find it over-the-board. In other words, the opponent not playing the memorized line is like a big flag waving that there is something hidden there, and you have to find it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Bc5 4. d4 exd4 5. O-O Nf6 6. e5 d5 7. exf6 dxc4 8. Re1+ Be6 9. Ng5 Qd5 10. Nc3 Qf5 11. Nce4 O-O-O 12. g4 Qe5 {This is the main move because the other two are bad to just losing in a few moves.} (12... Qd5 $4 13. fxg7 Rhg8 14. Nf6 Qd6 15. Nge4 Qe5 16. f4 d3+ 17. Kg2 Qd4 18. c3 $18 {And the queen is trapped. This has been played three times in my database.}) (12... Qxg4+ $2 13. Qxg4 Bxg4 14. Nxf7 gxf6 $1 (14... Bd6 15. Nxd8 Rxd8 16. Nxd6+ cxd6 (16... Rxd6 $4 17. Re8+ Kd7 18. fxg7 $18) 17. fxg7 $16) 15. Nxh8 Bb4 (15... Rxh8 16. Nxc5 Nb4 17. f3 Bf5 18. c3 Nc2 19. Bf4 Nxa1 20. Rxa1 dxc3 21. bxc3 $18) (15... Bh3 16. Nf7 Rg8+ 17. Ng3 Bb4 18. Re4 Bf5 19. Re2 d3 20. Re3 Bg6 (20... d2 21. Bxd2 Bxd2 22. Nh6 $18) 21. c3 Bc5 22. Nh6 Rd8 23. Nf1 Bxe3 24. Bxe3 $16) 16. c3 dxc3 17. bxc3 Nd4 (17... Ne5 18. Bf4 Nf3+ 19. Kg2 Nxe1+ 20. Rxe1 Be7 21. Ng3 Ba3 22. f3 Bd7 23. Nf7 Re8 24. Rd1 $16) 18. Bf4 f5 (18...Nf3+ 19. Kg2 Nxe1+ 20. Rxe1 Be7 21. Ng3 Ba3 {As above.}) 19. cxb4 Nf3+ 20. Kf1 Nxe1 (20... fxe4 21. Rxe4 Bf5 (21... Rxh8 22. Rxc4 c6 $18) 22. Nf7 Bxe4 (22...Rg8 23. Nd6+ $3 {Only move.} cxd6 (23... Kd7 $4 24. Nxf5 Rg1+ 25. Ke2 Rxa1 26. Kxf3 $18) 24. Rxc4+ Kd7 25. Rd1 $18) 23. Nxd8 Kxd8 24. Ke2 $16) 21. Nf7 Nd3 (21... Nc2 22. Rc1 Rf8 $4 23. Ned6+ cxd6 24. Nxd6+ Kd7 25. Rxc2) 22. Nxd8 Nxf4 (22... fxe4 23. Bg5 h6 24. Bf6 c3 25. Bxc3 Kxd8 26. Kg2 $18) 23. Nxb7 Kxb7 24. Nc3 $16) (12... Qg6 $4 13. Nxe6 fxe6 14. fxg7 $18 {As both Bc5 and Rh8 hang.}) 13. Nxe6 fxe6 (13... Qxe6 $4 14. Nxc5 $16) 14. fxg7 Rhg8 15. Bh6 {It is important to prevent that rook from becoming active against your king.} d3 (15... Be7 {Keeping an extra piece on g5, which may be relevant later. It also stops Nxc5.} 16. Qf3 Qd5 (16... d3 17. c3) 17. Qf7 $1 $16 {Stopping Ne5 with Rad1 next.}) 16. c3 d2 {This is the main line, but there may be room for improvement here.} 17. Re2 Rd3 18. Qf1 Qd5 19. Nxd2 {This natural computer move is new, and should leave black looking for improvements on move 16.} (19. Rd1 {This is the line that was played previously.} Ne5 20. Nf6 Qf3 21. Nxg8 Qxg4+ 22. Kh1 Qf3+ 23. Kg1 {Withe perpetual check.}) 19... e5 (19... Ne5 $2 20. Rxe5 Qxe5 21. Nxc4 Qe4 22. Ne5 $1 $18) 20. Ne4 Qe6 21. g5 $16 Qg4+ 22. Ng3 $18&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2020-03-20T12:09:07.213" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28946" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28944" CreationDate="2020-03-20T12:27:19.770" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, it is funny that 4.Nc3 is then the most popular move, with 4.d4 a distant second. In practice though, 4.d4 scores a very high 73.3% for white, compared to only a typical 56.7% for 4.Nc3. In addition, Stockfish much prefers 4.d4, and it is not even close (-.54 to +.92).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I will take that big center, and get my pawn back with an open f-file any day. The reality is that you do not have to do much there other than to develop your pieces as black has no space. I will give a suggested setup below. Black really should fight back earlier, try to hold the pawn, or maybe not take on f4 to begin with.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the record, as soon as they play exf4, they have accepted the gambit, but they may not try to hold it with g5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. e4 e5 2. f4 exf4 3. Nf3 Nc6 4. d4 d6 5. Bxf4 Bg4 6. Nc3 Nf6 7. Be2 Be7 8. O-O O-O 9. Qd2 {With a fantastic position.}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is a suggestion based on your supplemental question. Keep in mind that there are a virtually infinite number of ways that black can deviate from the path, but just develop your pieces, and you will get a decent game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. e4 e5 2. f4 Nc6 3. Nf3 d6 (3... f5 {The most popular move here.} 4. d3 {This is the main line, but does not really try to punish black.} (4. exf5 {Might be a better try, but there are many lines here.}) 4... d6 5. Nc3 Nf6 6. g3 g6 7. Bg2 Bg7 8. O-O) 4. Nc3 Nd4 {And this strange moving of a piece twice is the computer's first choice, and the most commonly played in practice.} 5. d3 {And just finish developing with Be3, Be2 and Qd2.} Bg4 6. Be2 Bxf3 7. Bxf3 Nf6 8. O-O Be7 9. Be3 $16 {With a very comfortable game.}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-20T17:01:55.100" LastActivityDate="2020-03-20T17:01:55.100" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28947" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28944" CreationDate="2020-03-20T13:53:10.140" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;About the second line, 1.e4 e5 2.f4 exf4 3. Nf3 d6:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This line is known as the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King%27s_Gambit,_Fischer_Defense&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;King's Gambit, Fischer defense&lt;/a&gt;. One thing it isn't is &quot;ignoring your gambit&quot; - Black is stopping you from playing Ne5 after the well-known Black maneuver ...g5-g4 in the King's gambit main lines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The most common line now is 4. d4, when 4...g5 5. h4 g4 forces White to play 6. Ng1 (6. Ng5? f6 traps the knight). Neither side has developed a piece after six moves, but White has typical King's gambit compensation: central control, open lines, and quick development. To hold on to the pawn on f4 Black will usually play 6...Bh6 or 6...Qf6, both of which you can follow up with 7. Nc3 followed by developing the queen and advancing in the center.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Alternatively, you can play 4.Bc4, when again Black needs to play weakening moves like h6-g5 in order to hold on to the gambit pawn (if Black doesn't hold on to the gambit pawn, then you can play Bxf4 at your leisure and enjoy the central control). Looking at the lines with an engine, play is reminiscent of the main lines, especially if you challenge Black's position with h4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastActivityDate="2020-03-20T13:53:10.140" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28948" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28937" CreationDate="2020-03-20T14:07:36.583" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;There're some notes on this game on &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Game_of_the_Century_(chess)&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think the key point is this: if Bryne takes the knight, he's going into a cheerless endgame after 18...Qxc5!. He'd be down material and have positional weaknesses to boot. The best he can hope for is a draw; against a player of equal caliber, his position is losing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore he goes for the complexities of taking the offered queen. Objectively it is not the best move, but it is complex, and complex positions give strong players a chance to outplay weaker ones. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastActivityDate="2020-03-20T14:07:36.583" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28949" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28944" CreationDate="2020-03-20T14:48:41.437" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Naman Kumar asks &quot;Now what am I supposed to do?&quot; if the gambit pawn is declined.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Naman, you play the King's Gambit for sharp, tactical games (although I think it was David Bronstein who played it as a positional opening?) so by declining the gambit you already have a small concession by Black. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your play should be to rapidly develop and castle: so typically you would play moves like Nf3, Bc4, O-O depending of course on exactly what Black responds. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A plan to open the f file is good with a direct attack against the weak f7 square. &#xA;If you can open the centre before Black can castle you will get an advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another plan could be to delay the development of the Kt on b1 and play c3 with the idea of creating with Qb3 a nasty battery against f7 with the B on c4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As Black I always take the gambit pawn and aim for the Fischer defence: it works well in online blitz!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13074" LastActivityDate="2020-03-20T14:48:41.437" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28950" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-03-20T14:55:02.897" Score="1" ViewCount="132" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have used &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chesspositiontrainer.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess Position Trainer&lt;/a&gt; for years.  I now only play &quot;postal&quot; chess and no longer memorize openings.  Also chess position trainer is the only application I have the requires windows and I would like to stop using windows.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some of my openings seem to be too large to import.  I have tried importing into chess tempo, ChessBase, and a local HIARCS chess explorer and they all error on import for large openings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess Position Trainer supports exporting as a single PGN or a game per variation.  exporting as a game per variation scales better but still does not work for my largest openings such as King's Indian as black.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How can I migrate my openings from Chess Position Trainer to another database?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am using Chess Position Trainer 5.04&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My preference was to use Chess Tempo but would be happy for suggestions of other chess database software to try, either browser based or local for my mac.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17425" LastEditorUserId="17425" LastEditDate="2020-03-20T16:39:12.893" LastActivityDate="2020-03-21T09:31:57.577" Title="How can I migrate my openings from Chess Position Trainer to another database when the pgn too large to import?" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;pgn&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28951" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14210" CreationDate="2020-03-20T18:20:34.570" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This answer uses some ideas from Andrew Sainsbury's answer. I'll make a guess. According to &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.wikihow.com/Speed-Run-a-Video-Game&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.wikihow.com/Speed-Run-a-Video-Game&lt;/a&gt;, sometimes when people start speedrunning a game, the speedrunning can transfer into other tasks. There was a guy with username EnNopp112 on www.twitch.tv who said his speedrunning transferred to other ares such as making a sandwich.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think that similarly, the habits of playing like you're playing Blitz can transfer to matches with a longer time control like a 90 minute base time with 30 second increments.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think that in Blitz tournaments, you have less time to think. You can expect that your opponent also has less time to think as well. In general, when you have less time to think, you cannot think as far ahead. I think that sometimes when somebody is playing Blitz a lot but no chess with a longer time control or no clock, after they immediately start playing a chess game with a longer time control, they still have the habits from when they were playing Blitz. They don't take advantage of the time they have to think further ahead whereas their opponent does. If they keep their habits from when they were playing Blitz in a regular tournament, that might cause their rating to go down.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13189" LastActivityDate="2020-03-20T18:20:34.570" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28953" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28954" CreationDate="2020-03-20T19:15:01.953" Score="2" ViewCount="254" Body="&lt;p&gt;I often wonder if it is better to resign or keep playing at a disadvantage after making an obvious blunder (for instance, leaving a piece hanging, only to realize too late that you made the mistake).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let me be clear: I am referring only to casual games (not tournament), and my main goals are 1) to have fun and 2) to improve. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It can be frustrating to keep playing at a disadvantage, but does that additional challenge help make you stronger, or is it better to just resign and start a new game?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An example would be the game below, where I blundered (black) on move 13 and left my bishop hanging... should I keep playing or resign?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nf6 4.Ng5 d5 5.exd5 Na5 6.Bb5+ Bd7 7.Bxd7+ Qxd7 8.Nc3 Nxd5 9.d3 Nc6 10.O-O Nxc3 11.bxc3 O-O-O 12.f4 f6 13.Ne4 Bc5+&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21834" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-20T19:28:35.417" LastActivityDate="2020-03-21T16:06:58.603" Title="After a blunder, is it better to resign or keep playing?" Tags="&lt;etiquette&gt;&lt;blunder&gt;&lt;resigning&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28954" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28953" CreationDate="2020-03-20T19:27:26.827" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, I would try and keep a very straight face, and maybe your opponent will &quot;trust&quot; you, and overlook the blunder. It has happened before even with very strong players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That said, if the opponent takes it, you should probably decide based on your level of skill and your perceived level of skill of the opponent, and if the position is messy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, if you are playing a master, and the position is just a clear piece down, you should probably resign. If you are playing an 800-player, then it is very possible that you can play on despite your error.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What I mean by &quot;messy&quot; is if the position is a tactical mess even without the piece, it is more likely that your opponent can still make an error, but if it is just a clear piece down with no tricks, as in the position you gave, then you may as well resign if your opponent is a reasonably decent player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lastly, is it a blitz game, or an over-the-board tournament game? (I know in this case, you said it was casual.) If it is blitz, it really does not matter as much either way since it will be over soon; but if it is OTB, it matters more, but your opponent also has that much more time to figure things out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the end, there is no right or wrong answer, and you have to evaluate the circumstances, and do what you think is best at that moment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do keep in mind that if it were a tournament game, that playing it out may also tire you for the next game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2020-03-20T19:27:26.827" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28956" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28959" CreationDate="2020-03-20T19:39:02.590" Score="8" ViewCount="430" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Rated Correspondence game&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;https://lichess.org/GILERcIS&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2020.02.26&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;-&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;mathwhiz16&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;theMortician&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1/2-1/2&quot;]&#xA;[UTCDate &quot;2020.02.26&quot;]&#xA;[UTCTime &quot;23:31:55&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;1795&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;2017&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteRatingDiff &quot;+3&quot;]&#xA;[BlackRatingDiff &quot;-6&quot;]&#xA;[Variant &quot;Standard&quot;]&#xA;[TimeControl &quot;-&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;D02&quot;]&#xA;[Opening &quot;Queen's Pawn Game: London System&quot;]&#xA;[Termination &quot;Normal&quot;]&#xA;[Annotator &quot;lichess.org&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 Nf6 2. Bf4 d5 3. Nf3 { D02 Queen's Pawn Game: London System } Bf5 4. e3 e6 5. Nbd2 Bd6 6. Bg3 Nbd7 7. Nh4 Ne4?! { (-0.44 → 0.11) Inaccuracy. Bg4 was best. } (7... Bg4 8. f3) 8. Nxf5 exf5 9. Bd3 Ndf6 10. O-O O-O 11. Nf3 Nxg3 12. hxg3 Ne4?! { (-0.37 → 0.42) Inaccuracy. g6 was best. } (12... g6 13. Rc1 c6 14. c4 dxc4 15. Bxc4 Kg7 16. Bd3 Qd7 17. a3 h6 18. Qa4 Rfe8 19. Qc2) 13. c4 dxc4 14. Bxc4 Kh8?! { (-0.14 → 0.47) Inaccuracy. Qe7 was best. } (14... Qe7 15. Re1 c6 16. Bd3 Rfe8 17. Rc1 Rad8 18. Qb3 g6 19. Re2 Bb8 20. Qd1 Rc8 21. Qb3) 15. Qb3 Qe7 16. Qxb7 Rab8 17. Qxa7 Rxb2? { (0.77 → 1.95) Mistake. Nxg3 was best. } (17... Nxg3) 18. Qa5?! { (1.95 → 0.99) Inaccuracy. Rab1 was best. } (18. Rab1 Rc2 19. Qa4 Rc3 20. Rb3 Rxb3 21. Qxb3 c5 22. dxc5 Nxc5 23. Qc2 Qe4 24. Qxe4 fxe4) 18... Bb4? { (0.99 → 2.68) Mistake. g6 was best. } (18... g6) 19. Qxf5 Nd2 20. Nxd2 Bxd2 21. Rab1 Qb4?! { (2.84 → 4.30) Inaccuracy. Rb6 was best. } (21... Rb6 22. Rxb6 cxb6 23. Bd5 Qc7 24. Be4 g6 25. Qf6+ Kg8 26. Rb1 Ba5 27. Bc6 Rd8 28. d5) 22. Rxb2 Qxb2 23. Rb1 Qa3 24. Qe5 Ba5 25. Rb3 Qxa2? { (3.89 → 8.20) Mistake. Qc1+ was best. } (25... Qc1+ 26. Kh2) 26. Bxf7?? { (8.20 → 2.23) Blunder. Qe7 was best. } (26. Qe7 Rc8 27. Qd7 Rf8 28. Qxf7 Rd8 29. Kh2 Qc2 30. Rb5 Qg6 31. Qxg6 hxg6 32. Rxa5 Rf8) 26... Bb6?! { (2.23 → 3.23) Inaccuracy. Be1 was best. } (26... Be1 27. f3) 27. Qe7 Qa8 28. Rb5 Qd8 29. Qxd8 Rxd8 30. Re5 g6 31. Re8+?! { (2.67 → 1.77) Inaccuracy. Bc4 was best. } (31. Bc4) 31... Rxe8 32. Bxe8 Kg7 33. Bc6 Kf6 34. Kf1 h5 35. Ke2 g5 36. Kf3 Ba5 37. Be4 Be1 38. Ke2 Bb4 39. f3 Bd6 40. g4 hxg4 41. fxg4 Bg3 42. Kf3 Bd6 43. Bf5 Ba3 44. e4 Bb2 45. e5+ Ke7 46. Ke4 Bc1 47. Bc8 Bd2 48. Kf5 Be3 49. d5 Bd2 50. Bb7 Be3 51. Bc6 Bd2 52. Ke4 Bc3 53. Bb5 Bb2 54. Kf5 Bc1 55. Ba6 Bd2 56. Bc8 Bc1 57. Be6 Bd2 58. Ke4 Bc3 59. Bg8 Bb2 60. Bh7 Bc3 61. Bg6 Bb2 { The game is a draw. } 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The annotations/variations are from Stockfish on lichess. I am White(mathwhiz16). After playing a confusing middlegame where I missed several tactical shots, I played 31. Re8+ because I was sure being up two pawns and having a passed pawn was enough to ensure victory, regardless of bishops of opposite colors. Needless to say, I botched the ending. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is the position after 31. Re8+ a draw?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If not, where did I mess up? I think my final mistake was 49. d5, ensuring my king was tied to my pawn, but was it winning before that? After that? What is the correct strategy to win?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is the final position a draw or did I miss something obvious?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that Stockfish(depth=21) gives White at a permanent +1 advantage so it's possible I missed something.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13509" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-01T15:06:36.490" LastActivityDate="2020-08-04T15:21:04.190" Title="Opposite colored bishops endgame: Is this a draw?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;bishops&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28957" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28956" CreationDate="2020-03-20T19:50:52.557" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is the position after 31. Re8+ a draw?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes. With opposite coloured bishops you need to be able to generate two passed pawns and they must also be far enough apart. If they are too close then the opponent's bishop and king can cover both of them. This is why you need to know your endgames. Without this knowledge it is very easy to turn a winning position into a drawn one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-03-20T19:50:52.557" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28958" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28953" CreationDate="2020-03-20T20:16:55.297" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would not resign this. With opposite side castling and queens still on the board, anything can happen. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="307" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-03-21T15:46:14.383" LastActivityDate="2020-03-21T15:46:14.383" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28959" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28956" CreationDate="2020-03-20T20:27:23.303" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I disagree that it is a draw. In practice, it might not be a good practical decision to trade the rooks there if you are not sure it is a win, but it was almost certainly a win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Despite the opposite-colored bishops, you are up two pawns, but more importantly, and the reason it is still a win, is that the black pawn is on the h-file, and the unbalanced pawns make this untenable for black. If it had been on the f-file, I would agree that it was a draw. It also helps that you can play the K to d3, then f4, e4, and e5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In opposite-colored bishop endings, the stronger side wants to keep the pawns on the opposite color of the bishop to control both colors, making it easier to bring the king up and help the passed pawns advance; while the weaker side, black here, wants to keep the pawns on the same color of his bishop trying to use the dark squares to blockade. That is just not possible for black to accomplish here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is not every possible line, but I used a lot of endgame experience on the master level to try plans that would make some sense, and after the first few moves bringing the kings up, all the Stockfish evals are at least +5, and shortly after, they go to +9, which indicates a guaranteed win. I stopped all the analysis below when it got to +9 or greater.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;3r3k/2p2B1p/1b4p1/4R3/3P4/4P1P1/5PP1/6K1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. Re8+ Rxe8 2. Bxe8 Kg7 3. Kf1 Kf6 (3... g5 {Trying the plan to put the pawns on the dark squares.} 4. f4 h6 5. Ke2 Kf6 6. Bc6 gxf4 (6... Ke6 $2 {The evals here are already +9.} 7. Kd3 Kd6 8. Ba4 Ba5 9. e4 Be1 10. f5 $18) 7. gxf4 Kf5 8. d5 Ba5 9. Kf3 $18) 4. Ke2 Ke7 (4... c5 5. d5 Ke5 (5... c4 6. f4 Kf5 7. Kf3 c3 8. e4+ Kf6 9. e5+ Ke7 10. Ba4 $18) 6. Bc6 g5 7. f4+ Kf5 8. d6 gxf4 9. gxf4 c4 10. Bd5 c3 11. Kf3 Kf6 12. Bb3 Bc5 13. e4 $18) 5. Ba4 Kd6 (5... g5 6. f4 h6 7. Kd3 Ba5 8. e4 Be1 9. f5 Bxg3 10. e5 $18) 6. Bb3 {To prepare d5 should black play c5 trying to trade the pawn off. This only works because white has a pawn on f4.} h6 7. f4 Ba5 8. e4 $18&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Supplemental analysis of the game based on Quintec's request below.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;3r3k/2p2B1p/1b4p1/4R3/3P4/4P1P1/5PP1/6K1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. Re8+ Rxe8 2. Bxe8 Kg7 3. Bc6 {There is no harm here, but you should really get in the habit of centralizing your king early in the endgame.} Kf6 4. Kf1 h5 $4 {In opposite-colored-bishop endings, these belong on the other color trying to setup a blockade. Here g6+h5 are just targets.} 5. Ke2 {Not bad, but f4 again with the possible line.} (5. f4 g5 6. Ke2 Ba5 {Or any move really.} (6... g4 $4 7. Be8 $18) (6... Ke7 7. Kd3 Ba5 8. e4 Be1 9. e5 Bxg3 10. f5 $18) 7. Be8 h4 8. gxh4 gxh4 (8... gxf4 9. exf4 $18) 9. e4 $18) 5... g5 6. Kf3 {Still f4.} Ba5 7. Be4 {There is nothing wrong with this in terms of spoiling the position, but it is clear that you are already headed down the wrong path.} Be1 8. Ke2 Bb4 9. f3 $2 {The wrong idea.} Bd6 $2 (9... c5 {The best try, and already close to drawing, but not quite. Even in the closest line, black will need to play perfectly, and know endgame theory.} 10. d5 (10. dxc5 $2 Bxc5 11. f4 Be7 {The only move per the computer, and the hidden point is that the Be7 will need to be able to take on h4 soon.} 12. Bc6 Ke6 13. Kf3 h4 14. gxh4 gxf4 15. exf4 Bxh4 16. g4 {With a tablebase draw.}) 10... Ke5 11. Bg6 {And there, that bad move h5 comes into play.} h4 (11... Kxd5 12. Bf7+ Ke5 13. Bxh5 c4 14. Bg6 Bc5 15. f4+ $18) 12. gxh4 gxh4 13. f4+ $1 Kxd5 14. Bf7+ {And the two passers decide.} Ke4 (14... Kd6 15. Bc4 $18) 15. Bc4 Ba3 16. Bb5 Bc1 17. Bc6+ Kf5 18. Bd5 Kg4 19. Kf2 Kf5 (19... h3 20. Be6+) 20. Kf3 Kf6 21. e4 $18 {You can already see how much more difficult this ending became.}) 10. g4 $4 {This gives away the win. Note that had they been same-colored bishops and both had dark-squared bishops, both sides WOULD want them on light squares.} hxg4 11. fxg4 Bg3 $2 (11... c5 {Immediately draws.} 12. d5 Ke5 {And the blockade is complete.}) 12. Kf3 Bd6 13. Bf5 Ba3 $2 (13... c5 14. Ke4 cxd4 15. exd4 Ke7 {Again with a blockade and draw.}) 14. e4 Bb2 (14... c5 {Now, it is too late.} 15. e5+ Ke7 16. d5 $18) 15. e5+ Ke7 16. Ke4 {It is still a draw here, but white has made progress compared to the easy draws earlier. Now, c5 is ruled out for the foreseeable future.} Bc1 17. Bc8 Bd2 18. Kf5 Be3 19. d5 Bd2 20. Bb7 Be3 21. Bc6 Bd2 22. Ke4 Bc3 23. Bb5 Bb2 24. Kf5 Bc1 25. Ba6 Bd2 26. Bc8 Bc1 27. Be6 Bd2 28. Ke4 Bc3 29. Bg8 Bb2 30. Bh7 Bc3 31. Bg6 Bb2 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-21T11:50:08.470" LastActivityDate="2020-03-21T11:50:08.470" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28960" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-03-20T20:46:43.170" Score="1" ViewCount="169" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have been working on a checkmate-in-3 problem for a long time. So long that I am becoming convinced it is not solvable. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a way to prove it is not solvable?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I want to avoid putting the problem in an engine, in case it will show me a solution. For the same reason I do not want to share the problem.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21827" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-04T21:39:21.210" LastActivityDate="2020-04-04T21:39:21.210" Title="Is there a way to prove a checkmate in 3 problem is not solvable?" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;problems&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28961" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28960" CreationDate="2020-03-20T21:31:50.777" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The only way to prove it with 100% accuracy is to use a special engine. Since you do not want to see the solution yourself, then you could ask someone you trust to use it for you. Having a friend sit there and attempt to solve it will not really prove anything since he is human, and may not be strong enough to guarantee a correct answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You are almost asking an impossible question in that you want to know the answer, but not willing to let anyone see it or to use a computer to solve it yourself. You cannot have it all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are special engines that are designed to prove or disprove mate-in-x problems. The ChessBase program Fritz has always had this function. I am not sure if others do though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is a screenshot of the help file.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/WGMKs.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/WGMKs.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2020-03-20T21:31:50.777" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28962" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28960" CreationDate="2020-03-20T23:12:20.333" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Three moves is probably in the realm where you could manually brute-force it, although it may take some effort. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pick a move, a reply, a second move, and a second reply. Then start looking at whether White has a checkmate from that position. If not, then White's second move was incorrect, so change it. If you eliminate all possible White second moves this way, then go back to White's first move, and change it. If you eliminate all White first moves too, then you have proven that a mate in 3 does not exist.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you do find a White checkmate from one of these positions, then change Black's previous move. If the solution is valid, White will have a checkmate for &lt;em&gt;all&lt;/em&gt; possible Black replies.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2020-03-20T23:12:20.333" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28964" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28950" CreationDate="2020-03-21T09:20:57.510" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can export subsets of your tree of moves or export each variation as an individual game within the same file. Acording to the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chesspositiontrainer.com/download/manuals/CPT5_1_manual.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;manual&lt;/a&gt;: &quot;You can export an opening or topic as PGN file which then can be imported by many other chess programs. Several options let you configure the export to your preferences. The  most importantone might be the option to export as “One Game” or “One  Game  per  Variation” (the latter is only available for openings).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1766" LastEditorUserId="1766" LastEditDate="2020-03-21T09:31:57.577" LastActivityDate="2020-03-21T09:31:57.577" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28965" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24217" CreationDate="2020-03-21T11:26:18.223" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In addition to the reasons why you are not doing great after g5, it seems to me that there is no urgency to trap the bishop immediately. If you start with Bg4, how can white keep their bishop safe from a future g5? There is nowhere for it to go, and if they try to create an escape route with e4 then dxe4 wins the knight instead. So g5 is still a possibility and they will now need to deal with the pinned knight somehow in order to still be able to get two pawns for a piece after it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21223" LastActivityDate="2020-03-21T11:26:18.223" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28966" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28953" CreationDate="2020-03-21T14:24:52.370" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I understand that one of your goals is &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;2) to improve.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Think of this as an opportunity to improve.  Regardless of evaluation &quot;what is the best move?&quot; is a useful question.  How to play for a win when down material is a skill to work on.  When losing it becomes more important than usual to find moves that provoke or trouble your opponent and aim for a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swindle_(chess)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;swindle&lt;/a&gt;. These are good chess skills.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As @Akavall points out in this position &quot;anything can happen&quot;  you definitely can play actively here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I once won a game where I dropped a piece in the opening.  I won a pawn but went into the ending of rook vs rook+knight and won because it turned out my opponent had no idea how to play this ending.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I always play on if I drop a piece in the opening because there is so much to try. Usually I end up resigning in the early middlegame. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I read an article by a GM that I cannot find right now where he said winning a game where he lost a piece in the opening was the critical game in his chess development.  It is when he realized that he was going to be very good at chess.  I think it was a chess.com article.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since this is a casual game you may consider whether you are annoying your opponent.  Folks get annoyed for any reason and you may wish to behave so that they continue to want to play you.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17425" LastActivityDate="2020-03-21T14:24:52.370" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28967" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-03-21T16:00:19.673" Score="2" ViewCount="109" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to setup positions for my grandsons to show different tactics and print them. Lichess is excellent except that it won't print the pieces on the board. Any suggestions?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21859" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-03-21T18:19:25.843" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T13:28:45.963" Title="Is there an online chess game or app that allows for custom setup of pieces and printing this setup?" Tags="&lt;online-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28968" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28953" CreationDate="2020-03-21T16:06:58.603" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In general, there is one question you should ask yourself to help decide whether a given position is worth playing out:&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;&quot;With colors reversed, would I have any trouble whatsoever winning this?&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;If the answer is yes, then you should definitely play on. If the answer is no, and you have a reason to believe that your opponent will not mess the win up, then there is no real point in continuing the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the example you gave, I would say that it depends entirely of the level of play. If it's a game between titled players I would expect a resignation from black but at lower levels I don't think it would be necessary to resign quite yet, as I think there is enough life in the position for a master to turn the game around as black against the average club player (with this I simply mean that there is plenty of room for mistakes left in the position).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8300" LastActivityDate="2020-03-21T16:06:58.603" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28969" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28971" CreationDate="2020-03-21T16:09:28.480" Score="-1" ViewCount="109" Body="&lt;p&gt;I often go from winning positions to losing positions. What could I do to stop doing this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For an example,  take a look at this games of in which I played as Black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 {0} 1... e5 {4} 2. Nf3 {0} 2... Nc6 {3} 3. Bc4 {0} 3... Nf6 {7} 4. d3 {0} 4... d6 {4} 5. Ng5 {0} 5... Be6 {28} 6. Bxe6 {0} 6... fxe6 {6} 7. Bd2 {0} 7...Qe7 {22} 8. Nf3 {0} 8... O-O-O {2} 9. Nc3 {0} 9... d5 {27} 10. O-O {0} 10... d4 {3} 11. Na4 {0} 11... Qe8 {55} 12. Qe2 {0} 12... Nb4 {6} 13. b3 {0} 13... Nxc2 {7} 14. Rac1 {0} 14... Na3 {27} 15. Nxe5 {0} 15... Bd6 {31} 16. Bf4 {0} 16...Nh5 {23} 17. Qd2 {0} 17... Nxf4 {31} 18. Qxf4 {0} 18... Rf8 {16} 19. Qg5 {0} 19... Qe7 {33} 20. Qxe7 {0} 20... Bxe7 {2} 21. Rfd1 {0} 21... Nb5 {42} 22. Re1 {0} 22... Bd6 {56} 23. Nf3 {0} 23... e5 {9} 24. Nc5 {0} 24... Rde8 {18} 25. Rc2 {0} 25... Na3 {11} 26. Rcc1 {0} 26... b6 {55} 27. Na6 {0} 27... Kb7 {20} 28. Nxc7 {0} 28... Bxc7 {3} 29. Nh4 {0} 29... Rf7 {15} 30. Nf3 {0} 30... Nb5 {32} 31. Ng5 {0} 31... Rd7 {38} 32. Nxh7 {0} 32... Nc3 {3} 33. a4 {0} 33... b5 {10} 34. axb5 {0} 34... Nxb5 {1} 35. Rc5 {0} 35... Nc3 {64} 36. Ng5 {0} 36... Bd8 {22} 37. Nf3 {0} 37... Bf6 {43} 38. Ra1 {0} 38... Rc7 {7} 39. Rxc7+ {0} 39...Kxc7 {1} 40. Rxa7+ {0} 40... Kb8 {6} 41. Ra5 {0} 41... Kb7 {27} 42. h4 {0} 42...Ra8 {8} 43. Rxa8 {0} 43... Kxa8 {1} 44. g4 {0} 44... Ne2+ {112} 45. Kf1 {0} 45... Nf4 {5} 46. g5 {0} 46... Bd8 {14} 47. Nxe5 {0} 47... Kb7 {28} 48. b4 {0} 48... Kb6 {1} 49. Nf3 {0} 49... Kb5 {3} 50. Nxd4+ {0} 50... Ka4 {8} 51. Nc6 {0} 51... Bb6 {9} 52. d4 {0} 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21840" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-03-21T20:42:59.510" LastActivityDate="2020-03-21T20:42:59.510" Title="Going from a winning position to losing one" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;learning&gt;&lt;middlegame&gt;&lt;blunder&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="7" ClosedDate="2020-03-21T18:27:23.240" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28970" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28967" CreationDate="2020-03-21T16:15:59.107" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you are using Windows, the easiest way may just to set up the position you want on lichess.org, and use the Windows &quot;Snipping Tool&quot; to grab, and print, whatever part of the screen that you want.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is not a tactic, but that is what I just did here:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/6EItK.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/6EItK.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2020-03-21T16:15:59.107" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28971" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28969" CreationDate="2020-03-21T17:25:43.373" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is not a lot of depth necessary to the analysis. Both sides made a lot of tactical errors. In annotating this game, I did put in a lot of written positional notes along the way. This game, more than anything, shows that you need to spend more time looking at tactics problems. That is the primary thing that you need to do to stop going on these wild swings from winning to losing. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Nf6 4. d3 d6 $4 {Just loses a pawn.} 5. Ng5 $1 Be6 6. Bxe6 fxe6 7. Bd2 $2 {But then, he does not take it.} (7. Nxe6 Qd7 8. Nxf8 Rxf8 9. O-O $16) 7... Qe7 (7... Qd7 {This is the more natural square for the queen, and then 0-0-0.}) 8. Nf3 $2 {He should have left the N there until it had to move. It was defended, so he should have developed.} O-O-O 9. Nc3 d5 (9... h6 $1 {Chance are that white is going to castle short, and your current pawn formation controls a lot of squares, and you are almost developed completely. h6 and g4-g4 will force the knight to an uncomfortable square soon, and also prepare the pawn storm if the white king does castle short.}) 10. O-O d4 $2 {You need to get the Bf8 out, and putting pawns on the same color as the bishop is only going to limit its mobility. Eventually, if the bishop were on c5, with the open f-file, f2 could be come very weak.. Also, the pawns where they were controlled all the central square already.} 11. Na4 $2 {Puts the knight offside. It is trapped, and most times this common tactic is without complications, but here a weakened black king if black plays b5 gives white the counterplay necessary.} (11. Ne2 h6 12. b4 {and e5 is already very weak.} a6 13. a4 {Changes nothing.}) 11... Qe8 (11... b5 12. c4 bxa4 13. Qxa4 Nb8 14. c5 {With a strong attack that compensates for the piece.}) 12. Qe2 $4 Nb4 $2 (12... b5 $1 {With the white queen no longer able to get to a4, now, this just wins a piece.}) 13. b3 $2 (13. a3 $1 Nxc2 14. Rac1 Qxa4 15. Nxe5 $16 {with threats of Nf7 and the Nc2 is trapped. White will end up ahead in material.}) 13... Nxc2 14. Rac1 Na3 15. Nxe5 Bd6 16. Bf4 $4 {This just loses an exchange to the pin.} Nh5 (16... Nd7 $1 17. Nxd7 Bxf4 18. Ndc5 Bxc1 19. Rxc1 b6 20. Na6 Kb7 21. Nb4 {And while you do not catch the Nb4, you are crushing here up an exchange in a favorable position.}) 17. Qd2 Nxf4 18. Qxf4 Rf8 $4 (18... Qh5 {Or Qb5 win this knight due to the pin.}) 19. Qg5 {But white got out, and now, you are only slightly better.} Qe7 (19... Rg8 {This is a very hard-to-find move, but the basis is that you need to defend g7, and it prepares to advance the kingside pawns.}) 20. Qxe7 Bxe7 21. Rfd1 $2 (21. Nc5 {Bringing the wayward knight back into play with a threat of Nxe6 is the most natural move.}) 21...Nb5 (21... Bd6 22. Nf3 b6 {Restricting the knight from c5. I will make note of this in a later note, but on the other side of the board.}) 22. Re1 (22. Nc5 {Again, this is more natural.}) 22... Bd6 23. Nf3 e5 $2 {This is bad for two reasons. One, in general, you are making your bishop worse by placing more pawns on its color, thus limiting its scope. Second, there is a direct tactic.} 24. Nc5 {He finally does it, and now it is wrong. The maneuver Nb2-c4 would have kept a black bishop and rook tied to e5 for a while.} (24. Nxe5 Bxe5 25. Rc5 {And it is still equal because the rook will be out of play after taking the knight back.}) 24... Rde8 25. Rc2 Na3 (25... Nc3 {This belongs on this nice square, which keeps the Rc2 very passive.}) 26. Rcc1 b6 27. Na6 $4 Kb7 28. Nxc7 Bxc7 29. Nh4 {The natural move here would have been g6 keeping the knight restricted from f5. This is a very common idea in chess.} Rf7 30. Nf3 Nb5 $6 {This is not wrong, but you did not see the white's threat, and the refutation of it.} 31. Ng5 Rd7 32. Nxh7 $4 Nc3 $2 (32... Bd8 $1 {And the knight h7 is trapped, and it will cost too much positionally to extricate it.} 33. h4 Bxh4 34. g3 Bd8 35. f4 Rh8 36. Ng5 Bxg5 37. fxg5 Nc3 $19 {You got the pawn back, and improved the position a lot too.}) 33. a4 b5 $2 {Still Bd8.} 34. axb5 Nxb5 35. Rc5 Nc3 {The knight finally goes to the nice square, but the white rook is active so a lot of the sting was taken out of it.} 36. Ng5 Bd8 37. Nf3 Bf6 $6 {This is very passive.} (37... Bc7 {Is better with Bd6 next moving the rook out of the nice c5 square.}) 38. Ra1 Rc7 $4 {Just loses a pawn.} 39. Rxc7+ Kxc7 40. Rxa7+ Kb8 41. Ra5 Kb7 (41... Ne2+ $1 42. Kf1 Nc1 43. Ne1 Kb7 44. b4 Re6 {Keeping a big advantage.}) 42. h4 $2 (42. Kf1 {Was necessary to stop that Ne2-c1 maneuver}) 42... Ra8 $2 {Now it is equal.} (42... Ne2+ 43. Kf1 Nc1 44. Ne1 Kb6 45. b4 Bxh4 $19) 43. Rxa8 Kxa8 44. g4 Ne2+ 45. Kf1 Nf4 46. g5 Bd8 47. Nxe5 Kb7 48. b4 Kb6 {Now d4 can be attacked and it is hard to defend it.} 49. Nf3 Kb5 $4 {Missing the last tactic, a fork on c6.} 50. Nxd4+ Ka4 (50... Kxb4 $4 51. Nc6+ Kc5 52. Nxd8 Nxd3 53. h5 {And queens. Pro tip: Knights are horrible at stopping rook pawns.}) 51. Nc6 Bb6 52. d4 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2020-03-21T17:25:43.373" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28972" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28969" CreationDate="2020-03-21T18:12:43.090" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;1) Pawns are important. It's great that you never gave up an entire piece (for example, you do notice the fork and don't play 50...Kxb4.) But it's bad that you gave up so many pawns. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) When a piece is pinned, attacking the defender will sometimes work, but it's usually preferable to attack the pinned piece again. You should at least &lt;em&gt;consider&lt;/em&gt; doing so.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) Look for opportunities to trap pieces. Knights on the rim are often a good target for this, as they have few squares they can move to. You did take advantage of one opportunity to trap his knight, but you missed two others.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4) Although tactics are generally more important than openings, you may want to learn at least a little bit about the Two Knight's if you're going to play it.  You can get in trouble fast if you don't know what you are doing. I have no idea why he didn't just take your e6 pawn on move 7.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2020-03-21T18:12:43.090" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28973" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28974" CreationDate="2020-03-21T19:13:36.197" Score="5" ViewCount="244" Body="&lt;p&gt;I played a player ranked about 450 points higher, and I was out-played. I managed to give a fight but was trailing all along.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The player used the English opening and on third move I (black) played c5. My aim was to control centre, and dissuade white from playing d4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So ,I thought it was a good move, but upon doing analysis with computer it calls it an inaccuracy. Can anyone share why it is an inaccuracy, i.e. why is it a bad move?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. c4 b6 2. Nc3 Bb7 3. e3 c5 4. Qc2 e6 5. Nf3 h6 6. b3 f5 7. Bb2 Nf6 8. O-O-O d6&#xA;9. d4 Nbd7 10. Nh4 g5 11. Ng6 Rg8 12. Nxf8 Rxf8 13. f3 g4 14. Nb5 Nb8 15. dxc5&#xA;d5 16. Nd6+ Ke7 17. Nxb7 Qc7 18. c6 Nxc6 19. Ba3+ Kf7 20. Bxf8 Kxf8 21. cxd5&#xA;Nxd5 22. Bb5 Nxe3 23. Qxc6 Qxc6+ 24. Bxc6 Nxd1 25. Rxd1 Rc8 26. Rd8+ Rxd8 27.&#xA;Nxd8 Ke7 28. Nb7 h5 29. Kd2 Kf6 30. f4 e5 31. Ke3 e4 32. Be8 h4 33. g3 hxg3 34.&#xA;hxg3 Ke7 35. Bg6 Kf6 36. Bh7 Ke6 37. Bxf5+ Kxf5 38. Nd6+ Ke6 39. Nc8 Kd5 40.&#xA;Nxa7 Kc5 41. a3 b5 {&amp;lt;br /&amp;gt;&amp;lt;br /&amp;gt;&amp;lt;em&amp;gt;Game may have continued...&amp;lt;/em&amp;gt;} (41... b5&#xA;42. Kxe4 Kd6 43. Nxb5+ Ke7 44. f5 Kd8 45. a4 {+25.6}) 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21834" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-21T19:46:07.870" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T02:49:53.840" Title="Why was 3...c5 for black was a bad move?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;english-opening&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28974" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28973" CreationDate="2020-03-21T19:42:15.177" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In short, it did not really dissuade white from playing 4.d4, as it could have been played, and was one of the best moves, along with 4.Nf3. White could take the center, and you were not in a position to successfully fight for it in return.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The main thing that I noticed is that in looking at your opening is that despite it being a relatively closed opening, you cannot afford to delay your kingside development that much. The whole b6 and Bb7 idea, while fine in the long run, is premature as king safety can become a problem. There is a reason we typically develop the kingside first, as you may be forced to compromise your position in the center because you neglected to develop the kingside (see the sample snippet of a game below). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to play c5, you should probably do it on move 1, after 1.c4 c5, and then play Nf6, e6, and at least prepare for d5. Once you can finish your kingside development immediately or in very short order, then you can consider combining it with b6 and Bb7...but as long as you can get your king to safety quickly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. c4 b6 2. Nc3 Bb7 3. e3 c5 4. d4 cxd4 {5.d5 was a positional threat} 5. exd4 Nf6 6. Nf3 {And white is already threatening d5 with a positional cramp that is well-known.} d5 $4 {But the cure is worse than the disease: The light squares are too weak on the a4-e8 diagonal, so you are not prepared to fight for the center.} 7. cxd5 Nxd5 8. Ne5 $18&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-21T19:55:47.773" LastActivityDate="2020-03-21T19:55:47.773" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28975" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28973" CreationDate="2020-03-22T02:49:53.840" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;IMO, &lt;code&gt;3...c5&lt;/code&gt; by itself, is not really a problem, after the strongest continuation  &lt;code&gt;4.d4&lt;/code&gt; stockfish gives 0.5, and after 4th move in the game stockfish gives equality. And I think your reasoning is fine, it is generally good to trade a c-pawn for d-pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But it looks like it is a part of bigger problem: You made too many pawn moves &lt;code&gt;5...h6&lt;/code&gt; And &lt;code&gt;6...f5&lt;/code&gt;, and later &lt;code&gt;8..d6&lt;/code&gt;, while not developing your pieces and getting your king to safety. Also by making these pawn moves you created weaknesses, for example your opponent was able to exploit weakness on g6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Make sure that you focus on developing your pieces and getting your king to safety, and avoid making unnecessary pawn moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="307" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T02:49:53.840" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28976" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28979" CreationDate="2020-03-22T04:18:58.490" Score="7" ViewCount="409" Body="&lt;p&gt;Does anyone know of an engine that gives &quot;sub-scores&quot; (e.g., for material, king safety, space, activity) in addition to its total evaluation? Lots of people have wished over the years that engines could help players understand why their moves are bad, and although having access to sub-scores wouldn't be a total solution, it might help. Even if the engine doesn't output these scores directly, if they're part of the evaluation--and if the engine is open-source--a sufficiently interested user might be able to make use of them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, I'm assuming that something like a &quot;sub-score&quot; is part of some modern engine's evaluation function. They could all be too advanced and/or non-linear for that now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20344" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T12:55:33.453" Title="Is it possible to extract &quot;sub-scores&quot; from an engine's evaluation?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28977" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28976" CreationDate="2020-03-22T04:45:14.677" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you go to &lt;a href=&quot;https://hxim.github.io/Stockfish-Evaluation-Guide/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this page&lt;/a&gt; and enter a position, you can click the links on the left (or the &quot;table&quot; and &quot;graph&quot; tabs on the top) to see the sub-scores for Stockfish.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that this is a static evaluation that does not look ahead. If you want to use it, you should look at the line Stockfish gives you, and enter the position at the &lt;em&gt;end&lt;/em&gt; of that line.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastEditorUserId="12629" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T04:55:52.237" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T04:55:52.237" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28979" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28976" CreationDate="2020-03-22T12:55:33.453" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;What about?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/QG1B2.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/QG1B2.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;code&gt;eval&lt;/code&gt; command will do what you want. However, it's not useful for chess learning. They are just static evaluations. What you're after is more like extracting features from the analysis. Stockfish doesn't have it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T12:55:33.453" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28980" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28967" CreationDate="2020-03-22T13:28:45.963" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;My diagram editor allows you to set up a position and save it as an image file, which can be printed separately: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.apronus.com/chess/diagram/editor/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.apronus.com/chess/diagram/editor/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3456" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T13:28:45.963" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28981" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="690" CreationDate="2020-03-22T14:19:56.517" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't know of a mac native .cbh file reader.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ChessX seems to use pgn as it's database which can be slow.  Using the opening tree and a pgn of 100,000 games it took 30 seconds to show the full tree after each move.  This is too slow to be usable for me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I understand that ScidvsMac is more of a true database application and is fast for large databases by using a native database format.  However, with 64 bit only OSX catalina it is buggy and slow according to &lt;a href=&quot;http://scidvspc.sourceforge.net/#toc6.4&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;known issues&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;macOS Catalina and later are only supported by the buggy and slow 64 bit version.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;64 bit ScidvsMac uses Cocoa Wish, which is improving, but still very buggy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have Hiarcs Chess Explorer and it is fast with a pgn database.  It's opening explorer is best for finding games and understanding the most popular moves in a database.  I'd like to be able to annotate moves in the explorer window rather than having to go to a game to see pgn annotations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My preference is to have something without an install.  I tried ChessTempo's &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chesstempo.com/opening-training/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;opening training&lt;/a&gt; which works fine, but only supports 60,000 positions at the highest level of membership.  I need 500,000 positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessply.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chessply&lt;/a&gt; looks interesting but it not finished.  And based on the video it supports only small databases at this time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17425" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T14:19:56.517" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28982" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8823" CreationDate="2020-03-22T18:08:06.600" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm having the same issue and I know why it happens. When I have a game with comments/annotations after any of the moves that are within the annotation tags (as viewed in a text editor) like &quot;1.e4 {this is normal} e5, then if I add a variation in the app such as &quot;1. e4 &lt;em&gt;this is normal&lt;/em&gt; 1...e5 (1... d5!?)&quot; and then hit save, then stockfish app has saved the file in a way that removes the {} from my comment, so that it is no longer readable as a pgn file.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've been using a text editor to correct this by adding my {}'s back in when necessary, but I agree this situation is not ideal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21869" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T18:08:06.600" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28983" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28984" CreationDate="2020-03-22T19:49:02.840" Score="7" ViewCount="780" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know openings often tend not to be busted, and I'm obviously not really suggesting that the Bogo is busted. But I recently played a Bogo-Indian where I just couldn't find any follow up quite early in the game and my moves just looked natural...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also just don't understand that white's 9.e4 move in the diagram has never been played in the database but shows +1 advantage...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe some help on how black should approach those lines? (By the way, I'm new to that opening)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nf3 Bb4+ 4. Bd2 a5 5. a3 Bxd2+ 6. Qxd2 d6 7. Nc3 Nbd7!?&#xA;(7... O-O) 8. Rd1 b6 9. e4! {I can't understand why this move hasn't been played&#xA;before, but engine already gives quite the advantage to white...} 9... Bb7 10.&#xA;Qc2 Qe7 {Getting away from the d1 rook but not sure how solid it is} 11. Be2 O-O&#xA;12. O-O {ok now what? Already a bit lost on what to do,  played the following&#xA;move to claim myself some space but it just gave white a big hole to look for on&#xA;b5 and weak b6} 12... c5?! (12... h6 {engine, but can't see what this does})&#xA;(12... Rfe8 {also engine}) 13. d5 exd5 14. cxd5! Rfe8 15. Nd2! *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21834" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T21:00:44.237" LastActivityDate="2020-08-10T03:25:21.007" Title="Isn't the Bogo-Indian just busted with this line?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;bogo-indian-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28984" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28983" CreationDate="2020-03-22T20:29:47.633" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, the Bogo-Indian as an opening is hardly busted, but the way black played that opening, there is no doubt that white has a huge advantage in the final position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The main reasons that black gives up the dark-squared bishop are not to lose time, but then, and this is more important, because he can regain some dark-square control by placing the pawns on d6 and e5, and pressure e4. Often the Nd7 can also find a very nice home on c5 since a5 has been played.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The way it was played in that game, black never did that, and black did not even attempt to contest the center. It was a recipe for disaster. The final straw was exposing the huge hole that was created on b5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nf3 Bb4+ 4. Bd2 a5 5. a3 Bxd2+ 6. Qxd2 d6 7. Nc3 Nbd7 (7... O-O {The most common move here.} 8. g3 Nbd7 9. Bg2 e5 $14 {Is a main line. } 10. O-O exd4 11. Nxd4 a4 {Securing c5 for the Nd7.}) 8. Rd1 (8. e4 {Why not this immediately? This is the main move.}) 8... b6?! {This is not necessary here, and we are not even sure that the bishop will go on b7, which I tend to doubt...it may come to g4 and trade for a Nf3 even. It also ruled out a later c6, which would have been desirable later after e5.} (8... Qe7 {This is more natural here, aiming again for e5, and removing the Qd8 from the same line as the Rd1 and Qd2 battery.}) 9. e4 Bb7 10. Qc2 (10. Bd3 {Finish development is more natural here, and later if the black king castles short, then the Bd3 will be aimed at right it.}) 10... Qe7 11. Be2 O-O 12. O-O c5? {This just looks wrong. You still want e5, and if d5, then you have Nc5 and a4 solidifying the Nc5's position. Also, this shows how dead the bishop is on b7} 13. d5 exd5 $2 {This natural move really secures white's advantage because the hole at b5 becomes palpable.} 14. cxd5 Rfe8 15. Nd2 $16 {White almost has a significant, and almost winning, advantage.}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-22T21:47:08.330" LastActivityDate="2020-03-22T21:47:08.330" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28985" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28988" CreationDate="2020-03-23T03:43:23.820" Score="15" ViewCount="5316" Body="&lt;p&gt;My 5-year-old old daughter very often forgets which direction a pawn is moving. This is confusing especially at endgame studies.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I use a marker pen to draw two eyes on the pawns so that her pawns are facing the enemy and their pawns are looking at her. But this is not applicable online and I am fearful of its side effect when she plays with others on an unmarked board later.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any suggestions?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7002" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-23T14:44:41.173" LastActivityDate="2020-08-26T01:11:40.060" Title="Is there a trick to help kids know which direction pawns are going?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;children&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28986" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-03-23T07:52:50.670" Score="1" ViewCount="159" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been letting the engine analyze a position at depth D, then making the player's move and letting the engine analyze the resulting position at the same depth D, and then taking the difference between the first score and the second score (both from the same player's perspective, of course). This procedure has the property that it's possible to have a negative centipawn loss: it will be negative if the engine prefers the player's move to its initial choice after seeing one ply farther in the line beginning with the player's move. Is this expected and acceptable? The alternative would be to have the engine analyze the position after the player's move at depth D - 1, which would guarantee a non-negative centipawn loss. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20344" LastActivityDate="2020-03-23T10:24:28.120" Title="What's the correct way to calculate centipawn loss?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28987" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28990" CreationDate="2020-03-23T09:04:44.557" Score="1" ViewCount="222" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am actually drilling methodically several lines (1...e5 and 1...e6 2...d5 but the question won't depend on that) of the english opening, using &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.chessbase.com/post/tutorial-chessbase-15-reference-search&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;ChessBase 15 fast reference search&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The qualifier &quot;fast&quot; is from ChessBase as I am facing really bizarre behaviour, more precisely : I highlight the &quot;Reference&quot; window and start playing moves on the board, and then, even for the first moves (even the very first) I have lags. After the 4th or 5th move the lags are huge and the reference window is really slow to refresh.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Plus, if I change to &quot;Notation&quot; window and come back to &quot;Reference&quot; window then the window is empty and stays empty. I sometimes succeed in making it refresh (and being non empty) by taking back the last move and replaying it, sometimes not. By the way, I am not totally convinced by the fact that the results in this windows are put in some cache so that the whole result in the window is re-searched again. (Yes, really).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Two facts :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;one playing against me : my reference database it a fully up to date Mega Database 2020 with 8.1M games ; I can conceive that searching in a fairly big database can take time (but cache should be used and I hope/guess it is used, but then I don't understand the behaviour I am facing)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;one playing for me : I have a machine with quite aggressive specs : Intel Core i7 7700K CPUs @4.2Ghz, 32GB RAM, 2x GeForce GTX 1080Ti all supported by an MSI Z270 Gaming pro carbon (that I don't use for gaming though, ah ah)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Has anyone experienced such a behaviour ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20949" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-30T18:24:10.843" LastActivityDate="2020-03-30T18:24:10.843" Title="ChessBase 15 &quot;fast&quot; reference search" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;chessbase&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28988" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28985" CreationDate="2020-03-23T09:14:40.393" Score="31" Body="&lt;p&gt;At 5 years old a child's brain is still very immature. The good news is that it is also developing very fast. The easiest and most effective solution is just to wait. Within a year or two the problem will have solved itself as your child's brain develops enough to satisfy your expectations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-03-23T09:14:40.393" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28989" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28985" CreationDate="2020-03-23T09:24:57.370" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;On a screen, the pawns are always moving &quot;up&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You know her better, so you could pick on of the following things as an example, and let her compare them to the pawns on a screen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;airplane.&#xA;balloon.&#xA;elevator.&#xA;escalator.&#xA;helicopter.&#xA;ladder.&#xA;rocket.&#xA;stairs.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or, if you are religious, well there is that &quot;up&quot; too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When then playing on a board, she would need to realize that they move away from her.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-03-25T02:06:58.790" LastActivityDate="2020-03-25T02:06:58.790" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28990" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28987" CreationDate="2020-03-23T09:39:27.333" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have the same behavior for both parts of your question, and the first behavior (the slowness to populate the reference) is by necessity since it has to search all 8 million games to populate the &quot;Reference&quot; window. The second behavior is just a bug, but I will tell you how to refresh it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Regarding the slowness of populating the &quot;Reference&quot; pane, I want to make sure that you have done two things:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Gone to File&gt;Activation&gt;Update program, and that you are running the latest build.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;And this, which may be exacerbate your problem: Right-click on the Mega 2020 Database, and go to Tools, and &quot;Delete Search Booster&quot;. Then &quot;Create Search Booster&quot;. I do this every time I add new games.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To refresh the &quot;Reference&quot; pane after coming back to it, just play any move, and if necessary, then go back to the previous move. You can also click on the &quot;Openings Book&quot; tab, among others, and then go back to the &quot;reference&quot;, and it will refresh.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I agree that it is not cached, and re-searched, but with the search booster and now that the database has been read into memory, for me, it only takes under a second for the refresh.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S. Go into File&gt;Options&gt;Limits, and set the &quot;Cache Size Reference DB&quot; to at least 6GB since right now, it is barely over 5GB. That way, once you read through it once, it will all be cached in memory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-23T10:04:56.493" LastActivityDate="2020-03-23T10:04:56.493" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28991" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29015" CreationDate="2020-03-23T09:50:52.227" Score="3" ViewCount="202" Body="&lt;p&gt;I read about &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessprogramming.org/Looking_for_Magics&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Looking for Magics&lt;/a&gt; for Magic Bitboard, they mentioned the method &quot;Feeding in Randoms&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As I understand, this method works like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;label RETRY;&#xA;magic = random();//trial&#xA;&#xA;for (all cases of current square: from first case to last case)&#xA;{&#xA;  if (magic fails at any case)&#xA;    go to label RETRY;//and error&#xA;}&#xA;//Passed all cases -&amp;gt; success! now we have the magic for square 1, 63 more squares to go&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The author said&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;On my Core Duo 2.8 GHz, it takes less than a second to find magic numbers for rooks and bishops for all squares&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If we successfully get magic numbers with this &quot;Randoms&quot; method, why not just save the magic numbers to disk and load it from disk instead of running the &quot;Feeding in Randoms&quot; code every time at startup (that the author cares about how fast this method, isn't it faster just read the magic from disk instead of trial and error with random. If load from disk, it doesn't matter if the method takes whole day to find magic)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe I misunderstand something about this. So I want to ask Why have to find magic instead of just loading from disk?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21577" LastActivityDate="2020-03-25T04:16:38.127" Title="Magic Bitboards, Feeding in Randoms - Why have to find magic instead of just loading from disk?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;programming&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28992" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28986" CreationDate="2020-03-23T10:24:28.120" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;No. Your assumption is based on searching everything up to depth &lt;code&gt;D&lt;/code&gt;, but no modern chess engine would do that. It's complicated to explain, but fair to assume only some subtrees up to depth &lt;code&gt;D&lt;/code&gt; are explored. The other trees got &quot;cut&quot; off for various reasons, most likely they are not good.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess programming is all about skipping the search tree accurately. The conditions could depend on the depth to the root, previously visited nodes, and many others. As you make a move on the board, all parameters change, even the cache for keeping the transposition table change. Trees that are previously visited may now be skipped, and vice versa. The change of information in the transposition table could have a significant impact in the new search path.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;it will be negative if the engine prefers the player's move to its initial choice after seeing one ply farther in the line beginning with the player's move. Is this expected and acceptable? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anything can happen. The difference can be positive, negative, or remain unchanged.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2020-03-23T10:24:28.120" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28993" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="28996" CreationDate="2020-03-23T12:04:51.243" Score="20" ViewCount="6952" Body="&lt;p&gt;I lost this game and I am not looking for a computer analysis, but what approach should I have taken instead? The game continued 1. Rxd4 Rb7 2. Rxc4 dxc4 3. a4 b4 4. Bd4 Rd7 5. Bb6 c3 6. Rb1 Rd5 7. Kf2 c2 8. Rc1 b3 and I lost.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;6k1/r4pp1/4p3/pp1pP2p/2rn1P2/4B2P/PR4P1/3R2K1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. Rxd4 Rb7 2. Rxc4 dxc4 3. a4 b4 4. Bd4 Rd7 5. Bb6 c3 6. Rb1 Rd5 7. Kf2 c2 8. Rc1 b3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21873" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-23T13:55:41.387" LastActivityDate="2020-03-25T22:43:54.553" Title="I was up a piece but could not win. What went wrong?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;planning&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28994" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28993" CreationDate="2020-03-23T12:10:45.503" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;Since you are not looking for a computer analysis, I would say that just looking at it, I would have taken with the bishop since it would be well-placed on d4 and gained a tempo. Then moved the king closer to d3. This would have rendered all of black's counterplay harmless.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would have tried to avoid exchanging on c4 if at all possible, but even if not, with the king on d3, dxc4+ Kc3 would really stop b4 for a long time since then you would be pushing would lose the newly-created c4-pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a4 was definitely a huge mistake giving black two passers. If it is not already lost there, it was probably at least equal already...so avoid a4 unless there is a very good reason since you do not want to give your opponent passed pawns that are that well supported.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2020-03-23T12:10:45.503" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28995" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28985" CreationDate="2020-03-23T12:35:10.853" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I remember seeing in a children's chess book that the pawn is like a peasant armed only with a pitchfork. He marches only forward (one or two at the start, one otherwise). He only attacks to the left or right side. And he never moves backwards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The pawn ... historically represents infantry, or more particularly, armed peasants or pikemen.&#xA;  &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pawn_(chess)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Source&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21874" LastEditorUserId="21874" LastEditDate="2020-03-23T12:55:24.290" LastActivityDate="2020-03-23T12:55:24.290" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28996" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28993" CreationDate="2020-03-23T12:37:20.557" Score="30" Body="&lt;p&gt;You unblocking your opponent's passed d-pawn with 2. Rxc4 is what went wrong from a pragmatic perspective.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You are up a piece.  The only way black wins this position is by promoting pawns so that you're not up a piece anymore (e.g. pushing that 2-to-1 queenside pawn majority).  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This can be easily stopped with the following approach:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Keep your rook where it is.  It's doing a fine job blockading the passed d-pawn.  Ideally, you want a knight to blockade the pawn, but the rook can do this as well.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Bring your last piece (i.e. the king) over to the queenside to make sure those pawns don't go anywhere.  They shouldn't since you have two rooks, a bishop and a pawn there already.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Try following the above advice by playing it out against a comp.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13177" LastActivityDate="2020-03-23T12:37:20.557" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28997" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28993" CreationDate="2020-03-23T15:22:28.420" Score="20" Body="&lt;p&gt;One basic endgame rule of thumb that could help here, is that 2 connected passed pawns on the 6th rank are worth about as much as a rook, and 2 connected passed pawns on the 7th rank beat a rook. By playing 3. a4, you allowed the black b pawn to pass, and connect with the already passed black c pawn. This is disastrous - you've basically given your opponent a rooks' worth of material if you want to look at it that way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The a-b-c pawn group that black has at the start of this is their main asset - play defensively by moving your king and bishop in position to assist your rook in defending against that push, and you should be in a good place. Black has basically no other opportunities to advance without a lot of work, so you should have time to clean up the black pawns before another threat presents itself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14340" LastActivityDate="2020-03-23T15:22:28.420" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28998" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28985" CreationDate="2020-03-23T17:18:00.133" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is similar to helping a kid distinguish &quot;left and right&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Kids at that age are visual, so you could use a &lt;strong&gt;black sticker and a white sticker&lt;/strong&gt;, placing these on opposing sides and tell her that &lt;strong&gt;white pawns move towards the white sticker and black pawns towards the black sticker&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can use stickers with images for fun, for example teddy bears.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20694" LastEditorUserId="20694" LastEditDate="2020-03-23T17:44:50.813" LastActivityDate="2020-03-23T17:44:50.813" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="28999" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14395" CreationDate="2020-03-23T18:01:36.897" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Either they are higher rated and hoping that you make a mistake, or they are total patzers who will waste your time and play every single game out to it's final conclusion because they think it's bad sportsmanship to do otherwise.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21875" LastActivityDate="2020-03-23T18:01:36.897" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29000" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-03-23T20:05:48.520" Score="1" ViewCount="269" Body="&lt;p&gt;Given that in GM Simon William's book The Killer Dutch, Williams says that the Sicilian and the Dutch are mirror images of each other, as Williams states &quot;If you look at the first move, you can see that the two openings are similar, due to the fact the initial pawn structures of both openings are actually mirror images of each other.&quot; (Williams, 32) What Sicilian Defence variation has the most similarity to the Dutch? In the sense of pawn structures, middlegame plans, and strategic ideas? From what I observe it seems to me like the Scheveningen is similar to the classical variation of the Dutch. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which variation do you think is most similar?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21834" LastActivityDate="2020-08-26T21:13:55.017" Title="What Sicilian Defence variation has the most similarity to the Dutch?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;&lt;dutch-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29001" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29003" CreationDate="2020-03-24T14:11:10.043" Score="5" ViewCount="487" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the game of &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1926025&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;code&gt;Carlsen&lt;/code&gt; vs &lt;code&gt;Navara&lt;/code&gt; &lt;strong&gt;Biel Chess 2018,&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt; on move &lt;code&gt;7&lt;/code&gt; why did &lt;code&gt;Carlsen&lt;/code&gt; play &lt;code&gt;e3&lt;/code&gt; instead of playing &lt;code&gt;Qa4+&lt;/code&gt; and taking that hanging &lt;code&gt;bishop&lt;/code&gt;? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21835" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-25T12:39:20.973" LastActivityDate="2020-03-25T12:39:20.973" Title="Why not 7.Qa4+ in Carlsen vs Navara QGD" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;queens-gambit-declined&gt;&lt;ragozin-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29002" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29001" CreationDate="2020-03-24T14:25:53.960" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think this is the game you mean, and it was on move 7. Qa4+, and Nc6 saves the bishop. Qa4 is a well-known line, and the second most popular move after 7. e3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a black defense to the QGD called the Ragozin Defense. It is considered a very active defense, and black gives away certain positional aspects in exchange for piece activity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are a few books on this defense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/9056913700&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&quot;The Ragozin Complex&quot;&lt;/a&gt; by GM Vladimir Barsky.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.amazon.com/s?i=stripbooks&amp;amp;rh=p_27%3AMatthieu%20Cornette&amp;amp;s=relevancerank&amp;amp;text=Matthieu%20Cornette&amp;amp;ref=dp_byline_sr_book_1&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&quot;The Complete Ragozin&quot;&lt;/a&gt; by GM Matthieu Cornette&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/1784830305&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&quot;Playing the Ragozin&quot;&lt;/a&gt; by IM Richard Pert&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, a move is considered one for white and for black, so 1.d4 Nf6 is one move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [Event &quot;Biel GM 51st&quot;]&#xA; [Site &quot;Biel&quot;]&#xA; [Date &quot;2018.07.22&quot;]&#xA; [Round &quot;1&quot;]&#xA; [White &quot;Carlsen, Magnus&quot;]&#xA; [Black &quot;Navara, David&quot;]&#xA; [Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA; [ECO &quot;D38&quot;]&#xA; [WhiteElo &quot;2842&quot;]&#xA; [BlackElo &quot;2741&quot;]&#xA; [Annotator &quot;Krasenkow,M&quot;]&#xA; [PlyCount &quot;127&quot;]&#xA; [EventDate &quot;2018.07.22&quot;]&#xA; [EventType &quot;tourn&quot;]&#xA; [EventRounds &quot;10&quot;]&#xA; [EventCountry &quot;SUI&quot;]&#xA; [EventCategory &quot;20&quot;]&#xA; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. d4 Nf6 2. Nf3 d5 3. c4 e6 4. Bg5 Bb4+ 5. Nc3 h6 6. Bxf6 Qxf6 7. e3 (7. Qa4+ Nc6 {And the Bb4 is protected} 8. Ne5 $2 {This is just bad, and is pushing for something that just is not there} Bd7 9. Nxd7 (9. Nxc6 Bxc3+ 10. bxc3 Bxc6 11. Qb3 O-O $17 {And with better development, and pressure on g2, black is just better.} 12. c5 $6 b6) 9... Qxd4 $1 {Threatening Bxc3+ winning.} 10. Qc2 Qxc4 11. e3 Qg4 12. Bb5 Kxd7 {And white does not have enough for the two pawns.}) 7... O-O 8. Rc1 dxc4 9. Bxc4 c5 10. dxc5 Nd7 11. O-O Nxc5 12. Nb5 a6 13. Nbd4 b5 14. Be2 e5 15. Nc2 Rd8 16. Nxb4 Rxd1 17. Rfxd1 a5 18. Nd5 Qd6 19. Nxe5 Bb7 20. Bf3 Rc8 21. Ng4 Qf8 22. h4 Nd7 23. Rxc8 Bxc8 24. a3 h5 25. Nh2 g6 26. Be2 Ne5 27. Bxb5 Bb7 28. Nc3 Qe7 29. Rd4 Qe6 30. Nf1 Qb3 31. Rd2 Nc4 32. Rd7 Nxb2 33. Rxb7 Qxc3 34. Be8 Kf8 35. Bxf7 Qc6 36. Rxb2 Kxf7 37. Rd2 Qa4 38. Rd3 Qxh4 39. Rd7+ Kg8 40. Rd4 Qe7 41. a4 Qa3 42. g3 Qa1 43. Kg2 g5 44. Nd2 g4 45. Ne4 Qc1 46. Nf6+ Kf7 47. Nxh5 Qc6+ 48. Kg1 Qc1+ 49. Kh2 Kg6 50. Nf4+ Kf6 51. Ng2 Kg5 52. Rf4 Qd1 53. Nh4 Qc2 54. Nf5 Qd3 55. e4 Qd7 56. e5 Qh7+ 57. Kg1 Qg6 58. Nd6 Qe6 59. Rf5+ Qxf5 60. Nxf5 Kxf5 61. f4 gxf3 62. Kf2 Kxe5 63. Kxf3 Kf5 64. Ke3 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-24T14:44:38.227" LastActivityDate="2020-03-24T14:44:38.227" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29003" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29001" CreationDate="2020-03-24T14:26:39.003" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I guess you mean the game below and at the 7th-move: &lt;code&gt;7.Qa4+&lt;/code&gt; doesn't win the bishop because black can reply with &lt;code&gt;Nc6&lt;/code&gt; blocking the check and defending the bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [title &quot;Biel, Carlsen vs Navara 2018&quot;]&#xA; [fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA; [startply &quot;12&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1.d4 Nf6 2.Nf3 d5 3.c4 e6 4.Bg5 Bb4+ 5.Nc3 h6 6.Bxf6 Qxf6 7.e3 (7.Qa4+ Nc6) O-O 8.Rc1 dxc4 9.Bxc4 c5 10.dxc5 Nd7 11.O-O Nxc5 12.Nb5 a6 13.Nbd4 b5 14.Be2 e5 15.Nc2 Rd8 16.Nxb4 Rxd1 17.Rfxd1 a5 18.Nd5 Qd6 19.Nxe5 Bb7 20.Bf3 Rc8 21.Ng4 Qf8 22.h4 Nd7 23.Rxc8 Bxc8 24.a3 h5 25.Nh2 g6 26.Be2 Ne5 27.Bxb5 Bb7 28.Nc3 Qe7 29.Rd4 Qe6 30.Nf1 Qb3 31.Rd2 Nc4 32.Rd7 Nxb2 33.Rxb7 Qxc3 34.Be8 Kf8 35.Bxf7 Qc6 36.Rxb2 Kxf7 37.Rd2 Qa4 38.Rd3 Qxh4 39.Rd7+ Kg8 40.Rd4 Qe7 41.a4 Qa3 42.g3 Qa1 43.Kg2 g5 44.Nd2 g4 45.Ne4 Qc1 46.Nf6+ Kf7 47.Nxh5 Qc6+ 48.Kg1 Qc1+ 49.Kh2 Kg6 50.Nf4+ Kf6 51.Ng2 Kg5 52.Rf4 Qd1 53.Nh4 Qc2 54.Nf5 Qd3 55.e4 Qd7 56.e5 Qh7+ 57.Kg1 Qg6 58.Nd6 Qe6 59.Rf5+ Qxf5 60.Nxf5 Kxf5 61.f4 gxf3 62.Kf2 Kxe5 63.Kxf3 Kf5 64.Ke3 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In case white tries to further pressurise the knight on &lt;code&gt;c6&lt;/code&gt; after &lt;code&gt;7.Qa4+ Nc6,&lt;/code&gt; with e.g. &lt;code&gt;8.Ne5&lt;/code&gt; black always has the option of taking on &lt;code&gt;c3&lt;/code&gt; first with check and then reacting to &lt;code&gt;Ne5&lt;/code&gt; with &lt;code&gt;Bd7.&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3594" LastActivityDate="2020-03-24T14:26:39.003" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29004" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-03-24T15:12:31.407" Score="2" ViewCount="349" Body="&lt;p&gt;Usually one-move checkmate puzzles are easy. However, I am wondering if there is a relatively more difficult one-move checkmate puzzle. Here are a few thoughts:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;There are many legal moves. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;One or several legal moves are tempting but incorrect. Especially under time pressure, an inexperienced player tends to choose such a &quot;wrong&quot; move.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Finding the checkmate move requires some out-of-the-box thinking. It is a move that most players will not normally consider, expecially under time pressure.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyone knows a good &quot;difficult&quot; one-move chekmate problem?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16626" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-04T21:38:24.267" LastActivityDate="2020-04-04T21:38:24.267" Title="What is an example of a very difficult one-move checkmate?" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;problems&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="0" ClosedDate="2020-03-24T18:23:36.617" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29005" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-03-24T15:33:34.407" Score="5" ViewCount="249" Body="&lt;p&gt;The variation is almost forced if White aims for the standard Smith-Morra setup. At the end White is a pawn down and no longer has two bishops, but is well developed. However Black's setup does not seem to have any weaknesses that can be pressured by White's superior pieces. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White's most immediate plan is to strike on the flank with a4, provoking ...b4. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In most of games at 2000+ level, White ends up defending a worse endgame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [fen &quot;&quot;] &#xA; 1. e4 c5 2. d4 cxd4 3. c3 dxc3 4. Nxc3 e6&#xA; 5. Nf3 Nc6 6. Bc4 a6 7. O-O b5 8. Bb3 Na5&#xA; 9. Re1 Nxb3 10. Qxb3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If Black reveals his intention to play ...a6 early, White has alternative plans: Play Bf4, threatening Nd5 with pressure on the dark squares c7, d6 and b6, leading to decent games with White retaining the initiative. So Black should delay ...a6 as much as he can, as Bf4 only makes sense after ...a6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. d4 cxd4 3. c3 dxc3 4. Nxc3 Nc6&#xA;5. Nf3 a6 6. Bf4 e6 7. Be2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, ...Na5 needs to be played immediately, as 8...Bb7 allows 9. a4 with initiative and nasty tricks from White. Example game:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;] &#xA;[White &quot;Vivante-Sowter, John (2259)&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Kavc, Andrej (2270)&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. d4 cxd4 3. c3 dxc3 4. Nxc3 e6 5. Nf3 a6 { B21 Sicilian Defense: Smith-Morra Gambit Accepted, Kan Formation } 6. Bc4 b5 7. Bb3 Bb7 8. O-O Nc6 9. a4 b4 10. Nd5 Na5 11. Bg5 f6 12. Ne5 Bxd5 13. exd5 Nxb3 14. dxe6 dxe6 15. Qxb3 Qd5 16. Nc4 fxg5 17. Rad1 Qf5 18. Rfe1 Bc5 19. Nd6+ Bxd6 20. Rxd6 Nf6 21. Rdxe6+ Kf8 22. Qxb4+ Kf7 23. Qc4 Kg6 24. g4 Qf3 25. R1e3 Qd1+ 26. Kg2 Rad8 27. Rxf6+ gxf6 28. Qe4+ Kf7 { The game is a draw. } 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15478" LastEditorUserId="15478" LastEditDate="2020-03-25T14:46:13.180" LastActivityDate="2020-03-25T14:46:13.180" Title="What is White's compensation in the Smith-Morra Gambit, Paulsen Formation (a6, e6, Nc6) after an early ...Na5?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;&lt;smith-morra-gambit&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29006" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29005" CreationDate="2020-03-24T15:47:19.510" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;To be honest, I see very little there, but Re1 also just looks like it is not in the spirit of the opening since it does little to add any pressure to the center. Of course, if black were to play d5, then it would make sense, but black will probably refrain from playing that for quite a while. Bc2 probably should be played there, and follow it up with the standard Qe2 and Rd1.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Overall, the only compensating factors right now are a slight lead in development, and more space; but as always, in such positions, if the other side is very solid, they can catch up in development, and then the extra pawn will become a major factor.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a reason the Morra is only popular at lower levels: It just loses a pawn, and there are not many redeeming factors.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2020-03-24T15:47:19.510" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29007" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29004" CreationDate="2020-03-24T17:20:36.910" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Very difficult&lt;/em&gt; is relative and given enough time players of most strength should be able to find a mate in one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't have a concrete example, but in my view the following features would make it more difficult (some of these exclude each other):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;a large number of possible moves (i.e. lots of pieces on the board and an open position)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the mating move is done by a piece moving to the back (towards the mating player)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;it is a non-standard mate (not one you have seen before in your tactics excercise, but rather of a studies type)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the mating move is a move where the moving piece uncovers a piece that helps in the check mate (either by taking away squares from the king, or more tricky by pinning a possible defender)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;lots of pins are involved that prevent defenders from defending&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;there are tempting moves that don't work for not-too-obvious reasons&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the move is an en passant capture or an underpromotion or castling&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;(not sure this counts) the mate requires retrograde analysis to prove that en passant capture is allowed or that castling is allowed&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;large distances are involved, both in the move itself and in the attacking of the king (say moving a queen from h8 to a1 to check mate a king on a8 might not be that obvious)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the position is such that the pawns move unexpectedly in a direction you would not expect (down, left, right)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;asking for a &lt;em&gt;mate in one&lt;/em&gt;  for black (without specifying that it is black's move) This can be particularly tricky if it looks as if white could mate as well.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastEditorUserId="11629" LastEditDate="2020-03-24T17:35:31.567" LastActivityDate="2020-03-24T17:35:31.567" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29008" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29010" CreationDate="2020-03-24T19:15:48.357" Score="11" ViewCount="6961" Body="&lt;p&gt;At 0:55 in this &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mj0C4RZnf-E&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;video&lt;/a&gt;, Youtuber agadmator claims Anish Giri played the Evans Gambit in the Italian Game:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Anish Giri&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Kirill Alekseenko&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Candidates 2020 (Joke Line)&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Bc5 4. b4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It becomes clear thereafter that agadmator was joking, as he immediately smiles, says &quot;No, he didn't&quot;, and continues with the actual line. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I don't have the background to understand what makes the humour transparent here. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is this joke referencing an amusing history or reputation of this line?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is it just such an obviously bad move that no one can take it seriously on face value? If so, why? &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm discounting the explanation he just made an error in his annotations because of the deliberate way he looks at the camera when he announces this, but I'll accept an argument for any interesting lines that spring from this position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18434" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-25T12:38:24.697" LastActivityDate="2020-03-27T05:59:18.317" Title="Why is it funny to say Giri played the Evans Gambit?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;italian-game&gt;&lt;evans-gambit&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29009" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29008" CreationDate="2020-03-24T19:26:22.273" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think that he is just kidding because it is so rare at that level, but nevertheless, some great players have whipped it out as a surprise.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Kasparov played it three times against Jeroen Piket, Vishy Anand in classical, and Nigel Short in rapid, beating Piket and Anand, and drawing Short.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Morozevich played it once and lost to Kamsky in 2008, but Nakamura has a 1.5/2 score in classical, and MVL has played it three times in rapid and blitz (2.5/3).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is always a shock to see this opening at that level, and I think he was just joking around about that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is just for your viewing pleasure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [Event &quot;Riga Tal Memorial&quot;]&#xA; [Site &quot;Riga&quot;]&#xA; [Date &quot;1995.04.16&quot;]&#xA; [Round &quot;4&quot;]&#xA; [White &quot;Kasparov, Garry&quot;]&#xA; [Black &quot;Anand, Viswanathan&quot;]&#xA; [Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA; [ECO &quot;C51&quot;]&#xA; [WhiteElo &quot;2805&quot;]&#xA; [BlackElo &quot;2715&quot;]&#xA; [PlyCount &quot;49&quot;]&#xA; [EventType &quot;tourn&quot;]&#xA; [EventRounds &quot;11&quot;]&#xA; [EventCountry &quot;LAT&quot;]&#xA; [EventCategory &quot;17&quot;]&#xA; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Bc5 4. b4 Bxb4 5. c3 Be7 6. d4 Na5 7. Be2 exd4 8. Qxd4 Nf6 9. e5 Nc6 10. Qh4 Nd5 11. Qg3 g6 12. O-O Nb6 13. c4 d6 14. Rd1 Nd7 15. Bh6 Ncxe5 16. Nxe5 Nxe5 17. Nc3 f6 18. c5 Nf7 19. cxd6 cxd6 20. Qe3 Nxh6 21. Qxh6 Bf8 22. Qe3+ Kf7 23. Nd5 Be6 24. Nf4 Qe7 25. Re1 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-25T12:53:39.323" LastActivityDate="2020-03-25T12:53:39.323" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29010" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29008" CreationDate="2020-03-24T19:47:23.323" Score="15" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I'm discounting the explanation he just made an error in his&#xA;  annotations because of the deliberate way he looks at the camera when&#xA;  he announces this&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First of all, he &lt;em&gt;did&lt;/em&gt; make a mistake. He said Giri played the Evans Gambit but Giri was black. The Evans Gambit is an opening played by white.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The opening is sound and is occasionally played at the top level. It has a swashbuckling sounding name and in the romantic era was one way that attacking players tried to play for a quick win. In this respect it was similar to the King's Gambit and both openings still have romantic overtones which promise an exciting game. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This was the extent of the joke. The joke was against Agadmator's viewers. He lead them to believe it was going to be an Evans Gambit, an &quot;exciting&quot; game when actually it was a more boring normal Italian.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The truth nowadays is that computers have taken the romance out of openings like the Evans Gambit and the King's Gambit. Rather than produce sharp unbalanced games they are more likely to lead to early piece exchanges and games which end fairly quickly as tame draws. The Italian Game proper avoids early exchanges and often leads to slow manoeuvring games which build up slowly and come to life much later. So, maybe the joke was on Agadmator?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-03-24T19:47:23.323" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29011" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29012" CreationDate="2020-03-24T20:01:32.153" Score="4" ViewCount="314" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I started playing chess I picked 3 openings (Queens Gambit as white, Caro-Kann and QGD as black) and pretty much stopped studying the openings to focus on endgames and middlegames.&#xA;Some months ago I started analysing the games of Ulf Andersson and fell in love with the English Opening. I am wondering if there are black openings who are similar.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My current repertoire looks like this: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;• White: English&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;• Black: Caro-Kann (vs. 1.e4) and Nimzo/QID (vs. 1. d4)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some info on what I like in the English and in general:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;My preferred way to win is getting a small advantage and converting into a winning endgame. I love endgames.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I really like playing against structural weaknesses.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I do enjoy queenless middlegames.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I like quiet games with time to maneuver and frequently employ a double fianchetto as white.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21834" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-24T20:03:24.450" LastActivityDate="2020-03-24T20:20:41.403" Title="Black repertoire for players who love the English Opening" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;english-opening&gt;&lt;repertoire&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29012" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29011" CreationDate="2020-03-24T20:20:41.403" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The reality is that you cannot force such openings as black, but you can pick openings that may suit your style.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I really think that the Nimzo-Indian/Queens-Indian may suit your style very well. They will not get you queenless positions too often right out of the opening, but the nature of the Nc3 in the Nimzo, and it often getting exchanged resulting in doubled pawns for white, you will get a lot of strategically complex positions that have structural weaknesses to work against (usually in exchange for the bishop pair), and there is often a lot of maneuvering. In the Queens-Indian, you get the fianchettoed bishop you like, and nice control over e4, which allows you to try and chip away as the white center. I have also gotten a number of nice kingside attacks too against the white Kg1.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This has been my bread and butter opening pair as black against 1.d4 for decades, and I like the type of positions that you like. The theory is old now, but if you can get a hold of the book &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/0890580510&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Understanding the Queens Indian Defense&lt;/a&gt;&quot; on eBay, it does a great job of teaching the underlying ideas. You can also study Karpov's games, as this was his main weapon as black during his peak years.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the Nimzo take this famous game in the Huebner variation of the Nimzo. Of course, there are many variations, and you would have to learn more than just the Huebner.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [Event &quot;World-ch27 Fischer-Spassky +7-3=11&quot;]&#xA; [Site &quot;Reykjavik&quot;]&#xA; [Date &quot;1972.07.20&quot;]&#xA; [Round &quot;5&quot;]&#xA; [White &quot;Spassky, Boris Vasilievich&quot;]&#xA; [Black &quot;Fischer, Robert James&quot;]&#xA; [Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA; [ECO &quot;E41&quot;]&#xA; [BlackElo &quot;2785&quot;]&#xA; [PlyCount &quot;54&quot;]&#xA; [EventDate &quot;1972.07.11&quot;]&#xA; [EventType &quot;match&quot;]&#xA; [EventRounds &quot;21&quot;]&#xA; [EventCountry &quot;ISL&quot;]&#xA; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 Bb4 4. Nf3 c5 5. e3 Nc6 6. Bd3 Bxc3+ 7. bxc3 d6 8. e4 e5 9. d5 Ne7 10. Nh4 h6 11. f4 Ng6 12. Nxg6 fxg6 13. fxe5 dxe5 14. Be3 b6 15. O-O O-O 16. a4 a5 17. Rb1 Bd7 18. Rb2 Rb8 19. Rbf2 Qe7 20. Bc2 g5 21. Bd2 Qe8 22. Be1 Qg6 23. Qd3 Nh5 24. Rxf8+ Rxf8 25. Rxf8+ Kxf8 26. Bd1 Nf4 27. Qc2 Bxa4 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2020-03-24T20:20:41.403" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29013" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29008" CreationDate="2020-03-24T22:17:19.567" Score="16" Body="&lt;p&gt;The joke is based on the perception of Giri as a very solid, &quot;drawish&quot; player. There always seems to be one top player who is the butt of such jokes. It used to be Leko, nowadays it's Giri.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Take a look at this &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/4cgq06/what_are_some_interesting_anish_giri_jokes/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;reddit thread&lt;/a&gt; for example or this &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess24.com/en/read/news/giri-s-60-memorable-draws-exclusive-excerpt&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;chess24 April's fool&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The swashbuckling Evan's is the last opening Giri would ever choose to play, or so the jokester suggests.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2020-03-24T22:17:19.567" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29014" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-03-24T22:57:36.953" Score="1" ViewCount="78" Body="&lt;p&gt;The purpose of this query is to &lt;strong&gt;discuss&lt;/strong&gt; a topic that I am totally ignorant &#xA;of, rather than pose &lt;strong&gt;one specific question.&lt;/strong&gt;  Although such a query does &#xA;invite &lt;strong&gt;opinions&lt;/strong&gt; based on intuition, I am &lt;strong&gt;also&lt;/strong&gt; looking for objective &#xA;facts based on people's experience.  If this query is inappropriate for this &#xA;website, please suggest a different forum.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am wondering whether anyone has begun combining &lt;strong&gt;freeware&lt;/strong&gt; AI with &#xA;&lt;strong&gt;dynamically generated&lt;/strong&gt; endgame tablebases to attack chess studies.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The following link discusses freeware chess AI: &lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leela_Chess_Zero&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leela_Chess_Zero&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The following link discusses chess AI in general: &lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/1003/a-purely-self-trained-chess-ai?rq=1&quot;&gt;A purely self-trained chess AI&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The following link &lt;strong&gt;may relate to&lt;/strong&gt; building a tablebase on-the-fly to attack&#xA;a specific position: &lt;br&gt; &#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://kirill-kryukov.com/chess/discussion-board/viewtopic.php?p=16108#p16108&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://kirill-kryukov.com/chess/discussion-board/viewtopic.php?p=16108#p16108&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The general algorithm for constructing a tablebase is discussed here: &lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.talkchess.com/forum3/viewtopic.php?t=51847&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.talkchess.com/forum3/viewtopic.php?t=51847&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Suppose (for example) Leela Chess Zero (with standard 6 man tablebases) was &#xA;used to play N games against itself, always starting from a specific position.  Assume that&#xA;Leela Chess Zero (somehow) learns from each game and stores the knowledge.&#xA;The (hopefully plausible) intent is that by playing these games, Leela Chess Zero acquires pertinent&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;insights&lt;/strong&gt; that allow it to determine &quot;best play&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The following links suggest sample positions to attack: &lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/23459/lichess-puzzle-82753-can-white-win-with-a-queen-and-two-pawns-vs-rook-and-four?rq=1&quot;&gt;LiChess puzzle 82753: can white win with a queen and two pawns vs. rook and four pawns?&lt;/a&gt; &lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/23837/solvable-studies-that-computers-fail-to-crack&quot;&gt;Solvable studies that computers fail to crack&lt;/a&gt; &lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/8933/are-there-positions-which-cannot-be-properly-analyzed-by-any-computer?noredirect=1&amp;amp;lq=1&quot;&gt;Are there positions which cannot be properly analyzed by any computer?&lt;/a&gt; &lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can such an approach be implemented on a &lt;strong&gt;modern, moderately priced home pc&lt;/strong&gt;? &lt;br&gt;&#xA;To attack a typical position: &lt;br&gt;&#xA; 1. How large should N be (i.e. how many games played) to give Leela Chess Zero &#xA;a plausible chance of &quot;learning&quot;&#xA;insights into the position? &lt;br&gt;&#xA; 2. What time controls should be employed and how long will the process take? &lt;br&gt;&#xA; 3. How much memory (? + GPU memory) should be employed? &lt;br&gt;&#xA; 4. How strong a cpu (? + GPU-processor) should be employed?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Assuming that the above issues are resolved, how does one determine what the &#xA;insights are?  Would it be possible to identify a position that Leela Chess Zero&#xA;categorizes as both obtainable and &quot;critical&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Assume that Leela identifies a specific (critical and obtainable) position via&#xA;its FEN.  Would it be possible to build a tablebase (from scratch) with the &#xA;critical position as a starting point, so that only those positions that might&#xA;legally result from this starting point are relevant?  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Suppose that the approach described in the previous paragraph was feasible, with&#xA;a clear determination reached of [win for white, win for black, or draw].  Could&#xA;these results be &lt;strong&gt;fed back into Leela Chess Zero&lt;/strong&gt; so that it used this result&#xA;+ all the learning that it had achieved on the position, to start a new series of&#xA;N games (with Leela Chess Zero playing itself) from the original starting position?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it plausible that the iterative process of combining Leela Chess Zero with dynamically generated&#xA;tablebases could reach a definitive conclusion of (for example) a complex middle game&#xA;with many pieces?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17862" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-03-24T23:59:35.300" LastActivityDate="2020-03-24T23:59:35.300" Title="Using Freeware AI and Dynamically Generated Endgame Tablebases" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;tablebases&gt;&lt;leela&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="0" ClosedDate="2020-03-25T09:34:05.053" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29015" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28991" CreationDate="2020-03-24T23:34:17.810" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Computing magics at statup is fine because it's done only once and not very slow.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/blob/master/src/bitboard.cpp&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/blob/master/src/bitboard.cpp&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;// init_magics() computes all rook and bishop attacks at startup. Magic&#xA;// bitboards are used to look up attacks of sliding pieces. As a reference see&#xA;// www.chessprogramming.org/Magic_Bitboards. In particular, here we use the so&#xA;// called &quot;fancy&quot; approach.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stockfish did it. Leaving the constants in the code is also fine. It's all about implementation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2020-03-25T04:16:38.127" LastActivityDate="2020-03-25T04:16:38.127" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29017" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28985" CreationDate="2020-03-25T05:26:32.040" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;The best way I believe is to put them in front of the board and explain that &lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;pawns are so brave they only move forward and never move back&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;. If they know the other pawns are his/her opponent's they would understand they move towards them as it's their’s opponents forward.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The trickier part would be to explain how the pawns eat. I may say that they eat looking left with their left arm, and looking right with their right arm, but never with both at the same time (which would be eating in front of them).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Prechess&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would suggest at an early age to use didactic games like &lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;PreChess&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;. Not sure if that term exists in english, but in spanish we have &lt;code&gt;PreAjedrez&lt;/code&gt; games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can find nice &lt;code&gt;PreChess&lt;/code&gt;games within &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ajedrezparalaconvivencia.edu.uy/preajedrez/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.ajedrezparalaconvivencia.edu.uy/preajedrez/&lt;/a&gt; , pity the web is only in spanish by now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Specifically for practicing pawn moves I would suggest the &amp;quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ajedrezparalaconvivencia.edu.uy/preajedrez/carrera-de-peones/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Pawn Race&lt;/a&gt;&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ajedrezparalaconvivencia.edu.uy/preajedrez/rescatando-a-blanca-nieves/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Rescuing Snow White&lt;/a&gt;&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The clue with these kind of games is to play with less pieces and fewer rules involved. So the kid can focus on the pieces you want him/her to learn how to move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Note&lt;/strong&gt;: Just a note about ages. I started playing &lt;code&gt;PreChess&lt;/code&gt; games with my son when he was around three years old. He liked very much &amp;quot;searching for the treasure&amp;quot; which was eating pawns with a rook, one by one, trying to eat a pawn in each move. You would create a kind of labyrinth of pawns to eat.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let me give some description in english so as you get what the games are about:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ajedrezparalaconvivencia.edu.uy/preajedrez/carrera-de-peones/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Pawn race&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The aim of the game is to promote one pawn, which would be take one pawn to row 8 for White and row 1 for Black. Of course this game can end in a draw if nobody promotes a pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's a good game to practice moves and captures for pawns, and to explain the promotion of pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Below you can see the initial set of the game:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/xE9eD.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/xE9eDm.png&quot; alt=&quot;Pawn race&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ajedrezparalaconvivencia.edu.uy/preajedrez/rescatando-a-blanca-nieves/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Rescuing Snow White&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The dwarfs (eight white pawns) need to rescue Snow White that was captured by the witches (two bishops and a horse).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The dwarfs can rescue Snow White if at leat one dwarf gets to the last row and then makes a final move to rescue her (bare in mind that this is not possible in chess. It's a modification to create this PreChess game). Once she is rescued White win the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It the witches capture all the pawns then the dwarfs can't rescue Snow White and Black win the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Below you can see the initial set for the game:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/FDc1R.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/FDc1Rm.png&quot; alt=&quot;Rescuing Snow White&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11215" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-26T01:11:40.060" LastActivityDate="2020-08-26T01:11:40.060" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29018" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29019" CreationDate="2020-03-25T07:05:22.143" Score="2" ViewCount="1331" Body="&lt;p&gt;For instance if I analyze a game played in blitz, move by move, between two 2600s, should I expect the moves to be of the same quality as the moves between two 2600s in classical? Or would worse play in blitz be enough to achieve a 2600 rating, given that every player is playing worse moves due to time pressure?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So if someone who's, for instance, 1600 in classical, 1400 in rapid, and 1200 in blitz, does this mean that they are especially reliant in longer time controls and have a pronounced difficulty in performing under time pressure (more so than other people), or is this drop-off in rating expected, because everyone plays worse under time pressure?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7438" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-25T12:36:54.017" LastActivityDate="2020-03-25T12:36:54.017" Title="Does your rating express the quality of your play regardless of time control?" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;time-control&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29019" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29018" CreationDate="2020-03-25T07:48:08.130" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;The way ratings are mathematically defined, they don't express the &lt;strong&gt;absolute strength&lt;/strong&gt; of players, but only the strength of players in a pool &lt;strong&gt;relative to each other&lt;/strong&gt;. So there is no meaning in trying to compare blitz rating and standard rating, the way you are trying to suggest.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the same reason you cannot compare computer ratings with human ratings, because they are calculated from different pools: computers playing only against computers vs humans playing only against humans. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also for the same reason you cannot really compare ratings on different websites or online ratings with FIDE ratings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That being said, most of the good players (above say 2600 in standard) are also decent Blitz players and would have a comparable blitz rating. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Still, speaking of absolute strengths, their blitz games would (on average) be worse quality than their standard games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Giving a concrete example: Ding Liren and Hikaru Nakamura both have blitz and standard ratings in the 2800. So they are equal in strength in blitz (compared to each other) and in standard, but that is because they are equally worse in blitz....&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2020-03-25T07:48:08.130" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29020" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29024" CreationDate="2020-03-25T08:05:13.213" Score="8" ViewCount="1018" Body="&lt;p&gt;While doing my spring cleaning, I came across an old book claiming to give a good opening chance for black. It's called the &quot;&lt;em&gt;Barcza-Larsen opening&lt;/em&gt;&quot; and it is characterized by &lt;strong&gt;2 .. c5&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e6 2. d4 c5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am very skeptical about this opening. It seems that after &lt;strong&gt;3. d5 exd5 4. exd5 d6&lt;/strong&gt; white is already significantly better, due to the considerably weak black pawn on d6 and limited options for activating the bishops. Moreover, black will struggle to castle and will find himself in major trouble when white puts a rook on e1 and the queen on e2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I found a top GM game from 2019 featuring this opening, in which the white pieces (played by Kirill Alekseenko no less) lost!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Alekseenko, K. (2704)&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Salgado Lopez, I. (2605)&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 e6 2. e4 c5 3. Nf3 cxd4 4. Nxd4 a6 5. Nc3 d6 6. f4 b5 7. Bd3 Bb7 8. Be3 Nd7 9. Qf3 Nc5 10. a3 Nf6 11. O-O Be7 12. Rae1 O-O 13. g4 Nfd7 14. g5 Rc8 15. h4 f5 16. Kh2 e5 17. fxe5 Nxe5 18. Qh3 Ncxd3 19. cxd3 Nxd3 20. exf5 Nxe1 21. Rxe1 Qd7 22. Ne6 Rf7 23. Bd4 Bf8 24. h5 Rc4 25. g6 Re7 26. gxh7+ Kh8 27. Nxf8 Rxe1 28. Qd3 Rh1+ 29. Kg3 Qc6 30. Qe2 Rxd4 31. Ng6+ Kxh7 32. Nf8+ Kg8 33. Ng6 Rg1+ 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is today's view on this opening? Is it still playable, or is its only value an effect of &quot;surprise&quot; as white does not usually expect &lt;strong&gt;2. .. c5&lt;/strong&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4215" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-25T12:37:38.763" LastActivityDate="2020-03-29T02:40:50.100" Title="1. e4 e6 2. d4 c5 - is this opening worth it?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;transpositions&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29021" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29018" CreationDate="2020-03-25T08:56:56.107" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1600 in classical, 1400 in rapid, and 1200 in blitz&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Blitz is a little different to classical. Fast mouse clicking is an important skills in blitz, so people are not used to spamming pre-moves won't do good in blitz. No point up by a piece with only a few seconds left on the clock.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, your rating reflect how well you perform in that particular time control although someone who is good at blitz is expected to perform well in standard too, and vice versa.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2020-03-25T08:56:56.107" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29022" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29018" CreationDate="2020-03-25T11:26:34.143" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;if I analyze a game played in blitz, move by move, between two 2600s,&#xA;  should I expect the moves to be of the same quality as the moves&#xA;  between two 2600s in classical?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, I am sure that you mean relative to the speed at which they are required to think for each time control. Faster moves are certainly going to be weaker.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As others mentioned, your rating is a measure of your strength relative to the other players in the rating pool, but even so, if you only consider a single player, and compare that person's actual strength, irrespective of rating, even then, player's strengths can vary significantly from time control to time control.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Take these two examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Fabiano Caruana has a reputation for being a weaker blitz and rapid player. Forgetting about specific ratings, he is number two in the world in classical, but number 12 in the world in rapid, and number 36 in the world in blitz.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is no doubt that he has great understanding, but he also clearly, does not think as fast to be his equivalent ranking in blitz.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The second example is an older person, and I am going to draw on person experience being 58 now. I used to be a very strong blitz player (2450 on ICC when 2800 a strong GM, and only Kasparov and Shirov were over 3000...only later did ratings inflate to the 3300 range), but now, I just know that when I play blitz, my mind is just so much slower now. I can no longer compete at blitz like I once did.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My point is that your understanding of chess does not change from time control to time control, but your ability to put it into practice as quickly as blitz requires does change with various factors, but the biggest one is age for most people.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just to be clear: You are not going to be able to play blitz-speed moves in a classical tournament as a 2600, and expect to stay 2600, unless maybe you are the next Anand, who was known for his speed of play when he was younger.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2020-03-25T11:26:34.143" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29023" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29018" CreationDate="2020-03-25T11:27:37.587" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Generally speaking, the faster the time control, the worse the play will be, but the relative strength of the players will be the same and reflected in the rating.  It could be said the the more tactical player will have a lower variance between the different time controls.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My personal example has my quick OTB rating being over 2300, but my classical OTB rating is more than 100 points lower.  This exception is due to my exceptional tactical ability and complete lack of positional &quot;understanding&quot;.  My strengths shine in a quicker game, whereas my weaknesses are easily exploited during a longer game. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9684" LastActivityDate="2020-03-25T11:27:37.587" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29024" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29020" CreationDate="2020-03-25T11:46:20.370" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;You need to realize that just because someone gave it that name on move two, that it is certainly going to transpose to another opening with a different name. When determining what opening is played, classification takes place from the end of the game, and moves backward so the last known opening position is considered the opening that was played. If you start 1.c4 Nf6 2.d4, it is already no longer an English opening, for example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So that Alekseenko-Salgado Lopez game is actually ECO B54, a variation of the Sicilian, listed as &quot;unusual lines&quot; only because black refrained from Nf6. Had he chosen that move on move 6, which was the most common move there, it would have just been a mainline Scheveningen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After 1.e4 e6 2.d4 c5, you are going to get a mainline Sicilian, or a Benoni (the position after 1.e4 e6 2.d4 c5 3.d5 ed 4.cd). If black plays Be7 it is a Schmid Benoni, or a regular Benoni if black plays g6 and Bg7, but where white played the less-common exd5, which is probably a minor win for black, but I have always enjoyed those positions with white. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the record, in both Benonis, the pawn on d6 is not as big a weakness as you seem to think it is since the d-file is not open, and the only pieces that can typically get at it is a B on f4, and a Nc4/e4, but it is still easily defensible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is nothing wrong with this move order as long as you are willing to play the Benoni and Sicilian, but that seems odd considering the offer of playing the French on move 1...e6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="20569" LastEditDate="2020-03-26T10:16:41.943" LastActivityDate="2020-03-26T10:16:41.943" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29025" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29008" CreationDate="2020-03-25T14:49:28.217" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Evans Gambit is a running gag on Agadmator's channel. I can't remember when it started but at least for the past year whenever there is a game that reaches the Giuoco Piano position he jokes about white going for the Evans Gambit, a very exciting opening which—to Antonio's dismay it would seem—is played extremely rarely in modern high level chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21894" LastActivityDate="2020-03-25T14:49:28.217" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29027" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29028" CreationDate="2020-03-25T20:38:48.580" Score="3" ViewCount="307" Body="&lt;p&gt;Which endgame manual do you recommend and why?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;• Dvoretsky's Endgame Manual&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;• Fundamental Chess Endings (Muller &amp;amp; Lamprecht)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;• Silman's Complete Endgame Course&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;• Some other book&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am currently reading Frank Lamprecht and Karsten Muller's fundamental chess endgames.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus far I have completed the chapters on Pawn-Endgames, Knight Endgames, Bishop Endgames, Knight &amp;amp; Bishop Endgames. However, I find the material quite dry and I difficult to remember, especially the chapters on bishops and knights.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21834" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-25T21:01:41.700" LastActivityDate="2020-03-26T12:10:51.220" Title="Which endgame manual?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;books&gt;&lt;study&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29028" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29027" CreationDate="2020-03-25T20:50:54.037" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;A lot of endgame work is dry, and there is no getting around that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I learned endgames long before those books were available, and although it was a lot of work, I loved Ruben Fine's &quot;Basic Chess Endings&quot;. In it, there would be a base example, but then often, many other similar examples. By going through it, I saw multiple examples that were similar, thus reinforcing the main ideas of each.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If that is not for you, then probably &quot;Silman's Complete Endgame Course&quot; is a good place to start. I also really like Jesús de la Villa's &quot;100 Endgames You Must Know&quot;, and its accompanying workbook.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Dvoretsky's Endgame Manual&quot; is really for players, who are close to the master level already, and it assumes a great deal of previous endgame knowledge.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A lot of these books focus on theoretical type positions, but you will also want books that pick more positions that are from practical games, as they transition from middlegame into the endgame. You need both types. For example, Shereshevsky's &quot;Endgame Strategy&quot;. He also wrote a two-volume series that covered typical endgames from both open and closed games, called &quot;Mastering the Endgame&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/article/view/quotendgame-strategyquot-by-mikhail-shereshevsky&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Here is a article on &quot;Endgame Strategy&quot;.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-25T20:58:10.267" LastActivityDate="2020-03-25T20:58:10.267" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29029" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28993" CreationDate="2020-03-25T22:43:54.553" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;As others mentioned, a4?? gives away white's advantage. You will likely have to return the piece to stop the passed pawns after this move. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm going to suggest a different alternative approach than others have suggested. I think 1. Rxd4 Rb7 2. Rxc4 dxc4 is fine. The key move now is 3. &lt;strong&gt;Rc2&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black cannot play 3. ... b4 because of 4. Rxc4. If they attempt to support the pawn with 3. ... Rc7, that runs in to 4. Bb7. White has a clear plan to centralize the king and breaking up black's queenside majority and it's hard to suggest how black can prevent it: with the white rook on c2, a4 is now perfectly reasonable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1312" LastActivityDate="2020-03-25T22:43:54.553" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29030" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-03-26T02:52:02.583" Score="4" ViewCount="351" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm teaching my 5 year old daughter basic chess. While she's kind of interested, I feel the material, such as how the pieces move, mate in 1 puzzles, basic KQ and KR checkmates, etc, is a bit boring to her.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chess.stackexchange.com/a/29017/7002&quot;&gt;This answer&lt;/a&gt; on another question presented an interesting variant call Rescue Snow White. It combines piece move training with some fun story.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can someone can suggest other variants similar to Rescue Snow White that motivate children to learn chess? Being fun on the chess board is the main requirement, while the training value is an optional bonus.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7002" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-03-26T03:32:31.193" LastActivityDate="2020-03-30T02:13:45.793" Title="Fun variants in teaching chess to children" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;training&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="8" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29031" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28905" CreationDate="2020-03-26T10:47:15.507" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yeah, in fact, the tournament has been put on a pause with the current standings, because they are not able to continue: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/news/view/2020-fide-candidates-tournament-postponed&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.chess.com/news/view/2020-fide-candidates-tournament-postponed&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20913" LastActivityDate="2020-03-26T10:47:15.507" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29032" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29030" CreationDate="2020-03-26T12:09:32.400" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Appart from the games you can find under &lt;a href=&quot;https://bit.ly/PreChessGames&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://bit.ly/PreChessGames&lt;/a&gt; (translated web for &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.ajedrezparalaconvivencia.edu.uy/preajedrez&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.ajedrezparalaconvivencia.edu.uy/preajedrez&lt;/a&gt;) I may add these:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Chess with cards&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You may want to try as well chess with cards. You can &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ajedrezparalaconvivencia.edu.uy/blog/2019/09/06/cartas-de-preajedrez/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;download the cards&lt;/a&gt; and print them.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Each player has a pile of these cards front face down, and they have to get one card, in each turn, which would tell the player what they have to move. If the player has no valid move with the piece the card states then you may set the rule to move what he/she wants. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The objective in this game is to eat the king. It’s the only difference to chess rules. And of course you are obliged to move what the card tells you. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The advantage of this game is that, as there is random involved the kid may win in spite of you playing will all your strenght. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Obliged to eat&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This game is known within some chess platforms as antichess. The added rule is that if any peace can be taken then you are obliged to eat. The king may also be eaten. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You win the game when there are no more of your pieces in the board or you have no move to make. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11215" LastEditorUserId="11215" LastEditDate="2020-03-26T12:15:03.433" LastActivityDate="2020-03-26T12:15:03.433" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29033" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16707" CreationDate="2020-03-26T14:08:48.870" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know that this is three years late, but Stockfish with partial 7-piece tablebases immediately says 0.00. Now, at a depth of 71, it still says 0.00. I think it is, indeed, a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, there is no harm in trying, and the plan in such endings is to try to walk the king toward your own pawn. Clearly, it should not work based on the computer assessment, but still, I would try for a while until my opponent could prove a perpetual.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/DxMmU.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/DxMmU.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-26T15:19:51.020" LastActivityDate="2020-03-26T15:19:51.020" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29034" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29036" CreationDate="2020-03-26T15:01:52.590" Score="4" ViewCount="144" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am currently twenty years old. I learned the rules of chess when I was eight and played on and off for a long time. However, I did not take it seriously. Recently after joining chess.com and trying out the tactics, as well as following grandmaster games and YouTube channels, I am interested in improving my skills. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As of now I am able to figure out tactics as well as calculate decently in situations where a few different permutations of exchanges or forks, 2 or 3 moves ahead, could take place. However, most text I see talk about pattern recognition and studying positions and tactics. Therefore I have obtained a copy of Susan Polgar's &quot;Chess Tactics For Champions&quot;. I would like to know how I should go about using this book. I understand that it is quite comprehensive. But somethings I would like to get right the first time around are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) Should I make a conscious effort to remember positions presented in the book?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) Should I make a conscious effort to identify patterns or relate positions other than the obvious differences? Or will I start to hone this skill automatically?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) Should I try to set up a board and play on a few moves in cases where the objective is to get an advantage?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4) Should I keep in mind any trade-off between tactical advantages which may lead to immediate piece advantage versus positional advantage? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21907" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-26T15:53:21.517" LastActivityDate="2020-03-26T16:00:19.967" Title="Guide to using a book" Tags="&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;books&gt;&lt;study&gt;&lt;patterns&gt;&lt;advantage&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29035" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23240" CreationDate="2020-03-26T15:15:21.510" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Starting out, it is worth mentioning that Stockfish 11 gives an eval of +3.02 at a depth of 32. I think that this is objectively a win, but in practice, for a human, it could present some practical problems, but they should be something that a strong player should be able to overcome without much difficulty.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The obvious basic plan is to advance the pawns, but that cannot be forced if black attempts to use the pieces to blockade them. That said, then you get a very typical, and instructive, plan of switching the attack to the other side of the board, and combine threats against the weak king with the fact that the black pieces are tied to the blockade.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is very clear what happens should black allow the advance of the white queenside pawns, so I will focus more on the plans involving the attempted blockades, and some sample lines showing how they typically would play out. There are billions of possibilities here, so these are just examples based on human understanding, and playing the computer's idea of what is the best defense. Once you have an understanding of what the plan should be, playing it in practice is just a matter of being careful, and patient. There is no need to hurry as black cannot do much here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;1r6/5pk1/2q1p1pp/3p4/r2P4/2P4P/PPQ2PP1/R3R1K1 w - - 0 0&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;&#xA; 1. b3 $1 {To get the a-pawn moving.} Ra3 {Going for the blockade plan.} (1... Rxd4 2. Rec1 Rf4 3. a4 $18 {And it is already clear that the a+b-pawns are going to roll. +3.05.} Ra8 4. a5 Qb5 5. Rd1 $1 (5. Qb2 Kh7 6. Qa2 Ra6 7. Rd1 e5 8. Re1 d4 9. c4 Qb4 10. Rxe5 $18 {Or this.}) 5... Rxa5 6. c4 $1 Qb4 7. Rxa5 Qxa5 8. c5 Re4 9. c6 $18 Re1+ 10. Rxe1 Qxe1+ 11. Kh2 Qe5+ 12. g3 d4 13. b4 h5 14. b5 {Winning.}) 2. c4 Qb6 (2... dxc4 3. d5 $1 Qd6 4. dxe6 cxb3 5. axb3 Rxa1 6. Qc3+ Kh7 7. Qxa1 Rb7 (7... fxe6 8. Qa7+ Kg8 9. Rxe6 $18) 8. exf7 Rxf7 9. Re8 {Up two pawn with attack.} Qf6 10. Qe1 h5 11. b4 Qb2 12. Re2 Qf6 13. b5 Ra7 14. Re5 Kg8 15. Qe3 $18) 3. c5 Qb4 4. Qb2 Rba8 (4... h5 {Passing time, but also potentially threatening the white king later, even if it should not work. It also removes the Ph6 from any potential attack.} 5. c6 Ra7 6. Rec1 Rc7 7. Rc5 Kf8 8. Rac1 Ke7 9. g4 hxg4 10. hxg4 g5 (10... Ra7 11. Rd1 Rba8 12. Qc1 Rxa2 13. Qg5+ Ke8 14. c7 Rc8 15. Kg2 Ra7 16. Qf6 Raxc7 17. Rh1 $18) (10... Kd6 11. Kg2 Rb6 12. a3 $1 Qxb3 13. Qd2 Ke7 14. Qf4 Rc8 15. Ra5 $18) 11. Kg2 Rb6 12. f4 $1 $18 gxf4 13. Qf2 Ra6 14. R1c2 f3+ 15. Kxf3 Rc8 16. Qh4+ Kd6 17. g5 Kc7 18. Qf4+ Kb6 19. Qxf7 Ra7 20. Qxe6 Rf8+ 21. Kg2 Rc7 (21... Qxd4 22. c7+ Kb7 23. Rb5+ Ka8 24. c8=Q+ Rxc8 25. Qxc8#) 22. Qe5 $18) 5. Rec1 Kf8 (5... Kh7 6. c6 Kg7 7. Rc5 Kf6 8. c7 Rc8 9. Rac1 Raa8 (9... Ke7 10. R1c3 g5 {If the computer thinks this is best, it is not a good sign for black.} 11. g3 Ra7 12. Qd2 Kd7 13. a4 Ra5 14. Rc6 Ra7 15. Kg2 Rb7 16. R6c5 Qb6 17. Qd3 Rbxc7 18. Qh7 Kd6 19. a5 Qb4 20. Rxc7 Rxc7 21. Rxc7 Kxc7 22. Qxf7+ Kb8 23. Qxe6 $18) 10. R1c3 Ke7 11. Qd2 Kd7 12. Qf4 $18) 6. c6 Ke7 7. Rc2 Rc8 (7... Kd8 8. Qc1 Qxd4 9. c7+ Kc8 10. Qe1 $1 R3a7 11. Rd1 Qf4 12. g3 Qf3 13. Rc3 Qf6 14. Qe3 Rxa2 15. Qc5 Qh8 16. b4 $18) 8. Rc5 h5 (8... Ra4 9. Rb1 Ra6 10. Rbc1 Ra3 11. Rb5 Qd6 (11... Qxb5 12. Qxa3+ Ke8 13. Qd6 $18) 12. b4 Rd3 13. Rb7+ Ke8 14. b5 $18) 9. Qc1 Kf8 (9...Qxd4 10. Qxa3 Qxa1+ 11. Rc1+ $18) 10. Qf4 Ra7 11. c7 Ke8 12. Rac1 Rxa2 13. R1c3 Ra7 14. Rf3 $18 f5 15. Qd6 {Crushing.}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2020-03-26T15:15:21.510" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29036" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29034" CreationDate="2020-03-26T15:42:55.220" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;How you should use the book is really a matter of opinion, but I very much believe in immersion learning, so rather than do a few every day for a longer period, I believe that doing as many as you can in a shorter period of time is more beneficial. I have seen this play out in practice in both my progress, and in the progress of those, whom I have taught.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, I always say, that try and do at least 50 per day, spending no more than two minutes per move on each problem.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The whole point of pattern recognition is that you do not have to try to remember the specific positions you see in the book as you will likely never get those exact positions in your lifetime. What you will get in your games is certain elements of those games, the patterns&quot;, and by doing enough of these tactics exercises, you will start to remember them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I just looked at the table of contents of the Polgar book, and it is well-organized. You want to stay within a certain type of tactic when you are studying, like doing pins for a while, and maybe later, forks, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should, and shouldn't, have to consciously identify the patterns. I think it will come naturally as you read that book, and MANY more tactics books after. Even if you become an &quot;ordinary&quot; Master, even then, your tactics will still always be helped by continued tactical practice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am not sure how number three relates, or really what you are asking, but in general, when doing tactics problems, I would not set up a board as it takes too long, and you want to start calculating in your head anyway.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A tactic can lead to either a material advantage, which I think is more common, or a positional advantage. You always need to be mindful of the evaluation at the end of a tactic, and ask if you are really better, and is there any trap at the end that you may have missed. If you have a tactic that can lead to either type of advantage, you have to weigh the pros and cons of each final position. I would say that, in general, material is more likely to be preferred, but there are definitely cases where I would not want the material, and would take the position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, I recently answered a &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/28906/is-there-a-better-winning-plan-from-move-37/28907#28907&quot;&gt;question here&lt;/a&gt; where the OP took the exchange. I would not have played the move 35...Ne3+ winning an exchange, and would have preferred to maintain the pressure. The short &quot;tactical exchange&quot; winning the exchange allowed white to use e4 as a blockading square for quite a while, whereas keeping the attacker would have probably led to more. The positional pressure was worth more, in my opinion. So this is an example of having a choice between material and position, and having to make a decision.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-26T16:00:19.967" LastActivityDate="2020-03-26T16:00:19.967" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29037" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17102" CreationDate="2020-03-26T17:26:19.370" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You see it a lot in the Ruy Lopez with the maneuvering of the white knights from b1-d2-f1-g3-f5 and Nf3-h2-g4, and the queen joining the kingside attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are some games taken only from games where both players were above 2500, including this positional masterpiece by Karpov. As soon as both Q+N infiltrate, it was immediately time to resign.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [Event &quot;Olympiad-21 Final A&quot;]&#xA; [Site &quot;Nice&quot;]&#xA; [Date &quot;1974.06.17&quot;]&#xA; [Round &quot;3&quot;]&#xA; [White &quot;Karpov, Anatoly&quot;]&#xA; [Black &quot;Unzicker, Wolfgang&quot;]&#xA; [Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA; [ECO &quot;C98&quot;]&#xA; [PlyCount &quot;87&quot;]&#xA; [EventDate &quot;1974.06.15&quot;]&#xA; [EventType &quot;team-tourn&quot;]&#xA; [EventRounds &quot;15&quot;]&#xA; [EventCountry &quot;FRA&quot;]&#xA; [WhiteTeam &quot;Soviet Union&quot;]&#xA; [BlackTeam &quot;Germany&quot;]&#xA; [WhiteTeamCountry &quot;URS&quot;]&#xA; [BlackTeamCountry &quot;GER&quot;]&#xA; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Ba4 Nf6 5. O-O Be7 6. Re1 b5 7. Bb3 d6 8. c3 O-O 9. h3 Na5 10. Bc2 c5 11. d4 Qc7 12. Nbd2 Nc6 13. d5 Nd8 14. a4 Rb8 15. axb5 axb5 16. b4 Nb7 17. Nf1 Bd7 18. Be3 Ra8 19. Qd2 Rfc8 20. Bd3 g6 21. Ng3 Bf8 22. Ra2 c4 23. Bb1 Qd8 24. Ba7 Ne8 25. Bc2 Nc7 26. Rea1 Qe7 27. Bb1 Be8 28. Ne2 Nd8 29. Nh2 Bg7 30. f4 f6 31. f5 g5 32. Bc2 Bf7 33. Ng3 Nb7 34. Bd1 h6 35. Bh5 Qe8 36. Qd1 Nd8 37. Ra3 Kf8 38. R1a2 Kg8 39. Ng4 Kf8 40. Ne3 Kg8 41. Bxf7+ Nxf7 42. Qh5 Nd8 43. Qg6 Kf8 44. Nh5 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anand at work. It is amazing that the game lasts only another 7 moves!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [Event &quot;Wch Chess960&quot;]&#xA; [Site &quot;Mainz&quot;]&#xA; [Date &quot;2007.??.??&quot;]&#xA; [Round &quot;5.2&quot;]&#xA; [White &quot;Anand, Viswanathan&quot;]&#xA; [Black &quot;Bacrot, Etienne&quot;]&#xA; [Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA; [WhiteElo &quot;2779&quot;]&#xA; [BlackElo &quot;2705&quot;]&#xA; [Variant &quot;chess 960&quot;]&#xA; [SetUp &quot;1&quot;]&#xA; [FEN &quot;1R4k1/q4ppp/6n1/2b1pN2/4P3/2N2QP1/5P1P/6K1 b - - 0 29&quot;]&#xA; [PlyCount &quot;12&quot;]&#xA; [EventDate &quot;2007.??.??&quot;]&#xA; [EventType &quot;tourn&quot;]&#xA; [EventRounds &quot;6&quot;]&#xA; [EventCountry &quot;GER&quot;]&#xA; [EventCategory &quot;20&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1... Qxb8 2. Nd5 Qe8 3. h4 Qe6 4. Qg4 Bf8 5. h5 Nh8 6. Nde7+ Qxe7 7. Nh6# 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From a blitz game, so there are mistakes, but the Q+N combine nicely.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [Event &quot;Wch Blitz 6th&quot;]&#xA; [Site &quot;Astana&quot;]&#xA; [Date &quot;2012.07.09&quot;]&#xA; [Round &quot;15&quot;]&#xA; [White &quot;Ivanchuk, Vassily&quot;]&#xA; [Black &quot;Karjakin, Sergey&quot;]&#xA; [Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA; [ECO &quot;C96&quot;]&#xA; [WhiteElo &quot;2769&quot;]&#xA; [BlackElo &quot;2779&quot;]&#xA; [SetUp &quot;1&quot;]&#xA; [FEN &quot;8/1b3pk1/6p1/3P4/2Q1P3/1p2N1PP/1q3P2/6K1 w - - 0 45&quot;]&#xA; [PlyCount &quot;29&quot;]&#xA; [EventDate &quot;2012.07.09&quot;]&#xA; [EventType &quot;tourn (blitz)&quot;]&#xA; [EventRounds &quot;30&quot;]&#xA; [EventCountry &quot;KAZ&quot;]&#xA; [EventCategory &quot;19&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. Kg2 Qb1 2. Qc3+ Kg8 3. Ng4 $1 {The exclam is for allowing Karjakin to take a center pawn with check, but there was much stronger.} (3. Qe5 $1 b2 4. Ng4 Qc1 5. Nf6+ Kg7 6. d6 {Taking away e7!} b1=Q 7. Ne8+ Kh6 (7... Kf8 8. Qh8#) 8. Qh8+ Kg5 9. Qh4#) 3...Qxe4+ 4. Kh2 Qc2 5. Qe5 b2 $4 (5... Bxd5 {Was the last chance.}) 6. Nf6+ $2 (6. d6 {Only this move taking away e7 again wins.}) 6... Kf8 (6... Kg7 $11) 7. Nh7+ $2 {The wrong way.} Kg8 8. Nf6+ Kf8 $2 9. Nh7+ Kg8 10. Nf6+ Kf8 11. Nd7+ $1 {Finally, on the right track.} Kg8 12. Qe8+ Kh7 13. Qxf7+ Kh6 14. Qf8+ Kg5 15. Qf4+ 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is a nice high-level example because the players were both world-class, and black is actually up a piece, but still cannot defend against the attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [Event &quot;Linares 09th&quot;]&#xA; [Site &quot;Linares&quot;]&#xA; [Date &quot;1991.??.??&quot;]&#xA; [Round &quot;3&quot;]&#xA; [White &quot;Jussupow, Artur&quot;]&#xA; [Black &quot;Kamsky, Gata&quot;]&#xA; [Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA; [ECO &quot;D58&quot;]&#xA; [WhiteElo &quot;2605&quot;]&#xA; [BlackElo &quot;2640&quot;]&#xA; [Annotator &quot;Ftacnik,L&quot;]&#xA; [SetUp &quot;1&quot;]&#xA; [FEN &quot;5n1k/5p1b/p7/3N4/P2P4/5Q1P/1P3PPK/2q5 b - - 0 41&quot;]&#xA; [PlyCount &quot;16&quot;]&#xA; [EventDate &quot;1991.02.??&quot;]&#xA; [EventType &quot;tourn&quot;]&#xA; [EventRounds &quot;13&quot;]&#xA; [EventCountry &quot;ESP&quot;]&#xA; [EventCategory &quot;17&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1... Bg6 {Defending the pawn, but also giving the Kh8 the h7 square to avoid Qf6+ Kg8; Ne7#.} 2. Qf6+ Kh7 3. Qe5 $1 {Setting up dangerous knight checks on f6.} Ne6 4. f4 $1 {Keeping the Qc1 from coming back to defend.} Qf1 5. h4 Bd3 6. Qf6 Kg8 {Defending the critical f7-square.} 7. f5 $1 {Blocking the bishop's defense of the critical g6 square.} Be4 (7... Bxf5 8. Ne7+ {Wins the Bf5, and the attack continues...but not for long.}) 8. Ne7+ Kf8 9. Ng6+ {And mate next.} 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I found this really nice game, which is only partially about the attack on the king. I had to include it since it beautifully demonstrates a high-level concept that GMs use regularly, and that is the limiting of the opponent's piece scope. The annotations are mine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [Event &quot;Chigorin Memorial-14&quot;]&#xA; [Site &quot;Sochi&quot;]&#xA; [Date &quot;1980.09.23&quot;]&#xA; [Round &quot;15&quot;]&#xA; [White &quot;Sveshnikov, Evgeny&quot;]&#xA; [Black &quot;Torre, Eugenio&quot;]&#xA; [Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA; [ECO &quot;C50&quot;]&#xA; [WhiteElo &quot;2570&quot;]&#xA; [BlackElo &quot;2520&quot;]&#xA; [PlyCount &quot;79&quot;]&#xA; [EventDate &quot;1980.09.04&quot;]&#xA; [EventType &quot;tourn&quot;]&#xA; [EventRounds &quot;15&quot;]&#xA; [EventCountry &quot;URS&quot;]&#xA; [EventCategory &quot;11&quot;]&#xA; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 d6 4. d4 Bg4 5. Bb5 Nge7 6. Bg5 f6 7. Be3 exd4 8. Bxd4 a6 9. Bc4 Nxd4 10. Qxd4 b5 11. Be2 c5 12. Qe3 Nc6 13. a4 b4 14. Nbd2 Be7 15. Bc4 Qd7 16. Qd3 Qb7 17. O-O Bd7 18. Bd5 Qc7 19. Nc4 Ra7 20. Nfd2 Nd8 21. Ne3 Nf7 22. Ndc4 O-O 23. Nf5 {This game revolves around that bad Be7, and limiting the scope of the black pieces.} Bxf5 24. exf5 Kh8 25. f4 {Limiting the movement of the Nf7.} Nh6 26. Rfe1 Rd8 27. Re6 Bf8 28. Rae1 Qf7 {Clearly, white has an overwhelming position here, so black looks for counterplay. What I love about this game is how white tries to prevent black's pieces from getting any activity, and the transitions as they trade pieces, leaving black with a sorry bishop, and white with the powerful knight.} 29. h3 {Anticipating Qh5, and getting ready to box in the black queen.} Qh5 30. g4 Qh4 31. Kg2 Ng8 32. Re8 Rad7 33. Nb6 Re7 34. R1xe7 Bxe7 35. Rxg8+ $1 Rxg8 36. Bxg8 Kxg8 37. Qd5+ Kf8 38. Qe6 $1 {Keeping the Qh4 from getting active on e1.} g5 {A desperate attempt at counterplay.} 39. Nd7+ Ke8 40. Nxf6+ {And mate next move.} 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And one last game because it is a nice attacking game, but also because white has a classic chess name: Geller, the namesake of Efim Geller, the great Soviet GM.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2020-03-26T17:26:19.370" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29038" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29039" CreationDate="2020-03-26T17:28:09.967" Score="5" ViewCount="145" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;How to win in the chess openings&quot; by I.A. Horowitz states, regarding the Réti opening, that &quot;there is no known way which leads to an advantage for white&quot; which leads to the conclusion that it should not be used. However, the book is quite old (written in 1951), and I am wondering whether or not there are any new ways of playing the opening that result in more opportunities. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. Nf3 d5 2. c4 {The Reti.}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21909" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-03-26T19:29:44.000" LastActivityDate="2020-03-26T19:29:44.000" Title="Does the Réti opening continuing to evolve?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;books&gt;&lt;reti-opening&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29039" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29038" CreationDate="2020-03-26T17:43:43.743" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I do not think that white has any advantage in the Reti, especially after 2...d4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;AlphaZero taught us that space is very important, probably even more important than we previously thought, and with 2...d4, black gains space. Stockfish 11 says that black has a -.38 advantage at a depth of 32, which needs to be taken with a grain of salt as it probably will dissipate as they get further into the opening, but it probably does indicate that black is absolutely equal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In addition, in practical play, according to the Mega 2020 database, after 2...d4, white has a miserable winning percentage of only 46.9%.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That last statistic probably indicates that Horowitz was correct in that it is not the best opening (it is also not horrible), but you also need to keep in mind that unless you play very strong masters, you are probably fine to play it, although if you think you might get to that level in the future, then you also do not want to have to rework your openings totally when you get there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-26T17:52:57.413" LastActivityDate="2020-03-26T17:52:57.413" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29040" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29041" CreationDate="2020-03-26T20:17:57.840" Score="2" ViewCount="98" Body="&lt;p&gt;I started analysing my games as a means to improvement.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am trying to form my own opinion without looking at the engine that much, as I can't rely on it while analysing a position in game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I really liked the last game I played, so I want to share my analysis of the game. Please share your thoughts and tell me if I went wrong with my moves or my analysis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. e4 {[%clk 0:15:08]} 1... c6 {[%clk 0:15:08.4]} 2. d4 {[%clk 0:15:14.5]} 2...d5 {[%clk 0:15:16.3]} 3. e5 { [%clk0:15:22.5]} 3... Bf5 [%clk 0:15:18.3]} 4.Bd3 {[%clk 0:15:27.9] a very common reply at my rating level, trying to dispute the diagonal right away. This move allows me to offer a queenless middlegame} 4... Bxd3 {[%clk 0:15:25.6]} 5. Qxd3 {[%clk 0:15:34.3]} 5... Qa5+ {[%clk 0:15:33.1]} 6. Bd2 {[%clk 0:15:34.2]} 6... Qa6 {[%clk 0:15:41.5]} 7. Qxa6 {[%clk 0:15:37.3]} 7... Nxa6 {[%clk 0:15:51.4] from this point on I try to develop, castle kingside and target his d4 pawn} 8. c3 {[%clk 0:15:44.4]} 8... e6 {[%clk 0:15:55.2] a standard developing move to develop both knight and bishop} 9. Nf3 {[%clk 0:15:50.5]} 9... Ne7 {[%clk 0:15:41.2]} 10. Nh4 {[%clk 0:15:51.4] a move I dislike. His intention is to stop 10. Nf5 however after my c5 pawn break I can develop my knight to c6 leaving his h4 knight misplaced} 10... c5 {[%clk 0:15:28.3]} 11. O-O {[%clk 0:15:46.2]} 11... cxd4 {[%clk 0:15:35.2]} 12. cxd4 {[%clk 0:15:51.6] d4 is now a backwards pawn and a structural weakness. The Advance Variation of the Caro-Kann is characterised by the &quot;war over the d4 pawn&quot;} 12... Nc6 {[%clk 0:15:39.3] attacking d4 right away, and because he has to defend d4 this comes with a tempo} 13. Be3 {[%clk 0:15:55.1] better to defend d4 via Nf3} 13... Be7 {[%clk 0:15:19.8] developing the bishop with tempo} 14. Nf3 {[%clk 0:16:00.1]} 14... Nab4 {[%clk 0:15:05.4] improving the position of the knight, threatening Nc2 forking bishop and rook, winning the rook} 15. a3 {[%clk 0:15:51.2]} 15... Nc2 {[%clk 0:15:13.1]} 16. Ra2 {[%clk 0:15:57.7]} 16... Nxe3 {[%clk 0:15:15.2] leaving him with doubled pawns and three pawn islands} 17. fxe3 {[%clk 0:16:03.3]} 17... O-O {[%clk 0:15:18.7]} 18. Nc3 {[%clk 0:15:59.4]} 18... a6 {[%clk 0:14:28.5] stopping Nb5} 19. b4 {[%clk 0:15:56.4]} 19... Rac8 {[%clk 0:14:00.6] better would've been b5 to make Na4 impossible} 20. Na4 {[%clk 0:16:03.1]} 20... b5 {[%clk 0:12:50.3]} 21. Nc5 {[%clk 0:16:08.1] invading via b6 seems better but I think he feared having his knight trapped} 21... Bxc5 {[%clk 0:12:51] because all his pawns are on dark squares I happily trade my bad bishop for his good knight} 22. dxc5 {[%clk 0:16:12.5] this leaves him with double isolated pawns, I prefer bxc5} 22... a5 {[%clk 0:12:01.4]} 23. Rb1 {[%clk 0:16:16]} 23... axb4 {[%clk 0:12:06.6] Ra8 first would've been better} 24. axb4 {[%clk 0:16:21.8]} 24... Ra8 {[%clk 0:12:11.5] contesting the only open file, planning on doubling rooks if he refuses to trade} 25. Rab2 {[%clk 0:16:24.8] a mistake because it lets me double rooks with a tempo and gives me control over the only open file} 25... Ra3 {[%clk 0:11:47.5] attacking e3} 26. Kf2 {[%clk 0:16:29.7]} 26... Rfa8 {[%clk 0:11:48.5]} 27. Kg3 {[%clk 0:16:31.7] a mistake, leaving e3 unprotected} 27... Rxe3 {[%clk 0:11:35.8]} 28. Kf4 {[%clk 0:16:35.8]} 28... Re4+ {[%clk 0:11:09.7] positioning my pieces to attack the weak backwards b4 pawn} 29. Kg3 {[%clk 0:16:42.1]} 29... Ra4 {[%clk 0:10:58.1] Nxe4 comes to mind but I prefer to leave his passed pawn blockaded} 30. Nd2 {[%clk :16:35.6]} 30... Rexb4 {[%clk 0:10:43.8]} 31. Rxb4 {[%clk 0:16:41.9]} 31... Rxb4 {[%clk 0:10:44.7]} 32. Rxb4 {[%clk 0:16:47]} 32... Nxb4 {[%clk 0:10:54.6] a winning position for me being up 2 pawns, both of them passed pawns} 33. Nb3 {[%clk 0:16:51]} 33... Kf8 {[%clk 0:10:54.1]} 34. Kf3 {[%clk 0:16:56.6]} 34... Ke7 {[%clk 0:11:03.1]} 35. Ke3 {[%clk 0:17:01.8]} 35... Kd7 {[%clk 0:11:12.5]} 36. Kd4 {[%clk 0:17:07.5]} 36... Kc6 {[%clk 0:11:07.1] a waste of time on my part, Nc6 wouldve been better} 37. Na5+ {[%clk :17:12.3]} 37... Kc7 {[%clk 0:10:55.4]} 38. Kc3 {[%clk 0:16:52.6]} 38... Nc6 {[%clk 0:10:52.2] offerig a trade, attacking his e-pawn and even more importantly controlling e4, d4, c4, b4, and a4 holding his king at bay} 39. Nb3 {[%clk 0:16:29.9]} 39... b4+ {[%clk 0:09:37.9] not taking on e5 right away because this allows Kb4, notice how this pawn move further drives the king back and at the same time makes it possible to invade with my king via b7-a6-b5-c4} 40. Kd3 {[%clk 0:16:27.1]} 40... Nxe5+ {[%clk 0:09:34.8]} 41. Kd4 {[%clk 0:16:34.2]} 41... Nc6+ {[%clk 0:09:30.2]} 42. Kd3 {[%clk 0:16:39.9]} 42... Kb7 {[%clk 0:09:23.1] with his king cut off from my position i started improving my own king position} 43. Kc2 {[%clk 0:16:40.3]} 43... Ka6 {[%clk 0:09:25]} 44. Kd2 {[%clk 0:16:40.1]} 44... Kb5 {[%clk 0:09:32.7]} 45. Kd3 {[%clk 0:16:46.3]} 45... e5 {[%clk 0:09:12.4] a useful waiting move and taking more space} 46. h3 {[%clk 0:16:49.6]} 46... e4+ {[%clk 0:09:00.8] forcing the king backwards, allowing my king to invade} 47. Kc2 {[%clk 0:16:55.4]} 47... Kc4 {[%clk 0:09:07.5]} 48. Kb2 {[%clk 0:16:57.3]} 48... d4 {[%clk 0:08:55.2]} 49. Nd2+ {[%clk 0:16:54.7]} 49... Kd5 {[%clk 0:08:45.9] not taking c5 right away to stop Nxe4} 50. Nb3 {[%clk 0:16:59.9]} 50... e3 {[%clk 0:08:44.2] threatening to march the epawn up the board} 51. Kc1 {[%clk 0:16:53.4] trying to stop the pawn, this leaves his knight unprotected} 51... Kc4 {[%clk 0:08:44.9]} 52. Na1 {[%clk 0:16:54.9]} 52... Kxc5 {[%clk 0:08:42.2] just now taking the pawn to free my knight} 53. Kc2 {[%clk 0:17:02.6]} 53... Kc4 {[%clk 0:08:51.2] taking the opposition stopping complications via 54. Kd3} 54. g4 {[%clk 0:17:02.4]} 54... d3+ {[%clk 0:08:46.1]} 55. Kd1 {[%clk 0:17:09.1]} 55... b3 {[%clk 0:08:41.8]} 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21834" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-03-26T22:07:28.833" LastActivityDate="2020-03-26T22:07:28.833" Title="Advanced Caro Kann: Queenless Middlegame" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;middlegame&gt;&lt;caro-kann&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29041" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29040" CreationDate="2020-03-26T21:48:55.130" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Overall, a very good game. Here are my thoughts on it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. e5 Bf5 4. Bd3 (4. Nf3 {And Be2 was a line that Nigel Short popularized.}) 4... Bxd3 5. Qxd3 Qa5+ {I think that Capablanca was the first to play this Qa5-a6 idea.} 6. Bd2 Qa6 7. Qxa6 Nxa6 8. c3 e6 9. Nf3 Ne7 10. Nh4 $2 {This puts the knight offside, and the Ne7 may actually go to c6 anyway after c5 is played.} c5 11. O-O cxd4 $2 {Why release the tension, and give his Nb1 a decent square? In addition, you would normally be playing for a minority attack here. After the Na6 is repositioned, and the Be7 is developed, and the Rh8 is brought to c8, the idea would be b5-b4 (maybe with a5, if necessary). This would weakened the white queenside.} (11... Nc6 12. Nf3 (12. Be3 b5 13. Nd2 c4 14. a4 b4 15. f4 {Trying for f5, and his own minority attack.} Be7 16. Nhf3 Rb8 {And black is ready to open the b-file whenever he is ready.}) 12... Kd7 $1 {With the idea of Be7 and Rhc8.} 13. Ng5 cxd4 14. Nxf7 Rg8 15. cxd4 Nxd4 $17 {With a significant advantage.}) 12. cxd4 Nc6 13. Be3 Be7 14. Nf3 Nab4 $6 {Again, finish developing. This does not threaten anything after the natural Nc3.} 15. a3 $2 (15. Nc3 Nc2 16. Rac1 Nxe3 17. fxe3 {Is close to equal.}) 15... Nc2 16. Ra2 Nxe3 $2 {The Be3 was a horrible piece, so I would not have been in a hurry to trade it off. Also e3 although doubled, it is easier to defend than d4 was. A pawn that is closer to home is easier to defend.} (16... Kd7 {Again develop.}) (16... Na5 $5 17. b4 $2 (17. Nbd2 $1 $15) 17...Nxe3 18. fxe3 Nc4 $17 {With a great square for the knight.} 19. Kf2 Kd7 20. Nbd2 b5 {And if white ever takes, you get a strong passer.} 21. Nxc4 $2 bxc4 {And then Rhb8 and a5 will destroy the white queenside.}) 17. fxe3 O-O 18. Nc3 a6 $2 {Taking the c-file, and playing Na5-c4 should have be a priority. Nb5 was not a threat, thus, a6 is unnecessary.} 19. b4 Rac8 {This move was fine, but it was the next that was not great.} 20. Na4 b5 $2 (20... Na7 $1 {This computer move is very hard-to-find, but is borne out of the necessity to be able to defend a6, and then play b6, driving the strong knight out of c5. Hard-to-find, but very logical with some deep thought.} 21. Nc5 Rc7 22. Rb1 Ra8 $1 23. Ne1 Nb5 24. Rb3 b6 25. Na4 Rb8 {And finally black is free of that monster Nc5, and can break with f6!}) 21. Nc5 {Nb6 was not even a consideration here. Not only might it get trapped, but you want squares that have strong bases (pawn protectors) for knights.} Bxc5 {Your bishop is not bad there, but the Nc5 was too strong to let sit there.} 22. dxc5 $2 {This leaves e5 very weak, and thus, limits the mobility of the Nf3.} (22. bxc5 {Of course, this was better.}) 22... a5 $2 {This gives white an opportunity to improve the Nf3.} (22... Ra8 23. Rb1 Rfb8 {Preparing a5.}) 23. Rb1 (23. Nd4 $1 Nxe5 24. Rb1 Rb8 25. bxa5 {With counterplay as the queenside is too open now.}) 23... axb4 24. axb4 Ra8 25. Rab2 $2 Ra3 (25... Rfb8 {Again, thinking about white's idea of Nd4, improving the position...Now, Nd4 just loses a pawn, and you can play Ra4 next, then bring the king up.}) 26. Kf2 $2 (26. Nd4 $1 {Is much better.} Nxd4 (26... Nxe5 $4 {Of course, not this.} 27. Nxb5 Rxe3 28. Rc2 $18 {And the pawns roll.}) 27. exd4 Rfa8 {And bring the king over to c6 and then use the doubled rooks.}) 26... Rfa8 27. Kg3 $4 {This is the final straw.} (27. Nd4 Nxd4 28. exd4 Rd3 $17) 27... Rxe3 28. Kf4 Re4+ 29. Kg3 Ra4 $1 {Excellent...increase the pressure rather than take on e5...e5 will eventually drop. It is indefensible. You also have all the time in the world, so you can bring the king up too to make sure that c5 never becomes a threat. Plus maybe with h6 thrown in to stop Ng5.} 30. Nd2 {This just hastens the defeat.} Rexb4 31. Rxb4 Rxb4 32. Rxb4 Nxb4 33. Nb3 Kf8 $2 {This is not a mistake in that it throws away the win, but you have a tendency to not look at your opponent's ideas. Nd4-b5 was clearly a threat so prevent it.} (33... Nc6 $1 {Of course. This prevents Nd4, but also ties him to e5 too.} 34. Kf4 Kf8 {Now bring the king in.}) 34. Kf3 $2 (34. Nd4 Na6 35. Nxb5 (35. c6 b4 $19) 35... Nxc5 $19) 34... Ke7 (34... Nc6 {Again.}) 35. Ke3 Kd7 36. Kd4 Kc6 (36... Nc6+ $1 37. Kc3 b4+ 38. Kc2 Nxe5 $19) 37. Na5+ Kc7 38. Kc3 Nc6 39. Nb3 b4+ 40. Kd3 Nxe5+ 41. Kd4 Nc6+ 42. Kd3 Kb7 43. Kc2 Ka6 44. Kd2 Kb5 45. Kd3 e5 46. h3 e4+ 47. Kc2 Kc4 48. Kb2 d4 49. Nd2+ Kd5 50. Nb3 e3 51. Kc1 Kc4 52. Na1 Kxc5 {Push the pawns. It does not matter here, but pushing should be your instinct.} (52... d3 $1) 53. Kc2 Kc4 54. g4 d3+ 55. Kd1 b3 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2020-03-26T21:48:55.130" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29042" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29030" CreationDate="2020-03-26T23:05:07.597" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;For kids younger than 6, you could try the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Tag/Chase&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You start by a specific number of pieces(no pawns or kings) on the board mixed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;One piece is &quot;it&quot; and this piece &quot;chases/attacks&quot; the other pieces. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;All the other pieces try to &quot;run away&quot; from this piece.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If &quot;it&quot; captures a piece, the latter piece is &quot;it&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The players switch when a piece becomes &quot;it&quot;, just remember to give a turn to player 2 when switching.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It can be more fun, as the kid has to calculate only 1 piece in relation to the others and it learns to fork and pin pieces. You could add an extra variant later and say the piece has to be undefended.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Tag/Chase without switching sides&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A queen is &quot;it&quot; and tries to capture all other pieces, one after the other.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Chess without captures&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Captures are not allowed, the goal is to learn how the pieces move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20694" LastActivityDate="2020-03-26T23:05:07.597" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29043" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29045" CreationDate="2020-03-27T04:34:44.807" Score="10" ViewCount="2614" Body="&lt;p&gt;This has been bothering me from when I was little. Why are openings most commonly named after a country? For example: Sicilian, Scotch, Spanish, etc...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21912" LastActivityDate="2020-03-27T14:28:54.197" Title="Why Are Openings Named After Countries?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29045" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29043" CreationDate="2020-03-27T09:01:16.767" Score="18" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's a variety of reasons why openings are commonly named after nations (but &lt;em&gt;most&lt;/em&gt; commonly would surprise me), maybe due to an individual player of the nation, e.g. Spanish (Ruy Lopez), English (Staunton), maybe due to a group of players in one nation e.g. Italian, maybe due to an event involving the nation e.g. Scotch (named for a correspondence match between Edinburgh and London in the 1800s), and I suspect a number of other reasons, including &quot;we don't really know&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_chess_openings_named_after_places&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia list of chess openings named after places&lt;/a&gt; might be a good place to start researching this&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7726" LastEditorUserId="7726" LastEditDate="2020-03-27T14:28:54.197" LastActivityDate="2020-03-27T14:28:54.197" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29046" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-03-27T15:44:02.763" Score="0" ViewCount="144" Body="&lt;p&gt;Please analyze and comment about this game  I played as an anonymous uer. I played the &lt;strong&gt;Polerio Gambit&lt;/strong&gt; in the game. I would also like remarks about the Polerio Gambit (1. e4 e5 2. f4 exf4 3. d4) as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Live Chess&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Lichess.org&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2020.03.27&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;BramStokers&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Anonymous User&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;C33&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;1000&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;1000&quot;]&#xA;[TimeControl &quot;10 minutes Blitz type game&quot;]&#xA;[Termination &quot;game_result.won_by_resignation&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;0-1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.f4 exf4 3.d4 Nf6 4.Qf3 Bb4 5.c3 Ba5 6.Bxf4 O-O  7.Nh3 Re8 8.e5 d6 9.Bb5 c6 10.Bc4 dxe5 11.Bxf7+ Kxf7 12.Ng5+ Kg8 13.Bxe5 Nfd7 14.Qf7+ Kh8&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9229" LastEditorUserId="9229" LastEditDate="2020-04-24T15:54:14.940" LastActivityDate="2020-04-24T15:54:14.940" Title="Polerio Gambit game for review" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;kings-gambit&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29047" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29046" CreationDate="2020-03-27T16:08:54.287" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, this is not really a Polerio, aka &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muzio_Gambit&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Muzio Gambit&lt;/a&gt; (this is the only name I have ever heard it called). That is characterized by the move 3.Nf3 g5 4.Bc4 g4 5.0-0. You left out some of the opening moves, and the way you played it was lost right out of the opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My first impression is that I see a lot of tactical mistakes. There is a beautiful tactic that was missed on move 13. Here are my notes to the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. e4 e5 2. f4 exf4 3. d4 $4 {This is almost losing already.} (3. Nf3 $1 g5 4. Bc4 g4 5. O-O {This is the Muzio/Polerio.}) 3... Nf6 $2 (3... Qh4+ {This is close to winning already.} 4. Ke2 {This is forced, and if so, white needs to deviate sooner.} (4. g3 $2 fxg3 5. Nf3 g2+ $1 6. Nxh4 gxh1=Q $19)) 4. Qf3 $6 Bb4+ $2 {This allows white to solidify the center with tempo.} (4... Nc6 $1 5. c3 d5 6. e5 Ne4 $17 {And black is better.}) 5. c3 Ba5 $2 {The bishop is really needed for the defense of the king.} (5... Be7 $1 {But white is still much better after e5.}) 6. Bxf4 $2 (6. e5 {This drives the knight back to its home, and it clearly the best since white will be way ahead in development.} Ng8 7. Bxf4 Ne7 8. Bd3 {With a huge advantage.}) 6... O-O 7. Nh3 $4 (7. e5 $1) 7... Re8 $4 (7... Nxe4 $1 {This just wins a pawn, and black went from much worse to at least equal.}) 8. e5 d6 $1 {The white king is now stuck in the middle, so black will be winning material.} 9. Bb5 (9. Nd2) 9... c6 (9... Bg4 10. Qd3 Nbd7 {Finishing development is even better.}) 10. Bc4 dxe5 11. Bxf7+ {This is nothing more than a check. Black can take this with impunity.} Kxf7 12. Ng5+ Kg8 13. Bxe5 Nfd7 $4 {Black is crushing here, but instead walks into mate in two. Almost any move here wins, but this one. That said, black had a beautiful, and unique tactic here that wins another piece.} (13... Qxd4 $1 {Exploiting two pins, this wins the Be5.}) 14. Qf7+ 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-29T21:07:10.987" LastActivityDate="2020-03-29T21:07:10.987" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29048" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28742" CreationDate="2020-03-27T16:58:28.370" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;This sounds similar to a variant from the Netherlands known as &lt;a href=&quot;http://pacosako.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Paco Ŝako&lt;/a&gt; (&quot;peace chess&quot;). In Paco Ŝako captured pieces are not removed from the board; instead, they become &quot;merged&quot; and occupy the same square. Merged pieces move as a unit according to the rules for the current player's piece, and cannot capture. However, they can &lt;em&gt;be&lt;/em&gt; captured, in which case the capturing piece replaces the same-color piece from the merged pair, which then immediately moves to a new location. This allows a player to move multiple pieces in the same turn. Checkmate occurs when any piece merges with the opponent's king. This implies that the king cannot capture other pieces. Otherwise the rules for movement, castling, &lt;em&gt;en passant&lt;/em&gt;, etc. work as in traditional chess. There is a &lt;a href=&quot;https://youtu.be/yJVcQK2gTdM&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;YouTube video&lt;/a&gt; which illustrates the basic concepts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21919" LastActivityDate="2020-03-27T16:58:28.370" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29049" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29050" CreationDate="2020-03-27T20:01:13.867" Score="4" ViewCount="97" Body="&lt;p&gt;Recently, I have been very attracted to the French defense, as I feel as though it is perfect for my style. However, I am aware that the French is highly theoretical, which is why I need a good, detailed, and organized way to study the theory and move orders of all the variations. Any suggestions? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21834" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-03-27T21:25:09.560" LastActivityDate="2020-03-27T21:25:09.560" Title="What's the best way to learn the French?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;learning&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;french-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29050" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29049" CreationDate="2020-03-27T20:15:14.580" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The fact is that you will need to pick a good book, which is difficult since there are a million books out there on the French.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When starting out with a new opening, picking a book that is heavy on theory is not so important as is a book that presents ideas well. For this purpose, I suggest the book &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/0713457163&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Mastering the French&lt;/a&gt;&quot; by GM Neil McDonald.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also suggest the book &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/0805039066&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Winning With the French&lt;/a&gt;&quot; by GM Wolfgang Uhlmann. He was probably THE authority on the French during his peak years, and never played anything but the French in response to 1.e4 during his career (or so they say). The book is exclusively taken from 60 of his games, and the explanations are very good, but watching how a master of this opening handles it will be invaluable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From there, you need to just start taking in one chapter at a time, but not necessarily in order. You want to take the most common lines first since you are more likely to encounter them early on. Spend at least a week on each chapter, and play some blitz games with a friend, who is willing to give you practice in each variation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You will pick up the main ideas pretty quickly this way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2020-03-27T20:15:14.580" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29051" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23240" CreationDate="2020-03-27T21:25:24.653" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Strange as it may seem, you want to start a Kingside attack. This puts black in a quandary. He can stop the attack by exchanging pieces, but then he will be without counterplay in the ending. A lot of technique in a winning positions has to do with the &quot;principle of two weaknesses&quot;. If you Google this phrase you will find a lot of very useful stuff.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is essentially what @Phismaster does in his analysis, but you might feel very passive with your pieces bunched up on the Q-side, and you would probably like a line where you can feel confident and in charge. It is worth spending a lot of time figuring out your plan before doing anything committal. An ideal setup would be to put pawns on a5,b4,c3 so you only have to worry about one of them, and double your rooks on the third rank. Really, now, nothing can happen to your pawns, and your Rooks are well placed for an attack against a second weakness. You have all the time in the world to plan your attack. You know you are winning. You know you are safe.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastActivityDate="2020-03-27T21:25:24.653" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29052" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29053" CreationDate="2020-03-28T00:05:03.340" Score="6" ViewCount="133" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Bughouse chess can you make a triple occurrence draw claim if the position on the board has been repeated three times but the pieces available to the players to place were different each time?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21909" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-30T11:20:20.653" LastActivityDate="2020-03-30T11:20:20.653" Title="In Bughouse can you claim a draw if the position on the board repeated three times but the pieces available to place were different?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;draw&gt;&lt;threefold-repetition&gt;&lt;bughouse&gt;&lt;claim-draw&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29053" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29052" CreationDate="2020-03-28T00:16:05.207" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not having a governing body for bughouse, the rules are a little informal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Per the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bughouse_chess#End_of_the_game&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt; article:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Depending on (local) rules threefold repetition applies, in which case&#xA;  the reserve of pieces is not taken into account.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you think about it, if the available pieces were taken into account, first, with no scoresheet, it would be really hard to prove, especially at a typically fast time control; and second, the simple mathematical possibilities would probably render any chances of a draw virtually impossible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So basically, if the house rules allow for a three-fold repetition, it probably has to be just considering what is on the board of just one of the two boards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So to answer the base question, most people probably play by those rules, and thus, the answer would be &quot;yes, you can claim a draw under those circumstances&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-28T00:27:06.163" LastActivityDate="2020-03-28T00:27:06.163" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29054" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29020" CreationDate="2020-03-28T05:37:07.903" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've toyed with this idea in the past but never played it seriously. If you're okay with the transpositions there is nothing wrong with it at all.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After 1.e4, e6 2. d4, c5 white has three main choices (3. dxc5, Bxc5 is obviously really bad for white) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Nf3, cxd4 transposes to an e6 Sicilian. There's nothing wrong with that&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;d5 is a Franco-Benoni. Black can end any transpositions to the modern Benoni with 3...exd5 or play more flexibilty with 3...Nf6. White is better but I don't think the position is particularly bad for black. There is some practical value in the fact that it's not that common. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;c3 could go a few different directions but I think black is pretty close to equal here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One advantage for black is that you can narrow your rep by playing 1...e6 vs. 1.d4 too. Although you still have to figure out 1.d4, e6 2. c4. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't think it's objectively worse than most mainstream openings and it does have a lot of practical value. The only question is if you're comfortable in the Franco-Benonis and e6 sicilians.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastEditorUserId="19861" LastEditDate="2020-03-29T02:40:50.100" LastActivityDate="2020-03-29T02:40:50.100" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29056" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27710" CreationDate="2020-03-28T10:25:41.613" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;This may not help if you do not have games in the ChessBase database (or even enough games), but ChessBase recently released a feature called &quot;WinChain&quot;, which TRIES to find your &quot;number&quot; to any player, including Morphy. Nevertheless, I found that it still does not work particularly well for going back that far, but you still might be interested.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is an article called &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.chessbase.com/post/three-steps-to-morphy&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Three Steps to Morphy&lt;/a&gt;&quot; discussing the feature.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And here is a &lt;a href=&quot;https://players.chessbase.com/en/winchain?SrcFirst=&amp;amp;SrcLast=&amp;amp;DestFirst=paul&amp;amp;DestLast=morphy&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;link&lt;/a&gt; to the page specifically for the Morphy number.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I could not get my Morphy number since my chain was still too long, but I was only four steps from Kasparov, Karpov and Carlsen, and 5 from Fischer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/XZsOt.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/XZsOt.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2020-03-28T10:25:41.613" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29057" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29058" CreationDate="2020-03-28T21:31:37.610" Score="5" ViewCount="1099" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. c4 dxc4 3. Nf3 e5 4. Nxe5 c5 5. d5 f6 6. Nxc4 b5 7. Nca3 c4 8. Nxb5 Qa5+ 9. N1c3 Bb4 10. Nd4 Bxc3+ 11. Bd2 Bxd2+ 12. Qxd2 Qxd5 13. Rc1 Nh6 14. b3 Nf5 15. bxc4 Qxd4 16. Qxd4 Nxd4 17. g3 Bb7 18. Rg1 O-O 19. e3 Nf3+&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this game, I tried to play the Catalan opening as white, but black didn't go along with it.  Early on I took free pawns (if you think this was mistake, please let me know).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyways, the move in question is 11. Bd2.  The computer suggests 11. bxc3, but if I do that, can’t black play Qc3+ and then take my rook?  Or would Bd2 be the appropriate response to Qc3+? It all went down hill for me after this, so I am thinking that I need to learn about this pivotal point.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21834" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-03-28T21:50:08.897" LastActivityDate="2020-03-29T04:20:05.897" Title="Can someone explain this computer suggestion to me?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;catalan&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29058" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29057" CreationDate="2020-03-28T22:17:35.887" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, you were winning handily, and up material, and position. The move Nd4?? blundered a piece, and Bd2 actually makes it clearly worse, which is why the computer liked bxc3. Given two clear choices (that is, not two 0.00 or equivalent), the computer will always pick the one with the higher evaluation, and it did. Here is why it evaluated it as such.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The idea of Qd2, allowing Qxa1 is common because the queen is so out of play. Often, white has a pawn on d4, and there is no pawn on c4 for black, so Nb3 would trap the queen immediately in some similar positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The line after Qd2 is a tactical mess, which had it been reached by normal means (one side not losing material early), it probably could fill at least a chapter in a book. I will give a couple of lines, but there were SO many more along the way. There may be improvements for black along the way, but at the very least, despite being up a whole rook, it is actually much more dangerous for black with threats to both the king and queen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Again, in short, the computer saw a way of keeping the black queen out of the game, and thus, it liked that line better because white may actually be significantly better in all lines, but it is hard to prove. Black is hanging by a thread. The other way was just a really bad game after Bxd2 Qxd2 Qxd2, so the choice to the computer was easy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is also worth noting that the black pieces, like the rooks a8 and h8 were also out-of play, and black was behind in development.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. d4 d5 2. c4 dxc4 3. Nf3 e5 $4 4. Nxe5 $16 c5 5. d5 f6 6. Nxc4 $18 b5 7. Nca3 c4 $4 8. Nxb5 Qa5+ 9. N1c3 Bb4 10. Nd4 $4 {Losing a piece.} (10. a3 {Your chance to force the Bb4 to make a decision.} Qxb5 (10... Bxc3+ 11. Nxc3 $18) (10... Bc5 11. Bf4 $18) 11. axb4 Qxb4 12. Ra4) 10... Bxc3+ 11. Bd2 (11. bxc3 $1 Qxc3+ 12. Qd2 $1 Qxa1 13. g3 {This is just a better way to give back some of the material. It is very deep, but it almost wins the queen, but in saving it, the king comes under a strong attack because it is stuck in the center.} Nd7 {I will play the best computer moves here...others are worse.} (13... c3 14. Qc2 Na6 15. Nb3 $18) 14. Bg2 Rb8 15. O-O Ne7 (15... Qb1 16. Qe3+ $18) 16. d6 Ng6 17. Be4 Nc5 {The only move along with Rb1.} (17... Rb1 18. Ne6 Nb6 19. Nxg7+ Kf7 20. Qh6 f5 21. Bxb1 Qxg7 22. Qxg7+ Kxg7 23. Bb2+ Kf7 24. Bxh8 Nxh8 $16) 18. Bd5 Bd7 19. Qe3+ Kf8 20. Ba3 Rb1 21. Rxb1 Qxb1+ 22. Kg2 Ne5 23. Bxc5 g5 {Only move.} 24. h4 h6 25. Ne6+ Bxe6 26. Bxe6 Kg7 27. Bb4 $3 Qxb4 (27... Ra8 28. a3 a5 29. Bd5 Rf8 30. Qa7+ Nf7 31. Bxa5 $18) 28. Qxa7+ {Mating.}) 11... Bxd2+ 12. Qxd2 Qxd5 (12... Qxd2+ $1 13. Kxd2 f5 $1 {And Nf6 is strong.}) 13. Rc1 (13. e4 $3 {This almost impossible-to-find move was the ONLY move here, but black retains some advantage.} Qd6 (13... Qxe4+ 14. Be2 $1 {And the h1-a8 diagonal is going to win material for white, or compromise the black king position.} Nc6 {Only move.} (14... Qxg2 $4 15. Bf3 $18) 15. Nxc6 Qxc6 16. Bh5+ g6 17. Bf3 Qe6+ 18. Kd1 $16 {With the dual threats of Re1 and Bxa8.}) 14. Bxc4 Ne7 15. Rc1 Bd7 $15)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-29T02:15:22.073" LastActivityDate="2020-03-29T02:15:22.073" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29059" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29057" CreationDate="2020-03-29T03:45:22.293" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;After 11.bxc3, Qxc3 12.Qd2, Qxa1, there is no easy way to get the queen out. Black is going to have to give something back at some point. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If black tries to get the queen out immediately : &#xA;13. g3, (the fianchetto is threatening both to trap the queen and indirectly attacking the rook on a8) Qb1 14.Bg2. From here black only has four queen moves that don't lose the queen immediately. (Qg6, Qb6, Qb7, Qa1) Of these 14...Qg6 is just bad according to SF (+8). Qa1 is a pointless waste of two moves. That only leaves Qb6 and Qb7. I'm not going to work all of these lines out but white has a really strong attack here. White has a big lead in development, a better center and potential tactics all over the place. SF also heavily favors white after either Qb6 or Qb7.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If black doesn't try to get the queen out I'm not sure it can be saved. White is only four moves away from trapping the queen. I would need to do a couple hours of analysis to figure it out completely but it looks like the engine is assuming that trading the queen for the h1 rook (after 0-0) is blacks best line. After that you've got Q and pawn for two rooks which is even but white has the better position with the 2 bishops and the better pawn structure. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastEditorUserId="19861" LastEditDate="2020-03-29T04:20:05.897" LastActivityDate="2020-03-29T04:20:05.897" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29060" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18240" CreationDate="2020-03-29T04:05:19.573" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If there are 20 moves in a given position that means the engine is spending 95% of its time evaluating moves that are not the move that will be played. Switching from 5% of its analysis to 100% allows it to see much deeper much more quickly. This is especially true if the line chosen is a forcing line because the engine will be able to eliminate so many early moves.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2020-03-29T04:05:19.573" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29061" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4638" CreationDate="2020-03-29T04:15:22.953" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;If we assume chess is drawn (and all evidence points to that) then the answer is no. The &quot;best&quot; move would be the one that gives the best practical chance of winning and there is no way to objectively determine the best practical move. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That would be like asking if rock is objectively a better move than paper or scissors. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If chess is solved, computers will be able to say one move is better than another (because it leads to a decreased probability of losing) but how can you say a move is the &quot;best&quot; when other moves lead to the same result? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2020-03-29T04:15:22.953" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29063" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26469" CreationDate="2020-03-29T07:25:55.737" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have thought (maybe too much, lol) a lot about this. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Average centipawn loss (cpl) is the difference of your move to the best computer move averaged over all moves.&quot; Yes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Like all averages this is pretty meaningless without some measure of variance. Very long games will tend to have a smaller cpl because of so many moves and there are not a lot of differences in the value of variations with only a few pieces left on the board. Simply put with lots of moves you are dividing by a larger number, there is little variance between move choices, and this yields a small cpl.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, there are games where the top 10 moves will vary in value very little e.g. closed positions like a stonewall. These games will show a low cpl. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I tend to play a very positional game where the positions end up with valuations that vary very little across any of the top 6-8 moves. These games show a low cpl. It does not mean I am playing well. It means the games are intrinsically calm, not sharp and tactical. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So if we had a measure of variance to go along with the cpl we would have a context to better understand what a cpl means. A 25 cpl with a high variance would mean you played rather well. A 25 cpl with a low variance would mean you played OK. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17740" LastActivityDate="2020-03-29T07:25:55.737" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29064" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29066" CreationDate="2020-03-29T17:49:35.790" Score="3" ViewCount="1233" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why we often see many pawn moves in the Sicilian Defense? I would imagine that this harms the development of the black pieces. For instance, there is this line:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 a6 4. Nc3.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22938" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-29T19:10:57.663" LastActivityDate="2020-03-30T00:35:38.170" Title="Help with the Sicilian Defence - I need to understand those early pawn moves" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;&lt;najdorf&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29065" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29064" CreationDate="2020-03-29T19:09:46.333" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, in chess, being behind in development is not always the end of the world. It certainly can be if your king gets stuck in the center of the board, and comes under attack; but there are many openings where one side can afford to fall behind in development to gain certain static advantages if the position is super solid. Then, you can catch up in development in due time. Of course, you can only do this when your opponent cannot rip the position open, and you are getting permanent, or semi-permanent, positional advantages in exchange for delaying development. It is not an excuse for moving the same pieces around repeatedly for no good reason while your opponent develops. This is an important concept to understand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Early on in the Sicilian, black is very solid, but you need to know some theory against strong players as there are many sacrifices that can turn that solidity on its head, so I am not saying that you can dilly-dally forever in this opening, but you do have some latitude if you know what you are doing, and and early a6 is often a part of that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the Sicilian, a6 is commonly played for a number of reasons: a6 is played because it is a flexible move, and is a move which is almost always useful in the Sicilian. That flexibility lets black put off where to put the rest of the pieces for the time being based on how white develops in the next few moves, but it also stops Nb5, and Bb5+ in various lines (especially if black later plays e5, allowing the &quot;Boleslavsky Hole&quot; on d5). It also often prepares b5, and Bb7, to attack e4, and/or because white and black castle on opposite sides, and need to push the pawns in an all-out attack on the opposing king...a6 also protects b5, which is commonly played. Also, in many variations of the Sicilian, c7 is a very comfortable square for the Qd8 to move to, and this stops most harassment by Nb5 unless white is willing to sacrifice a piece.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We see a6, most famously, in the Najdorf, which is the opening (by transposition) that you gave in the Nakamura-Aronian game in your comment. The Najdorf is one of the sharpest openings in all of chess. It is also seen on move 4 in the Kan variation, among others.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a brand new book out by IM David Vigorito on the Najdorf called &lt;a href=&quot;https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/1907982655&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&quot;Playing the Najdorf: A Practical Repertoire&quot;&lt;/a&gt;, if you are very interested in learning how to play it. Dave is a highly-regarded recognized expert on the opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is a hard opening to learn, but it can serve you for an entire career. Kasparov was one of the great exponents of the Najdorf, and MVL is today.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are notes within the following lines, so make sure you read them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 (3. Nc3 a6 4. d4 cxd4 5. Nxd4 Nf6 {Transposing.}) 3... cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 a6 {The starting position of the Najdorf. White has many options here, and I will list four of the main options, and just discuss how they relate to a6.} 6. Be2 (6. Be3 e5 {e6 is also possible.} 7. Nb3 {And the knight cannot go to b5, so it must take up a less favorable square.} (7. Nf5 d5 $1 $17) 7... Be6 8. f3 Be7 9. Qd2 O-O 10. O-O-O Nbd7 11. g4 b5 {And we see how the flexible a6 helps with the opposite-side attack.}) (6. Bc4 {Fischer's favorite Sozin Attack.} e6 {Of course, here the pawn belongs on e6 blunting the pressure from the Bc4 along the a2-g8 diagonal.} 7. Bb3 b5 {With very dynamic play where black must be careful of sacrifices on e6. b4 and Ne4 may be a threat in the future, but it is probably too dangerous to try and take it now, after 0-0 by white.}) (6. Bg5 e6 7. f4 Be7 (7... Qb6 {The Poisoned Pawn variation.} 8. Qd2 Qxb2 9. Rb1 Qa3) 8. Qf3 Qc7 {And we see that the queen is nicely placed on c7 without the harassing Nb5 moves.}) 6... e5 7. Nb3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-30T00:35:38.170" LastActivityDate="2020-03-30T00:35:38.170" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29066" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29064" CreationDate="2020-03-29T19:17:17.880" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, in the Sicilian black often falls behind in development, and that is a problem -- white often gets the chance to mount an attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But black has some compensation. After ...cxd4 Nxd4 he has two central pawns while white only has the e-pawn. In order to attack quickly, white often castles queenside and black can use the half-open c-file to start a counter attack. His a- and b-pawns can be used in a minority attack against white's queenside. He has no clear weaknesses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It &lt;em&gt;turns out, after a century and a half of trying to refute it&lt;/em&gt;, that that is enough to hold the balance. Indeed, the whole situation is also risky for white and that means it can give black more winning chances than normal (as well as losing chances).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But that was by no means obvious!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's not an easy defence to understand, and it's debatable whether weaker players should play it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2020-03-29T19:17:17.880" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29067" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-03-29T22:39:53.127" Score="4" ViewCount="3292" Body="&lt;p&gt;A famous recent example of this ending happened last year &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1988510&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;between&lt;/a&gt; Carlsen and Firouzja. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here, Firouzja time ran out, so Carlsen won&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Alireza Firouzja-Magnus Carlsen, World Blitz Championship, Moscow Russia, 12/30/2019&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[startply &quot;132&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Ba4 d6 5. O-O Bd7 6. c3 g6 7. d4 Bg7 8. h3 Nf6 9. Bc2 O-O 10. Re1 Re8 11. Nbd2 Qe7 12. Nf1 Qf8 13. Ng3 Bh6 14. Ng5 Nd8 15. Bb3 Ne6 16. h4 Rad8 17. Be3 Bg7 18. h5 Bh6 19. Qc1 Ng4 20. Nxe6 fxe6 21. Rf1 Nxe3 22. fxe3 Qe7 23. hxg6 hxg6 24. Qd2 exd4 25. cxd4 Kg7 26. Rf3 Rf8 27. Raf1 Rxf3 28. Rxf3 Rf8 29. Qc3 c6 30. Nf1 e5 31. Rxf8 Kxf8 32. Qc4 Qf6 33. dxe5 dxe5 34. Qb4+ c5 35. Qxb7 Bb5 36. Qc8+ Ke7 37. Qxc5+ Qd6 38. Qxd6+ Kxd6 39. Bf7 Bxf1 40. Kxf1 g5 41. Ke2 Bf8 42. Kf3 Ke7 43. Bc4 a5 44. Ke2 Kd6 45. Bd5 Be7 46. Kf3 Bd8 47. Kg4 Be7 48. Kf5 Bd8 49. g4 Be7 50. a3 Bd8 51. b4 axb4 52. axb4 Be7 53. b5 Bd8 54. Kg6 Kc5 55. Kf5 Kxb5 56. Kxe5 Kc5 57. Ke6 Ba5 58. e5 Bd2 59. e4 Bc3 60. Kf5 Kb6 61. e6 Kc7 62. Kg6 Kd8 63. Kxg5 Ke7 64. Kh5 Bd2 65. g5 Bf4 66. Kg4 Bd2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In that tournament, the arbiter ruled that Carlsen wins since the he (technically) had sufficient mating material (a King+Bishop, and  Firouzja had &gt;=1 piece in addition to their King). There is a concise explanation &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxKmO0SCNkc&amp;amp;t=642s&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; (from 10m 42s)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Question&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does this rule stand in majorchess tournaments? Or is there some special rule to cover this situation and override the idea that King + Bishop is sufficient for checkmate if the opponent has at least one piece in addition to their king?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Note&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some (possibly in/correct) answers &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.quora.com/How-do-you-checkmate-with-a-king-and-a-bishop-how-does-the-strategy-works&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; state that the rules of chess deem such a situation to &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; have sufficient mating material. I am not sure how reliable they are.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18029" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-04-01T14:04:29.843" LastActivityDate="2020-04-01T14:04:29.843" Title="Do the rules of chess state that a Bishop+King can be sufficient mating material?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;fide&gt;&lt;claim-draw&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29068" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29067" CreationDate="2020-03-29T22:49:10.483" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, Carlsen, despite having only the Bishop, WON that game. So it is not about mating material, but about ANY possible mating position, and there was one here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The rule at hand is this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Paragraph 6.9 of the FIDE Laws of Chess state:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The game is drawn, if the position is such that the opponent cannot&#xA;  checkmate the player’s king by any possible series of legal moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There were positions that white could be mated, even though it required total cooperation, and there is no way that Firouzja would have allowed it. That was irrelevant, so it was a loss.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also see this related &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/27756/what-exactly-happened-in-the-open-world-blitz-championship-in-game-carlsen-alire/27758#27758&quot;&gt;question&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are the USCF rules.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;14D. Insufficient material to continue.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The game is drawn when one of the following endings exists as of the most recently determined legal move, in which the possibility of a win is excluded for either side. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;14D1. King vs. king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;14D2. King vs. king with bishop or knight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;14D3. King and bishop vs. king and bishop, with both bishops on diagonals of the same color. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;14D4. No legal moves leading to checkmate by opponent. There are no legal moves that could lead to the player being checkmated by the opponent&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, even these rules are quite specific as to the material for an automatic draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-03-30T00:17:21.243" LastActivityDate="2020-03-30T00:17:21.243" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29069" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29067" CreationDate="2020-03-29T23:06:21.613" Score="5" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Does this rule stand in major Chess tournaments?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This rule applies in &lt;em&gt;all&lt;/em&gt; tournaments where FIDE Laws of Chess take precedence. So, yes, it applies in all major tournaments including USCF and all federations which are affiliated to FIDE.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it appears to not work on a particular website then that is likely a bug on the platform and it is worth reporting to the platform.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Some (possibly in/correct) answers &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.quora.com/How-do-you-checkmate-with-a-king-and-a-bishop-how-does-the-strategy-works&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; state that the rules of&#xA;  chess deem such a situation to not have sufficient mating material. I&#xA;  am not sure how reliable they are.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No, what you say is not correct. The question on the Quora website is not the same. It is asking about &lt;em&gt;forced&lt;/em&gt; checkmate. If your flag falls then the opponent does not need enough material to be able to &lt;em&gt;force&lt;/em&gt; checkmate. He only needs enough material to checkmate you with you making the worst possible moves. If that is possible then you lose on time. Only if there is no possible sequence of moves leading to checkmate do you get a draw. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2020-03-29T23:12:10.637" LastActivityDate="2020-03-29T23:12:10.637" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29070" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29030" CreationDate="2020-03-30T02:13:45.793" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Chess fighters&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Idea is taken from the battle chess game. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Play normal chess. When piece A takes piece B, the two players play a street fighter (or whatever fighting game) match. The defender can only move or block for the first 30sec of the match. Whoever loses the match loses the piece. King doesn't fight, automatically wins if taking a piece, but you have to answer checks and it's immediate lose if king is mated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7002" LastActivityDate="2020-03-30T02:13:45.793" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29071" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29074" CreationDate="2020-03-30T02:59:32.730" Score="3" ViewCount="104" Body="&lt;p&gt;From the game Samuel Reshevsky vs Henrique Mecking in the Sousse Interzonal (1967).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;r2qnr2/1pnb1pbk/3p2pp/p1pPp3/2P1P2N/PPN1B1PP/3Q1P2/1R2RBK1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Na4 Na6 2. Rec1 Rb8 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Qb2 Rg8 5.Qc2 Re8 6. Nb5 Bf8 (6... Bxb5 7.cxb5 Nc7 8.b4 axb4 9. axb4) 7. Bd2 b6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to Reshevsky in his book &quot;Art of Positional Play&quot; black wants white to abandon his calm queenside expansion, so black forces white to play on the kingside. I suppose the queenside expansion was seriously dangerous as black decided to risk so much by playing ... f7-f5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the case of white passivity on the kingside, what sequence of moves could best represent the queenside expansion as winning the game for white? Using the computer help I imagined something like this: 21.Na4 Na6 22. Rec1 Rb8 23.Nc3 Nf6 24.Qb2 Rg8 25.Qc2 Re8 26. Nb5 26...Bf8 27. Bd2 b6. And here I believe that white fixed the queenside to his advantage. And if 26...Bxb5 27.cxb5 Nc7 28.b4 axb4 29. axb4 it is easier to see the rooks getting into action.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there better lines?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22938" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-30T14:44:36.017" LastActivityDate="2020-03-30T14:44:36.017" Title="Game analysis - Understanding the potential of this queenside expansion" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;kings-indian&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29072" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2422" CreationDate="2020-03-30T06:48:21.810" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Although it might not be possible to realise chess in a database in this universe, the abstract structure of the game can be said to exist as a finite mathematical object. One can reason about it and conclude that it has a definite result, although we might not know what that is. And then if you view it as a matrix you can ask questions like what is the maximum eigenvalue of chess approximately. Indeed Plato thought that numbers have real existence, so I guess he would say that the chess game exists in the same sublime and unhelpful way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But more practically, I could imagine an advanced quantum computer might genuinely be able to represent this, and indeed solve chess. The jury is still out as to the capabilities of this technology, but in principle I can’t see that it’s impossible&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8201" LastEditorUserId="8201" LastEditDate="2020-03-30T09:33:24.920" LastActivityDate="2020-03-30T09:33:24.920" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29073" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-03-30T07:20:56.957" Score="8" ViewCount="350" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is the number of legal chess positions odd or even? Two positions are not the same if they differ in castling rights (i.e. whether K or R have actually moved) or en passant capability (i.e. whether the move can actually be made) or who has the move. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The number of times position has been repeated is not part of the definition of position for obvious reasons, as is the number of moves since last capture/pawn move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don’t have the answer myself. This is hard but doable with a bit of programming I think.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: The answer so far and the comments are clearly heading along the right lines, although not always correct yet: terrific work. I want to give multiple +1s! I will summarise the key points to help focus the work. Pairing mirrored positions is essential i.e. those which allow triangulation. I term positions which have no mirror image “vampires” :-) Any vampire (except for the starting position) must be immediate offspring of a vampire, so it’s maybe easiest to just count all of them. Someone touched on castling, which is very important. Can you see how to handle castling systematically?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;En passant is less important but amazingly there are vampire en passant positions e.g.: r1bqkb1r/2pppppp/8/1pP5/8/8/PPPPP1PP/R1BQKB1R&#xA;where White retains at least one castling right, Black has at least queenside castling rights and White can capture e.p.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8201" LastEditorUserId="8201" LastEditDate="2020-03-31T14:09:03.010" LastActivityDate="2020-03-31T18:54:44.283" Title="Is the number of legal chess positions odd or even?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;mathematics&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="17" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29074" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29071" CreationDate="2020-03-30T12:20:23.873" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am not trying to be hard on you, but to be blunt, this is one of the dangers of analyzing with a computer, and not having any understanding of the position. That line of analysis you give with 20...Nac7 and then shuffling around the pieces, frankly, did not make any sense at all plan-wise (and even my Stockfish 11 does not agree with your computer's line). I will discuss that in my notes to the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I opened my copy of that book, and what Reshevsky, correctly, said was that white has move space on the queenside, and that black needs to look for play on the kingside with f5. White's play, in theory, is generally  better, but what Reshevsky also said is that if white blindly pursues his own play on the queenside without any regards to his own king, he can easily lose to a direct attack. That is a common theme in the KID, especially the Classical variation. I have seen many games where white has a Na8, and is up a rook, but is helpless against the mating attack all the way on the other side of the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are Reshevsky's own words:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Pin4a.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Pin4a.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Reshevsky chose to play a line that he was well-prepared for f5, and then actually chipped away at f5, weakening e4, which led to the black king. In the vast majority of KID games, that is not the typical line of play, and white does not often get to be that active on the kingside. In most, white owns the queenside, and black owns the kingside, and each side tries to open their dominate side of the board. In most cases, going passive on your better side, and trying to just defend the other side where your opponent is better, is a recipe for a loss.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [Event &quot;Interzonal-07&quot;]&#xA; [Site &quot;Sousse&quot;]&#xA; [Date &quot;1967.11.02&quot;]&#xA; [Round &quot;14&quot;]&#xA; [White &quot;Reshevsky, Samuel Herman&quot;]&#xA; [Black &quot;Mecking, Henrique&quot;]&#xA; [Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA; [ECO &quot;E96&quot;]&#xA; [PlyCount &quot;141&quot;]&#xA; [EventDate &quot;1967.10.16&quot;]&#xA; [EventType &quot;tourn&quot;]&#xA; [EventRounds &quot;23&quot;]&#xA; [EventCountry &quot;TUN&quot;]&#xA; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 d6 3. Nc3 g6 4. e4 Bg7 5. Be2 O-O 6. Nf3 e5 7. O-O Nbd7 8. Re1 a5 9. Bf1 c6 10. Rb1 Re8 11. d5 Nc5 12. b3 Na6 13. a3 c5 14. Bd2 Rf8 15. g3 Bg4 16. h3 Bd7 17. Bg5 h6 18. Be3 Ne8 19. Qd2 Kh7 20. Nh4 f5 (20... Nac7 {This gives up on slowing down white's play with b4, and from c7, the knight has no where to go. b5 might be an idea in some positions with the Ra8 on b8, but here b5 just loses a pawn.} 21. Na4 {The knight does nothing here, unless black cooperates and takes it. It also makes it harder to play b4, opening the queenside.} (21. b4 {This is not the best move per the computer, but it is the most natural, and leads to a solid static positional advantage immediately.} axb4 22. axb4 {+.75 depth 30, and the computer wants to pitch a pawn here with Na6.} Na6 23. bxc5 Nxc5 24. Bxc5 dxc5 25. Rxb7 Nd6 26. Rb3 $16) 21... Na6 {And it comes back.} (21... Bxa4 $2 22. bxa4 $16 {Doubled pawns, or not, white has huge pressure down the b-file.}) 22. Rec1 {Not an useless move, but how do you get in b4, opening the position?} Rb8 23. Nc3 Nf6 $2 {Blocking the move f5 cannot be right. Black will need that soon enough, but to be honest, I am not sure how to get it in anymore. If f5 is ruled out, then this knight probably belongs on c7, aiming for b5.} 24. Qb2 $2 {There is no point here since it cannot help with b4, or help stop b5 by black, and putting the queen on the same diagonal as the Bg7 unless there is a super reason, it probably also not a good idea.} Rg8 $2 {Again, no the right square to help any eventual f5 move. This is just a move that the computer things does not upset any balance, but it is not right.} 25. Qc2 {And back for no particular reason.} (25. Kh2 {This excellent waiting move could have been played at any number of moments.}) 25... Re8 {Still not the right square.} 26. Nb5 (26. Kh2 Nc7 27. Nf3 b5 $6 (27... b6) 28. b4 $1 $16) 26... Bf8 (26... Bxb5 $2 27. cxb5 Nc7 28. b4 axb4 29. axb4 $16) 27. Bd2 b6 {White does not want the queenside &quot;fixed&quot;...he wants it opened so the major (heavy) pieces can penetrate, and do damage.}) (20... Rb8 {If black is determined to be totally passive and only play on WHITE'S queenside (white is stronger there), this is the way preparing b5.} 21. Kh2 Nec7 {The Na6 stops b4, while the Rb8, Nc7, and Bd7 prepare b5, an action against b3 eventually. This is not destined to work, in my opinion.}) 21. exf5 gxf5 22. f4 e4 23. Bf2 Nf6 24. Nd1 Ng8 25. Ne3 Qf6 26. Bg2 Rae8 27. Qe2 Ne7 28. g4 Kg8 29. Bg3 fxg4 30. hxg4 Ng6 31. Nhf5 Bh8 32. Nxh6+ Kh7 33. Nhf5 Kg8 34. Nh6+ Kh7 35. Rf1 Qc3 36. Nef5 Bg7 37. Rbc1 Qxb3 38. Rb1 Qxa3 39. Rxb7 Nb8 40. Nxg7 Qxg3 41. Nxe8 Nxf4 42. Rxf4 Qxf4 43. Nxd6 Kxh6 44. Nxe4 Bxg4 45. Rb6+ Kh5 46. Qe1 Nd7 47. Ng3+ Kh4 48. Qe7+ Rf6 49. Qh7+ Kg5 50. Ne4+ Qxe4 51. Qxe4 Rxb6 52. Qe3+ Kg6 53. Bh3 Bxh3 54. Qxh3 Ne5 55. Qe3 Kf5 56. Qxc5 Rb1+ 57. Kg2 Rb2+ 58. Kf1 a4 59. d6 Rd2 60. Ke1 Rd4 61. Ke2 Ke4 62. Qa3 Rd3 63. Qb4 a3 64. c5+ Kf5 65. Qa4 Ke6 66. Qa8 Rb3 67. Qg8+ Nf7 68. Qg6+ Ke5 69. Qxf7 a2 70. Qa7 Rh3 71. d7 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2020-03-30T12:20:23.873" CommentCount="11" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29075" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29076" CreationDate="2020-03-30T16:17:06.753" Score="3" ViewCount="102" Body="&lt;p&gt;As black I reached this position in a recent game&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[White &quot;Somebody&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Ian Bush&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;*&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;B07&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[StartPly &quot;23&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 d6 2.d4 Nf6 3.Nc3 g6 4.Be3 c6 5.f3 b5 6.a3 Nbd7 7.Bd3 Bb7 8.Nge2 Qc7 &#xA;9.Ng3 Bg7 10.Nce2 e5 11.O-O O-O 12.dxe5 dxe5 &#xA;    ( 12...Nxe5 )&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On running it through the Lichess analysis it reported 12 ... dxe5 as a blunder. This, to say the least, somewhat surprised me, but on sticking it through Stockfish on my own machine the semiconducting monster does indeed markedly prefer Nxe5 - taking with the Knight it puts at ~-0.4 and taking with the pawn +0.25, so over half a pawn swing. I preferred taking with the pawn to avoid having a potential weakness on d6, and also thought his pawn on e4 so well defended that the half open e file was little use to me, so I am struggling to understand why 12 ... Nxe5 is so much better. Can somebody enlighten me? Is it simply to get the white squared bishop for the knight, or is there a deeper strategical meaning? I do understand that taking with the pawn is more unbalancing, and so what I would definitely prefer if needing a win, but I just can't see why it is intrinsically so much better. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More generally this kind of decision is not uncommon in the Pirc and some related openings, are there any general pointers as to which should be preferred?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7726" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-30T16:50:46.497" LastActivityDate="2020-03-30T16:50:46.497" Title="Pawn Structure Change in the Pirc - dxe5 or Nxe5?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;pawn-structure&gt;&lt;ruy-lopez&gt;&lt;pirc-defense&gt;&lt;philidor-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29076" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29075" CreationDate="2020-03-30T16:44:48.153" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;It comes down to the VERY poor placement of the white pieces, in particular, that the Bd3 is vulnerable to being trapped by the advancing black queenside pawns. Taking with the knight also allows you to open the center with d5 in some lines (which also will make the Qd1 uncomfortable since it lacks space), taking advantage of your better-placed pieces, and Nxe5 also stops the desirable move c4 by white immediately.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In one of the lines I give below, which sums it up, I wrote: &quot;Black is better developed, and all of his pieces are nicely placed. By comparison, the Bd3 is horrible, the Ng3 is worse, and the Ne2 is no prize horse. The Qc1 is also worse than the Qc7.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. e4 d6 2. d4 Nf6 3. Nc3 g6 4. Be3 c6 5. f3 $6 {After this, it is really difficult for white to develop the pieces since the Bf1 does not sit well on d3, and the Ng1 and Bf1 fight for e2.} b5 6. a3 $6 (6. Qd2 Nbd7 7. g4 {Is better, postponing the decision about the Bf1 and Ng1.}) 6... Nbd7 (6... Bg7 {Why not this move that you know you must make? You should make moves that you know you have to make first, since circumstances may change for the others.}) 7. Bd3 Bb7 8. Nge2 Qc7 (8... a6 $1 {Idea c5, and you are already better as the misplaced Bd3 is not well-developed.}) 9. Ng3 $2 {Where is this piece going?} (9. Qd2) 9... Bg7 10. Nce2 e5 11. O-O O-O 12. dxe5 dxe5 $2 (12... Nxe5 $1 {This also stops c4!} 13. Qc1 (13. Qd2 c5 $1 14. c3 (14. Bxb5 a6 15. Ba4 Nc4 16. Qc1 Nxe4 $1 17. Nxe4 Bxb2 18. Qb1 Bxe4 $19) 14... d5 $17) 13... Rfe8 14. Bh6 Bh8 15. Kh1 d5 {Ripping the center open. Black is better developed, and all of his pieces are nicely placed. By comparison, the Bd3 is horrible, the Ng3 is worse, and the Ne2 is no prize horse. The Qc1 is also worse than the Qc7.}) 13. c4 {White is better on the queenside here, and this immediately exposes it to the major pieces of white with either Rc1 soon. White could also try to play against the weakened c5 square with Qe1-f2, and Nc1-b3. That Ng3 still is an ugly piece.} a6 14. Qc2 Rfc8 15. Rfc1 $14&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2020-03-30T16:44:48.153" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29077" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29073" CreationDate="2020-03-30T20:29:12.627" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Odd&lt;/strong&gt; if you count the initial position and &lt;strong&gt;Even&lt;/strong&gt; if not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Mirrored positions&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Almost any position, including checkmates and stalemates can be flipped by switching colors.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mirroring the chess board horizontally between 4 and 5 rows, &lt;strong&gt;you cannot find a position that colors can be switched and produce an illegal position&lt;/strong&gt;. So for each position there exists a mirrored position, except the start position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The challenge would be to &lt;strong&gt;find a position that cannot be mirrored&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Non Mirrored positions / Corresponding positions&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There can exist positions where it cannot be mirrored due to the &quot;turn that cannot be switched&quot;. For its this position, there would be a &quot;corresponding position&quot; that also cannot be mirrored.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g. 1. Nf3 Nf6 2. Ng1 Nd5 3. Nf3 Nf4 4. Ng1 Nd3+&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;its corresponding condition is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Nf3 Nf6 2. Nd4 Ng8 3. Nf5 Nf6 4. Nd6+&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both cannot be mirrored.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Triangulation&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Due to &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangulation_(chess)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Triangulation&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;all positions after a pawn is pushed can be mirrored&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;strong&gt;Non mirrored positions can be constructed only with knight moves&lt;/strong&gt;, moving only knights cannot produce Triangulation. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Start position&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The start position, before any moves, the turn cannot be switched so that black makes the first move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Calculating positions from knight moves&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To solve this for sure, we need to calculate the total positions that arise from only knight moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20694" LastEditorUserId="2299" LastEditDate="2020-03-31T07:55:08.467" LastActivityDate="2020-03-31T07:55:08.467" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29078" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29079" CreationDate="2020-03-30T22:09:55.577" Score="23" ViewCount="2767" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am currently rated 1850. My coach tells me that in order to get better at my game, I should ''analyze grandmaster' games''. On the surface, I understand that he wants me to learn from great players' moves. But I'm unsure about what I should be ''analyzing''.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In particular, I have the following problems:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When I look at GMs moves, I see GMs responses. So it's difficult for me to learn why the GM 1 played this particular move, when the GM 2 plays an equally &quot;perfect&quot; move. As a 1800 player, I cannot see the +0.1 advantage that the GM 1 just obtained by his move.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If I put an engine like Stockfish on the move, I will have a bunch of move opportunities, but none of them ''speaks to me''. Why is one move slightly better than another? Stockfish will not tell me.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Finally, like Kasparov said, ''Life imitates Chess''. So in principle, I should make each move with an underlying grand plan. But what is the grand plan? I do not know.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So how can I ''analyze grandmaster games'', so that I can learn from them?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please give me some guidance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4215" LastEditorUserId="4215" LastEditDate="2020-03-30T22:44:10.857" LastActivityDate="2020-06-22T23:08:48.500" Title="What does it mean to ''analyze grandmaster games''?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;grandmaster&gt;&lt;master-games&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29079" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29078" CreationDate="2020-03-30T22:45:01.560" Score="22" Body="&lt;p&gt;I agree with you, more than your coach. Just analyzing a GM game, even with a computer, is not helpful just by itself if you have no idea what is going on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, just earlier today, I answered a question here, where the person gave a computer line that made no sense as far as the plans for the position were concerned, so the computer was really no help at all there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think what you need are grandmaster games that are WELL-ANNOTATED, to tell you what is going on in them IN WORDS, not just variations, although concrete lines are clearly important too. Another thing that happens in modern chess is that games between IMs/GMs have become so advanced that the battles between each side's plans have become too complex for learning early in a chess &quot;career&quot; because the plans are so effectively thwarted by the opponent it is not always clear what each side was aiming for.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is much better are the games of old masters like Capablanca and Alekhine because their opponents, while not slouches, were not on their levels; so you can see plans more clearly executed from beginning to end as the plans were often not met with the type of resistance that you would see today at the top levels.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would get collections of their games, written by them, and play through those games. I have also written here extensively about opening pawn structures, and as you read any game trying to understand it, you need to have some understanding of what you are striving for in any given opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another book that is extremely good for learning is &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/9197524484&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Learn from the Legends: Chess Champions at Their Best&lt;/a&gt;&quot; by GM Mikhail Marin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Learning to calculate is really a different skill, but one that is reliant upon how well you understand chess (see above), in general, and what you are aiming for (that is, what is the plan).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Calculation prowess can be gained by combining two practice activities: Reading pure tactics books, and reading books that have non-tactical positions for you to practice calculating the best move. Also, try practice reading annotated games without a board, including the annotations, to work on vision in your head.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tactics books are self-evident as there are a million of them out there. Some excellent books that will give you positions to calculate (mostly) non-tactical positions include:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/0486419495&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Positional Chess Handbook: 495 Instructive Positions from Grandmaster Games&lt;/a&gt;&quot; by trainer FM Israel Gelfer. &lt;strong&gt;I cannot even begin to tell you how much I love this book. It is incredible.&lt;/strong&gt; (Do not get the Kindle version as there are way too many mistakes)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/4871875903&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;The Best Move&lt;/a&gt;&quot; by GMs Hort and Jansa.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/9056918095&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Test Your Chess Skills: Practical Decisions in Critical Moments&lt;/a&gt;&quot; by GMs Sarhan Guliev and Logman Guliev&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These will help you improve your pure calculation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2020-03-30T22:45:01.560" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29080" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-03-31T00:04:55.263" Score="3" ViewCount="1099" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are some subtle differences in the rules of chess used in different un/rated competitions. For example, chess.com &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/q/29067/18029&quot;&gt;never considers King + Bishop sufficient mating material&lt;/a&gt; (specific example &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/live/game/4662610873&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do all national chess bodies (e.g. &lt;a href=&quot;http://aicf.in/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;AICF&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://feda.org/feda2k16/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FEDA&lt;/a&gt; etc) strictly adopt FIDE rules, or do some make their own variations like chess.com does? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The more 'human' way of asking the same question is like this: Is chess played by exactly the same rules around the whole world, or are there subtle variations in the rules of the game from country to country, as is the case with some games/sports e.g. rugby union?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18029" LastEditorUserId="18029" LastEditDate="2020-03-31T21:42:21.017" LastActivityDate="2020-03-31T21:42:21.017" Title="Do any national chess bodies not strictly follow FIDE rules?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;fide&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29081" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29080" CreationDate="2020-03-31T00:13:46.887" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;I do not know the rules for every country, but if the USCF and ICCF are any indication, most bodies have their own tweaks to tournament rules. The rules for the actual piece movements are consistent. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The exception is when a tournament is both nationally-rated and FIDE-rated, then FIDE rules take precedence. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-31T00:54:27.143" LastActivityDate="2020-03-31T00:54:27.143" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29082" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-03-31T02:30:22.860" Score="2" ViewCount="130" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am teaching a youngster how to play chess, remotely.  I've seen suggestions to start with &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessvariants.com/diffsetup.dir/pawnsonly.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;pawn-only chess&lt;/a&gt;, where we start with the initial setup for all 16 pawns, but no other pieces on the board.  I would play to play an online live game vs my friend.  Is it possible to do that on lichess?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've tried going to the board editor, deleting all pieces other than the pawns, and using the 'From Position' variant, but that doesn't work: I can't create a game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12996" LastActivityDate="2020-03-31T03:13:16.640" Title="Play pawn-only chess vs a friend" Tags="&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;teaching&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29083" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29082" CreationDate="2020-03-31T03:13:16.640" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The 'From Position' variant seems to require that both sides have a king.  So, keep the kings on the board.  In particular, create a new game with a friend, select Variant: From Position, and paste '4k3/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/4K3 w - - 0 1' into the field for the FEN text.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;4k3/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/4K3 w - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12996" LastActivityDate="2020-03-31T03:13:16.640" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29084" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29085" CreationDate="2020-03-31T05:08:55.370" Score="10" ViewCount="3240" Body="&lt;p&gt;The position in question is: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[StartPly &quot;13&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 c5 2. Nf3 cxd4 3. Nxd4 Nc6 4. Nc3 e5 5. Ndb5 Bb4 6. Bg5 Bxc3+ 7. bxc3 Qa5 8. Qd5 Nge7 9. Nd6+ Kf8 10. Qxf7# 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's black turn and the engine is recording to take the hanging bishop, but doesn't Nc7+ fork the King and the Rook? Stockfish is still showing a negative evaluation for this position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Am I missing something important?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21526" LastEditorUserId="16220" LastEditDate="2020-04-01T07:01:40.280" LastActivityDate="2020-04-01T07:01:40.280" Title="Why does Stockfish suggest capturing a bishop in this position when my opponent can fork my king and rook?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;evaluation&gt;&lt;candidate-move&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29085" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29084" CreationDate="2020-03-31T05:24:00.850" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;White does indeed fork the king &amp;amp; rook after Nc7+ - but after Nxa8, the knight is not escaping, so Black is at worst even on material.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. d4 c5 2. Nf3 cxd4 3. Nxd4 Nc6 4. Nc3 e5 5. Ndb5 Bb4 6. Bg5? Qxg5 7. Nc7+ Kd8 8. Nxa8&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After something like ...b6 followed by Bb7, the knight's a goner. White can get at most one pawn for the knight (after Nxb6), which leads to a material imbalance of R+P vs B+N. This particular imbalance is roughly equal, although I've also read that the side with two minors tends to be favored in middlegames since they represent two useful attacking pieces while the extra pawn is only useful in the endgame. Moreover, Black is also way ahead in development (even if he does take some time to round up the knight on a8).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In short, you're not missing anything important insofar as White does not end up grievously behind in material - but Black has more than enough positional compensation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastActivityDate="2020-03-31T05:24:00.850" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29086" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29084" CreationDate="2020-03-31T06:54:48.307" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;In addition to Allure's comments. Two pieces is favourable to a rook in a position like this where there's no clear squares for the a8-rook to attack, but lot's of squares in the center for the two minor pieces to control.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black is definitely better after the exchange.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2020-03-31T06:54:48.307" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29087" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29067" CreationDate="2020-03-31T08:54:49.197" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here's an example of a &quot;possible series of moves&quot; from FIDE rules 9.6, so White can technically (despite nearly impossible in reality) be checkmated:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/4k3/4P3/3B2P1/4P1K1/8/3b4/8 w - - 3 67&quot;]&#xA;[startply &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;67. Kh5 Kf8 68. Kh6 Bb4 69. Kh7 Bd6 70. e5 Bxe5 71. Be4 Bd6 72. Kh8 Ba3 73. Bh7 Bb2#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15783" LastActivityDate="2020-03-31T08:54:49.197" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29088" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29080" CreationDate="2020-03-31T11:04:39.387" Score="4" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is chess played by exactly the same rules around the whole world?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No. To be honest, as outlined below, even FIDE rated chess is played by slightly different rules because the FIDE Laws give this flexibility&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to the preface of the &lt;a href=&quot;https://handbook.fide.com/chapter/E012018&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Laws of Chess&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A necessary condition for a game to be rated by FIDE is that it shall&#xA;be played according to the FIDE Laws of Chess. It is recommended that&#xA;competitive games not rated by FIDE be played according to the FIDE&#xA;Laws of Chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Only games which are going to be rated by FIDE have to be played by the same rules but there are cases where games are not going to be FIDE rated where it makes a lot of sense to depart from parts of the FIDE Laws.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One obvious example is children's chess. In December I was one of several arbiters in a large room where several children's tournaments were being played, with different strength players in each and slightly different rules regarding clocks and illegal moves. For the stronger players in the FIDE and nationally rated tournaments clocks were used and the &amp;quot;2nd illegal move loses&amp;quot; rule was strictly enforced. In the weaker, unrated tournament there were no clocks (unless a game looked like taking too long in which case a clock was introduced with 5 minutes per player) and a loose &amp;quot;3 illegal moves loses the game&amp;quot; rule.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The English Chess Federation publishes &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.englishchess.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Tournament-Rules-2020.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;its tournament rules&lt;/a&gt; which outline some of the differences. This is what it says for non-FIDE rated games:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Section D – Optional rules for events that are not FIDE-rated&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;FIDE recognises for its own events and matches only one system of notation, the Algebraic System. For events that are not FIDE-rated, organisers may permit the use of descriptive notation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;For events that are not FIDE-rated, organisers may permit the use of adjudication.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;For Under 11 Rapid Chess events that are not FIDE-rated – i.e. those restricted to players who are under the age of 11, defined by either the calendar year or the academic year – the number of illegal moves that results in the loss of a game may be increased from two so long as it is prescribed in advance in the regulations of the event.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Where no arbiter is appointed, e.g. in an evening league match, then the organiser is empowered to make decisions otherwise the responsibility of the arbiter with respect to Article 11.3.2.1. In the case of a team match, the organiser is also empowered to delegate this responsibility to the match captains.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that there are also areas of the FIDE Laws where there is a choice defined with a default. Here is how the ECF (see above document) handles one of the more contentious ones, the one which results in a zero time default rule if the organizer doesn't specify a more sensible time in advance:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to Article 6.7.1 of the FIDE Laws of Chess, the regulations of an event shall specify a default time on the entry form. Should the organizer fail to do so, the default time shall be 30 minutes for a Standard-play game and 10 minutes for a Rapid Chess game. Blitz games shall have no default time – the time shall just be allowed to expire.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The document also usefully highlights other areas where FIDE gives options (which naturally give rise to even FIDE rated chess being played by slightly different rules in different tournaments):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Section C – Optional Rules&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;According to Article 10.1 of the FIDE Laws of Chess, the regulations of an event may specify a different scoring system. For example a player who wins his game, or wins by forfeit, scores three points (3), a player who draws his game scores two points (2), a player who loses his game scores one point (1), a player who loses by default scores zero points (0). If not specified, normal scoring is used (1, ½, 0).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Leaving the playing area:- According to Article 11.2.4 of the FIDE Laws of Chess, the regulations of an event may specify that the opponent of the player having the move must report to the arbiter when he wishes to leave the playing area. If this is not specified, there is no obligation for the opponent to communicate his intention to leave.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;According to Article 11.10 of the FIDE Laws of Chess, the regulations of an event may specify that a player cannot appeal against any decision of the arbiter, if he has signed the scoresheet. If not specified, the player may appeal even after signing the scoresheet. It is strongly recommended that an Appeal Committee should be set up in advance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2020-03-31T11:04:39.387" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29089" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-03-31T11:06:41.693" Score="2" ViewCount="424" Body="&lt;p&gt;I seem to keep losing games as white in this opening. What systems is good for white and what are the developing ideas before the middlegame for white after 4. dxc5?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. e5 c5 4. dxc5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21834" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-03-31T11:36:40.603" LastActivityDate="2020-06-11T16:00:20.067" Title="Caro-Kann Defense: Advance Variation, Botvinnik-Carls Defense" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;caro-kann&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29090" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29084" CreationDate="2020-03-31T11:34:41.130" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;I agree with the other two answers, but I feel like I also need to comment on the beginning of the game since there was A LOT more important stuff there than just the answer to why Qxg5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is very similar to a Kalashnikov Sicilian by transposition with the exception that the knight is on c3 instead of a pawn on e4, but the ideas are very similar. In particular, the moves Bb4, and Bxc3. The doubled pawns were not worth it, and I will go into why below. There are fairly extensive notes in the game below about the opening play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. d4 (1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 e5 5. Nb5 d6 {This is a normal move order to get to the Kalashnikov Sicilian. Your game is not quite a Kalashnikov, but it is very close, and the strategic similarities are relevant. } (5... a6 {Or this. Ulf's favorite, leading to an endgame.})) 1... c5 2. Nf3 cxd4 3. Nxd4 Nc6 (3... d5 $1 {Take the center!}) 4. Nc3 e5 $2 {This is premature since the N is on c3 instead of e4 having been played. You also have to have a feel for how the hole on d5 needs to be managed. In general, you do not want to create a backwards pawn on an open file.} 5. Ndb5 {Nd5 is now a threat winning on c7.} Bb4 $2 {In similar structures in the Kalashnikov, the bishop never goes to b4, as you almost never want to take on c3. The doubled pawns are not worth it for reasons I will give below, but also because after e5, you have weakened the dark squares around your king. The game actually showed what happened when a knight got to d6.} (5... a6 $1 6. Nd6+ Bxd6 7. Qxd6 Qe7 {Is a main line that Ulf Anderssen plays with the difference being that the N is on c3, instead of e4 being played, so your options were limited to just a6.}) (5... d6 $4 6. Nd5 Qa5+ 7. Bd2 $18 {Is the simplest.} Qxb5 $4 8. Nc7+ Kd8 9. Nxb5) 6. Bg5 Bxc3+ $2 {In many similar positions, the Nc6 will come to d4 with strong threats, but here, giving up the bishop takes that off the table. At least, I would wait until white wastes a tempo with a3, forcing your decision. In addition, a Nd4 gums up any white counterattack down the d-file, and limits white's space.} (6...Qxg5 $19 {This is MUCH stronger here.} 7. Nc7+ Kd8 8. Nxa8 b6 {And black is way ahead in development, and more importantly, it is hard for white to finish development, and catch up.}) 7. bxc3 Qa5 $2 (7... Qxg5 {As you, and the others mentioned.}) 8. Qd5 Nge7 $4 9. Nd6+ {We see the dark squares have the final say due to bxc3 earlier.} Kf8 $2 10. Qxf7#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2020-03-31T11:34:41.130" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29091" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29080" CreationDate="2020-03-31T13:47:01.493" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;A list of differences between USCF and FIDE rules: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.uschess.org/images/stories/FIDEInformation/uschess-fide-rules-twocolumn-comparison-feb2020-rev-2.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.uschess.org/images/stories/FIDEInformation/uschess-fide-rules-twocolumn-comparison-feb2020-rev-2.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some highlights: Can an arbiter call a flag, can you call your own flag, can an arbiter call a touch violation without a claim, how complete a score you need to get a flag win, when you can claim repetition/50 move, unlimited vs. 10-move illegal move lookback and can you promote to an inverted rook.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Calling your own flag under USCF rules stops your opponent from continuing to bring their score up to date. So if you know they're outside what's required regarding scorekeeping to claim a win....)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7514" LastActivityDate="2020-03-31T13:47:01.493" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29093" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29096" CreationDate="2020-03-31T16:49:30.320" Score="4" ViewCount="205" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are 10 games in my database with this variation played on a high level and the White score is +6-2=2, almost always White is the elo-wise weaker player. The highest rated White player to employ this line is GM Tigran L. Petrosjan and he won his two games on a 2400+ level, against higher rated opponents. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since it is played at such high level, repeatedly and with success, I suspect there is an idea to this sacrifice, but reviewing games and consulting the engine did not give full clarity. In fact the engine gives lines different to what is played, mostly going for Bf4 and trading queens. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The sacrifice in question is 8. g5!? (instead of say 8. Bg2), which compels Black to take on e4. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Only one Black player supported his Bishop with 10...d5, the rest retreated with 10...Bb7. My questions are: Why does White not only give, but provoke Black to take the pawn and why do most players not play ...d5 (after ...d5, f3 Bg6 and the position would seem very solid for Black)? Is it because they do not know the position and it looks as if the Bishop could be harassed and restricted after closing the diagonal?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[White &quot;Petrosian, Tigran L (2568)&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Smirnov, Pavel (2645)&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 a6 { B90 Sicilian Defense: Najdorf Variation } 6. Rg1 b5 7. g4 Bb7 8. g5 Nxe4 9. Nxe4 Bxe4 10. Qg4 Bb7 11. Bg2 Qc7 12. Be3 g6 13. O-O-O Bg7 14. f4 O-O 15. h4 Nd7 16. Bxb7 Qxb7 17. f5 Ne5 18. Qh3 Qe4 19. h5 Nc4 20. Rge1 Rfc8 21. hxg6 hxg6 22. fxg6 fxg6 23. Kb1 Qd5 24. Bc1 Rf8 25. Ne6 Qf5 26. Qxf5 Rxf5 27. Nxg7 Kxg7 28. Rxe7+ Kf8 29. Rh7 Kg8 30. Rh6 Kg7 31. b3 Ne5 32. Rxd6 Rf1 33. Re6 Ng4 34. Rexg6+ Kf7 35. Rxa6 Rd8 36. Rhd6 Re8 37. Rd4 Rg1 38. Kb2 Ree1 39. Rd7+ Ke8 40. Rh7 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's a game where Black played ...d5:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[White &quot;Nadj Hedjesi, B. (2311)&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Milosevic, A. (2269)&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Ne2 Nf6 3. Nbc3 d6 4. d4 cxd4 5. Nxd4 a6 { B90 Sicilian Defense: Najdorf Variation } 6. Rg1 b5 7. g4 Bb7 8. g5 Nxe4 9. Nxe4 Bxe4 10. Qg4 d5 11. f3 Bg6 12. f4 e6 13. Be3 Qa5+ 14. Bd2 Qb6 15. f5 Bc5 16. fxg6 Bxd4 17. gxf7+ Kxf7 18. Rg2 Nd7 19. g6+ hxg6 20. Qxg6+ Ke7 21. O-O-O Rae8 22. Rg3 Kd8 23. Ra3 Kc8 24. Ba5 Qa7 25. Bc3 Bc5 26. b4 Be3+ 27. Kb1 Qb6 28. Bxg7 Rhg8 29. Qf7 Rd8 30. Bh3 Rge8 31. Rxd5 exd5 32. Bxd7+ Rxd7 33. Qxe8+ Kc7 34. Rc3+  1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15478" LastEditorUserId="15478" LastEditDate="2020-03-31T17:15:54.713" LastActivityDate="2020-04-01T01:55:00.863" Title="Idea behind e-pawn sacrifice in Open Sicilian: Najdorf, Freak Attack (6. Rg1)?" Tags="&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;&lt;gambits&gt;&lt;sacrifice&gt;&lt;najdorf&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29094" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29078" CreationDate="2020-03-31T21:12:31.370" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;So forget about Stockfish, forget about Kasparov, forget about GMs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You are 1850. You understand something about the game. Not everything will be correct, some of it will be.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Start analyzing&lt;/em&gt;. It can be your own games, it can be any old game, it can be a random diagram you saw in the newspaper.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Set up the position, and try to figure out what is going on. What are both players trying to do. Are there any tactics, threats? What are the candidate moves. And finally, what is the best move. Write it down with some short variations as arguments.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then see what was actually played. If it's the same move, fine, move on. If it's different, was it at least one of your candidates? Why didn't you choose it? If it wasn't, do you understand why it was played, does it fit in with the &quot;story&quot; of the position you had? If not, try to figure it out for a few minutes. If you can't, shrug and move on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you can do this with an annotated game, you can compare your annotations with the book's afterwards. You'll have missed mostly everything! But it'll get better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is very hard work, but I think everybody would improve doing this regularly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2020-03-31T21:12:31.370" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29095" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8220" CreationDate="2020-04-01T00:02:55.047" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know I am late to the party, and it should be a draw, but none of the answers really hit on the easiest plan, and that was f5, making is impossible for white to create a passed pawn, except for an h-pawn, but the white bishop cannot control the queening square.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The structure is similar in reasoning to the question I posted &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/28901/why-is-the-f7-g6-h5-pawn-complex-so-important-for-black-in-rook-endgames&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;f5 looks weakening, but the only weakness, e6, is easily defended by the black king, and the white king does not have time to run to d7 to help the bishop attack it, or the black knight will wreak havoc.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;2B3k1/5pp1/4pn2/8/3P3p/4P1PP/5P1K/8 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1... Ne4 2. Kg2 hxg3 3. fxg3 Nd6 4. Ba6 (4. Bd7 Kf8 5. Kf3 Ke7 6. Ba4 f5 7. Kf4 Kf6 8. h4 Nf7 9. Bc2 g5+ 10. Kf3 (10. hxg5+ Nxg5=) 10... e5 $1 11. Bb3 (11. d5 e4+ 12. Kg2 Ke5 13. Kf2 gxh4 14. gxh4 f4= {Wrong bishop after the knight takes on d5 soon.}) 11... exd4 12. Bxf7 dxe3 $1 13. Bc4 gxh4 14. gxh4 Kg7=) 4... f5 5. Kf3 g5 6. h4 gxh4 7. gxh4 Kf7 8. Kf4 Kf6 9. Be2 Ne4 10. Bf3 Nd6 11. Bc6 Nc4 12. h5 e5+ 13. dxe5+ Nxe5 14. Bd5 Nd3+ 15. Kg3 (15. Kf3 Kg5 16. Bf7 $4 Ne5+ $19) 15... Kg5 16. Bf7 f4+ 17. exf4+ Nxf4=&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2020-04-01T00:02:55.047" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29096" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29093" CreationDate="2020-04-01T01:03:40.773" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think that a lot of the answers to your various questions about &quot;why this or that&quot; come down to the fact that it is just very unexplored theory, and the black players are just using their best judgment, probably mostly on-the-fly since Rg1 is so rare. I have just 18 games in my database after 9...Bxe4, and 7 of those games were played by white players below master level. That is not a lot of practical practice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as white having a lesser Elo-rating, I assume that I have most of the same games as you (I use Mega 2020), and for the most part, the rating differences are not that great, so I do not consider it a big deal. 5 of the 11, white out-rated black, and the other 6, black out-rated white. Only one had a huge disparity with a 2500 white player vs. a 2100 black player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Obviously, the main idea is to get a lead in development where black has barely even started developing the kingside. The latter part of that sentence is the key. In addition, it seems to me that sometimes, it can also be hard to get that development going. For example, I think that instead of trading the Bf1, that a quick Bd2 and 0-0-0 may be even more dangerous, highlighting that inability to develop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As to why the bishop goes back to b7, I think that it is much more natural. The bishop going to g6, while solid, could still come under attack by h4-h5. It is too early to tell, and most strong players would probably be weary of that. With the bishop on b7, it controls a lot of squares, and it almost forces white to trade the light-squared bishops since on d3, the white light-squared bishop will surely be blunted by the natural g6. Trading off a potential attacker in this position is, clearly, desirable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a lot of room for analysis in this opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 a6 6. Rg1 b5 7. g4 Bb7 8. g5 Nxe4 9. Nxe4 Bxe4 10. Qg4 Bb7 (10... d5 11. Bf4 {This developing move, stopping e5, is probably best.} (11. f3 Bg6 {And while solid, the kingside is still far from being developed, and the Bg6 may still become a target.})) 11. Bg2 (11. Bd2 g6 12. Bc3 e5 {If this is the computer's best suggestion, then I really like this as white.} 13. O-O-O {May even be more dangerous.} exd4 $4 14. Bxd4 Rg8 15. Bg2 Nc6 16. Bf6 Be7 17. Rge1 $18) 11... Qc7 {Trying to keep control of the h1-a8 diagonal.} 12. Be3 g6 {This is where I would rather have this on c3, really giving the black king nowhere to go.} 13. O-O-O Bg7 {And black has a solid pawn, but the position is very open, and tactical in nature.}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-04-01T01:55:00.863" LastActivityDate="2020-04-01T01:55:00.863" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29097" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29098" CreationDate="2020-04-01T11:14:48.957" Score="8" ViewCount="1652" Body="&lt;p&gt;Coincidentally, a month, or two, before the COVID-19 started spreading across the United States, and schools closed anyway, I had already started homeschooling my 15-year-old daughter. She had never really been interested in chess before, but I made chess lessons a mandatory part of her schooling because they help build logic, and chess could be very helpful on a college application in the future. She never had a great problem with confidence, but I have also noticed a difference there too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am happy to say that she has made remarkable progress skill-wise, and her interest has definitely increased greatly. Before it closed, she had been coming to the club at her old high school, and she likes the idea of beating the boys, and still has her eyes set on beating the club champion, a 1300-player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I want to get her an online chess membership. I have little experience with ChessKid.com, so I am not sure if she is too old for that site, and I should just buy her a regular membership to an adult chess site, or if ChessKid.com is, in fact, the way to go.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does anyone have any experience with ChessKid.com compared to adult sites, and its appropriateness to an older kid, in particular with regards to learning the game better, and not just as a playing site, but any comments about that are also welcome?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-04-01T13:43:40.097" LastActivityDate="2020-04-01T13:43:40.097" Title="ChessKid or an adult chess site for a 15-year-old?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;online&gt;&lt;websites&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29098" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29097" CreationDate="2020-04-01T12:34:14.427" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;My advice would be to use the adult site. I've had several students but never recommended a kid-friendly site to anyone older than 8 years old.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It would be good to know why exactly you want that membership for further advice:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If what you are looking for is a site where your daughter can play and get experience, then make an analysis of those games (no engine please!), you probably won't even need to pay for a membership. &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.com&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;chess.com&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Lichess&lt;/a&gt; will both make the job easy for you. They also include tactical training, which is critical specially at the lower levels (see also &lt;a href=&quot;https://chesstempo.com&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;ChessTempo&lt;/a&gt;, which also include a huge game database)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If you are interested in teaching material, then a subscription to a site like &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess24.com&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;chess24&lt;/a&gt; can be a good deal. You can find most things on YouTube but it's harder to filter out the &quot;trash&quot;. There is just too much material to work with and no time in the world to study it all, so we have to filter out. If possible. I would consult with a chess coach what kind of material is the most helpful for her. After all, there's a lot of content that, while being good, may be oriented to players of a different skill level, or for a player of a similar level but with different strengths and weaknesses&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastEditorUserId="18809" LastEditDate="2020-04-01T12:44:53.063" LastActivityDate="2020-04-01T12:44:53.063" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29099" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-04-01T16:04:27.860" Score="5" ViewCount="731" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_chess_terms#O&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia definition&lt;/a&gt; of an &quot;outpost&quot; is this: “A position on the chess board where a knight is defended by a pawn from its same side.” Does it have to be a knight?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21873" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-01T16:58:54.363" LastActivityDate="2020-04-01T18:14:22.223" Title="What is the definition of an &quot;outpost&quot;?" Tags="&lt;terminology&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29100" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29099" CreationDate="2020-04-01T16:08:57.817" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, it does not have to be a knight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is really any forward square (5th rank or 6th rank), occupied by any piece (knight, bishop, rook, and more rarely since it can be chased away by less-valuable pieces, but even a queen sometimes). The piece usually applies uncomfortable influence over the opponent’s position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, I have seen rooks planted often on d6, protected by a pawn (on e5 or c5, or even both). The rook exerts great pressure, but if taken, a strong passed pawn appears instead...trading one advantage for another.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It also really does not even have to be protected by a pawn, as long as it is, or can be, defended enough that you can continue to control it. A knight on e5 protected by a Re1 is a common example here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S. GM Dofrman in the book, “The Method in Chess” has his own definition of an outpost: “an outpost is a square on a half-open file in front of an enemy pawn, situated on the 6th (for White - on the 3rd) rank.”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I watched the videos on chess.24.com, even GM Jan Gustafsson seemed to be a little taken aback by his definition, thinking it should be more broad.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Personally, I think that his definition is a bit limiting.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastEditorUserId="19877" LastEditDate="2020-04-01T16:17:11.520" LastActivityDate="2020-04-01T16:17:11.520" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29101" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29321" CreationDate="2020-04-01T16:58:07.697" Score="-2" ViewCount="266" Body="&lt;p&gt;One consistent feature of chess over the centuries is that each side has had one king only. The rules of promotion had to be tightened up to prevent promotion to a second king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, if promotion to kings was allowed, a ruleset would be needed to deal with checkmating multiple kings. In my view, such rulesets would need to be, relatively speaking, practical for tournament and OTB chess. By practical I mean it would be relatively easy to learn and to play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While there known fairy chess conditions, like &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.matplus.net/milanvel/FairyKings.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Rex Multiplex&lt;/a&gt; in which all kings are mated at the same time, they are impractical for real-world play. These new rules would need to deal with checking two kings at the same time, forks, pins, stalemate, and promotion circumstances, among many possible things.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;What would a practical ruleset for dealing with multiple kings if king promotion was allowed?&lt;/strong&gt; All regular chess rules apply, including check and castling.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-10-07T19:19:35.680" LastActivityDate="2020-10-07T19:19:35.680" Title="Looking for practical rulesets for when king promotion is allowed" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;pawn-promotion&gt;&lt;kings&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29102" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29099" CreationDate="2020-04-01T18:14:22.223" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is no &quot;official&quot; definition because there's no ISO standard for chess terminology, so the term means whatever the author wants it to mean, but I'd say the essence of it is that it is a &quot;safe&quot; and &quot;advanced&quot; square for a piece, where &quot;advanced&quot; typically means at least the 5th rank. As an analogy consider common non-chess definitions of outpost such as &quot;an outlying or frontier settlement&quot; or &quot;a military base established in another country&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;A position on the chess board where a knight is defended by a pawn from its same side&quot; is not only too restrictive by being limited to knights, but at the same time is too unrestricted because it would include something like a white knight on f3, which while protected, is hardly at an &lt;strong&gt;out&lt;/strong&gt;-post; it's more of a &quot;home base&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for the &quot;safe&quot; part, it's a bit relative, but generally it means that it is not easy for the opponent to chase away or trade the piece. This may mean that the piece can't be chased away by pawns, because there are no pawns on the adjacent files or they are too far advanced, or because the pawn move to chase away the piece would come at a cost. Alternatively the opponent could trade it for a piece, but sometimes it's a bad tradeoff because the player who had the outpost might get some compensation such as a protected passed pawn. Or sometimes there is no way to trade it without sacrificing material, for example in a knight vs bishop scenario where the bishop is on the wrong color squares, so the only way to capture the knight is with a rook.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, while not all outposts are for knights, perhaps most are; the reason for the emphasis on knights is due to knights being short-range pieces. Rooks and bishops can often be active from their home territory when on a good file or diagonal, but knights need to move closer to the action.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12523" LastActivityDate="2020-04-01T18:14:22.223" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29103" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-04-02T15:51:51.797" Score="17" ViewCount="15787" Body="&lt;p&gt;After being out of chess for many years, I became interested again. While I never studied in my earlier playing days, I always played e4 openings when white. That was partly due to that being recommended by the one book I read and partly because that is what Fischer (usually) played and Fischer was the world champion and something of an idol at the time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, I'm trying to take chess a bit more seriously. Much of what I've read recommends the London System as an opening for beginners. That has been backed up by a couple coaches (one a National Master, the other an International Master) from whom I've taken instruction.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems the London System has a reputation as a &quot;safe&quot; opening. I've read this in several places online and heard it from the coaches I mentioned above. Furthermore, I've even read things that say you can develop in the London without paying attention to what your opponent is doing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course there is a learning curve with a new opening, thus I don't expect to get win after win after win with the opening. However, my results with the London have not left me feeling that it is &quot;safe&quot;. In one tournament game against a beginner I lost two pieces because I really didn't pay attention to what he was doing until too late. In a &quot;friendly&quot; against a master, he destroyed me with a tactic I'd never seen, but which he said is well known as an attack against the London. In other games in which I've tried it, I have felt like I'm being forced out of the system very early.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus, why is the London System considered safe? Why do proponents say you can utilize it regardless of what your opponent does?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="224" LastActivityDate="2021-01-12T23:10:11.443" Title="Why does the London System have the reputation it has?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;london-system&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29104" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29103" CreationDate="2020-04-02T16:29:35.637" Score="9" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Thus, why is the London System considered safe?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Every opening where white starts with 1. d4 is considered safe compared to 1. e4 (provided white doesn't do anything silly) because the queen protects d4. d4 openings are inherently safer than e4 openings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Why do proponents say you can utilize it regardless of what your&#xA;  opponent does?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No intelligent, knowledgeable chess player would ever say such a thing. You must always pay attention to your opponent's moves and plans. To do otherwise is to court disaster.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-04-02T16:29:35.637" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29105" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29103" CreationDate="2020-04-02T16:30:04.480" Score="16" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a prerequisite to any aspect of playing chess: NEVER EVER IGNORE YOUR OPPONENT AND THEIR INTENTIONS, FOR ANY REASON WHATSOEVER! This is of course not very surprising, but nobody has ever become even a halfway decent player by not paying any attention to their opponent (as you noted yourself, you dropped two pieces by not paying proper attention to your opponent's ideas). It's just not possible, since it will make you walk into simple traps for no good reason.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What the sources mean when they say that the London is safe is that it doesn't require you to learn very many traps and unintuitive sequences of moves to stay out of danger in the opening. Also, you can achieve the main setup (pawns on c3-d4-e3, bishop on f4, etc.) basically no matter what black is up to, and this setup is rather solid and not so simple to attack. As a summary, you are not putting your king in unnecessary danger, and you're not sacrificing material or overextending your position which means that you tend to get a &quot;safe&quot; position out of the opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While the London is a safe opening, no opening makes you immune from having to calculate tactics and be aware of positional threats. This is why beginners are recommended to learn about these things before focusing too much on specific opeinings, since this type of general knowledge is what will help you stop bleeding points to your opponents when using (for instance) the London system.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8300" LastActivityDate="2020-04-02T16:30:04.480" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29106" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29103" CreationDate="2020-04-02T16:52:41.280" Score="23" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, I want to give you a third master's opinion, and most coaches teach the London because they can teach students an opening that the students can, for the most part, be mindless for the first 10 moves (d4,Nf3,Bf4,e3,Bd3,0-0,c3,Nbd2,Qe2,Re1, etc.) or so, against almost any black response. Of course, in chess you can never totally ignore what the opponent is doing, but if you have studied the London System at all, you know what I mean, and to the level I mean you can be &quot;mindless&quot;. The coach can then say, &quot;look, you got out of the opening, so I taught you well&quot;, when in reality, the problems are just beginning, and the coach has taught you nothing. This seems to be what you are experiencing: You get to the end of those 10 moves, and you are lost.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I do not agree with that approach at all, and it is just a lazy way to teach.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The London, while not a bad opening, is considered &quot;safe&quot; because it is, primarily, a very solid position for white; but it is not particularly ambitious as it does not hit back in the center as successfully as an early c4 does. It can be played against 1...d5 or the King's Indian Defense. Because c4 is not played, it also rules out the Benoni, Benko and Grunfeld. Since black usually wants to play c5, it also, in effect, rules out the Slav, or a tempo is wasted. Limiting black's defensive options is another reason some coaches like to teach this lazy opening, but if you ever get to a certain level, you will find yourself having to learn a whole new set of openings from scratch, and you will have lost years of experience playing against so many mainline defenses. That is not a good thing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One of the biggest problems with the London for novices is that the resulting positions, where white must get in e4 and try to attack require a lot of positional skill, as well as tactical skill. Against anyone stronger, they are ready for e4, and they are prepared to take c5xd4, and get counterplay. So you get students a solid position after 10 moves, but then what is required from there is often just way over their heads. It does not make sense to teach this way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Weaker players have trouble with deep strategic play, which is why I constantly talk about studying tactics, tactics, tactics; but these London positions do not bring up the open, or semi-open types of positions that favor that type of tactical play, which is easier to grasp, and thus, easier for novice players to play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What this means is that this opening either does not really fit in with your ability level or style (you were an e4-player for a long time, after all), or you must learn the plans associated with it, from move 10 on, much better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wanted to give you a recommended book, but as I looked at them, there was nothing particularly great at telling you how to play these positions &lt;strong&gt;IN WORDS&lt;/strong&gt;, but this was probably the best of the bunch: &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/B00JF5VLVS&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Win with the London System&lt;/a&gt;&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19877" LastActivityDate="2020-04-02T16:52:41.280" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29107" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28919" CreationDate="2020-04-03T03:57:28.057" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I first saw saw this problem in &lt;a href=&quot;http://uscf1-nyc1.aodhosting.com/CL-AND-CR-ALL/CL-ALL/1972/1972_05.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess Life from 1972&lt;/a&gt;, p. 308.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16779" LastActivityDate="2020-04-03T03:57:28.057" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29108" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29109" CreationDate="2020-04-03T09:34:20.297" Score="4" ViewCount="284" Body="&lt;p&gt;When considering the touch move rule, I am still unclear about the legal sequence for a capture. Example, white intends to capture a took on a8 with rook on a1 (open file). Does white have to touch black's rook &#xA;first? The way I read the rule, if white touches a1 first, they can only play a2 through a7, since touching a8 AFTER a1 violates the rule. What is the legal sequence?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22992" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-03T14:06:20.630" LastActivityDate="2020-04-03T14:06:20.630" Title="Touch move and capture sequence" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;illegal-move&gt;&lt;captures&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29109" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29108" CreationDate="2020-04-03T10:01:10.793" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is what the &lt;a href=&quot;https://handbook.fide.com/chapter/E012018&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Laws of Chess&lt;/a&gt; have to say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;4.3  Except as provided in Article 4.2, if the player having the move touches on the chessboard,with the intention of moving or capturing:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;4.3.1 one or more of his own pieces, he must move the first piece touched that can be moved&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  4.3.2 one or more of his opponent’s pieces, he must capture the first piece touched that can be captured&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  4.3.3 one or more pieces of each colour, he must capture the first touched opponent’s piece with his first touched piece or, if this is illegal, move or capture the first piece touched that can be moved or captured. If it is unclear whether the player’s own piece or his opponent’s was touched first, the player’s own piece shall be considered to have been touched before his opponent’s.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, if the first two pieces you touch are one of your pieces and one of your opponent's pieces then you must capture your opponent's touched piece with your touched piece. Order is irrelevant in this case. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you first touch your piece and then one of your opponent's pieces which you cannot capture with your touched piece then you must move your piece even if you can capture your opponent's touched piece with one of your untouched pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you first touch one of your opponent's pieces and then one of your pieces but can't capture the opponent's touched piece with your touched piece then you must capture your opponent's touched piece if you can. Otherwise you have to move your touched piece.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Overriding these rules is the rule preventing you from making an illegal move. You may only move a touched piece or take an opponent's touched piece if that move is legal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-04-03T10:01:10.793" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29110" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-04-03T12:40:02.640" Score="3" ViewCount="261" Body="&lt;p&gt;How many opening moves are needed before we can identify that such moves fall into a particular well-known opening such as  Ruy Lopez, London, kings gambit, an so on? And after such identifying moves, can we we say that such opening is already completed and the player is on his own for the development of his pieces?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22997" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-03T14:05:17.380" LastActivityDate="2020-04-04T10:44:23.837" Title="How do we identify opening lines?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29111" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29110" CreationDate="2020-04-03T13:15:54.377" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_chess_openings&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_chess_openings&lt;/a&gt; has what you want.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;And after such identifying moves, can we we say that such opening is already completed and the player is on his own for the development of his pieces&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Openings certainly don't &quot;complete&quot; like that. In fact, ECO openings only give you the head start. Whether a player is on his own depends on the skills. For example, grandmasters certainly understands better chess than the wikipedia can give.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2020-04-03T13:15:54.377" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29112" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29110" CreationDate="2020-04-03T13:15:58.250" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Openings are typically decided by &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.365chess.com/eco.php&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;ECO Codes&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So as few as one move and as many as 5-6 or more moves could decide an opening. For example, as soon as you play 1. b3 it is a Nimzo-Larsen attack. (A01)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As soon as 1. e4 c5 is played it is a Sicilian defence. (B20) But there are many variations. If the game continues 2. Nf3 e6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 a6, it becomes the Kan variation. (B41) So on and so forth. You can find a full list of recognized openings and their ECO codes in the link above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for your second question, no, after the identifying moves have been played, the opening is typically not completed yet. For example, take this line of the Budapest gambit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Budapest Gambit&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e5 3. dxe5 Ng4 4. Nf3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is as many moves as it takes to recognize the opening as Budapest Gambit, Adler Variation (A52). However, you can hardly say the opening is over.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Budapest Gambit&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e5 3. dxe5 Ng4 4. Nf3 Nc6 5. Bf4 Bb4+ 6. Nc3 Bxc3 7. bxc3 Qe7 8. Qd5 f6 (8... Qa3)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a very common continuation to the Budapest Gambit, even though these moves aren't needed to identify it as such - it is all still theory. The player isn't &quot;on his own&quot;, there are still many established lines to follow.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13509" LastActivityDate="2020-04-03T13:15:58.250" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29113" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29114" CreationDate="2020-04-03T13:30:07.963" Score="9" ViewCount="536" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Black to move and win - rated 2179&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;2r2r1k/1pq3bp/p3p1p1/P4n2/1P1P4/2P1P2P/3BB1Q1/R3R1K1 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've been trying to work on my chess a bit more seriously since about mid-March  (I devote about 1 to 1.5h per day to training and frequently play rapid games which I analyze afterwards). I have no problem accumulating skill and knowledge in areas like positional play, endgames, or openings, but my tactical ability seems to stagnate. I know, I should be patient, but I think I've noticed some disorderly thinking patterns in my calculation that I would like to rectify. Let me illustrate this with an example. I have attached a chess puzzle I tried to solve this morning. It is rated at 2179. Although I have solved puzzles rated higher than this, I usually hover between 2050 and 2100 for the standard tactics. In the position above, it is black to move. The solution goes as follows.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;2r2r1k/1pq3bp/p3p1p1/P4n2/1P1P4/2P1P2P/3BB1Q1/R3R1K1 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Nh4 2. Qh2 (2.Qg4 Rf2!! 3. Kxf2 Qh2+ 4. Kf1 Rf8 {with mate to follow}) Qxh2+ 3. Kxh2 Rf2+ 4.Kh1 (4.Kg1 Rg2+ 5. Kh1 Rf8 6. null Rff2) Rcf8 5. e4 R8f3! 6. Bxf3 Nxf3 7. Bf4 Nxe1 8. Rxe1 Rxf4 -+&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first issue that I notice with my thinking is that I am too slow. I know that many chess trainers recommend that you should calculate more slowly to produce useful variations and not miss important nuances, but that doesn't seem to help me in thinking more productively. I will try to explain my thought process to show you what I mean. In the beginning, my main candidate moves were 1. ... Nh4 and 1. ... Bh6 (I also very briefly looked at taking on d4, but quickly disregarded it for obvious reasons). My first look at 1. ... Nh4 went as follows: I saw 1. ... Nh4 2.Qh2 and thought: ok, probably white is fine here. Then I went back to 1. ... Bh6. I liked this move because it played against the weakness e3 and emphasized white's dark-squared weaknesses. The threat is, of course, Nxe3. Next, I thought white has to protect e3 somehow, with 2.Bd3 or 2.Bh3. However, I now saw that 2. ... Nh4 would be crushing. It took me quite a while (too long in my opinion) to realize that white can simply play 1. ... Bh6 2.Qh2 and defuse the situation. Back at the original position, it now seems logical to look again at the other candidate move, 1. ... Nh4. However, calculating variations isn't like writing an essay, and the structure that I attempt to create here by verbalizing my thoughts is not necessarily present when I look at the position. So, instead, I explored a bunch of useless ideas that I cannot recall. In the end, I returned to 1. ... Nh4. The first useful thing I saw was 1. ... Nh4 2.Qh2 Qxh2+ 3.Kxh2 Rf2+ and now 4.Kg3 doesn't work (although, again, I made an error in my calculation). Black has to play Rcf8! now. I only considered 4. ... Rg2+?? and only thought 5. Kh4?? Bf6#, but white can simply escape with 5. Kf4 via e4 and d3. Nevertheless, upon seeing this line, I considered 1. ... Nh4 more seriously. Another calculation error I made was 1. ... Nh4 2.Qg4 and now I missed the brilliant 2. ... Rf2!! and instead thought 2. ... Bf6?? followed by 3. ... h5 would seal the deal. White can, however, simply respond with 3.Rf1 h5 4.Qf4. Anyways, so I played 1. ... Nh4 after 12 minutes of thought, thinking I would get at least a very good position on the second row the possibility to play Rf2 Rcf8 Rg2 Rff2.&#xA;One variation I thought about, for instance, was 1. ... Nh4 2.Qh2 Qxh2+ 3.Kxh2 Rf2+ 4.Kh1 (4.Kg1 is obviously bad) Rcf8 and now my threat is to go Rg2 and Rff2. After 4. ... Rcf8 5.e4 I simply played 5. ... Rg2 without thinking and failed the problem, missing 5. ... R8f3!. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is a quick summary of my thoughts:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It took me 12 minutes to solve the problem, but I failed at the fifth move because I moved too quickly&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I calculated too slowly. I did not see 1. ... Bh6 2.Qh2! fast enough.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I did not see the actual point of 1. ... Nh4, which is 2.Qg4 Rf2!!&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No doubt, would have someone pointed out at various crossroads that I should consider this or that move, I would have found the right continuation. I specifically chose this puzzle because it exemplifies what is wrong with my tactical thinking. I'm very good in much more forced positions with fewer branching options and can calculate a win within a matter of seconds. So, in my opinion, my main issues are as follows: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I do not think productively enough. That is, I do not produce sensible options at a fast pace and instead linger too much with suboptimal alternatives&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I lack imagination. Sometimes I just don't see the idea until it is shown to me (or I have been thinking for a very long time, like 20 minutes). &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, having read this extensively long post, what do you think I can do to improve my tactical thinking?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12604" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2020-04-03T15:02:20.850" LastActivityDate="2020-11-18T05:16:39.117" Title="Calculation skills beyond 2000 Elo" Tags="&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;calculation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29114" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29113" CreationDate="2020-04-03T20:15:19.267" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;As somebody, who's tactical ability is hopefully still above 2000, let me contrast your description with my own thought process:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I only considered 1...Nh4. &#xA;2.Qg4 Rf2 I saw basically instantly. &#xA;2.Qh2 Qxh2 3.Kxf2 Rf2 and I thought white is in trouble. Mostly because of the clumsy bishops that don't allow him to untangle quickly and challenge the second rank rook.&#xA;4.Kg3 Rg2 and white can't take the knight. This was necessary to see because losing a piece is no good. 5.Kf4 Rf8 and Rff2 seems very good for black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This all happened quite quickly (&amp;lt;1min) and I think I would have found it in a Blitz game and played it with roughly the same calculation. Of course it was sloppy (I didn't see the e4-Be3-idea) and in a real game or during training I would have tried to push all variations further.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I see several differences between your thought process and mine:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;My assessment of the rook coming to the cluttered second rank likely meaning trouble for white was more accurate.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I calculated each variation only to the point were it seemed clearly good for me and not to a win. Partly that's lazy, but partly it allows me to close lines of investigation quickly and to not get confused. It's always possible to go back and find even better moves once you've solved the lines where white initially seemed to be better or completely ok.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The idea Rf2 is part of my tactical arsenal. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As to how you get there and beyond: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I would recommend the Aagaard books like Attacking Manual, Calculation, Positional Play etc. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;But apart from these I would also do purely tactical training, where you get one of those little tactics books with a couple of hundred combinations and then you go through it several times until you remember each solution instantly. Then on to the next one. This is the &quot;Woodpecker method&quot;, it's not hard to do and it leads to you to actually just &quot;knowing&quot; a lot of tactical ideas.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I also think that playing blindfold games would teach you to get more practical in your approach. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastEditorUserId="4362" LastEditDate="2020-06-15T08:31:52.393" LastActivityDate="2020-06-15T08:31:52.393" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29115" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29110" CreationDate="2020-04-04T10:38:38.027" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;How many opening moves are needed before we can identify that such moves fall into a particular well-known opening such as Ruy Lopez, London, kings gambit, an so on?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It depends on the opening. Some are more strictly defined than others; e.g. a game is really only a &quot;Ruy Lopez&quot; if it reached the position after 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5, but lots of different lines where white plays an early d2-d4 and black's ...c7-c5 is answered by d4-d5 are called &quot;Benoni&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some variations have a well-known name on move 12-ish (like the Soltis variation in the Dragon), whereas a major line used in world championship matches like 1.Nf3 d5 2.g3 g6 doesn't even have a real name at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's really no logic to it, it's a bunch a historical accidents and traditions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But these are only the &lt;strong&gt;names&lt;/strong&gt; of openings. They are useful when talking to somebody about your game, or when you need a title for your new book or you are looking for a book, and for nothing else.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They are completely unrelated to how much a given player knows about some opening. Especially opening books often start &lt;em&gt;from&lt;/em&gt; some named position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastEditorUserId="924" LastEditDate="2020-04-04T10:44:23.837" LastActivityDate="2020-04-04T10:44:23.837" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29116" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29117" CreationDate="2020-04-04T15:24:40.200" Score="4" ViewCount="966" Body="&lt;p&gt;I encountered the following position with White to move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;6R1/8/3k4/pK6/Pb6/8/8/8 w - - 45 83&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I see no way for White to win, but am not completely sure. Is it known to be a draw? More generally, is the result for all such positions with head-to-head pawns and rook against bishop known?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9192" LastActivityDate="2021-05-02T19:31:08.200" Title="Is this position with KRP against KBP a draw?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;rook-and-minor-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29117" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29116" CreationDate="2020-04-04T16:06:35.440" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;This endgame is indeed a draw. You can check positions with 7 or fewer pieces in the &lt;a href=&quot;https://syzygy-tables.info/?fen=6R1%2F8%2F3k4%2FpK6%2FPb6%2F8%2F8%2F8+w+-+-+0+1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Sygyzy tablebases&lt;/a&gt; to see if they are a win, a loss, or a draw. If you want the depth to mate for 6 pieces or fewer, use the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.shredderchess.com/online-chess/online-databases/endgame-database.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Shredder database&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Given the context, I suppose you would like to know &lt;strong&gt;why&lt;/strong&gt; this is a draw. If White was trying to win, the best option is to take Black’s pawn. Black’s bishop is stuck defending it. If the pawn falls, Black falls with it. White can and will win the pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;6R1/8/3k4/pK6/Pb6/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Ra8 Kd5 2. Rxa5 Bxa5 3. Kxa5 Kc5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The clutch is doing soh leaves White with a major problem. The pawn endgame is a draw! Due to having a rook pawn, White will either be stalemated by the Black king, or Black will get in front of the pawn and be stalemated by White.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;White is stalemated&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;8/8/8/K1k5/P7/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Ka6 Kc6 2. a5 Kc7 3. Ka7 Kc8 4. a6 Kc7 5. Ka8 Kc8 6. a7 Kc7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Black is stalemated&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;8/8/8/K1k5/P7/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Ka6 Kc6 2. Ka5 Kb7 3. Kb5 Ka7 4. a5 Kb7 5. a6+ Ka7 6. Ka5 Kb8 7. Kb6 Ka8 8. a7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If White does not target g the Black pawn, BBlack will merely wait it out. They will just shuffle their bishop around to keep protecting their pawn. The Black king will move around such that the pawn endgame will remain drawn. Eventually, there will be a draw via the 50-move rule or threefold repetition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For all situations with head-to-head pawns, it seems that most will be won. Moving your position one file over move creates gives a win for White. Therefore, it seems to me that the only drawn positions are ones with rook pawns and a close enough Black king. In other words, there are very few of them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;7R/8/4k3/1pK5/1Pb5/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Rb8 Bb3 2. Rxb5 Kd7 3. Rb7+ Kc8 4. Re7 Bd1 5. b5 Bf3 6. Rf7 Be4 7. Kb6 Bg6 8. Re7 Kd8 9. Re5 Bc2 10. Kc6 Bb3 11. b6 Ba4+ 12. Kd6 Kc8 13. Re7 Kb8 14. b7 Be8 15. Kc5 Ka7 16. Rxe8 Kxb7 17. Re7+ Kc8 18. Kc6 Kb8 19. Rf7 Ka8 20. Kb6 Kb8 21. Rf8#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-05-02T19:31:08.200" LastActivityDate="2021-05-02T19:31:08.200" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29118" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29116" CreationDate="2020-04-04T16:06:42.943" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;This particular position is a draw; since it's a 6-man endgame, you can use e.g. &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.shredderchess.com/online-chess/online-databases/endgame-database.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Shredder's database&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, not all positions like this (with blocked rook pawns) are drawn. A famous one is &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/blog/retired_from_chess/adjourned-games-and-an-interesting-endgame&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Timman vs. Velimirovic, Rio de Janeiro, 1979&lt;/a&gt;. That game was adjourned three(!) times, giving both players plenty of opportunity to analyze it. In the end, Timman managed to win it, just before the 50-move rule kicked in. The main idea is to cut off the black king on the kingside (by mating threats and/or attacking the bishop), then sacrifice the rook for the bishop and the pawn and use the king to block the black king from reaching the promotion square.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Again, that is not possible from your starting position, since the Black king is already close to a8, but with the Black king on f4, it is a win for White:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;6R1/8/8/pK6/Pb3k2/8/8/8 w - - 45 83&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Ra8 Ke5 2. Rxa5 Bxa5 3. Kxa5 Kd6 4. Kb6 Kd7 5. Kb7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The same procedure (sacrificing the rook for the bishop and pawn) &lt;strong&gt;always&lt;/strong&gt; wins if the pawns are &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; rook pawns. It's relatively easy for White to reach one of the key squares of the last pawn after the exchange, except if you time it so badly that the Black king can take opposition. But it's rather simple to drive the Black king far away enough.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="15989" LastEditDate="2020-04-06T03:41:01.767" LastActivityDate="2020-04-06T03:41:01.767" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29119" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29116" CreationDate="2020-04-04T18:28:06.080" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I once drew a game by heading to this type of position.  A great benefit of knowing endings is knowing when to head into the ending and what positions to aim for.  I am black below in a tense game with blunders on both sides.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Result &quot;1/2-1/2&quot;]&#xA;[Termination &quot;Game drawn by agreement&quot;]&#xA;[TimeControl &quot;1/259200&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.c4 Nf6 2.d4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.e4 d6 5.Nf3 O-O 6.Be2 e5 7.d5 a5 8.h3 Na6 &#xA;9.Bg5 h6 10.Be3 Nh5 11.Qd2 Nf4 12.Bxf4 exf4 13.Qxf4 Nc5 14.O-O-O Re8 &#xA;15.Nd4 Bf6 16.h4 g5 17.Qe3 gxh4 18.g3 Qe7 19.gxh4 Bg7 20.Rdg1 Kh8 &#xA;21.Bh5 Qe5 22.Bxf7 Re7 23.Nf3 Qf6 24.Bg6 a4 25.e5 Qf8 26.e6 a3 &#xA;27.b3 Qf6 28.Kc2 c6 29.Nd2 cxd5 30.cxd5 Nxe6 31.Nde4 Nd4+ 32.Kb1 Bf5 &#xA;33.Bxf5 Nxf5 34.Nxf6 Nxe3 35.Rg6 Rf8 36.fxe3 Rxf6 37.Rxf6 Bxf6 &#xA;38.Nb5 Rxe3 39.Nxd6 Rd3 40.Kc2 Rxd5 41.Nxb7 Be7 42.Re1 Bxh4 43.Re6 Kg7 &#xA;44.b4 Bg5 45.Kb3 Bc1 46.Re1 Bb2 47.Na5 Rd3+ 48.Ka4 Rd4 49.Nc6 Rc4 &#xA;50.Ne5 Rd4  51.Rh1 Bc3 52.Nc6 Rc4 53.Kb5 Rxc6 54.Kxc6 Bxb4 55.Kd5 Kg6 &#xA;56.Rh3 Kg5 57.Ke5 h5 58.Rg3+ Kh4 59.Rb3 Bf8 60.Kf5 Be7 61.Rb7 Bd6 &#xA;62.Rh7 Bc5  63.Kg6 Kg4 64.Rxh5 Bd4 65.Ra5 Bb2 66.Rf5 Bc1 67.Kf6 Bb2+ &#xA;68.Ke6 Bc3 69.Rf7 Kg5 70.Kd5 Bb2 71.Kc4 Kg6 72.Rf1 Kg5 73.Kb4 Kg6 &#xA;74.Rf3 Kg5 75.Rxa3 Bxa3+ 76.Kxa3 Kf5 77.Kb4 Ke6 78.Kb5 Kd7 79.a4 Kc7 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17425" LastActivityDate="2020-04-04T18:28:06.080" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29120" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23511" CreationDate="2020-04-05T05:09:47.383" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Regarding wins, and not draws, I remember a joke problem by &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.yacpdb.org/#67659&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Otto Blathy&lt;/a&gt; where black has their entire army, but the pawns trap all the pieces and black can only play Qa1 and Qa2 repeatedly. White promotes their single pawn to a knight, forces black to make a move that strips their king’s protection, and then checkmates black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Otto Blathy, The Chsss Amateur 1922&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;8/8/8/2p5/1pp5/brpp4/qpprpK1P/1nkbn3 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Kxe1 Qa1 2. h3 Qa2 3. h4 Qa1 4. h5 Qa2 5. h6 Qa1 6. h7 Qa2 7. h8=N Qa1 8. Nf7 Qa2 9. Nd8 Qa1 10. Ne6 Qa2 11. Nxc5 Qa1 12. Ne4 Qa2 13. Nd6 Qa1 14. Nxc4 Qa2 15. Na5 Qa1 16. Nxb3#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Entry #270 in Tim Krabbe’s &lt;a href=&quot;https://timkr.home.xs4all.nl/chess2/diary_14.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess Diary&lt;/a&gt; shows a problem which is pretty close to what you're asking for, but it's a win and not a draw. It is a problem is which White faces nearly all of Black’s forces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Marek Kwiatkowski, The Problemist 1992, Mate In 29 Moves&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;3n4/rBp1p3/2P5/2PK4/k2N4/pp2R3/bppB2Rp/q1n1r1b1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Rg4 h1=Q+ 2. Nf3+ Kb5 3. Rb4+ Ka5 4. Rbe4+ Kb5 5. Nd4+ Ka4 6. Ne2+ Kb5 7. Nc3+ Ka5 8. Nxa2+ Kb5 9. Nc3+ Ka5 10. Ne2+ Kb5 11. Nd4+ Ka4 12. Nf3+ Kb5 13. Rb4+ Ka5 14. Rbxb3+ Ka4 15. Rb4+ Ka5 16. Rbe4+ Kb5 17. Nd4+ Ka4 18. Ne2+ Kb5 19. Nc3+ Ka5 20. Na2+ Kb5 21. Ba6+ Rxa6 22. Nc3+ Ka5 23. Ne2+ Kb5 24. Nd4+ Ka4 25. Nf3+ Kb5 26. Rb4+ Ka5 27. Rb6+ Ka4 28. Rxa6+ Kb5 29. Ra5#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22995" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-05T19:06:22.283" LastActivityDate="2020-04-05T19:06:22.283" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29121" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23511" CreationDate="2020-04-05T21:38:31.307" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;As @Matthew Liu said, shoving a king in the corner and surrounding it is perfectly feasible. Going by the regular point values, the maximum possible imbalance is worth 103 points. The last moves were 1. Kh1-g2 Rh3xg3+ 2. Kg2-h1.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;8/8/8/8/6rq/5nr1/qqqqb2b/qqqqk1nK w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, if you want a position where neither side is already stalemated, here is a king only position with an imbalance of 63 points.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;8/8/8/8/8/bpp5/brrppp1n/nqqqqk1K w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With more than a king, 68 points are possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;7n/8/8/8/1p6/brpp4/qqkrp1K1/qqqbB2n w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lastly, akin to @Raymond Hancock’s answer, here is the longest known problem in which White has a minimal force against &lt;strong&gt;all&lt;/strong&gt; of Black’s forces&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Alexey Khanyan, SuperProblem 4/13/2009&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;8/ppp1P3/3p4/7n/r7/1p4p1/brpp2Kb/n1q1k3 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e8=Q+ Kd1 2. Qxh5+ Ke1 3. Qe8+ Kd1 4. Qxa4 Qb1 5. Qg4+ Ke1 6. Qe4+ Kd1 7. Qf3+ Kc1 8. Qf4 d5 9. Qe3 Kd1 10. Qf3+ Kc1 11. Qf4 d4 12. Qg5 Kd1 13. Qg4+ Ke1 14. Qe4+ Kd1 15. Qf3+ Kc1 16. Qf4 a6 17. Qg5 Kd1 18. Qg4+ Ke1 19. Qe4+ Kd1 20. Qf3+ Kc1 21. Qf4 a5 22. Qg5 Kd1 23. Qg4+ Ke1 24. Qe4+ Kd1 25. Qf3+ Kc1 26. Qf4 a4 27. Qg5 Kd1 28. Qg4+ Ke1 29. Qe4+ Kd1 30. Qf3+ Kc1 31. Qf4 a3 32. Qg5 Kd1 33. Qg4+ Ke1 34. Qe4+ Kd1 35. Qf3+ Kc1 36. Qf4 b6 37. Qg5 Kd1 38. Qg4+ Ke1 39. Qe4+ Kd1 40. Qf3+ Kc1 41. Qf4 b5 42. Qg5 Kd1 43. Qg4+ Ke1 44. Qe4+ Kd1 45. Qf3+ Kc1 46. Qf4 b4 47. Qg5 Kd1 48. Qg4+ Ke1 49. Qe4+ Kd1 50. Qf3+ Kc1 51. Qf4 c6 52. Qg5 Kd1 53. Qg4+ Ke1 54. Qe4+ Kd1 55. Qf3+ Kc1 56. Qf4 c5 57. Qg5 Kd1 58. Qg4+ Ke1 59. Qe4+ Kd1 60. Qf3+ Kc1 61. Qf4 c4 62. Qg5 Kd1 63. Qg4+ Ke1 64. Qe4+ Kd1 65. Qf3+ Kc1 66. Qf4 c3 67. Qg5 Kd1 68. Qg4+ Ke1 69. Qe4+ Kd1 70. Qf3+ Kc1 71. Qf4 d3 72. Qe3 Bg1 73. Kxg1 Kd1 74. Qf3+ Kc1 75. Qf4 g2 76. Kxg2 Kd1 77. Qf1#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;https://pdb.dieschwalbe.de/P10911008&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;The Die Schwalbe Chess Problem Database&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-02-13T15:39:59.450" LastActivityDate="2021-02-13T15:39:59.450" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29122" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-04-06T04:27:10.603" Score="0" ViewCount="150" Body="&lt;p&gt;If I play as White and use my queen to check Black on every move, and Black can only move their king to get out of the check, can I win the game?  White could move something else, but they decide to check on every move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This happened years ago when I was new to the game in a tournament, and the referee gave me the win as it was not checkmate, but my opponent only had a king and two pawns left. Was that my win?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23026" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-06T12:52:15.543" LastActivityDate="2020-04-08T15:11:44.567" Title="Is the game done if your only movement is getting out of check?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;draw&gt;&lt;check&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29123" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29122" CreationDate="2020-04-06T06:26:07.720" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, this is not a win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What you describe is called &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perpetual_check&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;perpetual check&lt;/a&gt; and according to the rules of chess it results in a draw. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2020-04-06T06:26:07.720" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29124" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29126" CreationDate="2020-04-06T10:29:00.623" Score="3" ViewCount="1189" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would like to learn about the difference between depth-first and breadth-first search in knowledge-based chess engines (that, of course, excludes alpha-zero). The difference isn't that clear-cut, but, to my knowledge, some engines prefer to go deeper than explore more options per move. It seems that depth-first search, as it is used in Stockfish, has prevailed for now, but I don't necessarily find that obvious. Can anyone point me to research which has been done in this area?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12604" LastActivityDate="2020-04-07T09:17:17.190" Title="Breadth-first search vs Depth first search in knowledge-based chess engines" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;computer-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29125" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29124" CreationDate="2020-04-06T12:01:54.623" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is no need for research. Breadth-first, by definition needs to traverse all nodes at a level before going to the next. It just doesn't work for chess, where the number of positions is too many and most of the positions are just stupid (e.g. dropping a queen). Chess engines always use deep-first.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2020-04-06T12:01:54.623" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29126" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29124" CreationDate="2020-04-06T13:25:59.777" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Strength in chess engines depends on speed and speed depends on how strongly you can prune the tree. That is, how many nodes you can discard without degrading the accuracy of your search result. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In principle you might be able to visit the same nodes using either BFS or DFS, so a priori it is not clear which would be better prunable i.e. faster. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In chess, however, DFS is better prunable because one strong countermove is enough to invalidate a move. Therefore, the value of a move depends more strongly on a small set of next countermoves and the value of these countermoves on a small set of next moves etc. So, Min-Max-Search naturally lends itself to better pruning with DFS.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2020-04-06T13:25:59.777" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29127" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23511" CreationDate="2020-04-06T16:21:11.033" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here's a humorous, uncredited example I found in Lasker's Manual of Chess. However, a search revealed that it was created by &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.yacpdb.org/#274120&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Ludwig Meyer&lt;/a&gt; in 1886.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;b2b3R/1np2pp1/1p3k2/n2KN3/p7/5pN1/P1p3p1/2B2rqr w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Ng4+ Ke7 2. Nf5+ Kd7 3. Ne5+ Kc8 4. Ne7+ Kb8&#xA;5. Nd7+ Ka7 6. Nc8+ Ka6 7. Nb8+ Kb5 8. Na7+ Kb4&#xA;9. Na6+ Kc3 10. Nb5+ Kd3 11. Nb4+ Ke2 12. Nc3+ Kf2 (12... Ke1 Nd3#)&#xA;13. Nd3+ Kg3 14. Ne4+ Kg4 15. Ne5+ Kf5 16. Ng3+ Kf6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A draw by perpetual check, against all odds! Black has all the pieces, White only a few. Every move is forced.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13509" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-06T16:42:07.433" LastActivityDate="2020-04-06T16:42:07.433" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29128" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28531" CreationDate="2020-04-06T17:33:37.713" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not much would be affected, as user @user1583209 noted in a new deleted comment: “ I don't think this would change much. By the time an enemy piece entered that far into your camp usually you would typically have castled already or lost castling rights anyway.”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, there are at least a few positions in the opening lines that would be influenced at the least. For example, in this line of play Blacks gains a small advantage, at the least, by preventing White from castling kindside.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 b6 2. Nf3 c5 3. d4 Ba6 4. d5 Bxf1 5. Kxf1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But if capturing while castling were allowed, White will be able to castle whilst capturing the bishop, retaining the advantage, not having to take the time to manually castle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Additionally, as @Chessanator noted in a comment, the Benko Gambit would be the most affeted opening due to having a similar motive in my example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-30T22:01:17.737" LastActivityDate="2020-08-30T22:01:17.737" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29129" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29132" CreationDate="2020-04-06T23:24:17.293" Score="3" ViewCount="204" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know there are almost an infinite numbers of games in chess, which is actually &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shannon_number#Number_of_sensible_chess_games&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;near 10^40&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But had a thought; in the games played between grandmasters, they usually they know what the best move is, so I guess the possible number of games is significantly reduced in that scenario.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is possible to have two repeated games? Or are the chances for this too low, even with two GMs always making some of the best moves?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23031" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-06T23:57:44.710" LastActivityDate="2020-04-07T00:49:00.983" Title="Are there any repeated games between GMs?" Tags="&lt;grandmaster&gt;&lt;master-games&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29130" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-04-06T23:34:35.213" Score="1" ViewCount="117" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm looking for some openings for white and black that have a high probability of trading queens early on without being significantly worse. Does anyone know any openings that fit this criteria?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3872" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-06T23:49:03.830" LastActivityDate="2020-04-07T05:32:39.647" Title="Openings that reach endgames?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;queens&gt;&lt;captures&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2020-04-07T08:13:18.307" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29131" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29124" CreationDate="2020-04-07T00:31:58.090" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In addition to the great accepted answer, I'll point out that engines do differ in the amount of breadth/depth they analyze, even though all of them do use depth first search because of alpha beta search (something you should research if you want to learn more, as all traditional engines use it) being much better optimized for it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, Stockfish is very well known for aggressively getting rid of moves it has to consider through various pruning techniques, so it can consider the best few moves to extremely great depths because it doesn't need to calculate as many positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23032" LastActivityDate="2020-04-07T00:31:58.090" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29132" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29129" CreationDate="2020-04-07T00:49:00.983" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It depends on what you mean by &quot;repeat games&quot;, but even in the strictest sense of the word, repeat games have certainly happened. &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1546479&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Here's&lt;/a&gt; an example of a completely repeated game:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Liviu Dieter Nisipeanu&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Gata Kamsky&quot;]&#xA; 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.c3 Nf6 5.d4 exd4 6.cxd4 Bb4+ 7.Bd2 Bxd2+ 8.Nbxd2 d5 9.exd5 Nxd5 10.Qb3 Na5 11.Qa4+ Nc6 12.Qb3 Na5 13.Qa4+ Nc6 14.Qb3 Na5 15.Qa4+ Nc6 16.Qb3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a well-known draw, and as &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.chessbase.com/(X(1)S(llg5s3n25xhqbvopexo5w3mx))/post/bazna-r3-all-games-drawn-three-players-lead&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chessbase put it&lt;/a&gt;, there've been at least 75 games that ended this way. Still, you can't fault the players: Nisipeanu (who had White) had lost his first two games in the tournament, while Kamsky had the Black pieces and one can't ask for more than a draw with Black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you're thinking of &quot;repeated&quot; until a decisive result, then opening traps can easily yield repeated games. Here's a famous example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA; 1.d4 d5 2. c4 dxc4 3. Nf3 c6 4. e3 Be6 5. Ng5?? Qa5+&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black wins since the knight on g5 is lost. A list of victims of this trap is given &lt;a href=&quot;https://chessimprover.com/a-high-level-opening-trap/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's another record that might be of interest. Although the game wasn't repeated in its entirety, it was repeated up to the point where a human player might have resigned. In &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.tcec-chess.com/archive.html?season=16&amp;amp;div=sf&amp;amp;game=64#/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;game 64&lt;/a&gt; of the superfinal of the 16th TCEC season, between top engines Stockfish &amp;amp; AllieStein, the engines followed a known game for 39 moves. The original game happened in 2018, between Exxon (Toltec 4 Pro)-Attakinski (Raubfisch ME262_GTZ). Playing out the position after the book line ended was rather academic, since Black is completely lost.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Stockfish&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;AllieStein&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. e5 Nfd7 5. f4 c5 6. Nf3 Nc6 7. Be3 Qb6 8. Na4 Qa5+ 9. c3 Nxd4 10. Nxd4 cxd4 11. b4 Qc7 12. Bxd4 Be7 13. Bd3 Nb8 14. O-O b6 15. Rc1 Nc6 16. Bf2 O-O 17. a3 Bb7 18. c4 dxc4 19. Rxc4 b5 20. Rc3 bxa4 21. b5 Rfc8 22. bxc6 Bxc6 23. Bxh7+ Kxh7 24. Qh5+ Kg8 25. f5 Qxe5 26. Rh3 g6 27. Qh7+ Kf8 28. fxe6 Qg7 29. Be3 Qxh7 30. Rxh7 Kg8 31. Rfxf7 Bf6 32. Rh6 Bb2 33. Rxg6+ Kh8 34. e7 Be8 35. Rh6+ Kg8 36. Rf8+ Kg7 37. Rhh8 Kg6 38. Rhg8+ Kh7 39. g4 Rcb8 40. g5 Be5 41. Bc5 Bg6 42. Rd8 a6 43. Kf2 Bf7 44. h3 Bg6 45. Kf3 a5 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastActivityDate="2020-04-07T00:49:00.983" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29133" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29130" CreationDate="2020-04-07T01:01:27.193" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's a &quot;drawing line&quot; in the Petrov Defense for White:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. Nxe5 d6 4. Nf3 Nxe4 5. Qe2 Qe7 {Black has to play this or 6. d3 wins a piece} 6. d3 Nf6 7. Qxe7+&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Playing 7. Qxe7+ loses White's opening half-tempo, but queens are off, and if that's what White wants he's gotten it. Not playing Qxe7+ can still lead to a queen trade, until either side decides to block the e-file with minors.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Berlin Defense is another well-known opening with early queen trade:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 Nf6 4. O-O Nxe4 5.d4 Nd6 6.Bxc6 dxc6 7.dxe5 Nf5 8.Qxd8+ Kxd8&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This opening has gained a reputation for drawishness at GM level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastActivityDate="2020-04-07T01:01:27.193" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29135" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29130" CreationDate="2020-04-07T05:19:42.883" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;White:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Exchange Spanish with an early d4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.d4 King's Indian Exchange Variation&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pirc Defence 1.e4 d6 2.d4 Nf6 3.Nc3 e5 4.dxe5 dxe5 - I actually think this is close to equal for Black. (4.Nf3 is usually played.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Berlin Defence&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nimzo-Indian 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.Qc2 O-O 5.a3 Bxc3+ 6.Qxc3 b6 7.Bg5 Bb7 8.f3 h6 9.Bh4 d5 10.e3 Nbd7 11.cxd5 Nxd5 12.Bxd8 Nxc3 13.Bh4 Nd5&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to look for a highly effective repertoire for white based on early simplifications, I would say Oleg Krivonosov's (olegas) games on ICC are very underrated. Some other players are pretty good at sidelines, but these may not trade pieces very often, such as Igor Glek and Michael Adams.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22995" LastEditorUserId="2299" LastEditDate="2020-04-07T05:32:39.647" LastActivityDate="2020-04-07T05:32:39.647" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29136" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29124" CreationDate="2020-04-07T09:07:40.873" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;One important point to consider is that &lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikibooks.org/w/index.php?title=Artificial_Intelligence/Definition&amp;amp;stable=0#Uninformed_Search&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;BFS has a hugely higher space complexity than DFS&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Notation: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;b = branching factor = number of moves per step, &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Branching_factor&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;about 31 in&#xA;chess&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;d = minimum depth of tree till optimal solution (e.g. 10 if checkmate in 10 turns is possible) &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;m = maximum depth of tree (e.g. 150 moves till draw)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Space complexity of BFS: O(b^d)&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Space complexity of DFS: O(b * m)&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Assuming that a position with b=31, d=10 and m=150 is evaluated and each node needs &lt;a href=&quot;https://stackoverflow.com/questions/21374846/efficient-storage-of-a-chess-position&quot;&gt;24 Bytes of space&lt;/a&gt;, BFS would need about 20 &lt;strong&gt;Peta&lt;/strong&gt;byte of space and DFS only  111 KB, making BFS infeasible. Also keep in mind that modern CPUs only have a few MB of cache (e.g. &lt;a href=&quot;https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/192943/intel-core-i9-9900ks-processor-16m-cache-up-to-5-00-ghz.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;16 MB for the i9-9900KS&lt;/a&gt;), so they could not even fit all nodes of BFS at the depth of d=4 (22MB).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With strong pruning (i.e. throw away very bad moves), the branching factor can be reduced to perhaps 5-10 good moves per step, but this does not solve the exponential space complexity of BFS.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23036" LastEditorUserId="23036" LastEditDate="2020-04-07T09:17:17.190" LastActivityDate="2020-04-07T09:17:17.190" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29137" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18583" CreationDate="2020-04-07T09:47:34.733" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can have a look at &lt;a href=&quot;https://lucaschess.pythonanywhere.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Lucas Chess&lt;/a&gt;.&#xA;There's a version for both Linux and Windows. (I use the windows version with wine and no performance problems).&#xA;There's a lot of modes and resources for studying in this software.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23038" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2020-04-07T12:20:40.590" LastActivityDate="2020-04-07T12:20:40.590" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29139" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29141" CreationDate="2020-04-07T16:56:07.013" Score="4" ViewCount="481" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have programmed a minimax function with alpha-beta pruning for a chess engine I am building. However, it is very slow and I cannot analyze to a deeper depth as it would take too much time. I believe this is because my alpha-beta pruning isn't efficient.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, for my engine to analyze a position to a depth of 4-ply (white moves, black moves, white moves, black moves), it takes 11.5 seconds to analyze about thirty thousand positions (taken from a middlegame chess example). Without the alpha-beta pruning, there would be about 100 000 positions, so the pruning removes 70%. Is this inefficient or is my computer just slow? And another piece of information (I don't know if this would affect the speed): the only analysis I am using is static analysis, so I count up how many points each side has in material as well as giving them a bonus of + or - 100 if there is checkmate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;From SmallChess's suggestion I have already implemented&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;no deepcopy&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;no shuffling&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;checked generator&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Below is my minimax function:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;pose = 0&#xA;def minimax(board, depth, maximizing_player, alpha, beta): #table is board&#xA;    global pose&#xA;    children = list(board.legal_moves) #find all possible moves from certain position&#xA;&#xA;    if depth == 0 or board.is_game_over(): #don't go deeper if game over/depth ended&#xA;        return calc_eval(board), None #calc-eval finds piece-values on board and adds them up. e.g. two pawns would be 2 points&#xA;&#xA;    if maximizing_player == True:&#xA;        best_value = -float(&quot;Inf&quot;)&#xA;    else:&#xA;        best_value = float(&quot;Inf&quot;)&#xA;&#xA;    for child in children:&#xA;        pose += 1&#xA;        board.push(child) #copy board and change it by moving the child move&#xA;        new_val = minimax(board, depth - 1, not maximizing_player, alpha, beta)[0] #recursively find value&#xA;        board.pop()&#xA;        if maximizing_player == True and new_val &amp;gt; best_value:&#xA;            best_value = new_val&#xA;            best_move = child&#xA;            alpha = max(alpha, best_value)&#xA;        if maximizing_player == False and new_val &amp;lt; best_value:&#xA;            best_value = new_val&#xA;            best_move = child&#xA;            beta = min(beta, best_value)&#xA;        if alpha &amp;gt; beta:&#xA;            break&#xA;&#xA;    return best_value, best_move&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23045" LastEditorUserId="23045" LastEditDate="2020-04-07T18:47:34.247" LastActivityDate="2020-10-16T11:44:23.450" Title="How can I increase the search ply depth of my minimax function for my chess engine?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;programming&gt;&lt;python&gt;&lt;minimax&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="7" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29140" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31801" CreationDate="2020-04-07T16:58:19.963" Score="1" ViewCount="281" Body="&lt;p&gt;While chess problems and such are usually meant for Puzzling Stack Exchange, I thought that this one should be an exception since it’s more relevant IMHO.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Resetting the 50-move rule, i.e. restart the 100 ply cycle, requires either a pawn push or a capture. Checkmate does not restart it of course.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Geir Sune Tallaksen Østmoe, MatPlus.net Forum 8/14/2013, White To Move&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;1K6/2p5/p5pr/q2k3n/P1pPp1rP/1pP1PpPR/1P3P1B/3N3N w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Given that White is playing to reset the 50-move rule and Black is trying to avoid it, how many moves will it take to for White to reset the 50-move rule?  Or, in layman’s terms, after how many moves can White make a capture or a pawn moves while Black avoids doing or allowing that to happen?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-11-29T19:49:58.540" LastActivityDate="2020-11-29T19:49:58.540" Title="Chess Problem: Reset The 50-Move Rule!" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;problems&gt;&lt;50-move-rule&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29141" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29139" CreationDate="2020-04-07T18:16:02.457" Score="3" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Build a cache. You're exposing yourself to endless transposition.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Please don't shuffle your moves. I don't have the numbers but I doubt randomly shuffle all your lists can be quick. It's &lt;code&gt;O(n)&lt;/code&gt;. I fail to see how it can address your repetition anyway.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Double check your generator. Source code is not here, so I have no idea&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I don't know what exactly your &lt;code&gt;table&lt;/code&gt; is, but deep copying can never be quick. Each deep copy would need to allocate some memory space. Don't copy, you need to make a move and then undo the move. In chess programming, we don't make a deep copy of the board at every node, we make a move and then undo it.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Double check how exactly your chess board makes a move, is that efficient?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2020-04-07T18:16:02.457" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29142" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-04-07T18:17:05.293" Score="7" ViewCount="985" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is it possible to play against a &quot;virgin&quot; Leela Chess engine to see how many games it takes it to beat me? That is, can I train Leela Chess by playing against it myself?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20949" LastEditorUserId="20949" LastEditDate="2020-04-07T18:28:31.247" LastActivityDate="2020-04-09T15:01:35.923" Title="Train Leela Chess against myself" Tags="&lt;training&gt;&lt;leela&gt;&lt;windows&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29143" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29144" CreationDate="2020-04-07T18:24:33.593" Score="2" ViewCount="304" Body="&lt;p&gt;I remark that whatever the level of the Lichess' Stockfish I choose it plays in average at the same speed. How could I tune my Stockfish (the one I use in Fritz or Arena) to achieve the same with the same performance ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20949" LastActivityDate="2020-04-07T18:53:02.390" Title="Lichess' Stockfish's tuning" Tags="&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;lichess&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29144" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29143" CreationDate="2020-04-07T18:53:02.390" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The settings used for the Stockfish levels on lichess can be found at &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/niklasf/fishnet/blob/53e218bd184554265748513f85d19e601f18c310/fishnet.py#L117-L119&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://github.com/niklasf/fishnet/blob/53e218bd184554265748513f85d19e601f18c310/fishnet.py#L117-L119&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;LVL_SKILL = [0, 3, 6, 10, 14, 16, 18, 20]&#xA;LVL_MOVETIMES = [50, 100, 150, 200, 300, 400, 500, 1000]&#xA;LVL_DEPTHS = [1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 22]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;where &lt;code&gt;LVL_SKILL&lt;/code&gt; refers to the &lt;code&gt;Skill Level&lt;/code&gt; UCI option in Stockfish, &lt;code&gt;LVL_MOVETIMES&lt;/code&gt; to the maximum move time in milliseconds, and &lt;code&gt;LVL_DEPTHS&lt;/code&gt; to the maximum depth for each of the eight levels.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The move time and depth might not be easy to set in a local GUI, but you can simply use the &lt;code&gt;Skill Level&lt;/code&gt; option to adjust playing strength where 20 means best play and 0 is the lowest available level for Stockfish.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15415" LastActivityDate="2020-04-07T18:53:02.390" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29145" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29142" CreationDate="2020-04-07T20:37:57.020" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not an expert but you can play against a &quot;virgin&quot; Leela by using one of the younger nets. For example in the first Leela test (the so-called training run) the strongest net was 11248. If you play against, e.g., net 00010, it'll be much weaker.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, you can't train Leela by playing against it. You can play against the trained product, but you can't train Leela yourself. That's because Leela is supposed to learn entirely by self-play (that's why its full name is Leela Chess Zero - &quot;Zero&quot; for zero human knowledge).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastActivityDate="2020-04-07T20:37:57.020" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29147" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29239" CreationDate="2020-04-08T05:58:08.103" Score="4" ViewCount="297" Body="&lt;p&gt;After following the studying advises of a Chess Stack Exchange fellow (PhishMaster, if you read this, thank you!) I'm about to break 2200 Lichess elo finally. I think it is time to truly and deeply study the openings and defenses I enjoy playing. That is why I'm looking for in-depth books on the QG (or specifically QGD) and French Defense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not looking for introductory books, or key-ideas-presentations sort of literature; I'm aiming at studying and memorizing lines and variations in depth, for I feel I have come to the point this is necessary to improve my game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An excellent example of the type of book I want is Pachamn's &lt;em&gt;Queen's Gambit Declined&lt;/em&gt;, but the problem is the book is clearly outdated and I know many of the lines it presents as solid have been refuted both by the human mind or by the engines (still excellent book, don't get me wrong). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What books of this sort can you recommend me on this openings?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21110" LastActivityDate="2020-04-18T11:12:53.117" Title="Good and in-depth books on Queen's Gambit and French Defense?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;french-defense&gt;&lt;study&gt;&lt;queens-gambit&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29149" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29150" CreationDate="2020-04-08T10:53:57.283" Score="5" ViewCount="1369" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;3k4/ppp3pp/1b6/8/PP6/4BpP1/5P1P/6K1 b - - 1 24&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This position is evaluated -4 but i cant find any plans for Black and lost. What should have been my strategy from this position ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is the full game :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;Rated Rapid game&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;https://lichess.org/xxLijzuK&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2020.04.08&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;-&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;CorsaireBouritos&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;AKP2002&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[UTCDate &quot;2020.04.08&quot;]&#xA;[UTCTime &quot;06:59:51&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;1214&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;1228&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteRatingDiff &quot;+6&quot;]&#xA;[BlackRatingDiff &quot;-6&quot;]&#xA;[Variant &quot;Standard&quot;]&#xA;[TimeControl &quot;600+0&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;B02&quot;]&#xA;[Opening &quot;Alekhine Defense: Scandinavian Variation&quot;]&#xA;[Termination &quot;Normal&quot;]&#xA;[Annotator &quot;lichess.org&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 Nf6 2. Nc3?! { (0.63 → 0.00) Inaccuracy. e5 was best. } (2. e5 Nd5 3. c4 Nb6 4. d4 d6 5. f4 g6 6. Nc3 Bg7) 2... d5 { B02 Alekhine Defense: Scandinavian Variation } 3. Nxd5 Nxd5 4. exd5 Qxd5 5. c3?! { (0.08 → -0.48) Inaccuracy. d4 was best. } (5. d4 Nc6 6. Be3 e5 7. Nf3 exd4 8. Nxd4 Nxd4 9. Qxd4 Qxd4) 5... Nc6 6. d4?! { (0.00 → -0.75) Inaccuracy. Qf3 was best. } (6. Qf3 Be6 7. d4 O-O-O 8. Be2 h5 9. Qxd5 Bxd5 10. Nf3 h4) 6... e5 7. Nf3 e4?? { (-0.94 → 0.70) Blunder. exd4 was best. } (7... exd4 8. Nxd4 Nxd4 9. Be3 Bc5 10. Bxd4 Bxd4 11. Qxd4 Qxd4 12. cxd4) 8. Ng5? { (0.70 → -0.42) Mistake. Nd2 was best. } (8. Nd2 Be7 9. Nc4 O-O 10. Bf4 Qd8 11. d5 Nb8 12. Be2 Nd7) 8... Be6?? { (-0.42 → 1.92) Blunder. h6 was best. } (8... h6 9. Nh3) 9. Nxe6 fxe6 10. g3?? { (1.71 → 0.13) Blunder. Qb3 was best. } (10. Qb3 Qxb3) 10... e5?! { (0.13 → 0.97) Inaccuracy. e3 was best. } (10... e3 11. f3) 11. Bg2 exd4 12. cxd4?? { (1.01 → -1.30) Blunder. Qg4 was best. } (12. Qg4) 12... Nxd4?? { (-1.30 → 0.36) Blunder. Bb4+ was best. } (12... Bb4+ 13. Bd2) 13. O-O O-O-O 14. Re1?? { (0.28 → -1.35) Blunder. Qg4+ was best. } (14. Qg4+ Kb8) 14... Nf3+ 15. Bxf3 Qxd1?? { (-1.29 → 5.46) Blunder. exf3 was best. } (15... exf3 16. Qa4 Bc5 17. Be3 Bxe3 18. Rxe3 Kb8 19. Qg4 Qxa2 20. Ra3 Qd5 21. Qxf3 a6 22. Qxd5) 16. Rxd1?? { (5.46 → -0.76) Blunder. Bxd1 was best. } (16. Bxd1) 16... exf3 17. Rxd8+ Kxd8 18. Bf4 Bb4?! { (-1.27 → -0.58) Inaccuracy. Bc5 was best. } (18... Bc5) 19. Rd1+ Kc8 20. a3 Ba5 21. b4 Bb6 22. a4? { (-0.94 → -2.07) Mistake. Rd3 was best. } (22. Rd3 Rf8 23. h4 h6 24. Kf1 a5 25. h5 Rf5 26. Rxf3 Rxh5 27. Bd2 Rd5 28. Ke2 Re5+) 22... Rd8 23. Rxd8+?! { (-1.57 → -2.63) Inaccuracy. Rc1 was best. } (23. Rc1) 23... Kxd8 24. Be3?! { (-2.54 → -3.85) Inaccuracy. h4 was best. } (24. h4 Kd7 25. Be5 a5 26. bxa5 Bxa5 27. Bxg7 Ke6 28. h5 c5 29. Kh2 c4 30. Kh3 Kd5) 24... Bxe3 25. fxe3 g5 26. g4?! { (-2.39 → -3.53) Inaccuracy. h3 was best. } (26. h3 h5) 26... b6?? { (-3.53 → 0.00) Blunder. Kd7 was best. } (26... Kd7 27. Kf2 c5 28. bxc5 Kc6 29. a5 Kxc5 30. Kxf3 b6 31. a6 Kc4 32. Ke4 b5 33. Kf3) 27. b5?? { (0.00 → -2.46) Blunder. Kf2 was best. } (27. Kf2 Ke7 28. Kxf3 c6 29. Ke4 Kf6 30. Kd3 Ke5 31. e4 h6 32. h3 Ke6 33. Kc3 Ke5) 27... Kd7? { (-2.46 → -1.22) Mistake. Ke7 was best. } (27... Ke7 28. Kf2 c5 29. Kxf3 Kd6 30. Ke2 Kd5 31. Kd3 Ke5 32. Kd2 Ke4 33. Ke2 c4 34. Kd2) 28. Kf2 Kd6 29. Kxf3 Kc5?? { (-3.08 → 0.00) Blunder. c6 was best. } (29... c6) 30. e4?? { (0.00 → -2.66) Blunder. Ke4 was best. } (30. Ke4 c6 31. bxc6 Kxc6 32. Ke5 a6 33. e4 b5 34. axb5+ axb5 35. Kf6 Kd7 36. Kf7 Kd6) 30... Kb4?? { (-2.66 → 12.85) Blunder. Kd4 was best. } (30... Kd4 31. h3) 31. e5 Kc5 32. Ke4 h5 33. gxh5 g4 34. e6 Kd6 35. Kf5 Ke7?! { (25.19 → Mate in 9) Checkmate is now unavoidable. Kc5 was best. } (35... Kc5 36. e7) 36. h6 Kf8 37. Kf6 Kg8 38. e7 Kh7 39. Kg5 { Black resigns. } 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21526" LastEditorUserId="12629" LastEditDate="2020-04-08T11:13:24.933" LastActivityDate="2020-04-09T09:07:01.080" Title="How to proceed in this endgame position?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;pawn-structure&gt;&lt;pawn-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29150" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29149" CreationDate="2020-04-08T11:13:28.483" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a very common kind of endgame, where you have a pawn majority on one side and fight against a single pawn in the center. Winning this is not difficult, but let's first look at your game...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;fixed the position of the queenside pawns by playing b6 (to which white cleverly replied b5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;ran with your king towards the queenside&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically you should do the opposite:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;keep your king in the center close to the white e-pawn (say around e5, d5, e4 or c4), which white cannot advance&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;try to create a passed pawn on the queenside: for this you want to start with a6 or c6, not b6.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The idea then is to have that a-b-c passed pawn run,  forcing the white king away from the protection of the kingside pawns&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One possible line with comments....&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;3k4/ppp3pp/1b6/8/PP6/4BpP1/5P1P/6K1 b - - 1 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Bxe3 { Perhaps not the computer's first choice but a decent practical human decision to turn it into a clearly won pawn endgame. Could perhpas have delayed this exchange to gain an extra tempo (for centralizing the king) since white does not have any good moves. } (1... a5 { Prevents white from playing a5. Objectively the strongest move in the position. The main idea is to keep the white king out of play for as long as possible. } 2. bxa5 (2. b5 Kd7 3. Kf1 Kd6 4. Ke1 (4. Bd2 Kd5 { and white does not get anywhere as the king is bound to the protection of the f2 pawn, black can just collect the a and b pawns or promote the c pawn as he wishes. }) 4... Bxe3 { now is the time to exchange because black will keep the f3 pawn } 5. fxe3 Kd5 6. Kf2 Ke4 { followed by c5-c4-c3-c2-c1Q 0-1 }) 2... Bxa5 { The white king's path to freedom via f1 e1 is now blocked. Black is basically playing king+bishop+pawn vs a single bishop. } 3. h4 { trying to activate the king via h2 } 3... Kd7 { centralizing the king } 4. Kh2 Kc6 5. g4 Kd5 6. Kg3 Ke4 7. Bc5 (7. g5 g6 { the white king has no way to escape and black just pushes the c pawn to c1 }) 7... b6 8. Bf8 g6 { and black will just push the c pawn to c1. }) 2. fxe3 g5 { threatening to create a protected passed pawn on f3. } 3. g4 Kd7 4. Kf2 Ke6 5. Kxf3 Kd5 { First goal achieved: King is centralized. Note that white can never play e4 since after Kd4 white will eventually run out of moves and will have to move the king from the protection of the e pawn. } 6. b5 c6 { or a6 or c5 all will create a passed pawn for black } 7. bxc6 { basically forced because otherwise black would end up with one vs zero pawns on the queenside, which would make his task even easier } 7... bxc6 { Second goal achieved: black has a passed pawn } 8. a5 c5 9. Ke2 Kc4! { Aiminig for the a5 pawn, while keeping an eye on the e3 pawn (which would still be lost after e4 Kd4). Also the black king is threatening to get to d3 after which white would also be lost. } 10. Kd2 { basically forced, because black was also threatening Kc3 after which he'd get to d3 when white runs out of pawn moves } 10... a6 11. Kc2 Kb4 12. Kd3 Kxa5 { Again this is the more human decision. Black could also go for pawn promotion with Kb3 (followed by c4...). It is important to realize that black can catch the e pawn (rule of the square). Also it helps that the lone white king is lost against the a and c pawn (even without the black king's support). } 13. Kc4 Kb6 14. e4 a5 15. Kd5 (15. e5 a4 16. e6 Kc6 17. e7 Kd7 { and the white king is lost against the a and c pawns }) 15... a4 { I am faster than you. Needs to count. } 16. e5 a3 17. e6 a2 18. e7 a1=Q 19. e8=Q Qd4+ 20. Ke6 Qe3+ { and black trades queens and will get a new queen soon on c1. } *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastEditorUserId="11629" LastEditDate="2020-04-09T09:07:01.080" LastActivityDate="2020-04-09T09:07:01.080" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29151" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29154" CreationDate="2020-04-08T13:03:42.367" Score="3" ViewCount="531" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;    1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 Nc6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am seeking high-level, in-depth coverage of the above line.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was able to find small coverage in ECO C and liked what I saw there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there any book/article that thoroughly deals with this line?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would give more info, but I am not a French player. Still, I find the line very fun, hence the question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastEditorUserId="7726" LastEditDate="2020-04-08T13:08:30.797" LastActivityDate="2020-04-09T08:10:51.050" Title="Seeking in-depth coverage of this French defense sideline" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;french-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29152" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29122" CreationDate="2020-04-08T15:11:44.567" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is the game done if your only movement is getting out of check?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No. By rule, your &lt;em&gt;only&lt;/em&gt; legal move when in check is to get out of check if you can. If you cannot, the game is over, as it is checkmate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If I play as White and use my queen to check Black on every move, and Black can only move their king to get out of the check, can I win the game? White could move something else, but they decide to check on every move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Initially, the game isn't over just because you keep putting the other player in check. However, if this goes on long enough without any captures or pawn moves, your opponent could invoke the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifty-move_rule&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;50 move rule&lt;/a&gt;. If that doesn't happen, the tournament director (TD) could eventually invoke the 75 move rule (referenced at the same Wikipedia link as the 50 move rule). In either case, the game would be a draw. Also, before you invoke one of those rules, you may achieve a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threefold_repetition&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;threefold repetition&lt;/a&gt;, which is also a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;This happened years ago when I was new to the game in a tournament, and the referee gave me the win as it was not checkmate, but my opponent only had a king and two pawns left. Was that my win?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Taking the last first, yes, it was your win. However, instead of a win on the board, the TD gave you the win by &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossary_of_chess#A&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;adjudication&lt;/a&gt;, because in their opinion you would have gotten there eventually. There may have been a time constraint to be met - perhaps the next round needed to start to keep the event on schedule, or - if it was the last round - the room needed to be vacated for another event.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="224" LastActivityDate="2020-04-08T15:11:44.567" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29153" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29149" CreationDate="2020-04-08T16:00:27.183" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think you should avoid taking on &lt;code&gt;e3&lt;/code&gt;, even though it is objectively winning, this gives your opponent a passed pawn on e-file and exposes your f3-pawn (which is a big headache for white), this complicates the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you don't take on &lt;code&gt;e3&lt;/code&gt; yourself, you opponent can force you with &lt;code&gt;a5&lt;/code&gt;, is there a way to stop that? Yes, there is: play &lt;code&gt;1...a5&lt;/code&gt; yourself, if &lt;code&gt;2.bxa5 Bxa5&lt;/code&gt;, just march you king to &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt; and push your pawns on the queen side. For anything else white pawns on the queen side will be too weak, you can just march your king over and take them. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="307" LastEditorUserId="307" LastEditDate="2020-04-08T17:11:00.557" LastActivityDate="2020-04-08T17:11:00.557" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29154" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29151" CreationDate="2020-04-08T17:14:44.237" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's a 12-page chapter on this position in Cristoph Wisneski's &quot;Play 1...Nc6!: A complete chess opening repertoire for Black.&quot;  In that book it's reached via 1.e4 Nc6, 2.d4 d5, 3.Nc3 e6.  More generally you're probably more likely to see this discussed in books on the Nimzowitsch defense (with d5, not e5) rather than French defense books.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2005" LastEditorUserId="2005" LastEditDate="2020-04-08T17:23:38.907" LastActivityDate="2020-04-08T17:23:38.907" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29155" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-04-08T22:51:39.477" Score="5" ViewCount="217" Body="&lt;p&gt;After 1. e4 c6   2. d4 d5   3. Nc3 dxe4   4. Nxe4, the most popular move (main line) is 4...Bf5. But former world champion Anatoly Karpov seems to like 4...Nd7. Since Karpov's &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatoly_Karpov#Style&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;style&lt;/a&gt; is &quot;solidly positional, taking no risks but reacting mercilessly to any tiny errors made by his opponents,&quot;&#xA; I am wondering if 4...Nd7 is generally considered more solid and less risky than 4...Bf5, at least by Karpov.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am hoping that Anatoly Karpov can answer or comment on this question, but it does not seem realistic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16626" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2020-04-09T15:24:04.203" LastActivityDate="2020-04-13T01:36:22.097" Title="In Caro-Kann, which one is less risky, the main line or the Steinitz?" Tags="&lt;positional-play&gt;&lt;caro-kann&gt;&lt;karpov&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29156" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29155" CreationDate="2020-04-09T05:51:15.787" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;IMO it is an overstatement to say that Karpov took no risks.  Just to give one example which is curiously on topic, in one of his Caro games he played an early &lt;code&gt;.. Ke8-e7 !?&lt;/code&gt; in order to connect his Rh8 to his Queen, and got an advantage that way.  I would call his style &quot;positional dynamic&quot; or something like that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Perhaps the larger point is that in chess you simply can't win without taking at least some minimal risk.  And I'm hoping that winning (sometimes) is your goal, rather than always drawing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And there's a risk to systems like &lt;code&gt;.. Bf5&lt;/code&gt; too, though of a different kind: that of being stuck in a minimally worse position with no counterplay.  Playing that sort of position against a master is no fun at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23058" LastActivityDate="2020-04-09T05:51:15.787" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29157" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29151" CreationDate="2020-04-09T08:10:51.050" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's also a chapter on it in &quot;Dangerous Weapons: French&quot; by John Watson from Everyman (2007) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23059" LastActivityDate="2020-04-09T08:10:51.050" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29158" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29142" CreationDate="2020-04-09T15:01:35.923" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, you could in principle set up Leela such that it learns by playing against you. It would require some programming skills and a lot of time to play games. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Currently Leela has been trained on 300.000.000 games. You should expect to have to play at least a couple of thousand games against it to see an improvement. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, Leela doesn't learn anything if it always loses. So you either can't start from zero, or you'd have to massively handicap yourself such that you regularly lose even against the initial random play. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2020-04-09T15:01:35.923" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29159" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-04-09T17:07:21.093" Score="2" ViewCount="59" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am seeking for a high-level and in-depth discussion of the Alekhine Defense, including variations, mainlines, and sidelines that favors black. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;e4 Nf6&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21830" LastActivityDate="2020-04-09T17:07:21.093" Title="Alekhine Defense Variations" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;alekhines-defense&gt;&lt;alekhine&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="4" ClosedDate="2020-04-09T21:40:49.590" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29160" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29155" CreationDate="2020-04-09T18:50:19.357" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Regarding your question, as far as I remember, both lines hold. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;Bf5&lt;/code&gt; gave White a lot of options to fight for an advantage. It got revamped with the help of the computers, Black seeking to generate more active counter-play by castling short instead of long, but I had no courage to try those positions out as they were too wild for my taste.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;Nd7&lt;/code&gt; was regarded as more solid, giving White less attacking options, but also requires more enterprising play from Black.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sadly, user &lt;code&gt;q.undertow&lt;/code&gt; is right. There is no safe line in the Caro-Kann.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Allow me to explain why:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since it's creation, it was considered inferior to French defense, masters arguing that &lt;code&gt;1...c6&lt;/code&gt; is too slow, Black not fighting energetically enough for the center. This fact gives White enough time to put pressure on Black. This will always be the case with Caro, Black argues that he will be able to withstand the pressure and cash in White's over-extension in the endgame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In some lines, White plays outrageous moves, almost &quot;all-in&quot;-ing, forcing Black to invest reasonable risk, in order not to lose. These positions are ugly for the eye of the beholder, but that does not matter. What matters is that objectively, the positions are sound and not inferior for Black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Before the endgame, comes middlegame. Relinquishing initiative to White, Black will have to defend some serious threats and nobody in the old days knew just how far can White go with his aggression. They tried to play positionally, relying on general principles, but this approach gave only a small plus for White, so he turned to &quot;all-in&quot;-ing, backed by computer analysis. These new moves broke every principle they could, but still remained viable, forcing Black to reply in equal manner in order not to get crushed, generating mind-boggling positions. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sadly, &lt;strong&gt;it is White who steers the game, so if he wants to, he can drag you into sharp positions.&lt;/strong&gt; Positional lines hold for Black (last time I checked) so you should have no problems there as their plans are not difficult to grasp. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you do get dragged in the complications, &lt;strong&gt;book yourself up&lt;/strong&gt;, you won't be able to save yourself with calculation and general principles. From my experience, it was harder to play as Black, more stress, easier to make a mistake, less options to generate counter-play... &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastActivityDate="2020-04-09T18:50:19.357" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29161" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28541" CreationDate="2020-04-09T19:47:11.187" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Gary Kasparov has beaten Deep Blue several times. Carlsen and Kasparov haven’t played against Stockfish yet, as far as I know, so we can't comment on this issue. But in my opinion, world champions will he able to beat the best of the best computers for next 20 years or so.&#xA;This is because, as we can easily see in TCEC games, no chess engine is unbeatable. If every single game they play against each other ends in a draw, then we can conclude that we have reached the stage of fool-proof chess engines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5855" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-09-05T00:48:50.753" LastActivityDate="2020-09-05T00:48:50.753" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29162" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-04-09T19:58:53.990" Score="1" ViewCount="73" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am talking about a field called &quot;Chess Study&quot;. A typical chess study is very complex, and even computers make mistakes in solving them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, can we play some variation which can result in such positions ? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See for example this very famous study and its commentary:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.chessbase.com/post/solution-to-a-truly-remarkable-study&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Solution to a truly remarkable study&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wCJalNkTEI&amp;amp;t=564s&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Grandmasters and Engines Couldn't Solve This Puzzle. Then Came The Magician&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5855" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-09T20:51:20.660" LastActivityDate="2020-04-09T21:46:53.420" Title="Can we play to reach study like positions?" Tags="&lt;study&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29163" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29162" CreationDate="2020-04-09T21:46:53.420" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;So, can we play some variation which can result in such positions ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If a study is legal, so can be reached from the starting position by a series of legal moves, then the answer to your question is trivially &quot;Yes&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess players shouldn't really collude before the game to decide the outcome but when siblings or partners play each other they sometimes play an agreed sequence of moves which leads to a forced draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the same way two players could work out the moves required to reach a particular study position, agree to play them and then play them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-04-09T21:46:53.420" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29164" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-04-09T23:15:12.170" Score="4" ViewCount="939" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to analyze position presented on meeting, web page or video but problem is that I have not FEN to start such analysis. It need manual work to do it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I want to capture screenshot than convert it into FEN. How can I do it on Windows 10+? (not create image/scan than process it with external tools which is not doing screenshots - I know how to do it in such way.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On Windows I can use Shift+Window+S to capture region than save to image or to clipboard. Is anybody using some software or tool to do it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can write such software with use deep learning but it takes time and maybe it is not need to invent wheel again.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8406" LastEditorUserId="8406" LastEditDate="2021-01-08T17:17:14.707" LastActivityDate="2021-01-08T17:17:14.707" Title="How can I convert screenshot capture into FEN to analyse on Windows 10+?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;fen&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ClosedDate="2021-01-04T09:21:06.110" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29165" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29164" CreationDate="2020-04-10T01:03:31.677" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;This will do it. &lt;a href=&quot;https://chessvision.ai&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://chessvision.ai&lt;/a&gt;.&#xA;There is also the Chessify app on the ios store where you can take pictures of chessboards and import the position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20589" LastEditorUserId="17823" LastEditDate="2021-01-01T10:36:12.960" LastActivityDate="2021-01-01T10:36:12.960" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29166" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29164" CreationDate="2020-04-10T13:49:08.657" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~abhishek/putz/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~abhishek/putz/&lt;/a&gt; Lost two piece from scan&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgrabber.nicolaas.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chessgrabber.nicolaas.net/&lt;/a&gt;        Lost one piece, added one piece, and replaced two pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.fimetech.chessfimee&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.fimetech.chessfimee&lt;/a&gt; Claims to be 98% accurate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9684" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-10T17:35:10.903" LastActivityDate="2020-04-10T17:35:10.903" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29167" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-04-10T19:08:20.283" Score="4" ViewCount="1156" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have a very poor repertoire; with White I only play d4, and though I'm quite familiarized with the possibilities on this opening move, I'm lost regarding 1. e4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Trying to gain flexibility, I want to start to play 1. e4 and, why not, learn the Ruy Lopez. Does anybody know a good resource or book to use to learn this opening? My rating is relatively high and my opponents are most likely going to know the book, so I can not enter this unprepared!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21110" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-10T20:33:28.293" LastActivityDate="2020-04-12T17:07:01.053" Title="Good books to learn the Ruy Lopez with" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;books&gt;&lt;ruy-lopez&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29168" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29167" CreationDate="2020-04-10T20:01:47.920" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's quite surprising how few opening books for playing the Ruy Lopez as white there are, given that it's one of those lines that have a claim of being &quot;the main line of chess&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Greet's &lt;em&gt;Play the Ruy Lopez&lt;/em&gt; is from 2006. Shaw's &lt;em&gt;Starting Out: the Ruy Lopez&lt;/em&gt; from 2003. Khalifman had the Ruy Lopez in his &lt;em&gt;Opening for White according to Anand&lt;/em&gt; series but it was very detailed, very high level and is also getting old.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Doknjas' &lt;em&gt;Opening Repertoire: The Ruy Lopez&lt;/em&gt; was published last year, so it is easily the most recent white report in the Ruy. The writer is an FM, I have no idea how good of a writer he is. &lt;a href=&quot;http://britishchessnews.com/2020/02/08/opening-repertoire-the-ruy-lopez/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Here is a review at the BCF site.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But my vote goes to McDonald's &lt;em&gt;Ruy Lopez: Move By Move&lt;/em&gt; for a first book on the Ruy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because it is very focused on the ideas of the opening, and it has a plan for how you should start playing the opening: first you play safe lines based on an early d2-d3, which are fine and played by the world top, and then later when you want to you can expand into more and more complex lines by playing d3 later in the game, or never. So it contains two repertoires in the closed Ruy, one with d2-d3 and one aiming for d2-d4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Only if you are substantially stronger than 2000 OTB, already understand the structures and want ambitious concrete up to date theory, then I would get Doknjas as it is very recent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And if Parimarjan Negi ever finishes the Ruy Lopez repertoire for Quality Chess he is writing, then that probably becomes THE book for strong players immediately.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2020-04-10T20:01:47.920" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29169" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16199" CreationDate="2020-04-11T03:47:04.433" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;A hero of mine was Karpov. For his ability to make small, seemingly innocuous moves that had the effect of causing imperceptibly small improvements that magically gave him advantages. And in my way of thinking, he was arguably the best defensive player in the world. So I got hold of the book &quot;The Making of a Champion&quot; that gives games from Karpov's career. I was surprised that only two grand masters managed to score 50% against Karpov during Karpov's years at the top (1975-1985). They were Kasparov and Seirawan. That's how impressive Seirawan is at the board.&#xA;Apologies to those readers who know more and for any inaccuracies.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23074" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2020-04-11T08:34:36.343" LastActivityDate="2020-04-11T08:34:36.343" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29170" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29173" CreationDate="2020-04-11T03:53:18.503" Score="2" ViewCount="99" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am learning Ruy Lopez. And I always play Ruy Lopez opening while I am playing with the white pieces. I recently played the game with Ruy-Lopez and my moves are &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[StartPly &quot;10&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 b5 5.Bb3 Na5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I want to keep my Bishop pair, but if I play like this then my light-square bishop will be lost in 5 moves. So, what is the best move that I can play to save my bishop pair till the end?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21835" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2020-04-11T07:04:49.273" LastActivityDate="2020-04-11T09:08:37.937" Title="How do I keep my bishop pair in this Ruy Lopez line?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;ruy-lopez&gt;&lt;bishops&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29171" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13397" CreationDate="2020-04-11T06:52:51.710" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just to complete the answer, you can use &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.wmlsoftware.com/download.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Fen2Ascii&lt;/a&gt;, a little program that converts pasted FEN lines into ASCII formatted text. From its website:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;r1bqk2r/pppp2pp/2n1pn2/5p2/2PP4/5NP1/PP1NPPBP/R2QK2R b KQkq - 0 7&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;is changed to&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;W-Ke1,Qd1,Ra1,h1,Bg2,Nd2,f3,Pa2,b2,c4,d4,e2,f2,g3,h2&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  B-Ke8,Qd8,Ra8,h8,Bc8,Nc6,f6,Pa7,b7,c7,d7,e6,f5,g7,h7    Black to move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1766" LastActivityDate="2020-04-11T06:52:51.710" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29172" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28934" CreationDate="2020-04-11T07:30:58.103" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Seems like you are interested in a program like &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.playwitharena.de/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Arena&lt;/a&gt;. It does what you specified, can open pgn files with one or several games; a copied pgn game can be pasted; can generate diagrams; connect with engines via uci or xboard protocol; manage variations and administer opening books, from the interface.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, has versions for Linux and Windows.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1766" LastActivityDate="2020-04-11T07:30:58.103" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29173" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29170" CreationDate="2020-04-11T08:40:09.497" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;In that position, you can't keep your bishop pair if Black wishes to take your Bishop. Acording to Modern Chess Openings, with this variant Black throws away the White Bishop by ceding the initiative in the center. In the recomended continuations, White has an advantage (+/=) and White must proceed to an inmediate attack:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;Analysis&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Ruy Lopez&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2020.04.11&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Player&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Oponent&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;*&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[StartPly &quot;10&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 b5 5.Bb3 Na5 6.O-O d6 7.d4 Nxb3 &#xA;    ( 7...exd4 8.Nxd4 Bb7 9.Bd2 Nxb3 10.Nxb3 Nf6 11.Re1 Be7 12.Na5 Rb8 $14&#xA;    {Smagin - Kupreichik, Minsk 1985.} )&#xA;8.axb3 f6 9.Nh4 Ne7 10.f4 exd4 $5 &#xA;    {It is a possible improvement.}&#xA;    ( 10...Bb7 11.d5 c6 12.c4 exf4 $14 {Arnason - Agdestein, Gausdal 1987.&#xA;    } )&#xA;11.Qxd4 Bb7 12.Nc3 $10 &#xA;    {1/2-1/2(64) Alves, Lair Valio - Petters Merino, Oscar Augusto / CLEA4&#xA;    B07 email, CADAP Email 2000.}&#xA;*&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1766" LastEditorUserId="1766" LastEditDate="2020-04-11T09:08:37.937" LastActivityDate="2020-04-11T09:08:37.937" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29174" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2596" CreationDate="2020-04-11T14:14:00.017" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&quot;Blunders are nothing but tactics you didn't saw from your opponent's side&quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I will tell you my story and my improvement over this problem of blundering.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was blundering and blundering very badly even after I started seriously studying chess. This was particularly frustrating as I was spending time studying endgames themes, positional ideas in middle games and the next day I am losing my queen to a pin in 12th move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;What did I do?&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;I noted down all the key tactical themes and kept an eye for them in every single move of my opponent.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hanging pieces | Pin | Fork | Skewer (X-ray attack) | Discovered Attack | Removing the defender | Trapping pieces | Decoy | Back Rank Weakness.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;I found out the tactics which I was more susceptible to.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I found that I was mostly falling for pins, Interestingly only for pins along diagonals but never for pins along ranks or files.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I saw I am falling many times for the &quot;removing the defender&quot; tactic. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;one other common thing I noticed was that I sometimes did the mistake of blocking my own defender and end up hanging one piece.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(90% of my blunders were one of the above three)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Avoid impulsive moves&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Whenever I had 2-3 candidate moves in a position and I reject the first choice after some analysis I had an impulsive tendency to play the second choice without thinking much. This was also one of the major parts of the game where I blundered most.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Decided to play next 100 games with only one objective - &quot;Don't make any blunder&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To force myself to do all the above, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I had to play slower time control games&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I shifted from blitz to 15|10 rapid games in online sites.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was totally fine with losing, My only intention was to have 100 games where I didn't make any stupid blunder. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Epilogue&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, I had my 100 games without any blunder and that was a confidence booster. These 100 games helped me fix my eyes for the tactics I was missing, And I am making far fewer blunders these days (even in blitz games).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;One Last suggestion:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chess.com&lt;/a&gt; offers an option to practice for selected tactical themes under the puzzles sessions and you have an option to choose from a wide variety of themes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18273" LastEditorUserId="18273" LastEditDate="2020-04-11T14:21:02.927" LastActivityDate="2020-04-11T14:21:02.927" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29175" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2422" CreationDate="2020-04-11T14:16:59.127" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you use &quot;pruning&quot; you can delete the bad options (the ones that will lead you to a loss for sure) and keep on looping while pruning. This way you might have enough memory to store the &quot;good&quot; options.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23078" LastActivityDate="2020-04-11T14:16:59.127" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29176" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2596" CreationDate="2020-04-11T15:52:53.800" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Practice a different sort of tactics!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to chess teacher and author Dan Heisman, traditional tactics puzzles (e.g. &quot;Mate in 3&quot; puzzles) present you with a situation in which you are trying to exploit a mistake your opponent has made. While this may help you recognize some mistakes, it doesn't train your brain to look for mistakes you have made or are about to make. Thus Mr. Heisman has written a book titled &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.danheisman.com/is-your-move-safe.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Is Your Move Safe?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; which shows positions and asks you to determine whether a move (or set of moves) is safe to make. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After a disappointing result at my last tournament - in which I blundered away two games in which I had clear advantages (up a rook in one of them) - I bought this book. While I'm only into the second chapter of puzzles, I like it so far. Unfortunately, things being what they are right now (we are in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic as I type this), I have not yet had an opportunity in a tournament setting to see if it is helping.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Heisman has another book titled &lt;a href=&quot;https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/B00JVAW5OE&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;Looking For Trouble&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt;. I do not have it (yet). However, from the write up about it, the emphasis seems to be similar, although more aimed at identifying and defending against threats your opponent has.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="224" LastEditorUserId="224" LastEditDate="2020-04-11T19:19:32.393" LastActivityDate="2020-04-11T19:19:32.393" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29177" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28817" CreationDate="2020-04-11T17:10:49.443" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't know if this is the fastest, but I managed to shave one ply off of the standard chess example by moving the queen to a better starting square. This allows the side giving stalemate to start capturing one move sooner, resulting in stalemate in 18 ply instead of 19.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Result &quot;1/2-1/2&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;rnbnqbkr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQ - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. a4 d6 2. Ra3 Qxa4 3. h4 h5 4. Rah3 Qxc2 5. f3 Qxd2+ 6. Kf2 Qxb2 7. Qxd6 Qxb1 8. Qh2 Qxc1 9. Kg3 Qe3 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastEditorUserId="12629" LastEditDate="2020-04-11T17:16:24.890" LastActivityDate="2020-04-11T17:16:24.890" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29178" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29179" CreationDate="2020-04-12T03:11:49.190" Score="6" ViewCount="604" Body="&lt;p&gt;The following endgame is a same-colored bishop endgame which I had on a game in Lichess. I tried for approximately 30 moves to try and win this game, but in the end, I got nothing more than a draw. I just felt that I was better due to white having 4 isolated pawns and 3 on light squares. Stockfish 11 evaluates the position as -4.3 at depth 40. The position in black to move. Please explain to me the technique to win this endgame.&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/MkT1Z.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/MkT1Z.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21014" LastActivityDate="2020-04-13T07:25:02.610" Title="Technique to win this same colored bishop endgame" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;bishop-endgame&gt;&lt;isolated-pawn&gt;&lt;fortress&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29179" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29178" CreationDate="2020-04-12T07:14:30.317" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;The key here is zugzwang - White has an ideal defensive position at the moment, his king stops yours penetrating, his bishop covers the weak pawns on g4 and c4, and the pawn on a5 you can't easily get at is it is on a black square. BUT when white has to move he will either have to move his king (letting your king in), or move his bishop (leaving a pawn undefended) or move his a pawn (giving you an extra passed pawn)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So how can you take advantage of this? Well... if your bishop was on e6 and it was white's move he would be in zugzwang, and would either immediately drop a pawn (through a bishop or pawn move) or very soon afterwards (through a king move). Now note you can't just move your bishop straight to e6 as this would leave a position where you, not white, has the move. What you have to do is lose a move with the bishop - sometimes called triangulating with the bishop in reference to the similar idea with the King:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;????.??.??&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;*&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;8/1p6/5p2/P1p1k1p1/b1P1P1P1/4K3/4B3/8 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1...Be8 &#xA;    ( 1...Bd7?! 2.Bd1 Be6 3.Be2 {And white is OK for the moment&#xA;    } )&#xA;    ( 1...Kd6?? {Trying to get to the a pawn} 2.e5+ Kxe5 3.Bf3 Kd6 4.Bxb7 )&#xA;2.Bf1 Bd7 &#xA;    {so losing a move}&#xA;3.Be2 Be6 &#xA;    {Now white has the move and has to give you something}&#xA;4.Bf3 &#xA;    ( 4.Kf3 Kd4 )&#xA;    ( 4.Kd3 Kf4 )&#xA;    ( 4.Kf2 {Stockfish's Choice} 4...Kd4 &#xA;        ( 4...Kxe4?? {Be Careful!} 5.Bf3+ )&#xA;    5.Bf3 Kxc4 6.e5 fxe5 7.Bxb7 Kb5 8.a6 Kb6 )&#xA;4...Bxc4 &#xA;    {and wins}&#xA;*&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's a free course at chessable (&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessable.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.chessable.com/&lt;/a&gt;) called &quot;Basic Endgames&quot; which covers this, amongst many other things&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7726" LastEditorUserId="7726" LastEditDate="2020-04-13T07:25:02.610" LastActivityDate="2020-04-13T07:25:02.610" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29180" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-04-12T07:41:17.723" Score="3" ViewCount="66" Body="&lt;p&gt;In a classical dutch setup, if white doesn't fianchetto and instead moves bishop c4 then it pins the e6 pawn. I don't really want to go into the stonewall even though that's the recommendation of the engine. Is there any variation or move that can get me out that is NOT the stonewall?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;rnbq1rk1/ppppb1pp/4pn2/5pB1/2BP4/4PN2/PPP2PPP/RN1Q1RK1 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23087" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-12T17:46:10.713" LastActivityDate="2020-04-12T19:17:19.703" Title="E6 Pin in Classical Dutch" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;dutch-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29181" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-04-12T07:47:03.423" Score="15" ViewCount="3851" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been hearing this claim being bandied about quite a lot and I'm wondering if there's any substance to it. Apparently the details are in a &lt;a href=&quot;http://talkchess.com/forum3/viewtopic.php?f=2&amp;amp;t=73433&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;certain thread on Talkchess&lt;/a&gt;, but it's not viewable to non-logged in readers, and it won't let me register. There are no details about this on the Houdini Wikipedia page either.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can anyone give a summary of the allegations and the evidence for (and against) it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastActivityDate="2020-11-08T12:59:32.750" Title="Is Houdini 6 a Stockfish clone?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;houdini&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29185" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-04-12T10:25:58.540" Score="1" ViewCount="1028" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to build a Sicilian defense ChessBase (ct* format) opening book.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have the up-to-date Mega Database 2020 and I filter all games with an B20-B99 ECO, which gave me roughly 1.2M games. Then I followed &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.chessbase.com/support-kb/content/details/725/Creating%20your%20own%20opening%20books&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.chessbase.com/support-kb/content/details/725/Creating%20your%20own%20opening%20books&lt;/a&gt; (You create a database, and then you import the games from this database in the blank opening book, et voilà.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I only played with last part :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/DXjGY.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/DXjGY.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I first included variations and set length to 30 (gave me three ct* files summing up to 3GB) for then choosing not to include variations and set length to 20 (gave me three ct* files summing up to 2GB). (The 926 number is from the ChessBase tutorial.) Regarding the size (2-3GB) of the set of produced ct* files, it is for instance comparable to the size of the ChessBase Sicilian Najdorf 2020 opening book (which has only 3M games though), so that the problem that I have is not caused by a potentially too big opening book nor an opening book tree base on a number of game that is way too big.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The problem that I have is that so far, I only used official chessbase opening books (with Fritz on PC or DroidFish on android) and when I load such an official opening book, whatever may its size be, the engine plays instantaneously (because browsing the opening book is extremely fast for the GUI they're it, or for them).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With the opening books I created using ChessBase advices above, the engine don't play instantaneously, hence browsing though the opening book tree takes quite a long time. (For instance 1.e4 took half a minute when I play as black and the engine as white.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How different are official ChessBase opening books from the one created with the ChessBase tutorial ? I guess that for opening books from the first category, the trees are somehow &quot;optimized&quot; when they aren't for opening books from the second category.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it is so, how could I optimize the books I created ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20949" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2020-04-12T15:39:16.927" LastActivityDate="2020-04-12T15:39:16.927" Title="Chessbase opening book (ctg) created from Chessbase database has slow access from Fritz or DroidFish" Tags="&lt;chessbase&gt;&lt;fritz&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2020-08-31T23:27:25.307" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29186" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-04-12T10:44:45.003" Score="2" ViewCount="175" Body="&lt;p&gt;What would a playable chess variant with a complexity comparable to Go look like?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Simply increasing the board size is a very direct way to increase the complexity of the game, but this comes at the cost of losing playability. No human would be interested in playing chess on a 100x100 board unless the rules were dramatically different.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9531" LastActivityDate="2020-05-16T18:15:54.503" Title="What would a playable chess variant with a complexity comparable to Go look like?" Tags="&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;game-complexity&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29187" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29186" CreationDate="2020-04-12T11:04:38.147" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Besides increasing the board size, there are a few other mechanisms how you can increase the branching factor:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Introduce piece drops (&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shogi&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Shogi&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crazyhouse&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Crazyhouse&lt;/a&gt;, etc.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Combine moves and piece drops (&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_of_the_Amazons&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Game of the Amazons&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Introduce multi-leg moves (&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arimaa&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Arimaa&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Especially the latter two mechanisms can lead to a massive increase in branching factor, and the two games mentioned also were designed exactly for the purpose of being computationally complex.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15415" LastActivityDate="2020-04-12T11:04:38.147" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29188" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29181" CreationDate="2020-04-12T11:39:23.690" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;A user on talkchess.com (by the name of &lt;code&gt;cucumber&lt;/code&gt;) claims to have come into possession of Houdini's source code, and has noted a number of similarities between it and Stockfish's source code. In particular, they note that the Makefile contains the phase 'to build Stockfish' and they link a screenshot of a search function which appears to be Stockfish's, but translated to Dutch:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/8rtS7.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/8rtS7.png&quot; alt=&quot;initial post by cucumber&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is unclear if the source code they have is actually Houdini, though a few contributors to the thread allege that the compiled source closely mirrors the behaviour of the actual engine binary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Additionally, &lt;a href=&quot;http://talkchess.com/forum3/viewtopic.php?p=836620#p836620&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;code&gt;cucumber&lt;/code&gt; claims that they obtained the source code illegally&lt;/a&gt;.&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/NeGcd.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/NeGcd.png&quot; alt=&quot;post clarifying how the source was obtained&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems that all claims here hinge on whether or not &lt;code&gt;cucumber&lt;/code&gt; actually has Houdini 6's source code. Since they have stated their intent to &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; release it publicly, this will be difficult to verify.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10075" LastEditorUserId="10075" LastEditDate="2020-04-12T20:48:05.283" LastActivityDate="2020-04-12T20:48:05.283" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29189" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29256" CreationDate="2020-04-12T11:49:20.663" Score="6" ViewCount="489" Body="&lt;p&gt;I came across this &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/4136/opening-tree-graph&quot;&gt;Opening tree graph&lt;/a&gt; question where a very elegant Opening tree as displayed.&#xA; &lt;img src=&quot;https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-cNVCvQNxkkQ/UNZONkCry7I/AAAAAAAAAZs/p21dAAXLXGE/s1600/sicilian.png&quot; alt=&quot;text&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is there a way I could make a personal opening book in this format? If yes, then which software should (preferentially free) I use? &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If yes, how do you handle transposition?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If no, is there some there some other efficient way of storing personal opening line ?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Clarification :&lt;/strong&gt; Maybe by question was misleading but  I was searching for something as a tool to create a opening lines guide by manually entering the moves rather than from a database.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21526" LastEditorUserId="21526" LastEditDate="2020-04-18T09:59:42.097" LastActivityDate="2020-04-20T01:33:23.840" Title="Creating a Opening Lines Book in ' tree-like' format" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;pgn&gt;&lt;open-source&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29190" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29181" CreationDate="2020-04-12T15:07:38.083" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The alleged source code &lt;strong&gt;might&lt;/strong&gt; have been published online. I took a quick look into it, it looked like a valid strong chess engine. It was not a clone of Stockfish in the sense that the codebase was quite different, certainly not a 10 minutes copy-and-paste. It would've taken even the best talent months (or years?) of hard work to develop it, so it doesn't look like a prank. It certainly looks like the Houdini source code. I can't find anything in the code that says otherwise.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My personal feeling is the Houdini author must have studied Stockfish's source code very carefully. But ... honestly who wouldn't? Komodo is famous for tracing every single bit in Stockfish and apply/improve the ideas in their own engine. I believe everyone who is serious in chess engine programming would treat the Stockfish source code like a bible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I feel Houdini was unsurprisingly sourcing information/ideas etc from Stockfish and Robolitto, but it was not a clone more like a genuine efforts to improve old ideas and develop new methods.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The definition for &lt;code&gt;cloning&lt;/code&gt; is confusing. Chess engine authors believe a &quot;clone&quot; happens if an idea (or some code) copied from Stockfish. The general public would think a &quot;clone&quot; is a direct copy-and-paste from Stockfish (maybe just change the program name in UCI?).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We need to work out the definition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;PS:&lt;/strong&gt; the code looked like a stolen product:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/cqkqi.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/cqkqi.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2020-04-12T15:55:44.220" LastActivityDate="2020-04-12T15:55:44.220" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29191" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29181" CreationDate="2020-04-12T16:43:07.367" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The search, evaluation, etc., are almost identical to Stockfish, with the notable exception of being rewritten in Dutch. A number of Stockfish developers, including former maintainers, have noted as such. To hide its origins, code was included that multiplied the node count by 8/7. Exploiting modular arithmetic tricks and archived Houdini games, this exact code was shown to be present in the release version of Houdini. The alleged performance improvements over Stockfish go away after removing this trick.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The leaked source code was compiled by Ed Schroder and found to have a 1:1 correspondence with Houdini in a vast number of test positions, while others, like Simon Guenther, have found that the leaked code behaves identically in the start position even up to high depths. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There were changes, but Mark Lefler, developer of Komodo, noted that a number ofaa changes were simply adding features reverse engineered from Komodo. In fact, in one file, evaluatie.cpp, you can spot the naming conventions used by the Hex-Rays decompiler.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other features were unique, but minor. For example, the licensing system was not from Stockfish. However, the code came from TurboPack and was translated into C++, so it's not clear that that was original work, either.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Adjusting for the time of release, the version of Stockfish on GitHub at the time of Houdini  5's release was more or less equal in strength to Houdini 5. Later, when Houdini 6 was released, this was also true. (Source: nextchessmove's elo data + CCRL data)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In other words, Houdini did not notably build upon Stockfish in any meaningful way. The main reason it looks different is because of the Dutch translation and the fact that Stockfish has evolved significantly since Houdart last touched the Stockfish codebase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23094" LastActivityDate="2020-04-12T16:43:07.367" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29192" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29167" CreationDate="2020-04-12T17:07:01.053" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;If it doesn't have to be a book, I can highly recommend Fabiano Caruana's 3-volume video course on the Ruy Lopez, published by chessbase. Caruana lays out a full repertoire for white in the Ruy, discusses common themes and ideas, critical lines, reasons for his recommendations, and example games, often played by himself. Excellent stuff!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12604" LastActivityDate="2020-04-12T17:07:01.053" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29193" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29180" CreationDate="2020-04-12T19:17:19.703" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The pin of the &lt;code&gt;e6&lt;/code&gt; pawn doesn't seem important at all in this position.  In fact, it is hard to see what White is trying to accomplish with &lt;code&gt;Bc4&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By &quot;going into Stonewall&quot; I guess you mean &lt;code&gt;.. d5&lt;/code&gt;, and that is certainly tempting, seeing as White will have to lose a tempo just to put his Bishop on another not-great square.  For an alternative, consider &lt;code&gt;.. Nc6&lt;/code&gt;, getting ready for &lt;code&gt;b6&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;Bb7&lt;/code&gt; deploying your light-square Bishop beautifully with action on the central squares &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt;.  Also, after &lt;code&gt;.. Nc6&lt;/code&gt; the &lt;code&gt;d5&lt;/code&gt; idea will never work for White due to &lt;code&gt;.. Nxd5!&lt;/code&gt; and White's &lt;code&gt;g5&lt;/code&gt; Bishop is hanging.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23058" LastActivityDate="2020-04-12T19:17:19.703" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29194" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29211" CreationDate="2020-04-12T20:44:17.897" Score="6" ViewCount="201" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;The knight on f5&quot;] &#xA;[FEN &quot;1r1qr1k1/2pb1pp1/2np1n1p/ppb1p3/4P2N/2PP2NP/PPB1QPP1/R1B1K2R b KQ - 5 13&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I recently played a Blitz game that perfectly underlines my biggest weakness: I don't know how to handle outposts I cannot get rid of. In the position above, white will plonk a knight on f5 and black cannot do anything about it. Yet, black is fine. Kicking the knight away with g6 never works because h6 will be hanging. The engine suggests expanding in the center with d5 and at some point play b4 to open things on the queenside. That makes sense, of course, but white could just sit there and do nothing. My feeling is that I cannot make progress in this position. And, to be honest, the psychological effect of not having achieved anything while my opponent will get an outpost is also quite significant. Of course, I know that, objectively speaking, black has fine development and a good position. But the fact that I cannot force the center to open and basically have to wait is quite uncomfortable for me (against moves like d5 or b4, white can just refuse to take the pawn, and taking on e4 or c3 myself doesn't feel like it achieves much). So, I have a number of questions regarding this position (and playing around outposts in general):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;How do you play around outposts?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Do you know any famous grandmaster games that illustrate the concept of playing around an outpost?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What is black's best plan in the position above?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12604" LastEditorUserId="12604" LastEditDate="2020-04-12T23:26:15.377" LastActivityDate="2020-04-16T05:00:06.837" Title="How to play around outposts?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;planning&gt;&lt;closed-position&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29195" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29155" CreationDate="2020-04-13T01:36:22.097" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;From Fundamental Chess Openings (FCO) by Paul van der Sterren:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Theory of this opening system (which sadly lacks any widely accepted name) has been enriched with a huge number of sharp and original variations&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here he is referring to the Karpov variation (which now has a widely accepted name!). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So it's definitely not slow and solid necessarily- white can drag you into an attack still. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want a slow and solid variation, may I recommend the following variation:&#xA;1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 dxe4 4. Nxe4 Nf6 5. Nxf6 exf6&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;FCO says of this:&#xA;&quot;It is solid and fairly simple strategically, but it must be admitted that Black is making a positional sacrifice of some sort. In exchange for obtaining open files, free development for all his pieces and a safe place for his king (supposing that Black castles kingside) Black accepts a doubling of pawns which may eventually boil down to a virtual pawn sacrifice. For if White manages to obtain a passed pawn on the queenside, Black will have nothing to show for it on the kingside. This line is clearly a matter of taste&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I play this from the black side regularly and agree with the assessment above. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23100" LastActivityDate="2020-04-13T01:36:22.097" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29196" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24848" CreationDate="2020-04-13T01:46:29.557" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;People have already suggested the Slav, which is very much true. However, it does depend on the variation of the Slav you are playing, as some of the variations can get quite tactical. If I had to make a specific recommendation, I'd recommend the a6 Slav, which goes like this: 1. d4 d5 2. c4 c6 3. Nf3 (or Nc3) Nf6 4. Nc3 (or Nf3) a6&#xA;The main line here goes 5. e3 b5 where b3, cxb5, cxd5, and c5 are all perfectly fine variations. &#xA;5. c5 is also perfectly fine, as is cxd5 (transposing to a line of the Exchange Slav).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I play this myself, and it certainly answers your question- it's very boring. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another user suggested the Berlin, which is fair, and it's the textbook example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Against the English you can go for c6 which often transposes back into a Slav. Same with the Reti and if they continue with g3 you can just go for a reversed London System. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The London System, as suggested, is also pretty boring and slow (I know so, since I've done it myself!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These mesh together wonderfully in a repertoire. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23100" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2020-04-13T07:24:54.700" LastActivityDate="2020-04-13T07:24:54.700" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29197" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24493" CreationDate="2020-04-13T01:50:07.290" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It doesn't really matter – the only difference is against g6, which is considered not very good by theory and is rare. Nd2 is slightly better against g6, and technically Nd2 might be slightly more precise, but at the end of the day 99% of the time it doesn't matter (and even Nc3 g6 isn't bad at all).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23100" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2020-04-13T07:23:57.687" LastActivityDate="2020-04-13T07:23:57.687" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29198" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="728" CreationDate="2020-04-13T02:37:28.740" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;A trivial example would be in simuls, where you can find any of a million examples. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another case where there's quite a few would be in blitz/bullet games. In fact, someone I know once beat Gawain Jones (an extremely strong player, currently #74 in the world) twice in bullet (&lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/clHcnOuz&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;game 1&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/yyeNby6Q&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;game 2&lt;/a&gt;). Admittedly, she's not exactly low rated, but there's surely cases as you described.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Odds are there's hundreds or tens of thousands of cases that fall under these two categories. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The chess.com article &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/article/view/the-greatest-chess-upsets-part-1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;The Greatest Chess Upsets, Part 1‎&lt;/a&gt; also lists a number of these upsets, although they are fairly highly rated players. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Quora question &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.quora.com/Has-a-chess-grandmaster-ever-lost-to-an-amateur&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Has a chess grandmaster ever lost to an amateur?&lt;/a&gt; gives a number of examples, although it's worth noting most of these had special circumstances, such as time odds or simul. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Mortimer_(chess_player)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;James Mortimer&lt;/a&gt; beat a number of great players of his time, despite being not very good. However, it's unclear if he'd count since there were no real ratings at the time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;TLDR: Yes, but most are under special circumstances such as time odds or simultaneous exhibitions. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23100" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2020-04-13T07:23:28.043" LastActivityDate="2020-04-13T07:23:28.043" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29199" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29189" CreationDate="2020-04-13T02:53:04.783" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://tailuge.github.io/chess-o-tron/public/openings/openingtree.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://tailuge.github.io/chess-o-tron/public/openings/openingtree.html&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;and&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.openingtree.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.openingtree.com/&lt;/a&gt; &#xA;both create something similar from your games on lichess.org. I do not believe they take into account opening names or transpositions. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You could draw this on paper, or you could use a online drawing software such as Lucidchart or Google Drawings. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23100" LastActivityDate="2020-04-13T02:53:04.783" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29200" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-04-13T03:34:19.697" Score="2" ViewCount="256" Body="&lt;p&gt;I heard in a youtube video that you are not allowed to talk to your opponent unless you are saying check or checkmate. Obviously, this rule is loosely enforced in casual play, but is this true?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21679" LastActivityDate="2020-04-13T04:43:37.463" Title="What are the rules around talking/ communicating during a chess game?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;etiquette&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29201" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29200" CreationDate="2020-04-13T04:43:37.463" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to the &lt;a href=&quot;https://handbook.fide.com/chapter/E012018&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Laws of Chess&lt;/a&gt;, rule 11.5:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;It is forbidden to distract or annoy the opponent in any manner whatsoever. This includes unreasonable claims, unreasonable offers of a draw or the introduction of a source of noise into the playing area.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So you can't just say whatever you like to your opponent while you're playing an official game. It's distracting, both to your opponent and to anyone else trying to play in the room.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Check or checkmate is not the &lt;em&gt;only&lt;/em&gt; thing you can say, however (and at high levels, almost nobody says check.) Obviously, you're allowed to point out that the game is over because the position is drawn by rule or one player is out of time. A draw offer is ordinarily spoken aloud. You must also say something like “j’adoube” or “I adjust” when adjusting a piece. In USCF matches, I've generally told my opponent if they make an illegal move, so they can correct it, rather than stopping the clock and summoning the tournament director. I've also quietly pointed out some other rules to my opponent when they came up, such as if they touched a piece and then moved a different piece.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2020-04-13T04:43:37.463" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29202" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29205" CreationDate="2020-04-13T07:50:19.083" Score="4" ViewCount="1086" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;7b/p3R3/k6r/N7/KP6/8/8/8 b - - 3 41&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I got into this endgame in a Alkehine Defense game against a FM. The engine evaluates it as &lt;em&gt;+0.6&lt;/em&gt; . &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But all I can see is that any inaccuracy on Black’s part leads to a loss. Is there a way to force a draw?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21526" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-13T13:25:16.540" LastActivityDate="2020-04-13T13:25:16.540" Title="Is there any hope left for Black?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;rook-and-minor-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29203" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29204" CreationDate="2020-04-13T09:49:32.723" Score="5" ViewCount="508" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm a casual player who enjoys playing the King's Indian Defense as Black, but I don't fully understand yet when it is better to play &lt;code&gt;6...e5&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;6...c5&lt;/code&gt;. These are my main doubts:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What are the aims and differences about playing one move instead of the other?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In which conditions (such as position of opponent's pieces) should I play &lt;code&gt;6...c5&lt;/code&gt; instead of the more characteristic &lt;code&gt;6...e5&lt;/code&gt;?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've looked at this very interesting &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/16167/why-6-e5-in-kings-indian&quot;&gt;question&lt;/a&gt; about the aims of playing &lt;code&gt;6...e5&lt;/code&gt;, but it does not mention anything about the difference between the two aforementioned moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any extra insight or suggestion is of course more than welcome!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18674" LastActivityDate="2020-04-13T10:54:22.543" Title="King's Indian Defense - When to play 6...c5 or 6...e5" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;kings-indian&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29204" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29203" CreationDate="2020-04-13T10:54:22.543" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not a KID expert, but Joe Gallagher GM is, so I'll quote him from &quot;Starting out: The King's Indian&quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;If you are going to play the King's Indian with Black you may be a&#xA;  little confused as to whether you should aim for ... c7-c5 or ...&#xA;  e7-e5. I tend to adhere to the following rule:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Play ... e7-e5 except when White develops his queen bishop early. Then&#xA;  it's time to start thinking (just thinking mind you) about ... c7-c5.&#xA;  The move ... c7-c5 is likely to prise open the long diagonal (after&#xA;  ... e7-e5 it usually becomes totally blocked) and the absence of the&#xA;  white bishop from the queenside means the dark squares there (such as&#xA;  b2) may become vulnerable to pressure from the g7 bishop&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7726" LastActivityDate="2020-04-13T10:54:22.543" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29205" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29202" CreationDate="2020-04-13T12:16:53.503" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The bad news is, there is no way for black to force a draw in this position. However, with a few precise moves, you can enter a number of simpler endgames that are theoretically a draw and not too hard to defend. Let me illustrate that with a few sample variations. 1. ... Rb6 Preventing b5. Now, white has 3 main options, apart from just waiting. 2.Nb3 (2.Rf7 would be a normal waiting move. Now, we can enter an endgame of rook vs bishop by force: 2. ... Bc3 3.Nc6 Rxc6 4.b5+ Kb6 5.bxc6 Kxc6 =; 2.Nc4 Rb8 again, we threaten Bc3 3.Re6+ Kb7 4.Na5+ Ka8 5.Nc6 Rc8 6.Kb5 Kb7 and Black can hold. Checks are always blocked from the side and white cannot make any progress; 2.Nc6 enters the bishop versus rook endgame we saw above: 2. ... Rxc6 3.b5+ Kb6 4.bxc6 Kxc6 5.Rxa7 =) 2. ... Rd6 this forces white to either enter an endgame of rook + knight vs rook or accept that black will achieve a comfortable holding position 3.Re8 the most ambitious (3.Nc5+ Kb6 4.Rb7+ Kc6 5.Rxa7 Bd4 6.Ra6+ Kd5 7.Ra5 Kc6 8.Nb3 Bb6 once black has gotten his bishop to the a7-g1 diagonal, he should be fine. If white ever tries to push the pawn, black can, in the worst case, sacrifice his bishop and liquidate into a theoretically drawn endgame of rook versus rook + knight) 3. ... Bc3 4.Rb8 Bxb4! 5.Rxb4 Rc6 6.Rh4 (6.Rb8 Rc4+ 7.Ka3 Ra4+! the rook is immune because of stalemate 8.Kb2 and black holds) 6. ... Rd6 and black holds as well &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12604" LastEditorUserId="12604" LastEditDate="2020-04-13T12:31:22.280" LastActivityDate="2020-04-13T12:31:22.280" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29206" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2407" CreationDate="2020-04-13T14:14:27.623" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This was achieved by Eric Rosen (IM) on his Twitch stream, uploaded to YouTube Dec 2019.&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxZc7ZF2uOY&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxZc7ZF2uOY&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19279" LastActivityDate="2020-04-13T14:14:27.623" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29207" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29194" CreationDate="2020-04-13T16:54:25.530" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The easiest way to deal with an outpost is to avoid it in the first place.  (Sorry.  I hate answers like this, but half of chess is anticipating what your opponent is going to do.)  Of course, an outpost on b6 is easier to play around than a more centralized one.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://billwall.phpwebhosting.com/dvoretsky/dvoretsky108.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://billwall.phpwebhosting.com/dvoretsky/dvoretsky108.pdf&lt;/a&gt; is a little article about the second knight becoming superfluous.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this position, I wouldn't be looking to prevent the knight moving to the outpost, but to provide enough defenders to ensure that a pawn will be forced to recapture.  This would involve Ne7 and Kh7.  If needed, I would even go so far as to force g6 (with or without h5 and a Ng8 to protect the h6 square.  However, more importantly, I don't really see any danger from a knight on f5, so I would play d5 here to put pressure on white's king.  I'm more worried about the destruction the white LSB would do on the a2-g8 diagonal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9684" LastActivityDate="2020-04-13T16:54:25.530" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29209" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-04-13T21:47:46.517" Score="1" ViewCount="36" Body="&lt;p&gt;Regarding this &quot;classic&quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w - - 0 1&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 a6 6. Be3 Ng4 7. Bc1 Nf6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wanted to see how many games were drawn via at least threefold repetition like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w - - 0 1&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 a6 6. Be3 Ng4 7. Bc1 Nf6 8. Be3 Ng4 9. Bc1 Nf6 10. Be3 Ng4 11. Bc1 Nf6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(I know ...) Naturally,  I entered the moves in ChessBase 15 in the &quot;reference&quot; search and was surprised with the result:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/TZF0U.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/TZF0U.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Obviously the &quot;reference&quot; search outputs results up to repetition at some point. Is this a bug or a known behaviour? If it is intended, how could I force it to output games corresponding the real moves I entered and not to some reduction of theses moves modulo repetition?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20949" LastEditorUserId="20949" LastEditDate="2020-04-14T07:18:35.310" LastActivityDate="2020-04-14T07:18:35.310" Title="ChessBase15 &quot;reference&quot; search and behaviour regarding repetitions" Tags="&lt;chessbase&gt;&lt;threefold-repetition&gt;&lt;fivefold-repetition&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2020-08-31T23:26:20.327" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29211" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29194" CreationDate="2020-04-14T18:29:02.513" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the main idea od &lt;code&gt;.. d5&lt;/code&gt; here is to undermine the outpost.  Hence the followup should &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; be a quick &lt;code&gt;.. d4&lt;/code&gt;, but rather trying to keep pressure on &lt;code&gt;e4&lt;/code&gt;.  I don't like &lt;code&gt;.. d4&lt;/code&gt; for more than one reason: it makes &lt;code&gt;Bc5&lt;/code&gt; bad, and it tempts White to &lt;code&gt;Bc2-b3&lt;/code&gt; returning to the best diagonal.  My plan would be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;.. d5&lt;/code&gt; motivated as above&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;.. Bf8&lt;/code&gt; to shore up the kingside and to avoid a hit with tempo on &lt;code&gt;Bc5&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;.. b4&lt;/code&gt; starting to open lines on queenside and taking aim at White's center from the side&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;if White does nothing, &lt;code&gt;.. a4&lt;/code&gt; and then &lt;code&gt;.. a3&lt;/code&gt; will break up her pawn chain, eventually gaining the &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt; square for Black.  White can counter this by plaing &lt;code&gt;a3&lt;/code&gt; herself but that creates more scope for Black counterplay on the queenside like maybe &lt;code&gt;Nf6-d7-c5-b3&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, of course White also moves, and the best use of that will be to cook something up on the kingside.  The side who gets there first will rule the game, and that's how it should be.  Human compatible, 20th century chess :-)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23058" LastActivityDate="2020-04-14T18:29:02.513" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29212" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-04-14T22:05:06.033" Score="13" ViewCount="1366" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am wondering if there are any statistics on rejected draw offers (say of GM games). Namely, what are the following percentages of the following results when a draw offer is declined:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The side that offered the draw offer wins.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The side that declined the draw offer wins.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The game ended as a draw.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Technically there is a fourth result: the game has not ended yet at this moment. We may ignore this case for simplicity. For game with multiple draw offers, we may only consider the first draw offer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, this statistics may be useful in determining whether it is wiser to accept most draw offers or not. If the side that offers the draw wins more than the side that declines the draw offer, it might be wiser to accept a draw offer in an even game. (Here I am assuming that almost all GM's will not offer a draw if he/she has a clear disadvantage.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16626" LastEditorUserId="16626" LastEditDate="2020-04-16T16:56:50.797" LastActivityDate="2020-04-16T16:56:50.797" Title="Statistics on rejected draw offers" Tags="&lt;draw&gt;&lt;statistics&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29213" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29212" CreationDate="2020-04-14T22:17:20.927" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;The simplest answer is &quot;No&quot; because draw offers are not retained. By that I mean that although the players may record draw offers on their scoresheets, that information is thrown away when the games are transcribed and saved. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In all events where norms are possible the organizer has to send the records of the games in electronic (pgn) format to FIDE. When the game inputters input a game they do this by using a program like Chessbase or Scid vs PC which gives the ability to enter a game using the mouse. Many of you will be familiar with doing this with your own games. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Adding extra information like draw offers is very time consuming and not a requirement. Hence no game inputters do this. The information is lost. The only time this information survives is when a game is annotated, perhaps by one of the players, using the original scoresheet, but this applies to only a tiny minority of GM games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="20742" LastEditDate="2020-04-15T05:43:36.467" LastActivityDate="2020-04-15T05:43:36.467" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29214" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-04-14T22:19:55.650" Score="5" ViewCount="261" Body="&lt;p&gt;The change in Elo ratings depends, among other things, on the K-factor (or development coefficient). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Current rules&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://handbook.fide.com/chapter/B022017&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Rating Regulations effective from 1 July 2017&lt;/a&gt; give the following values:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;K = 40 for a player new to the rating list until he has completed events with at least 30 games; and for all players until their 18th birthday, as long as their rating remains under 2300. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;K = 20 as long as a player's rating remains under 2400.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;K = 10 once a player's published rating has reached 2400 and remains&#xA;at that level subsequently, even if the rating drops below 2400.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The same values have been in effect since &lt;a href=&quot;https://handbook.fide.com/chapter/B022014&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;July 1, 2014&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Past rules&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elo_rating_system#Most_accurate_K-factor&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia page on the Elo rating&lt;/a&gt; mentions that FIDE used the following values before July 2014:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;K = 30 (was 25), for a player new to the rating list until the completion of events with a total of 30 games.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;K = 15, for players with a rating always under 2400. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;K = 10, for players with any published rating of at least 2400 and at least 30 games played in previous events. Thereafter it remains permanently at 10.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;My questions&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When were these past rules enforced?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When was the change from K=25 to K=30 applied?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;With the exception of this last change, have these values been applied since the beginning of Elo's creation?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I take the liberty of asking all these questions at once because they're related.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11749" LastEditorUserId="11749" LastEditDate="2020-04-15T20:01:51.487" LastActivityDate="2020-06-27T08:05:25.650" Title="The Evolution of the K-Factor" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;history&gt;&lt;fide&gt;&lt;elo&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29215" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21542" CreationDate="2020-04-15T10:12:37.673" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Neither of your alternatives is much use for learning anything except bad habits and sloppy thinking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bullet chess is completely useless for improvement. Magnus Carlsen might pay better chess than you or I with only 30 seconds on his clock, but he is one of the strongest players of all time. With 1 minute or less for the whole game most players produce pure rubbish.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Five minute chess is not much better. You have to rely mostly on intuition, but unless you are already a very strong player you won't have very good intuition. Yet there isn't time to think through alternative placements of the pieces, nor to calculate deeply. So once again less than masterly players just play junk.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If your only aim is to have fun then play as fast as you like. If you are serious about improving you have to play slow chess. Not only will speed chess not allow you to develop positive knowledge, calculating skills and good intuition but also it will almost certainly get you into bad habits, such as playing the most obvious moves all the time and not making a blunder check after every move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I reckon that for anyone under 2050 strength (and that includes me) the absolute minimum clock time for a useful learning game is 15 minutes each. But 30 minutes is better and classical time limits (1 hour 40 minutes or 2 hours for 40 - with or without the Fischer increment) are better still.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11985" LastActivityDate="2020-04-15T10:12:37.673" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29216" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21542" CreationDate="2020-04-15T10:38:35.527" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/21542/are-blitz-or-bullet-games-better-for-improvement/21544#21544&quot;&gt;accepted answer&lt;/a&gt; is completely fine but adding my two cents.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Play a  &lt;strong&gt;3+3&lt;/strong&gt; games. I think playing games with increment are better for improvement, you could Blitz out moves but also use some think to think and analyze when needed. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Use the time left to quickly go over your Mistakes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21526" LastActivityDate="2020-04-15T10:38:35.527" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29217" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29223" CreationDate="2020-04-15T18:55:00.990" Score="5" ViewCount="117" Body="&lt;p&gt;We have a small chess club with about 15 people, whereof about 6 - 10 people comes every week.&#xA;We play a blitz tournament where everyone meets everyone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;During corona, we do not meet physically, and the problem being that we don't know how to host the tournament where everyone meets everyone exactly once. Technical knowledge is very limited for some players, so managing the scoring manually is not an option.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there any website that offers this type of tournament? All we can see is where tourneys has x rounds and swiss pairing system.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23124" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-15T19:21:24.770" LastActivityDate="2020-05-07T14:30:50.777" Title="Websites for online all-vs-all tournaments" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;online-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29218" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29212" CreationDate="2020-04-15T19:54:31.950" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;As  Brian Towers noted, it'd be impossible for over the board GM chess. However, it might be possible to do this analysis on online games, as draw offers are recorded. I am not aware of any analysis about this currently available, but it's definitely possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23100" LastActivityDate="2020-04-15T19:54:31.950" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29219" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29224" CreationDate="2020-04-15T22:47:31.263" Score="3" ViewCount="262" Body="&lt;p&gt;Recently I've been playing the Queen's Gambit Declined as my primary response to a d4 opening by white. While analyzing past games with engines, I've realized that as the game progresses, there's a point when suddenly whoever plays cxd5 and dxc4 gets a huge advantage. For example, maybe there's position rated -0.6, then it becomes -1.1 on black's turn recommending the pawn exchange, and if black doesn't play it, it suddenly becomes +0.2 for white to take the pawn. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This advantage is seemingly more valuable than developing pieces and seems to drastically change the position. Though it is is important to note the white fianchettoed their bishop on g2, making the position similar to the Catalan, noted by Alexander Woo in the comments section.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Something else I noticed about the position is that if black loses their d pawn, the engine doesn't really care, but if white loses their c pawn, the engine's rating of the position drops from -0.2 to -0.8.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems that somehow, before a point in the game, playing this exchange is highly unfavorable, but at a random moment, it becomes very favorable, such as when I develop my queenside knight in any way, the engine suddenly recommends the pawn exchange, which doesn't seem like it does anything.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could someone who is experienced with or knows a bit of theory please explain to me when this move should be played, its purpose, and its effect? I've checked a few online guides but they only talk about the early moves in the opening and none really elaborate on the purpose and timing for the pawn exchange here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[Here](&lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/8PIQ8KUh/black&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://lichess.org/8PIQ8KUh/black&lt;/a&gt; is an example game I played of what I'm talking about.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please ignore my horrible attempt of a kingside attack but the engine starts fixating on the pawn exchange for either side at move 6 for both white and black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21149" LastEditorUserId="21149" LastEditDate="2020-04-16T00:02:49.267" LastActivityDate="2020-04-16T06:43:42.160" Title="Confused about timing of cxd5 and dxc4 in the Queen's Gambit Declined (QGD)" Tags="&lt;theory&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;&lt;pawn-structure&gt;&lt;queens-gambit&gt;&lt;queens-gambit-declined&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29221" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29194" CreationDate="2020-04-16T05:00:06.837" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Nf5 in front of castled king is no normal outpost that you can play around with. It will kill you before you know it. At the very least, it costs you time to calculate Nxh6, Bxh6, Nxg7 and various Q mate threats every single move. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Luckily the knight isn't stable there yet, I would play Ne7 to trade it off the moment it lands there, and of course don't worry about BxN exchange. In blitz games, knights are at least as strong as rooks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't have good knowledge in open games, but general theory says respond in the centre against side attacks, so d5 is probably right, although I don't have a concrete follow up plan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7002" LastActivityDate="2020-04-16T05:00:06.837" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29222" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29219" CreationDate="2020-04-16T05:57:51.640" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the game you linked, after 7 Bg2, 7... dc is almost a free pawn.  (In particular, while white can always take the pawn back in QGA or open Catalan, they can't do so nearly as easily in this position.)  It's true that black allows e4, and black also opens up the g2 diagonal for white, both of which are positional disadvantages for black.  However, while white is sometimes willing to give up a pawn for these advantages in the open Catalan, the bishop on f4 is rather poorly placed for the open Catalan, so taking the pawn puts you in the Open Catalan, but almost one tempo ahead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21877" LastActivityDate="2020-04-16T05:57:51.640" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29223" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29217" CreationDate="2020-04-16T06:27:48.243" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sadly I don't know of any such site, but I also manually conduct tournament in my small group( 12 members) via Lichess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just manually draw a Swiss tournament and setup a Discord for your club. announce the pairings and format and the players can decide the time of play with their opponents. collect the results and repeat the same for the next round.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit : Lichess is adding a Swiss tournament feature (&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/ornicar/lila/pull/6551&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;source&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21526" LastEditorUserId="21526" LastEditDate="2020-05-07T11:41:14.513" LastActivityDate="2020-05-07T11:41:14.513" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29224" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29219" CreationDate="2020-04-16T06:43:42.160" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the various standard variations of QGD, the answers to this question are somewhat different, but you should keep in mind Black's main goals.  Black's main problem is that they don't have enough good places for all of their bishops and knights.  The worst piece is the light-square bishop, but the other minor pieces are also problematic.  Hence Black's main goal in the latter stages of the opening are first to exchange off some minor pieces and second to free up the light-square bishop in some way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let me start with the Tartakower (1. d4 d5 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. Bg5 Be7 5. Nf3 h6 6. Bh4 0-0 7. e3 b6)  In this variation, Black tries to put the light-square bishop on the long diagonal.  Naturally, black wants to play dxc4 so that the d5 pawn isn't blocking their own bishop.  White doesn't want to allow this, so the standard continuation is 8. cxd5 Nxd5 9. Bxe7 Qxe7 10. Nxd5 exd5.  The light-square bishop is now free, and Black has managed to exchange one pair of bishops and one pair of knights, but white has managed to prevent Black from putting their bishop on a dangerous open b7-g2 diagonal.  (This argument also applies to the Capablanca variation of the Orthodox.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Next consider the main line of the Orthodox (1. d4 d5 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. Bg5 Be7 5. Nf3 0-0 6. e3 Nbd7 7. Rc1 c6 8. Bd3 dxc4 9. Bxc4 Nd5)  In this variation, Black is achieving the exchange of a pair of bishops and a pair of knights by moving their knight to d5.  They need to move their pawn out of the way in order to achieve this.  However, they delay taking this pawn until White has moved their bishop.  The point is that this bishop now has to move a second time to retake the pawn, wasting one move.  White delays moving the bishop as long as possible, and Black delays taking the pawn as long as possible, but it turns out White runs out of other useful moves before Black does.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the Lasker (1. d4 d5 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. Bg5 Be7 5. Nf3 h6 6. Bh4 0-0 7. e3 Ne4 8. Bxe7 Qxe7), one plan for white is to retake on c3 with the b pawn and exchange off the pawn on c4.  This in effect exchanges the b pawn for the e pawn and gives White more pawns in the center, at the cost of giving Black pieces more space.  There are some variations with 9. Rc1 that see the pawns stay around for a while.  On the other hand, if White plays Bd3, Black can take the pawn and force White to move their bishop a second time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21877" LastActivityDate="2020-04-16T06:43:42.160" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29227" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29228" CreationDate="2020-04-16T17:52:26.123" Score="5" ViewCount="342" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why is this position stalemate? I'm new to chess and I played white.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/BGdhp.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/BGdhp.png&quot; alt=&quot;Position&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23133" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-16T18:00:47.200" LastActivityDate="2020-04-18T12:59:40.627" Title="Why is this position stalemate? I'm new to chess" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;stalemate&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29228" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29227" CreationDate="2020-04-16T17:55:44.753" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Black is not in check (which would make the position checkmate) but black has no legal move. This results in a type of draw known as &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/q/1412/20973&quot;&gt;stalemate&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20973" LastEditorUserId="20973" LastEditDate="2020-04-16T18:20:15.727" LastActivityDate="2020-04-16T18:20:15.727" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29229" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29231" CreationDate="2020-04-17T02:55:38.233" Score="4" ViewCount="352" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the following setup of Stonewall Attack:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. c3 null 2. d4 null 3. e3 null 4. f4 null 5. Bd3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Wouldn't that make the king vulnerable to diagonal attacks from a bishop or a queen? &#xA;If yes, what variation of the opening may be used to counter this problem?&#xA;If no, how?&#xA;Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23136" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2020-04-17T09:48:22.357" LastActivityDate="2020-04-17T12:54:36.810" Title="Weakness in the Stonewall setup?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;kings&gt;&lt;stonewall-attack&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29230" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29078" CreationDate="2020-04-17T07:34:49.503" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I’d also recommend &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/85261.The_Amateur_s_Mind&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Silman’s &lt;em&gt;The Amateur’s mind&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt; — I’m currently rated a bit above 1800 and I found it much more helpful for someone to show me how think about &lt;em&gt;how I think about a position&lt;/em&gt; and why do I get some things often wrong. It’s really interesting to see yourself in someone else’s words when they’re asked about a position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In short, I think it’s good to think about why/what did &lt;em&gt;you&lt;/em&gt; get wrong instead of what did a GM get right.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20839" LastActivityDate="2020-04-17T07:34:49.503" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29231" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29229" CreationDate="2020-04-17T08:32:25.800" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I used to play such as white before I got educated...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well, it is not that bad and on the plus you don't need to learn much or any theory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are two possible responses from black which I found quite unpleasant to play this against.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If black does not play an early d5, he has the option for a King's Indian setup where you play d6 and e5. So black is directly fighting you &lt;strong&gt;on the dark squares&lt;/strong&gt;. IMO the stonewall is almost unplayable in this case.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If black uses a standard setup with d5 and develops the bishop to f5 quickly, you end up with weak &lt;strong&gt;light squares&lt;/strong&gt; and a bad dark squared bishop. Exchanging the light square bishop on d3 is not something you really want either. Black would typically put pawns on c5, d5, e6, the bishop to f5 and just develop normally.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because of this you should stay flexible and consider other options depending on what black does. Two popular plans involve fianchetto of either bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With the kingside fianchetto (g3, Bg2) you could go for a King's Indian Attack with early f4. Here you would want to play d3 and e4 eventually.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastEditorUserId="11629" LastEditDate="2020-04-17T12:54:36.810" LastActivityDate="2020-04-17T12:54:36.810" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29232" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-04-17T15:24:25.677" Score="1" ViewCount="136" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm building a Swiss System algorithm and have the following scenario.&#xA;10 participants.&#xA;8 rounds are to be played.&#xA;Generating round 8, I have three players that haven't played each other.&#xA;These three players have all played the same other 7 players in the previous 7 rounds of the tournament.&#xA;For round 8 I can pair two of the three players together and the third wouldn't have anyone to play with, since everyone can only play everyone else once?&#xA;Is this situation logically possible?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23139" LastActivityDate="2020-04-17T16:28:20.623" Title="Swiss system pairing algorithm stuck" Tags="&lt;swiss-pairing&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29233" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29232" CreationDate="2020-04-17T16:28:20.623" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is this situation logically possible?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Certainly. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is one of the known problems with using Swiss pairing when the number of rounds is close to the number of players. It is called &quot;jamming&quot;. There is no simple software solution. For a serious tournament you would not use Swiss pairing when (Number of players) &amp;lt; (number of rounds + 2). Remember a round-robin tournament has (number of players - 1) rounds for an even number of players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In real life what the arbiter does is check for potential jamming when close to the limit, particularly if there is a group of players who have only played each other. This is a warning sign that jamming is a possibility. In your case in round 7 the arbiter would check the pairing before publishing as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Set all the results to draws and pair the next round. If this works there will be no jamming in this round and the arbiter would rollback the draws he entered to the correct round and publish the pairings. If jamming does occur then he would rollback and manually change the pairings to break up the jammed group of players and then check by setting all draws as before.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-04-17T16:28:20.623" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29234" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29248" CreationDate="2020-04-17T21:55:31.070" Score="3" ViewCount="132" Body="&lt;p&gt;I often play 1. d4. In many of the variations that arise, Black decides to castle kingside with the bishop fianchetto. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I do not know what the general plan is in this case. Normally without the fianchetto I would play f4-f5, some kind of Marshall plan or Stonewall formation with the Knight. But when there is a fianchetto I do not know what to play for.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know the question is vague. But I am looking for strategies from different players with different styles. What to do with a kingside fianchetto when playing 1.d4 and also castling kingside?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4215" LastActivityDate="2020-04-19T13:06:39.583" Title="What's the plan against Black's kingside fianchetto when playing Queen's pawn game?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;castling&gt;&lt;fianchetto&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29235" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29147" CreationDate="2020-04-18T04:44:38.963" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am 2300 USCF and I recommend Boris Avrukh's books. His main focus has been the Catalan for some years now but the QGD is well covered.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23148" LastActivityDate="2020-04-18T04:44:38.963" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29236" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29237" CreationDate="2020-04-18T06:55:53.043" Score="5" ViewCount="779" Body="&lt;p&gt;I came across the following puzzle on lichess (black to play):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;????.??.??&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;*&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;1k5r/1pp2q2/p2p2n1/4pp2/2PPP1p1/1P2B1P1/P2Q1P2/2KR4 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1...f4 2.dxe5 &#xA;    ( 2.Bxf4 exf4 )&#xA;2...fxe3 3.Qxe3 dxe5 *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which apparently proceeds as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;... f4&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;dxe5 fxe3&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;f4 is clearly a good move, since both sides have triple protection on the f4 square so black always ends a piece up. What is confusing me, however, is the following move by white – dxe5. This is odd, since fex3 is a queen threat, and hence a forcing move. Stockfish, on the other hand, agrees with dxe5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why can white not play Bxf4, simply taking the pawn and also avoiding the queen threat?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21637" LastEditorUserId="7726" LastEditDate="2020-04-18T07:04:39.013" LastActivityDate="2020-04-18T08:15:35.830" Title="In this puzzle, why does white play dxe5?" Tags="&lt;puzzles&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29237" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29236" CreationDate="2020-04-18T08:15:35.830" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is quite pointless analyzing moves in lost positions. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here in either line white will lose a bishop for a pawn. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A queen threat is just that, a threat. Why are you so much afraid of it? The game could continue&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;... f4&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;dxe5 fxe3&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Qxe3 Nxe5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the other line you'd have&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;... f4&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Bxf4 exf4&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both are very lost positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why the computer picks the first over the second line, who knows (who cares)? Perhaps it prefers it because the white pieces get slightly more space.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In a practical game, other than resigning, my first choice would also be dxe5 for two reasons:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;gives black the chance to blunder with dxe5 after which white can mate starting with Qd8+&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;it opens the position which gives more chance for swindles for the lost player.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2020-04-18T08:15:35.830" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29238" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-04-18T10:50:46.523" Score="0" ViewCount="140" Body="&lt;p&gt;I tried to get the smallest sequence of moves that would result in a checkmate*( or rather Helpmate)* with the last move being a en passant . This is the shortest I could get :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Shortest En Passant Helpmate?&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 f6 2. Qe2 Kf7 3. e5 Ke6 4. Qe4 Nc6 5. Be2 Nb8 6. Nc3 Nc6 7. Nb5 Nb8 8. Nf3 Nc6 9. d3 Kf7 10. Nfd4 Nb8 11. Nb3 Nc6 12. Na5 Nb8 13. Nc4 Nc6 14. Nb6 Ke6 15. Bh5 Nb8 16. O-O d5 17. exd6#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a shorter way to achieve it or 13 is the limit ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21526" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-18T14:36:55.737" LastActivityDate="2020-04-18T14:36:55.737" Title="Checkmate via en passant capture" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;problems&gt;&lt;en-passant&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2020-04-18T15:09:14.227" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29239" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29147" CreationDate="2020-04-18T11:12:53.117" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sadler QGD book is fantastic - I know some pretty strong players who don't even play QGD as black (or 1.d4!) who read that book just for the instructive value. Don't use the lines themselves (very old book) as a repertoire if you are &gt;2200 FIDE (lichess I don't know how to translate but it is probably lower than FIDE) but QGD is more about understanding - get it!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One of best chess books I ever read and I used the understanding I got from this book to make my own QGD repertoire and draw with GMs in tournaments. I stopped using QGD so much when I got a bit higher rated and face a lot of lower rated players - winning as black can be a bit of a slog in the duller lines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18738" LastActivityDate="2020-04-18T11:12:53.117" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29240" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29238" CreationDate="2020-04-18T11:17:45.090" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found one in 8 moves:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Shortest En Passant Helpmate?&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 f6 2. Bb5 Kf7 3. Qe2 Ke6 4. e5 Qe8 5. Qe4 Qf7 6. d4 a6 7. Bf4 d5 8.exd6#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11749" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2020-04-18T12:38:55.173" LastActivityDate="2020-04-18T12:38:55.173" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29241" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29227" CreationDate="2020-04-18T11:43:06.940" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Stalemate is a situation where the colour that needs to play has no possible or legal way to do it e.g if black moves in your case, he will check himself which is not legal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23152" LastActivityDate="2020-04-18T11:43:06.940" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29242" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29227" CreationDate="2020-04-18T12:59:40.627" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Stalemate is a special type of draw or tie that helps the player that is losing! Specifically, it is a situation in chess where the player whose turn it is to move is not in check, and that player has no other legal moves to make. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23154" LastActivityDate="2020-04-18T12:59:40.627" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29243" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29244" CreationDate="2020-04-18T18:08:56.183" Score="14" ViewCount="2786" Body="&lt;p&gt;Inspired by the Hot Network Question &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/29236&quot;&gt;&quot;In this puzzle, why does white play dxe5?&quot;&lt;/a&gt;, when a chess engine is in a position that it can definitively call lost, drawn, or won, what policy is used to decide among lines that lead to the same outcome?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In a won position, the answer seems easy: play the line that leads to checkmate fastest.  But in a lost or drawn position, the engine's opponent may not realize the situation, so it should continue fighting, ideally playing a complicated line and setting traps in hopes of swindling a draw or win.  But it is not clear to me how the code could identify such a line from a game tree and evaluation scores alone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(In a game with time controls, the answer may be more complicated; I am okay with an answer that ignores considerations of time pressure.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23158" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-18T20:39:09.020" LastActivityDate="2020-04-20T06:38:49.690" Title="How do chess engines decide which best line to play when the game outcome is within their horizon?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;programming&gt;&lt;evaluation&gt;&lt;chess-algorithms&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29244" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29243" CreationDate="2020-04-18T18:16:59.250" Score="20" Body="&lt;p&gt;If the engine can choose between getting mated in 2 or mated in 3, it'll choose the line where it is mated in 3 (even though the mate in 2 might be 'more difficult' to spot for humans).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It can't really set traps, because it doesn't know what things might be difficult to spot for a human (or other engine) opponent. It just evaluates the position, without really knowing it's playing a game against somebody; a notable exception is the implementation of &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/26511/7297&quot;&gt;contempt&lt;/a&gt;, basically a slight modification of the evaluation in order to prevent drawing too early.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, in Stockfish, scores for won or lost positions are computed with the function &lt;code&gt;mated_in&lt;/code&gt; (and, more rarely, its negated form &lt;code&gt;mate_in&lt;/code&gt;).  As you can see in &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/blob/221893bf679f70098e6f751fded2fe843471c6be/src/types.h#L381&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;the code&lt;/a&gt;, a loss is scored as a large negative value plus the number of ply until the loss, so the engine favors winning lines that are fast and losing lines that are slow.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The tie-breaking for draws is usually arbitrary.  For instance, in Stockfish, scores for drawn positions are either the constant &lt;code&gt;VALUE_DRAW&lt;/code&gt; or computed by the function &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/blob/221893bf679f70098e6f751fded2fe843471c6be/src/search.cpp#L91&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;code&gt;value_draw&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/a&gt; to be &lt;code&gt;VALUE_DRAW&lt;/code&gt; plus one or plus two.  The bonus depends on the thread's node counter, which is essentially up to luck, so the variations in scores for drawn positions are not really based on the positions themselves.  This small bit of noise in draw scoring is more to &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/commit/97d2cc9a9c1c4b6ff1b470676fa18c7fc6509886&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;keep the search from fixating on certain three-fold repetitions&lt;/a&gt; than to help it choose among lines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="23158" LastEditDate="2020-04-20T06:15:10.123" LastActivityDate="2020-04-20T06:15:10.123" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29246" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29247" CreationDate="2020-04-18T23:23:25.543" Score="4" ViewCount="209" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recall seeing a problem in &lt;em&gt;Games&lt;/em&gt; magazine, probably in the early 1990s, that required the solver to deduce that a capture en passant was possible (not just because that's the only way to get a solution, but using retrograde analysis). I recall that all the pieces (including pawns) on the board were congregated in one corner &amp;mdash; if I recall correctly they were all in the first three files and the last four ranks. The solver was required to mate in a small number of moves, possibly two. Does anyone know what problem it is?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="204" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-19T00:20:16.020" LastActivityDate="2020-09-11T19:00:50.347" Title="Seeking a particular problem" Tags="&lt;problems&gt;&lt;en-passant&gt;&lt;retrograde-analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29247" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29246" CreationDate="2020-04-18T23:56:41.947" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found a &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.yacpdb.org/#222870&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;problem&lt;/a&gt; that perfectly fits your description! I’ve played the position back a move for the double step.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Kurt Keller, Stuttgarter Nachrichten &amp;amp; Südwest Presse (Ulm) 1993, Mate In Three&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;5RbN/5ppk/5P1P/5P1K/8/8/8/8 b - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;[startply &amp;quot;2&amp;quot;]&#xA;[startflipped &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... g5 {Now White mates in three.} 2. fxg6+! fxg6+ (2... Kxh8 3. gxf7 Kh7 4. fxg8=Q#) 3. Nxg6 Bf7 4. Rh8# &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the &lt;em&gt;Games&lt;/em&gt; magazine flipped the position, then this is a problem with all pieces in one corner, on the first three files and last four ranks, a short number of moves, and an en passant key! Even it wasn’t flipped, your mind might have altered your memory. Since the problem itself is from the early 1990’s, it’s safe to to assume that the &lt;em&gt;Games&lt;/em&gt; magazinre reprinted it for show.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-09-11T19:00:50.347" LastActivityDate="2020-09-11T19:00:50.347" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29248" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29234" CreationDate="2020-04-19T11:21:26.407" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can still play a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stonewall_Attack&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Stonewall Attack&lt;/a&gt; when &lt;strong&gt;Black decides to castle kingside with the bishop fianchetto&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Black reacts with d5&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is an example with &quot;normal&quot; moves from Black. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 Nf6 2. e3 g6 3. Bd3 Bg7 4. f4 d5 5.Nf3 c5 6. c3 O-O 7. O-O Nc6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The stonewall attack is a solid opening with grip in the center: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;White controls the important central squares (&lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt;, and &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt;) &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;White can install a knight in &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt; which will force Black to weaken its position if it wants to remove it.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;White can play this typical manoeuvre to exchange the bad bishop in&#xA;c1 against the knight in f6 by playing &lt;code&gt;Bc1-d2-e1-h4&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;With a closed center, White can then expand on the king's side with &lt;code&gt;g4&lt;/code&gt;...&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is an example with black normal moves that are a bit cooperative!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 Nf6 2. e3 g6 3. Bd3 Bg7 4. f4 d5 5. Nf3 c5 6. c3 O-O 7. O-O Nc6 8. Bd2 b6 9. Be1 Bb7 10. Bh4 e6 11. Nbd2 Ne7 12. Bxf6 Bxf6 13. g4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Black reacts with d6&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The setup with &lt;code&gt;d6&lt;/code&gt; suggested by @user1583209 is very clever. &lt;code&gt;d6&lt;/code&gt; is a flexible move that allows Black to counter-attack with e5. Here is an example where Black is okay:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 Nf6 2. e3 g6 3. Bd3 Bg7 4. f4 d6 5. Nf3 O-O 6. O-O Nc6 7. c3 e5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would suggest reacting with &lt;code&gt;7.e4&lt;/code&gt; instead of &lt;code&gt;7.c3&lt;/code&gt; like in this game (obtained by transposition)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Gleizerov, Evgeny (2544) vs Das, Arghyadip (2404), Gurgon Op. 2009&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. f4 g6 2. Nf3 Bg7 3. d4 Nf6 4. e3 O-O 5. Bd3 d6 6. O-O Nc6 7. e4 e5 8. d5 Nb4 9. fxe5 dxe5 10. Be3 b6 11. Nc3 Ng4 12. Bg5 Qd6 13. Qe2 h6 14. Bd2 Nxd3 15. Qxd3 Bd7 16. h3 Nf6 17. Ne2 Ne8 18. c4 f5 19. Ng3 f4 20. Nh1 Nf6 21. Bc3 Rae8 22. Nf2 g5 23. a3 c5 24. dxc6 Qxd3 25. Nxd3 Bxc6 26. Ndxe5 Bxe4 27. Bb4 Bxf3 28. Bxf8 Bxg2 29. Bxg7 Kxg7 30. Kxg2 Rxe5 31. Rfe1 Rf5 32. b4 h5 33. Rac1 g4 34. hxg4 hxg4 35. c5 f3+ 36. Kf2 Nh5 37. c6 g3+ 38. Ke3 f2 39. Rf1 Rf8 40. c7 Rc8 41. Kf3 Kg6 42. Kg2 Kg5 43. Rfd1 Nf4+ 44. Kf3 Nh5 45. Rc4 Kg6 46. Kg2 Kg5 47. Rd5+ Kg6 48. Rc6+ 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11749" LastEditorUserId="11749" LastEditDate="2020-04-19T13:06:39.583" LastActivityDate="2020-04-19T13:06:39.583" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29249" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17106" CreationDate="2020-04-19T17:08:17.323" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The way I've played it is an alternative. The rule is that you can't stall for more than three moves of your teammate (so if your teammate has made his third move since your last you must move before he can move again).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course this still isn't a good role for serious competition because you do need a kind of gentlemans agreement so that you don't have one player on each side stalling. But for playing with friends I think it's an OK compromise (even though just like in zh, time pressure for me is part of the fun in bughouse). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23165" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-19T17:49:33.817" LastActivityDate="2020-04-19T17:49:33.817" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29250" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-04-19T17:52:28.020" Score="1" ViewCount="87" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT 1, 20/04/2020&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my question, I focused on the game Vachier-Lagrave vs Carlsen, Sinquefield Cup 7th, Saint Louis, 28/08/2019. It has annotations &lt;em&gt;in english&lt;/em&gt; in my ChessBase database, and it has not annotations anymore at any further step of the conversion. Fine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I took a look at another game : Morozevich vs Carlsen, Biel, 31/7/2006. This one has also annotations in &lt;em&gt;english&lt;/em&gt; in my ChessBase database. And at the end of the conversion, when I open the sg4+si4+sn4 in Scid on the go, I see annotations &lt;em&gt;in english&lt;/em&gt; but &lt;em&gt;in german&lt;/em&gt; (!) as well :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/yEjAz.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/yEjAz.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and the same happens if I open them in Scid vs. Pc :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/u5GKB.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/u5GKB.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We can see that in both Scid on the go and Sci vs. Pc, comments in english and german both appear, distinguished by &lt;code&gt;&amp;lt;en&amp;gt;&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;&amp;lt;de&amp;gt;&lt;/code&gt;, whereas in the screnshot from ChessBase, only english comments appear.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So there are game whose annotations are exported, and there are games whose annotations aren't. The only difference that I see between this two games is that one has only english annotations whereas the second has annotations in both english and german. What is strange is that it is the game with annotations in one language only that loses the annotations after the database conversion. (Would the converse happen, namely, that a game with annotations in two different languages loses these annotations after the database conversion, I would have somehow understood : maybe the parsing of the annotations, in some of the conversion steps, is wrecked by the presence of the languages and bugs, like in some weird serialization bugs etc.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At the &lt;em&gt;Scidb&lt;/em&gt; step, on can see the Vachier-Carlsen game :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/1SCHc.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/1SCHc.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;that has no annotations, and the Morozevich-Carlsen game :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/kzCBD.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/kzCBD.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;that has here only english annotations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is really weird.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My setup is the following :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I have windows 10 + ChessBase + ChessBase official bases that always contains games that are commented&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I have a android phone on which I used scid on the go to consult games in various of my database&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ChessBase databases have many format, but let's stick to one, cbv for instance. Database for scid on the go use the sg4+si4+sn4 format. For the conversion&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I backup a ChessBase database without encryption in a cbv format&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;using this &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/antoyo/uncbv&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;uncbv utiliy&lt;/a&gt; written by &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/users/7056/antoyo&quot;&gt;antoyo&lt;/a&gt; I do a &lt;code&gt;uncbv extract mydatabase.cbv&lt;/code&gt; to get a bunch of databases files&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;using &lt;a href=&quot;https://sourceforge.net/projects/scidb/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;scidb&lt;/a&gt; that I compiled (under latest update of latest version of 64bits Ubuntu) from latest &lt;a href=&quot;https://sourceforge.net/p/scidb/code/HEAD/tree/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;source code&lt;/a&gt;, I open the database from the files that I got in the previous step (more precisely, from the .cbh file)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I convert it in the &quot;Scid&quot; format within Scidb, by right-clicking on the datable and choosing export &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/zaSas.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/zaSas.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The database I started from contains comments (variation+annotations) where as the one used in Scidb contains only variations but no comments :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/J5JRY.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/J5JRY.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Ubuntu+Scidb on the left, Windows+ChessBase on the right).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you open in ChessBack the cbv backup, its games obvioulsy contain annotations. So that :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;either the files produced by &lt;code&gt;uncbv&lt;/code&gt; are stripped the games from the database from their annotations&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;or their aren't but Scidb doesn't handle annotations&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does someone have an idea ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After a quick inspection, I don't see any annotation discarding &lt;code&gt;uncbv&lt;/code&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/antoyo/uncbv/blob/master/src/cbv.rs&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;source code&lt;/a&gt;. Plus, among the files that &lt;code&gt;uncbv&lt;/code&gt; produces, the .cbh can be opened by ChessBase, and it yields a database where the games that were annotated are still annotated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hence I conclude that Scidb does not handle annotations. More precisely : if in Scidb you open the .cbh file among :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/T0ffR.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/T0ffR.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;then games that should have their annotations won't have them. Does someone know how to handle this ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is strange is that in Scidb in the database, I see an &quot;Annotators&quot; tab :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Nwn9z.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Nwn9z.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20949" LastEditorUserId="20949" LastEditDate="2020-04-20T11:41:27.397" LastActivityDate="2020-04-20T11:41:27.397" Title="Comments from (commented !) games lost in &quot;ChessBase to Scid on the go&quot; conversion process" Tags="&lt;chessbase&gt;&lt;scidb&gt;&lt;uncbv&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2020-08-31T23:31:27.910" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29251" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2020-04-19T17:53:18.643" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://scidb.sourceforge.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Scidb (&quot;Scidb is a Chess Information Data Base&quot;)&lt;/a&gt; is a chess database application for Linux/Unix and Windows. Scidb is inspired by Scid (&quot;Shane's Chess Information Database&quot;) and is licences under GPL 2.0.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20949" LastEditorUserId="10867" LastEditDate="2020-06-01T16:06:44.653" LastActivityDate="2020-06-01T16:06:44.653" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29252" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2020-04-19T17:53:18.643" Score="0" Body="Questions about Scibd, an open-source chess database application whose name stands for &quot;Scidb is a Chess Information Data Base&quot;." OwnerUserId="10867" LastEditorUserId="10867" LastEditDate="2020-06-01T16:05:58.000" LastActivityDate="2020-06-01T16:05:58.000" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29253" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2020-04-19T17:55:20.353" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;uncbv is written in Rust, licensed under GPL 3.0 and &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/antoyo/uncbv&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;hosted on GitHub&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10867" LastEditorUserId="10867" LastEditDate="2020-06-01T16:06:30.733" LastActivityDate="2020-06-01T16:06:30.733" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29254" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2020-04-19T17:55:20.353" Score="0" Body="Questions about uncbv, a tool for extracting the contents from ChessBase database archives (.CBV files)." OwnerUserId="10867" LastEditorUserId="10867" LastEditDate="2020-06-01T16:06:21.970" LastActivityDate="2020-06-01T16:06:21.970" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29255" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29260" CreationDate="2020-04-19T20:15:46.493" Score="1" ViewCount="108" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to the FIDE website, &lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/card.phtml?event=2012707&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Gilbert Guerrero&lt;/a&gt; is from the US federation and 2500 Elo. I have never heard of this player, who mates GM Campora in ... 11 moves! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is the game from &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1608743&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chessgames.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Gilbert Guerrero vs Daniel Hugo Campora, Lima 1999&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 Nf6 2.e5 Nd5 3.Bc4 e6 4.d4 Nc6 5.Nf3 Be7 6.O-O O-O 7.Bd3 d6 8.Qe2 dxe5 9.Qe4?? (9.dxe5+=) Nf6?? (9...f5!-+ 10.Qe2 e4) 10.Qh4 Nd7?? (10...exd4! 11. Bg5 g6-+) 11.Qxh7#1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Could we assume that Gilberto Guerrero is actually &lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/card.phtml?event=5100011&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Hernandez Guerrero, Gilberto&lt;/a&gt;? Here is his &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilberto_Hern%C3%A1ndez_Guerrero&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia page&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Did Hernandez Guerrero, Gilberto ever play for the US?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Has the game been played in classical time control? This game looks like a joke!&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11749" LastEditorUserId="11749" LastEditDate="2020-04-20T06:25:52.200" LastActivityDate="2020-04-20T14:39:02.907" Title="Is Gilbert Guerrero a 2500 US player?" Tags="&lt;history&gt;&lt;famous-players&gt;&lt;master-games&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29256" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29189" CreationDate="2020-04-20T01:04:54.937" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Given various tell-tale signs, that graph was almost certainly generated with &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.graphviz.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;GraphViz&lt;/a&gt;.  GraphViz is free, so you can produce similar diagrams yourself by &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.graphviz.org/download/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;downloading and installing it&lt;/a&gt;, or by using &lt;a href=&quot;https://dreampuf.github.io/GraphvizOnline/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;an online editor&lt;/a&gt;.  If you want to mimic the style in the diagram you posted, start with a template that looks like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;digraph chess_openings {&#xA;    {&#xA;        node [shape=point];&#xA;    }&#xA;    {&#xA;        node [shape=box];&#xA;    }&#xA;}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which creates two groups of nodes: one for positions, which will be shown as points, and one for moves, which will be shown as boxes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For each of white's moves, you'll have to write code that looks something like this in the second group:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;p0 -&amp;gt; p0_1e4 [label=&quot;Sicilian&quot;]; p0_1e4 [label=&quot;1. e4&quot;]; p0_1e4 -&amp;gt; p1;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which says that &quot;from Position #0 (&lt;code&gt;p0&lt;/code&gt;), white can play the Sicilian by moving &quot;1. e4&quot;, which will result in Position #1 (&lt;code&gt;p1&lt;/code&gt;)&quot;.  Similarly, for black's moves, you'll have to write code that looks like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;p1 -&amp;gt; p1_1c5 [label=&quot;Sicilian&quot;]; p1_1c5 [label=&quot;1. … c5&quot;, style=filled]; p1_1c5 -&amp;gt; p2;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which says that &quot;from Position #1, black can play the Sicilian by moving &quot;1. … c5&quot;, which will result in Position #2&quot;.  If you have a live preview running, the position numbers will be visible in the diagram as you write the moves.  When you're ready to hide a position, add it to a list in the first group:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;p0, p1, p2;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Below is a transcription of the graph in your question.  You can play with the code &lt;a href=&quot;https://dreampuf.github.io/GraphvizOnline/#digraph%20chess_openings%20%7B%0A%20%20%20%20%7B%0A%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20node%20%5Bshape%3Dpoint%5D%3B%0A%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20p0%2C%20p1%2C%20p2%2C%20p3%2C%20p4%2C%20p5%2C%20p6%2C%20p7%2C%20p8%2C%20p9%2C%20p10%2C%20p11%2C%20p12%2C%20p13%2C%20p14%2C%20p15%2C%20p16%2C%20p17%2C%20p18%2C%20p19%2C%20p20%2C%20p21%2C%20p22%2C%20p23%2C%20p24%2C%20p25%2C%20p26%2C%20p27%2C%20p28%2C%20p29%2C%20p30%2C%20p31%2C%20p32%2C%20p33%2C%20p34%2C%20p35%2C%20p36%2C%20p37%2C%20p38%2C%20p39%2C%20p40%2C%20p41%2C%20p42%3B%0A%20%20%20%20%7D%0A%20%20%20%20%7B%0A%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20node%20%5Bshape%3Dbox%5D%3B%0A%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20p0%20-%3E%20p0_1e4%20%5Blabel%3D%22Sicilian%22%5D%3B%20p0_1e4%20%5Blabel%3D%221.%20e4%22%5D%3B%20p0_1e4%20-%3E%20p1%3B%0A%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20p1%20-%3E%20p1_1c5%20%5Blabel%3D%22Sicilian%22%5D%3B%20p1_1c5%20%5Blabel%3D%221.%20%E2%80%A6%20c5%22%2C%20style%3Dfilled%5D%3B%20p1_1c5%20-%3E%20p2%3B%0A%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20p2%20-%3E%20p2_2Nf3%20%5Blabel%3D%22Open%20Sicilian%22%5D%3B%20p2_2Nf3%20%5Blabel%3D%222.%20Nf3%22%5D%3B%20p2_2Nf3%20-%3E%20p3%3B%0A%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20p3%20-%3E%20p3_2d6%20%5Blabel%3D%22Mainline%22%5D%3B%20p3_2d6%20%5Blabel%3D%222.%20%E2%80%A6%20d6%22%2C%20style%3Dfilled%5D%3B%20p3_2d6%20-%3E%20p4%3B%0A%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20p4%20-%3E%20p4_3d4%20%5Blabel%3D%22Mainline%22%5D%3B%20p4_3d4%20%5Blabel%3D%223.%20d4%22%5D%3B%20p4_3d4%20-%3E%20p5%3B%0A%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20p5%20-%3E%20p5_3cxd4%20%5Blabel%3D%22Mainline%22%5D%3B%20p5_3cxd4%20%5Blabel%3D%223.%20%E2%80%A6%20cxd4%22%2C%20style%3Dfilled%5D%3B%20p5_3cxd4%20-%3E%20p6%3B%0A%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20p6%20-%3E%20p6_4Nxd4%20%5Blabel%3D%22Mainline%22%5D%3B%20p6_4Nxd4%20%5Blabel%3D%224.%20Nxd4%22%5D%3B%20p6_4Nxd4%20-%3E%20p7%3B%0A%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20p7%20-%3E%20p7_4Nf6%20%5Blabel%3D%22Mainline%22%5D%3B%20p7_4Nf6%20%5Blabel%3D%224.%20%E2%80%A6%20Nf6%22%2C%20style%3Dfilled%5D%3B%20p7_4Nf6%20-%3E%20p8%3B%0A%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20p8%20-%3E%20p8_5Nc3%20%5Blabel%3D%22Mainline%22%5D%3B%20p8_5Nc3%20%5Blabel%3D%225.%20Nc3%22%5D%3B%20p8_5Nc3%20-%3E%20p9%3B%0A%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20p9%20-%3E%20p9_5e6%20%5Blabel%3D%22Scheveningen%22%5D%3B%20p9_5e6%20%5Blabel%3D%225.%20%E2%80%A6%20e6%22%2C%20style%3Dfilled%5D%3B%20p9_5e6%20-%3E%20p10%3B%0A%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20p10%20-%3E%20p10_6Be2%20%5Blabel%3D%22Scheveningen%22%5D%3B%20p10_6Be2%20%5Blabel%3D%226.%20Be2%22%5D%3B%20p10_6Be2%20-%3E%20p11%3B%0A%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20p11%20-%3E%20p11_6a6%20%5Blabel%3D%22Scheveningen%22%5D%3B%20p11_6a6%20%5Blabel%3D%226.%20%E2%80%A6%20a6%22%2C%20style%3Dfilled%5D%3B%20p11_6a6%20-%3E%20p12%3B%0A%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20p9%20-%3E%20p9_5a6%20%5Blabel%3D%22Najdorf%22%5D%3B%20p9_5a6%20%5Blabel%3D%225.%20%E2%80%A6%20a6%22%2C%20style%3Dfilled%5D%3B%20p9_5a6%20-%3E%20p13%3B%0A%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20p13%20-%3E%20p13_6Be2%20%5Blabel%3D%22Najdorf%22%5D%3B%20p13_6Be2%20%5Blabel%3D%226.%20Be2%22%5D%3B%20p13_6Be2%20-%3E%20p14%3B%0A%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20p14%20-%3E%20p14_6e6%20%5Blabel%3D%22Najdorf%20%E2%86%92%20Scheveningen%22%5D%3B%20p14_6e6%20%5Blabel%3D%226.%20%E2%80%A6%20e6%22%2C%20style%3Dfilled%5D%3B%20p14_6e6%20-%3E%20p12%3B%0A%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20p9%20-%3E%20p9_5g6%20%5Blabel%3D%22Dragon%22%5D%3B%20p9_5g6%20%5Blabel%3D%225.%20%E2%80%A6%20g6%22%2C%20style%3Dfilled%5D%3B%20p9_5g6%20-%3E%20p15%3B%0A%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20p15%20-%3E%20p15_6Be3%20%5Blabel%3D%22Yugoslav%22%5D%3B%20p15_6Be3%20%5Blabel%3D%226.%20Be3%22%5D%3B%20p15_6Be3%20-%3E%20p16%3B%0A%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20p15%20-%3E%20p15_6Be2%20%5Blabel%3D%22Dragon%22%5D%3B%20p15_6Be2%20%5Blabel%3D%226.%20Be2%22%5D%3B%20p15_6Be2%20-%3E%20p17%3B%0A%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20p9%20-%3E%20p9_5Nc6%20%5Blabel%3D%22Classical%22%5D%3B%20p9_5Nc6%20%5Blabel%3D%225.%20%E2%80%A6%20Nc6%22%2C%20style%3Dfilled%5D%3B%20p9_5Nc6%20-%3E%20p18%3B%0A%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20p18%20-%3E%20p18_6Be2%20%5Blabel%3D%22Classical%22%5D%3B%20p18_6Be2%20%5Blabel%3D%226.%20Be2%22%5D%3B%20p18_6Be2%20-%3E%20p19%3B%0A%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20p3%20-%3E%20p3_2Nc6%20%5Blabel%3D%22Kalashnikov%22%5D%3B%20p3_2Nc6%20%5Blabel%3D%222.%20%E2%80%A6%20Nc6%22%2C%20style%3Dfilled%5D%3B%20p3_2Nc6%20-%3E%20p20%3B%0A%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20p20%20-%3E%20p20_3d4%20%5Blabel%3D%22Kalashnikov%22%5D%3B%20p20_3d4%20%5Blabel%3D%223.%20d4%22%5D%3B%20p20_3d4%20-%3E%20p21%3B%0A%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20p21%20-%3E%20p21_3cxd4%20%5Blabel%3D%22Kalashnikov%22%5D%3B%20p21_3cxd4%20%5Blabel%3D%223.%20%E2%80%A6%20cxd4%22%2C%20style%3Dfilled%5D%3B%20p21_3cxd4%20-%3E%20p22%3B%0A%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20p22%20-%3E%20p22_4Nxd4%20%5Blabel%3D%22Kalashnikov%22%5D%3B%20p22_4Nxd4%20%5Blabel%3D%224.%20Nxd4%22%5D%3B%20p22_4Nxd4%20-%3E%20p23%3B%0A%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20p23%20-%3E%20p23_4g6%20%5Blabel%3D%22Sveshnikov%20%E2%86%92%20Accelerated%20Dragon%22%5D%3B%20p23_4g6%20%5Blabel%3D%224.%20%E2%80%A6%20g6%22%2C%20style%3Dfilled%5D%3B%20p23_4g6%20-%3E%20p24%3B%0A%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20p24%20-%3E%20p24_5Nc3%20%5Blabel%3D%22Accelerated%20Dragon%22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rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;digraph chess_openings {&#xA;    {&#xA;        node [shape=point];&#xA;        p0, p1, p2, p3, p4, p5, p6, p7, p8, p9, p10, p11, p12, p13, p14, p15, p16, p17, p18, p19, p20, p21, p22, p23, p24, p25, p26, p27, p28, p29, p30, p31, p32, p33, p34, p35, p36, p37, p38, p39, p40, p41, p42;&#xA;    }&#xA;    {&#xA;        node [shape=box];&#xA;        p0 -&amp;gt; p0_1e4 [label=&quot;Sicilian&quot;]; p0_1e4 [label=&quot;1. e4&quot;]; p0_1e4 -&amp;gt; p1;&#xA;        p1 -&amp;gt; p1_1c5 [label=&quot;Sicilian&quot;]; p1_1c5 [label=&quot;1. … c5&quot;, style=filled]; p1_1c5 -&amp;gt; p2;&#xA;        p2 -&amp;gt; p2_2Nf3 [label=&quot;Open Sicilian&quot;]; p2_2Nf3 [label=&quot;2. Nf3&quot;]; p2_2Nf3 -&amp;gt; p3;&#xA;        p3 -&amp;gt; p3_2d6 [label=&quot;Mainline&quot;]; p3_2d6 [label=&quot;2. … d6&quot;, style=filled]; p3_2d6 -&amp;gt; p4;&#xA;        p4 -&amp;gt; p4_3d4 [label=&quot;Mainline&quot;]; p4_3d4 [label=&quot;3. d4&quot;]; p4_3d4 -&amp;gt; p5;&#xA;        p5 -&amp;gt; p5_3cxd4 [label=&quot;Mainline&quot;]; p5_3cxd4 [label=&quot;3. … cxd4&quot;, style=filled]; p5_3cxd4 -&amp;gt; p6;&#xA;        p6 -&amp;gt; p6_4Nxd4 [label=&quot;Mainline&quot;]; p6_4Nxd4 [label=&quot;4. Nxd4&quot;]; p6_4Nxd4 -&amp;gt; p7;&#xA;        p7 -&amp;gt; p7_4Nf6 [label=&quot;Mainline&quot;]; p7_4Nf6 [label=&quot;4. … Nf6&quot;, style=filled]; p7_4Nf6 -&amp;gt; p8;&#xA;        p8 -&amp;gt; p8_5Nc3 [label=&quot;Mainline&quot;]; p8_5Nc3 [label=&quot;5. Nc3&quot;]; p8_5Nc3 -&amp;gt; p9;&#xA;        p9 -&amp;gt; p9_5e6 [label=&quot;Scheveningen&quot;]; p9_5e6 [label=&quot;5. … e6&quot;, style=filled]; p9_5e6 -&amp;gt; p10;&#xA;        p10 -&amp;gt; p10_6Be2 [label=&quot;Scheveningen&quot;]; p10_6Be2 [label=&quot;6. Be2&quot;]; p10_6Be2 -&amp;gt; p11;&#xA;        p11 -&amp;gt; p11_6a6 [label=&quot;Scheveningen&quot;]; p11_6a6 [label=&quot;6. … a6&quot;, style=filled]; p11_6a6 -&amp;gt; p12;&#xA;        p9 -&amp;gt; p9_5a6 [label=&quot;Najdorf&quot;]; p9_5a6 [label=&quot;5. … a6&quot;, style=filled]; p9_5a6 -&amp;gt; p13;&#xA;        p13 -&amp;gt; p13_6Be2 [label=&quot;Najdorf&quot;]; p13_6Be2 [label=&quot;6. Be2&quot;]; p13_6Be2 -&amp;gt; p14;&#xA;        p14 -&amp;gt; p14_6e6 [label=&quot;Najdorf → Scheveningen&quot;]; p14_6e6 [label=&quot;6. … e6&quot;, style=filled]; p14_6e6 -&amp;gt; p12;&#xA;        p9 -&amp;gt; p9_5g6 [label=&quot;Dragon&quot;]; p9_5g6 [label=&quot;5. … g6&quot;, style=filled]; p9_5g6 -&amp;gt; p15;&#xA;        p15 -&amp;gt; p15_6Be3 [label=&quot;Yugoslav&quot;]; p15_6Be3 [label=&quot;6. Be3&quot;]; p15_6Be3 -&amp;gt; p16;&#xA;        p15 -&amp;gt; p15_6Be2 [label=&quot;Dragon&quot;]; p15_6Be2 [label=&quot;6. Be2&quot;]; p15_6Be2 -&amp;gt; p17;&#xA;        p9 -&amp;gt; p9_5Nc6 [label=&quot;Classical&quot;]; p9_5Nc6 [label=&quot;5. … Nc6&quot;, style=filled]; p9_5Nc6 -&amp;gt; p18;&#xA;        p18 -&amp;gt; p18_6Be2 [label=&quot;Classical&quot;]; p18_6Be2 [label=&quot;6. Be2&quot;]; p18_6Be2 -&amp;gt; p19;&#xA;        p3 -&amp;gt; p3_2Nc6 [label=&quot;Kalashnikov&quot;]; p3_2Nc6 [label=&quot;2. … Nc6&quot;, style=filled]; p3_2Nc6 -&amp;gt; p20;&#xA;        p20 -&amp;gt; p20_3d4 [label=&quot;Kalashnikov&quot;]; p20_3d4 [label=&quot;3. d4&quot;]; p20_3d4 -&amp;gt; p21;&#xA;        p21 -&amp;gt; p21_3cxd4 [label=&quot;Kalashnikov&quot;]; p21_3cxd4 [label=&quot;3. … cxd4&quot;, style=filled]; p21_3cxd4 -&amp;gt; p22;&#xA;        p22 -&amp;gt; p22_4Nxd4 [label=&quot;Kalashnikov&quot;]; p22_4Nxd4 [label=&quot;4. Nxd4&quot;]; p22_4Nxd4 -&amp;gt; p23;&#xA;        p23 -&amp;gt; p23_4g6 [label=&quot;Sveshnikov → Accelerated Dragon&quot;]; p23_4g6 [label=&quot;4. … g6&quot;, style=filled]; p23_4g6 -&amp;gt; p24;&#xA;        p24 -&amp;gt; p24_5Nc3 [label=&quot;Accelerated Dragon&quot;]; p24_5Nc3 [label=&quot;5. Nc3&quot;]; p24_5Nc3 -&amp;gt; p25;&#xA;        p25 -&amp;gt; p25_5Bg7 [label=&quot;Accelerated Dragon&quot;]; p25_5Bg7 [label=&quot;5. … Bg7&quot;, style=filled]; p25_5Bg7 -&amp;gt; p26;&#xA;        p26 -&amp;gt; p26_6Be3 [label=&quot;Accelerated Dragon&quot;]; p26_6Be3 [label=&quot;6. Be3&quot;]; p26_6Be3 -&amp;gt; p27;&#xA;        p23 -&amp;gt; p23_4e5 [label=&quot;Kalashnikov&quot;]; p23_4e5 [label=&quot;4. … e5&quot;, style=filled]; p23_4e5 -&amp;gt; p28;&#xA;        p23 -&amp;gt; p23_4Nf6 [label=&quot;Sveshnikov&quot;]; p23_4Nf6 [label=&quot;4. … Nf6&quot;, style=filled]; p23_4Nf6 -&amp;gt; p29;&#xA;        p29 -&amp;gt; p29_5Nc3 [label=&quot;Sveshnikov&quot;]; p29_5Nc3 [label=&quot;5. Nc3&quot;]; p29_5Nc3 -&amp;gt; p30;&#xA;        p30 -&amp;gt; p30_5d6 [label=&quot;Sveshnikov → Classic&quot;]; p30_5d6 [label=&quot;5. … d6&quot;, style=filled]; p30_5d6 -&amp;gt; p18;&#xA;        p30 -&amp;gt; p30_5e6 [label=&quot;Sveshnikov → Four Knights&quot;]; p30_5e6 [label=&quot;5. … e6&quot;, style=filled]; p30_5e6 -&amp;gt; p31;&#xA;        p23 -&amp;gt; p23_4e6 [label=&quot;Sveshnikov → Taimanov&quot;]; p23_4e6 [label=&quot;4. … e6&quot;, style=filled]; p23_4e6 -&amp;gt; p32;&#xA;        p32 -&amp;gt; p32_5Nc3 [label=&quot;Taimanov&quot;]; p32_5Nc3 [label=&quot;5. Nc3&quot;]; p32_5Nc3 -&amp;gt; p33;&#xA;        p33 -&amp;gt; p33_5Nf6 [label=&quot;Taimanov → Four Knights&quot;]; p33_5Nf6 [label=&quot;5. … Nf6&quot;, style=filled]; p33_5Nf6 -&amp;gt; p31;&#xA;        p33 -&amp;gt; p33_5a6 [label=&quot;Taimanov&quot;]; p33_5a6 [label=&quot;5. … a6&quot;, style=filled]; p33_5a6 -&amp;gt; p34;&#xA;        p3 -&amp;gt; p3_2e6 [label=&quot;Four Knights&quot;]; p3_2e6 [label=&quot;2. … e6&quot;, style=filled]; p3_2e6 -&amp;gt; p35;&#xA;        p35 -&amp;gt; p35_3d4 [label=&quot;Four Knights&quot;]; p35_3d4 [label=&quot;3. d4&quot;]; p35_3d4 -&amp;gt; p36;&#xA;        p36 -&amp;gt; p36_3cxd4 [label=&quot;Four Knights&quot;]; p36_3cxd4 [label=&quot;3. … cxd4&quot;, style=filled]; p36_3cxd4 -&amp;gt; p37;&#xA;        p37 -&amp;gt; p37_4Nxd4 [label=&quot;Four Knights&quot;]; p37_4Nxd4 [label=&quot;4. Nxd4&quot;]; p37_4Nxd4 -&amp;gt; p38;&#xA;        p38 -&amp;gt; p38_4Nf6 [label=&quot;Four Knights&quot;]; p38_4Nf6 [label=&quot;4. … Nf6&quot;, style=filled]; p38_4Nf6 -&amp;gt; p39;&#xA;        p39 -&amp;gt; p39_5Nc3 [label=&quot;Four Knights&quot;]; p39_5Nc3 [label=&quot;5. Nc3&quot;]; p39_5Nc3 -&amp;gt; p40;&#xA;        p40 -&amp;gt; p40_5Nc6 [label=&quot;Four Knights&quot;]; p40_5Nc6 [label=&quot;5. … Nc6&quot;, style=filled]; p40_5Nc6 -&amp;gt; p31;&#xA;        p38 -&amp;gt; p38_4Nc6 [label=&quot;Taimanov&quot;]; p38_4Nc6 [label=&quot;4. … Nc6&quot;, style=filled]; p38_4Nc6 -&amp;gt; p32;&#xA;        p38 -&amp;gt; p38_4a6 [label=&quot;Kan&quot;]; p38_4a6 [label=&quot;4. … a6&quot;, style=filled]; p38_4a6 -&amp;gt; p41;&#xA;        p41 -&amp;gt; p41_5Nc3 [label=&quot;Kan&quot;]; p41_5Nc3 [label=&quot;5. Nc3&quot;]; p41_5Nc3 -&amp;gt; p42;&#xA;        p42 -&amp;gt; p42_5Nc6 [label=&quot;Kan → Taimanov&quot;]; p42_5Nc6 [label=&quot;5. … Nc6&quot;, style=filled]; p42_5Nc6 -&amp;gt; p34;&#xA;    }&#xA;}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is what the output looks like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/5Bg1p.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/5Bg1p.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23158" LastEditorUserId="23158" LastEditDate="2020-04-20T01:33:23.840" LastActivityDate="2020-04-20T01:33:23.840" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29257" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29270" CreationDate="2020-04-20T03:24:25.927" Score="1" ViewCount="242" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recently came across this formation at random. I vaguely remember reading about it around a decade ago. I want to know if this is a known play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;8/8/8/8/8/2NPPN2/PPPBBPPP/2RQKR2 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even though pieces are White, I'm not claiming that it's a White/Black only formation. It's just to give you an idea.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I had a chat with a friend. It certainly had a slow play, the b and g are, pawns at risk, and there is no clear indication as to how to move forward once this is achieved. However, for the sake of knowing what it is, it'd be great if you could help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23173" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-03-08T21:04:57.943" LastActivityDate="2021-03-08T21:24:41.543" Title="What is this formation called?" Tags="&lt;terminology&gt;&lt;defense&gt;&lt;patterns&gt;&lt;fortress&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29258" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29243" CreationDate="2020-04-20T04:23:43.397" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;The other answer is wrong; we &lt;strong&gt;can in fact&lt;/strong&gt; program the chess engine to favour traps! As you already noted, when the engine thinks it is winning it should simply choose the best move. So the question is how to aim for the sharpest lines for the opponent when it is losing. This is of course subjective, and depends on the kind of opponent we are pitting it against, but there are a few obvious ways to achieve this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Firstly, we could compute the best play assuming the opponent makes exactly one mistake (as seen from our game tree). Best play assumes that both players make zero mistakes, but we are aiming to trick the opponent to make a mistake, hence we need to know what are the best lines if the opponent does make a mistake. We now have two evaluation scores for each move X, one for the best play and one for the best play with one opponent mistake. Denote these by E0(X) and E1(X) respectively. We can then combine these two scores by some heuristic to obtain an overall score. The safest heuristic is to choose the move X with E1(X)≥0 such that E0(X) is maximum. This heuristic in fact agrees with choosing the best move X if E0(X)&gt;0, since E1(X)≥E0(X). A slightly less safe heuristic is to choose the move with E1(X)&gt;0 such that E0(X) is maximum, which might occasionally choose an inferior move if the best move X has E0(X)=0, in order to try for a win. You can of course design your own heuristic if you want your engine to play more dangerously.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another way is to incorporate some probabilistic evaluation, by treating opponent play as a random process that occasionally makes mistakes with the distribution of the chosen move depending on the scores of the available moves. I do not think that this is a good general approach, because although it may do well against humans (humans being careless creatures), it is not going to do well against other computer players, as compared to the other approach I gave above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also want to emphasize that for this question (&quot;when the game outcome is within their horizon&quot;), any 'hack' such as 'contempt factor' is simply not applicable, because all the terminal nodes in the game tree have known outcomes. Also, many chess engines use a 'contempt factor' instead of the kind of technique I described because it is computationally cheap ('contempt' can be implemented simply as a slightly negative score for a probable forced draw). But if you can already see all the outcomes from a position onwards, it is trivial and costs almost nothing to implement the technique I gave above. The reason it is expensive if the outcome is beyond the search horizon is that, since alpha-beta pruning may prune branches with mistakes, we would frequently need to search substantially more branches to compute E1 correctly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9192" LastEditorUserId="9192" LastEditDate="2020-04-20T06:38:49.690" LastActivityDate="2020-04-20T06:38:49.690" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29259" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29266" CreationDate="2020-04-20T10:44:44.937" Score="8" ViewCount="567" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.magnuscarlsen.com/en/invitational&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Magnus Carlsen Invitational 2020&lt;/a&gt;, Magnus Carlsen invited 7 of the world’s best players to compete with him in the first professional online chess tournament. However, I wasn’t able to find an explanation of why Magnus selected these particular players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My initial thought was that he would more-or-less invite players from the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candidates_Tournament_2020&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;2020 Candidates Tournment&lt;/a&gt;. However, Wang Hao and Alexander Grischuk, who qualified for the Candidates Tournament, did not participate in the Magnus Carlsen Invitational. Alireza Firouzja, who was invited to the Magnus Carlsen Invitational, did not play in the Candidates Tournament.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My second thought was that Magnus would choose the top-rated players. This turned out not to be true, since, in April 2020, Alexander Grischuk, who was not invited, was #6 while Anish Giri, who was invited, was #10.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My final thought was that perhaps Carlsen just invited his friends. But this doesn’t seem to be the case, since, e.g., there seems to have been &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.chessbase.com/post/the-twitter-war-between-magnus-carlsen-and-anish-giri&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;some friction between Carlsen and Giri&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On what basis did Carlsen invite players to this tournament?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19880" LastEditorUserId="19880" LastEditDate="2020-11-23T22:31:25.643" LastActivityDate="2020-11-23T22:31:25.643" Title="On what basis were players chosen to compete in the Magnus Carlsen Invitational 2020?" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;famous-players&gt;&lt;online&gt;&lt;carlsen&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29260" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29255" CreationDate="2020-04-20T11:43:13.520" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Could we assume that Gilberto Guerrero is actually Hernandez Guerrero,&#xA;  Gilberto?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We could but we would very likely be wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First a word on how FIDE allocates FIDE numbers. FIDE doesn't allocate individual numbers to players. Instead it allocates ranges of numbers to individual federations. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/card.phtml?event=2012707&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Gilbert Guerrero&lt;/a&gt;'s FIDE number is 2012707 and was allocated by the US federation.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/card.phtml?event=5100011&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Gilberto Hernandez Guerrero's&lt;/a&gt; FIDE number is 5100011 and was allocated by the Mexico federation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For that to happen the same player would need to have registered with each federation resulting in one player with two FINs. Now that did happen in the early days and so is a possibility but is unlikely.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to his &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.olimpbase.org/Elo/player/Guerrero,%20Gilbert.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Olimpbase records&lt;/a&gt; Gilbert Guerrero's only FIDE rated games were 12 games played in the second half of 1996 which gave him a rating of 2500. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Checking the Olimpbase data for 1997 for other players called Guerrero we see only one other, a Spanish player called Manuel Gomez Guerrero. He also has FIN 2207893, which is different from Gilberto Hernandez Guerrero, who has FIN 5100011, so not the same player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The next step is to find, from Gilberto Hernandez Guerrero's FIDE profile what the details are for his earliest recorded result in FIDE's published data. To do that, in &lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/card.phtml?event=5100011&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;his profile&lt;/a&gt;, click on &quot;Click to view All previous periods&quot; under &quot;Individual Calculations&quot;. There scroll to the bottom to see that there is an &lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/individual_calculations.phtml?idnumber=5100011&amp;amp;rating_period=2001-07-01&amp;amp;t=0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;entry for July 2001&lt;/a&gt;. Clicking on that we see that the entry is for &quot;Hernandez, Gilberto&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are two possibilities here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;He changed his name some time since 2001&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;There are two players with different names but the Mexican federation re-used the FIN when one of the players died. By the way, the English Chess Federation did this with Tony Miles' FIN when he died! So, it can happen even with great players.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;OK, back to the Olimpbase files to check on Hernandez, Gilberto. The &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.olimpbase.org/Elo/player/Hernandez,%20Gilberto.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Olimpbase records&lt;/a&gt; for this player go back to 1987 and the FIN is 5100011, the same as Gilberto Hernandez Guerrero.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are Gilberto Hernandez Guerrero and Gilberto Hernandez the same player? Probably. They are the same federation. Maybe he did change or correct his name just before &lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/individual_calculations.phtml?idnumber=5100011&amp;amp;rating_period=2006-07-01&amp;amp;t=0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;July 2006&lt;/a&gt;. The ratings match up before and after with no big jump. Furthermore it is very unlikely that a GM had a change of FIN like that in 2006. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Regarding the Campora game, here are &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.olimpbase.org/Elo/player/Campora,%20Daniel%20H..html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;his olimpbase records&lt;/a&gt;. He was 2543 in the July 1999 list and 2534 in the Jan 2000 list. Even playing blitz blindfold and drunk he would not have made those moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Apropos the reuse of Tony Miles' FIN. From &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.olimpbase.org/Elo/player/Miles,%20Anthony%20J..html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;his Olimpbase records&lt;/a&gt; you can see that his FIN was 403385. Today the player with that FIN is &lt;a href=&quot;http://ratings.fide.com/card.phtml?event=403385&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Andrew F Footner&lt;/a&gt;. Check his rating history and see that apparently he had &lt;a href=&quot;http://ratings.fide.com/individual_calculations.phtml?idnumber=403385&amp;amp;rating_period=2001-10-01&amp;amp;t=0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;results in the October 2001 list&lt;/a&gt;. Except the player listed is Tony Miles! There are no more results until &lt;a href=&quot;http://ratings.fide.com/individual_calculations.phtml?idnumber=403385&amp;amp;rating_period=2007-01-01&amp;amp;t=0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;January 2007&lt;/a&gt; which are for Andrew F Footner.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2020-04-20T14:39:02.907" LastActivityDate="2020-04-20T14:39:02.907" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29261" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29262" CreationDate="2020-04-20T16:41:48.240" Score="12" ViewCount="3998" Body="&lt;p&gt;Could you please refer some examples of game where, on the last move, a pawn checkmates the king (preferably from grandmaster's games)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18858" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-20T17:18:47.183" LastActivityDate="2020-09-02T22:12:27.430" Title="Games where a pawn checkmates the king" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;pawns&gt;&lt;master-games&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29262" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29261" CreationDate="2020-04-20T17:32:08.810" Score="33" Body="&lt;p&gt;One amazing game I know that ends in a pawn mate in one called &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1100774&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;The Polish Immortal&lt;/a&gt; in which Black sacrifices all four minor pieces to win the game! The pawn does a double-step to give the mate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Glucksberg-Miguel Najdorf, Warsaw Poland, 1929, The Polish Immortal&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 f5 2.c4 Nf6 3.Nc3 e6 4.Nf3 d5 5.e3 c6 6.Bd3 Bd6 7.O-O O-O 8.Ne2 Nbd7 9.Ng5 Bxh2+ 10.Kh1 Ng4 11.f4 Qe8 12.g3 Qh5 13.Kg2 Bg1 14.Nxg1 Qh2+ 15.Kf3 e5 16.dxe5 Ndxe5+ 17.fxe5 Nxe5+ 18.Kf4 Ng6+ 19.Kf3 f4 20.exf4 Bg4+ 21.Kxg4 Ne5+ 22.fxe5 h5#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although it was a blitz game, &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1701531&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this game&lt;/a&gt; ends in a nice discovered checkmate by a pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Ely Sollano-Fedrick Rhine, Chicago USA, 1977&amp;quot;]&#xA; [FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 Nf6 2. Nc3 d5 3. Bg5 c5 4. Bxf6 exf6 5. dxc5 d4 6. Ne4 Bf5 7. Ng3 Bxc5 8. Nxf5 Qa5+ 9. c3 dxc3 10. b4 Bxb4 11. Qc2 Qxf5 12. Qxf5 c2#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another pawn move that results in checkmate is promotion. While there are many such games that end with it, &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1461791&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this game&lt;/a&gt; has a unique perk in that the mating move was done by the pawn that made the first move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Bojan Kurajica-Michael Franklin, Hastings England, 1972&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 e6 5.Nc3 Qc7 6.g3 a6 7.Bg2 Nf6 8.O-O Nxd4 9.Qxd4 Bc5 10.Bf4 d6 11.Qd2 h6 12.Rad1 e5 13.Be3 Bg4 14.Bxc5 dxc5 15.f3 Be6 16.f4 Rd8 17.Nd5 Bxd5 18.exd5 e4 19.c4 O-O 20.Rfe1 Rfe8 21.Qc2 Re7 22.Bxe4 Ne8 23.Bd3 Nd6 24.Re5 Rde8 25.Rde1 f6 26.R5e2 Kf8 27.Re6 Rxe6 28.dxe6 Ke7 29.Bf1 Kd8 30.Bg2 Qa5 31.Qf2 Ke7 32.b3 Nf5 33.Bxb7 Nd4 34.Bd5 Rd8 35.Rd1 Qb6 36.Qe3 a5 37.Qe4 a4 38.Qg6 axb3 39.Qf7+ Kd6 40.e7 Rd7 41.e8=N#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another mating move that has actually &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chesscollection?cid=1036042&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;happened&lt;/a&gt; is checkmate by en passant! &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1242924&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Here&lt;/a&gt; is that earliest known and most beautiful known example of it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Gunner Gundersen-A. H. Faul, Pietzcker Christmas Tournament, Melbourne Australia, 1928&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. e5 c5 4. c3 cxd4 5. cxd4 Bb4+ 6. Nc3 Nc6 7. Nf3 Nge7 8. Bd3 O-O 9. Bxh7+ Kxh7 10. Ng5+ Kg6 11. h4 Nxd4 12. Qg4 f5 13. h5+ Kh6 14. Nxe6+ g5 15. hxg6#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lastly, although it is not from a game, &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.yacpdb.org/#327955&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; is a very pretty chess problem in which White sacrifices all eight pieces and and two pawns to give mate with a pawn!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Julio César Infantozzi, Mate In 16 Moves&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;R1n2N2/4pk1B/2Q1r2B/2K2b2/Rr1n2P1/1q1P1PP1/4N2b/8 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Qe8+ Kxe8 2. Rxc8+ Kf7 3. Bg8+ Kxg8 4. Ng6+ Kh7 5. Rh8+ Kxg6 6. Nf4+ Kf6 7. Rf8+ Ke5 8. Bg7+ Rf6 9. Bxf6+ exf6 10. Re8+ Ne6+ 11. Rxe6+ Qxe6 12. Ng6+ Bxg6  13. f4+ Rxf4 14. gxf4+ Bxf4 15. Re4+ Bxe4 16. d4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-09-02T22:12:27.430" LastActivityDate="2020-09-02T22:12:27.430" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29264" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29267" CreationDate="2020-04-20T19:24:12.963" Score="1" ViewCount="746" Body="&lt;p&gt;Basically, I’m creating a chess AI and I want to focus on the search algorithm rather than the most complete way or fastest move generation portions. So, for now, I was thinking I could use a prebuilt move generator from a tested and well-known source such as Stockfish.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I'm having trouble understanding how Stockfish represents the current gamestate and how I can read it, how I can get Stockfish to essentially loop through all of the possible nodes, and how I can check if a given node is a leaf. If someone could point me to a resource or knows how Stockfish does this it would be greatly appreciated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21588" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-20T19:28:07.087" LastActivityDate="2020-06-07T20:42:58.983" Title="Using the Stockfish move generator in a home chess engine" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29265" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-04-20T19:49:39.043" Score="1" ViewCount="110" Body="&lt;p&gt;I downloaded a PGN of CCRL 40/15 games from&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.computerchess.org.uk/ccrl/4040/CCRL-4040-commented.[1138203].pgn.7z&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.computerchess.org.uk/ccrl/4040/CCRL-4040-commented.[1138203].pgn.7z&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and opened it in ChessBase, and converted it into a cbh. (I can even put this database as reference database but it doesn't change what follows.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then in the reference search I chose this database as &quot;reference database&quot;, and try for instance to search for games starting with the 1.e4 move by imputing this move on the board. There are plenty of them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But the reference search tells me &quot;not enough grandmaster games&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Where are the reference search options that I have to tweak to make this obvious thing work? Should I change the games perhaps, so that they could be recognized as grandmasters games?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20949" LastEditorUserId="20949" LastEditDate="2020-04-20T20:28:20.803" LastActivityDate="2021-05-29T02:01:30.117" Title="CCRL games in Chessbase's reference search : not enough grand master games" Tags="&lt;chessbase&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2021-05-29T10:12:26.067" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29266" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29259" CreationDate="2020-04-20T23:50:26.497" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Magnus Carlsen had the major saying in the selection. There was no &quot;objective&quot; qualification of any kind, besides the hope to create an interesting line-up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Firouzja was included because he &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess24.com/en/read/news/firouzja-beats-carlsen-to-win-the-banter-blitz-cup&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;beat Carlsen in the Banter Blitz Cup&lt;/a&gt;, so a &quot;rematch&quot; would attract many viewers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Disclosure: I work for chess24. I wasn't involved in the decision process, and I can't publish everything I know about this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8472" LastActivityDate="2020-04-20T23:50:26.497" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29267" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29264" CreationDate="2020-04-21T01:13:58.940" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;For the fastest move generation I suggest the below code.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/Mk-Chan/WyldChess/blob/master/src/magicmoves.c&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://github.com/Mk-Chan/WyldChess/blob/master/src/magicmoves.c&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It’s not the Stockfish source code, but I was able to use it for my own hobby engine and I can tell you that it’s very fast. If you have a lot of trouble I can write a post about how I did it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12273" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-21T02:06:59.223" LastActivityDate="2020-04-21T02:06:59.223" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29268" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-04-21T01:30:01.727" Score="6" ViewCount="391" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have a lot of my own chess games in pgn format, Im wondering if there is a tool that examines my games and suggests what books I should buy to improve?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12273" LastEditorUserId="12273" LastEditDate="2020-04-21T14:01:18.570" LastActivityDate="2020-04-21T14:29:29.563" Title="How do I know what chess books to buy?" Tags="&lt;books&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29269" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29268" CreationDate="2020-04-21T01:30:01.727" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Full disclosure: I am answering my own question. I recently finished the alpha version of an app that maps chess games to diagrammed positions in chess books (&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.thechesscite.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.thechesscite.com/&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The primary goals is to help you to make better choices about what books to buy and to help chess authors cite their colleagues. My other goal is to streamline how you study chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See more on the site. I’m still very early in development but have a lot of features planned. Hopefully I’ll see a little interest from the chess community and grow the tool over time. Would be happy to take feedback; however, be aware there are some minor quality of life issues I already know about, and I am a one person team. I'm eager to share this tool even if it's just getting started.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12273" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-21T14:29:29.563" LastActivityDate="2020-04-21T14:29:29.563" CommentCount="14" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29270" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29257" CreationDate="2020-04-21T04:45:55.097" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/5384/bughouse-defense-patterns&quot;&gt;this question&lt;/a&gt; the formation is referred to as a &quot;turtle formation&quot;, although that's in the context of Bughouse. I've also personally heard it referred to that way in the context of Bughouse when playing over the board (although not with the rooks moved to those squares.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bughouse aside, there's a lot wrong with doing things this way. The bishops are blocked in. The queen is blocked in. The rooks are not connected and are stuck behind pawns that can't even move because the knights are there. The king is stuck in the middle; he can't ever castle because both rooks moved. Almost no space has been gained. It takes 8 moves to obtain this position, giving the opponent lots of time to complete their development while putting no pressure at all on them. On the plus side, your opponent might not know how to deal with such an unfamiliar formation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2020-04-21T04:45:55.097" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29271" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29261" CreationDate="2020-04-21T11:25:00.370" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;A beautiful, more recent, game between Svilder and Carlsen:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Svidler - Carlsen, GRENKE Chess Classic, 2019&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Nc3 e5 4.Bc4 Be7 5.d3 d6 6.Nd2 Nf6 7.Nf1 Nd7 8.Nd5 Nb6 9.Nxb6 axb6 10.c3 O-O 11.Ne3 Bg5 12.O-O Kh8 13.a3 f5 14.Nxf5 Bxc1 15.Rxc1 Bxf5 16.exf5 d5 17.Ba2 Rxf5 18.Qg4 Rf6 19.f4 exf4 20.Qg5 Qf8 21.Qxd5 Rd8 22.Qf3 Ne5 23.Qe4 Ng4 24.Rce1 Ne3 25.Rf2 Re8 26.Qxb7 g5 27.Rfe2 g4 28.Rf2 Qh6 29.Qc7 Ref8 30.h3 gxh3 31.g3 fxg3 32.Rxf6 h2+ 33.Kh1 g2# &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18832" LastEditorUserId="18832" LastEditDate="2020-04-23T07:57:16.700" LastActivityDate="2020-04-23T07:57:16.700" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29272" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29273" CreationDate="2020-04-21T12:46:00.617" Score="3" ViewCount="128" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;r2qk2r/pQpbbppp/n2p1n2/3Pp3/4P3/2N1BN2/PPP2PPP/R3KB1R w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This position is evaluated at +6.4l but if I capture with the Bishop &lt;em&gt;(Bxa6)&lt;/em&gt; it drops down to +0.8. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why does the evaluation drop when I make that move?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;AKP2002-moisturiser, 600+5 Rated Rapid game, lichess.org, 4/21/2020&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 d6 4. d5 Nb8 5. Nc3 Bg4 6. Be3 Nf6 7. Qd3 Be7 8. Qb5+ Bd7 9. Qxb7 Na6 10. Bxa6 Qb8 11. Qxb8+ Rxb8 12. O-O-O c6 13. Ng5 cxd5 14. exd5 Nxd5 15. Nxd5 Bf6 16. Nc7+ Kf8 17. Ne4 Bd8 18. Nd5 Bc6 19. Bxa7 Ra8 20. Bb8 Rxa6 21. Bxd6+ Ke8 22. Nc7+ Bxc7 23. Bxc7 Ke7 24. Bd6+ Ke6 25. Nc5+ Kf5 26. Nxa6 Rc8 27. Rhe1 Re8 28. Nc7 Rd8 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why isn’t capturing with the Bishop good, since it brings more attackers into play, and is hence better move?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21526" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2020-04-21T13:40:17.423" LastActivityDate="2020-04-21T13:40:17.423" Title="Why is the engine evaluating against bringing more attackers in this position?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;candidate-move&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29273" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29272" CreationDate="2020-04-21T13:39:25.723" Score="7" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Why is the engine evaluating against bringing more attackers in this&#xA;  position?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's not what it is doing. It is evaluating against blundering a draw. After Rb8 your queen has nowhere to go apart from allowing a repetition. If you play Qxa6 you are just a piece and a pawn up for no compensation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;r2qk2r/pQpbbppp/n2p1n2/3Pp3/4P3/2N1BN2/PPP2PPP/R3KB1R w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Bxa6 (1. Qxa6) Rb8 2. Qxa7 Ra8 3. Qb7 Rb8=&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-04-21T13:39:25.723" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29274" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29275" CreationDate="2020-04-21T15:24:22.693" Score="0" ViewCount="173" Body="&lt;p&gt;A game between Alireza Firouzj and Magnus Carlsen in chess24’s [Magnus Carlsen invitational 2020](&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess24.com/en/embed&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://chess24.com/en/embed&lt;/a&gt; tournament/magnus-carlsen-invitational-2020) ended in a draw due to &quot;insufficient material&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Each player had a king and a knight when it ended&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 Nf6 4. d3 Bc5 5. Nc3 d6 6. Bg5 h6 7. Bxf6 Qxf6 8. Nd5 Qd8 9. b4 Bb6 10. c3 a6 11. Nxb6 cxb6 12. Bc4 b5 13. Bb3 O-O 14. O-O Qf6 15. Re1 Be6 16. a4 Rac8 17. axb5 axb5 18. Bxe6 Qxe6 19. Qe2 Rfd8 20. h3 d5 21. exd5 Rxd5 22. Rad1 Rcd8 23. Rd2 Qd6 24. Red1 Qg6 25. Ne1 Kh7 26. Nc2 R8d7 27. Ne3 R5d6 28. Nf1 Rd5 29. Qf3 Nd8 30. h4 h5 31. Ng3 Qg4 32. Nxh5 Qxf3 33. gxf3 Ne6 34. Ng3 Nf4 35. Ne4 b6 36. c4 Rd4 37. c5 Rxb4 38. cxb6 Rb7 39. Nd6 Rxb6 40. Nxf7 Ng6 41. h5 Rf4 42. Ng5+ Kh6 43. Ne4 Nh4 44. Kf1 Nxf3 45. Rc2 Kxh5 46. Rc8 b4 47. Ke2 b3 48. Rb1 b2 49. Rc5 Nd4+ 50. Kf1 Nf3 51. Rc2 Rb3 52. Nc5 Nd4 53. Nxb3 Nxc2 54. Rxb2 Ne3+ 55. Ke2 Rxf2+ 56. Kxf2 Nd1+ 57. Kf3 Nxb2 58. Ke4 g5 59. d4 exd4 60. Nxd4 g4 61. Nf3 g3 62. Kf4 g2 63. Kg3 Nd3 64. Kxg2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Reading &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/17388/checkmate-with-king-and-knight-vs-king-and-knight&quot;&gt;Checkmate with King and Knight vs King and Knight&lt;/a&gt;, it says it is possible for either side to win and should not be declared a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the difference?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: Game commentary at 12:00 &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Idw0cgmjWQ8&amp;amp;t=12m&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Idw0cgmjWQ8&amp;amp;t=12m&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;As it is a draw by insufficient material.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20694" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-21T16:07:36.003" LastActivityDate="2020-04-26T12:45:58.403" Title="About the Alireza Firouzja vs Magnus Carlsen KN-KN endgame" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;draw&gt;&lt;knight-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29275" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29274" CreationDate="2020-04-21T15:41:42.067" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The players agreed on a draw because there is no forced mate. Even if one side loses a knight, it is a draw. The weaker side just has to keep the king in the center.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the following example Black helped White to achieve mate by playing &lt;code&gt;4...Ng8??&lt;/code&gt;. If Black had played &lt;code&gt;4...Ng4&lt;/code&gt; it's still an easy draw. Black could have even escaped with &lt;code&gt;4...Kg8 5.Kxh6 Kf8&lt;/code&gt; and it's easy to draw with Black.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;4k3/8/7n/4K3/8/6N1/8/8 w - - 0 1&#xA;&#xA;1. Kf6 Kf8 2. Kg6 Kg8 3. Ne4 Kh8 4. Nd6 Ng8?? (4... Ng4=) 5. Nf7#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In short, they agreed on a draw because no one expected the other party to help him get mate!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11749" LastEditorUserId="11749" LastEditDate="2020-04-21T15:50:06.073" LastActivityDate="2020-04-21T15:50:06.073" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29277" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29279" CreationDate="2020-04-21T19:03:28.030" Score="4" ViewCount="264" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this position I'm White and I have just played 16. d5. Stockfish labels the move as a blunder. I do understand I had better moves than this, and it's not the move I would play if I were to get this position again, but why is it a blunder? It doesn't seem that bad. My reasoning was that, having the bishop pair and better development (two minor pieces playing versus one), and Black having a somewhat vulnerable king, I could benefit from opening some lines with the pawn-break.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;rn4k1/pbp1qr2/1p1pp2p/3P1pp1/2P5/2PBP1B1/P1Q2PPP/R4RK1 b - - 0 16&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21110" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-09-10T18:10:15.537" LastActivityDate="2020-09-10T18:35:05.313" Title="Why is 16. d5 a blunder in this position?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;&lt;blunder&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29278" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29277" CreationDate="2020-04-21T19:26:40.467" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;16...f4 seems to win your Bg3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;16...ed 17.Bf5 dc wins a pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To answer the comments:&#xA;I am not claiming that these are the computer-approved lines of best play. Just pointing out some immediate reasons why you might not want to play d5. 16...ed 17.cd f4 is likely a better version of the f4-push, because there will be no pawn on e6. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastEditorUserId="4362" LastEditDate="2020-04-22T16:18:42.870" LastActivityDate="2020-04-22T16:18:42.870" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29279" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29277" CreationDate="2020-04-21T19:30:12.110" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The move 16. d5 is not necessarily a blunder. Although it is not good for White, it is not losing. Lichess and other chess engines sometimes see positions differently from how humans would percieve them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That being said, analysis on &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/analysis&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chess.com&lt;/a&gt; deems it a a mistake. which is much more reasonable. The reason is that, in the long-term, the d5 pawn mught be lost, giving Black a +1 advantage, in material worth, at the least &lt;strong&gt;in some lines.&lt;/strong&gt;  Even if White retains a pawn, the doubled pawns on the queenside will be a disadvantage that Black can use, or there will be some other disadvantage Black can create for White. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All in all, White will have some sort of positional weakness no matter the outcome.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is a computer generated line that shows how Black gets the upper hand in the long-term with an extra pawn. I do not claim that this is the 100% best play, just that it shows one of the many general outcomes where Black has an advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;rn4k1/pbp1qr2/1p1pp2p/5pp1/2PP4/2PBP1B1/P1Q2PPP/R4RK1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d5 Nd7 2. Rae1 Raf8 3. f4 Nc5 4. e4 fxe4 5. Bxe4 gxf4 6. dxe6 Bxe4 7. Rxe4  Nxe4 8. exf7+ Rxf7 9. Rxf4 Rxf4 10. Bxf4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that although f4 is technically an inaccuracy, it is perhaps best by human play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is another line that shows how Black can get an advantage in other ways as a result of White’s mistake.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;rn4k1/pbp1qr2/1p1pp2p/5pp1/2PP4/2PBP1B1/P1Q2PPP/R4RK1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d5 Nd7 2. Rae1 Raf8 3. f3 Ba6 4. Be2 e5 5. e4 f4 6. Bf2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-21T21:44:14.837" LastActivityDate="2020-04-21T21:44:14.837" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29280" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-04-21T21:13:34.537" Score="23" ViewCount="2807" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;5K2/k7/4P1p1/8/8/8/4b3/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A friend of mine is challenging me to find a solution. It’s White to play and DRAW.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23200" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-21T21:42:11.677" LastActivityDate="2020-04-23T05:46:08.897" Title="Please help solve this endgame problem posed by a friend" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;problems&gt;&lt;draw&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29281" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29283" CreationDate="2020-04-21T21:25:54.993" Score="7" ViewCount="2525" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was wondering what skills, abilities, and knowledge is needed to reach consistent 2300 FIDE elo and therefore become a FIDE Master. Now, I'm not asking about the innate abilities, but those which you can acquire by practice and study:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A pretty simple list:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Have a decent knowledge on most/or all of the typical openings, and be very good at one (or more) for each side.  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Have a deep positional/technical game, having memorize and understand grand masters games, so you develop an intuition of the position.  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Knowledge of the endgames. Pretty important. How the positions are going to be simplify and the chances in both sides.  &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Tactics.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23189" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-04-22T08:47:55.513" LastActivityDate="2020-04-22T10:36:06.327" Title="How to Become a FIDE Master" Tags="&lt;fide&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29282" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29280" CreationDate="2020-04-21T21:33:21.410" Score="39" Body="&lt;p&gt;White is one tempo short of catching the pawn - if White could make two moves immediately it would be a draw as white would just take the black pawn. But they can't, so white has to find a threat which black has to respond to which gains them that move. The only threat they can make is to queen their pawn, and apparently black can stop that with their bishop by moving it to b5. But ... if white can combine moving their king toward the queening square with attacking the bishop, and hence threatening to queen the white pawn, they can gain the tempo. This suggests moving the king towards the queening square via c5, because the king on c5 can attack a bishop on b5 that is stopping the white pawn queen. At that point Black will have to move their bishop or protect it, and white gains the tempo they need. Putting this together leads us to the following - note the move order also means that the black pawn interferes with the Black Bishop's movement, stopping it get to h5 which would be the other square it could use to stop the white pawn queening&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Result &quot;1/2-1/2&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;5K2/k7/4P1p1/8/8/8/4b3/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Ke7 g5 2.Kd6 g4 3.e7 Bb5 4.Kc5 Ka6 5.Kd4 g3 6.Ke3 g2 7.Kf2 Bc6 8.e8=Q &#xA;Bxe8 9.Kxg2 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you like this kind of thing have a look at &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R%C3%A9ti_endgame_study&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;The Reti study&lt;/a&gt; which is a more famous relation of this problem. It also turns out that this problem was &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.yacpdb.org/#search/NUsyazc0UDFwMTg4ODRiMzgvLy8vLy8vLy8vLy8vMS8xLzEvMA==/1&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;composed by Reti&lt;/a&gt; himself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7726" LastEditorUserId="11712" LastEditDate="2020-04-23T05:46:08.897" LastActivityDate="2020-04-23T05:46:08.897" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29283" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29281" CreationDate="2020-04-21T21:49:35.800" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are 3 key things you need to do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;First and most important you must love chess so much that you feel you must play chess every day.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Play a lot of serious (preferably competition) over-the-board chess at a slow (standard, not rapid or blitz) time control.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Analyse your games in depth without an engine. If you use an engine you are cheating yourself just as much as using an engine in a real game cheats your opponent. Ideally you would have a study partner with whom you could go over your analysis, explaining what you found in your moves and your opponent's moves.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-04-21T21:49:35.800" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29284" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29281" CreationDate="2020-04-21T22:16:46.830" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let me build on @Brian Towers' answer: Love, Play and Analyze! But let me add some points.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Love Chess.&lt;/strong&gt; because you'll need it to &lt;strong&gt;train&lt;/strong&gt; a lot and go through your list.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Shipov&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;GM Shipov&lt;/a&gt; suggests that the main requirement for success at chess is to be 100% dedicated and interested in the game. If you just a little interested, you will not be able to make serious progress. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Play Chess.&lt;/strong&gt; Competition is indeed crucial. &lt;strong&gt;Play competitively&lt;/strong&gt; over-the-board and online. Blitz and rapid games may help you practice and test openings. But it is true that classic games (90 min/40 moves + 30 min and increment) are the most important, as you will devote on average about four hours playing chess and thinking. In his book &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31934455-deep-thinking&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Deep Thinking&lt;/a&gt;, Gary Kasparov writes that a player is so concentrated during a game that the quality of her/his analysis is even better than in post-mortem. An addition: choose your tournaments to face &lt;strong&gt;stronger opponents&lt;/strong&gt;. You will learn from them.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murtas_Kazhgaleyev&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;GM Kazhgaleyev&lt;/a&gt; writes that in order to improve at chess you need to play&#xA;  more tournament games, study classics, solve tactics and endgame&#xA;  studies as well as be passionate about chess in general. That's how&#xA;  you can get to that 2200-2300 Elo.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Analyze Chess.&lt;/strong&gt; But the most important thing is to &lt;strong&gt;analyze the losses&lt;/strong&gt; because they will give you the feedback you need to improve. We loose because we make mistakes, at least the last one! After each game, write down your ideas and your analysis, the ones you had during the game. Then you can use a computer to check your analysis. The computer or a coach will help you identify your mistakes. You will improve by not repeating them.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Shipov&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;GM Shipov&lt;/a&gt; believes in importance of deep analysis of your own games&#xA;  and ability to judge yourself fairly. If you lose a game, don’t think&#xA;  that it’s because of that silly move you played, find the real cause&#xA;  and improve!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Quotes are from &lt;a href=&quot;https://thechessworld.com/articles/training-techniques/how-to-reach-2200-elo-according-to-gm-tkachiev/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;How to Reach 2200 ELO – According to GM Tkachiev&lt;/a&gt;... not too far from the FIDE Master level... &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11749" LastEditorUserId="11749" LastEditDate="2020-04-22T10:36:06.327" LastActivityDate="2020-04-22T10:36:06.327" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29285" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-04-22T08:12:55.197" Score="3" ViewCount="97" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is the pgn of the game. The engine said that white made a blunder and some inconsistencies. But I can't spot them. Can you help me to find them?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 d6 3. Bc4 f5 4. Nc3 f4 5. O-O g5 6. d3 g4 7. Ne1 Nc6 8. h3 gxh3 9. Qh5+ Kd7 10. Qf5+ Ke8 11. Bf7+ Ke7 12. Nd5# 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20092" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-22T13:11:41.393" LastActivityDate="2020-04-22T13:15:40.720" Title="Which steps were blunders and inconsistencies?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;learning&gt;&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;blunder&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29286" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29285" CreationDate="2020-04-22T10:23:27.707" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Generally, black:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;neglected development&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;weakened the light squares around the king&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White should have opened the position with moves like d4 or even Nxe5 sometimes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Opening the position is a standard theme in case your opponent neglects development and you can even sacrifice material to do so. This game is a good example of that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is worth it learning the common tactics that would have been possible at move 5 starting with Nxe5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In summary you should take out of this game:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the theme with Nxe5, Qh5+ which is possible at several points&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;if a player neglects development, opening the position is almost always good&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I annotated your game below. Have a look.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 d6 3. Bc4 f5? { too soon. Black should develop some pieces first } 4. Nc3!? { Ok-ish, but white could take advantage of black's underdevelopment by opening the position with d4. } (4. d4 fxe4 { not the best move, but in any case white will open the position and have a clear advantage because of development. } 5. Nxe5! { Making use of a well known tactics which can often be used against opponents playing an early f4 or f5. } 5... dxe5 6. Qh5+ g6 7. Qxe5+ { winning the rook }) 4... f4 { Why? Development was asked for! } (4... Nf6)  (4... fxe4 5. Nxe5 dxe5 6. Qh5+ g6 (6... Ke7 7. Qxe5+ Kd7 8. Qe6#)  (6... Kd7 7. Qf5+ Kc6 8. Qxe4+ { and a very strong attack }) 7. Qxe5+ { winning the rook }) 5. O-O { From a positional point of view this is questionable because white is basically castling into the attack / pawn storm of black. Might consider long castle instead. In any case the same tactics as before also works here (basically if somebody plays e5 and f5 and the f pawn is not anymore on f5 this tactics is always an option. Of course also works for reversed colors with e4, f4) } (5. Nxe5 dxe5 6. Qh5+ g6 (6... Ke7 7. Qxe5+ Kd7 8. Qe6#)  (6... Kd7 7. d4 { and a very strong attack }) 7. Qxe5+ { winning the rook }) 5... g5?? { Looks very dangerous because without the knight on f3, Qh5+ looks terrible for black. } 6. d3 { too timid. Yet again white should open the position with d4. The computer says that white can even give a knight in order to take advantage of the open position. } (6. d4 g4 7. dxe5! gxf3 8. Qxf3 { and white is clearly better as black cannot defend against all the checks along the light colored diagonals. }) 6... g4 7. Ne1 Nc6 8. h3? { Playing for tricks (which worked). However objectively this is an awful move to make. Generally defending against a pawn storm is easier if the pawns remain on one line. By playing h3 white is voluntarily opening the position around the castled king (not immediately but soon), which is very dangerous. This is even true if there was no black pawn on g4 yet. } (8. d4! { Not obvious move, but works because of tactics. Notice how much space white suddenly gets: The knight can go to d3, the bishop has potential to f4... For a good player this is a common theme: Open the position if your opponent is not developed. } 8... Nxd4 (8... exd4 9. Nd5 { and white will get the d4 pawn and is better because of better development }) 9. Bxf4 { and white is better }) 8... gxh3?? { Final mistake. It is a forced mate in 3 now. } (8... h5 { And black is clearly better. White's position is very cramped and the king in danger of attack with ideas like Qh4... })  (8... Nf6 { Should also be much better for black, because white cannot free himself and the king will be under attack soon. }) 9. Qh5+ Kd7 10. Qf5+ Ke8 11. Bf7+ { There was a mate in one. } (11. Qf7#) 11... Ke7 12. Nd5# *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastEditorUserId="11629" LastEditDate="2020-04-22T13:15:40.720" LastActivityDate="2020-04-22T13:15:40.720" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29287" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-04-22T10:44:31.000" Score="1" ViewCount="41" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am still investigating potential causes of the problem I have spotted at &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/29250/comments-from-commented-games-lost-in-chessbase-to-scid-on-the-go-conversi&quot;&gt;Comments from (commented !) games lost in &amp;quot;ChessBase to Scid on the go&amp;quot; conversion process&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, in ChessBase 15, in &quot;File --&gt; Options --&gt; Languages&quot; the alternative annotation language is set as follows by default to &quot;Deutsch&quot; :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/QAjWF.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/QAjWF.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I change it to English, click apply, close ChessBase 15 an reopen it, by some kind of supranatural miracle of nature, the alternative annotation language is again equal to Deutsch. Bonus : even if I only close the options windows and reopen it, I will &quot;Deutsch&quot; again for the alternative annotation language. Isn't it beautiful ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As I am still not desperate about this software, would someone have an idea ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20949" LastActivityDate="2020-04-22T10:44:31.000" Title="ChessBase 15 Alternative Annotation Language" Tags="&lt;chessbase&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2020-08-31T23:29:02.290" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29288" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29265" CreationDate="2020-04-22T12:42:15.590" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Maybe the best games filter in reference search window enabled (checkbox).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23215" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-09-01T00:19:39.897" LastActivityDate="2020-09-01T00:19:39.897" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29289" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29277" CreationDate="2020-04-22T13:19:32.163" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;While this is not a tactical blunder as far as I can see (maybe positional mistake is a better word), playing d5 gives away the c5 square for black's knight to occupy; it's a very strong outpost for black's knight. In the long run, the c3-c4 pawn duo is going to be weak, and especially the c4 pawn is awkward to defend. This is a common theme in, say, the Nimzo-indian, where black manages to fix and attack a weak pawn on c4; if you want to learn more about this strategic theme, you should watch some videos on the Nimzo.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, we can see that the only reason d5 is not a catastrophic positional blunder is because black cannot justify the immediate ...e5 push due to the weak f5-pawn. In fact, if black can somehow defend that weakness in the near future, white is going to be in grave danger from a positional perspective. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, what are the virtues of playing d5 in the given position? The only one I can think of is that it destabilizes the f5 pawn. I'm seriously questioning whether white is really well-adviced to take on e6, letting black's queen take aim at the c4 pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What I immediately saw when looking at the position immediately before 16.d5 is that the bishop on g3 is rather unproductive and close to being trapped. Therefore I would consider pushing my f-pawn to give it some space. Also, I'd note that the pawn on f5 was weak, and if attacked black would be forced to respond. Therefore I would consider trying to play for an e4 break rather than a d5 break to open up the position for my bishops. I'd be seriously tempted to push my f-pawn, either to f3 (to support an eventual e4 push) or the immediate f4 push, just being more direct and aggressive, harrassing the g5 pawn for good measure (this is the computer's first choice by far, with f3 being the second. Note that white doesn't need to support e4 with a pawn to push e4, but rather only needs to make sure that the g3 bishop isn't trapped after an e4 push).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Quick addendum: I'd also like to point out that white is seriously ahead in development, which calls for more direct measures than the d5 push. Strike while the iron is hot!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8300" LastActivityDate="2020-04-22T13:19:32.163" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29290" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29291" CreationDate="2020-04-22T18:57:17.343" Score="6" ViewCount="1127" Body="&lt;p&gt;Original position:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/rIfDI.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/rIfDI.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;After Bh5 (move I think is better because of the threat to the queen if pawn moves):&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/cTl3a.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/cTl3a.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;After Be6 (move recommended by the engine):&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/VXKSa.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/VXKSa.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23219" LastActivityDate="2020-04-22T22:24:27.477" Title="Why is Be6 a better move than Bh5 in this position?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29291" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29290" CreationDate="2020-04-22T19:13:06.500" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;As the engine is telling you, after &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;.... Bh5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;g4 Bg6&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;h4 h5 (basically forced to make space for the bishop; h6 is much worse because white will have the option to open your kingside with g5 and mate you (eventually))&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;g5 Ne8 (or Nh7 which is worse)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Qb5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;is a double attack on b7 and d5, which you cannot defend both.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White will simply win a pawn which explains the ca. +1 evaluation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With 1... Be6 you avoid this whole line.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2020-04-22T19:13:06.500" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29292" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29259" CreationDate="2020-04-22T19:26:19.643" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Tania Sachdev asked Carlsen about his exact involvement in his eponymous tournament &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0A1XRRJNy0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; around 4:41:40. Carlsen responded that he was involved &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;in the format, and especially the 4 games format, and &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;in the &lt;strong&gt;choice of the players&lt;/strong&gt;. He added with a big smile &quot;otherwise Anish [Giri] would have not been part of the tournament&quot;! &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess24 and PlayMagnus were also in charge.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11749" LastEditorUserId="11749" LastEditDate="2020-04-23T09:21:23.380" LastActivityDate="2020-04-23T09:21:23.380" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29293" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29290" CreationDate="2020-04-22T22:24:27.477" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not only do you lose a pawn as previous answers told, but there's a strategic idea behind this too. What characterizes the position you gave is that it has opposite-side castles. On this positions, players try to pawn-storm their opponents and break their opponent's king position. With Bh5 you are giving your opponent the chance to start a pawn storm &lt;strong&gt;with tempo&lt;/strong&gt;, which means you are basically allowing him to make his desired moves &quot;for free&quot; and succeeding easily on his plan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21110" LastActivityDate="2020-04-22T22:24:27.477" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29294" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-04-22T23:29:20.583" Score="4" ViewCount="593" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would like to convert a given chess board into its bitboard representation, but my implementation is rather slow. Here is what I'm doing (using the python-chess package):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;board = chess.Board('rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1)&#xA;&#xA;w_pawn = (np.asarray(board.pieces(chess.PAWN, chess.WHITE).tolist())).astype(int)&#xA;w_rook = (np.asarray(board.pieces(chess.ROOK, chess.WHITE).tolist())).astype(int)&#xA;w_knight = (np.asarray(board.pieces(chess.KNIGHT, chess.WHITE).tolist())).astype(int)&#xA;w_bishop = (np.asarray(board.pieces(chess.BISHOP, chess.WHITE).tolist())).astype(int)&#xA;w_queen = (np.asarray(board.pieces(chess.QUEEN, chess.WHITE).tolist())).astype(int)&#xA;w_king = (np.asarray(board.pieces(chess.KING, chess.WHITE).tolist())).astype(int)&#xA;&#xA;b_pawn = (np.asarray(board.pieces(chess.PAWN, chess.BLACK).tolist())).astype(int)&#xA;b_rook = (np.asarray(board.pieces(chess.ROOK, chess.BLACK).tolist())).astype(int)&#xA;b_knight = (np.asarray(board.pieces(chess.KNIGHT, chess.BLACK).tolist())).astype(int)&#xA;b_bishop = (np.asarray(board.pieces(chess.BISHOP, chess.BLACK).tolist())).astype(int)&#xA;b_queen = (np.asarray(board.pieces(chess.QUEEN, chess.BLACK).tolist())).astype(int)&#xA;b_king = (np.asarray(board.pieces(chess.KING, chess.BLACK).tolist())).astype(int)&#xA;&#xA;return np.concatenate((w_pawn, w_rook, w_knight, w_bishop, w_queen, w_king,&#xA;                       b_pawn, b_rook, b_knight, b_bishop, b_queen, b_king))&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the starting position this function returns:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0&#xA; 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0&#xA; 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0&#xA; 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0&#xA; 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0&#xA; 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0&#xA; 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0&#xA; 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0&#xA; 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0&#xA; 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0&#xA; 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0&#xA; 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 0&#xA; 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0&#xA; 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0&#xA; 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0&#xA; 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0&#xA; 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0&#xA; 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0&#xA; 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0&#xA; 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0&#xA; 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which is what I want. The only issue is the speed of this function.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19896" LastEditorUserId="19896" LastEditDate="2020-04-23T00:31:25.320" LastActivityDate="2021-03-07T05:20:59.507" Title="Quickly converting board to bitboard representation using python-chess library" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;programming&gt;&lt;python&gt;&lt;performance&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29295" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23847" CreationDate="2020-04-23T07:14:20.937" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know this thread is old, but here is my improvement to kingside castling-8.0 moves. Black even has to do one useless waiting move (Ng4).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;1. e3 e5 2. Ke2 c5 3. Kd3 Bd6 4. Ke4 Nh6 5. Kd5 Ng4 6. Kxd6 Qf6+ 7. Kc7 Qb6+ 8. Kxc8 O-O#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Queenside castling can be proven to be impossible in 8.0.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23224" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-17T02:42:57.723" LastActivityDate="2020-08-17T02:42:57.723" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29296" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29297" CreationDate="2020-04-23T14:40:34.947" Score="22" ViewCount="3421" Body="&lt;p&gt;Imagine we are pitting two automated players (bots) against each other, but instead of thoughtful moves made by the players, they make completely random choices. I realize that this is not really the point of playing chess, but it sets the groundwork for a theoretical chess question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Is there an inherent advantage to the player who goes first, or the player who goes second?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'Inherent advantage' here means that the probability of one player winning is higher than the other, and that these randomized conditions don't account for how actual players would play. If such an advantage exists, it may be entirely wiped away by &lt;em&gt;how humans&lt;/em&gt; play chess with each other. I want to emphasize that this question is not meant to generalize to either human or algorithmic play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Update&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I got the results back of 1000000 randomly-played games thanks to a small adjustment to &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/24359/of-all-the-possible-legal-chess-games-how-many-end-in-white-win-draw-and-black/24574#24574&quot;&gt;itub's code&lt;/a&gt;. I've whipped up a basic plot to show the results.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/huTju.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/huTju.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But if you prefer the specific numbers, here's the printout:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Counter({'is_insufficient_material': 474230,&#xA;'can_claim_fifty_moves': 169123,&#xA;'can_claim_threefold_repetition': 149398,&#xA;'1-0': 75868,&#xA;'0-1': 75239,&#xA;'is_stalemate': 56142})&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As promised in the comments on one of the answers, I was going to calculate a Wilson score interval with continuity correction. I wrote the following function in Python to accomplish that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;import numpy as np&#xA;from scipy import stats&#xA;&#xA;def wilson_cont(n1, n2, alpha=0.05):&#xA;    '''&#xA;    Wilson score interval with continuity correction.&#xA;    Two-tail interval is assumed.&#xA;&#xA;    Parameters:&#xA;        n1 (int): Count of outcome 1.&#xA;        n2 (int): Count of outcome 2.&#xA;        alpha (float):&#xA;&#xA;    Source:&#xA;        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binomial_proportion_confidence_interval&#xA;    '''&#xA;    assert type(n1) == int and type(n2) == int&#xA;    assert 0 &amp;lt; alpha &amp;lt; 1&#xA;    z = stats.norm.ppf(1 - alpha / 2)&#xA;    n = n1 + n2&#xA;    phat = n1 / n&#xA;    num1 = 2 * n * phat + z**2&#xA;    num2 = z * np.sqrt(z**2 - 1 / n + 4 * n * phat * (1 - phat) + 4 * phat - 2) + 1&#xA;    num3 = z * np.sqrt(z**2 + 1 / n + 4 * n * phat * (1 - phat) - 4 * phat - 2) + 1&#xA;    denom = 2 * (n + z **2)&#xA;    return max(0, (num1 - num2) / denom), min(1, (num1 + num3) / denom)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And calling this function on the outcome counts where either white or black win, we have:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt; print(wilson_cont(75868, 75239))&#xA;(0.4995569815292355, 0.5046054923932771)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This result, confirming some of the comments and answers below, is not significantly different from 50 %. As MaxW has pointed out in their answer, a similar calculation has been done on an even bigger sample that concluded that there &lt;em&gt;was&lt;/em&gt; a statistically significant difference. One concern I have with all these calculations, mine and others, is that they become more sensitive to deviations as the sample size becomes larger. This means it is difficult to determine whether there's truly a difference using standard null hypothesis testing when our sample size becomes extremely large, but if we don't sample enough then our sample won't be representative enough. What this has illuminated to me is a form of conditional reasoning that &lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;if&lt;/strong&gt; there is a difference, &lt;strong&gt;then&lt;/strong&gt; it is extremely small in terms of effect size&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My thanks to everyone who has shown interest in this post, and contributed their reasoning, research, or code into it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23230" LastEditorUserId="23230" LastEditDate="2020-06-26T01:38:18.707" LastActivityDate="2020-06-26T01:38:18.707" Title="When moves are randomized, is there an inherent advantage to the player who goes first, or the player who goes second?" Tags="&lt;theory&gt;&lt;computer-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29297" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29296" CreationDate="2020-04-23T16:16:40.537" Score="24" Body="&lt;p&gt;I once wrote a program to make random moves, had it play 1000 games, and these were my results:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Outcome                        Count  Avg. #moves&#xA;-----------------------------  -----  -----------&#xA;Draw by insufficient material    500          179&#xA;Draw by fifty-move               157          208&#xA;Draw by threefold repetition     147          164&#xA;Black wins by checkmate           75           87&#xA;White wins by checkmate           72           78&#xA;Draw by stalemate                 49          138&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The sample is too small to reach a firm conclusion, but as you can see, Black actually won more games than White! (I think that was just luck.) More noticeable, though, is that the overwhelming majority of games are draws.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My hunch is that there is neither White nor Black have any advantage when making random moves. The oft-quoted first-move advantage of White is based on the notion that White has the initiative, but it is very easy to lose the initiative, and if you make random moves you are pretty much guaranteed to lose it very quickly. (Edit: thanks to MaxW's answer, I'm pleased to see that someone actually went through the trouble of simulating billions of games and found that actually White does have a very slight, but statistically significant advantage: &lt;a href=&quot;https://wismuth.com/chess/random-games.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;7.7340% vs 7.7293%&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I originally posted the table above as an answer to a different question: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/24359/of-all-the-possible-legal-chess-games-how-many-end-in-white-win-draw-and-black/24574#24574&quot;&gt;Of all the possible legal chess games, how many end in white win, draw and black win (assuming 50 move rule)?&lt;/a&gt; That answer goes into more speculation about why most games are draws, but more importantly has the Python source code in case it helps run your own simulations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12523" LastEditorUserId="12523" LastEditDate="2020-04-24T12:34:39.067" LastActivityDate="2020-04-24T12:34:39.067" CommentCount="13" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29298" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29299" CreationDate="2020-04-23T18:34:17.210" Score="3" ViewCount="111" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have observed that I can beat the Lichess  computer at level 5 most of the time if I use the computer hint function for the first 13 moves (basically the opening). If I do not so, I end up losing 6 out of 10 games. That means there’s a problem with the opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Should I remember all variations until move 13, or should I prepare in some other way? I have only played around 40 games in my life as I have being doing tactics for 2 months.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21840" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-23T20:09:33.780" LastActivityDate="2020-04-23T20:09:33.780" Title="Opening preparation" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;preparation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29299" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29298" CreationDate="2020-04-23T19:15:33.040" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Learn what is known as the basic opening principles, and apply them to your game. Since you're a beginner, memorization of long opening lines is a wasted effort at this stage of your chess development, and will not help you in the long run. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In short, the basic opening principles can be described as working towards accomplishing three main goals.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Fight for control over the central squares (e4,e5,d4,d5).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Get your pieces out from their starting positions.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Get your king to safety.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason for trying to fight for the center is that this will give you more space to use for your pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason for trying to get your pieces out from their starting positions is that pieces that are just sitting on the sidelines of the board tend to be useless spectators.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, the reason for trying to get your king to safety is of course because the king is the one piece that you need to protect at all costs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, how do you accomplish these goals successfully? In truth, there is no easy set of rules that is going to bring you success in every possible game, but there are some good and easy to follow guidelines, which I will go over below.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Begin by pushing a central pawn forward. If you're white, either 1.e4 or 1.d4 are excellent moves to begin the game. If you're black, I'd recommend that you respond to 1.e4 with 1...e5, and to 1.d4 with 1...d5. Other moves are also fine, but I'd recommend these since they are easier to remember. With this first move, you fight for control of central squares, and you're opening up for one of your bishops to be developed.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Bring out your knights to f3 and c3 (as white) or f6 and c6 (as black). This way your knights are developed from their starting positions, and they are also fighting for control over squares in the center.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Now it's time to develop your bishops. If you can without losing them, bringing them out to the 4th or 5th ranks may be best, as they are often quite active there, looking down at the opponent's position. Developing the bishops to the 2nd and 3rd ranks are often a bit more solid options.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;At this stage, if everything has worked out as outlined above, you should be able to put your king to safety by castling. If you are unsure whether you want to play short or long castling, you may move your queen out of the way.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Finally, it's time to connect your rooks by moving your queen out of the way, and after this it is often a good idea to place your rooks along open files, or behind a pawn you intend to push forward soon.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After this, you should have a playable middlegame position in most cases, which is what you want as a beginner. Finally, I'd like to try to explain why I've recommended you play the opening in this particular order most of the time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hopefully it is clear that the point of beginning by moving a central pawn forward is because we're trying to be efficient when trying to fulfill our opening goals. Note that I'm advocating that you focus on getting your pieces out rather than making a bunch of pawn moves in the opening. This is an important thing to remember: if you waste your time moving pawns in the opening with no clear objective, your opponent will finish their development first and will therefore be able to coordinate their pieces into launching an assault on your position before you can do the same to them. This is not good, trust me on that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Secondly, the reason I'm advocating that you develop your knights before your bishops is because it can be difficult to know exactly where you most want your bishops at an early stage. In contrast, your knights will stand well on f3 and c3 (or f6 and c6 as black) in most cases. Thus, by waiting a bit before committing, it may become easier to decide where the bishops are best placed if you don't rush it. On the other hand, if you know where the bishops are headed, there is nothing inherently wrong with bringing one of them  out before both knights are developed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A third point I'd like to highlight is that I'm advocating that you wait with developing your queen until after you've developed your knights and bishops. This is because the queen is way more valuable, and therefore more vulnerable, than the minor pieces; if your queen develops early, and your opponent develops one of their minor pieces by attacking your queen, you will have to move the queen again, thus wasting time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a last point, I'd like to emphasize that these guidelines I've posted are not a recipe for success in every possible scenario. Remember that you're playing against an opponent that is not going to cooperate and let you execute your plans in peace. Sometimes they might force you to react to threats, so be alert and make sure that you don't drop pieces and/or pawns just so that you can follow the guidelines posted above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8300" LastActivityDate="2020-04-23T19:15:33.040" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29300" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-04-23T19:57:37.327" Score="6" ViewCount="252" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my club and local tournaments, opponents playing White often do an early Bc4 when I start a Sicilian. Usually I begin an Old Sicilian, eg 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6. My opponents may play Bc4 on the 2nd, 3rd or 4th move. A recent example is 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4. Usually my UCI or engines code this as B20, aka the Sicilian Cochrane Attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I searched for. detailed ECO listings, but I couldn’t find this under B20, or anywhere else. Web searches revealed that John Cochrane played 5. Bc4 in a Petrov variation and 4. Bc4 in a variation of the King's Gambit. I also couldn’t find anything about Bc4 in the Sicilian.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, what is Sicilian Cochrane Attack?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13674" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-23T20:13:03.057" LastActivityDate="2020-04-24T07:28:26.367" Title="What is the Sicilian Cochrane Attack?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29301" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29300" CreationDate="2020-04-23T20:52:26.300" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Cochrane_(chess_player)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;John Cochrane&lt;/a&gt; is known for his dashing and creative playing style – liberally sacrificing pieces and always attacking. He played an early &lt;code&gt;Bc4&lt;/code&gt; against many openings including the Sicilian. Here are 3 examples against &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Staunton&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Howard Staunton&lt;/a&gt;, regarded as the world's strongest player from 1843 to 1851. These games may explain the origin of the name &lt;strong&gt;Sicilian Cochrane Attack&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;On the 2nd move&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;John Cochrane vs Howard Staunton, London m2 (1842)&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 c5 2.Bc4 e5 3.f4 Nc6 4.Nf3 exf4 5.O-O g5 6.d4 cxd4 7.c3 Bc5 8.cxd4 Nxd4 9.Nxd4 Qb6 10.Kh1 Bxd4 11.Nc3 Bxc3 12.bxc3 Ne7 13.g3 d5 14.Bxd5 Bh3 15.Qh5 Bxf1 16.Qxf7+ Kd8 17.Ba3 Re8 18.Rd1 Be2 19.Bc6+ Bxd1 20.Qxe8+ 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;On the 3rd move&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;John Cochrane vs Howard Staunton, London m2 (1842)&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1.e4 c5 2.d4 cxd4 3.Bc4 e5 4.f4 Nc6 5.Nf3 Nf6 6.Qe2 Be7 7.O-O d6 8.Ng5 O-O 9.fxe5 dxe5 10.Qf3 h6 11.Nxf7 Rxf7 12.Qg3 Na5 13.Bxf7+ Kxf7 14.Qxe5 Nc4 15.Qh5+ Kg8 16.Qe2 Ne5 17.Bf4 d3 18.Qd2 Nxe4 19.Qe1 Bc5+ 20.Kh1 Qd4 21.Nc3 Bf5 22.Bxe5 Nf2+ 23.Rxf2 Qxf2 24.Qxf2 Bxf2 25.cxd3 Bxd3 26.Rd1 Re8 27.Rxd3 Rxe5 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;On the 4th move&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;John Cochrane vs Howard Staunton, London m2 (1842)&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 c5 2.d4 cxd4 3.Nf3 e5 4.Bc4 Nf6 5.Ng5 d5 6.exd5 h6 7.Nf3 Bg4 8.h3 Qc7 9.hxg4 Qxc4 10.Nxe5 Qxd5 11.O-O Bd6 12.Bf4 O-O 13.Re1 Re8 14.c4 Qa5 15.Bd2 Qc7 16.Nd3 Rxe1+ 17.Bxe1 Qxc4 18.Qf3 Nc6 19.Bd2 Re8 20.g5 hxg5 21.Bxg5 Nb4 22.Bf4 Bxf4 23.Nxf4 Qc1+ 24.Kh2 Qxb2 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11749" LastEditorUserId="11749" LastEditDate="2020-04-24T07:28:26.367" LastActivityDate="2020-04-24T07:28:26.367" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29302" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29308" CreationDate="2020-04-24T02:56:19.617" Score="3" ViewCount="242" Body="&lt;p&gt;In &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1713480&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Radjabov vs. Gelfand (2013)&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.Nf3 c5 2.c4 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 e6 6.g3 Qb6 7.Nb3 Ne5 8.e4 Bb4 9.Qe2 d6 10.f4 Nc6 11.Be3 Bxc3+ 12.bxc3 Qc7 13.Bg2 e5 14.c5 b6 15.cxd6 Qxd6 16.O-O O-O 17.f5 Rd8 18.Rfd1 Qa3 19.Rxd8+ Nxd8 20.Bg5 Ba6 21.Qd2 Qe7 22.Rd1 Nb7 23.Bf3 Rd8 24.Qc1 Rxd1+ 25.Bxd1 Nd6 26.Bxf6 gxf6 27.Qe3 Qc7 28.a4 Qd7 29.a5 Nxe4 30.Bc2 Qb5 31.Qf3 Ng5 32.Qg2 bxa5 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On move 15, White plays 15.cxd6 instead of 15.cxb6. Why? I can see two reasons to prefer the latter:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It preserves a weak pawn on d6 (and by extension a weak square on d5).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It makes a new isolated pawn on b6 that's on a semi-open file too.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems to me that the obvious plan is 15.cxb6 intending O-O, Rfd1 and Rab1, etc. However, Radjabov didn't play this, and Stockfish doesn't like it either; at depth 24 it says 15.cxd6 is 0.00, but 15.cxb6 is -0.80. What's wrong with taking on b6?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastActivityDate="2020-05-04T08:20:02.847" Title="Why is 15.cxd6 better than 15.cxb6 here?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;pawn-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29303" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29296" CreationDate="2020-04-24T04:14:04.723" Score="20" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;When moves are randomized, is there an inherent advantage to the player who goes first, or the player who goes second?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first player has a slight advantage. When black has made &lt;em&gt;n&lt;/em&gt; moves, then white has made &lt;em&gt;n+1&lt;/em&gt; when completing his turn. Even if black can mate on his &lt;em&gt;n+1&lt;/em&gt;-th move black still loses. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT&lt;/strong&gt; My analysis was too simple, but I got lucky. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Over 29.28 billion random chess games white is slightly more likely to checkmate than Black (7.7340% vs 7.7293%). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That means for games than end because of a checkmate, white wins 50.015% of them and black wins 49.985%.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See: &lt;a href=&quot;https://wismuth.com/chess/random-games.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://wismuth.com/chess/random-games.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16856" LastEditorUserId="16856" LastEditDate="2020-04-26T00:31:35.040" LastActivityDate="2020-04-26T00:31:35.040" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29304" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-04-24T07:20:02.397" Score="6" ViewCount="663" Body="&lt;p&gt;I live in a small town where there had been a total of 2 tournaments during last 5 years and 0 chess clubs, hence I have almost nil experience playing OTB chess. But sometimes I set up a board and play with my family. I have noticed that I miss a lot of tactics and obvious mates which I couldn't have missed while playing on Lichess. Also, I can't calculate properly OTB. I am shifting to the national capital this year where hopefully I would get to participate in OTB tournaments.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it a normal problem for those who play predominately online chess? How do I go about improving my OTB play?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21526" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-24T13:26:30.707" LastActivityDate="2021-03-18T19:25:29.067" Title="Getting better at OTB chess" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;psychology&gt;&lt;otb-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29305" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29304" CreationDate="2020-04-24T08:10:38.487" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;One suggestion I have seen for how to improve learning when studying openings and tactics is to involve the other senses. This involves not just using sight, looking at the position on a computer, but also setting up the position on the board and playing through it (touch) and (for openings) saying the moves out loud (hearing) as you play them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was a bit sceptical when I read this but your experience backs this up. The obvious way to address this problem is to follow the advice and set up tactics problems on a real board so you practice &quot;over the board&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-04-24T08:10:38.487" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29306" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29318" CreationDate="2020-04-24T11:10:45.570" Score="6" ViewCount="229" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm looking for an opening I saw in a book (&lt;strong&gt;not a chess book&lt;/strong&gt;). The opening was about 10 moves long, and the author stated that the evaluation after the last move shown had been considered for many years in many chess books as &quot;black has a slight advantage&quot;, but later it had been shown that white could checkmate in 1 move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Additional information: the book I read was written by Martin Gardner. It was not a chess book, but possibly a collection of his &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Gardner_bibliography#%22Mathematical_Games%22:_The_Scientific_American_columns&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Scientific American columns&lt;/a&gt;, published in the 60s - 80s. This chess opening was (if I remember correctly) an example in a chapter devoted to puzzles and problems, &lt;strong&gt;unrelated to chess&lt;/strong&gt;, that had been published with a wrong solution, or with a solution that later had been improved.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user23241" LastEditorDisplayName="user23241" LastEditDate="2020-04-25T10:59:36.187" LastActivityDate="2020-04-25T10:59:36.187" Title="Looking for an opening that had been wrongly evaluated for years" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;history&gt;&lt;evaluation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29307" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29302" CreationDate="2020-04-24T13:26:09.640" Score="3" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[title &quot;Radjabov- Gelfand, London 2013&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Nf3 c5 2.c4 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 e6 6.g3 Qb6 7.Nb3 Ne5 8.e4 Bb4 9.Qe2 d6 10.f4 Nc6 11.Be3 Bxc3+ 12.bxc3 Qc7 13.Bg2 e5 14.c5 b6!N &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With the novelty &lt;code&gt;14... b6!&lt;/code&gt; Gelfand shows all his class. According to the &lt;a href=&quot;https://theweekinchess.com/chessnews/events/fide-world-chess-championship-candidates-london-2013/leaders-carlsen-and-aronian-draw-in-otherwise-decisive-candidates-round-8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;official website&lt;/a&gt; Gefand said&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&quot;Mostly great preparation, it's my strong quality. Any computer would show you c5&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The move &lt;code&gt;14...b6&lt;/code&gt; goes with the move &lt;code&gt;13...e5&lt;/code&gt;. Gelfand likes &quot;&lt;strong&gt;the concept&lt;/strong&gt; because it cuts two pieces.&quot; The Bishop in g2 becomes very passive and the Knight in b3 is deprived from its natural square in d4. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From now on white has to come up with concrete ideas and find counterplay to maintain the game balance. Otherwise, it could be quickly worse as in the game. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Taking in b6&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At first glance, taking in &lt;code&gt;b6&lt;/code&gt; looks weird. On general principle, we don't want &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;to exchange an active pawn (&lt;code&gt;c5&lt;/code&gt;) against a passive pawn (&lt;code&gt;a7&lt;/code&gt;). &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;to open the &lt;code&gt;a&lt;/code&gt; line for free&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;to give the square &lt;code&gt;a6&lt;/code&gt; for the bishop.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On a more concrete note, taking in b6 create two weaknesses &lt;code&gt;d6&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;b6&lt;/code&gt;. In particular, White can target the &lt;code&gt;b6&lt;/code&gt; pawn, like in the following variation&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[title &quot;After taking in b6&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Nf3 c5 2.c4 Nc6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 e6 6. g3 Qb6 7. Nb3 Ne5 8. e4 Bb4 9. Qe2 d6 10. f4 Nc6 11. Be3 Bxc3+ 12. bxc3 Qc7 13. Bg2 e5 14. c5 b6 15. cxb6 axb6 16. O-O Ba6 17. c4 O-O (17... Nd4?? 18. Bxd4 exd4 19. e5! Bxc4 20. Qc2+-) 18. Rab1  &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White got some counterplay and the position is very sharp.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Taking in d6&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Radjabov reacted slowly and his position collapsed quickly. In the following game, Svane took on d6, and found some counterplay to equalize.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[title &quot;Svane, Rasmus (2542) vs. Ragger, Markus (2695) Bundesliga 2015&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Nf3 c5 2.c4 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 e6 6.g3 Qb6 7.Nb3 Ne5 8.e4 Bb4 9.Qe2 d6 10.f4 Nc6 11.Be3 Bxc3+ 12.bxc3 Qc7 13.Bg2 e5 14.c5 b6 15.cxd6 Qxd6 16.O-O O-O 17.Rfd1 Qe7 18.f5 Qa3 19.Bc1 Qa4 20.Bg5 Ba6 21.Qe3 Rfd8 22.Bxf6 gxf6 23.Qh6 Rxd1+ 24.Rxd1 Qxa2 25.Qxf6 Qxb3 26.Qg5+ Kh8 27.Qf6+ Kg8 28.Qg5+ Kh8 29.Qf6+ Kg8 ½-½&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;In summary&lt;/strong&gt;, it's really hard to give a definite answer. However, I tend to agree with @Allure that taking in &lt;code&gt;b6&lt;/code&gt; was a good alternative. At least it's probably not worse than taking in &lt;code&gt;d6&lt;/code&gt; since after &lt;code&gt;14.c5&lt;/code&gt;, the move &lt;code&gt;14..b6!&lt;/code&gt; gave Black a very good position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11749" LastEditorUserId="11749" LastEditDate="2020-05-04T08:20:02.847" LastActivityDate="2020-05-04T08:20:02.847" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29308" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29302" CreationDate="2020-04-24T13:26:58.037" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are a few ways White is at a disadvantage here that I found:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Black’s dominance in the center.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The active black knights.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;White is left with 3 pawn islands, which is never considered good.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Look at White’s pieces here-no really good moves are available. The knight can't move up and come into play. The rooks are undeveloped/have no open files to dominate. The bishops don't have room to move freely, and the same goes for the queen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    [Event &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;    [Site &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;    [Date &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;    [Round &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;    [White &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;    [Black &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;    [Result &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;    [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;        1.Nf3 c5 2.c4 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 e6 6.g3 Qb6 7.Nb3 Ne5 8.e4 Bb4 9.Qe2 d6 10.f4 Nc6 11.Be3 Bxc3+ 12.bxc3 Qc7 13.Bg2 e5 14.c5 b6 15. cxb6 axb6 16. O-O O-O&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you continue with this all hell breaks loose for White: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.Nf3 c5 2.c4 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 e6 6.g3 Qb6 7.Nb3 Ne5 8.e4 Bb4 9.Qe2 d6 10.f4 Nc6 11.Be3 Bxc3+ 12.bxc3 Qc7 13.Bg2 e5 14.c5 b6 15. cxb6 axb6 16. O-O Ba6 17. c4 Nd4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bxc4 is always coming, Ng4 is possible at some point, and Nc2 is a possibility. You can always bring the Queen to c2 to force an exchange of material. White's light squared bishop is still not helping much. Don't forget about the dominating  center pawns. If you play on you'll definitely find Black up by material.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I will not say &quot;always take towards center,” but it does help you most of the time. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23242" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2020-04-24T13:39:50.643" LastActivityDate="2020-04-24T13:39:50.643" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29309" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29310" CreationDate="2020-04-24T18:55:06.820" Score="5" ViewCount="314" Body="&lt;p&gt;I remember seeing somewhere an opening line, where one side gets rook and the other one 5 pawns, it was pretty sharp. I also remember that it's now considered dubious, because one of the sides was proven to be much better. Unfortunately I don't remember which side was which and also the parent opening or the starting moves. Does this line come to mind to someone? It would be greatly appreciated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23245" LastActivityDate="2020-04-24T19:38:30.990" Title="Looking for an opening line: a rook vs 5 pawns" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29310" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29309" CreationDate="2020-04-24T19:38:30.990" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is it this line in the Advance Caro-Kann of which you are thinking?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. e5 Bf5 4. Nc3 e6&#xA;5. g4 Bg6 6. Nge2 c5 7. h4 cxd4 8. Nxd4 h5&#xA;9. f4 hxg4 10. Bb5+ Nd7 11. f5 Rxh4 12. Rf1 exf5&#xA;13. e6 fxe6 14. Nxe6 Qe7 15. Qe2 Rh2 16. Nc7+ Kd8&#xA;17. Qxe7+ Bxe7 18. Bf4 Rxc2 19. Nxa8 Bh4+ 20. Kd1 Rxb2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7726" LastActivityDate="2020-04-24T19:38:30.990" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29311" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-04-24T20:41:36.137" Score="0" ViewCount="388" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;White's turn, checkmate in two moves&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;r1b2k1r/1p2bppp/p1B2q2/8/8/8/PPPQ1P1P/2KRR3 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How does White deliver checkmate in 2 moves?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23249" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-09-02T11:27:35.930" LastActivityDate="2020-09-09T04:38:01.603" Title="A chess problem: White to play and mate in two" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;problems&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29312" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29311" CreationDate="2020-04-24T21:48:33.160" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The problem is a simple brute force (i.e. sacrifices and/or checks) tactic that teaches how to see back-rank weaknesses and how to open up lines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Solution: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt; 1. Qd8+! (A forcing move that gives Black no move but to respond to) Bxd8 (The only legal move available) 2. Re8# (This shows the point giving up the queen-to force the Black bishop to open up the e-file as to allow the rook to move and give a mate that takes advantage of the Black king’s extremely bad position and misplaced pieces.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastActivityDate="2020-04-24T21:48:33.160" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29313" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1611" CreationDate="2020-04-25T06:22:56.933" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;One of the best strategies I feel is when you blunder and find yourself in a weak or vulnerable position,  take a deep breath, salvage anything you can and then launch an all out attack in any way possible. Go for the king, something an opponent on top will not expect and do it with gusto and almost reckless abandon. Dont cower! Heck, if your going to lose, go down fighting and give your opponent as much of a scare as possible!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23253" LastActivityDate="2020-04-25T06:22:56.933" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29314" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29330" CreationDate="2020-04-25T08:40:30.833" Score="1" ViewCount="137" Body="&lt;p&gt;I always have problems in  executing  The Greek Gift. This a position which I got in a recent game :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;rn1q1rk1/1b1nbppp/p3p3/1p2P3/3N4/2NB4/PPP1Q1PP/R1B2RK1 w - - 3 13&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even though the Knight is not there on f6 square and can't come here safely, I lost after scarifying the Bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can someone explain when and when not to use the The Greek Gift and give some tips regarding the same?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21526" LastActivityDate="2020-04-26T12:28:47.877" Title="Tips on The Greek Gift" Tags="&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;middlegame&gt;&lt;greek-gift&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29315" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29320" CreationDate="2020-04-25T08:59:22.257" Score="3" ViewCount="93" Body="&lt;p&gt;Recently I've been studying &lt;strong&gt;Lasker - Capablanca World Championship Match (1921)&lt;/strong&gt;. Is there a book that gives the story behind the match? Also, I would appreciate the game annotations. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Best wishes and thank you. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13819" LastActivityDate="2020-04-26T12:57:42.417" Title="A book on the Lasker - Capablanca World Championship Match (1921)" Tags="&lt;world-championship&gt;&lt;capablanca&gt;&lt;lasker&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29316" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-04-25T09:22:10.687" Score="2" ViewCount="157" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/posts/comments/46636&quot;&gt;This line of play&lt;/a&gt; leads to this position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[White &quot;White&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Black to move&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;8/rp4p1/1N1nkb2/3n4/6R1/1R6/8/2K5 b - - 1 38&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;StockFish 10+ assures me that Black has a big advantage, but I am interested to know whether it is possible to humanly analyze it and be completely certain of a winning strategy. Although SF suggests keeping my pieces, my instinct is to exchange as many pieces as possible except the pawns, while pushing the pawns to queen, which includes taking the knight immediately. However, is there any hope of &lt;strong&gt;proving&lt;/strong&gt; a winning strategy here, rather than relying on intuition? I think this is somewhat plausible because Black has enough minor pieces for the king to hide behind (even after exchanging 2 of them), and so White cannot make sustained checks. The question is whether there is a systematic way for Black to push the pawns that is guaranteed to work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I do not see any convincing reason that there cannot be a proof of a winning strategy, because there are numerous examples of endgames with human analysis of the optimal strategy (e.g. &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/q/9003&quot;&gt;a&lt;/a&gt;,&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/q/28225&quot;&gt;b&lt;/a&gt;,&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/q/12220&quot;&gt;c&lt;/a&gt;,&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/q/18601&quot;&gt;d&lt;/a&gt;,&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/1725&quot;&gt;e&lt;/a&gt;). If the position was not so imbalanced, I know it would be much harder to prove a win. But here, Black has sufficiently many pieces that I feel there should be a proof that we can force some trades to get to a certain winning position. That is also why I would choose to take the knight immediately to hopefully make a full analysis humanly tractable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9192" LastEditorUserId="9192" LastEditDate="2020-04-26T12:15:46.737" LastActivityDate="2020-04-26T12:31:44.143" Title="Human analysis for a KRBNNPP against KRRN ending?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;pawn-promotion&gt;&lt;rook-and-minor-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29318" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29306" CreationDate="2020-04-25T10:31:57.200" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Maybe Martin Gardner was writing about this story. I'm quoting from p. 95 of Irving Chernev and Fred Reinfeld, &lt;em&gt;The Fireside Book of Chess&lt;/em&gt;, Simon and Schuster, New York, 1949. (Of course they gave the moves in descriptive notation.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In the eighth edition of a popular manual by Dufresne and Mieses, the following line of play is given:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 c5 4.Nf3 cxd4 5.Nxd4 e5 6.Ndb5 d4 7.Nd5 Na6 8.Qa4 Bd7 9.e3 Ne7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In this situation, the authors' comment is, &quot;Black has the superior position.&quot; What the analysts seem to have overlooked is that White can mate on the move!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm guessing Kt-B3 was somehow typoed into Kt-K2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2299" LastEditorUserId="2299" LastEditDate="2020-04-25T10:36:43.390" LastActivityDate="2020-04-25T10:36:43.390" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29319" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13871" CreationDate="2020-04-25T11:40:49.300" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;From Chess Programming Wiki, this article (&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessprogramming.org/Checkmate&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.chessprogramming.org/Checkmate&lt;/a&gt;) explains some rules that you can use to implement checkmate detection.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) double check - only the king can move on this situation. So, if the king has no valid moves, you have a checkmate. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) single check - in this situation, the king may move out of check position, or if the attacker piece is a knight or a pawn, you should detect if they may be captured. For the attacking from queen, rook and bishop, they could be captured or some opposite piece should be placed between the attacked king and the attacker.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To start the above, you may create a function that lists the pieces that are attacking the king. If the list is empty, no check. If the list has a single pice, a single check. And, finnaly, if the list has two pieces, you have a double check. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19648" LastActivityDate="2020-04-25T11:40:49.300" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29320" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29315" CreationDate="2020-04-25T14:38:25.373" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Capablanca's comments about the match can be found in &lt;a href=&quot;https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/0486231895&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; book.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastActivityDate="2020-04-25T14:38:25.373" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29321" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29101" CreationDate="2020-04-25T18:11:11.090" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The simplest and the smoothest rule for play is to say that if a player has multiple kings, they are not royal, i.e. they aren't subject to check and can just be captured. When a player is reduced to having only one king to lead his army, the normal rules apply.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The mate-one-to-win rule means it is disadvantageous to promote to a king, while mate-all-to-win can be absurdly difficult to achieve. The rule above seems a practical middle ground.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8201" LastActivityDate="2020-04-25T18:11:11.090" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29322" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29316" CreationDate="2020-04-25T18:36:57.003" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;@SmallChess is right. This position is absolutely hopeless for White, and there is a very human strategy for Black, which consists here in not exchanging pieces, but &lt;strong&gt;hunting the white king&lt;/strong&gt;. This strategy will force White to exchange pieces unfavorably or White will lose material to avoid being mate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The principle behind this strategy is simple &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;&quot;with three or more pieces in the attack the enemy king will not be able to escape.&quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is an example where nothing is forced but it's very difficult to suggest good ideas for White. White is completely squeezed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[White &quot;White&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Black to move&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;8/rp4p1/1N1nkb2/3n4/6R1/1R6/8/2K5 b - - 1 38&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1...Nc3! {Black chases the king and cuts off the two rooks. They can't easily coordinate.} 2.Nc4 Nde4! {same strategy: coordinating the pieces to go against the White king} 3.Kc2 (3.Ra3 {is probably better but now Black is happy to exchange and push the g pawn} 3...Rxa3 4. Nxa3 Kf5 5.Rg2 g5-+) b5 4.Ne3 (4.Rxb5 Nxb5 5.Rxe4 Kf5-+ {does not help White}) Rc7 {here with get our principle of three or more pieces in the attack and the White king feels unsafe} 5.Rg2 (5.Kd3 Nf2-+) Na2! 6.Kb1? (6. Kd1 {is better but the King does not escape} Rc1+ 7. Ke2 Nac3+ 8. Kf3 Rh1-+) Rc1 7.Kxa2 Ra1#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11749" LastEditorUserId="11749" LastEditDate="2020-04-26T09:04:55.940" LastActivityDate="2020-04-26T09:04:55.940" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29323" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29329" CreationDate="2020-04-25T20:39:11.203" Score="5" ViewCount="90" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Andrew Soltis's book &lt;I&gt;The 100 Best Chess Games of the 20th Century, Ranked&lt;/I&gt;, his number 1 game is a correspondence game between Yakov Estrin and Hans Berliner, from the 1965&amp;ndash;1968 World Correspondence Championship.  This is of course a provocative choice, and Soltis, when making his selection, evidently believed that Berliner's play was sound.  Soltis quotes Berliner as offering to play anyone from the position after Black's 9th move (as Black) for stakes of $1,000, provided he was given draw odds.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have a rather old engine, but I decided to see what it thought of the game.  It says that Estrin could have significantly improved at move 12.  This critical position is diagrammed below.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;r3k2r/p1p2ppp/3b4/1p1n4/3Pp1bq/5PN1/PP1P2PP/RNBQKB1R w KQkq - 2 12&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here, Estrin played 12.Bxb5+ but my engine prefers 12.Qe2, and gives the main line as 12...O-O 13.fxg4 Bxg3+ 14.Kd1 with an advantage to White.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is my engine missing something or does this line refute Berliner's play?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17540" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-25T22:30:16.847" LastActivityDate="2020-04-26T12:16:55.323" Title="Soltis's best chess game of the 20th century" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;correspondence-chess&gt;&lt;famous-games&gt;&lt;two-knights&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29324" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29296" CreationDate="2020-04-26T05:42:46.130" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The preceding answers are great, but I can add one point that has just occurred to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The statistical analysis suggests a small advantage for White in random chess. But any mating position can be &quot;flipped&quot; (pieces White&amp;lt;-&gt;Black, person to move changed and flip board top&amp;lt;-&gt; bottom) to make a legal position with the other side mating. In other words, there are no cases where the parity present in the starting position can be kept all the way through to checkmate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In other, other words: in the hugeness of chess there are &lt;em&gt;exactly&lt;/em&gt; the same number of mating positions for White as Black. So it's slightly paradoxical then that more random games are won by White. I guess the answer is that to flip the parity requires following some relatively improbable path of moves (e.g. 1.c3 d5 2.c4 to simulate 1.d4 c5).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8201" LastEditorUserId="8201" LastEditDate="2020-04-26T08:48:22.493" LastActivityDate="2020-04-26T08:48:22.493" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29325" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-04-26T09:17:37.387" Score="1" ViewCount="136" Body="&lt;p&gt;When did chess engines first assign a high value to a pawn on the sixth rank, with an opposing pawn in front of it?  (This pawn is called a &quot;thorn pawn&quot;, &quot;fawn pawn&quot;, or &quot;nail pawn&quot;.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23258" LastActivityDate="2020-04-26T11:29:53.600" Title="Value of a Thorn Pawn?" Tags="&lt;pawn-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29326" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29325" CreationDate="2020-04-26T11:29:53.600" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would assume such pawns have always be valued somewhat higher (generally) by chess engines since they were around. Doing so follows from rather basic heuristics, that weak engines long ago could have followed:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) Controlling important squares. Taking the example of the e6-pawn (for the points below as well), it controls the f7- and d7-squares.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) Potentially blocking in enemy pieces. If Black's bishop were still on f8 then it would have to come out via ...g6 and ...Bg7. Black's major pieces are also prevented from fighting for the e-file.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) Conversely, White's major pieces have free reign over the e-file.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, sometimes a pawn on the 6th rank could prove to be a weakness. But if it's protected enough, usually the benefits are clear.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2020-04-26T11:29:53.600" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29327" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29316" CreationDate="2020-04-26T11:36:08.070" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The position looks clearly winning for Black, and I don't think it makes much of a difference whether you exchange knights or not. It might make your task simpler, but Black's knight could be a bit stronger than White's.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To win all you really have to do is push one of your pawns, with the support of the king. Your other pieces can be used to block checks, and the minor pieces can also chase any blockading rooks out of the pawn's way. Eventually things will get to the point where you win a White rook for the pawn and a minor piece (in the worst case scenario), which will result in an easily won position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure how to give a certain proof that guarantees a win, as there's no forced mate yet. It's just a position where Black is up 4 points, so a winning edge should be taken for granted at this point.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastEditorUserId="12873" LastEditDate="2020-04-26T12:31:44.143" LastActivityDate="2020-04-26T12:31:44.143" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29328" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14552" CreationDate="2020-04-26T12:06:05.257" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I analyzed the endgame for more than half an hour with Houdini 6.02 d = 42 /91 and then a analyzed again starting with few moves before the end of the line at d =38/74. IT ends in a seven piece endgame (knight and two pawns vs knight and a pawn) that tablebases evaluated as won for White (Mate in 39). It seems winning, even though I didn't take notes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23264" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2020-04-26T18:32:46.000" LastActivityDate="2020-04-26T18:32:46.000" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29329" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29323" CreationDate="2020-04-26T12:16:55.323" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The move you gave looks fine. In my correspondence database I have 9 games in the position after 11...Bd6. Eight went for 12.Bxb5+, but one game (featuring a 2397 player from 2010) chose 12.Qe2. Even though the game is old, it gives some backing to 12.Qe2 because of the player's strength. Meanwhile, the strongest evidence in correspondence for 12.Bxb5+ comes from it being chosen in two more recent 2015 games by a 2166 and 2000 rated player. Both moves seem to indicate an advantage for White, given the results in correspondence (even though the latest games were from 2015, engine use was permitted).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At over depth 40, Stockfish 11 gives me around +3.48 for 12.Qe2. Meanwhile, 12.Bxb5+ hovers close to +2. After 12.Qe2 0-0 (12...Be6 13.Qf2 exf3 14.Bxb5+ Kd8 15.gxf3 is winning; meanwhile, 12...Bxg3+ 13.hxg3 Qxh1 14.Qxb5+ Bd7 15.Qxd5 is also extremely good) 13.fxg4 Bxg3+ (or 13...Nf6 14.g5 Ng4 15.Kd1 Bxg3 16.Kc2) 14.Kd1, we've followed your line. Stockfish gives over +3 for White, and that 2010 correspondence game I mentioned also reached this position. White went on to win the game without much trouble.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;TLDR: the line looks to be safely refuted for Black after 12.Qe2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2020-04-26T12:16:55.323" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29330" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29314" CreationDate="2020-04-26T12:28:47.877" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The main tips are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) A pawn on e5 helps. Not only does it prevent ...Nf6, but it also takes away the f6-square from Black's king once it comes to g6 (via ...Kxh7-...Kg6).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) The greek gift is usually followed up with Ng5+. So if the g5-square is defended by Black, or if you don't have a knight on f3, this idea won't work. In some cases perhaps you could make do without the knight, such as Qh5+ followed by bringing a rook to the h-file, but in the position you posted that doesn't look feasible. Rf3 is prevented by the b7-bishop, while Rf4-Rh4 runs into ...Bxh4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) Assuming that a Ng5 follow up is possible, calculate the position after: Bxh7+ Kxh7 Ng5+ Kg6. This is usually what happens in the greek gift, since Kg8 runs into Qh5 (with Qh7# threatened). In the position after ...Kg6, how will you follow up? If you play Qg4, can ...f5 be met well (perhaps with exf6 or Qg3)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4) Make sure that if Black answers Ng5+ with Kg8, Qh5 would truly be winning. For example, can the king escape in any way, or can the h7-square be guarded?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5) Do a force count of the kingside - who has a stronger armada of pieces concentrated there? For example, in your diagram the f1-rook is opened on the f-file and can be a great contributor. But again, since there is no Ng5+ follow up, the idea doesn't work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2020-04-26T12:28:47.877" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29331" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29274" CreationDate="2020-04-26T12:45:58.403" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Because they were playing on a chess site, it's dependent on whatever system that site follows. For example, chess.com rules a K+N+N vs K a draw, even though a mate is legally possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2020-04-26T12:45:58.403" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29332" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29333" CreationDate="2020-04-26T12:50:58.277" Score="4" ViewCount="430" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm looking at &lt;a href=&quot;https://gameknot.com/chess-puzzle.pl?pz=238406&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this problem&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;White to move. Mate in three&quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;5rb1/1p1P1pbr/1p5p/5N/PP2k/1Np3QB/6K/8 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It requires white to mate in three. The accepted solution starts with 1. Kf1. But there seems to be a mate in 2 via 1. Ne7 and then 2. Bf5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Am I missing something? If the mate in 2 is correct, is it common/normal for a problem to request a mate in 3 when a mate in 2 is available?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12113" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-26T13:09:56.517" LastActivityDate="2020-04-26T13:09:56.517" Title="Problem with a shorter solution" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;problems&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29333" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29332" CreationDate="2020-04-26T12:53:56.230" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;After 1.Ne7 Black has 1...f5, stopping the immediate 2.Bf5#.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2020-04-26T12:53:56.230" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29334" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29315" CreationDate="2020-04-26T12:57:42.417" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Kasparov's My Great Predecessors series covers all the world champions before him, including the world championship matches they participated in. The one you're interested in is dealt with in volume 1 of the series.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2020-04-26T12:57:42.417" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29335" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28928" CreationDate="2020-04-26T13:04:46.377" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you get ChessBase, there are a number of features that are available when setting up a certain position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) With a reference database, you can see the moves chosen in all the games from that position. These moves can be ranked in various ways (e.g., number of games played, rating of players, etc).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) When turning on an engine to analyze the position, you can see previous engine evaluations of the position (stored from people who analyzed it before). This assumes you're connected to the internet, and that they were as well (so that their engine evaluation could be saved on the cloud).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) The LiveBook feature allows you to see the number of visits certain moves from that position have had by people who analyzed previously (again, assuming these people were connected to the cloud at the time). This is often a good way to see what the best moves are objectively, as well as the most popular moves played in games (since people could be following a game, which is why they looked at a particular move).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2020-04-26T13:04:46.377" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29336" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24378" CreationDate="2020-04-26T13:11:15.063" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Almost all (if not all) of your brilliancies were immediately seen by the engine. If the engine always points out your moves that it agrees with, then standard opening moves would be considered brilliancies. So now the problem arises of figuring out moves that are difficult or pleasing for humans specifically, and this is beyond the normal scope of an engine's purpose.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2020-04-26T13:11:15.063" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29337" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6146" CreationDate="2020-04-26T17:06:44.480" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I tried to put up Houdini 6.02 and a tablebase win is reached , albeit it is a mate in 48 !!! According to seven piece tablebases, White is even forced to give up the pawn toward the end but obtain a winning Philidor position! Yes , White wins , but has a lot of work to do.&#xA;Position WHITE Rook in h6 Bishop in g3, pawn in h6 , King in g2 BLACK Rook in d1 , pawn in g5 King in f5. BLACK to move : White mates in 48 moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23264" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2020-04-26T18:31:29.100" LastActivityDate="2020-04-26T18:31:29.100" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29338" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29339" CreationDate="2020-04-26T17:33:25.663" Score="7" ViewCount="1000" Body="&lt;p&gt;I created a &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/study/vcOzRRpD&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Lichess study&lt;/a&gt; of a &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/mCD80ebP/white#94&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;game &lt;/a&gt; I played the game an hour ago and have tried to annotate it. Would anyone care to have a look and see if I'm missing the point of I annotation all together? For example, should write more or, write less and include more variations? Does anyone have any suggestions?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Thylmanoid vs Jack11&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 d6 4. d4 exd4 {I'm better developed and I want to strike at the center. I also considered O-O but I didn't want Bg4.} 5. Qxd4 {I also considered Nxd4 but this looks more active and I also have some threats of Bxg7 later perhaps. Also this game reminded me of a famous Paul Morphy game in the philidor.} Bd7 {Now Nxd4 is a threat. } 6. Bxc6 Bxc6 {Black now has the pair of the bishops.} 7. Bg5 Nf6 { I thought here for a while because I felt there is something wrong with this move but I couldn't find the solution.} 8. Bxf6 Qxf6 {I took the knight to induce doubled isolated f-pawns but I don't think it was the correct move. Black now has the pair of the bishops and the potential to trade queens into an easy endgame.} 9. Qxf6 gxf6 {I could have considered Nc3 here but the whole plan of Bxf6 was to give Black double isolated pawns and to play against them.} 10. Nbd2 Bh6 {I think this is an inaccuracy because of my opponents move Bh6 preventing me from castling queen-side. And threatening the take the pawn on e4. Nc3 is probably better. But I wanted the chance to play c4 putting a clamp on the d5 square.} 11. O-O-O Bxe4 {Here I tried to be fancy. I thought after Bxe4 I had Re1 pinning the bishop forcing d5 or f5 and then Nxe4 after Kb1.} 12. Rhe1 d5 13. Kb1 O-O-O 14. Nxe4 dxe4 {I took the bishop but I thought before I could take the pawn too. I lost a pawn, at least I took away the bishop pair. Now my plan is to prevent Black from playing f5.} 15. Nh4 Bg5 {He is attacking my knight but my knight wanted to go to f5 anyway. g3 would be an ugly move here. I don't want to play Rxd8 here and give Black the only open file.} 16. Nf5 Rhe8 { He is defending his pawn now. Also defending my threat of Ne7+. I'm wondering if Rxd8+ and then Ne7+ does anything but he could just take with the king.} 17. h4 Rxd1+ { Here I had ideas of trapping his bishop. But I didn't see how they could work after 17...Bf4 18 g3 Bd2 19 Re2 the bishop just gets away on the e1-a5 diagonal.} 18. Rxd1 Bf4 19. c3 {There feels like something stronger here c3 is too slow I feel. Maybe g3 is good here now. The bishop only has e5 or d6.} Re5 {Attacking my knight. But blocking the escape squares for the bishop. I was afraid after g3 he just wins a pawn with 20. g3 Rxf5 {Here I felt the knight was best on d5 in the center of the board} 21. gxf4 Rxf4 and he has a passed pawn.} 20. Nd4 Bh6 21. Ka1 a6 {This was a mouse slip. I wanted to play Kc3.} 22. Kb1 c5 {I'm losing valuable tempos now.} 23. Nb3 f5 {Nc2 could be stronger here with control over the e3 square.} 24.Rd6 Bf8 {I liked this move. tempo on the bishop and finally getting to activate my rook.} 25. Rf6 f4 {Putting pressure on both the pawns g4 and f7.} 26. Rxf4 f5 {This bishop is undefended on f8.} 27. g4 Bh6 {I wanted to take advantage of the undefended bishop.} 28. Rxf5 Rxf5 {This seems very good for me. I have a passed pawn and the pressure of the e pawn for black is gone. I'm also a pawn up. I need to get my king into the center and my knight.} 29. gxf5 b6 30. Kc2 Kd7 {I would love Bxd2. But anyway I need to activate my knight. It was doing nothing on b3.} 31. Nd2 e3 {I didn't see this move. It is kind of annoying actually.} 32. fxe3 Bxe3 33. Kd3 {Getting my king to the center.} Bf2 {Attacking my h pawn.} 34. Nf3 Ke7 {I decided to defend the pawn instead of pushing.} 35. Ke4 Kf6 {I started to worry about my time so I just wanted to get my king to the center.} 36. h5 Bg3 {My knight does a good job of controlling the g4 square. I didn't want the h pawn to be a target. And I didn't want my knight to have the sole responsiblity of defending the pawn.} 37. c4 Bd6 {Now I see that perhaps Kf4 and c4 completely neutralises the bishop. I think kf4 would have been a strong move before. Not the bishop can escape.} 38. a3 Bf8 { Controlling b4.} 39. b3 Bh6 { Here I felt like I didn't really know what to do on the queenside. I just wanted to neutralise the pawns so there was no hope of getting a passed pawn.} 40. a4 { Keeping my pawns on light squares and preventing a passed pawn for black.} Bc1 {I honestly felt like I was close to zugzwang here} 41. Ng1 Bb2 { I thought Kg5 would have been strong there. But perhaps I would have Nf3+ Ne5.} 42. Nf3 Bc1 {I was struggling to find moves here. It seems easier for the bishop to make waiting move.} 43. Ne5 Bd2 {Trying to just think of moves that don't lose on the spot. I was really afraid of time trouble here. Living off the increment. Attacking the bishop.} 44. Nf3 Bc3 45. Kd3 Bb2 { Black can't take the pawn.} 46. Ke4 Ba1 {I thought this was a draw even thought I have an extra pawn.} 47. Kf4 h6 {I didn't like this move for Black. He could always use that as a reverse tempo in the future perhaps.} 48. Nd2 Be5+ 49. Kg4 Bc3 50. Ne4+ {Black blundered a fork.} Ke5 51. Nxc3 Kd4 52. f6 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14747" LastEditorUserId="14747" LastEditDate="2020-04-26T22:04:25.893" LastActivityDate="2020-04-26T22:04:25.893" Title="Is this how to annotate your own chess games properly?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;annotation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29339" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29338" CreationDate="2020-04-26T22:01:07.530" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think you did a great job there of annotating your game. If you have a coach (or an analysis buddy) and you were to show them that then they would get a big head start in identifying problems in your game and helping you to improve.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess is a game of challenge. You make your moves on the board but then so does your opponent and his moves challenge yours. When you analyse it is also good if you have somebody to challenge you. I mentioned an analysis buddy in the previous paragraph. It is really good if you have someone like that. You analyse one of their games as well and vice versa and then you sit down and compare and critique each others analyses. The final step would be to put the game into an engine and compare its analysis with yours and your analysis buddy's to see what you have missed and to try and work out why.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Two things stand out from what you've written:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;You don't do enough calculation before making your moves. Once you've done some calculation then apart from seeing if you've gained or lost material you also need to assess the situation to see if your position has got better or worse. I'm guessing this was a fast time control like blitz so there wasn't much time for calculation. That, by the way, is why blitz is bad for your game. It develops and cements bad habits like not doing enough calculation.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;There is very little prophylactic thinking. In other words you don't seem to think very much about your opponent's possible moves and plans and how to stop them with the result that they often catch you unawares leading to blunders. Again this might be due to playing too fast.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to see these two ideas in action then Simon Williams, the gingergm, has a YouTube channel where he sometimes &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLQQ6Y41L8gPOAzxmado8gFi0y3V3kAwFB&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;puts up rapid games&lt;/a&gt; (15+10) where he thinks aloud so you can see the brain of a GM doing this kind of stuff.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-04-26T22:01:07.530" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29340" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17597" CreationDate="2020-04-27T01:56:43.970" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Starting with 30 Rxf6 + Black to move Houdini 6.02 d = 39/81 takes to a winning seven pieces endgame for White (+ 2.53) . The endgame is even rook and three pawns vs rook. Mate in 30.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23264" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-27T11:11:05.457" LastActivityDate="2020-04-27T11:11:05.457" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29342" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29343" CreationDate="2020-04-27T12:58:46.530" Score="1" ViewCount="101" Body="&lt;p&gt;While playing chess against a computer I am able to analyse what the computer is going to move even at the highest difficulty level but I am not able to place good moves against the computer. Can anyone tell me how can I improve?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23278" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-27T17:58:46.617" LastActivityDate="2020-04-27T17:58:46.617" Title="Attacking moves" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;learning&gt;&lt;beginner&gt;&lt;attack&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29343" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29342" CreationDate="2020-04-27T14:41:18.520" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can't give exact tips specifically catered to your gameplay as you have not provided information on how you generally open your games, but here are a few general tips.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) Develop Bishops and Knights (get them out into a more accesable spot)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) Control the center 4 squares of the board so that the opponent can't move their peices through the center (use the 2 center pawns and knights)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) &quot;Connect&quot; pieces so that if one is taken, the square can be retaken. The centeral pieces should be protected by multiple pieces. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4) Castle your king (This is often somewhat overrated, this shouldn't be your immediate priority but should be done soon after controlling the center if possible) A king behind 3 pawns that are max 2 rows ahead is generally a strong defense, I find putting the king and 3 pawns in a diamond formation to be the best  defense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5) Avoid moving out your queen to early, keep it protected so you can use it more in the end game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;6) Don't create extensive pawn chains, generally try to just use 2 central pawns and then the one diagonal from the queen then use knights and bishops.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's a decent trap for beginner players: Move your bishop infront of your knight, wait for an opening and then take out the rook in the opposing corner.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I hope this helps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23280" LastActivityDate="2020-04-27T14:41:18.520" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29344" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29346" CreationDate="2020-04-27T18:18:58.767" Score="4" ViewCount="1070" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was stuck on a chesstempo tactics rating of around1482-1509 for about 2 days. I reached my current level within 3 days. I want to improve to an 1800+ rating. How can I improve?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21840" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-27T18:24:20.920" LastActivityDate="2020-04-27T18:48:51.677" Title="How should I improve my chesstempo tactics rating?" Tags="&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;beginner&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29345" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29344" CreationDate="2020-04-27T18:43:50.050" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your question is not clear if chess tempo tactics rating refers to chess games or chess puzzles so I will include the answer for both.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess games:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only way to improve your rating here is by winning games or drawing players at higher levels than you. The higher rated the players you beat are, the more points you will gain, and the higher rated the players who you lose to, the fewer points you will lose and of course visa versa. This is called the ELO rating system, here's a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elo_rating_system&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;link&lt;/a&gt; that further explain it if you so desire. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess Puzzles&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Again this uses the ELO system. Each puzzle is given a difficulty rating. The higher this number, the more points you will get by correctly solving it, the fewer points you will lose by incorrectly solving it, and visa versa. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, for each one, don't expect linear growth. They are exponential, with the relative slope reducing as your rating increases.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All that being said, I can't stress enough how important it is to actually play to get better, not just for points. As someone famous said (idk who) &quot;Don't chase a score when following excellence. Chase excellence and the scores will follow you.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23280" LastActivityDate="2020-04-27T18:43:50.050" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29346" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29344" CreationDate="2020-04-27T18:48:51.677" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;You should not obsess with ratings let alone tactics rating on some website. (Specifying your rating to the last digit suggests you do.) It is just a number. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Once you solved a problem. Chesstempo also shows you the &lt;strong&gt;tactical motive&lt;/strong&gt; for this particular problem which is quite useful for learning. Make sure that you can recognize each motive in the solution. If not, learn about this particular motive and do more tactics of that type of motive. It is essential that you take the time to understand the problem with the solution at hand.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Be &lt;strong&gt;patient&lt;/strong&gt; when solving tactics. Don't go for the first good move you see. Consider all of your opponent's options. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Do more tactics, but also mix it with playing regular games and resting time. The goal is to store those motifs subsconsciously and this can only be done by repition.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2020-04-27T18:48:51.677" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29347" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29354" CreationDate="2020-04-27T22:47:45.993" Score="5" ViewCount="204" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am not sure if this question has been asked before, but I recently had a friend, who is a NM, play a blitz match against stockfish (level 12 I believe) and commentate its playing style. What struck me was the fact that he kept mentioning that it was making “weird moves”; moves that a human player would likely never play. I asked him to explain further, and as an example he mentioned the fact about pushing pawns only one square instead of two when it could have clearly pushed two (maybe losing tempo on purpose?). I have played against it many times, and the fact that I have an ELO of about 1750, does not really help me in finding these “weird moves”. I would probably categorize them as “very strong moves” that have some deeper/intricate scope that I would probably not be able to grasp in a blitz match. My question is, how can higher rated players notice this non-human playing style? What makes a move weird? I am not sure if “weird move” is subjective to the player (here of course I am referring primarily to +2300 ELO) or if it’s something more on the objective side? Meaning that it is agreed amongst &lt;em&gt;most&lt;/em&gt; that a certain move is weird. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17949" LastActivityDate="2020-04-28T21:11:19.780" Title="What makes a move “weird”?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;computer-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29348" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29349" CreationDate="2020-04-27T23:42:56.937" Score="4" ViewCount="259" Body="&lt;p&gt;This question may seem vain, since I'll talk about my improvement on chess, but I really want to have a measure of my learning curve and a notion of whether it is bad, regular, good or excellent, how to improve it if it's not excellent and how to keep it excellent if it is. So this is all about chess learning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know the rules of chess since the age of 4, but never played it often. I probably played around ten games from the time I was four to the time I was 21 (never even had a chessboard at my home), when I really started playing (this was June past year, so ten months ago).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I really started playing as I said on June 2019. I created a Lichess account and was rated 1100 on Classical chess. Ten months later, I am rated above 2200, so I gained over 1100 rating points in less than a year. I'm proud of this improvement, but I don't really have any comparison standards, so maybe it's a regular rate. I don't really know.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, my Blitz rating is still quite low in comparison to Classic: a little bit above 1600. So my improvement has not been the same when it comes to thinking fast or mere intuition, since clearly I need to have a fair amount of time to find the right moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm &lt;strong&gt;really&lt;/strong&gt; invested at becoming a CM, so analyzing and understanding my learning-curve and improvement rate is very important for me. I dedicate a lot of time to chess (studying and playing), and I want to know how much that's paying off.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If my improvement is below good (since let's face it, at Blitz I'm still simply weak), how can I accelerate it, specially on fast time formats? If my improvement is decent, how can I keep pushing further? Because now that I'm above 2200 Classic elo I'm beginning to face very strong players (I played my first titled opponent recently) and I want to keep up with them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sorry if my question is vague, I hope you can appreciate how important it is to me to understand myself in regards to my chess learning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21110" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-28T13:32:12.583" LastActivityDate="2020-04-28T13:32:12.583" Title="Is my improvement decent, and if so how can I keep it up?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;training&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29349" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29348" CreationDate="2020-04-28T03:23:53.667" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Going from a beginner to being rated 2200 on Lichess in a year is a very good rate of improvement. Would you mind elaborating on what you did to get there?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Still, a Lichess rating isn't always an accurate representation of strength, and it's possible you could be somewhere between 1600-1800 ELO over the board. The only way to find out is to play rated games OTB and see. This could be useful in figuring out how to continue your training.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For continuing, it seems like whatever you're doing is working well (I wouldn't worry about trying to &lt;em&gt;accelerate&lt;/em&gt; your progress, if anything it will start to decelerate soon). If you really are 2000-2200 strength, you could consider getting the GM Preparation books from Quality Chess. The Great Predecessors series by Kasparov is also recommended. In addition, you should put together a solid opening repertoire, perhaps using Chessbase. You can buy opening books to do this, or research on your own (you might need help at first if you've never done it before). A good endgame book would be useful as well. I assume you're already doing this, but solving online tactics is important for sharpening your tactical intuition. You could also consider finding a coach in your area, but this depends on how much you want to spend to reach your goals.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most titled players took years to get where they are, so I wouldn't give yourself the pressure of reaching their level so quickly. For example, I only got my FM title after playing for roughly 12 years. Building up a good intuition (which helps in blitz) comes from lots of practice, and isn't really something that can be gained very quickly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastEditorUserId="12873" LastEditDate="2020-04-28T10:03:02.927" LastActivityDate="2020-04-28T10:03:02.927" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29350" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4598" CreationDate="2020-04-28T12:45:12.197" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The pawn isn't considered a piece in chess, so it doesn't break the rule of moving the same piece twice. Also, many books and engines have 2. ...d6 as a good reply. However 2. ...c5 is the best move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23291" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2020-04-28T13:01:01.147" LastActivityDate="2020-04-28T13:01:01.147" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29352" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9076" CreationDate="2020-04-28T19:29:08.523" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;After the move 43... Rc2, White should have played 44. Kh3 instead of 44. Kxg3, and played the below sequence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;5k2/8/8/4p3/R3P1PP/6p1/2r3K1/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Kh3 g2 2. Ra1 Re2 3. Rg1 Rxe4 4. h5 Re3+ 5.     Kxg2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a mate in 39 moves afterward according to the Lomonosov tablebases.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23298" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-28T20:05:03.590" LastActivityDate="2020-04-28T20:05:03.590" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29353" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26739" CreationDate="2020-04-28T19:29:39.200" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Often engines will promote to a knight if the promoted piece is going to be immediately captured. This is just because the promotions are equally good and thus it's chosen randomly. Sometimes it just.. doesn't matter, so why not promote to a knight?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Plus, it's nice to say you promoted to a knight in a chess game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23100" LastActivityDate="2020-04-28T19:29:39.200" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29354" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29347" CreationDate="2020-04-28T19:33:30.020" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Spotting &quot;weird&quot; computer moves is not difficult. Let me give you an example which you will agree is very clear. It is taken from the last round of the Boeblingen open in December 1999. The white player, Allwermann, was a 55 year-old German player who had been about 1900 strength (according to his German rating. FIDE ratings didn't go that low in 1999) for the previous 20 years. Going into the last round he was on 6.5/8 with the prospect of a first prize of DM 1,660 if he beat his grandmaster opponent. After 30 moves Allwermann was already winning and was to move in this position. See if you can guess his next move. Here are some candidates: Rd7, Rxb7, Rxf6, Qa7. Which one would you choose? Which one would be the last one you would choose?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[title &quot;Allwermann,Clemens - Kalinitschev,Sergey (2505)&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;r6k/1p3Rpp/p2p1bq1/3N4/2P5/1P6/P1b2QPP/5RK1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Rxf6 (1. Qa7 Rg8 2. Qxb7 Be4) gxf6 2. Qxf6 Qxf6 3. Rxf6 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the Qa7 line Black's last move, Be4, threatens mate. The only move to stop it is Nf4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Allwermann played the Qa7 line.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Fritz 5.32 evaluated Rd7 as +2.78 and Qa7 as +2.88.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This was written up in a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.chessbase.com/post/a-history-of-cheating-in-che-3-&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chessbase article&lt;/a&gt; in 2011. This is what the article said of this move:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If you switch on multiple-variation mode you will see that Fritz&#xA;  thinks 31.Qa7 is a tenth of a pawn better than the other alternatives.&#xA;  A computer program simply doesn't understand the difference between&#xA;  cast-iron moves that cannot fail, and a tight-rope walk on the edge of&#xA;  the precipice. I venture no human would undertake the latter course in&#xA;  the given tournament situation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That sums up the difference between normal human moves and weird computer moves. At least it did up until AlphaZero came along.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is the full game. See how many obvious computer moves you can spot.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[title &quot;Allwermann,Clemens - Kalinitschev,Sergey (2505)&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 e5 5.Nb5 d6 6.c4 Be7 7.Be2 a6 8.N5c3 Nf6 9.O-O Be6 10.Be3 O-O 11.Na3 Nd7 12.Qd2 Nc5 13.Nc2 f5 14.exf5 Bxf5 15.Bf3 Kh8 16.Bd5 Qe8 17.Rad1 Qg6 18.Na3 e4 19.f3 exf3 20.Bxf3 Ne5 21.Nd5 Bh4 22.Nf4 Nxf3+ 23.Rxf3 Qe8 24.Nd5 Ne6 25.Rdf1 Qg6 26.b3 Rf7 27.Nc2 Ng5 28.Bxg5 Bxg5 29.Qf2 Bxc2 30.Rxf7 Bf6 31.Qa7 Rg8 32.Qxb7 Be4 33.Nf4 Qf5 34.Qd7 Qe5 35.Kh1 g5 36.Nh3 g4 37.Nf2 Bf5 38.Nxg4 Be4 39.R7xf6 Bxg2+ 40.Kxg2 Qe4+ 41.Kh3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the final position after his GM opponent had resigned Allwermann couldn't resist telling his opponent that it was mate in 8. Of course he was right.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-04-28T19:33:30.020" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29355" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29347" CreationDate="2020-04-28T20:27:11.183" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;A classical example is the first game between Deep Blue and Garry Kasparov in 1996. This game is famous because it was the first time a machine had beaten the world champion in a classical time control game. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The 29th move by Deep Blue was a shocking and &quot;weird&quot; computer move. Deep Blue took in &lt;code&gt;b7&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;Why is it a weird move?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Deep Blue grabs a pawn far from the action. A human will consider this move as &lt;strong&gt;a loss of time while his king is under attack&lt;/strong&gt;. The action is going to be in the kingside. The computer took in &lt;code&gt;b7&lt;/code&gt; because it had &lt;strong&gt;calculated deeply&lt;/strong&gt; enough to get away with it!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;What's the human move?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &quot;human move&quot; is &lt;code&gt;Qd5&lt;/code&gt;, centralizing the Queen, covering the kingside and threatening to take in f7 and b7.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[title &quot;Deep Blue - Garry Kasparov, 1996 (m/1)&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;6rk/1p3p1p/2nN1q2/2Q5/3p1p2/PP5P/5PP1/2R3K1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Nxb7!! {the &quot;computer move&quot;} (1. Qd5! {is the &quot;human move&quot; covering the kingside and threatening to take in f7 and b7} 1... f3? (1... Rg6) {is more solid} 2.Nxf7 Kg7 3.Ng5+-) 1... Ne5 2.Qd5 f3 3.g3 (3...Qf4!? {with a double attack on g3 and c1} 4.Rc8!!+- {the key move behind this computer variation}) Nd3 4.Rc7 Re8 5.Nd6 Re1+ 6.Kh2 Nxf2 {Kasparov is close to mate but...} 7.Nxf7+ Kg7 8.Ng5+ Kh6 9.Rxh7+ {1–0}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11749" LastEditorUserId="11749" LastEditDate="2020-04-28T21:11:19.780" LastActivityDate="2020-04-28T21:11:19.780" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29356" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29423" CreationDate="2020-04-28T21:32:15.717" Score="3" ViewCount="226" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a kid, my coach, an International Master, was repeating &quot;if you have three pieces or more in the attack you can sacrifice without thinking!&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, don't take this rule too literally!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Chess is a &lt;strong&gt;concrete game&lt;/strong&gt; and we should not follow a rule &quot;without thinking&quot;. However, I believe that chess is guided by some rules and general principles.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;We can redefine the rule of &quot;Three Pieces in the Attack&quot; as &lt;strong&gt;&quot;Play more aggressively in the attack&quot;&lt;/strong&gt; in a context where the &lt;strong&gt;number of pieces attacking exceeds the number of pieces defending&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is: by searching on the Internet, I could see this rule from time to time but I could not find its origin. Who devised this rule? How old is it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I found a cute example &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess-teacher.com/4-tips-for-a-successful-attack/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; to illustrate this rule. White plays and checkmates a strong GM!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[title &quot;Juarez Flores, C - Lputian, S, Manilla 1990&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;r6r/p4ppp/2p1b3/4R3/1kpR1N2/6P1/P1P2P1P/2K5 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I cover the solution for those who want to search: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;  1. a3! Kxa3 (1...Kc3 2. Ne2#) (1...Ka4 2.Nxe6 fxe6 3.Rxc4+ Kxa3 4.Ra5#) 2.Nxe6 Kb4 (2...fxe6 3.Rxc4 c5 4.Re3 Ka2 5. Ra4#) 3.Rc5 fxe6 4.Rdxc4 Ka3 5.Ra5#&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;strong&gt;Greek Gift&lt;/strong&gt; is another illustration of this rule because the &lt;code&gt;Bd3&lt;/code&gt;, the &lt;code&gt;Nf3&lt;/code&gt; and the &lt;code&gt;Qd1&lt;/code&gt; coordinate to attack (the &lt;code&gt;Bc1&lt;/code&gt; and the &lt;code&gt;Rh1&lt;/code&gt; can also join the party)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[title &quot;Greco 1792&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;r1bq1rk1/ppppbppp/2n1p3/3nP3/3P3P/3B1N2/PPP2PP1/RNBQK2R w KQ - 1 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Bxh7!  Kxh7 2.Ng5 Kg8 3.Qh5 Bxg5 4.hxg5 f5 5.g6+-&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11749" LastEditorUserId="11749" LastEditDate="2020-05-04T07:10:42.057" LastActivityDate="2020-05-04T07:10:42.057" Title="Three Pieces in the Attack" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;history&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29357" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22698" CreationDate="2020-04-29T10:39:08.920" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The following process can be used:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) Push the h-pawn and put your king on the h-file. The g-pawn is used as a shield from the black rook's horizontal checks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) Put your rook on the queenside, on either the rank the g-pawn is on right now, or on the rank above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) Push your g-pawn one, followed by advancing your king up one square. The picture on the kingisde looks something like Kh3, pawn on g3, and pawn on h4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4) If Black's king is directly opposing you (say on the h5-square), check it with your rook. If Black's rook is preventing this (e.g., by being on the a5-square), then nothing is stopping you from advancing your g-pawn with g4+.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5) Then, advance the h4-pawn to h5. Now your king has a place to hide on h4 (since your g-pawn is either ready to blockade on g4, or it's about to advance to g4).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Repeat this general process. Essentially, before advancing a pawn, make sure your king can either move up and get new shelter, or that your rook is already on the same rank to prevent the king from being checked in the first place.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2020-04-29T10:39:08.920" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29358" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29368" CreationDate="2020-04-29T11:12:47.827" Score="28" ViewCount="8962" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is estimated that the total number of legal positions in chess is somewhere between 10^40 and 10^50. This is of course an enormous number. Computers today with reasonably good chess software can sometimes look 20 moves ahead to find the best continuation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But (most) humans are incapable of such calculations. After each move, it is practically impossible to compute all the ramifications and variations. Therefore a move made by a human being is expected to be a very poor move indeed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But this is not the case: looking at GMs games, those people are able to find the ''best'' moves recommended by top engines such as Stockfish, even though they obviously are not calculating billions of combinations per minute.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So what makes humans good at chess, if they are unable to see into the vast space of future variations? When looking at what GMs do better than amateurs, what I usually find is better ''intuition'' or ''feeling for the position''. But these can't be quantified. And GMs are obviously not psychic. So how can they find the best move most of the time? Chess masters often insist that they are not following an internal ''algorithm''. So what on Earth are they following?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How can humans be so good at chess?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4215" LastActivityDate="2020-05-27T19:47:32.427" Title="How are humans good at chess?" Tags="&lt;grandmaster&gt;&lt;game-complexity&gt;" AnswerCount="14" CommentCount="10" FavoriteCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29359" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29358" CreationDate="2020-04-29T11:23:24.003" Score="29" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let's take a conversation.  The number of sentences that could be said are infinite.  The number of grammatically correct is still infinte, as is the number of logically/conversationally correct would be.  The humans pare down what they say in any situation by intuition/experience.  As chess players study what should be played, their task is much easier than you holding a simple conversation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9684" LastActivityDate="2020-04-29T11:23:24.003" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29360" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29358" CreationDate="2020-04-29T12:37:24.647" Score="25" Body="&lt;p&gt;Humans try to understand a game like this, to formulate rules, try to recognize patterns of what worked in one position and apply them in positions they consider similar.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And it turns out that that is possible, otherwise there wouldn't be humans of different playing strengths, everybody would just be guessing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then we &lt;em&gt;used&lt;/em&gt; that knowledge to create engines like Stockfish; in the end they can't calculate all the way to checkmate either in most positions, and they have an &lt;em&gt;evaluation function&lt;/em&gt; based on what we consider good. It's the same principle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Only since completely new engines like AlphaZero, that start with zero knowledge about the game and have to work their way up themselves has that changed. It's interesting that the best of them are more or less on equal footing with Stockfish right now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But the important thing is to turn this phenomenon around -- if it &lt;em&gt;weren't&lt;/em&gt; possible for us to learn rules about the game of chess that work, then the game would have been very uninteresting and it &lt;em&gt;would never have become popular&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;E.g. imagine a game where you have to guess a whole number between 1 and 10^80. You get no hints when you get one wrong, you lose after a million wrong tries.&#xA;Nothing can be learned, and nobody would play it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If a game can be learned &lt;em&gt;perfectly&lt;/em&gt; (like tic-tac-toe or &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nim&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Nim&lt;/a&gt;) then it probably won't become very popular either.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess is apparently in some sort of sweet spot.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2020-04-29T12:37:24.647" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29361" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-04-29T14:17:05.797" Score="4" ViewCount="207" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd like to have my own chess engine similar to Leela for personal use. I’d want it to have a decent strength, let’s say 2k, and be able to play with it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm wondering if I can use Leela to create a new network that is trained on select number of games (essentially supervised learning instead of self play). Basically, it will be a network that can train on games of past masters such as Tal, Morphy etc. Any help is appreciated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23306" LastEditorUserId="7726" LastEditDate="2020-06-16T13:52:14.787" LastActivityDate="2020-06-16T13:52:14.787" Title="Creating a New Neural Network for chess" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;programming&gt;&lt;computer-chess&gt;&lt;leela&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29362" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29379" CreationDate="2020-04-29T15:09:26.660" Score="6" ViewCount="357" Body="&lt;p&gt;The challenge is to create the longest list of half moves whereby an AI could re-create that list of moves perfectly, only given the ending board state and the number of moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As example I will first give a short example that does NOT work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. a3 a6 2. b3 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From that final board state, it is impossible to differentiate it from  1. b3 a6 2. a3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And a short example that DOES work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;1. a3 a6 2. a4 a5 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is no way to get this board state in exactly two moves other than what was done here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Scoring will work like this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;+1 point per move.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;+5 points if the game is complete, i.e. the last move in the sequence is checkmate.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is my best solution so far.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. a4 h5 2. a5 h4 3. a6 h3 4. axb7 hxg2 5. Rxa7 Rxh2 6. Rxa8 Rxh1 7. Rxb8 Rxg1 8. Rxc8 Rxf1 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This would score 21 points: 1 point for each of the 16 moves plus 5 points for ending in a checkmate for black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note: Opening pawns moving 2 spaces instead of one is necessary in this particular solution.  A 9 turn game where the pawns each move one space per turn would be undifferentiated from an identical game where pawns open with the two space move and then rooks spend an extra turn making their first capture. Also, the game cannot be extended by slipping in Bxg2 at any point in time for White, because it would be unclear, when looking back, when such a move had occurred, since there are several possible turns for such a move to occur.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23305" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-09-15T02:56:15.733" LastActivityDate="2021-01-23T17:39:05.673" Title="Challenge: Create the longest set of moves where the game is able to be perfectly reproduced from only the current board state and move number" Tags="&lt;problems&gt;&lt;records&gt;&lt;retrograde-analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29363" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29362" CreationDate="2020-04-29T15:33:53.077" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Such a sequence of moves, where there is only one way to reach the given position on the given number of moves, are called &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.janko.at/Retros/Glossary/ShortestProofGame.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Shortest Proof Games&lt;/a&gt;. There are &lt;a href=&quot;http://natch.free.fr/Natch.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;many&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;http://lestourtereaux.free.fr/euclide/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chess&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://wismuth.com/jacobi/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;programs&lt;/a&gt; that solve such problems.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Long chess problems like this are usually checked with computers using these specially built chess programs, i.e. they are the A.I. that finds the solution you speak of in your answer. These problems have been composed by humans and computer-verified, meaning that there is only one possible solution no matter what you may think.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The longest problem that I know of that is computer verified, often shortened to “C+“, is &lt;strong&gt;41.5 moves&lt;/strong&gt; long according to the &lt;a href=&quot;https://pdb.dieschwalbe.de/P1108595&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Die Schwalbe database&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Nicolas Dupont, PG In 41.5, FIDE Olympic Tourney 39 Khanty-Mansiysk, 2010, 3rd Prize,&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 d5 2. e5 d4 3. e6 d3 4. exf7+ Kd7 5. a4 e5 6. a5 e4 7. a6 e3 8. axb7 e2 9. Ra6 exd1=B 10. Rb6 a5 11. h4 a4 12. h5 a3 13. h6 a2 14. hxg7 Ba3 15. f8=B a1=N 16. Bb4 c5 17. Rhh6 Kc7 18. Rhd6 h5 19. g4 h4 20. g5 Rh5 21. g6 Nh6 22. g8=B Nb3 23. g7 Nxd2 24. Bb3 Ne4 25. g8=N Nf6 26. Kd2 h3 27. Kc3 h2 28. Kc4 h1=B 29. Be1 d2 30. c3 Bc2 31. Ne7 Bh7 32. Nf5 d1=R 33. Ng3 Bcf5 34. f4 Nbd7 35. b8=N Qc8 36. Nc6 Qb7 37. Nb4 Bc6 38. Nh1 Rd5 39. Bd1 Kb8 40. b3 Bb2 41. Nc2 Ra3 42. Na1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By your system, this problem has a score of 83 points.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The longest computer verified &lt;a href=&quot;https://pdb.dieschwalbe.de/P1256159&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;one&lt;/a&gt; ending in checkmate that I know of is worth 59 points.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Silvio Baier, Die Schwalbe 4/24/2010&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. h4 a5 2. h5 Ra6 3. Rh4 Rg6 4. hxg6 h5 5. Rc4 h4 6. g4 h3 7. Bg2 h2 8. Bc6 Rh3 9. Bb5 Rb3 10. axb3 Nf6 11. Raa4 Ne4 12. Rab4 a4 13. d3 a3 14. dxe4 a2 15. Qd5 a1=R 16. Nd2 Ra8 17. Ba6 h1=R 18. Qa5 d5 19. Nf1 d4 20. Nf3 d3 21. Nd4 Rh8 22. f3 d2+ 23. Kf2 d1=N+ 24. Kg3 Ne3 25. g5 Nf5+ 26. Kg4 Nh6+ 27. Kh5 Ng8#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your proof game in 8 moves is computer verified by &lt;a href=&quot;https://wismuth.com/jacobi/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Jacobi&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Kkeus.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Kkeus.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-01-23T17:39:05.673" LastActivityDate="2021-01-23T17:39:05.673" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29365" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29358" CreationDate="2020-04-29T17:02:51.550" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Good question, I've been curious about that myself. Humans have an extra plane to their reasoning. The first evaluation is that of strategical themes applicable to the position, and the next one is a tactical one of the paths selected above. Those who can perform the first step successfully can drastically narrow down the search space for the second step, where they can repeat the approach (strategy/tactics) to narrow it down even further. For those with top skills at both, the path to finding the best move will consist of just a handful evaluations as the search space can be reduced by orders of magnitude with each iteration.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15509" LastActivityDate="2020-04-29T17:02:51.550" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29366" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1929" CreationDate="2020-04-29T19:20:48.393" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Maybe it's too late to answer, but both &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1072299&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this one&lt;/a&gt; (Kotov vs Keres, Budapest 1950, featuring 18. Ng6-h8) and &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1072349&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; (also Kotov vs Keres, and also in 1950, &lt;strong&gt;and also featuring 22. Nf7-h8&lt;/strong&gt;) are not uninteresting.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;Budapest Candidates&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Budapest HUN&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;1950.05.07&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;1950.??.??&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;14&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Alexander Kotov&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Paul Keres&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;E24&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;65&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;    1.c4 Nf6 2.d4 e6 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.a3 Bxc3+ 5.bxc3 Nc6 6.f3 b6 7.e4 Ba6 8.e5 Ng8 9.Nh3 Na5 10.Qa4 Ne7 11.Bd3 O-O 12.Bg5 h6 13.Bh4&#xA;d5 14.Bb1 g5 15.Qc2 Ng6 16.Nf4 gxh4 17.Nxg6 Re8 18.Nh8 Re7 19.Qh7+ Kf8 20.f4 Nxc4 21.f5 exf5 22.O-O Bc8 23.Bxf5 Bxf5 24.Rxf5 Ke8 25.Rxf7 Kd7 26.Qf5+ Kc6 27.Qf6+ Kd7 28.e6+ Kc6 29.Rxe7 Qxh8 30.Rxc7+ Kb5 31.Qe7 a5 32.Qd7+ Ka6 33.Rb1 1-0&#xA;&#xA;*********&#xA;&#xA;[Event &quot;USRR&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;USRR&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;1950.??.??&quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Alexander Kotov&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Paul Keres&quot;]&#xA;[ECO &quot;C78&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &quot;43&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;    1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.O-O b5 6.Bb3 Bb7 7.Re1 Bc5 8.c3 Bb6 9.d4 d6 10.Bg5 h6 11.Bh4 O-O 12.a4 exd4 13.cxd4 Re8 14.axb5 axb5 15.Rxa8 Bxa8 16.Nc3 g5 17.Bxg5 hxg5 18.Nxg5 Kg7 19.Nxf7 Qd7 20.Qd2 Ng4 21.Qg5+ Kf8 22.Nh8 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15783" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-29T20:05:06.967" LastActivityDate="2020-04-29T20:05:06.967" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29367" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29369" CreationDate="2020-04-29T19:59:07.533" Score="3" ViewCount="1645" Body="&lt;p&gt;My bullet rating is currently 1400 and it's pretty much the only time format I play as it is quick. I figured that I wanted to think my moves more thoroughly so I played some rapid games in a Lichess tournament. My rapid rating was around 1100, still having the &quot;?,&quot;  so you can imagine I wasn't playing much rapid.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was amazed that I was able to beat 1800 players if I did not rush the moves. I even berzerked and won having 5 minutes to think. As black, usual features of the games were play on the kingside, opposite side castling, me having a bishop queen battery aiming at h3, and a rook on g8. Usually there is a white knight on f3 and a pawn on h3 and I gain initiative by playing g4 to force him to take with the pawn. They usually never make space to run with the king. &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/KmERXxLA/white&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Here&lt;/a&gt; is an example game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Additionally, &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/OAH23ZeK&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; is a different type of game in which my opponent blundered. &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/45Efk69L&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Another&lt;/a&gt; game is also interesting even though my opponent’s rating wasn't high. I would definitely like you to take a look at it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Was this just luck or I would be able to climb up someowhere around 1600-1700 if I played longed time formats?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19936" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-30T00:07:56.197" LastActivityDate="2020-04-30T07:16:37.670" Title="How did I overperform in this rapid tournament?" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;lichess&gt;&lt;performance&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29368" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29358" CreationDate="2020-04-29T21:01:16.413" Score="39" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_A._Simon&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Herbert Simon&lt;/a&gt; touched on this question. He received the Turing Award in 1975 and the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1978. His primary research interest was decision-making and is best known for the theories of &quot;bounded rationality&quot; and &quot;&lt;strong&gt;satisficing&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Satisficing is a decision-making strategy or cognitive heuristic that entails searching through the available alternatives until an acceptability threshold is met. Simon used satisficing to explain the behavior of decision makers under circumstances in which an optimal solution cannot be determined.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In his paper &lt;a href=&quot;http://digitalcollections.library.cmu.edu/awweb/awarchive?type=file&amp;amp;item=33751&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Theories of Bounded Rationality&lt;/a&gt; (1972), Simon used &quot;the &lt;strong&gt;game of chess&lt;/strong&gt; as a microcosm that mirrors interesting properties of decision-making situations in the real world.&quot; Here are some useful quotes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;On the average, at any given position in a game of chess, there are&#xA;  about 30 legal moves-in round numbers, for a move and its replies, an&#xA;  average of about 10^3 continuations. Forty moves would be a not&#xA;  unreasonable estimate of the average length of a game. Then there&#xA;  would be perhaps 10^120 possible games of chess. Obviously the exact&#xA;  number does not matter: a number like 10^40 would be less&#xA;  spectacular, but quite large enough to support the conclusions of the&#xA;  present argument.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Chess players do not consider all possible strategies and pick the&#xA;  best, but &lt;strong&gt;generate and examine a rather small number, making a choice&#xA;  as soon as they discover one that they regard as satisfactory.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;The limits of rationality in chess.&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(...) three limits on perfect rationality were listed: uncertainty&#xA;  about the consequences that would follow from each alternative,&#xA;  incomplete information about the set of alternatives, and complexity&#xA;  preventing the necessary computations from being carried out. Chess&#xA;  illustrates how, in real world problem-solving situations, these three&#xA;  categories tend to merge.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Satisficing and optimizing.&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The terms satisficing and optimizing (...) are labels for two broad&#xA;  approaches to rational behavior in situations where complexity and&#xA;  uncertainty make global rationality impossible. In these situations,&#xA;  optimization becomes approximate optimization - the description of the&#xA;  real-world situation is radically simplified until reduced to a degree&#xA;  of complication that the decision maker can handle. Satisficing&#xA;  approaches seek this simplification in a somewhat different direction,&#xA;  retaining more of the detail of the real-world situation, but settling&#xA;  for a satisfactory, rather than an approximate-best, decision. One&#xA;  cannot predict in general which approach will lead to the better&#xA;  decisions as measured by their real-world consequences. &lt;strong&gt;In chess at&#xA;  least, good players have clearly found satisficing more useful than&#xA;  approximating-and optimizing&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11749" LastEditorUserId="11749" LastEditDate="2020-04-30T12:33:16.630" LastActivityDate="2020-04-30T12:33:16.630" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29369" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29367" CreationDate="2020-04-29T23:39:39.767" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a game theory of why 1st round NFL drafts don't perform as well as expected.  The reasoning is that the player had an above average couple of games and returned to his average performance.  By the same logic, there are later round drafts who have stellar careers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not going to make a judgement based on three games, or even your archive on lichess.org, as this would be as effective as making a prediction based upon your avatar.  I would say that guess that this tournament was lucky for you (assuming that your not a teenager who just improved naturally), but that, just by experience alone, you could achieve an 1800 rating on lichess.org at any time control.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT:&#xA;Stacia Pugh (&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCn2k14U03rNRHApDIloxOkA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCn2k14U03rNRHApDIloxOkA&lt;/a&gt;) is a chess example.  She started off well and achieved a peak rating of 1791.  This can be considered a fluke as she quickly dropped to her floor rating.  She's still a good player and is trying to improve.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9684" LastEditorUserId="9684" LastEditDate="2020-04-30T01:37:06.757" LastActivityDate="2020-04-30T01:37:06.757" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29370" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29358" CreationDate="2020-04-30T02:54:47.773" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;Intuition&quot; is basically just pattern matching. We use our experience from past situations/chess positions that are familiar, in order to gain a &quot;feel&quot; of a current position. With this intuition, we can make up for calculating a relatively small amount by:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) Being able to evaluate resulting positions in our calculations well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) Knowing what lines to prune in our mental calculation tree.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That being said, even the top humans are &lt;em&gt;far&lt;/em&gt; below current Stockfish. And even though Stockfish is probably the best/second best in the world (with Leela), there's no telling how good objectively it really is. If it played against some agent that always made literally perfect moves, there's a good chance it wouldn't do that well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's also a kind of anthropic principle going on here. Humans wouldn't invent a game in which everyone who played it was guaranteed to do horribly. Imagine the number of theoretical games whose complexity exceeded chess (and any other game we play) by x orders of magnitude.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, coming back to intuition/pattern matching, in a sense it can be quantified. Theoretically you could measure how good someone's memory is, how well/quickly they can detect when one event is similar to another, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2020-04-30T02:54:47.773" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29372" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29373" CreationDate="2020-04-30T03:31:17.817" Score="2" ViewCount="459" Body="&lt;p&gt;I frequently use chess.com to self-analyze and annotate my games. Although it has a useful feature to save my annotated game as a url (which I then save as a bookmark), I'd rather switch to local software so that I may organize and backup my collection. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have tried a couple of engine-oriented programs like Shredder and Stockfish for mac, but they don't really fit my needs. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I generally just need software where I can import a pgn (or setup a position), make moves on both sides of the board, add annotations, and add move variations. And that's pretty much it. It would also be nice to be able to categorize my games for easier access.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't need a chess engine or any computer-assisted analysis, although I understand that those would probably be bundled with most chess software. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can anyone provide any suggestions that might fit all or some of this criteria? Any help would be appreciated! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13661" LastActivityDate="2020-04-30T07:05:19.513" Title="Chess Annotation Software" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;annotation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29373" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29372" CreationDate="2020-04-30T05:56:37.390" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chessbase meets all your criteria and more. For example, it also allows you to look up any position in a reference database, see the main moves other people have analyzed, etc. The downside is the price, so if want a cheaper option you could look into Fritz - it should also meet your criteria, although the price is still relatively high.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even if you don't want all these features now, they could be useful down the road. Almost all serious players use Chessbase because of its wide range of useful functions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2020-04-30T05:56:37.390" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29374" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29367" CreationDate="2020-04-30T06:03:01.597" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, it was luck or you are stronger in longer time controls. No one can really say which is the case for you personally, considering you only played a few longer games. To find out you just have to play more and see.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2020-04-30T06:03:01.597" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29375" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29372" CreationDate="2020-04-30T07:05:19.513" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I agree with @InertialIgnorance Chessbase is very useful and good. I have also used chess database software which have the advantage of being free:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://scid.sourceforge.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Scid&lt;/a&gt; (&quot;Shane's Chess Information Database&quot;) is a free and open source UNIX, Windows, Linux, and Mac application for viewing and maintaining huge databases of chess games&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://scidb.sourceforge.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Scidb&lt;/a&gt;,  is a free chess database application for Linux/Unix and Windows. Scidb is inspired by Scid but it is a completely new development.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11749" LastActivityDate="2020-04-30T07:05:19.513" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29376" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29367" CreationDate="2020-04-30T07:16:37.670" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In wild games with opposite side castling, etc anything is possible. Chances to win for the underdog increase. With your attacking style you are more likely to see much above average (but also much below average) performance than if you played quiet positional chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That being said, you have a decent understanding on where to put the pieces. Still plenty of things to learn, particularly when it comes to positional play. I don't see anything preventing you from reaching 1600-1700, I believe most people with enough determination could.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would highly recommend to play longer time formats and to take the time to think in rapid games. In one game you could have taken a free knight at move 4 and in another you should have mated much earlier.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2020-04-30T07:16:37.670" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29377" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29358" CreationDate="2020-04-30T08:16:45.547" Score="6" Body="&lt;h1&gt;Interesting Chess&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Given a board configuration, many expert chess players are able to reproduce the moves which produce that configuration.  However, of the 10^40+ board positions, grandmasters would be hard-pressed to reproduce the vast majority of board states.  Why is that?  Well, that's because most of them involve obviously bad moves, like developing your king by itself to the center of the board, or sacrificing all your pieces willy-nilly.  The games which produce these board states are &lt;em&gt;not interesting&lt;/em&gt;.  A much more difficult question is: &quot;How many board states are &lt;em&gt;likely&lt;/em&gt;?&quot;  What if that number is just 10^10 or so?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Learning&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Computer science has one powerful optimization trick.  When performing an expensive computation which always has the same result for a particular input, the programmer can instruct the program to simply &lt;em&gt;remember the answer&lt;/em&gt;.  This technique is called &quot;memoization&quot;.  Then, the next time the computation is requested, the program &quot;cheats&quot; by returning the memoized value instead of wasting a bunch of effort computing something exactly the same way it did before.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Humans also have one powerful optimization trick, called the Hebbian Learning Rule, often summarized as: &quot;Neurons which fire together, wire together.&quot;  It is overly simple to say that this explains all human learning, because it doesn't.  But it is, in a sense, the computationally simplest and most abstract way to capture what the memoization technique does: if a pattern of neural firing consistently produces the same result, let's take a shortcut and not do all the work we did the first time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Stockfish&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, let's compare those tricks to what Stockfish does: brute force search of the game tree.  Obviously, Stockfish is smarter than that.  It can use an opening book, and endgame database, and it can prune branches of the game tree that are trivially silly.  But there's one thing that Stockfish cannot do: it cannot say: &quot;Wait a second!  I've been here before.  What did I do the last time I was here?&quot;  Stockfish has no memory (across games).  Of course, this makes it useful for evaluating positions, because Stockfish's answer does not depend on which games it has already played.  It will give you the same answer every time you evaluate the position, &lt;em&gt;even if it plays a game in which it discovers that its evaluation was inaccurate&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;AlphaZero&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So now we begin to see why AlphaZero can evaluate 1000x fewer positions, and still wipe the floor clean with Stockfish: AlphaZero does the simplest thing an intelligent system can do--it remembers the past.  You cannot ask what the AlphaZero evaluation of a position is, because that is a meaningless question.  Each instance of AlphaZero is unique, shaped by its history of games played.  Instead of saying: &quot;I'm going to pretend like I've never seen this board state before, and blindly search the game tree&quot; it says: &quot;Well, I've seen this board state 237 times, and I already know that 3 moves are significantly better than all the others I evaluated&quot; (it doesn't actually know how many times it's seen the board state, except implicitly).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Incidentally, this one simple trick is also why humans are able to evaluate tens of thousands of moves fewer than computers, and still play a respectable game.  A grandmaster is not a human who can evaluate 60,000 positions per second.  A grandmaster is a human who can &lt;em&gt;remember&lt;/em&gt; 60,000 board positions and strong lines of attack and defense from the most important ones.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;AlphaZero plays more human chess than any program before it, because it actually &lt;em&gt;learns&lt;/em&gt; chess.  In a way, it probably understands chess better than any entity in the universe.  Its primary shortcoming is a lack of communication ability.  If it had language, and could describe its reasoning, we would likely be awed by its analyses.  And yet, we would quite possibly be surprised how human-like those analyses turn out to be, while noting that there is still an element of alien sensibility borne from the ability to evaluate tens of thousands of moves per second.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The fact that AlphaZero runs on transistors which can switch a billion times per second, compared to the measly 3-5 times per second for the typical human interneuron suggests that in a sense, AlphaZero is much like a hyper-accelerated human.  But to get back to your original question: human grandmasters &lt;em&gt;can&lt;/em&gt; look into the vast space of future moves.  They do so by &lt;em&gt;remembering&lt;/em&gt; which of those moves are better than others, rather than computing them fresh every time.  Of course, play is a combination of memory and tree search, so humans, like AlphaZero are also exploring new lines of play every time.  But they have to be more economical in their search, and it shows.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23321" LastActivityDate="2020-04-30T08:16:45.547" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29378" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29358" CreationDate="2020-04-30T08:22:56.140" Score="4" Body="&lt;h1&gt;Making plans&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Pattern matching has been mentioned.  Humans are good at it)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In addition we &lt;em&gt;make plans&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, looking at a position we see that the opponent's king and queen is in a good position for a fork by our knight.  However, the relevant square is currently guarded by an opponent piece.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, we look for ways to make that opponent piece go away.  Or maybe we can pin it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, if we just move a piece to pin it, it will be the opponents turn and they might do something devastating like moving their king out of harms way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, we need a move that is both a threat the opponent must reply to &lt;em&gt;and&lt;/em&gt; sets up the fork we want.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And so on and so forth.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The point is that while making a plan like this we are only looking at small number of moves and positions.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It does not matter that &lt;em&gt;we&lt;/em&gt; have other moves, we can ignore those.  And part of the plan is to reduce the possible moves by the opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The hard part comes next, checking if the plan holds water. Ideally the opponent's moves should be forced, but usually they have a few alternatives on each step.  Are we really really sure all combinations of these alternatives are harmless?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, looking at a position and seeing the possible weak spots we can plan to attack is just pattern matching again.  This is why we can't have computers players make plans, they would waste time trying to set up utterly hopeless attacks.  They would discard these plans are not working, but by the time they have discarded plan number several billion, they would have lost on time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9188" LastEditorUserId="9188" LastEditDate="2020-04-30T08:32:40.250" LastActivityDate="2020-04-30T08:32:40.250" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29379" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29362" CreationDate="2020-04-30T08:34:17.217" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;https://pdb.dieschwalbe.de/P0000136&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;current length record&lt;/a&gt; is an astounding 57.5 moves (115 half-moves).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Dmitri W. Pronkin &amp;amp; Andriy Frolkin, Die Schwalbe 06/1989, 1st Prize, PG in 57.5&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. a4 h5 2. a5 h4 3. a6 h3 4. axb7 hxg2 5. h4 d5 6. h5 d4 7. h6 d3 8. h7 dxc2 9. d4 a5 10. Bh6 c1=R 11. e4 Rc5 12. Ne2 Rh5 13. e5 c5 14. e6 Nc6 15. b8=R a4 16. Rb4 a3 17. Ra4 c4 18. b4 c3 19. b5 c2 20. b6 c1=R 21. b7 Rc4 22. b8=R Qa5+ 23. Rbb4 Bb7 24. Nbc3 O-O-O 25. exf7 e5 26. Rc1 Bc5 27. f8=R a2 28. Rf3 a1=R 29. Na2 g1=R 30. Rfa3 Rg6 31. f4 Re6 32. f5 g5 33. f6 g4 34. f7 g3 35. f8=R g2 36. Rf5 g1=R 37. Bf8 Rg7 38. Ng3 e4 39. Bd3 e3 40. O-O e2 41. Rcc3 e1=R 42. Bc2 R1e3 43. d5 Rdd7 44. d6 Rdf7 45. d7+ Kb8 46. Qd6+ Ka8 47. Qc7 Nge7 48. d8=R+ Nc8 49. Rdd3 Rhg8 50. h8=R Rae1 51. Rh6 R1e2 52. R1f2 Rce4 53. Kf1 Bd4 54. Rfc5 Ne5 55. Nf5 Nc4 56. Nd6 Nb2 57. Rbc4 Nb6 58. Qb8+&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This length record was reportedly beaten in 2017 by Pronkin, Frolkin and Keym (to 58.5 moves) but unfortunately it turned that the longer problem had more than one solution. I do not know if the authors managed to make the problem sound.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although this problem is not computer-checked, it has withstood human testing for 41 years, so it might as well be considered computer checked by the greatest computer of them all-the human mind.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4572" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-09-15T01:01:25.260" LastActivityDate="2020-09-15T01:01:25.260" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29380" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29358" CreationDate="2020-04-30T12:26:20.960" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a very bad amateur chess player, but one thing I notice is that people are able to prove (in the mathematical sense) many things about a position, and grandmaster has a much more developed intuition (also on mathematical sense) and a much larger repertoire of thoerems to help prove (or extract) information out of a position than an average player. Due to proving a large number of things, a grandmaster is able to prune many branches of the search tree.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A trivial example about a theorem: after I captured the bishop of a beginner opponent, he said &quot;oh, I thought it was protected by the other bishop&quot;, immediately me and a spectator said: &quot;it is impossible, a bishop can never protect the other bishop&quot;. That is a very basic theorem a chess player learns very soon.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As the player advances, he learns much more intricate theorems and learn to intuitively spot patterns to use the theorems extract information. One theorem explicitly stated by a better chess player than me: a knight can never fork two pieces if they are on different color squares.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I still get confused, in endgame, if my king will be able to catch the pawn before promotion, or if I can promote my pawn before the opponent, but I imagine such things are immediately obvious to higher level players, due to more developed intuition and bigger repertoire of theorems.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think this is the kind of information a deep neural network, like AlphaZero, is able to learn after playing too many games. And I disagree with Lawnmowner Man that it simply &quot;remembers&quot; the positions, and that all AlphaZero instances are fundamentally different. They are different because of the stochastic nature of a neural network training, but after too many games, they are able to extract higher level abstractions than simply remembering positions, and get to more or less the same set of most useful theorems and intuitions. A repertoire that is also shared by grandmasters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10782" LastEditorUserId="10782" LastEditDate="2020-04-30T18:07:12.593" LastActivityDate="2020-04-30T18:07:12.593" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29381" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-04-30T14:54:13.343" Score="1" ViewCount="32" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am using Arena 3.5.1 version. Is it possible that more than one game can be played parallelly in the tournament? I want to start a Round-Robin tournament between a number of chess engines including stockfish 8, 11 and Lc0 where every engine plays 3 games with every other engine. But it becomes very time consuming as the other games of the same round can't start till the one game is completed. And I'd have to keep my pc on for nearly the whole day.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23334" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-04-30T14:59:52.587" LastActivityDate="2020-04-30T14:59:52.587" Title="Arena Question-Can more than one match be played at same time in a tournament?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;arena&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2020-08-31T23:29:31.990" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29382" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29386" CreationDate="2020-04-30T14:55:09.627" Score="4" ViewCount="211" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have been playing online chess (lichess.org) for three years at the rate of a few hours a week and I recently reached the score of 1850 Elo points in bullet mode.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I want to take more seriously chess and in particular to learn the theory.&#xA;To tell you the truth, I've never done any tactical exercises, I don't know any openings or complex finals.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How do I go about it? I am not at all afraid to use books.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user18011" LastActivityDate="2020-05-02T11:08:16.453" Title="How to start learning theory? (1850 Elo)" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;study&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29383" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29358" CreationDate="2020-04-30T15:18:29.623" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;At one level, the answer is that we don't know how the human brain works.  But something a bit more helpful:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The algorithm used by Stockfish (and other chess engines before the rise of deep neural nets) is called &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimax&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Minimax&lt;/a&gt;.  The basic idea goes something like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Generate a tree of all possible moves as far out as resources allow.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;For each final position in the tree, assign a score of how good that position is for you&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Work backwards towards the present position, deciding at alternating levels either&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Whether I should make this move (it leads to a final position that is good for me)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Whether my opponent would make this move (it leads to a final position that is bad for me)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And then there are ways to &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha%E2%80%93beta_pruning&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;optimize&lt;/a&gt; these evaluations so you don't have to process the entire tree.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What the computer is very good at is step 1: coming up with a tree of all possible moves.  What the computer is not very good at is step 2: figuring out how good a position is for you.  Chess engines benefit from looking far ahead not only because that's closer to a checkmate, but also because it's easier to score an endgame position with less material.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Humans, it turns out, are better at step 2.  We can somehow look at a midgame position and decide &quot;this attack looks strong&quot; or &quot;my king-side looks weak&quot; even though we haven't worked out an actual line of play that would exploit said strength or weakness.  This is where people bring in pattern recognition and experience as somewhat fuzzy explanations of what human brains are doing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So what the human player is doing is more &quot;top down&quot; than the computer's &quot;bottom up&quot;.  Instead of thinking about millions of possible outcomes and then starting to discard worse ones to prune the tree, we throw away branches as we build the tree when we decide that position doesn't look promising.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23336" LastActivityDate="2020-04-30T15:18:29.623" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29384" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29358" CreationDate="2020-04-30T16:45:18.347" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;@Kortchnoi's answer is very insightful and worth a read.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's also worth noting that a game between two &lt;em&gt;perfect&lt;/em&gt; chess AI engines must always, in theory, end in a stalemate due to the min-maxing algorithm being mirrored on both sides.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, two human chess players do not use the same &quot;algorithm,&quot; and thus it could be argued that one player is simply better than the other. Moreover, humans make mistakes; a chess engine evaluates the possible game states and picks the &quot;best&quot; one, so it's not prone to human error in that sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One example from game theory that comes to mind is the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-P8KtAqg6fk&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;pirate's dilemma&lt;/a&gt;, where the most reasonable choice is not always the one that a person ends up taking. Humans don't always think like AI—they base many of their decisions on fears, suspicions, and gut feelings, and chess is no exception.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20942" LastActivityDate="2020-04-30T16:45:18.347" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29385" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12873" CreationDate="2020-04-30T23:54:53.683" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Nice puzzle, this took me a few minutes. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The answer is 1.Qa3#.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2020-04-30T23:54:53.683" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29386" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29382" CreationDate="2020-05-01T00:01:23.543" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Learning theory involves some memorization of moves, but it's also important to understand the core ideas behind the moves. With these ideas, you can figure out what to play in novel situations not covered by the theory you've studied (or if you end up in a position that you forget).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are different ways to study using an opening book. If you have a program like Chessbase, you could input the moves given, and also annotate in what you think the main ideas are. A good chess book will also take the time to explicitly explain the main ideas; some don't, which will require you to think on your own why a move was given. If you don't have Chessbase, I suppose you could go through the moves on an actual board, and jot down your notes somewhere (like in Word or a notepad).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you're trying to get better at a new opening though, I'd suggest playing something longer than bullet - try at least 5 0. You want time to think about the position and apply the ideas (and moves) you've learned.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2020-05-01T00:01:23.543" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29387" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29390" CreationDate="2020-05-01T00:59:19.463" Score="11" ViewCount="650" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I've received an (I would say impossible) &lt;code&gt;mate-in-one challenge&lt;/code&gt; and I have already checked all movements, but couldn't solve it yet. It came from a trustable source and they say &lt;em&gt;you need to think outside the box&lt;/em&gt;, so certainly there's a solution. Can someone help me to find it out?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;2q1rb2/pR3pkr/3p2pN/2nPp1QP/1nB1P1b1/6N1/PBP3P1/5RK1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Qg6 Kh8 (1. Qf6 Kh6) (1. Qe5 Re5) (1. Be5 Re5) (1. Ngf5 Kh8) (1. Rff7 Kh8) 2. Qg8&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White moves, and it is pretty close to win. &lt;code&gt;Qxg6, Qg8&lt;/code&gt; could be a two-movement winning sequence. However, as said in the challenge statement, &lt;strong&gt;it is possible to be victorious in the very next movement&lt;/strong&gt;, so I have been wondering how! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;The original statement is:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Today's puzzle is one of the most trickiest chess problems you'll ever see. All you need is to think outside the box. White to move and mate in one! Yes, in one move. No, no extra pieces are appearing on the board likewise no removal. It's achieved with one unique valid movement, are you able to solve it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's just 6 possible checks white can do (I mean, i just saw 6). All them are included in above board followed by how black escape from it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can anyone find the solution?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also also also also, for honesty here, I googled the FEN to find the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.ecforum.org.uk/viewtopic.php?t=8908&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;answer&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23056" LastEditorUserId="23056" LastEditDate="2020-05-12T01:53:10.830" LastActivityDate="2021-01-17T05:31:05.020" Title="Outside-the-box mate-in-one challenge" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;problems&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29388" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8714" CreationDate="2020-05-01T01:01:49.910" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The best strategy is to feel out your opponent. If he/she is the type of player that tends to sacrifice or maybe tends to defend and doesn't take risks. Whatever the case play each game to your advantage and adjust your game for different players. I swear chess is 90% mental 10% logic reasoning.&#xA;It may be difficult as a new player but start looking at your best options and planning ahead, forcing plays. You'll start progressing well if you pay attention and scan the board.&#xA;Don't chase pieces, instead find the best moves that will force your opponent into making rash decisions.&#xA;Good luck.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23346" LastActivityDate="2020-05-01T01:01:49.910" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29389" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-05-01T01:11:52.347" Score="26" ViewCount="4517" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is White's turn to move. How can White avoid a checkmate?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/1kpP2q1/1p2P1p1/1P3pP1/5p1K/5P2/6P1/R7 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23347" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-05-02T03:10:54.890" LastActivityDate="2020-09-12T01:48:19.623" Title="How can I prevent checkmate in this position?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;problems&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29390" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29387" CreationDate="2020-05-01T01:15:28.783" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;I checked with Stockfish and indeed there is no normal mate in one for White, and there isn't a mate in one for Black either. So this obviously a trick/joke problem.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The trick is this: What last move of Black would allow a mate in one?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Solution:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt; The mate in one is “1. dxe6#” en passant! This move takes away the Black king's only flight square on h8, which is what stops any other attempts by White.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Explanation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt; The joke is that it can't be proved that Black's last move was “0... e5”. The &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.janko.at/Retros/Glossary/EnPassant.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;accepted convention&lt;/a&gt; in chess problems is that an en passant capture is only allowed on the first move of the solution if it can be proved that the captured Black pawn made the double-step as Black's last move. It is obvious that Black has plenty of possible last moves other then e5, hence why this a trick problem.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-05-10T12:38:32.027" LastActivityDate="2020-05-10T12:38:32.027" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29391" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29389" CreationDate="2020-05-01T01:38:44.137" Score="53" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Initial Analysis&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White is clearly in a dire situation, since Black is threatening mate in one on either h7 or h8 if White doesn't do anything. But the White king can't move move nor can White get rid of any of the pawns that surround the king. White's rook, the only White piece, is too far away to do anything. The move 1. Ra8? to try and stop 1... Qh8# fails to 1... Qh7#. Promoting White's ppawn with 1. d8=Q? also fails to 1... Qh7#. So what can White do now?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Assessment Of Available Options&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In order to prevent Black from moving the Black queen, White must give a check to the Black king so that Black is legally obligated to move the king instead of the queen. However, what check is there for White give? Ra7+ doesn't work because the Black king will just take it and White cannot stop both mating threats. So it seems that White is totally losing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;However!&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is only one move that can save White, which often goes unseen by many first time problem solvers-&lt;strong&gt;underpromotion to a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Promotion_(chess)#Underpromotion_to_a_knight&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;knight&lt;/a&gt; with check: 1. d8=N+!&lt;/strong&gt; After 1... Kb8 (not 1... Kc8?, as that allows  2. Ra8#) White can forcibly checkmate Black in 4 moves with a constant stream of checks as any non-checking move loses. Therefore, White is not losing as it seemed before!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;8/1kpP2q1/1p2P1p1/1P3pP1/5p1K/5P2/6P1/R7 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d8=N+ Kb8 2. Nc6+ Kb7 3. Ra7+ Kc8 4. Ra8+ Kb7 5. Rb8#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is important to note that while 2. Nf7 seems like an option to block the Black queen, as suggested by @Loren Petchel in a comment, it actually loses as Black can then play 2... Qxa1!, and it is mate on the next move with 3... Qh1# no matter what White plays.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-09-12T01:48:19.623" LastActivityDate="2020-09-12T01:48:19.623" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29392" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29389" CreationDate="2020-05-01T03:13:23.040" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;1.d8=N+ is necessary to avoid losing, but it also gives White a forced win after 1...Kb8 (1...Kc8 runs into 2.Ra8#) 2.Nc6+ Kb7 (2...Kc8 3.Ra8+ transposes) 3.Ra7+ Kc8 4.Ra8+ Kb7 5.Rb8#.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2020-05-01T03:13:23.040" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29393" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29358" CreationDate="2020-05-01T04:47:58.657" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;When talking about the strength of the human chess players, one normally forgets to mention that what they have is not only their own work. Most of it comes from many generations of others humans that have played and studied chess for many years and have added to the 'basic' modern knowledge of chess.&#xA;Not that one doesn't have made many sacrifices to have such strength but it would be very different if one doesn't stand on the shoulders of giants :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stockfish is like an Godly Genius that has the mentality of a new born baby, the memory of an ant and the knowledge of chess player that just learned the rules (excluding the &quot;artificial&quot; extra opening books and end game library).&#xA;Alpha zero is the same excluding that he has an excellent memory and, if given enough time, it can stand on its own shoulders.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your question is similar to asking another one:&#xA;Why has humans technology being so &quot;low&quot; for so many thousands of years and now it is accelerating like an explosion?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The science rules that gives us so much power, when we are so weak, are like the the knowledge in chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18837" LastActivityDate="2020-05-01T04:47:58.657" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29394" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1204" CreationDate="2020-05-01T10:57:58.170" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is kind of like asking how can I get better at chess, because if you are good, then you can deliver short, sweet mates.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Try to find weaknesses in lower rated opponents' games and exploit them. (do tactics puzzles)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Learn all kinds of mating patterns (thus, you never miss that mate on move 28)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23349" LastActivityDate="2020-05-01T10:57:58.170" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29395" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1204" CreationDate="2020-05-01T11:14:29.803" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I basically agree with the other answers, saying that 60 moves is not too long and that you can do various things to improve your play. As for 30 moves being the optimum, for some of the best players that's where the game starts, after they finished playing memorized moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Still one additional thought based on your statement:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;I mainly encounter this when playing people at or below my level (~1400).&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lower level players tend to play on in completely lost positions, which could be part of the problem. A better player would typically resign a piece down (in otherwise equal position), while beginners would play on and on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are many positions in chess that are obviously won and not hard to win, but still require many moves to mate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastEditorUserId="11629" LastEditDate="2020-05-01T11:32:44.857" LastActivityDate="2020-05-01T11:32:44.857" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29397" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29420" CreationDate="2020-05-01T11:54:24.227" Score="3" ViewCount="1625" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a Scotch player and don't like playing against the Sicilian and have very bad record against it (5.5/24), my best only wins are when I played 2.b4 ( Wing Gambit) or 2.c4 (Staunton-Cochrane Variation). In the Staunton-Cochrane Variation I have a mixed record (4/11), so I have decided to make it my standard reply to c5. I have success especially in this line :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 c5 2.c4 Nc6 3.Nf3 g6 4.d4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I not not sure of the ideas if black chooses not to play the above lines. &lt;strong&gt;What are the overall ideas and theory associated with this system ?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21526" LastEditorUserId="21526" LastEditDate="2020-05-02T10:57:07.653" LastActivityDate="2020-05-03T21:16:54.287" Title="Ideas in Sicilian Defense: Staunton-Cochrane Variation" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29398" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29358" CreationDate="2020-05-01T13:24:55.340" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;As far as chess is concerned many people before me have given brilliant answers. But, additionally I would like to point out that many chess players employ, apart from theorems they have learnt through practice, a different strategy based on opponents.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Games are simulated in practice and rough plans are made.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One such strategy I typically use is guard pieces until other player makes a mistake then pounce on them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Often players try to fight without queens to reduce the mental strain if given a chance to do so.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In a game motivations are important, if I find a player is trying to achieve a certain objective to deliver the checkmate I only think along those decision tree to either guard or trap them.&#xA;Both players have a mental image of what the other is trying to achieve.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The game is usually decided on whether the other person has the correct picture or not, and whether we have enough knowledge and practice to foil their plan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23352" LastActivityDate="2020-05-01T13:24:55.340" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29399" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14372" CreationDate="2020-05-01T14:30:08.387" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I got very deep and reaches the conclusion that the ending is a draw in over the board chess ( but it is nearly impossibile to defend) but a win in correspondence chess. The key position with WHITE King in c6 Queen in c1 pawn in b7 BLACK King in h2 Queen in b3 pawn in g5 Black to move, that is  indeed a mate for White, but 58 moves are needed before a pawn move or a capture. Syzygy tablebases online. Only six pieces are present at the board at this point. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23297" LastActivityDate="2020-05-01T14:30:08.387" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29400" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14372" CreationDate="2020-05-01T14:37:50.870" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Stockfish 9 at d= 44(in a demo) give more than 9 points as White, maybe the setting was for a corrispondence game.It appears that starting from 2012 six piece ending are considered wins if they lead to mate, even if the 50 move rule has to be broken in the process. Starting from January 1, 2020 it is also true for 7 piece ending. Corrispondence chess. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23297" LastActivityDate="2020-05-01T14:37:50.870" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29401" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29358" CreationDate="2020-05-01T17:05:53.370" Score="3" Body="&lt;h2&gt;Spotting more complex or different types of patterns&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Computers don't have a particularly easy time identifying the same patterns that humans can easily spot.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is especially noticeable in something like Computer Vision. Computers have made a lot of progress in terms of recognising objects, but they are still probably worse than a young child at recognising even one or two different types of objects.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While any given board state in chess may not have as many parameters as a large image and it's can be solved in a more systematic way, a similar argument applies.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Computers and human brains just don't work in the same way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Humans manage to spot some complex patterns in terms of which pieces or parts of the board are threats or weaknesses. Computers need to throw a ton of processing power to spot those same patterns, and even then they may still not be able to see the exact same patterns. They may go a different route and just try a bunch of different moves and play each of those out to determine the best one or doing something else.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Humans do sometimes also consider different moves and mentally play those out, but at any given point there are different mechanisms at work to determine whether a board state is good or bad or whether a move is worth considering.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Intuition and your subconscious&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I show you a picture of a cat and you identify it as a cat. If I then ask you to explain to me exact why you think it's a cat, you may not have an easy time doing that (especially if you can't look at the cat while doing so). You may start to identify things like the whiskers or cat-like ears, but if I dig a little deeper you may not be able to explain exactly what &amp;quot;cat-like ears&amp;quot; means. I may also be able to show you an image of what is clearly a cat (even of the same breed) without those features, or a picture of something which is clearly not a cat with those features.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your subconscious is probably doing most of the work in identifying the features of a cat and it just tells you &amp;quot;that is a cat&amp;quot; without giving your conscious mind much more information.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To bring this back to chess, you can look at a move and your subconscious can spot some patterns based on the rules or your experience watching or playing past games. You can use this to identify the move as good or bad without necessarily being able to justify it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Going any deeper into it would probably shift the discussion a bit too far into psychology, neuroscience and/or computer science.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19697" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2020-05-01T17:05:53.370" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29402" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29405" CreationDate="2020-05-01T20:26:28.110" Score="4" ViewCount="395" Body="&lt;p&gt;FIDE has just published the May 2020 rating list which brings the ratings up to date for games played in April. The rating file can be downloaded from the &lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/download.phtml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE download page&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many countries have locked down some time in April (due to the current pandemic) and chess is no longer played. Some countries haven't locked down and chess may still being played. How has this affected the numbers?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A short explanation of how FIDE counts games.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Suppose I have a rating and I play two games, one against Jim Unrated and one against Jane Rated and I draw both games.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Jim Unrated's record his game against me will be recorded because if he has enough games and reached a high enough level then his game against me will be used to calculate his rating. Even if he didn't qualify yet it will still be recorded to be used to calculate his first rating sometime in the future.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Jane Rated's record her game against me will, of course, be recorded. The result will be used to calculate her rating adjustment.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my record the game against Jane will be recorded because that affects my rating but the one against Jim won't be. He is unrated so our game won't affect my rating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, between the three of us we played 2 games but that will be recorded as 3 &quot;half games&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have some statistical questions regarding these “half-games.”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) How many half-games of standard time control were played in April?   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) How many half-games of rapid were played in April?   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) How many half-games of blitz were played in April?   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4) How do these numbers compare to March?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that &lt;em&gt;some&lt;/em&gt; chess was played in April. For instance the &lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/tournament_details.phtml?event=249263&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Nigerian national championships&lt;/a&gt; was played. It was a 10 player all-play-all which started on 30th March and finished on 3rd April. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sweden is also a country where there has been no lockdown and (some) chess has continued. &lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/tournament_details.phtml?event=232161&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Here&lt;/a&gt; is an example of a tournament which is played over several months but in any case lasting more than 90 days (looks like a club tournament where one round is played per month, started in October 2019) Round 7 of Horndal KM 201920 played on 15th April.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="3884" LastEditDate="2020-05-04T02:33:54.593" LastActivityDate="2020-05-04T02:33:54.593" Title="How much FIDE rated chess was played in April 2020?" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;fide&gt;&lt;statistics&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29403" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27102" CreationDate="2020-05-01T20:29:08.930" Score="2" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utut_Adianto&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Utut Adianto&lt;/a&gt; is a GM since 1986 and politician. He serves as the deputy speaker of the People's Representative Council since March 2018.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marmaduke_Wyvill_(chess_player)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Marmaduke Wyvill&lt;/a&gt; (1815-1896) would surely have been a titled player if FIDE titles had been awarded in the past. He was a Member of Parliament and a leading English chess master. He won a nice game &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1001429&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;against Adolf Anderssen&lt;/a&gt; (winner the same year of the &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1018910&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Immortal Game&lt;/a&gt;&quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11749" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-05-01T20:34:50.873" LastActivityDate="2020-05-01T20:34:50.873" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29404" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16153" CreationDate="2020-05-01T20:48:47.870" Score="4" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I noticed the Fide rating list is always published with the date of&#xA;  birth of the player&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That is not true. The full date of birth is now never published, although in the early noughties it was. Now just the year of birth is published.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Furthermore that is often also not published. When you register you can request that your year of birth is also not published. To verify you can go to the &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/advseek.phtml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Advanced Search&lt;/a&gt;&quot; on the FIDE rating website and search for female players from various Arab countries. If you do that you will see that for some of the countries many of the women have blank for their year of birth.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example: &lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/advaction.phtml?idcode=&amp;amp;name=&amp;amp;title=&amp;amp;other_title=&amp;amp;country=UAE&amp;amp;sex=f&amp;amp;srating=0&amp;amp;erating=3000&amp;amp;birthday=&amp;amp;radio=name&amp;amp;line=asc&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;United Arab Emirates&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is registering one's actual birthdate with Fide a requirement for a&#xA;  Fide rating?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;FIDE require that to allow them to differentiate between two players with the same name. It does happen occasionally and then date of birth is essential. They don't need to publish even your year of birth. Once registered your FIN is enough to identify you in the system, and you can request even that is not published.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;It is a major concern for me given the rise in cases of identity&#xA;  theft.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You are wrong to be concerned. Your full date of birth is never published, only the year, and you can request that not even that is published.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-05-01T20:48:47.870" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29405" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29402" CreationDate="2020-05-01T22:05:57.420" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Fascinating question. I computed the stats for each individual file (Standard, Rapid and Blitz) downloaded from the &lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/download.phtml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE download page&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I added up the number of games reported for each FIDE player for each control time and list. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Standard Time Control&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;145,618&lt;/strong&gt; games played in  and reported in the &lt;em&gt;April&lt;/em&gt; list.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Only &lt;strong&gt;9,946&lt;/strong&gt; games played in standard time control and reported in the &lt;em&gt;May&lt;/em&gt; list!&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Rapid&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;54,192&lt;/strong&gt; games played and reported in the &lt;em&gt;April&lt;/em&gt; list.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Only &lt;strong&gt;1,446&lt;/strong&gt; games and reported in the &lt;em&gt;May&lt;/em&gt; list!&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Blitz&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;24,514&lt;/strong&gt; games played and reported in the &lt;em&gt;April&lt;/em&gt; list.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;only &lt;strong&gt;1,005&lt;/strong&gt; games and reported in the &lt;em&gt;May&lt;/em&gt; list!&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Regarding games played in April 2020. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The round 7 of Horndal KM 201920 has indeed been played on 15th April. However, the Nigerian national championships were played in March. See the report of the &lt;a href=&quot;https://ncf.com.ng/anwuli-and-akintoye-are-nigerias-new-chess-champions/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Nigerian Chess Federation&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11749" LastEditorUserId="11749" LastEditDate="2020-05-03T15:26:43.340" LastActivityDate="2020-05-03T15:26:43.340" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29406" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29402" CreationDate="2020-05-01T22:43:35.663" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;As I said in an &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/24897/how-do-age-and-initial-rating-correlate-to-decline-in-playing-strength-with-age/26402#26402&quot;&gt;earlier answer&lt;/a&gt; I've built a database with downloaded data from Olimpbase and FIDE to allow me to do data mining. To answer this question I downloaded the &lt;a href=&quot;http://ratings.fide.com/download/players_list_xml.zip&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;latest (May 1st) rating list&lt;/a&gt; and loaded the data into my database and ran a few queries.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These are the results I get for Sum(Games) for April and May for Standard, Rapid and Blitz:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;April Standard: 164531&lt;br&gt;&#xA;May Standard: 10295&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;April Rapid: 68490&lt;br&gt;&#xA;May Rapid: 1550&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;April Blitz: 56683&lt;br&gt;&#xA;May Blitz: 1341&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Interesting to note the small differences between my figures and Kortchnoi's.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I download the XML format file from the section on the download page where it says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Download full list of players (not rated included) STD, RPD, BLZ&#xA;  combined TXT format (01 May 2020, Sz: 21.11 MB) | &lt;a href=&quot;http://ratings.fide.com/download/players_list_xml.zip&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;XML format&lt;/a&gt; (01 May&#xA;  2020, Sz: 23.77 MB)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I suspect Kortchnoi is downloading the individual files from where it says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Download STANDARD rating list TXT format (01 May 2020, Sz: 7.92 MB) |&#xA;  XML format (01 May 2020, Sz: 8.55 MB)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Download RAPID rating list TXT format (01 May 2020, Sz: 4.28 MB) | XML&#xA;  format (01 May 2020, Sz: 4.58 MB)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Download BLITZ rating list TXT format (01 May 2020, Sz: 3.15 MB) | XML&#xA;  format (01 May 2020, Sz: 3.38 MB)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Before this I always thought the main difference between the data sets was that the full set I download and use also includes the FIDE online Arena players as well. It looks as if the individual files miss out on some of the data.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To explore how many of these tournaments that were reported in the May list were actually played at least partly in April I looked at the players in the May list who are recorded as having played some games. There were 181, which is too many to list but it is worth looking at their federations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Fed - Number of players with Games &gt; 0&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ARM 1&lt;br&gt;&#xA;CUB 1&lt;br&gt;&#xA;HON 1&lt;br&gt;&#xA;ISL 1&lt;br&gt;&#xA;NCA 22&lt;br&gt;&#xA;NGR 14&lt;br&gt;&#xA;PER 33&lt;br&gt;&#xA;POR 38&lt;br&gt;&#xA;RUS 59&lt;br&gt;&#xA;SWE 6&lt;br&gt;&#xA;TUR 1&lt;br&gt;&#xA;USA 1&lt;br&gt;&#xA;VEN 3&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These players played in tournaments in 6 countries which, not surprisingly, correspond to the federations with the most number of players in this list.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are the federations with links to the FIDE page for the FIDE tournaments for May for each federation together with a list of the blitz tournaments for that federation, again with links.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/tournament_list.phtml?country=NCA&amp;amp;moder=ev_code&amp;amp;rating_period=2020-05-01&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Nicaragua&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/tournament_details.phtml?event=246509&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;1er Torneo Blitz Nicaragua 2020&lt;/a&gt;, played - 15/3, reported - 13/4   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note, there was a rapid &lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/tournament_details.phtml?event=249325&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;III Torneo Academia de Ajedrez Julio Ramirez de Arellano 2020&lt;/a&gt; which was played from 18th to 19th April and reported on 28/4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/tournament_list.phtml?country=NGR&amp;amp;moder=ev_code&amp;amp;rating_period=2020-05-01&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Nigeria&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/tournament_details.phtml?event=249265&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;DR NIYI ORIOLOWO NATIONAL BLITZ CHESS CHAMPIONSHIP&lt;/a&gt;, played - 29/3, reported - 31/3 (impressively quick reporting by the Nigerians)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/tournament_list.phtml?country=PER&amp;amp;moder=ev_code&amp;amp;rating_period=2020-05-01&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Peru&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/tournament_details.phtml?event=248142&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;II IRT TORNEO BLITZ CLUB DE AJEDREZ WANKA 2020&lt;/a&gt;, played - 8/3, reported - 30/4 (taking &quot;manyana&quot; to South American extremes)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/tournament_list.phtml?country=POR&amp;amp;moder=ev_code&amp;amp;rating_period=2020-05-01&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Portugal&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; - 5 tournaments all played on 8/3, reported - 21/4&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/tournament_details.phtml?event=248565&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;CD Rapidas Jovens Porto 2019-20 - U10&lt;/a&gt;,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/tournament_details.phtml?event=248566&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;D Rapidas Jovens Porto 2019-20 - U12 U14&lt;/a&gt;,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/tournament_details.phtml?event=248568&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;CD Rapidas Jovens Porto 2019-20 - U16&lt;/a&gt;,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/tournament_details.phtml?event=248569&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;CD Rapidas Jovens Porto 2019-20 - U18 U20&lt;/a&gt;,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/tournament_details.phtml?event=248571&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;CD Rapidas Veteranos Porto 2019-20&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/tournament_list.phtml?country=RUS&amp;amp;moder=ev_code&amp;amp;rating_period=2020-05-01&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Russia&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/tournament_details.phtml?event=246123&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;CHESS PLAZA_March Blitz&lt;/a&gt;, played - 9/3, reported - 3/4&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/tournament_details.phtml?event=248954&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Perm blitz 17-03-2020&lt;/a&gt;, played - 17/3, reported - 4/4&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/tournament_details.phtml?event=249239&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Initsiativa club march blitz&lt;/a&gt;, played - 29/3, reported - 8/4   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/tournament_list.phtml?country=SWE&amp;amp;moder=ev_code&amp;amp;rating_period=2020-05-01&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Sweden&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/tournament_details.phtml?event=249169&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Kristianstad Pasksnabben 2020&lt;/a&gt;, played - 13/4, registered - 13/4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, only one Swedish blitz tournament was actually played in April although a couple of tournaments were played close enough to the end of March to justify reporting in April. There was also one rapid I spotted in passing played in April in Nicaragua.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Looking at Sweden in general there looks to be lots of league chess still being played at standard time control. Interestingly there was one standard tournament played in April in Russia that I noticed - &lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/tournament_details.phtml?event=249247&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Bratsk championship 2020&lt;/a&gt;, 11 round standard time control.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It will be interesting to do a similar analysis on the 1st June to see if any other countries are joining Sweden, or even if Sweden continues.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2020-05-02T15:53:43.750" LastActivityDate="2020-05-02T15:53:43.750" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29407" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-05-01T22:44:49.070" Score="1" ViewCount="1130" Body="&lt;h2&gt;Introduction&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm in the process of rewriting my chess engine for better performance. I've started with the move generation function first. I've been looking at this person's article (&lt;a href=&quot;https://peterellisjones.com/posts/generating-legal-chess-moves-efficiently/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Their Article&lt;/a&gt;) about generating moves quickly. At the bottom, they have their list of tips for better performance. They claim using these tips gives them about 100 million nodes per second from the starting position, while qperft (&lt;a href=&quot;http://home.hccnet.nl/h.g.muller/dwnldpage.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;qperft download&lt;/a&gt;) does 190 million (qperft does 290 million on my pc). While the fastest I have gotten from my move generation function has been about 10 million nodes per second.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;QPerft Output on my PC&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;From the starting position.&#xA;Quick Perft by H.G. Muller&#xA;Perft mode: No hashing, bulk counting in horizon nodes&#xA;&#xA;perft( 1)=           20 ( 0.000 sec)&#xA;perft( 2)=          400 ( 0.000 sec)&#xA;perft( 3)=         8902 ( 0.000 sec)&#xA;perft( 4)=       197281 ( 0.000 sec)&#xA;perft( 5)=      4865609 ( 0.016 sec)&#xA;perft( 6)=    119060324 ( 0.414 sec)&#xA;&#xA;119060324 / 0.414 ~= 290 million&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;The Tips&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Use SIMD instructions to do bitwise operations on multiple bitboards at the same time.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Use Kogge-Stone Generators for calculating moves for multiple sliding pieces at the same time.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Use the o^(o-2r) trick for calculating moves for single sliding pieces.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Problem&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The problem I am having is I don't understand how to use these tips.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Problems with Tip #1&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Their main tip for performance gain is to use SIMD (Single Instruction Multiple Data) instructions to do operations on multiple bitboards at the same time. The problem is I don't see how these are useful for generating moves. This is an example of how I've been generating moves (rooks for example).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Bitboard rooks = turn ? pieces[WROOK] : pieces[BROOK];&#xA;Square from = 0, to = 0;&#xA;&#xA;while (rooks != 0) {&#xA;    _BitScanForward64(&amp;amp;from, rooks);&#xA;    &#xA;    // GetRookMoves uses magic bitboards (a lookup table using the _pext_u64 instruction for speed).&#xA;    // As far as I am aware magic bitboards are faster than Kogge-Stone Generators.&#xA;    // &amp;amp; (empty | (turn ? bPieces : wPieces) is to only get the moves that are on empty squares or capture squares.&#xA;    Bitboard rookMoves = GetRookMoves(start, full) &amp;amp; (empty | (turn ? bPieces : wPieces));&#xA;    &#xA;    while (rookMoves != 0) {&#xA;        _BitScanForward64(&amp;amp;to, rookMoves);&#xA;        &#xA;        // I am using a 32-bit integer to store all the information about the move&#xA;        moves[moveCount++] = /* move information (rook, from, to, etc...) */;&#xA;&#xA;        // This is ofc to remove the move we have just looked at&#xA;        rookMoves &amp;amp;= ~(ONE &amp;lt;&amp;lt; to);&#xA;    }&#xA;    &#xA;    // This is ofc to remove the rook we have just looked at&#xA;    rooks &amp;amp;= ~(ONE &amp;lt;&amp;lt; from)&#xA;}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't see where using SIMD instructions could help in this move generation function as I don't see any bitboard operations that can be done together. Am I missing some obvious way where using SIMD instructions would actually help or am I just doing the move generation wrong in the first place?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Problems with Tip #2&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Their isn't much of a problem with tip #2. I am just wondering if magic bitboards are actually faster or if Kogge-Stone Generators with SIMD instructions are somehow faster. Also, Kogge-Stone is for calculating the moves for multiple sliding pieces at a time for legal move generation (I think). However, I am doing pseudo legal move generation because I think it is faster and easier.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Problems with Tip #3&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The problem with tip #3 is the same as number 2. Isn't it faster to use magic bitboards?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23270" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2020-05-02T23:23:10.730" Title="Chess Engine: Faster Move Generation" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;programming&gt;&lt;performance&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29408" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29311" CreationDate="2020-05-01T22:58:23.177" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a fairly simple one:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt; 1. Qd8+ Bxd8 2. Re8#&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23366" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-05-01T23:00:45.973" LastActivityDate="2020-05-01T23:00:45.973" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29409" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29389" CreationDate="2020-05-02T05:14:49.273" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is actually a cool position. Although, not easy to see as first sight, white can execute an Arabian Checkmate. Like others mentioned, executing the move &lt;code&gt;d8=N+&lt;/code&gt; is the only move that saves white from checkmate. This would force a check, but also allow white to win with a maximum of 4 moves proceeding an Arabian Checkmate. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23370" LastActivityDate="2020-05-02T05:14:49.273" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29410" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29382" CreationDate="2020-05-02T06:33:50.340" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The way I learned chess, was by playing over games from books by great players and going over the analysis they wrote between moves. I think I have over 500 chess books.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I played over all games of Kaprov, Fischer, Alekhine, Capablanca, Smyslov, tal, etc.. and tried to guess what the next move should be before looking at it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For learning how to think in chess, I found the book &quot;Think Like a Grandmaster&quot; by Alexander Kotov really good and taught me how to organize my chess thoughts during games and most important, how to be efficient in doing it. Sometimes we get our chess analysis cluttered during the game, and find we are going over the same analysis over and over. I am sure we all done this. This book helps in teaching one how to think better during the game (i.e. organize our thought process).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You also need to learn good chess openings. Learn few lines well. No need to learn very many lines. Just make sure to get to middle game in at least equal position where one then is out of the book.   Need also to learn basic end game techniques. I studied many books on end game. Rook ending, Pawn endings, and learn the basic basic patterns that can show up in end game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But for me, the best way to get better in chess, was to go over the classic books written by the best players and read their own analysis of their games. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Fischer's my best 60 games, and Alekhine 3 book collection of &quot;My Best Games of Chess&quot; written by him, and &quot;My Best Games&quot; By Kaprov, are such examples.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This can be very time consuming also. So pick one player whose style you like, and try to study their games and do the analysis. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A good collection with good analysis is the the &lt;code&gt;chess informator&lt;/code&gt; books. I have large collection of these books. Study the games of the players you like their styles from these books.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At the end of the day, nothing beats playing chess with player who are stronger than you. After the game, go over it and see what mistakes you did. This is how you learn also.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My best US rating was 2430 I think or around there, and my ELO is 2310 (FM). I stopped going after the IM title as I got burned from chess. I do not play active chess any more. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just some thoughts. Hope they help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="804" LastEditorUserId="804" LastEditDate="2020-05-02T07:37:24.640" LastActivityDate="2020-05-02T07:37:24.640" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29411" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29311" CreationDate="2020-05-02T08:25:22.923" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is piece that is not allowing mate by white. Just force this piece to move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt; Qd8+ Bxd8 Re8#&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23371" LastActivityDate="2020-05-02T08:25:22.923" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29412" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29382" CreationDate="2020-05-02T10:14:35.180" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Personally I suggest you &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_System&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;My System&lt;/a&gt; by Aaron Nimzowitsch.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is an old book but I think still valid and a must have for every chess player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23361" LastEditorUserId="23361" LastEditDate="2020-05-02T11:08:16.453" LastActivityDate="2020-05-02T11:08:16.453" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29413" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29407" CreationDate="2020-05-02T23:23:10.730" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Move generation has been tested to death in modern chess engines, and the current consensus is that the following two approaches are optimal for sliding pieces:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A lookup table indexed by PEXT of the relevant occupancies (&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessprogramming.org/BMI2#PEXTBitboards&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&amp;quot;Fancy PEXT Bitboards&amp;quot;&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A lookup table indexed by the higher order bits of the product of the Bitboard of relevant occupancies and a magic multiplier (&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessprogramming.org/Magic_Bitboards&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&amp;quot;Magic Bitboards&amp;quot;&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Option 1 is preferred on CPUs which have a fast hardware PEXT (i.e. Intel Haswell and newer, no AMD CPUs at the time of writing). Otherwise, Option 2 is preferred.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, stockfish offers bmi2 and popcnt builds: the former uses PEXT bitboards, the latter uses magic bitboards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Kogge-stone&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Kogge-stone fill algorithm doesn't tend to be used in top engines for the simple reason that it benchmarks as being worse than the alternatives. I can offer a few reasons as to why this might be the case, but it is more important to recognise the fact that it &lt;em&gt;is&lt;/em&gt; the case:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;They require a ludicrous number of CPU instructions. Each ray that must be cast (of which there are four) requires 5 shifts, 5 bitwise '&amp;amp;'s, and 3 '|'s, while the lookup operations only require 3-5 instructions per slider.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;While Kogge-stone can in theory be vectorised, there tend to not be enough sliders on the board to take advantage of this. For example, there tend to only be 3 (or fewer) rook-like sliders on the board at any given time. This makes the parallelism not worth the speed tradeoff.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt; Actually improving move generation&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A few things to note based on your code:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Use &lt;code&gt;x &amp;amp; (x - 1)&lt;/code&gt; to clear the least significant bit: this is faster than &lt;code&gt;x &amp;amp;= ~(1 &amp;lt;&amp;lt; from)&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Don't recompute the mask at every iteration: do it before the generation loop instead&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Use magic bitboards or PEXT bitboards: this is faster than Kogge-stone&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Make sure that hot move generation functions (like &lt;code&gt;GetRookMoves&lt;/code&gt;) are inlined.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10075" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2020-05-02T23:23:10.730" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29415" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-05-03T12:42:42.917" Score="10" ViewCount="1847" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am playing chess on the chess.com app with the top three suggested moves:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Kf0ap.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Kf0ap.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am an amateur. I get the basic idea that developing your knights is a common, good thing early in the game, but why is that specific pawn move a7-a6 recommended? The queen could take it, but it’s protected by the rook.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21838" LastEditorUserId="293" LastEditDate="2020-05-04T10:52:20.613" LastActivityDate="2020-05-04T13:43:08.667" Title="Why are these moves recommended?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29416" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29415" CreationDate="2020-05-03T13:11:29.513" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;The point is that 4...Nc6 could be met with 5.Bb5, when the knight is pinned and it's likely White will exchange it off with Bxc6. Without the c6-knight, Black will lose some influence over the key d4- and e5-squares. Playing ...a6 before developing the knight aims to prevent this. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course there's a trade-off here, since Black is spending a tempo just to prevent a relatively innocuous exchange.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2020-05-03T13:11:29.513" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29417" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29418" CreationDate="2020-05-03T15:38:04.203" Score="9" ViewCount="600" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was reading about the Lc0 engine and its evolution. Then took a glimpse at the games between Lc0 and the notorious Stockfish. I am not a professional or anything remotely close, but this particular game seems very odd to me. According to &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/news/view/stockfish-wins-computer-chess-championship-rapid-lc0-finishes-3rd-3887&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;chess.com&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The Lc0 engine got off to a fast start in the bonus games, beating the reigning Computer Chess Champion Stockfish despite Lc0 starting down a pawn in the odds-chess position. In typical Leela style, the engine underpromoted to a rook to drive the win home.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;CCCC 1: Rapid Rumble (15|5) Bonus Games&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2018.10.03&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Lc0 17.11089&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Stockfish 220818&quot;]&#xA;[Time &quot;09:33:10&quot;]&#xA;[TimeControl &quot;900+5&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. f4 Nh6 2. f5 Nxf5 3. Nf3 Nh6 4. Ng1 Ng8 5. e4 e6 6. Nc3 d5 7. d4 Bb4 8. e5&#xA;Qh4+ 9. g3 Qd8 10. a3 Bf8 11. Be3 Ne7 12. Nf3 Nf5 13. Bg5 Be7 14. Bxe7 Nxe7 15.&#xA;Bd3 h6 16. b4 b6 17. O-O O-O 18. Ne2 c6 19. a4 c5 20. c3 Nbc6 21. Qd2 Bd7 22.&#xA;Rae1 Rc8 23. b5 Na5 24. Nf4 cxd4 25. cxd4 Qc7 26. Rc1 Qd8 27. Rxc8 Qxc8 28. Nh5&#xA;Nc4 29. Qf4 Ng6 30. Nf6+ Kh8 31. Qc1 Na5 32. Qd2 Nc4 33. Qc1 Na5 34. Bxg6 Qxc1&#xA;35. Rxc1 gxf6 36. Bh5 Nc4 37. exf6 Kg8 38. Ne5 Nxe5 39. dxe5 Rc8 40. Rxc8+ Bxc8&#xA;41. Be2 d4 42. Bf3 h5 43. Bxh5 Bb7 44. Kf2 Be4 45. Ke1 d3 46. Kd2 Kf8 47. Ke3&#xA;Bh7 48. Bd1 Ke8 49. g4 Kd8 50. Kd2 Ke8 51. Ke3 Kf8 52. Kf3 Ke8 53. Kf2 Kd7 54.&#xA;Ke3 Kc7 55. h4 Kc8 56. h5 Kd7 57. Kf3 Ke8 58. Kf2 Kf8 59. Ke3 Kg8 60. Kf4 Kh8&#xA;61. Kf3 Bg8 62. Ke4 Bh7+ 63. Kf4 Kg8 64. Ke3 Kf8 65. Kf2 Be4 66. Ke3 Bh7 67. Bb3&#xA;Kg8 68. Bc4 d2 69. Kxd2 Be4 70. Be2 Bb7 71. g5 Be4 72. Bd1 Kh8 73. Kc3 Kg8 74.&#xA;Be2 Bf5 75. Kd2 Bb1 76. Bd1 Kf8 77. Kc3 Ke8 78. Kb2 Bh7 79. Kc3 Be4 80. Kd2 Bf5&#xA;81. Ke3 Bb1 82. Kf3 Kf8 83. Ke3 Ke8 84. Kd4 Kf8 85. Kc3 Bh7 86. Be2 Kg8 87. Bg4&#xA;Be4 88. Bd1 Kh8 89. Kd2 Bh7 90. Bg4 Kg8 91. Bd1 Kf8 92. Bb3 Ke8 93. Bc4 Kd7 94.&#xA;Be2 Ke8 95. Kc3 Kf8 96. Bd1 Bb1 97. Bg4 Be4 98. Kd2 Kg8 99. g6 fxg6 100. Bxe6+&#xA;Kf8 101. h6 g5 102. Ke3 Bg6 103. Bd5 g4 104. Kf4 g3 105. Kxg3 Ke8 106. e6 Kd8&#xA;107. Kf4 a6 108. bxa6 Be8 109. a7 Kc7 110. a8=Q Kd6 111. h7 Kc5 112. h8=R Bd7&#xA;113. Ke5 Kb4 114. Rh3 Bxa4 115. Kd4 Bd1 116. Bc6 Bb3 117. f7 b5 118. f8=Q# (118.&#xA;f8=B#) 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ok, I can understand that Lc0 gives a pawn in advance —maybe to show off its superiority, but the rest of the game is full of unbelievably stupid moves. And ironically, those amateur moves are coming from both sides. For example, even for someone like me, &lt;code&gt;9. g3 Qd8&lt;/code&gt; is hard to believe.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also can understand that in rapid games, stupid moves are likely to happen. But these are chess engines who can find almost perfect moves in a fraction of second (well, according to my personal experience with Stockfish). So time limit cannot be such a heavy barrier. Then why are they playing dumb like this? Is it intentional or something?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10983" LastActivityDate="2020-05-10T04:13:16.850" Title="Why are world-class engines playing like this?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;computer-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29418" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29417" CreationDate="2020-05-03T17:07:51.613" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;Basically, the first four moves were implemented to start a game without the f2 pawn, i.e., with an imposed handicap. The game starts at move 5 with a French Defense set-up for Black. I'm surprised that Lc0 can win against Stockfish with a pawn down. I would probably have chosen to play &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt; than &lt;code&gt;e6&lt;/code&gt;, with the idea to install a Bishop in &lt;code&gt;c5&lt;/code&gt; and try to take advantage of the open &lt;code&gt;g1-a7&lt;/code&gt; diagonal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was also intrigued by some of the positions and their &lt;strong&gt;seemingly dumb moves&lt;/strong&gt;, but some of them are not that dumb! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;You mentioned a first puzzling moment after &lt;code&gt;9.g3&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lc0 has a pawn down and Stockfish plays to win with &lt;code&gt;Qd8&lt;/code&gt;! By taking in &lt;code&gt;h1&lt;/code&gt; Stockfish could be even worst. Then, we may question the &lt;code&gt;Qd8-h4-d8&lt;/code&gt; sequence that has the advantage of weakening the kingside but loses two tempi. Reacting by &lt;code&gt;c5&lt;/code&gt; instead of &lt;code&gt;Qh4&lt;/code&gt; was probably more natural.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;rnb1k1nr/ppp2ppp/4p3/3pP3/1b1P3q/2N3P1/PPP4P/R1BQKBNR b KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;[title &quot;Position after 9. g3&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;9... Qd8! {was played and Lc0 has a pawn down and Stockfish plays to win with Qd8!} (9... Qe4? {is the obvious move but} 10.Kf2 Qxh1 (10...Bxc3 11.bxc3 Qxh1 12.h3!! is a transposition) 11.h3!! 11...Bxc3 12.bxc3 Qe4 13.Nf3! {White can maybe play for a win here because I don't see how the Queen escapes!} (13.Bd3 Qh1 14.Bf1=))&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;The second one is after the massive exchanges &lt;code&gt;41.Be2&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White has winning chances in this endgame and Stockfish tries to find some counterplay by playing &lt;code&gt;41... d4&lt;/code&gt;. Assume Black waits and plays &lt;code&gt;Bb7-Ba8&lt;/code&gt; without playing d4. Then, the winning plan for White is to bring the King to h5 to collect the h6 pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;2b3k1/p4p2/1p2pP1p/1P1pP2B/P7/6P1/7P/6K1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;[title &quot;Position after 40... Bxc8&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Be2! d4 (1...Bb7 2. Kf2 Ba8 3.Kf3 Bb7 4.Kg4 Ba8 5.Kh5 Kh7 6.Bd3 Kg8 7.Kxh6+-)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Update. There are still some positions where like @polfosol I can't understand Lc0 moves! For instance, after &lt;code&gt;78... Bh7&lt;/code&gt;, the move &lt;code&gt;79.Kc3&lt;/code&gt; seems indeed quite &quot;dumb&quot;! After &lt;code&gt;79.Bc2!&lt;/code&gt; the win is very easy (at least for a human ;-). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;4k3/p4p1b/1p2pP2/1P2P1PP/P7/8/1K6/3B4 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;[title &quot;Position after 78... Bh7&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11749" LastEditorUserId="11749" LastEditDate="2020-05-06T14:59:42.137" LastActivityDate="2020-05-06T14:59:42.137" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29419" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29415" CreationDate="2020-05-03T20:24:18.270" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;They suggested you play a6 to prevent the white-squared bishop from playing to b5...which will be a bad start to the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23392" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2020-05-03T20:51:17.353" LastActivityDate="2020-05-03T20:51:17.353" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29420" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29397" CreationDate="2020-05-03T21:11:18.480" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;When you push d4 early on, the general plan is to protect the d4-square and e4-pawn, while developing quickly. With your king out of the centre things tend to become easier, and you can focus on more long-term plans. Meanwhile, if Black clamps down on the d4-square with ...e5, then they have also weakened their d5-square. Here the plan is to capitalize on the d5-square (not necessarily with an immediate Nd5), and to play on the flanks (for example, with a3, Rb1, b4).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'll outline some theory for the lines you mentioned in your comment. At the end of my answer I'll give what I think is a better way to play the e4+c4 system.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;1.e4 c5 2.c4 Nc6 3.Nf3 e6 4.d4 (delaying d4 with 4.Nc3 and 5.Be2 is also possible) 4...cxd4 5.Nxd4 Nf6. After 6.Nc3 Bb4, your e4-pawn is under attack. It is best to defend it with your light-squared bishop, but right now Bd3 loses to ...Nxd4. So you should play 7.Nxc6, and now there are two main responses:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;7...bxc6 8.Bd3. Now Black may strike in the centre with ...e5 or ...d5 (before or after castling). For example, 8...e5 (8...d5 is met with 9.exd5 exd5 10.0-0) 9.0-0 0-0 doesn't give White any advantage, but the position is playable. A possible continuation is 10.Be3 Bxc3 (10...d6 could be met with 11.Qc1 followed by a3, since ...Bxc3 no longer gives you doubled pawns) 11.bxc3 d6 12.c5!?.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;7...dxc6 8.Qxd8+ Kxd8 9.e5! Ne4 (or 9...Nd7 10.Bf4, followed soon by 0-0-0) 10.a3 Bxc3+ 11.bxc3 may give White a pull. He has the two bishops, while Black's minor pieces aren't that good (for different reasons). Note that 11...Nxc3?! should be met with 12.a4, when White may meet ...b6 with Be3 and a5. He has enough compensation for the pawn to claim an edge.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;1.e4 c5 2.c4 d6 3.Nc3 Nc6 4.Nf3 g6 (4...e5 looks good for Black). Here White should play 5.d4 cxd4 (or 5...Bg4 6.d5 Nd4 7.Be2) 6.Nxd4 Bg7 7.Be3, but now this transposes to a line in the accelerated dragon. The theory here is well developed, and I'm not sure if this is what you're interested in, considering with 2.c4 I assume you're trying to avoid Open Sicilian lines.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;1.e4 c5 2.c4 Nc6 3.Nf3 e5 4.Nc3 d6. Here I don't like the immediate 5.Nd5, and instead 5.d3 looks better (followed by Be2, 0-0, etc). The problem though is that Black can push ...f5, whereas you can't push f4 since the knight is already committed to f3. This gives Black at least equality, and while the line is playable, it would be better if your knight was on e2. After castling you could try playing on the queenside with a3, Rb1, b4 (and Nd5 if the position calls for it), but Black's kingside play looks easier.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my opinion, due to the possibility of Black playing ...e5, I think it's best not to play Nf3. Instead, a setup with Nc3, g3, Bg2, Nge2 looks stronger. Then, you may continue developing with 0-0, d3, Be3, Qd2, f4, etc. The d4-square will remain a hole for now, but in general your setup is pretty harmonious. In addition, you can play it against a variety of different systems Black has.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A good introduction for this opening on YouTube is a video on the Botvinnik-English system by the Melbourne Chess Club channel.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastEditorUserId="12873" LastEditDate="2020-05-03T21:16:54.287" LastActivityDate="2020-05-03T21:16:54.287" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29421" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29415" CreationDate="2020-05-04T00:47:45.593" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Things you should consider this early in the game before playing your next move:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Development of your pieces&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Control Over center&lt;br&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you do not know about these, try reading about it before you play your next game. You'll see improvement on your own.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I were to show you a blunder-filled game from black (see below). You can clearly see few moves wrong from here and black is down on pieces as well as defense is broken. White is easily winning. But this is highly unrealistic TBH.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Time &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[TimeControl &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 exd4 4. Qxd4 Be7 5. Qa4 Nc6 6. Bb5 a6 7. Bxc6 bxc6 8. Qxc6 Qd7 9. Qxa8 (4. Qxd4 Na6 5. Bg5 Be7 6. Bxe7 Qxe7 7. Qxg7 )&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But those recommended moves remove a lot of pressure of black and keep the balance of the game equal.&lt;br&gt; 1. Evaluating a6:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Time &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[TimeControl &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 exd4 4. Qxd4 a6 5. Qa4 Bd7 (5. Bb5+ axb5) (5. Nc3)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can see clearly Bb5 is not at all good for white now. &lt;code&gt;4. Qxd4 a6 5. Qa4 b5&lt;/code&gt; make white underdeveloped as white has to save the queen from the pawn. Even after using Nc3,  Na4 or Na5 are just loss of tempo for white i.e, bad moves. Although, white can recover from here but so can black improve himself here. &lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;2. Evaluating Nc6&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Time &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[TimeControl &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 exd4 4. Qxd4 Nc6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can see here the queen is under attack and the knight at c6 is covering 4 different squares a5,b4, d4,e5 and also e7 is possible if needed. And this also stops direct check threats to the king (Honorable mentions here would be that black has now one free space to move the rook and he is one step closer to queen side castling). &lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt; 3. Evaluating Nf6 :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Time &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[TimeControl &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 exd4 4. Qxd4 Nf6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similar to Nc3 discussed previously, Nf6 strengthens control over center by putting pressure on pawn at e4, d5 and controls g4 and h5 for now. After Be7 black will be able to do king side castle. This also saves queen from being harassed by Bg5. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All in all these are actually the better moves you should play here. Because if you don't white can easily take a lead and even if you are able to save your pieces, white will easily be able to mess up your pawn structure. &#xA;Thank you for reading.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23242" LastEditorUserId="23242" LastEditDate="2020-05-04T13:43:08.667" LastActivityDate="2020-05-04T13:43:08.667" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29422" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28919" CreationDate="2020-05-04T02:55:30.253" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I finally got around to reading the book &lt;em&gt;Chess To Enjoy&lt;/em&gt; by Andrew Soltis after I found that I could borrow it on the &lt;a href=&quot;https://archive.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Internet Archive&lt;/a&gt;. The problem appears on page 207, and the last name &quot;Dorogov&quot; is mentioned, which means that the suspected composer Yuri Dorogov is named in the story attached to the problem, with the usual alien vs person situation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On page 205, Soltis gives &lt;a href=&quot;https://pdb.dieschwalbe.de/P1373264&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; joke problem by Vladimir Korolkov, before the tale.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Vladimir Korolkov, Shakhmaty v SSSR 1969, Mate In 3&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;3r4/KP6/5p2/RR3P2/2Nk4/3p4/3P4/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The joke is that after 1. Nd6, and 1... Ra1+ to prevent the mate, White plays 2. b8=K!, and White gives mate with either rook after Black takes either king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Soltis wrote this about the problem: “But, like Sam Loyd, Korolkov always tries to dress up his problems, often with a story. Sometimes his end result isn’t a problem per se but a story-plus-diagram.” Then the story is given, after which. the problem this question about appears.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Soltis wrote this before the tale: “A colleague of Korolkov’s named Dorogov topped this with a tale of meeting a visitor from outer space one day during a Caucaus rainstorm.”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far I can read this, is means that Yuri Dorogov is indeed the composer of the problem. Since he “topped” the problem, is indicates that, since Korolkov published his story in 1969, that Dorogov published his tale sometime between 1969 and 1972, which is when it appears in the &lt;em&gt;Chess Life Magazine&lt;/em&gt; issue linked in @user5713492‘s answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is a minor mystery why Soltis doesn’t give the authorship in his magazine column, but that is perhaps a mystery lost to time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: I did some Googling of “Yuri Dorogov”, and went deep into the results and I have concrete evidence of Dorogov being the composer!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Firstly, the site &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.newspapers.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;www.newspapers.com&lt;/a&gt; gave &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.newspapers.com/clip/262605/the-ottawa-journal/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; clipping from the June 12, 1976 issue &lt;em&gt;The Ottawa Journal&lt;/em&gt;, which is from Canada.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/TSeL4.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/TSeL4.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At the end of the short story, the clipping reads “(Story by Yuri Dorogov, translated from Russian).” This is direct attribution to Dorogov.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Secondly, I found a &lt;a href=&quot;https://ajedrezconmaestros.com/2020/04/28/el-marciano-ajedrecista-episodio-2-los-increibles-mates-de-capablanca-contra-9-y-10-reyes/?unapproved=130&amp;amp;moderation-hash=45068895b381c0ef618bef3267ea6d80#comment-130&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Spanish article&lt;/a&gt; entitled “ El marciano ajedrecista episodio 2”-Los increíbles mates de Capablanca contra 9 y 10 Reyes”, which continues what seems to be an Internet tradition for websites using the Spanish language of sharing a game supposedly between Capablanca and a martian/alien.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the “Notes” section, the author Marcelo Reides states that he finally found the author of the problem, having shared it in &lt;a href=&quot;https://ajedrezconmaestros.com/2020/03/24/el-marciano-ajedrecista-episodio-1/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;another article&lt;/a&gt; of his. He states: “Completando las notas de aquella publicación, pude hallar al autor del famoso primer problema. En el anexo “Revista Ajedrez” “El primer contacto con un extraterreste nov 1975”  podrán ver el artículo con el relato y el problema del compositor ruso Yuri Dorogov. Debo agradecer a los amigos Diego Sumic y Hebert Perez García que me enviaron el artículo y la revista escaneados.”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Roughly transcribed by Google Translate, it says in English that the story was shared an article entitled &quot;El primer contacto con un extraterreste” in the November, 1975 issue of &lt;em&gt;Revista Ajedrez&lt;/em&gt;, and in the text the authorship is ascribed to Yuri Dorogov. A picture of the print is helpfully given that confirms it. “Por” means “By” in Spanish, and it says “Por Y. Dorogov” beneath the title, which is direct confirmation that he is the composer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/PG0xQ.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With a known Russian author named Yuri Dorogov and a probable timeframe for it being composed between 1969 and 1972, if not earlier, all that is needed now is to find the original source for the problem.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-05-05T12:41:01.767" LastActivityDate="2020-05-05T12:41:01.767" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29423" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29356" CreationDate="2020-05-04T03:52:44.010" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Francesco di Castellvi vs Narciso Vinyoles&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;1475&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Don Francí de Castellví(mars aka love)&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Narcís Vinyoles(venus aka glory)&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;white&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[Time &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;[TimeControl &quot;?&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 d5 2. exd5 Qd5 3. Nc3 Qd8 4. Bc4 Nf6 5. Nf3 Bg4 6. h3 Bf3 7. Qf3 e6 8. Qb7 Nbd7 9. Nb5 Rc8 10. Na7 Nb6 11. Nc8 Nc8 12. d4 Nd6 13. Bb5 Nb5 14. Qb5 Nd7 15. d5 exd5 16. Be3 Bd6 17. Rd1 Qf6 18. Rd5 Qg6 19. Bf4 Bf4 20. Qd7 Kf8 21. Qd8#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is derived from the poem &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.scachsdamor.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;which you can read here&lt;/a&gt;. I found this while watching &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ed2Tw4ilH7o&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this youtube channel&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At move 19 here I can see the three piece attack you were talking about. Here the bishop gets sacrificed for getting a checkmate. This the oldest usage of it that you'll find where the rules followed are the same as today.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Closest thing i could find was this sentence: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chesscollection?cid=1006536&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt; &quot;3 Piece Rule Compiled by notyetagm  --*-- You need three pieces to&#xA;  checkmate the enemy king, one to sacrifice and two to deliver mate. Of&#xA;  course more is better. :-)&quot;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Rule:&lt;/strong&gt; one of a set of explicit or understood regulations or principles governing conduct or procedure within a particular area of activity. It should be absolute(a value or principle which is regarded as universally valid or which may be viewed without relation to other things)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But we know that it is possible to Checkmate your opponent using less than 3 pieces.&#xA;Example: &lt;br&gt;For checkmate using single piece =&gt; Back rank checkmate or a smothered checkmate&lt;br&gt;&#xA;For checkmate with 2 piece there is =&gt; classic queen rook checkmate or Diagonal checkmate,&lt;a href=&quot;https://thechessworld.com/articles/training-techniques/13-checkmates-you-must-know/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;etc&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hence, it is not applicable everywhere and thus it isn't a rule (you shouldn't considered it either). &lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;em&gt;&quot;if you have three pieces or more in the attack you can sacrifice without thinking!&quot;&lt;/em&gt; But this is a line that works a lot of time. So the question arises what is this? It's just a &lt;strong&gt;strategy&lt;/strong&gt; or if you wanna be specific its a attack strategy or even a checkmate strategy in cases. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can even generalize this as &quot;trade off when you have more number of attacking pieces that defending pieces&quot;. &lt;strong&gt;It actually establishes the basics&lt;/strong&gt; of our chess today, that might not be fruitful in all the cases. &lt;strong&gt;As there is one and only one goal in chess , that is to defeat your opponent and obtain a victory.&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;So, Apply it all you want but make sure to win. Or at least its application should be fruitful to you and not your opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As to my final answer to you, it isn't a rule it's a strategy and like other strategy's there is a very strong likely hood that someone played it before it got recognized by some name. As to oldest usage its  Mars vs Venus,1475 if you'll consider this. So, regarding who and when, it's something i feel that has evolved with time along with the modern chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23242" LastEditorUserId="11749" LastEditDate="2020-05-04T07:02:47.683" LastActivityDate="2020-05-04T07:02:47.683" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29425" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-05-04T17:05:49.933" Score="6" ViewCount="1227" Body="&lt;p&gt;I read a related but closed question &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/21334/should-i-just-avoid-playing-1-e4&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; and I share a very similar feeling. I would love to play 1. e4 but I only feel comfortable when my opponent replies with 1. ... e5, or French, or Caro-Kann. I find 1. ... c5 too complicated and too risky for me as white.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Surely there is no way I can control what my opponent play but here is my thought: since I also like the English opening, when the game starts with 1. e4 c5, can I continue with 2. c4. aiming to reach the following position for white:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/I4s7k.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/I4s7k.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To me, this position is less risky and more solid for white than most lines in Sicillian. Is it a good idea to play 2. c4 after 1. e4 c5 if I am uncomfortable with Sicillian?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems that according to 365chess.com's statestics, 2. c4 is an unpopular move and the winning percentage for white is very low. So what's wrong with 2. c4 if I continue the game with the ideas of the English opening?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/5PwsB.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/5PwsB.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16626" LastActivityDate="2020-05-27T16:00:13.160" Title="I like to play 1. e4 but I dislike 1. ... c5. Can I continue with 2. c4?" Tags="&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;&lt;1.e4&gt;&lt;english-opening&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29426" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29425" CreationDate="2020-05-04T17:22:52.683" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is not the most ambitious choice, but should be playable. It has been played by 2500 rated players. Basically by playing c4 you weaken your dark squares and black  could try to take advantage of it by the following set up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 c5 2.c4 Nc6 3.Nc3 g6 4.g3 Bg7 5.Bg2 e6 6.Nge2 Nge7 7.d3 O-O&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are fine with such position go for it. I wouldn't be too thrilled having that hole on d4. Also, black always has the option of playing d5 which I often find uncomfortable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Two alternatives to avoid the sharp lines of the Sicilian:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;go for a Maroczy bind by following up your c4 with d4 later on. This is a very stable position.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;go for a Kings Indian Attack by playing 2. d3&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2020-05-04T17:22:52.683" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29427" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29425" CreationDate="2020-05-04T22:31:15.233" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can, but if you like most openings with 1.e4, it's probably not the most adequate choice for your &quot;style&quot; (the resulting position will be &quot;slow&quot; rather than a fast exchange of tactical blows. 2.c4 is a legitimate option, but here are a few alternatives you may want to consider:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Find some line in the Open Sicilian: this is the ideal, but requires a lot of work to be put in tournament practice. I'd definitely go for it when playing &quot;just for fun&quot;. There are a lot of crazy middlegames resulting from this option and you'll also  &quot;learn a lot of chess&quot; from them.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Play the Alapin with 2.c3. Still a solid, more positional option Probably more ambitious than 2.c4.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Play the wild Morra gambit! (2.d4 cxd4 3.c3) This would be my favourite way to go if not for the fact that that Black can transpose to the Alapin if they want to.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Play some f4-based scheme, like the Grand Prix (more aggressive) or the Closed Sicilian (more solid)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a final consideration, there is nothing wrong with 2.c4. Don't blindly believe the Statistics. It could be that there is a player skill bias against 2.c4, or perhaps that players who opt for this line haven't often studied it deeply. Filtering for games at different ratings could dramatically impact the result. In my opinion, the main problem with 2.c4 is that Black can choose between a closed, symmetrical position with an eventual ...e5, or simply try to exploit the d4 square with ...g6, ...Bg7, ...Nc6-d4 and so on....&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2020-05-05T06:13:18.613" LastActivityDate="2020-05-05T06:13:18.613" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29428" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-05-05T13:07:28.503" Score="2" ViewCount="513" Body="&lt;p&gt;I implemented the killer move heuristic based on my understanding, but is it correct?&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;Inserting a killer move when a non-capture causes a beta cutoff (i is a Move pointer)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;// Stuff&#xA;if(val &amp;gt;= beta){&#xA;        // Non capture move that causes a beta cutoff = Killer Move&#xA;        if(!GameObj.is_capture(*i, player))&#xA;            insert_killer(*i, depth);&#xA;        return beta;&#xA;    }&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Actual Insertion By Shifting&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;void insert_killer(Move m, short depth){&#xA;for(short i = 0; i &amp;lt; KillerSize - 1; i++)&#xA;    // Shift the moves&#xA;    KillerMoves[depth][i] = KillerMoves[depth][i + 1];&#xA;KillerMoves[depth][KillerSize - 1] = m;&#xA;}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Storing in move generator&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;vector&amp;lt;Move&amp;gt; non_captures;&#xA;vector&amp;lt;Move&amp;gt; captures;&#xA;vector&amp;lt;Move&amp;gt; Killers;&#xA;// Stuff&#xA;if(!this-&amp;gt;is_capture(move)){&#xA;    if (is_killer(depth, move))&#xA;        Killers.push_back(move);&#xA;    else&#xA;        non_captures.push_back(move);&#xA;}&#xA;// Stuff&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ordering in move generator&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;// Stuff&#xA;vector&amp;lt;Move&amp;gt; all_moves;&#xA;sort(captures.begin(), captures.end(), comparer);&#xA;all_moves.reserve(captures.size() + non_captures.size() + Killers.size());&#xA;all_moves.insert(all_moves.end(), captures.begin(), captures.end());&#xA;if(!capture_only){&#xA;    all_moves.insert(all_moves.end(), Killers.begin(), Killers.end());&#xA;    all_moves.insert(all_moves.end(), non_captures.begin(), non_captures.end());&#xA;}&#xA;return all_moves;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23404" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-05-05T13:11:43.703" LastActivityDate="2020-05-14T12:32:18.213" Title="Is this implementation of Killer Move heuristic correct?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;programming&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29430" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-05-05T15:41:34.153" Score="20" ViewCount="9385" Body="&lt;p&gt;I play numerous online chess games and in this question I am self-centred: I play for two purposes: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;to win the game, or when winning is unlikely, to draw the game.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;to improve my chess skills, which eventually enables me to win/draw more games.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I do not care about my opponents' fun. I do not care if they feel frustrated or bored. However, I will remain polite and I am against bad sportsmanship.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is my logic: when my opponent finds a game non-interesting, they will more likely make inferior or aimless moves, or even blunders, and thus increase my chance of winning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A few thoughts:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When the opponent invites me into a sharp line, decline it. Make moves to solidify my position instead. Decline most gambits.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Choose boring openings whenever possible.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Choose openings that my opponent does not like, if I know their preferences.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is the idea of destroying your opponent's fun good? Are there any other strategies to bore my opponent so that hopefully they will lose their patience and start making inferior/aimless moves?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16626" LastEditorUserId="16626" LastEditDate="2020-05-08T03:51:00.437" LastActivityDate="2021-03-10T19:31:53.027" Title="How to minimise your opponent's fun in a game?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;psychology&gt;&lt;etiquette&gt;" AnswerCount="10" CommentCount="30" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29431" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29430" CreationDate="2020-05-05T16:09:55.400" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;Most definitely (as in any sport) it is a good idea to play to your strenghts and to your opponent's weaknesses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This requires:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;that you have the time, data and ability to analyze your opponent's games&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the ability to be able to play all kinds of styles.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both of these are just about impossible for beginners though. But as you advance you should  consider this as an additional option. Mastering this is reserved to some of the best players and even among those, many players do have a certain style.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would not go so far as to chose &lt;em&gt;boring openings&lt;/em&gt; consistently. What if your opponent likes boring games as well? Being flexible is a good idea in chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2020-05-05T16:09:55.400" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29432" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29430" CreationDate="2020-05-05T16:19:24.627" Score="24" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I play for two purposes: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;ol&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;to win the game, or when winning is unlikely, to draw the game.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;li&gt;to improve my chess skills, which eventually enables me to win/draw more games.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;  &lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These are good goals, although you might want to add &quot;to have fun&quot; because if you don't have fun you are quickly going to lose motivation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I do not care about my opponents' fun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also good, because if you care too much about your opponents' fun you will end up losing focus and not follow your two stated primary goals.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is the idea of destroying your opponent's fun good?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No, it is counterproductive. If you start focusing on how much fun your opponent may or may not be having then this can only distract you and detract from your game. If, for the purposes of this question you are going to be truly self-centered then you cannot let your opponents' feelings, good or bad, enter into your considerations. It can only lead to bad play on your behalf. Concentrate on making the best moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-05-05T16:19:24.627" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29433" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29387" CreationDate="2020-05-05T18:28:34.620" Score="4" Body="&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt; It's an &quot;en passant&quot; problem.&lt;br&gt;&#xA; Black's last move had to have been &lt;code&gt;0..., e5&lt;/code&gt;.  Then when white captures the pawn en passant with &lt;code&gt;1. dxe6 e.p.&lt;/code&gt;, black is mated by the white bishop on b2 since the black f7 pawn is pinned by the white b7 rook and can't interpose to block the bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastEditorUserId="23056" LastEditDate="2020-05-05T18:39:40.783" LastActivityDate="2020-05-05T18:39:40.783" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29434" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-05-05T19:52:22.427" Score="3" ViewCount="177" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are resourses that can estimate your elo rating such as &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.elometer.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this one&lt;/a&gt;. Usually I need to solve some puzzles and the system will give me an estimation of my elo rating. Here I have a different thought: Can an online resource estimate my elo rating based on the games that I play? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, if I can upload the recent 100 games that I played under some standard time control, will there be a way to estimate my elo based on how I play? It seems feasible to me but I am not sure if such resource exists.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16626" LastActivityDate="2020-05-05T20:26:57.310" Title="Online resource for estimating my elo rating using my games?" Tags="&lt;elo&gt;&lt;online&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29435" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-05-05T20:14:11.970" Score="22" ViewCount="4631" Body="&lt;p&gt;There seems to be an established &quot;chess canon&quot;, whereby general principles exist for long term strategy in the game. There is a well-characterized set of openings, a small subset of which are even played, and even in middle to endgame one can identify named structures, attacking/defending pieces, point values, etc. High level players and chess engines will occasionally break &quot;the rules&quot; - but on a move-to-move basis, not consistently throughout an entire game. In others words, it seems like even though chess has room for a lot of creativity, that creativity lies within a well-established theory of what one might consider &quot;basic technique&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am thinking of a project involving training an AI to play chess, but with a loss function that discourages common moves for that position - i.e. a chess engine that performs incredibly well but as unlike a human as possible. But before I launch into training, I'm wondering if such a thing is even possible. Chess theory is great for  teaching humans how to play, but is it possible that it is the &lt;em&gt;only&lt;/em&gt; way to play chess at the level that top humans do? Are there any obstacles to the possibility of a completely different playstyle that would consistently break every rule in the book but still beat top players? Or does modern positional analysis rigorously rule out other strategies?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm a total amateur at chess, just a machine learning engineer with  an interest in the game - so I apologize if this question is trivial. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23414" LastEditorUserId="14473" LastEditDate="2020-05-06T13:44:31.983" LastActivityDate="2020-05-06T21:35:31.587" Title="Is it possible that a radically different but equally effective playstyle exists?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;computer-chess&gt;&lt;style&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29436" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29434" CreationDate="2020-05-05T20:26:57.310" Score="5" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;For example, if I can upload the recent 100 games that I played under&#xA;  some standard time control, will there be a way to estimate my elo&#xA;  based on how I play?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If, as part of that upload, you also supply the ratings of opponents in the same rating system (i.e. all FIDE or all lichess or all chess.com) for at least 5 of the games in which you score at least half a point, then yes. Of course the moves played would be irrelevant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The point being that no rating system gives a measure of &lt;em&gt;absolute&lt;/em&gt; playing strength. Every single rating system gives a measure of &lt;em&gt;relative&lt;/em&gt; playing strength.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-05-05T20:26:57.310" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29437" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29389" CreationDate="2020-05-05T21:14:01.007" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's an underpromotion problem, with promotion to a knight on d8 with check by 1.d8(N)+ to avoid checkmate by the black queen on the ensuing move on the &quot;h&quot; file.  All ensuing white moves must be with check for the same reason. If 1..., Kc8 then 2. Ra8# is mate, so the king must go to b8 with 1..., Kb8 after which White can follow up with 2. Nc6+ Kb7 (or 2..., Kc8 3. Ra8+ Kb7 4. Rb8#) 3. Ra7+ Kc8 4. Ra8+ Kb7 5. Rb8#. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-05-05T21:18:54.000" LastActivityDate="2020-05-05T21:18:54.000" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29438" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29435" CreationDate="2020-05-05T21:26:14.180" Score="5" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I am thinking of a project involving training an AI to play chess, but&#xA;  with a loss function that discourages common moves for that position -&#xA;  i.e. a chess engine that performs incredibly well but as unlike a&#xA;  human as possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course it would be possible to program an AI (or even an ordinary computer with no intelligence) to play the most unpopular moves for each position. However it would also be the single worst performing engine in the world. Complete beginners would love playing against it because they would win quite a few games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you stop and think about it for a few seconds you will realize that most of the time most of the people try and play the moves which give the best results. The more these moves become known the more they are played. The really bad moves that lead to quick losses tend to be played the least.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This conclusion requires knowledge of human nature and little or no chess knowledge.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-05-05T21:26:14.180" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29439" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29435" CreationDate="2020-05-06T01:18:02.187" Score="21" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's definitely possible there are strategies we don't know about. However, training your engine to specifically play &lt;em&gt;contrary&lt;/em&gt; to all we know isn't the way to get there. For example, what would you do if one of your pieces were threatened? Our current knowledge says to not give it up for no reason, so would your AI therefore decide to give it up (because it's technically mathematically possible there could be some hidden idea 30-40 moves down the road?). You'd do better with random moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A better way to unlock hidden strategies is through a more bottom up approach. For example, AlphaZero learned on its own (&lt;em&gt;without&lt;/em&gt; human knowledge), just using the rules of the game to guide it. From this, we saw a new style of playing that was basically unknown. But trying to get this new style of playing wasn't the primary goal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically, it's fine to disregard human knowledge, but it's not fine to actively train an AI to play opposite to this knowledge. Here you're just trading one well established knowledge base for a vastly poorer one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastEditorUserId="12873" LastEditDate="2020-05-06T21:35:31.587" LastActivityDate="2020-05-06T21:35:31.587" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29440" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29430" CreationDate="2020-05-06T01:28:18.017" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess is a zero sum game, so your opponent's disadvantage is your advantage. Therefore, if you are serious and can find any (sportsmanlike) way to make them dislike the game, you should clearly take it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your first two points (declining sharp lines and choosing boring openings) are fine, as long as you won't be more bored than your opponent is. If you prefer positional systems then this will work well, but keep in mind that your opponent has a similar mindset. They will try to get you into sharp lines that you dislike. The struggle here is to see who gets their way, and often the choice of opening and be helpful in dictating the play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The third point should absolutely be followed, if you're capable of playing different openings. In preparation for world championship matches, the contenders spend months going through their opponent's games, looking for weaknesses. If they find that one opening is particularly difficult, they will choose it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To be clear though, you should mainly be focused on making objectively sound moves. If there is an opportunity to minimize your opponent's fun, with little to no cost for you, then take it. But don't go into a bad system just because you know your opponent won't like the arising positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastEditorUserId="12873" LastEditDate="2020-05-06T10:51:09.183" LastActivityDate="2020-05-06T10:51:09.183" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29441" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29435" CreationDate="2020-05-06T01:48:18.433" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;In principle this is pretty easy. Get a database of 10 million human games, re-score the positions with a chess program (Lc0 or Stockfish), then train a Neural net to prioritize a combination of score and not picking the human selected move. Once you had the data, this could be done in a few weeks of GPU time, and should produce a computer that makes relatively weird moves, and could probably be super-human in strength.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17100" LastActivityDate="2020-05-06T01:48:18.433" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29442" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29443" CreationDate="2020-05-06T06:01:49.353" Score="1" ViewCount="109" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was looking the Chess glossary and two words brought curiosity : &lt;strong&gt;bad bishop&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;big pawn&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;em&gt;Where the later being the condition that occurs when you have a bad bishop&lt;/em&gt;. One thing i noticed was bad bishop was always defined on end game reference. I don't understand why? Can't you have bad bishop or a big pawn mid-game or relatively early game!(?) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br&gt; Found these images for bad bishop and big pawn on Wikipedia:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/M5sMe.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/M5sMe.png&quot; alt=&quot;bad bishop&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/GqGXj.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/GqGXj.png&quot; alt=&quot;big pawn&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br&gt;Hence, I wanted to know if there were any games where big pawn leads a chess player to victory (When enemy has a good bishop) at an international stage?&#xA;or rephrasing the above as &quot;occurrences where bad bishop was more significant to victory than a good bishop?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23242" LastEditorUserId="18809" LastEditDate="2020-05-06T10:06:23.357" LastActivityDate="2020-05-06T22:36:39.770" Title="Are there illustrative examples where a conventionally &quot;bad bishop&quot; leads its side to a win?" Tags="&lt;bishops&gt;&lt;bishop-endgame&gt;&lt;bad-bishop&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29443" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29442" CreationDate="2020-05-06T07:26:31.560" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;My understanding is that we call a bad bishop a &quot;big pawn&quot; especially in the endgame to emphasize the fact that the bishop cannot be considered a full piece in these situations. It can't move much. It is very passive. Having such a bishop is a &lt;strong&gt;long term&lt;/strong&gt; handicap.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You are right, these situations can also occur earlier in the game, but there is always a hope that a passive bishop can be traded or become more active when the position opens. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance, in the Dutch Stonewall, the &lt;code&gt;Bc8&lt;/code&gt; is a bad bishop but you can try to trade it by playing &lt;code&gt;Bc8-d7-e8-h5&lt;/code&gt; or via a6 in some cases. Having such a bishop earlier in the game is a handicap, but calling it &quot;big pawn&quot; would be too definitive, the bishop can live again!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;*&quot;Occurrences where bad bishop was more significant to victory than a good bishop?&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the early stages of the game this is very possible and I'm sure we could find examples in the Dutch Stonewall or in the French defense where the &lt;code&gt;Bc8&lt;/code&gt; wins the game. In the endgame, I guess this will only happen if the opponent makes a mistake to turn a bad bishop into a winner. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here follows an example, where the bishop in e6 is a &quot;big pawn&quot;. White could have taken advantage of that and won the game. But in the end, after White's mistakes, the &quot;bad&quot; bishop wins the game! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Max Euwe vs Vera Menchik, Hastings 1930/31&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;6k1/1p3ppp/4b3/2Pp4/8/4P1P1/B4PPK/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Kg1 Kf8 2.Kf1 Ke7 3.Ke2 Kf6 4.Kd3?! (4.Bb3!! {Dvoretsky} 4... Ke5 5. f4 Kf5 6. Bd1! {arriving just in time to cover the g4-square} d4 7.Bc2+! Kg4 8.exd4 Kxg3 9. Ke3 f5 10. Bd1 Bd5 11. Bf3+-) 4... Ke5 5.g4 g5! (5... Bxg4? 6.f4 Ke6 7. e4 Ke7 8. Bxd5+-) 6.g3 Bxg4 7.f4+ gxf4 8.gxf4+ Kf6 9.Bxd5 Bc8 10.Bf3? (10.e4!?) Ke7 11.Kc4 Kd8 12.Kd5 b6! 13.c6? (13.Bh5=) Kc7 14.Ke5 Be6 15.f5 Bb3 16.Kf6 b5 17.Kg7?? (17.e4!=) b4-+ 18.Kxh7 Bc2 19.Kg7 b3 20.Bd5 b2 21.Ba2 Kxc6 22.f6 Kd6 23.e4 Bxe4 24.Kxf7 Bd5+! {The &quot;bad&quot; bishop in action!) 25.Bxd5 b1=Q 26.Kg7 Qg1+ 27.Kf8 Kxd5 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11749" LastEditorUserId="11749" LastEditDate="2020-05-06T22:36:39.770" LastActivityDate="2020-05-06T22:36:39.770" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29444" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29430" CreationDate="2020-05-06T07:58:22.940" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recommend reading Jonathan Rowson's excellent &lt;em&gt;Chess for Zebras&lt;/em&gt;, which analyses chess psychology in quite some detail.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One core observation is that humans do inevitably think in stories to make sense of the world around them, and chess is no exception to that. It's actually not easy for the human brain to take a fresh look at each new position (after each move) while completely discarding everything that happened before. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To some extent, the chess community shares common stories (&quot;folk stories&quot;) that will shape the expectations about the ongoing game. For example, the Sicilian defense is linked with the idea of counterattacking and a bloody battle, and many players precisely pick it up because of that reputation. Many of these then don't like to play against the &quot;Anti-Sicilians&quot; not because they would be more threatening than the Open variations, but simply because they lead the story in a completely different (&quot;boring&quot;) direction that is less fun to them. By picking such a variation, you may not play the objectively best line, but you can certainly irritate your opponent. Conversely, defenses like the Caro-Kann or Scandinavian are typically picked by players who want a quieter game and won't like if you play more aggressive lines, the French is associated with locked pawn chains, and so on. Of course, it's not wise to go as far as to knowingly play completely unsound lines though. Some less fun for your opponent usually won't make up for hard material (then again, many gambits bank on that in addition to their &quot;objective&quot; compensation).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The book also discusses the question of whether Black &quot;equalizing&quot; should actually be considered as &quot;=&quot; or &quot;=+&quot;. The reasoning for the latter is that while the position will still be a draw with perfect play, it's now more &quot;fun&quot; for Black (who &quot;succeeded&quot; in the first-move advantage story that tells him that he has to fight for equality)  than for White (who &quot;failed&quot; in the story that he has to push for the win) and this alone will slightly increase Black's winning chances by the same logic as asked in the question (White will be a bit more likely to &quot;overdraw&quot; and thus make mistakes).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13433" LastActivityDate="2020-05-06T07:58:22.940" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29445" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32794" CreationDate="2020-05-06T12:54:55.717" Score="3" ViewCount="88" Body="&lt;p&gt;We already know that there has been &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/29402/how-much-fide-rated-chess-was-played-in-april-2020&quot;&gt;very little FIDE rated chess played in April&lt;/a&gt;. There are a number of areas where FIDE has time limits. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Unrated players have &lt;a href=&quot;https://old.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=197&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;26 months to get results&lt;/a&gt; which qualify them for a FIDE rating&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Players are &lt;a href=&quot;https://handbook.fide.com/chapter/B02RBRegulations&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;classed as &amp;quot;inactive&amp;quot;&lt;/a&gt; if they don't play any FIDE rated chess for 1 year&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Arbiters are &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/FIDE/handbook/RegsClassChessArbiters.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;classed as &amp;quot;inactive&amp;quot;&lt;/a&gt; if they don't arbit any FIDE rated competitions for 2 years.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Will FIDE look at extending these time limits in view of the current Covid-19 suspension?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2020-11-02T16:13:33.850" LastActivityDate="2020-11-02T16:16:24.367" Title="Will FIDE extend time limits on certain qualifications given the suspension of chess during Covid-19?" Tags="&lt;fide&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29446" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29430" CreationDate="2020-05-06T12:56:59.807" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Something tangible - all things equal, if a piece is pinned or trapped, delaying the capture as long as possible can be a very small psychological advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19192" LastActivityDate="2020-05-06T12:56:59.807" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29447" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29430" CreationDate="2020-05-06T15:25:50.847" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'll leave the technical details to people who have played more chess more recently than I have, but I respectfully submit that your intent is counterproductive to your stated goal of &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;to improve my chess skills, which eventually enables me to win/draw&#xA;  more games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With chess, as with &lt;em&gt;any&lt;/em&gt; competitive game, sport or skill, at the higher levels the best way to improve is to challenge yourself against as many different opponents as possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If word gets around -- as it will -- that playing against you is slightly less interesting and engaging than watching paint dry while listening to Mr. Roboto read Galt's speech from Atlas Shrugged, people will start declining to play against you. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Worst case, you might wind up winning a tournament only to be politely but firmly disinvited from coming back next year.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, if they find that playing with you is an interesting challenge, then win or lose they'll gladly do it again next year, and you'll be able to find out what they learned in the meantime. I personally would think that benefit is worth the low, low price of not being a tedious jerk just to win by default.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2655" LastActivityDate="2020-05-06T15:25:50.847" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29448" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29435" CreationDate="2020-05-06T15:34:41.193" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The question is, equally effective against whom? You are correct that there tend to be &quot;optimal&quot; or &quot;near-optimal&quot; moves when engines play against engines. And when grandmasters play in long time control games, their moves often resemble those of engines. But when playing against lower-rated humans, or even against GM's in fast time control, there is a lot more flexibility in play. It just isn't possible for a human brain to calculate every possible variation, and so you can &quot;get away with&quot; not always playing the technically best move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So in general, you don't have to operate under the assumption that your opponent is a 3500-rated chess engine. Against a human, you can play in a variety of styles that assume they might miss something, causing you to gain an advantage. This can take many different forms:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Offbeat openings: Avoiding their opening prep and playing something outside their comfort zone.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Playing a &quot;trap&quot;: Allowing the opponent an opportunity to grab material that ultimately leads to a loss or a much worse position.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Time pressure: Refusing trades and keeping the position very complex to force them to calculate and burn their clock.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Limiting their options: Playing attacking moves that require very precise calculation to defend against. If they slip up, the game is over.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21095" LastActivityDate="2020-05-06T15:34:41.193" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29450" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29554" CreationDate="2020-05-06T17:17:21.493" Score="1" ViewCount="207" Body="&lt;p&gt;I find the conclusion of the following game very aesthetic. White could have won by taking in &lt;code&gt;d3&lt;/code&gt; or in &lt;code&gt;f5&lt;/code&gt;, but played the cute &lt;code&gt;Qe5&lt;/code&gt;, which&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;sacrifices the Queen,&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;puts Queens side-by-side (in the middle of the board but not necessarily),&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;and is the best move (that mates in five).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do you know any other game with the same pattern?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;5r1k/p1R4p/8/5q2/4Q3/3r4/P5PP/5RK1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;[title &quot;Jozsef Horvath vs Gerhard Adensamer, Dornbirn op (1990)&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Qe5+!! 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11749" LastEditorUserId="11749" LastEditDate="2020-05-13T06:53:22.007" LastActivityDate="2020-05-16T20:11:30.090" Title="Take my Queen, Please" Tags="&lt;patterns&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29451" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29435" CreationDate="2020-05-06T20:25:31.253" Score="4" Body="&lt;h1&gt;Yes&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But only actual experimentation will tell us if AlphaZero has left a meaningful amount of the chess space unexplored.  Chess, like all games, boils down to two fundamental components:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Explore the space of possible moves&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Evaluate the &quot;goodness&quot; of each such move&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;AlphaZero uses a technique called Monte Carlo Tree Search to perform 1, and Deep Convolutional Neural Network to perform 2.  And Bob's your uncle!  Ok, that is a gross oversimplification, but let me explain briefly how each piece works.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Search&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Games have a set of states and a set of moves which transition between the states.  Since they usually have a single start state, and for simplicity, we usually model this set of states as a tree (rather than a graph).  &quot;Looking ahead&quot; just means traversing layers down the &quot;game tree&quot;.  For a game like chess, which a high branching factor, you end up with a tremendous number of states in only a few plies, so much work goes into avoiding as many state nodes as possible (by trying to identify obvious losers and bailing on that path or following strong paths preferentially).  MCTS goes for depth over breadth by &quot;playing out&quot; a particular move very deeply into the game.  Since there are a limited number of moves for which one can perform this computationally expensive operation, it does so for only a random subset of possible moves.  However, the subset is not chosen with a &lt;em&gt;uniform distribution&lt;/em&gt;.  The moves which are explored can be weighted by any heuristic you like.  More about that later.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Evaluation&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you're looking at a winning state, it is easy to give an evaluation.  If you're not looking at a winning state, you have to decide if it's &quot;good&quot; or &quot;bad&quot;.  This is where the neural network comes in.  Right after you make a move, it's hard to tell whether the move had a positive or negative effect on your winning potential.  But it's much easier to determine after the game is over.  So when the game is complete, you now have a win/loss signal for all the board states in that game.  This is now trivial training input for deciding whether each of those board states was &quot;good&quot; or &quot;bad&quot; for you, and you can backpropagate that signal through the neural network which gives you the &quot;good/bad&quot; signal for each board state.  This is the &quot;deep learning&quot; portion of AlphaZero.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because this is the stateful portion of AlphaZero, you could also say this is where the &quot;knowledge&quot; is, albeit in a rather abstract form which isn't really accessible to inspection or query.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Bias&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If we assume that AlphaZero starts out by making uniformly random choices during MCTS, then it is fair to say that it explores the chess space without any particular bias.  The DCNN may inform the MCTS layer, causing it to follow &quot;good&quot; paths rather than &quot;bad&quot; ones, but from what I've read, it prefers to follow &quot;unknown&quot; paths rather than &quot;known&quot;.  Basically, AlphaZero uses every game to increase its knowledge about chess rather than just trying to win the current game.  Because it focuses on covering the space rather than just greedily following the most promising path, it learns much more broadly than chess engines with a non-stateful search algorithm, which must use their search cycles as economically as possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For this reason, one should suspect that AlphaZero is not leaving a lot of promising paths out of its repertoire.  And, as others have noted, it's style is already quite different from most grandmasters, and it continues to teach us new things.  Even so, there are free parameters in the AlphaZero design, which you may tune to extract different outcomes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Strategy&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you were to create a &quot;most alien AlphaZero&quot;, you could take the basic architecture, and then train it on human games.  However, this training would build a secondary network called the Human Predictor.  The goal of the HP network would simply be to predict the moves most likely to be played by a human for a particular board state.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, when you execute the MCTS phase, instead of preferring &quot;moves I haven't explored before&quot;, you prefer &quot;moves which humans wouldn't make&quot;, leaving all the rest the same as AlphaZero.  This should basically implement what you are looking for.  My guess is that the play will end up looking quite similar to AlphaZero in areas where AZ already plays in an alien style, and will be inferior to AZ in games where AZ overlaps more with &quot;human style&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason should be obvious: AZ has no restrictions on the kinds of moves it makes.  When it plays differently from humans, it isn't because it's &lt;em&gt;trying&lt;/em&gt; to.  It's because it found, through exhaustive trial and error, that those moves are &lt;em&gt;simply better&lt;/em&gt;.  And not just better against humans, either: better even against itself!  It's possible that one could train AZ to beat humans even more efficiently by using the HP module described above to model the counter-moves that the opponent is likely to make during the MCTS phase.  Such a modified AZ may find that &quot;pure&quot; AZ is overly conservative because it gives its human opponents too much credit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's also possible to train a &quot;Stockfish killer&quot; variant by simply using Stockfish itself to provide the counter-moves during the MCTS phase.  You would need to do this strictly during the learning phase, because you wouldn't have the computes to do this during a live tourney, but effectively, the DCNN would learn to play exclusively against Stockfish, rather than AZ, and skip any counter-play that a different engine might provide.  Then, during a tourney, the MCTS could revert to the standard algorithm, since the DCNN has already captured the essence of Stockfish and stuffed it in a bottle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyway, sounds like a fun experiment.  Good luck!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23321" LastActivityDate="2020-05-06T20:25:31.253" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29452" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18076" CreationDate="2020-05-06T21:09:40.780" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am conducting some runs right now with some fairy armies battling each other and FIDE. I am thinking of taking away castling as an option from the slightly overpowered armies to better balance the games. Slightly overpowered armies are fairy armies with win% greater than 50% but less than 60%.  The error rate of the samples is high, even at 200+ games, so it is difficult to calculate the true mean with precision, but I bet this will make the difference. I am betting half a pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23425" LastActivityDate="2020-05-06T21:09:40.780" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29453" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29466" CreationDate="2020-05-06T21:56:00.003" Score="5" ViewCount="451" Body="&lt;p&gt;I made a bet with a non-neglegible stake that I will win a game against a friend without queen. My Elo rating is about 2000-2100, my friend's should be around 1400. Today I played with the black pieces with a rook odds and I won.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He didn't make big blunders and he played the opening quite well (e4, developed both knights and the white bishop and sacrificed on f7 for my 2nd rook), but he got lost in the middle game and did not know what to do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These are my observations:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) He knows that he wants to exchange as many pieces as possible even with slight material costs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) He knows how to play the standard textbook e4 - e5 opening, but I guess he is not familiar with other openings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) He didn't make huge blunders, so I cannot expect to sacrifice pieces and win in the opening phase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4) The middle and endgame should be the parts of the game where he is less experienced.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5) I expect him to be weak in tactics and to loose pawns in not-obvious situations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I play without a rook odds, I try to keep the lines closed or to play with white a really aggressive e4, f4. However, I don't want to go into e4, since he knows that opening to a certain extent. I would rather go for c4, which is my standard opening. Ideally I would like to go for opposite castling with a pawns attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;What should be my strategy for that game? / How can I prepare for that game?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;In which variant of the english opening is it difficult for a beginner to exploit a queen?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23426" LastActivityDate="2020-08-04T07:43:24.950" Title="How to prepare for a handicap game (queen odds) / strategy?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;preparation&gt;&lt;handicapping&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29454" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-05-06T22:21:58.770" Score="0" ViewCount="88" Body="&lt;p&gt;I use to trade my bishop pairs for opponent’s knight pair most of the time. But since my recent peak of interest in the game, I have been doing studying and learning. Thus, the bishop is one of my points of interest now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was watched &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJdsEUrMaGE&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; video by agadmator that demonstrated amazing gameplay by Aronian Levonm&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Aronian Levobn-Vidit Santosh Gujrathi, FIDE Chess.com Online Nations Cupm 6/5/2020&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[startply &quot;96&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Nf3 d5 2. e3 c5 3. c4 d4 4. exd4 cxd4 5. Bd3 Nc6 6. O-O Nf6 7. Bc2 Bg4 8. Ba4 Nd7 9. h3 Bh5 10. d3 e5 11. Re1 Be7 12. Nbd2 O-O 13. Ne4 Qc7 14. a3 a5 15. Ng3 Bg6 16. Bxc6 bxc6 17. Nxd4 exd4 18. Rxe7 Qd6 19. Re2 Nc5 20. Ne4 Nxe4 21. dxe4 Rfe8 22. f3 a4 23. c5 Qxc5 24. Bf4 Qb6 25. Rc1 c5 26. Rc4 f6 27. Qc1 Ra5 28. Rec2 f5 29. Rxc5 Rxc5 30. Rxc5 fxe4 31. fxe4 d3 32. Be3 Qe6 33. Rc7 Qxe4 34. Bd2 h6 35. Qc5 Bf7 36. Bc3 Qg6 37. Re7 Rxe7 38. Qxe7 Kh7 39. Qe5 Be8 40.  Kf2 Bf7 41. g4 Bb3 42. Ke3 Bc2 43. Kd2 Bb3 44. Ke3 Bc2 45. Kd2 Bb3 46. Qe7 Bc2 47. b4 axb3 48. Bb2 h5 49. g5 h4 50. a4 Kg8 51. a5 Kh7 52. a6 Bd1 53. Kxd1 d2 54. Qxg7+ Qxg7 55. Bxg7 Kxg7 56. Kxd2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On move 48, it can be seen that Black’dsbishop is trapped, which led to blacks defeat. Would this bishop be considered a “big pawn?”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are my observations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) Almost every example of big pawn that can found, such as &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/14930/what-is-a-big-pawn&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; are situations where a player has played in such a way that they end up with pieces called &lt;em&gt;big pawn&lt;/em&gt;. In the Levon game, it was trapped ( basically pushing your own pieces inactive(or passive) vs forced inactive(or passive))&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) Everytime a bishop is blocked by pawn and has restricted movement, it's supposedly a big pawn&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) In the book “What It Takes To Be A Chess Master” by Andrew Soltis, which is Wikipedia source for the definition of a big pawn,its seems just like a funny comment. Like, is it even supposed to be like a Chess term! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23242" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-05-06T22:58:44.610" LastActivityDate="2020-05-07T06:33:02.017" Title="Identifying “big pawn” bishops" Tags="&lt;terminology&gt;&lt;bishops&gt;&lt;bad-bishop&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29455" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29454" CreationDate="2020-05-07T01:53:08.627" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;A &quot;big pawn&quot; bishop is kind of an informal term. In general it can be thought of as a bad bishop with especially limited movement. In the game you posted, that bishop could be considered a big pawn - there are pawns on its same colour, and they clearly restrict its movement. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, whether it's technically a bad bishop is debatable, since the b3- and d3-pawns are fixed by White's pieces (not pawns). If the king or bishop moved away, perhaps these pawns would have advanced while the bishop was still on the board, allowing it to escape and not be considered bad or trapped.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To summarize, a big pawn is essentially a bishop which is both technically bad (pawns on its colour) and clearly inactive (lacking sufficient mobility on useful squares).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2020-05-07T01:53:08.627" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29456" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-05-07T04:25:46.103" Score="1" ViewCount="68" Body="&lt;p&gt;I ran Stockfish 2 times with the command &lt;code&gt;go depth 1&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First time&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;info depth 1 seldepth 1 multipv 1 score cp 114 nodes 20 nps 10000 tbhits 0 time 2 pv e2e3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Second time:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;info depth 1 seldepth 1 multipv 1 score cp 105 nodes 22 nps 22000 tbhits 0 time 1 pv e2e4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why does the number of nodes increase from 20 to 22?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23428" LastEditorUserId="12873" LastEditDate="2020-05-07T10:37:57.310" LastActivityDate="2020-05-08T01:36:12.323" Title="Stockfish: different nodes numbers with identical calls" Tags="&lt;stockfish&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29457" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29454" CreationDate="2020-05-07T06:33:02.017" Score="1" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Indeed, every time a player has a restricted bishop, it was his choice! You can put your pawns in squares of the color you want. When you are left with a bad bishop, you probably did it to avoid a greater evil.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;It depends. It's not as much about the squares it can't go. It's about what the bishop is doing on the squares it can actually go. In your example, the bishop on c2 is doing nothing.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;It is indeed a joke term. &quot;Bad bishop&quot; is the non-satirical one.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastActivityDate="2020-05-07T06:33:02.017" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29458" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29453" CreationDate="2020-05-07T06:40:51.867" Score="2" Body="&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;makes no sense. Opening theory is thrown off the window the moment you give material odds. All considerations about &quot;knowing the opening&quot; do not apply.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Play the type of game that allows you to put pressure without trading pieces. In the English opening, white has a queen. You won't be playing an English opening. I'd suggest you to go for a position with a closed center that allows for active play on the wings. Something like a King's Indian pawn structure assuming both sides castled short&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastActivityDate="2020-05-07T06:40:51.867" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29459" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29456" CreationDate="2020-05-07T10:26:48.937" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's likely due to Stockfish's transposition table (essentially a fast lookup table that Stockfish can use to refer back to positions it evaluated before). During your first run, information about visited positions was stored in the table. Then on the second run, Stockfish may have looked at some of Black's moves after depth 1 (since it's already evaluated all states at depth 1).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;SmallChess' answer to this question may be useful if it's still confusing:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/14021/how-to-read-score-from-stockfish-inconsistent-response-every-call&quot;&gt;How to read score from stockfish - inconsistent response every call?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: to test if it is the transposition table behind this, try to reset it after the first run (close the whole program if you can't figure out how). Then on the second run, the number of nodes should be the same (as well as the centipawn evaluation).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2020-05-07T10:26:48.937" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29460" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-05-07T11:05:06.283" Score="5" ViewCount="353" Body="&lt;p&gt;Should I memorize everything in the book, or use it in some other way?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21840" LastEditorUserId="12023" LastEditDate="2020-05-07T22:51:36.230" LastActivityDate="2020-05-07T22:51:36.230" Title="How to proceed with the book &quot;Pawn Structure Chess&quot; by Andrew Soltis?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;books&gt;&lt;pawns&gt;&lt;pawn-structure&gt;&lt;middlegame&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29461" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29460" CreationDate="2020-05-07T11:25:29.500" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not familiar with the book itself, but for learning pawn structures it isn't important to memorize every single thing. The key is to understand the general ideas behind each structure. E.g.: what are the main plans, which pawns are weaknesses, what squares work well as outposts for pieces, can the structure be changed as the game goes on, etc. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Knowing these things would be useful if you were playing a real game with the structure in question. And the key is to &lt;em&gt;know&lt;/em&gt; them, not to memorize them by rote. If you can understand why certain structures give rise to certain characteristics, then you could generalize when facing a new structure over the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2020-05-07T11:25:29.500" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29462" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29217" CreationDate="2020-05-07T14:30:50.777" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know a site where you can create tournaments with your rules: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;www.lichess.org&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I play myself with many other people's there. Try it.&#xA;Lichess has this game mode already&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23403" LastActivityDate="2020-05-07T14:30:50.777" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29463" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-05-07T14:39:15.493" Score="1" ViewCount="316" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to use xboard in Fedora and have only been able to get it to work under very specific circumstances.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I installed it through my package manager and installed Stockfish as well. Without going into excessive detail, gnuchess (which comes with comes with xboard) will only perform a correct analysis if I load a pgn file or make a sequence of moves from the starting position. If I attempt to edit a position and analyze it, it gives me an error saying the 'edit' command isn't implemented and it begins to analyze the starting position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can't get Stockfish to work with xboard at all. As I understand it, Stockfish is a UCI engine and requires a translator to work with xboard. Until recently this was supposed to be Polyglot, but in the past couple of years UCI2WB has become the favored translator (neither one is included in Fedora's repository). I cloned and built uci2wb and launched xboard with &lt;code&gt;xboard -adapterCommand=&quot;./uci2wb&quot; -fcp stockfish -fUCI&lt;/code&gt; from the UCI2WB directory, but when I attempted to analyze a position it gave me an error: &lt;code&gt;xboard: Error writing to first chess program: Broken pipe&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How can I get xboard to work with either of these engines?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21294" LastActivityDate="2020-05-07T14:39:15.493" Title="How can I set up xboard with an engine in Linux?" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;linux&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2020-08-31T23:26:41.880" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29464" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29472" CreationDate="2020-05-07T15:30:52.333" Score="9" ViewCount="6986" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/29430/how-to-minimise-your-opponents-fun-in-a-game/29440#29440&quot;&gt;Chess is a zero sum game&lt;/a&gt;&quot; is a claim you see often, even on this forum. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Game theorists will tell you that it is just obvious. Either the game is a draw, nobody wins or loses, or one side wins and the other loses. A win is equal and opposite to a loss and a draw is worthless. QED.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Economic trade is a classic example of a non-zero sum game. In fact it is a win-win game. If that weren't the case then there would be no trade. Nobody would trade freely if they knew they were going to lose in advance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-05-10T11:23:47.880" Title="Is chess a zero sum game?" Tags="&lt;psychology&gt;&lt;evaluation&gt;" AnswerCount="9" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29465" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29464" CreationDate="2020-05-07T15:30:52.333" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The claim that chess is a zero-sum game is clearly nonsense, apart from in the most theoretic way. Just looking at the scoring system gives the game away -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Win = 1 point&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Draw = 0.5 points&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Loss = 0 points&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Clearly it is a one-sum game :-).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;OK, joking aside, what about rating? Surely if we play a game and the game is rated then what one side gains in rating points will be matched by the other side's loss in rating points? Rating-wise it is zero sum.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not necessarily. My k FIDE factor is 20. If your's is also 20 then, yes, my loss will match your gain, but if you are a junior or still haven't played 30 games (I think) then your k factor will be 40 and you will gain double what I gain. Similarly if you have ever been over 2400 then your k factor will be 10 and your gain will only be half my loss.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Putting these purely numerical factors aside it is clear that it is mostly a non-zero sum game. There is a FIDE rule which says that for a game to count as being played for rating purposes each side must have made &lt;a href=&quot;https://old.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=197&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;at least one move&lt;/a&gt;. The event which lead to this rule was a weekend tournament in the 1970's when Tony Miles (England's first OTB GM) and Stewart Reuben (later an IA and long time member of FIDE's Rules Commission) agreed a zero-move draw. This guaranteed Miles first prize and gave Reuben a share of second prize. For them it was win-win, at least until the organizers saw what they had done, &#xA; disqualified them and asked for the money back!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Whenever I play a serious/rated game against a much stronger player it is clear that even if (when!) I lose I don't actually lose anything real and in fact I gain. I gain the experience of having my ideas tested by a much stronger player. If there is time after the game and my opponent agrees to a postmortem then I also gain a free lesson.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Clearly chess is anything but zero sum.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-05-07T15:30:52.333" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29466" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29453" CreationDate="2020-05-07T17:20:32.453" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Years ago my club in England ran a handicap tournament in the summer, which I organised and also played in. Had you and your friend been members, I think you would have played at Queen odds, or maybe Rook plus time handicap. In our tournaments the odds-givers did surprisingly well. Here is some advice based on that, although your own list is already pretty good.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Dont go for a briliancy. If it happens it happens, but dont set your sights on it.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Done even go for active development. Pieces out in the middle get exchanged off. Keep things closed, but retain the option to open them up.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Dont set up direct threats unless they are well hidden or unstoppable. You may just force him to make good moves.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Set up an unfamiliar situation in the opening. I had good results with 1. b3. English could be good also. And it still is an English without your Queen. You just wont be playing book lines.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Keep central control and identify important squares. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Stay mobile and flexible. Steadily improve your position. Wait for the opponent to make mistakes. He will. You are correct that he will not make good plans. He will be reluctant to sacrifice.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Playing like this you will probably win some material about once in every ten moves. Wait until material is fairly equal before you try for a mating attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastActivityDate="2020-05-07T17:20:32.453" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29467" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29468" CreationDate="2020-05-07T17:53:22.023" Score="4" ViewCount="180" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was watching &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/wBoUa9PL&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this game&lt;/a&gt; on lichess.&#xA;Both of the players have the same resource i.e., the king and only a bishop. The bishops on the board are of the opposite color. But the game was continued and one of the players flagged on time. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I ran a full computer analysis and the engine has shown the position as a draw. But, since the computer allowed the player to continue the game with that resource, my question is whether it is possible to win a game with &quot;ONLY&quot; a bishop, provided your opponent only has the same? If yes, then what should be the checkmate position? and will the result be different if your opponent has the same color bishop?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/1k1b4/8/2B5/8/K7/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15511" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-05-07T18:38:05.053" LastActivityDate="2020-05-07T18:55:58.160" Title="Can anyone please explain why this position isn't a draw?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;draw&gt;&lt;bishop-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29468" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29467" CreationDate="2020-05-07T18:55:58.160" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to the &lt;a href=&quot;https://old.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=208&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Laws of Chess&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;5.2.2 The game is drawn when a position has arisen in which neither player can checkmate the opponent’s king with any series of legal moves. The game is said to end in a ‘dead position’.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The game position you show is not a draw because there are series of legal moves ending in checkmate for either side.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/1k1b4/8/2B5/8/K7/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Kb3 Be6 2. Kc3 Kc7 3. Kd3 Kd7 4. Ke3 Ke7 5. Kf4 Kf7 6. Kg5 Kg8 7. Kh6 Kh8 8. Bd6 Bg8 9. Be5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course black's moves were stupid. That doesn't matter. They were all legal moves and so were all white's moves. A similar set of moves could be constructed to allow black to checkmate white. The sensible thing to do is to agree a draw in this position, particularly if there is an increment. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If there is no increment and the player with more time wants to be spiteful then they can play on and try and flag the other player. Of course they shouldn't do this if they are playing Gata Kamsky GM FFL :-)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With same colored bishops this is not possible. The opposite colored bishop is required to block one of the king's escape squares.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-05-07T18:55:58.160" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29469" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-05-07T19:06:48.213" Score="4" ViewCount="129" Body="&lt;p&gt;Skip to 2:08:27 in this video &lt;a href=&quot;https://youtu.be/nK4SNEbMn7s&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://youtu.be/nK4SNEbMn7s&lt;/a&gt;.&#xA;What exactly is GMHikaru doing that?How can I be able to do that?Does it comes naturally with practice or their are exercises?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21840" LastActivityDate="2020-05-08T09:25:08.533" Title="How to visualize in chess?" Tags="&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;middlegame&gt;&lt;board-vision&gt;&lt;visualization&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29470" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-05-07T20:05:13.170" Score="2" ViewCount="177" Body="&lt;p&gt;Mikhail Tals' books on chess. Learning/analytic chess theory. Perception and intuition in the development of strategic and tactical chess play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23416" LastEditorUserId="23416" LastEditDate="2020-05-07T20:11:09.213" LastActivityDate="2020-05-10T00:31:17.120" Title="I read that Mikhail Tal claimed to have been able to see 50 variations ahead in a game. Any thoughts on this possibility?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;theory&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29471" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29470" CreationDate="2020-05-07T20:17:02.210" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Note that &quot;number of moves ahead&quot; is not necessarily a great proxy for &quot;number of positions considered&quot;. An open board with no impending threats has many possibilities of what might be the &quot;best&quot; move, and will require a player to analyze a wide, but shallow tree of possibilities. A board with few pieces and many threats has relatively few &quot;good&quot; (or even legal) moves, so a player can look farther ahead down a narrow but deep tree of possibilities. In some cases, the tree becomes a path - there is only one move to make. &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/5363/longest-forced-sequence-that-ends-with-checkmate-and-every-move-is-a-check&quot;&gt;This question&lt;/a&gt;, for example, shows games with many repeated checks, making the tree of potential moves very narrow indeed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems that most high-level chess players tend to think 20-40 moves ahead, depending on the board state. It's not unreasonable to think that someone could think 50 moves ahead in very particular situations, where the next few moves are &quot;obvious&quot; or even forced. But to be able to consider 50 moves ahead in &lt;em&gt;all possible situations&lt;/em&gt; is likely beyond a human's ability.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15233" LastActivityDate="2020-05-07T20:17:02.210" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29472" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29464" CreationDate="2020-05-07T22:27:24.303" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Edit: let me add something because this answer seems to be misunderstood. FIDE ratings are based on game scores (see the &lt;a href=&quot;https://medium.com/cantors-paradise/the-mathematics-of-elo-ratings-b6bfc9ca1dba&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Mathematics of Elo Ratings&lt;/a&gt;. It was created by Arpad Elo as a method for calculating the relative skill levels of players in &lt;strong&gt;zero-sum games&lt;/strong&gt; such as chess. A player's Elo rating is represented by a number which may change depending on the outcome of rated games played. After every game, the winning player takes points from the losing one. So, if chess is a zero-sum game, so are the FIDE ratings!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The question then is: are FIDE ratings a zero-sum game because of pairings of players with different K-factors? A question I reinterpreted in a more provocative way: is chess &lt;strong&gt;empirically&lt;/strong&gt; a zero-sum game? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As stated in Brian Towers' answer:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Not necessarily. My k FIDE factor is 20. If your's is also 20 then,&#xA;  yes, my loss will match your gain, but if you are a junior or still&#xA;  haven't played 30 games (I think) then your k factor will be 40 and&#xA;  you will gain double what I gain. Similarly if you have ever been over&#xA;  2400 then your k factor will be 10 and your gain will only be half my&#xA;  loss.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the May 2020 FIDE list of the standard rating (&lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/download.phtml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;see here&lt;/a&gt;), I observe a distribution of K-values for 2,700 players rated with&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;a Fide rating in April and May,&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;at least one game recorded in the list of of May 2020.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The distribution is as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;     K      Freq.   Percent&#xA;    10        21     0.78   &#xA;    20     1,704    63.11&#xA;    40       975    36.11   &#xA;    Total  2,700   100.00&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then, I plotted the estimated probability density function of the difference between their rating in April and May (given that the formula for updating a player's rating is based on the expected and the actual scores of the games played). As expected, the difference is centered on zero because the points lost by some players are won by others.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/zP0AO.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/zP0AO.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, the sum of points gained is greater (23,144) than the sum of points lost (-21,564), which represents an average gain of +0.59 per game. However, this average is not statistically different from 0! Conclusion: &lt;strong&gt;we cannot reject the hypothesis that chess is (empirically) a zero-sum game!&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;One caveat&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;: I did not observe the results and matches of these players; I assumed that the points won by some players in this list are lost by others in the same list.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This aside, I like very much the point about the experience gained and the sharing of ideas during and after a game, which suggests that &quot;chess is anything but zero sum&quot;!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11749" LastEditorUserId="11749" LastEditDate="2020-05-09T22:54:11.533" LastActivityDate="2020-05-09T22:54:11.533" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29473" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29469" CreationDate="2020-05-07T23:10:58.503" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Okay, this sequence is very impressive and Nakamura is a &quot;beast&quot;. So I don't want to be too pessimistic but I'm afraid that this kind of performance, which consists in calculating at the speed of light a sequence of movements without error, is only possible for the highest rated players. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is, however, a (little) hope. In the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.perpetualchesspod.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;excellent perpetual chess&lt;/a&gt; podcast talk, GM Rustam Kasimdzhanov talks about Nakamura. He notices about his play and the play of some of the top teenagers in the chess world, including GMs Nodirbek Abdussatorov and Alireza Firouzja that they never blunder, even under stress, and their tactical perception of the position is extremely clear. The reason could be the thousands of games, especially blitz games, they have played. So go practice!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11749" LastEditorUserId="11749" LastEditDate="2020-05-08T06:49:26.117" LastActivityDate="2020-05-08T06:49:26.117" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29474" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29464" CreationDate="2020-05-08T01:17:57.273" Score="26" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I said chess is a zero sum game in that answer, I wasn't referring to anything involving ratings. Obviously if we include ratings then chess isn't strictly a zero sum game, since the gains and losses aren't always balanced out. But different rating systems are arbitrary, and aren't part of the game of chess itself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your question should be &quot;Is the FIDE rating system a zero sum game?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2020-05-08T01:17:57.273" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29475" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29469" CreationDate="2020-05-08T01:21:54.980" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;As was pointed out before me, that level of calculation is extremely impressive. You are at the end of the day looking at one of the top chess players in the world and, arguably, in history to this day.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Apart from that note, you should know that visualization is a matter of practice, and the acquisition of such skill is not different to that of arithmetic calculation. If you calculate a complicated sum today just in your head, a more complicated one tomorrow, a more complicated one the next day, etc., eventually you'll be able to quickly calculate sums and substractions. People may look at you add 1304592 + 2948535 in relatively small time and say &quot;what a genius&quot;, but it's not being a genius it's just practicing a lot (the genius part just makes the learning curve faster).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So practice a lot. Get a book on positional chess and another one on tactics and go through the problems on your head. Try to visualize the resulting positions and not only visualize them but also judge them (best for white, equal, winning for black?). Do it A LOT. And do it when you play too. Don't just make moves (unless they are obvious or superficial ones), but say &quot;I play x move, he plays z, then y, then v...&quot;, until you reach a conclusion (the position is best for me so I should go for this, the position is equal, etc.).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There will be MANY times when you miss a move on your calculations, maybe a crucial one that makes you lose. That's okay, it's normal. Just do it again on the next game and try to do better. But, bottom line, just &lt;strong&gt;do it a lot&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once you acquire the &lt;em&gt;habit&lt;/em&gt; of doing it, you'll do it without realizing it and you'll be practicing without realizing it during all your games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21110" LastActivityDate="2020-05-08T01:21:54.980" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29477" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29484" CreationDate="2020-05-08T02:48:44.630" Score="4" ViewCount="646" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a newbie. I want to code a chinese chess engine, and I want to modify Stockfish source code to do so. But the Stockfish source code is too hard to understand. There are no document to explain everything. I don't know where to start. For example, today I try to understand the bitbase.cpp file. This line of code in this file is not well documented:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;constexpr unsigned MAX_INDEX = 2*24*64*64; // stm * psq * wksq * bksq = 196608&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I really don't know where to ask questions about these kind of things. It's open source but it seem to be understanded by only few people. Please give me suggestions to understand the source code better. Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23428" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-05-08T11:48:59.430" LastActivityDate="2020-05-08T11:48:59.430" Title="How to understand Stockfish’s source code?" Tags="&lt;stockfish&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29478" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29430" CreationDate="2020-05-08T03:46:35.687" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You say your second goal is &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;to improve my chess skills, which eventually enables me to win/draw more games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Define &quot;chess skills.&quot;  Chess is a game which is not just played on a 64-square board.  It's also played inside the opponent's head.  To that end, getting good at identifying situations your opponent doesn't want to be in is indeed a &quot;chess skill.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, if the goal is to make them blunder because they're not having fun, you may find yourself in a quandry if you are in a game where your opponent doesn't feel obliged to have fun (such as a major championship).  In such situations, if all you learned is how to make things un-fun for your opponent, you will find that your chess skills fail you in such a setting.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6885" LastActivityDate="2020-05-08T03:46:35.687" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29479" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-05-08T04:28:37.410" Score="4" ViewCount="462" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tigran_Petrosian&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;, the former world champion Tigran Vartanovich Petrosian has &quot;almost impenetrable defensive playing style, which emphasized safety above all else&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here defensive is by no means passive and emphasizing safety above all else is surely not a bad thing (see Petrosian's accomplishments). Which book would you recommend, if one wishes to play like Petrosian?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16626" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-05-08T11:48:37.657" LastActivityDate="2020-05-12T22:28:22.257" Title="Which book should one read if they want to play like Tigran Petrosian?" Tags="&lt;books&gt;&lt;world-championship&gt;&lt;defense&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29480" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29464" CreationDate="2020-05-08T07:42:31.250" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;A different take on the question &quot;Is the FIDE rating system a zero sum game?&quot;: one could define a player's scaled ELO rating with the formula&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;scaled_rating = ELO_score / k. &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elo_rating_system#Mathematical_details&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;definition of ELO scores&lt;/a&gt;, this quantity is zero-sum: if I play a game against you, then your scaled rating change plus my scaled rating change is exactly zero.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are two exceptions, because of how the &lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/calculator_rtd.phtml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;factor k&lt;/a&gt; is defined:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When you turn 18 or play your 30th game, your scaled rating doubles.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When you first pass 2400, your scaled rating doubles.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These are always positive variations, and when a new players gets a FIDE ELO score it is positive. So technically chess is a positive-sum game: the sum of the scaled ratings of all players in the world (living and dead) is an increasing quantity. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, the events that make this sum increase are probably not what you imagined. (In particular, there are at most 3 in the life of each player).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12957" LastActivityDate="2020-05-08T07:42:31.250" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29481" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29464" CreationDate="2020-05-08T08:17:03.987" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Chess is a zero sum game&lt;/strong&gt;. There is 1 point available and it is divided over the players, what one gains the other loses. It is a simple concept with a simple answer. Tournament rules mention some very rare cases where the result is 0-0 or 0.5 - 0, but in my opinion those are &quot;outside the game&quot;. That a mobile phone may ring is not really a matter for the game theoretical analysis of the game of chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Chess games played in tournaments are not zero sum&lt;/strong&gt;, but the tournament as a whole is. There are many situations where e.g. neither player wins anything in case of a draw, but a win by one of the sides puts that player in a prize-winning position. Not zero-sum. But a chess tournament, viewed as a multi-player game, is &lt;em&gt;not the same game&lt;/em&gt; as chess. And the tournament &lt;em&gt;as a whole&lt;/em&gt; usually has a fixed prize pool and is thus again zero sum.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Ratings are not a game at all.&lt;/strong&gt; They are a &lt;em&gt;method to estimate player strength&lt;/em&gt; by some third party, not a system of &quot;points&quot; that you &quot;win&quot;. I could have my own private system of ratings that I never tell you about, based only on published chess results. I don't think you can be considered to be playing a game if you don't even necessarily know of its existence. When Jeff Sonas computed what ratings would have been for players before 1970, where those players retroactively playing the ratings game? That is absurd. Ratings are not a game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastEditorUserId="924" LastEditDate="2020-05-08T10:23:38.197" LastActivityDate="2020-05-08T10:23:38.197" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29482" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29469" CreationDate="2020-05-08T09:25:08.533" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not trying to belittle this achievement, but I think the hardest part is to speak as quickly as Hikaru does.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I do think that it is impressive but not to the extent that the other answers suggest. Reasons:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;black's position is clearly won by a variety of ways, in fact the cleanest and fastest way would be 1. Ne7 instead of Bf1&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the sequence that Hikaru calculates consists basically of &lt;strong&gt;only moves with check each move&lt;/strong&gt;. It is a lot harder to calculate positions where there are many options including quiet moves.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;white's options are extremely limited because black is threatening mate in one&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;it is a show without any consequences. I am sure that when playing a real match, Hikaru would slow down just to be sure not to make a mistake.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;judging from a single instance is meaningless, I am sure Hikaru is right most of the time but there might be the occasional blunders when calculating at that speed&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To answer the OP's question. Yes, with practice (tactics puzzles, games) you will improve. Perhaps not to the level of Hikaru but half that speed is realistic IMO.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2020-05-08T09:25:08.533" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29483" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29479" CreationDate="2020-05-08T09:40:23.587" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/0713502061&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Petrosian's Best Games of Chess 1946-63&lt;/a&gt; by P.H. Clarke, published by Bell &amp;amp; Sons is the obvious place to start.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-05-08T09:40:23.587" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29484" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29477" CreationDate="2020-05-08T10:06:32.387" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe the line you quote is about probing KPK tablebase endgame. There are 64 squares for the king, and 24 squares for the pawns (mirrored from file A to D). Nothing special, just how Stockfish indexes the bitbase data structure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The code is not going to work in Chinese Chess for obvious reason.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;This line of code in this file is not well documented&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No, the line was fully documented. Please look at the code file again.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Please give me suggestions to understand the source code better&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the open source world, if you don't have sufficient coding experience you just can't do anything. You may ask on the Fishcooking forum, but you will still need decent programming experience.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2020-05-08T10:06:32.387" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29485" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29464" CreationDate="2020-05-08T10:35:42.257" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;This answer ignores the question of ratings, instead looking at a setting like a tournament, league, or similar. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here, a single game of chess is indeed zero sum, under the typical scoring rules (1pt for a win, 0.5 for a draw, 0 for a loss) and &lt;em&gt;assuming that the goal of players is to maximize points earned&lt;/em&gt;. That this is &quot;actually 1-sum, not 0-sum&quot; does not go against this assertion: Since the number of games each participant/team gets to play is fixed, one might as well score (+0.5 / 0 / -0.5) without changing the resulting outcomes at all. (That is why typically, the interesting property of a game is really being constant-sum, and not necessarily zero sum. The former are sometimes referred to as &quot;rescaled zero-sum games&quot;.) &#xA;If the goal is &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; to maximize points earned, but rather e.g. to place as high as possible in a given tournament, it is well possible that a match is not zero sum; say, if both players would need a win to move up a rank, and losing or drawing would not make a difference by that metric.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is important to point out that the zero-sum nature of a match does not arise from the fact &quot;Either the game is a draw, nobody wins or loses, or one side wins and the other loses.&quot; alone. In football (&quot;soccer&quot;), the same is true, but games are often scored 3 for a win, 1 for a tie, 0 for a loss. Thus, a match is not 0-sum (or constant sum): Two teams would e.g. rather trade wins than tie twice. Two possible aims &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_points_for_a_win&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;of the three points for a win rule&lt;/a&gt; are to incentivize more aggressive, arguably more interesting-to-watch play, and curb potential for collusion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23448" LastEditorUserId="23448" LastEditDate="2020-05-08T13:11:10.200" LastActivityDate="2020-05-08T13:11:10.200" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29486" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29479" CreationDate="2020-05-08T11:47:26.157" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;One of Petrosian's greatest strengths was his prophylactic thinking; i.e., identifying threats before they arise and neutralizing them. A book which discusses this concept would be good. For example, &quot;Recognizing Your Opponent's Resources: Developing Preventive Thinking&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to learn more about Petrosian himself, part 3 of Kasparov's My Great Predecessors series would be good. In this book he goes over the games of Spassky and Petrosian.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastEditorUserId="12873" LastEditDate="2020-05-08T12:01:02.410" LastActivityDate="2020-05-08T12:01:02.410" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29487" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29464" CreationDate="2020-05-08T12:55:38.420" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The main reason why people often claim chess in a zero-sum game is simple: it is!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Considerations about ratings, the joy of playing, the scoring system for a certain type of tournament... are not a intrinsic part of the game of chess. The utility function for chess only considers three values: win &gt; draw &gt; loss. The value for the first player determines the value for the second player. When player 1 sees its utility function maximized, player 2 sees it minimized and vice-versa.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please note that the distinction between &quot;sum-0&quot; and &quot;sum-1&quot; is irrelevant here since chess strategy would be exactly the same if the scoring system were &quot;0.5, 0, -0.5&quot; rather than &quot;+1, +0.5, 0&quot;. In contexts like business this distinction is important because you have the &quot;0-monetary-value choice&quot; of not participating. But once you are in a game of chess, the only way to opt-out is to lose&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess if therefore a zero-sum game.. Your &quot;chess career&quot; may not, though&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastEditorUserId="18809" LastEditDate="2020-05-09T23:18:53.310" LastActivityDate="2020-05-09T23:18:53.310" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29488" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="474" CreationDate="2020-05-08T14:59:47.937" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;One way to develop rooks in the opening is to castle and then storm an attack on the opponents castle using rooks bishops and queen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23450" LastActivityDate="2020-05-08T14:59:47.937" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29489" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-05-08T15:55:24.910" Score="4" ViewCount="513" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there any website that allows you to check if a position has been played before? I want to analyse a game and I want to check if it has been reached before. Any suggestions?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23434" LastActivityDate="2020-05-08T18:45:23.363" Title="Is there any website that allows you to check if a position has been played before?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29490" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29489" CreationDate="2020-05-08T17:46:54.230" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Look up &quot;Chessbase Live Database&quot; on Google and click on the first result. You should be taken to this url:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://database.chessbase.com/?lang=en&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://database.chessbase.com/?lang=en&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You just enter moves and click the magnifying glass button, causing a list of games played to show up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2020-05-08T17:46:54.230" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29491" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29489" CreationDate="2020-05-08T18:45:23.363" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Look up &quot;365Chess.com&quot;, which is a chess games database online. Here is the link for searching a position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.365chess.com/search_position.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.365chess.com/search_position.php&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can enter moves, import pgn, or fen positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11749" LastActivityDate="2020-05-08T18:45:23.363" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29492" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29464" CreationDate="2020-05-08T20:32:09.097" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've seen a lot of answers here discussing wins and loses, piece trades, and even ratings. Here is my take on chess being a &quot;zero-sum game&quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are exactly two players, so any move, any trade, any event in-game, affects both players in the opposite manner. It is theoretically impossible for there to be a move that is net positive for both players, or a move that is net negative for both players. If players trade queens, this is not net negative for both players. It may be negative in varying degrees, but the net result is simply how it affects each players' odds of winning, and since there are only two players, if player 1's odds go from 60% to 65%, then player 2's odds decrease by 5% as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23453" LastActivityDate="2020-05-08T20:32:09.097" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29493" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2358" CreationDate="2020-05-08T23:25:23.157" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I used to help run a chess club. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some of the signs of a weak player are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;lack of imagination;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;distraction;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;little to no calculation power.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some of the signs of strong or son-to-be-strong players:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;interesting, if sometimes crazy, moves;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;focused on the task at hand (though can be distracted between moves)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;generally can crunch through a difficult tactic, or they see and appreciate the logic behind a great tactic.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So how to test?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pure chess puzzles may not be good, because everyone can have a bad puzzle day. A pure blitz round robin is good, but, again, everyone can have a bad day. And with the latter, one bad game at the beginning can be the end of even a strong player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why not combine the two? Have the round robin -- 5 minute games (because bullet chess is just not for everyone). Have puzzles at each table, very difficult, multi-move ones, but make sure they are all different, and for the opposite color (if a student is playing a game as white, his puzzle is for Black). Imagine the brain gymnastics that this requires, especially during blitz! I know that I would have fun doing this, and at the end of the day it should be clear who are the better players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Good Luck!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21088" LastActivityDate="2020-05-08T23:25:23.157" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29494" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29507" CreationDate="2020-05-09T04:54:24.210" Score="1" ViewCount="337" Body="&lt;p&gt;I understand that the opening 1. d4 d5 2. c4 e6 3. Nf3 Nf6  is called Queen's Gambit Declined. But how about 1. d4 Nf6 2. Nf3 e6 3. c4 d5? There is no gambit offered, let alone declined. Is it still called Queen's gambit declined?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16626" LastActivityDate="2020-05-10T00:25:45.003" Title="Is 1. d4 Nf6 2. Nf3 e6 3. c4 d5 called Queen's Gambit Declined when there is no gambit offered, let alone declined?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;queens-gambit-declined&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29495" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29494" CreationDate="2020-05-09T05:58:24.747" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, it is still called the Queen's Gambit Declined. That's just the name of the system, regardless of the move order used to reach it. However, it is not the QGD before Black chooses to push 3...d5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2020-05-09T05:58:24.747" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29496" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2909" CreationDate="2020-05-09T10:35:56.943" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;To me, it's a no-brainer. Just ask yourself, who is really in charge of the household in every culture of the world? The king is probably not at home or drunk.&#xA;If I was a king and my people would play a game with a powerful advisor I would command that the advisor should become my queen. Advisors are probably more keen on coups than the king's queen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="58" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-03-10T19:33:16.853" LastActivityDate="2021-03-10T19:33:16.853" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29497" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29503" CreationDate="2020-05-09T11:13:10.423" Score="30" ViewCount="5356" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was taking a look at values engines give to pawns and piece and was quite shocked by &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/blob/master/src/types.h#L182-L186&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Stockfish values for middlegame (Mg)&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;PawnValueMg&lt;/code&gt;   = 128&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;KnightValueMg&lt;/code&gt; = 721 ~ 5.6 pawns&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;BishopValueMg&lt;/code&gt; = 825 ~ 6.4 pawns&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;RookValueMg&lt;/code&gt;   = 1276 ~ 9.9 pawns&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;QueenValueMg&lt;/code&gt;  = 2538 ~ 19.8 pawns&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So this is way far from the standard &quot;1 piece equals 3 pawns approach&quot;, and I was curious about the reason behind it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, the fact that bishops are 0.8 pawns more valuable than knights called my attention.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm aware that this is a small part of Stockfish's (or for that case, any serious engine) evaluation function, but even so it seems like a really big different from the classic approach. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9179" LastEditorUserId="5819" LastEditDate="2020-05-11T09:02:07.777" LastActivityDate="2020-05-11T20:12:00.373" Title="Why does Stockfish undervalue pawns when compared to the classical &quot;a piece is worth three pawns&quot; approach?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;evaluation&gt;&lt;pieces&gt;&lt;point-value&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29498" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29497" CreationDate="2020-05-09T15:10:21.003" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm afraid it was machine tuned. Nobody knows exactly why. It's like nobody really understand the network weights in LC0. In any case, 3 pawns = a piece is nothing more than a general guidance for chess beginners.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2020-05-09T15:10:21.003" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29499" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6093" CreationDate="2020-05-09T17:52:05.507" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Free Creatica Chess Game Analyzer for MS Windows&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;Maybe that's a solution:&#xA;  =&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://chessgame-analyzer.creatica.org/index.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://chessgame-analyzer.creatica.org/index.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Easy to use tool for  MS Windows.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Right click on a ** pgn file ** and select &quot;Analyze&quot;. The newly created PNG file with analysis information is automatically opened in your standard chess GUI such as Scid.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many parameters can be set for a desired result, such as the number of variants: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chessgame-analyzer.creatica.org/customize.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://chessgame-analyzer.creatica.org/customize.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/jeQ22.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/jeQ22.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/jeQ22.jpg&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23463" LastActivityDate="2020-05-09T17:52:05.507" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29500" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29501" CreationDate="2020-05-09T18:06:44.853" Score="5" ViewCount="457" Body="&lt;p&gt;How should one decide which rook to put on a central file? I usually just move the one which is closer to the file, unless there are weak squares in my position that one rook is defending. In positions where there are no weak pawns, how should I decide whether to move the rook of the side to which I castled or the other?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23190" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-05-09T20:08:32.907" LastActivityDate="2020-05-10T11:21:47.883" Title="How should one decide which rook to put on a central file?" Tags="&lt;positional-play&gt;&lt;castling&gt;&lt;rooks&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2020-05-10T17:54:05.593" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29501" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29500" CreationDate="2020-05-09T18:14:40.157" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Essentially, you should ask yourself a broader question: where should &lt;em&gt;both&lt;/em&gt; of my rooks go in this position? There might be another (half-)open file which can be used by the other rook. If there's only one open file and little chance of another one opening or a pawn needing extra protection, it might not even matter which rook you use, since it's rather likely for the rooks to be doubled up on the same file anyway.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;r4rk1/ppp2ppp/3p4/8/8/3P4/PPP2PPP/R4RK1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In a position like this (ignoring the position of other pieces) it's more common to move Rfe1, since the chance that one of the a, b and c pawns needs extra protection &lt;em&gt;combined&lt;/em&gt; is greater than the chance that f2 becomes weak. Indeed, that's the nearest rook, as you already mentioned.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2020-05-09T18:20:30.040" LastActivityDate="2020-05-09T18:20:30.040" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29502" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29470" CreationDate="2020-05-09T19:40:41.003" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&quot;50 variations&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is very possible. I think that the key to understanding this is to know the difference between &lt;em&gt;variations&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;moves ahead&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;VARIATIONS:&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;Consider any move. What can the opponent do in return? Does he have 2 choices? 30? Each of his choices makes a variation. If you have a candidate move and you opponent can reply in 10 possible ways, then you see 10 variations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;MOVES AHEAD:&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;I play e4. Then I think that you will play e5, I  Nf3, you Nc6, I Nc3, you Nf6, I Nxe5, etc. (Halloween Gambit). This involves thinking 6 moves ahead on a single variation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So 50 variations? I think that you can do that. In most positions you have about 3 candidate moves. Consider each move; think about three or four moves ahead for each one. You will certainly run into variations. To make 50 variations, your three candidates will have to have about 16 variations each. Each candidate is a variation of of the current position. In our case of 3 candidates, each candidate will demand 4 variations which have 4 of 5 variations each to make 50 variations (4x4x3 = 48). So you see, you variations add up rather quickly. I think that to make 50 variations, you would have to see only about 4 moves ahead in most positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21088" LastActivityDate="2020-05-09T19:40:41.003" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29503" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29497" CreationDate="2020-05-09T19:46:30.347" Score="48" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am not an expert on stockfish source code, but my understanding is the following.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Humans:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is true, that the  &lt;em&gt;1 piece equals 3 pawns approach&lt;/em&gt; is pretty accurate, surprisingly so. However as you are probably aware, when evaluating a position, we consider many other aspects as well, such as piece activity, space, king safety, etc. The difference however is that &lt;strong&gt;we don't assign actual numerical values to these other factors.&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stockfish (or similar engines):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unlike humans, engines assign numerical values to all factors. The numbers you mention are just &lt;strong&gt;a small part of the evaluation function.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Check out the &lt;a href=&quot;https://hxim.github.io/Stockfish-Evaluation-Guide/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;middlegame evaluation function&lt;/a&gt; for stockfish. On that page you can also modify the board to see the evaluation and you can visit the specific functions such as `piece_value_mg' which is concerned with these numbers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you can see, just the piece values of all pieces amount to 9326. However there are many other functions which add to the evaluation. Most importantly, &lt;strong&gt;not all of these extra functions treat pawns and pieces equally.&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;`Psqt mg', gives values to pawns only, depending on their position on the board. As you would expect,  pawns in the center are more valuable (pawn on e4 instead of e2 is +24 points)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;another pawns only function: `Pawns mg' gives points depending on the pawn structure (isolated, doubled, connected pawns, etc) also here you can gain several tenth of points for the pawns (but not for the pieces).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To be fair, there are also functions that only deal with pieces such as `Pieces mg'. However note that they can also give a penalty (negative value) to the total evaluation. In fact for the starting position you have -63 from that function.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In summary...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stockfish has a much more fine grained evaluation function than we humans do. The pure piece value from stockfish cannot really be compared with the human piece value.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In stockfish pieces and pawns can gain points in other ways beyond the values you mention. Furthermore, stockfish does not consider the piece on its own, but also how it relates to other pieces, e.g. whether there are doubled pawns, an outpost, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you check out the code, these other factors are each in the range of several ten points, so if you take them all together you might very well gain the 100 points necessary for the pawn to be 1/3 of a piece.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mathematically you could also consider it as a kind of approximation or averaging in which you assign a single number (human piece value) for the very complex system that stockfish uses. There is no reason that the average value (human piece value) has any relation to one of the parameters (ValueMG) in the stockfish universe.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I really recommend to see for yourself at the link how much more complete the stockfish evaluation is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2020-05-09T19:46:30.347" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29504" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29497" CreationDate="2020-05-09T21:14:04.693" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The value of a piece or pawn will depend greatly upon how well it is placed.  The common 1/3/3.5/5/9 values are reasonable estimates for pieces which are placed decently but not amazingly well.  For various reasons, it may be easier to have the baseline score for a piece represent a piece which is either much worse than typical (so that most pieces would have an adjusted score that was higher), or perhaps have it represent a piece which is much better than typical (so that most pieces would score lower).  As an exaggerated contrived example, consider something like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;8/p/Pp/RP/1P2nn/RP/P/5K1k w - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even though White nominally has a substantial material advantage (up twice the Exchange, plus three pawns), Black cannot lose without capturing any of the White pawns or pieces.  Although trading a pawn for a rook would normally be a good trade, in this case it is a very bad one since White's pieces are completely useless.  Black will nominally be able to trade a pawn for a rook, which would seem like an advantage, but doing so would enormously increase the value of White's pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it is White to mov&#xA;Playing with this example, I think White should be able to eke out a draw, and Black certainly should be able to do at least that.  Playing against Stockfish level 3 on lichess.org, however, I was able to win as both sides because Stockfish overvalued the material at the left and thinks it's worth trading for (I think White should be able to eke out a draw by moving R3-a4, and then a3, but Stockfish didn't find that playing as White, and there might be a way for Black to capture the rook in a situation where Black could then forcce draw by perpetual check/repetition, but Black should have no excuse for losing here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even in less contrived situations, Stockfish sometimes fails to adequately distinguish between pieces which aren't currently in the fray, but are going to get there, versus pieces which can be very cheaply kept out of the action while the opponent has a substantial majority of the immediately-effective material.  A common feature of games between neural networks and Stockfish is that Stockfish ends up letting some of its pieces sit out of the action while the opponent uses its power majority to edge out further advantages, until by the time the blocked-up pieces get to move, the game is already lost.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Incidentally, I was just playing with another variation on that example (black to play)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;7K/p7/Pp6/RP6/QP4q1/RP3k2/P7/8 b - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black has a mate in four, but Stockfish, even if set for the highest level on lichess.org, will stalemate White via Qg6 rather than achieve victory, probably because any move that continues play with such a large material imbalance is seen as so massively inferior to stalemate that it's not worth investigating further.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2698" LastEditorUserId="2698" LastEditDate="2020-05-11T20:12:00.373" LastActivityDate="2020-05-11T20:12:00.373" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29505" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29497" CreationDate="2020-05-09T23:24:14.243" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;Please note that those values are &quot;abstract&quot;, later to be modified by the specifics of the position. For example, even though a knight appears 0.8 pawns less valuable than a bishop, it could be that bigger bonuses are awarded to well-placed knights than for well-placed bishops, turning the balance around.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's also worth noting that the &quot;3 pawns equal a piece&quot; is, for all practical purposes, meaningless. In certain types of positions (those with powerful attacks against the king, for instance), the extra pawns can be useless against a piece. In endgames, three pawns often defeat the piece, specially if not a lot of extra pawns are left&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastActivityDate="2020-05-09T23:24:14.243" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29506" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29500" CreationDate="2020-05-09T23:25:15.633" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;That's a good question, very difficult. I used to spend a lot of time on such a decision. I remember once when a similar question was asked to GM Vachier-Lagrave, something like why did he put the f1 rook in the open file d1 instead of the a1 rook. He replied: I don't think much about it because most of the time in complex positions we don't know which one to choose anyway! At first I was upset by this answer because I expected to learn something new, but his answer was actually very useful to me because if in complex positions a top rated player doesn't know, I won't know either. So now I don't give this decision too much thought!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let me add however that &lt;strong&gt;details matter&lt;/strong&gt; and in some positions there is a clear choice. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Take a very recent example from Maxime Vachier-Lagrave vs Teimour Radjabov, FIDE Chess.com Online Nations Cup (2020). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;r1b2rk1/pp2bppp/4pn2/2n5/2B2B2/2N1PN2/PP3PPP/R2q1RK1 w - - 0 11&quot;]&#xA;[title &quot;Vachier-Lagrave vs Radjabov Online Nations Cup (2020)&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Rfxd1 (1.Raxd1 b6 2. Bd6 Bxd6 3. Rxd6) b6 2. Nd4 (2.Bd6 Bxd6 3.Rxd6) Bb7 3.Rac1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this position, taking in d1 with the rook f1 looks very natural to me because eventually you want the other rook to come in c1. Vachier-Lagrave played &lt;code&gt;Rfxd1&lt;/code&gt;, later followed by &lt;code&gt;Rac1&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, if in the previous position your plan is to try to take possession of the &quot;d-file&quot; by later playing Bd6, then taking d1 with rook a1 or rook f1 doesn't matter much (see the variations). In this context, I now save time by applying the advice of Vachier-Lagrave.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11749" LastEditorUserId="11749" LastEditDate="2020-05-10T11:21:47.883" LastActivityDate="2020-05-10T11:21:47.883" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29507" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29494" CreationDate="2020-05-09T23:30:04.500" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;They reach the same position, so they have the same name. It wouldn't make sense to call the same position differently depending on the moves that lead to it. &lt;strong&gt;1.f4 e5 2.e4&lt;/strong&gt; is a King's gambit, not a declined From's gambit. &lt;strong&gt;1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.cxd5 exd5 4.c4 Nf6 5.Nc3 e6 6.Nf3&lt;/strong&gt; is a Tarrasch Defence despite having started as a Caro-Kann&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastActivityDate="2020-05-09T23:30:04.500" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29508" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29494" CreationDate="2020-05-10T00:25:45.003" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a transposition, you have to think about the pawn structure instead on focusing on the concrete order, there are thousands of different ways of getting to the same (or quite similar) positions&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23468" LastActivityDate="2020-05-10T00:25:45.003" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29509" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29470" CreationDate="2020-05-10T00:31:17.120" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my opinion, this is totally possible, as it has been said above good players have the ability to play games blindfolded, and players such as Tahl are skilled enough to play several blindfolded games at the same time. But in a practical way, calculating 50 moves ahead doesn't make any sense as the possible variations for 50 moves are infinite, even though good players have the ability to go this deep in a concrete line, they don't have to because their instinct will tell them much before whether that's a good line without having to go that deep.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23468" LastActivityDate="2020-05-10T00:31:17.120" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29510" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29500" CreationDate="2020-05-10T00:41:11.277" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Try to determine which rook will be better off, if left on its current square. Here are some examples (for these I'll assume you have rooks on f1 and a1).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;As you mentioned, a rook could be defending a weakness right now.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Could the file the rook's currently on end up being opened? For example, if White's f-pawn has a good chance of being exchanged, maybe it's best to keep the f1-rook where it is.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;How much space would the rook not on the open file have - in general, this is one of the biggest considerations. For example, if you played Rae1, the f1-rook is stuck. But if you played Rfe1, the a1-rook still has room to move.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are also other considerations. For example, on which side of the board do you want to concentrate your forces? If you're launching a kingside attack, moving the a1-rook to e1 would increase your influence in that sector.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2020-05-10T00:41:11.277" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29511" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29430" CreationDate="2020-05-10T00:41:38.017" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You shouldn’t focus that much in your opponent’s fun or boredom and rather focus on what's the best line depending on the position and other factors such as time. If you turn down a good but complicated line for a bored and worse line you will find it really hard to improve at chess. Enjoy the game, and get into trouble when needed. Don't be like Giri.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23468" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-05-10T01:35:42.290" LastActivityDate="2020-05-10T01:35:42.290" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29512" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29425" CreationDate="2020-05-10T00:46:05.940" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are lots of variants in the Sicilian that will fit into your game, just study them and find one you feel comfortable with. Sicilian is probably the most studied defense in chess, there's room for everyone&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23468" LastActivityDate="2020-05-10T00:46:05.940" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29513" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2909" CreationDate="2020-05-10T01:39:32.380" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Origins of chess according to Wikipedia:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The game originated in northern India in the 6th century and spread to Persia. When the Arabs conquered Persia, chess was taken up by the Muslim world and subsequently, through the Moorish conquest of Spain, spread to Southern Europe.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And it's just not on wiki, this is very widely accepted as a fact. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In India, it was popular by many names throughout the times, as there are multiple languages spoken here. So, if you ask a Indian player he might tell you 2-5 synonyms of each piece on the Board. And names of these pieces range from animals in the jungle to people in a King's court yard. For Example: &lt;em&gt;Hathi-Ghooda-oont&lt;/em&gt; (Hindi words for Elephant-Horse-Camel) and queen was known as Mantri-Rani-Vazir ( The first word translates to a Minister (serving directly under king as his second in command), second word translating as a queen, the third word coming from middle east regions meaning Commander/general or simply a minister )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, Basically the game was pretty much the same but different linguistic groups or different classes of society made their own names for the sake of simplicity. A lot of which I believe are lost. Only the popular ones remain. Naturally, the upper class of the society's terms are with us now as they were well documented. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Coming to the powers that specific pieces possess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;King: Ever since the beginning of the game as well as human society the people on the top were considered to be precious. The kings and commanders swore oaths to protect their country and soon they became the symbols of peace and progress of the country. If they were taken down everything went down to hell. For each sentence from above you'll find numerous examples. Those that come to mind:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sati_(practice)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Sati&lt;/a&gt;: When kings died their wife(s) and their helpers used to commit suicide.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Battle_of_Panipat&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Second Battle of Panipat&lt;/a&gt; : In 1556 at the second battle of Panipat, where the teenage Akbar is watching Hindus and Afghans under King Hemu being trounced by his own Mughal army. A Mughal archer gets Hemu in the eye. Hemu falls on the ground and seeing the King fall down his army just runs away even though they were far more superior in numbers and equipments.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;As to why kings are shown weak when they were so important:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Not all kings were powerful, healthy and strong. Some were weak/pathetic but still due to their lineage they ruled for years.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;See it from kings point of view &quot;No king whats to work from himself when he is got people to work for him&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Even if kings were powerful, they were still symbols and leaders to their people hence they were protected. Like, if a king looses, an army looses , land- lives are lost , people are looted, women would get raped, children will get murdered or get recruited to join army at early age,etc.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You are looking it just as a meaning of a single word king. But that wasn't the ground reality. And chess is based on real life scenarios. &#xA;I know many countries don't have history in syllabus or they don't have that big of a history to tell... I recommend you read history of India for such examples or even French history to some extent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Queen Being Over-powered&lt;/strong&gt; :&#xA;Again coming back to how people choose different name for their pieces according to their convenience. The piece currently known as Queen was created keeping in mind the actions/functionalities that a Mantri/Vazir provided a King.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;King was used as a face/symbol , he didn't do much, queens didn't do much either they had people for each work they could possible need to do.  For queens there were &lt;em&gt;dasi&lt;/em&gt; (Female servents), for king there were &lt;em&gt;das&lt;/em&gt; (male servents) and &lt;em&gt;mantri&lt;/em&gt; . &lt;em&gt;Dasi and Das&lt;/em&gt; were chosen to work for king and queen for their whole lives and they had no say what so ever. Where as &lt;em&gt;Mantri&lt;/em&gt; were chosen either on basis of their high intellectual skills or high lineage. They were given different powers over the state and they exercised this power under the name of the King.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;And it is still followed, like in UK, Queen is the supreme Leader but her powers are exercised by the Prime Minster under her name. Same situation is in India, The president signs all the documents presented to him by the prime minister but he cannot implement anything on his own.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Modern chess just happens to have the name for the piece as queen, as it is both convenient and relate-able to the king. In addition to that there &lt;strong&gt;can be&lt;/strong&gt; so many situations that make this choice apt:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Feminism&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Romanticism&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Queen makes it feel much personal(to the board and player) than using the word Minister., etc&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;And women were powerless, well the game began in Asia, some say and the women were definitely powerless&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That is so not true. Women were part of making in India far before any western Civilization saw a women leader. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;India: &quot;Razia Sultana (1205–1240) became the only woman monarch to have ever ruled Delhi. The Gond Rani Durgavati (1524–1564) ruled for fifteen years before losing her life in a battle with Mughal emperor Akbar's general Asaf Khan in 1564. Chand Bibi defended Ahmednagar against the powerful Mughal forces of Akbar in the 1590s.&quot; -&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_women_in_the_Indian_subcontinent&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;West: &quot;Mary Tudor was the only child of King Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon to survive into adulthood. Mary took the throne in 1553, reigning as the first queen regnant of England and Ireland.&quot; - &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.biography.com/royalty/mary-tudor&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Modern Example: &lt;a href=&quot;https://feminisminindia.com/2018/01/04/indian-queens-fought-colonialism/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;For 1 Queen that ruled colonized India there were 6 that fought against her.&lt;/a&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Again that's a different question altogether but read Indian(Asian) History to know more. Also, please don't don't mix opinions with facts (specially prejudiced). Next time someone reads it from here he might take it as a fact.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank You&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23242" LastActivityDate="2020-05-10T01:39:32.380" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29514" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29515" CreationDate="2020-05-10T03:04:48.690" Score="-1" ViewCount="167" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;I am unable to understand why Photo 1 a stalemate and Photo 2 a checkmate.&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;PHOTO 1&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/7qbfK.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/7qbfK.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Photo 1&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;PHOTO 2&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/xBpbO.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/xBpbO.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;PHOTO 2&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23469" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-05-10T03:37:49.393" LastActivityDate="2020-05-10T04:05:49.677" Title="Stalemate v/s Checkmate" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;stalemate&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29515" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29514" CreationDate="2020-05-10T03:54:55.783" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Checkmate: When the king is under attack but there is now way to defend it.&#xA;&lt;br&gt;Stalemate: When the king is not under attack but none of him or his army can move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;King Can move one square at a time. So just look at one place around the King. With the above definitions.Also, a king can never go on a square that is attacker/controlled by an enemy piece. It Will be clear.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For figure 1. All the neighboring squares of the king are already under attack so king can't go there, only other piece on the board is a pawn which is blocked by the king himself(pawns move forward only unless capturing in which case they move diagonally forward instead of straight forward).&#xA;Hence, the king or the pawn cannot move hence stalemate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For figure 2. All neighboring blocks are already under attack plus the king is also under attack hence black has no move to play. So, its a check mate. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23242" LastEditorUserId="23242" LastEditDate="2020-05-10T04:00:28.837" LastActivityDate="2020-05-10T04:00:28.837" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29516" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29417" CreationDate="2020-05-10T04:00:23.220" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Games between engines often have absurd finishes, particularly when one side is material ahead. It has not been programmed to look for the shortest win, and so plays more or less any move that is still winning. I think sometimes it will give away some of its excess material to reach a position that is in its tablebase. Games between two computers are often quite ridiculous after one side obtains a winning advantage and your example is typical.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastEditorUserId="13012" LastEditDate="2020-05-10T04:13:16.850" LastActivityDate="2020-05-10T04:13:16.850" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29517" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29514" CreationDate="2020-05-10T04:05:49.677" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In both photos Black has no moves available, but the difference is that in the second photo his king is attacked (by White's queen on f6).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2020-05-10T04:05:49.677" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29518" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29521" CreationDate="2020-05-10T07:07:44.470" Score="4" ViewCount="1263" Body="&lt;p&gt;I only take two players starting out at 1500 Elo and have them play against each other with one player winning all games. Also I leave out any artificially introduced cut-offs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the winner is constantly gaining rating while the other player is losing Elo rating. The gain is decreasing because the rating difference of the players increases.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How does (mathematically) the raiting gain scale with the number of games (n) played for large n?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-05-22T17:15:05.443" LastActivityDate="2020-05-22T17:15:05.443" Title="How does Elo rating gain scale with games played?" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;elo&gt;&lt;mathematics&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29519" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29518" CreationDate="2020-05-10T10:49:02.207" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Indeed the limit of this scenario would be infinity for the perpetually winning player. This is because FIDE has a rule saying that if one player is rated more than 400 points higher than his opponent, their difference should be set to 400 when calculating rating gain/loss. That means no matter how weak the opposition is, our winning player will receive minimum 0.8 rating points for winning. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See this discussion as to why this rule exists: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/22328/why-is-there-a-minimum-rating-gain-when-you-win&quot;&gt;Why is there a minimum rating gain when you win?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3884" LastActivityDate="2020-05-10T10:49:02.207" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29520" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29464" CreationDate="2020-05-10T11:23:47.880" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;A game of chess, considered as an abstract game, is a zero sum game. A game of chess, considered as a way to try advance one's rating may or may not be a zero-sum game; it depends on the rating system. A game of chess, considered as a human activity, is not a zero-sum game, as both players may gain pleasure from it, whether or not one loses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23474" LastActivityDate="2020-05-10T11:23:47.880" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29521" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29518" CreationDate="2020-05-10T12:14:13.783" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;It kind of depends exactly what you mean by artificial cutoffs. There is one explicitly stated artificial cutoff in the &lt;a href=&quot;https://old.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=197&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE rating regulations&lt;/a&gt;. That says that if the rating difference is greater than 400 it will be treated as 400. But there is another hidden cutoff. The actual elo algorithm for calculating expected score or scoring probability involves power functions but FIDE provide a look-up table with approximations. This bottoms out when the rating difference is 735 with the expected score of the stronger player at 1.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, if the 400 point cutoff is excluded but the exact FIDE algorithm with its table of expected scores is used then the maximum rating difference is 735 points and once the two players' ratings reach 2235 and 765 further wins for the stronger player will not change ratings. That is part of the reason the 400 point rule was introduced.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If, however, you are not talking about FIDE's implementation of the elo algorithms then the problem becomes a purely mathematical one. I look at the algorithms below.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The formulae for working out rating change for elo ratings work like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Suppose the initial ratings of the two players are r(1) and r(2)  and their recalculated ratings (which we want to work out) are r'(1) and r'(2).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First we need to calculate a power function for each initial rating to use to calculate the expected result of the match. So, call these power functions for the two players R(1) and R(2) and their expected scores E(1) and E(2).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So -&lt;br&gt;&#xA;R(1) = 10^(r(1)/400) and R(2) = 10^(r(2)/400)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And -&lt;br&gt;&#xA;E(1) = R(1) / (R(1) + R(2)) and E(2) = (1 - E(1)) = R(2) / (R(1) + R(2))&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now let S(1) = player 1's score in the game (going to be 1 in this case) and&lt;br&gt;&#xA;let S(2) = player 2's score in the game (going to be 0 in this case) then&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;r'(1) = r(1) + k * (S(1) – E(1)) and&lt;br&gt;&#xA;r'(2) = r(2) + K * (S(2) – E(2)) where k is the k factor&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If there are no artificial cutoffs then the two ratings will eventually reach 3000 and 0 (with the same k factor for both, one player's rating gain is the other player's rating loss).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What happens in the next game?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well r(1) = 3000 and r(2) = 0 so -&lt;br&gt;&#xA;R(1) = 10^7.5 = 3162276.6 (to 8 sf) and&lt;br&gt;&#xA;R(2) = 1&lt;br&gt;&#xA;E(1) = 0.999999968&lt;br&gt;&#xA;E(2) = 0.000000032, so&lt;br&gt;&#xA;r'(2) = -0.000000032*k&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The second player's rating continues to decrease and goes negative.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm fairly sure that as these algorithms are power function based the limits will be power function limits, i.e. the first player's rating will tend to infinity and the second's to -infinity&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2020-05-10T12:24:26.970" LastActivityDate="2020-05-10T12:24:26.970" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29522" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29523" CreationDate="2020-05-10T12:53:05.927" Score="7" ViewCount="1488" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;https://old.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=197&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE rating regulations&lt;/a&gt; say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;8.5 Determining the rating change for a rated player&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;8.51 For each game played against a rated player, determine the difference in rating between the player and his opponent, D. [...]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;8.54 A difference in rating of more than 400 points shall be counted for rating purposes as though it were a difference of 400 points.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;8.55&#xA;(a) Use table 8.1(b) to determine the player’s score probability PD [...]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But table 8.1b (which seems to be used only for this purpose) contains entries that go higher than 400. What use are those entries? Why are they there in the first place if they cannot be used?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12957" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2020-05-10T22:01:09.667" Title="Why does the FIDE rating table go beyond 400?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;rating&gt;&lt;fide&gt;&lt;elo&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29523" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29522" CreationDate="2020-05-10T13:29:55.713" Score="9" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Why are they there in the first place if they cannot be used?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They were there in the first place because they &lt;em&gt;were&lt;/em&gt; used. The 400 point rule came later.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What use are those entries?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They provide interesting historical context which makes it easier to answer questions like &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/29518/how-does-elo-rating-gain-scale-with-games-played&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Perhaps a better question would be, why are they still there, or why weren't they removed when the 400 point rule was introduced. There are two obvious answers:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Inertia. It would take effort to remove them&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Efficiency. If the 400 point rule is rescinded at some stage then the entries required are already there. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-05-10T13:29:55.713" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29524" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-05-10T14:25:55.910" Score="1" ViewCount="41" Body="&lt;p&gt;I wanted to be able to customize my board and pieces on possible blitzin from the ICC and ICC for Windows. Can anyone show me how?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16440" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-05-10T16:35:22.250" LastActivityDate="2020-05-10T16:35:22.250" Title="ICC - How to Create/Custom Board and Pieces?" Tags="&lt;online-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29525" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29522" CreationDate="2020-05-10T15:30:40.487" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Table 8.1(a) is also used by reference in the &lt;a href=&quot;https://handbook.fide.com/chapter/B01Regulations2017&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;title regulations&lt;/a&gt;. To achieve a GM, IM, WGM, or WIM norm, a player must have a performance rating over a certain amount, and the performance rating is calculated using this table. Unlike the rating regulations, the title regulations do not limit the ratings difference to 400 points, so the entire table is used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Table 8.1(b) is pretty much the inverse of 8.1(a).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastEditorUserId="12629" LastEditDate="2020-05-10T22:01:09.667" LastActivityDate="2020-05-10T22:01:09.667" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29526" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29527" CreationDate="2020-05-10T20:54:58.707" Score="3" ViewCount="119" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have played more online Blitz recently and it was quite some fun, until I encountered what I would call the &quot;blundering phase&quot;. Every once in a while, my chess ability takes quite a hit when I apparently lose my ability to think properly. I have lost about 100 rating points online. In many games, I get a winning advantage, only to throw it away with utterly stupid mistakes. I do not know what the root cause of this is, could it be psychological? I'm doing daily tactical exercises between 20 minutes and one hour, so that can't be it. Do you have experience with this and maybe can propose a remedy that has worked for you?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12604" LastActivityDate="2020-05-10T21:54:05.550" Title="Blundering phase" Tags="&lt;psychology&gt;&lt;blunder&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29527" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29526" CreationDate="2020-05-10T21:54:05.550" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You are probably just tired. Go for a walk, sleep well and come back the next day. It could also have an impact on your confidence (making a mistake on this game will thus make you more likely to make another mistake on the next one)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastActivityDate="2020-05-10T21:54:05.550" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29528" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29518" CreationDate="2020-05-10T22:17:00.903" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;If we work solely from the standard mathematical formula for Elo ratings, it's possible to prove that the winning player can get an arbitrarily high rating, but that it'll probably take exponentially long (i.e., the winning player's rating increases logarithmically).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'll suppose that the initial Elo rating of the two players is 0, not 1500, because it makes the math simpler. (If this bugs you, just add 1500 to every number below.) Let r(n) be the rating of the winning player after n games, so the rating of the losing player is -r(n). Then in the (n+1)st game, the rating difference is 2r(n).&#xA;By the calculation given in Brian's answer, r(n) obeys the formula&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;r(n+1)-r(n)=K/(10^(r(n)/200)+1)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;with r(0)=1.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This recursion is painful to solve explicitly, but we can use a differential equation to approximate the solution. Explicitly, let f(r)=10^(r/200)+1; then the above recursion can be approximated as&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;r'(t)=K/f(r(t)).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Intuitively, passing to the differential equation is considering the limit of the process where we repeatedly play twice as many games, but with a K-factor that's half as large. Every time we do this, we slow down the rating growth a little bit, because the winning player has a higher rating as they play the second game in each pair than they do in the first game, so the second game leads to slightly less Elo growth than the first game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The differential equation r'(t)=K/f(r(t)) is a separable differential equation, which can be solved. I won't bore you with the details on a platform that doesn't let me write formulas, but the solution turns out to obey the equation&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;t=(200e^(r/200)-200+r ln 10)/(2K ln 10) .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Notice that this is an equation for t (the number of games played) in terms of r (the rating of the better player). There's essentially no nice way to invert this equation to write r in terms of t. However, we can notice that t is well-defined for any positive r, and is an increasing function of r. So, for any given rating, we can find the amount of time required to achieve that rating, which means it's possible to achieve arbitrarily high ratings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But since t is an exponential function of r, the amount of time taken may be exponentially long; that is, r will grow logarithmically over time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This argument shows that the winning player's rating can grow arbitrarily large in the limit where we played many more games, but with a correspondingly smaller K-factor. But as we argued above, the winning player's rating increases faster in the original setup than it does in this limiting setup. Since ratings can grow arbitrarily large in the limiting setup, this means that ratings can also grow arbitrarily large in the original setup.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm reasonably certain (but have not proved) that this growth is still logarithmic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18115" LastActivityDate="2020-05-10T22:17:00.903" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29529" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29533" CreationDate="2020-05-11T00:28:00.947" Score="6" ViewCount="371" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there a database available that the gives you the names of common openings?  &quot;Ruy Lopez&quot;, &quot;Sicialian&quot;, &quot;Queens Gambit&quot;, etc.  Ideally it would just be a simple map of the opening PGN to the common name.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23479" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2020-05-11T07:08:49.507" LastActivityDate="2020-05-11T19:54:24.760" Title="Free opening name database?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;database&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29530" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-05-11T03:33:27.877" Score="5" ViewCount="257" Body="&lt;p&gt;In &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/commit/97d2cc9a9c1c4b6ff1b470676fa18c7fc6509886&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this commit&lt;/a&gt;, a change was made to the way Stockfish scores board positions that are draws due to 3-fold repetition or 50-move limits. Prior to this commit, a drawn position was assigned a score of zero; afterwards, it is randomly assigned a score of +/-1 (that is, a tiny non-zero value). In the commit message, the intended result is explained:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The effect is that in positions with many 3fold draw lines, different&#xA;  lines are followed at each iteration. This keeps the search much more dynamic,&#xA;  as opposed to being locked to one particular 3fold.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;An example of a position where master suffers from 3fold-blindness and this patch&#xA;  solves quickly is the famous TCEC game 53:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;FEN: 3r2k1/pr6/1p3q1p/5R2/3P3p/8/5RP1/3Q2K1 b - - 0 51&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;master doesn't see that this is a lost position (draw eval up to depth 50) as&#xA;  Qf6-e6 d4-d5 (found by patch at depth 23) leads to a loss.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't understand what the change actually accomplishes. Why is visiting drawn positions in different orders helpful? What is meant by &quot;3fold blindness&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For reference, here's the board position mentioned in the message.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;3r2k1/pr6/1p3q1p/5R2/3P3p/8/5RP1/3Q2K1 b - - 0 51&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5819" LastActivityDate="2020-05-27T16:36:57.897" Title="Stockfish draw value randomization and &quot;3-fold blindness&quot;" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;programming&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29532" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29529" CreationDate="2020-05-11T13:13:08.373" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Lichess provides an online database in the analysis board which will tell you the name of the opening in the chess board. However, chessbase is a much more powerful tool, it provides an online database and you can also load any database you can find on the internet (chessbase will automatically display the name of the opening on the board). Moreover you have the option of creating your own database, with your own games or games of other databases (or both). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23468" LastActivityDate="2020-05-11T13:13:08.373" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29533" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29529" CreationDate="2020-05-11T13:21:34.743" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is an &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/niklasf/eco&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&quot;eco&quot; GitHub project&lt;/a&gt; available which I believe, based on the name, is based on the &lt;em&gt;Encyclopedia of Chess Openings&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This project used to provide a JSON file with all openings, but now provides a set of tab-separated files with columns for ECO code, name, FEN, and moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To give you an idea of the format of the file, here's the entry for &lt;em&gt;Ruy Lopez: Marshall, Main Line, Spassky Variation&lt;/em&gt;, which happens to be the longest opening in the file:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;C89     Ruy Lopez: Marshall, Main Line, Spassky Variation       5rk1/5ppp/p1pbr3/1p1n3q/P2P2b1/1BPQB1P1/1P1N1P1P/R3R1K1 w - -   e2e4 e7e5 g1f3 b8c6 f1b5 a7a6 b5a4 g8f6 e1g1 f8e7 f1e1 b7b5 a4b3 e8g8 c2c3 d7d5 e4d5 f6d5 f3e5 c6e5 e1e5 c7c6 d2d4 e7d6 e5e1 d8h4 g2g3 h4h3 c1e3 c8g4 d1d3 a8e8 b1d2 e8e6 a2a4 h3h5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12523" LastEditorUserId="12523" LastEditDate="2020-05-11T13:28:37.327" LastActivityDate="2020-05-11T13:28:37.327" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29534" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29544" CreationDate="2020-05-11T15:28:02.383" Score="6" ViewCount="112" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just thought it would be an interesting statistic to know which openings players like Carlsen and Fischer lost most against? Any suggestions?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23434" LastActivityDate="2020-05-12T13:25:55.257" Title="Any website that shows which opening a certain player struggles against?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;websites&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29535" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-05-11T18:44:45.117" Score="15" ViewCount="3475" Body="&lt;p&gt;It’s White to move and mate in 2 moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;7r/1p3Q1p/2q5/3bk3/1Q2p3/2P5/r2P2PP/2KR4 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23485" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-05-11T19:05:14.807" LastActivityDate="2020-05-14T01:59:40.763" Title="What moves solve this mate in 2?" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;problems&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29536" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29535" CreationDate="2020-05-11T19:02:48.320" Score="29" Body="&lt;p&gt;White to play checkmates in 2 with 1 d4+! exd3 e.p. 2 Qbf4#.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black to play cannot checkmate in 2 but should win after Bxf7.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;7r/1p3Q1p/2q5/3bk3/1Q2p3/2P5/r2P2PP/2KR4 w - - 0 1&#xA;&#xA;1. d4+! exd3 2. Qbf4 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8860" LastEditorUserId="8860" LastEditDate="2020-05-14T01:59:40.763" LastActivityDate="2020-05-14T01:59:40.763" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29537" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29529" CreationDate="2020-05-11T19:54:24.760" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have a CSV file with 2000+ openings in it, with their ECO codes, all names, and moves in SAN notation. You can find it on GitHub here: &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/Destaq/chess_graph/blob/master/elo_reading/openings_sheet.csv&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://github.com/Destaq/chess_graph/blob/master/elo_reading/openings_sheet.csv&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23045" LastActivityDate="2020-05-11T19:54:24.760" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29538" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-05-11T22:38:53.310" Score="1" ViewCount="102" Body="&lt;p&gt;I try to save color marking, etc. but the program gives error messages.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“The requested function is not supported by this type of database.”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can I save this? So far it doesn’t save, amd when I save it won’t save markings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/JwH6E.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/JwH6E.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23488" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-05-12T00:11:00.603" LastActivityDate="2020-05-12T00:11:00.603" Title="Scid chess can not save" Tags="&lt;scid&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29539" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29538" CreationDate="2020-05-11T22:49:41.677" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I figured it out a few minutes later  &#xA;Go to Menu at top “game” then “Save: Add New Game”&#xA;Add a new tag or title and will show in game list so you can pick which one you want!&#xA;Saves markings and you can edit tags and of file after &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23488" LastActivityDate="2020-05-11T22:49:41.677" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29540" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-05-12T03:55:46.560" Score="5" ViewCount="463" Body="&lt;p&gt;Two knights defence, Wilkes Barre (Traxler) variation seems to me to be a sharp line which is quite drawish. After the following position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;[StartPly &amp;quot;15&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Nf6 4. Ng5 Bc5 5. Nxf7 Bxf2 6. Kxf2 Nxe4 7. Kg1 Qh4 8. g3 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black usually continues with 8... Nxg3 and &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.365chess.com/opening.php?m=16&amp;amp;n=1123873&amp;amp;ms=e4.e5.Nf3.Nc6.Bc4.Nf6.Ng5.Bc5.Nxf7.Bxf2.Kxf2.Nxe4.Kg1.Qh4.g3&amp;amp;ns=3.5.5.6.80.412.2570.5055.10197.11992.375418.525114.1123872.1369280.1123873&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;some statistics&lt;/a&gt; show that more than 2/3 of the games in this position ended with a draw. I would call this line drawish. But as the same time, it also gives me the impression to be a sharp line (is it not?).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is, are there any other lines that are both sharp and drawish?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16626" LastEditorUserId="9025" LastEditDate="2020-09-15T20:08:43.600" LastActivityDate="2020-09-15T22:59:54.033" Title="Which openings lines are both sharp and drawish?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;two-knights&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29542" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29540" CreationDate="2020-05-12T07:57:53.287" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Typically by &lt;em&gt;sharp&lt;/em&gt; you mean highly tactical lines, with few alternative moves, where any wrong move leads to immediate defeat.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A sharp &lt;strong&gt;and sound&lt;/strong&gt; opening would be one that is so far analyzed that you can claim to lead to more or less equal position. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many sharp openings tend to be drawish if players know what they are doing. Reasons for that:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;because moves are basically forced, you have a small branching factor and it is possible to analyze such openings much further, sometimes all the way to a perpetual or very drawish endgame&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;sharp lines are usually found in open positions, which tend to favour exchanges. The fewer pieces on the board, the more drawish it often gets.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have a limited repertoire, but I believe there are many lines in the Sicilian which are said to be drawish.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In any case for  many mortal chess players this is not an issue as it is unlikely that games are played perfectly through  to the draw. Also people at lower level tend to fight for a win playing black and white, so there is not so much of a risk running into a drawish line as white (unles you play a much lower rated player).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2020-05-12T07:57:53.287" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29544" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29534" CreationDate="2020-05-12T13:02:38.737" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.openingtree.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Opening tree&lt;/a&gt; happens to be the website you are looking for, in it you use a database of games or someone's Lichess or chess.com username to get detail about their games. It shows frequency, last played, best win, worst loss, win-loss stats and performance. It also have have fatabases of famous players in it. Checking Anand's games as black, after playing &lt;code&gt;1.e4 2.c5 3.Nf3&lt;/code&gt; his worst performance is in Sicilian Defense: French Variation (elo performance 2644) with score 107/173 and worsst loss was &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1018861&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Ljubojevic - Anand 1998&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Overall, its a nice free website.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21526" LastActivityDate="2020-05-12T13:02:38.737" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29546" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29535" CreationDate="2020-05-12T18:50:22.233" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;When normal moves don't seem to work to solve a problem, you have to look for special moves like underpromotion, castling or en passant. The latter is the case in this problem, as 1. d4+ exd3 e.p. (forced) 2. Qbf4# mates.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastActivityDate="2020-05-12T18:50:22.233" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29547" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29556" CreationDate="2020-05-12T19:15:41.213" Score="1" ViewCount="150" Body="&lt;p&gt;In &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/opWFZSpz/black#70&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; lichess game, in the given analysis line for move 32, is it possible for Black to win in two moves after 35... Kc7?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;8/R4k2/2p3p1/2N4p/3n4/3P1pPb/PP3P1P/6K1 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Ke8 2. Ra8+ Ke7 3. Ra7+ Kd8 4. Ra8+ Kc7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Anonymous-Anonymous, lichess.org. Rapid Game, 5/12/2020&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;] &#xA;&#xA; 1. d4 g6 2. d5 e5 3. e4 Bc5 4. Nf3 a5 5. Nc3 Ba7 6. Nb5 Ne7 7. Nxe5 Nxd5 8. Qf3 f6 9. Nc4 Nb4 10. Bd3 O-O 11. O-O d6 12. Nxa7 Rxa7 13. e5 dxe5 14. Be3 Nxd3 15. Bxa7 Nc6 16. Qxd3 Qxd3 17. cxd3 Nxa7 18. Nxa5 f5 19. Rac1 c6 20. Rc5 f4 21. Rxe5 f3 22. g3 h5 23. Rfe1 Kf7 24. Re7+ Kf6 25. Re8 Rxe8 26. Rxe8 Bd7 27. Rd8 Ke7 28. Nxb7 Bh3 29. Rg8 Kf7 30. Ra8 Nb5 31. Nc5 Nd4 32. Ra7+ Kf6 33. Ne4+ Ke6 34. Nc3 Kd6 35. Rf7 Ke6 36. Rf4 Ke5 37. Rh4 Bg2 38. h3 g5 39. Re4+ Kd6 40. Rxd4+ Kc5 41. Re4 g4 42. Re5+ Kd4 43. Rxh5 gxh3 44. Nd1 Kxd3 45. Ne3 Ke2 46. Nxg2 hxg2 47. Re5+ Kd3 48. Rc5 Kd2 49. Rxc6 Kd1 50. b4 Ke1 51. b5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22937" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-05-12T22:34:09.660" LastActivityDate="2020-05-13T20:08:04.683" Title="Checkmate possibility for Black" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;checkmate&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29548" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27897" CreationDate="2020-05-12T19:56:46.267" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;At the 1200 level, you will find that most games are won or lost tactically. In fact that's true even up to much higher levels.  Accordingly, working on tactics should serve to improve your game and raise your rating. There are numerous sources online (ChessTempo, Chess.com, Spark Chess, etc.) that provide interactive tactical problems to do that.  Playing regularly should also help improve your &quot;sight&quot; of the board to spot tactical possibilities or thwart opposing ones. It has been pointed out that such possibilities generally arise from a positional advantage, so you should adhere to the standard recommendations for same to reach such positions - quick development of your pieces and early castling, controlling the center, controlling open files, commanding outposts, etc., all of which you indicate you are aware. Recording and analyzing your games is also recommended, preferably with the help of stronger players, as well as playing over well-annotated Master games, say from game collections of the greats. A little end game study wouldn't hurt either since a &quot;won&quot; game is often drawn or even lost there. It may sound like work, and it is, but nothing comes easily in life, or chess, unless you're a rare prodigy like Capablanca or Morphy.  As far as books on tactics are concerned, as an octogenarian I'm more familiar with the older ones such as Fred Reinfeld's &quot;1001 Winning Chess Sacrifices and Combinations&quot; and &quot;1001 Brilliant Ways to Checkmate&quot;, and  Laszlo Polgar's &quot;5334 Problems, Combinations and Games&quot;, but tactics never go out of style, and they'll work as well as current books.  Jeremy Silman's books on &quot;How to Re-assess Your Chess&quot; should help with theory.  Reaching 1500 should be a reasonable goal for you, although not necessarily by the end of the year.  Why set a time limit?  Just play regularly, take your losses in stride as learning experiences and enjoy the game, and improvement should come in time in the normal course of events.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastActivityDate="2020-05-12T19:56:46.267" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29549" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29540" CreationDate="2020-05-12T20:48:46.280" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;A first example of a line that is sharp and drawish is the following variation of the Pirc with f4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 d6 2.d4 Nf6 3.Nc3 g6 4.f4 Bg7 5.Nf3 c5 6.Bb5+ Bd7 7.e5 Ng4 8.e6 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.365chess.com/opening.php?m=16&amp;amp;n=9837&amp;amp;ms=e6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;statistics&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, the very high percentage of draws is also explained by the fact that some titled players use the next line to make quick draws: 8...fxe6 9.Ng5 &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;rn1qk2r/pp1bp1bp/3pp1p1/1Bp3N1/3P1Pn1/2N5/PPP3PP/R1BQK2R b KQkq - 0 9&quot;] &#xA;&#xA;9...Bxb5 10.Nxe6 Bxd4 11.Nxd8 Bf2 12.Kd2 Be3=&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A second example of a line that is sharp and drawish is found in the following Poisoned Pawn Variation, a line of the Sicilian Defense, Najdorf Variation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 a6 6. Bg5 e6 7. f4 Qb6 8. Qd2 Qxb2 9. Rb1 Qa3 10. f5 Nc6 11. fxe6 fxe6 12. Nxc6 bxc6 13. Be2 Be7 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.365chess.com/opening.php?m=27&amp;amp;n=3749918&amp;amp;ms=e4.c5.Nf3.d6.d4.cxd4.Nxd4.Nf6.Nc3.a6.Bg5.e6.f4.Qb6.Qd2.Qxb2.Rb1.Qa3.f5.Nc6.fxe6.fxe6.Nxc6.bxc6.Be2.Be7&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;statistics&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11749" LastEditorUserId="7726" LastEditDate="2020-05-13T07:05:00.857" LastActivityDate="2020-05-13T07:05:00.857" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29550" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29547" CreationDate="2020-05-12T21:30:56.887" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;If the object is to prevent a mate in two, White easily does that by playing Ra7+. But that is not the question, as after ...Kb6 White is still losing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black's threatened mate begins with Ne2+, so I'm presuming you want to prevent that mate entirely, not merely postpone it, and I don't see how. Re8 is the only white move that even bears on that square, and even after giving up R for N a checkmate remains on the board via pawn promotion. And while White could give up the N to gain a tempo with Rook by Ne6+, it still only delays the inevitable. I'm not even sure White could avoid losing if the Rook were replaced with a Queen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="657" LastActivityDate="2020-05-12T21:30:56.887" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29551" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29479" CreationDate="2020-05-12T22:28:22.257" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Shektman has a great two-volume set on Petrosian's games, but really, to play like Petrosian you need to get very good at tactics. One of the secrets to his playing style was the way he could sniff out the tactical possibilities inherent in the position and defang them before his opponent could take advantage of them. Daniel Naroditsky wrote a little something about that at &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/article/view/petrosians-tactical-side&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.chess.com/article/view/petrosians-tactical-side&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Something to play close attention to in his games are the rooks; he was a master of the exchange sacrifice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe a good book for starters would be Petrosian, Move By Move, by Thomas Engqvist. It takes a look at several of his games and tries to explain every single move. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="657" LastActivityDate="2020-05-12T22:28:22.257" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29552" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29530" CreationDate="2020-05-12T22:43:53.487" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would first like to acknowledge that this answer is somewhat speculative; this is the first time I've seen this feature in a a chess engine, and I'd be interested to know what other chess programmers think of my answer. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Contrary to what is commonly believed, (good) chess engines don't just &quot;search all possible moves&quot; up to a certain depth then pick the best one. If we were limited to this, modern engines would only be ~1600. An incredibly, stupidly important idea in chess programming is that of &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessprogramming.org/Reductions&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;reductions&lt;/a&gt;.&quot; There are many different types, but the basic idea is that computers don't search some lines it doesn't consider promising.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, this is a very double edged sword. On the one hand, you get much deeper and more effective searches, but on the other you are destined to miss something. To give you a taste, consider the following position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;3n3k/rp4pp/1p5r/pPp1pp2/PpPp1p2/3PpPp1/RN2P1P1/QBNR1BK1 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm confident a reasonable player can find the simple mate for black (get both rooks on the h file, and mate on h1, after Ne6 to ensure that White cannot break through), but Stockfish 10 can't find it at &quot;&lt;strong&gt;depth 50&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;. This happens because the mate involves like 7 consecutive quiet moves, which Stockfish doesn't see as significant enough to warrant intensive search. (&lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/study/ZHKBWGvq&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Another example on Lichess&lt;/a&gt;.) When engines miss tactics, most of the time something like this is to blame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One of the most common forms of this technique are &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessprogramming.org/Late_Move_Reductions&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;late move reductions&lt;/a&gt;,&quot; wherein the computer &lt;strong&gt;selectively&lt;/strong&gt; reduces moves found later in the move ordering. (this sorta presupposes you have semi-decent move ordering, but you said you already knew a little of that, so we're skipping it).  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Next, &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessprogramming.org/Iterative_Deepening&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;iterative deepening&lt;/a&gt;. Basically, the idea is that if you ask Stockfish to search at depth 25, it will start by searching depth 1, then depth 2, then depth 3,... then depth 25. This seems like a stupid idea at first, but it has various benefits most of which I won't go into. What's relevant here is that the depth 24 search informs decisions about reductions the depth 25 search makes. So if depth 24 says a move isn't too promising, depth 25 is less likely to search it deeply. (this is a &lt;strong&gt;massive&lt;/strong&gt; simplification).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ok so what's happening in the commit?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The effect is that in positions with many 3-fold draw lines, different lines are followed at each iteration. This keeps the search much more dynamic, as opposed to being locked to one particular 3-fold.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's how I'm reading this: Before the commit, the computer will be searching the same draws at every iteration. If there are lots of 3-fold lines, it's possible the computer won't search all of them (or at least, all of them deeply). This can lead to &quot;blind spots,&quot; where the computer doesn't notice some sideline in a move with a draw score. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Before the commit, each successive iteration would have (roughly) the same blind spots (albeit with more resources to notice the sideline). After the commit, the blind spots are scrambled at each iteration, making it less likely to miss the sideline.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a toy hypothetical example (which shouldn't be taken too literally): say we have two &quot;draw&quot; moves A and B, both of which are way out at the horizon of the search. Because they are so far away, the computer's evaluation of them is very bad (for several reasons, but for the time being we can just think that only a few of A and B's children are searched due to reductions) so it's possible A and B aren't actually draws. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now for whatever reason (perhaps reductions), let's say the computer has allocated 5 resources to search the &quot;best&quot; draw move and 3 resources for the &quot;second best&quot; draw move at iteration 24, while allocating 6 and 4 respectively at iteration 25. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's also say A is a genuine draw, but B has a sideline which isn't, and will be noticed if it is searched with 5 resources.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Before the commit, if A is searched first at iteration 24, it will likely also be searched first at iteration 25 (meaning the sideline slips through), but after the commit, A and B are equally likely to be searched at each iteration, meaning the sideline is more likely to be found at &lt;em&gt;some&lt;/em&gt; iteration, whereupon the computer will take note and correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't know if that made any sense whatsoever, but I hope it helps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Again, I'm very open to being corrected here. This is just my reading of the commit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20581" LastEditorUserId="9192" LastEditDate="2020-05-27T16:36:57.897" LastActivityDate="2020-05-27T16:36:57.897" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29554" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29450" CreationDate="2020-05-13T05:55:17.340" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1143989&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Adams - Torre&lt;/a&gt; comes to mind. It does not fully answer your requirements - some sacs are not side by side, some are not in the middle of the board - but still...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;2r1r1k1/1p1q1ppp/3p1b2/p2P4/3Q4/5N2/PP2RPPP/4R1K1 w - - 1 0&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Qg4 Qb5&#xA;2. Qc4 Qd7&#xA;3. Qc7 Qb5&#xA;4. a4 Qa4&#xA;5. Re4 Qb5&#xA;6. Qb7 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3774" LastEditorUserId="3774" LastEditDate="2020-05-13T06:20:45.020" LastActivityDate="2020-05-13T06:20:45.020" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29555" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24922" CreationDate="2020-05-13T07:25:41.170" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Games 61/62 of the 17th TCEC season featured such a gambit:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. d4 Nf6 2. Bg5 c5 3. d5 Qb6 4. Nc3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White gambits the b2-pawn. After 4...Qxb2 5. Bd2, Stockfish evaluated the position as &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.tcec-chess.com/archive.html?season=17&amp;amp;div=sf&amp;amp;game=61&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;+0.61 for White&lt;/a&gt;. In &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.tcec-chess.com/archive.html?season=17&amp;amp;div=sf&amp;amp;game=62&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;the reverse game&lt;/a&gt;, Leela gave White a +0.49 advantage after the same moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastActivityDate="2020-05-13T07:25:41.170" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29556" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29547" CreationDate="2020-05-13T20:08:04.683" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The position after 35 ... Kc7 is a win for Black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The immediate threat is mate with Ne2+ and Bg2;&#xA;if 36 Kg1 Bg2+ 37 Kg2 Ne2+, still mate with the same two moves&#xA;in reverse order -- but not 36 Kg2 Ne2+ 37 Ne6+! and 38 Nf4.&#xA;If 36 Re8 Ne2+ 37 Rxe2 fxe2 and it's still mate in a move or two with e1Q&#xA;because White's own Pd3 is in the way of defending with 38 Nd3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White has a better defense with &lt;strong&gt;36 Ne6+!&lt;/strong&gt;, disrupting the mating net by&#xA;forcing Black to capture with either B or N.  Material is then about equal,&#xA;but after &lt;strong&gt;36 Ne6+! Nxe6!&lt;/strong&gt; (not Bxe6 37 h4 or 37 Kf1) the Kg1 is still trapped&#xA;and the Knight threatens to go back to d4 and thence to e2 for the same mate.&#xA;After &lt;strong&gt;37 Ra4 g5!&lt;/strong&gt; (not yet c5 38 Rh4! dislodging the Bishop, &#xA;e.g. 38 ... Bg2 39 h3 and the wK escapes to h2) Black's plan is c5, Nd4, &#xA;and mate.  White will have to give up the Exchange (e.g. &#xA;&lt;strong&gt;38 Rc4 Nd4 39 Rxd4 cxd4&lt;/strong&gt; -- even worse is 39 Rxc5+ Kd6)&#xA;and now White is behind on material, with King still trapped and&#xA;the d3-pawn about to fall too, so Black should win the endgame&#xA;in due course.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8860" LastActivityDate="2020-05-13T20:08:04.683" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29557" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29430" CreationDate="2020-05-14T03:56:52.557" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are a lot of issues raised here and I'm going to take them in a different order than presented:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is the idea of destroying your opponent's fun good?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not in my opinion. From the perspective of winning the game, you seem to believe that denying them fun will lead your opponent to blunder. It may against some players. However, &amp;quot;battle-hardened veterans&amp;quot; will have seen players who use strategies like this and are likely to just play on with no ill effect. For some folks it is the winning that is fun. So if they beat you it doesn't matter what you did during the game; the only way to deny them their fun is to defeat them. Other people have fun just playing, so there may not be an approach you can take that will deny their fun. Thus I don't think this is a dependable method for winning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Additionally, I will relate a story from my childhood. While I learned the game from friends at school, after a while I could no longer play there. As my family lived &amp;quot;out in the middle of nowhere&amp;quot;, I had no one else to play (this was long before ubiquitous internet access) except two step siblings. They were the sort who couldn't enjoy a competition if they didn't win, but I quickly advanced past their skill level and defeated them every time we played. Thus I quickly found myself with no opponents. Unfortunately, this lasted for several years. So, making the game a miserable experience for your opponents could lead to having no one else to play. Of course, if you are better than they are and they are the sort who only enjoys winning, there may not be much you can do, except to teach them to be a better player if they are amenable to that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I play for two purposes:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.to win the game, or when winning is unlikely, to draw the game.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;2. to improve my chess skills, which eventually enables me to win/draw more games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Others have already pointed out that the second point is at odds with your proposed strategy of boring your opponents into blunders - you aren't improving your chess skills by taking advantage of opponents' blunders. Also, relying on mistakes by your opponents won't lead you to wins all the time, as you will encounter games in which the other player doesn't make (game changing) mistakes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for the actual title question about minimizing your opponent's fun ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I realize you are primarily discussing on line play. I think that boring your opponent or making them unhappy in the game is harder when you don't even see your opponent, especially if it is someone with whom you are unfamiliar. If it's someone you have familiarity with, then you may be able to play openings they don't like or that are boring and avoid sharp lines. Furthermore, none of these are inherently wrong or necessarily going to induce boredom or displeasure. If you need a draw to win a prize, they are even quite understandable. What I really want to address under this topic is over the board play, where methods of denying can fun include:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Sighing, cursing under your breath, and making other noises when you discover a mistake&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Similarly, saying &amp;quot;A-ha!&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;Eureka!&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;Gotcha!&amp;quot;, etc. when something goes your way.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&amp;quot;Smashing&amp;quot; the clock, especially if it is your opponent's and you do it particularly forcefully, making them think you might break it.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Making your move and hitting the clock so fast that your opponent hasn't even had a chance to hit the clock themselves.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Asking to see your opponent's notation sheet because you messed yours up. Double the annoyance if you do it on their turn/time on clock.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Making all your physical movements as if you only have seconds on the clock, even if it is very early in the game or after thinking for quite a while.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As noted in comments, these actions could cause your opponent to register a complaint for distracting behavior that would lead to penalties.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="224" LastEditorUserId="224" LastEditDate="2020-10-19T18:33:57.917" LastActivityDate="2020-10-19T18:33:57.917" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29558" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29560" CreationDate="2020-05-14T08:03:57.210" Score="5" ViewCount="1305" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am struggling to build a good opening repertoire. I have tried a few chessable courses. None of them have worked. My opponents counter my opening pretty easily. What is the best way to build a good opening repertoire? My openings for black are the Modern and the Dutch and my opening for white is the London System?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23434" LastActivityDate="2020-05-14T09:36:25.273" Title="How to build a good opening repertoire?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29559" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30216" CreationDate="2020-05-14T09:24:14.557" Score="3" ViewCount="204" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would like to practise playing chess against an chess engine/program, but only with a few pieces, without the kings. For example, 3 pawns against one knight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does exist any chess engine/program like this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23514" LastActivityDate="2020-07-01T11:10:31.513" Title="Play against a computer, but only with a few pieces and without the kings" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29560" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29558" CreationDate="2020-05-14T09:36:25.273" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;Expanding on RemcoGerlich's comment...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Beginners often overestimate the importance of opening theory. If your rating is below around 2000 or even somewhat above) it is perfectly possible to get by with a very rudimentary knowledge of opnenings. It is unlikely that you lose many games because of the opening. All of your mentioned openings tend to go for closed positions and are not full of tactics or traps that you can fall into. It is much more likely that you lose for other reasons than lack of opening repertoire.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Much more important is being good at tactics and having a good positional understanding, knowing the typical plans in certain pawn structures. The first part tactics is easy to train by repetition solving puzzles. The second aspect (positional understanding( is harder and requires time. I recommend to read through annotated games or (nowadays) watch commented games of which you find plenty on chess24, chess.com, youtube, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once you have a decent understanding of plans and positional play, learning openings will make much more sense because you will understand why a certain move is  made and also what to do if your opponent makes a non-standard move that is not in your repertoire.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most definitely you don't want to learn openings by heart without understanding the ideas behind them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2020-05-14T09:36:25.273" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29561" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-05-14T09:59:18.407" Score="4" ViewCount="71" Body="&lt;p&gt;Similar questions have been asked before &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/9237/good-resource-for-annotated-games&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; or &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/9573/commented-games-for-beginners&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;. Still I think it would be more useful to have these resources listed by level. There is not much point for a beginner to listen to a GM explaining long lines and deep positional ideas. Similarly an advanced player does not want to learn about how the knight moves. So the question is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are freely available resources for annotated or commented games and in what category of audience would you put them? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am looking for:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;written and audio and video&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;names of players/streamers...&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;names of concrete events (e.g. banter blitz with ..., commentary on tournament... by ...)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;can overlap levels but preferrably not cover more than two levels&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So just saying chess24 is not enough as that includes a whole range of levels.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the levels I suggest the chess.com system (but am open to alternatives) In any case that would be just a rough guideline:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;beginner &amp;lt;1400&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;intermediate  1400 - 2000&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;expert 2000 - 2200&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Master 2200+&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastEditorUserId="11629" LastEditDate="2020-05-14T15:50:12.677" LastActivityDate="2020-08-02T04:32:50.523" Title="Resources for annotated or commented games by level of audience" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;online&gt;&lt;annotation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29562" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29530" CreationDate="2020-05-14T12:21:23.813" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The general answer is that by scoring these &quot;3-fold&quot; and &quot;50-move&quot; draws with some randomization, the engine will naturally be encouraged to explore different lines of play on successive searches. Moreover, these &quot;draws&quot; won't all be flooded into the Transposition Table (Big table of saved search results) with the same score.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I put &quot;50-move&quot; in quotes for a reason. Due to how positions are stored into the Transposition Table (often without regard for the actual 50-move counter), its possible for a position to &quot;appear&quot; to be a draw, but not actually be. The best example would be the cursed-wins / blessed-losses that occur in the Syzygy Tablebases, which require an extension of the 50-move rule in order to obtain mate without drawing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For &quot;3-fold&quot; draws, there is a similar reason. I am not absolutely certain of the inner workings of Stockfish, but I believe the following is true for Stockfish (and is certainly true for some others): Often time &quot;2-fold&quot; repetitions are scored as draws. This is to speedup the search greatly (gains elo). I say &quot;often times&quot;. Sometimes this is not the case, like when the first occurrence of a given position occurred BEFORE the root of the search. In other words, the the &quot;2-fold&quot; occurs entirely in the search, and has not actually been played in part or in full over the board. Again, this trick of randomization encourages some additional exploration, which helps to avoid rather &quot;unlucky&quot; understandings of a position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8443" LastActivityDate="2020-05-14T12:21:23.813" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29563" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29428" CreationDate="2020-05-14T12:32:18.213" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This appears fine to me. However, there are some things to note: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) Its important to be careful that you do not try playing the same move twice. Your &quot;Storing in Move Generator&quot; appears to accomplish this. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) It is generally a bad idea to save the SAME killer into multiple slots of your table. This reduces to effective size of your Killer Move table, and also makes it possible such that the following occurs: Your table contains {A, B, C, D} for a given depth. Move D is then found to refute 3 different lines of play (Awesome!), now your table contains {D, D, D, D}. If A, B, or C had any value, it is now lost.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) From personal experience, there is hardly any benefit to having more than two Killer moves for a given depth. In Ethereal, three-moves loses elo over two-moves, and two-moves is almost the same as one-move. I believe Stockfish uses two killers, although my information may be out of date.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8443" LastActivityDate="2020-05-14T12:32:18.213" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29564" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29294" CreationDate="2020-05-14T13:11:15.900" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;python-chess already has the built in utilities to handle conversions. Here is an example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;import chess&#xA;&#xA;board = chess.Board('rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1')&#xA;&#xA;WP = board.pieces(chess.PAWN, chess.WHITE)&#xA;BP = board.pieces(chess.PAWN, chess.BLACK)&#xA;&#xA;print (int(WP), int (BP))&#xA;&#xA;print (list(WP), list(BP))&#xA;&#xA;print (&quot;\nWHITE PAWNS:\n&quot; + str(WP))&#xA;&#xA;print (&quot;\nBLACK PAWNS:\n&quot; + str(BP))&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Output:    &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;65280 71776119061217280&#xA;&#xA;[8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15] [48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55]&#xA;&#xA;WHITE PAWNS:&#xA;. . . . . . . .&#xA;. . . . . . . .&#xA;. . . . . . . .&#xA;. . . . . . . .&#xA;. . . . . . . .&#xA;. . . . . . . .&#xA;1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1&#xA;. . . . . . . .&#xA;&#xA;BLACK PAWNS:&#xA;. . . . . . . .&#xA;1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1&#xA;. . . . . . . .&#xA;. . . . . . . .&#xA;. . . . . . . .&#xA;. . . . . . . .&#xA;. . . . . . . .&#xA;. . . . . . . .&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From a list, or from an integer, you can easily construct a Bitboard however you choose to define it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8443" LastActivityDate="2020-05-14T13:11:15.900" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29565" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9236" CreationDate="2020-05-14T14:17:12.827" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;This seems like a draw to me. This is because the king blocks and it is either something captures the pawn or it is stalemate. Or the white could win if black plays a wrong move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23450" LastEditorUserId="23450" LastEditDate="2020-05-14T15:17:40.053" LastActivityDate="2020-05-14T15:17:40.053" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29566" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5344" CreationDate="2020-05-14T22:39:43.523" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I built this analysis over more than 4.5 millions of games played in Chess960 variant: &#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/welyab/chess960-win-by-position-setup&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://github.com/welyab/chess960-win-by-position-setup&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The most unbalanced setup is RNBKRBQN where white has 51.44% of win, and black 44.75% of win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At general, white has a win rate of 49.17%, and black with 47.1%. There are more information on github repository.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19648" LastEditorUserId="19648" LastEditDate="2020-05-15T04:04:00.150" LastActivityDate="2020-05-15T04:04:00.150" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29567" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28222" CreationDate="2020-05-15T18:50:02.357" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Another reason why castling is good in 960 chess (and classical chess) is that it &lt;strong&gt;connects the rooks&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the following example, Black quickly castled and connected his rooks, while White did not. This is not the only reason for White's defeats, but it is part of it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;nqbbrkrn/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/NQBBRKRN w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;[title &quot;Shankland - Vachier-Lagrave, Champions Showdown, Chess 960 2018&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. c3 Ng6 3. Bc2 c6 4. Ng3 O-O 5. h4 f5 6. h5 f4 7. Nf5 e6 8. Nxg7 Kxg7 9. hxg6 e5 10. dxe5 h6 11. Nb3 Qxe5 12. Bd2 Nb6 13. Qd1 Nc4 14. Nd4 Ne3+! 15. Bxe3 fxe3 16. Nf3 exf2!! {Brillant sac of the Queen} 17. Nxe5 Bh4! {and mat follow soon} 18. g3 Bh3+ 19. Rg2 Bxg3! 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11749" LastActivityDate="2020-05-15T18:50:02.357" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29568" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29572" CreationDate="2020-05-15T19:50:28.597" Score="15" ViewCount="8949" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why do some of the world's best intellectuals spend their whole lives just on a wooden board, rather than working on the betterment of society ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23523" LastEditorUserId="23523" LastEditDate="2020-05-17T18:33:25.137" LastActivityDate="2020-05-26T11:32:53.797" Title="Why do people even play chess?" Tags="&lt;grandmaster&gt;" AnswerCount="12" CommentCount="11" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29570" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29568" CreationDate="2020-05-15T20:01:44.410" Score="34" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Where am I wrong?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;None of &quot;the world's best intellectuals&quot; spend much time playing chess. The only strong (GM strength) chess player who qualifies as an intellectual is &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Nunn&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Dr John Nunn GM&lt;/a&gt; who graduated with a first in mathematics from Oxford University at the age of 18. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Why do people even play chess?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The best answer to this was given by &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Siegbert_Tarrasch&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Siegbert Tarrasch&lt;/a&gt; who famously said:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Chess, like love, like music, has the power to make men happy&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2020-05-15T20:12:35.650" LastActivityDate="2020-05-15T20:12:35.650" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29571" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29568" CreationDate="2020-05-15T22:14:13.037" Score="9" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Why do people even play chess?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Beyond fun and happiness, it could be that playing chess may help to sharpen focus, develop pattern recognition and memory, improve analytical abilities, enhance cognitive strength and develop other important skills that may help to &quot;work on the betterment of society&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;working on the betterment of society&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is &lt;strong&gt;very difficult to establish a causal link&lt;/strong&gt; between playing chess and the acquisition of skills that make it possible to work for the &quot;betterment of society&quot;. However, many chess players do many wonderful things.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Just look at the profiles of the many people who answer and ask questions on this chess site. They are also very competent in many other fields, with a great reputation in other StackExchange sites such as: mathematics, stack overflow, physics... Chess may have helped them. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;For more on this look at the meta-analysis on &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1747938X16300112&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Do the benefits of&#xA;chess instruction transfer to academic and cognitive skills?&lt;/a&gt;&quot;&#xA;(note that one of the author &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fernand_Gobet&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Fernand Gobet&lt;/a&gt; is a cognitive&#xA;scientist and psychologist and also an International Master!)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A concrete and anecdotal example is that of &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.chessbase.com/post/ken-rogoff-economist-and-chess-player&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Kenneth Rogoff&lt;/a&gt;, chess grandmaster&#xA;and professor of economics at Harvard University. From 2001-2003,&#xA;Rogoff served as Chief Economist at the International Monetary Fund.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;At sixteen Rogoff dropped out of high school to concentrate on chess.&#xA;  He won the United States Junior Championship in 1969 and spent the&#xA;  next several years living primarily in Europe and playing in&#xA;  tournaments there. However, at eighteen he made the decision to go to&#xA;  college and pursue a career in economics rather than to become a&#xA;  professional player, although he continued to play and improve for&#xA;  several years afterward. Rogoff was awarded the IM title in 1974, and&#xA;  the GM title in 1978. [...] He has also drawn individual games against former world &#xA;  champions Mikhail Tal and Tigran Petrosian. In 2012 he drew a blitz game with the &#xA;  world's highest rated player Magnus Carlsen. (source: &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Rogoff&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11749" LastActivityDate="2020-05-15T22:14:13.037" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29572" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29568" CreationDate="2020-05-16T00:18:27.913" Score="32" Body="&lt;p&gt;Enjoying chess and getting better at it can be viewed as an instrumental good, as well as possibly an intrinsic good.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As an instrumental good, chess can help us be better in other areas of life. For example, playing consistently might help sharpen certain areas of your mind. Coming up with plans could help one make plans in real life as well. Knowing when to trust your intuition is another skill that might be gained from chess. Studying theory can help your memorization skills and study techniques.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some could also view chess as an intrinsic good. Here, the game is taken to be good axiomatically - playing it isn't necessarily a means to an end for a greater good. It is good simply because it is good. You could say people should spend more time working on bettering society instead, but here you'd also be trying to (indirectly) increase some other arbitrary intrinsic goods. Who's to say chess is a less important intrinsic good?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2020-05-16T00:18:27.913" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29574" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29568" CreationDate="2020-05-16T04:11:02.197" Score="17" Body="&lt;p&gt;You are wrong because you want to enslave the world's best intellectuals to dedicate their time and effort to tasks that &lt;em&gt;you&lt;/em&gt; deem important rather than on what &lt;em&gt;they&lt;/em&gt; find enjoyable and fulfilling. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20803" LastActivityDate="2020-05-16T04:11:02.197" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29575" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29568" CreationDate="2020-05-16T04:16:42.337" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;If the population of Earth reduced to such an extent that you'd need all-hands-on-deck, then it'd be worth asking why certain people spend their lives playing games.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Or perhaps we are invaded by aliens and only the chess players can give us the best strategies that even a computer can't think of :-) (just kidding).  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.google.com/search?client=ubuntu&amp;amp;hs=CLr&amp;amp;ei=1WS_XuqoLMeb4-EPsLqrmA0&amp;amp;q=what%20is%20the%20significance%20of%20sports%20like%20chess&amp;amp;oq=what%20is%20the%20significance%20of%20sports%20like%20chess&amp;amp;gs_lcp=CgZwc3ktYWIQAzoECAAQRzoGCAAQFhAeOggIIRAWEB0QHjoFCCEQoAE6BAghEBU6BwghEAoQoAFQjGZY_nJgm3RoAHABeAGAAdgBiAGjDpIBBjAuMTAuMZgBAKABAaoBB2d3cy13aXo&amp;amp;sclient=psy-ab&amp;amp;ved=0ahUKEwiq5_iCv7fpAhXHzTgGHTDdCtMQ4dUDCAw&amp;amp;uact=5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Sports&lt;/a&gt; help nations in these ways: &#xA;From &lt;a href=&quot;https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/life-style/health-fitness/fitness/the-importance-of-sports-in-nation-building/articleshow/71008084.cms&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;ToI&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Builds and define the character of a nation It helps in elevating&#xA;  qualities like discipline, determination, teamwork and a passion for&#xA;  fitness in the psyche of a nation. Also, once you are into sports,&#xA;  certain virtues like teamwork, ethics, and sportsmanship become&#xA;  lifelong qualities. Creating a Global community Any major&#xA;  international sporting event like the Olympics or a World Cup promotes&#xA;  universal brotherhood and gives one a sense of belonging to a larger&#xA;  global community.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20141125180125-161464176-importance-of-sports-for-economy&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;LinkedIn&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;sports play an important role in shaping up an economy and government&#xA;  to promote sports in country. This will increase the business for&#xA;  local players who make sports equipments; it will also provide&#xA;  business to airlines and other transport business, media, brokers, and&#xA;  a medium of creating platform for young generation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, some people are good at physical or mental activities in specific domains. It helps to work on your strengths to contribute to the nation, rather than try something else at which you are not so good. Especially when the sport you play can earn you fame and a good living. But getting good at any sport takes a lot of practice, which is why people spend a lot of time practising. It's not a wasted effort, as long as they manage their time well with other tasks.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More &lt;a href=&quot;https://lmgtfy.com/?q=why%20is%20sports%20important%20for%20society&amp;amp;pp=1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; about how sports helps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Rather than simply say that people play chess because it makes them happy, it helps to go a bit deeper and understand &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_studies&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;gamer psychology&lt;/a&gt;. Specifically for &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Board_game#Research_into_gaming&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;board games&lt;/a&gt;:  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Because of the gamble they take in the early stage of the game there&#xA;  is a build-up of tension, which is immediately released once the ...&#xA;  Release of tension is therapeutic and useful in our society, because&#xA;  most jobs are boring and repetitive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But yes, sometimes people do get bored of sport eventually. Formula One champion Niki Lauda eventually got fed up of &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.dw.com/en/niki-lauda-much-more-than-a-formula-one-champion/a-48810761&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;driving around in circles&lt;/a&gt;&quot;.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Most importantly:&lt;/strong&gt; &#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.google.com/search?q=life%20is%20not%20a%20race&amp;amp;oq=life%20is%20not%20a%20race&amp;amp;aqs=chrome.0.0l8.5168j0j7&amp;amp;client=ubuntu&amp;amp;sourceid=chrome&amp;amp;ie=UTF-8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Life is not a race&lt;/a&gt;. You don't have to spend all your time doing something that's useful and productive. It's perfectly ok to do what you enjoy or even just slack off once in a while. In school we are all brainwashed to work like donkeys. In adulthood, we need to realize the many realities of life.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10406" LastEditorUserId="10406" LastEditDate="2020-05-16T04:28:39.270" LastActivityDate="2020-05-16T04:28:39.270" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29576" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29568" CreationDate="2020-05-16T04:37:09.723" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;Vast intellectual talent does not automatically confer a loving desire to make society better. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You fail to take into consideration the great number of humans who are superintelligent, overeducated, and energetic -- and who totally despise their fellow man. They are naturally given to long periods of brooding inner fury followed by bursts of precipitate combatitive action. Such persons will inevitably become either chess players or axe murderers. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No one will ever know how many potential world-class supervillains were distracted from a career of world conquest or mass murder by the cutthroat environment of F.I.D.E. sanctioned competition. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20803" LastActivityDate="2020-05-16T04:37:09.723" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29577" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29580" CreationDate="2020-05-16T11:02:38.290" Score="8" ViewCount="1283" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recall seeing a number of chess games where a lot of pieces are involved in the final checkmate, and was curious to know what is the maximum number of pieces of one player A that have been involved in a checkmate of the other player B, where a piece is said to be involved if and only if removing it either causes B's king to be no longer in check or causes one of the squares around B's king to be no longer attacked by A's pieces. It is easy to construct a reachable position where 9 pieces are involved, and to prove that no more than 9 pieces are involved. It is also possible for all 6 types of pieces to be involved. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[White &quot;Checkmate&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;9 pieces involved&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;6B1/7K/2N5/5kP1/2R1P2P/8/6N1/3Q4 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But are there any actual competitive games that ended with such a checkmate (i.e. using 9 pieces)? If not, what is the maximum number ever used in a competitive game? Among these games, what is the maximum number of types of pieces used? I exclude non-competitive games merely to avoid contrived games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note: As John Coleman pointed out in the comments, this notion of &quot;involved&quot; is more like &quot;critically involved&quot; because it is possible that a checking piece is covering another piece that would also provide check if the first was removed, or that a piece next to the checkmated king is protected by more than one piece. One could consider a variant notion of &quot;loosely involved&quot; defined as follows: A piece X of A is loosely involved in a checkmate of B if and only if we can remove some pieces of A that attack B's king or a square next to B's king such that it is still a checkmate and X is (critically) involved. I think this should cover such cases, so I am fine with including examples that use this looser definition of &quot;involved&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9192" LastEditorUserId="9192" LastEditDate="2020-05-17T03:35:13.620" LastActivityDate="2020-08-05T02:26:12.433" Title="Most pieces involved in checkmate in actual game?" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;records&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="13" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29578" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29577" CreationDate="2020-05-16T14:23:27.237" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;After going through a &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chesscollection?cid=1006143&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;list&lt;/a&gt; of games with king hunts, I found &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1013231&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;game&lt;/a&gt; at last in which 6 pieces are involved in the mate!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Alexander Alekhine-NN, Simul 34b, Moedling Austria, 3/24/1936&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[startply &quot;33&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. d4 f6 3. dxe5 fxe5 4. Qh5+ Ke7 5. Qxe5+ Kf7 6. Bc4+ d5 7. Bxd5+ Kg6 8. Qg3+ Kh5 9. Bf7+ g6 10. h3 Qf6 11. Nf3 Be7 12. Qg4+ Bxg4 13. hxg4+ Kxg4 14. Nh2+ Kh4 15. Nf1+ Kg4 16. Be6+ Qxe6 17. f3#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Bc1 prevents the Black king from moving to f4 and g5, the e4 pawn covers f5, the f3 pawn is giving mate, the Nf1 covers g3, the g2 pawn protects the mating piece and covers h3, and the Rh1 covers the h3, h4, and h5 squares.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Upon seeing this question, I remembered entry #355 of &lt;a href=&quot;https://timkr.home.xs4all.nl/chess2/diary_18.htm&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Tim Krabbe’s Chess Diary&lt;/a&gt;, which gives some examples of checkmates involving all four minor pieces. The best and simplest example is &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1358125&amp;amp;kpage=1#kibitzing&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; game. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Vasily Borisovich Malinin-Viktor Savinov, Leningrad Russia, 1988&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[startply &quot;71&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 c5 3. d5 b5 4. cxb5 a6 5. bxa6 Bxa6 6. Nc3 d6 7. Nf3 g6 8. g3 Bg7 9. h4 O-O 10. h5 Nbd7 11. hxg6 hxg6 12. Bh3 Re8 13.  Qc2 Rb8 14. Be3 Nxd5 15. Qxg6 fxg6 16. Be6+ Kf8 17. Nxd5 Rxb2 18. Ng5 Nf6 19. Nf4 Qa5+ 20. Kf1 Bxe2+ 21. Kg1 Reb8 22. Bf7 Rb1+ 23. Kh2 Ng4+ 24. Kh3 Rxh1+ 25. Rxh1 Nxf2+ 26. Bxf2 Bg4+ 27. Kxg4 Rb4 28. Kf3 Qa3+ 29. Be3 Qa8+ 30. Bd5 Qa5 31. Nfe6+ Kg8 32. Nc7+ e6 33. Bxe6+ Kf8 34. Nh7+ Ke7 35. Bg5+ Bf6 36. Bxf6#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is easily deduced to be a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pure_mate&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;pure mate&lt;/a&gt;, thus raising the known record to four pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, to user @John Coleman from the comments, here’s a &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1553589&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;king hunt&lt;/a&gt;, with four pieces, for you. :-)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Roland Schmaltz-Ronen Har-Zvi, Internet Chess Club, 3/7/2001&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[startply &quot;48&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 Nc6 2. Nc3 e5 3. g3 Bc5 4. Bg2 Nf6 5. Nge2 d6 6. h3 Bb6 7. O-O O-O 8. Kh2 Re8 9. f4 exf4 10. gxf4 Ng4+ 11. Kg3 Nf2 12. Rxf2 Qh4+ 13. Kxh4 Bxf2+ 14. Ng3 Re6 15. Kg4 Nd4 16. f5 Rg6+ 17. Kf4 Rxg3 18. Qf1 g5+ 19. fxg6 Ne6+ 20. Kf5 Ng7+ 21. Kf6 Rxg6+ 22. Ke7 Re6+ 23. Kd8 Bb6 24. Nd5 Re8#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-05-16T17:21:20.220" LastActivityDate="2020-05-16T17:21:20.220" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29579" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-05-16T14:39:19.057" Score="1" ViewCount="105" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this position, why is it better to move the queen’s rook to defend the d-file instead of the king’s rook? Moving the king’s rook to the d-file becomes more challenging. Is it important to leave king’s rook behind to support the king? Is control of the f-file more important? I am curious about the logic behind of choosing the queen's rook in such situations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;3rr1k1/pp3pbp/1n4p1/4P3/3P2b1/B4N2/P3BPPP/R4RK1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Rad1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14241" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-05-29T02:37:28.477" LastActivityDate="2020-05-29T02:37:28.477" Title="Why move the queen’s rook to defend d-file instead of king’s rook?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;&lt;rooks&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29580" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29577" CreationDate="2020-05-16T15:17:20.753" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;It took a while, but I found via youtube &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFeCTEFJoeg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;an old well-known game with a king hunt ending in checkmate with 5 involved pieces&lt;/a&gt;!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Josef Matschego − Ernst Falkbeer , Vienna (1853)&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[startply &quot;50&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. f4 exf4 3. Nf3 g5 4. h4 g4 5. Ne5 Nf6 6. Nc3 d6 7. Nc4 Be7 &#xA;8. d4 Nh5 9. Be2 Bh4 10. Kd2 Qg5 11. Kd3 Nc6 12. a3 Bf2 13. Nd5 Bd4 &#xA;14. Nc7 Kd8 15. Nd5 f5 16. Nd6 fxe4 17. Kc4 Qd5 18. Kd5 Nf6 19. Kc4 Be6 &#xA;20. Kb5 a6 21. Ka4 b5 22. Nb5 axb5 23. Kb5 Ra5 24. Kc6 Bd5 25. Kd6 Ne8#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Interestingly, from move 17 onwards it is a mate in 9, and the only way to achieve that is via sacrificing the queen first!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9192" LastEditorUserId="9192" LastEditDate="2020-05-17T03:24:11.933" LastActivityDate="2020-05-17T03:24:11.933" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29581" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29186" CreationDate="2020-05-16T16:18:09.277" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Actually it is not really correct to say that &quot;simply increasing the board size [...] comes at the cost of losing playability&quot;. The complexity of Go on a board of the same size as chess (i.e. 8×8) would be not high at all, in fact less than chess according to my intuition. But it is true that there is some reason why we humans have a vague feeling that increasing the size of the Go board is not what gives Go its intrinsic complexity, whereas increasing the size of a chess board (say duplicating the pieces and putting them on two sides of a 16×16 board) makes it feel less playable. Based on a mathematical view, it seems to me that the main reason is the difference in the nature of pieces. In chess, many pieces can move from one end of the board to the other. In Go on the other hand, each piece has a fixed location and has a semi-local effect, in the sense that it can exert an effect on another location on the board only if it is in some unbroken chain of pieces that reaches over there. Also, the objective function is a global and fine-grained one in Go (i.e. territory), but a very local and coarse-grained one in chess (i.e. checkmate or stalemate of opponent king). Together, these two factors make Go scalable to large boards without losing playability (except for taking longer), unlike chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you noted, simply increasing the branching factor is not desirable, because otherwise all we would have to do is to increase the board size and number of pieces! To increase the complexity but retain human playability, in a fully scalable manner, one can try to make the objective global and fine-grained, or make the pieces have more localized effects than in ordinary chess, or both. Here are some ideas:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Fine-grained objective:&lt;/strong&gt; Remove check/checkmate/stalemate/castling, allow the king to get captured, and add an extra kind of move, to &lt;em&gt;ascend&lt;/em&gt; any of your pieces that is at the final rank. Passing is allowed whenever there is no valid move. The goal is simply to ascend more pieces than your opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Semi-local effect:&lt;/strong&gt; Restrict the movement of pieces; each piece requires half a unit of &lt;em&gt;energy&lt;/em&gt; per king step from its original location (e.g. moving a knight always requires one unit), and capturing an opponent piece requires 1 extra unit of energy, and each player has 2 units of energy per turn, except that White has only 1 unit on the first turn. For instance, on your turn (except for the first turn) you can push two pawns one step each and move a king twice, or you can move a queen one step (0.5 units) and use a pawn to capture an opponent piece (1.5 units).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These two ideas can be used separately or together, and they can clearly be tweaked in innumerable ways to smoothen or sharpen the game play. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Smoother (1):&lt;/strong&gt; Break ties in number of ascended pieces by comparing how many moves were taken to ascend the last ascended piece. A tie is still possible if both players make the final ascension move at the same time.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Sharper (1):&lt;/strong&gt; Narrow the focus by changing the goal to count only the number of ascended pawns, while other pieces cannot be ascended.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Smoother (2):&lt;/strong&gt; Increase the (square) board size by a factor of k and the number of pieces by a factor of m and simultaneously increase the number of units of energy available per turn by a factor of k×m. It is obvious that this is just making the army and the board more continuous, and the game mechanics retain the same flavour as the original (2). But this will greatly multiply the branching factor (more than exponential in k×m). Setting (k,m) = (2,2) should make for a nice long strategy-heavy war on the board.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Sharper (2):&lt;/strong&gt; Make the pieces have more varied distance limit per energy usage. Doing so will make the strategy sharper because the stronger pieces (like the queen in the original chess) can maneuver more easily to where they are needed, but usually are best used as supporting pieces except when they can capture and get away.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9192" LastActivityDate="2020-05-16T16:18:09.277" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29582" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29579" CreationDate="2020-05-16T16:36:41.103" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;White needs to find a way to make use of his extra pawn, because it is hard to see any other plan. His dream would be to play d4-d5-d6, but this is not yet possible because a) d5 is under Blacks control, and b) the Pe5 would hang. Having the Rooks on e1 and d1 would address both of these issues, and that would be a motive to choose Rad1, but there is still play in this position and White needs to be accurate.  Whites K is extremely safe, so that is not a concern. There is no reason to worry about Bxf3. The resulting &quot;weak&quot; pawns do not matter because they cannot be attacked. Best in this situation seems be Bb5 which forces either Bd7 or Nd7, both of which reduce the effectiveness of Blacks blockade. A plausible continuation after 1..Nd7 would be 2. Ng5 threatening Bc4, 2..h6, 3.Ne4 intending Nd6. So Black will have to play ..Bd7, and then White can play Bxd7 and reorganize at leisure. He might consider putting the KR on d1, followed by a Knight move and f4. The QR is then free to occupy the c-file. It is too soon to analyze to a clear conclusion, but I would certainly expect White to win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This discussion is based on specifics of the particular position, and not on appeal to any general principles. That is almost always the way to go.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastActivityDate="2020-05-16T16:36:41.103" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29583" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-05-16T16:49:08.670" Score="4" ViewCount="43" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am having a hard time keeping up with recent tournaments. Are there any good online calendars?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23434" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-05-16T16:50:28.667" LastActivityDate="2020-05-17T01:47:29.997" Title="What are some good chess calendars?" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29584" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29591" CreationDate="2020-05-16T18:14:18.587" Score="10" ViewCount="1072" Body="&lt;p&gt;It appears that openings are named after almost any country or city in the world. Spanish opening, Italian game, French defense, Hungarian gambit, London system and so on. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because I am from Sweden I want to learn and play an opening related to Sweden. But to my surprise and dismay I haven't found a single one named after a Swedish location or Swedish chess player (Scandinavian Defense doesn't count because it is for the whole of Scandinavia).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can you help me find one? The more closely related to Sweden the better. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7059" LastEditorUserId="18475" LastEditDate="2020-05-17T10:42:06.453" LastActivityDate="2020-05-17T10:42:06.453" Title="Help needed to find a Swedish opening" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;terminology&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29585" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29186" CreationDate="2020-05-16T18:15:54.503" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The essential difficulty in Go does not reside in anything that can be described as complexity. The rules are as simple as they possibly could be. The difficulty comes from the scoring system. If you are you are losing the struggle for control in some sector of the board, you may be well-advised not to defend it, because that may only result in more of your stones eventually being surrounded. And if you abandon that sector only when it has become obvious that you should, it will probably be too late. Therefore you must abandon calculation in favor of intuition. That is why it took so long for computers to get good at Go. And we still dont understand how they did it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastActivityDate="2020-05-16T18:15:54.503" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29586" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-05-16T18:20:36.820" Score="2" ViewCount="77" Body="&lt;p&gt;I played a game in which I had a queen against a rook but it seemed that my opponent’s king could protect his rook, and there were no pawns on the board. In the end, I drew the game. Are such games be drawn easily and won only in certain positions? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23105" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-05-16T18:59:30.743" LastActivityDate="2020-05-16T20:15:41.190" Title="Queen against rook-drawn and won endgames" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;queens&gt;&lt;rooks&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2020-05-16T23:36:01.040" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29587" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29584" CreationDate="2020-05-16T18:37:13.220" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Swedish Variation of the Tarrasch Defense is the move 6...c4 in the line below. The name is also used for the same plan in slightly different positions with the same pawn structure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 c5 {Tarrasch Defense} 4.cxd5 exd5 5.Nf3 Nc6 6.g3 c4 {Swedish Variation}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Its ECO code is D33. Black tries to capitalize on his queenside majority, while White is going to play e2-e4. I think theory considers the line dubious right now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is also the Göteborg variation in the Najdorf Sicilian, famous for its origin story. In 1955, one of the Interzonal tournaments was held in Göteborg, and in round 14 it happened that three Argentinian grandmasters (Panno, Pilnik and Najdorf) had black against three Soviet grandmasters (Geller, Spassky and Keres). All three reached the position below with the new move 9...g5 that the Argentinians prepared beforehand, and all three Soviet players reacted with the same piece sacrifice 11.Nxe6 and won.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.Bg5 e6 7.f4 Be7 8.Qf3 h6 9.Bh4 g5 {Göteborg Variation} 10.fxg5 Nfd7 11.Nxe6 fxe6 12.Qh5+ Kf8 13.Bb5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think it's considered drawish these days.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2020-05-16T18:37:13.220" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29588" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29450" CreationDate="2020-05-16T19:23:10.423" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Another great &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1613883&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;game&lt;/a&gt; to see is the final move of this 1975 game by grandmaster Boris Katalymov.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Boris Katalymov-Mikhail Kolpakov, Riga, 1975&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[startply &quot;65&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. Bg5 Nbd7 5. e3 c6 6. cxd5 exd5 7. Qc2 Be7 8. Bd3 Nh5 9. h4 Bxg5 10. hxg5 Qxg5 11. Nh3 Qe7 12. g4 Nhf6 13. g5 Nh5 14. Be2 g6 15. Bxh5 gxh5 16. O-O-O Nb6 17. Nf4 Bg4 18. Rdg1 O-O-O 19. Nxh5 Bxh5 20. Rxh5 f6 21. Rgh1 fxg5 22. Rxh7 Rxh7 23. Rxh7 Qf6 24. a4 Kb8 25. a5 Nc4 26. a6 bxa6 27. Na4 Nb6 28. Nc5 Ka8 29. Nxa6 Rd7 30. Nc5 Rd8 31. b3 Rf8 32. Qd3 Rf7 33. Qg6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-05-16T20:11:30.090" LastActivityDate="2020-05-16T20:11:30.090" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29589" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29586" CreationDate="2020-05-16T20:15:41.190" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Quoting &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pawnless_chess_endgame#Queen_versus_rook&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pawnless_chess_endgame#Queen_versus_rook&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A queen wins against a lone rook, unless there is an immediate draw by&#xA;  stalemate or due to perpetual check, ... (or if the rook or king can&#xA;  immediately capture the queen)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The same article also says&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;With perfect play, in the worst winning position, the queen can win&#xA;  the rook or checkmate within 31 moves&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In practice if the defending side knows what they are doing it can be quite difficult to win, especially if, as you say, the king and rook remain in contact. A key position to know is the Philidor position, where white can force the king and rook to be separated, and then the rook can be won by a fork. See &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philidor_position#Queen_versus_rook&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philidor_position#Queen_versus_rook&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7726" LastActivityDate="2020-05-16T20:15:41.190" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29590" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29583" CreationDate="2020-05-17T01:47:29.997" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here's a link to the fide calendar: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/calendar&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.fide.com/calendar&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, this link includes the tournaments which will feature some of the top super GMs (e.g., the Olympiad, Sinquefield Cup, Altibox Norway Chess): &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess24.com/en/read/news/2020-chess-calendar&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://chess24.com/en/read/news/2020-chess-calendar&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2020-05-17T01:47:29.997" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29591" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29584" CreationDate="2020-05-17T03:03:01.653" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Stockholm variation of the Grunfeld &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 d5 4.Bg5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With immediate threat of Bxf6 and wins the d5 pawn&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17425" LastActivityDate="2020-05-17T03:03:01.653" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29592" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29584" CreationDate="2020-05-17T07:00:11.917" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;(Scandinavian Defense doesn't count because it is for the whole of Scandinavia)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scandinavian_Defense#History&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Scandinavian Defense&lt;/a&gt; inherited its name from analysis by Swedish masters in the late 19th century who showed it is playable for Black. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The name originated from its adoption by Ludvig and Gustav Collijn,&#xA;  two Swedish brothers who played in the late 19th and early 20th&#xA;  centuries. In the 1897 Nordic Championship, they played the opening&#xA;  many times, each time meeting 2.exd5 Qxd5 3.Nc3 with 3...Qd8, which is&#xA;  a rarely played variation these days. (Source: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/article/view/the-scandinavian-defense-a-history-part-1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chess.com&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludvig_Collijn&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Ludvig Collijn&lt;/a&gt; (Nov-20-1878 – Oct-04-1939 in Stockholm), was a chess author and chairman of the Swedish Chess Federation from 1917 to 1939. He played this opening with success.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludvig_Collijn&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Gustaf Collijn&lt;/a&gt; (Nov-11-1880 - Nov-06-1968 Sweden) was a younger brother of chess patron Ludvig Collijn. Author, theatre director, and his whole life a chess enthusiast. A celebrity at every major chess event in Sweden.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In 1896 the brothers authored their &quot;Textbook of Chess&quot;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludvig_Collijn&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Lärobok i Schack&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 d5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11749" LastEditorUserId="11749" LastEditDate="2020-05-17T07:14:29.390" LastActivityDate="2020-05-17T07:14:29.390" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29593" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-05-17T11:51:42.550" Score="4" ViewCount="177" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can the knight and king in anyway mate a queen and knight?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was recently playing a game which I lost. The player with the king and queen was playing suboptimally. On the last move I captured a pawn with the queen since I was low on time.&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/LOr4M.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/LOr4M.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11173" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-06T07:59:14.383" LastActivityDate="2020-08-06T07:59:14.383" Title="Knight and King vs Queen and King" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;knight-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29594" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29597" CreationDate="2020-05-17T13:27:32.987" Score="13" ViewCount="3024" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a beginner in chess and I am following the tutorials on Chess.com and reading &lt;em&gt;The Complete Idiot's Guide to Chess&lt;/em&gt;. In the tutorials about capturing pieces, it is common to count the points in trading pieces. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, say I can capture a rook with my knight and the knight will also be captured by my opponent. In that case, because the rook is worth 5 points and my knight is worth 3 points, I will gain 2 points. In most of the tutorials I use, this kind of play is advised.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am wondering why points matter in trading pieces. Does the fact that the knight is worth 2 less points than the rook make it less valuable?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23548" LastEditorUserId="20585" LastEditDate="2020-05-17T14:17:30.383" LastActivityDate="2020-05-20T22:05:42.550" Title="Why do points matter in trading pieces?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;point-value&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29595" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29598" CreationDate="2020-05-17T13:37:00.937" Score="7" ViewCount="541" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am new to this stack exchange, so apologies if this question doesn't fit here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Though I have advanced through the game, and now have a somewhat respectable rapid rating of 1550, I have always found some chess openings to be a source of confusion. At present, I play the Slav (proper) against 1 d4, and the Caro-Kann against 1 e4. Many other respected defences don't make sense to me. For example, the French defense has a similar idea to the Caro-Kann in that Black is trying to counter-attack in the centre rather than directly preventing White from playing 2 d4. However, the 'problem child' of the French defense has always been the light-squared bishop. Granted, 1... e6 allows Black to develop the dark-squared bishop on the second move, but this seems to be outweighed by the fact that the problem with the light-squared bishop can persist for a considerable portion of the game. And yet, 1... e6 is more popular than 1... c6, and is at least as theoretically sound. Why is this? The same could be said of the Semi-Slav, which again is more popular than the Slav defense. These moves never seem to be explained by chess authors, and yet they seem to violate opening principles. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20585" LastActivityDate="2020-05-17T14:07:00.427" Title="What is the rationale behind Black playing e6 in so many openings?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;french-defense&gt;&lt;slav-defense&gt;&lt;semi-slav&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29596" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29593" CreationDate="2020-05-17T13:39:06.977" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;No. The problem is that the queen covers too many squares.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Consider this (illegal) checkmate position with king and 2 knights vs king and queen:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;kq6/2N5/KN6/8/8/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you remove either knight then the queen can take the other one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-05-17T13:39:06.977" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29597" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29594" CreationDate="2020-05-17T13:45:41.760" Score="29" Body="&lt;p&gt;The point system in chess gives a rough indication of how strong each piece is. So the short answer to your question is, yes, a rook is more valuable than a knight, and so in the vast majority of cases, if you can trade a rook for a knight, you should do it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This does beg the question, however, about why a rook is considered more valuable. At its best, a rook can control long files (columns) and ranks (rows). While the knight's tricky movement can sometimes be an advantage, in general we consider it to be inferior. One way to demonstrate the value of a rook is to try the rook and king vs king endgame. (I would definitely recommend looking it up first.) Note that there is no way of checkmating just with a knight and king. In fact, the game would  be &lt;em&gt;drawn by insufficient material&lt;/em&gt;. This is just a fancy way of saying that neither player has enough firepower to achieve checkmate. As you progress, it will become clearer to you why rooks are more valuable than knights. At some point, you might even be able to notice when a knight is better than a rook! But for now, concentrate on the points system—it's a great way of knowing who is ahead in the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: it's worth noting that the points system is not part of the rules of chess. The bottom line is that you are trying to checkmate your opponent's king. But having more material (i.e. points) is a key way of getting closer to this goal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20585" LastEditorUserId="20585" LastEditDate="2020-05-18T17:57:05.057" LastActivityDate="2020-05-18T17:57:05.057" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29598" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29595" CreationDate="2020-05-17T14:07:00.427" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the &lt;strong&gt;French Defense&lt;/strong&gt;, the modest pawn advance in e6 simply plans to challenge the e4-pawn by d5, without having to recapture with the Queen after a possible capture in d5. The idea is thus similar to the Caro-Kann. The differences are that the Caro-Kann takes away the best square for the b8-Knight, while the French blocks the natural diagonal for developing the c8-bishop. So there is a trade-off but both openings are safe and solid methods against 1.e4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The idea of e6 in the &lt;strong&gt;Semi-Slav&lt;/strong&gt; is also to reinforce the control in d5 and take back with a pawn if White plays cxd5. It's true that the c8-bishop is blocked but Black can solve this by either taking in c4, followed by b5 and Bb7, or by playing b6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11749" LastActivityDate="2020-05-17T14:07:00.427" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29599" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29609" CreationDate="2020-05-17T14:28:22.383" Score="12" ViewCount="2078" Body="&lt;p&gt;I seem to find 4. Bd3 to be one of the best choices in Caro-Kann.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. e5 Bf5 4. Bd3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My reasoning: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;White's light bishop can only develop to Be2 or Bd3. Be2 seems passive.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In Caro-Kann, Black gives up the center initially to attack it later (say by c6-c5 or other means), thus losing tempo. One of the reasons given is that Black gets the advantage of its light bishop being outside the pawn chain. By immediately challenging it, White seems to attack Black's advantage.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;At move 4, Black's most active piece is its light bishop. Immediate 4. Bd3 either forces exchange thus bringing Black to square one in development; or it gets Black to lose another tempo with Bf5-Bg6.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;At 4. Bf3, Black doesn't have the good option of Ne7-Nxf5, which becomes a possibility if White plays Bf3 later.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I have never seen 4. Bd3 played in titled games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can the experts here help me qualitatively understand what is wrong with my reasoning?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15636" LastEditorUserId="15636" LastEditDate="2020-05-17T14:53:19.890" LastActivityDate="2020-05-19T07:14:22.997" Title="Theoretically, why is 4. Bd3 NOT one of the best candidates in Caro-Kann?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;caro-kann&gt;&lt;bishops&gt;&lt;bad-bishop&gt;&lt;exchange&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29600" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29599" CreationDate="2020-05-17T14:59:01.273" Score="10" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;But I have never seen 4. Bd3 played in titled games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason could be that Black &lt;strong&gt;gets a superior version of the French Defense&lt;/strong&gt;. In the French, Black blocks the natural diagonal of the c8-bishop and then struggles to solve this issue. They lose a lot of tempi to exchange the bad c8-bishop via b6, and Ba6. Here Black immediately trades the light-squared bishop and plays e6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note: Black's light-squared bishop may become &lt;strong&gt;a target outside the pawn chain&lt;/strong&gt;  that White can exploit instead of exchanging the bishop. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;While this isn't a big problem most of the time, it gives white a target on the Kingside to accelerate a pawn storm in some instances. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;More problematic could be that White may target Black's light-squared bishop by &lt;code&gt;Nh4&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;Nd4&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Two examples from GM Shirov pratice, the great specialist of Be2 in the Caro-Kann advance variation. I recommend studying his games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA; [title &quot;Shirov, Alexei (2685) vs. Ehlvest, Jaan (2524), Vladimir Petrov Mem 2016&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.e5 Bf5 4.Nf3 (4.Bd3 Bxd3! 5.Qd3 e6) e6 5.Be2 Ne7 6.O-O Nd7 7.Nh4 Be4 8.Nd2 c5 9.Nxe4 dxe4 10.g3 Rc8 11.c3 cxd4 12.Qxd4 Nc5 13.Bg5 Qc7 14.Bb5+ Nc6 15.Rad1 h6 16.Bxc6+ bxc6 17.Be3 Be7 18.b4 Na4 19.Rc1 Bxh4 20.gxh4 c5 21.Qxe4 O-O 22.b5 c4 23.Kh1 f5 24.exf6 Rxf6 25.Rg1 Nc5 26.Qxc4 Qb7+ 27.Rg2 Ne4 28.Qd4 e5 29.Qxa7 1-0 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA; [title &quot;Shirov, Alexei 2630) -  Moehn, Hans (2368), Bundesliga 2017-18&quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.e5 Bf5 4.Nf3 e6 5.Be2 c5 6.Be3 cxd4 7.Nxd4 Ne7 8.O-O Nbc6 9.Bb5 a6 10.Bxc6+ Nxc6 11.Nxf5 exf5 12.c3 Be7 13.Nd2 O-O 14.Nf3 Qd7 15.Bb6 Qe6 16.Re1 Bd8 17.Bc5 Re8 18.Qb3 Be7 19.Bb6 Bd8 20.Bxd8 Rexd8 21.Rad1 h6 22.h4 Rd7 23.Qa4 Rad8 24.h5 Kh7 25.Qf4 Rc8 26.Rd3 Rcd8 27.a4 Kg8 28.a5 Kh7 29.Nd4 Nxd4 30.cxd4 Rc8 31.Rb3 Rc6 32.Rc1 f6 33.Re1 Rf7 34.Rbe3 fxe5 35.Rxe5 Qd7 36.Qf3 Rd6 37.Re8 Qc6 38.Qg3 Qd7 39.Ra8 Re7 40.Rc1 Rc6 41.Rxc6 Qxc6 42.Rd8 Re4 43.Kh2 Qf6 44.Rxd5 Rh4+ 45.Kg1 Rxh5 46.Rd6 f4 47.Qd3+ Qf5 48.Qxf5+ Rxf5 49.d5 Rf7 50.Kh2 Rc7 51.b4 Rc2 52.f3 Rd2 53.Rd7 Rd4 54.Rxb7 Rxd5 55.Rb6 Rd4 56.Kh3 g5 57.Kg4 Rd2 58.Kh5 Rxg2 59.Rxh6+ Kg7 60.Rxa6 Rg3 61.Rg6+ Kf7 62.Rxg5 Kf6 63.Rb5 Rxf3 64.Kg4 Rf1 65.a6 f3 66.Ra5 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11749" LastEditorUserId="11749" LastEditDate="2020-05-19T07:14:22.997" LastActivityDate="2020-05-19T07:14:22.997" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29602" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-05-17T22:16:03.730" Score="3" ViewCount="141" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm implementing quiescent search in my chess engine, although just capturing moves have been generated. In the below position, at 1 ply, the white queen captures the pawn, but the quiescent search can't see that after 1... Bg3+ 2. Kf1 Rxd5, and the white queen is captured. This is a case of a discovered attack. How can quiescent search handle that, or is it just for capturing moves?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;2b1k3/3r4/3b4/3p4/8/8/3Q4/R3K3 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23554" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T14:31:30.990" LastActivityDate="2020-06-25T19:32:51.570" Title="Discovered attack in quiescent search" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;programming&gt;&lt;evaluation&gt;&lt;captures&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29603" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-05-17T23:54:39.257" Score="4" ViewCount="38" Body="&lt;p&gt;A solution would allow the creation of pairings, the entering of team results, the viewing of a team ranking table, and ideally allow the listing of an individual ranking table as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The best I've found so far is &lt;a href=&quot;https://tournamentscheduler.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://tournamentscheduler.net/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, it seems to have the following limitations: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It has no respect for colors (so that e.g. it will make Team 1 White in every round)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It refuses to accept non-integer round results (so you can't say that one team defeated the other 3.5-0.5. You would need to either use match wins as your criterion or else multiply the actual score by 2.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's also limited in the sense that you can't enter individual results.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1752" LastActivityDate="2020-05-18T08:46:23.353" Title="Online tools for scheduling teams round-robin events" Tags="&lt;tournament-directors&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29604" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29599" CreationDate="2020-05-18T01:00:22.060" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;The line usually quoted is 4.Bd3 Bxd3 5.Qxd3 Qa5+ 6. Bd2 Qa6!  If White now exchanges Queens or allows the Queens to be exchanged he already has a poor endgame structure with a bad dark-square Bishop. Otherwise he will have difficulty Castling. Certainly White is not lost, but he has given away his first-move advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. e5 Bf5 4. Bd3 Bxd3 5. Qxd3 Qa5+ 6. Bd2 Qa6!&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastEditorUserId="15636" LastEditDate="2020-05-18T07:53:11.230" LastActivityDate="2020-05-18T07:53:11.230" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29605" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29568" CreationDate="2020-05-18T03:43:42.137" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a philosophical question, not just a question about chess per se.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are in fact two questions here:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Why do some people &lt;em&gt;choose&lt;/em&gt; to devote their lives to chess, and&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What is the benefit (if any) of these people to society.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's take them one at a time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Why do some people choose to devote so much energy to chess?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The simplest answer is, because it makes them happy, brings fulfilment and purpose. They feel respected.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Everyone needs to play &lt;em&gt;something&lt;/em&gt;. Humans quickly become mentally ill without recreational activities. Many people are very passionate about the things they do &quot;for fun.&quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Some people by their nature are very focussed, and concentrate on one thing that they are passionate about. As a result they become extremely good at it.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;This trait exists in human populations because it is valuable to have such focussed people in society, whether they are doctors, architects, etc. Whether this is true of sportspeople or game players is another question which I address below.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;What is the benefit to society of people who basically do nothing but play chess?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;First, fantastic chess players would not necessarily be fantastic at other things. Yes, there is a correlation between chess playing and academic abilities. But this is a correlation, not an absolute.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;International champions bring people together. They encourage us to make peace, talk, and learn from each other.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;There are numerous benefits to anyone of learning about the complexities of games such as chess. It trains the brain to learn and think. Chess masters help get everyone else excited and motivated to learn, as well as creating so many examples to analyse and learn from.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Grand masters continually bring something &lt;em&gt;new&lt;/em&gt; to the game. It's not the same old strategies listed in a book over and over that would make chess fans get bored and lose interest.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Dedicated chess players, dedicated sports people and so on, serve as role models. They inspire others to work hard (at whatever they do). To have discipline and to seek more than mediocrity. People read biographies, they learn how talented people have solved problems, and apply it to their own lives.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;There is &quot;making intellect sexy.&quot; Young people are probably more likely to choose academic pursuits if they can see excitement in them, and if they can connect with others who have similar interests. (Meeting other chess fans is an easy way to find these people.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If everyone just played games all the time, society would collapse. Of course. But having a few chess &quot;heroes&quot; is much more valuable than having none at all.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20208" LastActivityDate="2020-05-18T03:43:42.137" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29606" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29593" CreationDate="2020-05-18T04:36:57.630" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;As far as I know, regardless of the opponent's skill or number of pawns/pieces, it is impossible to Checkmate using only a knight and a king, since the knight can't cover enough squares to completely block the opponent's king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this helps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23559" LastActivityDate="2020-05-18T04:36:57.630" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29607" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29568" CreationDate="2020-05-18T04:53:30.697" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;People tend to do what they are good at. Being adept at chess doesn't necessarily relate to a persons ability to solve world problems or improve the betterment of society.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23560" LastActivityDate="2020-05-18T04:53:30.697" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29608" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29602" CreationDate="2020-05-18T06:50:05.940" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I suppose one possible solution would be checking if any double attacks can be played. This would include checking for forks and discovered attacks/checks. If this is too broad a condition for quiescence search, you could narrow it down by checking if one of your pieces involved in the double attack is worth a sufficient amount (say, at least a knight or rook). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this case, ...Bg3+ would do a double attack on your king and queen, which would clearly indicate that a quiescent state hasn't been reached.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2020-05-18T06:50:05.940" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29609" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29599" CreationDate="2020-05-18T07:48:27.683" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a great example for explaining the concept of the &lt;strong&gt;bad bishop&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the center, we see an example of a &lt;strong&gt;pawn chain&lt;/strong&gt;. White has pawns on d4 and e5, and black c6, d5 and (soon) e6. These are pretty immobile (until either side plays some pawn break). White's pawns are on dark squares, black's on white squares.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a result, black's white squared bishop is called a &quot;bad bishop&quot;, because it is blocked by its own pawns that are themselves blocked. White's white squared bishop is similarly called a &quot;good bishop&quot; -- it isn't blocked by his own pawns, can help with pawn breaks at the right moment, et cetera.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why is it even relevant to mention that this variation manages to bring black's white squared bishop outside of the chain? Because being &quot;inside&quot; or &quot;outside&quot; the pawn chain is only relevant for bad bishops. Black's f8 bishop doesn't care about such things. The French defense is a great defense except for things such as leaving its bad bishop on c8.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White also has a bad bishop, the black squared one on c1. But as white has more &lt;strong&gt;space&lt;/strong&gt; (d4 and e5 vs d5 and e6) and the pawn chain is &lt;strong&gt;pointed in the direction the Bc1 moves&lt;/strong&gt; it is less of a problem, from c1 it will continue to influence far-away squares such as g5. Black's bishop on c8 is just locked in. A way to deal with having less space is to &lt;strong&gt;exchange pieces&lt;/strong&gt; so the lack of space isn't felt as much.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that outside the pawn chain, it's &lt;strong&gt;still&lt;/strong&gt; a bad bishop -- there are only a few squares the bishop can safely go to from f5, there is a danger that it will be attacked and chased by pawns. But at least it has more influence there than on c8.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So what would be even &lt;strong&gt;better&lt;/strong&gt; for black's bishop than to merely be outside of the blocked chain? Why, to be &lt;strong&gt;exchanged for white's good bishop&lt;/strong&gt;, of course. Without any further concessions, even.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After &lt;strong&gt;4.Bd3 Bxd3 5.Qxd3 e6&lt;/strong&gt;, black's opening is a complete success. No bad bishop, white no good bishop, less space but already a piece exchanged. Black has no problems whatsoever.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;All that said,&lt;/strong&gt; chess is an equal game anyway. If white could get even a tiny concession out of black, this might still be a useful idea. &lt;strong&gt;4.h4&lt;/strong&gt; is a theoretical line (white threatens to chase the bishop with g4, f3, h5) and then if &lt;strong&gt;4...h5&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;5.Bd3&lt;/strong&gt; is a main move (the other is &lt;strong&gt;5.c4&lt;/strong&gt;). The difference with what has gone before is that g5 has now become a nice square for white's own bad bishop, and that is enough of a difference.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.e5 Bf5 4.h4 h5 5.Bd3 Bxd3 6.Qxd3 e6 7.Bg5 Qb6 8.Nd2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is an exciting line that scores well for white.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastEditorUserId="924" LastEditDate="2020-05-18T07:56:33.257" LastActivityDate="2020-05-18T07:56:33.257" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29611" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29603" CreationDate="2020-05-18T08:46:23.353" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;What you are really looking for is a pairing program which will perform team round-robin pairing, allow you to enter results and display the results online.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are two obvious candidates, one expensive and deluxe, and one cheap (free on Linux) which requires a bit more work on your part.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The expensive option is &lt;a href=&quot;http://swiss-manager.at/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Swiss Manager&lt;/a&gt;. This does everything you could want and more but it costs 150 euros for the full version and 75 euros for the light version (limit 60 players / 11 rounds). This includes a website (chess-results.com) where your tournaments can be viewed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The cheap / free option is &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.vegachess.com/ns/features&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Vega&lt;/a&gt;. It is free on Linux. On Windows and MacOS it is free for up to 30 players (individual tournament) and 8 teams (team tournament). I paid 50 euros for the full Windows version a few years ago. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Something which is new, which I see for the first time (new since the end of 2019), is that now it also has its own website like Swiss Manager. This is &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.vegaresult.com/vr/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.vegaresult.com/vr/&lt;/a&gt;. If you have up to 8 teams or you would run it on Linux then this looks like a very good free solution. Previous versions would generate the HTML for you to copy and paste into your own website. This could still be very useful for more tech-orientated clubs / administrators.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-05-18T08:46:23.353" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29612" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28766" CreationDate="2020-05-18T10:09:42.133" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is well worth reading Mikhail Shereshevsky's advice for trainers building a chess repertoire for their pupils.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am afraid this quite a long quote, but this section can be found online free of charge &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.newinchess.com/media/wysiwyg/product_pdf/9056.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;(pdf), and I encourage readers who want to learn more to &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.newinchess.com/the-shereshevsky-method-to-improve-in-chess?ct=t%281245B%20eBookoftheW%20-%20The%20Power%20of%20Pawns%20dol_COPY_01%29&amp;amp;mc_cid=7cb45925d3&amp;amp;mc_eid=%5BUNIQID%5D&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;purchase&lt;/a&gt; Shereshevsky's book or e-book, &#xA;&lt;em&gt;The Shereshevsky Method to Improve in Chess&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;When one begins work with a young first-category player or candidate master, of between 10-14 years of age, one is dealing with someone whose style has not yet been developed. He has a great deal still to learn. As a rule, within a few lessons, one needs to carry out a chess diagnosis. In my day, this was definitely the case. Nowadays, when I get to the Russian junior championship, it seems to me that things have not changed for the better. Since you are often unclear about the youngster’s style or preferences, trying to guess whether he will be comfortable with this or&#xA;  that opening is pointless and just a waste of time.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  The opening repertoire of such a young player needs to fulfil the following&#xA;  conditions:&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  1) It should be solid, with a firm positional basis; active, but not too&#xA;  aggressive.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  2) It should not include flawed or unsound openings, which, as the&#xA;  player advances and starts meeting stronger opponents, will sooner or&#xA;  later be more or less refuted. They lead to significantly inferior positions&#xA;  and give the opponent odds at the start of the game. I have in mind such&#xA;  openings as, against 1.e4, Alekhine’s Defence, the Scandinavian, Philidor,&#xA;  etc. Although there is a temptation to use such openings to achieve shortterm&#xA;  successes against weaker opponents, sooner or later the player ends&#xA;  up ‘bankrupt’ and has to master a new opening from scratch.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  3) The opening should not involve avoiding a whole raft of opening&#xA;  ‘tabiyas’. Thus, I would not advise a young player to open 1.♘f3, 2.g3, 3.♗g2,&#xA;  4.0-0, 5.d3, 6.♘bd2, 7.e4 for his entire life, or 1.♘f3, 2.c4, 3.g3, 4.♗g2, 5.0-0.&#xA;  His strategic thinking will be too limited and will not develop widely&#xA;  enough. His games will lead to an excessively narrow range of positions, in&#xA;  terms of strategic content. If you are going to play closed openings, then it&#xA;  is better to play 1.d4, 2.c4 and preferably 3.♘c3, not 3.♘f3.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  4) Most important of all: the repertoire should be such that one does not&#xA;  need to pay any great attention to it more than once or twice a year, other&#xA;  than via analysing the games played.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  Once your students have become masters or grandmasters, their chess&#xA;  style and tastes will be fully formed and then they can completely&#xA;  overhaul their opening repertoires, if they so wish. But whether you teach&#xA;  them to play the Spanish, Sicilian, Caro-Kann or French is of no great&#xA;  significance. The important thing is to establish a sound positional basis.&#xA;  First, the player should learn to play the game in all its many aspects, and&#xA;  approach the opening stage rationally, not primitively.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Great principles, which may not be that easy to fully implement, but are worth been used as guidelines at the very least.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastEditorUserId="14079" LastEditDate="2020-05-18T20:02:57.270" LastActivityDate="2020-05-18T20:02:57.270" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29613" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29594" CreationDate="2020-05-18T11:33:51.227" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just to put a point on this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Does the fact that the knight is worth 2 less points than the rook make it less valuable?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is looking at it upside down.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What matters in an exchange is getting some gain. The points are only a simple tool for estimating that gain. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If an exchange that would be a point-wise loss gives you the opportunity to checkmate the opponent regardless, then it should be obvious that the points have no meaning and the exchange should be made. However, most situations aren't like that, so counting points can be a useful heuristic for the future prospects of the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15794" LastEditorUserId="15794" LastEditDate="2020-05-18T12:11:32.113" LastActivityDate="2020-05-18T12:11:32.113" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29614" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-05-18T13:51:35.863" Score="8" ViewCount="1480" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsA-tspDovs&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this video&lt;/a&gt; (at 4:25), Bobby Fischer made 179 demands for a rematch for a World Championship, after he won the title. What were those 179 demands?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23566" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-05-18T14:00:51.100" LastActivityDate="2020-05-20T03:48:32.810" Title="What were Fischer's 179 demands for a World Championship rematch?" Tags="&lt;history&gt;&lt;world-championship&gt;&lt;fischer&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29615" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29614" CreationDate="2020-05-18T14:53:02.193" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;If it was only about the 1975 match, It could have been a mistake by the video editor. As far as many sources from the web, there were only 3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Not counting the draws, first to win 10 games wins the Championship.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If the result is 9-9, then the title goes to Fischer but the prize money is split equally.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;There will be an unlimited number of games.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first one was accepted and the other two were rejected by FIDE delegates. Hence the match was forfeited and the champion title was given to Anatoly Karpov, his challenger.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as Fischer being concerned who was very demanding in character and liked to impose his own rules, the number 179 could have been total demands throughout his career.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some other sources mention that he only asked for two rules. You can read the digital version of the newspaper article here: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.nytimes.com/1975/04/04/archives/fischer-loses-chess-title-to-russian-23-by-default-fischer-sought-a.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;NYTimes&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And there is one another source that mentions as per the video. It is the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/profile-inventor-of-the-20-year-stalemate-bobby-fischer-the-one-and-only-1537305.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Independent&lt;/a&gt; article. I feel that the video editor got the directions from here. Because 179 demands seem very unlikely. If it were true, it is not a World Championship match but some sort of dictatorship.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7245" LastEditorUserId="7245" LastEditDate="2020-05-20T03:48:32.810" LastActivityDate="2020-05-20T03:48:32.810" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29616" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29568" CreationDate="2020-05-18T15:40:31.357" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Because go is not widespread in their country of origin&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23569" LastActivityDate="2020-05-18T15:40:31.357" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29617" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29568" CreationDate="2020-05-18T17:05:12.997" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess is the result of successfully abstracting, civilizing and gamifying war.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Partaking in this endeavor, creating friendships which span continents, religions and races, is one of the highest human achievements.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15337" LastActivityDate="2020-05-18T17:05:12.997" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29618" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24138" CreationDate="2020-05-18T18:59:04.000" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Addendum 12/30/2020: With &lt;strong&gt;promoted pieces allowed&lt;/strong&gt;, I found that the below matrix apparently allows for a record of &lt;strong&gt;18 forced&lt;/strong&gt; double checks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;BQN3N1/1RPRPk2/1B6/1p4pp/2pp3n/4p3/4K1p1/1R2N3 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e8=Q+ Kxe8 2. Nd6+ Kxd7 3. c8=B+ Kc6 4. Rc7+ Kxd6 5. Rc6+ Kd5 6. Rd6+ Ke5 7. Rd5+ Ke4 8. Re5+ Kf4 9. Rf5+ Kg4 10. Rf4+ Kg3 11. Rg4+ Kh3 12. Rg3+ Kh2 13. Rxg2+ Kh1 14. Rg1+ Kxg1 15. Nf3+ Kg2 16. Ne1+ Kg1 17. Nf3+ Kg2 18. Ne1+&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As such, &lt;strong&gt;without promoted pieces,&lt;/strong&gt; we now have a new high of &lt;strong&gt;17 forced&lt;/strong&gt; double checks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;BQN1kb2/1RP1r3/1B3rn1/1p4pp/2pp3n/4p3/4K1p1/1R2N3 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Nd6+ Kd7 2. c8=B+ Kc6 3. Rc7+ Kxd6 4. Rc6+ Kd5 5. Rd6+ Ke5 6. Rd5+ Ke4 7. Re5+ Kf4 8. Rf5+ Kg4 9. Rf4+ Kg3 10. Rg4+ Kh3 11. Rg3+ Kh2 12. Rxg2+ Kh1 13. Rg1+ Kxg1 14. Nf3+ Kg2 15. Ne1+ Kg1 16. Nf3+ Kg2 17. Ne1+&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the time since @Evargalo posted their answer, a new record of &lt;strong&gt;14 forced&lt;/strong&gt; double checks &lt;strong&gt;without promoted pieces&lt;/strong&gt; has appeared in a &lt;a href=&quot;https://pdb.dieschwalbe.de/P1371538&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;selfmate problem.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Miodrag Mladenovic, MatPlus.net Forum 14/11/2019, s#15&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;BQN3N1/1RPRPk2/1B6/1b4np/2nr3r/4q3/4P1p1/4K3 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e8=Q+ Kxe8 2. Nd6+ Kxd7 3. c8=B+ Kc6 4. Rc7+ Kxd6 5. Rc6+ Kd5 6. Rd6+ Ke5 7. Rd5+ Ke4 8. Re5+ Kf4 9. Rf5+ Kg4 10. Rf4+ Kg3 11. Rg4+ Kh3 12. Rg3+ Kh2 13. Rxg2+ Kh1 14. Rg1+ Kxg1 15. Qg3+ Qxg3#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-01-21T04:40:40.193" LastActivityDate="2021-01-21T04:40:40.193" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29619" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29568" CreationDate="2020-05-18T19:10:00.030" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Besides the other valid answers, to me the fundamental one is: Because the society whose betterment we would work towards is one in which people can play chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why do we play sports or board games? Why do we make music? Why do we make visual art and put on plays and movies? Why do we write poetry and fiction? Why do we keep exploring other cuisines? Why hold social outings? We could be working for the betterment of society!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are people who find it impossible to appreciate diversion or any activity without a purpose directly linked to survival. I don't know of any way to argue when we start from such incompatible premises.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16191" LastActivityDate="2020-05-18T19:10:00.030" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29620" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29594" CreationDate="2020-05-18T21:38:15.790" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some other factors can also affect piece values, such as it’s position, and what other pieces it’s paired with. Many people agree that a bishop pair is worth much more than simply the sum of their individual values. You can read more about piece values here: &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_piece_relative_value&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_piece_relative_value&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20742" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-05-18T22:47:19.613" LastActivityDate="2020-05-18T22:47:19.613" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29621" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-05-19T11:31:32.933" Score="1" ViewCount="89" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am looking for the most recent specification (offical would be perfect) of the UCI protocol.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I found &lt;a href=&quot;http://wbec-ridderkerk.nl/html/UCIProtocol.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://wbec-ridderkerk.nl/html/UCIProtocol.html&lt;/a&gt; but it is from 2004.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The most recent I could find is :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://download.shredderchess.com/div/uci.zip&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://download.shredderchess.com/div/uci.zip&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but it is still from 2006. It this the last specs update ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20949" LastEditorUserId="20949" LastEditDate="2020-05-19T16:06:41.050" LastActivityDate="2020-05-19T16:06:41.050" Title="UCI protocol recent &quot;official&quot; specifications" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;uci&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2020-08-31T23:32:23.293" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29622" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28766" CreationDate="2020-05-19T12:48:22.063" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Despite there already being some great answers, let me emphasize a few things: Take into consideration that we are not trying to build a repertoire from scratch. Your student probably knows already a few things about certain openings. Use that knowledge and expand on it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should find a repertoire that powers his strenghts and is comfortable to play for him, but also one that teaches him &quot;good chess&quot; in the long term. I'd thus prefer lines that emphasize relevant strategical themes by trying to use them into building an advantage (for example, if you chose the French defence, go for dynamic Winaver lines rather than ...dxe4 approaches!)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since you are not much stronger than your student, make sure you do understand the openings you'll teach him. If necessary, talk to a master deserving of your trust for specific lessons.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you mentioned preparations: they are often important. So if you are going to spend time building a repertoire, make sure it's not one that becomes an easy victim for those preparations (otherwise it would have been better not to have a repertoire at all) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for your own preparations, please don't fall victim to the pursuit of a short-term success. Every chess player must develop his skills to thrive in unknown territory! Indeed one of the mistakes I often see in young players is that they have no clue what to do when they are &quot;out of theory&quot; earlier than his opponent&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastActivityDate="2020-05-19T12:48:22.063" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29623" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29594" CreationDate="2020-05-19T14:33:38.033" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Even though it is quite a useful guidline for beginners, the actual value a piece is assigned to inherently depends on the prevailing board constellation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similar to &quot;In closed positions knights ought to be stronger than bishops&quot;, we could show countless positions where the standard valuation would be refuted.&#xA;For instance, in some cases two pawns can indeed be far stronger than a queen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And still, its important to note that most of the time the standard valuation works. It is so, because it comes from endgame-analyses. The more pieces are alone without coordination, the more the standard valuation holds.&#xA;If you exchanged a bishop for a rook, you might not perceive the advantage immediately in the middle game, when a lot of pieces are still on the board, but you can try to force more trades and you would be left with an endgame with a rook against a bishop, which is more favourable for you!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23583" LastEditorUserId="23583" LastEditDate="2020-05-20T22:05:42.550" LastActivityDate="2020-05-20T22:05:42.550" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29626" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29638" CreationDate="2020-05-19T16:40:04.857" Score="1" ViewCount="3094" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just defeated a 1601 rated computer in under 3 minutes. Normally, it is a lot more difficult to defeat players having rating even 1500+. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I want to understand how is that possible. Was it a computer that was wrongly rated at 1600+ or did I really outperform it? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;7k/8/6p1/8/7P/8/3r4/4q2K w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It never looked like a computer playing at 1600! What really could have happened? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/aVPEf.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/aVPEf.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23585" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-05-20T00:27:09.757" LastActivityDate="2020-05-20T09:50:56.070" Title="Defeating 1600 rated chess computer on chess.com" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29627" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-05-19T17:07:08.293" Score="3" ViewCount="145" Body="&lt;p&gt;I had started playing &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/1sQrvuhA#5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; game with Scandinavian Defense opening. How it is been denoted as French Advanced variation as of 3rd move. Please refer to the attached screen-shot.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ZKKru.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ZKKru.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="22937" LastEditorUserId="9025" LastEditDate="2020-05-20T17:26:34.137" LastActivityDate="2020-05-20T17:26:34.137" Title="How this game is denoted as French Advanced Variation?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;french-defense&gt;&lt;transpositions&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29628" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29640" CreationDate="2020-05-19T17:52:47.567" Score="14" ViewCount="6696" Body="&lt;p&gt;The other day I was playing a rapid game (30 minutes each side) online. I got into time trouble but I managed to convert the position into a drawn endgame. (Not just a theoretical draw—a clear draw for both sides.) In the final moments of the game, I had less than 20 seconds on my clock, and my opponent started checking me repeatedly in an attempt to make me lose on time. While I know this is standard in blitz or bullet games, I considered it to be bad form given that we were playing a slower time control. Am I right in believing this is a breach of etiquette, even if it is strictly legal?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit #1: Here is the final position. (I slightly misremembered what my opponent did—they weren't repeatedly checking me. Instead, they were moving their bishop around aimlessly. However, I don't think this has a huge impact on the debate. I was playing White.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;2b5/1kP1K3/8/8/8/8/8/8 w - - 16 86&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit #2: It has been mentioned that there is another similar &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/26828/is-it-sportsmanlike-to-waste-opponents-time-by-giving-check-at-the-end-of-the-g&quot;&gt;question&lt;/a&gt; that has already been asked before on the chess stack exchange. While I appreciate the similarity between these two questions, I would argue that the fact that I was playing a rapid game could have an impact on the answer. Not everyone agrees, but some people do hold this belief. Therefore, I'd like to keep this question open.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20585" LastEditorUserId="20585" LastEditDate="2020-05-20T22:46:11.337" LastActivityDate="2020-05-22T05:59:53.043" Title="Is it bad etiquette to try to make an opponent lose on time when a position is clearly drawn?" Tags="&lt;draw&gt;&lt;etiquette&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29629" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29628" CreationDate="2020-05-19T19:29:27.143" Score="20" Body="&lt;p&gt;Etiquette doesn't really come into it unless your name is &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6aPahddJQA&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Gata Kamsky&lt;/a&gt; (strong language warning for the link). The rule is very simple. If you want flagging to be a part of the game then play with no increment, otherwise always play with an increment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-05-19T19:29:27.143" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29630" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29626" CreationDate="2020-05-19T19:41:01.520" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I want to understand, how is that possible - was it a computer that&#xA;  was wrongly rated at 1600+? or did I just outperform it really?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Neither.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You don't understand rating systems. There is no absolute rating system in which to say the computer was or wasn't playing at 1600 strength. All rating systems are relative. They measure the relative performance of the players results in that system. There is no judgement of the quality of the moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the computer rating system is accurate then if you set the computer program to play against the same computer program (with you feeding in the alternate moves) on another computer and one is set to play like 1600 and the other like 1700 then over a large number of games the 1700 computer should score a certain percentage against the 1600 computer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-05-19T19:41:01.520" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29631" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29634" CreationDate="2020-05-19T20:16:34.200" Score="11" ViewCount="2730" Body="&lt;p&gt;I saw some grandmasters looking up or sideways during calculations. Why don't they just look at the board and visualize? Wouldn't that be easier?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21840" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-05-22T22:05:03.877" LastActivityDate="2020-05-30T07:20:31.943" Title="Why do GMs look up during calculations?" Tags="&lt;grandmaster&gt;&lt;calculation&gt;&lt;board-vision&gt;&lt;visualization&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29632" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29627" CreationDate="2020-05-19T20:22:55.870" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;I apologize for posting a comment as an answer, but this is the only way for me to include diagrams, which I find helpful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You have entered Advanced French defense &lt;em&gt;by transposition.&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After &lt;strong&gt;1.e4 d5 2. e5 e6 3.d4&lt;/strong&gt; we get the following position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;rnbqkbnr/ppp2ppp/4p3/3pP3/3P4/8/PPP2PPP/RNBQKBNR b KQkq - 0 3&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The usual way of reaching the above position is with &lt;strong&gt;1.e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. e5&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[StartFlipped &quot;0&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;rnbqkbnr/ppp2ppp/4p3/3pP3/3P4/8/PPP2PPP/RNBQKBNR b KQkq - 0 3&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lichess was smart enough to figure this out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastActivityDate="2020-05-19T20:22:55.870" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29633" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29635" CreationDate="2020-05-19T22:49:30.213" Score="6" ViewCount="270" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recently bought the delightful book &lt;i&gt;Outrageous Chess Problems&lt;/i&gt; by Burt Hochberg, which among other things contains some interesting joke compositions.  I have a question about Problem 102 (diagrammed below; it is also mentioned in &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/26958&quot;&gt;another page on this site&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Gyula Breyer, Magyar Sakkvilag, 1918, White To Play And Win&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;1N1bknbr/2p1Pn1p/2K1Rp1p/4pP1B/p3p3/p3P1N1/P6P/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The intended solution is exf8=bQ+ (promoting a White pawn to a Black queen; this is the joke).  What I am wondering is whether this intended solution actually wins for White.  My engine, an old version of Rybka, gives the main line as&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1...Qe7 2.Nd7 Qxe6+ 3.fxe6 Be7 4.Nf5 Kd8 5.exf7 Bxf7 6.Bxf7 h5 7.Bc4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and so on, with an evaluation of 0.00.  The analysis in Hochberg's book suggests that instead of 4.Nf5, White should&#xA;play 4.Kxc7 Bd8+ 5.Kc6 &quot;and wins after 6.Nf5 or 6.Nxe4 with a mating net,&quot; but my engine replies to 4.Kxc7 with&#xA;4...Bd6+ and thinks that Black is even winning.  Even after 4...Bd8+ 5.Kc6 it doesn't see a win for White.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this composition known to be cooked?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17540" LastActivityDate="2020-11-17T01:58:41.627" Title="Gyula Breyer joke composition cooked?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;problems&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29634" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29631" CreationDate="2020-05-19T23:02:51.810" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Expanding on the great comments of @David and @Timothy Chow, GM Nikolai Krogius talks about the role of the &lt;strong&gt;residual image&lt;/strong&gt; in his book &lt;em&gt;Psychology in Chess&lt;/em&gt;. This is an image that stays  and blurs the calculations. The residual image is the transfer of judgment from a past position to a new situation. The past then acts on the present. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To combat this residual image and to improve concentration, Krogius recommends practicing &lt;strong&gt;blindfold chess or analyzing without using a chess board&lt;/strong&gt;. By not looking at the board, the player must constantly check the position of the pieces, thus erasing the residual image.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is an example of the residual image. At the beginning of the position the Bishop in b3 controls the square g8, but not ... at the end.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;r3k3/1p5p/p2R4/4p1Q1/4P1bP/PBq5/6P1/5K2 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;[title &quot;Ilyin-Genevsky - Nenarokov, Moscow 1922&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Bf7+! Kf8 2.Qh6+?? (2.Rf6!+-) Kxf7 3.Rf6+? (3.Qxh7+ Ke8 4.Qg6+ Ke7 5.Qf6+=) Kg8! {and now Black is better!}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Check also this article on &lt;a href=&quot;https://chessbase.in/news/Vidit-Gujrathi-solving-studies&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;ChessBase India&lt;/a&gt;, which asks your question&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;*We often see top chess players not looking at the board while&#xA;  calculating&lt;/strong&gt;. It seems that their attention is somewhere else, yet&#xA;  after a few minutes they make the move without having even glanced at&#xA;  the position. What do you think they were doing for the last few&#xA;  minutes? Well, they were thinking in their head. They did not need to&#xA;  see the chess board to calculate the variations. They could do it in&#xA;  their head. So how do these super GMs calculate without a chess board?&#xA;  How are they able to make complex decisions in their mind, which&#xA;  normal players cannot fathom.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They welcome GM Vidit Gujrathi on how to calculate better in blindfold. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11749" LastEditorUserId="14488" LastEditDate="2020-05-30T07:20:31.943" LastActivityDate="2020-05-30T07:20:31.943" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29635" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29633" CreationDate="2020-05-19T23:23:14.380" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, the problem is known to be cooked. The problem is actually a total win for White without a joke promotion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, the task of creating a position in which the only way to win is to promote to a Black queen is an open one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The problem can be &lt;a href=&quot;https://pdb.dieschwalbe.de/P1372243&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;found&lt;/a&gt; in the Die Schwalbe Chess Problem Database, or Schwalbe PDB for short. The solution engine there actually supports promotion to enemy units. The German notation means this: K=King, D=Queen, T=Rook, L=Bishop, S=Knight, and B=pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The problem is that the normal promotion move &lt;strong&gt;1. exf8=Q+,&lt;/strong&gt; supposedly refuted by the study, &lt;strong&gt;actually wins for White!&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Gyula Breyer, Magyar Sakkvilag, 1918, White To Play And Win&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;1N1bknbr/2p1Pn1p/2K1Rp1p/4pP1B/p3p3/p3P1N1/P6P/8 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;] &#xA;&#xA;1. exf8=Q! Kxf8 2. Kd7! {This is the move that Breyer missed!}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The problem is for Breyer’s study is that after 1. exf8=Q+ Kxf8, the move &lt;strong&gt;2. Kd7&lt;/strong&gt; more or less leaves &lt;strong&gt;Black in a zugwang.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Furthermore, after the joke promotion to a Black queen, the position is indeed a draw as you noted. Stockfish analysis confirms this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;1N1bkqbr/2p2n1p/2K1Rp1p/4pP1B/p3p3/p3P1N1/P6P/8 b - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1... Qe7 2. Nd7 Qxe6+ 3. fxe6 Be7 4. Nf5 Kd8 5. exf7 Bxf7 6. Bxf7 h5 7. Bc4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;strong&gt;inherent problem&lt;/strong&gt; with the promotion to a black queen is that Black &lt;strong&gt;does not have to play,&lt;/strong&gt; after  1... Qe7 2. Nd7 Qxe6+ 3. fxe6, &lt;strong&gt;3... Ke7? as Breyer claimed&lt;/strong&gt; in his analysis. This ends up in a loss for Black in the form of a mate in 5 moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Note that the move &lt;strong&gt;1... Be7? loses&lt;/strong&gt; to a &lt;strong&gt;mate in 5:&lt;/strong&gt; 1... Be7? 2. Kxc7 Qg7 3. Nxe4 Qg1 4. Nxf6+ Kf8 5. Nbd7+ Kg7 6. Ne8#)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;3bk1br/2pN1n1p/2K1Pp1p/4p2B/p3p3/p3P1N1/P6P/8 b - - 0 3&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;3... Ke7? {This is an incorrect move, contrary to Breyer’s analysis} 4. Nf5+ Ke8 5. Kb7 Be7 6. Kc8 Bd8 7. e7 Bxe7 8. Ng7# {This is the shortest mate afterward as found by Stockfish}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The correct line for Black to play is &lt;strong&gt;3... Be7!&lt;/strong&gt; and White has no mating net, thereby drawing the game, as given in your line I showed at the top of this answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is a mystery exactly how the ingenious Breyer missed this possibility in his analysis. The most likely answer, through analysis of Black’s options after 4. Nf5, is that Breyer thought that Black must give up protection of their c7 pawn through a bishop move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black has 6 legal moves after 4. Nf5-5 by the bishop and one by the king. The moves Bf8 and Bd8 both lead to a mate in 5: 4... Bf8 Kxc7 Bd6+ 7. Kc8 Bc7 8. Nxf6+ Kf8 9. e7# (among many possible lines) and 4... Bd8 5. h4 Be7 6. Kxc7 Bd6+ 7. Kc8 Bc7 8. Nxf6+ Kf8 9. h4#. Bb4 and Bc5 both lead to shorter mates in 4 with the same basic ideas.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The move &lt;strong&gt;4... Bd6&lt;/strong&gt; looks like a &lt;strong&gt;tempting refutation&lt;/strong&gt; but &lt;strong&gt;White still wins&lt;/strong&gt; even after that move. Here is one such winning line for White.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;4k1br/2pNbn1p/2K1Pp1p/4pN1B/p3p3/p3P3/P6P/8 b - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;4... Bd6 5. h4 Kd8 {Anything else results in a mate in 4} 6. exf7 Bxf7 7. Bxf7 Kc8 8. Nxf6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The end result is a &lt;strong&gt;positional win for White&lt;/strong&gt;, although any normal person would struggle win of course.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The last, only non-bishop move &lt;strong&gt;4... Kd8&lt;/strong&gt;, therefore, is &lt;strong&gt;the ultimate refutation&lt;/strong&gt; in this study after the joke promotion that &lt;strong&gt;Breyer somehow miscalculated.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;TL;DR: In conclusion, Gyula Breyer’s joke study is cooked on two faults. A normal promotion actually wins after the line 1. exf8=Q+ Kxf8 2. Kd7!, and Black is in zugzwang&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Secondly, in the joke promotion lines after the moves 1. exf8=Black queen Qe7 2. Nd7 Qxe6+ 3. fxe6 Be7 4. Nf5, Black can play the only non-bishop move 4... Kd8! and draw the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Overall, the study is refuted by a king move from each side. Therefore, it seems like Gyula Breyer could not, to some degree, properly analyze king moves in the endgame!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-11-17T01:58:41.627" LastActivityDate="2020-11-17T01:58:41.627" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29636" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29568" CreationDate="2020-05-20T00:35:19.007" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your alternatives are not mutually exclusive.  One can do both.  Think of the code-breaking chess masters during WWII. Chess Master and engineer Edward Laker invented a number of medical devices, including a breast pump. World Champion Max Euwe was a mathematician.  World Champion Mikhail Botvinnik was an electrical engineer and computer scientist.  World Champion Emanuel Lasker was a mathematician and philosopher. Why do artists in all fields - music, art, dance, etc. - devote their lives to their disciplines?  If one is good enough to earn a living at it, why not?  And I find that the creation of works of beauty is in itself a contribution to society's betterment.  How many intelligent people do in fact devote their lives solely to the betterment of society?  Just being an interested, productive member of society would seem to be sufficient to contribute to that end.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastEditorUserId="7657" LastEditDate="2020-05-20T02:13:35.910" LastActivityDate="2020-05-20T02:13:35.910" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29637" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29594" CreationDate="2020-05-20T01:05:35.587" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;All other things being equal, a material advantage is normally sufficient to win the game. I should mention that the value of a piece is directly related to its strength, i.e. to how many squares it would control on an open board, which is why the rook is worth more than the knight. If you then traded down equally into an ending, your advantage under most circumstances would be sufficient to win, assuming it was mating material like a rook.  You probably would need more than one minor piece to accomplish the same thing if pawns are excluded. Winning even just a pawn would be enough to win in the hands of a skilled player, which is how the great Masters like Capablanca played.  This could then ultimately be promoted to a stronger piece, normally the queen, to effect the checkmate.  Knowing the value of the pieces lets you keep track of this during the game.  This is a greatly simplified explanation of course, but is essentially accurate.  From this perspective, the game is like a great scale which is initially in balance but on which you try to create a favorable imbalance. Of course there are other factors that must be taken into consideration to determine this, such as position - how much of and what part of the board you control- but a good player weighs them all together when deciding how he or she stands and how to proceed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastEditorUserId="7657" LastEditDate="2020-05-20T01:13:03.713" LastActivityDate="2020-05-20T01:13:03.713" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29638" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29626" CreationDate="2020-05-20T06:13:31.623" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;A sample of one game should not be enough to make a conclusion. You may have been particularly inspired, or maybe got into a position where that computer player worse than others.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastActivityDate="2020-05-20T06:13:31.623" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29639" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29628" CreationDate="2020-05-20T06:13:53.000" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is indeed bad etiquette and tournaments are moving towards games with increment because of those situations. In fact, if your opponent is clearly making no effort to win by &quot;conventional means&quot;, you caan call the arbiter and claim a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the Internet everything goes, though&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastActivityDate="2020-05-20T06:13:53.000" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29640" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29628" CreationDate="2020-05-20T08:34:16.290" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;In general, yes I would agree with you. In fast time controls this is fine to do, but in longer ones it can be considered unsporting (although not against the rules of online play). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This wouldn't be an issue in an OTB game, since if the position is definitely a draw then one could claim it with an arbiter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastEditorUserId="11712" LastEditDate="2020-05-22T05:59:53.043" LastActivityDate="2020-05-22T05:59:53.043" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29641" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29626" CreationDate="2020-05-20T09:50:56.070" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Several reasons I can think of:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A single game is not enough to draw any conclusions. You might have been lucky, inspired,... in that particular case. Ratings tell about the statistical outcome of a &lt;strong&gt;large number of games.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Ratings measure the &lt;strong&gt;relative strength&lt;/strong&gt; of players. There is no such thing as a player of 1600 strength. Matching ratings from different websites or OTB chess is inherently impossible because it involves different pools of people (or computers). You can assign ratings to different levels of an engine by having it play against itself many times. However matching this computer rating to a human rating is basically guessing with a huge error margin. Some engines just count the levels (1,2,3...) instead of claiming a fake rating.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Making a computer as strong as possible is a well defined procedure (just optimize the parameters, so that it wins most games). Crippling it, so that it plays at a lower level is not well defined. You could for instance have it ignore king safety or ignore material or make a blunder every now and then (but play at maximum strength otherwise), etc.... One way of crippling might suit you more than another player. Say, if you are an attacking player, a computer playing very passively or that ignores king safety would be easier to beat for you than one that is crippled in another way.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2020-05-20T09:50:56.070" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29642" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="71" CreationDate="2020-05-20T10:29:47.733" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;As of 2020 I believe by far the most popular sites to play online chess are lichess, chess.com and chess24.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am not aware of any publicly available statistics on the metrics you suggest. From what I see many of the top players are active on several sites. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The commercial websites chess24 and chess.com are likely paying some of the titled players giving them an advantage. Still, even Magnus Carlsen is seen regularly on lichess as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, what should count most would be, how likely is it that you play a game against a titled player. If that is your aim, the total number of titled players is fairly irrelevant and you'd better look at what tournaments/shows/... the websites offer in this respect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Banter blitz sessions are one way, but there are also tournaments (particularly those with minimum rating requirements) that are a good way to find titled players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2020-05-20T10:29:47.733" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29643" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29628" CreationDate="2020-05-20T13:43:21.447" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;30 minutes is still a &lt;em&gt;rapid&lt;/em&gt; game where time is a significant factor. Blundering time is just as much of a blunder as blundering pieces. You blundered your time away, so why complain?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15148" LastActivityDate="2020-05-20T13:43:21.447" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29644" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29627" CreationDate="2020-05-20T14:14:49.997" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;As explained in the fine answer by AlwaysLearningNewStuff, you have transposed into the Advanced French. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Such transpositions are common in chess. That's why, if you are assigning an opening to a game you would normally go backwards and base it on the last known theoretical position in that game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Concerning the moves of that game. 2. e5 is objectively not the best move for white as it allows black a good version of the French defense. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More popular replies than 2....e6 are 2...c5 (with the idea to develop the bishop from c8 before playing e6) or an immediate 2....Bf5. In either case, black gets a French defense pawn structure but has solved the problem of having a weak light squared bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2020-05-20T14:14:49.997" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29645" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29648" CreationDate="2020-05-20T18:58:46.330" Score="4" ViewCount="263" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Simon Webb's brilliant book, &lt;em&gt;Chess for Tigers&lt;/em&gt;, he advises that a player write their move on their scoresheet &lt;em&gt;before&lt;/em&gt; playing it. Then, right before you play your move, you check it one more time to ensure you haven't made a blunder. I used this strategy with great effect in my games, and it cut down my blunder rate considerably.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately, Fide changed the rules, and now this kind of strategy is illegal: you have to write your move down after you play it. Is there a substitute for this strategy that still uses the scoresheet, but is legal under Fide rules? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20585" LastActivityDate="2020-05-29T00:24:49.447" Title="What's the best alternative to the 'scoresheet' blunder checking strategy?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;blunder&gt;&lt;scoresheet&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29647" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29656" CreationDate="2020-05-20T19:57:59.640" Score="12" ViewCount="1440" Body="&lt;p&gt;If Black has castled kingside and White castled queenside or kingside, and White wants to launch an attack by a pawn storm. How do you know that you should start with h4 first or g4 first? I know that it depends on the pawn structure of Black. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) Black can have a kings-indian or dragon sicilian setup around the king (Bishop on g7, knight on f6, and pawns on f7 g6 h7). In these examples, how should white start the pawn storm&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;rnbq1r2/pp2ppbk/2pp1npp/8/2PPP3/2N1BP2/PP1Q2PP/R3KBNR w KQ - 2 9&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;r1bqr1k1/pp2ppbp/2np1np1/8/3NP3/2N1BP2/PPPQ2PP/2KR1B1R w - - 6 10&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;r1bq1rk1/p4p1p/2p1p1p1/3n4/3Q4/2N2P2/PPP3PP/2KR1B1R w - - 0 14&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) A QGD pawn setup (knight on f6, pawns on f7 g7 h7). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this example where black committed g6, how should white start the pawn storm?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;r3r1k1/pp2bp1p/4pnpB/q3N3/2Pp1Q2/8/PP3PPP/3RR1K1 w - - 4 20&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If Black plays pawn to h6 to defend, then with which pawn should White start the attack? g4 or h4? And if Black doesn't move the pawns (pawns on f7 g7 h7), then how should white start the pawn storm?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23598" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2020-05-20T20:02:32.937" LastActivityDate="2020-05-21T09:35:16.423" Title="Pawn storm, should I start with h4 or g4?" Tags="&lt;pawn-structure&gt;&lt;queens-gambit&gt;&lt;attack&gt;&lt;kings-indian&gt;&lt;sicilian-dragon&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29648" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29645" CreationDate="2020-05-20T20:02:29.743" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't know of any proven method but here's one idea: you could try to imagine writing the move. Translate your move into algebraic notation, imagine the text on your scoresheet, maybe even trace it with your finger. Hopefully that will be enough of a pause in your train of thought to enable you to see the move from a different perspective, which I think is the rationale behind the &quot;write before you move&quot; approach.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12523" LastActivityDate="2020-05-20T20:02:29.743" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29649" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29628" CreationDate="2020-05-20T20:31:45.260" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't really understand what happened. I gather you were white? In the position shown, black has only a bishop, which is insufficient material to mate. If white runs out of time, the game is a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In general, if the game is not yet in a drawn position, but correct play from each player will inevitably lead to a draw, and one player has significantly more time than the other, I don't think it is bad etiquette for the player with more time to prolong the game in the hopes that the other player makes a mistake or runs out of time. The clock is part of the game. If you don't leave yourself enough time to complete the game, the other player deserves to win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23601" LastActivityDate="2020-05-20T20:31:45.260" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29650" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29628" CreationDate="2020-05-20T22:27:23.400" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;A valid attempt to win a game by a legitimate route. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Dragging a dead game out merely to annoy your opponent is bad, but it's neither illegal nor what happened here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BTW, This is an easy forced draw.... &#xA;White to move: Kd8,Bany (all king moves lose the bishop),c8=Q+,Bxc8 draw/material&#xA;Black to move: Kany, Kd8, Kb7, Kd7, Kany, Kd8, Kb7 repeats.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If black wanted to take it to/beyond 50 moves they needed to get their king in front of the pawn. But they have no way to force that now. All the white king has to do is avoid light squares/checks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7514" LastEditorUserId="11712" LastEditDate="2020-05-22T02:04:33.607" LastActivityDate="2020-05-22T02:04:33.607" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29651" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29628" CreationDate="2020-05-20T23:14:44.823" Score="7" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Here is the final position. (I slightly misremembered what my opponent&#xA;  did—they weren't repeatedly checking me. Instead, they were moving&#xA;  their bishop around aimlessly. However, I don't think this has a huge&#xA;  impact on the debate. I was playing White.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;2b5/1kP1K3/8/8/8/8/8/8 w - - 16 86&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here you kind of deserve to lose if you can't force the draw by:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;2b5/1kP1K3/8/8/8/8/8/8 w - - 16 86&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Kd8 Bh3 2. c8=Q Bxc8&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the final position after BxQ it is a dead position, neither player can checkmate by any means and it is a draw. All good online servers will immediately end the game as a draw without the need for a draw offer and acceptance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-05-20T23:14:44.823" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29653" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29647" CreationDate="2020-05-21T06:44:53.323" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd play h4 in positions 3 and 4, without losing the g4 tmepo. As for 1 and 2, I'd follow the same criteria except if Black's ...h5 reaction is strong enough to give me a reason to play g4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastActivityDate="2020-05-21T06:44:53.323" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29654" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29647" CreationDate="2020-05-21T07:07:54.400" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The main purpose of a pawn storm is to exchange pawns and open lines. Therefore, in the ideal case you should push the pawn that can easily be exchanged. With a Black pawn on g6, it makes sense to play h4-h5. The only way White's g-pawn could be directly exchanged would be if Black had a pawn on h6 (as is the case in your first diagram).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, g4 can be useful if control of the h5-square is needed. For example, in some cases Black may consider meeting h4 with ...h5. So in the second diagram, playing both g4 and h4 makes sense. However, in the third diagram Black's control over h5 is weak, so just pushing h4 is best. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the final diagram, White should just play h4, although perhaps not with the immediate intention of getting h5 in. The pawn could remain on h4 in order to clamp down on the g5-square; or, maybe White could try g4+h5 later on. I would be a bit more hesitant about pushing g4 here, since White's king is on the kingside.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2020-05-21T07:07:54.400" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29655" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29645" CreationDate="2020-05-21T08:35:19.363" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I assume before playing a move you know what move it is. So instead of looking down at your scoresheet, note the move you're about to play and check it for blunders.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2020-05-21T08:35:19.363" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29656" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29647" CreationDate="2020-05-21T09:35:16.423" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Typically you use a pawn storm to exchange pawns around the castled enemy king and thereby to open lines and diagonals for an attack. Most of the time you want a closed (to some extent) center in order to avoid counterplay in the center.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this sense your example 4 is not a typical use case for a pawn storm. It might make sense to push the pawns here as well, but the reason for that are concrete tactical motifs. E.g. by playing g4-g5 you seem to force black to exchange the bishop for the knight after which there are ideas with Qg7 mate...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other than that, it depends a lot on the actual position. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A typical defensive strategy is to block the advancing pawns, thereby halting the pawn storm. In your first example you need to consider that if you play g5 black can block with h5, if you play h5, black can block with g5. To break such blockades, you could consider piece sacrifices (for a pawn or two) or what options you have by pushing the f pawn. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your second example, if you play g5, black can block with Nh5. In your third example, playing first g4 leaves you with lots of weak dark squares that are eyed by the black queen and knight. Playing first h4 here seems like a much better choice (if you had to decide between g4 or h4).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some general guidelines (but as mentioned above, don't follow these blindly) depending on the opponent's pawn structure (of course the same applies to exchanged colors):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Pawns on f7-g7-h7&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;typically broken by playing g6 supported by a pawn from h5. See English attack in the Najdorf Sicilian.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You could also attack with h6, but this really only makes sense if you can make use of the dark squares, e.g. if you have a queen, dark squared bishop... that can enter via the a1-h8 diagonal or if you have a knight that could use the outpost that forms on f6.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Pawns on f7-g6-h7&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Break with h5. Most of the time you want rooks on the h-file for the attack, when the h-file opens. See Yugoslav attack in the Sicilian Dragon.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Need to consider whether black can close the position with g5 after you play h5. Therefore in some cases, white wants to play g5 before h5.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Pawns on f7-g6-h6&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;This is a flexible setup for black, because whether you play h5 or g5, black can always block replying g5 or h5 respectively. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;One idea to break it is with a pawn on f4, so as white you aim for h5 but have a pawn on f4 (ready or can play later) in order to prevent the blocking with g5.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Another idea to break it is tactically. Often you end up with such positions, like in your first example, with Qd2, Be3 and Kh7. A typical tactical idea then is to play Ng5 with a white pawn on h4 and a rook on h1. If black takes the pawn hxg5, white opens the h-file with hxg5 check which very often is deadly.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Pawns on f6-g7-h7&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You'd go for the f6 pawn by playing g5. Need to consider, whehter black can reply with f5 after which there is not much of an attack.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Sometimes you could follow up with h5-h6 with the idea that the g7 pawn moves and cannot recapture on f6.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;See attacks against the Sämisch in the Kings Indian. (i.e. pawn storm by black)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As mentioned these don't work all the time and depend on the concrete position. If you consider the potential for blocking the pawn advance, by closing the structure, which pawn to push often comes naturally.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd recommend to look at some of these attacks in actual games. You can use the openings mentioned above as a guideline.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2020-05-21T09:35:16.423" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29657" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29645" CreationDate="2020-05-21T19:31:57.800" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know there is such a rule but in practice, even if in serious tournaments it's not necessarily enforced. I had a game in World Open at Philadelphia a few years ago and my opponent wrote on his score sheet before making any move. I was debating if I should report and finally I reported to TD and TD warned him. The next time he did that I reported again and nothing happened. So the next time it happened I ignored it and did not report. So if you really want, you can still do it at your own risk. It's unlikely the TD is going to forfeit your game. The worst is probably a warning or something.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23543" LastActivityDate="2020-05-21T19:31:57.800" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29658" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1916" CreationDate="2020-05-21T20:42:44.693" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Very different those two books. Soltis' is a basic book which explains the &quot;plans&quot; on different openings according to their respective pawn structures. Kmoch's book, however, is a masterpiece. It's a much more difficult and serious book in terms of the knowledge it provides. The terminology is not difficult or convoluted, as many people claim online. If you're an adult you will get it pretty easily. Also, the concepts are not only clear and helpful, but also didactically perfectly selected. You should read it and find out for yourself what i mean. It's brilliance comes in how methodically Kmoch studies the different types of pawn structures and formations. This is NOT a book centered on opening pawn structures per se. It's a proper study of the PAWN as a central piece in how chess is played properly. The meat of the boom focuses on how pawn structures and formations studies in the first part interact with the minor pieces and the Rooks. These are the golden chapters of the book which will positively impact your overall understanding of chess. This is definitively not a book for the lazy or the bare-bones beginner simply because those are not ready for the wisdom imparted by Kmoch.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note of advice: To learn chess properly one has to be patient and stay away from &quot;Winning with...&quot; or &quot;Play this and quickly win...&quot; type of books. Focus on the classics: Capablanca's Chess Fundamentals, or Nimzowitsch's My System, or Euwe's The Middlegame (2 vols.), or Fischer's My Most Memorable 60 Games, or Pachman's Complete Chess Strategy (3 vols.) and his other two on tactics, or Averbakh's Chess Tactics for Advanced Players. These are the classics which will teach you elements and concepts in the abstract, and by phases (opening, middlegame and endgame), and which will make you jump to a competitive level (ELO 1900+) from where you could later on work more intensively on an opening repertoire, refined endgame technique, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23612" LastActivityDate="2020-05-21T20:42:44.693" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29660" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28541" CreationDate="2020-05-22T02:11:02.327" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Gary Kasparov &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.computerweekly.com/news/252444488/Chess-grandmaster-Garry-Kasparov-tells-Tableau-users-human-intelligence-still-has-role-to-play&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;said this&lt;/a&gt; when Stockfish was only rated around 3100:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;“There has been a steady, but slow, drive upwards. But the strongest chess [software] engines today -Stockfish, Komodo– are in the 3100-plus category, so much stronger that competition even with Magnus Carlsen would make no sense. Not because they understand chess, but because they make almost no mistakes,”&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23614" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-09-05T00:51:16.143" LastActivityDate="2020-09-05T00:51:16.143" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29661" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29669" CreationDate="2020-05-22T02:11:53.673" Score="2" ViewCount="241" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/28797/what-is-the-fastest-way-to-reach-stalemate&quot;&gt;known&lt;/a&gt; what the fastest stalemate is. But what but is the fastest possible stalemate in which castling must be the last move?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;33 plies&lt;/strong&gt; is my best result so far.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 h5 2. Qxh5 d6 3. Qxh8 Bh3 4. Qxg7 Bxg2 5. Qxg8 Bxf1 6. Qxf7+ Kd7 7. Qxf8 Kc6 8. Qxd8 e5 9. Qxd6+ Kb5 10. Qxc7 Bd3 11. Qxb8 Bxc2 12. Qxa8 Bd1 13. Qxa7 Kc4 14. Qxb7 Kd3 15. Nf3 Kc2 16. Qb3+ Kxc1 17. O-O&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Castling for a pin isn’t the only possible motivation though. Here is &lt;strong&gt;another 33 plies&lt;/strong&gt; sequence that shows motivation in protecting pieces and guarding squares.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. f4 e5 2. fxe5 d6 3. exd6 Qg5 4. dxc7 Ke7 5. cxb8=Q Qxg2 6. Qxc8 Qxh2 7. Qxa8 Qxg1 8. Qxa7 g5 9. Qxb7+ Ke6 10. Qxf7+ Ke5 11. Qxf8 Qh2 12. Qxg8 Qh5 13. Qxh8+ Kf4 14. Qxh7 Kg4 15. Bg2 Kg3 16. Qxh5 g4 17. O-O&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-01-26T17:20:53.207" LastActivityDate="2021-01-26T17:20:53.207" Title="What is the fastest possible stalemate by castling?" Tags="&lt;problems&gt;&lt;castling&gt;&lt;stalemate&gt;&lt;records&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29662" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-05-22T02:18:05.600" Score="5" ViewCount="216" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have a number of old chess books published by R.H.M. Press. I am curious as to whether &quot;R.H.M.&quot; are the initials of something or someone, and if so, what?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As I understand it, R.H.M. Press was the brainchild of Sidney Fried, and Burt Hochberg was the chief editor of many of the books.  Unfortunately, neither of them is still alive.  I found a &lt;a href=&quot;https://go.gale.com/ps/anonymous?id=GALE|A69653067&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;short article&lt;/a&gt; by Hochberg in the Summer 2000 issue of &lt;i&gt;Publishing Research Quarterly&lt;/i&gt; entitled &quot;An imperfect visionary,&quot; which gives some interesting historical information about R.H.M. Press, but no hint of what R.H.M. might stand for, if anything.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;None of the possibilities listed by &lt;a href=&quot;https://acronyms.thefreedictionary.com/RHM&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;The Free Dictionary&lt;/a&gt; looks plausible to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17540" LastEditorUserId="17540" LastEditDate="2020-05-23T01:57:33.740" LastActivityDate="2020-05-23T01:57:33.740" Title="What did R.H.M. stand for?" Tags="&lt;history&gt;&lt;books&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29663" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29665" CreationDate="2020-05-22T09:05:45.880" Score="2" ViewCount="433" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sometimes when playing Alekhine defense Scandinavian Variation, I get this kind of pawn structure :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;8/p6p/6p1/2p1p3/2PpP1P1/Pp1P4/1P6/8 w - - 1 29&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am very comfortable playing as black with this structure, but there is it not the most common structure I would get in Alekhine, so are there any openings which may result in this (or similar structure) ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21526" LastEditorUserId="21526" LastEditDate="2020-05-22T09:18:32.307" LastActivityDate="2020-05-22T22:16:40.547" Title="Looking for openings by pawn structure" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;pawn-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29664" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29663" CreationDate="2020-05-22T09:24:35.460" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are you sure about the FEN, particularly the black pawn on b3? Also a white pawn is missing. Ignoring the a-b and g-h pawns and focusing on the central pawns....&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is very unusual to get that much space as a black player. So no, unless your opponent plays particularly passively, you are not going to get such structure in any opening. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The structure resembles some Kings Indian structures, but with reversed colors. If you could express what paricular features you like about such structure, apart from the (unrealistic to get) space advantage, perhaps something could be suggested.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2020-05-22T09:24:35.460" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29665" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29663" CreationDate="2020-05-22T10:20:46.223" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm assuming you're mainly referring to the central pawn mass - wanting to get a structure with a Black pawn on b3 seems too specific.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In general, it's much harder to deliberately maneuver the game into a line where you are the person with the pawn on d4 (or if you're playing White, with the pawn on d5). This is because you need to get your opponent to provoke your d-pawn forward with e4 and c4. If you liked playing the White side of that diagram, I would recommend playing the Czech Benoni &lt;em&gt;as Black&lt;/em&gt; (i.e: 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 c5 3.d5 e5 4.Nc3 d6).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want a higher chance of getting the structure with c4-, d5-, and e4-pawns (so basically being on the flipped side of Black in that diagram), I'd recommend playing 1.d4 and 2.c4 as White. Your opponent could go into the aforementioned Czech Benoni (although it isn't very common), or they could play the King's Indian Defense. In that structure, Black often plays ...e5/...c5, and once in a while pushes both pawns (getting you into a situation you want).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't have much advice for how to get that structure as Black. You're at the mercy of your opponent to dictate the play. One of the most common ways I know of getting it is if White plays a reverse King's Indian, allowing you to push all your pawns with ...d5, ...c5, ...e5, but most people don't do this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2020-05-22T10:20:46.223" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29666" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29662" CreationDate="2020-05-22T13:58:42.657" Score="1" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Edit: This answer is most likely wrong.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think @Mike Jones was really close here: Googling RHM Press brings up the publisher &quot;Random House&quot; (which is fused with Penguin Books).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Random_House&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;em&gt;Penguin Random House&lt;/em&gt; started a Joint Venture with the italian company &lt;em&gt;Arnoldo Mondadori Editore&lt;/em&gt; which is called... &lt;strong&gt;Random House Mondadori&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd suspect that this is indeed the R.H.M. press you were looking for. The group was eventually renamed in 2012, which might explain the absence of any further mentions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17911" LastEditorUserId="17911" LastEditDate="2020-05-22T22:40:26.783" LastActivityDate="2020-05-22T22:40:26.783" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29667" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4638" CreationDate="2020-05-22T14:07:17.913" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not mentioned is that programs like Stockfish do NOT give consistent results. You can run SF on the exact same position to the exact same depth and get two different scores. Which one is best? No one knows. Worse is that SF will sometimes change the rankings of scores so that the best move in one test is not the best move in the next test. SF does NOT give a single score for a given position. That shocked me. So databases are pretty much useless at determining the best move and now SF turns out to be less than clear, too. What to do?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17740" LastActivityDate="2020-05-22T14:07:17.913" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29668" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29671" CreationDate="2020-05-22T15:06:32.020" Score="5" ViewCount="361" Body="&lt;p&gt;The statistics at move 5 seem amazing for White, slightly better than Nc3. I was wondering how White can &quot;get away&quot; with the plan to play c4 before Nc3, achieving even more control of the center. So what exactly is White giving up? Black can try to break through before c4 is played by 5...e5 6. Nb3 d5, but this position does not seem very critical to me, at least less critical than some variations of the Najdorf (I may be wrong).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c5 Nf3 d6 d4 cxd4 Nxd4 Nf6 f3 e5 Nb3 d5 Bg5 d4 c3 Nc6 Bb5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If Black does not play ...e5 we get a cozy setup with Be3, Be2, 0-0, Qd2 and centralising the rooks incoming and Black cannot do much about it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c5 Nf3 d6 d4 cxd4 Nxd4 Nf6 f3 e6 c4 Be7 Nc3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15478" LastActivityDate="2020-05-23T14:54:20.540" Title="Why is 5. Nc3 preferred over 5. f3 in the Open Sicilian?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29669" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29661" CreationDate="2020-05-22T16:15:53.083" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I’ve found a way to reduce the count down to &lt;strong&gt;31 plies.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. f4 e5 2. fxe5 d6 3. exd6 Qg5 dxc7 Qxg2 5. cxb8=Q Qxh2 Qxa7 Qxg1 7. Qxa8 Qg2 8. Bxg2 g5 9. Qxb7 g4 10. Qxc8+ Ke7 11. Qxf8+ Ke6 12. Qxf7+ Ke5 13. Qxg8 Kf4 14. Qxh8 h5 15. Qxh5 Kg3 16. O-O&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White has only two non-capturing moves, the first pawn move and casting. Black uses up all of their moves without rest. Therefore, I think that 31 plies may be optimal unless a pawn capture can be shaved off.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-01-26T17:20:27.510" LastActivityDate="2021-01-26T17:20:27.510" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29670" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26828" CreationDate="2020-05-22T18:08:08.747" Score="2" Body="&lt;h1&gt;Absolutely!&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If time wasn't a key to the style of match, it wouldn't be timed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Adding a time constraint to an otherwise purely strategic game strongly suggests that the time component will and should be used 'strategically' as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23624" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2020-05-22T18:08:08.747" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29671" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29668" CreationDate="2020-05-22T18:38:41.440" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;The move 5.f3 is an interesting one and worth a try for two reasons:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Avoiding heavy theory.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Tricking some Najdorf or Dragon players who are not keen to play the Maroczy bind with c4. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, Black has a few ways to respond. One response seems very tricky by directly exploiting the weakness created by f3 (and avoiding the Maroczy bind).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.f3 e5 6.Nb3 a5!? 7.c4? (7.Bb5 {is better}) Nxe4! 8.fxe4 Qh4+ 9.Kd2 a4 {and Black wins back the piece with some advantage}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black seems to be fine by playing e5 and d5, without pushing further to d4 as played recently by Giri, Nakamura, Areshchenko.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.f3 e5 6. Nb3 d5 7.Bg5 Be6 8.Bxf6 gxf6 9.exd5 Qxd5 10.Qxd5 Bxd5 {and the pair of bishops offsets the pawn weaknesses.}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Update: If following the good arguments of @Scounged, Black is not afraid to enter the Maroczy bind, there is a favorable version. Black plays 5...Nc6 and if White continues by 6.c4 Black replies with 6...Qb6 disrupting White's play, followed by g6. Here is an illustrative game:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[title &quot;D'Amore, Carlo (2456) vs. Sutovsky, Emil (2664), EU-chT, 2001&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.f3 Nc6 6.c4 Qb6 7.Nc2 g6 8.Nc3 Bg7 9.Qd3 (9.Rb1 {is probably more promising for White but there is a fun variation} 9...Ng4!? 10.Qd2! (10.fxg4 Bxc3) Bxc3 11. Qxc3 Qf2 12.Kd1 O-O) 9...Nd7 10.Nd5 Qd8 11.Be2 Nc5 12.Qa3 f5! 13.exf5? (13.O-O) Bxf5 14.Nde3 Qb6 15.Nxf5 gxf5 16.Rb1 Nd4 17.Nxd4 Bxd4 18.Be3 Ne6 19.Bxd4 Nxd4 20.Qa4+ Kf7 21.c5 Qxc5 22.Qc4+ Qxc4 23.Bxc4+ Kf6 24.Kf2 Rac8 25.Bd3 e5 26.g4 fxg4 27.fxg4 d5 28.Rbd1 h5 29.g5+ Kxg5 30.Rhg1+ Kf4 31.Rg7 Rhf8 32.Bg6 Kg5+ 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11749" LastEditorUserId="11749" LastEditDate="2020-05-23T14:54:20.540" LastActivityDate="2020-05-23T14:54:20.540" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29672" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29662" CreationDate="2020-05-22T22:05:31.480" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, let's take Random House off the table right away, as RHM Press was a division of RHM Associates of Delaware, Inc. which lists Sydney Fried as Publisher. The California Secretary of State system lists an RHM Publishing as a &quot;Doing Business As&quot; name for RHM Associates.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately, No list of officers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's a blurb in the beginning of San Antonio 1972 (the first book RHM published) that talks a little bit about the venture, but no details. Since the most likely RHM Associates of Delaware I can find is an investment firm, I lean towards the idea the RHM name came from the folks that supplied the money to start it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="657" LastActivityDate="2020-05-22T22:05:31.480" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29673" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29663" CreationDate="2020-05-22T22:16:40.547" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Interesting opponent you have there, to let you get to that pawn formation. And yes, I said let, because the two most often played moves in that variation (e5 and exd5) both render that pawn structure pretty much impossible. I used to play the White side of that a lot, myself, but I always responded to Black's ...d5 with d4 (love making Alekhine players play the pawn-up side of a gambit).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Don't blame you for being comfortable playing that position. Everything unseen being equal, Black has all the winning chances there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="657" LastActivityDate="2020-05-22T22:16:40.547" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29674" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13816" CreationDate="2020-05-22T22:29:05.977" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chessbase once tried to make a Mac version. It was buggy and under-featured, so didn't sell, and rather than improve it they gave up on ever doing one. How to play it on a Mac depends on what your computer skills are. Not sure if chessbase reader (the app you'd use to play it) runs under WINE these days, but that would be one option (cheapest but requiring most skills). A second option would be a free virtual machine system (VirtualBox) with windows installed on a VM. The easiest (and also most costly, funny how those two go together) is a system like Parallels or VirtualPC.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="657" LastActivityDate="2020-05-22T22:29:05.977" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29675" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29677" CreationDate="2020-05-22T23:31:23.820" Score="4" ViewCount="132" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am preparing to buy a new desktop computer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would like to use it for chess analysis with both StockFish and Lc0.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My budget is slightly above 2K euros. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;QUESTIONS:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is my first time choosing configuration for Lc0, so I do not know where to focus my attention.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Regarding StockFish, it should be simple? Just buff CPU + RAM and you are good to go?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can you advise me, so I do not make a mistake during purchase (what are the things I should strive for, what to pay attention the most...)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;MY EFFORT TO SOLVE THE PROBLEM:&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After Googling a little, I believe that below configuration could suit me:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;CPU = AMD-AM4 Ryzen 9 3950X (16 cores, 3.5 GHz)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;MOBO = AMD-AM4 Asus TUF B450M-PLUS&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;RAM = KINGSTON DDR4 32GB 2666MHz HX426C16FB3/32 HyperX Fury Black MEM01669&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;GPU = Asus nVidia GeForce RTX 2070 ROG-STRIX-RTX2070-O8G-Gaming 8GB GDDR6&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Hard Drive = SSD 480GB Kingston A400 SA400S37/480G&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Computer Case = MS WINSTON gaming ATX&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Power Supply = LC Power 650W LC6650 V2.3 + Bronze&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;OS = Windows 10 Home x64&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastActivityDate="2020-05-23T02:44:33.420" Title="Help me choose hardware configuration" Tags="&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;leela&gt;&lt;hardware&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29676" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21533" CreationDate="2020-05-23T02:24:58.960" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The story you heard might be based on &quot;The Game and Playe of the Chesse&quot; by William Caxton. But there's a difference in that (spoiler)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt; this story has a happy ending.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The story might be older than Caxton. Caxton's work is based on &lt;a href=&quot;http://Liber%20de%20moribus%20hominum%20et%20officiis%20nobilium%20super%20ludo%20scacchorum&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&quot;Liber de moribus hominum et officiis nobilium super ludo scacchorum&quot;&lt;/a&gt; by Jacobus de Cessolis  and it might be a translation. I can't say if the story is even older than that. The &lt;a href=&quot;https://d.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/creator/william-caxton&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;full text of Caxton's book&lt;/a&gt; is online thanks to the University of Rochester and has great footnotes. It's a tough read if you're from this century or one of the recent ones. I'd recommend reading chapter 8 as an overview of the story, but chapter 1-3 also contain a lot framing story.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'll summarize here:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once upon a time, Babylon had an evil king named &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amel-Marduk&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Evylmerodach&lt;/a&gt; son of &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nebuchadnezzar_II&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Nebuchadnezzar&lt;/a&gt;. A good philosopher named Philemetor saw how evil the king was and decided he had to teach the king about virture.  Philemetor knew that the king usually killed people who tried to correct his cruelty, but the philosopher knew that it was so important that everyone do the right thing, especially kings. He knew that even if the king kills him, it is worthwhile to teach him about virtue. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, the philosopher made a board game and brought it to the king, who insisted on learning how to play this new game. The philosopher taught him all the pieces one by one, how they each correspond to a station in life, and how everyone has to live up to virtues depending on their station in life.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The king demanded he explain himself, and say why he invented this game, or else be killed. The philosopher, knew that the king had a history of killing people who tried to teach him morals, but decided to tell the truth. &quot;To correct you of your tyranny and vicious living. For all kings ought specially to hear their correctors and to keep their corrections in mind.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The king heard this, and thought it was a good correction. He thanked the philosopher, and changed his ways. And they all lived happily ever after.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21747" LastEditorUserId="21747" LastEditDate="2020-05-23T21:55:33.140" LastActivityDate="2020-05-23T21:55:33.140" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29677" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29675" CreationDate="2020-05-23T02:44:33.420" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The biggest things that stand out here is the power supply and hard drive. For the first, getting a cheap power supply tends to be a bad idea since if it breaks, it can bring down a lot of other stuff with it. 650W is plenty, but I'd recommend going with a more established brand like corsair or silverstone. For the hard drive, given that you can get a 1TB SSD for about $150, I would do so since it will mean you have plenty of room for a 6 man tablebase (syzygy).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other than that, this should be a really good system for both leela and SF. If you want any help with optimal settings for lc0 performance, feel free to drop by the lc0 discord!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17100" LastActivityDate="2020-05-23T02:44:33.420" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29678" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29696" CreationDate="2020-05-23T15:32:08.197" Score="2" ViewCount="125" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there a hash or string that represents a stockfish evaluation of a position to a certain depth?  For example for a given FEN, can you analyze to a depth of say 10 and get a hash to represent that position AND depth of analysis?  That would allow you to come back later and, if wanted, continue analysis to a greater depth at a later point.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23479" LastEditorUserId="23479" LastEditDate="2020-05-24T15:13:13.893" LastActivityDate="2020-05-25T10:13:19.250" Title="Is there a hash or string that represents a stockfish evaluation of a position to a certain depth?" Tags="&lt;stockfish&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29679" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29682" CreationDate="2020-05-23T19:43:06.790" Score="6" ViewCount="526" Body="&lt;p&gt;Being primarily a 1. d4 player, I often face Slav defense. However, I have much more experience and understanding of Catalan structures and would like to get something similar against the Slav response.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Consider:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;rnbqkb1r/pp2pppp/2p2n2/3p4/2PP4/5N2/PP2PPPP/RNBQKB1R w KQkq - 2 4&quot;]&#xA; [StartPly &quot;6&quot;]&#xA; 1. d4 d5 2. c4 c6 3. Nf3 Nf6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this position, only two moves, in my opinion, lead to Catalan-like structures: 4. g3 and 4. Qc2. The other options, including 4. Qb3, are more going towards typical Slav positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;rnbqkb1r/pp2pppp/2p2n2/3p4/2PP4/5N2/PP2PPPP/RNBQKB1R w KQkq - 2 4&quot;]&#xA; [StartPly &quot;6&quot;]&#xA; 1. d4 d5 2. c4 c6 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. g3 (4. Qc2) (4. Qb3)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/q/9331/10570&quot;&gt;this question&lt;/a&gt;, the discussion was between 4. Qc2 and 4. Qb3, and I am not sure I am too fond of 4. Qb3 (simply based on the positions I like to get).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After 4. g3, the following is possible and quite likely:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;rnbqkb1r/pp2pppp/2p2n2/3p4/2PP4/5N2/PP2PPPP/RNBQKB1R w KQkq - 2 4&quot;]&#xA; [StartPly &quot;8&quot;]&#xA; 1. d4 d5 2. c4 c6 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. g3 e6 (4...dxc4) 5. Bg2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and via a very popular 4. .. e6, we are in a typical Catalan structure where dxc4 just has not happened yet, or via 4...dxc4 directly with the same 5. Bg2 reply for white.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there strong responses different from 4. .. e6 for black against 4. g3 that avoid the Catalan? Are there better ways to achieve Catalan or Catalan-like structures with white against Slav?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10570" LastActivityDate="2020-05-24T14:34:29.853" Title="Achieving Catalan-like structure against Slav response" Tags="&lt;1.d4&gt;&lt;slav-defense&gt;&lt;catalan&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29680" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-05-23T20:10:17.527" Score="0" ViewCount="181" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to make a program that can identify chess tactics in the position, while searching moves according to given heuristics. but I am not sure exactly how to go about this. &#xA;Related to this &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/5056/is-there-a-chess-engine-that-does-not-use-brute-force-search&quot;&gt;Is there a chess engine that does NOT use brute-force search?&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example let's analyze this position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;5rk1/p2Q1ppp/1q2pb2/2rp1b2/5B2/P1N1P3/1P3PPP/R4RK1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The best move is Na4 forking rook and queen. But Bd6 also forks two rooks but leads to a bad position.&#xA;A train of thought could be like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;If Bd6 attacks two rooks, Rxc3 captures knight;&#xA;    If bxc3 captures rook, Rd8 skewers queen and bishop on d6,&#xA;        If Bc7 attacks the queen, Rxd7, Bxb6 axb6&#xA;    If Bxf8, Rc7 attacks the queen,&#xA;        If Qe8 defends bishop, Qc6 attacks Qe8,&#xA;            If Qb8 moves the queen, Rc8 attacks queen and bishop.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this position single move Na4 has the tactical motive of double attack, which should be fairly easy to spot. But it will also spot Bd6 move as a double attack, but needs to be searched further to decide that it's not working, maybe we need to spot all the other moves as uninteresting and not include in the output or the search.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A simple way to get started is to identify about pins, skewers, attacks, pressures, hanging pieces etc.&#xA;Apart from that, I am not sure what the next step should be, I mean I don't even know what the input and output should be to this program.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is a single position enough to identify a tactical motif or a line needs to be given as input, in which case I need to come up with the best lines as&#xA;well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19717" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2020-05-24T10:14:10.553" LastActivityDate="2020-05-24T10:16:14.517" Title="How to make a chess engine that can identify tactics in the position?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;chess-algorithms&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29681" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29683" CreationDate="2020-05-23T23:04:30.723" Score="3" ViewCount="676" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am interested in the history of chess and, looking at the old FIDE rankings, I am a little puzzled by the lack of information about some strong Women International Masters, with a FIDE rating above 2200.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance, &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://old.chesstempo.com/gamedb/player/242217&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Lazic, Marina&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://old.chesstempo.com/gamedb/player/246676&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Tazhieva, Lyazzat&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://old.chesstempo.com/gamedb/player/245784&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Sergeeva, Tatyana&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Update: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.olimpbase.org/Elo/player/Kogan,%20T.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Kogan, T&lt;/a&gt;, she is probably not titled but over 2200 in the late '80s.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does anyone know them? &#xA;How old are they?  Are they still alive?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;N.B. I couldn't find them and they may have been married and changed their names.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11749" LastEditorUserId="10570" LastEditDate="2020-05-24T20:03:05.307" LastActivityDate="2020-05-24T20:03:05.307" Title="Unknown Women International Masters" Tags="&lt;history&gt;&lt;fide&gt;&lt;women&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29682" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29679" CreationDate="2020-05-23T23:25:41.250" Score="6" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Are there strong responses different from 4. .. e6 for black against 4. g3 that avoid the Catalan?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;4...Bf5&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One interesting alternative is 4...Bf5, with very original play. Before playing e6, Black wants to develop and exchange its &quot;bad&quot; bishop; a move favored by top GMs such as Nakamura, Karjakin or Inarkiev. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[title &quot;Mamedyarov (2760) vs. Nakamura (2772), Gashimov Mem 2014&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.g3 Bf5!? 5.Nc3 e6 6.Nh4 Be4 (6...Bg4 {was played by Karjakin}) (6...dxc4 {see next game}) 7.f3 Bg6 8.Qb3 Qb6 9.Nxg6 hxg6 10.c5 Qc7 11.e4 Be7 12.Bf4 Qc8 13.exd5 Nxd5 14.Nxd5 cxd5 15.O-O-O Nc6 16.Kb1 g5 17.Be3 f5 18.g4 f4 19.Bf2 Kf7 20.Re1 b6 21.Qa4 bxc5 22.Ba6 Qc7 23.Bb5 Rab8 24.Rxe6 Kxe6 25.Bxc6 Rhd8 26.dxc5 Bf6 27.Bd4 Kf7 28.Rd1 Kf8 29.a3 Bxd4 30.Rxd4 Qe5 31.Rd2 Qe1+ 32.Rd1 Qe2 33.b4 Qxf3 34.Kb2 Qxg4 35.Qc2 Qe6 36.Ba4 Kg8 37.Bb3 Kh8 38.c6 Rd6 39.Rc1 f3 40.Qc5 Qf6+ 41.Ka2 f2 42.c7 Rc8 43.Rf1 d4 44.h4 Qf3 45.Bc4 Rc6 46.Qxd4 R6xc7 47.Rxf2 Rxc4 0-1 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[title &quot;Halkias (2552) vs. Inarkiev (2693), Sunway Sitges Op 2018&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Nf3 d5 2.d4 Nf6 3.c4 c6 4.g3 Bf5 5.Nc3 e6 6.Nh4 dxc4 7.Nxf5 exf5 8.e3 Nbd7 9.Qf3 g6 10.Bxc4 Nb6 11.Bb3 Bd6 12.h3 h5 13.Bd2 Qe7 14.Kf1 Ne4 15.Nxe4 fxe4 16.Qe2 h4 17.g4 O-O-O 18.Rc1 Kb8 19.Ba5 f5 20.Bxb6 axb6 21.Ke1 Rhf8 22.gxf5 Rxf5 23.Qg4 c5 24.dxc5 Bxc5 25.Rc2 Qd6 26.Bc4 Bb4+ 27.Ke2 b5 28.Qxe4 bxc4 29.Qxc4 Rxf2+ 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;4...g6&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another response is 4...g6 also played by top GMs including Caruana, Grischuk, or Giri.  Caruana and Grischuk play this line with Black and also White! But sometimes after a transposition (1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.g3 c6 4.Nf3 d5) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A recent example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[title &quot;Caruana (2819) vs. Giri (2779), Croatia 2019&quot;] &#xA;&#xA;1.c4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.g3 g6 5.Bg2 Bg7 6.O-O O-O 7.Nbd2 a5 8.b3 Bf5 9.e3 a4 10.Ba3 Nbd7 11.cxd5 Nxd5 12.Qc1 Nc7 13.Nc4 Nb5 14.Bb2 Be4 15.b4 Nb6 16.Nxb6 Qxb6 17.a3 Qd8 18.Nd2 Bxg2 19.Kxg2 Qd5+ 20.Kg1 Nd6 21.Qc2 e5 22.e4 Qe6 23.dxe5 Bxe5 24.Bxe5 Qxe5 25.Rae1 Nb5 26.Nf3 Qc3 27.Qxc3 Nxc3 28.Re3 Nb5 29.Ne5 Rfd8 30.Nc4 Rd4 31.Rc1 Nd6 32.Nxd6 Rxd6 33.Rc5 Rad8 34.b5 cxb5 35.Rxb5 Rd3 36.Rxd3 Rxd3 37.Rxb7 Rxa3 38.Ra7 g5 39.Kg2 Kg7 40.e5 Kg6 41.Ra6+ Kg7 42.h4 gxh4 43.gxh4 h5 44.f4 f5 45.exf6+ Kf7 46.Ra5 Kxf6 47.Rxh5 Rb3 48.Ra5 a3 49.h5 Kg7 50.Ra6 Kh7 51.Kf2 Rh3 52.Kg2 Rb3 53.Kf2 Rh3 54.Kg2 ½-½&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11749" LastEditorUserId="11749" LastEditDate="2020-05-24T14:34:29.853" LastActivityDate="2020-05-24T14:34:29.853" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29683" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29681" CreationDate="2020-05-24T00:15:56.630" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Tatyana Sergeeva (Татьяна Сергеева) and Lyazzat Tazhieva (Ляззат Тажиева) are representatives of Soviet/Kazakhstan school of chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.sports.kz/news/net-prichin-dlya-pessimizma&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this article from sports.kz&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/card.phtml?event=13700049&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;GM Bolat Asanov&lt;/a&gt; says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;В 1996 году в мировом рейтинге женская сборная Казахстана занимала 8-9-е места. К сожалению, победная цепь разорвалась. Резервы «не поспели» и не смогли заполнить образовавшиеся пустоты: ушли из жизни Татьяна Сергеева, Ляззат Тажиева. ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My translation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In 1996, in the world rating, Kazakhstan women national team was around the 8-9th place. Unfortunately, the winning streak was broken. The young blood was not ready fast enough and they were not able to fill the emerging gaps: Tatiana Sergeeva and Lyazzat Tazhieva passed away. ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, sadly, these high-rated FIDE players of the 90s are not alive, unless there is some error in the report of &quot;PROSPORT Kazakhstan&quot; Talap Koybagarov or information given by Bolat Asanov.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lyazzat Tazhieva:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://otyrar.kz/2013/07/sostoyalsya-chempionat-goroda-po-shaxmatam-v-pamyat-lyazzat-tazhievoj/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;July 2013, Shymkent Chess Tournament in memory of Lyazzat Tazhieva&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://2gis.kz/shymkent/firm/70000001026700782&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;In Shymkent, there seems to be a sports school named after Lyazzat&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tatyana Sergeeva (this is harder, as the last name is so much more common):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://kk.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%A2%D0%B0%D1%82%D1%8C%D1%8F%D0%BD%D0%B0_%D0%98%D0%BB%D1%8C%D0%B8%D0%BD%D0%B8%D1%87%D0%B8%D0%BD%D0%B0_%D0%A1%D0%B5%D1%80%D0%B3%D0%B5%D0%B5%D0%B2%D0%B0_(%D0%96%D0%B8%D0%B2%D0%B0%D0%B5%D0%B2%D0%B0)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wiki page in Kazakh lists Tatyana Sergeeva (Zhivaeva) to pass away in 2000. Also, it mentions her participating in the final of World Chess Olympiad in 1996 and 1998.&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Татьяна Ильиничина Сергеева (Живаева) (1.01.1957 - 15.09.2000 Алм. қ-сы.), ХДСШ-і (1981). Респ-ның 4 дүркін (1977, 1980, 1991, 1996) ч-ны. 2 Рет КСРО ч-тының (1977-т.б., 1981- Алм.) финалында ойнады, Бүкілдүниежүзілік ш-т олимпиадасына (1996 - Ереван, 1998 - Элиста) қатысты.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Қазақстан - спортшылар елі. Энциклопедиялық анықтамалық. - Алматы: &quot;Сөздік-Словарь&quot;. ISBN 9965-822-57-3&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;with an apparent source of &quot;Kazakhstan — Sportsmen Country. Encyclopedia.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10570" LastEditorUserId="10570" LastEditDate="2020-05-24T02:56:56.483" LastActivityDate="2020-05-24T02:56:56.483" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29684" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29685" CreationDate="2020-05-24T03:28:45.280" Score="4" ViewCount="1408" Body="&lt;p&gt;While playing a game, I observe that I am not able to use my rooks properly. The reason is that I am not able to bring them out earlier as they occupy the corner position. This gives a lead to the opposite player. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can someone tell what is the best opening moves for rooks if I want to use them for defending my two middle pawns?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23278" LastEditorUserId="10570" LastEditDate="2020-05-24T04:59:15.263" LastActivityDate="2020-05-25T02:46:50.727" Title="Not able to use rooks properly" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;beginner&gt;&lt;rooks&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29685" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29684" CreationDate="2020-05-24T04:21:32.863" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;In general, it is not easy to develop rooks during the opening &lt;em&gt;per se&lt;/em&gt;. Not only it's not easy, it rarely is a goal of the sound opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In some references, the opening ends, when minor pieces (bishops and knights) are developed and rooks are connected. Therefore, it is highly likely that you are already talking about the middlegame rather than the opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, regarding the &lt;em&gt;general use&lt;/em&gt; of the rooks. Rooks are good at open files (or files that are likely to become open). Instead of having the goal of using rooks to defend the two middle pawns, I suggest looking for good files for the rooks, whether it is in the center, open C-file, or, soon-to-be-open A-file.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To get the best of your opening (again, there are always exceptions, established theory) in general, look at developing your minor pieces at active squares, castle your king, connect the rooks, and place them at strategically promising files.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10570" LastActivityDate="2020-05-24T04:21:32.863" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29686" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29681" CreationDate="2020-05-24T10:06:32.873" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.olimpbase.org/Elo/player/Lazic,%20Marina.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Olimpbase&lt;/a&gt;, Marina Lazic first appeared in the FIDE rating lists as a Yugoslav player in July 1982 with a rating of 1840. She improved to a rating of 2230 in the January and July 1996 lists and her last known rating was 2205 in July 1998. Her FIDE Id was 910562. No date of birth given.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a Serbian player with the same FIN called Stojanovic, Marija Z but she was born in 1984 and is clearly not the same person. I suspect that this is yet another case of a player dying and their FIN being reused.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A similar story for T. Kogan. According to &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.olimpbase.org/Elo/player/Kogan,%20T..html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Olimpbase&lt;/a&gt;, they (I'm not convinced Kogan was a woman) first appeared in the January 1988 list as a USSR player with a rating of 2230 and their last appearance was in January 1993 with a rating of 2245. Their FIN was 4108230 and no date of birth.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Again their FIN was reused in 2007 for male Russian player Rusjaev, Nikolay. I suspect Kogan died. I also suspect that he was a man since if he had really been a woman s/he would have had ratings long before 2230. The rating floor for women was 1800 and for men 2200.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Again a similar story for Tazhieva, Lyazzat. According to &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.olimpbase.org/Elo/player/Tazhieva,%20Lyazzat.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Olimpbase&lt;/a&gt;, she first appeared in the January 1988 list as a USSR player with a rating of 2185. Her FIN as a USSR player was 4108930. When Kazakhstan was recognised as a FIDE federation she became a Kazakhstan player and her FIN changed to 13700138.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Again her FIN was reused in 2007 for female KAZ player Zhylkaidarova, Sholpan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Same story for Sergeeva, Tatyana. Here are her &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.olimpbase.org/Elo/player/Sergeeva,%20Tatyana.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Olimbase&lt;/a&gt; records. Her FIN changed from 4108361 as a USSR, Russia player to 13700235 with Kazakhstan. Her FIN was reused in 2008 for Ulkhanov, Azamat.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2020-05-24T11:09:36.093" LastActivityDate="2020-05-24T11:09:36.093" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29687" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29680" CreationDate="2020-05-24T10:16:14.517" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, you can of course create a chess engine that does that. What you're saying is just a tiny part of engine search tree. You will need to read about more chess programming to get yourself started. Please come back when you have a concrete question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stockfish is free, why  not start from it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2020-05-24T10:16:14.517" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29688" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29693" CreationDate="2020-05-24T16:28:55.607" Score="7" ViewCount="1150" Body="&lt;p&gt;Regarding this position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;r2qr1k/pbpn1pbp/1p1p1np1/4p3/1PP5/3P1NP1/PBQNPPBP/R2R2K1 w - - 1 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have 2 questions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1)If the game goes 1..c5 2.b5 the engine shows white slightly better but if 1..a5 2.b5 then the engine shows black slightly better.Why is that??&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2)In this game Capa played h6 I think to prevent Ng5 but  according to Alekhine this was not a good move. I don't understand why play another move and invite the Knight to g5?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21840" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-05-24T17:51:39.360" LastActivityDate="2020-05-25T09:35:40.947" Title="Why, in this Capablanca game, was this move considered bad?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;middlegame&gt;&lt;capablanca&gt;&lt;reti-opening&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29689" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29688" CreationDate="2020-05-24T16:58:21.950" Score="4" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If the game goes 1..c5 2.b5 the engine shows white slightly better but&#xA;  if 1..a5 2.b5 then the engine shows black slightly better.Why is&#xA;  that??&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;r2qr1k/pbpn1pbp/1p1p1np1/4p3/1PP5/3P1NP1/PBQNPPBP/R2R2K1 b - - 1 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... c5 (1... a5 2. b5) 2. b5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After 1..c5 2.b5 the a7 pawn is weak and after 1..a5 2.b5 the c7 pawn is weak. The difference between the two positions is that the weak c7 pawn can't easily be attacked by white because access is blocked by the white pawn on c4. Also the pawn push c4-c5 by white to try and pry open the position to get to the weak c7 pawn is out of the question for a long time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However after 1..c5 2.b5 the weak a7 pawn can be attacked down the a file by bringing rooks to a3 and a4. This could be very unpleasant for black. Also on the cards is to just push the a pawn up the board, again with the white rooks behind it, and white is going to open up the a file to his advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-05-24T16:58:21.950" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29690" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29684" CreationDate="2020-05-24T18:19:29.913" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is interesting that you identify this as a weakness. It is often not clear initially on which file the Rooks belong. It becomes clearer as the pawn structures take shape, in particular when you can see which pawn breaks will lead to an open file. One question to ask yourself is, if I open this file, will my rooks be able to use it as an avenue for attack? If they will not, then it is not very valuable to open it. But of course perhaps your opponent can open it to their advantage. So then you have to contest it without anticipating any advantage. Rook play and Pawn play are very interlinked, and you need to begin thinking about your Rooks at an early stage. Look back at some games where you did not handle the rooks well, and see if these ideas clarify anything.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastActivityDate="2020-05-24T18:19:29.913" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29692" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29684" CreationDate="2020-05-24T18:43:07.060" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Getting the rooks to the middle usually consists of:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Developing all the knights and bishops&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Castling&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Developing the queen&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Now that the bank rank is clear, the rooks can use it to go to whichever file they like.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want the rooks to get to the center slightly faster, castling queenside puts one rook on the D-file without it needing to move again, saving a move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But can I challenge the premise? You may not want the rooks to defend the central pawns. Sometimes it's necessary, but often that can be left to the bishops, knights, or other pawns, and it's relatively rare that you would need &lt;em&gt;both&lt;/em&gt; rooks to defend central pawns. Often, a better use for the rooks is to gain control of an open file.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2020-05-24T18:43:07.060" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29693" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29688" CreationDate="2020-05-24T22:17:10.483" Score="5" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;2) In this game Capa played h6 I think to prevent Ng5 but according to&#xA;  Alekhine this was not a good move. I don't understand why play another&#xA;  move and invite the Knight to g5?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This position comes from the famous game in which Richard Reti defeated the reigning world champion, Jose Raul Capablanca, in New York in 1924.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[title &quot;Reti vs Capablanca, New York 1924&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Nf3 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.b4 Bg7 4.Bb2 O-O 5.g3 b6 6.Bg2 Bb7 7.O-O d6 8.d3 Nbd7 9.Nbd2 e5 10.Qc2 Re8 11.Rfd1 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, in this position, &lt;strong&gt;Capablanca didn't play 11...h6&lt;/strong&gt; but 11...a5, followed by 12...h6. Despite this difference, the question deserves to be asked because h6 is still debatable. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;r2qr1k1/pbpn1pbp/1p1p1np1/4p3/1PP5/3P1NP1/PBQNPPBP/R2R2K1 b - - 3 11&quot;]&#xA;[title &quot;Reti vs Capablanca, New York 1924&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... a5 2.a3 h6?! (2...Qe7!? {to prepare e4})&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Alekhine &lt;strong&gt;criticized h6&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;This move, which is difficult to understand, is the best proof that&#xA;  Capablanca was poorly disposed that day.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Why is h6 inaccurate?&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The move h6 is inaccurate because White does not threaten to play Ng5 (He could have done it before, and the exchange of light bishops might weaken the White king). h6 is a move difficult to understand because at this super high level, moves always have a goal. Here we do not clearly understand its purpose. My guess is that&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Black is playing a waiting move because it plans to sacrifice a pawn with c5 but waits for a more favorable moment. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Black does not want to push e4, which is natural, but tends to favor White. &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Black could have played instead Qe7 to prepare e4.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;r2qr1k1/1bpn1pb1/1p1p1npp/p3p3/1PP5/P2P1NP1/1BQNPPBP/R2R2K1 w - - 0 13&quot;]&#xA;[title &quot;Reti vs Capablanca, New York 1924&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Nf1 c5! {was that the plan?} 2.b5! {no thanks!} (2.bxa5 Rxa5 3.Nxe5 Bxg2 4.Nxd7 Bc6 5.Nxf6 Bxf6 6.Bxf6 Qxf6 7.Qd2 h5! {and Black has more than sufficient compensation according to Kasparov}) Nf8 e3 Qc7 d4 Be4 Qc3 exd4 exd4 N6d7 Qd2 cxd4 Bxd4 Qxc4 Bxg7 Kxg7 Qb2+ Kg8 Rxd6 Qc5 Rad1 Ra7 Ne3 Qh5 Nd4 Bxg2 Kxg2 Qe5 Nc4 Qc5 Nc6 Rc7 Ne3 Ne5 R1d5 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11749" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2020-05-25T09:35:40.947" LastActivityDate="2020-05-25T09:35:40.947" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29695" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29684" CreationDate="2020-05-25T02:46:50.727" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;From experience, you possibly make too many pawn moves, or move light pieces (or the queen) twice or even more often.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is a common error for weaker players to make moves that the opponent can defend and counterattack by developing a piece, and then you need to move the piece again.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Try to verify for each move:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;is the field you are moving to not a good and save long-term position?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;can the moved piece be easily and immediately attacked and forced to move again?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;does this move force the opponent to make a good move (developing one of his pieces)?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;did you move this piece already before?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;is it a unnecessary pawn move?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If any of this is true, it's potentially not a good move, as it loses you valuable time. Try to find another one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once the opening is over, these rules become less important; but don't lose tempo during the opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An efficient opening moves each light piece only once (4), only a small number of pawn moves (2-4), castles (1), and positions the queen (1), so after 8 to 10 moves, your rooks should be free to roam (not that that is necessarily what you should do next - but you could).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are of course exceptions to all this. But generally, it will be very useful to keep those in mind.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13230" LastActivityDate="2020-05-25T02:46:50.727" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29696" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29678" CreationDate="2020-05-25T02:54:28.920" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I doubt that can be possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An analysis to a certain depth contains the generated position tree and the calculated values, which is quickly becoming a very large amount of data.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;For depth 10, you probably need several megabytes of memory to represent the analysis result in a way that it could be used to continue searching deeper. There is simply no way to compress this into a small hash or anything else.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13230" LastActivityDate="2020-05-25T02:54:28.920" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29697" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29425" CreationDate="2020-05-25T09:09:16.413" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Going for c4 is pretty risky, while playing White. You are inviting the opponent to come and have a go at you through your weak Black Squares.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23643" LastActivityDate="2020-05-25T09:09:16.413" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29698" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29678" CreationDate="2020-05-25T10:13:19.250" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is &lt;strong&gt;definitely&lt;/strong&gt; impossible. Stockfish uses a game-tree search with pruning and evaluation heuristics. If it has searched to a certain 'depth', it means that it has built (in memory) a game tree to that depth excluding many pruned branches. To deepen a search, Stockfish would not only have to continue the search to subsequent moves past the end of each originally searched path, but also have to check many heuristically pruned branches (which may include those that were pruned as per alpha-beta pruning, since the evaluations may change). Doing so would require knowing practically the entire game-tree. There is thus absolutely no way to compress this into a short string, short of knowing a simple and optimal strategy for playing chess!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9192" LastActivityDate="2020-05-25T10:13:19.250" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29699" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29706" CreationDate="2020-05-25T10:48:41.477" Score="1" ViewCount="543" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/analysis/r1b2r2/5pk1/pq2p3/1p5Q/3p1P2/P2Rn1NP/1P4P1/7K%20w%20-%20-%200%2028&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Stockfish 10+ at depth 19 evaluated this position as a draw&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;White to play and mate in 10&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;r1b2r2/5pk1/pq2p3/1p5Q/3p1P2/P2Rn1NP/1P4P1/7K w - - 0 28&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, it is actually checkmate in 10! I understand that Stockfish prunes the search tree heavily, which can (in theory) result in such errors in evaluation. But this is the first time (in practice) that I have seen a non-contrived position (it came from a variant line of an actual game that I was exploring with Stockfish) with a completely wrong evaluation. Can anyone who is very familiar with the Stockfish code provide an explanation of the main factors here? Is it simply that there were too many quiescent moves? I count only 5 moves that are not a check or a forced move (i.e. the only move that does not result in mate-in-3) or a capture, and these 5 are the moves that I as a human player would consider as quiescent (even if I ignore the great king danger). Am I missing some other reason here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The principal variation is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;White checkmates in 10&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;r1b2r2/5pk1/pq2p3/1p5Q/3p1P2/P2Rn1NP/1P4P1/7K w - - 0 0&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Qg5+ Kh7 2. Nh5 Nf5 3. Nf6+ Kh8 4. Kh2 e5&#xA;5. Rg3 Qxf6 6. Qxf6+ Kh7 7. Rg5 d3 8. Rh5+ Nh6&#xA;9. Qxh6+ Kg8 10. Qh8#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stockfish 10+ at depth 19 evaluates it as draw until &lt;code&gt;29. Nh5&lt;/code&gt;. After the next move &lt;code&gt;Nf5&lt;/code&gt;, Stockfish thought it was +7.5. After the next move &lt;code&gt;Nf6+&lt;/code&gt; Stockfish knew it was game over.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9192" LastEditorUserId="9192" LastEditDate="2020-05-25T11:13:47.600" LastActivityDate="2020-05-25T21:53:56.290" Title="Mate-in-10 that Stockfish missed!" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;evaluation&gt;&lt;puzzles&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="7" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29700" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-05-25T13:53:35.687" Score="8" ViewCount="230" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've seen some streamers do what they call &quot;hand and brain&quot;, meaning that one person plays while the other chooses the kind of piece that they must move. All cases I've seen were intended for having fun. But it got me thinking about how effective would this be as a teaching tool.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question, at heart, is: &quot;Is playing hand and brain with a student an effective teaching tool?&quot; Since this is probably too opinion-based, I only ask if there are cases of GM's/notable coaches that employ it as a teaching tool consistently. If there are references attesting to it being an effective teaching tool, those are of course appreciated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2971" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-05-25T13:59:50.593" LastActivityDate="2020-07-23T16:36:20.063" Title="Does some GM or notable coach consistently employ &quot;hand and brain&quot; as a teaching tool?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;grandmaster&gt;&lt;teaching&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29701" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29712" CreationDate="2020-05-25T14:14:39.837" Score="11" ViewCount="543" Body="&lt;p&gt;Clearly not a practical question since the king can and should be used in the endgame, but I was curious if anyone has done a comprehensive analysis of which combinations of pieces (including some unrealistic combinations) can force a checkmate against a lone king in a pawnless endgame without being aided by their own king. Let's just pretend the attacking king doesn't exist (or maybe, as a looser restriction, tuck it in a remote corner where it might be allowed to make waiting moves).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are some easy combinations that can force a checkmate:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;queen and any other piece&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;two rooks&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, there are these classic endgames where it is possible to mate with the help of the king, but not without it:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;queen&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;rook &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;two bishops&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;bishop and knight&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems to me that the following combinations of pieces can force a checkmate:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;rook and two bishops&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;two bishops and two knights&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;four bishops (two pairs!)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And the following don't:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;rook and bishop&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;rook and knight (you can mate, but can you force it?)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But there are many other combinations I haven't looked at in detail yet:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;rook and two knights&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;rook and knight and bishop&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;two bishops and knight&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;two knights and bishop&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;three knights&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;three bishops&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;four knights&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;...&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12523" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-06-21T01:26:58.210" LastActivityDate="2020-07-15T08:02:57.650" Title="Which piece combinations can mate a lone king without being aided by the attacking king?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;problems&gt;&lt;combinations&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29702" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29703" CreationDate="2020-05-25T15:19:58.240" Score="5" ViewCount="1359" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;1k5r/p1p2pq1/2n5/1p1p3n/1P1Pp2Q/P1P1P1P1/1B1K2B1/7R b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Today I was playing a game with myself only. This is the condition now it is black to move. What can be the best move in this situation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23278" LastEditorUserId="23580" LastEditDate="2020-05-26T06:53:30.763" LastActivityDate="2020-05-26T14:00:35.993" Title="What is the best move for black in this game?" Tags="&lt;candidate-move&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29703" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29702" CreationDate="2020-05-25T16:21:25.037" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;The knight on h5 is pinned to a rook, and faced with the potential threat of g4. To unpin this knight, Black should play Rh7, so that the knight is free to go to f6 (where it will protect the rook).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;1k5r/p1p2pq1/2n5/1p1p3n/1P1Pp2Q/P1P1P1P1/1B1K2B1/7R b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1...Rh7 2.g4 { This move is just for illustration, and probably not best. } Nf6 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would argue that Rh7 is the best move in this position. It has been stated in a comment that Stockfish marginally prefers a6 to Rh7 (although it always prefers Rh7 when I try it, at all depths from 3 to 46 - it probably depends on cache state, number of threads, etc.). But from a human point of view, I don’t think a6 makes much sense: all the while the pin exists, White can try to find ways of exploiting it; Black ought to put a stop to this right now. In fact, the main purpose of a6 (from Stockfish’s point of view) seems to be to deal with one possible way of exploiting the pin; but clearly it’s simpler just to remove the pin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4182" LastEditorUserId="4182" LastEditDate="2020-05-26T14:00:35.993" LastActivityDate="2020-05-26T14:00:35.993" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29704" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29702" CreationDate="2020-05-25T17:14:43.703" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the present position black cannot move the knight, and it appears white is threatening to attack it with g4 but in fact if white plays g4 he won't be able to capture the knight with the pawn without losing the bishop n g2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;...Rh7 is one way to allow the knight to move away to f6 but it is not necessary to play that right away and you could play a move like ...a6 first.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12398" LastActivityDate="2020-05-25T17:14:43.703" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29705" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22741" CreationDate="2020-05-25T18:43:05.000" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In general:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;With increment you have one clock, and that counts down while it is your move. When your move is complete, the increment time is then added back to your clock.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;With delay you have 2 clocks, one for the current move and your main clock. The clock for your current move starts at the delay time, and if you exceed that, your main clock starts counting down instead. You only lose on time if your main clock goes down to 0 (or just below 0, so for example you can play 0 with 15 second delay in which case you must play all your moves in 15 seconds or less).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Delay is similar to the clock that sounds a tone and you move on the tone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One huge advantage in online chess with a short clock time and a medium delay is you are more immune against &quot;rage quitters&quot;. If you play with say 1 minute and 15 second delay, you will never have to wait more than 1 minute and 15 seconds if your opponent rage quits.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It can also be more &quot;entertaining&quot; to watch as players will never go into the &quot;tank&quot; so you'll see progress on the board, and games will be played out to a conclusion and not turn into a mad time-scramble with one player trying to flag the other.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That doesn't work as well with increment as players can blitz out their opening moves to get more time on their clock for the middle game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(For those who wish to be able to make use of their time that way, I guess that's an advantage of increment).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not interested in what is more cheat-proof. Cheats will cheat regardless of the time control.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For granularity of time, milliseconds is probably good enough, but you could store microseconds. For display to the user tenths of a second may be sufficient.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12398" LastEditorUserId="12398" LastEditDate="2020-05-26T08:49:14.353" LastActivityDate="2020-05-26T08:49:14.353" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29706" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29699" CreationDate="2020-05-25T21:27:40.567" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Depth 19 refers to 19 plies, not 19 moves (which would be 2 plies each). So it's reasonable that Stockfish would only find the mate shortly after depth 19, since 10.Qh8# is the 19th ply from the starting position you posted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastEditorUserId="12873" LastEditDate="2020-05-25T21:53:56.290" LastActivityDate="2020-05-25T21:53:56.290" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29708" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29717" CreationDate="2020-05-26T05:50:52.680" Score="5" ViewCount="1997" Body="&lt;p&gt;Wikipedia defines a blunder as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In chess, a blunder is a very bad move. It is usually caused by some tactical oversight, whether from time trouble, overconfidence or carelessness.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here when I use the engine from chess.com to analyse a game, the engine considers black's move Qf5-c2+ as a blunder and Qf5-h3 is considered as the best move. I failed to see why Qc2+ is a blunder; can anyone help me to explain?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, is this game a draw before Qf5-c2+ (assuming both sides make best moves)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/4pIYl.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/4pIYl.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit&lt;/strong&gt;: I am still curious about this position; anyone can help me with a deep engine analysis and see if it is a draw?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16626" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2020-05-31T03:01:53.067" Title="Why is Qf5-c2+ a blunder?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;blunder&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29709" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21592" CreationDate="2020-05-26T08:51:37.210" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Bh6+ Rxh6 forced and Qe5 is then checkmate&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12398" LastActivityDate="2020-05-26T08:51:37.210" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29710" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29708" CreationDate="2020-05-26T09:14:44.420" Score="17" Body="&lt;p&gt;The engine considers Qc2+ a blunder because it's a draw by repetition. (I think the position is probably a draw anyway, but Black could at least try for a win.) The problem is that you have already reached this position twice before. If this was the first time you had reached this position, there would be no problem: Qc2+ is actually a good move in itself. But since you have kept repeating the position instead of making progress, you now need to play something different, such as Qh3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4182" LastEditorUserId="4182" LastEditDate="2020-05-26T09:23:14.657" LastActivityDate="2020-05-26T09:23:14.657" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29711" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29713" CreationDate="2020-05-26T10:44:03.460" Score="6" ViewCount="457" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a beginner. Is there any place where I can play online and improve my game? I know of sites like Chess.com but unfortunately you have to pay for them. My parents won't allow me to spend money on it. What are the best free chess websites or apps?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23278" LastEditorUserId="20585" LastEditDate="2020-05-26T13:47:33.440" LastActivityDate="2020-05-26T19:49:53.880" Title="The best chess websites or apps to play on" Tags="&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;beginner&gt;&lt;online&gt;&lt;websites&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29712" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29701" CreationDate="2020-05-26T10:54:48.623" Score="11" Body="&lt;h2&gt;Possible&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;queen and any other piece&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The queen can on its own push the king to the edge of the board by following it  a knight-distance away and making use of zugzwang. Once on the edge, it is easy to bring the second piece and mate with the queen in front of the king. The only exception would be if the second piece is a pawn on the next to last row&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example for a knight (similar for any other piece).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;3k4/3Q4/8/4N3/8/8/8/4K3 w - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;two rooks&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well known lawnmower mate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;rook and two bishops&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Easy mate. Two bishops cover the escape route of the king while the rook checks from the side. Sample game to demonstrate the method:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;8/8/8/8/3k4/8/6RB/6KB w - - 0 1&#xA;&#xA;1. Re2 Kd3 2. Re8 Kd4 3. Bf4 Kd3 4. Bf3 Kd4 5. Rd8+ Kc4 6. Be3 Kc3 7. Be4 Kc4 8. Rc8+ Kb4 9. Bd5 Kb5 10. Rb8+ Ka5 11. Bc5 Ka6 12. Bc6 Ka5 13. Ra8# *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;two (opposite colored) bishops and two knights&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Easy mate. Push the king to the edge of the board where the two bishops can jail the king on two squares. Then take those two squares with the two knights.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;8/8/8/8/8/3k3K/6NB/6NB w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Nh4 Kd4 2. Bf4 Kc4 3. Bf3 Kb4 4. Be5 Kb5 5. Be4 Kc4 6. Ngf3 Kb4 7. Nd2 Ka4 8. Bd6 Kb5 9. Bd5 Ka6 10. Bc6 Kb6 11. Bd7 Kb7 12. Nc4 Ka6 13. Bc6 Ka7 14. Bc7 Ka6 15. Nf5 Ka7 16. Nfd6 Ka6 17. Ne5 Ka7 18. Nd3 Ka6 19. Nc5+ Ka7 20. Nc8#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Two pairs of (opposite colored) bishops&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Very easy mate. Four bishops cover lots of squares and it is even possible to mate the king in the middle of the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;8/8/8/8/8/3k3K/6BB/6BB w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Bf4 Kc4 2. Be4 Kc3 3. Bge3 Kc4 4. Bhf3 Kb4 5. Be2 Ka3 6. Be5 Ka4 7. Bc5 Kb3 8. Bb5 Ka2 9. Bc4#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;rook + bishop + knight&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Easy mate. Similarly to rook and two bishops you can cover the escape squares while the rook checks from the side.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;8/8/8/8/3k4/7K/6NR/7B w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Nh4 Kc3 2. Nf5 Kb3 3. Rd2 Kc4 4. Be4 Kb4 5. Rc2 Kb3 6. Bd3 Kb4 7. Nd4 Ka5 8. Rb2 Ka4 9. Bc4 Ka3 10. Rb6 Ka4 11. Nc2 Ka5 12. Ra6# &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;rook and two knights&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Easy mate. Similar to the king+rook mate, you can create a box with one knight protecting the rook. You have the second knight free to take further squares from the king and thereby make the box smaller. Mate is similar to rook + two bishops or rook+bishop+knight with the rook checking from the side and the knights taking away the escape squares.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;8/8/8/8/3k4/8/6NR/6NK w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Rh3 Ke5 2. Rh4 Kd6 3. Nf3 Kc5 4. Rd4 Kb5 5. Ne3 Kc6 6. Rd5 Kc7 7. Nd4 Kb6 8. Nc4+ Kc7 9. Rd6 Kc8 10. Nb5 Kb8 11. Rd7 Kc8 12. Rh7 Kd8 13. Ne5 Ke8 14. Nd6+ Kf8 15. Nf5 Kg8 16. Rh6 Kf8 17. Rh8#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;four knights&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Easy mate. Keeping the knights together you take lots of squares and it is easy to push back the king and mate him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;8/8/8/8/3k4/7N/6NN/6NK w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Nf2 Kc4 2. Nhf3 Kb4 3. Nf4 Kc4 4. Nge2 Kc5 5. Nd2 Kd6 6. N2d3 Ke7 7. Ne4 Kd7 8. Nd4 Ke8 9. Ne5 Kd8 10. Nd5 Ke8 11. Nd6+ Kf8 12. Ne6+ Kg8 13. Nf6+ Kh8 14. Ndf7#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Impossible&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;queen&lt;/strong&gt; or&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;rook&lt;/strong&gt; or&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;two bishops&lt;/strong&gt; or&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;two knights&lt;/strong&gt; or&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;bishop and knight&lt;/strong&gt; or&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;rook and bishop&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is not even a theoretical mating position for these.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;rook and knight&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a theoretical mate (Arabian mate), but it cannot be enforced. For an analysis see &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/23805/on-the-board-k-vs-krn-could-an-arabian-mate-be-done-without-king-s-help&quot;&gt;this question&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;two (opposite colored) bishops and knight&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is not obvious. Let's just look at the potential mating positions. You can easily convince yourself that the only way to mate is if the king is in the corner (let's say in a8, similarly for other corners) and if the mate is done by a bishop (along the a8-h1 diagonal) while the other bishop and the knight cover the escape squares b8 and a7. I can see three fundamentally different mates. (other mates are mirror symmetric or differ only in the distance of the bishops so are essentially the same).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;k7/B7/8/1N6/4B3/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;k7/8/N7/8/3BB3/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;k7/3N4/8/8/3BB3/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Doing a small retro-analysis, you see that in all cases the last move was Be4+ and that bishop came from somewhere along the b1-h7 diagonal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What was black's last move?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If the king came from a7 or b8, it could as well have gone to b7 in the last move (note that b7 was not covered by any piece since the light squared bishop came from the h7-b1 diagonal). If it went instead of a8 to b7 there was no mate possible.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If the king came from b7 in the last move, it was not forced to move to a8 either since at least one of the squares c8 or a6 were available as well.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So in summary, there is no forced mate with two bishops and a knight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;three bishops&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similar argument as with two bishops and a knight. You easily convince yourself that (theoretical) mate is only possible if the king is in the corner of the color of the single bishop. If there are two dark squared bishops and a light squared bishop, there are essentially two different (up to symmetry) mating positions on a8:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;k7/B7/8/8/3BB3/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;k7/8/8/8/3BBB2/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In either case, the last white move was Be4 and that bishop came from somewhere along the b1-h7 diagonal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the king was before on a7 or b8, it could have gone to b7. If the king was before on b7 it could have gone to c8 or a6. In any case there is no way to force the king to the corner and mate him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Impossible but no analytical proof yet&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;two knights and bishop&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;three knights&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For a proof by computer analysis see the answer below by Vaclav Kotesovec.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastEditorUserId="11629" LastEditDate="2020-07-15T08:02:57.650" LastActivityDate="2020-07-15T08:02:57.650" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29713" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29711" CreationDate="2020-05-26T12:38:51.200" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;The best completely free website I know of is Lichess. Personally, I use Chess.com. It's free to play on, and many of the features it has can be used by anyone. However, to gain full access to the website (e.g. the video library), you do need to pay for a membership. It is relatively inexpensive though—$100 per year, which is equivalent to $8.33 per month. (Other membership options are even cheaper.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many people still prefer Lichess, and it does have the advantage that absolutely everything is free. Ultimately, I think the best way to answer your question is to try out everything:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Proprietary (to gain full access, you need to pay):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.chess.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess24.com&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://chess24.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessclub.com&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.chessclub.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Open source (completely free, and run by volunteers):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://lichess.org&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that even the chess websites that offer paid subscriptions often come with a money-back guarantee. If you're organised enough to cancel your subscriptions, then you can pretty much trial everything before coming to a decision.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20585" LastEditorUserId="20585" LastEditDate="2020-05-26T19:49:53.880" LastActivityDate="2020-05-26T19:49:53.880" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29714" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29715" CreationDate="2020-05-26T14:32:52.990" Score="6" ViewCount="1130" Body="&lt;p&gt;My son and I are rank chess amateurs, and we wanted to play our first &quot;real&quot; game where we keep track of moves to analyze later.  We started the game but then realized that the board was reversed (i.e. the black pieces were on rows 1 and 2).  Since we didn't notice until a few moves had been played, we just continued to use this reversed notation for the whole game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The resulting PGN file doesn't want to import into lichess.  Is there any way to take our &quot;reversed&quot; PGN game file and make it compatible?  Perhaps some automated way to reverse the notation, or alert the PGN importer that the notation is reversed so it can handle it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23651" LastActivityDate="2020-05-31T14:59:02.797" Title="How to correct reversed game notation?" Tags="&lt;notation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29715" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29714" CreationDate="2020-05-26T15:09:50.437" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you set the board up correctly, i.e. &quot;white on the right and queen on her own colour&quot;, then you need to flip the letters like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a &amp;harr; h&lt;br&gt;&#xA;b &amp;harr; g&lt;br&gt;&#xA;c &amp;harr; f&lt;br&gt;&#xA;d &amp;harr; e&lt;br&gt;&#xA;and the numbers like this:&lt;br&gt;&#xA;1 &amp;harr; 8&lt;br&gt;&#xA;2 &amp;harr; 7&lt;br&gt;&#xA;3 &amp;harr; 6&lt;br&gt;&#xA;4 &amp;harr; 5&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, if white's first move was to push the pawn in front of the king 2 squares you will have written &quot;d5&quot; or &quot;d7-d5&quot;. Using the look-up above change this to &quot;e4&quot; or &quot;e2-e4&quot;. Do the same for black's first move. If white's second move was to move the knight nearest the king to the square two in front of the bishop and you have written &quot;Nc6&quot; use the look-up to change this to &quot;Nf3&quot;. Work through all the moves changing them according to the look-up. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are a programmer and the game is long it will probably be easier to write a simple program to do this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="17823" LastEditDate="2020-05-31T14:59:02.797" LastActivityDate="2020-05-31T14:59:02.797" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29716" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-05-26T15:39:15.027" Score="8" ViewCount="327" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess engines are so strong that it is becoming increasingly hard to find positions that they are demonstrably evaluating incorrectly. I'm interested in collecting examples&amp;mdash;if there are any&amp;mdash;of positions where we know the correct evaluation, but that are very difficult for engines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Below is a beautiful study that I encountered recently in Chapter 5 of the book &lt;i&gt;Barrycades and Septoku: Papers in Honor of Martin Gardner and Tom Rodgers&lt;/i&gt;, by Thane Plambeck and Tomas Rokicki (eds.), MAA Press, 2020.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Carlos Pereira dos Santos, White To Play And Win&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;bR2r3/2nK4/kp1pp1pp/p1R2p2/1P1P1P1P/p7/P2P3P/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The engines I have access to are old and out of date, but after 1.b5+ Ka7 they want to play 2.Rxe8? and miss the winning continuation 2.Rxa8! Nxa8 3.Rc8! Rxc8 4.Kxc8 with a win for White. I would be curious to know if stronger engines are able to find this win.  [&lt;b&gt;EDIT:&lt;/b&gt; Thanks to Oscar Smith for pointing out that I can download Stockfish 11 for free. It had some difficulty at first, but after searching about 2.5 billion nodes it finally found 2.Rxa8!]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Years ago, there was a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.chessbase.com/post/can-we-still-deceive-computers-in-chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;ChessBase article&lt;/a&gt; on this topic.  They give some examples of positions, such as fortresses, where the engines' numerical evaluation is way off.  However, sometimes the engine plays the position correctly anyway, finding the drawing moves even though it thinks it's losing, and such examples are not so interesting to me.  What is more interesting to me is a position where the engine loses a position that a perfect player would draw, or draws (or even loses) a position that a perfect player would win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Probably the best example from that article is a study by Behting, shown below.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;K. K. Behting, Baltische Schachblätter 1908, White To Play And Draw&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;8/8/7p/3KNN1k/2p4p/8/3P2p1/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As of 2012, careful analysis demonstrated that &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.chessbase.com/post/john-nunn-the-behting-study-is-sound&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;the study is sound&lt;/a&gt; but that engines had serious trouble with it.  Is that still true today?  [&lt;b&gt;EDIT:&lt;/b&gt; It seems so; after searching 25 billion nodes, Stockfish 11 was still unsuccessfully trying the 1.Ng7+ line that is analyzed in detail &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.chessbase.com/post/john-nunn-the-behting-study-is-sound&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is one other type of example that I know about, namely tablebase positions where White has an extremely subtle win.  For example, below is a position that I found on &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endgame_tablebase#Computer_chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Lomonosov Tablebase, White To Play And Win&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;8/r6n/2Q5/8/5k2/3K4/7N/3b3q w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Clearly, if an engine &lt;i&gt;without&lt;/i&gt; tablebases plays White and an engine &lt;i&gt;with&lt;/i&gt; tablebases plays Black, the engine playing White is not going to win.  Sooner or later it is bound to blunder away the win.  I would be curious if there are any humanly comprehensible examples of this type.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the process of typing up this question, I found &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/q/6297&quot;&gt;another question on this site&lt;/a&gt; that asks a very similar question.  Unfortunately, some of the answers there seem to be (no longer?) valid.  Also, let me emphasize again that for my purposes, a fortress position that the engine thinks is losing but that it plays correctly anyway does not count.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In short, my question is this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Are there other good examples of positions that stump engines?&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17540" LastEditorUserId="17540" LastEditDate="2020-05-27T19:55:04.693" LastActivityDate="2020-05-27T19:55:04.693" Title="Positions that stump engines" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;problems&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29717" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29708" CreationDate="2020-05-26T18:32:53.093" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I agree with Stephen's points however...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;... in normal times, with no previous repetition, &lt;code&gt;Qç2&lt;/code&gt; is actually a &lt;strong&gt;good try&lt;/strong&gt; to win the game! &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The plan to win this game is to &lt;strong&gt;bring the Black King to g3&lt;/strong&gt; in order to mate the White King. Meanwhile Black should protect the b7-pawn, which will be attacked by the Bg4-c8 maneuver. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, I didn't see how White defends against Black's plan because in practice it is very hard to defend this position. Here is an illustration:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;8/1p2k2p/1Pp5/2PpNq1P/3P4/4PB2/4K3/8 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Qc2! 2.Ke1 Kf6! 3.Bg4! {the best idea to draw the game} Qg2! (3...Kg5 4.Bc8 Kxh5 5.Bxb7=) 4.Bc8 Qg7 5.Bg4? (5.Kd2 Kg5 6.Nd3!! {see the following diagram}) Kg5 6.Ke2 Kh4 7.Kf2 Qf8 8.Kg2 Qf6 9.Bf3 (9.Bc8 Kxh5 10.Bxb7 Qg7-+) Qg5 10.Kf2 Qg3 11.Ke2 Qh2 12.Kd3 Qb2 13.Bg4 (13.e4 {is not so effective} Qb3 14.Ke2 Qc3! 15.exd5 Qxd4 16.Nxc6 {sets a nice trap} bxc6 17.dxc6 Kg3! (17...Qxc5 18.c7=)18.c7 Qf2-+) Kg3! 14.Bc8 Kf2 15.Bxb7 Ke1-+ {and the mate follows soon} 16.Nf3 Kd1 17.Bxc6 Qb3#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, I am not so sure it's winning because White has a &lt;strong&gt;fantastic fortress&lt;/strong&gt;, which consists of transferring the Knight to f4, via d3, to prevent the Black King to enter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;2B5/1p4qp/1Pp2k2/2PpN2P/3P4/4P3/8/4K3 w - - 7 5&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Kd2 Kg5 2.Nd3!! Kxh5 3.Nf4 Kh4 4.Ke2 Qe7 (4...Kg3?? 5.Nh5) 5.Kf3 {and the Black king cannot enter into g3!}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black can improve its position by pushing the pawn to h4, bringing the King back to d8 to chase the Bishop and centralizing the Queen. It can also set some traps. It's horrible to defend for White, but I am not sure this is a forced win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;3k4/1p6/1Pp5/2Pp4/3PqN1p/4P2B/5K2/8 b - - 75 49&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Qc2 2.Kf3 Qh2 3.Bg2?? (3.Bf5 {and I don't see a clear win}) Qg3 4.Ke2 Qxg2!! 5.Nxg2 h3-+ &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To capture the h5-pawn is probably not useful because the h7-pawn can go until h4 and then it is stopped. Moreover, the h4-pawn prevents the Black King from entering. However, so far I have not been able to find another winning plan for Black! But, I'm trying...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;2B5/1p4qp/1Pp5/2Pp2kP/3P4/3NP3/4K3/8 b - - 10 6&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Kh4!? 2. Nf4 Kg3 3.Nd3! {the Knight is a super defender} Qf7 4.Kd2! Qe7 5.Ke2! {to close the door for the King}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11749" LastEditorUserId="11749" LastEditDate="2020-05-26T22:50:14.777" LastActivityDate="2020-05-26T22:50:14.777" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29718" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14601" CreationDate="2020-05-26T19:36:02.853" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;This website has a chess ebook reader available for scanning chess diagrams from PDF:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chessvision.ai/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://chessvision.ai/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Additionally they also have browser extensions for Chrome and Firefox which is really handy in scanning images of positions on any web page.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23657" LastActivityDate="2020-05-26T19:36:02.853" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29719" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-05-26T21:24:43.463" Score="2" ViewCount="229" Body="&lt;p&gt;I moved my king as I wanted it to be in a safer location and after I did my turn my opponent realised that I put my king in check by accident and as the rules state you cannot put your king in check we did not know whether we should go back to my last turn or if my opponent had won the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23658" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-05-26T22:22:04.567" LastActivityDate="2020-05-27T18:34:29.667" Title="What do you do when you put your king in check and you don’t realise?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;check&gt;&lt;kings&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29720" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29714" CreationDate="2020-05-26T23:32:38.763" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;Adding on to Brian Towers' answer, there is a quick way you can script this (assuming you are on Linux or another POSIX system with the &lt;code&gt;tr&lt;/code&gt; command):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;cat gamelog.txt | tr 'abcdefgh12345678' 'hgfedcba87654321' &amp;gt; gamelog_reversed.txt&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: as @wimi said, this will mess up move numbers, so be careful about that. You may want to use &lt;code&gt;cut&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;paste&lt;/code&gt; to seperate only the columns with the moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23659" LastEditorUserId="23659" LastEditDate="2020-05-28T16:14:51.567" LastActivityDate="2020-05-28T16:14:51.567" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29723" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29716" CreationDate="2020-05-27T02:47:54.340" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are plenty of positions that stump engines, and it's not too difficult to find some from engine tournaments. Example, &lt;a href=&quot;https://tcec-chess.com/#div=sf&amp;amp;game=61&amp;amp;season=17&amp;amp;x=archive&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this position stumped Stockfish&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;1k1r4/pp4pp/4pb2/2Q5/2P5/8/P5PP/6K1 w - - 1 28&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stockfish actually reached +2.76 eval later, even though White has no way to break through. In fact Black can afford to give up the e6-pawn and the position is still drawn. Lc0 evaluated the position accurately as a draw, which doesn't mean Lc0 is some kind of goddess at evaluating fortresses, since &lt;a href=&quot;https://tcec-chess.com/#div=sf&amp;amp;game=40&amp;amp;season=17&amp;amp;x=archive&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this position stumped Lc0&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;5k2/5p2/p3pPp1/3pN2p/b6P/2P5/P5P1/7K w - - 0 35&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black plays ...Bb5 and defends along the f1-a6 diagonal, and White will never get anywhere, especially since if the Knight moves too much Black advances the e6-pawn with counterplay. This time Stockfish accurately assessed the position as drawn, while Lc0 was at +1.6 - or about 60% chance to win - or so for quite a while.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you're wondering about positions with &lt;em&gt;study-like solutions&lt;/em&gt; that humans think is pretty - that's a different question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastActivityDate="2020-05-27T02:47:54.340" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29724" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29719" CreationDate="2020-05-27T04:51:56.907" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this case you would just go back to the last turn. In official tournaments, a rule used is you get a penalty on the first time you make an illegal move, and then if you make 1-2 more illegal moves (for FIDE it's 1 more) you lose the game. But assuming this game was just for fun, as it seems no arbiter was involved to help out, just take the move back and continue the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastEditorUserId="12873" LastEditDate="2020-05-27T18:34:29.667" LastActivityDate="2020-05-27T18:34:29.667" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29725" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29719" CreationDate="2020-05-27T10:29:47.737" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It depends on the tournament policy that you play. For some tournaments, there is a penalty such as losing the game if you have done 3 illegal moves. The procedure is generally like this: Your opponent should stop the clock and call the referee. The rest depends on the decision of the referee.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23665" LastActivityDate="2020-05-27T10:29:47.737" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29727" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29719" CreationDate="2020-05-27T11:46:09.730" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You noticed immediately, which makes it very easy because in this case the rules are the same (apart from time penalty) for all forms of chess. In the first instance you have to take back the illegal move and make a legal move. If possible you have to move the piece you touched. So, if your king could legally move to another square that's the move you would have to make. If it could legally move to several squares then you could choose between them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For a first offence your opponent gains time on the clock. At blitz this is 1 minute and for standard and rapid it is 2 minutes. A second offence loses the game. But note that these penalties only apply if you pressed the clock before your opponent noticed and told you. If you did not press the clock then there is no penalty. You just have to make a legal move with the piece you touched.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The rules governing this are the &lt;a href=&quot;https://handbook.fide.com/chapter/E012018&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Laws of Chess&lt;/a&gt;. This is what they have to say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;7.5.1  An illegal move is completed once the player has pressed his clock. If during a game it is found that an illegal move has been&#xA;  completed, the position immediately before the irregularity shall be&#xA;  reinstated. If the position immediately before the irregularity cannot&#xA;  be determined, the game shall continue from the last identifiable&#xA;  position prior to the irregularity. Articles 4.3 and 4.7 apply to the&#xA;  move replacing the illegal move. The game shall then continue from&#xA;  this reinstated position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;7.5.5   After the action taken under Article 7.5.1, 7.5.2, 7.5.3 or 7.5.4 for the first completed illegal move by a player, the arbiter shall give two minutes extra time to his opponent; for the second&#xA;  completed illegal move by the same player the arbiter shall declare&#xA;  the game lost by this player. However, the game is drawn if the&#xA;  position is such that the opponent cannot checkmate the player’s king&#xA;  by any possible series of legal moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Those are the rules for standard time control where the moves are being written. Because the moves are being written down it doesn't matter if the illegal move is noticed after several more moves were played, you still have to go back to the position when the illegal move was made and make a legal move instead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For rapid and blitz this usually isn't possible and so the rules say that the illegal move has to be flagged before the next move. Appendix A in the Laws deals with rapid and the rule says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A.4.2 If the arbiter observes an action taken under Article 7.5.1,&#xA;  7.5.2, 7.5.3 or 7.5.4, he shall act according to Article 7.5.5, provided the opponent has not made his next move. If the arbiter does&#xA;  not intervene, the opponent is entitled to claim, provided the&#xA;  opponent has not made his next move. If the opponent does not claim&#xA;  and the arbiter does not intervene, the illegal move shall stand and&#xA;  the game shall continue. Once the opponent has made his next move, an&#xA;  illegal move cannot be corrected unless this is agreed by the players&#xA;  without intervention of the arbiter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Appendix B deals with blitz and that says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;B.4 Otherwise, play shall be governed by the Rapid chess Laws as in&#xA;  Article A.2 and A.4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, the rules are the same as for rapid, but for the penalties:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;B.2 The penalties mentioned in Articles 7 and 9 of the Competition&#xA;  Rules shall be one minute instead of two minutes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-05-27T11:46:09.730" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29728" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-05-27T15:36:41.773" Score="6" ViewCount="741" Body="&lt;p&gt;I couldn't find any data about the percentage of moves that a typical human grandmaster would be able to predict in games of other human grandmasters. To clarify my definition of accuracy: The predicting player would predict the next half-move for a position from a game he or she has never seen before, only being able to see past positions from the same game (preferably without even seeing the names of the players or when the game was played). To limit the influence of blunders, only games with classical time control should be used and the predicting player would have a limited time per move to make the prediction (let's say 1 minute per move). A correctly predicted move counts as 100%, an incorrectly predicted move as 0% and these numbers would be averaged over a large number of positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since I couldn't find anything, I tried it myself and achieved 42 out of 119 (35.3%) in a randomly chosen grandmaster game (Alekhine vs. Erik Lundin, 1941, Round 7), but I'm quite amateurish, not a grandmaster. Randomly guessing legal moves would have achieved less than 5% in that specific game. My conditions do not have to be followed strictly, but I'm not really interested in accuracy results for blitz games, games of weaker players or &quot;immediate&quot;, intuition-based predictions (i.e. without giving the predicting player time to think).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm interested in this because I want to know how accuracy varies with playing strength of the predicting player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23668" LastEditorUserId="23668" LastEditDate="2020-05-28T13:47:19.980" LastActivityDate="2020-06-22T18:52:34.530" Title="What is the typical move prediction accuracy of human chess grandmasters?" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;statistics&gt;&lt;grandmaster&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29729" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29425" CreationDate="2020-05-27T16:00:13.160" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;To answer your question- Yes you can. It's perfectly sound.&#xA;You end up transposing to a Botvinnik system in the English Opening at some point. &#xA;This is fine, but it's very slow, very closed, and may not be what you want out of your openings if you play e4. As suggested, your good variation choices go as follows:&#xA; 1. Some Open Sicilian line- If you dislike 1.. c5, this is probably not what you want to go for. There's a substantial amount of theory, but these will probably suit your playstyle best. Some people (like me) don't like them either and choose one of the other options&#xA; 2. Closed Sicilian lines (2. Nc3).&#xA; 3. King's Indian Attack setups (d3, Nf3, g3, bg2, 0-0, etc)&#xA; 4. Rossolimo (1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 Bb5) and a way to deal with 2..d6 (Bb5+ is my recommendation here), and 2..g6 and 2.. e6. &#xA; 5. Other &quot;Anti-Sicilians&quot; meant to avoid the Open.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23100" LastActivityDate="2020-05-27T16:00:13.160" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29730" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29358" CreationDate="2020-05-27T19:47:32.427" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's not much I can add to the other answers, but I want to make clear that both the number of legal positions and the search depth are misleading or even irrelevant metrics. About legal positions: In the king &amp;amp; rook vs. king endgame there are over 200000 legal positions (when not considering symmetries), but mating with the rook is easy enough that you probably need to see it executed just once and can memorize the algorithm. For rules like &quot;a bishop pair is worth more than 2 bishops&quot;, you don't need to compare the vast number of positions with a bishop pair to the ones without it. In fact, you don't even need to look at 1 position, because you probably learned it from a more experienced player without reference to any particular position. It can also be derived logically from the properties of a bishop. Looking beyond chess, the number of legal Go positions is known to be about 2*10^171 and the number of legal positions for Go on the smaller 9x9 board is about 1*10^38. Does that mean that Go is more complex than Chess and that 9x9 Go is less complex? Without additional information, that judgment can't be made. It would even be easy to design a game that has more legal positions than Go, but is trivial to play. All these examples should make clear that the number of legal positions does not really tell you anything about the game, even if you restrict the positions to some subset like &quot;positions with a bishop pair&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;About search depth: Stockfish searches 60 million positions per second on the hardware used by Deepmind to compare it to AlphaZero, whereas AlphaZero only searched about 60 thousand positions per second. Both are of similar strength. And you could easily write a chess engine that uses Stockfish's highly optimized move generation, but replaces its algorithms for pruning and evaluating with some crap that results in this new engine playing like an average player with the same resources that Stockfish itself would use to play on world champion level. And even without calculating ahead at all, a human player will sometimes choose a move that agrees with the strongest engines (e.g. when the opposing queen takes your queen, the intuition tells you to retake the opposing queen). In other words: The quality of your move choices matters as much or probably more than the search depth.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23668" LastActivityDate="2020-05-27T19:47:32.427" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29731" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-05-28T00:12:47.437" Score="19" ViewCount="3488" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess is unsolved, so there is no known optimal strategy for one side to force a win or a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, is there an optimal strategy to lose? Consider a variant where checkmate results in a loss, but all other rules are the same as regular chess. Is there a known optimal strategy to win or force a draw?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, can one side force the opponent to checkmate (assuming the opponent tries to avoid checkmate)? If not, can one side force a draw by rules like stalemate, threefold repetition, or the fifty-move rule? Or is this as hard to solve as regular chess?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23673" LastEditorUserId="23673" LastEditDate="2020-05-29T18:24:44.890" LastActivityDate="2020-12-23T04:39:54.397" Title="Can one side force a loss in regular chess?" Tags="&lt;chess-variants&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="9" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29732" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29731" CreationDate="2020-05-28T00:33:11.333" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;As far as I know, there is no chess variant that has been investigated that is exactly as you describe. However, &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Losing_chess&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;antichess&lt;/a&gt; is a quite similar concept. The objective is to lose all your pieces/be stalemated, and it is required for you to take a piece if you can. It was weakly solved to be a win, starting with 1. e3. It is still interesting, however, as many of the lines are extremely long (over 100 moves). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In order to answer your exact question, it would be fairly difficult, but might be slightly easier to solve than regular chess. A powerful computer would likely be needed in order to figure it out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23100" LastActivityDate="2020-05-28T00:33:11.333" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29733" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29731" CreationDate="2020-05-28T01:26:33.310" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Finding the optimal strategy requires the investigation of pretty much all (pretty much, in the grand scale of things) the positions that are possible to get to from the start.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While developing a computer program that plays extremely well in chess (or other similar games) is a solvable task—actually, it is a solved task somewhere in the beginning of the XXI century—finding and proving an optimal strategy &lt;strong&gt;is a totally different problem&lt;/strong&gt;. Chess is hard to fully analyze because of the large number of possible positions. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To go more formal, consider &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shannon_number&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Shannon number&lt;/a&gt; &lt;code&gt;10^120&lt;/code&gt; which is a lower-bound on the game-tree complexity of chess. It is true that the sensible games would go much lower to around &lt;code&gt;10^40&lt;/code&gt;, but it will not matter too much.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the game variant you describe, one has to find the &lt;em&gt;Shannon-like&lt;/em&gt; number to say about the feasibility of finding the optimal strategy. However, simply by looking at the rules, I doubt it would result in something that is feasible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus, I don't expect an optimal playing strategy for this variant to be found any time soon. While it might be slightly easier than for regular chess, the complexity will still be enormous.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;NB: &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Losing_chess&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Antichess example&lt;/a&gt; is different because of the introduction of the compulsory capture, which severely reduces the number of possible variations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10570" LastEditorUserId="10570" LastEditDate="2020-05-28T01:32:39.887" LastActivityDate="2020-05-28T01:32:39.887" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29734" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29731" CreationDate="2020-05-28T04:45:49.613" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is likely not a way to force a loss. Selfmates are relatively rare, and one can probably not be forced from the opening position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The best plan, paradoxically, is likely to try to capture as many of the opponent's pieces (but not pawns) as possible, while keeping your own pieces to be better able to force your opponent. The opponent's pawns are kept because they have very little choice as to where they can move, and can also be easily blocked to avoid the opponent moving them before you want them to. For example, in the following position, the f-pawn is blocked and the king cannot move, so Black has no choice but to advance the g-pawn and will have to checkmate White in two moves:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;3Q4/8/8/4N3/6p1/7k/5p2/5N1K b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;If not, can one side force a draw&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well, if checkmate indeed cannot be forced, then almost by definition a draw could be forced. The game can't go on forever, after all. If nothing else, the players will eventually run out of pawns to move or pieces to capture, and the 50 move rule will come into play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2020-05-28T04:45:49.613" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29735" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29738" CreationDate="2020-05-28T06:17:46.713" Score="3" ViewCount="687" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;3r1rk1/7p/bq2ppp1/p1R5/Pp2P2P/4QB2/1P3PP1/3R2K1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far I can see, Black’s bishop has more scope than the white one, White has some isolated pawns, and the Black pawns rule the 5th rank.S Since Black appears to be better here, then why does the engine show a better evaluation for White much more than I expected?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21840" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-05-28T12:58:03.833" LastActivityDate="2020-05-28T13:46:53.963" Title="Can someone explain the positional advantages for white?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;&lt;middlegame&gt;&lt;evaluation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29737" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29214" CreationDate="2020-05-28T07:20:23.373" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The USCF implemented Elo's suggestions in 1960, and the system quickly gained recognition as being both fairer and more accurate than the Harkness rating system. Elo's system was adopted by the World Chess Federation (FIDE) in 1970. Fide used k=30 factor before July 2014. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23660" LastActivityDate="2020-05-28T07:20:23.373" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29738" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29735" CreationDate="2020-05-28T08:35:48.613" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;You evaluate the position &lt;em&gt;statically&lt;/em&gt; which only rarely works. As for your static evaluation you are correct, that the black bishop is stronger and that the pawns take some squares on the fifth rank. On the other hand, white has two active rooks vs one black rook.Stockfish gives a static evaluation for this position of +0.76 if white is to move and +0.5 if it is black's move. So statically it is roughly equal with a slight advantage for white.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, such static evaluation is only really useful (if at all) in quiet and/or closed positions. In open positions like the one here, where there are concrete ideas, the static evaluation does not tell you anything. You should look at least a couple of moves deep to see what plans white and black could follow.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White has at least three obvious ideas: play against the a5 pawn, against the week pawns on e6 and f6 or directly against the black king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black has no obvious plan other than exchanging pieces and (if veryvery lucky enter the white position with heavy pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Concretely to your question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Black’s bishop has more scope than the white one&lt;/strong&gt;: True, the black bishop has more scope, but there is not much to do along that diagonal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;White has some isolated pawns&lt;/strong&gt;: Neither player has isolated pawns. Please check what an &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isolated_pawn&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;isolated pawn&lt;/a&gt; is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;the Black pawns rule the 5th rank.S:&lt;/strong&gt; They cover squares on the 5th rank, but hey that's just the 5th rank, i.e., on the black side of the board (in the starting position the pawns rule the 6th rank....). Also (and much more relevant here), since the pawns are next to each other they don't support each other anymore and the pawns on e6 and f6 are weaknesses. Typically, building such horizontal line of pawns to gain space is a good thing to do in the opening phase, when the pawns can be supported by pieces. Towards the endgame such pawn lines can often become weaknesses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Assuming it is white to move,my engine says about +3, (which means white is clearly winning) and gives the following line: 1. Rxd8 Qxd8 (or Rxd8 which is slightly worse) 2. e5&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If black captures fxe5 or allows white to capture exf6, he will end up with a very weak isolated pawn on e6 (in addition to the weak pawn on a5) and a rather open king (ideas with Qe5, Rc7 or h5 look very scary for black).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If black closes the position with f5, the engine likes to go for the a5 pawn by exchanging queens with Qg5. Another viable option could be h5 with an attack on the king. In any case, black is left with weak pawns on e6 and a5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So in summary, it is basically black's weak pawns that make the difference. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If in the initial position you...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;move the pawn from f6 to f7, the evaluation improves for black to +2, because the pawn structure is much more stable.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;remove all the pawns on the a and b files, the evaluation improves for black to +1 only.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastEditorUserId="11629" LastEditDate="2020-05-28T13:46:53.963" LastActivityDate="2020-05-28T13:46:53.963" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29739" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-05-28T09:46:06.267" Score="3" ViewCount="85" Body="&lt;p&gt;In order not to overload the answer to &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/29701/which-piece-combinations-can-mate-a-lone-king-without-being-aided-by-the-attacki/29712#29712&quot;&gt;this question&lt;/a&gt;, I split off the bishop+two knights part. So the question is: Is it possible to mate with a bishop and two knights without the help of the king?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2020-05-28T10:13:07.527" Title="Can one mate a lone king with Bishop and two knights without being aided by the attacking king?" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29740" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29739" CreationDate="2020-05-28T09:46:06.267" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Work in progress&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can convince yourself easily, that mate is only possible in a corner of the board. We distinguish four cases:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The corner is the same color as the bishop and the bishop mates&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The corner is the same color as the bishop and a knight mates&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The corner is the opposite color as the bishop and the bishop mates&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The corner is the opposite color as the bishop and a knight mates&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the following analysis we only consider unique positions that are not related by symmetry. Also we don't distinguish between similar positions of a bishop along a diagonal, if the same essential square(s) is covered.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Starting with the first case, bishop same color as the corner and the bishop mates. There are 5 distinct (up to symmetry) mating positions: 1.1a to 1.1e. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/XvXzR.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/XvXzR.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Doing a retro-analysis for 1.1a and 1.1b:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;White's last move was Bb7+ and the bishop came from c8 or a6.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Black's last move was Ka8 and the king came from b8 or a7. The king was not forced to go to the corner and could have escaped to c7 or b6 instead.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Doing a retro-analysis for 1.1c, 1.1d and 1.1e:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;White's last move was Be4+ and the bishop came from somewhere along the b1-h7 diagonal.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Black's last move was Ka8. If the king came from b8 or a7, it could have gone to b7 instead of the corner. If the king came from b7, it could have gone to (among others) c6 instead of the corner.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So in conclusion, it is not possible to force a mate with the bishop in the corner of the bishop's color.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The second case, bishop same color as the corner and the knight mates. There are 2 distinct (up to symmetry) mating positions: 1.2a and 1.2b. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9i2OT.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9i2OT.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;White's last move was Nb6+ and the knight came from a4, c4, d5, d7 or c8.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Black's last move was Ka8. If the king came from b7, it could have captured Kxc6 instead (note that the c6 knight was not protected then).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;If the king came from a7 or b8, there is actually a longer series of forced moves leading to mate! Needs further invetstigation.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;2. Corner opposite to the bishop's color&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;2.1 Bishop mates&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You easily see that there is not even a theoretical mating position for this case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;2.2 Knight mates&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You easily see that there is not even a theoretical mating position for this case. In order to mate, one knight would have to check the king in the corner, say a8, the other knight would have to cover the light square b7 and the bishop would have to cover both a7 and b8 which it cannot.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastEditorUserId="11629" LastEditDate="2020-05-28T10:13:07.527" LastActivityDate="2020-05-28T10:13:07.527" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29741" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29731" CreationDate="2020-05-28T10:34:17.137" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Forcing self-mate can be done from certain positions, the one forcing their opponent to checkmate them is usually far ahead in material. When I was a teenager (a long time ago) I actually studied the art of self-mate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a game in Chess Companion where one player gave the other queen odds and the one with the extra queen had to force self-mate (and achieved it!). From that game I learned the technique.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Obviously it is not forced from the opening position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To achieve it you have to be far ahead in material to restrict your opponent's legal moves. Their final move will be to capture one of yours that is giving check. (I can't unfortunately remember how it's done).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12398" LastActivityDate="2020-05-28T10:34:17.137" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29742" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29735" CreationDate="2020-05-28T11:36:16.760" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It seems to me the advantages for White would be that White's major pieces - the 2 Rooks and the Queen are aimed at the center - and even the minor piece - the Bishop - is aimed at the center too - even though its own pawn blocks its immediate reach. White has a pawn in the center also. The center being the sweet spot - d4 d5 e4 e5. Black has only a single major piece - a Rook - which can cover the center, and though Black has 2 pawns that cover a single square a piece of the center - it doesn't have the pawn positioned in the center alike its White adversary. White also has a space advantage, with its major pieces covering more of the board than Black - plus it has 3 pawns on the 4th rank - versus 1 Black pawn being on their own 4th rank - though it has one on its 5th rank. It seems to me &#xA;the biggest advantage White has over Black would be that it's White's turn to move.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9245" LastActivityDate="2020-05-28T11:36:16.760" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29743" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-05-28T11:36:19.450" Score="3" ViewCount="72" Body="&lt;p&gt;I work at a public library and we used to offer a monthly chess night, which is on hold right now due to lockdown regulations. We are planning to offer a small garden chess tournament outside the library with one chess set and maybe pre-registration to control crowd size.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What would you say is a good time format to offer? What tournament mode?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was thinking to just do some &quot;winner stays at the board, 6 challenges 15+0&quot; kind of thing?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11948" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-05-28T12:45:32.323" LastActivityDate="2020-07-15T05:33:28.770" Title="One board tournament" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29744" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-05-28T13:26:07.237" Score="2" ViewCount="122" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to have a setup on my computer to play BugHouse with three engine. One engine would be my partner and the other two would be the opposing team. How can I setup such a scenario? I use Linux but I can also use Windows. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have seen the support for BugHouse and XBoard as a client, but I have not found a way to connect the two to play BugHouse with two open XBoards. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I found such a program in the android playstore, but the engine in the app was very poor not much fun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23679" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-05-28T16:19:08.687" LastActivityDate="2020-06-08T06:38:47.367" Title="Setting up BugHouse on my computer" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;bughouse&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29745" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29744" CreationDate="2020-05-28T18:11:44.233" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The only way I know of playing bughouse using XBoard/Winboard is to play via FICS, see e.g. &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/ianfab/Fairy-Stockfish/wiki/Setting-up-Fairy-Stockfish-on-FICS#bughouse&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://github.com/ianfab/Fairy-Stockfish/wiki/Setting-up-Fairy-Stockfish-on-FICS#bughouse&lt;/a&gt; (it works very similar for other bughouse engines), i.e., it does not work offline. You would just use four FICS guest accounts whereof three are your engine instances, and create two bughouse teams from them. I tried this several times already and for me it works fine, although of course it is not very convenient to set up, but once set up it works smoothly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15415" LastEditorUserId="15415" LastEditDate="2020-06-08T06:38:47.367" LastActivityDate="2020-06-08T06:38:47.367" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29746" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29645" CreationDate="2020-05-29T00:24:49.447" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is there a substitute for this strategy that still uses the&#xA;  scoresheet, but is legal under Fide rules?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to 12.3a FIDE:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;12.3a During play the players are forbidden to make use of any notes, sources of&#xA;  information or advice, or analyse on another chessboard.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, if any performed action is considered as &lt;em&gt;making use of notes&lt;/em&gt;, it is a violation. This is confirmed by &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;12.4 The scoresheet shall be used only for recording the moves, the times of the clocks, the offers of a draw, and matters relating to a claim and other relevant data.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and the rule that you are probably referring to&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;8.1 ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;It is forbidden to write the moves in advance, unless the player is claiming a draw according to Article 9.2, or 9.3 or adjourning a game according to the Guidelines of Adjourned Games point 1.a.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While there are many advices that can be given to substitute the scoresheet (visualization, writing mentally, etc), the current FIDE rules limit you severely.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, can you come up with a substitute strategy? Definitely.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Consider algebraic notation. Ideally, you want to encode:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the piece that moves: &lt;code&gt;K&lt;/code&gt;,&lt;code&gt;Q&lt;/code&gt;,&lt;code&gt;B&lt;/code&gt;,&lt;code&gt;N&lt;/code&gt;,pawn&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;destination file: &lt;code&gt;a&lt;/code&gt;,&lt;code&gt;b&lt;/code&gt;,&lt;code&gt;c&lt;/code&gt;,&lt;code&gt;d&lt;/code&gt;,&lt;code&gt;e&lt;/code&gt;,&lt;code&gt;f&lt;/code&gt;,&lt;code&gt;g&lt;/code&gt;,&lt;code&gt;h&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;destination rank: &lt;code&gt;1&lt;/code&gt;,&lt;code&gt;2&lt;/code&gt;,&lt;code&gt;3&lt;/code&gt;,&lt;code&gt;4&lt;/code&gt;,&lt;code&gt;5&lt;/code&gt;,&lt;code&gt;6&lt;/code&gt;,&lt;code&gt;7&lt;/code&gt;,&lt;code&gt;8&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;O-O&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;O-O-O&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;sometimes, origin file/rank in case of ambiguity&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;optionally, capture, check, mate, &lt;code&gt;e.p.&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the purpose of blunder checking, one can certainly sacrifice optional symbols, consider the frequency of the notation with the origin file/rank (ex., &lt;code&gt;N2e4&lt;/code&gt;) to be negligible. By using only pen and the scoresheet, you can easily specify the destination:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qMBdX.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qMBdX.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With enough practice, positioning the pen and the scoresheet according to the map identical to writing &lt;code&gt;b4&lt;/code&gt; on the scoresheet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can encode the moving piece (king, queen, bishop, knight) by, say, buttoning and unbuttoning your suit, using a third object on the table, and many other ways.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This approach is very similar to writing the notation in your mind, rather than on the scoresheet, but it uses the physical objects. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Disclosure: I do not use this approach. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10570" LastActivityDate="2020-05-29T00:24:49.447" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29747" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29579" CreationDate="2020-05-29T01:25:32.723" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;A better answer in response to the general question being asked might be as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;It is often strategic to position the rooks on the d1-e1 squares, which allows them both to support the center files. Naturally the Queen's Rook must be moved to d1 - and the King's Rook to e1, remembering that only the Knights have an ability to jump pieces.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9245" LastActivityDate="2020-05-29T01:25:32.723" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29748" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29879" CreationDate="2020-05-29T02:02:44.963" Score="5" ViewCount="250" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can now name the color of any square. Does anyone have suggestions for  some other visualization exercises I can do to improve my blindfold chess?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21840" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2020-11-26T18:58:23.967" LastActivityDate="2020-11-26T18:58:23.967" Title="Suggestions for blindfold exercises" Tags="&lt;calculation&gt;&lt;blindfold-chess&gt;&lt;visualization&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29749" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-05-29T03:11:16.180" Score="4" ViewCount="229" Body="&lt;p&gt;While reading FIDE version of the rules, I stumbled upon &lt;em&gt;Appendix E: Rules for play with Blind and Visually Handicapped&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There, in E2.1:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The moves shall be announced clearly, repeated by the opponent and executed on his chessboard. When promoting a pawn, the player must announce which piece is chosen. To make the announcement as clear as possible, the use of the following names is suggested instead of the corresponding letters, algebraic&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A - Anna, B - Bella, C - Cesar, D - David, E - Eva, F - Felix, G - Gustav, H - Hector&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ranks from white to black shall receive the German numbers:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1 - &lt;strong&gt;eins&lt;/strong&gt;, 2 - &lt;strong&gt;zwei&lt;/strong&gt;, 3 - &lt;strong&gt;drei&lt;/strong&gt;, 4 - &lt;strong&gt;vier&lt;/strong&gt;, 5 - &lt;strong&gt;fuenf&lt;/strong&gt;, 6 - &lt;strong&gt;sechs&lt;/strong&gt;, 7 - &lt;strong&gt;sieben&lt;/strong&gt;, 8 - &lt;strong&gt;acht&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Castling is announced “&lt;strong&gt;Lange Rochade&lt;/strong&gt;” (German for long castling) and “&lt;strong&gt;Kurze Rochade&lt;/strong&gt;” (German for short castling).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The pieces bear the names: &lt;strong&gt;Koenig&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;Dame&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;Turm&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;Laeufer&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;Springer&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;Bauer&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, FIDE recommends using German for announcing moves when tournaments with blind/visually handicapped participants take place.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A quick search did not allow me to answer the question of why is it like that and why German (not, say, French) was chosen. I also wonder, since when did those recommendations are present in the rulebook.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10570" LastEditorUserId="21604" LastEditDate="2021-01-17T23:18:02.100" LastActivityDate="2021-01-17T23:18:02.100" Title="Why does FIDE recommends using German numbers and piece names for blind and visually impaired?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;fide&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29750" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29749" CreationDate="2020-05-29T06:49:58.987" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not sure but maybe it is because &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.schachkomet.de/ibcabuch.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;International Braille Chess Association&lt;/a&gt; headquarters are in Germany, also as far as I know ( My knowledge is on the basis of &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vb8TyAtb3co&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess Base India's video&lt;/a&gt;s ) players are free to announce their moves in any language as long as both of them agree, German names are used only if the players are not able to reach any mutual agreement.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21526" LastActivityDate="2020-05-29T06:49:58.987" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29751" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-05-29T06:52:24.620" Score="7" ViewCount="1393" Body="&lt;p&gt;I played Nf3 for attacking on king side which is about to castle having some plans to make a battery in future after castling but I feel Ne2 is making a block for Re1 at some point. Any suggestions?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;rnbqk2r/pp3ppp/2p3n1/3pP3/3P4/2PB4/P4PPP/R1BQK1NR w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23690" LastEditorUserId="11749" LastEditDate="2020-05-29T09:38:04.483" LastActivityDate="2020-05-31T11:03:58.830" Title="Why is Ne2 better than Nf3?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;problems&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;&lt;knights&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29752" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29751" CreationDate="2020-05-29T06:57:43.900" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;After Ne2 you are set up for 0-0 and f4-f5, which looks like a dangerous plan. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After Nf3 Bg4 is possible. Notice how the bishop doesn't have nice squares after Ne2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2020-05-29T06:57:43.900" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29753" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29751" CreationDate="2020-05-29T07:47:55.997" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Nf3 and Ne2 are both very good moves, which consolidate White's advantage. I don't see why Ne2 should be preferred over Nf3 on general considerations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;After Nf3! White can follow with Ng5, and/or h4. Nf3 is a very concrete and direct move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Bg4 does not solve Black problems. After h3, White gains the pair of bishops in a very open position.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;0-0 runs into problems for Black after Ng5 (1.Nf3 0-0 2.Ng5 f6 3.Nxh7! is crushing!!)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;After Ne2, white can continue with Ng3 or f4, but it's much slower (by the way White can also play f4 before any knight move!).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are some illustrative examples of these two different approaches.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;1.Nf3&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;rnbqk2r/pp3ppp/2p3n1/3pP3/3P4/2PB1N2/P4PPP/R1BQK2R b KQkq - 1 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Bg4 (1... O-O 2. Ng5 Qe7 (2...f6 3.Nxh7!+-)  3.Qh5 h6 4.O-O! hxg5 5.Bxg5+-) {with a crushing attack}  {does not solve Black problems} 2.h3 Bxf3 3.Qxf3 O-O (3... c5 4.O-O Nc6 5.Ba3! cxd4 6.Rfe1! Qa5 7.Bxg6 hxg6 8.e6+-) 4.h4! f6 5.Bxg6 hxg6 6.Ba3 Re8 7.h5! {with a decisive attack}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;1.Ne2&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;rnbqk2r/pp3ppp/2p3n1/3pP3/3P4/2PB4/P3NPPP/R1BQK2R b KQkq - 1 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... c5 2.O-O O-O 3.f4 f5 (3...cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nc6 5.Ba3+-) 4.dxc5 Nc6 5.Be3+-&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11749" LastEditorUserId="11749" LastEditDate="2020-05-31T11:03:58.830" LastActivityDate="2020-05-31T11:03:58.830" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29754" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="132" CreationDate="2020-05-29T08:12:49.037" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just tell you one thing, 1.f3 is bad, it does not control the center actually, it stopped the knight, and it place the king in danger. Sometimes even followed by 2.Kf2, I think this is the hammerschlag variation, further weakening the king, this is to laugh at beginners, but no one have win me with it yet. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23691" LastActivityDate="2020-05-29T08:12:49.037" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29755" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12357" CreationDate="2020-05-29T08:26:57.330" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just accept it. the traps are the only thing you have to know except the opening principles.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23691" LastActivityDate="2020-05-29T08:26:57.330" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29756" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6451" CreationDate="2020-05-29T08:32:48.583" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just want to save 2 gambits from being classified as &amp;quot;bad&amp;quot;, the fried liver and the king's. 3 cooks fried an GM with the fried liver, the fried liver is +1.67, and the king's gambit's only &amp;quot;refutation&amp;quot; is the keene's defense, weakening the kingside (1.e4 e5 2.f4 Qh4+).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You could say the froms is good, but in fact, if white plays accurately, black would lose fast, analysis says the froms is +0.81. I accidently triped over an analysis of the omega gambit and it appears to be -0.66, while the kings is -0.79, so, you see, reputations isn't everything. There's another one, on my analysis board, the halloween is -0.59, see? The smith morra is not a great gambit with -0.21.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I just cannot understand the blackmar-diemer gambit, cause when theres an option to gambit a wing pawn, why gambit the center pawn? The 1.d4 d5 2.e4 is -0.97, and the 1.d4 d5 2.Nc3 Nf6 3.d4 is -0.72.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The old benoni is +0.88 if you don't accept the pawn, and the modern is +0.96 if you don't accept the sac. Apperantly the benko gambit is one of the most inaccurate gambit, it says +1.20, although it is good for human play. The Duras is +1.90 if black used it, so it's useless, the most inaccurate one is the traxler counterattack, which is +2.57 if black used it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23691" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-08-16T23:14:28.600" LastActivityDate="2020-08-16T23:14:28.600" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29757" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29751" CreationDate="2020-05-29T10:12:13.623" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both the other answer have a valid point.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Either way the rook is blocked on the e-file, so logic dictates the the f-pawn should be pushed, and the knight on f3 would block the rook there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On e2, the knight protects c3.  Although this isn't an issue now, an unexpected Qa5 could disrupt your plans.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another factor to consider is the future of the knight.  From f3, the knight's only future is g5, which is a good, protected square.  From e2, the knight's future is f4, to exchange a defender, or g3-&gt;h5.  Both these paths are good, but the f3-g5 path is better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;BTW, without any calculation, Ba3, which keeps the king in the center, should be the best move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9684" LastActivityDate="2020-05-29T10:12:13.623" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29758" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29751" CreationDate="2020-05-29T11:26:58.553" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;While the knight wouldn't be badly placed on f3, playing Ne2 keeps your f2-pawn unblocked, allowing you to push it up the board. If the pawn reaches f5 then you will have an overwhelming position. Also, on e2 the knight could go to g3, helping to control the f5-square while eyeing the h5-square.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2020-05-29T11:26:58.553" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29759" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29761" CreationDate="2020-05-29T14:43:51.220" Score="9" ViewCount="829" Body="&lt;p&gt;In order to qualify for the title of Grandmaster, a player must achieve three Grandmaster norms. This is not the place to go into detail about what those are; the pertinent point is that norms can only be gained in tournaments that fulfill certain criteria, including the requirement that &lt;strong&gt;the entry must include at least three Grandmasters.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, it seems to me that it's impossible to become a Grandmaster if there weren't already at least three Grandmasters in existence. How did the first Grandmasters earn the title, and who were they?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23671" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-05-29T16:42:10.317" LastActivityDate="2021-03-04T00:58:29.897" Title="Who were the first GMs, and how did they become GMs?" Tags="&lt;history&gt;&lt;fide&gt;&lt;grandmaster&gt;&lt;famous-players&gt;&lt;titles&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29760" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5973" CreationDate="2020-05-29T14:53:52.870" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Michael Steans excellent book &quot;Simple Chess&quot; he introduces the idea of each stable Pawn structure having the &quot;capacity&quot; to support a certain number of pieces. If your pawns lack capacity, your pieces will feel cramped. They lack mobility and &quot;step on each others toes&quot;. Obviously you should work to bring about exchanges. Perhaps even more importantly, if your opponent lacks capacity, you should deny them any exchanges. Applying this to the Rooks, you can even let your opponent occupy the open files. If their Rooks cannot use the files to penetrate, they just get in the way of other pieces. &quot;Capacity&quot; does not replace other positional concepts, but it can be a useful addition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastActivityDate="2020-05-29T14:53:52.870" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29761" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29759" CreationDate="2020-05-29T15:31:47.953" Score="16" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In order to qualify for the title of Grandmaster, a player must&#xA;  achieve three Grandmaster norms.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That is not accurate. The regulations for the award of FIDE titles are given &lt;a href=&quot;https://old.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=198&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are two ways to become a grandmaster. Achieving norms and reaching a certain rating is one way but there are also &lt;em&gt;Direct Titles&lt;/em&gt;. The FIDE handbook defines these like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Direct title&lt;/strong&gt; (automatic title) is a title gained by achieving a certain place or result in a tournament. For example, winning, or&#xA;  achieving a result ≥50 percent in a tournament. On application by the&#xA;  player’s federation and confirmation by the Qualification Commission,&#xA;  such titles are awarded automatically by FIDE.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The tournaments and achievements which qualify the player for the various titles are given in the &lt;a href=&quot;https://old.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=199&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Table for Direct Titles effective from 1 July 2017&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the grandmaster title the following results give the player the right to the GM title:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Last 16 of the World Cup&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Winner of the Women's World Championship&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Outright winner of any of World S65, S50, U20 championships&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Outright winner of Continental Individual Championship&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But in any case these regulations are made by FIDE and they change with time. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Who were the first GMs, and how did they become GMs?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The original FIDE grandmasters were awarded the title via a resolution of the FIDE general assembly in 1950. These players were:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The top players of the day: world champion Mikhail Botvinnik, and those who had qualified for (or been seeded into) the inaugural Candidates Tournament in 1950: Isaac Boleslavsky, Igor Bondarevsky, David Bronstein, Max Euwe, Reuben Fine, Salo Flohr, Paul Keres, Alexander Kotov, Andor Lilienthal, Miguel Najdorf, Samuel Reshevsky, Vasily Smyslov, Gideon Ståhlberg, and László Szabó.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Players still living who, though past their best in 1950, were recognised as having been world class when at their peak: Ossip Bernstein, Oldřich Duras, Ernst Grünfeld, Boris Kostić, Grigory Levenfish, Géza Maróczy, Jacques Mieses, Viacheslav Ragozin, Akiba Rubinstein, Friedrich Sämisch, Savielly Tartakower, and Milan Vidmar.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In 1951 Efim Bogoljubov was added to the list via another vote.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In 1953 something similar to the modern rules was introduced with the world champion and players who qualified for the candidates having the right to the title (if they weren't already) being joined by a variation of the current norm based qualification.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These rules received major revisions in 1957, 1965 and 1970 and may have been tweaked on further occasions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2020-05-29T18:07:48.257" LastActivityDate="2020-05-29T18:07:48.257" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29762" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2020-05-29T23:30:14.147" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-05-29T23:30:14.147" LastActivityDate="2020-05-29T23:30:14.147" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29763" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2020-05-29T23:30:14.147" Score="0" Body="Questions about the seventy-five-move rule" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-05-29T23:30:14.147" LastActivityDate="2020-05-29T23:30:14.147" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29764" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2020-05-29T23:31:13.027" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-05-29T23:31:13.027" LastActivityDate="2020-05-29T23:31:13.027" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29765" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2020-05-29T23:31:13.027" Score="0" Body="Questions about the fivefold-repetition rule, which automatically ends a game." OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-05-29T23:31:13.027" LastActivityDate="2020-05-29T23:31:13.027" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29766" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-05-30T01:33:01.580" Score="1" ViewCount="51" Body="&lt;p&gt;The 4 compound leapers I'd like to look at are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;(1,2), (0,3), (2,2); knight+&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threeleaper&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot; title=&quot;Wikipedia entry&quot;&gt;threeleaper&lt;/a&gt;+&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfil&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot; title=&quot;Wikipedia entry&quot;&gt;alfil&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;(1,2), (0,2), (1,1); knight+&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirin_(chess)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot; title=&quot;Wikipedia entry&quot;&gt;kirin&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;(1,2), (1,3); knight+&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camel_(chess)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot; title=&quot;Wikipedia entry&quot;&gt;camel&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;(1,2), (2,3); knight+&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zebra_(chess)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot; title=&quot;Wikipedia entry&quot;&gt;zebra&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What arrangement of 8 of each of these 4 compound leapers (a total of 32 pieces) has the &quot;strongest coverage properties&quot; on a 16x16 board, defined as such?:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Any square that a piece can attack is counted as being covered once per piece&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A square occupied by a piece is not covered by the piece occupying that square&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Sort first by # of squares covered once; then by 2x, 3x, up to highest cover count&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, an arrangement of pieces that covered 256 squares at least once each and covered 96 of those squares at least twice each would by this definition be considered &quot;stronger&quot; than an arrangement that covered 252 squares once and 112 squares twice; the higher at least twice-covered square count doesn't matter if it covers less squares at least once each, and so on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If any riders were in the mix (rooks and bishops are examples of rider pieces; rooks the (0,1) rider and bishops the (1,1) rider), I would add that &quot;a square that a rider's path to is blocked is not covered by that rider&quot;; my intention is for this definition to be generalized to any combination of pieces on a board of any dimensions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(I should double-check; is this &quot;strongest coverage arrangement&quot; I'm defining already a thing which there is another name for?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16577" LastEditorUserId="16577" LastEditDate="2020-08-14T15:38:28.500" LastActivityDate="2020-08-14T15:38:28.500" Title="What arrangement of 8 each of these 4 different compound leapers has the &quot;strongest coverage properties&quot; on a 16x16 board?" Tags="&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;mathematics&gt;&lt;unorthodox-pieces&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29767" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29766" CreationDate="2020-05-30T01:33:01.580" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is the best arrangement that I've been able to find by hand. It covers 248 squares at least once; missing the 8 squares which are the 2 knight moves outwards from each of the center 4 squares. If I've counted right, I believe it covers 148 of those 248 squares at least twice each. I don't expect triple-covered squares to be a tiebreaker for this question and it's difficult to do by eye, so I admit to not personally counting which and how many squares are covered at least 3 times each in this arrangement.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9sBOX.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/9sBOX.png&quot; alt=&quot;The best arrangement that I&amp;#39;ve managed to find by hand&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16577" LastActivityDate="2020-05-30T01:33:01.580" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29768" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29772" CreationDate="2020-05-30T02:38:04.460" Score="4" ViewCount="1282" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ObJlU.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ObJlU.png&quot; alt=&quot;Opening name and notation seemingly mismatched&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I often see something like the above when playing chess online. When I played Ruy Lopez and my opponent played Classical Variation, but I transposed us to Four Knights Game Spanish Variation, I had castled in between the Classical move and the transposition (Move 4).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems the reason the opening name says &quot;5. O-O&quot; because it one of the openings where the order of moves doesn't matter. But is this a bug in chess.com or intentional for the opening name to be mismatched with the move numbers?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17301" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-05-30T02:59:53.773" LastActivityDate="2020-05-30T08:36:33.190" Title="Why are chess.com opening names and notations seemingly mismatched?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;notation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29769" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-05-30T02:49:11.700" Score="4" ViewCount="284" Body="&lt;p&gt;There have been questions about the reliability of computer evaluation, and famous cases in which computers miss-evaluate positions have been given. What I want to ask is more related to the practical aspect of the evaluation, rather than its effectiveness.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As humans, we may find moves that put our opponents in deep trouble, or lead to positions we may personally enjoy, even though computers may label this moves as blunders. A classical example is Tal's knight sacrifice in the sixth game of their match. Humanly speaking, the move may be considered brilliant due to the creative inspiration it shows, and the practical effects of it (for the position gets complicated and rich in tactical motives, in which Tal felt comfortable). To a computer, though, it is disastrous; artificial intelligence can not feel discomfort nor prefer certain positions above some others, and quickly finds the correct refutation to the sacrifice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In a practical sense, for a player looking to eliminate blunders (which is a goal dictated to many beginners), what does this actually &lt;em&gt;mean&lt;/em&gt;? Is it correct to label as a blunder all refutable moves that severely worsen one's position, as engines do? Or is it more appropriate to use the word blunder in a more pragmatical sense, by referring to refutable moves that severely worsen one's position, and whose refutation can be actually achieved by a human opponent? In other words, how &lt;em&gt;pure&lt;/em&gt; should the concept of &lt;em&gt;blunder&lt;/em&gt; in chess be? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know the question is somewhat philosophical, and I do not expect definite answers. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21110" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-05-30T03:00:37.180" LastActivityDate="2020-05-30T05:44:49.087" Title="What should the practical meaning of &quot;blunder&quot; be?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;computer-chess&gt;&lt;blunder&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29770" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29768" CreationDate="2020-05-30T05:29:40.190" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The opening variation is decided based on the position reached and not on move order. &#xA;The expression 5. 0-0 is just to indicate the variation and has nothing to do with what you played. For example, imagine that for the Ruy Lopez, it showed the move after 3 moves. So when you play 1.e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5, it would say &quot;Ruy Lopez, 3. Bb5&quot; because that entire expression is already stored. So it cannot happen that  after 1.e4 Nc6 2.Bb5 e5 3. Nf3, it would say &quot;Ruy Lopez, 3. Nf3&quot; or &quot;Ruy Lopez, 2. Bb5&quot;. It doesn't mean that you played Bb5 on move 3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2258" LastActivityDate="2020-05-30T05:29:40.190" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29771" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29769" CreationDate="2020-05-30T05:44:49.087" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;The definition of the word is rather subjective, since it depends on how much you value objectivity vs practicality. I think it seems reasonable to take both aspects into account. For example, a move that gives up a pawn on the spot (and offers no compensation) could be considered a blunder. Objectively it's clearly a poor move, and practically it's easy to refute: the opponent just takes the pawn, and that's the end of the story.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Meanwhile, a move that objectively loses 2-3 points, but forces the opponent to play 10 difficult moves in a row in order to exploit it (and if they don't play these moves, they will be much worse), may be considered &quot;interesting&quot; or &quot;dubious&quot;. Objectively the move is even worse than the previous example, but practically there's a high chance it will work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Judging the practicality of a move also depends on the time control of the game. In a blitz game, you can get away with a lot more than you could in a long OTB game. But you could also get away with a lot more in an OTB game than you could in a correspondence game with engines. The example above with giving up 2-3 points would definitely be labelled a blunder in correspondence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So all in all, a blunder could be considered a move that is clearly objectively bad, but also rather easy to refute in an actual game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2020-05-30T05:44:49.087" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29772" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29768" CreationDate="2020-05-30T08:36:33.190" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think this is intentional. The opening name alludes to the position reached, not the route taken to get there. The principal move order to reach this position is to start with the classical variation of the Spanish variation of the four knights game and play 5. O-O. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It wouldn't make sense to say &lt;code&gt;Four Knights Game: Spanish Variation, Classical Variation, 4. O-O&lt;/code&gt; because if you had reached it from that route then you wouldn't have castled on move 4. While it would make sense to describe it as a Ruy Lopez with 4. O-O, it would be undesirable to list the same position under two different openings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21223" LastActivityDate="2020-05-30T08:36:33.190" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29773" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29776" CreationDate="2020-05-30T16:27:34.373" Score="-1" ViewCount="536" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have heard that he plays intuitively(maybe based on themes), but can someone give an example?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How did he manage to reach such heights despite his laziness for calculations? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Doesn't that mean even a mediocre  player can reach great rankings if he just plays intuitively?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21840" LastEditorUserId="21546" LastEditDate="2020-05-31T09:30:22.083" LastActivityDate="2020-05-31T09:30:22.083" Title="Can someone explain the playing style of the great Jose Raul Capablanca?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;capablanca&gt;&lt;capablanca-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29776" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29773" CreationDate="2020-05-31T00:11:17.970" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Only if your intuition is good enough:)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You overlook the training and experience he had.  Emanuel Lasker said he did not memorize anything he can deduce.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From my playing over his games he was a quiet patient positional player who could mix it up if the situation forced him to do that. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23711" LastActivityDate="2020-05-31T00:11:17.970" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29777" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14243" CreationDate="2020-05-31T00:37:32.583" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Many openings are rare, so I'll just talk about Bird's and Larsen's. For the Larsen's, just e5, the Bird's, d5, the From's gambit is not so good, according to Stockfish.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23691" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2020-05-31T09:24:54.710" LastActivityDate="2020-05-31T09:24:54.710" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29780" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29751" CreationDate="2020-05-31T00:45:29.077" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are 3 main advantages of Ne2 over Nf3. Other commentators have mentioned the first 2&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Denying the Bishop on c1 from getting active, if white can maintain this restriction on the black light-squared bishop then black will effectively be playing down a piece&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;f4 -&gt; f5 (which is a powerful idea in this position) is much snappier if there is not a knight restricting the pawn's movement.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;a Ne2 -&gt; Ng3 -&gt; (Nh5 or Nf5) is more dangerous than a Nf3 -&gt; Ng4 plan because it targets the dark squares around the future black king position, that are much weaker. Black would struggle a lot with defending the g7 if white builds up pressure there and if black plays g6 his position is toast since all of white's pieces would be able to find homes on threatening squares next to black's king&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23712" LastActivityDate="2020-05-31T00:45:29.077" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29781" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="284" CreationDate="2020-05-31T00:54:54.173" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to Stockfish, the best is the Fried Liver Attack (+1.57), and the worst is the Latvian gambit (+1.61) for black, the worst is not the Halloween Gambit, although it's almost there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23691" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2020-05-31T09:26:19.313" LastActivityDate="2020-05-31T09:26:19.313" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29782" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="101" CreationDate="2020-05-31T00:58:43.963" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The damiano cannot protect the pawn and weakens kingside. Just say, damiano himself is pretty annoyed by it getting named after him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23691" LastActivityDate="2020-05-31T00:58:43.963" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29783" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="75" CreationDate="2020-05-31T01:52:25.367" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Fried Liver is good, and according to Stockfish, black would NOT have a &amp;quot;slight advantage&amp;quot; even if they defend properly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23691" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-17T02:22:13.627" LastActivityDate="2020-08-17T02:22:13.627" CommentCount="1" CommunityOwnedDate="2020-05-31T01:52:25.367" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29784" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21350" CreationDate="2020-05-31T02:33:06.493" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found a few stockfish vs. alphazero evans gambits.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23691" LastActivityDate="2020-05-31T02:33:06.493" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29785" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29786" CreationDate="2020-05-31T12:01:05.587" Score="17" ViewCount="6554" Body="&lt;p&gt;A friend of mine recently told me that once, he checkmated his opponent and then immediately resigned because he thought his win was unfair. &lt;em&gt;This happened in a FIDE-rated tournament.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Searching the FIDE Laws of Chess, I found (emphasis mine):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.2 The objective of each player is to place the opponent's king 'under attack' in such a way that the opponent has no legal move. The player who achieves this goal is said to have 'checkmated' the opponent's king and to have won the game. [...] The opponent whose king has been checkmated &lt;strong&gt;has lost the game&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5.1 The game is won by the player who has checkmated his opponent's king. This &lt;strong&gt;immediately ends the game&lt;/strong&gt;, provided that the move producing the checkmate position was legal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this possible in any way, for example, move the piece, don't press the clock, and then resign?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17823" LastEditorUserId="17823" LastEditDate="2021-01-11T13:24:15.847" LastActivityDate="2021-01-11T13:24:15.847" Title="Can a player resign after checkmating their opponent?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;resigning&gt;&lt;loopholes&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29786" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29785" CreationDate="2020-05-31T12:14:22.567" Score="33" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, this is not possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;for example move the piece, don't press the clock and then resign?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In particular, that loophole is explicitly covered by the &lt;a href=&quot;https://handbook.fide.com/chapter/E012018&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;rules&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;6.2.1 During the game each player, having made his move on the chessboard, shall stop his own clock and start his opponent’s clock (that is to say, he shall press his clock). This “completes” the move. A move is also completed if:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;6.2.1.1 the move ends the game (see Articles 5.1.1, 5.2.1, 5.2.2, 9.6.1 and 9.6.2)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and 5.1.1 is 5.1 in the version of the rules you quoted, so checkmate ends the game before the clock is pressed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I guess both players could &lt;em&gt;pretend&lt;/em&gt; the checkmating move wasn't made (or pretend they don't see it's checkmate), but this is considered cheating, and when discovered may result in &lt;em&gt;both&lt;/em&gt; players losing the game and even being expelled from the tournament.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2020-05-31T12:14:22.567" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29787" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-05-31T14:26:17.180" Score="8" ViewCount="529" Body="&lt;p&gt;Few years ago, I participated in a local, FIDE-rated tournament. In its first round, the chief arbiter paired the players 4 times (yes, I saw the 4 different pairings and changed four opponents before I started the game!).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This was only the start; in the next years, arbiters from this club (even those who had an FA title!) started doing more &quot;cheats&quot;, like manual pairing players, clearly in favour of their club's ones. How do I know? - I've made a script in Perl to calculate the pairings for the first round in a Swiss-system, but the output is different from the reality (e.g. pairing the first with the second, the third with the last, etc.).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I find this annoying and unfair, since I get paired with unbeatable opponents each time. I think that if I ask them for explanations, they'll deny everything and they will say that I have not got proof. The tournament is on Chess-Results, where everyone can download the Swiss-Manager file.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it possible to know if they &quot;cheated&quot; from the &lt;code&gt;.TUNX&lt;/code&gt; Swiss-Manager file and possibly report this case to the national chess federation? If not, how can I approach this situation&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17823" LastActivityDate="2020-05-31T18:48:01.310" Title="How can I know if the chief arbiter has &quot;cheated&quot; in the pairings and possibly report it?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;swiss-pairing&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29788" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29787" CreationDate="2020-05-31T15:59:14.177" Score="5" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;I participated in a local, FIDE-rated tournament. In its first round,&#xA;  the chief arbiter paired the players 4 times&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This has happened to me too, although not as many as 3 repairings that I am aware. As an arbiter I've also done repairing in the first round although only ever in small local events. I would try very, very hard indeed to avoid doing this in a norm event. Normal procedure for the first round in a norm event to avoid this happening is to require the players to register their presence before a certain time and do the pairings when this time is reached. Any player who doesn't register in time is excluded from the first round.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a unique problem in the first round of a tournament in that usually it is possible as a player to ask for and be granted a half point bye and players will often choose to miss the first round. This information goes to the organiser who should pass it on to the arbiter but often some of this information &quot;goes astray&quot;. With luck this is discovered before the round starts. In that case the correct procedure is to redo the pairings taking into account the updated bye information. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes this information isn't discovered until the round has started. In this case some players will have sat there with no opponent because the opponent requested a bye but that information got lost. They will be awarded the full point. When you look at the pairings the next day you will see that these players are shown not having an opponent in round one (even though when the round was played they did) but each getting one full point instead of the half point they would get for a bye. Any time you see more than one player get a full point bye you know this is what happened. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The organiser and arbiter can try and be strict and say byes must be agreed the day before but then half an hour before the first round is due to start a player rings up to say that there has been an accident on the motorway, he is going to be delayed and won't arrive in time to play his game, can he have a half point bye?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When this happens, again, the arbiter should repair using the new information. This can be annoying but it is real life.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now modify the scenario slightly. This time the round has started but it is still before the default time and again a player phones up. He is giving a lift to another player and again they will miss the round because of an accident. They are not paired against each other so two players are sitting at their boards without opponents. As the arbiter, what is the best thing to do? As long as the organiser wrote in the tournament conditions that in this situation the players can be repaired then the correct thing is to repair the two players without opponents. The only way to do this is manually. If the two players without opponents are seeded 2 and 3 then the pairings will be changed so that 2 plays 3 and the two missing players who may be 56 and 57 each end up getting a half point bye.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;How do I know? - I've made a script in Perl to calculate the pairings&#xA;  for the first round in a Swiss-system, but the output is different&#xA;  from the reality&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm an FA so I don't need to write a Perl script to check the pairings but as a player I have several times looked at the results from the previous round and calculated who I should be playing in the next round because the pairings are slow coming out. On one occasion the published pairings agreed with my calculations but were changed the next morning when I came to play and on several others they did not correspond. I ended up paired against somebody completely different! It has also happened to me in large, prestigious events where I do not expect such things to happen. How could this be?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well, it is actually very simple. Take a very large tournament in a very small place with few local players like Iceland or Isle of Man. Most of the local players will be entered. This is their big chance to play new people without having to travel. With all these other players from distant and often exotic locations they really don't want to miss out and play their clubmate who they play several times a year, if not month. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it is not a high level tournament like a norm event then it is reasonable to approach the arbiter (ideally before the event starts) and say &quot;I don't want to play other islanders. Please don't pair me against them&quot;. This is reasonable and understandable and in every case where the pairings don't match my calculations I have found that such a thing explains the difference. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the case where the pairings were changed on me I suspect that an initial error was made and a &quot;forbidden pairing&quot; which had been requested hadn't been entered correctly and players who had requested not to be paired against each other had this happen, noticed and then asked the arbiter to correct this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Is it possible to know if they &quot;cheated&quot; from the .TUNX Swiss-Manager&#xA;  file and possibly report this case to the national chess federation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the case of a norm event then, yes, it should be possible and was done for the big Gibraltar tournament a few years ago when Hou Yifan complained that she was paired against too many women. (Spoiler alert: she was wrong) However for smaller tournaments this is not really possible unless you have all the information including bye requests, late bye requests, missed bye requests and requested forbidden pairings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As an aside I did play in a tournament a few years ago where they openly cheated on the pairings and the prizes! They even announced before the first round that they were going to do this. It wasn't FIDE rated and it wasn't nationally graded and all I could do was complain to them loudly and vow never to play in one of their tournaments again.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-05-31T15:59:14.177" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29789" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29787" CreationDate="2020-05-31T18:48:01.310" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Do you have proof of cheating?  It is more likely he had to use discretion to best satisfy the pairing rules due to the number of people/rounds and other factors. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23711" LastActivityDate="2020-05-31T18:48:01.310" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29790" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29785" CreationDate="2020-05-31T18:52:50.290" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;He could try, but in a real FIDE tournament it would be illegal and not allowed.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In a small local club with amateurs who knows how they would rule if nobody knew the real rules.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If this were not a FIDE tournament their rules might allow some loophole which might permit it.  No way to guess what oddball rules soem other group or club might use; so could not answer the question for that case. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23711" LastActivityDate="2020-05-31T18:52:50.290" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29791" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29794" CreationDate="2020-06-01T04:15:45.927" Score="7" ViewCount="5406" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know &lt;strong&gt;AlphaZero&lt;/strong&gt; (an AI) is one of the best top chess engines but &lt;strong&gt;Stockfish&lt;/strong&gt; is also improving. Which one is better at chess? Also is there a new Stockfish level?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23609" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-06-01T13:14:26.653" LastActivityDate="2020-11-18T00:12:50.477" Title="Which is better-Stockfish 10 or AlphaZero?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;alphazero&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29792" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29793" CreationDate="2020-06-01T05:16:44.190" Score="1" ViewCount="105" Body="&lt;p&gt;Below is a a game in which I played as black. A chess engine analysis told me that I made big one mistake. Can someone point out what it is?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 b6 2. e4 Bb7 3. Nd2 g6 4. Bd3 Bg7 5. Ngf3 e6 6. O-O Ne7 7. Qe2 a6 8. Re1 d6 9. c3 Nd7 10. Nf1 h6 11. Ng3 b5 12. Bd2 Nb6 13. Rad1 Rb8 14. b4 Na4 15. Rb1 c5 16. e5 cxd4 17. cxd4 d5 18. Rec1 Rc8 19. Be1 h5 20. h4 Bh6 21. Bd2 Bxd2 22. Qxd2 Rxc1+ 23. Rxc1 Nc6 24. a3 Ne7 25. Qc2 Nc6 26. Bxg6 fxg6 27. Qxg6+ Kd7 28. Qg7+ Kc8 29. Ng5 Qf8 30. Qxf8+ Rxf8 31. Nxe6 Rf7 32. Ne2 Nb2 33. Ng5 Nd3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23278" LastEditorUserId="23278" LastEditDate="2020-06-02T01:43:37.043" LastActivityDate="2020-06-02T01:43:37.043" Title="Help needed to find the big mistake" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;middlegame&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29793" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29792" CreationDate="2020-06-01T05:45:26.647" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's more than one mistake in this game, but the biggest one is the last move: 33...Nd3. Probably this is the mistake that was pointed out. It allows White to win a piece (e.g., 34.Rxc6+ Bxc6 35.Nxf7). A better move would have been moving the rook away with 33...Rf5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2020-06-01T05:45:26.647" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29794" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29791" CreationDate="2020-06-01T05:57:35.773" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;We can't say for sure since AlphaZero is a private engine, i.e. we don't have games between it and the latest versions of Stockfish. Still, if AlphaZero hasn't improved since it was unveiled, it will likely lose to the latest version of Stockfish. That's because AlphaZero beat Stockfish 8 by +155 = 839 -6, which is an elo difference of about 50. The latest versions of Stockfish are capable of beating Stockfish 8 by &lt;a href=&quot;https://nextchessmove.com/dev-builds&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;about 150 elo&lt;/a&gt; (see also &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/glinscott/fishtest/wiki/Regression-Tests&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt;). It's true that elo isn't transitive (i.e. engine A can beat engine B, which beats engine C, but C could still beat A in a match); however, the differences are so large that it would be incredible if AlphaZero is capable of beating the latest versions of Stockfish. You ask about Stockfish 10 (not latest Stockfish), which still beats Stockfish 8 by 100 elo, so it should be capable of beating AlphaZero as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Having said that, &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leela_Chess_Zero&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Leela Chess Zero&lt;/a&gt; is an engine based on AlphaZero techniques. It incorporates many new innovations not in the original paper, and therefore should be stronger than AlphaZero. Indications are it's competitive with Stockfish, and (for now at least) stronger: it won the most recent version of the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TCEC_Season_17&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Top Chess Engine Championship&lt;/a&gt; by five games - an elo difference of about 15.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Caveats:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In the world of computer chess, 100 games is an incredibly small sample size. Engine developers regularly need tens of thousands of games to conclusively say that one engine is stronger than the other. These games are played at bullet time controls, which isn't really chess as us humans understand it. Still, we can't play ten thousand games at long time controls - that takes too long - so we have to be satisfied with 100.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://abrok.eu/stockfish/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Stockfish continues to improve&lt;/a&gt;. As of time of writing, Leela has kinda stalled while a new net is being trained. So while Leela was (probably) stronger two months ago, it might not be the strongest engine &lt;em&gt;right now&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Stockfish is not Leela's only competitor. In fact just &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TCEC_Season_16&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;two seasons ago&lt;/a&gt;, Leela actually failed to qualify for the superfinal, losing out to AllieStein. Like Leela, AllieStein is a neural network engine; unlike Leela, AllieStein includes human knowledge. Plus, as of time of writing, all three of Leela / AllieStein / Stockfish are behind Stoofvlees in the qualification tournament for the superfinal.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You might be interested in the ongoing Season 18 of the Top Chess Engine Championship, live games are available &lt;a href=&quot;https://tcec-chess.com/#x=live&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;tl; dr:&lt;/strong&gt; AlphaZero is probably inferior to Stockfish 10, and even more so to the latest versions of Stockfish. Leela is at least competitive with Stockfish, and there's a good chance it's stronger (right now) as well. For the question &amp;quot;who is the strongest engine right now?&amp;quot;, the situation is fluid; there are several engines that could all claim to be #1 at any one time. For the foreseeable future, this situation is likely to remain the case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit&lt;/strong&gt;: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2MncpRMnFA&amp;amp;feature=youtu.be&amp;amp;t=2612&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Deepmind acknowledges that AlphaZero would probably lose to the latest versions of Stockfish and Leela&lt;/a&gt;. They don't perceive it as a challenge, however, because they're not a chess engine company and don't view having the best engine as a big deal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastEditorUserId="15223" LastEditDate="2020-11-18T00:12:50.477" LastActivityDate="2020-11-18T00:12:50.477" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29796" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29797" CreationDate="2020-06-01T09:59:37.380" Score="1" ViewCount="122" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;r2q2nr/p3kppp/3bp3/2p2b2/Bn1P4/1P2PN2/4NPPP/R1BQ1RK1 b - - 0 13&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I dont see whats wrong in b3 I am making some space to bring black bishop into game attacking nb4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23690" LastEditorUserId="7726" LastEditDate="2020-06-01T10:22:17.230" LastActivityDate="2020-06-01T11:32:28.933" Title="Why is b3 a blunder?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;blunder&gt;&lt;attack&gt;&lt;closed-position&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29797" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29796" CreationDate="2020-06-01T11:32:28.933" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I wouldn't call it a blunder, as White still has a large advantage after 1.b3. But more efficient is 1.dxc5 Bxc5 2.Bd2. Here White's attacking the knight, but has only spent one tempo developing his bishop. Your idea with 1.b3, 2.Ba3 would take two tempi.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this kind of position where the opponent's king is vulnerable, each tempo matters more. You want to take advantage of things before the king gets to safety.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2020-06-01T11:32:28.933" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29798" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29799" CreationDate="2020-06-01T12:49:15.237" Score="7" ViewCount="317" Body="&lt;p&gt;Recently, I participated in a FIDE-rated tournament where the (only) arbiter had their son playing in it. I find that very odd. Is it allowed? What if the arbiter favors their kid? What should be done?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17823" LastActivityDate="2020-06-01T13:45:35.657" Title="Is it allowed to be an arbiter and have your kid playing in the same FIDE rated tournament?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;tournament&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29799" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29798" CreationDate="2020-06-01T13:45:35.657" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The FIDE arbiters' Commission disapproves very strongly of arbiters playing in the same competition that they are arbiting in but does not ban it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My own federation told me when I was still qualifying as an arbiter that I may not play in any tournament at the same time that I am arbiting a FIDE rated event. So, for instance if there was a FIDE rated tournament taking place alongside a national rated tournament then I may not play in the national rated tournament and arbit in the FIDE rated one. I am allowed to do the reverse.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The ECF, the federation running chess where I live now, &lt;em&gt;does&lt;/em&gt; allow playing and arbiting in the same tournament whether FIDE rated or not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From what I have written it should be clear that there is no problem whatsoever with every member of the chief arbiter's extended family playing in the same tournament that he or she is arbiting. Arbiters are required to be impartial and this applies whether it is with regard to family members, friends, lovers, bosses, work colleagues, etc., etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;What should be done?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The best advice I can give is to try not to be too paranoid. It will affect your chess playing and destroy your enjoyment of the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-06-01T13:45:35.657" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29800" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2020-06-01T16:11:36.317" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-01T16:11:36.317" LastActivityDate="2020-06-01T16:11:36.317" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29801" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2020-06-01T16:11:36.317" Score="0" Body="Questions about brute-force search or exhaustive search, a problem solving technique that relies on systematically enumerating all possible candidate moves and systematically analysing each candidate." OwnerUserId="10867" LastEditorUserId="10867" LastEditDate="2020-06-01T17:01:26.130" LastActivityDate="2020-06-01T17:01:26.130" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29802" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2020-06-01T16:19:22.053" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-01T16:19:22.053" LastActivityDate="2020-06-01T16:19:22.053" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29803" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2020-06-01T16:19:22.053" Score="0" Body="Questions about how children play or learn chess, or how to teach it to them. For questions about teaching chess to children add the tag [teaching]; for questions about how children learn chess, add the tag [learning]." OwnerUserId="10867" LastEditorUserId="10867" LastEditDate="2020-06-01T17:01:36.077" LastActivityDate="2020-06-01T17:01:36.077" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29804" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2020-06-01T16:30:05.123" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-01T16:30:05.123" LastActivityDate="2020-06-01T16:30:05.123" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29805" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2020-06-01T16:30:05.123" Score="0" Body="Questions about videos about any aspect of chess: game analysis, instructional videos, chess event coverage etc." OwnerUserId="10867" LastEditorUserId="10867" LastEditDate="2020-06-01T17:01:45.197" LastActivityDate="2020-06-01T17:01:45.197" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29806" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2020-06-01T17:04:55.757" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-01T17:04:55.757" LastActivityDate="2020-06-01T17:04:55.757" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29807" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2020-06-01T17:04:55.757" Score="0" Body="Questions about the Kalashnikov Variation (ECO code B32) of the Sicilian Defence, which is characterised by the moves 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 e5 5.Nb5 d6." OwnerUserId="10867" LastEditorUserId="10867" LastEditDate="2020-06-01T17:06:31.230" LastActivityDate="2020-06-01T17:06:31.230" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29808" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2020-06-01T17:15:22.653" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-01T17:15:22.653" LastActivityDate="2020-06-01T17:15:22.653" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29809" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2020-06-01T17:15:22.653" Score="0" Body="Questions about the Shabalov-Shirov gambit of the Semi-Slav Defence (Anti-Meran variation), which is characterised by the moves 1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.Nc3 e6 5.e3 Nbd7 6.Qc2 Bd6 7.g4." OwnerUserId="10867" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2020-06-01T18:00:55.507" LastActivityDate="2020-06-01T18:00:55.507" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29810" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2020-06-01T17:22:49.783" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-01T17:22:49.783" LastActivityDate="2020-06-01T17:22:49.783" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29811" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2020-06-01T17:22:49.783" Score="0" Body="Questions about the pronunciation of names and terms related to chess." OwnerUserId="10867" LastEditorUserId="10867" LastEditDate="2020-06-01T18:01:25.027" LastActivityDate="2020-06-01T18:01:25.027" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29812" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2020-06-01T17:24:53.817" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-01T17:24:53.817" LastActivityDate="2020-06-01T17:24:53.817" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29813" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2020-06-01T17:24:53.817" Score="0" Body="Questions about material, i.e. all of the pawns and pieces that both sides have on the board." OwnerUserId="10867" LastEditorUserId="10867" LastEditDate="2020-06-01T18:01:44.770" LastActivityDate="2020-06-01T18:01:44.770" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29814" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-06-01T17:48:18.443" Score="1" ViewCount="471" Body="&lt;p&gt;My current chess rating is approximately 1400 in 1 minute, 3 minute, and 5 minute games. I have seen some of the other players playing 30 seconds games whose rating is around 1200 but I cannot find an option to play 30 second games. How do I play 30 second games on chess.com?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23154" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2021-03-04T21:30:35.510" LastActivityDate="2021-03-21T17:19:48.477" Title="How do I play 30 second games on chess.com?" Tags="&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;time-control&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29815" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1009" CreationDate="2020-06-01T17:57:48.410" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;At chess.com most grandmasters (tagged GM) can be found, casually playing all day; you can watch them train.  Whenever there's a significant tourney, you'll be able to find it broadcast there, with professional commentary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On Twitch and YouTube there's a lot of it as well; just search “chess” and enjoy; there are plenty of masters, analysts, and teachers there to watch all day.  Currently, the best players are the World Champion Magnus Carlsen (Norway) and the runner-up Fabiano Caruana (USA). Hikaru Nakamura (USA) is also a strong contender, with millions of fans worldwide. Anything between these guys is El Clásico.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd recommend you to find a chess club in your area (easy to locate nowadays) so that you'll be aware of the happening, especially those most relevant for your region.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23725" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-06-01T19:25:31.770" LastActivityDate="2020-06-01T19:25:31.770" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29816" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2020-06-01T18:07:47.050" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-01T18:07:47.050" LastActivityDate="2020-06-01T18:07:47.050" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29817" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2020-06-01T18:07:47.050" Score="0" Body="Questions about the Taimanov Variation of the Sicilian Defence, which is characterised by the moves 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 e6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nc6." OwnerUserId="10867" LastEditorUserId="10867" LastEditDate="2020-06-01T19:04:30.337" LastActivityDate="2020-06-01T19:04:30.337" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29818" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2020-06-01T18:10:58.537" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-01T18:10:58.537" LastActivityDate="2020-06-01T18:10:58.537" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29819" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2020-06-01T18:10:58.537" Score="0" Body="Questions about the Ragozin Variation (ECO code D37–D39) of the Queen's Gambit Declined, which can be reached after the moves 1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4. Nf3 Bb4." OwnerUserId="10867" LastEditorUserId="10867" LastEditDate="2020-06-01T19:05:18.950" LastActivityDate="2020-06-01T19:05:18.950" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29820" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2020-06-01T19:08:10.010" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Damiano Defense is an inferior chess opening where Black protects the e-pawn while weakening his kingside.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The strongest approach is to play 3. Nxe5. If Black accepts the sacrifice, his king will be weakened, lured out, and White has a decisive attack, which usually regains the knight and gets an extra 5 pawns. If not, Black simply loses a pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White also has the good options 3. Bc4, and 3.d4, but they are not as forcing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-09-10T11:07:07.313" LastActivityDate="2020-09-10T11:07:07.313" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29821" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2020-06-01T19:08:10.010" Score="0" Body="Questions about the Damiano Defense (ECO code C40), which can be reached using the moves 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 f6." OwnerUserId="10867" LastEditorUserId="10867" LastEditDate="2020-06-01T19:23:22.037" LastActivityDate="2020-06-01T19:23:22.037" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29822" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29814" CreationDate="2020-06-01T19:37:26.693" Score="7" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Go into Live Chess.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Click on the left button right above the &quot;Play&quot; button. It should currently display some time control.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Click on the &quot;More&quot; button.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Click on the &quot;30 sec&quot; button. For custom time controls, you can instead click on the &quot;Custom&quot; button and enter what you want.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2020-06-01T19:37:26.693" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29824" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2190" CreationDate="2020-06-02T05:26:44.993" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;4.d3 is extremely passive and allows black at least equality after 4...d5. There's no reason to play d3 there since the e4 pawn is already defended. You're essentially wasting a move to block your own bishop. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You basically have four decent 4th moves. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;4&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Bb5 is likely the strongest move. It overlaps with the Ruy Lopez which is considered one of the best openings in chess for white (although c3 is more typical than Nc3 in the Ruy). The downside it that it requires a deep understanding of positional play which is likely outside the understanding of most class players. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;g3 is the Glek system. This is probably more what you're looking for. It is somewhat passive but far less than than 4.d3. It's fairly respectable scoring 55.5% in the Lichess database (main line Ruy scores 55.0%) and doesn't have that much theory to learn. If you want something in the 4N that gives you good winning chances while avoiding early exchanges and without memorizing a lot of theory, this is it. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Bc4 is the Italian 4 knights. It's probably playable but the very simple 4...Nxe4 is going to leave white in a difficult position to play that is highly tactical  &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Be2 is also very passive but the Bishop serves a defensive function and white retains the option of playing d4 in one move. This is a little better than 4.d3&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Two other options: 4: Nxe5 is a very strong gambit. Black can equalize but below master level it is very hard for black to play. 4. d4 is a Scotch-like opening but the main problem is there isn't really an an advantage to playing Nc3 before d4. You rule out some of white's best lines but don't gain anything in the process. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2020-06-02T05:26:44.993" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29825" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14371" CreationDate="2020-06-02T05:58:08.747" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've done a lot of analysis on this line. At one time I almost sat down and wrote out a complete refutation for the entire line with the intent of publishing it online. I got stuck on the line 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 h6 4. d4 exd4 5. c3 dxc3 6. Nxc3 Bb4 7. O-O Bxc3 8. bxc3 Nge7 though. In my opinion this is black's only chance at equality. I think white is still better but the advantage is small and it's impossible to prove an advantage through analysis. Still I've won a ton of games with 9. Nh4. White has other options at move 9 and the advantage of the two bishops combined with a lead in development so proving equality with black is probably equally impossible. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2020-06-02T05:58:08.747" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29826" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4573" CreationDate="2020-06-02T06:13:50.207" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Spanish (Ruy Lopez) is OBJECTIVELY better which means if you play most of your games against GMs and 3000+ rated engines it should be your main choice as a 1.e4 player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, for most most normal people the Italian is going to give better results.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wouldn't recommend the main lines Ruys for anyone unless they have aspirations of reaching IM level or higher. And realistically if you're over 12 and asking this question thinking you can become an IM your aspirations are probably unrealistic. There is a ton of theory in the Ruy and the positional play can be extremely subtle. Most people would be better off spending their time studying tactics.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-08-16T09:17:38.183" LastActivityDate="2020-08-16T09:17:38.183" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29827" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4743" CreationDate="2020-06-02T07:01:03.767" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;To say in one line, chess is a game of 100% skill. No chance is involved. This is because both players move the pieces according to their will, without involving some die which eliminates randomness. Secondly, both players can see each other's moves and interpret each other's plans. &lt;strong&gt;So chess is a game of skill&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23729" LastActivityDate="2020-06-02T07:01:03.767" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29828" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29748" CreationDate="2020-06-02T09:31:48.417" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;A friend of mine (and a stronger player) suggested one exercise which has helped me in developing my visualization skills.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Take a game, any game and read the first two moves of both sides (ie total four plies), visualize the position now on board, then make these moves on board, see if your visualized position was right.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Read the next two moves and visualize the current position then make the moves on board and check if you got it right.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Go through the entire game in these steps of two moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;once you are fairly comfortable,  try in steps of three moves, Gradually increase the number of moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am doing this for about 8 months now and now I can visualize boards over ~10-12 moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Already I play blindfold chess in lichess.org, by making the site speak out opponents move and I entering move through the keyboard. (Even though I look at the board once in ~10 moves)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18273" LastEditorUserId="18273" LastEditDate="2020-06-06T11:47:06.163" LastActivityDate="2020-06-06T11:47:06.163" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29829" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29785" CreationDate="2020-06-02T11:45:20.970" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Resigning immediately after a checkmate is not possible. HOWEVER, the FIDE rules do allow for a player to do another action, namely withdraw. Withdrawal can be done outside a match and for the most part has the same result, namely that the player is no longer part of the tournament. However, there are penalties involved with this action if the FIDE arbiter judges the reason for the withdrawal to be insufficient, or during a world championship tournament, which can be anything up to and including exclusion from the rest of the championship series for that year.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2838" LastActivityDate="2020-06-02T11:45:20.970" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29830" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29837" CreationDate="2020-06-02T13:29:50.790" Score="5" ViewCount="154" Body="&lt;p&gt;I often find myself in positions with the Carlsbad pawn structure, and I really struggle to come up with a plan. I am usually the one with the pawn chain pointing toward the queenside, so I assume that I should be focusing my play over there with things like the minority attack. However, I have recently found the minority attack to be unsuccessful for one main reason. The moment I push my b-pawn to b5 in the position shown below, white can respond with b4, instantly shutting down all of my play. Even though b4 creates a hole on c4, I also have a hole on c5 which my opponent can take advantage of with his knight. At this point, I have no idea what to do, and my opponent can play on the kingside with moves like f4-f5. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Question: How should black (in this case) play after white plays b4?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is the type of position I get into as black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;1K1RR3/P1PQ3P/1PN1BP2/4P1P1/1B2p1p1/3pbn2/ppp1nq1p/1k1r2r1 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;[startflipped &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23735" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-06-02T13:45:56.277" LastActivityDate="2020-06-02T20:51:56.743" Title="What should my plans be in a Carlsbad pawn structure?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;middlegame&gt;&lt;pawn-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29832" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-06-02T16:06:39.197" Score="2" ViewCount="27" Body="&lt;p&gt;On lichess.org, how are the ratings for the tactical puzzles computed?  I am trying to understand how some puzzles I find challenging are as low as the 1400s, while others that seem obvious are at 2100+.  As an example, consider &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/training/78021&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this puzzle&lt;/a&gt; where the mate seems obvious (the white king has nowhere to go), so I would expect a rating in the 1200s, but the actual rating on the site (at the time of writing) is 2102.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;4r3/8/p2p4/6k1/P7/1p2N2R/1P3r1R/K7 b - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Possibly a duplicate of &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/27994/&quot;&gt;&quot;How are online tactic exercises ratings calculated?&quot;&lt;/a&gt;?  But I ask about the lichess.org puzzles specifically because the ratings there are so often surprising, especially for puzzles like the one above that have been played more than 30000 times.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23739" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-06-02T16:37:56.507" LastActivityDate="2020-06-02T16:37:56.507" Title="How are ratings determined for training puzzles on lichess.org?" Tags="&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;rating&gt;&lt;problems&gt;&lt;online&gt;&lt;lichess&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="3" ClosedDate="2020-06-02T18:34:52.070" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29833" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-06-02T16:51:37.880" Score="5" ViewCount="151" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am wondering if there is a Stockfish-like evaluation of moves that could take in account armageddon rules, the rules being that you lose if you draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would imagine a strategy of just trading everything off symmetrically would be completely reasonable in a regular game but in armadeddon you lose on a draw, so you have to try something differently.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The same ideas apply to some openings which are likely to give drawish results. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23717" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-06-02T17:38:56.677" LastActivityDate="2020-09-01T18:56:17.777" Title="Move evaluation on armageddon games" Tags="&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;evaluation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29834" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29842" CreationDate="2020-06-02T18:06:47.243" Score="21" ViewCount="3976" Body="&lt;p&gt;I arrived at the following position in an online game after the opponent left a queen hanging.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;r1b2r2/pp1p1ppk/2n1p3/6B1/2P5/5N2/PQ3PPP/R4RK1 w - - 0 16&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the game, I played 16. Bf6 with the idea that in case he accepts the sacrifice, my queen can come to an exposed king with mating ideas and possibility of exchanging the rook for the knight and I should probably be able to arrive with the rooks by lifting them sooner than his minor pieces are able to help significantly. If the opponent refuses, my bishop is still up with a better aim and I have possibilities of blasting the kingside with a major advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I looked at the game with lichess' Stockfish to check if this was a blunder and the main lines lichess' Stockfish suggests to me are 16. Be3, 16. Qc2+, 16. Nd2, 16. c5 and 16. Qa3, the first line having an evaluation of +12.8. Bf6 is not suggested, but it has an evaluation of +18.0 after it is played, so it left me wondering why it doesn't suggest Bf6 in the first place. My guess is that maybe Stockfish does not consider sacrificial moves without a forced advantage if the player has a large lead, which seems reasonable, but this is only a guess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Running an analysis in chess.com with the Komodo engine suggests Bf6 as the best move, with +11.6 evaluation, so it left me even more curious as to why Stockfish doesn't even consider it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2971" LastActivityDate="2020-06-03T11:59:29.187" Title="Why doesn't Lichess' Stockfish suggest this bishop sacrifice?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29835" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29834" CreationDate="2020-06-02T20:40:32.653" Score="26" Body="&lt;p&gt;Good question. I let Stockfish 11 think on the position, and even by around depth 25-26 it didn't suggest Bf6. But like in your case, after making the move on the board, Stockfish suddenly realizes it is the best move. Although what's also odd is that after Bf6 gxf6 Qxf6, it takes Stockfish longer than at least depth 27 to realize it's a mate in 9 moves/18 ply (instead of some evaluation that's &quot;only&quot; over +20).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One possible explanation for all this is due to how engines prune. If an engine spends an equal amount of time examining every single move in its calculations, it will be very slow (there's an average of roughly 30 moves in a given position, so the complexity for searching everything is on the order of 30^depth). Therefore, they will spend more time thinking on moves that look more promising, and stop wasting as many resources on moves that look clearly worse.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the position you posted, there are multiple moves that give at least a +12 evaluation. Meanwhile, Bf6 drops a bishop, and perhaps it is only multiple moves further that White's overwhelming compensation for it becomes apparent. There are already many +12 moves available from the starting position, so an engine could decide not to waste time going deep into the Bf6 branch, stopping at a point before it realizes how good it is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But then when you actually play Bf6 on the board, there's nothing else for the engine to look at. It's &quot;forced&quot; to examine the Bf6 branch, and then it quickly realizes it's very good (although in Stockfish's case taking a while to realize it's a forced mate, likely due to this same pruning issue).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that all the above is just my own understanding of things, and there could be other factors at play. If I had to guess why Komodo suggested Bf6 to you but not Stockfish, it would be because Stockfish prunes more aggressively in order to be &lt;em&gt;extremely&lt;/em&gt; fast in searching.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastEditorUserId="12873" LastEditDate="2020-06-03T02:59:21.047" LastActivityDate="2020-06-03T02:59:21.047" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29836" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-06-02T20:49:50.527" Score="2" ViewCount="78" Body="&lt;p&gt;My engine is evaluating the same position at the same depth with a different score inside the search tree, is that normal?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;depth 1   ply 3 alfa -20 beta -15  score -15 (1.Na3 a5 2.Nh3)&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/1ppppppp/8/p7/8/N6N/PPPPPPPP/R1BQKB1R w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    [Title &quot;depth 1   ply 3 alfa -20 beta -5  score -5 (1.Nh3 a5 2.Na3)&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;rnbqkbnr/1ppppppp/8/p7/8/N6N/PPPPPPPP/R1BQKB1R w KQkq - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Search code:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;        tab.makeMove(mov);&#xA;        // first  time eval value is -15 with alpha -30 beta -15 &#xA;        // second time eval value is -25 with alpha -30 beta -25&#xA;        // this is in the same search&#xA;        int eval = -negaMax(depth - 1, -beta, -alfa, ply + 1);&#xA;        tab.takeBack(mov);&#xA;&#xA;        if (eval &amp;gt;= beta) {&#xA;            return beta;&#xA;        }&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;engine output:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;go&#xA;info depth 1 score cp 50 pv b1c3 &#xA;info depth 2 score cp 0 pv b1c3 b8c6 &#xA;info depth 3 score cp 50 pv b1c3 b8c6 g1f3 &#xA;info depth 4 score cp 0 pv b1c3 b8c6 g1f3 g8f6 &#xA;info depth 5 score cp 40 pv b1c3 b8c6 d2d4 g8f6 g1f3 &#xA;info depth 6 score cp 0 pv b1c3 d7d5 d2d4 b8c6 g1f3 g8f6 &#xA;info depth 7 score cp 35 pv e2e4 b8c6 g1f3 g8f6 e4e5 f6e4 b1c3 &#xA;bestmove e2e4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23554" LastEditorUserId="23554" LastEditDate="2020-06-02T22:02:30.053" LastActivityDate="2020-06-25T19:21:37.313" Title="Engine is evaluating the same position at the same depth with different score" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;programming&gt;&lt;evaluation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29837" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29830" CreationDate="2020-06-02T20:51:56.743" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In general, a good plan in these situations is to then advance in the centre (either with ...f6-...e5 or just ...e5). When the position opens up, White will have a clear weakness on c3, which could be even more vulnerable than your d5-pawn. In addition, if you exchange off the d4-pawn with ...e5, White's control over the c5-square becomes weakened. However, your grip over c4 remains strong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2020-06-02T20:51:56.743" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29838" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-06-03T02:54:54.103" Score="1" ViewCount="74" Body="&lt;p&gt;How much opening preparation does a 1800-1900(UCSF) player need and how to achieve that?&#xA;Also, do you need class A tactics rating to reach class A chess ranking?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21840" LastEditorUserId="12873" LastEditDate="2020-06-03T03:13:23.873" LastActivityDate="2020-06-03T03:13:23.873" Title="Need advice from class A players?" Tags="&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;rating&gt;&lt;preparation&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="5" ClosedDate="2020-06-03T15:45:26.307" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29839" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29834" CreationDate="2020-06-03T04:37:28.503" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's all a matter of pruning. If you're not familiar with this concept, it's a key part of how engines search so deeply from a position. They are based on heuristics, e.g. the engine will search moves that give away a queen for no material compensation less. This allows it to focus its attention on the main moves in the position and search those deeper.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Good pruning contributes a huge amount to engine strength, but it's possible that pruning also cuts off the best move if the compensation is too deep (more technical term here is &quot;beyond the search horizon&quot;). That's what you're seeing. The heuristics for this position tell Stockfish to focus on other moves.*&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In any case, if you let Stockfish analyze deeper, it'll spot that Bf6 is the best move. At depth 38, it's suggesting Bf6 (+37.0), Be3 (+14.5) and Rad1 (+14.3).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*I'm not sure if Stockfish has &quot;if everything wins, search X less&quot; code. It's possible. After all, Stockfish patches are tested against previous versions of the same program, and if everything wins then a patch that moves Bf6 up the move ordering isn't really an improvement - they yield the same result.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastActivityDate="2020-06-03T04:37:28.503" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29840" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29841" CreationDate="2020-06-03T05:06:41.453" Score="4" ViewCount="763" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are there any opening traps where your opponent can blunder into a windmill?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23479" LastEditorUserId="16626" LastEditDate="2020-09-10T20:57:44.310" LastActivityDate="2020-12-31T23:33:45.767" Title="Are there any opening traps that result in a windmill?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;trap&gt;&lt;windmill&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29841" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29840" CreationDate="2020-06-03T06:00:42.250" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;I did some deep, deep searching and found few results. It seems that there are no actual windmill traps that are quick and widely known. This is unless you somehow manage to run through long and arbitrary sequences that are extremely unlikely to occur in actual play. Even then, it is a matter of your opponent who actually falls for it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you still consider it a trap though, the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chesstraps.net/html5/prolookup.taf?&amp;amp;_id=39651&amp;amp;did=2529&amp;amp;title=the%20russian%20windmill%20trap&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;one genuine&lt;/a&gt; such trap that I have discovered so far occurs in the Russian Game, Damiano Variation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;[startply &amp;quot;26&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. Nxe5 Nxe4 4. Qe2 Qe7 5. Qxe4 d6 6. d4 dxe5 7. Qxe5 Qxe5+ 8. dxe5 Nc6 9. Bb5 Bd7 10. Bxc6 Bxc6 11. O-O O-O-O 12. Bf4 g5 13. Bxg5 Rg8 14. Bxd8 Rxg2+ 15. Kh1 Rxf2+ 16. Kg1 Rg2+ 17. Kh1 Rg3+ 18. Rf3 Bxf3#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The trap occurs when Black plays 13... Rg8. If White strikes the false prey with the move 14. Bxd8?, thinking they have won an exchange, then Black can play 14... Rxg2! and commence a mate in 4 using the windmill tactic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another alternative, as @supercat suggested in a comment, is that Black could troll some and have fun demonstrating the power of the windmill.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;2kB1b2/ppp2p1p/2b5/4P3/8/8/PPP2PrP/RN3R1K b - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Rxf2+ 2. Kg1 Rg2+ 3. Kh1 Rxc2+ 4. Kg1 Rg2+ 5. Kh1 Rxb2+ 6. Kg1 Rg2+ 7. Kh1 Rxa2+ 8. Rf3 Bxf3+ 9. Kg1 Bc5+ 10. Kf1 Rxh2 11. Ke1 Be3 12. Nd2 Bxd2+ 13. Kf1 Be3 14. Ke1 Rh1#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-12-31T23:33:45.767" LastActivityDate="2020-12-31T23:33:45.767" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29842" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29834" CreationDate="2020-06-03T09:43:14.880" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;To expand on what heuristic pruning means for an alpha-beta negamax search, which many chess programs use, typically the evaluation function has some kind of depth parameter and the alpha-beta window. What it does is to test each possible move one by one, calling itself on the resulting position with the depth parameter reduced and with the appropriate alpha-beta window passed in. eval(d,α,β) searches to depth d and returns the value of the current position truncated to the interval [α,β]. At the start we call eval(D,−∞,∞) where D is the maximum depth. Note that the alpha-beta window depends on the evaluation results for previously tried moves as follows.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We first set m := α before testing any move. When testing each subsequent move we would call t := −eval(d',−β,−m) and then set m := max(m,t). If m≥β then we can immediately return β. At the end we return m. The reason for calling &quot;eval(d',−β,−m)&quot; is that if the resulting position has true value u outside [−β,−m] then it would have equivalent effect on the true value v of the current position as the truncated value. (If u&amp;lt;−β, then −eval(d',−β,−m) yields β so we return β, which is correct since v&gt;β. If u&gt;−m, then −eval(d',−β,−m) yields m so it does not affect m, which is correct since that move led to true value of −u&amp;lt;m.) Here d' is set by a heuristic (e.g. quiescence search may set d' := d−1 for normal moves but d' := d−1/2 for check and d' := d for captures).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To understand how heuristic pruning helps, one must first understand how alpha-beta helps. When the move-ordering is optimal (it always tests an optimal move first), then alpha-beta eliminates all the other moves at every alternate recursion level in most of the cases. To intuitively see why, consider the first move. To find an optimal first move X, we really have to check all possible first moves. But after we test an optimal one first, m would be set to that value, and we call eval(,−∞,−m) for every other tested first move X'. But since we first test an optimal opponent response Y to X', we will find that it results in a value at least −m (since X' is not better than X), and hence immediately return (discarding all other opponent responses because the first one already confirms that X' is not better than X). This happens throughout the search tree, and so the branching factor is more or less reduced to 1 at every alternate level in the search tree. This effectively doubles the search-depth possible with the same resources.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mathematically, it is impossible to do better than alpha-beta search if we want to prove that a move is optimal. However, in many games such as chess we can perform better on average by using heuristic pruning. Instead of testing all the moves required by the alpha-beta search, we discard many of the moves! Heuristics inform this process. For example, if d&gt;4 then we could for each possible move X, perform X then set t[X] := −eval(4,−β,−α) then undo X. After that, t[X] represents a depth-4 evaluation of those moves truncated to [α,β]. We might then choose to discard any move X if t[X]+3≤m; Informally, if move X causes a depth-4 evaluation that is at least a 'bishop' worse than the current best, we assume that it is poor enough that ignoring it will not affect the evaluation result.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Heuristic pruning (beyond alpha-beta) can hence reduce the effective branching factor (not just at every alternate level). That is why it is used in many modern chess programs today. The example heuristic I gave above is just for illustrative purposes; actual chess programs use a whole variety of complex heuristics to prune (e.g. null-move heuristic), as well as heuristics to &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; prune (e.g. the killer/history heuristic).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now looking at the situation you have here, it is easy for many heuristics to prune off the best move &lt;code&gt;Bf6&lt;/code&gt; unless the depth-0 evaluation gives high enough weight to king danger, because &lt;code&gt;Bf6&lt;/code&gt; drops the bishop for a pawn and it takes quite a lot of quiet moves to see any benefits besides increased Black king danger. I am not sure, but the best line appears to be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;r1b2r2/pp1p1ppk/2n1p3/6B1/2P5/5N2/PQ3PPP/R4RK1 w Q - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Bf6 gxf6 2. Qxf6 Rg8 3. Ng5+ Rxg5 4. Qxg5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This line takes 2 quiet moves, 1 check and 4 captures. However, a pruning heuristic will very likely prune based on the first few moves of the following line:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;r1b2r2/pp1p1ppk/2n1p3/6B1/2P5/5N2/PQ3PPP/R4RK1 w Q - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Bf6 gxf6 2. Qxf6 Kg8 3. Ng5 Nd8 4. Rad1 e5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since it cannot see that this line ends in checkmate, it may believe that the bishop has been lost for a pawn. If the evaluation function had counted the position after &lt;code&gt;3. Ng5&lt;/code&gt; as high king danger, it would not have pruned the &lt;code&gt;Bf6&lt;/code&gt; line away. As it is, it likely weighed the king danger against the bishop loss and thought it was worse than keeping the bishop. Furthermore, since there are many possible moves instead of &lt;code&gt;Bf6&lt;/code&gt; that keep the bishop, they would likely have pushed the &lt;code&gt;Bf6&lt;/code&gt; line far down in the move-ordering, hence it never got searched deep.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9192" LastActivityDate="2020-06-03T09:43:14.880" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29843" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29857" CreationDate="2020-06-03T09:52:01.790" Score="1" ViewCount="169" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[title &quot;White to move&quot;]&#xA;[fen &quot;2b2rk1/pr2n1bp/2p1p1p1/2pqPp2/N2p1P1Q/1P1P1N2/P1PB2PP/1R3R1K w - - 1 0&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this position, I was considering the best move for white. Re1 seems good but why not Ba5? Or even c4? After Re1, what's the best plan for white?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23746" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-06-03T13:28:12.383" LastActivityDate="2020-06-04T16:56:42.787" Title="What is the best move for White in this position?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29845" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28912" CreationDate="2020-06-03T12:51:55.450" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's a lot, but &lt;a href=&quot;https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.0020124&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;it's probably hogowash&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-06-03T13:00:25.370" LastActivityDate="2020-06-03T13:00:25.370" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29846" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29847" CreationDate="2020-06-03T13:08:01.447" Score="11" ViewCount="1511" Body="&lt;p&gt;I feel that in many lines starting with d4, such as the Queen's Gambit Declined, or especially the Nimzo-Indian, Black is more than happy to trade her King's Bishop for White's knight on c3. For instance, one frequent line in the Nimzo-Indian (reached in 3200 games of the chess365 database) would be the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 Bb4 4. a3 Bxc3+ 5. bxc3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What strategic benefit does this hold for Black? She has given up the bishop pair, given White the chance to capture toward the centre with her b-pawn, in turn strengthening the d4 square for White, and moved the same piece twice in the opening. And yet, this seems to be a line where Black enjoys a &lt;em&gt;higher&lt;/em&gt; win percentage than White, which puzzles me as it contradicts my naive understanding of opening principles.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23748" LastEditorUserId="23748" LastEditDate="2020-06-03T14:12:44.830" LastActivityDate="2020-06-03T18:05:40.853" Title="Why does Black want to trade off her King's Bishop in many d4 lines?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;&lt;1.d4&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29847" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29846" CreationDate="2020-06-03T13:21:32.107" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;Black gains a tempo. Black has played two bishop moves, but white has played Nc3, a3, and bxc3. Once the smoke clears, black has a lead in development with one minor piece out (vs none) and can immediately castle. Also, it doesn’t hurt that the doubled pawns are a weakness that can be exploited later. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If white does not play a3, black has no immediate need to take the knight, and it makes more sense to keep the pin. This is especially true because black does not gain the tempo without a3. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17157" LastEditorUserId="17157" LastEditDate="2020-06-03T14:11:40.900" LastActivityDate="2020-06-03T14:11:40.900" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29848" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29846" CreationDate="2020-06-03T18:05:40.853" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;Bent Larsen explained it like this. If you want to win as Black you must unbalance the position, and this involves giving something to get something. Giving your opponent the two Bishops is something that you can do without a great deal of risk, because the advantage will probably not be significant until the endgame, and White must first of all get to an ending.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastActivityDate="2020-06-03T18:05:40.853" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29849" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29843" CreationDate="2020-06-03T18:48:59.247" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, how would you evaluate the position?  This should help you come up with a plan and thus the moves to consider. It seems you are randomly selecting moves, which you would then calculate the consequences.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black has serious weaknesses you can think to exploit.  How about those c-pawns?  c5 looks very weak.  And White's Knights are probably drooling over all the holes they can hop on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;B-c1-a3xc5 looks like the juiciest plan (someday getting a Knight to d6 is attractive too).  You just have to make sure Black can't get away with something like c5-c4.   Black will have to do something desperate for counter-play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A dream line would go:  1.Bc1 Re8 2.Ba3 Rb5 3.Nfd2 Bf8 4.Nc4 Rd8 5.Nd6 Ra5 6.Qf6&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2020-06-03T18:48:59.247" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29850" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29851" CreationDate="2020-06-03T19:28:13.860" Score="3" ViewCount="802" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/a5Znw.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/a5Znw.png&quot; alt=&quot;Image of chess.com&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What do the numbers in the top right corner signify?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23755" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T09:59:59.497" LastActivityDate="2020-06-03T21:52:39.457" Title="What do these numbers mean on chess.com?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29851" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29850" CreationDate="2020-06-03T19:50:07.767" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Those are the times taken for the moves.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;So e4 took 0.1 seconds,&lt;br&gt;&#xA;e5 took 6.2 seconds and&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Nf3 took 7.7 seconds.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2020-06-03T21:23:21.220" LastActivityDate="2020-06-03T21:23:21.220" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29852" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24685" CreationDate="2020-06-04T03:26:10.243" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;(I'm adding another answer because it's not actually mine)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A Stockfish developer by the name of Михаил Чалый wrote &lt;a href=&quot;https://groups.google.com/d/msg/fishcooking/mk4ecwtNW-I/EznU86GBAQAJ&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; on the Fishcooking Google Groups (basically a forum for Stockfish developers) when this same idea was suggested there:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1) We don't have hardware suitable for lc0 on most of the machines (80+% of machines are noob machines* w/o GPU);&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;2) testing against external engine will double error bars thus increase amount of games needing for test to be reliable by factor of 4;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;3) you will need to write new logic since you a) can't use SPRT, b) you need to normalize leela/sf speed to some value (as we do with TC in normal tests) so you will need assymmetric time controls;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;4) there are 0 proof that patches that work in selfplay don't work vs leela. Actually there are opposite proofs like fastgm 16 cores list where sf 11 is ahead of sf10 by 50 elo which is exactly what we measure if you match them against each other.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;So tldr - it's hard or almost impossible to do and gains of this are not really existing anyway.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*As far as I'm aware, &quot;noob machines&quot; are machines owned by another person in the community named &quot;noob&quot;, who has lots of CPU hardware available but not GPU hardware.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastEditorUserId="15223" LastEditDate="2020-06-04T03:48:28.520" LastActivityDate="2020-06-04T03:48:28.520" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29853" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29855" CreationDate="2020-06-04T09:58:36.917" Score="-1" ViewCount="100" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to play chess online with friends, and I am new to this community. As such want to know basics of kings, queens, rooks, bishops, knights, and pawns move and play, along with other rules, because I am going to develop chess application for android.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23760" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-06-04T14:37:18.077" LastActivityDate="2020-06-04T16:06:52.743" Title="I want to know basic rules of chess" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29854" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12346" CreationDate="2020-06-04T10:22:55.343" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure if it's the best objective move but Nf3 followed by c4 seems pretty crushing to me. Black has a backward pawn on a semi-open file with no realistic way to advance it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2020-06-04T10:22:55.343" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29855" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29853" CreationDate="2020-06-04T10:47:52.517" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The international chess federation has published the &lt;a href=&quot;https://handbook.fide.com/chapter/E012018&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Laws of Chess&lt;/a&gt; which give the rules for playing chess. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Article 2: The initial position of the pieces on the chessboard&quot; would be a good place to start, followed by &quot;Article 3: The moves of the pieces&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-06-04T10:47:52.517" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29856" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-06-04T12:58:48.210" Score="7" ViewCount="1872" Body="&lt;p&gt;For context, I've been playing chess for around two years now, and my rating on Lichess is ~1850. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I first started playing, I learned a lot of heuristics for playing well, e.g. rooks are better than knights/bishops, castling is good (maybe better than you think, as a beginner), trade down when you're up in material. As I got better I started learning exceptions to these rules- a strong knight might be better than a passive rook, the king is better uncastled in the endgame, don't make &quot;even trades&quot; when they're not really even (e.g. if you have to make concessions to your pawn structure).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For all of these examples my intuition eventually caught up to the rules I was following blindly. To a beginner all rooks are better than all knights, because it's hard to judge when pieces are strong -- this instinct only came after watching many more in-depth analyses of games where one player sacrificed the exchange.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But there is one rule that I never learned to break, and that is &quot;never play f3/f6&quot; (at least when I'm castled kingside). To me it's clear why I &lt;em&gt;shouldn't&lt;/em&gt;, sinc it&#xA; often creates weaknesses in front of my king, and there have been many games in my past where pushing the f-pawn was the losing move. But it's never obvious when I &lt;em&gt;should&lt;/em&gt;. For example, in some of my game analyses the engine says that f3/f6 was the best move, but I can't see the idea behind it. (When it's the only move to prevent getting mated or forked, it's a bit clearer, so I guess I'm asking about the positional ideas behind it.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, when should I play f3/f6? I'm specifically asking this without reference to any opening, as a rule of thumb akin to the ones I brought up above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that it is also easier for me to move my f-pawn when it gives me another clear positional advantage. For example I might not mind the weaknesses that arise from capturing an e-pawn because I build a stronger center. This is a bit of a contradiction with the opening-agnostic viewpoint I'm trying to have, but I guess I am asking specifically about the case of &quot;dry&quot; positions with a lot of meandering and no clear path.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23766" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-06-04T14:32:35.297" LastActivityDate="2020-06-05T03:28:44.707" Title="When should I play f3/f6?" Tags="&lt;positional-play&gt;&lt;pawns&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29857" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29843" CreationDate="2020-06-04T14:12:41.030" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why do you think the moves you suggest are any good?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Before you decide on any candidate moves you should analyze the position, consider how you can improve your position while minimizing counter play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would approach the position as follows. Other alternative ways might exist...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Evaluate the position&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Looking at the position I notice a number of things:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the position is closed (so no immediate attacks on the king possible either side)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It is very difficult for black to open the position without sacrificing at  least a pawn. White on the other hand has several options to open the position with g4, c3, b4....&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;White's pieces are much more active.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;White's pieces are not bound to protect anything (Rb7 has to protect Ne7 and Qd5 is protecting the pawn on c5).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;White has no weak pawns, while black has a doubled c pawn (c5 is easy to attack and particularly weak) and an isolated pawn on the a file.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;white has outposts for the knights on c4, d6, g5. Black has outposts on d5, c3, e3.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;white has two knights (often better in closed positions) while black has two bishops (often better in open positions)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Candidate plans&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Based on the analysis you should come up with ideas of how to approach the position. Generally you want to open the position to some extent as you are unlikely to win with 8 pawns on the board. You are not going to win either by just doing moves that look natural or superficially &quot;good&quot; like Re1 or Ba5 (what do you want to achieve?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Think of a number of different plans and how realistic they are. Also consider your opponent's option. In this case, only white decides where to open the position and you should make sure that such opening of the position is to your advantage as black can basically just sit and wait.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Opening closed positions by pawn breaks on the flanks is a standard theme that any semi-advanced player knows.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A few possible ideas for a plan together with a rough evaluation. No concrete moves yet.:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;kingside attack/pawn storm involving moves like g4 or h5 at some point&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Seems difficult to get enough pieces to the kingside to assist in the attack and the black king could also escape via f7.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;play against the c5 pawn (in a closed position)&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;with Bc1 and Ba3 you attack the pawn twice, but black could defend the pawn with Rb5 (after protecting the Ne7 otherwise). It is not obvious how to proceed with this plan afterwards.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;improve the position of your pieces&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The Rb1 is on a strange square and you might want to reroute the Nf3 to c4. However it is usually better to have a concrete plan in mind before you move your pieces somewhere. Even if c4 is a great square for a knight you might want to figure out that for your plan it is better placed elsewhere.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;open the queenside with moves like b4 or c3 or c4 (after some preparation)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Decide on a plan&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Looking deeper into the rough plans judging how risky they are and in how far they can give you an advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;kingside attack: looks very optimistic and I would forget about it quickly in this position.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;direct play against the c5 pawn with Bc1 and Ba3: does not seem to win the pawn anytime soon. Black can defend now with Rb5 and later with Bf8. The Ba3 and Na4 might be misplaced there if you cannot get anywhere with this plan. So I'd forget about this idea either.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;improve the position of pieces. As mentioned, particularly in closed positions you want to have the pieces not on some random good square but often where the action is, i.e. where the position is going to be opened. So this idea should be seen in combination with any opening ideas.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;opening the position on the queenside. &#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;This looks like a very good idea since, once you open the position here, the doubled c pawn is much easier to attack and also it is easy to get white pieces to the queenside.&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Need to decide between opening with c3/c4 or b4....&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Deciding between opening the position with b4 or c4/c3.&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;b4 gives black play on the open b file or even the option for counter play with c4. Also the Queen might enter in some lines via a2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;c3/c4 opens the c file for white which is good, but potentially leaves white with a weak d pawn. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which one to pick depends a bit on your experience with such positions. To me the opening with c3, c4 seems much safer giving black less counterplay and you have immediately targets with the weak black pawns on the c file.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Deciding on concrete moves&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once we've decided on a plan (opening the position with c3 or c4), it is time to settle on a move. An immediate c4 or c3 is probably premature as your pieces are not ideally placed. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How can we prepare the opening of the position so that we avoid any counterplay? Where should the pieces go?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;rooks on c1 (to have immediate pressure on the c pawns) and d1 (to protect d3 and later perhaps support a push to d4) seems very obvious&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;queen: might want to transfer via f2 to the center/queenside&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;knights and bishop look ok-ish where they are&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, I would improve the position with Rbc1, Rfd1, perhaps Qf2 and then play c3 or c4. Whether you first play Rbc1 or Rfd1 should not matter much.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that there are at least two tactical ideas that help you in opening the position with c4:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If the queen move somewhere after c4, the pawn on c5 is not protected and can be captured.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;After exchanging the black d pawn for the white c pawn, the white pawn on d3 is not really hanging because Nxc5 forks the queen and the rook.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So in summary I'd go with Rbc1 now and later open the position with c3 or c4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2020-06-04T14:12:41.030" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29858" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29856" CreationDate="2020-06-04T14:30:43.130" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's probably helpful to ask oneself &lt;strong&gt;why&lt;/strong&gt; a move such as f3/f6 (moving forward, I will only consider f3, but it should work from black's perspective as well) would be useful in general. &lt;strong&gt;Why&lt;/strong&gt; would I ever even consider making such a move? The very obvious reasons should be clear to most: if I want to reinforce/control/attack the squares e4 and/or g4, then of course the pawn move to f3 could be very useful. Another very obvious reason for making the move is of course the pawn being attacked.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For reasons a bit more subtle, the move could also prove useful if I for some reason wish to vacate the f2 square (for instance, to clear the h4-e1 diagonal for my dark-squared bishop if it were pushed back by a black pawn mass). Another subtle reason is that the move could be used in a pawn endgame in favour of the immediate f4 push for tempo-related reasons, or more generally to induce zugzwang.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've now listed all good reasons for making the move that I've been able come up with. If you can think of another general scenario where specifically f3 is called for, feel free to suggest it; I'm having a difficult time coming up with any other good general reason to play the move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now for the fun part: &lt;strong&gt;Why&lt;/strong&gt; would I &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; wish to play f3? This question is equally important to the first one if you want a good heuristic for when to play f3. The reasons for &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; playing the move that I can think of are the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It blocks the f3 square for the g1 knight. This is a major drawback of opening systems that make an early f3 push in the opening, see for instance the Sämisch system against the KID.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It begins opening up the a7-g1 diagonal. This is generally not great since white's king is often on g1, just waiting to be harrassed if this diagonal opens.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It weakens the control over the e3 square. This means that White's dark-squared bishop doesn't really have a safe haven on e3 anymore. This is a common way to lose as White in, say, the open Sicilian.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It blocks the d1-h5 diagonal for White's queen/light-squared bishop.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It creates a so-called &quot;hook&quot; for Black's pawns/pieces to attack in a potential kingside attack by Black.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It can be a waste of time if I'm in a pawn race (either literal pawn race in an endgame or a &quot;pawn storm&quot; race). Sometimes you can go ahead with the pawn push g2-g4 without even defending the square first; after all, if I'm aiming to use a pawn storm to soften up black's king on the kingside, removing the g pawn opens up the g-file for my rook. This last point is highlighted in many games in the open Sicilian, where White attacks Black's king on g8 while Black attacks White's king on b1; in these races, every tempo counts.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Again, if you can think of another good reason not to play f2-f3, then feel free to add it to the list. Know these reasons well, because some of them are not that immediately obvious why they are a big deal. For instance, giving up control over the e3 square may seem innocent enough, but in many cases it can be surprisingly detrimental to your position, especially if the position is not closed. Therefore you shouldn't make weakening moves such as f3 without a clear intention in mind.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While I haven't really heard the rule-of-thumb to &quot;never play f3/f6&quot;, the above list of reasons &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; to play it seems like a good explanation as to why someone gave you that advice; most of the points I listed above are not easy for a beginner to fully appreciate, so it's simpler to just remember &quot;don't play f3/f6&quot; when you're still new to the game. After all, before you can break the rules, you have to understand them first.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, as you're now no longer a beginner (as indicated by your rating), I would propose this &lt;strong&gt;new and improved&lt;/strong&gt; heuristic for the f3/f6 move:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Never play f3/f6 if the &lt;em&gt;good&lt;/em&gt; reasons for playing it do not &lt;em&gt;outweigh&lt;/em&gt; the &lt;em&gt;negative side-effects&lt;/em&gt; of playing it.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you can see, this advice would be pointless to give to a beginner, but for a player who is starting to learn things beyond the bare basics of positional chess it is much more suitable - after all, as you get stronger you will notice that every decision you make is a tradeoff between pros and cons of that decision. Even the &lt;em&gt;obvious&lt;/em&gt; moves are decisions which are made easy by the fact that it's very clear what part of the pro/con list outweighs the other, but more difficult positional decisions may sometimes seem like a coin toss. In general, your chess ability is directly tied to how well you manage to accurately make up the list of pros and cons for given moves, and in the more difficult cases you will not be able to use the crutches that are commonly given to novice players to evaluate a decision with accuracy. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8300" LastActivityDate="2020-06-04T14:30:43.130" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29859" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29856" CreationDate="2020-06-04T14:35:37.510" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The most common scenario, e.g. in the Yugoslav attack, is when you have castled queenside or can do so before an attack on f2/f7 takes place. Once your king is safe on the queenside the f-pawn isn’t needed in defense of the king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you’ve castled kingside, another key factor is whether the opponent has a Bishop (or Queen!) they can place on the f2-c5 (resp. f7-c4) diagonal. If their bishop is traded, or you can control that diagonal with your Bishop, then your king is still safe after moving the f-pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2005" LastActivityDate="2020-06-04T14:35:37.510" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29860" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-06-04T15:48:01.730" Score="5" ViewCount="12439" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to create something that will select an appropriate Stockfish difficulty setting automatically given the player's rating. The straight Stockfish v11 that I've downloaded has 20 difficulty settings, and various other settings for controlling thinking time. Is there a resource that has approximate ratings for the levels? If that doesn't exist, what method would be recommended for finding the approximate ratings of chess engines when I'm starting from scratch?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: Sopel gave a &lt;a href=&quot;http://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/pull/2225&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;link some time ago,&lt;/a&gt; that answers the problem, although they did it in comment form so I can't mark it as the correct answer&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23767" LastEditorUserId="23767" LastEditDate="2021-05-18T03:27:17.383" LastActivityDate="2021-05-18T14:23:15.577" Title="Is there a list of approximate ELO ratings for each Stockfish level?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;rating&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;programming&gt;&lt;elo&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29861" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29843" CreationDate="2020-06-04T16:00:24.877" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;My knight on a4 is crying to go to c4 then even on to d6 so moving it to b2 to get there is great, especially since it will take an extra move for my opponent to get his bishop to a6 as the rook is currently in the way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a temptation to play Ng5. My opponent would have to advance the h-pawn to prevent the threat against it. h6 would force my knight to go back again so appears to waste tempo but it also potentially weakens my opponent's kingside. And what if I leave the knight on g5 and play Rf3? After the exchange on g5 my opponent can move the king to f7 before my rook gets to h3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But hey, what if first I get the other knight to d6 - that covers f7 and then I can consider Ng5 later followed by moving the rook to f3 and h3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I have sacrificed the knight and the pawn on f4 is now on g5 there's a chance the bishop will remain useful on d2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I haven't put this through an engine, and of course my opponent will play moves in between but I like Nb2 for my move at this point.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(I am going to post this, then do my analysis. Maybe there's a flaw but it's a plan, not necessarily the best move).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12398" LastActivityDate="2020-06-04T16:00:24.877" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29862" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29853" CreationDate="2020-06-04T16:06:52.743" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are many resources online, but one good start might be the beginner's course on Lichess: &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/learn&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://lichess.org/learn&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lichess is free software and free of charge.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11948" LastActivityDate="2020-06-04T16:06:52.743" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29863" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29843" CreationDate="2020-06-04T16:56:42.787" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just want to remark that it is not always necessary to have a definite plan. If you do have a single, obviously best plan, it is because your opponent has played badly. Here, even though Black has played badly, having weak pawns and disorganized pieces, there does not seem to be a clear way of exploiting this. One reaction to this situation is just to improve your pieces and wait for Black to make another mistake, while keeping more than one plan as an option. I like the play described by @user1583209, but I want to put forward an alterative.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some answers have observed that there is no prospect of a quick Kingside attack, but there is a good prospect of a slow one. I note that the Na4 is badly placed for a K-side attack. It can be improved by N-b2-c4 and perhaps a2-a4. Then it cuts out virtually all Black Q-side play. It stands on a good square and has a good square to go to on d6. We will need to advance our g and/or h Pawns, so we put the K where it will be safer (perhaps e2), and then bring the Rooks to g1 and h1, We put the Bishop where it can join in, say h4. It usually is not good to lead the attack with a Q, so find a place where she is mobile and can join in, like f2. All of this might take ten or fifteen moves, but I dont see any way for Black to take advantage. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Moreover, this does not involve any committal moves. If you were to become convinced that the c3 plan was better, you could actually take back almost all of these moves and start again&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastActivityDate="2020-06-04T16:56:42.787" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29864" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23125" CreationDate="2020-06-04T20:13:08.493" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;In addition, your made-up FEN may be a part of it. As it stands, you have described a position where castling kingside is not a legal move, so perhaps the program wants to develop the king's rook. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Have a look at the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Forsyth%E2%80%93Edwards_Notation&amp;amp;oldid=954773673&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia page on FEN&lt;/a&gt; or similar resources to see how you can include castling.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23772" LastEditorUserId="23772" LastEditDate="2020-06-05T11:25:58.550" LastActivityDate="2020-06-05T11:25:58.550" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29865" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-06-04T21:42:51.260" Score="3" ViewCount="62" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd like to buy my nephew a folding wooden chess set for his birthday.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I played with my own children when they were smaller it was hard for them to go more than a few minutes without fidgeting and jiggling that inevitably upset the board, so I am pretty sure that the larger the pieces are, the better the experience will be for everyone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is something like &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.regencychess.co.uk/10-inch-white-wood-folding-chess-set-with-staunton-style-pieces-p-30.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; or &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.jaqueslondon.co.uk/products/premium-chess-set-complete?_pos=3&amp;amp;_sid=075829d41&amp;amp;_ss=r&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this 10&quot; set&lt;/a&gt; likely to be too small? Or is it better to have &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessmaze.co.uk/collections/travel-chess-sets/products/folding-chess-set?variant=6035959557&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;something larger&lt;/a&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I want a folding set that he can safely put away with the pieces in it. I don't really see the point of a magnetic board, I'd rather just have heavier pieces. I'd be glad to hear out any experiences and advice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23774" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-06-04T22:45:32.743" LastActivityDate="2020-06-05T07:37:47.160" Title="What is a good size chess board for an eight-year-old?" Tags="&lt;chessboards&gt;&lt;children&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29866" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29868" CreationDate="2020-06-04T21:51:57.143" Score="9" ViewCount="2025" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the diagram below, Black makes the move denoted as “Ne7” which moves the black knight on g8 move to e7.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[StartFlipped &amp;quot;0&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;r1bqkbnr/pp3ppp/2n1p3/1BPpP3/8/4B3/PPP2PPP/RN1QK1NR b KQkq - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Ne7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The problem is, based on my limited knowledge about chess, “Ne7” should be ambiguous in this case since also the black knight on c6 can also move to e7.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;How come we need only to write this move as “Ne7”? Is it simply a wrongfully written move?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I found this PGN online, so I have not written/played them myself. I would rather not go in and correct the moves myself, and I would rather find a way to disambiguate them correctly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23773" LastEditorUserId="10380" LastEditDate="2021-05-27T10:09:07.640" LastActivityDate="2021-05-27T10:09:07.640" Title="Two knights can move to e7, but the move is only specified as Ne7" Tags="&lt;pgn&gt;&lt;notation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2020-06-05T21:37:59.023" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29867" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29866" CreationDate="2020-06-04T22:12:49.777" Score="-8" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is an error.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When two pieces of the same type can move to the target square, you must specify enough information to make the move unambiguous.&#xA;The person / computer notating this should have switched to algebraic notation (g8e7) or specified Nge7.&#xA;If a human entered this, then it was human error, plus a system that doesn't check for such errors.&#xA;If a computer entered this, it's a bug.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21524" LastActivityDate="2020-06-04T22:12:49.777" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29868" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29866" CreationDate="2020-06-04T22:19:17.327" Score="30" Body="&lt;p&gt;The c6 knight is pinned by the bishop on b5. Note that if the c6 knight were to move it would leave Black's king in check, which renders any such move illegal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore it is ok in this case to write &quot;Ne7&quot; instead of &quot;Nge7&quot;, since the pin means that there is no ambiguity as to which knight moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8300" LastActivityDate="2020-06-04T22:19:17.327" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29869" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-06-05T01:26:50.260" Score="3" ViewCount="178" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm probably what you'd call an advanced beginner. I spend most of my chess time solving puzzles on Lichess, which tend to focus on midgame calculation, making beneficial trades, and finding checkmates.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lately, I've been trying to spend more time playing full games. I've noticed that I tend to do pretty well against humans in correspondence chess, but I usually lose against Stockfish, even when setting it to level 1.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The difference between low-level Stockfish and low-level human players seems to be that Stockfish plays consistently OK moves, whereas human players make occasional blunders that I can exploit. I would think that solving chess puzzles would be the best way to alleviate my dependence on opponents' blunders, but it seems to have had the opposite effect: If I can't spot an opportunity for a fork or pin, I'm never really sure what I'm supposed to be doing with my pieces. I'm wondering how I should go about improving my gameplay.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;What are the likely areas of deficiency of a player who can win consistently against low-level humans but seldom against low-level Stockfish?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20506" LastActivityDate="2020-06-09T20:09:55.593" Title="Good against low-level humans but bad against low-level computer" Tags="&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;study&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29870" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29856" CreationDate="2020-06-05T03:28:44.707" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;f3/f6 is often a very double-edged move. It often will weaken your king position and often take away a nice square for the knight, but it can also achieve a lot. It can prepare a e4/e5 push, disturb a pawn center, or prepare a g4/g5 push, or solidify e4. In some circumstances, it can be useful for defense as well. Usually, f3/f6 is not a good move, since it achieves little in most positions. However, in many cases, the advantages outweigh the disadvantages. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To explain each of the reasons I gave with examples-&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Prepare a e4/e5 push- The first example that comes to mind is the f3 Nimzo-Indian. Another example is in the Queen's Gambit Declined Exchange variation, where f3+e4 is a fairly common plan in the middlegame.&#xA;Disturb a pawn chain- The classic example is many French Advance variations, but this is also a fairly common theme in the Caro-Kann Advance. &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/F3l3aLPS5Ctb&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;This game&lt;/a&gt; I played is a nice example of the f6 push breaking down a pawn center.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Prepare a g4/g5 push: This is probably the most common. Probably the most clear example is the English Attack and similar ideas in numerous Open Sicilians, where white goes Be3, Qd2, f3, g4, and 0-0-0 in some order and goes for an attack. f3 is very important here to prepare g4. Another example is the Samisch variation of the King's Indian Defense, where sometimes white will go for g4. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Solidify e4- The Samisch Variation of the King's Indian Defense also uses f3 to support e4. Another example is the Fantasy Variation of the Caro-kann. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are almost certainly many more examples of this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Generally, f3 or f6 is not a good move, unless you know it's a common theme in the opening or others with similar structures (e.g. French, Caro-Kann). Definitely be careful about playing it, but there are many cases where you should. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23100" LastActivityDate="2020-06-05T03:28:44.707" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29872" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29865" CreationDate="2020-06-05T07:33:05.917" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Larger pieces and board may help to keep a better overview for a beginner. As soon as his interest in chess becomes more serious, he will start to be careful with the board, so I wouldn't pay too much attention to the weight of the figures, most sets aren't heavy enough to withstand mechanical force (unless you choose marble pieces).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd recommend around the 14&quot; or larger, keeping in mind though that as long he's not actively playing the set could just be one more toy cluttering the shelves in his room.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11948" LastActivityDate="2020-06-05T07:33:05.917" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29873" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29865" CreationDate="2020-06-05T07:37:47.160" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd say size does not matter much here. He'll get used to whatever you choose. Standard sized boards used in tournaments are alright with most people&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastActivityDate="2020-06-05T07:37:47.160" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29874" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29876" CreationDate="2020-06-05T08:54:32.157" Score="10" ViewCount="462" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was wondering how many queens can be put on boards without the position being a forced checkmate or a forced stalemate. The best I came up with is 53 this position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;QQQQQRK1/QQQQQPr1/QQQQQRNk/QQQQQQpB/QQQQQQQQ/QQQQQQQQ/QQQQQQQQ/QQQQQQQQ w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a way to fit 54 or more queens, given the constraints)? And if not, how would one show that more queens cannot be placed?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23777" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-06T03:57:07.297" LastActivityDate="2020-08-06T03:57:07.297" Title="How many queens can be on the board without neither forced mate nor forced stalemate (53?)?" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;problems&gt;&lt;stalemate&gt;&lt;queens&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29875" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22826" CreationDate="2020-06-05T08:55:48.977" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's not a sacrifice, it's a trade after 1. Gxc2 G*b3 and taking the elephant on a3 next.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, since doubutsu shogi is strongly solved, you can use an engine/tablebase (e.g. &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/fuzxxl/dobutsu&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://github.com/fuzxxl/dobutsu&lt;/a&gt;) to set up and see the solution anyway. (I haven't done this, though.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15989" LastEditorUserId="15989" LastEditDate="2020-06-06T05:41:02.623" LastActivityDate="2020-06-06T05:41:02.623" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29876" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29874" CreationDate="2020-06-05T10:14:55.590" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;57 Queens:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;QQQQQB1k/QQQQQ1bq/QQQQQQKB/QQQQQQQQ/QQQQQQQQ/QQQQQQQQ/QQQQQQQQ/QQQQQQQQ b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(edited FEN, White to move).&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(2edited, thanks &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/users/8860/noam-d-elkies&quot;&gt;Noam D. Elkies&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21817" LastEditorUserId="21817" LastEditDate="2020-06-06T19:15:40.220" LastActivityDate="2020-06-06T19:15:40.220" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29877" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29878" CreationDate="2020-06-05T10:31:58.060" Score="2" ViewCount="93" Body="&lt;p&gt;The question of how many captures a position can have has been asked in the past: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/8323/maximum-number-of-captures-in-a-position&quot;&gt;Maximum number of captures in a position&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Without captures, and without promotion, which I define as “quiet” moves, what is the maximum number of quiet moves that one side can have in a legal chess position can have?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10075" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-06-05T13:30:18.983" LastActivityDate="2020-06-05T15:43:01.390" Title="Maximum number of quiet moves in a position" Tags="&lt;problems&gt;&lt;pawn-promotion&gt;&lt;records&gt;&lt;captures&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29878" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29877" CreationDate="2020-06-05T12:41:51.633" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The maximum number for one side in a legal position is &lt;strong&gt;216 quiet moves&lt;/strong&gt;, according to &lt;a href=&quot;https://pdb.dieschwalbe.de/P1179374&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; 46 year old chess problem.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Thur Row, Chess Ultimates 1974, 216 Non-Capturing Moves&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;R6R/1K3Q2/3Q4/1Q4Q1/4Q3/2Q4Q/Q4QNN/2BB3k w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-06-05T15:43:01.390" LastActivityDate="2020-06-05T15:43:01.390" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29879" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29748" CreationDate="2020-06-05T14:09:01.397" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I like to replay whole games from memory after watching an animation of the whole game a couple of times. I use my own web app for this purpose which immediately reports the first deviation form the game. I sometimes turn on the blindfold setting and make the moves on an empty interactive chessboard. It is possible to go through a whole game like this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, try this link &lt;a href=&quot;https://tinyurl.com/srwuzqd&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://tinyurl.com/srwuzqd&lt;/a&gt; to replay Morphy's opera game blindfold playing White. The system can be configured blindfold or not, replay one side or both.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3456" LastActivityDate="2020-06-05T14:09:01.397" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29880" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29882" CreationDate="2020-06-05T16:24:43.620" Score="4" ViewCount="713" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYAfbBVqoPs&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Here&lt;/a&gt; is a (rather humorous) game in which a 900 player is told by a much higher rated player &lt;em&gt;only&lt;/em&gt; which &lt;em&gt;kind&lt;/em&gt; of piece to move (e.g. along the lines of &quot;bishop&quot;, not &quot;light square bishop&quot;). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it safe to assume that this assistance would improve the player's game, and presuming so, is there any statistical approximation (or rule of thumb) to estimate the expected improvement in someone's performance (measured by Elo) when given such an advantage? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;E.g. would a 900 player assisted in this way by a 2700 player become a 1500 player? (that's a wild guess for argument's sake)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18029" LastEditorUserId="18029" LastEditDate="2020-06-06T13:33:51.790" LastActivityDate="2020-06-06T15:08:30.773" Title="By how much does being told what piece to move improve one's Elo?" Tags="&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;elo&gt;&lt;statistics&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29881" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-06-05T17:42:31.640" Score="1" ViewCount="51" Body="&lt;p&gt;How do you manually set switches when you are compiling Stockfish in Visual Studio?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the type.h file it saids:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;When Makefile is not used (e.g. with Microsoft Visual Studio) some switches&#xA;  need to be set manually:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;-DNDEBUG      | Disable debugging mode. Always use this for release.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;-DNO_PREFETCH | Disable use of prefetch asm-instruction. You may need this to&#xA;                | run on some very old machines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;DUSE_POPCNT  | Add runtime support for use of popcnt asm-instruction. Works&#xA;               | only in 64-bit mode and requires hardware with popcnt support.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;-DUSE_PEXT    | Add runtime support for use of pext asm-instruction. Works&#xA;                | only in 64-bit mode and requires hardware with pext support.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I just want to where where/how do you put these &quot;commands&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23783" LastActivityDate="2020-06-05T18:39:52.013" Title="How do you manually set switches when you are compiling Stockfish in Visual Studio?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ClosedDate="2020-06-06T05:42:13.780" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29882" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29880" CreationDate="2020-06-05T18:23:49.917" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;This chess variant is called hand and brain.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From watching many of these games, I can guess that the only boost achieved is that low rated players get advice on a piece which is hanging.  So given your example, the hand would appear to gain Elo (named after Arpad Elo) just for not leaving pieces en prise.  Another advantage, although not very useful, is that by restricting the number of moves from the usual 30 down to about 8 does increase the shear odds of guessing the correct move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The downside of this game is that the tactics (which most consider to be 90-99% of chess) is severely restricted.  It's dangerous start a combination or even a simple attack unless the lower rated player understand.  It's also possible that a difference in playing style would adversely effect the choice of moves.  That is, an aggressive player always wants to push forward, and a positional player wants to suffocate to opponent, so each has a different view of the most correct move. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There currently isn't enough data to give a statistical answer, but I can guess about a curve.  A low rated player could play about 300 lower than the higher rated player with a limit around 1500.  As the lower rated player rating rises, this playing strength average around 100 points below the lower rated player.  As the lower rated player rating reaches the master level, the playing strength almost disappears.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT:&#xA;Expanding answer to better explain and suggest research.&#xA;I've only seen about 50 hand and brain games, so my data is unofficial and sprace.&#xA;My first exposure to hand and brain chess was on twitch.tv watching Anna Rudolf(2200) and Alexandra Botez(2000) play, from their respective channels.&#xA;Two channels which often have a pair of players that have played are HashtagChess (2200 and 1800) and CurlyQueenn (both 1900).  (On of the members of CurlyQueen is getting her own channel, so they may stop streaming together.)&#xA;I've seen other channels play this game, but they don't play regularly enough to be suggestions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The chatter shows that they often guess wrongly about what the brain move was.  But, since there is a chat box, you could ask them directly for their opinions.  You could note the games and have computer analyse and compare to their normal games.  (You can tell which site they are playing from and can see their user name, but I'm sure that they will be helpful if you just ask.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;NOTE:  I have some objections to the enforcement of twitch.tv policies, so I won't be able to get this information directly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9684" LastEditorUserId="9684" LastEditDate="2020-06-06T15:08:30.773" LastActivityDate="2020-06-06T15:08:30.773" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29883" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29881" CreationDate="2020-06-05T18:39:52.013" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This question should be in programming.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These can be put in a top h file, the best being stdafx.h.  Just include &quot;#define DNDEBUG&quot;,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They can be added to the command line/compiler commands.  Under VS6, Project-&gt;Settings (Alt+f7), there is a box to add project settings under the c/c++ tab.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9684" LastActivityDate="2020-06-05T18:39:52.013" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29884" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29909" CreationDate="2020-06-06T03:05:31.067" Score="7" ViewCount="2672" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess, Xiangqi (Chinese Chess) and Go all highly value the tempo/initiative.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Chinese saying &quot;宁失一子,不失一先&quot; literally means &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;It is better to lose material/piece, than a tempo/initiative.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(宁=prefer; 失=lose; 一=one; 子=piece (e.g. pawn, rook, knight); 不=not; 先=initiative, tempo, momentum)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I understand the principle/tactic, but I don't know how to express it idiomatically. Is there an English maxim for it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If there hasn't been an established proverb in English, we may invent some.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;@T.J.Crowder&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;&lt;strong&gt;Damn the material, full speed ahead!&lt;/strong&gt;&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;@Remellion&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;&lt;strong&gt;Speed over greed&lt;/strong&gt;&quot; &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pros: rhythm.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Cons: The saying emphasizes to accept your own pieces' loss; while &quot;greed&quot; is about taking your opponent's pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23747" LastEditorUserId="23747" LastEditDate="2020-06-08T13:32:16.420" LastActivityDate="2020-06-10T07:16:46.497" Title="What is the English maxim for &quot;Rather losing a material / piece, than losing a tempo / an initiative&quot;?" Tags="&lt;terminology&gt;" AnswerCount="12" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29885" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29884" CreationDate="2020-06-06T03:32:43.593" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am not aware of an idiomatic way of saying it. However, I would express it as &quot;&lt;em&gt;seizing the moment&lt;/em&gt;&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, there is a book by &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.newinchess.com/en_US/catalog/product/view/_ignore_category/1/id/601/s/sacrifice-and-initiative-in-chess/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Ivan Sokolov, &quot;Sacrifice and Initiative in Chess: Seize the Moment to Get the Advantage,&quot;&lt;/a&gt; which I think talks exactly about the importance of the initiative vs material that you mean in your question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10570" LastActivityDate="2020-06-06T03:32:43.593" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29886" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24934" CreationDate="2020-06-06T06:10:35.860" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think this proverb is all about what you get out of or take from chess. Some people are like the gnat that only get a very small drink from the sea of chess, just barely scratching the surface of its depths &amp;amp; mystery. However, some people can be like the elephant that is completely bathing in the sea, totally immersed in chess and getting much more out of it. It is saying that whoever you are, from that gnat all the way to the elephant, you can get something out of chess. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some people aren't able to get much from chess because they don't have the skills or knack for it and/or they lack interest. Some have a great love of chess but have to work at it to get there, and eventually they bathe in the sea of chess after a lot of effort. Wherever you stand now, chess can be rewarding if you have a passion for it and work at it. If you happen to be naturally gifted when it come to chess ability, then you are very lucky! Chess is the ancient game of Kings and has a myriad of mysteries to explore. Happy exploring to the gnats &amp;amp; the elephants and everything in between!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23787" LastEditorUserId="23787" LastEditDate="2020-06-06T06:16:37.233" LastActivityDate="2020-06-06T06:16:37.233" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29887" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-06-06T06:58:17.127" Score="0" ViewCount="71" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am looking for a script/code/CQL that searches for undefended pieces in  a given position. I know that is possible to do it in the python chess library, but that is too complicated for me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there any easy way?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21255" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-06-06T07:24:37.907" LastActivityDate="2020-08-13T06:19:10.643" Title="Script for finding undefended pieces" Tags="&lt;programming&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29888" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-06-06T11:17:50.480" Score="1" ViewCount="100" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a new player and a particular move that I have encountered multiple times playing as either black or white is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Qh5 g6 3. Qe5+ Be7 (3... Ne7 4. Qh8+) 4. Qh8+&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This was the mistake I made the first time I encountered this and needless to say, I have never played g6 (or b3) since. However, this strategy is still very worrying and I have found myself losing my rook multiple times. When a bishop or a knight are added, my pawn line is breached before I could shore up my defense. What is this opening called and how should I try countering it? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23755" LastEditorUserId="307" LastEditDate="2020-06-06T15:23:15.870" LastActivityDate="2020-06-06T15:23:15.870" Title="How do I counter 1. e4 e5 2. Qh5?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="6" ClosedDate="2020-06-06T11:33:08.910" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29889" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23125" CreationDate="2020-06-06T13:06:26.673" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Difficult to answer, not seeing your python script.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The best move in this position is Qxh6. Important, it comes with the idea of perpetual check via Qg6+ Qh6+, i.e. a draw. White is down a piece for nothing, so this perpetual/draw is the best white can hope to achieve here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Qxh6 is not particularly difficult to find for an engine or even a human, but stockfish might miss it, if it is severely crippled. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The most obvious reply to Qxh6 is Rb1+ winning the rook on h1, which could scare engines and humans if they don't look ahead more than a move or two. So in order to find Qxh6, your stockfish would need to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;look ahead at least 6 moves&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;be aware of the possibility of perpetual check&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If any of these is not satisfied, it would try to find the second best move. In this sense, Ke2 avoids the skewer with Rb1+ and activates the rook on h1, so is a decent move (in an otherwise lost position).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If in the initial position whie is alllowed to castle, your FEN is wrong. You would need to add a capital K after the &quot;w&quot; in order to indicate that white can castle kingside. Ignoring the perpetual with Qxh6, the best move would then be 0-0.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2020-06-06T13:06:26.673" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29890" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29884" CreationDate="2020-06-06T15:22:52.593" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Time is money.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It’s an idiom not typically used in the context of chess, but I think the meaning would be clear in context to a native English speaker. You’re losing “money” (a piece) in order to gain “time” (a tempo). You expect to gain an advantage because the latter is more valuable. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In more formal economics lingo, there’s &lt;em&gt;opportunity cost&lt;/em&gt;. For example, your opponent offers a trade by taking a piece that is guarded. You choose not to take the piece back because the opportunity cost of losing a tempo (or two) is higher than the cost of being down a piece. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16949" LastActivityDate="2020-06-06T15:22:52.593" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29893" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-06-07T02:37:11.697" Score="1" ViewCount="36" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have two questions about a code implementing a static null move. The questions are in the code.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The code is extracted from here: &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/nescitus/cpw-engine/blob/2054969ef201c23e44774fd667c2b6843f04eede/search.cpp#L280&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;CPW engine search code&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; if (depth &amp;lt; 3&#xA;            &amp;amp;&amp;amp; !is_pv&#xA;            &amp;amp;&amp;amp; !flagInCheck&#xA;            &amp;amp;&amp;amp;  abs(beta - 1) &amp;gt; -INF + 100) // 1. Why this condition?&#xA;        {&#xA;            int static_eval = eval(alpha, beta, 1);&#xA;&#xA;            int eval_margin = 120 * depth; // 2. Why 120? What does it mean?&#xA;            if (static_eval - eval_margin &amp;gt;= beta)&#xA;                return static_eval - eval_margin;&#xA;        }&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23554" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-06-07T03:12:02.377" LastActivityDate="2020-06-07T06:54:49.257" Title="Static null move CPW engine" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;programming&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29894" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29893" CreationDate="2020-06-07T06:54:49.257" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just guessing without reading all of the code to understand completely.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) The third condition to not preform a Null Move is zugswang.  Another hint is that INF is used to report a mate-in-x. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2)  The purpose of a Null Move is to determine if we could do nothing and still be better so to cause an early cutoff.  I assume that they represent a pawn value as 100, so they want a slightly higher favorable eval before it causes a cutoff.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9684" LastActivityDate="2020-06-07T06:54:49.257" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29895" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29884" CreationDate="2020-06-07T08:12:06.680" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here are a few sayings that have potential to be such maxims &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) &quot;Who dares wins.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) &quot;Fortune favours the brave.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) &quot;The early bird catches the worm&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4) &quot;c4 is explosive.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23797" LastEditorUserId="23797" LastEditDate="2020-06-10T07:16:46.497" LastActivityDate="2020-06-10T07:16:46.497" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29896" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-06-07T11:06:35.143" Score="0" ViewCount="33" Body="&lt;p&gt;Which are the least theoretical openings for both white and black? I really don't want to spend too much time on openings. I would appreciate it if you mention all the openings you know. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23434" LastActivityDate="2020-06-07T11:06:35.143" Title="Which are the least theoretical openings?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2020-06-07T12:07:41.037" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29897" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29744" CreationDate="2020-06-07T13:28:26.630" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I tried it with sjeng and it works: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Three computer player with: &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;cat &amp;lt;(echo -e &quot;guest\n\n&quot;) - | xboard -zp -ics -icshost=freechess.org -fcp=sjeng -zippyVariants &quot;bughouse&quot; -zippyBughouse 2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;set bugopen 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I partnered the first two&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For me I started&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;cat &amp;lt;(echo -e &quot;guest\n\n&quot;) - | xboard  -ics -icshost=freechess.org&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;set bugopen 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And I partnered me with the third one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After this I started with&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;match Guest... 5 0 bughouse  &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is a little bit tricky to get the Guest-Ids but it works. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And I loose every time :-(&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have problems with the rule to set a new figure with check into the board. In my youth we played without this rule. But I cannot find a way to configure the rules. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another rule in my youth was the possibility to steal a figure from you partners enemy. If you promote a pawn then you can get his queen and he gets the pawn as a figure to set it on the board. Bit I did not find an engine to play in such a way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23679" LastActivityDate="2020-06-07T13:28:26.630" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29898" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29884" CreationDate="2020-06-07T15:03:18.860" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;One fiery saying that might work is this one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23800" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-06-07T16:10:46.113" LastActivityDate="2020-06-07T16:10:46.113" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29899" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-06-07T15:17:20.760" Score="1" ViewCount="736" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there an opening sequence for black that is equally solid versus d4 and e4?  Obviously you have to take into account white's subsequent moves, but the goal would be to have an opening where the first, say five or six or so moves (maybe with variatios  in move order as needed), would be solid against most common e4 and d4 openings.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23479" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-06-07T16:12:37.710" LastActivityDate="2020-06-13T09:55:16.680" Title="Black opening sequence that is equally solid versus d4 and e4" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;defense&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29901" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29899" CreationDate="2020-06-07T16:50:43.590" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You could try &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-ACdKjp4QQ&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Owen's defense&lt;/a&gt;, which is very much under-represented in all levels off chess in my opinion. Smirnov's 2-part series is nice and clear (although sometimes slightly over-simplified maybe), and he has another &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21ZQnlIJJKM&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;2-part series&lt;/a&gt; about using this strategic system with the white pieces.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;I would recommend playing the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Frl5-esN4ZM&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Colle-Zukertort&lt;/a&gt; at white a bit, the ideas are definitely useful for the b6/b3 systems. This also provides a very comfortable and active setup to shoot for as black when your opponent does not put a pawn on e4. The themes from the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_zWJHYWWJs&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Breaking Stereotypes series&lt;/a&gt; provide some nice complementary insights for these positions as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another option is the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYKHC7NQyFI&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Sniper&lt;/a&gt;, which is a lot of fun to play and is maybe even more systematic as far as strategical planning is concerned (get king's bishop to the longest diagonal by playing 1. .. g6 2. .. Bg7, then play for central and queen-side activity via the dark squares by playing 3. .. c5) but it's significantly less forced which means the total amount of relevant theory is a lot larger. Also you might end up in some fairly theoretical positions, or positions that are really though to play unprepared. Super flexible though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And then there's the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1IfAUOLp1Q&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Hedgehog&lt;/a&gt;, which is by far the most systematic and repeatable chess opening I know of. It's not uncommon to play the same 10 to 13 opening moves five times in row or even more, without your opponent even following theoretical variations.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;   (btw John Bartholomew is excellent at teaching chess through actual understanding so that's an unrelated recommendation)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23801" LastEditorUserId="23801" LastEditDate="2020-06-07T17:03:04.907" LastActivityDate="2020-06-07T17:03:04.907" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29902" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29884" CreationDate="2020-06-07T18:51:13.380" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is about sacrificing one thing for the other. I'm not a linguist myself, but I imagine there are lots of expressions that say something about sacrificing for speed, initiative, continuity etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also the word &lt;strong&gt;meatshield&lt;/strong&gt; comes to mind where you intentionally sacrifice a piece to protect something (eg. you can proceed as planned). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23803" LastActivityDate="2020-06-07T18:51:13.380" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29903" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29264" CreationDate="2020-06-07T20:42:58.983" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's javascript but chess.js &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/jhlywa/chess.js/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://github.com/jhlywa/chess.js/&lt;/a&gt; will keep track of board state, load &amp;amp; generate pgns and fens, and tell you what moves are legal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23479" LastActivityDate="2020-06-07T20:42:58.983" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29904" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29860" CreationDate="2020-06-07T22:50:25.463" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;They have a development pipeline doing testing based on one of the early versions.&#xA;I saw a graph of such test in some heavy loading page from Next Chess Move website:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://nextchessmove.com/dev-builds&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Stockfish Development Builds&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The development page gathering the test linked from the Fishtest wiki:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Stockfish Testing Queue&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And for completion:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/glinscott/fishtest/wiki&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Fishtest GitHub Repository Wiki&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19332" LastEditorUserId="19332" LastEditDate="2020-06-07T23:21:59.250" LastActivityDate="2020-06-07T23:21:59.250" CommentCount="3" CommunityOwnedDate="2020-06-07T22:50:25.463" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29905" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29884" CreationDate="2020-06-08T00:10:34.743" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;I might not understand the Chinese idiom correctly, but to me it sounds like--&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.macmillandictionary.com/us/dictionary/american/lose-the-battle-but-win-the-war&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Lose the battle but win the war&lt;/a&gt;&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;--which has the meaning of, it is better to sacrifice some small thing for the bigger picture (to me, that sounds like the crux of the Chinese idiom you shared). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20260" LastActivityDate="2020-06-08T00:10:34.743" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29906" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24375" CreationDate="2020-06-08T01:26:19.677" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;3..Nxe4 is a mistake that loses at least a pawn. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The normal move is 3...d6. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The best line for black after 4.Qe2 is 4...Qe7 5. Qxe4, d6 (winning the N back but losing a pawn) &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2020-06-08T01:26:19.677" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29907" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29884" CreationDate="2020-06-08T01:56:46.550" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;It sounds like you want to &lt;strong&gt;keep up the pressure&lt;/strong&gt;. You might be taking a loss of material, but a coherent, rapid, intimidating overall strategy maintains your tempo.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23804" LastActivityDate="2020-06-08T01:56:46.550" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29908" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-06-08T04:17:10.823" Score="5" ViewCount="227" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm thinking something similar to &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Badminton_at_the_2012_Summer_Olympics_%E2%80%93_Women%27s_doubles#Group_stage_disqualifications&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Women's Badminton at the 2012 Olympics&lt;/a&gt;. There, some pairs actively attempted to lose their games to gain a more favorable draw in the next round.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Has anything like this happened in chess? I'm aware of the Candidates tournaments of the past where Soviet players allegedly played quick draws against each other to conserve energy against Fischer, but I'm not aware of intentional losing. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As an example of what would qualify, suppose in some 20-player tournament, the top 6 qualify for the next stage (this has happened in Candidates tournaments in the past). In the penultimate round, the runaway leader Alice has more or less qualified, but the 6th and final qualification slot is still up for grabs, with three players Bob, Charlie and Denise in contention. Alice is scheduled to play Bob in the round. She thinks Denise is the most threatening opponent, so it's in her best interests to lose to Bob and give Bob some help in qualification.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not interested in match fixing to, e.g., make money in the betting markets; I'm only interested in losing for personal gain because of the crosstable &amp;amp; tournament format. I'm also not interested in draws - only intentional losses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-06-08T10:21:56.953" LastActivityDate="2020-06-11T19:11:13.727" Title="Have any top players intentionally thrown a game for tournament reasons?" Tags="&lt;history&gt;&lt;master-games&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29909" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29884" CreationDate="2020-06-08T08:34:02.783" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Excellent question. Translation is always a tricky business.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There isn't an established chess saying, although Patrick McElhaney's answer &quot;Time is money&quot; comes closest in meaning, and is an idiom in English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I would simply invent another phrase with the same meaning, if you want to convey the idea &lt;em&gt;and&lt;/em&gt; keep the catchiness that it has in Mandarin. I propose &lt;strong&gt;&quot;Speed over greed&quot;&lt;/strong&gt;, which rhymes and is relatively self-explanatory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15989" LastActivityDate="2020-06-08T08:34:02.783" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29911" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29884" CreationDate="2020-06-08T14:10:16.960" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Looking at this slightly obliquely:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A stitch in time saves nine&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In other words, spending a small amount of effort to do a small thing (e.g. sew a stitch into a piece of fabric that has started to tear or fray) before it gets worse (i.e. &quot;in time&quot;) prevents you from having to spend far more effort later (&quot;nine&quot; - literally meaning needing to do nine times as many stitches later)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On a similar note - but, I think, far less related to your own idiom - there is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;More haste, less speed&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which means &lt;em&gt;&quot;if you try to rush something now, and have to redo it properly later, then it will take more time in total&quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20715" LastActivityDate="2020-06-08T14:10:16.960" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29912" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29915" CreationDate="2020-06-08T15:35:45.737" Score="1" ViewCount="107" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am currently rewriting a chess engine with a friend. We decided to first work on the search and only later if the search works really well, we will do some very good evaluation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The engine itself evaluates the board with pure material evaluation + piece square tables.&#xA;We hit around 6Mnps and it competes with 2000 CCRL engines right now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was wondering how much ELO-Gain could we expect if we replace the evaluation at some point with another evaluation.&#xA;Or more like: How much ELO can an evaluation function give?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I mean obviously, if you would replace the evaluation of stockfish with nothing but 0, it would do random moves and lose over 3000 ELO points but I am talking about the ELO difference between a very basic evaluation function and an insanely good evaluation function which takes mobility, king safety, pawn structure, game phase, etc. into account.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Greetings,&#xA;Finn&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20782" LastActivityDate="2020-06-08T19:18:59.557" Title="ELO change of engine from pure material to very good evaluation" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;evaluation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29913" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29884" CreationDate="2020-06-08T15:40:43.910" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&quot;You can't make an omelette without breaking eggs&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a good English idiom for accepting losses/sacrifices to achieve your goal. It doesn't express anything about keeping up the tempo/pressure though. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23809" LastActivityDate="2020-06-08T15:40:43.910" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29914" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32523" CreationDate="2020-06-08T16:32:44.107" Score="11" ViewCount="750" Body="&lt;p&gt;How did classic masters like Alekhine and Anderssen practice tactics? Surely there was no chess.com or chesstempo at that time. How did the masters back then manage to increase their tactical awareness?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21840" LastEditorUserId="2299" LastEditDate="2020-10-11T21:56:32.957" LastActivityDate="2020-10-11T21:56:32.957" Title="How did classic masters like Alekhine and Anderssen practice tactics?" Tags="&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;history&gt;&lt;alekhine&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="10" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29915" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29912" CreationDate="2020-06-08T19:18:59.557" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The currently best eval function is a leela net. At a single node, some leela nets are in the 2500 elo range. The drawback of course is that they are about 1000x slower than a SF eval (assuming a somewhat modern gpu, cpu). SF eval is obviously way weaker than this, but it wouldn't surprise me if is 500 elo stronger than a simple eval function.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17100" LastActivityDate="2020-06-08T19:18:59.557" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29916" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5394" CreationDate="2020-06-08T19:21:29.247" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The GP 'attack' is very good especially for folks under IM.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You have to be careful about interpreting databases.&#xA;Look at the ratings included.  Try filtering and see how the numbers change.  Try another database and see how they change too. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You have to be careful of transpositions.  EG chessbase has black doing 4% better if white starts with p-kb4  instead of with n-qb3.&#xA;And there are other ways to transpose with different winning percentages depending on where you are in the game.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;SO THE FOLLOW UP MOVES MATTER A LOT MORE!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just looking at stats will let you think that you have a great chance of winning a game and one more move suddenly they flip and your chances are fat slim and none.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And no matter the rating level,  all stats are sullied with mistakes.  Even GMs will toss a queen sometime.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also there is a big difference between playing a computer and a person.  If you are not a computer you should play what you are comfortable with not try to memorize the winning percentages of every line you might play sometime. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23711" LastActivityDate="2020-06-08T19:21:29.247" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29917" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29869" CreationDate="2020-06-08T19:25:30.447" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;My guess would be positional play.  Could be tactics depending on how good/bad that computer level really is.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23711" LastActivityDate="2020-06-08T19:25:30.447" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29918" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29914" CreationDate="2020-06-08T19:27:40.610" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Tournaments and matches.  Possibly also self play/analysis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Books were very rare and not very good back then.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just playing more is no use unless you  play better too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23711" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2020-06-08T20:40:47.683" LastActivityDate="2020-06-08T20:40:47.683" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29920" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29908" CreationDate="2020-06-08T19:37:21.107" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes.&#xA;But not very many incidents.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the old days,it was thought that some Russians were forced to throw games at times to help other players that were thought more likely to win the tournament so as to beat other countries' players. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23711" LastEditorUserId="23836" LastEditDate="2020-06-11T19:11:13.727" LastActivityDate="2020-06-11T19:11:13.727" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29921" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12974" CreationDate="2020-06-08T19:42:46.600" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is hard to measure ability meaningfully.I find that the good players are much better and the bad players much worse.The question is where is the middle and that is unclear.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23711" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-06-11T17:30:33.227" LastActivityDate="2020-06-11T17:30:33.227" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29922" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8923" CreationDate="2020-06-08T19:45:09.793" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not really.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If You want to improve then study tactics.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then learn to force yourself to move at exactly x seconds.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;The goal should be ten seconds per move, no more no less.  This will win in most time trouble situations if you can and they cannot.  Even 15-20 seconds might give you a big edge if your games go that long.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23711" LastActivityDate="2020-06-08T19:45:09.793" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29924" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29914" CreationDate="2020-06-08T20:43:11.927" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Alekhine died in 1946. I have a copy of Fred Reinfeld's &quot;1001 Winning Chess Sacrifices and Combinations&quot; in 1955, 9 years after his death, which is basically a tactics training book. Reinfeld was the first dedicated chess author, as far as I know, who churned out chess books on an industrial scale. It could be that he was the first person to come up with the idea of extracting tactical motifs from games and putting a large number of them in a book and selling it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Before Reinfeld there was the idea of games collections of short games which would contain tactical ideas, just not in such a concentrated form. I have a book called &quot;200 Miniature Games of Chess&quot; by J. du Mont which was published in 1941, within Alekhine's lifetime.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I suspect that players of Alekhine's generation and earlier honed their tactics by playing through short, tactical games, possibly from games collections like this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that tactical motifs, like pins, discovered check, the importance and use of the 7th and 8th ranks and others, were identified and discussed by Nimzowitsch in his book &quot;My System&quot; published in 1929. These ideas were not new. What was new at the time was classifying and describing them as Nimzowitsch did.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-06-08T20:43:11.927" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29925" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29884" CreationDate="2020-06-08T21:56:05.530" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I used to play chess, I would say something like &quot;I sacrificed pieces to gain/maintain tempo&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23814" LastActivityDate="2020-06-08T21:56:05.530" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29926" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12974" CreationDate="2020-06-09T01:09:28.517" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect&lt;/a&gt; is a theory that we, on average, are getting smarter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&quot;Ulric Neisser estimated that using the IQ values of 1997, the average IQ of the United States in 1932, according to the first Stanford–Binet Intelligence Scales standardization sample, was 80.&quot;&#xA;&quot;Trahan et al. (2014) found that the effect was about 2.93 points per decade, based on both Stanford–Binet and Wechsler tests; they also found no evidence the effect was diminishing.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If chess performance has any collaboration with intelligence then yes. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9684" LastActivityDate="2020-06-09T01:09:28.517" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29927" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29884" CreationDate="2020-06-09T02:50:07.093" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not exactly equivalent to the Chinese saying, but sacrificing material for initiative is also known as &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.bing.com/search?q=play%20like%20tal%20chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;playing like Tal&lt;/a&gt;&quot;. Tal was well-known as the greatest attacking player the world had ever seen, who's produced many magical, sacrificial combinations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastActivityDate="2020-06-09T02:50:07.093" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29928" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29931" CreationDate="2020-06-09T05:33:50.227" Score="7" ViewCount="1340" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recently build a chess engine using javascript (&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/Ram-the-coder/ai-chess-engine-v2&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://github.com/Ram-the-coder/ai-chess-engine-v2&lt;/a&gt;). It runs on the browser - because of this when the chess engine is computing the best move, the webpage gets unresponsive. So I thought if I move the processing to the server, then I can eliminate the unresponsiveness. But if I do that then I've to maintain the game state for each client of the server. The size of the game state I think is in mega bytes as it includes the hash tables.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another problem I faced in keeping the processing on the client-side is that the processing speed becomes dependent on the client's device.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How are such online chess engines usually built?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't think storing the game state in memory is good as the server has to serve many clients. Maybe storing in a database in the same server might work...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I use a client-server architecture, won't I be restricted to serve one client request per server at a time? If yes, how are online chess engines able to serve unlimited clients at the same time?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23817" LastActivityDate="2020-06-09T14:07:02.177" Title="How are online chess engines' architecture designed?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;online-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29929" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29928" CreationDate="2020-06-09T07:28:01.773" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Lichess uses &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebAssembly&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;WebAssembly&lt;/a&gt; (Wasm) - as is stated on the analysis page (“Stockfish 10+ WASM in local browser”). Wasm is the obvious thing to use, as it runs on the client side but is faster than JavaScript.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Running Stockfish in a web browser is usually done using &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/niklasf/stockfish.js&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Niklas Fiekas’ Wasm+JavaScript port of Stockfish&lt;/a&gt;, which is what Lichess uses. This consists of a Wasm file &lt;code&gt;stockfish.wasm&lt;/code&gt; containing the engine itself, and a smaller JavaScript file &lt;code&gt;stockfish.wasm.js&lt;/code&gt; that controls the use of the engine. (There is also a large file &lt;code&gt;stockfish.js&lt;/code&gt; that is used as a fallback on browsers that lack native Wasm support.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4182" LastEditorUserId="4182" LastEditDate="2020-06-09T14:07:02.177" LastActivityDate="2020-06-09T14:07:02.177" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29930" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-06-09T08:20:05.830" Score="5" ViewCount="118" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why do we have an extra rank (the red lines below) on each side in 4 player chess on? What could be the possible logic? &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/iDIki.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/iDIki.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xA;(screenshot is taken from chess.com)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23635" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2020-06-09T09:02:40.903" LastActivityDate="2020-06-09T09:04:30.013" Title="Why the extra rank on each side in 4 player chess?" Tags="&lt;chess-variants&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29931" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29928" CreationDate="2020-06-09T08:45:51.090" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;WASM defines how an engine is compiled but not how it runs. Browser chess engines always run on a web worker in JavaScript. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sample code for running a chess engine on web browser:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;const x = new Worker('/stockfish.js')&#xA;x.postMessage(&quot;uci&quot;)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2020-06-09T08:52:54.287" LastActivityDate="2020-06-09T08:52:54.287" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29932" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29930" CreationDate="2020-06-09T08:53:38.410" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;As SmallChess notes, the rook pawns would be able to capture on the first move. That in itself wouldn't be a problem, since the player can just capture back, but then we have a situation with two half-open lines where the pawns are pinned against the rooks behind them. That's a lot of tension already after the first move, and on the flanks, which is quite rare in normal 1v1 chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure how to visualize this, but if red takes the blue pawn, and blue responds by capturing with their rook, yellow's king's rook pawn is pinned by the red rook (and attacked by the blue pawn) and green's king's rook pawn is pinned by the blue rook (and attacked by the red pawn).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;@RemcoGerlich notes another very early possibility for two players to gang up on the last player, by capturing two of their pawns on the first move. Perhaps this is part of a general problem with 4 player chess...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2020-06-09T09:04:30.013" LastActivityDate="2020-06-09T09:04:30.013" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29933" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29869" CreationDate="2020-06-09T20:09:55.593" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The computer is a calculator. Accordingly, its play will be tactically basically error-free at whatever level it is set. The number of ply (half moves) the computer is calculating ahead determines its level. So if you make any errors, even against a low-level computer setting, it will exploit them tactically and generally ulimately win. Human ratings are largely determined by tactics even up to relatively high levels, even Class A. So against a low-rated player who will generally make many tactical errors, you will have a lot of opportunities to exploit these and most likely win. I personally enjoy playing the computer at the lower and medium settings, since although I know I'll have to see everything within the fewer ply, I'll still have a chance to make a combination of additional ply depth to win, say 6 ply or three moves vs 4 ply or two moves, which I find difficult to do against the higher settings when it is &quot;seeing&quot; everything at a much deeper level. I find this to be a more human-like game. To succeed against the computer at its lower levels, you must accordingly refine your game to see all the tactical possibilities - forks, pins, skewers, discovered attacks, etc - both for and against you at these fewer ply. That's good practice for human play as well. And it's also important to remember that tactics tend to flow from good positions.  So if you don't see an immediate tactic, you should try to keep improving your position (gaining space, controlling open lines, occupying holes, etc.) until such an opportunity might arise.  And solving puzzles as you are doing is a good way to improve your tactics.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastActivityDate="2020-06-09T20:09:55.593" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29934" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-06-10T03:37:23.053" Score="3" ViewCount="199" Body="&lt;p&gt;In reference to the request computer analysis feature, how how deep is Stockfish analyzing, such as looking 12 moves ahead?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23479" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-06-10T13:24:23.050" LastActivityDate="2020-06-10T16:37:39.043" Title="When Lichess analyzes a game, how deep does it analysis?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;lichess&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29935" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27710" CreationDate="2020-06-10T05:11:12.370" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;For me, it was a combination of Wikipedia, WinChain, USCF, and my own knowledge. I worked from both ends. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I started by assuming that getting a link to high-rated players was probably the way to go - if you follow the chain up, eventually you get to famous players with known Morphy numbers, or at least players who have many games in large databases. To that end, I used the USCF website to find my top opponents (using the &quot;Show Game Statistics&quot; link on the Member Detail page, which organizes opponents by rating.) The choice seemed easy: I've only played one IM in my life. I then looked at his top opponents, followed by &lt;em&gt;their&lt;/em&gt; top opponents. At that point I lucked out and found a name from the Wikipedia page - Borislav Ivkov, listed as having a rather low Morphy number of 3. So that gave me a Morphy number of 6. I double-checked some other paths, but nothing beat that link.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, I wasn't satisfied with just playing Morphy. I had to beat him. So, I used the USCF website to find the top players I'd beaten, and the top players they beat. This time I used a shortcut: I knew that a particular player that I had once beaten had scored a win against that IM I played. When I checked the Game Statistics, I found that she had also beaten a second IM. I then used the &lt;a href=&quot;https://players.chessbase.com/en/winchain&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;WinChain&lt;/a&gt; tool mentioned in another answer to try to link those two IMs to some players with low Morphy numbers (there were too many false positives if I tried to chain them directly to Morphy.) I also found a somewhat recent game using the USCF Game Statistics pages that wasn't in the database that WinChain uses, which shortened the path by one. Surprisingly, the win path ended up with &lt;em&gt;no&lt;/em&gt; names in common with the ones that formed my original Morphy number path. I ended up beating Morphy in 7 steps by going through Arnold Denker.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Based on this experience, my tips are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;First, try to find a link from yourself to a professional-level player. Use your own knowledge of who you played, and the website of wherever it is you play your games - USCF, FIDE, etc., to find who you played and who your opponents played. High rated players tend to play other high rated players a lot, so looking at your higher rated opponents first is often the best way to go.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Once you get to someone rated high enough to be in databases, use WinChain. But remember that it only finds wins. Try swapping the names; sometimes that gives a shorter path, since a loss from one perspective is a win from another. And remember that WinChain won't find everything; you may still have to look elsewhere for more direct links.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;When using WinChain, instead of just searching for Morphy (which might result in a chain that's too long for it to find, or a false positive from some 1800s simul) search for several other players with known Morphy numbers, like Ivkov or Keres. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Don't give up. Keep looking until you find that connection.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2020-06-10T05:11:12.370" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29936" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1519" CreationDate="2020-06-10T08:03:49.870" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Apart from the main chess sites (lichess.org, chess.com), there are a number of other sites where variants can be played:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.pychess.org&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Pychess-variants&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;:&#xA;Based on lichess's source code and powered by Fairy-Stockfish. The &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.pychess.org/variant&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;list of supported variants&lt;/a&gt; is huge, including popular ones like S-Chess, Capablanca, and crazyhouse and 960 variants of these, as well as xiangqi, janggi, shogi, makruk, sittuyin, and even variants thereof. You can play against humans or challenge different levels of Fairy-Stockfish, which is the strongest available AI for many of the variants offered. The userbase is still growing (circa June 2020), but the most reliable method for now is to ask in the lobby or in the Pychess Discord server for a game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://vchess.club&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;vchess&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;: Still under constant development, but offers a huge amount of western chess variants, including many not offered elsewhere. There are also options for normal, symmetrical or asymmetrical 960 starting positions for many variants. Best to make appointments with other variant enthusiasts to meet here and play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.playok.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;PlayOK&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;: An established site with a large userbase. Aside from the big regional variants of chess, xiangqi, makruk and shogi, also features many other board and card games. Many Asian players play xiangqi and makruk here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for chess variant communities, with the rise of new social apps and the appearance of variants on the major modern chess sites, the previously disparate communities started to coalesce and band together.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://discord.gg/aPs8RKr&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;PyChess Players Discord&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;: As previously mentioned, the Pychess site has an associated Discord. Channels for individual variants exist, as well as being the place to ask anyone online for games. The developers, translators, and other volunteers also hang out here. The community is still growing as the site improves and becomes more well known.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://dscrd.me/housechessvariants&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;The House Discord&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;: One of the largest (and strongest?) chess variant communities. A Discord server bringing together players of all strengths and many variants, principally those offered on lichess.org, chess.com, and Pychess. Many of the best players in the world in each variant hang out here (this is not hyperbole). These players have also created valuable resources to help others learn and improve in the variants. Definitely worth checking out if you're thinking of improving in a variant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15989" LastActivityDate="2020-06-10T08:03:49.870" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29937" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28790" CreationDate="2020-06-10T08:28:07.273" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;This seems to just be a version of Chess960 restricted to certain openings to make castling more like &quot;normal&quot;. Thus &lt;strong&gt;the positional considerations should be identical to regular chess&lt;/strong&gt;, and regular chess principles (e.g. control the centre, develop your pieces early, gain space, etc.) should apply with equal force here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What does change is the pattern recognition, to an extent. Particularly for how to handle the minor pieces, the intuition built up by playing normal chess (put knights on f3/c3, bishop to c4/b5, etc.) is gone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Undefended pawn in the starting position&lt;/strong&gt;: Obviously this can be a target for early attacks. Watch out for these, and be alert for tactics that could win/lose you a pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Generalised opening principles&lt;/strong&gt;: The usual chess opening ideas of controlling the centre, developing minor pieces and getting the king to safety should still apply. However, some of those ideas are specific cases of principles applicable to other chess types and variants:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Mobility&lt;/strong&gt;. In the overwhelming majority of chess variants, mobility is the key principle, I would say even the most important one. Development is about improving your pieces' mobility. Controlling the centre is also about getting more mobility. Having more material means you have more pieces, and hence more options (more mobility!) than your opponent. Aim always to improve your pieces' mobility.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Speed&lt;/strong&gt;. In developing your pieces, you want to do so as quickly as possible. Finishing development first means you can start to increase the pressure on your opponent before they have the chance to react.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Piece coordination.&lt;/strong&gt; This is less focused on in regular chess than in other chesses like xiangqi and shogi. It ties in with the previous two points: you want to get your pieces to their optimal locations quickly (speed) such that they don't get in each others' way, and hopefully work together to control some squares (mobility).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So for the opening phase of Kratos chess, for instance, you'd want to look at your position and identify some kind of deployment of forces that, &lt;em&gt;as a whole&lt;/em&gt;, brings your army to life. Try to identify the pieces that seem the hardest to develop, and work out a plan to get them active; don't neglect it and focus too much on your other pieces to the point where &lt;em&gt;they&lt;/em&gt; get in the way of the neglected piece.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And of course plans must change with enemy contact. At every move, try to make sure your moves give you the flexibility to satisfactorily develop the rest of your pieces in as many ways as possible, so that you can adapt your plans if necessary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15989" LastActivityDate="2020-06-10T08:28:07.273" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29938" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29934" CreationDate="2020-06-10T16:37:39.043" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It tells you at the top right. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Jf6Cd.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Jf6Cd.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first number (19) tells you the depth it has analyzed to (19 ply = 9.5 moves). Note that because of engine heuristics, it doesn't exhaustively search for every single move 9.5 deep. The second number (23) tells you the max depth to which the engine is searching for. After the bar fills up, there is an optional feature that lets you increase the depth beyond 23 if you want to explore a specific position further.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3884" LastActivityDate="2020-06-10T16:37:39.043" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29939" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29940" CreationDate="2020-06-10T18:08:20.597" Score="2" ViewCount="186" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;r1bq1rk1/p2p2pp/1pn1p3/5p2/1PP1n1P1/P4N2/1BQ1PP1P/R3KB1R b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here, 1... fxg4 gives White an advantage. But 1...Nxf2 2.Kxf2 fxg4 is equal. Why is that?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21840" LastEditorUserId="12873" LastEditDate="2020-06-11T01:39:49.587" LastActivityDate="2020-06-11T01:39:49.587" Title="Why this move is good here but not few moves ago?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29940" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29939" CreationDate="2020-06-10T18:59:44.977" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The main point is that 1...Nxf2 draws White's king out to the vulnerable f2-square; this allows Black to hold the balance. After 2.Kxf2 fxg4 3.Rg1, Black can give a perpetual with 3...Qh4+! 4.Ke3 (4.Rg3 can be met with 4...exf3, as Rxg7+ is impossible) 4...Qh6+ 5.Kf2 Qh4+.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Meanwhile, 1...fxg4? 2.Qxe4 gxf3 3.Rg1 (hitting the g7-pawn) 3...Rf7 4.0-0-0 gives White a serious initiative. His king is safe enough on the queenside, and his pieces are pointed at Black's king. Also, note that Qxc6 is threatened, winning a piece, since on ...dxc6 White has Rxd8+.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2020-06-10T18:59:44.977" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29942" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-06-11T01:46:57.497" Score="1" ViewCount="24" Body="&lt;p&gt;Rashid Nezhmetdinov is one of the greatest chess player of all time. He destroyed Mikhail Tal many times. I know he was a great attacker but Tal also a great attacker. But why Rashid did not succeed as Tal did?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23829" LastEditorUserId="23829" LastEditDate="2020-06-11T02:51:04.743" LastActivityDate="2020-06-11T02:51:04.743" Title="Why Rashid Nezhmetdinov didn't achieve a grandmaster title?" Tags="&lt;history&gt;&lt;grandmaster&gt;&lt;famous-players&gt;&lt;titles&gt;&lt;tal&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2020-06-11T08:10:41.790" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29943" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-06-11T03:02:06.427" Score="4" ViewCount="412" Body="&lt;p&gt;Many chess players nowadays recommend the Rossolimo against c5-Nc6 Sicilian:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I find the open sicilian to be easier to play:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 e5 6. Ndb5 d6 7. Bg5 a6 8. Na3 b5 9. Nd5 Be7 10. Bxf6 Bxf6 11. c4 b4 12. Nc2 a5 13. g3 O-O 14. Bg2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One of the reasons of my preference is that I have control over the d5 square and black has a backward pawn on d6. Moreover, I can play moves like Qd3,a3, and play on the queenside with my rooks too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My issue with the Rossolimo is that it gives up the bishop pair for no obvious outpost for the knight like the second position in the open sicilian that I shared above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would really appreciate it if you can tell me why the Rossolimo might offer better winning chances with White, and why top players are attracted to it, and why Black players try to avoid it in their repertoire. Also, if you can refer me to good thematic games with Rossolimo.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23598" LastEditorUserId="23598" LastEditDate="2020-06-11T03:37:21.977" LastActivityDate="2020-07-07T10:09:22.983" Title="Rossolimo 3.Bb5 vs open Sicilian against c5-Nc6 sicilian" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;&lt;bishop-pair&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29947" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-06-11T04:41:24.310" Score="4" ViewCount="1655" Body="&lt;p&gt;Today I was playing on a game on chess.com. In that game I lost by time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &quot;azarigoli vs. vitthal20043&quot;]&#xA;[Site &quot;Chess.com&quot;]&#xA;[Date &quot;2020-06-11&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;azarigoli&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;vitthal20043&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;1193&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;1212&quot;]&#xA;[TimeControl &quot;blitz&quot;]&#xA;[Termination &quot;azarigoli won on time&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. c4 b6 2. Nc3 Bb7 3. Nb5 g6 4. d3 Bg7 5. Rb1 a6 6. Na3 d6 7. e4 e6 8. Nh3 Ne7 9. f3 Nd7 10. Bg5 h6 11. Bf4 g5 12. Be3 a5 13. g4 Nc5 14. d4 Nd7 15. Bg2 Ng6 16. d5 e5 17. Nb5 Nc5 18. Bxc5 bxc5 19. a4 c6 20. dxc6 Bxc6 21. Nxd6+ Ke7 22. Nf5+ Kf8 23. Nd6 Bxa4 24. b3 Bc6 25. Rb2 Ra7 26. Rd2 Rd7 27. O-O Ke7 28. Nf5+ Kf8 29. Rxd7 Qxd7 30. Qa1 Qc7 31. Rd1 Ne7 32. Nxe7 Kxe7 33. Bf1 f6 34. Nf2 h5 35. Nd3 Qb6 36. gxh5 Rxh5 37. Bg2 Rh8 38. h3 Rd8 39. Bf1 Rf8 40. Kg2 Ke6 41. Kg3 f5 42. Bg2 fxe4 43. fxe4 Rg8 44. Rf1 Bh8 45. Rf5 Bf6 46. Nxe5 Qxb3+ 47. Bf3 Bxe4 48. Rxf6+ Kxf6 49. Ng4+ Ke7 50. Qf6+ Kd7 51. Qf7+ Kc6 52. Qe6+ Kc7 53. Qxe4 Rf8 54. Qe7+ Kb6 55. Qxf8 a4 56. Qf6+ Ka5 57. Qxg5 a3 58. Qxc5+ Ka4 59. Qc6+ Kb4 60. Ne5 a2 61. Qb6+ Ka3 62. Qa5+ Kb2 63. Qd2+ Ka3 64. Qxa2+ Qxa2 65. c5 Qg8+ 66. Ng4 Qb8+ 67. Kf2 Qb2+ 68. Be2 Qd4+ 69. Ne3 Qxc5 70. Ke1 Qc1+ 71. Kf2 Qh1 72. Bg4 Qh2+ 73. Ng2 Qd6 74. Ne3 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I captured their pawn with my queen, would it be a draw, or would they have a win? As I would run out of time, that is for sure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23278" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2020-06-11T20:10:05.457" LastActivityDate="2020-06-12T07:48:48.740" Title="Checkmate with king, knight and bishop" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29948" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-06-11T06:10:04.837" Score="1" ViewCount="77" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[startply &quot;50&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Ba4 Nf6 5. O-O b5 6. Bb3 Be7 7. Re1 d6 8. c3 O-O 9. h3 Na5 10. Bc2 c5 11. d4 Qc7 12. Nbd2 Nc6 13. d5 Nd8 14. a4 Ra7 15. Nf1 g6 16. Bh6 Re8 17. Ng3 Nd7 18. Nh2 f6 19. Be3 Nb6 20. axb5 axb5 21. Bd3 Bd7 22. Qd2 Nf7 23. Rxa7 Qxa7 24. Qe2 Qa6 25. Ng4 Kg7 26. Bc1 Na4 27. Bc2 Ra8 28. Qe3 c4 29. Rf1 Nc5 30. Nh6 Ng5 31. f4 exf4 32. Qxf4 Bxh3 33. Qh4 Bd7 34. e5 dxe5 35. Nh5 gxh5 36. Qxg5 fxg5 37. Rf7 Kxh6 38. Rxh7#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have two questions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) Why was a4 played?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) According to chess.com engine, after 26. Bd2, h5 is best, but after 26. Bc1 h5 is good. Why is that so?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21840" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-06-11T14:26:12.647" LastActivityDate="2020-06-11T14:26:12.647" Title="Why is the evaluation of the move h5 dependent on position of the bishop?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29949" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29947" CreationDate="2020-06-11T08:38:23.200" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Checkmate is possible with a king, bishop and knight against a bare king, and therefore it would have been a win for white if you timed out before the 50 or 75 move rules came into play. So for instance if the game had gone 72 ... Qxh3 73 Bxg3 and then you timed out within the next 50 moves it would be a win for white.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7726" LastActivityDate="2020-06-11T08:38:23.200" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29950" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29947" CreationDate="2020-06-11T09:05:20.680" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;As pointed out by Ian Bush, it is possible to mate with a knight and a bishop against a lonely king. Indeed, White can &lt;strong&gt;force&lt;/strong&gt; mate if he plays correctly regardless of how Black defends.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But not even that is needed. For example, if White's bishop were a knight, mate cannot be forced, but the game would still be a win because it is indeed possible to reach a mating position (if Black defends incorrectly)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The rules state that the game will be declared a draw only if there is no possible sequence of legal moves that could lead to the flagged player getting checkmated (regardless or whether he &quot;resists&quot; or &quot;collaborates&quot;) Can you find a sequence of moves that would lead to a White victory here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastEditorUserId="18809" LastEditDate="2020-06-12T07:48:48.740" LastActivityDate="2020-06-12T07:48:48.740" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29951" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29948" CreationDate="2020-06-11T09:07:35.867" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;...h5 is indeed good because it kicks the knight away from its current position (where it's a very dangerous piece)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastActivityDate="2020-06-11T09:07:35.867" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29952" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29943" CreationDate="2020-06-11T09:11:31.320" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Please note that the ...e5 push Black does on your line is not forced and there are plenty of other variations Black can opt for (like 4...e6, or 4...g6, or 4...Nf6 5.Nc3 d6, or even 4...e5)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Each of this alternatives requires White to be prepared as Black will probably know a lot of theory about those (and have a good understanding of the resulting middlegame positions, for instance, no d5 weak square in many of those) With the Rossolimo, White can opt for a quieter game where knowledge of precise lines is less relevant&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastActivityDate="2020-06-11T09:11:31.320" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29953" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29947" CreationDate="2020-06-11T14:46:28.370" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The final position is a forced win for black in 121 moves starting with 1... Qf4, according to the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.shredderchess.com/online-chess/online-databases/endgame-database.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Shredder Tablebases&lt;/a&gt;. While it is objectively a win, it would be very tricky to pull it off in time trouble as you'd always have to watch out for knight forks while preventing white from advancing the pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, with limited time, it makes a lot of sense to look for ways to force a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately for you, knight+bishop+king can mate you. I would expect players around Elo 2000 (plus minus) to be able to mate you with knight and bishop. So unless you play a weak player there is no point giving your queen for the pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Instead, you could simplify the position to a theoretical draw in this position if:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;you exchange your queen for the knight AND&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;get your king to the promotion square h8&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White is then left with the h pawn and a bishop of the wrong color which is an easy draw for black if you just move your king around the squares h7,g7, h8,g8. This is easy to do even in time trouble.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, if you lose on time in this position you'd still lose the game. The reasoning is, that if there is any way to mate you from the position it is lost (even if you'd have to help in getting mated).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-06-11T16:29:43.860" LastActivityDate="2020-06-11T16:29:43.860" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29954" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29089" CreationDate="2020-06-11T16:00:20.067" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I play the Panov attack:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. exd5 cxd5 4. c4 Nf6 5. Nc3 e6 ( 5... Nc6 6. Bg5 e6 7. Nf3 Be7 8. c5 O-O 9. Bb5 Bd7 10. O-O ) 6. Nf3 Be7 7. cxd5 Nxd5 8. Bd3 Nc6 9. O-O O-O 10. Re1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I scored multiple victories with this line and it's easy to play. In the first variation, you have an isolated pawn and you're looking for a kingside attack by creating a battery with the Bishop and Queen on the b1-h7 diagonal, and you play a3 in order to prevent the Knight from harassing you light-square bishop and rook on open files. In the second variation (5...Nc6) you need to prevent Black from playing e5. So you need to control it more, or trade your light square bishop for the knight on c6 to control it more and try to create a passed pawn on the queenside by pushing b4 at the right time. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23598" LastActivityDate="2020-06-11T16:00:20.067" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29955" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-06-11T21:22:47.107" Score="8" ViewCount="297" Body="&lt;p&gt;I sent my nephew a chess set for his 8th birthday. He doesn't play yet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When my children were small, I taught them to play by working through a simple game in which each piece was introduced in turn. I made it into a story (e.g. &amp;quot;Now your queen is in danger! What can  we do about that?&amp;quot;) until finally the child won the game with a checkmate (of course).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I had to make it up as we went along, but I am sure there must be some well-known games that would do the same job better, which is to say more excitingly and succinctly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can you suggest something suitable for a beginner's very first game? It doesn't need to cover things like &lt;em&gt;en passant&lt;/em&gt;, pawn promotion or castling - just the very basics, to introduce the different characters and the plot.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(By &amp;quot;well-known&amp;quot;, obviously I mean &lt;strong&gt;well-known as a teaching game&lt;/strong&gt;, devised for the purpose of introducing a complete beginner to the very basics. It's completely irrelevant whether the game is a famous example from the history of chess, since that will mean absolutely nothing to an eight-year-old beginner playing his first game.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23774" LastEditorUserId="23774" LastEditDate="2020-06-18T11:48:03.483" LastActivityDate="2020-06-18T11:48:03.483" Title="What's an ideal game for teaching a new beginner?" Tags="&lt;beginner&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29956" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29955" CreationDate="2020-06-11T21:34:08.790" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;I vote for the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opera_Game&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Opera Game&lt;/a&gt;. It showcases the very basics of strategy (controlling the center, getting the pieces developed ASAP, and attacking the king), and ends with a fantastic combination to force checkmate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is one of the most well-known games ever played, and it has been covered by nearly everyone online, so you can definitely find a good overview of this game in many youtube videos. If you watch a few yourself, (such as &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKvUQpQWie0&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKvUQpQWie0&lt;/a&gt;) you should be able to present it as a story to your kid too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3884" LastActivityDate="2020-06-11T21:34:08.790" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29957" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-06-11T22:07:31.660" Score="18" ViewCount="6398" Body="&lt;p&gt;Recently I played a blitz game (5m+5s) with an opponent with rating 1500+. I had a clearly losing endgame (K vs KQ). My opponent was not under any time pressure but he made a blunder and the game ended as a stalemate. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know this does not happen every day; it is extremely rare that I can draw a clearly losing game, but it may happen say once out of 100 games. If I resign whenever I feel hopeless, my record for these games will be 100 losses; on the other hand, if I keep playing, it could be 1 draw and 99 losses. So my overall record will be slightly better if I never resign; instead, I keep playing until I am checkmated or rarely, the game ends as a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So continuing to play in a clearly losing game seems a reasonable strategy. But it is considered as bad etiquette not to resign when the game is clearly hopeless?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16626" LastEditorUserId="12873" LastEditDate="2020-06-13T02:56:28.133" LastActivityDate="2020-06-13T21:30:54.990" Title="Is it bad etiquette to keep playing in a clearly hopeless position?" Tags="&lt;etiquette&gt;&lt;resigning&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29958" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-06-11T22:14:27.617" Score="0" ViewCount="860" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was playing a blitz game and the time control was 2m+1s. The end game was KQ vs KR and I (with KQ) lost on time as it took roughly 2 seconds for me to make a move. I would like to learn a lesson: in this endgame (KQ vs KR), can I force a draw if I am running out of time?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I can try three-fold repetition, but my opponent will not cooperate.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I can try exchanging, but my opponent will not block my check with their rook.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16626" LastEditorUserId="11712" LastEditDate="2020-06-12T06:56:56.957" LastActivityDate="2020-06-12T08:36:29.630" Title="How can I save this game?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;time-control&gt;&lt;queens&gt;&lt;rooks&gt;&lt;time-management&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29959" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29958" CreationDate="2020-06-11T23:24:52.067" Score="6" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;can I force a draw if I am running out of time?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course! Just swap the queen for the rook.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are two basic possibilities.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;He keeps the king and rook very close (normal best practice when trying to draw this difficult endgame). In that case every time you threaten the rook with your queen he must move the rook and keep it close to the king. It should be easy to then skewer the king against the rook with a check or pin the rook against the king. This probably won't happen immediately but if you know what you are aiming for your opponent will find it very difficult to avoid for long, particularly since he also needs to avoid losing.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;He keeps the rook and king well separated. This is fatal. The rook quickly falls to a fork.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2020-06-12T08:36:29.630" LastActivityDate="2020-06-12T08:36:29.630" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29960" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29958" CreationDate="2020-06-11T23:53:36.503" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Moving your queen next to your king and moving your king in a diamond around your queen for up to 30 moves seems like it’d be decently fast and not need much thought if you’re really low on time. Every move up to and including the draw is as short as possible, distance-wise.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15828" LastActivityDate="2020-06-11T23:53:36.503" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29961" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29957" CreationDate="2020-06-11T23:55:11.993" Score="31" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a general rule, if something is not done out of malice then it's not bad etiquette in my book (especially if it's allowed in the rules). So if all you do is play on in a lost position, then I don't see how anyone could complain; for instance, should a novice not be allowed to play on until checkmate? That would be absurd, no matter who said novice were facing!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only unsportsmanlike behaviour I've witnessed in this regard was a player in an OTB tournament just sitting and waiting for his clock to run out when the position became hopeless, since his intent was obviously to spite his opponent and waste their time. If he had been making moves I wouldn't even have reacted, but since he was just doing it to annoy his opponent it was a clear act of malice and therefore bad etiquette.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8300" LastActivityDate="2020-06-11T23:55:11.993" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29962" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-06-12T01:42:02.490" Score="3" ViewCount="126" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am looking for the complete score of the game &lt;strong&gt;Vlastimil Jansa&lt;/strong&gt; versus &lt;strong&gt;Istvan Bilek&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;Polanica-Zdoj, Rubinstein Memorial 1968.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are the first 20 moves of this Sicilian Dragon-Yugoslav Attack game that have been reconstructed. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &quot;Vlastimil Jansa-Istvan Bilek, Polanica-Zdoj Rubinstein Memorial 1968&quot;]&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[startply &quot;38&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 g6 6. Be3 Bg7 7. f3 Nc6 8. Qd2 O-O 9. Bc4 Bd7 10. O-O-O Qa5 11. Bb3 Rfc8 12. g4 Ne5 13. Kb1 b5 14. h4 b4 15. Nd5 Nxd5 16. exd5 Nc4 17. Bxc4 Rxc4 18. Nb3 Qb5 19. h5 Rac8 20. Na1!&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is the key position where Jansa played the fantastic backwards move 20. Na1! The opening sequence to this game could have been a little different however. The position after the first 19.5 moves should be correct. I have searched on ChessBase 15 and the Internet, but have been unable to find this game. I learned about this position from a video by IM Danny Kopec, which I no longer have, but I don't believe he gave the whole game. I would like to find out the actual moves played, especially those after move 20. In addition I would like to know the game result.  I would most appreciate if you could help me find this piece of chess history!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23838" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-06-15T18:07:03.653" LastActivityDate="2020-09-22T10:09:16.793" Title="Looking for the complete game score of Vlastimil Jansa-Istvan Bilek, Rubinstein Memorial 1968" Tags="&lt;famous-games&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29963" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-06-12T04:20:25.030" Score="5" ViewCount="1361" Body="&lt;p&gt;I could be wrong, but it seems like the major determinant of whether a piece is a major piece or a minor piece is whether a king and one of that piece can force checkmate on a lone king. Would this be possible with a king and one of these hypothetical pieces? (Or is that not actually the determinant of what is a major piece and what is a minor piece?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23839" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-06-12T11:06:53.777" LastActivityDate="2020-06-12T12:35:01.987" Title="Would a piece that moved like a king – but could be captured (and could be moved en prise) – be considered a major or a minor piece?" Tags="&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;pieces&gt;&lt;point-value&gt;&lt;unorthodox-pieces&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29964" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29963" CreationDate="2020-06-12T05:06:39.557" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The king is worth &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_piece_relative_value&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;about 4 pawns&lt;/a&gt; if its loss didn't lose the game, which means it's neither a minor or a major piece, but something in between. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Major pieces like the rook is worth 5+ pawns; minor pieces are worth 3.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastActivityDate="2020-06-12T05:06:39.557" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29965" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29963" CreationDate="2020-06-12T05:06:54.467" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;That is an interesting distinction theory.  Although this king-like piece could deliver checkmate with the help of the king, I've always considered the difference to be based on the value of the piece.  A king-like piece would only be worth the same as the other minor pieces. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9684" LastActivityDate="2020-06-12T05:06:54.467" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29967" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29957" CreationDate="2020-06-12T06:14:05.410" Score="14" Body="&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It's not bad etiquette, and &lt;em&gt;further&lt;/em&gt;, many people think(and I partially join them) that resigning and draw agreements in chess should be forbidden.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Reasoning - it's necessary to expand chess popularity as sports and to make it possible for non-chess-players to follow competitions and games. It happens so often - two GMs playing - one resigns and half of spectators don't have even close clue of why&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Also compare to other sports - imagine in tennis - someone resigns&#xA;when result is 0:4 in first set or after first lost set or players&#xA;agree to a draw after 1:1 in score in sets... - no one would follow&#xA;such weird sports. Imagine similar in hockey, football, soccer,&#xA;basketball, volleyball. Imagine how many people would follow boxing&#xA;if two fighters would exchange one hit and then agree to a draw in a&#xA;beginning of first round ...&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;So if we want chess to become popular and to make it possible to get TV time for it, make it Olympic sports, etc - we must behave like a sports - fight till end of game; if you watch NHL - so often team loosing 0:5 or more - keep fighting till end and score goal late in game when result is clear - that's why the game is so popular and can be watched as entertainment by people who don't really understand it.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Chess is too weird as a sport currently and something should be done&#xA;about that.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;and practically, specially in blitz there are great chances to get positive score in lost position - so playing on is completely normal.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17448" LastEditorUserId="15234" LastEditDate="2020-06-12T15:28:54.090" LastActivityDate="2020-06-12T15:28:54.090" CommentCount="19" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29968" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29969" CreationDate="2020-06-12T06:34:54.133" Score="4" ViewCount="389" Body="&lt;p&gt;I play shogi (Japanese chess) and there is a word &quot;マス&quot; to call a cell of a &lt;strong&gt;square&lt;/strong&gt; lattice not only used in shogi and chess. As far as I have read the article about chess in Wikipedia, it seems that &quot;square&quot; is used more often than &quot;cell&quot; to call &quot;マス&quot; in chess. What is the most natural term to call a cell of the chess board? Is it &quot;square&quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23840" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2020-06-12T14:43:27.980" LastActivityDate="2020-06-13T08:25:01.710" Title="What is the correct name for a part of a chessboard: 'square' or 'cell'?" Tags="&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;terminology&gt;&lt;chessboards&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29969" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29968" CreationDate="2020-06-12T06:37:07.710" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, that's a &quot;square&quot;. The word &quot;cell&quot; is never used. E.g. from the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia article&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Chess is a two-player strategy board game played on a checkered board with 64 squares arranged in an 8×8 grid.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;The 64 squares alternate in color and are referred to as light and dark squares.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or, if you prefer a dictionary:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;3 : any of the quadrilateral spaces marked out on a board for playing games&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(source: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/square&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Merriam-Webster&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;1.3 A small square area on the board used in a game.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;  &lt;em&gt;‘move the white king's pawn forward two squares’&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(source: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.lexico.com/definition/square&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Lexico&lt;/a&gt;, more example sentences about chess in that link)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, as @chaosflaws notes in the comments, the official &lt;a href=&quot;https://handbook.fide.com/chapter/E012018&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Laws of Chess&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;2.1 The chessboard is composed of an 8 x 8 grid of 64 equal squares alternately light (the ‘white’ squares) and dark (the ‘black’ squares).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2020-06-13T08:25:01.710" LastActivityDate="2020-06-13T08:25:01.710" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29970" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29963" CreationDate="2020-06-12T07:06:46.243" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;This piece is widely used in different &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairy_chess_piece&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;fairy chess variants&lt;/a&gt;. It appears under several names, including Commoner, Guard and Man / Mann.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While the table in the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_piece_relative_value&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia article&lt;/a&gt; also linked to in @Allure's answer states it's worth about four points, the article itself limits that value to the endgame:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;In the endgame, where there is usually little danger of checkmate, the fighting value of the king is about four points (Lasker 1934:73). In the endgame, a king is more powerful than a minor piece but less powerful than a rook. Julian Hodgson also puts its value at four points (Aagaard 2004:12).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mann_(chess)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia article about the fairy chess piece&lt;/a&gt; says&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;A man is approximately equal in strength and value to a knight, generally.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That would make it a minor piece. It might depend on the board size (it's less effective on large boards, and worth much more on small boards) or the other pieces available to the players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;it seems like the major determinant of whether a piece is a major piece or a minor piece is whether a king and one of that piece can force checkmate on a lone king&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's close to the definition I've heard: a major piece is one which can cut off the enemy king from one side of the board. Rooks and queens can do this, but this non-royal king cannot.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, there &lt;em&gt;is&lt;/em&gt; a basic situation where this piece is even stronger than a rook. King + rook lose against king + queen, but king + commoner is a rather simple draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2020-06-12T07:57:06.690" LastActivityDate="2020-06-12T07:57:06.690" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29971" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-06-12T08:42:56.067" Score="1" ViewCount="73" Body="&lt;p&gt;What’s the difference between Partial Retrograde Analysis (PRA) and Retro Strategy (RS) which are different ways of interpreting retrograde analysis chess problems?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8201" LastEditorUserId="8201" LastEditDate="2020-06-14T18:44:44.977" LastActivityDate="2020-06-14T18:44:44.977" Title="What’s the difference between Partial Retrograde Analysis and Retro Strategy?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;problems&gt;&lt;castling&gt;&lt;en-passant&gt;&lt;retrograde-analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29972" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29963" CreationDate="2020-06-12T10:43:07.860" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I haven't heard of that definition being used for a major piece, but it's a neat observation. Such a piece (call it X) should be able to force a checkmate in a K+X vs K situation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Say White's pieces are on d3 and e3, while Black's is on d5:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) White plays Xd4, and Black's king must retreat. Say ...Kd6 is played.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2) White plays Ke4. Now Xd5 is coming, forcing Black's king further back. ...Ke6 doesn't help him since it runs into Xe5. So Black could try ...Kc6, as White's king doesn't hold it back there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3) Now instead of advancing the 'X' piece to d5 (since it would allow ...Kb5, although this would also work nonetheless), White could play Xc4, placing Black in zugzwang. In the case of ...Kd6, White plays Xd5. And in the case of ...Kb6, White plays Kd5, forcing Black further towards one side.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This general process can be repeated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't know of a strict definition of what makes a major piece 'major'. Of the queen, rook, bishop, and knight, a major piece is just one that is in the top half strength-wise. So a king-like piece shouldn't be considered a major piece, since typically it only reaches the rough strength of a bishop/knight in sufficiently simplified endgames.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT - one thing to note is that, because capturing this hypothetical piece wouldn't result in the game ending, it's usefulness would be higher than a normal king. It could be safely used in the middlegame like any other piece. So it's possible it could be stronger than a minor piece, but still below a rook.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastEditorUserId="12873" LastEditDate="2020-06-12T12:35:01.987" LastActivityDate="2020-06-12T12:35:01.987" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29973" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29957" CreationDate="2020-06-12T11:18:23.583" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would say it depends on the circumstances, mostly the time. If it's blitz and your opponent is low on time, sure, go for it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In a match with increment or if your opponent has more than enough time, I would consider it bad etiquette since by playing on, you are basically saying &quot;I don't think, you are good enough to win this&quot;. This also depends on the level you are playing, for higher ranks, this already applies if you are down by a knight in midgame for example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The second point is about wasting time. If a match is decided and you keep on playing, you waste both your and your opponent's time by prolonging a match that has already been decided and many players consider it boring to play a match that has already been decided.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23843" LastActivityDate="2020-06-12T11:18:23.583" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29974" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29978" CreationDate="2020-06-12T12:08:42.433" Score="8" ViewCount="1043" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm new to chess (around 1000), and I like to practice the Scandinavian defence. I started to check the theory related to it, and I've never seen a single source talking about this queen move after Nc3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 d5 2.exd5 Qxd5 3.Nc3 Qe5+&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I guess it's a bad one, otherwise they would mention it. But why is it a bad move? I've been playing this since I started (unconsciously) and I see no particular drawback (I just need to be careful not to make my queen stuck). &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I understand that this opening violates the rule of development, but I don't feel the late when I play it. I often find a way to harasa my opponent (maybe it's because of my low rank, it becomes more visible at high rank?). Here are 2 variants I often end up with. As you can see I develop as good as white and I have even the queenside castling (almost) ready.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When defending with bishop:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;eoui&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 d5 2. exd5 Qxd5 3. Nc3 Qe5+ 4. Be2 Bg4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When defending with knight:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 d5 2. exd5 Qxd5 3. Nc3 Qe5+ 4. Nge2 Bf5 5. d3 Nc6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23844" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-06-12T18:28:23.593" LastActivityDate="2020-06-13T20:18:54.970" Title="Scandinavian Defence queen e5" Tags="&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;queens&gt;&lt;defense&gt;&lt;scandinavian-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="8" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29975" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29974" CreationDate="2020-06-12T12:23:53.547" Score="4" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;But why it's a bad move?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You are moving your queen to a square where it is going to be attacked again soon and then you will have to move the queen for a third time. Meanwhile white is developing fast and you have no pieces developed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-06-12T12:23:53.547" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29976" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29974" CreationDate="2020-06-12T12:25:56.547" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The 3. .. Qe5+ is not a great continuation for black. Because:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It does not threaten anything really. White can block with developing (!) a bishop: 4. Be2.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It places blacks Queen in the center very early in the game where it will be a target of the attack for many whites pawns and pieces. Square e5 is far from a permanent position for the black queen, and black will spend several more queen moves, while white &lt;strong&gt;attacks the black queen with development&lt;/strong&gt;. In short, the black queen certainly does not belong to e5.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Usual black continuations are 3. .. Qa5, 3. .. Qd6, and 3. .. Qd8. In all of them, the theme is to get the queen out of the potential harassment. I strongly suggest looking at 3. .. Qa5 and 3. .. Qd6 ideas as they entail quite different plans and lead to interesting games.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10570" LastActivityDate="2020-06-12T12:25:56.547" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29977" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29955" CreationDate="2020-06-12T14:36:52.800" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Famous games are usually famous because both players are very high level and something unexpected happened, like a bold sacrifice or incredible positional play.  While they are useful learning tools, they maybe aren’t what a true beginners very first games will look like. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think illustrating games where one player captures (“om nom nom”, in childspeak) lots of material through very simple tactics (eg opponent leaving pieces en prize, knight forks a king and rook) are pretty illustrative. These games generally aren’t well known - with good reason. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So to find them, I recommend just playing some games online against some very low rated players who make these mistakes. As an added benefit to having played the game yourself, you can influence the game to illustrate whatever threats and tactics you wish. (And if you’re opponent doesn’t cooperate, feel free to demonstrate your cooked lines). You also have had time to consider some sidelines, which gives you the option on calling an audible if your kiddo suggests such a move while going over the game. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17157" LastActivityDate="2020-06-12T14:36:52.800" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29978" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29974" CreationDate="2020-06-12T16:21:57.120" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a bit trivial as an answer, but too long as a comment. You claim that you can develop &quot;as good as White&quot; but that is simply not true. White begins by interposing the Bishop 4.Be2. You play 4..Bg4. It is now a mistake to play 5.Nf3 because 5..Bxf3 spoils whites Pawns and makes his King insecure. But 5.d4! also gains a development tempo, and forces Black to choose one of the two moves that does not lose a piece.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If 5..Qe6, then I would choose 6.Bf4 from among many good moves. Then 6..c6 7.Qd3&#xA;and the contrast between positions is huge.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If 5. Bxe2, then Nxe2, with a similar outcome.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Perhaps you were only concerned about losing a tempo to Nf3 and forgot about d4? I think that White is close to winning. Even if not, you have a long and perilous defence to look forward to.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastActivityDate="2020-06-12T16:21:57.120" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29979" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29980" CreationDate="2020-06-12T18:00:39.463" Score="6" ViewCount="498" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a beginner amateur player, and I have been thinking about openings. On lots of occasions the opponent pins the white knight on Nc3 or Nf3 (as black) or the black knight on Nc6/Nf6. What is the main motivation for doing that? I am partial to bishops, and it seems even opening theory suggests that it is okay to get rid of one or even two bishops early in the opening at the cost of your opponents pawn structure? It seems very counter-intuitive to me. Can someone give examples of games/tactics where the pinned knight gives a big advantage for the opponent?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23502" LastActivityDate="2020-06-12T18:46:27.780" Title="Why pin knights early in the opening?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;knights&gt;&lt;bishops&gt;&lt;pins&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29980" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29979" CreationDate="2020-06-12T18:46:27.780" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;One of the key principles of opening play is that control of the center is vitally important. If one of the players has complete control of the center then they can much more easily launch an attack and it is much more difficult for the other player to defend.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A white knight on c3 supports/attacks e4 and d5.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;A white knight on f3 supports/attacks e5 and d4.   &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Those 4 squares define the center of the board. A similar story is true for black knights on f6 (controls e4 and d5) and c6 (controls e4 and d5).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A pinned knight doesn't support or attack any squares. It is pinned. It can't move. It no longer plays any role in the fight for the center although it can come to life again if it is unpinned.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hence the normal progression in the opening of moving a center pawn 2 squares to control one of the center squares, then move one or more knights out to also control center squares, then move bishops out to either control center squares or to pin opposition knights which has the same effect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-06-12T18:46:27.780" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29981" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29974" CreationDate="2020-06-12T18:53:49.903" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Qe5+ is not a blunder or a mistake but it is definitely inaccurate play. Qa5 (most popular line) keeps a check on 2 central squares as well as Qd8.    &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;Defending with bishop&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also in the second line you mentioned (Bc2) after Bg4, white has an excellent move d5! Now white has a tempo in development, space as well as development whereas black is trying to play with two pieces. Once you play the recommended Bxe2 Nxe2 the advantage for white is apparent as black scrambles to position his queen and &lt;em&gt;start&lt;/em&gt; development when white has two pieces and a pawn out in the game.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;This is why it's a bad idea to play Qe5+. It may not look like you're losing much but the advantage white has is more apparent the higher the level you play at.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14471" LastActivityDate="2020-06-12T18:53:49.903" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29982" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29957" CreationDate="2020-06-12T19:32:35.643" Score="5" Body="&lt;h2&gt;No one plays optimally, so it is perfectly fine to continue playing in hope that your opponent will not play perfectly.&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In any pure strategy game like chess, there is only a single possible outcome for perfect play.  (For chess it's &lt;em&gt;probably&lt;/em&gt; a stalemate, although I don't believe we know for certain).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess is only interesting as a game because it is too complex for anybody to play perfectly.  As such, assuming that your opponent will play perfectly is clearly an unreasonable assumption. And if their skills are lacking in some way, then it's entirely possible that they lack the skills to beat you in this particular game. Just because a player has the skill to reach a dominant board position does not necessarily mean they have the skills to capitalize on their advantage. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19347" LastActivityDate="2020-06-12T19:32:35.643" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29983" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29974" CreationDate="2020-06-12T23:18:32.543" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I own the old books from Dr. M. Euwe, still the most comprehensive for chess opening moves. The 9th volume covers Scandinavian defense starting on p. 137; this variant is not mentioned. So I tend to agree that from a development standpoint this is a bad move&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23851" LastActivityDate="2020-06-12T23:18:32.543" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29984" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29991" CreationDate="2020-06-13T04:15:08.810" Score="2" ViewCount="145" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm tired of being stuck on a chesstempo rating 1530-1570 tactics in Blitz for like 5 days I'm &quot;not&quot; improving. Sometimes I  take more than 2 minutes and sometimes I just move on quickly to the next puzzle to satisfy my ego. Is there a perfect way to calculate?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21840" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-06-13T09:46:20.697" LastActivityDate="2020-06-13T16:55:05.457" Title="Method for precise calculation?" Tags="&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;calculation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29985" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-06-13T08:00:35.093" Score="-1" ViewCount="163" Body="&lt;p&gt;With Black to move, is there a possibility to win in this position?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;3rk2r/1p2q2p/1Q1p1Bpb/1R1N3n/1P6/5N2/1P3PPP/4R1K1 b k - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23852" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-06-13T09:32:14.377" LastActivityDate="2020-06-13T17:37:31.180" Title="Black to move, is there a possibility to win in this position?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;middlegame&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29986" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29985" CreationDate="2020-06-13T08:13:49.563" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, this is dead lost. According to stockfish Qxe1 is Black's best move. But even after this, White can force a checkmate in 13 moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1... Qxe1+ 2.Nxe1 Rd7 3. Bxh8 Bg5\ 4. Nc7+ Kf7 5. Rxg5 Nf4 6. Rg4 Ne2+ 7. Kf1 h5 8. Qe3 Rxc7 9. Re4 d5 10. Re8 Nf4 11. Rd8 Ne6 12. Qf3+ 13. Qxf4+ Ke6 14. Qf6#&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23782" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-06-13T11:05:14.843" LastActivityDate="2020-06-13T11:05:14.843" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29987" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29899" CreationDate="2020-06-13T09:10:50.657" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Another possibility might be the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Indian_Defense&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Old Indian&lt;/a&gt; where Black plays d6, Nf6, c6 and aims for an early e5. You can also play like this against 1. c4. I think Nigel Davis did a Chessbase DVD on this, called &quot;A busy person’s opening system&quot;. But I don't know it and I don't want to advertise it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although this might be &quot;sound&quot; more or less, I can't recommend such an approach. Not only will you fail to play the most challenging defenses against specific set-ups (as suggested in the comments) but also you might get stuck, playing the same (inferior) positions all the time. Chess is a rich game and exploring various types of positions (if only by playing them over the board) will not only improve your overall skill but will also enhance your enjoyment. And you will have much more to talk about.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23782" LastEditorUserId="23782" LastEditDate="2020-06-13T09:55:16.680" LastActivityDate="2020-06-13T09:55:16.680" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29988" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29962" CreationDate="2020-06-13T09:22:37.183" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is the full game, as constructed from the OP's question and the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AehdMxdrB8Y&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;video&lt;/a&gt; by IM Danny Kopec.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 g6 6. Be3 Bg7 7. f3 Nc6 8. Qd2 O-O 9. Bc4 Bd7 10. O-O-O Qa5 11. Bb3 Rfc8 12. g4 Ne5 13. Kb1 b5 14. h4 b4 15. Nd5 Nxd5 16. exd5 Nc4 17. Bxc4 Rxc4 18. Nb3 Qb5 19. h5 Rac8 20. Na1 e6 21. hxg6 hxg6 22. Qh2 exd5 23. Qh7+ Kf8 24. Bh6 Bxh6 25. Qxh6+ Ke8 26. Qh8+ Ke7 27. Qh4+ f6 28. Rhe1+ Kd8 29. Qxf6+&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thesee three things not clear from the video:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1) What were the moves before 20. Na1?&#xA;2) Did the game continue on or not?&#xA;3) What was the outcome of the game?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Regarding 1)-The moves seem very reasonable to me since a large part of it is theory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Regarding 2)-Perhaps. The position after 29. Qxf6+ is basically lost for black, but is not without hope. The white knight is currently out of play and there are still attacking chances for black, e.g. with a pawn storm.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Regarding 3)-It is likely that white won-see above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-06-15T18:12:03.140" LastActivityDate="2020-06-15T18:12:03.140" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29989" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29985" CreationDate="2020-06-13T10:46:40.363" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;At a cursory glance you see that...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;white is up a piece and a pawn, &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the black queen is pinned to the king and will be lost, &lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;white's pieces are much more active than black's&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;white's king is safer than black's&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;....&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So no, there is nothing, really nothing in favour of black here. The only thing which needs to be checked is that Qxe1 is not mate, but in a millisecond you see that the rook is protected by the knight on f3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2020-06-13T10:46:40.363" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29990" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="29992" CreationDate="2020-06-13T11:15:39.123" Score="30" ViewCount="2474" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to the &lt;a href=&quot;https://handbook.fide.com/chapter/E012018&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;current FIDE Laws of Chess&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;3.9.1 The king is said to be 'in check' if it is attacked by one or more of the opponent's pieces, even if such pieces are constrained&#xA;  from moving to the square occupied by the king because they would then&#xA;  leave or place their own king in check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;  &#xA;  &lt;p&gt;3.9.2 No piece can be moved that will either expose the king of the same colour to check or leave that king in check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It wasn't always so.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When was it legally possible in a FIDE rated game of chess to have your king attacked by 3 of the opponent's pieces? Please give an example illustrating this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-30T22:05:33.657" LastActivityDate="2020-11-03T15:42:32.727" Title="When was it possible for a player's king to be attacked by 3 of the opponent's pieces?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;problems&gt;&lt;history&gt;&lt;fide&gt;&lt;loopholes&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29991" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29984" CreationDate="2020-06-13T12:18:11.117" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Being stuck for 5 days is not a long period of time. Players get stuck at their levels for months or even years. It could just be that you got a particularly hard sequence of puzzles, or that you didn't sleep well, or many different reasons.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is no &quot;perfect&quot; way to calculate. If there was, chess would be a very uninteresting game. You could just give 20 bucks to someone to explain you what that method is and congratulations! You've made it to GM!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As general advice, you should calculate forced moves first (checks, then captures, then immediate threats...) You can apply this recursively (start by your forced moves, search for the forced replies from your opponent, then your forced replies to his reply and so on... The reason why you should give preference to these moves is that, on one hand they are simpler to analyze and on the other, when they do work, they are often game-changers&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastActivityDate="2020-06-13T12:18:11.117" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29992" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29990" CreationDate="2020-06-13T14:14:42.173" Score="33" Body="&lt;p&gt;In &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.ecforum.org.uk/viewtopic.php?f=2&amp;amp;t=10842&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;my thread&lt;/a&gt; on the English Chess Forum, which seemed to make the world go crazy on the subject, I gave all the major and minor events in the history of the “legal” triple check that my extensive research has uncovered. This loophole was even talked about recently in Episode 20 of &lt;a href=&quot;https://audioboom.com/posts/7605553-when-does-space-become-space&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&amp;quot;The Chess Pit&amp;quot;&lt;/a&gt; at the 12:13 mark. Here is all information in chronological order.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The dubious phrasing in FIDE's laws of chess goes back to the 1984 FIDE Chess Congress when it is was implemented. This is indicated by its first appearance in the &lt;a href=&quot;http://aekphotography.co.uk/CAA/1985_Laws_of_Chess_Final.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;1985 laws&lt;/a&gt;-many thanks goes to @Stephen for pointing this out in a comment. Here is the 1985 law on check in whole. (All linked laws come from the Chess Arbiter's Association &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessarbitersassociation.co.uk/index.htm0&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;website.&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;ARTICLE 9. CHECK&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;9.1 The king is in check when the square it occupies is attacked by one or two of the opponent's pieces;&lt;/strong&gt; in this case the latter is or are said to be &amp;quot;checking the king.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;9.2 Check must be parried by the move immediately following.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;9.3 If the check cannot be parried, the king is said to be &amp;quot;checkmated&amp;quot; (&amp;quot;mated&amp;quot;), (See Article 10.1.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;9.4 Declaring a check is not obligatory.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Beforehand, the &lt;a href=&quot;http://aekphotography.co.uk/CAA/Laws_of_Chess_1980_Final.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;1980 laws&lt;/a&gt; instead stated &lt;strong&gt;&amp;quot;The king is in check when the square it occupies is attacked by an enemy piece.&amp;quot;&lt;/strong&gt; This itself is as vague since it can interpreted to allow a king to be left in double check. However, since double check is widely known to be possbile,  such an arugement obviously wouldn’t stand. Even so, it is no wonder then why they later rephrased it to &amp;quot;one or two” for clarity. But that still wasn't enough, as the saga of the “legal” triple check shows.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Within a few years, at least some people had realized the implications of the law’s wording. This is evidenced by a letter sent by Robert Norman, who is from Dar Es Salaam Tanzania, to &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_Magazine&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&amp;quot;CHESS Magazine&amp;quot;&lt;/a&gt;, then called &amp;quot;Pergamon Chess,” that was published in the June 1988 issue. This is the oldest known chess problem that utilizes the &amp;quot;loophole.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Robert Norman, CHESS Magazine June 1988, White To Move And Win&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;1n5k/1r6/5K2/4Q1Pb/8/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. g6 Nd7+ 2. Kf7+ Nxe5++ 3. g7+! Kh7 4. g8=Q+ Kh6 5. Qg7#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks to Jonathan Bryant on &lt;a href=&quot;https://twitter.com/Berlin_Endgame/status/1271456213889355778&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Twitter&lt;/a&gt;, we have a visual of Norman's letter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/W27VZ.jpg9p&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/W27VZ.jpg9p&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The chess magazine &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.arves.org/arves/index.php/en/magazine-eg/eg-and-ebur&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;EG&lt;/a&gt; reprinted it &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.arves.org/arves/images/PDF/EG_PDF/eg95.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;April 1989&lt;/a&gt;, saying this about it: &lt;strong&gt;&amp;quot;Definitely an oddity. Ridiculous, irrelevant, amusing or disturbing, as the reader chooses.&amp;quot;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, it is arguable as to whether or not it can actually be considered legal. It can be countered that triple check is indeed accounted for in the letter of the law. The aforementioned EG magazine summarized it neatly: **&amp;quot;The argument is that check by three men is not check. Well, one can easily counter that check by three men includes check by two and is therefore covered (not 'specifically excluded') under the Laws, which do not need to be changed.&amp;quot; Even under the counterargument, the idea of the triple check alone was enough of an ambiguity to change the law's wording,  which definitely says something about it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Norman’s problem is a online rarity online, so here are a few links to it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1- A &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.caissa-amsterdam.nl/caissa-post/om-de-tanden-op-stuk-te-bijten/#respond&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Dutch blog&lt;/a&gt; for bizarre chess problems.&#xA;#2-An &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.keverelchess.com/exmouth/pioneers/3199/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;obituary&lt;/a&gt; for Robert Norman.&#xA;#3-Page 29 in the 12/2001 issue of &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ksua.dk/rodovre/it-0112.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Internet træk.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A few years later in 1992, the idea again appeared in CHESS Magazine, then called Maxwell Macmillan Chess, in the column &amp;quot;Addicts Corner&amp;quot; by Richard James and the late Michael Fox. I found the relevant part of the February issue in an &lt;a href=&quot;https://groups.google.com/forum/m/#!topic/rec.games.chess/wCP3voSjXkw&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;old Google forum.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;CHECK THIS OUT!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Right, N. Short, J. Speelman, J. Nunn, and the rest of you clever clogs. Break your heart on this: White: Ke3, Qb2, Ne5 Black: Kh8, Re8, Rg8, Ba7, Nb6, Pg7, h7 Black incautiously played a double check 1...Nc4+?? How did White crash through to victory? Admit it; you're baffled. Deduct one hundred Elo points [and read on]:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Dead easy. White gets out of check by 2. Nf7 mate. Yes, it's perfectly legit. Consult Article 9.1 of the laws: &amp;quot;The King is in check when the square it occupies is attacked by one or two of the opponent's pieces...&amp;quot; It says nothing about a threefold attack, so White's move takes him out of check...&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Kevin Thurlow, CHESS Magazine February 1992&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;4r1rk/b5pp/1n6/4N3/8/4K3/1Q6/8 b - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Nc4+ 2. Nf7#!&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems that Thurlow's problem spread like wildfire, and FIDE finally got wind of it. This is similar to what Tim Krabbe's joke castling problem did. In a short time, the wording was soon changed to the modern wording at the 1992 Fide Chess Congress for the &lt;a href=&quot;http://aekphotography.co.uk/CAA/FIDE_Laws_1993.docx&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;1993 laws&lt;/a&gt;-&lt;strong&gt;&amp;quot;The king is in &amp;quot;check&amp;quot; when the square it occupies is attacked by one or more of the opponent's pieces&amp;quot;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can find various references to the subject in the English Chess Forum. Most are by Kevin Thurlow in reference to his problem, and some others are by Stewart Reuben, who is an English arbiter who has on the rules commission and helped fix the wording after its 1992 rediscovery.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In conclusion, from 1985, when the effect of the 1984 FIDE Chess Congress change took place a king could hypothetically be left a in a “legal” triple or higher check in a FIDE rated game until 1993 when the law was again rephrased at the 1992 FIDE Chess Congress.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Additionally, this caused some effects on chess composition other than Norman's and Thurlow's joke. There &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessvariants.com/problems.dir/bosma.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;exists&lt;/a&gt; a chess variant called &lt;strong&gt;”Bosma Chess&amp;quot;&lt;/strong&gt; that was created in 1993 by Dutch problemist R. Bosma that is based on the &amp;quot;loophole.&amp;quot; Bosma also noticed the odd wording of FIDE laws, after it was changed in 1992, so he incorporated it into fairy chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Bosma Chess a king is not in check if it is attacked three or more times. If a king is triple checked, it can't be captured. Here is an example problem that utilitizes underpromotion to get the point across.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Henk Le Grand, 1st Price 151th Thematoernooi Probleemblad 1993, Mate In 2, Bosma Chess&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;7K/1NRNkP1R/5p2/b1P2B2/2n5/8/8/3q4 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Rc8! null (1... Bd8 2. f8=R#) (1... Qxd7 2. f8=N#) (1... Nd6 2. f8=B#) 2. Re8#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, fast forward to 2008, 30 years after Norman's problem was published, a variation of it appeared in an obscure and now dead blog called &lt;strong&gt;&amp;quot;Far Off Chess.&amp;quot;&lt;/strong&gt; that was created by  IM Jens Kristiansen. In a post entitled &lt;a href=&quot;http://faroffchess.blogspot.com/2008/12/in-twilight-zone-of-chess-rules.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&amp;quot;In the twilight zones of chess rules&amp;quot;&lt;/a&gt;, which is about old and new ambiguities in the rules, Kristiansen created a version of Norman's study from his hazy memory. It is as beautiful as the original and worth showing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot; Jens Kristiansen, Far Off Chess 12/13/2008, White To Move And Win&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;7k/rn6/5KP1/p1p4b/8/8/8/7R w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Kf7 Nd6+ 2. g7+! Kh7 g8=Q+ Kh6 4. Qg7#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is the known history of the &amp;quot;legal&amp;quot; triple check. Whether or not you would consider it legal, the idea was and still is an amusing nitpick at the exact wording of the FIDE laws of chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the comments, @bof has discussed the effects of the triple check, which was only lightly discussed in the English Chess Forum. This section will supplement that discussion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When triple checked, kings become normal pieces that can castle. Under the 1984-1992 laws, castling into, out of, and through check along with having adjacent kings is legal. However, the main interest is about king captures, which are not forbidden either. The answer is simple-if a king is captured, that side can't be checkmated. This is the only possible conclusion going strictly by the law's letter. This is different from Bosman Chess's immune kings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are problems of mine that show these bizarre conclusions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Castling Into Check&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Me, chess.stackexcange.com 6/15/2020, Mate In 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;8/8/8/8/8/7n/5Rrp/2k1K2R w K - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. O-O#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Castling Out Of Check&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Me, chess.stackexcange.com 6/30/2020, Mate In 2&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;4r3/4N3/8/b7/5pp1/3P1Bkp/2n5/2N1K2R w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Nf5+ Kxf3 2. O-O#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Castling Through Check&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Me, chess.stackexcange.com 8/12/2020, Mate In 2&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;8/8/8/5B2/5p1Q/5kn1/2NRb2n/31K2R w K - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. O-O+ Nhxf1 (1... Bxf1 2. Rf2) (1... Ngxf1 2. Qf2#) 2. Qg4#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Adjacent Kings&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Me, English Chess Forum 6/13/2020, Mate In 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;8/8/8/8/8/3p4/3rp3/RK1kN3 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Kc2#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lastly, here are some bonus problems.  On page 3 of in my English Chess Forum thread it was asked if a quadruple check could be done, which I did, but I later managed a quintuple check!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Me, English Chess Forum 4/30/2020, Mate In 4, Dedicated To Marken Foo&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;1RnkBB2/2p5/8/4K1Nr/4N3/6R1/1n5q/bQ2r3 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Qd3+! Nxd3+ 2. Ne6+ Kxe8 3. Nf6+ Kf7 4. Rg7#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Per another request, I also showed a triple check via en passant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Me, English Chess Forum 6/13, Mate In 2&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;3r4/3B3N/4n3/3K1k1P/2pp2p1/3r1bP1/2Q1PR2/8 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4+! dxe3+ 2. Bxe6#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lastly, as suggested by @supercat in a comment, here is a mate in 1 that removes two checks for mate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Me, chess.stackexcange.com 6/13/2020, Mate In 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;8/7B/3B2NK/8/5k2/6P1/5Q2/8 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Ne5#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-11-03T15:42:32.727" LastActivityDate="2020-11-03T15:42:32.727" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29993" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29985" CreationDate="2020-06-13T14:45:04.950" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;  &lt;p&gt;With Black to move, is there a possibility to win in this position?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course there is. If White's flag fell then this would be a win for black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is one simple winning continuation for Black&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;3rk2r/1p2q2p/1Q1p1Bpb/1R1N3n/1P6/5N2/1P3PPP/4R1K1 b k - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Nxf6 2. Nd4 Qxe1++&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course the White move is very bad and only someone who is trying to lose (or teaching a young child to spot back rank mates) would play it but it is one of many possible ways that Black could win. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course in a normal competitive game it is never going to happen. With reasonable, half competent play by white black is going to lose.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-06-13T14:45:04.950" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29994" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29984" CreationDate="2020-06-13T16:48:56.997" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I focused on tactics every day my rating when up about 100 points after 6 months.  Then it went up 400 points in a week and leveled off again.  This is where I am 6 months later, but I am hopeful. Keep at it, you will get there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17425" LastActivityDate="2020-06-13T16:48:56.997" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29995" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29984" CreationDate="2020-06-13T16:55:05.457" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Being stuck at a certain level is not unusual and I would not worry about it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since you asked specifically about &quot;precise calculation&quot;...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should be aware that solving tactics is not only about being able to calculate accruately many moves deep. It is also about recognizing certain patterns / tactical motifs that appear in every puzzle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Particularly at your level it is much more likely that you fail some puzzles because you are not aware of a motif, rather than missing a defensive option many moves down the line that you did not calculate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After you solved a puzzle or failed to do so, chesstempo shows you the motifs. Make sure you understand each of these motifs in the solution.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2020-06-13T16:55:05.457" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29996" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29985" CreationDate="2020-06-13T17:37:31.180" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The position is resignable for Black. White is already up a piece, and is about to win Black's queen for a rook. Technically it's possible White could play some horrible blunder and allow Black to win, but this could be said about any position where the losing side has mating material.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2020-06-13T17:37:31.180" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29997" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29957" CreationDate="2020-06-13T18:01:21.347" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The ability to remain sharp even in unfavorable situations is a useful skill, and it is perfectly acceptable to use tournaments to hone one's skills.  Even if one's position is such that one is almost certain to eventually lose against any reasonable opponent, there is nothing wrong with making an opponent earn his victory &lt;em&gt;if one is in fact endeavoring to play as well as possible while making moves at a reasonable pace&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What would be poor sportsmanship would be for someone with an hour left on his clock to insist upon playing on in an obvious forced mate-in-three position, while taking twenty minutes to make each of the remaining three forced moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think a fair criterion would be whether one &lt;em&gt;either&lt;/em&gt; has a realistic chance of winning, or honestly feels that one is receiving some benefit from continued play.  If one can't honestly say that they're continuing for any reason other than to annoy their opponent, then continuing play in such circumstance would be poor sportsmanship, but that would be a matter for the player's own honest judgment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2698" LastActivityDate="2020-06-13T18:01:21.347" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29998" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29974" CreationDate="2020-06-13T20:18:54.970" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's a classic beginner's mistake to make a check for check's sake. You have to ask yourself what you have gained from that check? You basically allowed your opponent to develop one more piece. Their king will be safe after castling which you have helped speed up, and your Queen will be ripe for the picking. In essence you lost a tempo (due to you having to move the queen out of harm later) while your opponent gets the opportunity to further their development.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17626" LastActivityDate="2020-06-13T20:18:54.970" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="29999" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30002" CreationDate="2020-06-13T20:26:22.667" Score="7" ViewCount="775" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to find the endgame probabilities based on the openings I play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This would be a game changer when it comes to prioritizing what endgames to study.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know Chessbase provides a &lt;a href=&quot;http://help.chessbase.com/CBase/15/Eng/index.html?endgame_probabilities.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;tool&lt;/a&gt; for this, but I don't have Windows or the money to shell out on Chessbase. Is there a free online alternative or an easy way to find the endgame probability of an opening via searching through an online database (e.g. chessgames.com)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, if I want to find the endgame probabilities based on the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Defence#Exchange_Variation:_3.exd5_exd5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;French Defence, Exchange Variation&lt;/a&gt;, a tool might output the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Endgame probabilities based on the Exchange Variation&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;N vs N&lt;/code&gt; = 66 percent&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;Pawn Ending&lt;/code&gt; = 13 percent&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;Q vs Q&lt;/code&gt; = 8 percent&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;R+P vs R&lt;/code&gt; = 5 percent&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;R vs R&lt;/code&gt; = 4 percent&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;R vs N&lt;/code&gt; = 3 percent&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;RN vs RB&lt;/code&gt; = 1 percent&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13177" LastEditorUserId="3444" LastEditDate="2020-06-14T19:17:32.373" LastActivityDate="2021-03-05T00:36:47.607" Title="How can I find the endgame probability based on the opening?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30000" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29957" CreationDate="2020-06-13T20:30:32.653" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's totally fine, especially if it's blitz. It's a question of whether you have chances to win or not. If you have close to zero chance to win or draw, then there is no point of playing further and yes your continuing to play will be considered malicious and a waste of time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An extreme example, you're playing Magnus Carlsen, and you're a Queen down. Now take the same situation, and you're playing a player only 100 rating points higher and you're a Queen down. I would continue playing and it's not bad etiquette. Especially if both of your ratings are low enough that he won't see that knight fork coming that he loses the Queen to. Now if you're 2200 and they're 2300, it's unlikely this will happen. And whether it's bad etiquette or not may depend on the position (and of course how much time is left). Some positions have enough nuances to continue playing, or the position provides a clear win for a player with those ratings and it's a waste of time to continue. Of course if you're a Queen down against Carlsen and he's got only a second on the clock, and you have an hour, then heck yeah continue playing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For a blitz game, if your opponent is low on time, you have a good chance of winning, so pursuing the play is not bad etiquette. Since winning by time is a valid way to win. Now if your opponent had outplayed you in every way, they may be irked that you won the game. Things happen. Even Kasparov got mad every once in a while.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17626" LastEditorUserId="17626" LastEditDate="2020-06-13T21:30:54.990" LastActivityDate="2020-06-13T21:30:54.990" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30001" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29999" CreationDate="2020-06-13T23:46:29.147" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can do something like this in SCID, which is a free program. It takes a little effort, but it's not too bad.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, load the desired database. Then use a filter to select only games from the opening of your choice. You can filter either by a position, or by ECO code, to get the desired opening. Note how many games meet the filter criteria.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Next, use the &amp;quot;Search for material or board patterns&amp;quot; filter feature. You can use the &amp;quot;Common Endgames&amp;quot; button on that screen, or you can select your own criteria. Make sure to select the &amp;quot;AND (Restrict filter)&amp;quot; option. Hit the Search button, and the filter will be restricted to only games which meet your selected criteria. Note how many there are, and with some basic math you can calculate what percentage this is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Repeat this for all desired endgames.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/PWRHZ.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/PWRHZ.png&quot; alt=&quot;Screenshot of filter&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also use the Opening Report feature to get some quick endgame probabilities. Put the desired position on the chessboard, and then run the Opening Report from the Tools menu. This does, however, include &lt;em&gt;all&lt;/em&gt; games in the database with that opening, regardless of whether they really have an &amp;quot;endgame&amp;quot; or not. It will count a Scholar's Mate as a &amp;quot;Q, R, BN&amp;quot; endgame since those pieces are all on the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/syFW8.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/syFW8.png&quot; alt=&quot;Screenshot of Opening Report&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastEditorUserId="12629" LastEditDate="2021-03-05T00:36:47.607" LastActivityDate="2021-03-05T00:36:47.607" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30002" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29999" CreationDate="2020-06-14T02:01:18.857" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Learn CQL (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.gadycosteff.com/cql/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.gadycosteff.com/cql/&lt;/a&gt;), then write a program to automate the process&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17626" LastActivityDate="2020-06-14T02:01:18.857" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30003" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18396" CreationDate="2020-06-14T03:36:26.860" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just to clarify  IA Petr Harasimovic's comment in the answer provided by Cleveland, here is a position in which capturing en passant is illegal due a diagonal pin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[FEN &quot;5k2/2p2b2/8/3P4/8/2K5/8/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Kc4 c5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9684" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-06-15T17:11:59.660" LastActivityDate="2020-06-15T17:11:59.660" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30004" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30006" CreationDate="2020-06-14T10:14:17.453" Score="7" ViewCount="1070" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the longest possible FEN? The reason for that question is, that  I am &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/mliebelt/PgnViewerJS&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;designing a PGN viewer&lt;/a&gt; (again), and I have noticed that the FEN is dependent on the width of the board (the FEN test area is placed below). So the following number of lines are necessary:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;FEN width &gt; 460: 1 line&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;FEN width &gt; 240: 2 lines&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;FEN width &amp;lt; 240: 3 lines or more&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But is that sufficient as a heuristic? If I would known how many characters a FEN string has as maximum, I could compute it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Addition: I did some experiments with games, and did not found FENs longer than 72 characters. So the current answers are of course sufficient, but could someone provide a (legal) position that comes near those 90 characters?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3005" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-06-14T16:15:04.663" LastActivityDate="2020-06-15T15:29:12.933" Title="Longest possible FEN" Tags="&lt;pgn&gt;&lt;records&gt;&lt;mathematics&gt;&lt;fen&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30005" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30004" CreationDate="2020-06-14T10:37:09.693" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Using the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forsyth%E2%80%93Edwards_Notation#Definition&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;definition of FEN&lt;/a&gt; it is relatively straightforward to compute an upper bound:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;piece placement: 64 (pieces/squares) + 7 (slashes)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;color: 1 (w/b)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;castling: 4 (KQkq)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;en passant: 2 (e3)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;halfmove clock: 3 (100)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;fullmove number: 4 (considering that maximum game length &amp;lt; 9999 due to the 50-move rule)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;spaces between fields: 5&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So in total we get as an upper bound:&#xA;64+7+1+4+2+3+4+5 = &lt;strong&gt;90&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15415" LastEditorUserId="15415" LastEditDate="2020-06-14T12:38:43.620" LastActivityDate="2020-06-14T12:38:43.620" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30006" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30004" CreationDate="2020-06-14T10:41:06.303" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;The FEN consists of six parts (see &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forsyth%E2%80%93Edwards_Notation&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;definition of FEN here&lt;/a&gt;):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;piece placement: at most 64 characters, one for each square plus 7 times &quot;/&quot; to delimit ranks = 71 characters&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;active color: one character (&quot;w&quot; or &quot;b&quot;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;castling: at most 4 characters&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;en passant: one or two characters&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;half move clock&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;full move number&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In addition there are 5 space characters between them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So in total I count a maximum of: 71+1+1+1+4+1+2+1+x+1+y = 83 + x + y&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;x and y are the number of characters to represent half moves since the last capture/pawn move and the total number of moves respectively.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In most realistic games you'd have x=3 (after 50 moves = 100 half moves a draw can be claimed after 75 moves = 150 half moves it is a draw) and y=3 (allowing games up to 999 moves long. If you want to be on the safe side, taking x=3 (no pawn move or capture for 999 half moves max) and y=4 (games up to 9999 moves long).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This would leave you with a string of 90 characters, but read on...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Additional consideration 1 (en passant)&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first part of the FEN string can be 64+7 characters long. One possible position is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;b1q1k1n1/p1p1p1r1/1r1b1n1p/1p1p1p1P/1P1P1Pp1/P1P1P1P1/R1R1K1B1/N1Q1B1N1 w - f3 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note in particular, that it is possible to have en passant capture in such setup (thanks Fabian Fichter for pointing this out), i.e. to have a 2 characters en passant string and 64+7 characters for the piece placement.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Additional consideration 2 (castling)&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any of the four castlings is described by one character (to be compared with one character if no castling is possible).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In order for castling to be possible, neither king nor the respective rook can have moved. For queenside castling this does not create any problem, because e1 and a1 (e8 and a8) are squares of the same color and you can place pieces alternatingly similar to the example above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However regarding kingside castling, if e1 and h1 (or e8 and h8) are occupied, this will break the structure and shorten the 1st part of the FEN string, by 1 for each color's kingside castling.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Additional consideration 3 (en passant and half move clock)&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[Again due to Fabian Fichter]:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;En passant is only possible if the last move was a pawn move. Any pawn move however resets the half move counter (5th part of FEN). If you compare one extra character for en passant (2 chars vs just &quot;-&quot;) with two extra characters for the half move counter (3 digit number vs &quot;0&quot;) the conclusion is, that in the longest FEN, en passant is not possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This reduces the string by 1.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Additional consideration 4 (50 or 75 move rule)&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The game is drawn after 50 moves (if claimed) or at most 75 moves without a capture or pawn move. Captures shorten the 1st part of the FEN by 1 char, so clearly you don't gain anything with regard to the last part of the FEN string by extending the game via captures.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The maximum number of pawn moves (for a full board with 64+7 string for the first part of the FEN) should be 24, e.g. by moving every second pawn 1 square ahead and the other pawns two squares in two moves (=2*(4+8)=24). So the pawn moves can extend your game to 24*50=1200 or 24*75=1800 moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This shows that it is possible to have a 4 digit move counter without a forced draw and also that it is not possible to have 5 digit move numbers because the game would be drawn before. (even if captures are included you would only gain another 62*75=4650 moves, leaving you well below the limit of 9999 moves).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;hr&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the total maximum number should be 90 - &#xA; 2 (for castling) -1 (en passant vs half move counter) = &lt;strong&gt;87 characters.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that all this holds for regular chess games. If you need to support any non-standard variants you might have to reconsider these numbers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastEditorUserId="11629" LastEditDate="2020-06-15T15:29:12.933" LastActivityDate="2020-06-15T15:29:12.933" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30007" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-06-14T14:01:46.553" Score="1" ViewCount="47" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can somebody give list of classics to study according to your ELO?(like I don't know,Alekhine:1800)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21840" LastActivityDate="2020-06-14T14:01:46.553" Title="Which classic master games to study?" Tags="&lt;master-games&gt;&lt;study&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2020-06-14T14:48:32.993" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30008" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-06-14T17:08:47.377" Score="6" ViewCount="344" Body="&lt;p&gt;From a research paper:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Fernand_Gobet/publication/267259137_Training_in_chess_A_scientific_approach/links/55100b320cf21287416cb0d0.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess players search highly selectively. It is rare that they analyze more than&#xA;one hundred positions in the search tree before choosing a move.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the middle game how many positions does a GM analyze before making a move? What are typical limits of top players?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23820" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-06-14T17:18:47.143" LastActivityDate="2020-06-23T02:55:03.730" Title="How many positions does a GM analyze before making a move?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;grandmaster&gt;&lt;calculation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30009" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23618" CreationDate="2020-06-14T17:43:59.070" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I someone who knows how to play chess, I, with confidence, would say none.  If I got into this position in a game, I would already know the correct answer before I got to this move.  If I saw this as a puzzle, I would assume that only two moves are worthy of consideration, and only one is doing more to restrict the king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not the answer you're looking for, and others will think that it's a bad answer, but it's the truth.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9684" LastActivityDate="2020-06-14T17:43:59.070" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30010" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29971" CreationDate="2020-06-14T17:54:22.750" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The history of some chess positions can be determined with certainty and some cannot. &#xA;PRA looks at each alternative history and finds their different solutions.  These typically revolve around if the right to castle exist, then you have some solution; or if last move allows en-passant then another solution exists.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;RS involves 'mutual dependency', for example if a pieces existence on a square can mean either one side can't castle or the other side can't castle; Then the first to castle proves the other couldn't.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is also the AP (a posteriori) convention, which is controversial as the variations can involve moves motivated more toward proving if certain moves are legal than by real chess motivations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tim Krabbé's book Chess Curiosities covers these things.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2020-06-14T17:54:22.750" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30012" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28814" CreationDate="2020-06-14T20:50:33.250" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Another well-known example is the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &quot;&quot;] &#xA;1. f4 {Bird's Opening} 1... e5 {From Gambit} 2. e4 {King's Gambit} 2... d5 {Falkbeer Counter Gambit} 3. exd5 exf4 {King's Gambit Accepted}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A total of 5 distinct names.&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Bird's Opening&lt;br&gt;&#xA;From Gambit&lt;br&gt;&#xA;King's Gambit&lt;br&gt;&#xA;Falkbeer Counter Gambit&lt;br&gt;&#xA;King's Gambit Accepted  &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9025" LastActivityDate="2020-06-14T20:50:33.250" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30013" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-06-15T02:40:25.877" Score="5" ViewCount="88" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm a 1700-ish player who plays opening systems starting with 1.Nc3 as white and 1. ... Nc6 as black, and generally I'm pretty happy with my results.  But there's one type of setup that I struggle forming a plan against, where my opponent trades bishops on e3 (or e6) recapturing with the f-pawn.  A typical example would be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;1.e4 Nc6 2.d4 e5 3.d5 Nce7 4.c4 Ng6 5.Nf3 Nf6 6.Nc3 Bc5 7. Be3 Bxe3 8.fxe3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What should my strategy be as black in this position?  Usually with the dark-squared bishops off the board I would try to place my knight on f4, but that's impossible with the pawn on e3.  I usually end up trying to attack the e3 pawn (with O-O, d6, c6, Ng4, Qb6 in some order), but white has no problem defending that.  Stockfish says the position is even, but I've not scored well in these type of positions and feel kind of at sea.  Any suggestions?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2005" LastActivityDate="2020-06-15T18:13:34.040" Title="Plan against pawn formation of c4, d5, e4, e3 in the Nimzowitsch defense (or similar positions in the Dunst opening)" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;pawn-structure&gt;&lt;planning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30014" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30042" CreationDate="2020-06-15T11:00:10.457" Score="1" ViewCount="391" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am looking for a way to use Stockfish for an automated analysis of games which I have in pgn format. Similar to Fritz/Chessbase's Blunder Check function I would like Stockfish (or any other UCI engine) to &quot;simply&quot; go through each position of each game in the pgn-file (convert to FENs?), let Stockfish run for a fixed amount of seconds and then return the evaluation and depth reached. Maybe later I would like to add things like node count or the eval in each depth reached. Finally, the program should format the output to a human readable format.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe there is a similar program already out there which I could use as a template but if not what would be the easiest way to get started. I have limited programming skills in Python and VB.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23864" LastActivityDate="2020-06-17T18:12:03.003" Title="Using Stockfish in an automated way, for example, to analyze games in pgn format" Tags="&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;programming&gt;&lt;uci&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30015" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30008" CreationDate="2020-06-15T13:35:55.873" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Of course this depends on the position at hand, but generally speaking...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am not a GM, but 100 &lt;em&gt;positions&lt;/em&gt; (not moves) seems highly exaggerated, though this might depend on your definition of &quot;position&quot; and &quot;analyze&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you really mean unique (and not only slightly different) positions, and if you mean by analyze, the   full process of evaluating the position, I would guess that the number is between 0 and 3 or so.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Only rarely you would want to calculate  forced line and would have to analyze a position in the future anyway. Most decision making is based on well &#xA;known plans, that follow from the current position on the board. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2020-06-15T13:35:55.873" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30016" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13609" CreationDate="2020-06-15T13:49:28.913" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would recommend Chess Tutor Step 1. It is a training software that starts with the most basic level and goes until 1800 rating, more or less. The software costs around $20. When you finish you can follow with Chess Tutor Step 2 and Chess Tutor Step 3. Even they have several languages available. I have been a chess trainer for 30 years, and I have never seen something so good. I have no commercial relation with the author. The program includes puzzles, lessons, and even a chess program that you can play with. I would not go with a book because this chess software check if the move that you propose is right, and gives you advises if your move is wrong.  If you want something extra, even though they are designed for kids, I would also recommend Dinosaur Chess. I love also Fritz and Chesster. You can find computer, tablet, and phone versions. Definitely, do not start with a book. You can find where to buy them with Google, Bing, Amazon, or any search engine. If you want additional advises, just write me. I like to help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17004" LastEditorUserId="17004" LastEditDate="2020-06-16T04:46:37.183" LastActivityDate="2020-06-16T04:46:37.183" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30017" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30008" CreationDate="2020-06-15T14:58:27.693" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Nobody is safe to answer this question unless he or she is a GM. You definitely need to search an answer in chess games. You can analyse by yourself or by using chess engines or you can easily find many videos on the internet. One of my favourites is the game between Vladimir Kramnik and Garry Kasparov when Kasparov sacrificed his Queen on move 12!  It reveals in a great way how a GM can &quot;create&quot; the future through many moves before.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23870" LastActivityDate="2020-06-15T14:58:27.693" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30018" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30019" CreationDate="2020-06-15T15:50:06.960" Score="4" ViewCount="982" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;rnbq1rk1/ppp1b1pp/3ppn2/5p2/2PP4/5NP1/PP2PPBP/RNBQ1RK1 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White plan is to play b3 and then Ba3 to render the move e5. But how does it prevents e5?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21840" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-06-16T03:53:13.390" LastActivityDate="2020-06-16T03:53:13.390" Title="How does b3 prevent e5 here?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30019" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30018" CreationDate="2020-06-15T15:59:52.537" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Currently e5 is not playable due to pawn loss. b3 is good as if ever e5 occurs after preparing for it with Nbd7, dxe5 dxe5 would make the long diagonal accessible to the bishop forever. In double fianchetto positions, an open centre is desired for maximum range of bishops.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Obviously, It's not strict, e5 is a very important break in many dutch positions. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is an opening position. Many things are possible here. You can read some books on classical dutch for more insight into this position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20670" LastActivityDate="2020-06-15T15:59:52.537" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30021" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30013" CreationDate="2020-06-15T18:13:34.040" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I play systems such as this myself. In your example White has been very unambitious and you are certainly equal at least, but you do not have the advantage that you may feel entitled to. It is worth bearing in mind that nothing is weak unless it can be attacked, and this is true of the doubled pawns here. By focusing on them I believe you are wasting your energy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think that the correct attitude for Black is to recognize that you have no weaknesses and an easy development and should be happy with that. Counterintuitively, Blacks strategy should revolve around ..f5, even though this allows White to dissolve his doubled Pawns and perhaps exchange his bad Bishop. This break would be normal if, for example the Pe3 were still on f2, and it is still a good idea. Black can start with ..d6 and ..0-0, then put the Nf6 somewhere and play ..f5. From your diagram play might go 8...d6 9.Bd3 0-0 10.0-0 Ng4 11.Qd2 f5 12.exf Bxf5 13.Bxf5 (13.e4 gives away the square f4 and makes the  White Bishop permanently bad.) Rxf5.  In this position I would prefer (slightly) to be Black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastActivityDate="2020-06-15T18:13:34.040" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30022" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30018" CreationDate="2020-06-16T03:51:51.907" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Another factor here:  e5, dxe5, dxe5, Qxd8, then&#xA;Bxd8, Bxf8 (bishop for rook) or Rxd8, Bxe7 (free bishop), and the pawn on e5 is still ungarded.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1296" LastActivityDate="2020-06-16T03:51:51.907" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30023" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30037" CreationDate="2020-06-16T04:31:44.890" Score="2" ViewCount="124" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &quot;2r1r1k1/pb5p/1pp1qb2/3p1p2/3Pn1p1/1Q2P1P1/PP2NPBP/2RRB1K1 b - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the best move for Black in this position. Everything seems defended here. &#xA;What method is applicable in such situations? Method of imbalances?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21840" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-06-16T13:49:22.620" LastActivityDate="2020-06-23T02:50:18.753" Title="What should be the next move in this position?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30024" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-06-16T09:12:19.040" Score="6" ViewCount="486" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Game 10 of the 2020 Clutch Chess International, Caruana played &lt;code&gt;c6&lt;/code&gt; in response to Carlsen's &lt;code&gt;9. Nd5&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;[Event &quot;Clutch Chess International&quot;]&#xA;[Round &quot;10&quot;]&#xA;[White &quot;Carlsen, Magnus&quot;]&#xA;[Black &quot;Caruana, Fabiano&quot;]&#xA;[Result &quot;1-0&quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &quot;2881&quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &quot;2773&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. Nxe5 d6 4. Nc4 Nxe4 5. Qe2 Qe7 6. Ne3 Nc6 7. Nd5 Nd4 8.&#xA;Nxe7 Nxe2 9. Nd5 c6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What was Caruana's plan in making this strange move, since the white knight can just gain the rook through &lt;code&gt;Nc7+&lt;/code&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14767" LastEditorUserId="14767" LastEditDate="2020-06-16T12:40:01.113" LastActivityDate="2020-06-17T06:20:02.007" Title="What was Caruana's plan in playing c6 against Carlsen in Game 10 of the Clutch Chess International?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;online-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30025" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30024" CreationDate="2020-06-16T09:30:18.397" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;If White goes for &lt;strong&gt;11.Nc7+&lt;/strong&gt;, then Black can reply &lt;strong&gt;11...Kd8 Nxa8 Nxc1&lt;/strong&gt;, however if Black played &lt;strong&gt;10...Nxc1&lt;/strong&gt; directly, &lt;strong&gt;11.Nxc7+&lt;/strong&gt; would win an extra pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note &lt;strong&gt;10...c6 Bxe2 cxd5&lt;/strong&gt; would have been OK for black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastEditorUserId="18809" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T06:20:02.007" LastActivityDate="2020-06-17T06:20:02.007" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30027" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29361" CreationDate="2020-06-16T13:45:52.023" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have done some Deep Reinforcement Learning so I can tell you that making a NN is not the way forward here and it is far from easy. If you manage to take the NN of LC0 as it is and train it with another algorithm (according to how you want it), you can get your training software. Even designing this algorithm would be difficult.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The point here is that LC0 NN is capable of having a strength matching 3900 levels. It learns patterns in chess very efficiently. If you want a strength of 1600 or 2000 or whatever your rating is, it's definitely more than capable. Maybe you would need a new NN if you want a strength of 4500. Intelligence is already out there. You just have to customize it for your needs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A much more practical thing would be to try to beat LC0 snapshots of past close to your rating. They should be available on lc0 site, you'll have to make the appropriate frontend. But you can get an easier version by trying to beat stockfish levels on lichess. Maybe you can request the lichess community to add more levels at smaller intervals or make some more yourself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Earlier engines like Fritz and I guess the very old Deep Blue itself were trained on GM games so this is not anything new. Self play is much stronger and you'll be able to feel playing many levels how NN itself learns patterns step by step.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;P.S. Such a thing would help Carlsen, Anand and others much more as you can learn through books but they can't. They can try to beat 2900 LC0 but you can learn from books. Everytime they crush the opponents who write the books we read.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20670" LastActivityDate="2020-06-16T13:45:52.023" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30028" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30038" CreationDate="2020-06-16T19:15:40.737" Score="1" ViewCount="89" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. c4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. e3 e6 5. Nf3 Nbd7 6. Bd3 Be7 7. O-O O-O 8. b3 b6 9. Qe2 Bb7 10. Rd1 Qc7 11. Bb2 Rad8 12. Rac1 Qb8 13. h3 Bd6 14. e4 dxe4 15. Nxe4 Bf4 16. Nxf6+ Nxf6 17. Rb1 c5 18. dxc5 bxc5 19. Ne5 Qa8 20. Ng4 Nxg4 21. Qxg4 Bh6 22. Bf6 Rd7 23. Bf1 Qc8 24. Rxd7 Qxd7 25. Rd1 Qc7 26. Bg5 Bxg5 27. Qxg5 h6 28. Qd2 Be4 29. Qd7 Rc8 30. f3 Bc2 31. Rd2 Bb1 32. Qxc7 Rxc7 33. a3 Rb7 34. Rb2 Bg6 35. b4 Kf8 36. Kf2 Ke7 37. Ke3 Kd7 38. Be2 Kc7 39. b5 Rb6 40. a4 f6 41. a5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was analyzed this game, but sadly couldn't find anything to learn from it. Did I miss something, or is this just a simple game as it appears to be?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21840" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-06-16T19:30:36.397" LastActivityDate="2020-06-17T10:03:40.717" Title="Is there any important thing to note from this game?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30029" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12625" CreationDate="2020-06-16T20:44:36.930" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, the game is won by white if it's white to move, otherwise black finds safety in a stalemate, but only if the b-file pawn is pushed first.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23883" LastActivityDate="2020-06-16T20:44:36.930" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30030" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24243" CreationDate="2020-06-17T03:04:57.283" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a longtime proponent of Durkin's Attack, I think the best answer to 1. Na3 is 1... Nh6!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23886" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-06-18T02:33:13.377" LastActivityDate="2020-06-18T02:33:13.377" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30031" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29955" CreationDate="2020-06-17T03:12:37.293" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The suggestion of the &amp;quot;Opera Game&amp;quot; is a good one, but I'm afraid it still might be too advanced for a complete beginner. What might be more suitable would be the elementary games in a beginner's chess manual, of which there are numerous available.  These are probably not going to be famous games between well-known players since they would be too sophisticated. If a well-known player would be involved, his opponent would most likely be a novice who would fall into an elementary trap. The following short, instructive game from Ken Whyld's &amp;quot;Learn Chess in A Weekend&amp;quot; did involve one famous player, Paul Keres.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Caro-Kann, Keres-Arlamowski&amp;quot;]    &#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c6  2. Nc3 d5 {beginning the fight for the all-important center squares to gain maximum mobility for his pieces} 3. Nf3 {development toward the center in preparation for castling} dxe4  4. Nxe4 {recapturing to maintain material equality} Nf6 {challenging the centralized knight} 5. Qe2?! {defending the knight and setting a trap. This move really isn't the best since it blocks in White's king bishop, but White is hoping for a Black mistake} Nbd7 {Black, seeing only a knight exchange on f6, overlooks that his e-pawn will be pinned to the king if the knight on e4 moves elsewhere and blunders away the game} 6. Nd6# {a &amp;quot;smothered mate&amp;quot;}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;                                                                               The following short game from Savielly Tartakower's &amp;quot;A Breviary of Chess&amp;quot; is between two famous players and is well known.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Caro-Kann, 1910, Richard Reti-Savielly Tartakower&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 dxe4 4. Nxe4 Nf6 5. Qd3 {better than in the previous game} e5 {to open lines of play for the pieces} 6. dxe5 Qa5+ 7. Bd2 Qxe5 {regaining the forfeited pawn, although at the cost of several tempi, which are important in the opening when time in development is of the essenc} 8. O-O-O {instead of defending his knight by 8.f3, White conceives a plan to emphasize his lead in development of four pieces in play versus two} Nxe4 {falling into the trap} 9. Qd8+! {sacrificing his queen to force checkmate!} Kxd8 10. Bg5+ {double check, from which the king can only flee} Kc7 {or 10... Ke8 11. Rd8#} 11. Bd8#&#xA;   &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other beginner's manuals will have similar instructive games. Such books by I.A. Horowitz, Fred Reinfeld and Irving Chernev were popular during my older generation, but I'm sure current books for beginners are just as good.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T16:31:43.210" LastActivityDate="2020-06-17T16:31:43.210" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30032" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-06-17T04:10:46.417" Score="4" ViewCount="113" Body="&lt;p&gt;In &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.talkchess.com/forum3/viewtopic.php?p=575819&amp;amp;sid=604f7301762ea0d2f4cb746657e2a379#p575819&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this talkchess thread&lt;/a&gt;, they discuss trapped rooks and castling rights. In post #5, user @Lyudmil Tsvetkov posted:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would give at least some 10-15cps for temporary prevention of castling.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/blob/995ee4b31105ad8c7976cc68c11fabfdc5108e63/src/evaluate.cpp#L366&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;how&lt;/a&gt; StockFish implements it:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;score -= TrappedRook * (1 + !pos.castling_rights(Us));&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here an example position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;r3kb1r/pp3ppp/4bn2/3p4/P7/4N1P1/1P2PPBP/R1B1K2R w Kq - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When searching, the move Bg2-f1 leads to the position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;r3kb1r/pp3ppp/4bn2/3p4/P7/4N1P1/1P2PP1P/R1B1KB1R b Kq - 1 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you can see, the White bishop has blocked castling, but &lt;code&gt;pos.castling_rights(Us)&lt;/code&gt; for White still returns true, which means Stockfish is not penalizing for the temporary prevention of castling.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it intentional or is it a Stockfish bug?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23887" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-06-21T01:27:33.747" LastActivityDate="2020-06-21T01:27:33.747" Title="Trapped Rooks: Does Stockfish penalize more if the king can't castle temporarily?" Tags="&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;programming&gt;&lt;castling&gt;&lt;evaluation&gt;&lt;rooks&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30033" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24243" CreationDate="2020-06-17T04:33:42.153" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;FM Graham Burgess suggests the following when facing this kind of unorthodox but modest opening from White: play as though you (as Black) gained a tempo somewhere. In other words, you now have an advantage, but it's not much; therefore you should try to keep the initiative, but don't play too aggressively trying to refute the opponent's opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So after 1. Na3 (a clearly bad opening move), play 1...d5, 1...e5 or 1...Nf6, which are all natural developing moves. You occupy the center and develop normally, and don't get drawn into aggressive moves like ...d4 or ...e4 before you're developed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As an example, consider:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;1. Na3 d5 2. c4 Nf6 {A quick check with Stockfish shows that this isn't one of its top choices - it prefers ...e5 or ...d4 - but it's safe, the knight is probably developing here anyway, and by avoiding having to play ...Qxd5, Black avoids potential traps} 3. Nf3  Nc6 {Amazingly, ...Bf5 would be a mistake because it exposes the Bishop to the latent threat of e4. For example 4. cxd5 Nxd5? 5. e4 Bxe4 6. Qa4+ wins a piece, while 4. cxd5 Qxd5 5. d3 still leaves Black scrambling to defend against the threatened e4. If you are unfamiliar with this line you'd be forgiven for falling for this, but that's why FM Burgess suggested not playing too aggressively. 3...Nc6 avoids these traps by leaving all your pieces defended, and follows the principle of developing knights before bishops.} 4. d4 {White has to stop 4...e5, and now we're effectively in a (slightly unusual) Queen's Gambit.} Bf5 {With the a4-e8 diagonal blocked, Black can safely play this now.}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black wins no prizes for maximally exploiting White's weak opening play, but that's not the point - he has survived White's opening to reach a playable middlegame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastEditorUserId="15223" LastEditDate="2020-06-18T01:55:15.683" LastActivityDate="2020-06-18T01:55:15.683" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30034" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24243" CreationDate="2020-06-17T06:22:16.407" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;What should you play? You play chess!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can't have a prepared answer for every nonsense move your opponent may play. If you can't easily equalize as Black against &lt;strong&gt;1.Na3&lt;/strong&gt;, then your chess skills should be improved somehwere else other than the opening&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastActivityDate="2020-06-17T06:22:16.407" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30035" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29955" CreationDate="2020-06-17T06:25:54.057" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;A beginner's &quot;first game&quot; should be his own game. Newcomers won't really understand the moves that are being made. Sure, you can give him an explanation about why the moves make sense, but you could give a just as convincing one about a game that goes **1.a3 a6 2.h3 h6 3.g4&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only way to experience chess is doing it (and screwing it up) yourself&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastActivityDate="2020-06-17T06:25:54.057" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30037" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30023" CreationDate="2020-06-17T08:49:54.883" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;All black pieces are currently defended but that does not mean there is nothing to do as if you play aimlessly white will eventually gain an advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On analyzing the game the first thing you can notice is that the kingside is completely locked down by pawns so our attack needs to be on the queenside. Ba6 and Be7 are good moves to start gaining control on the queenside. Double rooks on c- file with a c5 pawn break is one option (but it sacrifices the d5 pawn).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Exploiting White's cramped position is essential for any strategy you employ on the queenside side. White will probably outpost his knight on the f4 square so BxN eventually will open up the e-file. Even though this is a drawish game it is far from over and inaccurate play from either player might lose the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14471" LastActivityDate="2020-06-17T08:49:54.883" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30038" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30028" CreationDate="2020-06-17T10:03:40.717" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Even simple games are full of possibilities. If you want to learn, you have to investigate these possibilities. Ideally without an engine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some lines of investigation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What happens after 23.Bxh7 and Rxd7?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What about 23.b4 cb 24.Bxh7?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How does 26.Rd3 with the idea of Rg3 pan out?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How does 31.Qxc7 Rxc7 32.Rd8+ differ from the game?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2020-06-17T10:03:40.717" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30039" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30043" CreationDate="2020-06-17T12:08:50.417" Score="4" ViewCount="370" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to play against Stockfish offline because I'm going on a trip. I downloaded the compiled exe from &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/ddugovic/Stockfish&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;GitHub&lt;/a&gt; since my laptop will have limited Internet connection. After loading it into the Arena GUI I noticed it only supports Chess960. Which GUIs support the chess variants Atomic and King of the Hill?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23892" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T14:52:26.670" LastActivityDate="2020-06-19T09:30:18.383" Title="Which chess GUIs support the chess variants Atomic and King of the Hill?" Tags="&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;atomic-chess&gt;&lt;king-of-the-hill&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30040" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-06-17T14:56:27.483" Score="5" ViewCount="96" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm currently working on an image based FEN generator. I found a &lt;a href=&quot;https://arxiv.org/pdf/1708.03898.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;paper&lt;/a&gt; doing the same and they have used Stockfish to  calculate  the  most probable piece configurations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now I wonder if Stockfish has this functionality or if they implemented it on their own. Does anybody know more about this, as it would be extremely helpful for my project?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/2niW4.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/2niW4.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On pages 7-8, the paper gives information on what they did.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Utilizing a chess engine: We utilized the open-source Stockfish engine, which  allows us to calculate the most probable piece configurations. By calculating the prob-abilities of all possible configurations, we could choose the most probable candidate (see Figure 7). Additionally, we strengthened this method by utilizing large-scale chess game statistics in the manner proposed by Acher and Es-nault Acher and Esnault (2016).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23893" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-06-17T15:40:53.477" LastActivityDate="2020-10-28T01:40:46.953" Title="Probability of given position/piece configuration" Tags="&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;programming&gt;&lt;fen&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30041" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30032" CreationDate="2020-06-17T16:20:10.843" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;White hasn't lost his castling rights. It's just not a legal move right now. There is a distinction.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White would still be able to castle king-side, if the bishop were to move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9025" LastActivityDate="2020-06-17T16:20:10.843" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30042" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30014" CreationDate="2020-06-17T18:12:03.003" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a library for Python (&lt;code&gt;import chess.engine&lt;/code&gt;) that allows you to use an engine (like Stockfish) to analyse games in a PGN file.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4509" LastActivityDate="2020-06-17T18:12:03.003" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30043" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30039" CreationDate="2020-06-17T18:49:05.923" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are three chess variant GUIs supporting both atomic and king of the hill that I am aware of:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://pychess.github.io/download&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;PyChess&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://hgm.nubati.net&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;WinBoard/XBoard&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/cutechess/cutechess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Cutechess&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The latter is well suited for automated engine matches and human vs. engine games, but less for game analysis. All three should work fine with the multi-variant Stockfish you downloaded.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15415" LastEditorUserId="15415" LastEditDate="2020-06-19T09:30:18.383" LastActivityDate="2020-06-19T09:30:18.383" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30044" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24243" CreationDate="2020-06-17T19:23:32.217" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You should think this through a bit. 1.Na3 puts the Knight on a bad square but gives it access to the good square c4. If you play 1...e5 then 2.Nc4&#xA;gives White some kind of initiative (2...Nc6 3.e4). If you play 1..d5, you start to make the Knight look silly. It will have to come into play via c2, but could then reach good squares via e3. In the early part of the opening White will need to find a good square for that misplaced piece and your play should include some way of  making this difficult. &amp;quot;Whatever&amp;quot; is seldom a good answer. If the player of a wierd opening can make you lazy in your analysis they can point to some success.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastActivityDate="2020-06-17T19:23:32.217" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30045" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30046" CreationDate="2020-06-17T23:02:15.513" Score="6" ViewCount="1075" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this diagram it's White to move. Black should be winning in this endgame. I want a simple plan on how to move the Black pawns in a way that I will avoid the horizontal and vertical checks from the White rook.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &amp;quot;8/R4ppp/4pk2/1r6/8/5K2/6PP/8 w - - 8 40&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes I get stuck in a blitz game because I don't have a plan how to win such kind of positions. I would really appreciate it if somebody can give me a straightforward plan. My plan was to keep the Black rook on the 5th or 4th rank to cutoff the White king and advance the h and g pawns. But then what?!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23598" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-06-18T17:04:15.847" LastActivityDate="2020-06-18T17:04:15.847" Title="How to win a rook endgame with two extra pawns-4 vs 2 general plan" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;pawns&gt;&lt;rook-endgame&gt;&lt;planning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30046" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30045" CreationDate="2020-06-17T23:27:15.973" Score="7" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My plan was to keep the Black rook on the 5th or 4th rank to cutoff&#xA;the White king and advance the h and g pawns. But then what?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your plan is a bad one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The general rule in rook and pawn endgames is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Your king protects your pawns&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Your rook attacks your opponent's pawns&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can add another one:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Push your passed pawns&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you can see your passed pawns are not your g and h pawns. Therefore you should not be pushing those pawns as a first priority. You may want to push them to help the e and f pawns to advance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Regarding &amp;quot;Cutting-off the opponent's king&amp;quot;, in rook and pawn endgames it is usually much more important to cut off the opponent's king &lt;em&gt;vertically&lt;/em&gt; not horizontally. You want to cut off the king from where the pawn or pawns are going to be. The White king on the 3rd rank is not cut off. If you are going to make a queen then sooner or later one of your pawns is going to have to try and reach the 3rd rank when the White king would be ideally placed. The white king on the a or b file would be cut off.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your king is already protecting your pawns but your rook is not attacking your opponent's pawns. In the changed position with White's king now protecting the g pawn the best way to attack the pawns is not the immediate Rb2 because there is a more efficient way to do that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First Rb3+ either forces the king to the fourth rank or to the second rank. In either case the move Rb2 then comes with tempo. The White king has to move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then you want to try and push f6 or f5 to get your e and f pawns rolling. Your king will need to be out of the way on g6 and you will want to move the h and g pawns up so they aren't vulnerable to attack by the rook. So g5 creates space on g6 for your king. You can follow up with h5 and then get ready to push the f and e pawns. Your opponent can try and stop this by g4 or just sit and wait passively.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One line might be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &amp;quot;8/R4ppp/4pk2/1r6/8/5K2/6PP/8 b - - 4 38&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Rb3+ 2. Kg4 Rb2 3. Kf3 g5 4. h3 h5 5. g4 (5. Rc7 g4 6. hxg4 hxg4 7. Kxg4 Rxg2) Rb3+ 6. Kg2 h4 7. Ra6 Rg3+ 8. Kh2 Kg6 9. Rb6 Re3 10. Ra6 f6 11. Rb6 e5 12. Ra6 Rf3 13. Kg2 Rd3 14. Rb6 Kf7 15. Ra6 Ke7 16. Rb6 Rd6 17. Rb2 Ke6 18. Rf2 (18. Re2 Rd4 19. Rf2 e4 20. Rf5 Rd2 21. Kg1 Rd3 22. Kg2 Rg3+ 23. Kh2 e3 24. Rf1 e2 25. Re1 Re3)  e4 19. Re2 Ke5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2020-06-18T15:12:57.997" LastActivityDate="2020-06-18T15:12:57.997" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30047" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-06-18T00:24:26.770" Score="1" ViewCount="101" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have no clue-I am a recreational player who wants to join FIDE tournaments.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23891" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-06-18T13:30:53.100" LastActivityDate="2020-06-22T17:38:39.700" Title="What are the rapid and blitz forms of chess?" Tags="&lt;terminology&gt;&lt;blitz&gt;&lt;rapid&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30048" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30045" CreationDate="2020-06-18T05:14:42.890" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;With such an overwhelming pawn advantage it should be easy enough to win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What you said is definitely a good plan. You can push h5 and g5 to push the king back.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &amp;quot;8/R4ppp/4pk2/1r6/8/5K2/6PP/8 b - - 4 38&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... h5 2. Ra4 g5 3. h3 Ke5 4. Ra2 f5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We can see here that black has an easy win. g4 is coming and once the pawns are traded, Black's two extra pawns win the game&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14471" LastActivityDate="2020-06-18T05:14:42.890" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30049" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30047" CreationDate="2020-06-18T07:25:42.320" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Rapid and Blitz are both form of fast chess&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Rapid, as the name suggests, is a faster version of chess&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Time controls for each player in a game of rapid chess are, according to FIDE, more than 10 minutes, but less than 60 minutes. Rapid chess can be played with or without time increments for each move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many tournaments with a large player count opt for this faster format to try and finish off an entire tournament in a day or two.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Blitz is even faster than rapid, with times less then 10 minutes on the clock.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Time controls for each player in a game of blitz chess are, according to FIDE, 10 minutes or less per player. This can be played with or without an increment or delay per move—a more recent development due to the influx of digital clocks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both these formats have their own rating category in FIDE in 15+10 and 3+2 time control respectively.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source:&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14471" LastActivityDate="2020-06-18T07:25:42.320" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30050" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-06-18T12:52:46.337" Score="1" ViewCount="18" Body="&lt;p&gt;So,I'm reading some annotated games and analyzing them in some app.I feel too lazy to make separate moves for the variations give and tend to do them in my head,but i find it difficult to do after say 5 moves(each).Does it comes with practice or   how to improve that?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21840" LastActivityDate="2020-06-18T12:52:46.337" Title="How to visualize variations clearly?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;annotation&gt;&lt;visualization&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2020-06-18T13:08:44.403" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30051" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30073" CreationDate="2020-06-19T01:06:01.533" Score="5" ViewCount="6976" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have been playing on chess.com and lichess for more than 2 years. My rating in blitz on lichess is around 2100, and on chesscom is around 1800. Yet I highly believe that the players on chesscom are much more accurate. Like sometimes I look at the position and they don't do any blunders, 1 mistake, and a few inaccuracies in a position that's really tough to play. Like I would beat them with good moves (not the best moves) and then I would be surprised at the end that overall they played better almost every time! This is very strange. I don't know if there's more cheating on chesscom or what? I would really appreciate it if you can give me your feedback on this topic because it has been driving me crazy. Like I find it easier to beat a 1900 player on lichess than a 1800 on chesscom which is insane!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23598" LastEditorUserId="23598" LastEditDate="2020-06-19T02:13:38.590" LastActivityDate="2020-06-20T14:44:04.993" Title="lichess vs chesscom players" Tags="&lt;lichess&gt;&lt;cheating&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="7" FavoriteCount="1" ClosedDate="2020-06-26T10:10:39.100" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30052" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-06-19T01:25:59.960" Score="1" ViewCount="48" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm implementing multi-thread in my engine but I think I'm not getting the expected performance boost. Below are the results from the initial position to depth 10. The single thread version takes  5288ms to finish and the multi-thread takes 3494ms. Are the results ok or should I expect more performance?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;info depth 1 score cp 42 nodes 23  time 2 pv b1c3 &#xA;info depth 2 score cp 0 nodes 62  time 7 pv b1c3 b8c6 &#xA;info depth 3 score cp 42 nodes 526  time 55 pv b1c3 b8c6 g1f3 &#xA;info depth 4 score cp 0 nodes 1314  time 36 pv b1c3 b8c6 g1f3 g8f6 &#xA;info depth 5 score cp 31 nodes 11130  time 45 pv b1c3 b8c6 g1f3 g8f6 d2d4 &#xA;info depth 6 score cp 0 nodes 11809  time 48 pv b1c3 b8c6 g1f3 g8f6 d2d4 d7d5 &#xA;info depth 7 score cp 20 nodes 97064  time 394 pv b1c3 b8c6 g1f3 g8f6 d2d4 d7d5 e2e3 &#xA;info depth 8 score cp 0 nodes 68896  time 452 pv b1c3 b8c6 g1f3 g8f6 d2d4 d7d5 e2e3 e7e6 &#xA;info depth 9 score cp 22 nodes 1586729  time 1955 pv e2e4 e7e6 d2d4 b8c6 b1c3 g8e7 g1f3 d7d5 f1d3 &#xA;info depth 10 score cp 2 nodes 2443347  time 2182 pv e2e4 e7e5 g1f3 b8c6 b1c3 f8c5 c3a4 c5d6 d2d4 g8f6 &#xA;5288&#xA;bestmove e2e4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Multi Threads enabled&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;info depth 1 score cp 31 nodes 20  time 34 pv e2e4 &#xA;info depth 2 score cp -11 nodes 61  time 94 pv e2e4 b8c6 &#xA;info depth 3 score cp 31 nodes 198  time 68 pv e2e4 b8c6 b1c3 &#xA;info depth 4 score cp -11 nodes 830  time 58 pv e2e4 b8c6 b1c3 g8f6 &#xA;info depth 5 score cp 31 nodes 9646  time 75 pv d2d4 g8f6 b1c3 b8c6 g1f3 &#xA;info depth 6 score cp 0 nodes 12662  time 67 pv d2d4 g8f6 b1c3 b8c6 g1f3 d7d5 &#xA;info depth 7 score cp 20 nodes 68563  time 153 pv d2d4 g8f6 b1c3 b8c6 g1f3 d7d5 e2e3 &#xA;info depth 8 score cp 0 nodes 89146  time 270 pv d2d4 g8f6 b1c3 d7d5 g1f3 b8c6 e2e3 e7e6 &#xA;info depth 9 score cp 22 nodes 732191  time 1514 pv e2e4 b8c6 d2d4 e7e6 g1f3 g8e7 b1c3 d7d5 f1d3 &#xA;info depth 10 score cp 11 nodes 938355  time 1043 pv e2e4 b8c6 d2d4 e7e6 g1f3 g8f6 b1c3 d7d5 c1g5 f8b4 &#xA;3494&#xA;bestmove e2e4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23554" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-06-19T02:24:54.873" LastActivityDate="2020-06-19T02:24:54.873" Title="Multi-thread performance" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;programming&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="3" ClosedDate="2020-09-01T08:00:49.833" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30054" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30051" CreationDate="2020-06-19T05:01:55.150" Score="25" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Like I find it easier to beat a 1900 player on lichess than a 1800 on chesscom which is insane!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why is that insane? According to &lt;a href=&quot;https://chessgoals.com/rating-comparison/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;one site&lt;/a&gt;, an 1800 blitz rating on chess.com is about equivalent to a 1915 rating on lichess (based on people who answered their survey and have ratings on both sites.) So, your experience of the 1900 lichess player being easier to beat than the 1800 chess.com player conforms to reality.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think the issue here is simply that an 1800 rating on one site does not correspond to an 1800 rating on another site. Even if they used the same rating rules (which they don't), the ratings would likely diverge due to differences in the player pools.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the end, rating is just a number, and that number means different things in different places. Just because 1800 rated players are a particular strength on one site does not mean 1800 rated players will be about that strength on another site.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2020-06-19T05:01:55.150" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30055" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="132" CreationDate="2020-06-19T06:12:04.220" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1.f3&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;PROS&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&#xA;The only pros of the opening is some small center support.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;CONS&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;This opening weakens the king's safety. The f pawn is an important shelter of the e1-h4 diagonal and the g1-b7 diagonal so moving it makes the kingside pawn structure destroyed.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;This opening don't open any lines fo development, and it blocked the knight!&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Wasted tempo.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;SUGGESTION FOR PLAYING&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&#xA;I do not suggest it for anyone&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1.h4 and 1.a4&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;PROS&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&#xA;None&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;CONS&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Doesn't open any lines nor development.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Weakens pawn structure.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Wasted tempo.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;SUGGESTION FOR PLAYING&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&#xA;I do not suggest it for anyone&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1.h3 and 1.a3&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;PROS&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&#xA;Does not weaken anything.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;CONS&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Wasted tempo.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;No development lines.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;SUGGESTION FOR PLAYING&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&#xA;For white players who want to play black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1.Na3&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;PROS&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It can develop to c4 or c2 but that would waste some tempos.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Support c pawn, but can't the c pawn move already?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;CONS&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;After 1...d5 and an exchange the pawn structure is lost.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Wasted tempo.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;SUGGESTION FOR PLAYING&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&#xA;Only in blitz.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1.Nh3&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;PROS&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It can use another tempo to go to f4.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I'm surprised at nobody mentioning it, but it protects f2!&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;CONS&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Wasted tempo&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;After 1...e5 and exchange the pawn structure is lost... and the f2 protection is gone!&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;SUGGESTIONS FOR PLAYING&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&#xA;Only in blitz.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1.c3&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;PROS&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&#xA;Support d4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;CONS&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;No development and blocks knight&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Wasted tempo.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;SUGGESTION FOR PLAYING&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&#xA;For Caro Kann players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1.g4&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;PROS&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&#xA;Open lines for bishop development&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;CONS&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The g pawn is undefended.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Weakens kingside.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;SUGGESTION FOR PLAYING&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&#xA;Only in blitz.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The third most bad is 1.Na3?! and 1.Nh3?!&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&#xA;&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The second most bad is 1.h4?! and 1.a4?!&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&#xA;&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The most bad is 1.f3?!&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23908" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2020-06-19T06:58:51.523" LastActivityDate="2020-06-19T06:58:51.523" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30059" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30051" CreationDate="2020-06-19T16:14:10.223" Score="17" Body="&lt;p&gt;Elo does &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; signify how strong of a player someone is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Elo signifies how strong a player is in comparison to some community.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Assigning a numeric score to rank how strong someone is in chess would be very difficult to do. The way Elo works (and even the way it is designed) is simply to keep track of players in some group and make predictions about which player in that group is more likely to win against another player in that group. Having a score of 2100 in lichess means that the system has predicted you are more likely to win if you play against someone &lt;em&gt;on lichess&lt;/em&gt; who has a ranking &amp;lt;2100, and more likely to lose if you play someone higher.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Having a ranking of 1800 on chesscom means that the system has predicted that you are more likely to win if you play against someone on chesscom with a ranking of &amp;lt;1800, and more likely to lose if you play someone higher.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since presumably you play at the same level on both sites, that would imply that these numbers are more or less comparable. There are a lot of reasons that a player would have a different Elo rating in a different community&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;One community could simply be more skilled, or targeted at different types of players/&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If the different communities have different &amp;quot;starting ratings&amp;quot; like you mentioned.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If the communities have a different size. In a smaller community, it's harder to get a very high Elo score (Imagine this taken to the extreme. If you track your Elo against one other player, you will get diminishing returns from beating them. Even if you are the best player in this &amp;quot;community&amp;quot;, you will never hit Magnus Carlson level Elo scores)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;It is &lt;em&gt;possible&lt;/em&gt; for Elo ratings to differ between communities because of different standards of preventing cheating. But I would not expect that to be the case here, given that both sites have (&lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/faq#marks&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Lichess&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/article/view/chess-com-fair-play-and-cheat-detection&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess.com&lt;/a&gt;) have written extensively about how they try to prevent cheating. If you feel like playing on one of these sites is unfair, reading through those articles can help you judge whether it's a fair place to play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know that there are many differences such as the starting rating of a new player on chesscom is 1200, but on lichess is 1500&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That makes a huge difference. That means a score of 2100 on lichess is &amp;quot;1.4 times better than average&amp;quot; (which is an oversimplification of how Elo is really calculated and what it represents) whereas a score of 1800 of chesscom is &amp;quot;1.5 times better than average&amp;quot;, which is a very minor difference.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11577" LastEditorUserId="11577" LastEditDate="2020-06-20T14:44:04.993" LastActivityDate="2020-06-20T14:44:04.993" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30061" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-06-20T08:09:20.677" Score="2" ViewCount="418" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;1nkr2nr/pppp2pp/2b2p2/3q4/3P4/1NQ5/P1P2PPP/R1B1R1K1 w KQkq - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can White possibly win in this position and avoid a queen mate on g2?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23852" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-06-20T17:53:02.437" LastActivityDate="2020-06-22T17:34:18.230" Title="Can White defend and possibly win?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;problems&gt;&lt;attack&gt;&lt;defense&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30062" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-06-20T08:26:17.907" Score="4" ViewCount="179" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not sure how to phrase this...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am aware that Elo measures the relative strength of players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's assume for this question that there is such thing as an absolute strength in chess and that players stay at their level without improving or getting worse over time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If there are only two people in the pool playing many games against each other their Elo ratings will settle on some value and these values are a measure of their absolute strength.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, if there are more than two players, I was wondering, whether under the assumptions above (absolute strength exists, no change over time), the Elo ratings would also settle on constant values or would keep on changing constantly?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the answer, I would like to exclude chess arguments like: player A cannot deal with player B's aggressive style and scores worse than against other players of the same rating (but who play more calmly).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically I am wondering whether there is some kind of analogue to &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geometrical_frustration&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;frustration&lt;/a&gt; (physics term) in the Elo system, namely that, if you have &amp;gt;2 players in a pool they would not happily settle on a rating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To put it concretely, I am wondering whether the system of players ends up in a steady state of constant player ratings such that if at that point in time any two players play against each other a million games, their outcome reflects exactly their rating difference.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is assumed that players are of comparable strength so that they have a non-zero probability to draw (or win).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastEditorUserId="11629" LastEditDate="2020-06-20T13:45:28.687" LastActivityDate="2020-06-22T17:31:37.213" Title="Absolute strength and stability of Elo" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;elo&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30063" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9279" CreationDate="2020-06-20T08:46:51.163" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;This position is equal or maybe White is slightly better. If there were open files it'd be a different story, though!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastActivityDate="2020-06-20T08:46:51.163" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30064" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30062" CreationDate="2020-06-20T08:50:48.767" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;They wouldn't stay totally still because ratings vary after every game but in the long term they'd tend to converge to the same value&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastActivityDate="2020-06-20T08:50:48.767" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30065" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30061" CreationDate="2020-06-20T08:52:01.140" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can defend with Qg3 and Qh3 but the position is clearly disadvantageous for White, as they are one piece down&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastActivityDate="2020-06-20T08:52:01.140" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30066" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30061" CreationDate="2020-06-20T08:55:00.993" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Avoid queen mating on g2 is easy:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;f3, Qg3, Qh3+ are decent options&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Re4, Kf1 also prevent immediate mate but are not good&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Winning this position is objectively speaking impossible. Black is up a piece and white does not have sufficient compensation for it. Most players would resign if playing somebody of 1800 strength or even less.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If black is a beginner and/or short on time white could try to continue the game. The usual plan in lost positions with material down is to keep the position as complicated as possible and to avoid trades. You want to activate your pieces and start to attack something, specifically the enemy king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this regard one possible plan could be:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Qg3 (protects g2, attacks g7 and eyes c7), also makes space for the c pawn to move (clearance),&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Bf4 develops the bishop a tempo by double-attacking c7. Also makes space for a rook to move to c1 (clearance)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Rac1 and 4. c4 or even immediately 3. c4 with the idea that after Qxc4 you play Rac1 and have a half-open file with attacking chances on the king&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once you get in c4 you can follow up with d5 which limits the range of the only active black minor piece.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course black also makes moves in-between and could spoil this plan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The following example continuation is not best play, but about the best white could hope for for the next couple of moves:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;1nkr2nr/ppp3pp/2b2p2/3q4/3P4/1NQ5/P1P2PPP/R1B1R1K1 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Qg3 g6 2. Bf4 Na6 3. Rac1 Kb8 4. c4 Qf7&#xA;5. d5 Ba4 6. Nd4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The final position is still lost for white, but at least white got the more active pieces and more space than black. There could be some attacking potential along the b file as well, now that the bishop left c6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastEditorUserId="11629" LastEditDate="2020-06-20T09:01:39.940" LastActivityDate="2020-06-20T09:01:39.940" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30067" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-06-20T10:37:28.563" Score="26" ViewCount="5672" Body="&lt;p&gt;In many areas such as prediction and classification, ensemble methods tend to outperform individual methods. This made me wonder if it would make sense to pick a few of the top chess engines and work with them together to make a stronger one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let us assume the total amount of hardware is fixed to what people use for typical benchmarks, and that the time is fixed as well. In addition, we would not be changing the engines themselves to work together, but just making a wrapper around them that they are practically unaware of.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hence my refined question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;How hard would it be to beat the number 1 engine in the world, by an ensemble of engines with fair resources?&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17898" LastActivityDate="2020-06-23T07:16:17.653" Title="Would an ensemble of chess engines beat the best one?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;elo&gt;&lt;leela&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30068" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30067" CreationDate="2020-06-20T10:37:28.563" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;Though I am not able to test it myself, I am confident of the following conclusion:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;An ensemble of engines should be able to beat the strongest individual engine&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are my key assumptions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Given typical time controls used for benchmarks, the time 'lost' by having a thin pre-evaluator before the engines would be negligible. As such we can say that the engines in the ensemble will effectively have the same sum of resources as the top engine.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Suppose the ensemble would want to run two engines at the same time, it would be able to give each of them half the resources.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Suppose the ensemble would want to run engines consecutively, it would be able to give each engine the full resources. The ramp-up time is assumed to be small enough if this is only done a few times during a game (but prohibitive if this would be done every move).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also note that the ensemble would be able to contain a copy of the strongest engine itself. At time of writing the engines following the strongest engine are not far behind so this is not a critical point, but otherwise it would become a question of 'how much rating would an ensemble gain over its strongest member' which is significantly harder.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Scenario 1: Engines are stronger in different phases of the game&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An easy 'win' here would be if one engine had a stronger (interaction with) an opening book, and another with an engame tablebase. However, even assuming all engines can use the best resources in these area with equal efficiency, then it is still commonly said that certain engines are 'strong in the opening' or 'good at endgames'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let me make an additional assumption here:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I assume that engines that are good at a certain phase, do not have a strong dependency on other phases to realize this.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, the engine that would be good at endgames would not only be good at endgames it reached itself, but also at endgames that were reached by another engine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Most straightforward solution: Identify a phase of the game, and let that be played by the engine which is strongest at it&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In case we just distinguish between opening and endgame it would be trivial to define a wrapper for this, and there would be about 1 switch per game. Of course this could be extended if you have an engine which is 'great at pawn endgames' or 'very good at positional games' but at that point it would already become harder to identify which engine to choose without using significant resources.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Scenario 2: Engines can find critical continuations for critical moves&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This scenario is what I was originally curious about. However, based on my assumptions the most straightforward way to get the opinion of several engines would be to let them run in parallel. Suppose we just use an ensemble of two engines given half the resources, then they would both be a bit weaker, let us make another assumption based on &lt;a href=&quot;http://rybkaforum.net/cgi-bin/rybkaforum/topic_show.pl?tid=20910&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;some&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/i-want-a-good-analysis-with-stockfish-how-long-should-i-do-1-min-1-hour-1-day&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;references&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In a typical setting strength scales logarithmic to the available resources, and halving them reduces engine strength by 50-100 elo&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now that is significant, honestly it may be too much. Suppose we just put two engines against eachother with a 70 elo difference, the expected value would be about 60-40. That is a lot to make up for, but though I was unable to find any data on this, it may still be possible. Basically this just needs to result in 1 brilliant move or 1 averted blunder to swing an entire game. It would not be trivial to decide which engine to listen to on each move, but as engines typically can output some basic statistics (like their evaluation of all possible moves, and how deep they checked each one) it would probably not be too hard to make a reasonable and still lightweight decision.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Possible alternate solution: Run engines in parallel and pick the best move each time.&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Again this could be extended, a simple way would be to have 3 engines, and pick the move that 2 of them give, but I am not sure if splitting the resources even thinner would be worth it. Another interesting idea might be to give the strongest member of the ensemble the most resources, and have it being sanity checked by the member which is best at this. In this case the main engine might only lose 10 elo points due to reduced resources so 'making up for it' could be a lot easier. But again, it will remain tricky to select the right move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A final thought would be if engines use CPU and GPU, then perhaps the strenght of individual engines may not scale down too much in each of these resources, so a mix where engine one gets 80cpu+20gpu and engine2 gets 20cpu+80gpu may leave the individual engines nearly as strong as when they had full resourses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Conclusion&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Especially when engines can be run one at a time, it should be able to get better performance, though there must also be ways to get better outcomes by running multiple in parallel. However, this is not trivial.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Taking the ensemble concept really to the next level would likely be possible with small changes in the engines, for example not only providing the expected value of a score, but also how confident they feel about their evaluation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17898" LastActivityDate="2020-06-20T10:37:28.563" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30069" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23480" CreationDate="2020-06-20T10:49:29.227" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm adding another answer because although this opening is not refuted, I believe it's quite close and OP will be interested.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit with better example&lt;/strong&gt;: this line of the Najdorf, also played in the TCEC Season 18 superfinal, might very well be &amp;quot;busted&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 a6 6. Bg5 e6 7. f4 Be7 8. Qf3 Qc7 9. O-O-O Nbd7 10. g4 b5 11. Bxf6 Nxf6 12. g5 Nd7 13. f5 Nc5 14. f6 gxf6 15. gxf6 Bf8 16. Rg1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is another position that's been seen in loads of human games, but in this superfinal the engines might have found the refutation. When playing White, Stockfish reached +4 eval &lt;a href=&quot;https://tcec-chess.com/#div=sf&amp;amp;game=17&amp;amp;round=&amp;amp;season=18&amp;amp;stage=&amp;amp;x=archive&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;after four moves&lt;/a&gt; (16...h5 17. a3 Qb7 18. b4), while it reached +2 eval after only &lt;a href=&quot;https://tcec-chess.com/#div=sf&amp;amp;game=18&amp;amp;round=&amp;amp;season=18&amp;amp;stage=&amp;amp;x=archive&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;three moves as Black&lt;/a&gt; (16...h5 17. a3 Qb6). +2 is very near decisive; usually when Stockfish reaches this level it is expected to win against itself as White.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Caveat: Leela was not nearly as optimistic in the position. Still, it seems unlikely Leela is correct - after all it was not able to hold the game with Black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Addendum&lt;/strong&gt;: GM Matthew Sadler &lt;a href=&quot;https://tcec-chess.com/articles/Sufi_18_-_Sadler.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;writes&lt;/a&gt; that as far as he knew prior to the game, this line was still playable, but based on the results it looks like future theory will consider these two games the refutation of 13...Nc5 (in other words, 13...Nc5 might be the losing move).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastEditorUserId="15223" LastEditDate="2020-07-27T07:56:17.520" LastActivityDate="2020-07-27T07:56:17.520" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30070" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30067" CreationDate="2020-06-20T11:24:06.883" Score="24" Body="&lt;p&gt;The answer is &amp;quot;No&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you have a defined fixed set of resources - CPUs, memory, cache, etc. - and you allow one engine to have full use of them then that engine is going to be able to analyse to a greater depth than if you take the same set of resources and split them in some way between several different engines. Inevitably the single engine analysing to a greater depth is going to perform better than several engines analysing to a much lesser depth.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="23941" LastEditDate="2020-06-22T07:47:08.870" LastActivityDate="2020-06-22T07:47:08.870" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30071" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30067" CreationDate="2020-06-20T11:51:22.677" Score="16" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, an ensemble of chess engines won't beat the best one. The reason is simply because of hardware.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's take the strongest CPU engines right now to keep things simple. These are Stockfish, Komodo, Leela-CPU, Ethereal, Fire, and rofChade. Stockfish is the strongest. You have a four-core computer, running Stockfish. It's expected to beat all the other engines in a match on the same hardware.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If on the same four-core computer, you also simultaneously run Komodo, Leela-CPU, etc, then you are not just running inferior software, you are running inferior software on inferior hardware (because these engines will compete with each other for the same 4-cores). Therefore the ensemble loses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's true that each engine has its own strengths and weaknesses, but to fully exploit this, you need a human to look at the principal variations of each engine and select between them. This is why a human with access to all the engines is expected to outperform Stockfish alone in a correspondence chess match. But doing this requires human intervention; it doesn't work with engines only. You could conceivably write code that distinguishes between which engine is stronger in the current position, and &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/Zeta36/leela-fish&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this has been attempted&lt;/a&gt;, but it was never able to decisively beat the two original engines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You are better off letting the best engine only play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastActivityDate="2020-06-20T11:51:22.677" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30072" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30062" CreationDate="2020-06-20T12:55:04.427" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's assume for this question that there is such thing as an absolute&#xA;strength in chess and that players stay at their level without&#xA;improving or getting worse over time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, let's start with at least one obviously false assumption.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If there are only two people in the pool playing many games against&#xA;each other their Elo ratings will settle on some value and these&#xA;values are a measure of their absolute strength&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now let's add in another false assumption, although it is less immediately obvious than that a player's playing strength remains absolutely constant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To understand why let's look at an example. Suppose I, FIDE rated 1718, play a long series of standard time control games against Magnus Carlsen, FIDE rated 2863.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Carlsen's k factor is 10 and mine is 20 and our rating difference is over 400 so every time Carlsen beats me he will gain 0.8 points and I will lose 1.6 points. I am never going to beat Carlsen. I am never going to draw with him. My rating is going to keep on going down and Carlsen's keep on going up. Our ratings are never going to &amp;quot;settle on some value&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course if Carlsen repeatedly plays his clone then with unvarying playing strength all games are going to be draws and neither player's rating will change. So at that extreme the model works.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, if there are more than two players, I was wondering, whether&#xA;under the assumptions above (absolute strength exists, no change over&#xA;time), the Elo ratings would also settle on constant values or would&#xA;keep on changing constantly?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We've already established that the two player system wouldn't necessarily result in &amp;quot;settled&amp;quot; ratings so clearly that will also apply in the multi-player system.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the more general case where a large number of players with widely differing strengths play each other without the restriction of the 400 point rule the system is still not going to reach a steady state &lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;because the underlying formula (P = 1/(1 + 10^(-D/400)) behind the tables used for calculating rating does not reflect the real world probabilities when two players differ in playing strength by several hundred points play each other.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt; Weaker players get better than expected results in those circumstances. Hence the 400 point rule encourages stronger players to play in those circumstances.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is what &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elo_rating_system&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt; says on the subject:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Subsequent statistical tests have suggested that chess performance is&#xA;almost certainly not distributed as a normal distribution, as &lt;strong&gt;weaker&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;players have greater winning chances than Elo's model predicts&lt;/strong&gt;.&#xA;Therefore, the USCF and some chess sites use a formula based on the&#xA;logistic distribution. &lt;strong&gt;Significant statistical anomalies have also&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;been found when using the logistic distribution in chess&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2020-06-20T14:24:58.477" LastActivityDate="2020-06-20T14:24:58.477" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30073" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30051" CreationDate="2020-06-20T14:16:36.513" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let's look at this from another perspective. Instead of assuming that the problem is just that the ratings at different sites mean different things, let's take that out of the equation. Let's look at the reasons that you could observe that opponents &lt;em&gt;at your rating&lt;/em&gt; on one site play fewer mistakes than opponents &lt;em&gt;at your rating&lt;/em&gt; on another site.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your opponents might only &lt;em&gt;appear&lt;/em&gt; to be stronger on one site:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If you are using the computer analysis from the different sites to find mistakes, the analysis on one site might be different from the analysis on another. The threshold for &amp;quot;mistake&amp;quot; might be different, or the analysis might be stronger or weaker, which affects how many mistakes are found.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If players at a particular site are making larger mistakes, they could make fewer of them. (Or, conversely, they could be making many very small &amp;quot;mistakes&amp;quot; that are below the computer's inaccuracy threshold.) Relatedly, if players at one site tend to play more strategical rather than tactical games, this might let the computer think they are stronger, since they aren't playing as many obviously bad moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If players at a particular site are more prone to running out of time, they could lose some of their games without playing any weak moves. (This doesn't really make them a stronger player; time management is a big part of blitz.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your opponents on one site might be stronger &lt;em&gt;in some situations&lt;/em&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If, on one site, you tend to play more Swiss tournament or team match games, it could be that your opponents are taking those games more seriously than their other games, causing them to play stronger than their rating would ordinarily indicate. Arena style tournaments, on the other hand, might get some of your opponents looking for a quick knockout rather than playing the objectively best move, so they can get more games in before time runs out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Time of day and the geographical distribution of players might even matter. If one site has a larger number of players from a particular time zone, and if the time of day you tend to play is such that players from that time zone are on but would be tired, that could make them play weaker than their rating would ordinarily suggest.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your average opponent on one site might &lt;em&gt;actually&lt;/em&gt; be stronger:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If a site has a large number of players who only play a few games and then quit or make a new account, this could have an impact. A player might be 2200 strength on a site but only have a rating of 1800 because they simply haven't played enough games for their rating to catch up. (As a sub-category of this, this could happen if players are caught cheating and have their accounts deleted and make new ones.) Under the Glicko and Glicko-2 systems that these sites use, new players don't affect the rating of established players as much, so you wouldn't lose many rating points by playing them, either.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The issue could be with you! If, on one site, something causes you to play stronger (maybe you like the visual layout better?) then the rating you equalize at will also be stronger (even if it's a lower number than the other site) and your opponents will thus be stronger than at the other site.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2020-06-20T14:16:36.513" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30074" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30067" CreationDate="2020-06-20T16:04:06.510" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Nope, at some point a legal move is selected as best move. Who ever makes that decision can't be better than the best engine. Otherwise there is a new best engine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23918" LastActivityDate="2020-06-20T16:04:06.510" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30075" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25333" CreationDate="2020-06-20T16:52:58.300" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I used to be playing chess with a clock lots a few years ago. Then I felt like my brain was naturally trying too hard and I couldn't control that and it was stressing me out so I later stopped playing entirely except for the few rare occasional games. When I played just a few games after not having played for so long, it was less stressful. Maybe in actuality, I never played any games after the time I stopped except for those 3 that one day at the Annex Chess Club but I think it just happened that way and I was open to playing games at other times. I decided not to worry about giving up chess. If your brain is different than mine was at the time I gave it up, my solution for myself might not work for you. My mind is not on chess anymore. I don't want to push myself to play it when I don't feel like playing it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's another strategy that might be a solution for you but I have no idea. I don't know exactly how tournaments work but if there is a competition category whose time control is 90 minutes plus 30 seconds per move plus half an hour after move 40, it might help to play no other chess games than those in tournaments in that category. Then you'll notice a pattern over a long period of time of your opponents' game play. You need to be patient. Then in baby steps, you'll learn from beating weaker opponents how to gradually start beating stronger and stronger opponents.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/17426/what-is-the-time-control-for-fide-chess-tournaments/17428#17428&quot;&gt;What is the time control for FIDE chess tournaments?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The original link in that question at &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=39&amp;amp;view=category&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=39&amp;amp;view=category&lt;/a&gt; won't load on my computer so I linked the answer itself instead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13189" LastActivityDate="2020-06-20T16:52:58.300" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30076" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30083" CreationDate="2020-06-20T18:59:29.373" Score="1" ViewCount="140" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was surprised Bobby Fischer couldn't find a mate in 3 within 30 minutes in this &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvMftUQJl5Q&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;problem by Pal Benko&lt;/a&gt;. This made me wonder-how many actual moves are possible with so few pieces left in only 3 moves?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;8/8/8/8/4k3/8/8/2BQKB2 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It turns out there's a lot, which I base on an estimation assuming (&lt;em&gt;very&lt;/em&gt; crudely) 10 possible moves per piece per move, which would result in &lt;code&gt;(4*10) * (1*10) * (4*10) * (1*10) * (4*10) * (1*10)&lt;/code&gt; = 64,000,000. But of course this is a very very rough estimation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How can we calculate the precise number of move combinations possible in 3 moves, whist avoiding manual calculation via estimation or decision trees, and preferably using some free and open source software/engine/equation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18029" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2020-06-20T19:17:19.190" LastActivityDate="2020-06-21T16:20:58.840" Title="Calculating the precise number of combinations of possible moves from a given position" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;problems&gt;&lt;mathematics&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30077" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30062" CreationDate="2020-06-20T21:33:58.040" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;No. In the general case, the ELO ratings of three people will not converge to some stable equilibrium, and here's why.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Suppose you have two players, A and B. B on average scores 66% vs A, so if they played enough games, B's ELO rating would converge to about 100 more than A's.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now suppose we introduce player C, who scores 66% vs B on average, but never plays against player A.  If C and B play many games, their ELO difference will stabilize to about 100 as well.  If B kept playing games with A during this time, A would converge to about 100 less than B, with C about 100 more than B.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, what happens when A finally starts playing C? For there to be stability in the ratings, we MUST have C score 76% vs A, because C is 200 ELO points higher than A.  If A scores better than that, A would gain points when playing C, causing the gap between A and B to decrease.  But then A would lose the points A gained if they started another long series with B.  In this case, the three ELO ratings are not only a function of how well they play against eachother, but also how often they play each opponent - clearly not an absolute rating in any sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So this begs the question, if B beats A 66% of the time, and C beats B 66% of the time, should we automatically assume that C beats A 76% of the time, as the ELO functions imply?  That doesn't sound too crazy, but for the 3 body ELO problem to be stable, this implied score would have to be accurate for ANY pair of ELO gaps between A-B and B-C.  There aren't any assumptions in the ELO model that this transitivity should work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17157" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-06-21T00:48:03.160" LastActivityDate="2020-06-21T00:48:03.160" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30078" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28817" CreationDate="2020-06-21T02:17:02.837" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Down another ply to 17 (stalemate after White's 9th move):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Result &amp;quot;1/2-1/2&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;brqnkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBRKBNQ w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. h4 h5 2. g3 f6 3. Qxb7 Kf7 4. Qxc7 Be4 5. Qxd7 Rh6 6. Qxa7 Bh7 7. Qxb8 Kg6 8. Qxc8 Ne6 9. Qxe6 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8860" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-06-21T03:09:53.453" LastActivityDate="2020-06-21T03:09:53.453" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30079" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30067" CreationDate="2020-06-21T05:33:39.443" Score="3" Body="&lt;h1&gt;Yes&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the engines are &lt;em&gt;learning&lt;/em&gt; engines, rather than stateless deterministic evaluators, then I think it is obvious that an ensemble would be stronger, for the same reason that I think a team of human chess players will, on average, beat all of the individuals in the team in a matchup.  The hard part is deciding which move to use when multiple engines produce an answer.  For this to work, I think the engines would need to offer a move, a score, and a &lt;em&gt;confidence value&lt;/em&gt;.  You would then choose the move with the highest score * confidence product.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Rationale&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ensemble methods are common in machine learning circles because it is nearly impossible to produce an optimal algorithm for every possible scenario.  It is much better to train likely scenarios and let sub-algorithms (like, a forest of decision trees, for instance) specialize on subsets of the scenarios with good generalization properties.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Clearly, AlphaZero is better than all other engines thus far, but note that it is a kind of jack-of-all-trades.  What if someone tried to train &amp;quot;specialist&amp;quot; variants of AlphaZero which focus on particular strategies, even at the expense of not being the strongest general player?  Remember that AlphaZero has not and cannot possibly explore the majority of the chess space, because that is infeasible.  And its play style is ultimately guided by the luck of the plays it has already encountered.  It is possible that a more narrowly focused algorithm could beat it if it could force a game state which AlphaZero rarely played, but it played many times.  Now, repeat this for a large number of &amp;quot;specialists&amp;quot;, and you then have a team of experts that can activate based on a variety of board states.  Individually, they would all be worse than AlphaZero over a large number of games, but collectively, they could beat it because over a narrow set of games, they might consistently beat it (even if they themselves were mere instantiations of AlphaZero, but with a different training regimen).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this architecture, each specialist would know how much it &amp;quot;likes&amp;quot; the current board state, and would use that to determine its &amp;quot;confidence&amp;quot; in the proposed move.  This would cause the specialist with the most experience in the current board state to generally control the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From a computational complexity perspective, the ensemble would be smarter because it stores more information than the solo system, so it has more weights to optimize over a broader swath of the game space.  This is obviously not a rigorous argument, by any means, but perhaps it is helpful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23321" LastActivityDate="2020-06-21T05:33:39.443" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30080" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30084" CreationDate="2020-06-21T07:31:21.907" Score="3" ViewCount="135" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have seen some players quickly increase their ELO within months, and some within years. Is there some genetic intelligence in those players (like someone in their family also played chess)? I ask this because my tactics (blitz) rating is not improving. I did about 3000 puzzles this month. After 2500 of them, I can't get past ELO 1560, and that's why I'm thinking about leaving chess. Is there really a natural gift?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21840" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-06-21T15:37:34.240" LastActivityDate="2020-06-22T17:26:11.510" Title="Does everybody has a different natural ability to improve in chess?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30081" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14487" CreationDate="2020-06-21T09:45:40.817" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;One thing you mention is that you use a touchpad, which behaves significantly different from a mouse. And keep in mind that most people in online chess still use a mouse.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I recently played a lot on Lichess, where you can use both methods in the same game (no need to configure in advance) and find that personally in most situations I prefer to drag and drop, only if I have enough time I will consider to make a 'half premove' where I already click the piece that I am likely to move and be ready to click on the spot where it needs to go.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In that particular time the amount of effort that needs to be made is less, but normally the amount of actions is more (though not neccesarily more intense as the actions are different).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are the steps for click-click (when using a mouse)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Mouse down&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Mouse up&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Move mouse&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Mouse down&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;(Mouse up)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now compare this with the steps for drag and drop&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Mouse down&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Move mouse&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Mouse up&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, though I cannot be sure this is the reason, but this may be why people typically use drag and drop over click-click.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, I personally don't mis-drag very often, and don't think I would personally expect a reduction if I switched to click-click on the mouse. But yeah, on a touchscreen that could be a different story.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17898" LastActivityDate="2020-06-21T09:45:40.817" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30082" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-06-21T10:05:53.667" Score="4" ViewCount="624" Body="&lt;p&gt;Though I have played chess for a long time, only picked up bullet chess very recently. And with better results than expected. However, as I play at random times I find myself playing in different settings:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;With a mouse&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;With an Ipad (touchscreen)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;With a smartphone (touchscreen)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What surprised me is that the mouse does not significantly outperform the alternatives.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Though I am struggling to analyze this numerically, I feel that the mouse is by far best when making planned moves (especially something like a4-a5-a6-a7 or Ra1-Ra2-Ra1-Ra2...) where the smartphone is faster for making unexpected/semi expected moves (typically allowing me to build up pressure in the midgame where I kind-of know what kind of moves to make but cannot commit to an exact order in advance).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now my question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Are there any evaluations on touch vs mouse speed/accuracy for 'normal people' done beyond the scale of an individual? Especially for different kind of moves?&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is more a question of curiosity, but perhaps there could be practical applications. For instance, if the results are conclusive I might get some of the top players to test using a touchscreen instead, or if the switching is not to bad this could even be done for just the midgame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What have I tried:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;As mentioned I tried it myself&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I searched online, found plenty of individuals who say one option or the other is better. Also found several statements specifically about the mouse being faster in a pre-move setting.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I checked what (top) players do in chess and other games. Most of them use a mouse, however this may simply be because they cannot afford to be slower at expected moves/pre-moves.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am still thinking on how to investigate this myself. Of course chess based analysis would be the best, but perhaps it is sufficient to tap into more general research on device control.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17898" LastActivityDate="2020-07-15T00:33:52.763" Title="Mouse vs Touch performance for bullet chess" Tags="&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;bullet-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30083" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30076" CreationDate="2020-06-21T16:05:20.793" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your estimate is a bit high. In particular you overestimate the number of king moves. At most a king has 8 moves (not including castling which does not apply here), however here, both the black and the white king have a lot less legal moves than your estimated 10. The white king because it is on the edge of the board and the black king because it is not allowed to run into check. A more realistic number for the possible king moves would be 4. The number of legal moves for all four white pieces here is somewhere between 30 and 40. With these estimates you should have around 1 million variations which is confirmed by the data below.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wrote a simple (should be done with recursion), not-elegant loop in python-chess to count all the legal variations until the 3rd white move and ended up with 347 863 variations. If I go one ply further (i.e. like in your example) until the 3rd black move I get: 1 403 476 variations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The program loops through all variations and adds the number of legal moves for the 5th ply (3rd move by white). Example program below is until the 3rd white move. Simply add a loop if you want to go until the 3rd black move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;import chess&#xA;&#xA;board = chess.Board(&amp;quot;8/8/8/8/4k3/8/8/2BQKB2 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;)&#xA;&#xA;counter = 0&#xA;&#xA;for move1w in board.legal_moves:&#xA;    board.push(move1w)&#xA;    for move1b in board.legal_moves:&#xA;        board.push(move1b)&#xA;        for move2w in board.legal_moves:&#xA;            board.push(move2w)&#xA;            for move2b in board.legal_moves:&#xA;                board.push(move2b)&#xA;                counter += board.legal_moves.count()&#xA;                board.pop()&#xA;            board.pop()&#xA;        board.pop()&#xA;    board.pop()&#xA;&#xA;print('The number of variations is:')&#xA;print(counter)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastEditorUserId="11629" LastEditDate="2020-06-21T16:20:58.840" LastActivityDate="2020-06-21T16:20:58.840" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30084" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30080" CreationDate="2020-06-21T17:27:17.010" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Different people have different abilities for chess, just like for any other activity. Some people are &amp;quot;gifted&amp;quot;, others aren't. Your chances also diminish with age, but almost every human can make it past 1560 (or 2000 for that matter)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That being said, you won't improve much in just one month. Consistency is much more important than intensity. Try making a reasonable amount of puzzles every week rather than doing thousands of them one month only to burn out for the next.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also note that tactics skills are the most important aspect you need to train, but not the only one. Have you tried contancting a coach? Even if you can't afford it on a regular basis, it may be good for you to book a season and define a training plan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastEditorUserId="18809" LastEditDate="2020-06-21T22:24:04.720" LastActivityDate="2020-06-21T22:24:04.720" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30085" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30067" CreationDate="2020-06-21T17:33:19.277" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;The answer is more complicated than you want to try to make it. Any definitive &amp;quot;yes&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;no&amp;quot; answer begs the questions of the conditions of the match, the hardware used, and the difference in strength of the players involved. Instead of answering your question directly, here I plan to go through the thought processes needed which guide the creation of a particular kind of ensemble engine which would be able to beat the &amp;quot;strongest&amp;quot; engine. The alternative is actually answering your question, which in my experience no one actually &lt;em&gt;knows&lt;/em&gt; the answer to.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, if you're not familiar with the open source Leela Chess Zero (Lc0) Neural Network (NN) engine, that should be your first topic of investigation. It was inspired by the infamous well-marketed, closed source, unavailable to the general public, and was the icebreaker for the Neural Network techniques AlphaZero (A0), which has some papers that you also might want to explore to understand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Neural networks have introduced new frontiers which previously have only been roughly explored for the past 10-15 years. Only in the past 3 years have they become adequate to be able to &amp;quot;beat&amp;quot; old approaches which involve human programmed chess-specific evaluations, and heuristic driven alpha-beta search, like the open source engine Stockfish. Given that the hardware requirements for pure neural network engines are more Graphics Card-oriented while the requirements for an engine like Stockfish are CPU-oriented, hardware is a huge factor in making your ensemble.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you finally have settled down on what hardware you've decided to use, then you can think about which engines are strongest by testing them out. After that, you need to code an approach to ensemble which engines you want to use to try to beat it. Keep in mind that many of today's engine's strength rely very heavily on their search, so any diversion of resources from deep search will limit your ensemble's search depth.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A Leela (but technically not Leela Chess &amp;quot;Zero&amp;quot; since it is using non-&amp;quot;Zero human knowledge&amp;quot; games) network named &amp;quot;Antifish&amp;quot; was brought to life, which was trained on several millions of Leela games and Stockfish games. Hypothetically, the network would &amp;quot;know&amp;quot; how to beat Stockfish since it has seen many of the games which involve Stockfish showing weakness. Antifish may be &amp;quot;stronger&amp;quot; against Stockfish, but does not compare the same way strength-wise against engines of a similar kind like Komodo and Ethereal. Also, the network hypothetically performs better relative to Stockfish at less time given since the training set was highly polluted with Stockfish blunders at lower time controls. Antifish may have once performed well against Stockfish, however it is out of date and potentially is weaker. Antifish is what we call an &amp;quot;adversarial&amp;quot; network, specifically trained to exploit weakness in Stockfish at lower time controls, and even though it may be stronger than certain versions of Stockfish, it is not &amp;quot;objectively better&amp;quot; (debatable term) at chess in general.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I bring this up because it is possible that we could use Leela's Antifish NN at the root of search just to help guess what some other Leela network should start searching. To my knowledge, this &amp;quot;network ensemble&amp;quot; has not been done yet, and the resulting engine may actually be able to beat Stockfish better even though Antifish and the other network we might use could be weaker.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, there is a fork of Lc0 that allows an &amp;quot;auxengine&amp;quot; to suggest moves to Lc0. &amp;quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/killerducky/lc0&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Leelafish&lt;/a&gt;&amp;quot; is technically an ensemble of both Stockfish and Lc0, and actually could be stronger than its parts. It is a work in progress currently and communication between the two engines only goes one way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In essence, ensembling engines could lead to something stronger, or it could not. But what is important to note that any conglomeration of engine suggestions or two-way communication between engines costs computational resources, and that cost could be too high. It might just be better to merge every good idea into a single engine, technically no longer making it an &amp;quot;engine ensemble.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23929" LastActivityDate="2020-06-21T17:33:19.277" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30086" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30101" CreationDate="2020-06-22T06:46:57.820" Score="7" ViewCount="3940" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joke_chess_problem#Offbeat_interpretations_of_the_rules_of_chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Castling on the e-file with a promoted rook&lt;/a&gt;, an idea immortalized by Tim Krabbe and Max Pam, is no longer legal since FIDE amended the wording to state that castling is an actionn on the first/eigth rank. This new wording seemingly did away with castling with a promoted rook, but did it really? Let me explain in yet another rules lawyering question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Imagine that the below position occurs in a tournament and White promotes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;8/4k2P/8/8/8/8/8/R3K3 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. h8=R&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ater Black moves, White castles kingside using the rook! Naturally, Black pulls in the arbiter. Ignoring the preamble in the FIDE laws, White defends themsevles using the current laws of castling in the &lt;a href=&quot;https://old.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=208&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;2018 rules&lt;/a&gt;, step by meticulous step.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&amp;quot;3.8.2 by ‘castling’. This is a move of the king and either rook of the same colour along the player’s first rank, counting as a single move of the king&amp;quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Check-White castled on their first rank on a board with two rooks capable of castling.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&amp;quot;and executed as follows: the king is transferred from its original square two squares towards the rook on its original square, then that rook is transferred to the square the king has just crossed.&amp;quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Check-The king moves two spaces along the first rank towards the rook on its original square, and the rook goes onto the square the king just passed over.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;3.8.2.1 The right to castle has been lost:&#xA;3.8.2.1.1 if the king has already moved, or&#xA;3.8.2.1.2 with a rook that has already moved.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some will argue that the rook, having formly been a pawn, has already &amp;quot;moved,&amp;quot; but since FIDE took the time to specify where castling may take place, we may presume that they agreed that the rook is unmoved for the purposes of nitpicking. The rook on a1 is also unmoved, so the stipulation of &amp;quot;either rook&amp;quot; is completed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;3.8.2.2 Castling is prevented temporarily:&#xA;3.8.2.2.1 if the square on which the king stands, or the square which it must cross, or the square which it is to occupy, is attacked by one or more of the opponent's pieces, or&#xA;3.8.2.2.2 if there is any piece between the king and the rook with which castling is to be effected.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Check-No pieces block the paths of either the king or the rook, and nor will the king moves out, through, or into check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far as I can tell, all conditions for castling are in the green, allowing for castling with a promoted rook along a player's first rank. As far as my &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.ecforum.org.uk/viewtopic.php?f=2&amp;amp;t=10857&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;research goes&lt;/a&gt;, this idea goes back to at least 1918, so it seems weird that this loophole hasn't been fixed yet. Then again, it is a really obscure idea&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there any glaring flaw in this rules lawyer case, or is it solid until FIDE fixes it? An obvious fix would be make so that the wording reads &amp;quot;This is a move of the king and either &lt;strong&gt;starting&lt;/strong&gt; rook of the same colour,&amp;quot; since it is simple and unambiguous.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Addednum&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As commenters have rightfully pointed out, I was vauge as to what my interpertation of the rules were. The point I meant to make was that it is possbile to interpert 3.8.2 as meaning that castling is a move of &lt;strong&gt;the king,&lt;/strong&gt; and not the king &lt;strong&gt;and&lt;/strong&gt; rook, on a player's first rank. The definition of &amp;quot;towards&amp;quot; is loose, as @Annatar pointed out below @Brian Tower's answer. Do note that the arguement is not meant to be strong, but rather merely exist.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I suppose what is comes down to is that the way 3.8.2 is written can be argued to have a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syntactic_ambiguity&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;syntactic ambiguity&lt;/a&gt;. 3.8.2 can mean either &amp;quot;This is a move of the &lt;strong&gt;king, and either rook of the same colour,&lt;/strong&gt; along the player’s first rank,&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;This is a move of the &lt;strong&gt;king and either rook of the same colour&lt;/strong&gt; along the player’s first rank.&amp;quot; The first interperation combined with the loose meaning &amp;quot;towards&amp;quot; are what culminate in the weak and absurd, but amusing, arguement that castling can be done on a player's first rank with a promoted rank.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The idea of this rule lawyering question is not to exploit any possible loopholes, but to point out a potential ambiguity in the rules to plug it before it gets abused. If there is no loophole, the idea is also to hopefully point out, in a clear manner, what exactly refutes it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="4399" LastEditDate="2021-02-13T11:05:07.997" LastActivityDate="2021-02-13T11:05:07.997" Title="Does a loophole still exist in the defintion of castling?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;fide&gt;&lt;castling&gt;&lt;pawn-promotion&gt;&lt;loopholes&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30087" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30086" CreationDate="2020-06-22T07:46:43.843" Score="16" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there any glaring flaw in this rules lawyer case, or is it solid&#xA;until FIDE fixes it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, there is a glaring flaw in your case. The rook and king have to be on the same rank. This is clear from the text of the rule and the diagrams which follow. Here is the text from the latest &lt;a href=&quot;https://handbook.fide.com/chapter/E012018&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Laws of Chess&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3.8.2 by ‘castling’. This is a move of the king and either rook of the same colour &lt;strong&gt;along the player’s first rank&lt;/strong&gt;, counting as a single move of the king and executed as follows: &lt;strong&gt;the king is transferred from its original square two squares towards the rook on its original square&lt;/strong&gt;, then &lt;strong&gt;that rook is transferred to the square the king has just crossed.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These are the obvious objections to your attempted interpretation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The two pieces start on different ranks, hence cannot move along the same rank.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The rook's original square is h8. The king is on e1. There is no square on the board which is exactly two squares away from the king in the direction of the rook.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Consequently there is no &amp;quot;square the king has just crossed&amp;quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Furthermore, if you go to the link and find section 3.8.2 you will also find that it ends with four diagrams illustrating how castling may be perfortmed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-06-22T07:46:43.843" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30088" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-06-22T12:32:32.483" Score="1" ViewCount="155" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am currently trying to implement magic bitboards into my chess engine. Let's just talk about rooks here. Given a square, what I can currently do is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-Calculate the sliding moves on an empty board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Generate all blocker boards.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Calculate the corresponding mve board.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What I am having trouble with is the using of this information. I have downloaded an array of length 64, populated by &amp;quot;magic numbers&amp;quot; for the rook squares. Can I use this? I can generate a index from this information, but it doesn't correspond to the correct move board. Any ideas? I am happy to share more information and code upon a request.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23942" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-06-22T13:58:28.037" LastActivityDate="2020-06-25T20:02:31.590" Title="How to store moves for a magic bitboard system?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;programming&gt;&lt;rooks&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30089" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16996" CreationDate="2020-06-22T17:13:09.233" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Investigating a bit further, we find that A. Karu wasn't quite an &amp;quot;ordinary Joe&amp;quot;, he was actually one of Estonia's strongest correspondence players at the time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He finished shared 6.-7. place at the Estonian correspondence chess championship in 1935/36: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.eestimale.ee/kirimale-arhiiv/voistlused/eesti_i_kirimale_meistriv.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;table&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He was also, together with Keres, part of the Estonian national correspondence chess team during the 1935-1939 &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Correspondence_Chess_Federation#IFSB&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;IFSB&lt;/a&gt; European Olympiad: &lt;a href=&quot;https://kszgk.com/iccf/?page_id=564&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;see table at the bottom of the page&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He lived in the small village of Haaslava, and he took part in a correspondence tournament organized by the Deutsche Schachzeitung: &lt;a href=&quot;https://dea.digar.ee/cgi-bin/dea?a=d&amp;amp;d=uuseesti19360216.2.68&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Uus Eesti 16 veebruar 1936&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1485" LastActivityDate="2020-06-22T17:13:09.233" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30091" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30080" CreationDate="2020-06-22T17:22:07.060" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, but some approach learning in smarter ways than others do. We all have 4 ways of learning that we usually prefer one from,but not everybody picks the best for whatever reason at the time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23711" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-06-22T17:26:11.510" LastActivityDate="2020-06-22T17:26:11.510" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30092" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30062" CreationDate="2020-06-22T17:31:37.213" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;they will all oscillate around the true strength.&#xA;people have off days.  some they play are improving and so the WL ratio changes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the biggest problem with ratings is that we do not have good starting ratings and that many new players rapidly improve distorting the ratings because there is not sufficient competition amongst all the players and the initial ratings never get properly set nor do the later ones.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;another problem is that old players do get worse with time.  their brain slows down. their attention span lowers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;ratings are just an interesting guide to about how good a player &lt;em&gt;might&lt;/em&gt; be but are not the magical answer that so many players think.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;pursuing a rating is a misuse of your life and has no value at all  except to some people and their ego.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;you should see the amount of money that bridge players spend playing weekly as well as frequently in tournaments monthly if not travelling to tournaments every week. all in pursuit of a meaningless title of 'master' with some adjective associated with their level they paid for with time and money.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23711" LastActivityDate="2020-06-22T17:31:37.213" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30093" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30061" CreationDate="2020-06-22T17:34:18.230" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;anything is possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;depends how good the opponent is and how bad white is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;white is down a pawn and a piece and should lose.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23711" LastActivityDate="2020-06-22T17:34:18.230" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30094" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30047" CreationDate="2020-06-22T17:38:39.700" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;They are time controls for chess used in relatively quick short games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The actual time amount depends on how is defining them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Blitz used to be zero seconds per move before digital clocks evolved.&#xA;Rapid used to mean exactly ten seconds a move before clocks came into more widespread use and then it was 5 minutes (or ten minutes) per person for the entire game.  EG  SD5  or SD10.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All were popular speeds back in the day.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23711" LastActivityDate="2020-06-22T17:38:39.700" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30096" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29728" CreationDate="2020-06-22T18:52:34.530" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;0.2785&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It depends a lot on the opening as each would have different preferences and pet lines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Middle games would be a bit better as there are fewer strategies to choose from for long term effort.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;End games should be best as the simple positions are easier to predict moves although many end games could offer more variation to try for a win than middle games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Overall the answer is 0.2785 based on a sample of one.  More samples should yield a more accurate statistic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although I doubt anyone really cares enough to do a study to see.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23711" LastActivityDate="2020-06-22T18:52:34.530" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30097" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28858" CreationDate="2020-06-22T18:56:22.633" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Clock runs out and they lose on time if it is the   move of the dead player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Otherwise the opponent could resign or move;  unless a draw was offered before the death in which case they could accept the draw (why?) , resign (but more why?), or move and wait for the clock to run out on the now dead opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23711" LastActivityDate="2020-06-22T18:56:22.633" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30098" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29700" CreationDate="2020-06-22T18:57:22.990" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not at all effective.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In fact it would be counterproductive as a teaching tool intended to help a player improve.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23711" LastActivityDate="2020-06-22T18:57:22.990" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30099" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-06-22T20:24:05.377" Score="7" ViewCount="296" Body="&lt;p&gt;In &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/variant/horde&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;horde chess&lt;/a&gt;, the following starting position is used:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/1PP2PP1/PPPPPPPP/PPPPPPPP/PPPPPPPP/PPPPPPPP w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The goal of White is to checkmate Black; the goal of Black is to capture all White's pieces. The main strategy for White is to try to promote a pawn; the main strategy for Black is to get their queen or rook behind White's pawns, and destroy White's forces from behind.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It naturally comes to mind that, with good play from both sides, a situation may arise in which Black manages to capture all but one of White's pawns, and the remaining pawn promotes to a queen. In this kind of endgame, White cannot win because a lone queen cannot realistically deliver checkmate (except in &lt;em&gt;very&lt;/em&gt; special cases which are not bound to arise if Black knows what they are doing).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, Black has to force the capture of White's queen, or accept a draw. This endgame practically becomes a game of &amp;quot;checkmating a queen&amp;quot; before the 50-move rule kicks in.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;So how much material is needed to force capture of a lone queen?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I guess Black's plan will begin with promoting all their remaining pawns. To start somewhere, let us assume that Black's material after promoting everything is one king plus N queens.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With &lt;strong&gt;a king plus 5 queens&lt;/strong&gt;, it seems that Black has an easy win. They just needs to set up a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_chess_problem#Domination_problems&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;domination position&lt;/a&gt;, where the 5 queens attack every square on the board:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;3k2q1/8/4q3/3q4/2q5/6Q1/q7/8 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No matter where the White queen moves, it will be captured on the next move. I do not have a proof, but it seems easy for Black to achieve this position while blocking checks by White.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With &lt;strong&gt;a king plus 4 queens&lt;/strong&gt;, I have not found a way for Black to force the capture of White's queen. While it seems overkill to have to attack &lt;em&gt;every single square&lt;/em&gt; of the board in order to trap a queen, maybe the queen's mobility is so large that there is no other way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the question is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;What is the smallest N such that a Black king with N Black queens can force the capture of a lone White queen?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21604" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-06-23T02:40:21.870" LastActivityDate="2020-06-23T02:40:21.870" Title="How much material is needed to force the capture of a lone queen (for example in horde chess)?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;problems&gt;&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;captures&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30100" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29078" CreationDate="2020-06-22T23:08:48.500" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;More than analyze you should play over hundreds of them in the openings that you specialize in.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then you get an intuitive feel for the moves to make and how the game continues into the middle game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just analyzing for the sake of analyzing is just busy work if you are not learning to play better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One old book said to increase your rating then you need to stop playing for a year and do some useful studying.  If analyzing helps you study then do it, but for me  I find just playing over games and occasionally looking at the annotations for a given move when I would have done something else is more useful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23711" LastActivityDate="2020-06-22T23:08:48.500" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30101" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30086" CreationDate="2020-06-23T00:21:11.533" Score="19" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I suppose what is comes down to is that the way 3.8.2 is written can be argued to have a syntactic ambiguity. 3.8.2 can mean either &amp;quot;This is a move of the king, and either rook of the same colour, along the player’s first rank,&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;This is a move of the king and either rook of the same colour along the player’s first rank.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's no ambiguity. &amp;quot;And&amp;quot; means &amp;quot;and&amp;quot;—it means that both of the things mentioned participate in the event or state described by the sentence. &amp;quot;Bob and Sarah went to the store&amp;quot; can't mean that Bob went to the store while Sarah went somewhere else; it can only mean that Bob went to the store and Sarah went to the store, too. Likewise, &amp;quot;This is a move of the king, and either rook of the same colour, along the player's first rank&amp;quot; can't mean that it's a move of the king along the first rank while the rook moves in a different way; it can only mean that it's a move of the king along the first rank, and it's simultaneously a move of the rook along the first rank.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, in order to for a move to be a valid castle, the rook must move along the first rank. The meaning of the word &amp;quot;along&amp;quot; implies that the rook must be on the first rank throughout the duration of the move; in particular, it's impossible to move the rook &amp;quot;along the first rank&amp;quot; if it is not on the first rank to begin with.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2470" LastEditorUserId="2470" LastEditDate="2020-06-23T19:27:34.827" LastActivityDate="2020-06-23T19:27:34.827" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30102" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30099" CreationDate="2020-06-23T02:40:10.310" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;An easy lower bound would be to set a White queen in a corner and set up an easy mate in 2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;Q6r/8/8/8/8/8/4k1p1/r6N b - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... gxh1=Q&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This sets Black down to a minimum of a king, two rooks, and a pawn in count and value.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastActivityDate="2020-06-23T02:40:10.310" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30103" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30023" CreationDate="2020-06-23T02:50:18.753" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;have to attack on the king side&#xA;advance krp  and also put horsie on kbishop 6 square for black&#xA;move rooks and q to kr file&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23947" LastActivityDate="2020-06-23T02:50:18.753" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30104" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30008" CreationDate="2020-06-23T02:55:03.730" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;depends&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;how much time left on the clock&#xA;how complicated the position&#xA;does he need a win or is a draw okay&#xA;who is the opponent&#xA;is he sleepy/tired&#xA;....&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23947" LastActivityDate="2020-06-23T02:55:03.730" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30106" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-06-23T06:03:39.173" Score="0" ViewCount="334" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know and play the Sicilian defense. Specifically, I mix it with the Hyper Accelerated Dragon with the kingside rook pawn movement akin to the Najdorf. I am also learning the Caro-Kann, in which most of my opponents play the advanced variation or I start the exchange variation. But most of my opponents never play the mainline past the first move, so I just employ basic chess tactics such as central control and development.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which opening should I learn the best? I learned the Dragon to the point where I can consequently out develop my opponents early with the Hyper Accelerated Dragon, but I have also heard that the Caro-Kann is good enough to know.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, I know the Queen's and King Indian Defenses enough to counter any 1. d4 players. Although not many people do it, I still think it's worth it. Should I add it to my arsenal, for Black at least? For White, I used to play the Queen's Gambit, but now I play the English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23948" LastEditorUserId="10570" LastEditDate="2020-06-23T20:27:42.660" LastActivityDate="2020-06-23T20:27:42.660" Title="Sicilian Defence or Caro-Kann also help with Queen's pawn opening" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;&lt;caro-kann&gt;&lt;sicilian-dragon&gt;&lt;accelerated-dragon&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ClosedDate="2020-06-23T22:37:46.817" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30107" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30106" CreationDate="2020-06-23T06:38:13.747" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;For a more meaningful answer, it'd be a great idea to know what your current skill level is. That being said:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Knowing an opening is not about knowing &amp;quot;what's on the book&amp;quot;. If you can't find the correct response when your opponent deviates, then to all practical effects it's as if you didn't know anything the opening, no matter how depth into the mainline you've studied. Mainlines also change over time and from author to author. Study the key strategical ideas of the opening, not concrete variations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also consider that at lower levels, it's not really worth studying the opening, since:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The difference between playing well in the opening or not is not that big and there's a lot of time to catch up during the rest of the game if you are worse.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Studying the opening is harder as a beginner because you need to memorize more. GMs can remember hundreds of 20-move deep lines because they only have to remember a few critical points, the rest comes intuitively to them.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When choosing between Hyper-accelerated Dragon and Caro-Kann, I personally prefer the former because as you'll have to know a fair amount of theory for both, you'll better play the opening that puts your opponent into bigger trouble if he messes up. But there are deifnitely arguments for the Caro-Kann and it's hard to tell what suits you best without knowing your skill level or &amp;quot;playing style&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Queen's Indian is a great opening that can teach you a lot about chess. If you already know about it, there's no reason not to include it in your repertoire&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastActivityDate="2020-06-23T06:38:13.747" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30108" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29700" CreationDate="2020-06-23T06:41:46.283" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;With the coach as &amp;quot;brain&amp;quot;, it probably doesn't hurt, but I don't see it as an effective tool, since it'd be making most of the decision for the student (the exact opposite of what training should be like).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With the student as &amp;quot;brain&amp;quot;, then it's the equivalent of playing a game of chess&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastActivityDate="2020-06-23T06:41:46.283" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30109" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30067" CreationDate="2020-06-23T07:16:17.653" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It depends on the parallelizability of the best chess engine.  If the engine has not be implemented to efficiently run on many distributed computers and coordinate the results, then an alternative engine could theoretically exploit that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23951" LastActivityDate="2020-06-23T07:16:17.653" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30110" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-06-23T10:53:53.237" Score="3" ViewCount="224" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am working on a program that should recognize the difference between human and computer players. For this purpose, I need some parameters. A part of them would be the individual values of the static position evaluations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Stockfish you can get these values with the command EVAL. However, if I call EVAL while one of the kings is in check, I don't get a rating. Instead, I only get the info &amp;quot;none (in check)&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/zj3Wu.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/zj3Wu.png&quot; alt=&quot;Eval Stockfish with Evaluation table&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/c6zRW.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/c6zRW.png&quot; alt=&quot;Eval Stockfish error &amp;quot;in check&amp;quot;&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does somebody know why this is the case? In my opinion, that doesn't make sense as long as it's not a checkmate or stalemate. How can you get around this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23953" LastEditorUserId="21546" LastEditDate="2020-06-26T17:43:33.497" LastActivityDate="2020-06-26T17:43:33.497" Title="How to get static evaluation from Stockfish in case that a king is in check?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;evaluation&gt;&lt;check&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30111" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-06-23T11:29:53.603" Score="1" ViewCount="20" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have downloaded a .atbw file from the archive of endgame tables for the atomic variant of chess from &lt;a href=&quot;https://tablebase.lichess.ovh/tables/atomic/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;lichess tablebase&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have downloaded this file, but have no way of reading it or accessing it as I do not know how to use the binary information inside the .atbw file.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16912" LastActivityDate="2020-06-23T11:29:53.603" Title="How to open .atbw files which has endgame tablebase?" Tags="&lt;tablebases&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2020-08-31T23:32:41.823" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30112" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8424" CreationDate="2020-06-23T11:32:03.257" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Endgame table base is a huge tree of information, which solves the game of chess, with minimum number of pieces. We have reached up to 7 pieces up till now and the best quality tablebase is maintained by Ronald de Man at &lt;a href=&quot;https://syzygy-tables.info/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;syzygy endgame tables&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16912" LastActivityDate="2020-06-23T11:32:03.257" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30113" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30110" CreationDate="2020-06-23T11:37:51.873" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;If a king is in check, that's a major thing. There are likely to be few legal replies for the engine to consider. It's also unlikely (although &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/8982/theoretical-limit-for-the-number-of-consecutive-checks&quot;&gt;possible&lt;/a&gt;) that there would be a large chain of checks from both sides. And it's very unlikely that you'd want to immediately prune the check; they're almost always worth at least considering.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When the engine is evaluating lots of positions, it therefore makes sense for it to not waste time evaluating the check position itself. Instead it's quicker to look ahead to how the check is resolved.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2020-06-23T11:37:51.873" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30115" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30116" CreationDate="2020-06-23T12:51:43.710" Score="3" ViewCount="259" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;rnbq1rk1/pp1B1p1p/5bp1/2pPp3/8/8/PPPNQPPP/R1B2RK1 b - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The engine doesn't want me to take the bishop with the bishop, but to instead use the queen and I don't understand. What difference does it make?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21840" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-06-23T14:59:24.477" LastActivityDate="2020-06-23T17:11:52.367" Title="Why taking the bishop with queen is better here?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;captures&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30116" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30115" CreationDate="2020-06-23T13:04:35.813" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your queen then attacks the undefended white d-pawn.&#xA;Also, white is threatening Ne4 (attacking the black squared bishop), and after e.g. Bg7, taking on c5. If black took with the bishop, this would fork the white squared bishop on d7 and the undefended pawn on b7. If black took with the queen, black could simply take the d5 pawn and defend the b7 pawn while attacking the knight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18832" LastEditorUserId="18832" LastEditDate="2020-06-23T17:11:52.367" LastActivityDate="2020-06-23T17:11:52.367" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30117" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-06-23T20:53:42.900" Score="12" ViewCount="364" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is a quote from Davidson's  &amp;quot;&lt;em&gt;A short history of chess&lt;/em&gt;&amp;quot; (&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.google.no/search?tbo=p&amp;amp;tbm=bks&amp;amp;q=isbn:0307828298&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Link&lt;/a&gt;), chapter 8, which I used in an  &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/17654/during-the-revolutionary-and-napoleonic-era-what-was-the-rule-for-stalemate-in/17658#17658&quot;&gt;answer to an earlier question&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[...] In Italy, however, from the very beginning, players could not&#xA;accept stalemate as a victory for anybody. They argued that since no&#xA;legal move was possible, the game simply stopped. Consequently in&#xA;medieval Europe four different stalemate rules were simultaneously in&#xA;effect, and travelling players had to agree in advance as to whether&#xA;they were playing by the Spanish (victory for White), French&#xA;(forfeited move for Black), British (victory for Black), or Italian&#xA;(drawn game) rules. The Italian practice eventually spread throughout&#xA;the Continent, partly because of the tremendous influence which Italy&#xA;exercised on all European culture, partly because of the fame of&#xA;Italian chess players, and partly because the rule seemed inherently&#xA;logical. By the end of the eighteenth century every part of Europe&#xA;(except Britain) had agreed that stalemate was a drawn game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So in Britain for a long time stalemate was actually a win for the stalemated player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Are there any records of historical chess games from Britain ending with a win by stalemate for the stalemated player?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is a bit more context from &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalemate#History_of_the_stalemate_rule&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The rule in England from about 1600 to 1800 was that stalemate was a loss for the player administering it, a rule that the eminent chess historian H. J. R. Murray believes may have been adopted from Russian chess (Murray 1913:60–61,466). That rule disappeared in England before 1820, being replaced by the French and Italian rule that a stalemate was a drawn game (Murray 1913:391).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1485" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-17T01:00:23.980" LastActivityDate="2020-08-17T01:00:23.980" Title="Games won by the stalemated player?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;history&gt;&lt;stalemate&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30118" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-06-24T01:15:52.060" Score="1" ViewCount="161" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is it possible to have the computer analysis report mate in 12 moves to only change that to mate in higher number of moves, like 15 for example, after it searches deeper?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23950" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-06-24T01:44:57.147" LastActivityDate="2021-03-05T15:46:54.370" Title="Mate In N algorithm-Lichess Computer Analysis" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30120" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30118" CreationDate="2020-06-24T06:06:54.963" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is possible, if the computer program has a bug... A position is assigned a win-in-(k+1) only when one move from that leads to a loss-in-k, and assigned a loss-in-k only when every move from that leads to a win-in-k or when k=0 and it is a checkmate. So every correct chess program will never assign a position to win-in-12 and then later revise it to win-in-15 &lt;em&gt;due to &amp;quot;searching deeper&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt;. No heuristic pruning techniques should ever affect this, as heuristic pruning can only weaken the evaluation away from a win/loss (in a correct program).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, it is possible that the program is designed to search deeper if the input position satisfies a certain criterion C, in which case it may find a win-in-12 for a given position X that satisfies C, but then one move later the resulting position Y no longer satisfies C and so the program does not search as deep lines as it did for X, and so fails to find a win-in-11 for Y! It may still be able to prove a win-in-15 for Y if it has some rudimentary endgame evaluation. For example, KQK is always a win-in-10, so we do not have to do any search to return win-in-10 in such a position. Thus the program might do a more shallow search for Y and see a KQK in the search tree and immediately return win-in-10, but a deeper search would have revealed that it was actually win-in-5. This can produce the observed effect, but is &lt;em&gt;due to &amp;quot;searching less deep&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt;!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that clicking on &amp;quot;go deeper&amp;quot; on Lichess analysis may not use the same memoization table that had been used before at the lower depth level. One clear example is &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/WosjJ9SV/black#109&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; where the cached analysis states #−30 but if you click &amp;quot;go deeper&amp;quot; it clearly starts completely from scratch. This is expected; after all it makes no sense to store huge tables along with the cached analysis. I think that if you cannot provide an actual concrete example of the behaviour you are asking about, it is difficult to address your hypothetical question more than I already have.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9192" LastEditorUserId="9192" LastEditDate="2021-03-05T15:46:54.370" LastActivityDate="2021-03-05T15:46:54.370" CommentCount="33" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30121" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-06-24T07:49:31.800" Score="3" ViewCount="48" Body="&lt;p&gt;Its been almost three and a half years since I am playing chess online on chess.com. But I never crossed my Chess rating above 1500 on chess.com. And I think that three years is enough for anyone to become an advanced player in chess. I spent almost one and half an hour daily on chess.com and I play mostly 3 minutes game. What should I do to improve my rating?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23154" LastActivityDate="2020-06-24T07:49:31.800" Title="How do I improve my Chess rating" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;computer-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2020-06-24T11:55:51.063" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30122" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30123" CreationDate="2020-06-24T12:39:33.717" Score="24" ViewCount="5944" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've seen many chess games, where after a certain point, one side maneuvers their pieces (like doubling the rooks) to target a single point. Most of time it's a pawn on the wing and the other side tries to defend their pawn. But why struggle for a pawn?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21840" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-06-24T17:26:32.297" LastActivityDate="2021-01-08T14:03:59.297" Title="Why struggle for a single pawn?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;pawns&gt;&lt;defense&gt;" AnswerCount="9" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30123" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30122" CreationDate="2020-06-24T12:48:31.227" Score="51" Body="&lt;p&gt;As the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/For_Want_of_a_Nail&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;old poem&lt;/a&gt; says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For want of a nail the shoe was lost.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For want of a shoe the horse was lost.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For want of a horse the rider was lost.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For want of the rider the message was lost.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For want of a message the battle was lost.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For want of a battle the kingdom was lost.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Exactly the same principle applies in chess. Usually the loss of the pawn results in the loss of the file, loss of control of the file allows the rooks to penetrate and the position soon collapses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-01-08T14:03:59.297" LastActivityDate="2021-01-08T14:03:59.297" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30124" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-06-24T13:57:21.013" Score="4" ViewCount="371" Body="&lt;p&gt;Given there are practically infinite number of chess games possible, does there exist a standard system of classifying or naming games simlar to how there are rules for naming a chemical compound uniquely?  There are 10 pieces that can move initially, so I imagined there would be 10 families of games and each game's pgn would be the identity of the game and so on. But the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encyclopaedia_of_Chess_Openings&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;ECO classification system &lt;/a&gt;  is quite different than what I imagined. What I am really interested in is this-will a certain family of games would be more interesting than the other? Will certain family of games have less draws or wins with perfect play? Is there more zugzwang positions in a certain family?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23209" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-06-24T17:24:19.990" LastActivityDate="2020-06-26T07:18:57.080" Title="Is there a standard system of classification of games?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;engines&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30125" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30124" CreationDate="2020-06-24T14:44:50.453" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, there is. It derives from the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encyclopaedia_of_Chess_Openings&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Encyclopedia of Chess Openings&lt;/a&gt; and the codes they used to classify openings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can find a comprehensive list of the ECO codes &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.365chess.com/eco.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-06-24T14:44:50.453" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30126" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30133" CreationDate="2020-06-24T16:08:49.343" Score="0" ViewCount="867" Body="&lt;p&gt;What exactly is perfect play? Can there can be multiple perfect plays, which sounds quite contradictory? If perfect play is known for all openings then why would a player play anything other than that?  Such a thing would make all high level games futile because then players would intentionally divert from perfect play in order to just create a show or something similar.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23209" LastEditorUserId="23209" LastEditDate="2020-07-06T03:23:10.673" LastActivityDate="2020-07-06T03:23:10.673" Title="What is perfect play?" Tags="&lt;terminology&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30127" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-06-24T17:04:40.850" Score="1" ViewCount="83" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am beginning to understand magic bitboards. I have successfully implemented them with Rooks, and I am currently working with Bishops. The method is very similar though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Problem&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have a bishop on g7 and a rook on e5. Obviously the bishops moves are restricted by the rook, however my resulting bishop moves are wrong. He can travel to all squares after the rook. I think that on an empty board, my bishop can travel fine, so it must be how I deal with magics.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;8/8/5B2/8/3r4/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Insights&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After looking at this a while, assuming my bishops moves are fine, it is to do with the indexing when I pre-calculate the move set. Here is how I do that:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;   for (int sq = 0; sq &amp;lt;= 63; sq++){&#xA;        UInt64 blockerMask = innerBAtks(sq); // Get attack squares for bishop on an empty board&#xA;        int bits = BitOperations.PopCount(blockerMask);  &#xA;        UInt64[] blockerBoardArray = test(blockerMask);   &#xA;        BishopMagic[sq].blockerMask = blockerMask;&#xA;        BishopMagic[sq].blockerBoards = new UInt64[1 &amp;lt;&amp;lt; bits];&#xA;        BishopMagic[sq].moveBoard = new UInt64[1 &amp;lt;&amp;lt; bits];&#xA;&#xA;        for (int i = 0; i &amp;lt; (1 &amp;lt;&amp;lt; bits); i++){&#xA;            UInt64 blockerBoard = blockerBoardArray[i]; &#xA;            UInt64 index = (magicB[sq] * blockerBoard) &amp;gt;&amp;gt; (64 - nBBits[sq]);&#xA;            BishopMagic[sq].blockerBoards[index] = blockerBoard;&#xA;            BishopMagic[sq].moveBoard[index] = moveBoardBishop(sq, blockerBoard);&#xA;        }&#xA;    }&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To use it, I do the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;        int sq = BitOperations.TrailingZeroCount(bishopPos);&#xA;        UInt64 blockerBoard = 0x0;&#xA;        UInt64 occupancy = ((northEast(sq) | southEast(sq) | northWest(sq) | southWest(sq)) &amp;amp; ~LUTable.Border);&#xA;        blockerBoard = board.AllPieces &amp;amp; occupancy;&#xA;        UInt64 moveIndex = (magic.magicB[sq] * blockerBoard) &amp;gt;&amp;gt; (64 - magic.nBBits[sq]);&#xA;        occupancy = magic.BishopMagic[sq].moveBoard[moveIndex];&#xA;        return occupancy;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you need more information, please let me know!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23942" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-06-24T17:17:32.390" LastActivityDate="2020-06-24T17:17:32.390" Title="Magic bitboards: My indexing doesn't seem to work!" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;programming&gt;&lt;bishops&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2020-08-31T23:28:18.563" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30128" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30126" CreationDate="2020-06-24T18:23:39.977" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1. What exactly is perfect play?&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Firstly, the definition of perfect play is very subjective. One may say that a 4-move checkmate is a perfect play for me! Or, the best possible move that you could have done regardless of the situation you are in, &amp;quot;Oh! that was a perfect play because you could not have played any other move any better!&amp;quot;. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;According to me, a perfect play is when the entire game is always in your control. In the sense that, with every move you make, you force your opponent to make a move of your choice rather than his own choice. This is not possible in the game of chess. You can predict the probability of a move, but cannot force an opponent to play moves in every given scenario unless you are some intelligent silicon-based life form that can simulate every possible scenario. Therefore, according to my definition of &amp;quot;perfect play&amp;quot;, it simply cannot exist. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;2. Can there be multiple perfect plays?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Maybe according to some other definition of a perfect play. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;3. If perfect play is known for all openings then why would a player play anything other than that? Such a thing would make all high level games futile because then players would intentionally divert from perfect play in order to just create a show or something similar.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Well, if perfect play did exist, then no one would willingly play anything other play than that, unless given good enough motivation (e.g. bribery) during competitions. That is the only logical answer here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23966" LastActivityDate="2020-06-24T18:23:39.977" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30129" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30122" CreationDate="2020-06-24T21:07:08.310" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;The answer by @Brian Towers is both beautiful and true, but not always true. It is perhaps true if you think of every pawn as a potential queen. However, in endings, especially in Rook endings, the textbooks will tell you not to be drawn into passive defence but to keep your pieces active, and counterattack. That being said, you may not have the choice. There may be no counterattack available that is strong enough. And even if you do have a choice, it may not be obvious which is the right choice. You may not have a workable defence available either. It then becomes a matter of style, which of two evils to endure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastActivityDate="2020-06-24T21:07:08.310" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30130" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30124" CreationDate="2020-06-24T21:33:18.007" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Such a system doesn't exist exactly, but a few similar concepts do. There are many reasons, but the main reason is that it's not possible to classify chess games like this in any useful way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, you could classify them based on the first move -- but who cares? Only 1.c4, 1.d4, 1.e4 and 1.Nf3 are really important, and they often &lt;em&gt;transpose&lt;/em&gt; into each other (1.d4 is followed by 2.Nf3 quite often, and 1.Nf3 is followed by 1.d4).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For a system like this to be useful, it needs to have some properties:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It should be based on the games of really strong players, after all they are the ones who care about this sort of thing&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Some people have really amazing memories, but even they are quickly overwhelmed by chess. It has to be of a practical size&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It has to &lt;em&gt;help you find good moves at the board&lt;/em&gt;, as that is really the only thing that matters for chess players&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And a whole chess game is quite long. Some &lt;em&gt;parts&lt;/em&gt; of it can be categorized, others defy such attempts completely. So in chess it is &lt;em&gt;positions&lt;/em&gt; that can sometimes be classified, not entire games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can think of three phases that can be treated like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The early opening. Theory can be worked out &lt;em&gt;exactly&lt;/em&gt;, because the starting position is known. Related lines will have things in common but also important differences, and they mostly just need to be memorized. Opening names like in ECO are mostly so you can find in which book you need to look up your theory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Most &lt;em&gt;middlegames&lt;/em&gt; (not all) can be usefully classified based on &lt;strong&gt;the central pawn structure&lt;/strong&gt;. That's the main thing most players will think of. In e.g. a position where one side has &amp;quot;the isolated queen's pawn&amp;quot; (a pawn on d4 and no pawns on the c- and e- files, after the opening, and the other side say a pawn on e6 and no pawns on the c- and d- files) has a list of standard plans that people know by heart. The actual positions differ, the tactical details will matter, but recognizing lots of types of position like this and knowing the standard plans &lt;em&gt;helps&lt;/em&gt;. It is what books like Mauricio Rios' &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.qualitychess.co.uk/products/2/235/chess_structures_-_a_grandmaster_guide_by_mauricio_flores_rios/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess Structures&lt;/a&gt; are about.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Very simplified &lt;em&gt;Endgames&lt;/em&gt; can again be classified and studied. Many positions with bishop + pawn vs bishop have similar ways for trying to promote the pawn or stopping it, and knowing about them helps (and it helps to decide whether you can safely trade down to this endgame in a particular case), and so on for lots of other material distributions. Many, many books are written about endgames in such a fashion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But there are also phases of the game in between the early middlegame and the late endgame, and they lend themselves much less to classification. The differences are more important than the things games have in common, here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And there is no &amp;quot;standard&amp;quot; classification for any of this. It's an art, more knowledge of this sort of thing (and the skill to apply the knowledge) is what separates strong players and even stronger ones.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2020-06-24T21:33:18.007" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30131" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30122" CreationDate="2020-06-25T00:28:32.410" Score="33" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not at all disagreeing with the existing answers - both sound. Indeed every pawn is a potential queen. However, one aspect of the question remaining is: why struggle for a pawn as opposed to a more decisive plan?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the games that you are watching, if they are between capable and well-matched players, very often the game will be quite well balanced with neither side having a promising attack leading directly to checkmate. Launching such an attack in a position where it is not justified is more likely to lead to a worse position than an improvement - an unfounded attack is usually beaten off by a competent defender, leaving the attacker with a compromised position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But a player has to try something to win and, in a fairly level position, the win of a pawn - even if not conclusive - may be the best plan available to get an advantage in the game. Even a small advantage is better than none!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23970" LastEditorUserId="23970" LastEditDate="2020-06-26T22:40:22.417" LastActivityDate="2020-06-26T22:40:22.417" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30132" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30126" CreationDate="2020-06-25T00:49:49.113" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Technically, perfect play would consist of making moves that do not adversely affect the result of the game. In endgame theory books, only mistakes can change the result, and they are flagged as such. Strictly, in a winning position, you might require that perfect play reaches the win the the smallest number of moves, or conversely postpones the defeat for as long as possible in a losing position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On either of those definitions, there may be several equally good moves in a position.&#xA;A chess engine announcing a mate in 5 (or 15!) may see multiple different routes of the same length to checkmate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's the game theory answer - John Nunn takes that approach in his endgame books, for example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, there are the twin facts that chess is not yet solved (so we do not know the perfect play) and you may be facing a human opponent who is both fallible and has particular strengths and preferences. I would argue that best play in this case would choose the moves that are most likely to lead to a win today against this particular opponent - which might not be (game-theoretic) perfect play. Playing moves which are not theoretically best in order to maximise winning chances in a real game introduces an element of risk.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, sometimes in a tournament or a match, a draw is as good as a win. In those circumstances, the change in the relative value of the outcomes would lead to a different optimising solution for the practical approach even though the game-theoretic solution (if it were known) would be unchanged.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23970" LastEditorUserId="9192" LastEditDate="2020-06-25T09:55:53.170" LastActivityDate="2020-06-25T09:55:53.170" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30133" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30126" CreationDate="2020-06-25T01:03:20.820" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the context of game theory, &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solved_game#Perfect_play&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;perfect play&lt;/a&gt; involves playing truly optimal moves.  Specifically, if the game state is a (theoretical) win for the player to move, perfect play would be a move that both preserves that state (eg keeps the game a winning state) and minimizes the number of moves remaining until victory.  If the game state is a draw, perfect play preserves the draw.  If the game state is a loss, perfect play cannot improve the theoretical outcome, but instead maximizes the number of moves until defeat.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Perfect play is, by definition, known for solved games like Tic-Tac-Toe.  Chess is not yet solved, so in most board positions, perfect play is not known.  For some situations, for example positions with 7 or fewer total pieces on the board, we have &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/8424/endgame-tablebase-what-is-it&quot;&gt;endgame tablebases&lt;/a&gt; which have perfect play recorded.  Also, for positions with forced checkmate in sufficiently few moves, engines can calculate perfect play on-the-fly by simply looking at all possible moves and responses and choosing one that gives checkmate the fastest.  Perfect play is not (yet) known for chess openings.  If chess were solved and perfect play were widely known, then it is possible competitive chess may die.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There can be multiple perfect moves for a given board position.  For example, if there are two different moves that immediately checkmate the opponent, both are perfect.  Playing around with endgame tablebases, it is fairly common to find positions where multiple moves lead to checkmate in (say) 18 moves.  If the game is a theoretical draw, often many moves preserve the draw.  All of these moves are perfect from a game-theory perspective, though some may give better practical chances than others.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17157" LastActivityDate="2020-06-25T01:03:20.820" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30134" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30122" CreationDate="2020-06-25T03:42:35.733" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;Another point which has not been raised by the excellent answers above is that &lt;strong&gt;pawns are easy to block&lt;/strong&gt;. A pawn can be blocked by just one piece in front of it, and it cannot take the piece which blocks it. Contrast this with any other piece, which can take a piece which blocks its movement (barring other circumstances such as a pin).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This property means that it is much easier to keep a pawn in place where it can be attacked and then taken.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23971" LastActivityDate="2020-06-25T03:42:35.733" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30135" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30136" CreationDate="2020-06-25T04:53:15.250" Score="9" ViewCount="1294" Body="&lt;p&gt;Obviously a lot is going to depend on the exact position, but I'm asking if there are any general signposts - e.g. bishops usually get better than knights if the position is open, or in an endgame, but I can't say the same about Q vs 3 minors.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-06-25T13:36:48.253" LastActivityDate="2020-06-28T14:23:21.267" Title="When is a queen better than 3 minor pieces (or vice versa)?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;queens&gt;&lt;material-balance&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30136" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30135" CreationDate="2020-06-25T05:38:52.347" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;The queen does a good job when there are a lot of weaknesses to attack, especially if the opponent's king is out in the open, so there are a lot of options for double  attacks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The pieces are generally stronger if they can coordinate and the king is still relatively safe. Earlier in the game that's usually the case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2020-06-25T05:38:52.347" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30137" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30124" CreationDate="2020-06-25T14:33:34.987" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Encyclopedia of Chess Openings is &lt;strong&gt;the&lt;/strong&gt; standard game classification system of the chess world, with &amp;quot;standard&amp;quot; in the sense of &amp;quot;what almost everyone uses&amp;quot;. I don't really understand the issue you seem to have with that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Regarding your actual questions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What I am really interested in is this-will a certain family of games would be more interesting than the other? Will certain family of games have less draws or wins with perfect play?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We don't know for sure, as Chess is not solved yet. We have some approximation though by looking at the winning percentages, which any decent online game database (example: &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/analysis#explorer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://lichess.org/analysis#explorer&lt;/a&gt; ) will show. &amp;quot;Interesting&amp;quot; is of course a subjective predicate, but at least we can say that White will have better prospects to win the game by starting 1. d4 or 1. e4 instead of say, 1. a4 or 1. h4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there more zugzwang positions in a certain family?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is even more unanswerable. Due to their nature, zugzwang situations mostly occur in the endgame (when there are fewer pieces left, which naturally reduces the number of move options all by itself). We are very, very far away from safely linking specific endgame positions to specific openings. Just too many different paths to connect, and that's not even accounting for transpositions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13433" LastEditorUserId="13433" LastEditDate="2020-06-26T07:18:57.080" LastActivityDate="2020-06-26T07:18:57.080" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30138" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30126" CreationDate="2020-06-25T15:01:47.270" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am not sure whether there is a single definition of &amp;quot;perfect play&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The answers so far considered perfect play separately for the winning or losing player. In this sense it is often used in the negative sens: &lt;em&gt;white's position is lost, even with perfect play&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, &amp;quot;perfect play&amp;quot; can also refer to the combined play of both players. As such it is what you get if the winning player is minimizing DTM (depth to mate) while the losing player is maximizing DTM. So basically what a minimax engine does.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11629" LastActivityDate="2020-06-25T15:01:47.270" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30139" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30135" CreationDate="2020-06-25T15:20:35.200" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;A lot depends on whether there are other pieces involved and the pawn structure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you mean positions with Q alone vs three minor pieces then relative king safety comes into play. The side with the Q tries to expose the opponents king and harass it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Q alone side may need to create connected passed pawns to make progress since the pieces should easily cope with a single passed pawn by twice covering the square in front of the passed pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, the side with three pieces may need to only create a single passed pawn to create winning chances.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, the three pieces side would find it easier to create fortress type positions at least to avoid defeat.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Personally, I would prefer to play the three pieces for the previous two reasons.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But (there's always a but!) in blitz time formats I would prefer the Q!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(As an aside, I once drew a strong IM in a regular tournament game with only two pieces v Q and equal pawns by setting up a fortress.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't have a chess database but someone who does may be able to research positions with just Q vs three minor pieces and provide some statistics.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13074" LastActivityDate="2020-06-25T15:20:35.200" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30141" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28281" CreationDate="2020-06-25T18:42:45.110" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is totally appropriate to resign after you make a major blunder. Playing on in such a situation is implicitly saying that your opponent is a fish.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23822" LastActivityDate="2020-06-25T18:42:45.110" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30142" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28541" CreationDate="2020-06-25T19:18:15.717" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess1.org/game/export/gif/black/NY3hLN2z.gif&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;played&lt;/a&gt; against Sockfish 5 2000. I had won the game, I was chasing the king down with three connected pawns, and my king. Driving him back until I forced Stockfish into a stalemate. But until the last move made, I was 1 second ahead of the computers time. I hadn't played the game seriously since the 70's. Seen Lichess, Gave it a go. I actually didn't know at the time Stockfish was a computer, I thought Man this guy is really fast, and good too! Can't let him think he can run over me. Ha, Ha, how funny! Game wasn't a fluke, won another game at 2000 rating, and beat computers time by 3 seconds.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ZceaT.gif&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ZceaT.gif&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23983" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-09-05T00:52:35.703" LastActivityDate="2020-09-05T00:52:35.703" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30143" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29836" CreationDate="2020-06-25T19:21:37.313" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;What you are seeing does not necessarily indicate a bug.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You are searching the position with two different bounds.  Your engine is fail-hard (because you return beta and not eval in the case of a fail-high), so the score that comes back from eval is going to be constrained within the bounds you provide.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the second case (using the numbers from your diagram, not your code) you are searching with a bounds of [-20, -5] and your score is -5.  This is fine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the first case you are searching with a bounds of [-20, -15] and your score is -15.  This is also fine.  It would be impossible for this search to return a value of -5 because it is outside the bounds you provided.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In either case, what the search is telling you is that this position is better (relative to the side to move) than the bounds you provided because in both cases the search is failing high.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23985" LastActivityDate="2020-06-25T19:21:37.313" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30144" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29602" CreationDate="2020-06-25T19:32:51.570" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Quiesence search isn't able to handle situations like that - including checks would explode the search tree.  Two iterations later (assuming you're doing iterative deepening), Qxd5 and Bg3+ will take place in the main search, and then quiesence search would be able to find the continuation you described.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some engines include quiet checks in the first ply of quiesence search - in that case you situation would be resolved in one additional iteration instead of two&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23985" LastActivityDate="2020-06-25T19:32:51.570" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30145" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30088" CreationDate="2020-06-25T20:02:31.590" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It sounds like you have all the tools to do the job, you just need to put it all together.  And yes, you can use the magic numbers you found.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When your engine initializes (or any time before you begin the search, really) you'll need to pre-compute the move board for every possible permutation of blockers you might encounter during the search.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Initialization&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;for each square...&#xA;  ROOK_MASKS[square] = //rook attacks on an empty board&#xA;  &#xA;  int bits = bitCount(ROOK_MASKS[square]);&#xA;  ROOK_SHIFTS[square] = 64 - bits;&#xA;&#xA;  int permutations = 1 &amp;lt;&amp;lt; bits&#xA;  for each permutation (p)...&#xA;    int index = (ROOK_MAGICs[square] * ROOK_MASKS[square]) &amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt; ROOK_SHIFTS[square];&#xA;    long blockers = //the pth permutation of ROOK_MASKS[square]&#xA;    ROOK_ATTACKS[square][index] = //rook attacks with blockers&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then when it comes time to generate moves you need to perform a similar operation using the pieces actually on the board&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Move Generation&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  long blockers = ROOK_MASKS[square] &amp;amp; //all the pieces on the board&#xA;  int index = (ROOK_MAGICS[square] * blockers) &amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt; ROOK_SHIFTS[square];&#xA;  return ROOK_ATTACKS[square][index];&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23985" LastActivityDate="2020-06-25T20:02:31.590" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30146" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-06-25T20:03:58.773" Score="11" ViewCount="1122" Body="&lt;p&gt;In nearly every non-chess field of competition I can think of, it is generally considered poor sportsmanship to quit before the game or match is played to completion. When playing other board games* (Monopoly or draughts/checkers, for example) participants are expected to continue until one player has won. In athletic competitions**, it is also considered poor behavior to leave the field of play before the game is complete, regardless of the score. This is the case even if a competitor or team is trailing by a huge difference in score, there is only a little time left, and the risk of injury when continuing to play might be fairly high. Suffering through a complete game/match, even when it is lost beyond hope, seems to be an accepted part of entering into the competition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, chess not only allows a player to resign when they believe they are losing, but it can be considered poor sportsmanship if a player continues to play in such a situation. If you blunder and drop a queen or rook early in the game, you're insulting your opponent if you don't resign. Down a passed pawn in an endgame and your king is not &amp;quot;in the box&amp;quot;? Time to resign or face people saying you were disrespectful toward your opponent .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus the question: Why is it considered good sportsmanship in chess to quit before a game is fully played out?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;* There are a few board game exceptions, such as Risk, where it can become obvious who is going to win. but playing the game to completion might still take hours. Even in such situations, all remaining players usually need to agree to end the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;** In some youth sports there are rules that cause a game to be terminated early when one team has a very large lead in the score. Still, a certain minimum amount of the game must be played.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="224" LastActivityDate="2021-05-08T22:10:06.400" Title="Why is it acceptable to resign?" Tags="&lt;resigning&gt;&lt;sportsmanship&gt;" AnswerCount="9" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30147" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30146" CreationDate="2020-06-25T20:24:06.410" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;Most sports have a numerical end. A game of basketball ends after 4 quarters and the team with the highest score wins and a game of tennis, which does not have a time constraint, is decided when a player wins the best out of three sets. To end a game of chess, however, requires either checkmate or stalemate. Unlike other sports, there is no linear path towards these such as scoring the most amount of points. A game of chess can end as early as move 1 or as late as move 200. Since most sports run on a clock, ending them before the allotted time would be both humiliating to the opposing team and to the fans who paid to watch the game, even if there is no chance that the losing team can come back, because the termination of the event symbolizes that the opposing got beaten so badly that the game had to be ended early. Also, the reason why a soccer team who is losing 10-0 don't just walk off the field is partly to avoid humiliation but also financial. Would anyone like to see team that quits when they are losing? What does that say about the team's morale? However, culture also plays a big role. Since resignation has been in place for so many years and the practice of resignation has never been implemented in traditional sports, it has stayed that way as there is no practical reason to change it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In chess, this humiliation does not carry on, because when you reach a high enough level, it is assumed that your opponent won't make silly mistakes and that it is therefore understandable to end the game early. Playing on might be seen as unsportsmanlike because you are conveying the message that you believe that your opponent is not good and that he will blunder in a completely winning position. Furthermore, the winning player might feel like his opponent is purposely playing on in order to annoy him and waste his time, even if this is not the case.  This is not to say that once you are inferior you should resign, you should always look for chances to complicate the position in hopes that you can gain an advantage. However, when there is no possibility for counterplay, playing on is a waste of time for both players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23938" LastEditorUserId="23938" LastEditDate="2020-06-25T23:25:24.820" LastActivityDate="2020-06-25T23:25:24.820" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30148" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30122" CreationDate="2020-06-26T04:29:16.233" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;Preceding answers and comments make many good points.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why struggle for a single pawn?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The simple answer is: Chess games are mostly won by material advantage!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Generally being up a single pawn in an otherwise safe position is a clear advantage, often a winning advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In such a situation a GM analyst might say: And the rest is technique!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course there are myriad situations where the extra pawn does not guarantee a win but the general rule is that material advantage counts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is seen at the highest level eg Bobby Fischer was happy to take the so-called &amp;quot;poisoned pawn&amp;quot; variation in the Sicilian and hang on to it even though White had an initiative.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He knew that he if could hold on to that humble pawn it would lead to increasing advantage as pieces were exchanged.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The player with the extra pawn also has the option of giving it back at some stage in exchange for some other advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As the game progresses and piece exchanges occur the value of that extra pawn increases.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13074" LastActivityDate="2020-06-26T04:29:16.233" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30150" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30110" CreationDate="2020-06-26T13:15:45.520" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Evaluation functions are built for &amp;quot;quiet&amp;quot; positions.  That is, positions without a lot of unresolved tactics.  This is why evaluation is done at the leaves of quiesence search, which resolves all reasonable captures and checks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The idea is that it would be incorrect to evaluate a position with lots of tactical options, because after those tactics are resolved the material on the board could be dramatically different than it is now.  The same thing goes for checks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Instead of calling EVAL on your positions, you should consider calling qSearch to get a score.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23985" LastActivityDate="2020-06-26T13:15:45.520" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30151" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30146" CreationDate="2020-06-26T13:42:14.377" Score="16" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why is it acceptable to resign?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess has its origins as a war game. It was used to model war and perhaps to play a part in the training of generals. In war it is standard practice to surrender when it is clear that defeat is unavoidable. This is an obvious humane thing to do to minimize loss of life. Crossing over into chess as the model of war this translates into resignation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-06-26T13:42:14.377" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30152" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-06-26T14:16:36.990" Score="2" ViewCount="55" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Stockfish 11, they &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/blob/4b10578acbe099482ed40200478df4d775c01af5/src/tt.cpp#L124&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;use the high 16 bits as key inside the cluster&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;const uint16_t key16 = key &amp;gt;&amp;gt; 48;  // Use the high 16 bits as key inside the cluster&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This renders problem when key &amp;gt;&amp;gt; 48 equals 0 (for example: key=32401393425620 &amp;gt;&amp;gt; 48 = 0), then the function return found = false, even when found should be true.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;return found = (bool)tte[i].key16, &amp;amp;tte[i];&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Recently, they update: &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/blob/1ea488d34c0b6a03fa3d89d289fe72fd1408cafd/src/tt.cpp#L120&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Use the low 16 bits as key inside the cluster&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;const uint16_t key16 = (uint16_t)key;  // Use the low 16 bits as key inside the cluster&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I think it doesn't guarantee the low 16 bits won't be 0 after converted from 64 bit key.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So this function is wrong? I guess they want to save memory so that they only 16 bits, but what's the point of saving if the function wrong?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23888" LastActivityDate="2020-06-26T14:16:36.990" Title="Stockfish Transposition Table: 16 bit key equals 0 even if the key is found?" Tags="&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;tablebases&gt;&lt;transpositions&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2020-08-31T23:25:28.577" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30153" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30176" CreationDate="2020-06-26T16:49:00.997" Score="2" ViewCount="151" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have heard this statement many times, but I don't understand it. What does it mean exactly?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21840" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-06-26T17:38:00.457" LastActivityDate="2020-06-28T18:13:09.690" Title="How does Magnus create opportunities for his opponents to go wrong?" Tags="&lt;terminology&gt;&lt;carlsen&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30154" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28186" CreationDate="2020-06-26T17:03:58.993" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think you're misunderstanding something here based on the way you formulated your question.  Multiplying the blockers by the magic and the shifting does &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; give you the attack set.  What it gives you is an index by which you can lookup the attack set in a pre-computed array.  The shifted product is a key, not a bitboard as you displayed it&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is possible (and desireable) for multiple blocker sets to result in the same index and therefore have the same attack map.  Consider a rook on A1.  The attack set will be the same if there is a blocker on B1, blockers on B1 and C1, blockers on B1 and C1 and D1.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for how long it takes to generate the magics themselves, that depends on your hardware and on the speed of your algorithm.  I would say that only being able to test a thousand in a few seconds indicates a serious performance issue in your code.  I feel like stockfish claims to be able to generate them &lt;em&gt;all&lt;/em&gt; in a second or so.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, the benefit of findind a &amp;quot;better&amp;quot; magic is what you said.  It reduces the size of the pre-computed array.  Lowering the memory footprint of an engine makes it more efficient in terms of cpu cache hits vs memory lookups.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23985" LastActivityDate="2020-06-26T17:03:58.993" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30155" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30157" CreationDate="2020-06-26T17:51:16.307" Score="8" ViewCount="1416" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there a word to count one moving by one player?&#xA;For example, the following series of moves:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;is counted as three moves. But if I want to denote &amp;quot;e4&amp;quot; as a unit of a count, what word should I use?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23840" LastEditorUserId="16136" LastEditDate="2020-06-27T05:25:21.403" LastActivityDate="2020-06-29T06:48:01.540" Title="Is there a word to count one moving by one player?" Tags="&lt;terminology&gt;&lt;ply&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30156" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30135" CreationDate="2020-06-26T18:01:01.870" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am presuming things such as pawns, bishops and knights count as minor pieces for what my answer will be.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Queen &amp;gt; 3 Minor Pieces&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;In the case that there is a way that you could get a checkmate, but you need to make a risk with what your opponent will notice and what he/she won't notice. You could try to put 3 pieces to get your opponent to take those helping you to get your checkmate. Then there is the case for AI which takes every place into consideration. For AI it would have to be pawns or perhaps making it be that your opponent is forced to take certain pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;For the second for AI 'forcing your opponent to take certain pieces' with that I mean that they are in a check or that piece being there is going to lead to a checkmate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;In the case that you want a minimal risk then I would say it would be best to save your queen and try to keep it because it can help create many forks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3 Minor Pieces &amp;gt; Queen&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With 3 minor pieces there is the obvious case getting 3 pawns to the end to become queens, but I will presume that it would be banned for 2 reasons.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It is more challenging and move and noticeable.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It is making a minor piece become a major piece.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;With three pieces there are more combinations that you can use to get a checkmate, or defend your king. If the opponent's king is trapped with their own pieces then you can use just your knight to get a checkmate where as it would be hard to get a checkmate with your queen for it would need lots of setting up.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;generally speaking with 3 pieces is good due to numbers&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am not saying that one of them is always better. I am just stating the cases. If I had to pick between the two in a case that I don't know as in I can't see the situation for some reason I would go for keeping 3 pieces instead of losing my queen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Keep in mind that people have their play style. You might prefer keeping your queen or keeping 3 minor pieces depending on your play style.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23979" LastEditorUserId="23979" LastEditDate="2020-06-28T14:23:21.267" LastActivityDate="2020-06-28T14:23:21.267" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30157" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30155" CreationDate="2020-06-26T18:02:40.010" Score="16" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is indeed such a word for so called &amp;quot;half-moves.&amp;quot; The terminology used is the word &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ply_(game_theory)&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;ply&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt;. To speak of multiple ply, &lt;strong&gt;plies&lt;/strong&gt; is used. One would refer to the move &amp;quot;e4&amp;quot; as the first ply of the game.  An example demonstration of it can be seen at work in CSE's very own &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/179/how-do-i-add-a-replayer-to-my-post&quot;&gt;diagram viewer&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes, a user wants to add a game to their post, but wants the diagram to start with a specified board position. For example, &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/29962/looking-for-the-complete-game-score-of-vlastimil-jansa-istvan-bilek-rubinstein&quot;&gt;this question&lt;/a&gt; would look like the below picture without the word &amp;quot;ply&amp;quot; to refer to the wanted position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/y1teT.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/y1teT.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But with the code [startply &amp;quot;38&amp;quot;] having four spaces in front of it, the page, when loaded, shows the position after Black's 19th moves, i.e. the 38th ply, and before White's 20th move, the 39th ply.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/hEY4M.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/hEY4M.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White's ply count will always be odd while Black's will always be even. Do note that while &amp;quot;half-move&amp;quot; is a broadly used term as well, it is basically a laymen's term, and &amp;quot;ply&amp;quot; is the offical one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-06-26T18:29:03.720" LastActivityDate="2020-06-26T18:29:03.720" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30158" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-06-26T18:25:04.383" Score="3" ViewCount="105" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm looking for a chess cloud engine service where I only have to pay for the time I use.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;I thought &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessbase.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chessbase.com&lt;/a&gt; provides that, but you have to get a premium membership first (as far as I understand).&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.nextchessmove.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Nextchessmove.com&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessify.me&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chessify.me&lt;/a&gt; require subscription as well.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Is anybody aware of an alternative that just bills per time used?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14789" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-06-26T18:25:49.350" LastActivityDate="2020-07-18T18:49:58.577" Title="Are there any cloud engine services solely 'pay per use'?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30159" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30146" CreationDate="2020-06-26T19:58:17.533" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;To follow up on Brian's answer about war, I think competitive Real Time Strategy games are a very close analogy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For those unfamiliar: In these games players typically build up bases, then build armies, then those armies fight.  If one army has a decisive where the victor has enough troops remaining, they go destroy the other person's base and all their straggling units.  Once the opponent is 100% destroyed, the conqueror is declared victor.  In competitive play, users typically say 'GG' (Good Game) and resign after they lose the critical battle.  In fact, there is a often similar stigma of poor sportsmanship for not resigning, similar to chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The endgame here is often very boring.  There isn't any hope of comeback, but it can take a while to burn down all the opponents buildings and hunt down all their straggling units.  The endgame is qualitatively different than the gameplay to that point.  It is merely waiting for buildings to burn down.  There is no skill involved.  This isn't fun for the loser and usually not fun for the winner either.  It just wastes people's time - and this can be a substantial amount of time, depending on the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One sided chess endgames are similar.  There isn't much skill or thought left.  Its just going through the motions, and those motions have little in common with normal chess - even normal chess endgames.  If you're up a two queens, it doesn't  matter if you have the wrong rook pawn or you don't move your king up in the endgame or hang a queen, even.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This differs from soccer, where the gameplay is still effectively the same at the end of a 10-0 defeat as it is at the start of a 1-1 tie.  There may be some strategic and tactical changes to the approaches of both sides, but the core skills and gameplay mechanics are constant. Losing 10-0 sucks, but you're still playing soccer.  You are playing soccer (presumably) because you like playing soccer.  You still get to do something you enjoy, even in defeat.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In closing, there are two reasons we play games: we care about the result and we care about the gameplay intrinsically.  If the result is not in question and the gameplay changes to become bad, why keep playing? Why force someone else to keep playing?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17157" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-06-26T20:02:59.953" LastActivityDate="2020-06-26T20:02:59.953" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30160" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30135" CreationDate="2020-06-26T23:39:29.877" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;For me I belive that the Queen is worth 3 pieces for a variety of reasons,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;It combines the functionality of the Rook and the Bishop, the Bishop, which act like snipers in the early-mid game, are very valuable, because of their sniper-like capability, whereas the rook is bad in the early stages of the game, because the board is crammed usually, conversely, in the Endgame, Rooks are better, because they allow you to occupy an area and put up a wall that the king cannot cross, by the definition of a bishop, since they are on a single color diagonal, it requires 2 Bishops to create an inescapable wall for the king, the Queen provides for both of these, by being able to snipe pieces on the outskirts with its bishopesque range, and it can wall of sections of the board at the endgame because it can cross multiple colors like the rook&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;This is more of an extension of the last point, but its your main offensive tool, overall, Rooks are best in the Endgame, Bishops and Knights are great in the Mid game, but the Queen can function almost anywhere, they also exceed in their ability I call the &amp;quot;Royal Attack&amp;quot; because of its long Range, devastating attacks and multitude of directions, it is often used to attack 3 or more pieces at one, where as the Knight can fork but not pin pieces, and the bishop can not fork but can pin pieces, the Queen combines all the functionality into 1, therefore in most situations, if you lose your queen, unless it was a mistake on you opponents move, thus leading to a delayed trade, or mate, its usually time to resign as most of you offense is gone&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The Queen is also great at counter-attack, for example in this trap from the Queens Gambit:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 Bb4 4. Nf3 d5 5. Qa4+ Kf8 6. Qxb4+ Ke8&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23948" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-06-26T23:48:53.810" LastActivityDate="2020-06-26T23:48:53.810" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30161" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30135" CreationDate="2020-06-27T03:35:38.103" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Generally speaking the queen is going to be better when the opponent's king is exposed to checks and/or when the position is &amp;quot;loose&amp;quot; ie pieces and pawns hanging, pawn weaknesses etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the side without the queen can hold the position together and push a passed pawn there isn't really anything the queen can do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2020-06-27T03:35:38.103" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30162" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30155" CreationDate="2020-06-27T11:09:45.090" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;The word for one move by one player is &amp;quot;move&amp;quot;. This is the term used in &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/FIDE/handbook/LawsOfChess.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE's laws of chess&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The exception is when referring to the move counts in chess notation, where &amp;quot;move&amp;quot; commonly means one move by each player, and to disambiguate from that, the term &amp;quot;half-move&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ply_(game_theory)&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;ply&lt;/a&gt;&amp;quot; is then used to clarify that only one move by one player was intended.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Half-move&lt;/em&gt; is the traditional chess term. &lt;em&gt;Ply&lt;/em&gt; comes from game theory, where it's used in the description of game-playing algorithms such as &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha%E2%80%93beta_pruning&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;alpha-beta pruning&lt;/a&gt;, which is used by chess engines.  For that reason, chess computing uses the word ply exclusively, and with the increasing presence of engines in chess, ply is gaining prevalence outside chess computing circles.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Professional chess players use &amp;quot;move&amp;quot;. In an expression such as &amp;quot;black has mate in 3&amp;quot;, the count refers to the number of moves &lt;em&gt;by black&lt;/em&gt;.  Since black can't make 3 moves without white making 2 intervening moves, that may give the impression that &amp;quot;move&amp;quot; refers to one move by each player, but that is not the strict sense of the word.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24005" LastActivityDate="2020-06-27T11:09:45.090" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30163" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30155" CreationDate="2020-06-27T13:01:32.980" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Another term used is &amp;quot;single-move&amp;quot;. From Hooper &amp;amp; Whyld, The Oxford Companion to Chess (1st ed., 1987):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;SINGLE-MOVE,&lt;/strong&gt; a move by White &lt;em&gt;or&lt;/em&gt; a move by Black. This term makes a useful distinction, for the word 'move' is frequently used to mean a move by White and a move by Black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10380" LastActivityDate="2020-06-27T13:01:32.980" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30164" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30165" CreationDate="2020-06-27T13:45:04.537" Score="1" ViewCount="188" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am trying to play with stockfish from terminal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I entered the following commands:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;position startpos e2e4&#xA;d&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The output was:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/8NdOK.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/8NdOK.png&quot; alt=&quot;stockfish output&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why is stockfish not accepting my move?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15636" LastActivityDate="2020-06-27T13:47:51.450" Title="Why is stockfish not accepting my move?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;computer-chess&gt;&lt;uci&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30165" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30164" CreationDate="2020-06-27T13:47:51.450" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is an issue with the syntax you are using. According to the &lt;a href=&quot;http://wbec-ridderkerk.nl/html/UCIProtocol.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;UCI protocol&lt;/a&gt; you should use &lt;code&gt;position startpos moves e2e4&lt;/code&gt;, i.e., the &lt;strong&gt;moves&lt;/strong&gt; keyword is missing in your command.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15415" LastActivityDate="2020-06-27T13:47:51.450" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30166" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30122" CreationDate="2020-06-27T16:47:35.057" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;You should think of pawns not as individual units but as a group acting as one unit. If one pawn is one &amp;quot;point&amp;quot; then the entire pawn formation is 8 &amp;quot;points&amp;quot;. This actually makes pawns one of the most powerful units in the game. The pawns are your front line and do an excellent job of defending each other in diagonal lines. If your opponent takes one of your pawns then your front line has been split into two smaller pawn formations. This is a weaker line of defense because now you have a hole open between the two formations. Your opponent could place a rook or queen on the newly opened file and be able to threaten pieces behind your front line. So you are defending more than &amp;quot;just a pawn&amp;quot;, you are defending the pawn structure as a whole.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24009" LastActivityDate="2020-06-27T16:47:35.057" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30167" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-06-27T22:53:26.340" Score="4" ViewCount="316" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm looking for an historic chess game, and I don't remember if Capablanca or Kasparov played it. In it, both queens are face to face and neither let pass the other one, for almost 7 or 10 movements, in the middle of the board. I remember saw it on chessgames.com in 2005.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The queens moved horizontally, 1 or 2 spots. One was in the above row and the second one in the bottom, for e.g. the black queen in the 5th row and the white queen in the 4th row. So neither can't go forward, as they are blocking each other. I'm not sure if it was Capablanca or Kasparov, only about 70% sure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24012" LastEditorUserId="9025" LastEditDate="2020-08-14T15:52:55.070" LastActivityDate="2020-08-14T15:52:55.070" Title="Looking for a historic chess game" Tags="&lt;famous-games&gt;&lt;kasparov&gt;&lt;capablanca&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="7" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30168" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28281" CreationDate="2020-06-27T23:01:24.243" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think it’s better, from both a sportsmanship and a gamesmanship perspective, to wait for the opponent to actually move before resigning.  That way the opponent feels more deserving for actually catching the blunder, but also sometimes they won’t catch the blunder and then you can keep playing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2005" LastActivityDate="2020-06-27T23:01:24.243" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30169" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-06-27T23:55:11.837" Score="0" ViewCount="83" Body="&lt;p&gt;It seems most chess programs score a position basically the same way, give or take a few tenths of a point, for a given position. For example, Stockfish might score a position as .65 while Houdini might score the same position .80. If this is essentially the case, are there general &amp;quot;rules&amp;quot; for scoring a position?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="443" LastActivityDate="2020-06-29T04:33:13.493" Title="Is there a standard way of scoring a position for chess programs?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30170" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-06-28T01:42:52.303" Score="7" ViewCount="878" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm looking for a safe website where my child can play. He is developing his game, I'm worried about people he may meet on various websites.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If there are some known places please advise.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13295" LastActivityDate="2020-06-29T08:40:27.633" Title="Safe place online for children to play against others" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30171" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30135" CreationDate="2020-06-28T02:18:22.997" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Please see in action the famous games from the grandmasters demonstrating the combat dynamics of a Queen versus three minor pieces. No English language can explain the entire dynamics. You must see it for your self.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chesscollection?cid=1016182&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chesscollection?cid=1016182&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7281" LastActivityDate="2020-06-28T02:18:22.997" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30172" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30170" CreationDate="2020-06-28T03:51:47.627" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chesskid.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;ChessKid&lt;/a&gt; is a platform designed for kids, built by the people from chess.com.  I don't have any personal experience with this platform, though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21817" LastActivityDate="2020-06-28T03:51:47.627" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30173" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30170" CreationDate="2020-06-28T09:58:43.580" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;The free online chess site &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Lichess&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt; offers a feature called &amp;quot;kid mode&amp;quot;.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;I haven't tried it out myself, but when enabled, all site communication features are disabled while the rest of the site remains functional.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's password protected and can be enabled under &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/account/kid&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Preferences → Kid Mode&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/1wdR4.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/1wdR4.png&quot; alt=&quot;Sample image of preferences page&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4212" LastEditorUserId="4212" LastEditDate="2020-06-29T08:40:27.633" LastActivityDate="2020-06-29T08:40:27.633" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30174" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30169" CreationDate="2020-06-28T12:49:54.610" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is certainly not the case. Traditional engines &amp;quot;score&amp;quot; a position by running their evaluation function (which differs from engine to engine) on the best position at the end of their search tree (which also differs from engine to engine, since this position depends on their search algorithm).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sure there are standard concepts for scoring a position - e.g. which side has more material, which side has doubled pawns, which side has rooks on open files - but ultimately each engine does it differently, and there are positions which one engine can be very optimistic on while another is not. There are even positions where one engine thinks White has an advantage and another engine thinks Black has an advantage. &lt;a href=&quot;https://tcec-chess.com/#div=sf&amp;amp;game=13&amp;amp;season=18&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Example&lt;/a&gt; from the ongoing TCEC Season 18 superfinal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastActivityDate="2020-06-28T12:49:54.610" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30175" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-06-28T15:04:07.473" Score="5" ViewCount="131" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am watching videos about the London system, and one example they use is this game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Carlsen-Ghaem, Baku 2016&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. Bf4 e6 4. e3 Bd6 5. Bg3 c5 6. c3 Nc6 7. Nbd2 Bxg3 8. hxg3 Qd6 9. Bb5 Bd7 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;after 8. ... Qd6, the guy explaining the video says that Black is preparing to move e5, so White moves 9. Bb5 to avoid that. What is Black's plan with that move?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24016" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2020-06-28T15:33:51.070" LastActivityDate="2020-07-05T06:50:47.320" Title="Carlsen - Ghaem, why does Black want to do e5?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;london-system&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30176" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30153" CreationDate="2020-06-28T18:13:09.690" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;An interesting question!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think it was Kramnik who, when asked who the best player on earth was, mentioned some other player. When asked why not Carlsen he replied: Magnus is from another planet!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That such a great player as Kramnik, conquereor of Kasparov, was in awe of Carlsen speaks volumes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;His &amp;quot;sight of the board&amp;quot; is phenomenal as is his ability to detect tactical possibilities.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How does he create opportunities for his opponents to go wrong?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The simple answer is by continuing to play!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He seems to absolutely love playing chess and plays out positions that many other GM's would pass up as too dry and drawish.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He has a superb ability to find resources in any position where other GM's cannot. Sometimes the advantages are only microscopic but Carlsen is willing to steadily seek out and accumulate these and convert drawish positions into winning ones.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Carlsen seems content to just get a playable position out of the opening rather than dominate with superior opening knowledge like Kasparov could do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you play through his games he often switches play back and forth from the centre then to one wing then to the other. He keeps sustained pressure on his opponent and squeezes as much as possible out of any position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13074" LastActivityDate="2020-06-28T18:13:09.690" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30177" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30175" CreationDate="2020-06-28T18:31:25.433" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;My thinking is that Black's long-term problem is being saddled with a bad Bishop, his pawns on white squares limit it's scope so try for Ne7 and hope for the exchange.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If Black allows BxN the White's Ne5 looks strong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The dilemma for Black set by Carlsen: do I risk castling into the open h file, do I plan to castle Q side or do I wait until White makes his intentions re castling clear?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13074" LastActivityDate="2020-06-28T18:31:25.433" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30178" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30180" CreationDate="2020-06-28T21:41:41.670" Score="23" ViewCount="4240" Body="&lt;p&gt;Am a new player (had played before hadn't picked up a board for 3 years having never taken the game that seriously) and am going to try and commit to at least 1 rapid (10+5) game per day.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Have made it to 950ish on Lichess (and was disappointed to find that puts me in the bottom 2%). In my approx. 15 games I've found on analysis I've opened up at least a couple of times  (unintentionally 25 or 30%) with the Kings Pawn: Leonardis variation or the French Defence: Classical variation as black. I've just tried to play what I thought was a sensible move and this is what the analysis classed it as.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there any value to learning openings as a new player? My only comparison is Poker where it's advised not to use game optimal theory on new players as they don't know what the correct play is a lot of the time. Conversely I'm thinking in Chess the chance of getting a new player to not make a mistake or blunder in the first 10 moves is very low (&amp;amp; if someone goes off of a line I'm figuring it lowers the value of an opening). I'm figuring also if you get a completely different move to what you anticipated back (e.g. e4, d5) it would also lower the value of it? (so hence lowering the value of welding yourself to one opening).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there more value at this stage to be looking at pattern recognition and positional awareness and then specialising on an opening at a later stage?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks in advance for any advice or suggestions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24020" LastActivityDate="2020-08-07T19:57:47.537" Title="Is there value to learning openings as a new player?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;1.e4&gt;" AnswerCount="10" CommentCount="13" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30179" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30178" CreationDate="2020-06-28T22:03:14.633" Score="16" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there any value to learning openings as a new player?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes. The main reason is to get a feel for the kind of patterns of the way the pieces develop in different situations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are also good reasons to start with highly tactical openings since most of your improvement will come from improving your tactics, most of your wins will come from your tactics (and most of your losses from tactics you missed) and the quickest way to get a tactical game is to play a tactical opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you play a lot of stuff like this then you will become very comfortable in wild positions which scare the life out of higher rated but more staid opponents who suffer outside of their comfort zones of the English Defence or similar.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These tactical thoughts are not mine. We have a guy in our chess club in his 80's who has been teaching beginners for about 60 years! and he always starts with teaching his kids the King's Gambit with exactly these ideas in mind. He tries to get his kids to develop fast and attack and pay more attention to the initiative than pawns. As a result a surprising number of our regions strong players were taught by him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-06-28T22:03:14.633" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30180" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30178" CreationDate="2020-06-28T22:05:05.570" Score="18" Body="&lt;p&gt;The opening in those games depends on your opponent just as much as you, so with the sample size being so small, don't take the statistic too much into account.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The analogy with poker doesn't really work out too well. You definitely want to play &amp;quot;optimally&amp;quot; in chess against beginners! While in poker you can choose between different strategies that will lead to different expected amounts of cash/chips gained on a hand, in chess there are only three results: win, draw and loss. If you play &amp;quot;GTO-like&amp;quot;, you'll win 100% of the time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The problem is that, when you're still a beginner, studying openings won't make you much closer to being an &amp;quot;optimal player&amp;quot;. We should distinguish two things here: you should definitely learn how to play the opening well (as in: develop your pieces, control the center, put your king into safety, prevent your opponent from doing these three things and similar strategic ideas). Don't just stick to the &amp;quot;slogans&amp;quot;. Take a look at a variety of examples. However, this is not the same as learning a lot of moves deep into opening theory. Learn mainly by reviewing your own games (by yourself, not with a computer) and by watching how more skilled players treat the positions you reach.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The main reason why deep study of &amp;quot;opening theory&amp;quot; is not so profitable for beginners is that the difference between play &amp;quot;perfectly&amp;quot; and making a small opening mistake is much smaller than when those mistakes happen later in the game. The other main point I'd make is that it is much easier to remember opening theory when you are a skilled player that understands the underlying tactics/strategy and only has to rely on memory for a few critical situations. One of the opening mistakes I commonly see among beginners is making the &amp;quot;right move&amp;quot; in the wrong position (as in, thinking you are in a given theoretical position where the right move is X but it turned out it wasn't the same position)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastEditorUserId="18809" LastEditDate="2020-08-07T12:08:47.973" LastActivityDate="2020-08-07T12:08:47.973" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30181" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30200" CreationDate="2020-06-29T03:15:21.083" Score="7" ViewCount="478" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/1634/using-chess-for-therapy/1635#1635&quot;&gt;this answer&lt;/a&gt;, some schizophrenics who compulsively play chess a whole lot see everything as chess moves. I looked for an alternate source of that information through a Google search and never found one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, I used to play &lt;em&gt;The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild&lt;/em&gt; a whole lot, maybe many hours a day. After enough time of continuously playing it so often, I felt like I was seeing the real world as part of the &lt;em&gt;Breath of the Wild&lt;/em&gt; game. (Of course, playing the game isn't the exact same experience as it would have been if I were out in the &lt;em&gt;Breath of the Wild&lt;/em&gt; map in real life.) I had been playing breath of the wild so much and so continuously that when I was exploring the real world, it sort of felt like I was exploring an area that looked like that in the game. After I did as much as I felt like doing in that game, I never got around to playing it again for over a year. I no longer see the real world that way anymore.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could the experience be something like that for people who play chess so many hours a day?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13189" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-12-30T16:47:40.713" LastActivityDate="2020-12-31T21:07:16.660" Title="Can playing too much chess make you see everything as chess moves?" Tags="&lt;psychology&gt;&lt;best-practice&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30182" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30175" CreationDate="2020-06-29T04:02:02.000" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;With ...e5, Black:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Opens a diagonal for the c8-bishop, and&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Fights for central control.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both of these adhere to chess principles, so planning for ...e5 is a very natural thing for Black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastActivityDate="2020-06-29T04:02:02.000" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30183" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30178" CreationDate="2020-06-29T04:19:43.113" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;You should focus on understanding the openings principles- center, development, king safety. If you understand those ideas you'll usually be able to find good moves even if you don't know the theory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Play openings that lead to open and tactical positions because those are the ones that will help you improve the fastest. 1.e4 with white. 1.e4, e5 with black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Avoid heavily theoretical openings like the Sicilian Dragon or Najdorf. Those openings can take decades to learn and it's not really going to benefit you until you get up into the 2300 range.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2020-06-29T04:19:43.113" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30184" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30146" CreationDate="2020-06-29T04:28:41.393" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;Note that the core game of chess would be almost unchanged if it ended with the actual capture of a king rather than checkmate. In a sense, checkmate itself is a from of resignation, one that is written into the rules of the game. The game ends when the king would be lost on the next move. Resignation is just an extension of the logic of ending the game when the loss of the king becomes inevitable. Sometimes that inevitability becomes apparent more than one move in advance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15148" LastActivityDate="2020-06-29T04:28:41.393" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30185" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30169" CreationDate="2020-06-29T04:33:13.493" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You're right.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Everything is based off of the assumption that 1 point= 1 pawn. Everything else is relative to that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If an engine is evaluating a position at +3 that means either it thinks that white can win the material advantage of three pawns or that white can obtain a positional advantage equivalent to three pawns or some combination of the two.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How things are weighted vary from engine to engine but the basic concept is the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2020-06-29T04:33:13.493" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30186" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30155" CreationDate="2020-06-29T04:43:10.893" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The answer is the word &amp;quot;ply&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure why that requires a 5000 word essay with game examples though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2020-06-29T04:43:10.893" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30187" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30155" CreationDate="2020-06-29T06:48:01.540" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The standard word is &amp;quot;ply&amp;quot;, although it's mainly used in the context of computers and game theory when applied to chess, rather than being a proper chess concept. For instance, you will not see the word &amp;quot;ply&amp;quot; a single time in the entire FIDE rulebook, with the word &amp;quot;move&amp;quot; being used instead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastActivityDate="2020-06-29T06:48:01.540" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30188" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30146" CreationDate="2020-06-29T06:51:41.600" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;One of the main reasons could be that chess has no limit of time or &amp;quot;score&amp;quot; needed to win. The examples we see here where resigning is also good sportanship are often that kind of game (risk, real-time strategy videogames...)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The point is not making the game unnecessarely long when the result is already certain&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastEditorUserId="18809" LastEditDate="2020-07-21T22:07:15.070" LastActivityDate="2020-07-21T22:07:15.070" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30189" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30190" CreationDate="2020-06-29T06:55:56.977" Score="12" ViewCount="3987" Body="&lt;p&gt;As I write this, &lt;a href=&quot;https://tcec-chess.com/#div=sf&amp;amp;game=73&amp;amp;season=18&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;game 73 of the TCEC Season 18 superfinal&lt;/a&gt; has just ended. What was most &amp;quot;interesting&amp;quot; about this game is the sheer amount of shuffling both sides did: starting from around move 30 to move 200+, effectively nothing happened with Leela pushing a pawn only to avoid 50-move draws. It had three such moves to reset the 50-move counter, which naturally led to 150+ moves of shuffling. On move 220, Leela finally played 220. e4, which led to some trades and a more equal-ish position, but this also reset the 50-move counter and the shuffling started anew. The game went past move 300 with opposite color bishops on the board, enough for humans to say it's a clear draw, but Leela still saw a 40% chance for White to win, which led to more shuffling. Finally, on move 357 and faced with yet another 50-move draw, Leela's eval dropped and the game was adjudicated as drawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(This description makes it sound like it's Leela's fault the shuffling happened, but in fairness, Stockfish also saw a substantial White advantage for much of the game.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This kind of scenario happens pretty often in computer chess, but I'm wondering what would've happened if this were a human game. Can the player with Black claim that White is being unsporting by shuffling and refusing to accept a draw? Are arbiters permitted to adjudicate if one player isn't making an active attempt to win the game, but seems to be merely prolonging it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2020-06-29T07:36:04.803" LastActivityDate="2020-06-29T20:23:29.870" Title="Is shuffling aimlessly for hundreds of moves permissible?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;fide&gt;&lt;draw&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30190" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30189" CreationDate="2020-06-29T07:51:26.913" Score="11" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can the player with Black claim that White is being unsporting by&#xA;shuffling and refusing to accept a draw?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No. White may be quite legitimately trying to win on time. In blitz this is always allowed. In longer formats it depends on the format.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are arbiters permitted to adjudicate if one player isn't making an&#xA;active attempt to win the game, but seems to be merely prolonging it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Only if there is no increment and the other player is down to less than 2 minutes on the clock. This is dealt with in the section called &amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;Guidelines III. Games without increment including Quickplay Finishes&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;quot; of the &lt;a href=&quot;https://handbook.fide.com/chapter/E012018&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Laws of Chess&lt;/a&gt; and applies only if this was announced beforehand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Guidelines III. Games without increment including Quickplay Finishes&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;III.1 A ‘quickplay finish’ is the phase of a game when all the&#xA;remaining moves must be completed in a finite time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;III.2.1 The Guidelines below concerning the final period of the game&#xA;including Quickplay Finishes, shall only be used at an event if their&#xA;use has been announced beforehand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;III.2.2 These Guidelines shall apply only to standard chess and rapid&#xA;chess games without increment and not to blitz games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;III.4 If the player having the move has less than two minutes left on&#xA;his clock, he may request that an increment extra five seconds be&#xA;introduced for both players. This constitutes the offer of a draw. If&#xA;the offer refused, and the arbiter agrees to the request, the clocks&#xA;shall then be set with the extra time; the opponent shall be awarded&#xA;two extra minutes and the game shall continue.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;III.5 If Article III.4 does not apply and the player having the move&#xA;has less than two minutes left on his clock, he may claim a draw&#xA;before his flag falls. He shall summon the arbiter and may stop the&#xA;chessclock (see Article 6.12.2). He may claim on the basis that his&#xA;opponent cannot win by normal means, and/or that his opponent has been&#xA;making no effort to win by normal means:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;III.5.1 If the arbiter agrees that the opponent cannot win by normal&#xA;means, or that the opponent has been making no effort to win the game&#xA;by normal means, he shall declare the game drawn. Otherwise he shall&#xA;postpone his decision or reject the claim.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;III.5.2 If the arbiter postpones his decision, the opponent may be&#xA;awarded two extra minutes and the game shall continue, if possible, in&#xA;the presence of an arbiter. The arbiter shall declare the final result&#xA;later in the game or as soon as possible after the flag of either&#xA;player has fallen. He shall declare the game drawn if he agrees that&#xA;the opponent of the player whose flag has fallen cannot win by normal&#xA;means, or that he was not making sufficient attempts to win by normal&#xA;means.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-06-29T07:51:26.913" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30191" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-06-29T08:30:29.567" Score="-2" ViewCount="209" Body="&lt;p&gt;Obviously one is better than the other and AlphaZero uses machine learning and all, but what is the real reason for their different style of play? Given a position, both evaluate the next best move but can AlphaZero, being an AI, be mischievous and try to bluff Stockfish or something like that?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23209" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-06-29T14:12:59.537" LastActivityDate="2020-06-29T14:12:59.537" Title="How is AlphaZero defferent from Stockfish?" Tags="&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;alphazero&gt;&lt;chess-ai&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30192" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30191" CreationDate="2020-06-29T08:50:00.870" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess engines consist of two prongs of code: search and eval. Search is the algorithm that tells the engine which moves to look at, &amp;quot;searching&amp;quot; through the game tree to find the most promising continuation. Eval is the code that says, given this position and without making any moves, how good is this position for us?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stockfish uses &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha%E2%80%93beta_pruning&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Alpha-Beta pruning&lt;/a&gt; for search, and a handwritten evaluation function for eval. The Alpha-Beta pruning function involves lots of tricks to prune off unnecessary branches and includes a lot of human knowledge as well, e.g. &amp;quot;if the eval says our position is bad, our best chance is a direct attack on opponent's king, so search moves that give check more thoroughly&amp;quot;. The handwritten evaluation function encompasses human knowledge such as &amp;quot;rooks are better on open files&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;AlphaZero uses &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monte_Carlo_tree_search&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Monte Carlo Tree Search&lt;/a&gt; for search, which is fundamentally different from Alpha-Beta, and a NN evaluation function. In other words every time AlphaZero searches a position, it queries its NN for an evaluation of it. Both of these are different from Stockfish's approach, and &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/23734/why-does-nn-mcts-ab-handwritten-eval-dominate-engine-chess&quot;&gt;not necessarily better&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The different playstyles come from the fact that their search &amp;amp; eval functions are different. Presumably NNs dislike cramped positions, for example. As for bluffing, it doesn't work against engines. They just keep looking for the best moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastActivityDate="2020-06-29T08:50:00.870" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30193" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30178" CreationDate="2020-06-29T09:57:53.913" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a very difficult question, and there are several sides to it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1: This is the most important advice you will ever hear: &lt;strong&gt;Chess is 99% tactics.&lt;/strong&gt; It is all about tricks, forking and pinning your opponents. I can not count how many times I have played a wonderful opening, gotten some advantage on the long term to lose on some simple blunder. If Bill Clinton could rephrase it, he would say: &lt;strong&gt;It's the tactics stupid.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2: Having said that, I believe the best way to actually learn openings is by studying their specific tactics. Especially if you are just starting out, it makes a lot of sense to study miniature games (short games under 20 moves). Those are always won or lost by some specific trick (tactic is basically a synonym for trick). Repeat those games several times until you understand what is going on. Afterwards you can try to copy those tricks for yourself and &lt;em&gt;voila&lt;/em&gt; you have an opening!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3: To get you started you can find a lot of books with the term miniatures. You could also search on youtube for traps, although my personal preference is to play through the game and not wait for it listening to 20 minutes of blabla on youtube.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So that's it for the recommendation. If you are going to study openings instead of tactics, you should study opening tactics to make the most progress.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Cheers!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24024" LastEditorUserId="24053" LastEditDate="2020-07-01T20:26:49.533" LastActivityDate="2020-07-01T20:26:49.533" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30194" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30208" CreationDate="2020-06-29T14:43:38.237" Score="2" ViewCount="306" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have been doing tactics training quite regularly since the beginning of the year. However, I haven't really been playing a lot (for obvious reasons). On average, I would say that I spent 10 hours per month on tactics since January (except for June, as I was really busy with other things). I also did some additional training in other areas of the game, but that was limited to mainly 2 months. Now, despite my efforts, I don't think I have improved. Chesstempo estimates my rating between 2150 and 2250 Fide (for context: my current rating is about 2100), but I don't see that in my Blitz games (I have been rated between 2200 and 2300 on lichess since January with almost no change. If anything, I got slightly worse). I find that pretty discouraging, and I'm wondering if all that training has just been a waste of time because I didn't play OTB games. There a lot of other things I could do with my time and I'm honestly thinking of dropping chess completely if all my efforts are in vain. Any help is appreciated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12604" LastActivityDate="2020-06-30T19:59:58.180" Title="Is tactics training just a waste of time when you cannot play long games?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;training&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="12" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30195" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30178" CreationDate="2020-06-29T15:20:26.473" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes there is an advantage, but not the one that is expected. I recommend studying a couple of basic openings not for the oepning itself, but rather for patern recognittion. Many chess games, will have similar positions and pattern recognition allows you to play the right move to gain an advantage, additionally the main aspects of openings, center control, development, is critical for any beginner to learn if they want to play well. Many people on low ladder do not play the exact moves in a main line or the play weird openings, for example, I play the Sicilian a lot, especially the dragon, but most people do not follow the main lines, instead opting for 'the Bowdler attack ' which is really bad, but because the basic principles of an opening never change, you can usually play and turn out well, i can usually force a hyper-accelerated dragon, and still turn out okay, because the basic principles, like center control, and piece development and optimal positioning stay relatively the same from opening to opening&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23948" LastActivityDate="2020-06-29T15:20:26.473" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30196" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30203" CreationDate="2020-06-29T15:39:29.490" Score="4" ViewCount="284" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have an opening repertoire which I play consistently. My problem, however, is that occasionally I will find holes in my repertoire: main line variations for which I have zero prep. I'd like to make my repertoire air-tight. As in, I would like to fill these gaps in my knowledge of theory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My Idea is to thoroughly document, and scribe my repertoire. In doing this, I should clearly be able to see where my knowledge of theory is lacking and devote extra effort into learning those lines/ middlegame plans/ structures etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The problem, however, is that I can't find any software which would allow me to do precisely this. My computer is a mac, and so I cant use programs like chessbase or bookup. I have attempted to write out all the lines in a word processor, but it becomes extremely difficult to keep my lines organized, and I also cannot easily see the position on a board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If anyone knows of a good solution I would be ecstatic to hear.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24026" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-06-29T15:44:56.720" LastActivityDate="2020-07-01T08:41:36.867" Title="How do you document your opening repertoire on a mac?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;preparation&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30197" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30196" CreationDate="2020-06-29T16:20:26.907" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;A lichess study would be a good way to do this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23100" LastActivityDate="2020-06-29T16:20:26.907" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30198" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-06-29T17:11:25.437" Score="2" ViewCount="157" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have read about exchanging bishops for knights and inactive bishops for active one. I still don't know how to decide when both sides’ bishops are seemingly equally active. For instance, I have read that in the London system, Black should try to exchanging dark squared bishops because White supports&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;key target of e5. What about this position?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;rkq1n1rn/ppp1pbb1/3p2pp/5p2/3PP3/2P1NP2/PP4PP/RKQ1BBRN w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White could try exchanging light squared bishops with Bc4. Black would have to exchange, keep the tension, or do e6 and have his bishop trapped behind this pawn. If Black keeps the tension, it would be up to White to decide whether to also wait or exchange? Whom would benefit the exchange? Both bishops have the same open diagonal, the main difference to me is that Black's point toward White's king and not the other way around, but in the London system Black is advice to exchange his bishop, that targets White's king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24016" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-29T18:55:09.543" LastActivityDate="2020-08-30T03:17:13.670" Title="How to decide whether to exchange (good/active) bishops" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;bishops&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30199" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30198" CreationDate="2020-06-29T19:05:19.880" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This position is from an early stage of a 960 game where the pawn position has not yet stabilized and it has little in common with the London system. Both sides will probably need to move some more pawns to get their pieces out, since particularly the Rooks and Knights are clumsily placed. A plan for either player must be comprehensive, taking account of all the pieces, and could go in many directions, depending in part on what the opponent decides to do. At this stage of the game it would be a mistake to focus too narrowly on the Bishops&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the London system, White aims at establishing a slight advantage in space, giving him more freedom than Black to manoeuvre. Any exchange of pieces will ease that aspect of .Blacks problem, and often this is accomplished by playing ...d5,..e6, and ..Bd6.&#xA;The downside (There is usually a downside) is that Black will be left with a light-square Bishop that is somewhat restricted by its own Pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A situation often arises in the London system where the Bishops are on d6 and g3. In that situation Black usually should not exchange if he has already castled short and Whites Rook is still on h1. So the decision can depend on much more than the relative merits of the Bishops.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastActivityDate="2020-06-29T19:05:19.880" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30200" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30181" CreationDate="2020-06-29T19:52:39.623" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Quite possible- this would be a special case of the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetris_effect&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Tetris Effect&lt;/a&gt;, as would what you described with your experience with Breath of the Wild.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anecdotally, someone I knew once played a lot of chess online and experienced similar effects. About 9 hours per day were spent on chess, roughly equally divided between play and study. This person experienced such effects as:&#xA;They sent a one-word message and became anxious that they blundered since it was &amp;quot;hanging&amp;quot;&#xA;Noticing two socks were on the floor and immediately thinking &amp;quot;good, they're connected&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They also dreamed about chess, which is almost universal among players that play a lot of chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wouldn't expect this happening to you - 9 hours is a lot, and anecdotally, I've spent a lot of time on chess myself and have yet to see any such effects beyond just dreaming about it. They also mentioned that they had tetris effect tendencies.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23100" LastActivityDate="2020-06-29T19:52:39.623" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30201" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23511" CreationDate="2020-06-29T20:22:46.607" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Using a different idea, it is trivial to generate a stalemate that is 26 pawns in material behind for one side by forming an indestructible pawn chain (with only one piece to capture a pawn and white with a defender for that).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;r2qkb1r/4p3/3pPp2/2pP1Pp1/1pP1B1Pp/pP5P/P7/4K3 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Really, either idea (isolated bare king against the world or indestructible pawn chain) requires cooperation from the other side.  There is no way for these formations to happen unless the opponent is being very, very helpful.  I think a much more interesting question would be, &amp;quot;What is the biggest material imbalance for a position that is drawn for either side that happened in a real game?&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24031" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2020-06-29T20:35:17.430" LastActivityDate="2020-06-29T20:35:17.430" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30202" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30189" CreationDate="2020-06-29T20:23:29.870" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;In fairness , it seems Leela zero could have won that game by NOT shuffling on move 78. The pawn break e4!was decisive , and Leela missed it. Stockfish own PV lead to an ending with Rook and Bishop for Leela , Rook and Knight for Stockfish, with Leela a pawn up. I analyzed with Houdini 6.02 with TWO iterations of twenty minutes each , going in the first so far at depth 36 (Eval was stuck at +1.62). I put up the second iteration of analysis as soon as there were a diverging ply , with Black to move. After another 20 minutes d= 31/84 the lines indicated a rook endgame , with eval +4.11.It seems Leela zero missed a win, and not always shuffling pay off.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23298" LastActivityDate="2020-06-29T20:23:29.870" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30203" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30196" CreationDate="2020-06-30T05:39:49.613" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I prefer to use Graphviz ( either in the &lt;a href=&quot;https://dreampuf.github.io/GraphvizOnline/#digraph%20G%20%7B%0A%0A%20%20subgraph%20cluster_0%20%7B%0A%20%20%20%20style%3Dfilled%3B%0A%20%20%20%20color%3Dlightgrey%3B%0A%20%20%20%20node%20%5Bstyle%3Dfilled%2Ccolor%3Dwhite%5D%3B%0A%20%20%20%20a0%20-%3E%20a1%20-%3E%20a2%20-%3E%20a3%3B%0A%20%20%20%20label%20%3D%20%22process%20%231%22%3B%0A%20%20%7D%0A%0A%20%20subgraph%20cluster_1%20%7B%0A%20%20%20%20node%20%5Bstyle%3Dfilled%5D%3B%0A%20%20%20%20b0%20-%3E%20b1%20-%3E%20b2%20-%3E%20b3%3B%0A%20%20%20%20label%20%3D%20%22process%20%232%22%3B%0A%20%20%20%20color%3Dblue%0A%20%20%7D%0A%20%20start%20-%3E%20a0%3B%0A%20%20start%20-%3E%20b0%3B%0A%20%20a1%20-%3E%20b3%3B%0A%20%20b2%20-%3E%20a3%3B%0A%20%20a3%20-%3E%20a0%3B%0A%20%20a3%20-%3E%20end%3B%0A%20%20b3%20-%3E%20end%3B%0A%0A%20%20start%20%5Bshape%3DMdiamond%5D%3B%0A%20%20end%20%5Bshape%3DMsquare%5D%3B%0A%7D&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;online editor&lt;/a&gt; or &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.graphviz.org/download/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;downloadable software&lt;/a&gt;. You can create a flowchart with all moves and transpositions, here is an example : &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/5Bg1p.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/5Bg1p.png&quot; alt=&quot;Sample Sicilian Repertoire&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/29189/creating-a-opening-lines-book-in-tree-like-format&quot;&gt;This&lt;/a&gt; is an excellent answer which explains how to use it. If you have difficulty in visualize moves without the board, you can add screenshots of important position in the flowchart. Lichess study, as the other answer points out, is also a good alternative.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21526" LastActivityDate="2020-06-30T05:39:49.613" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30204" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23511" CreationDate="2020-06-30T10:33:19.823" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;For a draw by insufficient mating material (rather than stalemate), one possibility is king and nine bishops, all on squares of the same colour (eight of them promoted) versus bare king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10380" LastActivityDate="2020-06-30T10:33:19.823" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30205" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-06-30T10:55:44.620" Score="1" ViewCount="81" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe chess sites should offer best of 3/5/etc match formats, rather than a one-off game. Basically, if you enter such a game, you don't &amp;quot;win&amp;quot; by just winning 1 game, you have to be the first to win 2 out of 3, or first to 3 out of 5, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why don't chess sites offer these formats?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The thing about chess is that it's a very stylistic game. You can end up playing an opening or a style that just happens to suit your opponent perfectly well, and you end up losing because of that. In these instances, being able to &lt;em&gt;adapt&lt;/em&gt; your style to your opponent and win the subsequent games is a vital dispaly of ability that is best measured in best of X types of formats, rather than one-off games where you lose, and then your opponent refuses a rematch and runs away.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's a reason why this format is used in chess finals. Yet ironically, no chess sites offer this format, instead its always one-off games with the &lt;em&gt;option to rematch&lt;/em&gt;, which is obviously not optimal, since rematches can be declined.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, I recently played against an opponent that &lt;strong&gt;clearly&lt;/strong&gt; had a well-prepared opening to the Ruy Lopez... he completely destroyed me, made moves I had never seen in the Ruy Lopez. Does that mean he's better at chess than me? No, it just means he's better at the Ruy Lopez. If it was a best of 3 format, I would play the second game with a very different opening indeed and not fall into the prepared trap.... i did offer a rematch but he ran away. Surprise suprrise.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24038" LastActivityDate="2020-06-30T10:55:44.620" Title="Why don't chess sites offer best of X match formats?" Tags="&lt;chess-variants&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2020-06-30T22:08:20.313" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30206" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30196" CreationDate="2020-06-30T19:29:43.800" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The way I do it is with chesstempo.com, their opening tool is incredibly useful!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1378" LastActivityDate="2020-06-30T19:29:43.800" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30207" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30213" CreationDate="2020-06-30T19:38:22.093" Score="5" ViewCount="683" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm a big fan of pgn-extract, but I am open to other linux-friendly tools. I have a big pgn file (over 5 million games) and a set of ECO codes. My goal is to fetch all the games matching those ECO codes, but with removing or fuzzying the players names and ratings, the year played, and the game result.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I then plan to open a random game with Scid and analyze it, since removing the players' data and game result will help me avoid any bias.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So far Im using pgn-extract like this:&#xA;&lt;code&gt;pgn-extract -t filter_for_naked --noresults --notags --nocomments --noduplicates -bl20 --output naked.pgn my.pgn&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But Scid is having problems opening the file. As expected each game is just the set of moves (no headers at all) and I suspect Scid requires at least some headers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any advise on how to use pgn-extract or Scid to achieve this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1378" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-07-01T14:12:13.570" LastActivityDate="2020-07-01T14:12:13.570" Title="Extract anonymized games out of a pgn" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;programming&gt;&lt;scid&gt;&lt;linux&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30208" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30194" CreationDate="2020-06-30T19:59:58.180" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Thank you for sharing your very discouraging story. I've been an IM for years and recently I've tried to become a grandmaster, did a lot of tactics but: I failed, and now with corona and 0 OTB games it feels a bit silly anyway. So I started to learn code, which is fun haha and very off topic here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The biggest difference you can make to get from 2200 to 2400 is understanding of pawn structures and having a coherent repertoire. Especially facing 1.Nf3 and 1.c4 becomes more important. But apart from a broad coherent repertoire I would say start learning openings 20 moves deep, and in case you have some forced line, start memorizing 30 moves, take research seriously, try to get some great books to guide you. And then in the main lines, try improving on the book.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another great help is to take Dvoretsky's endgame manual and go through it a lot. That book is pure gold. Especially online a lot of games end in some kind of endgame. And making rabbits appear out of hats is great.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason for focusing so much on openings is because that's probably your bottleneck right now. You don't have the strategic insight to make your tactics work. e.g. different players need different things. Try to identify where you're weakest.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One trick to do that is to study the topics you most dislike in chess. For me that was opposite coloured bishops, and that has helped me a lot getting better at positional play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can still do the tactics, but I am 100% sure you would regain your motivation when you would work on something you need more!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Last but not least: chess progress is a bitch! The rating always comes too late, when you lost motivation and think about quitting.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Cheers!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24024" LastActivityDate="2020-06-30T19:59:58.180" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30209" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30207" CreationDate="2020-06-30T20:07:03.903" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can always copy the pure text from a PGN manually, but that only works for one game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For more games I am not sure, and unfortunately most chess software is for windows.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24024" LastActivityDate="2020-06-30T20:07:03.903" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30210" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30207" CreationDate="2020-06-30T20:11:20.337" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Scid vs PC requires [Black &amp;quot;AN Other1&amp;quot;] [White &amp;quot;AN Other2&amp;quot;] [Result &amp;quot;&amp;quot;].&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Since this was cloned from SCID I'm pretty sure SCID will be the same. I suggest you write a simple program to add these 3 header fields with the [Result] field matching the result at the end of the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-06-30T20:11:20.337" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30211" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30207" CreationDate="2020-06-30T20:25:03.227" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can use &lt;code&gt;sed '/Result/c[Result &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]' my.pgn &amp;gt; no_results.pgn&lt;/code&gt; to replace lines containing the string &lt;code&gt;Result&lt;/code&gt; with whatever you want the line to be. You can adopt this for whatever else you want to replace. You want to keep the &lt;code&gt;c&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24039" LastActivityDate="2020-06-30T20:25:03.227" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30212" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29559" CreationDate="2020-07-01T06:25:28.000" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;That's really bad practice in my opinion. I see no reason to play without kings. if you don't know yet how the pieces move, try moving them yourself on a physical board&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastActivityDate="2020-07-01T06:25:28.000" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30213" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30207" CreationDate="2020-07-01T06:45:00.420" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Thanks for your compliment about &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.cs.kent.ac.uk/%7Edjb/pgn-extract/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;pgn-extract&lt;/a&gt; (I am its author). You might be able to make the task a little easier by adding &lt;code&gt;--linelength 1000&lt;/code&gt; to the argument list in order to get each game on a single line, then use sed to add an unknown result to the end of the game and re-process the game with pgn-extract to add an empty 7-tag roster. Finally, use sed again to edit the White and Black tags.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The resulting command would look something like the following, although sed experts might be able to clean it up a bit:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;pgn-extract -t filter_for_naked --noresults --notags --nocomments --noduplicates -bl20 --linelength 1000 my.pgn | sed -e 's/..*/&amp;amp; */' | pgn-extract -7 | sed -e 's/White &amp;quot;?&amp;quot;/White &amp;quot;AnonW&amp;quot;/;s/Black &amp;quot;?&amp;quot;/Black &amp;quot;AnonB&amp;quot;/' &amp;gt; naked.pgn&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You will get some error reports for games that end in mate having inconsistent results but you can hide those in a logfile.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12951" LastActivityDate="2020-07-01T06:45:00.420" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30214" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30196" CreationDate="2020-07-01T08:41:36.867" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I used to use &lt;a href=&quot;https://sourceforge.net/projects/xchess/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;xChess&lt;/a&gt; on my Mac. It's a GUI, which allows you to input variations and comments to your heart's content. And also to use an engine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's pretty much the extent of it, but definitely easier then writing lines into an text editor.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2020-07-01T08:41:36.867" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30215" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30178" CreationDate="2020-07-01T10:27:24.950" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;True: When playing against (other) beginners games will rarely follow the text book openings for long. So yes, you have a point that learning deep openings as a beginner is a waste of time from a utilitarian point of view.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But the logical conclusion from this realization is clear:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;You should focus on &lt;em&gt;understanding&lt;/em&gt; each opening,&lt;/strong&gt; as deep as you choose to look into it, which doesn't have to be very deep at all. The &lt;em&gt;discussion&lt;/em&gt; of the opening is at least as important as learning the moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;What exactly&lt;/strong&gt; makes the canonical continuation better than the alternatives? What are the typical ways beginners deviate from that, and &lt;strong&gt;how do I exploit these mistakes?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15337" LastEditorUserId="15337" LastEditDate="2020-08-07T06:50:23.163" LastActivityDate="2020-08-07T06:50:23.163" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30216" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29559" CreationDate="2020-07-01T11:10:31.513" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;No engine that I’ve ever come across has this functionality. In fact it would actually be surprisingly difficult to get a chess engine to do this;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The most fundamental rule of chess is that you have to checkmate your opponent’s king. A position without kings on the board wouldn’t make sense to something like Stockfish, because the game ends before the king can be captured. If you don’t have kings on the board, you essentially have to rewrite the rules of the game for the engine. This would also have the knock-on effect that, because king safety it widely considered the most important consideration in chess, you would then have to re-programme how the engine analyses the board, as king safety would no longer be a thing. By this point, once you have an engine which has different game rules and a different way of analysing the game, it doesn’t really make sense to say that it’s the same engine, but rather two different engines playing two different games. Long story short; you couldn't give a position without kings to a normal chess engine and expect to get a meaningful analysis back.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you wanted to get around this, you could set up a position where both kings are in the opposite corner, so that they’re far enough away from the action that they couldn’t get there in time to help (assuming it’s something like 3 pawns vs a knight). Alternatively, you could set up the position on a board and play against yourself, trying to find the best move for both sides.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;tl;dr – You would have to build an engine with this specific scenario in mind for it to work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24049" LastActivityDate="2020-07-01T11:10:31.513" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30217" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30178" CreationDate="2020-07-01T12:36:31.540" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;When you're new to the game, rote memorisation of a bunch of lines in an opening:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;puts you in a reasonable position in the midgame if your opponent plays the moves you learnt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;takes a huge amount of your time; and&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;is incredibly boring.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's a fantastic way to kill any enthusiasm you might otherwise have in the game, unless you are a very specific type of person, one whom likely wouldn't ask the question in the way you did, or at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No, what's much more important is &lt;em&gt;understanding&lt;/em&gt; the moves in an opening, or any moves at all in fact.  It's all very well knowing that 1. d4 is a good starting move, but without knowing why, you'll be unable to capitalise on the advantage it affords you if your opponent also doesn't know why, fails to respect the advantage, or forgets about it later on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To this end, I'd recommend checking out Jerry's videos in the youtube series &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSA9se6t82I&amp;amp;list=PLQsLDm9Rq9bHKEBnElquF8GuWkI1EJ8Zp&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Beginner to Chess Master&lt;/a&gt;, which builds up very good game sense from not knowing much about the strategy or tactics of chess at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Personally, I found that the shorter time controls were much more fun, too, and the &amp;quot;fail fast&amp;quot; nature of them allowed me to more quickly iterate upon my understandings.  I mention this because you say you want to &amp;quot;commit&amp;quot; to a certain amount of games, but I think you should be compelled to play them by the fun and interest they provide, rather than some arbitrary goal you may have set yourself.  It's a game, after all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23631" LastActivityDate="2020-07-01T12:36:31.540" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30220" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30198" CreationDate="2020-07-01T23:45:28.003" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In your diagrammed position Bc4 seeking a trade makes sense since the f1-a6 diagonal is not an active deployment of the Bishop, and Blacks Bishop pointing at a2 near the White king should not be tolerated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once the Bishops are on equal standing, the decision to trade or not then would be based on other factors.  Basically answering your question of who would benefit.  For example, after 1.Bc4 Blacks Knight on h8 would love for White to trade so he can get out of the corner.  But let's say Black plays 1...e5?  Now White should love 2.Bxf7 Nxf7 3.d5&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2020-07-01T23:45:28.003" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30221" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30178" CreationDate="2020-07-02T02:12:38.863" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;A lot of useful and excellent advice has been provided.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess is a war game whose object is to destroy (checkmate) the enemy King!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, mobilise your army and/or demobilise your opponent's army.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Try to seize the centre of the board, centralised pieces are more powerful!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Start with just one or two basic openings like e4:e5, d4:d5 until you get a feel for the type of positions you enjoy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With a real board and pieces play through as many master games as you can, preferably annotated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Like a musician who develops skill by practice, practice, practice..... your brain and fingers will absorb moves and patterns and soon almost instinctively will know what to do.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You may not at first have much of a clue what is going on but gradually you will learn a lot about pawn structure and piece play in attack and defence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Above all, enjoy the game!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13074" LastActivityDate="2020-07-02T02:12:38.863" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30223" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-07-02T07:39:20.193" Score="7" ViewCount="213" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a task related to this question: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/q/8982/14678&quot;&gt;Theoretical limit for the number of consecutive checks?&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By a sequence of consecutive check, what we mean is white giving check, black replying with a check, white replying to that with a check and so on. Note that we are talking about a theoretical situation so that 50 move rules or three-fold repetition are irrelevant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the linked question, he is asking for the longest sequence of consecutive checks with two conditions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Initial position should be legal&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Initial position should not contain promoted pieces.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Suppose we remove the 2nd condition, and relax the 1st one to allow more pieces than legally possible (say, 9+ white queens or 3+ white knights). &lt;strong&gt;With these relaxations, is it possible to have an infinite sequence of consecutive checks?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think the answer to the above question is no (but no complete proof yet).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If such an infinite sequence is there, it should contain a loop for sure. Therefore, the sequence cannot contain pawn movements or captures.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A second question is to construct longest such sequence. Alexey Khanyan's record 54 with conditions 1 and 2 may be surpassable because we relaxed them. (By the way, even with conditions 1 and 2, Khanyan himself thinks that 54 can be improved).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS: For this question, I am not interested in involving fairy chess pieces or chess variants.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14678" LastActivityDate="2021-01-25T19:50:15.977" Title="Infinite sequence of consecutive checks allowing more pieces (say 9+ queens)" Tags="&lt;problems&gt;&lt;check&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30224" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2217" CreationDate="2020-07-02T10:17:12.833" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;according to engine, the italian game is good, and the best reply to the italian is 3...d6. In crazyhouse, avoiding the fried liver is important for players of all level cause crazyhouse give white big attacking chances!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23908" LastActivityDate="2020-07-02T10:17:12.833" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30226" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30232" CreationDate="2020-07-02T22:42:58.053" Score="5" ViewCount="68" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm interested in running a local competition for bughouse engines. What chess server software can I use to run the games? The most relevant question I &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/619/what-resources-are-there-for-connecting-engines-to-play-automatically-on-remote&quot;&gt;found was&lt;/a&gt; but the answer is almost 4 years old.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there an well-maintained open source chess server I can use to host a bughouse server?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24064" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-07-03T00:07:22.167" LastActivityDate="2020-07-03T08:06:11.887" Title="Hosting bughouse server for local competition?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;bughouse&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30227" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-07-02T23:45:39.297" Score="19" ViewCount="5890" Body="&lt;p&gt;Although top players are extremely good at finding checkmate, the number of permutations of moves in just 3 moves can be hundreds of thousands, and the farther out the possible mate (e.g. mate in 4, mate in 5), the more permutations are possible; so it is understandable that a checkmate will sometimes be missed by top players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Engine analysis of past grandmaster games would reveal missed checkmates - what percent of classical games did/does a grandmaster miss a checkmate?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18029" LastActivityDate="2020-07-03T20:31:55.707" Title="How often do grandmasters miss checkmate?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;statistics&gt;&lt;grandmaster&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30228" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30178" CreationDate="2020-07-03T00:50:34.657" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I like Magnus Carlsen's philosophy:  You can play any reasonable opening and still outplay your opponent.  Here's a great post on Quora:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.quora.com/How-strong-is-Magnus-Carlsen-in-the-openings&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.quora.com/How-strong-is-Magnus-Carlsen-in-the-openings&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;TL;DR:  Rather than spending a ton of time on deep opening prep, Magnus will play slightly offbeat lines that might allow an opponent to have a slightly better position when Magnus plays Black, or an equal position when Magnus plays White.  But there will be sufficient complexity in the position that he can exert his superior skill over the long haul.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2119" LastActivityDate="2020-07-03T00:50:34.657" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30229" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30227" CreationDate="2020-07-03T01:20:40.077" Score="24" Body="&lt;p&gt;Probably more often than people realize.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There have been several notable instances where GMs (even world champions) have missed simple mates in one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From my own experience, when I analyze my games the engine frequently will point out some ridiculous 25 move forced mate. In a game, I'm not going to take the time to calculate something like that out if I have a very clear, simple and direct win. Maybe it takes a couple of moves longer but who cares?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2020-07-03T01:20:40.077" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30231" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30227" CreationDate="2020-07-03T06:34:42.843" Score="18" Body="&lt;p&gt;It really depends on what counts as a missed checkmate. In Blitz we occasionally see a missed mate in 1. In slower games, mates in a few moves are rarelly missed. But the problem is that sometimes long mate sequences will be &amp;quot;intentionally missed&amp;quot;, as the player will go for a solid advatange that guarantees victory rather than calculate a 15-move long line that leads to mate but could be wrong. Does this really count? You're probably mating anyway but 20 moves further down the line.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If we refer exclusively to missing forced mates that lead to not winning the game, I'd say they're few and far between&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastActivityDate="2020-07-03T06:34:42.843" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30232" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30226" CreationDate="2020-07-03T08:06:11.887" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;As the question you linked indicates there is a way to run bughouse engine games via FICS using XBoard/Winboard, which I also explained in &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/29745/15415&quot;&gt;my answer to a related question&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, if all of your engines are anyway running locally, that is neither very convenient nor an efficient way of running such matches, since the server communication in principle is completely unnecessary. Unfortunately, there does not seem to be any tool for engine matches similar to cutechess as there is for other chess variants.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, a few months ago I started to develop &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/ianfab/fairyfishtest&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;fairyfishtest&lt;/a&gt; as a script for testing bughouse (and many other variants) based on and for my engine &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/ianfab/Fairy-Stockfish&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Fairy-Stockfish&lt;/a&gt;, but it should also work with other CECP engines. It currently still has two &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/ianfab/fairyfishtest/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aopen+label%3Abughouse&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;issues with bughouse rules&lt;/a&gt;, but those are far from impossible to solve.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is also a &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/TimSchneider42/python-chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;fork of python-chess&lt;/a&gt; that supports bughouse, but there does not seem to be any documentation on it, so I do not know whether/how it can be used for engine testing in bughouse.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15415" LastActivityDate="2020-07-03T08:06:11.887" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30234" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-07-03T12:57:45.500" Score="1" ViewCount="31" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am around 1300+ in Lichess With around 1100+ Games.&#xA;I wanted to improve my Chess Openings&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can anyone provide best resource to learn chess openings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24068" LastActivityDate="2020-07-03T12:57:45.500" Title="Resource to Learn Chess Opening?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2020-07-03T13:18:03.360" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30235" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7818" CreationDate="2020-07-03T13:36:50.457" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can use &lt;a href=&quot;https://listudy.org/en&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Listudy&lt;/a&gt; (disclaimer I own that site) for exactly that. I created Listudy to train my own repertoire by playing against it. For this spaced repetition is used so the training is always working on the moves you're weakest on. You can upload your own repertoire in form of a PGN or import studies from Lichess. You can look here for example studies: &lt;a href=&quot;https://listudy.org/en/studies/search&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://listudy.org/en/studies/search&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And best of all, Listudy is free and open source: &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/ArneVogel/listudy&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://github.com/ArneVogel/listudy&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24039" LastActivityDate="2020-07-03T13:36:50.457" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30236" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7818" CreationDate="2020-07-03T14:55:02.410" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As I see this question six years after you ask it, I can now answer with the online tool &lt;strong&gt;Chessable&lt;/strong&gt; ( &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessable.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.chessable.com/&lt;/a&gt; ).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It sells courses and whole books turned into courses, but it also still allows uploading your own courses as PGN. And then it lets you train them like Chess Position Trainer does.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It isn't as smart about transpositions as CPT is (just plays lines), but that has its advantages as well as its disadvantages.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2020-07-03T14:55:02.410" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30237" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-07-03T18:27:03.587" Score="2" ViewCount="94" Body="&lt;p&gt;This position from move 42 of TCEC Season 18 Game 80, with Black to move. Is it a win or a draw?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;8/1k5p/1P3pp1/K1P2b2/5P1P/8/8/2B5 b - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23298" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-07-03T18:32:06.853" LastActivityDate="2020-07-04T20:11:27.097" Title="Is this the position from TCEC Season 18, Game 80 a win or a draw?" Tags="&lt;draw&gt;&lt;bishop-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30238" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30237" CreationDate="2020-07-03T18:43:58.190" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is rather easy to just chuck this position into a chess engine to determine the result, but let's try to manually to improve our analysis skills.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Clearly, White is up one pawn with two connected passed pawns. These pawns are threatening to check agter White moves their king to b5, and push dawn the Black king to do so. But these pawns are easily neutralized by Black's light square bishop since the pawn's checking square is protected by it, The Black king can now sit and blockade the pawns, like so.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;8/1k5p/1P3pp1/K1P2b2/5P1P/8/8/2B5 b - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Be4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White's kingside threats are easy to counter and therefore not a threat at all. Now we can turn our eye to Black's queenside majority. Black can make a passed pawn no matter what White does, but it will never be of any use due to White's dark-squared bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;8/1k5p/1P3pp1/K1P2b2/5P1P/8/8/2B5 b - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;1... Be4 2. Kb5 h6 3. Be3 g5 4. fxg5 hxg5 5. hxg5 fxg5 6. Bxg5 *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Neither side can advance their pawns for promotion because of the opposite colored bishops. White can try ideas such as protecting their kingside pawns with their bishop and moving their king to the queenside, but Black will always be able to force the exchange of pawns on the queenside before than.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The end effect is that the pawns are practically non-existent, leaving an opposite colored bishop endgame with only kings and them on the board, which are always are a draw, unless a FIDE player runs out of time of course.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All in all, &lt;strong&gt;the position is a draw.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-07-03T19:11:14.183" LastActivityDate="2020-07-03T19:11:14.183" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30239" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30227" CreationDate="2020-07-03T19:28:31.207" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;This depends entirely your horizon for what you consider a missed mate.  Is there any upper bounds on the number of moves required?  Would you consider a &amp;quot;mate in 53&amp;quot; to be a missed mate, even if no one, human or computer, had the computational power to actually find such a mate (but maybe in 100 years a computer could show a forced mating sequence from that position)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Assuming that you would consider a missed &amp;quot;mate in 53&amp;quot; to be a missed mate, then the answer is that no one can give you a precise number, for the simple reason that no one can determine which situations contain such a mate.  There does, however, exist a theoretical answer: the number of missed mates by a player in any game is precisely the number of instances in which that player had a winning position at one time but later the position became drawn or lost.  The key insight is that a forced mate exists if and only if one of the players has a won position, even if the horizon for that forced mate is so far out as to be effectively impossible to compute.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You could probably get a reasonable estimate for the number of missed mates in a given game by running the game through a good chess engine and setting an appropriate cutoff evaluation, where any evaluation above that score is considered a won position for that player and any evaluation below that score is considered a draw or a loss.  Since a pawn is generally considered enough to win, a score like 1.0 or 1.1 might be a reasonable choice.  The number of missed mates would then be the number of times the computer evaluation crossed that cutoff line from high to low -- e.g., if the evaluation was 1.4 one move and .6 the next, quite probably the player moved from a won position to a drawn position, missing a theoretical forced mate.  The downside to this method is that it is sensitive to the cutoff evaluation chosen, the engine accuracy, and the engine stability.  Possible very sensitive, as it is quite possible to imagine a situation where a sequence of player moves or engine analysis at different depths fluctuate frequently over the chosen value in a narrow range, leading to large uncertainty as to whether the current move does in fact represent a change from won to drawn or vice-versa.  Similarly it is quite possible that one engine evaluates a position as above the cutoff while a different engine deems it below.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A precise answer is clearly impossible, but if people are interested and time permits, I might try running a grandmaster game or two through my engine and see what results come out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18935" LastActivityDate="2020-07-03T19:28:31.207" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30240" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8966" CreationDate="2020-07-03T19:29:50.873" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have made a search on pawn endgames in my database, and here is the definite answer! 21 full moves, it really cracked me up to see it hahahaha.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://view.chessbase.com/cbreader/2020/7/3/Game1044992468.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://view.chessbase.com/cbreader/2020/7/3/Game1044992468.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way your above example is not 16 half-moves (that would be 8 full moves). It's 34 full moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Cheers!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24024" LastActivityDate="2020-07-03T19:29:50.873" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30241" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30227" CreationDate="2020-07-03T20:31:55.707" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;I agree with the answers above, however, there are actually some cases where GMs missed mate-in-ones in classical chess while not in time trouble. If memory servers right, I have read about that a few years back on chess.com's news page, but I cannot find the article right now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The main reason is the following: Player A only needs a draw (to outright win the tournament or advance in a knockout tournament, for instance) and has calculated a quite long forced line leading to a perpetual or stalement. Then these forced moves are blitzed out and the mate-in-one is missed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, this still happens only rarely, but the percentage of easy mates missed by GMs &lt;em&gt;while having lots of time&lt;/em&gt; is probably farther away from 0 than one might first expect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4050" LastActivityDate="2020-07-03T20:31:55.707" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30242" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30237" CreationDate="2020-07-03T20:46:47.883" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The key point in this endgame is that the bishops are of opposite colours. It is a trivial draw. White is a pawn up but with nothing more than barely competent play by black, white will never be able to advance his pawns. The black king can never be moved from b7 and the black bishop can take station on the diagonal between c6 and h1 making the pawn move c6 impossible. Black will also play h5 at some stage leaving him with only the g6 pawn to protect. The f6 pawn is an irrelevance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To be able to win an opposite coloured bishop endgame one player has to have two passed pawns separated by a minimum number of files. That isn't the case here. The problem for the side with the extra pawns is that the opposing king and bishop can always blockade the colour of the bishop and the attacking bishop cannot help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2020-07-03T20:52:21.160" LastActivityDate="2020-07-03T20:52:21.160" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30243" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-07-03T21:20:02.547" Score="3" ViewCount="289" Body="&lt;p&gt;The recent question, &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/30227/how-often-do-grandmasters-miss-checkmate&quot;&gt;How often do grandmasters miss checkmate?&lt;/a&gt; , turned out to be a bit broad. This question asks about a simple subset of that one, which I hope can be answered with some precision.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How often do grandmasters miss an opportunity for a mate in five or less? Since it matters little if the exact move sequence is followed,I will allow a slightly longer series of moves to be considered not a miss. Consider it a &amp;quot;miss&amp;quot; if twice as many moves (ten) are played before the win,or if there is no win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Consider classical, over-the-board games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21012" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-07-04T13:47:22.690" LastActivityDate="2020-07-11T15:58:43.667" Title="How often do grandmasters fail to mate soon when mate in five or less is possible?" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;statistics&gt;&lt;grandmaster&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30244" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30419" CreationDate="2020-07-03T22:34:14.993" Score="7" ViewCount="243" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been studying the Najdorf Sicilian for some time, and I generally have a good idea of where to develop my pieces to. My light and dark square bishops typically end up on e6 and e7, respectively. I'll castle short and my rook will ultimately end up on c8. One thing I struggle with, however, is deciding whether to play Nc6 or Nbd7, and what elements make one choice more attractive than the other.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I understand that each move has its own strengths and weaknesses. Nc6 gives the king knight the ability to retreat to d7 at some point with prospects of pushing the f-pawn. It however blocks off the semi-open c file that is typically pointing at the white king. Nbd7 supports the knight on f6, but also takes away its ability to retreat to d7. Another benefit is that it keeps the c file clear for black's rook. Nbd7 also blocks the queen's defense of the d pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Consider the following position I faced against the obscure Adams attack variation:&#xA;&lt;code&gt;rn1qkb1r/1p3pp1/p2pbn1p/4p3/4P1P1/2N4P/PPP1NPB1/R1BQK2R b KQkq - 1 9&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qepPk.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/qepPk.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Engines slightly prefer Nbd7 in this position to Nc6, though my intuition would tell me to play Nc6 before considering Nbd7. How would you go about deciding whether to play Nc6 or Nbd7 in this situation? Also, are there any good games that are instructive on this subject?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19802" LastEditorUserId="19802" LastEditDate="2020-07-03T23:01:28.157" LastActivityDate="2020-07-18T17:07:11.707" Title="Knowing when to play Nc6 vs Nbd7 in the Najdorf Sicilian as black?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;&lt;najdorf&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30245" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8975" CreationDate="2020-07-04T00:47:21.183" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Reshevsky once took a full hour for his first move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No reason for it.  Sometimes GMs play the opening slow.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would guess that it is to ensure they do not make a silly mistake or fall into a trap early that would lose the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24074" LastActivityDate="2020-07-04T00:47:21.183" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30246" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30258" CreationDate="2020-07-04T00:58:51.020" Score="3" ViewCount="226" Body="&lt;p&gt;For artistic purposes, I would like to create and study engine games in which only one side is able to castle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For this, I need to compile a version of Stockfish which never castles, and doesn't consider its own castling in its calculations, whereas calculates with castling for the opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have gone through the &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/blob/master/src/types.h&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;types.h&lt;/a&gt; file and found the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;enum MoveType {&#xA;  NORMAL,&#xA;  PROMOTION = 1 &amp;lt;&amp;lt; 14,&#xA;  ENPASSANT = 2 &amp;lt;&amp;lt; 14,&#xA;  CASTLING  = 3 &amp;lt;&amp;lt; 14&#xA;};&#xA;&#xA;enum CastlingRights {&#xA;  NO_CASTLING,&#xA;  WHITE_OO,&#xA;  WHITE_OOO = WHITE_OO &amp;lt;&amp;lt; 1,&#xA;  BLACK_OO  = WHITE_OO &amp;lt;&amp;lt; 2,&#xA;  BLACK_OOO = WHITE_OO &amp;lt;&amp;lt; 3,&#xA;&#xA;  KING_SIDE      = WHITE_OO  | BLACK_OO,&#xA;  QUEEN_SIDE     = WHITE_OOO | BLACK_OOO,&#xA;  WHITE_CASTLING = WHITE_OO  | WHITE_OOO,&#xA;  BLACK_CASTLING = BLACK_OO  | BLACK_OOO,&#xA;  ANY_CASTLING   = WHITE_CASTLING | BLACK_CASTLING,&#xA;&#xA;  CASTLING_RIGHT_NB = 16&#xA;};&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;What can I do to disable castling in moves and calculations of Stockfish?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15636" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-07-04T13:48:11.793" LastActivityDate="2020-07-04T15:53:29.177" Title="Compiling Stockfish to disable own castling while allowing opponent castling" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;programming&gt;&lt;computer-chess&gt;&lt;castling&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="7" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30247" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8652" CreationDate="2020-07-04T00:59:07.300" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;They should play on if the other person in in time trouble.&#xA;Or if the other player is tired or not feeling well.  Mistakes happen.&#xA;And   in blitz you should never resign for any reason.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24074" LastActivityDate="2020-07-04T00:59:07.300" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30248" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5983" CreationDate="2020-07-04T01:06:49.317" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can NOT cause a mate in 3 or 2 or any low number.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the other player is truly stupid or messing with you then it might be possible to mate in 2 for black but white to do it would take 2½&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24074" LastActivityDate="2020-07-04T01:06:49.317" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30249" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6315" CreationDate="2020-07-04T06:01:42.180" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Am I too old to start chess?&amp;quot; Anyone can play chess. You're probably too old to ever challenge for the world championship but that doesn't mean you can't play and enjoy it and maybe someday be pretty good.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;How many days will it take for me to become a good player like 1800+?&amp;quot; An 1800 on chess.com isn't that good. Maybe 1400-1500 in real life. The average person could reach 1800 in under two years if they studied the right things. Most of that is tactics.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Whenever I lose my game, I lose my confidence&amp;quot; i don't have that problem. I mostly lose games games because of lapses in concentration or dumb moves Maybe its all the work I put in studying tactics and the endgame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2020-07-04T06:01:42.180" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30250" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30252" CreationDate="2020-07-04T07:42:19.660" Score="6" ViewCount="711" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;2R5/8/8/8/4Pp1P/3k1K2/2p2P2/1r6 w - - 0 46&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this position, the engine recommends 1. Rxc2 and evaluates the position as drawn. Is there a general rule in such positions or precise calculation is required to reach such a  conclusion?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21526" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-07-04T20:53:42.440" LastActivityDate="2021-03-11T12:58:55.857" Title="Is this endgame drawn after the rook sacrifice?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;draw&gt;&lt;rook-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30252" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30250" CreationDate="2020-07-04T11:03:10.100" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let's note the following: 1.Rxc2 and 1.Kxf4 and 1.Rd8+ are equally good, since they all draw. If we ignore 1.Rd8+ for now, 1.Rxc2 is clearly at least as good as 1.Kxf4 in the position, since it drives black's king back one square, meaning that black will at some point have to 'waste' a move with the king to get to white's remaining pawns (the option of 1.Rd8+ introduces a different way for black to play for a win that ultimately doesn't work, but needs to be taken into consideration. This line should be considered if we come to the conclusion that 1.Rxc2 loses by force).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So we begin by calculating a few steps ahead in the 1.Rxc2 line (since it's a direct capture, and if it works then we're happy): 1...Kxc2 2.Kxf4 Kd3 (this is why 1.Kxf4 and 1.Rxc2 are equally good; it doesn't matter if black's rook is on c1 or on b1).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This will be the main tabya of the endgame, and at this point white needs to make a decision: which pawn should be used as the main passer?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's consider our options, beginning with the h-pawn:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[White &amp;quot;NN&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Black &amp;quot;NN&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;8/8/8/8/4PK1P/3k4/5P2/1r6 w - - 0 3&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;3.h5?? Rh1 4.Kg5 Kxe4 5.f4 (5.Kg6 Ke5 {White's king is chained to the h-pawn.} 6.h6 Ke6 {Opposition. Now Black threatens to play ...Rg1+, forcing White's king onto the h-file, and granting access to the f-file for Black's king.} 7.h7 Rg1+ 8.Kh6 Kf7 9.h8=N+ Kf6 10.Kh7 Rg7+! {All that is left to ensure victory for Black is to round up the final pawn.} 11.Kh6 Rg2! 12.Kh7 Rxf2-+ {With the knight in the corner, White is helpless.}) Kd5! {The way black wins in this position is to maneouver their king to the f-file, where it will be able to contain both of white's passers. Since the black rook keeps White's pawns from advancing too quickly, Black will be able to interfere with the king in time.} (5...Rg1+ 6.Kf6 Kxf4?? 7.h6= {and White's pawn promotes.}) 6.Kg6 Ke6 {Black is now threatening to play ...Rg1+, after which Black's king reaches the f-file} 7.f5+ Ke7 8.f6+ Kf8-+ {Black will now be able to either pick off White's two pawns, or White's king will be caught in a mating net.}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the h-pawn is a no-go. What about the e-pawn?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[White &amp;quot;NN&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Black &amp;quot;NN&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;8/8/8/8/4PK1P/3k4/5P2/1r6 w - - 0 3&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;3.e5?? Kd4! {The problem with the e5 push is that it allows Black's king easy access to the d5 square, which makes it impossible for White to gain enough time for the pawns to advance successfully.} 4.Kf5 (4.e6 Kd5 5.e7 Re1 {just drops the pawn.}) Kd5 5.f4 Rh1! {luring White's king away from the e6 square, creating access for Black's king.} 6.Kg5 Ke6-+ {Again, White will not be able to stop Black's king from getting to the f-file, after which Black will either mate White's king or pick up the passed pawns one by one.}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ok, only one attempt left to consider then!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[White &amp;quot;NN&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Black &amp;quot;NN&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;8/8/8/8/4PK1P/3k4/5P2/1r6 w - - 0 3&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;3.Kf5! {This is the only way to draw, and it is by far the best move in the   position. White waits with pushing a pawn forward until after Black has made a  commitment which leaves White with a tempo to spare in comparison with many of the previous lines, i.e. the answer to the question of which pawn to push depends on which pawn Black decides to go after first!} 3...Re1 {It's not clear which line should be considered the main line for Black in the position.} (3...Rh1 4.Ke5! {This time the f-pawn is used} 4...Rxh4 5.f4 Ke3 6.f5 Rxe4+ 7.Kd6= {There is no way for black to round up the f-pawn.}) (3...Kd4 {The last line we will consider here. Other tries make little sense.} 4.h5= {is essentially a repeat of the main line. The other way to draw is to push the f-pawn forward, but this move is the simplest.})  4.h5! {By waiting with the push, White managed to get Black to waste a tempo on stopping the &amp;quot;wrong&amp;quot; pawn, so to speak. Now there is no way for Black to stop the h-pawn in time.} 4...Rh1 5.Kg6 Kxe4 6.h6 Ke5 7.h7=&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ok, so it turns out that White will be able to draw after 1.Rxc2. Although some precise calculation was needed to make sure that White manages to create sufficient counterplay with the pawns, we have to consider far from every possible line.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a common theme for practially any endgame: precise calculation is crucial, but the use of certain abstract &amp;quot;guideposts&amp;quot; in the position (such as &amp;quot;Black's king getting to the f-file = White is doomed&amp;quot; in this case) means that we only have to make a relatively small number of precise calculations to reach the correct conclusion. In general, the more endgame theory you know, the more of these abstract &amp;quot;guideposts&amp;quot; will be visible to you, making endgame calculations far more efficient than brute-foring them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8300" LastEditorUserId="8300" LastEditDate="2020-07-04T19:56:16.233" LastActivityDate="2020-07-04T19:56:16.233" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30253" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30250" CreationDate="2020-07-04T13:29:45.493" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;After &lt;strong&gt;Rxc2 Kxc2 Kxf4&lt;/strong&gt; we reach the below position, which is a tablebase draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The plan for White is really simple: queen the h-pawn (White can give up the rest of the pawns).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black king is too far away to help, that is why it is a draw (there are winning techniques for Black, but they require kings to be in close proximity).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Feel free to test my claims with the online &lt;a href=&quot;https://syzygy-tables.info/?fen=8/8/8/8/4PK1P/8/2k2P2/1r6_b_-_-_0_1&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;tablebase&lt;/a&gt;. I will offer just one sample line below.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[StartFlipped &amp;quot;0&amp;quot;]&#xA;[fen &amp;quot;8/8/8/8/4PK1P/8/2k2P2/1r6 b - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1...Rg1 {Trying to cut off the White king} 2. h5 Kd3 3. h6 Rh1 4. Kg5 Kxe4 5. Kg6 Ke5 6. h7 Ke6 7. Kg7 {Black must give up the rook, after which Black king picks up the f-pawn } 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastActivityDate="2020-07-04T13:29:45.493" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30254" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30259" CreationDate="2020-07-04T14:16:08.893" Score="7" ViewCount="1463" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 g6 5.Nc3 Bg7 6.Be3 Nf6 7.f3 O-O 8.Bc4 e6 9.O-O a6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is a line from a game of mine. I made the movee 10. Qd3, but my computer program says Qd2 would have been a much better move. Why is that?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24076" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-07-06T17:08:37.737" LastActivityDate="2020-07-06T23:32:25.437" Title="Queen placement in the Dragon" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;&lt;sicilian-dragon&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30255" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30246" CreationDate="2020-07-04T14:20:59.010" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Without reviewing the complete code (which is probably humongous), it is difficult to give a proven right answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, it should work if you replace the lines for the black castling possibilities by &lt;code&gt;BLACK_00 = 0, BLACK_000 = 0,&lt;/code&gt; (or respectively for the white, if you want). This should lead to all tests in the code returning 'black castling not possible', which is the intention.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13230" LastActivityDate="2020-07-04T14:20:59.010" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30256" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2020-07-04T14:38:24.937" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-07-04T14:38:24.937" LastActivityDate="2020-07-04T14:38:24.937" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30257" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2020-07-04T14:38:24.937" Score="0" Body="Questions about the windmill or seesaw, a tactic that involves a series of discovered checks and regular checks that allows a player to gain material." OwnerUserId="10867" LastEditorUserId="10867" LastEditDate="2020-07-04T15:24:23.093" LastActivityDate="2020-07-04T15:24:23.093" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30258" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30246" CreationDate="2020-07-04T15:45:51.523" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is no need to compile your own version of Stockfish for this.  Instead you can just start from a position that omits castling rights for one side or the other. The FEN for the initial position without castling rights for White is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w kq - 0 1&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and the FEN for the initial position without castling rights for Black is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQ - 0 1&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The FEN can be entered into Stockfish using the UCI command&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;position fen FEN&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;where &lt;code&gt;FEN&lt;/code&gt; should be replaced by the FEN in question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4182" LastEditorUserId="4182" LastEditDate="2020-07-04T15:53:29.177" LastActivityDate="2020-07-04T15:53:29.177" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30259" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30254" CreationDate="2020-07-04T15:56:30.367" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;One of Black's development plans will include moves like Nd7 intending Ne5 hitting the Q and Bishop if the Q is on d3.&#xA;This will cost White an important tempo in this dynamic opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black's plans revolve around control of the c4 square hoping to place a piece on this square. Depending on White's particular move order Black may play b5, Bb7, Nd7, Nb6, Nc4, Rc8.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To counter this Q side action of Black, White needs to get active on the K side: Qd2 allows the B to h6 plan to exchange off the key defensive Black B. In due course after completing development White can plan a pawn storm against the B King.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13074" LastActivityDate="2020-07-04T15:56:30.367" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30260" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30254" CreationDate="2020-07-04T15:58:32.940" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;Qd2 is used in these lines to support the Be3, which is typically played to h6 to exchange for the Bg7, followed by a pawn attack on the king-side.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9025" LastActivityDate="2020-07-04T15:58:32.940" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30261" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30262" CreationDate="2020-07-04T16:45:15.477" Score="3" ViewCount="101" Body="&lt;h2&gt;Explanation&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have a list of all possible current moves in a position. At each node, I want to then generate all possible moves and continue. The problem is that my code is modifying the list of moves in the node above. At least I think this is the case!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am open to completely changing the way I handle moves, as I feel this isn't very efficient since I have a struct for every move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Output&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is the current output.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;PS D:\Users\kmont\Desktop\ChessEngine&amp;gt; dotnet run&#xA;Number of moves at depth 1 is 4. It is White's turn.&#xA;Number of moves at depth 2 is 4. It is Black's turn. Previous move was knight to a3&#xA;Unhandled exception. System.InvalidOperationException: Collection was modified; enumeration operation may not execute.&#xA;    at System.Collections.Generic.List`1.Enumerator.MoveNextRare()&#xA;    at System.Collections.Generic.List`1.Enumerator.MoveNext()&#xA;    at Program.search(Int32 depth, Board board, String prevMove) in D:\Users\kmont\Desktop\ChessEngine\Main\main.cs:line 55&#xA;    at Program.search(Int32 depth, Board board, String prevMove) in D:\Users\kmont\Desktop\ChessEngine\Main\main.cs:line 60&#xA;    at Program.Main(String[] args) in D:\Users\kmont\Desktop\ChessEngine\Main\main.cs:line 33&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Code&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Move Struct:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;public struct Move{&#xA;    public Piece.Type pieceType;&#xA;    public UInt64 piece;&#xA;    public UInt64 moveTo;&#xA;    public int color;&#xA;&#xA;    public bool quiet;&#xA;    public UInt64 capturedPiece;&#xA;    public int capturedColor;&#xA;}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Search function:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;public static void search(int depth, Board board, string prevMove = &amp;quot;nothing&amp;quot;){&#xA;&#xA;    // If at the end of the tree, return.&#xA;&#xA;    depth++;&#xA;    if (depth == maxDepth) return;&#xA;&#xA;    Console.Write(&amp;quot;Number of moves at depth {0} is {1}. It is {2}'s turn.&amp;quot;, depth, board.allMoves.Count, board.color == 0 ? &amp;quot;White&amp;quot; : &amp;quot;Black&amp;quot;);&#xA;    if (prevMove != &amp;quot;nothing&amp;quot;) Console.WriteLine(&amp;quot; Previous move was knight to &amp;quot; + prevMove);&#xA;    else Console.WriteLine(&amp;quot;&amp;quot;);&#xA;&#xA;    // Uncomment below line for a list of all possible moves.&#xA;    //if (true) foreach (Board.Move move in board.allMoves) Console.WriteLine(String.Format(&amp;quot;    {0} {1} on square {2} can move to {3}.&amp;quot;, move.color == 0 ? &amp;quot;White&amp;quot; : &amp;quot;Black&amp;quot;, move.pieceType.ToString(), help.square(move.piece), help.square(move.moveTo)));&#xA;&#xA;    foreach (Board.Move move in board.allMoves){&#xA;        Board newBoard = board;&#xA;        newBoard.color = 1 - board.color;&#xA;        initialiseBoard(newBoard);&#xA;        newBoard = makeMove(newBoard, move);&#xA;        search(depth, newBoard, help.square(move.moveTo));&#xA;    }&#xA;}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Make move function:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;public static Board makeMove(Board board, Board.Move move){&#xA;&#xA;    string moveColor = move.color == 0 ? &amp;quot;White&amp;quot; : &amp;quot;Black&amp;quot;;&#xA;    string boardColor = board.color == 0 ? &amp;quot;White&amp;quot; : &amp;quot;Black&amp;quot;;&#xA;    string pmove = help.square(move.moveTo);&#xA;    //Console.WriteLine(String.Format(&amp;quot;    Making {0} move {2}: It is {1}'s turn.&amp;quot;, moveColor, boardColor, pmove));&#xA;    &#xA;    Board toReturn = board;&#xA;    // Remove piece from board&#xA;    if (toReturn.color == 0 &amp;amp; move.color == 0){&#xA;        if (move.pieceType == Piece.Type.Knight){&#xA;            toReturn.WhiteKnightsBitboard &amp;amp;= ~move.piece; // Get rid of piece on board&#xA;            toReturn.WhiteKnightsBitboard |= move.moveTo; // Add piece to board&#xA;        }&#xA;    }&#xA;    else if (toReturn.color == 1 &amp;amp; move.color == 1){&#xA;        if (move.pieceType == Piece.Type.Knight){&#xA;            toReturn.BlackKnightsBitboard &amp;amp;= ~move.piece;&#xA;            toReturn.BlackKnightsBitboard |= move.moveTo;&#xA;        }&#xA;    }&#xA;&#xA;    Game.node++; // To count nodes&#xA;    return toReturn;&#xA;&#xA;}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Initialise Board function:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;static void initialiseBoard(Board board){&#xA;    BoardOperations.updatePieces(board); // Sets all pieces and finds empty squares &#xA;    board.generateAttackSquares(board);  // Finds white knight moves and puts them into board.allMoves&#xA;}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23942" LastEditorUserId="3884" LastEditDate="2020-07-04T17:43:16.570" LastActivityDate="2020-07-04T17:43:16.570" Title="How to I apply moves (bitboard) and continue searching? My current attempt is throwing a strange error!" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;programming&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30262" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30261" CreationDate="2020-07-04T17:18:13.773" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The issue may be here:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Board newBoard = board;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This creates a new variable, but it doesn't actually create a new &lt;code&gt;Board&lt;/code&gt;. &lt;code&gt;board&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;newBoard&lt;/code&gt; are pointing to the exact same &lt;code&gt;Board&lt;/code&gt; object. So, when your code changes anything in &lt;code&gt;newBoard&lt;/code&gt;, it also changes it in &lt;code&gt;board&lt;/code&gt;, and when it changes, you get this error.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What you may want to do is make an actual copy of &lt;code&gt;board&lt;/code&gt;, so when you change it, it doesn't change the original.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2020-07-04T17:18:13.773" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30263" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1474" CreationDate="2020-07-04T17:51:33.743" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Analysis with Houdini 6.02 signal a win for White(+4.53)at d= 41/103 after more than a quarter hour of analysis. The winning method is complicated though , and White should start with 1 Bg2. Thanks. A demo (analysis included for pure curiosity in my program )with New Engine gives + 5.58 at d= 56 , which confirms the endgame is slowly winning for White.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23298" LastEditorUserId="23298" LastEditDate="2020-07-04T18:00:26.413" LastActivityDate="2020-07-04T18:00:26.413" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30264" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30250" CreationDate="2020-07-04T19:46:24.543" Score="-4" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is very close and complex.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;I have won many end games with 2ps vs rook.&#xA;here the black king is out of play and white has 3 pawns&#xA;black will have to work hard to get the draw.&#xA;I doubt any computer can analyze this far enough to give a conclusive answer and it was drawn as far as they could see ahead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-03-10T19:29:38.370" LastActivityDate="2021-03-10T19:29:38.370" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30265" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30237" CreationDate="2020-07-04T20:11:27.097" Score="2" Body="&lt;h2&gt;Is it a win or a draw?&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The position from the diagram is a dead draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;How can White win?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;White wins with queenside pawns&amp;quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &amp;quot;0&amp;quot;]&#xA;[fen &amp;quot;8/1k5p/1P3pp1/K1P2b2/5P1P/8/8/2B5 b - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1...Bg4 2. f5 {No matter how Black captures the pawn, White plays Bb2 and gets the f6 pawn} Bxf5 3. Kb5 Bg4? {I am just setting up the winning position for White, proper defense shall be demonstrated in a separate diagram} 4. c6+ Kb8 5. Bf4+ {That was the point of f5, to vacate f4 square for the bishop}  Kc8 6. b7+ Kd8 7. b8=Q+ 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are only two ideas that can make White win on the kingside:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;White wins with h-pawn&amp;quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &amp;quot;0&amp;quot;]&#xA;[fen &amp;quot;8/1k5p/1P3pp1/K1P2b2/5P1P/8/8/2B5 b - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1...Bg4 2. Bb2 Bd7 3. Bxf6 Bc6? 4. h5!+- {With Black king tied to the queenside, only bishop is left to defend, which is why Black may not take, because White king will help the f-pawn to queen, forcing Black to give up the bishop. White bishop easily stops Black's passed h-pawn} Bf3 5. h6 g5 {Sooner or later, Black will have to play this move in order to defend the h-pawn} 6. Bxg5! 1-0 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similar idea looms in the air:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;White wins with f-pawn&amp;quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &amp;quot;0&amp;quot;]&#xA;[fen &amp;quot;8/1k5p/1P3pp1/K1P2b2/5P1P/8/8/2B5 b - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1...Bg4 2. Bb2 Bh5? 3. Bxf6 Bg4 4. Be7 Bf3 5. Kb4 Bg2 6. Kc4 Bf3 7. Kd4 Bh1 8. Ke5 Bg2 9. Kf6 Bf3? 10. Kg5 Bh5? 11. f5 {Black loses bishop if he takes the f-pawn, otherwise f-pawn promotes to Queen} 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;How can Black hold? What are his plans?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black needs to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;stop f-pawn from moving&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;stop h-pawn from moving&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;stop queenside pawns from rolling&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Points 1 and 2 are easily achieved with the pawns placed on g6 and h5. Bishop then needs to be on the b1-h7 diagonal once White plays Kg5 and there will be no way for White to break through. To be ultra safe, we will keep Black's bishop as further away as possible from the White king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Point 3 is achieved by keeping the bishop on h1-a8 diagonal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only question remains if White can somehow overburden Black pieces with piece maneuvers, namely with the king. Bishop is faster than the king, so Black just needs to shuffle the bishop on the relevant diagonal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let us put this all together:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Black holds comfortable draw&amp;quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &amp;quot;0&amp;quot;]&#xA;[fen &amp;quot;8/1k5p/1P3pp1/K1P2b2/5P1P/8/8/2B5 b - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1...Bd7! {Now White can not perform the queenside pawn roller described earlier} 2. Bb2 h5! {No more h5 ideas} 3. Kb4 Bc6! {Flexibly posting the bishop, so he can shuffle on the required diagonals. F-pawn is irrelevant} 4. Bxf6 Bh1 5. Kc4 Bg2 6. Kd4 Bh1 7. Ke5 Bg2 8. Be7 Bh1 9. Kf6 Be4! {As long as White king attacks the g6 pawn we defend it by shuffling on the b1-h7 diagonal} 10. Ke5 Bh1 {Once White king abandons the g6 pawn, Black switches the bishop back to the h1-a8 diagonal} 11. f5 gxf5 12. Kxf5 Bf3! {Now we just shuffle on the d1-h5 diagonal} 13. Kg5 Bd1 14. Kf5 Be2 15. Ke5 Bf3! {Remember, as soon as White king moves away from the kingside pawns we switch back to h1-a8 diagonal to block the queenside pawns} 16. Kd6 Bh1 1/2-1/2 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black can play like this forever, he will simply shuffle between the relevant diagonals as shown in this example. White has nothing in this endgame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you have any questions leave a comment, I will gladly reply.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastActivityDate="2020-07-04T20:11:27.097" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30267" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30254" CreationDate="2020-07-05T06:24:06.410" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Without giving a long, drawn out explanation, the simple answer is that you're decreasing the mobility of the queen. The queen only has three legal moves from d3 and all of them waste time. Qd2 loses a tempo since you could have played Qd2 the move before. Same with Qe2. Qd1 wastes two moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The value of moves comes from the value of the pieces and the value of the pieces comes from their mobility.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2020-07-05T06:24:06.410" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30268" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30175" CreationDate="2020-07-05T06:50:47.320" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;e5 would be a mistake here. I get that it frees up the bad bishop but black is going to be left with a worse pawn structure no matter how that plays out. Black's play is on the queenside.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2020-07-05T06:50:47.320" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30269" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30274" CreationDate="2020-07-05T11:24:10.330" Score="10" ViewCount="482" Body="&lt;p&gt;The regular setup of chess is &lt;em&gt;mirror-symmetric:&lt;/em&gt; If you mirror the positions of all figures on the equator of the board (between the fourth and fifth rank) and swap the colours, nothing changes. It is also almost &lt;em&gt;point-symmetric&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;rotational-symmetric:&lt;/em&gt; If you reflect the positions on the centre of the board (or equivalently rotate the board by 180°) and swap the colours, only kings and queens will swap their positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By contrast, in Chess 960 a.k.a. Fisher random chess, opening positions are mirror-symmetric by construction, but in general far from point-symmetric. Now, suppose I want to introduce a Chess 096, where white’s setup is determined like in Chess 960, but black’s setup point-mirrors white’s. Castling rules would be point-symmetric as well. A possible starting position would be this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;rnnkbqrb/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/BRQBKNNR w KQkq - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Like in regular Chess or Chess 960, the only imbalance is that white has the first move – unlike for example, if white and black’s starting positions were randomised independently. My question is: Are there any inherent gameplay problems with these point-symmetric starting conditions? For example, does this tilt the balance of the game?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10927" LastActivityDate="2020-07-05T21:21:42.450" Title="Are there any inherent problems with point-symmetric random chess?" Tags="&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;chess960&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30270" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30271" CreationDate="2020-07-05T14:21:45.070" Score="4" ViewCount="290" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would really like to have that ability.So how to achieve that?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21840" LastActivityDate="2020-07-05T15:56:23.167" Title="How much time it takes before searching for tactical themes becomes a subconscious process?" Tags="&lt;tactics&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30271" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30270" CreationDate="2020-07-05T15:48:16.983" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is a bit like for example learning to play the piano.&#xA;At first as a beginner you look at the keys and where your fingers are going.&#xA;With increasing practice, and remember even a great piano virtuoso(&lt;em&gt;) will still practice every day, your thought patterns become better organised and you later play with your fingers seemingly doing the thinking for you.&#xA;(&lt;/em&gt;) The great Artur Rubinstein practised several hours each day: he said that if he did not do this he would detect a decline in his performances.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For each player the speed that this happens will vary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I find playing through lots of master games is most helpful.&#xA;I try to read any annotations and play through some of the variations given in the analysis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At first I was slow and cumbersome but after a while this improved.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The secret is consistent practice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Every day without fail set yourself the task of playing through 1 to 20 games. Little by little patterns of play will be absorbed and you will find yourself subconsciously playing better moves.&#xA;By the end of a month you will have played through 30 to 600 master games.&#xA;By the end of a year you will have played through 350 to 7000!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Create for yourself a concrete set of steps for each game.&#xA;I used to have them typed on a card and reviewed the steps before each tournament game.&#xA;After a while they become second nature.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Two phases: 1. It is your opponents move.&#xA;2. It is your move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can elaborate these steps if it is of interest.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13074" LastEditorUserId="13074" LastEditDate="2020-07-05T15:56:23.167" LastActivityDate="2020-07-05T15:56:23.167" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30272" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-07-05T16:55:05.303" Score="9" ViewCount="4744" Body="&lt;p&gt;On blitz 3|2 I am rated around 1000. I love playing the game and usually I play with players around my level. I try to play against slightly better players. Assuming I am not reading chess books or otherwise get a training besides playing the game, how good should I expect to get?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24080" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-07-06T02:02:37.150" LastActivityDate="2020-07-17T17:09:19.257" Title="How good can I get just by playing?" Tags="&lt;training&gt;&lt;beginner&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30273" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30272" CreationDate="2020-07-05T17:26:50.423" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;My rating was 1400 on chess.com three months ago. After that I stopped playing. But I got this rating by playing and analysing my games only. So you can get upto this level without reading or taking any training. About rating like 1700 or 1800 I don't know much about them as I never got upto that level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope it helps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23278" LastActivityDate="2020-07-05T17:26:50.423" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30274" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30269" CreationDate="2020-07-05T20:16:46.197" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Consider the following initial position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;rkqnnbbr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RBBNNQKR w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By putting the kings on opposite sides of the board, you've more or less introduced an opposite-side-castling situation, without anyone having castled.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's say White starts throwing his queenside pawns forward towards Black's king. In this position, this can be done without compromising his own king's safety, as it's on the other side of the board. What are Black's responses?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Launch his own attack by throwing pawns towards White's king. But given the symmetrical nature of the position, it seems inevitable that White's attack will hit first.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Castle long, to the side White's king is on. This runs into several difficulties. There are a lot of pieces in the way - there's no real way to do so before move &lt;em&gt;nine&lt;/em&gt;. Black will have to move two pawns on the &amp;quot;long&amp;quot; side to get his bishops out, which may weaken his castled position, while White technically wouldn't have to move any pawns to castle over there (and White's king is already &amp;quot;there&amp;quot; even if he doesn't castle at all.) Also, if we're going to keep symmetry, Black's king should end up on the f-file (it's a long castle, after all) while White's will be on the g-file.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Leave his king over there, and defend. This may work, although it doesn't seem ideal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also note that the queenside attack doesn't have to start on move 1; it can be delayed a few moves to establish a center first.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Overall, it seems to me that this variation may increase White's advantage, especially in scenarios like this example where the kings are very far apart.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2020-07-05T20:16:46.197" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30275" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-07-05T20:56:59.873" Score="7" ViewCount="448" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. e5 Bf5 4. h4 { B12 Caro-Kann Defense: Advance Variation, Tal Variation } h6 5. g4 Be4 6. f3 Bh7  7. e6 Nf6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the point of the intermediate move 5...Be4 before retreating by ...Bh7? It was played by very strong players, including Ding Liren (against MVL) and Hikaru Nakamura (against Mikhail Antipov).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the point is to provoke f3, it seems to me that White is not unhappy to play f3 and control e4, as Black might play 6... Nf6 next, which is indeed a good move in these positons.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the point is to disallow Nf3 in positions when White pushes e6 and Black takes with exf, it does not achieve that, as Black wasted one tempo on the bishop retreat Bf5-e4-h7 and White can also waste a tempo by playing f2-f3-f4 and then Nf3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It does weaken g3, which Black could try to exploit with 7...Qd6, but after exf+ Kxf7 White can once again push f4 without feeling bad about wasting a tempo.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15478" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-07-06T02:03:42.947" LastActivityDate="2020-07-07T07:50:30.063" Title="Why do some strong players play 5... Be4 in Caro Kann, Tal Variation?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;caro-kann&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30276" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30269" CreationDate="2020-07-05T21:21:42.450" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Look at 'normal chess', but with rotational symmetry.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;rnbkqbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I haven't analyzed this opening much, so I may be missing some concrete lines that make this game degenerate.  Barring that, I suspect this version of chess offers a few advantages over normal chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Much less opening theory is available/known for this position, allowing for more over-the-board creative play.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The most common castling combination in chess is that both players castle kingside, in part because there are fewer pieces in the way.  If both players castle 'kingside' in this variant, they have castled on opposite sides, which often leads to more aggressive, 'asymmetric' middlegame play and more decisive results.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;For white, putting early pressure on c7 here is harder than putting pressure on f7 in normal chess.  Normally, 1. e4 is considered aggressive because it releases both the light squared bishop (which threatens f7) and the queen.  Here, we need to move both the d2 and e2 pawns to let both those pieces out.  The same also applies to black for threatening f2.  I suspect this leads to fewer 'sharp' openings (if the opening theory was worked out).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lets try playing 'normal' openings and see how they compare...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;e4 e5 2. Nf3: Usually black has to defend the e5 pawn, but here it is already defended by the queen, so black has more options.  Further, 2..Nc6 is a common response, which is still valid here and has the added advantage of making progress toward castling 'kingside'.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;d4 d5 c4 : The queen's gambit feels pretty strong.  It seems to have the aggressive advantage of the king's gambit in normal chess, but without the danger of moving the f2 pawn.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;c4 : For the same reason as above, the English opening seems strong.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;g3 d5 2. Bg2 Nf6 seems stronger for white than it normally is, but by no means dominant.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17157" LastActivityDate="2020-07-05T21:21:42.450" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30277" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30272" CreationDate="2020-07-05T22:30:16.623" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Improving at chess for many people means obtaining a better understanding of different aspects of the game, such as: how to play different types of openings, different midgame plans and how to undertake them an defend against them, and how to play endgames well. Underpinning all of the strategies and knowledge is a level of competence in tactics. It is this wider understanding that stronger players draw on when playing blitz that enables them to make good moves quickly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Playing blitz 3+2 is giving you plenty of practice in spotting tactics and ideas quickly. Unless you are spending some other time thinking about the games, you are limiting your potential to that single improvement method. And there is nothing wrong with that if you enjoy the games. However, if you want to achieve your full potential, it will almost certainly help to think about different aspects of the game for more time than you have per move at blitz. This might be by playing some games at a slow time where you can have a proper think about options, by reviewing some key positions with a friend or a computer program to understand how different choices might play out, or by some reading.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you don't fancy the idea of any of that, there's nothing wrong with continuing to learn by doing. Choosing to play against people slightly better than yourself is sensible in that regard - on the occasions they beat you they will often use ideas that you can understand and learn from.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You asked in a comment above how to benefit from analysis of your own games. One way is just to notice the questions that you ask yourself during the game, and occasionally follow them up. For example, you may feel during a game that you have a great attack but the opponent wriggled out of it. Looking at it afterwards with a computer will either tell you how you could have closed in on checkmate, or confirm that the attack was unsound. Then you will have either some improved ideas about how to conclude an attack or a slightly improved feel for whether an attack is worth launching. Other common questions are &amp;quot;where did I go wrong in this game&amp;quot;, or &amp;quot;how do I deal with this opening line that people keep beating me with&amp;quot;? But follow your own interest.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23970" LastActivityDate="2020-07-05T22:30:16.623" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30278" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30272" CreationDate="2020-07-06T00:55:46.690" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;And an interesting question you pose as to how good you could become playing 3|2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The 3 min plus 2 second increment you play means roughly say a move rate overall of about say 6 seconds per move for an average game of 50 moves.&#xA;You try to always play slightly stronger players, excellent idea, so assuming you are not getting trounced ie at least breaking even I think you will progress perhaps to 1200 to 1300.&#xA;Games will be won or lost mostly by one or two move combinations  or simple oversights by you or your opponent.&#xA;Not an issue if you are playing mainly for the enjoyment of chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But if your real focus is to become a strong player this is a different matter.&#xA;To put your question into perspective consider other endeavours.&#xA;Would you expect a carpenter who only built small wooden boxes in five minutes to be able to build you a good house?&#xA;A computer programmer who only spent six seconds on each line of code to become an excellent programmer without further study or deeper reflection?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If your main goal is to improve you need to start playing longer games and to play through master games that are annotated.&#xA;You will notice a more rapid improvement in your games though it will require some dedicated work.&#xA;Don't go overboard on opening theory, just aim to get a playable position out of the opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But it is in the end-game that playing strength really shows so make some serious effort in this phase of the game and you will improve dramatically.&#xA;After studying endings you will find your middle game will start to improve as well because you now are aware of which endings to aim for and which to avoid.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Before the internet era I did not have much chance to play over-the-board so I played correspondence chess. This long style of chess forces you to carefully analyse your moves and to study openings and endgames otherwise you could be stuck with a bad position for a year or two!&#xA;When I did get to play OTB I did regularly get behind on the clock but managed to bowl over quite a few strong players including some with titles.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13074" LastEditorUserId="23941" LastEditDate="2020-07-06T10:50:31.600" LastActivityDate="2020-07-06T10:50:31.600" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30279" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4402" CreationDate="2020-07-06T02:34:50.013" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Analysis with Houdini 6.02 1 Kf1 Nd4 2 Ke1 Ke6 3 Kd2 h4 4 a4 Kd7 5 Kd3 Nc6 6 Kc3 Kc7 7 f4 Ne7 8 Ne3 Ng6 9 Nd5+ Kd6 10 Kd4 Nf8 11 Ne3 Ne6+ 12 Ke4 Kd7 13 Ke5 Nd8 14 Kd4 Kc6 15 Nf5 Ne6+ 16 16 Ke5 Nf8 17 Ke4 Nd7 18 Nxg7 Nb6 19 Ke5 Nxa4 20 Nf5 Nb2 21 Kd4 Kb5 22 Kc3 Nd1+ 23 Kb3 Nf2 24 Nd6+ Kc6 25 Nxf7 Kd5 26 Ka4 h3 27 g3 Ng4 28 Ka5 Nxh2 29 Ng5 Kc4 30 Nxh3 Ng4 31 Ng5 Nf6 32 Nf3 Nd5 33 Ne5+ Kd4 34 Nc6+ Ke4 35 Kxa6 Kf3 36 b5 Kxg3 Mate in 21 according to Nalimov tablebases , starting with f5. Two iterations of 20 and 15 minutes. Thanks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23298" LastActivityDate="2020-07-06T02:34:50.013" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30280" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30275" CreationDate="2020-07-06T03:43:18.647" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;White probably intends to play e6 anyway, to launch an attack against the light squares. Whether Black takes this Pawn or allows exf7, White will want to play Nf3-e5 as part of his followup, and if f3 has been provoked, he will need to play f3-f4, losing another tempo and obstructing his dark Bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastActivityDate="2020-07-06T03:43:18.647" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30281" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30272" CreationDate="2020-07-06T03:59:49.220" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;My own belief is that you can't get good at chess without studying. There are millions of players stuck in the 1300-1400 range who play tens of thousands of games over the course of years but never improve.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2020-07-06T03:59:49.220" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30283" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-07-06T05:15:31.487" Score="5" ViewCount="843" Body="&lt;p&gt;Other than the current coordinate notations used in chess, are there any other notations that anybody knows about? I am looking for anything that does not employ the coordinate system like naming all squares or any other sharp ideas.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23209" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-07-07T20:50:29.050" LastActivityDate="2020-07-07T21:02:38.313" Title="Is there any other notation system other than algebraic notation?" Tags="&lt;terminology&gt;&lt;notation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30284" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30283" CreationDate="2020-07-06T06:19:12.650" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;Other than the algebraic nomenclature:&#xA;Two off the top of my head are&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Correspondence chess used 1:1 to 8:8 to label the squares.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Descriptive notation predated algebraic: 1. P-K4 P-K4 2. KN-B3 QN-B3 and so on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13074" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2020-07-06T09:43:05.570" LastActivityDate="2020-07-06T09:43:05.570" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30285" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30275" CreationDate="2020-07-06T09:38:46.070" Score="5" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the point is to disallow Nf3 in positions when White pushes e6 and Black takes with exf, it does not achieve that, as Black wasted one tempo on the bishop retreat Bf5-e4-h7 and White can also waste a tempo by playing f2-f3-f4 and then Nf3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is an error in your tempo-count.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If Black plays Bf5-e4-h7 instead of Bf5-h7, he loses one tempo.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If White plays f2-f3 followed by f3-f4 and Ng1-f3 instead of directly Ng1-f3, he loses &lt;strong&gt;two&lt;/strong&gt; tempi.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Having the pawn on f4 instead of f2 may be useful in some lines (provides control of e5, might be followed by f5 or g5 in tactical skirmishes) or harmful in others (e4 is weakened, the Bc1 will find it harder to reach an active spot), but in any case it is not what White would like to spend on tempo at that point on in such a sharp position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Indeed, After 6...Be4 7.f3, most often White doesn't follow with f3-f4 and find other ways to develop his Ng1 (e.g. through h3 and f4).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastEditorUserId="14079" LastEditDate="2020-07-07T07:50:30.063" LastActivityDate="2020-07-07T07:50:30.063" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30286" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30146" CreationDate="2020-07-06T12:22:56.190" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some games, you can't just give up. For example, in a &lt;strong&gt;football&lt;/strong&gt; match, there are spectators who want to see some sport, there are players who may enjoy the exercise, and there is also a question of the &lt;em&gt;degree&lt;/em&gt; of victory counting for something. (e.g. goal ratio may act as a tie-breaker in the league.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In &lt;strong&gt;chess&lt;/strong&gt; on the other hand, the value of resignation even in a situation where loss is not certain can be positive. In a casual game it can allow the players to start another game. In a more serious setting it allows the losing player to conserve energy and morale, to show respect for the winning player, and take a break perhaps to focus on the next match.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess contains some beautiful draw mechanisms: stalemate, 50 move rule, draw by repetition, which serve to keep interest in the game, and (together with the clock) put pressure on the winning player to actually win. Chess is a subtle game and many resignations are mistaken, in that a draw or even a win is still possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Concessions in other sports...&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In multi-game &lt;strong&gt;cricket&lt;/strong&gt; matches, a captain may essentially stop scoring points for his side, in order to allow more time to bowl out the opponents. This is quite specialized, but it can result in the fans being sent home earlier than they would have been otherwise.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Golf&lt;/strong&gt; is an interesting one. In &amp;quot;match play&amp;quot; (essentially knock-out 1-1 matches) it is normal and polite players to concede trivial putts (maybe less than 50cm?) to the opponent. However in stroke play, where the folk going round the course together are not competing with one another directly, then no putt concessions are possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Snooker&lt;/strong&gt; is again interesting. It's usually a 1-1 knock-out format, and it's common for a player who is far behind in the score to concede at the point when their opponent has just ended his turn. It would be very impolite to concede at any other point, because it potentially stops the player from being able to complete a long break. Indeed it goes so far that if there is just White &amp;amp; Black ball on the table, then a player effectively claims the game, assuming his opponent's resignation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, in &lt;strong&gt;backgammon&lt;/strong&gt;, you can only resign in response to being offered to double the stakes. This is a key strategic issue, which forces the timing of doubles, as one doesn't want to double so late that the possibility of exacting a penalty from the opponent is too obvious to both players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8201" LastEditorUserId="8201" LastEditDate="2021-03-08T06:01:04.547" LastActivityDate="2021-03-08T06:01:04.547" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30287" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30254" CreationDate="2020-07-06T13:08:26.523" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The queen on d2 allows for a future Bh6 exchanging the bishops and preparing a h4-h5 push with a strong attack for White.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With Qd3, you are exposing it to attack (...Nc6-e5 is a typical maneuvre in this type of posiiton). You also prevent your bishop from going to c4 which is a typical square where it's placed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also note that Black's ...e6 is a very bad move, as it does nothing to further development, weakens the d6 square and prevents the c8 bishop from developing to e6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-07-06T23:32:25.437" LastActivityDate="2020-07-06T23:32:25.437" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30288" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26998" CreationDate="2020-07-07T04:10:54.013" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The web version as implemented by chess.com is laggy and your clock runs down without you knowing when the browser is loading and the timer is suffering severe latency problems.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I created the original Prototype A of this puzzle app style and it was lag proof but chess.com copied it and didn’t know how to avoid this issue.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24093" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-07-07T14:54:03.687" LastActivityDate="2020-07-07T14:54:03.687" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30289" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5656" CreationDate="2020-07-07T07:42:22.127" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Elometer.net estamates your ELO rating on finding the best moves in 76 game-situations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24095" LastActivityDate="2020-07-07T07:42:22.127" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30290" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29943" CreationDate="2020-07-07T10:09:22.983" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Obviously the Rossolimo is a less ambitious option than the Open Sicilian. It is, however, easier to learn for white, less risky and less sharp and so likely to be less the cup of tea of ardent Sicilian players. Those are probably the main reasons for its popularity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12953" LastActivityDate="2020-07-07T10:09:22.983" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30291" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-07-07T14:44:09.973" Score="3" ViewCount="607" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't see how you can defend both pawns at once if the bishop is located on the f8 square. Where did Stockfish go wrong in &lt;a href=&quot;https://tcec-chess.com/#div=top4&amp;amp;game=28&amp;amp;season=18&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; game?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;5B2/3k4/2p4p/4n1r1/8/2R5/6K1/8 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24098" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-07-07T14:56:49.790" LastActivityDate="2020-07-07T17:43:36.863" Title="Did Stockfish blunder a drawn position against Leela here?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30292" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30291" CreationDate="2020-07-07T17:32:56.737" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Welcome!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am not 100% sure of what your are asking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are you saying that Stockfish missed a draw by playing Bf8 as shown in the diagram ie there was some other move that could have drawn?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or are you saying Stockfish missed a drawing line later.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or are you asking in general where Stockfish went wrong in the game?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you look at the evaluations then Stockfish seemed to assess itself as losing many moves earlier.&#xA;Leela on the other hand thought her position better for quite some time but not necessarily a forced win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the lead up to your diagrammed position Stockfish I think is lost and has been for quite a long while.&#xA;The Black pawns are wide apart making the defensive Bishop's task very hard. The White K has to keep an eye on one of the pawns whilst the White Rook keeps an eye on the other pawn whilst at the same time trying to harrass and keep out the Black K with checks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black has to manoevre carefully but will always be able to shepherd the c Pawn down to the queening square.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think Stockfish made a strategic error with 40. Ng2 allowing Leela to swap her bad Bishop and get a position with the &amp;quot;Petrosian Knight&amp;quot; verses Stockfish's bad Bishop.&#xA;After this swap Leela's Q invaded, Stockfish's position deteriorated leaving a difficult defensive task.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Apologies if I have missed your point.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13074" LastEditorUserId="13074" LastEditDate="2020-07-07T17:43:36.863" LastActivityDate="2020-07-07T17:43:36.863" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30293" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30283" CreationDate="2020-07-07T19:59:19.783" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Older players such as myself (I'm 83) learned with descriptive notation.  Descriptive notation names the files based upon the piece standing originally on the 1st rank square, e.g. the QB file for what is the &amp;quot;c&amp;quot; file in Algebraic and the Q file for the Algebraic &amp;quot;d&amp;quot; file.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I preferred it to Algebraic, which became popular later on,&#xA;since I found it easier to record the moves during a game or to follow the written moves on a scoresheet or in a magazine or book without a board. It is, as the name implies, more descriptive of the move. The downside was that you had to count from both sides of the board, e.g. my KB3 as White was Black's KB6 and vice versa, i.e. Black's KB3 was White's KB6, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastEditorUserId="7657" LastEditDate="2020-07-07T21:02:38.313" LastActivityDate="2020-07-07T21:02:38.313" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30294" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-07-08T01:01:37.267" Score="3" ViewCount="292" Body="&lt;p&gt;Did Leela Zero miss a win in this position from game 106 of the Computer Chess Championship, on move 83 with White to move?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;8/2p1r3/2P4k/1P1pB2p/K2NbP1R/P5r1/8/8 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here, Leela Zero played Bxc7? for their 83rd move. I went deep to analyze the position at 34/91 with Houdini 6.02 for one hour, and the game reached a position with White having a rook, bishop, knight and pawn against Black's two rooks. I analyzed it again starting from there, and either White will increase his positional advantage or Black will be forced into simplifying into a tablebase win for White. Is all this true? Rh2 was the winning move according to Houdini 6.02.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23298" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-07-08T04:57:16.340" LastActivityDate="2020-08-05T14:17:20.817" Title="Did Leela Zero miss a win in this position?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;computer-chess&gt;&lt;leela&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30295" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-07-08T06:02:04.403" Score="19" ViewCount="8344" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess is not completely solved yet but what efforts have been undertaken to solve it? Has there been a large project like the HGP or is something like that even worth pursuing? What failed efforts have been there if any? I am speculating that the the Alpha Zero project must have taken some steps towards that end.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT:-Answers ponder on the point that is extremely difficult to solve chess which i have clearly indicated in the first line in the question. What I would like to know that are there or have there been any projects that try to solve chess. Like that Moscow university 7-piece tablebases and any efforts like that. It is clearly an expensive problem to solve but who is doing it and what approaches are being taken? It is often said that there are more chess combinations than atoms in the universe (probably because of that ad) but so are the real numbers but we have a rich theory about that. We also know a great deal about the universe as well but we had to try hard to get to that point. Is chess being treated the same is my question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23209" LastEditorUserId="23209" LastEditDate="2020-07-08T07:55:37.717" LastActivityDate="2021-04-03T08:15:48.673" Title="What projects have been undertaken to solve chess completely?" Tags="&lt;theory&gt;" AnswerCount="11" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30296" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30295" CreationDate="2020-07-08T06:52:58.067" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;AlphaZero has no intention of solving chess. It's just an engine that plays spectacularly well. The number of positions you'd have to evaluate in order to solve chess is larger than the number of atoms in the universe, so even if you could solve chess (which is nowhere near the capabilities of the current capability of all computers on Earth combined), you wouldn't be able to store the entire solution anywhere&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-07-08T13:22:21.183" LastActivityDate="2020-07-08T13:22:21.183" CommentCount="15" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30297" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30295" CreationDate="2020-07-08T07:00:09.000" Score="19" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://tb7.chessok.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;7-piece endgame tablebases&lt;/a&gt; were completed in 2012. 8-piece endgame tablebases is the next logical step. &lt;a href=&quot;http://tb7.chessok.com/articles/Top8DTM_eng&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;This page&lt;/a&gt; says a little about how those are going (context is searching for the longest forced mate in pawnless positions):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many show interest in what is to expect from [8-piece] endings ... Unfortunately the size of [8-piece tablebases] will be 100 times larger than size of [7-piece] tablebases. To fully compute them, one will need about 10 PB (10000 TB) of disk space and 50 TB of RAM. Only top 10 supercomputers can solve [8-piece] problem in 2014. So don't hold your breath expecting new breakthroughs too soon - the first 1000-move mate is unlikely to be found until 2020 when a part of a TOP100 supercomputer may be allowed to be used for solving this task.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If we get 8-piece tablebases one day (&lt;em&gt;if&lt;/em&gt; we get them) that'll be the next step to solving chess, but we don't expect to get them for many years more at least. Even if they are created, they'll take huge amounts of disk space to store.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In principle chess will be solved when we have 32-piece tablebases, but if 8-piece tablebases are this hard to create, we are not going to solve chess in the foreseeable future, AlphaZero or not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastEditorUserId="11712" LastEditDate="2020-07-10T04:11:25.287" LastActivityDate="2020-07-10T04:11:25.287" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30298" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30295" CreationDate="2020-07-08T07:05:08.223" Score="43" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Endgame tablebases&lt;/em&gt; can be seen as such an effort, in that we started at few pieces and have increased the number. In 2012, &lt;a href=&quot;http://tb7.chessok.com/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;7 piece tablebases -from Moscow state university&lt;/a&gt; were generated, so chess is solved for positions of 7 or fewer pieces (including the kings).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The problem is, the 7 piece tablebases take about 140 TB in storage. 8 piece tablebases would take about 10 petabyte of storage, and a computer with 50 TB of ram (&lt;a href=&quot;http://tb7.chessok.com/articles/Top8DTM_eng&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;source&lt;/a&gt;) to keep hashes in memory to generate them in reasonable time (a few years?). I guess it would be doable these days if someone makes the millions of dollars available. 9 seems way out of reach.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So it will take a while before we get to 32.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastEditorUserId="23209" LastEditDate="2020-07-08T08:34:31.410" LastActivityDate="2020-07-08T08:34:31.410" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30299" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30300" CreationDate="2020-07-08T07:50:55.393" Score="2" ViewCount="350" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;r1b1k2r/3pnpbp/pp2p1p1/2q3B1/3pPP2/1B1P4/PPP1N1PP/R2Q1RK1 b k - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this position, f5 was played. The reasoning is that Black's king is still in the center, so if White decides to start a kingside attack the king can just to run to safety. But this doesn't make any sense! Black could just castle after the move. Am I missing something?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21840" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-07-08T13:20:28.873" LastActivityDate="2020-07-08T13:20:28.873" Title="Wwhy was f5 played here?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;middlegame&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30300" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30299" CreationDate="2020-07-08T08:37:06.177" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Black could castle, but that doesn't make the king any safer! White could follow with f5 0-0 Qd2, threatening both f6 and Bh6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyway even if Black could castle that doesn't make f5 a bad move (the only downside being the e5 square becoming a bit weak)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastEditorUserId="18809" LastEditDate="2020-07-08T08:43:23.503" LastActivityDate="2020-07-08T08:43:23.503" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30301" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24922" CreationDate="2020-07-08T12:57:36.953" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;the fried liver is one of the 2 only real gambit stockfish likes, or the queens gambit. it appears that the benko gambit is one gambit that have big pressure against whites Q side&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23908" LastActivityDate="2020-07-08T12:57:36.953" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30302" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-07-08T14:49:12.047" Score="1" ViewCount="186" Body="&lt;p&gt;From a &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.facebook.com/plugins/post.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2FFideOnlineArena%2Fposts%2F2785311028366670&amp;amp;width=500&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Online Arena Facebook post&lt;/a&gt; (which appears copy/pasted from &lt;a href=&quot;https://timkr.home.xs4all.nl/chess2/honor.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;elsewhere&lt;/a&gt;), I'm interested in the part in bold:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Iardmm.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Image of a chess board with two kings and no pawns nor pieces&lt;/a&gt; omitted.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This was the position after 91.Kxb8 in the game NewRival1816 - Faile06 in a computer tournament in 2001. According to the rule, the game should have been stopped as a draw here, but this rule apparently wasn't implemented ... &lt;strong&gt;493 moves is a new world record&lt;/strong&gt;, ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I find it hard to believe this is up-to-date, but I didn't immediately find examples to indicate otherwise (e.g. &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.google.com/search?q=long%20computer%20chess%20games&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;code&gt;long computer chess games&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/a&gt; didn't give anything relevant).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question&lt;/strong&gt;: Have there been computer-vs-computer chess games exceeding 493 moves?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For this to be meaningful, I insist that both engines were actually playing &amp;quot;good moves&amp;quot;, i.e., moves that both engines thought maximized its score.  Or in other words, the engines were actually playing chess, and not trying to maximize the length of the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2785" LastActivityDate="2020-07-08T21:35:49.293" Title="Have there been computer-vs-computer chess games exceeding 493 moves?" Tags="&lt;computer-chess&gt;&lt;records&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30303" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30295" CreationDate="2020-07-08T15:36:00.910" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is funny that you bring up mathematics and the universe as things we know quite a bit about.  Yet neither of these fields is 'solved'.  Moreover, neither ever can be.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mathematics can never be fully solved due to &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del%27s_incompleteness_theorems&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Goedel's Incompleteness Theorems&lt;/a&gt;.  There will always be true facts about numbers that we cannot find proofs of.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As with the Universe, we can never know the full 'state' of the universe (eg what every atom and subatomic particle is doing) precisely due to the&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncertainty_principle&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle&lt;/a&gt;.  We can never hope to tell what is going on outside the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observable_universe&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;observable universe&lt;/a&gt; due to relativity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So in some sense, they are pretty fair comparisons to chess.  We know a lot, but due to universe we live in, we will never know it all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The best I believe we can hope for in terms of solving chess would be an ultra-weak solution (possibly involving some strategy stealing) that proves a eg a forced draw (or better) for white from the starting position without explicitly solving how.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For an interesting article about endgame table-bases and methods for solving games, &lt;em&gt;check&lt;/em&gt; out &lt;a href=&quot;http://dit.unitn.it/%7Emontreso/asd/docs/checkers.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt;.  Checkers (a MUCH simpler game) was solved to be a draw over a decade ago&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT To clear up some confusion:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As pointed out in the comments, the unsolvability of these three systems are immensely and qualitatively different.  The incompleteness theorems derive from first principles and would hold up in ANY universe.  The unsolvability of the state of the universe is based on the physical laws of the one we live in.  The unsolvability of chess is only due to the fact that the universe we happen to live in is too small and chess is too large for a (strong) solution to be held inside it.  The reason they are similar here are pure coincidence, simply a by-product of universe we all happen to inhabit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17157" LastEditorUserId="17157" LastEditDate="2020-07-09T16:37:41.373" LastActivityDate="2020-07-09T16:37:41.373" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30304" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30308" CreationDate="2020-07-08T17:28:24.077" Score="7" ViewCount="1404" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;r1bqkb1r/p4ppp/2p2n2/3p4/8/2N5/PPP1BPPP/R1BQK2R b KQkq - 1 9&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Be7 protects knight from getting pinned, Bc5 pins the pawn on f2 after Whites, castles, and Bb4 pins the knight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Whats logic behind Bd6? (It also can't be a battery in future via Qc7 because of 1... Kh1 2. Bxh2 g3, and the bishop will be trapped.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23690" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-07-08T19:04:28.357" LastActivityDate="2020-07-14T10:49:38.453" Title="Why is Bd6 better than Be7, Bc5 and Bb4?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;bishops&gt;&lt;pins&gt;&lt;bad-bishop&gt;&lt;candidate-move&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30305" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30318" CreationDate="2020-07-08T17:57:50.827" Score="6" ViewCount="296" Body="&lt;p&gt;In regular chess a queen is worth 9, rook 5, knight 3, etc. What is the equivalent heuristic in atomic chess?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21816" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-07-08T19:05:44.963" LastActivityDate="2020-07-09T07:56:09.297" Title="What is the piece value heuristic in atomic chess?" Tags="&lt;point-value&gt;&lt;atomic-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30306" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24922" CreationDate="2020-07-08T18:29:10.057" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;From the latest TCEC Season 18 Superfinal it even seems the Quaade Gambit is winning by force ,but obviously prudent Black players play (and will play even more , after this discovery) 3 ...d5 instead of ...g5. Giving the pawn back right away.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23264" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-07-08T19:08:45.357" LastActivityDate="2020-07-08T19:08:45.357" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30307" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30295" CreationDate="2020-07-08T18:39:19.553" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can't answer your main question, but to the point about alphazero: from my perspective, AlphaZero, although it may be a major step in superhuman performance in games, is not even a minor step towards solving chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;if we could follow A0 with big investment maybe it can take us very far into uncharted territories&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't think this is true. Its approach, which is to explore the game-tree by picking paths which have high probability of being good, doesn't seem to have much implication to fully solve chess.  Although it may be very very good at being very very good at chess, I think this heuristic-based approach is less viable to exactly solving chess than you think.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To be very charitable, maybe... and by maybe I mean this is a pie-in-the-sky thought that just came from my dumb brain... maybe the AlphaZero work could someday lead to a proof that with training, the model converges to a model that plays correctly with probability 1 (and &lt;code&gt;1&lt;/code&gt; in this case is aka 99.999...%), but even this may not be considered &amp;quot;solving&amp;quot; chess as we still cannot  not prove that any model we have trained in real life makes every move correctly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21424" LastEditorUserId="23209" LastEditDate="2020-07-09T06:46:53.143" LastActivityDate="2020-07-09T06:46:53.143" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30308" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30304" CreationDate="2020-07-08T20:19:59.347" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;Part of the problem with Bc5 is that they can respond with Na4, which threatens the bishop and grabs the tempo.  Be7 isn't great because its range is inhibited by the knight and it impedes the kingside rook's power on the e file after you castle. Bd6 is nice because it is protected by the pawns, the bishop can be retreated to b8 or c7 while still controlling either of the second longest diagonals.  I'm a 1500 rated player, so take that into account.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24107" LastEditorUserId="24107" LastEditDate="2020-07-08T23:50:01.823" LastActivityDate="2020-07-08T23:50:01.823" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30310" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30311" CreationDate="2020-07-08T20:35:52.877" Score="0" ViewCount="208" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;fucccommies-Diam0ndJake, chess.com, 7/8/2020&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. d4 Nc6 4. d5 Nd4 5. c3 Nxf3+ 6. Qxf3 Be7 7. Bb5 O-O 8. O-O c6 9. dxc6 bxc6 10. Bc4 d5 11. exd5 cxd5 12. Rd1 Qb6 13. Be3 Qb7 14. Bxd5 Nxd5 15. Rxd5 g6 16. Na3 Bxa3 17. bxa3 Qb2 18. Rad1 Qxa2 19. Ra5 Qb3 20. Rxe5 Bb7 21. Qf6 Qxd1#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/analysis/game/live/5120597223?tab=report&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this game&lt;/a&gt;, I which my opponent and I played poorly, I ended up winning without a check at all before the checkmate. Can anyone help me understand when checkmates can happen without a check?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24108" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-07-08T21:15:08.467" LastActivityDate="2020-07-08T21:15:08.467" Title="Checkmate without check beforehand" Tags="&lt;theory&gt;&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;check&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30311" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30310" CreationDate="2020-07-08T20:53:04.910" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Assuming you are Black, you &lt;em&gt;have&lt;/em&gt; checked your opponent - your Queen on d1 is putting his King on g1 in check (and checkmate).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit&lt;/strong&gt;: assuming Rewan Demontay's reading of your question is correct, then there's no stipulation that you have to check your opponent before checkmate. You can see this in well-known short checkmates, e.g. Scholar's mate. 1. e4 e5 2. Bc4 Bc5 3. Qh5 Nf6?? 4. Qx7# is checkmate without checking first.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastEditorUserId="15223" LastEditDate="2020-07-08T21:07:09.673" LastActivityDate="2020-07-08T21:07:09.673" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30312" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30302" CreationDate="2020-07-08T21:35:49.293" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Tim Krabbe discusses this in his website (see &lt;a href=&quot;https://timkr.home.xs4all.nl/chess2/diary_17.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;section 328&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's an old post - dating to 2006 - so it's certainly possible. However 2006 was also a long time ago. Since then engines have gotten more familiar with the rules, and all the top engines I'm aware of are aware of the 50-move rule. 493 moves is very long, but it should still be fairly trivial to get longer games if one just got engines to play and never adjudicate (see &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/30189/is-shuffling-aimlessly-for-hundreds-of-moves-permissible&quot;&gt;example&lt;/a&gt;). All one has to do is set some very short time control and play a billion games, and eventually a game will get there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Games played in tournaments is a different matter, with a necessarily small sample size. In that case I think it's quite likely that 493 moves is the longest on record. It's about 100 moves longer than the next-longest games I'm aware of.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Caveat: the 493-move game wouldn't happen under real tournament rules since the 75-move rule would've been invoked to force a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastActivityDate="2020-07-08T21:35:49.293" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30313" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30304" CreationDate="2020-07-08T22:24:44.883" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;e7 is a very passive square for the bishop. Since White is expected to castle on the kingside, there is no reason not to prefer ...Bd6 over ...Be7. The pin on the f6 knight is not too much of a problem precisely because a ..Bc7, ..Qd6 continuation is always on the table.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;...Bb4 has a similar problem as ...Be7 because after 0-0 the bishop is doing nothing on b4 (exchanging it for the knight would not be a great idea)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This leaves us with the options ...Bd6 and ...Bc5. I don't have a clear idea of which one is better but ...Bd6 seems more natural to me for an attack on h2. I guess ...Bd6 allows Black to push the central pawns if needed, but leaving them on c6 and d5 is probably best. I don't think the pin on the f2 pawn is that relevant as White will probably never try to play f4 in this position. Anyway I wouldn't say ...Bc5 is an inferior move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastActivityDate="2020-07-08T22:24:44.883" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30314" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30295" CreationDate="2020-07-09T00:01:37.433" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Others have already mentioned tablebases and their development, but something that hasn't been touched on yet is the sheer space complexity of chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In order to say that chess is solved, we need a function &lt;code&gt;gameState -&amp;gt; move&lt;/code&gt;, and that function needs to be defined for all possible states of the game, or at least all of the ones that are reachable within the rules of the game. &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shannon_number&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;There are vastly more of these than there are atoms in the observable universe.&lt;/a&gt; So even if we could somehow encode each game state and its corresponding best move into a single atom, there isn't enough matter in the universe to build the server that would run the database.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Endgame tablebases are interesting, but there's nobody who's seriously attempting to solve chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17600" LastActivityDate="2020-07-09T00:01:37.433" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30315" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24922" CreationDate="2020-07-09T00:16:03.863" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;A variation of the Caro Kann, Advance: Tal Variation called Caveman Variation is a &amp;quot;gambit&amp;quot; where White can gambit mere pawns, or whole pieces, but probably will mate. If Black should go for the rook, the imbalance most often is 2 rooks + 2 pawns for the queen in a structure that favors the queen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. e5 Bf5 4. h4 h5&#xA;5. Bg5 Qb6 6. Bd3 Bxd3 7. Qxd3 Qxb2 8. e6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;SF11 at depth ~40 says +0.8, but if you look at human games, White win percentage is huge. There is 6...Qxd4, but play is very artificial, most players who decline do so with 7...e6 or trying to trade queens immediately.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15478" LastEditorUserId="15478" LastEditDate="2020-07-09T00:34:09.180" LastActivityDate="2020-07-09T00:34:09.180" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30316" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30304" CreationDate="2020-07-09T03:23:11.207" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Bd6 is the most active square. No, there's not an immediate threat but it does attack h2 which could turn into something later.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Be7 is too passive. It's not smart to &amp;quot;protect against pins&amp;quot; that haven't even happened yet. There's lots of unpin combinations that actually lead to the pinning side being worse. Also, white can't really capitalize on a pin since the knight can't come to e4 or d5. Lastly, the bishop on e7 blocks the open e-file which could turn into a strong attack if white doesn't castle quickly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bc5 isn't that bad but after white castles the bishop isn't doing much.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bb4 doesn't do much either. Normally you would play Bb4 to control the e4 square but white isn't threatening anything there. You could double the c-pawns but that doesn't really do anything. White will just play c4 at some point and end up with a slightly better position because of the 2 bishops.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2020-07-09T03:23:11.207" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30317" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30304" CreationDate="2020-07-09T06:48:12.947" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Bd6 has two big advantages that haven't been mentioned.  The first is that it protects the b8 square for your rook.  Your rook naturally belongs on the half-open file, and White really wants to play Bf4 to keep you from doing that.  (You can put your bishop on d6 later if that happens, but you've wasted a tempo and exchanging bishops makes it easier for the white knight to establish itself at c5.)  The second is that, later in the game, e5 will likely be a very powerful square for the bishop.  (Or sooner, if White tries Bg5.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21877" LastActivityDate="2020-07-09T06:48:12.947" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30318" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30305" CreationDate="2020-07-09T07:56:09.297" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;The answer is, as expected, &amp;quot;it depends&amp;quot;. To answer directly first, 2016 Atomic World Championship (AWC) winner, tipau, &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/forum/team-atomic-chess-theoreticians/value-of-pieces-in-atomic-chess&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;put the values as&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pawn - 1&#xA;Knight - 1.5&#xA;Bishop - 1.5&#xA;Rook - 3&#xA;Queen - 6&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/@/Illion&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;somewhat strong player myself&lt;/a&gt; (two top-8 finishes in the AWC) who has extensively analysed atomic chess endgames, I would tend to agree.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The king has no value, but outside of stopping passed pawns in endgames and a few other special zugzwang compositions, it is almost useless.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now to go deeper into the topic, do note that the &lt;strong&gt;piece values change during the game&lt;/strong&gt;. General experience would give the following points to support the piece values:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In an endgame, a minor piece is only slightly more than a pawn; if one side has &lt;em&gt;N&lt;/em&gt; pawns + 1 minor piece while the other side has &lt;em&gt;N+1&lt;/em&gt; pawns, the side with the minor piece has a slight advantage (which may not be enough to win, depending on the position).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In the middlegame, a minor piece is worth more than a pawn, but usually less than two pawns.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A rook is generally worth more than a minor piece, especially when there are more open files for invasion. A minor piece + pawn can compensate for a rook in the endgame though, generally forcing the side with the rook to take a draw by perpetual check.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Knights are generally better than bishops in the very early opening and endgame, but not in the middlegame.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The bishop pair is much stronger than the knight pair or a knight + bishop.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The queen's value is hard to pin down. Depending on the position, she can be worth less than B+N, or more than R+B+N+P, as seen in several common opening lines. It largely depends on the solidity of both sides' positions.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Factors like piece activity, pawn structure, passed pawns and other non-material considerations also matter in any given position.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would therefore recommend using the following rules of thumb instead of exact point values:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;B ~ N (depends)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;N/B slightly &amp;gt; P&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;B+B &amp;gt; 2 minors&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;R &amp;gt; N/B&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;R ~ N/B + P&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;R &amp;gt; P+P&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;R &amp;lt; B+N&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Q somewhere between B+N and R+B+N+P&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15989" LastActivityDate="2020-07-09T07:56:09.297" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30319" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30320" CreationDate="2020-07-09T09:06:48.290" Score="7" ViewCount="444" Body="&lt;p&gt;What's the difference? Both look same to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21840" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-07-09T12:57:06.587" LastActivityDate="2020-07-09T12:57:06.587" Title="Are aggressive attacking and tactical playeing the same?" Tags="&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;attack&gt;&lt;aggressive-play&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30320" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30319" CreationDate="2020-07-09T09:39:30.967" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;They are related, but probably not the same. If you play an opening like the King's Indian you are probably an aggressive, attacking player, but you may rely more on the understanding of the position than on tactical tricks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similarly, there are certain types of position where accurate calculation is required but with defensive purposes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Aggressive and attacking are probably harder to distinguish, though!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastActivityDate="2020-07-09T09:39:30.967" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30321" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30295" CreationDate="2020-07-09T13:02:16.707" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think everyone here has a good and necessary point with the space complexity of chess being larger than the number of atoms in the observable universe.  However, I think I can add some additional points onto that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;As others have pointed out, the definition of &amp;quot;solved&amp;quot; is not super clear.  If &amp;quot;solved&amp;quot; means &amp;quot;find the optimal move from any possible game state&amp;quot;, solving chess is impossible.  However, if we take solved to mean that we just want to play the single &amp;quot;perfect&amp;quot; game of chess we may be able to reduce space complexity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The problem with point one is that chess does not have a single perfect game.  A perfect game of chess implies that you are always making the move that leaves you with the highest chance of winning.  It also implies that you are accounting for your opponent making optimal moves, as otherwise it would not be a perfect game (and would also break the previous space complexity issues).  However, chess is a well balanced game and any game perfectly played would necessarily end in a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;There are likely a near-infinite number of optimally played games that end in a draw.  While the number of optimal moves from any position is much smaller than the number of possible moves, according to the best chess engines we have today there are many moves that have near-optimal results from the starting position and in the first few moves.  Because a significant advantage is needed to win any game of chess, many of these moves would likely be included in a &amp;quot;perfect&amp;quot; or solved game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Lastly, how would you prove my points 2 and 3 right or wrong? You can't.  Again, you run into the space complexity issue.  To prove any position is either winnable or unwinnable if both players play optimally, you need to diagram out every single possible move from a given position.  As we have shown earlier, this is impossible until we are below a certain piece number.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24115" LastActivityDate="2020-07-09T13:02:16.707" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30322" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30323" CreationDate="2020-07-09T14:17:28.210" Score="9" ViewCount="1902" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am training with an app and have played about 10 games in my life, most years apart. However, now I became interested in the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have this situation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;4kbnr/p2npppp/1p6/4P3/q2N4/P6P/1PPP1P1P/RNBQ1RK1 w k - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was going to move Nf3, thereby moving the knight to (temporary) safety, protecting the e5 pawn, and having the queen additionally protect knight. However, the app wants me to make the move Qf3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only advantages I see to that are d eveloping the queen and having a more versatile queen instead of a knight control centre&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But it seems like this should easily cost me the knight. So, can you help me realise why the app is right?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24117" LastEditorUserId="21223" LastEditDate="2020-12-17T20:20:11.180" LastActivityDate="2020-12-17T20:20:11.180" Title="Why is Qf3 better than Nf3?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;beginner&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="7" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30323" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30322" CreationDate="2020-07-09T14:32:13.530" Score="22" Body="&lt;p&gt;It comes with the threat of &lt;strong&gt;Qa8+&lt;/strong&gt;, which forces black to return the knight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And white is up material, so exchanges are good.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2020-07-09T14:32:13.530" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30325" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30322" CreationDate="2020-07-09T16:26:40.627" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;Welcome Ludi!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As RemcoG points out, Qf3!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is an example of a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zwischenzug&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;zwischenzug&lt;/a&gt; or &amp;quot;intermediate or interpolated move&amp;quot;.&#xA;Often a surprise move or an unexpected move.&#xA;Black thinks you are forced to attend to your attacked knight, but you have a surprise in store!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But, how would you come to consider such moves?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your knight is attacked as you point out, so the first thought is to either defend it or to move it to safety.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However a useful thought pattern in chess is: I have found a good move, but is there an even better one?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This skill comes about from developing sight-of-the-board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can develop this skill by practise.&#xA;A quick scan should allow you to notice several general things:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You are the exchange and two pawns up.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Your king is a bit exposed but your opponent does not have any effective threat against you king.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Your opponent's king is in a precarious position: a check delivered on a8 or c8 by either a rook or queen would be checkmate!&#xA;Any threat to do this cannot be ignored so one thought is: can any of my pieces attack either of those squares?&#xA;It leads you to Qf3!&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This general scan of the board routinely can be done when it is your opponent's move.&#xA;Then when it is your turn to move you already have a useful framework to decide on a specific move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13074" LastEditorUserId="3444" LastEditDate="2020-07-10T10:59:01.047" LastActivityDate="2020-07-10T10:59:01.047" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30327" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30328" CreationDate="2020-07-09T19:02:36.427" Score="1" ViewCount="219" Body="&lt;p&gt;Studies show a slight advantage for White for &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-move_advantage_in_chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;having the first move&lt;/a&gt;.  In the &lt;a href=&quot;http://tb7.chessok.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;tablebase of trillions of 7-piece endgames&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;with White to move&lt;/strong&gt;, how many of &lt;strong&gt;those&lt;/strong&gt; endgames end up as wins, how many as losses, and how many as draws for White?  And what are the numbers for 6, 5, 4, etc piece endgames?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24122" LastEditorUserId="24122" LastEditDate="2020-07-11T22:14:48.643" LastActivityDate="2020-07-11T22:14:48.643" Title="What percentage of the time does White win in the Lomonosov tablebase?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;statistics&gt;&lt;tablebases&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30328" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30327" CreationDate="2020-07-10T09:05:52.250" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;As I do not have access to the full Lomosonov tablebases, here is an answer based on the &lt;a href=&quot;https://syzygy-tables.info/stats.json&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Syzygy tablebases&lt;/a&gt;, which are available online in machine-readable format. I interpret your question as &amp;quot;how often does the &lt;strong&gt;side to move&lt;/strong&gt; win, lose or draw&amp;quot;. As the Syzygy tablebases only include positions where White has material advantage, we have to add the statistics with White to move to the statistics with Black to move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;You are going to be disappointed&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems that there are actually more positions in which the side to move loses. The reason seems to lie in the positions with large material imbalance. For example, consider &lt;a href=&quot;https://syzygy-tables.info/stats/KQQQQQvK.json&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;KQQQQQvK&lt;/a&gt;. If you check that link, you will see that:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;with &lt;strong&gt;White to move&lt;/strong&gt;, there are &lt;strong&gt;37 099 315 080&lt;/strong&gt; winning positions for White (see &amp;quot;histogram&amp;quot;:&amp;quot;white&amp;quot;:&amp;quot;wdl&amp;quot;:&amp;quot;2&amp;quot;, the format is explained &lt;a href=&quot;https://syzygy-tables.info/stats.json&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;with &lt;strong&gt;Black to move&lt;/strong&gt;, there are &lt;strong&gt;334 280 290 500&lt;/strong&gt; winning positions for White (losing positions for Black), which is about 9 times more! (see &amp;quot;histogram&amp;quot;:&amp;quot;black&amp;quot;:&amp;quot;wdl&amp;quot;:&amp;quot;-2&amp;quot;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason for this is that, in KQQQQQvK, most of the positions are checks or checkmates. These positions are legal with Black to move, but illegal with White to move. This strongly biases the statistics to the point that the non-moving side (White) actually has more winning positions than the moving side.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wrote a Python program to count the wins, draws and loses of the side to move for 3 to 7 pieces. Here are the results. In the spirit of open source/reproducible research, the source code is also included below. As these results are somewhat surprising, I will be happy to be informed of possible mistakes I may have made.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;3- to 7-man Syzygy tablebases&#xA;Total positions: 945907910147154&#xA;Side to move loses: 439240886147124 (46.4359%)&#xA;Side to move loss saved by 50-move rule: 1405811609374 (0.1486%)&#xA;Draws: 124655757593757 (13.1784%)&#xA;Side to move win saved by 50-move rule: 1511382741156 (0.1598%)&#xA;Side to move wins: 379094072055743 (40.0773%)&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;3-man Syzygy tablebases&#xA;Total positions: 367868&#xA;Side to move loses: 99222 (26.9722%)&#xA;Side to move loss saved by 50-move rule: 0 (0.0000%)&#xA;Draws: 166126 (45.1591%)&#xA;Side to move win saved by 50-move rule: 0 (0.0000%)&#xA;Side to move wins: 102520 (27.8687%)&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;4-man Syzygy tablebases&#xA;Total positions: 143702885&#xA;Side to move loses: 48712335 (33.8980%)&#xA;Side to move loss saved by 50-move rule: 0 (0.0000%)&#xA;Draws: 45850555 (31.9065%)&#xA;Side to move win saved by 50-move rule: 0 (0.0000%)&#xA;Side to move wins: 49139995 (34.1956%)&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;5-man Syzygy tablebases&#xA;Total positions: 32612482961&#xA;Side to move loses: 12895319023 (39.5411%)&#xA;Side to move loss saved by 50-move rule: 38951980 (0.1194%)&#xA;Draws: 7248043033 (22.2248%)&#xA;Side to move win saved by 50-move rule: 33205648 (0.1018%)&#xA;Side to move wins: 12396963277 (38.0129%)&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;6-man Syzygy tablebases&#xA;Total positions: 6170694290902&#xA;Side to move loses: 2634258815181 (42.6898%)&#xA;Side to move loss saved by 50-move rule: 8110268813 (0.1314%)&#xA;Draws: 1075100392347 (17.4227%)&#xA;Side to move win saved by 50-move rule: 7817500373 (0.1267%)&#xA;Side to move wins: 2445407314188 (39.6294%)&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;7-man Syzygy tablebases&#xA;Total positions: 939704459302538&#xA;Side to move loses: 436593683201363 (46.4607%)&#xA;Side to move loss saved by 50-move rule: 1397662388581 (0.1487%)&#xA;Draws: 123573363141696 (13.1502%)&#xA;Side to move win saved by 50-move rule: 1503532035135 (0.1600%)&#xA;Side to move wins: 376636218535763 (40.0803%)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Source code&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;import json&#xA;import numpy as np&#xA;&#xA;fd=open('stats.json')&#xA;&#xA;wdl_keys=('-2', '-1', '0', '1', '2')&#xA;wdl=np.zeros((5, 5), dtype=np.uint)&#xA;&#xA;data=json.load(fd)&#xA;&#xA;for key, value in data.items():&#xA;    n_pieces=len(key)-1&#xA;    for i_wdl in range(5):&#xA;        # add WDL data for White to move&#xA;        wdl[n_pieces-3, i_wdl]+=value['histogram']['white']['wdl'][wdl_keys[i_wdl]]&#xA;        # add WDL data for Black to move&#xA;        wdl[n_pieces - 3, i_wdl] += value['histogram']['black']['wdl'][wdl_keys[i_wdl]]&#xA;&#xA;total_positions=np.sum(wdl)&#xA;total_wdl=np.sum(wdl, axis=0)&#xA;print('3- to 7-man Syzygy tablebases')&#xA;print('Total positions: {:d}'.format(total_positions))&#xA;print('Side to move loses: {:d} ({:.4f}%)'.format(total_wdl[0], 100.0*float(total_wdl[0])/float(total_positions)))&#xA;print('Side to move loss saved by 50-move rule: {:d} ({:.4f}%)'.format(total_wdl[1], 100.0*float(total_wdl[1])/float(total_positions)))&#xA;print('Draws: {:d} ({:.4f}%)'.format(total_wdl[2], 100.0*float(total_wdl[2])/float(total_positions)))&#xA;print('Side to move win saved by 50-move rule: {:d} ({:.4f}%)'.format(total_wdl[3], 100.0*float(total_wdl[3])/float(total_positions)))&#xA;print('Side to move wins: {:d} ({:.4f}%)'.format(total_wdl[4], 100.0*float(total_wdl[4])/float(total_positions)))&#xA;&#xA;positions=np.sum(wdl, axis=1)&#xA;for i_pieces in range(5):&#xA;    print()&#xA;    print('{:d}-man Syzygy tablebases'.format(i_pieces+3))&#xA;    print('Total positions: {:d}'.format(positions[i_pieces]))&#xA;    print('Side to move loses: {:d} ({:.4f}%)'.format(wdl[i_pieces, 0], 100.0 * float(wdl[i_pieces, 0]) / float(positions[i_pieces])))&#xA;    print('Side to move loss saved by 50-move rule: {:d} ({:.4f}%)'.format(wdl[i_pieces, 1], 100.0 * float(wdl[i_pieces, 1]) / float(positions[i_pieces])))&#xA;    print('Draws: {:d} ({:.4f}%)'.format(wdl[i_pieces, 2], 100.0 * float(wdl[i_pieces, 2]) / float(positions[i_pieces])))&#xA;    print('Side to move win saved by 50-move rule: {:d} ({:.4f}%)'.format(wdl[i_pieces, 3], 100.0 * float(wdl[i_pieces, 3]) / float(positions[i_pieces])))&#xA;    print('Side to move wins: {:d} ({:.4f}%)'.format(wdl[i_pieces, 4], 100.0 * float(wdl[i_pieces, 4]) / float(positions[i_pieces])))&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21604" LastActivityDate="2020-07-10T09:05:52.250" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30329" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30295" CreationDate="2020-07-10T11:05:11.547" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Shirish Chinchalkar has a &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/An-Upper-Bound-for-the-Number-of-Reachable-Chinchalkar/9a5c2437d6f30c8281a8ee67cf9200cff7d06051&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;paper&lt;/a&gt; which calculates an upper bound of ~10^46 for the number of positions in chess (different from moves obviously). Arguments which talk about the number of atoms in the universe are very facetious on account of using position differences (we can only get to a position from another, so why not just store what piece moved instead of the whole new position?) as well as compression. IIRC, in the &lt;a href=&quot;https://syzygy-tables.info/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Syzygy endgame tables&lt;/a&gt;,  each position can be represented by less than a single bit after taking into consideration compression.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One thing that I personally wonder, and I could be completely wrong, is whether there would be at a certain point a relative small decrease in complexity as n -&amp;gt; 32 as there will be less starting nodes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's an amazing question though. I would love to see it (even weakly) solved in my lifetime.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24129" LastEditorUserId="23209" LastEditDate="2020-07-10T14:08:19.200" LastActivityDate="2020-07-10T14:08:19.200" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30330" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-07-10T11:33:58.930" Score="0" ViewCount="30" Body="&lt;p&gt;I wanted to learn chess formally online and want your help finding good websites which teach chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24130" LastActivityDate="2020-07-10T11:33:58.930" Title="Can you suggest some good free chess sites to learn about opening, finding checkmates, endgames etc for a beginner in chess?" Tags="&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;computer-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2020-07-10T12:01:53.200" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30331" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30322" CreationDate="2020-07-10T11:52:29.917" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Qf3 threatens the king with Qa8 on the next move. Your oppenent could capture your knight and defend with Nb8 afterwards, but this will cost him a knight as well (and also a bishop or an exchange of queens), so he won't capture your knight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Always keep in mind that there are four possible defences if one of your pieces is under attack:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Move the piece to safety, preferably somewhere where it's still dangerous. Don't retreat.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If the attacking piece is more valuable than yours, back it up and make it an exchange.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Move a cheaper piece into the line of fire and block the attack, preferably making it an exchange as well.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Press and unrelated attack, which forces the opponent to defend his pieces instead of attacking yours.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your example, all four defences are available. You can move the knight to safety with Nf3, back it up with c2, block the attack with b3 or press an unrelated attack with Qf3. Qf3 is the best option, because it puts you in a great position, forces the opponent to waste a tempo defending his king, and you can still protect your knight with c2 of b3 afterwards. Retreating the knight to Nf3 is the worst option.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24131" LastEditorUserId="24131" LastEditDate="2020-07-10T12:01:55.217" LastActivityDate="2020-07-10T12:01:55.217" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30332" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28482" CreationDate="2020-07-10T16:32:33.467" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Another woman to add to the list of close, but not quite, is &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pia_Cramling&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Pia Cramling.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;She drew with &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.redhotpawn.com/chess/grandmaster-games/viewmastergame.php?pgnid=6&amp;amp;subject=Garry-Kasparov-vs-Pia-Cramling&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Kasparov&lt;/a&gt; in the Under 16 World Championship in 1976.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;She defeated &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1082804&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Korchnoi&lt;/a&gt; in 1984 and again in 1995, in a Women - Veterans tournament.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;She defeated &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1127154&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Smyslov&lt;/a&gt; in 1995 and 1998, in Women - Veterans tournaments&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;She defeated &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.365chess.com/game.php?gid=1391282&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Spassky&lt;/a&gt; in the 1996 Women - Veterans tournament.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9025" LastActivityDate="2020-07-10T16:32:33.467" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30335" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30295" CreationDate="2020-07-11T00:39:07.147" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the other answers and comment have made it clear that this is a really complex problem. So complex, that no classic computer will ever come close to solving it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I have asked myself the same question. Isn't chess a perfect example to use a quantum computer? Although quantum computers are not yet fully ready for use there do exist &amp;quot;programming languages&amp;quot;, and there are already many algorithms for a quantum computer described this way. There actually even exist simulators for running these quantum computer &amp;quot;programs&amp;quot; on classic computers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wonder how feasible it would be to write an algorithm for solving chess on a quantum computer. Or would that require so many qbits, that we can never expect an actual quantum computer that could run this algorithm? But if it would once exist, shouldn't it be able to answer the question within a second?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just to clarify, since I mentioned the possibility to simulate these algorithms on classic computers. This simulation of course only makes this very complex problem solved even less performant, so those simulators could only be used for testing of the algorithm, not for really using it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24139" LastActivityDate="2020-07-11T00:39:07.147" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30336" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30295" CreationDate="2020-07-11T05:54:16.193" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Another line of attack is reducing dimension: Gardner's 5x5 &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minichess#5%C3%975_chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;minichess&lt;/a&gt; has been &lt;a href=&quot;https://arxiv.org/abs/1307.7118&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;weakly solved&lt;/a&gt; by Mehdi Mhalla and Frederic Prost in 2013. 3x3 and 3x4 boards have been &lt;a href=&quot;http://kirr.homeunix.org/chess/3x3-chess/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;strongly&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;http://kirr.homeunix.org/chess/3x4-chess/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;solved&lt;/a&gt; in the 2000s with complete tablebases for each position by Kirill Kryukov, and 9-men tablebases for &lt;a href=&quot;http://kirill-kryukov.com/chess/4x4-chess/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;4x4 chess&lt;/a&gt; have been completed in 2011 by the same author.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12957" LastEditorUserId="12957" LastEditDate="2020-07-11T07:27:47.473" LastActivityDate="2020-07-11T07:27:47.473" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30337" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-07-11T10:08:38.263" Score="6" ViewCount="727" Body="&lt;p&gt;A decade back i used to play chess, but just OTB and without time control. I now got back into chess and often play something like 15+10, where I very rarely lose on time and I am now rated ~1500 on Lichess. I tried playing shorter time controls but i lose almost every game (rated 900 blitz) on time. I also dont seem to improve at all an do not really know where to start to get better at those time controls. Are there some ressources that could help me improve or should i just change my playstyle for blitz?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24143" LastActivityDate="2020-07-14T23:59:49.117" Title="What is some basic advice for playing blitz or rapid?" Tags="&lt;blitz&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30338" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30337" CreationDate="2020-07-11T14:49:07.633" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Welcome to Chess StackExchange!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You say the transition from games at 15+10 to blitz sees you going from rarely losing on time to almost always losing on time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can I ask if the blitz is still with increment eg like 5+5 or some such?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I switch from say bullet to 5+5 to 8+5 and such it always takes me several games to get into the rhythm of the new time control.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do you have a sense at the shorter time controls that you are falling behind in the opening phase, middle game or end game?&#xA;Are you spending too much time in the openings to get a good position but then run out of time to win?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One way to cope with the time issue is to play a small number of quieter openings. You will learn how to play their characteristic pawn structures and where to put your pieces.&#xA;For example I aim to play as white the London System and as black against e4 the French Defense.&#xA;Against d4 I like the NimzoIndian.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are online games repositories with notes that can help you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A good area to study is the endgame, an extra effort here will dramatically improve your results.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Rook and pawn endings are quite common and it's worth studying them. I find it's the area where my opponents often stumble.&#xA;Always try to get your rook active even at the cost of a pawn and remember that whether in attack or defence the rook belongs behind the passed pawn!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pay particular attention to your king safety or your opponents lack thereof.&#xA;In a time scramble an exposed king position can be a nightmare.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Best of luck!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13074" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-07-11T17:32:02.737" LastActivityDate="2020-07-11T17:32:02.737" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30339" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30337" CreationDate="2020-07-11T15:35:46.540" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;What do you call blitz?&#xA;When I played it was zero seconds per move.&#xA;Now it seems to be variable like SD1 to SD5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At your rating it really does not matter what you do.&#xA;For sure you will not ever improve if you play blitz.&#xA;It is more likely to reduce your actual rating a LOT.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What you need to do is improve your skills.&#xA;Then practice at playing at exactly ten seconds per move.&#xA;Get in the habit of not moving instantly, but also not taking time that would run your clock out before the game ends.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You need to study tactics and learn an opening thoroughly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;15+10 is like postal chess to me.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;What do you do with all that time?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Play 1+10 and force  yourself to learn to move faster.  You wont play much worse for a while and you will improve.  But do study tactics and learn openings.  Then learn end games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24151" LastActivityDate="2020-07-11T15:35:46.540" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30340" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30243" CreationDate="2020-07-11T15:58:43.667" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let me count the reasons....&#xA;It all depends!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And there is no way  to answer your question exactly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;GMs do not play by your  arbitrary evaluation method. They play to win or possibly to not lose. While their tactics are  usually very good , missing a mate in 5 while winning the game is more important to them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Depending on how they feel,  how much clock time they have,  whether they fear their might be a killer move by opponent they missed if they tried, they will go with what they see as the clearest win no matter how many moves (unless time pressure requires them to win faster as in a SD game with a long difficult endgame vs somehow winning it faster like that mate in 5).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24152" LastActivityDate="2020-07-11T15:58:43.667" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30341" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-07-11T18:35:09.343" Score="5" ViewCount="621" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's reasonably common for my opponents in blitz to fall into the following trap in the opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;] &#xA;1. e4 Nc6 2. d4 e5 3. d5 Nce7 4. f4 Ng6 5.f5 Qh4+ 6. g3 Qxe4+ 7. Qe2 Qxh1 8. Nf3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This position should be an easy win, but I find myself often getting in trouble with my queen getting trapped after white develops and castles queenside.  Is there a simple plan to safely extract the queen?  I don't mind giving back a minor piece to simplify the position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2005" LastEditorUserId="2005" LastEditDate="2020-07-11T18:45:52.430" LastActivityDate="2020-07-11T22:05:08.020" Title="Simplest plan to stop my queen from getting trapped" Tags="&lt;opening-traps&gt;&lt;nimzowitsch-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30342" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30341" CreationDate="2020-07-11T20:32:22.263" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think that this is an easy win at all. In fact it is not clear who is the trapper and who is the &amp;quot;trappee&amp;quot;. To close the trap, White has no need even to develop. He can simply play Kd2!! followed by Bg2. This refutes, for example, N6e7.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only defence that I can see starts with 8..e4! 9.Qxe4+ Kd8! 10.fxg6 hxg6. Without analysing further White has a lot of compensation. However, this is all moot. Instead of the adventurous 7..Qxh1, Black has simply 7..Qxf5 with two extra Pawns and no real problems.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastActivityDate="2020-07-11T20:32:22.263" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30343" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30341" CreationDate="2020-07-11T20:45:22.770" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;cant make comments yet: Do you want to keep the Queen or do you want to have a winning position?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [fen &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. e4 Nc6 2. d4 e5 3. d5 Nce7 4. f4 Ng6 5. f5 Qh4+ 6. g3 Qxe4+ 7. Qe2 Qxh1 8. Nf3 *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Leaves you with Rook, Knight and a Rook for the Queen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24143" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2020-07-11T22:05:08.020" LastActivityDate="2020-07-11T22:05:08.020" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30344" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30345" CreationDate="2020-07-12T03:51:59.233" Score="15" ViewCount="3392" Body="&lt;p&gt;In a recent online game, I offered a draw when the endgame is clearly drawing. To my surprise, instead of replying to my draw offer, my opponent resigned. I have no idea why they did so and my best guess is a misclick.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am brainstorming and I guess there might be some possible scenarios that one may resign when a draw is offered:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In a tournament, if winning is the only meaningful result for a player while drawing and losing make virtually no difference to them. Seeing winning is hopeless, they may resign instead of accepting the draw offer.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A player is clearly losing while his opponent who does not need to win the game, or in a hurry to leave, offered a draw. Embarrassesd at this draw offer, the player chooses to resign instead.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A player chooses to lose a game on purpose, such as keeping their rating lower so that they can enter some tournament with a restriction on rating.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have two questions related to this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When a draw is offered, can a player resign as a reply? I think it should be technically legal for them to decline the draw offer first and resign on the next move, but is it legal to reply with resignation when a draw is offered?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Though extremely rare, is it considered unsporting (if legal at all) to resign at a draw offer?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16626" LastEditorUserId="11712" LastEditDate="2020-07-12T23:40:10.533" LastActivityDate="2020-07-14T20:18:17.507" Title="Resignation when a draw is offered" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;fide&gt;&lt;draw&gt;&lt;etiquette&gt;&lt;resigning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30345" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30344" CreationDate="2020-07-12T10:45:56.790" Score="19" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;is it legal to reply with resignation when a draw is offered?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course. This is all that the &lt;a href=&quot;https://handbook.fide.com/chapter/E012018&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Laws of Chess&lt;/a&gt; has to say about resignation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5.1.2 The game is won by the player whose opponent declares he resigns. This immediately ends the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can resign at any time during the game. It doesn't even need to be your turn. I have done this. I once played a move that would blunder my queen, realized as I pressed the clock and immediately resigned before my opponent could play the move I missed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;is it considered bad sportsmanship ... to resign at a draw offer?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No. Why should it be? There are some circumstances where it could be considered &lt;em&gt;good&lt;/em&gt; sportsmanship. Suppose, in the last round of a tournament, player A requires just a draw to win the tournament outright and offers his opponent, player B, a draw in a completely winning position. Player B could accept the draw but it might be more sporting to just resign.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-07-12T10:45:56.790" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30346" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30347" CreationDate="2020-07-12T14:49:35.593" Score="2" ViewCount="232" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was wondering if there is a top level coverage of plans for Black in the below pawn structure:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &amp;quot;8/pp3ppp/2p2p2/8/3P4/8/PPP2PPP/8 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or this one:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &amp;quot;8/pp3ppp/2p2p2/8/2PP4/8/PP3PPP/8 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know similar ones arise from Caro-Kann, but have also seen it in many other openings where White plays Bxf6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Computer claims equality, or a slight edge, but I would like to &amp;quot;hear an opinion&amp;quot; from top GMs if possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastActivityDate="2020-07-12T15:30:48.430" Title="Seeking GM-level coverage of a typical pawn structure" Tags="&lt;pawn-structure&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30347" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30346" CreationDate="2020-07-12T15:30:48.430" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Vallejo has a great series (Spanish only) in chess24 about the Caro-Pirc, which covers this particular structure. Note that the dynamics of positions with those two pawn structures are probably very different from one another (a ...c5 break by Black would have a very different impact on each case. Similar ofr the pressure on the semi-open d file)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Engine claims equality&amp;quot; does not make much sense when referring to the pawn structure itself, since many different factors will determine the actual evaluation of a given position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastActivityDate="2020-07-12T15:30:48.430" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30348" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-07-12T17:47:52.693" Score="1" ViewCount="293" Body="&lt;p&gt;In an effort to classify chess games, I thought it would be useful to identify a set of positions by their unique pawn structure that would form a family of positions. There are indeed many positions but my rough calculations indicate 10^12 to be a upper limit of all possible combinations (I may be very wrong as I don't trust my calculations). But interestingly, it is way lower than the number of sensible position,s i.e. ~10^46. I am very interested to know the actual number of pawn structures (mwithout promotion). I guess actual number of legal positions would be difficult to estimate but a general idea might be good.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23209" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-07-12T21:43:55.740" LastActivityDate="2021-04-28T00:56:36.733" Title="How many unique pawn structures are possible?" Tags="&lt;pawns&gt;&lt;pawn-structure&gt;&lt;mathematics&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30349" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-07-13T01:57:19.530" Score="1" ViewCount="71" Body="&lt;p&gt;The insufficient mating material rule says that the game is immediately declared a draw if there is no way to end the game in checkmate. This usually happens in KB vs K or KN vs K endgames. However, based on the definition, it is theoretically possible to have more materials while checkmating is theoretically impossible, such as the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/NktAL.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/NktAL.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So what is the theoretical maximal total of material for the insufficient material draw? Here I am only asking legal positions; so adding a few white light coloured bishop to my example will not count.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16626" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-07-13T17:27:07.147" LastActivityDate="2020-07-13T17:27:07.147" Title="What is the theoretical maximal total of material for the insufficient material draw?" Tags="&lt;problems&gt;&lt;draw&gt;&lt;records&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="8" ClosedDate="2020-07-13T09:35:29.813" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30350" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12316" CreationDate="2020-07-13T04:37:04.833" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, there is a rule(s) of thumb that every chess player should know about doubled pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Avoid double pawns in pawn endings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Double pawns prevent the ability for a pawn majority to create passed pawns in a pawn ending against perfect play.  This is because the side without a doubled pawn will be able to create a passed pawn with their majority and the side with the doubled pawn will not (against perfect play).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Whereas most rule(s) of thumb concerning doubled pawns aren't necessarily critical (e.g. double pawns can open files, double pawns can strengthen influence in the center (see Botvinnik-Sorokin 1931), etc), not following the above rule of thumb can lose you the game.  Therefore, every chess player should know this rule of thumb about doubled pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13177" LastActivityDate="2020-07-13T04:37:04.833" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30351" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30354" CreationDate="2020-07-13T15:34:37.353" Score="3" ViewCount="76" Body="&lt;p&gt;I asked a &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/29402/how-much-fide-rated-chess-was-played-in-april-2020&quot;&gt;similar question&lt;/a&gt; about chess during lockdown. Now that some countries are coming out of lockdown and chess is resuming FIDE has published &lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/download.phtml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;data for June&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;NB I looked at May data and as far as I could tell FIDE just repeated the April tournament data with updates from federations for corrections to previous data and new registrations but no new tournament data. The June data does contain new tournament data.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What does the June data tell us about chess coming out of lockdown?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Specifically:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;How many games (or half-games) of FIDE rated chess (standard, rapid and blitz) were played in June, by country?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;How many players from which countries played FIDE rated chess (standard, rapid and blitz) in June?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;How does this compare with the same data for June 2019 for total game counts and total player counts? (Break down by country would be too much)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These statistics should give us some idea what progress is being made and how much further we have to go to get back close to normal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2020-07-13T15:41:09.720" LastActivityDate="2020-07-13T23:06:07.520" Title="As we come out of lockdown, how much FIDE rated chess was played in June 2020?" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;fide&gt;&lt;statistics&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30353" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12316" CreationDate="2020-07-13T21:16:44.697" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are two important things to note about doubled pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1: They are good at defense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2: They are bad at moving forward.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;   &#xA;[fen &quot;8/5p2/6p1/ppp5/5PP1/1P4P1/1P6/8 w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this diagram from &lt;em&gt;A practical guide to Rook endgames&lt;/em&gt; by Nikolay Minev. The author shows that on the kingside the extra doubled pawn is a weakness because White is not able to break through at any point. Highlighting their inability to play aggressively.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the queenside however, the black pawns can get attacked more easily. What's more, when black plays either ...c4 or ...a4 white exchanges a pawn and black is left with weaker split pawns as a result. This underlines the defensive capability of doubled pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So go forth and double your pawns if you know you are defending on that side!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24024" LastActivityDate="2020-07-13T21:16:44.697" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30354" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30351" CreationDate="2020-07-13T23:06:07.520" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I downloaded the latest &lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/download.phtml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;July 2020 rating list&lt;/a&gt; and loaded the data into my database and ran a few queries.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First one to show the number of players who played standard, rapid or blitz per federation sorted by standard players descending. I also included the number of active players in the federation to give an idea of which federations were more active. I excluded federations where the number of players playing was less than 4 on the grounds that they were likely living and playing in other federations. That still gave an impressive list of 33 federations which look as if they are back playing chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Code    ActivePlayers   Standard    Rapid   Blitz&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;CZE 10838   2543    17  16&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;SVK 6704    1357    54  0&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;SWE 5331    449 1   0&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;CRO 7654    351 14  54&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;GRE 20595   338 0   0&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;DEN 5496    134 0   0&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;SRB 7436    112 75  69&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;ISR 4104    96  0   1&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;NOR 5165    93  0   0&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;POL 21407   85  38  40&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;HUN 7928    80  6   1&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;LAT 2758    69  86  99&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;MNE 822 69  0   0&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;SUI 3170    66  6   1&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;BUL 3038    60  1   0&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;ISL 1842    36  54  60&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;FIN 1308    36  0   0&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;LTU 3813    32  59  22&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;SLO 4320    31  44  82&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;NCA 712 23  0   39&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;GER 22613   22  1   2&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;EST 1517    22  0   6&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;BEL 5602    14  0   1&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;RUS 68077   8   3   1&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;ITA 18332   6   10  1&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;AUT 5640    4   2   0&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;UKR 11853   4   2   22&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;FRA 55783   4   1   2&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;TUR 36523   4   0   0&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;ESP 45444   4   0   1&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;IRQ 1515    2   47  0&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;THA 1082    0   14  0&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;KGZ 2688    0   10  0&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What stands out as quite remarkable in that list is that over 20% of Czech and Slovak active players played last month!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Next a query to show the sum of standard players, rapid players and blitz players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That gave for June 2020:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Standard = 6171&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Rapid = 551&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Blitz = 524&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By comparison for June 2019:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Standard = 35708&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Rapid = 18712&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Blitz = 10569&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Two things stand out&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;More than 60% of standard chess played in June 2020 was played in the Czech and Slovak republics&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Standard accounted for far more of the chess played in June 2020 than in June 2019.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Next a query to show the sum of standard+rapid+blitz games per federation. Here is the top 20. Click on the federation link to see the list of tournaments reported for that federation in June 2020:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Code    Total   Standard    Rapid   Blitz&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/tournament_list.phtml?moder=ev_code&amp;amp;country=CZE&amp;amp;rating_period=2020-07-01&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;CZE&lt;/a&gt;    16002   7899    100 204&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/tournament_list.phtml?moder=ev_code&amp;amp;country=SVK&amp;amp;rating_period=2020-07-01&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;SVK&lt;/a&gt;    4848    2424    132 0&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/tournament_list.phtml?moder=ev_code&amp;amp;country=LAT&amp;amp;rating_period=2020-07-01&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;LAT&lt;/a&gt;    2625    599 672 1427&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/tournament_list.phtml?moder=ev_code&amp;amp;country=SRB&amp;amp;rating_period=2020-07-01&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;SRB&lt;/a&gt;    2097    435 560 1227&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/tournament_list.phtml?moder=ev_code&amp;amp;country=CRO&amp;amp;rating_period=2020-07-01&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;CRO&lt;/a&gt;    2074    719 80  636&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/tournament_list.phtml?moder=ev_code&amp;amp;country=GRE&amp;amp;rating_period=2020-07-01&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;GRE&lt;/a&gt;    1834    917 0   0&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/tournament_list.phtml?moder=ev_code&amp;amp;country=SLO&amp;amp;rating_period=2020-07-01&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;SLO&lt;/a&gt;    1663    138 300 1387&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/tournament_list.phtml?moder=ev_code&amp;amp;country=POL&amp;amp;rating_period=2020-07-01&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;POL&lt;/a&gt;    1221    441 401 339&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/tournament_list.phtml?moder=ev_code&amp;amp;country=HUN&amp;amp;rating_period=2020-07-01&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;HUN&lt;/a&gt;   1213    601 8   11&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/tournament_list.phtml?moder=ev_code&amp;amp;country=SWE&amp;amp;rating_period=2020-07-01&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;SWE&lt;/a&gt;   1108    554 7   0&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/tournament_list.phtml?moder=ev_code&amp;amp;country=ISL&amp;amp;rating_period=2020-07-01&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;ISL&lt;/a&gt;   869 93  330 683&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/tournament_list.phtml?moder=ev_code&amp;amp;country=NOR&amp;amp;rating_period=2020-07-01&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;NOR&lt;/a&gt;   776 388 0   0&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/tournament_list.phtml?moder=ev_code&amp;amp;country=DEN&amp;amp;rating_period=2020-07-01&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;DEN&lt;/a&gt;   754 377 0   0&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/tournament_list.phtml?moder=ev_code&amp;amp;country=LTU&amp;amp;rating_period=2020-07-01&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;LTU&lt;/a&gt;   714 230 404 254&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/tournament_list.phtml?moder=ev_code&amp;amp;country=BUL&amp;amp;rating_period=2020-07-01&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;BUL&lt;/a&gt;   708 354 9   0&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/tournament_list.phtml?moder=ev_code&amp;amp;country=MNE&amp;amp;rating_period=2020-07-01&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;MNE&lt;/a&gt;   606 303 0   0&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/tournament_list.phtml?moder=ev_code&amp;amp;country=NCA&amp;amp;rating_period=2020-07-01&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;NCA&lt;/a&gt;   575 167 0   241&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/tournament_list.phtml?moder=ev_code&amp;amp;country=SUI&amp;amp;rating_period=2020-07-01&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;SUI&lt;/a&gt;   503 246 36  11&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/tournament_list.phtml?moder=ev_code&amp;amp;country=EST&amp;amp;rating_period=2020-07-01&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;EST&lt;/a&gt;   354 144 0   66&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/tournament_list.phtml?moder=ev_code&amp;amp;country=ISR&amp;amp;rating_period=2020-07-01&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;ISR&lt;/a&gt;   319 155 0   9&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The sum of games for June 2020:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Standard = 17562&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Rapid = 3774&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Blitz = 6844&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For comparison the same figures for June 2019:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Standard = 247057&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Rapid = 148693&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Blitz = 121143&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Digging deeper into the data for the Czech republic, you can see the tournaments reported for&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;June 2020 for the Czech Republic &lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/tournament_list.phtml?moder=ev_code&amp;amp;country=CZE&amp;amp;rating_period=2020-07-01&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; and for&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;June 2019 for the Czech Republic &lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/tournament_list.phtml?moder=ev_code&amp;amp;country=CZE&amp;amp;rating_period=2019-07-01&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;43 Czech tournaments reported in June 2020 against 21 in June 2019. It looks very much like in June they aimed to catch up with all the matches and tournaments they missed during the lockdown.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-07-13T23:06:07.520" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30355" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12316" CreationDate="2020-07-14T03:09:12.390" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Excellent discussion of doubled pawns by Gserper on chess.com Nov 2012.&#xA;Botvinnik was first World-class player who liked doubled pawns. Kasparov noted Botvinnik loved to grab the center and was not hesitant to use doubled pawns to achieve that. He doubled pawns on central files, viz. c, d, e, f , never on extreme flank files. He usually advanced at least the lead pawn early. The pawns were used to control central squares and support outposts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If &lt;strong&gt;your pawns&lt;/strong&gt; may be doubled :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Avoid on flank files&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Quite valuable to maintain an adjacent pawn.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Advance at least the lead pawn as soon as possible.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Cramped if they remain on 2nd &amp;amp; 3rd ranks.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Use to support outposts. Occupy adjacent open files&#xA;with rooks.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Caution trading down. Doubled pawns weak in endgame.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If &lt;strong&gt;opponents pawns&lt;/strong&gt; are doubled :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Blockade with pawn or piece ( Nimzowitsch )&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Attack either pawn that is unguarded.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Don't hesitate to trade down.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13674" LastActivityDate="2020-07-14T03:09:12.390" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30356" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-07-14T04:24:12.643" Score="5" ViewCount="1043" Body="&lt;p&gt;For  layman, can someone explain how you calculate the number of available positions in a chess game, and how do you get the huge number of 10^120 or 10^46?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23209" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-07-14T14:46:08.747" LastActivityDate="2020-07-14T17:57:20.097" Title="How to calculate the number of positions in chess?" Tags="&lt;theory&gt;&lt;mathematics&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30357" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-07-14T04:36:03.583" Score="3" ViewCount="360" Body="&lt;p&gt;It seems that TCEC has seen Stockfish and Leela go back and forth. It is probable that these days Stockfish is a little bit better than Leela. I was wondering, since it is different in Chess960, which one of two is better at it? Does anyone have any insights?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3872" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-12-13T20:05:15.230" LastActivityDate="2020-12-13T22:59:16.833" Title="Which engine is better at Chess960-Stockfish or Leela?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;chess960&gt;&lt;leela&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30358" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-07-14T05:16:20.743" Score="7" ViewCount="649" Body="&lt;p&gt;Today I played a game on lichess where my opponent had a King and two Knights vs my lone King. I believe my opponent intended to offer a draw, but they accidentally resigned.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the rationale for allowing this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my opinion resignation means: &amp;quot;I trust my opponent's skill to convert this position into a win&amp;quot;. Therefore, if it is impossible for someone to win then resignation should not be an option, and the game should be drawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(My question is inspired by &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/30344/resignation-when-a-draw-is-offered&quot;&gt;Resignation when a draw is offered&lt;/a&gt;, but though my question is related, it is not the same question.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="307" LastEditorUserId="307" LastEditDate="2020-07-14T16:35:34.357" LastActivityDate="2020-07-19T00:46:25.317" Title="Why is a player allowed to resign in an impossible to lose position?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;resigning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30360" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30356" CreationDate="2020-07-14T06:44:27.370" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;We can easily get a reasonably good upper bound on the number of positions. At any point in time, each player has 16 pieces of which the 8 pawns can perhaps be promoted to a knight / bishop / rook / queen. Consider all captured pieces to be off the board but part of the position (this would increase the number of positions but that is fine because we only want an upper bound). Thus in each position the number of combinations of pieces each player has is less than 5&lt;sup&gt;8&lt;/sup&gt;. Place the kings on the board first. There are less than 64&lt;sup&gt;2&lt;/sup&gt; ways to do that. Line up the 30 other pieces in any order and place them one by one on the board or off the board (captured). There are at most 63&lt;sup&gt;30&lt;/sup&gt; ways to do that. This gives a total of less than (5&lt;sup&gt;8&lt;/sup&gt;)&lt;sup&gt;2&lt;/sup&gt;×64^2×63^30 &amp;lt; 6×10&lt;sup&gt;68&lt;/sup&gt; positions. Double that to include whose turn it is. I had ignored castling rights; you can check that it is negligible by similar calculations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This bound is very much smaller than what you gave in your question, even though it is an extremely loose upper bound, because you had a misconception. The number of possible positions is &lt;strong&gt;not at all&lt;/strong&gt; the same as the number of possible games. For example, there are less than 64&lt;sup&gt;2&lt;/sup&gt; positions with just the 2 kings, but at least 2&lt;sup&gt;100&lt;/sup&gt; possible games starting from any such position (under the 50-move rule but ignoring 3-fold repetition rule for easy estimation). Moreover, the 10&lt;sup&gt;120&lt;/sup&gt; estimate is assuming the game lasts 40 moves (2 plies) and each move has about 1000 possibilities. The real total number of possible games (including stupid ones) is obviously &lt;strong&gt;way&lt;/strong&gt; more than that, since we already have 2&lt;sup&gt;100&lt;/sup&gt; possible KK games alone!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9192" LastEditorUserId="9192" LastEditDate="2020-07-14T07:02:42.800" LastActivityDate="2020-07-14T07:02:42.800" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30361" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22580" CreationDate="2020-07-14T06:53:05.060" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;See my book &lt;a href=&quot;http://problem64.beda.cz/silo/kotesovec_endings_on_an_nxn_chessboard_2ed_2017.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Fairy chess endings on an n x n chessboard&lt;/a&gt; (2017), p. 345 and 414. The ending of king + two nightriders against bare king on board 8x8 is won for the stronger side and the longest win has 22 moves.&#xA;Also the ending king + knight + nightrider against king is a general win, see page 395.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9765" LastActivityDate="2020-07-14T06:53:05.060" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30362" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16504" CreationDate="2020-07-14T07:14:44.677" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Non-royal king is a combination of [0,1] leaper (wazir) and [1,1] leaper (fers) and in fairy chess called a erlking. About erlking, see my book &lt;a href=&quot;http://problem64.beda.cz/silo/kotesovec_endings_on_an_nxn_chessboard_2ed_2017.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Fairy chess endings on an n x n chessboard&lt;/a&gt; (2017), page 545.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The ending of king + erlking against bare king on board 8x8 is won for the stronger side and the longest win has 18 moves. Also the ending of two erlkings against king is a general win and the longest win has 16 moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9765" LastActivityDate="2020-07-14T07:14:44.677" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30363" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-07-14T07:24:49.027" Score="3" ViewCount="56" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am looking for a program for Windows or an online service for viewing PGN at variable speed.  I know that lichess has fast and slow speed, but I want more adjustable settings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24169" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-07-14T14:44:28.997" LastActivityDate="2020-07-16T08:56:52.537" Title="How to watch PGN at different speeds?" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;programming&gt;&lt;pgn&gt;&lt;online&gt;&lt;windows&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30364" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30357" CreationDate="2020-07-14T10:20:11.127" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Leela or AlphaZero is the best computer since they have beaten Stockfish in standard chess and Leela is said to be better at positional chess than Stockfish. Stockfish is better at tactical chess and since Chess960 is more positional than standard chess, Leela (or AlphaZero) is better at Chess960.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24171" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-09-01T06:53:48.080" LastActivityDate="2020-09-01T06:53:48.080" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30365" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30322" CreationDate="2020-07-14T10:33:55.713" Score="1" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;a general rule is to solve problems with devolopment, here your problem is your N is under attack and you threat QA8+&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the threat of QA8 is very dangerous and is winning.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24171" LastActivityDate="2020-07-14T10:33:55.713" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30366" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30304" CreationDate="2020-07-14T10:49:38.453" Score="1" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;when the pawns are on c6 and d5 that means that your dark bishop is your best bishop&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;after c6 and d5 the dark square around them are weak and the bishop takes control of those square.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the bishop on e7 is not controling alot of square on c5 and b4 it can get kicked around with a3 b4 or Na4.&#xA;I am 2100 take that into account.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24171" LastActivityDate="2020-07-14T10:49:38.453" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30367" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30358" CreationDate="2020-07-14T14:26:59.360" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately, there is no objective way of saying that a position is 'completely winning'. The rules of chess try to avoid subjectivity as much as possible. Consider the following example (which is related, but not directly pertaining, to your question):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Player A is clearly winning against Player B. In practical terms, there is no way in which Player B could beat Player A, although in theory it is still possible&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Player A's flag falls, meaning that B wins the game&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Obviously, this situation is not ideal. Player A was clearly winning, and yet they still lost the game. Now consider this related scenario:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Player A is clearly winning against Player B. It is &lt;em&gt;impossible&lt;/em&gt; for Player B to achieve a win against Player A through a legal sequence of moves&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Player A's flag falls, meaning that the game is drawn&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the vast majority of cases, there is no difference between these two situations, and it is unfortunate that in one case Player A loses, and in the other, Player A draws. However, declaring that 'completely winning' positions should also be drawn in this scenario opens up a Pandora's Box that makes the rules of chess much more difficult to enforce. The main issue is, how do you define 'completely winning'? Let's consider a couple of possibilities:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'Completely winning' means that the arbiter believes there is no conceivable way in which Player B could beat Player A, even if it is technically possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What if the arbiter misreads the position and doesn't realise that it is 'completely winning'. Or, even worse, they declare a position to be 'completely winning' even though Player B has many more chances than you might expect. Wouldn't one arbiter have a different interpretation to another?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;'Completely winning' means that when the position is fed into an engine, it spits out +10.00 or -10.00.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well, engines are giving an &lt;em&gt;objective assessment&lt;/em&gt; of the position. A position which is in theory +10 might be much harder to win than a position evaluated as +2, but is in reality just a well-known theoretical endgame. Also, what engine do you use? How long do you let the engine inspect the position? The list goes on...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In summary, it is much harder to enforce 'clearly winning' positions instead of just saying, firmly and clearly: 'if it is &lt;em&gt;impossible&lt;/em&gt; for a player to win this game, then the following rules apply...'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Applying these lessons to your question gives us the answer: allowing accidental resignations is the least worst option when it comes to enforcing the rules of the game. And yes, in practice, two knights vs a king should end up as a draw, and your opponent was very unlucky. But it &lt;em&gt;is&lt;/em&gt; possible for two knights vs a king endgame to end in a win, and changing the rules of the game would have far worse consequences than first thought.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20585" LastActivityDate="2020-07-14T14:26:59.360" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30368" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27305" CreationDate="2020-07-14T15:09:54.173" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;More general answers:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://oeis.org/A172532&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;OEIS A172532&lt;/a&gt;: Number of ways to place 5 nonattacking knights on an n X n toroidal board.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;my book &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.kotesovec.cz/books/kotesovec_non_attacking_chess_pieces_2013_6ed.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Non-attacking chess pieces&lt;/a&gt; (6ed, 2013), page 308, chapter &amp;quot;k Knights on an n x n toroidal chessboard&amp;quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9765" LastActivityDate="2020-07-14T15:09:54.173" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30369" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29701" CreationDate="2020-07-14T15:24:17.290" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;See my book &lt;a href=&quot;http://problem64.beda.cz/silo/kotesovec_endings_on_an_nxn_chessboard_2ed_2017.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Fairy chess endings on an n x n chessboard&lt;/a&gt; (2017), chapter &amp;quot;Endings without the white king&amp;quot;, p. 592&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Especially:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;two knights and bishop&lt;/strong&gt; against bare king, see p. 685. The ending is won only on a 7x7 chessboard, on boards 8x8 and greater the ending is drawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;three knights&lt;/strong&gt; against bare king, see p. 706. The ending is drawn on a board of any size. Mate can be forced only if the Black king is already trapped in a corner of the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9765" LastActivityDate="2020-07-14T15:24:17.290" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30370" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30371" CreationDate="2020-07-14T16:02:44.763" Score="11" ViewCount="7666" Body="&lt;p&gt;Inspite of  having such a large number of possible positions and games why do  high level players bother about some specific game from some million years ago ? It may be helpful in understanding techniques and tactics but memorizing them seems very unusual. In fact memorizing games puts the person with more calculating ability at a disadvantage in time constrained games. Shouldn't the goal be to develop the chess aptitude rather than memorizing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23209" LastActivityDate="2020-07-16T13:40:05.483" Title="Why do high level players memorize specific games?" Tags="&lt;psychology&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30371" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30370" CreationDate="2020-07-14T16:12:17.490" Score="44" Body="&lt;p&gt;Memorization is mostly a side effect, not the end goal. Top players can spend hours or days analyzing a single game to try to understand all of the instructive ideas. Memorization naturally flows from that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3270" LastActivityDate="2020-07-14T16:12:17.490" CommentCount="11" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30372" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30374" CreationDate="2020-07-14T16:23:25.287" Score="2" ViewCount="74" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have heard many times that while you're doing endgame studies,you should write your calculations,like candidate moves,variations.Is it really necessary?Can't i just check each variation one at a time in my head without having to write it down.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21840" LastActivityDate="2020-07-14T20:13:45.617" Title="Is it necessary to write your calculations?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;calculation&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30373" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30356" CreationDate="2020-07-14T17:57:20.097" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;One way to do it is think about what the smallest computer encoding of a chess position (in bits). The maximum size for a given encoding provides an upper-bound on the number of chess positions. For some really tight upper bounds check out &lt;a href=&quot;https://codegolf.stackexchange.com/questions/19397/smallest-chess-board-compression/19446#19446&quot;&gt;https://codegolf.stackexchange.com/questions/19397/smallest-chess-board-compression/19446#19446&lt;/a&gt;. This gives an upper bound of 2^160 (10^48) positions, which is a bit high, but not that much higher than the true value.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17100" LastActivityDate="2020-07-14T17:57:20.097" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30374" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30372" CreationDate="2020-07-14T20:13:45.617" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;No.  You could do it if it helps you.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;I would not waste the time writing it down when I could be using it to learn something else.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24152" LastActivityDate="2020-07-14T20:13:45.617" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30375" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30358" CreationDate="2020-07-14T20:15:50.073" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is possibly the way the Lichess site is programmed. They clicked on the button but the software is not programmed to recognize positions  such as those you mention.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24152" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-07-19T00:46:25.317" LastActivityDate="2020-07-19T00:46:25.317" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30376" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30344" CreationDate="2020-07-14T20:18:17.507" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Anybody can resign at any time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why he did not take the draw sounds like he is throwing the game to hurt someone else in the standings.  He needed a win for himself but otherwise he preferred x lose and y win (or place higher).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24152" LastActivityDate="2020-07-14T20:18:17.507" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30378" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30370" CreationDate="2020-07-14T20:25:11.473" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;If there is a long complex line it is easier than trying to figure out the right move while the clock is ticking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24152" LastActivityDate="2020-07-14T20:25:11.473" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30379" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21789" CreationDate="2020-07-14T20:34:18.203" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Dont know elorater but there is likely a way through the opsys to randomly pick (that part is easy) players to match and then insert them automatically into elorater instead of typing them in.  If they have a way to import tournament results you might be able to automate it even easier.  Just create all the random matchups you want and then submit it for rating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastActivityDate="2020-07-14T20:34:18.203" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30380" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30082" CreationDate="2020-07-14T20:37:35.970" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Depends on you,  your hand-eye coordination, and how well your mouse or touch screen works.  There is no one answer that is right for everyone to use.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastActivityDate="2020-07-14T20:37:35.970" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30381" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30244" CreationDate="2020-07-14T22:11:44.423" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It all  depends.  There is no rule.&#xA;What is your preferred strategic plan?&#xA;Which move supports that best?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the opponent doing?&#xA;Which move would best counter what they are doing?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If your intuition says one thing then do that until you see why it was not as good as an alternative.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are not at least IM if not GM level it really wont make any difference to the outcome of your games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How often does this happen?&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;How many people let you play the najdorf at all?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the grand scheme of things how often does this come up in your games and is that enough to obsess about such a minor choice?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20721" LastActivityDate="2020-07-14T22:11:44.423" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30382" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30244" CreationDate="2020-07-14T22:25:13.723" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;A better answer might be neither.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess Tempo says nbd7 loses 100% for black&#xA;nc6 will win you about 1/3 of the points available considering ties&#xA;h5 comes out even in the end&#xA;and b6 nets half but with more chances  not to lose but less to win&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24174" LastActivityDate="2020-07-14T22:25:13.723" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30383" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30337" CreationDate="2020-07-14T23:59:49.117" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can understand your situation. Because I am also a classical player, rated &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/@/bhaluu/perf/classical&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;2109&lt;/a&gt; on lichess; but performing poorly on the blitz (1712) and bullet (1741). Moreover, there are more than 30 games, where I lost on time though the positions were in my favour. So, I think, I can give you some tips to improve your ratings by at least &lt;strong&gt;+300&lt;/strong&gt; points.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Smooth Transition&lt;/strong&gt;:&#xA;As per other answers, I think you should try 15+0 [Rapid] &amp;gt;&amp;gt; 10+5 &amp;gt;&amp;gt; 10+0 &amp;gt;&amp;gt; 5+5 / 5+3 [Blitz] &amp;gt;&amp;gt; 5+0 &amp;gt;&amp;gt; 3+2 &amp;gt;&amp;gt; 3+0 &amp;gt;&amp;gt; 2+1[Bullet] &amp;gt;&amp;gt; 1+0, in following manner: If you can complete (win/lose) &lt;strong&gt;10 games&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;strong&gt;in a row&lt;/strong&gt; within the given &lt;strong&gt;time&lt;/strong&gt; then go for the next tier.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;One Opening man&lt;/strong&gt;:&#xA;Instead of experimenting with different openings, you must stick with a single one and simultaneously have to study it deeply. After studying a line properly, set a target to play first 10 moves within 10 sec. If you follow a single line (eg., 1.d4) for more than 100 games; then you will find that it is quite easy for you to reply not only fast but also accurate. And it will help you significantly in time management.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Pre moving&lt;/strong&gt;:&#xA;After &amp;quot;&lt;em&gt;mastering&lt;/em&gt;&amp;quot; an opening, try to pre-move [This is crucial in the bullet, not in blitz]. Just make sure to play first 10 moves within 5 seconds!! and you will rock on bullet [at least below 1500 tier].&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Pattern Recognition in Middlegame&lt;/strong&gt;: A simple way to play ultrafast middlegame is pattern recognition (eg., if both King and Queen are in the same diagonal, then try to find your bishop to set a &amp;quot;&lt;em&gt;Royal Fork&lt;/em&gt;&amp;quot;). The only way to achieve this is by practising a  lot of puzzles. So, be prepared to try at least 20 puzzles (If possible 50) each day.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Accurate Endgames&lt;/strong&gt;: &amp;quot;&lt;em&gt;All's well that ends well.&lt;/em&gt;&amp;quot; So, be focused at your endgame. First, master the checkmate patterns (Staircase mate, smothered mate etc.) and then try the comparatively advance theory (like opposition). If you are already good at endgame, then invite your opponent directly from the opening, by exchanging valuable pieces early in the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's a long journey, but if you follow the aforementioned steps, you will definitely improve in a significant margin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Best of Luck.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15511" LastActivityDate="2020-07-14T23:59:49.117" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30384" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-07-15T00:01:30.203" Score="5" ViewCount="108" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been interested to see an analysis of the decision making processes of an NN in determining the difference between good and bad moves. The only writings I've seen is about how NN can be applied to other fields. I've heard that grandmasters are using NNs to train for tournaments.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can anyone point me to such sources relating to this particular query?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24175" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-07-15T01:30:14.990" LastActivityDate="2020-07-15T04:37:14.943" Title="What insights have neural networks revealed about chess?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30385" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30082" CreationDate="2020-07-15T00:33:52.763" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your question is interesting. I think I can share my experience because I am playing bullet for quite some time now. I used to use a touchscreen (Galaxy Tab S5E), but for the last couple of months, I am using a mouse.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both of them have benefits as well as drawbacks to their side. The best benefit for the touchscreen is reachability with accuracy. You can touch wherever you wish to and that too with accurate (assuming you are using 5.0+ inch touchscreen). On the other hand, the mouse is fast, but not accurate and may also &lt;strong&gt;&amp;quot;slip&amp;quot;&lt;/strong&gt; in the crucial move (often known as mouse-slip).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, the question is why is the mouse still the favourite option to major chess players?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The answer is &lt;strong&gt;&amp;quot;Polling Rate&amp;quot;&lt;/strong&gt;. An average wired gaming mouse offers a polling rate of &lt;strong&gt;1000 Hz&lt;/strong&gt;, compared to 120Hz &lt;em&gt;touch refresh rate&lt;/em&gt; from the touchscreens. And this plays the crucial role in bullet because of each &lt;strong&gt;millisecond&lt;/strong&gt; counts in it. So, I think, it's important to choose almost 10x faster equipment, though it's not that accurate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Last but not least, &lt;em&gt;Hardware&lt;/em&gt;. I ran &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/lag&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;lichess lag test&lt;/a&gt; on Google Chrome in my PC  [Windows] as well as in the official android app [Pixel 3A XL]. Both of them were connected to the same wifi network. Though the lichess-server latency was the same in both devices [0.1 milisecond], &amp;quot;&lt;em&gt;Network between Lichess and you&lt;/em&gt;&amp;quot; (i.e ping) varies significantly from mobile (181ms) to PC (103ms). So, clearly, mouse in a PC is more superior choice than the touchscreen, at least for me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thank you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15511" LastActivityDate="2020-07-15T00:33:52.763" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30386" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9212" CreationDate="2020-07-15T02:12:28.833" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recommend the Rubinstein Attack for an aggressive variation against the Queen's Gambit Declined.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Bg5 Nbd7 5.e3 Be7 6.Nf3 O-O 7.Qc2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The main idea is to play &lt;code&gt;Qc2&lt;/code&gt; to castle queenside and launch a pawn storm against the black king.  This is in contrast to the Exchange Variation, where the typical strategies are to play &lt;code&gt;Qc2&lt;/code&gt; for a break in the center or minority attack on the queenside while castling kingside.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13177" LastActivityDate="2020-07-15T02:12:28.833" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30387" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30384" CreationDate="2020-07-15T04:37:14.943" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think NN's brought us 3 main types of knowledge about chess: Specific good types of positions, that playing positionally is viable at a high level, and that we are nowhere near creating a perfect chess engine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Fawn pawns (6th rank pawns that are safely nested in opponent pawns) are the clearest example here. Another example would be the strength of a pair of opposite color bishops which most AB engines underestimated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;AlphaZero/LC0 both play in a much more positional manner. While hard to quantify, this basically means playing to maximize space and mobility rather than pure material.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The fact that LC0 plays so differently than SF and is about at the same level means that neither are close to perfect play. The intuition here is that as you approach optimal strength, all strategies should converge, so the difference between play styles implies that there is a lot of ability for both to grow stronger.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17100" LastActivityDate="2020-07-15T04:37:14.943" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30388" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30370" CreationDate="2020-07-15T05:16:48.480" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Seems very unusual&amp;quot;: source? Every time I've heard a good player (from club-competent to world-class) talking about his games, they were remarkably capable of precisely  recalling positions. So I would say that&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;it is &amp;quot;very usual&amp;quot;;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;it stems from thinking long and hard about those positions, either during games or while studying;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;it seems like a good trait, to the extent that I assume that a particularly good memory is a requirement for a good player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12113" LastActivityDate="2020-07-15T05:16:48.480" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30389" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30393" CreationDate="2020-07-15T05:29:06.780" Score="7" ViewCount="9746" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have been taking a look at 1.e4 2.e5 2.Nc3, which is known as the Vienna Game. At this point I have become familiarized with a substantial amount of variations and main lines. The principal bifurcation comes on 2...Nf6 or 2...Nc6 by Black, which provides two quite different &amp;quot;systems&amp;quot;, since 2...Nf6 allows a strong 3.f4. Apart from this, I have studied quite a number of master games. My overall conclusion is that the Vienna Game is a sound, promising line for the 1.e4 player. It offers positional, strategical struggle in some lines, and sharp aggressive play on others, so players of all styles may find it enjoyable. Of course, Black has the chance to equalize if he knows what he's doing, but in what opening is this not the case?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I then want to ask the opinion of more experienced players than myself: do you consider the Vienna Game to be equally good to other 1.e4 lines, such as the Ruy Lopez or the Scotch? Inferior to them, but still god? Or not even good at all? My question comes from the fact that this opening is hardly ever seen in master play, and it is usually only played on blitz/rapid games as a surprise weapon.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21110" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2020-07-17T21:18:31.000" LastActivityDate="2020-07-20T13:18:01.280" Title="The Vienna Game: Good, inferior or bad?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;1.e4&gt;&lt;vienna-game&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30390" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29743" CreationDate="2020-07-15T05:33:28.770" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;That'd probably be the best way- yes. A typical tournament would be difficult. Probably a blitz time control (something like 3+2) would be best, so games are over quickly. You'd also have to consider what'd happen if a draw occurs- my suggestion is to let the guy who won the game before that stay, or play another game. Also colours have to be decided- id say flipping a coin'd be best (other random selection alternatives are also good).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23100" LastActivityDate="2020-07-15T05:33:28.770" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30391" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-07-15T06:40:12.270" Score="4" ViewCount="512" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Lichess&lt;/a&gt; is a free, Ad-free and &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/source&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Open-Source&lt;/a&gt; chess server. To me, it has the best &lt;strong&gt;STUDY&lt;/strong&gt; option over the internet. I am thinking whether it's possible or not to host a localhost setup using the source code of lichess into my PC. The sole reason is to use it for studying the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/nmrugg/stockfish.js/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Stockfish.js&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt; is available, I am thinking to retain the web layout.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, I have tried &lt;a href=&quot;http://scidvspc.sourceforge.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Scid Vs PC&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt; with the free database, provided by Lichess, but its UI and UX is not at all refined. So, my question is,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;&lt;strong&gt;Has anyone tried to host Lichess to their local machine, that ran smoothly offline? If not, is it possible to do so ?&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15511" LastEditorUserId="15511" LastEditDate="2020-07-15T08:31:20.837" LastActivityDate="2021-03-21T07:44:06.457" Title="Can I host lichess server to my local machine to use the study offline?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;study&gt;&lt;lichess&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30392" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30389" CreationDate="2020-07-15T06:46:23.993" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;After &lt;strong&gt;1.e4 e5 2.Nc3 Nf6 3.f4&lt;/strong&gt;, White has definitely a playable position, but it's not that &amp;quot;strong&amp;quot;. Indeed, this is the main line and Black should be about equal with correct play. Other lines will most likely tranpose into other &lt;strong&gt;1.e4 e5&lt;/strong&gt; positions (say &lt;strong&gt;2...Nc6 3.Nf3 Nf6&lt;/strong&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So yes, the Vienna opening is indeed a playable one, probably not &amp;quot;the best&amp;quot;, but the difference is not big enough to refuse to play it except maybe at the highest levels of play (if you are rated 2500 or  below, you can play it with no problems, and indeed it can be a dangerous, surprising weapon)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastActivityDate="2020-07-15T06:46:23.993" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30393" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30389" CreationDate="2020-07-15T07:08:46.837" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;The International Master Gary Lane in his book about the Vienna game wrote in 2000 that this opening &amp;quot;has a long history and a bright future&amp;quot;. He added&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;in these days of computer databases [already 20 years ago!], opening&#xA;theory has become so intense that some variations have been analyzed&#xA;to move 30. It is hardly surprising that some 'forgotten' opening&#xA;variations have been revived by players to looking into unknown&#xA;territory, and the Vienna is a perfect arena for this.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, if Vienna suits you, if you like the obtained positions, if you know the main theme (e.g. which pieces to swap, which promising pawn structure to get, ...) go ahead!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are some &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.365chess.com/opening.php?master=0&amp;amp;m=3&amp;amp;n=5&amp;amp;ms=e4.e5&amp;amp;ns=3.5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;stats about the Vienna game&lt;/a&gt; compared to others openings in a Big and a Masters database. In the Big one, the Vienna game is the second choice and compared to 2.Nf3 it offers a higher risk (more losses) but also a premium (more gains). The Vienna is the 3rd choice in the Masters database with also a higher variance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the Big database&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/sl2JF.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/sl2JF.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the Masters database&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/BH8eT.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/BH8eT.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11749" LastEditorUserId="11749" LastEditDate="2020-07-15T18:26:06.290" LastActivityDate="2020-07-15T18:26:06.290" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30394" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-07-15T08:16:55.703" Score="2" ViewCount="96" Body="&lt;p&gt;Interested in chess history, I wonder if there is an accessible data set that lists all players from East and West Germany in the 80's, ideally with information like the FIDE website (name, national Elo rating, gender and year of birth). I would also be interested in the same data for Germany in the 90s and 2000s.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note 1. Wikipedia lists I know are too sparse (&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:East_German_chess_players&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;East German&lt;/a&gt; or &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:German_chess_players&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;German&lt;/a&gt; players).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note 2. @BrianTower's answer is very useful but I'm afraid that by focusing only on FIDE players I would miss good players who were not FIDE rated because of the old rating floors for men (2205) and women (2005).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11749" LastEditorUserId="11749" LastEditDate="2020-07-15T14:16:41.707" LastActivityDate="2020-07-15T14:16:41.707" Title="East and West German Chess" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;history&gt;&lt;fide&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30395" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30394" CreationDate="2020-07-15T11:55:42.543" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wonder if there is an accessible data set that lists all players&#xA;from East and West Germany in the 80's&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.olimpbase.org/index.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Olimpbase&lt;/a&gt; site has a &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.olimpbase.org/Elo/data/elo1967-2001.zip&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;downloadable zip file of FIDE rating data from 1967 to 2001&lt;/a&gt;. It is accessible in the sense that you can download it but the data you want would have to be extracted from the dataset which isn't in an easily readable form. It is also quite &amp;quot;dirty&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now I have already done this so for me it is just a matter of executing the right sql command. Here are the results for East German players. Note that FIDE Ids came in just as the GDR ceased to exist so some of the players don't have proper FINs. Nevertheless my DB requires a unique FIN for each player so the shorter FINs were either the 5-digit, one-year FINs which FIDE created initially before they thought maybe they should cater for more than 100,000 players or they were auto-constructed by my load program.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;FullName    FIDEID  DoBYear Sex MaxRating&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Apel, Stefan 4612116 1969    M   2265&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Aring, Gerd  4665791 1963    M   2230&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Babrikowski, Peter, Dr.  4611942 1956    M   2320&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Bade, Heidrun    4612710 1945    F   2040&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Barth, Rainer    4611918 1958    M   2280&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Bauer, Reinhard, Dr. 4611772 1954    M   2310&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Baum, Bernd, Dr. 4611853 1945    M   2265&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Baumbach, Friedrich, Dr. 4611721 1935    M   2460&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Becker, Michael  4611667 1957    M   2330&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Belke, Frank, Dr.    4612337 1963    M   2230&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Beltz, Martina   4612485 1962    F   2160&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Besser, Hans 4601033 1935    M   2460&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Birke, Andreas   4612140 1966    M   2255&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Boehlig, Heinz, Dr.  4614283 1943    M   2450&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Boehnisch, Manfred   4611543 1941    M   2390&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Boensch, Uwe 4611268 1958    M   2575&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Boettcher, Ilse  17753   NULL    F   2045&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Bonsch, Uwe  17771   NULL    M   2505&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Borriss, Martin, Dr. 4611950 1970    M   2300&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Brameyer, Hermann    4612019 1939    M   2270&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Braun, Gottfried, Dr.    4611489 1933    M   2400&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Braun, Regine    4612744 1954    F   1910&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Broeder, Iris    4612426 1962    F   2225&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Broemel, Richard 4612256 1958    M   2240&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Bromel, Richard  78522   NULL    M   2240&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Brueggemann, Joachim 4611861 1951    M   2365&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Bueder, Thomas   4612183 1967    M   2260&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Burchardt, Brigitte  4612213 1954    F   2295&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Camin, Gesine    17844   NULL    F   2020&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Casper, Thomas   4611403 1959    M   2435&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Csulits, Anton   4611705 1942    M   2345&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Daemering, Katrin    4612604 1966    F   2100&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Dietze, Wolfgang, Dr.    4611802 1950    M   2340&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Enders, Peter    4611314 1963    M   2490&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Espig, Gesine    4612523 1959    F   2135&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Espig, Lutz  4611276 1949    M   2490&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Espig, Thomas    4612027 1954    M   2380&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Feibert, Petra   4606191 1958    F   2255&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Feustel  18116   NULL    M   2305&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Frommelt, Hans-Juergen   4612159 1954    M   2255&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Fuchs, Reinhart  4611357 1934    M   2460&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Gaffron, Petra   18169   NULL    F   1820&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Gauglitz, Gernot 4611365 1962    M   2480&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Gautzsch, Christina  4612620 NULL    F   1980&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Geibler, G.  18204   NULL    F   2055&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Geissler, Grit   4612655 1967    F   2050&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Goehler, Antje   4612469 1967    F   2220&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Goldberg, Alexander, Dr. 4611560 1965    M   2340&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Golz, Werner 18253   1933    M   2410&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Grigorov 18292   NULL    M   2205&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Grottke, Hans-Joachim, Dr.   4612167 1942    M   2280&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Gruenberg, Hans-Ulrich   4611306 1956    M   2510&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Hackel, Mario    4611780 1970    M   2360&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Harnisch, Diana  4612531 NULL    F   2025&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Hartlapp, Jutta  4612612 NULL    F   1985&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Heinatz, Dr. Gundula 4612434 1969    F   2195&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Heinatz, Thomas  4611748 1965    M   2355&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Heinen   18363   NULL    M   2265&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Heinig, Wolfram, Dr. 4611926 1954    M   2365&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Heinsohn, Guenther   4641140 1945    M   2235&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Heinsohn, Wilfried   4612400 1947    M   2215&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Heintze, Marion  4612191 1954    F   2235&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Hennings, Artur  4611594 1940    M   2475&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Hesse, Peter 4611519 1944    M   2440&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Hobusch, Cornelia    4612574 1960    F   2000&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Hoeckendorf, Hartmut 4612302 1954    M   2255&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Hoelzlein, Christina 18391   1951    F   2140&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Hoffmann, Helga  4608933 1932    F   2015&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Hoffmann, R. 18392   NULL    F   2205&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Hofmann, B.  18393   NULL    F   2230&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Jahn, Constanze  4612450 1963    F   2210&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Jahnel, Guenther 4636147 1958    M   2315&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Jakat, Thomas    4612329 1959    M   2270&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Janssen, Lieselotte  4612515 1937    F   2040&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Jaster, Robert, Prof. Dr.    4612418 1964    M   2225&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Jeske, Eckhard   4641485 1952    M   2235&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Jeske, Kirsten   4612728 1963    F   2025&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Just, Gabriele, Dr.  4612558 1936    F   2155&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Kaminski, Uwe    4611381 1962    M   2405&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Keller, Manfred  4607368 1945    M   2325&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Keller-Hermann, Edith    4611870 1921    F   2190&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Kestler, Hans-Guenther   4601076 1939    M   2450&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Kimpinsky, Frank 4611934 1960    M   2300&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Kleeschaetzky, Rainer    4611985 1963    M   2290&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Kliefoth, Christel   4612752 1957    F   1880&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Kluss, C.    18592   NULL    F   1880&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Knaak, Rainer    4611250 1953    M   2565&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Kobe, U. 18597   NULL    M   2270&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Kobe, Ulrich 4612035 1941    M   2270&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Kopfer, Michael  89915   NULL    M   2235&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Kosowski, Todor  4612310 1970    M   2235&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Kroggel, Rita    18658   NULL    F   1840&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Krug, Peter  18662   NULL    M   2220&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Kube, Hannelore  4612760 1953    F   2005&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Kunze, Kerstin   4612493 1971    F   2215&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Kyas, Juergen    4618157 1955    M   2230&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Lamm, Steffen    4612175 1963    M   2280&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Lang, Jens, Dr.  4611756 1960    M   2315&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Lehmann, Christina   4612442 1951    F   2075&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Lenk, Wolfgang   4612388 1938    M   2250&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Liebert, Heinz   4611438 1936    M   2485&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Litkiewicz, Kurt 4612264 1934    M   2240&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Lorenz, Gerd 4612272 1944    M   2275&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Luther, Thomas   4611420 1969    M   2425&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Malich, Burkhard, Dr.    4611330 1936    M   2535&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Manger, Carola   12092   1959    F   2110&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Meissner, Hans-Juergen   4611969 1953    M   2290&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Melzer, Monika   4612680 NULL    F   1940&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Mevissen, Ulrich 4612736 1938    F   2025&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Moehring, Guenther   4611462 1936    M   2450&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Mueller, K.  18988   NULL    F   1870&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Mueller, Klaus   4611578 1942    M   2470&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Mueller, Werner  4612370 1954    M   2215&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Mueller, Werner  18992   NULL    M   2205&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Neukirch, Detlef 4611624 1940    M   2375&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Nobis, Martina   4612779 1959    F   2005&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Nowarra, Waltraud    4612361 1940    F   2120&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Nuenchert, Eveline   4612540 1943    F   2145&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Oetzel, Roland   4612043 NULL    M   2270&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Okrajek, Alexander   4612221 1956    M   2230&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Pachow, Joerg    4612230 1961    M   2255&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Packroff, Hermann    4611896 1941    M   2290&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Paehtz, Thomas   4611349 1956    M   2515&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Petigk, Falk 4611373 1930    M   2420&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Pfeil, Hartmut   4611810 1951    M   2300&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Pfretzschner, Roland 4612086 1958    M   2265&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Poldauf, Dirk    4611470 1965    M   2390&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Pollak, Georg    4611551 1946    M   2350&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Postler, Reinhard    4611608 1944    M   2375&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Pranner, Marion  4612582 NULL    F   1990&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Prussas, Claudia 19262   NULL    F   1835&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Raitza, Olaf 4611675 1934    M   2325&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Ramseier, Jana S.    1302329 1969    F   2080&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Riecks, A.   19343   NULL    F   1805&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Roesch, Arnd, Prof.  4611632 1965    M   2335&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Roesler, Matthias, Dr.   4611977 1966    M   2270&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Rosenthal, Dirk  4611586 1970    M   2280&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Rossmann, Helmut 4612094 1956    M   2360&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Rozental, D. 19388   NULL    M   2305&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Ruebensam, Helmut    4612051 1955    M   2270&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Schilar, Michael 19465   NULL    M   2225&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Schmidt, Gerhard 4605233 1940    M   2275&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Schneider, Frank 4612299 1945    M   2240&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Schoene, Ralf    4611535 1961    M   2310&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Schoeneberg, Manfred 4611845 1946    M   2470&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Schurade, Matthias   4611497 1959    M   2385&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Seidemann, Ulricke   4612639 1955    F   2080&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Seils, Gudula    4612671 1961    F   2045&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Seils, Joerg 4612078 1963    M   2255&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Skibbe, Diana    4612698 1961    F   2040&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Sommaro, Katja   4612590 1966    F   2135&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Starck, Bodo 4611829 1934    M   2325&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Starck, Ines 4612477 1963    F   2135&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Stern, Rene  4611799 1972    M   2335&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Stettler, Michael    4611454 1961    M   2375&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Syre, Christian  4611993 1954    M   2285&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Teske, Henrik    4611500 1968    M   2425&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Thal, Olaf   4611683 1935    M   2355&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Thormann, Wolfgang   4611713 1949    M   2360&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Tischbierek, Raj 4611322 1962    M   2500&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Uhlmann, Wolfgang    4611284 1935    M   2590&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Vogt, Lothar 4611292 1952    M   2520&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Volke, Karsten   4611411 1965    M   2395&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Wagner-Michel, Annett    4612205 1955    F   2230&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Walter, Guenter  4612108 1942    M   2370&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Weyrich, Morten  4611659 1959    M   2290&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Wieland, Ilse    4612507 1957    F   2045&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Wolf, Sylvia 4612701 1962    F   2025&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Wolff, Sonja 19903   NULL    F   1815&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Womacka, Mathias 4611390 1966    M   2395&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Zahn, Juergen    4612345 1946    M   2225&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Zinn, Lothar 19958   1938    M   2435&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Running the same query for Germany gives almost 1100 rows which is too much to post here IMHO. If you can find a way you are happy with sending me an email address I can send you some bigger query results.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-07-15T11:55:42.543" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30396" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30391" CreationDate="2020-07-15T12:10:44.310" Score="0" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Has anyone tried to host Lichess to their local machine, that ran&#xA;smoothly offline? If not, is it possible to do so ?&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was asked to do such a thing a couple of years ago as a paid project. I'm retired and really have no interest in doing paid work so I handed on the idea to one of my sons who is a young and very enthusiastic software engineer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He had a look at this but what put him off was that it uses a strange programming language (Scala?) and the non-relational database MongoDB. He happily installed the programming language and had a play but baulked at MongoDB. He ended up declining the project as what was being offered came nowhere near matching the amount of work involved according to his estimation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you seriously want to pursue this then &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/ornicar/lila/wiki/Lichess-Development-Onboarding&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this github page&lt;/a&gt; would be a good place to start.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2020-07-15T12:31:31.637" LastActivityDate="2020-07-15T12:31:31.637" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30397" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30370" CreationDate="2020-07-15T14:47:31.203" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;When studying an old game, you can take however long you want to analyse if its the best move. The conclusion that this is the best move came from &amp;quot;calculating ability&amp;quot; and not from &amp;quot;memory&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is not need to &amp;quot;calculate&amp;quot; this again when in a match. It's faster and easier to play from memory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Kinda the same as when learning the times tables as a kid, you first learn to understand how they work. Then you memorize them for quick and easy use.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24186" LastActivityDate="2020-07-15T14:47:31.203" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30398" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30370" CreationDate="2020-07-15T15:29:51.250" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's not as if top players sit down to memorize an old game. They don't spend time only memorizing, memorization is not a goal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But they study lots of games. Old games, new games, famous games, their own games. Constantly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And they have amazing memory so they remember these games, as a side effect of studying them, move by move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course there are also players who don't quite study constantly, or who don't have amazing memory. But they tend not to become top players. Memory is very important in chess at the very highest level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2020-07-15T15:29:51.250" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30399" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16439" CreationDate="2020-07-15T15:32:51.833" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's been a while since that question was asked, but now there is the new &lt;a href=&quot;https://hordechessblog.com&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Horde Chess Blog&lt;/a&gt; (Full disclosure: I wrote it), which has both opening and general tactics guides, with reviews of example games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More content is expected to be added with time, but so far, it has general tactic guidelines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The guideline for Black (the pieces) are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Attack from behind. In that method, the queen sneaks into the first ranks and then tackle the pawns from there. This incursion typically involves breaking the pawn wall in one of the marginal columns (a or h), since the pawns there are protected only by one pawn. (&lt;a href=&quot;https://hordechessblog.com/game-analysis-black-wins-using-the-intrusion-tactic/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;the intrusion tactic&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or the alternative &lt;a href=&quot;https://hordechessblog.com/game-analysis-black-wins-using-the-blockade-tactic/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;blockade tactic&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, black positions his pawns and pieces in a way that prevents any white pawn advancement. Then, he moves one of his pieces back and forth, forcing white to eventually make advancement and lose pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For White (the pawns), there is &lt;a href=&quot;https://hordechessblog.com/game-analysis-white-wins-by-the-phalanx-tactic/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;the Phalanx tactic&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just advance all of your pawns until you get to promote one of them to a queen. Once you have a queen, in most cases winning is straightforward [...] with enough patience, caution, and a little bit of luck this method will work flawlessly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In addition, there is a post on &lt;a href=&quot;https://hordechessblog.com/opening-overview-the-starting-position/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;common Horde Chess openings&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this helps the OP or whoever watches this question now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3033" LastActivityDate="2020-07-15T15:32:51.833" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30400" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30391" CreationDate="2020-07-15T16:33:40.277" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes. I did it a little while ago. It's of course possible. You will need to be technical capable of doing it as it won't be like a one-click installer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2020-07-15T16:33:40.277" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30401" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-07-15T18:22:51.220" Score="3" ViewCount="694" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was a hardcore 1.c4 player. But, for quite some time, the popularity of Nakhmanson Gambit, Jerome Gambit etc. has encouraged me to experiment with 1.e4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have read &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/16349/1-e4-with-backup-plan&quot;&gt;1.e4 with backup plan&lt;/a&gt; before. Now I am preparing myself to master the entire 1.e4 repository [ECO B00 - C99] for white, as well as for black. Since I am completely beginner in this line, I have the following questions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;How can I understand, which opening seeks more attention than others? Should I follow the database to find the most popular reply or it's better to stick with the ECO code serially? How can I link the connection between two openings?&lt;/strong&gt; (eg., Scotch Gambit and Urusov Gambit)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15511" LastEditorUserId="15511" LastEditDate="2020-07-16T05:00:20.683" LastActivityDate="2020-08-04T22:07:49.427" Title="How to master 1.e4 repertoire from scratch" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;psychology&gt;&lt;1.e4&gt;&lt;study&gt;&lt;eco&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30402" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16565" CreationDate="2020-07-15T18:27:44.837" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I hope you have learnt playing good chess in the past 3 years and 5 months since you asked this question but for anyone seeking an answer I would just like to state my experience and hope it helps. For an absolute beginner, I would advise to them to learn like a baby and avoid all &amp;quot;books and tutorials&amp;quot;. Just install an app, set the level to minimum and start playing. Avoid worrying about tactics and positions at this stage. Just attack and defend. Is my piece being attacked, how can I defend it, how can I defend twice , or thrice. That's all there's to worry at this stage. I myself learned like this and through this simple raw learning I got to about 1400 rating (on lichess) then I started to study chess(like openings and endgames,popular variations, etc).I still haven't improved much after that, just to 1600 and oscillating there, but the point is I know for sure anyone can and should improve after playing regularly and seriously.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you can get help from someone then it is very good otherwise it is not that hard to get to an okay level. I had a friend who was ordinary at studies but played good chess just by being careful and not giving away pieces. He had absolutely no formal knowledge of chess. I contacted him and we discussed about chess and that people &amp;quot;study&amp;quot; chess and all, well he was baffled. So the thing is just enjoy while playing , developing an interest is the quickest way to learn something. Chess is a game with simple rules and many possibilities, it is hard only at the higher levels( which any game is).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One more thing I would like to add that depending on the person the growth trajectory will not be linear in any case, meaning you might lose a lot of games in a stretch then start a winning streak. I lost 150 points playing whole day with about 46% wins and then other morning I gained like 200 points, it depends on your physical as well as mental conditions how well you perform on a given day. Here is &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/@/ph5066&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;my profile&lt;/a&gt; if you want to have a look.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23209" LastActivityDate="2020-07-15T18:27:44.837" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30403" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30409" CreationDate="2020-07-15T23:52:18.113" Score="10" ViewCount="4448" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure I understand why Stockfish considers White so much better here. A look at the two strongest lines for White by Stockfish doesn't really give me much intuition about what White is playing for. I see that Black's LSB is stuck defending the pawn on d5, and Black's rook looks awkward on h5, and White has a potentially strong passed pawn on c5, but I'm not sure I understand why this is worth a score of +2.3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If someone could explain what the essence of White's advantage is (or a combination of key elements that gives rise to the advantage) that hopefully naturally explains the rationale behind the moves suggested by Stockfish I'd really appreciate it. Thanks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Af0yH.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Af0yH.png&quot; alt=&quot;The position, White to move&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21202" LastActivityDate="2020-07-17T18:32:52.940" Title="Why is White considered so much better in this position?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30404" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-07-16T00:52:26.627" Score="0" ViewCount="175" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is the Caro Kann Advance variation winning for White? In a game largely shown on a video , Stockfish 11 beat Komodo 14 with it. Since the prevailing consensus was that the move of Komodo Kh4?!was a mistake , I went into the position and put in the computer the suggested Ng4 instead. It seems that White is winning anyway after Bd7! (Three quarter of a hour, depth = 37/79 +2.23 for White. At that point only seven pieces remained on the board. I checked the 7 men tablebases and it was a win for White.(Houdini6.02). Is the Caro Kann winning for White , at least in the Advance variation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23298" LastActivityDate="2020-07-17T01:59:11.543" Title="Caro Kann opening" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30405" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30272" CreationDate="2020-07-16T02:48:54.040" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think there is a general answer to this that will fit everyone.  A really astute individual or a savant will be better at spatial relations and interpreting the basis of the game than the general run of players.  Players like Morphy or Capablanca, of whom it was said that chess was his native tongue, would fit that description.  A keen observer would understand that the game is a dynamic balance that must be upset in one's favor to win.  Tactics utilized to win material, basically spatial relations, may come more naturally to some than others.  I taught myself to play as a youngster in 1948 but always attacked the king directly at the expense of material and didn't grasp the concept of gaining a material advantage first until I was given odds in a game with an Expert teacher.  Then a light bulb went off in my head and I immediately understood that I had to win material before going after the king.  Understanding of strategy took longer and relied mainly upon book learning from a manual.  That's just a shortcut to avoid all the mistakes that would go into experiential learning, which for the normal person would take many, many games.  I really don't think limiting yourself to quick play as you mention is going to let you understand some of the more profound aspects of the game either. Fischer said that blitz kills ideas. It's more reflex than understanding.  I personally would suggest longer games for that purpose, along with some book study to shortcut your learning by trial and error. And playing stronger players is alway desirable for progress. If you're very clever, you could probably advance into the average ranks by play alone, but unless you're exceptionally gifted, going much further isn't likely to happen without some study.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastEditorUserId="7657" LastEditDate="2020-07-16T08:07:03.233" LastActivityDate="2020-07-16T08:07:03.233" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30406" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30389" CreationDate="2020-07-16T02:58:14.467" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;At top level, the Vienna is certainly inferior. You can try checking the cloud analysis at &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/analysis&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Lichess&lt;/a&gt;. The position after 1.e4 e5 is about +0.3 in favor of White, but the position after 1.e4 e5 2.Nc3 is 0.0. In words, this means the Vienna is not as good as 2.Nf3 at fighting for an opening advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, if you aren't playing at top level (I doubt you are, simply because almost everyone on the planet isn't), then the Vienna is certainly viable. &amp;quot;Winning&amp;quot; in the opening is mostly a matter of reaching a playable position one is familiar with while the opponent isn't. At club level you can certainly expect opponents to know a &lt;em&gt;lot&lt;/em&gt; more about 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 than they do about the Vienna. In fact it's entirely possible that your opponent is out of book after 1.e4 e5 2.Nc3 Nf6 3.f4. This move flips Stockfish's eval to negative, but if opponent has never seen this position before, will they even know that 3...d5 is the only move that doesn't lead to an advantage for White? I doubt it. They could very well react with 3...exf4 (after which 4. e5 Qe7 5. Qe2 forces Black to play 5...Ng8) or something even worse like 3...Nc6 (after which 4.fxe5 Nxe5 5. d4 pushes Black off the board). Wikipedia &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vienna_Game#3.f4&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;says as much&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, lines other than 3...d5 give White at least an edge, making this a good choice for aggressive play at lower levels, where opponents are unlikely to know that 3...d5 is best.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course if you keep playing against the same people they will quickly learn the nuances of the opening, and an opening edge becomes harder and harder to find. But until they develop as good a grasp of the Vienna as you, you will likely continue to score easy wins.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Viewed the above way, the Vienna is a great opening because it's easy to get. If you play 1.e4 there's a very good chance the opponent responds with 1...e5. This is in contrast to, say, the Scandinavian where you might prepare a line but never get the chance to use it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Summary:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Against an opponent as booked up as you, don't play the Vienna.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Against everyone else, feel free!&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastActivityDate="2020-07-16T02:58:14.467" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30407" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30404" CreationDate="2020-07-16T03:08:38.363" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't know the game you're referring to, but I doubt it shows, all by itself, that the Caro-Kann Advance is winning for White (and therefore the Caro-Kann itself is losing for Black.) Surely Black could have varied somewhere before getting down to tablebases.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The fact that an engine will play the opening at all means it is programmed into the engine's opening book - which means that, at least, the makers of that opening book think it's worth playing as Black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One database shows that Black wins in the Caro-Kann Advance 29.7% of the time, and White wins 42.5% of the time. That's slightly worse for Black than average, but White still cannot manage a win in half the games, so therefore I don't think you can say it's &amp;quot;winning&amp;quot; for White. If it were winning, White would win!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2020-07-16T03:08:38.363" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30408" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30403" CreationDate="2020-07-16T06:24:49.740" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here's my theory for this position. The engine is evaluating +2 advantage because black's rook can be trapped.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/2B8sJ.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/2B8sJ.png&quot; alt=&quot;Evaluation&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, watch carefully, that rook on h5 is isolated from the main game and has only another safe square to move (i.e, f5), where it can be backed by Queen (on e6), as well as the pawn on g6. So it is dubious to exchange white queen for a rook.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So now, white's idea is to activate its knight in the game. Watch carefully, Nd4 can trigger a threat to the Queen on e6, as well as on f5 square (previously discussed safer square for the rook). And, after black's reply, white can simply play Bf3, that creates some nasty threat for the rook on h5. If rook goes to h3, then after Kg2, it's completely trapped.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, black can try something like Rh6. And then, white can simply take by Bxh6. Now, as rook is worth 5 pawns, and the bishop is worth 3; so it's (5-3) = +2 advantage for white.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15511" LastEditorUserId="15511" LastEditDate="2020-07-16T06:55:44.693" LastActivityDate="2020-07-16T06:55:44.693" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30409" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30403" CreationDate="2020-07-16T06:25:29.707" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Using the &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/28445/what-is-the-dorfman-method-in-chess&quot;&gt;Dorfman method&lt;/a&gt; to evaluate the position, White is &lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;statically&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt; much better, and probably close to victory (which may explain the +2.3). Both kings are safe and the material is balanced. However:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The d4-square is a fantastic outpost for the knight, which it can reach easily via e2.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The pawn in d5 is isolated and weak. Its advance will be prevented by the display of the Knight in d4.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;White has 2 islands of pawns against 3 for Black. A timely a4 may create an additional weakness in b5 or a6.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;White has a protected passed pawn which can be easily pushed.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;An exchange of queens would be very favourable to White. The Bishop in b7 would indeed be stuck to the pawn's defence in d5, and Black's rook would be awkward.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So Black must play &lt;strong&gt;very dynamically&lt;/strong&gt; to balance the game. They must achieve coordination of their pieces and find a counterplay in the Kingside. But it's not easy, the white king is safe.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11749" LastEditorUserId="11749" LastEditDate="2020-07-17T18:32:52.940" LastActivityDate="2020-07-17T18:32:52.940" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30410" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30403" CreationDate="2020-07-16T06:41:02.613" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;White has a protected passed pawn on c5, which means almost all endgames will favour White.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The d4 square is also a great spot for the white knight (indeed the engine suggests Ne2 preparing for that) If Black has to give away his g7 bishop, then the king could be in trouble due to the weaknesses of the dark squares around it. And things aren't much better if he doesn't&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black can't really use its &amp;quot;good&amp;quot; g7 bishop to attack any targets, not play ...a5 to try to create new ones. The &amp;quot;bad&amp;quot; b7 bishop is in an even worse situation as it's pretty much doing nothing where it stands&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black pieces are poorly coordinated (its attack can't go anywhere precisely because of the bishops being unable to join) The h5 rook could even be in big trouble, but it's probably not worth to even exchange it for a white minor piece (White would still be winning after that of course)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unlike White's c5 strong pawn, the d5 pawn is a weakness and Black will have to constantly look after it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For all of these reasons I think White has a very significant advantage, but one of the problems with assigning a number to it is that it obscures its nature. It's not really a material advantage that will always be there unless we screw up badly. White needs to play with energy (Ne2-d4 among other things) and try to transition to a favourable endgame. Otherwise Black will eventually activate its pieces and be OK.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyway beware that Stockfish often likes to change its mind a lot until it analyzed the position in great depth! But I think that in this case if it does change mind it'd say White has an even bigger advantage!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2020-07-16T20:45:15.513" LastActivityDate="2020-07-16T20:45:15.513" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30411" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30401" CreationDate="2020-07-16T08:29:16.020" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;The&lt;/em&gt; special feature of a 1.e4 repertoire is that transpositions are rare. You can have independent repertoires against each of black's replies. This is very different from 1.c4, 1.d4 and 1.Nf3 where moves can often be played in many different orders and you always have to watch out for transpositions between your various lines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then these are the &amp;quot;big four&amp;quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1...e5 -- The Open Game&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1...c5 -- The Sicilian&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1...e6 -- The French&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1...c6 -- The Caro-Kann&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most of your time should go to those, especially the first three (the CK is also very good but not as popular at amateur level).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then there is the rest, like&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1...d5 -- the Scandinavian&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1...d6 and 1...g6 -- the Pirc and Modern (there are transpositions between those)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1...Nf6 -- the Alekhine&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And other lines that you can skip for now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason for this is that 1.e4 puts an undefended pawn in the center, and the intended follow-up 2.d4 is hard to prevent as it will be defended by the queen. This is different from 1.d4 where 2.e4 is easy to prevent. That means all replies must immediately have some specific way to deal with that, and the different ways of doing that immediately prevent transpositions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1...e5 -- black just does the same. 1...c5 -- black will exchange his c-pawn for the d-pawn if it arrives on d4. 1...e6 and 1...c6 -- black will also put a pawn on d5. 1...d5 black immediately puts a pawn on d5 but can't recapture with a pawn. 1...Nf6 -- black attacks the undefended e4 pawn. 1...d6 and 1...g6 -- black lets white play 2.d4 and intends to attack the center later.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this helps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastEditorUserId="924" LastEditDate="2020-07-16T10:04:14.753" LastActivityDate="2020-07-16T10:04:14.753" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30412" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30401" CreationDate="2020-07-16T08:36:25.620" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The easiest way to close a decent repertoire would probably be to study the Vienese Opening (or maybe Danish Gambit) against 1...e5, some line against the Sicilian (it really depends on how much time you want to spend. You can choose between Open Sicilian, Closed, Alapin... pick up the one you like the most).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Against Caro-Kann you have the Panov. It'll teach you great chess. For the French, just try the Exchange variation. Learn some e4, d4, Be3, Nc3, Qd2 formation against fianchettos and see a couple of games crushing Scandiavians&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastEditorUserId="18809" LastEditDate="2020-07-17T07:01:36.887" LastActivityDate="2020-07-17T07:01:36.887" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30413" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30363" CreationDate="2020-07-16T08:56:52.537" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;My own web application can help you&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.apronus.com/chess/puzzle/editor.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.apronus.com/chess/puzzle/editor.php&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(1) Paste the PGN text into the 'PGN import' tab.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(2) Adjust the speed of animation on the 'diagram' tab.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(3) Click 'download animated diagram'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3456" LastActivityDate="2020-07-16T08:56:52.537" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30414" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30415" CreationDate="2020-07-16T09:21:30.897" Score="2" ViewCount="51" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a slow chess player. I have 3 digits rating in blitz. How I can play fast so that I do not loose on time ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24196" LastActivityDate="2020-07-16T09:40:35.633" Title="How can I move quickly in time?" Tags="&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;time-control&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2020-07-16T10:36:26.780" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30415" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30414" CreationDate="2020-07-16T09:31:26.127" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think, yesterday, I have answered such a question &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/30337/what-is-some-basic-advice-for-playing-blitz-or-rapid/30383#30383&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am just pasting the answer and adding a few resources to it. You should keep these in your mind.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Smooth Transition&lt;/strong&gt;: As per other answers, I think you should try 15+0 [Rapid] &amp;gt;&amp;gt; 10+5 &amp;gt;&amp;gt; 10+0 &amp;gt;&amp;gt; 5+5 / 5+3 [Blitz] &amp;gt;&amp;gt; 5+0 &amp;gt;&amp;gt; 3+2 &amp;gt;&amp;gt; 3+0 &amp;gt;&amp;gt; 2+1[Bullet] &amp;gt;&amp;gt; 1+0, in following manner: If you can complete (win/lose) 10 games in a row within the given time then go for the next tier.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;One Opening man&lt;/strong&gt;: Instead of experimenting with different openings, you must stick with a single one and simultaneously have to study it deeply. After studying a line properly, set a target to play first 10 moves within 10 sec. If you follow a single line (eg., 1.d4) for more than 100 games; then you will find that it is quite easy for you to reply not only fast but also accurate. And it will help you significantly in time management.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Pre moving&lt;/strong&gt;: After &amp;quot;mastering&amp;quot; an opening, try to pre-move [This is crucial in the bullet, not in blitz]. Just make sure to play first 10 moves within 5 seconds!! and you will rock on bullet [at least below 1500 tier].&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Pattern Recognition in Middlegame&lt;/strong&gt;: A simple way to play ultrafast middlegame is pattern recognition (eg., if both King and Queen are in the same diagonal, then try to find your bishop to set a &amp;quot;Royal Fork&amp;quot;). The only way to achieve this is by practicing a lot of puzzles. So, be prepared to try at least 20 puzzles (If possible 50) each day.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Accurate Endgames&lt;/strong&gt;: &amp;quot;All's well that ends well.&amp;quot; So, be focused at your endgame. First, master the checkmate patterns (Staircase mate, smothered mate etc.) and then try the comparatively advance theory (like opposition). If you are already good at endgame, then invite your opponent directly from the opening, by exchanging valuable pieces early in the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are a few resources you can check:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/learn#/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Beginners training kit at lichess.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://blitztactics.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Tactics training at Blitz-tactics&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/training&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Puzzles at lichess&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope it helps. Good luck.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15511" LastEditorUserId="24196" LastEditDate="2020-07-16T09:40:35.633" LastActivityDate="2020-07-16T09:40:35.633" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30416" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28592" CreationDate="2020-07-16T13:18:58.493" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I made a program that reads PGN files that contain thousands of games.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;It read 1 317 676 games and found six that fit the criteria.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/tb9UWMkP&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;A Bitalzadeh vs E L'Ami, 2013&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/kCcCiKMI&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;I Shahaliyev vs E Ghaem Maghami, 2014&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/uIyYjtfz&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;M Petrov vs M Ozdover, 2016&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/qI7aYGzD&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Vi Balint vs G Kjartansson, 2017&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/KqY6mdeA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;J Bonin vs M Paragua, 2019&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/BMCcnPmx&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;N Berry vs A Roy, 2019&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More could be found. I downloaded all the 1.3 million games from &lt;a href=&quot;https://theweekinchess.com/twic&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;The Week in Chess&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24197" LastEditorUserId="24197" LastEditDate="2020-07-19T08:31:21.593" LastActivityDate="2020-07-19T08:31:21.593" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30417" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30370" CreationDate="2020-07-16T13:40:05.483" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Memorization of entire games from a million years ago was never used as a method to train young players; or at least not those players who went on to become grandmasters.  (There are other things that do end up taught repeatedly and usually mainly memorized, like crucial opening tactics and endgame strategies.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is easier, for a strong player, to memorize somebody else's game just after seeing it played out once than you might think possible, because chess has taught them the logic connecting the moves together.  In fact they were likely able to &lt;em&gt;predict&lt;/em&gt; many of the moves even before they learned which move was actually made in a given position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A strong player will be good at remembering chess-like positions as well as sequences of strong (natural, logical) moves, and they will be correspondingly weak, compared to weak players, at remembering &amp;quot;positions&amp;quot; created by randomly positioning pieces on the chessboard, or poor, nonsensical, randomly selected moves.  It is because every position objectively determines the strongest continuation or a few strong options, but there's often fifty more weak moves, including many that no player would normally consider in the given position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9555" LastActivityDate="2020-07-16T13:40:05.483" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30418" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30403" CreationDate="2020-07-16T15:12:04.213" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;If that wasn't enough White's rooks are very mobile and can attack down the d or e files, potentially doubled, or supported by the queen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24202" LastActivityDate="2020-07-16T15:12:04.213" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30419" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30244" CreationDate="2020-07-16T17:59:46.600" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well it all &amp;quot;depends&amp;quot; on the position, but in the given example,   Nc6 is a better option as it has a possible outpost on d4 or b4 and with the rook on c8 it will also be doubly defended. It can even be re-routed to f6  if required which would be almost impossible from d7. Nbd7 does block the defense of the d6 pawn. BTW , I  saw a study somewhere that countering the najdorf the d6 pawn is to be targeted therefore it is suggested not to make it a liability in the first place ( of course this might be valid in high level games only). Here is a &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/study/A1odpWyJ&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;study&lt;/a&gt; where majority games I saw played Nbd7 but I am not a GM and can't quite follow the reasoning. If your opponent castles long then definitely put the knight on d7.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23209" LastActivityDate="2020-07-16T17:59:46.600" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30420" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30272" CreationDate="2020-07-16T18:47:08.323" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;As others have indicated, without extra work, you will hit a ceiling beyond which you won't move. Where the ceiling will be will depend on how smart you are. I've only been playing and watching GM games, some videos, never really seriously read any books and I've been stuck at about 2000-2100 for about a decade. But take Morphy, for example - he mostly relied on his natural ability (there was not much theory then) and experts agree that he played at a GM level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15509" LastActivityDate="2020-07-16T18:47:08.323" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30421" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16565" CreationDate="2020-07-16T18:54:24.790" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Also, search this site. This question has been asked in one form or another many times and there are a lot of excellent answers with book recommendations, studying tips, etc.-you name it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15509" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-17T02:15:26.593" LastActivityDate="2020-08-17T02:15:26.593" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30423" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30401" CreationDate="2020-07-16T20:35:04.060" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Adopting e4 is a huge undertaking.  Since you played the English, I recommend you incorporate the King's Indian Attack into your repertoire as you can play it against anything you haven't studied yet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A gambit repertoire is not a bad idea either. You might be able to link lines like:&#xA;1.e4 d5 2.d4 dxe4 3.Nc3&#xA;1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 dxe4 4.f3&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.e4 c5 you can play 2.c4 and head for some kind of English or The Smith-morra gambit, and  Grand Prix Attack are good alternatives.  Otherwise, Main line Sicilians would take a couple years to learn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are plenty of e4 repertoire books/videos, and they try to link lines/simplify things.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2020-07-16T20:35:04.060" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30424" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30389" CreationDate="2020-07-16T22:15:36.930" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's great until you reach 2000. After that don't use it as a main repertoire. The main repertoire should be the main lines. Then along the way you can get creative.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Knowing why the main lines are in fact the best will greatly improve your play &lt;strong&gt;after 2000&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this short but sweet answer helps!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24024" LastActivityDate="2020-07-16T22:15:36.930" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30425" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30404" CreationDate="2020-07-16T22:18:27.997" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have recently analysed the Short variation of the Advance Variation quite thoroughly with Leela and heavily with Sockfish, and I can say that I have not found a forced win at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are several ways to a draw for Black. Overall, lines with an early ...c5 performed better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24024" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-07-17T00:27:14.420" LastActivityDate="2020-07-17T00:27:14.420" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30426" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30404" CreationDate="2020-07-17T01:59:11.543" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Is the Caro Kann Advance variation winning for White?&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not proven so far.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Engines and centaurs (engine plus human) are in continuous improvement so the last word on a particular opening variation is yet to be uttered.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You don't give a link to the game nor the particular configurations of the engines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the tournament to find the strongest engine a test bed is set up, two engines play in the finals, 100 games where they in turn take the white and black side of the same opening variations (a human picks the variations to check and hopefully provide a good contest).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The most recent championship was won by Stockfish over Leela and the 100 game match could be found on chess24 site.&#xA;You could check the games where the Caro Kann was played, I don't know off hand if the variation you are interested in was played.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When engines rated 1000 and more Elo above Magnus Carlsen sometimes the moves played are quite mysterious, well more than sometimes!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13074" LastActivityDate="2020-07-17T01:59:11.543" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30427" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-07-17T04:55:08.853" Score="1" ViewCount="76" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is it possible to do an analysis using Scid vs PC or any other major chess program where it shows material score after each move in addition to showing the normal evaluation score? So for an endgame of let's say a king with 2 knights vs king with a bishop the material and evaluation scores would show (6-3 +0.0) on the last move of the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23950" LastEditorUserId="23950" LastEditDate="2020-07-17T15:34:27.160" LastActivityDate="2020-07-19T21:26:59.187" Title="Material score in analysis report" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;scid&gt;&lt;material&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30428" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30348" CreationDate="2020-07-17T08:13:27.883" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;To classify pawn formations, a good source is chess master books that explore that topic. The book by Boris Persits comes to mind, for example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I add that it seems impractical as you have been told, to make an exhaustive index of all the combinations that pawn chains can take.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, it is useful to connect families of openings (classified by ECO, or by open / closed / flank, positional or tactical) and also by the types of endings that can be found according to the pawn structure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This information has didactic utility for chess plans. There are books that touch on the subject of pawn structures and chess plans.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The pawn chain structures could be described with the characteristics: doubled or solitary / past / advanced / delayed / blocked pawns, V chain or inverted V chain, castling with / without fiancheto and other descriptors that I cannot imagine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this way, the number of pawn formations is much less than combinatorial theory can estimate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1766" LastEditorUserId="1766" LastEditDate="2020-07-18T09:35:13.260" LastActivityDate="2020-07-18T09:35:13.260" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30429" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-07-17T09:22:02.230" Score="6" ViewCount="534" Body="&lt;p&gt;After watching &lt;a href=&quot;http://youtube.com/watch?v=EnIbviCB4yU&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;GM Vasyl Ivanchuk's victory against GM Baadur Jobava in checkers,&lt;/a&gt; I have a question in my mind:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Is it possible to relate checkers with the tactical knowledge of chess? If so, how?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15511" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-07-17T18:12:03.483" LastActivityDate="2020-08-16T08:51:04.657" Title="Relation between checkers and chess" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;psychology&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30430" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30429" CreationDate="2020-07-17T09:31:28.307" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;While tactical skills (calculating accurately several moves ahead) can definitely translate, everything else is completely different&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastActivityDate="2020-07-17T09:31:28.307" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30431" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30457" CreationDate="2020-07-17T13:09:19.230" Score="3" ViewCount="180" Body="&lt;p&gt;Games with consecutive en passants, that is one side makes two en passats captures in a row, are few and far between to my knowlegde. I only know of one example thanks to &lt;a href=&quot;https://timkr.home.xs4all.nl/chess2/diary16txt.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Tim Krabbe&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1086879&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Kudrin-R Douven, 1989&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can anyone find more games that have this unique feature?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-11-29T19:51:42.180" LastActivityDate="2020-11-29T19:51:42.180" Title="Games with consecutive en passants" Tags="&lt;famous-games&gt;&lt;en-passant&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30432" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6194" CreationDate="2020-07-17T14:42:25.130" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The only question is whether the same position has occured ( = the FEN notation would be the same) multiple times ( = five different # of moves apply to the same position). Nothing is said about move sequences.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24210" LastActivityDate="2020-07-17T14:42:25.130" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30433" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30401" CreationDate="2020-07-17T15:02:07.253" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have been playing &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.video/?s=Pirc&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Pirc&lt;/a&gt;, even so I can learn different lines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I even bought some interesting books, one in Spanish &amp;quot;La Defensa Pirc y Fianchetto de Rey&amp;quot; and another in English that I don't remember the name now, but I'll get the name on the website I bought.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pirc can vary from very simple lines to some of great complexity, where both sides can have advantages.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At first I started playing so I could have something different in my repertoire and maybe catch some opponent off guard.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your initial chess moves are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.e4 d6&#xA;2.d4 Nf6&#xA;3.Nc3 g6&#xA;...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24212" LastActivityDate="2020-07-17T15:02:07.253" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30434" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30439" CreationDate="2020-07-17T16:36:24.040" Score="4" ViewCount="307" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been doing 1700-2000 puzzles for some days now. My problem is that when I cannot find a solution within 10 minutes, it literally kills me inside. I just get so frustrated and angry. Theh I just see the solution and then try to memorize it. Is there is any solution to this problem, or does it happen with everyone at some point?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21840" LastEditorUserId="15511" LastEditDate="2020-07-18T08:28:56.243" LastActivityDate="2020-07-20T12:42:39.523" Title="How can I deal with frustration in not being able to solve puzzles in time?" Tags="&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;psychology&gt;&lt;puzzles&gt;&lt;time-management&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30435" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30348" CreationDate="2020-07-17T16:45:28.163" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;For unique pawn structures I would not recommend going by any formula where you will have 10 to the power of n or any indices calculation. The best way to understand pawn structures is to know multiple openings in. There are more than 2000+ opening variations where the middlegame differs in many aspects along with the piece placement. It is always good to understand the patterns of the pawn structures by playing the openings and learning the middlegame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This way, you can prepare some of the openings and understand the pawn structures which suit your style. This way, GMs prepare themselves. No one has a direct number of exactly how many pawn structures there are. Not even Kasparov or Carlsen might be interested in that unless you are able to show the perfect differences between each kind of pawn structure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12540" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2020-07-17T19:53:42.357" LastActivityDate="2020-07-17T19:53:42.357" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30436" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30498" CreationDate="2020-07-17T16:47:14.143" Score="4" ViewCount="335" Body="&lt;p&gt;I do not play chess much. Recently a friend reached out to play some online games.   We ran into an odd situation that I cannot find a rule on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;His White pawn was at &lt;strong&gt;g2&lt;/strong&gt; and my Rook was still at &lt;strong&gt;h1&lt;/strong&gt;. He planned to take the rook with his pawn to promote it, but the game would not allow him to make the move and we couldn't figure out why.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there something illegal about that move? There were no underlying issues with the pawn movement that would leave the king in check or something similar.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Addendum-Per the answer below, I asked him about popups getting blocked. He said he had no problem getting the promotion going forward, but was being blocked from taking the rook.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/mMRJK.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/mMRJK.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24215" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-07-17T18:18:10.313" LastActivityDate="2020-07-24T21:44:14.937" Title="Can't a pawn capture onto the last rank to promote?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;pawn-promotion&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30437" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30272" CreationDate="2020-07-17T17:09:19.257" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It really is rather sad that nobody has mentioned going over the game with your opponent afterwards. Of course with so much chess being played online these days this is often difficult, but it forces you to try and explain what happened, and to invent your own theories that can be compared with what you find in books. Not everyone is able to learn from this. For some it is just a continuation of the combat. Avoid these people.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastActivityDate="2020-07-17T17:09:19.257" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30438" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30436" CreationDate="2020-07-17T17:35:18.413" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Since the board is mirrored, the pawn is on b7 and the rook on a8. But b7xa8 promoting to a piece is a valid move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure which program/website this is, but it could be that a popup is asking to which piece White wants to promote, and something/your browser is blocking this popup, and your friend cannot complete the move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2020-07-17T17:35:18.413" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30439" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30434" CreationDate="2020-07-17T18:49:49.587" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;It happens every day to a lot of players! Some problems are very hard and can be very frustrating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My advice would be to try hard during &amp;quot;your 10 minutes&amp;quot;, and if the problem is challenging to move on without seeing the solution. Come back to the puzzle after you've had a break and cleared your head. At least, that works great for me!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11749" LastActivityDate="2020-07-17T18:49:49.587" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30440" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2020-07-17T19:56:01.463" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-07-17T19:56:01.463" LastActivityDate="2020-07-17T19:56:01.463" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30441" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2020-07-17T19:56:01.463" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-07-17T19:56:01.463" LastActivityDate="2020-07-17T19:56:01.463" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30442" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-07-18T04:59:22.807" Score="5" ViewCount="1715" Body="&lt;p&gt;For some time now, &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/analysis/game/live/4732283873&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;chess.com analysis&lt;/a&gt; suggests the accuracy of the gameplay based on the blunders, mistakes and inaccuracies, one committed during his/her gameplay. Now, my question is,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Whether there is any formula to calculate the accuracy of gameplay based on the inaccuracies, blunders and mistakes during the game? If not, then what are the other factors, that act on the accuracy?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15511" LastActivityDate="2020-07-20T11:06:26.497" Title="How to calculate percentage of accuracy of game-play based on the number of mistakes, blunders and inaccuracies?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;online-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30444" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30427" CreationDate="2020-07-18T09:10:25.293" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Check the program pgn-extract (&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.cs.kent.ac.uk/%7Edjb/pgn-extract&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.cs.kent.ac.uk/~djb/pgn-extract&lt;/a&gt;). It has what you probably need. Here I copy a fragment of its help:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Include a position evaluation after each move (--evaluation)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The --evaluation argument causes a comment to be appended to every move, which contains an evaluation of the position immediately following that move. The default evaluation is a simplified version of Shannon's board evaluation. In this case, the evaluation is the difference between the value of White's position and Black's, where the value of a position is a weighted sum of the pieces plus a multiplier (0.1) applied to the number of available moves for that player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I see this primarily as being a hook for people who wish to embed their own evaluations in the output. See the evaluate function in apply.c if you wish to write your own.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, an alternative approach to annotating games with engine analysis would be to consider using something like my UCI-analyser that can pass suitably formatted PGN files to a UCI-compatible engine. See, for instance, the section on obtaining annotated output in PGN format.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;pgn-extract: A Portable Game Notation (PGN) Manipulator for Chess Games&#xA;Version 19-04 by David J. Barnes (@kentdjb)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1766" LastActivityDate="2020-07-18T09:10:25.293" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30445" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30244" CreationDate="2020-07-18T17:07:11.707" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;@David Chopin&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As I noted the first time both lines are inferior.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;h5 would be better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And to @Scounged  -  the games were played by 2200++ rated players&#xA;and there were many more games than you say.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The results based on data based on GM play speaks for itself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The real question is why play that line at all when 2Nc3 avoids it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24174" LastActivityDate="2020-07-18T17:07:11.707" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30446" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30442" CreationDate="2020-07-18T17:11:01.763" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You cant.  They are just a rough guide about how you did.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only factor is who won/lost the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24174" LastActivityDate="2020-07-18T17:11:01.763" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30447" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30436" CreationDate="2020-07-18T17:14:54.753" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The move is legal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it were blacks move the computer would block it.&#xA;If White were in check the computer would too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;LIke @Glorfindel said the popup probably asked for which piece so blocking it stopped the move. But in that case you should still not have been able to push straight instead of capturing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do tell us what program/website that was!&#xA;I do not recognize the board colors but I do not visit all the sites.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24174" LastActivityDate="2020-07-18T17:14:54.753" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30448" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30434" CreationDate="2020-07-18T17:17:05.293" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You deal with frustration in many ways.&#xA;If the self help books do not cure you then see a shrink.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you meant to ask how do you learn to solve puzzles faster then it would depend on your ability.  Everybody hits their limit at some point.  Otherwise you need to study more first then solve puzzles of that type.   Just doing random problems will not help you improve much.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24174" LastActivityDate="2020-07-18T17:17:05.293" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30449" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30294" CreationDate="2020-07-18T17:24:20.597" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Dunno but BxP on c7 looks like a winner to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Whether black captures with the rook or not the b pawn marches quickly to  become  a Q&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24174" LastActivityDate="2020-07-18T17:24:20.597" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30451" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30429" CreationDate="2020-07-18T18:45:56.903" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Checkers is at the point where it is all memorization.  For Fischer chess was too close to that for him to really enjoy it any more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For most of us chess still has enough problems to solve to keep us interested.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24174" LastActivityDate="2020-07-18T18:45:56.903" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30452" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30158" CreationDate="2020-07-18T18:49:58.577" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Lots of them let  you pay zero per use.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Download your own program and you only pay once.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24174" LastActivityDate="2020-07-18T18:49:58.577" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30453" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30479" CreationDate="2020-07-18T20:49:03.957" Score="12" ViewCount="1879" Body="&lt;p&gt;Since grandmasters are good at calculation, do they practice blindfold for improving calculations, or does it come naturally over time by solving a lot of  complex calculations?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21840" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-07-18T21:37:39.527" LastActivityDate="2020-07-22T15:54:28.590" Title="Do grandmasters practice blindfold chess or does it come naturally with practice?" Tags="&lt;grandmaster&gt;&lt;blindfold-chess&gt;&lt;visualization&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30454" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-07-18T21:01:07.877" Score="2" ViewCount="82" Body="&lt;p&gt;The perft count works well after testing with many positions from epd files from the web&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now I want to see some perft stats like this one: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessprogramming.org/Perft_Results&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.chessprogramming.org/Perft_Results&lt;/a&gt;, from the initial position&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I'm getting bad results for checks and mates, in the wiki says in the initial position in the depth 4 there are 8 mates but I get that result in the depth 5, same for the the depth 5 in the wiki says 347 but I get that in the depth 6 and it should be 10828, what I'm doing wrong?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is the program output with perft to depth 6: &lt;a href=&quot;https://pastebin.com/3DSVn9UZ&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://pastebin.com/3DSVn9UZ&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is the code:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;typedef struct perft_stats_s {&#xA;    uint64_t captures;&#xA;    uint64_t en_passant;&#xA;    uint64_t castles;&#xA;    uint64_t promotions;&#xA;    uint64_t checks;&#xA;    uint64_t discovery_checks;&#xA;    uint64_t double_checks;&#xA;    uint64_t checkmates;&#xA;} perft_stats_s;&#xA;&#xA;typedef struct perft_data_s {&#xA;    perft_stats_s stats[1];&#xA;    uint64_t nodes;&#xA;    uint64_t elapsed;&#xA;} perft_data_s;&#xA;&#xA;void UpdateStats(move_t move, bool is_capture, bool in_check, board_s *board, perft_stats_s *stats)&#xA;{&#xA;    if (in_check)&#xA;    {&#xA;        uint64_t checks = attacksToKing(board);&#xA;        if (popCount(checks) == 1) {&#xA;            ++stats-&amp;gt;checks;&#xA;            uint64_t to_sq = bb_sq(TO_SQ(move));&#xA;            if (to_sq != checks) {&#xA;                ++stats-&amp;gt;discovery_checks;&#xA;            }&#xA;        }&#xA;        else {&#xA;            ++stats-&amp;gt;double_checks;&#xA;        }&#xA;    }&#xA;&#xA;    if (is_capture)&#xA;        ++stats-&amp;gt;captures;&#xA;    if (MoveType(move) == MT_EP_CAPTURE) {&#xA;        ++stats-&amp;gt;en_passant;&#xA;        ++stats-&amp;gt;captures;&#xA;    }&#xA;    if (MoveType(move) == MT_CASTLE)&#xA;        ++stats-&amp;gt;castles;&#xA;    if (MoveType(move) &amp;gt;= QUEEN_PROMOTE)&#xA;        ++stats-&amp;gt;promotions;&#xA;}&#xA;&#xA;uint64_t PerftStats(uint8_t depth, bool in_check, board_s *board, perft_stats_s *stats) {&#xA;&#xA;    ASSERT(checkBoard(board));&#xA;&#xA;    move_t list[MAX_MOVES];&#xA;    uint8_t count;&#xA;&#xA;    if (in_check)&#xA;    {&#xA;        move_t *first = list;&#xA;        move_t *end = generateEvasion(board, list);&#xA;        count = end - first;&#xA;    }&#xA;    else&#xA;    {&#xA;        count = generateAllMoves(board, list);&#xA;    }&#xA;&#xA;    uint64_t nodes = 0;&#xA;    uint8_t m;&#xA;    move_t move;&#xA;    bool is_capture;&#xA;    &#xA;    if (depth == 1) &#xA;    {&#xA;        for (m = 0; m &amp;lt; count; ++m) &#xA;        {&#xA;            move = list[m];&#xA;            is_capture = board-&amp;gt;pieces[TO_SQ(move)] != EMPTY;&#xA;            if (!makeMove(board, move))  {&#xA;                continue;&#xA;            }&#xA;            bool inCheck = isInCheck(board);&#xA;            UpdateStats(move, is_capture, inCheck, board, stats);&#xA;            ++nodes;&#xA;            unmakeMove(board);&#xA;        }&#xA;        return nodes;&#xA;    }&#xA;&#xA;    for (m = 0; m &amp;lt; count; ++m) &#xA;    {&#xA;        move = list[m];&#xA;        is_capture = board-&amp;gt;pieces[TO_SQ(move)] != EMPTY;&#xA;        if (!makeMove(board, move))  {&#xA;            continue;&#xA;        }&#xA;        bool inCheck = isInCheck(board);&#xA;        uint64_t new_nodes = PerftStats(depth - 1, inCheck, board, stats);&#xA;        UpdateStats(move, is_capture, inCheck, board, stats);&#xA;        if (inCheck &amp;amp;&amp;amp; new_nodes == 0) {&#xA;            ++stats-&amp;gt;checkmates;&#xA;        } else &#xA;            nodes += new_nodes;&#xA;        unmakeMove(board);&#xA;    }&#xA;    return nodes;&#xA;}&#xA;&#xA;void PerftStatsRoot(uint8_t depth, board_s *board)&#xA;{&#xA;    perft_data_s data[MAX_DEPTH];&#xA;    memset(data, 0, sizeof(perft_data_s) * MAX_DEPTH);&#xA;    &#xA;    perft_stats_s stats[1];&#xA;    memset(stats, 0, sizeof(perft_stats_s) * 1);&#xA;&#xA;    uint64_t start = getTime();&#xA;&#xA;    printf(&amp;quot;\n&amp;quot;);&#xA;    printf(&amp;quot; depth                 nodes    elapsed ms\n&amp;quot;);&#xA;&#xA;    uint64_t totalNodes = 0;&#xA;    uint8_t d;&#xA;&#xA;    bool in_check = isInCheck(board);&#xA;&#xA;    //for (d = 1; d &amp;lt;= depth; d++) &#xA;    for (d = depth; d &amp;gt; 0; --d) &#xA;    {&#xA;        uint64_t sp = getTime();&#xA;        uint64_t nodes = PerftStats(d, in_check, board, stats);&#xA;        totalNodes += nodes;&#xA;&#xA;        memcpy(data[d].stats, stats, sizeof(perft_stats_s) * 1);&#xA;        data[d].nodes = nodes;&#xA;        data[d].elapsed = getTime() - sp;&#xA;&#xA;        memset(stats, 0, sizeof(perft_stats_s) * 1);&#xA;    }&#xA;&#xA;    for (d = depth; d &amp;gt; 0; --d)&#xA;    {&#xA;        perft_data_s *curr_data = &amp;amp;data[d];&#xA;        perft_data_s *prev_data = &amp;amp;data[d - 1];&#xA;        curr_data-&amp;gt;stats-&amp;gt;captures -= prev_data-&amp;gt;stats-&amp;gt;captures;&#xA;        curr_data-&amp;gt;stats-&amp;gt;en_passant -= prev_data-&amp;gt;stats-&amp;gt;en_passant;&#xA;        curr_data-&amp;gt;stats-&amp;gt;castles -= prev_data-&amp;gt;stats-&amp;gt;castles;&#xA;        curr_data-&amp;gt;stats-&amp;gt;promotions -= prev_data-&amp;gt;stats-&amp;gt;promotions;&#xA;        curr_data-&amp;gt;stats-&amp;gt;checks -= prev_data-&amp;gt;stats-&amp;gt;checks;&#xA;        curr_data-&amp;gt;stats-&amp;gt;discovery_checks -= prev_data-&amp;gt;stats-&amp;gt;discovery_checks;&#xA;        curr_data-&amp;gt;stats-&amp;gt;double_checks -= prev_data-&amp;gt;stats-&amp;gt;double_checks;&#xA;        curr_data-&amp;gt;stats-&amp;gt;checkmates -= prev_data-&amp;gt;stats-&amp;gt;checkmates;&#xA;    }&#xA;&#xA;    for (d = 1; d &amp;lt;= depth; ++d) &#xA;    {&#xA;        perft_data_s *curr_data = &amp;amp;data[d];&#xA;        printf(&amp;quot;%6d  %20s %10&amp;quot; PRIu64 &amp;quot;\n&amp;quot;, d, formatNumber(curr_data-&amp;gt;nodes), curr_data-&amp;gt;elapsed);&#xA;        perft_stats_s *st = curr_data-&amp;gt;stats;&#xA;        printf(&amp;quot;    caps: %&amp;quot; PRIu64 &amp;quot;\n&amp;quot;, st-&amp;gt;captures);&#xA;        printf(&amp;quot;    enpa: %&amp;quot; PRIu64 &amp;quot;\n&amp;quot;, st-&amp;gt;en_passant);&#xA;        printf(&amp;quot;    cast: %&amp;quot; PRIu64 &amp;quot;\n&amp;quot;, st-&amp;gt;castles);&#xA;        printf(&amp;quot;    prom: %&amp;quot; PRIu64 &amp;quot;\n&amp;quot;, st-&amp;gt;promotions);&#xA;        printf(&amp;quot;    chec: %&amp;quot; PRIu64 &amp;quot;\n&amp;quot;, st-&amp;gt;checks);&#xA;        printf(&amp;quot;    dich: %&amp;quot; PRIu64 &amp;quot;\n&amp;quot;, st-&amp;gt;discovery_checks);&#xA;        printf(&amp;quot;    doch: %&amp;quot; PRIu64 &amp;quot;\n&amp;quot;, st-&amp;gt;double_checks);&#xA;        printf(&amp;quot;    chmt: %&amp;quot; PRIu64 &amp;quot;\n&amp;quot;, st-&amp;gt;checkmates);&#xA;    }&#xA;    &#xA;    uint64_t elapsed = getTime() - start;&#xA;    uint64_t nps = NPS(elapsed, totalNodes);&#xA;&#xA;    printf(&amp;quot;\n&amp;quot;);&#xA;    printf(&amp;quot;depth       : %u\n&amp;quot;, depth);&#xA;    printf(&amp;quot;nodes       : %s\n&amp;quot;, formatNumber(totalNodes));&#xA;    printf(&amp;quot;nps         : %s\n&amp;quot;, formatNumber(nps));&#xA;    printf(&amp;quot;time        : %&amp;quot; PRIu64 &amp;quot;ms\n&amp;quot;, elapsed);&#xA;}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I save the result in an array struct and after that I loop over the array to update the counters to show the correct counters, like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;counter[depth] -= counter[depth - 1]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24225" LastActivityDate="2020-07-19T11:45:34.250" Title="Getting wrong results in perft stats with checks and mates" Tags="&lt;programming&gt;&lt;statistics&gt;&lt;perft&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30455" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30453" CreationDate="2020-07-19T04:44:14.557" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your question is quite interesting. If you are new to blindfold, I think this thread will help you: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/5022/can-playing-blindfold-chess-be-learned-or-is-it-a-natural-skill&quot;&gt;Can playing blindfold chess be learned or is it a natural skill?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, back to your query. I have discussed this topic with a GM, who is one year senior at my college. According to him, playing &lt;em&gt;blindfold&lt;/em&gt; is &amp;quot;NOT impossible&amp;quot;, but it's fairly difficult. As they participate in lots of classical tournaments where they have to write the scoresheet by hand, it is easy for them to quickly visualize the board. Also, their training process helps them to calculate from certain positions without playing the moves. But, on the other hand, it is fairly difficult to keep up every possible move, visualize every possible position and that needs intense focus and concentration. But, since they are calculating and visualizing chess more often than normal people, it is comparatively easy for them to play blindfold chess after practising for some time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In a nutshell: it doesn't come naturally over time without practice, even if you are a GM.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15511" LastEditorUserId="15511" LastEditDate="2020-07-20T05:34:54.277" LastActivityDate="2020-07-20T05:34:54.277" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30456" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30434" CreationDate="2020-07-19T06:39:55.177" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You have to be honest with yourself at first. It is impossible that you gonna solve all the puzzles, you will ALWAYS be facing one or other that you can not solve in time. SO, use this to your advantage! Expect this one. Search for this one. Wait patiently for this one. And when it comes, laugh about it, because you was prepared for it. Also, obviusly, study why you can not solve this one, so MAYBE one day you solve it all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Pain is not there to hurt, but to make you aware.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Probably some Buda&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24229" LastActivityDate="2020-07-19T06:39:55.177" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30457" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30431" CreationDate="2020-07-19T08:23:22.613" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I searched through all of the 1 317 676 games in &lt;a href=&quot;https://theweekinchess.com/twic&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;The Week in Chess&lt;/a&gt; found two that fit the criteria.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/4cCk7Gi5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;H Dang vs D H Nguyen, 2015&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/NuxTdFcv&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;P Ponkratov vs V Fedoseev, 2016&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24197" LastEditorUserId="24197" LastEditDate="2020-07-19T08:32:34.867" LastActivityDate="2020-07-19T08:32:34.867" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30458" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30454" CreationDate="2020-07-19T11:45:34.250" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It doesn't look like you're counting mates at the leaves.  Your &lt;code&gt;depth == 1&lt;/code&gt; code is &lt;em&gt;almost&lt;/em&gt; the same as the rest, except that counting mates is omitted.  This would explain why your mate counts lag behind as you described.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My suggestion would be to get rid of the &lt;code&gt;depth == 1&lt;/code&gt; block entirely (since to make it correct would require it to be exactly the same as the code immediately below it) and instead add a &lt;code&gt;if(depth &amp;lt;= 0) return 1&lt;/code&gt; at the top of &lt;code&gt;PerftStats&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23985" LastActivityDate="2020-07-19T11:45:34.250" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30459" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30431" CreationDate="2020-07-19T16:53:56.853" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here's a game with &lt;em&gt;three&lt;/em&gt; consecutive en passants. The catch is that it's a proof game composition, rather than an over the board event. But it's spectacular because there is a completely unique sequence of moves ending with Black's 17th move to reach the diagram. This is the only known sound proof game for this task. Even reaching &lt;em&gt;one&lt;/em&gt; en passant is not trivial in a proof game - a lot harder than forcing castling! There are no famous players here, but the composer is the well-known French ex-fighter pilot Thierry Le Gleuher.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have not included the game yet because some might enjoy solving it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Thierry Le Gleuher - R028c Probleemblad 01/1999 - 2. Preis ex aequo &amp;quot;]&#xA;[fen &amp;quot;6nr/p3b1p1/1k2bqp1/1p6/8/Kppp4/P4PPP/RNBQ1BNR w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8201" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-07-19T17:04:12.643" LastActivityDate="2020-07-19T17:04:12.643" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30460" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-07-19T18:37:15.907" Score="3" ViewCount="474" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there a way to display the best move found by the engine on the main board? Lichess has arrows showing the best move (and even for the second, third, etc best lines). Is this possible in Scid vs PC?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23950" LastActivityDate="2020-11-09T12:38:36.027" Title="Best move arrow in Scid vs PC" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;scid&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30461" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30427" CreationDate="2020-07-19T21:26:59.187" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found the following utility that seems to do the task in a very straightforward way:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.lutanho.net/pgn/pgn2fen.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.lutanho.net/pgn/pgn2fen.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I ask, is it hard to code this? If so, why is it software programs don't offer this feature in their exporting options?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23950" LastActivityDate="2020-07-19T21:26:59.187" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30464" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30468" CreationDate="2020-07-20T10:58:45.770" Score="16" ViewCount="3173" Body="&lt;p&gt;I read the whole document issued by FIDE containing the Laws of Chess, but nowhere does it say how (or even &lt;em&gt;if&lt;/em&gt;) the rules of chess can be amended.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is every change to the rules supposed to yield a new variant? But then, what about minuscule changes like allowing the king to castle out of check, or slight tweaks on how &lt;em&gt;en passant&lt;/em&gt; works? If, for example, the double-advance rule for pawns had never been invented, would there really be no way of introducing it into chess now? Would we just end up with &amp;quot;standard&amp;quot; chess and &amp;quot;pawns-can-move-two-squares-forward-on-their-first-move&amp;quot; chess?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Plus, a way of changing the wording of the rules &lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;must&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt; exist—when the rules where amended to explicitly disallow vertical castling with a pawn that had just been promoted to a rook (which the rules accidentally allowed previously), someone did manually rewrite a portion of the rules in a way that was binding for everyone else.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So what is this way, and who can do so? Is it FIDE? Are there any meetings that take place according to a regular schedule where potential changes can be submitted and discussed? Who can submit these proposals, and once they are approved, are they binding for all national federations?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24241" LastActivityDate="2020-07-20T14:48:12.253" Title="What is the process for amending the rules of chess?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;fide&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30465" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30442" CreationDate="2020-07-20T11:06:26.497" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The gameplay accuracy is a scale from 0 to 100 and it is calculated based on the accuracy of each of your moves. Chess.com collects a lot of data from played games that they use to evaluate which moves are more important for the final accuracy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The final accuracy is a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weighted_arithmetic_mean&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;weighted average&lt;/a&gt; and that explains when you play a &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/analysis/game/live/5177034436&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;game with two book moves and a blunder&lt;/a&gt; why you can get an accuracy of 0.7 and not 66.7.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The average of a single move is determined by how close the evaluation deviates from the top engine suggestion and how far is the evaluation rank placed. If the move played was the 2nd best but was -3 instead of best -1, then that is more accurate than if the same move had 9th rank.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess.com has released these two articles that give some insight on the analysis:&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://support.chess.com/article/1135-what-is-accuracy-in-analysis-how-is-it-measured#:%7E:text=At%20the%20end%20of%20a,for%20your%20accuracy%20that%20game.&amp;amp;text=90%25%20of%20the%20time%2C%20overall,to%20chess%20than%20just%20Accuracy!&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;How is it measured?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://support.chess.com/article/365-how-do-i-use-game-analysis&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;How to use game analysis?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Note:&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;Chess.com isn't open source and they haven't shared all the details of the calculation, so more explanation needs more speculation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24197" LastActivityDate="2020-07-20T11:06:26.497" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30466" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30464" CreationDate="2020-07-20T12:16:57.373" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to the &lt;a href=&quot;https://handbook.fide.com/files/handbook/FIDECharter2020.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Charter&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;7.5 FIDE Ethics and Disciplinary Code, Electoral Rules, Financial Rules, &lt;strong&gt;Rules on Laws of Chess&lt;/strong&gt; and Zonal Council Rules are approved and modified by the General Assembly, by simple majority, and cannot be superseded nor derogated by rules of an inferior level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;FIDE in general is run by a number of &lt;a href=&quot;https://handbook.fide.com/chapter/NonElectedCommissions&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;non-elected commissions&lt;/a&gt; which have individual responsibility for governing different areas and driving change in those areas. The commission in charge of updating the FIDE Laws of Chess is the &lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/fide_directory.phtml?content=25&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Rules Commission&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Usually once every four years the Rules Commission draws up changes to the FIDE Laws of Chess which it recommends and presents them to the General Assembly for consideration. The next set of changes is due in 2021. In the run-up to the 2017 changes there was a call for FIDE members to email the commission with suggestions. I haven't seen that so far this time round but maybe it is still too early. The new commission also looks different under the new head of FIDE, Arkady Dvorkovitch, so no guarantee that it will work the same way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;once they are approved, are they binding for all national federations?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to the FIDE Charter:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;7.10 Each FIDE organ can approve Internal Rules, concerning its functioning, by majority of its components. Internal Rules cannot&#xA;supersede nor derogate other FIDE rules, in accordance with the&#xA;hierarchy listed in 7.1.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;7.11 All FIDE members, organs and officials must observe FIDE rules and regulations.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;7.12 All FIDE members must include, in their statutes, the obligation for their members to observe FIDE rules and regulations&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, yes, this is quite tightly specified.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-07-20T12:16:57.373" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30467" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30453" CreationDate="2020-07-20T12:20:43.353" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I discovered I could play blindfold by accident. I was playing a game online and the pieces didn't load onto the screen but I could still play. I (surprisingly) won the game fairly easily. I've played quite a few blindfold games since then. I still make some dumb mistakes but I can follow the game for the most part. I'm probably 1500-1600 blindfolded.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The longer the lines you can visualize and the more opening theory you know the easier it is. I like to sit quietly with my eyes closed and cut off all external stimuli as much as possible. To me, maintaining concentration is the hardest part.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you pay long enough and get good enough you'll probably reach the point where you can play blindfold without much effort. On the other hand, you can practice it and get better too though just like anything else, although you'll always have a ceiling of where your normal chess ability is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2020-07-20T12:20:43.353" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30468" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30464" CreationDate="2020-07-20T12:22:13.597" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;FIDE has a Rules Commission (&lt;a href=&quot;https://rcc.fide.com&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://rcc.fide.com&lt;/a&gt;) which reviews the Laws of Chess every four years according to their FAQ. I don't know about the process itself, but if I had to guess I'd say it involves lots of committee meetings and emails. :-) One interesting detail, though, is that they have a form you can fill out with suggested changes to the Laws: &lt;a href=&quot;https://rcc.fide.com/form-of-loc-change-proposal/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://rcc.fide.com/form-of-loc-change-proposal/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But like the FAQ also says,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Considerable changes were made in the 15th century. The scope of the queen and bishop in particular were increased then. This made it a much faster game. The Laws are reviewed every four years, but these are either just tidying up, or changes to the Tournament Rules.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So don't expect any changes to things like how the pieces move, other than possibly closing of loopholes like the one about vertical castling which you mentioned (are there any loopholes left? That's a separate question).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12523" LastEditorUserId="12523" LastEditDate="2020-07-20T14:48:12.253" LastActivityDate="2020-07-20T14:48:12.253" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30469" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30434" CreationDate="2020-07-20T12:42:39.523" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;1700-2000 rated problems are generally going to be 2-3 moves or at the very least forcing combinations. They shouldn't take 10 minutes or anywhere near that. If you're spending that long on them that means you're lacking the pattern recognition of the simpler tactics that are the building blocks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You need to work on solving simpler 1 and 2 move combinations and develop your pattern recognition. I used to take a simple tactics book and time myself for how long it took to go through the entire book.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Seeing simple tactics quickly is the building blocks for seeing the more advanced combinations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Frustration is good to an extent because it means you aren't happy with the results you're getting. The solution is to change your approach because the way you're doing things isn't working.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2020-07-20T12:42:39.523" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30470" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30389" CreationDate="2020-07-20T13:18:01.280" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Vienna is one of the better openings below international level. Objectively it's probably equal but that's true of nearly every opening. There's only a few openings that can even try to claim a small advantage nowadays (Ruy, Queen's gambit)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What I like about the Vienna:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;it cuts off a lot of black responses like the Petrov, Philidor, Latvian etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;It's very flexible. There are a lot of ways to play the Vienna. You can play the standard Frankenstein–Dracula Variation or you can transpose to a four knights or you can play something like the Bishop's opening or you can look to transpose into a king's gambit or you can play a very system-like approach with Bc4, d3, f4, Nf3 etc. The Vienna gambit with an early f4 is also surprisingly sound.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;It's somewhat unusual meaning most black players won't as prepared as they should be.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;It narrows your opening rep. Aside from what I said in #1 you can play 2. Nc3 as an answer to 1...Nf6. Black's best reply is 2...e5 transposing to back to the vienna game main lines. You can also fall back on the Bc4, d3, f4, Nf3 formation if black throws something at you you don't know how to play. With black you can play the dutch and reach the same positions if white doesn't prevent e5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2020-07-20T13:18:01.280" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30471" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30472" CreationDate="2020-07-20T16:28:20.060" Score="32" ViewCount="4512" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am looking for a chess game and frankly, I really know very little about it. I remember seeing it somewhere on the Internet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The game goes something like this. A player (either White or Black) sacrifices their most important piece, probably the queen. This starts a continuous checking sequence. Check is continuously repeated 10-11 times with the opponent's king always having to play a forced move. The opponent's king is forced to move from their rank to the last one. Then the attacking player moves their king to expose the attack of a rook already there, checkmating the opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know this is near to no information. I have searched the Internet and this site to find this game. But, as I do not have any concrete information, I am not able to find it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can you please help me?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17537" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-07-21T22:54:53.447" LastActivityDate="2020-08-29T18:43:17.333" Title="Where can I find this game with a sacrifice followed by a long series of checks leading to a discovered mate?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;sacrifice&gt;&lt;famous-games&gt;&lt;identify-this&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30472" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30471" CreationDate="2020-07-20T16:46:05.063" Score="51" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe that the game you speak of is the extremely famous &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1259009&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Lasker-Thomas&lt;/a&gt; match in which Lasker forces Black to accept his queen &amp;quot;sacrifice&amp;quot; on move 11. It is followed by a king hunt in which Black's king is forced to the last rank by White, who then finishes the game with the king giving a discovered check from the unmoved a8 rook. The game is notable because White could have chosen the exemplary move 18. 0-0-0#, which is exemplary because castling while also delivering checkmate has been a rare achievement in chess history, but Lasker instead chose the more mundane, in my opinion at the least, 18. Kd2#.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The checking sequence isn't quite 10-11 moves long, but otherwise it fits the bill perfectly, especially with the particular mating move that you described.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Edward Lasker-George Alan Thomas, London England, 10/29/1912&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;[startply &amp;quot;20&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 e6 2. Nf3 f5 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. Bg5 Be7 5. Bxf6 Bxf6 6. e4 fxe4 7. Nxe4 b6 8. Ne5 O-O 9. Bd3 Bb7 10. Qh5 Qe7 11. Qxh7+ Kxh7 12. Nxf6+ Kh6 13. Neg4+ Kg5 14. h4+ Kf4 15. g3+ Kf3 16. Be2+ Kg2 17. Rh2+ Kg1 18. Kd2#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-29T18:43:17.333" LastActivityDate="2020-08-29T18:43:17.333" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30473" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30497" CreationDate="2020-07-20T18:22:29.053" Score="2" ViewCount="134" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was trying to play chess on the included chess app on mac, and after the computer's turn, it will not allow me to make any move at all, and I am 100% sure I am not in check as the game just started, still I cannot move a single piece. It does this everytime, has anyone ever experienced it? or knows how to fix it?&#xA;Here is a screen shot of the app, I am whites and it will not let me move anything.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/DREBK.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/DREBK.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24245" LastEditorUserId="24245" LastEditDate="2020-07-21T00:10:17.603" LastActivityDate="2020-07-24T16:35:16.360" Title="Mac - Chess App" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;computer-chess&gt;&lt;mac&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30474" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5592" CreationDate="2020-07-21T04:54:29.163" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Old question, but for people who just want a quick estimate they can do with basic math this is an easy way to go about it&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If we consider all 32 pieces, we can rearrange them P(64,32) or 64 permute 32 ways. If we then consider 31 pieces, we do the same as above with P(64,31) but this time we must factor in the choice of 31 out of the 32 pieces so we multiply P(64,31) by C(32,31) or 32 choose 31. If we continue along this manner we have the sum from n =2 to 32 of P(64,n)C(32,n) which gives &lt;strong&gt;1.24e54&lt;/strong&gt; which is only a few orders of magnitude larger than the number given by Vicor Allis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that in the assumptions, we allowed illegal positions, and double or triple counted certain positions by treating each piece as distinct. But the number is reasonable compared to that above and more importantly is easily attainable with pretty basic math.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16908" LastActivityDate="2020-07-21T04:54:29.163" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30476" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-07-22T03:33:33.853" Score="1" ViewCount="124" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm working on a problem for this cyber security camp, and we're doing a CTF right now. I have one problem left, and I'm almost certain in relates to chess, so I've come here for advice!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Having determined the name of the bank, the FBI’s last step is to find Hax0r’s personal account. Strangely, when confronted with this question during interrogation, Hax0r agreed to tell us - but only if we played him in a game of chess. The FBI agreed, but when we got to the position on the board as shown below, Hax0r exclaimed, “You got it!” Can you figure it out what Hax0r meant? What is Hax0r’s account name in the offshore bank?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/t9bBh.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/t9bBh.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24260" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-07-22T04:32:51.453" LastActivityDate="2020-07-22T15:02:10.623" Title="What is this position called?" Tags="&lt;puzzles&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ClosedDate="2020-08-31T18:23:17.717" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30477" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30146" CreationDate="2020-07-22T07:10:05.033" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is something interesting in chess, different from any other conventional sports, i.e., here resigning doesn't lead to poor-sportsmanship of the player, rather it's the intellectual advantage of the opponent, that there's nothing can be done for the player. And, also the term Sportsmanship, is, I believe ill-defined in chess.&#xA;For a game like chess, which is purely the &amp;quot;Battle of intellect&amp;quot;, doesn't come along with, regular sport-like attributes, which we find in any other sports. Thus, the &amp;quot;resigning&amp;quot; simply mean, there's nothing can be done here, and the opponent is clearly winning. And, this is totally logical, not to waste any much time. And this very well suits, in chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23121" LastActivityDate="2020-07-22T07:10:05.033" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30478" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30476" CreationDate="2020-07-22T15:02:10.623" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The position doesn't make any sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But the pieces spell out several letters.&#xA;Clockwise from the top left: o,t,o,r&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe that's helpful?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastActivityDate="2020-07-22T15:02:10.623" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30479" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30453" CreationDate="2020-07-22T15:54:28.590" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;My answer is, it comes naturally.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The more often you see the chessboard, the more it will internalize at some point. Even though I am only an IM, the ability to play blindfold came naturally to me at some point.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Often players who participate in a lot of tournaments write down the moves on a scoresheet at mentioned earlier. But also, in analysis with others we are constantly mentioning moves and internalizing the coordinates of the chessboard. It is hard to say though at which point it happens, but it does happen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am not sure how to explicitly practice this skill though. Reading chess games without a board will definitely increase the ability.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One other thing I have noticed is that an absolute topGM like Gelfand does not even look at the board anymore. He is often sitting with his head down, and flipping a pawn while contemplating. This has led me to believe that the actual position is can be unwanted background noise for some!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24024" LastActivityDate="2020-07-22T15:54:28.590" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30480" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-07-22T15:57:35.440" Score="2" ViewCount="104" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was watching Nepomniachtchi - Liren match on Chess24 Legends Day 2. After having a pretty significant advantage [+7.1 (Stockfish 11)], White [Nepo] has played &lt;strong&gt;g4&lt;/strong&gt;, and according to the engine, the game could be drawn by something sort of perpetual checks or three-fold repetition,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/QFMXF.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/QFMXF.png&quot; alt=&quot;g2-g4 move&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since after g5+, Kh5; Black can make his king pretty safe in the pawn structure and also its active queen bishop combo can neutralize white's attack by giving perpetual checks; so my question is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;What is the idea behind the move g4 in this situation?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15511" LastActivityDate="2020-07-22T17:52:17.083" Title="What is the idea behind this move?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;grandmaster&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30481" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30519" CreationDate="2020-07-22T16:38:03.313" Score="1" ViewCount="319" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just started chess.com puzzle rush today for the first time. My chesstempo blitz puzzle rating is 1567, but I can only get to 16-17 on puzzle rush, which is about 1000-1100. My mouse is bit slow, but still, shouldn't I be reaching 25-27? What am I doing wrong?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21840" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-07-22T20:46:20.623" LastActivityDate="2020-07-27T07:40:49.993" Title="Why are my tactics ratings on chesstempo and puzzle rush different?" Tags="&lt;tactics&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30482" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-07-22T17:11:22.830" Score="3" ViewCount="245" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found myself in this position as Black during a recent endgame situation with White to move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;8/7k/2R4p/2p3p1/2N2p2/P4PnP/1P2r1K1/8 w - - 4 43&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is a good way to approach checkmate from here? Is it impossible to force this with the rook and knight alone (with this position)? Or is it a better idea to start pawn play along the e to h files?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24265" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-07-31T14:33:32.313" LastActivityDate="2020-07-31T14:33:32.313" Title="Rook+Knight Endgame-Play For Checkmate?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;knights&gt;&lt;rooks&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30483" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30480" CreationDate="2020-07-22T17:52:17.083" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;First of all, I do not think Black's king would be safe at all on h5. After Kh5 simply Rd4 would threaten Bf3#. Many other concrete threats also come to mind with the king on h5, but the idea is the same: the king is one check away from checkmate, since no squares are available for him. Of course all of this is ignoring the fact that Black can force a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I believe g4 is simply an overlook (yes, they happen in the elite too). Nepo was probably too enthusiastic about the threat of g5+ with all the subsequent mate threats after Kh5 that he overlooked the forced draw. So to answer your question: I think the idea behind g4 is simply to create a mating net against the enemy king. A strange overlook by such a strong player anyway.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21110" LastActivityDate="2020-07-22T17:52:17.083" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30484" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-07-22T18:07:34.557" Score="2" ViewCount="95" Body="&lt;p&gt;Consider this (illegal) position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;5n1k/3p1p1p/3PpPpP/4P1P1/1p1p4/pPpPp3/P1P1P3/K1N5 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If we do not consider the position's illegality, and the fact that it is clearly unwinnable by eiter player (and therefore an automatic draw even if either of the players resgined, ran out of time, etc), then this position has an interesting property. Regardless of what move every player does (which is obvious in this case, since there is always only one legal move), the position results in forced threefold repetition in 4 moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now here arises a question, basically a problem creation: Which legal position has the least amount of moves to make threefold repetition, assuming no player wants to repeat the positions?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24210" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-07-22T18:54:13.440" LastActivityDate="2020-08-31T21:39:12.663" Title="Which legal position has the smallest number of moves in a &quot;forced loop&quot;?" Tags="&lt;problems&gt;&lt;threefold-repetition&gt;&lt;forced-move&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30485" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30484" CreationDate="2020-07-22T18:30:01.457" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This legal postion should fit the bill for the least amount of units needed and the least amount of moves. There is one king, one bishop, and four pawns for each side-a total 12 pieces. The threefold repetition is forced no matter what moves the players make since they only have one legal move each time. It's basically your idea in a legal and lighter setting.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;5b1k/4p1p1/4P1P1/8/8/1p1p4/1P1P4/K1B5 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-31T21:39:12.663" LastActivityDate="2020-08-31T21:39:12.663" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30486" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30487" CreationDate="2020-07-23T02:13:21.940" Score="7" ViewCount="499" Body="&lt;p&gt;Recently I got this position in a game I played as Black with White to move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &amp;quot;8/8/8/R6p/4KP1P/6P1/pr6/1k6 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here, White captured with the move 1.Rxa2. It turns out that 1... Kxa2 is winning while 1... Rxa2 loses. Is there any way to see that Kxa2 must be played instead of Rxa2 without turning to the endgame tablebases? How do you judge such endgames?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24272" LastEditorUserId="9025" LastEditDate="2020-07-23T03:23:28.117" LastActivityDate="2020-07-23T03:23:28.117" Title="How to play this endgame without consulting the tablebases" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30487" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30486" CreationDate="2020-07-23T02:46:18.780" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;In positions where the side with the Rook is trying to hold back the passed pawns it is often critical how quickly the King can scramble back to base, because the Rook will usually be easy. If for example the King must reach g8, then ..Kxa2 leaves the King with one rank less to cross and therefore (other things being equal) will save a tempo. Therefore my instinct would tend toward ..Kxa2 rather than ..Rxa2, even before attempting any analysis. The question whether other things truly are equal is the reason why endings in general need a lot of calculation. In this case they probably are.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, why did White take the pawn before it promoted? 1.f5 waiting for 1..a1=Q 2. Rxa1 Kxa1. White would then be two tempi up compared to the game. He made Black spend a move on promoting, and also ensured that the Black King would have to cross all eight ranks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastActivityDate="2020-07-23T02:46:18.780" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30488" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-07-23T07:18:02.937" Score="0" ViewCount="61" Body="&lt;p&gt;Advanced chess engines can report a forced mate (for some given position) within a huge number of moves. For example, mate in 40 or 50 is not unheard of. Theoretically, is it possible that there exists an 'n' such that White(/Black) has Mate in n, right from the opening? That is, is it possible that there exists a forced checkmate sequence for White(/Black)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24274" LastActivityDate="2020-07-23T07:18:02.937" Title="Forced mate in 'n' from opening" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;engines&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;checkmate&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="8" ClosedDate="2020-07-23T10:32:06.753" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30489" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29700" CreationDate="2020-07-23T16:36:20.063" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;As an IM and experienced chess coach I can say I only use it in play and for fun.&#xA;Serious training should be learning concepts and solving a lot of puzzles.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only time I do use it is when one person is clearly stronger than the other and the weaker side needs some help. Especially absolute beginners who completely mess up all my plans are my favorite partners!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In theory of course you could use it once in a while as a training exercise, the players can learn from the plans of the others, but other than that I do not see any big use. Sorry, I do think it's fun, but fun and use are different.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24024" LastActivityDate="2020-07-23T16:36:20.063" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30490" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-07-23T17:39:18.747" Score="3" ViewCount="168" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is the particular ending really a draw? &lt;br&gt;Someone may try will FinalGen , please?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;White to move&amp;quot;]&#xA;[fen &amp;quot;8/1B2k3/p7/P6p/1n1p2pP/6P1/4KP2/8 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23298" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-07-23T19:21:43.730" LastActivityDate="2020-08-04T02:05:49.763" Title="Alphazero vs Stockfish" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;alphazero&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30491" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-07-23T18:52:44.570" Score="2" ViewCount="134" Body="&lt;p&gt;Theory claims equality for Black in the below diagram. &lt;br&gt;&#xA;My engine claims White is better and demolishes the line with convincing moves. &lt;br&gt;&#xA;Since I have old laptop, with 2GHz dual core CPU, I was wondering if someone with stronger engine can analyze the below position for me (hopefully they will be able to prove my engine wrong). &lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[StartFlipped &amp;quot;0&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Title &amp;quot;Black to move&amp;quot;]&#xA;[fen &amp;quot;rn2kb1r/pp3ppp/2p1pnb1/q3N3/2BP2PP/2N5/PPP2P2/R1BQK2R b KQkq - 0 9&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2042" LastActivityDate="2020-07-31T09:49:15.917" Title="Unable to confirm theoretical evaluation" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;scandinavian-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30492" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30493" CreationDate="2020-07-23T19:42:52.507" Score="5" ViewCount="117" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to play weaker versions of Leela. It would be good to play some really early versions of the net. Is there a repository available where I can download them?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13744" LastActivityDate="2020-07-23T21:26:10.107" Title="Can I download early versions of Leela chess zero?" Tags="&lt;training&gt;&lt;leela&gt;&lt;human-versus-machine&gt;&lt;chess-ai&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30493" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30492" CreationDate="2020-07-23T21:26:10.107" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;For early versions, the lczero project's &lt;a href=&quot;http://lczero.org/play/download/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;download page&lt;/a&gt; refers you to the &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/LeelaChessZero/lc0/releases&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;lc0 releases available on GitHub&lt;/a&gt;. For versions from 2018, you can go the &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/LeelaChessZero/lczero/releases&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;lczero repository on GitHub&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that while the downloads from from the former repository (lc0) provide both Windows builds and source code, the older releases from 2018 (lczero) give you only source code that you need to compile by yourself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10867" LastActivityDate="2020-07-23T21:26:10.107" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30494" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30496" CreationDate="2020-07-24T03:06:07.217" Score="2" ViewCount="778" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/glinscott/fishtest/wiki/Fishtest-faq#why-is-the-regression-test-bad&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Source&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Point 5:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Elo estimates of single patches (SPRT runs) typically come with large error bars. Take this into account when adding Elo estimates. &lt;strong&gt;Furthermore, Elo estimates of passing patches are biased. The SPRT Elo estimates are only unbiased if one takes all patches into account, both passed and non-passed ones.&lt;/strong&gt; As a result, the Elo gain measured by a regression test will typically be less than the sum of the estimated Elo gains of the individual patches since the previous regression test.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't understand the highlighted sentences. Can someone explain?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastActivityDate="2020-07-24T06:44:10.953" Title="What does this paragraph about Stockfish's regression tests mean?" Tags="&lt;stockfish&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30495" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12833" CreationDate="2020-07-24T05:54:01.177" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;No source, and I understand you're not asking about this, but I'm writing this anyway because I suspect you'll be interested.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm told at the highest level (correspondence chess), 1. e4 e6 is &lt;em&gt;at best&lt;/em&gt; a draw for Black. In other words, if you play the French defense as Black, you are playing for a draw - actually even worse than that, since you'll be suffering for a draw as opposed to making a relatively easy draw with a line such as the Berlin, or possibly even fighting for an advantage with the Sicilian. The correspondence chess players I talked to didn't go into details why the French is so bad, but I'm guessing it's because Black suffers from a chronic lack of space on the kingside, which is &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/27464/why-is-leela-so-good-at-beating-stockfish-in-the-french-slav&quot;&gt;very dangerous against strong opposition&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ironically, 1...e6 is one of the most common replies that Stockfish will play if left to its own devices. As a result, I had one correspondence chess player tell me that if opponent plays 1. e4, the best thing you can do to help your engine is to not play 1...e6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastActivityDate="2020-07-24T05:54:01.177" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30496" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30494" CreationDate="2020-07-24T06:44:10.953" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;What this means is that if you assume every test has some noise, if you only look at the tests that turned out well, some of the reason they turned out well was likely that noise was in their favor. As such, you expect regression to the mean if you were to re-test only the passing patches. They would appear less good, because  &amp;quot;passing test&amp;quot; is a biased sample.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17100" LastActivityDate="2020-07-24T06:44:10.953" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30497" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30473" CreationDate="2020-07-24T10:22:03.940" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think that when you started a new game you accidentally choose the Variant &amp;quot;Suicide&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;Losers&amp;quot;. (It might be preselected now that you have selected it once.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Why would this explain the situation?&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In these Variations of chess (you might know them as &lt;em&gt;antichess&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;the losing game&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;giveaway chess&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;suicide chess&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;killer chess&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;must-kill&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;take-all chess&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;capture chess&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;losums&lt;/em&gt; (according to &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Losing_chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;)) you win by having all your pieces captured. The trick is that you &lt;em&gt;have&lt;/em&gt; to take every piece that you can take and may not make other moves as long as you can capture anything.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this position black has offered you a pawn on b5 and you will have to take it with your bishop. All other moves are illegal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Why I think this is what happened&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My guess is based on the position: The computer wouldn't normally just throw away so many pieces (including it's queen). It's pretty hard to come up with a&#xA;way the game might have gone to end up in this position if the black wasn't pruning it's pieces on purpose.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also when you selected a variation once, then it will be preselected for the next games until you change it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;What to do about it?&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(If you still have the game open, try capturing the pawn with your bishop. If this is possible then you will have confirmed that this was the problem.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When starting a new game, select the variant &amp;quot;Regular&amp;quot;. You will be able to make normal moves now. (You might notice that the computer is much stronger now and not throwing away it's pieces so easily. Consider adjusting how much the computer thinks ahead in the &amp;quot;new game&amp;quot; menue)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24282" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-07-24T16:35:16.360" LastActivityDate="2020-07-24T16:35:16.360" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30498" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30436" CreationDate="2020-07-24T21:44:14.937" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Black plays from 7th and 8th rank, his king starting from e8, so the white pawn is on b7.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is no (FIDE) rule that forbids a combination of taking and promotion. b7xa8D (or whatever) is a legal move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When playing online at some minor platform, you will often find that the rules of chess are badly implemented. I know of no single platform that plays strictly FIDE rules. So you might find some surprises in future games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20096" LastActivityDate="2020-07-24T21:44:14.937" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30499" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30501" CreationDate="2020-07-24T22:58:18.113" Score="2" ViewCount="180" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a beginner player and I am studying the game on some classical books: I began with &amp;quot;A primer of chess&amp;quot; by Capablanca. I would like to continue with these 3 books:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&amp;quot;Chess Fundamentals&amp;quot; (Capablanca)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&amp;quot;My System&amp;quot; (Nimzowitsch)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&amp;quot;Hypermodern chess&amp;quot; (Alekhine)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In which order would you suggest to study these books?  Could you also suggest to me something else to study?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23361" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-07-24T23:14:57.447" LastActivityDate="2020-07-25T10:06:45.683" Title="Suggestions about books to read" Tags="&lt;books&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30500" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-07-24T23:36:29.900" Score="6" ViewCount="306" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've noticed that the nature of the tactics differ from one website to another. For instance, on &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/training&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;lichess.org/training&lt;/a&gt; (the website which I train tactics the most on), I have noticed that tactics always present (at my rating level, at least) with the following features:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The opponent has just blundered, and the position we are playing is now winning (but was not before the blunder). There are no puzzles where one must hang on to keep the position equal, or play for a draw;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;There is always only one correct sequence of moves, i.e. each move is markedly better (according to Stockfish) than all of its alternatives. There are no problems where one must find the most accurate win, with other variations still winning;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The computer will always respond the best moves, not the most natural or most challenging ones, or the ones that were actually played in the game. For instance, say the tactic involves a mate threat, and that the opponent can choose between going down a full queen immediately (with no immediate mate), or trying escape with the king, with the latter alternative leading to forced mate in 7 (the line we should actually be calculating). Then the computer will lose its queen and the tactic will be over much sooner than if it had tried to save the position.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is easy to imagine why these features make the problem of identifying tactics from analysed games more tractable, but from the perspective of learning the game they are not ideal: 1. results in defensive play being neglected and 2., 3. make the puzzles less representative of real play. I found this &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/blog/U4sjakQAAEAAhH9d/how-training-puzzles-are-generated&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;old blog post&lt;/a&gt; on how tactics are generated on lichess, but I believe things have changed a lot since then and I think it's no longer relevant (I was not able to find more recent posts, and have not attempted to look at their code).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have noticed that on &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/puzzles/rated&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chess.com/puzzles&lt;/a&gt; 3. (and possibly 1.) do not occur, but I'm not sure since I train rarely there. I actually prefer the problems on lichess, since they look (at least at the starting position) a little more realistic. I'm also aware of a few other websites, like &lt;a href=&quot;https://chesstempo.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chesstempo&lt;/a&gt; (where I believe multiple moves are allowed).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is my main question: Can anyone provide a comprehensive comparison of the different tactics trainers available, in terms of the above and other characteristics? How are these differences explained in terms of the algorithms that mine and create tactics? How can I best train various aspects of tactical play, which may not all be accessible on one website?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3140" LastEditorUserId="3140" LastEditDate="2020-07-25T10:38:26.213" LastActivityDate="2020-07-30T19:34:37.463" Title="Comparison of tactics trainers" Tags="&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;training&gt;&lt;lichess&gt;&lt;chess-algorithms&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30501" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30499" CreationDate="2020-07-25T08:20:41.833" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Capa's books are very good for your level especially the one you mentioned.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My System is probably too advanced for where you're at. It's a great book but probably better for someone around 1800. Beginners should focus on not making huge tactical mistakes. Positional play like My System teaches you how to plan what to do when you can play a game without making huge mistakes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't know the other one but judging by the title I would say it's way too advanced. You won't be able to understand hypermodern chess until you have a crystal clear understanding of classical centers. Few players below 1800 have any clue what they're doing in the center.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As far what I would recommend-&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I really like the book Learn Chess: A Complete Course by C. H. O'D. Alexander. I admit the book can be a little hard to read but it covers every aspect of the game and includes hundreds of tactical puzzles. The chapters on attacking are the best I've seen outside of Vukovic and are targeted towards beginner players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Silman's Complete Endgame Course: Yes, it's an endgame book but you will learn exactly what you need to know for the level you're at. Endgames are also good for beginners because you break the game down into smaller parts and learn to use the pieces individually.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How to Play Good Opening Moves by Mednis- The book is small but i promise you you can reach 2000 without knowing anything more about the opening than what's in that book. Center, development, king safety. That's all you need to know.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any tactics book. If you do tactics problems you will get better. Probably the book that will give you the most &amp;quot;bang for your buck&amp;quot; is How to Beat Your Dad at Chess. The tactics are common and the section on facing a strong opponent is good advice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'll add one more and that's Rapid Chess Improvement by de la Maza. You can buy the book if you want but the book was based on a couple of articles written by de la maza which are still freely available on the internet (search 400 points in 400 days .pdf etc) Most of the rest of the actual book is testimonials and maybe a little elaboration in some areas. Basically, de la Maza argues that you need to study tactics and develop an effective thinking process to improve from beginner to intermediate. You won't find a strong player anywhere who disagrees with that even if they don't like de la Maza.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastEditorUserId="19861" LastEditDate="2020-07-25T08:26:19.573" LastActivityDate="2020-07-25T08:26:19.573" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30502" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30499" CreationDate="2020-07-25T10:06:45.683" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are so many definitions of “beginner” :-) So i can only try some general advices.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Beginners should start with tactics and easy endgames. In Europe, the Stappen method is quite popular and has a lot of materials for beginners and intermediates, but any book with explanation of tactical motives and a LOT of examples will serve. An app with chess puzzles is also a good idea. For endgames, i heard a lot of recommendations of Silman’s Complete Endgame Course. If you can read german, Bernd Rosen “Fit am Endspiel” is a very good start. Some beginners regard the endgame as dull, but it is where you learn about the very nature of your pieces. Serious work at those points will bring you to 1400–1600.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In strategy, “Mein System” is the basis of positional thinking. I also recommend Jeremy Silman “How to reassess your chess“.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The classic books have a lot of value. But you should be aware that chess has evolved since. Some opening systems that have been favorits for Alekhine or Capablanca are considered faulty today. Get the ideas of the game, enjoy their beauty, but always remember: they might be wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With understanding strategy, you might reach 2000.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To improve further, you will have to deal with openings. It really is not necessary to do it earlier. Don’t bother with books. Look at some good videos. I learned a lot at chess24, and there will be others.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20096" LastActivityDate="2020-07-25T10:06:45.683" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30503" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-07-25T10:12:02.483" Score="2" ViewCount="85" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a tactical motif I call &amp;quot;cocking the gun&amp;quot; which I have never seen explicitly mentioned. It happens when you prepare a discovered attack. See the following board. Is there an official name for this tactical motif?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From a &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/training/77771&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Lichess puzzle&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &amp;quot;Cocking the gun&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Date &amp;quot;2020.07.25&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Round &amp;quot;-&amp;quot;]&#xA;[White &amp;quot;?&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Black &amp;quot;?&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Result &amp;quot;*&amp;quot;]&#xA;[SetUp &amp;quot;1&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;5rk1/1p1q3p/p2pp1p1/2p5/4P1QP/2PP2b1/PP2Br2/2KR3R b - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Rg2 2.Rdf1 Bf4+ 3.Rxf4 Rxg4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23820" LastEditorUserId="9025" LastEditDate="2020-07-26T14:07:45.390" LastActivityDate="2020-07-26T14:07:45.390" Title="Cocking the gun tactical motif (preparing a discovered attack)" Tags="&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;terminology&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30504" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30506" CreationDate="2020-07-25T12:10:08.337" Score="5" ViewCount="298" Body="&lt;p&gt;To me, Anand's &lt;code&gt;13. g5&lt;/code&gt; instead of &lt;code&gt;13. gxh5&lt;/code&gt; was very surprising.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Vishwanathan Anand vs Nafiz Ediz İlhan, chess24.com&amp;quot;] &#xA;&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Nf3 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 Bg7 4. e4 d6 5. d4 O-O 6. h3 e5 7. d5 a5 8. g4 Nfd7 9. Be3 Na6 10. Rg1 Ndc5 11. h4 Kh8 12. h5 gxh5 13. g5 Bg4 14. Rxg4 hxg4 15. Nh4 Qd7 16. Be2 g3 17. Bg4 Qe7 18. Bf5 gxf2+ 19. Kxf2 f6 20. Qh5 Bh6 21. Qxh6 Nd3+ 22. Ke2 fxg5 23. Ng6+ 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My reasons are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;With rook on &lt;code&gt;g1&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;13. gxh5&lt;/code&gt; gives it a direct open file against the king.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;13. g5&lt;/code&gt; allowed &lt;code&gt;13... Bg4&lt;/code&gt;, necessitating &lt;code&gt;14. Rxg4&lt;/code&gt;, an exchange sacrifice for the attack to continue.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The fundamental idea of any pawn storm, such as that attempted by Anand, is to exchange pawns in front of the king.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is clear that &lt;a href=&quot;https://youtu.be/0x2KjAXQuuM?t=600&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Anand considers gxh5&lt;/a&gt;, but finds it so bad that he says &amp;quot;&lt;em&gt;I might have been a bit careless here&lt;/em&gt;&amp;quot;!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This completely took me by surprise.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Why is &lt;code&gt;13. gxh5&lt;/code&gt; so bad? And &lt;code&gt;13. g5&lt;/code&gt; much better?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15636" LastActivityDate="2020-07-25T13:11:08.670" Title="Why is g5 much better than gxh5 in this position of Anand?" Tags="&lt;attack&gt;&lt;anand&gt;&lt;king-safety&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30505" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-07-25T12:47:48.283" Score="1" ViewCount="400" Body="&lt;p&gt;My program prints time spent on executing a function for doing/retracting move, and both take together an average of 00.0002 seconds. That means my engine can analyze at most 5000 positions per second, right? That doesn't seem to be good, given the branching factor of 30.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How bad is that, and what average/maximum speed could I expect with optimizations (on normal char[64] board) ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24210" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-07-26T18:03:38.787" LastActivityDate="2020-07-26T19:10:19.830" Title="How many positions per second should my homemade engine calculate?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30506" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30504" CreationDate="2020-07-25T13:11:08.670" Score="5" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;With rook on g1, 13. gxh5 gives it a direct open file against the king.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Wrong! The black king is not on the g file. It is on the h file and the rook on f8 is ready, if required, to come to g8 and fight for the open file.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;13&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;g5 allowed 13... Bg4, necessitating 14. Rxg4, an exchange sacrifice for the attack to continue.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Again, wrong. 13... Bg5 14 Rxg4 hxg4 really does open the file the black king is on, the h file. &amp;quot;allowed&amp;quot; is wrong and so is &amp;quot;necessitating&amp;quot;. This sequence accelerates the attack. Without using an engine, 13... f5 looks to be better for black than Bg5, or at least less bad.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The fundamental idea of any pawn storm, such as that attempted by Anand, is to exchange pawns in front of the king.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which is what happened in the game (white got rid of his h pawn, opening up the h file against the black king, and got rid of the black g pawn which was defending h5) with the bonus that white's g pawn was retained as a threat.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why is 13. gxh5 so bad?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It blocks the h file (the file the black king is on) with a white pawn which white can't remove.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-07-25T13:11:08.670" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30507" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-07-25T23:17:46.440" Score="-2" ViewCount="213" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOqmLYlFdBo&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt;, AlphaZero was a really good chess engine that learned through playing against itself, and it then it never lost against any other chess programs. I think it probably also said it sometimes beat them. I was curious to see how a game between AlphaZero and Stockfish, so went so I started watching a &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEylXLEJ-Eg.&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;video&lt;/a&gt; and then I couldn't at all see for myself why the moves were good, so I lost interest and stopped watching the video part way through. Why is it seemingly impossible to follow high level chess games?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13189" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-07-26T00:21:44.143" LastActivityDate="2020-07-26T02:38:43.247" Title="Why is it seemingly impossible to follow high level chess games?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;master-games&gt;&lt;alphazero&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30508" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30507" CreationDate="2020-07-25T23:17:46.440" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe the following is a simplification of an improvisation of the full accurate answer that is too hard to figure out. Chess is a very complex game. Even without the 50 move rule or 3 fold repetition rule, figuring out for any possible state that can occur in a legal game which moves force a draw and which ones force a win requires a very large number of computations. How much of a short cut there is, I don't know. You can force a win if there is some odd number such that you can force a win in that number of half moves. Your opponent can force a draw in 2 half moves if they have a move that prevents you from having a forced win in 1 half move. You have a forced win in 3 half moves if you have a move that prevents them from having a forced draw in 2 half moves. They can force a draw in 4 half moves if they have a move that prevents you from having a forced win in 3 half moves. Directly from the definition of having a forced win in 21 half moves or forced draw in 20 half moves, using brute force, you would need an insanely large number of computations to figure out how to force a win in 21 moves if you can or force a draw in 20 moves if you can if you can't force a win in 19 half moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Real people in rated slow FIDE tournaments have a limited amount of computation power and play against people with a similar amount of computation power. They're trying to make it as hard as possible for their opponent given their similar amount of computation power. A move that is a bad move for your level in the tournament you're playing could be a really good move if you suddenly magically gained a lot more computing power because then for every move you could make, you could do just as good a job of checking in advance what will happen after it as your opponent could do after you've already made the half move. In reality, you don't have the ability to do that with an opponent the same level as yourself. I think we both keep having half moves we can judge probably won't lead to a quick loss because we are thinking with our limited computing power the odds are low that the move we make will give them a quick forced win that their level can figure out because why would you expect it to lead to a quick loss? However, only once they actually make they make their move, you can then see for yourself that you still don't have a quick loss with your levels although that was only guess work on your part earlier since you couldn't see that far ahead in the game by that time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you see a chess game like the AlphaZero vs Stockfish match I talked about in the body of the question, both programs are thinking really far ahead. You don't have enough computing power to see why they're good moves for their level. All you can to is study their inner workings and assuming the observed result of them is mathematically correct, conclude that the half move it made was a good move for its level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13189" LastEditorUserId="13189" LastEditDate="2020-07-25T23:23:40.407" LastActivityDate="2020-07-25T23:23:40.407" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30509" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30507" CreationDate="2020-07-26T02:38:43.247" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Compare this to professional team sports (soccer, American football, hockey, basketball). In general, the offense is trying to score and the defense is trying to prevent scoring. The objectives of the game are clear. When the game is over, everyone knows who won. However, there are lots of subtleties. The precise spacing and movement and coordination of the offensive players. How the defenders position themselves relative to their mark. Casual fans don’t know 100% what the optimal thing for all the players to be doing on both sides at all moments. Very few people do. The best people at doing this are professional coaches, who make millions because they are so much better at using this knowledge than others.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The stronger your knowledge of the game, the better you understand each micro-decision in sports. The same applies to chess: if you play casually, it is harder to understand each and every move an engine makes. Some moves though will still be pretty obvious, even to weaker players, but many are subtle and harder to understand. The higher your knowledge, the more you understand why they choose the moves that they do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17157" LastActivityDate="2020-07-26T02:38:43.247" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30510" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-07-26T11:56:15.707" Score="-1" ViewCount="78" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am trying to make a neural network which could determine what chess tactic is present in a position. For this, I need to have a database of chess tactics labelled with correct motifs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/8249/where-can-i-find-databases-of-tactical-problems-categorized-and-ranked-by-diffi&quot;&gt;similar question&lt;/a&gt; was asked a few years ago, but it is not particularly useful. Is there any website which has such database?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19268" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2020-07-26T20:26:19.563" LastActivityDate="2020-07-29T18:05:02.820" Title="Need help finding a tactics database with motifs" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;computer-chess&gt;&lt;database&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ClosedDate="2020-08-11T09:01:36.787" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30511" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30503" CreationDate="2020-07-26T12:47:28.953" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Dutch, the two attacking pieces involved in a discovered attack (or the two defending ones in a pin, which is basically the flip side of a discovered attack) are called 'kopstuk' and 'staartstuk', literally translated 'head piece' (the black bishop) and 'tail piece' (the black rook). Preparing a discovered attack like this is called 'staartstuk plaatsen', literally translated 'putting the tail piece in place'. I &lt;em&gt;think&lt;/em&gt; it has been coined in the &lt;a href=&quot;https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stappenmethode&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;official Dutch method for teaching chess&lt;/a&gt; which has been used widely since the 1990's, so many younger and middle-aged players here know the term.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure if there's even a well-established (let alone official) English terminology for the 'tail piece'. &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discovered_attack&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt; doesn't mention it. Perhaps 'hidden piece' makes sense? Then you'd be 'putting the hidden piece in place', but as you can see, this is far from being official. I like your own phrase better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2020-07-26T12:47:28.953" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30512" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-07-26T16:58:05.977" Score="4" ViewCount="255" Body="&lt;p&gt;I commented to another player that I got nothing from studying master games. He replied: :Neither do I.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One gains a little if the annotation includes mini-lessons. But terse comments are akin to a mathematician's &amp;quot;its obvious that ...&amp;quot;. There are many celebrated moves I could never have found in a local game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My Elo recently peaked at 1300. What level does one need before studying master games and having it be worth the time? That other player &amp;amp; I are both retired. Perhaps our ages are a factor.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13674" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-03T05:25:26.050" LastActivityDate="2020-08-03T22:38:14.670" Title="At what Elo level does one benefit from studying master games?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30513" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30512" CreationDate="2020-07-26T17:38:00.053" Score="6" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What level does one need before studying master games is worth the&#xA;time ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You need to have got to the stage where you stop playing &amp;quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/1030/how-to-get-out-of-hope-chess-into-real-chess&quot;&gt;hope chess&lt;/a&gt;&amp;quot;. If you are not currently capable of working out the purpose of your opponent's moves as well as your own then you are not going to get much from trying to work out the purpose of the moves in a master game. Once you do reach that stage then studying master games is a good way of making further progress.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-07-26T17:38:00.053" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30514" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30505" CreationDate="2020-07-26T19:10:19.830" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;On my old laptop with an i5 processor, running on a single thread, a recent version of Stockfish (written in CPP) makes around 1 million nodes per second (1Mnps). You must take into account that these nodes are not just the move generator, but the engine is also using its evaluation, so Stockfish's move generator should be much faster than that&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My very simple chess engine (written in C), whose move generator is not optimized can make around 4.5Mnps also on a single thread (with no evaluation, just the move generator working. This is what in chess programming is called a &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessprogramming.org/Perft&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;perft test&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So at first glance something like some thousands of positions per second seems like very poor performance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course part of this poor performance can be due to the language you've chosen to write your engine, but unless you've made a really weird choice, it seems like there's something odd about your program. My educated guess is either the move generator is buggy or its design is (very) sub-optimal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9179" LastActivityDate="2020-07-26T19:10:19.830" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30515" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-07-26T19:48:44.887" Score="4" ViewCount="74" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm getting back into chess, and I'd like a way to create and store multiple chess positions to review. Specifically, I want to review and practice mating nets. There are a ton of chess tactics sites that offer tactics training, but I want to be able to create and review specific types of positions. Does anyone have suggestions?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19090" LastActivityDate="2020-07-27T14:26:17.457" Title="What is a good free interface to create and store positions?" Tags="&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;checkmate&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30516" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-07-26T22:24:36.223" Score="6" ViewCount="223" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e5 3. dxe5 Ng4 4. Bf4 (4. Nf3 Bc5 5. e3) (4. e4 Nxe5 5. f4) (4. e3 Nxe5 5. Nh3)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White can choose from multiple setups, most common are 4. Bf4, 4. Nf3, 4. e4 or even 4. e3 with the deep idea of Nh3-f4-d5. Database results favor White heavily. Then again, legends with the caliber of Gelfand or Kramnik go down against it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From what I gathered, people claim that Black has long-term strategical deficiencies, in many variations White can obtain the bishop pair and the positions are just &amp;quot;good for White&amp;quot;. But what exactly are the problems Black faces when playing the Budapest?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: I have found an interesting line in the Adler-Maroczy Variation (4. Nf3), where I think Black does not have enough compensation. Surprisingly, it is not analysed in any Budapest book I own and played extremely rarely, even though this is the move White wants to play according to most analysis (why is it not checked then???) and it is almost entirely forced.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e5 3. dxe5 Ng4 4. Nf3 Bc5 5. e3 Nc6 6. Nc3 O-O (6...Ngxe5? 7. Nxe5 Nxe5 8. f4! Ng6 9. Bd3 {is regarded as very good for White and is warned against in almost all Budapest analysis}) 7. Bd3! (7. Be2 Ngxe5 {is normal and Black is fine}) Ngxe5 (7...Re8 8. Qc2 {Black has to somehow block the attack on h7, either by ...g6 or ...h6, both disabling the vital Black plan of Re8-e6-h6 with a kingside attack. White has ideas of returning the pawn on his terms with e6} (8. Bc2 {White achieves a good placement for his bishop without problems})) 8. Bxh7 Kxh7 9. Nxe5 Nxe5 10. Qh5+ Kg8 11. Qxe5 b6 {Black is a pawn down, in return has the bishop pair, but will probably have to forfeit it soon, as ...Bb7 will be blocked by Nd5. White can castle both sides after Bd2}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15478" LastEditorUserId="15478" LastEditDate="2020-07-27T20:20:02.180" LastActivityDate="2020-07-27T20:20:02.180" Title="Why is the Budapest Defense considered not fully sound or even dubious? What theoretical difficulties arise for Black?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;1.d4&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30517" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30512" CreationDate="2020-07-27T06:29:12.530" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;by &amp;quot;studying&amp;quot; you mean studying or just reading/watching? from studying you benefit at any level but from just reading/watching only at high levels - because then you do actual quick study in your head (that's starting from approximately ELO 2300).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;at your level studying one master game could take starting from around 8h(simple) till 2 full weeks (very complicated) per game - I doubt you studied any master game even for 1h ever if You are still 1300 ... .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Study means - you go through the game move by move - do it on chess board, no engine! and understand for yourself why each move was made, play out variations you think of on the board yourself - try to find best moves, see what masters played - this way you will definitely improve.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17448" LastActivityDate="2020-07-27T06:29:12.530" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30518" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30516" CreationDate="2020-07-27T07:32:20.733" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's definiely not a &amp;quot;bad&amp;quot; option for Black. It can be played at high levels and still get decent results. However, it's not considered a &amp;quot;great&amp;quot; line for many reasons:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;As you said, White has multiple set-ups to choose from most of them leaving them with a slight advantage.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The &amp;quot;surprise factor&amp;quot; that may give Black with an edge against an unprepared opponent doesn't exist (at least not so early in the opening) at the highest levels.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;White only enters the Budapest if he wants. If he's worried that his opponent may go for it, he can just play 2.Nf3, most likely transposing later on to his favourite opening.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Database statistics should always be taken with a grain of salt, since there could be multiple factors biasing it (a particular player that uses it very often, or an opening being &amp;quot;the favourite&amp;quot; of weak players, or maybe an opening that is used as a surprise weapon against strong opposition). However I think the factors above prevent the Budapest from being a practical choice to build your repertoire around (specially reason #3: you'll still need something against 2.Nf3, say the King's Indian. You'll be able to use that against 2.c4 too, so you may just as well forget about the Budapest and focus on the King's Indian)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastActivityDate="2020-07-27T07:32:20.733" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30519" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30481" CreationDate="2020-07-27T07:40:49.993" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;After reading the comments, now I understand the question. The answer is simple: &lt;strong&gt;time&lt;/strong&gt;. On ChessTempo you don't have a time limit, while on Puzzle Rush you have to answer within a few seconds if you want to make it to problem #25 or above. You also get a 1500 ChessTempo rating by getting right a certain amount of problems at that level (if you get them every single time your rating will go above that), but on Puzzle Rush you can only fail twice, so you'll need an effectiveness bigger than 90%... while answering within a few seconds!!!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's also the difference in rating systems (each site could assign different ratings to problems of similar difficulty), so, as I wrote in the comments, if two numbers mean different things, you shouldn't expect them to match, despite looking related in appearence&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastActivityDate="2020-07-27T07:40:49.993" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30520" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30515" CreationDate="2020-07-27T14:26:17.457" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you have a PGN file of those position you could use &lt;a href=&quot;https://listudy.org/en&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;my site&lt;/a&gt; for that. There are already a couple of people using the site not to study openings but have uploaded PGNs of endgame positions to train.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If your PGN software specifies a starting position not inside of a &amp;quot;FEN&amp;quot; header let me know: &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/ArneVogel/listudy/issues/2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://github.com/ArneVogel/listudy/issues/2&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24039" LastActivityDate="2020-07-27T14:26:17.457" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30521" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30523" CreationDate="2020-07-27T15:38:06.687" Score="3" ViewCount="202" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grandmaster_(chess)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;, the modern system for awarding FIDE titles evolved from the &amp;quot;Dorazil&amp;quot; proposals, presented to the 1970 Siegen Chess Olympiad FIDE Congress. On the same Wikipedia page it is written that, to qualify for the grandmaster title, a player needed to achieve three GM norms within a rolling period of three years. Exceptionally, if a player's contributory games total thirty or more, then the title could be awarded on the basis of two such norms. (I guess the 2500 rating requirement was added later.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would be curious to know who was the first player to obtain the GM title under this new system. A bunch of players obtained the GM title at the beginning of the seventies (see &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_chess_grandmasters&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11749" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-07-27T16:26:26.680" LastActivityDate="2020-07-27T17:55:51.820" Title="Who was the first modern grandmaster?" Tags="&lt;history&gt;&lt;fide&gt;&lt;grandmaster&gt;&lt;famous-players&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30522" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28541" CreationDate="2020-07-27T16:18:17.190" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well i usually play with stockfish on my mobile to sharpen my chess skills. I am now good at chess playing. My opening (as far as I think) is one of the best in the world. I never played officaly against any grandmaster but informally i have played against a state level champion (Bihar, India) i beat him easily in both the games (on a train journey).&#xA;I tried several time to do something better against stockfish (10 and 11). In some of my best games against stockfish, I managed to pull the game upto 60 moves (but never won or made a draw).&#xA;In my analysis, I was equally balanced upto 30 moves and then I made blunder (I was not able to guess the opponents move).&#xA;So i can say it's not possible to beat stockfish 9 and above by any human now. I regularly watches international chess games specially Vishwanathan Anand's game, and many times i realized he made bad moves (some times blunders too). After his match when I analyzed, I found my guess better than him. Yet i cannot claim myself a master or grandmaster. My best chess rank on lichess was 2400+, after that I stopped playing on that. I usually play online anonymously. I am not serious anytime, so I make blunders. My normal chess rating lies between 1500-2500.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24299" LastActivityDate="2020-07-27T16:18:17.190" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30523" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30521" CreationDate="2020-07-27T17:55:51.820" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Wikipedia reference gives 3 names for 1970 - Bukhuti Gurgenidze, Walter Browne and Anatoly Karpov.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Wikipedia's &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bukhuti_Gurgenidze&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Bukhuti Gurgenidze&lt;/a&gt; article lists only the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.365chess.com/tournaments/Goglidze_mem_1969/26839&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Tbilisi tournament&lt;/a&gt; taking place in December 1969.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Browne&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Walter Browne&lt;/a&gt;'s Wikipedia article says this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;His zonal result earned him an invitation to an international&#xA;grandmaster tournament in San Juan, Puerto Rico. There, he gained the&#xA;Grandmaster title by tying for 2nd–4th places, with Bruno Parma and&#xA;Arthur Bisguier, behind reigning world champion Boris Spassky&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.365chess.com/tournaments/San_Juan_1969/26835&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;San Juan&lt;/a&gt; was his final norm.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In neither case do we know from these sources when the actual title was awarded because titles are not awarded until federations apply for them on behalf of the players and applications cannot be considered and approved until there is a FIDE congress or board meeting.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For Anatoly Karpov we do have a specific date in &lt;a href=&quot;http://billwall.phpwebhosting.com/articles/1970_chess.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Bill Wall's blog&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In June, 1970 Anatoly Karpov tied for 4th place at an international&#xA;tournament in Caracas, Venezuela, gaining a Grandmaster norm.  He was&#xA;awarded the Grandmaster title at the 1970 FIDE Congress in Siegen in&#xA;September, 1970 at the age of 19. He was the world's youngest&#xA;Grandmaster.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Given that Browne and Gurgenidze's tournaments took place in 1969 it is unlikely that their title applications came in after Karpov's. The Siegen congress was the congress at which the changes were made and so it could be that all three were agreed at the same time. In any case, Karpov is certainly one of the first.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-07-27T17:55:51.820" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30524" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-07-28T03:47:50.917" Score="3" ViewCount="107" Body="&lt;p&gt;When my opponent plays 1. e4 I reply with 1... e5. When the game shifts to Ruy Lopez after 2. Nf3 and 3. Bb5 I respond 3... f5. Although this opening is to my taste, I am not reluctant to learn more about chess and Ruy Lopez. I've heard an anecdote that a deceased GM once said that playing the Ruy Lopez can improve your chess overall. With that in mind I am into playing the Ruy Lopez, but preferably lines that&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;don't require white to cooperate that much&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;are sharp, possibly dubious&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;deviate from mainlines such as Breyer,  Berlin, d3, Marshall, Chigorin, Zaitsev etc.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24302" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2020-07-28T12:48:07.840" LastActivityDate="2020-07-28T13:23:18.337" Title="Looking for analysis or games of top players in less known, perhaps a bit dubious but aggressive lines in the Ruy Lopez from Black's point of view" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;ruy-lopez&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30525" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30524" CreationDate="2020-07-28T06:43:09.683" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You could find that by googling &amp;quot;e4 e5 Nf3 Nc6 Bb5 f5&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chess.pl?page=65&amp;amp;eco=C63&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Here is the first result&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyway the Ruy Lopez (and many other openings) improve your chess overall if you play the strategically rich mainlines, not because there's any magic behind &lt;strong&gt;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5&lt;/strong&gt; that will make you a better player. The line you suggest is great and will leave you with pretty fun games, but don't expect many strategical subtilties on it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastEditorUserId="18809" LastEditDate="2020-07-28T09:06:48.177" LastActivityDate="2020-07-28T09:06:48.177" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30526" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-07-28T12:36:24.430" Score="1" ViewCount="814" Body="&lt;p&gt;One of the most difficult parts of a chess engine is the evaluation function. Handcrafted evaluation functions are very long and complicated, while NN evaluations are hard to make and train. That's why I was wondering whether an implementation of a chess engine with no evaluation function would be possible. Search algorithms like MCTS don't need an explicit one, as they can rely on random playouts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could a similar approach be used to create a chess engine with a random search algorithm, which averages the results from those random games and optimally reach to the best move?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Theoretically, it should converge to the optimal solution (minimax), right?&#xA;Of course it would be for testing and experimentation purposes, but I think with a good implementation of the algorithm, it should play at least at almost master level. I would implement it on Golang, as it would be easier to implement concurrency/parallelism.&#xA;What are your thoughts on this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24304" LastEditorUserId="9025" LastEditDate="2020-07-29T02:53:52.110" LastActivityDate="2020-07-29T07:01:29.537" Title="Chess engine with no evaluation" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30527" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30524" CreationDate="2020-07-28T13:03:48.830" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are a couple of games between AlphaZero and Stockfish. The authors of the book Game Changer about AlphaZero, GM Matthew Sadler and WIM Natasha Regan, analyse the opening phase of these two games in &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5A32l35Fa8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this YouTube video&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are the opening moves from the two games, first with AlphaZero playing black and coming up with a new idea, castling queenside and pushing the h pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Stockfish vs AlphaZero&amp;quot;]&#xA;[fen &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 f5 4.Nc3 fxe4 5.Nxe4 Nf6 6.Nxf6+ Qxf6 7.Qe2 Be7 8.Bxc6 bxc6 9.Nxe5 Bb7 10.O-O O-O-O 11.d3 Rde8 12.Nc4 h5 13.Qe3 h4 14.Qh3 Kb8 15.Bd2 d5 16.Bc3 d4 17.Bd2 Bc8 18.Qf3 Qxf3 19.gxf3 Be6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And then with AlphaZero playing white and again getting very aggressive&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;AlphaZero vs Stockfish&amp;quot;]&#xA;[fen &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 f5 4.d3 fxe4 5.dxe4 Nf6 6.O-O d6 7.Bc4 Bg4 8.h3 Bh5 9.Nc3 Qd7 10.Nd5 O-O-O 11.Qd3 Kb8 12.a4 Ne7 13.Ng5 Bg6 14.Nxf6 gxf6 15.Nf7 Bxf7 16.Bxf7 h5 17.a5 a6 18.Qb3 Nc6 19.Be3 Bh6 20.Be6 Qg7 21.Bd5 Qd7 22.Ra3 Bxe3 23.fxe3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then there are these two YouTube videos where GM Melik Khachiyan analyses some of his games in the Schlieman -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZElnhIm-TQw&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Part 1&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyM0_bgBtsM&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Part 2&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7CrRarnp8I&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Kingscrusher analyses&lt;/a&gt; the historic game Bobby Fischer vs Milan Matulovic - Herceg Novi Blitz 1970 on his YouTube channel.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2020-07-28T13:23:18.337" LastActivityDate="2020-07-28T13:23:18.337" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30528" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30567" CreationDate="2020-07-28T13:17:17.570" Score="1" ViewCount="289" Body="&lt;p&gt;For the last few months, I have been reading &amp;quot;How To Reassess Your Chess (I expected at least this book to work), &amp;quot;Simple Chess,&amp;quot; &amp;quot;The Art Of Attack,&amp;quot; some ending book, &amp;quot;Modern Chess Strategy,&amp;quot; etc. I was not practicing at all, and now I have started to play against the Fritz computer, which has a rating of 1450. I am losing most of the time in the opening and blundering in the middlegame sometimes. I have not read any opening books as I have heard that only after a 2000 rating you should memorize openings (I know the basic setups). I just don't understand. People say doing lots of puzzle increases tactical awareness and reduces blunders. But I am still making mistakes with 2-3 move blunders. What did I do wrong? I have only played about 120 chess games sp far.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21840" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-07-28T14:49:36.633" LastActivityDate="2021-05-13T15:30:20.047" Title="Why is my theoretical knowledge is not coming to any use?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;blunder&gt;&lt;best-practice&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30529" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25035" CreationDate="2020-07-28T13:49:35.967" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Hold on, the translation is coming out in December!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/9056919261&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.amazon.com/Zlotniks-Middlegame-Manual-Structures-Manoeuvres/dp/9056919261/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&amp;amp;qid=1595944036&amp;amp;refinements=p_27%3ABoris+Zlotnik&amp;amp;s=books&amp;amp;sr=1-1&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24305" LastActivityDate="2020-07-28T13:49:35.967" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30530" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30526" CreationDate="2020-07-28T13:56:05.460" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have tried using MCTS before for a chess engine and the results were not very good. The problem was that the results when playing out a game with only random moves were basically just that: random. Most of the results would only be reached after over 100 plies so the initial position had little to do with the result.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I had better results when I cutoff the tree after x plies where x would be somewhere between 20 and 50 and using a simple evaluation function for that position. But then you would be relying on a evaluation function again.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24039" LastActivityDate="2020-07-28T13:56:05.460" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30531" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-07-28T18:02:20.803" Score="-1" ViewCount="223" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this chess variant, the number of moves made both chess players are 1 &amp;amp; 2 alternatively. Here is a showing of it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White        Black&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1                   2&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2                   1&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1                    2&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2                    1&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1                    2&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2                    1&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this a good chess variation, strategically speaking? Could this lead to new ideas and complexity in the game?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24309" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-08-25T09:58:52.690" LastActivityDate="2020-08-25T10:02:11.690" Title="Chess variant-Is it strategically good?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;chess-variants&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="12" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30533" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30526" CreationDate="2020-07-28T21:48:23.617" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/1406919/how-many-legal-states-of-chess-exists&quot;&gt;The number of board states is on the order of 10^45&lt;/a&gt;. That's &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.quora.com/How-many-water-molecules-are-in-the-Earths-oceans&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;within a few orders of magnitude of the number of water molecules in the Earth's oceans&lt;/a&gt;. So solving chess by exhaustively searching the possible board states is not currently considered computationally feasible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Instead you're proposing &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monte_Carlo_tree_search&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Monte Carlo Tree Search&lt;/a&gt;. In this approach, you would use random roll-outs (i.e. playing a game to the end by making random moves, then seeing if you won). This is equivalent to randomly choosing a branch of the possible future board states and seeing if it results in a win, and from that, making moves that you estimate to be likely to lead to victory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For this to work, given the scale of the possible board states, you need a sampling algorithm that is very thorough and very fast, and most importantly, &lt;em&gt;very representative&lt;/em&gt;. Unfortunately, the surface you're trying to optimize over is not very smooth: even the best board position can be turned into a loss with a couple bonehead moves, and if you're sampling random future board states (the hallmark of Monte Carlo, vs. exhaustive, search methods), you have no way to know whether what you have sampled is representative of the entire branch, or if you just picked a rollout that included some really bad plays (or conversely, one where your opponent did something dumb that gave you a needlessly rosy view of your odds).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's the entire point of the evaluation function: you estimate the value of a set of intermediate board states, which you can more thoroughly explore within a reasonable future-turn horizon. (Until you reach the endgame, where you can realistically do exhaustive search.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that MCTS &lt;em&gt;is&lt;/em&gt; in a sense learning an evaluation function: instead of an explicitly stated value for a board state, you're keeping statistics on the number of times a sequence of random moves from that board state have resulted in wins/losses. The problem is, because of how distant the eventual win/loss is from most board states, and because of your inevitable computational limits, you're learning a &lt;em&gt;pretty bad&lt;/em&gt; evaluation function.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If your sampling rate was high enough, this could work; but with no evaluation function (or way to approximate an evaluation function, like a neural network), you're going to spend far too much of your time evaluating obviously bad plays and not learning anything actionable. It just isn't computationally feasible given the numbers involved.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24310" LastActivityDate="2020-07-28T21:48:23.617" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30534" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-07-29T05:30:36.697" Score="3" ViewCount="103" Body="&lt;p&gt;I read somewhere that to optimize move generation for a chess engine it's good to have fast detection of position where one side is checked (to eliminate illegal moves).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The author suggested that check detection could be improved slightly by having the code test for common checks which happen first. However, they didn't give anymore insight than that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I reasoned that my code for check detection should look for checks coming from the opponent's side of the board. Other than that though I couldn't think of anything else. This lead me to ask the following question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;What are the most common checks which occur in chess?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, are checks from queens more likely than checks from knights? Are certain diagonals more prone to checks than files?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Advice for methods I could use to answer this question in the comments would also be appreciated&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24057" LastActivityDate="2020-07-29T09:47:22.920" Title="What are the most common checks in chess?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;check&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30537" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30526" CreationDate="2020-07-29T06:42:01.957" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;MCTS is over-hyped. In general to make a computer player for such turn-based abstract games, you would need to use negamax/minimax plus alpha-beta pruning (see &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/29842/9192&quot;&gt;this post&lt;/a&gt; for an explanation of its correctness), together with a couple of heuristics:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Position-evaluation functions&lt;/strong&gt;: Estimates the true value of the given position. Must be used at the leaves of the search tree, but may also be used elsewhere. In chess, material imbalance is a reasonable first-order estimate, and costs almost nothing to compute, but a very big reason that StockFish has such good performance is that it has an far more intricate evaluation function than just computing material imbalance; it counts in king danger, passed pawns, control of open files, obstructed pieces, and many more things.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Expansion heuristic&lt;/strong&gt;: Decides which lines of play to search, possibly using a position-evaluation function to do so. This includes quiescence search (to avoid the horizon effect), which for chess typically means to search deeper for captures and checks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Move-ordering heuristic&lt;/strong&gt;: Decides the order in which to search lines of play from each position, possibly relying on a position-evaluation function as well. This includes iterative-deepening, killer heuristic, null-move heuristic and so on. For chess, it is often useful to search 'attacking' moves first, besides the other general heuristics.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Opening book&lt;/strong&gt;: Decides the first few moves. It is computationally intensive to search deep, but one can do so on supercomputers and simply store the resulting evaluations of positions near the start in an opening book in the program. If you take a look at StockFish on Lichess, you can see that it indeed has such an opening book.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you think about it, attempting to use MCTS to decide which move is best will perform approximately the same as a depth-1 greedy algorithm even if you have a material imbalance evaluation function at the leaves of the MC search tree, and actually a bit worse due to the random noise! To assist your intuition, consider a typical position that is win-in-10, and note that the winning strategy is typically sharp; the player that can win cannot make random moves and expect to win! MCTS is completely blind to that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Moreover, as &lt;em&gt;Tiercelet&lt;/em&gt; already mentioned, MCTS itself can be considered to be equivalent to using depth-1 search with a super lousy evaluation function (return the average position value after random plays)! Anyone who is not a beginner at chess can design a better evaluation function.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;MCTS is bad not just for chess. Even for optimization problems where the objective function does not change drastically upon perturbing the state, a good heuristic would beat any pure MCTS algorithm hands down. Of course, to get a good heuristic you need a human to design it. So if you do not have any humans around you might have no choice but to use dumb algorithms like MCTS or simulated annealing with reheating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The point is, with the same amount of computing resources, MCTS will always perform much more poorly than a reasonably good heuristic, regardless of the optimization/search problem.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9192" LastEditorUserId="9192" LastEditDate="2020-07-29T07:01:29.537" LastActivityDate="2020-07-29T07:01:29.537" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30538" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30558" CreationDate="2020-07-29T08:45:14.067" Score="1" ViewCount="169" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have started playing &amp;quot;real chess&amp;quot; but the problem is it takes too much time. How will I able to win in small time-controls? Does this process of searching the opponents threats and looking for candidate moves ever become a second-nature?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21840" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-07-30T17:36:54.647" LastActivityDate="2020-08-12T04:28:16.350" Title="Does this process ever becomes a second nature?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30539" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30534" CreationDate="2020-07-29T09:47:22.920" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are the most common checks which occur in chess?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Back rank checks (and check mates) must be the number one. I would suspect that bishop checks from h2/h7 on the castled king should also be up there in the top 10 if not number two.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-07-29T09:47:22.920" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30540" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27550" CreationDate="2020-07-29T11:16:33.057" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Im only 1000 in blitz and get 90 - 95 games at least 5 times each day, no it doesn't mean someone is cheating, grandmasters get high nineties every single game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24316" LastActivityDate="2020-07-29T11:16:33.057" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30541" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30531" CreationDate="2020-07-29T13:52:17.137" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Continuous legal moves given by the player as checks could be 1,2 or more. &lt;strong&gt;The checks are not counted as moves.&lt;/strong&gt; Once the checks are completed, the player will make a single or two moves depending upon his turn which are not check moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I'm understanding this correctly, this seems very degenerate and an easy win for white after 1. e3.  No matter what black does for their two moves, it white should be able to play either 2. Qf3 &amp;amp; Qxf7+ OR 2. Qh5 &amp;amp; Qxf7+ OR 2. Qg4 &amp;amp; Qxd7+.  Checks don't count as moves, so it is still white's turn.  So, white's queen simply gobbles up black's entire queenside with checks: Qxe7,  Qxd8, Qxc8, Qxb8, Qxa8.  A further continuation (still on white's move) could be Qd8 Qe7 Qf7 Qxf8 Qxg8 Qxh8, gobbling up the entire kingside.  Since queens are so powerful (due to the checks aren't moves rule) and black no longer has one (and is also down massive amounts of material), white should be able to win with minimal effort from here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17157" LastActivityDate="2020-07-29T13:52:17.137" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30542" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30546" CreationDate="2020-07-29T14:06:39.927" Score="2" ViewCount="380" Body="&lt;p&gt;How do you avoid eye strain while playing online chess? I wear glasses that filters UV light, take a 5-minute break every hour, play on a large screen monitor (23 inch with a refresh rate of 60 Hz), and use lubricant eye drops twice a day. But I also believe that one of the big factor is that I don't blink enough while playing chess. My eyes are most of the time wide open, in order to avoid blundering. I would really appreciate your feedback, advice, and experiences to avoid such kind of problems.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23598" LastActivityDate="2020-08-04T07:35:02.923" Title="Eye strain from playing online chess" Tags="&lt;online-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30543" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30556" CreationDate="2020-07-29T14:19:44.543" Score="3" ViewCount="196" Body="&lt;p&gt;After the opening moves&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Bc4 Nf6 3.d3 c6 4.Nf3 d5 5.Bb3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;one of Black's fashionable answers is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5...Bb4+&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the aim of this seemingly useless check?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2020-07-29T20:58:57.243" LastActivityDate="2020-07-30T06:40:54.353" Title="What is the reason for 5...Bb4+ in this line of the Bishop's Opening?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;1.e4&gt;&lt;bishops-opening&gt;&lt;open-games&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30545" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30552" CreationDate="2020-07-29T17:18:22.033" Score="2" ViewCount="194" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm still in the learning stage of playing chess, and was a bit frustrated by this puzzle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/puzzles/problem/683680&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.chess.com/puzzles/problem/683680&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After my initial attempt failed I tried all the moves I could think of to succeed (I usually do this and often get the solution on my second or third try) I used the hint feature to get the solution. None of this would be at all shocking to me, but the puzzle is rated at 715 and my failed attempt cost me 14 rating points.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Looking at the analysis board the line played gives only a fractional advantage to white, but any other move would result in a significant decrease in advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So now I know what the correct answer is, I'm wondering if this puzzle is possibly underrated or if I'm missing something in my chess practice so far...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I seem to do a lot of puzzles on Chess.com where a seemingly simple mate-in-3 is rated 1000+ and then puzzles like this one that make me doubt my training so far.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any thoughts on what I can takeaway from this puzzle, or what I can do to fill this gap in my knowledge so far?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24319" LastActivityDate="2020-07-30T06:22:54.107" Title="What am I supposed to learn from this puzzle?" Tags="&lt;training&gt;&lt;puzzles&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30546" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30542" CreationDate="2020-07-29T17:34:55.920" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Windows 10 has a setting called &amp;quot;Night Light&amp;quot; in the display settings, and Mac has Night Shift which helps me with eye-strain by reducing blue-light that can cause eye-strain. You can also try the 20-20-20 technique instead of taking a 5 minute break every hour. My eye doctor suggested staring at something 20 feet away, for 20 seconds, every 20 minutes. Probably hard to do when you're playing a lot of blitz games, but something to consider. Good luck.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24319" LastActivityDate="2020-07-29T17:34:55.920" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30547" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30542" CreationDate="2020-07-29T17:57:37.417" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Using Eye Drops (fake tears) can be useful when exceeding recommended screen time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What also helps me is taking frequent breaks every hour and drinking plenty of water.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24320" LastActivityDate="2020-07-29T17:57:37.417" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30548" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30543" CreationDate="2020-07-29T18:00:23.253" Score="-3" Body="&lt;p&gt;To prevent castling later on in the game. It limits White's defensive options&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24320" LastActivityDate="2020-07-29T18:00:23.253" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30550" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30510" CreationDate="2020-07-29T18:05:02.820" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Try the chess.com website. They have plenty of resources available. They also have a fully trained neural net which evaluated and scores your games with the aim to improve the player and facilitate their learning process.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24320" LastActivityDate="2020-07-29T18:05:02.820" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30551" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30543" CreationDate="2020-07-30T01:07:45.587" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think that this would be a mistake. White easily counters with Bd2 or c3. I don't think you would see this move unless the players were lower-rated (think sub-1000).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24159" LastActivityDate="2020-07-30T01:07:45.587" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30552" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30545" CreationDate="2020-07-30T01:27:30.757" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/QfI1S.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/QfI1S.png&quot; alt=&quot;The puzzle&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;@B.Swan incorrect. Everything is -3 but the line played, +3. The puzzle is meant to help you learn the power of the pin (you trade and then Rc2 is played, so the knight cannot move because of the king behind it and you win a free piece). Even a free pawn can make or break a game; a piece is amazing, and if you can get it, you are likely to win the game. It is hardly a &amp;quot;fractional advantage&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19663" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2020-07-30T06:22:54.107" LastActivityDate="2020-07-30T06:22:54.107" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30553" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12664" CreationDate="2020-07-30T02:36:42.920" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I like chessgeek (I might be biased, as I am its owner). I made videos about many different topics (openings, strategy, analysis, ect), and make more every day!&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC99iLm4lpawrQrJJPV3qyJQ?view_as=subscriber&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Here&lt;/a&gt; is the link if you are interested.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24324" LastEditorUserId="21526" LastEditDate="2020-07-30T06:19:11.410" LastActivityDate="2020-07-30T06:19:11.410" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30555" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30559" CreationDate="2020-07-30T06:33:00.233" Score="2" ViewCount="93" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;When two engines play against each other in a game of chess, when is it appropriate to declare a draw when clearly no progress is possible?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;8/6k1/8/R3K2p/2r3p1/6P1/7P/8 w - - 0 2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This was a position reached against two engines I am having compete. It has been going on for a while and I doubt a win is possible. Repetition seems like a while away, and I think the fifty-move rule only works if a player requests for it (these engines don't do that). I can't even declare this a draw by endgame tablebases because it has 8 pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24057" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-07-30T17:36:14.780" LastActivityDate="2020-07-30T17:36:14.780" Title="When are games against engines drawn?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;draw&gt;&lt;fortress&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30556" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30543" CreationDate="2020-07-30T06:40:54.353" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;5...Bb4+&lt;/strong&gt; looks like a weird move because you wouldn't play a move like that often, but it makes perfect sense because the white bishop in on b3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White would definitely want to develop his knight with Nc3 on the next move and put pressure on Black's pawn center. By playing &lt;strong&gt;5...Bb4+&lt;/strong&gt; you prevent &lt;strong&gt;6.Nc3&lt;/strong&gt; (it'd lose a piece). If White goes for &lt;strong&gt;6.c3&lt;/strong&gt;, then Black can put his bishop on d6 without his position in the center being at jeopardy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's why the most successful move here is &lt;strong&gt;6.Bd2!&lt;/strong&gt;. Now &lt;strong&gt;6...Bd6&lt;/strong&gt; is met with &lt;strong&gt;7.Nc3!&lt;/strong&gt;, so Black usually prefers to trade bishops.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastActivityDate="2020-07-30T06:40:54.353" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30558" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30538" CreationDate="2020-07-30T07:55:14.147" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you are interested in the psychology of learning and improving in chess, I really recommend reading &lt;em&gt;Chess for Zebras&lt;/em&gt; from Jonathan Rowson (and/or &lt;em&gt;Move First Think Later&lt;/em&gt; from Willy Hendriks, which has a very similar message).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;tl;dr: &lt;strong&gt;Yes&lt;/strong&gt;, finding the &amp;quot;best&amp;quot; move continually becomes more and more natural (and thus faster!) while you improve (although even masters never reach the point of perfection).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Rowson explicitly distinguishes between &lt;em&gt;Knowledge&lt;/em&gt; (theory learned from books etc.) and &lt;em&gt;Skill&lt;/em&gt; (the practiced ability to actually use that knowledge on the board). If you think about learning languages, the former would be knowledge about grammar and vocabulary (you can learn that to a reasonable degree in school), and the latter would be the ability to speak/write &lt;strong&gt;fluently&lt;/strong&gt; (you can only really learn this by constant practice of the language). Someone with only school &lt;em&gt;knowledge&lt;/em&gt; will have to consciously think about everything and thus needs more time than a &lt;em&gt;skilled&lt;/em&gt; speaker to form sentences - even if he/she knows all the parts!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It works roughly the same way in chess, up to the point that strong masters can often subconsciously &amp;quot;feel&amp;quot; a move within seconds and then &amp;quot;just&amp;quot; have to use their calculation abilities to make sure it actually works.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13433" LastEditorUserId="13433" LastEditDate="2020-07-30T08:01:10.697" LastActivityDate="2020-07-30T08:01:10.697" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30559" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30555" CreationDate="2020-07-30T11:34:55.573" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Try the TCEC adjudication rules, adapted for your situation. You can use more aggressive (or less aggressive) adjudication rules if you need them, e.g. by changing the threshold eval needed for adjudication.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Win adjudication:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Game ends in a win if there is a mate, engine resigns, time runs out, there is a crash, illegal move, by 6-men TB adjudication, or by the TCEC winrule: both playing engines have an eval of at least 10.00 pawns (or -10.00 in case of a black win) for 5 consecutive moves, or 10 plies - this 10/10 rule is in effect as soon as the game starts. In the website this rule is shown as &amp;quot;TCEC win rule&amp;quot; with a number indicating how many plies there are left until it kicks in.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Draw adjudication:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A game can end in a draw by three-fold repetition, 50-move rule, stalemate, 6-men TB adjudication, and the &amp;quot;TCEC draw rule&amp;quot; (ending the game at move 35 or later if the evals from both playing engines are in [-0.15, +0.15] for 10 plies without a pawn advance or any capture).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastActivityDate="2020-07-30T11:34:55.573" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30560" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="227" CreationDate="2020-07-30T16:11:08.100" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are plenty of openings you could use in blitz, but I think the slow solid and positional openings need more thinking, thus you could lose. I would suggest playing like Mikhail Tal. That is, make sacrifices without calculating the move too much, and try to complicate the position for your opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have used this in many of my games. Complicating the position by making a complex, unsound sacrifice may confuse the opponent and make them lose on time or make a wrong move. Remember, clock is also a thing you will need to think about in blitz.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd suggest playing the king's pawn opening as White. Maybe the king's gambit, the open Sicilian, which is my favourite, Scandinavian, and such. French is a solid opening from black and either play advance and lose time for your opponent or play the exchange variation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With the black pieces, against 1.c4 Nf6 is the best way to respond. After that try to enter the Indian system, Nimzo, or King's Indian Defense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For d4, I would say Nf6 isn't bad but it involves more thinking, so I like to play the Dutch defence, the Leningrad variation (which is not a very popular a chess opening).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would definitely suggest the Najdorf variation in Sicilian, though it seems very impractical because of the sharp lines and tactical, calculative play, as mentioned before you can confuse your opponent into time pressure. Of course, I recommend making unsound sacrifices wisely, when absolutely necessary. Remember, even if your playing online you are psychologically twisting your opponent into a very uneasy place.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24150" LastEditorUserId="17823" LastEditDate="2021-01-09T09:48:26.643" LastActivityDate="2021-01-09T09:48:26.643" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30561" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="30562" CreationDate="2020-07-30T18:06:13.607" Score="0" ViewCount="2173" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are there any possible moves to checkmate a Black opponent if we have a White bishop and king?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24327" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-01T15:05:25.897" LastActivityDate="2020-08-05T00:09:59.250" Title="Is it possible to win with a king and one bishop vs a king?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;bishops&gt;&lt;kings&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30562" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30561" CreationDate="2020-07-30T18:16:42.390" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;No. There is no position you can construct in which the black king is in check (has to be from the bishop), white only has king and bishop and the black king can't move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The closest you can get is this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &amp;quot;k7/1BK5/8/8/8/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And the black king can move to a7.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-07-30T18:16:42.390" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30563" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-07-30T19:24:59.097" Score="0" ViewCount="78" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some sites, eg chessbase,  seem to have players that won't resign but either just leave for coffee until their clock runs out, or else they wait a minute then start another game so you have to ask the arbiter to declare the game won for you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not much we can do about impolite players, but ChessBase does not show any points won in this case. Today I beat a much higher rated player in 9 moves so I can understand their annoyance at playing like a patzer who just learned the moves today and their action was to stall a bit then just disconnect from this game while their clock still ran.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I got the arbiter to decide this time, but sometimes you have to wait until the entire clock runs down in case they come back at the very end to move and hope you left and your clock runs out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24174" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-07-31T01:33:21.580" LastActivityDate="2020-07-31T12:51:39.417" Title="Do you get rating points if the other player just leaves an online game and loses on time?" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;online-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30564" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30482" CreationDate="2020-07-30T19:27:38.780" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Looks like a win for white after Rxc5.&#xA;Unless White blunders, Black has no mate.&#xA;Look for white to queen a pawn before black can do anything.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24174" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-07-31T12:45:14.533" LastActivityDate="2020-07-31T12:45:14.533" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30566" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30500" CreationDate="2020-07-30T19:34:37.463" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The tactics trainers cannot be compared to each other.&#xA;You need to compare them to a specific person as everybody has different needs and preferences.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That said, all the ones I have seen are done poorly from an educational perspective which would most effectively help you improve as fast and as far as  you could.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24174" LastActivityDate="2020-07-30T19:34:37.463" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30567" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30528" CreationDate="2020-07-30T19:45:26.770" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Perhaps so called theoretical knowledge has no real use.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should ask why your rating/ability has not been improving.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At only 120 games you are a total beginner. I presume you meant online games.  If those were actual OTB tournament games then you need to switch to checkers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You need to play less and study more effectively.  Just playing games will not help you very much and is a very slow way to improve.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You MUST learn two openings COLD no matter your rating.  One for white and one for black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You will need to do effective tactics training.  Most online trainers are not done to help you learn efficiently.  There are some, not a lot, books that are better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You need to study GM tournament games.  Play over every game by every player.  You will get a feel for what good moves are and which are not so good.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Best if you do not play all the games  then  at least play all the games for W/B that used  your preferred opening.   None of them did?  Maybe you need to pick a better opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Learn endgames!   If you get that far you will be surprised how many high rated players are clueless about what to do.  If you know them then you will beat a lot of players with lower ratings if you get to the endgame.  Did I mention to learn openings and play GM games to get a feel for good moves?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After that you need to move to strategy and positional play so you will keep improving. Tactics will help you beat the slash and burn attack at all cost kiddies, but playing good players who do not do that will require positional understanding.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24174" LastActivityDate="2020-07-30T19:45:26.770" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30568" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30561" CreationDate="2020-07-30T19:47:55.907" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is no way to force a win with KB vs K.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No way for them to blunder into it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No way for them to help you selfmate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24174" LastActivityDate="2020-07-30T19:47:55.907" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30569" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-07-30T22:57:50.083" Score="2" ViewCount="198" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Nf6 (The Two Knights Defence is my choice) 4. d3 and I am obliged to play the Giuoco Piano 4... Bc5. I am afraid of the middlegame positions that arise after this opening, because to me it seems that white is in the driver's seat being able to play anywhere on the board f.ex c3-d4 or Be3-fxe3 and then doubling rooks on the f-file or pushing a4-b4 and against all of these plans I feel lost. I can't get counterplay. I've attempted the usual operations: developing my pieces, striking in the center with the move d5 and aiming to equalize the game but it's complicated and I often end up losing the game if not in the short run then will have to endure until a blunder happens in the endgame after many moves of torture. Of course there are many other plans that white might execute but that's even worse for me.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24302" LastActivityDate="2020-07-31T04:03:01.240" Title="Looking for instructive examples on how to defend against the Giuoco Piano or Giuoco Pianissimo (?) opening from Black's perspective" Tags="&lt;middlegame&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30570" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30569" CreationDate="2020-07-30T23:32:40.967" Score="-7" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://old.chesstempo.com/game-database.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://old.chesstempo.com/game-database.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nxe4 has a 100% win score from that position based on players 2200 up to 2400&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;at 2500 - 2700 BC5 has best results  although about 9% worse than whites result&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;what level is your opponents at ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Personally I play BC5 and gladly let the Max Lange happen.  You might want to memorize that one if you let them play that one as it is complicated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;OTOH  The sicilian stops the Giuoco nonsense.  So do many other first moves 1... pd3 is good for black too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24174" LastActivityDate="2020-07-30T23:32:40.967" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="30571" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30491" CreationDate="2020-07-31T00:05:23.233" Score="6" Body="&lt;h2&gt;For a Computer, White is Better.  For a Human, it's unclear.&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White has quite a few advantages here - notably more space and superior development.  Black has one major advantage, though.  White's king is exposed and shall remain so for quite some time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Computers excel at positions in which perfect defensive play is required - that is, positions such as White has here.  A computer will almost certainly see and defuse the various tactical threats to the White king, and eventually the computer should be able to convert the many advantages White has into something concrete.  But a human playing White is quite likely to err and allow Black the chance to make an effective attack.  Some humans will prefer to take on the Black pieces, on the premise that if they play aggressively White will eventually slip.  Other humans will prefer White.  Thus, we say that the position is &amp;quot;unclear&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12084" LastActivityDate="2020-07-31T00:05:23.233" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31571" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30569" CreationDate="2020-07-31T01:38:22.347" Score="2" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Event &amp;quot;Ding Liren - Giri&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Site &amp;quot;Wenzhou CHN&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Date &amp;quot;2017.08.09&amp;quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &amp;quot;2017.08.08&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Round &amp;quot;2&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Result &amp;quot;0-1&amp;quot;]&#xA;[White &amp;quot;Ding Liren&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Black &amp;quot;Anish Giri&amp;quot;]&#xA;[ECO &amp;quot;C50&amp;quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &amp;quot;2777&amp;quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &amp;quot;2772&amp;quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &amp;quot;90&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Bc5 4. O-O Nf6 5. d3 O-O 6. h3 d6&#xA;7. c3 a6 8. a4 Ba7 9. Re1 h6 10. Nbd2 Be6 11. Bxe6 fxe6&#xA;12. Nf1 Nh5 13. Be3 a5 14. Bxa7 Rxa7 15. d4 Qf6 16. Re3 Nf4&#xA;17. h4 Qg6 18. g3 Raa8 19. dxe5 Nxe5 20. Nxe5 dxe5 21. f3 Rad8&#xA;22. Qc2 Nh5 23. Kh2 Rf6 24. Rd1 Rdf8 25. Rdd3 Qf7 26. Qd1 Rg6&#xA;27. Qe1 Qe7 28. Kh3 Rxg3+ 29. Nxg3 Nf4+ 30. Kh2 Qxh4+ 31. Kg1&#xA;Rf6 32. Rd8+ Kh7 33. Rd2 Rg6 34. Rg2 h5 35. Rh2 Rxg3+ 36. Kh1&#xA;Qg5 37. Qf1 h4 38. Re1 h3 39. Rd1 Qh5 40. Rd7 Qxf3+ 41. Qxf3&#xA;Rxf3 42. Rhd2 Kh6 43. Rd8 Kh5 44. Rh8+ Kg4 45. Rd1 Ne2 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think that the way Anish Giri plays the Italian as Black is very instructive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is also funny that White faced all the problems you mentioned having as Black in this game, and it shows how Black avoided the headaches you named.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some ideas (I would not call them rules...) in the Italian...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I like to go ...a6 and ...Ba7 immediately and only then ...d6. It gets the bishop out of harms way so that we are more flexible in how we react to moves in the center, like d4 (because d4 does not hit the bishop anymore). And we can still retreat it with ...Be7 if that is how we want to parry Bg5 (matter of taste if you want to go for ...h6 and ...g5).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If White goes for the pin with Bg5 before Black has castled kingside, we go ...h6, ...g5 kicking the bishop and we may go for a kingside attack (even after we castle kingside outselves!). A useful maneuver to enable a pawnstorm is ...Nf6-h7 supporting the g5 pawn to play ...h6-h5 (once we are ready).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If White does not go for Bg5 early and plays slowly, a good plan is ...h6, ...Re8, ...Be6 and then ...Rxe6 after the bishops are swapped. The rook may stay on the 6th rank or reatreat back to the 8th.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If White goes for Be3, swapping there is usually okay if we have not played ...h6 yet, as ...h6 weakens squares around our king and we might get crushed after a sacrifice. But you never really have to take and while the rook may look bad on a7, it is not as far from the action as it may seem (see the game I posted).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You will still learn some common mistakes by White, like mistiming d4, leaving f2 vulnerable and others. Another thing to look up is how to deal with unsound sacrifices on f7 or g5 (after ...h6, ...g5 White very often plays Nxg5, but it mostly is not sound).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You also need to look for active play. If White's move seems very slow, or his forces do not look fully coordinated, you might have an opportunity to seize the initiative by striking in the center or on the kingside (mostly). If you look at the game I posted, it is not clear where the initiative of Black came from, but it crushed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15478" LastEditorUserId="15478" LastEditDate="2020-07-31T01:44:52.173" LastActivityDate="2020-07-31T01:44:52.173" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31572" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30569" CreationDate="2020-07-31T04:03:01.240" Score="1" Body="&lt;ol start=&quot;4&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;... Bc5 isn't your only option.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both MCO-13 and ECO C[55] (1981) list 4. ... Be7 as the main continuation. In the notes, ECO has h6 as an option, or d5, transposing to a line in the Bishop's opening (C24), after 5. exd5 Nxd5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9025" LastActivityDate="2020-07-31T04:03:01.240" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31574" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5158" CreationDate="2020-07-31T05:02:07.763" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Yes&lt;/strong&gt; (actually, &lt;strong&gt;hell yes&lt;/strong&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;World class correspondence chess is very close to the infamous &amp;quot;draw death&amp;quot; of chess. If you thought 70-80% draw rate among the world elite at classical chess was bad, check out what it's like at &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.iccf.com/event?id=66745&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;world correspondence chess championship&lt;/a&gt; level: 9 decisive games out of 136 played, or about 95% draws.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;World class correspondence chess has some pretty crazy statistics as a result:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Anyone can draw against anyone else (comparatively, a player rated ~2000 has no chance against a player rated 2700+ in OTB classical).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Because most games ends in draws, it's awfully hard to gain elo. You stay where you are!&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Some openings are considered so drawish that a draw can be predicted right out of the opening, &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.chessbase.com/post/correspondence-chess-and-correspondence-database-2018&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;e.g.&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;DN: What is your Centaur opinion over AlphaZero? Would you be able to beat it in a fair match?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;WM: That whole spectacle seemed to be a spun tale with a stacked deck. If AlphaZero were to play in an actual engine tournament like the TCEC, I seriously doubt it would even make it to the semifinals. In terms of beating it though, I couldn't say if that would actually happen. &lt;strong&gt;It could play something like the Petroff and easily draw&lt;/strong&gt; and that would look like some sort of small victory on its part. However, I will say it will NOT beat me in a Centaur CC game. That's just not going to happen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Can you imagine an OTB tournament where there is no winner because every game is drawn? &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.iccf.com/event?id=68635&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;It's happened in correspondence chess&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I've seen one top correspondence chess player say he'd have some pretty good odds of drawing against a 32-piece tablebase (!) in some lines such as the Ruy Lopez Berlin, even as Black.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As engines keep getting better, this draw rate is going to keep increasing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit:&lt;/strong&gt; here's a &lt;a href=&quot;https://twitter.com/LeoLjubicic66/status/1289682018851262465?s=20&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;graphic&lt;/a&gt; by former World Correspondence Chess Champion Leonardo Ljubičić with the draw rates in correspondence chess. Engines are clearly having an impact in the middle range and above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastEditorUserId="15223" LastEditDate="2020-08-19T23:31:14.493" LastActivityDate="2020-08-19T23:31:14.493" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31575" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30563" CreationDate="2020-07-31T05:04:16.527" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I haven't played on Chessbase for quite some time, but generally loss on time through disconnect is still a loss and loses rating accordingly. Otherwise too many people would just disconnect, obviously.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lichess punishes people who let the time run out with a ban (after several such incidents), so it might be less of a problem there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4362" LastEditorUserId="4362" LastEditDate="2020-07-31T12:51:39.417" LastActivityDate="2020-07-31T12:51:39.417" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31576" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31579" CreationDate="2020-07-31T07:32:35.400" Score="0" ViewCount="31" Body="&lt;p&gt;Does anyone know about a web based app to conduct and manage chess tournament all online? I have a web server to host but we need to conduct it for our locality with around 300 people participating to enhance our lock-down period.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it is opensource it is very nice, but if it is free it is more than enough i guess? Any suggestions please?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24328" LastActivityDate="2020-07-31T09:27:59.800" Title="Tournament Management and Conducting Web App" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;tournament-directors&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2020-07-31T09:32:42.760" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31577" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31578" CreationDate="2020-07-31T08:53:23.643" Score="3" ViewCount="541" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm looking for a software where I can demonstrate games in a lecture. The software shall have these features:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;usable without internet connection on a Windows 10 PC&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;free&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;input and save a game as pgn easily&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;import pgn possible&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;possibility to easily draw arrows and mark squares&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;add variations by moving pieces&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;an engine with multi-pv showing at least the best four lines&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;bonus: engine can be chosen by me&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've tried these: Arena (no arrows), LucasChess (no variations), Scid vs PC (no arrows), Tarrasch (no arrows), Chesspad (no arrows), Lichess studies (not offline, no choosable engine), Chessity (not offline)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;UPDATE: David Miedema's answer tells me that there is a comment window in Scid vs PC, that I can draw arrows and I can even mark squares with any of a lot of signs and colors. Marking squares on the main board with ScidvsPC is a bit clumsy - you have to mark them on the comment board first and then press a button to transfer to the main board.&#xA;Also, I found out that you can add marks and arrows and one engine in Chesspad.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;UPDATE 2: In  between I found out that ChessX would also suit my requirements quite well. So there are ChessX, ScidVsPC, Chessbase Reader and Chesspad which would seem to be ok.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;UPDATE 3: I added the two requirements: to input and save games. I took those to be a given.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18667" LastEditorUserId="18667" LastEditDate="2020-08-02T12:04:54.050" LastActivityDate="2020-11-15T15:00:48.923" Title="Free offline demonstration software with arrows, sidelines and engine" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;teaching&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31578" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31577" CreationDate="2020-07-31T09:24:15.787" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Did you already give Scid a really good look?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Drawing Arrows&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Arrows can be drawn in two ways. In the Main Board, hold Control and click on the start square and then end square. Or in the Comment Editor arrows can be drawn (and erased) by dragging between two squares.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course there is Chessbase in many sorts and sizes. You're probably able to find an old version for free if you search well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this brings you a bit closer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24024" LastActivityDate="2020-07-31T09:24:15.787" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31579" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31576" CreationDate="2020-07-31T09:27:59.800" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Did you already see lichess.org? This website has great tournament functionality. E.g. you can start a swiss tournament and add the participants by making them part of a team. Hence there will be no outsiders present.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this helps :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24024" LastActivityDate="2020-07-31T09:27:59.800" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31580" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30491" CreationDate="2020-07-31T09:49:15.917" Score="6" Body="&lt;h1&gt;A very uncomfortable position&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &amp;quot;r3k2r/pp1n1ppp/3bp3/q2p3P/3P2P1/3B4/PPP2P2/R1BQ1RK1 w kq - 0 6&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have analysed this resulting position several times with some great Lc0 and 80+CPU stockfishes. My verdict from that is that white objectively has some advantage, but for humans it is so difficult to understand that they will mess it up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also the verdict drops down gradually. Which is a sign that it might actually not be that impressive for white. I really do not know when h6 works or something else. The black pieces are easier to play, and especially at 2000- level that's what counts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In combination with my student we have decided not to include the variation with 6.Ne5 in our repertoire. There is more to get in the other lines imho.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this helps, I would recommend you to study the above position quite well if you plan on playing this with Black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24024" LastActivityDate="2020-07-31T09:49:15.917" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31581" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30482" CreationDate="2020-07-31T10:09:19.370" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some general advice about kings cut off on the 7th(or2nd) rank in rook endgames.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Involve your king or get your N to f3.&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1.Kg1 Nf5!? {going after the f3 pawn.} 2.Rxc5 Nd4 (2...Kg6 also comes into consideration but&#xA; is not tricky enough. although it is my personal fave) 3.Kf1! (3.Ne5?? Rxe5! -+) Rh2=&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;h3&gt;Involve a pawn!&lt;/h3&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1.Kg1 h5! {in order to get a pawn to h3 or f3 ASAP. Black will then threaten mate in two ways: ...Rg2# and ...h2#} 2.Rxc5 g4! -+&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have only used my head to give instructions. No computer, just to show what the general plans are. I'm IM but compared to a comp I'm nothing. So please forgive me if this is completely wrong. The general ideas are still valid though!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24024" LastActivityDate="2020-07-31T10:09:19.370" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31582" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31577" CreationDate="2020-08-01T00:24:18.307" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chessbase Reader is free, and will do all of this.  It took me forever how to figure out how to draw arrows on the board, though - it's not obvious (click-and-drag the mouse while holding down ALT, CTRL+ALT, or SHIFT+ALT to get different colored arrows).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7147" LastActivityDate="2020-08-01T00:24:18.307" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31583" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31577" CreationDate="2020-08-01T06:26:25.847" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have asked a similar question before: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/30391/can-i-host-lichess-server-to-my-local-machine-to-use-the-study-offline&quot;&gt;Can I host lichess server to my local machine to use the study offline?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because I was obsessed with lichess-study, I had chosen to use it offline. If you are on a Linux (or Mac) machine, I think that's the best option you have. If you are on Windows, then installing lichess on localhost is a bit tricky and also time-consuming.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In that case, I think it's better to grab a look at the software, called &lt;a href=&quot;https://lucaschess.pythonanywhere.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Lucas Chess&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's &lt;strong&gt;FREE, open-source&lt;/strong&gt; and as well as very feature-packed. There, you can choose your own engine as you like, can draw the arrow for better understanding and also can encircle squares as your requirements in the latest edition. Hope the developers will include more features in the upcoming editions of this frequently-updated project.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are a few screen-shots of the software:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/e8emc.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/e8emc.png&quot; alt=&quot;lucas 0&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/GdeKQ.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/GdeKQ.png&quot; alt=&quot;lucas 2&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/6Dman.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/6Dman.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15511" LastEditorUserId="15511" LastEditDate="2020-08-01T06:43:00.070" LastActivityDate="2020-08-01T06:43:00.070" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31584" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28956" CreationDate="2020-08-01T11:47:07.787" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Houdini 6.02=at depth 40 give the following position: WHITE King in f5 Bishop in b5 pawns in d5 e5 f4 g5 g2.BLACK King in e7 Bishop in g3 pawns in c7 g7 and h6 BLACK to move. It give a fixed score of +2.00 , but when you re- analyse the resulting position , it give a White win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23298" LastActivityDate="2020-08-01T11:47:07.787" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31585" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2860" CreationDate="2020-08-01T12:25:08.623" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Show me any instance where a bishop can protect the other bishop. Once an opponent decides that removing one of the opposition bishops is timely, the value of a bishop in my opinion drops one half a point.  Where as one knight in the end game is far more an aggressive tool than one bishop.  Knights are not bound to one color on the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24339" LastActivityDate="2020-08-01T12:25:08.623" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31586" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31593" CreationDate="2020-08-01T13:04:55.023" Score="0" ViewCount="113" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 {0} c6 {0} 2. d4 {4} d5 {0} 3. Nc3 {3} dxe4 {0} 4. Nxe4 {1} Bf5 {1} 5. Ng3 {3} Bg6 {0} 6. Nf3 {6} e6 {0} 7. c4 {9} Nd7 {0} 8. Be2 {5} Ne7 {0} 9. Bg5 f6 {0} 10. Bf4 {7} e5 {0} 11. dxe5 {2} Qc7 {0} 12. e6 {9} Ne5 {0} 13. h3 Rd8 {0} 14. Qc1 {11} Bf5 {0} 15. O-O {5} Bxe6 {0} 16. Bxe5 {2} fxe5 {0} 17. Qe3 {5} Ng6 {0} 18. b3 {8} Ba3 {0} 19. Ng5 {56} Qd6 {0} 20. Nxe6 {3} Qxe6 21. Ne4 {26} Qf5 {0} 22. Bg4 {11} Qf4 {0} 23. g3 {5} Qxe3 {0} 24. fxe3 {2} Be7 {0} 25. Rad1 {15} Rf8 {0} 26. Rxf8+ {8} Kxf8 {0} 27. Rxd8+ {1} Bxd8 {0} 28. Bf5 {11} Be7 {0} 29. Bxg6 {1} hxg6 {0} 30. g4 {2} a6 {0} 31. a4 {8} Kf7 {0} 32. Kg2 Ke6 {0} 33. Kf3 {1} b5 {0} 34. axb5 {13} cxb5 {0} 35. cxb5 {2} axb5 {0} 36. Ke2 {4} b4 {0} 37. Kd3 {1} Bd8 {0} 38. Kc4 {3} Bb6 {0} 39. Kxb4 {5} Kd7 {0} 40. Kb5 {1} Bxe3 {0} 41. b4 {1} Bg1 {0} 42. Ka6 {3} Kc6 {0} 43. b5+ {1} Kc7 {0} 44. h4 {13} Bb6 {0} 45. h5 {2} gxh5 {0} 46. gxh5 {1} Bd4 {0} 47. Nd2 {32} Kd6 48. b6 {3} Kc6 {0} 49. b7 {4} Kc7 {0} 50. Ne4 {11} Be3 {0} 51. Ng5 {25} Kb8 52. Ne6 {11} Bh6 {0} 53. Nc5 {12} Kc7 {0} 54. Ka7 {3} Kc6 {0} 55. b8=Q {2} Kxc5 56. Qb6+ {6} Kc4 {0} 57. Qc7+ {5} Kd4 {0} 58. Qd7+ {15} Kc4 {0} 59. Kb6 e4 {0} 60. Qe6+ {6} Kd4 {0} 61. Qd6+ {5} Ke3 {0} 62. Kb5 {3} Kf3 {0} 63. Qd1+ Kf2 {0} 64. Kb4 {13} e3 {0} 65. Qd8 {17} (65. Qd4 Kf3 66. Kc3 Kg3 67. Kd3 Kf3) 65... e2 {0} 66. Qf8+ {2} Kg2 {0} 67. Qa8+ {6} Kf2 {0} 68. Qf8+ {4} Kg2 69. Qe8 {20} Bd2+ {0} 70. Kc4 {12} e1=Q {0} 71. Qg6+ {6} Qg3 {0} 72. Qc6+ Kf1 {0} 73. Qg6 {15} Qc7+ {0} 74. Kd3 {3} Qc3+ {0} 75. Ke4 {2} Kf2 {0} 76. Qf5+ {4} Kg3 {0} 77. Qg6+ {5} Kh4 {0} 78. Kf5 {6} Qh3+ {0} 79. Ke5 {5} Qc3+ 80. Kf5 {1} Qd4 {0} 81. Ke6 {7} Qc4+ {0} 82. Kf5 {1} Qd5# {0} 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am White here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know every tactical theme-pin, fork, weak backrank, deflection, etc. But upon analyzing this game, I couldn't find any. How can I improve my recognition of tactics?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21840" LastEditorUserId="12629" LastEditDate="2020-08-02T04:14:00.530" LastActivityDate="2020-08-02T04:19:57.797" Title="Why can't I find any tactics in this game?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;learning&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31587" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31586" CreationDate="2020-08-01T13:43:08.963" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know every tactical theme pin, fork, weak backrank, deflection, etc.&#xA;But upon analyzing this game, couldn't find any.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you can't recognize a pin (e.g. 9. Bg5) then you don't know what a pin is. Here are 4 tactical themes in the first 20 moves:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;9. Bg5 - pin&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;12. e6 - discovered attack&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;17. Qe3 - pin&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;20. ... Qxe6 - self-pin&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How can I improve my recognition of tactics?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First you have to learn what they are.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;9&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Bg5 pins the knight against the queen. There is no immediate threat, there doesn't have to be, but this move means that the knight can't move without exposing the queen to capture.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are &amp;quot;hard pins&amp;quot;, where a piece is pinned against the king and it would be illegal to move the piece, and &amp;quot;soft pins&amp;quot;, like here where moving the pinned piece would expose the piece behind it to capture.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="12629" LastEditDate="2020-08-02T04:19:57.797" LastActivityDate="2020-08-02T04:19:57.797" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31588" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31589" CreationDate="2020-08-01T18:10:23.987" Score="9" ViewCount="523" Body="&lt;p&gt;My boyfriend has an old beige/white Chronos II that needs repair. I've decided that perhaps purchasing a new clock for his birthday would be a better idea than my original idea (a chess coffee table book...really for me to improve the apartment decor!). But now after looking around I see it is very hard to acquire the Touch Chronos II. Can anyone recommend a suitable replacement? Hopefully one that complies with FIDE regulations and has tactile buttons.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24341" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-01T23:30:20.107" LastActivityDate="2020-08-01T23:30:20.107" Title="Chess Clock as Birthday Gift Advice" Tags="&lt;chess-clocks&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31589" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31588" CreationDate="2020-08-01T18:41:23.013" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;Section 5.5 of the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/FIDE/handbook/Standards_of_Chess_Equipment_and_tournament_venue.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE handbook&lt;/a&gt; lists the following approved clocks:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5.5. &lt;strong&gt;The electronic chess clocks endorsed by the FIDE&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;5.5.1. DGT XL (year 2007)&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;5.5.2. DGT 2010 (year 2010)&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;5.5.3. Silver Timer (year 2007)&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;5.5.4. Sistemco (year 2009)&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;5.5.5. DGT 3000 (year 2014)&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;5.5.6. CE Clock (year 2017)&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;5.5.7. KK9908 Clock (year 2017)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-08-01T18:41:23.013" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31590" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31586" CreationDate="2020-08-01T20:07:45.100" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;practice practice practice.  that is the answer to the question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and there are far more tactics than the few you mentioned.&#xA;if you really think you know them all then name another 20 of them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24174" LastActivityDate="2020-08-01T20:07:45.100" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31591" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31592" CreationDate="2020-08-02T01:42:36.313" Score="5" ViewCount="3961" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is a short game played online at chess.com.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Bc5 4. c3 d6 5. d4 Bb6 6. dxe5 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black resigned for some unknown reason; maybe a mouse slip or he/she needs to leave. When the game was analysed at chess.com, the game accuracy of white is 99.7%. In my humble opinion, every White move is accurate (unless one considers 3. Bb5 to be more accurate than 3. Bc4). But why is the game accuracy for white is not 100%? What is the 0.3% that White l missed?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16626" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-02T19:35:32.197" LastActivityDate="2020-08-04T04:46:45.667" Title="Why is White's accuracy 99.7% instead of 100.0%?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;engines&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;italian-game&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="7" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31592" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31591" CreationDate="2020-08-02T02:26:40.910" Score="19" Body="&lt;p&gt;Probably, as you pointed out, Bb5 instead of Bc4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Ruy Lopez is considered very very marginally better/more critical than the Italian by humans, so it'd make sense that the engine used here'd agree.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Certainly, however, the Italian is fine, and the difference is very marginal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23100" LastActivityDate="2020-08-02T02:26:40.910" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31593" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31586" CreationDate="2020-08-02T04:13:28.280" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Take the position after 12...Ne5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;r3kb1r/ppq1n1pp/2p1Ppb1/4n3/2P2B2/5NN1/PP2BPPP/R2QK2R w KQkq - 1 13&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are plenty of tactics here. The e5 knight is pinned to the queen. You're attacking it twice, with your knight and bishop, and it's defended twice, with a pawn and queen. Qd7 would be checkmate if Black stopped protecting that square, although it's currently protected by both the queen and knight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But Black has some defensive resources here too, and can bring them quickly. Rd8 (played in the game) would chase your queen off that dangerous d-file. Nxf3 would be check, allowing the knight to move despite the pin. So you don't have time to wait with a nothing move like h3, or to slowly build up pressure on the pinned piece. You need to strike &lt;em&gt;now&lt;/em&gt; or lose the opportunity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The black queen, as it turns out, is slightly overloaded. It is protecting the e5 knight. But it's also, along with that same knight, defending the d7 checkmate. So this means you can play 13.Nxe5. After 13...fxe5 14.Bxe5, Black can't play Qxe5 due to the checkmate threat. You win a pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;why was a I not able to find some crazy material winning combinations?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure why you didn't see the above. Perhaps you got excited over finding 12.e6 (it threatens two pieces at once, and checkmate if they play it wrong) and were disappointed when they played 12...Ne5 which parries both threats. But, in general, captures are worth considering. You should have at least looked at both 13.Nxe5 and 13.Bxe5. Assuming you saw the mate threat when you played 12.e6, it should have been in your mind on the next move, which would help you to find the tactic that wins a pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2020-08-02T04:13:28.280" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31594" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29561" CreationDate="2020-08-02T04:32:50.523" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkJdvwRC-oGPhRHW_XPNokg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Hanging Pawns has quite a few videos that annotate GM games, and I'd say they're probably intermediate to maybe expert (using your format)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCL5YbN5WLFD8dLIegT5QAbA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Agadmator has a ton of videos annotating GM games (often released mere hours after the game finishes!) I'd say probably beginner-intermediate on your scale.&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;Note that both of these channels annotate after the game, not during.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23100" LastActivityDate="2020-08-02T04:32:50.523" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31595" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31591" CreationDate="2020-08-02T08:22:03.487" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, we can trust the engine in some cases when they analyse, but in this case, we are looking at book moves. Since the Italian Game is perfectly reasonable, don't worry about the 0.3% off.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastActivityDate="2020-08-02T08:22:03.487" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31596" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1636" CreationDate="2020-08-02T08:24:52.923" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can see that Black is not down materially. The reason why Black resigned is because he was down &lt;em&gt;positionally&lt;/em&gt;. There was no point in playing on in a dead position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastActivityDate="2020-08-02T08:24:52.923" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31597" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2653" CreationDate="2020-08-02T08:27:26.880" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Understand why the moves have been made. Once you have gotten a notion of the game, then memorization becomes much easier.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastActivityDate="2020-08-02T08:27:26.880" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31598" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31602" CreationDate="2020-08-02T08:32:20.510" Score="2" ViewCount="169" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been investigating the theory of the King's gambit, and I found the variation in the accepted 3. Nf3 Be7. I didn't like the looks of that for White.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've started to play the Bishop's gambit, but the problem is that Black can also play the 3... Be7 line. Is there any way to deal with it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastEditorUserId="12629" LastEditDate="2020-08-03T01:46:47.283" LastActivityDate="2020-08-03T01:46:47.283" Title="The Bishop's gambit variation of the King's gambit" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;kings-gambit&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31599" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9405" CreationDate="2020-08-02T08:34:37.117" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've looked at the book 'Dismantling the Sicilian&amp;quot;, but it didn't satisfy my need of information. The best I can recommend is not a book. Simply use the analysis board of Chess.com and if you have premium, the opening book. There are also many master games which you can look at to learn about the strategies of this opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastActivityDate="2020-08-02T08:34:37.117" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31600" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17024" CreationDate="2020-08-02T08:37:34.183" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Control the centre. White, or Black, has wasted a tempo, and you should take advantage of that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another problem with a/h-pawn openings is that this will leave a weakness on b/g4. Attempt to goad the c/f-pawns forward so that you can place a bishop on g4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only exception to the Rookside openings is the Andersson opening, Creepy Crawly   Formation(a3 and h3), which is quite playable for White.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-08-03T22:37:48.760" LastActivityDate="2020-08-03T22:37:48.760" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31601" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16382" CreationDate="2020-08-02T08:48:36.647" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Bird's opening aims for a potential kingside attack, at the cost of weakening the kingside. It is a reversed Dutch defence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I believe that the best refutation to Bird's opening is not 1...d5, which offers White kingside counterplay. Simply play 1...c5, attempting to transpose into a variation of the sicilian.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastActivityDate="2020-08-02T08:48:36.647" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31602" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31598" CreationDate="2020-08-02T09:29:58.270" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;After &lt;strong&gt;1.e4 e5 2.f4 exf4 3.Bc4 Be7 4.Nf3 Bh4+&lt;/strong&gt; probably &lt;strong&gt;5.g3!? fxg3 6.0-0&lt;/strong&gt; does the job.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.f4 exf4 3.Bc4 Be7 4.Nf3 Bh4+ 5.g3!? fxg3 6.O-O&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In typical King's gambit style, you're down in material and probably a bit worse with perfect play, but you have great compensation and attacking chances. If Black makes a mistake, they will pay the consequences.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastEditorUserId="11712" LastEditDate="2020-08-02T23:15:03.780" LastActivityDate="2020-08-02T23:15:03.780" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31603" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8892" CreationDate="2020-08-02T09:42:11.500" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;People, the Chess App that @Eduard Roberts is talking about is something completely different. This is undoubtedly the best Chess app ever.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To give you an idea how amazing, entertaining and lovely &lt;strong&gt;Power Chess 98&lt;/strong&gt; by Sierra was, I'm going to link a video here, which shows Power Chess 98 in action after a chess game:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QjZMaa5Z_ps&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Power Chess 98 analysing your game&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24337" LastActivityDate="2020-08-02T09:42:11.500" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31604" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31598" CreationDate="2020-08-02T15:25:38.203" Score="4" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. f4 exf4 3. Nf3 Be7 4. Nc3! {Provoking Black to displace our king} Bh4+ (4...Nf6 {is actually the most critical try, preparing d5} 5. d4 d5 6. exd5 Nxd5 7. Bc4 Be6 (7...Bh4+ 8. g3 fxg3 9. Qe2+ Be6 10. hxg3 Bxg3+ 11. Kd1 {Opening the kingside like this gives White a lot of play as Black will castle there or leave his king in the center... just look at h7}) 8. Bxd5 Bxd5 9. Bxf4) 5. Ke2 {Looks like we are playing with fire, but is sound and also gives Black opportunity to become overzealous and make mistakes} d5 {Opening the center is probably most critical} (5...c6 6. d4 d5 7.Bxf4 dxe4 8.Nxe4 Qe7 9.Be5 f6 10.Nd6+ Kd8 11.Nxh4 fxe5 12. Ndf5 Bxf5 13. Nxf5 Qe6 14. Ne3 {check complications with engine if something is unclear}) (5...Be7 6. d4 g5 7. Qd3 {Making room for the king who will go to d1} d6 8. Kd1) (5...d6 6. d4 Bg4 7. Bxf4) 6. Nxd5 Nf6 7. Nxf6+ Qxf6 8. d3 (8. d4!? {Is more active but also risky}) Bg4 9. Qd2 Qb6 10. Kd1 Bg5 11. Be2 {Is dynamically equal. Note that this was almost perfect play by Black}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Bc4 has bigger problems than ...Be7, namely 3...Nf6 (GM Shaw even goes as far as to call it a soft refutation, i.e. Black is better in all variants). Here is what I like to play in the Nf3 variation after Be7. You might think it looks like White will go down in flames, but actually most Black players overstep heavily very fast and you get very good play.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15478" LastActivityDate="2020-08-02T15:25:38.203" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31605" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-08-02T18:47:47.743" Score="0" ViewCount="143" Body="&lt;p&gt;If I'm playing as White against the Hippo Defense, I usually go with this setup.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 b6 2. c4 Bb7 3. Nc3 g6 4. e4 Bg7 5. Nf3 e6 6. Be2 d6 7. O-O Ne7 8. Be3 Nd7 9. Qc2 O-O 10. Rad1 h6 11. d5 e5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I don't know what kind of setup I should have if I'm playing as Black against the Hippo. I found that this formation cannot be achieved. Any suggestions? Note that I start with 1...Nf6 against the Catalan opening because I play Nimzo-Indian/Ragozin against 1.d4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23598" LastEditorUserId="23598" LastEditDate="2020-08-04T14:53:36.653" LastActivityDate="2020-08-04T14:53:36.653" Title="A Black setup against White's Hippo Attack" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31606" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-08-02T21:54:17.413" Score="1" ViewCount="103" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm enjoying my study as a relative noob into chess (1000 rapid in Lichess and on Chess.com in the last month or so) and am getting very interested in openings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a relative root tree that you can use to approach openings e.g. if x is played, the optimal is to play y? (that obviously assumes you have the knowledge to play them as well). With obvious cut across moves to transpose?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;E.g. my thoughts made me think of this clip from Person of Interest &lt;a href=&quot;https://youtu.be/ttRuzAaAURA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://youtu.be/ttRuzAaAURA&lt;/a&gt; &amp;amp; it how it tracks an opening in chess.com e.g. against games on the database and how that adjusts the percentages.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Easiest examples of switching or transposing (I think that is the correct term) I could think of as a noob:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Set out to play the Vienna; black goes 2.Nc6 and then you go 3.f4 and play the  Gambit instead of going 3.Bc4 (not sure if that works out better on an engine but I'm thinking as an example).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other one I could think of - open with e4 trying to play the Vienna again, get c6 back &amp;amp; then play 2.d4 and switch to a Smith Morra (again not sure if that is better than 2.Nc3).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I just wondered if there was some kind of approach or path for transposing or switching?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks in advance for any advice or suggestions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24020" LastActivityDate="2020-08-03T07:50:05.433" Title="Is there a root tree of openings based on response by Black and vice versa?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;transpositions&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31607" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31605" CreationDate="2020-08-02T22:54:16.273" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;One option would just be to copy their hippo and just copy the setup.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23100" LastActivityDate="2020-08-02T22:54:16.273" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31608" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30512" CreationDate="2020-08-02T22:57:25.357" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You should not do anything that you do not enjoy. Probably at the level you are at, master games are just mystifying and frustrating. But there may nevertheless be some value in playing them through quickly and superficially. You may notice that masters usually bring their pieces out quickly and somehow manage to organize them in cooperation. You may notice that they do not hurry to make exchanges but leave options open. You may notice that their Kings are usually securely defended. You may notice that they often focus their activity on a particular sector of the board. Sometimes you might realize the beauty of an unexpected move. You might notice after a time that their games &amp;quot;look different&amp;quot; from yours.&#xA;Then you should study some books of elementary instruction and see if they offer any explanations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Imagine that you are learning to play the piano and have got as far as basic fingering exercises. You could still enjoy hearing a concert by a great pianist.&#xA;You would be completely unable to imitate it, but it would remind you why you want to learn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So play through (NOT study) master games as soon as you can enjoy it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastEditorUserId="13012" LastEditDate="2020-08-03T16:33:35.417" LastActivityDate="2020-08-03T16:33:35.417" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31609" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34459" CreationDate="2020-08-03T04:48:41.157" Score="2" ViewCount="1085" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is an example&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;8/3k2PB/q7/8/4K3/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One might intuitively say g8=Q is a much better move than g8=R. However, since they both lead to a draw, should we not conclude that g8=Q is as good as g8=R?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16626" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-03T05:23:17.697" LastActivityDate="2021-03-11T02:21:35.603" Title="Is one move considered as objectively better than another if they both lead to the same result?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;pawn-promotion&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31610" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31609" CreationDate="2020-08-03T05:08:55.957" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, according to [Syzygy endgame tablebases](&lt;a href=&quot;https://syzygy-tables.info/?fen=8/3k2PB/q7/8/4K3/8/8/8_w_-_-_0_1_&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://syzygy-tables.info/?fen=8/3k2PB/q7/8/4K3/8/8/8_w_-_-_0_1_&lt;/a&gt;, g8=R is a loss in 63 plies and g8=Q is a draw.  So g8=Q is definitely better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17157" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-03-10T19:33:56.607" LastActivityDate="2021-03-10T19:33:56.607" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31611" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31606" CreationDate="2020-08-03T07:50:05.433" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think what you are looking for is something like&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chesstempo.com/opening-training/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://chesstempo.com/opening-training/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://openings.chessbase.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://openings.chessbase.com/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In both cases, you can build opening move trees (either for White or for Black - you train/drill one side per tree) by picking moves for any given position and the site will automatically handle transpositions for you if you reach matching positions (one branch will then point to the other).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you specifically look for a tree with &amp;quot;optimal y's&amp;quot;: Sorry, but that is still up to a lot of debate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13433" LastActivityDate="2020-08-03T07:50:05.433" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31613" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31609" CreationDate="2020-08-03T14:42:44.443" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this case, g8=Q is certainly better, since it makes black have to struggle for the draw, and g8=R would make white struggle for the draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23100" LastActivityDate="2020-08-03T14:42:44.443" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31614" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-08-03T14:50:23.420" Score="7" ViewCount="3734" Body="&lt;p&gt;What do people call a move which maintains a winning position but is the worst among all such moves?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, h8=N+ is such a move in the following game:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;8/7P/6k1/8/8/8/B1K5/8 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. h8=N+&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I will not normally play such moves in serious games, but in casual games such moves might be good practice for endgame skills.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16626" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-12-26T20:30:54.280" LastActivityDate="2020-12-26T20:30:54.280" Title="Is there a terminology for &quot;the worst winning move&quot;?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;terminology&gt;&lt;winning&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31615" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31614" CreationDate="2020-08-03T19:38:56.783" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;The short answer is no.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In 25 years of chess experience I have never heard such a term. There isn't unless there is some definition somewhere in a shady club packed with sadists who love to mate with several knights!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24024" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-04T00:33:04.297" LastActivityDate="2020-08-04T00:33:04.297" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31616" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31614" CreationDate="2020-08-03T20:29:59.130" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Least best?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It depends what you mean by worst.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Is that from your perspective or from the one of the person whose decision was to make that move you consider 'worst'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24174" LastActivityDate="2020-08-03T20:29:59.130" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31617" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1636" CreationDate="2020-08-03T20:34:26.210" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Lost is relative to the skill levels of the players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That game is clearly lost for black.&#xA;Black was good enough to realize it and not a glutton enough for punishment to play it out and hope for a blunder.  Especially if white was a world class GM.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24174" LastActivityDate="2020-08-03T20:34:26.210" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31618" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30512" CreationDate="2020-08-03T20:40:13.620" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Being older makes it harder and slower but everybody could learn from playing over tournament book games by GMs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Fischer did it all the time to stay even with 'theory'.&#xA;Other players do it all the time and improve.&#xA;The lower your rating the more you can improve by seeing good moves and learning one opening by playing many games using that opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now what 1300 may make a difference.  Online ratings are grossly overstated so you may be having a harder time learning due to lack of experience.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Annotations add little.  Just play the main games not variations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24174" LastActivityDate="2020-08-03T20:40:13.620" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31619" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16382" CreationDate="2020-08-03T20:47:53.060" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Most good players do it to avoid other openings like the sicilian.&#xA;It is not that bad at all. If White plays well the projected outcome is a score of 49.5% for white.   White could do better with Pe4 or other moves but the Bird has a psychological advantage by not playing the usual opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24174" LastActivityDate="2020-08-03T20:47:53.060" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31620" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31614" CreationDate="2020-08-03T21:45:17.303" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;In a winning position, the best move is the one with the shortest depth to mate. So, the “worst winning move” would be the one with maximal depth to mate. So it seems reasonable to call it the move with maximal depth to mate. However, there are two important caveats:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If you repeatedly play these kinds of moves, then your depth to mate may increase, rather than decrease. Due to the 50 move and 3-fold repetition rules, you might actually draw on accident by playing these moves. At this point, these moves are no longer still winning, so some care needs to be taken.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Practically speaking, there can be benefits to playing such a move over a move with lower depth to mate. For example, the “best move” might involve a tricky sacrifice, whereas the “worst winning move” might be a trade that leads to a simple, easily won endgame. If you can’t analyze the sacrifice fully, but are certain of the won endgame, it’s hard to call the safer play a mistake.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17157" LastActivityDate="2020-08-03T21:45:17.303" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31621" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5470" CreationDate="2020-08-03T22:30:35.543" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I used to play the Grob some time before because of the tricky 'Grob Gambit' (1. g4 d5 2. Bg2 Bxg4 3. c4), but this only successfully works in blitz chess. In classical chess, the opponent has plenty of time to think.&#xA;Engines think that the better move in the Grob Gambit is to decline the pawn with 1...c6 and to build a large center. That is my advice as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically, the way to beat the Grob has three key points-&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Get a large center.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Take advantage of the king-side weaknesses caused.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Play the 1...d5, 2...c6, structure to render White's g-bishop useless.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastActivityDate="2020-08-03T22:30:35.543" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31622" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5470" CreationDate="2020-08-03T22:34:11.993" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Another good idea is to play the Romford countergambit. The line is below.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;g4 d5 2. Bg2 Bxg4 3. c4 d4! 4. Bxb7 Nd7 5. Nxa8 Qxa8 6. f3 d3!&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The main idea is to expose White's king. I recommend this line as a refutation to the Grob.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastActivityDate="2020-08-03T22:34:11.993" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31623" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30512" CreationDate="2020-08-03T22:38:14.670" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I must say, studying master games is good at every level. It is preferable to look through the game without annotations so that you can work out the main reasons for the moves yourself, apart form the extremely difficult ones.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastActivityDate="2020-08-03T22:38:14.670" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31625" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2515" CreationDate="2020-08-03T22:48:37.157" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are three main agressive options which I play frequently.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.Benoni Defence&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.Budapest Gambit&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3.King's Indian Defence&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These are good choices for Black, as they create imbalances which result in winning chances.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastActivityDate="2020-08-03T22:48:37.157" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31626" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31605" CreationDate="2020-08-03T23:04:07.333" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The best choice is to aim for quick development. Once White has played 8 moves, you would have pushed the d/e/f- pawns forward, developed three pieces, and castled. White is still in the center. Now aim to absolutely wreck White's position with ...f4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastActivityDate="2020-08-03T23:04:07.333" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31627" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30528" CreationDate="2020-08-03T23:07:00.810" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The easy solution is to learn a system - i.e., London System; King's Indian Defence; etc. Look through a few setups and weigh the pros and cons. Then, pick 2 - one for the d-pawn opening and one for the e-pawn opening. Play around 50 games with this system to get the hang of it. I'll leave you to work the rest out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastActivityDate="2020-08-03T23:07:00.810" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31628" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6474" CreationDate="2020-08-03T23:09:59.267" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is a main line for White. White aims to have a central majority at the cost of losing the initiative.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;b4 e5 2. Bb2 Bxb4 5. Bxe5 Nf6&#xA;Black's plan is to aim for quick development and an attack, while White's is to ensure a safe position and put his central pawns into use. Black has a small advantage, but must put the attack into action immediately or the initiative will be lost.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastActivityDate="2020-08-03T23:09:59.267" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31629" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30490" CreationDate="2020-08-03T23:20:06.260" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Stockfish on depth-22 states that the position is +1.41 for White. However, eventually if Black gets rid of every pawn but the h-pawn, it's a wrong rook pawn draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastActivityDate="2020-08-03T23:20:06.260" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31630" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31631" CreationDate="2020-08-04T00:49:39.490" Score="3" ViewCount="227" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Are transposition tables (in engines) used for one or multiple games?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My current knowledge of transposition tables is that when an engine searches the game tree, there will sometimes be positions that have already been calculated earlier. A transposition table allows an engine to take what it already had calculated earlier and use it for even deeper search.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What I don't understand is whether transposition tables store positions permanently (such that an engine can use what it previously calculated in previous games for new games) or if it's strictly game-specific as in that a new game corresponds with a completely empty and new transposition table.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24057" LastActivityDate="2020-08-04T01:07:08.453" Title="Transposition Tables" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;transpositions&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31631" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31630" CreationDate="2020-08-04T01:07:08.453" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;When you shut off the engine and turn it back on, its transposition table has been cleared. In order to continue using the saved positions, a database of some sort would be needed. This would keep getting bigger and bigger the more you used the engine though, and could become very inefficient for the engine to actually use to the sheer size.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If by a new game you mean going back to the starting position and playing out new moves (all while keeping the engine on), then it probably depends on the engine. Some engines might clear out their transposition table in order to free up space, since the old saved positions happen after a different series of moves. Engines can't keep using more and more RAM, so they have to manage their TTs effectively and get rid of positions that likely won't be useful soon/ever while the engine remains running.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2020-08-04T01:07:08.453" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31632" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28772" CreationDate="2020-08-04T01:09:14.697" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe that White was trying to provoke a weakness in the queenside, which happened after ...a6. Then, White could support his c-pawn after this interjection.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastActivityDate="2020-08-04T01:09:14.697" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31633" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7827" CreationDate="2020-08-04T01:12:14.707" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's just a wristwatch. It isn't a smartwatch, which could have software downloaded on it - an Apple watch is virtually a undersized phone. Anand couldn't be cheating, since the only thing his wristwatch could provide was the time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastActivityDate="2020-08-04T01:12:14.707" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31634" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7707" CreationDate="2020-08-04T01:17:14.590" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;...Nbd7 is not a good continuation since there is too much theory relating to this line. Besides, it is better for White. The safe line is ...Nfd7, which opens up the diagonal for the Bg7. A common mistake here is White not playing a2-a4, because if not, Black can get his queenside majority into action with ...a6 and ...b5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastActivityDate="2020-08-04T01:17:14.590" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31636" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1014" CreationDate="2020-08-04T01:24:41.293" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Pirc defence aims to enter a KID setup from the King Pawn's opening. The main line goes&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;e4 d6 2. d4 Nf6 3. Nc3 g6&#xA;Note that White has one more move than in the KID, so the chess game is more fast-paced for White.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The main strategy of the Pirc defence is to use pawn breaks to undermine White's centre.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note: The Pirc defence has positions that are extremely sharp, so I recommend avoiding it until you reach a FIDE rating of 1500.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastActivityDate="2020-08-04T01:24:41.293" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31637" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22072" CreationDate="2020-08-04T01:26:50.833" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you are certainly not going to play the Grunfeld, then 2...d6 is more flexible. But if you are keeping your choices open, then just play 2...g6&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastActivityDate="2020-08-04T01:26:50.833" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31638" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="549" CreationDate="2020-08-04T01:29:19.177" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Attempt to preserve your big center. In the exchange variation, the center can't advance, but if you play the Russian variation, you can advance your centre because there is less pressure on it. However, in this variation, be careful not to overextend your position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastActivityDate="2020-08-04T01:29:19.177" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31639" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14134" CreationDate="2020-08-04T01:32:38.963" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Black has two main breaks in the French&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;c7-c5 undermines the d-pawn&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;f7-f6 undermines the e-pawn.&#xA;Of course, White has advanced the c-pawn, so the pawn that has disappeared is the e-pawn. Black does so to give him an open f-file and a freed position.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastActivityDate="2020-08-04T01:32:38.963" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31640" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31609" CreationDate="2020-08-04T01:43:12.450" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, if it prolongs and &amp;quot;shortens&amp;quot; the game if you're losing or winning respectively.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And there are tablebases for 7 pcs or less.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which means chess is solved with 7 pcs on the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24361" LastActivityDate="2020-08-04T01:43:12.450" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31641" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30490" CreationDate="2020-08-04T02:05:49.763" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's likely a draw. After going through a few lines (which strengthens the transposition table), Stockfish 11 at around depth 42 gave me 0.74 in the starting position. Especially in such a simplified endgame, this shouldn't be enough for White to claim a win. I also set it to White to move in the starting position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some variations I analyzed with Stockfish:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a) 1.Kd2 Kd6 2.Be4 Nc6 3.Bg6 Nxa5 4.Bxh5 Nc4+. Depth 38 gives 0.13, a clear draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;b) 1.f3 gxf3+ 2.Kxf3 (2.Bxf3 Ke6 is 0.13, at depth 42) 2...Kd6 3.Kf4 Nc6: 0.13, depth 40.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;c) 1.Be4 is the most challenging. Black should play 1...Kf6, and here White has a few tries:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;c1) 2.Kd1 must be met with 2...Ke7!. After 3.Bg6 (3.Kc1 Kd6 4.Bg6 Ke7 5.Bxh5 Nd3+ is drawn: 0.25, depth 42) 3...Nc6 4.Bxh5 Ne5!, Black should hold: 0.38, depth 48. A more challenging move is 3.f3, but after 3...gxf3 4.Bxf3 Ke6 5.Bxh5 Nc6 6.Bg4+ Ke5 7.h5 (7.Bc8 Nxa5 8.Bxa6 Kf5 is theoretically drawn in the 7 piece tablebase) 7...Nxa5 8.h6 Kf6 9.Bh5 Nc4 10.g4 Ne3+ 11.Ke2 Nxg4, Black draws. Note that this 10...Ne3+ is extremely important - if Black couldn't play it with check, then White wins. This is why in variation c2 below, where White plays 2.Ke1 instead of 2.Kd1, 2...Ke7 will end up losing: this 10...Ne3+ resource no longer works.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;c2) 2.Ke1 must instead be met with 2...Ke6!. Now 3.f3 can be met with 3...gxf3 4.Bxf3 Nd3+ 5.Kf1 Nc1 6.Bxh5 Nb3, which should be drawn, as Black is about to capture the a5-pawn. The 4...Nd3+ idea works nicely as its with tempo - in variation c1, this wouldn't have been the case as the White king was on d1. Another third move White can try here is 3.Bg6, and after 3...Ke7 4.Bxh5 Nd3+ 5.Ke2 Ne5, Black should draw - Stockfish gives 1.08 at depth 56, which shouldn't be quite enough to win. If White forces matters with 6.f3, then 6...gxf3+ 7.Bxf3 d3+ 8.Ke3 d2 9.Be2 Nc4+ 10.Kd3 Nxa5 11.Kxd2 is drawn in the 7 piece tablebase, as long as Black plays 11...Nc6 here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;c3) 2.f3 gxf3+ 3.Kxf3 Ke5 4.Bb7 Kf5 looks like it should be drawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;c4) 2.Kd2 Ke7 3.Bg6 Nc6 4.Bxh5 Ne5 should be drawn (1.08, depth 55). Or 3.f3 gxf3 4.Bxf3 Ke6 5.Bxh5 Nc6 6.Bg4+ (6.Be2 Nxa5 7.Bxa6 is drawn in the tablebase) 6...Kf6 7.Bf3 Nxa5 8.h5, and here 8...Nc4+ or 8...Nb3+ both work, bringing the knight over to the centre/kingside with tempo. Yet another 3rd move is 3.Kc1, hoping to attack the knight with the White king. But after 3...Kd6 4.Kb2 (4.Bg6 Ke7 5.Bxh5 Nd3+ 6.Kd2 Ne5 should hold) 4...Nc6, the game is drawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2020-08-04T02:05:49.763" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31642" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28434" CreationDate="2020-08-04T03:49:40.733" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, playing the KIA, before you can get aggressive, you've got to first consolidate your position, shore up all weak points and place a knight on d2(slows down Black's queenside ambitions), and then only to start playing aggressive by playing ...Ne1, ...f4, ...f5, ...g5, and attempt to overwhelm Black with a kingside attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-08-04T05:26:23.847" LastActivityDate="2020-08-04T05:26:23.847" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31643" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21454" CreationDate="2020-08-04T03:53:47.883" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;First of all, the Bc5 can be quite annoying as White has weakened himself on the g1-a7 diagonal. White can just play Kf1, d3, and then aim for e2-e4, a thematic move. Then, the best strategy is to use the e and f pawns as a steamroller, with e5, Re1, f5. Black's bishop is not doing anything to protect the queen, and White is virtually up a piece.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So just ignore that bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastActivityDate="2020-08-04T03:53:47.883" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31644" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7955" CreationDate="2020-08-04T03:57:58.503" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, the main problem in trying to force the Black king into a corner is that you can't control enough squares for that to happen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let us look at KvK, where opposition keeps Black's king from advancing. But Black's king is constantly shuffling, and may escape at any time if White loses a tempo.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When the knight comes in, it spends a move on boxing Black's king in, so Black's king can escape, and will never be forced into a corner.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastActivityDate="2020-08-04T03:57:58.503" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31645" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31609" CreationDate="2020-08-04T04:11:21.280" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Anyway, if two moves certainly lead to a draw, then they are both evaluated as 0.00, so they are not objectively better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastActivityDate="2020-08-04T04:11:21.280" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31646" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1015" CreationDate="2020-08-04T04:18:35.420" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are also many more openings for positional play, like the London System, Nimzo-Indian, etc. Perhaps the best choices are systems since they require little or no theory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastActivityDate="2020-08-04T04:18:35.420" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31647" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31591" CreationDate="2020-08-04T04:41:13.050" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Assuming the engine performing the analysis is Stockfish (sounds reasonable, since the engine is presumably running on CPU) then it's probable the move it considers subpar is 4.c3. Left to its own devices Stockfish &lt;em&gt;will&lt;/em&gt; occasionally play the Giuoco Piano, but it will usually play the Giuoco Pianissimo - i.e. 4.d3 instead of 4.c3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Indeed, the cloud analysis by Stockfish 11 at lichess.org/analysis gives, at depth 45, +0.3 for 4.d3 compared to +0.2 for 4.c3. You can also check out the SF-Lc0 &lt;a href=&quot;https://tcec-chess.com/#div=rapidfl&amp;amp;game=17&amp;amp;season=bonus&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;bookless bonus&lt;/a&gt; TCEC ran in 2019. There were ten Italian games, all played by Stockfish, and of these games 9/10 continued with 4.d3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastEditorUserId="15223" LastEditDate="2020-08-04T04:46:45.667" LastActivityDate="2020-08-04T04:46:45.667" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31648" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22407" CreationDate="2020-08-04T05:16:41.463" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is because it gives up White's advantage. Sure, it is playable, but it isn't so good from a White perspective. The Dutch defence for Black, however, has the purpose of creating an imbalance, and so is reasonable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I still prefer Bird's opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastActivityDate="2020-08-04T05:16:41.463" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31649" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32083" CreationDate="2020-08-04T05:23:23.743" Score="1" ViewCount="152" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have played the Benoni for a while, and I frequently play bad moves in the opening. How could I play the Benoni - Pawn Storm Variation safely?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastActivityDate="2020-09-02T11:01:55.580" Title="Benoni Defence Theory and Ideas" Tags="&lt;theory&gt;&lt;modern-benoni&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ClosedDate="2020-09-03T07:52:45.283" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31650" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31614" CreationDate="2020-08-04T06:18:31.750" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Take note that without the 3-fold repetition rule and the 50-move rule, choosing a worst winning move (i.e. one that leads to a losing position for your opponent with the maximum moves under best play) at each turn may lead to an infinite game rather than a win!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But anyway, the move you suggest in your question is certainly not the worst winning move, as once you promote to a knight you will have to reach checkmate within 50 moves. A worse winning move is &lt;code&gt;h8=Q&lt;/code&gt; and then to trap the opponent to 2 squares before dallying around with your pieces and then forcing the opponent to capture your bishop just before the 50-move rule kicks in, giving you another 50 moves to play cat and mouse before the finishing bite.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9192" LastEditorUserId="9192" LastEditDate="2020-08-04T18:38:32.103" LastActivityDate="2020-08-04T18:38:32.103" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31651" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13047" CreationDate="2020-08-04T07:32:50.637" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Only attack if your own position is consolidated. Then, you can be aggressive or simply apply pressure on your opponent's position. However, if your opponent cannot counter-attack in a position, go on and attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastActivityDate="2020-08-04T07:32:50.637" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31652" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30542" CreationDate="2020-08-04T07:35:02.923" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The best way is to look away from the screen every 15 minutes. It reduces stress on your eyes and you can concentrate better when you return to the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastActivityDate="2020-08-04T07:35:02.923" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31653" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29453" CreationDate="2020-08-04T07:43:24.950" Score="1" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Don't trade material - It will make your handicap more apparent as the game continues.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Attack. If you can overwhelm your opponent with your pieces, then that is the best way. You can't stand to be passive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Play openings that don't involve the queen much, e.g., The Scotch game clearly doesn't work for White as White loses a pawn with exd4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastActivityDate="2020-08-04T07:43:24.950" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31655" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-08-04T11:41:38.690" Score="3" ViewCount="59" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am trying to build up a training dataset to train a convolutional neural network (well, the pipeline will probably be a little more complex, but probably a CNN will be at its core) to convert handwritten scoresheets into PGN.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does anybody have a (larger) body of scoresheet images + respective PGNs or knows which persons/entities could potentially provide those? Since score sheet formats vary widely between countries and federations I'd be interested in a great variety of them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3664" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-04T13:26:01.200" LastActivityDate="2020-08-04T13:27:03.583" Title="Building up a dataset for image recognition of hand-written scoresheets" Tags="&lt;pgn&gt;&lt;notation&gt;&lt;scoresheet&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31656" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31655" CreationDate="2020-08-04T13:27:03.583" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does anybody have a (larger) body of scoresheet images + respective&#xA;PGNs or knows which persons/entities could potentially provide those?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All FIDE rated tournaments where norms are available (so must have a minimum number of GMs, IMs and federations playing in the tournament) are required to submit PGNs of games played to FIDE to ensure the integrity of titles. This means that all such tournaments will have a stack of scoresheets which have to be entered into the computer and submitted to FIDE. This means that arbiters at such tournaments who have responsibility for inputting are likely to have large numbers of such scoresheets.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Aside: As somebody who has been the chief arbiter in a norm tournament I can tell you that such a program, if successful, would be very, very welcome.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Additionally some federations, leagues and tournaments have policies of trying to submit PGNs for FIDE rated tournaments where norms are not available. The English Chess Federation is one such and in it the 4NCL (4 nations chess league) are very good at publishing PGNs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Entering scoresheets into the computer is often difficult and can be boring. Some people (me, for instance) are not that good at processing a stack of, say, 100 scoresheets. Other people are very good indeed. In England there is one star who is quite brilliant. That is International Arbiter and IM Jack Rudd. I don't know what he does with scoresheets after he is finished but if he doesn't throw them away he will likely have a very large pile. You will see him on the list of arbiters officiating at mega tournaments like Gibraltar and Isle of Man because he is so good at this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To be useful your program will need to handle languages other than English, including languages which are written from right-to-left like Arabic, Hebrew and Thai.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I should add that arbiters are not particularly strict when it comes to enforcing rules around scoresheet legibility and entering the moves correctly. For instance, although the abbreviations for the pieces may be in your native language, the files must be written in English (&amp;quot;a&amp;quot; through &amp;quot;h&amp;quot;) however many players use their own alphabets for these and I don't think I have ever come across an arbiter who enforces this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, here are a couple of scoresheets from a tournament where I was chief arbiter a few years ago.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/GpRyZ.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/GpRyZ.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Almost illegible scoresheet - descriptive&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Surprisingly this is one of the more legible scoresheets from this player. He did, though, use descriptive rather than algebraic notation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is a more legal one (algebraic)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/MWQSj.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/MWQSj.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wish you a lot of luck with your project but I don't think you really understand the problem. Playing chess can generate very high levels of stress in the players and this often leads to problems with how they write the moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS You can download the pgn file for the tournament these games came from from the FIDE website &lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/view_games.phtml?event=160223&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-08-04T13:27:03.583" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31657" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28956" CreationDate="2020-08-04T15:21:04.190" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Analyzing without engines suggest it'a win for white. (as already pointed out by PhishMaster)&#xA;The main plan (if black just waits) is pushing e and f pawn to e5 and f6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24364" LastActivityDate="2020-08-04T15:21:04.190" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31658" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31660" CreationDate="2020-08-04T16:06:09.420" Score="3" ViewCount="112" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;7r/1pk2p2/2p5/p5pp/3R2P1/1P3P1P/P5K1/8 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it possible to win this endgame with either White or Black ?I know the Lucena and Philidor positions which are the first things that popped when I searched rook endgames. But how will that help me win these type of endgames? Is there a procedure?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21840" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-29T18:49:26.603" LastActivityDate="2020-08-30T03:22:06.770" Title="Is it possible to win this endgame?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;rook-endgame&gt;&lt;winning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31659" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-08-04T16:21:01.200" Score="3" ViewCount="76" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;6k1/8/4qp1p/7P/6P1/5P2/6K1/Q7 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am unable to analyze this queen endgame in which it is White's turn. Is it a win or a draw for White?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23298" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-04T16:49:11.357" LastActivityDate="2020-08-04T23:18:03.470" Title="Is this queen endgame a win or a draw for White?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;draw&gt;&lt;queen-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31660" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31658" CreationDate="2020-08-04T17:12:29.587" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it possible to win this endgame(either white or black)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course either black or white could win this endgame. All it takes is one blunder by either side.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If what you meant to ask if either side can force a win, then the answer is &amp;quot;No&amp;quot;. Black is a pawn up but white has a much more active rook and the black king is cut off on one side of the board by the white rook.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As Tarrasch is supposed to have said &amp;quot;All rook and pawn endgames are drawn&amp;quot;. With best play this is also very probably drawn but best play is very rare for humans, particularly in the endgame and particularly when the clock is ticking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even if black succeeded in exchanging off pawns until left with king+rook+pawn versus king+rook it would likely still be drawn as long as white managed to keep the rooks on. Even with rooks off as well there are many positions where king+pawn would still be a draw against lone king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-08-04T17:12:29.587" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31661" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31614" CreationDate="2020-08-04T17:18:26.057" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is no measure which distinguishes one winning move from another, other than perhaps number of moves (which is only important if that number could cause a draw).  Winning is winning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To define a score which differentiates winning moves, we would need an off-board metric.  Consider: if someone is actively trying to practice knight and bishop end games, this may be a &lt;em&gt;very&lt;/em&gt; good move.  However, if one is trying to make the game shorter (which is a very typical metric, even if there is no draw in sight), it could be a poor choice compared to promoting to a queen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, if I may draw from some non-chess history, I'd recommend a term from &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.pbm.com/%7Elindahl/mel.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;the story of Mel&lt;/a&gt;.  Mel was a software developer in the age of drum memory.  Drum memory was a fascinating beast because all of the data was stored on a rotating drum that rotated at a very predicable rate.  If you knew how long your instruction would take, you could make sure that the next instruction's memory was right underneath the read-head when it was needed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Mel was known for doing delay loops where he would intentionally place the next instruction so that it just barely passed the head before it was needed.  Then the drum would have to do a full circle before reading the memory.  There were optimizers which would place the memory in the optimum place, but he sought the opposite.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;His term: it was the most pessimum location.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think that if you called this move &amp;quot;the most pessimum winning move,&amp;quot; you would at least get a few smiles when you explained it!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6885" LastActivityDate="2020-08-04T17:18:26.057" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31662" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29833" CreationDate="2020-08-04T20:45:50.027" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you set the contempt factor really high in an engine it will likely be able to play armageddon. Contempt factor is how much it accepts (or doesn't accept) draws. If contempt is high enough it should view a draw just as bad as losing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessprogramming.org/Contempt_Factor&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.chessprogramming.org/Contempt_Factor&lt;/a&gt; is a good article to read on contempt factor if you're unaware of the concept.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24057" LastEditorUserId="24057" LastEditDate="2020-09-01T18:56:17.777" LastActivityDate="2020-09-01T18:56:17.777" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31663" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="883" CreationDate="2020-08-04T22:03:22.050" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't have a specific method, but I have some general tips.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Herd the king to the corner while being aware of skewers and stalemate traps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Learn some of the K+QvK+R studies to have a strategy in key positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Attempt to separate the rook from the king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastActivityDate="2020-08-04T22:03:22.050" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31664" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30401" CreationDate="2020-08-04T22:07:49.427" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have to say, studying the whole 1.e4 repertoire is quite hard, so I suggest that you narrow your options down. I reccommend the King's gambit. For other non-...e5 responses to 1.e4, you could attempt to rip up the position and to make your first-move advantage apparent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the Sicilian, there is another case. Play the Kopek system(Bishop to d3), which creates positions similar to the Ruy Lopez. You should only need to know about the basic strategies to play this system the right way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastActivityDate="2020-08-04T22:07:49.427" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31665" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="73" CreationDate="2020-08-04T22:12:17.587" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;First of all, to refute a gambit, we need to analyse all the lines to a [forced] win. For example, the Latvian Gambit will result in all lines ending with a material advantage for White able to guarantee a win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, for the Muzio Gambit, there is no such proof. Black will eventually have to give a knight back to reduce White's initiative, so there is no proof at all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: I ran a bunch of games through Stockfish depth 22 with the Muzio Gambit, and Black eventually loses the knight and the position reaches equality.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-09-07T05:55:30.027" LastActivityDate="2020-09-07T05:55:30.027" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31666" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27550" CreationDate="2020-08-04T22:15:50.220" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;We can't determine a cheater from just an accuracy analysis. Perhaps the player was simply good, or most of the moves were forced, leading to high accuracy. However, for an average player to get 99% accuracy, this clearly is a warning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a better approach to detect cheating. A game can be analysed to see how 'computer-like' the moves are. If a person did not use an engine, then it can be clearly seen that he/she is not cheating. However, if an engine was used, then cheating is evident.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastActivityDate="2020-08-04T22:15:50.220" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31667" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14924" CreationDate="2020-08-04T22:20:31.593" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is impossible. There are over 9 million possible positions after the first 3 moves, let alone the whole game! If a computer was to analyse all the positions, then it would&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Crash&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Prove that Chess cannot be solved.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even if we used a quantum computer, which calculates in increasing powers of 2, then we will still have a problem since the number of possible positions will be, I estimate&#xA;2^10^100.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, we can't analyse openings in chess completely.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastActivityDate="2020-08-04T22:20:31.593" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31668" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14924" CreationDate="2020-08-04T22:27:41.967" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I must say at a high level for example in the Grünfeld Indian there is a lot to be memorized, and possible to be memorized. People have considerable trouble against a stable player like MVL employing it. A lot of lines are forced and have an outcome.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Still, it will probably take some time before all life is out of the opening. Yet, the main lines have dried out as interesting terrain.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24024" LastActivityDate="2020-08-04T22:27:41.967" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31669" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2600" CreationDate="2020-08-04T22:29:36.227" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It seems that Black has weakened his light squares and fallen behind in development. I evaluate this position as equal. Black holds onto the extra pawn, but he also weakens his position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastActivityDate="2020-08-04T22:29:36.227" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31670" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30117" CreationDate="2020-08-04T23:03:06.963" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It seems strange that stalemated games may be won, but there is another case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White stalemates Black but neglects to stop the clock. Black 'stares in bewilderment' at the position. White is happy that he managed to draw. Suddenly, the chess clock starts beeping. White jumps up in surprise, to see that he hadn't completed his move! His time had run out just before the end of the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus, we see that the stalemated player may win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastActivityDate="2020-08-04T23:03:06.963" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31671" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31659" CreationDate="2020-08-04T23:18:03.470" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I analyzed your position with Stockfish 11 (&amp;quot;Stockfish_20011801_x64_modern&amp;quot; to be exact) to a depth of 78 and it returned the following line as the best continuation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;6k1/8/4qp1p/7P/6P1/5P2/6K1/Q7 w - - 0 1&#xA;&#xA;1. Qa8+ Kf7 2. Qb7+ Kg8 3.Qb8+ Kf7 4. Qb1 Qe2+ 5. Kg3 Qe5+ 6. Kf2 Qh2+ 7. Ke3 Qe5+ 8. Qe4 Qc5+ 9. Ke2 Qb5+ 10. Kf2 Qb2+ 11. Kg3 Qa1 12. Qc4+ Ke7 13. Qc7+ Ke6 14. Kg2 Qb2+ 15.Kh3 Qf2 16. Qc4+ Kd6 17. Qe4 Qg1 18. Qb4+ Ke6 19. Qc4+ Ke7 20. Qd3 Qh1+ 21.Kg3 Qa1 22. Qe3+ Kd7 23. Qe4 Qa5 24. Qd3+ Ke6 25. Qe3+ Kd7 26.Kh3 Qb5 27.Qe4 Qf1+ 28. Kg3 Kd6 29. Kf4 Qb5 30. Qd4+ Ke7 31.Qe3+ Kf7 32.Kg3 Qb8+ 33.Qf4 Qb6 34. Qc4+ Kg7 35. Kf4 Qb8+ 36. Ke3 Qa7+ 37. Qd4 Qb7 38.Kf2 Qc7 39.Qb4 Qh2+ 40. Ke3 Qg1+ 41. Ke4 Qa7 42. Qd6 Qa4+ 43. Ke3 Qb3+ 44.Qd3 Qe6+ 45. Kd2 Qa2+ 46. Ke1 Qa1+ 47. Kf2 Qb2+ 48. Kg3 Qb8+ 49. Kg2 Kf7 *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you can see by playing through the variation, no progress ends up being made and the game one way or another ends up drawn through the 50-move rule (I say one way or another because white theoretically could push say the f pawn at the end of the variation showed and restart the 50-move rule).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24057" LastActivityDate="2020-08-04T23:18:03.470" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31672" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9221" CreationDate="2020-08-04T23:47:21.113" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can castle in chess to the left, or to the right.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; 8/8/8/8/8/2N2NP1/PPP2PBP/2KR1RK1 w - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The other pieces denote specific formations that are good.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The main reasons for castling are these:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;To protect the king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;To get the Rook into action&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastActivityDate="2020-08-04T23:47:21.113" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31673" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2407" CreationDate="2020-08-04T23:49:43.903" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, it clearly is possible. Here is a position where White has just castled, and checkmated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    8/8/8/8/8/8/R7/2KR2k1 w - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastActivityDate="2020-08-04T23:49:43.903" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31674" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18083" CreationDate="2020-08-04T23:51:02.303" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It used to be a thing(Krabbe), but FIDE edited its rules to be more specific, so that a king could only castle sideways. So, sadly, it isn't possible nowadays.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastActivityDate="2020-08-04T23:51:02.303" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31675" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31775" CreationDate="2020-08-05T00:08:23.383" Score="5" ViewCount="1082" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is it possible to weakly solve Atomic Chess as a win for White? I've analysed a few lines good for White, but I am not sure about a general solution.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastEditorUserId="12873" LastEditDate="2020-08-05T18:08:58.260" LastActivityDate="2020-08-11T09:53:28.727" Title="About solving Atomic Chess" Tags="&lt;atomic-chess&gt;&lt;solving&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31676" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30561" CreationDate="2020-08-05T00:09:59.250" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is impossible. The Black king cannot be checkmated. In the case that the Black king goes into the 'right' corner, then it may be checked by the bishop. However, it must have at least 1 escape square. In the wrong corner, then Black cannot be checkmated no matter what.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastActivityDate="2020-08-05T00:09:59.250" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31677" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31697" CreationDate="2020-08-05T01:18:05.220" Score="2" ViewCount="599" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been studying the Bird's opening, and I wonder if I could launch a surprise with this line&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;f4 d5 2. Kf2?!&#xA;I can artificially castle, and I can develop naturally. Is this move playable, or just plain bad?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastEditorUserId="9025" LastEditDate="2020-08-05T18:24:58.647" LastActivityDate="2020-08-07T09:06:48.773" Title="A little chess joke" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;birds-opening&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31678" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24616" CreationDate="2020-08-05T01:24:16.340" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In KOTH, the best opening are classical. Putting pawns in the centre will allow your king to safely march up and also stopping the opponent's king from entering the centre.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Gambits which sacrifise a piece for a large centre are good, such as the Halloween Gambit.&#xA;It wins in KOTH, but is only remotely playable in standard chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastActivityDate="2020-08-05T01:24:16.340" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31679" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9272" CreationDate="2020-08-05T01:27:37.267" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, there is no difference at all theoretically since the game is mirrored, so the relation between the pieces is still the same. However, there is a practical difference. For players used to playing normal chess, they might instinctively play Nf3, but now, since the board is reversed, then he/she is playing Van Geet's opening, which is sub-optimal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastActivityDate="2020-08-05T01:27:37.267" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31680" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23187" CreationDate="2020-08-05T01:38:06.833" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Halloween gambit(dubious) sacrifises a knight for a large centre: 1.e4 e4 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Nxe5?!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The optimal line is shown here: 4...Nxe5 5.d4 Ng6 6.e5 Ng8 7.Bc4 d5!? 8.Bd5 c6 9.Bc4/9.Bb3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;             r1bqkbnr/pp3ppp/2p3n1/4P3/2BP4/2N5/PPP2PPP/R1BQK2R b KQkq - 1 9&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastEditorUserId="14079" LastEditDate="2020-08-05T06:17:51.793" LastActivityDate="2020-08-05T06:17:51.793" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31681" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31677" CreationDate="2020-08-05T01:41:57.707" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's a bad move. Sure it would be surprising, but a surprising move is only effective if it's challenging for your opponent to play against (here that's reversed). The only value would be playing this as a joke in a fun game with a friend or something.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stockfish 11 at depth 31 gives -1.48 after Black pushes 2...e5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2020-08-05T01:41:57.707" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31682" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1811" CreationDate="2020-08-05T01:59:59.167" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I prefer the French to the Caro-kann for three reasons:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;No tempo is wasted on ...c5&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Black has active pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The engine favours it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Caro-kann has some pluses as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The light-square bishop is developed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Black's position is solid.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastActivityDate="2020-08-05T01:59:59.167" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31684" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31690" CreationDate="2020-08-05T02:17:15.163" Score="4" ViewCount="500" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, I looked at some long checkmates, and I wonder, what is the longest checkmate a human has composed?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-11T11:56:06.413" LastActivityDate="2020-10-12T02:42:46.070" Title="What is the longest checkmate problem a human has composed?" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;problems&gt;&lt;composing&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31685" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16209" CreationDate="2020-08-05T02:18:26.283" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;This gambit is PLAYABLE, but it clearly isn't winning for White. Black clearly has a way to equalise, or to gain a small edge, or else this opening would be played at top level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastActivityDate="2020-08-05T02:18:26.283" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31687" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29140" CreationDate="2020-08-05T02:21:50.813" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;White can get the rook out of the cage, and then it could threaten a capture. However, Black may attempt a perpetual check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-05T02:23:45.330" LastActivityDate="2020-08-05T02:23:45.330" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31689" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5028" CreationDate="2020-08-05T02:29:26.890" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The minimum needed is Knight and Bishop, though N+N+KvK+P is also possible. Perhaps N+KvK+P will sometimes happen, but the standard minimum is N+B&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastActivityDate="2020-08-05T02:29:26.890" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31690" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31684" CreationDate="2020-08-05T03:07:13.597" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;The longest known checkmate problem composed by a human is dependent on a few criteria that are generally used by chess composers. Namely, it is a question of whether or not you want the problem to have a unique solution, meaning that there is only one possible solution with Black defending optimally, and if you want the position to be legal or not, meaning that it is reachable from the starting position. Another consideration is whether or not promoted pieces are allowed, as most composers try to not use them. Finally, it is also debatable whether or not an illegal position must have only pieces from the chess box, with pawns being converted as needed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is a selection of a few problems that fall along these lines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is the longest legal problem with a unique solution and no promoted pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Walther Jørgensen, Thema Danicum 1982, Mate In 226&amp;quot;]&#xA;[fen &amp;quot;1N2Q3/p6n/p5n1/p1p2rpb/p4k1r/K1P4p/2PP4/6B1 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Bh2+! Kf3 2. Qe3+ Kg2 3. Qg1+ Kf3 4. Qf1+ Kg4 5. Qe2+ Rf3 6. Qe6+ Rf5 7. Nd7 Kf3 8. Qe3+ Kg2 9. Qg1+ Kf3 10. Qf1+ Kg4 11. Qe2+ Rf3 12. Qe6+ Rf5 13. Kb2! Kf3 14. Qe3+ Kg2 15. Qg1+ Kf3 16. Qf1+ Kg4 17. Qe2+ Rf3 18. Qe6+ Rf5 19. Kc1! Kf3 20. Qe3+ Kg2 21. Qg1+ Kf3 22. Qf1+ Kg4 23. Qe2+ Rf3 24. Qe6+ Rf5 25. Kd1! a3! 26. Kc1 Kf3 27. Qe3+ Kg2 28. Qg1+ Kf3 29. Qf1+ Kg4 30. Qe2+ Rf3 31. Qe6+ Rf5 32. Kb1 Kf3 33. Qe3+ Kg2 34. Qg1+ Kf3 35. Qf1+ Kg4 36. Qe2+ Rf3 37. Qe6+ Rf5 38. Ka2 Kf3 39. Qe3+ Kg2 40. Qg1+ Kf3 41. Qf1+ Kg4 42. Qe2+ Rf3 43. Qe6+ Rf5 44. Kxa3 Kf3 45. Qe3+ Kg2 46. Qg1+ Kf3 47. Qf1+ Kg4 48. Qe2+ Rf3 49. Qe6+ Rf5 50. Kb2 Kf3 51. Qe3+ Kg2 52. Qg1+ Kf3 53. Qf1+ Kg4 54. Qe2+ Rf3 55. Qe6+ Rf5 56. Kc1 Kf3 57. Qe3+ Kg2 58. Qg1+ Kf3 59. Qf1+ Kg4 60. Qe2+ Rf3 61. Qe6+ Rf5 62. Kd1 a4! 63. Kc1 Kf3 64. Qe3+ Kg2 65. Qg1+ Kf3 66. Qf1+ Kg4 67. Qe2+ Rf3 68. Qe6+ Rf5 69. Kd1 a5! 70. Kc1 Kf3 71. Qe3+ Kg2 72. Qg1+ Kf3 73. Qf1+ Kg4 74. Qe2+ Rf3 75. Qe6+ Rf5 76. Kd1 a6! 77. Kc1 Kf3 78. Qe3+ Kg2 79. Qg1+ Kf3 80. Qf1+ Kg4 81. Qe2+ Rf3 82. Qe6+ Rf5 83. Kd1 a3 84. Kc1 Kf3 85. Qe3+ Kg2 86. Qg1+ Kf3 87. Qf1+ Kg4 88. Qe2+ Rf3 89. Qe6+ Rf5 90. Kb1 Kf3 91. Qe3+ Kg2 92. Qg1+ Kf3 93. Qf1+ Kg4 94. Qe2+ Rf3 95. Qe6+ Rf5 96. Ka2 Kf3 97. Qe3+ Kg2 98. Qg1+ Kf3 99. Qf1+ Kg4 100. Qe2+ Rf3 101. Qe6+ Rf5 102. Kxa3 Kf3 103. Qe3+ Kg2 104. Qg1+ Kf3 105. Qf1+ Kg4 106. Qe2+ Rf3 107. Qe6+ Rf5 108. Kb2 Kf3 109. Qe3+ Kg2 110. Qg1+ Kf3 111. Qf1+ Kg4 112. Qe2+ Rf3 113. Qe6+ Rf5 114. Kc1 Kf3 115. Qe3+ Kg2 116. Qg1+ Kf3 117. Qf1+ Kg4 118. Qe2+ Rf3 119. Qe6+ Rf5 120. Kd1 a4! 121. Kc1 Kf3 122. Qe3+ Kg2 123. Qg1+ Kf3 124. Qf1+ Kg4 125. Qe2+ Rf3 126. Qe6+ Rf5 127. Kd1 a5! 128. Kc1 Kf3 129. Qe3+ Kg2 130. Qg1+ Kf3 131. Qf1+ Kg4 132. Qe2+ Rf3 133. Qe6+ Rf5 134. Kd1 a3 135. Kc1 Kf3 136. Qe3+ Kg2 137. Qg1+ Kf3 138. Qf1+ Kg4 139. Qe2+ Rf3 140. Qe6+ Rf5 141. Kb1 Kf3 142. Qe3+ Kg2 143. Qg1+ Kf3 144. Qf1+ Kg4 145. Qe2+ Rf3 146. Qe6+ Rf5 147. Ka2 Kf3 148. Qe3+ Kg2 149. Qg1+ Kf3 150. Qf1+ Kg4 151. Qe2+ Rf3 152. Qe6+ Rf5 153. Kxa3 Kf3 154. Qe3+ Kg2 155. Qg1+ Kf3 156. Qf1+ Kg4 157. Qe2+ Rf3 158. Qe6+ Rf5 159. Kb2 Kf3 160. Qe3+ Kg2 161. Qg1+ Kf3 162. Qf1+ Kg4 163. Qe2+ Rf3 164. Qe6+ Rf5 165. Kc1 Kf3 166. Qe3+ Kg2 167. Qg1+ Kf3 168. Qf1+ Kg4 169. Qe2+ Rf3 170. Qe6+ Rf5 171. Kd1 a4 172. Kc1 Kf3 173. Qe3+ Kg2 174. Qg1+ Kf3 175. Qf1+ Kg4 176. Qe2+ Rf3 177. Qe6+ Rf5 178. Kd1 c4! 179. Kc1 Kf3 180. Qe3+ Kg2 181. Qg1+ Kf3 182. Qf1+ Ke4! 183. Qxc4+ Kf3 184. Qf1+ Kg4 185. Qe2+ Rf3 186. Qe6+ Rf5 187. Kd1 a3 188. Kc1 Kf3 189. Qe3+ Kg2 190. Qg1+ Kf3 191. Qf1+ Kg4 192. Qe2+ Rf3 193. Qe6+ Rf5 194. Kb1 Kf3 195. Qe3+ Kg2 196. Qg1+ Kf3 197. Qf1+ Kg4 198. Qe2+ Rf3 199. Qe6+ Rf5 200. Ka2 Kf3 201. Qe3+ Kg2 202. Qg1+ Kf3 203. Qf1+ Kg4 204. Qe2+ Rf3 205. Qe6+ Rf5 206. Kxa3 Kf3 207. Qe3+ Kg2 208. Qg1+ Kf3 209. Qf1+ Kg4 210. Qe2+ Rf3 211. Qe6+ Rf5 212. Kb2 Kf3 213. Qe3+ Kg2 214. Qg1+ Kf3 215. Qf1+ Kg4 216. Qe2+ Rf3 217. Qe6+ Rf5 218. Kc1 Kf3 219. Qe3+ Kg2 220. Qg1+ Kf3 221. Qf1+ Kg4 222. Qe2+ Rf3 223. Qe6+ Rf5 224. Kd1 Nf8,Nf6 225. Nf6+ Kf3 226. Qe2#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Based off of an earlier mate in 292 with an illegal position, this mate in 257 has as legal position with some minor duals in the solution.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Ottó Titusz Bláthy, Vielzügige Schachaufg 1889, Mate In 257 Legal Version of the #292&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;q5nn/1pk1p3/p3P1p1/P3rpP1/1Kp1pP1p/8/2PQ1PP1/8 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Qd7+ Kb8 2. Qd8+ Ka7 3. Qd4+ Rc5 4. Qxc5+ Kb8 5. Qe5+ Kc8 6. Qd5 Kc7 7. Qd7+ Kb8 8. Qd8+ Ka7 9. Qb6+ Kb8 10. c3 Kc8 11. Qc5+ Kb8 12. Qe5+ Kc8 13. Qd5 Kc7 14. Qd7+ Kb8 15. Qd8+ Ka7 16. Qb6+ Kb8 17. Ka3 Kc8 18. Qc5+ Kb8 19. Qe5+ Kc8 20. Qd5 Kc7 21. Qd7+ Kb8 22. Qd8+ Ka7 23. Qb6+ Kb8 24. Kb2 Kc8 25. Qc5+ Kb8 26. Qe5+ Kc8 27. Qd5 Kc7 28. Qd7+ Kb8 29. Qd8+ Ka7 30. Qb6+ Kb8 31. Kc1 Kc8 32. Qc5+ Kb8 33. Qe5+ Kc8 34. Qd5 Kc7 35. Qd7+ Kb8 36. Qd8+ Ka7 37. Qb6+ Kb8 38. Kd1 Kc8 39. Qc5+ Kb8 40. Qe5+ Kc8 41. Qd5 Kc7 42. Qd7+ Kb8 43. Qd8+ Ka7 44. Qb6+ Kb8 45. Ke2 Kc8 46. Qc5+ Kb8 47. Qe5+ Kc8 48. Qd5 Kc7 49. Qd7+ Kb8 50. Qd8+ Ka7 51. Qb6+ Kb8 52. Kf1 Kc8 53. Qc5+ Kb8 54. Qe5+ Kc8 55. Qd5 Kc7 56. Qd7+ Kb8 57. Qd8+ Ka7 58. Qb6+ Kb8 59. Kg1 Kc8 60. Qc5+ Kb8 61. Qe5+ Kc8 62. Qd5 Kc7 63. Qd7+ Kb8 64. Qd8+ Ka7 65. Qb6+ Kb8 66. Kh2 Kc8 67. Qc5+ Kb8 68. Qe5+ Kc8 69. Qd5 Kc7 70. Qd7+ Kb8 71. Qd8+ Ka7 72. Qb6+ Kb8 73. Kh3 Kc8 74. Qc5+ Kb8 75. Qe5+ Kc8 76. Qd5 Kc7 77. Qd7+ Kb8 78. Qd8+ Ka7 79. Qb6+ Kb8 80. Kxh4 Kc8 81. Qc5+ Kb8 82. Qe5+ Kc8 83. Qd5 Kc7 84. Qd7+ Kb8 85. Qd8+ Ka7 86. Qb6+ Kb8 87. Kh3 Kc8 88. Qc5+ Kb8 89. Qe5+ Kc8 90. Qd5 Kc7 91. Qd7+ Kb8 92. Qd8+ Ka7 93. Qb6+ Kb8 94. Kh2 Kc8 95. Qc5+ Kb8 96. Qe5+ Kc8 97. Qd5 Kc7 98. Qd7+ Kb8 99. Qd8+ Ka7 100. Qb6+ Kb8 101. Kg1 Kc8 102. Qc5+ Kb8 103. Qe5+ Kc8 104. Qd5 Kc7 105. Qd7+ Kb8 106. Qd8+ Ka7 107. Qb6+ Kb8 108. Kf1 Kc8 109. Qc5+ Kb8 110. Qe5+ Kc8 111. Qd5 Kc7 112. Qd7+ Kb8 113. Qd8+ Ka7 114. Qb6+ Kb8 115. Ke2 Kc8 116. Qc5+ Kb8 117. Qe5+ Kc8 118. Qd5 Kc7 119. Qd7+ Kb8 120. Qd8+ Ka7 121. Qb6+ Kb8 122. Kd1 Kc8 123. Qc5+ Kb8 124. Qe5+ Kc8 125. Qd5 Kc7 126. Qd7+ Kb8 127. Qd8+ Ka7 128. Qb6+ Kb8 129. Kc1 Kc8 130. Qc5+ Kb8 131. Qe5+ Kc8 132. Qd5 Kc7 133. Qd7+ Kb8 134. Qd8+ Ka7 135. Qb6+ Kb8 136. Kb2 Kc8 137. Qc5+ Kb8 138. Qe5+ Kc8 139. Qd5 Kc7 140. Qd7+ Kb8 141. Qd8+ Ka7 142. Qb6+ Kb8 143. Ka3 Kc8 144. Qc5+ Kb8 145. Qe5+ Kc8 146. Qd5 Kc7 147. Qd7+ Kb8 148. Qd8+ Ka7 149. Qb6+ Kb8 150. Kb4 Kc8 151. Qc5+ Kb8 152. Qe5+ Ka7 153. Qd4+ Kb8 154. Qxh8 Kc7 155. Qe5+ Kc8 156. Qd5 Kb8 157. Qd8+ Ka7 158. Qb6+ Kb8 159. Ka3 Kc8 160. Qc5+ Kb8 161. Qe5+ Kc8 162. Qd5 Kc7 163. Qd7+ Kb8 164. Qd8+ Ka7 165. Qb6+ Kb8 166. Kb2 Kc8 167. Qc5+ Kb8 168. Qe5+ Kc8 169. Qd5 Kc7 170. Qd7+ Kb8 171. Qd8+ Ka7 172. Qb6+ Kb8 173. Kc1 Kc8 174. Qc5+ Kb8 175. Qe5+ Kc8 176. Qd5 Kc7 177. Qd7+ Kb8 178. Qd8+ Ka7 179. Qb6+ Kb8 180. Kd1 Kc8 181. Qc5+ Kb8 182. Qe5+ Kc8 183. Qd5 Kc7 184. Qd7+ Kb8 185. Qd8+ Ka7 186. Qb6+ Kb8 187. Ke2 Kc8 188. Qc5+ Kb8 189. Qe5+ Kc8 190. Qd5 Kc7 191. Qd7+ Kb8 192. Qd8+ Ka7 193. Qb6+ Kb8 194. Kf1 Kc8 195. Qc5+ Kb8 196. Qe5+ Kc8 197. Qd5 Kc7 198. Qd7+ Kb8 199. Qd8+ Ka7 200. Qb6+ Kb8 201. Kg1 Kc8 202. Qc5+ Kb8 203. Qe5+ Kc8 204.Qd5 Kc7 205. Qd7+ Kb8 206. Qd8+ Ka7 207. Qb6+ Kb8 208. Kh2 Kc8 209. Qc5+ Kb8 210. Qe5+ Kc8 211. Qd5 Kc7 212. Qd7+ Kb8 213. Qd8+ Ka7 214. Qb6+ Kb8 215. Kh3 Kc8 216. Qc5+ Kb8 217. Qe5+ Kc8 218. Qd5 Kc7 219. Qd7+ Kb8 220. Qd8+ Ka7 221. Qb6+ Kb8 222. g4 Kc8 223. Qc5+ Kb8 224. Qe5+ Kc8 225. Qd5 Kc7 226. Qd7+ Kb8 227. Qd8+ Ka7 228. Qb6+ Kb8 229. gxf5 gxf5 230. Kh4 Kc8 231. Qc5+ Kb8 232. Qe5+ Kc8 233. Qd5 Kc7 234. Qd7+ Kb8 235. Qd8+ Ka7 236. Qb6+ Kb8 237. Kh5 Kc8 238. Qc5+ Kb8 239. Qe5+ Kc8 240. Qd5 Kc7 241. Qd7+ Kb8 242. Qd8+ Ka7 243. Qb6+ Kb8 244. Kg6 Kc8 245. Qc5+ Kb8 246. Qe5+ Kc8 247. Qd5 Kc7 248. Qd7+ Kb8 249. Qd8+ Ka7 250. Qb6+ Kb8 251. Kf7 Kc8 252. Ke8 Kb8 253. Kd7 e3 254. fxe3 Nf6+ 255. gxf6 exf6  256. e7 Qa7 257. e8=Q#  &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is the longest problem that has a promoted piece and some minor duals in the solution.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Nenad Petrovic, Zagreb 1969, Mate In 271&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;8/Bk3p1p/1P3p2/KP2n2p/1P1p4/1Pp2p2/B1P5/7B w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Bb1 h4 2. Ka4 Ka8 3. Ka3 Kb7 4. Ka2 Ka8 5. Ka1 Kb7 6. Ba2 Ka8 7. Kb1 Kb7 8. Kc1 Ka8 9. Kd1 Kb710. Ke1 Ka8 11. Bb1 Kb7 12. Kf1 Ka8 13. Kf2 Kb7 14. Ke1 Ka8 15. Kd1 Kb7 16. Kc1 Ka8 17. Ba2 Kb7 18. Kb1 Ka8 19. Ka1 Kb7 20. Bb1 Ka8 21. Ka2 Kb7 22. Ka3 Ka8 23. Ka4 Kb7 24. Ka5 f5 25. Ka4 Ka8 26. Ka3 Kb7 27. Ka2 Ka8 28. Ka1 Kb7 29. Ba2 Ka8 30. Kb1 Kb7 31. Kc1 Ka8 32. Kd1 Kb7 33. Ke1 Ka8 34. Bb1 Kb7 35. Kf1 Ka8 36. Kf2 Kb7 37. Ke1 Ka8 38. Kd1 Kb7 39. Kc1 Ka8 40. Ba2 Kb7 41. Kb1 Ka8 42. Ka1 Kb7 43. Bb1 Ka8 44. Ka2 Kb7 45. Ka3 Ka8 46. Ka4 Kb7 47. Ka5 f4 48. Ka4 Ka8 49. Ka3 Kb7 50. Ka2 Ka8 51. Ka1 Kb7 52. Ba2 Ka8 53. Kb1 Kb7 54. Kc1 Ka8 55. Kd1 Kb7 56. Bb1 Ka8 57. Ke1 Kb7 58. Kf1 Ka8 59. Kf2 Kb7 60. Ke1 Ka8 61. Kd1 Kb7 62. Kc1 Ka8 63. Ba2 Kb7 64. Kb1 Ka8 65. Ka1 Kb7 66. Bb1 Ka8 67. Ka2 Kb7 68. Ka3 Ka8 69. Ka4 Kb7 70. Ka5 f6 71. Ka4 Ka8 72. Ka3 Kb7 73. Ka2 Ka8 74. Ka1 Kb7 75. Ba2 Ka8 76. Kb1 Kb7 77. Kc1 Ka8 78. Kd1 Kb7 79. Ke1 Ka8 80. Bb1 Kb7 81. Kf1 Ka8 82. Kf2 Kb7 83. Ke1 Ka8 84. Kd1 Kb7 85. Kc1 Ka8 86. Ba2 Kb7 87. Kb1 Ka8 88. Ka1 Kb7 89. Bb1 Ka8 90. Ka2 Kb7 91. Ka3 Ka8 92. Ka4 Kb7 93. Ka5 f5 94. Ka4 Ka8 95. Ka3 Kb7 96. Ka2 Ka8 97. Ka1 Kb7 98. Ba2 Ka8 99. Kb1 Kb7 100. Kc1 Ka8 101. Kd1 Kb7 102. Ke1 Ka8 103. Bb1 Kb7 104. Kf1 Ka8 105. Kf2 Kb7 106. Ke1 Ka8 107. Kd1 Kb7 108. Kc1 Ka8 109. Ba2 Kb7 110. Kb1 Ka8 111. Ka1 Kb7 112. Bb1 Ka8 113. Ka2 Kb7 114. Ka3 Ka8 115. Ka4 Kb7. 116. Ka5 h3 117. Ka4 Ka8 118. Ka3 Kb7 119. Ka2 Ka8 120. Ka1 Kb7 121. Ba2 Ka8 122. Kb1 Kb7 123. Kc1 Ka8 124. Kd1 Kb7 125. Ke1 Ka8 126. Bb1 Kb7 127. Kf1 Ka8 128. Kf2 Kb7 129. Ke1 Ka8 130. Kd1 Kb7 131. Kc1 Ka8 132. Ba2 Kb7 133. Kb1 Ka8 134. Ka1 Kb7 135. Bb1 Ka8 136. Ka2 Kb7 137. Ka3 Ka8 138. Ka4 Kb7 139. Ka5 h2 140. Ka4 Ka8 141. Ka3 Kb7 142. Ka2 Ka8 143. Ka1 Kb7 144. Ba2 Ka8 145. Kb1 Kb7 146. Kc1 Ka8 147. Kd1 Kb7 148. Ke1 Ka8 149. Bb1 Kb7 150. Kf1 Ka8 151. Kf2 Kb7 152. Ke1 Ka8 153. Kd1 Kb7 154. Kc1 Ka8 155. Ba2 Kb7 156. Kb1 Ka8 157. Ka1 Kb7 158. Bb1 Ka8 159. Ka2 Kb7 160. Ka3 Ka8 161. Ka4 Kb7 162. Ka5 h6 163. Ka4 Ka8 164. Ka3 Kb7 165. Ka2 Ka8 166. Ka1 Kb7 167. Ba2 Ka8 168. Kb1 Kb7 169. Kc1 Ka8 170. Kd1 Kb7 171. Ke1 Ka8 172. Bb1 Kb7 173. Kf1 Ka8 174. Kf2 Kb7 175. Ke1 Ka8 176. Kd1 Kb7 177. Kc1 Ka8 178. Ba2 Kb7 179. Kb1 Ka8 180. Ka1 Kb7 181. Bb1 Ka8 182. Ka2 Kb7 183. Ka3 Ka8 184. Ka4 Kb7 185. Ka5 h5 186. Ka4 Ka8 187. Ka3 Kb7 188. Ka2 Ka8 189. Ka1 Kb7 190. Ba2 Ka8 191. Kb1 Kb7 192. Kc1 Ka8 193. Kd1 Kb7 194. Ke1 Ka8 195. Bb1 Kb7 196. Kf1 Ka8 197. Kf2 Kb7 198. Ke1 Ka8 199. Kd1 Kb7 200. Kc1 Ka8 201. Ba2 Kb7 202. Kb1 Ka8 203. Ka1 Kb7 204. Bb1 Ka8 205. Ka2 Kb7 206. Ka3 Ka8 207. Ka4 Kb7 208. Ka5 h4 209. Ka4 Ka8 210. Ka3 Kb7 211. Ka2 Ka8 212. Ka1 Kb7 213. Ba2 Ka8 214. Kb1 Kb7 215. Kc1 Ka8 216. Kd1 Kb7 217. Ke1 Ka8 218. Bb1 Kb7 219. Kf1 Ka8 220. Kf2 Kb7 221. Ke1 Ka8 222. Kd1 Kb7 223. Kc1 Ka8 224. Ba2 Kb7 225. Kb1 Ka8 226. Ka1 Kb7 227. Bb1 Ka8 228. Ka2 Kb7 229. Ka3 Ka8 230. Ka4 Kb7 231. Ka5 h3 232. Ka4 Ka8 233. Ka3 Kb7 234. Ka2 Ka8 235. Ka1 Kb7 236. Ba2 Ka8 237. Kb1 Kb7 238. Kc1 Ka8 239. Kd1 Kb7 240. Ke1 Ka8 241. Bb1 Kb7 242. Kf1 Ka8 243. Kf2 Kb7 244. Ke1 Ka8 245. Kd1 Kb7 246. Kc1 Ka8 247. Ba2 Kb7 248. Kb1 Ka8 249. Ka1 Kb7 250. Bb1 Ka8 251. Ka2 Kb7 252. Ka3 Ka8 253. Ka4 Kb7 254. Ka5 Kc8 255. Ka6 Kd8 256. b7 Nd7 257. Bxf3 h1=Q 258. Bxh1 d3 259. cxd3 f3 260. Bxf3 Ke7 261. b8=Q Nxb8+ 262. Bxb8 c2 263. Bxc2 Ke6 264. b6 Kf6 265. b7 Ke6 266. d4 h2 267. Bxh2 f4 268. b8=Q Kf7 269. Bxf4  Kg7 270. Bh5 Kf6 271. Qe5#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In regards to the longest known correct checkmate in an illegal position that uses just pieces from the chess box, as Blathy repurposed the the light squared bishop onto a dark square.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note-Althogh Blathy is known to have composed to slightly longer dualed, illegal mate in 292 moves, that problem is &lt;strong&gt;cooked,&lt;/strong&gt; meaning it is incorrect and has a shorter solution although I still searching for an exact mention of where in the problem are the moves that Blathy missed in his analysis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Otto Blathy, Weihnachtsgrüße 12/1929, Mate In 290&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;bBrb1B2/P1n1r2p/1Kp1Pb1p/2pk1P1p/5P2/1P2pP2/1pP1P3/1R4n1 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Rd1+ Bd4 2. c4+ Kd6 3. Rxg1 Bc3 4. Rd1+ Bd4 5. Ka5 Bb7 6. Ka4 Ba8 7. Ka3 Bb7 8. Ka2 Ba8 9. Kb1 Bb7 10. Kc2 Ba8 11. Kd3 Bb7 12. Re1 Ba8 13. Rf1 Bb7 14. Rd1 Ba8 15. Kc2 Bb7 16. Kb1 Ba8 17. Ka2 Bb7 18. Ka3 Ba8 19. Ka4 Bb7 20. Ka5 Ba8 21. Kb6 h4 22. Ka5 Bb7 23. Ka4 Ba8 24. Ka3 Bb7 25. Ka2 Ba8 26. Kb1 Bb7 27. Kc2 Ba8 28. Kd3 Bb7 29. Rf1 Ba8 30. Re1 Bb7 31. Rd1 Ba8 32. Kc2 Bb7 33. Kb1 Ba8 34. Ka2 Bb7 35. Ka3 Ba8 36. Ka4 Bb7 37. Ka5 Ba8 38. Kb6 h3 39. Ka5 Bb7 40. Ka4 Ba8 41. Ka3 Bb7 42. Ka2 Ba8 43. Kb1 Bb7 44. Kc2 Ba8 45. Kd3 Bb7 46. Rf1 Ba8 47. Re1 Bb7 48. Rd1 Ba8 49. Kc2 Bb7 50. Kb1 Ba8 51. Ka2 Bb7 52. Ka3 Ba8 53. Ka4 Bb7 54. Ka5 Ba8 55. Kb6 h2 56. Ka5 Bb7 57. Ka4 Ba8 58. Ka3 Bb7 59. Ka2 Ba8 60. Kb1 Bb7 61. Kc2 Ba8 62. Kd3 Bb7 63. Rf1 Ba8 64. Re1 Bb7 65. Rd1 Ba8 66. Kc2 Bb7 67. Kb1 Ba8 68. Ka2 Bb7 69. Ka3 Ba8 70. Ka4 Bb7 71. Ka5 Ba8 72. Kb6 h5 73. Ka5 Bb7 74. Ka4 Ba8 75. Ka3 Bb7 76. Ka2 Ba8 77. Kb1 Bb7 78. Kc2 Ba8 79. Kd3 Bb7 80. Rf1 Ba8 81. Re1 Bb7 82. Rd1 Ba8 83. Kc2 Bb7 84. Kb1 Ba8 85. Ka2 Bb7 86. Ka3 Ba8 87. Ka4 Bb7 88. Ka5 Ba8 89. Kb6 h4 90. Ka5 Bb7 91. Ka4 Ba8 92. Ka3 Bb7 93. Ka2 Ba8 94. Kb1 Bb7 95. Kc2 Ba8 96. Kd3 Bb7 97. Rf1 Ba8 98. Re1 Bb7 99. Rd1 Ba8 100. Kc2 Bb7 101. Kb1 Ba8 102. Ka2 Bb7 103. Ka3 Ba8 104. Ka4 Bb7 105. Ka5 Ba8 106. Kb6 h3 107. Ka5 Bb7 108. Ka4 Ba8 109. Ka3 Bb7 110. Ka2 Ba8 111. Kb1 Bb7 112. Kc2 Ba8 113. Kd3 Bb7 114. Rf1 Ba8 115. Re1 Bb7 116. Rd1 Ba8 117. Kc2 Bb7 118. Kb1 Ba8 119. Ka2 Bb7 120. Ka3 Ba8 121. Ka4 Bb7 122. Ka5 Ba8 123. Kb6 h6 124. Ka5 Bb7 125. Ka4 Ba8 126. Ka3 Bb7 127. Ka2 Ba8 128. Kb1 Bb7 129. Kc2 Ba8 130. Kd3 Bb7  131. Rf1 Ba8 132. Re1 Bb7 133. Rd1 Ba8 134. Kc2 Bb7 135. Kb1 Ba8 136. Ka2 Bb7 137. Ka3 Ba8 138. Ka4 Bb7 139. Ka5 Ba8 140. Kb6 h5 141. Ka5 Bb7 142. Ka4 Ba8 143. Ka3 Bb7 144. Ka2 Ba8 145. Kb1 Bb7 146. Kc2 Ba8 147. Kd3 Bb7 148. Rf1 Ba8 149. Re1 Bb7 150. Rd1 Ba8 151. Kc2 Bb7 152. Kb1 Ba8 153. Ka2 Bb7 154. Ka3 Ba8 155. Ka4 Bb7 156. Ka5 Ba8 157. Kb6 h4 158. Ka5 Bb7 159. Ka4 Ba8 160. Ka3 Bb7 161. Ka2 Ba8 162. Kb1 Bb7 163. Kc2 Ba8 164. Kd3 Bb7 165. Rf1 Ba8 166. Re1 Bb7 167. Rd1 Ba8 168. Kc2 Bb7 169. Kb1 Ba8 170. Ka2 Bb7 171. Ka3 Ba8 172. Ka4 Bb7 173. Ka5 Ba8 174. Kb6 h1=Q 175. Rxh1 Bg7 176. Rd1+ Bd4 177. Ka5 Bb7 178. Ka4 Ba8 179. Ka3 Bb7 180. Ka2 Ba8 181. Kb1 Bb7 182. Kc2 Ba8 183. Kd3 Bb7 184. Rf1 Ba8 185. Re1 Bb7 186. Rd1 Ba8 187. Kc2 Bb7 188. Kb1 Ba8 189. Ka2 Bb7 190. Ka3 Ba8 191. Ka4 Bb7 192. Ka5 Ba8 193. Kb6 h2 194. Ka5 Bb7 195. Ka4 Ba8 196. Ka3 Bb7 197. Ka2 Ba8 198. Kb1 Bb7 199. Kc2 Ba8 200. Kd3 Bb7 201. Rf1 Ba8 202. Re1 Bb7 203. Rd1 Ba8 204. Kc2 Bb7 205. Kb1 Ba8 206. Ka2 Bb7 207. Ka3 Ba8 208. Ka4 Bb7 209. Ka5 Ba8 210. Kb6 h3 211. Ka5 Bb7 212. Ka4 Ba8 213. Ka3 Bb7 214. Ka2 Ba8 215. Kb1 Bb7 216. Kc2 Ba8 217. Kd3 Bb7 218. Rf1 Ba8 219. Re1 Bb7 220. Rd1 Ba8 221. Kc2 Bb7 222. Kb1 Ba8 223. Ka2 Bb7 224. Ka3 Ba8 225. Ka4 Bb7 226. Ka5 Ba8 227. Kb6 h1=Q 228. Rxh1 Bg7 229. Rd1+ Bd4 230. Ka5 Bb7 231. Ka4 Ba8 232. Ka3 Bb7 233. Ka2 Ba8 234. Kb1 Bb7 235. Kc2 Ba8 236. Kd3 Bb7 237. Rf1 Ba8 238. Re1 Bb7 239. Rd1 Ba8 240. Kc2 Bb7 241. Kb1 Ba8 242. Ka2 Bb7 243. Ka3 Ba8 244. Ka4 Bb7 245. Ka5 Ba8 246. Kb6 h2 247. Ka5 Bb7 248. Ka4 Ba8 249. Ka3 Bb7 250. Ka2 Ba8 251. Kb1 Bb7 252. Kc2 Ba8 253. Kd3 Bb7 254. Rf1 Ba8 255. Re1 Bb7 256. Rd1 Ba8 257. Kc2 Bb7 258. Kb1 Ba8 259. Ka2 Bb7 260. Ka3 Ba8 261. Ka4 Bb7 262. Ka5 Ba8 263. Kb6 h1=Q 264. Rxh1 Bg7 265. Rd1+ Bd4 266. Ka5 Bb7 267. Ka4 Ba8 268. Ka3 Bb7 269. Ka2 Ba8 270. Kb1 Bb7 271. Kc2 Ba8 272. Kd3 Bb7 273. Rf1 Ba8 274. Re1 Bb7 275. Rd1 Ba8 276. Kc2 Bb7 277. Kb1 Ba8 278. Ka2 Bb7 279. Ka3 Ba8 280. Ka4 Bb7 281. Ka5 Ba8 282. Kb6 Bb7 283. Kxb7 b1=Q 284. Rxb1 Be5 285. Rd1+ Bd4 286. Rxd4+ cxd4 287. Kb6 d3 288. a8=Q Rxb8+ 289. Qxb8 dxe2 290. Qxd8#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lastly, if you allow any amount of illegal material, with no first/last rank pawns and one king per side of course, here is a mate in 415 that is an extension of Blathy's above mate in 290.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &amp;quot;bBrb1B2/P1n1r1bp/pKp1P2p/2pk1P1p/5P1p/1P2pP1p/1pP1P2p/1R5n w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Rd1+ Bd4 2. c4+ Kd6 3. Rxh1 Bc3 4. Rd1+ Bd4 5. Ka5 Bb7 6. Ka4 Ba8 7. Ka3 Bb7 8. Ka2 Ba8 9. Kb1 Bb7 10. Kc2 Ba8 11. Kd3 Bb7 12. Rh1 Ba8 13. Rf1 Bb7 14. Rd1 Ba8 15. Kc2 Bb7 16. Kb1 Ba8 17. Ka2 Bb7 18. Ka3 Ba8 19. Ka4 Bb7 20. Ka5 Ba8 21. Kb6 h1=Q 22. Rxh1 Bc3 23. Rd1+ Bd4 24. Ka5 Bb7 25. Ka4 Ba8 26. Ka3 Bb7 27. Ka2 Ba8 28. Kb1 Bb7 29. Kc2 Ba8 30. Kd3 Bb7 31. Rh1 Ba8 32. Rf1 Bb7 33. Rd1 Ba8 34. Kc2 Bb7 35. Kb1 Ba8 36. Ka2 Bb7 37. Ka3 Ba8 38. Ka4 Bb7 39. Ka5 Ba8 40. Kb6 h2 41. Ka5 Bb7 42. Ka4 Ba8 43. Ka3 Bb7 44. Ka2 Ba8 45. Kb1 Bb7 46. Kc2 Ba8 47. Kd3 Bb7 48. Rh1 Ba8 49. Rf1 Bb7 50. Rd1 Ba8 51. Kc2 Bb7 52. Kb1 Ba8 53. Ka2 Bb7 54. Ka3 Ba8 55. Ka4 Bb7 56. Ka5 Ba8 57. Kb6 h3 58. Ka5 Bb7 59. Ka4 Ba8 60. Ka3 Bb7 61. Ka2 Ba8 62. Kb1 Bb7 63. Kc2 Ba8 64. Kd3 Bb7 65. Rh1 Ba8 66. Rf1 Bb7 67. Rd1 Ba8 68. Kc2 Bb7 69. Kb1 Ba8 70. Ka2 Bb7 71. Ka3 Ba8 72. Ka4 Bb7 73. Ka5 Ba8 74. Kb6 h4 75. Ka5 Bb7 76. Ka4 Ba8 77. Ka3 Bb7 78. Ka2 Ba8 79. Kb1 Bb7 80. Kc2 Ba8 81. Kd3 Bb7 82. Rh1 Ba8 83. Rf1 Bb7 84. Rd1 Ba8 85. Kc2 Bb7 86. Kb1 Ba8 87. Ka2 Bb7 88. Ka3 Ba8 89. Ka4 Bb7 90. Ka5 Ba8 91. Kb6 h5 92. Ka5 Bb7 93. Ka4 Ba8 94. Ka3 Bb7 95. Ka2 Ba8 96. Kb1 Bb7 97. Kc2 Ba8 98. Kd3 Bb7 99. Rh1 Ba8 100. Rf1 Bb7 101. Rd1 Ba8 102. Kc2 Bb7 103. Kb1 Ba8 104. Ka2 Bb7 105. Ka3 Ba8 106. Ka4 Bb7 107. Ka5 Ba8 108. Kb6 h6 109. Ka5 Bb7 110. Ka4 Ba8 111. Ka3 Bb7 112. Ka2 Ba8  113. Kb1 Bb7 114. Kc2 Ba8 115. Kd3 Bb7 116. Rh1 Ba8 117. Rf1 Bb7 118. Rd1 Ba8 119. Kc2 Bb7 120. Kb1 Ba8 121. Ka2 Bb7 122. Ka3 Ba8 123. Ka4 Bb7 124. Ka5 Ba8 125. Kb6 h1=Q 126. Rxh1 Bc3 127. Rd1+ Bd4 128. Ka5 Bb7 129. Ka4 Ba8 130. Ka3 Bb7 131. Ka2 Ba8 132. Kb1 Bb7 133. Kc2 Ba8 134. Kd3 Bb7 135. Rh1 Ba8 136. Rf1 Bb7 137. Rd1 Ba8 138. Kc2 Bb7 139. Kb1 Ba8 140. Ka2 Bb7 141. Ka3 Ba8 142. Ka4 Bb7 143. Ka5 Ba8 144. Kb6 h2 145. Ka5 Bb7 146. Ka4 Ba8 147. Ka3 Bb7 148. Ka2 Ba8 149. Kb1 Bb7 150. Kc2 Ba8 151. Kd3 Bb7 152. Rh1 Ba8 153. Rf1 Bb7 154. Rd1 Ba8 155. Kc2 Bb7 156. Kb1 Ba8 157. Ka2 Bb7 158. Ka3 Ba8 159. Ka4 Bb7 160. Ka5 Ba8 161. Kb6 h3 162. Ka5 Bb7 163. Ka4 Ba8 164. Ka3 Bb7 165. Ka2 Ba8 166. Kb1 Bb7 167. Kc2 Ba8 168. Kd3 Bb7 169. Rh1 Ba8 170. Rf1 Bb7 171. Rd1 Ba8 172. Kc2 Bb7 173. Kb1 Ba8 174. Ka2 Bb7 175. Ka3 Ba8 176. Ka4 Bb7 177. Ka5 Ba8 178. Kb6 h4 179. Ka5 Bb7 180. Ka4 Ba8 181. Ka3 Bb7 182. Ka2 Ba8 183. Kb1 Bb7 184. Kc2 Ba8 185. Kd3 Bb7 186. Rh1 Ba8 187. Rf1 Bb7 188. Rd1 Ba8 189. Kc2 Bb7 190. Kb1 Ba8 191. Ka2 Bb7 192. Ka3 Ba8 193. Ka4 Bb7 194. Ka5 Ba8 195. Kb6 h5 196. Ka5 Bb7 197. Ka4 Ba8 198. Ka3 Bb7 199. Ka2 Ba8 200. Kb1 Bb7 201. Kc2 Ba8 202. Kd3 Bb7 203. Rh1 Ba8 204. Rf1 Bb7 205. Rd1 Ba8 206. Kc2 Bb7 207. Kb1 Ba8 208. Ka2 Bb7 209. Ka3 Ba8 210. Ka4 Bb7 211. Ka5 Ba8 212. Kb6 h1=Q 213. Rxh1 Bc3 214. Rd1+ Bd4 215. Ka5 Bb7 216. Ka4 Ba8 217. Ka3 Bb7 218. Ka2 Ba8 219. Kb1 Bb7 220. Kc2 Ba8 221. Kd3 Bb7 222. Rh1 Ba8 223. Rf1 Bb7 224. Rd1 Ba8 225. Kc2 Bb7 226. Kb1 Ba8 227. Ka2 Bb7 228. Ka3 Ba8 229. Ka4 Bb7 230. Ka5 Ba8 231. Kb6 h2 232. Ka5 Bb7 233. Ka4 Ba8 234. Ka3 Bb7 235. Ka2 Ba8 236. Kb1 Bb7 237. Kc2 Ba8 238. Kd3 Bb7 239. Rh1 Ba8 240. Rf1 Bb7 241. Rd1 Ba8 242. Kc2 Bb7 243. Kb1 Ba8 244. Ka2 Bb7 245. Ka3 Ba8 246. Ka4 Bb7 247. Ka5 Ba8 248. Kb6 h3 249. Ka5 Bb7 250. Ka4 Ba8 251. Ka3 Bb7 252. Ka2 Ba8 253. Kb1 Bb7 254. Kc2 Ba8 255. Kd3 Bb7 256. Rh1 Ba8 257. Rf1 Bb7 258. Rd1 Ba8 259. Kc2 Bb7 260. Kb1 Ba8 261. Ka2 Bb7 262. Ka3 Ba8 263. Ka4 Bb7 264. Ka5 Ba8 265. Kb6 h4 266. Ka5 Bb7 267. Ka4 Ba8 268. Ka3 Bb7 269. Ka2 Ba8 270. Kb1 Bb7 271. Kc2 Ba8 272. Kd3 Bb7 273. Rh1 Ba8 274. Rf1 Bb7 275. Rd1 Ba8 276. Kc2 Bb7 277. Kb1 Ba8 278. Ka2 Bb7 279. Ka3 Ba8 280. Ka4 Bb7 281. Ka5 Ba8 282. Kb6 h1=Q 283. Rxh1 Bc3 284. Rd1+ Bd4 285. Ka5 Bb7 286. Ka4 Ba8 287. Ka3 Bb7 288. Ka2 Ba8 289. Kb1 Bb7 290. Kc2 Ba8 291. Kd3 Bb7 292. Rh1 Ba8 293. Rf1 Bb7 294. Rd1 Ba8 295. Kc2 Bb7 296. Kb1 Ba8 297. Ka2 Bb7 298. Ka3 Ba8 299. Ka4 Bb7 300. Ka5 Ba8 301. Kb6 h2 302. Ka5 Bb7 303. Ka4 Ba8 304. Ka3 Bb7 305. Ka2 Ba8 306. Kb1 Bb7 307. Kc2 Ba8 308. Kd3 Bb7 309. Rh1 Ba8 310. Rf1 Bb7 311. Rd1 Ba8 312. Kc2 Bb7 313. Kb1 Ba8 314. Ka2 Bb7 315. Ka3 Ba8 316. Ka4 Bb7 317. Ka5 Ba8 318. Kb6 h3 319. Ka5 Bb7 320. Ka4 Ba8 321. Ka3 Bb7 322. Ka2 Ba8 323. Kb1 Bb7 324. Kc2 Ba8 325. Kd3 Bb7 326. Rh1 Ba8 327. Rf1 Bb7 328. Rd1 Ba8 329. Kc2 Bb7 330. Kb1 Ba8 331. Ka2 Bb7 332. Ka3 Ba8 333. Ka4 Bb7 334. Ka5 Ba8 335. Kb6 h1=Q 336. Rxh1 Bc3 337. Rd1+ Bd4 338. Ka5 Bb7 339. Ka4 Ba8 340. Ka3 Bb7 341. Ka2 Ba8 342. Kb1 Bb7 343. Kc2 Ba8 344. Kd3 Bb7 345. Rh1 Ba8 346. Rf1 Bb7 347. Rd1 Ba8 348. Kc2 Bb7 349. Kb1 Ba8 350. Ka2 Bb7 351. Ka3 Ba8 352. Ka4 Bb7 353. Ka5 Ba8 354. Kb6 h2 355. Ka5 Bb7 356. Ka4 Ba8 357. Ka3 Bb7 358. Ka2 Ba8 359. Kb1 Bb7 360. Kc2 Ba8 361. Kd3 Bb7 362. Rh1 Ba8 363. Rf1 Bb7 364. Rd1 Ba8 365. Kc2 Bb7 366. Kb1 Ba8 367. Ka2 Bb7 368. Ka3 Ba8 369. Ka4 Bb7 370. Ka5 Ba8 371. Kb6 h1=Q 372. Rxh1 Bc3 373. Rd1+ Bd4 374. Ka5 Bb7 375. Ka4 Ba8 376. Ka3 Bb7 377. Ka2 Ba8 378. Kb1 Bb7 379. Kc2 Ba8 380. Kd3 Bb7 381. Rh1 Ba8 382. Rf1 Bb7 383. Rd1 Ba8 384. Kc2 Bb7 385. Kb1 Ba8 386. Ka2 Bb7 387. Ka3 Ba8 388. Ka4 Bb7 389. Ka5 Ba8 390. Kb6 a5 391. Kxa5 Bb7 392. Ka4 Ba8 393. Ka3 Bb7 394. Ka2 Ba8 395. Kb1 Bb7 396. Kc2 Ba8 397. Kd3 Bb7 398. Rh1 Ba8 399. Rf1 Bb7 400. Rd1 Ba8 401. Kc2 Bb7 402. Kb1 Ba8 403. Ka2 Bb7 404. Ka3 Ba8 405. Ka4 Bb7 406. Ka5 Ba8 407. Kb6 Bb7 408. Kxb7 b1=Q 409. Rxb1 Be5 410. Rd1+ Bd4 411. Rxd4+ cxd4 412. Kb6 d3 413. a8=Q Rxb8+ 414. Qxb8 d2 415. Qxd8# &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-10-12T02:42:46.070" LastActivityDate="2020-10-12T02:42:46.070" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31691" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17735" CreationDate="2020-08-05T03:27:13.870" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your main plan is to fianchetto, Ng8-h6-f5 to put pressure on the d4-pawn. Then, you can attempt to blockade it with the other knight, and then to put your rooks on the d-file. Basically, the strategic plan is to pressure White's d-pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastActivityDate="2020-08-05T03:27:13.870" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31692" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="442" CreationDate="2020-08-05T03:37:43.547" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe that the best age is to start at 4 or 5. This is because this age is when children have a long enough attention span and can learn seriously.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, start off with a game where there are only pawns. Slowly teach the child the rules, and then start a game, where the child loses. Do this again, but don't let the child be discouraged by losses. Then, play easy and lose a game on purpose. Repeat these steps until the child plays reasonably well. Continue on until mastery.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Repeat processes for knights, bishops, rooks, and queens. Then, start combining these pieces with the pawns individually.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once this is done, start off again with two knights and 8 pawns. Then, keep adding pieces until the 'normal' chess setup is reached.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From this point, I recommend the Chesskid courses as suitable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastActivityDate="2020-08-05T03:37:43.547" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31693" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18418" CreationDate="2020-08-05T03:49:21.420" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Since White wants a scholar's mate, I will run over a sample line.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;e4 e5 2. Qh5??? Nc6 3. Bc4 g6 4. Qf3 Nf6 5. Qb3 Nd4!&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Simply kick White's queen around while developing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastActivityDate="2020-08-05T03:49:21.420" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31694" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30294" CreationDate="2020-08-05T07:54:32.343" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Houdini is severely weaker than LC0. I have seen their evaulations of positions, such as in the Salvio Gambit, which Houdini evaluates as only slightly worse for White(clearly not true), where LC0 states that Black has a sizeable advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus, it is more likely that Leela had played the best move. We cannot know for sure until we prove a forced win for White in N moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastActivityDate="2020-08-05T07:54:32.343" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31695" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30294" CreationDate="2020-08-05T11:05:40.393" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;For what that's worth, Stockfish 11 gives&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Rh2&lt;/strong&gt; as &lt;strong&gt;+2.6&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Kb4&lt;/strong&gt; as &lt;strong&gt;+2.2&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Bxc7&lt;/strong&gt; as &lt;strong&gt;+0.6&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;other moves as &lt;strong&gt;0.0&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;on my machine at depth &lt;strong&gt;45&lt;/strong&gt; (will be updating this answer while it digs deeper). Rh2 and Kb4 occasionally switch positions as #1 and #2, so it's still unclear which one of these is truly best. Bxc7 surely isn't, however, at least if you believe Stockfish.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One important note: The top evaluation score has hovered between +2.0 and +2.6 since depth 15. Apparently, Stockfish has not found a way to substantially improve White's position (let alone win) in the last 30 plies. It's still possible that the game will end in a fortress situation with perfect play, and then Leela would in fact not have missed a win (despite having played a suboptimal move).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At depth &lt;strong&gt;54&lt;/strong&gt;, it's&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Rh2&lt;/strong&gt; as &lt;strong&gt;+3.9&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Kb4&lt;/strong&gt; as &lt;strong&gt;+2.2&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Bxc7&lt;/strong&gt; as &lt;strong&gt;+0.1&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;other moves as &lt;strong&gt;0.0&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Still not fully conclusive, but we're starting to get somewhere.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In any case, Bxc7 was certainly not the most optimal move that Leela could have played.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13433" LastEditorUserId="13433" LastEditDate="2020-08-05T14:17:20.817" LastActivityDate="2020-08-05T14:17:20.817" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31696" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31698" CreationDate="2020-08-05T12:11:53.220" Score="6" ViewCount="1090" Body="&lt;p&gt;I’ve long dreamt of delivering a “super checkmate”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Imagine that as his dying wish, when in checkmate, the king can magically transport himself to any open square on the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the board configuration which minimizes the number of squares he can safely teleport to? Is it possible for there to be no safe squares, so the king’s wish can’t save him?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, we can imagine somehow the opponent promoted all his pawns to queens along the back rank, so every square is covered, but this configuration is not achievable without having drawn along the way (I believe; but prove me wrong!).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I’m looking for a practical configuration that can be achieved naturally where the last move is checkmate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bonus points for each square that is under attack more than once.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24369" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-05T12:39:57.787" LastActivityDate="2021-01-03T21:08:42.693" Title="What is the maximum number of checked squares on a board that delivers checkmate without a draw?" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;problems&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31697" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31677" CreationDate="2020-08-05T12:23:17.960" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;This move is bad, however, depending on your opponent it has merit. If your opponent is 2100 and above with an understanding of how to break open a position and kill a king then it won't end well for you. On the other hand, if your intention is to provoke your opponent to attack you and then counter-attack when an opening is created it may well be okay. You must have some idea of the attacking patterns against your king and how to protect your king in those circumstances.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wouldn't play this opening personally unless for fun and to improve my overall play -- not necessarily results. I still see some merit if you are targeting an opponent who is not a great attacker or prefers not to attack early or at all. There are some opponents who always play consolidating or slow moves in the middle of an attack which gives away the advantage. These types of opponents would be a lamb to the slaughter since you are forcing them to do something they would prefer not to do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a more psychological ploy that will work against certain opponents. Of course, it goes without saying that you will have to play well since you are playing from behind. Play like a tiger and take advantage of every blink by your prey. Stalk (develop), stalk (secure king), stalk (arrange pieces to pounce), stalk (wait for a mistake -- blink), pounce.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8910" LastActivityDate="2020-08-05T12:23:17.960" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31698" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31696" CreationDate="2020-08-05T13:11:06.567" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's going to be hard for any position to be &amp;quot;natural&amp;quot; if the king is out and roaming about, so I presume that you mean that the position must be legal. Also, as far as I understand it, the king may only teleport in a checkmate position, and not while in check, because otherwise, it would be nigh impossible to give a mate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Firstly, it is entirely possible to get eight queens on a board for checkmate without drawing, like so, with a little help from other White pieces. While this can be done with just the pawns alone, the extra pieces are needed to do it in exactly eight moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;8/PPPPPPPP/8/8/8/8/k7/1RN1K3 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. a8=Q+ Kxb1 2. c8=Q Kb2 3. d8=Q Kb1 4. e8=Q Kb2 5. f8=Q Kb1 6. g8=Q Kb2 7. h8=Q+ Kb1 8. b8=Q#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But it is also possible to achieve this effect with just White's eight starting pieces. I remembered &lt;a href=&quot;https://pdb.dieschwalbe.de/P1185122&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; old problem by Josef Kling that does it. The stipulation reads: White checkmates in 14 moves but only after attacking all 64 squares.&amp;quot; I would suppose that this position is more &amp;quot;natural&amp;quot; than one with eight White queens.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do note that while the stipulation reads “64 squares,” it has been proven, that with opposite-colored bishops, the starting pieces can only control 63 squares. Kling knew that for sure, so it's just a minor discrepancy that he used “64” to have a better sounding stipulation in my opinion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Josef Kling, The Chess Player's Companion 1849, 'Fancy Sketch'&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;4k3/8/8/8/8/8/8/RNBQKBNR w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Qd6 Kf7 2. Rh8 Kg7 3. Bb2+ Kf7 4. Qa6 Ke7 5. Bh3 Kf7 6. Ke2 Ke7 7. Kd3 Kf7 8. Bd4 Ke7 9. Nd2 Kf7 10. Ne2 Ke7 11. Rg1 Kf7 12. Nc3 Ke7 13. Nd5+ Kf7 14. Be6# &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-01-03T21:08:42.693" LastActivityDate="2021-01-03T21:08:42.693" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31699" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-08-05T15:22:47.220" Score="1" ViewCount="149" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;8/6pk/p4b1p/2B5/P3q2P/6P1/5P2/3Q2K1 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Ba7 (1. h5)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This position happened in TCEC Season 15 Superfinal Stockfish vs Leela. In the game Stockfish played Ba7 and the game steered toward a draw , though in the end Stockfish won because a late Leela blunder. Can Stockfish win by force this ending? Crystal (7 man tablebases Stockfish , albeit with a slightly lesser depth) suggested h5. I am unable to analyze it with the modest instrument I have. May someone telling me if it is winnable by White , and , in case , with what move, please?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23298" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-07T07:02:21.953" LastActivityDate="2020-09-02T10:59:17.440" Title="Bishop and queen endgame from a computer chess game" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31700" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13160" CreationDate="2020-08-05T22:12:31.383" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The thematic ideas are these:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Attempt to trade off your c8-bishop or otherwise activate it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Attack the d-pawn and gain active pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Play on the queenside.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Play the breaks ...f6 and ...c5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastActivityDate="2020-08-05T22:12:31.383" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31702" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7976" CreationDate="2020-08-05T22:44:47.170" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Since White is going to fianchetto, I suggest castling queenside and attacking. First play a7-a6, Bf8-c5-a7, d7-d6. Then set up the bishop trade with ...Be6 and Qd7, and then 0-0-0. Now you can trade off the bishop and go for a pawn storm.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another method is to play an inverted form of the Halloween Gambit - 4...Nxe4!?&#xA;Push your pawns up the board and have fun kicking the knights about! This is most effective in blitz games, but you can play this in any time control.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastActivityDate="2020-08-05T22:44:47.170" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31703" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27227" CreationDate="2020-08-05T22:52:49.277" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Bongcloud is an opening meant to&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Give your opponent a chance&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Show contempt for your opponent(if your opponent is terrible at chance)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Create a lasting psychological effect, thus generating winning chances against much better players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No, the Bongcloud is not a real opening, but it has a close cousin called the 'King David's opening'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;e4 c5 2. Ke2[book move!?]&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastActivityDate="2020-08-05T22:52:49.277" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31704" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31705" CreationDate="2020-08-05T23:00:51.333" Score="2" ViewCount="91" Body="&lt;p&gt;In chess, castling can't be done if the king or relevant rook have moved. How would the basic strategy of the game change if the king and rook could castle after moving? Also, how would the game change if the queen castle as well?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-06T04:01:12.470" LastActivityDate="2020-08-06T04:01:12.470" Title="A castling variant-how would it change the game?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;castling&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31705" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31704" CreationDate="2020-08-06T03:39:54.503" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In most cases, I'd imagine the queen wouldn't castle, as it would mean it would have a harder time getting out. The only useful case I can think of would be if you developed your bishop to e3 and &amp;quot;castled&amp;quot; queenside with your queen, putting it on c1, preparing for Bh6 to potentially trade off a fianchettoed bishop while also bringing your a1 rook to an active square.  Being able to castle with your king or rook after you moved would change chess quite substantially, and it'd be difficult to quantify all the changes, but if I had to guess, kings would stay in the center longer and rooks would move around more in the middlegame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23100" LastActivityDate="2020-08-06T03:39:54.503" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31707" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31709" CreationDate="2020-08-06T09:47:28.720" Score="5" ViewCount="2313" Body="&lt;p&gt;How is it possible for a King and Knight to checkmate a King and Pawn? I've composed a working position, but I am not sure if this can occur through a series of moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-07T01:23:42.083" LastActivityDate="2020-08-13T02:08:51.450" Title="King+Knight vs King+Pawn checkmate" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;pawn-endgame&gt;&lt;knight-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31708" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31707" CreationDate="2020-08-06T10:06:05.970" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is not possible for king+knight to &lt;em&gt;force&lt;/em&gt; checkmate but a helpmate &lt;em&gt;is&lt;/em&gt; possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically the pawn promotes to a bishop, the king moves to the opposite coloured square to the bishop with the bishop next to it and the opposing knight delivers checkmate with the king blocking off the two squares in front of the other king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &amp;quot;KB6/8/kn6/8/8/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-08-06T10:06:05.970" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31709" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31707" CreationDate="2020-08-06T11:13:59.333" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the general case K+N vs K+P is of course a draw - or a win for the pawn if it can promote unhindered.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is however a famous construction were the knight can force a mate against a king stuck in front of its own well-advanced rook pawn:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &amp;quot;8/3N4/8/8/8/p7/k7/2K5 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Nc5 Ka1 2.Kc2 Ka2 3.Nd3 Ka1 4.Nc1 a2 5.Nb3#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are many variations on that theme, the first such &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.yacpdb.org/#77709&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;position&lt;/a&gt; being published by in the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonus_Socius&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Bonus Socius&lt;/a&gt; before 1300.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-13T02:08:51.450" LastActivityDate="2020-08-13T02:08:51.450" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31710" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31675" CreationDate="2020-08-06T20:26:45.540" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know there is at least some degree of theory in Atomic Chess, which indicates it hasn't been solved. Also from this Wikipedia article:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_chess&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Under the &amp;quot;Strategy&amp;quot; section, it says &amp;quot;no attempts to prove a win for White have been successful&amp;quot;. Although the article notes that White's advantage is much larger in Atomic Chess than regular chess, which obviously makes sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's a version of Stockfish out there that can play Atomic Chess. I doubt it's as strong in the game as regular Stockfish is in chess, but it shows that even with strong tools available the game seems to have not been solved.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't know whether it's possible to solve it in the future though. It's highly unlikely regular chess will ever be fully solved, due to the sheer complexity of the game tree. For Atomic Chess though, maybe it's possible that there's some forced win (or forced draw?) relatively early on. This could be due to a few reasons:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;As noted already, White has a larger advantage in Atomic Chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Pieces tend to come off the board faster, due to the explosions when a piece captures. This reduces the branching factor (i.e., number of possible moves), which reduces the complexity of how many paths need to be considered in the game tree. It also simplifies the game, potentially bringing it closer to some theoretically drawn endgame (in atomic chess).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;While strong, I'm not sure how good this version of Stockfish actually is in Atomic Chess, since it was developed for standard chess. Our current engines could have to get stronger in the variant before finding a hidden solution.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-07T01:06:08.180" LastActivityDate="2020-08-07T01:06:08.180" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31711" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31707" CreationDate="2020-08-06T20:55:17.070" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just for the record, the &lt;a href=&quot;http://kirill-kryukov.com/chess/longest-checkmates/longest-checkmates-sorted-by-length.shtml&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;longest win&lt;/a&gt; in this endgame is 7 moves:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;8/8/8/8/p7/8/N7/k1K5 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Nb4 a3 2. Nc2+ Ka2 3. Nd4 Ka1 4. Kc2 Ka2 5. Ne2 Ka1 6. Nc1 a2 7. Nb3#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The idea in this position (and other similar positions) is to stalemate the king in the corner; that forces a pawn move and when the pawn reaches a2, you'll need to have the knight positioned in such a way that it can immediately deliver mate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Generally speaking, this only works (up to symmetry) if the pawn is on a3, the Black king on a1 or a2 and the White on c1 or c2 (otherwise, the king can escape) and the knight is both close enough (otherwise, Black can stalemate themselves) and has the right 'parity' - if Black to move loses, then White to move will only be able to draw. Likewise, if Black to move draws, then White to move wins. You can check a position in an online endgame tablebase like &lt;a href=&quot;https://syzygy-tables.info/?fen=8/8/8/8/p7/8/N7/k1K5_w_-_-_0_1&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Sygyzy&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="12873" LastEditDate="2020-08-06T23:35:41.090" LastActivityDate="2020-08-06T23:35:41.090" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31712" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27994" CreationDate="2020-08-06T22:19:56.207" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe that the tactics rating start on 100n rating. After solving puzzles, the change in rating decreases, so that eventually, you'll reach a rating which reflects your accuracy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastActivityDate="2020-08-06T22:19:56.207" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31713" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16400" CreationDate="2020-08-06T22:23:18.073" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You probably are losing because you aren't reading the engine indications correctly. If you are playing White, the larger positive number is the better move, while if you are playing Black, then you want a 'large' negative number on the reading.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastActivityDate="2020-08-06T22:23:18.073" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31714" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16707" CreationDate="2020-08-06T22:30:10.453" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Black can put a piece on a square where it checks White's king, and then perpetually check. There isn't enough cover for White to stop the checks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastActivityDate="2020-08-06T22:30:10.453" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31715" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24931" CreationDate="2020-08-06T22:32:57.810" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Case 1: Both kings are away from the passed pawn: IF Black can get into the square, it is a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Case 2: The Black King is in front of the pawn: depends on the position of the White King&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Case 3: Black's king is outside the square, but White has a rook-pawn - If Black's king is in front of the pawn, it is a stalemate, and in some other cases, White's king may be trapped in a corner and stalemated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastActivityDate="2020-08-06T22:32:57.810" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31716" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18409" CreationDate="2020-08-06T22:39:15.097" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;If White takes the Black queen, Black wins more quickly with ...Rxa1, Rxa1 Rxa1 and another pawn will promote to a queen. If White trades rooks, Black has to wait a few more moves before promoting.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastActivityDate="2020-08-06T22:39:15.097" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31718" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31755" CreationDate="2020-08-07T00:08:21.647" Score="5" ViewCount="136" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was playing online, and I noticed some players go for this opening and I don't know its name or if it's a move order to another opening for Black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;1. d4 g6 2. c4 Bg7 3. Nc3 c6 4. e4 d6 5. f3 Nbd7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it a sideline in the Modern, Kings Indian, Hippo, or Neo-old Benoni Defense? Or is it a new opening? In the Neo-old Benon,i Black doesn't fianchetto the bishop, and in the Hippo Black doesn't commit to c6 at an early stage like that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23598" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-07T01:11:42.393" LastActivityDate="2020-08-10T03:23:53.507" Title="What is the name or origin of this opening for Black?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;history&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31719" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31721" CreationDate="2020-08-07T00:09:23.607" Score="2" ViewCount="74" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have played Bird's opening for around a year now, but I don't understand why Bird's opening isn't played as much as the Dutch, even though it is a tempo up. Why is this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastEditorUserId="9025" LastEditDate="2020-08-11T03:58:24.960" LastActivityDate="2020-08-11T03:58:24.960" Title="Bird's opening versus the Dutch Defence" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;dutch-defense&gt;&lt;birds-opening&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2020-08-07T07:24:34.110" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31720" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="176" CreationDate="2020-08-07T00:15:16.837" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe that the best way is to stop your opponent from getting an imbalance by copying White's setup. This will lead to drawish positions, if you are aiming for a draw. If you are aiming for a win, then you should then control the center after these moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastActivityDate="2020-08-07T00:15:16.837" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31721" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31719" CreationDate="2020-08-07T00:27:30.047" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Even if you play the Dutch a tempo up, you don't have great chances of gaining an advantage (especially if your opponent is completely satisfied with just equalizing). As White you typically want to maximize your chances of getting some edge, and a better way to do this is by controlling more of the centre with 1.e4/1.d4, or perhaps developing a piece with 1.Nf3. The Bird's still a fine opening, but not very challenging.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In addition to this, Black doesn't necessarily have to play 1...d5 (even though it's the most popular move). He could go for something like 1...c5, 2...Nc6, 3...g6, 4...Bg7, 5...e6, etc, playing similar to how he would against the Closed Sicilian. If at any point White decides to push e4, then we've actually got some kind of Closed Sicilian where Black is fine. And if White doesn't push e4, it's kind of odd - after all, in the Bird/Dutch isn't one of the main goals to push e4/...e5?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2020-08-07T00:27:30.047" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31722" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31719" CreationDate="2020-08-07T00:55:47.247" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;From my experience in playing the dutch(leningrad and stonewall) and the bird(typically reverse leningrad dutch), I feel its very tough to get an edge but lets people get a levelled game. You also don't really surprise people.&#xA;Half my games goes something like this&#xA;f4 d5 Nf3 c5 g3 g6 Bg2 Bg7 O-O Nf6 d3 O-O, and from here white has several options but even in white manages to get e4 in, there doesn't seem to be a path to advantage. You don't get a surprise factor when you reach this position either, since most d4 players have experience in this type of structure against the dutch systems.&#xA;Another big portion, against the sicilian players, gets something similar to the closed sicilian.&#xA;And there are of course other legitimate options.&#xA;The only things going for it is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;unfamiliar to opponents(though as mentioned above, sicilian and d4 players typically comfortable). e4 players may have some problems dealing with this however, as they can't borrow their knowledge from else where.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;from's gambit is bad. Just accept it. Less recommended is to transpose to the king's gambit, but&#xA;if you know your opponent doesn't have experience in the king's gambit, you could use that to your advantage.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3872" LastActivityDate="2020-08-07T00:55:47.247" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31723" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31726" CreationDate="2020-08-07T01:22:20.343" Score="2" ViewCount="86" Body="&lt;p&gt;Does anyone know of engine vs engine databases? Like stockfish vs leela vs komodo pgns for 1000s of games with a lot of time per move? I want data for how draw rate changes as engine rating goes up, and am willing to sift through the data.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I see there have been tournaments recently, but I'm having trouble getting the data. The more variant the data (multiple engines, multiple ratings, multiple dates) the more useful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24378" LastActivityDate="2020-08-07T02:55:16.527" Title="Engine vs Engine Database" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31724" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18659" CreationDate="2020-08-07T02:14:34.693" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Black may be able to play the Bogo-indian, The QID, the Nimzo-indian, and such openings. I suggest that you learn the theory of the French and play that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastActivityDate="2020-08-07T02:14:34.693" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31725" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31727" CreationDate="2020-08-07T02:18:31.117" Score="4" ViewCount="444" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to find a way of transposing into the Hanham Variation of the Philidor Defense, without a way for White to deviate. For example, in the normal move order, White may have the move 3. Bc4 or 3. Nc3, which I want to avoid. I have tried the Pirc defense, but it doesn't work. Is there any other opening which will transpose?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastEditorUserId="9025" LastEditDate="2020-08-14T15:45:48.620" LastActivityDate="2020-08-14T15:45:48.620" Title="Hanham Variation Philidor Defense" Tags="&lt;transpositions&gt;&lt;philidor-defense&gt;&lt;hanham&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31726" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31723" CreationDate="2020-08-07T02:55:16.527" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you go to this site:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ccrl.chessdom.com/ccrl/4040/games.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://ccrl.chessdom.com/ccrl/4040/games.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should be able to download pgns of games by month, or games played by any specific engine of your choosing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also on the home page:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ccrl.chessdom.com/ccrl/4040/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://ccrl.chessdom.com/ccrl/4040/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can search around and find stats of how certain engines score against each other.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2020-08-07T02:55:16.527" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31727" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31725" CreationDate="2020-08-07T03:01:39.837" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;No.  Black cannot reach the Hanham variation (e.g. the Philidor setup with Nd7, Nf6, e5 and sometimes c6) by force.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The modern move order to reach the Hanham variation, however, is 1. e4 d6! 2. d4 Nf6 3. Nc3 e5.  This is black's best move order to reach the Hanham variation because white usually transposes to the Hanham variation with 4. Nf3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Experienced white players usually don't avoid the Hanham with the above move order because the main alternative 4. dxe5!? lets black equalize easily as recent results have proven.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13177" LastEditorUserId="13177" LastEditDate="2020-08-07T03:10:50.777" LastActivityDate="2020-08-07T03:10:50.777" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31728" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31677" CreationDate="2020-08-07T09:06:48.773" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The most important question here is: why? There is no benefit in castling artificially at this stage. There are two reasons people do that:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;the rook is needed on the a/h file&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;they are forced to.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Neither of these apply in this situation. So artificial castling is not a good reason. Then two options remain: is the king safer on f2 or is the king providing assistance to an attack? Obviously the answer to both questions is no.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It does not matter what the level of your opponent is. There is never any benefit in playing a move that is bad &lt;em&gt;regardless of the response&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only valid reason is psychological and therefore most appropriate in blitz games: many opponents will feel a strong urge to destroy your position and might very well make some fatal mistakes in doing so. Having the initiative can be a curse, especially in blitz games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21810" LastActivityDate="2020-08-07T09:06:48.773" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31729" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-08-07T10:08:53.173" Score="17" ViewCount="2510" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the book English opening volume 1 by Mihail Marin at this position&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &amp;quot;3nrrk1/bppq2p1/p4p1p/2Pp4/1P1P3N/P1BQ2P1/5PKP/4RR2 w - - 2 21&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Qg6 (1. Ng6)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He suggests Qg6 whereas stockfish suggests Ng6 and evaluation drops from +4.3 to +1.1 after Qg6. I know this is analysed by humans but I am confused about reading rest of the book because I cant trust it now. Any suggestions?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23690" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2020-08-07T10:22:30.730" LastActivityDate="2020-08-08T08:39:28.857" Title="Stockfish is considering a move in a book by GM Mihail Marin as a blunder" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;books&gt;&lt;english-opening&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31730" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31729" CreationDate="2020-08-07T12:07:51.863" Score="33" Body="&lt;p&gt;Mihail Marin simply missed that 1.Ng6 is winning, even faster than 1.Qg6. During opening analysis, and even during a game, sometimes when you find a satisfying continuation you forget to follow Lasker's advice and look for an even stronger one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a slight mistake in his analysis, but his evaluation of the variation remains correct (White is winning, even faster than he thought) and I see no reason not to continue studying his book and learning from it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No chess book is completely void of analysis mistakes. If this is the worst one in the book, then the work is still very trustworthy. However, I encourage you to keep your good habit of checking the author analysis, with your own mind and with engine: First, to prevent falling for a bigger hole in a flawed variation if there is one ; Second, to better understand and remember the positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastEditorUserId="14079" LastEditDate="2020-08-08T08:39:28.857" LastActivityDate="2020-08-08T08:39:28.857" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31731" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-08-07T16:14:53.323" Score="2" ViewCount="271" Body="&lt;p&gt;As the title above states, how should one play as Black vs. the Ruy Lopez Exchange Variation? In other words, after `&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;] &#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Bxc6 dxc6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(The Exchange Variation), White's Pawn structure is superior, and an endgame would eventually favour him, for the potential Passed Pawn. But Black's compansation, it is said in the books, is in the Bishop Pair. But in practice, what strategy (or strategies) should Black adopt, to make this a real thing and not just an abstract advantage?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;`&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastEditorUserId="24057" LastEditDate="2020-08-07T19:53:53.860" LastActivityDate="2020-08-12T22:16:38.307" Title="How should one play as Black vs. the Ruy Lopez Exchange Variation?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;1.e4&gt;&lt;ruy-lopez&gt;&lt;exchange&gt;&lt;bishop-pair&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31732" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30178" CreationDate="2020-08-07T17:08:10.130" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there any value to learning openings as a new player?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Very little - you'll be wasting your time for the most part. The best way to learn a new complex subject is a top-down approach. While there is &amp;quot;some&amp;quot; value in learning openings at this stage, your time will be much better spent on learning general theory, ideas behind openings (without focusing on any particular one), middlegame, endgame, and, of course, tactics. Opening preparation becomes somewhat important at about 2000, critical at about 2500, and crucial at the super-GM level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15509" LastEditorUserId="15509" LastEditDate="2020-08-07T19:57:47.537" LastActivityDate="2020-08-07T19:57:47.537" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31733" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13178" CreationDate="2020-08-07T18:19:45.357" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;At the moment ( August 2020 ) the longest forced mate is this one in 555 moves :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70FmRGd4qqU&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70FmRGd4qqU&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;kindly regards Lutz Neweklowsky&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24384" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2020-08-07T19:53:32.040" LastActivityDate="2020-08-07T19:53:32.040" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31734" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8531" CreationDate="2020-08-08T08:49:29.287" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Playing against an opponent who brings their queen out prematurely is a lot like playing Tic-Tac-Toe.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basic strategy in Tic-Tac-Toe is as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If you can win the game with your move, make it.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If no winning move exists and your opponent has a winning move next turn, stop them.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Make a two of a kind to threaten a win.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If none of the above apply, play in the center.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The way this translates to chess is as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If you can take your opponent’s queen with a lesser piece, take it. You’ll be up a bunch of material and are in good shape to cruise to a win.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Defend against your opponent’s threats. Can they take an undefended piece or pawn for free? If so, make a move that prevents such a capture.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If you can’t win the queen and all your material is safe, can you make a threat on their queen? If you attack their queen and force it to move away, you effectively got to make your move for free.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If none of the above apply, just look for generally good opening moves. Develop a bishop or knight. Castle. Move pawns to control the center.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It’s important to go through this checklist every move, and the order really matters. If their queen is threatening an undefended pawn (2) and you attack the queen without defending the pawn (3), then yeah, you force the queen to move, but their move is to take the pawn, which they wanted to do anyway.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17157" LastActivityDate="2020-08-08T08:49:29.287" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31735" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31736" CreationDate="2020-08-08T12:41:21.117" Score="28" ViewCount="11240" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am new to chess. I have tried to learn checkmate from the video lesson in chess24 website. There, in one question, it marked my answer wrong and said that it was not checkmate. Can anyone please explain the reason ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ZOXMO.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ZOXMO.png&quot; alt=&quot;Checkmate&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I do apologize if I asked anything stupid. Thanks in advance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24247" LastEditorUserId="24247" LastEditDate="2020-08-08T12:47:41.647" LastActivityDate="2020-08-12T03:03:55.380" Title="Why is it not a checkmate?" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;online-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="9" CommentCount="14" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31736" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31735" CreationDate="2020-08-08T12:53:42.207" Score="36" Body="&lt;p&gt;Welcome to Chess Stack Exchange.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I believe you're doing well here.  It is surely a checkmate. Probably the website isn't programmed that way to recognize that move. But, as per your question, this is clearly a checkmate that resembles the one-rook-mate pattern.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24196" LastActivityDate="2020-08-08T12:53:42.207" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31737" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8531" CreationDate="2020-08-08T13:48:04.673" Score="0" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Event &amp;quot;Tradewise Gibraltar&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Site &amp;quot;Catalan Bay GIB&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Date &amp;quot;2015.01.27&amp;quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &amp;quot;2015.01.27&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Round &amp;quot;1.2&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Result &amp;quot;0-1&amp;quot;]&#xA;[White &amp;quot;Jovana Rapport&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Black &amp;quot;Hikaru Nakamura&amp;quot;]&#xA;[ECO &amp;quot;A80&amp;quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &amp;quot;?&amp;quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &amp;quot;?&amp;quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &amp;quot;66&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 f5 2. Bg5 c6 3. e3 Qb6 4. Nd2 Qxb2 5. Rb1 Qc3 6. g4 Qa5&#xA;7. gxf5 Qxf5 8. h4 Qa5 9. Nh3 g6 10. Bd3 d6 11. Qf3 Nd7 12. h5&#xA;Ndf6 13. hxg6 hxg6 14. Bxg6+ Kd8 15. Bf4 Kc7 16. Ng5 Rxh1+&#xA;17. Qxh1 Bh6 18. Qh4 Bd7 19. Bd3 Nd5 20. Ne6+ Bxe6 21. Bxh6&#xA;Nc3 22. Ra1 Qb4 23. Kf1 Nxa2 24. Rd1 Nc3 25. Re1 Nxh6 26. Qxh6&#xA;Bd7 27. f3 a5 28. Kf2 a4 29. Qg5 Rh8 30. Qg3 Nd5 31. Rd1 c5&#xA;32. Bc4 Nc3 33. Re1 b5 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You are not the only one having problems against it... Developing your queen early probably will give your opponent an advantage in development. If you want to learn to play against it, learn how to utilise development, there is no more precise rule to be followed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15478" LastActivityDate="2020-08-08T13:48:04.673" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31740" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31735" CreationDate="2020-08-08T22:05:53.313" Score="21" Body="&lt;p&gt;The sidebar says &amp;quot;1. Qe7# (1. Qc8#) (1. Qb8#)&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In case you're not yet familiar with chess notation, this means:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1​.&lt;/strong&gt; (White's move number 1)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Q&lt;/strong&gt; (the Queen)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;e7&lt;/strong&gt; (moves to space E7)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;#&lt;/strong&gt; (and checkmates.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After that, your move &amp;quot;(1. Qc8#)&amp;quot; is highlighted in red, indicating it was not one of the answers they were looking for. But note that it is given the checkmate mark (#), confirming that your move in fact a correct move, one that they simply forgot to include in the list of answers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;(1. Qb8#)&amp;quot; written at the end is an additional move which are equally as valid as the first one. Qc8# should have been included here, but it was mistakenly left out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24393" LastEditorUserId="24393" LastEditDate="2020-08-10T14:43:51.250" LastActivityDate="2020-08-10T14:43:51.250" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31741" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31735" CreationDate="2020-08-08T23:10:28.183" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;That is indeed checkmate, I've been playing chess for months.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It must be an issue with either the code (which is probably the problem), or the client or server (which is very unlikely, but could be the case). There are other chess websites where you can learn, such as &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/learn#/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://lichess.org/learn#/&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/lessons&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.chess.com/lessons&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Those should work better, while they still have a few problems, it's not really too much.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24394" LastActivityDate="2020-08-08T23:10:28.183" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31742" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-08-09T02:16:48.537" Score="2" ViewCount="106" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is it possible to modify the source code to change the display of the score graph so that you are always at the bottom? Currently, the player playing White is always at the bottom.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23950" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-09T03:16:19.450" LastActivityDate="2020-08-09T03:16:19.450" Title="Scid vs PC Score Graph" Tags="&lt;evaluation&gt;&lt;scid&gt;&lt;open-source&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31743" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-08-09T07:27:16.297" Score="8" ViewCount="89" Body="&lt;p&gt;My question relates to lines which in general are covered by Avrukh (2015). However, Avrukh doesn't explain the phenomenon I noticed in the following lines. These lines are classed as Bogo-Indians, but I've kept the Catalan move order preferred by Avrukh.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;...&amp;quot;]   &#xA;1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. g3 Bb4+ 4. Bd2 Qe7 5. Nf3 Nc6 6. Nc3 Bxc3 7. Bxc3 Ne4 8. Rc1 d6 9. d5 Nxc3 10. Rxc3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here out of 271 games in my database there are 160 with 10...Nb8 and 106 with 10...Nd8.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;...&amp;quot;]&#xA;1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. g3 Bb4+ 4. Bd2 Qe7 5. Nf3 Nc6 6. Nc3 Bxc3 7. Bxc3 Ne4 8. Rc1 O-O 9. Bg2 d6 10. d5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here out of 768 games there are 264 with 10...Nd8 and 69 with 10...Nb8. However, the most popular move (434 games) is 10...Nxc3, which leads us to the following position&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;...&amp;quot;]&#xA;1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. g3 Bb4+ 4. Bd2 Qe7 5. Nf3 Nc6 6. Nc3 Bxc3 7. Bxc3 Ne4 8. Rc1 O-O 9. Bg2 d6 10. d5 Nxc3 11. Rxc3 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now there are 535 games, of which 370 go 11...Nb8 and 146 go 11...Nd8.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Why is there a distinct preference for ...Nb8 in the first and third positions, and a distinct preference for ...Nd8 in the second position?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Avrukh, Boris (2015). &lt;em&gt;Grandmaster Repertoire A1 – The Catalan&lt;/em&gt;. Quality Chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1752" LastActivityDate="2020-09-02T10:36:21.033" Title="...Nd8 vs ...Nb8 in the Bogo-Indian" Tags="&lt;bogo-indian-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31744" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31735" CreationDate="2020-08-09T10:09:55.403" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;That is checkmate. You are simply using a bad tool.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For simple mate in one exercises I recommend my own website.&#xA;For example, this link &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.apronus.com/chess/puzzles/mate-in-1/?2vs1&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.apronus.com/chess/puzzles/mate-in-1/?2vs1&lt;/a&gt; has mate in 1 puzzles where the stronger side has two chessmen against a lone king. The good points about my system are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(1) all alternatives are accepted,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(2) if you play an incorrect move then the computer will simply reply with a move that demonstrates that there was no checkmate after your first move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Moreover, you can study the checkmate position by trying to make moves with the checkmated side. Then you will see arrows pointing to moves that would capture the king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also move on a step further and try to solve puzzles where the task is to avoid getting mated on the next move. For example &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.apronus.com/chess/puzzles/mate-in-1-avoid/?2vs1&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.apronus.com/chess/puzzles/mate-in-1-avoid/?2vs1&lt;/a&gt; has the same positions as the first link but now you play with the lone king to avoid mate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More puzzles for beginners are listed on the table of contents at &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.apronus.com/chess/puzzles/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.apronus.com/chess/puzzles/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3456" LastActivityDate="2020-08-09T10:09:55.403" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31745" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-08-09T10:27:24.087" Score="6" ViewCount="1522" Body="&lt;p&gt;On the board, there are 2 queens (of the same color) placed on random squares. The opposing side has only a king, placed on a random square (and not in check). There obviously exists a mating sequence. What is the biggest possible 'n' such that there is a forced Mate in 'n'? In other words, given the above situation, what is the upper bound on the minimum number of moves required to give a checkmate?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24274" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-09T16:20:24.060" LastActivityDate="2020-08-09T16:20:24.060" Title="Forced mate: 2 queens vs king" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;problems&gt;&lt;queens&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31746" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31745" CreationDate="2020-08-09T13:21:53.407" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;The longest K + Q + Q vs K mate whilst maintaining optimality is a &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.gilith.com/chess/endgames/kqq_k.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;mate in 4&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14767" LastActivityDate="2020-08-09T13:21:53.407" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31747" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31735" CreationDate="2020-08-09T19:11:51.937" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The website (or that chess problem on that site specifically) is clearly buggy.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;All 3 of the moves listed as correct answers are mates, and even shown with #&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Qe7#  Qc8# Qb8#&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My guess as to what happened:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The web site supports various different kinds of problems, including &amp;quot;one correct move&amp;quot;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It doesn't have a chess engine checking for mates, just that they match some pre-programmed answers. &lt;strong&gt;It relies on humans to set up the correct-answer conditions separately from the question and answer text.&lt;/strong&gt;  (Introducing the possibility of human error causing this problem.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;A human entered correct problem and answer text, but accidentally marked it as only the first answer being correct.&lt;/strong&gt;  Or some kind of syntax error or other mis-use of the problem-setting tools that made the website not understand that any of the answers were valid.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That would explain why all 3 listed moves have a &lt;code&gt;#&lt;/code&gt; checkmate symbol after them: those are manually-entered text, and the web site doesn't truly &lt;em&gt;know&lt;/em&gt; they're checkmates.  Or doesn't know that they question is looking for checkmates, because programming that is separate from writing the text.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In future, if you encounter something online that seems to be telling you something that seems wrong, you can load up the position in a chess engine you trust and try it.  Maybe you'll find there was a legal move you didn't spot.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a beginner (or for any human) it's certainly possible to make mistakes.  But this case is simple enough that it's pretty easy even for me (very much non-expert) to be pretty sure that all 3 of those moves are mates, and that there aren't any other mates.  But it wouldn't take much more complexity for me to &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; be sure if a problem was buggy or if I was missing something.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this case, the 3 listed moves that pop up being shown with &lt;code&gt;#&lt;/code&gt; makes it fairly clear it's a bug, though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16136" LastActivityDate="2020-08-09T19:11:51.937" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31748" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-08-09T20:01:18.610" Score="3" ViewCount="1260" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is it possible to deduce brilliant sacrifices by analyzing a match's PGN along with the corresponding evaluation score after each move? If not, what other non-visual information would be needed to be able to deduce when a player made sacrifices to help his cause?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23950" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-09T20:46:28.290" LastActivityDate="2020-08-09T21:34:33.210" Title="Deducing brilliant sacrifices" Tags="&lt;evaluation&gt;&lt;sacrifice&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31749" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13223" CreationDate="2020-08-09T21:32:19.720" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairy-Max&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Fairy-Max&lt;/a&gt; and micro-Max are not particularly strong, but they are in public domain and have been used in different devices.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17190" LastActivityDate="2020-08-09T21:32:19.720" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31750" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31748" CreationDate="2020-08-09T21:34:33.210" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;It would be easy to detect sacrifices- if the material count in the position suddenly drops, but the computer evaluation position doesn't drop a lot, and the material isn't restored within a short number of moves (to avoid simple exchanges being considered sacrifices), then it would be a sound sacrifice. This would miss out on a lot of unsound sacrifices or sacrifices that computers don't understand, however- there are many cases of this with fortresses etc. Detecting brilliant sacrifices would probably be even harder.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23100" LastActivityDate="2020-08-09T21:34:33.210" CommentCount="14" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31752" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31735" CreationDate="2020-08-09T23:55:38.837" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Definitely a checkmate. Must’ve been a computer glitch or maybe it was asking something else. Maybe was asking for a stalemate. Or it asked if you could stretch it out to 3 moves. Just to stretch it out as an exercise. Rather than mate in one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24407" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-10T00:53:41.327" LastActivityDate="2020-08-10T00:53:41.327" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31754" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31782" CreationDate="2020-08-10T01:51:36.793" Score="5" ViewCount="1424" Body="&lt;p&gt;Apparently there was a major update to Stockfish recently such that it gained +50 elo (&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/glinscott/fishtest/wiki/Regression-Tests&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;per regression tests&lt;/a&gt;). I'm told that the difference is coming from the new NNUE (efficiently updatable neural network) eval function. In other words Stockfish is now a hybrid engine utilizing AB search &amp;amp; NN eval.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Questions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Is this picture correct?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If so, how is the NNUE being trained? Is it only being trained on Stockfish games, or does it also utilize games by other engines?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If NNUE is being trained on Stockfish games, does that mean Stockfish's original handwritten eval will continue to be tested and improved on? Or will Stockfish NNUE be trained on Stockfish NNUE games in the future (i.e. the handwritten eval is now obsolete and will not be developed anymore)?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Does this mean Stockfish's update process will now take longer? In the sense that for every new patch, a new NNUE would need to be trained, and then the new patch + new network plays against the old patch + old network?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastActivityDate="2020-08-12T01:26:12.300" Title="What does Stockfish NNUE mean for Stockfish?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31755" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31718" CreationDate="2020-08-10T03:23:53.507" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is no name that I can find. However, I can identify some factors of this opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;White has a Samisch setup&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Black has played a type of Gurgendize modern defence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Perhaps this opening is a move order in the Samisch where Black delays ...Nf6 and ...e5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastActivityDate="2020-08-10T03:23:53.507" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31756" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28983" CreationDate="2020-08-10T03:25:21.007" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, The Bogo-indian is not a forced loss in this line. Black has only played badly, thus resulting in a White advantage. If Black had played more accurately, the game would be equal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastActivityDate="2020-08-10T03:25:21.007" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31759" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16535" CreationDate="2020-08-10T07:50:54.673" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe the main reason it isn't popular at high level is that there are so many viable defences against it, on top of a good practical way for black to avoid it completely. It's just not &lt;em&gt;practical&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most players will reply 1.e4 c5 2.d4 cxd4 3.c3 Nf6 (and then 4.e5 Nd5), transposing to the most popular reply to 2.c3, 1.e4 c5 2.c3 Nf6 3.e5 Nd5 4.c3 cxd4 5.cxd4 et cetera. Since they have to study that anyway (2.c3 is much more popular than 2.d4), they get this reply to the Morra &amp;quot;for free&amp;quot; and don't have to do more work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But &lt;em&gt;White&lt;/em&gt; playing the Morra has to know how to reply to all sorts of Morra defences, many of which are good. Just for the case that someone did put in the work and prepared one of them in detail.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;IM Esserman really wants to play this line, and he did put in all that work. His book had great reviews and he had many brilliant wins over strong players. Maybe he is right and there is in fact nothing wrong with the line in a chess sense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But then the practical implication is still that White has to do a lot of work, and black can just play 3...Nf6 to transpose to a line he already needs to know. That's not what strong players are looking for.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2020-08-10T07:50:54.673" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31760" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31735" CreationDate="2020-08-10T07:59:33.477" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The highlighted &amp;quot;Qc8#&amp;quot; in your screenshot means, I think, that the displayed move is not the one you made but Qc8# (&lt;a href=&quot;//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algebraic_notation_(chess)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;which means&lt;/a&gt; that the queen moves to the c8 square, effecting checkmate). You probably made a different move which is not shown in your screenshot.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="204" LastActivityDate="2020-08-10T07:59:33.477" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31761" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23028" CreationDate="2020-08-10T22:31:27.807" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is a demonstrative game to show how you should deal with a 'queen raid'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1. e4 e5 2. Qh5 Nc6 3. Bc4 g6 4. Qf3 Nf6 5. Qb3 Nd4 6. Bxf7+ Ke7 7. Qc4 b5 8. Qc3 Kxf7 9. h3 Bb4 10. Qg3 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Gain tempo by attacking the queen, and attempt to launch a quick attack. c2 and f2 are spots to target.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastActivityDate="2020-08-10T22:31:27.807" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31762" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31764" CreationDate="2020-08-11T00:16:53.610" Score="0" ViewCount="207" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Latvian gambit:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;e4 e5 2. Nf3 f5!?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;leads to a sort of King's gambit reversed. I've had a large winning percentage for this opening as Black in club games. Would this opening be good for a 1500-Fide level tournament?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2020-09-15T08:21:10.897" LastActivityDate="2020-09-15T08:21:10.897" Title="Latvian Gambit recommendations" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;latvian-gambit&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31763" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31762" CreationDate="2020-08-11T01:06:19.747" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm assuming you're asking if this would be good for Black to play. If so then it seems fine for a 1500ish level. However, if your opponent is specifically prepared before the game (e.g., with engines and/or a coach), then you might run into some trouble.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You could incorporate this gambit into your repertoire, but I'd recommend playing other lines too, in order to make it harder for opponents to potentially prep for you. If you alternate between 5 lines and this is one of them, it becomes that much harder for people to be ready for you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2020-08-11T01:06:19.747" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31764" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31762" CreationDate="2020-08-11T02:19:02.830" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, I believe so.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The key point here is this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've had a large winning percentage for this opening as Black in club&#xA;games&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Play what you know best, and are most comfortable with, and at 1500 FIDE Latvian Gambit is sound enough; this is is probably true even at 2000 FIDE if not higher.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I took a look at some statistics on Latvian Gambit at lichess.org database&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Masters:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/W6Udg.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/W6Udg.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All Lichess.org users:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Bhk2q.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Bhk2q.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The results indicate that Latvian Gambit is very questionable on Masters level, but at lower levels has good practical results.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="307" LastEditorUserId="307" LastEditDate="2020-08-11T21:09:41.093" LastActivityDate="2020-08-11T21:09:41.093" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31765" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31767" CreationDate="2020-08-11T02:48:11.253" Score="28" ViewCount="6611" Body="&lt;p&gt;I often hear chess experts and chess articles say that when opposite side castling occurs on the board that it is important to launch an attack on the enemy player as fast as possible. Up to the point where giving up a couple pawns or a piece could be justified.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In other words, it seems like castling opposite sides changes the dynamic of the game. How much this change is I'm not sure of. So here is my question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is opposite side castling significant enough that a chess engine should think about such positions differently from how it would normally?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, a chess engine could lower the importance of material and up the importance of king safety in its evaluation when opposite castling occurs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24057" LastEditorUserId="15997" LastEditDate="2020-08-12T22:27:11.923" LastActivityDate="2020-08-14T13:16:47.317" Title="Should a chess engine be aware of opposite-side castling?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;castling&gt;&lt;evaluation&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31766" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31765" CreationDate="2020-08-11T03:05:14.487" Score="16" Body="&lt;p&gt;Interesting question. I think it depends on how much bottom-up intelligence the engine has. For example, AlphaZero was given no explicit heuristics, but was able to infer plenty of strategy by playing itself millions of times and learning that way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An engine with explicit heuristics can also exhibit additional strategies you didn't program into it. As a non-chess example, I've programmed a Connect Four engine with a number of heuristics. Using these and its search algorithm, it then tended to favour clumping pieces together in the centre when given the opportunity. While you might argue the engine doesn't necessarily &amp;quot;understand&amp;quot; this bottom up behaviour it's doing here (does a program really understand anything it does?), it's still playing so that for all intents and purposes, it values clumping pieces in the centre.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my opinion, if a chess engine is able to infer some heuristic A (or behave &lt;em&gt;as if&lt;/em&gt; it understands this heuristic, even if it's just bottom-up behaviour), given a set of explicit heuristics X, then the question comes down to whether you can describe A better than the engine would understand it on its own. If you're making your own chess engine then I think it's best to make some explicit heuristic for opposite-side castling. For the top engines though I'm not sure whether or not they do this, for the reasons discussed. It might be hard to understand the raised importance of king safety without calculating far ahead and seeing pawn storms happen, so it's reasonable to think these engines would have something given to them about opposite-side castling.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastEditorUserId="12873" LastEditDate="2020-08-13T20:20:14.963" LastActivityDate="2020-08-13T20:20:14.963" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31767" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31765" CreationDate="2020-08-11T04:12:28.540" Score="37" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm pretty sure Stockfish doesn't have explicit code that handles opposite-side castling. What it does have is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Some kind of &amp;quot;menace&amp;quot; score for enemy pawns advancing against our king. The closer they get, the more dangerous Stockfish thinks they are.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Some kind of &amp;quot;pawn shield&amp;quot; score for friendly pawns in front of our king. The fewer there are, the more dangerous Stockfish thinks the position is.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore you get kind of a balancing act: if we castle on the same side, then we could advance our pawns against their king (getting the &amp;quot;menace bonus&amp;quot;), but it would reduce our pawn shield (and therefore losing the &amp;quot;pawn shield bonus&amp;quot;). The converse does not hold in opposite side castling, which therefore encourages the engine to push pawns against the enemy king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, the details are more complicated than this, but that's the gist.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastActivityDate="2020-08-11T04:12:28.540" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31768" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30167" CreationDate="2020-08-11T04:25:15.313" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You could use Python and code it to sift through Capablanca or Kasparov games. When there is a position where the queens oppose in the center, make the program put it to the side. Then, you can look through the games until you find the one you want.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you don't know how to use Python, you could get someone else to help you, or to get a program with the same function from online.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastActivityDate="2020-08-11T04:25:15.313" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31769" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31762" CreationDate="2020-08-11T04:33:36.337" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;It might barely be playable at 1500 FIDE. However, as others pointed out, if someone prepares for you, then you will be in big trouble.&#xA;My recommendation to to avoid playing this gambit at all costs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm around ~2170 USCF, and my main repertoire is non traditional(morra gambit, kings gambit, alekhine, dutch....). This is coming from someone who's played many gambits over the years.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I tried earnestly to incorporate the Latvian gambit as some sort of surprise weapon. It is just unplayable. Even when my opponents were significantly weaker than me and obviously didn't know what was going on in the opening, they usually get an edge, and it could be a big one too. If they happen to have studied the latvian, then you are pretty toast. I don't even recommend it for blitz.&#xA;This is just my anecdote, but it's clear to me that for strong chess players the latvian is not sound, and it is not hard for white to deal with.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3872" LastEditorUserId="14079" LastEditDate="2020-08-12T07:47:09.853" LastActivityDate="2020-08-12T07:47:09.853" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31770" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31771" CreationDate="2020-08-11T06:44:37.247" Score="4" ViewCount="966" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;rq6/p1k4p/2n2p2/1p1p2b1/pP1P2Q1/P1B3N1/6PP/3R3K b - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;[startflipped &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I felt like I had a pretty decent position but I love exchanging pieces. So after a few moves, the queens were off the board and unfortunately the match ended in a draw. What was the correct procedure to win this position?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21840" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-12-13T18:16:28.830" LastActivityDate="2020-12-13T18:16:28.830" Title="How to win in this position with White" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31771" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31770" CreationDate="2020-08-11T07:14:47.700" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;If your opponent's pieces aren't well positioned and/or their king is in danger, it's important to refrain from exchanging pieces (generally). The reason is that each of your pieces has a higher relative value than their opposites. They tend to control more space, or have more opportunities to prove dangerous to the enemy king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Assuming it's White to move (even though it was Black to move in the game), a good choice would be 1.Nf5, at which point SF 11 gives over a +6 evaluation. Here you can aim to trap the g5-bishop with h4. If 1...Kb7 or 1...Kb6 is played, enabling ...Bf4 (due to the Black queen's protection), you could further control the f4-square with 2.Rf1. Now it looks like Black is unable to save the bishop from h4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An alternative 2nd move is 2.Qf3, preparing to take on d5 and get dangerously close to Black's king. If this happens, the queen and knight could end up conducting a decisive attack together. The fine point is that if Black protects the pawn with 2...Qg8/2...Qd8, f4 is no longer contested so 3.h4 wins the g5-bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT - so it's actually Black to move in the position. White's general plan is still similar: going after the g5-bishop. Nf5 could be played soon (maybe on the next move). Black could try exchanging queens via ...Qe8-...Qe4, but then after doing so White could play g3, keeping the g5-bishop from escaping via f4. Another idea is 1...Qf8, when after 2.Nf5 Black might play ...Bh6 if needed. But now White could dramatically activate the c3-bishop with Be1-Bg3+. Pushing a4 is another idea, further increasing the pressure on Black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastEditorUserId="12873" LastEditDate="2020-08-11T10:01:38.070" LastActivityDate="2020-08-11T10:01:38.070" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31773" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31735" CreationDate="2020-08-11T08:08:06.797" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;While everyone is correct here in assuring you this is a checkmate and the tool is wrong , I am not seeing them explaining how you could verify this and since you are learning this might be useful to you:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The black king is indeed in check by the white queen as the white queen can move anywhere on row eight&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The black king does not have any moves where it would not be in check. It has five possible moves, two to the row eight which , as we just noted, are covered by the white queen and three to the row seven all of which are covered by the white king.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example moving the queen to D7 or D8 would not be a checkmate. Can you figure out why in each case? The reasons are different.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24425" LastActivityDate="2020-08-11T08:08:06.797" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31774" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31770" CreationDate="2020-08-11T09:31:51.137" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;Better structure, safer king, and more active pieces. White's advantage is huge.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How to proceed from here? Assuming there is no immediate tactics, the right questions to ask yourself in such a position are: &amp;quot;Which of my pieces are doing nothing? Where would my pieces be the most effective?&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this case, your queen is very active and your knight is ready to jump to f5. Bc3 and Rd1, however, do nothing but protect a pawn (that Black might not be able to take anyway). Where do they want to go? Open files and diagonals. The most obvious plan then is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Nf5 : to a strong outpost in front of the isolated pawn.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Be1-g3 : to a great open diagonal heading towards black's king.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;h2-h3 (or even better h2-h4 kicking the black bishop out of its post): securing your king against back rank tricks.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Re1 (or Rd1-d3-c3) : to an open file.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After these easy 5 or 6 moves, I would be surprised if Black will hold their position together. But even if no decisive tactics appears then, you will find new prospects for your active pieces (rook or queen to the 7th rank maybe) that Black defensive measures will have opened for you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastEditorUserId="14079" LastEditDate="2020-11-04T09:16:34.930" LastActivityDate="2020-11-04T09:16:34.930" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31775" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31675" CreationDate="2020-08-11T09:53:28.727" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/@/Illion&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;decently strong atomic player&lt;/a&gt; fairly connected with the atomic community including the strongest players, I feel I can answer this one. The short answer is: &lt;strong&gt;white probably wins, but there is no weak solution nor does it currently seem achievable to find one&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Outcome?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The current consensus among the strongest players and opening theoreticians is that White wins, but as of yet there is no public and/or convincing and exhaustive proof. Opinions differ on whether many different openings and lines are winning or drawn; however there tends to be agreement that the lines after &lt;code&gt;1. Nf3 f6 2. Nc3 Nh6 3. g4&lt;/code&gt; (the &lt;em&gt;first&lt;/em&gt; tabiyas in this rabbit hole would be after &lt;code&gt;3...c6 4. d4 e6 5. e4 f5 6. Nh4 or exf5&lt;/code&gt; with many sideline branches on black's 2nd, 4th and 5th moves) give no hope for black &lt;em&gt;if&lt;/em&gt; white plays perfectly (and by &amp;quot;perfectly&amp;quot;, that tends to be 20+ move deep, widely branching theory in complicated middlegames, leading to nontrivial endgames). That said, from a practical point of view, these are also not easy to meet as black at high levels.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This, however, does not constitute a weak solution. We do not have an exhaustive (or even very aggressively pruned) game tree that leads to white wins everywhere. All we have is a lot of opening theory where both sides play sensible moves and where with precise play by white, just about everything leads to what seem to be winning white endgames. &lt;strong&gt;The branching factor for plausible moves appears to be too high for a weak solution to be within reach&lt;/strong&gt;, though -- in addition, the endpoint endgames themselves may not be easy to evaluate for humans, and not for engines either.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;A word on engines&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The modern engine for atomic analysis is Stockfish 9, but using the 2018 or earlier builds, as more recent builds seem to give pruning issues leading to outright blunders and misevaluations in certain cases. Other engines exist like Atomkraft (an older engine), and offer different but also strong opinions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A major shortfall of atomic engines in general, though, is their endgame knowledge is poor. One commonly-occurring situation is a pawn endgame where one side is up a whole bishop, yet cannot win because the bishop cannot take an enemy pawn, nor can passed pawns be created. This is known as &amp;quot;pawnitisation&amp;quot; (common enough to have a name since more than a decade ago!) and engines cannot detect this reliably, often giving a +3 to +4 evaluation to draws. They also, due to the horizon effect, tend to misevaluate simple endgames where one side is up two pawns for minor (yes, &lt;em&gt;up&lt;/em&gt;) with rooks on the board, which is winning in general but can take many moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While 6-man tablebases exist for atomic, these do not solve the problem; many of these endgames have more than six units on the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This leads to the issue that &lt;strong&gt;engines, despite being stronger than humans&lt;/strong&gt; (still not completely invincible though!), &lt;strong&gt;may not be fully relied on to accurately evaluate a position&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Conclusion&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An engine-only &amp;quot;solution&amp;quot; of atomic would be met by skepticism due to their inability to accurately judge a fair number of endgames. In fact, even an engine-assisted weak solution would seem unattainable, also because of the high branching factor of plausible moves, and high depths (think at least 40+, probably more than 60+) needed for reliability.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15989" LastActivityDate="2020-08-11T09:53:28.727" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31776" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30167" CreationDate="2020-08-11T15:36:16.963" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_Query_Language&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess Query Language&lt;/a&gt; is a tool you can use to search for games like these in your database of games of choice. It shouldn't be too hard to do this- certainly easier than the (good!) suggestion of Python by others&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23100" LastActivityDate="2020-08-11T15:36:16.963" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31777" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-08-11T17:45:53.773" Score="6" ViewCount="710" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm currently making my first serious attempt to read a chess book. While I can generally follow and evaluate variations mentally if I can at least see the starting position in some diagram, I struggle after the variations continue beyond the page and I can no longer see a diagram from which the variation departed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can copy the diagram on a board or simply on my computer (and do not move the pieces), but I wonder whether I should. On the one hand, being forced to remember and visualize the diagram trains my visualization skill. On the other hand, I catch myself flipping the page quite a few times and I wonder if this distraction is worth the trouble. I certainly don't intend to play blindfold, so I will always have &lt;em&gt;some&lt;/em&gt; chess position in front of me when I need it, at least.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now that I think about it, I'm not even sure whether it is good that I do not play the variations out on a board or computer diagram: I might miss things that the book doesn't want to spend time on, or spend too much effort on skills I should not be training. I have no clue, really.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How can I determine what would work for me here? Are there any texts out there that cover this issue? The book itself doesn't give much suggestions on how to read the variations beyond thinking on your own before reading the suggestions in the book, which I do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/16721/how-are-chess-variations-meant-to-be-read&quot;&gt;This question&lt;/a&gt; is related, but I'm not really looking for what is &lt;em&gt;common&lt;/em&gt;, I am looking how I can determine what is &lt;em&gt;good for me&lt;/em&gt;, or what chess teachers believe is a didactically effective approach. (based on reasoning or experience)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16001" LastActivityDate="2020-08-11T18:11:03.923" Title="How much should I rely on an external board or diagram when reading a chess book?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;books&gt;&lt;visualization&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31778" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31777" CreationDate="2020-08-11T18:11:03.923" Score="8" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can copy the diagram on a board or simply on my computer (and do not&#xA;move the pieces), but I wonder whether I should.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is very much worth while setting up a board and following the game on the board. But you should go beyond just passively playing out the moves on the board. You should stop after each move and actively consider what you would play next for each side. That will benefit you much more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is also the aspect of involving more of your 5 senses as I say in &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/29304/getting-better-at-otb-chess/29305#29305&quot;&gt;this answer&lt;/a&gt; to a different question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-08-11T18:11:03.923" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31779" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31762" CreationDate="2020-08-11T21:49:15.237" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Absolutely. You can. Even if your opponent plays well and gets an edge, at the levels we are discussing that won't be decisive. But the question is &amp;quot;why?&amp;quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you enjoy or feel comfortable with that particular type of position, and it will make you have a nice time playing the kind of chess that you like, then sure. Go for it!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If your choice is based on results only, then is the Latvian really the best you can do? Of course it's a nice surprise weapon and you can use it against the type of player that will have a hard time against it, but I bet the time you need to have a decent knowledge of the Latvian gambit would be better invested in something like the French (not only in the short term due to the objective advantages but also in the long term as your chess will improve)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastActivityDate="2020-08-11T21:49:15.237" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31780" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31781" CreationDate="2020-08-11T22:30:34.827" Score="2" ViewCount="361" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've once saw a joke chess study about castling vertically. However, I have forgotten who has composed it. I remember that in the positions, all the pawns were locked, but not much else. Does anybody know who was the composer of this problem?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastEditorUserId="4399" LastEditDate="2021-01-20T17:43:51.590" LastActivityDate="2021-01-20T17:43:51.590" Title="Castling vertically problem" Tags="&lt;problems&gt;&lt;castling&gt;&lt;puzzles&gt;&lt;identify-this&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31781" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31780" CreationDate="2020-08-11T22:54:43.397" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe this is the position with White to mate in 3:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;8/8/4P3/3p4/2p3p1/1pP1kPPp/1P5P/R3K2R w KQkq - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tim Krabbé and Max Pam exploited a loophole in the rules when they composed this problem in 1972.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are 3 variations depending on Black's responses with the third variation being vertical castling.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;1.e7 Kd3 2.e8=R gxf3 3.0-0-0#.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;1.e7 Kxf3 2.e8=R d4 3.0-0#.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;1.e7 Kxf3 2.e8=R Kg2 3.0-0-0-0#!.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-12T02:21:11.653" LastActivityDate="2020-08-12T02:21:11.653" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31782" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31754" CreationDate="2020-08-12T01:26:12.300" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Answers to your question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this picture correct?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You got it exactly right. It's exactly that- ab search with NN eval.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If so, how is the NNUE being trained? Is it only being trained on Stockfish games, or does it also utilize games by other engines?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically, it's given a bunch of positions and the SF eval at a certain depth, and is trained from that data. I'm not sure where the positions come from but I believe SF self-play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If NNUE is being trained on Stockfish games, does that mean Stockfish's original handwritten eval will continue to be tested and improved on? Or will Stockfish NNUE be trained on Stockfish NNUE games in the future (i.e. the handwritten eval is now obsolete and will not be developed anymore)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yeah, handwritten eval will continue to be worked on. It's also worth noting that SF (the one after the merge) technically uses its old eval in certain types of positions- sadly I can't go into more detail since it's constantly changing with new elo-gaining patches, but as I understand it, classical eval is meant to be used in &amp;quot;messier&amp;quot; positions, while NNUE is used in quieter positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does this mean Stockfish's update process will now take longer? In the sense that for every new patch, a new NNUE would need to be trained, and then the new patch + new network plays against the old patch + old network?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nope, patches should come at the same speed (currently they're coming at a much faster rate due to obvious improvements being all over, like, I  go to sleep, I wake up, already several patches gaining elo....). As I understand, there'd be no need for a new NNUE.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23100" LastActivityDate="2020-08-12T01:26:12.300" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31783" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31798" CreationDate="2020-08-12T02:58:49.250" Score="0" ViewCount="106" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the King's gambit, a strong opponent has played against me(as black):&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.f4 exf4 3.Bc4 h6(trying to hold onto the f-pawn).&#xA;I have found a variation where White probably has a strong initiative, but he still insists that Black is fine and is slightly better.&#xA;4.d4 g5 5.h4 Bg7 5.hxg5 hxg5 6.Rxh8 Bxh8 7.Qh5&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have stopped my analysis here, since Black has a refutation 7... Qf6. I put this position into the engine, which gives White a large advantage, but Black has an extra pawn. Where did I go wrong?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-17T15:15:33.913" LastActivityDate="2020-08-17T15:15:33.913" Title="King's gambit line refutation" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;kings-gambit&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2020-08-17T15:18:50.590" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31784" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5265" CreationDate="2020-08-12T03:00:44.077" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;White clearly has to move the knight. We see that White has 3 options:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Ng5&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Nd2&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Ng1&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first option clearly doesn't work, as ...f6 traps the knight and wins material.&#xA;The second option is not so good as it blocks the c1-bishop and impedes further development. The only option left is Ng1. This undevelops a piece, but Black doesn't have any development either!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastActivityDate="2020-08-12T03:00:44.077" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31785" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31735" CreationDate="2020-08-12T03:03:55.380" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, I have used Chess24 once, and it does have some problems. On Chess24 lessons, it has only one fixed solution, where there are many equally good lines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastActivityDate="2020-08-12T03:03:55.380" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31786" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23185" CreationDate="2020-08-12T03:05:34.377" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The position is a draw if and ONLY IF White plays 5. Nf3 again, with the same position repeated 3 times with all the same conditions. However, if any other move is played, the game continues.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastActivityDate="2020-08-12T03:05:34.377" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31787" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17550" CreationDate="2020-08-12T03:15:40.137" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is the problem with playing Black. You must find a completely new opening against 1.d4. Here is a plan for learning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Learn a reply to 1.e4(Sicilian)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Learn a reply to 1.d4. You can try the Queen's gambit as a safe opening choice.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Learn a system(like London system, King's Indian setup...)so that you can play against irregular defences or openings.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have not mentioned to play openings for White, since you do not need to know an opening. A system can be played for both sides.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastActivityDate="2020-08-12T03:15:40.137" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31788" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13677" CreationDate="2020-08-12T03:17:34.543" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, you cannot play the Borg against d4. I believe that you should, if you want something exciting, to play the Benoni defence, Dutch defence, King's Indian defence, or the Albin Counter Gambit(depends on what White plays).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastActivityDate="2020-08-12T03:17:34.543" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31789" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31793" CreationDate="2020-08-12T04:07:17.120" Score="1" ViewCount="188" Body="&lt;p&gt;Club opponents frequently play the French Defence again me, and I have trouble countering it with the Advance variation, since  Black gets active pieces. Is there another good variation that avoids the Winawer, while giving White less problems?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-17T15:15:46.560" LastActivityDate="2020-08-17T15:15:46.560" Title="How to play the French as White" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;french-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31790" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30538" CreationDate="2020-08-12T04:28:16.350" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You've got to be able to instinctively know how to play a position for blitz/bullet chess. You don't have time to ponder over tactics, so you should be able to do those things instinctively(you can check your move with calculations in rapid chess, and if you have time in blitz).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastActivityDate="2020-08-12T04:28:16.350" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31791" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22076" CreationDate="2020-08-12T04:30:34.220" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's a Saemisch variation for White, but White has an extra tempo. Perhaps White will be able to build a big center before Black can target the c4-pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastActivityDate="2020-08-12T04:30:34.220" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31792" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31765" CreationDate="2020-08-12T06:18:56.120" Score="5" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is opposite side castling significant enough that a chess engine should think about such positions differently from how it would normally?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure your question makes sense. Obviously, a chess engine should take into account the game state. Opposite side castling is part of the game state. So obviously it should influence the evaluation. But what does it mean to &amp;quot;think about such positions differently from how it would normally?&amp;quot; Like, the engine does a &amp;quot;general&amp;quot; evaluation that doesn't take into account opposite side castling, and then &amp;quot;adds in&amp;quot; a factor that takes into account opposite side castling? What would that mean? That there's been opposite side castling is part of the position. What would it mean to to evaluate the position except for the fact that there's been opposite side castling? I guess if your basic analysis just looks at material strength, and doesn't look at position, then adding in opposite side castling could be useful, but any engine advanced enough to be at all competitive is already going to be deeply positional.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15221" LastActivityDate="2020-08-12T06:18:56.120" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31793" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31789" CreationDate="2020-08-12T07:52:14.437" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your best bet is to play the Exchange Variation with 3. ed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. exd5 exd5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes, white's advantage after this is very small but you will get a more open game which is probably not what your opponent was hoping for. It has a bit of a dull, boring reputation because one line is symmetrical but there is lots of scope for both players to play more adventurously by breaking the symmetry. The tactics just take a bit longer to build.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-08-12T07:52:14.437" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31794" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31906" CreationDate="2020-08-12T09:57:03.190" Score="1" ViewCount="210" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've got an important tournament game coming up, and I will be playing Black. I will play the Scandinavian if White plays 1.e4, but I won't be able to unbalance the game properly after 1.d4, except if I play the Benoni(Old Benoni cuts out all transpositions). I don't like the Czech Benoni, where the break f7-f5 weakens my kingside.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a line for Black in the Benoni that is tactical, sound, and stops White from getting a large center?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastActivityDate="2020-08-21T10:08:56.483" Title="Benoni Theory Help" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;preparation&gt;&lt;benoni&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31795" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31731" CreationDate="2020-08-12T22:16:38.307" Score="1" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Do not exchange pieces, since this will bring White close to a winning endgame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Use your two bishops and open up the board, so that you get a better middlegame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Put your doubled pawns into action.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastActivityDate="2020-08-12T22:16:38.307" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31796" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26700" CreationDate="2020-08-12T22:19:32.770" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your strategy was good. The best idea would be to stalemate White's king, and then to wait for White to lose a pawn by force. Then, you promote and checkmate Black's king easily.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastActivityDate="2020-08-12T22:19:32.770" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31797" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25202" CreationDate="2020-08-12T22:25:52.610" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the Advance French, you are already down development. You can't waste time with 5.f4, which gives Black a large initiative with ...Qb6. Thus, the best move is Nf3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastActivityDate="2020-08-12T22:25:52.610" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31798" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31783" CreationDate="2020-08-12T22:56:53.807" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;So I'm not sure if you're asking where you went wrong analyzing this line for Black (because of the large advantage the engine gives to White) or for White (because you think Black being up a pawn is important).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you mean analyzing for Black, 4...g5 is a poor move (3...h6 is also not great, although Black still seems alright). There are a few better moves, such as 4...d5. The point is to meet 5.Bxd5 with 5...Nf6, and 5.exd5 with 5...Bd6. Probably a more challenging try for White would have been 4.Nc3, aiming to prevent ...d5. Coming back to Black's point of view, by the time 6.hxg5 is played White already has a clear edge. But still a better response would have been 6...Nc6 or 6...d5; 6...hxg5 gives White a winning position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you mean analyzing for White, the only arguable improvement in your analysis is 4.Nc3 instead of 4.d4. By the final position after 8...Qf6, the engine gives White a huge advantage - the lost pawn is irrelevant. White could follow up with Nc3, Nf3, e5, etc, enjoying an overwhelming initiative. Reaching this position is a disaster for Black, and definitely not for White.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastEditorUserId="12873" LastEditDate="2020-08-17T00:46:35.403" LastActivityDate="2020-08-17T00:46:35.403" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31799" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12347" CreationDate="2020-08-12T23:09:19.857" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Hippo does not do well against a large pawn center, since White can rip up the position before Black castles. Also, White can trade off the g7-bishop and take advantage of the weaknesses caused on the f6-square for occupation with a piece.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you look at the engine evaluation of Black's position, then you can see that White has a large advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastActivityDate="2020-08-12T23:09:19.857" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31800" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31789" CreationDate="2020-08-12T23:12:13.523" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Three most common replies to the French are &lt;code&gt;3.Nc3&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;3.Nd2&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;3.e5&lt;/code&gt;, in your question you are ruling out &lt;code&gt;3.Nc3&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;3.e5&lt;/code&gt;, so &lt;code&gt;3.Nd2&lt;/code&gt;, the Tarrasch, seems like a natural suggestion, and it is less sharp than Winawer and if closing of the center happens it is on better terms for white than in Advance variation, so it might be worth a look. But if you want to avoid French structures in general, then by all means play the exchange variation that Brian Towers has suggested.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="307" LastActivityDate="2020-08-12T23:12:13.523" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31801" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29140" CreationDate="2020-08-13T00:32:42.183" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Since no one has managed to solve this problem entirely, here is the answer. Credit goes to @NoseKnowsAll and @Scrounged in the comments for identifying the mechanism White uses to force the reset. This answer merely shows how White can avoid a perpetual check by Black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Geir Sune Tallaksen Østmoe, MatPlus.net Forum 8/14/2013, White To Move&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;1K6/2p5/p5pr/q2k3n/P1pPp1rP/1pP1PpPR/1P3P1B/3N3N w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Kc8 Rh8+ 2. Kd7 Rh7+ 3. Ke8 Rh8+ 4. Kf7 Rh7+ 5. Kg8 Nf6+ 6. Kf8 Nd7+ 7. Ke8 Nf6+ 8. Kd8 Nh5 9. Bg1 Rh8+ 10. Kd7 Rh7+ 11. Ke8 Rh8+ 12. Kf7 Rh7+ 13. Kg8 Nf6+ 14. Kf8 Nd7+ 15. Ke8 Nf6+ 16. Kd8 Nh5 17. Rh2 Rh8+ 18. Kd7 Rh7+ 19. Ke8 Rh8+ 20. Kf7 Rh7+ 21. Kg8 Nf6+ 22. Kf8 Nd7+ 23. Ke8 Nf6+ 24. Kd8 Nh5 25. Rg2 Rh8+ 26. Kd7 Rh7+ 27. Ke8 Rh8+ 28. Kf7 Rh7+ 29. Kg8 Nf6+ 30. Kf8 Nd7+ 31. Ke8 Nf6+ 32. Kd8 Nh5 33. Bh2 Rh8+ 34. Kd7 Rh7+ 35. Ke8 Rh8+ 36. Kf7 Rh7+ 37. Kg8 Nf6+ 38. Kf8 Nd7+ 39. Ke8 Nf6+ 40. Kd8 Nh5 41. Rg1 Rh8+ 42. Kd7 Rh7+ 43. Ke8 Rh8+ 44. Kf7 Rh7+ 45. Kg8 Nf6+ 46. Kf8 Nd7+ 47. Ke8 Nf6+ 48. Kd8 Nh5 49. Re1 Rh8+ 50. Kd7 Rh7+ 51. Ke8 Rh8+ 52. Kf7 Rh7+ 53. Kg8 Nf6+ 54. Kf8 Nd7+ 55. Ke8 Nf6+ 56. Kd8 Nh5 57. Re2 Rh8+ 58. Kd7 Rh7+ 59. Ke8 Rh8+ 60. Kf7 Rh7+ 61. Kg8 Nf6+ 62. Kf8 Nd7+ 63. Ke8 Nf6+ 64. Kd8 Nh5 65. Rc2 Rh8+ 66. Kd7 Rh7+ 67. Ke8 Rh8+ 68. Kf7 Rh7+ 69. Kg8 Nf6+ 70. Kf8 Nd7+ 71. Ke8 Nf6+ 72. Kd8 Nh5 73. Rc1 Rh8+ 74. Kd7 Rh7+ 75. Ke8 Rh8+ 76. Kf7 Rh7+ 77. Kg8 Nf6+ 78. Kf8 Nd7+ 79. Ke8 Nf6+ 80. Kd8 Nh5 81. Ra1 Rh8+ 82. Kd7 Rh7+ 83. Ke8 Rh8+ 84. Kf7 Rh7+ 85. Kg8 Nf6+ 86. Kf8 Nd7+ 87. Ke8 Nf6+ 88. Kd8 Nh5 89. Ra3 Rh8+ 90. Kd7 Rh7+ 91. Ke8 Rh8+ 92. Kf7 Rh7+ 93. Kg8 Nf6+ 94. Kf8 Nd7+ 95. Ke8 Nf6+ 96. Kd8 Rh8+ 97. Ke7 Ng8+ 98. Kf7 Nh6+ 99. Kg7 Rg8+ 100. Kxh6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-11-29T19:49:48.420" LastActivityDate="2020-11-29T19:49:48.420" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31802" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14885" CreationDate="2020-08-13T02:20:01.997" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;White doubles Black's pawns in order to enter a winning endgame  - White can create a passer, Black cannot. Thus, White's strategy could be to trade off all the pieces, before Black can put his pieces to work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastActivityDate="2020-08-13T02:20:01.997" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31803" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31805" CreationDate="2020-08-13T02:23:10.393" Score="20" ViewCount="3869" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am looking for the shortest stalemate that has occurred in a serious chess game (there were no agreements between the players). So far, I have found only compositions, but is there a real game where stalemate has happened within the first 30 moves?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-14T02:07:52.383" LastActivityDate="2021-05-02T19:17:36.863" Title="Shortest stalemate in serious tournament game" Tags="&lt;famous-players&gt;&lt;stalemate&gt;&lt;records&gt;&lt;famous-games&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31804" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29887" CreationDate="2020-08-13T02:24:37.603" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can use &amp;quot;Chess Query Language&amp;quot; for coding this, as it will be quicker to work with and easier to understand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastActivityDate="2020-08-13T02:24:37.603" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31805" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31803" CreationDate="2020-08-13T02:33:22.083" Score="41" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, there has been a stalemate in a serious game that is under 30 moves long. According to Tim Krabbe's &lt;a href=&quot;http://timkr.home.xs4all.nl/records/records.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&amp;quot;Chess Records,&amp;quot;&lt;/a&gt; the fastest such game happened in 27 moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Sibilio-Mariotti, Ravenna, 1982&amp;quot;]&#xA;[fen &amp;quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e6 2. Nf3 d5 3. e5 c5 4. b4 cxb4 5. d4 Nh6 6. a3 bxa3 7. c3 Nf5 8. Nxa3 Nc6 9. Nb5 a6 10. g4 Bd7 11. Bg5 Be7 12. gxf5 axb5 13. fxe6 fxe6 14. Rxa8 Qxa8 15. Rg1 Qa3 16. Bxb5 Bxg5 17. Rxg5 Qxc3+ 18. Kf1 O-O 19. Bxc6 Bxc6 20. Kg2 Ba4 21. Qe2 Bc2 22. Ne1 Bxe4+ 23. f3 Rxf3 24. Nxf3 Bxf3 25. Qxf3 Qd2+ 26. Kh3 Qxg5 27. Qf8+ Kxf8&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-05-02T19:17:36.863" LastActivityDate="2021-05-02T19:17:36.863" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31806" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19042" CreationDate="2020-08-13T04:06:45.093" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In openings, pawn structure is usually fluid; i.e., a closed diagonal might suddenly open up, and vice versa. A bishop may be blocked by pawn movements, so it must find a better diagonal. However, knights aren't affected by such - both side have same-strength knights. Thus, it is best to develop bishops only if the pawn structure is clarified(for example, in the exchange French).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastActivityDate="2020-08-13T04:06:45.093" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31807" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16322" CreationDate="2020-08-13T04:17:26.017" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is no definite answer, but the most likely place was the Middle East.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastActivityDate="2020-08-13T04:17:26.017" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31808" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29887" CreationDate="2020-08-13T06:19:10.643" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Shouldn't something like the folowing be good enough? (* stands for however you check that &lt;code&gt;potentialDefendingPiece&lt;/code&gt;can move to &lt;code&gt;piece&lt;/code&gt;'s square)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;for (piece in WhitePieces) {&#xA;  defended = false;&#xA;  for (potentialDefendingPiece in WhitePieces) {&#xA;    if(*)&#xA;     defended = true&#xA;  }&#xA;}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastActivityDate="2020-08-13T06:19:10.643" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31809" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="693" CreationDate="2020-08-13T08:58:25.937" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;My own web application works on mobile devices through a browser&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.apronus.com/chess/puzzles/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.apronus.com/chess/puzzles/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is a treasury of interactive chess puzzles rather than a step by step course.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3456" LastActivityDate="2020-08-13T08:58:25.937" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31810" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31765" CreationDate="2020-08-13T15:13:03.950" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd like to make explicit a point that's been hinted at by the existing answers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm from an AI, not specifically a chess, background. The usual approach to problems in games like this is to treat the game as a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markov_property&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Markov process&lt;/a&gt;: a system in which future states are (maybe probabilistically) determined entirely by the current state, with no need for an explicit &amp;quot;memory&amp;quot; of how one arrived at the current state. Everything there is to know is represented in the observed board state.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this context, a chess engine wouldn't need to be aware of any history at all. Maybe the players just randomly placed pieces on the board until they arrived at the current board state: the engine doesn't know or care if it was switched on mid-game or whatever, it doesn't rely on remembering anyone's past moves. This makes sense: suppose your engine &lt;em&gt;did&lt;/em&gt; pay extra attention to the fact that opposite-side castling occurred. How long should that matter for? Should we learn separate evaluations for &amp;quot;the pieces are here, and OSC occurred [1, 2, 5...] turns ago&amp;quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Humans playing human opponents may develop a model of opponent psychology: maybe you can tell your opponent's attention is fixated on a certain part of the board, or predict what they're planning based on their prior moves, their tempo, the decisiveness with which they handle the pieces. For a computer to consider this would require adding far too much extra uncertainty and supposition into a problem that's already really really hard just from the board state combinatorics--assuming you could even find a way to communicate those factors to the computer. And learning from it would mean learning &lt;em&gt;bad data about board position&lt;/em&gt;--because the computer would have to separate the learned model of its (individual) opponent's psychology from the learned evaluation of how good a particular board position is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Instead the computer plays like one of those chess masters who plays 15 different opponents at once: by ignoring the history of the game and just making moves based on where things are now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My guess is that the chess experts you're alluding to are giving a heuristic for evaluating board states. Now, it's possible to imagine an engine which looks at board states and classifies them according to various properties: &amp;quot;OSC has occurred,&amp;quot; &amp;quot;[I/my opponent] control[s] the center of the board,&amp;quot; etc., and then predicts moves based on those properties as &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feature_(machine_learning)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;features&lt;/a&gt; (to reduce the overwhelming combinatorial complexity of board states &amp;amp; capture some of their natural symmetries). You now have two learning problems: first, how to identify a board state that meets a given heuristic; and second, how to use that set of heuristics to determine how to play. This might have been interesting twenty years ago, but it looks like the state of the art is past that (although this is probably happening in some sense in &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_neural_network&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;neural network&lt;/a&gt;-based chess engines; but as is typical for neural networks, we humans don't recognize anything coherent in the features that are learned in the middle layers of the network.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24310" LastEditorUserId="24310" LastEditDate="2020-08-14T13:16:47.317" LastActivityDate="2020-08-14T13:16:47.317" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31811" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19042" CreationDate="2020-08-13T18:22:50.030" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I knew a very strong player whose advice was to develop Bishops before Knights and who successfully followed this principle himself. His justification was that you were more likely to get your opponent out of their book.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastActivityDate="2020-08-13T18:22:50.030" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31812" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-08-13T23:16:43.277" Score="3" ViewCount="199" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;1. e4 c6 2. Nc3 d5 3. Qe2 d4 4. Nd1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I find this variation very interesting and would like to know whether it has a name, is in some books, or maybe just annotated games. It is played mostly by Russian players: Aleksei Pridorozhni, Vadim Zvjaginsev, Semen Dvoirys are listed with the most games and very convincing scores.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15478" LastEditorUserId="15478" LastEditDate="2020-08-14T02:55:46.320" LastActivityDate="2020-09-06T19:19:08.917" Title="Looking for resources on a sideline of the Caro Kann, 1. e4 c6 2. Nc3 d5 3. Qe2" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;caro-kann&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31813" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31820" CreationDate="2020-08-14T01:37:30.407" Score="1" ViewCount="67" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am looking for a game played by Seirawan. I remember in the position that Black was heading for a Botvinnik formation(c5 and e5 but without d6 yet), and White had sacrificed a knight on e5 for an attack. I am 80% sure that Seirawan was Black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-08-14T05:16:42.940" LastActivityDate="2020-08-14T08:54:55.513" Title="Finding a Seirawan game" Tags="&lt;famous-games&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31814" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31819" CreationDate="2020-08-14T05:27:04.377" Score="-1" ViewCount="93" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the Bird's Defense Deferred in the Ruy Lopez(1.e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Ba4 Nd4), why can't White take the e5-pawn?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastEditorUserId="9025" LastEditDate="2020-08-17T17:34:22.047" LastActivityDate="2020-08-17T17:34:22.047" Title="Bird's Defense Deferred" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;ruy-lopez&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31815" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31816" CreationDate="2020-08-14T05:47:35.683" Score="0" ViewCount="73" Body="&lt;p&gt;Apparently, Stockfish on depth 22 states that the Canal Attack is the best opening after 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6. Is something wrong with Stockfish?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastEditorUserId="12873" LastEditDate="2020-08-14T08:42:19.260" LastActivityDate="2020-08-14T08:42:19.260" Title="Canal Attack Stockfish Indication" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31816" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31815" CreationDate="2020-08-14T06:08:19.483" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;First of all, stockfish and other chess engines don't have the best reputation of being good at openings, often misevaluating this particular phase of the game. Second of all, Canal attackis perfectly respectable opening. After e4 c5 Nf3 d6, at depth 30, I get&#xA;0.53 d4&#xA;0.44 Nc3&#xA;0.40 Bb5+(canal)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;with these three constantly changing positions at different depths. Just so happens that at depth 30, d4 was the most favored, but on 31, my engine switches to Nc3, for example. They are all perfectly reasonable moves, but its not like you can just turn on the engine and expect it give you a verdict about which of the three moves I mentioned are the best.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3872" LastActivityDate="2020-08-14T06:08:19.483" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31819" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31814" CreationDate="2020-08-14T08:40:23.793" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the case of 5.Nxe5 Qe7 6.f4 b5, Black will meet both 7.c3 and 7.Bb3? with 7...d6. E.g., 7.c3 d6 8.cxd4 dxe5 is apparently around equal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A better response for White is 5.Nxd4 exd4 6.0-0. This is an improved version (for White) of the Bird's Defense, since now ...c6 won't come with tempo. In the normal Bird's Defense with the bishop on b5, ...c6 was a key resource.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2020-08-14T08:40:23.793" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31820" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31813" CreationDate="2020-08-14T08:54:55.513" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Probably this one:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Site &amp;quot;it&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Date &amp;quot;1993.??.??&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Round &amp;quot;7&amp;quot;]&#xA;[White &amp;quot;Granda Zuniga Julio E PER&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Black &amp;quot;Seirawan, Yasser&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Result &amp;quot;1-0&amp;quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &amp;quot;2595&amp;quot;]&#xA;[ECO &amp;quot;A30h&amp;quot;]&#xA;[NIC &amp;quot;EO 40.6.2&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Nf3 Nf6 2.c4 c5 3.Nc3 e6 4.g3 b6 5.Bg2 Bb7 6.O-O Nc6 7.e4 e5 8.d3 g6 9.Nxe5 Nxe5 10.f4 Nc6 11.e5 Ng8 12.f5 Nh6 13.Ne4 Nxf5 14.Nf6+ Ke7 15.Nd5+ Ke8 16.Nf6+ Ke7 17.g4 Nfd4 18.Qe1 Qb8 19.Nd5+ Kd8 20.Bg5+ Kc8 21.Rxf7 Ne6 22.Bf6 Ncd8 23.Re7 Rg8 24.Re8 Bc6 25.Bxd8 Nxd8 26.Nf6 Rh8 27.Bxc6 dxc6 28.Qe4 Qc7 29.e6 Bg7 30.e7 Rxe8 31.Nxe8 Bd4+ 32.Kh1 Qd7 33.Nd6+ Qxd6 34.e8=Q a5 35.Rf1 Ra7 36.Rf8 Rd7 37.Q4e6 Qxe6 38.Qxe6 Kc7 39.Qe2 Bg7 40.Rf2 Bd4 41.Rf3 Nf7 42.Rf4 Nd6 43.Kg2 Nc8 44.b3 Re7 45.Re4 Rf7 46.Qe1 Rd7 47.Qg3+ Kb7 48.Re6 Bc3 49.Qf3 Nd6 50.Qf8 Nc8 51.Re8 Rc7 52.Rd8 Bg7 53.Qe8 Bf6 54.Rxc8 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2020-08-14T08:54:55.513" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31821" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-08-14T17:50:16.553" Score="2" ViewCount="711" Body="&lt;p&gt;An interesting new variant of chess has emerged, showing that chess will always be fresh-&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.chessbase.com/post/what-on-earth-is-5d-chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;5D chess&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I mostly play the 5x5 version, but the positions do not rocket out of control like in the standard 8x8.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Given its uncomplicated nature, with current computing power, could it be possible to solve this variant of chess?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14471" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-08-16T04:56:14.073" LastActivityDate="2020-12-31T20:05:13.970" Title="Can 5D chess be solved?" Tags="&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;game-complexity&gt;&lt;solving&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31822" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31821" CreationDate="2020-08-14T19:09:23.377" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Very doubtful. Even just 5v5 chess without introducing the time travel element was only &lt;a href=&quot;https://arxiv.org/abs/1307.7118&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;weakly solved in 2013&lt;/a&gt; The time element adds much more complexity and would make it much harder to deal with.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23100" LastActivityDate="2020-08-14T19:09:23.377" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31823" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31821" CreationDate="2020-08-14T23:57:11.300" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In theory, someone could create a computer program that could log every possible set of moves up to a certain amount of moves; however, it might take a great while to build and run such a program.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24458" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-12-31T20:05:13.970" LastActivityDate="2020-12-31T20:05:13.970" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31826" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-08-15T20:46:18.273" Score="3" ViewCount="140" Body="&lt;p&gt;Of the chess players who could reasonably be considered the best in the world in at least one year in history, how far back would you have to go before one of them would lose to a 2020 Candidate Master (or FM or IM) in a classical game? How would historical figures such as Steinitz or McDonnell or Ruy López fare against the different ranks of titled players?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Going back far enough, mileage on rules like castling or stalemate may vary. If you think it makes a difference which player's version of rules is used then give the answer both ways.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14329" LastEditorUserId="14329" LastEditDate="2020-08-15T22:20:54.863" LastActivityDate="2020-10-28T10:46:43.683" Title="Most recent &quot;best in world&quot; player who would be defeated by a CM" Tags="&lt;history&gt;&lt;famous-players&gt;&lt;titles&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="8" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31827" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31852" CreationDate="2020-08-15T23:43:55.640" Score="3" ViewCount="202" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've seen several references to a certain Kasparov quote that paraphrase the idea of the quote without giving the actual text of the quote, or indicating where he said it.  The idea is something like &amp;quot;if you simply point more pieces at the enemy king than the enemy has positioned for defense, then a successful attack is almost assured&amp;quot;.  Arithmetic is sometimes mentioned, in the sense that just having a greater number of pieces in a specific region of the board means you have the advantage in that region.  I'm looking for the exact quote, does the description ring any bells?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I notice multiple questions already about specific Kasparov quotes, probably in part because he's said and penned so many quotable things in his long career.  I've tried googling this one several different ways, but I've always come up empty.  It's not particularly easy to find one specific quote on how to attack, when Kasparov has written a great deal on world affairs, propaganda, and Vladimir Putin that turn up in the results if you search for Kasparov quotes on &amp;quot;attack&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23776" LastActivityDate="2020-08-18T21:46:44.380" Title="Kasparov quote on the simple math behind attacking" Tags="&lt;attack&gt;&lt;kasparov&gt;&lt;quotations&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31828" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-08-16T00:11:48.800" Score="5" ViewCount="94" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I was little (mid-late 90's) my mom taught me to play chess.  She had a book, which looked pretty old at the time (perhaps from the 70s but I could be off by a decade or more).  The book outlined the approach she used to teach me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As the first step, she taught me only about the pawns.  We played entire games with ONLY the pawns.  Each player had eight pawns set up on their second row (the same positions as in normal chess), and the pawns moved exactly as in chess, including capturing &lt;em&gt;en passant&lt;/em&gt; when legal.  The object of this game was to either get a pawn to the other side of the board, or to capture all the opponent's pieces.  This was a great game and a great introduction and was very easy to learn and remember.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My trouble is, I don't recall what the next step was.  It may have been to introduce rooks and play the same game but with rooks added.  That rings a bell, but I'm not sure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm now teaching my 7-year-old son to play chess, and I'd love to be able to use the same approach I learned with as I know it was successful although I don't remember the rest of the details of the gradual approach.  (My mother passed away a couple years ago so isn't available to ask about it.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does anyone recognize this approach?  Does it have a name?  Is there a book (either a well known book or an obscure one) that uses this method as the first step toward teaching chess to a beginner?  (The book may have been giving an approach specifically for teaching children, or just a general method of teaching chess, I'm not sure.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10513" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-08-16T22:41:49.873" LastActivityDate="2020-08-19T06:35:18.947" Title="What chess book or teaching approach is this from my childhood?" Tags="&lt;books&gt;&lt;teaching&gt;&lt;children&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31831" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31902" CreationDate="2020-08-16T05:22:38.547" Score="1" ViewCount="71" Body="&lt;p&gt;I remember seeing a Kasparov game, where Black played a classical bishop sacrifice. He was playing against a computer, and I'm pretty sure it was Deep Junior. I have tried to find this game, but it doesn't seem to be anywhere.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-21T12:08:34.303" LastActivityDate="2020-08-21T12:16:18.737" Title="Finding a Kasparov Game" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;famous-games&gt;&lt;kasparov&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31832" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30429" CreationDate="2020-08-16T08:51:04.657" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Checkers can in no means be related to Chess. CHECKERS HAS ALREADY BEEN SOLVED - i.e., there is an algorithm that can produce optimal moves from any position, and the algorithm states that the person with the first move wins with best play by both sides. So all a person has got to do is to memorise a few lines and walk up to a checkers tournament and immediately claim first place.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess is different in the fact that games still mostly end in wins/losses. There are still many aspects in chess which are unsolvable which keeps chess alive and enjoyable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastActivityDate="2020-08-16T08:51:04.657" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31833" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-08-16T10:36:01.587" Score="6" ViewCount="1961" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &amp;quot;the_meayhi vs. oxygen2020&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Site &amp;quot;Chess.com&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Date &amp;quot;2020-08-16&amp;quot;]&#xA;[White &amp;quot;the_meayhi&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Black &amp;quot;oxygen2020&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Result &amp;quot;1-0&amp;quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &amp;quot;810&amp;quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &amp;quot;1032&amp;quot;]&#xA;[TimeControl &amp;quot;blitz&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Termination &amp;quot;the_meayhi won by resignation&amp;quot;]&#xA;[fen &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. Bf4 c5 3. dxc5 e6 4. Bxb8 Rxb8 5. e3 Bxc5 6. Nc3 Ne7 7. Nf3 Bd6 8. Qd4 O-O 9. Bd3 a6 10. Qh4 g6 11. Ng5 h5 12. g4 Nf5 13. Bxf5 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Despite the result of the game, te chess.com engine says that White blundered. It also says that one player was winning and blundered it away. What do those mean?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/PUGh2.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/PUGh2.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;engine&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20092" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-16T18:39:50.193" LastActivityDate="2020-08-16T22:36:37.273" Title="Where is the blunder that White made?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31834" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30117" CreationDate="2020-08-16T10:37:12.173" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can search up Armageddon games on chessgames.com or any other database. Black always has drawing odds in those games, so there's bound to be games where black wins by getting stalemated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10134" LastActivityDate="2020-08-16T10:37:12.173" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31836" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31833" CreationDate="2020-08-16T15:24:26.770" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your last move &lt;strong&gt;13.Bxf5&lt;/strong&gt; leaves you with a much smaller advantage than &lt;strong&gt;13.gxf5&lt;/strong&gt;, that's what the engine is counting as a &amp;quot;blunder&amp;quot; (some of the previous moves have smaller mistakes, but none of them should be counted as &amp;quot;blunders&amp;quot;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastActivityDate="2020-08-16T15:24:26.770" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31837" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31833" CreationDate="2020-08-16T22:36:37.273" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;13.Bxf5?? is a blunder because 13.gxf5 wins a piece. In other words, by playing 13.gxf5! White has a winning game. When the computer detects a big change, like a change from an even or near even game to a winning/losing game, it considers the move that caused the change to be a blunder.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8673" LastActivityDate="2020-08-16T22:36:37.273" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31838" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31882" CreationDate="2020-08-16T22:53:58.187" Score="2" ViewCount="181" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've played the reversed Leningrad Dutch for some time, and I have the problem that when I play Nd2, Black forks my rook and queen on f6-&amp;gt;g4-&amp;gt;e3. I never get to push my e-pawn before Black forks me in some cases. Is there any solution to this problem?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is a sample line.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. f4 d5 2. Nf3 c5 3. g3 Nf6 4. Bg2 Nc6 5. O-O e6 6. d3 Bd6 7. Nbd2 Ng4 ( I have wasted a move on Nd2.)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastEditorUserId="2299" LastEditDate="2020-08-17T01:19:11.873" LastActivityDate="2020-08-19T16:20:00.617" Title="Bird's opening problems" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;knights&gt;&lt;birds-opening&gt;&lt;fork&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31839" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7880" CreationDate="2020-08-16T22:59:21.097" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Complete Bogo-Indian Defense by International Master Maxim Chetverik is a pretty good resource. Here is the link.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.newinchess.com/the-complete-bogo-indian-defense&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.newinchess.com/the-complete-bogo-indian-defense&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastActivityDate="2020-08-16T22:59:21.097" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31840" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31861" CreationDate="2020-08-16T23:15:55.480" Score="1" ViewCount="422" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've had a few looks at the Traxler counterattack before. It seems fine for Black, but somehow the engine (Stockfish) says that White has a +2.57 advantage after Nxf7, but not much advantage after Bxf7+. Why is this so, when this opening is accepted by masters?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2020-08-18T09:21:45.870" LastActivityDate="2020-08-18T10:27:42.790" Title="Traxler Counterattack" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;engines&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;traxler-counter-attack&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31841" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2060" CreationDate="2020-08-16T23:44:44.057" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I did not analyze with a computer and am just giving general strategic comments as a 2100 player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would consider 13.Qb5. There may be tactical reasons why Qc2 is preferable, but from a strategic point of view, you want to challenge Black's queen. Your arcane idea of playing Nh5 is tangential. In this position, what is important is the resolution of the tension in the center, not kingside attacks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;13...Qb6? was terrible because it allowed White to get a large space advantage on the queenside.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From a strategic standpoint 20.Qe2 was a wishy washy move. The obvious move was 20.Ng4 improving the position of the knight, White's worst piece. If 20...f5 21.f4 looks powerful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;23.f4 seems committal to me. Usually you want to save moves like that. Improve the position of your pieces before moving pawns. From that standpoint 23.Nd2 was logical.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your whole sequence starting with Qh5 was premature. John Curdo used to say &amp;quot;You need three pieces to attack.&amp;quot; As you saw Black can defend against the attack and has counterplay in the center. Sure, winning the pawn was good, but to my mind moves like 24.e4 would be much preferable. The problem is that you are going off on an adventure with your queen while your knights are on terrible squares. You need to improve those knights, that is the priority.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;33...Nb6 34.g4 Nxd5 35.Rxd5 Qxe3 36.Bxe8 Be6 and every Black piece is activated. Sure, White wins the exchange, but in a game with 5 minutes left on the clock I would definitely want to be playing Black. Black's plan is to gang up on the pinned knight (Bd4, Ra2).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The problem I see on both sides is failing to focus on the center and moving the same pieces over and over again to squares that are no better while leaving other pieces on bad squares.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8673" LastActivityDate="2020-08-16T23:44:44.057" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31842" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5112" CreationDate="2020-08-17T01:56:47.877" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preston_Ware&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Preston Ware&lt;/a&gt; is a 19th century American Chess master who played the Ware Opening/Meadow Hay Opening (1. a4) and the Corn Stalk Defence (1. e4 a5).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2020-08-17T09:09:36.763" LastActivityDate="2020-08-17T09:09:36.763" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31843" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2020-08-17T02:36:27.047" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Losing Chess is a chess variant in which the goal is for each side to lose all of their pieces. The player who runs out of pieces first, or is stalemated, wins. It also known by other names, such as Antichess, Suicide Chess, and Giveaway Chess. It was weakly solved as a win for White in October, 2016.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Losing_chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Losing_chess&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-09-14T02:21:02.443" LastActivityDate="2020-09-14T02:21:02.443" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31844" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2020-08-17T02:36:27.047" Score="0" Body="A chess variant in which the goal is for each side to lose all of their pieces. The player who runs out of pieces first, or is stalemated, wins. It also known by other names, such as Antichess, Suicide Chess, and Giveaway Chess. It was weakly solved as a win for White in October, 2016.&#xD;&#xA;&#xD;&#xA;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Losing_chess" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-17T02:36:27.047" LastActivityDate="2020-08-17T02:36:27.047" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31845" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31856" CreationDate="2020-08-17T03:06:29.517" Score="2" ViewCount="257" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was playing with the Black pieces online today, and faced a very strange opening:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d3 Nf6 4. Be2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I check the database, and it seems that 4...d5 is good for black but I didn't understand the strategy behind it at all. Here are a few moves from the database:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d3 Nf6 4. Be2 d5 5. Nbd2 Bc5 6. O-O O-O 7. c3 a5 8. Qc2 Re8 9. b3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't understand what Black is playing for here. Like what the plans are. I would really appreciate some feedback or references where I can read more about it. My understanding is that the Black pieces look like a position from an Italian opening. But I felt that the Italian plans don't work here tactically (like maneuvering Nc6-e7-g6).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm also open to other suggestions, such as playing 5...g6 (but I also didn't understand the plans behind it in this position).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23598" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-17T20:35:11.657" LastActivityDate="2020-08-21T06:14:51.170" Title="How to play against the inverted Philidor opening with Black" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;philidor-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31847" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9277" CreationDate="2020-08-17T07:22:53.730" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Apparently, Antichess has been proved to be a forced win for White with the line 1.e3. The slowest win is around 250 moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastActivityDate="2020-08-17T07:22:53.730" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31848" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31849" CreationDate="2020-08-17T08:56:37.763" Score="9" ViewCount="1985" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;rnb1kb1r/pp1pp2p/2p2ppn/q7/2BPP3/5N1P/PPPN1PP1/R1BQ1RK1 w kq - 3 8&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm a noob at chess, as I just started playing a week back. I played&#xA;as White here, and Stockfish recommended e5 as the next move. I understand the correct move for Black would be f5 after I play e5, but just in case black plays fxe5, I'd have to take that pawn with dxe5. So Black lost a side pawn in exchange for my center pawn and my pawn on d4 got stuck alone on e5 and will be easier to kill rather than a pawn chain. What am I missing here in this move being the strongest move at this position? It cannot be queened since d6/d7 is coming. What does this do apart from just threatening the Black pawn, from going d6/d7, and breaking black into 2 pawn islands?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24474" LastEditorUserId="24474" LastEditDate="2021-04-17T08:37:00.300" LastActivityDate="2021-04-17T09:15:03.283" Title="Why is e5 the strongest move here for white?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;pawns&gt;&lt;pawn-structure&gt;&lt;doubled-pawn&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31849" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31848" CreationDate="2020-08-17T09:40:09.323" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;You've given some good, very long-term reasons not to play e5. But in this position, dynamic considerations outweigh these long-term reasons.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Look again at the position: you have developed (if you have not encountered this term before, it means moving your pieces from their starting squares so they can participate in the game) two knights, a bishop, and castled. Your opponent has developed a queen and a knight, and hasn't castled. In other words, you are well ahead in development. It's for this reason Stockfish already says your position is very strong - SF 11 is giving +3 eval at depth 22.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A lead in development is usually a signal to attack - you have more pieces that can attack than your opponent can defend. Therefore you want to attack in this position. You want open lines so your major pieces can infiltrate, and you definitely want to do this before your opponent completes their development and castles. e5 does that. Follow what Stockfish gives as the principal variation after e5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &amp;quot;rnb1kb1r/pp1pp2p/2p2ppn/q7/2BPP3/5N1P/PPPN1PP1/R1BQ1RK1 w kq - 3 8&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e5 f5 {You also mention 1...fxe5, but this move would be even worse since after 2.dxe5 White can now play Ne4-d6+. If Black plays ...exd6 then the King would be on an open file and perish quickly, but if Black plays ...Kd8, Bxh6 followed by Nf7+ still wins material. Stockfish even wants to play 2.b4 Qxb4 3. Rb1, sacrificing a pawn to develop even faster, illustrating how much attacking potential White has.} 2. Bb3 {Threatening Nc4-d6 with the same plan as the analysis in the previous move. Note White can also play on the kingside with Ng5 or in the center with Re1 intending e6.} Nf7 3. Nc4 Qd8 {&amp;quot;Undeveloping&amp;quot; the Queen. Black could play ...Qc7 but at this point Black needs first and foremost to guard against White's attack. Still, having to undevelop the Queen shows just how awful Black's position is.} 4. Ng5 {Knight's defended by the c1-Bishop.} e6 {Or what? White threatens Nc4-d6+. If Black plays ...Nxd6, then exd6 would threaten both Bf7# and Nf7 winning material. 4...Nxg5? Bxg5 simply threatens Nd6+ winning the Queen, and 5...Bg7 6. Nd6+ Kf8 7. Nf7 still wins material. Black has to block the a2-g8 diagonal.} 5. Nxf7 Kxf7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black's kingside looks like Swiss cheese and White has many promising ideas such as Nd6+ (effectively forces Bxd6) followed by Bh6, Qf3 intending g4 to pry open Black's pawn shield, etc. Either way, White is attacking, and the position is one where long-term pawn structure is not important.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastEditorUserId="15223" LastEditDate="2020-08-18T09:32:37.610" LastActivityDate="2020-08-18T09:32:37.610" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31850" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2020-08-17T15:15:21.967" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-17T15:15:21.967" LastActivityDate="2020-08-17T15:15:21.967" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31851" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2020-08-17T15:15:21.967" Score="0" Body="For questions related to the solving, solvability, or proved solutions to chess and chess variants." OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-17T15:15:21.967" LastActivityDate="2020-08-17T15:15:21.967" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31852" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31827" CreationDate="2020-08-17T17:11:31.147" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Finder's credit goes to Akavall.  Kasparov's explanation of how he calculated an attack against Karpov appears to be the origin of the quote I've seen referenced.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;youtube.com/watch?v=SMe-hvCwTRo&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23776" LastActivityDate="2020-08-17T17:11:31.147" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31853" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31855" CreationDate="2020-08-17T17:24:16.907" Score="1" ViewCount="145" Body="&lt;p&gt;From this point I tried to win this match but it took a very long chase. I know there is some shorter way to win it as my mobile chess-free app asked to resign after moving my white knight, but couldn't figured out how to win it in lesser moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &amp;quot;1nb2rk1/q3pp2/2p1n1pQ/1p1pP2p/rP1P4/2PB1N1P/P4PP1/R1B2RK1 w Q - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24482" LastActivityDate="2020-08-17T18:54:37.860" Title="How to win it in less moves" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31854" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-08-17T17:50:15.437" Score="4" ViewCount="117" Body="&lt;p&gt;My opening repertoire consists mostly of openings that score respectably at the club level but rarely appear in high-level play, and far more rarely as any high-level player's primary choice rather than a secondary or tertiary surprise weapon.  I'm interested in studying games played by strong (preferably 2500+ FIDE) players who genuinely believe in the theoretical strength of these openings, fervently enough to play them as &lt;em&gt;primary&lt;/em&gt; weapons, willingly walking into their opponents' preparation rather than relying on surprise.  For example, players as strong as Magnus Carlsen have pulled out the Dutch Defense on rare occasions, but I'm more interested in players like GM Vladimir Malaniuk, who played the Leningrad Dutch against 1. d4 about three times as often as everything else put together and even managed to hold a draw against Kasparov with it, and GM Simon Williams, whose primary weapon against 1. d4 is the Classical Dutch.  Similarly, many GMs trot out the Dragon Sicilian with varying rarity as a secondary weapon after the Najdorf or the Sveshnikov, but I'm only interested in players like GM Gawain Jones who statistically prefer it over all alternatives and play it regularly against the likes of Carlsen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What's the best way to go about this search?  I can search for whoever has the most games on record in a given line, but I've found that that often just leads me to players with an exceptional quantity of games on record in general.  I can search for the highest-rated games in a given line, but that just turns up superGMs playing that line for the first time in about six months as a shock tactic.  I can Google &amp;quot;grandmasters who play the Whatever&amp;quot;, but surprisingly that too leads to players who only occasionally use that opening.  I can't even go by authorship of opening books; it's entirely too common for a GM to write an intro gushing about how the Such-and-Such has been their dearest and most reliable ally in 30 years of tournament play, but for the database to show that they tried it out for (at most) a scant dozen games and then promptly went back to the standard Berlin/Nimzo repertoire.  And of course, Kasparov played nearly everything at one point or another and contributed importantly to the theory, so that's a frequent confounding factor in any search (notice how often devotees of any given opening will boast that Kasparov himself played it, quietly implying that it was his main weapon).  Is there a better way to specifically look for players who &lt;em&gt;prefer&lt;/em&gt; a given opening line and play it more frequently than the alternatives?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a wonderful bonus, it would also be great if there's some way to filter for recency.  Carlsen for example has a surprising proportion of Dragon games on record for a superGM, but apparently hasn't played it since 2014, so even if he may have believed in it before, he clearly hasn't for some time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23776" LastEditorUserId="23776" LastEditDate="2020-08-17T20:13:22.350" LastActivityDate="2020-08-19T06:26:50.810" Title="Searching for players by primary opening choice" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;master-games&gt;&lt;repertoire&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31855" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31853" CreationDate="2020-08-17T18:54:37.860" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;1.Nh4 is best, preparing to decisively take on g6. Black can't do much to brace for this move. For example, 1...Rd8 2.Nxg6 fxg6? 3.Qxg6+ Ng7 (3...Kf8 4.Bh6+ leads to mate) 4.Bh6 e6 5.Qh7+ Kf8 6.Qh8+ Ke7 7.Qxg7+ Ke8 8.Bg6+ Qf7 9.Qxf7#.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It would be better if Black played ...f5 either on the first or second move, but this clearly isn't challenging since then your knight just takes on g6 for free, and White's attack is crashing through.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2020-08-17T18:54:37.860" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31856" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31845" CreationDate="2020-08-17T19:13:56.863" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The basic idea with ...d5, ...Bc5 is just to gain some centre space. I wouldn't really compare this position's plans to the Italian, as they're not that similar. Black's pushed ...d5 early on, and the opponent's (White) knight is on d2 instead of c3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Analysis for 8.b3: one move for Black in the database is 8...Re8 (or 8...Qe7), supporting the e5-pawn. Now playing ...d4 is an idea, since cxd4 can be answered with ...Nxd4 (as the e5-pawn won't hang). In the case of 9.Bb2, 9...Bb6 10.Re1 Bg4 11.Qc2 Qd6 looks nice for Black. Pushing ...d4 at some point is still in the cards. Black could also consider some ...Qc5 move, pinning the c3-pawn and targeting the f2-pawn. Adding more pressure on the d-file with ...Rad8 looks reasonable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Analysis for 8.Qc2: 8...Re8 9.b3 could be met with 9...Ba7 (or 9...Bb6), preventing White's queen from x-raying the bishop. This makes ...d4 safer to play. After 10.Bb2 h6 (stopping Ng5 if Black decides to play ...Be6 at some point) 11.Rfe1 Qd6 12.Bf1 Bg4, we have a similar position to what was reached for the line looked at in 8.b3. The plans are similar to what they were there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2020-08-17T19:13:56.863" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31857" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27912" CreationDate="2020-08-18T04:52:48.747" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Rashid Nezhmetdinov would be a grandmaster, if not for his extreme minus scores against positional opponents, like Korchnoi and Petrosian. The one problem was that Nezhmetdinov spent too much energy on attempting to attack, so he would neglect his own position in the meanwhile. However, his positional opponents kept the position safe, keeping away attacking chances, and then swooping in to take advantage of weaknesses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, if not for his desperation to attack, Rashid Nezhmetdinov would have been a grandmaster.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastActivityDate="2020-08-18T04:52:48.747" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31859" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31860" CreationDate="2020-08-18T05:47:35.960" Score="1" ViewCount="90" Body="&lt;p&gt;If in chess, pieces have the option instead to not move, then how would the game change? I have looked through a few positions and I see that zugzwang doesn't work at all. What else would be changed?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastEditorUserId="9025" LastEditDate="2020-08-18T16:33:13.960" LastActivityDate="2020-08-18T16:33:13.960" Title="New Chess Variant" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;chess-variants&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31860" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31859" CreationDate="2020-08-18T06:54:01.337" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Moves in chess are powerful. As any player or even engine will tell you, a move has material significance (Stockfish awards it a fifth of a pawn, visible when no moves have been played).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are some mechanics of chess, like stalemates and, as you mentioned, zugzwang, but for openings and middlegames , it really wouldn't change much.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As an example, beginners often are unable to formulate a plan and thus waste moves, this is analogous to passing your turn and often results in a loss.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Endgames are another story entirely. King and pawn endgames rely on zugzwangs (a common example is where one side tries to infiltrate the other's pawn chain) and opposition will not be a thing anymore, thus drawing most games without a significant advantage. To put into perspective the severity of the damage, even King vs King and Rook will be drawn (because of no opposition).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It may also slightly increase wins in positions where one side plays for a stalemate, but in my opinion, the game would overall take a turn for the worse, as it mostly affects only the endgame and can ruin a hard fought game with a undeserved draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14471" LastActivityDate="2020-08-18T06:54:01.337" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31861" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31840" CreationDate="2020-08-18T10:27:42.790" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can't find it now, but I remember reading this exchange on Chessbase. A player just played ...e6 on one move, and then ...e5 on the next, seemingly losing a tempo for no reason. It was clearly computer preparation however. An interviewer asked GM Viswanathan Anand what he thought about the moves. Anand replied that if the computer thinks it's fine, then it's fine. Instead you have to analyze the lines afterwards to see why it's fine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In other words: these days computers are so strong that their judgement trumps human judgement, including those made by world champion-caliber players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now the fact is that computers don't like the Traxler, even at high depth. It was played in the TCEC S17 superfinal between Leela and Stockfish. &lt;a href=&quot;https://tcec-chess.com/#div=sf&amp;amp;game=91&amp;amp;season=17&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Here's the first game&lt;/a&gt;, and &lt;a href=&quot;https://tcec-chess.com/#div=sf&amp;amp;game=92&amp;amp;season=17&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here's the reverse&lt;/a&gt;. Note:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;These engines are playing on super hardware and achieve speeds and depths that would take very long for ordinary machines. When Leela played her fifth move, she was at depth 22/62. When Stockfish played its fifth move, it was at depth 43/62.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Both finalists thought 5.Bxf7+ is the best move.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Both finalists evaluated the position after 5.Bxf7+ as +1.5 for White (more precisely, Stockfish gave +1.5 for White; Leela thought White had a 60% chance to win).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Comparatively, in the starting position, White has roughly a +0.5 advantage.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;There is some fluctuation in engine eval, so e.g. if Stockfish thinks a move that is +0.1 pawns better than the next-best move, the next-best move might still be playable. However, +1 is a pretty large gap.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore the only conclusion here is that the human masters are wrong. The Traxler is objectively dubious at best. Playing this &lt;em&gt;can&lt;/em&gt; work against humans because humans cannot find a string of &amp;quot;only moves&amp;quot; in a row to hold a position, plus it's psychologically difficult to defend against a strong attack for a long time. That's why humans - even top-level humans- often crack under pressure. The Traxler also offers plenty of opportunities for both sides, which is great if you want to play for a win and/or you think you are better than your opponent. But if you play the Traxler as Black in correspondence chess, you are asking for trouble. Maybe 32-piece tablebases will show that your position isn't lost, but you would have to fight hard for equality.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally I'll add that it's misleading to say the Traxler is well-regarded by masters:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_Knights_Defense#Traxler_Variation:_4...Bc5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia's article&lt;/a&gt; on the Two Knights includes this quote: &amp;quot;No grandmasters have regularly adopted the Wilkes-Barre as Black, but Alexander Beliavsky and Alexei Shirov have played it occasionally even in top competition&amp;quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/explorer?node=144658&amp;amp;move=4.5&amp;amp;moves=e4.e5.Nf3.Nc6.Bc4.Nf6.Ng5&amp;amp;nodes=21720.21721.21722.21723.24145.24146.144658&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess Openings Explorer&lt;/a&gt; gives by far the most common response to 4.Ng5 as 4...d5 (which is also the main line of the Two Knights).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd call the Traxler playable in human games, but only as an occasional weapon.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastActivityDate="2020-08-18T10:27:42.790" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31862" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-08-18T14:28:46.907" Score="5" ViewCount="1119" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the Traxler Counterattack of the Two Knights Defense, after&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nf6 4.Ng5 Bc5 5.Bxf7+ Ke7 6. Bb3 (6. Bc4)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;why isn't 6.Bc4 considered as a &amp;quot;serious&amp;quot; move for White by theory? Only 6.Bb3 and 6.Bd5 are seen in this fairly rare line.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2020-08-18T15:07:57.253" LastActivityDate="2020-08-18T17:27:03.677" Title="Why isn't 6.Bc4 considered by theory in the 5.Bxf7+ Traxler Counterattack?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;1.e4&gt;&lt;two-knights&gt;&lt;traxler-counter-attack&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31863" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-08-18T14:35:45.583" Score="2" ViewCount="98" Body="&lt;p&gt;As title above, when did Bobby Fischer move from Brooklyn, New York, to California, where did he actually locate, and why did he leave New York?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-18T22:08:45.897" LastActivityDate="2020-08-31T18:07:41.800" Title="When did Bobby Fischer move from New York to California?" Tags="&lt;history&gt;&lt;fischer&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31864" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31862" CreationDate="2020-08-18T15:32:13.130" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;Comparing 6.Bb3 and 6.Bc4, the drawbacks of the latter are obvious since the bishop is not protected and can become a target to attacks:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;either by a black piece: Ne5, Na5, Qc5, Qd4...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;or, more probably, by the d-pawn: the typical ...d5 will gain a tempo for development&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, I can see no advantage of having the bishop on c4 rather than b3. You will hardly ever want to retreat to e2, nor to play a queenside fianchetto.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Given how important each tempo can be in such an complicated line, it is understandable than no strong player has ever ventured 6.Bc4. Probably there isn't a direct refutation, but you might regret having your bishop exposed later on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastActivityDate="2020-08-18T15:32:13.130" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31865" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-08-18T15:39:28.980" Score="5" ViewCount="307" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to improve at chess, like everyone does. I am trying to structure my study to get the most out of if. But this plan needed a fundamental question to be answered, what sets masters apart from hobbyists?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have grinded tactics and read positional books, all in vain. Therefore I decided to analyze how grandmasters think.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now I was not very successful in my analysis, but it made me wonder, is the only reason that Grandmasters are better is that they can calculate deeper? Due to how neural networks play closer to a human style than traditional engines, I was not satisfied with this answer. Is it that they can spot when a position asks for dynamic play, or when they should solidify their position? I had no answer to this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So what does a player at a higher Elo do better than another? I am not talking about a level where simple/hard tactical mistakes or openings lose a game. How do the top level players slowly push those beneath them into a worse position?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Note&lt;/strong&gt; my question is not about self improvement but rather contradistinction of levels of chess play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14471" LastActivityDate="2020-08-22T06:18:18.367" Title="What sets chess players apart?" Tags="&lt;psychology&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31866" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31865" CreationDate="2020-08-18T17:01:58.300" Score="4" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So what does a player at a higher Elo do better than another?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The answer I got from &amp;quot;It's Only Me&amp;quot;, Geoff Lawton and Mike Fox's biography of England's first OTB GM, Tony Miles, was that the stronger player loves the game more than you do to the extent that it is almost the only thing that matters in that person's life.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are a couple of excerpts from &amp;quot;It's Only Me&amp;quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From the age of 11 he played competitive chess several times a week.&#xA;This was the beginning of a pattern of intense chess activity that was&#xA;to last his whole career.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and this from one of his school reports:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Perhaps one day he will realise that there are more things in heaven&#xA;and earth than chess. At the moment he cannot conceive of such a&#xA;possibility. Thus his only creditable activity in this subject has&#xA;been that he has turned up. Otherwise he has said nothing, done&#xA;nothing and looked pretty bored.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At least Miles completed high school and even the first year of a maths degree at Sheffield University as some form of quality-of-life insurance before getting the GM title and dropping out. Bobby Fischer &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobby_Fischer#Drops_out_of_school&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;dropped out of high school&lt;/a&gt; at the earliest opportunity at 16.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way the question -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;is the only reason that Grandmasters are better is that they can&#xA;calculate deeper?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;already has several answers &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/17088/how-many-steps-can-a-grandmaster-foresee&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-08-18T17:01:58.300" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31867" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-08-18T17:10:12.277" Score="4" ViewCount="91" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am in pretty much the situation of &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/8317/chess-variant-where-king-is-captured&quot;&gt;this question&lt;/a&gt;: I'm trying to teach my four-year-old son the rules of chess, but the concept of &amp;quot;checkmate&amp;quot; is too abstract for a small child, so I want to tell him that the goal is to capture the king instead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The problem is that I'm using an iPad app rather than a physical board (for a number of reasons, including the fact that the app will show you each piece's legal moves, so we don't have to explain all of the moving rules before we start playing).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does anyone know of a chess app that both (1) shows legal moves (which most of them do) and (2) allows king captures (the feature I can't find)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24492" LastActivityDate="2020-08-23T02:00:27.533" Title="Chess app with king captures" Tags="&lt;teaching&gt;&lt;children&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31868" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31862" CreationDate="2020-08-18T17:27:03.677" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Traxler is too rarely played to anybody care. Bd5 and Bb3 are old main lines. Bc4 is actually Lc0 main line on pretty solid depth. One obvious advantage is easier handling of future pin while I don't think the bishop is so exposed there. From b3 it could actually be easier for black to hunt it with Na5. So it's great move in position you will probably not have on a board anytime soon. The old reasoning behind not playing Bc4 makes sense too, of course, but try to explain it to Leela... If it was in more frequent position, it would be played at least as much as the 2.Nf3 3.d3 Caro Kann, very fresh AI invention too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11609" LastActivityDate="2020-08-18T17:27:03.677" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31869" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-08-18T20:55:55.580" Score="4" ViewCount="138" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are are four types of &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pin_(chess)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;pins&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Absolute Pin-A piece is pinned to the king and cannot move due to the resulting illegal check.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Partial Pin-A piece is pinned to the king and can move along pinning line but nowhere to else due to the resulting illegal check.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Relative Pin-A piece is not pinned to king and can move but doing so would lose the exchange.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Situational Pin-A pinned piece can move butdoing so is dettered by a loss of material or mate.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am looking for a combination played in a real game that demonstrates all four kinds of pins, preferably in a row in any combination of the four pins.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The best I can find is a &lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/nrX8J.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;mate in two&lt;/a&gt; combination with two absolute pins in a row.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;rnbq1r2/pp2kpQp/3p4/1B6/3Np3/B1b5/P1P2PPP/1R1K3R w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Qe5+ Be6 2. Nf5#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18019" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-18T22:48:02.540" LastActivityDate="2020-12-26T20:16:13.763" Title="Pinning Combination" Tags="&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;problems&gt;&lt;pins&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31870" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31827" CreationDate="2020-08-18T21:46:44.380" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Julian Hodgson has elaborated on this in his book &amp;quot;Attack with Julian Hodgson 2&amp;quot;. He calls it the attack statistics box.&#xA;Another writer who uses arithmatic to calculate positions and moves is Shashin in his book &amp;quot;Best Play: A New Method For Discovering The Strongest Move&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24494" LastActivityDate="2020-08-18T21:46:44.380" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31871" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31874" CreationDate="2020-08-18T22:21:58.630" Score="1" ViewCount="101" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've looked at a few chess games on ChessBase that have a lot of pins, and I am wondering, what is the most number of pins that has occurred in a game, and what is the game?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-18T23:19:40.067" LastActivityDate="2021-05-02T19:08:12.847" Title="Most pins in a chess game" Tags="&lt;famous-games&gt;&lt;pins&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31872" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14434" CreationDate="2020-08-18T22:29:44.957" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are many factors that affect the value of a piece, three of which are most influential:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Piece mobility in situation - e.g., A knight in an open position is less valuable, but in a closed situation is more valuable.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Piece qualities(can it cause zugzwang, can it be easily trapped, etc.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Piece's positioning - e.g., if a queen was on the other side of the board unable to save the king from an attack, it is significantly weaker than a queen on the 'correct' side of the board.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastActivityDate="2020-08-18T22:29:44.957" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31873" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18437" CreationDate="2020-08-18T22:34:46.927" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Antichess, piece values are dependent on two factors:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The detriment of the range of the piece(pieces can easily make it capture)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The range of the piece(makes it easier to sac itself)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the pieces in a closed situation would be more influenced by the second factor, and in an open situation more by the open factor.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastActivityDate="2020-08-18T22:34:46.927" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31874" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31871" CreationDate="2020-08-18T23:24:23.760" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The most pins in a real game position that I know is &lt;strong&gt;3&lt;/strong&gt; from an extremely famous game nicknamed &amp;quot;On Pins And Needles&amp;quot; by &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1761734&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chessgames.com.&lt;/a&gt; Agadmator covered in a &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJ21bBhhchM&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;YouTube video&lt;/a&gt; a few years ago.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Geoff Chandler-Richard Kynoch, Edinburgh Club Championship, Scotland, 1981&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;[startply &amp;quot;53&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. e5 Bf5 4. Nc3 e6 5. g4 Bg6 6. Nge2 c5 7. Be3 Nc6 8. dxc5 Nxe5 9. Nd4 Rc8 10. Bb5+ Nc6 11. Qe2 Nf612. O-O-O Be7 13. h4 h5 14. f3 Nd7 15. gxh5 Rxh5 16. Rhg1 Nxd4 17. Bxd4 Qc7 18. Rxg6 fxg6 19. Qxe6 Rf5 20. Nxd5 Qd8 21. Qxg6+ Rf7 22. Re1 Kf8 23. Qh7 Ke8 24. Qg8+ Rf8 25. Qxg7 Rf7 26. Qg8+ Rf8 27. Nf6#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-05-02T19:08:12.847" LastActivityDate="2021-05-02T19:08:12.847" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31876" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31863" CreationDate="2020-08-19T01:15:31.990" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It’s just a guess, but it could be because he started following Herbert Armstrong who was in California. Fischer did donate &lt;em&gt;lots&lt;/em&gt; of money to him and was reported riding in his jet plane with him. As I recall, it would have been in the 70s or possibly the 80s.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24174" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-31T18:07:41.800" LastActivityDate="2020-08-31T18:07:41.800" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31877" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31838" CreationDate="2020-08-19T01:19:58.780" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes. Do not play Nd2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is better to not play that variation of the reversed Dutch.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is best to just play 1. e4 and avoid the issues with Birds.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24174" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-08-19T04:13:19.583" LastActivityDate="2020-08-19T04:13:19.583" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31879" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31869" CreationDate="2020-08-19T02:28:47.097" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I do not know of a game that shows all four in a combination. However, here is a chess problem that I made to demonstrate all 4 types of pins in a &amp;quot;combination-esque&amp;quot; sequence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;me, chess.stackexchange.com 8/19/2020, Mate In 4&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;1K6/NP3p2/8/p5Pb/kr1RRPPp/3P2Nq/1Pp3PQ/2nB2B1 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Bxc2+ Nb3 {An absolute pin is instated to limit Black's move choices and to lock up the Black king} 2. Qxh3 hxg3 {After White moves, Black's pawn is in a relative pin. This is because moving it exposes the higher-valued bishop to capture. If Black's bishop moves, White can still mates in two} (2... Bxg4 3. Ne2 null 4. Nc3#) 3. Qxh5 {Now Black's two moveable pieces are pinned. The pawn is in a situational pin because moving it results in a mate, and the rook is in a partial pin because it can only move along the pin line, although it is also in a situational pin.} f5 (3... Rc4 4. Rxc4#) 4. Qe8#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Addendum 12/17/2020-Here is a shorter, less complicated version of the above problem, being one move shorter, fewer units used, and much cleaner play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;me, chess.stackexchange.com 12/17/2020, Mate In 3&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;8/N4p2/8/p1P2PPr/kr1R2pp/1r1P2NQ/1PR1P1P1/3BK3 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Rcc4! {This instates an absolute pin on Black's b3 rook, and a partial pin on their b4 rook.} hxg3 (1... gxh3 2. Ne4 null 3. Nc3#) {Black's h4 pawn was in a relative pin. If it doesn't move, White mates with the knight, and if it does, Black loses the higher valued rook. } 2. Qxh5 {Now Black's pawn is in a situational pin, as moving it will result in mate. Black's rook is also in the same predicament.} f6 (2... Rxc4 3. Rxc4#) 3. Qe8# &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-12-26T20:16:13.763" LastActivityDate="2020-12-26T20:16:13.763" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31880" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31854" CreationDate="2020-08-19T06:26:50.810" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The opening explorer at 365chess dot com shows which player played the position at hand most often, while also showing most recent examples.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2494" LastActivityDate="2020-08-19T06:26:50.810" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31881" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31828" CreationDate="2020-08-19T06:35:18.947" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can make it up yourself as you go along. You already know that chess is better learned with as few pieces on the board as possible, which puts you way ahead of the people who want to teach newcomers with all 32 units.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At the first meeting of a 10- or 12-week class, I teach the kids a game with eight white pawns and the black queen. If a pawn reaches the 8th rank (unlike chess, it doesn't have to survive the 'promotion'), the pawns win. If the queen gobbles all the pawns or blocks the last pawn remaining, the queen wins.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some kids never get past that, but they get to enjoy the play time instead of struggling with chess, and the great thing about it is that it's an equalizer. I lose some of those games, and unlike chess, when I talk about why I'm making this move or that, the kids understand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2494" LastActivityDate="2020-08-19T06:35:18.947" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31882" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31838" CreationDate="2020-08-19T16:20:00.617" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You have some options.  You could abandon 7. Nbd2 because it allows 7. ... Ng4; the standard choices in the main line are 7. Qe1, 7. c3, and 7. Nc3, much like the regular Leningrad Dutch.  If Black plays Ng4 while you still have e3 covered by the Bc1, you can simply proceed with your plan to push e2-e4, and maybe later kick the knight with h2-h3 to get an attack going on the kingside.  Just make sure to keep an eye out for tactics on the a7-g1 diagonal as long as Black has a knight on g4; Bird's Opening can get ugly for White fast if you miss seeing a tactic.  You'll still need to pay attention to e3; Black's main try in the strongest lines is to play d5-d4, possibly following up with Nd5, and eventually you'll need to be prepared to play against that.  If your opponents are still gifting you e6 setups though, that might be a ways off.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the specific position you've shown with Black's lackluster e6 setup, you have the option of going straight for 7. e4 as @bof and @pulsar512b discussed, but that idea won't ordinarily be available if Black plays more demanding lines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you're dead set on making 7. Nbd2 work instead, then 7. ... Ng4 8. Nb3 doesn't look like the absolute end of the world to me, but the positions aren't pleasant and Black is calling the shots.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23776" LastActivityDate="2020-08-19T16:20:00.617" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31883" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26493" CreationDate="2020-08-19T19:50:40.650" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you're looking for cloud engines that can be used outside of ChessBase as well, I'd highly recommend taking a quick view at the services offered by Chessify. Alongside other engines, we offer a 100kN/s GPU server for Leela Chess Zero at a rate of $0.10 per minute. You can use our service on ChessBase, SCID, or directly on our website.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Check out the full list of our servers/engines and prices &lt;a href=&quot;https://chessify.me/#cloud_content&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;. We provide up to 500,000kN/s cloud servers for different chess engines. I'll be happy to answer any related questions. You can also contact me at ani@chessify.me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24504" LastActivityDate="2020-08-19T19:50:40.650" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31884" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-08-19T20:00:52.127" Score="-1" ViewCount="37" Body="&lt;p&gt;I asked how to fix a problem in chessbase.&#xA;And was told to ask chessbase support.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can not find any support for chessbase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Where can I find support to fix the problems with chessbase?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24495" LastActivityDate="2020-08-19T20:06:36.853" Title="where is chessbase support located?" Tags="&lt;chessbase&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2020-08-19T22:46:34.363" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31885" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31884" CreationDate="2020-08-19T20:06:36.853" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe they mean to make a request at their support site here: &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.chessbase.com/support-new&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.chessbase.com/support-new&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3884" LastActivityDate="2020-08-19T20:06:36.853" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31886" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31865" CreationDate="2020-08-19T20:10:47.597" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found there were at least 3 factors, could be 4 or even more.&#xA;I realized I did not have the 4th (last?) and gave up trying for GM.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;age you start to learn.  most top GMs learned very young.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;not all, most.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;natural ability,  plus intense desire to win.  not always IQ but certainly IQ factors key to chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;quality of training.  not the 4 styles of learning although it  is a help to have the right one,  but how the training itelf is done.  some training is virtually worthless.  some moves you along very fast.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;unknown factor x,  which I could not identify well enough to get by it.   but effectively position understanding and playing positionally as much as tactically or even strategically as at a lower level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;if there are other factors then I cannot say as I did not get to GM to discover whether they exist or not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24495" LastActivityDate="2020-08-19T20:10:47.597" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31888" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31895" CreationDate="2020-08-19T22:16:17.863" Score="11" ViewCount="2651" Body="&lt;p&gt;In such an endgame situation (no specific position), where White isn't pinning the Black queen on the first move, is it possible for Black to get a perpetual check if they move first?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2020-08-20T10:45:41.800" LastActivityDate="2020-08-21T06:46:32.423" Title="Does a KQQ vs KQ endgame position with perpetual check exist?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;draw&gt;&lt;queens&gt;&lt;perpetual&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31889" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8424" CreationDate="2020-08-19T22:19:34.027" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Basically, Endgame Tablebases are a collection of positions involving a number of pieces, with optimal moves in the situation provided(e.g., In a Q+KvK endgame, the longest checkmate is mate in 9.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tablebases are used to save a chess engine's memory. It is easier to simply search up an optimal line instead of calculating all possible positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, at this time, tablebases are still very limited, and the largest we have are 7-man tablebases.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastActivityDate="2020-08-19T22:19:34.027" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31891" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31888" CreationDate="2020-08-19T23:11:07.437" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, it is possible. Here is an example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Variant &amp;quot;From Position&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;5k2/1Q6/8/8/7q/8/8/6QK w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Qh2 Qe1+ 2. Kg2 Qe2+ 3. Kg3 Qe5+ 4. Kh3 Qh5+&#xA;5. Kg2 Qe2+&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="307" LastActivityDate="2020-08-19T23:11:07.437" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31892" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8424" CreationDate="2020-08-20T01:51:40.767" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;All the previous answers are correct. One interesting fact is the file size of tablebases grows enormously with each piece added.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;5-Piece TB = 939 MB&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;6-Piece TB = 150.2 GB&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;7-Piece TB = 140 TB&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;8-Piece TB = &amp;gt;5 PB (estimated).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess will be &amp;quot;solved&amp;quot; when we have a 32-piece TB. :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24506" LastActivityDate="2020-08-20T01:51:40.767" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31895" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31888" CreationDate="2020-08-20T10:44:47.127" Score="32" Body="&lt;p&gt;The position given by Akavall is indeed a &lt;a href=&quot;https://syzygy-tables.info/?fen=5k2/1Q6/8/8/7q/8/7Q/7K_b_-_-_0_1&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;draw&lt;/a&gt; by perpetual, but it's a bit difficult to see because White has many different options at some moves. They can even choose to sacrifice the h2 queen, which effectively ends the perpetual (but it's still a draw).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A position where this is much easier to see is the &lt;a href=&quot;https://syzygy-tables.info/?fen=5k2/8/8/8/8/5q2/7Q/6QK_w_-_-_0_1&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;following one&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;5k2/8/8/8/8/5q2/7Q/6QK w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Qgg2 Qd1+ 2. Qhg1 Qh5+ 3. Q2h2 Qf3+&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White has two options each move, and the black queen simply moves to the opened line/diagonal. As mentioned in the comments, White could sacrifice a queen on f1 or h3, but even then Black can force a perpetual on f1 and h3 (though the easiest way to draw is then trading the last pair of queens).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2020-08-21T06:46:32.423" LastActivityDate="2020-08-21T06:46:32.423" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31896" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31897" CreationDate="2020-08-20T13:59:50.077" Score="10" ViewCount="1549" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just finished off a game and decided to do some analysis because I had a position that I was thinking about for a little bit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I ran the game through Stockfish and the move I was thinking about was one Stockfish disagreed with.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;r1b1k1r1/pppq1pB1/2nb1N1p/8/8/5N2/PPP1BPPP/R2QK2R b KQq - 2 12&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Nxd7+ Ke7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I played &lt;strong&gt;Nxd7&lt;/strong&gt;, however, Sockfish suggested that I should play &lt;em&gt;Nxg8+&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only thing I can think of is looking at relative value.  The suggested move would result in a rook (5) and Pawn (1) for no material lost, while &lt;em&gt;Nxd7&lt;/em&gt; move would result in a queen (9) and pawn (1) for a knight (3).  Doing the math, the &lt;em&gt;Nxd7&lt;/em&gt; move still results in a better move. That or it doesn't like me opening up Black's white bishop&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I let the engines play it out from this position and in both instances the Nxd7 results in a mate faster than the Nxg8+ move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because I can't see any reason the the Nxh8+ move is better than the Nxd7 move, is anyone able to assist or is Stockfish drunk?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24511" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-21T17:17:28.193" LastActivityDate="2020-08-21T17:18:56.660" Title="Three way fork-Why take the rook instead of the queen?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="9" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31897" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31896" CreationDate="2020-08-20T14:26:18.570" Score="19" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both moves lead to crushingly won positions for White, so all things considered it doesn't matter which one you choose. For me, Stockfish shows +14 for Nxg8+ and +9 for Nxd7. The difference between +9 and +14 is a lot less significant than the difference between, say, +0.5 and +2.5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;About the material calculation you gave: Nxd7 costs two minor pieces for the queen rather than just one, since if Black responds to Nxd7 with ...Rxg7 then the knight on d7 is also lost. So to the extent that this matters, on balance it probably favours Nxg8+ (which gains a whole rook).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16650" LastActivityDate="2020-08-20T14:26:18.570" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31898" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31896" CreationDate="2020-08-20T14:43:46.127" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my opinion, you have to consider what can happen next too. With Nxg7+, his King is forced to move. Ke8 is a loss for them. Ke6 can cause damage if your pieces come (with Bc4 for exemple), so the best move after Nxg7 is Kd8 with the result that a Black rook that won't come for a long time in the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19706" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-21T17:18:56.660" LastActivityDate="2020-08-21T17:18:56.660" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31899" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31900" CreationDate="2020-08-20T19:17:15.733" Score="1" ViewCount="192" Body="&lt;p&gt;In classical play, do GMs tend to resign in endgames like king+queen vs king+rook where the game can be won by the side with more material in under 50 moves, but only with good play? (I understand queen vs rook is a win in 31 in worst case, barring any immediate captures/checks which make it a draw. A computer can likely draw it out to 50 moves against a human, but another human might not.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Queen vs rook isn't the only example - think of any pawnless endgame where the fastest forced mate is between 20 and 50 moves long.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On one hand I could see that it might be insulting to continue to play on with such a difference in material, where your opponent will clearly not fall for any skewer tactics and the endgame will be very long and very boring, but on the other hand I see the pragmatism in continuing play as long as there is a non-trivial chance of a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14329" LastActivityDate="2020-08-20T19:48:19.923" Title="GMs resigning in theoretically lost endgames" Tags="&lt;rook-endgame&gt;&lt;resigning&gt;&lt;queen-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31900" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31899" CreationDate="2020-08-20T19:48:19.923" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;They may as well try, since Q vs R is extremely difficult to win (even disregarding skewer tactics). The example of RB vs R is a great similar example, as it is a theoretical draw, but &lt;strong&gt;extraordinarily&lt;/strong&gt; difficult to draw. There are numerous examples of top grandmasters being unable to convert Q vs R. As to a computer vs human- this was tested in 1978 in a special match between Belle (computer program, had the tablebase so it would play perfectly), and GM Walter Browne. Two positions were played, both with a win in 31 moves. He was unable to convert one but won the other (although barely avoiding the 50 move rule)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example 1 - &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1210725&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Gelfand-Svidler&lt;/a&gt; (two of the greatest players of their time, admittedly a rapid game. Black was pushing but Gelfand held.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example 2 - &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1442203&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Morozevich-Jakovenko&lt;/a&gt; (Morozevich was a great player, but Jakovenko not so much. Morozevich was pushing, but Jakovenko held with what is known as a rambling rook idea, where a rook is sacrificed and keeps checking so either perpetual check occurs, or the king takes the rook leading to stalemate)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To add more to this- it's quite possible that the side with the queen is in time trouble, which heightens the difficulty of breaking through.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23100" LastActivityDate="2020-08-20T19:48:19.923" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31901" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31903" CreationDate="2020-08-20T22:25:08.830" Score="6" ViewCount="806" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was using the opening explorer on Chess.com when I came upon the following line&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.g4 g5 2. f4 (Coca-cola gambit)!?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How did this opening get its name? It sounds like Coca-cola walked up to Fide and payed some money for some weird advertisement.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-21T12:36:32.427" LastActivityDate="2020-08-21T12:36:32.427" Title="Double Grob-Coca-cola Gambit?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;history&gt;&lt;terminology&gt;&lt;gambits&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31902" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31831" CreationDate="2020-08-21T01:38:38.580" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The 2003 &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1260279&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;game&lt;/a&gt; Kasparov-Deep Junior ) was a draw by repetition. Deep Junior played a bishop sacrifice on h2 and then forced the draw by repetition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Garry Kasparov-Deep Junior, FIDE Man-Machine WC, New York New York USA, 1/26/2003&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;] &#xA;[startply &amp;quot;19&amp;quot;] &#xA;&#xA;1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 Bb4 4. e3 O-O 5. Bd3 d5 6. cxd5 exd5 7. Nge2 Re8 8. O-O Bd6 9. a3 c6 10. Qc2 Bxh2+ 11. Kxh2 Ng4+ 12. Kg3 Qg5 13. f4 Qh5 14. Bd2 Qh2+ 15. Kf3 Qh4 16. Bxh7+ Kh8 17. Ng3 Nh2+ 18. Kf2 Ng4+ 19. Kf3 Nh2+&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11059" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-21T12:16:18.737" LastActivityDate="2020-08-21T12:16:18.737" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31903" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31901" CreationDate="2020-08-21T02:17:06.860" Score="7" Body="&lt;h1&gt;Sense of Humor&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are several real but somewhat silly openings that gets its name. Sodium Attack (1. &lt;strong&gt;Na&lt;/strong&gt;3), Ammonia opening (1, Nh3), Meadow Hay Gambit (1. a4 e5 2. Ra3 Bxa3), Picklepuss Defence (1. e4 h5 2. d4 Nf6).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No one will actually play these in tournaments or something, they serves no useful purpose (except maybe training), but they're funny. Similar to code golf.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Coca-cola is very likely just something that sounds humorous.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24446" LastEditorUserId="24446" LastEditDate="2020-08-21T06:40:57.247" LastActivityDate="2020-08-21T06:40:57.247" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31904" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18201" CreationDate="2020-08-21T05:56:21.960" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Black is immediately equal with Qe4+ since he can follow up with e5 regardless of what white plays.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, black has the better center and a slight lead in development. White has structural pawn weaknesses with the weak squares on the d-file and the backward pawn on a semi-open file.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If black is fine with an equal but drawish position then Qe4+ is a simple equalizing move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If black wants a more active position, there's nothing wrong with Qa5 followed by e5. It's roughly equal too. In both cases black has equality because he can get in e5 before white can play d4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2020-08-21T05:56:21.960" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31905" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31845" CreationDate="2020-08-21T06:14:51.170" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In most open games black equalizes if he can get in d5 because it frees the position and will leave him with at least an equal center.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the position you gave, after the pawns are traded, blacks's e5 pawn is better than white's d3 pawn because of the squares it controls. It occupies the e5 square and controls the d4 square. White's pawn only controls e4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On top of that, both of black's bishops are free to move whereas white's KS bishop is blocked by its own pawn on d3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2020-08-21T06:14:51.170" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31906" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31794" CreationDate="2020-08-21T06:51:44.773" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The whole point of hypermodern openings like the Benoni is to encourage a big center. If you don't get that you'd probably be better off playing something else.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Dutch leads to unbalanced positions, avoids transpositions and can be learned very quickly. The Tarrasch also. Those sound like better choices.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2020-08-21T06:51:44.773" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31907" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31794" CreationDate="2020-08-21T10:08:56.483" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you don't feel comfortable playing against large centers you shouldn't play Benoni nor other openings such as KID (which both, by the way, are good choices if you look for imbalanced positions).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would recommend, based on the proximity of the tournament and your aim for imbalaced positions, to look at Von Hennig-Schara Gambit, which doesn't have a lot of theory and usually leads to sharp play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24498" LastActivityDate="2020-08-21T10:08:56.483" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31908" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31910" CreationDate="2020-08-21T19:37:22.920" Score="11" ViewCount="1755" Body="&lt;p&gt;I read about the chess engine algorithms and came up with a question. If, for example  roughly all (disregarding alpha-beta pruning) possible 20 moves variations are calculated, why does a chess engine not consider a piece exchange on move 20 winning? It seems to me that to an evaluation function the final position will seem like one player is just up a piece. How do they solve this problem?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24519" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-21T22:42:46.950" LastActivityDate="2020-08-21T22:42:46.950" Title="Why does a chess engine not get excited about a piece exchange at the end of its analysis depth?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;chess-algorithms&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31910" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31908" CreationDate="2020-08-21T20:21:53.163" Score="25" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess engines will always try to extend the search by a few moves, so a position is only evaluated if it is considered &amp;quot;quiet&amp;quot;. This is called &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessprogramming.org/Quiescence_Search&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Quiescence Search&lt;/a&gt;, and the problem you describe that it is trying to prevent is called the &amp;quot;Horizon effect&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So before evaluating a position, if there are captures, checks and so on in the position, then the search is first extended by those moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2020-08-21T20:21:53.163" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31911" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31865" CreationDate="2020-08-22T06:18:18.367" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If not yet done, you could consider to review some of the numerous research papers addressing the nature of expertise for chess players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Try to figure out if decades of academic research on this topic of novice versus experts for chess yields solid research results.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In google scholar, enter : chess experts novices. You will have plenty of interesting studies to read adressing memory or visual cognition in chess playing. fMRI Imaging studies may provide also useful hints behind the &amp;quot;differences&amp;quot; of the expert versus novice player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For sure visual pattern recognition on the chessboard for real chess positions will be more sophiscticated and faster for chess experts. Hence complicating the position for tactical playing in rapid chess or blitz could be a winning solution for an expert player versus a novice or an intermediate one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11059" LastActivityDate="2020-08-22T06:18:18.367" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31912" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-08-22T11:14:51.360" Score="0" ViewCount="37" Body="&lt;p&gt;Even though there are positions on the chess board with two knights checkmate by bringing the king in the corner, why it is not possible to checkmate the King?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it difficult to bring the opponent King in the corner with two knights and King?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Reasons in terms of logic, strategies have to be traced.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24309" LastEditorUserId="9025" LastEditDate="2020-08-22T12:47:16.007" LastActivityDate="2020-08-22T12:47:16.007" Title="Two Knights checkmate" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;knights&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="3" ClosedDate="2020-08-22T12:54:31.183" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31913" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-08-22T13:35:49.583" Score="2" ViewCount="191" Body="&lt;p&gt;I went through the most popular chess engines, e.g. StockFish, Komodo, Rykba and so forth, but I wasn't able to a.) find an API or b.) a python based Engine - does anyone know a suitable project?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I want to implement a chess engine in a python-based gameportal I'm building (offering to analyse the game after the chess round), though it's an assigned project and I need to use purely Python (except graphics) for the project, hence I was either looking for a proper API or Python based Chess Engine - anyone knows an implementation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24523" LastActivityDate="2020-08-22T13:42:21.493" Title="Chess Engine with Python-Based / API?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;python&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31914" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31913" CreationDate="2020-08-22T13:42:21.493" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, there is a chess engine in Python: &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/thomasahle/sunfish&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Sunfish&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is also a python library for chess: &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/niklasf/python-chess/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;python-chess&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24524" LastActivityDate="2020-08-22T13:42:21.493" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31915" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-08-22T14:33:10.370" Score="3" ViewCount="113" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would like to start a machine learning project that should recognize whether a player is a person or a computer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have a data set with labeled labels (computer or human).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your opinion, what would be good input parameters?&#xA;I would like to also include use the chess position and the move. But which coding would be appropriate?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other parameters would be some positional and material evaluation values and the centipawn loss&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23953" LastActivityDate="2020-08-28T00:50:14.320" Title="Machine Learning parameters for human vs computer detection" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;human-versus-machine&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31916" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31917" CreationDate="2020-08-22T20:11:47.120" Score="10" ViewCount="874" Body="&lt;p&gt;What was the role, the duties, etc. of the second (e.g. GM Ray Keene was Korchnoi’s second in the 1978 World Championship match vs. Karpov), and is this figure still present in contemporary top level chess?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastActivityDate="2020-08-22T22:04:01.780" Title="What was the role of the second in top level matches?" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;world-championship&gt;&lt;match&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31917" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31916" CreationDate="2020-08-22T22:04:01.780" Score="17" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What was the role, the duties, etc. of the second (e.g. GM Ray Keene&#xA;was Korchnoi’s second in the 1978 World Championship match vs. Karpov)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What it most definitely was NOT was writing a book of the match ready to rush into print the moment the match finished as Keene did.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The way it was supposed to work was that after the time control was reached at move 40 one of the players would seal a move. The players would then go back to their respective hotels with their seconds and perhaps discus a few lines. The principal would then have a meal and go to bed. The seconds would then stay up all night analyzing the position and coming up with a list of variations for the principal to look at and learn when he got up the next morning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On nights when there was a new game starting the next morning it was the job of the seconds to prepare opening lines based on the opponent's repertoire for the principal to look at the next morning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes, in the build up before a world championship match, a player would hire a strong player for a secret match to try out ideas in a realistic match atmosphere. Botvinnik famously did this as did Anand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;is this figure still present in contemporary top level chess?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Very much so.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Today the main job of the second to do the dogsbody work of opening preparation for the principal. Part of this may be preparing the player to play against a particular opponent's repertoire. Jan Gustaffson has famously helped Carlsen with opening prep as this is his main area of expertise as a chess player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The other more interesting part is to come up with new ideas in opening lines. This requires creativity and computer skills with engines because they play a big role. This doesn't automatically require GM level chess ability. Nakamura has famously employed the same sub-2200 player, Kris Littlejohn, since 2008 simply because Littlejohn comes up with many creative opening ideas, is very good at investigating them with engines and gets along well with Nakamura on a personal level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is more on the Nakamura-Littlejohn relationship in this Chessbase India &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1613054595449259&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Facebook video&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=greq1Yph9O0&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this episode&lt;/a&gt; of Ben Johnson's Perpetual Chess Podcast.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is more interesting information about seconds in &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/9485/who-are-the-seconds-of-famous-players&quot;&gt;this post&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-08-22T22:04:01.780" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31918" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-08-23T00:18:32.950" Score="11" ViewCount="623" Body="&lt;p&gt;Western castling doesn’t exist in historical Indian Chess (Chaturanga). Instead, in some versions, there is a cool move whereby each king can once in the game make a knight's move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I read that it is can’t be used after check. But is that correct? Is it indeed a right which is lost for good after being checked, or is it something which cannot be exercised &lt;em&gt;while&lt;/em&gt; the king is in check, but the right will return after the check no longer applies?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I guess I am hoping that it can be exercised even when in check, because it’s so cool to have a chance to escape otherwise certain loss - like James Bond.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How do the two kings interact directly? Must they avoid being a knight move apart. And if one has used its ability can the the other check it allowing bare K to checkmate e.g. K+N?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And how universal in Indian chess is this rule, please?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: The reason for this is that I think that Chaturanga can be interesting for chess problems, particularly retrograde analysis, but we need to agree a standard &amp;quot;canonical&amp;quot; version of the rules. The get-out-of-jail-free card is a unique mechanism like nothing else in chess, but I can't find a clear definition of how anyone uses it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT 2: Some relevant links:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_chess&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_chess&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_chess#Origin&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_chess#Origin&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessvariants.com/historic.dir/hindustani.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.chessvariants.com/historic.dir/hindustani.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessvariants.com/historic.dir/chaturanga.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.chessvariants.com/historic.dir/chaturanga.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The last link given is the most relevant, see John Gollon's account. However, I submit that the text is not clear, and I'm looking for another primary source.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8201" LastEditorUserId="8201" LastEditDate="2020-08-31T13:21:53.313" LastActivityDate="2021-04-05T01:28:48.950" Title="What is Indian Castling exactly?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;history&gt;&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;castling&gt;&lt;kings&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="7" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31919" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-08-23T00:32:23.963" Score="2" ViewCount="125" Body="&lt;p&gt;How does one checkmate with two rooks when playing against an opponent with two bishops? I am having difficulties with the bishops shutting down my rooks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastEditorUserId="24511" LastEditDate="2020-08-27T08:00:51.013" LastActivityDate="2020-08-27T09:07:24.213" Title="Endgame - 2 Rooks vs 2 Bishops" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;rook-endgame&gt;&lt;bishop-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ClosedDate="2020-08-30T00:39:15.490" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31920" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31867" CreationDate="2020-08-23T02:00:27.533" Score="2" Body="&lt;h2&gt;Antichess&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe &lt;code&gt;Antichess&lt;/code&gt; is what you are looking for. The aim is to be the one to lose all the pieces first. And it's mandatory to eat. And of course kings are eaten. You can play under &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;lichess.org&lt;/a&gt; such chess variant selecting a custom variant. You can see details &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/variant/antichess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;. But with children it's always better to play in person of course.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Legendary chess&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/wxrL9.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/wxrL9.png&quot; alt=&quot;Legendary chess&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also recommend you &lt;a href=&quot;http://fuajedrez.org/Noticias/ID/2461/Ajedrez-Leyendas--Legendary-Chess--Para-todos#.X0HJkNP0k8M&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;code&gt;Legendary chess&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/a&gt;, an application developed in Uruguay aimed for all ages and designed in a didactic way to learn chess basics step by step in a fun way with a storytelling scenario.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't remember exactly if there is a specific type of game where kings are eaten, but I bet you it's worth it to check the game and see.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the site you can download the Spanish or English version. It's a Windows based application but you can always run it using &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.winehq.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;wine&lt;/a&gt; if under Linux or Mac.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11215" LastActivityDate="2020-08-23T02:00:27.533" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31921" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31924" CreationDate="2020-08-23T02:26:05.427" Score="1" ViewCount="83" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've started to play the Lisitsin Gambit (1.Nf3 f5 2.e4), and this opening works well for me. However, I have analysed my games and found I have neglected to take advantage of several traps. What are the main traps in this opening?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastEditorUserId="4588" LastEditDate="2020-08-23T06:56:32.263" LastActivityDate="2020-08-23T16:48:01.420" Title="Lisitsin Gambit Traps" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;gambits&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31922" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31915" CreationDate="2020-08-23T10:01:43.537" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Coming from a machine learning background, although this sounds like a supervised learning task, do not expect any decent results.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most players today use the computer to analyze positions and prepare quite deep with the engines. So the distinction there is lost in most medium to high level game play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, simply knowing whether a game was played by a computer or not is not sufficient. To train any model, you need to have an intuitive understanding of your data. In this case, simply the sequence of moves played is not sufficient.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But if you're still bent on trying your hand at this, you could look into sequence classification using LSTM networks using an encoded matrix as inputs, but I don't see it working very well at all. If a human can't tell the difference, any model you develop won't be able to either.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24534" LastActivityDate="2020-08-23T10:01:43.537" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31923" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30531" CreationDate="2020-08-23T12:02:22.903" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you want a complex game that involves strategies similar to ordinary chess and yet is humanly playable, see &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/29581/9192&quot;&gt;this post&lt;/a&gt; where I explain a couple of meta-heuristics in creating very complex chess variants. But a very simple 2-move variant goes as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;On a player's turn, he/she can make up to 2 moves without a capture or make a single capture, but check ends the turn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;To balance the game, White can only make 1 move on the first turn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The player must not be in check after each move even halfway through the turn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can do the same to other chess-like games such as Chinese chess, and the resulting games can be really interesting, much more than ordinary chess is!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9192" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-08-25T10:02:11.690" LastActivityDate="2020-08-25T10:02:11.690" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31924" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31921" CreationDate="2020-08-23T16:48:01.420" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can try for Zukertort Trap in the Lisitsin Gambit line.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After 1. Nf3 f5 2. e4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the trap-line is Ng5&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;then if the opponent sticks with his pawn on f5, and pushes d5, then, simply play d3, followed by exd3 and then play Bxd3, and notice that the king has serious weakness on one of its diagonals.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, if opponent replies with Nf6, then the best option is Nxh7. If black captures with Nxh7, then Bg6(check), Kd7 and then Qxd5 (mate).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also go for, Bxh7 instead of Nxh7, also its winning for you, after Nxh7, you play Qh5, Kd7; Nf7, Qe8, Qxd5 (mate) and if black captures the bishop with rook, then you take it with the Knight, then Nxh7, and Qh5, checking the queen and picking up the Knight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23121" LastActivityDate="2020-08-23T16:48:01.420" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31925" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31928" CreationDate="2020-08-23T19:12:13.870" Score="4" ViewCount="168" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was playing an online game with the white pieces and won the exchange in the middlegame. So I exchanged some pieces and went for the &amp;quot;winning endgame&amp;quot;. I went ahead to draw the game. Afterwards, I analyzed the game and the Lichess analyzer showed that I had +1.8 advantage in this position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;White to move&amp;quot;]&#xA;[fen &amp;quot;B7/3R2p1/4pk2/2p2p2/Pb3P1p/4P1P1/2b4P/6K1 w - - 0 41&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I want to know what is the best strategy here to take advantage of my rook over Black's bishop. I figure my bishop should by in the same diagonal my passed pawn, so 42.Bc6 seems like a good continuation, so black responded with 42. ...h3, now my king is somewhat trapped by Blacks bishops, and they are too active, I do not have enough time to make my rook guard the a5 square so that I can push my pawn. So what should I be rooting for in this position? How to activate my king?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24246" LastEditorUserId="24246" LastEditDate="2020-08-23T19:25:57.010" LastActivityDate="2020-08-24T13:41:45.350" Title="What is the main idea in this winning endgame?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31926" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31927" CreationDate="2020-08-23T23:09:43.253" Score="4" ViewCount="431" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Grob is a white opening which starts with 1.g4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Borg(reversed Grob) is a black opening which goes 1.e4 g5, or 1.d4 g5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since White is a tempo up in the Borg, what difference will this make? And what is the significance of the difference?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastEditorUserId="12873" LastEditDate="2020-08-24T00:36:34.330" LastActivityDate="2020-08-24T00:36:34.330" Title="Borg and Grob comparison" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;grob&gt;&lt;borg&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31927" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31926" CreationDate="2020-08-23T23:13:43.407" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well for 1.d4, White's able to win a pawn outright with 2.Bxg5. In 1.e4, the extra tempo gives White better chances to capitalize on Black's dubious move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2020-08-23T23:13:43.407" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31928" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31925" CreationDate="2020-08-24T00:32:52.840" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Interesting position;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Activating your king I don't believe is the answer. I think your first goal is try and force the the c2 bishop off the board. corner the black king and create as many potential promotion threats (a , e and h files particularly)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I played the position out for a while on a few variations and will attach the cleanest variant;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I see the main objectives for white though is to try and lock blacks king on the right hand side and or rear of the board, try and remove potential promotion threats. Black black bishop is relatively harmless and is tied to the c5 pawn. Preventing the c5 pawn from promoting or moving will also keep the b4 bishop from being active in the game. Slowly whittle down the right side of the board which creates to many promotion opportunities that overwhelms blacks defenses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;White to move&amp;quot;]&#xA;[fen &amp;quot;B7/3R2p1/4pk2/2p2p2/Pb3P1p/4P1P1/2b4P/6K1 w - - 0 42&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Bc6 h3 2. Kf2 g5 3. Rb7 gxf4 4. gxf4 Kg6 5. Be8+ Kh6 6.Rb6 Kg7 7. Rxe6 Kf8&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Key Moves:&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;gxf4 by capturing towards the center, you keep the b4 bishop not being able to cause any impact to whites pawns on the E through H files. Any attempts will result in a loss of material. &lt;em&gt;In addition to this the c2 bishop is quite an inactive piece in this position&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;White to move&amp;quot;]&#xA;[fen &amp;quot;4Bk2/8/4R3/2p2p2/Pb3P2/4P2p/2b2K1P/8 w - - 0 8&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;8. Bd7 Bb3 9. Ra6 Bd5 10. Be6 Be4 11. Ra7 Ke8 12. a5 Bd3 13. a6 Bxa6 14. Rxa6 Bc3 15. Rc6 Bb4 16. Bxf5 Kf8 17. Bxh3 Kg7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Key Moves&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;Be6 support by the rook on a6, white has no means of capturing the without trading out its only useful bishop. The bishop is also somewhat &amp;quot;shepherding&amp;quot; the king with the a6 rook. It is also positioned attacking the c8-e3 diagonal poised to take out blacks pawns and threaten promotion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ra7 Locks the king to the d8 , e8 , f8 squares.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a6 forces black to capture with the bishop otherwise white can easily promote to queen and then mate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;To summarize&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Blacks b4 bishop is tied to the c5 pawn. Blacks only potential promotion threat can be largely ignored.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Keep up pressure. This is preventing Black from doing any meaningful development. Black is forced to move and lose pieces in this position.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Prevent Black from activating their king.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24511" LastEditorUserId="21604" LastEditDate="2020-08-24T13:41:45.350" LastActivityDate="2020-08-24T13:41:45.350" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31929" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31930" CreationDate="2020-08-24T03:39:28.610" Score="3" ViewCount="381" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Lisitsin gambit usually involves a bishop on d3 and a knight on g5. From's gambit has only a bishop on d6, but the gambit-accepting side has less development than the Lisitsin. How would this affect the play in both openings, and is the Lisitsin gambit good while the From Gambit dubious?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastEditorUserId="10867" LastEditDate="2020-09-07T13:13:14.437" LastActivityDate="2020-09-07T13:34:46.430" Title="Lisitsin gambit vs From's gambit" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;gambits&gt;&lt;froms-gambit&gt;&lt;lisitsin-gambit&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31930" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31929" CreationDate="2020-08-24T04:41:41.240" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a person who has experience in the Bird's and Dutch openings, I would say that both of them are somewhat bad responses to the Birds or Dutch. In the From's, generally white has the edge but its not as if black doesn't have counterplay. In the Lisitsin, usually something like 1Nf3 f5 2e4 fxe4 3Ng5 Nc6 4d3 e3 is something close to equal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a version of the from's gambit that goes&#xA;1f4 e5 2fxe5 d6 3exd6 Bxd6 4Nf3 Nf6, which is similar to lisitsin as black often plays Ng4. In the &amp;quot;main&amp;quot; variation of the froms, black is playing g5 and white typical response is to play g3, d4 Qd3. In the lisitsin, however, as white is more developed, black often gives the pawn pack to neutralize the attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;So the answer the question, The main difference between the from's gambit and the lisitsin gambit is that in the Froms gambit, white often keeps the extra pawn, parries black threats, and has an edge(though positions are often complicated with chances for both sides). In the Lisitsin gambit, white's attack is often neutralized because black gives back his extra pawn in order to not allow white to develop the light square bishop quickly. The game is close to equal.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So in both gambits, if the acceptor doesn't hasn't much knowledge in the gambit, it can be very dangerous. However, if the acceptor is an experienced dutch player or bird player, then there will be no problems and the gambiteer would have had better chances with more mainstream responses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3872" LastActivityDate="2020-08-24T04:41:41.240" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31931" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-08-24T12:41:51.220" Score="1" ViewCount="222" Body="&lt;p&gt;Imagine a game where players are allowed 2 moves instead of one. If there were perfect play from both sides, would White win?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24543" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-08-28T08:25:48.740" LastActivityDate="2020-08-31T09:09:43.243" Title="If there was a perfect play from both sides, but each player was allowed to do 2 moves every time, would white win?" Tags="&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;solving&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31933" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-08-24T15:10:10.863" Score="3" ViewCount="104" Body="&lt;p&gt;Consider a chess variant in which normal chess rules apply, with one exception. The player that is able to bring a piece or a pawn onto the opponent’s back rank, which would be the 8th rank for White and the 1st rank for Black, wins immediately. The move has to be legal and it ends the game, even if the opponent could mate on the next move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On Liches some chess variants like King of the Hill, Atomic, and Three-Check can be analyzed. Can I easily adjust Stockfish or another chess program such that this new rule applies? Would have a big advantage in this game? Or can we even show that White has a winning strategy?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="5784" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-24T15:27:10.623" LastActivityDate="2020-08-24T22:14:21.397" Title="How big is the advantage for white in the &quot;back-rank-game&quot;?" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;chess-variants&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31934" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31936" CreationDate="2020-08-24T21:51:10.173" Score="3" ViewCount="384" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm an adult and I've been playing for a bit over 2 years on chess.com. My rating started at around 800. By playing thousands of blitz games and doing a little post-game analysis/opening review, I was able to get to 1400 in Nov. 2019. However, I struggled to push much farther this year. However, this month I started solving puzzles - maybe 20 per day or so - and gained about 200 rating points. It's crazy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there any other levers like this one that a beginner should know about?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/oEtPa.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/oEtPa.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24529" LastEditorUserId="307" LastEditDate="2020-08-24T22:15:11.750" LastActivityDate="2020-08-24T22:26:50.347" Title="Are there exercises besides tactics that beginners should know about?" Tags="&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;training&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31935" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31933" CreationDate="2020-08-24T22:14:21.397" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, since White has the first move, then White would always be trying to put a piece on the back rank, while Black is trying to catch up. So Black can eventually trade off all the pieces, and Black can keep opposition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I'm not sure if this is a legitimate strategy. We would have to solve all possible positions before we know the actual result.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastActivityDate="2020-08-24T22:14:21.397" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31936" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31934" CreationDate="2020-08-24T22:26:50.347" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The easiest way to improve at almost any stage is hiring a good coach (not one that plays well, but one that caoches well, which is often cheaper)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While tactics should be the main focus of your training at this point, there are other types of exercises you can do. &amp;quot;Systematic Chess Training&amp;quot; by Sergiu Samarian is a great book that combines different types of exercises, but it's probably a bit too hard for you right now. &amp;quot;Modern Chess Planning&amp;quot; by Efstratios Grivas could be a more adequate alternative. There's also a couple of books by Jacobo Caselas &amp;quot;Entrena tu juego estratégico&amp;quot;, but I'm not sure if there's an English translation available.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Grivas's book contains 75 games where you must choose a plan at a critical stage of each of them. The game continues with a detailed analysis. The other books I mentioned are essentially strategy teaching manuals that contain a lot of exercises.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastActivityDate="2020-08-24T22:26:50.347" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31937" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31979" CreationDate="2020-08-24T22:42:02.153" Score="0" ViewCount="128" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the Benoni, a common move in the position is e4-e5 and then Ng1-f3. Afterwards, I have worries about my opponent playing e4-e5 and creating a passed pawn, but up to now, I haven't met with this situation yet. How can I defend against e4-e5 properly?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastActivityDate="2020-08-27T09:01:21.207" Title="Benoni e4-e5 push" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;pawns&gt;&lt;benoni&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31938" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31940" CreationDate="2020-08-24T22:44:57.943" Score="2" ViewCount="372" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the Benoni, I often have opponents play Bc1-g5 as White, after I have fianchettoed my king's bishop. I don't know how to stop it. I know that it isn't the main theory, but I haven't found a way to break the pin. How is it possible to play the position with the white bishop on g5 so that I have as few problems as possible?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The main line that my opponents play is this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 c5 3. d5 e6 4. Nc3 exd5 5. cxd5 d6 6. e4 g6 7. Nf3 Bg7 8. Bg5 *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-25T12:22:16.773" LastActivityDate="2020-08-25T12:22:56.180" Title="Benoni Bc1-g5 move" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;benoni&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31939" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31943" CreationDate="2020-08-25T01:22:34.750" Score="3" ViewCount="128" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am looking for some references where this variation is analysed. I have found some &lt;a href=&quot;https://youtu.be/a8Kiz4XYOaQ&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;YouTube videos&lt;/a&gt; where engines play out this position, but they do not explain alternative moves which also lead to extremely complex games. It is called Kholmov System and arises from the Pirc Defence, but is also reachable from the Modern and Alekhine Defence (I almost always get it from the Alekhine).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;1. e4 d6 2. d4 Nf6 3. Nc3 g6 4. Bc4 Bg7 5. Qe2 Nc6 6. e5! Nxd4 (6...Nfd7 7. e6!? (7. Nf3)) (6...Ng4 7. Bb5) 7. exf6 Nxe2 8. fxg7 Rg8 9. Ngxe2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The engines claim Black is better, but in human practice White wins by a huge margin. Perhaps some book has good analysis of this variation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15478" LastEditorUserId="7726" LastEditDate="2020-08-25T08:41:29.367" LastActivityDate="2020-08-25T08:41:29.367" Title="Pirc Defence, Kholmov System literature" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;alekhines-defense&gt;&lt;pirc-defense&gt;&lt;modern-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31940" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31938" CreationDate="2020-08-25T04:43:06.937" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;This move order, without e4 and Bg7, was employed by Botvinnik in the Tal-Botvinnik 1960 WCC match. If you're interested, check it out &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1032503&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;. In his book on the match, Tal recommends going for a quick h6-g5-Nh5 maneuver to win the bishop pair before the kingside knight can be maneuvered to c4, which (in conjunction with the bishop on g3) puts uncomfortable pressure on your backwards d6 pawn. Tal also mentions that while it looks a little weird to weaken your kingside pawns so much so early on, any attack on your king is merely illusion as your pieces are well coordinated to compensate for the few light square weaknesses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With your specific move order, however, you're going to want to insert 9...a6 before playing g5 so as to stop the following variation: 8...h6 9. Bh4 g5 10. Bg3 Nh5? 11. Bb5+! and you cannot comfortably block the check without losing your d6 pawn. Note that Bd7 &amp;quot;loses&amp;quot; to Bxd7+ Qxd7 Ne5! with a counterattack on your undefended h5 knight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, the recommendation according to theory is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA; 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 c5 3. d5 e6 4. Nc3 exd5 5. cxd5 d6 6. e4 g6 7. Nf3 Bg7 8. Bg5 h6 9. Bh4 a6 (9... g5 10. Bg3 Nh5? 11. Bb5+! Kf8 12. e5!) 10. a4 (10. Nd2 b5!) g5 11. Bg3 Nh5 12. Nd2 Nxg3=&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3884" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-25T12:22:56.180" LastActivityDate="2020-08-25T12:22:56.180" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31941" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17312" CreationDate="2020-08-25T08:02:01.553" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here's a search engine trick that may help. You can block and unblock websites, so maybe you can block the chess site you're on, take a rest for a few days, and then unblock and start playing again. You don't have to delete your account.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastActivityDate="2020-08-25T08:02:01.553" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31942" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31945" CreationDate="2020-08-25T08:19:52.800" Score="7" ViewCount="565" Body="&lt;p&gt;Wikipedia's article on &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grandmaster_(chess)&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;chess grandmasters&lt;/a&gt; indicates that the requirements to become a GM is complicated, and has always been complicated. For example right now, to become a GM, one needs to have had a rating of at least 2500 at some point in one's career, &lt;em&gt;and&lt;/em&gt; one needs &amp;quot;two favorable results (called norms) from a total of at least 27 games in tournaments&amp;quot;, with the rules for what qualifies as &amp;quot;norm&amp;quot; occupying several more bullet points (quotes from the WIkipedia article).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why does it need to be so? If the aim is to award the title only to world class players, I can think of some much easier system to select them, e.g. you must have been rated in the top 100 of the world at one point. This would tie the title to a single, easily-understood number. I notice some of the lower titles already use this criterion (e.g. Candidate Master), so it begs the question of why the higher ones have more complicated requirements.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastActivityDate="2020-08-25T13:48:29.517" Title="Why are the requirements for becoming a GM so complicated?" Tags="&lt;fide&gt;&lt;grandmaster&gt;&lt;titles&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31943" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31939" CreationDate="2020-08-25T08:40:28.860" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;The Pirc Defence&amp;quot; by Mihail Marin (see e.g. &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.qualitychess.co.uk/products/1/305/the_pirc_defence_by_mihail_marin/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.qualitychess.co.uk/products/1/305/the_pirc_defence_by_mihail_marin/&lt;/a&gt;), part of the Grandmaster Repertoire series, covers this line from Black's perspective&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7726" LastActivityDate="2020-08-25T08:40:28.860" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31944" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12394" CreationDate="2020-08-25T10:07:20.243" Score="1" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Open up the position.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Don't allow the Black knights to get outposts.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Try to provoke the opponent into creating pawn weaknesses which can be exploited with bishops.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastActivityDate="2020-08-25T10:07:20.243" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31945" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31942" CreationDate="2020-08-25T13:48:29.517" Score="8" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the aim is to award the title only to world class players, I can&#xA;think of some much easier system to select them, e.g. you must have&#xA;been rated in the top 100 of the world at one point. This would tie&#xA;the title to a single, easily-understood number. I notice some of the&#xA;lower titles already use this criterion (e.g. Candidate Master)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The comparison with the Candidate Master title is a telling one. The CM title is not highly regarded. This has been covered in two previous questions here - &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/14612/how-respectable-is-the-cm-title&quot;&gt;How respectable is the CM title?&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/21627/is-a-candidate-master-considered-a-master&quot;&gt;Is a candidate master considered a master?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why are the requirements for becoming a GM so complicated?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They are indeed complicated. Here is the link for the &lt;a href=&quot;https://handbook.fide.com/chapter/B01Regulations2017&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Title Regulations effective from 1 July 2017&lt;/a&gt;. One additional requirement, which I don't see listed here, is that the tournament organizer must send a file with the PGNs of all the games for the tournament.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reasons they are so complicated is that they have evolved over time to deal with the corrupting influences of money, politics, rating manipulation and cheating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Money&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One of the ways of getting the GM title is to be World Champion. Here is what &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Chess_Championship&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia says&lt;/a&gt; about the early period of world championships:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From 1886 to 1946, the champion set the terms, requiring any&#xA;challenger to raise a sizable stake and defeat the champion in a match&#xA;in order to become the new world champion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, no money - no match. As the article says, this had a profound effect on who got to play for the title:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This requirement makes arranging world championship matches more&#xA;difficult, for example: Marshall challenged Lasker in 1904 but could&#xA;not raise the money until 1907;[37] in 1911 Lasker and Rubinstein&#xA;agreed in principle to a world championship match, but this was never&#xA;played as Rubinstein could not raise the money.[38][39] In the early&#xA;1920s, Alekhine, Rubinstein and Nimzowitsch all challenged Capablanca,&#xA;but only Alekhine was able to raise the US$10,000 that Capablanca&#xA;demanded, and not until 1927&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;OK, you might be thinking, those kinds of considerations belong to a bygone age. Well, try telling that to Shirov who, perhaps, should have been World Champion in 2000 instead of Kramnik:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Soon after the 1995 championship, the PCA folded, and Kasparov had no&#xA;organisation to choose his next challenger. In 1998 he formed the&#xA;World Chess Council, which organised a candidates match between Alexei&#xA;Shirov and Vladimir Kramnik. Shirov won the match, but negotiations&#xA;for a Kasparov–Shirov match broke down, and Shirov was subsequently&#xA;omitted from negotiations, much to his disgust. Plans for a 1999 or&#xA;2000 Kasparov–Anand match also broke down, and Kasparov organised a&#xA;match with Kramnik in late 2000&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Politics&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is what the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grandmaster_(chess)&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia article&lt;/a&gt; has to say on this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Title awards under the original regulations were subject to political&#xA;concerns. Efim Bogoljubov, who had emigrated from the Soviet Union to&#xA;Germany, was not entered in the first class of Grandmasters, even&#xA;though he had played two matches for the World Championship with&#xA;Alekhine. He received the title in 1951, by a vote of thirteen to&#xA;eight with five abstentions. Yugoslavia supported his application, but&#xA;all other Communist countries opposed it. In 1953, FIDE abolished the&#xA;old regulations, although a provision was maintained that allowed&#xA;older masters who had been overlooked to be awarded titles&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There was more political interference in the 1962 Candidates tournament which selected the challenger for the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Chess_Championship_1963&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;1963 World Championships&lt;/a&gt;. Here is what the article says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What makes this tournament famous and often-discussed is the&#xA;allegations of Soviet collusion. The three top finishers (Petrosian,&#xA;Geller and Keres) drew all twelve of their games against each other,&#xA;in an average of only 19 moves.[15]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Soon after the tournament, Fischer publicly alleged that the Soviets&#xA;had colluded to prevent any non-Soviet – specifically him – from&#xA;winning. His allegations were twofold: first, that Petrosian, Geller&#xA;and Keres had pre-arranged to draw all their games; and second, that&#xA;Korchnoi had been part of the drawing pact in the first half of the&#xA;tournament, and been instructed to lose some games to them in the&#xA;second half.[16][17][18] (In the first two cycles Korchnoi drew all&#xA;his games with Petrosian, Geller and Keres; in the third cycle he lost&#xA;to all of them; and in the final cycle he lost to Petrosian but drew&#xA;with Keres and Geller).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first allegation, of the drawing pact, is generally assumed to be&#xA;correct.[18] All of the three players involved have since died, but&#xA;Yuri Averbakh, who was head of the Soviet team, confirmed it in a 2002&#xA;interview.[10] He offered the rationale that Keres was the oldest&#xA;competitor and wanted to conserve energy, and that Petrosian and&#xA;Geller were good friends with a history of drawing with each other.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The second allegation, of Korchnoi throwing games, is more&#xA;doubtful.[18] Korchnoi defected from the USSR in 1976, and never&#xA;alleged he was forced to throw games. Dominic Lawson calls the&#xA;allegation &amp;quot;preposterous&amp;quot;, noting that the main beneficiary of&#xA;Korchnoi's losses was Petrosian, whom Korchnoi detested&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Rating Manipulation and Cheating&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is an &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheating_in_chess&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;interesting Wikipedia article&lt;/a&gt; on this. For those who like their chess dripping with blood there is the story of infamous mother-killer &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_Bloodgood&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Claude Bloodgood&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bloodgood organized chess games within Powhatan Correctional Center in&#xA;Powhatan, Virginia, which were by necessity with fellow inmates.&lt;a href=&quot;https://handbook.fide.com/chapter/B01Regulations2017&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;3&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;Many of these inmates were taught the game by Bloodgood, and thus&#xA;began as unrated and inexperienced players. Bloodgood obtained USCF&#xA;memberships for them. Some accused Bloodgood, with his intimate&#xA;knowledge of the rating system, of rigging their ratings. The&#xA;accusation was that he arranged for new prisoners to play rated games&#xA;against other prisoners, who would deliberately lose, thus giving the&#xA;new inmate an inflated USCF rating. Bloodgood, it is further alleged,&#xA;then played rated games against the new highly rated prisoner, and&#xA;each time he won, gained a few more rating points. This continued for&#xA;several years, and by 1997 his rating rose to 2759, making the&#xA;59-year-old Bloodgood the second highest rated player in the nation,&#xA;only behind Gata Kamsky.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;OK, but that was USCF rating not FIDE. That could never happen with FIDE ratings, surely? And certianly not for titles? Well, check out this article from TWIC (The Week in Chess) &lt;a href=&quot;https://theweekinchess.com/html/twic226.html#4&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;from 8th March 1999&lt;/a&gt;. Here is an extract:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Respected Grandmaster and chess journalist Ian Rogers also felt moved&#xA;to comment on the event in the Canberra Times Chess Column for March&#xA;7th. He too was almost breathtaken by the number of norms scored in&#xA;the event and the calculated level of planning required for titles and&#xA;rating fraud on this scale. I quote, with permission, at length below.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;The Grandmaster tournament which took place in Rangoon in the first&#xA;two weeks of February took months of planning but succeeded in&#xA;creating six Grandmaster results and eight IM results, an astonishing&#xA;success rate. (Two or three title 'norms' are needed for a player to&#xA;be awarded the GM or IM title.) Some of those scoring Grandmaster&#xA;results had struggled to score 50% in the South-East Asian zonal&#xA;tournament only a month earlier! Corruption extended not only to the&#xA;tournament itself - with seven highly rated locals losing all their&#xA;games to their compatriots - but also to a series of events held in&#xA;1998 which provided extremely high world rankings for all those&#xA;required to be 'victims' in the February tournament. All seven of the&#xA;no-hopers in February were unrated in January 1998, yet on the January&#xA;1999 FIDE list had rankings higher than Australian Grandmaster Darryl&#xA;Johansen.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;The following game is not atypical of their play, with the heavily&#xA;'outrated' Mas winning one of the easiest games of his career: Rangoon&#xA;1999 White: H.Mas Black: Thein Dan Oo 1.e4 c5 2.f4 d6 3.Nf3 Nc6 4.Bb5&#xA;g6 5.0-0 Bg7 6.Bxc6+ bxc6 7.d3 Rb8?! 8.Nc3 Nf6 9.Qe1 0-0 10.b3 d5?&#xA;11.e5 Nd7 12.Ba3 Re8?! 13.Na4 Rb5 14.e6 Nf6? 15.c4 Ra5? 16.exf7+ Kxf7 17.Ne5+ Kg8 18.Nxc6 1-0 Mas, the honourable Malaysian IM who performed so creditably in Sydney in January, was not one of the favoured many&#xA;who scored title results. His opponent, rated 2539 - a near-GM&#xA;ranking, managed only 4 points from 14 games. There is no suggestion&#xA;that any of the foreign visitors were involved in anything other than&#xA;pre-arranged draws - they simply took advantage of the extraordinarily&#xA;overrated opposition. However the local players in Rangoon probably&#xA;knew the results of many of their games before the event began and if&#xA;an 'accident' occurred to one of those destined to score a title norm&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;e.g. a loss to a foreign player - their compatriots pitched in and provided some extra points or half points. Unusually for a corrupt&#xA;tournament, the foreign invitees were not needed to help out the&#xA;locals, since the enormous rankings of the weakest players meant that&#xA;the scores required for title results were relatively low.&amp;quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;From the point of view of the organisers, the event was so successful&#xA;that it is likely to be repeated in a few months time, before the&#xA;ratings of the tailenders are adjusted on the July FIDE rating list.&#xA;After one more such tournament, Burma could have 4 Grandmasters and&#xA;half a dozen IMs; after a few more such tournaments they could have&#xA;more Grandmasters than any country in Asia! Publicity may encourage&#xA;the Burmese to become more discreet in future but FIDE is highly&#xA;unlikely to take any action. Their actions in past cases would&#xA;indicate that the world body tacitly approves of a 'developing' chess&#xA;nation acquiring titled players, whatever the ethics involved.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-08-25T13:48:29.517" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31946" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31955" CreationDate="2020-08-25T19:58:23.663" Score="10" ViewCount="3199" Body="&lt;p&gt;I only have about 35 games experience , so please excuse blunders.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am in the following position. My app (&lt;a href=&quot;https://apps.apple.com/at/app/learn-chess-with-dr-wolf/id1353041020?l=en&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;dr wolf&lt;/a&gt;) wants me to capture on a3. However I fail to see either the extreme threat posed by the enemy Knight, or the extreme utility of the enemy vacating the b column, that would justify sacrifice (corr.: exchange) of my bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;r1bqkbnr/ppp2ppp/2n5/4p3/3p4/N1PP1N2/PP1BPPPP/R2QKB1R b KQkq - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can anyone explain the strengths of this move?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24117" LastEditorUserId="21604" LastEditDate="2020-12-19T22:01:26.267" LastActivityDate="2020-12-19T22:01:26.267" Title="What is so great about Bxa3?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;beginner&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31947" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31946" CreationDate="2020-08-25T20:36:29.627" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;While some books give a slightly higher numeric value for the bishop than the knight, an exchange of bishop vs. knight is not regarded as a sacrifice. It depends on the exact position if a bishop or a knight is stronger. So this is simply an exchange.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bxa3 makes the white pawn structure worse. White gets an isolated double pawn, which is bad news for white. Bxa3 also prevents the knight from Nc4, where it could put some pressure on e5. The negative: black gives away his bishop pair which is advantageous in a lot of positions (but not in all).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My engines (Leela chess zero and Stockfish) agree with Bxa3 but don’t agree with some other white moves. Don’t believe in engine moves, especially from weaker engines (or weaker preferences of strong engines).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20096" LastActivityDate="2020-08-25T20:36:29.627" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31948" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31946" CreationDate="2020-08-25T20:51:15.687" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The thing about loosening White's pawn structure, specifically, is that Black is enabled to develop ...Qd8-e7 or ...Qd8-d6 as a threat, when White's replies a3-a4 or Qd1-c1 don't help White.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Good chess is a matter of introducing unused force with threats.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2494" LastActivityDate="2020-08-25T20:51:15.687" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31949" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31950" CreationDate="2020-08-25T23:59:56.453" Score="2" ViewCount="105" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to use python-chess to get the top 5 Stockfish moves from a given position with a numerical evaluation for each move. Is it more accurate to run the engine for 10 minutes with MultiPV=5, or to quickly rank all the legal moves (with maybe 1-2 seconds engine time each) and then let the engine think about the top 5 or so one at a time for 2 minutes?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24558" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-26T00:09:14.403" LastActivityDate="2020-08-28T00:22:17.723" Title="What's the best way to get the top n engine moves?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;python&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31950" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31949" CreationDate="2020-08-26T00:20:03.860" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both approaches will work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In the second approach, you will have &lt;strong&gt;better accuracy&lt;/strong&gt; of your evaluations but you may miss an important move. For example, if 20...Rxc3 positional exchange sacrifice is a strong move, you will probably miss it with a 1-2s quick engine search.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In the first approach, you will lose accuracy but you won't miss a strong hidden resource like in the second approach.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Classical example of sensitivity vs false positives. The second approach is more sensitive but you trade it with higher false positive rate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In Chessable engine analysis, I adopted the second approach. I gave about 10s for each legal move (there could be many!). Filter out only the top moves, then seek evaluation for each individual move. 1-2s is too little.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;PS:&lt;/strong&gt; MultiPV is causing lose in accuracy because the engine has to evaluate the moves before those moves are played on the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2020-08-28T00:22:17.723" LastActivityDate="2020-08-28T00:22:17.723" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31952" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31961" CreationDate="2020-08-26T02:50:50.707" Score="2" ViewCount="75" Body="&lt;p&gt;I sometimes play the Grob in blitz, where most of my opponents attack my g4-pawn with 1...d5. However, some opponents play 1...e5, leaving me in a weird position. Is there any way to play against 1...e5, while also leaving chances for many tactics along the a8-h1 diagonal?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastEditorUserId="9025" LastEditDate="2020-08-26T02:55:33.767" LastActivityDate="2020-08-26T11:24:06.163" Title="Grob Opening lines" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;grob&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31953" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31959" CreationDate="2020-08-26T02:54:33.057" Score="2" ViewCount="3262" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/forum/view/fun-with-chess/worlds-lowest-rated-grandmaster&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.chess.com/forum/view/fun-with-chess/worlds-lowest-rated-grandmaster&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a joke thread about the 'world's worst grandmaster', Panko Smoobachuk. Seeing this post, I wondered, what is the world's lowest rated grandmaster?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-26T20:48:43.240" LastActivityDate="2020-08-26T20:48:43.240" Title="Worst grandmaster by rating" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;fide&gt;&lt;grandmaster&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31954" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32120" CreationDate="2020-08-26T03:01:12.727" Score="2" ViewCount="182" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know that you can mate with two bishops, but I do not know whether it is possible if White has 3 bishops, and Black has 1 bishop. Is there a general method? If so, is it possible for White to checkmate in all cases, where he has &lt;em&gt;n+2&lt;/em&gt; bishops and Black has &lt;em&gt;n&lt;/em&gt; bishops?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastActivityDate="2020-09-05T11:53:54.927" Title="Checkmate with 3 bishops vs 1 bishop" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;bishops&gt;&lt;kings&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31955" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31946" CreationDate="2020-08-26T03:13:19.813" Score="24" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Black wrecks white's pawn structure&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Black gains in development since he's trading an undeveloped piece for a developed one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Although the center is sill fluid, black's dark square bishop is currently a &amp;quot;bad&amp;quot; bishop. in the short run, white's knight is the more active piece.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;It removes the support of the c-pawn which opens up some tactical possibilities and also forces white to do something in the center rather than sitting back.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2020-08-26T03:13:19.813" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31956" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31946" CreationDate="2020-08-26T05:05:03.623" Score="16" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Strong positives:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Damages white's pawn structure.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Paves the way for quick kingside castling.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Prevents Nc4, which would centralize the knight and attack e5.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Mild positives:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;4&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Removes a potentially &amp;quot;bad bishop&amp;quot; for a knight that is about to become strong.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;c3 pawn loses a defender.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;a3 pawn is attackable.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Mild negatives:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;7&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Opens b-file for your opponent's rook. :(&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Trades a bishop for a knight (static material disadvantage of 0.5 pawns). :(&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1090" LastActivityDate="2020-08-26T05:05:03.623" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31957" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29000" CreationDate="2020-08-26T05:49:32.760" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;If you look at the first move, you can see that the two openings are similar, due to the fact the initial pawn structures of both openings are actually mirror images of each other.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's one of the most patzerish things I've ever read in a book written by a strong player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Flip the board around, and I don't think anyone (not even Simon Williams) would suggest the English and the Bird are similar, except that all four (Bird, English, Dutch, Sicilian) of them influence the center from the wing instead of through direct occupation, and none of them do as much for one's development as a central pawn move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2494" LastActivityDate="2020-08-26T05:49:32.760" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31959" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31953" CreationDate="2020-08-26T09:54:46.213" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;The new, munged* &lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE rating website&lt;/a&gt; still has the old &amp;quot;Advanced Search&amp;quot; option, but the page doesn't have its own URL. There you can search for GMs from all countries sorted by rating ascending and then you get that the Russian GM, &lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/profile/4140249&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Vasily B Malinin&lt;/a&gt;, born in 1956 is the lowest rated GM with a standard rating of 2100.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Looking at his &lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/profile/4140249/calculations&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;individual calculations&lt;/a&gt; shows that his rating has been in steady decline since 2004 which would suggest some life-changing event happened then, perhaps a health problem, which affected his chess playing ability.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mung_(computer_term)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;mung&lt;/a&gt; = self referential acronym = Mung Until No Good&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2020-08-26T18:32:39.027" LastActivityDate="2020-08-26T18:32:39.027" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31961" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31952" CreationDate="2020-08-26T11:24:06.163" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;You played 1. g4 and you're not pleased with a &amp;quot;weird position&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do you know why 1. g4 has any value other than comic? You're aiming to post a knight on e4, and the g4-pawn is there to knock down ...f5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I mean, if they're playing ...e5 and not ...d5 to give you the typical c4 counterplay, you ought to be happy with that because they're not contesting the square you want for your middlegame outpost.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2494" LastActivityDate="2020-08-26T11:24:06.163" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31962" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31964" CreationDate="2020-08-26T11:28:28.310" Score="2" ViewCount="130" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 {0} e5 {8} 2. Nf3 {0} Nc6 {5} 3. Bc4 {0} Bc5 {3} 4. c3 {0} d6 {6} 5. O-O&#xA;{0} Nf6 {8} 6. d3 {0} O-O {1} 7. Re1 {0} Re8 {4} 8. b4 {0} Bb6 {19} 9. Qd2 {0}&#xA;d5 {12} 10. exd5 {0} Nxd5 {2} 11. d4 {0} e4 {20} 12. Bxd5 {0} exf3 {2} 13. Bxf3&#xA;{0} a5 {38} 14. Rxe8+ {0} Qxe8 {2} 15. b5 {0} Na7 {3} 16. a4 {0} c6 {2} 17.&#xA;bxc6 {0} bxc6 {0} 18. d5 {0} cxd5 {2} 19. Bxd5 {0} Rb8 {7} 20. h4 {0} Be6 {5} 21. Bxe6 {0} Qxe6 {1} 22. c4 {0} Qxc4 {8} 23. Bb2 {0} Qxh4 {15} 24. Be5 {0} Re8&#xA;{9} 25. g3 {0} Qb4 {7} 26. Bc3 {0} Qe4 {7} 27. Qb2 {0} Rd8 {26} 28. Na3 {0} Bc7&#xA;{46} 29. Bxg7 {0} Bxg3 {9} 30. fxg3 {0} Qe3+ {3} 31. Kh1 {0} Qf3+ {9} 32. Kh2 {&#xA;0} Re8 {4} 33. Ra2 {0} Qh5+ {13} 34. Kg2 {0} Qd5+ {10} 35. Kh2 {0} Qh5+ {1} 36.&#xA;Kg2 {0} Qd5+ {1} 37. Kh2 {0} Qh5+ {1} 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this painful game that I played as Black I know I could've won, but that's how most of my game are nowadays. Earlier I lost mainly due to blunders. but now I get to a winning position and then don't know what to do from there, and that is even more painful. So, from this game, can the error in my game play be pointed out?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21840" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-26T13:29:31.673" LastActivityDate="2020-08-27T00:15:02.190" Title="What am I missing here?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;winning&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31964" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31962" CreationDate="2020-08-26T13:52:49.007" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;A possibility that jumps to mind instantly is 26..Qg4, with two threats:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Qxg3+&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Re2 followed by either Rxf2 or Bxf2+.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only move that prevents both these threats is 27.Kf1, but then black could e.g. play Qh3+ or Rd8. Both moves lead to an easy win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the position you obtained the most important thing is to make sure white can not solve a threat by developing a piece. As long as you keep that in mind and keep finding new threats and ways to use your pieces to their potential, you should be fine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21810" LastActivityDate="2020-08-26T13:52:49.007" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31967" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29000" CreationDate="2020-08-26T21:13:55.017" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The most similar variations probably come in some of the closed lines (Grand Prix, Closed Sicilian...) where each side plays in an opposite side of the board. The Morra Gambit is also &amp;quot;similar&amp;quot; to &lt;strong&gt;1.d4 f5 2.e4&lt;/strong&gt; in the sense that White sacrifices a pawn for activity, but that's pretty much it. The fact that in the Sicilian White can freely play d2-d4 due to the queen defending d4 really makes things different.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastActivityDate="2020-08-26T21:13:55.017" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31968" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31962" CreationDate="2020-08-27T00:15:02.190" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Instead of Qh5+ Black would win by threatening mate with 32 ... Re1.  If 33 Qg2 Qh5+ 34 Qh3 Rh1+! 35 Kxh1 Qxh3+ wins easily because the wBg7 also falls.  If 33 Qb8+ Kxg7 34 Qb2+ f6 and White's out of checks (note 34 Qe5+ Rxe5 and 35 Qb7+ Qxb7).  Even on the last move 36 ... Re1 would win but there are a few more lines to check (find the mates after 37 g4 or 37 Kh3).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8860" LastActivityDate="2020-08-27T00:15:02.190" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31970" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18797" CreationDate="2020-08-27T03:48:31.527" Score="0" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The move 0-0 leaves White's options open while developing. The other moves will determine White's plan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Castling will allow White to play a better version of the Giuoco Piano, but without the ..Bb4+.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastActivityDate="2020-08-27T03:48:31.527" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31971" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6006" CreationDate="2020-08-27T03:58:29.637" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The symbol is an evaluation. +- means that White is winning. The first sign will refer to White's indication, so if there is a '-' at the start, White is losing, and vice versa.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastActivityDate="2020-08-27T03:58:29.637" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31972" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31983" CreationDate="2020-08-27T04:02:49.187" Score="2" ViewCount="100" Body="&lt;p&gt;In &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1260278&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; game, Rashid Nezhmetidnov sacrificed his queen for a bishop. I see that White gets an outpost on d5, but I can't find anything else that justifises the sacrifice. Is there any other compensation that exists?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Rashid Gibiatovich Nezhmetdinov-Oleg L Chernikov, Chigorin Team Cup, Rostov-on-Don USSR, 1962&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;[startply &amp;quot;22&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 g6 5. Nc3 Bg7 6. Be3 Nf6 7. Bc4 O-O 8. Bb3 Ng4 9. Qxg4 Nxd4 10. Qh4 Qa5 11. O-O Bf6 12. Qxf6 Ne2+ 13. Nxe2 exf6 14. Nc3 Re8 15. Nd5 Re6 16. Bd4 Kg7 17. Rad1 d6 18. Rd3 Bd7 19. Rf3 Bb5 20. Bc3 Qd8 21. Nxf6 Be2 22. Nxh7+ Kg8 23. Rh3 Re5 24. f4 Bxf1 25. Kxf1 Rc8 26. Bd4 b5 27. Ng5 Rc7 28. Bxf7+ Rxf7 29. Rh8+ Kxh8 30. Nxf7+ Kh7 31. Nxd8 Rxe4 32. Nc6 Rxf4+ 33. Ke2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-29T18:40:00.773" LastActivityDate="2020-08-30T03:25:37.490" Title="Seeking an explanation for Nezhmetidnov’s queen sacrifice" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;queens&gt;&lt;sacrifice&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31973" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31989" CreationDate="2020-08-27T04:17:15.347" Score="1" ViewCount="76" Body="&lt;p&gt;The main idea of this opening is to get a mass of center pawns, for less development. How can White get his pieces out before Black can develop too many pieces?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-28T13:22:26.037" LastActivityDate="2020-08-28T13:22:26.037" Title="Polish Opening development" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;development&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31974" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31975" CreationDate="2020-08-27T05:12:51.113" Score="0" ViewCount="67" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the open Catalan, Black can hold onto the c4-pawn with b7-b5 and a7-a6. If so, then the queenside will have to be severely weakened. I think that this approach is reasonable and playable, but many other chess players state that it isn't good. Where could my reasoning have gone wrong?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-27T11:54:41.567" LastActivityDate="2020-08-27T11:54:41.567" Title="In the open Catalan, should Black hold onto their pawn?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;gambits&gt;&lt;catalan&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31975" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31974" CreationDate="2020-08-27T06:08:01.893" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's possible to keep the pawn but at the expense of seriously weakening the queenside and fall behind in development. Keeping the pawn is certainly playable but you will need to know how not to be busted in the centre.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Keeping or giving the pawn, both possible in Catalan. Whether you like it or not depend on your personal preference.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2020-08-27T06:08:01.893" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31976" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31978" CreationDate="2020-08-27T07:42:59.003" Score="13" ViewCount="8817" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was playing a tournament on Chess.com and received a &amp;quot;Brilliant Move&amp;quot; in the post game analysis. I haven't received this before and was curious of the following.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. c4 e6 3. Nf3 c5 4. Nc3 Nc6 5. g3 dxc4 6. e3 Nf6 7. Bd2 a6 8. Ne5 cxd4 9. Nxc6 bxc6 10. exd4 Rb8 11. Bxc4 Rxb2 12. Bb3 Bb4 13. Qc1 Rxd2 14. Qxd2 Ne4 15. Qd3 Bxc3+ 16. Ke2 Qxd4 17. Rhf1 Bxa1 18. f3 Nc3+ 19. Kd2 Nb1+ 20. Rxb1 Qf2+ 21. Kc1 Bf6 22. Ba4 O-O 23. Bxc6 Rd8 24. Rb8 Qc5+ 25. Qc2 Qg1+ 26. Qd1 Qxd1# &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What is considered a &amp;quot;Brilliant Move&amp;quot; ?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;What about the &lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;12. &lt;em&gt;Bb4&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt; move constitutes it being &amp;quot;Brilliant&amp;quot;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;My logic was to maintain pressure , develop the queen towards the center , trade out a rook when I felt like there was no way I was going to be able to keep it back there. I am quite low ranked (very new to chess outside of the odd game with friends) . I don't see how this is considered a brilliant move as it was just placing pressure , buying  little time for future development.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;My Thought Process;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;11&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Rxb2&lt;/strong&gt; - Free Pawn remember hearing about Rooks on the 7th , lets give it a crack&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;12&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Bb3&lt;/strong&gt;  - That didn't work out so great, rooks trapped in there, lets hope he moves his black bishop to try and take it so I can keep the attacks up and check him.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;13&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Rxd2&lt;/strong&gt; - Going to lose the rook to the queen, may as well try and capture a minor piece.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;14&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Ne4&lt;/strong&gt;  - Maintain Pressure on the Queen , can't take my knight without losing his queen, can probably capture his knight put a check in, &lt;em&gt;when in doubt check it out.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Literally nothing about that felt &amp;quot;Brilliant&amp;quot; anyone able to assist with why it was perceived to be good?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24511" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2020-08-27T22:13:19.080" LastActivityDate="2020-08-27T22:13:19.080" Title="&quot;Brilliant Move&quot; - Chess.com - But Why?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31977" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31976" CreationDate="2020-08-27T08:14:35.543" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The 'brilliant move' indication shows that the engine has missed out on some move, and would not have found this. So you had a general approach that the engine could not evaluate. So consequently, it was evaluated as a brilliant move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/4rcHS.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/4rcHS.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastActivityDate="2020-08-27T08:14:35.543" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31978" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31976" CreationDate="2020-08-27T08:20:59.380" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;To be honest, brilliant seems like an overstatement for a fairly obvious move. But to answer your question, I think the &amp;quot;brilliancy&amp;quot; is that you actually found the only way to not only save your rook, but even end up winning material.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The point is that after 12..Bb4 there is the threat of 13..Rxd2 after which Ne4 will win the knight on c3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only moves stopping black from executing this threat consist of defending the e4 square by playing 13.f3 for example. But then you play 13..Qxd4 after which the c3 knight is under attack. Note that this is the difference between this situation and the situation in which you played Qxd4 right away.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After 13..Qxd4 the knight has to be defended by 14.Rc1. Now black simply castles to bring the other rook into play and there is nothing white can do because of the awkward positioning of its pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Instead of 13.f3 white could also play 13.Bc2 to defend the e4 square, but in that case 13..Qxd4 is crushing as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To summarize: I wouldn't say it's a brilliant move (11..Rxb2 would be a more serious candidate as this move requires black to have found the idea of 12..Bb4 and everything after already), but it's definitely strong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21810" LastActivityDate="2020-08-27T08:20:59.380" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31979" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31937" CreationDate="2020-08-27T09:01:21.207" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is the crux of the Modern Benoni, right?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do you know why you're playing the Benoni in the first place? &lt;em&gt;You're&lt;/em&gt; trying to post a knight on e5. That's why that square is most critical; White is trying to run over your backwardness at d6 (the reason 6. e4, 7. f4, and 8. Bb5+ is White's most successful), and Black is trying to win the square himself because it's such a great outpost.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If Black had a fully adequate remedy for this, the Benoni would be much more popular. This is the price you pay for this splendidly unbalanced position, your open e-file, your queenside pawn majority: White might crush you in the center. The best you can do is point your pieces at it; I mean when Bb5+ comes, interposing with f6-knight stands a better shot because then the g7-bishop is directly on e5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You might try Dzindzichashvili's peculiar 1. d4 g6 2. c4 Bg7 3. Nc3 c5 4. d5 Bxc3+ 5. bxc3 f5, a weird hybrid of Benoni, Dutch, Nimzo-Indian, aimed at gaining enough control over e4 so White can't so easily achieve e2-e4-e5, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Good luck. Study Tal games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2494" LastActivityDate="2020-08-27T09:01:21.207" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31980" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31981" CreationDate="2020-08-27T09:21:13.093" Score="0" ViewCount="99" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the Spielmann Nimzo-indian, the position after this completely reasonable line makes the position seem that Black is winning. However, the engine evaluation gives the position as equal. What sort of compensation does White have that justifies the engine's decision.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 Bb4 4. Qb3 c5 5.dxc5 Nc6 6. Nf3 Ne4 7. Bd2 Nxc5 7. Qc2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Where Black has a dynamic advantage in the form of active pieces and more development.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastEditorUserId="924" LastEditDate="2020-08-27T11:33:51.933" LastActivityDate="2020-08-27T11:33:51.933" Title="Spielmann Nimzo-indian" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;nimzo-indian&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31981" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31980" CreationDate="2020-08-27T10:50:36.743" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is Black &lt;em&gt;really&lt;/em&gt; that much (or at all?) ahead in terms of development and piece activity?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just counting, there are three minor pieces developed on each side, plus the White queen, while Black is to move and can castle. Pretty equal.&#xA;Black's three minor pieces surely are active at the moment, but are White's much worse? I don't think so.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most importantly though, if we look a little bit ahead, White has much more straightforward moves to improve his position. A direct a3 will more or less force Bxc3, obtaining the bishop pair for White (with one of them on an open long diagonal to boot). The Nc5 is then in danger of being chased away by b4. Black can answer ...a5 or ...f5 (supporting e4 as a new outpost), but both moves create new slight weaknesses in a pawn structure that is already slightly weakened by trading away the &amp;quot;good&amp;quot; bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black cannot do much against moves like e3, Be2, 0-0 or Td1, either. Not breathtaking, but all very solid and natural. Meanwhile, Black's main break ...d5 is not without danger (for example, if it's played too soon after the exchange on c3, White may discover an attack on the loose Nc5 by cxd5 and Bxg7, netting a pawn).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I won't claim that White in turn has a real &amp;quot;advantage&amp;quot;. If Black plays well, the game will still be about equal. But I'd actually prefer to play White.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13433" LastActivityDate="2020-08-27T10:50:36.743" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31982" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31976" CreationDate="2020-08-27T12:32:12.267" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;Engines are far better at spotting mistakes than at recognizing &amp;quot;brilliancies&amp;quot;. You made a move that is much better than all the alternatives which isn't something obvious like a recapture or a fork in one move, so that's probably what the engine identified as &amp;quot;brilliant&amp;quot;. Just don't pay too much attention to it and congratulations for this beautiful win!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastActivityDate="2020-08-27T12:32:12.267" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31983" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31972" CreationDate="2020-08-27T15:28:43.207" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;White doesn't get only one bishop for the queen, but two pieces: a bishop and a knight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Moreover, Black's weak king, White's domination of the center, great outposts for his pieces and lack of prospects for Black's development (especially his rooks) fully compensate the material imbalance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-27T18:06:14.350" LastActivityDate="2020-08-27T18:06:14.350" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31984" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24963" CreationDate="2020-08-27T15:49:34.687" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Corporate chess sponsorship has increased in the recent years, and in 2019 Fide &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/news/143&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;claimed&lt;/a&gt; that 15% of its revenues coming from sponsors.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The biggest partners for Fide are Coca-Cola and Rosatom.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastActivityDate="2020-08-27T15:49:34.687" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31985" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31976" CreationDate="2020-08-27T18:33:36.483" Score="4" Body="&lt;h2&gt;What is considered a &amp;quot;Brilliant Move&amp;quot; ?&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Whenever you move, the computer compares your move to all the moves that are possible.  If you made the same decision as the computer would have, you made the &lt;strong&gt;best move&lt;/strong&gt;.  However, the computer also examines these moves retroactively.  If your move ends up giving you better position than you would have if you made the &amp;quot;best move&amp;quot;, it is reclassified as &lt;strong&gt;brilliant&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I believe this is all in relation to the level you set the computer to.  A low level computer obviously considers more moves brilliant than the highest setting.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24572" LastActivityDate="2020-08-27T18:33:36.483" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31986" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32080" CreationDate="2020-08-28T00:13:45.990" Score="2" ViewCount="92" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the Benoni, there is a certain setup for White where there is a knight on g3, and a bishop on d3. White then starts a pawn storm with f4-f5, with a large attack. How am I meant to play against this setup? Do I just trade the g3-knight off?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;   rnbq1rk1/pp3pbp/3p1np1/2pP4/4P3/2NB2N1/PP3PPP/R1BQK2R b KQ - 5 9&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black to move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-08-28T01:33:58.887" LastActivityDate="2020-09-02T11:51:52.340" Title="Benoni setup defence" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;defense&gt;&lt;benoni&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31988" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31990" CreationDate="2020-08-28T01:27:00.510" Score="1" ViewCount="449" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a certain opening called the Anderssen's opening that plays like this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;a3 e5 2. h3 d5.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black has developed two pawns, occupied the center, and opened up the lines for pieces, while White has only created weaknesses. Why, then, is this opening is said to be playabe?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-28T13:21:43.693" LastActivityDate="2020-08-29T07:45:22.703" Title="Is Anderssen's opening playable?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31989" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31973" CreationDate="2020-08-28T01:27:42.407" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The line that you refer to is probably 1.b4 e5 2.Bb2 Bxb4 3. Bxe5 Nf6.. I recall some early opening books saying that this was a bad defence because it surrendered a center pawn. The more modern view is that Black does get a very fast development in this line which is quite dangerous. I gave up the Polish when this started to become well-known. Until then I had good results. Often I got something like a reversed Sicilian with a very useful move thrown in.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have not kept up with recent developments but there is an article in New in Chess&#xA;yearbook 132(2019) which is where I would go to catch up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastActivityDate="2020-08-28T01:27:42.407" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31990" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31988" CreationDate="2020-08-28T04:52:46.633" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;That specific opening is called the &lt;strong&gt;Anderssen Opening: Creepy Crawly Formation, Classical Defense&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From about 1,000 test engine games it seems that its a remarkably even set up;&#xA;White : 45.5%&#xA;Black : 45.5%&#xA;Draw  : 9%&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Based off that result I would say its very much playable. This is be cause you white usually plays the left side of the board slowly working towards the center;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One Notabale Game describing that concept &lt;strong&gt;Michael J Basman vs Yuri Yakovich - Hastings (1994)&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/7P/PPPPPPP1/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&#xA;&#xA;&#xA; 1. h3 e5 2. a3 d5 3. c4 c6 4. e3 Nf6 5. b4 Bd6 6. Bb2 O-O 7. Nf3 Qe7 8. Qc2 Nbd7 9. cxd5 cxd5 10. Nc3 a6 11. Na4 d4 12. Rc1 b5 13. Nc5 Bxc5 14. bxc5 Bb7 15. c6 Rac8 16. c7 Nd5 17. Qf5 Rxc7 18. Rxc7 Nxc7 19. Be2 dxe3 20. dxe3 f6 21. O-O Nc5 22. Rd1 Rd8 23. Bc3 Rxd1+ 24. Bxd1 Qd7 25. Qb1 Be4 26. Qc1 N7e6 27. Nd2 Bg6 28. Bg4 h5 29. Be2 Qd5 30. Bb4 Kh7 31. Nf3 Nd3 32. Qc8 Nxb4 33. axb4 Qa2 34. Bf1 Bf7 35. Bd3+ g6 36. Qd7 Kg7 37. Be4 Nf8 38. Qb7 Qc4 39. Bc6 Kg8 40. Qxa6 e4 41. Nd4 Qxb4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Src: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/games/view/657313&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.chess.com/games/view/657313&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24511" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-28T13:24:37.113" LastActivityDate="2020-08-28T13:24:37.113" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31994" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31931" CreationDate="2020-08-28T08:25:23.097" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This chess variant you are talking about is Marsellais Chess. I infer that you mean that White has two moves to start with. If this was so, White would have an advantage(a refined version of this variant gives White only 1 move on the first move to null the opening advantage). So White would probably win. However, this is not certain, as we have not written a sufficiently strong engine for this yet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastActivityDate="2020-08-28T08:25:23.097" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31995" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="31999" CreationDate="2020-08-28T14:42:53.797" Score="2" ViewCount="988" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know this isn't a programming forum, though it's chess-related, hence the placement on here. Basically, I'm trying to setup stockfish with Python on my PC. I installed it via &lt;code&gt;pip install stockfish&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I went on and tried to setup the Stockfish via:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;from stockfish import Stockfish&#xA;&#xA;stockfish = Stockfish(r'C:\Users\Acer\Desktop\chess\stockfish-11-win')&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That throws a WinError 5, access denied:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;Exception ignored in: &amp;lt;function Stockfish.__del__ at 0x0429AA48&amp;gt;&#xA;Traceback (most recent call last):&#xA;  File &amp;quot;C:\Users\Acer\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python38-32\lib\site-packages\stockfish\models.py&amp;quot;, line 270, in __del__&#xA;    self.stockfish.kill()&#xA;AttributeError: 'Stockfish' object has no attribute 'stockfish'&#xA;Traceback (most recent call last):&#xA;  File &amp;quot;&amp;lt;pyshell#4&amp;gt;&amp;quot;, line 1, in &amp;lt;module&amp;gt;&#xA;    emily = Stockfish(r'C:\Users\Acer\Desktop\chess\stockfish-11-win\src')&#xA;  File &amp;quot;C:\Users\Acer\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python38-32\lib\site-packages\stockfish\models.py&amp;quot;, line 33, in __init__&#xA;    self.stockfish = subprocess.Popen(&#xA;  File &amp;quot;C:\Users\Acer\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python38-32\lib\subprocess.py&amp;quot;, line 854, in __init__&#xA;    self._execute_child(args, executable, preexec_fn, close_fds,&#xA;  File &amp;quot;C:\Users\Acer\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python38-32\lib\subprocess.py&amp;quot;, line 1307, in _execute_child&#xA;    hp, ht, pid, tid = _winapi.CreateProcess(executable, args,&#xA;PermissionError: [WinError 5] Zugriff verweigert&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I tried different Stockfish Downloads, running the Idle or CMD as admin, re-installed and used different PCs, but I somehow don't get to work with Stockfish - anyone able to help me out bypassing the access denied? What do I miss when initializing?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24582" LastActivityDate="2020-08-28T18:14:21.973" Title="Unable to run Stockfish on Python" Tags="&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;python&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31996" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-08-28T16:00:23.863" Score="10" ViewCount="1160" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is an endgame with Queen and King vs. two Rooks and King a win for the Queen, a win for the two Rooks, or a draw?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24309" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2020-08-28T16:22:03.143" LastActivityDate="2020-09-02T01:34:26.763" Title="Two Rooks vs Queen endgame" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;queens&gt;&lt;rooks&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31997" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31996" CreationDate="2020-08-28T16:15:50.377" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;Generally speaking, it's a draw. Most pawnless endgames are drawn, unless one side has a material advantage of more than a minor piece. Either side can win if there are short-term tactics. To check the outcome of a position, you can use an &lt;a href=&quot;https://syzygy-tables.info/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;online tablebase&lt;/a&gt;. In particular, it's nice to view the longest wins for either side, which are (according to &lt;a href=&quot;http://kirill-kryukov.com/chess/longest-checkmates/longest-checkmates.shtml&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this page&lt;/a&gt;) are&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;k2q4/7R/8/8/8/8/8/2K3R1 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(&lt;a href=&quot;https://syzygy-tables.info/?fen=k2q4/7R/8/8/8/8/8/2K3R1_w_-_-_0_1&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;White to move&lt;/a&gt;, mate in 29)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;4r3/8/5Q2/8/5r2/1k6/8/1K6 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(&lt;a href=&quot;https://syzygy-tables.info/?fen=4r3/8/5Q2/8/5r2/1k6/8/1K6_w_-_-_0_1&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;White to move&lt;/a&gt;, mate in 49)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2020-08-28T16:21:45.133" LastActivityDate="2020-08-28T16:21:45.133" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31998" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-08-28T16:40:34.393" Score="2" ViewCount="160" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are blindfold chess games playable for  chess world champions and grandmasters? Does the ability to do so show mastery for a player?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Blindfold chess is, without looking at board, the player will just say the move. Is this possible for a human?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, the moves 1. e4 e5 2. d4 d6 and so on. The moves will be recorded and played on a board in the background by a computer or human.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24309" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-28T17:37:51.040" LastActivityDate="2020-08-29T17:16:31.510" Title="Blindfold chess games" Tags="&lt;grandmaster&gt;&lt;notation&gt;&lt;blindfold-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="31999" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31995" CreationDate="2020-08-28T16:45:44.787" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The argument needs to point to the Stockfish executable. If you download the &lt;a href=&quot;https://stockfishchess.org/files/stockfish-11-win.zip&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;v11 zip from the Stockfish website&lt;/a&gt;, extract it and find the directories with the executables.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I extracted it to &lt;code&gt;C:\Users\&amp;lt;username&amp;gt;\Downloads\stockfish-11-win&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The executables are in &lt;code&gt;C:\Users\&amp;lt;username&amp;gt;\Downloads\stockfish-11-win\Windows&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/2zBY5.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/2zBY5.png&quot; alt=&quot;Stockfish executables&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To use the executable, give the path &lt;em&gt;to the executable&lt;/em&gt; like so:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;from stockfish import Stockfish&#xA;&#xA;stockfish = Stockfish(r'C:\Users\&amp;lt;username&amp;gt;\Downloads\stockfish-11-win\Windows\stockfish_20011801_x64.exe')&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The default value for the path you give is &lt;code&gt;&amp;quot;stockfish&amp;quot;&lt;/code&gt;, so if you add your directory with the executables to the path, and rename the exe you want to &lt;code&gt;stockfish&lt;/code&gt;, you should be able to do:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;from stockfish import Stockfish&#xA;&#xA;stockfish = Stockfish()&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Re. your comment:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;no other stockfish related &amp;quot;commands&amp;quot; will work: &lt;code&gt;OSError: [Errno 22] Invalid argument&lt;/code&gt;  ... so it seemingly fixed a problem but the next instantly occured.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The ArgumentError is presumably because you're passing a wrong argument. For example, I ran the commands in the &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/zhelyabuzhsky/stockfish/blob/master/README.md&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;readme in the github repository&lt;/a&gt; and it works perfectly fine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/BtIJr.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/BtIJr.png&quot; alt=&quot;Demo&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24053" LastEditorUserId="24053" LastEditDate="2020-08-28T18:14:21.973" LastActivityDate="2020-08-28T18:14:21.973" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32000" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31998" CreationDate="2020-08-28T17:09:07.863" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes! That is what &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blindfold_chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;blindfold chess&lt;/a&gt; is. If you improve your memory and practice your ability to imagine the board based on the notation, you too can play such games! &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/news/view/timur-gareyev-plays-blindfold-on-48-boards-5729&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Here's&lt;/a&gt; an article about GM Timur Gareyev setting a world record by playing 48 simultaneous blindfolded chess games. I'm sure you can find many more about others too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From your response to Brian's answer:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do you feel chess masters who can play Blind chess games by winning shows more mastery over chess game than who can look at chess boards and win&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No. It shows more mastery over being able to visualize the board than someone who cannot play blindfolded, but I don't think any high-level players fall into that category. One could be the best at visualizing the board from the notation, but if one doesn't know &lt;em&gt;what moves to make&lt;/em&gt; after visualizing the board, one would be pretty poor at &lt;em&gt;the game of chess&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Note: When I started typing my answer to this question, it asked &amp;quot;Do you feel notation chess games can be played...&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24053" LastEditorUserId="24053" LastEditDate="2020-08-28T18:06:04.063" LastActivityDate="2020-08-28T18:06:04.063" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32001" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31998" CreationDate="2020-08-28T17:22:06.490" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Prashant what you describe is called &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blindfold_chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;blindfold chess&lt;/a&gt; and I've edited your question accordingly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Humans have been playing blindfold chess for more than a thousand years and there are even blindfold tournaments. From Wikipedia:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Today there are Blindfold Chess Tournaments held throughout the year,&#xA;with the highest profile event previously being the Melody Amber&#xA;Tournament, held in Monte Carlo until 2011. Of the modern day players,&#xA;Vladimir Kramnik, Viswanathan Anand, Alexei Shirov and Alexander&#xA;Morozevich have proven themselves to be particularly strong at&#xA;blindfold chess, being alternating winners of the Amber Tournaments&#xA;between 1996 and 2007. Levon Aronian won Amber 3 times since then and&#xA;won the blindfold event at the 2012 SportAccord World Mind Games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not only are blindfold games and tournaments commonplace but there is competition to see who can play the most blindfold games at the same time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the 20th century the record was held by George Koltanowski who played 34 simultaneous blindfold games on 20 September 1937, in Edinburgh.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The current world record is 48 blindfold games played simultaneously by Timur Gareyev. This was sufficiently big news to make the regular press and was reported in Leonard Barden's chess column ion the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2017/feb/10/timor-gareyev-48-chess-games-blindfolded-riding-exercise-bike-leonard-barden&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Guardian newspaper&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do you feel chess masters who can play Blind chess games by winning&#xA;shows more mastery over chess game than who can look at chess boards&#xA;and win?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Neither Koltanowski nor Gareyev are anywhere near world champion level although Koltanowski was a GM and Gareyev is currently a GM. Giving a blindfold simultaneous display is a party trick. It is impressive and difficult but nowhere near as difficult as beating the world champion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2020-08-28T17:58:59.957" LastActivityDate="2020-08-28T17:58:59.957" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32002" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31988" CreationDate="2020-08-29T07:45:22.703" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Any opening is playable as long as you buy into the idea that your only goal in the opening is to reach a playable middlegame, one with rough equality in center control, development, and king safety. Heeding the general opening principles while being alert to tactics will get you to a playable middlegame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This isn't what chess book publishers and authors want you to think, they want you to think that following their advice will help you win chess games, which is a bunch of hooey.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;a3 won't kill you. Neither will 1. h4 e5 2. h5, from which I won a theme tournament. But if you neglect the center and development for too long, then you get into trouble.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2494" LastActivityDate="2020-08-29T07:45:22.703" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32003" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-08-29T07:55:00.980" Score="5" ViewCount="96" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am developing an Android app and I need chess pieces images for my it. I am concerned about copyright issues as well. I can copy images from other chess apps on GitHub projects, but I am not sure if that is legal. Is there any free source to get images of chess pieces?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12270" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-29T12:57:24.287" LastActivityDate="2020-08-29T12:57:24.287" Title="Where I can download images of chess pieces for my chess app?" Tags="&lt;pieces&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32005" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32013" CreationDate="2020-08-29T08:27:56.187" Score="19" ViewCount="4006" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been playing chess from many years but started playing more from past few month. I only play 3 minute blitz games, have rating around 1350 in chess.com and 1700 in lichess, have played few thousand games till now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I observed that sometimes my brain just doesn't seem to work and am unable to find even the simple moves fast. I won't be able to think few moves ahead. I keep losing games continuously till my rating goes down by 100s of points. This happens for days together. And sometimes, it magically happens that my brain works quick, analyses and find the best moves naturally without any strain.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does anyone feel the same when playing blitz games? How do you bring yourself into 'that sweet spot' where the brain is active and quick?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24585" LastActivityDate="2020-08-30T14:20:05.073" Title="Brain fog when playing chess" Tags="&lt;psychology&gt;&lt;blitz&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32006" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32003" CreationDate="2020-08-29T09:35:09.853" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Check out the licenses of the piece sets that lichess uses: &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/ornicar/lila/blob/master/COPYING.md#exceptions-free&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://github.com/ornicar/lila/blob/master/COPYING.md#exceptions-free&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Personally I am using the cburnett piece set for my project.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24039" LastActivityDate="2020-08-29T09:35:09.853" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32007" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27478" CreationDate="2020-08-29T09:35:45.130" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think that you need to add an equals sign(or something) to the parameter, so that it says&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;--playouts=5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyway, 'Unknown command line' means that you have probably mistyped that command.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've read the wiki as well, and it didn't specify anything.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastActivityDate="2020-08-29T09:35:45.130" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32008" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-08-29T11:43:29.530" Score="-2" ViewCount="71" Body="&lt;p&gt;In chess rules, once the pawn reaches 8th position, the player can take a Bishop even when he/she has the same square colour bishop?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I mean Can a player have same colour bishops on the chess board?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example : Player has a single white square colour bishop. His/Her pawn reaches the 8th position where he can opt for a Queen,Rook, Knight,Bishop but where the pawn reaches the square is a white colour square, so can he take a Bishop which is occupying white square colour?&#xA;If Yes, then there will be two bishops of White colour square for the player. Do Chess rules allow this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If Yes, Why?&#xA;If No, Why?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24309" LastEditorUserId="24309" LastEditDate="2020-08-29T11:49:39.310" LastActivityDate="2020-08-29T12:19:49.510" Title="Bishop of same colour for a player" Tags="&lt;bishops&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2020-08-29T19:31:05.473" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32009" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32008" CreationDate="2020-08-29T11:49:16.763" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes you can promote to any piece but anything other than a queen is rare. I believe promoting to a Bishop is considered the rarest move in chess. 2 bishops of the same colour is legal. There's a good RYBKA vs Hikaru Nakamura game where this happens. That said its a long game 250+ moves. so not something to put in here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As to why its legal... FIDE rules; not exactly the easiest read though;&#xA;Source : &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=171&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=171&amp;amp;view=article&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I found some puzzle examples&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Example 1: Queen Promotion - Result Stalemate&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;8/8/5b2/8/K7/4N3/kp6/8 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Nd1 b1=Q 2. Nc3+ Bxc3 *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Example 2: Bishop Promotion - Black Wins (after about 50 moves of end game pain)&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;8/8/5b2/8/K7/4N3/kp6/8 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Nd1 b1=B 2. Nc3+ Bxc3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24511" LastEditorUserId="24511" LastEditDate="2020-08-29T12:19:49.510" LastActivityDate="2020-08-29T12:19:49.510" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32010" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32008" CreationDate="2020-08-29T11:50:14.057" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;NINE! NINE bishops is within the rules.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;::cough:: Sorry about this. &amp;quot;Ten bishops of the same color is within the rules. &amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If eight pawns promote on the same color square, that makes eight bishops of that color, plus the &lt;em&gt;one&lt;/em&gt; that starts the game on that color.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2494" LastEditorUserId="2494" LastEditDate="2020-08-29T11:55:14.673" LastActivityDate="2020-08-29T11:55:14.673" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32011" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-08-29T12:41:33.953" Score="-3" ViewCount="64" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is it possible to checkmate with Three Knights and King v/s King in end game?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If yes, is this possible within 50 moves?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If no, Why?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24309" LastActivityDate="2020-08-29T12:58:59.227" Title="King and Three Knights v/s King in end game" Tags="&lt;knights&gt;&lt;odds&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ClosedDate="2020-08-29T19:29:27.873" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32012" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32011" CreationDate="2020-08-29T12:58:59.227" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Short Answer Yes.&#xA;2 Knights cannot mate but 3 knights can.&#xA;This is a duplicate question however: Please refer to &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/15674/mate-with-3-knights&quot;&gt;Mate With 3 Knights&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24511" LastActivityDate="2020-08-29T12:58:59.227" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32013" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32005" CreationDate="2020-08-29T13:08:48.197" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think what you are experiencing is fairly common. I find that I have games that i feel like an absolute legend, able to come up with creative solutions and just not making any mistakes.... then there other games where i hang pieces , miscalculate large trades and just can't get things to click.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think its partially due to fatigue though. If you are playing game after game after game, especially with blitz , theres little time to think and your brain starts to fatigue and you start making mistakes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think the best way to do deal with this just recognizing when you are starting to get fatigued and take a break. I find puzzles are really good for helping me with this. I usually do puzzles for half an hour, take my time try to calculate things out a little. then have a cup of tea, then good to go.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24511" LastActivityDate="2020-08-29T13:08:48.197" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32014" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32005" CreationDate="2020-08-29T17:00:53.337" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;You might consider the possibility of a real illness. What you describe is a symptom of hypothyroidism, which means that you have an inactive thyroid gland. Another symptom of this condition is feeling cold and shivery. I speak from experience. It can be treated with thyroxine tablets.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-29T20:35:54.537" LastActivityDate="2020-08-29T20:35:54.537" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32015" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31998" CreationDate="2020-08-29T17:16:31.510" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I played for my university against teams in London we would sometimes play blindfold on the return train journey. The four players facing forward on the train would take turns to move against the four players facing backward. There was actually very little correlation between having facility at this and regular playing strength. One of our strongest players was quite helpless, whereas some of our weaker players had no difficulty. It seems to depend on whether you are a visual thinker.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastActivityDate="2020-08-29T17:16:31.510" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32016" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32005" CreationDate="2020-08-30T03:11:21.460" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Fatigue is likely a factor. It's common in older players like myself and with playing a lot in a short time. I'm worst in the afternoon games 3 &amp;amp; 4 of a one-day tournament.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But it also may be akin to &lt;em&gt;stage fright&lt;/em&gt;. I play best against familiar players in our club or online with friends. I miss many good shots in a tournament, against strangers or with players I'm supposed to beat ( because they're lower rated ).&#xA;Your opponent may also be affected. Years ago I drew a game against our States previous Senior Champion. He was about 500 ELO better than me. I was relaxed with little expectation of winning. He seemed intense, made an impulsive move, and I won.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13674" LastActivityDate="2020-08-30T03:11:21.460" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32017" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30198" CreationDate="2020-08-30T03:17:13.670" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;In general — this applies to every hypothetical exchange, not just that pictured — a materially-equal exchange (pawn for pawn, rook for rook, etc.) favors the side whose units develop or come forward with the recapture.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the position given, 1. Bc4 Bxc4 2. Nxc4 should be good for White because his knight improved, but where's it going after that?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That bishop probably does better to develop to d3 with a threat.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2494" LastActivityDate="2020-08-30T03:17:13.670" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32018" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31658" CreationDate="2020-08-30T03:22:06.770" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The old joke is &amp;quot;all pawn endings are wins, all rook endings are draws, all queen endings are draws by perpetual check&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black is better. In the old days, before a possible adjournment, the director would ask both players what they were aiming for. If both players said they were playing for a draw, the director might settle things at once.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this position, Black would say he's playing to win, White's playing to hold a draw. In practice, anything can happen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black's plan is probably: Swap the h-pawns (though the player who is one pawn ahead in an ending is hoping to trade pieces, not pawns), put the rook on the e-file to cut off the white king, and see where the c-pawn takes him.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2494" LastActivityDate="2020-08-30T03:22:06.770" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32019" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31972" CreationDate="2020-08-30T03:25:37.490" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Nezhmetdinov was a little crazy in chess terms. That's why so many people enjoy his games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White gets two pieces for the queen, and chances on the kingside black squares. Black's d=pawn is backward on an open file, which makes d5 an ideal square for a knight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not the most speculative sacrifice of Nezhmetdinov's career.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2494" LastActivityDate="2020-08-30T03:25:37.490" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32020" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14805" CreationDate="2020-08-30T03:29:23.213" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Aren't all the moves after the book lines run their course a novelty? I make novelties all the time, though you might call them blunders, or too-unsound-to-be-played-again gambits.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Opening novelties don't mean jack. One night English champion Julian Hodgson showed up at our club in Hayward, Calif. He took on all comers at blitz, and one of the B players uncorked a genuine improvement in an Alapin Sicilian line — never been played before, as far as anyone could find, and it was better than the other moves that went before.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Did it matter one tiny bit? Of course not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2494" LastActivityDate="2020-08-30T03:29:23.213" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32021" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32005" CreationDate="2020-08-30T03:36:50.340" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;1700 on Lichess is good, but not amazing - it puts you in the top 45% of people who play blitz on Lichess.  It's the sort of platform from which you can decide to dedicate time, effort, and hardship, to excel and maybe aim for a title one day, but it's also still very reasonable to chill out there and just enjoy yourself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you're not looking to reach for those heights yet, or at all, don't focus on the rating points.  Play blitz until you're not having fun, or you need to go do the washing up/go to work.  If you are winning and having fun, the points you're gaining aren't what matters.  If you're losing and having fun, the points you're losing are irrelevant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With that out of the way, I have personally found that it's mostly familiarity and sleep.  For a period, I completely shirked bunch of responsibilities (don't do that) and played the heck outta bullet, used the &amp;quot;analyse your mistakes&amp;quot; feature on lichess, looked up openings, and slept whenever I felt tired, with no alarm to wake me up.  During this time, not only did I have a great deal of fun, my rating went up quite a bit, and I think I improved (as my rating stayed there).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now I've been playing mostly atomic for several months, and not spending nearly as much time playing standard chess, and sleeping in such a way to line up with a full time job which very much destroys me.  My standard play feels very much like you describe your &amp;quot;brain fog&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So long as you've having fun, just stick to it, and make sure you're sleeping right.  It's also worth making sure you're eating right, too, but I have no experience with poor diet's effect on my psychology 'cause I always eat reasonably well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23631" LastActivityDate="2020-08-30T03:36:50.340" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32022" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5594" CreationDate="2020-08-30T03:36:59.493" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Black's going to have a hard go of it, for sure, though no plan for White stands out&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1...g6 2. Rhe1 Bg7, now what? Can White bring any more pressure to bear on c7 or e7? Will a gradual expansion on the queenside do?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think the second is more likely, because I think Black might opt to give up the a-pawn or the c-pawn because it's the only way to complete his development. Then White surely would have good winning chances.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2494" LastActivityDate="2020-08-30T03:36:59.493" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32023" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5620" CreationDate="2020-08-30T03:40:39.877" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This looks like one of those Mieses Gambits? 1. e4 d5 2. exd5 Qxd5 3. Nc3 Qa5 4. b4?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the first position given, White has more than enough compensation for the sacrificed pawn, but there's a &lt;em&gt;lot&lt;/em&gt; of chess to be played. Asking if Black can equalize is a silly question. Of course Black can equalize. Anything can happen in a real game of chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chessplayers today are in the habit of thinking each side will play perfect chess, as though everyone is a 3300-level computer. Most players are 300-rated humans.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2494" LastActivityDate="2020-08-30T03:40:39.877" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32024" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32028" CreationDate="2020-08-30T04:51:26.647" Score="3" ViewCount="1066" Body="&lt;p&gt;Stockfish analyses many positions per second and chooses the best line. Lc0 is a neural network that immediately ignores moves which don't work, but is slower. However, somehow Stockfish is better. How come that is true, when most of the positions it looks through are actually useless?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-30T04:53:07.837" LastActivityDate="2020-12-14T00:11:20.587" Title="Lc0 vs. Stockfish" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32025" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4598" CreationDate="2020-08-30T07:32:09.907" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is immediately punishable with 2...d6. White doesn't have a good way to protect the e-pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;f4 is going to get crushed by dxe5 followed by Qh4+&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;d4 is just bad. After 3...dxe6 4. dxe5, Qxd1 5. Kxd1 black is better&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Nf3 is probably best but after 3...dxe5 4. Nxe5, Bd6 white doesn't really have anything other than moving the knight back to f3 and now black is ahead in development&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2020-08-30T07:32:09.907" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32026" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32024" CreationDate="2020-08-30T10:33:12.033" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The simple (oversimple) answer is that Stockfish considers &lt;em&gt;all&lt;/em&gt; moves whereas Lc0 only considers moves/positions it has in its database/neural network. In a sense Lc0 can't find new ideas whereas Stockfish can.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-08-30T10:33:12.033" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32027" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32005" CreationDate="2020-08-30T10:54:33.383" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Try playing blitz for 25 minutes and &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.magneticmemorymethod.com/concentration-meditation/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;meditating&lt;/a&gt; for 5 minutes. This helps to make sure that your mind isn't overloaded and can rest.&#xA;For more info check &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomodoro_Technique&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24579" LastEditorUserId="24579" LastEditDate="2020-08-30T14:20:05.073" LastActivityDate="2020-08-30T14:20:05.073" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32028" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32024" CreationDate="2020-08-30T11:27:17.150" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is due to the way Neural Networks AI works;&#xA;Neural networks can only make decisions based off prior experience where as StockFish is more or less &amp;quot;Brute Forces&amp;quot; and prunes until the maximum numerical value is gained.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Theoretically if you could feed an AI like Lc0 enough game data (potentially the Chess Base Big Database) , especially with additional data like stockfish position evaluations you could create quite a powerful neural network with the ability to self move etc;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think Lc0 could have the potential to develop new ideas; however it would require a secondary database of evaluations and scoring to determine it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24511" LastActivityDate="2020-08-30T11:27:17.150" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32029" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32033" CreationDate="2020-08-30T13:19:27.333" Score="5" ViewCount="734" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Alexey Grigorievich Kopnin - mate in two - 1948&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;nR1rB3/2PPPN2/bbk1N3/1p2p3/1p2P1nq/1K1Pp3/7B/8 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(&lt;a href=&quot;https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9A%D0%BE%D0%BF%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%BD,_%D0%90%D0%BB%D0%B5%D0%BA%D1%81%D0%B5%D0%B9_%D0%93%D1%80%D0%B8%D0%B3%D0%BE%D1%80%D1%8C%D0%B5%D0%B2%D0%B8%D1%87#%D0%94%D0%B2%D1%83%D1%85%D1%85%D0%BE%D0%B4%D0%BE%D0%B2%D1%8B%D0%B5_%D0%B7%D0%B0%D0%B4%D0%B0%D1%87%D0%B8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;source&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this problem, it’s white to move and mate in two. What is the solution?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the link (source) there is also a solution but it is in Russian notation and I do not understand it. (Maybe I would not understand it even if it was in English notation) I need to see the exact moves explicitly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is the Russian solution:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1.d4! (угроза 2.d5#)&#xA;1…ed 2.Kfd8#&#xA;1…K:c7 2.Ked8#&#xA;1…C:d4 2.cdK#&#xA;1…Kf6 2.edK#&#xA;1…Л:b8 2.d8K#&#xA;(1…Л:e8 2.deФ/C#)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What move is the &amp;quot;1…ed&amp;quot; for example? There are just two columns &amp;quot;ed&amp;quot; but what is the row number and what piece should be moved and where?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24592" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-30T14:03:20.647" LastActivityDate="2021-02-06T09:53:47.000" Title="Chess problem by A. G. Kopnin - Russian notation explanation needed" Tags="&lt;problems&gt;&lt;notation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32030" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32037" CreationDate="2020-08-30T13:38:45.617" Score="3" ViewCount="2796" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have done over 5000 puzzles on chesstempo but still can't sense any tactics. So for the past few days I've been making a mental note each time a signal appears (loose pieces, exposed king, potential for double attack, etc.) and try to think of a way to exploit it but to my surprise, I can't find any. What I envisioned when I started doing tactics was that I would reach a point where the tactics would come automatically to me whenever I play a game but that point never came. Although I started doing the mental note thing a few days ago, is there anything I can do to improve it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21840" LastEditorUserId="8621" LastEditDate="2020-08-31T13:59:42.713" LastActivityDate="2020-09-01T04:02:22.477" Title="Why is my tactics spidey-sense not working?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32031" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32029" CreationDate="2020-08-30T13:39:55.250" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd be interested to see this position come live in a real game;&#xA;I have found 4 potential variants;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Solution I found was&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Alexey Grigorievich Kopnin - mate in two - 1948&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;nR1rB3/2PPPN2/bbk1N3/1p2p3/1p2P1nq/1K1Pp3/7B/8 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 Rxb8 2. d8=N&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think what the Russian text is doing is describing the different moves eg';&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;d4 Nxh2 2. d5#&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;d4 NxH2 2. d8N#&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;d4 Rxb8 2. d8N#&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;d4 Rxb8 2. d5#&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So i am assuming that they are just listing different solutions;&#xA;The idea seems to be to underpromote to a knight, or push the d-pawn&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Its Russian Notation ( &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algebraic_notation_(chess)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algebraic_notation_(chess)&lt;/a&gt; )&#xA;Kp = King (sometimes can be Kr)&#xA;Ф  = Queen&#xA;Л  = Rook&#xA;С  = Bishop&#xA;К  = Knight&#xA;p  = Pawn&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So 1…Л:b8 2.d8K# in English notation would be&#xA;1... Rxb8 2.d8=N#&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24511" LastEditorUserId="24511" LastEditDate="2020-08-30T14:07:56.423" LastActivityDate="2020-08-30T14:07:56.423" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32032" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32030" CreationDate="2020-08-30T13:54:27.850" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think if you a looking for puzzle solutions in-game you are going to have a lot of difficulty off the cuff. I find that because puzzles just drop you in a position, you aren't put in with context, or your own bias (eg; your development ideas).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The above being said, I find that when i look at puzzles they comprise of 4 key materials which are extremely beneficial to game play;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Mate in N&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Forks&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Pins&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Win Material&#xA;&lt;em&gt;(There are more but these are good beginnings)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I find focusing on Forks, Pins and Winning Material when in game I often fair a lot better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have won 4 or 5 games in the last 24 hours (in the first 10 moves)  by people just over extending their Queen and me being able to pin their queen between my attacking piece and their King. I find that i can often get a knight to get some solid forks, and i usually just look for overloaded pawns and pieces and try to target them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Puzzles are great for Mid and End Game tactics however probably aren't a great basis for &amp;quot;training&amp;quot;. If you can look at the board objectively without history , bias etc and view the board as a puzzle looking to find the &amp;quot;Best Move&amp;quot; then maybe puzzles might make a good training solution.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The other issue you will find is that the tagging sucks.&#xA;The amount of Chess.com puzzles that are tagged as &amp;quot;Battery&amp;quot; that has nothing to do with &amp;quot;Battery&amp;quot; is ridiculous, my personal favorite are the Mate in 1 when they are clearly mate in 3 puzzles.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Suggestions; do a few lessons or videos on tactics.&#xA;I am not suggesting torenting but the Chessmaster XI Grandmaster Edition has a fantastic series of lessons presented by Josh Waitzkin which I find are fantastic at teaching tactics, particularly end game tactics. The amount of games that People stale mate because of poor end game tactics is disturbingly high.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24511" LastEditorUserId="20307" LastEditDate="2020-08-31T16:48:55.747" LastActivityDate="2020-08-31T16:48:55.747" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32033" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32029" CreationDate="2020-08-30T14:00:49.707" Score="7" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What move is the &amp;quot;1…ed&amp;quot; for example?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;ed&amp;quot; indicates that an e pawn takes a d pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Maybe I would not understand it even if it was in English notation&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is actually in &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algebraic_notation_(chess)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;algebraic notation&lt;/a&gt;. If you follow the link you will find that it even tells you what the Russian abbreviations are for the pieces!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From there it is easy to work out that this is what it means:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Alexey Grigorievich Kopnin - mate in two - 1948&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;nR1rB3/2PPPN2/bbk1N3/1p2p3/1p2P1nq/1K1Pp3/7B/8 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 {threat d5#} exd4 (1...Nxc7 2. Nexd8#) (1...Bxd4 2. cxd8=N#) (1...Nf6 2. exd8=N#) (1...Rxb8 2. d8=N#) (1...Rxe8 2. dxe8=B#) 2. Nfxd8# &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that &amp;quot;mate in 2&amp;quot; means that white mates in 2 moves exactly against any defence. Hence listing all the possible black replies to the first move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-08-31T09:30:23.380" LastActivityDate="2020-08-31T09:30:23.380" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32034" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2020-08-30T22:18:18.620" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-30T22:18:18.620" LastActivityDate="2020-08-30T22:18:18.620" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32035" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2020-08-30T22:18:18.620" Score="0" Body="For questions ask about irregularties in the laws of chess such as whether or not something is allowed." OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-30T22:18:18.620" LastActivityDate="2020-08-30T22:18:18.620" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32037" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32030" CreationDate="2020-08-31T01:35:45.723" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;Developing tactical ability is a long process. At first you expose yourself to new patterns, try to understand how they work when they are already on the board. You will still not spot it every time it appears in your games. But sometimes you will. And sometimes you will see that you or your opponent cannot play a move because it fails due to a tactical motif you know.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The next step is seeing the potential motif long before it appears and setting it up. It is good that you note weaknesses in your opponent's position. This is the first step towards setting up tactics. You see a loose piece, you position your pieces so that eventually you can exploit that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It takes a very long time from knowing a pattern to setting it up yourself. Be patient. Sometimes I see a tactic by GMs and I can barely solve it with all the pieces already in position, and then I realise they saw it 10 moves ago and played towards it and all I can do is hold my head.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It may be the case that your training method is not suited for you. Studying random puzzles, not sorted by patterns or some overarching theme, may not be good for you. It is good for pure calculation, but not when you are trying to develop your pattern database.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15478" LastActivityDate="2020-08-31T01:35:45.723" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32038" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32030" CreationDate="2020-08-31T03:01:34.060" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You aren't developing pattern recognition because you aren't seeing the same patterns over and over.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastEditorUserId="19861" LastEditDate="2020-09-01T01:16:26.903" LastActivityDate="2020-09-01T01:16:26.903" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32041" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-08-31T15:10:49.313" Score="0" ViewCount="32" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would like to know what happens to a game, according to FIDE rules, in the case of a clock becomeing non-functional during ongoing game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is the chess game abandoned and declared a draw match? Is the clock replaced by another clock, and iis the game resumed from there? Finally, has this incident happened in an World Chess Championship matches to date?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24309" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-31T15:55:11.803" LastActivityDate="2020-08-31T15:55:11.803" Title="Chess clock non-functional in ongoing game" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;fide&gt;&lt;chess-clocks&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="3" ClosedDate="2020-08-31T16:02:22.923" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32042" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32030" CreationDate="2020-08-31T17:26:51.803" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Consider the possibility that you might not be seeing tactics because there might not be any tactics available to see.  Just because your opponent has an exposed king or a pinned piece doesn't necessarily mean that there's any way to attack the king or to exploit the pin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should still definitely check to see whether there are any tactics available in such a position, but you should not be surprised if, nine times out of ten, there aren't any.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Remember that if your opponent is of a similar skill level to you, he or she will also be examining the position for possible tactics.  You opponent might have consciously allowed you pin his piece because he couldn't see any bad consequences for doing so.  In such a situation, it should not be terribly surprising that you also cannot find any tactics.  Possibly the tactics are too deep for either of you to discover at your skill level, and possibly there are simply no tactics to be discovered.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Remember that the opportunity for tactics also depends on your skill level (and, of course, your opponent's).  When beginners play, there are blunders galore and many opportunities to execute tactics.  When experts play, there are very few piece- or game-winning tactics of the sort found on chesstempo.com.  The better you and your opponents get, the fewer tactical opportunities you will discover.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18935" LastActivityDate="2020-08-31T17:26:51.803" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32043" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-08-31T17:35:51.083" Score="9" ViewCount="5843" Body="&lt;p&gt;What happens if the chessboard is kept with black square on right hand side instead of white square? I think that the notations &lt;em&gt;will&lt;/em&gt; change.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the new positon, the White king will be positioned on a white square and the Black king will be positioned on a black square. The White queen will be positioned on a black square and the Black queen will be positioned on a white square.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why this is considered a wrong placing of the chess board? Addtionally, does White or Black have an advantage, and will strategies and tactics change?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24309" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-08-31T18:26:14.310" LastActivityDate="2021-01-02T05:52:06.220" Title="Wrongly placed chessboard - what happens?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;chessboards&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32044" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32030" CreationDate="2020-08-31T17:47:20.857" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Puzzles are great practice, but one issue with them is that they drop you directly into a position where a tactic is available. That is, you're given a position and asked to find the best move knowing that it will involve some trick to win material or deliver checkmate. In a real game, tactical opportunities show up rarely, and very often the best move (if there even is a singular best move) is just some simple development, making an obvious threat, or defending an obvious threat. There's no indicator that pops up and alerts you that some tactical trick is present.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think what you said, regarding making note of common scenarios that lead to tactics, is great. The fact that you can't often come up with a tactic is simply due to the fact that tactics aren't usually available. But taking inventory of king safety and potential attacks is a very good thing to do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another way to frame it is to always consider all possible checks and captures (both for you and your opponent, of course). Even the ones that look nonsensical, because very often those moves will suddenly become available as the game evolves. This will cover most tactics, and then you can add &amp;quot;moves that threaten a piece&amp;quot; to the list (this is really just &amp;quot;captures&amp;quot; but one move ahead, but you need to think like this to spot/avoid forks). Finally, being aware of when pieces are lined up will help you spot/avoid pins/skewers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17600" LastActivityDate="2020-08-31T17:47:20.857" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32045" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32043" CreationDate="2020-08-31T18:13:55.313" Score="32" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's wrong because &lt;a href=&quot;https://handbook.fide.com/chapter/E012018&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;the rules&lt;/a&gt; say so:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2.1 The chessboard is composed of an 8 x 8 grid of 64 equal squares alternately light (the ‘white’ squares) and dark (the ‘black’ squares).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The chessboard is placed between the players in such a way that the near corner square to the right of the player is white.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, those rules are based on what has been common practice for a very long time. Apparently, an incorrectly placed board happens often enough to warrant a rule for what to do when that happens:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;7.2.2     If during a game it is found that the chessboard has been placed contrary to Article 2.1, the game shall continue but the position reached must be transferred to a correctly placed chessboard.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since the pieces have the same position relative to each other, it doesn't affect strategy and tactics. Notation won't change; the column of the starting positions of the queens is still column 'd'. If you have a board with numbers/letters, it's even easier to spot the problem.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2020-08-31T18:13:55.313" CommentCount="12" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32046" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27" CreationDate="2020-08-31T23:27:19.303" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;A friend made this: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chesscompass.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.chesscompass.com/&lt;/a&gt; I think it's what you are looking for?&#xA;Seems easy to use, and he's nice so I thought I'd try and promote it for him a bit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24608" LastActivityDate="2020-08-31T23:27:19.303" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32048" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32116" CreationDate="2020-09-01T00:50:08.920" Score="1" ViewCount="142" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let us look at an endgame where White has 8 pawns, and Black has the e/d-pawn missing. How can White win this endgame if both sides play perfectly? I am having a little trouble.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastActivityDate="2020-09-05T02:05:13.747" Title="Endgame theory question" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;pawns&gt;&lt;kings&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32049" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32051" CreationDate="2020-09-01T03:20:39.790" Score="5" ViewCount="610" Body="&lt;p&gt;Reversed openings, as in ones for Black that are played by White, have a characteristic that usually main lines for Black are obscure in White, and vice versa. How would this be true, since White is only one tempo up?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-09-02T19:28:09.127" LastActivityDate="2020-09-02T19:28:09.127" Title="Reversed openings" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32050" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-09-01T03:44:25.600" Score="-1" ViewCount="233" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is the FIDE rule for writing chess moves with pen and paper by both players discarded or not mandatory in World chess championship games?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In case yes, why it is discarded or not mandatory to write chess moves?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If i am not wrong, the players were writing the moves on paper.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24309" LastActivityDate="2020-09-01T04:53:34.597" Title="Writing chess moves on paper" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2020-09-01T07:52:18.290" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32051" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32049" CreationDate="2020-09-01T03:49:56.593" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;When Black plays a first move, it's usually directly related to White's first move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.d4 means White can't play d2-d3, so e4 is more up for grabs, which makes 1...f5 palatable. If White plays Bird's 1. f4, then From's 1...e5 2. fxe5 d6 is promising. White doesn't have that type of reply against the Dutch.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Take the Budapest. 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e5, and if 3. dxe5, Black typically goes 3...Ng4 with a long-term view of keeping a knight posted on e5. But if you try that in reverse with Tennison's Gambit, 1. Nf3 d5 2. e4 dxe4 3. Ng5, there's a little less to like about it. In the Budapest given, a knight on e5 has the c4-pawn to target, while that same knight for White in Tennison's gambit isn't as fortunate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For a long time, we looked at the English Opening like this: If 1. c4 e5 2. Nc3 Nf6 3. g3 d5 4. cxd5 Nxd5, and so on, in a Dragon-Sicilian-in-reverse&#xA;way, it turns out that the extra tempo White has is usually spent wondering what to do with the queen bishop. Bc1-d2 was hardly a great use of that 'extra' move. I think the view on this has changed over the years, but you see what I mean.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2494" LastActivityDate="2020-09-01T03:49:56.593" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32052" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32048" CreationDate="2020-09-01T03:56:11.877" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;A more practical form of your question relates to the Exchange Lopez and Tartakover Caro-Kann.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Euwe did a complete analysis of how White wins the Exchange Lopez pawn ending if you set up the pawn structure with no pieces on the board:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;4k3/1pp2ppp/p1p5/8/4P3/8/PPP2PPP/4K3 w - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While the Tartakover Caro=Kann is the same thing on the other wing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this impractical 8-vs.-7 thing you envision, the side with the extra pawn would surely begin with the unopposed pawn two squares, as the first step toward creating a passed pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2494" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2020-09-01T13:30:04.960" LastActivityDate="2020-09-01T13:30:04.960" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32053" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32030" CreationDate="2020-09-01T04:02:22.477" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The human brain finds it much easier to recognise patterns that have a name.&#xA;This is how everyone from Casino card counters to professional Memory competitors develop their skills - they use mnemonics.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's the same in Chess. Rather than thinking &amp;quot;Hmm, the position this Knight is in seems advantageous in some familiar way&amp;quot;, you train yourself to say &amp;quot;Great, I got an Outpost&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As other's have said, you get this from study, not from puzzles or even casual play&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9766" LastActivityDate="2020-09-01T04:02:22.477" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32054" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32050" CreationDate="2020-09-01T04:53:34.597" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Most major tournaments (including the World Championship) are commonly played on DGT Boards which automatically record the notation for the players. This has some distinct advantages;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Legibility&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Improved ability for broadcasting&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Reduces need to transcribe games after the fact into a digital format.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That being said I believe it is still a requirement for players to manually record there games. I don't believe these records are discarded as they are submitted to the tournament organisers who technically own them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In regards to why pen and paper. It minimises opportunities and accusations of cheating. If I was playing over the board to you and was entering in each move onto a computer (through something like chess base) who is to say I didn't enable an engine to quickly analyse a move?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24511" LastActivityDate="2020-09-01T04:53:34.597" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32056" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32063" CreationDate="2020-09-01T05:50:34.420" Score="2" ViewCount="98" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to determine if I'm doing something wrong or if there might be a bug in the program.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One thing I was experimenting with was the search mask called &amp;quot;Good Games&amp;quot;. The documentation describes it as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Using this parameter the results can be greatly be improved by&#xA;considering the quality of the games in the list. For instance, this&#xA;function only considers games in which at least one player has an Elo&#xA;rating above 2350 or one player had an IM or GM title. &lt;strong&gt;This function&#xA;excludes blitz, rapid and simultaneous games [emphasis added]&lt;/strong&gt;. It also excludes games&#xA;with less than seven moves and drawn games with less than 20 moves.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I've found many instances of blitz and rapid games in my test searches. I've already created the good/bad game set as described in the documentation by clicking the &amp;quot;Create good/bad game set&amp;quot; button. I've also tested with different databases, including the Mega 2020 and the This Week In Chess DB with similar results. Additionally, while it excludes games with less than 7 moves, drawn games with less than 20 moves appear as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Am I just doing something wrong, or does anyone else have this problem too?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's what steps I took, if you want to try:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Open a somewhat large database (this example is the Mega 2020, but I tried several others and experienced the same issue). A few thousand games, some including high level players (IMs or GMs) should be enough to illustrate the issue, especially if they are recent.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In the &amp;quot;Games&amp;quot; tab on the Ribbon, click the &amp;quot;Create good/bad game set&amp;quot; button. After it finishes, go back to the Home tab on the Ribbon.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;While viewing the game list, click the &amp;quot;Filter List&amp;quot; button (icon with magnifying glass).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Using the advanced dialog, check both the &amp;quot;Good Games&amp;quot; check box and the &amp;quot;Blitz&amp;quot; (or Rapid, whatever you prefer) radio button. You can also just check &amp;quot;Good Games&amp;quot; and then manually scan the result list for short games, but this works as well.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I ran this on the Mega 2020, it returned over 101,000 blitz games. If I uncheck &amp;quot;Good Games&amp;quot;, simply searching for every Blitz game in the database, I get around 199,000, so clearly it's doing &lt;em&gt;some&lt;/em&gt; filtering. From what I can tell, it seems to do the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Include games in which at least one player has an Elo rating above 2350 or one player had an IM or GM title (i.e., works as described).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;INCLUDE (not exclude) blitz, rapid and simul games, provided they meet condition 1 (not working as described).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Exclude games with less than seven moves (works as described).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;INCLUDE (not exclude) drawn games with less than 20 moves, provided they meet conditions 1 and 3 (not working as described). However, I noticed a decent number of 10-move draws, so maybe this was implemented as &amp;quot;drawn games with less than 20 &lt;em&gt;plies&lt;/em&gt;?&amp;quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other things I tried:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Checking the database integrity&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Deleting/re-creating search boosters&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Updating to latest Service Pack (currently 15.27).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm on Windows 10, using 64-bit ChessBase. Any suggestions? If this happens for other people I'll feel less crazy. It's not a huge problem, as I can just create a clone of the existing database, call it the &amp;quot;Quality Games Database&amp;quot; (or whatever) and then delete the rapid games from it, it just seemed odd that the feature to do this doesn't seem to function for me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24535" LastEditorUserId="24535" LastEditDate="2020-09-01T05:56:34.830" LastActivityDate="2020-09-01T11:40:42.953" Title="Issue with ChessBase results when filtering by &quot;Good Games&quot;" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;programming&gt;&lt;database&gt;&lt;chessbase&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32057" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2020-09-01T06:15:51.247" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Reversed openings are openings which are played by the 'other' side. For example, the English is a reversed Sicilian. However, the original opening can not be a reversed opening. So the Sicilian is not a reversed English.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-09-01T07:48:12.723" LastActivityDate="2020-09-01T07:48:12.723" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32058" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2020-09-01T06:15:51.247" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-09-01T06:15:51.247" LastActivityDate="2020-09-01T06:15:51.247" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32059" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-09-01T08:51:55.633" Score="0" ViewCount="130" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are there any movies about chess in which World Champions or grandmasters have played actually any role? For example, have Kasparov, Karpov, Anand, Carlsen, Kramnik, Polgar, Fischer, Tal or etc acted in the movie?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24309" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-12-16T06:32:45.827" LastActivityDate="2020-12-16T06:32:45.827" Title="Chess movies in Hollywood &amp; Bollywood with GMs in them" Tags="&lt;grandmaster&gt;&lt;world-championship&gt;&lt;famous-players&gt;&lt;film&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32060" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-09-01T10:57:16.423" Score="1" ViewCount="99" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would like to hide the moves (circled in red), and arrows as well, in the &amp;quot;games&amp;quot; view of a chessbase (I am using chessbase 15) database when I clicked on one of the games, but I cannot find how to do it :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/BSNJQ.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/BSNJQ.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20949" LastActivityDate="2020-09-01T11:34:51.250" Title="Hide the moves when clicking on a game the &quot;games&quot; pane of a database in ChessBase 15" Tags="&lt;chessbase&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32061" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32059" CreationDate="2020-09-01T11:15:00.130" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The 1993 American drama film &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Searching_for_Bobby_Fischer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;“Searching For Bobby Fischer”&lt;/a&gt;, based on the book with the same, has a few cameos by grandmasters. Here is a list of them per Wikipedia.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anjelina_Belakovskaia&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Anjelina Belakovskaia&lt;/a&gt;, who has the title of Woman Grandmaster and has been the U.S. women's champion three times.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joel_Benjamin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Joel Benjamin&lt;/a&gt; ,  an American grandmaster.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Dzindzichashvili&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Roman Dzindzichashvili&lt;/a&gt;, an American grandmaster born in the USSR.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-09-01T15:09:57.123" LastActivityDate="2020-09-01T15:09:57.123" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32062" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32060" CreationDate="2020-09-01T11:34:51.250" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Would suggest performing a quick search via google&#xA;All information can be found at: &lt;a href=&quot;http://help.chessbase.com/CBase/15&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://help.chessbase.com/CBase/15&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Hide Notation:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;View Tab &amp;gt; Notation [Untick]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Hide Movement Arrow:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://help.chessbase.com/CBase/15/Eng/index.html?moves_highlighted_with_a_yello.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://help.chessbase.com/CBase/15/Eng/index.html?moves_highlighted_with_a_yello.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24511" LastActivityDate="2020-09-01T11:34:51.250" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32063" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32056" CreationDate="2020-09-01T11:40:42.953" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The issue isn't with the software but more with the database itself.&#xA;I rebuilt the Good Games Index, and that appeared to fix the issue you are facing for me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That being said many of the Blitz Games that would often get captured in your scope are actually really pretty solid games and worth reviewing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24511" LastActivityDate="2020-09-01T11:40:42.953" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32064" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32043" CreationDate="2020-09-01T14:26:12.837" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think there's anything in the game that's strictly tied to the colors of the squares. You can still number the ranks and files from the bottom-left corner and e.g. Bishops would start on opposite colors than usual, but the diagonal moves still work the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Though, if you set the board up using the mnemonic that the queens are placed on squares matching their color, i.e. white queen on a white square, black queen on a black square, then the setup would be different and the game along with it. But not by much, what you'd end up is this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Mnc8A.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Mnc8A.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's just the regular starting position flipped. Since all moves are also symmetrical with regard to left and right, it still technically makes no difference other than that now you'd have to number the squares starting from the lower &lt;em&gt;right&lt;/em&gt; to match the notation of a regular chess game. (Counting from lower right, the kings here are at e1 and e8 as in a normal game.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;sub&gt;(Castling is the one move which works differently to the left than to the right, but it's defined by the sides where the king/queen start at, and anyway basically reduces down to &amp;quot;king takes two steps and the rook jumps to the square the king passed&amp;quot; which is direction-independent.)&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15794" LastEditorUserId="15794" LastEditDate="2020-09-02T07:56:28.337" LastActivityDate="2020-09-02T07:56:28.337" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32065" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32059" CreationDate="2020-09-01T17:27:56.327" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Check out &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0382724/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Grossmeyster&lt;/a&gt;. Mikhail Tal exchanges a few words with the main character. Keres, Kotov, Taymanov, Averbakh have cameo appearances. Victor Korchnoj plays the main character's coach.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't know if the English version exists.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3774" LastActivityDate="2020-09-01T17:27:56.327" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32066" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6315" CreationDate="2020-09-01T18:29:12.850" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You may be too old to become a Grandmaster, but one is never too old to learn anything.  And in the scheme of things, you're a veritable youngster.  Play regularly, do a basic amount of study from a chess manual to have a general understanding of the game, and analyze your games to find your mistakes. Just keep playing regularly and you'll improve in the normal course of events.  Even when you lose, it just means your opponent knows more about the game, either from study or experience.  Capablanca said you have to lose 10,000 games to become good.  But it's a game and should be enjoyable, so don't make being the &amp;quot;best&amp;quot; your ultimate goal. Even if you're good at it, there'll always be someone better.  And even being the &amp;quot;best&amp;quot; is no guarantee of happiness. Do you think Fischer was happy? I'm 83 and have played all my life. I peaked at the rating level you indicate some 30 years ago, but I don't let that stop me from continuing to play and enjoy this geatest of all games.  Just be happy when you make a good combination or don't make any overt blunders. That in itself is intellectually satisfying. Enjoy!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7657" LastActivityDate="2020-09-01T18:29:12.850" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32067" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-09-01T18:35:32.303" Score="3" ViewCount="157" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm currently building a chess engine in my free time while entering my second year of my master's studies in computer science. For a class we need to perform a litterature survey of a topic and identify a research gap. I thought I'd kill two birds with one stone and research something relevant for the heuristic evaluation function of my chess engine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What I want to do is to test the idea of using a convolutional neural network autoencoder to extract a feature vector (10-20 features maybe?) from chess boards. My idea is to encode positions in 8x8 arrays with each layer containing zeros or ones for each colour and piece, i.e. one layer for white pawns, one for black knights etc. Possibly it would also be good to have a layer indicating whose turn it is to move, and maybe 12 additional layers for possible squares of attack for the different pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can find tons of articles using convolutional neural networks for chess state evaluation (when searching scopus and google scholar), but nothing about using autoencoders. My idea is to append custom features (features that might be difficult for a CNN to find) in addition to the autoencoded features, and then feed all features to a new model. Has this been done before? If so, can someone point me in the direction of some attempts at this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;People who are versed in chess and in CNNs, what features for a chess board are difficult for CNNs to automatically detect, that would benefit from some custom feature engineering alongside an autoencoder?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, can someone see some obvious weakness with this approach, or does it seem like a sound idea?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24615" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-09-01T21:08:46.637" LastActivityDate="2021-01-16T14:12:13.810" Title="CNN autoencoder for feature extraction for a chess position" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;programming&gt;&lt;evaluation&gt;&lt;mathematics&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32068" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32069" CreationDate="2020-09-01T21:56:49.940" Score="4" ViewCount="308" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to FIDE, if I win half of my games in my first FIDE tournament, then my rating = the average of my opponents ratings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If a tournament has 10 rounds, and I can only play the first 3 (and in this example let’s say I win 1.5 points), will my initial rating become the average of these 3 opponents or will this not count as a part of my full initial rating?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Looking through the handbook, I see no rule that says I can’t just leave a tournament after drawing the first round against a 2000 and my rating becoming 2000 (because the average of 1x2000 player/#of players = 2000.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can anyone clarify from the rules exactly what determines an initial rating given one does not fully finish a tournament?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24616" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-09-02T00:59:27.537" LastActivityDate="2020-09-02T00:59:27.537" Title="Initial FIDE rating Question" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;rating&gt;&lt;fide&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32069" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32068" CreationDate="2020-09-01T22:42:41.850" Score="5" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;if a tournament has 10 rounds, and I can only play the first 3 (and in&#xA;this example let’s say I win 1.5 points), will my initial rating&#xA;become the average of these 3 opponents or will this not count as a&#xA;part of my full initial rating?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No and no.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;https://handbook.fide.com/chapter/B022017&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE rating regulations&lt;/a&gt; say&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;7.14 A rating for a player new to the list shall be published only if it meets the following criteria:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;7.14a If based on results obtained under 6.3, &lt;strong&gt;a minimum of 5 games&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;7.14b If based on results obtained under 6.4, a minimum of 5 games played against rated opponents.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;7.14c The condition of a minimum of 5 games need not be met in one tournament. Results from other tournaments played within consecutive&#xA;rating periods of not more than 26 months are pooled to obtain the&#xA;initial rating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;7.14d The rating is at least 1000.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;7.14e The rating is calculated using all his results as if they were played in one tournament (it is not published until he has played at&#xA;least 5 games) by using all the rating data available.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, if you only play 3 games you will not have a rating. However if you later play another tournament then the results of those 3 games will be carried forward.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-09-01T22:42:41.850" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32070" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31996" CreationDate="2020-09-02T01:34:26.763" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;As ever, it depends.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In general,  given adequate king shelter, the rooks have good chances when there are targets to coordinate against.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2494" LastActivityDate="2020-09-02T01:34:26.763" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32071" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6315" CreationDate="2020-09-02T01:37:03.320" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You're too old to earn a title, but you've got time enough to learn to appreciate and understand a masterly game. That's the best reason for chess improvement.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2494" LastActivityDate="2020-09-02T01:37:03.320" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32072" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-09-02T02:51:26.187" Score="6" ViewCount="1696" Body="&lt;p&gt;This question might sound ridiculous, but I think it needs to be discussed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;1. c4 g6 2. h4!? (2...h5 3. d4 Bg7 4. e4 Nf6 5. Nc3 d6 6. Bg5 Nh7 (6...O-O) 7. Be3 O-O) (2...e5 3. d4 exd4 4. Qxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 Bg7 6. Qe3+ Qe7 7. Qxe7+ Kxe7 8. Bg5 {White still maintains pressure}) c5 3. h5 Bg7 (3...gxh5 4. Rxh5 d6 (4...Nc6!? 5. Rxc5 e5 {Looks promising})) (3...Nf6 4. hxg6 fxg6) &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Doesn't really get earlier than this. All of us know this is not good play by White. But engines still think White did nothing wrong. And (in my opinion) White gets too much out of it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Meeting 2. h4 with 2...h5 seems like a hard decision. On one hand the h-pawn is stopped, but fixing the structure also gives White all the intel he needs to coordinate an attack after opening up the kingside and it is unclear if Black's king can evacuate from the center to any other place than kingside. After ...O-O in the lines given it looks like Black will have to withstand a vicious attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another idea might be to argue that White just wasted a move in the opening and play 2...c5, very pricipled. But then 3. h5 is annoying. If 3...gxh5 4. Rxh5 I think White achieved too much for &amp;quot;free&amp;quot;. In some openings, like the Dragon, White gives pawns or pieces to open the h-file. Here it is just there on move 5 and it is not really clear what Black has in return.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Usually, while White is pushing his h-pawn, Black tries to organise a counter attack on the queenside or in the center with his pawns and pieces. But Black has no pawns and pieces on the queenside or in the center this early and thus White can freely exert his pressure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems that the best way to deal with 3. h5 is to play around it and develop as if it was not there, but it is looming there and very unpleasant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15478" LastEditorUserId="15478" LastEditDate="2020-09-02T03:12:07.857" LastActivityDate="2020-09-03T02:18:45.950" Title="Can Black punish a provocative h-pawn push against fianchetto setups?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32074" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-09-02T05:25:08.427" Score="2" ViewCount="214" Body="&lt;p&gt;This question is not related to chess as such and is more related to the chess website lichess. I tried asking in their forum but haven't yet got an answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would like to look at &lt;strong&gt;my&lt;/strong&gt; games based on a specific opening, say B20. The search doesn't allow me to search &lt;strong&gt;my games based on a specific opening&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a way to do it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16311" LastActivityDate="2020-09-03T15:02:50.180" Title="How to look up my games based on specific opening in lichess?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;lichess&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32075" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32072" CreationDate="2020-09-02T06:53:18.847" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can punish them all you like, but the players who make these rushes want to mix it up. When they play h2-h4-h5, they're ready and willing to throw the rook on it after ...Nf6xh5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Players who play incorrect, unsound chess are usually pretty good at tactics, and have lots of practice in positions where the material imbalance favors the other side. See, they don't &lt;em&gt;feel&lt;/em&gt; punished. They want you to throw them into the briar patch.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2494" LastActivityDate="2020-09-02T06:53:18.847" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32076" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32072" CreationDate="2020-09-02T09:55:31.203" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;First off, I think you want to play 2...Bg7. As a general rule of thumb, you should always finish your fianchetto on the next move. It also protects the rook on h8 if the h-file opens. I don't think 2...c5 is a very good move because it locks up the pawn structure and is going to make counterplay in the center more difficult. (2...Nf6 and 2...e5 are probably playable too)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If white continues with h5 then 3...e5. Another rule of thumb: Counter wing attacks in the center. 4.hxg6, hxg6 6. Rxh8, Bxh8 is not a threat.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The h-pawn advance wastes a developing move and does nothing in the center. As long as you're developing and playing in the center you should be able to equalize. I would just say delay castling until the position clarifies itself. Since you're ahead in development you should be able to build an attack which may negate the need to castle. You might also want to castle queenside if white spends too much time on the kingside.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastEditorUserId="19861" LastEditDate="2020-09-03T02:18:45.950" LastActivityDate="2020-09-03T02:18:45.950" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32077" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28541" CreationDate="2020-09-02T10:08:01.700" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Upd. Considering this question I did exercise of mating maxed out Chess.Com engine. During analysis it turned out that most like they are using some version of Stockfish or Komodo. It required a one restart of whole process, tries of different positions, sacrifices and total destruction on strategical level. It only understood that it has problems only when the position was already totally losing. It required nearly 60 moves, my guess it is not possible to do it in less amount of moves. I reduced required number of moves because I used moves from other engines, which were not critical for the win. Professional player can do the same without using chess engine and with less trials. The hardest part is to find key ideas against key weaknesses, essentially it is task for human not computer. Also you must find the good opening which would work. It is important that I do not know what engine I beat because essentially the required steps to make your own win would be the same nonetheless.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/dGeI5.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/dGeI5.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;mating of maxed engine&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just note that game had 3 turnouts. I outtraded engine for a whole piece. Then I sack that bishop I had an advantage to get a grab on Queen which engine was thinking is OK because he was lured into a trap with overestimating his passed pawn. Engine really overestimated his ability to make checks and material advantage. Engines are so greedy that if you play by luring their risky attacks into clear trap they have zero brain to avoid it. And after you win once - you win forever. May be tweak some moves but you would repeat the whole idea.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;[ECO &amp;quot;A01&amp;quot;]&#xA;1.b3 d5 2.g3 e5 3.Bb2 Nc6 4.Bg2 Nf6 5.e3 h5 6.h3 Bf5 7.d3 Qd7 8.a3 O-O-O 9.Ne2 Be7&#xA;( 9...Kb8 10.b4 a6 11.Nd2 Bd6 12.Nb3 e4 13.Qd2 Ne5 14.Nc5 Qc8&#xA;( 14...Bxc5 15.Bxe5 Bb6 16.Bxf6 )&#xA;15.Bxe5 Bxe5 16.d4 Bd6 17.b5 axb5 18.Rb1 Nd7 19.Rxb5 Nb6 20.a4 h4 21.g4 Bd7 22.Rb1 f5 23.Qc3&#xA;( 23.a5 Nc4 24.Qc3 b5 25.axb6 cxb6 26.gxf5 Bxf5 27.Bf1 Bxc5 28.dxc5 Qxc5 )&#xA;)&#xA;10.b4 a6 11.Nd2 g5 12.Nb3 Qe6 13.Nc3 Kb8 14.Qd2 h4 15.g4 Nxg4 16.hxg4 Bxg4 17.f3 Bh5 18.O-O-O f5 19.Rdg1 g4 20.fxg4&#xA;( 20.f4 h3 21.Bf1 exf4 22.exf4 d4 23.Nd1 Bf7 )&#xA;20...fxg4 21.Qe1 Bf7&#xA;( 21...g3 22.Nc5 Qf7 )&#xA;22.Kb1 Qd7 23.Ne2 Be6 24.Nc5 Bxc5 25.bxc5 h3&#xA;( 25...g3 )&#xA;26.Bf1 d4&#xA;( 26...Rdf8 27.Ng3 Qe7 )&#xA;27.e4 Rhg8 28.Ng3 Rg5&#xA;( 28...Rg6 )&#xA;29.Be2 Rdg8 30.a4 a5 31.Ba3 Ka7 32.Bd1 Nb4 33.Bxb4 Qxa4 34.Bc3 dxc3 35.Qxc3 b5 36.Qb2 b4&#xA;( 36...Qd4 )&#xA;37.Nf5 Qe8 38.Rh2 Kb8 39.Qa1&#xA;( 39.Qxe5 $4 {very bad idea} )&#xA;39...a4 40.c4 Bxf5 41.Bxa4 Bd7 42.Ra2 h2 43.Re1 Bxa4 44.Rxa4 Qc6 45.Ra6 Rh8&#xA;( 45...Rh5 46.Kb2 h1=Q 47.Rxc6 Qh2+ 48.Kb3 )&#xA;46.Rxc6 h1=Q 47.Kb2 Qg2+&#xA;( 47...Rh2+ 48.Kb3 Qg2 )&#xA;48.Kb3 Rh2 49.Rc1 Rh3 50.Rb1 Rh2 51.Rc1 Rh3 52.Rb1 Qd2 53.Ka4 Rh2 54.Kb5 Qa2 55.Ra6 Qxa1 56.Rbxa1 Kc8 57.Rf6 Rh8&#xA;( 57...Rg8 58.Ra8+ )&#xA;58.c6 Kb8 59.Rf2 b3 60.Rb2 Rh1 61.Rxh1 Rg8 62.Ra1 Rd8 63.Rxb3 Rd5+ 64.cxd5 g3 65.Kc5+ Kc8 66.Ra8# 1-0&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;============&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stockfish and other computer engines are beatable, considering these factors:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Limited opening + end game databases. This is biggest factor. Computer engines do not know theory, so developers are strenghtening their weasknesses with providing tera-byte sized databases with sophisticated indexes for ultra-fast search operations.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Weaknesses inside valuation algorithm. Every computer engine cannot get hold of trillions of possible combinations, so it is searching game tree, using valuation function somewhere at deepest levels. Latest engines are using Neural Network function at the end of tree, and balancing this neural network is also in fact another type of database humans can attack. If you analyze this neural function, then find out the position where it fails (it will fail somewhere), because of a limited time given to computer.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Weaknesses at opening. Use highly non-standart opening, which you prepared by trial-and-error approach, hand-crafted. Every human-vs-computer match always goes prepared. Because humans cannot play with &amp;quot;black box&amp;quot;, they should understand the opponent. Typically humans play with computer for months before they allow proper &amp;quot;match&amp;quot;. Computer must do deterministic and recoverable moves. I.e. for every single run computer should not rely on some &amp;quot;random&amp;quot; variables. In historical Kasparov-DeepBlue match, computer chosen different move, which went to other direction, and did not repeat itself. So it was the question where humans corrected engine or database was different.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Attacking this weaknesses makes a lot of fun and creates different anti-computer strategies.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would say, that we should define &lt;strong&gt;true computer engine&lt;/strong&gt;, which would inherit these properties:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;No human intervention. At no time, engine variables would be arbitrarily fixed by humans.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;No neural networks + No peta-byte databases. It simply repeats 1 and in addition neural network basically require supervision by humans to learn, or some self-learn computing power. So engine is basically saving time it would require in real match by pre-computing databases.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;No random moves. Fixed behaviour for given CPU/GPU/time with deterministic formulae. Repeatable games.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;True computer engines are beatable by humans, given there are competitive circumstances. Real game with stakes in money + time for human side for preparation at least few months + true computer engine which would be standing with sportsmanship. Beatable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The difficulty associated with playing against computer engines comes from the time required for humans to come prepared to the battle. Because playing is radically different from playing against other humans. Playing against humans is all about strategy, while playing against computers is about making &lt;em&gt;optimal&lt;/em&gt; moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Latest versions of Stockfish and Lc0 from beginning are not fair true computer engines, because they apply neural networks which were trained by supervision techniques - or by humans, or by other engines. So it's kind of a database which is built into engine to speed it up. So I don't think that &amp;quot;beating&amp;quot; such opponent would even count as &amp;quot;beating computer&amp;quot; because you are in fact beating other people who were training that specific neural nets.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS. I did it. I started with observing how other engines deal with computer opponents and came up with moves which would counter the ideas which this particular engine were developing. Is there a guide to try to pull this off by yourself?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Fix the opening moves. Typically you want first to play Ryu Lopez game because this is most like would be default for computers to play when they are not provided with opening book.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Develop your pieces first, while not letting computer to exchange. Because less pieces -&amp;gt; computer algorithms are more effective. You want computer to suffer at grinding. Every time you make mistake of letting computer take exchange, roll moves back and analyze what's wrong.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Develop your pawn chains and ideas. Key is to keep your idea working by trial-and-error. Idea moves + filling moves. When you just need to fill the space, make &amp;quot;filler moves&amp;quot; which are not making you risk but just increase complexity for computer.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Catch computer when it screws its position. It will sooner or later. Computers are most likely screwing at passing pawns. Because when they notice pawn very close to passing it is too late already. Close your material advantage exchanging pawn for rook or something valuable -&amp;gt; win. Don't go for fancy endings, just do material things. It will take more moves, but it won't break your intuition.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Once you found winning strategy, you have beaten this computer forever, because every time it runs, you can just repeat your moves and abuse same spots. It cannot do anything against. Because computer moves are computed by formulae, no matter how complicated those formulae are, they could be outplayed.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PPS. It's a game and computers are dumb at games! Just imagine you have bots against you in CSGO. Sure they can shoot, and their shooting could be improved up to milliseconds so no human player would be stronger at shooting. But there is more in CSGO then just pointing your mouse at specified directions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24619" LastEditorUserId="24619" LastEditDate="2020-09-05T00:10:58.403" LastActivityDate="2020-09-05T00:10:58.403" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32078" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32072" CreationDate="2020-09-02T10:15:06.900" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some points:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;First forget the engine evaluations. We are humans (hopefully) and are only interested in practical play&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;In practical play, yes an early h4 as in this case is something to think about (but not scared). This is the reason why people usually delay fianchetto at least till the second move in almost all decent openings (like KID or hyper-accelerated accelerated dragon). Even in KID, one could further delay the fianchettoing by going via the old-Indian move order, so that any early h4, black need not&#xA;fianchetto and instead play in the center with ...e5 or ...c5 or ...d5 accordingly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The idea to counter early h4 is to preferably stay away from fianchettoing and play in the center for black and castle appropriately (i.e., one could castle queenside or king side or just have the king put in the center and also delay the castling a bit)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;In general have flexibility while playing. Do not be determined that you are always going to fianchetto irrespective of what your opponent does.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16311" LastActivityDate="2020-09-02T10:15:06.900" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32079" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31743" CreationDate="2020-09-02T10:36:21.033" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;While the king knight remains on the board with options to move to c5 or f6,  ....Nb8-d7 is an overlap.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2494" LastActivityDate="2020-09-02T10:36:21.033" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32080" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31986" CreationDate="2020-09-02T10:46:01.770" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The thing about the Modern Benoni is that White is usually trying to run you over on the e- and f- files. Black adopted a very small stance in the center (d6), and White's pawn play is the price to pay.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The difference between these two plans for white:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bb5+, f4, Nf3, with a view toward e4-e5&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and the one you describe here Bd3, Ne2-g3 with a view toward f4-f5&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;is that the f4-f5 plan is more likely to give Black the counterplay he desires with a knight on e5. You know that's why you play the Modern Benoni in the first place, yeah?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Go about your queenside business, and take their best shots on the f-file. If they crash through because you overlooked a tactic, you lose. If you hold them off and then jump all over the a1-h8 diagonal with your pieces, your Benoni is a success.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In other words, you're fretting over the plan for White that you should prefer to face as Black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2494" LastActivityDate="2020-09-02T10:46:01.770" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32081" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28792" CreationDate="2020-09-02T10:48:40.883" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;That's pretty much what I &amp;quot;see&amp;quot;.  I don't have a mental picture of pieces, I have a &amp;quot;feel&amp;quot; for their mobility.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One of the interesting thing about blindfold players is that they each have their own way of seeing the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2494" LastActivityDate="2020-09-02T10:48:40.883" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32082" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31699" CreationDate="2020-09-02T10:59:17.440" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Queen endings are among the most difficult.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We usually say &amp;quot;win by force&amp;quot; when there's a definite winning line. You're asking if White is certain to win, not at all certain.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A human player would look first to winning the  queenside pawn and then with an advantage on both wings, many chances to win. But while that pawn sits on a black square White can't coordinate force against it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And I don't think White can try for a kingside initiative while the a-pawn has to be tended to. White doesn't want to move it to a5, where it's fixed and can be coordinated against, and it's always exposed to threats on a4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2494" LastActivityDate="2020-09-02T10:59:17.440" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32083" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31649" CreationDate="2020-09-02T11:01:55.580" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You shouldn't give a fig about &amp;quot;variations&amp;quot;. Players don't lose games in the opening because they're bad at this variation or that system, they lose short games because they're bad at tactics (and that's your experience, yeah?).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Forget the dumb names of things. Pawn Storm This, Big Attack That. You have to learn enough tactics first.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2494" LastActivityDate="2020-09-02T11:01:55.580" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32084" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28537" CreationDate="2020-09-02T11:05:07.313" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;If there are studies, they'd show descriptive to be the lesser of the two because in descriptive, all the squares have two names; in algebraic, just one. So if you're having to keep a game in your head, it's easier to do so with 64 identifiers to remember than 128, right?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you practice playing blindfolded, you'll find that your only use for notation is transmitting the moves back and forth.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2494" LastActivityDate="2020-09-02T11:05:07.313" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32085" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28792" CreationDate="2020-09-02T11:22:08.957" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;When i play blindfold, the board is dark for me. I see one part of the board with a kind of flashlight with a small spot. Then i move back and forth with the spot and the figures appear in my imagination. By moving the focus slowly, i understand which figures are attacking which.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm not very good at it. If I &amp;quot;see&amp;quot; that I can simply take an unprotected piece away, I go through the entire game again very quickly in my mind and note the positions of the pieces that have something to do with this attack to make sure that the position is correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17471" LastActivityDate="2020-09-02T11:22:08.957" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32086" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31986" CreationDate="2020-09-02T11:51:52.340" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this position, White king is still in the center.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would go for Re8 (with ideas of Nxe4 followed by f5 in-case he has not yet castled; this in itself is a moral victory for Black, since White's center has been dismantled now)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If White castles immediately, then Nbd7 to add additional defense to e5 square and then look to expand on the queen side.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, always be on the look out for tactics in the Benoni (especially b5! or c4! or Nxe4!) I play this often and gives great winning chances even if I go a pawn down.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16311" LastActivityDate="2020-09-02T11:51:52.340" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32087" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32072" CreationDate="2020-09-02T12:40:35.187" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;White, indeed, has done nothing wrong. Because Black is not developing their centre, White can simply ignore it too. Their play in this game is considering that Black are continuing this passive approach with defensive positioning. Rook has high value, so freeing it would be a huge bonus, so in this play when White are not pressured to develop middle, that works. The whole point of fianchetto is to pressure middle of the map, so with refusing standart early Nf3 or d4, White can still develop its Nf3 and e4 which lets them keep tempo even after spending time at h-line. Best answer to this h-line is to not take that exchange in a rush.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think this is kind of standart line to continue. When White choose a moment to have an exchange, I would just not let them open h-line fully, because for Black side lines are very important, but C and F lines not so.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;r1bqk1nr/pp4bp/2np2p1/2p1p3/2P5/2N1PN2/PP1P1PP1/R1BQKB1R w KQkq - 0 8&amp;quot;] &#xA;1. c4 g6 2. h4 c5 3. h5 Bg7 4. Nf3 Nc6 5. e3 e5 6. Nc3 d6 7. hxg6 fxg6 {taking with F pawn is also possible}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PS. Do not understand why you even consider 2..h5 move at all. Surely you are not losing a game, Black is advancing a pawn to make a chain, but that chain has no development. So it is kind of &amp;quot;a wasted move&amp;quot;. Your Nf6 or Nh6 are not protected squares. And if you make a sequently Bg7, it will be a lot weaker, because F7 is unprotected square with very unreliable defenders as K/Q.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;About &amp;quot;trade of rooks&amp;quot; continuation 7.hxg6 hxg6 8.Rxh8 Bxh8 9.d3 Bg4 10.Qa4, engines show that Black wins by that idea, making the play more even, but I don't see how Black are going to abuse it clearly. White are free to continue attacks on Queen side and Black have less clutches they could exploit with less pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24619" LastEditorUserId="11712" LastEditDate="2020-09-02T22:37:08.217" LastActivityDate="2020-09-02T22:37:08.217" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32089" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32093" CreationDate="2020-09-02T17:51:30.383" Score="1" ViewCount="114" Body="&lt;p&gt;As title above,could someone kindly explain the tactical highlights of the rather unusual sequence of moves arising with the recent interpretation of the Open Ruy Lopez with 6.d4 Be7?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.O-O Nxe4 6.d4 Be7 7.Re1 b5 8.Rxe4 d5 9.Nxe5 Nxe5 10.Rxe5 bxa4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, why isn't White simply retreating the Bishop to b3 with 8.Bb3 ? Why 9.Nxe5 instead of simply retreating the Rook with, for example, 9.Re1 ? Why isn't Black taking the Rook with 9...dxe4 ? And so on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastEditorUserId="24511" LastEditDate="2020-09-03T06:56:34.593" LastActivityDate="2020-09-03T06:56:34.593" Title="Unusual sequence of opening moves in the Open Ruy Lopez with 6.d4 Be7" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;1.e4&gt;&lt;ruy-lopez&gt;&lt;opening-traps&gt;&lt;open-games&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32091" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32043" CreationDate="2020-09-02T18:41:13.913" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It makes no difference at all in any way, even if the kings and queens are reversed left to right, or if Black goes first. It's just convention, the thought process, how to play, etc.  It's identical other than the callout above about psychologically. Which bishop means more in the French is the example cited, but that's just because that player has that &amp;quot;rule&amp;quot; memorized The reasoning is no different, however.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24627" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-01-02T05:52:06.220" LastActivityDate="2021-01-02T05:52:06.220" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32093" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32089" CreationDate="2020-09-03T04:11:36.453" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the first step is to look at the analysis of the first 9 to 10 moves;&#xA;It is all pretty standard for the first few moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Bb5 a6 4. Ba4 Nf6&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;O-O Nxe4 6. d4 Be7&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Re1 b5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Rxe4 {[#] And now Bb3 would win. C84: Closed Ruy Lopez: Unusual White 6th moves.} d5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Nxe5 Nxe5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Rxe5 {Threatens to win with Bb3. White is better.} bxa4&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;So looking at the logical developments;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;   [FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;   1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Ba4 Nf6 5. O-O Nxe4 6. d4 Be7 7. Re1 b5 8. Rxe4 d5 9. Nxe5 Nxe5 10. Rxe5 bxa4 11. Qe2 c6 12. Bd2 Be6 13. f4 g6 14. Nc3 a3 15. b3 Bd6 16. f5 gxf5 *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;11.&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;em&gt;Qe2&lt;/em&gt; {Adds an extra defender to the e5 rook. Provides a potential battery into blacks territory on the open e-file.} &lt;em&gt;c6&lt;/em&gt; {adds a defender to the isolated d5 pawn.}&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;12.&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;em&gt;Bd2&lt;/em&gt; {Unable to develop to g5to target the e7 bishop. Black can easily counter with f6 bother attacking and defending. Idea to develop to Bb4} &lt;em&gt;Be6&lt;/em&gt; {Adds and extra barrier to whites e5 rook and e2 queen. provides additional support for central pawns as well as being supported / supporting the f7 pawn.  This also unpins Be7 which has good&#xA;attack opportunities on f6 primarily.}&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;13.&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;em&gt;f4&lt;/em&gt; {Adds an additional defender. Can be pushed to harrass Be6} &lt;em&gt;g6&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;14.&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;em&gt;Nc3&lt;/em&gt; {Try to capture some lazy material on a4} &lt;em&gt;a3&lt;/em&gt; {White can capture but doesn't want to open up the b file or stack pawns on the a file}&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;15.&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;em&gt;b3 Bd6&lt;/em&gt; {Blacks bishop finally back in the game. Threatens capture of the e5 rook}&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;16.&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;em&gt;f5&lt;/em&gt; {Stalling move. If black plays Bxe5 white can capture fxe6 which forces black to respond fxe6 followed by Qxd5. Material is largely even} &lt;em&gt;gxf5&lt;/em&gt; *&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;End Result:&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;Positions are equal , arguable that white has minor advantage. Considering white had a slightly better position at move 10, and is only down a pawn I believe. Is an interesting&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Some Master Games from this position&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First Notable game I can see in my Database.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Lasker vs Tarrasch (1916)&lt;/em&gt; - &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/games/view/15756559&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.chess.com/games/view/15756559&lt;/a&gt; : In fact theres two games with this exact position from the same year.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;More Recent Games;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Caruana vs Carlsen (2018)&lt;/em&gt; - &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/games/view/15606031&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.chess.com/games/view/15606031&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Nakamura vs Caruana (2019)&lt;/em&gt; - &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/games/view/15656519&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.chess.com/games/view/15656519&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24511" LastEditorUserId="24511" LastEditDate="2020-09-03T04:35:50.680" LastActivityDate="2020-09-03T04:35:50.680" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32094" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-09-03T04:33:10.983" Score="-4" ViewCount="73" Body="&lt;p&gt;Which among the following  is the most difficult to master in Chess games?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Opening vs. Middle vs. End&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24309" LastEditorUserId="2299" LastEditDate="2020-09-03T05:06:13.720" LastActivityDate="2020-09-17T01:15:47.307" Title="Openings vs. Middle vs. End games" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;middlegame&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2020-09-03T07:53:51.067" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32095" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32094" CreationDate="2020-09-03T04:40:07.997" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Thats an extremely opinionated question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Example, I study end games more and generally ignore openings. Middle games to me is largely tactics driven. I find studying end games easier than openings which seems purely rote in learning. I know folks who can recite openings , love studying them and think studying openings is easy. They are horrible with end games and hate studying end games. Its far to subjective.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24511" LastEditorUserId="24511" LastEditDate="2020-09-03T05:08:47.040" LastActivityDate="2020-09-03T05:08:47.040" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32098" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32094" CreationDate="2020-09-03T06:22:32.073" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's common sense. Is it easier to manage something with 32 moving parts, or 5?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Purdy said that it's relatively easy to play a fair opening (though impossible to play a perfect one), because one or two slips in the opening won't kill you, whereas one or two slips in the ending swing wins into draws, draws into losses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess players do better to study the ending first. How can you play a middlegame unless you can judge the ending on the horizon? It's easier to learn with fewer pieces on the board, and the mistakes there are far more costly than at other times.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2494" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-09-17T01:15:47.307" LastActivityDate="2020-09-17T01:15:47.307" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32099" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-09-03T11:09:11.087" Score="2" ViewCount="200" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;1. e4 {0} c6 {0} 2. d4 {19} d5 {0} 3. e5 {1} Bf5 {0} 4. Nf3 {1} e6 {0} 5. Be2 {&#xA;20} Nd7 {0} 6. O-O {4} Bg6 {0} 7. Nbd2 {53} Nh6 {0} 8. c3 {4} Nf5 {0} 9. Bd3 {&#xA;24} Ne3 {0} 10. fxe3 {7} Bxd3 {0} 11. Rf2 {7} Nb6 {0} 12. Ne1 {3 Should'nt&#xA;have bothered to take his bad bishop maybe Nd2-f1-g3 was better} Bg6 {0} 13. b3&#xA;{7 did'nt wanted his knight to come at c4} Be7 {0} 14. Qf3 {6 i thought maybe&#xA;threatening mate} f6 {0} 15. Nf1 {13} Qd7 {0} 16. Ng3 {1} Rf8 {0} 17. Qe2 {8}&#xA;fxe5 {0} 18. Rxf8+ {2} Bxf8 {0} 19. Bd2 {6} e4 {0} 20. Nc2 {3} Be7 {0} 21. Rf1&#xA;{1} a5 {0} 22. Nh5 {15} O-O-O {0} 23. Nxg7 {2} Kb8 {0} 24. Nh5 {39} Rh8 {0} 25.&#xA;Nf4 {2} Bg5 {0} 26. Nxg6 {2 should've not taken his bad bishop,maybe Bd2-e1-g3&#xA;was better} hxg6 {0} 27. c4 {3} Qd6 {0} 28. g3 {6} e5 {0} 29. Bxa5 {3} Nc8 {0}&#xA;30. Rf7 {19 rook on 7th,maybe Qf2-f7 was even better} b6 {0} 31. Nb4 {19} exd4&#xA;{0} 32. Na6+ {8} Ka8 {0} 33. Bxb6 {21} Bxe3+ {0} 34. Kh1 {4} Nxb6 {0} 35. Qg4 {&#xA;4} (35. Nc7+ Kb8 36. Na6+ Ka8) 35... Qa3 {0} 36. Nc7+ {11} Kb8 {0} 37. c5 {13}&#xA;Qc1+ {0} 38. Kg2 {2} Qg1# {0} 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;I am new to analyzing games,is this the right way before checking on engine or am I missing something?(I am playing white)&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21840" LastEditorUserId="15478" LastEditDate="2020-09-03T12:58:02.627" LastActivityDate="2020-09-03T12:58:02.627" Title="Is this the correct way to analyze games before checking with engine?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32100" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32099" CreationDate="2020-09-03T11:15:38.127" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Works for me. Review that game with a person, someone who'll tell you why you should do or not do things, for whom one-millionth of a pawn isn't an issue. For instance, getting the bishop to d3 in one step instead of two.  4. Nf3 and 5. Be2 are grandmasterly, not as simple.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2494" LastActivityDate="2020-09-03T11:15:38.127" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32101" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-09-03T11:38:18.993" Score="7" ViewCount="378" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not talking about Marseillais chess (which is similar, but rules are added to reduce the advantage of the white), which is sometimes also called &amp;quot;balanced double-move chess&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In a Double-Move chess &lt;strong&gt;both players&lt;/strong&gt; move &lt;strong&gt;two times instead of once&lt;/strong&gt;. There is &lt;strong&gt;no check, capture the king to win&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is the advantage of white sufficient? I.e. is it feasible to prove that white can always force a win?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Was a question like this examined in the past? I'm looking for references on any related work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, if we were talking about Triple-Move chess (&lt;em&gt;both players move three times instead of once, there is no check, capture the king to win&lt;/em&gt;), then white always wins on the &amp;quot;second move&amp;quot; by sacrificing the queen. That is, white makes their &amp;quot;first move&amp;quot; by: &lt;code&gt;pushing e pawn, queen to h5, queen to f7&lt;/code&gt;, and black is lost!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To see why black is lost, observe the &lt;code&gt;f1 bishop&lt;/code&gt;. It can capture the king on the next move either by &lt;code&gt;b5, d7, e8&lt;/code&gt; or by &lt;code&gt;c4, f7, e8&lt;/code&gt; (the white queen must be captured). If black captures the queen with anything but the king (i.e. spends two moves on the knight), then black does not have enough moves to defend both lines of attack from the bishop. Otherwise, if black captures with the king, then there are again two lines of attack from the &lt;code&gt;f1 bishop&lt;/code&gt; and black again does not have enough moves to defend both. Black king gets captured on the &amp;quot;second move&amp;quot; in every scenario.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If we reduce the variant to Double-Move chess, is the advantage for white still significant enough such that we can possibly find the (least?) number of moves in which the white can force a win (capture black king), or is this variant as hard as solving the ordinary chess?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit:&lt;/strong&gt; I'm aware that &amp;quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/q/31931/12314&quot;&gt;If there was a perfect play from both sides, but each player was allowed to do 2 moves every time, would white win?&lt;/a&gt;&amp;quot; was asked before, but there it is not clear if the OP refers to the (balanced) Marseillais chess, or not. - Also, the answer there isn't useful as it simply states &lt;em&gt;&amp;quot;White would probably win. However, this is not certain...&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt; without further clarifications. (I.e. they appear to claim that it is as hard as ordinary chess, but this is not obvious.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12314" LastEditorUserId="12314" LastEditDate="2020-09-03T13:27:12.277" LastActivityDate="2021-03-24T23:47:04.497" Title="(Unbalanced) Double-Move chess - can white force a win?" Tags="&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;solving&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32102" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32074" CreationDate="2020-09-03T15:02:50.180" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm afraid you cannot filter your own games based on a specific opening on lichess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can, however, aggregately analyze the results you achieved on a certain opening by exploiting the &lt;strong&gt;Chess Insights&lt;/strong&gt; feature, which is available in your profile page (on the right-hand side of your rating graph).&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;After clicking on it and feeding your own games, you can go on the &lt;em&gt;Filters&lt;/em&gt; tab, choose the specific opening you want under the &lt;em&gt;Game&lt;/em&gt; window and then select the metrics you want to analyze. At the bottom there is also a set of games used to generate the insight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18674" LastActivityDate="2020-09-03T15:02:50.180" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32103" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32105" CreationDate="2020-09-03T23:14:59.787" Score="7" ViewCount="577" Body="&lt;p&gt;I play Sicilian (mainly Najdorf) against e4. Sometimes (in anti-Sicilian or Sicilian openings) I end up with exchanging everything except 6 pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So it becomes a 4-2 pawn (4 on the kingside) versus 3-3 end game. I am the side with 4-2 and most likely a6-b5 being the two.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I remember losing a few such games that I could have drawn or perhaps won.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can you help me with the main strategies for black and and the opposing side white? Also in the specific game that I attached below, we reach to that position at move 28. But I appreciate any advice before move 28 as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &amp;quot;Rated Blitz game&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Site &amp;quot;https://lichess.org/wVcYyus2&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Date &amp;quot;2020.09.02&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Result &amp;quot;1-0&amp;quot;]&#xA;[UTCDate &amp;quot;2020.09.02&amp;quot;]&#xA;[UTCTime &amp;quot;18:34:04&amp;quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &amp;quot;2174&amp;quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &amp;quot;2033&amp;quot;]&#xA;[WhiteRatingDiff &amp;quot;+3&amp;quot;]&#xA;[BlackRatingDiff &amp;quot;-3&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Variant &amp;quot;Standard&amp;quot;]&#xA;[TimeControl &amp;quot;300+0&amp;quot;]&#xA;[ECO &amp;quot;B22&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Opening &amp;quot;Sicilian Defense: Alapin Variation, Barmen Defense&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Termination &amp;quot;Normal&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;[startply &amp;quot;54&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. c3 d5 3. exd5 Qxd5 4. d4 Nc6 5. Nf3 Bg4 6. Be2 e6 7. O-O Nf6 8. Be3 cxd4 9. Nxd4 Bxe2 10. Qxe2 Be7 11. Rd1 Nxd4 12. Bxd4 Qc6 13. Nd2 O-O 14. Nf3 Rfd8 15. h3 Rac8 16. Ne5 Qc7 17. a4 Nd7 18. a5 Nxe5 19. Qxe5 Qxe5 20. Bxe5 a6 21. Kf1 Kf8 22. Ke2 f6 23. Bd4 Ke8 24. Bb6 Rxd1 25. Rxd1 Bd8 26. Rxd8+ Rxd8 27. Bxd8 Kxd8 28. Kd3 Kd7 29. b4 Kc6 30. c4 g6 31. Ke4 b6 32. axb6 Kxb6 33. f4 h5 34. g4 hxg4 35. hxg4 Kc6 36. g5 f5+ 37. Ke5 Kd7 38. c5 Kc6 39. Kxe6 Kb5 40. Kf6 Kxb4 41. c6 a5 42. c7 a4 43. c8=Q 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT&lt;/strong&gt;: Brian’s answer well addressed the case when my king’s position was inferior but I am actually more curious about the strategies in the case when they are the same or mine is superior. In the game below, I have a superior king position, but then I blunder. What should be the strategy of black in that case? Instead of pushing the a-pawn, I guess I should have done f6 to avoid g5. Then should I try pushing e5 to make it a passed pawn? But then wouldn’t it be an isolated, hence a vulnerable pawn? Again any comment before the start ply will be also useful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To put it another way, considering the respective start plies in those games,in the first game, what to do to hold a draw, and in the second, what to do to win strategically?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT 2&lt;/strong&gt;: After Evargalo and David’s comments, I am more or less ok with the first game in the sense that there is no much more to say.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But as Evargalo pointed out in his comment, I don’t quite see why I had +0.9 in the very last position of the second game. To compare, I think both sides violated the second principle of Brian (don’t play in the minority side) and I think I had a better king position. My guess is that it could be due to losing the opposition or the g pawn blocking both f and h. But a deeper perspective could be better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT 3&lt;/strong&gt; After Brian’s great answers and my analysis with Stockfish, I seem to get an idea. But even then pawn endgames are very sensitive to mistakes that might be hard to spot. Thanks to all the contributors.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Date &amp;quot;2020.09.02&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Result &amp;quot;1-0&amp;quot;]&#xA;[UTCDate &amp;quot;2018&amp;quot;]&#xA;[UTCTime &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;[WhiteRatingDiff &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;[BlackRatingDiff &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Variant &amp;quot;Standard&amp;quot;]&#xA;[TimeControl &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;[ECO &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Opening &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Termination &amp;quot;Normal&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;[startply &amp;quot;70&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 a6 6. Bc4 e6 7. O-O b5 8. Bd3 Bb7 9. a3 Be7 10. Be3 O-O 11. f3 Nbd7 12. Qe1 d5 13. exd5 Nxd5 14. Nxd5 Bxd5 15. c3 Qc7 16. Rd1 Rad8 17. Qf2 Ne5 18. Be4 Qb7 19. Bxd5 Rxd5 20. Ne2 Rfd8 21. Rxd5 Rxd5 22. Nf4 Nd3 23. Nxd3 Rxd3 24. Bd4 Qd5 25. Qg3 g6 26. Re1 Bd6 27. Qh4 Bc5 28. Bxc5 Qxc5+ 29. Qf2 Qxf2+ 30. Kxf2 Kf8 31. Re3 Rd2+ 32. Re2 Rd5 33. f4 Ke7 34. Ke3 Kd6 35. Rd2 Rxd2 36. Kxd2 a5 37. g4 a4 38. g5 Kd5 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24631" LastEditorUserId="24631" LastEditDate="2020-09-06T18:50:23.907" LastActivityDate="2020-09-06T18:50:23.907" Title="4-2 vs 3-3 (only pawn) endgames arising from Sicilian/Anti Sicilian" Tags="&lt;pawn-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32104" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32115" CreationDate="2020-09-04T00:22:29.333" Score="10" ViewCount="3057" Body="&lt;p&gt;The 8 queen's puzzle is a well-known puzzle involving placing 8 queens on a chessboard so that no queen attacks another queen. It is more or less obvious that 8 is the maximum number of queens that can populate a chessboard so that no queens are attacking each other.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But what if we use knights instead? How many knights can we maximally place on a chessboard while still satisfying the stipulation of no piece attacking another piece? So far the maximum I've achieved is 24, attained by placing a cluster of 4 knights in the center, and on every square on the edge of the board except for c1, a3, a6, c8, f8, h6, h3, and f1. I cannot see how this number is improved, although I haven't proven that 24 is the theoretical maximum yet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Additionally, what happens if we use bishops? The maximum I've achieved is 14 at the moment, placing as many as possible along the edges. But this one I haven't really tried to optimize very much.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8300" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-01-29T22:04:54.337" LastActivityDate="2021-01-29T22:04:54.337" Title="Maximum number of knights populating a chess board so that no knights are attacking one another" Tags="&lt;problems&gt;&lt;knights&gt;&lt;bishops&gt;&lt;mathematics&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="7" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32105" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32103" CreationDate="2020-09-04T00:48:22.483" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;King and pawn endgames are much easier than ones where each side also has a rook. The key principles are fairly simple. You want to try and queen a pawn. With pawns on both sides of the board and an imbalance as here there are two key points:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Getting your king to the middle of the board is very important.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The only pawns you are likely to queen are ones on the side where you have the majority. If the kings keep away then the further up your pawns get the easier it is to get a passed pawn and queen. So, don't move pawns on your minority side unless you absolutely have to! Doing so makes your opponent's task easier. Move pawns on the side where you have the majority.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the position you show after move 27 you are already behind in the race to centralize your king. Whether that means you were already losing I doubt but it does make things difficult and it was your choice. Your king has taken 3 moves to go from g8 to d8. In the same number of moves you could have gone from g8 to d5 and that would have been a very different story.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your transition into the endgame was very poor. Perhaps 20...a6 was already a mistake. You are breaking rul2 by advancing a pawn on your weak side. Better would have been f6 which as well as being a free move, because it kicks the bishop, frees f7, which is a much better square for your king than f8, and moves a pawn on your majority side.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After 24. Bb6 you are in too much of a rush to get all the pieces off with RxR and Bd8. You exchanged pieces in a way which was good for your opponent and bad for you. Bd8 was particularly bad. Your rook on c8 paralyzes white's queenside pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Suppose instead it had gone something like this after move 20:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &amp;quot;2rr2k1/pp2bppp/4p3/P3q3/3B4/2P4P/1P3PP1/R2R2K1 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Bxe5 f6 2. Bd4 a6 3. Bb6 Rd6 4. Rxd6 Bxd6 5. Rd1 Rc6 6. Kf1 (6. b4 Bc7) Kf7 7. Ke2 e5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After 5...Rc6 you have a simple plan of bringing your king quickly to the center with Kf7, e5, Ke6. If white tries immediately to kick your rook away from the defence of the bishop by rushing forward the queenside pawns starting with b4 then Bc7 is a good response.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-09-04T00:48:22.483" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32106" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32104" CreationDate="2020-09-04T01:07:54.877" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;For knights, the maximum is &lt;strong&gt;32.&lt;/strong&gt; Since knights can only attack the color opposite of the square they’re on, placing one on 32 squares of the same color is therefore optimal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;N1N1N1N1/1N1N1N1N/N1N1N1N1/1N1N1N1N/N1N1N1N1/1N1N1N1N/N1N1N1N1/1N1N1N1N w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for bishops, &lt;strong&gt;14&lt;/strong&gt; is the highest possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;B7/B6B/B6B/B6B/B6B/B6B/B6B/B7 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-09-04T13:49:06.457" LastActivityDate="2020-09-04T13:49:06.457" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32107" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32103" CreationDate="2020-09-04T04:41:52.767" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Without looking at those gamescores, I'm guessing that you're not taking charge in the center when it's there for the taking.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You know Sicilian players are supposed to win more of the endings, right? White wins the shorter, sharper games that get into magazines, and Black wins the longer ones after weathering the storm.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After weathering that storm, Black is left with a preponderance in the center (which you demonstrate in these endings), and then it's time to go back at them hard. If you don't have the tactical chops for that, cultivate them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2494" LastActivityDate="2020-09-04T04:41:52.767" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32108" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14053" CreationDate="2020-09-04T08:09:44.723" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I personally use SCID over SCID VS PC just because you can store more games on SCID(Unlimited) than SCID VS PC(10 Games) on a single database.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24633" LastActivityDate="2020-09-04T08:09:44.723" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32109" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-09-04T11:09:05.507" Score="6" ViewCount="183" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have just downloaded the &lt;strong&gt;Arena&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;SCID vs PC&lt;/strong&gt; GUI clients. Both seem wonderful and work seamlessly with most of the chess engines like Rybka and Stockfish. I can't wait to get started by analysing the chess games of the masters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also have a physical chess board, and would like to play out such games by having someone sound out the moves: for each move read out by the &amp;quot;voice-assistant&amp;quot;, I would move the pawn or piece to the appropriate square. This help me with drilling the coordinates of the 64 squares down into bones and improve my chess visualization. Besides I am also quite a tactile learner.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sure, I can read the moves and then move the relevant piece with my hand, but that seems too distracting to look back and forth between the board and the screen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Having some sort of &amp;quot;extension&amp;quot; (just like in Firefox) to &lt;strong&gt;Arena&lt;/strong&gt; or &lt;strong&gt;SCID vs PC&lt;/strong&gt; that can read of the moves of a game recorded in PGN, one-by-one (which can be paused at the press of a key) could be immensely valuable. Does anyone here know of software that has this built in? Or possibly any hacks? (Other than having my dad read out the moves of course...haha.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24634" LastEditorUserId="4183" LastEditDate="2021-04-17T15:04:30.140" LastActivityDate="2021-04-17T15:04:30.140" Title="Software for reading aloud the moves of a chess games in Arena or SCID vs PC" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;scid&gt;&lt;arena&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32110" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32486" CreationDate="2020-09-04T14:02:51.063" Score="3" ViewCount="1043" Body="&lt;p&gt;Per title. As I understand contempt, it's a setting in the eval function that adds a bonus for material remaining on the board. This makes the engine favor positions with more material (i.e. more complex, i.e. more scope to outplay the opponent). It is meant to make the engine avoid quick draws against inferior opposition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stockfish recently implemented &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/31754/what-does-stockfish-nnue-mean-for-stockfish&quot;&gt;NNUE eval&lt;/a&gt;, and I am unsure if NNUE eval can include contempt. If yes, how does it work? The description above doesn't seem to work anymore.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastActivityDate="2020-10-02T06:11:47.523" Title="Does Stockfish NNUE have contempt implemented?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32111" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32110" CreationDate="2020-09-04T15:01:07.740" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure if you understanding of contempt is right, but in any case; I just compiled SF12 and it seems you don't have two versions of SF (the standard and the NNUE) but you can set your SF12 to behave standard or NNUE. In the &lt;a href=&quot;https://imgur.com/Vk6K1acl.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;configuration screen for SF12&lt;/a&gt; you can enable NNUE, and also the contempt value.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the short answer to your question is yes, SF12-NNUE has contempt implemented.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9179" LastActivityDate="2020-09-04T15:01:07.740" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32112" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32110" CreationDate="2020-09-04T19:33:42.867" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Contempt is implemented. But your understanding is not correct. Evaluation is already counting all possible factors which engine considers. But it does not understand the idea of risk. So &amp;quot;Contempt&amp;quot; switch is like &amp;quot;should I insist on evading of 3-rep/50-move rules when my eval says to repeat the move?&amp;quot; and it is typically on/off. With contempt=on, engine will not repeat position 3 times, effectively dropping the line of repeating right away. Most of engines already have contempt=on. This switch comes with little &amp;quot;margin&amp;quot; function which basically says &amp;quot;Am I losing that much to call for a draw?&amp;quot;. If it does not see any losing, effectively it will not draw by itself. That function is very rarely used actually. Typically engines will always try to beat the opponent even if it will make them lose more. Most of the time engines don't have &amp;quot;draw offering&amp;quot; implemented.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24619" LastActivityDate="2020-09-04T19:33:42.867" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32113" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14053" CreationDate="2020-09-04T19:42:44.437" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you are first-time user, difference is negligable. One is a fork of another. Both using Tcl/Tk toolkit to implement interfaces. Both support UCI/XBoard engine interfaces. I am personally more inclined to the second purely our of historical differences. There was a moment when scidvspc had more novelty, but now basically all of the functions are the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24619" LastActivityDate="2020-09-04T19:42:44.437" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32114" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9652" CreationDate="2020-09-04T23:25:00.500" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's no one singular database with all games recorded- it is fairly simple to see this is impossible. Say, a top player played a casual game against their second or trainer, perhaps for training purposes or to test out an opening variation or something. We may record the moves for our future analysis, but would it end up in any databases? No, because we would not want to reveal any information to possible opponents.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can, however, get very big databases - SmallChess made an excellent post but I would add &lt;a href=&quot;http://caissabase.co.uk/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;CaissaBase&lt;/a&gt; to the list.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Probably, if you get all of the databases suggested and combine them (using a script to remove duplicates etc), you would have a very good and large record of pretty much any game that would make its way to the public/be in a database.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23100" LastActivityDate="2020-09-04T23:25:00.500" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32115" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32104" CreationDate="2020-09-04T23:40:48.643" Score="19" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;14 non-attacking bishops&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We may consider the white-square bishops and the black-square bishops separately.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At most 7 bishops can be placed on white squares, namely, at most one bishop on each of the 7 white diagonals parallel to the h1-a8 diagonal. In fact, we can put bishops on the 7 white squares b1, d1, f1, h1, c8, e8, g8.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The solution for black-square bishops is just the mirror image of the solution for white-square bishops. At most one bishop can be placed on each of the 7 black diagonals parallel to the a1-h8 diagonal, and this can be achieved with bishops on a1, c1, e1, g1, b8, d8, f8.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;strong&gt;32 non-attacking knights&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We can put 32 knights on the board by putting knights on all the white squares or on all the black squares.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One way to see the we can't have more than 32 knights is to consider a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knight%27s_tour&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;knight's tour&lt;/a&gt;. If we number the squares from 1 to 64 in the order they are visited by the touring knight, then it's clear that our non-attacking knights can occupy at most one of the two squares 1 &amp;amp; 2, at most one of squares 3 &amp;amp; 4, at most one of squares 5 &amp;amp; 6, and so on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But a knight's tour is somewhat difficult, and not really needed for this problem. All we really need is to divide the 64 squares of the chessboard into 32 pairs, each pair being separated by a knight's move. Since the 8 x 8 board can be cut up inti eight 2 x 4 boards, it will be enough to observe that the 2 x 4 board admits such a pairing (and therefore can hold at most 4 non-attacking knights), namely a1 &amp;amp; c2, a2 &amp;amp; c1, b1 &amp;amp; d2, b2 &amp;amp; d1.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Non-attacking knights on variant chessboards&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It can be shown that, provided m,n &amp;gt; 2, the maximum possible number of knights on an m x n chessboard is ceiling(mn/2), that is, it's mn/2 if mn is even, (mn+1)/2 if mn is odd. This number can obviously be attained by putting all the knights on squares of one color. Proving that it's optimal is more work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's say that an m x n chessboard has a &amp;quot;good pairing&amp;quot; if the set of squares can be partitioned into pairs (with one square left over if mn is odd), each pair being connected by a knight move. The existence of a good pairing follows from the existence of a knight's tour, but good pairings are easier to find than knight's tours. It will suffice to show that a good pairing exists whenever m,n &amp;gt; 2. In fact, it will suffice to show that a good pairing exists for 2 x 4, 3 x 3, 3 x 4, 3 x 5, 3 x 6, 5 x 5, and 5 x 6 chessboards, since every m x n chessboard with min(m,n) &amp;gt; 2 can be partitioned into rectangular pieces of those seven sizes, without using more than one piece with an odd number of squares. Constructing good pairings for those seven small boards is left to the reader. (The 3 x 4, 5 x 5, and 5 x 6 boards allow knight's tours.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2299" LastEditorUserId="2299" LastEditDate="2020-09-05T14:48:02.963" LastActivityDate="2020-09-05T14:48:02.963" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32116" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32048" CreationDate="2020-09-05T02:05:13.747" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just move your pawns and your kings up solidly, avoid giving counterplay. At some point you will get the opportunity to get a passed pawn, that you can then usually trade to get several pawns on a wing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Two short game examples played against stockfish with just king and pawns in initial position while removing black d pawn. First one is very simple without any counterplay, second one is more creative with tactics.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;d4 a5 2. Kd2 Kd7 3. Kd3 h5 4. e4 Kc6 5.c4 f6 6. b3 g5 7. a3 e6 8. b4 axb4 9. axb4 Kd7 10. c5 Kc6 11. Kc4 Kd7 12. b5 g4 13. d5 exd5+ 14. exd5 Kd8 15. Kd4 b6 16. d6 bxc5+ 17. Kxc5 cxd6+ 18. Kxd6 f5 19. Ke5 h4 20. Kxf5 h3 21. g3 Kc7 22. Kxg4 Kb6  etc..&#xA;Just created a majority on the Q side and eventually a passed pawn, while leaving three vs three on the king side. Only possible counterplay for black would have been to bring the three kingside black pawns to f4,g4,h4 with allows them to force the creation of a passed pawn. But it's easy to keep an eye on that resource and prevent it if it might become a threat.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;e4 a5 2. Ke2 Kd7 3. Ke3 g5 4. d4 f6 5. f4 b5 6. h4 gxh4 7. Kf3 h5 8. c3 Kd6 9. f5 c5 10. b3 b4 11. cxb4 axb4 12. Ke3 e6 13. e5+ fxe5 14. dxc5+ Ke7 15. Ke4 h3 16. gxh3 Kf6 17. c6 exf5+ 18. Kd5 Ke7 19. Kxe5 h4 20. Kxf5 Kd6 21. Kg4 Kxc6 22. Kxh4 Kd7 23. Kg5 Ke7 24. Kf5 Kd6 25. h4 Ke7 26. Ke5 Kf7 27. Kd5 Ke7 28. Kc5 etc..&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Gave the h pawn weakening black structure and staying with a majority on the a-f columns while black stays with 2 h pawns vs white g pawn on the king side. Eventually ended up the same way as first game, creating a passed pawn and grabbing black pawns thanks to it, after the tactics arising after 13.e5+. But 6.h4 was kinda just for fun and to show that being a pawn up allows a lot of things. 6.g4 would have been simpler, like in the first game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14778" LastActivityDate="2020-09-05T02:05:13.747" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32117" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-09-05T03:11:37.743" Score="-1" ViewCount="441" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have both of them installed, but I don't know which is better. For me, I am using SCID instead of SCID VS PC because SCID VS PC you can only have 10 games in a database. If you know how to fix this issue I will gladly use SCID VS PC. Thanks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24633" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-09-05T13:52:22.237" LastActivityDate="2020-09-05T13:52:22.237" Title="SCID VS SCID VS PC Which is better?" Tags="&lt;scid&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ClosedDate="2020-09-05T08:34:27.663" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32118" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32117" CreationDate="2020-09-05T05:09:23.330" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Which is better?&amp;quot; is a risky question to ask around here because it asks for opinions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I used both. Couldn't tell the difference.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2494" LastActivityDate="2020-09-05T05:09:23.330" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32119" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="75" CreationDate="2020-09-05T09:04:13.340" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Caveman variation(Caro-kann advance variation sideline) should do the trick.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. e5 Bf5 4. h4 h5 5. Bg5 Qb6 6. Bd3!? Bxd3 7. Qxd3 Qxb2 8. e6!&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If Black takes the free rook, you get a strong attack. The only problem is that you'll have to get your opponent to play THE EXACT SEQUENCE OF MOVES, which is very difficult, considering the length of the line.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastActivityDate="2020-09-05T09:04:13.340" CommentCount="0" CommunityOwnedDate="2020-09-05T09:04:13.340" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32120" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31954" CreationDate="2020-09-05T09:18:44.693" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;White must have two bishops of one colour and a bishop of the other to get checkmate. White can then attempt to pin Black's lone bishop, which is. easier as more pieces get on the board. Then, White can checkmate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-09-05T11:53:54.927" LastActivityDate="2020-09-05T11:53:54.927" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32123" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32103" CreationDate="2020-09-05T14:52:32.653" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and in the second, what to do to win strategically?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;OK, I've just seen your second edit with another position. Strictly speaking it would be better as a new question, but I'll add another answer looking specifically at this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first two things that strike me looking at the final position are that black has a much better king position and white has 2 &amp;quot;reserve moves&amp;quot; to black's none. Whether or not white's poor king position is immediately fatal is a question that requires calculation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First let me explain &amp;quot;reserve moves&amp;quot; and why they are important in the endgame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Remove the kings and look again at the position and ask yourself how many moves each side can make before disaster strikes. Black can't move. Any move will result in the loss of a pawn. White has two moves before having to lose a pawn, h2-h3 and h3-h4. What this means is that in any one-off mutual zugzwang position white is going to win thanks to one extra reserve move. Furthermore, if 2 zugzwangs are required for victory then again white is going to win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the actual position although black has an optical advantage the queenside foolishness means the game is drawn. As part of the optical illusion of black superiority it looks like white's next move, Kd3, is forced, but such is the tragedy of black's queenside pawns (and the lack of reserve moves) that I think white can even play Kc2. If black responds with the obvious Kc4 then black can even play b3+! and because of the extra reserve moves this just accelerates the development of a passed pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The problem for each side is that pushing their minority side pawns has accelerated their opponent's development of a passed pawn. Let's have a look at a couple of lines. In each case I think that if one side had kept their minority side pawns at home they would likely have won.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &amp;quot;8/5p1p/4p1p1/1p1k2P1/p4P2/P1P5/1P1K3P/8 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Kd3 (1. Kc2 e5 (1...Kc4 2. b3+ axb3+ 3. Kb2 Kd5 4. Kxb3 Kc5 5. h3 Kd5 6. Kb4 Ke4 7. c4 bxc4 8. Kxc4 Kxf4 9. a4 e5 10. a5 e4 11. a6 e3 12. Kd3 Kf3 13. a7 Kf2 14. a8=Q) 2. fxe5 Kxe5 3. b4 f5 4. gxf6 Kxf6 5. Kd3 g5 6. c4 bxc4+ 7. Kxc4 Ke6 8. Kc5 h5 9. Kc6 h4 10. b5 g4 11. b6 g3 12. hxg3 hxg3 13. b7 g2 14. b8=Q g1=Q) e5 2. fxe5 Kxe5 3. c4 bxc4+ 4. Kxc4 f5 5. gxf6 Kxf6 6. Kb4 g5 7. Kxa4 h5 8. b4 h4 9. b5 Ke7 10. Ka5 g4 11. b6 Kd7 12. Ka6 g3 13. hxg3 hxg3 14. b7 g2 15. b8=Q g1=Q 16. a4 Qc5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And finally,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Instead of pushing the a-pawn, I guess I should have done f6 to avoid&#xA;g5. Then should I try pushing e5 to make it a passed pawn? But then&#xA;wouldn’t it be an isolated, hence a vulnerable pawn?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think the idea of f6 is not to try and stop white pushing a pawn to g5, because that would be bad for white, but for black to try and try and push g5 to get rid of the white f4 pawn and leave the e pawn as a passer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;OK let's look at the position after 35 moves. White is going to recapture the rook. Then what are the plans for each side and how will the position look after they are implemented?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both sides are going to try, and if they try hard enough they are going to succeed in creating a passed pawn on the side where they have a majority. So, white will have a queenside passed pawn and black will have a kingside passed pawn. What happens then?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well, one side or the other is going to push their passed pawn and force the other side to undefend their passed pawn in order to take it. So white will end up with the king on the kingside and white's king will be on the queenside and the plans for both sides will be to take as many pawns on that side of the board as required to be able to queen a pawn, basically a race.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this race the advantage will be with the side that has to move their king the fewest moves to achieve that together with having a pawn closer to queening. It looks like the starting gun for this race will be fired after black has taken a passed pawn on c4 and white has taken a passed pawn on e4 and black will be aiming to go on and take the white pawn on a3 and white is likely going to be aiming for a black pawn on h6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It looks to me as if black is winning that race. If so then that is a scenario that white must try and avoid. If white does try avoid that I think that black can force that situation by first creating a passed pawn and then advancing the queenside pawns to paradoxically create a passed pawn for white.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's look at a few lines to see how it could pan out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &amp;quot;8/5p1p/p2kp1p1/1p6/5P2/P1P1K3/1P1r2PP/8 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Kxd2 Kd5 2. Kd3 f6 3. b3 (3. h4 a5 4. b3 h5 5. c4+ bxc4+ 6. bxc4+ Kc5 7. Kc3 e5 8. fxe5 fxe5 9. Kd3 e4+ 10. Kxe4 Kxc4) 3... g5 4. fxg5 fxg5 5. c4+ (5. Kd2 a5 6. Kc2 e5 7. Kd3 e4+ 8. Kd2 a4 9. bxa4 bxa4 10. g3 Kc4 11. h4 gxh4 12. gxh4 Kb3 13. c4 Kxc4 14. Ke3 Kb3 15. Kxe4 Kxa3) 5... bxc4+ 6. bxc4+ Kc5 7. h3 a5 8. g3 a4 9. Kc3 e5 10. Kd3 e4+ 11. Kxe4 Kxc4 12. Kf5 h6 13. Kg6 Kb3 14. Kxh6 Kxa3 15. Kxg5 Kb3)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Caveat: I'm sure a good engine with tablebases will find lots of holes in this analysis but it gives a general idea of what black is aiming for in these kinds of positions. And I guess that these kind of endgames are what Sicilian players expect and are aiming for.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2020-09-06T16:35:25.080" LastActivityDate="2020-09-06T16:35:25.080" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32124" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31812" CreationDate="2020-09-05T22:46:39.513" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Chess Tempo website has an &lt;a href=&quot;https://old.chesstempo.com/game-database.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;opening explorer&lt;/a&gt; database. It has a number of follow ons at from numerous master level+ games, with win and draw percentages for each variation.  According to its data, &lt;strong&gt;4... e3&lt;/strong&gt; looks  better for Black than d4. EDIT  clearly that should be e6 as noted by B Swan  ]&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Fun fact: Tartakover used to play Nf3 instead of Qe2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24647" LastEditorUserId="24647" LastEditDate="2020-09-06T19:19:08.917" LastActivityDate="2020-09-06T19:19:08.917" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32125" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25123" CreationDate="2020-09-05T22:50:01.317" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Only FIDE could enforce that.  Talk to them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No other platform can or does do that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24647" LastActivityDate="2020-09-05T22:50:01.317" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32128" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31812" CreationDate="2020-09-06T05:02:54.033" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have several Caro-Kann books and none mention this line.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In general, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.kenilworthchessclub.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.kenilworthchessclub.org/&lt;/a&gt;, and &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.chessgames.com/&lt;/a&gt; are good opening resources.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you're analyzing rarely played lines it's best to just use a database and an engine. That's all I really use anymore anyway. Occasionally, I'll look at book if I don't understand a particular move but mostly it's database and engine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White is getting crushed in this line. After 4. Nd1, e5, black is at least equal. I don't know why you'd want to play it.  Something like the 2 knights or the KIA would lead to similar positions but are better openings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2020-09-06T05:02:54.033" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32129" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32131" CreationDate="2020-09-06T12:28:14.133" Score="5" ViewCount="1526" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am quite new to chess and I wonder what someone can do about the following situation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Me (white): Knight + King, 1 minute left&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Opponent (black): Knight + King, 3 minutes left&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draw_(chess)#Draws_in_timed_games&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;following rule&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If only one player has exceeded the time limit, but the other player&#xA;does not have (theoretically) sufficient mating material, the game is&#xA;still a draw. Law 6.9 of the FIDE Laws of Chess states that: &amp;quot;If a&#xA;player does not complete the prescribed number of moves in the&#xA;allotted time, the game is lost by the player. However, the game is&#xA;drawn if the position is such that the opponent cannot checkmate the&#xA;player's king by any possible series of legal moves, even with the&#xA;most unskilled counterplay.&amp;quot; For example, a player who runs out of&#xA;time with a sole king versus king and bishop does not lose the game.&#xA;It is still possible to lose on time in positions where mate is&#xA;extremely unlikely but not theoretically impossible, as with king and&#xA;bishop versus king and knight. (Under USCF rules, king and bishop,&#xA;king and knight, or king and 2 knights with no pawns on the board is&#xA;not considered sufficient mating material, unless the opponent has a&#xA;forced win, even though it is theoretically possible to mate (but&#xA;extremely unlikely to happen) in situations such as K+B vs. K+N).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;this is no immediate draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The opponent keeps running away until I am out of time and lose the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A sample game can be seen &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/1JpJyebP&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; (I blundered on move 60 here, I could have got his knight but I pre-moved everything because I had around 5 seconds time left). But we can see here that he also does not take my knight to not make it a draw so I lose on time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24650" LastEditorUserId="20096" LastEditDate="2020-09-29T18:16:49.467" LastActivityDate="2020-09-29T18:16:49.467" Title="Knight + King vs Knight + King - Loss on time" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;draw&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32131" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32129" CreationDate="2020-09-06T13:24:41.590" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;You have three choices:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Always play with an increment, then this won't arise because you can always move within the increment&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Try and fork your opponent's king and knight. Either he takes your knight or you take his knight next move - result = draw. Or the best and simplest with so much time left&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Just play very fast until you have made 50 moves without any pawn moves (there won't be any because there are no pawns left) and without any captures (if there are any then the game sill be draw.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One minute should ample time for you to just make 50 moves with your knight. Quality doesn't matter in this case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to the &lt;a href=&quot;https://handbook.fide.com/chapter/E012018&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Laws of Chess&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;9.3 The game is drawn, upon a correct claim by a player having the move, if:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;9.3.1 he writes his move, which cannot be changed, on his scoresheet and declares to the arbiter his intention to make this move which will&#xA;result in the last 50 moves by each player having been made without&#xA;the movement of any pawn and without any capture, or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;9.3.2 the last 50 moves by each player have been completed without the movement of any pawn and without any capture.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most online servers implement this automatically. If 50 moves are made with no pawn moves and no captures then the server ends the game as a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-09-06T13:24:41.590" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32132" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-09-06T17:12:42.787" Score="-2" ViewCount="384" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is the London System opening is a good opening to invest on for getting deep on its variation for a beginner player (rank 1000-1100)? actually I heard it's a boring and systemical opening and for example &lt;strong&gt;GM Hikaru&lt;/strong&gt; doesn't like this opening (I see his reactions on his stream when someone plays it), although I saw some amazing game that &lt;strong&gt;Magnus Carlsen&lt;/strong&gt; played with London System.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12268" LastEditorUserId="12268" LastEditDate="2020-09-06T19:44:40.987" LastActivityDate="2020-09-06T19:44:40.987" Title="Is the London system a good chess opening for beginners?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;london-system&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32133" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32132" CreationDate="2020-09-06T18:01:26.397" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your question asks for opinions, which isn't correct form. So it'll be closed or you'll be asked to re-frame it, something like that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My opinion is no, and beginners shouldn't worry about openings or what GMs think of openings. Learn tactics and endings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2494" LastActivityDate="2020-09-06T18:01:26.397" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32134" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32132" CreationDate="2020-09-06T19:22:21.813" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It depends.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Any system (almost) can be good/bad for you/your_opponent depending on many factors.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should pick one opening you like that fits your personality/style of play.  And then master that opening.  Be prepared to change as you improve though as what worked against beginners may not be as good against masters and GMs&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24647" LastActivityDate="2020-09-06T19:22:21.813" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32135" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32129" CreationDate="2020-09-06T19:26:25.260" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;1 - Play faster.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2 - Lose your knight and then the program will call it a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3 - Move your king around for 50 moves and claim a draw;  see answer 1.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4 - Play OTB instead of online. Find the Director and claim the draw for lack of material to mate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24647" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-09-06T19:39:13.567" LastActivityDate="2020-09-06T19:39:13.567" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32137" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1260" CreationDate="2020-09-06T19:38:34.143" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;All rating systems have problems in real life.  At best none of them can do more than approximate a guess at your ability.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They will do better at the GM level as those players are more consistent and tend to play more GMs;  while the rest of us are more inconsistent and tend to play a wider range of lower rated players who are also more inconsistent.  And new players tend to improve far faster while playing in fewer tournaments which further skews all the ratings. And at any level some players have off days or do not try as hard if it wont change their position in the final results.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Trying to fine tune ratings so much like Glicko2 is a fools errand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another factor exacerbating the problem is that players tend to play the same players.  If there were a worldwide mandatory swiss system that played enough rounds there would be a big shake up in most players ratings.  A worldwide double round robin would make some more changes but the swiss would be a good start to fixing rating errors --   at least in the middle with established players.  You still have the problem with new players distorting the ratings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24647" LastActivityDate="2020-09-06T19:38:34.143" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32138" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1709" CreationDate="2020-09-06T19:46:41.080" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Boring?&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;You dont get to always play a wide open slash and burn tactical game!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Try the dutch defense or the benoni or something else if you dont like the positions in that London variation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Personally I have excellent results against it.  But then it is usually played by weaker players not GMs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24647" LastActivityDate="2020-09-06T19:46:41.080" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32139" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17890" CreationDate="2020-09-06T19:50:54.950" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You should pick one system that you like and matches the style of play suited to your personality.  Then master that opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At your level there are dozens maybe hundreds of solid openings you could choose from that  could work for  you.  Only a few would be best for you; but you need to decide that for yourself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24647" LastActivityDate="2020-09-06T19:50:54.950" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32140" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14601" CreationDate="2020-09-06T19:55:41.017" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;CheSScan app available on Play/App Store does what you are looking for.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;chesscan.com&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Disclaimer: I am the developer of the app.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24657" LastActivityDate="2020-09-06T19:55:41.017" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32141" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29103" CreationDate="2020-09-06T19:56:11.967" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This question is opinion based and subjective.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;London is 'safe' because it will take black longer to mate you if you are a beginner.  Play a wide open tactical game and you will lose faster.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But for experienced players it is not really safe nor unsafe.  Just another opening to play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24647" LastActivityDate="2020-09-06T19:56:11.967" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32142" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28726" CreationDate="2020-09-06T20:00:11.187" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Dont confuse small sample statistics and results from a top player with the quality of the opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Scotch is popular with beginners who want to play a wide open slash and burn tactical game as they can often beat other beginners who are not familiar with all the opening variations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also they would rather lose a fun game than learn how to win a positional game that they think is boring.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is far less popular with top players who know how to play black properly because their result is more likely to be a draw or loss which would mess with their final tournament standing and prize amount.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24647" LastActivityDate="2020-09-06T20:00:11.187" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32144" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13324" CreationDate="2020-09-06T20:10:59.910" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Opinion and subjective.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is no way to tell unless you provide a very detailed description of how you would evaluate each site.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And no rating system is that accurate even if all the players were consistent and no beginners were improving to further disrupt things.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even if it could be accurate no system would have enough games from enough people to be accurate except in small groups that have many common opponents.  That is why when a hotshot from moosejaw or podunk goes to the big city to play in a tournament they get creamed by lower rated players because theirs had inadequate range of competition to be valid.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24647" LastActivityDate="2020-09-06T20:10:59.910" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32145" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14601" CreationDate="2020-09-06T20:14:58.467" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Search &amp;quot;Chess diagram fonts&amp;quot;. There is a LOT of stuff out there&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastActivityDate="2020-09-06T20:14:58.467" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32146" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32149" CreationDate="2020-09-06T22:25:37.663" Score="1" ViewCount="166" Body="&lt;p&gt;This opening gives White a big center and aims to destroy it. I have trouble playing the exchange variation as White because Black has great piece activity while my pieces are stuck in passive positions. Is there another variation which also allows White to get a big center while minimising problems?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastActivityDate="2020-09-07T05:59:52.463" Title="Grunfeld Defense as White" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;grunfeld-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32147" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28537" CreationDate="2020-09-07T00:11:43.607" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;descriptive is far easier for blindfold chess or blind players&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;the symmetry makes it easier to 'see' the board where with algebraic it is all memory and computation to really know what is where&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24661" LastActivityDate="2020-09-07T00:11:43.607" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32149" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32146" CreationDate="2020-09-07T05:59:52.463" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think Bronstein had the right idea in the Exchange Grunfeld against Boleslavsky in the 1st game of the 1950 candidates final. It costs a little material, but it's White who got the active pieces, while the center expanded.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Event &amp;quot;Bronstein - Boleslavsky Candidates Playoff&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Site &amp;quot;Moscow URS&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Date &amp;quot;1950.07.31&amp;quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &amp;quot;1950.07.31&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Round &amp;quot;1&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Result &amp;quot;1-0&amp;quot;]&#xA;[White &amp;quot;David Bronstein&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Black &amp;quot;Isaac Boleslavsky&amp;quot;]&#xA;[ECO &amp;quot;D87&amp;quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &amp;quot;?&amp;quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &amp;quot;?&amp;quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &amp;quot;63&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 d5 4. cxd5 Nxd5 5. e4 Nxc3 6. bxc3&#xA;c5 7. Bc4 Bg7 8. Ne2 O-O 9. O-O cxd4 10. cxd4 Nc6 11. Be3 Bg4&#xA;12. f3 Na5 13. Bd3 Be6 14. d5 Bxa1 15. Qxa1 f6 16. Bh6 Qb6+&#xA;17. Kh1 Rfd8 18. Rb1 Qc5 19. Bd2 b6 20. Bb4 Qc7 21. Rc1 Qb7&#xA;22. Qb1 Rab8 23. dxe6 Nc6 24. Bc3 Ne5 25. Bb5 Rbc8 26. Bxe5&#xA;Rxc1+ 27. Qxc1 fxe5 28. Bd7 Qa6 29. Ng3 Qxa2 30. h4 Rf8&#xA;31. Qg5 Rf6 32. Qxf6 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2494" LastActivityDate="2020-09-07T05:59:52.463" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32150" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14601" CreationDate="2020-09-07T06:17:52.070" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's also ChessOCR, which I found useless, but as we always say, your mileage may vary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.kgroth.chessocr&amp;amp;hl=en_US&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.kgroth.chessocr&amp;amp;hl=en_US&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2494" LastActivityDate="2020-09-07T06:17:52.070" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32151" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13324" CreationDate="2020-09-07T06:22:22.633" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You should understand what your rating really is: A rough approximation of your recent performance against other players in the same rating pool. What's good on one server might stink on another, and &lt;em&gt;none of it matters&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2494" LastActivityDate="2020-09-07T06:22:22.633" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32152" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28726" CreationDate="2020-09-07T06:46:46.363" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't know about the top players &lt;em&gt;these&lt;/em&gt; days, but Morphy handled all of his open games with the idea that when he played d2-d4, he wanted it to stick. So that meant two things, either 1. e4 e5 2. f4, when the e5-pawn is deflected away, or 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Bc5 4. b4! Bxb5 5. c3 plus d2-d4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When Kasparov — whose opponents were a little better than Morphy's — revived the Scotch, he was working with a slightly less advantageous pawn formation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;4k3/ppp2ppp/3p4/8/4P3/8/PPP2PPP/4K3 w - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White is pretty much guaranteed this slightly-better pawn structure in every open game, because when d2-d4 comes, Black is usually compelled to give up some center space with the swap.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Kasparov seemed to take into account something that no other master did for 150 years. Compare that pawn formation to the one that arises after 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4. Why is White willing to give up the better center pawn for the wing pawn? One, because Black loses a little space and White gains a little. Two, more important, White gains time with the recapture. Kasparov said &amp;quot;hey, I can get the same advantage in time and space in the Scotch, but Black is trading a center pawn instead of a wing pawn.&amp;quot; At Kasparov's level, that slight gain of time and slight gain of space is enough to build from.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Time passes, fashion changes. When one strong player decides he doesn't like some evaluation at the end of a topical variation, other strong players go along, and so do the 1300 players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my view, the elite decided that Morphy was right, that White should probably be aiming for both pawns in the center instead of merely e4-vs.-d6. Then the fashion became 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 or 3. Bb5, plus a slow d2-d3, c2-c3, d2-d4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Opening theory is like &lt;em&gt;Vogue&lt;/em&gt; magazine, that's all. What's fashionable today won't be fashionable tomorrow. No matter what opening book publishers will have you believe, your only task in the opening is to reach a playable middlegame. Chessplayers save years of wasted study when they get around to accepting this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2494" LastActivityDate="2020-09-07T06:46:46.363" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32153" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29103" CreationDate="2020-09-07T07:06:00.167" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I wrote a long thing on Facebook a few days ago about the difference between the London and the Colle. The London is fashionable; the Colle never was, though Koltanowski tried really hard to make it so.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One of the many things that separates good players from not-so-good players is that good players can make so-so moves early, because they know what they have to do later. When the Four Knights was popular during the '80s, good players could get away with such a tame thing because they know how to create life from that tame thing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The London is a lot like the Four Knights, recommended by bad chess teachers as &amp;quot;something that serves students until they're ready to learn something better&amp;quot;. Which is a bunch of nonsense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Good players can deal with their queen bishop being developed too soon. They can build positions around it. Bad players just have a bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason for the &amp;quot;knights before bishops&amp;quot; principle is a subset of the notion that smaller pieces should play before bigger pieces. Knights before bishops, bishops before queens and rooks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Knights have to head out early because they're slower to get to the other side, whereas the bigger pieces can get there in one or two moves. Also, players don't know where they want their bishops until some feature in the position arises to suggest a bishop development.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The difference between the Colle and the London is &lt;em&gt;one&lt;/em&gt; move. In the Colle, White reserves the queen bishop until he's finished developed the kingside, and builds some energy behind e3-e4, opening the position for his pieces. By then, there should be some feature in the position to suggest the right square for the queen bishop: g5, to take an f6-knight that guards h7? f4, to harass a queen on c7?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because the Colle is actually more principled than the London for that reason, I think chess teachers should be recommending &lt;em&gt;it&lt;/em&gt; instead, but like I said, it's all about fashion. The London is fashionable with good players, and bad coaches follow good players like sheep.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2494" LastActivityDate="2020-09-07T07:06:00.167" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32154" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="73" CreationDate="2020-09-07T07:18:34.803" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damiano_Defence&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Damiano Defense&lt;/a&gt;, also known as the five pawns gambit, is practically refuted. You can find the details on the Wikipedia page. The key line is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;e4 e5 2. Nf3 f6? 3. Nxe5! fxe5? 4. Qh5+ Ke7 5. Qxe5+ Kf7 6. Bc4+ d5 7. Bxd5+ Kg6 8. h4 h5 9. Bxb7&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After which Black cannot stop Bxa8 with a decisive material advantage for White.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastActivityDate="2020-09-07T07:18:34.803" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32155" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32157" CreationDate="2020-09-07T08:09:46.877" Score="4" ViewCount="826" Body="&lt;p&gt;As I’m done solving easy puzzles (1000–1500), I decided to try some 1700 puzzles, but I’m finding it very hard to solve them as there are no obvious checks, captures and threats. Also, most of the times, the solution are about 5–7 moves. So, I figured that maybe a complete different approach is needed to solve these problems.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;r1b2r1k/p1p3pp/2pp1q2/8/N1Q2n2/1P1N4/P1P2PPP/3RR2K b - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example for this one, I don’t even know where to begin. I solved easier problems by finding all the checks, captures and threats, and the solution used to come within few seconds, but now things are not that easy. So is there a systematic approach?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21840" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-09-09T11:03:28.163" LastActivityDate="2020-09-09T11:03:28.163" Title="Systematic ways to approach more difficult problems" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;problems&gt;&lt;calculation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32156" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32155" CreationDate="2020-09-07T08:25:07.277" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your approach won't change, but you see how the depth of the analysis does.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Keep it up; your instinct for the things to examine first improve, eventually.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2494" LastActivityDate="2020-09-07T08:25:07.277" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32157" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32155" CreationDate="2020-09-07T09:28:53.550" Score="9" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;for example this one below,don't even know where to begin.Earlier the&#xA;way I solved problems was finding all the checks,captures and threats&#xA;and the solution used to come within few seconds but now things are&#xA;not that easy&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Finding all the checks,captures and threats&amp;quot; looks like a great way to solve the puzzle you've posted. There are no immediate checks but there are some good candidate captures and threats.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &amp;quot;r1b2r1k/p1p3pp/2pp1q2/8/N1Q2n2/1P1N4/P1P2PPP/3RR2K b - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Nxd3 2. Qxd3 Qxf2? 3. Rf1! (1...Be6? 2. Qxf4! Qxf4 3. Nxf4 Rxf4 4. Rxe6)(1...Nxg2 2. Kxg2 Bh3+ 3. Kxh3 Qf3+ 4. Kh4 g5+ 5. Kxg5 Rf5+ 6. Kh6 Qh5++)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Nxd3 is a &lt;strong&gt;capture&lt;/strong&gt; which looks like it might win the f pawn and create back rank mating threats but white looks to be fine after recapturing with the c pawn when the white queen is still threatening the c6 pawn. If white recaptures with the queen then the f pawn is poisoned! It is met by the embarrassing Rf1. So, that doesn't work&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The white queen is a little bit short of moves, but the &lt;strong&gt;threat&lt;/strong&gt; Be6 is met by Qxf4 and at the end of the exchanges the bishop on e6 is hanging, so that doesn't work either. Finally -&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The &lt;strong&gt;capture&lt;/strong&gt; Nxg2 is a really promising looking sacrifice which is well and truly poisoned. Kxg2 is met by Bh3 and then Qf3+ with mate to follow soon. If white doesn't move the e1 rook then black is just winning a pawn and exchange plus the white king is very exposed. If white does move the e1 rook then Qf3 with the threat of Bh3 is going to be devastating.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, &amp;quot;checks, captures, threats&amp;quot; &lt;em&gt;does&lt;/em&gt; work. You just have to keep the analysis going for more than 2 or 3 moves and find two piece sacrifices as you hunt the king. The fun part of tactics!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2020-09-07T19:30:56.013" LastActivityDate="2020-09-07T19:30:56.013" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32158" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2020-09-07T13:15:11.173" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;From's gambit aims to take advantage of the kingside weaknesses caused by White with Bird's opening. Black follows up with gambiting the e- and d-pawns for the White f-pawn. Black has a bishop on d6, and has an attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black may follow up with Ng8-f6-g4, intending to sacrifise on h2, to checkmate on g3. Another plan is to play g7-g5, forcing White to either weaken his kingside further, or to get his knight kicked away.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From's Gambit is usually considered to not be enough compensation for the pawn by opening theory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-09-10T11:06:02.690" LastActivityDate="2020-09-10T11:06:02.690" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32159" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2020-09-07T13:15:11.173" Score="0" Body="Questions about From's gambit, characterised by the moves 1. f4 e5, which constitutes a sharp response to Bird's opening." OwnerUserId="10867" LastEditorUserId="10867" LastEditDate="2020-09-07T15:09:36.673" LastActivityDate="2020-09-07T15:09:36.673" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32160" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2020-09-07T13:16:28.463" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Lisitsin Gambit is an aggressive gambit by White attempting to take advantage of Black's kingside weaknesses after 1...f5. There are many pitfalls along the lines, but using this line, Black can gain equality:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Nf3 f5 2. e4 fxe4 3. Ng5 d5 4. d3 e3!&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black returns the pawn to prevent White from developing his f1-bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black, after 2.e4, may also transpose into the Latvian Gambit with 2...e5!?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-09-14T08:24:51.240" LastActivityDate="2020-09-14T08:24:51.240" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32161" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2020-09-07T13:16:28.463" Score="0" Body="Questions about the Lisitsin Gambit (ECO: A04), which is characterised by the moves 1. Nf3 f5  2. e4." OwnerUserId="10867" LastEditorUserId="10867" LastEditDate="2020-09-07T15:09:29.180" LastActivityDate="2020-09-07T15:09:29.180" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32162" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31929" CreationDate="2020-09-07T13:34:46.430" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chessplayers need to think of the opening more in terms of plans than in moves. Whether either the From or Lisitsin is good or bad, and any benefit from White's additional move in Lisitsin isn't as important as familiarity with this pattern:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&#xA;[Result &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;1. g4 e5 2. f3 Qh4#  &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Oh, everyone knows &lt;em&gt;that&lt;/em&gt; one. But it's at the heart of From's Gambit, because 3...Bd6 threatens mate in 3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Relating the Fool's Mate pattern to Dutch and Bird games enables you to play many good ones. I always get a kick out of Teed-Delmar because Delmar was such a good player:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&#xA;[White &amp;quot;teed&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Black &amp;quot;delmar&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Result &amp;quot;1-0&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 f5 2. Bg5 h6 3. Bh4 g5 4. Bg3 f4 5. e3 h5 { Part of the disaster stems&#xA;from Black being good enough to find a move like this. Qh5+ is cut off by the&#xA;rook, and if 6. exf4, then 6...h4 traps the bishop in a different way.}  6. Bd3&#xA;Rh7 7. Qxh5+  1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And this one:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 f5 2. h3 Nf6 3. g4 fxg4 4. hxg4 Nxg4 5. Qd3 Nf6 6. Rxh7  &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We used to think Gibaud-Lazard was the shortest game by masters on record: 1. d4 Nf6 2. Nd2 e5 3. dxe5 Ng4 4. h3 Ne3 0-1&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are dozens or hundreds of brilliant miniatures in the From Lisitsin family. Play in that style, and you'll enjoy it tremendously.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2494" LastActivityDate="2020-09-07T13:34:46.430" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32163" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32164" CreationDate="2020-09-07T18:16:41.970" Score="19" ViewCount="5280" Body="&lt;p&gt;Full disclosure: I'm not a regular chess player. This question is because I'm writing a book about alternate timelines, and I want to use a game in a real life famous chess match as a point of divergence. I'd like an occasion in which a sizeable portion of pundits and specialists thought a different move should have been made, and the player who made that move lost the game, or squandered an allegedly easy win for a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It'd be great if it was in the 1984/85 Karpov/Kasparov championship match, but any headlines-making match at any point in history would do. It could be Kasparov vs. Deep Blue, or Karpov vs. Korchnoi, for example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I use your suggestion, I promise I'll properly credit you. &lt;em&gt;And&lt;/em&gt; the players involved. Even if it's a computer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24668" LastEditorUserId="24668" LastEditDate="2020-09-10T16:12:45.230" LastActivityDate="2020-09-11T00:08:19.087" Title="Example of a Karpov vs. Kasparov game with a controversial move" Tags="&lt;kasparov&gt;&lt;karpov&gt;&lt;fiction&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32164" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32163" CreationDate="2020-09-07T18:28:16.910" Score="20" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you don't mind going a bit earlier, then it has to be 1972 Spassky–Fischer (mother of all World Championships) Game 1.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Fischer played 29...Bxh2? a move that few players would consider in light of the obvious 30.g3, trapping the bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT&lt;/strong&gt; Later analysis (Speelman 1981) showed that the game is not lost (and can be drawn with extremely precise play), though the move was sub-optimal and the line becomes really sharp after 30. g3. The real blunder happened on move 37 with 37...Ke4 instead the optimal move again was just 37...a6. However, going by principles and elementary tactics 29...Bxh2? was an unnecessary move and chances are Fischer overlooked the fact that the trapped Bishop couldn't be saved.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16311" LastEditorUserId="16311" LastEditDate="2020-09-08T07:14:16.400" LastActivityDate="2020-09-08T07:14:16.400" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32165" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32163" CreationDate="2020-09-07T18:51:01.123" Score="17" Body="&lt;p&gt;Kasparov's &lt;code&gt;7...h6?&lt;/code&gt; in the game below cost him the game and the match, and later Kasparov accused Deep Blue team of cheating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Event &amp;quot;IBM Man-Machine&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Site &amp;quot;New York, NY USA&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Date &amp;quot;1997.05.??&amp;quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &amp;quot;?&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Round &amp;quot;6&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Result &amp;quot;1-0&amp;quot;]&#xA;[White &amp;quot;Deep Blue (Computer)&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Black &amp;quot;Garry Kasparov&amp;quot;]&#xA;[ECO &amp;quot;B17&amp;quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &amp;quot;?&amp;quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &amp;quot;?&amp;quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &amp;quot;37&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 dxe4 4.Nxe4 Nd7 5.Ng5 Ngf6 6.Bd3 e6&#xA;7.N1f3 h6 8.Nxe6 Qe7 9.O-O fxe6 10.Bg6+ Kd8 11.Bf4 b5 12.a4&#xA;Bb7 13.Re1 Nd5 14.Bg3 Kc8 15.axb5 cxb5 16.Qd3 Bc6 17.Bf5 exf5&#xA;18.Rxe7 Bxe7 19.c4 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1070917&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1070917&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would also like to suggest a move from a final game of the tie-break in Kramnik - Topalov from classical-Fide championship unification match in 2006. With &lt;code&gt;44...Rxc5&lt;/code&gt; Topalov went from difficult position to instantly losing. The match was full of controversy if this is what you are looking for.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Event &amp;quot;Kramnik - Topalov World Championship Match&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Site &amp;quot;Elista RUS&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Date &amp;quot;2006.10.13&amp;quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &amp;quot;?&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Round &amp;quot;16&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Result &amp;quot;1-0&amp;quot;]&#xA;[White &amp;quot;Vladimir Kramnik&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Black &amp;quot;Veselin Topalov&amp;quot;]&#xA;[ECO &amp;quot;D47&amp;quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &amp;quot;?&amp;quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &amp;quot;?&amp;quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &amp;quot;89&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.Nc3 e6 5.e3 Nbd7 6.Bd3 dxc4 7.Bxc4&#xA;b5 8.Be2 Bb7 9.O-O Be7 10.e4 b4 11.e5 bxc3 12.exf6 Bxf6&#xA;13.bxc3 c5 14.dxc5 Nxc5 15.Bb5+ Kf8 16.Qxd8+ Rxd8 17.Ba3 Rc8&#xA;18.Nd4 Be7 19.Rfd1 a6 20.Bf1 Na4 21.Rab1 Be4 22.Rb3 Bxa3&#xA;23.Rxa3 Nc5 24.Nb3 Ke7 25.Rd4 Bg6 26.c4 Rc6 27.Nxc5 Rxc5&#xA;28.Rxa6 Rb8 29.Rd1 Rb2 30.Ra7+ Kf6 31.Ra1 Rf5 32.f3 Re5 33.Ra3&#xA;Rc2 34.Rb3 Ra5 35.a4 Ke7 36.Rb5 Ra7 37.a5 Kd6 38.a6 Kc7 39.c5&#xA;Rc3 40.Raa5 Rc1 41.Rb3 Kc6 42.Rb6+ Kc7 43.Kf2 Rc2+ 44.Ke3 Rxc5&#xA;45.Rb7+ 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1431697&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1431697&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="307" LastEditorUserId="13786" LastEditDate="2020-09-08T06:35:26.713" LastActivityDate="2020-09-08T06:35:26.713" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32166" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32163" CreationDate="2020-09-07T19:01:31.650" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not exactly what you're looking for, but in his 1987 match vs Karpov, Kasparov forgot to press his clock during time pressure. Kasparov finally lost that game, the result being heavily influenced by the clock's incident.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1987-10-15-mn-14340-story.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1987-10-15-mn-14340-story.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://apnews.com/d00b24ebff5eede461c2587317bcef62&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://apnews.com/d00b24ebff5eede461c2587317bcef62&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That a professional chess player forgets to press his clock after making a move is quite an extraordinary event.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9179" LastEditorUserId="9179" LastEditDate="2020-09-07T21:08:34.123" LastActivityDate="2020-09-07T21:08:34.123" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32168" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32163" CreationDate="2020-09-08T02:17:23.210" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;We'll never know the whole truth of the 1951 world championship match. Years after the Soviet Union collapsed, and nearing death, Bronstein &lt;em&gt;still&lt;/em&gt; wouldn't talk about it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The challenger Bronstein was the son of an imprisoned Jewish dissident, while champion Botvinnik was a model Soviet (dichotomy much the same as Korchnoi and Karpov in the '80s). In the memoir &lt;em&gt;The Sorceror's Apprentice&lt;/em&gt;, all Bronstein would say was that he was &amp;quot;under great psychological pressure, and it was up to [him] how [he] dealt with it.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We've speculated over 57. Kc2?? in Game 6 for decades, and whether Bronstein resigned prematurely in Game 23 is also a source of doubt.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't think Bronstein felt he was permitted to win that match. And he didn't &lt;em&gt;lose&lt;/em&gt; it, he &lt;em&gt;tied&lt;/em&gt; it. Like he knew all along he could've taken the title away if he thought he and his family could survive that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&#xA;[Event &amp;quot;Botvinnik - Bronstein World Championship Match&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Site &amp;quot;Moscow URS&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Date &amp;quot;1951.03.26&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Round &amp;quot;6&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Result &amp;quot;0-1&amp;quot;]&#xA;[White &amp;quot;David Bronstein&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Black &amp;quot;Mikhail Botvinnik&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 d6 6.Bg5 e6 7.Qd2&#xA;h6 8.Bxf6 gxf6 9.O-O-O a6 10.f4 Bd7 11.Kb1 Be7 12.Be2 Nxd4&#xA;13.Qxd4 Qa5 14.Rhf1 h5 15.Rf3 Qc5 16.Qd2 Bc6 17.Re3 Qa5 18.Bf3&#xA;O-O-O 19.Qd3 Rd7 20.h4 Kb8 21.a3 Bd8 22.Ka2 Qc5 23.Re2 a5&#xA;24.a4 Bb6 25.b3 Rc8 26.Qc4 Qxc4 27.bxc4 Rh8 28.Kb3 Rdd8 29.Rd3&#xA;Bg1 30.Red2 Kc7 31.Ne2 Bf2 32.Rd1 Bc5 33.Ng3 Rdg8 34.Ne2 Rh7&#xA;35.f5 e5 36.Nc3 Bd4 37.Rxd4 exd4 38.Rxd4 Rhg7 39.Ne2 Rxg2&#xA;40.Bxg2 Rxg2 41.Nf4 Rg3+ 42.Kb2 Rg4 43.Nxh5 Rxh4 44.Nxf6 Kb6&#xA;45.Rxd6 Kc5 46.e5 Rd4 47.Rxd4 Kxd4 48.Ng4 Bxa4 49.e6 fxe6&#xA;50.f6 Be8 51.Kb3 e5 52.c3 Ke4 53.Nh6 Kf4 54.f7 Bxf7 55.Nxf7 e4&#xA;56.Nd8 e3 57.Kc2?? Kg3 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2494" LastEditorUserId="19060" LastEditDate="2020-09-08T15:59:32.690" LastActivityDate="2020-09-08T15:59:32.690" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32170" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32171" CreationDate="2020-09-08T13:22:14.187" Score="1" ViewCount="153" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both sides have had equal points untill now. If the Black knight is moved, then  White can move their knight with discovered check. What should  Black do?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;[StartPly &amp;quot;11&amp;quot;]  &#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 Nf6 4. dxe5 dxe5 5. Nxe5 Nxe4 6. Qe2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24677" LastEditorUserId="9025" LastEditDate="2020-09-08T18:23:14.113" LastActivityDate="2020-09-08T18:23:14.113" Title="What should be the next move for Black?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;&lt;philidor-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32171" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32170" CreationDate="2020-09-08T13:54:55.213" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Based off your position; I let the engine play it out and the below was the &amp;quot;best&amp;quot; output I received. This is just an old fashioned slog for the centre. A lot of trading going on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &amp;quot;Analysis Request&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Site &amp;quot;?&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Date &amp;quot;2020.09.09&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Round &amp;quot;?&amp;quot;]&#xA;[White &amp;quot;Unknown&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Black &amp;quot;Unknown&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Result &amp;quot;*&amp;quot;]&#xA;[SetUp &amp;quot;1&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;rnbqkb1r/ppp2ppp/8/4N3/4n3/8/PPP2PPP/RNBQKB1R w KQkq - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &amp;quot;10&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Qe2 Qd5 2. Nd3 Be7 3. f3 Nd6 4. Nf4 Qc6 5. Nd3 O-O *&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;1. Qe2 Ngf6 2. Nd2 Qd5 3. Nxe4 Nxe4 4. Qb5+ c6 5. Qxd5 cxd5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Based of the board;&#xA;Blacks castled to safety, the white Queen is in danger of (Re8 ... Bh4+). White feels &amp;quot;under developed&amp;quot; and has less control of the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24511" LastEditorUserId="24511" LastEditDate="2020-09-08T14:07:04.357" LastActivityDate="2020-09-08T14:07:04.357" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32173" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-09-08T21:58:15.913" Score="5" ViewCount="154" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there a forced win for White or Black in the chess variant CastleChess? The rules are explained in &lt;a href=&quot;http://cinquantesignes.blogspot.com/2020/09/castlechess.html?m=1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this post&lt;/a&gt; on an obscure blog named “Cinquante signes”, although it is originally from &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessvariants.com/zillions/zCastleChess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chessvariants.com&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The rules are the same as the orthodox ones, but with two big differences.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White wins via checkmate or if Black can no longer castle queenside. If either the Black king or queenside rook move, of if the rook is captured, Black can no longer preform queenside castling, and thus they lose.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black can win by giving mate or castling queenside.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The devil is in the details, and there are some questions on the blog that help give insight into whether or not it can be solved.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Q.(b): Is it easy for Black to castle long (and immediately win the game)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well, if White is not prudent, yes -in theory, 5 moves are enough for Black to win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Q. (c): Are draws still possible?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Oh yes, if it's White turn to play for instance, and White is (a) not in Check (b) in check if it moves, the game is a draw (as in orthodox chess).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Q. (e): Do you have any strategic advice?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes-there are weaknesses in Black's position. White could focus on: the pawns a7, b7 and f7 for instance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Q (f): And what about Black's defense?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This position is solid-and, in a few moves, Black might be able to castle long and win: put all Black pieces on their starting square, except 3 — the e7 pawn is on e6; the b8 Knight is on c6; the f8 Bishop is on b6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24675" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2020-09-18T05:35:39.437" LastActivityDate="2020-09-18T05:35:39.437" Title="Is there a forced win in CastleChess?" Tags="&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;solving&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32174" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2020-09-08T22:26:45.213" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Grob opening was named after 'Henri Grob', a Swiss international master who frequently played this opening. Play in this opening usually involves tactics relating to the a8-h1 long diagonal, and games are usually wide-open, and a definite advantage resolves itself within around 20 moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Key themes in the Grob involve blasting open the long diagonal for the g2-bishop, or sacrificing the g4-pawn so that the b7-square is weakened for Black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Grob opening, with perfect play, is better for Black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-09-08T23:02:13.783" LastActivityDate="2020-09-08T23:02:13.783" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32175" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2020-09-08T22:26:45.213" Score="0" Body="Tag relating to the Grob opening, an unorthodox chess opening beginning with 1.g4" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-09-08T23:02:37.340" LastActivityDate="2020-09-08T23:02:37.340" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32176" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2020-09-08T22:30:54.430" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Borg is a reversed Grob opening(for black)*. White usually has a larger advantage playing against the Borg than the Grob.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;*Refer to the tag [grob-opening] for more information.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-09-08T23:02:45.950" LastActivityDate="2020-09-08T23:02:45.950" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32177" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2020-09-08T22:30:54.430" Score="0" Body="Reversed Grob; i.e., the opening where Black plays 1...g5 after 1.e4" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-09-08T23:02:28.207" LastActivityDate="2020-09-08T23:02:28.207" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32178" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2020-09-08T23:06:52.310" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Franco-Benoni defence is a variation of the French defence where Black plays 2...c5. The position resulting is similar to one from a Benoni.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-09-08T23:25:39.580" LastActivityDate="2020-09-08T23:25:39.580" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32179" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2020-09-08T23:06:52.310" Score="0" Body="For Questions relating to the opening 1. e4 e6 2. d4 c5" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-09-08T23:25:25.020" LastActivityDate="2020-09-08T23:25:25.020" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32180" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2020-09-08T23:09:26.747" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Benoni is an opening where Black plays 2...c5 in the Indian Game. Black gains a queenside majority, to a central majority for White in the moves afterwards. This opening results in open, tactical positions where Black has lots of practical chances.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black may also close the center with ...e5 and ...d6, playing the Czech Benoni. This is more positional, and Black aims for the pawn breaks b7-b5 and f7-f5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-09-08T23:25:16.290" LastActivityDate="2020-09-08T23:25:16.290" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32181" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2020-09-08T23:09:26.747" Score="0" Body="Questions relating to the Benoni Defence (1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 c5)" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-09-08T23:25:32.573" LastActivityDate="2020-09-08T23:25:32.573" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32182" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2020-09-08T23:13:20.343" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The line goes: 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 exd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 g6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black aims to fianchetto on the kingside. The opening is named so because the pawn structure bears a resemblance to the constellation Draco.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White has many options. The Nottingham Variation is where White aims to control the d5-square. The main setup happens after Nd4-b3. The Levenfish Attack happens after f2-f4 and then Qe1. He may also castle queenside, and start a pawn storm.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-09-08T23:25:03.663" LastActivityDate="2020-09-08T23:25:03.663" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32183" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2020-09-08T23:13:20.343" Score="0" Body="For questions relating to the Dragon, a variation of the Sicilian defence." OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-09-08T23:25:36.510" LastActivityDate="2020-09-08T23:25:36.510" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32184" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2020-09-08T23:31:01.357" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Bongcloud is a joke opening used to show contempt for an opponent. White immediately 'develops' his king to prepare for an 'early endgame'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-09-08T23:44:35.850" LastActivityDate="2020-09-08T23:44:35.850" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32185" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2020-09-08T23:31:01.357" Score="0" Body="Tag relating to the joke opening 'Bongcloud' -&gt; 1. e4 e5 2. Ke2" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-09-08T23:44:30.903" LastActivityDate="2020-09-08T23:44:30.903" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32186" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32173" CreationDate="2020-09-08T23:52:35.373" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;A million years ago, a friend  showed a very simple variant: One random  pawn on each side is marked, and if it's captured (by a move that isn't checkmate), the capturing side loses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Danish Gambit was popular that night,  but otherwise,  people were flinging pawns around,  planning to win with the variant rule  (I guess you could call it a truly poisoned pawn). I said to my friends that I thought the right strategy was no strategy: Just play chess, and try to win the chess game. You'll lose a few games by chance,  but you'll also win a few.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Was I right or wrong, I won't say.  Maybe you'll try that variant yourself to test both ways of handling it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm a very big fan of the 3 Check variant (so is Karpov). That game messes with your mind. The nitwits who try to win by delivering a third check run out of sacrificial fuel, while playing normally is dangerous, because the variant rule is often just a matter of tactics (that is, some combination that makes one or two checks while sufficiently exposing the king for more).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I gave this castle chess thing some thought,  and I was amused by the different winning conditions.  White is likely to go nuts in search of a short combination to prevent castling, while Black (I think) should play normally but with a view toward O-O-O.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a forced win for White? I doubt it, and after that bit of thought,  I began to favor Black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2494" LastEditorUserId="2494" LastEditDate="2020-09-08T23:55:29.413" LastActivityDate="2020-09-08T23:55:29.413" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32187" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2020-09-09T00:14:02.687" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Latvian Gambit is a gambit where Black sacrifises the f-pawn. It is a reversed King's gambit with an extra tempo for White. This is a solved opening, where White always wins or draws, but in practical play, Black has lots of chances. The game resulting from this opening is wide open and extremely tactical, so is usually played in correspondence games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For more information on this opening, visit this webpage: &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latvian_Gambit&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latvian_Gambit&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-09-15T22:53:26.667" LastActivityDate="2020-09-15T22:53:26.667" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32188" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2020-09-09T00:14:02.687" Score="0" Body="This is a tag relating to the Latvian Gambit, an unorthodox chess opening which goes 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 f5!?" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-09-09T06:13:58.720" LastActivityDate="2020-09-09T06:13:58.720" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32189" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2020-09-09T00:44:49.443" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Crazyhouse is a chess variant where captured pieces change colours and can be placed on the board. For example, a captured Black bishop can be placed by White as a White bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-09-09T01:45:27.120" LastActivityDate="2020-09-09T01:45:27.120" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32190" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2020-09-09T00:44:49.443" Score="0" Body="Relating to the chess variant Crazyhouse" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-09-09T06:13:52.077" LastActivityDate="2020-09-09T06:13:52.077" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32191" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6385" CreationDate="2020-09-09T04:09:53.137" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would recommend 1. e4, e5 for your level. In general, aim for lines that play Bc5 and d5 as soon as possible. Against the Ruy you have both the classical and the Archangel Defence which will stick to those basic ideas. If you want something more aggressive try the Schlieman.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's also the Latvian and believe it or not there are some very aggressive lines in Petrov's defense like the Stafford gambit&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most lines in the Sicilian are aggressive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hyper-modern openings like the Pirc, modern and Alekhine's tend to be more aggressive although you need to understand that attacking the center is your first goal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Nimzovich is similar to the above although the types of positions can vary.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are some lines in the Scandinavian Defense. The main lines aren't that aggressive but there are some off-beat lines like the Portuguese Gambit that are.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2020-09-09T04:09:53.137" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32192" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32155" CreationDate="2020-09-09T04:29:52.527" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, nearly all problems are going to be solved by forcing moves (checks, captures, threats) on the first move. Occasionally, you run across more subtle problems where the first move is a quiet move but those are often zugzwangs and they aren't that common.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Second, It's good to look at the weaknesses in the position especially hanging pieces ie &amp;quot;that knight isn't protected, how could I win it? &amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Third, sometimes it helps to change up the move order.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, 5-7 move combinations are NOT 1700 rated problems. I've often heard (and I agree) that if you can see two moves ahead you're playing around 1800 level chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2020-09-09T04:29:52.527" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32193" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29311" CreationDate="2020-09-09T04:38:01.603" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;White can back-rank(sort of)Black after 1. Qd8!. This move deflects the bishop onto d8(only legal move), allowing 2. Re8#.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastActivityDate="2020-09-09T04:38:01.603" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32194" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26998" CreationDate="2020-09-09T04:40:41.797" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a 'quit' flag on the webpage of puzzle rush, so perhaps you could have accidentally clicked it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastActivityDate="2020-09-09T04:40:41.797" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32195" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6385" CreationDate="2020-09-09T06:30:06.533" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Give me something sound but aggressive.&#xA;Give me the moves, too, but I don't want to learn lots of lines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You'll save maybe years of study time after you figure out that all you need to get out of the opening is a playable middlegame (most often attributed to Teichmann).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You're not a 1400 player because you're bad at openings, you're a 1400 player because you're bad at tactics. You can play an opening perfectly, then drop a rook to a two-move combination, you lose. In fact, you can wheel your entire openings library up to the board and play with open books, and it won't help you a bit. Your opponent will step out, and make you think for yourself, and even you reach the magic +=, you're on your own.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Openings literature, and whatever anyone gives you on Stack Exchange, is a map into the middlegame forest, where you wander lost unless you know the path to the other side of the forest (the endgame). You can't play a proper middlegame unless you can recognize a favorable or unfavorable ending on the horizon, because how are you supposed to know whether to complicate or simplify? If all you really need from an opening is a playable middlegame -- one with rough equality in center control, development, and king safety -- then it's a matter of judging the positional imbalances better than your opponent does, while being better at tactics.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want a recommendation for Black, consider this: If I gave you the White pieces and  two moves in a row to the start the game, which would those be?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Was it e2-e4 plus d2-d4? Very good. So go ahead and do that as Black with the QP Countergambit: 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 d5. It's not popular, so other people will say 'oh don't do that, it sucks, play the Najdorf', but they're obeying grandmaster fashion more than having listened to thousands of club level players go through this same thing. If White plays well against that, he'll wind up with a space advantage at the end of the opening, but White's going to emerge from the opening with a little something, no matter what you do. If you start with the e- and d-pawns two squares forward, you're giving yourself a shot at the center and you don't have to make any more pawn moves to complete your development.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2494" LastEditorUserId="2494" LastEditDate="2020-09-09T07:05:30.107" LastActivityDate="2020-09-09T07:05:30.107" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32196" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-09-09T12:57:59.977" Score="4" ViewCount="537" Body="&lt;p&gt;In this opening, being White, I want to understand, for the next move, why is e4 not as strong a move as e3 or Nf3? I am a beginner.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. c4 e5 2. Nc3 Nc6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24686" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-12-16T16:20:28.157" LastActivityDate="2020-12-16T16:20:28.157" Title="Move comparison in this opening" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;beginner&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32197" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32196" CreationDate="2020-09-09T13:08:52.170" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;For me personally, I think the main idea for e3 and Nf3 is to allow d4. Contrastingly,  e4 doesnt help in the pushing of d4. Therefore it’s stronger.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24633" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-09-09T13:10:08.863" LastActivityDate="2020-09-09T13:10:08.863" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32198" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6385" CreationDate="2020-09-09T13:23:55.630" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Sicilian Defence might be suitable for you too. 1.e4 c5 2. Nf3 e6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;You might try the black lion too. You can be passive or aggresive depending on how you play!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24633" LastEditorUserId="24633" LastEditDate="2020-09-10T01:11:26.160" LastActivityDate="2020-09-10T01:11:26.160" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32199" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32196" CreationDate="2020-09-09T13:25:12.393" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;With e2-e4, you create &amp;quot;holes&amp;quot; at d3 and d4 that can never again be attacked by pawns. Any enemy pieces that land on those holes have to be kicked out by your pieces, which is harder to do (because every piece runs away from a pawn job).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;World champion Botvinnik used to set pawns on c4-d3-e4 which we call The Botvinnik Triangle. The world champion can live with those holes, but beginners have a tougher time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Beginners shouldn't be playing 1. c4.  If you'd played 1. d4, we wouldn't be having this conversation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2494" LastActivityDate="2020-09-09T13:25:12.393" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32200" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32196" CreationDate="2020-09-09T17:35:20.920" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;What everyone has said about the &amp;quot;hole&amp;quot; on d4 is logical; However looking at what Magnus Carlsen has done recently, e4 may be just as good!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am referring to:&#xA;1.c4 e5&#xA;2.Nc3 Nc6&#xA;3.Nf3 Nf6&#xA;4.e4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Usually e4 is played after Black has committed d7-d6 blocking the dark squared bishop as it was thought that Black is immediately equal after 4...Bc5 or 4...Bb4.  But Magnus has shown his ideas for White in these positions and it has become a trendy way of playing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So then it comes to whether 3.e4 is the same and would transpose.  The only thing I see is that Black could continue to delay the development of his King's Knight in the hopes of perhaps developing it to e7 or playing f5 before developing it to f6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;for example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.c4 e5&#xA;2.Nc3 Nc6&#xA;3.e4 Bc5&#xA;4.Nf3 d6 with the idea of f5!?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't think it is a refutation of Whites play but it is an option Black doesn't have after 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.e4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would argue that if your intent is to put your knight on f3 then move 3 is the time to do it, but in this line you have to deal with the 3...f5 lines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2020-09-09T17:35:20.920" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32201" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5734" CreationDate="2020-09-09T21:03:37.823" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;here how I win against gnu chess version 6.2.2 as black:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Nf3  d5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;d4  Nf6&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;c4  e6&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Nc3 c6&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;e3  Nbd7&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Bd3  dxc4&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Bxc4 b5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Bd3  a6&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;O-O  Bb7&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;e4 Qc7&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;dxe6  fxe6&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Bc2 c4&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Ng5  Nc5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Qf3  Bd6&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Qh3  O-O-O&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Re1  Kb8&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Nf3  e5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Bg5  Nd3&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Bxd3  Rxd3&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Qh4  bxa4&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Nxa4  Bb4&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Bxf6  Bxe1&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Rxe1  gxf6&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Qxf6  Re8&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Nc3  Rd6&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Qg5  Rg6&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Qe3  Rd8&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Nd5  Bxd5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;exd5  Rb6&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;d6  Rbxd6&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Nxe5  Rd5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;h3  Qc5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Qc3  Qd4&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Nxc4  Qxc3&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;bxc3  Rd1&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Kf1 Rxe1+&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Kxe1  Rd3&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Nb6+  Kb7&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Na4  Rd8&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;c4  Rd4&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Nb2 Kc5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;f4  Rd8&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Ke4 Rb8&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Nd3+  Kxc4&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;f5&#xA;{White resigns} 0-1&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24692" LastActivityDate="2020-09-09T21:03:37.823" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32202" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32196" CreationDate="2020-09-10T03:35:08.773" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;After e3, white can follow up with d4 and will have a better center. The pawns on c4 and d4 control three of the four center squares while black only controls two.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e4 is similar to a Maroczy bind which isn't too bad despite the weak squares it creates. However, in this specific position, black hasn't committed to much so black has a lot of ways to combat it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Nd4 possibly followed by c5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;At some point playing c6 followed by d5. That's not available in the Sicilian because black commits to c5 on move 1.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The f5 pawn break.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2020-09-10T03:35:08.773" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32203" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32196" CreationDate="2020-09-10T05:33:40.693" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;There're several long-term reasons to avoid 3.e4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You permanently weaken the d4-square. This is dangerous because it's a central square. In the short term, Black can already play ...Nd4, plus ...Bc5 is another natural developing move that increases control of the square.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You stop your own long-term plans. You need some knowledge of how pawn structure works to see this, but the idea is that at some point, you need to advance your pawns to mark out space and create an attack. If you play 3.e4, then you can no longer play d4 or f4 easily in the future (since your e-pawn can no longer support those advances), but if you can't play those two moves then it's not obvious how you're going to set up your play. Black is ready to fight you on the queenside via ...a5, if necessary.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In the same way, it becomes harder to dislodge the pawn on e5. This is an important pawn, in fact it's likely Black's most important pawn in the position. It's on a central square controlling two more central squares d4 and f4, and it marks out space. Challenging it is an important part of White's plan, which is why e3 intending d4 or f4 is a key idea for White. Playing e4 gives up this plan.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Finally, e4 puts the pawn on a light square. This makes it difficult for your f1-bishop to find a diagonal. In these 1.c4 formations, the natural place to put the bishop is on g2, where it together with the c4-pawn &amp;amp; c3-knight can control the central d5-square. With a pawn on e4, the g2-bishop will be blocked. Conversely, 3.e3 does temporarily block the c1-bishop, but after a future d4 the bishop will gain an open diagonal. The light square bishop cannot look forward to such a future after e4.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastActivityDate="2020-09-10T05:33:40.693" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32204" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2020-09-10T08:20:37.670" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-09-10T08:20:37.670" LastActivityDate="2020-09-10T08:20:37.670" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32205" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2020-09-10T08:20:37.670" Score="0" Body="Questions relating to famous moves made in chess games" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-09-10T11:07:14.767" LastActivityDate="2020-09-10T11:07:14.767" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32206" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2020-09-10T08:35:23.367" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-09-10T08:35:23.367" LastActivityDate="2020-09-10T08:35:23.367" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32207" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2020-09-10T08:35:23.367" Score="0" Body="Referring to the Hanham Variation of the Philidor Defence - 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 Nd7" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-09-10T11:06:10.667" LastActivityDate="2020-09-10T11:06:10.667" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32208" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2020-09-10T08:35:54.297" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-09-10T08:35:54.297" LastActivityDate="2020-09-10T08:35:54.297" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32209" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2020-09-10T08:35:54.297" Score="0" Body="Relating to a chess tactic called a fork, where two pieces are simultaneously attacked by one piece" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-09-10T11:07:25.663" LastActivityDate="2020-09-10T11:07:25.663" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32210" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-09-10T09:35:48.960" Score="6" ViewCount="1148" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a person(~2170 uscf) who has recently started playing the scandinavian defense(Qd6), and has played against the scandinavian defense on the white side, I find it hard to get any sort of meaningful edge as white and often pretty much equalize with black. Yet in the top level, it's rarely seen in classical chess. Thus, it seems that there should be particular variations in the Qa5, Qd6, and Qd8 scandinavians that put it out of business. What are these lines?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3872" LastActivityDate="2020-09-10T12:09:13.523" Title="How to beat the Scandinavian Defense?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32211" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32210" CreationDate="2020-09-10T09:40:59.430" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's nothing wrong with the Scandinavian. The reason why it has fallen out of favor is because it gives White a slight advantage, and Black loses some tempi with the queen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastActivityDate="2020-09-10T09:40:59.430" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32212" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32210" CreationDate="2020-09-10T10:17:25.800" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here are some lines. They seem to be the mainlines from the master database on Lichess. White is not winning, but the opening phase went White's way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;...Qd6&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [fen &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;    1. e4 d5 2. exd5 Qxd5 3. Nc3 Qd6 4. d4 Nf6 5. Nf3 (5...a6 6. g3 Bg4 7. Bg2 Nc6 8. O-O O-O-O&#xA;    9. h3 Bh5 10. Bf4) c6 6. Ne5 Nbd7 7. Nc4 Qc7 8. Qf3 {note that this move prevents ...b5!!} Nb6 9. Bf4 Qd8 10. Be5 (10. h3 Qxd4?! 11. Rd1 Qc5 12. Be3 {is very good for White}) Bg4 {if not played now, White will prevent it with h3 and then O-O-O} 11. Qg3 {Black has to defend his g4-bishop now, as it is hanging after Bxf6}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;...Qa5&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;1. e4 d5 2. exd5 Qxd5 3. Nc3 Qa5 4. d4 Nf6 5. Nf3 c6 6. Bc4 Bf5 7. Bd2 e6 8. Nd5 Qd8 9. Nxf6+ gxf6 (9...Qxf6 10. Qe2 {with O-O-O next}) 10. O-O&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;...Qd8&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;1. e4 d5 2. exd5 Qxd5 3. Nc3 Qd8 4. d4 Nf65. Nf3 Bg4 6. h3 Bxf3 (6...Bh5 7. g4 Bg6 8. Ne5 Nbd7 9. Nxg6 hxg6 10. g5 Nh5 11. d5 {with a huge clamp, Black has problems to make purposeful development}) 7. Qxf3 c6 8. Be3 e6 9. Bd3 Nbd7 10. O-O-O&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15478" LastEditorUserId="15478" LastEditDate="2020-09-10T12:09:13.523" LastActivityDate="2020-09-10T12:09:13.523" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32213" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-09-10T12:49:59.703" Score="3" ViewCount="144" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have recently picked up the Norwegian Defense (also known as Northsea Defense), &lt;code&gt;1. e4 g6 2. d4 Nf6&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All modern engines claim it is not good. But I have great results (14W-1D-5L in 15+10 on 2000 Lichess rating) with it and I am seriously considering adding it to my repertoire, so I would like to do some preparation work, look for critical positions where I would have to know an exact move or a plan to justify my opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First I have looked at games in the Lichess database. I was very surprised by Black scores in some of the variations. For example&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;1. e4 g6 2. d4 Nf6 3. Nc3 d5 4. e5 Ne4 5. Nxe4 dxe4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;scores 55% for Black in 2000+ rapid and classical on Lichess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have also looked at the Master database.&#xA;I have noted that the character of the game is mainly set within 5 moves by White and gathered some common resulting positions. From there I wanted to work further, so I looked at master games more indepth.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some are clearly surprised by the opening and choose a timid way to play and Black equalises before move 10. In the more critical tries White keeps the advantage for several more moves, but then lets it go or even slips into a disadvantage. Also, the games where both sides offer resistance are very rare. Very often on move 7 there are 2-4 games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Following engine lines and picking up moves that were missed is rarely helpful, as the engine of course will mercilessly squeeze the position with inhuman precision and will disarm any initiative without effort, making any active attempts seem futile. Sometimes I do not see why White is better, so I follow the line into endgames that are slightly better, but probably considered equal at sub-master level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course I analyse my own games, but the opponents crumble surprisingly fast once on their own, so the opening does not really get tested much in my own games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, how would one proceed to prepare in unorthodox openings apart from learning by his own games?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15478" LastActivityDate="2020-09-13T04:51:15.150" Title="How does one analyse openings judged dubious by engines?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;preparation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32214" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32213" CreationDate="2020-09-10T13:21:40.170" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Forget the engines. We are humans (hopefully) and are only interested in how human's play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The King's Indian Defence (KID), a favorite opening of Tal, Fischer and Kasparov (and now played by Nakamura), has a reputation of being unsound by the engines (some positions are +1 and even +1.5) however for white playing precisely is very difficult.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance, the Mar del Plata Variation&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 Bg7 4. e4 d6 5. Nf3 O-O 6. Be2 e5 7. O-O Nc6 8. d5 Ne7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stockfish evaluates it to be +1 at a depth of 40.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Simple advice for practical play is to ignore the engine evaluation and focus on the fundamentals in the opening (in the order):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Exert pressure over the center (either classical or hyper-modern way)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Develop minor pieces&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;King safety&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Connect the rooks while developing the queen&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Needless to say always look out for short tactics as you follow the above and also try to have all your pieces coordinated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16311" LastEditorUserId="16311" LastEditDate="2020-09-10T13:23:27.243" LastActivityDate="2020-09-10T13:23:27.243" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32215" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-09-10T14:55:27.063" Score="4" ViewCount="143" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is a chess problem that uses retrograde analysis. I’ve also posted it on the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.france-echecs.com/article.php?art=20200909190151964&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;“France-Echecs”&lt;/a&gt; chess forum, which is in French of&#xA;course, and on my &lt;a href=&quot;http://cinquantesignes.blogspot.com/2020/09/symmetry.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;blog.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;3qk3/3pp3/8/8/8/3PP3/1PP2PP1/RNBQKBNR w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Each of the eight White pieces on the first rank has made exactly three movements, except one of them who made only one. Which piece is it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24675" LastEditorUserId="14079" LastEditDate="2020-09-11T12:18:55.333" LastActivityDate="2020-09-11T12:18:55.333" Title="Which White piece moved only once?" Tags="&lt;problems&gt;&lt;retrograde-analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32217" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32215" CreationDate="2020-09-10T16:47:38.227" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to the pawn structure, one of the white bishop must be a promoted one. The knights have switched place, the other pieces can easily make three movements.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only ones that can make a single one are the rooks, either by&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Castling&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Taking the other rook's square&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;By coming from a promoted pawn on a8 or h8&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All possibilities seems doable as white can promote two pawns, and can use a captured piece to capture all black pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is an example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &amp;quot;rnbqrnbq/ppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w - -&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d3 a5 2. e3 h5 3. Bd2 b6 4. Be2 g6 5. Bxa5 Bb7 6. Bxh5 Bg7 7. Bxb6 Qc8 8. Bxg6 Kf8 9. Bxc7 Nc6 10. Bxf7 Nf6 11. a4 Nd8 12. h4 Ne8 13. Bxd8 Qxd8 14. Bxe8 Kxe8 15. a5 Qc7 16. h5 Kf7 17. a6 Qd8 18. h6 Ke8 19. axb7 Qc7 20. hxg7 Kf7 21. bxa8=B Qd8 22. gxh8=B Ke8 23. Nc3 Qc7 24. Nf3 Kf7 25. Qd2 Qd8 26. Ke2 Ke8 27. Ra5 Qc7 28. Rha1 Kf7 29. Rh5 Qd8 30. Rhh1 Ke8 31. Qe1 Qc7 32. Kd2 Kf7 33. Qd1 Qd8 34. Ke1 Ke8 35. Ne2 Qc7 36. Nd2 Kf7 37. Nb1 Qd8 38. Ng1 Ke8 39. Bf3 Qc7 40. Bc3 Kf7 41. Bd2 Qc8 42. Be2 Kf8 43. Bc1 Qd8 44. Bf1 Ke8&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this example rook h1 makes a single move while other white pieces on the first row make three moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4572" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-09-10T18:59:17.517" LastActivityDate="2020-09-10T18:59:17.517" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32218" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29277" CreationDate="2020-09-10T18:35:05.313" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Was a Nimzo-Indian, yeah? Or at least you've got a pawn structure that arises from a Nimzo.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When White plays d4-d5, it's what Black wants, because after e6-e5, the white c- and d-pawns are fixed as targets. Black would've loved for the knight to have been on c6, because than d5 pushes it to a5 where it combines with the bishop on a6 to hit the c4 pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even if the knight can't find a5 to hit c4, it'll go to d7, then c5, where it can never be kicked away by a white pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See, you've got the bishops in that position, so you're striving to open the game for the bishops, not play d4-d5, enabling Black to immobilize your queenside pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2494" LastActivityDate="2020-09-10T18:35:05.313" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32220" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32163" CreationDate="2020-09-10T21:02:11.583" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately this example does not come from the 1985 match, but Kasparov arrived at the final game of the 1987 rematch needing to secure a win. He made an unusual choice by going for the English Opening for the first time ever against Karpov, ending in a great success. The game can be seen at &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1067242&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1067242&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nobody will ever know what could've happened had Kasparov tried something else, but it'd be interesting to see an alternative timeline where the &amp;quot;old guard&amp;quot; player defeats the &amp;quot;perestroika guy&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastActivityDate="2020-09-10T21:02:11.583" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32221" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2020-09-10T22:26:15.397" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Hypermodernism is a branch in chess teachings which has the main opinion that pawn centers are not strong, but are instead weaknesses which can be attacked. This has lead to hypermodern openings such as the Nimzo-indian, KID, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-09-10T22:44:04.697" LastActivityDate="2020-09-10T22:44:04.697" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32222" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2020-09-10T22:26:15.397" Score="0" Body="This tag is used to describe a certain branch in chess teaching." OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-09-10T22:43:49.767" LastActivityDate="2020-09-10T22:43:49.767" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32223" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2020-09-10T22:27:43.293" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-09-10T22:27:43.293" LastActivityDate="2020-09-10T22:27:43.293" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32224" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2020-09-10T22:27:43.293" Score="0" Body="For questions relating to chess matches" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-09-10T23:04:54.107" LastActivityDate="2020-09-10T23:04:54.107" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32225" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2020-09-10T23:28:41.360" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-09-10T23:28:41.360" LastActivityDate="2020-09-10T23:28:41.360" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32226" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2020-09-10T23:28:41.360" Score="0" Body="Tag relating to a form of organisation in a chess tournament, where one person plays everybody else." OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-09-11T05:22:30.743" LastActivityDate="2020-09-11T05:22:30.743" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32227" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2020-09-10T23:29:16.247" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-09-10T23:29:16.247" LastActivityDate="2020-09-10T23:29:16.247" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32228" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2020-09-10T23:29:16.247" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-09-10T23:29:16.247" LastActivityDate="2020-09-10T23:29:16.247" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32229" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2020-09-10T23:30:34.957" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-09-10T23:30:34.957" LastActivityDate="2020-09-10T23:30:34.957" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32230" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2020-09-10T23:30:34.957" Score="0" Body="Relating to the analysis depth of a chess engine" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-09-11T05:22:11.300" LastActivityDate="2020-09-11T05:22:11.300" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32231" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32163" CreationDate="2020-09-11T00:08:19.087" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Game 5 of Karpov vs. Korchnoi for the World Championship in 1978, Korchnoi missed a forced mate when he played Be4+ instead of Bf7+ on move 55. The game ended as a lengthy draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1068051&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1068051&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The match was being played as first to 6 wins with draws not counting, and neither player had won a game out of the first four. The match ended as a 6-5 win for Karpov in 32 games after Korchnoi nearly came back from the 5-2 deficit he faced after 27 games. Korchnoi won games 28, 29, and 31, and drew game 30, tying the match at 5-5 before Karpov won Game 32 to retain his title. Had Korchnoi won Game 5 and every following game played out the same, he would only have been down 5-3 following game 27 and the following three victories would have won Korchnoi the match in 31 games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This was a dramatic match that had bizarre allegations of cheating, as Guest_On_StackExchange mentioned in the comments to the original post. Additionally, this match had a similar dynamic to the match friscodelrosario mentioned, with Korchnoi being a Soviet defector challenging a Soviet champion. Korchnoi winning could have fascinating political/propaganda impacts on your alternate timeline.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Details of the forced win:&#xA;55. Bf7+&#xA;55.. Kc6 (forced)&#xA;56. Qe6+&#xA;56.. Kb5 or Kb7&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If Kb5:&#xA;57. Qc4+&#xA;57.. Ka4 (forced)&#xA;58. Qa6#&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If Kb7:&#xA;57. Qxe7+&#xA;Black can play Nd7, Kc8, Kc6, Ka6, or Ka8, but all are lost&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If Nd7 then Qxd7+ and Ka8 Qc8# or Ka6 Bc4+ b5 Qxb5#&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If Kc8 then Qc7#&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If Kc6 then Qc7+ Kb5 Bc4+ Ka4 Qxa7#&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If Ka6 then Bc4+ b5 Qd6+ Kb7 Qb8+ and Ka6 Bxb5# or Kc6 Qc7#&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If Ka8 then Qd8+ Kb7 Qc7+ and Ka8 Qb8# or Ka6 Bc4+ b5 Qc6#&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24700" LastActivityDate="2020-09-11T00:08:19.087" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32232" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2020-09-11T00:33:27.960" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-09-11T00:33:27.960" LastActivityDate="2020-09-11T00:33:27.960" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32233" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2020-09-11T00:33:27.960" Score="0" Body="Questions about the Taimanov Variation of the Sicilian Defence, which is characterised by the moves 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 e6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nc6." OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-09-11T00:33:27.960" LastActivityDate="2020-09-11T00:33:27.960" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32234" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2020-09-11T04:10:08.203" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-09-11T04:10:08.203" LastActivityDate="2020-09-11T04:10:08.203" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32235" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2020-09-11T04:10:08.203" Score="0" Body="Relating to the chess opening which goes: 1. e4 e5 2. Nc3" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-09-11T05:22:03.953" LastActivityDate="2020-09-11T05:22:03.953" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32236" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32242" CreationDate="2020-09-11T08:28:59.480" Score="2" ViewCount="2842" Body="&lt;p&gt;Today I have been playing some new lines I haven't tried before. I am quite fond of the Petrov (Russian) Defense and I found some interesting lines particularly the Stafford Gambit seemed to peak my interest.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I had 2 games today with this line and in both instances white did &lt;strong&gt;6. Qe2&lt;/strong&gt;. This I found interesting as the expected continuation in this position is for move 6 for white is d4. I found that countering with Bc5 seemed to work ok but I was curious as to some thoughts about what the best move following Qe2 would be and potential development ideas.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Date &amp;quot;2020.08.24&amp;quot;]&#xA;[White &amp;quot;Him&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Black &amp;quot;Me&amp;quot;]&#xA;[ECO &amp;quot;C42&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. Nxe5 Nc6 4. Nxc6 dxc6 5. e5 Ne4 6. Qe2 Bc5 7. Qxe4 *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24511" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2020-09-13T09:43:42.440" LastActivityDate="2021-02-16T09:13:39.557" Title="Stafford Gambit Accepted - Qe2 - What to do?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;gambits&gt;&lt;petroff-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32237" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2020-09-11T09:45:43.213" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Nimzowitsch Defense is an unorthodox chess opening where Black aims for a 'reversed King's Indian'. The purpose of this defence is to allow White to form a center, but to undermine it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2020-09-11T09:52:00.150" LastActivityDate="2020-09-11T09:52:00.150" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32238" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2020-09-11T09:45:43.213" Score="0" Body="An unorthodox chess opening with the tabiya: 1. e4 Nc6!?" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-09-11T09:52:34.750" LastActivityDate="2020-09-11T09:52:34.750" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32239" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32240" CreationDate="2020-09-11T11:06:52.857" Score="1" ViewCount="156" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't like the mouse and want to use the keyboard as much as possible.&#xA;SCID vs PC has a &lt;a href=&quot;http://scidvspc.sourceforge.net/doc/ShortCuts.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;webpage with keyboard shortcuts&lt;/a&gt;, but the same does not seem to exist for SCID.&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/16782&quot;&gt;This answer to &amp;quot;How to flip the board&amp;quot;&lt;/a&gt; discloses the &lt;kbd&gt;.&lt;/kbd&gt; shortcut,&#xA;which I found documented in &lt;code&gt;Help &amp;gt; Contents &amp;gt; The Scid main window&lt;/code&gt;, however only a few&#xA;of them are to be found in that section. Some are spread out in the Help, others might be missing.&#xA;Where can I find a list of all SCID shortcuts?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24703" LastActivityDate="2020-10-15T20:51:47.763" Title="SCID shortcuts list" Tags="&lt;scid&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ClosedDate="2020-09-11T12:35:12.300" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32240" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32239" CreationDate="2020-09-11T11:06:52.857" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;After &lt;code&gt;grep&lt;/code&gt;ing the source code, I found them in &lt;code&gt;/usr/share/scid/tcl/keyboard.tcl&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;in GNU/Linux (if someone knows the path for other OS please share it).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, a comment in that file says&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&amp;gt; By editing this file you can customize the keyboard shortcuts,&#xA;in order to best suit your preferences.&#xA;It is not necessary to recompile scid after changing this file.&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For convenience, I have extracted all the bindings and their corresponding actions below&#xA;(this is &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; proper TCL syntax, it is just for reading convenience).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;&amp;lt;Left&amp;gt;                Back&#xA;&amp;lt;Right&amp;gt;               Forward&#xA;&amp;lt;Up&amp;gt;                  Back 10 moves&#xA;&amp;lt;Down&amp;gt;                Forward 10 moves&#xA;&amp;lt;Home&amp;gt;                Exit Variation/Go to game start&#xA;&amp;lt;End&amp;gt;                 Go to game end&#xA;&amp;lt;Alt-F4&amp;gt;              Exit&#xA;&amp;lt;Control-o&amp;gt;           Open a database&#xA;&amp;lt;Control-w&amp;gt;           Close the current database&#xA;&amp;lt;Control-z&amp;gt;           undo&#xA;&amp;lt;Control-y&amp;gt;           redo&#xA;&amp;lt;Control-n&amp;gt;           new game&#xA;&amp;lt;Control-s&amp;gt;           save game&#xA;&amp;lt;Control-S&amp;gt;           save as new game&#xA;&amp;lt;F11&amp;gt;                 toggle fullscreen&#xA;&amp;lt;period&amp;gt;              flip/rotate board&#xA;&amp;lt;s&amp;gt;                   ::setupBoard&#xA;&amp;lt;KeyPress-v&amp;gt;          show variations dialog&#xA;&amp;lt;Control-Key-$i&amp;gt;      Change current database&#xA;&amp;lt;F6&amp;gt;                  ::book::open&#xA;&amp;lt;F12&amp;gt;                 ::CorrespondenceChess::CCWindow&#xA;&amp;lt;Control-F12&amp;gt;         ::CorrespondenceChess::OpenCorrespondenceDB; ::CorrespondenceChess::ReadInboxg&#xA;&amp;lt;Alt-F12&amp;gt;             ::CorrespondenceChess::OpenCorrespondenceDB; ::CorrespondenceChess::FetchGamesg&#xA;&amp;lt;Control-equal&amp;gt;       ::tb::Open&#xA;&amp;lt;Control-d&amp;gt;           ::windows::switcher::Open&#xA;&amp;lt;Control-e&amp;gt;           makeCommentWin&#xA;&amp;lt;Control-i&amp;gt;           ::windows::stats::Open&#xA;&amp;lt;Control-l&amp;gt;           ::windows::gamelist::Open&#xA;&amp;lt;Control-m&amp;gt;           ::maint::OpenClose&#xA;&amp;lt;Control-p&amp;gt;           ::pgn::OpenClose&#xA;&amp;lt;Control-t&amp;gt;           ::tree::make&#xA;&amp;lt;Control-E&amp;gt;           ::windows::eco::OpenClose&#xA;&amp;lt;Control-K&amp;gt;           ::ptrack::make&#xA;&amp;lt;Control-O&amp;gt;           ::optable::makeReportWin&#xA;&amp;lt;Control-P&amp;gt;           ::plist::toggle&#xA;&amp;lt;Control-T&amp;gt;           ::tourney::toggle&#xA;&amp;lt;Control-X&amp;gt;           crosstabWin&#xA;&amp;lt;F2&amp;gt;                  &amp;quot;::makeAnalysisWin 1 0&amp;quot;&#xA;&amp;lt;F3&amp;gt;                  &amp;quot;::makeAnalysisWin 2 0&amp;quot;&#xA;&amp;lt;F4&amp;gt;                  .analysisWin1.b1.bStartStop invoke g&#xA;&amp;lt;F5&amp;gt;                  .analysisWin2.b1.bStartStop invoke g&#xA;&amp;lt;Control-A&amp;gt;           makeAnalysisWin&#xA;&amp;lt;Control-Shift-2&amp;gt;     &amp;quot;makeAnalysisWin 2&amp;quot;&#xA;&amp;lt;Control-a&amp;gt;           sc_var create; updateBoard -pgng&#xA;&amp;lt;Control-B&amp;gt;           ::search::board&#xA;&amp;lt;Control-H&amp;gt;           ::search::header&#xA;&amp;lt;Control-M&amp;gt;           ::search::material&#xA;&amp;lt;Control-KeyPress-U&amp;gt;  ::search:::usefile&#xA;&amp;lt;Control-C&amp;gt;           ::copyFEN&#xA;&amp;lt;Control-V&amp;gt;           ::pasteFEN&#xA;&amp;lt;Control-E&amp;gt;           ::tools::email&#xA;&amp;lt;Control-I&amp;gt;           importPgnGame&#xA;&amp;lt;Control-D&amp;gt;           sc_move ply [sc_eco game ply]; updateBoardg&#xA;&amp;lt;Control-G&amp;gt;           tools::graphs::filter::Open&#xA;&amp;lt;Control-J&amp;gt;           tools::graphs::absfilter::Open&#xA;&amp;lt;Control-u&amp;gt;           ::game::GotoMoveNumber&#xA;&amp;lt;Control-Y&amp;gt;           findNovelty&#xA;&amp;lt;F1&amp;gt;                  helpWindow Contentsg&#xA;&amp;lt;Control-N&amp;gt;           nameEditor&#xA;&amp;lt;Control-slash&amp;gt;       ::file::finder::Open&#xA;&amp;lt;Control-Shift-Up&amp;gt;    ::game::LoadNextPrev firstg&#xA;&amp;lt;Control-Shift-Down&amp;gt;  ::game::LoadNextPrev lastg&#xA;&amp;lt;Control-Up&amp;gt;          ::game::LoadNextPrev previousg&#xA;&amp;lt;Control-Down&amp;gt;        ::game::LoadNextPrev nextg&#xA;&amp;lt;Control-question&amp;gt;    ::game::LoadRandom&#xA;&amp;lt;minus&amp;gt;&amp;lt;minus&amp;gt;        addMove null null&#xA;&#xA;&amp;lt;exclam&amp;gt;&amp;lt;Return&amp;gt;             &amp;quot;sc_pos addNag !; updateBoard -pgn&amp;quot;&#xA;&amp;lt;exclam&amp;gt;&amp;lt;exclam&amp;gt;&amp;lt;Return&amp;gt;     &amp;quot;sc_pos addNag !!; updateBoard -pgn&amp;quot;&#xA;&amp;lt;exclam&amp;gt;&amp;lt;question&amp;gt;&amp;lt;Return&amp;gt;   &amp;quot;sc_pos addNag !?; updateBoard -pgn&amp;quot;&#xA;&amp;lt;question&amp;gt;&amp;lt;Return&amp;gt;           &amp;quot;sc_pos addNag ?; updateBoard -pgn&amp;quot;&#xA;&amp;lt;question&amp;gt;&amp;lt;question&amp;gt;&amp;lt;Return&amp;gt; &amp;quot;sc_pos addNag ??; updateBoard -pgn&amp;quot;&#xA;&amp;lt;question&amp;gt;&amp;lt;exclam&amp;gt;&amp;lt;Return&amp;gt;   &amp;quot;sc_pos addNag ?!; updateBoard -pgn&amp;quot;&#xA;&amp;lt;plus&amp;gt;&amp;lt;minus&amp;gt;                &amp;quot;sc_pos addNag +-; updateBoard -pgn&amp;quot;&#xA;&amp;lt;plus&amp;gt;&amp;lt;slash&amp;gt;                &amp;quot;sc_pos addNag +/-; updateBoard -pgn&amp;quot;&#xA;&amp;lt;plus&amp;gt;&amp;lt;equal&amp;gt;                &amp;quot;sc_pos addNag +=; updateBoard -pgn&amp;quot;&#xA;&amp;lt;equal&amp;gt;&amp;lt;Return&amp;gt;              &amp;quot;sc_pos addNag =; updateBoard -pgn&amp;quot;&#xA;&amp;lt;minus&amp;gt;&amp;lt;plus&amp;gt;                &amp;quot;sc_pos addNag -+; updateBoard -pgn&amp;quot;&#xA;&amp;lt;minus&amp;gt;&amp;lt;slash&amp;gt;               &amp;quot;sc_pos addNag -/+; updateBoard -pgn&amp;quot;&#xA;&amp;lt;equal&amp;gt;&amp;lt;plus&amp;gt;                &amp;quot;sc_pos addNag =+; updateBoard -pgn&amp;quot;&#xA;&amp;lt;asciitilde&amp;gt;&amp;lt;Return&amp;gt;         &amp;quot;sc_pos addNag ~; updateBoard -pgn&amp;quot;&#xA;&amp;lt;asciitilde&amp;gt;&amp;lt;equal&amp;gt;&amp;lt;Return&amp;gt;  &amp;quot;sc_pos addNag ~=; updateBoard -pgn&amp;quot;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24703" LastEditorUserId="24703" LastEditDate="2020-10-15T20:51:47.763" LastActivityDate="2020-10-15T20:51:47.763" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32241" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32236" CreationDate="2020-09-11T11:41:16.167" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Rats. I thought I had a 5. Qe2 somewhere... Crap, that colllection of Stafford  games was on the stolen laptop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;...Bf5 was a suggestion earlier, right? Then if d3 kicks you back to c5, and d4 hits you again, you can drop back to e6 without blocking the bishop, or go in for ...Ne4 f3 Qh4+ Qf2 (what a mess) .&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2494" LastActivityDate="2020-09-11T11:41:16.167" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32242" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32236" CreationDate="2020-09-12T06:43:00.600" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Stafford is getting popular because of the Youtube videos I guess. I saw it earlier today and just played 5.Be2 to take it out of book and won easily.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's a trappy opening and you're going to have to accept the fact that not every white move gives you a mate in 2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The best move is probably Bf5. The downside to Qe2 is that 1) white hinders his own development and 2) the c2 pawn isn't defended. Bf5 takes advantage of both of those facts while protecting the knight Qd4 might be another option. 6...f5 and 6...Qh5 are just bad. The only other options would be moving the knight to c5 or g5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2020-09-12T06:43:00.600" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32243" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32413" CreationDate="2020-09-12T13:58:35.927" Score="4" ViewCount="107" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Schuhler Gambit is a line in the Sokolsky Opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. b4 c6 2.Bb2 a5 3.b5 cxb5 4.e4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White gives away their b-pawn here. Stockfish claims this actually gives a small advantage to White, (although I analyzed only to depth 25) while bxa5 gives a small advantage to Black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why is it good and what is White's plan?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24446" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-09-12T14:01:01.067" LastActivityDate="2020-09-25T22:25:46.327" Title="What is the idea behind Schuhler Gambit?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;gambits&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32244" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-09-12T15:05:29.233" Score="5" ViewCount="167" Body="&lt;p&gt;I need help. In the below endgame, Stockfish and Fat Fritz are optimistic on Whit's winning chances , but Mueller disagrees. What happens with perfect play?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;R7/6p1/P3p1k1/7p/8/5PPP/r7/4K3 b - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24709" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-09-12T17:23:46.670" LastActivityDate="2020-09-12T18:22:12.183" Title="A difficult rook ending" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;rook-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32245" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32246" CreationDate="2020-09-12T16:53:36.763" Score="4" ViewCount="306" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've gotten into the habit of pushing the rook over to the appropriate square using my king; that is, I take my king into my hand, I take it to the outer edge of the board, then push the rook to its right place using the king figure. Then, I place my king on the correct square.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've not played in an over-the-board tournament before, and if I ever do so I'd like to know whether this is okay or whether it's a habit I need to lose.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24710" LastActivityDate="2020-09-12T17:29:04.440" Title="Is it legal to push the rook with the king when castling?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;castling&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32246" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32245" CreationDate="2020-09-12T17:25:56.850" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;As long as you -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;only use one hand&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;touch the king first&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;don't do it in such a way as to disturb the opponent&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;then it is fine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-09-12T17:29:04.440" LastActivityDate="2020-09-12T17:29:04.440" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32247" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32244" CreationDate="2020-09-12T18:22:12.183" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;This answer is intended to expand upon my comments, and give some concrete lines. Let's discuss the position as I (mistakenly) first thought it was presented:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &amp;quot;R7/6p1/P3p1k1/7p/8/6PP/r7/4K3 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This position is a draw, no matter who is to move. If White doesn't play a7, then Black's rook will have the option to pick off one of White's pawns on the kingside. So we may as well assume that White is to move, and plays 1.a7. After this, Black will be able to play 1...Kf7, to guard the pawn on e6. Let's examine the resulting position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &amp;quot;R7/P4kp1/4p3/7p/8/6PP/r7/4K3 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that this position would have been losing for Black if it wasn't for the pawn on g7; if there were no pawn on g7, then White would win by replying with 2.Rh8 followed by 2...Rxa7 and 3.Rh7+, picking up Black's rook. But this plan is not possible at the current moment. So White has two different plans to try out: 1) march the king to b5 to free the rook on a8, or 2) create a passed pawn on the h-file, and try to remove the pawn on g7 by means of playing h6 at some point.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first plan always fails, since Black will keep their rook on the a-file, and when White's king reaches the 4th rank, Black will place their rook on either a1 or a2. Then, if White plays Kb5, Black will give check with ...Rb1+, chasing the white king around until it decides to come back to the fourth rank, after which Black will once again play ...Ra1/Ra2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The second plan also fails, since if White manages to create the passer on the h-file, and manages to play h6, then Black doesn't have to respond with ...gxh6, but can instead play ...Kg6 to contain the h-pawn. So the conclusion is that this position is indeed a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's move on to the actual position you were asking about.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &amp;quot;R7/6p1/P3p1k1/7p/8/5PPP/r7/4K3 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is also a draw, although not as trivial (I originally assumed that White was winning here, but I missed a simple idea that maintains the balance). Here White has an extra f-pawn, but this doesn't really make a big difference in the long run. Black will use the exact same strategy as before, putting the king on f7 and shuffling the rook along the a-file, but here Black has to be a bit more careful with the winning plan that White tries. As before, the plan of bringing the king to b5 for White is not going to work. Neither is an attack on the pawn on e6 very likely to succeed as long as Black's king is left on f7. So White only has two feasible winning plans:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;create a passed pawn on the f-file, and run it to f6 to remove the pawn on g7, or&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;create a passed pawn on the h-file instead, with the same intention.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first plan is not going to work well, since White will have to at the very least trade the g-pawn for Black's h-pawn, and then trade another pawn for Black's e6 pawn. At the end of the line, we will end up in the following scenario if White tries winning plan 1:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &amp;quot;R7/P4kp1/5P2/8/8/8/r7/4K3 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that if Black just sits on the position and refuses to take on f6, then White can't really do anything to make any sort of progress (this is what I missed initially); taking on g7 just reduces to a trivial draw, and marching the king to the queenside is a lost cause, as always.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Plan 2 is actually the more dangerous one, and here Black needs a bit of precision to stay out of danger:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &amp;quot;R7/6p1/P3p1k1/7p/8/5PPP/r7/4K3 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.a7 Kf7 2.g4 hxg4 3.fxg4 Ra3 4.h4 Kg6! {This move is absolutely necessary if Black wants to draw. The point is that White was threatening the simple idea of h5-g5-g6+, after which Black is completely lost. Black needs their king on h7 to face this idea.} 5.h5+ Kh7! {Black can also place the king on g5, but then White still has some tricks to look out for. This drawing idea is by far the simplest one.} 6.g5 {with the intention of playing g6+} 6...g6! {This is the point of transferring Black's king to h7; if it were on f7 instead, then White could simply play h6-h7-h8Q, with a completely winning position.} 7.hxg6+ (7.h6= {and Black draws by shuffling the rook along the a-file, chasing White's king away whenever it tries to support the pawn on a7.}) Kg7!= {Black draws by moving the rook along the a-file, and chasing White's king away whenever it tries to support the pawn on a7.}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8300" LastActivityDate="2020-09-12T18:22:12.183" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32248" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-09-12T21:32:57.737" Score="5" ViewCount="731" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have played chess seriously for a little over a year and my style is an aggressive one. I started off playing really dubious gambits (at least in my opinion) like the King's Gambit and the Latvian Gambit, immediately looking to give away material for active play right from the opening. I have since toned down my aggressiveness, preferring much more quiet openings like the Ruy Lopez and the Pirc. I really want to re-ignite my gambit play and I need some suggestions on sound gambits I could go for and why.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24711" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-09-12T22:53:07.117" LastActivityDate="2020-09-14T22:59:55.360" Title="What is the most sound, yet still sharp, gambit?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;learning&gt;&lt;gambits&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="13" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32249" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18511" CreationDate="2020-09-12T21:35:03.097" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;We can permute 8 pieces in 8! =40320 ways.&#xA;But we have some conditions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Two knights are identical.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;There must be opposite colour bishops.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Rooks are identical.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;King must be between the rooks.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now in 8 boxes there are 4 black boxes and 4 white boxes.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;We can place the black bishop in one of the 4 black boxes which can be done in 4 ways. Similarly the position of white bishop can be chosen in 4 ways.&#xA;So there are 4×4=16 ways to choose bishop position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now we have 6 more positions to fill.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We have to fix the sequence Rook-King-Rook&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;To do so we only have to chose three boxes out of 6 which can be done in 6C3 =20 ways.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;The other three boxes have to be filled by queen, and two knights. This can be done in 3 ways since knights are identical.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Thus we have 16×20×3=960 positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24712" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2020-09-12T21:47:48.047" LastActivityDate="2020-09-12T21:47:48.047" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32250" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32248" CreationDate="2020-09-12T22:02:59.290" Score="-6" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can have 'gambit', you can have 'sound', but you can't have both.... the Benko is the closest you're going to get. Take heart in the fact that gambits are perfectly OK in practice, if unsound in theory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2494" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2020-09-13T10:04:35.503" LastActivityDate="2020-09-13T10:04:35.503" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32251" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23187" CreationDate="2020-09-13T00:33:20.670" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Luccini Gambit sacs a rook.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Bc5 4. d3 f5 5. Ng5 f4 6. Nf7 Qh4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Nakhmanson gambit sacs some pawns and a bishop&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Bc4 Nf6 3. d4 exd4 4. Nf3 Nc6 5. O-O Nxe4 6. Nc3 dxc3 7. Bxf7+ Kxf7 8. Qd5+&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24713" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-09-13T00:39:50.780" LastActivityDate="2020-09-13T00:39:50.780" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32253" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="75" CreationDate="2020-09-13T00:44:18.640" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Luccini Gambit&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Bc5 4. d3 f5 5. Ng5 f4 6. Nf7 Qh4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Nakhmanson Gambit&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Bc4 Nf6 3. d4 exd4 4. Nf3 Nc6 5. O-O Nxe4 6. Nc3 dxc3 7. Bxf7+ Kxf7 8. Qd5+&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24713" LastActivityDate="2020-09-13T00:44:18.640" CommentCount="0" CommunityOwnedDate="2020-09-13T00:44:18.640" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32254" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32268" CreationDate="2020-09-13T00:52:24.973" Score="1" ViewCount="408" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Muzio Gambit is -0.8 by Stockfish depth 22. However, if the f7-pawn is moved to the g-file, the evaluation falls to -3.5. How is that so? Both positions seem  fine for White.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Title &amp;quot;Muzio Gambit&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. f4 exf4 3. Nf3 g5 4. Bc4 g4 5. O-O!&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastEditorUserId="24446" LastEditDate="2020-09-13T01:00:47.057" LastActivityDate="2020-09-13T11:25:13.110" Title="Engine Evaluation Confused" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;engines&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32255" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-09-13T01:49:38.350" Score="4" ViewCount="112" Body="&lt;p&gt;In an offhand blitz game &lt;strong&gt;without&lt;/strong&gt; touch-move, my opponent, on his opening move as White, just to be a wise guy, picked up his b1 knight and put it down on f3, then moved his g1 knight to b1, and punched the clock. He did it all with one hand. Apart from rules against distracting or annoying ones opponent, did he make a legal move?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2299" LastActivityDate="2020-09-13T10:02:12.867" Title="Legality of swapping identical pieces" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32256" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32248" CreationDate="2020-09-13T04:34:34.400" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Evans Gambit is probably one of the most sound. It's still occasionally played at GM level and most of the critical lines are rarely if ever tested.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Vienna Gambit and Blackmar–Diemer are probably playable. The Scotch gambit is playable although I wouldn't be surprised if there isn't a forced draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With black the Benko is probably sound and the Budapest is playable. Black has fewer sound gambit options since black starts out a half tempo down. Giving up a pawn for a move just gives you an equal position but you're down a pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'll add though that virtually any opening is playable below 2000 level and certainly in rapid or blitz. In fact, you could probably get to around 2300 with any normal openings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastEditorUserId="19861" LastEditDate="2020-09-14T02:43:05.190" LastActivityDate="2020-09-14T02:43:05.190" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32257" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32254" CreationDate="2020-09-13T04:43:34.527" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the Muzio proper, White doesn't have a threat other than 6. Qxf4 (which doesn't mean so much, because that's what the c1-bishop wants).  Shift the f7-pawn to g7, now White's threatening Qf3-h5+, and that's hard to deal with.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2494" LastActivityDate="2020-09-13T04:43:34.527" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32258" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32213" CreationDate="2020-09-13T04:51:15.150" Score="3" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;You should know how to evaluate an opening position- center, development, king safety. While an engine can be useful for missed tactics, I trust my own evaluation over any engine in the opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Lopsided database scores can be a clue that the opening may be difficult for your opponent but they aren't perfect particularly at higher levels.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Using a GM database and an engine find the most difficult line your opponent can play. If you can live with the end position then it's probably fine. If not, it still might be playable depending on how often that line happens in practice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2020-09-13T04:51:15.150" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32259" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2020-09-13T06:33:11.197" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-09-13T06:33:11.197" LastActivityDate="2020-09-13T06:33:11.197" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32260" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2020-09-13T06:33:11.197" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-09-13T06:33:11.197" LastActivityDate="2020-09-13T06:33:11.197" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32261" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2020-09-13T07:28:08.187" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-09-13T07:28:08.187" LastActivityDate="2020-09-13T07:28:08.187" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32262" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2020-09-13T07:28:08.187" Score="0" Body="Relating to the branch of chess openings which follow after 1. e4 e5, where the position is usually open. " OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-09-13T09:44:09.360" LastActivityDate="2020-09-13T09:44:09.360" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32263" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2020-09-13T07:31:05.167" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-09-13T07:31:05.167" LastActivityDate="2020-09-13T07:31:05.167" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32264" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2020-09-13T07:31:05.167" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-09-13T07:31:05.167" LastActivityDate="2020-09-13T07:31:05.167" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32266" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32255" CreationDate="2020-09-13T10:02:12.867" Score="6" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In an offhand blitz game without touch-move&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In other words, you are not playing by the official rules of any chess federation, either national or international. You are playing by your own rules. So, you and your opponent, as the arbiters of the rules you are playing by, are the ones to decide whether or not what was done was legal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-09-13T10:02:12.867" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32267" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32254" CreationDate="2020-09-13T10:10:32.457" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;One of Black's biggest problems in the diagram position is that White will get in Qxf3, Qxf4, followed by Qxf7+. With the f7-pawn on g7, Black can shut this plan down with ...g5. It's true putting the f7-pawn on g7 exposes Black's king to Qh5+, but it's not a big deal: Black can meet Qxf3 with ...Qf6, then Qh5+ with ...Kd8 or simply ...g6, and White has no followup. Meanwhile, Black is up a full piece.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastActivityDate="2020-09-13T10:10:32.457" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32268" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32254" CreationDate="2020-09-13T11:25:13.110" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;As for &amp;quot;both positions seem fine for White&amp;quot;: well, Black has a significant material advantage after 5...gxf3, so White has to find some compensation. If you don't have a concrete continuation which demonstrates that compensation, I don't think there's any reason to think the engine evaluation is confused.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In both positions, a sensible continuation is 5... gxf3; 6 Qxf3 Qf6; 7 d3. Now in the original position Black has doubled f-pawns and a bad pawn structure; in particular the pawn on f4 can't be supported effectively; when it falls Black will have two isolated pawns. Black stands better but has some weakness that White can try to exploit. In the position with the pawn moved from f7 to g7, Black could play 7... g5 immediately, or alternatively 7... Bc5+ and then 8... g5. Now Black's structure is more solid and White doesn't have anything like enough to justify the material disadvantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16650" LastActivityDate="2020-09-13T11:25:13.110" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32269" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-09-13T15:32:38.513" Score="3" ViewCount="103" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;8/8/8/8/8/PP4PP/2PPPP2/NNBQKBRR w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is a problem from my &lt;a href=&quot;http://cinquantesignes.blogspot.com/2020/09/more-silly-chess-puzzles.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;blog&lt;/a&gt; once more. This is the position after White's 14th move. Seven Black pieces were captured during the game for a total of 27 points using the normal piece values. Where are Black's nine surviving pieces?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24675" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-09-13T16:56:50.400" LastActivityDate="2020-09-13T16:56:50.400" Title="Where are the non captured Black pieces?" Tags="&lt;problems&gt;&lt;retrograde-analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32270" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32271" CreationDate="2020-09-13T20:15:07.450" Score="1" ViewCount="1123" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why is it that Lichess, and other engines for that matter, give a non-zero evaluation score on an endgame position that should be either a draw or a win for one of the sides (given perfect play)? For example, the position below returns an evaluation score of -0.5 when there doesn't seem to be enough material for black to achieve a victory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;6r1/8/8/8/3k1K2/R2b4/8/8 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23950" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-09-13T21:56:18.900" LastActivityDate="2020-09-14T07:41:12.813" Title="Lichess endgame evaluation" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;draw&gt;&lt;evaluation&gt;&lt;lichess&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32271" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32270" CreationDate="2020-09-13T21:24:39.807" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;Unless you explicitly hard-code these endgames, or provide the computer with endgame tablebases, they will apply what they've always done throughout the game: search lines and return the static eval (which is basically the evaluation function of the engine, evaluated on the final position). The static eval isn't smart enough to realize that this game is a draw - keep in mind the static eval is supposed to work for all positions, so it's not surprising that it doesn't return a completely accurate score for this one. Accordingly the computer flatlines at -0.50, until the 50-move rule helps it prune to a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastActivityDate="2020-09-13T21:24:39.807" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32272" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32248" CreationDate="2020-09-14T01:01:11.580" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Two sound gambits for Black:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Marshall Attack in the Spanish:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Ba4 Nf6 5. O-O Be7 6. Re1 b5 7. Bb3 O-O 8. c3 d5 9. exd5 Nxd5 10. Nxe5 Nxe5 11. Rxe5 c6 12. d4 Bd6 13. Re1 Qh4 14. g3 Qh3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is the main line. Be aware that you need to know lots of theory to play this opening, as most lines are analysed well into endgames and play is concrete enough to grant an advantage to the one who knows more. Also White can avoid it and play Anti-Marshall lines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another gambit for Black stems from the Ng5 Italian&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Nf6 4. Ng5 d5 5. exd5 Na5 6. Bb5+ c6 7. dxc6 bxc6 8. Be2 (8. Bd3 Nd5) h6 9. Nf3 (9. Nh3) e4 10. Ne5 Bd6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Where Black gives a pawn and accepts an inferior pawn structure for a lead in development and a strong initiative. I have to admit I did not believe this can be sound, especially given how chaotic Black's position is, but then I looked at theory and was very amazed how much Black gets and how little the structure matters in what is to come. Both sides need to know what they are doing or the game will be decided very fast.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15478" LastActivityDate="2020-09-14T01:01:11.580" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32273" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2020-09-14T02:10:23.677" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-09-14T02:10:23.677" LastActivityDate="2020-09-14T02:10:23.677" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32274" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2020-09-14T02:10:23.677" Score="0" Body="Relating to an advantage in chess" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-09-14T07:06:01.473" LastActivityDate="2020-09-14T07:06:01.473" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32276" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32291" CreationDate="2020-09-14T05:25:50.263" Score="3" ViewCount="645" Body="&lt;p&gt;In chess games where my opponent is White, White may play 1. e3 or 1. d3, so when I play 1...e5 and 1...d5 in response, I find myself in a reversed opening where I have the opening advantage. What are the advantages to playing like this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastActivityDate="2020-09-15T08:14:32.933" Title="Playing Reversed openings" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;reversed-openings&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32277" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32270" CreationDate="2020-09-14T07:41:12.813" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Lichess, you have 2 separate features: computer analysis and endgame tablebases. Scores are always shown using the computer analysis feature, but at the endgame you can also see the tablebases features, available for 6-men endings I think. If you open this component, you will see each winning/drawing/losing move together with their DTZ (distance to zeroing the 50-moves rule) and DTM (distance to mate).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24720" LastActivityDate="2020-09-14T07:41:12.813" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32278" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32276" CreationDate="2020-09-14T08:51:37.150" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's nothing special about this type of position. Play sound, solid chess. Activate your pieces, put your king into safety and occupy the center without overextending. You'll have an easier time than normal achieving an equalized middlegame&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastActivityDate="2020-09-14T08:51:37.150" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32279" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32276" CreationDate="2020-09-14T08:58:22.157" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Hu.h, that's weird. Your opponent asked the same question earlier. I play 1. e3 and get a reversed French, or 1. g3 and get a reversed King's Indian? What are the advantages in that?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are none. Grandmaster Larsen used to play 1. a3 to steer for a Reversed Najdorf in the '50s, and while he was glad when it happened, he found it was nothing special.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your &lt;em&gt;only&lt;/em&gt; goal in the opening, no matter what you hear here, is to reach a playable middlegame, one with rough equality in center control, development, and king safety. You can get through any opening paying attention to that, and especially while minding the tactics. People think they need to learn openings in order to survive them, but people don't lose in the opening because they're bad at the opening, they lose in the opening because they're bad at tactics.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2494" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-09-14T11:13:51.533" LastActivityDate="2020-09-14T11:13:51.533" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32280" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32248" CreationDate="2020-09-14T08:59:42.197" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Many answers have already shown good examples, but I'd say that if you're looking for a sharp opening, you don't necessarily have to look for a gambit. In many occasions your opponent could refuse the gambit, or maybe give back the material and get a quieter position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, as Black, you'll probably reach sharper positions by playing the Dragon Sicilian against e4 and the Benoni or Grünfeld against d4 than by playing gambits.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-09-14T11:07:48.907" LastActivityDate="2020-09-14T11:07:48.907" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32281" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2020-09-14T09:12:43.907" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-09-14T09:12:43.907" LastActivityDate="2020-09-14T09:12:43.907" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32282" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2020-09-14T09:12:43.907" Score="0" Body="For questions relating to correspondence chess, or postal chess" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-09-14T09:31:40.570" LastActivityDate="2020-09-14T09:31:40.570" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32283" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-09-14T12:47:12.423" Score="17" ViewCount="6138" Body="&lt;p&gt;Theoretically, is it possible that for some position, the only legal move for a side leads to a checkmate (that is, the opposite king gets checkmated)? If so, has this ever occurred in a real game?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24274" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-09-15T03:33:46.133" LastActivityDate="2021-01-28T23:36:05.830" Title="A position with the only legal move resulting in checkmate" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;famous-games&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32284" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32283" CreationDate="2020-09-14T13:39:28.280" Score="14" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;kq6/8/K7/PQ6/8/8/8/8 b - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Qb7+ (1... Qa7#) 2. Qxb7#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black could mate with 1...Qa7# or lose with 1...Qb7#, when White's only legal reply is 2. Qxb7#.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2494" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-09-15T23:46:32.287" LastActivityDate="2020-09-15T23:46:32.287" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32286" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32248" CreationDate="2020-09-14T22:59:55.360" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I wouldn't recommend a gambit unless you are really dedicated to learning the lines, otherwise, any person, with at least some knowledge, will deconstruct you very easily.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I recommend the Queen's Gambit for white. Technically it's not a Gambit, however, it's still played very much at the GM level, and even at the low-level tiers, it's very powerful, as there are a couple of nasty traps you can learn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;FOr Black, I would recommend the Sicilian Opening. I know its not a Gambit, but the Hyper-Accelerated Dragon is a very lethal weapon in the hands of an experienced player, and it is very aggressive, leading to very open positions, and often relying upon lethal forks and pins to shut down whites chances early&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23948" LastActivityDate="2020-09-14T22:59:55.360" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32287" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32283" CreationDate="2020-09-15T01:58:23.593" Score="21" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sure it's possible. In fact, it's possible that this kind of &amp;quot;inevitability&amp;quot; happens earlier in the game, with many more moves to go until mate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is an example the Wikipedia on &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joke_chess_problem#Self-solving_problems&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;joke chess problems&lt;/a&gt;.  The composer's full name comes from chess &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.yacpdb.org/#103072&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;problem&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://pdb.dieschwalbe.de/P1180283&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;databases.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Vilhelm Röpke, Skakbladet 1942, Mate In 6&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;K1k5/P1Pp4/1p1P4/8/p7/P2P4/8/8 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 b5 2. d5 b4 3. axb4 a3 4. b5 a2 5. b6 a1=Q 6. b7#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-01-28T23:36:05.830" LastActivityDate="2021-01-28T23:36:05.830" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32289" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2020-09-15T07:09:50.023" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="-1" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-09-15T07:09:50.023" LastActivityDate="2020-09-15T07:09:50.023" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32290" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2020-09-15T07:09:50.023" Score="0" Body="Relating to reversed openings; i.e., openings for one side played by the opposite side." OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-09-15T08:20:03.770" LastActivityDate="2020-09-15T08:20:03.770" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32291" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32276" CreationDate="2020-09-15T08:14:32.933" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some reasons I can think of to play this way:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;White player just wants to play with black pieces for whatever reason (just training their black repertoire?)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;White player wants to be sure their opponent don't use an opening book. As far as I know chess opening books (unlike baduk ones) don't have a &amp;quot;symmetry search&amp;quot; feature, so with this trick you just get out of the book from the beginning. Of course White player can use an opening book all the same, but it can become a bit tricky. And of course you can't use the opening book from the chess portal (like the case in lichess).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9179" LastActivityDate="2020-09-15T08:14:32.933" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32292" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32293" CreationDate="2020-09-15T09:29:30.037" Score="3" ViewCount="142" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am looking for a good chess website about retrograde analysis problems, but after a few searches, I haven't found anything. Are there any websites that you can recommend?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-12-16T06:15:58.173" LastActivityDate="2021-03-07T12:41:16.487" Title="Retrograde problem websites" Tags="&lt;problems&gt;&lt;retrograde-analysis&gt;&lt;websites&gt;&lt;recommendations&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32293" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32292" CreationDate="2020-09-15T11:07:52.690" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would recommmend &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.janko.at/Retros/index.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;The Retrograde Analysis Corner&lt;/a&gt; It is a top notch and well known site that explains castling and en passant conventions,  what exactly it is all about, and how to solve such problems among it's many, many helpful things.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-09-15T12:03:32.857" LastActivityDate="2020-09-15T12:03:32.857" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32294" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-09-15T12:34:02.807" Score="1" ViewCount="94" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've recently picked up the book &amp;quot;Pump up your rating&amp;quot; where the author talks about tracking each of your games with a post-mortem analysis. The report of all your games combined will show you in the long run which areas of your chess game are holding you back.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Inspired by this approach I want to understand which openings I'm playing correctly and which ones I need to study in more detail. I've downloaded my chess games and have tried to analyse them using ChessX, Scid vs Pc and Lucas Chess. Scid vs Pc gives me the option to automatically annotate the games but stores the engine score in a non tabular format. I can only see the evaluation of the moves when opening a specific game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ideally I want to add a column to my chess games in a database which shows the engine evaluation of the game at the end of the &amp;quot;Opening&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After some research I found that move 10-12 are commonly accepted as the end of the &amp;quot;Opening&amp;quot;. I haven't found a way to programmatically extract the engine evaluation at move 10 or 12 from all my games. Scid vs Pc allows you to add user defined flags but this is just a text string.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm very new to chess databases and engines in general and would be greateful for any advice on how to achieve this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24726" LastActivityDate="2020-09-16T18:38:56.837" Title="Listing engine evaluation of each game after opening to track my opening skill level" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;database&gt;&lt;scid&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32295" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-09-15T12:36:13.517" Score="1" ViewCount="35" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have a database full of tactical positions,can the chessbase app do something like chesstempo where it will keep throwing the problems after solving one(from my database)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21840" LastActivityDate="2020-09-15T12:36:13.517" Title="Does anyone knows how to use the &quot;replay training&quot; feature of chessbase for tactics training?" Tags="&lt;software&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2020-09-15T13:20:48.497" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32296" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32283" CreationDate="2020-09-15T16:13:38.277" Score="32" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to offer a semi-realistic example. I think I have seen something like this in a game by masters in some book, but of course I cannot recall where. But this is something that at least can be realistically missed in calculations from far away.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;6k1/5ppp/6r1/3b4/4r3/8/1Q5P/1R5K w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White just gives a back rank mate, right? :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Update:&lt;/strong&gt; actually, I found a real game with a very similar motive, though not quite self-mate in one:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Event &amp;quot;Simul&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Site &amp;quot;Copenhagen DEN&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Date &amp;quot;1924.03.15&amp;quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &amp;quot;?&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Round &amp;quot;?&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Result &amp;quot;1-0&amp;quot;]&#xA;[White &amp;quot;Aron Nimzowitsch&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Black &amp;quot;Paulsen&amp;quot;]&#xA;[ECO &amp;quot;D32&amp;quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &amp;quot;?&amp;quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &amp;quot;?&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Source &amp;quot;Skjoldager and Nielsen pp.399-400&amp;quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &amp;quot;43&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. Nf3 c5 5. e3 Nc6 6. a3 cxd4&#xA;7. exd4 Be7 8. c5 O-O 9. Bd3 a6 10. O-O Qc7 11. b4 e5 12. dxe5&#xA;Nxe5 13. Nxe5 Qxe5 14. Bb2 Ng4 15. f4 Qd4+ 16. Kh1 Nf2+&#xA;17. Rxf2 Qxf2 18. Nxd5 Qxb2 19. Bxh7+ Kh8 20. Qh5 Qxa1+ (20...Bg4!)&#xA;21. Bb1+ Kg8 22. Nxe7# 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An old Russian book by Judovich also lists the following position in a game between two amateurs &amp;quot;whitnessed by J. Krejcik in a local club&amp;quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [Fen &amp;quot;8/4N1p1/7k/4B2P/5KP1/3q4/8/7R b - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The story goes that after 1...g5, both players resigned, because white forgot about the en passant rule, and black only remembered it after they made the move. I think we can safely assume it's made up, though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17330" LastEditorUserId="17330" LastEditDate="2020-09-16T07:43:02.920" LastActivityDate="2020-09-16T07:43:02.920" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32297" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-09-15T21:28:52.233" Score="4" ViewCount="959" Body="&lt;p&gt;My database shows that after 1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5, white has the following main variations:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Nc3&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;exd5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;e5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and they are equally popular among professional players. However, from my experience playing online games, I have observed that among amateur players, 3. e5 is far more popular than the other two moves.  Is it true that 3. e5 is statistically more popular than 3. Nc3 and 3. exd5 among amateur players? If so, why?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16626" LastEditorUserId="16626" LastEditDate="2020-09-15T23:40:03.570" LastActivityDate="2020-09-17T17:23:06.347" Title="Is it true that amateur players tend to choose the advance variation after 1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5?" Tags="&lt;statistics&gt;&lt;caro-kann&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32298" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32297" CreationDate="2020-09-15T21:51:23.220" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to Lichess's database for games between ~1600 rated players in the Caro-kann does indeed show that &lt;em&gt;3. e5&lt;/em&gt; is much more common than other moves.&#xA;&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;e5&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt; in fact &lt;strong&gt;accounts for 46% of games&lt;/strong&gt; played; compare this to the second most common move, exd5, which is only 28%.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Often when amateurs are learning the concept of space in chess, the Advanced French Defense is used as an example. &lt;em&gt;3. e5&lt;/em&gt; therefore is a common move for amateur white players to play against the French Defense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since the Caro-Kann resembles the French Defense, I believe amateur players simply play &lt;em&gt;3. e5&lt;/em&gt; as it is what they know best. (This is only my best guess, don't take this as a hard fact).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24057" LastEditorUserId="24057" LastEditDate="2020-09-16T00:48:28.513" LastActivityDate="2020-09-16T00:48:28.513" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32299" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32297" CreationDate="2020-09-15T22:19:48.417" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Amateurs are slaves to grandmaster fashion. When a line gets noticed at the 2800 level, the 2500 players adopt it, then the 2200, 1900, and so on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, bad chess coaches recommend 3. e5 because there's less for their students to remember, though it shouldn't be a matter of memorization but understanding.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;e5 is still a popular choice among strong players and the fashion slaves who follow them, and bad coaches are still bad coaches, so there's a lot of 3. e5 going around.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2494" LastActivityDate="2020-09-15T22:19:48.417" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32300" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29540" CreationDate="2020-09-15T22:59:54.033" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Everything is sharp and also drawish, depending on the inclinations of the players at the moment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But if the question were 'which opening enables the most flexibility for one player to direct a quiet or a noisy path', then the Petroff. If Black wants to play the Petroff solidly, like Karpov, he can. If Black wants to play the Petroff with abandon, like Marshall, he can.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And it's a pretty big decision for Black following 1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. Nd2 dxe4 4. Nxe4 Nf6 5. Nxf6+. 5...exf6 can be a drawish thing, like Andersson showed. While 5...gxf6 leaves holes all over Black's position, but offers all kinds of dynamic counterplay (Bronstein, Larsen, Seirawan).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2494" LastActivityDate="2020-09-15T22:59:54.033" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32301" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2020-09-15T23:54:32.703" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Latvian Gambit is a gambit where Black sacrifises the f-pawn. It is a reversed King's gambit with an extra tempo for White. This is a solved opening, where White always wins or draws, but in practical play, Black has lots of chances. The game resulting from this opening is wide open and extremely tactical, so is usually played in correspondence games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For more information on this opening, visit this webpage: &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latvian_Gambit&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latvian_Gambit&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-09-16T10:26:49.590" LastActivityDate="2020-09-16T10:26:49.590" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32302" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2020-09-15T23:54:32.703" Score="0" Body="This is a tag relating to the Latvian Gambit, an unorthodox chess opening which goes 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 f5!?" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastEditorDisplayName="user24344" LastEditDate="2020-09-16T10:26:43.370" LastActivityDate="2020-09-16T10:26:43.370" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32303" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32292" CreationDate="2020-09-16T05:15:26.220" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Do not miss &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.thbrand.de/retroblog/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Rund um die Retroanalyse&lt;/a&gt;, a blog by Thomas brand, in German language. It features each week a retro problem, with explanations and the problem solution.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4572" LastActivityDate="2020-09-16T05:15:26.220" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32304" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32315" CreationDate="2020-09-16T07:18:35.323" Score="6" ViewCount="1256" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am studying now old Polish book &amp;quot;ABC Szachisty&amp;quot; (&amp;quot;ABC for Chess Player&amp;quot;, informal translation) and the following example is given there:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[FEN &quot;&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 d5 2. exd5 Qxd5 3. Nc3 Qa5 4. Nf3 e5&#xA;5. d3 Bg4 6. Bd2 Nc6 7. Qe2 Nd4 8. Qxe5+ Qxe5+&#xA;9. Nxe5 Nxc2# &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And this example is aimed to show the significance of the center. So my two questions that I don't understand here are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Why this example satisfy its aim, i.e. shows how important the center is? My guess would be that since black figures are well centralised, they have short distance to white's position, and that is what is making mating attack possible (also white's mistake of taking the pawn). I don't understand however why control over the center is important here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Why, after 6th move black has better control over the center?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[FEN &quot;r3kbnr/ppp2ppp/2n5/q3p3/6b1/2NP1N2/PPPB1PPP/R2QKB1R w KQkq - 3 7&quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I see that white knight on f3 is pinned and f1 bishop is blocked. Also, white game is very passive here. However, black has only two minor pieces mobilised here and whole queen's side is not active.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24735" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2020-09-16T18:50:14.473" LastActivityDate="2020-09-17T07:29:01.250" Title="Why does black have an advantage here?" Tags="&lt;beginner&gt;&lt;center&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32305" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-09-16T07:44:56.333" Score="9" ViewCount="1851" Body="&lt;p&gt;We have lot of sophisticated chess engines, but I always prefer playing with a human online, because they make genuine mistakes / blunders which adds a human touch. Playing with computer at a high level is boring as it is too difficult to crack and at low levels it makes a random blunder which practically a human will never do. Can someone either point me to an existing engine which plays like a human based on your level or recommend me some guidelines as how we can make it using AI ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks in advance&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1386" LastActivityDate="2021-02-18T14:35:53.187" Title="How to make an AI chess engine which can play like a human of similar rating?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;human-versus-machine&gt;" AnswerCount="8" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32306" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32304" CreationDate="2020-09-16T08:39:38.913" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Black has more space. The e5-pawn gives Black four rows to move around in, while the d3=pawn gives White three (and the 4th rank is kind of a no-man's-land). That extra board room confers ease of the development: no problems for black bishops, while White's Be2 isn't so happy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Later, the space advantage gives Black a chance to grow with ...f7-f5 plus ...e5-e4, while White hasn't the same. White's job will be trying to gain equality in the center with d3-d4 or f2-f4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This position is a good example of why center control is our main positional goal early in the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2494" LastActivityDate="2020-09-16T08:39:38.913" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32307" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32305" CreationDate="2020-09-16T08:51:44.627" Score="-6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I say: Take a normal, strong AI, and have it play P-R3 at random.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bad players play P-R3 whenever they can't think of anything to do. They think if an enemy unit lands on N5, then P-R3 is a great attacking move. Or maybe they play P-R3 to &lt;em&gt;prevent&lt;/em&gt; an enemy piece from coming to N5. Either way, win! And it's such a small positional concession, what harm could P-R3 do?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bad players waste more time on useless P-R3 moves than any other, so a computer that plays P-R3 willy-nilly would approximate crappy chess play in that fashion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chessplayers: NM Dan Heisman's &amp;quot;Guide to P-R3&amp;quot; is such a valuable read, available at chesscafe.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2494" LastActivityDate="2020-09-16T08:51:44.627" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32308" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32283" CreationDate="2020-09-16T09:35:17.507" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was thinking about position where your king is not checked, and this seems to work (of course white to play):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;code&gt;&#xA;[FEN &quot;b5k1/RN3ppp/P7/8/8/8/8/5qbK w - - 0 1&quot;]&#xA;&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&#xA;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24735" LastEditorUserId="24735" LastEditDate="2020-09-16T11:35:34.133" LastActivityDate="2020-09-16T11:35:34.133" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32309" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32304" CreationDate="2020-09-16T11:06:46.920" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;First things first, this is an example of a very poorly played game, so Black gained its edge because of White's tactical mistakes, rather than by taking advantage of their extra space. This is a &amp;quot;fault&amp;quot; often made by chess authors when trying to illustrate a concept. They will explain the events in a game in a way that &amp;quot;fits their narrative&amp;quot; rather than provide an objective analysis, which is this case would lead to conclude that the position is pretty much balanced if not slightly advantageous for White until the horrible 7.Qe2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is true, though, that by move 6, White's lack of interest in fighting for the center costed them most of its starting advantage despite Black having lost several tempi with their queen. White could have played 7.Be2 (among others) and still have a reasonable position despite Black's lead in the center due to their extra development.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastActivityDate="2020-09-16T11:06:46.920" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32310" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32305" CreationDate="2020-09-16T18:32:45.080" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some of them make random errors to simulate a human. Others limit the number of moves they look ahead to do it. None of them play like a human, but that is the state of the art as of now for faking it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The best approach would be to train the AI program by playing against actual humans of the given strength level being simulated, but that would be impractical as it would take too long and the players being used would likely change rating (hopefully upwards as they learn too) as they play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24723" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-09-16T18:47:14.950" LastActivityDate="2020-09-16T18:47:14.950" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32312" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32294" CreationDate="2020-09-16T18:38:56.837" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is good to review games to see why you lost.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just tracking your alleged 'rating' per some engine after each game is useless as you 'rating' is not that stable until you have a lot of experience and even then there is a wide variation on any given day for most players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24723" LastActivityDate="2020-09-16T18:38:56.837" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32313" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32305" CreationDate="2020-09-16T21:44:37.120" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;As far as I know, every chess playing program combines a depth-limited search of the game tree with a heuristic algorithm to estimate the favorability of each position. There's a tradeoff between using a cheaper heuristic allowing more positions to be evaluated and using a sophisticated heuristic on fewer positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Humans play in more or less the same way, but evaluate far fewer positions using a far more sophisticated heuristic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd expect that the most human-like computer players would be the ones that evaluate the fewest positions per unit time using more sophisticated heuristics. &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AlphaZero&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;AlphaZero&lt;/a&gt;, for instance, evaluates about 0.1% as many positions as Stockfish (though still many orders of magnitude more than a human), and I'd expect it to be somewhat more human-like than Stockfish as a result. I have no actual experience to back that up, though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20317" LastEditorUserId="20317" LastEditDate="2020-09-16T23:06:20.480" LastActivityDate="2020-09-16T23:06:20.480" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32314" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27746" CreationDate="2020-09-17T02:12:10.573" Score="-3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can't. This is what you get for playing so passively at move 2 (2...Nc6 is a master-class move. Masters can play more patiently in waiting for counterattacks, but inexpert players should learn to hit back whenever they can. In this case, 2...d5, 2...Nf6, 2...f5.) and at move 3 (3...Bc5, instead of 3...Nf6 4 Ng5 Bc5, of which no other stackexchange user is likely to approve, but that's what you get for seeking free chess advice from millions of people: you get what you pay for).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chessplayers are never so happy as when they get to play however they please, and 2...Nc6 and 3...Bc5 let them do that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once you've committed yourself to this passive play, I think the best you can do is 4. c3 Nf6 5. d4 exd4 6. cxd4 Bb4+ 7. Bd2 Bxd2+ 8. Nxd2 d5 and play against the isolated d-pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And I think you're lucky your opponents aren't play 4. b4! Bxb4 5. c3, saving time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2494" LastActivityDate="2020-09-17T02:12:10.573" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32315" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32304" CreationDate="2020-09-17T07:29:01.250" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Answering the second question first,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;2.Why, after 6th move black has better control over the center?&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black's pawn on e5 is better than white's pawn on d3. Both sides have traded a central pawn. Black's e-pawn occupies a central square and controls another. White only controls e4. It's about the pawns. Pieces can move around and control various squares. Notice every major opening spends the first 2-3 moves establishing the pawn structure in the center. I know that can seem confusing because hypermodern openings appear not to do that but they actually do. They just do it in a more subtle way. My advice is just to focus on understanding classical centers until you get around 1900 then the hypermodern openings will make a lot more sense. Focus on the pawn structure in the center and think of the pieces as support pieces for the pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Why this example satisfy its aim&amp;quot;&#xA;It's not a great example. But, you can see that black is able to more actively develop his pieces. For example, black's light square bishop is able to get out and pin the knight but also has f5, e6 and d7 as options. The white light squared bishop only has one legal move (e2) and it's pretty passive. Black has a free and easy development with lots of choices on where to place his pieces while white has few choices and his pieces are tripping over each other and fighting for the same squares (e2 for example)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Why does black have an advantage here?&amp;quot;&#xA;After move 6, black has a better center. Development is equal. Black is one move away from castling while white is two. That's how you evaluate opening positions- center, development, king safety. Black is better in two areas and equal in the third. Therefore, black is better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2020-09-17T07:29:01.250" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32316" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-09-17T07:31:42.727" Score="5" ViewCount="3317" Body="&lt;p&gt;As the title above, why aren't early opening moves generally given exclamation marks? I see question marks for obvious opening mistakes from time to time, e.g. 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 f6? or 1.d4 d5 2.Nf3 Bg4?! But I almost never see exclamation marks for early strong opening moves. For example, after 1.d4 d5 2.c4 should be given an exclamation mark, being obviously a strong move, already challenging Black's center at move 2, or, 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5! the Ruy Lopez being considered the best way to challenge Black's center already at move 3, and so on...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8291" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2020-09-17T08:49:51.180" LastActivityDate="2020-10-17T03:36:56.623" Title="Why aren't early opening moves generally given exclamation marks?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;annotation&gt;" AnswerCount="9" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32317" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32319" CreationDate="2020-09-17T07:35:57.140" Score="3" ViewCount="1124" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Owen's defence is a chess opening which starts with 1. e4 b6!?. This opening is playable if Black can get a quick c7-c5 break, where he has a pawn on e6, b6, and then he pushes c7-c5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, Stockfish on 22ply depth disagrees, giving White a +0.89 advantage. This hardly seems playable, as White has almost the advantage of an extra pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So there must be a reason for this evaluation. I think that White can somehow prevent the break, to get a full pawn center, but I can't find any way to do so without compromising my pawn structure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastActivityDate="2020-09-17T19:34:38.400" Title="Owen's Defence playability" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;engines&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;theory&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32318" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27746" CreationDate="2020-09-17T08:02:04.613" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's a huge difference between this and the Evans gambit and that is 3...Nf6 followed by 0-0 at some point. In the Evans gambit, you usually aren't going to have an easy way to Nf6 without giving something else up which means you're going to struggle to castle which means you are vulnerable to a strong attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here, you just throw Nf6 out on move 3 and you're fine. If white plays 5.d4 then 5...Bb5+ is equal because white doesn't really have anything after that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;6&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Nc3, Nxe4. Black is fine. There's couple of traps in there though. If white plays Qb3 just play either Bxc3 or 0-0&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Bd2, Bxd2+ and depending on white's response black should be able to equalize with various combinations of Nxe4, d5 and 0-0.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Nbd2, Nxe4 is equal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2020-09-17T08:02:04.613" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32319" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32317" CreationDate="2020-09-17T08:31:57.567" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Stockfish's @.3484814232843 shouldn't concern Black as much as Morphy's simple plan for White.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.e4 b6 2. d4 Bb7 3. Bd3 e6 4. Nh3&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stockfish might be complaining because White gets free rein in the center, but Morphy said 'two pawns is enough', then as long as White continues developing, he's guaranteed at least equal development, and because it was the fastest possible kingside development, White has O-O plus f2-f4-f5 in store to open a file.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1...b6 made it too easy for Morphy (and anyone) to follow the general winning plan of better center control, better development, better king safety, then from that superior position, attack the enemy king by opening files for the rook.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See Morphy-Lewis, Philadelphia 1859. Trust Morphy's practical chess wisdom over Stockfish's analysis. stockfish might tell you how much it's bad, but Morphy showed us how and why.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2494" LastActivityDate="2020-09-17T08:31:57.567" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32320" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32316" CreationDate="2020-09-17T08:34:30.633" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not many moves in the opening deserve exclams. A classic example was Morphy-Allies, Paris 1858: 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 Bg4 4. dxe5! and Black will lose a pawn, or lose bishop for knight while enabling White to gain time by developing with the recapture.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2494" LastActivityDate="2020-09-17T08:34:30.633" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32321" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32317" CreationDate="2020-09-17T08:47:44.307" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's completely playable below master level, probably playable to IM level and probably useful occasionally as a surprise weapon at GM level. Combined with the English defense it gives black a very solid opening repertoire with very little theory to learn. The only caveat would be to just be careful castling kingside into a strong attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;22 ply is 11 moves. How many players below master level analyze 11 moves deep in their opening prep let alone over the board? If you can see two moves ahead you're better than most of the players out there and probably wouldn't be asking this question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A .89 evaluation is literally nothing below GM level. Analyze your games with an engine. How many times do you see a swing bigger than .89 on a single move? I'm guessing at least once a game. And even if you do play near perfect chess how big a difference is there between that and the alternatives? I'm looking at the 365chess.com database. It has 1...b6 at .66 at a depth of 38. It has other mainstream openings like the French (.53), Pirc (.6) modern (.62), Alekhine's (.55) etc. You're literally talking about tenths and even hundredths of a pawn. It's absurd for players below master level to be talking about differences that small.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastEditorUserId="19861" LastEditDate="2020-09-17T09:54:51.183" LastActivityDate="2020-09-17T09:54:51.183" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32322" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32316" CreationDate="2020-09-17T08:49:39.820" Score="16" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_annotation_symbols&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt; says the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Exclamation points (&amp;quot;!&amp;quot;) indicate good moves—&lt;strong&gt;especially ones which are surprising or involve particular skill&lt;/strong&gt;. Hence annotators are usually somewhat conservative with the use of this symbol.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(emphasis mine). 2. c4 is the most played move after 1. d4 d5, therefore it doesn't receive an exclamation mark.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2020-09-17T08:49:39.820" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32324" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32316" CreationDate="2020-09-17T13:13:40.410" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Exclamation (!) is a highlight in analysis. Either it indicates &lt;em&gt;strong&lt;/em&gt; move, or it is also possible to indicate &lt;em&gt;unexpected&lt;/em&gt; move. Something to which opponent is totally &lt;em&gt;unprepared&lt;/em&gt;. Something which will be followed by inaccuracy (?). This could be different depending on what exact game it is. What will follow after &lt;em&gt;provoking&lt;/em&gt; move? Exclamated move could be not optimal at all, making a weakness in your defense. Nonetheless, even making you weaker, it could lure your opponent into blundering entire game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If that is the game from XIX century where opponents could be not prepared and preferred to accept gambits, then it was &amp;quot;!&amp;quot; move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Today we have openings up to 12 moves, and the theory behind every variant shows equality, so even if it is Queen Gambit Accepted variant - opponents are already expecting you playing it, you would not catch any initiative.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It all depends what century is the game from.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Today everybody knows QGA and most likely will choose 1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 and there will be no surprise in that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24619" LastEditorUserId="24619" LastEditDate="2020-09-17T14:19:43.053" LastActivityDate="2020-09-17T14:19:43.053" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32325" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32297" CreationDate="2020-09-17T17:23:06.347" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have played thousand of games with the French over the past 40 years (not all OTB, of course)and my experience is that lower rated amateurs tend to choose ed5. This is too bad from my perspective as there&#xA;are more chances for B (in my opinion) after e5 c5  or Nc3 Bb4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;--Doug Grant&#xA;formerly 2330, now down to 2100 (age-related)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23822" LastActivityDate="2020-09-17T17:23:06.347" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32326" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32316" CreationDate="2020-09-17T17:44:01.250" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why not&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;d4?!&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;or even&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;0&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Arguably, Go is a deeper game and in any event, don't you have something better to do with your time than play games?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Symbols like ? and ! are not meant to communicate &lt;em&gt;opinions&lt;/em&gt;, which is what they would be if you sprinkled them on standard opening moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To forestall an objection, an informed opinion is still an opinion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15148" LastActivityDate="2020-09-17T17:44:01.250" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32327" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1251" CreationDate="2020-09-17T19:27:56.547" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Based on your description of your problem you need to study tactics a lot more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also master ONE opening for white and black and if KG causes you problems then play sicilian or e6 or d6 instead of pe5&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24747" LastActivityDate="2020-09-17T19:27:56.547" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32328" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32317" CreationDate="2020-09-17T19:34:38.400" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You put too  much faith in engines and too little respect for how actual people really play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;b6 is more than playable.  I would not venture it against a GM but for any tournament I could seriously compete in it would work --&lt;em&gt;IF&lt;/em&gt; it were compatible with my style which it is not.  When they play b6 I generally win.  That has more to say about me and my experience, or their weaknesses ,than the opening move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24747" LastActivityDate="2020-09-17T19:34:38.400" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32330" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="27604" CreationDate="2020-09-17T19:41:32.003" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Can you, yes;  may you, absolutely not in a tournament game but you might get away with it in a club against other kiddies.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Try doing your bishops upside down if rooks are too easy for you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24747" LastActivityDate="2020-09-17T19:41:32.003" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32331" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32283" CreationDate="2020-09-17T19:57:52.693" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Forced mate positions do occur in real games although it is pretty rare: such a mate is only delivered about once in 68,000 games on lichess.org.  One example comes from &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/1aj0ru8r&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; game with the penultimate position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;KQ6/2k5/1qP5/N7/5p1p/8/6PP/8 b - - 0 51&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Event &amp;quot;Rated Blitz game&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Site &amp;quot;https://lichess.org/1aj0ru8r&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Date &amp;quot;2013.01.04&amp;quot;]&#xA;[White &amp;quot;captainRobinson&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Black &amp;quot;agnefrance&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Result &amp;quot;0-1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Qxb8#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The vast majority of these forced-mate positions in real games involve either a king that is in check with the only available move being to capture the checking piece and in doing so deliver mate or a situation in which the mating side has only pawns and the only legal move is a pawn push that mates the opposing king.  Both of these situations almost always occur on the side of the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A slightly more interesting example from &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/a43impad&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; game where the king is mated by the only legal move in the &lt;em&gt;middle&lt;/em&gt; of the board is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;8/1R3p1N/1p1k2p1/1bPP4/2nKP3/r4P2/6PP/8 b - - 0 32&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Event &amp;quot;Rated Blitz game&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Site &amp;quot;https://lichess.org/a43impad&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Date &amp;quot;2013.01.05&amp;quot;]&#xA;[White &amp;quot;dnc&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Black &amp;quot;Semmel&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Result &amp;quot;0-1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... bxc5#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Forced-mate positions occur OTB as well.  The most interesting such game I found was played between GM Danilo Milanovic and IM Jasmin Bejtovic at the 41st Bosna Open in Sarajevo 2011.  The example is interesting because the last &lt;em&gt;two&lt;/em&gt; moves of the game are forced and the second is a discovered checkmate.  The full game from &lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/view_pgn.phtml?code=55964&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Event &amp;quot;41st IT Bosna 2011&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Site &amp;quot;Sarajevo&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Date &amp;quot;2011.05.08&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Round &amp;quot;5.10&amp;quot;]&#xA;[White &amp;quot;Milanovic, Danilo&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Black &amp;quot;Bejtovic, Jasmin&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Result &amp;quot;1-0&amp;quot;]&#xA;[ECO &amp;quot;E70&amp;quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &amp;quot;2494&amp;quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &amp;quot;2413&amp;quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &amp;quot;139&amp;quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &amp;quot;2011.05.03&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 Bg7 4. e4 d6 5. Bd3 O-O 6. Nge2 Nbd7 7. O-O c5 8. d5&#xA;Ne5 9. f4 Nxd3 10. Qxd3 a6 11. a4 Rb8 12. h3 Ne8 13. f5 Nf6 14. Bd2 Nd7 15. Qg3&#xA;Ne5 16. b3 Bd7 17. a5 b5 18. axb6 Rxb6 19. Nc1 Qb8 20. Ra3 Qc8 21. Ra2 Qb8 22.&#xA;Nd1 Re8 23. Ba5 Rb7 24. Raf2 Bh6 25. Bd2 Bxd2 26. Rxd2 a5 27. Ne3 a4 28. bxa4&#xA;Rb2 29. Rdf2 Rxf2 30. Qxf2 Qb4 31. Ne2 Qd2 32. Ng4 Nxg4 33. hxg4 Bxa4 34. e5&#xA;Rf8 35. f6 exf6 36. exd6 Re8 37. Ng3 Qd3 38. Kh2 Qxc4 39. Qxf6 Qxg4 40. Qxf7+&#xA;Kh8 41. Qf6+ Kg8 42. Qf7+ Kh8 43. Rf4 Qd7 44. Qxd7 Bxd7 45. Rf7 Rd8 46. Ne4 Bf5&#xA;47. Nf6 g5 48. d7 Bg6 49. Re7 c4 50. Re8+ Bxe8 51. dxe8=Q+ Rxe8 52. Nxe8 c3 53.&#xA;d6 c2 54. d7 c1=Q 55. d8=Q Qf4+ 56. Kg1 Qc1+ 57. Kf2 Qf4+ 58. Ke2 Qe4+ 59. Kd1&#xA;Qg4+ 60. Kc1 Qc4+ 61. Kd2 Qb4+ 62. Kd3 Qb3+ 63. Ke4 Qc2+ 64. Ke5 Qc5+ 65. Ke6&#xA;Qe3+ 66. Kf7 Qb3+ 67. Kf8 Qb4+ 68. Nd6 Qf4+ 69. Nf7+ Qxf7+ 70. Kxf7# 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;These games were found using &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.gadycosteff.com/cql/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;CQL 6&lt;/a&gt; with the query:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;cql()&#xA;mate&#xA;parent : move count legal == 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7133" LastActivityDate="2020-09-17T19:57:52.693" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32332" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32336" CreationDate="2020-09-17T20:46:00.387" Score="6" ViewCount="195" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am currently re-doing a book of tactical exercises. I have not seen some of the exercises for longer than a year, and when I look at the position at first it seems new and I see nothing, until it clicks and I remember the solution. It is not through calculation, I just stumble upon it and remember it. I of course verify my &amp;quot;guess&amp;quot; by calculation, but once one know it works it is not hard.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was wondering whether it is even worth going through a book if this is how I solve about 95% of the exercises, it feels a little like cheating and I should do new exercises. But then I think: Is this not how it is supposed to work? If a motif appears in my game, I will get the same feeling that something is there, and that is what the point of my training was, and by going through the book again I will reinforce the patterns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15478" LastActivityDate="2020-09-18T15:46:46.823" Title="Is memorizing tactics a sign of improvement?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32333" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32332" CreationDate="2020-09-17T21:00:44.417" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think that's a best case, not having to think about a combination, but 'knowing' it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's not a sign of improvement, but it's a definite plank in the platform.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2494" LastActivityDate="2020-09-17T21:00:44.417" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32334" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-09-17T21:35:55.543" Score="4" ViewCount="202" Body="&lt;p&gt;Does someone know the shortest orthodox&#xA;chess game such that a single square is&#xA;directly controlled 16 times?&#xA;After 1. Nf3 for instance, the square d2&#xA;is controlled 5 times.&#xA;And 2. ... Qa5 pushes the counter to 6. I guess this game (White and Black collaborating) would be around 23-26 moves long?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24675" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-09-18T20:44:13.160" LastActivityDate="2021-01-26T17:09:40.520" Title="Shortest game controlling a single square 16 times?" Tags="&lt;problems&gt;&lt;records&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32335" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32334" CreationDate="2020-09-17T22:32:16.813" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Addendum #2: It turns out that a move can actually be saved further still! Michel Caillaud wrote on the Retro Mailing List that &lt;strong&gt;19.5 moves&lt;/strong&gt; is possible!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Michel Caillaud, Retro Mailing List 9/18/2020, Non-unique Proof Game in 19.5 moves&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;[startply &amp;quot;39&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. f4 h5 2. f5 h4 3. f6 h3 4. fxe7 hxg2 5. exf8=N Rh6 6. Nh7 a5 7. Nc3 a4 8. e4 a3 9. e5 axb2 10. e6 b1=N 11. e7 Nxd2 12. Nh3 Ne4 13. Nf2 f6 14. Ng4 Kf7 15. Qxd7 Ra6 16. Qd4 Nd7 17. e8=N gxf1=N 18. Nd5 Nfg3 19. Bg5 Nh5 20. Rf1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Addendum #1 After some back and forth emailing on &lt;a href=&quot;https://pairlist1.pair.net/pipermail/retros/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;The Retro Mailing List&lt;/a&gt; last night, Eric Angelini has devised a much shorter game than mine in &lt;strong&gt;20.5 moves!&lt;/strong&gt; This is surely optimal. Good job Eric!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Eric Angelini, Retro Mailing List 9/18/2020, Non-unique Proof Game in 20.5 moves&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;[startply &amp;quot;41&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. a4 d5 2. a5 d4 3. a6 d3 4. axb7 dxc2 5. bxc8=N cxd1=N 6. Nb6 Nf6 7. Na4 Ne4 8. h4 f5 9. h5 f4 10. h6 f3 11. hxg7 fxg2 12. Nf3 g1=N 13. g8=N Nxe2 14. Nxe7 Na6 15. Nd5 Nb4 16. Ra3 Na2 17. Rxh7 Qf6 18. Rxc7 Rh3 19. Rc2 Bb4 20. Nd4 Rc8 21. Nb5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For starters, there are a limited number of squares that can be attacked 16 times. A square can only be attacked eight times horizontally and vertically, or four times from each direction. The other eight attacks are from one knight each. A knight can only have its full reach on the central sixteen squares. Therefore, we are restricted to those squares only.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Furthermore, while we have plenty of horizontal and vertical moving pieces in the initial game array, only four knights are present. This means that four more knights must be promoted. The shortest way to do this, theoretically, is to promote 2 knights for both White and Black to split the workload. Promoting four knights already puts us at least 10+ moves in total in addition to the knights' moves to their attacking squares.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is my beginning bid of &lt;strong&gt;25.5 moves&lt;/strong&gt; with the &lt;strong&gt;target&lt;/strong&gt; square of &lt;strong&gt;d6.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;[startply &amp;quot;51&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 e5 2. dxe5 d6 3. a4 b5 4. b4 a5 5. axb5 c5 6. Na3 c4 7. Nxc4 Ra6 8. bxa5 Rc6 9. b6 Nd7 10. b7 Nc5 11. a6 h5 12. a7 h4 13. a8=N h3 14. bxc8=N Nb7 15. Nc7+ Kd7 16. Nb5 Qc7 17. Ba3 hxg2 18. h4 Rh6 19. h5 Re6 20. h6 Nf6 21. h7 Ne8 22. h8=N gxf1=N 23. Nxf7 Nd2 24. Nf3 Ne4 25. Nh4 Be7 26. Nf5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-01-26T17:09:40.520" LastActivityDate="2021-01-26T17:09:40.520" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32336" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32332" CreationDate="2020-09-18T00:14:06.797" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think it is a sign of greater awareness of certain patterns and positions. So my answer is Yes, I do think it is a sign of improvement.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I doubt that there is anything wrong with going back through an old chess book, even if you remember everything -- rather I think it is good; it is something that I have done quite often as well. It will certainly reinforce what you already know. I would advance and get more exercises to work on, but you will find that all the previous exercises that you have done will help a great deal with your new exercises.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21088" LastActivityDate="2020-09-18T00:14:06.797" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32338" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32316" CreationDate="2020-09-18T06:25:44.433" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The !, ?, !?, and other such symbols are meant to highlight moves that are unusual in some way: Unusually good, unusually bad, unusually dubious depending on the opponent's response, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If they were used on opening moves, then they'd appear with practically every single game of chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At that point they'd become just noise and people would ignore them.  To have any impact, they have to be used rarely.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="382" LastActivityDate="2020-09-18T06:25:44.433" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32339" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32316" CreationDate="2020-09-18T07:17:29.027" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;As noted by the existing answers, opening moves are usually standard and as such expected to at least some degree.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Arguably, Fischer’s 1. c4 in the sixth game of the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Chess_Championship_1972&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;1972 World Championship match&lt;/a&gt; could deserve an exclamation mark, since it was a remarkably good strategical move, albeit somewhat “meta-strategic”.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20839" LastActivityDate="2020-09-18T07:17:29.027" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32340" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32316" CreationDate="2020-09-18T09:38:01.647" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;To try to give a concrete example consider Sax-Seirawan, Brussels 1988&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &amp;quot;World Cup&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Site &amp;quot;Brussels&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Date &amp;quot;1988.??.??&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Round &amp;quot;?&amp;quot;]&#xA;[White &amp;quot;Sax, Gyula&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Black &amp;quot;Seirawan, Yasser&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Result &amp;quot;1/2-1/2&amp;quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &amp;quot;2610&amp;quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &amp;quot;2595&amp;quot;]&#xA;[ECO &amp;quot;B09&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 d6 2. d4 Nf6 3. Nc3 g6 4. f4 Bg7 5. Nf3 c5 6. Bb5+ Bd7 7. e5 Ng4 8. e6  fxe6! 9. Ng5 Bxb5 10. Nxe6 Bxd4!! 11. Nxd8 Bf2+ 12. Kd2 Be3+ 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Annotation is mine to make the point)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In 1988 before this game &lt;code&gt;8 ... fxe6&lt;/code&gt; was considered a blunder and the whole &lt;code&gt;5 ... c5&lt;/code&gt; line was considered somewhat dubious. However Seirawan's find of &lt;code&gt;10 ... Bxd4!!&lt;/code&gt; effectively gave birth to a major new line in the Pirc, and Chess Informant voted this the most theoretically important game for the first half of 1988. Later white found ways to avoid the draw, and line is considered fairly equal nowadays, but even back then such strong novelties as early as move 10 were rare, and now, especially with engines coming into use, have all but disappeared.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So back in 1988 Bxd4 was a very surprising, strong move in a position where Black previously had been thought all but dead. Thus back in 1988 it deserved at least one if not more exclams. However nowadays it is routine - as a ~1850 patzer I have had this very game a number of times. It has lost its surprise value, and so no longer deserves the annotation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7726" LastActivityDate="2020-09-18T09:38:01.647" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32341" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-09-18T14:57:21.590" Score="1" ViewCount="81" Body="&lt;p&gt;In chess, exclamation points (&amp;quot;!&amp;quot;) indicate good moves and the double exclamation point (&amp;quot;!!&amp;quot;) is used for very strong moves. However, I do not know any symbol for &amp;quot;best moves&amp;quot;. There are moves which may not be surprising or involve any particular skill but are objectively the best move or one of the best moves in a particular position. With the help of modern engines, it may not be too difficult to see if a move is &amp;quot;the best&amp;quot; in a certain position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When analysing games, one knows immediately that there is no room for improvement for such moves if such a symbol is used; isn't it convenient?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16626" LastActivityDate="2020-09-18T15:37:51.803" Title="Why don't people develop a annotation symbol for &quot;best moves&quot;?" Tags="&lt;annotation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2020-09-18T15:39:11.357" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32342" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32341" CreationDate="2020-09-18T15:02:51.133" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Moves that are significantly worse than the best option are annotated with &lt;strong&gt;?!&lt;/strong&gt;. If the difference between the move in a game and the &amp;quot;best&amp;quot; move is not big enough, then it doesn't matter whether some engine gives one a 0.02 better evaluation than the other.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In some sense, you could argue that &lt;strong&gt;!&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;!!&lt;/strong&gt; and no annotation at all already indicate that the move played was the best possible option (or in the latter case, just as good as it)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastActivityDate="2020-09-18T15:02:51.133" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32343" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32341" CreationDate="2020-09-18T15:37:51.803" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is a so called 'best' move ??&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are moves played by deep engines equivalent to real moves by real people with real limitations and genuine concerns really the same?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Who is to say what is 'best' when two people play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I recently had a game (10min) against a higher rated opponent.&#xA;He moved his queen and I took it.  He resigned.  What he did not see was that he could have mated me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So was nxq best?  Or should I have resigned as he would have been a piece up?  Was his resigns best?? Or should he have mated me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From my perspective nxq was the best move as he resigned.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Your view would be that nxq allowing mate in 2 was not best.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So just what is 'best' and who gets to define 'best' ??&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24757" LastActivityDate="2020-09-18T15:37:51.803" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32344" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32332" CreationDate="2020-09-18T15:46:46.823" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;memorize?  no!!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;intuitively understand and execute without thinking  then yes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24757" LastActivityDate="2020-09-18T15:46:46.823" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32346" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-09-18T20:16:27.377" Score="6" ViewCount="160" Body="&lt;p&gt;From the orthodox starting position, how many moves will you need to have the 32 pieces protected exactly once? (The answer is astonishingly low.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24675" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-09-18T20:44:06.017" LastActivityDate="2020-09-26T10:19:33.957" Title="32 pieces protected once: How many moves?" Tags="&lt;problems&gt;&lt;records&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32347" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32348" CreationDate="2020-09-19T01:56:46.987" Score="3" ViewCount="351" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Vienna game/gambit goes as 1. e4 e5 2. Nc3 .. 3. f4...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why is this considered much more solid/sound than just the King's gambit. It doesn't seem to me that the extra 2. Nc3 thrown in is doing anything?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Additionally, how is the Vienna gambit different from the Vienna game when 3. g3 is played? 3. g3 followed by fianchetto of the f1 Bishop seems to give more semi-open positions. So it seems to me that 3. f4 and 3. g3 would lead to very very different types of games and should be considered two different openings entirely.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23502" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-09-19T12:53:50.923" LastActivityDate="2020-09-19T20:23:33.283" Title="Vienna Gambit vs King' Gambit" Tags="&lt;1.e4&gt;&lt;kings-gambit&gt;&lt;kings-indian-attack&gt;&lt;vienna-game&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32348" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32347" CreationDate="2020-09-19T04:37:37.463" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;The inclusion of 2. Nc3 ahead of f2-f4 is most significant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Consider 1. e4 e5 2. f4. Does 2. f4 aid White's development? Does 2. f4 make a threat? In both cases, no. 1. e4 e5 2. f4 isn't a threat because if we gave White an additional move for 3. fxe5, then 3...Qh4+ ruins White's day. That's the first reason for 2. Nc3: by guarding e4, it means f2-f4 will make a genuine threat of f4xe5 because following ...Qd8-h4+, ...Qh4xe4 is out of the picture.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The other reason for 2. Nc3 is its influence on d5, given that when White plays f2-f4 as a means of getting the upper hand in the center (by deflecting the e5-pawn, or capturing it), Black's simplest counter in the center is ...d7-d5. However, it does not at dissuade Black from  &lt;strong&gt;2. Nc3 Nf6 3. f4 d5&lt;/strong&gt;, by far the most common continuation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If White wants to play this flavor of Vienna, he has to like the positions that result from &lt;strong&gt;4. fxe5 Nxe4 5. Nf3&lt;/strong&gt;. If White really wants to shut off ...d7-d5, he can postpone f2-f4 for still another move with 3. Bf1-c4. &lt;em&gt;That&lt;/em&gt; invites the craziness of 3...Nxe4, which is a whole 'nother ballgame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;2...Nf6 3. f4 d5 is most common, but say Black lets White carry out his plan. Suppose &lt;strong&gt;1. e4 e5 2. Nc3 Nc6&lt;/strong&gt; Then &lt;strong&gt;3. f4 exf4 4. Nf3&lt;/strong&gt;. Black is willing to go for this because the knight on c3 is sort of misplaced!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Again, consider the immediate 2. f4. &lt;strong&gt;1. e4 e5 2. f4 exf4 3. Nf3&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(3. Bc4 was the choice of Fischer and Polgar, allowing 3...Qh4+, for whatever that' worth. Keres played 3. Nc3 in his brash youth, after which 3...Qh4+ is more meaningful because White's flight is Ke1-e2 rather than Ke1-f1. Steinitz tried the most thematic 3. d4, but 3...Qh4+ compels 4. Ke2 in that case, also. I wrote an entire book on 3. h4.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;3...g5 4. Bc4&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(4. h4 is more positionally logical, though 4. Bc4 is equally popular, partly because some players with Black will choose 4...g4 5. O-O gxf3)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;4...Bg7.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4...Bg7 is a huge move, mostly because it guards the h8-rook,. so 5. h4 doesn't force ...g5-g4, but can be met by 5...h6 6. hxg5 hxg5 7. Rxh8 Bxh8.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And since ...Bf8-g7 is such a useful move for Black in those King's Gambit Accepted positions, White would rather leave c3 open for the pawn to support d4 (but that Vienna knight prohibits that, and is therefore somewhat misplaced — how ironic).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;About 1. e4 e5 2. Nc3 plus 3. g3. There White is keeping f2-f4 in reserve for a long time, after his kingside development is complete (the Bg2 influences Black's main counterattack square d5 from a distance), and the queenside has d2-d3, after which f2-f4 will have the Bc1 behind it &lt;em&gt;and&lt;/em&gt; the  Pg3. These positions are actually very quiet because the pieces don't come into contact as quickly (obviously g2-g3 plus Bf1-g2 is less combative than Bf1-c4 which invites a fight with ...Ng8-f6 plus ...d7-d5). In many of those games, White kept f2-f4 in reserve until it most safe, and then goes on with f4-f5 to take all the kingside space (presumably while Pe4, Nc3, and Bg2 keep Black under wraps).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2494" LastEditorUserId="2494" LastEditDate="2020-09-19T06:17:48.447" LastActivityDate="2020-09-19T06:17:48.447" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32349" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32352" CreationDate="2020-09-19T05:08:36.450" Score="0" ViewCount="95" Body="&lt;p&gt;A couple friends and I built a mobile app (&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chesspuzzleblitz.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess Puzzle Blitz&lt;/a&gt;) where we allow people to compete for fun or money solving chess puzzles.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We have a pretty large puzzle database but are always adding to it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One thing we keep iterating on is the types of puzzles we surface (currently only mates 1 through 5 (usually 1-&amp;gt;3). For example, &lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;one feedback we got early on is that black puzzles are harder because of the mental switching between puzzles&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt; (so we rate black puzzles harder in that context).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For you, what makes a chess puzzle a good puzzle and what elements make them hard/frustrating?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24762" LastActivityDate="2020-09-19T06:25:29.627" Title="What makes a chess puzzle hard to solve?" Tags="&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;puzzles&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2020-09-19T09:36:56.720" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32350" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32349" CreationDate="2020-09-19T05:30:29.563" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Each player has his own form of tactical blindness, so &amp;quot;what makes a problem difficult&amp;quot; varies from solver to solver. If one of the key moves is backward-going, I'll never find it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some players forget that when they move a piece within their calculation, it no longer covers the squares it did before.  Some players have a hard time counting multiple exchanges on the same square. Different for all.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Black puzzles are harder&amp;quot; is silly. Chess pieces are only light and dark for convenience. The pieces could all be the same shade of gray, and chess could still be played as long as the players remembered which gray pieces belong to which player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When it's &amp;quot;Black to play and win&amp;quot;, flip the board so Black's on the bottom of the diagram, and you will find them just as simple to solve.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2494" LastActivityDate="2020-09-19T05:30:29.563" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32351" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4302" CreationDate="2020-09-19T06:00:03.447" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Copy and paste into PGN.(nearly every site will let you do this)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can then save PGN into a Word document.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can then copy and paste back into whatever you want. Lichess offers a database and very strong engine but you can pick whatever software you want.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2020-09-19T06:00:03.447" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32352" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32349" CreationDate="2020-09-19T06:25:29.627" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The biggest factors is how many possible moves there are. If you have lots of moves available to you, then it can be harder to find the correct one. And if there are many possible responses, it can take a long time to come up with a refutation for each of them. And the more moves it takes to accomplish the objective of the puzzle, the more possible moves accrue; a mate in four will tend to be more difficult than a mate in one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If there are lots of possible moves, then there are various tactics to prune the moves, and how difficult the puzzle is depends on how amenable  it is to those tactics, how familiar the solver is with them, and whether they go after the right pruning first. For instance, things to look for in a puzzle are delivering checks, removing escape options for the king, capturing pieces, activating your own pieces, and reducing your opponent's pieces usefulness. So things like requiring a move that doesn't immediately seem to accomplishing any of these things makes your puzzle harder. The more &amp;quot;unintuitive&amp;quot; the correct move is, the harder the puzzle, but different people will have different intuitions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15221" LastActivityDate="2020-09-19T06:25:29.627" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32353" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32354" CreationDate="2020-09-19T07:51:12.380" Score="8" ViewCount="833" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the Italian game, according to the Lichess masters database, the play usually starts similarly to&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Bc5 4. c3 Nf6 5. d3 d6 6. O-O O-O 7. Bb3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, this completely ignores the threat of Bg4, that can be played by black after 5... d6. This pin is somewhat nasty, since it can't be broken by retreating the light-squared bishop to e2 and breaking the pin by h3 followed by g4 weakens the kingside considerably.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I also remember some chess video recommending beginners to play h3 as soon as black plays d6 in the Italian game. Interestingly, Stockfish evaluates this position after playing 7... Bg4 as roughly +0.5, so 7... Bg4 is an inaccuracy. Actually, the engine also claims that after 7... a6 8. Bg5 an analogous pin from white also leads from white's slight advantage to an equality.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why do masters (and higher-rated players) ignore the threat of Bg4?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7741" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-09-19T15:46:24.070" LastActivityDate="2020-09-20T02:51:53.517" Title="Why don't masters prevent the pin after Bg4 in the modern Italian game?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;italian-game&gt;&lt;pins&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32354" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32353" CreationDate="2020-09-19T09:43:31.447" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;You're referring to ...Bc8-g4 as a threat. The only threat it makes is ...Bg4xf3, losing time and the bishop pair.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While White has d4 under wraps with a pawn at c3, theere's no ...Nc6-d4 coming to pressure the pinned knight. The f6-knight has to move to a lesser square to prepare ...Qd8-f6, which is nothing because Nb1-d2 is right at hand to prevent a fracture of White's king position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A bishop at g4 is a target for this maneuver: Nb1-d2-f1-e3 or Nb1-d2-f1-g3 plus h2-h3 when the bishop can't maintain the pin by ...Bg4-h5. White also has the option of h2-h3 plus g2-g4 (if ...Bh5) then one of those knight maneuvers aims for f5 at the end. See, you're talking about h3 plus g4 like it's a bad thing but while the center control and development are equal, it's not so risky to create those holes in the king position, and if there's nothing going on the center, then that expansion (or a4, b4, a5, etc. on the other wing) is one of the only ways to generate heat.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is not a position for inexpert players to be concerned with. It's very quiet, which is OK for masters, because they know how to fend off an opponent who stirs it up too soon, and because they know how to open the quiet position when it's the right time. Average players and students should be studying games in which the tactics arise early, because it's recognizing those tactics that eventually gets them to where they're genuinely able to play these humdrum Giuoco Pianos.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2494" LastEditorUserId="2494" LastEditDate="2020-09-19T15:27:03.213" LastActivityDate="2020-09-19T15:27:03.213" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32355" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13871" CreationDate="2020-09-19T10:27:24.163" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;What I did in my program was to only look for checkmates if the king was in check. I only generate pseudo-legal moves in my move generation function so I simply play out all the moves generated and check if the king still is in check. If this is the case I undo that move and delete it from my list of moves. This is repeated until I find a legal move or the list is exhausted. When the list is exhausted I know it must be checkmate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24536" LastActivityDate="2020-09-19T10:27:24.163" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32356" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32347" CreationDate="2020-09-19T20:23:33.283" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;To try to avoid the Albin.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If black plays nf6 he can still counter with d5 and avoid a pure KG.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24768" LastActivityDate="2020-09-19T20:23:33.283" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32357" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13638" CreationDate="2020-09-20T02:25:52.807" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't know there's a book that covers all of those openings well. The Pinski book tries to but I don't think they do a good job.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My favorite book on the Evans is Harding's book.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The two knights can go in a lot of different directions so you might look into how you want to play it first.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Giuoco Piano and modern bishop's opening may look similar but are very different. I don't know of any book that gives good coverage of both.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2020-09-20T02:25:52.807" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32358" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-09-20T02:32:39.427" Score="4" ViewCount="1012" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am an amateur player and do not have much time to study and memorise complicated opening lines. Am wondering after 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3, if 2...Nf6 is a safer and simpler option for black than 2...Nc6. My database shows that after 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3, the move which gives white the lowest winning percentage is 2...Nf6 instead of 2...Nc6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16626" LastEditorUserId="307" LastEditDate="2020-09-20T06:47:48.673" LastActivityDate="2020-09-21T22:31:08.290" Title="After 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3, is 2...Nf6 safer and easier to learn than Nc6?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;1.e4&gt;&lt;petroff-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32359" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32370" CreationDate="2020-09-20T02:48:14.093" Score="12" ViewCount="2391" Body="&lt;p&gt;Assume that in an endgame, one side cannot theoretically lose (for example, his opponent has only a king) and he is not in any time crisis. In this case, what will/should an arbiter do if this player resigns? Will/should the arbiter accept the result of the resignation, or will/should the arbiter consider this as bad sportsmanship and take further actions against this player?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Though almost no reasonable player will do this under normal circumstances, I am still wondering if this had ever happened in professional games before.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16626" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-01-05T20:38:35.040" LastActivityDate="2021-01-05T20:38:35.040" Title="What will/should the arbiter do if the side which cannot theoretically lose resigns?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;resigning&gt;&lt;sportsmanship&gt;&lt;arbiters&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32360" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32353" CreationDate="2020-09-20T02:51:53.517" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, Bg4 isn't threatening anything. If I play 6. 0-0 and you play 6...Bg4 and then I give you a free move-Show me what the threat is. There isn't any.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Second, h3 wastes a move for white that could be used to improve his position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Third, you shouldn't assume that pins are bad. White can often play gxf3 which opens the g-file for attack and reinforces the e4 pawn. Qb3 is an option with the double attack on f7 and b7. There are countless unpin tactics particularly with sacs on f7.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lastly, you gain a tempo by waiting for Bg4 before playing h3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2020-09-20T02:51:53.517" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32361" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32374" CreationDate="2020-09-20T03:00:32.377" Score="2" ViewCount="252" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are some unique designs of chess pieces such as the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ewUDv.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/ewUDv.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/HyjNv.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/HyjNv.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/A7TjU.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/A7TjU.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(For the one above, I am not even sure if the setting up of pieces is correct.)&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/QcFfr.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/QcFfr.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I will not feel comfortable playing with any of these weird chess sets and if I have to play, my understanding of the positions will definitely be negatively affected.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Am wondering if this will affect professional players or other strong club players at all. Do designs of chess pieces affect them at all?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16626" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-09-20T04:24:31.627" LastActivityDate="2020-09-20T22:22:41.120" Title="Does the design of chess pieces affect professional chess players at all?" Tags="&lt;psychology&gt;&lt;pieces&gt;&lt;chess-set&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32362" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4578" CreationDate="2020-09-20T03:33:37.787" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;White can maintain a solid positional advantage in the declined and has a pretty fair amount of traps. I don't think it's a good line for black. It's a line where black is trying to navigate a minefield to get to a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2020-09-20T03:33:37.787" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32363" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32358" CreationDate="2020-09-20T03:33:44.860" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;As an amateur player, you should know the connotation that 2...Nf6  (The Petrov defense) has a reputation of being more boring and more of a draw than 2...Nc6 (leading to the Ruy Lopez, Italian, and Scotch games). However, this really doesn't apply at the amateur level. In fact, you're much more likely to win or lose than draw, unlikely to the masters' database showing that certain lines have a drawish tendency.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So my suggestion, as unexciting as it is, is play what you like! Try out Nf6, try out Nc6, and see what pawn structures/middlegames you're getting in your games. Do you like them? Do you prefer one or the other? Play that one more often!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3884" LastActivityDate="2020-09-20T03:33:44.860" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32364" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32358" CreationDate="2020-09-20T04:15:05.247" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;For practical reasons, 2...Nf6 is better for you than 2...Nc6, because 2...Nc6 does not make a threat, and your opponent won't have to think about anything. But if you counterattack with 2...Nf6, then your opponent has to think, and that's what you want: your opponents thinking for themselves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's in practice. In theory, 2...Nf6 can be safer than 2...Nc6, can also be wilder. Depends on where the players take it, in practice. Your opponent has 50 percent of the say about whether your moves are safe.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it easier to learn? What does that even mean?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you think &amp;quot;learning an opening&amp;quot; will help your results, that's nonsense. The best chess teacher ever, Cecil Purdy, said: &amp;quot;Some players think they could play a good game 'if they only knew the opening'. This is just crazy.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why do you think you need to &lt;em&gt;learn&lt;/em&gt; an opening? This is the dumb idea that 99% of chessplayers have. Your only real job in the opening is to reach a playable middlegame, one with rough equality in center control, development, and king safety. You can get there playing whatever you want, as long as you're mindful of the general principles of the opening, and especially of the tactics. Chessplayers are pretty dumb about this: They think they lose &lt;em&gt;in&lt;/em&gt; the opening because they're bad &lt;em&gt;at&lt;/em&gt; the opening. They lose in the opening because they're bad at tactics.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let's say you want to be dumb about it, like your friends and neighbors, and you think you absolutely must know something about 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nf6 to survive your next session of play. Here's what they will tell you here on StackExchange: It's more important to know the ideas behind an opening than memorizing the moves in that opening. That is actually code for: Give me fewer things to remember.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chessplayers sort of figure out through experience that memorizing strings of moves gets them nowhere. Their opponent will vary from their book knowledge, then they are floundering. Or they reach the end of their book knowledge with a magical +=, but then what? Then they're wandering around lost in the middlegame. So chessplayers say &amp;quot;if you learn the &lt;em&gt;ideas&lt;/em&gt;, you can find moves based on the &lt;em&gt;ideas&lt;/em&gt;&amp;quot;. And because there are fewer &lt;em&gt;ideas&lt;/em&gt; to learn than strings of moves, chessplayers think they've got opening learning figured out. This doesn't drill down deep enough. What if — instead of knowing the ideas behind one opening — you knew the ideas behind &lt;em&gt;all&lt;/em&gt; the openings? This will save you untold hours of study time, understanding that if you're playing to maintain at least one pawn in the center, maintain roughly equal development, and tuck your king as safely as his, you'll be OK.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I already said that people who &amp;quot;learn&amp;quot; openings get lost in the middlegame, rendering their opening knowledge moot. It helps your opening play if you know what your rooks are doing during the middlegame. Purdy said: &amp;quot;The real test of one's opening is the play it gives the rooks.&amp;quot; Primarily because of what grandmaster Fine said about favorable middlegames: If you have emerged from the opening with better center control, better development, and better king safety, you clearly have a superior middlegame position. And from a superior middlegame position, attack the enemy king by opening files for your rooks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But sometimes you can't checkmate them, and it's impossible to avoid an endgame. The endgame is inevitable. You cannot put pieces back on the board to the second move and play 2...Nf6 all over again, you will reach endgames. So it is imperative that you know what a favorable endgame looks like and what an unfavorable endgame looks like. Otherwise you will never know during the middlegame whether you want to swap units to simplify the position or to preserve units on the board to keep things complicated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In other words, you can get through the opening with pretty much anything. Purdy said it's impossible to play a perfect opening, but it's pretty easy to play a decent one. And no matter what happens in the middlegame, you have to judge whether or not you want to head toward that endgame that's on the horizon. So learn endgames. You have to. A mistake in the opening will not kill you. A mistake in the endgame turns a win into a draw, a draw into a loss. Mistakes at the end are far more costly than whether Stockfish says one move in the opening is .35 better than some other move in the opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The beauty of this is that endgame &lt;em&gt;can&lt;/em&gt; be learned, while the opening &lt;em&gt;cannot&lt;/em&gt;. You &lt;em&gt;can&lt;/em&gt; learn how to play perfectly every position with three units on the board. Then you add a unit, and learn how to play all the positions with four units on the board. Perfectly doable. And work your way backward. It took me 50 years; I'm still working on positions with four units on the board. So isn't it logical and common sense that if learning positions with few units on the board is more valuable and more doable, then that's far more important than wondering what to do at move 2 with 32 units on the board?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This might be LOTS more than you wanted to know, but if you want to get good at this, you have to know it, the sooner, the better. And by telling you, I get to tell everyone else reading it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2494" LastActivityDate="2020-09-20T04:15:05.247" CommentCount="17" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32365" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32375" CreationDate="2020-09-20T04:23:19.713" Score="2" ViewCount="218" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Berolina pawn is a fairy piece that moves like a normal pawn, but can move two (and one in all other cases) steps diagonally and capture one forward. How much better (or worse) is this piece compared to a normal pawn?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-09-20T18:59:27.533" LastActivityDate="2020-09-21T10:25:16.750" Title="Material value of the Berolina pawn" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;point-value&gt;&lt;unorthodox-pieces&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32366" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32358" CreationDate="2020-09-20T08:05:17.167" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Objectively speaking, &lt;strong&gt;2...Nc6&lt;/strong&gt; is the strongest reply. That's why it's preferred by most top players. &lt;strong&gt;2...Nf6&lt;/strong&gt; is an interesting alternative, but it often leads to more drawish positions after &lt;strong&gt;3.Nxe5 d6 4.Nf3 Nxe4&lt;/strong&gt;, but White can also go for &lt;strong&gt;4.Nxf7!?&lt;/strong&gt;, which is an inferior line, but very sharp and it can put you in big trouble if you don't know it well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So it all boils down to what you feel more comfortable with. Both moves are perfectly playable but you need to figure out what type of position you understand better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to play &lt;strong&gt;2...Nf6&lt;/strong&gt;, you'll have to be ready for the &lt;strong&gt;4.Nxf7&lt;/strong&gt; line, and also understand how to play in those positions with the open &amp;quot;e&amp;quot; file. White can also try &lt;strong&gt;3.Nc3&lt;/strong&gt;, with a transposition to the four knights opening after &lt;strong&gt;3...Nc6&lt;/strong&gt;, which is its own story but still not as hard to learn as &lt;strong&gt;2.Nc6&lt;/strong&gt; as White has lost a lot of its flexitiblity (most lines in the Italian or Spanish openings play a &lt;strong&gt;c2-c3&lt;/strong&gt; push at some point.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand &lt;strong&gt;2...Nc6&lt;/strong&gt; will need you to be ready for (mainly) &lt;strong&gt;3.Bb5&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;3.Bc4&lt;/strong&gt; and **3.d4, all of them being very complex openings with a lot of theory on them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, even if your skill level doesn't directly play a role on which one to choose, it will definitely have an impact on the time that is worth dedicating to openings. If you're not a particularly strong player, you may want to play &lt;strong&gt;2..Nf6&lt;/strong&gt; just to need less studying and move on to things like tactics and strategy, but in that case you may also want to play a completely different defense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastActivityDate="2020-09-20T08:05:17.167" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32367" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32361" CreationDate="2020-09-20T08:09:35.223" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Probably not. Most top chess players can play blindfolded and still beat almost the entire chess community. It may have an impact on Blitz game, but once they've been played with these sets for a while, they'd be used to them and have no bigger issues.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastActivityDate="2020-09-20T08:09:35.223" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32368" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32316" CreationDate="2020-09-20T10:01:43.747" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Lots of good answers here, but I'll add one perspective that's kind of been missed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Every chess game starts out in a position that &lt;em&gt;has been played before by others&lt;/em&gt;. The game continues in this state until, at some point, in some games, play evolves into a position &lt;strong&gt;that has never been played before&lt;/strong&gt;. It is certain that you will not find an &lt;code&gt;!&lt;/code&gt; on moves that simply replicate a game that has already been played before because there is nothing surprising about copying a line from another player into a position that both players know, understand, and have seen before.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Only once a game moves into a novel position are the players truly challenged to demonstrate their skill and you will typically not see &lt;code&gt;!&lt;/code&gt; used until it produces such a novel position, and only rarely even then.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When Einstein published the theory of relativity, he was hailed as a genius.  &lt;code&gt;!&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When an undergraduate physics student turns in the same equations as homework a hundred years later, they simply get to come back the next day instead of being sent home with an &lt;strong&gt;F&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;!&lt;/code&gt; is relative.  If you're the first person to make that move, sure - you deserve it.  If, 20 years later, that move is standard play into a line 3 moves deeper yet and you're just dancing through an opening with your opponent...well, sorry, no &lt;code&gt;!&lt;/code&gt; for you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18439" LastEditorUserId="18439" LastEditDate="2020-09-20T10:59:06.043" LastActivityDate="2020-09-20T10:59:06.043" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32369" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32361" CreationDate="2020-09-20T12:03:44.190" Score="5" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Am wondering if this will affect professional players or other strong&#xA;club players at all. Do designs of chess pieces affect them at all?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The short answer is &amp;quot;No&amp;quot; for the simple reason that they will never play any tournament chess with anything other than the standard Staunton design. The reason for &lt;em&gt;that&lt;/em&gt; is given in the FIDE document &lt;a href=&quot;https://handbook.fide.com/files/handbook/C02Standards.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Standards of Chess Equipment, venue for FIDE Tournaments, rate of play and tie-break regulations&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to the introduction -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This document defines the general standards for chess equipment and&#xA;conditions of play, rate of play and tie-break regulations to be used&#xA;in FIDE competitions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the subject of chess equipment it says this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1. Chess Equipment&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1.1&lt;/strong&gt; The chess equipment offered by the organisers (hosts) of a FIDE or Continental Championship, Olympiad and other FIDE registered&#xA;tournaments shall conform with the standards mentioned below, and&#xA;shall be approved by the Chief Organiser and the Chief Arbiter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1.1.1.&lt;/strong&gt; It is recommended, that the chess pieces, boards and clocks, used in the World or Continental top level competitions be&#xA;approved by participating players. Their approval shall be obtained&#xA;for other equipment the table, chairs etc. In case either side&#xA;disagrees, the equipment to be used shall be decided by the Chief&#xA;Organiser or the Chief Arbiter of the event, bearing in mind the&#xA;standards for its size and form as mentioned below.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1.1.2.&lt;/strong&gt; It is highly recommended that the chess equipment used in a competition is the same for all participants and all games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the design of the pieces it says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;2.3 Form, style of pieces&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Recommended for use in FIDE competitions are pieces of Staunton style.&#xA;The pieces should be shaped so as to be clearly distinguishable from&#xA;one another. In particular the top of the King should distinctly&#xA;differ from that of the Queen. The top of the Bishop may bear a notch&#xA;or be of a special colour clearly distinguishing it from that of the&#xA;Pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that in the US lower level tournaments often require players to bring their own equipment. The USCF has its own regulations regarding equipment detailed in Chapter 4 of their US Chess Rulebook. Chapters 1, 2 and 11 are available &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.uschess.org/index.php/Official-Rules/US-Chess-Rulebook-The-Official-Rules-of-Chess-7th-Edition-Tim-Just-Chief-Editor.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;free online&lt;/a&gt; but the USCF sees fit to charge for the rest of their rulebook. I would be slightly surprised if this allows non-standard designs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-09-20T12:03:44.190" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32370" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32359" CreationDate="2020-09-20T12:28:46.163" Score="25" Body="&lt;p&gt;The first thing to note is that the &lt;a href=&quot;https://handbook.fide.com/chapter/E012018&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Laws of Chess&lt;/a&gt; are silent on this. Resignation at any time in any situation is allowed and immediately ends the game:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5.1.2 The game is won by the player whose opponent declares he resigns. This immediately ends the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other methods of losing are qualified in some way. For example, checkmate is only valid if the preceding move was legal, a game where one player runs out of time is only a loss if there is some way (i.e. helpmate) that the opponent can deliver checkmate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However this is not the end of the story. There are also the &lt;a href=&quot;https://handbook.fide.com/files/handbook/ACCRegulations.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Anti-Cheating Regulations&lt;/a&gt;. They say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;These regulations deal with the investigation of suspected cheating incidents.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;“Cheating” in these regulations means:&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;i) the deliberate use of electronic devices (Art. 11.3.2 FIDE Laws of Chess) or other sources &amp;gt; of information or advice (Art. 11.3.1 FIDE Laws of Chess) during a&#xA;game; or&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;ii) the &lt;strong&gt;manipulation of chess competitions&lt;/strong&gt; such as,&#xA;including but not limited to, &lt;strong&gt;result manipulation&lt;/strong&gt;, sandbagging, &lt;strong&gt;match fixing&lt;/strong&gt;, rating fraud, false identity, and deliberate participation in&#xA;fictitious tournaments or games.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the arbiter believes the resignation was a result of ineptitude then it should stand. There have been examples of top GMs resigning drawn positions through ignorance and ineptitude.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the arbiter suspects some form of cheating or receives a complaint of such then this should be investigated. These things also happen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-09-20T12:28:46.163" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32371" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32358" CreationDate="2020-09-20T14:35:06.127" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Petrov is a sound opening but the problem is that white can basically force a queen trade in a symmetrical position. For example- 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. Nxe5 d6 4. Nf3 Nxe4&#xA;5. Qe2 Qe7 6. d3&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's okay for a GM but bad for a developing player for two reasons:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;You aren't going to get better playing these types of positions. There aren't a lot of tactics and the endgames are going to be boring attempts to draw rather than learning how to win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If the Petrov is your only defense to e4 that means you're going to have a lot of situations where you're playing someone rated 500 points below you and you can't find a way to win because they're just trading pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A good starter opening is the Scandinavian. If you know the line 1. e4 d5 2. exd5 Qxd5 3. Nc3 Qa5 and understand a few general ideas you can get a playable game against anyone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you get a little better and want to expand your rep then look at 2...Nc6. The Ruy Lopez is really all you have to worry about. You can equalize against the other lines fairly easily. Against the Ruy you have a lot of choices. If you don't play 3...a6 you cut out 90% of the theory. My favorite is the classical (3...Bc5). Black has an active and solid position but without a lot of theory. There's other options too like 3...d6, 3...Nge7, 3...Nd4 etc. 3...g6 is rarely played but probably fine. There's other options to avoid theory even after 3...a6. Just find a line you like that gives you reasonable chances. You won't see it that often anyway until you start getting pretty good.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After you get around 18-1900 you can look at other openings and start narrowing your rep. Below that point, theory isn't all that important. Most games don't go more than 4 or 5 moves deep into theory and you're just looking to get a playable position against the guy who memorized a single line 30 moves deep or the guy who learned a couple of traps. What you learn from the types of positions you get is the most important thing. The openings that will make you better are the ones that give you sound, active positions while avoiding theory and drawish positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-09-21T22:31:08.290" LastActivityDate="2020-09-21T22:31:08.290" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32372" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5394" CreationDate="2020-09-20T14:58:27.977" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;You make some interesting points. After 1. e4 c5 2. Nc3 Nc6 3. f4 white clearly has the better center from a classical standpoint. You say there's a &amp;quot;slight structural disadvantage&amp;quot; and while I don't necessarily disagree, I do agree that there are some weaknesses that might not be so obvious. Engines tend to rate these types of positions better for the other side as well. I still think white is objectively a little better despite all of the evidence to the contrary but it is something for me to think about.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That being said, from a practical standpoint, the opening is fine. The Lichess database sorted at &amp;lt;2200 has white crushing with a 54.5% win percentage. I think it's perfectly playable for most players&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For someone who likes f4/f5 openings (ie King's gambit, Dutch, Latvian, Schlieman etc) the GPA is an excellent choice and will lead to a lot of similar types of positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2020-09-20T14:58:27.977" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32373" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32361" CreationDate="2020-09-20T15:07:52.210" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I remember a line from a movie once that was something to the effect of: Chess is a game you play in your head not on a board. In other words, a good player should be able to play the same regardless of what the pieces or board look like.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2020-09-20T15:07:52.210" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32374" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32361" CreationDate="2020-09-20T22:22:41.120" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have played in the past with non-standard pieces, or even improvised ones (so it was just let's pick &lt;em&gt;something&lt;/em&gt; that can work as this type of piece). I find I had no problem at all, assuming the pieces were not confusingly similar among themselves and to the normal pieces they are not representing. So, if your knights were dragon-shaped that should be no problem, but I bet you would confuse most players if you played chess with bishops that looked like standard knights!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Looking at the above designs:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;First chess I would not consider problematic. The only confusing pieces I see are the King/Queen. The difference seems arbitrary, but since the Queen will probably move on a different board zone than the King, that would probably make the ambiguity not matter.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Second one is more confusing: King/Queen seem to differ mainly on its height (a good hint, but it would be better if they weren't so similar), and knights/bishops seem arbitrary (why choosing them this way?).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Third one is unusual, but actually seem quite clear. You can see that knights and bishops actually hint in their design the way they move. Queen and Kind seem clear, too. Note that the Queen will usually have a round crown design.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The last one seem the most confusing, as they seem a mixture of dragons with no pattern? (surely a dragon breeder would immediately the spot represented races and have no trouble at all!)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I suspect, however, that the ability to differentiate the pieces is probably a separate ability than playing chess. Advanced chess players will probably be less distracted by the weird sets (they &lt;em&gt;know&lt;/em&gt; there is a knight in that square), and weak players may be further hampered (unless they are using to the weird one); but good and bad chess players could be affected more than other good and bad players. I think those having problems with the set would favor a tactic of exchanging pieces, in order to reduce the number of weird pieces left on the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7985" LastActivityDate="2020-09-20T22:22:41.120" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32375" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32365" CreationDate="2020-09-21T10:25:16.750" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.gnu.org/gnu/gnu.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Gnu&lt;/a&gt;, which has a &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.gnu.org/software/xboard/whats_new/rules/Berolina.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;page dedicated to Berolina chess&lt;/a&gt;, the value of the Berolina pawn is the same as in standard chess, = 1. This is unsatisfactory because they give no explanation of how this evaluation was made.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The evaluations for standard chess existed before computer chess programs and were based on hundreds of years of experience playing standard chess. That doesn't exist for Berolina chess which was only invented in 1926 and is little played.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the absence of similar amounts of over-the-board games of Berolina I think the best approach to getting an accurate evaluation would be an AlphaZero-like simulation of millions of self-learning games which could provide the empirical data upon which a good evaluation could be made.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-09-21T10:25:16.750" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32376" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-09-21T21:45:40.847" Score="-1" ViewCount="30" Body="&lt;p&gt;I get lots of messages that say to check my connection or I will lose on time.  AFAIK I am always connected and see no obvious way to 'check my connection'&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Today I was up a piece against a much stronger player when that message showed up.  I tried to see of other aps were connected to the internet by checking my email and I was connected.  In less than a minute when I had returned I had apparently lost on time even though my connection was clearly active then on chessbase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The other guy had timed it to call the arbiter and get a win declared.   Makes me think he knows how to make my connection appear to be gone because many times I click arbiter over and over and get no response at all although sometimes it is they are connected or they are gone and I do get the win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chessbase appears to be full of bugs as that message usually appears after I see that it had switched servers.  Why it needs to switch servers is a big mystery too,  but my question is:&#xA;HOW DO YOU CHECK A CONNECTION?  When I reload the page I have a connection but that always loses the position I was in and starts me over with a new game.  There must be another way to check a connection.  And how do you reconnect should you find out you are not connected.  This seems to be a chessbase problem not on my PC end.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24780" LastActivityDate="2020-09-21T22:25:19.437" Title="how does one check their connection in chessbase.com" Tags="&lt;chessbase&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2020-09-21T23:10:48.027" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32378" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32376" CreationDate="2020-09-21T22:25:19.437" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Check your connection&amp;quot; means that the application is having problems connecting to the internet, so it asks you to &amp;quot;check your internet connection&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Suppose your computer was connected to the router with a cable:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/78/Patch_cable_with_RJ45_connector.jpg/180px-Patch_cable_with_RJ45_connector.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;computer cable&quot; /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This cable is faulty, and if it gets moved, you shortly lose the connection. You would need to either avoid it being touched or -longterm- replacing the faulty wire.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are on wireless, the same could happen, you might be losing packets although that's less visual. That could be due to other people using the wireless spectrum or even their microwave.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a way to test your connectivity, you can open a command line prompt, and execute a command like &lt;code&gt;ping 8.8.8.8&lt;/code&gt; to ping a known server (in this example Google DNS) and see if some packets get lost. If they are, you should then take steps to correct it, but that's outside the scope of this Stack Exchange. You might want to ask your ISP / computer technician fix it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7985" LastActivityDate="2020-09-21T22:25:19.437" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32379" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32400" CreationDate="2020-09-22T02:28:49.233" Score="4" ViewCount="392" Body="&lt;p&gt;This might be too broad a question, but can anyone recommend specific books that deal with chess engines, including hard-coded ones such as Stockfish, Komodo, and other ones also based on neural networks and reinforcement learning? I want to get a broad overview of the logic behind chess engines, and maybe experiment in building one myself. For starters, is there anywhere I can refer to understand the Stockfish source code for example, and Alpha Zero respectively?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23502" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-09-22T03:53:54.683" LastActivityDate="2020-09-26T14:23:48.300" Title="Book recommendation for chess engine building" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;books&gt;&lt;alphazero&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32380" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32384" CreationDate="2020-09-22T08:06:09.420" Score="3" ViewCount="164" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have looked at many grandmaster games where White starts off with 1.c4, which later mostly transposes into a King's Indian. However, Black could have immediately played 1...e5, which seems slightly better. Why would Black not take this opportunity?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastActivityDate="2020-09-24T07:01:37.133" Title="Transposition into KID" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;kings-indian&gt;&lt;english-opening&gt;&lt;transpositions&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32383" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-09-22T09:17:30.980" Score="0" ViewCount="94" Body="&lt;p&gt;Again , this is an interesting position I need help to solve. In a game Stockfish vs Ethereal , Stockfish was ahead , but Ethereal could have found  refuge in the following endgame. Is the position winning for White anyway? Could Black steer it into a positional draw?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[White &amp;quot;Stockfish&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Black &amp;quot;Ethereal&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;4b3/4N1k1/3R3p/r7/8/P6P/5KP1/8 b - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24709" LastEditorUserId="24511" LastEditDate="2020-09-22T12:51:12.993" LastActivityDate="2020-09-22T20:04:09.910" Title="Computer chess endgame" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32384" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32380" CreationDate="2020-09-22T09:20:53.807" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;It is a matter of choice&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many grandmasters (e.g. world champion Viswanathan Anand) have consistently played 1.c4 e5 with Black. Others favour the KID or other defenses : Hedgehog (with b6), symmetrical English (1.c4 c5), Pseudo-Nimzo (with Nf6 and e6), Pseudo-Grünfeld (with Nf6 and d5), Réti (with e6 and d5) or Slav-like (with c6 and d5) defenses...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is no definitive hierarchy between all those schemes. You may well prefer 1...e5 and you won't be the only one (this is actually my favorite retort nowadays) but there is no objective reason to think that this choice should be &amp;quot;slightly better&amp;quot; than other reasonable defenses. What suits us doesn't suit everybody.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The case with the KID&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The King's Indian Defense has many pluses and minuses: lack of space, ressources for counterplay, long theoretical lines... But one thing that makes it attractive for many players with Black is that the KID is an holistic opening solution for everything but 1.e4 : if you wanna play the KID, you can go for it whether I start with 1.d4, 1.c4, 1.Nf3, even 1.g3 or 1.b3, and there is little I can do to stop you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a consequence players who are confident in their KID repertoire against 1.d4 have little incentive to switch to different schemes to meet 1.c4, and prefer to transpose with 1...Nf6 and 2...g6 rather than work on the theory of the pure English 1.c4 e5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastEditorUserId="14079" LastEditDate="2020-09-24T07:01:37.133" LastActivityDate="2020-09-24T07:01:37.133" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32385" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32383" CreationDate="2020-09-22T13:06:25.797" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am unsure what version of Stockfish you were using so I ran analysis 12 times; 4 seperate engines for each version of Stockfish.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Stockfish 10 vs ( Ethereal , Komodo, LC0 , Stockfish 12 )&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Stockfish 11 vs ( Ethereal , Komodo, LC0 , Stockfish 12 )&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Stockfish 12 vs ( Ethereal , Komodo, LC0 , Stockfish 12 )&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Results were Stockfish (white) at the end of 20+ moves, was in a stronger position in all 9 instances. Based off this, I would suggest black is in a losing and in a irrecoverable position. There is the potential for a draw but it appears extremely unlikely.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The best variation / playout that I saw, that had the best end position for black, was Stockfish 12 vs Stockfish 12. +-3.03 / 41 so white is decisively better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Issue with engine games in these sort of positions are the gameplay is boring. That being said, I have attached it for reference though.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[White &amp;quot;Stockfish 12&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Black &amp;quot;Stockfish 12&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;4b3/4N1k1/3R3p/r7/8/P6P/5KP1/8 b - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... h5 2. Rd3 Kh6 3. Kg1 Kg7 4. Rc3 Kf7 5. Nc8 Kf6 6. Nd6 Bg6 7. Kh2 Ra4 8. Rf3+ Kg5 9. Nb5 Kh6 10. Nc7 Ra5 11. Ne6 Bf5 12. Re3 Bg6 13. Rc3 Bf7 14. Nf4 Kg5 15. Ne2 Ra4 16. Rf3 Bg6 17. Rg3+ Kh6 18. Rc3 Be4 19. Nf4 Ba8 20. Ne6 Ra5 21. Nc5 Bd5 22. Nd3 Ra4 23. Nb4 Be4 24. Re3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From my experience with engine games this is going to continue on for some time. Eventually the Black h pawn and Whites a pawns will go (will likely also involve trading out the bishops somewhere ) , white with the pawn advantage will promote.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24511" LastEditorUserId="24511" LastEditDate="2020-09-22T13:10:30.697" LastActivityDate="2020-09-22T13:10:30.697" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32388" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32380" CreationDate="2020-09-22T19:56:56.573" Score="-5" Body="&lt;p&gt;c4 e5  is playing the sicilian an extra move behind&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;most e4  players do not want to play the sicilian so I doubt they would do it as black either.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would far prefer the KID to behind a move in sicilian.&#xA;so why do you think c4 e5 is so good for black?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24781" LastActivityDate="2020-09-22T19:56:56.573" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32390" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32383" CreationDate="2020-09-22T20:04:09.910" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;this would be tough to win OTB  with many ways to end up drawn&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a computer might do it but I doubt it would be quick and easy&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24787" LastActivityDate="2020-09-22T20:04:09.910" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32391" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32398" CreationDate="2020-09-22T20:27:08.443" Score="5" ViewCount="1785" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am creating a chess engine and I am creating a heuristic to change the board evaluation if there are doubled pawns. Now, I have no experience in creating engines, so I figured I would ask this site on how much to change it. The values of my pieces are as such:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;King - 10,000&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Queen - 100&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Rook - 50&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bishop - 30&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Knight - 30&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pawn - 10&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am thinking that doubled pawns should be -5 points, tripled -10 points, quadrupled -20 points and so on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24788" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-09-22T22:40:59.917" LastActivityDate="2020-09-23T23:20:16.413" Title="What should be the value change if pawns are doubled?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;pawns&gt;&lt;point-value&gt;&lt;doubled-pawn&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32392" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32391" CreationDate="2020-09-22T20:46:51.200" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;There's no real rule for how much do doubled pawns (or any other kind of weakness on the pawn structure) worse your position. There's not even a rule for piece value, specially if you'll add bonuses for things like centralized knights or the bishop pair.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In general, doubled pawns in a minority or balanced side tend to be less important than in a majority (as it'll make it harder to create a passed pawn)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Doubled pawns can also be a strength. Think for instance of &lt;strong&gt;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.Nxe5 d6 4.Nf3 Nxe4 5.Nc3!?&lt;/strong&gt; where White gives the possibility for his opponent to double his pawns hoping his king will be safer after castling long thanks to the extra protection it provides (note that White does not have a majority on the queenside)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another illustrative example would be &lt;strong&gt;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Bxc6 dxc6 5.d4 exd4 6.Qxd4&lt;/strong&gt; here White gives up the bishop pair to make the &amp;quot;d&amp;quot; pawn move away and get a 4vs3 majority on the kingside that could eventually become a passed pawn. The 4vs3 majority Black has on the queenside is much harder to convert into a passed pawn. If all pieces were removed from the board, White would easily win the pawn endgame.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In short, there's no way to tell without knowing how your engine will evaluate other potentially related factors in the position. The main advantage you have is that you don't need to get it right the first time. You can create different versions of your engine with different values for certain parameters and test them against one another.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastEditorUserId="18809" LastEditDate="2020-09-23T20:43:13.423" LastActivityDate="2020-09-23T20:43:13.423" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32393" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32346" CreationDate="2020-09-22T22:16:52.173" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;A friend of mine says... 8 moves are enough. He doesn’t want to spoil the solution. I have 10. Back to the blackboard!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24675" LastActivityDate="2020-09-22T22:16:52.173" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32394" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32391" CreationDate="2020-09-23T00:20:06.940" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;it depends&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;they may be worth more if they open a file for a rook in a somewhat closed position&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24787" LastActivityDate="2020-09-23T00:20:06.940" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32396" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32391" CreationDate="2020-09-23T02:10:16.470" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Doubled pawns aren't necessarily bad. They typically mean an open file and often can improve control of the center.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's really no way to answer unless I know how you value the mobility of the pieces. Are the piece values you give fixed or baseline numbers that can be modified based on the position?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastEditorUserId="19861" LastEditDate="2020-09-23T10:03:09.183" LastActivityDate="2020-09-23T10:03:09.183" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32397" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32380" CreationDate="2020-09-23T02:18:51.107" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;A lot of players play a setup similar to their main response to d4 in order to narrow their rep. Maybe the positions are objectively a little inferior but it gets the player a position they know and are comfortable in while at the same reducing the theory they need to know.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2020-09-23T02:18:51.107" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32398" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32391" CreationDate="2020-09-23T05:11:03.870" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Start with whatever and tune it.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's how chess engine programming works - you start with some number, and then tune it. For example you start with -5, then create another version with -10. You get the two engines to play against each other, and the one that wins more often is the &amp;quot;correct&amp;quot; version that you keep.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course as pointed out by other answers, doubled pawns aren't necessarily bad, so the next step is to start incorporating more features that can mitigate the doubled pawn penalty. For example you could say that if you have a pawn on an adjacent file that is defending the more advanced doubled pawn (e.g., a pawn on f3 given doubled pawns on e4 and e3), then remove the doubled pawn penalty. And then the testing process would start again, you take this patch and create a new fork, then get the two versions to play each other and retain the stronger version. And then you could tune, e.g. maybe &amp;quot;remove the doubled pawn penalty&amp;quot; is too strong, perhaps it should be &amp;quot;take only half the doubled pawn penalty&amp;quot;, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On another note, there is no &amp;quot;standard answer&amp;quot; to how large the doubled pawn penalty should be. Different engines will prefer different values - it depends on the rest of your evaluation function &amp;amp; search function. See &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/blog/the_real_greco/chess-from-code-how-do-engines-evaluate-positions&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this article&lt;/a&gt; which contains a paragraph about adding tripled pawn penalties to Ethereal:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You might ask- why can't someone just write a better evaluation function? The answer is that people are trying, but it's difficult. Andrew Grant told me that he tried to add a penalty for tripled pawns (because they're obviously terrible!), but for whatever reason the engine became weaker with that penalty. Code for positional subtleties is extremely unlikely to add strength.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastEditorUserId="15223" LastEditDate="2020-09-23T23:20:16.413" LastActivityDate="2020-09-23T23:20:16.413" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32400" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32379" CreationDate="2020-09-23T21:51:08.270" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;To my knowledge there is no book on chess engine programming because there is no market.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;People study the source code simply by reading it. If you have any question, please join Stockfish/LC0 discord. It worked well for me, I just ask online anything I don't understand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would suggest the following on learning. Many more I may have missed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessprogramming.org/Main_Page&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.chessprogramming.org/Main_Page&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.talkchess.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.talkchess.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://lib.vsu.by/jspui/handle/123456789/20821&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://lib.vsu.by/jspui/handle/123456789/20821&lt;/a&gt; (Deep learning for chess ai)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Stockfish/LC0 discoards&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/fishcooking&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/fishcooking&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2020-09-23T22:05:13.100" LastActivityDate="2020-09-23T22:05:13.100" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32401" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32305" CreationDate="2020-09-23T21:58:49.713" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can someone either point me to an existing engine which plays like a human based on your level or recommend me some guidelines as how we can make it using AI ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is simply no such thing. AlphaZero, Stockfish, LC0, Komodo, everything else don't play like a human. In my experience, chess engines are either very strong, very weak or artificially tuned down to play bad chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You will need train a network on it. To my knowledge, nobody has done it successfully. You will need to feed a good amateur chess game database. The games will need to come with filtering.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2020-09-23T21:58:49.713" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32402" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32403" CreationDate="2020-09-24T01:19:44.623" Score="3" ViewCount="1178" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been getting Stockfish to analyse lines of the KID, and the evaluation gives a score of around +1.5: White has a big advantage. How come this is true, when the KID is a playable(and good) opening? I've also seen the same problem with Stockfish analysing the Neo-grunfeld, and similar hypermodern openings where White gets a large center.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastEditorUserId="4399" LastEditDate="2021-01-20T15:18:30.247" LastActivityDate="2021-01-20T15:18:30.247" Title="Stockfish Evaluations" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;evaluation&gt;&lt;kings-indian&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32403" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32402" CreationDate="2020-09-24T03:48:31.330" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Very related: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/31840/traxler-counterattack&quot;&gt;Traxler Counterattack&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The answer is effectively the same: White has roughly a +0.5 advantage in the starting position, and a shift of a few centipawns one way or another is acceptable, but if that advantage has grown to +1.5 there's a problem. Do note that the starting position of the KID, 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 Bg7 4. e4 d6 &lt;em&gt;is&lt;/em&gt; evaluated at about +0.5. If you are getting +1.5 book exit, you've gone into some dubious territory. It doesn't matter what human analysis thought of the line before the advent of computers - if you go into these lines today, and your opponents are armed with engines, you are asking for trouble.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That said, it's worth pointing out that the King's Indian is a difficult, unbalanced opening that even computers don't understand perfectly. That's why it is disproportionately represented in the opening book for engine tournaments - it gives great chances for one engine to outplay the other. &lt;em&gt;But&lt;/em&gt;: even these engine tournaments do not usually start with book exit lines of +1.5. That's very likely going to lead to a 1-0, 1-0 game pair.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For illustration, here are some Stockfish evaluations of known bad lines:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Nf6 4. Ng5 d5 5. exd5 Nxd5?! (see &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TCEC_Season_15#Games_43/44&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;TCEC Season 15 games 43/44&lt;/a&gt;): +0.8&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;d4 d5 2. c4 c6 3. Nf3 e6 4. Nc3 dxc4 5. Bg5 f6?! 6. Bd2 b5 (see &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TCEC_Season_18#Game_8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;TCEC Season 18 superfinal game 8&lt;/a&gt;): +0.74&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;e4 d5 2. exd5 Qxd5 3. Nc3 Qe6+? (Patzer variation): +1.1&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Pawn odds (White starts without f2-pawn): -1.5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;e4 e5 2. Nf3 f5? (Latvian): +1.7&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;e4 e5 2. Nf3 f6? (Damiano Defense): +1.9&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;e4 e5 2. Ke2? (Bongcloud): -2.1&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you can see, you have to play some pretty terrible lines to get &amp;gt; +1.5 book exit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In short, if you are Black, interpret the book exit evals as:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;eval &amp;lt; 0. Obviously the best, but will never happen without cooperation from White.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;0 &amp;lt; eval &amp;lt; 0.5. The next-best, this is what you will usually be shooting for.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;0.5 &amp;lt; eval &amp;lt; 1. Most commonly seen in engine tournaments where the aim is to see if the engine can defend the inferior position. Not recommended for actual tournament play.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;1 &amp;lt; eval &amp;lt; 1.5. These lines come close to being busted. You could conceivably play them if you are after an adventurous game, or if it leads to complicated positions where you could hope to outplay inferior opposition, but it's a bad idea to take them up as a mainstay of your repertoire. A computer can still conceivably defend Black's position, but humans are going to suffer.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;eval &amp;gt; 1.5. If you ever include these lines in the opening book of an engine tournament, be prepared for viewers to start talking about how you've chosen these lines to make the engine with Black lose.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit:&lt;/strong&gt; since some people were unconvinced about the role book exit plays in opening selection, see &lt;a href=&quot;http://blogchess2016.blogspot.com/2020/09/opening-selection-tcec-19-superfinal.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this article by Jeroen Noomen&lt;/a&gt; (who selects the openings used in the Top Chess Engine Championship, the unofficial world computer chess championship):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The complexity of a position and the book exit evaluation are the most important selection criterions. Book exits have been checked with classical Stockfish (development version, contempt = 0) on a 16 core Ryzen system and Leela Chess Zero v0.26.0, with the net that played in the TCEC 18 superfinal. As mentioned above, book exits are significantly higher compared to season 16 and before, to keep the games interesting and avoid boring draws. Nevertheless, there are also some lines with a lower book exit, especially in the theoretically interesting lines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Low book exits will lead to boring draws. High book exits can lead to wins, which of course bodes badly for the engine that has the worse position out of the opening. These openings might still be viable in human play, but the keyword here is &amp;quot;human play&amp;quot;; objectively they are subpar and against an opponent armed with engines you are asking for trouble.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastEditorUserId="15223" LastEditDate="2020-09-29T05:51:14.887" LastActivityDate="2020-09-29T05:51:14.887" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32404" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32305" CreationDate="2020-09-24T04:26:52.983" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In theory, chess is a Markovian game -- the current state says it all, how you reach the current state, ie all the previous moves, doesn't matter. This is how computers play chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For humans, previous moves matter a lot. On one hand, people think in plans, so could easily forgo better moves if it is not consistent with their plan. On the other hand, human mood swing also has a great effect. Reaching an endgame after a crazy tactical middle game or reaching the same endgame after many boring exchanges can lead to different moves onwards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So at least on this aspect, computers cannot play like humans.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7002" LastActivityDate="2020-09-24T04:26:52.983" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32405" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32402" CreationDate="2020-09-24T06:29:10.977" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;KID is a notorious difficult opening for a chess engine to evaluate. Forget all those opening lines, just look at the standard positions based on standard positional terms.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;White has an advanced pawn on d5 in many lines. This gives space advantage.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Even if White doesn't a pawn on d5, White's centre control is apparently stronger. Open d-file for the queen, more squares for the bishops etc etc.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Better queenside spacing and pawn structure.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;(Important)&lt;/strong&gt; Black often has to advances the pawns in-front of its king on the king side. But ... this is making chess engines worried because chess engines are taught not to push the king protecting pawns without a clear compensation.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;KID is too complicated for a chess engine to evaluate properly. You need to push it into specific lines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You will see the same problem in an opening setup where Black's idea is to give up the center control but opt for long term counter-play. Grunfield, KID, and hypermodern openings all fall into the category.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2020-09-24T06:29:10.977" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32406" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32305" CreationDate="2020-09-24T06:48:20.373" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;By programming it using human concepts and thinking instead of just pure raw brute-force calculation (like a computer). There was an old engine [Wchess], used in the Power Chess 98 and Majestic Chess games on PC, which applies concepts like tropism (e.g. king safety for the AI is described as how many pieces are surrounding it). So some logical human-like heuristics thrown in with an occasional mistake or two, made it the most human-like chess engine to date.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Humans all succumb to tactical mistakes eventually, it should be possible for an engine to simulate such behavior although this would be a niche interest and take a very different approach from those &amp;quot;industrial-grade&amp;quot; engines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="46" LastActivityDate="2020-09-24T06:48:20.373" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32408" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32379" CreationDate="2020-09-24T16:39:38.163" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;FM Bill Jordan has written several, including:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/1696444446&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;How to Write a Chess Engine&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/1707113025&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;The Joy of Chess Programming: How Chess Engines Work&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/B08BDZ2K8B&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;How to Write a Bitboard Chess Engine: How Chess Engines Work&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first is basically a printout of his engine's code, with an explanation of each code segment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9025" LastActivityDate="2020-09-24T16:39:38.163" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32410" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-09-25T20:59:00.427" Score="3" ViewCount="159" Body="&lt;p&gt;I seem to win a lot of games when I sac a rook for a bishop or a knight. Is this just me, or do exchange sacrifices often lead to a win?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I realize that any fool or noob can go overboard and do it all the time, but there are positions when it just feels right and they almost always lead to a win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What guidance is there to better know when that sac of a rook for a minor piece is likely to pay off?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24812" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-09-28T18:41:31.760" LastActivityDate="2020-10-14T12:23:01.013" Title="What is the probability that an exchange sacrifice leads to a win?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;sacrifice&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32411" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32346" CreationDate="2020-09-25T21:45:45.470" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think four moves will suffice: 1 b3 ... 2 Bb2 3 g3 ... 4 Bg2.&#xA;This way, the rooks will also be protected. The need to protect bishops will happen deeper in the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1766" LastActivityDate="2020-09-25T21:45:45.470" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32412" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32423" CreationDate="2020-09-25T22:02:48.353" Score="4" ViewCount="322" Body="&lt;p&gt;I usually go for the setup of Nf6, d5, e6, Be7, O-O, c5, Nc6 but I noticed that the White players are so familiar with these positions, and the winning rate for White according to the database is huge against this line! So I would like some recommendations against the Nimzo-Larsen attack when white starts with Nf3, and then plays b3. I would like a position with clear plans and easy to understand if possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: I forgot to mention that I play the Nimzo-Indian and Ragozin defenses with Black. So when White plays d4, or Nf3 on move one, I play Nf6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23598" LastEditorUserId="23598" LastEditDate="2020-09-25T23:20:27.900" LastActivityDate="2020-09-27T17:46:28.373" Title="How to play against Nimzo-Larsen attack if White starts with 1.Nf3" Tags="&lt;reti-opening&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32413" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32243" CreationDate="2020-09-25T22:25:46.327" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Trades off time and space for a side pawn that loses more time for black if they try to keep it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;c6 was not a good response for black on move 1&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;in the position shown master results show an 80% win rate (draws =1/2)&#xA;for white with zero losses&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;black would do far better with 1 ...   d5 e5 or nf6&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24813" LastActivityDate="2020-09-25T22:25:46.327" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32414" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32412" CreationDate="2020-09-25T22:34:15.340" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Dont know what theory says but I play the dutch with 1...f5 after white opens with the horsie to nf3  and have decent results against people I play with now for fun.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Full disclosure I gave up playing in international tournaments decades ago.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;c5 or g6 could work for you if you dont play the dutch.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24813" LastActivityDate="2020-09-25T22:34:15.340" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32415" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2364" CreationDate="2020-09-26T00:40:16.817" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;My recent experience tells me that it depends on positional evaluation.  Normally you think the position would result in an attack resulting in mate or a huge material gain.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes it is forced on you.  I recall beating a much higher rated player many decades ago.   He had a positional edge and put his horsie in a strong position.  I sacrificed a rook for it plus a pawn and went on to win because I had an overwhelming positional advantage even without an attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That sort of thing has happened often.  Probably more than I just do it purely intentionally so as to gain some positional advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But for me the common cause of winning is positional advantage from the sacrifice.  And that is hard to compute so it takes more experience and feel than calculation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24814" LastActivityDate="2020-09-26T00:40:16.817" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32416" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32346" CreationDate="2020-09-26T10:19:33.957" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;« deeper in the game » ... well, good luck! My friend has published (France-Échecs) his 9-move solution (not 8 as I misprinted it in an earlier post) and this solution is a beauty! Here is the end FEN: 8/8/8/1N6/3PP1P1/5Q2/PPPB1P1P/1K1R1BNR&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24675" LastActivityDate="2020-09-26T10:19:33.957" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32417" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32379" CreationDate="2020-09-26T14:23:48.300" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;This depends quite a bit on your level of understanding, as well as your knowledge of relevant programming languages.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;David Levy wrote a number of books that deal fairly closely with this topic.  &amp;quot;Chess and Computers&amp;quot; (1976) is more for the beginner, while his &amp;quot;Computer Chess Compendium&amp;quot; is more 'medium' and above.  See his biography/bibliography on Wikipedia for additional titles.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you want to understand a particular engine,  you basically have to go on what the author(s) have published -- and that may be in technical academical journals, so a good reference library nearby who can help you locate those is probably a necessity. If you want to understand a specific search algorithm, it's academical journals or text books, depending on if it's research-level stuff or more 'standard' things.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Good luck!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24765" LastActivityDate="2020-09-26T14:23:48.300" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32418" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21469" CreationDate="2020-09-26T18:21:57.157" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;As for fixable ... that rather depends on what the presumed composer wanted to do. Or what history this particular problem had and what possible mistranscriptions it may have passed through during transmission. In extreme cases, it might be a 'place a white piece on the board to make this a self-mate in 5' type of problem that isn't correctly remembered. Or perhaps even a problem solving contest problem that is deliberately incorrect, but with many tries (i.e. moves that would be solutions if it wasn't for just one single move by black that upsets white's idea) that may fool competing solvers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are several tries (in 3, 4 or 5 moves) that involve the Bishop on d5.  Moving it to e4 makes it a self-mate in 3, at least as far as having a solution is concerned. But it looks as that makes the pawn on h3 without a job, so it is probably necessary to figure out why the composer wanted to have that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But, as D M already has indicated, replacing the white Queen also does the job,&#xA;although I would consider it more likely that the position of the Queen is correctly remembered (assuming a mistranscription) -- but that pawn on h3 still seems bothersome ... ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24765" LastEditorDisplayName="user24765" LastEditDate="2020-09-27T06:18:58.510" LastActivityDate="2020-09-27T06:18:58.510" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32419" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14705" CreationDate="2020-09-26T19:23:21.743" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm very late to this question, but I think I have something to add:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;PGN was not designed for games that are played according to FIDE rules, which do allow&#xA;illegal moves in game scores under certain conditions. PGN was designed for games that are worth recording.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Read that again. It may sound insulting -- but it's actually in the specification of PGN)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;http://tim-mann.org/Standard&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;PGN specification&lt;/a&gt;, section 8.2 (which describes movetext section: the section of&#xA;the PGN files where moves are placed) says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Because illegal moves are not real chess moves, they are not permitted&#xA;in PGN movetext.  They may appear in commentary, however.  One would&#xA;hope that illegal moves are relatively rare in games worthy of&#xA;recording.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While you are able to add illegal moves to a PGN file, you can't be certain&#xA;that any PGN-reading tool will accept the resulting files, and display it any more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There used to be a chess database program (on Windows) that allowed illegal move&#xA;entry. It was called CDB, and written by Peter Klausler. I used it more then a dozen years ago, but I've lost track of it -- so I don't know if Google-hits I get now are for the same program, or if it even works on modern Windows releases.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24765" LastActivityDate="2020-09-26T19:23:21.743" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32422" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="16426" CreationDate="2020-09-27T00:13:22.543" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I also had this question, and as a graphic designer, I was stunned to find no real solution was created for InDesign, and LaTeX was the only viable option to typeset a book or magazine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I took it upon myself to write a script to create scalable chess diagrams from FEN notation. I also created a font family for figurine chess notation.  I know it's late for this. But no one else has created it, and I figure someone will find my solution helpful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://youtu.be/e5tFP848gHs&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Here is a video to show how easy it is to use.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/yTvLC.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/yTvLC.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For more information and to download the free script and font, see &lt;a href=&quot;https://cemordesign.wordpress.com/2020/09/21/fen-to-chess-diagram-indesign/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;my website.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24822" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-03-23T18:20:22.713" LastActivityDate="2021-03-23T18:20:22.713" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32423" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32412" CreationDate="2020-09-27T01:54:09.073" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;What about &lt;code&gt;1.Nf3 Nf6 2.b3 d5 3.Bb2 Bg4&lt;/code&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black development plan is very simple, the main line goes like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;1. Nf3 Nf6 2. b3 d5 3. Bb2 Bg4 4. e3 Nbd7&#xA;5. Be2 e6 6. O-O Bd6 7. c4 c6 8. d4 O-O 9. Nbd2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this position, despite white bishop aiming it is own pawn it is still potentially dangerous; therefore, standard &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;c5&lt;/code&gt; breaks are not usual in this position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The safest approach for black is try to exchange the dark-squared bishops with &lt;code&gt;9...Qe7 10. Ne5 Ba3&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another approach, most intuitive in my opinion, is &lt;code&gt;9...Ne4 10. Nxe4 dxe4&lt;/code&gt; If white plays &lt;code&gt;11. Nd2&lt;/code&gt; then after &lt;code&gt;11. Bxe2 Qxe2. 12...f5&lt;/code&gt; black has play on the king side, the bishop is aiming at h2 and the queen can be brought to &lt;code&gt;h4&lt;/code&gt; or/and rook to &lt;code&gt;h6&lt;/code&gt; via &lt;code&gt;f6&lt;/code&gt;. If white plays &lt;code&gt;11. Ne5&lt;/code&gt; and then &lt;code&gt;11... Bxe2 12.Qxe2&lt;/code&gt; black could play &lt;code&gt;12...f6&lt;/code&gt; forcing &lt;code&gt;13. Nxd7&lt;/code&gt; and here again black can play on the king's side.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is also common to bring the queen play &lt;code&gt;9...Qc7&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;9...Qb8&lt;/code&gt; with the aim of controlling the &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt; square and preventing &lt;code&gt;Ne5&lt;/code&gt;. But I am not very familiar with this plan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, the position you describe can be reached via &lt;code&gt;1.Nf3 Nf6 2.g3&lt;/code&gt; move order.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;1. Nf3 Nf6 2. g3 d5 3. Bg2 e6 4. O-O Be7&#xA;5. b3 O-O 6. Bb2 c5 7. c4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;to avoid it you can go for the same black setup, with the bishop on g4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="307" LastEditorUserId="307" LastEditDate="2020-09-27T17:46:28.373" LastActivityDate="2020-09-27T17:46:28.373" CommentCount="11" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32425" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32427" CreationDate="2020-09-27T06:56:55.900" Score="0" ViewCount="136" Body="&lt;p&gt;In a casual game I played, my opponent castled around the 80th move. I want to know what was the latest move in which a player has castled, in an official game. I don’t think that there is an entry for this on Krabbe’s record site.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-09-27T14:46:09.183" LastActivityDate="2020-09-27T14:46:09.183" Title="Latest time to castle in a tournament game" Tags="&lt;castling&gt;&lt;records&gt;&lt;famous-games&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32426" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32429" CreationDate="2020-09-27T07:01:24.760" Score="6" ViewCount="1730" Body="&lt;p&gt;When I touch two pieces simultaneously, how will the touch move rule apply? How is this rule used for this situation? I could not find any resources to do with this situation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-09-27T14:40:18.893" LastActivityDate="2020-09-27T14:40:18.893" Title="Touch move rule loophole" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;loopholes&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32427" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32425" CreationDate="2020-09-27T07:15:07.253" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/article/view/castling2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;This web page&lt;/a&gt; claims that &amp;quot;[the] latest castling was performed on move 48 in two games: Neshewat – Garrison, Detroit 1994 and Somogyi – Black, New York 2002.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.chessgames.com&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1819049&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;the first&lt;/a&gt; was Michigan Class A (1994), Detroit, MI USA, rd 2, Jan-15. That site gives that second game &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1819050&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; with no tournament or match citation. These are actually both on &lt;a href=&quot;http://timkr.home.xs4all.nl/records&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Tim Krabbe's record page&lt;/a&gt; under the title &amp;quot;Latest castling&amp;quot; in the &amp;quot;Moves&amp;quot; section.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Game 1: Kingside Castling&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Neshewat-Garrison, Detroit, 1994&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 c5 3. Nf3 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Qa5+ 5. Bd2 Qb6 6. Nb3 Ne4 7. e3 Qf6 8. Qf3 Qxf3 9. gxf3 Nxd2 10. N1xd2 Nc6 11. a3 d6 12. Be2 g6 13. Rb1 a5 14. O-O a4 15. Nc1 Bf5 16. e4 Be6 17. Rd1 Bh6 18. Kg2 Nd4 19. Bd3 Ra5 20. Nf1 Rg5+ 21. Ng3 Nxf3 22. b4 Bg7 23. Be2 Nh4+ 24. Kh1 Bh3 25. f4 Bg2+ 26. Kg1 Bxe4 27. Nd3 Bd4+ 28. Kf1 Rxg3 29. hxg3 Nf5 30. Rdc1 Nxg3+ 31. Ke1 Be3 32. Rd1 Nf5 33. Rb2 Bd4 34. Ra2 Ne3 35. Rc1 Ng2+ 36. Kf1 Be3 37. Rc3 Bd4 38. Rc1 Be3 39. Rb1 Nxf4 40. Rd1  Ne6 41. Nf2 Bf5 42. Bd3 Nd4 43. Bxf5 Nxf5 44. Ke2 Bh6 45. Ne4 Bg7 46. c5 dxc5 47. Nxc5 Nd4+ 48. Kf2 O-O 49. Nxa4 e5 50. Nc5 Nb5 51. Rd7 b6 52. Rb7 Nc3 53. Rc2 e4 54. Rxb6 e3+ 55. Ke1 Rd8 56. Rc1 h5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Game 2: Queenside Castling&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Somogyi-Black E., New York, 2002 &amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 g6 2. d4 Bg7 3. Nc3 b6 4. Nf3 Bb7 5. Bf4 Nf6 6. Bc4 Nc6 7. O-O Nxe4 8. Nxe4 d5 9. Bd3 dxe4 10. Bxe4 e6 11. c3 Qe7 12. Ne5 Bxe5 13. dxe5 Na5 14. Bd3 a6 15. Qg4 h5 16. Qg3 h4 17. Qe3 Qd7 18. f3 Nc6 19. Rad1 Ne7 20. Bg5 h3 21. g4 Nd5 22. Qf2 c5 23. a3 Qc7 24. c4 Ne7 25. Qg3 Nc6 26. Bf6 Rh7 27. Rf2 Nd4 28. Bf1 b5 29. b4 bxc4 30. Bxc4 Qc6 31. Rd3 a5 32. b5 Qd7 33. a4 Bd5 34. Rc3 Bxc4 35. Rxc4 Qd5 36. Rc1 Nb3 37. Re1 c4 38. f4 Nc5 39. Qa3 Qd4 40. Qf3 Qd5 41. Qxd5 exd5 42. Rd1 Ne4 43. Rc2 Nxf6 44. exf6 Rh4 45. g5 Rg4+ 46. Kh1 Rxf4 47. Re2+ Re4 48. Rde1 O-O-O 49. Rxe4 dxe4 50. Kg1 Kb7 51. Rc1 Rd2 52. Rxc4 e3 53. Rc1 Rg2+ 54. Kh1 Rg4 55. Re1 Rxa4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10380" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-09-27T14:45:39.330" LastActivityDate="2020-09-27T14:45:39.330" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32428" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2364" CreationDate="2020-09-27T10:49:47.637" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I assume what you're asking is how do you evaluate a position when the compensation is unclear because you either lack the time or the ability to calculate out the variations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most top level players tend to play instinctively. About 90% of the time you'll see the move you're going to play within the first 3-5 seconds. The rest of the time is spent analyzing that move and the alternatives. Magnus is on record saying that's exactly how he thinks. I'm sure Tal would say the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The primary focus is the opponent's king. (I'll assume we aren't talking about positional sacrifices) If you can prevent the opponent from castling that's probably worth 1-1.5 pawns by itself. Exposing a castled king is probably worth more but it depends on the position. How many pieces can you bring to attack in that part of the board? How many pieces can they defend with? Are there hanging pieces that could potentially be won? How loose is the opponent's position? Those are the types of questions that tell you what kind of attack you can expect. You need at least two pieces to mate-even the queen can't mate by itself. If you can create a two or three piece advantage in one sector the attack is likely to succeed especially if the opponent's position is loose and has hanging pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'll add virtually any attack is justified if you can get unlimited checks because you can always force a draw if things don't work out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Along those same lines is the &amp;quot;fall-back&amp;quot; move. Say you're analyzing a line and you aren't completely sure it works but you notice in the middle of your analysis that an alternate move either gives you an equal position or a forced draw. In that case you can justify the sacrifice. Let it play out for a few moves and see if the opponent makes a mistake. If they don't, then you can analyze at that point without wasting a lot of your time. You'll be able to analyze deeper into the position but you still have your &amp;quot;fall-back&amp;quot; move if your analysis fails or you discover a mistake. A &amp;quot;fall-back&amp;quot; move allows you to justify a sacrifice because you know you can't be worse than that position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastEditorUserId="19861" LastEditDate="2020-09-27T11:56:06.513" LastActivityDate="2020-09-27T11:56:06.513" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32429" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32426" CreationDate="2020-09-27T11:18:50.383" Score="16" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I touch two pieces simultaneously, how will the touch move rule&#xA;apply?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It will primarily depend on your intention, or rather what onlookers clearly perceive as being your intention.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's what the latest &lt;a href=&quot;https://handbook.fide.com/chapter/E012018&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Laws of Chess&lt;/a&gt; have to say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4.1 Each move must be played with one hand only.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4.2.1 Only the player having the move may adjust one or more pieces on their squares, provided that he first expresses his intention (for&#xA;example by saying “j’adoube” or “I adjust”).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4.2.2 Any other physical contact with a piece, except for clearly accidental contact, shall be considered to be intent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4.3 Except as provided in Article 4.2, if the player having the move touches on the chessboard,with the intention of moving or capturing:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4.3.1 one or more of his own pieces, he must move the first piece touched that can be moved&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4.3.2 one or more of his opponent’s pieces, he must capture the first piece touched that can be captured&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The firs thing to note is that of you used two hands then that will be punished as an illegal move (article 7.5.4).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it is clearly accidental then you will be permitted (required) to move the piece that it was clearly your intention to move. An example of this is something which sometimes happens to me when I reach across the board to move a piece on the far side and my forearm brushes and sometimes knocks over the tallest piece on my side of the board, my king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, that leaves cases where you deliberately touched two pieces simultaneously with one hand. There are two articles which deal with that in the laws, one more draconian than the other and so far less likely to be invoked.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;11.5 It is forbidden to distract or annoy the opponent in any manner whatsoever.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If an arbiter saw you do this (deliberately touch two pieces simultaneously with one hand) then they would likely immediately warn you. If the opponent claimed that it was an annoyance you might receive more than a warning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Repeat infringements would put you at risk of:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;11.7 Persistent refusal by a player to comply with the Laws of Chess shall be penalised by loss of the game. The arbiter shall decide the&#xA;score of the opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In extreme circumstances (I cannot think of any time this has been invoked) the arbiter could punish you under:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;11.1 The players shall take no action that will bring the game of chess into disrepute.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-09-27T11:18:50.383" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32430" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32510" CreationDate="2020-09-27T11:28:24.230" Score="10" ViewCount="340" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the current &lt;a href=&quot;https://handbook.fide.com/chapter/E012018&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Laws of Chess&lt;/a&gt; article 11.1 says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;11.1 The players shall take no action that will bring the game of chess into disrepute.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have heard elderly arbiters fulminating about some incident saying that this law (which has been around for a long time) should be invoked or that they would invoke it but I have never come across a case in the real world where this has happened. The talk of invoking it has been just &amp;quot;bar talk&amp;quot; as far as I can tell.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I understand the need for a chess rules equivalent of the nuclear deterrent, but has this ever been invoked?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-10-05T17:48:05.740" Title="When has the FIDE rule against bringing the game into disrepute been invoked (if ever)?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;history&gt;&lt;fide&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32431" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4138" CreationDate="2020-09-27T12:42:24.660" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was looking around for something similar and came across Joe's Chess API:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://chess-api.herokuapp.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://chess-api.herokuapp.com/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24825" LastActivityDate="2020-09-27T12:42:24.660" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32433" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32434" CreationDate="2020-09-27T19:31:49.060" Score="2" ViewCount="140" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am reading about the Grand Prix Attack and the main lines of development for Black. One line considered is as follows.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nc3 d6 3. f4 g6 4. Nf3 Bg7 5. Bc4 Nc6 6. O-O&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After White castling, I read, Black's best moves are Nf6 or Ne7 after e6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a beginner I want to ask, due to the fact that the idea behind the Grand Prix Attack is to attack Black's kingside, is queenside castling a line to consider for Black?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23361" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-12-13T18:24:13.617" LastActivityDate="2020-12-13T18:24:13.617" Title="Black answers to Grand Prix attack" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32434" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32433" CreationDate="2020-09-27T19:38:34.710" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I play it to avoid 'normal' sicilian lines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When possible I do attack often on the Kside.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;OTOH your example line is not one that gives me a lot of problems.&#xA;What causes me more problems as white is fighting for an early d5 by black and attacking on the Q side.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes some opponents have castled Qside as black which led to other type of play than a Kside attack by white.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24827" LastActivityDate="2020-09-27T19:38:34.710" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32436" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="21469" CreationDate="2020-09-27T23:14:15.777" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I may be missing something, but it seems that white needs their bishop to be on c6 and their queen to be on h8. If one of these is accomplished by changing the setup of the problem, then the other can be accomplished through white's move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15221" LastActivityDate="2020-09-27T23:14:15.777" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32438" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32439" CreationDate="2020-09-28T10:59:57.463" Score="0" ViewCount="1468" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is White in a weaker position than Black? How do I analyze this position?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;2rq2kr/p1ppbp2/1pn1p1pP/4P3/3P2Qn/2PB4/PP3P2/RNB1K2R w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From this point onward, I tried a mobile chess-free app and turned the board, on each move. I mean from both ends that the computer was playing. But each time White lost or drew at max. How can I say at this stage that White is in a weaker position? What are the key points?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24482" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-09-28T13:59:56.003" LastActivityDate="2020-09-28T15:54:06.383" Title="Is White in a weaker position?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32439" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32438" CreationDate="2020-09-28T11:25:30.493" Score="11" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &amp;quot;2rq2kr/p1ppbp2/1pn1p1pP/4P3/3P2Qn/2P5/PP3P2/RNB1K2R w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is white in a weaker position then black? ... What are the key points?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The key points are -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;White is a whole piece down for no compensation&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;White has no attack&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;White has no pawn levers&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The white h pawn is weak and black can round it up at leisure and take it&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In short, white is not just weaker than black, white is completely lost&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Please review it again. My bad, I missed the white bishop, now edited&#xA;in Fen&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well, a white bishop suddenly appearing on d3 changes everything. The g6 pawn is now a major problem for black. With white to move (as indicated by your fen) black is just lost. The knight on h4 is en prise. White can just take it. Here's what happens if black tries to recapture.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &amp;quot;2rq2kr/p1ppbp2/1pn1p1pP/4P3/3P2Qn/2PB4/PP3P2/RNB1K2R w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Rxh4 Bxh4 2. Bxg6 fxg6 (2...Kf8 3. Bxf7 Kxf7 4. Qg7+ Ke8 5. Qxh8+ Ke7 6. Qg7+ Ke8 7. h7) 3. Qxg6+ Kf8 4. Qg7+ Ke8 5. Qxh8+ Ke7 6. Qg7+ Ke8 7. h7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2020-09-28T12:49:21.267" LastActivityDate="2020-09-28T12:49:21.267" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32440" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32438" CreationDate="2020-09-28T12:37:36.317" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;White has an attack going with Rxh4 followed by Bxg6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black has no attack/no plan. One now needs to calculate if Rxh4 and Bxg6 is forcing enough for white.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With a quick calculation one can see that White's pieces flow and hence White is in fact winning here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16311" LastActivityDate="2020-09-28T12:37:36.317" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32442" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32453" CreationDate="2020-09-28T15:00:49.240" Score="1" ViewCount="478" Body="&lt;p&gt;For me, the strength of the chess engine is not that important as today almost all of the top engines are beyond human level. I want to use a chess program for training and analysis of my games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I understand correctly, Chessbase publishes several chess programs all using the same GUI. So in terms of graphics and probably the menu options all their chess programs look the same.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, when it comes to features such as analysis or training, does Fritz 17 have anything special over other programs such as Komodo 14? Can it produce better quality commentaries or more meaningful probes to the opening books to make analysis more human like?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are several similar questions here but they only deal with user interface rather than specifically analysis and training.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24835" LastActivityDate="2020-09-29T12:00:00.107" Title="Does Fritz 17 have extra features compared to othe Chessbase offerings?" Tags="&lt;chessbase&gt;&lt;fritz&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32443" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32438" CreationDate="2020-09-28T15:54:06.383" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Who is on  the move?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With white to move it looks like white is better off although black has positional advantage in the long run unless white has tactics to finish things.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is hard to tell and no wonder your computers have problems!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24837" LastActivityDate="2020-09-28T15:54:06.383" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32444" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-09-28T18:14:42.500" Score="26" ViewCount="11599" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was playing a friend and I took her queen. She said that I didn't say &amp;quot;queen check&amp;quot; beforehand. I have never heard of this. Is it a rule?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24838" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-12-24T05:56:52.797" LastActivityDate="2020-12-24T05:56:52.797" Title="Must one say &quot;queen check&quot; before capturing a queen?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;queens&gt;&lt;check&gt;" AnswerCount="9" CommentCount="9" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32445" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32444" CreationDate="2020-09-28T18:18:54.403" Score="31" Body="&lt;p&gt;No.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some people think it is polite to say 'gardez' to alert a player that the Q can be  taken.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But no rule says you have to say check nor gardez and in serious games with good players it is not done.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This gardez for Qs is just a very informal rule amongst some low level players that I have not seen in actual use for 60 years but have read about as being more common (where?) in the past.  It is possible that I never played at such a low level to encounter it; but I still believe it is rare perhaps because it is very old and now obsolete as even relative newish players do not need that alert.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24839" LastActivityDate="2020-09-28T18:18:54.403" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32446" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32444" CreationDate="2020-09-28T20:10:52.790" Score="48" Body="&lt;p&gt;The official FIDE laws of chess do not know about a queen check. Announcing a  &amp;quot;queen check“ might even be considered a case of &amp;quot;to distract or annoy the opponent“ (11.5). Even announcing a &amp;quot;king check“ is not recommended.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That’s for tournament chess. In informal games, it is not unusual in some groups to announce a check and a &amp;quot;queen check“ (by &amp;quot;gardez“, French for &amp;quot;keep attention“). Even there it is not a rule, but a courtesy. Not announcing a check or gardez is considered impolite, but you may take the queen anyway.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20096" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-09-29T00:38:10.343" LastActivityDate="2020-09-29T00:38:10.343" CommentCount="12" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32447" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-09-28T22:59:55.553" Score="3" ViewCount="348" Body="&lt;p&gt;Clearly the defense is not viable in top level chess for classical time controls. Roughly at what rating is it viable to have the hippopotamus defense as your primary black defense?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3872" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-09-29T00:38:33.943" LastActivityDate="2020-10-05T21:06:41.980" Title="How viable is the hippopotamus defense?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;rating&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32448" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32447" CreationDate="2020-09-28T23:14:06.553" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It depends on the players and how black continues after whites moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For me, I find it easy to beat players using it for black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That might speak more to their lack of experience than the opening.  But then you dont find many high rated players using it so there is no conclusive proof.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24841" LastActivityDate="2020-09-28T23:14:06.553" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32449" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-09-29T01:42:30.647" Score="4" ViewCount="978" Body="&lt;p&gt;Aggression is very good against weaker players. But too much aggression is bad, and the higher the level of play the more you need to dial it back to be safe.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the point in ratings in which one should look more to playing positionally and stop going all out for attack and tactics? This is in order to avoid losing with barely inferior moves that a weaker player could not find a good response to, but a high rated player can refute.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-10-03T01:53:01.293" LastActivityDate="2020-10-15T13:34:44.603" Title="At what level does being very aggressive stop being useful?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32452" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32449" CreationDate="2020-09-29T04:42:47.147" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Actually it depends on playing style some high ranked international players also have reputation of being aggressive or positional. It also depends of time Variants. So I would say it would be after 1500 as opponent would be also tough and knowing all tactics.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24845" LastActivityDate="2020-09-29T04:42:47.147" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32453" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32442" CreationDate="2020-09-29T04:54:20.817" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Fritz 17 is really just the same Chessbase GUI bundled with a chess engine Fritz 17. Depend on what version you buy, your Chessbase product may come with MegaDatabase - a huge collection of master chess games. Fritz 17 doesn't give you that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDITED:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Fritz 17 is not a public chess engine in the sense that it only works for Chessbase. I'm not aware it runs on anything other than Chessbase GUI. But it's actually an advantage. The engine is able to offer things that a standard engine like Komodo can't do. A standard engine must comply with the UCI chess protocol, whereas a private engine bundled with GUI can do anything. The last time when I used Fritz, I remember it offered GUI advice not available in UCI protocol. I don't use it anymore because it doesn't run on Mac.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Komodo engine has skill levels.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2020-09-29T12:00:00.107" LastActivityDate="2020-09-29T12:00:00.107" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32454" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-09-29T05:14:23.537" Score="1" ViewCount="109" Body="&lt;p&gt;I realize that there is no point in playing good chess if you end up blundering away a rook or a bishop. I end up blundering atleast once in two games which generally ends up with me resigning due to frustration. For eg., in a recent game, my opponent took my pawn with his bishop and I took another of his pawns in return. However, I didn't realize that after taking my pawn, he was also threatening my rook. Thus I blundered away my rook. Is there any technique to avoid making such blunders?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24846" LastActivityDate="2020-09-29T07:14:47.580" Title="How to avoid blundering in chess?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;middlegame&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2020-09-29T07:29:28.150" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32455" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32454" CreationDate="2020-09-29T07:14:47.580" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Playing good chess is still totally worth it. It's much easier to blunder in a deseprate position than in a good one. That being said, the main path towards stopping blunders is improving your tactical skills so you can detect threats more easily.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With enough time on the clock, you should always look for forced moves both you and your opponent may have (checks, captures, mate threats...) There's probably a reason for your opponent's last moves, so think of what new threats it creates.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastActivityDate="2020-09-29T07:14:47.580" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32456" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32449" CreationDate="2020-09-29T07:18:08.957" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Whether aggresive or not, good chess works against all players. Bad chess does not &amp;quot;work&amp;quot; against anyone, but you can still beat a weak opponent in spite of it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are positions that require aggression, others that don't. After &lt;strong&gt;1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 g6 6.Be3 Bg7 7.f3&lt;/strong&gt;, aggressive play is the only way you can beat a GM. After &lt;strong&gt;1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.exd5&lt;/strong&gt;, you should expect to be in a quieter game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's also a trend towards aggressive play requiring more opening theory to rely on (as mistakes will pay a higher price)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastEditorUserId="18809" LastEditDate="2020-09-29T09:31:39.407" LastActivityDate="2020-09-29T09:31:39.407" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32457" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32444" CreationDate="2020-09-29T07:40:41.677" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;The important part is that you and your friend agree on what to say and when. If you both agree that queen check (or gardez) is a nice thing to say, then go ahead and say it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I suggest taking the time before your next game to clear this up.  Also, if you play any friends of your friend then ask them too what they prefer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That being said, if your friend want to play strangers, online, in tournaments, or whatever, then they will have to get used to people not saying it.  If they try to make non-friends say gardez, they are likely to be met with a simple &amp;quot;no&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9188" LastActivityDate="2020-09-29T07:40:41.677" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32458" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-09-29T14:36:26.860" Score="3" ViewCount="1736" Body="&lt;p&gt;How much theory does the book actually cover and how far in terms of opening knowledge and building my opening repertoire will memorising every line of the book get me?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24850" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-09-29T15:34:08.123" LastActivityDate="2020-10-03T08:59:14.150" Title="How much do you actually learn from the book Modern Chess Openings by Nick de Firmian?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;books&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32459" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32458" CreationDate="2020-09-29T15:04:23.403" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The best uses for out of date opening books are -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Doorstop&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Decoration&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Emergency toilet paper supply when Covid means the supermarket has sold out&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;how far in terms of opening knowledge and building my opening&#xA;repertoire will memorising every line of the book get me?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You will be an expert in historical opening lines, but you will understand nothing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;MCO, latest edition 2008 as far as I know, is mostly composed of chess lines with minimal notation. Each line usually finishes with an evaluation like &amp;quot;=&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;+=&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;-+&amp;quot;, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have the 11th edition from somewhere round about 1970. The last time I looked up a line in it was sometime in the 1970's. The main reason I still have it is that it is where I keep my signed scoresheet of my 1972 draw with Victor Kortchnoi - in a simul, obviously.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to Amazon:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Best Sellers Rank: 874,393 in Books&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-09-29T15:04:23.403" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32460" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32444" CreationDate="2020-09-29T19:29:28.573" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is just a courtesy designed to ease new players into a game with multiple rules, and your friend might have mistaken it for an actual one. Or maybe she's used to it and wanted to establish it as a common rule between the two of you. The game is supposed to be fun for everyone. Talk it out.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I was a little kid, my parents would always say it to me when they were teaching me how to play. They still do, nowadays, but mostly as a means to tease me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24854" LastActivityDate="2020-09-29T19:29:28.573" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32461" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32447" CreationDate="2020-09-29T23:25:01.750" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Hippo can be viable even at the top levels with classical time-controls, but it is more of a matter of &lt;em&gt;when&lt;/em&gt; is it viable.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Certainly no player gets to the top levels playing passive chess and we are unlikely to ever see it at slow time-controls; however some ~2600 players play it in slow time controls &lt;em&gt;when&lt;/em&gt; White only has two pawns in the center and the adjacent pawns are blocked.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&#xA;1.e4 g6&#xA;2.d4 Bg7&#xA;3.Nc3 d6&#xA;4.Nf3 a6&#xA;5.a4 b6&#xA;6.Be3 e6&#xA;7.Qd2 h6&#xA;is quite acceptable&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;update:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Donchenko (2604) played it in Gibraltar Masters 2019.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Flores, Diego    (2601) 20th Dubai Open 2018.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Sethuraman, S.P. (2639) Qatar Masters Open 2015.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Gustafsson, Jan (2630) 1-0 Fier, Alexandr (2636) ESP-chT CECLUB Honor.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Bruzon Batista, Lazaro (2653) Badalona op 36th&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Malakhov, Vladimir (2709) has played it...&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastEditorUserId="14202" LastEditDate="2020-10-05T21:06:41.980" LastActivityDate="2020-10-05T21:06:41.980" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32462" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32458" CreationDate="2020-09-29T23:43:09.120" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;This book is a reference manual. Each page shows a diagram position from 2 to 10 moves deep. Beneath the diagram columns of chess notation denote how different games have proceeded from that position. The next page will usually contain the many footnotes referenced from the columns. These include source games or mentions of interesting alternatives.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it interesting? Well, it is a little bit. Maybe once a year it's even useful! For the most part, though, the information within this book is available via online tools that are both free and more complete.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why consult the MCO about ideas in the Berlin when I can watch Yasser explain it to me on YouTube? If I'm curious about a particular line then I can plug it into an analysis board faster than I can even find the MCO on the shelf.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's a reason why the MCO stopped in 2008. It is only useful to those who are unable to use modern home computers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10019" LastActivityDate="2020-09-29T23:43:09.120" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32463" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32444" CreationDate="2020-09-30T02:37:47.167" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been playing for more than 40 years and never heard the term, casual or tournament.  Admittedly, I have less than a dozen in-person games in the last 20 years.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1296" LastActivityDate="2020-09-30T02:37:47.167" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32464" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32444" CreationDate="2020-09-30T04:55:11.560" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, as others have said, not even (king) check needs to be announced. Queens can be traded or sacrificed. It's not possible to define precisely when the Q is under threat and needs response.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However chess softwares usually have a sound effect when king is checked. And in one blitz game, my opponent took advantage of that annoying sound!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &amp;quot;1r3k2/p4pp1/8/8/8/P7/KPQ3P1/6q1 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Qc5+! Kg8 2. Qxg1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wished they had a Q alert.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7002" LastActivityDate="2020-09-30T04:55:11.560" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32465" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32444" CreationDate="2020-09-30T05:46:42.707" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, there is no official FIDE rule about saying 'Queen-check', so you don't.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I've got something to add about chaturanga, an ancient form of chess. In it, the rook is the most powerful piece, and when it is attacked, it is considered good etiquette to call out, 'Check-rook'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastActivityDate="2020-09-30T05:46:42.707" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32466" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32458" CreationDate="2020-09-30T06:30:07.613" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You aren't going to learn much that you couldn't learn from a database. MCO has very little explanation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I will say though that it is useful to quickly run through an opening and get a feel for the types of typical positions that come up. Also, sometimes the positional evaluations might be interesting especially if they contradict the engines and databases.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Memorizing lines won't get you anywhere unless you're playing someone who tried to memorize the same but did a worse job at it. I can honestly say I have never once tried to memorize a line in the entire time I'm played chess. I do my opening analysis one time and usually remember most of it because I understand why I'm making the moves. If it comes up in a game and I don't remember it, I'll go over the analysis again. Usually that's enough.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For normal players (ie below GM) most openings aren't going to be more than about 8-10 moves deep. The first few moves you won't have to memorize because you play them all the time. So really, learning a line is learning about 4-6 moves which isn't hard if you understand why you're making those moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastEditorUserId="19861" LastEditDate="2020-09-30T06:35:12.143" LastActivityDate="2020-09-30T06:35:12.143" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32467" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8711" CreationDate="2020-09-30T06:52:37.410" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I use a modified version of De La Maza's approach.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first time just go through it normally. Keep track of the amount of time you spend and which ones you get wrong. Play through the ones you get wrong until you understand them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The second time through do the same thing except cut the amount of time in half. If for some reason you can't cut the time in half, figure out which ones are giving you the most problem and work on those areas. For example if you're missing a lot of knight forks you might want to do knight tour drills or a lot of simple one move problems.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Each subsequent time do the same thing- Go through the entire book and cut your time in half (ideally while increasing accuracy)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Keep repeating until you can do the entire book in one day. Then move on to the next book.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2020-09-30T06:52:37.410" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32468" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32449" CreationDate="2020-09-30T07:11:37.323" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;You seem to equate being aggressive with being inaccurate. I would say it's the opposite. Most top level players tend to be aggressive because you have to get wins to reach the highest levels. Caruana is the perfect example. He's a very strong player but couldn't beat Magnus because he wasn't aggressive enough and could only draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The best players all tend to be aggressive- Fischer, Kasparov, Magnus, Tal, Anand, Topalov, Morphy etc. Capablanca is the only truly great player (in my opinion) who played a defensive style yet even he lost to Alekhine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'll add that most engines can be very aggressive too, Generally, the first clue I have that I'm playing an engine is that I can't get the initiative. I've played some very strong players (GMs, IMs, world and national champions etc) and even when I lose I'm still able to dictate the game to an extent. Engines though are always able to keep the initiative and put me on the defensive if I just play normally. Accurate play and aggressive play are frequently the same thing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2020-09-30T07:11:37.323" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32469" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-09-30T12:10:40.140" Score="0" ViewCount="82" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm writing a chess engine in C# for school purposes. As part of the assignment, I need to read something from an external document. I was thinking of reading an opening book, but I can't really find much documentation because Polyglot is used a lot of the time. I can't really use that because I don't get marks for other people's code.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does anyone have information or a good website on how to implement a png/bin opening book in your chess engine?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24858" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2020-09-30T13:09:57.153" LastActivityDate="2020-10-07T23:30:56.837" Title="Information on adding opening knowledge to an engine" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;engines&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32470" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32444" CreationDate="2020-09-30T12:22:18.417" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;No because the whole point is to capture the King, so it's not necessary, &amp;amp; has never been an official rule as far as I know. If you do it with the Queen, why not with any other piece which ultimately has little to do with you winning? I was taught that you should announce a King check to give your opponent an opportunity to fix it, but I don't know if it's &lt;em&gt;necessary&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24859" LastActivityDate="2020-09-30T12:22:18.417" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32471" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32447" CreationDate="2020-09-30T13:27:14.630" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is viable at all levels, but there are more critical tries as Black, that is why it is rare at the top level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The defense was even used twice by Spassky in the 1964 World Championship Match against Petrosian, both games drawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15478" LastActivityDate="2020-09-30T13:27:14.630" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32472" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-09-30T16:42:27.290" Score="1" ViewCount="16" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've recently started training with some drills to improve at blindfold chess using the software chess eye. I also watched a video by IM Daniel Rensch where he went over certain blindfold drills used by the Soviet Union in their chess schools. Does anyone have any recommendations they could make about other methods to improve at this. I feel as though since I started my calculation has improved drastically and would like to continue the trend.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24850" LastActivityDate="2020-09-30T16:42:27.290" Title="Any tips for improving at blindfold chess?" Tags="&lt;calculation&gt;&lt;blindfold-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2020-09-30T16:54:20.073" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32473" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17550" CreationDate="2020-09-30T17:52:15.260" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm a big believer that players below expert level should play system openings against 1. d4. They drastically reduce what you need to know to get a playable game. Bobby Fischer thought the same way and played the King's Indian but the problem is that opening has acquired a lot of theory since then.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Tarrasch Defense is very much a system opening. You can play a Tarrasch formation against everything except 1.e4 and black will equalize easily against everything except one line-The Rubinstein. Even then the advantage in the Rubinstein is smaller than in most d4 defenses and black has an active position and a lot of options and can dictate the direction of the game. On top of that, the characteristic move of the Tarrasch is c5 which means you will learn a lot about sicilian-type positions by playing it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A lot of the same is true of the Dutch which is a mirror image of the sicilian.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lastly, the position you give is an old Benoni. There's nothing wrong with it at all. Black can aim to control the dark squares and reach an equal position (in which case it is a system opening) or play more aggressively with the main line Benonis. My only concern is that there are some lines that are a little advanced positionally and black can struggle in a cramped position if he doesn't know what to do. Sill, at your level you should be able to equalize easily and get an active position in 99% of your games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2020-09-30T17:52:15.260" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32474" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8711" CreationDate="2020-09-30T20:07:26.953" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are two possible goals when reading a tactics book:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Learning about the existence of tactical patterns;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Knowing those patterns from heart and recognize them in a position without calculating.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For 1. read the book from start to end. Stop at every position. Make sure what happens in every position. Understand the lines that are written. Find and understand why other moves are not mentioned. Do you calculations on the board if necessary. The more you progress, the less you will need a board, but do NOT put any pressure on you in that respect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Step 2 needs completion of step 1. Repeat every position - as much positions per day as is comfortable for you - until you make no mistakes for two runs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20096" LastActivityDate="2020-09-30T20:07:26.953" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32475" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-10-01T04:49:44.150" Score="6" ViewCount="1210" Body="&lt;p&gt;In many of my games, I've come across opponents who can calculate really well and deeply. Generally I feel that I lose if I can't calculate as well as my opponents. So my question was really if calculation was the most important aspect of playing chess. Would the person who calculates better normally win?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24846" LastActivityDate="2020-10-08T16:26:50.817" Title="Is calculation the most important aspect of playing chess?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;learning&gt;&lt;calculation&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32476" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14105" CreationDate="2020-10-01T07:04:05.710" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;For players are still learning the game (&amp;lt;1900) it's best to play open, tactical positions. Those are the openings that will help you improve the fastest.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Once you get in the 1900-2000 range you can start looking a little deeper.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are your goals? If you're very young and want to reach GM level you're going to pick different openings than the guy who plays for fun and only wants to get a playable position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What's your approach to the game? Are you the type that tries to win every game or are you fine with drawing in certain situations? How do you try to win? Material, attack, position, endgame?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Beyond that, try to find one opening you're comfortable with and then look for other openings that compliment it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2020-10-01T07:04:05.710" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32477" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32475" CreationDate="2020-10-01T07:57:54.170" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Indeed. Accurate calculation is the source of all success in chess. Strategic ideas will only work if tactics support them. While other aspects of the game are also helpful and can make the difference, nothing can close the gap if there's a big difference in calculation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastActivityDate="2020-10-01T07:57:54.170" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32478" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="76" CreationDate="2020-10-01T08:11:41.853" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In addition to the two nice answers already provided, I would like to mention the variant King of the hill, whose difference with normal checked is the following: in addition to checkmate, a legal move that moves one's own king to one of the center squares (d4, d5, e4, e5) wins.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This helps a lot for the control of squares. Indeed, one cannot neglect any center square. If one of the center squares is too weak, then soon or later the opponent will take profit of it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="411" LastActivityDate="2020-10-01T08:11:41.853" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32479" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32475" CreationDate="2020-10-01T09:19:04.640" Score="7" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Would the person who calculates better normally win?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If everything else is equal then the answer is obviously &amp;quot;Yes&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, everything else is rarely equal. Fixating on calculation is very common in chess players. &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/22024/calculation-skills-to-2000-and-beyond&quot;&gt;Here is another question&lt;/a&gt; about calculation which clearly demonstrates this fixation.  The fixation is so clear that the &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/22024/calculation-skills-to-2000-and-beyond/22025#22025&quot;&gt;best answer&lt;/a&gt; easily pinpoints this in the first two paragraphs. BlindKungFooMaster then goes on to make the key point which is -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my experience ratings first and foremost reflect positional&#xA;understanding. Calculation skills make a much smaller difference, at&#xA;least above a certain threshold.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This fixation with calculation is, when considered rationally, obviously wrong. The strongest chess is not pure computer chess, chess based on pure calculation, it is correspondence chess where a human being moderates pure calculation with their positional understanding.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This was certainly the case before AlphaZero. AlphaZero's recent success is down to an attempt to incorporate positional understanding into computer chess which has worked better than more simplistic ideas like adjusting scores according to ideas like doubled pawns, central knights versus dim knights on the rim, king safety in the middlegame, centralised king in the endgame, etc. It would be very interesting to see correspondence players being able to use AlphaZero-like computers in their competitions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-10-01T09:19:04.640" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32480" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32430" CreationDate="2020-10-01T13:20:25.073" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;The closest I have come to a definitive positive answer is &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.ecforum.org.uk/viewtopic.php?f=2&amp;amp;t=8460&amp;amp;p=185793&amp;amp;hilit=disrepute#p185793&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this post&lt;/a&gt; in the English Chess Forum by Canadian International Arbiter &lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/profile/2611031&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Pierre Dénommée&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is the relevant part of the post -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &amp;quot;8/p7/1p2q1k1/4p1P1/2P5/1P1R4/4K3/8 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White did move his rook between d5 and d6 and pressed his clock, he&#xA;could have tripped his rook after, this would not have changed&#xA;anything. Black assumed that the rook was on d5 because it would be&#xA;unprotected on d6. Black did play Kxg5. White then adjusted his rook&#xA;to d6 and played Rxe6. &lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The final result was 0-1 for bringing the game&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&#xA;&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;of chess into disrepute&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;. No illegal move has occurred, but doing&#xA;nothing when a player change[s] a completely lost position into a won&#xA;position by an unsportsmanlike conduct is not acceptable&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Emphasis added by me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This was posted as part of a discussion about players knocking over a piece in blitz and pressing the clock without putting the piece back in place and so, unfortunately, no further details of the game or decision were included.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="21604" LastEditDate="2020-10-01T15:01:18.567" LastActivityDate="2020-10-01T15:01:18.567" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32481" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32444" CreationDate="2020-10-01T17:03:30.907" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Although the official rules of chess don't allow for takebacks in tournament or rated games, and expect players to notice when their queen is in danger, people who are playing for purposes of mutual enjoyment should adjust those rules when doing so would enhance that enjoyment.  If a game has reached an interesting position but one of the players makes a silly move that would drop the queen, having the opponent take advantage of that would render the game up to that point essentially meaningless.  If the opponent instead says &amp;quot;Are you sure you want to let me capture the queen?&amp;quot;, and allows the first player to make a better move, the players may then be able to get more enjoyment out of the interesting position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Beginners should play a mixture of &amp;quot;friendly&amp;quot; games which allow generous takebacks, and strict games with no takebacks, since the two kinds of game will impart different lessons.  A novice who plays only strict games with other novices may place too much focus on encouraging and exploiting the kinds of blunders that experienced players would never make, and would thus be unable to formulate any kind of strategy that would have any hope against experienced players.  Playing &amp;quot;friendly&amp;quot; games may allow players to get more experience against how to handle good moves by opponents (even if it takes the opponent a few tries to find a good move), but may fail to teach the discipline necessary to avoid blundering in rated or tournament games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="2698" LastActivityDate="2020-10-01T17:03:30.907" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32483" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15532" CreationDate="2020-10-01T20:35:58.203" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, I have played this variant before.  This was a common game my family played when I was a kid, and we still play it now and then.  We had slightly different rules about the king- it was just a normal piece for us, that could be captured and capture just like any other piece.  I think that helped to balance the game somewhat, and was a slightly more equal variant than what you have described.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Wikipedia also describes this variant.  It has many names, the ones I have seen most commonly are Takeaway Chess and Antichess.  It is described on Wikipedia with the same version of the rules I have described (&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Losing_chess&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Losing_chess&lt;/a&gt;), and a bit of the game's history and strategies.  Wikipedia also claims that it has been weakly solved as winning for white with 1. e3.  Thus, it has been proven that white always wins, but every line has not been calculated for the forced win (if this makes no sense, you can read about the different ways games can be solved &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solved_game&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;).  However, since no one can memorize the number of potential lines required to win it, you can still play it and be competitive in your games with your friend.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Furthermore, Wikipedia provides several other lists of rulesets for this variant that are less common but still played in some local areas.  Yours is one of them, so I would assume that your friend got this from an area where that version of the variant was played.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have seen Antichess on chess.com, on the 4 player chess server.  It is not currently among their standard 2-player-chess variants, perhaps because it has indeed been solved and wackos who wanted to get crazy ratings would be able to use computer help much more easily, or just memorize a bunch of winning lines.  I agree with their evaluation of there not being much use of putting it in the 2PC variants, but the 4PC variant is quite fun, and has not been solved as an extra bonus.  :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It occurred to me after writing the above  paragraph that Lichess has this among their 2PC variants- in fact, I checked and it is apparently their most popular variant- even more than Chess960.  So I guess it can work in 2PC online.  I'm pretty sure that while it's not recognized by FIDE or anything, being on Lichess and chess.com indicates that it is a major part of the chess community.  Many other variants, like Chess960 have gained steam in local clubs, online, and in mid-level tournaments, before getting recognized as a real thing by FIDE.  I don't think that will happen with Takeaway Chess, since it's already solved, but it still seems to have a sizeable community.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for strategies as Black, you can read the Wikipedia article I already cited for deeper analysis and other references, but I'll summarize some stuff here.:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As black, the variation that is the hardest to play against as white is the &lt;code&gt;Liardet Defense&lt;/code&gt;, which is &lt;code&gt;1. e3 b6&lt;/code&gt;.  This makes the game take a very long time, and can send the game into an endgame, which are much more ferociously complicated than normal chess endgames, and can for all practical purposes make the game a coin toss when the game is played between two not-Magnus-Carlsen-level players.  Thus, I would suggest that you try to figure out how to get into an endgame, which should actually be far more complicated than the middlegame, where there are more pieces on the board, counterintuitive though it may seem.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24698" LastActivityDate="2020-10-01T20:35:58.203" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32484" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32475" CreationDate="2020-10-02T01:30:53.290" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;evaluation is the most important aspect of chess. The ability to judge if the position is good or bad without needing for deep calculation is vital. There are limits to how fast humans can calculate and in the end, you need to know if the line you calculate is good or bad. Though admittedly, the terms are somewhat vague. Does a grandmaster beat 50 people in a simul because he calculates better than his opponents. In some way you could say yes, when he calculates he is able to pick out the most important lines. Of course he also wins because he doesn't need to calculate as much because of his positional understanding, his ability to evaluate positions without spending much time or effort on it. So depending on what you mean by calculation ability, you may come to different conclusions.&#xA;As an aside, stockfish examines 100 million positions a second. Alpha zero examines 100,000 positions a second. How many positions do humans examine a second?0 to 10. No doubt if computers were limited to this computational limitation, stockfish and alpha zero would be crushed by professionals, probably even amateurs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3872" LastActivityDate="2020-10-02T01:30:53.290" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32485" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14105" CreationDate="2020-10-02T01:37:47.627" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are many respectable openings. Understand that whichever of these openings you choose, you will be able to become a strong player and enjoy the openings. There may be some general criteria. Perhaps you want to avoid learning a lot of theory. Perhaps you want positions that are complex. In the end, have a general idea of what you want and just pick one. The chose doesn't matter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3872" LastActivityDate="2020-10-02T01:37:47.627" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32486" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32110" CreationDate="2020-10-02T06:11:47.523" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;No source, but I eventually found out (from other computer chess viewers) that Stockfish NNUE does not have contempt &lt;em&gt;per se&lt;/em&gt; - it's not clear how to implement contempt in NNs. However, Stockfish NNUE does use the handcrafted eval in certain positions, so there is still a contempt setting. Apparently, however, the effect is minuscule. Before NNUE, contempt=100 Stockfish plays a vastly different game from c=0 Stockfish; now they're similar (which shouldn't be surprising since handcrafted eval is not used often).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastActivityDate="2020-10-02T06:11:47.523" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32487" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-10-02T17:33:26.937" Score="2" ViewCount="238" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to analyze a game with the python-chess package, and for that I want to turn off the &amp;quot;Analysis Contempt&amp;quot; option in Stockfish. However, it seems it doesn't work, and I don't know why. Neither configuring the engine nor setting the option did the job - the evaluation flips every move in a simple opening line (Spanish) - it gives white the advantage on white move and the same for black. Any idea what I'm doing wrong? I tried with both Stockfish 12 and Komodo 11 as the engine (where I set &amp;quot;White Contempt&amp;quot; to 0 instead of &amp;quot;Analysis Contempt&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;def get_best_move_score(board: chess.Board) -&amp;gt; int:&#xA;    engine_path = os.environ.get('STOCKFISH')&#xA;    engine = chess.engine.SimpleEngine.popen_uci(engine_path)&#xA;    engine.configure({'Analysis Contempt': 'Off', 'Contempt': &amp;quot;0&amp;quot;})&#xA;    analysis = engine.analyse(board, chess.engine.Limit(depth=20),&#xA;                              options={'Analysis Contempt': 'Off', 'Contempt': &amp;quot;0&amp;quot;})&#xA;    return analysis['score']&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;os.environ[&amp;quot;STOCKFISH&amp;quot;] = &amp;quot;coach/charts/stockfish12&amp;quot;&#xA;file = open(&amp;quot;coach/charts/game.pgn&amp;quot;, encoding=&amp;quot;utf-8-sig&amp;quot;)&#xA;&#xA;game = chess.pgn.read_game(file)&#xA;board = game.board()&#xA;previous_move = None&#xA;for move in game.mainline_moves():&#xA;    score = get_best_move_score(board)&#xA;    board.push(move)&#xA;    print(previous_move, score)&#xA;    previous_move = move&#xA;file.close()&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23037" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-10-02T21:30:00.847" LastActivityDate="2020-10-02T21:30:00.847" Title="How to turn off Contempt in engine analysis?" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;python&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32490" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="76" CreationDate="2020-10-02T18:47:24.827" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Playing other variants should only have a marginal effect on improvement, and sometimes it's bad(makes you think in ways optimal for the variant, but not for chess). &lt;strong&gt;Since others have not mentioned it, playing blindfold chess may help with visualizations, but probably can only be played after a certain level of competency in chess,&lt;/strong&gt; but I suppose blindfold chess is generously defined as a chess variant.&#xA;Of course the best way to improve at chess is to play/study chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3872" LastActivityDate="2020-10-02T18:47:24.827" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32492" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32449" CreationDate="2020-10-03T00:09:14.733" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Rather than a point in ratings I think it is a difference in ratings.  At a difference of 400 points you can mostly play how you like.  I recall a game from 2-3 years ago where Aronian was playing a 2400.  He made an unsound sac in a quiet position and his opponent never had any piece coordination after that.  The computer didn't like this sac at all.  I doubt he would have played that way against an equal in that position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would like to see more analysis of games between unequals.  It is instructive to see lines play out that usually only end up in the analysis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17425" LastEditorUserId="17425" LastEditDate="2020-10-15T13:34:44.603" LastActivityDate="2020-10-15T13:34:44.603" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32493" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32458" CreationDate="2020-10-03T08:59:14.150" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;MCO is an excellent source of information. In fact, opening encyclopedias actuality are not related to the existence of chess engines or to the latest that has been played. Rather, the variants selected by the encyclopedia are important because the players who selected them are people with extensive experience in the field.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The time that has elapsed since they were selected does not mean that they are no longer current. The existence of the Spanish opening, for example, or other similar ones for centuries, testify to the solidity of these openings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With the passage of time, players have found new ways of dealing with openings and new channels to lead the game towards the forms of play that &lt;strong&gt;are convenient for them&lt;/strong&gt;, but thats not for everyone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I provide a simple example. MCO helps research lines with potential for postal chess that resist attack from chess engines. I do not want to go into details of how I achieve it, but it is a laborious effort in which I compare the evaluations that the Masters recorded, against the result of recent games from the final positions of those lines in face-to-face and correspondence games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1766" LastActivityDate="2020-10-03T08:59:14.150" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32495" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32496" CreationDate="2020-10-03T20:43:15.623" Score="20" ViewCount="2456" Body="&lt;p&gt;When a pawn is moved to the promotion square, can one change their mind about what piece to promote to? Say I push a pawn to the promotion square, remove it, grab an additional queen, do not yet place it on the board, and then realise queening would lead to stalemate. So I grab a rook instead. Did I break a rule?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15478" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-10-03T22:22:18.260" LastActivityDate="2020-10-03T22:22:18.260" Title="Is there a &quot;touch-promote&quot; rule?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;fide&gt;&lt;pawn-promotion&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32496" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32495" CreationDate="2020-10-03T22:13:18.490" Score="26" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I grab a rook instead. Did I break a rule?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No, the &lt;a href=&quot;https://handbook.fide.com/chapter/E012018&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Laws of Chess&lt;/a&gt; are very clear. The choice of piece is not decided until it touches the promotion square.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In so far as touch move applies to promotion the key is that the promotion must be performed with one hand. That is the same hand must be used to remove the pawn from the board (it does not have to be first moved to the promotion square) and to place the promotion piece on the board. How the piece reaches the &amp;quot;moving hand&amp;quot; is irrelevant. It may be transferred from the other hand. If a piece is captured in the act of promotion it must be removed also with the same &amp;quot;moving hand&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4.4 If a player having the move:&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;...&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;4.4.4 promotes a pawn, the choice of the piece is finalised when the piece has touched the square of promotion.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;...&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;4.6  The act of promotion may be performed in various ways:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4.6.1 the pawn does not have to be placed on the square of arrival,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4.6.2 removing the pawn and putting the new piece on the square of promotion may occur in any order.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4.6.3 If an opponent’s piece stands on the square of promotion, it must be captured.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;,,,&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;7.5.4 If a player uses two hands to make a single move (for example in case of castling, capturing or promotion) and pressed the clock, it shall be considered and penalized as if an illegal move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-10-03T22:13:18.490" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32498" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32499" CreationDate="2020-10-04T00:34:57.793" Score="4" ViewCount="687" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have neen playing a higher amount of online chess as opposed to club chess  lately and something I have noticed is a significant increase in Bishop sacrifices to prevent kingside castling. Here is an example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Bc4 Nf6 3. Nf3 Nc6 4. O-O Bc5 5. Bxf7+&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The above is probably the most common instance I have come across of this &amp;quot;tactic&amp;quot; being used..Is sacrificing the minor piece really worth it? Is there name for this tactic, eg &amp;quot;Fianchetto&amp;quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24511" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-10-04T01:47:06.433" LastActivityDate="2020-10-14T13:18:53.943" Title="Bishop sacrifices to prevent castling" Tags="&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;terminology&gt;&lt;bishops&gt;&lt;sacrifice&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32499" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32498" CreationDate="2020-10-04T00:43:58.713" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not worth it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tactic used by low rated players which might work against other low rated players but would fail to a halfway decent player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Run the position through an engine of your choice and see what it says.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No official name but patzer fish rookie beginner could work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can not comment.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;@David Bateman:  If those ratings are online then they are barely getting out of the beginner rating class.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastEditorUserId="20776" LastEditDate="2020-10-04T01:51:21.753" LastActivityDate="2020-10-04T01:51:21.753" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32501" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32518" CreationDate="2020-10-04T09:59:30.060" Score="2" ViewCount="125" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a continuation of my previous question (&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/23836/rated-tournaments-in-france-for-a-poor-french-speaker/23838#23838&quot;&gt;Rated Tournaments in France - For a Poor French Speaker&lt;/a&gt;), I have taken part in my first tournament in France.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While I can get by in the French language, I am unsure of what some common chess phrases for tournament play may be. A direct English to French translation is likely incorrect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Could anyone enlighten me with either some phrases or a link to a resource (unable to find so far) for the below questions?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;offering a draw / claiming a draw via repetition&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;calling for an adjudicator&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;claiming an illegal move has been made&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;plus anything else that springs to mind.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The last thing I want is to offend anyone in a tournament by coming across rude or ignorant, and adhering to the etiquette of tournament play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18321" LastEditorUserId="20096" LastEditDate="2020-10-04T10:27:43.457" LastActivityDate="2020-10-06T15:45:09.650" Title="Tournament Chess in the French Language" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32502" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32501" CreationDate="2020-10-04T10:26:43.027" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is an &lt;a href=&quot;https://rcc.fide.com/french-translation-of-the-laws-of-chess/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;official translation of FIDE Laws of Chess into french&lt;/a&gt; where you will find most phrases.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Offering a draw: Je propose nulle.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Calling for an adjudicator (=arbiter): Je demande l’aide d’un arbitre.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Claiming an illegal move has been made: Je constate qu’un coup illégal a été achevé.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There has been a dictionary edited by Chess Informant with the most relevant chess phrases in English, French, German, Russian and a fifth language. But it is out of print. If you find one in an antiquarian bookshop, buy it, it might help a lot.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20096" LastEditorUserId="14079" LastEditDate="2020-10-05T12:29:14.417" LastActivityDate="2020-10-05T12:29:14.417" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32503" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9104" CreationDate="2020-10-05T00:23:15.060" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes and no.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On an absolute basis definitely not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On a relative basis yes because you won.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What makes a sacrifice sound is whether it works or not. Not what some engine says is perfection, just what THAT game result is.&#xA;Obviously it may not be 'sound' but it only has to work once to be &lt;em&gt;sound&lt;/em&gt;, which depends on you and your opponent at that time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Many top players make an 'unsound' sacrifice once, but may never attempt it again.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastActivityDate="2020-10-05T00:23:15.060" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32504" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9836" CreationDate="2020-10-05T00:27:39.600" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It may seem that way because masters would make sacrifices based on their judgement of how well it work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Beginners often make sacrifices that are total nonsense. They might beat some other weak player with it but against a decent player they lose with such nonsense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;New kids just learning who have some skill already, often fall in love with nonsense sacrifices because they like to play a wide open slash and burn attack rather than play a sounder game. If the sac is borderline and not an obviously stupid move they might get away with it on occasion. Especially if the line is complicated and the other player is unfamiliar with it and could make mistakes that would lose.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-10-28T23:48:24.477" LastActivityDate="2020-10-28T23:48:24.477" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32505" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8888" CreationDate="2020-10-05T01:18:29.590" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is probably the worst response possible. You can accept the pawn with 4.exf5. Then, Black will play 4...Bxg2, then 5. Qh5. Black's kingside weaknesses will result in loss of material. Black is forced to play 5...g6, The following [best, probably] moves are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;6&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;fxg6 Bg7 7. gxh7+ Kf8 8.hxg8Q+ Kxg8&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When Black's bishop captures on h1, then you can trap it with f2-f3. Stockfish evaluates the position at depth 22 as +2, approximately.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If Black does not go ahead with his plan of winning the exchange, with 4...Nf6 (prevents Qh5+), then you play 5.Nf3. Your rook is safe, you have more space, and Black's kingside has been weakened.&#xA;Stockfish evaluates the position as +4.4!?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24344" LastActivityDate="2020-10-05T01:18:29.590" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32506" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13173" CreationDate="2020-10-05T02:48:57.613" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.lichess4545.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Lichess4545 League&lt;/a&gt; runs various slow time control tournaments on lichess. Their primary league is a 45+45 team tournament with games once a week, but there's also the Lonewolf league which is normally a 11 round swiss tournament with a 30+30 time control and various others that are accessible to players that have played in the league. Personally, I have greatly enjoyed both of these.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23100" LastActivityDate="2020-10-05T02:48:57.613" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32507" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32508" CreationDate="2020-10-05T14:50:26.510" Score="7" ViewCount="3612" Body="&lt;p&gt;When reviewing my games on Lichess, I very often find the Lichess engine recommending to me to sacrifice the bishop early on after checking the enemy king. I have created a &lt;a href=&quot;http://lichess.org/5hGA9n26&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;sample game&lt;/a&gt; where you can see it happening. I don't see myself in any better position there, so I am curious what I gain by doing this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. c4 Nd4 4. Nxd4 cxd4 5. d3 e5 6. Be2 Bb4+ 7. Bd2 Bxd2+ 8. Qxd2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I just don't understand why it wants me to move my bishop to b4 in the first place. I'd much rather want to develop my position more by doing c5 or knight f6 or similar.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24650" LastEditorUserId="3757" LastEditDate="2020-10-06T15:40:25.703" LastActivityDate="2020-10-07T14:54:56.803" Title="Why does Stockfish recommend this bishop exchange early on?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;bishops&gt;&lt;lichess&gt;&lt;exchange&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32508" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32507" CreationDate="2020-10-05T15:03:17.840" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;I wouldn't say it was a &amp;quot;sacrifice&amp;quot;, it was more like an exchange of bishops.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My lichess engine was actually giving me &lt;code&gt;...Bd6&lt;/code&gt; as the first move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't understand why it wants me to move my bishop to b4 in the first place&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Me neither. I doubt anyone here will have an idea. Stockfish doesn't tell us &lt;em&gt;why&lt;/em&gt;. If I have to make a guess, I would say the bishop is being blocked by the d4-e5 pawn chain, so it makes sense to exchange the bad bishop off.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2020-10-05T15:03:17.840" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32509" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32507" CreationDate="2020-10-05T16:03:50.693" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;Once white has put pawns on the central white squares of d3, c4 and e4 his white squared bishop becomes very bad, because its mobility is drastically reduced, and his dark squared bishop becomes essential for protecting the dark squares that have become weak thanks to the pawn moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That means that 7.Bd2 is a blunder because it allows black to exchange the dark squared bishops leaving white with a bad position. Much better would have been 7.Nd2 followed by a3 and b4 to chase the dark squared bishop away.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-10-05T16:03:50.693" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32510" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32430" CreationDate="2020-10-05T17:35:42.443" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Has the FIDE rule against bringing the game into disrepute been ever invoked? Indeed. I have found several examples of applications of the rule, based on the analysis of many resolutions by FIDE, and a few national and regional chess federations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;N.B. Although I tried to find references in English, it was hard to do and most of the references I found are in French, Catalan and Italian. The references I could find depend on my knowledge of languages and on the publication of disciplinary resolutions by a particular federation.&lt;/strong&gt; (For example, I could not find such type of documents neither at the USCF site nor at the English Chess Federation's).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Cases of application&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I actually found a case similar to that presented by @Brian Towers &lt;strong&gt;for committing illegal moves/actions during a game of chess&lt;/strong&gt;. During a rapid chess competition, the white player repeatedly made illegal actions during the last two moves of the game (captured a pawn but did not take it off the board during his own time; retired the pawn during the opponent's time and, because of this movement, displaced a bishop from d4 to f3 and interfered with the opponent; knocked down two pawns while making his next move and did not set them up during his own time). This went unnoticed by the arbiter but there was video footage. The black player made a claim, but lost by time because of this. The result of the game was overturned based on article 11.1 and 11.5 (not annoying the opponent) (&lt;a href=&quot;http://fbescacs.cat/documents/Doc20161220103410.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;decision 3/2016&lt;/a&gt;, in Catalan, by the competition judge of the Chess Federation of the Balearic Islands).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, this type of application of the article seems to be rare and it is more often invoked to punish &lt;strong&gt;inappropriate behavior during a match&lt;/strong&gt;. Here are some examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A player broke havoc in disguise during the final of 86th French Championship as part of a prank. According to the arbiter that reported the event, &amp;quot;His behavior and actions have brought discredit to our sport&amp;quot;. The player was suspended for two years (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.echecs.asso.fr/Discipline/2011-14.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Resolution 2011-14&lt;/a&gt; of the Federal Committee of Discipline of the French Chess Federation, in French).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;An adult player shouted to an underage player, accusing him of having touched a piece and not played it. The adult player was suspended for 30 days (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.federscacchi.it/doc/GSN/d20200303020502_sent_calabrese-277_2020.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Resolution 2020/277&lt;/a&gt; of the National Sports Judge of the Italian Chess Federation, in Italian).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Two players started quarreling during a match about some pieces having been knocked down. Both players lost the game and were suspended for 30 days (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.federscacchi.it/doc/GSN/d20191029091641_sent_mouflih_gojani-259_2019.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Resolution 2019/259&lt;/a&gt; of the National Sports Judge of the Italian Chess Federation, in Italian).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A player insisted on using swear words and acting disrespectfully, even after several requests by the arbiter. The player was suspended for two months (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.federscacchi.it/doc/GSN/d20180112064124_sent_155_tocco.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Resolution 2017/155&lt;/a&gt; of the National Sports Judge of the Italian Chess Federation, in Italian).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;While playing against an underage player, an adult player repeatedly went to the bar for alcoholic drinks (although he apparently was not inebriated). He was reprimanded on the grounds of article 11.1 (&lt;a href=&quot;http://escacs.cat/index.php/comites/resolucions-comites/resolucions-2019/26508-&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Resolution 20/2019&lt;/a&gt; of the Catalan Chess Federation, in Catalan).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A player was reprimanded on the grounds or article 11.1 for shouting during a match when his opponent's phone alarm rang (&lt;a href=&quot;http://escacs.cat/index.php/comites/resolucions-comites/resolucions-2019/26224-&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Resolution 7/2019&lt;/a&gt;, of the Catalan Chess Federation, in Catalan). (The other player was reprimanded for telling the delegate, but not his opponent of the fact that the alarm would ring to remember him to take his medication. The competition rules specified he should have told both about it.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Several players were reprimanded for misbehaving (shouting, speaking aggressively) because of a conflict during a match (&lt;a href=&quot;http://escacs.cat/index.php/comites/resolucions-comites/resolucions-2017/24925-&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Resolution 07/2017&lt;/a&gt; of the Catalan Chess Federation, in Catalan).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A team's delegate was reprimanded for acting angrily when making a claim (&lt;a href=&quot;http://escacs.cat/index.php/comites/resolucions-comites/resolucions-2017/24922-&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Resolution 06/2017&lt;/a&gt; of the Catalan Chess Federation, in Catalan).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A player was reprimanded for refusing to shake hands as customary at the beginning of the game (&lt;a href=&quot;http://escacs.cat/index.php/comites/resolucions-comites/resolucions-2016/24675-&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Resolution 17/2016&lt;/a&gt; of the Catalan Chess Federation, in Catalan).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;An adult player has suspended for six months for acting pejoratively against two underage opponents. The decision was confirmed during an appeal based on grounds of article 11.1 and 11.5 (&lt;a href=&quot;http://escacs.cat/index.php/comites/resolucions-comites/resolucions-2016/24673-&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Appeal Resolution 15/2016&lt;/a&gt;, of the Catalan Chess Federation, in Catalan).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Article 11.1 has also been used to punish &lt;strong&gt;affronts and offenses against chess organizations&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The president of a chess club was suspended for three years for offenses against the French Chess Federation on Twitter and for manhandling a couple of underage players he trained (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.echecs.asso.fr/Discipline/2019-14.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Resolution 2019-14&lt;/a&gt; of the Federal Commission of Discipline of the French Chess Federation, in French). Although the resolution does not cite explicitly the article 11.1, it says that such actions (the insults on Twitter) &amp;quot;are of such a nature to attack the image of the French Chess Federation and the game of chess&amp;quot; (my translation).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Penalties&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As is apparent from the examples above, in case of minor transgressions penalties are limited to admonitions with more severe punishments in case of re-incident behavior. In more severe cases it results in the loss of the game or even license suspensions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Alternatives to article 11.1&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The invocation of article 11.1 seems to depend on the actual regulations of each federation. In fact, the offenses listed above are related to violations of ethical codes in some federations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, the article 2.2.10 of the FIDE Code of Ethics is approximately equivalent to article 11.1 of the Laws of Chess. It states:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;In addition, disciplinary action in accordance with this Code of&#xA;Ethics will be taken in cases of occurrences which cause the game of&#xA;chess, FIDE or its federations to appear in an unjustifiable&#xA;unfavorable light and in this way damage its reputation.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This article was used to suspend former FIDE president K. Ilyumzhinov (&lt;a href=&quot;https://ethics.fide.com/images/stories/ETH_decision_Complaint_against_FIDE_President.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;case 2/2018 of the FIDE Ethics Commission&lt;/a&gt;) for pursuing his own interests instead of FIDE's in addition to other actions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, in France disrespectful behavior is usually judged as violations of the Ethics and Deontology Chart of the French Chess Federation (e.g., &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.echecs.asso.fr/Discipline/2017-02-Appel.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Appeal decision 2017-02&lt;/a&gt; for hitting a player, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.echecs.asso.fr/Discipline/2019-01.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;decision 2019-01&lt;/a&gt; for insulting and menacing two players, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.echecs.asso.fr/Discipline/2019-13.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;decision 2019-13&lt;/a&gt; for shouting to the opponent, in French).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, the &lt;a href=&quot;http://ethics.fide.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/FIDE-2_2020-decision-final.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;ruling 2/2020 of the FIDE Ethics &amp;amp; Disciplinary Commision&lt;/a&gt; regarding an attempt of match-fixing states that &amp;quot;Art. 2.2.10 is a more general rule, primarily aimed at targeting acts or omissions by  players  or  office  holders  that  is  not  covered  by  any  of  the  more specified articles in the Code of Ethics.&amp;quot; I think this should also be applicable to article 11.1 of the Laws of Chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3757" LastEditorUserId="3757" LastEditDate="2020-10-05T17:48:05.740" LastActivityDate="2020-10-05T17:48:05.740" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32511" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32512" CreationDate="2020-10-05T17:41:13.670" Score="2" ViewCount="144" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/YylBj.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/YylBj.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I am still learning chess and I have a lot of trouble in these situations. Please help me with what to do in the next few turns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24891" LastActivityDate="2020-10-08T19:38:57.407" Title="What is the best approach to this situation?" Tags="&lt;middlegame&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32512" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32511" CreationDate="2020-10-05T18:36:43.763" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;You are a queen and a piece down. Your position is completely hopeless. Your best move here is to resign the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's not clear how well your opponent has played to reach this position but you have clearly played very badly indeed. An opponent who was good enough to reach this position is going to finish you off very quickly regardless of what you do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a beginner you need to start by learning about opening principles, tactics and simple endgames. If you use the search function in this forum you will find many questions and answers that can help you with these.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-10-05T18:36:43.763" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32513" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32507" CreationDate="2020-10-05T18:59:24.657" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Mostly when the engine suggests a such exchange maneuverer it means that either your piece has no future, or the blocking piece has a very good future. Since you need to move the bishop somewhere to get castled, it chooses to exchange it off.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you look for plans in the variation you given, the most natural way for White to proceed is to break in the center with f4 at some point, where you can support your center with ...d6. The bishop would find it hard to find a meaningful role in this structure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15478" LastEditorUserId="15478" LastEditDate="2020-10-05T20:10:35.150" LastActivityDate="2020-10-05T20:10:35.150" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32514" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32507" CreationDate="2020-10-06T00:40:59.593" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;That is not a sacrifice at all.   It is an exchange.  You get rid of a bad bishop for his better one.  It is positional play for a very minor advantage. But still an advantage.  Enough small ones add up to be enough to win material and the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24893" LastActivityDate="2020-10-06T00:40:59.593" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32515" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32507" CreationDate="2020-10-06T02:44:42.193" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;There isn't a sacrifice in the line you gave. I assume you man 6...Bb4+.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The bishop is a bad bishop because it's blocked by its own pawns in the center. 7.Bd2 is virtually forced trading black's bad bishop for white's good bishop. The alternatives for white just aren't very good.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It also frees up black's position because he can play d6 to develop the other bishop and he has Ne7 as an option too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2020-10-06T02:44:42.193" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32516" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13033" CreationDate="2020-10-06T03:04:25.193" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The short answer is that when you reach the point where you aren't making major tactical mistakes but are still losing. In practice that's around 1900-2000 (online ratings about 2200).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My opinion is that beginners should have a basic understanding of positional ideas. For example, you should know what doubled pawns are but you shouldn't start trying to build complex Silman-like plans until you reach the point where you need to know it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19861" LastActivityDate="2020-10-06T03:04:25.193" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32518" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32501" CreationDate="2020-10-06T15:45:09.650" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Native French speaker and regular tournament-goer (pre-Covid) here. The comments under the other answer are correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some background tournament etiquette (probably not France-specific but necessary for what follows):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Calling the arbiter: stop the clock, raise your hand and say &amp;quot;arbitre&amp;quot; (once, but loud enough to be heard). Do not leave your place.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;(pre-Covid, this may have changed) You shake hands with your opponent before and after the game.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now for the French sentences:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Offering a draw: see Evargalo's comment, &amp;quot;je propose (la) nulle&amp;quot; is IMO best; just &amp;quot;nulle ?&amp;quot; sounds quite rough to me but it is not offensive either. Refusing such as offer: &amp;quot;non&amp;quot; (no); accepting: &amp;quot;oui&amp;quot; (yes); or any other non-verbal variant (for instance, extending the hand over the board after such an offer = let's shake on it = yes).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Claiming a draw by repetition: &amp;quot;nulle&amp;quot; (as an affirmation, not a question). Should the opponent disagree (I have never seen that happen), call the arbiter: &amp;quot;la même position a été répétée trois fois&amp;quot; (the same position has been repeated three times). &amp;quot;Je réclame la nulle par répétition&amp;quot; (I claim a draw by repetition) is correct, but formal.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Illegal move: if you feel nice, you can point out that the move is illegal and allow the opponent to retract it (&amp;quot;ce coup est illégal&amp;quot;, this move is illegal, or something more precise, for instance &amp;quot;on ne peut pas laisser le roi en échec&amp;quot;, you cannot leave the king in check). The officially-correct thing to do is to call the arbiter who will apply whatever the rules say (if memory serves, in longer time controls, the opponent gets extra time for the first two offenses).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Resigning: &amp;quot;j'abandonne&amp;quot; (I resign). Common non-verbal alternatives: tipping the king over (which some people consider mildly rude, but IMO it is not if you do it calmly and with a smile), or extending the hand over the chessboard (to shake it, implying the game is over).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Reminding someone of the touch-move rule: &amp;quot;pièce touchée, pièce à jouer&amp;quot; (a touched piece must be played). Less useful: &amp;quot;pièce lâchée, pièce jouée&amp;quot; (a dropped piece has been played = you cannot change the square you put it on). (Only for intentional contact - if the opponent reaches for their glass across the board and accidentally touches a piece, it does not apply.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Adjusting pieces: &amp;quot;j'adoube&amp;quot; (must be said before touching a piece)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Pairings: &amp;quot;appareillement(s)&amp;quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Leaderboard: &amp;quot;classement&amp;quot;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Game notation is algebraic, with the following abbreviations: R=roi (king), D=dame (queen, literally &amp;quot;lady&amp;quot;), T=tour (rook, lit. &amp;quot;tower&amp;quot;), F=fou (bishop, lit. &amp;quot;fool&amp;quot;), C=cavalier (knight, lit. &amp;quot;rider&amp;quot;). For instance Alekhine's defense is written 1.e4 Cf6 instead of 1.e4 Nf6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24898" LastActivityDate="2020-10-06T15:45:09.650" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32519" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-10-06T18:03:50.047" Score="11" ViewCount="1128" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm  ~2170 rated but having avoided d4 d5 type setups my entire chess career, as some things are quite mysterious to me.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In positions where white has pawns on d4 and c4 and black has one on d5 (typically accompanied by some on c6 or e6, or both), I've noticed that white often exchanges with cxd5 and the reasons behind this are quite enigmatic for me. Often by doing so, white allows black's light square bishop to come out, if not immediately then, in the future. For example, some people will play 1. d4 d5 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. cxd5, or similar positions. The exchange may be featured in other positions, for example where black has played b6. Perhaps it's done in the Catalan. Some positions are obvious to me, like in the mainline of Grunfeld's where the exchange leads to a white center. However, often to me it seems that the exchange helps black in regards to piece activity. I suppose the exchange of a side pawn with a center pawn is an argument, but it seems quite soft and unsatisfying. Also, the timing of the exchange also is enigmatic. Could the exchange have happened a turn before, and why precisely now? &lt;strong&gt;There are many classical queen pawn openings where this exchange is featured and I would like if someone could explain to me the typical reasons for doing this exchange.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3872" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-10-06T18:32:17.067" LastActivityDate="2020-10-06T20:30:37.217" Title="Exchanging on d5 in queen's gambit like openings" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32520" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32519" CreationDate="2020-10-06T19:00:46.987" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some things I see:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It introduces the imbalance of half-open files: White gets the half-open c-file, while Black gains the half-open d-file. By proxy that strenghtens White's control of c5 and Black's control of e4. It sounds very abstract, but it is very relevant in lines where Black plays ...a6 (for example in the Slav Defense), because ...b6 controlling the c5 square would weaken the whole queenside. Another point is that liquidating a pair of central pawns limits dynamic possibilities in the center and it becomes very stable for both sides. That means that he pieces have less responsibilities and can be employed elsewhere.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15478" LastEditorUserId="15478" LastEditDate="2020-10-06T19:13:05.170" LastActivityDate="2020-10-06T19:13:05.170" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32521" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-10-06T19:42:36.223" Score="1" ViewCount="129" Body="&lt;p&gt;In a legal position, how many times can the king and its surrounding squares be attacked? There is a total of 9 possible squares to be attacked-the square the king is on and the eight squares surrounding it. The final tally is the added total of the number of times each of the nine squares is attacked.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24098" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-10-08T02:10:57.720" LastActivityDate="2020-10-09T15:57:26.987" Title="How many times can the king and its surrounding squares be attacked?" Tags="&lt;theory&gt;&lt;problems&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32522" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32519" CreationDate="2020-10-06T20:30:37.217" Score="19" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your incomprehension is very understandable. Black opens with d5 and e6 entombing the light squared bishop only for white to play cd allowing the reply ed from black and, hey presto! the bishop is free! Is white really so stupid? What's the trick?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well, some white players want the structure that arises, the so called &amp;quot;Carlsbad structure&amp;quot; and they want to pursue the &amp;quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQRtyMieFFI&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;minority attack&lt;/a&gt;&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is the pawn structure:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &amp;quot;8/pp3ppp/2p5/3p4/3P4/4P3/PP3PPP/8 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;] &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The basic idea is that white will advance the a and b pawns and exchange them for black's a and b pawns leaving a weak backward c pawn and a hole on c5 where white can park a piece. The long term aim is to win this weak pawn and end up in a winning ending a pawn up. QED&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course life isn't that simple. Nevertheless the minority attack is a template which strong players (over 2000) should know. It can occur in a number of openings, not just the QGD. For instance it also occurs, with colours reversed, in the Caro Kann.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is actually an English GM, Keith Arkell, who has this as one of his main weapons. He is an expert in the kind of endgames which can arise from this opening and the endgame is where he applies most of his effort. (He is also probably the leading expert on the KRB vs KR endgame. Although a theoretical draw he has won something like 95% of the games where he has had the extra bishop.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He has just published a book, &amp;quot;Arkell's Endings&amp;quot;, which describes his chess philosophy and gives a lot of annotated games showing his methods. The main English chess magazine just published an extract dealing with this topic and including a game. The full article is about half way through &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.englishchess.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/CHESS-Sep-2020.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this pdf&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are some of Arkell's comments and the game:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I rarely look to create unfathomable complications, I don’t carry around an armoury of opening traps, and I don’t concern myself with trying to force a win from the earliest stages. Instead, &lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;my opening repertoire and subsequent play are all about creating a framework&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt; from which I can try to acquire the tiniest of advantages, and then, inch by inch, convert that into something tangible. Unsurprisingly, I win many of my games in the ending. Very often I am not sure at what point my opponent’s position has deteriorated from what was difficult but tenable, to a forced loss.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is the game where Arkell demonstrates his use of the Carlsbad structure as a framework from which he extracts a win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Arkell - Bradbury, EACU Open, Newmarket 2019, QGD&amp;quot;]&#xA;[fen &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Nf3 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 d5 4. cxd5 exd5 5. d4 c6 6. Bg5 Bf5 7. e3 Nbd7 8. Bd3 Bxd3 9. Qxd3 {Theory dismisses this position as about equal, or at best only very slightly better for White, but my familiarity with the arising structures gives me a good chance to gain the upper hand} 9...Be7 10. O-O h6 {Normally Black would castle here, but now, by capturing on f6, I would be able to follow up with either 12 Ne5 or 12 b4} 11. Bxf6 Nxf6 12. Ne5 O-O 13. Qf5 {This doesn’t look very ambitious, but I am playing for an endgame in which I can probe on the queenside without having to worry about counterplay} 13...Qc8 14. Qxc8 Raxc8 {My opponent doesn’t make any serious mistakes in this game, but this felt like a minor one since the action will most likely take place on the a-, b- and c-files, so the other recapture was likely preferable.} 15. Rfc1 Bd6 16. Nd3 Rfe8 17. b4 Nd7 { I had calculated 17...Ne4 18. Nxe4 dxe4 19. Nc5 b6 (or 19...Bxc5 20. Rxc5 when b4-b5 will follow, with overwhelming positional pressure) 20 Na6 with the plan of attacking Black’s c-pawn.} 18. a4 {I wasn’t sure about the consequences of 18. b5 c5 19. Nxd5 cxd4 20. exd4 Rxc1 21. Rxc1 and then something like 21...Re2. I’m a pawn up, but it all looks a bit loose, so instead I formulated a plan to fix c6 as a longterm weakness.} 18...Nb6 19. a5 Nc4 20. b5 {Threatening to undermine Black’s whole queenside with a5-a6, so more or less forcing the following sequence} 20...a6 21. bxa6 bxa6 22. Na4 Rb8 {22...Nxa5 23 Nac5 just plays into my hands.} 23. Nac5 Rb5 24. Nxa6 Ra8 25. Nac5 Raxa5 26. Rxa5 Nxa5 {And so we have arrived at base camp – the successful conclusion of the minority attack. I have one pawn island against two; Black has active pieces, so a direct assault against c6 is obviously impossible. The correct procedure therefore is to probe on the kingside in order to inflict a second weakness, or at least to gain some space over there.} 27. g4 { This is by far the best pawn move. If 27 h4 h5 it will be hard to make progress, as breaks with e3-e4 or g2-g4 will involve ruining my own pawn structure} 27...Nc4 28. Kg2 Kf8 29. h4 Ke7 30. h5 { Not only does this move fix a target on g7, but experience of playing these kinds of positions, literally hundreds of times, has taught me that there are certain mating nets Black needs to be wary of.} 30...Nb2 {I felt this was a little impatient, enabling me to activate my rook. It was better to sit tight and await events.} 31. Ra1 Nxd3 32. Ra7+ Kf6 33. Nxd3 Rb3 34. Ne1 Rb6 { Neil played this quite quickly, but I wasn’t sure whether he should be playing 34...c5 instead. Actually I had a similar game at Harrogate about four months earlier where I managed to win from the structure which would have arisen after ...c5.} 35. Nf3 Bb8 36. Rd7 Ke6 37. Rd8 {My opponent’s position has rapidly become critical. I now threaten 38. Re8+ Kf6 39. Ne5 when he will either be mated or face heavy material losses.} 37...Bd6 38. Rc8 {This was a bit lazy. As soon as I had released the rook, I regretted not playing 38. Re8+.} 38...Kf6 {There was a chance to prolong the game with 38...f5, but I could still keep up the pressure with 39 g5} 39. Nh4 { After this move, heading for f5, I could no longer see any way for Neil to avoid losing material. His c-pawn, g-pawn, bishop, and even his king have come under increasing pressure, all because his pieces were tied down to the defence of the c6-pawn – a product of White’s typical minority attack in the Carlsbad structure} 39...g6 40. hxg6 fxg6 41. Rg8 Kf7 42. Rxg6 Bf8 43. Kf3 Ra6 44. g5 hxg5 45. Rxg5 Ra2 46. Rf5+ Ke8 47. Ng6 Bd6 48. Rh5 {I have to be careful to prevent the break ...c5 at a moment when the d-pawn is safe from capture.} 48...Kd7 49. Nh4 Bb4 50. Rh7+ Ke6 51. Ng6 Rc2 { I was pleased to see this as it enables my knight to reach its ideal post, back on d3. On 51...Bd6 I intended 52 Rh6 when only an engine might be able to hang on.} 52. Nf4+ Kd6 53. Nd3 Rc4 54. Rb7 c5 55. Rb6+ Kc7 56. dxc5 Bxc5 57. Rb5 {Either Black enters a lost king and pawn endgame, or he loses the d-pawn} 1-0 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A masterclass from an expert on the Carlsbad structure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-10-06T20:30:37.217" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32523" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29914" CreationDate="2020-10-06T21:41:03.103" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Joosep Grents's wonderful &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess24.com/en/read/news/paul-keres-prince-without-a-crown&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;biography&lt;/a&gt; on Paul Keres, there is a brief first-hand account of tactics training in that time period. For background, Paul was a contemporary of Alekhine and almost played him for the World Champion title, but the match never materialized.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's what Paul Keres had to say about training tactics in the 1930s (emphasis mine):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I used correspondence games, above all, for experimental purposes,&#xA;often opting for very risky opening lines and attempting, at all cost,&#xA;to create complicated positions which &lt;strong&gt;I could use to train my tactical&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;skills&lt;/strong&gt;... It is easy to notice a bias toward tactics in these games,&#xA;while there are still considerable problems apparent in solving&#xA;strictly technical problems.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The article notes that at one time Paul was playing more than 100 correspondence games at once.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24678" LastActivityDate="2020-10-06T21:41:03.103" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32524" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32529" CreationDate="2020-10-07T01:36:40.727" Score="6" ViewCount="348" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Black Lion is a line that can be transposed from a Philidor or Pirc defense. I play with White this line.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 Nf6 4.Nc3 Nbd7 5.Bc4 Be7 6.O-O c6 7.a4 Qc7 8.Re1 h6 9.h3 g5 10.a5 Rg8 11.b4 g4 12.hxg4 Nxg4 13.Bb3 Nf8 14.a6 b5 15.d5 Bd7 16.dxc6 Bxc6 17.Nd5 Qd8 18.c4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you can notice, all my play relies on opening up the queenside and occupying the d5 square. However, when Black plays 9 ...a5 shutting all my counterplay on the queenside. I really don't know what to do. Black would just maneuver his knight as usual to f8, and then something like Rg8 and g5 with a formidable kingside attack on White. I would really appreciate it if somebody can give me some lines with clear plans.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23598" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-10-08T19:40:19.683" LastActivityDate="2020-10-08T19:40:19.683" Title="Black Lion opening plans for White's 5. Bc4 line" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;philidor-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32525" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19285" CreationDate="2020-10-07T08:37:28.747" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It seems like e3 is the square that the Rook on g3 is heading for - after moving the Bishop on f3. (somewhere out of the way) This gives the g3 Rook certain access between the two f-file pawns.&#xA;The idea is to allow both Rooks to work together on the e-file.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24906" LastActivityDate="2020-10-07T08:37:28.747" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32526" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-10-07T10:23:13.103" Score="2" ViewCount="204" Body="&lt;p&gt;As black, against 1.d4, which aggressive response do I have?&#xA;I looked at queen's gambit accepted, queen's gambit declined, king's Indian defence and the Slav defence. But all of this options appear to me as passive, at least passive in the opening phase. Seems to me that in all this variations white still gets a better control of the center and a more active and developed setup, whit black that has no immediate treats or tricks. I am feeling like against 1.d4 I am doomed to play a more positional and passive opening phase. Is this the case?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am a beginner, 1500, so is quite possibile that I am missing some aggressive potential in the mentioned openings. This comes from a guy that quite enjoys playing stuff like the fried liver, Stafford gambit, Evans gambit and the Danish gambit, so I hope you can get what I am searching here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24909" LastActivityDate="2020-10-07T11:03:56.980" Title="Aggressive response to 1.d4?" Tags="&lt;gambits&gt;&lt;1.d4&gt;&lt;queens-gambit&gt;&lt;aggressive-play&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="6" ClosedDate="2020-10-07T11:22:09.960" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32527" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32526" CreationDate="2020-10-07T11:03:56.980" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have no experience of playing it, but the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albin_Countergambit&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Albin countergambit&lt;/a&gt; 1. d4 d5 2. c4 e5 might be an option. It's relatively rare but doesn't seem to score too badly compared to the QGD/Slav, with significantly fewer draws than either (see stats &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.365chess.com/opening.php?m=4&amp;amp;n=23&amp;amp;ms=d4.d5.c4&amp;amp;ns=7.8.23&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21223" LastActivityDate="2020-10-07T11:03:56.980" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32528" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32524" CreationDate="2020-10-07T11:49:49.653" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;The engine gives a very strong plan of making ...g5 as unattractive as possible by playing Nh4-f5, where in the end Black's pieces are pathetic and the Black king is still in the center. The way White can force the matters really shows how poor Black's position is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 Nf6 4.Nc3 Nbd7 5.Bc4 Be7 6.O-O c6 7.a4 Qc7 8.Re1 h6 9.h3 a5 10. Be3 {Finishing development and enabling a more convenient recapture in case of exd4} Nf8 11. Nh4! {This move makes both ...g5 and ...Ng6 horrible concessions} g5?! 12. Nf5 Bxf5 13. exf5 {Now let us check what if Black insists that there is an attack} Rg8 14. Qe2 g4 15. g3 {Probably the cleanest demonstration of why the attack does not work} gxh3 16. Rad1 {The Black attack fizzled into nothing and White will now pressure the Black king with Rd2+Red1} (16...N8d7 17.Bxh6) (16...O-O-O 17.Bxf7) (16...h5 17.dxe5 dxe5 18.Bf4 N8d7 19.Rxd7 (19...Qxd7 20.Qxe5 Ng4 21.Qc5 {Now Nd5 is possible and wins the bishop due to the threat of cxd5 Bb5, winning the queen}) Nxd7 20.Bxf7+ Kxf7 21.Qxh5+ Kf8 22.Bh6+)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15478" LastEditorUserId="15478" LastEditDate="2020-10-07T14:14:20.927" LastActivityDate="2020-10-07T14:14:20.927" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32529" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32524" CreationDate="2020-10-07T12:29:44.707" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The first thing to note is that 9. h3 is a minor mistake if your intention is to play a queenside attack. It is a diversion from your plan. It would make more sense if your plan were to attack through the center with moves like Qe2, Be3, Rd1, de, etc. In that case it would create a safe spot for the bishop on e3 by denying g4 to the black knight. All h3 is does in the plan you play is to accelerate the black kingside pawnstorm by creating a pawn lever for a later black g4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Instead in the final position above follow Jonathan Rowson's advice and &amp;quot;talk to your pieces&amp;quot;. In particular the bishop still at home on c1. Why are you attacking before you have completed your development? Particularly why are you attacking the opposite side of the board to where the enemy king is? Find a plan which involves completing your development by finding a square for the c1 bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One suggestion would be to follow a plan played by Aron Nimzowitsch 100 years ago which involves fianchettoing the c1 bishop with threats of a knight sacrifice on e5 if black plays Nf8. Here are the moves up to where he has a big advantage:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[title &amp;quot;Nimzowitsch - Marco, Gothenburg 1920&amp;quot;]&#xA;[fen &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 Nf6 4.Nc3 Nbd7 5.Bc4 Be7 6.O-O h6 7.a4 c6 8.b3 Qc7 9. Bb2 Nf8? (9...g5! 10. Re1 Rg8 11. dxe5 dxe5) 10. dxe5 dxe5 11. Nxe5 Qxe5 12. Nd5 Qd6 (12...Qxb2 13. Nc7++) 13. Ba3 (13. e5 Qxe5 14. Re1 Ne4 15. Rxe4 Qxe4 16. Nc7++) cxd5 14. Bxd6 dxc4 15. Bxe7 Kxe7 16. e5 N6d7 17. Qd6+&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-10-07T12:29:44.707" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32530" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32507" CreationDate="2020-10-07T14:54:56.803" Score="1" Body="&lt;h2&gt;Three Options&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After 7.Bd2 Black has three options:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Retreat&lt;/strong&gt;:&#xA;Black can pull the dark bishop back. Retreating to c5 doesn't work, since White can just push the b pawn forward, and force the dark bishop to retreat again, so you'd have to go back to d6 or further. The issue with this is tempo - you've giving white a free turn to develop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Defend&lt;/strong&gt;:&#xA;You can try to use your Queen or the a pawn to defend the bishop, but these are a little awkward. In the pawn's case, White can exchange for the bishop anyway, and you are left with doubled pawns on b, and now you have to defend the forward pawn or just coincide it. The Queen defense line is more complex, and I'm not sure I'm experienced enough to do it justice. Bottom line is, your Queen is either tied down defending that bishop, since you can't get any other support there easily, or White is going to exchange for the bishop (again) and either push your Queen around or try to exchange for it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Exchange&lt;/strong&gt;:&#xA;Or exchange for the bishop. Your example ends with White's Queen taking the dark bishop. This doesn't really develop White's Queen, so you gain tempo by following it up with a development move - maybe the knight f6 you mention in your question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Bottom line&lt;/strong&gt;: the bishop is probably going to be exchanged, so you might as well do it in a way that doesn't give White anything. Moving the White Queen one square forward isn't much in the way of development, so that seems a good exchange.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24911" LastActivityDate="2020-10-07T14:54:56.803" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32531" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18046" CreationDate="2020-10-07T20:39:56.397" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would add the &lt;a href=&quot;https://database.nikonoel.fr&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Lichess Elite Database&lt;/a&gt; to the list :-)&#xA;It is the best of lichess games: only higher-rated players in &amp;quot;decent&amp;quot; time controls (aka no bullet).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24916" LastActivityDate="2020-10-07T20:39:56.397" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32532" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32521" CreationDate="2020-10-07T21:07:21.613" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There seems to be some confusion understanding the problem, so I will post an answer, probably not the maximum, and then somebody better than me can post the best solution.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I've promoted 7 pawns to queens and one pawn to a knight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &amp;quot;R7/7b/3qnq2/2q3q1/2n1K1n1/2q3q1/3q1q3/7k w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Each of the 8 queens attacks 5 squares around the king = 40&#xA;Each of the 3 knight attacks 2 squares around the king = 6&#xA;The bishop attacks the king and 1 square around the king = 2&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Total = 48&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-10-07T21:07:21.613" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32533" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32521" CreationDate="2020-10-07T22:09:56.653" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Adding on to @Brian Tower's answer as anticipated, here is an improved position with &lt;strong&gt;55 attacks&lt;/strong&gt;, using double check and White's full arsenal. Black last moved a piece to e7 that White's rook captured with checkmate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;B7/4R3/3Q1Q2/2Q3Q1/2N1k1K1/1R4Q1/1BNQNQN1/8 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, it is also possible for &lt;strong&gt;both sides to attack&lt;/strong&gt; under the OP's loose ruleset. I have found a lower bound of &lt;strong&gt;83 attacks by White and Black,&lt;/strong&gt; with eight of them coming from the Black king itself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;8/3Nnn2/1bnQqQb1/1r4Q1/1nq1k1qN/1R4Q1/1BNQqQB1/2K1Nn2 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are wondering of all of those pawns really could have promoted, I present evidence that it is possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. a4 b5 2. h4 g5 3. c4 d5 4. f4 e5 5. cxd5 bxa4 6. fxe5 g4 7. Rh3 gxh3 8. h5 Nf6 9. h6 Rg8 10. e6 Rg7 11. hxg7 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, just for fun, here is &lt;strong&gt;88 attacks&lt;/strong&gt; by one side in an &lt;strong&gt;illegal position.&lt;/strong&gt; Any piece can be color swapped to produce a result for both sides.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;8/2NNNNN1/1NNQQQNN/1NQ3QN/1NQ1K1QN/1NQ3QN/1NNQQQNN/2NNNNN1 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-10-09T15:57:26.987" LastActivityDate="2020-10-09T15:57:26.987" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32534" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32554" CreationDate="2020-10-07T23:02:14.340" Score="7" ViewCount="4320" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am writing a chess engine. I need to know how to tell if the king is in check. I was thinking that maybe I can use the approach that Stockfish uses. Where and how in Stockfish's code is check detected?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24788" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-10-07T23:26:12.020" LastActivityDate="2020-10-09T23:27:39.840" Title="How does Stockfish know if the king is in check?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;programming&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="6" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32536" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28530" CreationDate="2020-10-07T23:18:42.150" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Mosquito Gambit should only be played in faster blitz time controls and bullet like 3|2 or 1|0 for psychological purposes against weaker opponents. Only play it against weaker players because higher rated people know how to convert a material advantage to a winning one. It is in fact marginally better fred defense, southern variation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24920" LastActivityDate="2020-10-07T23:18:42.150" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32537" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32469" CreationDate="2020-10-07T23:30:56.837" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;there are plenty of free online files of chess openings, here are a few:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.pgnmentor.com/files.html#openings&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.pgnmentor.com/files.html#openings&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://scid.sourceforge.net/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://scid.sourceforge.net/&lt;/a&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.bookup.com/ECO/chess_openings_ECO_-.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.bookup.com/ECO/chess_openings_ECO_-.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;i could only find these links as of now. I will give you more once i find more&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24920" LastActivityDate="2020-10-07T23:30:56.837" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32539" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32359" CreationDate="2020-10-08T04:37:33.250" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found a decision by the FIDE Ethics Comission (FEC) that is interesting in relation with this question. In this case (&lt;a href=&quot;http://ethics.fide.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/FIDE-2_2020-decision-final.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Decision 2/2020&lt;/a&gt;), two players were observed talking during a competition. Afterwards, one of the players wrote on her scoresheet &amp;quot;Draw or I win?&amp;quot; There were also calculations of the tournament standing and the distribution of prize-money. The arbiter forfeited both players and they were declared ineligible for prize money in the tournament. They were also banned from FIDE rated events by the FEC for 24 months (the last six months suspended and serving as probationary period). The decision arguments the following (emphasis added by me):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;10.3. The concept of match fixing in chess may be described as an arrangement between the parties with the aim of agreeing the outcome of the game in violation of the accepted principles of sportsmanship and fair competition, &lt;strong&gt;often involving deliberate underperforming by one of the parties&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;10.4. When contemplating the concept of  match  fixing, the EDC Chamber notes that arranged draws are widely known to occur in both national and international events. The reasons for an arranged draw may vary. For example, both of the players may want to save energy for later games, or may  be satisfied with their tournament standing and are therefore averse to taking risks. There is an argument for regarding arranged draws as contrary to the concept of sportsmanship and fair competition as it takes away the competitive aspect already before the start of the game. The EDC Chamber does not however find arranged draws as unacceptable match fixing per se, primarily due to the fact that chess players are allowed under the Rules of Chess (art 9.1.2.1) to propose and agree to a draw, admittedly only during the course of the game, and &lt;strong&gt;none of the parties thereby agree to lose the game&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;10.5 There are situations where arranged draws may be in violation of the concept of sportsmanship and fair competition to such an extent that it would qualify as match fixing. One example is where &lt;strong&gt;one of the players is offered some kind of remuneration&lt;/strong&gt; to agree to a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus, &lt;strong&gt;to be considered as bad sportmanship, the decision to lose should be deliberate&lt;/strong&gt; (and not the result of ineptitude, as mentioned by @Brian Towers), &lt;strong&gt;specially if there is some kind of remuneration or benefit for one or both players&lt;/strong&gt;. That would require for the arbiter to have evidence of the said remuneration or benefit or that there was an agreement between the players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, in another case investigated by the Catalan Federation of Chess (&lt;a href=&quot;http://escacs.cat/index.php/comites/resolucions-comites/resolucions-2019/26566-&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Resolution 20/2019&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://escacs.cat/index.php/comites/resolucions-comites/resolucions-2019/26622-&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Appeal Resolution 5/2019&lt;/a&gt;, in Catalan) a higher rated player lost to a lower rated player. However, the lower rated player had already previously resigned and agreed to continue the game. By winning the game, the lower rated player ended first in his category and won a prize of 40 €. The arbiter had observed the higher rated player had had considerable advantage during the game. However, he could only act when he obtained (some days later) a WhatsApp conversation where the higher rated player said he had sold the point for 5 €. When asked by the arbiter some time later, the lower rated player recognized the facts and the arbiter denounced the facts. The lower rated player was suspended and banned from participating in Catalan Chess Federation competitions for one year and was requested to return the prize. The higher rated player did not have a Catalan Federation license and was banned from participating in Catalan Chess Federation competitions for two years.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3757" LastActivityDate="2020-10-08T04:37:33.250" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32541" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="497" CreationDate="2020-10-08T08:21:42.367" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am trying to give an answer from a practical point of view.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;(Disclaimer: the answer is essentially opinion based).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Let us look at the thought process when one plays chess. Suppose it is your turn to move. What you look for depends a lot on the position at hand (and your playing style). You would notice the tactical and/or positional resources first (your resources and your opponent's resources). Unless you have a clear target, you should rely on judgement and intuition and play a move that improves your position and/or helps achieve your overall game plan (or stop your opponent's). If you have a clear target (eg: I have multiple ways to threaten checkmate),  then start calculating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should start looking for a combination only when you have &lt;strong&gt;multiple resources at hand&lt;/strong&gt; (similar to two weakness principle of Steinitz). The following are some of the resources:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;sufficient lead in material (eg: at least a lead of a minor piece)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;better piece activity and/or coordination&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;(almost) trapped opponent pieces (higher their value, the better; the king is the best)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;opponent king is vulnerable (eg: your pieces eye the squares around opponent's king, (ii) opponent king is (almost) out in the open)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;you have a sequence of forcing moves&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;you have protected passed pawns about to promote&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, how much time you should spend on looking for a possibility of a combination? Depends on how many resources you have and how good those resources are. I would recommend spending more time on spotting your resources than the calculation. Even when a combination exists, it may be hard to spot if you start calculating from the position. Sometimes, you have to think about what pattern/theme you want to achieve, and then look for ways to make it possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, you should look for ways to cash out your advantages if all your advantages are temporary (for details, see the end of &lt;a href=&quot;https://thechessworld.com/articles/training-techniques/10-fundamental-chess-principles-according-to-steintz/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this page&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Kudos.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14678" LastActivityDate="2020-10-08T08:21:42.367" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32542" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32534" CreationDate="2020-10-08T09:42:42.800" Score="18" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Where and how in Stockfish's code is check detected?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is simple engine programming. You will need to build a bitboard of the attacking squares and two bitboards of your king, one for each color. You will then run AND on the two bitboards. If the result is non-zero, you know the king is in check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can show you the code in Stockfish, but does my answer make sense to you? If not, please add a comment so I will try to grab some code.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2020-10-08T09:42:42.800" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32543" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32534" CreationDate="2020-10-08T09:46:06.157" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your question has nothing to do with Stockfish. Though it may be interesting to check the original source code.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is purely algorithmic.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One dumb solution would be implementing a boolean function (is_check) that takes an array as input representing the board. Only white pieces can check the black king, except the white king and vice versa.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If one of the following conditions is verified then there is a check on the board(return True) :&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If a knight is placed at (-+)2(-+)1 or (-+)1(-+)2 squares from your king&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If a pawn is placed at (-+)1+1 squares from your king (depends on the side you make the verification for as pawns move and attack only in one way)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If your king is in diagonal of a bishop or a queen and that no other pieces interferes&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If your king is aligned (column/row) with a rook or a queen and that no other pieces interferes&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Otherwise return False.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that such a function could be used in another method to check if a planned move is legal (if your king is in check after you played, your move is illegal)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24925" LastEditorUserId="24925" LastEditDate="2020-10-08T09:51:39.663" LastActivityDate="2020-10-08T09:51:39.663" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32544" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32475" CreationDate="2020-10-08T16:26:50.817" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;YES!&lt;/strong&gt; Calculation is the most important skill in chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why do you think computers are stronger at chess than humans?  It is not their positional understanding or long-term planning;  It is pure brute force calculation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I was rated 2080 I prepared for a tournament just by studying puzzles.  I studied for hours a day and my head hurt from it.  I took a couple days off before the tournament so I could be rested.  Then I had a performance rating of 2500!  I didn't get any opening advantages, in fact some I was slightly worse positionally; but I managed to get complicated positions and found nice tactics.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14202" LastActivityDate="2020-10-08T16:26:50.817" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32545" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32549" CreationDate="2020-10-08T18:06:38.157" Score="13" ViewCount="2685" Body="&lt;p&gt;I heard the term &amp;quot;dead draw&amp;quot; a lot, but I don't know its meaning and when a position is &amp;quot;dead draw&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24931" LastEditorUserId="24931" LastEditDate="2020-10-09T16:10:00.473" LastActivityDate="2020-11-13T07:37:08.720" Title="What is the meaning of &quot;dead draw&quot;?" Tags="&lt;draw&gt;&lt;terminology&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32547" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32545" CreationDate="2020-10-08T19:09:49.350" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;dead draw is a king vs king, stalemate, or a position where literally nothing can happen in the position like captures and checks and a king and a minor piece vs a king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24920" LastActivityDate="2020-10-08T19:09:49.350" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32548" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-10-08T19:16:48.890" Score="4" ViewCount="1562" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 e5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have been playing this gambit for over 8 months with extensive analysis and have come to the conclusion that it is a very playable opening and, in many cases, black can achieve a position that gives him attacking chances. Why don't people play the Englund Gambit then?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24920" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2020-10-08T19:46:59.357" LastActivityDate="2021-01-10T10:46:13.177" Title="Why don't people play the Englund Gambit?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;gambits&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32549" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32545" CreationDate="2020-10-08T19:19:09.467" Score="17" Body="&lt;p&gt;A dead draw is  a position in which no player has any chance of winning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes erroneously used in a position where theoretically someone could win but both players believe it is so basic and simple that neither will make a fatal mistake so the other player would win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastActivityDate="2020-10-08T19:19:09.467" CommentCount="12" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32550" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32548" CreationDate="2020-10-08T19:27:26.393" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Many people play this gambit.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Even  some  grandmasters.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At the highest level white's scoring chances are overwhelming.&#xA;That says the gambit is unsound.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At lower levels black does a little better which says the players skill has a small bit to determine the outcome.  But the gambit is still unsound and only has shock value in fast games to make it worth trying.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are doing well it is because your level is well below master and your opponents are likewise.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20776" LastActivityDate="2020-10-08T19:27:26.393" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32553" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-10-08T19:55:45.330" Score="1" ViewCount="24" Body="&lt;p&gt;Frst, some chess background about myself - which is &lt;strong&gt;VERY&lt;/strong&gt; limited - I am 50 years old, a bachelor, whom recently retired from the financial sector. Which basically translates to &lt;strong&gt;A LOT&lt;/strong&gt; of free time!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;okay, I was first introduced to the chess society during the 80's. And, because my interests were financially motivated, I placed chess on the back-burner, with every intention to one day pick up the Royal Game once more. Fastforward 30 plus years, and here I am -back to square one [no pun intended]- So, my question is, where best to begin my chess journey? That is, literature, technology, teachers, and/or online chess site recommendations?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24896" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-10-08T20:20:13.007" LastActivityDate="2020-10-08T20:20:13.007" Title="Novice - Chess Journey" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2020-10-08T20:30:36.717" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32554" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32534" CreationDate="2020-10-08T21:03:57.117" Score="23" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you're curious about the Stockfish code, it can be &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/blob/0405f3540366cc16245d51531881c55d3726c8b5/src/position.cpp#L338&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;found here&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; si-&amp;gt;checkersBB = attackers_to(square&amp;lt;KING&amp;gt;(sideToMove)) &amp;amp; pieces(~sideToMove);&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;We call the &lt;code&gt;attackers_to&lt;/code&gt; method to figure out if any pieces are attacking the king's position, including pieces on the king's side.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; Bitboard Position::attackers_to(Square s, Bitboard occupied) const {&#xA;&#xA;    return  (pawn_attacks_bb(BLACK, s)       &amp;amp; pieces(WHITE, PAWN))&#xA;         | (pawn_attacks_bb(WHITE, s)       &amp;amp; pieces(BLACK, PAWN))&#xA;         | (attacks_bb&amp;lt;KNIGHT&amp;gt;(s)           &amp;amp; pieces(KNIGHT))&#xA;         | (attacks_bb&amp;lt;  ROOK&amp;gt;(s, occupied) &amp;amp; pieces(  ROOK, QUEEN))&#xA;         | (attacks_bb&amp;lt;BISHOP&amp;gt;(s, occupied) &amp;amp; pieces(BISHOP, QUEEN))&#xA;         | (attacks_bb&amp;lt;KING&amp;gt;(s)             &amp;amp; pieces(KING));&#xA; }&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;We then call the &lt;code&gt;pieces&lt;/code&gt; function, which returns all the pieces owned by the opposite side&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Finally, we run an AND operator to confirm if any of the opposite side's pieces are threatening the king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The code is very well written and relatively straightforward to follow, in case you'd like to explore it further.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24933" LastEditorUserId="24933" LastEditDate="2020-10-09T23:27:39.840" LastActivityDate="2020-10-09T23:27:39.840" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32555" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32545" CreationDate="2020-10-09T06:36:05.647" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;A &amp;quot;dead draw&amp;quot; position is an endgame neither side can make further progress. It's not an immediate forced draw, meaning that the &amp;quot;stronger&amp;quot; side does not have to play a line that leads to stalemate or insufficient material, three-fold repetition or anything like that. However, all attempts they have to win can be stopped with an accurate defense that shouldn't be too hard to find. Eventually, the side trying to win will have to accept the draw or reach the 50-move rule.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's not always easy to draw a boundary for what counts as &amp;quot;dead draw&amp;quot;. The most useful definition is probably &amp;quot;a position where neither side can win where one of the players could make the game last forever (without the 50-move rule)&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortress_(chess)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Fortresses&lt;/a&gt; are an example of dead draw position. Positions with all pawns blocked are often, too. The &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philidor_position&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Philidor position&lt;/a&gt; is a basic theoretical dead draw. &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/12229/how-do-you-draw-in-an-opposite-color-bishops-endgame-with-two-pawns-down&quot;&gt;Opposite-colored bishops&lt;/a&gt; often lead to a lot of dead draw endgames.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastEditorUserId="18809" LastEditDate="2020-10-11T14:06:02.347" LastActivityDate="2020-10-11T14:06:02.347" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32556" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-10-09T17:11:41.800" Score="3" ViewCount="183" Body="&lt;p&gt;I recently played 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 Bb4 4. Qc2 d5, and it was coded as the &lt;strong&gt;Noa&lt;/strong&gt; variation of the Nimzo-Indian. There was a Josef Noa of Hungary, who lived from, 1856-1903, but his recorded games do not include a Nimzo-Indian, let alone this variation. Why is it named after him then?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13674" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2020-11-06T07:22:18.093" LastActivityDate="2020-11-06T07:22:18.093" Title="Why is the 'classical' Nimzo-Indian called the Noa variation?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;terminology&gt;&lt;nimzo-indian&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32557" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1482" CreationDate="2020-10-09T18:14:57.127" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Also , if the K is checked twice , the position must have resulted from a discovered check - Q and R,B or N , N and R or B , or R &amp;amp; B.  Pawns are never involved in a discovered check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21491" LastActivityDate="2020-10-09T18:14:57.127" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32558" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32556" CreationDate="2020-10-09T18:24:27.867" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's probably because he has notable games playing with it or he had analysis published on it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24920" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-10-09T19:10:43.257" LastActivityDate="2020-10-09T19:10:43.257" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32559" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7767" CreationDate="2020-10-09T23:00:06.110" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I do not see it at GM level nor IM level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At ALL games chesstempo shows a winning % of 75 for black, and 100% for g4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At your level it is definitely playable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As an aside you would not see me play that variation as white.&#xA;The two pawn attack seems to be far better than this variation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24942" LastActivityDate="2020-10-09T23:00:06.110" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32561" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32556" CreationDate="2020-10-10T07:28:43.400" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Oxford Companion to Chess says that the Noa Variation of the Nimzo-Indian was played regularly by Josef Noa, but that he reached the position after 1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.Qc2 Nf6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4182" LastActivityDate="2020-10-10T07:28:43.400" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32562" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-10-10T14:02:47.233" Score="-1" ViewCount="134" Body="&lt;p&gt;The following position has only eight pieces on the board with Black to move, but it is very tricky. I started trials with my modest means (Houdini 6.02) and White won 3/3 times, but after very complicated lines. I went deep in one case at d= 31/126. Is the ending really won for White?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;1r6/8/1P1Q2k1/K2P4/N7/3q4/8/8 b - - 0 0&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24709" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-10-11T02:07:38.723" LastActivityDate="2020-10-11T03:05:04.710" Title="An interesting endgame" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32564" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32548" CreationDate="2020-10-10T17:09:42.760" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;A part of it has to be that white doesn't have to keep the pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;1. d4 e5 2. dxe5 Nc6 3. Nf3 Qe7 4. Nc3 Nxe5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;4.Nc3&lt;/code&gt; is actually the most popular move in lichess database. Black Queen is placed a bit strangely on e7, it is blocking the development of the dark-squared bishop and not supporting the d-pawn if it wants to move to d5. Black can double white pawns with Nxf3, but white has plenty of activity to compensate for it. White has many promising continuations, but here is one:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;1. d4 e5 2. dxe5 Nc6 3. Nf3 Qe7 4. Nc3 Nxe5&#xA;5. Bf4 Nxf3+ 6. gxf3 Qb4 7. Qd2 d6 8. e4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This position is not exactly a gambiter's dream, since white is much more active, and also stockfish gives it 1.5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="307" LastEditorUserId="3757" LastEditDate="2021-01-10T10:46:13.177" LastActivityDate="2021-01-10T10:46:13.177" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32565" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-10-10T17:58:35.740" Score="2" ViewCount="36" Body="&lt;p&gt;when I play as a casual user the typical rating change seems to be around 25-20 points.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;when I play as an official user that logs in then the ratings seem to change more in the neighborhood of 75-80 points.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So does chessbase have two different rating schemes?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24948" LastActivityDate="2020-10-10T17:58:35.740" Title="Does chessbase use a different rating system for casual games vs those for users who log in?" Tags="&lt;chessbase&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="3" ClosedDate="2020-10-10T18:57:42.960" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32566" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32567" CreationDate="2020-10-10T18:26:25.520" Score="4" ViewCount="74" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am currently under the impression that White players are allowing the Nimzo-Indian more and more, whereas before they were dodging it via 3. Nf3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I wanted to check if that is true, but usually databases do not contain this information explicitly. Are there any resources (software or websites) that have this feature?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15478" LastEditorUserId="15478" LastEditDate="2020-10-10T18:49:30.533" LastActivityDate="2020-10-11T00:30:40.947" Title="Are there any resources where one can view the popularity of a move by year?" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;database&gt;&lt;websites&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32567" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32566" CreationDate="2020-10-11T00:30:40.947" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;SCID's Opening Report shows some statistics which may be useful here. From a given position, one of the things it does is generate a table which shows what moves are common from a given position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;4.2 Moves from the report position&#xA;    Move   ECO       Frequency    Score  AvElo Perf AvYear %Draws&#xA; 1: Nf3    E10a     8561: 50.8%   56.1%  2622  2665  2009   56%&#xA; 2: Nc3    E00d     6495: 38.5%   55.6%  2607  2654  2008   54%&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The &amp;quot;AvYear&amp;quot; column there shows the average year in which the move was played.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And another table looks like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1.4 Current popularity&#xA;&#xA;Year               1800-99 1900-49 1950-69 1970-79 1980-89 1990-99 2000-09&#xA;Once every X games   ---     24      19      13       6      33      12   &#xA;&#xA;Frequency in all years:   once every 12 games&#xA;In the 10 years to today: once every 13 games (down 7% from all years)&#xA;In the  5 years to today: once every 12 games (no change from all years)&#xA;In the  1 year  to today: once every 0 games (no change from all years)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which seems like it would be useful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2020-10-11T00:30:40.947" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32568" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32562" CreationDate="2020-10-11T03:05:04.710" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Did Houdini use the 6-man databases?  How did the first few moves go?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If Houdini could find nothing better for White than taking the Rook&#xA;then it's a draw (given that White's pawns are moving down&#xA;as stated in the comments).&#xA;Wherever Black moves the King, the continuation Qxb8 Qxd5+&#xA;yields a database draw (presumably by perpetual check),&#xA;and the same is true if White first checks on c7 or e5&#xA;and plays Qxb8 after Black returns to the sixth rank or goes to h4/g4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8860" LastActivityDate="2020-10-11T03:05:04.710" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32569" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-10-11T06:58:11.283" Score="3" ViewCount="402" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am learning how to use SCID vs PC on my Linux machine and I find the program very useful and well-written. I am reading through Lasker's book &lt;em&gt;Manual of Chess&lt;/em&gt; and I would like to create my own &amp;quot;studies' (to use the Lichess termiology) based on what I've read from the book (various defenses, openings etc.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While I am able to use SCID to log into FICS, play against Stockfish, view famous games (using  PGN files downloaded from &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessgames.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;www.chessgames.com&lt;/a&gt;) the one thing I cannot seem to be able to do is create my own study.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To be specific: sure, when open SCID I can shuffle pieces on the board according to how Lasker tells me to, and add annotations, variations, colored arrows and then save the resulting set of moves in a pgn file.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But once I want to start studying a new or opening, I don't want to have to create a NEW pgn file: I'd like to have a single PGN file containing, say, &amp;quot;chapters&amp;quot; as is done in Lichess studies. Is this possible?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or are the SCID database files the way to go here? They seem a tad complicated at first glance. :-(&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24634" LastActivityDate="2020-10-12T13:55:20.440" Title="Making my own chess studies (like Lichess) with SCID vs PC" Tags="&lt;study&gt;&lt;scid&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32570" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-10-11T14:23:59.003" Score="0" ViewCount="307" Body="&lt;p&gt;Black and white both have one queen and the king. Is this game a draw?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24952" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2020-10-11T15:12:41.933" LastActivityDate="2020-10-12T10:19:35.987" Title="King + Queen vs. King + Queen - is this a draw?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;draw&gt;&lt;queens&gt;&lt;kings&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32571" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32570" CreationDate="2020-10-11T14:31:47.577" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Unless there is some forced sequence that leads to mate or either side losing the queen, King+Queen vs King+Queen will be an easy draw with correct play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastActivityDate="2020-10-11T14:31:47.577" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32572" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32570" CreationDate="2020-10-11T20:34:32.367" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pawnless_chess_endgame#Queens_only&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;The side to move first in KQ vs KQ wins in 41.75% of the positions&lt;/a&gt;. That's because the side to move first gets the first check, which is often decisive in these major-piece endgames - compare how many KQQ vs KQQ positions, which ostensibly have equal material, are won by the side to move first (83%).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Caveat: &amp;quot;positions&amp;quot; here refers to all legal positions, some of which might not be realistic in practical play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastEditorUserId="15223" LastEditDate="2020-10-12T09:58:24.830" LastActivityDate="2020-10-12T09:58:24.830" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32573" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="71" CreationDate="2020-10-11T22:12:43.740" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The question was which site has the strongest players. I presume this means rating to strength ratio. ICC is the leader there in my opinion, you really have to know your chess to get a good rating; it's a proper 'club'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24956" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2020-10-12T06:38:47.960" LastActivityDate="2020-10-12T06:38:47.960" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32575" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32570" CreationDate="2020-10-12T10:03:04.537" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are various positions that matter for pawn endgames. Often both sides promote to queen and then the side that moves first still wins.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This can happen &lt;em&gt;right after promotion, when the king of the stronger side is close by.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;8/1KP1q3/8/8/3k4/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Kb8?? {Ka8 is correct} Kc5! 2.c8=Q+ Kb6 {And white can't prevent checkmate}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;8/6p1/8/8/7k/5K2/2P5/8 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Ke4! g5 2.c4 g4 3.c5 g3 4.Kf3 Kh3 5.c6 g2 6.c7 g1=Q 7.c8=Q+ {Check!} Kh4 {Otherwise Qh8#} 8.Qh8+ Kg5 9.Qg8+ {Wins the queen}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;8/8/8/p7/k7/3K4/3P4/8 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Kc4! {Locking up the black king so it has to spend an extra tempo} Ka3 2.d4 Kb2 3.d5 a4 4.d6 a3 5.d7 a2 6.d8=Q a1=Q 7.Qd2+! Kb1 (7...Ka3 8.Qb4+ Ka2 Qb3#) 8.Kb3 {White wins. }&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;em&gt;100 Endgames You Must Know&lt;/em&gt;, by Jesus de la Villa.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastEditorUserId="924" LastEditDate="2020-10-12T10:19:35.987" LastActivityDate="2020-10-12T10:19:35.987" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32577" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32580" CreationDate="2020-10-12T12:09:01.223" Score="2" ViewCount="1697" Body="&lt;p&gt;Going by rules strictly about the board state, how long can a player theoretically hold off a draw by the 50-move rule? White will play as long as possible, and not want to lose. Black will claim a draw as soon as possible, if not win, so threefold repetition and dead position apply.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is my starting offer of &lt;strong&gt;703 moves&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;5bkq/p1p1p1pR/P1P1P1P1/8/4K3/8/P1P1P2P/7n w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Rxh8+ Kxh8 2. Kf3 Nf2 3. Kxf2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After taking 1 move to capture the queen and 2 for the Black knight,&#xA;White starts the 50-move reset counter. White shuffles around their&#xA;king to avoid repetition while Black's king is entombed. Every 50 moves thereafter, White plays a pawn move, with 12 total (playing h6 loses). After the 12th one, it will be another 50 moves until Black may rest: 1+2+50+(12*50)+50=704. (White's h-pawn position prevents dead position.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-12-26T20:58:36.190" LastActivityDate="2020-12-26T20:58:36.190" Title="How long can a player hold off a draw by the 50-move rule?" Tags="&lt;theory&gt;&lt;problems&gt;&lt;threefold-repetition&gt;&lt;50-move-rule&gt;&lt;dead-position&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32578" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32584" CreationDate="2020-10-12T12:29:17.663" Score="10" ViewCount="209" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. c4 c6 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. cxd5 cxd5 5. Bf4 Nc6 6. e3 a6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I do not see the point of this move. At first I thought it is aimed to prevent Bb5 and thus maintain the knight on c6, which controls e5, a square where White has a firm grip. It also prevents Nb5-c7, which is not yet a threat but might very well become one, as the White bishop is aiming at c7.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But after checking those threats aren't real and even if ...a6 is not played, in most continuations the best move for White is Bd3. Meanwhile the move ...a6 actually creates responsibilities (I would not yet say weaknesses, but work is required to avoid them) for Black, mainly because the advance ...b6 to control c5 leaves the queenside vulnerable (as demonstrated in &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1687266&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Kramnik - Aronian 2012&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15478" LastEditorUserId="15478" LastEditDate="2020-10-12T17:06:35.690" LastActivityDate="2020-10-13T10:04:05.583" Title="Why is ...a6 played in the Exchange Slav?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;slav-defense&gt;&lt;queens-gambit-declined&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32579" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32577" CreationDate="2020-10-12T12:53:51.657" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The answer is trivially the starting position -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This exact question hasn't been asked before (I think) but it has been answered &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/8331/is-the-number-of-possible-chess-games-infinite/8334#8334&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;. Here is the relevant part of that answer -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The maximum number of moves in a chess game is not infinite, it's&#xA;11797 plies = 5898 moves and a half. This is due to the fifty-move&#xA;rule.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As an interim possibility here is an obvious extension of the OP's original position (before he made dozens of edits):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;5b1k/p1p1p1p1/P1P1P1P1/8/8/8/P1P1P2P/RNBQKBNR w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White makes the same starting pawn and king moves as in the OP's post minus allowing any captures and then brings a piece out to capture the a pawn, taking 49 moves to do that, then queens one of the a pawns taking 49 moves per pawn move, then takes 49 moves to sacrifice that queen next to the king, then same again with white's other a pawn, ditto taking the c pawn, etc., etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-10-12T12:53:51.657" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32580" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32577" CreationDate="2020-10-12T13:52:05.607" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I interpret the following&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White will play as long as possible, and not want to lose. Black will claim a draw as soon as possible, if not win&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;as meaning that &lt;strong&gt;Black does not help&lt;/strong&gt; (i.e., Black tries to either win or draw as fast as possible, while White tries to make the game as long as possible and then draw or win). I suggest the following position with &lt;strong&gt;1865 moves&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;7k/8/4N3/6N1/8/8/PPPPPPPP/4K3 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems to me that White can do 6 moves with each of the 4 left-side pawns (each one promotes to a bishop on its last move), then (3, 4, 2, 4) moves with the remaining four pawns. Before the first pawn move, White can play 13 waiting moves with the king while avoiding threefold repetition. Between each subsequent pawn move, White can play 49 waiting moves with their king. This gives 13 + 36 x 50 = 1813 moves. As moves 1814 and 1815, White does the following&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;BBBB2k1/8/4NP1P/4P1N1/6P1/8/8/4K3 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. f7+ Kh8 2. f8=N Kg8&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and then White makes 50 more waiting moves before drawing at move &lt;strong&gt;1865&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21604" LastActivityDate="2020-10-12T13:52:05.607" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32581" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32569" CreationDate="2020-10-12T13:55:20.440" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Use a separate database per opening, book, or any topic you study. You can export that database later as a single PGN if you want. Imagine what happens if you don't do that: You have to store these games somewhere, right? And you really don't want those in your main database with normal games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also copy games between databases, which is useful if you want to annotate a game and move it back to the main DB later. Don't worry about performance: A database doesn't take any resources (besides disc space) if you don't have it open.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a bonus, and something that lichess doesn't offer: you can have as many &amp;quot;chapters&amp;quot; (games) as you want, and you can sort them, search for specific positions or comments, whatever you need.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8472" LastActivityDate="2020-10-12T13:55:20.440" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32583" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="7962" CreationDate="2020-10-13T07:03:23.563" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I expand on &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/8269/17203&quot;&gt;GeneM's answer correctly noting that &amp;quot;Armageddon Chess is a &lt;em&gt;fair&lt;/em&gt; tie-break system only if the two players bid for how much time Black should have.&amp;quot;&lt;/a&gt;. (My additions are too long for a comment to that answer.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An armageddon tiebreak with an &lt;em&gt;arbitrary, externally imposed&lt;/em&gt; time penalty for the Black/draw-odds player is &lt;em&gt;not reliably fair&lt;/em&gt; because it may grant an advantage to one of the players because there is no guarantee that the arbitrarily chosen time penalty is the correct amount to avoid undercompensating or overcompensating White for accepting must-win odds. (If the time penalty for Black is too high, it overcompensates White; if the time penalty for Black is too short, it undercompensates White.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By having the players bid for the right to choose one's color, the arbitrariness is removed and the time penalty the Black player pays is one that that player voluntarily offered to pay. Thus armageddon with bidding is fair.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bidding has been used in the past (e.g, in at least each of the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessdom.com/kamsky-wins-us-chess-championship-after-armageddon-game/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;2013&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://uschesschamps.com/node/428&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;2014&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://uschesschamps.com/2015-us-championship-2015-us-womens-championship/information/regulations&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;2015&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.uschesschamps.com/information-2016-us-championship/regulations&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;2016 US Championships&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, in the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.uschesschamps.com/information-2016-us-championship/regulations&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;regulations for the 2016 US Championships&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An Armageddon Game is defined as a game with base time of 45 minutes&#xA;for each Player. Black will have draw odds. Each Player shall bid an&#xA;amount of time (minutes and seconds, a number equal to or less than&#xA;45:00) with which they are willing to play in order to choose their&#xA;color. The Player who bids the lowest amount of time chooses his color&#xA;and begins with that amount of time; the other Player receives 45:00.&#xA;If both Players bid exactly the same amount of time, the Chief Arbiter&#xA;will flip a coin to determine who shall choose their color.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As an example of how the bidding can unfold, in the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessdom.com/kamsky-wins-us-chess-championship-after-armageddon-game/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;2013 US Championship&lt;/a&gt; the base time control was 45:00. Both players bid aggressively in hopes of getting the right to draw odds: GM Alejandro Ramirez (19:45) and GM Gata Kamsky (20:00). Ramirez' lower bid won, and he received Black with draw odds. Kamsky got the White pieces with the full 45:00 base time control but would have to win to survive. (Kamsky won the game and, with it, the US Championship for that year.) (Note that in this 2013 US Championship apparently the rule was that the winner of the bidding automatically gets Black. In later years of the US Championship, the rule was, properly, that the winner of the bidding could choose his color.) You can watch commentators GM Yasser Seirawan, GM Maurice Ashley, and WGM Jen Shahade discuss the bidding procedure and their thoughts about what each player should bid beginning around 30:32 of this &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3Ova9ucsHk&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;YouTube video of coverage of the playoff round&lt;/a&gt;. The sealed bids are opened around 48:20.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's not hard, nor does it take much time, to administer or implement such a bidding procedure, so I'm baffled why it's not used more in important tournaments.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some additional notes:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;I say that an arbitrary time penalty is not &lt;em&gt;reliably&lt;/em&gt; fair because, of course, it's possible that—by accident, in the same way that a broken clock is correct twice a day—the arbitrarily imposed time penalty may turn out to be the same penalty that bidding would result in.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Some implementations (and even some of my examples and explanations above) assume that the player winning the bid automatically gets the Black pieces with draw odds. But that assumes that it's always the case that the benefit of draw odds for Black outweighs the disadvantage of moving second. There's no need to assume that. Instead, the winner of the bidding should be allowed to choose between (a) White with must-win odds and less time than Black or (b) Black with draw odds and less time than White.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It would be superior if the rule were, instead of (a) the winning (i.e., lower) bidder gets his own bid on his clock (i.e., in this case Alejandro getting 19:45 on his clock), that (b) the winning bidder receives the &lt;em&gt;other player's&lt;/em&gt; bid on the winning bidder's clock (i.e., Alejandro would get 20:00 minutes on his clock vs. 45:00 on Gata's). This would be a form of a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vickrey_auction&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;second-price auction&lt;/a&gt;, which has the desirable property that each player has the incentive to bid his true value. (Otherwise, as in the 2013 US Championship, each player &lt;em&gt;A&lt;/em&gt; has an incentive to try to outguess his opponent player &lt;em&gt;B&lt;/em&gt; and just barely undercut &lt;em&gt;B&lt;/em&gt;'s bid, even if in fact player &lt;em&gt;A&lt;/em&gt; would have been willing to accept even less time in exchange for Black/draw-odds.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17203" LastActivityDate="2020-10-13T07:03:23.563" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32584" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32578" CreationDate="2020-10-13T09:25:48.687" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;It prevents Nb5-c7. That's the main point behind the move. Just take a look at the disaster a careless move like 6...g6? could lead to.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;6...a6 is not the only option, though. Black can try for instance 6...Bf5 (which is indeed more popular), intending to reply to 7.Nb5 with 7...Rc8. 6..e6 is another common move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A good reason to prefer 6...a6 could be flexibility. 6...e6 makes it hard for the c8 bishop to find a good diagonal. 6...Bf5 could run into trouble against some Qb3&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastEditorUserId="18809" LastEditDate="2020-10-13T10:04:05.583" LastActivityDate="2020-10-13T10:04:05.583" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32585" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32592" CreationDate="2020-10-13T15:50:46.047" Score="5" ViewCount="368" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just hate when my opponent has the knights because most of my blunders happen due to them. I generally like endgames where my opponent doesn't have the knight. I also hate when the Knight enters my territory. So, what to do about this knight phobia? Should I just exchange all the knights in the opening?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21840" LastEditorUserId="3757" LastEditDate="2020-10-14T07:58:49.510" LastActivityDate="2020-10-18T21:14:32.983" Title="Having knightmares, what to do?" Tags="&lt;middlegame&gt;&lt;knights&gt;&lt;blunder&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32586" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-10-14T00:11:01.807" Score="-1" ViewCount="90" Body="&lt;p&gt;In a Game of SuFi 19 , a Czech Benoni, Stockfish 11 as White could have forced , on move 28 , a line that forced an eight piece endgame on move 59. White would have had Queen , Knight and two advanced pawns vs Queen and Rook . The line was suggested by Stockfish own PV on move 27 , a plan that later abandoned for a small centipawn difference. In the game Stockfish was pressing hard in a pawn up endgame , but cannot overcame the stubborn defense by Leela zero ( at least in that game) and the game ended in a draw. Since I have extensively analyzed the eight piece endgame described above with Houdini 6.02 at d= 38/128 and concluded that it was a win, it should be concluded that Stockfish 11 took the wrong path on move 28. The game was a Czech Benoni defense, and , to be honest , is the only mistake by Stockfish 11 in the current SuFi when Stockfish was not in time trouble. Game 62 SuFi 19. At least even Stockfish 11 is not infallible!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24709" LastActivityDate="2020-10-14T19:47:50.980" Title="Is Stockfish 11 SuFi 19 still fallible?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ClosedDate="2020-10-15T09:42:16.513" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32587" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32589" CreationDate="2020-10-14T02:27:27.187" Score="4" ViewCount="160" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was recently reading a post on this forum which said that there must be 15 captured pieces in order for there to be 6 pawns on the a-file or h-file.&#xA;That got me thinking how complicated that would be, which got me thinking how many moves would it take for such a thing to happen.&#xA;So, what is the minimum length of a legal game (i.e. reachable from starting position) where there are 6 pawns &lt;strong&gt;of the same color&lt;/strong&gt; on either the a-file or h-file?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24788" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-10-14T03:39:12.677" LastActivityDate="2021-03-10T17:52:00.440" Title="What is the shortest possible legal game where there are 6 pawns on the a-file or h-file?" Tags="&lt;problems&gt;&lt;pawns&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32589" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32587" CreationDate="2020-10-14T03:34:00.053" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;This has already been asked and proven on &lt;a href=&quot;https://puzzling.stackexchange.com/questions/56594/get-6-pawns-in-file-a-or-h&quot;&gt;Puzzling Stack Exchange&lt;/a&gt;. Courtesy of @xnor, who gave a game and the proof, the shortest possible game is in &lt;strong&gt;31 moves,&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Nf3 Nf6 2. Nd4 Nd5 3. Nc6 dxc6 4. g4 Bf5 5. gxf5 h5 6. f4 Nd7 7. e4 Ne5 8. fxe5 Qd6 9. exd6 exd6 10. exd5 g6 11. Na3 Bg7 12. Rb1 Bd4 13. h4 Bc5 14. d4 g5 15. hxg5 Rh6 16. dxc5 dxc5 17. Bd2 Re6+ 18. fxe6 fxe6 19. Ba6 exd5 20. c4 dxc4 21. Ba5 Ke7 22. b4 cxb4 23. g6 bxa3 24. Rb6 bxa6 25. Rxh5 cxb6 26. Rb5 bxa5 27. Qb3 cxb3 28. g7 bxa2 29. g8=Q cxb5 30. Qg4 Ke8 31. Qa4 bxa4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For fun, here is a retrograde analysis chess problem. It shows the same effect, but the six pawns piling on the e-file do so in a unique move sequence!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Nicolas Dupont, Problemesis 06/2002, Proof Game In 20.5 Moves&amp;quot;] &#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. h4 g5 2. hxg5 Nf6 3. gxf6 Bh6 4. fxe7 Be3 5. dxe3 b5 6. Qd6 b4 7. Qg3 b3 8. axb3 c5 9. Ra4 c4 10. bxc4 d5 11. cxd5 Be6 12. dxe6 Qd5 13. Rah4 Qf3 14. gxf3 Rg8 15. Bg2 Rg4 16. Kf1 Re4 17. fxe4 a5 18. f4 a4 19. Nf3 Ra5 20. Rg1 Re5 21. fxe5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;https://pdb.dieschwalbe.de/P1004108&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;The Die Schwalbe Chess Problem Database&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-03-10T17:52:00.440" LastActivityDate="2021-03-10T17:52:00.440" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32590" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4695" CreationDate="2020-10-14T05:21:48.753" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/infivention/square-off-neo-and-swap-board-games-powered-by-robotics-and-ai?ref=12ukse&amp;amp;utm_source=KickstarterUpdate&amp;amp;utm_medium=UpdateEmail&amp;amp;utm_campaign=WeAreBack&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Squareoff&lt;/a&gt; is making another board at 200$. Expensive but not extortionist. They say it will be available March 2021. Automatically moves pieces too. &lt;a href=&quot;https://squareoffnow.com/product/neo&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Details.&lt;/a&gt; Has Blitz mode but may not be so good for it. May not allow more than one user per board but plays through chess.com and maybe lichess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24968" LastEditorUserId="24968" LastEditDate="2020-10-16T01:52:09.610" LastActivityDate="2020-10-16T01:52:09.610" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32591" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32596" CreationDate="2020-10-14T07:10:16.907" Score="17" ViewCount="2146" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the famous Blitz semifinal armageddon in 1994, Anand spends 1:43 minutes (from his 5 minutes available) on move 4, and ends up winning the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What exactly was he thinking? Are there any interviews (text, sound or video) available where he elaborates on his thought process?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Smirin - Anand, 1994&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Event &amp;quot;New York PCA/Intel-GP&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Site &amp;quot;New York, NY USA&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Date &amp;quot;1994.06.??&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Result &amp;quot;0-1&amp;quot;]&#xA;[White &amp;quot;Ilya Yulyevich Smirin&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Black &amp;quot;Viswanathan Anand&amp;quot;]&#xA;[ECO &amp;quot;C42&amp;quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &amp;quot;100&amp;quot;]&#xA;[fen &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;[startply &amp;quot;7&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. d4 Nxe4 4. Nxe5 {Here, Anand thinks for 1:43 minutes}&#xA;d6 5.Nf3 d5 6.Bd3 Nc6 7.O-O&#xA;Be7 8.c4 Nb4 9.Be2 Be6 10.Nc3 O-O 11.Be3 Bf5 12.Rc1 dxc4&#xA;13.Bxc4 c6 14.Ne5 Nxc3 15.bxc3 Nd5 16.Qb3 f6 17.Qxb7 fxe5&#xA;18.Qxc6 Be4 19.dxe5 Kh8 20.Bd4 Rc8 21.Qa6 Nf4 22.f3 Rc6 23.Qa4&#xA;Rxc4 24.Qxc4 Bd3 25.Qc6 Ne2+ 26.Kh1 Nxd4 27.cxd4 Bxf1 28.Rxf1&#xA;Qxd4 29.f4 Qxe5 30.g3 Qc5 31.Qe4 Bf6 32.Kg2 Rc8 33.Rf2 Qc6&#xA;34.Qxc6 Rxc6 35.g4 h6 36.Kf3 Rc3+ 37.Ke4 Kh7 38.Re2 Rc4+&#xA;39.Kf5 Rc5+ 40.Ke6 Rc4 41.Rf2 Kg6 42.h3 Rc3 43.Rh2 Rf3 44.f5&#xA;Kg5 45.a4 Kh4 46.Kd5 Ra3 47.Kc6 Rxa4 48.Kb7 a5 49.Kb6 Ra3&#xA;50.Kb5 Rxh3 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18832" LastEditorUserId="12031" LastEditDate="2020-10-15T14:31:11.927" LastActivityDate="2020-10-15T14:31:11.927" Title="What was Anand thinking in the 1994 Armageddon blitz semifinal?" Tags="&lt;blitz&gt;&lt;calculation&gt;&lt;anand&gt;&lt;petroff-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32592" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32585" CreationDate="2020-10-14T07:14:56.800" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;The solution is: play better chess. Train your tactical skills so you can better anticipate the opponent's knight's threats (and also make a better use of your own knights). Avoid creating &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/4105/weak-and-strong-squares&quot;&gt;weak squares&lt;/a&gt; in dangerous spots of the board where an enemy knight can dominate the position. Pay attention to how stronger opponents play and try to imitate them in the future.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sure, you can also make inferior trades to eliminate the opponent's knights, but then you are already making a concession and &amp;quot;surrendering&amp;quot; to those knights before they even start putting you in trouble.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastActivityDate="2020-10-14T07:14:56.800" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32593" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32585" CreationDate="2020-10-14T11:57:25.107" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Well, you surely could do that, try to use openings that result in knights being cleared off the board. However, that is just a temporary and partial solution. Your opponents might not collaborate and could try to keep their knights, especially if they know or suspect you don't play well against them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Furthermore, when there is a problem, it is usually best to face it. For this, you need tools, you need to know how to do it (trying to solve a problem without the right tools can be outright frustrating). So, you need to learn how to play against knights. Some suggestions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;As already suggested by others, hone your tactical skills. Train to identify knight forks.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Learn how to tackle knight vs bishop situations. See, for example the question &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/5239/endgame-with-single-bishop-or-single-knight?noredirect=1&amp;amp;lq=1&quot;&gt;engame with single Bishop or single Knight?&lt;/a&gt; The book &lt;em&gt;John Nunn's Chess Course&lt;/em&gt; also has a section on this.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Learn how to trap a knight. The book &lt;em&gt;Find the Right Plan with Anatoly Karpov&lt;/em&gt; has a section named &amp;quot;A lasso for the knight&amp;quot; with some examples and exercises that may be useful.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Knowing how to deal with a knight helps taking away their scariness.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, best improvement comes with practice. Practice what you have learnt in friendly games and games against the computer. Set up positions where the opponent has a knight and see if you can apply some of those techniques. And, of course, analyze your games to see what you could have done better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3757" LastActivityDate="2020-10-14T11:57:25.107" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32594" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32410" CreationDate="2020-10-14T12:13:05.220" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;In my experience, it's best to just check what it gives, for example: if I now sacrifice my legs and in return all my tools will be active and the opponent's passive, then it's right to sacrifice my legs, every time I have to act like math, feet equal point, activity equal 1.2, direct attack On the king is worth 1.3, and so on, everyone has to decide for him what is worth to him an attack on the king, what is worth my feet, and thus decide whether to sacrifice or not. Hope I helped&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24973" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-10-14T12:23:01.013" LastActivityDate="2020-10-14T12:23:01.013" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32595" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32498" CreationDate="2020-10-14T12:19:01.973" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The reason bishops are sacrificed is that they are the least likely to be stopped from being sacrificed, compared to a knight or a pawn for whom the a6 / h6 takes 4 moves. The bishop sacrifice is usually not stopped from a direct threat to the king (except for the French Defence),&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another reason: a bishop sacrifice opens up the opponent's king more. Also your pawns in front of the opposing king when they are active and the opponent's pawns on the other side passive it can be successful because you have compensation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is sacrificing the minor piece really worth it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As long as it will be possible to stop the attack without any damage, it is clearly not worth it. In the example above it's a really bad sacrifice. Your pawns are not threatening the king and neither side has completed development.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24973" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2020-10-14T13:18:53.943" LastActivityDate="2020-10-14T13:18:53.943" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32596" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32591" CreationDate="2020-10-14T14:35:40.807" Score="22" Body="&lt;p&gt;From a &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUr_gdKQ8j4&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;YouTube comment section&lt;/a&gt; dedicated to the game (I did not find the primary source, so it may be untrue):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anand was asked about this in the interview after. Smirin did not&#xA;play the opening Anand was expecting. In a finale like this, White&#xA;must win and so will play something dangerous to avoid Black forcing a&#xA;simple draw. When Anand saw that Smirin was deviating from his usual&#xA;opening, he says that he stopped to think what players and tournaments&#xA;Smirin had been in recently. He was trying to figure out if there was&#xA;some new trap or opening that had been developed recently using that&#xA;move. Once he had an idea what Smirin was going for (which could have&#xA;been ten moves out), he decided what opening he would play to avoid&#xA;that line.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The plan worked. Anand was able to prevent Smirin from getting any momentum in his attack. He sacrificed a piece to try to get a clear&#xA;path for his center pawns (to try to queen one of them), but Anand was&#xA;able to trade away enough pieces that Smirin couldn't keep the&#xA;position active enough to win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15478" LastEditorUserId="15478" LastEditDate="2020-10-14T14:50:49.627" LastActivityDate="2020-10-14T14:50:49.627" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32597" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32598" CreationDate="2020-10-14T16:14:24.373" Score="13" ViewCount="3429" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is how I am playing nowadays. I can beat ~1500 player 50% of the time (the rest is due to tactical errors):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Play the opening (upto 12 moves)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Don't blunder&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;At the point where my pawns and pieces are in a better shape than the opponent's, I first exchange the queens&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Centralise my king&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Slowly exchange all the minor pieces, then the rooks&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Win in the endgame&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now is this really the way to play chess? I mean, I do want to improve my tactical skills but my decision is that once I am able to beat a 1500 player 100% of the time, I will start playing tactical chess, with which I mean attacks and stuff.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there something wrong with my approach?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21840" LastEditorUserId="12031" LastEditDate="2020-10-16T07:50:11.963" LastActivityDate="2020-10-16T07:50:11.963" Title="Is it good to have a tendency to exchange pieces?" Tags="&lt;theory&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;middlegame&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32598" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32597" CreationDate="2020-10-14T17:34:53.413" Score="17" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now is this really the way to play chess?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well, it is certainly &lt;em&gt;a&lt;/em&gt; way to play chess. It's the way Aryan Tari chose to play Magnus Carlsen in the Altibox Norway tournament a couple of days ago. Swap as many pieces off as you can, get to a more or less equal endgame, maybe have to survive a bit of pressure then shake hands for a draw. It didn't work out that way. He got positionally crushed from a position which, to this patzer, looked fairly even.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It certainly didn't look roughly even to the chess24.com commentary team of Judit Polgar and Vladimir Kramnik. &amp;quot;60% lost / 40% drawn&amp;quot; said Kramnik, &amp;quot;Go back to school, Aryan&amp;quot; said Judit during the commentary after move 18.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After 21. Nd2:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The strategical battle is over at that point. It's very nice when you&#xA;can just follow a plan and you don't need to calculate&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;was &lt;a href=&quot;https://twitter.com/chess24com/status/1316084533872259082&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Carlsen's comment&lt;/a&gt; afterwards.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have to admit I have lost a fair number of games against stronger opponents like this just as I have won games against weaker players like this. The biggest difference between good players and bad players is not tactical ability (although it is often also a factor). It is the ability to accurately evaluate positions. Weaker players happily aim for bad positions because they don't know any better and stronger players can't believe their luck. Ask Magnus.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bottom line: you are going to lose if you try and follow this plan against stronger players and if you try it against a weaker player who is weak tactically but strong positionally then you are also going to lose.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[title &amp;quot;Carlsen - Tari, Altibox Norway Chess 2020&amp;quot;]&#xA;[fen &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Ba4 Nf6 5. O-O Be7 6. d3 b5 7. Bb3 d6 8. a4 Bd7 9. c3 Na5 10. Ba2 c5 11. Bg5 O-O 12. Nbd2 Rb8 13. axb5 axb5 14. Re1 b4 15. Nc4 Nxc4 16. Bxc4 bxc3 17. bxc3 Qc7 18. Qc2 Bb5 19. Bxb5 Rxb5 20. Bxf6 Bxf6 21. Nd2 Qc6 22. Qa4 Rfb8 23. Nc4 Be7 24. g3 Qc8 25. Qd1 g6 26. Kg2 Bf8 27. Qf3 Rb3 28. Rec1 Qe6 29. Ra7 R8b7 30. Rxb7 Rxb7 31. Ra1 h5 32. Ra8 Kg7 33. Ne3 Rc7 34. Nd5 Rc8 35. Ra7 Rb8 36. h3 Rd8 37. g4 hxg4 38. hxg4 Rd7 39. Ra8 f6 40. g5 f5 41. Qh3 Rf7 42. Re8 Qxe8 43. Qh6+ Kg8 44. Qxg6+ Kh8 45. Nf6 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-10-14T17:34:53.413" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32599" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32935" CreationDate="2020-10-14T17:56:39.670" Score="2" ViewCount="145" Body="&lt;p&gt;I want to analyse chess games with xboard and stockfish. Locally this is no problem.&#xA;But my PC is slow, so I have rented a faster linux server, and I want let stockfish run on it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How can I use xboard on my PC, to connect to stockfish running on the linux server?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have tried on the command line:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1) ssh -p &amp;lt;port&amp;gt; &amp;lt;user&amp;gt;@&amp;lt;host&amp;gt; /usr/games/stockfish&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This works. But:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;2) xboard -fcp &amp;quot;ssh -p &amp;lt;port&amp;gt; &amp;lt;user&amp;gt;@&amp;lt;host&amp;gt; /usr/games/stockfish&amp;quot; -fUCI&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;does not work. There is a connection to stockfish on the server, xboard gives the correct version of the engine, but as soon as I enter the first move, it terminates with error of &amp;quot;broken pipe.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24979" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-10-14T18:19:04.920" LastActivityDate="2020-11-15T09:08:56.273" Title="Xboard and a remote engine" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32600" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32585" CreationDate="2020-10-14T19:27:34.990" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;While I mostly agree with the other answers that the solution to your problem is to grind tactics, there is one piece of advice in particular that changed the way I thought about knights: (I think this is from Silman...?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Knights thrive on “advanced support points”—supported squares on the opponents side of the board that can’t  be contested (this is slightly more general than an “outpost”). When playing against knights, make an effort to deny advanced support points. When playing with knights, try to create them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Basically, shift your focus from the knights to the squares they can move to.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20581" LastActivityDate="2020-10-14T19:27:34.990" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32601" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32586" CreationDate="2020-10-14T19:47:50.980" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Perhaps worth starting by explaining for the benefit of the majority of chess fans who have no interest in computer chess tournaments that a &amp;quot;game of SuFi 19&amp;quot; is not some new chess variant. &amp;quot;SuFi&amp;quot; stands for &amp;quot;Super Final&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;SuFi 19&amp;quot; is the 2019 computer chess super final tournament.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is Stockfish 11 SuFi 19 still fallible?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's also worth reminding ourselves of the meaning of the word &amp;quot;fallible&amp;quot; and its opposite, &amp;quot;infallible&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Infallible&amp;quot; means &amp;quot;never makes a mistake&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;fallible&amp;quot; means &amp;quot;makes mistakes&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We are still a very long way away from the day that chess will be solved and so are still a long way away from the day that a chess engine is infallible. Until then all chess engines are fallible. In particular Stockfish 11 is fallible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-10-14T19:47:50.980" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32602" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31918" CreationDate="2020-10-14T19:49:58.063" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was reading through &amp;quot;American Chess Magazine Volume 1&amp;quot; on &lt;a href=&quot;https://books.google.com/books?id=53QCAAAAYAAJ&amp;amp;vq&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Google Books&lt;/a&gt;, which is from 1897. There is an old article on the origins of chess therein, with the basic summary of how the game to be: it's reminiscent of today's Wikipedia as it was at the time. To my surprise, on page 264, there was direct mention of what you speak of! It occurs when speaking of chess's predecessor, Shatranj, which itself is a form of the much older, four-player game Chaturanga, aka &amp;quot;Indian Chess.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is the relevant text.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The King was limited Shatranj, as in our game, to a move of one square in any direction, except that once during a game he was allowed the move of a Knight ; &lt;em&gt;i.e,&lt;/em&gt; from his own square to King's Knight's second square, to King's Bishop, third square, to Queen's third square, or to Queen's Bishop's second square. This Knight move was omitted and Castling substituted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At the end of page 265, it says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In all variations of Chaturanga, the common origin is shown by the retention of one object, viz.: the capture of the opponent's King. When this is accomplished it is a checkmate, &amp;quot;Shiek-Mate,&amp;quot; the death of the King--the game is finished.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So there is a primary source, I suppose. It seems to me that the special knight move can only be used by an unmoved king. Also , reading into it, that an opponent can walk their king into a king's knight move range. Shatranj is a variation of Chaturanga, I think, and if the goal is to capture the king. So &amp;quot;stalemate&amp;quot; as we know it doesn't exist, and therefore so doesn't check. I admit that this interpretation of the check is my opinion, so it is still unclear, but what is clear is where on the board &amp;quot;Indian Castling&amp;quot; can take place.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="7985" LastEditDate="2020-10-15T00:15:33.287" LastActivityDate="2020-10-15T00:15:33.287" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32603" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32597" CreationDate="2020-10-15T00:30:07.350" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you are a player who is skilled in the endgame, it is not always a bad idea to head for an endgame.  Magnus Carlsen, a fabulous endgame player who can grind for hours at a seemingly dead drawn position, will do this sometimes- head into an endgame, then push and poke and prod until his opponent collapses.  This is certainly a valid approach, especially if you know that your opponent is weaker in endgames, or positional play more generally.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, it takes two people to go into an endgame!  This is especially true if your opponent has studied your play and seen that you do not enjoy highly complex, tactical, middlegames where attacking is necessary for both sides.  If I knew that I would be playing you and had seen your games, I would be preparing a Sicilian Dragon right now!  While it is important to be good in endgames and strong in positional play, good attacking capabilities and tactical prowess are necessary to have a flexible game that can be used for all kinds of situations (games where you must win, games where you must draw, games where your opponent must win and is going to press, etc), and can handle whatever course your opponent tries to take.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24698" LastActivityDate="2020-10-15T00:30:07.350" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32604" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4695" CreationDate="2020-10-15T01:18:31.677" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Joey Meyer wrote and built &amp;quot;Raspberry Turk&amp;quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Raspberry Turk is a robot that can play chess—it's entirely open&#xA;source, based on Raspberry Pi, and inspired by the 18th century chess&#xA;playing machine, the Mechanical Turk.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This goes beyond the OP's question because it also incorporates (a) the engine to calculate responses and (b) a robotic arm to make the engine's moves on the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But it answers the OP's question because one component of Raspberry Turk includes an overhead camera and a machine-learning component to learn how to convert what it sees on the board into a PGN representation of the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;You can see it in action at this YouTube video &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lpJIBVU_WJE&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&amp;quot;Chess Playing Robot Powered by Raspberry Pi - Raspberry Turk&amp;quot;&lt;/a&gt;. (Note that the video is sped up by about a factor of 12, per personal communication with the creator.)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;For an accessible explanation, see Chaim Gartenberg, &amp;quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2017/3/24/15049154/raspberry-turk-diy-chess-robot-learn-coding-machine-learning-python-robotics&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;The Raspberry Turk is a DIY chess robot with instructions to build your own&lt;/a&gt;*,&amp;quot; The Verge, March 24, 2017.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The code is available at &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/joeymeyer/raspberryturk&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;GitHub » joeymeyer/raspberryturk&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The project website is &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.raspberryturk.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;raspberryturk.com/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17203" LastActivityDate="2020-10-15T01:18:31.677" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32605" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32597" CreationDate="2020-10-15T03:57:38.467" Score="14" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there something wrong with my approach?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is how I am playing nowadays and can beat ~1500 player 50% of time( rest is due to tactical errors)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I mean i do wanna improve my tactical skill but my decision is that once i am able to beat a 1500 player 100% of the time,I will start playing tactical chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I am reading this correctly, against 1500 players you lose about half the time, and when you lose, &lt;em&gt;it's almost always due to a tactical error&lt;/em&gt;. But you don't want to improve your tactics until you beat the 1500 players more. That's sort of a catch-22. How are you going to beat them if you refuse to improve the one area of your game that's causing you to lose to them? Although I can understand your reluctance to play more tactical chess if you don't think you're good at it, practicing is the best way to get better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, 100% isn't a realistic goal in the first place. Do you expect to play perfect chess every game? If you could get to 99% against 1500 you'd probably be titled. So how about instead, you set a goal of beating 1700 rated players 50% of the time? Seeing how a slightly higher rated player can beat you - without you making a tactical error - might help you get a perspective on your strategy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for the details of your strategy, they seem to involve getting superior pieces, and them trading them off. I won't say it's wrong to go into an endgame if you know you can win it. But if there's any doubt, you might be better off keeping the better pieces on the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2020-10-15T03:57:38.467" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32606" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32597" CreationDate="2020-10-15T07:56:52.347" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The tautological &amp;quot;correct&amp;quot; play is to only make moves which make your position better.  Your formula makes some assumptions about what is &amp;quot;better,&amp;quot; specifically that having fewer pieces on the board is better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is not always the case.  Sometimes you might be trading an active and useful queen for a passive and entrapt queen, which stymes your attack.  Such a trade is not useful.  If you are on the attack, trading generally dilutes the attack.  You want to get more for your trade -- you want to get a positional advantage as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, the real challenge you will face in this situation is a circular logic that will form over time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;At the point where my pawns and pieces are in a better shape than opponent's, I first exchange the queens.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What makes &amp;quot;pawns an pieces&amp;quot; be &amp;quot;in better shape than opponents?&amp;quot;  That's an open question, and the subject of countless Chess books.  You answer that question with 4 and 5:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;4&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Centralise my king&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;slowly exchange all the minor pieces, then the rooks.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By definition, being &amp;quot;in better shape&amp;quot; starts to become &amp;quot;in a shape such that centralizing the king and then exchanging pieces results in a win.&amp;quot;  And this is where you can get in trouble.  You are less inclined to explore tactical situations where this 2 step formula does not result in a win.  And, as others have pointed out, it will be hard to grow to learn these positions if you avoid them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The failure for this formula will occur at the point where you face strong enough opponents such that they not only fight on the board, they fight in your mind.  They aren't just looking for strong positions on the board, they are looking for positions that your mind is weak at.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How do you find these positions mid game?  Your opponent would do this by looking at the sorts of moves you choose, and the sorts of moves you elect not to play.  If they start to recognize that you, as a player, prefer positions where &amp;quot;centralizing your king and slowly exchanging pieces&amp;quot; wins, they won't give you those positions.  Indeed, they'll start giving you bait: positions where centralizing your king and slowly exchanging pieces results in a loss but &lt;em&gt;looks&lt;/em&gt; promising.  Then, when you least expect it, they drive you into a &amp;quot;tactical&amp;quot; line that you weren't prepared for.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What you describe is a plan.  Famously, as Former President Eisenhower put it, &amp;quot;plans  are useless, but planning is indispensable.&amp;quot;  Its fine to start games with your formula in mind, but make sure you are not enslaved to that plan.  That goes for the metagame too.  You may never reach the point where you can beat a 1500 player 100% of the time before you learn tactics.  Be ready to deviate from that plan when you realize that it is starting to handicap you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="6885" LastActivityDate="2020-10-15T07:56:52.347" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32607" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-10-15T08:50:15.200" Score="2" ViewCount="191" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Problem&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am creating a chess engine in Python using Minimax algorithm (with alpha/beta pruning) but I have some issues with performance. Currently the thinking time looks something like this for a mid game position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Depth 1: 0.01 s&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Depth 2: 0.07 s&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Depth 3: 0.76 s&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Depth 4: 19.8 s&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have timed each function and here are the worst performing functions, time is per move at depth 4:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;get_valid_moves (10 s)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;deepcopy (8 s)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;get_all_possible_moves (8 s)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;What I have tried&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have tried to have the board represented as a 2D array (8x8) which is the easiest solution. With a 1D representation (10x12) I got a tiny bit better performance but not enough to increase depth.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;What I need feedback on&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Before I try to optimize my minimax function with transposition table lookups and such, I was hoping to have the most efficient way of calculating valid moves and all moves. Here is the process I currently use:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Looping through 8 directions from the king location to find if I am in check and what pieces are pinned (8x8 loop)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Get all possible (pseudo?) moves without considering checks or pins (8x8 loop to find all pieces on board and then add each pieces possible moves to a list)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Get valid moves by seeing if I am in check or double check (removing moves from the all_possible_moves list if they are not legal)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Here is an example of how I calculate possible moves for a piece, bishop in this case:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;def get_bishop_moves(self, row, col, moves):&#xA;    piece_pinned = False&#xA;    pin_direction = ()&#xA;    for i in range(len(self.pins)-1, -1, -1):&#xA;        if self.pins[i][0] == row and self.pins[i][1] == col:&#xA;            piece_pinned = True&#xA;            pin_direction = (self.pins[i][2], self.pins[i][3])&#xA;            self.pins.remove(self.pins[i])&#xA;            break&#xA;&#xA;    directions = [(-1, -1), (-1, 1), (1, -1), (1, 1)]&#xA;    enemy_color = 'b' if self.is_white_turn else 'w'&#xA;    for d in directions:&#xA;        for i in range(1, 8):&#xA;            end_row, end_col = row + d[0] * i, col + d[1] * i&#xA;            if all(0 &amp;lt;= x &amp;lt;= 7 for x in (end_row, end_col)):&#xA;                if not piece_pinned or pin_direction == d or pin_direction == (-d[0], -d[1]):&#xA;                    end_piece = self.board[end_row][end_col]&#xA;                    if end_piece == '--':&#xA;                        moves.append((row, col), (end_row, end_col))&#xA;                    elif end_piece[0] == enemy_color:&#xA;                        moves.append((row, col), (end_row, end_col))&#xA;                        break&#xA;                    else:&#xA;                        break&#xA;            else:&#xA;                break&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Board 2D respresentation:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;start_board = np.array([&#xA;            ['bR', 'bN', 'bB', 'bQ', 'bK', 'bB', 'bN', 'bR'],&#xA;            ['bp', 'bp', 'bp', 'bp', 'bp', 'bp', 'bp', 'bp'],&#xA;            ['--', '--', '--', '--', '--', '--', '--', '--'],&#xA;            ['--', '--', '--', '--', '--', '--', '--', '--'],&#xA;            ['--', '--', '--', '--', '--', '--', '--', '--'],&#xA;            ['--', '--', '--', '--', '--', '--', '--', '--'],&#xA;            ['wp', 'wp', 'wp', 'wp', 'wp', 'wp', 'wp', 'wp'],&#xA;            ['wR', 'wN', 'wB', 'wQ', 'wK', 'wB', 'wN', 'wR']])&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Final questions&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there any way of doing the valid move generation differently (without using bitboards)? Am I overlooking something? It is not fun to work on the evaluation function when my engine doesn't reach more than depth 4... :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21129" LastActivityDate="2020-10-16T11:15:26.943" Title="The most efficient valid move generation for minimax" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;candidate-move&gt;&lt;minimax&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="12" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32608" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-10-15T12:53:42.533" Score="2" ViewCount="216" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;8/4k2p/p1b1p1pP/Pp1p2K1/1PpP1P2/2P1R3/8/8 b - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Houdini6.02 eval flatlines at 1.37, but I reached d= 54 , and , although the eval continued to flatline, the main line indicated White pushed the f4 pawn in f5 toward the end. I started a trial with the pawn already in f5 , Black to move, and White won. Still I am not sure because Houdini 6.02 could have missed a possible defense against the f5 push. Can Black defend against the f5 push without deteriorating the position ( maybe allowing the White rook to penetrate its position)? Or the position is a win for White , albeit slowly? Just for curiosity , if the verdict is draw , can White win in absence of the 50 move rule?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24709" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-11-17T15:33:31.593" LastActivityDate="2020-11-17T15:33:31.593" Title="Is the following position a fortress?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;fortress&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32609" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32608" CreationDate="2020-10-15T16:41:04.583" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The key to tackling these kind of positions in a game is to imagine where you would like to put your pieces and then see how you could achieve that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this position for white the first aim would be to get the king to e5 to attack the e6 weakness and at the same time threaten to infiltrate on either f6 or d6. The problem is that black will have no problem defending the e6 weakness and defending the infiltration by keeping the king on e7 meanwhile shuffling the bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another weakness will be required to make progress. As it happens there is also no way of getting the king to e5 while the f pawn is on f4 so any plan will have to start with sacrificing the f4 pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it were white to move then the immediate f5 would force open the g file, a second weakness. Black would have to accept the sacrifice and ef would expose the black king to check from the rook so gf is forced. Then there is no way for black to both prevent the rook penetrating on the g file and prevent the king from infiltrating via f6 or d6. One line could go like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &amp;quot;8/4k2p/p1b1p1pP/Pp1p2K1/1PpP1P2/2P1R3/8/8 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. f5 gxf5 2. Kf4 Be8 (2...Kf6 3. Rg3 {and black can't prevent the rook coming to g7 next move}) 3. Rg3 Bg6 4. Ke5 {Black is in zugzwang. Either the white rook is going to penetrate on the g file or the king is going to infiltrate on f6 or d6} &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, black's first task is to stop this simple plan. The only way to do that is with Kf7 which unpins the e pawn and allows the recapture ef. The problem for white with this is that it gets rid of the weak e6 pawn and replaces it with a weak d5 pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The now open e file is nothing like as good as the open g file because of the white pawn on h6. The only way for black to defend an open g file is to block the file with the bishop on g6 but for the open e file all black needs to do is to cover the entry squares of e6, e7, e8 which can be done either by the king on f7 or a combination of the king on f6 and the bishop on c6. The weak d5 pawn can be protected by the bishop on either c6 or b7 and the white king can be prevented from infiltrating via e5 by the black king on f6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If white could both threaten to infiltrate with the king to e5 and threaten to take the d5 pawn with the rook then a zugzwang could be possible but unfortunately the only way for the rook to threaten the d5 pawn is from e5 and if the rook is on e5 then the white king can't go to e5. Hence this position is a fortress.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is what the lines would look like:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &amp;quot;8/4k2p/p1b1p1pP/Pp1p2K1/1PpP1P2/2P1R3/8/8 b - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1...Kf7 2. f5 exf5 3. Re5 Bb7 4. Kf4 (4. Re1 Bc6 5. Re2 Bd7 6. Kf4 Kf6) Bc6 5. Re1 Kf6 6. Re2 Bd7 7. Re5 Bc6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Going back to the initial position is there anything white can do to prepare the f5 push to make it work? Or, to put it another way, what must black do to stop f5 from working. The answer is that black must keep the king on f7, ready to both defend the e file if it opens and to play kf6 if white threatens to play Ke5. At the same time black's bishop must defend the d5 pawn from either c6 or b7 whenever the white rook is on e5 and it must defend the e8 entry square from d7 or c6 whenever the rook is not on e5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-10-15T16:41:04.583" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32610" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32607" CreationDate="2020-10-16T11:15:26.943" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You should not stop after figuring out where the bottlenecks are, you should go on to identify them.  For example, do you invoke the get_xxxx_moves() every time around?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the chance that you do:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Instead of listing all moves each time,  you may be able to reduce the work needed by&#xA;only updating the piece move lists that are affected by a move.   The other pieces (status and valid move lists) are unaffected, and don't need recalculation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus, the opening move e2-e4 only affects pieces that cover/attack the start square e2 (wQ, wK, wBf1 and wNg1), so those are the only recalculations needed.  Nothing covers/attacks e4, so no more work to do right now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And so on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Bitboards can be more efficient, but as you explicitly said to exclude those, ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24765" LastActivityDate="2020-10-16T11:15:26.943" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32611" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29139" CreationDate="2020-10-16T11:44:23.450" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I need to get two things out of the way:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If your are concerned about performance, Python is not for you. The language just isn't built for this kind of thing. That said, I do think it can be useful for learning/building your first engine, but it's unlikely your engine will be very strong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Speed improvements for an engine come from optimizations to the search algorithm, not move generation. If you spend the next month on the move generation (without bitboards), you &lt;em&gt;might&lt;/em&gt; get some respectable gains, but they are sure to be orders of magnitude smaller than the improvements from the search algorithm.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;aside: you should use NegaMax. When I was young and naive, I decided I didn't need it, and ohhh boy was I wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That said, I will now answer your question.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Look at the data types you use with scrutiny. Python has a tendency to hide what's going on under the hood, and there's a signifigant difference between, for instance, lists and tuples. I'm not an expert on this, but generally use integers whenever you can.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Dynamic Memory Allocation = bad. SmallChess mentioned this, but I'm not sure you understood (or maybe you did) that it is about way more than just avoiding copy.deepcopy(). In essence, it takes the computer a non-trivial amount of time for the computer to store something new in memory, as opposed to modifying something else in memory. To leverage this, you have &lt;em&gt;one&lt;/em&gt; board stored in memory, and when you make a move you just modify that one board in memory. If you aren't doing this, it's basically free speed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20581" LastActivityDate="2020-10-16T11:44:23.450" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32613" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32402" CreationDate="2020-10-17T00:34:07.667" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Note that Hikaru Nakamura and Garry Kasparov have both stated that engine evaluations in the KID that favor White shouldn't be fully trusted. In the 2015 Sinquefield Cup, Nakamura won a sharp attacking game against Wesley So after which Naka is quoted as saying:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Wesley, frankly, just needs to learn how to prepare better,&amp;quot; Nakamura&#xA;said. &amp;quot;He just really misunderstood the position.&amp;quot; Nakamura said the&#xA;computer evaluation can't be trusted…&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: Mike Klein, &amp;quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/news/view/nakamura-blasts-sos-preparation-vachier-lagrave-also-gets-closer-7741&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Nakamura Blasts So's Preparation, Vachier-Lagrave Also Lurking&lt;/a&gt;,&amp;quot; Chess.com, August 30, 2015.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In a &lt;a href=&quot;https://twitter.com/Kasparov63/status/637759212068700160?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E637759212068700160%7Ctwgr%5Eshare_3%2Ccontainerclick_1&amp;amp;ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.chess.com%2Fnews%2Fview%2Fnakamura-blasts-sos-preparation-vachier-lagrave-also-gets-closer-7741&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;tweet&lt;/a&gt;, Kasparov said:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Congrats to @GMHikaru on his victory today. The King's Indian requires&#xA;the courage of your convictions &amp;amp; courage to ignore machine opinions!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17203" LastActivityDate="2020-10-17T00:34:07.667" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32614" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32316" CreationDate="2020-10-17T03:36:56.623" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've seen the first move annotated with (!) when the move was preparation for a specific game that was a surprise and it worked out.  1. e4!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17425" LastActivityDate="2020-10-17T03:36:56.623" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32615" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-10-17T07:16:26.013" Score="0" ViewCount="327" Body="&lt;p&gt;Bobby Fischer's openings in the 1972 World Chess Championship are said to have &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSyMmleisQM#t=26m30s&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;taken Spassky completely by surprise&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Fischer played always e4 as his opening move, in football terms he had a very limited playbook, he always played the same opening moves, and (in 1972 WCC) he defied the Russians (and the world) to beat him. From the age of 12 - 29, he played exactly the same opening moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the 1972 World Chess Championship, how many new openings did Fischer use against Spassky, and across how many games did he use them?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18029" LastEditorUserId="18029" LastEditDate="2020-10-17T09:46:32.943" LastActivityDate="2020-10-19T21:58:02.630" Title="How many new openings did Fischer use against Spassky in 1972?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;fischer&gt;&lt;1972-world-championship&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32616" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18289" CreationDate="2020-10-17T08:44:50.010" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your statistics don't seem likely to be accurate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.365chess.com/opening.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;365chess.com&lt;/a&gt;, the most common responses are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;        times    win   draw   loss    eval&#xA;2. Nf3  1,455   42.9   29.2   27.9   +0.42&#xA;2. c4     566   41.7   25.1   33.2   +0.49&#xA;2. d5     396   49.7   21.5   28.8   +0.57&#xA;2. e4     343   49.6   17.5   32.9   +0.20&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As you can see, according to these statistics 2. d5 is actually more common than 2. e4 (although still much less than 2. Nf3), and it scores best both in practice (take that with a pinch of salt as the sample size is so small) and on evaluation. So I doubt there is anything wrong with this move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Perhaps your statistics are for position rather than exact sequence of moves, as 1. e4 Nc6 2. d4 appears more than 4,000 times in the same database.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21223" LastActivityDate="2020-10-17T08:44:50.010" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32618" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-10-17T13:27:42.880" Score="2" ViewCount="154" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there an automated way to analyze a game and explain in human language why a particular opening move breaks theory?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3713" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2020-10-17T17:23:21.053" LastActivityDate="2020-10-18T20:19:25.397" Title="Analyze game and explain why bad moves break theory" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;software&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ClosedDate="2020-10-21T15:53:00.977" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32619" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32618" CreationDate="2020-10-17T15:28:19.957" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's possible to make an &lt;em&gt;attempt&lt;/em&gt; to do this, although it would be inferior to the opinion of someone familiar with the opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A program can tell you when you've left its opening book, and what move(s) would have stayed in it. It can show you its evaluation of the standard move and its evaluation of the move played. It can show you the lines it expects in each. It would even be possible for it to tell you why it evaluates the position as it does, and this can be done in human language - something like &amp;quot;White's king is unsafe&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;Black's knight is on an outpost&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But the openings will sometimes result in greatly diverging lines without it being obvious why they diverge. Maybe it turns out that, in the non-theory line, the threat of a pin causes one side to have to play a move that exposes some other weakness, while in the theory line it's not a threat. But the pin doesn't actually happen in &lt;em&gt;either&lt;/em&gt; line. It's pretty hard for an engine to list all the moves it &lt;em&gt;didn't&lt;/em&gt; play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2020-10-17T15:28:19.957" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32620" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32618" CreationDate="2020-10-17T16:56:29.510" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there an automated way to analyze a game and explain in human&#xA;language why a particular opening move broke theory?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The explanation part is very easy. Opening theory is the body of opening knowledge of what moves are considered to be good moves. When a move is made which isn't regarded by theory as good then it &amp;quot;breaks&amp;quot; opening theory and the reason it does so is because it isn't regarded as good.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only difficult part of automating the process is building the database of all opening theory. Once you've done that comparing what is played in a game with &amp;quot;opening theory&amp;quot; is fairly straightforward. In effect this is what top level commentators are doing at events like the recent Altibox Norway event.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One additional, very obvious, problem is that as long as top level players are playing chess opening theory is changing and your database is out of date and needs to be updated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Again, Altibox provides a very good example of this. In the first round game, Tari vs Caruana, Caruana's 13th move, Bxe3, was in the databases as a blunder which lost a pawn. It had only been played a handful of times. Caruana &amp;quot;broke opening theory&amp;quot; by playing this move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After the game when he was asked about this he said that he had analysed the move in preparation and regarded it not as a pawn-losing blunder but as a pawn sacrifice which gave him an easy game and made life very difficult for his opponent. And so it proved. He went on to win the game. 13...Bxe3 has, for the moment, become part of opening theory in the Taimanov Sicilian.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course that is not the end of it. The move is bound to be analysed by other top players and if a way is found for white to hold on to the pawn with a good game then the move may again &amp;quot;break opening theory&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is the game:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[title &amp;quot;Tari - Caruana, Altibox 2020 Rd 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;[fen &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 e6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nc6 5.Nc3 Qc7 6.g3 a6 7.Bg2 Nf6 8.O-O Nxd4 9.Qxd4 Bc5 10.Bf4 d6 11.Qd2 h6 12.Rad1 e5 13.Be3 Bxe3 14.fxe3 Be6 15.Qxd6 Rc8 {White is a pawn up but his pawns are doubled and the Black pieces are better than the white ones. Especially the bishop, so there is compensation} 16. a4 {this is a real novelty and the game is now original} h5 17. h3 Qxd6 18. Rxd6 Nd7 19. h4 Ke7 20. Rd2 Nb6  21. Nd5+ Bxd5 22. exd5 Nc4 23. Re2 Nd6  24. e4 a5 25. Ra1 Rc4 26. c3 f6 27. Re3 Rhc8 28. Kf2 g5 29. Bf3 g4 30. Bg2 R4c5 31. Bf1 f5 32. exf5 Rxd5 33. Rd3 Rcc5 34. Rad1 Rxd3 35. Bxd3 e4 36. Be2 Nxf5 37. Bb5 Nd6 38. Be2 Ke6 39. Rc1 Ke5 40. Rd1 Rc7 41. Kg2 b6 42. Ba6 Rf7 43. Be2 Rf8 44. Rb1 Nf5 45. b4 Ne3+ 46. Kg1 Nd5 47. Rb3 Rc8 48. bxa5 bxa5 49. c4 Nb4 50. Rb1 Kd4 51. Bf1 Nd3  52. Rb5 Rc5  53. Bxd3 exd3 54. Kf2 Kxc4 55. Rb1 Re5 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-10-17T16:56:29.510" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32621" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="8965" CreationDate="2020-10-17T18:39:16.373" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Improving on the answers provided by Rewan, here is a game from &lt;a href=&quot;https://theweekinchess.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;TWIC&lt;/a&gt; which, after move 34, &lt;strong&gt;all 10 pieces on the board&lt;/strong&gt; are hanging (using the provided definition):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Event &amp;quot;ch-Euro Blitz&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Site &amp;quot;Ajaccio FRA&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Date &amp;quot;2007.10.25&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Round &amp;quot;19&amp;quot;]&#xA;[White &amp;quot;Fressinet,L&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Black &amp;quot;Fridman,D2&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Result &amp;quot;1/2-1/2&amp;quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &amp;quot;2654&amp;quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &amp;quot;2621&amp;quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &amp;quot;2007.10.25&amp;quot;]&#xA;[ECO &amp;quot;B12&amp;quot;]&#xA;[startply &amp;quot;68&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.e5 Bf5 4.Nf3 e6 5.Be2&#xA;Nd7 6.O-O Bg6 7.Nbd2 Nh6 8.c3 c5 9.Ne1 cxd4 10.cxd4 Nf5 11.Ndf3 h5 12.Nd3 h4&#xA;13.h3 Be7 14.Nf4 Bh7 15.Bd3 Qb6 16.Be3 Nb8 17.Bxf5 Bxf5 18.Nd3 Nc6 19.Nc5 Rc8&#xA;20.b4 a5 21.bxa5 Nxa5 22.Qa4+ Nc6 23.Rac1 Rc7 24.Bg5 Bxg5 25.Nxg5 O-O 26.Nf3&#xA;Bh7 27.Rc3 Rfc8 28.Rb3 Na5 29.Rb5 Ra8 30.Nxh4 Nc6 31.Nf3 Be4 32.Nxb7 Ra6 33.Rc1&#xA;f6 34.Ng5 Nb4 35.Rxb6 35...Rxb6 36.exf6 gxf6 37.Nxe6 Rd6 38.Nf4 Nd3&#xA;39.Rc4 Re6 40.Kf1 Rd7 41.f3 Ree7 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is another game from TWIC in which &lt;strong&gt;11 of the 12 pieces on the board&lt;/strong&gt; are &amp;quot;hanging&amp;quot; after move 27 by white:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Event &amp;quot;TCh-SVK 2014-15&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Site &amp;quot;Slovakia SVK&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Date &amp;quot;2014.10.26&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Round &amp;quot;2.5&amp;quot;]&#xA;[White &amp;quot;Macko,M&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Black &amp;quot;Lisko,F&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Result &amp;quot;1/2-1/2&amp;quot;]&#xA;[BlackTitle &amp;quot;FM&amp;quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &amp;quot;2167&amp;quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &amp;quot;2234&amp;quot;]&#xA;[ECO &amp;quot;D31&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Opening &amp;quot;QGD&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Variation &amp;quot;semi-Slav&amp;quot;]&#xA;[WhiteTeam &amp;quot;Liptovska sachova skola&amp;quot;]&#xA;[BlackTeam &amp;quot;TJ INBEST Dunajov&amp;quot;]&#xA;[WhiteFideId &amp;quot;14906490&amp;quot;]&#xA;[BlackFideId &amp;quot;14900157&amp;quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &amp;quot;2014.10.25&amp;quot;]&#xA;[startply &amp;quot;53&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 c6 4.cxd5 exd5 5.&#xA;Bf4 Qb6 6.Qd2 Nf6 7.f3 Bf5 8.g4 Bg6 9.h4 h6 10.h5 Bh7 11.g5 hxg5 12.Bxg5 Nbd7&#xA;13.Qe3+ Kd8 14.Qd2 Bg6 15.e4 Be7 16.e5 Nxh5 17.Bxe7+ Kxe7 18.Qg5+ Kf8 19.O-O-O&#xA;Qd8 20.Qg4 Rh6 21.Bh3 f5 22.exf6 Ndxf6 23.Qg5 Qe7 24.Nge2 Re8 25.Rhg1 b5 26.Rd2&#xA;Qe3 27.Bf5 27...Qxg5 28.Rxg5 Kf7 29.Bxg6+ Rxg6 30.Re5 Rh8 31.Rc2 Nd7 32. &#xA;Re3 Nb6 33.b3 Nc8 34.Nd1 Ne7 35.Nf2 Re6 36.Re5 Rxe5 37.dxe5 Ke6 38.Nd3 Rh6 39. &#xA;Nd4+ Kf7 40.e6+ Ke8 41.Ne5 Nf4 42.Nexc6 Nxe6 43.Nxe6 Rxe6 44.Nxa7 b4 45.Nb5 Re3 &#xA;46.Nd4 Rd3 47.Rd2 Rxd2 48.Kxd2 Kd7 49.Nc2 Nc6 50.Ke3 Ke6 51.a3 bxa3 52.Nxa3 Ke5 &#xA;53.f4+ Kd6 54.Nb5+ Kc5 55.Nc7 g6 56.Ne6+ Kb4 57.Kd3 Kxb3 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.gadycosteff.com/cql/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;CQL&lt;/a&gt; query that can be used to find these games is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;cql()&#xA;not check&#xA;pinned_pieces = pin &#xA;&#xA;// Collect pieces that can be captured by non-pinned pieces&#xA;possible_captures_by_black = [BNRQ] attackedby (a &amp;amp; ~ pinned_pieces)&#xA;possible_captures_by_white = [bnrq] attackedby (A &amp;amp; ~ pinned_pieces)&#xA;capturable_pieces = possible_captures_by_black | possible_captures_by_white&#xA;&#xA;// Add pieces that can be captured by pinned pieces&#xA;pinned_piece_captures = ~.&#xA;if piece pinned in pinned_pieces {&#xA;    pinning_piece = pin from [Aa] through pinned&#xA;    pinned_piece_captures = pinned_piece_captures | (pinning_piece attackedby pinned)&#xA;} then capturable_pieces = capturable_pieces | pinned_piece_captures&#xA;&#xA;capturable_pieces &amp;gt; 10&#xA;sort capturable_pieces&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, since it was mentioned in Rewan's answer, here is a game in which a piece is hanging (using the same&#xA;definition that Tim Krabbe provides on his &lt;a href=&quot;https://timkr.home.xs4all.nl/records/records.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chess records&lt;/a&gt; page for &amp;quot;Longest en prise&amp;quot;)&#xA;for &lt;strong&gt;30 moves&lt;/strong&gt; (again, from TWIC):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Event &amp;quot;Petr Izmailov Mem&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Site &amp;quot;Tomsk RUS&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Date &amp;quot;2009.06.28&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Round &amp;quot;5&amp;quot;] &#xA;[White &amp;quot;Ibrayev,N&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Black &amp;quot;Slugin,A&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Result &amp;quot;1/2-1/2&amp;quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &amp;quot;2406&amp;quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &amp;quot;2100&amp;quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &amp;quot;2009.06.24&amp;quot;]&#xA;[ECO &amp;quot;B81&amp;quot;]&#xA;[startply &amp;quot;14&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 e6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6&#xA;5.Nc3 d6 6.g4 Nbd7 7.g5 Nd5 8.Be3&#xA;a6 9.Qd2 Qc7 10.O-O-O b5 11.f4 b4 12.Nce2 Rb8 13.Nc6 Qxc6 14.Nd4 Qc7 15.f5 e5&#xA;16.Ne2 Nc5 17.Bxc5 Qxc5 18.Kb1 h6 19.Ng3 Be7 20.f6 gxf6 21.gxh6 Rb6 22.Nh5 Bg4&#xA;23.Ng7+ Kd7 24.Be2 Be6 25.h3 Qc6 26.Rhe1 Qc3 27.Qc1 Qxh3 28.Rh1 Qg3 29.Rdg1 Qf2&#xA;30.Bg4 Rc6 31.Rd1 Rg8 32.Rhf1 Qg2 33.Bf3 Qg5 34.Rg1 Qe3 35.h7 Rxc2 36.Nxe6 b3 &#xA;37.h8=Q Rxb2+ 38.Kxb2 Qc3+ &#xA;39.Kb1 bxa2+ 40.Kxa2 Qa5+ 41.Kb2 Qc3+ 42.Ka2 Qa5+ 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Starting at move 8, white can legally capture the black knight on d5 with the pawn on e4 every single&#xA;move up to move 38 where white is in check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This game was found with the CQL query:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;cql()&#xA;flipcolor {&#xA;    btm &#xA;    piece Attacked in [RNBQ] attackedby p { &#xA;        sort line singlecolor nestban --&amp;gt; (move legal from p to Attacked +) &amp;gt; 24&#xA;    }   &#xA;}&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7133" LastEditorUserId="7133" LastEditDate="2020-10-18T16:24:31.347" LastActivityDate="2020-10-18T16:24:31.347" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32622" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29181" CreationDate="2020-10-17T20:51:31.063" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I saw the code and there is no doubt that code was stolen form Stockfish&#xA;Here's a small snippet that I saved.  I no longer have the code since I found out it also includes code stolen from komodo ( reversed engineer).&#xA;There are many many examples just like this,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The one of the right was from Houdini, the one I the left is from the Stockfish repository from a few years ago, not current dev Stockfish - commit begins with  in &amp;quot;...cd8dc0a&amp;quot; &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/pull/706/commits/cd8dc0a1016cefe332f41fd7645b4b8462b1e466&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/pull/706/commits/cd8dc0a1016cefe332f41fd7645b4b8462b1e466&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was able to build an exact clone of Houndin 6.03 from the entire source that is on the right.  This is just one example - that are many snippets just like this one.&#xA;It provided exact node count and pv when one performed &amp;quot;go depth xx&amp;quot; on any position with Houdini 6.03.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/fGOv4.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/fGOv4.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21491" LastEditorUserId="21491" LastEditDate="2020-10-17T21:06:06.153" LastActivityDate="2020-10-17T21:06:06.153" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32624" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4455" CreationDate="2020-10-17T23:53:38.770" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;A very simple tool is Nimbus, an extension for Chrome. It is very intuitive and can be used to record Chess.com or Lichess analysis (with their respective arrow and highlighting tools), and you can use its drawing palette (does not work in Lichess) for rectangles, freehand lines, and a few others options. It allows to include the images of the webcam. The only downside I see is that it does not allow to crop the recorded area.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25011" LastActivityDate="2020-10-17T23:53:38.770" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32625" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32618" CreationDate="2020-10-18T03:23:18.407" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You might be looking for something like &lt;a href=&quot;https://decodechess.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;decodechess.com/&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first AI chess tutor, DecodeChess explains the why  behind chess&#xA;moves in rich, intuitive language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This screenshot &lt;img src=&quot;https://i.imgur.com/QKPII1J.png&quot; alt=&quot;screenshot from decodechess.com&quot; /&gt; shows an example of a position of DecodeChess's natural-language explanation for why, for example, Qa1 is good:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Escapes the black queen's threat (Qf6(b6)-b2)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Supports the rook at a7&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Threatens to play Bxd5&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Supports the rook at d1&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although you ask for something to &amp;quot;explain in human language why a particular opening move breaks theory,&amp;quot; in my limited exposure to DecodeChess it focuses on explaining why you &lt;em&gt;should&lt;/em&gt; make a particular &lt;em&gt;good&lt;/em&gt; move, rather than why you should not have made a bad move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;DecodeChess has a free trial available, which is pretty limited in capacity (two &amp;quot;decodes&amp;quot; per day), and monthly and annual subscriptions to get unlimited access.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17203" LastActivityDate="2020-10-18T03:23:18.407" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32626" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-10-18T17:29:56.490" Score="1" ViewCount="325" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have access to a powerful computer at work so naturally I want to run a chess engine on it (stockfish for now and later leela). I am trying to use docker-compose to link a stockfish image and a jupyter notebook image; then use the python-chess library to interact with the uci version of the stockfish engine. I am having difficulty linking the images with docker-compose (I am new to docker). Here is what I have tried:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I set up my directory structure as below:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;├── docker-compose.yml&#xA;├── jupyter&#xA;│   └── Dockerfile&#xA;└── stockfish&#xA;    └── Dockerfile&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;my Docker file for stockfish is from &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/jessegersensonchess/stockfish-nnue-docker/blob/master/Dockerfile&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://github.com/jessegersensonchess/stockfish-nnue-docker/blob/master/Dockerfile&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;FROM ubuntu:20.04 as builder&#xA;RUN apt update &amp;amp;&amp;amp; \&#xA;    apt upgrade -y &amp;amp;&amp;amp; \&#xA;    apt-get install -y git make g++ wget &amp;amp;&amp;amp; \&#xA;    git clone https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish &amp;amp;&amp;amp; \&#xA;    cd Stockfish/src &amp;amp;&amp;amp; \&#xA;    CXXFLAGS='-march=native' make -j2 profile-build ARCH=x86-64-bmi2&#xA;WORKDIR /Stockfish/src&#xA;FROM ubuntu:20.04&#xA;RUN apt-get update &amp;amp;&amp;amp; apt-get install -y libgomp1 wget &amp;amp;&amp;amp; apt-get autoremove -y &amp;amp;&amp;amp; apt-get autoclean&#xA;COPY --from=0 /Stockfish/src/stockfish /app/&#xA;COPY --from=0 /Stockfish/src/*.nnue /app/&#xA;WORKDIR /app&#xA;CMD [&amp;quot;./stockfish&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My dockerfile for jupyter:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;FROM jupyter/scipy-notebook&#xA;USER root&#xA;RUN [&amp;quot;bash&amp;quot;,&amp;quot;-c&amp;quot;,&amp;quot;source activate root &amp;amp;&amp;amp; pip install python-chess&amp;quot;]&#xA;USER jovyan&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;from the stockfish directory I can build the stockfish image and confirm that the uci executable is in the WORKDIR:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;sudo docker build -t stockfish .&#xA;sudo docker run -it stockfish bash&#xA;root@mycontainerid:/app# ls -1&#xA;nn-eba324f53044.nnue&#xA;stockfish    &amp;lt;-- the uci engine executable&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;from the jupyter directory I can build the jupyter image and confirm that I can import the python-chess library:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;sudo docker build -t jupyter/scipy-notebook .&#xA;sudo docker run -d -P jupyter/scipy-notebook&#xA;in [1]: import chess.engine  &amp;lt;-- the library to connect to uci engines&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now I try to link the images using docker-compose. My yml file look like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;version: '3'&#xA;services:&#xA;   this_jupyter:&#xA;      build: jupyter&#xA;      ports:&#xA;         - &amp;quot;8888:8888&amp;quot;&#xA;      volumes:&#xA;         - .:/home/joyvan&#xA;   this_stockfish:&#xA;      build: stockfish&#xA;      volumes:&#xA;         - .:/home/joyvan&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ive tried a few variations of the yml file without success:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;sudo docker-compose ps&#xA;         Name                      Command              State            Ports&#xA;---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------&#xA;stockfish_this_jupyter_1     tini -g -- start-notebook.sh   Up       0.0.0.0:8888-&amp;gt;8888/tcp&#xA;stockfish_this_stockfish_1   ./stockfish                    Exit 0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;my question is (a) why is the stockfish container not running, and (b) where will the executable be located once I successfully link to the jupyter notebook container?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;UPDATE when I start the containers with docker compose (sudo docker-compose up -d) I get the following log files,&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;log file for jupyter:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;sudo docker-compose logs this_jupyter&#xA;Attaching to leela_this_jupyter_1&#xA;this_jupyter_1    | Executing the command: jupyter notebook&#xA;this_jupyter_1    | [I 23:33:10.836 NotebookApp] Writing notebook server cookie secret to /home/jovyan/.local/share/jupyter/runtime/notebook_cookie_secret&#xA;this_jupyter_1    | [I 23:33:11.782 NotebookApp] JupyterLab extension loaded from /opt/conda/lib/python3.8/site-packages/jupyterlab&#xA;this_jupyter_1    | [I 23:33:11.783 NotebookApp] JupyterLab application directory is /opt/conda/share/jupyter/lab&#xA;this_jupyter_1    | [I 23:33:11.791 NotebookApp] Serving notebooks from local directory: /home/jovyan&#xA;this_jupyter_1    | [I 23:33:11.791 NotebookApp] Jupyter Notebook 6.1.4 is running at:&#xA;this_jupyter_1    | [I 23:33:11.791 NotebookApp] http://648f6d3c8eca:8888/?token=f2d986295231a8adf0a3b3263d1177512090e2309972ca2e&#xA;this_jupyter_1    | [I 23:33:11.791 NotebookApp]  or http://127.0.0.1:8888/?token=f2d986295231a8adf0a3b3263d1177512090e2309972ca2e&#xA;this_jupyter_1    | [I 23:33:11.791 NotebookApp] Use Control-C to stop this server and shut down all kernels (twice to skip confirmation).&#xA;this_jupyter_1    | [C 23:33:11.800 NotebookApp]&#xA;this_jupyter_1    |&#xA;this_jupyter_1    |     To access the notebook, open this file in a browser:&#xA;this_jupyter_1    |         file:///home/jovyan/.local/share/jupyter/runtime/nbserver-6-open.html&#xA;this_jupyter_1    |     Or copy and paste one of these URLs:&#xA;this_jupyter_1    |         http://648f6d3c8eca:8888/?token=f2d986295231a8adf0a3b3263d1177512090e2309972ca2e&#xA;this_jupyter_1    |      or http://127.0.0.1:8888/?token=f2d986295231a8adf0a3b3263d1177512090e2309972ca2e&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and the log file for stockfish:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;sudo docker-compose logs this_stockfish&#xA;Attaching to leela_this_stockfish_1&#xA;this_stockfish_1  | Stockfish 181020 by the Stockfish developers (see AUTHORS file)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12273" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-10-20T01:30:24.173" LastActivityDate="2020-10-24T00:03:47.683" Title="running stockfish with docker and docker-compose" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;programming&gt;&lt;python&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32628" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32585" CreationDate="2020-10-18T21:14:32.983" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Perhaps you dont see Knight tactics because you find it hard to &amp;quot;see&amp;quot; where they go. Ideally, when you look at the board, you see not just where the pieces are, but also where they can go. Do you see Knight moves with less clarity than those of the other pieces?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;They have some properties that are helpful in visualising. They always go to a squre of a color different from the one where they stand. If you imagine them to be at the center of a 5x5 block of squares, they go to, and only go to, the squares that other pieces can not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You might practice solving the Knights Tour, where a Knight on an otherwise bare board has to visit every one of the 64 squares, but only once. Perhaps ypu can use the other pieces to mark where the Knight has been?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastActivityDate="2020-10-18T21:14:32.983" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32631" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32645" CreationDate="2020-10-19T11:21:43.893" Score="3" ViewCount="264" Body="&lt;p&gt;I like to play correspondence thematic tournaments as a way to practice/learn new openings/variations. Since they are unrated, I sometimes try wild/unusual moves to see what happens. However, I was wondering which is the best way to prepare for this kind of tournament if one wants to obtain best results (=win as many games as possible).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thematic tournaments are those where all players start the game the same way, with a previously decided opening variation. This gives you the opportunity to study in advance the said opening. How do you do that? And how do you choose your moves?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Previously, I have taken the rather simplistic strategy of choosing the move with the highest winning percentage according to the database. But this sometimes leads you to inferior situations if you don't look to what happens in posterior moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, in correspondence games (&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.iccf.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;ICCF&lt;/a&gt;, at least), players may use any help (books, databases, computer engines) they like in choosing their moves. So opening traps are unlikely to work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;UPDATE 20-10-2020&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am not interested in getting advice for a particular opening, but rather on the method you follow to prepare for such a tournament. Also, one of the interests of thematic tournaments is the opportunity to find and test new/unusual lines. I am also interested in the method to do this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3757" LastEditorUserId="3757" LastEditDate="2020-10-20T05:42:09.033" LastActivityDate="2020-10-21T13:15:46.573" Title="How to prepare opening for correspondence thematic tournament" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;correspondence-chess&gt;&lt;preparation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32633" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32631" CreationDate="2020-10-19T17:35:39.763" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I’m not sure if a correspondence chess thematic tournament is the right place for learning the basics of an opening. For obtaining good results, i recommend:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Know your opening. Study all available grandmaster games, try to understand their plans. Get help by an engine, a book and/or a strong player. Be aware that the winning percentage of a line in a database is historical: The line might have been thought playable for a while, than the refutation was discovered, no one played the line since, so the winning percentage might remain high for a bad line. Don’t enter a correspondence chess thematic tournament until you have learned the opening. If you want to learn by playing, play a rapid online thematic tournament.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Prepare a new idea if possible. That’s something else than „wild moves“. And it is difficult. A lot of playable ideas have already been tried. But there are lines that have been played once and could be revived. And other moves have never been played and might prove correct. Test your ideas with some engines to see what happens. Your opponents will also use engines, so there is no need to play bad moves in a tournament just to see what happens and loosing a game by doing so. But don’t believe an engine a single word about complicated endgames ;-) That’s the reason why correspondence chess still exists in spite of engines.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;While in an unrated thematic tournament, you will find players who do not respect their opponents and play „wild moves“, be kind and don’t do so. Even unrated events are taken serious by most of their participants.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20096" LastActivityDate="2020-10-19T17:35:39.763" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32635" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32615" CreationDate="2020-10-19T21:58:02.630" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Fischer kept changing the openings quite a bit:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Game 3 (black) he played a Benoni (slight surprise).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Game 6 (white) he played c4 for the third time in a serious game (transposed to -QGD).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Game 8 (white) he played c4 again and it was a proper English&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Game 9 (black) Queens Gambit Declined - Semi Tarrasch (slight surprise)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Game 10 (white) he played c4 again (transposed to QGD Orthodox)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Game 13 (black) he played Alekhine's defense.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Game 14 (white) he played c4 (QGD)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Game 17 (black) he played the Pirc Defense for the first time in his career&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Game 19 (black) he played Alekhine's defense again&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Game 21 (black) he played a line of the Sicilian (Taimanov) that was new to him.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can check the list of opening here:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Chess_Championship_1972&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Chess_Championship_1972&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And here are the list of Fischer's most played openings:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessplayer?pid=19233&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessplayer?pid=19233&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24963" LastActivityDate="2020-10-19T21:58:02.630" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32636" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32642" CreationDate="2020-10-19T22:52:51.730" Score="13" ViewCount="4974" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess.com has a function called &amp;quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://support.chess.com/article/642-what-are-premoves-and-how-do-they-work&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;premove&lt;/a&gt;&amp;quot;. When pre-moves are enabled, while it’s the opponent’s turn you can make a move to automatically be played as soon as they make their move. The premove will play automatically even your opponent does something unexpected. If your opponent's move makes your pre-move illegal (such as putting your king in check), then your pre-move will be canceled).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question is, under what circumstance should I use the premove function? I can think of the following scenarios:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;My opponent has only one legal move. In this case, if I can determine my reply to this move, I may consider making a premove.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;When I am in a very safe endgame (for example, KR vs KB, where I will not lose even after blunders by my rook) and I am running out of time.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;In the early opening stage of a blitz game, when my opponent has only one reasonable move and for most of his &amp;quot;unreasonable&amp;quot; moves, my premove is still a good reply. For example, after 1. e4 c6, 2. d4, as white I can more or less safely assume black will play 2... d5 and (pre)play 3. Nc3 before black makes his second move. Even if black played 2... g6 or 2... d6 or 2... Na6, 3. Nc3 is still a sound reply.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why is there such a function &amp;quot;premove&amp;quot; in the first place? What is the &amp;quot;best&amp;quot; way to make the most of this function?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16626" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-10-20T14:24:15.423" LastActivityDate="2020-11-19T05:55:39.553" Title="How should one take advantage of the &quot;premove&quot; function on chess.com?" Tags="&lt;online-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32637" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32636" CreationDate="2020-10-19T23:52:53.583" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;Since premove takes very little time (0.1 sec on chess.com) or no time (on lichess.org), they are mostly used in situations when players have very little time: in games with very short time control 3 min or 1 min or shorter!?, or in time scramble in games with no increment or very small increments.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would be careful with using premove for case 3), in very short time controls, 1 min or less, people can try to trick you, for example if you just played &lt;code&gt;...g6&lt;/code&gt;, they can play &lt;code&gt;Bh6&lt;/code&gt; hoping that you premoved &lt;code&gt;...Bg7&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is another use for premove: Set a trap, and premove the &amp;quot;bait&amp;quot; move. People are a lot more likely to fall for it, thinking it is just a premove mess up. Eric Rosen gives a very good example: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oksV18QmCwo&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oksV18QmCwo&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="307" LastEditorUserId="307" LastEditDate="2020-11-19T05:55:39.553" LastActivityDate="2020-11-19T05:55:39.553" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32638" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32639" CreationDate="2020-10-20T01:41:46.353" Score="0" ViewCount="131" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can come up with 8 positions where the knight would deliver checkmate to a rook and king. However, on endgame tablebases, there are only 5 positions where a King knight wins against King rook. Why?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24098" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-10-20T02:11:56.083" LastActivityDate="2020-10-22T18:06:28.940" Title="What is the fifth position in the KN vs. KR endgame with the knight mating?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;tablebases&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32639" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32638" CreationDate="2020-10-20T02:03:16.620" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The positions are not unique if they are in some way symmetrical.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The five positions where KN wins vs. KR are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;White to play:  White Kc1 Nd2, Black Ka1 Ra2&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;White to play:  White Kc1 Nd4, Black Ka1 Ra2&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;White to play:  White Kc1 Nc5, Black Ka1 Ra2&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;White to play:  White Kc1 Na5, Black Ka1 Ra2&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Finished game:  White Kc1 Nb3, Black Ka1 Ra2&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21817" LastActivityDate="2020-10-20T02:03:16.620" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32640" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32636" CreationDate="2020-10-20T05:57:43.330" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you play without any increment (that I really hate), then sometimes premove is necessary, eg you have 3 sec left in a KQ vs KP ending.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Apart from that, the only time I use premove for is when I offer a trade and premove a retake. So that if they refuse the trade, the premove is illegal and cancelled.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7002" LastActivityDate="2020-10-20T05:57:43.330" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32641" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32636" CreationDate="2020-10-20T08:11:06.943" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;Time left on the clock is the main factor determining whether a premove will be worth it or not. You should only do premoves when you are low on time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Scenario 1 is great for premoves.&#xA;In scneario 2 you should try to trade your rook for the bishop as fast as possible if you can't win.&#xA;Scenario 3 is bad for premoves. I've seen so many Bullet games go 1.d4 Nf6 2.Nf3 g6 3.Bh6 Bg7.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also note that if your premove turns out to be an illegal move it will be cancelled, so you may want to use it for recaptures. For example, if you have a knihgt on d5 protected y a bishop on c4, you can premove Bxd5 to be played instantly if the knight gets captured.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastActivityDate="2020-10-20T08:11:06.943" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32642" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32636" CreationDate="2020-10-20T12:53:13.453" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think case 4: Your premove is illegal unless your opponent does something very specific but entirely expected, is the most common case that I've seen. Like you offering a trade, and regardless of what they take with (including if there is only one way they can take), there is only one specific way you want to take back.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As an example, IM and chess streamer Eric Rosen, when he gets to play the Stafford gambit as black (1. e4 e5, 2. Nf3 Nf6, 3. Nxe5), he always plays 3. ...Nc6, then premoves 4. ...dxc6. Because if that capture is legal, it must be because the white knight captured the black one, and in that case he always wants to take back with the d-pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also notable example of useful premove (and the converse of case 4, more akin to your case 2) was a drawn endgame where Carlsen had the black pieces during this his 2020 online tour (can't remember which game, or the exact piece placemens, sadly, but I believe it was KQP or KQ versus KRP). He had established a fortress and could premove his rook back and forth between two squares on the sixth rank. The only cases where such a move would lose the game were cases where performing that rook move would be illegal. He had only seconds left and no increment, so he couldn't wait and see what move his opponent would make.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7327" LastEditorUserId="7327" LastEditDate="2020-10-22T15:49:04.773" LastActivityDate="2020-10-22T15:49:04.773" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32643" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32636" CreationDate="2020-10-20T13:10:17.987" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Premoves should only be used if the move is illegal if not for a very specific move the other player makes.&#xA;An example would be&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;e4 e5&#xA;Nf3 Nf6&#xA;Nxe5 Nc6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here black can premove dxc6 because it will only be legal if white’s move is  Nxc6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another reason would be if you are low on time, as the other answers so aptly described.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24788" LastActivityDate="2020-10-20T13:10:17.987" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32644" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32636" CreationDate="2020-10-21T00:45:35.667" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You listed a lot of the main uses for a premove. I completely agree with point 1. For point 2, even if blundering the rook won't lose the game in a K+R vs K, you still want to win and not draw. After all, if you don't want to win, why not let your clock run out? It'll be a draw due to a lack of mating material for your opponent. So when you're premoving in this situation, try to make it so that your rook is always protected by the king, or far away. In either of these cases, the rook should check the opponent's king or control squares around it, in order to prevent your opponent's premoves from always being legal (forcing them to manually move). Alternatively, you could try boxing the enemy king in, with the case of your king always protecting your rook, with the goal of actually checkmating and not winning on time. Which way you play depends on how much time both sides have.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For point 3, it's a bit debatable. If &lt;em&gt;all&lt;/em&gt; of your opponent's unexpected moves don't cost you material (or something worse), then go ahead and premove. But if there are &lt;em&gt;a few&lt;/em&gt; that would be bad, it's more a matter of taste. E.g., after 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6, would you premove 3...Bg7? Sure you save a bit of time, but you're going to lose a bishop in the case of 3.Bh6 (I see a few other answers have included this example too). Meanwhile, in the position after 3.Nc3 Bg7, it would be completely fine to premove 4...0-0. There's no move White has that would give them a winning position against this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another good strategy is to always premove recapturing a piece that could be taken (assuming it would be best to recapture it). If the piece is captured, you've saved time; meanwhile, if the piece isn't captured, the premove won't happen and you've lost nothing. The slight downside is that the board might show a preview of your premove while you're waiting for your opponent to move, which could make it a bit harder to calculate. This isn't a big deal though, and on Lichess they don't do this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other side, let's say you're trying to exploit the fact that your opponent is premoving. If they've played the last many moves pretty fast (like premove fast), you could consider trying a dirty trick, like the 3.Bh6 move. This involves getting a feel of how fast they're playing though, since if you tried something like 3.Bh6, your confidence level should probably be at least 50% (if their rating is around yours). It's also rather unsportsmanlike, so it depends on whether you care about being nice or winning as much as possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastEditorUserId="12873" LastEditDate="2020-10-21T00:53:31.283" LastActivityDate="2020-10-21T00:53:31.283" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32645" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32631" CreationDate="2020-10-21T13:10:24.453" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't play correspondence chess myself (if I have occasionally it's without engines), but I have written a few opening books. The research aspect of both activities share some similarities.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the tournament, I'm assuming you're allowed to use engines and databases. I'd recommend getting the best engine available (Stockfish 12), downloading the updated TWIC database, getting the up to date ICCF database, and possibly buying any recent books on the opening in question. You could try looking into renting someone's CPU time on the cloud to run Leela, but this seems excessive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then, before the tournament the main thing to do is to understand general important patterns in the opening you'll be playing. For example, who usually benefits from certain types of positions that can arise, where do the pieces tend to go in various circumstances, etc. Also try to learn the plans for both sides (how to develop, where to attack, etc). This will be useful to help &lt;em&gt;guide&lt;/em&gt; the engine: i.e., to know what moves to get it to spend more of its time analyzing, since if those moves correspond to core principles, they have a higher chance of being right. Although there are always exceptions to principles and patterns!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you're guiding an engine, this means letting it think for a bit. Then, when it comes up with a move (ideally at depth 30 or higher if you're very serious, otherwise, depth 25ish is okay -- although if it's absolutely clear only one move is acceptable, no need to let the engine think this long), play that move, and let the engine think again. Once you do this enough times, you can see what the evaluation is for the position you reach a number of moves later. This is a much more efficient way of analyzing than just letting the engine think on the starting position for some indefinite amount of time. Also, don't just play out the line with the best suggested moves, look at other moves as well when guiding the engine, and map those out for a while. It's possible an engine's third best move is actually the best one, which you could realize after analyzing it for many moves deep.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The exception to choosing a move the engine gives when guiding it is if the game is still early and you clearly know the move goes against the principles of the opening (based off your study of it). Like say it's on the 8th move and the engine wants to go against widely accepted theory - there's a good chance you can just ignore it. Another indication that the engine's move is poor is if it conflicts with the most common practice from the ICCF database. In this case, even if the game is later on in its development (say move 20+), ICCF games spend days on each move and use engines themselves. Although keep in mind that Stockfish 12 might be better than a game in the ICCF database from a few years ago, since the engine has made significant improvements. As in some cases, it might be that Stockfish 12 can do better in a few minutes than a correspondence player could guiding an old version of Stockfish (or another engine) for a few days.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for finding and testing new/unusual ideas, don't worry about coming up with these before the tournament. During your games, when you guide the engine you can do this. If you see some wacky move that your gut tells you is good, and if the engine at least doesn't laugh at completely right away, then go ahead and guide the engine through analyzing this move. The engine might be a bit skeptical of the move at first, but if you play through the best moves it suggests (especially for each move being given at depth 30+), you'll have a better idea of the new move's validity at some point.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastEditorUserId="12873" LastEditDate="2020-10-21T13:15:46.573" LastActivityDate="2020-10-21T13:15:46.573" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32646" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32648" CreationDate="2020-10-21T17:00:41.803" Score="3" ViewCount="1099" Body="&lt;p&gt;From its starting square, a knight has 3 legal moves: The “standard” one (c3, f3, c6, f6), the “weird” one (a3, h3, a6, h6) and the “other” one (d2, e2, d7, e7).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my games, I almost always do the standard move. And I completely overlook the other move by my opponent, to my detriment. When are the weird and other moves preferred?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17157" LastEditorUserId="17157" LastEditDate="2020-10-21T17:11:08.470" LastActivityDate="2020-10-23T04:07:01.770" Title="Non-Standard Knight Development" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;knights&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32647" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32646" CreationDate="2020-10-21T17:19:47.000" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;This question is too general to have a definitive answer. There is no universal criteria to know where to develop a knight. For instance, after &lt;strong&gt;1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nd2 dxe4 4.Nxe4&lt;/strong&gt;, now 4...Nc6 would be the &amp;quot;weird&amp;quot; move, as it would make it harder for Black to push ...c5 which is one of his main plans in this position. 4...Nd7 is therefore a much more natural move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Sometimes the &amp;quot;normal&amp;quot; square is simply not available. Think of &lt;strong&gt;1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3. e5&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another interesting example is &lt;strong&gt;1. d4 f5 2. g3 Nf6 3.Bg2 e6 4.c4 d5&lt;/strong&gt;. Now 5.Nh3 is an interesting way to reach the f4 square, even though 5.Nf3 targetting e5 is probably the main option.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally, keep in mind that the first square we move our knight to is probably not its &amp;quot;destine&amp;quot;. After &lt;strong&gt;1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 e5 5.Nb3 Nc6&lt;/strong&gt; we develop our b1 knight to c3 because we dream of putting it on d5. If its best square happened to be on c4, Nc3 would suddenly become the third best option.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastActivityDate="2020-10-21T17:19:47.000" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32648" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32646" CreationDate="2020-10-21T20:30:14.287" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's probably first worth revisiting why the &amp;quot;standard&amp;quot; moves are normally preferred.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A white knight on c3 defends white's central square e4 and attacks black's central square d5. That is that knight attacks/defends/supports 2 out of the 4 central squares. In the opening those 4 squares are the most important squares on the board (unless you fall for a cheapo).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In contrast a knight on d2 only defends white's central e4 square. On d2 the knight is only half as effective as it is on c3. By symmetry the same arguments apply to knights on f3, c6 and f6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In general in &lt;em&gt;open games&lt;/em&gt; these four squares are the best ones for the knights on their first move. In closed positions it is not quite so clear cut. Often other factors make other squares better or just make those squares impossible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In closed and semi-open openings these squares may not all be available and moving a knight there may not be possible. The Advance Caro Kann is probably the best example of this. After:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. e5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;black can't put a knight on c6 because it is already occupied by a black pawn and f6 is also out of bounds because it is attacked by the white pawn on e5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the Winawer variation of the French Defence white puts a knight on c3 but this is a very committal move. Black can pin the knight with Bb4 and a double edged tactical battle is likely. Consequently at higher levels Nd2 is preferred heading into a Tarrasch variation of the French. This satisfies the key requirement of the position, defend the attacked white pawn on e4, while also avoiding the pin from the dark squared black bishop and allowing the d4 pawn to be defended with the move c3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The other reason for moving a knight to d2/7 is to protect the other knight developed on f3/6 when it is pinned to the queen thereby allowing the queen to move without risking doubled pawns if black decides to exchange bishop for knight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Finally moves like Nh6 use the h6 square as a staging post aiming for f7 or f5. These ideas come up regularly in the French Defence. Here are a couple of examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. e5 c5 4. c3 Nc6 5. Nf3 Bd7 6. a3 f6 7. Bd3 fxe5 (7...cxd4 8. cxd4 Nh6 {with the idea of Nf7 to put more pressure on e5 and if} 8. Bxh6 gxh6 9. Nh4?! Qb6 10. Bxh6 gxh6 11. Qh5+ Kd8) 8. dxe5 Nh6 9. O-O Nf7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you play openings like the French or the Caro Kann as black then you will become more familiar with these ideas. In any case you should be mindful of possible advantages in playing Nd2/7 to protect a pinned knight on f3/6 making it easier to break the pin and possible advantages in leaving c3/6 free for a pawn to support a pawn on d4/5 or to kick a bishop on b4/5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-10-21T20:30:14.287" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32649" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-10-22T02:07:56.910" Score="5" ViewCount="643" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm curious to know what happens in the following scenario:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I play a Swiss tournament and meet 3 rated players, I score at least half point but do badly overall. Then I play another Swiss tournament and meet another 3 rated players and do better this time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Overall, my initial rating is below the rating floor of 1000 because of how badly I played against the first 3 rated players, and rating is not published.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My questions are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Are my first 6 results discarded and I have to play 5 new rated opponents?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If yes to (1), do I have to score at least half a point in a tournament again before my results are considered for my initial rating?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If no to (1), are all of my first 6 results kept, forcing me to keep playing until I have pooled enough results to be above the floor of 1000 within 26 months?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Follow up scenario:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Assume the same thing happens as above, but I played 3 rated players in my first tournament and 6 in the second. My performance in the first one is terrible, but I did well in the second. If you pooled all 9 games, my rating would be below the floor, but if you only looked at my last 6 games, my rating would be above the floor.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What happens in this case?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25027" LastEditorUserId="25027" LastEditDate="2020-10-22T02:14:03.633" LastActivityDate="2020-10-22T10:05:14.143" Title="Initial FIDE rating below floor, what happens?" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;rating&gt;&lt;fide&gt;&lt;elo&gt;&lt;otb-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32650" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32653" CreationDate="2020-10-22T06:52:39.893" Score="0" ViewCount="79" Body="&lt;p&gt;My question is and I would like to know, Chess grandmasters Bobby Fischer[AMERICA}, Boris Spassky[RUSSIA], Anatoly Karpov[RUSSIA], and Garry Kasparov[Russia]played against one another in many tournaments in Big cities. How their ratings or rankings were determined? Are the only basis their past performances? OR those who are engaged in Bettings play their roles? please take a look at the list of chess grandmasters who are famous at the international level from 1970- 1982.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25017" LastEditorUserId="25017" LastEditDate="2020-10-22T09:52:58.093" LastActivityDate="2020-10-22T10:15:32.760" Title="How rankings or ratings of the players are determined before the next tournament?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;rating&gt;&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;performance&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32652" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32649" CreationDate="2020-10-22T10:05:14.143" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;The rules FIDE use in calculating a player's first rating are outlined in the &lt;a href=&quot;https://handbook.fide.com/chapter/B022017&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Rating Regulations effective from 1 July 2017&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The relevant sections are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;6.1 If an unrated player scores zero in his first tournament, his score and that of his opponents against him are disregarded. Otherwise if an unrated player has played rated games, then this result is included in computing his overall rating&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;7.14 A rating for a player new to the list shall be published only if it meets the following criteria:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;7.14a If based on results obtained under 6.3, a minimum of 5 games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;7.14b If based on results obtained under 6.4, a minimum of 5 games played against rated opponents.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;7.14c The condition of a minimum of 5 games need not be met in one tournament. Results from other tournaments played within consecutive rating periods of not more than 26 months are pooled to obtain the initial rating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;7.14d The rating is at least 1000.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;7.14e &lt;strong&gt;The rating is calculated using all his results as if they were played in one tournament&lt;/strong&gt; (it is not published until he has played at least 5 games) by using all the rating data available.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, the answers to your questions are clear:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Are my first 6 results discarded and I have to play 5 new rated&#xA;opponents?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since you scored more than zero in your first tournament then all the results will be used in calculating your rating provided they were played within a 26 month window. So, provided 26 months have not elapsed then the answer is &amp;quot;No&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If yes to (1), do I have to score at least half a point in a&#xA;tournament again before my results are considered for my initial&#xA;rating?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If your next tournament was more than 26 months after the first two (i.e. &amp;quot;yes to (1)) then that counts as your first tournament and the rule regarding scoring zero in your first tournament applies.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If no to (1), are all of my first 6 results kept, forcing me to keep&#xA;playing until I have pooled enough results to be above the floor of&#xA;1000 within 26 months?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to 7.14e the answer is yes with the 26 month proviso. Every time an old tournament drops out of the 26 month window it is excluded from your results.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-10-22T10:05:14.143" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32653" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32650" CreationDate="2020-10-22T10:15:32.760" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are the only basis their past performances?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;OR those who are engaged in Bettings play their roles?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;None whatsoever.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.olimpbase.org/index.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Olimpbase&lt;/a&gt; website:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Back in 1942 the USCF used its own chess rating system (Harkness) to&#xA;rank domestic players, while German Chess Federation did the same in&#xA;1948 (Ingo system). In 1959 one Arpad Elo was nominated chairman of&#xA;USCF rating committee and already in 1961 he published the very first&#xA;list of top US players in &amp;quot;Chess Life&amp;quot;. Even though prof. Elo used to&#xA;publish his own, unofficial International Rating Lists it was 1970&#xA;FIDE Congress held in Siegen, Germany that adopted the Elo system for&#xA;official use. The first official list was to be published on 1st July&#xA;1971 and it was approved on consecutive FIDE congress in Vancouver,&#xA;Canada, in August 1971.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Elo's unofficial international ratings dating back to 1967 are available on the Olimpbase site as are FIDE ratings from 1971 to 2001. From 2001 the FIDE ratings lists are available on the &lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/download.phtml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE website&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-10-22T10:15:32.760" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32655" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32646" CreationDate="2020-10-22T18:04:22.023" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Much more likely it is your other moves that cause your problems not that you did a 'standard' horsie placement and they used one that was not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25031" LastActivityDate="2020-10-22T18:04:22.023" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32658" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32646" CreationDate="2020-10-23T04:07:01.770" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &amp;quot;standard&amp;quot; movement of the knight in the opening is pretty much forced. Other than the Alekhine's knight movement (which is also inferior but not busted), other options of knight movement almost always give &amp;gt;1 advantage to the other side, busted and convertible by engines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24098" LastActivityDate="2020-10-23T04:07:01.770" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32659" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32661" CreationDate="2020-10-23T16:13:48.760" Score="3" ViewCount="847" Body="&lt;p&gt;Today I found myself in the below position as black (me to play). My gut told me it should be a draw, but as my opponent and I are both fairly weak there was a significant chance one of us would blunder, so I decided to play on just to see what would happen, and sure enough we ended up exchanging rooks and that was that&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After the game, I checked this on &lt;a href=&quot;https://syzygy-tables.info/?fen=8/8/2r2k2/R4P2/4n3/1K6/8/8_b_-_-_0_1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;tablebase&lt;/a&gt; and it's very clear that this is a drawn position. However, Lichess shows this position as -0.6 and chess.com shows it as -0.88 (I assume they use different versions of Stockfish). I'm having trouble understanding what Stockfish feels my advantage here is or what those numbers really mean. If it's a definite draw then I'd expect it to show +0.0.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it saying there are more ways for white to blunder than black, so that is more likely to happen? Is there some tactic or 'style' I could employ here that might increase my chances of inducing a mistake by my opponent? Am I overthinking this and should just offer a draw in this position?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;8/8/2r2k2/R4P2/4n3/1K6/8/8 b - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11943" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-10-23T16:35:25.473" LastActivityDate="2020-10-25T14:47:17.380" Title="Tablebases say this position is drawn, but Stockfish disagrees-What does that mean?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;draw&gt;&lt;tablebases&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32660" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32659" CreationDate="2020-10-23T18:35:06.373" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Tablebases will tell you the evaluation of a position with perfect play from both sides.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stockfish will use rules it was programmed with to analyze a position and give you a numeric value (See &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-algorithm-behind-Stockfish-the-chess-engine&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-algorithm-behind-Stockfish-the-chess-engine&lt;/a&gt; for some of these rules or heuristics). But unless it can see a forced draw it will not give you a 0.0 evaluation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24963" LastActivityDate="2020-10-23T18:35:06.373" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32661" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32659" CreationDate="2020-10-23T19:57:07.383" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;If the tablebase says that it's a draw with optimal play from both sides, then you can always ignore whatever Stockfish or any other engine says. The tablebase knows the objective evaluation for any position with 7 pieces or less.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What Stockfish 11 (or any earlier version) does is calculate as far as it can ahead, evaluate the positions it reaches in its search, and then use those numbers to give an evaluation for the starting position (obviously a lot more is involved, but that's the basic idea). If Stockfish reaches a position where Black's still up a knight, it will usually give some evaluation in Black's favour due to how its evaluation function works. It has no way of knowing that it's certain K+R will draw against K+R+N, unless this knowledge was explicitly programmed into it. Stockfish will only say it is a draw once: it's calculated a forced repetition will happen, it sees that a K+R vs K+R is forced, or the game has reached the 50 move rule (or will imminently do so). Although if you were to hook up Stockfish with a tablebase (some people do this, such as serious correspondence players), Stockfish should always give the tablebase evaluation in positions with 7 pieces or less.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, it's worthwhile noting that Stockfish NNUE (as well as Stockfish 12 I'd assume) gives an evaluation of equality, with the number somewhere around -0.13 for a K+R vs K+R+N endgame I set up, after not thinking for too long. In the position you have with the pawn, NNUE started giving a 0.00 evaluation once it reached around depth 20. This is probably because &amp;quot;it&amp;quot; had experience playing this K+R vs K+R+N endgame, and in all normal circumstances the result is a draw. So, NNUE's neural net evaluates this endgame appropriately as equal. Note that this is all without the use of a tablebase.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastEditorUserId="12873" LastEditDate="2020-10-24T11:38:17.250" LastActivityDate="2020-10-24T11:38:17.250" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32662" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32665" CreationDate="2020-10-23T23:02:32.687" Score="2" ViewCount="1507" Body="&lt;p&gt;International chess tournaments are played in many cities in the world. What are the criteria that differentiate a chess grandmaster from a chess international master? Dibyendu Barua of Calcutta [Kolkata] played in London and is a chess grandmaster. In 1982 He defeated the then world number two ranked Viktor Korchnoi. Dibyendu Barua was awarded the grandmaster title in 1991 by FIDE. Dibyendu Barua was the second Indian grandmaster after Viswanathan Anand to become a chess grandmaster.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would like to know who is greater, a chess grandmaster or a chess international master?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25017" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-10-25T08:02:13.617" LastActivityDate="2020-10-25T08:02:13.617" Title="Difference between a grandmaster and an international master?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;fide&gt;&lt;grandmaster&gt;&lt;titles&gt;&lt;international-master&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32663" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-10-23T23:18:22.307" Score="2" ViewCount="360" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are you allowed to read a book unrelated to chess during a FIDE rated classical tournament game? I myself have done this a few times whilst studying for exams, but was never sure if it was allowed or not. I am 2100 so no one ever mentioned it. I'm hoping someone can post a definite answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25040" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-10-24T03:04:04.230" LastActivityDate="2020-10-24T03:04:04.230" Title="FIDE Rules On Reading DURING Game" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;fide&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32664" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32663" CreationDate="2020-10-23T23:44:47.067" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It should be okay but as the rules do not explicitly address this some picky opponent and retentive director might ban it because it might somehow give you an edge.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The closest thing which I could find in the FIDE Laws of Chess is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;12.3 a. During play the players are forbidden to make use of any notes, sources of information or advice, or analyse on another chessboard&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;12.3 b. Without the permission of the arbiter a player is forbidden to have a mobile phone or other electronic means of communication in the playing venue, unless they are completely switched off. If any such device produces a sound, the player shall lose the game. The opponent shall win. However, if the opponent cannot win the game by any series of legal moves, his score shall be a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Best would be to ask the TD before the match if  you can read a non chess book.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25041" LastActivityDate="2020-10-23T23:44:47.067" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32665" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32662" CreationDate="2020-10-24T00:01:17.707" Score="10" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What are the criteria that differentiate a chess grandmaster from a&#xA;chess international master?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The current FIDE rules regarding the awarding of international titles are described in &lt;a href=&quot;https://handbook.fide.com/chapter/B01Regulations2017&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Title Regulations effective from 1 July 2017&lt;/a&gt;. Basically there are two ways to achieve a title - via norms or directly via achieving a given result in a world or continental championship or in an Olympiad.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The level of achievement required to be awarded a direct title are described in &lt;a href=&quot;https://handbook.fide.com/chapter/B01DirectTitles2017&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Table for Direct Titles effective from 1 July 2017&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For instance the GM title is awarded to the top 16 players in the World Cup, the winner of the Women's World Championship, the outright winner of the World S65, S50 and U20 Championships, the outright winner of Continental Championships and the Continental S65, S50 and U20 Championships.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The IM title is awarded to the losing finalist in the Women's World Championship, the silver and bronze winners in the World S65, S50 and U20 Championships, the winners of the World U18 and U16 Championships, the silver and bronze winners in the Continental Championships, the winners of the Continental S65, S50 and U20 Championships, the winners of the Continental U18 Championships.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Qualification via norms requires 3 (or 2 for very long tournaments) &amp;quot;norm&amp;quot; level performances in high level tournaments combined with reaching a certain rating. These rules are complicated and you should refer to sections 1.4 and 1.5 of the document on the the &lt;a href=&quot;https://handbook.fide.com/chapter/B01Regulations2017&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE website&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-10-24T00:01:17.707" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32666" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32626" CreationDate="2020-10-24T00:03:47.683" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;not quite the solution I was looking for but everything is working with the following Dockerfile&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;FROM nvidia/cuda:10.0-cudnn7-devel&#xA;&#xA;RUN apt-get update &amp;amp;&amp;amp; apt-get dist-upgrade -y &amp;amp;&amp;amp; apt clean all&#xA;RUN apt-get update &amp;amp;&amp;amp; apt-get install -y curl wget supervisor git clang-6.0 ninja-build protobuf-compiler libprotobuf-dev python3-pip &amp;amp;&amp;amp; apt-get clean all&#xA;RUN pip3 install meson&#xA;RUN pip3 install python-chess&#xA;&#xA;RUN mkdir src&#xA;WORKDIR src/&#xA;COPY . .&#xA;RUN pip3 install jupyter&#xA;WORKDIR /src/notebooks&#xA;ENV TINI_VERSION v0.6.0&#xA;ADD https://github.com/krallin/tini/releases/download/${TINI_VERSION}/tini /usr/bin/tini&#xA;RUN chmod +x /usr/bin/tini&#xA;ENTRYPOINT [&amp;quot;/usr/bin/tini&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;--&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;RUN mkdir /lczero &amp;amp;&amp;amp; \&#xA;    cd ~ &amp;amp;&amp;amp; \&#xA;    git clone -b release/0.26 --recurse-submodules https://github.com/LeelaChessZero/lc0.git &amp;amp;&amp;amp; \&#xA;    cd lc0 &amp;amp;&amp;amp;\&#xA;    ./build.sh&#xA;&#xA;RUN cp /root/lc0/build/release/lc0 /lczero &amp;amp;&amp;amp; \&#xA;    file /lczero/lc0 &amp;amp;&amp;amp; \&#xA;    chmod +x /lczero/lc0&#xA;&#xA;RUN cd /lczero &amp;amp;&amp;amp; \&#xA;    wget https://github.com/LeelaChessZero/lczero-client/releases/download/v29/lc0-training-client-linux &amp;amp;&amp;amp; \&#xA;    chmod +x lc0-training-client-linux &amp;amp;&amp;amp; \&#xA;    wget https://storage.lczero.org/files/networks-contrib/J92-280&#xA;&#xA;RUN git clone https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish.git &amp;amp;&amp;amp;\&#xA;    cd Stockfish &amp;amp;&amp;amp;\&#xA;    cd src &amp;amp;&amp;amp;\&#xA;    make help &amp;amp;&amp;amp;\&#xA;    make net &amp;amp;&amp;amp;\&#xA;    make build ARCH=x86-64-modern&#xA;&#xA;COPY supervisord.conf /etc/supervisor/conf.d/&#xA;COPY settings.json /lczero/settings.json&#xA;RUN service supervisor start&#xA;&#xA;CMD [&amp;quot;jupyter&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;notebook&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;--port=8888&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;--no-browser&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;--ip=0.0.0.0&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;--allow-root&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;# sudo docker exec -it $(sudo docker run --runtime=nvidia --name leela -it -d -p 8888:8888 leela:latest ) service supervisor start&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12273" LastActivityDate="2020-10-24T00:03:47.683" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32667" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32662" CreationDate="2020-10-24T00:05:57.727" Score="-4" Body="&lt;p&gt;International Grandmaster &amp;gt;&amp;gt; International master&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;FIDE explains how the titles are awarded and what has to be done over a number of games/tournaments to qualify.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25042" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2020-10-24T13:30:36.790" LastActivityDate="2020-10-24T13:30:36.790" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32668" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32663" CreationDate="2020-10-24T00:15:14.087" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are two sections of the &lt;a href=&quot;https://handbook.fide.com/chapter/E012018&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Laws of Chess&lt;/a&gt; which are relevant.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;11.3.2.1 During a game, a player is forbidden to have any electronic device not specifically approved by the arbiter in the playing venue.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;11.5 It is forbidden to distract or annoy the opponent in any manner whatsoever. This includes unreasonable claims, unreasonable offers of a draw or the introduction of a source of noise into the playing area&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Use of a Kindle or other electronic book is governed by the first. You will have to get the arbiter's permission to read such a device during the game (or even to have it in the playing area) and this is unlikely.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For a traditional book printed on regular paper you just need to do it in such a way that it does not disturb your opponent (i.e. don't rustle the pages, put the book down noisily, etc.) as covered by 11.5. Although you would be well advised to talk to the arbiter first to clear the fact that the book contains no chess related material.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have seen this done during FIDE rated league matches with no problems but not in large tournaments.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-10-24T00:15:14.087" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32669" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29430" CreationDate="2020-10-24T01:57:07.770" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you are not suitably dressed, over-the-board opponents might be very distracted by your not thought out taste and poor grooming.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24319" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-03-10T19:31:53.027" LastActivityDate="2021-03-10T19:31:53.027" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32670" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28611" CreationDate="2020-10-24T02:47:58.430" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/13698/does-chess-improve-our-intelligence&quot;&gt;&amp;quot;Does chess improve our intelligence?&amp;quot;&lt;/a&gt; is about most commonly studied long term effect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/1366/are-certain-foods-or-drinks-better-to-consume-than-others-when-playing-chess&quot;&gt;Are certain foods or drinks better to consume than others when playing chess?&lt;/a&gt;&amp;quot; has suggestions for preparation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Studies measuring physiology of people playing chess found the following. Effect usual depends on engagement. Theta power increases with time pressure &lt;a href=&quot;https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physbeh.2018.10.017&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Santos Villafaina 2019&lt;/a&gt; and with concentration &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/16/24/5021&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Fuentes-García Dec 2019&lt;/a&gt;. Theta power adapts to difficulty in successful players. Alpha increases with difficulty. &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6981879/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Fuentes-García Jan 2019&lt;/a&gt; HRV lowers with concentration &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/16/24/5021&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Fuentes-García Dec 2019&lt;/a&gt; / internal load &lt;a href=&quot;https://doi.org/10.1007/s10916-018-0890-0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;J. P. Fuentes  2018&lt;/a&gt;, difficulty &lt;a href=&quot;https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00409&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;J. Fuentes-García Feb 2019&lt;/a&gt; and hopelessness &lt;a href=&quot;https://doi.org/10.1097/01.psy.0000075975.90979.2a&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Schwarz, Alfons M. MD 2003&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;In addition, pre-activation was detected in pre-game measure, suggesting that the prefrontal cortex might be preparatory activated.&amp;quot; &lt;a href=&quot;https://doi.org/10.1007/s10916-018-0890-0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;J. P. Fuentes  2018&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Heart rate fluctuates based on exciting events &lt;a href=&quot;https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2012.00273&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;María J. Leone 2012&lt;/a&gt; and increases during game. &amp;quot;These results suggest a stimulation of the sympathetic nervous system with no changes in the parasympathetic system.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;The respiratory exchange ratio was rather elevated (over 0.89) at the start and significantly decreased during the game (0.75 at the end), indicating that energy expenditure progressively switched from carbohydrate to lipid oxidation.&amp;quot; &lt;a href=&quot;https://doi.org/10.1007/s00421-008-0908-2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Troubat (2009)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24968" LastEditorUserId="24968" LastEditDate="2020-10-25T04:35:42.000" LastActivityDate="2020-10-25T04:35:42.000" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32671" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24961" CreationDate="2020-10-24T11:02:08.003" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The accepted answer gives the correct number, but is incomplete. It's true that Black can always force either 3. ... Q(x)d2+ or 3. ... Q(x)f2+. However, what if White could choose a fourth move that is valid even if such a check is made? The only possible options are 4. Kd1, 4. Kf1, 4. Kd2 or 4. Kf2. It turns out that Black can still prevent such sequences, but for various different reasons that don't necessarily involve one of these checks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, White needs three moves to prevent all the routes to Qf2+, and none of these can be bishop moves so 4. Kf1 is out. If White moves the f pawn and makes two other moves to block Qf2+ Black can always play Qxf3 or Qxf4, so 4. Kf2 is also out (White doesn't have time to play Nf3 here without allowing Qf2+). Note that, even if you consider 4. Kxf2 and 4. Kf2 to be the same move, White must block Qf2+ here because otherwise Black can just leave the queen attacking f2 to prevent Kf2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So does White have a sequence ending 4. Kd1 or 4. Kd2? To do this, White must use two moves to prevent Qd2+. This means there is no time to get anything on c5, and so White can't avoid 1. ... e3, 2. ... Bb4, 3. ... Bc3, (where the bishop moves might be captures) which prevents 4. Kd2.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only option remaining is 4. Kd1 and that requires two moves to prevent both routes to Qd2+, and one queen move to vacate d1. The non-queen moves need to be (b4 or c3 or Nc3) and (e3 or f4). However, f4 is not possible: Black can play 2. Qh4, which is either a check preventing White's intended third move or prevents 3. f4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If White plays e3, Black's plan is to avoid 4. Kd1 by getting a bishop to the d1-h5 diagonal. If the White queen is on this diagonal after White's third move, Black can always capture with the bishop on move 3. If not, Bg4 is sufficient to prevent 4. Kd1, and White can't stop this while also stopping Qd2+ and moving the queen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21223" LastActivityDate="2020-10-24T11:02:08.003" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32672" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32675" CreationDate="2020-10-24T12:28:41.117" Score="2" ViewCount="156" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just played my first few games of Crazyhouse, and I really don't understand it. At one point I had this position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;White to move&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;r2q1rk1/pbb2pp1/n1p1p2p/1p1nP3/2pPN3/P1P3P1/2BN1P1P/R1BQ1RK1 w - - 1 16&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black has no extra pieces, while I (White) have an extra pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stockfish 10+ on Lichess (depth 18), says I have an immense advantage of +11.2, it and recommends Nxc4, but I have no idea what general strategy is behind this move. I had instead chosen Qh5, which it does not even place in the top 3 moves but thinks is fine too after I make the move, and I know what I am doing with this move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Upon playing out a few lines extending from Nxc4, I get the feeling that the chess engine may have been mistaken about its value. Is it unreliable for Crazyhouse, or is there some underlying strategy behind that move that I am not seeing?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9192" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-10-24T16:18:05.560" LastActivityDate="2020-10-24T18:15:26.747" Title="The best move in this Crazyhouse position according to Stockfish" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;evaluation&gt;&lt;crazyhouse&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32673" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-10-24T13:34:35.117" Score="2" ViewCount="253" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let suppose an unrated player plays a FIDE rated swiss tournament where its opponent's ratings are e.g. 1300,2000,2100,2200,2300 and wins all of them, then his initial rating will be 2100 according to FIDE rating calculator and FIDE documentation confirms this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;If he scores more than 50%, then Ru = Ra + 20 for each half point scored over 50%&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here Ru is the (new) rating of the unrated player and Ra is the average rating of the rated opponents.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Clearly, this player performed much better than the calculated rating (any performance calculator admits that). And I believe many before me have seen such an issue and such a performance (or maybe slightly weaker than that) from an unrated player is not impossible since many just don't play rated games. I'm wondering what is the rationale behind this? Does it mean that FIDE wants players to play enough many games before they win any title? Or is there any other reason to not use performance for calculating the rating? Were there already some discussions about the initial rating calculation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="269" LastActivityDate="2020-10-26T01:56:27.950" Title="Why the initial rating of FIDE is calculated that strangely?" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;history&gt;&lt;fide&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32674" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32673" CreationDate="2020-10-24T13:52:48.757" Score="2" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm wondering what is the rationale behind this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The rationale is very simple. 5 games is far too few to get a realistic and accurate assessment of a player's strength. That is why a new player's K factor remains at 40 until either they have completed 30 rated games. Additionally it remains at 40 for all players under the age of 18 with ratings under 2300.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is the relevant section from the &lt;a href=&quot;https://handbook.fide.com/chapter/B022017&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Rating Regulations effective from 1 July 2017&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;8.56 K is the development coefficient.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;K = 40 for a player new to the rating list until he has completed events with at least 30 games.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;K = 20 as long as a player's rating remains under 2400.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;K = 10 once a player's published rating has reached 2400 and remains at that level subsequently, even if the rating drops below 2400.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;K = 40 for all players until their 18th birthday, as long as their rating remains under 2300.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;If the number of games (n) for a player on any list for a rating period multiplied by K (as defined above) exceeds 700, then K shall be the largest whole number such that K x n does not exceed 700.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A K factor of 40 allows for very rapid changes in rating. Hence the last clause above which seeks to limit the rating change in any one month to prevent see-sawing rating.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-10-24T13:52:48.757" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32675" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32672" CreationDate="2020-10-24T18:15:26.747" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can not exactly reproduce it on the &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/analysis/crazyhouse/r2q1rk1/pbb2pp1/n1p1p2p/1p1nP3/2pPN3/P1P3P1/2BN1P1P/R1BQ1RK1/P_w_-_-_0_1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;lichess analysis board&lt;/a&gt;, but the move Nxc4 still seems to be among the top 3-4 moves with a similar evaluation as the top moves. The main idea in this position should be to undermine the dark squares f6, g7, h6 on the king side. Nxc4 aligns well with this idea, since it opens up the bishop's attack to h6 and gives an additional pawn in hand, so after a subsequent P@f6 white still has another pawn for the attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Stockfish fork used on lichess is far above human level in crazyhouse, so usually its analysis should be quite reliable, although it of course also is not infallible and might miss moves/ideas or misevaluate resulting positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15415" LastActivityDate="2020-10-24T18:15:26.747" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32677" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32679" CreationDate="2020-10-24T19:11:05.457" Score="5" ViewCount="748" Body="&lt;p&gt;I know that some openings include fianchettoing the bishop. But sometimes, this isn't part of the opening, but I still need to decide whether to bring my bishop one rank forward (like Bg7) or to the other side of the board (like Bc4).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Someone told me that usually the fianchetto is useless if you push the center pawn closer to the fianchetto's bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What should I look for to decide whether I should fianchetto or bring my bishop further up the board?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As an example, in the Sicilian as Black, I usually do &lt;code&gt;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6&lt;/code&gt;. At this point, I've already moved two pawns, so I am not going to do &lt;code&gt;e5&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17301" LastEditorUserId="17301" LastEditDate="2020-10-24T20:21:25.517" LastActivityDate="2020-10-25T17:02:55.053" Title="When is a fianchetto strategic to play?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;learning&gt;&lt;fianchetto&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32679" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32677" CreationDate="2020-10-24T23:21:14.870" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;In a lot of cases you just rely on your intuition. With enough experience you can tell whether a fianchetto makes sense in setups like the Sicilian. But here are some tips for when to do it:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If the long diagonal is open, since the bishop will not be blocked along it.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If your opponent doesn't have a bishop on the same colour as the soon to be fianchettoed bishop. This will make it more difficult for your opponent to trade off your bishop. Note that if the bishop does get traded off, it's not a huge deal, but now there's a hole in front of your king.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If the bishop has no responsibilities on its normal diagonal of development. E.g., in the Sicilian, if you've pushed ...d6 and then either ...e6 or ...e5, your bishop is often important in defending the d6-pawn. So fianchettoing it here usually isn't recommended. But if the e-pawn is left on e7 (like in the Dragon), there are no issues with the d6-pawn when you fianchetto.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If it would take two moves to develop the bishop anyway along the normal development diagonal. I.e., if your e-pawn hasn't moved yet, you'll have to spend a tempo pushing it and then bringing out the bishop. This means that if you go for the fianchetto, at least it won't waste any extra time.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All of these guidelines can absolutely be broken though. They are just some things to factor into your decision -- each position should be treated on a case by case basis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2020-10-24T23:21:14.870" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32680" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32659" CreationDate="2020-10-25T14:47:17.380" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Apart from the excellent technical answers given above: It depends on your interpretation whether stockfish disagrees with the tablebases. An evaluation of -0.88 is far from meaning that black is winning. It also doesn't imply that the position is a dead draw. It just means that black is for choice here. With playing on, you agreed to that while your &amp;quot;objective&amp;quot; evaluation of the position being drawn was also confirmed. So everything is fine, no contradiction.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Something similar regularly happens during professional commentary: A world class player simplifies a bad position into an endgame where he is material down, but he knows how to defend it. The engines claims he made a mistake since he lost material. But a closer look reveals that he found an efficient way to draw a difficult position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For my part: I am often surprised how extreme engine evaluations have become nowadays. I played many games in which stockfish says I am up ~2.7. During the games I realized I was better, but it didn't felt like I am up a piece - which is what the evaluation suggests. So being up 0.88 in an unknown position might not be a big issue after all. It certainly doesn't mean your opponent ran out of chances. Older engines might give a mere 0.2 which most of us would interpret as &amp;quot;equal&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;unclear&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23782" LastActivityDate="2020-10-25T14:47:17.380" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32681" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32677" CreationDate="2020-10-25T15:03:08.370" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;One additional point: While a fianchetto structure in front of your own king might seem quite massive at first glance, it's usually more vulnerable to a pawn storm. When your opponent's pawns reach h5 or f5 it is hard to avoid that lines are opened towards your king. That's why white is so often going for opposite side castling in the Dragon or the Pirc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23782" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-10-25T15:57:54.603" LastActivityDate="2020-10-25T15:57:54.603" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32683" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32677" CreationDate="2020-10-25T17:02:55.053" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is no general rule to follow.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It all depends on the exact position and how the game is going and what your strategy is for the middle game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25050" LastActivityDate="2020-10-25T17:02:55.053" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32684" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-10-25T18:09:54.640" Score="8" ViewCount="1174" Body="&lt;p&gt;While similar questions have been asked before and many comments were given, I couldn't find a thread dealing with my particular experiences. So:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Whenever I discuss openings with professional and even with semi-professional players the issue inevitably reaches the point where somebody says that he doesn't like a particular line because he would have no prospects of winning this position at all - meaning that it is equal and dull, too drawish etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This fear is not foreign to me but after all those years I concluded that it is hypothetical in nature. I played several thousand classical games but I cannot remember a single one that resulted in a draw exclusively due to both sides knowing a long main line. Very seldom did I reach a position after about twenty moves that a book's author evaluates to &amp;quot;=&amp;quot;. And even in these rare cases, the rest of the game saw complications that granted winning chances to one side. Without checking it, I guess I had more decided games then draws in the Exchange French and the Exchange King's Indian.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even on low GM-level I don't have the feeling that this is a common scenario. In the few cases I witnessed a GM game where both players were blitzing out their prep and agreed to a draw quickly, I never had the feeling that one of them was disappointed and doubted his opening choice, although this is different on world class level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For some years now, I bring up this point again and again - this &amp;quot;empirical&amp;quot; objection to a concern understandable form an &amp;quot;analytical&amp;quot; perspective. But it never catches on. (Most surprisingly, a lot of people expressing this concern also show a tendency to make quick draws.) Recently I heard of a talented 9-year-old. His caregiver was concerned that he exclusively plays the Petroff against 1. e4. His supposedly weaker opponents learnt about this and prepared drawish lines against him. As it turned out, during that tournament he didn't draw a single game in the Petroff.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So to my eyes, this is an unjustified concern for players below, say 2500. Sure, you can loose half a point due to being out-prepared. But not in lines of which you know the details. But nonetheless every opening adviser seems to be proud to state that a certain position is full of life, although there is no objective advantage. I wonder whether I am misled by my subjective experiences. Is the scenario of a fully bloodless game more common than I am willing to grant? Is there anyone who is experiencing this regularly? And anyone who got so bored by this that he quit chess? And if not: Why is this concern so pervasive anyway? Might it be that weaker players mimic super-GMs, pretending we all share the same problems?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And if someone shares my feelings: What is the threshold above which this becomes a problem?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23782" LastEditorUserId="9192" LastEditDate="2020-10-26T07:59:12.450" LastActivityDate="2020-10-27T06:20:28.270" Title="Empirical question: Is a drawish opening line really a concern for an ambitious player?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;draw&gt;&lt;preparation&gt;&lt;coach&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32685" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32684" CreationDate="2020-10-25T18:56:40.680" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;You're right that drawing lines don't really affect people who are lower rated. However, your bar for 2500 isn't practical. Most people who are close to master rated (say 2100+, and even some lower rated) will have memorized some of the main drawing lines in their main weapons. That being said, there's a huge difference between playing openings that give you level positions but with a lot of play left in the position (such as the Petrov or the London), and playing openings that give you drawing lines (such as the forcing variations of the English attack Najdorf or Bg4 Panov-Botvinnik attack).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it's easy and practical to memorize one or two main branches in a &amp;quot;drawing line&amp;quot; you can be sure: the higher-rated your opponent, the more likely they are to know these lines. If your opening simply gets you a roughly equal position, but there are enough pieces still on the board that you have something to actually play for, then that should be totally fine for most people up even to the highest levels of chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3884" LastEditorUserId="-1" LastEditDate="2020-10-26T19:44:27.013" LastActivityDate="2020-10-26T19:44:27.013" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32686" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32689" CreationDate="2020-10-25T21:31:17.233" Score="4" ViewCount="2216" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a total newbie in chess. I was playing with an &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/play/computer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;~intermidiate computer~&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt; as White and made a pretty stupid mistake by playing Bf4. I waved the bishop goodbye, yet Black's rook did not capture it. Was there any good reason for the Black not to? The white pawns are moving downwards here. As far as I know, the pawn cannot move back to capture, so I reckon the bishop to have been 100% unprotected.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;8/4R3/8/4P1B1/6k1/PBP5/1P3r2/1KN5 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Bf4 Rf3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21403" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-12-03T22:53:05.160" LastActivityDate="2020-12-03T22:53:40.993" Title="Why didn't the Black rook capture the White bishop?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;computer-chess&gt;&lt;captures&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32687" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32686" CreationDate="2020-10-25T21:42:35.117" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Because the bishop is protected by the pawn -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &amp;quot;5NK/2r3P/5PBP/8/1B1P/1k/3R/8 w - - 0 0&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Bc5 Rxc5 2. dxc5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not that it makes any difference. Black's position is hopeless.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-10-25T21:42:35.117" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32688" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32684" CreationDate="2020-10-25T21:46:38.303" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't see a &amp;quot;drawish&amp;quot; opening line as a concern.  Every decisive game comes from a close to equal position, the starting position.  Outplaying your opponent from an equal position to win is seen at all levels.  My goal in opening is to get the kind of position I prefer to play.  Some so called equal positions are easier to play for one side.  The King's Indian Exchange is equal but easier to play as White.  This we may call &amp;quot;objectively equal&amp;quot; but White has the better &amp;quot;practical chances&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17425" LastEditorUserId="23631" LastEditDate="2020-10-26T08:49:30.977" LastActivityDate="2020-10-26T08:49:30.977" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32689" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32686" CreationDate="2020-10-25T22:29:19.720" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;When a &amp;quot;total newbie&amp;quot; achieves such an overwhelming position against a computer, it most probably means that the computer was forced to make a &amp;quot;sub-optimal&amp;quot; move from time to time - to give the player a chance to win the game. The problem is that the computer has no clue what is a &amp;quot;reasonable&amp;quot; mistake from a human point of view.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Rxf4&amp;quot; might have been the best choice (not avoiding defeat eventually). But the computer decided not to make the best move, since the programmers told him to do so. In this particular case, this resulted in choosing the second(?) best move, which from our human perspective is absolutely incomprehensible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23782" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-12-03T22:53:40.993" LastActivityDate="2020-12-03T22:53:40.993" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32690" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32673" CreationDate="2020-10-26T01:56:27.950" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think FIDE doesn't want people to have excessively high initial ratings, as this may result in a player getting discouraged as they lose hundreds of rating points.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Performance ratings are &lt;em&gt;particularly&lt;/em&gt; inaccurate when dealing someone wins all or most of their games, as compared to situations where someone is close to 50%. A performance calculator would take your scenario and give the guy a performance rating of maybe 2900-3100. But I don't think it's reasonable to look at those results and say that they're likely a world-champion level player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'll agree that in the scenario you proposed, a 2100 rating is far below what is deserved. If you drop the win against the 1300 player from that scenario and replace it with a &lt;em&gt;loss&lt;/em&gt; to a 2400 player, the initial rating changes from 2100 to 2260 despite that performance being objectively worse. FIDE chose simplicity over accuracy in some ways; they use average opponent's rating without looking at the individual opponents when calculating initial ratings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also note that scoring 0/5 or getting an initial rating under 1000 will result in you simply not being rated. This has something of an inflationary effect on ratings, as a particularly &lt;em&gt;bad&lt;/em&gt; first tournament may not be rated at all, while a particularly &lt;em&gt;good&lt;/em&gt; first tournament will. Perhaps the limiting of how many points you can get from a good first tournament counteracts this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2020-10-26T01:56:27.950" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32692" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32684" CreationDate="2020-10-26T10:32:33.187" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am currently a 2100 rated FIDE player, so my experience is limited, I've only played about 50 classical games and truthfully it's hard for me to find a variation in my repertoire which would fit your conundrum. But it's not impossible, I have analyzed and actually performed full theory games in the main lines of the King's Indian (Bayonet, and Panno specifically) and the Taimanov Sicilian where after you and your opponent play the 20-30 moves of theory you end up in a completely lifeless position with usually opposite coloured bishops and or pawns only one side of the board. Obviously I have been able to win some games in these positions, but the amount of technique and luck required was insane, and yes, sometimes I wish I had a coach who warned me in advance of the staleness of some line and suggested an objectively worse but more dynamic line instead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25040" LastActivityDate="2020-10-26T10:32:33.187" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32694" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26524" CreationDate="2020-10-26T11:58:51.960" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Personally I always say good game after a game, but I have had opponents storm out upset saying stuff like &amp;quot;you think that was good?&amp;quot; &amp;quot;you lucky....&amp;quot; etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25040" LastActivityDate="2020-10-26T11:58:51.960" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32695" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32697" CreationDate="2020-10-27T00:29:33.460" Score="-1" ViewCount="225" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am learning the Ryder Gambit with a book by FM Eric Schiller called The Ryder Gambit Accepted updated in 2011: A Chess Works Publication so I can play it in tournaments. Is it worse than the Danish Gambit? What do chess engines conclude about this opening?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 d5 2.e4 dxe4 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.f3 exf3 5.Qxf3 Qxd4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24920" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2020-10-27T09:26:26.237" LastActivityDate="2020-10-28T01:53:24.873" Title="The Ryder Gambit" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;gambits&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32696" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-10-27T01:48:37.930" Score="8" ViewCount="4515" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was wondering, why is there no way for a player, who has sufficient mating material, to claim a draw against a lonely king?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to Wikipedia:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The rules allow for several types of draws: stalemate, threefold or fivefold repetition of a position (with the same player to move), if there has been no capture or a pawn being moved in the last fifty or seventy-five moves, if checkmate is impossible, or if the players agree to a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example, KQvK is very obviously an endgame with only two results possible: White wins or draws. But according to the rules of chess, White cannot force his opponent to accept a draw on the spot. Offering a draw could be refused, and also giving a check on a square where Black could capture it could also be refused by Black by moving somewhere else.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ok, let's be realistic for a second, 99.99% of the time this won't happen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But somehow I find it counterintuitive not being able to end the game in this particular position without having to resign and entirely lose the game in a position where it's impossible for Black to win by checkmate. Especially since you've already proven that you're at least capable of making a draw against your opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, I'll admit such a ruling would be more of an edge case. But still, there's somehow a gaping hole in the rules of chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18980" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2020-10-27T09:42:47.177" LastActivityDate="2021-05-02T11:35:31.440" Title="Why is there no rule allowing a player to claim a draw in lonely king endgames?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;fide&gt;&lt;draw&gt;&lt;claim-draw&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32697" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32695" CreationDate="2020-10-27T02:16:59.260" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;It seems to be quite a lot worse than the Danish. Stockfish Nnue gives around -0.57 at depth 33 for the Danish (after 4.Bc4), while the Ryder has around -2.36 at depth 32 (in the position after 5...Qxd4 6.Be3).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's true these are just surface level engine evaluations. However, considering the book you're referencing on the Ryder came out in 2011, I highly doubt Stockfish is missing any crucial analysis that book has which would change its mind in any significant way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, if you're fairly low rated and believe you can trap a lot of the opponents you face, then the opening may be played as a surprise weapon. But objectively it could be considered losing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastEditorUserId="12873" LastEditDate="2020-10-27T18:57:34.797" LastActivityDate="2020-10-27T18:57:34.797" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32698" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32696" CreationDate="2020-10-27T02:25:51.977" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;That excerpt from Wikipedia doesn't necessarily cover all cases where one can claim a draw. I haven't checked how this applies to FIDE specifically, but in many tournaments with no increment/delay, you can claim a draw if it's clear you can stop your opponent from winning. For example, in a king and rook vs king and rook, most good TDs would accept your claim of a draw if you're low on time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although, the Wikipedia excerpt does include the scenario &amp;quot;if checkmate is impossible&amp;quot;. So for the particular claim you're referring to, this is covered there (since your opponent can't checkmate you with a lone king).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2020-10-27T02:25:51.977" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32699" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31826" CreationDate="2020-10-27T02:48:11.653" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;McDonnell was never best in the world, and I doubt he would have been stronger than 2200 FIDE, a candidate master would be an even match. Out of the best players in the world, both Philidor and Labourdonnais would both be capable of being defeated by a CM, with regularity. It is difficult to compare strengths of the players from the past, because they would be possibly strong GM level in tactical calculation, but weak in openings and modern strategy. But I would estimate a regular 2200 FIDE CM could beat them on occasion&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user25070" LastActivityDate="2020-10-27T02:48:11.653" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32700" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-10-27T02:56:40.177" Score="3" ViewCount="182" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have been frequenting tactics puzzles and a few books over the past year. I come across these underpromotion puzzles frequently, however, I never find them in real games. Has there ever been a world championship game where an underpromotion was necessary? And if not, what was the highest level game that involved an underpromotion?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user25070" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-10-27T03:35:08.720" LastActivityDate="2020-12-10T14:31:46.790" Title="World championship games where underpromotion was necessary" Tags="&lt;world-championship&gt;&lt;pawn-promotion&gt;&lt;master-games&gt;&lt;famous-games&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32702" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32703" CreationDate="2020-10-27T04:13:18.120" Score="5" ViewCount="2028" Body="&lt;p&gt;We know that are many lines which White can choose which are very drawish at 2700+ level. Drawing is easy to a very good chess player such as Carlsen, who knows dozens of forced draw lines. When I say “drawish,” it means a very drawish opening like the Catalan or the Exchange Slav. I'm not even sure you can win as Black if your opponent just goes into the Catalan and try to trade all the dangerous pieces. The idea behind it is simply to pick a line where best play from the computer results in a position where the position is a simplified endgame OR a repetition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just over half of GM games end in draws. Why do chess players assume that Stockfish can easily beat Magnus Carlsen?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do rating differences even matter in certain opening lines when the statistics tells us that openings (or positions) have very high draw rates?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25069" LastEditorUserId="307" LastEditDate="2020-10-27T06:25:02.190" LastActivityDate="2020-10-27T11:33:13.863" Title="Could a top ranked GM draw against Stockfish using drawish opening lines in classical chess?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32703" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32702" CreationDate="2020-10-27T05:23:59.200" Score="18" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/7821/can-a-human-defeat-an-engine-in-a-10-game-match-if-he-is-given-the-white-pieces/23162#23162&quot;&gt;They can't&lt;/a&gt;. Engines are absurdly strong relative to humans these days, and Stockfish should be fully expected to beat top human GMs 10-0 without much trouble. In fact, &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIQDo0ReY10&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;they already have&lt;/a&gt; - and that's in spite of Komodo being several hundred elo weaker than Stockfish. Book lines with high draw rates don't matter: either the engine avoids it, or they play it and win anyway because when the human inevitably makes a mistake, the computer capitalizes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Caveats:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The engine needs to be properly configured. Stockfish comes with a &amp;quot;contempt&amp;quot; setting that needs to be turned up. This makes the program avoid quick draws.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The other top engine right now, Leela, does not have a contempt setting. This means humans can indeed &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessable.com/blog/2018/12/10/alphazero-google-david-howell-draw/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;score draws against it&lt;/a&gt; (this was against AlphaZero, which is similar to Leela and probably weaker than the latest versions). However: humans still cannot beat Leela/AlphaZero.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The engine needs to run on reasonably strong hardware. These days engines will beat humans even on modest hardware, but if you try very very modest hardware such that the engine only manages to search a few thousand positions per second, humans might still win.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit&lt;/strong&gt;: for the strategy you suggested, this was what happened when &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.chessbase.com/post/adams-vs-hydra-the-execution-continues&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;GM Michael Adams tried it against Hydra in 2005&lt;/a&gt;. Link to &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1342025&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;game&lt;/a&gt; if you want to see the moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Game four was another bitter pill for the human player. Adams, who had the white pieces, did everything he could to draw: exchange pieces to reduce material, simplifying in every way he could. By move 19 he had traded down to rooks and a bishop on either side; by move 27 each side had two rooks and five pawns; and at move 33 it was rook plus three pawns each. This one had to be a draw, but unfortunately the giant machine would have none of it and ground him down for a third victory in this match.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hydra is, of course, very very inferior to the latest versions of Stockfish, and will probably lose a 100-game match by something approaching 0-100.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastEditorUserId="15223" LastEditDate="2020-10-27T11:33:13.863" LastActivityDate="2020-10-27T11:33:13.863" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32704" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32743" CreationDate="2020-10-27T05:44:16.833" Score="2" ViewCount="494" Body="&lt;p&gt;Throughout &amp;quot;The Queen's Gambit&amp;quot; (Netflix) we see games at an advanced stage (after the opening).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And while the characters are fictitious, the show being set in the 1960s (Beth adult), Benny Watts (US champion) is probably Bobby Fischer, and Vasily Borgov (World champion) Tigran Petrosian.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Were there any famous games (or part of) played within the show? (involving Fischer, Petrosian or any other famous player)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note: Garry Kasparov and Bruce Pandolfini were the main chess advisors.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/RVabj.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/RVabj.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/CLtAp.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/CLtAp.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1375" LastEditorUserId="1375" LastEditDate="2020-10-28T06:47:16.563" LastActivityDate="2020-10-31T19:25:10.677" Title="In &quot;The Queen's gambit&quot; were there any famous games played?" Tags="&lt;history&gt;&lt;fischer&gt;&lt;famous-games&gt;&lt;film&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32705" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32684" CreationDate="2020-10-27T06:20:28.270" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Should be almost certainly fine at practically any level. As others have said, unless there's a repetition or perpetual check, there's still stuff to play for up to a fairly high level. Even then, the opponent very well may not know it&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23100" LastActivityDate="2020-10-27T06:20:28.270" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32706" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-10-27T07:34:08.760" Score="1" ViewCount="128" Body="&lt;p&gt;I read somewhere that playing and making moves otb is better than online for improvement. Is this true?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24850" LastActivityDate="2020-10-27T09:11:48.687" Title="Does playing chess with a real board help improvement more than play online?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;online&gt;&lt;otb-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32707" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32706" CreationDate="2020-10-27T08:41:36.013" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;They're pretty much the same thing once you get used to both, specially for long games. In Blitz, you'll be able to move a bit faster or slower depending on how much you've practiced and the difference could be critical.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastActivityDate="2020-10-27T08:41:36.013" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32708" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32706" CreationDate="2020-10-27T09:11:48.687" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I play most (&amp;gt;95%) of my games online, and when I play with a real board, I find a bit difficult to translate positions I already played and the visual pattern matching of tactical situations takes longer. Not to look at the board then, helps a bit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, I think, when you prepare for a board tournament, or something like this, preparing on a real board will help. When you only play online all the time, it doesn't matter.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18832" LastActivityDate="2020-10-27T09:11:48.687" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32709" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32722" CreationDate="2020-10-27T09:33:00.507" Score="4" ViewCount="98" Body="&lt;p&gt;I really want to play some positionally rich openings. Openings which require strategic planning and understanding, and not much direct attack and defence. I want the battle to be a &amp;quot;who can improve their position the fastest&amp;quot; sort of battle and not a &amp;quot;who can attack the quickest&amp;quot; sort of battle.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What openings would you suggest? (FYI, I'm 1700 rapid, 1700 blitz, rapid being what I take the most seriously)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25069" LastActivityDate="2020-10-27T21:09:51.660" Title="Positionally Rich Opening Suggestions?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32710" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32696" CreationDate="2020-10-27T09:39:14.340" Score="25" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why is there no rule allowing a player to claim a draw in lonely king&#xA;endgames?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the simple reason that there is no need. If you are the player with the extra material you can offer a draw and be almost guaranteed that your opponent will accept the offer. If you have an opponent who is ignorant of the rules you can walk away and let your clock time expire and the game will be a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is what the &lt;a href=&quot;https://handbook.fide.com/chapter/E012018&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Laws of Chess&lt;/a&gt; have to say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;6.9 Except where one of Articles 5.1.1, 5.1.2, 5.2.1, 5.2.2, 5.2.3 applies, if a player does not complete the prescribed number of moves in the allotted time, the game is lost by that player. However, &lt;strong&gt;the game is drawn if the position is such that the opponent cannot checkmate the player’s king by any possible series of legal moves.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A player with only a king cannot checkmate the opponent and so the game is a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: Remellion makes an excellent point in the comments which is worth repeating -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Technically you don't need a new rule - under 7.5.5, you can just make two illegal moves in front of the arbiter, ending the game immediately (as a draw, similar to when your time runs out but cannot possibly be checkmated). No need to bloat the rules more&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You don't even need to wait until the arbiter is watching your game. You can deliberately complete (by making the move and then pressing the clock) an illegal move, stop the clocks, explain to your opponent that you have made and illegal move and then call the arbiter to report yourself. While the arbiter is there explain to them that you are going to make a second illegal move to effectively claim a draw. That way you don't annoy the arbiter by calling them back twice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2021-05-02T11:35:31.440" LastActivityDate="2021-05-02T11:35:31.440" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32711" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32715" CreationDate="2020-10-27T11:41:05.623" Score="7" ViewCount="355" Body="&lt;p&gt;Constructed case: In a tournament (LoC Tournament Rules apply, no rapid, no blitz) White plays d7-d8Q by placing the new Queen on d8 with the right hand and removing the pawn d7 with the left. White did not press the clock but claimed a checkmate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Relevant rules:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;4.1 Each move must be played with one hand only.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;5.1.1 The game is won by the player who has checkmated his opponent’s king. This&#xA;immediately ends the game, provided that the move producing the checkmate position&#xA;was in accordance with Article 3 and Articles 4.2 – 4.7.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;6.2.1 During the game each player, having made his move on the chessboard, shall stop his&#xA;own clock and start his opponent’s clock (that is to say, he shall press his clock). This&#xA;“completes” the move. A move is also completed if:&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;6.2.1.1 the move ends the game (see Articles 5.1.1, 5.2.1, 5.2.2, 9.6.1 and 9.6.2), or&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;6.2.1.2 the player has made his next move, when his previous move was not completed.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;7.5.4 If a player uses two hands to make a single move (for example in case of castling,&#xA;capturing or promotion) and pressed the clock, it shall be considered and penalized as if&#xA;an illegal move.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I discussed the case with some IA and FA. In our opinion, the checkmate and the result 1-0 stands. White did not press the clock, so 7.5.4 does not apply. To complete the move, it is not necessary to press the clock because the move ends the game (6.2.1.1). 5.1.1 allows  a violation of 4.1 by not mentioning it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We further think that that is not what was intended. We think that what was intended is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;7.5.4 If a player uses two hands to make a single move (for example in case of castling,&#xA;capturing or promotion) and &lt;strong&gt;completes the move&lt;/strong&gt;, it shall be considered and penalized as if&#xA;an illegal move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are we wrong with our decision? Is there a case illustrating that the formulation of 7.5.4 is according to it’s intention? Any other opinions?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20096" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-10-27T13:20:36.060" LastActivityDate="2021-05-26T21:10:30.533" Title="Mate with both hands: Result?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;fide&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32713" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-10-27T13:16:51.880" Score="0" ViewCount="64" Body="&lt;p&gt;Ive been learning the theory for this opening but cant find anything if black chooses this line.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24850" LastActivityDate="2020-10-27T13:19:59.453" Title="What is the theory if black goes 4 Nxc4 in evan's gambit?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;evans-gambit&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32714" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32713" CreationDate="2020-10-27T13:19:59.453" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You probably mean 4...Nxb4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White will play 5.c3, and there is probably nothing better than 5...Nc6; so it boils down to being the same as 4...Bxb4 5.c3 &lt;strong&gt;Bc5&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.b4 Nxb4 5.c3 Nc6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2020-10-27T13:19:59.453" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32715" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32711" CreationDate="2020-10-27T14:12:53.783" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;My opinion (!) is that the rules are clear and correct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Checkmate is not allowed when the move involves moving a piece in a way that the piece may not move (e.g. moving a bishop like a knight) and not allowed when touch-move rules are broken.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However checkmate IS allowed when a procedural rule which is intended to stop clock cheating is broken. This is because pressing the clock in the case of checkmate is not required. The two-handed rule is intended to tidy up the requirement that the clock is pressed with the same hand that makes the move. In cases where pressing the clock is irrelevant then so too is the use of two hands. Hence why 4.1 is deliberately and carefully excluded from 5.1.1&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The rules commission obviously thought of this and, collectively, they are cleverer than both you and me :-)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note, too, that the same logic applies to stalemate and &amp;quot;dead positions&amp;quot;. This careful thought by the rules commission is reflected in the relevant articles:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5.2.1  The game is drawn when the player to move has no legal move and his king is not in check. The game is said to end in ‘stalemate’. This immediately ends the game, provided that the move producing the stalemate position was &lt;strong&gt;in accordance with Article 3 and Articles 4.2 – 4.7&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5.2.2 The game is drawn when a position has arisen in which neither player can checkmate the opponent’s king with any series of legal moves. The game is said to end in a ‘dead position’. This immediately ends the game, provided that the move producing the position was &lt;strong&gt;in accordance with Article 3 and Articles 4.2 – 4.7&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is one further area that this clarifies. Suppose that the player delivering checkmate with two hands has previously made an illegal move and &lt;em&gt;does&lt;/em&gt; press the clock after delivering checkmate. They still win the game because the game ended with the checkmate, before the completion of the move with the clock press. Hence the second illegal move was made but not completed and only &lt;em&gt;completed&lt;/em&gt; illegal moves are punished.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2021-05-26T21:10:30.533" LastActivityDate="2021-05-26T21:10:30.533" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32716" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-10-27T14:12:54.670" Score="-1" ViewCount="95" Body="&lt;p&gt;Hello I have a few &amp;quot;edge&amp;quot; cases which I am quite interested what do you think about.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that all of those are on my understanding of FIDE chess rules and might be wrong - thank you for the correction in that case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The game shall end in a draw if there is no legal sequence of moves leading to win (for either side)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;does that mean that this position -&amp;gt; only pseudo-legal move is Kxg4 and there is no legal sequence that would lead to mate&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/editor/8/1k6/8/8/6qK/8/8/8_w_-_-_0_1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://lichess.org/editor/8/1k6/8/8/6qK/8/8/8_w_-_-_0_1&lt;/a&gt; shall be the final position and Playing Kxg4 is not &amp;quot;allowed&amp;quot;/necessary?&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;how about this one? &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/editor/7b/8/8/3k4/8/3K4/8/5B2_w_-_-_145_1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://lichess.org/editor/7b/8/8/3k4/8/3K4/8/5B2_w_-_-_145_1&lt;/a&gt; - note: 145 plies - soon 75 move rule, but I am pretty sure you cant mate by any side here within 5 plies&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;how would you decide this as an arbiter? I believe it can be sometimes difficult to see if it's possible within the 75 move rule ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I believe there are more such edge cases - such as that a position forcing move (or sequence of them) that leads to 5 times repeated position etc.&#xA;Also note that this might be important to know is someone's time is down in an OTB tournament in such a situation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25073" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2020-10-27T14:52:31.787" LastActivityDate="2020-10-27T14:52:31.787" Title="End of game edge cases" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;fide&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32717" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32716" CreationDate="2020-10-27T14:47:53.353" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;For clarity here are the two positions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &amp;quot;8/1k6/8/8/6qK/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and where there have been 145 half moves since the last capture or pawn move:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &amp;quot;7b/8/8/3k4/8/3K4/8/5B2 w - - 145 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This question really only gains importance if white's flag falls in the first position or if either flag falls in the second position. Then the losing player would want to quite strongly claim a draw here under article 5.2.2 -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;5.2.2 The game is drawn when a position has arisen in which neither player can checkmate the opponent’s king &lt;strong&gt;with any series of legal moves&lt;/strong&gt;. The game is said to end in a ‘dead position’. This immediately ends the game, provided that the move producing the position was in accordance with Article 3 and Articles 4.2 – 4.7.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think in the first position the decision is very clear cut. There is no series of legal moves leading to checkmate and the position is a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The second position is slightly more problematic because it is not immediately clear to the passing observer that the 75 move rule is 5 plies away. Strictly speaking a good arbiter should not be a typical &amp;quot;passing observer&amp;quot; and should be aware of the situation. However not all arbiters are equally vigilant. Nevertheless once the arbiter's attention has been drawn to the score sheet and the 75 move rule explained the arbiter should again rule that despite the flag fall the game is drawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Absent a flag fall most arbiters will just say &amp;quot;play on&amp;quot; and declare the games drawn on the next ply, in the first case, and 5 plies later in the second case. It is the easiest and least controversial path and avoiding controversy is high on most people's list of priorities, arbiters included.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-10-27T14:47:53.353" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32718" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32719" CreationDate="2020-10-27T17:24:29.563" Score="10" ViewCount="2361" Body="&lt;p&gt;What defines the name of a gambit? To be obvious, if someone were to use a gambit often (of their own theory), you would name that gambit after them or so, right (like the Ruy Lopez opening)? How then do we get the names of the gambits?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25076" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-10-28T18:19:20.953" LastActivityDate="2020-10-28T18:29:57.207" Title="What defines the name of a gambit?" Tags="&lt;history&gt;&lt;terminology&gt;&lt;gambits&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32719" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32718" CreationDate="2020-10-27T18:05:11.987" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is no general rule in naming openings or opening lines in general or gambits. Sometimes it’s the inventor, sometimes the place they lived, they were born, they played the line the first time, and so on. To make it more complicated, openings can have different names in different languages. In German, the Petroff defence is named Russian defence, and Benko Gambit is called Wolga-Gambit. The Sokolski is also called Orang-Utan. So there really is no general rule but in some cases some amusing histories.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20096" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2020-10-28T07:30:11.180" LastActivityDate="2020-10-28T07:30:11.180" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32720" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32718" CreationDate="2020-10-27T18:13:17.500" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Depends- there's no real rule outside of &amp;quot;convention&amp;quot; and when a name's settled on by the community at large, it tends to stay that way (as openings in general). Often, it'll be named after a person who played it a lot, developed the theory, a country related to it by the nationality of one or more people that played/developed it (or otherwise related), or the opening name was just made up by someone. Also, a lot of the time opening names have just been.. forgotten why.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also note that some openings including gambits are known by multiple names- the first gambit example to come to mind is the Benko Gambit, which is sometimes called the Volga Gambit in Eastern Europe.&#xA;So tldr: depends on the gambit, could be a bunch of reasons.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23100" LastActivityDate="2020-10-27T18:13:17.500" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32721" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9170" CreationDate="2020-10-27T18:27:36.937" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is an option in &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.cs.kent.ac.uk/%7Edjb/pgn-extract/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;pgn-extract&lt;/a&gt; (--repetition) that will identify PGN games in which three-fold repetition occurs, regardless of whether the game is ended by it or not. Combined with the --markmatches option a comment can be added at the point(s) where this occurred for ease of identification.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12951" LastActivityDate="2020-10-27T18:27:36.937" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32722" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32709" CreationDate="2020-10-27T21:09:51.660" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;d4 would be the best choice as white, for sure - generally leads to more positional situations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Against the slav-&#xA;Exchange Slav is an option if you aren't annoyed by the drawish nature.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Against the QGD-&#xA;Exchange QGD (with a Nf3 0-0 setup like Karpov) is a good option.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should probably avoid the Nimzo and Benoni (so, after d4 Nf6 c4 e6, play Nf3, and after d4 Nf6 c4 c5, play Nf3).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus, you'll have to learn the Queen's Indian, Bogo-Indian, and the line d4 Nf6 c4 c5 Nf3 (which transposes to a line of the Symmetrical English)- none will be too difficult to find something against that you like (main lines should suffice).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Against the Dutch, you can pretty much do the main line and it'll suit your wishes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, as black- my recommendation would be the Caro-Kann, with a couple notes: 1) play 3...c5 against the Advance variation, as there are m any sharp lines if you play the main line Bf5. This appears to lose a pawn, but black has few issues getting it back.  2) It might be worthwile to play a sideline in the 3. Nc3 line such as 4...Nf6 or 4...Nd7 instead of 4...Bf5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Versus d4, I would choose the Chebanenko slav (d4 d5 c4 c6 Nf3 Nf6 Nc3 a6) - a good video on it can be found &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5xK2xJSqm4&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This has the nice bonus of having a built-in rep vs c4, since you can just reply c6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are good courses on chessable for both of these defenses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Personally, I've played almost all of this repertoire and have found it to be both good and positional.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23100" LastActivityDate="2020-10-27T21:09:51.660" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32723" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32725" CreationDate="2020-10-27T22:11:52.193" Score="2" ViewCount="80" Body="&lt;p&gt;I just think that a strategy game such as chess can be applied to the real world and in that chess can make you a better strategical person, but how so?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25079" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-10-28T00:16:59.060" LastActivityDate="2020-10-28T01:58:05.390" Title="How can chess be applied to other fields like politics or football tactics?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;theory&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32724" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32696" CreationDate="2020-10-27T22:42:30.803" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Actually, if one has particular material that can checkmate a lone king (for example: anything except a single knight or bishop), one CAN force one's opponent to take the material or allow stalemate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A queen is obvious:  chase the king down to one end or side of the board, then place the queen on the square &amp;quot;in front of&amp;quot; the king. For a rook or bishop, chase the king into a corner with one's king present as well, and check him, a bishop for example, picture lone king on a1, one's own king on b3, and the bishop checks the king which must move to b1 whereupon moving the bishop to b2 forces stalemate. A rook is similar, but one might as well mate with the move. Finally, a pawn:  eventually one will have one's own king on, say b4, pawn on b3, enemy (he's not your opponent if you were stupid enough to buy a flight that leaves during the tournament) king on b1. Moving the pawn to b2 forces either a capture or the allowance of promotion to a queen and then loss of the queen as before.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any larger amount of material would reduce using the same techniques or easier since one could promote an extra pawn to a queen, then force the taking of all other pieces using the queen's total domination, then lose the queen as above. No pawns? Multiple pieces make the above forcings even easier.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One is not looking for a win, just the draw so it's easier as the forcings don't have to cover all moves of the other king, just vis-a-vis the piece one is losing. Lone king means no funny obstacles to hide behind (one may tuck any extra knight into a far corner if one can't keep it out of the way and handy pushing the king into a corner).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The sole impediment then is the time an opponent might have on the clock which he might try to pretend he is using to keep you from checkmating him. That would be clear unsportsmanlike conduct to anyone except a Soviet arbiter and there aren't any more of those. Combine that with a clear verbal offer of an immediate draw and there would be no question about needing the time to defend and with the opponent neatly on record as only being concerned about losing, and so needing the time, even a Soviet arbiter might not risk never being hired again.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tedious, yes. Need the rule, yes. After all, they changed the rules specifically to not allow castling with an unmoved king and an &amp;quot;unmoved&amp;quot; promoted rook although the pawn it used to be was obviously moved so it wasn't really more than a chess problem &amp;quot;gotcha&amp;quot; so why not something useful like this? But... there's no actual impediment to pretty quickly losing the material so as a practical matter, probably not a real world difficulty. (And the airplane ticket? If you really have a flight to miss 'cause you were dumb enough to schedule a flight leaving before the tournament ended, I for one do not feel sorry for you having to resign or miss the flight. Sorry, that's not in the question itself, but it seems likely to be considered relevant by many as standing in for the class of unspecified but somehow reasonable things life might throw at us.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25080" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-10-28T11:10:01.357" LastActivityDate="2020-10-28T11:10:01.357" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32725" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32723" CreationDate="2020-10-27T22:45:13.757" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here are some example areas I think can of (definitely not limited to just these):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Attacking your opponent at different parts of the board simultaneously. This can be translated to pressuring your real world opponent in different ways at the same time.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Identifying weaknesses.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;A sense of danger. I don't know how well this would translate into the real world, but in chess you develop an intuition for what's really a danger and what's not.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Calculation skills, both for thinking far ahead (depth) and considering a number of options your opponent could go for (breadth). This has obvious applications when trying to figure out what your opponent will do in politics, football, etc.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Distributing and maximizing resources. In chess you need to figure out where to put your pieces, based on where they are most needed/can be most effective.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, correlation doesn't necessarily imply causation. Getting good at chess might have given someone these real world skills; or, they could already have these skills and that's why they're good in both chess and certain real world activities. A likely possibility is that someone is already fairly strategical, and then playing chess amplifies their abilities.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2020-10-27T22:45:13.757" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32726" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-10-28T01:04:31.710" Score="2" ViewCount="79" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm thinking of some serious chess study and wondering if anyone has tailored a study plan for themselves and what the key aspects are to consider. This is what I'm currently doing on a daily basis:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Playing three games of chess (15 min) real time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Solving a chess problem with a 20 minute time limit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Playing three blitz games with crafty (2 min)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Reading a chapter of a chess book at night (currently My System - Nimzowitsch)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyone else have a study plan and keen to share?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user25070" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2020-10-28T07:33:44.137" LastActivityDate="2020-10-28T07:33:44.137" Title="What are your thoughts on a chess study plan?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2020-10-28T07:33:51.013" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32727" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="450" CreationDate="2020-10-28T01:21:17.610" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Even despite previous claims it is true that chess before 2200-2400 is about 90% tactics. However the understanding is never below tactics as understanding is in tactics so understanding completley outranks tactics. This includes positional play, knowledge of positions and there structures as well as middle game and endgame play as you absolutley need positional knowledge for that. However when talking about most positions and insights before master levels tactics is absolutley neccessary as it speeds up the process and allows much more wins to be avaliabe. There are a lot of games that are lossed because of missed tactics and it is true that calculation can take you a long way. However I don't think it is the best way in my opinion it is just the fact of the game. Most Grandmasters prefer and rely on positional play as strong move after strong move is not made by just knowing tactics alone. Grandmasters are very strong because the lack of weaknesses and the continous way they make strong moves, but if you think that is by tactics alone you are mistaken. Depending on the position depends on the game, however positions will always be reliant on the understanding than the calculation as since humans are not computers we can't rely on calculation to heavily, especially in old age.(Just think about what happened to Tal, there is a reason why he changed to a positional master toward the end of his life. Calculation isn't something a human should be doing forever at least in chess.) So it is very important to understand and master the basis of the game, and then only improve heavily on tactics, understanding is key, no matter what level you are on. There is a reason why the positional masters were always long reinging world champions however the tacticians and the calculated masters were world champions for 1 or 2.&#xA;The truth is the type of play of tacticians is to wow people and to make people say, wow that guy is brilliant he spotted that amazing 5,6,7 move combination. Or wow this guy is amazing he literally does all these sacrificing disregarding rules and theory and it is surpasses all the sayings of previous respected grandmasters. And although it is cool to see that, no great attacker would stay that way forever, until you meet players like Botivinik or Smyslov, or Petrosian, or Karpov, or some positional and defensive tank that would win the game in seemingly a quiet yet deadly fashion and would either get that win or draw that they wanted and would be absolutley fine with it. Moreover again later in their life they cannot calculate and they would have to switch over to understanding, and positional play as calculating takes energy and a clear mind, something so simply an older person would lack due to old age.&#xA;Due to this it proves my point that chess is 90% tactics between 2200-2400, however when we are talking about levels of masters, IM's, GM's, Super GM's and more, the understanding surpasses a lot of tactics, as Grandmasters seemingly make little to no blunders on a good day. And even on a bad day a master couldn't just simply win a game due to a tactic, a GM is prepared, a GM most of all is tough, and they would always be looking to equalize a game if they were losing, and a lot of the time would capatalize on their opponents mistake to win or get a draw out of a position they had a disadvantage in. However it does depend on the position, but mainly the only thing that matters is understanding the fact that your knowledge and understanding will lead you higher if you want to become a master(NM,FM,IM,GM or Super GM). If you are an amatuer(like me) then the you want to have a solid foundation in positions and the knowledge of them and positional play such as:&#xA;These Positional Ideas can include:&#xA;Outposts for Knights, and Weak Squares.&#xA;A Strong Diagnol for the Bishop( Such as a Fianchetto, or active squares such as C4 or C5).&#xA;Advantages Such as Passed pawns and the principle that Guides them that says passed pawns must be pushed.&#xA;The Initiative and knowing when to sieze it and start and attack, gain an advantage or use the initiative to improve your position.&#xA;To allow your rooks to dominate an open or semi-open file.&#xA;To not overpush your pawns and to know when to push a pawn and what squares it would be the most useful guarding.&#xA;Know when to open or close a position(You open a position if you have a better position, and you can also close the position if you have a long-term advantage.)&#xA;To always have a plan to improve your position, attack, gain an advantage, or to use a tactic.&#xA;To attack Isolated pawns, and also know how to defend the isolated pawn.&#xA;To make strong pawn chains.&#xA;Knowing when to make an exchange sacrifice.&#xA;Know what is a good bishop or a bad bishop in a given postion, and know how to use your bishops effectively.&#xA;Double up on a file.&#xA;Knowing when to simplify to a winning Endgame.&#xA;Rooks placed on the seventh rank.&#xA;Attacking weak pawns and avoid making weak pawns.&#xA;Know how to Evalute positions and see who is better or worse and develop a plan based on the positon Evaluated.&#xA;Attack double pawns and avoid making doubled pawns.&#xA;These Ideas are the basis of positional understanding and make up the game of chess.&#xA;As the Game of chess is about control and the only way to have control of the game is to improve your position and make little to no mistakes, if this happens the game is sure to be a win or a draw.&#xA;Tactics will come through a good position through coordination and remember all bad postions will fall eventually, there is no need to rush your opponents demise if he makes foolish moves, and if your opponent improves their positon as much as you do then your game could be equal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Postitional Understanding takes much patience and in order to be good at evalutating positons you must take in account, piece value, develpoment, king saftey, possible advantages and disadvantages, overall piece activity, or potential piece activity, attacking chances and better or worse Endgame chances. If you evaluate a postion precisley it can help you develop a plan that can help you based on the position.&#xA;Another part of positonal understanding is understanding the position well enough that you don't make any Blunder's, Mistakes, or innacurracies to the point in which you lose as positonal players make sure that they take their time and grind out every advantage they can get, and in most positons this is the way to go. Sometimes it is not worth it to rush a tactic or be hasty because it is not uncommon for such moves to end in a blunder or a mistake that can ruin you position and give all the winning chances to the opponent. If you make sure you can improve the postition and attack without your opponent having any counterplay or any advantages, than you will have all the time in the world to win that game and your opponent can do very little to stop it.&#xA;Some examples of this could be:&#xA;When you have a space advantage and all your pieces look to attack the enemy king.&#xA;When the opponent is in a situation when he is in a positional zugswang and can't make any good move.&#xA;When your opponent is behind in development and you sieze the initiative to start an attack against the enmy king with more pieces on the board therefore making more threats due to the lack of protection due to poor develpment of pieces and pawns.&#xA;When you have a passed pawn and use that advantage to win material, misplace a piece or the king, or to allow lesser moves to be made by the opponent due to the reaction of the passed pawn and overall improve your position due to the lack of a better position by your opponent. ETC...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This proves why knowledge of positions and positional understanding is needed, and have in mind these are just the building blocks, at higher levels I think your understanding has to be multiplied by whatever level you are on each time you are +200 points higher.&#xA;However if you are also an Amatuer a good idea would be to get very good at tactics, along with getting good at tactics improve your calculation as well as improve your tactical vision and although this is random even memorize the coordinates(algebra notation) on the board. This is as straightforward as it gets, and this is the guide to getting on a decent level.(now I am not saying it is going to make you improve +1000 elo, but perhaps +100, +200 or maybe even+300 if you are taking all of this into account and are grinding seriously.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's all I have to say, hopefully this was helpful for someone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user25070" LastActivityDate="2020-10-28T01:21:17.610" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32729" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30040" CreationDate="2020-10-28T01:40:46.953" Score="1" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Utilizing a chess engine: We utilized the open-source Stockfish engine, which allows us to calculate the most probable piece configurations. By calculating the prob-abilities of all possible configurations, we could choose the most probable candidate (see Figure 7). Additionally, we strengthened this method by utilizing large-scale chess game statistics in the manner proposed by Acher and Es-nault Acher and Esnault (2016).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This makes literally no sense to me- SF is just an engine, and can't exactly give stats on most probable piece configs, and even if the researchers wrote some code to do such, it would be different than the most probable ones in human play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My suggestion would be to use &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.gadycosteff.com/cql/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;CQL&lt;/a&gt; on some database and search for each configuration.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Alternatively, SCIDvsPC (free) and ChessBase (paid, and quite expensive) can search for these sort of configurations as well, so you might want to use those.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for what database to use, my recommendation would be &lt;a href=&quot;http://caissabase.co.uk/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Caissabase (free)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23100" LastActivityDate="2020-10-28T01:40:46.953" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32730" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="450" CreationDate="2020-10-28T01:41:21.427" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;NO.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should learn tactics before playing tactical openings as they are far more subtle and somewhat mixed with positional play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should study tactics separately and methodically not just solving random tactical problems.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You need to do at least ten similar tactics problems after seeing an example of how it works.  This will implant the pattern into your memory for use in a real game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25082" LastActivityDate="2020-10-28T01:41:21.427" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32731" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32726" CreationDate="2020-10-28T01:47:11.350" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Playing is counterproductive until you have some basic skill, but a little playing will keep you motivated and may show you things to be aware of unless the other player is also a beginner.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do NOT do chess problems.  They will not help at all and waste time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do not play blitz at all.  Play 10-15 minute games but pace  yourself to move in exactly ten seconds.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Reading books is good.  You wont get much out of My System but it wont hurt you.  You need to find and do tactical problems that are graded from easy to hard and are grouped around the same theme.  See an example then solve ten more of the same type solution.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You need to learn ONE opening really well for white and black.  But make sure it is ONLY ONE opening.  Do not try to do more than that. Obviously there will be variations depending how the opponent plays that will already stretch your ability to master yet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Eventually you will need to understand positional play and some other things but start with the list above.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25082" LastActivityDate="2020-10-28T01:47:11.350" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32732" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32696" CreationDate="2020-10-28T01:50:23.980" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why would you want to claim a draw when you can win? Would someone turn down a draw when they are obviously going to lose based on the material? To answer the question: to protect people from their own bad ideas.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25082" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-10-28T11:09:16.267" LastActivityDate="2020-10-28T11:09:16.267" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32733" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32695" CreationDate="2020-10-28T01:53:24.873" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you play in tournaments that are not class limited to very low players  you should expect to lose a lot more than you draw or win if you try those openings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can beat beginners with stuff like that but you wont advance far as the good players will clean your clock.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25082" LastActivityDate="2020-10-28T01:53:24.873" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32734" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32723" CreationDate="2020-10-28T01:58:05.390" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;With great difficulty.  There is no real connection between chess and the real world.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What  you need to apply is game theory to both chess and the other situation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Trying to infer game theory by using chess to help your socratic method would fall way short and be much harder than doing it with math.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25082" LastActivityDate="2020-10-28T01:58:05.390" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32735" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-10-28T03:23:09.800" Score="1" ViewCount="112" Body="&lt;p&gt;Daniel Naroditsky recommended using this to improve at tactics but I was wondering if it was in any way worse than using a book with tactics for example.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24850" LastActivityDate="2020-10-29T19:01:53.553" Title="Is chess.com's tactics trainer any good for actual tactical improvement?" Tags="&lt;tactics&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32736" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32740" CreationDate="2020-10-28T04:17:46.540" Score="7" ViewCount="1285" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm aware that if one's flag falls then the game is declared a win for the opposing side if something like &amp;quot;they have enough material to mate&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;it is possible to mate&amp;quot;. I'm curious about an edge case which actually differentiates between the above two scenarios, i.e. the opposing side has enough material to mate but it's impossible to mate from that position (for whatever reason).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think an example would illustrate best the situation I had in mind. Suppose White has a King on a1 and a Queen on a2, while Black only has a King on h1. If White then plays Qh2+ (perhaps in an online bullet game) and Black's flag falls, does White win? Note that from this position it is impossible for White to mate, since Black's only legal move here is to play Kxh2, which would be an immediate draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are other scenarios which would be impossible to mate, e.g. if White has a King on a1, pawns on a4, c4, e4, g4, and Black has a King on h8, pawns on a5, c5, e5, g5 -- clearly neither side can mate from this position. (This sort of situation is slightly less interesting to me as this is position that is less likely to arise than the one described above, but I'm still curious.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24385" LastActivityDate="2020-10-28T12:49:19.150" Title="What counts has &quot;having enough material to mate&quot;?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;draw&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32737" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32704" CreationDate="2020-10-28T05:06:56.270" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Agadmator made a &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIMaTKOZG-8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;video&lt;/a&gt; about the final game between Harmon and Borgov which I recommend you to watch. The first 37 moves of that game were identical to a game played between Ivanchuk and Wolff in 1993 Biel Interzonal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24850" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-10-28T11:06:53.270" LastActivityDate="2020-10-28T11:06:53.270" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32739" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1228" CreationDate="2020-10-28T05:15:49.620" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I suggest in the opening if you want to keep your opponent from castling, try bishops because they are easily brought out in the opening and don't need to get to close to the wall of pawns unlike knights, but if you want to deal with it quick, a sacrifice won't hurt or you could try the Evan's Gambit, which involves stopping your opponent from castling while stopping the king from capturing any pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25083" LastActivityDate="2020-10-28T05:15:49.620" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32740" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32736" CreationDate="2020-10-28T08:55:26.463" Score="14" Body="&lt;p&gt;From &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/FIDE/handbook/LawsOfChess.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Laws of Chess&lt;/a&gt;, article 5.2b:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The  game  is  drawn  when  a  position  has  arisen  in  which  neither  player  can  checkmate the opponent’s king with any series of legal moves. The game is said to end  in  a  ‘dead  position’.  This  immediately  ends  the  game,  provided  that  the  move  producing the position was legal. (See Article 9.6).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your first example, as soon as White plays Qh2+, the statement &amp;quot;a  position  has  arisen  in  which  neither  player  can  checkmate the opponent’s king with any series of legal moves&amp;quot; becomes true. As the rule says, this &lt;strong&gt;immediately ends the game&lt;/strong&gt; with a draw. This happened on White's move and it immediately ends the game, so there is no time for Black's flag to fall.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The same happens in your second example. As soon as a dead position arises, it is a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The position does not need to be dead for a fallen flag to result in a draw. Article 6.9 says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Except  where  one  of  the  Articles:  5.1.a,  5.1.b,  5.2.a,  5.2.b,  5.2.c  applies,  if  a  player  does  not  complete  the  prescribed  number  of  moves  in  the  allotted  time,  the  game  is  lost  by  the player. However, the game is drawn, if the position is such that the opponent cannot checkmate the player’s king by any possible series of legal moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So if Black's flag falls and there is no legal sequence of moves that results in Black's king being checkmated, it is a draw. For example, if Black has an extra queen in your first example, and Black's flag falls after this move&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;8/8/8/5q2/8/8/Q7/K6k w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Qh2+&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;then it is still a draw, because there is no legal sequence of moves can result in Black's king being checkmated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21604" LastEditorUserId="21604" LastEditDate="2020-10-28T12:49:19.150" LastActivityDate="2020-10-28T12:49:19.150" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32741" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32696" CreationDate="2020-10-28T10:02:21.313" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;As with any matter on the laws of chess, the application of the laws is to some degree at the discretion of the arbiter. Therefore, the result may be different whether the arbiter is sympathetic or unsympathetic towards your position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the arbiter is sympathetic one course of action may be to use 7.4b:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;... for the first two illegal moves by a player&#xA;the arbiter shall give two minutes extra time to his opponent in each instance; for a&#xA;third illegal move by the same player, the arbiter shall declare the game lost by this&#xA;player. However, the game is drawn if the position is such that the opponent cannot&#xA;checkmate the player’s king by any possible series of legal moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you as the player with additional material had the move, you could make and complete an illegal move and then reinstate the position 3 times.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that the arbiter should need to be sympathetic to your position else you may fall foul of 12.8:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Persistent refusal by a player to comply with the Laws of Chess shall be penalised by loss&#xA;of the game. The arbiter shall decide the score of the opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although if you were to complete all 3 illegal moves before notifying the arbiter, I don't think this would be persistent refusal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another option with a sympathetic arbiter is to claim that the player failing to accept the draw and intentionally not moving is doing so in order to annoy the opponent. Which I would take as a reasonable claim, since, unless the player has a genuine belief he can win, I do not see any other motive for rejecting the draw offer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This would mean the player rejecting the draw has contravened 12.6:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is forbidden to distract or annoy the opponent in any manner whatsoever. ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For which a penalty under 13.4c of reducing the remaining time of the offending player to end the game would result in the draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course if the arbiter is unsympathetic you as a player have little option to end the game as a draw early. The fastest way (if you suspect the opponent is intentionally refusing to move to prolong the game) may be to allow your own time to reach 2 minutes and claim that it is not possible for the opponent to win by normal means under 10.2a&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the player, having the move, has less than two minutes left on his clock, he may claim a&#xA;draw before his flag falls. He shall summon the arbiter and may stop the clocks. (See&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;a. If the arbiter agrees the opponent is making no effort to win the game by normal&#xA;means, or that it is not possible to win by normal means, then he shall declare the&#xA;game drawn. Otherwise he shall postpone his decision or reject the claim.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18307" LastActivityDate="2020-10-28T10:02:21.313" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32742" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31826" CreationDate="2020-10-28T10:36:02.147" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Richard Rapport is a 2700+ Super GM who could have been world champion if he played in an earlier period (how early is pretty speculative, but I would argue that Rapport is at least stronger than Spassky in his prime).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is Rapport losing in a classical game to a player rated 2175!&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1781055&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1781055&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7534" LastEditorUserId="7534" LastEditDate="2020-10-28T10:46:43.683" LastActivityDate="2020-10-28T10:46:43.683" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32743" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32704" CreationDate="2020-10-28T11:06:07.393" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Olimpiu G. Urcan has posted several twits about references of historical games and positions that appear in &amp;quot;The Queen's gambit&amp;quot;: &lt;a href=&quot;https://twitter.com/olimpiuurcan&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://twitter.com/olimpiuurcan&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://twitter.com/olimpiuurcan/status/1321098273717825536&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://twitter.com/olimpiuurcan/status/1321098273717825536&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Connoisseurs will quickly recognize a small tribute to Bobby Fischer in this very brief #TheQueensGambit scene: it's the conclusion of his crushing win over Bent Larsen from the 1958 Portorož Interzonal. Harmon's 29.d7 (instead of Fischer's 29.Bxf6) still wins, of course.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://twitter.com/olimpiuurcan/status/1319653477778296832&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://twitter.com/olimpiuurcan/status/1319653477778296832&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Beth Harmon's final game with Vasily Borgov, her Russian nemesis, is based on that spectacular draw between Ivanchuk and Wolff from the 1993 Biel Interzonal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9179" LastEditorUserId="12" LastEditDate="2020-10-31T19:25:10.677" LastActivityDate="2020-10-31T19:25:10.677" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32744" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32735" CreationDate="2020-10-28T12:26:46.733" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Its a fairly subjective question but their &amp;quot;learning&amp;quot; area is solid, the tactics tool is good for learning pattern recognition quickly. Most sites (lichess etc) have similar functionality.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Regarding how effective it is. Its dependent on you. If you learn better by doing. Probably better, if you like theory than book.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24511" LastActivityDate="2020-10-28T12:26:46.733" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32745" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32748" CreationDate="2020-10-28T13:45:19.993" Score="1" ViewCount="135" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am actually programming a chess UI and I'd like to communicate with a chess engine using UCI protocol. After reading the protocol specifications, I am not sure how to use the position command. For each move, is it better to pass to the chess engine a FEN notation of the actual state of the board or pass it the list of all moves that have been played since the beginning of the game?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25089" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-10-28T15:09:48.240" LastActivityDate="2020-10-28T16:11:43.573" Title="Is it preferable to pass a FEN notation or list of moves to a chess engine?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;programming&gt;&lt;uci&gt;&lt;fen&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32746" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32745" CreationDate="2020-10-28T14:37:07.270" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is preferable to pass a PGN because FEN is just a position with no move,  but a PGN is the whole game with moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24920" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-10-28T15:10:39.343" LastActivityDate="2020-10-28T15:10:39.343" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32747" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18115" CreationDate="2020-10-28T14:45:54.603" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;i like lichess because of it study feature. Lichess has the strongest free chess computer online and has a large master opening database for free. You can make your own or look at other people's studies.&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/study&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://lichess.org/study&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24920" LastActivityDate="2020-10-28T14:45:54.603" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32748" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32745" CreationDate="2020-10-28T16:11:43.573" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If possible, it is better to send the whole game. The engine can use this to see that a move it is considering would lead to a draw by threefold repetition or the 50 move rule.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But sometimes you only have a position, and then sending a FEN is possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2020-10-28T16:11:43.573" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32749" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32718" CreationDate="2020-10-28T17:55:52.743" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;As the other answers indicate, gambits - and openings in general - can receive their names from different factors. A few examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King%27s_Gambit&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;King's Gambit&lt;/a&gt; gets its name from opening with the king's pawn and gambiting the immediately adjacent flank pawn. The &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen%27s_Gambit&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Queen's Gambit&lt;/a&gt; is similarly named, except the gambit is on the queen's side of the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Although the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Gambit&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Budapest Gambit&lt;/a&gt; had been played previously, it seems to have taken its name from the location of the first time the gambit was used in a game of significance between high level players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evans_Gambit&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Evans' Gambit&lt;/a&gt; gets its name from the man credited with inventing it (notably not &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Evans_(chess_player)&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;GM Larry Evans&lt;/a&gt; nor &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessplayer?pid=82648&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;IM Larry D. Evans&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The book &lt;a href=&quot;https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/0473396734&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess Opening Names&lt;/a&gt; explores the naming of several popular openings, including some gambits. The book has three sections, one each for openings named for: people, places, and &amp;quot;stories&amp;quot;. (As I type this, I'm about half way through the audio version of the book - mostly listening while I'm driving. The chess theory is light, but I find the history interesting.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="224" LastEditorUserId="224" LastEditDate="2020-10-28T18:29:57.207" LastActivityDate="2020-10-28T18:29:57.207" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32753" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32735" CreationDate="2020-10-29T19:01:53.553" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Only if you pay the memberships the tactics on chess.com will be good. if you use the free membership you will only get 5 tactics a day. Either use lichess tactics or chesstempo. both are completely free and have many tactics.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24920" LastActivityDate="2020-10-29T19:01:53.553" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32754" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-10-30T02:51:08.177" Score="4" ViewCount="161" Body="&lt;p&gt;I noticed for a while that in many chess websites that my tactics rating is between 1700-2000, but my playing rating in rapid is between 2000-2250, in blitz between 1900-2100, and in classical between 2200-2400. I know that there are differences between each website concerning rating. But in all websites my playing rating is higher than my tactics rating by at least 200-300 points in rapid and classical. I have a strong opening preparation that I believe might compensate. During the game, I believe that my opening preparation gives me the advantage because I know the plans, and I know where the weaknesses are in the opponents camp. I also know if I should attack the king, or press a weakness, or play on misplaced piece based on the opening. That's why I think my playing rating is higher. Moreover, I believe that finding tactics in an exercise might be difficult for me because I'm not familiar with some openings/pawn structures. But in pawn structures and openings that I play, I can find the tactic more easily. Now my questions are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Do you have the same disparity in ratings? And if yes, is there an explanation? (I know that some people have their tactics rating higher than their playing rating, but I'm not talking about this class of players)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Should I practice more tactics? I'm using many websites/apps such as chesstempo, chess24, tactics frenzy, chesscom, and lichess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I believe that one should practice tactics in the openings that he/she plays because these are the tactics that come often in games. What do you think?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23598" LastActivityDate="2020-11-01T00:10:03.563" Title="Playing rating is higher than tactics rating" Tags="&lt;tactics&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32756" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-10-30T05:45:42.097" Score="3" ViewCount="431" Body="&lt;p&gt;I came upon chess.com playing against computer mode. I found a resemblance of two professional chess players over there. Do they really resemble their gameplay, though? Does the AI mimic their past plays?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/vHSp2.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/vHSp2.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Screenshot of the page&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23898" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-11-03T21:02:44.967" LastActivityDate="2020-11-04T05:19:08.240" Title="The chess.com vs computer games celebrity category" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;online-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32757" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-10-30T05:56:44.983" Score="1" ViewCount="62" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the best software to take a pgn file of positions and solve them in a one-step operation? I am not referring to chess compositions or &amp;quot;mate in n&amp;quot; problems but tactical positions. Is it possible to just highlight positions from a database of positions and have the software compute the best series of follow-up moves and save them to a file? I can perform the function individually on any number of software but I cannot do a batch on any of them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25111" LastActivityDate="2020-10-31T14:07:34.783" Title="Batch Solve Tactical Positions" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;software&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32758" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-10-30T06:33:12.183" Score="3" ViewCount="103" Body="&lt;p&gt;The rover opening 1. a4 is played a lot on the lichess server and there have been some high level games in it. The opening is not gaining any initiative or tempo, it is just rook lifting prematurely, which is a terrible idea in normal chess, but works a bit in crazyhouse.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does anyone have a lichess study or a good explanation on how to get good lines out of the Rover opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16912" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2020-11-01T10:09:04.630" LastActivityDate="2020-11-02T01:48:16.710" Title="Is Rover opening sound in crazyhouse opening theory?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;crazyhouse&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32760" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32773" CreationDate="2020-10-30T11:57:37.077" Score="4" ViewCount="142" Body="&lt;p&gt;As gambits are all about activity, initiative, and attack, should I start playing gambits to increase my awareness and all these things?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21840" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-10-30T13:05:37.160" LastActivityDate="2020-10-31T10:15:50.767" Title="Are gambits a good way to improve tactical awareness (for strong amateurs)?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;learning&gt;&lt;gambits&gt;&lt;attack&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32761" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32763" CreationDate="2020-10-30T12:14:55.640" Score="8" ViewCount="570" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd like to be able to automate downloading specific games that have been played on Lichess. Is there any software available that, if given useful information such as the Lichess usernames, colours, time control and (approximate) time of the game will download the game in pgn format? Command line please - ideally it will also flag an error if it fails to find exactly one match.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm running Linux, but as I expect anything that might exist will be in something like python I don't think that is a big issue.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7726" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-10-30T12:35:41.747" LastActivityDate="2020-11-05T14:59:21.993" Title="Downloading Games From Lichess" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;lichess&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32762" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-10-30T13:27:24.353" Score="2" ViewCount="133" Body="&lt;p&gt;During the 2018 World Rapid Championship in 2018 in St. Petersburg, Magnus Carlsen played Shamsiddin Vokhidov.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White starts with setting up a Scholar's Mate, but Black doesn't fall for it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then on the 22nd turn, White neglects to get his Knight to safety in time. He ends up losing his Queen for a Rook.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &amp;quot;World Rapid Championship&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Site &amp;quot;St Petersburg RUS&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Date &amp;quot;2018.12.26&amp;quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &amp;quot;2018.12.26&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Round &amp;quot;2.1&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Result &amp;quot;0-1&amp;quot;]&#xA;[White &amp;quot;Magnus Carlsen&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Black &amp;quot;Shamsiddin Vokhidov&amp;quot;]&#xA;[ECO &amp;quot;C20&amp;quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &amp;quot;2835&amp;quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &amp;quot;2480&amp;quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &amp;quot;72&amp;quot;]&#xA;[fen &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;[startply &amp;quot;45&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Qh5 Nc6 3. Bc4 g6 4. Qf3 Qe7 5. Ne2 Nf6 6. d3 Bg7 7. Nbc3 h6 8. Nd5 Nxd5 9. exd5 Na5 10. d6 cxd6 11. Bd5 Nc6 12. Bd2 Qf6 13. Qe4 O-O 14. O-O Ne7 15. Nc3 Qf5 16. Qb4 Nxd5 17. Nxd5 Kh7 18. Nc7 Rb8 19. Qxd6 b6 20. f3 Bb7 21. Rae1 Rfc8 22. Bc3? Bf8 23. Nb5 Bxd6 (23. Qxe5 {threat of mate on h8}) 24. Nxd6 Qe6 25. Nxc8 Rxc8 26. Rxe5 Qd6 27. Rfe1 Bd5 28. a4 Be6 29. a5 bxa5 30. Kf1 Rc5 31. Rxc5 Qxc5 32. Ra1 d5 33. Rxa5 Qc7 34. Ra4 Qxh2 35. Rxa7 Qh1+ 36. Kf2 d4 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why didn't White force exchanging Queens on the 23rd turn? That would've cost him the Knight as well, but would've gotten rid of the Black e Pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12031" LastEditorUserId="12031" LastEditDate="2020-10-31T07:49:32.400" LastActivityDate="2020-10-31T07:49:32.400" Title="Why didn't Carlsen try to force exchanging Queens on move 23 against Vokhidov?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;carlsen&gt;&lt;rapid&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32763" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32761" CreationDate="2020-10-30T15:02:02.997" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;Lichess has an API which can also be used to download games. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;https://lichess.org/api/games/user/{username}?max=3&amp;amp;color=white&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This will download 3 most recent games played by &lt;code&gt;{username}&lt;/code&gt; with the white pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can find the docs for this operation (and others) here:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/api#operation/apiGamesUser&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://lichess.org/api#operation/apiGamesUser&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The introduction page lists some clients including one for Python:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/api#section/Introduction&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://lichess.org/api#section/Introduction&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8154" LastActivityDate="2020-10-30T15:02:02.997" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32764" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23878" CreationDate="2020-10-30T16:45:37.783" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is one for pieces only (12½ moves):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e3 e6 2. Na3 Na6 3. Bxa6 Bxa3 4. bxa3 bxa6 5. Qf3 Qf6 6. Qxa8 Qxa1 7. Qxc8+ Ke7 8. Qxg8 Qxc1+ 9. Ke2 Qxg1 10. Qxh8 Qxh1 11. h4 Qh3 12. Qf8+ Kxf8 13. gxh3  &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also see &lt;a href=&quot;https://puzzling.stackexchange.com/a/104183/70634&quot;&gt;ħere&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24424" LastEditorUserId="24424" LastEditDate="2020-10-30T17:23:29.827" LastActivityDate="2020-10-30T17:23:29.827" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32765" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32766" CreationDate="2020-10-31T01:46:04.740" Score="12" ViewCount="5456" Body="&lt;p&gt;Noob question: I am aware of the no-touch rule, but can I point or hover my finger over a chess piece in a major tournament? To clarify, let's say it's my turn and I am thinking about which piece to move, and part of my thinking process is to move my finger from one piece to another without actually touching any of them, thus not violating the no-touch rule. To me, it appears that in spirit, it is very much like touching the piece except there is no touching; so is it legal to do that? Spirit aside, is there any law in the book or in any of the major chess tournaments addressing this concept?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25116" LastEditorUserId="15478" LastEditDate="2020-10-31T16:38:02.347" LastActivityDate="2020-11-04T17:35:08.433" Title="Can I hover my finger over a chess piece without touching it in a major chess tournament?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;illegal-move&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32766" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32765" CreationDate="2020-10-31T02:33:27.727" Score="29" Body="&lt;p&gt;Hovering your hand over the pieces does not violate the touch-move rule, but it is bad etiquette and arguably violates the rule against annoying your opponent (&amp;quot;It is forbidden to distract or annoy the opponent in any manner whatsoever.&amp;quot;, say the FIDE Laws of Chess, §11.5 in the 2018 edition.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's the explanation given in &lt;em&gt;Chess for Dummies&lt;/em&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Furthering the touch-move rule, a frequent cause of complaints is the hand hover. The hand hover occurs when a player positions his hand over a piece and leaves it there. The hand hover is a distraction, and you shouldn’t do it — so goes the warning by José Capablanca. You should never obscure your opponent’s sight of the board unless you’re in the act of moving, so don’t reach for a piece until you’ve decided to move it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12523" LastEditorUserId="12523" LastEditDate="2020-10-31T02:39:34.423" LastActivityDate="2020-10-31T02:39:34.423" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32767" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32765" CreationDate="2020-10-31T02:34:15.520" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are tournaments that have a &amp;quot;touch&amp;quot; rule that indicates that if you touch the piece you must move the piece. There are tournaments where if you touch a piece as long as you don't let go of the piece (unless moved back to its original position), does not constitute a move, eg; I could hold my hand on my queen, pick it up, then put it back down in the same square, and then move a rook.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tournament rules are largely up to the tournament to decide but most refer to the FIDE rulings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pointing to pieces etc does not indicate a touch or more importantly intent to move. The biggest issue I can see arising from this is that you could be indicating ideas to someone watching who could validate a if a move is good or bad.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would suggest referring to the FIDE handbook. However please refer below to the relevant section&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;From the FIDE handbook&lt;/strong&gt; (&lt;a href=&quot;https://handbook.fide.com/chapter/E012018&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://handbook.fide.com/chapter/E012018&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Article 4: The act of moving the pieces&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4.1    Each move must be played with one hand only.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4.2.1          Only the player having the move may adjust one or more pieces on their squares, provided that he first expresses his&#xA;intention (for example by saying “j’adoube” or “I adjust”).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;4.2.2&lt;/strong&gt;  Any other physical contact with a piece, except for clearly accidental contact, shall be considered to be intent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;4.3&lt;/strong&gt;        Except as provided in Article 4.2, if the player having the move touches on the chessboard,with the intention of moving or&#xA;capturing:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4.3.1 one or more of his own pieces, he must move the first piece touched that can be moved&#xA;4.3.2 one or more of his opponent’s pieces, he must capture the first piece touched that can be captured&#xA;4.3.3 one or more pieces of each colour, he must capture the first touched opponent’s piece with his first touched piece or, if this is&#xA;illegal, move or capture the first piece touched that can be moved or&#xA;captured. If it is unclear whether the player’s own piece or his&#xA;opponent’s was touched first, the player’s own piece shall be&#xA;considered to have been touched before his opponent’s.&#xA;4.4        If a player having the move:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4.4.1 touches his king and a rook he must castle on that side if it is legal to do so&#xA;4.4.2 deliberately touches a rook and then his king he is not allowed to castle on that side on that move and the situation shall be&#xA;governed by Article 4.3.1&#xA;4.4.3 intending to castle, touches the king and then a rook, but castling with this rook is illegal, the player must make another legal&#xA;move with his king (which may include castling with the other rook).&#xA;If the king has no legal move, the player is free to make any legal&#xA;move.&#xA;4.4.4 promotes a pawn, the choice of the piece is finalised when the piece has touched the square of promotion.&#xA;4.5        If none of the pieces touched in accordance with Article 4.3 or Article 4.4 can be moved or captured, the player may make any legal move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4.6        The act of promotion may be performed in various ways:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4.6.1 the pawn does not have to be placed on the square of arrival,&#xA;4.6.2 removing the pawn and putting the new piece on the square of promotion may occur in any order.&#xA;4.6.3 If an opponent’s piece stands on the square of promotion, it must be captured.&#xA;4.7        When, as a legal move or part of a legal move, a piece has been released on a square, it cannot be moved to another square on&#xA;this move. The move is considered to have been made in the case of:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4.7.1 a capture, when the captured piece has been removed from the chessboard and the player, having placed his own piece on its new&#xA;square, has released this capturing piece from his hand,&#xA;4.7.2 castling, when the player's hand has released the rook on the square previously crossed by the king. When the player has released&#xA;the king from his hand, the move is not yet made, but the player no&#xA;longer has the right to make any move other than castling on that&#xA;side, if this is legal. If castling on this side is illegal, the&#xA;player must make another legal move with his king (which may include&#xA;castling with the other rook). If the king has no legal move, the&#xA;player is free to make any legal move.&#xA;4.7.3 promotion, when the player's hand has released the new piece on the square of promotion and the pawn has been removed from the board.&#xA;4.8        A player forfeits his right to claim against his opponent’s violation of Articles 4.1 – 4.7 once the player touches a piece with&#xA;the intention of moving or capturing it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;4.9    If a player is unable to move the pieces, an assistant, who shall be acceptable to the arbiter, may be provided by the player to&#xA;perform this operation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24511" LastActivityDate="2020-10-31T02:34:15.520" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32768" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32770" CreationDate="2020-10-31T04:17:14.267" Score="15" ViewCount="4254" Body="&lt;p&gt;Recently, a Netflix series has been launched entitled &lt;strong&gt;The Queen's Gambit&lt;/strong&gt; which surely created a lot of hype in the chess community. Does the protagonist Beth Harmon resemble anyone (fully or partially) in real life? This is although the makers of the series said the character is fictional. Sill, I am kind of sceptic about this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23898" LastEditorUserId="4399" LastEditDate="2021-01-21T23:42:07.493" LastActivityDate="2021-01-21T23:42:07.493" Title="Does the new Netflix series &quot;The Queen's Gambit&quot; resemble any real life chess master?" Tags="&lt;history&gt;&lt;famous-players&gt;&lt;fiction&gt;&lt;film&gt;&lt;famous-events&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32769" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32762" CreationDate="2020-10-31T04:35:32.220" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a tricky one, and really the only person best placed to answer it is Carlson himself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I ran the analysis through a few engines and in all instances the best move was Qxe5. This makes me think it was an Inaccuracy as the second best move Nb5 was played. Just goes to show even the the best make mistakes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24511" LastActivityDate="2020-10-31T04:35:32.220" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32770" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32768" CreationDate="2020-10-31T06:08:05.467" Score="22" Body="&lt;p&gt;The character Beth Harmon is purely fictional. The series is based off a book by the same title by Walter Tevis. The author had a tendencie to base books drawing from personal experiences but he wasn't a chess prodigy that's for sure. He was however a good club level player which is why the book has such strong chess knowledge. In that time period, there are no valid players that could fit as inspiration for the character (that I can place at least). The chess advisors in the show were Bruce Pandolfini and Garry Kasparov which really shows the high-calibre efforts the production team went to to get the show's chess moments bang on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: Found the following article&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.radiotimes.com/news/on-demand/2020-10-29/the-queens-gambit-book-netflix/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.radiotimes.com/news/on-demand/2020-10-29/the-queens-gambit-book-netflix/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tevis previously told The Times that the character was created as a&#xA;“tribute to brainy women” adding that “I like Beth for her bravery and&#xA;intelligence. In the past, many women have had to hide their brains,&#xA;but not today,” he said.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He listed his daughter and his aunt – who had gifted him with his first chess set – among the women who had inspired the character.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Regarding the games however that is a different story; Most the games are based on famous games.  The final game in the series where she beats Borgov is based off a game between Vassily Ivanchuk and Patrick Wolff at the Biel Interzonal in 1993 for example. An absolute monster of a game to watch though;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Those researching the film did a fantastic job in finding great games to base their games on. Specifically move &lt;em&gt;38 Ne6&lt;/em&gt; which is a more direct and simplified line.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The Movie Game (Simplified Ivanchuk v Wolff)&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;The movie is a simplified and more modern line than the game it was based on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Event &amp;quot;?&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Site &amp;quot;?&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Date &amp;quot;2020.08.24&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Round &amp;quot;?&amp;quot;]&#xA;[White &amp;quot;Harmon&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Black &amp;quot;Borgov&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Result &amp;quot;1-0&amp;quot;]&#xA;[ECO &amp;quot;D20&amp;quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &amp;quot;105&amp;quot;]&#xA;[SourceVersionDate &amp;quot;2020.10.31&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. c4 dxc4 3. e4 Nc6 4. Be3 Nf6 5. Nc3 e5 6. d5 Ne7 7. Bxc4 Ng6 8. f3 Bd6 9. Qd2 Bd7 10. Nge2 a6 11. Bb3 b5 12. a4 O-O 13. O-O Qe7 14. Rac1 Nh5 15. g3 h6 16. Bc2 Rab8 17. axb5 axb5 18. Ra1 Ra8 19. Bd3 Bb4 20. Rxa8 Rxa8 21. Qc2 Bc5 22. Nd1 Bd6 23. Nf2 Nhf4 24. Rc1 Qg5 25. Kh1 Qh5 26. Ng1 Nxd3 27. Nxd3 f5 28. Nc5 Bc8 29. Rf1 Ne7 30. Qd3 fxe4 31. fxe4 Qg6 32. Kg2 Kh7 33. Nf3 Ng8 34. Nh4 Qg4 35. Nf5 Nf6 36. h3 Qg6 37. Ne6 Ra4 38. b3 Rxe4 39. Nxd6 Bxe6 40. dxe6 cxd6 41. e7 d5 42. Bc5 Qe8 43. Qf3 Qc6 44. b4 Qe8 45. Qf5+ Kh8 46. Qxf6 gxf6 47. Rxf6 Qh5 48. Rf8+ Kg7 49. e8=Q Re2+ 50. Kf1 Qxh3+ 51. Kxe2 Qg2+ 52. Rf2 Qe4+ 53. Kd2 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The Game that its based off&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Event &amp;quot;Biel Interzonal&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Site &amp;quot;Biel&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Date &amp;quot;1993.??.??&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Round &amp;quot;1&amp;quot;]&#xA;[White &amp;quot;Ivanchuk, Vassily&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Black &amp;quot;Wolff, Patrick G&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Result &amp;quot;1/2-1/2&amp;quot;]&#xA;[ECO &amp;quot;D20&amp;quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &amp;quot;2705&amp;quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &amp;quot;2585&amp;quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &amp;quot;144&amp;quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &amp;quot;1993.07.??&amp;quot;]&#xA;[EventType &amp;quot;swiss&amp;quot;]&#xA;[EventRounds &amp;quot;13&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 d5 2. c4 dxc4 3. e4 Nc6 4. Be3 Nf6 5. Nc3 e5 6. d5 Ne7 7. Bxc4 Ng6 8. f3 Bd6 9. Qd2 Bd7 10. Nge2 a6 11. Bb3 b5 12. a4 O-O 13. O-O Qe7 14. Rac1 Nh5 15. g3 h6 16. Bc2 Rab8 17. axb5 axb5 18. Ra1 Ra8 19. Bd3 Bb4 20. Rxa8 Rxa8 21. Qc2 Bc5 22. Nd1 Bd6 23. Nf2 Nhf4 24. Rc1 Qg5 25. Kh1 Qh5 26. Ng1 Nxd3 27. Nxd3 f5 28. Nc5 Bc8 29. Rf1 Ne7 30. Qd3 fxe4 31. fxe4 Qg6 32. Kg2 Kh7 33. Nf3 Ng8 34. Nh4 Qg4 35. Nf5 Nf6 36. h3 Qg6 37. g4 Bxc5 38. Bxc5 Ra4 39. Rf3 Rc4 40. Be7 Bxf5 41. Rxf5 Rd4 42. Qe3 Rxe4 43. Qf3 Rf4 44. Rxf4 exf4 45. Bxf6 Qxf6 46. Qd3+ Qg6 47. Qe2 c6 48. Kf3 cxd5 49. Kxf4 Qf6+ 50. Kg3 Qd6+ 51. Kf3 b4 52. h4 Qf6+ 53. Kg3 Qd6+ 54. Kf3 Qf6+ 55. Kg3 g6 56. Qe8 Qd6+ 57. Kf3 Kg7 58. g5 hxg5 59. hxg5 d4 60. Qe4 d3 61. Qb7+ Kf8 62. Qc8+ Ke7 63. Qb7+ Ke6 64. Qe4+ Kd7 65. Qb7+ Kd8 66. Qa8+ Kc7 67. Qa7+ Kc8 68. Qa8+ Kc7 69. Qa7+ Kc6 70. Qa6+ Kc5 71. Qxd6+ Kxd6 72. Ke3 Ke5 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I believe the Kentucky game to be based of Nezhmetdinov vs Kasparian game as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Event &amp;quot;Spartak Team Ch (1955), Riga LAT&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Site &amp;quot;?&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Date &amp;quot;1955&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Round &amp;quot;?&amp;quot;]&#xA;[White &amp;quot;Rashid Gibiatovich Nezhmetdino&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Black &amp;quot;Genrikh Kasparian&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Result &amp;quot;*&amp;quot;]&#xA;[ECO &amp;quot;B11&amp;quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &amp;quot;93&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c6 2. Nf3 d5 3. Nc3 Bg4 4. h3 Bxf3 5. Qxf3 e6 6. g3 g6 7. Bg2 Bg7 8. O-O Nd7 9. Qe2 d4 10. Nb1 e5 11. d3 Ne7 12. f4 Qc7 13. a4 O-O 14. f5 f6 15. Nd2 Bh6 16. Kh2 Kh8 17. fxg6 hxg6 18. Nf3 Bxc1 19. Raxc1 Nc5 20. c3 Nb3 21. Rcd1 Rad8 22. Nh4 Qc8 23. Bf3 Qe6 24. Bg4 Qf7 25. Nf3 Qg8 26. h4 Kg7 27. Rf2 Rd6 28. Rdf1 Rdd8 29. Qc2 b6 30. h5 c5 31. hxg6 dxc3 32. bxc3 c4 33. d4 exd4 34. cxd4 Nxd4 35. Nxd4 Rxd4 36. e5 f5 37. Bxf5 Qd5 38. Be6 Rh8+ 39. Bh3 Nxg6 40. Rf7+ Kh6 41. Qxg6+ Kxg6 42. R1f6+ Kg5 43. Rf5+ Kg6 44. R7f6+ Kh7 45. Rh5+ Kg7 46. Rg5+ Kh7 47. Bf5# *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;I will try to pin all the games I can find in the show so this list is likely to grow.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24511" LastEditorUserId="2946" LastEditDate="2021-01-13T00:07:01.913" LastActivityDate="2021-01-13T00:07:01.913" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32771" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32768" CreationDate="2020-10-31T08:39:52.927" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes it correctly describes the  life of a chess player. Wesley So has been adopted. The face of Alexandra Kosteniuk. Prodigy of Morphy. Life of Fischer against the Russians. Drinks of Alekhine. Beth Harmon is the combination of the lives of the greatest chess players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7281" LastActivityDate="2020-10-31T08:39:52.927" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32772" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32760" CreationDate="2020-10-31T08:48:09.970" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes. A direct open tactical style of play is the fastest route to chess mastery. Look at the games of Morphy. It allows to commit faster mistakes, therefore faster learning. Play dangerously&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7281" LastActivityDate="2020-10-31T08:48:09.970" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32773" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32760" CreationDate="2020-10-31T10:15:50.767" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sure! Playing a highly tactical position that you aren't used to can help you train your tactics, but there are plenty of non-gambit alternatives that are also rich in tactics (think for instance of most lines in the Sicilian defense)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastActivityDate="2020-10-31T10:15:50.767" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32774" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32757" CreationDate="2020-10-31T14:07:34.783" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I use chessbase personally. I can bulk perform tactical analysis.&#xA;Alternatively you can download an engine and learn to program with it to perform bulk analysis / positional analysis calculations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24511" LastActivityDate="2020-10-31T14:07:34.783" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32776" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9707" CreationDate="2020-11-01T00:01:04.573" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Without computer analysis it is a move that I would not make.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I do not value a tempo to be equivalent compensation for king safety.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Computers may do better,  but what would you do in a ten minute game if black played nxp then bxp pinning your horsie and having two pawns, plus your exposed king?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25125" LastActivityDate="2020-11-01T00:01:04.573" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32777" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32754" CreationDate="2020-11-01T00:10:03.563" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Most sites are way overgenerous with their ratings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And they are all inconsistent between them too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One factor that matters is the strength of the group who are competing.  Your tactics cohort may differ a lot from your online opponents.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25126" LastActivityDate="2020-11-01T00:10:03.563" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32778" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-11-01T06:15:38.240" Score="1" ViewCount="143" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm fairly new to chess. I'm practicing against 1500~ rated opponents/engines on chess.com. My openings and middlegame seem to go well. After every game, the engine analysis says I'm always up +1 ~ +3 for the majority of the game. But at the end, I always seem to lose by a blunder. Every game is a &amp;quot;giveaway&amp;quot; according to the analysis engine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems my trouble is actually converting positional advantages. Do you have any tips or areas I should study to avoid this? Is this a stamina issue, as in I start to lose concentration as the game goes on?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25128" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-11-02T06:09:44.683" LastActivityDate="2020-11-02T21:49:19.620" Title="Tips for converting my advantage in the middlegame and the endgame" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;training&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32779" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32778" CreationDate="2020-11-01T10:15:07.323" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this a stamina issue? (as in I start to lose concentration as the&#xA;game goes on?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No. If you are consistently reaching the endgame then it is a &amp;quot;lack of endgame knowledge&amp;quot; problem.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do you know when KP v K is a win and when it is a draw? Do you know how to win the Capablanca pawn endgame as white? Do you know what you have to do as black to draw (if white goes wrong)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[title &amp;quot;Capablanca Pawn Endgame&amp;quot;]&#xA;[fen &amp;quot;6k1/7p/8/8/8/8/6PP/6K1 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In short, do you actually know how to win a won endgame when it isn't just trivial?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are not consistently reaching the endgame then you need to work on tactics.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Actually, you probably need to work on both endgames and tactics.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-11-01T10:15:07.323" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32780" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32765" CreationDate="2020-11-01T13:08:26.483" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;This has pretty much been covered by the other questions: there is no rule specifically forbidding this practice, but it might be considered distracting or annoying.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One thing the other answers didn’t cover: hovering your hand over the pieces when it’s your opponents turn. I saw, in a club tournament, a player did this when they were low on time and the arbiter warned them to keep their hand away from the board until it was their turn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25131" LastActivityDate="2020-11-01T13:08:26.483" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32781" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32756" CreationDate="2020-11-01T14:11:02.660" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;no, i think its just the strength of the computer is matched with the computers image like the hikaru nakamura computer. It will play at his strength level.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24920" LastActivityDate="2020-11-01T14:11:02.660" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32782" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-11-01T15:02:52.010" Score="2" ViewCount="173" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am playing with black and have just called check on the white king. It is now the white players turn, no matter what move the white king makes it will lead to check. Does this mean black has won or is it considered a draw?&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/GYaFK.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/GYaFK.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &amp;quot;r5nR/p2b4/npp1pk2/3p3Q/P2P1p2/R1P1qP1N/1P2PKB1/8 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25134" LastEditorUserId="924" LastEditDate="2020-11-01T20:33:01.893" LastActivityDate="2020-11-01T20:33:01.893" Title="When is it considered a win vs a draw?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;threefold-repetition&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32783" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32782" CreationDate="2020-11-01T18:42:22.377" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;This position leads to a threefold repetition (which is a DRAW), as White can move the King to e1/f1 and ...Qc1+ forces the King back to f2, where ...Qe3+ forces the King back again.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As Black is material down and has no compensation, Black should force the draw by repetition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [FEN &amp;quot;r5nR/p2b4/npp1pk2/3p3Q/P2P1p2/R1P1qP1N/1P2PKB1/8 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. Ke1 Qc1+ Kf2 Qe3+ Kf1 Qc1+ Kf2 Qe3+&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15478" LastActivityDate="2020-11-01T18:42:22.377" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32785" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32758" CreationDate="2020-11-02T01:48:16.710" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think it's a good idea to rook lift this early in crazy house. Lichess's carzy house computer actually says that 1.e4 gives white a +2.3 advantage and 1.a4 gives white -1.0. In crazy house, you have to get your pieces out as fast as possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24920" LastActivityDate="2020-11-02T01:48:16.710" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32786" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-11-02T03:58:02.013" Score="4" ViewCount="536" Body="&lt;p&gt;When reviewing the nature of the pieces of various chess variants, namely the xiangqi cannon, I asked about its &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_cannon&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;history&lt;/a&gt;. I was surprised that the dates of its mentions did not match 8th century Xiangqi and the invention of the cannon in the 12th century. What piece is that the one mentioned in the writings from before the 12th century about the Xiangqi, which is supposedly the cannon?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25010" LastEditorUserId="25010" LastEditDate="2020-11-02T14:54:55.347" LastActivityDate="2020-11-02T14:54:55.347" Title="Controversy over the Xiangqi cannon piece?" Tags="&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;history&gt;&lt;unorthodox-pieces&gt;&lt;xiangqi&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32787" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="6483" CreationDate="2020-11-02T04:11:27.153" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;A nice book for beginners is &lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.gambitbooks.com/books/How_to_Beat_Your_Dad_at_Chess.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;How To Beat Your Dad At Chess&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;. It lists 50 tactics - mostly checkmating attacks. Each tactic appears on two pages, with a brief explanation and a few diagrams showing examples of the tactic in use. Usually there are no more than two or three moves made between the diagrams, so it is reasonably easy to follow between the diagrams. &lt;a href=&quot;https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/1901983056&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;The book is also available from Amazon&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Addendum: In spite of the title, this book is not just for kids! While I bought it for my chess playing adolescent, I'm enjoying going through it and learning mating attacks that would probably not occur to me otherwise.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="224" LastEditorUserId="224" LastEditDate="2020-11-02T16:26:54.983" LastActivityDate="2020-11-02T16:26:54.983" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32788" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1195" CreationDate="2020-11-02T05:16:17.923" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, the book is in spanish, published by &amp;quot;Editorial Sopena Argentina S.A.&amp;quot;., 1978.&#xA;The title is &amp;quot;Match por el Título Mundial Capablanca - Alekhine, Buenos Aires, 1927.&#xA;Has 174 pages. Is a gem.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25140" LastActivityDate="2020-11-02T05:16:17.923" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32789" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32786" CreationDate="2020-11-02T07:32:02.517" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The character 砲 (pào) gives a significant clue:  compared to 炮, which is homophonous, the radicals of these characters are different.  砲 uses the 石 radical, which means &lt;em&gt;stone&lt;/em&gt;, and 炮 uses the 火 radical, which means &lt;em&gt;fire&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although cannons were not yet invented until, as you say, the 12th century, &lt;strong&gt;trebuchets&lt;/strong&gt; -- weapons of super long range that used &lt;strong&gt;stone&lt;/strong&gt; -- predates the cannon by hundreds of years.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21817" LastActivityDate="2020-11-02T07:32:02.517" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32790" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32836" CreationDate="2020-11-02T08:55:12.340" Score="3" ViewCount="250" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found a few publicly accessible biographies of Judit Polgar, including details of her early life. According to the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.juditpolgar.com/bio&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;biography on Judit’s website&lt;/a&gt;, she was 9 when she first won an international chess tournament. According to &lt;a href=&quot;https://successstory.com/people/judit-polgar&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this SuccessStory article&lt;/a&gt;, she began participating in tournaments at the age of 6. According to &lt;a href=&quot;https://allthatsinteresting.com/judit-polgar&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this article from “All That’s Interesting”&lt;/a&gt;, she was able to beat her father by the age of 5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But how old was she when she learned how to play?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19880" LastEditorUserId="19880" LastEditDate="2020-11-25T19:56:33.950" LastActivityDate="2020-11-25T19:56:33.950" Title="How old was Judit Polgar when she learned to play chess?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;history&gt;&lt;famous-players&gt;&lt;children&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32791" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="777" CreationDate="2020-11-02T10:51:52.880" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Following the thread you linked and doing some digging from there, I found a PDF of a &lt;a href=&quot;http://arbitri.lombardiascacchi.com/Chesscafe/2011_01.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;2011 Arbiter's Notebook column&lt;/a&gt; which addresses this issue.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Although the player of the&#xA;white pieces will lose the right to castle in both diagrams on the next move,&#xA;the rule states that in the actual position the player has not yet lost the right to&#xA;castle. This means that if same positions appear again on the board, these&#xA;positions will be considered as different.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;His first example position appears to have been butchered at some point in its hosting history, but the second one seems to be intact and makes his point clear; the &amp;quot;right&amp;quot; to castle contributes to the position's identity even though castling is an illegal move. I see no reason to suppose this does not extend to en passant, contrary to the other answers here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Whether this &amp;quot;illegal right to castle&amp;quot; also covers positions where there is a piece between the rook and the King is unclear to me. I suspect Gijissen would say it does not, but I find it hard to accept that illegal movement through check is fundamentally different from illegal movement through pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25142" LastActivityDate="2020-11-02T10:51:52.880" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32793" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14705" CreationDate="2020-11-02T15:52:32.757" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am very late to this question, but I have used &lt;a href=&quot;https://apps.apple.com/us/app/chess-score-pad/id518018730&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess Score Pad (for iOS only)&lt;/a&gt; to record my sons games for the past 7 years. Arbiters have been happy for me to stand behind my son and record the game with this software because it has no engine (and if you try and change to something else the PGN is closed - no more entry possible). The best part is it allows illegal moves to be entered. It's perfect for recording young peoples games!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25145" LastActivityDate="2020-11-02T15:52:32.757" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32794" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29445" CreationDate="2020-11-02T16:16:24.367" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;We have a &lt;a href=&quot;https://fide.com/news/796&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;partial answer&lt;/a&gt; from FIDE:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;WHEREAS, since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, it has been possible for only a reduced number of FIDE rated tournaments to take place. As a result, it is likely that many players who would under normal conditions be playing rated games will find that they are unable to do so and will therefore be marked as inactive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The FIDE Council has considered this problem and has decided on the advice of the Qualification Commission (QC) that, from the November 2020 list UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE, &lt;strong&gt;the period specified in the definition of inactivity will be increased from 12 months to 24 months.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-11-02T16:16:24.367" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32795" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-11-02T18:38:25.853" Score="10" ViewCount="3270" Body="&lt;p&gt;I play the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caro%E2%80%93Kann_Defence&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Caro–Kann Defence&lt;/a&gt; against 1.e4 as black, and for whatever reason it feels like I get the following line way too frequently:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3. exd5 cxd5 4. Nc3?!&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This line is a &amp;quot;non-critical&amp;quot; line, so much so that I just got an opening book on the Caro-Kann and there are a whopping 0 lines that discuss how to play against this setup. It's very rarely played in the masters databases, but on lichess.org it's the 4th most common move in this position, and you can also reach the same position by playing &lt;code&gt;1.e4 c6 2.Nc3 d5 3.exd5?! cxd5 4.d4&lt;/code&gt; which isn't too uncommon.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similar to the c3 knight in the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richter%E2%80%93Veresov_Attack&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Richter–Veresov Attack&lt;/a&gt; or the &amp;quot;Jobava&amp;quot; London, mostly I just see people dismissing this knight, claiming off-hand that it's bad, that it &amp;quot;doesn't belong there&amp;quot;. But for whatever reason, when I look at my results in the different lines in the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caro%E2%80%93Kann_Defence#Exchange_Variation:_3.exd5_cxd5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Exchange Variation&lt;/a&gt;, this is my worst line! I'm probably running into problems with a small sample size, but I'm wondering if anyone has any general tips for how to make white feel this &amp;quot;bad knight&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15395" LastEditorUserId="15395" LastEditDate="2020-11-05T15:57:42.163" LastActivityDate="2020-11-05T15:57:42.163" Title="How can I punish the &quot;bad&quot; knight on c3?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;&lt;caro-kann&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32796" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32795" CreationDate="2020-11-02T19:20:22.127" Score="11" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm wondering if anyone has any general tips for how to make white&#xA;feel this &amp;quot;bad knight&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The fact that you manage to put &amp;quot;bad&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;bad knight&amp;quot; in scare quotes shows that there is some hope for you. White does not have a bad position. I suspect that this line isn't played much at master level because it isn't the best way to squeeze every last scintilla of advantage out of white's starting advantage of having the first move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But there is no universe in which you can look at white's position and seriously think that white has a bad position which black must punish. If you think like that as black then you are on the way to losing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Four moves into the game and white has already -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Staked a claim to the center with a pawn on d4 (black matches this with a pawn on d5)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Developed a piece to a good central square, the knight on c3 (black is behind but it is black's turn so can remedy this on the next move)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Has free development for both bishops (black has free development for only one bishop)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White is not worse. Black is not better. Has black completely equalized? It doesn't look like it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, your best approach is to accept that white's first move advantage may have decreased slightly but your job remains the same during the opening - try and equalize via good development. How you develop your pieces will depend to a certain extent on how white develops. Pay attention to all the things you normally do during the opening and aim to reach an even middlegame where you can try and outplay your opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At all costs avoid trying to punish your opponent. This will only lead to bad moves and an early loss.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-11-02T19:20:22.127" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32799" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32795" CreationDate="2020-11-02T22:00:33.297" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just what is so bad about the White knight and its position? 4. Nf6 for Black is the best option, with a slight theoretical edge in scoring probability in the endgames, although getting there would take accurate play.  Additionally, there are many moves that look plausible that would fail to do well. Overall, the position is very drawish.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25147" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-11-03T03:31:53.040" LastActivityDate="2020-11-03T03:31:53.040" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32800" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32765" CreationDate="2020-11-02T22:49:58.697" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is pointing at pieces during your turn okay?  Regardless of whether or not such gestures are permitted I try to avoid them during play.  A chess player should avoid providing any insight into their thought process or mood during the game.  Sharing such information may give the opponent an edge.  As others have said, attempting to distract or confuse the opponent by presenting false information by gesturing towards pieces could cross the line of proper chess etiquette during tournament play.  However, I have seen this done in casual games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now touching pieces is an entirely different matter.  I thought that touch a piece, move &lt;strong&gt;that&lt;/strong&gt; piece, was standard practice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;...There are tournaments where if you touch a piece as long as you&#xA;don't let go of the piece (unless moved back to its original&#xA;position), does not constitute a move, eg; &lt;strong&gt;I could hold my hand on&#xA;my queen, pick it up, then put it back down in the same square, and&#xA;then move a rook.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25148" LastEditorUserId="25148" LastEditDate="2020-11-02T23:22:53.973" LastActivityDate="2020-11-02T23:22:53.973" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32801" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-11-03T06:33:38.417" Score="6" ViewCount="762" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've started reading about the 1960 Tal vs Botvinnik match and I'm planning on studying many annotated games like these. I was curious about what benefits I can get out of doing this. I've already noticed that I've become more able to read the moves and keep the position in my head. This has strengthened my calculation, but are there any other benefits? Will I start playing more accurately and like the players whose games I study?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24850" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-11-03T13:58:46.337" LastActivityDate="2020-11-16T12:29:35.483" Title="Benefits of studying annotated grandmaster games" Tags="&lt;grandmaster&gt;&lt;master-games&gt;&lt;study&gt;&lt;annotation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32802" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32801" CreationDate="2020-11-03T08:53:40.490" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Tal vs Botvinnik 1960 is very good as Tal is quite verbose in commentary and what he was thinking about during the game. In addition to the benefits you mentioned, the annotations help you understand what strong players think about in different positions and how they approach the game. Particularly useful is the strong player's positional understanding and ideas in the middlegame. If you happen to play the same openings as those in the annotated games, then you also may get some insights in typical motifs of the opening.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3872" LastActivityDate="2020-11-03T08:53:40.490" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32803" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32801" CreationDate="2020-11-03T16:46:15.087" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Playing over many GM games is excellent. You get used to seeing good moves which improves your intuition at playing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Annotation is helpful but only when you have a real question about what was done.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In general things that happen and are explained are rare and not that useful.  Far better to study tactics than obsess about annotations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would suggest you play over all GM games in a tournament book but especially those that use the opening you have decided to focus on.&#xA;NOTE:  you should select ONE opening for white and black and master that opening not spread  yourself too thin trying to learn several openings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25155" LastActivityDate="2020-11-03T16:46:15.087" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32804" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32756" CreationDate="2020-11-03T17:16:02.000" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have spent some time playing the lower-rated bots, and can confirm they tend to have different &amp;quot;personalities&amp;quot;. I'm not a strong enough player to explain exactly how they are different. However I have observed that some are more aggressive, and tend to gravitate towards particular openings depending on the color.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know that Hikaru recently did a series of videos on youtube where he played against bots. When I saw the new bots, I had a feeling that it was for the purpose you describe.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24319" LastActivityDate="2020-11-03T17:16:02.000" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32805" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="1878" CreationDate="2020-11-03T18:57:04.287" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;A gambit by any other name is still a gambit. Using your pawn as a sacrifice in order to control the action/ space on the board is the choice of the player. I concur w/ the notion that it’s not necessarily a sacrifice if the means justify the ends. Basically, it’s just a term that has been assigned to a particular strategy... is all!!!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25157" LastActivityDate="2020-11-03T18:57:04.287" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32806" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32756" CreationDate="2020-11-03T19:02:39.133" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;We don't know for sure. Chess.com is closed source so we will never know for sure. One thing I can tell you for sure, you're &lt;strong&gt;NOT&lt;/strong&gt; playing the real Nakamura. It's nothing more than a tuned chess engine wrapped by smart marketing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why don't we take a look of PlayMagnus &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/a5ws9t/question_about_playmagnus/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/a5ws9t/question_about_playmagnus/&lt;/a&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The higher levels of the app actually makes some attempts to play like&#xA;Magnus did at the various ages. It isn't nearly as good as I would&#xA;like it to be (I was handicapped by an extreme shortage of development&#xA;time and not having anything better than my MacBook available for&#xA;tuning and testing), and I hope to find the time to do a better job&#xA;some day, but at least it is true that analysis of Magnus' style,&#xA;strength and opening choices through the years played some role in the&#xA;development of these levels.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The lower levels, however, are pure fiction. We didn't even have any&#xA;games played by Magnus at these ages. We made these levels with the&#xA;aim that every chess player - even someone who has just learned the&#xA;rules - should be able to find some beatable level. Magnus 5, the&#xA;lowest level of all, plays completely random legal moves. It has&#xA;nothing to do with any research of how Magnus or any other 5 year old&#xA;plays chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So think of like paying chess.com for a new careful strong tuned chess AI. Sorry, no Nakamura here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't know what exactly was tuned. My guess:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Playing strength&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Thinking time&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Static evaluation&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Search algorithms&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Piece square tables&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Search depth etc&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2020-11-03T19:10:15.453" LastActivityDate="2020-11-03T19:10:15.453" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32807" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32795" CreationDate="2020-11-03T22:10:22.877" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;My answer is to just play chess- playing on the queenside as normal is a good idea in this structure even without the pawn on c3, since here you get to knock away the knight. Pressure versus d4 is also easier without a c3 pawn, which is nice. Black is better than normal, but it's not really anything you can get a instant win from- this just doesn't even come close to proving an advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23100" LastActivityDate="2020-11-03T22:10:22.877" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32808" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32810" CreationDate="2020-11-03T22:43:10.310" Score="8" ViewCount="1543" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here's a chess puzzle that gave a confusing response.&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chesspuzzle.net/Puzzle/52112&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://chesspuzzle.net/Puzzle/52112&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;5R2/1p6/p4Ppk/3r4/7p/1P6/P7/1K6 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Rh8+ Kg5 2. f7 Rf5 3. f8=R&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you play &lt;code&gt;f8=Q&lt;/code&gt; in this final position, you will not fail the puzzle, but be told &amp;quot;There is a better move...&amp;quot; (&lt;code&gt;f8=R&lt;/code&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It seems inevitable that the black captures the promoted piece, and the result is the same after white recaptures.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Incidentally, &lt;code&gt;f8=Q&lt;/code&gt; was played in the game. &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/games/view/15563079&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.chess.com/games/view/15563079&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is more curious, is that I have played other puzzles on this site that allow multiple moves in a position for continuation, and my assumption therefore was that it only suggests a &amp;quot;better move&amp;quot; when your move doesn't change the theoretical outcome of the game, but gives significantly lower advantage (i.e. still decisively winning, but slower).  This would suggest that chesspuzzle.net has evaluated &lt;code&gt;f8=Q&lt;/code&gt; to be an inaccuracy of some sort.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there any reasoning to be found for this?  Or is it just a strange computer evaluation?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have tried inputting the position on the analysis board on lichess.org, and it flip flops between the two moves as the depth builds, but eventually starts showing &lt;code&gt;f8=Q&lt;/code&gt; with a consistent advantage. (The opposite of chesspuzzle.net)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This seems strange also, as in my perhaps naïve reasoning explained initially, both moves should be identical.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25158" LastActivityDate="2020-11-05T08:05:04.527" Title="Why does this puzzle offer f8=R as better than f8=Q?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;pawn-promotion&gt;&lt;puzzles&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32809" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32808" CreationDate="2020-11-03T23:39:27.627" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;For an engine, it makes no difference if you promote to a rook or a queen. In both cases, your advantage is huge. There is no real resistance for black, but his best chances, if any, are to give his rook for the promoted piece. 3.f8R Rxf8 and 3.f8Q Rxf8 result in the same position. No difference.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But chess puzzles have their own etiquette. And one of the unwritten rules: the less the value of the promoted piece, the more beauty. Underpromotion to a knight or a bishop would not add more beauty but are a blunder, because the black passed pawns are strong now. So a rook or queen it has to be. Both are winning, and the underpromotion is in puzzle terms the „better“ move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20096" LastActivityDate="2020-11-03T23:39:27.627" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32810" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32808" CreationDate="2020-11-04T00:40:24.137" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;If anything, promoting to a queen is the better choice, as it forces Black to exchange their rook. For promoting to a rook, Stockfish NNUE actually slightly prefers moving the f5-rook away instead of playing ...Rxf8 (although any continuation gives White a large winning advantage). So at the very least Black is given a choice.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But even if we were certain it's best for Black to play ...Rxf8 if White promotes to a rook, there would still be no reason to say that promoting to a rook is better than promoting to a queen - both lead to the same outcome. What possibly happened is that the site's computer calculated one line further/differently, and arrived at an evaluation that was higher in the line for promoting to a rook. Although since you said the site allows multiple solutions to sometimes be accepted, this seems like a bug in their software.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2020-11-04T00:40:24.137" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32811" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32795" CreationDate="2020-11-04T00:53:12.977" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;The knight is badly misplaced on c3 here. If you protect your d5-pawn with ...e6, what is the knight supposed to do? It doesn't put any pressure on the d5-pawn since there are no White pawns helping to attack it. If White's c-pawn were on c4 then the knight would be completely fine on c3. But now, even if all of White's pieces were attacking the d5-pawn, it wouldn't really matter since there's no White pawn involved in the attack. Capturing on d5 would entail sacrificing a piece for two pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On c3 the knight also can't move to e4, which is firmly controlled by the d5-pawn. The best plan for it is to maneuver somewhere else, such as to the g3-square via e2. But now White will have spent 3 tempi in total just to put the knight on a mediocre square. Also, as NoseKnowsAll mentioned, with the c-pawn being unable to move to c3, Bd3 is in danger of running into ...Nb4; and, due to the c2-pawn, Qb3 ideas aren't possible (making it safer for you to develop your light-squared bishop).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's no quick way to punish White's play, so just develop for now. E.g., ...Nf6, ...Bf5/...Bg4, ...e6, ...Be7/...Bd6, ...0-0, ...Nc6. Then, you could consider starting a queenside attack with ...a6 + ...b5. Maybe later on White will move the c3-knight away and push the c-pawn to c3, so then you'd be in a position to launch a minority attack with ...b4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another plan is to instead develop your king's knight to e7 (after having played ...Bd6), and aim to play ...f6 + ...e5 later in the game. Because White's c-pawn isn't helping to pressure the d5-pawn, this plan has a higher chance of succeeding than it normally would.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2020-11-04T00:53:12.977" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32812" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32756" CreationDate="2020-11-04T05:19:08.240" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;They said about individual bot (strengths and weaknesses) but haven't disclosed about the bots, representing professional players.&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/oEg8B.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/oEg8B.png&quot; alt=&quot;&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23898" LastActivityDate="2020-11-04T05:19:08.240" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32813" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32827" CreationDate="2020-11-04T07:50:17.003" Score="1" ViewCount="278" Body="&lt;p&gt;As a total newbie, I've been solving some medium-level problems on &lt;a href=&quot;https://chesstempo.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chesstempo&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;a href=&quot;https://chesstempo.com/chess-tactics/154340&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;This one&lt;/a&gt; caught my eye. We play as Black after White's first move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;6k1/5p1p/5bp1/p7/P1r3PP/2n2N2/4NP2/1R4K1 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Rb8+ Kg7 2. g5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What I can't understand is why White plays g5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is a quite poor attack on the bishop as Black then plays Ne2, capturing the White knight and checking the king. Therefore White loses the knight and does not get to capture the bishop. Instead, White could have at least exchanged the knights:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;1K/2PN/2N2n/PP3r1P/7p/1pb/pkp/6R w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Nf6 Rf6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I this reckon to be a fine attack on h4 pawn as the White knight (which is protecting it) should be moved not to be captured by the rook. Yet, from White's viewpoint, I believe having the knights exchanged and the pawn captured is better than having the knight captured and leaving Black with all the pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What is the point of such a move? What am I not seeing? Why are the moves I made (Nf6, Rf6) not right?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21403" LastEditorUserId="21403" LastEditDate="2020-12-17T08:30:14.560" LastActivityDate="2020-12-17T08:30:14.560" Title="Why does White play g5?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;check&gt;&lt;puzzles&gt;&lt;exchange&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32814" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32815" CreationDate="2020-11-04T11:25:25.630" Score="4" ViewCount="91" Body="&lt;p&gt;While watching &lt;em&gt;The Queen's Gambit&lt;/em&gt; my partner asked me: why do they say &amp;quot;checkmate&amp;quot;? But she wanted to know what is the origin of this expression, not its meaning. And I realized I didn't actually know. So, what is the origin of the expression &amp;quot;checkmate&amp;quot; and its etymology?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3757" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-11-04T12:33:02.570" LastActivityDate="2020-11-04T12:33:02.570" Title="Where does the expression &quot;checkmate&quot; come from?" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;history&gt;&lt;terminology&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32815" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32814" CreationDate="2020-11-04T11:25:25.630" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/checkmate&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Merriam-Webster dictionary&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;em&gt;checkmate&lt;/em&gt; comes from the Middle English &lt;em&gt;chekmaten&lt;/em&gt;, which is derived from the Anglo-French &lt;em&gt;eschec mat&lt;/em&gt;. And this came from the Persian &lt;em&gt;shāh māt&lt;/em&gt; through the Arabic language.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Persian word &lt;em&gt;shāh&lt;/em&gt; means king. (With a definite article, it becomes &lt;em&gt;as-shāh&lt;/em&gt;, the king.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I found two different interpretations for &lt;em&gt;māt&lt;/em&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;unable to escape (&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/checkmate&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Merriam-Webster&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;dead (&lt;a href=&quot;https://dle.rae.es/mate?m=form&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Dictionary of the Spanish Royal Academy&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://stella.atilf.fr/Dendien/scripts/tlfiv5/visusel.exe?75;s=2924604180;r=2;nat=;sol=0;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Treasure of the French Language&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, &lt;em&gt;as-shāh māt&lt;/em&gt; -&amp;gt; checkmate = the king is dead!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3757" LastActivityDate="2020-11-04T11:25:25.630" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32816" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-11-04T15:00:29.853" Score="5" ViewCount="2230" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm going through the &lt;em&gt;100 endgames you must know&lt;/em&gt; book on Chessable and stumbled upon something I don't understand. This position with white to move is described as a draw starting with 1. Kh1. I figured well why wouldn't 1. Kf1 be a draw and I put the exercise into Lichess analyses, which evaluates the position as -2,5, no matter which move white plays.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why isn't Stockfish able to evaluate this position as 0.0? It says 'depth 64'. Wouldn't it only need to calculate 50 moves to establish that this is a fortress and thereby a draw?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;8/8/1n6/8/8/5k1p/7P/6K1 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Pcdjk.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Pcdjk.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25161" LastEditorUserId="25131" LastEditDate="2020-11-05T07:45:55.010" LastActivityDate="2020-11-05T07:45:55.010" Title="Why doesn’t Stockfish evaluate this fortress as 0.0?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;fortress&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32817" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32816" CreationDate="2020-11-04T15:35:31.477" Score="15" Body="&lt;p&gt;Depth 64 means 64 &lt;em&gt;half moves&lt;/em&gt;, it includes moves both by white and black. It isn't close to being able detect draws by means of the 50 move rule (100 plies). Especially since that is only the depth of the deepest line in the search, and to conclude it was certainly a draw, Stockfish would have to look at a huge number of lines that all eventually draw by the 50 move rule.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Endgame draws like this are notoriously difficult for engines, they have no good way to judge &amp;quot;progress&amp;quot; in their calculations. There are some attempts being tried out but they aren't at the level of Stockfish yet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is why &lt;em&gt;tablebases&lt;/em&gt; were invented -- huge databases of all positions with up to some number of pieces (7 at the moment I think). They give an immediate answer. This is a five-piece position and a Stockfish configured to use tablebases would immediately know it is a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2020-11-04T15:35:31.477" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32818" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4375" CreationDate="2020-11-04T17:05:30.633" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;We run the annual &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.sajcc.co.za/about/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;South African Junior Chess Championships&lt;/a&gt; -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The history of this tournament dates back more than 30 years and the&#xA;tournament typically attracts in excess of 2,500 junior chess players&#xA;and officials&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25163" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2020-11-04T17:32:21.780" LastActivityDate="2020-11-04T17:32:21.780" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32819" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32816" CreationDate="2020-11-04T17:33:57.047" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is an easy position for Stockfish with tablebase, but very hard without it. The only way Stockfish can work out it's a draw is search all the way through 50-move draw. Otherwise, it'd think the position is winning for Black because Black has a knight up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your browser may not have the capability to search such high depth. That's exactly the reason why we need tablebase in high quality analysis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastActivityDate="2020-11-04T17:33:57.047" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32821" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32823" CreationDate="2020-11-04T17:46:59.657" Score="2" ViewCount="132" Body="&lt;p&gt;For some odd reason I'm searching for a game, or rather a position, where one player can force a win via checkmate (can be check in n, where n is any number), but they can also force a draw via perpetual check (again, maybe the perpetual check comes about a few steps later, but the player has an assured path to it).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A real, historical game would be a bonus, and a game between two skilled players will be even better. But constructed positions, even weak ones, will be appreciated, too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25164" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-11-04T19:48:38.653" LastActivityDate="2020-11-05T07:20:46.223" Title="A position with a choice between checkmate and perpetual check" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;problems&gt;&lt;master-games&gt;&lt;perpetual&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32822" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-11-04T18:09:01.230" Score="2" ViewCount="107" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've read that you want to make pawn breaks by advancing your pawn on the file next to your most advanced pawn in these closed centre positions. What exactly is the reason behind this. Is it just to open up the files for the rooks and why specifically with this pawn? I'm finding this topic incredibly confusing so any help will be appreciated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24850" LastActivityDate="2020-11-04T21:58:20.690" Title="When and where is it a good idea to make a pawn break in a closed centre position?" Tags="&lt;pawns&gt;&lt;pawn-structure&gt;&lt;closed-position&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32823" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32821" CreationDate="2020-11-04T18:23:28.287" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is one game which should match your request (Swiderski, Rudolf vs. Nimzowitsch, Aaron):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;    &#xA;1.c4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Bg5 Nbd7 5.e3 c6 6.Nf3 Be7 7.Qc2 O-O 8.Rd1 Re8 9.Bd3 dxc4 10.Bxc4 Nd5 11.Bxe7 Qxe7 12.O-O b5 13.Bxd5 cxd5 14.Nxb5 Ba6 15. Qa4 Bxb5 16.Qxb5 Reb8 17.Qe2 a5 18.Rc1 Qd8 19.Rc3 a4 20.Rfc1 Qa5 21.Rc7 Nb6 22.R1c5 Qb4 23.a3 Qb3 24.Ng5 Qa2 25.h3 Rf8 26.Kh2 h6 27.Nxe6 Rfc8 28. Qf3 Rf8 29.Qg3 g6 30.Qxg6+ fxg6 31.Rg7+ Kh8 32.Rcc7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the ending position white has a forced mate, e.g.:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;r4r1k/2R3R1/1n2N1pp/3p4/p2P4/P3P2P/qP3PPK/8 b - - 3 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Nd7 2. Rcxd7 Rf7 3. Rdxf7 Qxb2 4. Rh7+ Kg8 5. Rfg7#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Alternatively, he can force a draw, e.g:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;r4r1k/2R3R1/1n2N1pp/3p4/p2P4/P3P2P/qP3PPK/8 b - - 3 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Nd7 2. Rcxd7 Rf7 3. Rdxf7 Qxb2 4. Rh7+ Kg8 5. Rhg7 Kh8 6. Rh7+ Kg8 7. Rhg7 Kh8&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Probably any game ending in a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Checkmate_pattern#Blind_swine_mate&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Blind Swine Mate&lt;/a&gt; would work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8154" LastActivityDate="2020-11-04T18:23:28.287" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32824" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32822" CreationDate="2020-11-04T19:21:21.230" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The only reason is that you gain an advantage by doing it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In some cases it is just to avoid losing advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pawns diagonally across from each other are NOT a break.&#xA;Breaks come when you take pawns or push a pawn where it can take two others if they do not capture your pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25167" LastActivityDate="2020-11-04T19:21:21.230" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32825" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32813" CreationDate="2020-11-04T19:31:31.780" Score="-5" Body="&lt;p&gt;White is a patzer.  Or this was a very fast speed game or he was in severe time trouble.  Or the position is wrong.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After white g5,  black plays nxr and white plays pxb losing the exchange.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;white has no way to mate with the horsies and black wins easily.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25167" LastActivityDate="2020-11-04T19:31:31.780" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32826" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32808" CreationDate="2020-11-04T19:34:22.237" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is a quirk/bug of the software used by that site to pick moves expected in puzzles.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25167" LastActivityDate="2020-11-04T19:34:22.237" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32827" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32813" CreationDate="2020-11-04T19:49:10.867" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Black doesn't actually win a piece.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After 1.Rb8 Kg7 2.g5!? Nxe2, White will parry the check by playing 3.Kf1, when both the Bf6 and the Ne2 are under attack. You cannot save both pieces with 3...Nd4 attacking f3 and hoping for 4.Nxd4? Bxd4 because 4.gf6 is check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As a consequence, Black wins a pawn and retains a winning position, but they don't pocket a piece.&#xA;Alternatives on the second move to 2.g5 are hardly better for White because their Pg4 is hanging with check, e.g. 2.Nxc3 Rxg4! (and not 2...Rxc3) 3.Kf1 Bxc3 with, once again, an extra pawn and a winning position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14079" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-12-16T06:03:55.903" LastActivityDate="2020-12-16T06:03:55.903" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32828" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32808" CreationDate="2020-11-04T21:06:15.437" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It seems as if the puzzle is based on &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.365chess.com/game.php?gid=4189944&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;an actual game&lt;/a&gt; played between Jorden van Foreest and Martin Petrov in April 2019.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you click on the button to show the solution, it shows the full game, of which the puzzle is but a fragment. It looks to me as they want you to solve the puzzle by following the game as played, not by coming up with another solution.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The curious thing is that &lt;em&gt;365Chess.com&lt;/em&gt; has the promotion as a Queen, while &lt;em&gt;ChessPuzzle.net&lt;/em&gt; has it as a Rook. &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/events/2019-grenke-chess-open/09-Van_Foreest_Jorden-Petrov_Martin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Analysis on &lt;em&gt;Chess.com&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt; puts promotion to a Queen at 0.94, while promotion to a Rook is 0.96, even though Black's next move is Rxf8 in both cases.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12031" LastEditorUserId="12031" LastEditDate="2020-11-05T08:05:04.527" LastActivityDate="2020-11-05T08:05:04.527" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32829" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32822" CreationDate="2020-11-04T21:58:20.690" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Opening a file for your rooks is one good reason to play a pawn break. Although, you should make sure that opening that file doesn't help your opponent's pieces more than it helps yours. As for breaking through near your most advanced pawn, this isn't really a rule that has to be followed closely. But the idea behind it is that once your advanced pawn becomes unblocked, it can push forward into the enemy position. Maybe this will allow it to become a passed pawn. Or, it could open lines for the rest of your pieces to break through. This may be more dangerous for your opponent than if you had broken through further back on the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2020-11-04T21:58:20.690" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32830" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="14795" CreationDate="2020-11-05T05:38:23.090" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a game (&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1012556&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Alekhine vs Fletcher, London simultaneous 1928&lt;/a&gt;) where knight and bishop win (with queen sacrifice).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Event &amp;quot;Simul, 6b&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Site &amp;quot;Gambit Chess Rooms, London ENG&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Date &amp;quot;1928.06.08&amp;quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &amp;quot;?&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Round &amp;quot;?&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Result &amp;quot;1-0&amp;quot;]&#xA;[White &amp;quot;Alexander Alekhine&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Black &amp;quot;Alan Linnell Fletcher&amp;quot;]&#xA;[ECO &amp;quot;A31&amp;quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &amp;quot;?&amp;quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &amp;quot;?&amp;quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &amp;quot;63&amp;quot;]&#xA;[StartPly &amp;quot;50&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Nf3 Nf6 2. c4 c5 3. d4 Nc6 4. d5 Nb8 5. Nc3 d6 6. g3 g6&#xA;7. Bg2 Bg7 8. O-O O-O 9. Bf4 h6 10. Qd2 Kh7 11. e4 Nh5 12. Be3&#xA;Nd7 13. Rae1 Rb8 14. Nh4 Ndf6 15. h3 Ng8 16. g4 Nhf6 17. f4 e6&#xA;18. Nf3 exd5 19. cxd5 b5 20. e5 b4 21. Nd1 Ne4 22. Qd3 f5&#xA;23. e6 Qa5 24. gxf5 gxf5 25. Nh4 Ba6 26. Qxe4 fxe4 27. Bxe4+&#xA;Kh8 28. Ng6+ Kh7 29. Nxf8+ Kh8 30. Ng6+ Kh7 31. Ne5+ Kh8&#xA;32. Nf7# 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25172" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2020-11-05T07:47:28.540" LastActivityDate="2020-11-05T07:47:28.540" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32831" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32821" CreationDate="2020-11-05T07:20:46.223" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;very typical example, this position happened millions of times in chess history:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;k7/3Q4/1K6/8/8/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Qb7#, 1. Qc7 Stalemate, 1.Qc6 can start perpetual - just be careful - don't checkmate your opponent by accident :)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just wondering - if this is really worth studying, but you get what you ask for ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17448" LastActivityDate="2020-11-05T07:20:46.223" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32832" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-11-05T07:50:23.350" Score="1" ViewCount="600" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Iktv6.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Iktv6.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here, it is said that &lt;strong&gt;after 1.Re7 Rb8 2.Kd3 a6&lt;/strong&gt;, white plays b4 to fix the enemy pawns. But I don't understand: how does it fix pawns? How is b3 any different? What does it mean to fix enemy pawns?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21840" LastEditorUserId="20096" LastEditDate="2020-11-06T10:02:22.507" LastActivityDate="2020-11-06T10:02:22.507" Title="How does b4 fix pawns in this endgame?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;pawns&gt;&lt;pawn-structure&gt;&lt;terminology&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32833" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32832" CreationDate="2020-11-05T07:54:44.690" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;It definitely prevents Black from playing ...c5, at least temporarely. I wouldn't say Black pawns are &amp;quot;fixed&amp;quot; though. Anyway, isn't Re7 a much stronger move?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastActivityDate="2020-11-05T07:54:44.690" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32834" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32832" CreationDate="2020-11-05T08:02:05.757" Score="3" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;b4 is just weak here.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Instead 1. Re7 (get your rooks on the 7th rank!) almost wins on spot. One can then try 2. b4 according to what black plays.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16311" LastActivityDate="2020-11-05T08:02:05.757" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32835" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19785" CreationDate="2020-11-05T10:59:32.550" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Dice came first, then backgammon and chess followed. Chess was banned in Islam and Christendom for over a century because of gambling. Every 100 years a Mullah's convention was held and chess scholars petitioned for chess to be allowed without the dice. They were refused and 100 years later another plea was made and this time it was allowed. As a result the use of the dice has disappeared from chess histories and folk memory. Gambling still occurs with backgammon  but not with chess. The first recorded dice with the modern configuration (opposite sides add up to 7) is in China 3,000 years ago. Previous dice use symbols rather than numbers. After crooked dice were outlawed on the Silk Road there was demand games involving 6, hence backgammon and chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25174" LastActivityDate="2020-11-05T10:59:32.550" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32836" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32790" CreationDate="2020-11-05T11:29:32.567" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;In her TED talk &lt;em&gt;Giving checkmate is always fun&lt;/em&gt;, Judit Polgar says (&lt;a href=&quot;https://youtu.be/z-ttu7dyBCU?t=59&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;t=0:59&lt;/a&gt;):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My mother taught me the first moves when I was about five years old...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3757" LastActivityDate="2020-11-05T11:29:32.567" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32838" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32832" CreationDate="2020-11-05T17:20:51.550" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;It does not fix the pawns directly.  As black pawns can still  move without being captured.  But it ensures that black cannot force a passed pawn even if they sacrificed one pawn to do it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25181" LastActivityDate="2020-11-05T17:20:51.550" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32839" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32844" CreationDate="2020-11-05T18:26:54.310" Score="4" ViewCount="125" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am currently reading Chess Openings: Theory and Practice - I.A Horowitz. The first opening displayed in the book is a variation of the bishops opening: 1. e4 e5 2. Bc4 Nf6 3. d4 exd4 4. Nf3. Seemingly the best continuation for black, if they can defend properly, is to continue 4 ... Nxe4 and to 5. Qxd4 respond with 5 ... Nf6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From this point Horowitz goes on to consider the variation 6. Bg5 Be7 7. Nc3 c6:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;rnbqk2r/pp1pbppp/2p2n2/6B1/2BQ4/2N2N2/PPP2PPP/R3K2R w KQkq - 0 8&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This seems fine for white (to me) by basic chess principles (good development, castling around the corner). However I have two questions:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What if black had responded with 6 ... Qe7+?&#xA;It seems like white either trade queens and is worse or moves the king allowing Nc6 and is just worse?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What can white do after 5 ... Nf6? My thinking is that 6. Bg5 is the mistake so perhaps 6. Nc3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25182" LastActivityDate="2020-11-06T04:31:19.593" Title="Continuation for white in the Bishops opening variation: 1.e4 e5 2. Bc4 Nf6 3. d4 exd4 4. Nf3 Nxe4 5. Qxd4 Nf6" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32840" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32841" CreationDate="2020-11-05T20:28:02.787" Score="3" ViewCount="452" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was wondering, what time limits does FIDE use for its professional matches?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25170" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-11-05T22:11:40.663" LastActivityDate="2020-11-05T22:11:40.663" Title="What are the chess time limits used by FIDE?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;fide&gt;&lt;time-control&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32841" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32840" CreationDate="2020-11-05T21:01:21.050" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;Interestingly there are two FIDE documents specifying these. Fortunately they don't contradict each other.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First, &lt;a href=&quot;https://handbook.fide.com/chapter/C07&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Handbook - General Rules and Technical Recommendations for Tournaments / 07. Time Control /&lt;/a&gt; says:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a single time control for all major FIDE events: 90 minutes for the first 40 moves followed by 30 minutes for the rest of the game with an addition of 30 seconds per move starting from move one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The list of FIDE events where this single time control will be used:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess Olympiads&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;World Team Championships&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Continental Team Championships&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;World Cup&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Continental Championships&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Zonal Tournaments&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;World Youth &amp;amp; Junior Championships&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Continental Youth &amp;amp; Junior Championships&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;World School Championships&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Continental Club Championships&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are some obvious omissions here. What about the World Championships? The Women's World Championships? The Candidates? What about rapid and blitz championships?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well, section 12 of &lt;a href=&quot;https://handbook.fide.com/files/handbook/C02Standards.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Handbook C. General Rules and Technical Recommendations for Tournaments&#xA;02. Standards of Chess Equipment, venue for FIDE Tournaments, rate of play and tie-break regulations Approved by the 2018 FIDE General Assembly&#xA;taking effect from 1 July 2019&lt;/a&gt; has a full list.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The following time controls are approved for FIDE World Events:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;No EVENT TIME CONTROL&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;1 World Championship Match 100’/40+50’/20+15’/end with incr. 30”/move, starting from move 1&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;2 Candidates Tournament 100’/40+50’/20+15’/end with incr. 30”/move, starting from move 1&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;3 World Cup 90’/40+30’/end with incr. 30”/move, starting from move 1&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;4 Grand Prix 100’/40+50’/20+15’/end with incr. 30”/move, starting from move 1&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;5 Women’s World Championship Match 90’/40+30’/end with incr. 30”/move, starting from move 1&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;6 Chess Olympiad 90’/40+30’/end with incr. 30”/move, starting from move 1&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;7 World Team Championship 90’/40+30’/end with incr. 30”/move, starting from move 1&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;8 Women’s World Team Championship 90’/40+30’/end with incr. 30”/move, starting from move 1&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;9 Women’s Grand Prix 90’/40+30’/end with incr. 30”/move, starting from move 1&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;10 World Senior Championship 90’/40+30’/end with incr. 30”/move, starting from move 1&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;11 World Senior Team Championship 90’/40+30’/end with incr. 30”/move, starting from move 1&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;12 World Juniors and Girls U-20 Championship 90’/40+30’/end with incr. 30”/move, starting from move 1&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;13 Continental Individual Championships 90’/40+30’/end with incr. 30”/move, starting from move 1&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;14 Continental Team Championships 90’/40+30’/end with incr. 30”/move, starting from move 1&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;15 World Youth 14-16-18 Championships 90’/40+30’/end with incr. 30”/move, starting from move 1&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;16 World Cadets 08-10-12 Championships 90’/40+30’/end with incr. 30”/move, starting from move 1&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;17 World Schools Individual Championships 90’/40+30’/end with incr. 30”/move, starting from move 1&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;18 World Schools Team Championships 90’/40+30’/end with incr. 30”/move, starting from move 1&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;19 World Amateur Championship 90’/40+30’/end with incr. 30”/move, starting from move 1&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;20 World Olympiad U-16 90’/40+30’/end with incr. 30”/move, starting from move 1&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;21 World Rapid Championships 15’ with incr. 10” per move, starting from move 1&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;22 World Blitz Championships 3’ with incr. 2” per move, starting from move 1&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Just to decipher what that means. Take -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1 World Championship Match 100’/40+50’/20+15’/end with incr. 30”/move, starting from move 1&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This means that&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a 30 second increment starting from move 1&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;The first 40 moves have to be played in 100 minutes&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;The next 20 moves have to be played in an additional 50 minutes&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;After this (so 60 moves already played) the players get an additional 15 minutes to complete the game&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-11-05T21:01:21.050" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32842" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32832" CreationDate="2020-11-05T22:00:13.033" Score="2" Body="&lt;ol start=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;b4 fixes the black pawns a to c, because they cannot advance without support.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the original position, 1. b4 would not fix the pawns. Black could play ...b6 followed by ...c5 at the right moment. After 2. ...a6, ...b6 is not possible anymore without support. And without ...b6, ...c5 is not possible. So the black pawns need support by their King or Rook to advance. They are fixed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know the term „fixed pawn“ only in situations where the pawn cannot advance even with support. P.e. w a5, b4, c5, b a6, b7, c6 the pawns are fixed. It is obvious for the a and c pawns. If the b-pawn advances, it will be captured, and any recapture by a rook (a recapture by the king is obviously illegal) will result in serious material loss.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20096" LastActivityDate="2020-11-05T22:00:13.033" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32843" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32847" CreationDate="2020-11-06T03:06:29.097" Score="3" ViewCount="102" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the ancient Indian game Chaturanga, what rules are known, and how does it vary from modern chess? Also, is it a solved game?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25170" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-11-06T05:10:36.550" LastActivityDate="2020-11-06T08:50:46.373" Title="What rules are known for Chaturanga?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;history&gt;&lt;chess-variants&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32844" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32839" CreationDate="2020-11-06T04:31:19.593" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Using &lt;a href=&quot;http://caissabase.co.uk/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Caissabase&lt;/a&gt; or the lichess masters database we can see that instead of Nxe4, Nc6 is more popular to avoid this gambit idea (the Urusov gambit) which is.... dubious but not so simple and seemingly scores fine enough. White has additionally scored p decently.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Qe7+ has only been played in one game, but seems good (black won that game, and SF12 gives -0.89 at depth 37, which is quite good). Nc6 and Be7 are both fine, but Nc6 is probably slightly better, judging from the fact that the lichess database shows it as most common with quite a hefty advantage for black, as opposed to the noticeably higher win rate for white (seemingly due to this very variation, as it turns out!). SF also likes Nc6 best, with an evaluation of -0.86 at depth 40.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After Nf6, Nc3 is seemingly more popular nowadays (as the lichess masters database), but has worse results.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My recommendation would be to consider not playing this gambit in the first place, since the Urusov Gambit is somewhat iffy, although it's probably still playable at a sub-master level, or to get a more recent book on this. This book is from the 1960s, as @Scounged very nicely pointed out, and as such is almost entirely useless- the only cases where it's useful are for general plans and opening names, and even here it will be severely lacking. If you want a starting opening book, Fundamental Chess Openings by Paul van der Sterren is great, although again note that many of the lines will be incorrect (esp in theoretical openings e.g. e4 e5 or the Sicilian)- focus instead on plans and names, and supplement with other sources (books, videos, courses).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23100" LastActivityDate="2020-11-06T04:31:19.593" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32845" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32850" CreationDate="2020-11-06T05:02:31.467" Score="33" ViewCount="4797" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here's a question that's a little off the usual format, but problem questions like this have been done before and are on topic, so here we go!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Question: Can you find the mysterious mate in one? The trick is not board rotation, removing a piece, retracting any moves, completing a move, or an illegal move-there is but one solution. Have fun solving!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [Title &amp;quot;White checkmates Black in one move&amp;quot;]&#xA; [FEN &amp;quot;5nRQ/6PR/1p6/p2P4/p1B5/3Pp3/8/1b1K4 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15989" LastEditDate="2020-11-08T06:50:52.903" LastActivityDate="2020-11-08T09:42:33.773" Title="A mysterious mate in one" Tags="&lt;problems&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="10" FavoriteCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32846" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32845" CreationDate="2020-11-06T08:19:48.917" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;A solution may be that it used to be possible to&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt; promote to an enemy piece, as mentioned e.g. &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.chessbase.com/post/study-of-the-month-2018-07&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;. This loophole has long been fixed in the official rules, but under old rules it was allowed to do &lt;code&gt;1. g7xf8=(black)K&lt;/code&gt; which would be mate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Would that really explain&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt; the &lt;a href=&quot;/questions/tagged/retrograde-analysis&quot; class=&quot;post-tag&quot; title=&quot;show questions tagged &amp;#39;retrograde-analysis&amp;#39;&quot; rel=&quot;tag&quot;&gt;retrograde-analysis&lt;/a&gt; tag?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Perhaps, in the sense that&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt; we &lt;em&gt;do&lt;/em&gt; need to go back in time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2020-11-06T08:19:48.917" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32847" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32843" CreationDate="2020-11-06T08:50:46.373" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The exact rules aren't known, but what &lt;em&gt;is&lt;/em&gt; known or commonly believed to be true is listed on &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaturanga#Rules&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;. Especially the elephant/gaja's movement rules are uncertain.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It varies from modern chess because it has some pieces which move differently: the elephant mentioned above and the mantri/minister. Modern chess has the bishop and queen in their places. Still, the complexity of the game is comparable to chess, so it's a long way from being solved.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2020-11-06T08:50:46.373" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32848" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23125" CreationDate="2020-11-06T12:05:15.140" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The made up part of the FEN (&lt;code&gt;-- - 0 30&lt;/code&gt;) says, in order:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Neither side has any castling rights. This is the only part relevant to this question and has been covered by &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/29889/25131&quot;&gt;user1583209&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/29864/25131&quot;&gt;sjb-2812&lt;/a&gt;. Note that it should be a single hyphen.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;There are no en passant rights. The arrangement of the pieces already shows this, so it must be irrelevant.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;There have been 0 moves since the last capture or pawn move. This seems to be the normal value used for FEN, unless there is a specific reason to do otherwise. It is used for the 50 move rule. I can’t see how it would be relevant here.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The current move is move 30. The normal value is 1, but, with no time control and no earlier moves to refer to, it is meaningless.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25131" LastActivityDate="2020-11-06T12:05:15.140" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32849" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-11-06T13:53:12.050" Score="2" ViewCount="140" Body="&lt;p&gt;I notice that in my closed games when I find myself with an advantage in space, I have more mobility for my pieces and thats all good but once I reach this position I'm never really able to find a plan and never know how to make use of this advantage. Does anybody know how I can make use of it whether that be by opening up a file or trying to create a passed pawn? I never really know how to identify these ideas and generally look for a tactical line or idea that never comes up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24850" LastActivityDate="2020-11-07T14:43:33.357" Title="What are the benefits of having a space advantage in a closed position?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;pawns&gt;&lt;closed-position&gt;&lt;space&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32850" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32845" CreationDate="2020-11-06T14:39:43.133" Score="42" Body="&lt;p&gt;Looking at the problem as if the black King is currently invisible...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;gxf8=Q#&#xA;All squares are now covered. So where ever the black King is hiding, the game is over.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25189" LastActivityDate="2020-11-06T14:39:43.133" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32851" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32849" CreationDate="2020-11-06T15:52:48.293" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Michael Stean, in his &amp;quot;Simple chess&amp;quot; introduced the idea of the &amp;quot;capacity&amp;quot; of a given Pawn structure. How many pieces can live inside it without getting in each others way. If your opponents pawns do not have enough capacity for his pieces, he will have difficulty manoeuvering them to defend. This introduces the &amp;quot;principle of two weaknesses&amp;quot; You inflict two weaknesses in your opponents structure. You can switch your attack from one to the other faster than they can switch their defence. The nature of the weaknesses can be whatever is in the position. A vulnerable King, a weak Pawn, a desirable exchange, establishing control of a file...It can be an end in itself or a stepping stone to something else. Search for &amp;quot;two weaknesses&amp;quot; on Youtube.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastActivityDate="2020-11-06T15:52:48.293" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32852" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32700" CreationDate="2020-11-06T17:14:56.570" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm not sure about a world championship game, but genuine underpromotions do occur now and then in grandmaster games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For a starting shot, here is the famous 2012 game with a knight promotion by Hikaru Nakamura. According to the &lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/profile/2016192/chart&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE rating website&lt;/a&gt;, Nakamura's &lt;strong&gt;rating&lt;/strong&gt; at the time was &lt;strong&gt;2783 the month game was played.&lt;/strong&gt; By &amp;quot;highest level,&amp;quot; I took that to mean the highest rating of a player in a professional game with a genuine underpromotion occurred.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Hikaru Nakamura-Vladimir Kramnik, Chess Olympiad, Istanbul Turkey, 9/6/19&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;[startply &amp;quot;122&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Nf3 Nf6 2. g3 g6 3. Bg2 Bg7 4. c4 c6 5. d4 d5 6. cxd5 cxd5 7. Nc3 Ne4 8. Qb3 Nxc3 9. bxc3 O-O 10. Nd2 e6 11. e4 Nc6 12. O-O Na5 13.  Qd1 Qc7 14. Qf3 b6 15. Ba3 Rd8 16. e5 Ba6 17. Rfe1 Rac8 18. Bb4 Bh6 19. Qd1 Nc6 20. Ba3 Na5 21. Bb4 Nc6 22. Ba3 Na5 23. Nb1 b5 24. h4 Nc6 25. Bc5 Qb8 26. Qe2 Na5 27. Nd2 Rxc5 28. dxc5 Qc8 29. Nf3 Qxc5 30. Nh2 Bg7 31. h5 g5 32. h6 Bxh6 33. Qh5 Bg7 34. Qxg5 Nc6 35. Ng4 Qe7 36. Qxe7 Nxe7n37. a4 d4 38. axb5 Bxb5 39. Rxa7 d3 40. Rxe7 d2 41. Rd1 Be2 42. Ne3 Bxe5 43. c4 h5 44. Ra7 h4 45. Ra2 Bxd1 46. Nxd1 hxg3 47. fxg3 Bxg3 48. c5 f5 49. Ra7 e5 50. c6 e4 51. Bh3 Rc8 52. Ra6 Rf8 53. Ra5 f4 54. Kf1 e3 55. Ke2 Rf6 56. Ra8+ Kg7 57. Ra7+ Rf7 58. Rb7 Kf6 59. Kf3 Re7 60. Rxe7 Kxe7 61. c7 e2 62. c8=N+ Kf6 63. Kxe2 Ke5 64. Nb6 Kd4 65. Bg2 Be1 66. Nd5 Ke5 67. Nb4 Bh4 68. Nd3+ Kf5 69. Kxd2 Kg4 70. Ke2 Bf6 71. N1f2+ Kg3 72. Bf3 Bd8 73. Ne4+ Kh4 74. Ne5 Bc7 75. Ng6+ Kh3 76. Ne7 Bd8 77. Nf5 Bb6 78. Kf1 Kh2 79. Bg4 f3 80. Nh4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-12-10T14:31:46.790" LastActivityDate="2020-12-10T14:31:46.790" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32853" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32849" CreationDate="2020-11-06T17:42:10.640" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you have a material advantage, do not play as if it in itself guarantees a win.  Act aggressively and seek an active plan.  This principle is often violated especially by less aggressive chess players, who often stop active play, having achieved a material advantage, believing that it will automatically lead to victory.  This is not the case, and as a rule, the opponent seizes the initiative.&#xA;Striving for risk-free play in a winning position allows the opponent to extend resistance and sometimes gives him a chance to escape.&#xA;The main thing is to keep the initiative.  Steinitz's rule: &amp;quot;the one with the advantage must attack under the threat of losing this advantage.&amp;quot; You should also analyze the position that interests you (analyze the game).  after the game, of course, establish and analyze the moves using a computer in order to understand where you make mistakes and miscalculations.  Deconstruct Nimzowitsch's games!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Steinitz's main thesis is: &amp;quot;set yourself a plan that would be in accordance with the situation.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If there are no flaws in the opponent's position, then you need to create a weakness in his camp;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The object of attack in the endgame&#xA;are pawns, and therefore&#xA;you need to try to form a weak&#xA;fight in a pawn structure rival.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The key to the opponent's position may be the capture of the field.&#xA;Practice creating weaknesses in your opponent's position.  Remember that it is important to find the most vulnerable spot in his defense. Targeting the weakest point in the enemy position.&#xA;Note further that, although the combination recedes into the background in Steinitz's teachings, it is still for&#xA;achieving consistent good results is very important.  for with its help the advantageous position turns into a win.  There is a well-known dictum: “the most difficult thing is to win a won position” - it shows that most often chess players lack the ability to combine accurately and sharply.  To achieve this, it is necessary to study deeply the game of Andersen and Morphy before turning to the Steinitz method.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25190" LastEditorUserId="25190" LastEditDate="2020-11-07T14:43:33.357" LastActivityDate="2020-11-07T14:43:33.357" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32854" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32855" CreationDate="2020-11-06T18:56:15.010" Score="1" ViewCount="94" Body="&lt;p&gt;Inspired by this question &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/32843/what-rules-are-known-for-chaturanga&quot;&gt;What rules are known for Chaturanga?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chaturanga seems quite interesting, and some aspects of it, like no castling are being introduced in other variants: Kramnik's chess. Given that, say, lichess.org has so many variants, is there a reason why Chaturanga is not of them?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Possible reasons:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The rules are not exactly known.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Queen (Mantri) is much less powerful and pawns don't have a 2-square move option on the first move, which makes the game less interesting / drawish to many people.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Strategies were developed to draw fairly easily, (and that's why rule changes were introduced). This is a stronger version of 2), and probably not likely.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="307" LastEditorUserId="307" LastEditDate="2020-11-06T20:25:06.943" LastActivityDate="2020-11-06T20:25:06.943" Title="Can I play chaturanga on any of the main chess sites?" Tags="&lt;history&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32855" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32854" CreationDate="2020-11-06T19:51:18.390" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You answered your own question, with 1) and 2) being the main causes!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't know about 3), tbh, but it seems at least somewhat plausible (although stalemate was also a win in chaturanga so who knows!).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You say that it's not on main chess sites, but chess.com at least has it as a playable variant- can't speak for how easily you'll find a game there however.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's also presumably not trivial to code the game, which is probably another reason why.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23100" LastActivityDate="2020-11-06T19:51:18.390" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32856" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32700" CreationDate="2020-11-07T03:26:05.080" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Found a Rubinstein game!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Date &amp;quot;1908.??.??&amp;quot;]&#xA;[White &amp;quot;Alapin, Simon&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Black &amp;quot;Rubinstein, Akiba&amp;quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &amp;quot;2500&amp;quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &amp;quot;2640&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Result &amp;quot;0-1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Ne2 Nf6 3.f4 Nxe4 4.d3 Nc5 5.fxe5 d5 6.d4 Ne6 7.Nf4 c5 8.Nc3 cxd4 9.Ncxd5 Nc6 10.Bd2 Nxf4 11.Nxf4 Nxe5 12.Bb5+ Bd7 13.Qe2 Bd6 14.c3 O-O 15.Bxd7 Qxd7 16.cxd4 Nc6 17.O-O Nxd4 18.Qd3 Bxf4 19.Bxf4 Rad8 20.Rad1 Qg4 21.Rde1 Ne6 22.Qe3 b6 23.h3 Qh5 24.Be5 Rfe8 25.Qa3 f6 26.Bd6 Qd5 27.Bg3 Qc5+ 28.Qxc5 Nxc5 29.Bc7 Rxe1 30.Rxe1 Rd2 31.Re8+ Kf7 32.Ra8 Rxb2 33.Rxa7 Kg6 34.a4 h5 35.a5 bxa5 36.Rxa5 Rc2 37.Bg3 Kh6 38.Bf2 Ne4 39.Be3+ Kg6 40.Ra4 Ng3 41.Bf4 Ne2+ 42.Kh2 h4 43.Bd6 Kh5 44.Ra5+ Kh6 45.Rf5 Kg6 46.Rf2 Rd2 47.Bf4 Rc2 48.Bd6 Kf7 49.Ba3 Ke6 50.Bf8 g6 51.Bg7 f5 52.Bh6 Kf6 53.Bf8 g5 54.Bd6 Ke6 55.Bb8 Rd2 56.Bc7 g4 57.hxg4 fxg4 58.g3 h3 59.Bb8 Kd5 60.Bf4 Rc2 61.Be3 Ke4 62.Bg5 Kd3 63.Bh6 Nd4 64.Rxc2 Nxc2 65.Bf4 Ke2 66.Bb8 Ne3 67.Kg1 Kf3 68.Bc7 Nf1 69.Bb8 Nxg3 70.Bc7 Ne2+ 71.Kh2 Nf4 72.Bb6 g3+ 73.Kh1 Nd3 74.Kg1 h2+ 75.Kh1 Nf2+ 76.Bxf2 gxf2 77.Kxh2 f1=R 78.Kh3 Rh1#  0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and just now, one by lasker:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Site &amp;quot;New York, NY USA&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Date &amp;quot;1892.11.01&amp;quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &amp;quot;?&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Round &amp;quot;3&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Result &amp;quot;1-0&amp;quot;]&#xA;[White &amp;quot;Gustave Simonson&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Black &amp;quot;Emanuel Lasker&amp;quot;]&#xA;[ECO &amp;quot;C67&amp;quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &amp;quot;?&amp;quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &amp;quot;?&amp;quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &amp;quot;135&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 Nf6 4.d4 Nxe4 5.O-O Nd6 6.Bxc6 dxc6&#xA;7.dxe5 Nf5 8.Qxd8+ Kxd8 9.Nc3 h6 10.Bf4 Be6 11.Rad1+ Kc8&#xA;12.Ne1 g5 13.Bd2 b6 14.Nd3 c5 15.f4 c4 16.Nf2 gxf4 17.Bxf4 Kb7&#xA;18.Nfe4 Kc6 19.Rd2 Be7 20.h3 Rad8 21.Rfd1 Rxd2 22.Rxd2 Rg8&#xA;23.Kf1 Nh4 24.Bg3 Ng6 25.Ne2 Kb7 26.Nf6 Rh8 27.c3 c5 28.Ne4&#xA;Kc6 29.Kf2 Rd8 30.Rxd8 Bxd8 31.Ke3 Bc7 32.Bf4 b5 33.Bxh6 Bxe5&#xA;34.Nf4 Nxf4 35.Bxf4 Bg7 36.h4 b4 37.Bg5 Bd5 38.Bf6 Bh6+ 39.Bg5&#xA;Bf8 40.h5 Kd7 41.h6 Bxe4 42.Kxe4 Ke6 43.g4 f6 44.h7 Bg7 45.Bh6&#xA;Bh8 46.a3 bxa3 47.bxa3 a6 48.a4 f5+ 49.gxf5+ Kf7 50.Bd2 Kg7&#xA;51.Bf4 Kxh7 52.Be5 Bg7 53.Bxg7 Kxg7 54.Kd5 Kf6 55.Kxc4 Kxf5&#xA;56.Kxc5 Ke6 57.Kb6 Kd5 58.a5 Kd6 59.c4 Kd7 60.c5 Kc8 61.Kxa6&#xA;Kb8 62.c6 Kc7 63.Kb5 Kb8 64.Kc5 Kc8 65.Kd6 Kb8 66.Kd7 Ka8&#xA;67.c7 Ka7 68.c8=R 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both were found on &lt;a href=&quot;https://timkr.home.xs4all.nl/chess2/minor.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://timkr.home.xs4all.nl/chess2/minor.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23100" LastEditorUserId="23100" LastEditDate="2020-11-07T03:31:21.373" LastActivityDate="2020-11-07T03:31:21.373" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32857" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32845" CreationDate="2020-11-07T04:26:44.987" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is easy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt; The Black king is somewhere on the 8th rank. It is checkmated in one move by pawn x knight on f8, queening. Now the new queen is giving check, and the rook on h7 prevents the king from going anywhere, resulting in checkmate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25196" LastEditorUserId="11712" LastEditDate="2020-11-08T09:42:33.773" LastActivityDate="2020-11-08T09:42:33.773" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32861" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="2653" CreationDate="2020-11-07T18:43:58.883" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found that flashcards are a great tool to help memorize complete games and game openings. They allow one to implement in practice many concepts mentioned in earlier answers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are many flashcard software available, including free ones. Some allow to schedule future reviews based on the difficulty of a recall. The idea is to drill difficult moves more often then easier ones.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A single flashcard could be created by taking a screen shot of a particular game position and inserting it in the question part of a flashcard.&#xA;The answer part will contain the screen print of the next position of a game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One potential drawback of this method is that it can be time consuming. A game containining 70 moves will require 140 screenshots.&#xA;There are ways to streamline it and even fully automate it.&#xA;For example this &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessflashcards.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;website&lt;/a&gt; will create chess flashcards automatically out of a game saved in Portable Game Notation (PGN) file. Full disclosure: I am the author of this website.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25201" LastEditorUserId="25201" LastEditDate="2020-11-09T02:47:59.163" LastActivityDate="2020-11-09T02:47:59.163" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32863" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-11-08T09:50:41.293" Score="5" ViewCount="716" Body="&lt;p&gt;The Berlin Defense is drawish if we reach the Berlin endgame. Yet White doesn't have to go into the endgame, and can instead play 4; d3. However, I hear that the Ruy Lopez is getting less popular in top level because of the Berlin defense. This implies that 4. d3 somehow is not as good compared to the mainlines, such as 3... a6 of the Ruy Lopez. &lt;strong&gt;What makes 4. d3 not as good as the Ruy Lopez's mainlines for White?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3872" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-03-04T02:37:09.157" LastActivityDate="2021-03-04T02:37:09.157" Title="How good is 4. d3, the Anti-Berlin?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;theory&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32865" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32863" CreationDate="2020-11-08T13:19:58.873" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;4.d3&#xA;The main alternative to the move&#xA;4.0-0, it avoids&#xA;Berlin endgame.  White&#xA;do not seek to squeeze the maximum&#xA;from the debut, carrying the weight&#xA;fight in the middle of the game.  although&#xA;elite grandmasters have recently become addicted to this continuation, his theory is still developing (comment from the book practical guide to the Berlin defense. Louis Bernard).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25190" LastActivityDate="2020-11-08T13:19:58.873" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32866" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32863" CreationDate="2020-11-08T18:19:18.767" Score="-2" Body="&lt;p&gt;it depends on how good you are. At the GM level, it will likely draw a lot more than if you are not even an IM and play at a local club. 4. d3 works well for me. But then again, I am not a GM nor are my opponents.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25210" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-03-03T20:51:39.543" LastActivityDate="2021-03-03T20:51:39.543" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32871" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="30460" CreationDate="2020-11-09T11:58:03.650" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to the &lt;a href=&quot;http://scidvspc.sourceforge.net/doc/Variations.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Scid vs PC help&lt;/a&gt; use menu options:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Options / Moves / Show Variation Arrows&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25218" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2020-11-09T12:38:36.027" LastActivityDate="2020-11-09T12:38:36.027" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32872" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32873" CreationDate="2020-11-09T15:34:03.167" Score="20" ViewCount="9142" Body="&lt;p&gt;I see accounts of people getting banned from sites like chess.com for using engines like Stockfish and Komodo (I admit I have used these engines before, but never in an actual match). Now, I believe there are certain characteristics of these engines that make them easy to detect.  One I heard is the way you move the King, as well as every move being the best move possible (This one could be wrong). But I was thinking... couldn't chess engines not do the things that make them detectable, like play Kings less randomly, play sub-optimal moves in between optimal ones, etc, and become basically, as far as I can notice, undetectable? Is there anything about the way they are programmed that make this impossible or is this because of legality and morality?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25219" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-11-09T15:40:59.663" LastActivityDate="2020-11-10T17:58:20.647" Title="What prevents chess engines from being undetectable?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;programming&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32873" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32872" CreationDate="2020-11-09T15:56:03.253" Score="30" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Engines have no concept of natural moves and they have no fear. An engine will play for the most advantage, not for the most manageable advantage, even if it allows a fierce attack, because it sees that the attack does not work, while a human would probably prevent an attack and settle with a smaller, but practical advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Randomly&amp;quot; picking good moves is not easy. The second best move may only be second best if you see a very hard ONLY MOVE which comes 15 moves after. And sometimes, the best move is very obvious, and playing the second best move would be very suspicious.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;It is not very known how engine detections on chess websites work, but I have read that they also account for playstyle inconsistency (ultra-aggressive to defensive, even though an aggressive move is available and not much worse), mouse movement, time management.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15478" LastActivityDate="2020-11-09T15:56:03.253" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32874" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32872" CreationDate="2020-11-09T16:42:42.157" Score="16" Body="&lt;p&gt;One very obvious indication for people using engines is, that they need roughly the same time for every move (usually about 5s in blitz games), even for the most obvious ones, which could be premoved. They also have much worse ratings in faster time controls (bullet). One example: &lt;a href=&quot;https://youtu.be/rlxHusHfpck&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://youtu.be/rlxHusHfpck&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8154" LastActivityDate="2020-11-09T16:42:42.157" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32875" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32599" CreationDate="2020-11-09T19:01:26.560" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;You need to connect to your server with &lt;code&gt;ssh -X&lt;/code&gt; command to enable X forwarding. The details of how this needs to be configured can be found in &lt;a href=&quot;https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/12755/how-to-forward-x-over-ssh-to-run-graphics-applications-remotely&quot;&gt;this answer on&#xA;Unix and Linux Stack Exchange&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25203" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2020-11-09T19:25:40.987" LastActivityDate="2020-11-09T19:25:40.987" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32877" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32872" CreationDate="2020-11-10T01:24:42.180" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;With the proliferation of machine learning systems and excess processing power, once you have enough play data, you can use readily accessible machine learning algorithms to determine a player's playstyle, and compare their moves against chess engine playstyles.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The exact mechanism and detail are university-level courses, so that isn't something I can explain in detail at the moment, but having access to a large amount of chess play data would make such analysis easily doable for someone in 2nd or 3rd year in computer science or data analytics. Machine learning is accessible enough that I think even a high schooler with particular interest would be able to do the analysis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19351" LastEditorUserId="19351" LastEditDate="2020-11-10T07:05:29.623" LastActivityDate="2020-11-10T07:05:29.623" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32878" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32599" CreationDate="2020-11-10T01:53:11.457" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have tried to replicate your setup. To this end, I prepared to virtual machines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;First one, let's call it xboard, with &lt;code&gt;xboard&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;polyglot&lt;/code&gt; installed, but -while not strictly required- not &lt;code&gt;stockfish&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;fairymax&lt;/code&gt; or other engines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Second one, let's call it stockfish, runs a ssh server and does have stockfish installed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;xboard machine is able to connect to stockfish machine via ssh. In this case &lt;code&gt;ssh host&lt;/code&gt; suffices but using the full &lt;code&gt;ssh -p &amp;lt;port&amp;gt; &amp;lt;user&amp;gt;@&amp;lt;host&amp;gt; /usr/games/stockfish&lt;/code&gt; in the command works as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The command you provided&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;xboard -fcp &amp;quot;ssh -p 22 user@stockfish.host /usr/games/stockfish&amp;quot; -fUCI&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;works perfectly. xboard is started locally and connects to stockfish via ssh.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would recommend to set up ssh key authentication. OTherwise, when you start xboard you will need to manually input the password on the terminal where you are running xboard (and if you waited too long, the connection could timeout).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The error you are facing I can reproduce if manually killing polyglot. If ssh failed, polyglot is providing an error.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't see why it would be failing (maybe your versions aren't able to properly cope with spaces in the parameters=), but since directly playing with stockfish via ssh works I would try running:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;polyglot -noini -ec &amp;quot;ssh -p 22 user@host /usr/games/stockfish&amp;quot; -ed . -uci NalimovCache=4 -pg ShowTbHits=true&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;which is the command that my xboard runs to connect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7985" LastActivityDate="2020-11-10T01:53:11.457" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32879" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-11-10T06:07:47.440" Score="6" ViewCount="263" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm looking for an easy variation to learn against the Semislav. Note that I play d4, c4, Nc3 against many openings. I tried to play the 5.Bg5 line but I felt that it was full of memorization:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Nf3 e6 5.Bg5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I switched to playing the Bogolyubov line which avoids the Slav dxc4 because my Bishop can take it with temp:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.e3 Nf6 (3...Bf5 4.Nf3 e6 5.Be2 Nf6 6.O-O) (3...e6 4.Nc3 Bb4 (4...f5)) 4.Nc3 e6 (4...g6)(4...Nbd7)(4...a6)(4...Bf5) 5.Nf3 Be7 (5...Nbd7)(5...Bd6)(5...dxc4) 6. Bd3 Nbd7 (6...O-O) (6...dxc4) 7. O-O O-O&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Btw, I tried playing the slav with white before switching to the Bogolyubov line as&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Nf3 dxc4 5.a4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But I didn't like them that much. Maybe because I haven't read about them a lot. As you can see, there are tons of variations in the Bogolyubov line, including the Meran. It's too much! I would really appreciate it if somebody can give me either an easy line against the Semislav that avoids the Slav, or two easy lines against Semislav and slav.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23598" LastEditorUserId="3757" LastEditDate="2020-12-22T10:13:35.043" LastActivityDate="2021-02-09T14:01:15.157" Title="Easy variation to learn with White against Semislav with not many lines and avoiding the Slav at the same time if possible" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;slav-defense&gt;&lt;semi-slav&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32880" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32872" CreationDate="2020-11-10T06:33:28.857" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some of those things are possible in theory.  Especially if you have a good idea what an engine-detector is looking for, you could maybe do some machine-learning training of algorithm against algorithm until you had one that could make good moves that didn't get detected as different from a given player's normal play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;But that would require someone to be interested in spending a &lt;em&gt;bunch&lt;/em&gt; of effort to make software whose main use-cases included letting people cheat undetectably&lt;/strong&gt;.  Most people actively don't want that and would avoid doing so, even though there might be other uses (like for training, to play against a human-like opponent, if it's good enough to &lt;em&gt;really&lt;/em&gt; play human-like, not just sneak under the anti-cheat radar).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I think a significant part of what prevents that from happening is the ethics / moral code of many software developers.  Or that &lt;strong&gt;for most people it's a somewhat less interesting goal&lt;/strong&gt; than making a strong chess engine by any means possible.  Not purely technical challenges &lt;em&gt;if&lt;/em&gt; someone set that as a goal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;OTOH I could imagine some people might be curious to see if they could teach an engine to play more like a human, or play more like a &lt;em&gt;particular&lt;/em&gt; human. And/or as @Akavall mentions, as a training opponent.  That could make for some interesting research, although the danger of cheaters weaponizing the results would hopefully deter many researchers from pursuing it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16136" LastEditorUserId="16136" LastEditDate="2020-11-10T07:49:06.570" LastActivityDate="2020-11-10T07:49:06.570" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32881" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="372" CreationDate="2020-11-10T11:50:14.830" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;GM Jonathan Rowson recently &lt;a href=&quot;https://twitter.com/Jonathan_Rowson/status/1325936590800220160&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;answered the question&lt;/a&gt; &amp;quot;how does anyone get good at chess?&amp;quot; on Twitter in fewer than 280 characters as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Start young (5), fall in love with chess, get lucky with the characters in your particular chess world.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Keep going, be willing to lose a lot, admire someone, study, play, repeat. Befriend computers.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Lose some more. Scream in frustration.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Keep going. Win.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Takes at least a decade&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The bad news is that &amp;quot;study&amp;quot; comes about halfway through his list. The good news is that he seems to prioritise other things above study in his list but the first three are things you don't have much control over. They do, though, apply to most if not all of the top players today. Starting early, falling in love with chess and having good mentors / role models in your early development are all key.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd just echo the Biblical quote which, although in another context, also applies here:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The point being that when you really love something then studying doesn't feel like studying. It is just more fun doing what you love.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-11-10T11:50:14.830" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32882" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32894" CreationDate="2020-11-10T15:52:27.167" Score="4" ViewCount="190" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was reading Tal-Botvinnik 1960 and came across a term I had not heard of before. Tal says in the book, in exact words, &amp;quot;Why doesn't black challenge the move a4&amp;quot;. For context, this was about Game 2 in which Tal explores a variation where White goes a4 to stop b5. Does the term &amp;quot;challenge&amp;quot; mean to just go b5 anyway?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24850" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-11-10T17:02:49.037" LastActivityDate="2020-11-11T13:17:50.463" Title="What is meant by the term &quot;challenging&quot; a move?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;terminology&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32883" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32872" CreationDate="2020-11-10T17:58:20.647" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;That's a bit like asking a congregation of people &amp;quot;is everyone here?&amp;quot; and expecting an accurate answer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There may very well be chess engines that are optimized to fly under the radar of the cheat detection algorithms used at the major sites. But those are not the ones that get exposed and therefore they are not well known.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19250" LastActivityDate="2020-11-10T17:58:20.647" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32884" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="34448" CreationDate="2020-11-10T20:30:32.677" Score="8" ViewCount="189" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to the answer to &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/32840/what-are-the-chess-time-limits-used-by-fide&quot;&gt;this question&lt;/a&gt; we know that currently it is 100 minutes for 40 moves followed by an additional 50 minutes for 20 moves then an extra 15 minutes to finish the game with a 30 second increment from move 1 which works out at 3 minutes a move for the first 60 moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I remember from 20 years ago in the early days of digital clocks it was very similar. The one difference being that the players got 10 minutes to finish the game &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessnews.org/fidetl.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;according to Bill Goichberg&lt;/a&gt; of the USCF.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Back in the day of analog clocks, when Fischer beat Spassky for the world title it was 40 moves in 150 minutes (no increment) plus 60 minutes for each 16 moves after that until the game was decided with adjournment with a sealed move after 5 hours play. So players were getting 3 minutes 45 seconds per move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Back in Paul Morphy's day there were no time controls for world championship matches.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can anyone fill in the gaps and identify when the time controls changed and to what?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2021-03-10T03:36:56.000" Title="Historic time controls for World Championships" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;world-championship&gt;&lt;time-control&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32885" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-11-11T01:30:14.400" Score="15" ViewCount="8961" Body="&lt;p&gt;I googled this question and ended up here. From previous questions, it seems Alpha Zero has not solved chess yet and if it does it will take a very long time. Nonetheless, it may be possible one day. I am wondering whether the programmers, or whichever title designers of the Alpha Zero system prefer to use, have built anything into Alpha Zero to detect if it discovers a solution. Also, even though the time required to solve chess is clearly enormous, even with the power of Alpha Zero has anyone attempted to calculate how long it might actually take? Is it likely to be more or less than 7.5 million years and is it possible it will involve the number 42? Perhaps all chess games can always be concluded in 42 moves with perfect play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25231" LastEditorUserId="14075" LastEditDate="2020-11-13T14:48:06.013" LastActivityDate="2020-11-13T14:48:06.013" Title="Is it possible Alpha Zero will eventually solve chess?" Tags="&lt;alphazero&gt;&lt;solving&gt;" AnswerCount="6" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32886" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32885" CreationDate="2020-11-11T04:35:56.300" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;It seems quite improbable. The number of moves in the largest chess game possible is in the 5000s, and the number of possible positions even larger than 10^16! Alpha Xero can filter our obviously bad lines, but even afterwards, it has to get to an extremely high depth, which I estimate to be around 200.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My theory is that it is a win for White with perfect play. Black can neutralize white's opening advantage with the move. so White always plays perfectly and gains the small advantage of the tempo.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25233" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-11-11T13:16:37.830" LastActivityDate="2020-11-11T13:16:37.830" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32887" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32885" CreationDate="2020-11-11T04:45:27.517" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;Nope. AlphaZero's entire architecture (and the architectures of most other engines) is such that it cannot &amp;quot;find a solution&amp;quot;, and in any case, if a solution was to be found it would be through programs meant to do just that. Such programs do not exist, due to the absurd complexity. Also, note that AlphaZero (as far as I know) is no longer under active development.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As for how long, I will just quote from the fundamental paper Programming a Computer for Playing Chess by Claude Shannon&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, even at this figure [prior to this, he gave a conservative estimate of how much stuff is needed for solving chess], there will be 10^120 variations to be calculated from the initial position. A machine operating at the rate of one variation per micro-second would require over 10^90 years to calculate the first move!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Doubt it'd have 42, and I'd guess quicker than 7.5 mil&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23100" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-11-11T14:11:00.890" LastActivityDate="2020-11-11T14:11:00.890" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32888" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32885" CreationDate="2020-11-11T08:40:27.407" Score="49" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, it can't.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even if you had it train on a zillion self-playing games and it miraculously achieved perfect play somehow, we would have no way of &lt;em&gt;proving&lt;/em&gt; that it had achieved perfect play without first solving chess some other way and then comparing AlphaZero's play to perfect play in all possible positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Its approach simply doesn't result in a solution for chess, it's just a way to find good moves. A solution is a mathematical proof.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2020-11-11T08:40:27.407" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32890" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32892" CreationDate="2020-11-11T10:32:44.043" Score="3" ViewCount="423" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was solving some problems on &lt;a href=&quot;https://chesstempo.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chesstempo&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;a href=&quot;https://chesstempo.com/chess-tactics/62305&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;This one&lt;/a&gt; caught my eye (the White just played Ng2, we play as the Black):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;1k5r/pp4p/5b1p/qPP/N2r1p/P4P/K1Q3PP/2R3R w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Nb2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I saw that the right move was Rd2, yet I failed to foresee White's play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I reckoned the best move for the White to be Qb1:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;1k5r/pp4p/5b1p/qPP/N2r1p/P4P/K1Q3PP/2R3R w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Nb2 Rd2&#xA;2. Qb1 Rb2&#xA;3. Qb2 Bb2&#xA;4. Kb2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I might be missing some moves playing as black, yet it still seems to me that White wins more material playing Qb1 instead of what appeared to be the solution:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;1k5r/pp4p/5b1p/qPP/N2r1p/P4P/K1Q3PP/2R3R w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Nb2 Rd2&#xA;2. Nc4 Rc2&#xA;3. Rc2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why did White play Nc4, not Qb1? What am I missing? I can't see any forks or something, which would justify the attack on the Queen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21403" LastEditorUserId="7726" LastEditDate="2020-11-11T11:52:53.200" LastActivityDate="2020-11-11T11:52:53.200" Title="Why does White play Nc4?" Tags="&lt;check&gt;&lt;puzzles&gt;&lt;pins&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32891" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32890" CreationDate="2020-11-11T10:58:21.180" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Black has a completely winning position after 1...Rd2 2.Qb1 Rxb2+ 3.Qxb2 Bxb2&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastActivityDate="2020-11-11T10:58:21.180" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32892" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32890" CreationDate="2020-11-11T11:31:30.920" Score="7" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;it still seems to me that White wins more material playing Qb1 instead&#xA;of what appeared to be the solution&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No, if you compare the two final positions the only difference is that in the Nc4 line white has an extra knight and black has an extra bishop, so no difference if you are counting points.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why did White play Nc4, not Qb1? What am I missing?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Good question!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Both final positions are completely lost for white. The only practical difference is that in the Nc4 line the extra piece for either side creates more possibilities for white to try and create something. Black has more work to do to get the full point. In particular the knight can land on d6 where it is a very good piece.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another significant point is that in the Qb1 line in the final position Qxb5 comes with check and tempo whereas in the Nc4 line Qxb5 is not check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Small points perhaps but noting them helps you build your ability to fight on in lost positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-11-11T11:31:30.920" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32893" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32902" CreationDate="2020-11-11T12:42:55.963" Score="2" ViewCount="146" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am interested in how the Sveshnikov theory developed in the last decade, and one of the biggest events heavily featuring it was the WCC match in 2018. Very few books on the opening were published since then.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Did the match contribute something to the opening theory of the Sveshnikov?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Links to articles or annotated games are very welcome, as well as references to books or other material covering the novelties.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15478" LastActivityDate="2020-11-12T14:22:37.017" Title="Did the 2018 World Chess Championship feature any theoretical novelties in the Sveshnikov Sicilian?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;theory&gt;&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;&lt;world-championship&gt;&lt;sveshnikov&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32894" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32882" CreationDate="2020-11-11T13:17:50.463" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes,&lt;code&gt;challenge&lt;/code&gt; means to &amp;quot;just go b5 anyway&amp;quot; when considered tactically, but this misses the ideas.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess is a game of who has the better idea.  When deciding on a move will you further your own idea or challenge your opponents idea?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The game is a benoni structure where Black may try to expand rapidly on the queenside with great effect, ..a6, ..b5 etc.  gaining space while driving back White's pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White's a4 counters this idea, trying to suppress queenside expansion with the idea of a further a5&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Challenging a4 means &amp;quot;You cannot stop me, I will expand on the queenside anyway!&amp;quot;  this doesn't necessarily mean that ..b5 is the next move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I didn't find Tal's sidelines very illuminating.  Try this amazing game which features a battle of whether Black can expand on the queenside, with a thrilling conclusion.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &amp;quot;European Club Cup&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Site &amp;quot;Ohrid MKD&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Date &amp;quot;2009.10.08&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Round &amp;quot;5&amp;quot;]&#xA;[White &amp;quot;Maxim Rodshtein&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Black &amp;quot;Vugar Gashimov&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Result &amp;quot;0-1&amp;quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &amp;quot;2740&amp;quot;]&#xA;[ECO &amp;quot;A62&amp;quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &amp;quot;2009.10.04&amp;quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &amp;quot;2623&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 c5 4.d5 d6 5.Nc3 exd5 6.cxd5 g6 7.g3 Bg7 8.Bg2 O-O &#xA;9.O-O Re8 10.Bf4 a6 11.a4 b6 12.Re1 Nh5 13.Bg5 Qc7 14.e4 Nd7 15.Rc1 h6 &#xA;16.Bd2 Qb8 17.Bf1 Ra7 18.b3 Nf8 19.h3 Rae7 20.Qc2 g5 21.Kg2 Ng6 22.Bd3 Nf6      23.Rh1 Qb7 24.Rce1 Bd7 25.Bc1 b5 26.axb5 axb5 27.Bb2 c4 28.bxc4 bxc4 29.Bxc4 Bxh3+ 30.Kg1 Rc8 31.Ba2 Nxe4 32.Rxh3 Nxc3 33.Rxe7 Nxe7 34.Bxc3 Rxc3 35.Qe4 g4 36.Qxg4 Qa6 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17425" LastActivityDate="2020-11-11T13:17:50.463" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32895" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32885" CreationDate="2020-11-11T13:36:52.387" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;No, it is impossible, even for Alpha Zero. Solving chess in a scientific sense means to prove the value of every possible move in every possible position. Without a mathematic model still to be found, that means: brute force calculation from the regular starting position (or even all 960 starting positions of Chess960) to a regular end: mate, stalemate, dead position; including the tournament rules: 5fold repetition, 75 moves rule. There will be not enough time to do this. And this is not the task Alpha Zero is created for.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It MIGHT be that Alpha Zero will not be beaten for centuries by man or engine. But that’s not solving chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20096" LastActivityDate="2020-11-11T13:36:52.387" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32896" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-11-11T19:13:31.407" Score="3" ViewCount="170" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are there proven 8 men checkmates that have a good chance to be the longest checkmates? How were they proven and why are they good candidates?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24098" LastActivityDate="2021-02-03T19:15:26.277" Title="Candidates for the longest 8 man checkmates?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32897" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32885" CreationDate="2020-11-11T20:32:37.650" Score="5" Body="&lt;h1&gt;Compressibility&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When we talk about chess, we almost always talk about &lt;em&gt;time&lt;/em&gt;, because for humans, that is the relevant variable.  But when you talk about &lt;em&gt;the space of all games&lt;/em&gt;, time suddenly shrinks into the background, and you suddenly realize: &amp;quot;this is an enormous &lt;em&gt;space&lt;/em&gt;&amp;quot;.  When we talk about &amp;quot;proofs&amp;quot;, we think of things which are a few to a few hundred pages long.  So space is rarely an issue.  But suppose we played a game called &amp;quot;Build a Snowflake&amp;quot;.  The snowflake has to be less than 1 cm in its largest dimension (so it's finite, and realistically so).  It follows the physical laws of snowflake construction, so solutions to this game must be physically realizable.  What kind of program could solve &amp;quot;Build a Snowflake&amp;quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If we encoded quantum mechanics in a way that only allows the exact set of atomic combinations which result in a snowflake, we could likely produce a program that, while large, is much smaller than, say, the set of all &amp;quot;snowflake images&amp;quot;.  But what if we didn't trust this program?  What if we said: &amp;quot;This program is so far removed from human experience that I reject the notion that it is even a proof.&amp;quot;  What if we demanded that this program actually provide a &amp;quot;constructive proof&amp;quot; of the set of all snowflakes?  Well, it couldn't do it.  There are too many ways to build a snowflake, and not enough fundamental particles in the universe.  Nor would we live long enough to examine the boundaries of such a &amp;quot;proof&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Chess Proof&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So suppose that I show you this program, and I call it a &amp;quot;Chess Oracle&amp;quot;.  I tell you that it has solved chess, and to demonstrate, I offer to let you challenge it with any combination of human and non-human chess players you can muster.  What would it take for you to accept that it has &amp;quot;solved chess&amp;quot;?  The answer is: it depends on the nature of the proof.  If chess turns out to have a subtle and deep symmetry which admits for a compact and comprehensible algorithm that could be described in, say, a few pages, then probably most mathematicians would ultimately accept such a proof, after analyzing it carefully.  However, it seems &lt;em&gt;extremely&lt;/em&gt; unlikely that such a proof exists.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But if it does, what exactly does that mean?  Well, it means that, like the number pi, while the set of all chess games is extremely large, the space required to &lt;em&gt;generate&lt;/em&gt; the set of all chess games is rather modest (just like many algorithms to compute the digits of pi are just a few lines long).  It would mean that chess is &lt;em&gt;extremely compressible&lt;/em&gt;, that it has a compact representation as code that fits into a human-understandable space (so, not &amp;gt; 1 million pages of code).  Given the variety of chess games we know about, I think that almost nobody believes that chess can be compressed in this way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most likely, any &amp;quot;chess solution&amp;quot; will be a mix of high-level principles, medium-level tactics, and fine-grained exceptions.  But let's think about what this means.  Ultimately, a chess solution could simply be a collection of the set of all legal chess board states along with a set of best next moves for white or black, along with an indication of whether white or black can force a win with perfect play.  And, it is theoretically possible to construct such a solution.  You just need to play every possible chess game, and write down the results as you go.  Since AlphaGo is just a very fancy &amp;quot;play lots of games and remember the outcome, sorta&amp;quot; system, then AlphaGo could theoretically perform this task.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Memory Alpha?&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason all the other answers say this is impossible is because the number of games you or AlphaGo would have to play to draw out the full game tree is beyond astronomical.  Even if every star in every galaxy had 10 planets full of 10 billion chess players cooperatively building this chess proof non-stop, they would not finish in the lifetime of the universe.  Also, they would not have enough space to write it down.  But let's say that somehow, they did!  When they are all finished, they wouldn't just leave it as one giant game tree.  They would look for structure.  They would say: &amp;quot;Hmm...in virtually every game, strong development of the queen predicts the winner.&amp;quot;  And this becomes a high-level principle which characterizes much of the game tree without telling you which move to make.  Whereas: &amp;quot;don't trade your queen for a pawn&amp;quot; is a tactic which would appear in nearly every game.  And the games where trading your queen for a pawn actually leads to a win would appear as the lowest-level &amp;quot;exceptions&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This tactic described above basically says: &amp;quot;the game tree below the point at which you foolishly traded your queen for a pawn is not worth exploring, because in most branches it leads to a loss with perfect play.&amp;quot;  And thus, it &amp;quot;prunes&amp;quot; all of those subtrees, which compresses the &amp;quot;proof&amp;quot;.  The exceptions allow you to develop the tactics above, while saying: &amp;quot;There are 3,284 games in which trading your queen for a pawn leads to a win.  These are the board states in which you may make this trade for perfect play.&amp;quot;  Whereas, there may be 10^30 board states downstream of a &amp;quot;bad QxP&amp;quot;, which we can basically ignore because of the tactic.  This reduces the size of the proof dramatically.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So if all this is possible, AlphaZero will eventually solve chess, right?  Nope.  While AlphaZero does &amp;quot;remember&amp;quot; the games it plays (including games it doesn't actually play, but only &amp;quot;imagines&amp;quot; playing), it does so in a sloppy way, not unlike human memory.  AlphaZero &amp;quot;remembers&amp;quot; its chess performance via a neural network, which has a rather small capacity compared to the total number of chess games.  So even if it were somehow possible for AlphaZero to &lt;em&gt;play&lt;/em&gt; every possible chess game, there is no way it could &lt;em&gt;remember&lt;/em&gt; all of them, even if you kept expanding the size of its neural network.  On the one hand, the neural network &lt;em&gt;does&lt;/em&gt; perform the &amp;quot;compression&amp;quot; described above...in an indirect way.  And so, it is trying very hard to build that ultimate &amp;quot;chess proof&amp;quot;.  On the other hand, its ability to distill chess knowledge is quite limited, and it appears that it isn't getting much better than it already is.  Perhaps with a larger NN, its play could improve, but most likely there are strongly diminishing returns.  At some point, you may need to give it 1000x more memory to increase its win rate against, say, Stockfish by 1%.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Furthermore, we know that while neural networks are very powerful optimization engines, they can get &amp;quot;stuck&amp;quot; in a non-optimal part of the search space.  It's entirely possible that instances of AlphaZero running today are already stuck in a &amp;quot;local maximum&amp;quot;, and would improve more if they could be nudged out of it.  So the architecture of AlphaZero itself is not really conducive to finding a &amp;quot;final proof&amp;quot; of chess (nor was that ever a design goal).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h1&gt;Big Numbers&lt;/h1&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At the end of the day, the real problem here is Very Big Numbers(TM).  Our cave man brains are simply not equipped to reason well about numbers much bigger than a few hundred.  For instance, if I told you that the majority of orderings of a standard deck of 52 playing cards has never been shuffled in the entire history of playing cards, would you believe me?  There are almost 10^68 possible orderings.  If the standard card deck has been shuffled a billion billion times since cards have been invented, then we have gone through no more than 10^18 such orderings.  That means we would need to do that billion billion shuffles about 10^50 more times to have any chance of seeing all possible orderings.  You cannot even intuit how large 10^50 is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The number of possible chess games is also incomprehensibly large.  Just storing the information about which board states lead to a win for white or black or a draw is incomprehensibly large.  There are about 2^150 &lt;a href=&quot;https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/1406919/how-many-legal-states-of-chess-exists&quot;&gt;legal chess board states&lt;/a&gt;.  Each board state can be encoded in about 200 bits, which is about 2^8.  So it takes about 2^158 bits to represent every legal chess board state.  Way back in 2014, the global computer memory storage was estimated at a ballpark of &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.livescience.com/54094-how-big-is-the-internet.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;2^83 bits&lt;/a&gt;.  So let's say in a century, we increase storage by 1000x.  Furthermore, let's say that our &amp;quot;chess proof&amp;quot; can compress the full game tree by a factor of a billion.  It would still take a &lt;em&gt;billion&lt;/em&gt; earth-interwebs to store the &lt;em&gt;compressed&lt;/em&gt; game tree.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Needless to say, AlphaZero is not getting close to that any time soon.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23321" LastActivityDate="2020-11-11T20:32:37.650" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32898" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32885" CreationDate="2020-11-11T20:53:00.927" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;We can start by asking what it means to &amp;quot;solve&amp;quot; a problem. It seems to me that this is almost an unanswerable question. It means in practice that a sufficient number of &amp;quot;experts&amp;quot; are convinced by the &amp;quot;proof&amp;quot; We have this situation in Mathematics, with the famous Haken-Appel computer proof of the four-color theorem, where a computer essentially reduces a problem about an infinite number of possibilities to a finite (but still huge) number of special cases. The role of the experts in this is to confirm that nothing has been forgotten. AFAIK the jury has almost decided that the proof is OK but slight doubt remains.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If there is to be agreement that chess has been solved, it will have to be arrived at by some process like this. At present we cannot imagine what that process could be, but never is a long time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastActivityDate="2020-11-11T20:53:00.927" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32899" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32305" CreationDate="2020-11-12T02:48:16.830" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;You can take a look at the &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/CSSLab/maia-chess&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Maia Chess project&lt;/a&gt;. What they've done is that they've built a customized version of Leela Chess wherein instead of the policy value looking for the best move, it looks for the most likely human move. The github has 9 weight files for lc0 from 1100 to 1900 elo.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It claims to better predict the moves of players compared to Stockfish and Leela Chess. You can also play these bots at &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/team/maia-bots&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Lichess&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/aHkFC.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/aHkFC.png&quot; alt=&quot;prediction accuracy of Maia versus Stockfish and Leela&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25249" LastEditorUserId="25249" LastEditDate="2020-11-13T00:14:52.677" LastActivityDate="2020-11-13T00:14:52.677" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32900" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32896" CreationDate="2020-11-12T03:02:43.577" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;One might try adding an extra piece to the well-known mate in 549, thereby adding at least a move or two. But although these may be plausible to Stockfish, these are not &lt;em&gt;proven&lt;/em&gt;. In other words, they are not 100% exhaustively verified by a tablebase engine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In that sense, the longest &lt;strong&gt;proven&lt;/strong&gt; sequence I know of is a mere &lt;strong&gt;64 moves long.&lt;/strong&gt; This was given by Guy Haworth in his &lt;a href=&quot;http://centaur.reading.ac.uk/34268/2/chessendrecann.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;112 page online PDF&lt;/a&gt; about the longest tablebase checkmates.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;KBBBB-KRR, 1-0, 2014/2/27, 8m, 5-3m, KBBBBKRR= KB4KR2, GBR 0690.00_40/22: SV+C,-/SV+C, +, Annotations By Guy Haworth&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;6r1/8/B4rB1/8/1B6/5k2/7B/K7 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Bh5+ Ke3 2. Bbd6 Rd8 3. Bc5+ Kd2 4. Bae2 Re6 5. Beg4 Rc6 6. Bf4+ Kc3 7. Be5+ Kd2 8. Bcd4 Rd5 9. Bb2 Rb6 10. Bbc3+ Ke3 11. Bf7 Rd8 12. Ba2 Rb5 13. Bf6 Rd6 14. Be7 Ra6 15. Bcb4 Rb8 16. Bbc5+ Kd3 17. Bf3 Kc2 18. Ba3 Kc3 19. Bad6 Rbb6 20. Bc5 Rb5 21. Bh1 Rb8 22. Bed6 Rb5 23. Be4 Raa5 24. Ba3 Kd4 25. Bf3 Ra7 26. Bab4 Ra4 27. Be1 Kd3 28. Bd1 Ra7 29. Beb4 Rab7 30. Ba3 Kc3 31. Be2 Ra5 32. Bf3 Rbb5 33.  Be7 Ra7 34. Bfd5 Raa5 35. Bb2+ Kc2 36. Be4+ Kd2 37. Bc6 Rb8 38. Bd5 Kc2 39. Bba3 Kc3 40. Bed6 Rbb5 41. Be5+ Kd2 42. Bf4+ Kc3 43. Bb2+ Kc2 44. Be4+ Kd1 45. Kb1 Rb4 46. Bc2+ Ke2 47. Bd6 Rh4 48. Bba3 Rb5+ 49. Bab3 Rh3 50. Bd1+ Kf1 51. Bdb4  Rh4 52. Be7 Rc4 53. Ka1 Rc8 54. Bg4 Rc7 55. Bge6 Kf2 56. Bbc4 Rh5 57. Bd8 Rh1+  58. Kb2 Rg7 59. Bc5+ Kg3 60. Bd6+ Kf2 61. Bb6+ Ke1 62. Kc1 Rg2 63. Bb4+ Rd2 64. Bxd2#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-02-03T19:15:26.277" LastActivityDate="2021-02-03T19:15:26.277" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32901" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-11-12T04:26:56.497" Score="2" ViewCount="58" Body="&lt;p&gt;I refer to &lt;a href=&quot;https://handbook.fide.com/chapter/B01DirectTitles2017&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://handbook.fide.com/chapter/B01DirectTitles2017&lt;/a&gt; for the following question:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Direct titles are awarded based on your performance in certain tournaments.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A gold finish is being 1st after tiebreaks with any other players in your point group.&#xA;1st equal means the best 3 players who are tied for highest points, ranked after tiebreaks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That much is clear, however the definition for Silver and Bronze performances are not written.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Long ago I found information online describing how Silver and Bronze are awarded, and I recall in some scenarios Silver was not awarded at all, maybe if there are two Gold winners for example, or perhaps two people tied for first, then the 3rd place would get a Bronze instead. I also remember it being possible to have multiple Silver and Bronze winners.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I did some search but could not find anything about them now. Could someone in the know shed some light on the exact definition and criteria for obtaining the Silver and Bronze positions?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25027" LastEditorUserId="25027" LastEditDate="2020-11-12T05:14:25.140" LastActivityDate="2020-11-12T05:14:25.140" Title="What are Silver and Bronze positions for FIDE direct titles?" Tags="&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;fide&gt;&lt;titles&gt;&lt;performance&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32902" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32893" CreationDate="2020-11-12T14:22:37.017" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Carlsen introduced 8... Ne7 (after 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 e5 6.Ndb5 d6 7.Nd5 Nxd5 8.exd5) instead of 8...Nb8. He played this in round 12 and then again in game two of the tiebreak. The line was known before but not played at the highest level and therefore not considered a serious approach by black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can find the analyzed games here at &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chess.com/article/view/world-chess-championship-2018-carlsen-caruana&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chess.com&lt;/a&gt;. 12... h5 is given as novelty in this line.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25254" LastActivityDate="2020-11-12T14:22:37.017" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32903" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-11-12T15:17:31.290" Score="2" ViewCount="169" Body="&lt;p&gt;I’ve been looking for free online books on endgame scenarios, since I'm very bad at them. So far, I haven’t gotten any luck.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, I only know the pieces moves and some other basic stuff.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25257" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2020-11-13T09:10:12.623" LastActivityDate="2020-11-20T12:35:20.627" Title="Beginner book that has endgame scenarios" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;books&gt;&lt;beginner&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32904" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-11-12T18:25:05.660" Score="1" ViewCount="293" Body="&lt;p&gt;Basically, I just want to know if there’s any easy way to use websites to practice endgames and openings by just opening my browser. I keep finding downloads to Windows programs, which is a problem when I play chess on mobile devices. Then there are the options that require to pay, which isn’t really something I could do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25257" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-11-12T19:11:27.027" LastActivityDate="2020-11-13T02:05:05.633" Title="What is the best way to research openings and endgames in a browser?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;learning&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;best-practice&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32906" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12381" CreationDate="2020-11-12T18:45:17.140" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am old enough to remember when the Pirc and Modern were new and controversial. At that time, when explaining them to beginners, one talked about &amp;quot;luring the White Pawns forward to where they can be attacked&amp;quot;. With 2.e5, White voluntarily sticks his head above the parapet. The reply ..f6 does not meaningfully attack the Pawn, but creates a weakness and impedes the development of two pieces. I like 2..c5, to followed by ..Nc6 ..Bg7 and ..d6. White is then definitely on the defensive (but probably not yet lost)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13012" LastActivityDate="2020-11-12T18:45:17.140" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32908" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32904" CreationDate="2020-11-12T23:26:07.963" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would strongly suggest looking into chess.com as they have an extensive &amp;quot;Learning&amp;quot; module on end game and end game tactics. You are limited to the amount of modules you can complete  per day unless you are willing to pay for a subscription. This isn't necessarily a bad thing as learning to much can result in concepts not necessarily taking hold.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Alternatively lichess.com has study section which is comparable but in my opinion not to the same standard. That being said it is free so might be a solid option. Those would be the two I would strongly suggest for web based.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is another option which is to look into programs like ChessBase or SCID and look at creating positions of end games and trying to play them out with computer analysis. That is a fairly advanced method of doing this though and I would suggest that you do that once you feel well established.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One of the best EndGame trainers I have seen was in ChessMaster GrandMaster Edition with a learning course by Josh Waitzkin which is narrated and well presented.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24511" LastActivityDate="2020-11-12T23:26:07.963" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32909" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32904" CreationDate="2020-11-13T02:05:05.633" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Three options I can think of immediately:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess-endgame-trainer.firebaseapp.com/home&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://chess-endgame-trainer.firebaseapp.com/home&lt;/a&gt; is a fantastic chess endgame trainer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessable.com/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chessable&lt;/a&gt; also lets you create your own courses (for free) which you can then do spaced repetition on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://listudy.org/en&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Listudy&lt;/a&gt; is another option.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23100" LastActivityDate="2020-11-13T02:05:05.633" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32910" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32911" CreationDate="2020-11-13T04:48:49.370" Score="3" ViewCount="251" Body="&lt;p&gt;Its a bit of a wordy question as there is a lot of background to provide context for thinking and analysis so for that I apologise  you can skip the background if you want but it might provide some additional context that might be useful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The Background:&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;Came across an interesting position today which has resulted in me going down a rabbit hole of analysis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Generally Whites position is looking reasonably strong and is up in material. The d6 pawn is safe from capture because mate would quickly ensue with Rxc8. The black c8 bishop is out of play as long as Black doesn't move his king. The biggest issue is for White at the moment is the knight on g5. It is preventing Blacks king escaping through f7 but otherwise is fairly useless in this position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The position arises on move 30 with Black playing h6. The knight having no escape squares is going to fall. To make matters worse the knight has no capture possibilities or defence possibilities.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ultimately I played Ne6 , the pawn took leading to promotion and ultimately Blacks resignation.&#xA;I decided to do some analysis on this position and found that the engines really didn't like this position and repeatedly provided the wrong moves unless until they were shown the move.&#xA;I could clearly see Ne6 in the lines but for some reason it would suggest Raa8 over Ne6 but the second Ne6 was played it would read that as the better and stronger move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question:&lt;/strong&gt; Why do some engines fail to locate best move options even though it analyses the position and only updates it as the correct move after it has been played? Is this common in NNUE based engines?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Example&lt;/em&gt;: Komodo Dragon, Stockfish 12 and Lc0 all saw 2. Raa8 (Scenario B) as a better move than Ne6 (Scenario A) until it moved passed that move and then saw Ne6 as the stronger move&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Scenario A&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Date &amp;quot;Nov 2020&amp;quot;]&#xA;[White &amp;quot;Yours Truly&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Black &amp;quot;Random Hero&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Result &amp;quot;1-0&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Event &amp;quot;Scenario A&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;1Rb3k1/3p2pp/2rP4/4p1N1/4P3/5P1P/6P1/R5K1 w - - 0 30&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. h3 h6 2. Ne6! dxe6 3. d7 Kf7 4. dxc8Q Rxc8 5. Rxc8 1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Scenario B&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Date &amp;quot;Nov 2020&amp;quot;]&#xA;[White &amp;quot;Yours Truly&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Black &amp;quot;Random Hero&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Event &amp;quot;Scenario B&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;1Rb3k1/3p2pp/2rP4/4p1N1/4P3/5P1P/6P1/R5K1 w - - 0 30&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. h3 h6 2. Raa8 hxg5 3. Rxc8+ Rxc8 4. Rxc8+ Kf7 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24511" LastActivityDate="2020-11-24T12:40:06.800" Title="NNUE Based Engines - Post Move Analysis" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32911" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32910" CreationDate="2020-11-13T05:34:35.500" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is just an issue every engine has (although they may miss different moves). In this case, it just pruned (ie, didn't consider/didnt consider enough) Ne6. It's not &lt;em&gt;common&lt;/em&gt; per se, but has to be kept in mind&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also note Lc0 is not NNUE, it is just a normal neural network not NNUE which is special.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23100" LastActivityDate="2020-11-13T05:34:35.500" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32912" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32545" CreationDate="2020-11-13T07:13:02.827" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The answer is when neither of the players can proceed further, both players are playing fairly well but the stipulated number of moves by both players have ended when one player who must exercise onus with moves, play his pieces a queen, a Bishop or rook with moves perpetually the same moves again and again to avert a possible check, and especially stipulated time and moves as per FIDE rules have come to an end. This is a dead draw in a chess tournament.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25017" LastEditorUserId="25017" LastEditDate="2020-11-13T07:37:08.720" LastActivityDate="2020-11-13T07:37:08.720" CommentCount="0" CommunityOwnedDate="2020-11-13T07:27:30.813" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32913" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-11-13T11:04:30.877" Score="2" ViewCount="577" Body="&lt;p&gt;Stockfish has so many parameters that I'm not sure which one I should change so that it has a strength equivalent to that of a human who has 2800 ELO, well that's one of my wishes, the other is to be able to play against Stockfish at its maximum potential (3600 ELO), it is clear that I will lose but I don't care, I just want to play, the specifications of my PC are as follows:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-4GB RAM&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-CPU 4Cores/4Threads&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;-Only HDD&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have been testing with the Skill Level parameter however I am not sure if that is enough as I am not a very strong player to know if Stockfish is playing better than a GM.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16512" LastActivityDate="2020-11-13T14:51:11.777" Title="How should I configure Stockfish if I want it to play as a 2800 ELO player without the UCI_LimitStrength value?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32914" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32913" CreationDate="2020-11-13T14:51:11.777" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;So couple of issues off the cuff;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do you have a particular version in mind?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Chess engines don't exactly have &amp;quot;ELOs&amp;quot;. Chess engines are about calculation speed, calculation depth. They guestimate (at best) to determine a theoretical strength then measure against  other engines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stockfish 9 with 4 Cores is ~ 3200 &amp;quot;ELO&amp;quot;&#xA;Stockfish 12 similar rig I would argue is around that 3400-3600 &amp;quot;ELO&amp;quot; Mark.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Reality; Playing solely against engines, at the highest level is ill advised for any development and engines are best used for position analysis (if that).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24511" LastActivityDate="2020-11-13T14:51:11.777" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32915" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="17312" CreationDate="2020-11-13T19:49:55.687" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I gave the password of my online chess account to a best friend.  She controls when I can have access to my online chess app.  I can create a new account, however, I don't because I want to play with my existing account, which has a long history.  It worked. I ask her for it during the weekend and in the evening. It was the last measure I had to do after everything else failed.  Online chess can be very addictive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25268" LastActivityDate="2020-11-13T19:49:55.687" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32916" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32903" CreationDate="2020-11-13T19:52:25.120" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;BCE (Basic Chess Endings) by Fine was the one I used.  It is long out of print.  There are some  newer books but I can't say which of them might be good now.  Also online has the sort of info you want and would be easier to find what you think is good for you.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25269" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2020-11-20T12:35:20.627" LastActivityDate="2020-11-20T12:35:20.627" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32917" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32879" CreationDate="2020-11-13T20:03:07.460" Score="-5" Body="&lt;p&gt;1PK4  aka  e4  would avoid the slav  issues.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My experience says there is no real answer to what you wish were possible after you start with  1 d4 d5 and 2c4 c6 then  3 nc3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25269" LastActivityDate="2020-11-13T20:03:07.460" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32918" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32863" CreationDate="2020-11-13T22:10:09.307" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the Ruy Lopez White usually wants to play with c3 and d4 to claim the center. If you play d3 instead then you lose a tempo if you still want to go for that plan.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course it is not the only possible plan but then the question becomes, if you answer 3...Nf6 with 4.d3, why would you not play the Italian instead where you might get a similar structure after for instance 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.c3 Nf6 5.d3, but arguably keep a bit more flexibility.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Still, 4.d3 against the Berlin is a fine way to play, it just doesn't have a clear benefit over other similar setups.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24693" LastActivityDate="2020-11-13T22:10:09.307" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32919" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-11-13T23:13:42.630" Score="6" ViewCount="674" Body="&lt;p&gt;During an over the board tournament, an opponent frequently asked to see my scoresheet, stating that they had missed moves or otherwise messed up theirs. (They asked 5 or 6 times in a game with a time control of game in 25 minutes.) Trying to keep things friendly, I let them see my sheet. The first couple times I did not mind, but when it continued happening I found it annoying and distracting.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus the question: Am I obligated to let an opponent see my game record so they can make corrections to theirs?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, if I do show it to them, whose clock should be running as they make corrections?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="224" LastActivityDate="2020-11-16T13:22:33.893" Title="What should a player do when their opponent asks to see your notation sheet during a game?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;tournament&gt;&lt;scoresheet&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32920" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32919" CreationDate="2020-11-13T23:42:09.317" Score="9" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Am I obligated to let an opponent see my game record so they can make corrections to theirs?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.uschess.org/docs/gov/chessrules/US_Chess_Rule_Book-Online_Only_Edition_chp_1_v7.1-7.19.19.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;USCF rule&lt;/a&gt; 15D3, it's suggested that you do so, but it's not mandatory unless the tournament director tells you to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The opponent is urged to comply with such a request, but this is not mandatory. If the opponent denies the request, the player may stop both clocks and see a director. A director who agrees that the request is appropriate shall instruct the opponent to lend the player the scoresheet. The opponent may not refuse as all scoresheets belong to the organizers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The TD will probably allow it, unless there's some reason not to. Excessive requests may be denied and may even be penalized, according to rule 15D4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, if I do show it to them, whose clock should be running as they make corrections?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to USCF rule 15D2:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The clock of the player making such a request is running and shall continue to run until the scoresheet has been returned.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Under &lt;a href=&quot;https://handbook.fide.com/chapter/E012018&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE rules&lt;/a&gt;, the time control in question would be a Rapid game. According to FIDE rule A.3.2, which applies to rapid games:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The player may at any time, when it is his move, ask the arbiter or his assistant to show him the scoresheet. This may be requested a maximum of five times in a game. More requests shall be considered as a distraction of the opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastEditorUserId="12629" LastEditDate="2020-11-14T15:50:17.540" LastActivityDate="2020-11-14T15:50:17.540" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32921" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-11-14T00:00:50.823" Score="5" ViewCount="139" Body="&lt;p&gt;While playing in an OTB game where both players take notation, it's not uncommon for people to make a mistake here and there. Is there any rule regarding having a lot of mistakes? Furthermore, what if you deliberately make mistakes such as writing in a random move every turn? Is there any penalty for doing this? Perhaps there's a difference between USCF and FIDE rules.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3872" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2020-11-14T10:10:08.893" LastActivityDate="2020-11-14T16:28:07.887" Title="What if you messed up your notation a lot?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;fide&gt;&lt;notation&gt;&lt;uscf&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32922" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-11-14T03:42:36.410" Score="4" ViewCount="38" Body="&lt;p&gt;A well-answered question here: &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/26807/fide-laws-of-chess-pre-2017&quot;&gt;FIDE Laws of Chess pre-2017&lt;/a&gt; asks for locations of historical sets of FIDE Laws. I am asking for something which partially builds on that.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a timeline of &amp;quot;key&amp;quot; historical changes to rules (FIDE, USCF and earlier) &amp;amp; the WFCC Codex of Chess Problem Conventions, please? It's not going to be perfect initially or ever, but something which can grow.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Having such an artifact would allow us to assign a historical context to those chess compositions that riff on specific rules and conventions, for example: Dummy Pawn, Bosma theme, Dead Reckoning, Retro Strategy &amp;amp; Partial Retro-Analysis. This would be a general foundation for specific timelines listing relevant compositions themselves, e.g. the one at &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/21212/when-if-ever-was-it-a-rule-that-pawn-promotion-was-optional&quot;&gt;When (if ever) was it a rule that pawn promotion was optional?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8201" LastEditorUserId="8201" LastEditDate="2020-11-14T05:49:24.470" LastActivityDate="2020-11-14T11:18:29.427" Title="Timeline of key historical changes to FIDE Laws &amp; WFCC Codex?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;problems&gt;&lt;history&gt;&lt;fide&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32923" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32925" CreationDate="2020-11-14T06:34:48.407" Score="4" ViewCount="165" Body="&lt;p&gt;For example, the Nimzo Indian where I don't want black to use the c4 square or the Benoni where I don't want white to use the d6 square. Is the only way to prevent this to have pieces tied down to defending that square because to me that seems like a waste.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24850" LastActivityDate="2020-11-14T10:40:08.023" Title="How can I minimise my opponent's chances to make use of a weak square in my position?" Tags="&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;nimzo-indian&gt;&lt;benoni&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32924" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32921" CreationDate="2020-11-14T10:29:17.370" Score="5" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there any rule regarding having a lot of mistakes? Furthermore,&#xA;what if you deliberately make mistakes such as writing in a random&#xA;move every turn?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is no obvious rule against this. The obvious place to start for &lt;a href=&quot;https://handbook.fide.com/chapter/E012018&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE&lt;/a&gt; is article 8.1.1:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Article 8: The recording of the moves&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;8.1.1 In the course of play each player is required to record his own moves and those of his opponent in the correct manner, move after move, as clearly and legibly as possible, in the algebraic notation (Appendix C), on the ‘scoresheet’ prescribed for the competition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You must write the moves down but there is no obvious penalty for mistakes, deliberate or otherwise. Which begs the question - Why bother? Why bother writing the moves down at all let alone why try and not make mistakes?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Well, that is answered obliquely in Appendix C:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Appendix C. Algebraic notation&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;FIDE recognises for its own tournaments and matches only one system of notation, the Algebraic System, and recommends the use of this uniform chess notation also for chess literature and periodicals. &lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Scoresheets using a notation system other than algebraic may not be used as evidence in cases where normally the scoresheet of a player is used for that purpose.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt; An arbiter who observes that a player is using a notation system other than the algebraic should warn the player of this requirement.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Makes sense. If your scoresheet is needed to settle a dispute or make a claim and it isn't suitable (either because you used the wrong notation or it can't be read) then your claim is likely to fail.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Two examples:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;9.2.1 The game is drawn, upon a correct claim by a player having the move, when the same position for at least the third time (not necessarily by a repetition of moves):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;9.2.1.1   is about to appear, if he first writes his move, which cannot be changed, on his scoresheet and declares to the arbiter his intention to make this move&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;9.3 The game is drawn, upon a correct claim by a player having the move, if:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;9.3.1 he writes his move, which cannot be changed, on his scoresheet and declares to the arbiter his intention to make this move which will result in the last 50 moves by each player having been made without the movement of any pawn and without any capture&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you don't have a legible, correct scoresheet then you can't demonstrate a 3 fold repetition or 50 moves without a capture or pawn move for a 50 move draw claim.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-11-14T10:29:17.370" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32925" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32923" CreationDate="2020-11-14T10:40:08.023" Score="4" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is the only way to prevent this to have pieces tied down to defending&#xA;that square because to me that seems like a waste.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No, it isn't the only way. There are two other better ways:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If you don't like the positions that can arise in a particular opening then don't play it. Play an opening you do like.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Normally in an opening where one side has weaknesses there is some compensation for the other player in the form of either counter weaknesses or attacking chances. Good players who choose such openings do so because they want to take advantage of those counter weaknesses and attacking chances. If they do this skilfully then their attack hits home before their opponent can take advantage of those weaknesses. But in any case they get the kind of double edged game they like.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-11-14T10:40:08.023" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32926" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32922" CreationDate="2020-11-14T11:18:29.427" Score="3" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there a timeline of &amp;quot;key&amp;quot; historical changes to rules (FIDE, USCF&#xA;and earlier)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not so far although former FIDE rules commission member, Stewart Reuben, &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.ecforum.org.uk/viewtopic.php?f=2&amp;amp;t=9330&amp;amp;p=245229&amp;amp;hilit=fide%20history#p245229&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;recently said&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To make it clear. I am writing a book, together with my co-authors Alex McFarlane and Sean Press. It is called A History of the Laws of Chess. Alex is dealing with the first section, from about 600 AD to the 15th century with the old rules. Sean is dealing with the introduction of the augmented powers of the queen, bishop and pawn 15th century to the formation of FIDE. I am dealing with the Laws since FIDE was formed IN 1924. That section is more-or-less completed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-11-14T11:18:29.427" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32927" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32928" CreationDate="2020-11-14T11:23:37.603" Score="1" ViewCount="394" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chesstempo.com/chess-problems/146884&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;This puzzle on chesstempo&lt;/a&gt; caught my eye (we play as White):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;4q1k/p4pb/r4npp/4P/n2B/5NNP/5PP/Q4RK b - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Nd7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The move I made was e6, and it was the right one. Yet, the Black's second move was not quite something I foresaw:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;4q1k/p4pb/r4npp/4P/n2B/5NNP/5PP/Q4RK b - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Nd7 e6&#xA;2. Ndc5 Bg7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I believe there is a word for the situation the black bishop finds themself in after 1... e6: no matter what the next move is, it gets captured. As one can see the Black can't play Kg7 on the 2&lt;sup&gt;nd&lt;/sup&gt; board as it is protected by the White queen. Therefore, I would have gone for the White bishop with the &lt;em&gt;&amp;quot;doomed&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt; Black bishop straight away:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;4q1k/p4pb/r4npp/4P/n2B/5NNP/5PP/Q4RK b - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Nd7 e6&#xA;2. Bd4 Nd4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why does Black choose not to play as I did on the 3&lt;sup&gt;rd&lt;/sup&gt;? Besides, what is the word for the &lt;em&gt;&amp;quot;doomed&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt; pieces, such as the Black bishop here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Note:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://chesstempo.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chesstempo&lt;/a&gt; users went over those moves in the comments under &lt;a href=&quot;https://chesstempo.com/chess-problems/146884&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;the puzzle&lt;/a&gt;, yet the discussion there is quite cumbersome, so I decided to bring this question up here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21403" LastEditorUserId="21403" LastEditDate="2020-11-14T12:14:25.207" LastActivityDate="2020-11-14T21:50:44.613" Title="Why doesn't Black play Bd4?" Tags="&lt;puzzles&gt;&lt;blunder&gt;&lt;captures&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32928" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32927" CreationDate="2020-11-14T11:53:24.660" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Nxd4 is not the best response to Bxd4, instead exd7 counter-attacking the Black Queen wins a piece:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Result &amp;quot;*&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;4q1k1/p4pb1/r4npp/4P3/n2B4/5NNP/5PP1/Q4RK1 b - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1...Nd7 2.e6 Bxd4 3.exd7 Qxd7 &#xA;    ( 3...Bxa1 4.dxe8=Q+ )&#xA;4.Nxd4 *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think the term you are looking for is &lt;em&gt;desperado&lt;/em&gt;, even though it doesn't seem quite a typical use to me. Quoting wikipedia (&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desperado_(chess)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desperado_(chess)&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In chess, a desperado piece is a piece that is en prise or trapped,&#xA;but captures an enemy piece before it is itself captured. This can be&#xA;in either a situation where both sides have hanging pieces, &amp;quot;...in&#xA;which you use your doomed piece to eat as much material as possible&#xA;before it dies&amp;quot;;[1] or alternatively a sacrifice that will result in&#xA;stalemate if it is captured.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7726" LastEditorUserId="7726" LastEditDate="2020-11-14T12:54:37.693" LastActivityDate="2020-11-14T12:54:37.693" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32929" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-11-14T14:49:36.290" Score="4" ViewCount="246" Body="&lt;p&gt;Most open source chess engines with hand-tuned evaluations are known for their innovations on search (Fruit, Stockfish).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was inspired by HIARCS' generally more human-like play and the fact that neural network based engines like Leela suggest that we have more work to do when it comes to evaluation functions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The reason is that I'd like to apply the same evaluation functions in a chess engine that I'm working on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Which open source engines are out there are known for its deep positional understanding? Unfortunately, engines known for their positional understanding such as Shredder, HIARCS, and Komodo are closed source.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25249" LastEditorUserId="25249" LastEditDate="2020-11-17T03:41:21.260" LastActivityDate="2020-11-17T03:41:21.260" Title="Which open source chess engine has the most positional understanding?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;&lt;evaluation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32930" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32921" CreationDate="2020-11-14T16:28:07.887" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;A good argument could be made that it is illegal, if it's intentional.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.uschess.org/docs/gov/chessrules/US_Chess_Rule_Book-Online_Only_Edition_chp_1_v7.1-7.19.19.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;USCF rule&lt;/a&gt; 15A (similar to FIDE rule 8.1.1):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the course of play each player is required to record the game (both the player’s and the opponent’s moves), move after move, as clearly and legibly as possible, on the scoresheet prescribed for the competition.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You are required to record the game. If you're not recording the game and are instead recording gibberish, you are in violation. While a lot of leeway is given for accidental mistakes, intentional ones would probably be punished, perhaps after a warning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Furthermore, under USCF rule 20C (similar to FIDE rule 11.3.1):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The use of notes made during the game as an aid to memory is forbidden, aside from the actual recording of the moves, draw offers, and clock times, and the header information normally found on a scoresheet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In your scenario, you would be hard-pressed to argue that what you are doing is the &amp;quot;actual recording of the moves&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to USCF rule 13C7 regarding a &amp;quot;reasonably complete scoresheet&amp;quot;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Minor ambiguities in scorekeeping or errors involving no more than one symbol are of no consequence. The common error of omitting one move by one player and subsequently putting moves in the wrong columns counts as only one error. Moves that are indecipherable or recorded only with check marks are considered missing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;TD TIP: An example of a minor ambiguity would be for the player of the black pieces to write Nf3 on a scoresheet in place of Nf6 in the opening when Nf3 is clearly not even possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you've got non-minor mistakes in more than three move pairs, you can't claim a win on time in a non-sudden-death time control (because you can't prove how many moves were made) and you can't claim a draw by repetition or 50 move rule (because you can't prove how the game unfolded).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2020-11-14T16:28:07.887" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32931" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32927" CreationDate="2020-11-14T21:50:44.613" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;After e6, black has two pieces threatened. The knight is threatened with tempo: if exd7 is allowed, the pawn threatens dxe8. And dxe8 simultaneously captures the black queen and promotes to a white queen. Since dxe8 gives white two queens, taking the queen at a1 is insufficient compensation. This means that exd7 is a &amp;quot;free move&amp;quot;, as black must spend their next move dealing with the dxe8 threat.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When faced with two pieces being attacked, one with tempo and the other without, it's generally better to save the one attacked with tempo.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15221" LastActivityDate="2020-11-14T21:50:44.613" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32932" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32919" CreationDate="2020-11-14T22:11:40.293" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Anyone initiating communication with their opponent should do so on their own time. Initiating communication with an opponent on the opponent's time (barring common sense exceptions, such as to warn them that they didn't hit their clock) warrants a warning, and repeated instances a game loss.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If your opponent is using their time to correct their sheet, that's generally a good thing for you, but if it really annoys you more than the time advantage is worth, you can refuse.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15221" LastActivityDate="2020-11-14T22:11:40.293" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32933" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32305" CreationDate="2020-11-14T23:59:36.107" Score="2" Body="&lt;h2&gt;Use a number of weak engines.  Make them vote.&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Suppose you take any number of relatively weak engines - some with deep searches but poor evaluation heuristics, some with shallow searches, some using neural networks but with limited training, some with random factors added to make them blunder a bit - and at each turn you have them vote for the best move.  The result will be quite human-like - a fact that should not be too flattering for us humans!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For the most part, the composite engine would play decently - some significant amount better than any individual engine.  It would rarely blunder blatantly, but it would miss deep tactics and subtle strategic moves.  In particular, it would rarely (if ever) make the &amp;quot;computer move&amp;quot;.  Most engines, when given a position where there is an obvious very good move and a completely opaque move that is infinitesimally better, have the search depth necessary to find the latter move and make it - thus revealing their inhumanity.  But most of our engines will either fail to find the weird move or their heuristic won't be fine enough to recognize its superiority.  The vote will usually go to the more obvious move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Engines also reveal their inhumanity in the precision of their defensive play and opening book.  Our composite engine would lack the search depth necessary for precise defense - even if a few of the constituent engines had the depth, they would be outvoted on occasion (and it takes just one mistake to seem human).  In the opening, the composite will stay on book for a while - although it will be hard to guess just which lines it will prefer.  But it won't be long before the book-less or book-light engines win a vote and make an &amp;quot;imprecise&amp;quot; move.  The quickest way to get the composite engine &amp;quot;out of book&amp;quot; would be to offer a sacrifice - the composite will surely be a sucker for opening gambits . . . just like most humans.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;To improve the effect, the length of time displayed between moves should be proportional to the amount of agreement between the engines.  If a move is unanimous to the engines, it likely would be obvious to a human, as well (if not simply forced).  If there is a lot of disagreement among the engines, than the position is likely a bit tricky and the sort which would cause a human mind to linger.  (Some adjustment would be required in the opening phase, in which the engines would surely have lots of disagreements simply because there isn't a lot going on in the position yet.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Someone really needs to do this.&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When I came across this question, I was a little surprised that no one knows of anyone who has tried this.  The Maia engine has a bit of this idea cooked in.  By trying to predict what an 1100-rated player will do, Maia achieves are rating of about 1500.  But Maia isn't a composite of a bunch of 1100-rated engines, like I propose.  Creating the composite that I describe doesn't seem like a difficult task.  If anyone knows of an attempt, I would love to hear about it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12084" LastActivityDate="2020-11-14T23:59:36.107" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32935" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32599" CreationDate="2020-11-15T09:08:56.273" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;First, thanks to &amp;quot;Ángel&amp;quot; for going to such great lengths in trying to help me and come up with a solution.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After reading some other posts/howtos on the internet (can't remember where exactly), I got it working this way:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;xboard -fcp &amp;quot;./ssh user@host './start_stockfish'&amp;quot; -fd&#xA;&amp;quot;/home/user/Remote&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;putting ssh, polyglot and Stockfish.ini into the &amp;quot;Remote&amp;quot; directory on the remote server. &amp;quot;start_stockfish.sh&amp;quot; (also on the remote server) simply looks like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;cd ~/Remote&#xA;polyglot ./Stockfish.ini&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24979" LastActivityDate="2020-11-15T09:08:56.273" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32936" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33350" CreationDate="2020-11-15T12:23:49.263" Score="19" ViewCount="4334" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some statistics indicate &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-move_advantage_in_chess&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;white scores 52-56%&lt;/a&gt; - but I wonder if that differs according to playing style - e.g. perhaps strong defenders prefer the black pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do any former/current grandmasters have stronger win records with the black pieces than with white?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note: the reason for choosing only grandmasters in this question is simply to ensure a large number of games had been recorded for the player so as to exclude any player who only played a small number of games&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18029" LastEditorUserId="3757" LastEditDate="2020-12-15T07:53:46.517" LastActivityDate="2021-02-23T16:28:26.397" Title="Do any grandmasters win more with black than white?" Tags="&lt;statistics&gt;&lt;grandmaster&gt;&lt;pieces&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32937" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22357" CreationDate="2020-11-15T13:53:30.707" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some tournaments (usually the higher level ones), provide score sheets that you have to hand in after the game. They use them to publish the games on their website, to TWIC, and so on. They are often carbon paper so you get a copy to keep as well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my experience, such tournaments make using those sheets mandatory, so alternatives aren't allowed. And tournaments where you don't have to hand in the sheet don't care what your record your game on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2020-11-15T13:53:30.707" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32938" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32936" CreationDate="2020-11-15T13:59:20.630" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;White scores about 54%, which is quite different from White winning 54% of all game, more so considering how draws occur more often between stronger players.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;None of the top players score better as Black, and I doubt there are grandmasters who do. If that were the case, it'd definitely be due to a small sample. I used to have a better score as Black back when I was an 1800-rated player, but it soon got corrected.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-11-15T14:36:28.107" LastActivityDate="2020-11-15T14:36:28.107" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32939" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="4987" CreationDate="2020-11-15T14:26:47.227" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Chess minigames are ideal for teaching children.  One challenge is that most chess software doesn't support playing positions with no kings or the other specific rules that many chess minigames include.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Worth checking out &lt;a href=&quot;https://acornchess.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Acorn Chess&lt;/a&gt; which has extensive support for chess minigames and even creating custom minigames.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Disclaimer: I developed Acorn Chess as I couldn't find anything that met my needs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25282" LastEditorUserId="25282" LastEditDate="2020-11-15T15:01:22.950" LastActivityDate="2020-11-15T15:01:22.950" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32940" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="31577" CreationDate="2020-11-15T15:00:48.923" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://acornchess.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Acorn Chess&lt;/a&gt; meets some of these requirements but not all.  Firstly it is not free but you can download a free trial and the license cost is one time only not recurring.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is written in Java and so runs on Windows, MacOS and Linux.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It works offline - it only uses internet if you want to check for updates.  It supports board annotation with arrows and circles in tutor edition.  It has a built in engine with 6 levels.  It also supports saving games to PGN. Loading of PGN's is coming as is a position library database.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Disclaimer: I developed Acorn Chess as I couldn't find anything that met my needs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25282" LastActivityDate="2020-11-15T15:00:48.923" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32941" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-11-15T15:30:45.733" Score="3" ViewCount="153" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'm trying to build my own chess engine using neural nets, and have been researching papers from Deepmind about their algorithm implemented in AlphaZero. Since chess is a game with perfect information (meaning the only unknown information in the game is what's going on in the opponent's head) and that each action resulting from a game state does not depend on the previous actions (except castling rules for example), why does AlphaZero have an 8-step temporal implementation in its input layer? In other words, its NN, aside from looking at the current game state, also looks at states from 8 previous moves in order to make a decision? AlphaZero's paper didn't have a say about this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, the architecture that I'm trying to build is not a Reinforcement Learning model, but rather a supervised learning one based on the FICS game database of players with high ELO. Basically, I will train 2 separate models, one for white and one for black. Data for the white NN is taken from games where white wins, black NN takes black wins, drawn games are used for both, so that white moves in white winning games are considered &amp;quot;good&amp;quot;, and vice versa. Is this a reasonable approach?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25284" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-11-15T16:34:40.680" LastActivityDate="2021-02-09T15:38:58.813" Title="Why does AlphaZero implement time steps in its input layers?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;software&gt;&lt;programming&gt;&lt;alphazero&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32942" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="487" CreationDate="2020-11-15T15:33:31.083" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;As others have suggested for younger children using chess minigames which focusses on only one or two pieces is a great way to engage them.  I used this approach with both of my boys when they were around 5 years old. I found the book 'Chess is Child's Play: Teaching Techniques That Work' by Sherman and Kilpatrick to be excellent for teaching from age 4 up.  Later I went on to run a school chess club for a few years for children aged 6-11 and found again that minigames were very popular with those children just getting to grips with chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The key is to make it fun.  If it's not fun kids especially younger ones will lose interest very quickly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Most software and online tools sadly don't support minigames which is why I decided to build my own and &lt;a href=&quot;https://acornchess.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Acorn Chess&lt;/a&gt; was born.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25282" LastActivityDate="2020-11-15T15:33:31.083" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32943" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32941" CreationDate="2020-11-15T19:03:38.573" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't know how to play Go at all, but the paper wrote:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;History features Xt, Yt are necessary, because Go is not fully&#xA;observable solely from the current stones, as repetitions are&#xA;forbidden&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For chess, I'm unable find any mention about it in the paper other than:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Unless otherwise specified, the training and search algorithm and&#xA;parameters are identical to AlphaGo Zero (29).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The training process was identical, but the sentence made no mention about the input features.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you study the papers more carefully, the input features for Go is:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;st = [Xt, Yt, Xt−1, Yt−1,..., Xt−7, Yt−7, C]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's a representation only for Go, not chess. The input features for chess outlined in the paper covers 50-move rules and repetitions already, so there isn't any need for time steps in the input layer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Google didn't use timesteps for chess, but only for Go.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, the architecture that I'm trying to build is not a Reinforcement&#xA;Learning model, but rather a supervised learning one based on the FICS&#xA;game database of players with high ELO. Basically, I will train 2&#xA;separate models, one for white and one for black. Data for the white&#xA;NN is taken from games where white wins, black NN takes black wins,&#xA;drawn games are used for both, so that white moves in white winning&#xA;games are considered &amp;quot;good&amp;quot;, and vice versa. Is this a reasonable&#xA;approach?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Supervised learning is ok. It doesn't make sense to me for an ensemble of two models here. Why not just model it as a probability from 0 to 1?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You actually do need the entire game history in chess, for 50-moves and repetitions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="825" LastEditorUserId="825" LastEditDate="2020-11-16T02:03:34.860" LastActivityDate="2020-11-16T02:03:34.860" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32944" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32966" CreationDate="2020-11-16T02:06:52.910" Score="6" ViewCount="644" Body="&lt;p&gt;(Possibly better suited on the Skeptics SE, but the claim is completely related to chess)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In 1922, she exceeded all expectations. Maria Theresa became the only woman to ever to have competed with men in the Cuban championship and won. After that, the only World competitions she entered were women only — first in Buenos Aires 1939 (coming in 7th), and in Moscow 1950 (winning 4 and drawing 4). She entered the Cuban Women’s Chess Championship which she dominated as winner from 1938 to 1960, when she retired. In 1950, Maria Theresa was named the first Latin American woman to be given the Women’s International Master title. &lt;strong&gt;When Capablanca and Maria Theresa finally competed against each other, it was a three game series. She won twice and had a draw for the third game.&lt;/strong&gt; Nobody could have imagined the pupil would beat the teacher. In typical early 1900's fashion, she was remembered to have said “¡Ay qué pena, le he ganado!” (“oh how embarrassing, I’ve won”).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://havana3am.com/2020/11/11/the-queens-gambit-of-cuba/amp/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Source&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Considering that Maria Teresa finished well behind Vera Menchik in Buenos Aires 1939, and that Vera Menchik's record against Capablanca is 0-9, I find it hard to believe that Maria Teresa actually did beat Capablanca 2.5-0.5. There certainly is no record of these games in the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/player/maria_teresa_mora_iturralde.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chessgames database&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Still, it's possible that the Chessgames database is incomplete, so I would like to confirm if the claim is indeed true (or untrue).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit&lt;/strong&gt;: if the claim is true, I would very much like to see the moves in the games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit #2:&lt;/strong&gt; it seems the author of the source cannot verify the claim either, and has added a disclaimer to the bottom of the article.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastEditorUserId="15223" LastEditDate="2020-11-17T12:39:15.107" LastActivityDate="2020-11-17T19:06:48.380" Title="Did Maria Teresa Mora Iturralde beat Capablanca 2.5-0.5?" Tags="&lt;history&gt;&lt;capablanca&gt;&lt;women&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32945" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="5543" CreationDate="2020-11-16T02:21:19.630" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;To answer this question you would first have to explain what you mean by &amp;quot;long&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you define &amp;quot;long&amp;quot; as over the number of games played, then the next question is &amp;quot;which games do you count?&amp;quot; It shouldn't be surprising that if a grandmaster plays in their local weekend circuit against much-weaker players, they are almost never going to lose. For the record to have value then, one needs to impose restrictions on the strengths of the opposition. If you argue that you count all FIDE-rated games, then &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ara.org.ar/chs/ajedrez/lalic.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Bogdan Lalic reached 155 games undefeated&lt;/a&gt;. Alternatively if you require master-level opposition, then the record holder is current world champion Magnus Carlsen, &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_world_records_in_chess#Longest_unbeaten_streak&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;who was undefeated over 125 games&lt;/a&gt; (or 122 games if you follow Carlsen and do not count three games against opponents rated over 500 points lower).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Alternatively, if you define &amp;quot;long&amp;quot; as &amp;quot;years without a loss&amp;quot;, then Carlsen is not anywhere close to the record since his streak lasted for only two years. In this case you could argue for Steinitz, who was undefeated for 9 years &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_world_records_in_chess#Consecutive_wins_against_masters&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;winning 25 consecutive games in the process&lt;/a&gt;. However, that streak was only 32 games. Or you could argue for Bobby Fischer, who was undefeated from 1975 to 1992, during which he played 0 games. But at that point, why stop with Fischer? You could probably pick a random person off the street and they would've been undefeated for years.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In short, you need to define carefully what the scope of the record you're considering is. As far as I'm aware, the longest unbeaten streak is usually attributed to Carlsen, but there will be people who consider otherwise.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastActivityDate="2020-11-16T02:21:19.630" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32946" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-11-16T05:10:31.287" Score="-1" ViewCount="206" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the TCEC Cup 7 , Stockfish and Leela Zero played the below position;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is this a win for White or is Black able to defend this position? Black to Play&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &amp;quot;TCEC Cup 7&amp;quot;]&#xA;[White &amp;quot;Stockfish 11?&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Black &amp;quot;Leela Zero&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Result &amp;quot;*&amp;quot;]&#xA;[SetUp &amp;quot;1&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;8/5pk1/6p1/R5Np/7P/6PK/5r2/8 b - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24709" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-11-16T07:56:13.537" LastActivityDate="2020-11-16T22:59:06.153" Title="Stockfish vs Leela zero" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;computer-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32948" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32946" CreationDate="2020-11-16T05:46:45.543" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Without running any analysis.&#xA;I can't see any moves that are deemed &amp;quot;Strong&amp;quot; for black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I ran a quick computer analysis through three engines and in each instance white is winning in the starting position;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Results - Starting Position&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;~Stockfish 12  : +2.32 &lt;br /&gt;&#xA;~Leela Zero    : +2.31 &lt;br /&gt;&#xA;~Komodo Dragon : +2.44&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The below is the best result for black is the below;  which both Stockfish and Komodo Dragon as the best outcome for black in 5 lines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[White &amp;quot;Stockfish&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Black &amp;quot;Leela Zero&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Result &amp;quot;*&amp;quot;]&#xA;[SetUp &amp;quot;1&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;8/5pk1/6p1/R5Np/7P/6P1/5r1K/8 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &amp;quot;28&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Kh3 Kf8 2. Ra7 Kg8 3. Rc7 Kf8 4. Rc8+ Kg7 5. Rc7 Kf8 6. Rb7 Kg7 7. Rd7 Kf8 8. Rd8+ Kg7 9. Rc8 Re2 10. Rc7 Rf2 11. Rb7 Kf8 12. Rd7 Kg7 13. Ne6+ Kf6 14. Nd8 Kg7 *&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Results Finsihing Position&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;~Stockfish 12  : +2.63 &lt;br /&gt;&#xA;~Leela Zero    : +2.64 &lt;br /&gt;&#xA;~Komodo Dragon : +2.66&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Note:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;em&gt;I just interpreted whites first move to make things easier my side for analysis etc. Does not change the described position.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24511" LastEditorUserId="24511" LastEditDate="2020-11-16T13:01:58.223" LastActivityDate="2020-11-16T13:01:58.223" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32949" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32929" CreationDate="2020-11-16T09:13:54.793" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Stockfish 12 is objectively the best in the free engines that is publicly accessible.&#xA;Estimated Elo ~ 3230. There is another engine mildly more powerful however I don't believe its available and the difference is negligible. Stockfish has good positional awareness, aggression etc can be tampered with for interesting outcomes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I look at Komodo Dragon as a strong closed source engine and the Armageddon feature where it treats draws as a loss is extremely good especially for training purposes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Reality of it is almost all engines out perform human players in positional awareness , tactical and strategic play. Its like comparing brands of paracetamol. All the same and any differences are so minute we'd never notice them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24511" LastActivityDate="2020-11-16T09:13:54.793" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32950" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22612" CreationDate="2020-11-16T10:59:39.063" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I see from your profile that you are familiar with programming concepts. As a programmer myself, familiar with hexadecimal and other number base notations, I have found it easier to convert the alphanumeric chess position to two numbers first before locating the position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So when you see an &lt;code&gt;a, b, c, d, e, f, h&lt;/code&gt; convert it to a number in your head first &lt;code&gt;1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8.&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then you look for square &lt;code&gt;[3, 4]&lt;/code&gt; or &lt;code&gt;[7, 1]&lt;/code&gt; remembering that the column is first, then the row.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So all you need to learn is to quickly convert the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;a=1&#xA;b=2&#xA;c=3&#xA;d=4&#xA;e=5&#xA;f=6&#xA;g=7&#xA;h=8&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So when you see a position like c3, immediately say &lt;code&gt;[3, 3]&lt;/code&gt; in your head before looking for it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This was especially easier for me when I'm playing the black pieces and need to count from the top right corner, as it is quicker than trying to count alphabet letters from right to left. But like everyone else said - it takes practise before it becomes natural.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25297" LastEditorUserId="25297" LastEditDate="2020-11-16T11:05:26.507" LastActivityDate="2020-11-16T11:05:26.507" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32951" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32929" CreationDate="2020-11-16T12:09:10.650" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;A really strong and great positional open source engine I have used is Rodent.  The last version was Rodent IV and is available at &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.pkoziol.cal24.pl/rodent/rodent.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.pkoziol.cal24.pl/rodent/rodent.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course Chess Programming wiki continues to be a good place to research and discover engines and the following link shows only open source engines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessprogramming.org/Category:Open_Source&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.chessprogramming.org/Category:Open_Source&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25282" LastActivityDate="2020-11-16T12:09:10.650" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32952" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32801" CreationDate="2020-11-16T12:29:35.483" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Playing through annotated game collections can be very useful.  However in this regard I very much agree with Dan Heisman who advocates strongly for what he calls Instructive Game Anthologies.  He distinguishes this from game collection books by a top grandmaster and says that the author of an instructive anthology is trying to use the game to demonstrate and highlight key ideas in order to help instruct the reader.  Whereas game collections are often not trying to provide instruction and may contain deep analysis of sidelines that are hard to follow unless you are a very strong player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Dan has a great list on his website where he puts in order a set of instructive game anthologies: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.danheisman.com/recommended-book-lists.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.danheisman.com/recommended-book-lists.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25282" LastActivityDate="2020-11-16T12:29:35.483" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32953" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32919" CreationDate="2020-11-16T13:22:33.893" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;This answer is about the &lt;a href=&quot;https://handbook.fide.com/chapter/E012018&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Laws of Chess effective from 1 January 2018&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There does not seem to be any explicit provision for a player updating their scoresheet using their opponent’s scoresheet, except where exactly one player has stopped recording moves due to low time (Article 8.5.2):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If only one player has not kept score under Article 8.4, he must, as soon as either flag has fallen, update his scoresheet completely before moving a piece on the chessboard. Provided it is that player’s move, he may use his opponent’s scoresheet, but must return it before making a move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The player updating their scoresheet must have the move, so their clock should be running (assuming their opponent remembered to press it!).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;This would not apply to a 25 minute game (see below).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I would expect that requests to see the opponent’s scoresheet, or at least excessive requests, would be considered distracting. This is supported by the “rapid chess” rules, which would apply to a 25 minute game. See Article A.3.2:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The player may at any time, when it is his move, ask the arbiter or his assistant to show him the scoresheet. This may be requested a maximum of five times in a game. More requests shall be considered as a distraction of the opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If asking the arbiter or their assistant six times in a game is distracting, then asking the opponent six times is definitely distracting.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You are definitely not obligated to let your opponent see your scoresheet if you don’t have one. In “rapid chess”, players do not have to maintain a scoresheet (Article A.2):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Players do not need to record the moves, but do not lose their rights to claims normally based on a scoresheet.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25131" LastActivityDate="2020-11-16T13:22:33.893" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32954" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32944" CreationDate="2020-11-16T14:02:21.893" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The databases are going to be entirely incomplete. She became the Cuban Champion early in the early 20's but there isn't a single game recorded anywhere.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The only documented game I can find of her is against Capablanca. This isn't overly surprising as she was privately tutored by him. So there is absolutely no doubt that they were known to each other or that they played games against each other. A remarkably dull game to be honest.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &amp;quot;Capablanca Simul&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Site &amp;quot;Buenos Aires&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Round &amp;quot;?&amp;quot;]&#xA;[White &amp;quot;Capablanca&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Black &amp;quot;Iturralde&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Result &amp;quot;1-0&amp;quot;]&#xA;[ECO &amp;quot;C62&amp;quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &amp;quot;61&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 d6 4. Bxc6+ bxc6 5. d4 Bg4 6. dxe5 dxe5 7. Qxd8+ Rxd8 8. Nfd2 Nf6 9. f3 Be6 10. b3 Bc5 11. Bb2 Nd7 12. Nc3 O-O 13. Nd1 f5 14. Ke2 Rf6 15. Ne3 f4 16. Nec4 Rg6 17. Kf1 Rh6 18. h4 Rh5 19. Ke2 Bf7 20. Na5 Rh6 21. Ndc4 Re8 22. Rad1 Bxc4+ 23. Nxc4 Bd6 24. Ba3 c5 25. Rd2 Rg6 26. Kf2 h5 27. Rhd1 Ree6 28. Na5 Kh7 29. c4 Rg3 30. Nb7 Reg6 31. Kf1  1-0&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Regarding the following paragraph;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Considering that Maria Teresa finished well behind Vera Menchik in&#xA;Buenos Aires 1939, and that Vera Menchik's record against Capablanca&#xA;is 0-9, I find it hard to believe that Maria Teresa actually did beat&#xA;Capablanca 2.5-0.5.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think that assessment is more than reasonable and probably accurate. I find it extremely unlikely however if she was taught by Capablanca she would be familiar with his play style which would provide some competitive edge.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Queens Gambit is a fantastic show; however it has drummed up a mountain of hack journalism I have seen articles that the show is based on Judit Polgárs life...instead of the book that came out in 1983 when she would have been 5 or 6? More likely the article is just capitalising on this wave and she is probably the most notable female chess player from Cuba &lt;em&gt;(going to get in trouble for that comment)&lt;/em&gt;. Strongly suggest re-reading the article through an objective lens. There is little fact or evidence to support any claims and seems to pushing an agenda.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24511" LastEditorUserId="24511" LastEditDate="2020-11-16T14:11:53.237" LastActivityDate="2020-11-16T14:11:53.237" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32955" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-11-16T15:57:13.510" Score="5" ViewCount="1092" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt; [fen &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 g6 4. O-O (4. Bxc6) Bg7 5. Re1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there any point in maintaining the tension? Does it force any adjustments from Black? Is the timing irrelevant or is White really waiting for something?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15478" LastActivityDate="2020-11-17T01:12:46.250" Title="What is the point of delaying the exchange in the Rossolimo?" Tags="&lt;sicilian-defense&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32956" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32955" CreationDate="2020-11-16T17:34:53.020" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;The underlying reasons for delaying BxN are -&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Preserving options&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Saving tempi&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Suppose in the final position black plays a6 forcing white to make a decision. Bf1 is a perfectly good alternative to BxN. It is one which will lead to an entirely different game, one which white may prefer.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In any case it makes some sense to wait for black to commit with a6 because then BxN comes without the loss of a move that playing it unprovoked would involve and it has provoked a weakening of the b6 square.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Again looking at the final position above, an immediate BxN leaves black with a choice of recaptures, either bxc6 or dxc6. White may not like the position after dxc6, in which case it makes sense to wait until black plays d6 first before exchanging. Alternatively white might not like the possibility of BxN bxc6 followed by d7-d5. Again if white waits for d6 then a tempo has been saved.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Keeping options open and saving time are features of the way stronger players play. Prematurely closing down options and squandering tempi are what weaker players do.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-11-16T17:34:53.020" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32957" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22612" CreationDate="2020-11-16T20:22:03.890" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Memorize not just squares, but ranks and files. a: Queen's Rook b: Queen's kNight, c: Queen's Bishop, d: Queen, e: King, f: King's Bishop, g: King's kNight, h: King's Rook. 1: White's back rank, 2: White's pawn rank, 3: White one pawn-move, 4: White's two pawn-move. For each square, you should become familiar what role that square in particular play, but also what role its rank and file plays. For instance, since Black usually castles into g8, f6 the square a knight can attack the king, and where a pawn can attack the middle of the three f7, g7, h7 pawns, etc. It's where a bishop can threaten mate when combined with a queen on the g file, etc. The f file is just off the center on the king side. It's where you're likely supporting you e pawn from, and losing control of it means that attack can come into the g file (where you king usually is). Rank 6 is the last rank before Black's pawns.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Start with the edges of the board: a file, h file, rank 1, rank 8. It should be easy to get a1, a8, h1, and h8 down. Then go for the middle: rank 4, rank 5, d file, e file. Memorize d1, e1, d8, e8, then d4, d5, e4, e5, then move on to a4, a5, h4, h5. Every other square is only one King's move away from one of these 16 squares.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15221" LastActivityDate="2020-11-16T20:22:03.890" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32958" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32946" CreationDate="2020-11-16T22:59:06.153" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The position appears to be a win for White. To win the position White needs to bring their king. So the first step of a the winning plan is to put the white rook to f4. The position after a rook trade is easily winning for White, so Black's response would have to be to defend f7 from the 7th rank. For instance:&#xA;1.Ra4 Re2 2.Rf4 Re7&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now White can bring their king: 3.Kg2 Ra7 4.Kf3 Ra3+ 5.Kf2 (not 5.Ke4 and 5...f6! draws) Ra2+ 6.Ke3 Ra3+ 7.Kd4 Ra4+ (7...f6 now allows 8.Ne4) 8.Kc5 Ra7 9.Kb6 Re7 10.Kc6 Ra7.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;At this point White once again switches around the rook, blocking the black rook from the 7th rank: 11.Rb4 Ra2 12.Rb7 Rf2&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With the way cleared White now tries to put their king to e8, finally breaking down the defense of f7. 13.Kd7 Kf8 14.Rb8+ Kg7 15. Rb4 Kf8 16. Rf4 Rd2+ 17. Kc6 Rc2+ 18. Kd6 Rd2+ 19. Ke5 Rd7 20. Nxf7 Rxf7 21. Ke6!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is just an example line, Black can defend quite a bit longer however White will always break through eventually.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm quite new here, would be happy if someone can help out with putting up such a board for replaying. :)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24693" LastActivityDate="2020-11-16T22:59:06.153" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32959" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32955" CreationDate="2020-11-16T23:00:30.913" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;A trade of c6 will not happen in all variations, so White keeps his options open (as the saying goes, &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-k2fRVYeFg&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;to take is a mistake!&lt;/a&gt;) but even if that were the case there's no need to trade immediately if White considers that all of Black's moves that prevent the trade are bad.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is no reason to assume that capturing immediately should be the default. We should looking for reasons to do it, rather than for reasons not to do it and exchange if we find none.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastActivityDate="2020-11-16T23:00:30.913" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32960" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-11-16T23:17:27.600" Score="2" ViewCount="625" Body="&lt;p&gt;On chess.com we get only one full depth analysis in a day, which is very little. Is there a way to analyze more chess games and get all the accuracy metrics as well? Are there any other website which can help me do this analysis? This is because I want to analyze my games and learn from my mistakes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25304" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-11-16T23:50:52.950" LastActivityDate="2020-11-16T23:50:52.950" Title="Alternatives to the paid analysis on chess.com" Tags="&lt;beginner&gt;&lt;websites&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ClosedDate="2020-12-18T08:49:54.050" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32961" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32960" CreationDate="2020-11-16T23:29:58.383" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you have a lichess.org account you can analyze both games you played yourself there or games you imported. I think currently the limit is 25 of your games played in the site and (not 100% sure) half of that for games you did not play on the site, so either games from other players or ones that you imported.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not sure exactly which stats you want however it gives you the number of blunders, mistakes and inaccuracies, as well as your average centi pawn loss which is a rough measure of how good your play was on average. Then you can for example use the &amp;quot;Learn from my mistakes&amp;quot; feature to see the positions where you made a mistake, and try to find a better move. Or you can simply look at the computer line in that position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24693" LastActivityDate="2020-11-16T23:29:58.383" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32962" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32955" CreationDate="2020-11-17T01:12:46.250" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Both moves have their advantages and disadvantages. In the system you gave with 3...g6, 4.0-0 doesn't commit to capturing on c6. White may do this anyway at some point, but he also has other plans. For example, one line runs 4...Bg7 5.Re1 Nf6 6.e5 Nd5 7.Nc3 Nc7 8.Bxc6 dxc6 9.Ne4. So in this particular example, White does end up capturing on c6, but the position has clearly changed a fair bit since the 3rd move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Meanwhile, the upside of 4.Bxc6 is that it makes it (arguably) slightly poorer than usual for Black to recapture on c6 with the d-pawn. Overall in OTB play, 4...dxc6 is still played about 1.77 times more often than 4...bxc6, and in correspondence the ratio is around 1.84. Nevertheless, the idea is that ...dxc6 enables White to castle queenside (one key reason is that the b-file remains closed). And White can take advantage of this thanks to his king still being on e1. One line goes 4...dxc6 5.d3 Bg7 6.h3 Nf6 7.Nc3 0-0 8.Be3 b6 9.Qd2 e5 10.Bh6 Qd6 11.0-0-0, with interesting play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So if White wants to immediately capture on c6 (either on the 4th or 5th move), then it makes sense to go for 4.Bxc6. Even if he's not planning to castle queenside in the event of 4...dxc6, the bluff could persuade some players to play 4...bxc6. Meanwhile, if White intends on leaving the tension between the b5-bishop and c6-knight for a while, 4.0-0 is clearly the way to go.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2020-11-17T01:12:46.250" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32963" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32944" CreationDate="2020-11-17T04:21:51.610" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have found a source in Spanish that is like the cuban enciclopedia and tells that those games were played in simultaneous games. &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.ecured.cu/Mar%C3%ADa_Teresa_Mora_Iturralde&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.ecured.cu/Mar%C3%ADa_Teresa_Mora_Iturralde&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25306" LastActivityDate="2020-11-17T04:21:51.610" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32964" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-11-17T04:53:45.357" Score="5" ViewCount="90" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let's say that a piece is protecting my king from check, i.e. blocked or pinned. For example, my rook is in the way of my opponent's queen in checking my king. Can I checkmate their king with another piece, let's say my queen, if my check-preventing rook protects my queen, even though I could technically not move that rook?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25308" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-11-17T05:04:04.597" LastActivityDate="2020-11-17T05:16:37.227" Title="Using a check-preventing piece to protect the checkmating piece" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;check&gt;&lt;kings&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32965" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32964" CreationDate="2020-11-17T05:16:37.227" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes- if they captured your queen, then it would count as them going into check:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(from &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/2348/can-a-piece-pinned-to-my-king-put-the-opponents-king-in-check?rq=1&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt;, ironically listed as a &amp;quot;Related&amp;quot; question here)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Besides making sense, it's also explicitly stated in the rules of the&#xA;game:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;3.9 The king is said to be 'in check' if it is attacked by one or more of the opponent's pieces, even if such pieces are constrained from&#xA;moving to that square because they would then leave or place their own&#xA;king in check. No piece can be moved that will either expose the king&#xA;of the same colour to check or leave that king in check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=124&amp;amp;view=article&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Laws of Chess on the FIDE site&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23100" LastActivityDate="2020-11-17T05:16:37.227" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32966" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32944" CreationDate="2020-11-17T09:28:52.840" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have looked at sources in Spanish (mainly Cuban) and most of them purport the same story (similar to that presented in the question) copied and pasted. However, a couple of sources present a somewhat different story.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.tribuna.cu/deportes/2020-10-01/maria-teresa-mora-una-campeona-irrepetible&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;article&lt;/a&gt; in the journal &lt;em&gt;Tribuna de La Habana&lt;/em&gt; says (my translation):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With humility and pride she always kept in her memory the two victories and one draw she obtained against her virtuous teacher, José Raúl Capablanca. They say that, when asked about it, with shiny eyes she accepted to acknowledge those meritorious results, although she then explained to the inquirers that they had been possible during simultaneous games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.lajiribilla.co.cu/2003/n088_01/088_07.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;article&lt;/a&gt;, in the cultural magazine &lt;em&gt;La Jiribilla&lt;/em&gt;, mentions the story of the comment &amp;quot;Such a pity, I won!&amp;quot; But according to it, this didn't occur after wining Capablanca, but during a team tournament in 1960. I translated the relevant part of the article. The story was told by GM Silvino García:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;I remember the First National Championship between State Organisms —Silvino said,— a team tournament that was played in 1960, when I was making my first steps.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;María Teresa defended the first board of the Ministry of Education, where she worked, and had in front of her one of the strongest chess players in the country at the moment.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;She played a brilliant game, till she obtained the victory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Her opponent blushed, a bit because of tension, a bit for having lost against a woman. In accordance to the tradition, he congratulated her and then María Teresa, with that simplicity of hers, said to him in a low voice: Oh, such a pity, how I won you!&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ajedrezpinal.com/la-discipula-que-derroto-a-capablanca/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;One of the games&lt;/a&gt; was won by María Teresa during an exhibition given by Capablanca against 28 players at the Institute of secondary Education of La Habana on May 3rd 1941.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Event &amp;quot;Simultánea Havana, Cuba&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Site &amp;quot;?&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Date &amp;quot;1941.05.03&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Round &amp;quot;?&amp;quot;]&#xA;[White &amp;quot;Capablanca, Jose Raul&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Black &amp;quot;Mora, María Teresa&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Result &amp;quot;0-1&amp;quot;]&#xA;[ECO &amp;quot;C25&amp;quot;]&#xA;[PlyCount &amp;quot;88&amp;quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 e5 2. Nc3 Nc6 3. f4 exf4 4. Nf3 d6 5. d4 g5 6. Bb5 Bd7 7. O-O Bg7 8. d5&#xA;Ne5 9. Bxd7+ Nxd7 10. Nd4 Ne7 11. g3 Ng6 12. Nf5 Be5 13. Qh5 Nc5 14. Bd2 Qf6 15.&#xA;Rae1 O-O-O 16. Nh6 Kb8 17. h4 gxh4 18. gxf4 Bd4+ 19. Kh2 Rde8 20. f5 Qe5+ 21.&#xA;Kh1 Qg3 22. Rf3 Nf4 23. Qg4 Qxg4 24. Nxg4 Nh5 25. Kg2 Ng3 26. Rf4 Rhg8 27. Kh3&#xA;Bxc3 28. Bxc3 Rxe4 29. Rexe4 Ngxe4 30. Kxh4 Nxc3 31. bxc3 Kc8 32. Kh5 Kd8 33. c4&#xA;Nd7 34. Nh6 Rg7 35. Rf3 Ke7 36. a4 Nf6+ 37. Kh4 Rg2 38. a5 Rh2+ 39. Kg5 Rh5+ 40.&#xA;Kf4 Rxh6 41. Re3+ Kf8 42. Kg5 Kg7 43. Re7 Rh5+ 44. Kf4 Rh4+ 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3757" LastEditorUserId="3757" LastEditDate="2020-11-17T15:54:40.333" LastActivityDate="2020-11-17T15:54:40.333" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32967" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-11-17T10:08:12.410" Score="3" ViewCount="164" Body="&lt;p&gt;I could not find the database which has this, but I would like to know what percentage of promoted pawns ends up being a queen, rook, bishop, or knight&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25309" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-11-17T13:47:54.207" LastActivityDate="2020-11-24T11:15:07.357" Title="What are the percentage rates for each promotion type?" Tags="&lt;database&gt;&lt;statistics&gt;&lt;pawn-promotion&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32969" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33002" CreationDate="2020-11-17T10:26:14.130" Score="4" ViewCount="823" Body="&lt;p&gt;Suppose white gets the following opening:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;1. e4 e5&#xA;2. Nf3 Nc6&#xA;3. Bc4 Nf6&#xA;4. Ng5 d5&#xA;5. exd5 Na5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is what I call Fried Liver Refuted, instead of Nxd5 we get instead Na5. &lt;strong&gt;From this position does white have some tricky continuation?&lt;/strong&gt; By tricky I mean some sharp snappy line with some traps in it. It seems like after Na5 white runs out of tricks, but is this true? Some tricks in this position would be really fun to implement; most players only study this line up to this point because it is preached that Na5 is the best move for black and after it white runs out of punches, so a couple of tricks would most likely find black with is guard down.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24909" LastActivityDate="2020-12-01T00:47:42.780" Title="Tricky continuation to the Fried Liver &quot;refuted&quot;" Tags="&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;attack&gt;&lt;opening-traps&gt;&lt;fried-liver-attack&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32970" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="13809" CreationDate="2020-11-17T10:28:34.533" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;The international piece sets are also supported on the lishogi and pychess sites, which are based of the lila code.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other piece sets can be designed by using userstyles.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/0U6We.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/0U6We.png&quot; alt=&quot;lishogi example of international piece set&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16912" LastActivityDate="2020-11-17T10:28:34.533" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32971" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32976" CreationDate="2020-11-17T10:37:02.867" Score="3" ViewCount="159" Body="&lt;p&gt;Some strong players are able to read entire chess games from a book, as they are very familiar with the notation of the chessboard and theory.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For amateur online players, this can be a difficult task and one of the factors that can stop improvement in understanding deeper positional ideas which are explained in this chess notation heavy chess books.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does practicing &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/training/coordinate&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;coordinates&lt;/a&gt; help improve reading? The top scores of titled players are 85 squares in 30 seconds, whereas I average 45 squares in 30 seconds.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16912" LastActivityDate="2020-11-17T12:14:31.747" Title="Does practising Lichess coordinates help with reading chess books chess games faster?" Tags="&lt;notation&gt;&lt;lichess&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32972" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22612" CreationDate="2020-11-17T10:48:23.170" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Playing blindfold chess might also help with coordinates a lot, once we have a visual sense of where the squares should be, and how they are related spatially in the mind, we can get really comfortable using the chess algebraic notations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you just want to learn notation, its a-h horizontally, and 1-8 vertically on the 8x8 board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16912" LastActivityDate="2020-11-17T10:48:23.170" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32973" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23495" CreationDate="2020-11-17T11:06:29.417" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The standard dobutsu position gives a win for the second player. It is a well known concept of &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zugzwang#Tr%C3%A9buchet&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;zugzwang&lt;/a&gt; that emerges out of forced lines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Running &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.pychess.org/analysis/dobutsu&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Fairy Stockfish&lt;/a&gt; (on the pychess variants site analysis section) in the normal dobutsu backrank configuration gives a -9.8 evaluation after running it on a bigger depth.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/iSTLP.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/iSTLP.png&quot; alt=&quot;enter image description here&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16912" LastActivityDate="2020-11-17T11:06:29.417" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32974" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12728" CreationDate="2020-11-17T11:09:20.473" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There aren't any english resources for learning xiangqi other than the webpage mentioned above. There is a Malaysian titled player who produced xiangqi content in English. The link for his video resources on xiangqi can be found here: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqkiX5bDGUQAzgBcz7V29KA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Link&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are a few xiangqi players on the pychess.org site's discord who are willing to help out in xiangqi studies and openings. But overall the game is less popular outside China.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16912" LastActivityDate="2020-11-17T11:09:20.473" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32975" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32969" CreationDate="2020-11-17T11:10:38.407" Score="11" Body="&lt;p&gt;I mean, this is the main line and for a reason.&#xA;But I would be very surprised if most people's repertoire ended here, this is where it begins. The line goes&#xA;6.Bb5+ c6 7.dxc6 bxc6&#xA;And now White has a number of options. In all of them White stays up a pawn however Black gets some counter play. (and there isn't a great line to give back that pawn for initiative, not much to play for tricks)&#xA;The two main moves are 8.Be2 and 8.Bd3.&#xA;The line might continue 8.Be2 h6 9.Nf3 e4 10.Ne5 and Black will keep some lead in development and try to attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The idea of the other move then is to gain access to the e4 square, if 8.Bd3 h6 9.Ne4.&#xA;However this move blocks the d pawn so White will need to move that bishop again at a later time. Both of these lines can be very complicated and sharp so White has to be careful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24693" LastActivityDate="2020-11-17T11:10:38.407" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32976" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32971" CreationDate="2020-11-17T12:14:31.747" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;I did the test and got 50 squares in 30 seconds. Part of the reason was that it takes some time to move the mouse, but it seems you're quite close to me in speed. I'm also a titled player that can read games from books, so I don't think this is where your problem is.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'd suggest practicing blindfold chess. Just try playing it a bunch of times with someone, and over time you should get better at it. This helps with reading games from just the notation, since it's the same type of skill being applied.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You mentioned strong players are familiar with theory. This is true, and it includes knowledge like typical opening moves and pawn structures. If the game you are going through (without a board) reaches a position with a structure you're familiar with, or features sequences of moves you've seen many times before, then it's easier to keep track of. If you asked a strong player to read through a game where the 32 pieces start in completely random squares on the board, they would have a harder time since nothing will be familiar.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So to improve your knowledge of theory, the answer here is to just study books on openings, middlegames, etc. Obviously the main purpose of this would be to improve your chess as a whole, and the increased abilities to read games will come as a byproduct.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2020-11-17T12:14:31.747" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32978" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32944" CreationDate="2020-11-17T19:06:48.380" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I see that some participants have posted here two of the games played vs Capablanca in simultaneous. I found other of her games in chesgames.com but against other people, these were official games, some of them at World Women championships. &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/player/maria_teresa_mora_iturralde.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.chessgames.com/player/maria_teresa_mora_iturralde.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25313" LastActivityDate="2020-11-17T19:06:48.380" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32979" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32982" CreationDate="2020-11-17T22:17:55.260" Score="7" ViewCount="395" Body="&lt;p&gt;The post &amp;quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/32845/a-mysterious-mate-in-one&quot;&gt;A mysterious mate in one&lt;/a&gt;&amp;quot; made me think of one of my last problems which is also a Mate-in-One with no black King:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    [Title &amp;quot;White to move and mate in one&amp;quot;]&#xA;    [FEN &amp;quot;1B1NB2K/P2RN3/8/1R6/1P5P/4P2Q/1PP2PP1/8 w KQkq - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;All the white pieces are there but none of the black ones.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;White (at the bottom) to move.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;The position is legal, except that the Black King (and the Black King only) is not displayed. Find it - there is but one place.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Mate in one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4234" LastEditorUserId="4234" LastEditDate="2020-11-26T12:01:17.703" LastActivityDate="2020-11-26T12:01:17.703" Title="Mate in One the Missing King" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;problems&gt;&lt;puzzles&gt;&lt;retrograde-analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="8" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32980" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-11-18T00:40:10.623" Score="1" ViewCount="144" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sometimes I feel that a human, particularly a human of about my elo rating, would not ever play so.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I never used an engine in my life for cheating, but I think it is not so hard.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think, most of the cheaters does not automatize &amp;quot;well&amp;quot;. Thus, he has no way to step with the engine on the spot, instead if he switches to it, he needs to duplicate the state. This gets some time - maybe a minute - for him. After that, he starts to play astonishingly well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If I experience this pattern, I report it, but there is a bitter feeling. Obviously reporting someone beause I lost is no good. I think I should do this only if I am sure, but I can never be sure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are rumors that chess.com has some very sophisticated technology to detect engine cheaters, but I doubt that they could really do it. I believe that they do their maximum (like utilizing some AI to measure the &amp;quot;human-ness&amp;quot; of the steps of the players), but I think anything what they could do, can be easily gamed (like using the engine only for some, critical steps of the party).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Do maybe some other patterns exist, which could raise the doubt?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25317" LastActivityDate="2020-11-19T10:50:47.640" Title="What are the most characteristic signatures if an opponent cheats in online game by using an engine?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;online-chess&gt;&lt;cheating&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="6" ClosedDate="2020-11-18T07:23:25.123" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32981" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32980" CreationDate="2020-11-18T01:46:09.057" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are a range of factors sites use;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Such as play style, move depth , skill level vs move skill level. Engines are emotionless and are willing to just commit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Things such as ;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Move depth not comparable to skill level&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Move Time being consistent eg 5 seconds per move (hard to demonstrate her)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Consistent string of flawless games&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Move depth not comparable to skill level&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have the following of a game played recently in an club vs club tournament on Lichess. This juniors game was detected as having cheating in it. Whilst it was being played people were suspicious by the two particular moves highlight below.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This highlighted moves are something you would expect to see of players rated 2000+ and isn't a natural move to find especially for juniors. The human brain sees the rook move and discards it almost immediately as a Rook trading for a Bishop. I have reviewed the games since and found that the move list was 1 for 1 the entire time for black against StockFish 10&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[White &amp;quot;White &amp;quot;]&#xA;[Black &amp;quot;The Suspect&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Event &amp;quot;Hyper Aggressive Sacrifices (Blitz 3|2)&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;2krr3/ppp2ppp/2n3b1/4n3/2P3P1/P3PN1P/1P1NB3/2KR1R2 b - - 0 18&amp;quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &amp;quot;0&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Rd3! 2. Bxd3 Nxd3+ 3. Kc2 Nf2+ 4. Kc1 Nxd1 5. Kxd1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another Example from the same game;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[White &amp;quot;White&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Black &amp;quot;The Suspect&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Result &amp;quot;0-1&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;2kr4/ppp2ppp/6b1/8/2P1P1P1/P3rB1P/1PKN1n2/3R4 w - - 0 24&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Rf1 Rxf3! 2. Nxf3 Bxe4+ 3. Kc3 Rd3+ 3. Kb4 Rxf3 3. Re1 Nd3+ 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24511" LastEditorUserId="10380" LastEditDate="2020-11-19T10:50:47.640" LastActivityDate="2020-11-19T10:50:47.640" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32982" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32979" CreationDate="2020-11-18T03:38:25.420" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;Your post is perfectly fine here, my friend. Chess problems and puzzles are on-topic here, and we do need more. All kinds of all sorts are welcome. We just need to bring them here!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think that out of the 14 open squares on the board, only:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt; placing the Black king on both a6 works!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is because placement on the squares:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt; a1, a2, a8, a4, b1, c1, c4, d1, d2, e1, e2,  f1, f6, f8, g1, and h6 all result in an illegal position. This is due to the fact that Black either has no last legal move if it is White's turn, or it would've been impossible for the Black king to get around the current White pawn structure. Thus, they are not options at all. This explains the &amp;quot;retrograde-analysis&amp;quot; tag.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore, remaining the square works:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt; with the solution checkmate being 1. Rd6#.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-11-25T16:47:18.493" LastActivityDate="2020-11-25T16:47:18.493" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32983" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="32985" CreationDate="2020-11-18T04:07:24.820" Score="11" ViewCount="8213" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let's say I totally dominate my opponent, but simply run out of time, then I lose the game right?&#xA;But doesn't it make more sense to be given 51% of the rating adjustment (not 50/50 as for a draw).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The criteria would be simple, that is if a user is in a completely winning position by stockfish evaluation (mate in X) or they are up 5+ material points.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I feel like losing rating when you dominate a GM who is rated 500 points higher than you in a 1+0 bullet game just because they moved very fast (and randomly) at the end is a bit unfair. Is there a historical reasoning for not applying such rules?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20657" LastActivityDate="2020-11-20T15:18:35.310" Title="Why is flagging considered a win?" Tags="&lt;time-control&gt;&lt;time-management&gt;&lt;winning&gt;&lt;claim-draw&gt;" AnswerCount="8" CommentCount="13" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32984" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="29113" CreationDate="2020-11-18T05:16:39.117" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;c rook is blacks worst piece.&#xA;Bh6 does little to activate c rook whereas moving the knight immediately starts f rook and once that moves the c rook comes too. And I was surprised to see in solution how quickly it does activate, amazing.&#xA;Also Bh6 seems dodgy as may be tactical checks onto the now open black king diagonal king and black does have weak pawn. Nh4 just seems to go at whites horrid king side and I think you should play the move reasonably quickly as then opponent cannot cover all bases thinking on your time. Then you can find the subtleties thinking on his time. Nh4 is going to terrify him sure. I actually saw whites Qg5 reply and thought well he is coming forward leaving less king defense then I spotted the Queen h2 after Rf2 tactic and so I would see a small plus with little downside and lots of scare for white. I used to be seriously awful at 5 min blitz thinking too deep and now I o&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25318" LastActivityDate="2020-11-18T05:16:39.117" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32985" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32983" CreationDate="2020-11-18T05:17:45.633" Score="54" Body="&lt;p&gt;I feel like you somewhat misunderstand the concept of a time control. The clock is a part of the game. If you are up a piece in a complicated position with five seconds left on the clock that may well be a losing position for you. Sure, the engine may show you +4, but the clock is an important part, especially in blitz.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Importantly, if you spent all your time getting a good position while the opponent played quickly to conserve their time, then they performed better, because they got to a still tricky position while using less thinking time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you don't like this flagging mechanic (I for one do not), increment exists for a reason. There is still some time management there, as playing on just the increment means you don't have time to think deeply. However, it allows you to keep playing instead of losing on time. If you play without increment, it is your decision, but then you have to be up to take the consequences.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24693" LastEditorUserId="3444" LastEditDate="2020-11-20T06:44:01.217" LastActivityDate="2020-11-20T06:44:01.217" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32987" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32983" CreationDate="2020-11-18T05:51:26.033" Score="23" Body="&lt;p&gt;Let's look at the title question from the perspective of engine chess, which is more objective in the sense that you can get two engines to play tens of thousands of games against each other at whatever time control you desire.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you look at the &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TCEC_Season_19&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;latest season&lt;/a&gt; of the unofficial world computer chess championship, you'll find that the strongest engine is Stockfish, and the weakest is Bagatur/A0lite. A match between the two engines on equal hardware &amp;amp; time control won't be much of a match - in a 100-game match I'd be surprised if Stockfish doesn't score 95% or more. The gap is just that large. Let that sink in for a moment: in an equal match, Stockfish is expected to win with both colors, again and again and again.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;However&lt;/em&gt;, if you allowed Stockfish only 1 second a move while giving Bagatur/A0lite an hour a move, then it's no longer so certain that Stockfish will beat Bagatur/A0lite. In fact, it might very well lose. See the result of &lt;a href=&quot;https://tcec-chess.com/#div=vsob17sfql&amp;amp;game=1&amp;amp;season=17&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;similar testing in the past&lt;/a&gt;, where Stockfish had only 0.3% of its opponent's time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can see the absurdity of it all. Let's say I sit down to play a blitz match with Bagatur against Stockfish at time controls of 5 minutes per game. Stockfish plays a move. I let Bagatur think for two days, then come back and make a move. Stockfish says I lost on time. I counter with &amp;quot;I flagged, but flagging isn't considered a win&amp;quot;. If Stockfish were a human, how do you think it would respond?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;tl; dr&lt;/strong&gt;: the clock is part of the game. If you get a good position, but have to spend too much time to reach that good position, you might not be winning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastActivityDate="2020-11-18T05:51:26.033" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32988" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="24795" CreationDate="2020-11-18T06:15:40.717" Score="-1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Black with Queen is computed as massive advantage. Therefore if white gets Queen he could get a quick or not so quick mate due to the extra tempo which counts a lot at game start. Surely this has been computed and it must give a bigger advantage to Queen team if not actual mate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25318" LastActivityDate="2020-11-18T06:15:40.717" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32989" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32983" CreationDate="2020-11-18T07:24:01.410" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;Except for exceptional circumstances, only three results are considered valid for a chess game (and the corresponding rating change): win, draw or loss.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Your suggestion would come with a huge problem: what exactly counts as flagging? How big should your advantage have been for your opponent's victory to not count as a &amp;quot;real&amp;quot; victory? Who should evaluate that advantage? Would it be fair to take 20 seconds per move on a 3-minute game and still claim you dominated the match?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As other answers have pointed out, the flag is a part of the game. If you don't like losing on time, then you probably shouldn't be playing 1+0&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You won't lose much rating for losing to a GM, whether by flagging or not, by the way.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastEditorUserId="18809" LastEditDate="2020-11-18T07:45:22.960" LastActivityDate="2020-11-18T07:45:22.960" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32991" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32983" CreationDate="2020-11-18T10:03:29.270" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;Since you specifically asked for historical reasons: Think about your two proposed criteria in the context of the year 1800 or 1900.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Using engine evaluation is obviously out of the question. So is &amp;quot;asking a better player&amp;quot;, because you may often not have one at hand (physically, due to limited means of telecommunication!).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Using material count is at least possible. But keep in mind that back in the day, people generally liked to play chess in a much more &amp;quot;romantic&amp;quot; way than today. In other words, less fear of sacrifices. Determining the outcome of games by mere material count probably had very few fans when the rules started to be formalized (and as any strong player will confirm, the romantics wouldn't be entirely wrong, as material is only &lt;em&gt;one&lt;/em&gt; of many factors of the evaluation of a position).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13433" LastActivityDate="2020-11-18T10:03:29.270" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32992" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="22612" CreationDate="2020-11-18T10:36:57.130" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;While specialized training may be useful, you also need to be in a situation where that training can be used.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm mainly interested in chess compositions, and had much the same problem following solutions, or setting up problems from notation (i.e. not from diagrams, but from textual description such as &amp;quot;White: K at KR3, Q at KB2, ...&amp;quot; and so on. Descriptive or algebraic notation.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I found that while I could get the file right pretty easily, the rank required counting.  But after a while, it became obvious that ranks 6, 7 and 8 were easier to count backwards than forwards, (i.e. as 0, 1, 2 from the back rank) and doing that adjustment mentally was quite easy.  Getting ranks 4 and 5 right was a bit more of a problem, and I mixed them up for the longest time.  But persistence pays off. I think it took me about a year of more or less daily use to make errors reasonably rare. (Now I mix up black and white coordinates in descriptive notation instead ...)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But that's me. I suspect it's fairly individual -- I started more or less from zero.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24765" LastActivityDate="2020-11-18T10:36:57.130" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32993" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="18046" CreationDate="2020-11-18T13:37:15.347" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I would like to add a caveat against the blithe assumptions that chess games/score are not possible to copyright.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Individually, probably not.  But as a collection, 'catalogue copyright' just might apply.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In some places, catalogue copyright is used for works that normally could not be protected by copyright, but which still merit some form of protection. Lists, catalogues and directories are typical examples: the protection time is usually less than 10 years.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it does apply or not depends on the situation: is it national law (say, US Copyright law) that applies?  is it the Berne Convention?  The World Copyright Convention?  Or even individual trade agreements between two countries?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It would almost certainly not be applied for fairly small, random downloads: it might however be applied for full download/dump of a chess database. An organization that plans to use it may add identifiable material that makes it possible to say where the information was taken from.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24765" LastEditorDisplayName="user24765" LastEditDate="2020-11-18T13:43:53.873" LastActivityDate="2020-11-18T13:43:53.873" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32994" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32967" CreationDate="2020-11-18T15:04:10.150" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here are the percentages for each promotion type according to different sources:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;|Promotion type  | ChessBase | TWIC | ICCF |&#xA;--------------------------------------------&#xA;| Queen          |      96.9 | 97.3 | 96.1 |&#xA;| Rook           |       1.1 |  1.1 |  1.7 |&#xA;| Knight         |       1.8 |  1.3 |  1.7 |&#xA;| Bishop         |       0.2 |  0.3 |  0.5 |&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Details:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;ChessBase: Percentages from 2006 ChessBase, with 3.2 million games, obtained from &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Promotion_(chess)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;TWIC: Percentages calculated using my own script from 1.4 million games published in &lt;a href=&quot;https://theweekinchess.com/twic&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;The Week In Chess&lt;/a&gt;, issues 920 (Jun. 25th, 2012) to 1358 (Nov. 16th, 2020).&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;ICCF: Percentages calculated using my own script from 0.8 million games made available by the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.iccf.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;International Correspondence Chess Federation&lt;/a&gt;, from the 1970s to 2018.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3757" LastEditorUserId="3757" LastEditDate="2020-11-24T11:15:07.357" LastActivityDate="2020-11-24T11:15:07.357" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32995" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32983" CreationDate="2020-11-18T16:32:53.230" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's considered a win because that is what it is by definition from the rules of timed games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When you enter a game you commit to its rules; in this case one of those rules is that the time you have to force mate or other result is constrained by the clock, and you must adapt your strategy to meet that constraint.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the example you have given, you have not met that constraint and been outplayed by the opponent who has dominated on time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The simple solution is to adapt your game strategy to the timed format or play another format instead.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25322" LastEditorUserId="25322" LastEditDate="2020-11-20T15:18:35.310" LastActivityDate="2020-11-20T15:18:35.310" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32996" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32983" CreationDate="2020-11-18T17:55:12.213" Score="18" Body="&lt;p&gt;Because not having it would result in some perverse incentives. In particular, in any game where a draw is an acceptable outcome, the optimal strategy without flag drops being losses would be to &lt;em&gt;never make a move and simply wait for the flag&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With any partial approach like you propose, the optimal strategy would instead be to try to force such a situation (far easier than actually winning - your &amp;quot;+5 on material&amp;quot; suggestion is especially bad for this, because you end up with situations in which the stronger player has a forced mate that involves, say, a rook sacrifice that takes them to -6 on material, at which point the weaker player can simply let that happen, then wait for the flag. Your rule, in particular, would make a fair number of winning positions into losing positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is also worth noting that there already &lt;em&gt;is&lt;/em&gt; a partial form of this rule in place: if there is no sequence of legal moves by which the player with time left on their clock can checkmate the player whose flag dropped, then the game is a draw. This avoids the above issue, because in such a situation, a draw is already your worst possible outcome, so the perverse incentive is avoided.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21459" LastActivityDate="2020-11-18T17:55:12.213" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32997" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32983" CreationDate="2020-11-18T19:20:44.467" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;Why does a football team lose when the clock runs out?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Time is a key factor in playing chess.  Else you would be back in the olde days when players could take days or weeks or longer before they moved.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Even postal chess has time limits.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Time limits is fair for both sides.  If you played faster thereby not dominating you would not have won.  Why should you be special and not have the clock run out on your team just because you did not get to kick that final field goal?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25269" LastActivityDate="2020-11-18T19:20:44.467" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32998" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32969" CreationDate="2020-11-18T19:26:31.197" Score="-9" Body="&lt;p&gt;5....na5 is inferior and certainly no refutation of the fried liver.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not going to tell you the correct move to win with black.&#xA;Leaving that as an exercise to the student who will probably look it up or might find it by running an engine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25269" LastActivityDate="2020-11-18T19:26:31.197" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="32999" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33000" CreationDate="2020-11-19T00:34:13.220" Score="2" ViewCount="139" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been writing some chess puzzles lately and I thought I would post some of them up here. I'm quite fond of this one so I thought I would share. I traditionally am not a fan of problems that are a &amp;quot;Mate in X,&amp;quot; especially when it's in five, but the position, I think, is aesthetically pleasing. The real problem isn't the mate, in my opinion, it's setting it up.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &amp;quot;Forced Mate in 5&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Date &amp;quot;2020.11.05&amp;quot;]&#xA;[White &amp;quot;White&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Black &amp;quot;Black&amp;quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &amp;quot;2622&amp;quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &amp;quot;2622&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Annotator &amp;quot;Bateman, David&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;2r1qbnr/1b4p1/p2pNk1p/npp1pP2/4P1Q1/2PPB3/PP4PP/RN3RK1 b - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;[SourceVersionDate &amp;quot;2020.11.19&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... Bc6 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;White to move and force mate in 5 moves.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm inspired by a number of games, but primarily Alekhine vs Janoski, 1924 New York.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Note: Only recently have I learned that problems and puzzles are accepted here and I believe it to be a better community for them.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24511" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-11-19T01:54:13.970" LastActivityDate="2020-11-19T05:06:05.370" Title="Puzzle - Mate in 5 - #001" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;problems&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33000" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32999" CreationDate="2020-11-19T04:32:39.187" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Nice mate!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &amp;quot;Forced Mate in 5&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Date &amp;quot;2020.11.05&amp;quot;]&#xA;[White &amp;quot;White&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Black &amp;quot;Black&amp;quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &amp;quot;2622&amp;quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &amp;quot;2622&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Annotator &amp;quot;Bateman, David&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;2r1qbnr/1b4p1/p2pNk1p/npp1pP2/4P1Q1/2PPB3/PP4PP/RN3RK1 b - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;[SourceVersionDate &amp;quot;2020.11.19&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;  1... Bc6 2. Bg5+ hxg5 3. Qxg5+ Kf7 4. Nd8+! Qxd8 5. Qg6+ Ke7 6. Qe6#&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;  The mate is identical if 4... Rxd8 is played instead. The key idea is to force a piece onto the d8 square in order to cover the two squares the queen on e6 cannot cover - f8 and d8.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3884" LastEditorUserId="24511" LastEditDate="2020-11-19T05:06:05.370" LastActivityDate="2020-11-19T05:06:05.370" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33001" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-11-19T05:27:13.933" Score="1" ViewCount="221" Body="&lt;p&gt;Currently I use the built-in Stockfish app that's in the Apple Store. But unfortunately, I can't put comments in the moves. I would really appreciate it if you can give me good recommendations other than ScidvsMac, because after updating to Big Sur, it doesn't work anymore.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23598" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2020-11-19T17:38:20.730" LastActivityDate="2020-11-21T20:34:01.307" Title="Is there any GUI for Stockfish which allows comments in macOS Big Sur?" Tags="&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;macos&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33002" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32969" CreationDate="2020-11-19T09:25:22.283" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe you should go for &lt;strong&gt;9.h4&lt;/strong&gt; in the main line:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nf6 4.Ng5 d5 5.exd5 Na5 6.Bb5+ c6 7.dxc6 bxc6 8.Bd3 Nd5 9.h4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;White is trying to keep his pieces on active squares at all costs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is a lot of complexity here, e.g. in the line 9...h6 10.Qh5 Qf6 11.Nh7!? Rxh7 12.Bxh7 g6 (don't play 11.Nxf7 hoping for 11...Qxf7 12.Bg6, black has 11...Nf4).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The line 9...Nf4 10.Bf1 h6 11.Nf3 Bd6 12.d4 exd4 13.Qxd4 Ne6 is not as tricky, but white has a pawn and Stockfish says white is a little bit better, which is all you can hope for these days.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In both cases, &lt;em&gt;preparation will help&lt;/em&gt;, as there are no normal moves in positions like this. And that's the only kind of &amp;quot;tricks&amp;quot; that are available here I think.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastActivityDate="2020-11-19T09:25:22.283" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33003" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33006" CreationDate="2020-11-19T12:30:00.420" Score="5" ViewCount="1143" Body="&lt;p&gt;Suppose X and Y are in an endgame:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;X has a rook and 400 seconds.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Y has a rook and 40 seconds.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Y obviously cannot claim draw because X can theoretically win, even&#xA;though a minimally careful play would result in a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;X will play to make Y's time run out, but has to avoid the 50 move draw and&#xA;the threefold repetition draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, since Y is hard pressed on time, he may not notice that a position has&#xA;been repeated three times. More inexperient players may even overlook that&#xA;the 50 moves have been made. In this scenario, will Y actually have missed the&#xA;chance to get the draw? Or can Y tell the arbiter that he wants to have the&#xA;draw if any of those events occur, even if Y misses it?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lichess has an option to claim draw on threefold repetition when time remaining &amp;lt; 30 seconds, thus I'm wondering if there is something of the sort for on the board games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24703" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-11-19T13:33:05.293" LastActivityDate="2020-11-19T13:33:05.293" Title="Automatically claiming draw when low on time" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;time-control&gt;&lt;otb-chess&gt;&lt;claim-draw&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33004" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33003" CreationDate="2020-11-19T12:45:03.870" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In many over the board long time control games if there's no more time to be added (so no extra time after 40/60 moves or anything) you can request a 5 second increment or delay. This counts as draw offer and if the opponent doesn't want to draw the game continues with those 5 second increment and the opponent getting a two minute time bonus. In a position like this that would be the obvious course of action.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If the tournament does not allow that: there is a 5 time repetition and a 75 move rule that states that if the arbiter notices that a position has been repeated 5 times they MUST intervene and end the game as a draw. So 3 time repetition means you can claim, 5 time repetition means the arbiter themselves must intervene.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In either case I would probably stop the clock and ask the arbiter what the exact rules in the tournament are. At worst you give your opponent a two minute time bonus by doing so.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: To provide some sources:&#xA;&amp;quot;FIDE Handbook Guidelines: III.4    If the player having the move has less than two minutes left on his clock, he may request that an increment extra five seconds be introduced for both players. This constitutes the offer of a draw. If the offer refused, and the arbiter agrees to the request, the clocks shall then be set with the extra time; the opponent shall be awarded two extra minutes and the game shall continue.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Concerning 75 moves rule:&#xA;&amp;quot;50-move rule: 5.3.2 A player may claim a draw if the last 50 moves have been completed by each player without the movement of any pawn and without any capture.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;75-move rule: 9.6.2 The game is drawn if the last 75 moves have been completed by each player without the movement of any pawn and without any capture.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24693" LastEditorUserId="24693" LastEditDate="2020-11-19T12:52:58.173" LastActivityDate="2020-11-19T12:52:58.173" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33005" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33003" CreationDate="2020-11-19T12:47:45.323" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;In a physical game, X and Y will normally just shake hands for the draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, if X insists on trying to &amp;quot;flag&amp;quot; Y, then Y can invoke the Quickplay Finish guidelines from the &lt;a href=&quot;https://handbook.fide.com/chapter/E012018&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Laws of Chess (2018 edition)&lt;/a&gt;, provided they are used in that tournament:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;III.1 A ‘quickplay finish’ is the phase of a game when all the remaining moves must be completed in a finite time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;III.5 If Article III.4 does not apply and the player having the move has less than two minutes left on his clock, he may claim a draw before his flag falls. He shall summon the arbiter and may stop the chessclock (see Article 6.12.2). He may claim on the basis that his opponent cannot win by normal means, and/or that his opponent has been making no effort to win by normal means:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;III.5.1 If the arbiter agrees that the opponent cannot win by normal means, or that the opponent has been making no effort to win the game by normal means, he shall declare the game drawn. Otherwise he shall postpone his decision or reject the claim.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Any sane arbiter will then judge the game to be a draw (or at least keep observing until it's obvious that Y is good enough to not just drop their rook).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13433" LastEditorUserId="13433" LastEditDate="2020-11-19T12:58:47.027" LastActivityDate="2020-11-19T12:58:47.027" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33006" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33003" CreationDate="2020-11-19T13:00:33.890" Score="5" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm wondering if there is something of the sort for on the board games&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The closest thing to this according to the latest &lt;a href=&quot;https://handbook.fide.com/chapter/E012018&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Laws of Chess&lt;/a&gt; is article 9.6:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;9.6 If one or both of the following occur(s) then the game is drawn:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;9.6.1 the same position has appeared, as in 9.2.2 at least five times.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;9.6.2 any series of at least 75 moves have been made by each player without the movement of any pawn and without any capture. If the last move resulted in checkmate, that shall take precedence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However this process is not automatic. For either of these scenarios to play out then either the arbiter has to be watching and counting or the moves have to be recorded by at least one of the players and then brought to the arbiter's attention.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In general a game is drawn after 3 repetitions or 50 moves without a capture or pawn move only if one of the players makes a valid claim backed up by a recording of the moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;See:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;9.2.1 The game is drawn, upon a correct claim by a player having the move, when the same position for at least the third time (not necessarily by a repetition of moves):&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;9.2.1.1    is about to appear, if he first writes his move, which cannot be changed, on his scoresheet and declares to the arbiter his intention to make this move, or&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;9.2.1.2   has just appeared, and the player claiming the draw has the move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;9.3 The game is drawn, upon a correct claim by a player having the move, if:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;9.3.1 he writes his move, which cannot be changed, on his scoresheet and declares to the arbiter his intention to make this move which will result in the last 50 moves by each player having been made without the movement of any pawn and without any capture, or&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;9.3.2 the last 50 moves by each player have been completed without the movement of any pawn and without any capture.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;but note:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;9.4 If the player touches a piece as in Article 4.3, he loses the right to claim a draw under Article 9.2 or 9.3 on that move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, you can't retrospectively claim a draw under 3 fold repetition or the 50 move rule.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Note that if there are no increments then in special circumstances you may be able to claim a draw when low on time in endgames like KR vs KR.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is what the rules say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;III.2.1 The Guidelines below concerning the final period of the game including Quickplay Finishes, shall only be used at an event if their use has been announced beforehand.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;III.2.2 These Guidelines shall apply only to standard chess and rapid chess games without increment and not to blitz games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Important to note that these rules &lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;never&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt; apply to blitz games, only standard and rapid. Also important to note that they only apply if announced beforehand. This will rarely happen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;III.4 If the player having the move has less than two minutes left on his clock, he may request that an increment extra five seconds be introduced for both players. This constitutes the offer of a draw. If the offer refused, and the arbiter agrees to the request, the clocks shall then be set with the extra time; the opponent shall be awarded two extra minutes and the game shall continue.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;III.5 &lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;If Article III.4 does not apply&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt; and the player having the move has less than two minutes left on his clock, he may claim a draw before his flag falls. He shall summon the arbiter and may stop the chessclock (see Article 6.12.2). He may claim on the basis that his opponent cannot win by normal means, and/or that his opponent has been making no effort to win by normal means:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2020-11-19T13:09:45.307" LastActivityDate="2020-11-19T13:09:45.307" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33008" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33010" CreationDate="2020-11-19T17:17:12.200" Score="24" ViewCount="3234" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is another mate-in-one of my own i.e. a not quite usual one...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    [title &amp;quot;Mate in one&amp;quot;]&#xA;    [FEN &amp;quot;3b4/R3P3/2kPR1n1/P1p1n3/4K1p1/2Nr4/5p2/1b6 w KQkq - 0 1&amp;quot;] &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Imagine, you walk into a chess club, an abandoned chessboard hangs out on a table. You take a look at the position. You don't know where white or black is, who to play, yet one thing is certain: there is checkmate in one move...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4234" LastEditorUserId="4234" LastEditDate="2020-11-22T00:56:26.383" LastActivityDate="2020-11-22T00:56:26.383" Title="Another Unusual Mate in One" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;problems&gt;&lt;puzzles&gt;" AnswerCount="5" CommentCount="3" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33009" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33008" CreationDate="2020-11-19T17:21:35.090" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;It looks like&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt; e7xd8=N (by White)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;is checkmate, but so is&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt; Rd3xc3 (by Black)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So perhaps there's more to this puzzle than meets the eye ...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2020-11-19T17:21:35.090" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33010" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33008" CreationDate="2020-11-19T17:40:20.343" Score="22" Body="&lt;p&gt;There are two checkmates per orientation:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    [title &amp;quot;Mate in one&amp;quot;]&#xA;    [FEN &amp;quot;3b4/R3P3/2kPR1n1/P1p1n3/4K1p1/2Nr4/5p2/1b6 w KQkq - 0 1&amp;quot;] &#xA;&#xA;1. exd8=N#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    [title &amp;quot;Mate in one&amp;quot;]&#xA;    [FEN &amp;quot;3b4/R3P3/2kPR1n1/P1p1n3/4K1p1/2Nr4/5p2/1b6 b KQkq - 0 1&amp;quot;] &#xA;&#xA;1... Rxc3#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    [title &amp;quot;Mate in one&amp;quot;]&#xA;    [FEN &amp;quot;6b1/2p5/4rN2/1p1K4/3n1p1P/1n1RPk2/3P3R/4b3 b KQkq - 0 1&amp;quot;] &#xA;&#xA;1...c6#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    [title &amp;quot;Mate in one&amp;quot;]&#xA;    [FEN &amp;quot;6b1/2p5/4rN2/1p1K4/3n1p1P/1n1RPk2/3P3R/4b3 w KQkq - 0 1&amp;quot;] &#xA;&#xA;1. e4#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2020-11-19T18:01:29.483" LastActivityDate="2020-11-19T18:01:29.483" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33011" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33008" CreationDate="2020-11-19T17:45:15.817" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Looks more like black plays rd4++  and mates white.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25332" LastActivityDate="2020-11-19T17:45:15.817" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33012" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32983" CreationDate="2020-11-19T19:14:59.687" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is simply no other practical &amp;quot;punishment&amp;quot; for overstepping the time limit. You cannot remove a piece or something like that. In fact, the only punishment for other infractions which are not grave enough to warrant declaring the game lost is a time penalty, which clearly doesn't apply here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's not that clear-cut though: In order to win, you must have enough material left to mate your opponent. If you are left with the bare King, even when your opponent oversteps the time limit all you get is a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="19250" LastActivityDate="2020-11-19T19:14:59.687" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33013" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33020" CreationDate="2020-11-20T11:05:58.120" Score="2" ViewCount="613" Body="&lt;p&gt;Possibly confirmation bias, but I often find a game I've won involved the loss (intentional or otherwise) of a pawn, which has opened up a file for rook attack, particularly on b/g files.  Is there any catch-all term for this sort of gambit other than this title?  I wonder if anyone has statistically analysed this type of scenario.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23076" LastEditorUserId="7726" LastEditDate="2020-11-20T14:01:43.117" LastActivityDate="2020-11-21T07:47:14.683" Title="Pawn gambits &quot;For The Win&quot;" Tags="&lt;pawns&gt;&lt;terminology&gt;&lt;gambits&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="5" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33014" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33013" CreationDate="2020-11-20T11:10:49.387" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;To mine knowledge its called &amp;quot;opening lines against king&amp;quot; in many languages this term used - no other specific name that I would have heard of in any language I know.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17448" LastActivityDate="2020-11-20T11:10:49.387" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33017" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19076" CreationDate="2020-11-20T15:37:04.613" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I made a template here&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/1082754005&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/1082754005&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and some tactics &lt;a href=&quot;https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/2047046995&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/2047046995&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25348" LastActivityDate="2020-11-20T15:37:04.613" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33018" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-11-20T15:43:39.760" Score="2" ViewCount="143" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am using some UCI engines from a command prompt. Most work fine (i.e. Stockfish, Houdini, Komodo) but when I use e.g. SOS (ver.5.1) or Hermann (Ver.2.8), I cannot seem to type any more moves after move 23. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;position startpos moves f2f4 g8f6 e2e3 d7d5 g1f3 g7g6 c2c4 f8g7 b1c3 c7c5 c4d5 f6d5 d1b3 d5c3 b2c3 e8g8 f1e2 d8c7 e1g1 c8e6 e2c4 e6c4 b3c4 b8d7 c1a3 a8b8 d2d4 b7b5 c4b3 a7a5 a1d1 c5c4 b3b1 d7f6 d1e1 f6d5 b1e4 f8d8 a3c5 d5c3 e4e7 c7e7 c5e7 d8d5 a2a3 b8e8&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After b8e8, I just cannot type any more moves. Tried this on different computers running different O/S's.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25349" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-11-20T17:56:50.783" LastActivityDate="2020-11-20T18:31:29.933" Title="Why do some UCI engines restrict input moves to 23 when using the command prompt?" Tags="&lt;uci&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33019" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33013" CreationDate="2020-11-20T17:02:26.907" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;No.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There is no specific word for a gambit that does that to open files to then win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It would be the result of a general &amp;quot;gambit&amp;quot; giving up a pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I note that you said lose a pawn unintentionally and then win.&#xA;That is not a gambit that is two beginners playing like beginners.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25351" LastActivityDate="2020-11-20T17:02:26.907" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33020" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33013" CreationDate="2020-11-20T17:14:33.077" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is called a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacrifice_(chess)#Sham_sacrifices&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;clearance sacrifice&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In a &lt;em&gt;clearance sacrifice&lt;/em&gt;, the sacrificing player aims to vacate the&#xA;square the sacrificed piece stood on, either to open up lines for his&#xA;own pieces, or to put another, more useful piece on the same square.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15478" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2020-11-21T07:47:14.683" LastActivityDate="2020-11-21T07:47:14.683" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33021" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33018" CreationDate="2020-11-20T17:54:24.823" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I suspect this is due to the length of the command; the one in your question is 254 characters long, close to 2&lt;sup&gt;8&lt;/sup&gt; = 256 which &lt;em&gt;might&lt;/em&gt; be a maximum command length for some engines.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I do not know a solution for this, but it seems possible to use the &lt;code&gt;position&lt;/code&gt; command with a FEN string, for example as used in &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/q/5945/7297&quot;&gt;this question&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7297" LastActivityDate="2020-11-20T17:54:24.823" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33023" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33027" CreationDate="2020-11-20T23:06:59.400" Score="14" ViewCount="553" Body="&lt;p&gt;As we all know, it is not known whether white can always win in chess with optimal play. If, however, white got to make two moves before black made their first move would they be able to win with perfect play? What would those first two moves be? How about if white gets three &amp;quot;headstart moves&amp;quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If white is allowed four moves of head start then it is clearly a forced mate as can be seen from the fact that a scholar's mate can be achieved in four moves if black waits patiently.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I feel like three moves would be enough of a headstart, even though mate can't be achieved immediately, though I could be wrong. Any ideas or strategies are appreciated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25359" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-11-21T01:26:49.340" LastActivityDate="2021-01-21T04:48:13.967" Title="How many moves of head start does white need for a guaranteed win?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;chess-variants&gt;&lt;puzzles&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33024" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19076" CreationDate="2020-11-20T23:11:25.070" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;A quite inexpensive app iChess will allow displaying &amp;amp; solving a collection of puzzles on Android phones &amp;amp; tablets. As with Anki you put the puzzle in a pgn file with tag lines [Setup &amp;quot;1&amp;quot;] &amp;amp; [FEN &amp;quot;...&amp;quot;]. The author supplies a few files but it will read your own. I've collected about 800 puzzles in my own files.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="13674" LastActivityDate="2020-11-20T23:11:25.070" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33025" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33001" CreationDate="2020-11-20T23:45:07.907" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I found ChessX to be working well. I can put comments in the moves. But I still don't know how to make the depth of Stockfish to run more than 20! It only runs for 3 seconds, then it stops. If I can figure out how to make it run longer, I would be happy with ChessX.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Edit: You can slide the bar at the bottom right corner to make the search deeper&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="23598" LastEditorUserId="23598" LastEditDate="2020-11-21T20:34:01.307" LastActivityDate="2020-11-21T20:34:01.307" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33027" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33023" CreationDate="2020-11-21T01:20:10.103" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is a similar &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/874/giving-moves-as-odds-whats-the-least-number-of-moves-by-white-which-forces-che&quot;&gt;ancient question,&lt;/a&gt; but this isn't a duplicate since White may move anywhere.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For an &lt;strong&gt;upper bound,&lt;/strong&gt; I can prove a guaranteed win for White in &lt;strong&gt;5 moves.&lt;/strong&gt; Indeed, it is reminiscent of Scholar's Mate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e3 null 2. Bc4 null 3. Qf3 null 4. Nh3 null 5. Ng5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With Black to move, as White has now used up their five given moves, &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/analysis/rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/6N1/2B5/4PQ2/PPPP1PPP/RNB1K2R_b_KQkq_-_0_1#1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Stockfish&lt;/a&gt; announces a &lt;strong&gt;mate in 6.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/6N1/2B5/4PQ2/PPPP1PPP/RNB1K2R b KQkq - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1... d5 2. Qxf7+ Kd7 3. Qxd5+ Ke8 4. Qf7+ Kd7 5. Qf5+ Kc6 6. Qb5+ Kd6 7. Ne4#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(If Black plays 1... d6?, then it is instead a mate in four with 2. Bxf7+ Kd7 3. Be6+ Ke8 4. Qf7#.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The problem for a setup four is that, with the Scholar's Mate setup, f7 needs to be attacked thrice, which doesn't seem possible. Additionally, there is no obvious way to do it without Scholar's Mate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-01-21T04:48:13.967" LastActivityDate="2021-01-21T04:48:13.967" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33028" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33032" CreationDate="2020-11-21T03:48:38.317" Score="12" ViewCount="3651" Body="&lt;p&gt;Are Elo ratings a zero-sum system in chess? In other words, if I gain +9 points from a game, does my opponent necessarily take a -9 point loss? If so, would it make sense to say that Elo points are a kind of &amp;quot;currency&amp;quot; which gets traded around the pool of chess players? Would players that are overrated because of playing in a weaker pool have less &amp;quot;purchasing power&amp;quot;?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25362" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2020-11-21T10:24:19.283" LastActivityDate="2020-11-22T09:51:32.720" Title="Are Elo Ratings Zero-Sum?" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;&lt;fide&gt;&lt;elo&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33030" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33031" CreationDate="2020-11-21T04:24:35.537" Score="2" ViewCount="101" Body="&lt;p&gt;Say that both players collaborate to get White's king to the eighth rank and Black's king to the first. What's the shortest sequence of moves that achieves this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25363" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-01-26T17:17:09.870" LastActivityDate="2021-01-26T17:17:09.870" Title="Fastest way to get both kings to the other side of the board?" Tags="&lt;problems&gt;&lt;records&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33031" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33030" CreationDate="2020-11-21T04:43:41.440" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;It can be proven that &lt;strong&gt;10 moves, or 20 plies,&lt;/strong&gt; is the least possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. f3 f6 2. Kf2 Kf7 3. Kg3 Ke6 4. h3 h6 5. Kh4 Kf5 6. Kh5 Kf4 7. Kg6 Kg3 8. Rh2  Rh7 9. Kxh7 Kxh2 10. Kh8 Kh1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is the proof, listed in a logical order.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Observations Of Proof&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Both kings must make at least seven moves to get to the other rank, so that's 14 plies off the bat.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Each side must move a pawn move to release a king, which costs 2 plies in further total.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Each side must move a piece to unguard a square for the other king, also costing 2 plies.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Finally, at least one more pawn move by both sides is required in order to let each king bypass the pawn structure, and that amounts to 2 plies.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In conclusion, 14+2+2+2=20 plies, so it is indeed the minimum possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-01-26T17:15:07.863" LastActivityDate="2021-01-26T17:15:07.863" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33032" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33028" CreationDate="2020-11-21T05:46:07.330" Score="20" Body="&lt;p&gt;Between most players, Elo ratings are zero-sum.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The formula for updating an Elo rating looks like this. Suppose player 1 and player 2 are playing a game. First, their ratings are used to generate a prediction: an expected score W that player 1 will get against player 2. Then, we compare this to the actual score, X. player 1 will get K*(X-W) points, where K is a &amp;quot;development factor&amp;quot; - more on this later on.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From player 2's point of view, the expected score is 1-W and the actual score is 1-X (a score of 1 for player 1 means a score of 0 for player 2, and vice versa). So player 2's rating changes by K*((1-X)-(1-W)) or K*(W-X) points, which is the negative of player 1's change. Zero-sum!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The development factor K is the only thing that can break this. In the FIDE version of the Elo rating system, this value is 20 for most players, but it's 40 for new players (to represent the uncertainty in their rating) and 10 for players that have ever had a rating over 2400 (for the opposite effect). If two players from different categories play, then the result will not be zero-sum.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, globally, the sum of ratings does change, because players are leaving and entering the pool. A new player starts with an Elo rating determined by their first few games, adding to the supply. That rating may become larger or smaller by the time they stop playing chess for whatever reason - removing another number from the supply.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17810" LastEditorUserId="17810" LastEditDate="2020-11-21T17:32:22.140" LastActivityDate="2020-11-21T17:32:22.140" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33033" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="19016" CreationDate="2020-11-21T08:12:33.180" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Watch for your opponent’s weaknesses and prevent your pieces from being able to clear through your opponent’s pieces. Opening up your bishops is usually a bad thing, as your opponent can use your bishop to win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25364" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2020-11-21T08:43:17.993" LastActivityDate="2020-11-21T08:43:17.993" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33034" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33028" CreationDate="2020-11-21T10:23:08.330" Score="12" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are Elo ratings a zero-sum system in chess?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No, they are not zero sum. There are two reasons for this. First of all, when a player first gets a rating then that is a pure plus. There is no corresponding minus. The player gains a rating of 1000+ (the lower bound of the rating system) by virtue of wins and draws against rated players. Since the player was unrated at the time of the games there is no corresponding effect on the already rated players' ratings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The second reason is more complicated reason. There is an inbuilt throttling in the rating calculations to limit or exaggerate changes and this is different for different players. This is called the &amp;quot;k factor&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;development coefficient&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is the section of the &lt;a href=&quot;https://handbook.fide.com/chapter/B022017&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Rating Regulations effective from 1 July 2017&lt;/a&gt; which describes this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;8.55 (a) Use table 8.1(b) to determine the player’s score probability PD&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;(b) ΔR = score – PD. For each game, the score is 1, 0.5 or 0.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;(c) &lt;strong&gt;ΣΔR x K = the Rating Change for a given tournament, or Rating period.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;8.56 &lt;strong&gt;K is the development coefficient&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;K = 40&lt;/strong&gt; for a player new to the rating list until he has completed events with at least 30 games.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;K = 20&lt;/strong&gt; as long as a player's rating remains under 2400.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;K = 10&lt;/strong&gt; once a player's published rating has reached 2400 and remains at that level subsequently, even if the rating drops below 2400.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;&lt;strong&gt;K = 40&lt;/strong&gt; for all players until their 18th birthday, as long as their rating remains under 2300.&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;If the number of games (n) for a player on any list for a rating period multiplied by K (as defined above) exceeds 700, then &lt;strong&gt;K shall be the largest whole number such that K x n does not exceed 700&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This means that, in the extreme case (say a 2290 junior player beating an ageing 2400 rated GM) the winner can gain as much as 4x what the loser loses.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If so, would it make sense to say that Elo points are a kind of&#xA;&amp;quot;currency&amp;quot; which gets traded around the pool of chess players?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This can apply when a pool of players never (or almost never) play outside their pool. When the elite players all restrict their play to closed, elite tournaments where only players in the world top 20 then this can happen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, in recent years the prize money in large open tournaments like Gibraltar and Isle of Man have reached such attractive levels that more players from the elite have started competing and risking / sharing their Elo points. In particular the 2019 and 2021 Isle of Man tournaments have automatic qualifying places for the Candidates tournament (1 in 2019 and 2 in 2021) which makes it doubly attractive in 2021.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-11-21T10:23:08.330" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33035" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33008" CreationDate="2020-11-21T11:04:21.850" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;That's a nice archaeological find. However, I'm not so sure there is in fact a checkmate in just one &amp;quot;move&amp;quot;. Of course, there is a (unique!) checkmate for both colors in all orientations considered by @Brian Towers, which makes this a very nice problem indeed. But what about the &lt;em&gt;other&lt;/em&gt; orientations?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You may protest that &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/a/32045/&quot;&gt;there's a rule that the bottom right corner must be a light square&lt;/a&gt;, but I think you're going to have to consult a historian to determine whether this rule was in effect in this particular  late 19th century London chess club, and in particular whether the game could have continued without rotating the board if the players noticed their error during the game. You likely also need to consult a medium in order to determine whether one of the players noticed it. So, I think this rule doesn't mean we can exclude other orientations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You may argue that the other orientations are excluded because there's a pawn on the side of the board. Not quite. First, a pawn can never legally be put on the first rank, so that excludes one orientation (white being to the left of our current view). But this is not true for the eighth rank. Promotion of a pawn is done by first moving the pawn to the promotion square on the eighth rank, and then replacing it with another piece. So, it is possible for a pawn to be on the eighth rank in a legal game.  Of course, in the current state of the board the move is not yet completed, but that doesn't matter. We already know that in the other orientations the game was ended before the checkmate (as we still have to make one move), so the same could happen in the middle of the promotion move. I certainly have seen the board being left abandoned in such a state at my own chess club.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It could be possible that we can show the position is unreachable via retrograde analysis, but that seems very difficult, so I'm just going to leave that to others and just say that I don't know how to prove this one way or the other.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ok. So, let's assume the pawn on the side from our orientation is mid-promotion. Now suppose white wanted to promote into a knight. This is check, but not checkmate, as black can take the knight with the bishop. However, black cannot give mate here while getting out of check at the same time. So, neither player can give checkmate in one move. (technically, I have shown this is not possible in one half-move, but I believe the technical term &amp;quot;Mate in &lt;em&gt;one&lt;/em&gt;&amp;quot; is generally understood to refer to &lt;em&gt;one half-move&lt;/em&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In conclusion, I believe I have made a decent argument for why there exists a scenario where this position has been reached from a perfectly legal game (under the rules in this particular chess club), yet there exists no mate in one. Hence, however unlikely my scenario may be, I must conclude that I cannot be certain that there is checkmate in one move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That said, I don't think my problem hurts the essence of your &lt;s&gt;archaeological find&lt;/s&gt; clever composition. As long as the promoted piece can deliver checkmate as well, we can be certain that there is a mate &lt;em&gt;within&lt;/em&gt; one move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think just placing a pawn between the bishop and the pedantic promotion square would do:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    [title &amp;quot;Mate in one&amp;quot;]&#xA;    [FEN &amp;quot;3b4/R3P3/1pkPR1n1/P1p1n3/4K1p1/2Nr4/5p2/1b6 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;] &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I believe this does not change the checkmate moves in the other orientations, or even their uniqueness. It does make the checkmate for white easier to find in the other orientations, but I think the new orientation you get in return is more than worth it. Maybe there are retrograde arguments against this position, I'm not sure.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="16001" LastActivityDate="2020-11-21T11:04:21.850" CommentCount="10" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33036" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33023" CreationDate="2020-11-21T13:27:37.647" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;If I had to guess I'd say that one extra move for White (normal chess) is objectively a draw, 3 extra moves is probably a win, and 2 extra moves is a tossup.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The problem is, for anything short of 4 extra moves, there's no way to definitively prove any of the above results. Yes, Stockfish gives some evaluation that's much better for White, but unless it can calculate a forced mate then there's no absolute certainty.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There's also the issue that engines prune the search tree a lot in order to be fast. So when an engine says it's at &amp;quot;depth 30&amp;quot;, it's not actually covering every variation up to 30 ply that has a chance of affecting the evaluation. Doing that would take very long, even with optimizations such as alpha-beta pruning and a transposition table. So technically if you're searching for a guaranteed win, you couldn't even trust an engine that says &amp;quot;mate in 50&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;We can look at it more theoretically. In chess the average number of possible moves in a given position is 30, but to be very generous let's use 20 (because maybe White can launch a mating attack early on). And let's assume that with 3 extra moves, with a ton of luck White might have a forced win in 40 ply. So to calculate everything 40 ply ahead, this would be 20^40 positions. Let's assume alpha-beta pruning turns the exponent into around 3/4 of what it was: 20^30. Now, let's say the transposition table increases the speed by a factor of around 5 (that might be slightly generous). So we're left with 20^29.46..., or about 2.1 * 10^38.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So in the best case scenario of White actually having a forced win with 3 extra moves (and it only taking 40 ply), maybe you'd need to calculate something on the order of 10^38 positions to be definitively sure. This is obviously an extremely rough estimate, as the actual number might be a lot lower (again, in the best case scenario). For example, if White is trying to mate Black, the branching factor could be lower due to Black having only moves at certain times. Also, you could try only considering the best few moves for White in each position. However, it's likely Stockfish is already doing pruning somewhat similar to this for White and Black, and so far it finds nothing after depth 40 for a few different positions I set up with 3 extra moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You could argue that a win might exist in something much shorter, such as 30 ply instead of 40 ply. I think this is very unlikely though, considering Stockfish gives an evaluation of +1 and change, when it's over depth 40. Sure, like I said it could absolutely be missing something, but I'm not using Stockfish for a proof here. I'm just mentioning it to say that a very quick win likely doesn't exist, and then if that's the case it will be near impossible to prove a longer one does due to the discussed time complexity.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastEditorUserId="12873" LastEditDate="2020-11-22T10:03:37.453" LastActivityDate="2020-11-22T10:03:37.453" CommentCount="9" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33037" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33038" CreationDate="2020-11-21T14:44:12.453" Score="2" ViewCount="119" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am picking from the book &amp;quot;Attack with Mikhail Tal&amp;quot; Chapter 1, pg 6. Tal annotates the steps and his thought process on the Tal-Larsen 1965 match.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 Nf6 2. e5 Nd5 3. d4 d6 4. Nf3 dxe5 5. Nxe5 Nd7 6. Nxf7 Kxf7 7. Qh5+ Ke6 8. c4 N5f6&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Tal continues with 9. d5+ Kd6 10 Qf7 Ne5. I am stuck on the Qf7. Why is Qf7 possible when there is 10... N5f6? What am I missing here?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is the original excerpt.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/IdfWn.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/IdfWn.png&quot; alt=&quot;Page 6- Attack with Mikhail Tal&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25370" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-11-21T18:56:45.217" LastActivityDate="2020-11-21T18:56:45.217" Title="Why is Tal talking about 10. Qf7 when 10.... N5f6 is possible?" Tags="&lt;books&gt;&lt;attack&gt;&lt;annotation&gt;&lt;tal&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33038" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33037" CreationDate="2020-11-21T15:10:13.023" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;You made a mistake when transcribing move 7. It is &lt;strong&gt;7. Qh5+&lt;/strong&gt;, not &lt;strong&gt;7. Qf3+&lt;/strong&gt;. Move 10 is then &lt;strong&gt;Qh5f7&lt;/strong&gt;, which is not blocked by the Nf6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 Nf6 2. e5 Nd5 3. d4 d6 4. Nf3 dxe5 5. Nxe5 Nd7 6. Nxf7 Kxf7 7. Qh5+ Ke6 8. c4 N5f6 9. d5+ Kd6 10. Qf7 Ne5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21604" LastActivityDate="2020-11-21T15:10:13.023" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33039" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33008" CreationDate="2020-11-21T16:51:19.430" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;If we assume that the players were not bad at chess, then the move before this move, that player had to have something more important to do than checkmate their opponent.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If we take the board orientation as black moving upwards, with the white king at e5 and black rook at (e.g.) a6, then black moves rook to e6, check, white moves king to d5, black moves pawn to c6, mate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If it was white's turn, for either orientation, there is no move that black would have made on the previous turn besides checkmate.  Likewise if black is moving down, white would have mated black on the previous turn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think the only solution is black moving up, pawn to c6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25372" LastActivityDate="2020-11-21T16:51:19.430" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33040" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12223" CreationDate="2020-11-21T16:53:34.523" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Books no.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is a matter of proper practice along with general knowledge from books and experience from playing at slower rates gradually increasing faster as you improve.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Playing blitz will definitely harm your ability.  You need to play 'fast' but train yourself to take some time to pick a move.   Ten seconds must wait and then play is good.  You need to get in the habit of being able to move quickly but not instantly and to not waste time on moves so that you get into time trouble.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25373" LastActivityDate="2020-11-21T16:53:34.523" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33041" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-11-21T16:59:10.503" Score="5" ViewCount="378" Body="&lt;p&gt;Do FIDE rules ban stimulants?   I think they ban 'drugs',  but would coffee be okay?   What about beer or wine?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I hope they ban smoking somehow now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And I would think that NADH could help old grandmasters play much better.  Do not think there is any test for that either.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So what does FIDE ban and what can players take to stay alert  and play better ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25373" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2020-11-21T18:37:45.787" LastActivityDate="2020-11-21T18:37:45.787" Title="Do FIDE rules ban stimulants? Which ones?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;fide&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33042" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33050" CreationDate="2020-11-21T17:25:15.717" Score="6" ViewCount="186" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was spectating an online simul given by a GM (&lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/4rRtxJf2/black&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;this game in particular&lt;/a&gt;) and as the game was played I was very surprised to see GM Chessweeb play 24... a6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is the position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Black to move&amp;quot;]&#xA;[StartFlipped &amp;quot;1&amp;quot;]&#xA;[fen &amp;quot;7Q/ppk1qp2/4p3/3pPp1P/5P2/2P5/PP4r1/1K1R4 b - - 0 24&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I was expecting a continuation like&#xA;24... Qh4&#xA;25. h6 Qxf4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stockfish confirms that a6 is indeed the best move but I'm having trouble understanding why that is. The only thing I can think of is perhaps a6 gives the king a hideout to prevent future perpetual check?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25374" LastActivityDate="2020-11-22T15:17:35.467" Title="Why is a6 strong in this position?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;beginner&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33043" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33041" CreationDate="2020-11-21T17:30:25.790" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;FIDE (and probably most of the national federations) would very much like chess to be an Olympic sport because that would lead to massive injections of money into the sport. Hence they subscribe to WADA and have defined drug testing protocols for chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The document &lt;a href=&quot;https://handbook.fide.com/files/handbook/WADA%20Anti%20Doping.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chess WADA – Anti-Doping Policy, Nutrition and Health&lt;/a&gt; gives details of banned substances relevant for chess:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The 2018 WADA Prohibited List and Monitoring Program can be found at:&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;http://list.wada-ama.org/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://list.wada-ama.org/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The most relevant banned substances for chess are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Amphetamines – e.g. Adderall, Ritalin&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Ephedrine and Methylephedrine – Prohibited by WADA when its concentration in urine is greater than 10 micrograms per milliliter&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Pseudoephedrine is prohibited when its concentration in urine is greater than 150 micrograms per milliliter&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Modafinil&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Substances not present on the Prohibited List but represented in the Monitoring&#xA;Program:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Caffeine – Included in WADA Monitoring Program and relevant for incompetition testing only. Any urine test reading of less than 12 micrograms per milliliter poses no problem.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Codeine – A common ingredient in, for example, preparations used to treat coughs and stomach upsets. Any dosage is highly unlikely to be significant when taken in normal therapeutic quantities.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You say:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I hope they ban smoking somehow now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Smoking is obviously banned in the playing area but is permitted in the playing venue if there is a designated smoking area. This is actually spelled out in the &lt;strong&gt;COMPETITION RULES&lt;/strong&gt; section of the &lt;a href=&quot;https://handbook.fide.com/chapter/E012018&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Laws of Chess&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;11.3.4 Smoking, including e-cigarettes, is permitted only in the section of the venue designated by the arbiter&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not every tournament will have a designated smoking area although tournament organizers generally try and also not discriminate against smokers and vapers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;what can players take to stay alert and play better ?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The first and most obvious requirement for full mental alertness is adequate good quality sleep. FIDE has published its recommendations in &lt;a href=&quot;https://handbook.fide.com/files/handbook/Nutrition%20and%20Exercise%20Doc.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Effects of Nutrition and Exercise on Cognitive Performance&lt;/a&gt;. There you will find FIDE's common sense guide to good nutrition and hydration.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-11-21T17:30:25.790" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33045" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33028" CreationDate="2020-11-22T00:20:24.770" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;In addition to the other answers: it would depend on the organization running the Elo system as to whether there are additional modifiers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;e.g. back when I was playing chess, the Chess Federation of Canada awarded &amp;quot;participation points&amp;quot; basically points just for playing. Obviously not zero-sum.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The North American Scrabble Player's Association awards both &amp;quot;acceleration points&amp;quot; for performance in a tournament well above expectation, and &amp;quot;feedback points&amp;quot; to the opponents.  These are also clearly not zero-sum.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25380" LastActivityDate="2020-11-22T00:20:24.770" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33046" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33028" CreationDate="2020-11-22T09:51:32.720" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Rating floors make it non-zero sum as other have pointed out. Many years ago, I was talking to a major tournament organizer who supported this. I think one reason (in chess) that they did not want people to be able to lose a lot of rating points was cheating by losing in cheap events and then playing in big-money events against much weaker players. This indeed happened but is really not much of way to earn a living given travel expenses, etc. Nonetheless, &amp;quot;sandbagging&amp;quot; occurred as did player playing under fake names which probably is impossible today due simply to them requiring ID for tax purposes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But the tournament organizer felt that what caused some people not to play was fear of losing rating points. I thought this absurd -- I think people want ratings to accurately reflect true ability as much as possible but last I checked, ratings have become not only wildly inflated (maybe by 200 or more points over the 1970s) but also in the case of people who have lost skill due to lack of practice etc. simply not reflective of ability and of course this is contagious as they play and other players gain points they would not have if the first player's rating had been allowed to realistically drop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;99.9% or chess players will not make a living at chess but they can try to learn the game and improve (not to mention the social aspect) and I am sure the vast majority of people want a rating that is accurate and meaningful, not fake points that I have seen also obtained by a small club running many rated events but only against each other -- Claude Bloodgood did something like that in prison and became iirc the highest rated player in the USA but he really probably was not even much above master, far below the IM level that would be minimum needed to qualify usually for the US championship that he insisted, based on his fake rating, he be invited to.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17420" LastActivityDate="2020-11-22T09:51:32.720" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33047" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="728" CreationDate="2020-11-22T10:50:21.087" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;One thing about GMs is consistency so losing in a tournament game to a significantly lower-rated player is extremely rare and the rarity can be roughly calculated based on rating difference. So a 2500 losing to 1500 might be 1/100 or less. Also, the way tournament pairings are done makes it pretty unlikely, even in an open event and impossible in a class event, for a GM to even play a 1500.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So it may literally be true that zero GMs (in modern times with modern ELO ratings) have ever lost to a 1500 in a normal tournament. There are firstly not that many GMs, secondly the 1500 would have to play in something like the US Open and win his first game against probably a low master and then of course beat the GM and THEN not become a GM. So maybe never happened.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, Perry Youngworth was a promising junior (14 or 15) who did beat a GM in 1978 US Open. He was either a low master or a high expert at the time so not a huge upset especially since he was an up-and-coming junior whose ratings often rise very fast at that age but still a surprise. Nonetheless, he never became a GM or even an IM, I think. So depending upon whether you want to call an expert beating a GM an upset, there is that example but if experts beating GMs do count, I am sure there are a lot more.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Becoming a GM is not easy and used to be a lot harder -- there are many well-known and respected players (for their playing ability) who, due often to inability to get to tournaments of the necessary level of competition, never reached GM but &amp;quot;only&amp;quot; reached IM level. There are players who won the US championship without ever becoming GM (John Grefe and Stuart Rachels are listed as the only two).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17420" LastActivityDate="2020-11-22T10:50:21.087" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33050" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33042" CreationDate="2020-11-22T15:17:35.467" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;You're correct. The idea of 24...a6 is to allow the king to avoid a perpetual. This could be of relevance if Black's queen moves away to go after White's king (e.g., ...Qc5). It could also be useful for the king to hide on a7 if things go haywire and a dangerous attack happens, such as the h-pawn promoting or White's rook getting involved. Although, in the position before 24...a6, Stockfish gives an evaluation of 0.00 no matter whose move it is. So purely in an objective sense, ...a6 isn't a necessary move -- but practically it's quite nice. Your anticipated move of 24...Qh4 is also evaluated at 0.00 by Stockfish, so it's just as good.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One interesting line goes 24...a6 25.h6 (White has other moves that are fine too) 25...Qc5. Now White's going to get mated from ...Qf2 if he's not careful. For example, 26.Qe8 Qf2 27.Qe7+ Kb8 28.Qf8+ Ka7. Now White can't stop the dual threats of ...Qxb2# and ...Qc2+ (picking up the d1-rook with mate). Another faulty try is 26.Qg7. The idea is that 26...Rxg7 27.hxg7 sees White about to promote, leaving him up a rook. However, Black has 26...Qf2, and 27.Qxf7+ Kb6 28.Qxe6+ Ka7 sees Black's king being safe, again thanks to the a6-pawn. Therefore, White's only 26th move which maintains equality is 26.Ka1!, preparing to defend with Rb1 if needed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12873" LastActivityDate="2020-11-22T15:17:35.467" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33051" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-11-22T17:35:31.810" Score="9" ViewCount="874" Body="&lt;p&gt;Here is my new problem in 3 steps - the key designates here the piece that moves first in the solution. An other way to reach a mate in one I hope you'll enjoy...&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    [Title &amp;quot;From Mate in 3 to Mate in 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;    [FEN &amp;quot;5R2/p2k1p1P/1P1P1PPr/bPpKBN1p/1pR3n1/7B/2P2N1P/1b6 w KQkq - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here is the starting position. White to move (at each step)&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Step 1 : Mate in 3&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Step 2 : Remove the key then Mate in 2 (same starting position with one piece less)&lt;br /&gt;&#xA;Step 3 : Remove the key then Mate in 1 (same starting position with two pieces less)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit.&lt;/strong&gt; For Step 3, say White R8 hasn't capture any piece at last move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4234" LastEditorUserId="4234" LastEditDate="2020-11-24T02:15:01.530" LastActivityDate="2020-11-24T02:15:01.530" Title="From Mate-in-3 to Mate-in-1" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;problems&gt;&lt;puzzles&gt;&lt;retrograde-analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33052" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-11-22T19:31:52.697" Score="4" ViewCount="97" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am looking for a PDF copy of British Chess Magazine dated September 1907 which contains an analysis of a game between Neustadtl and Porges.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25390" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-11-23T04:00:26.070" LastActivityDate="2020-12-02T19:31:41.513" Title="Looking for a PDF of the British Chess Magazine, Sep. 1907" Tags="&lt;history&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33053" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33051" CreationDate="2020-11-22T19:40:51.437" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;Spotting potential mates isn't too difficult. There are a couple of obvious ones involving the b and h pawns which aren't far off from promoting. An immediate b7 threatens b8=N# for example. It can only be stopped by Bc7 but then after dxc7 black has Nxf6+ and the mate is delayed beyond 3 moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Pushing the h pawn is more promising. If it weren't for the black rook on h6 then it would be mate in 2 with Rxf7+ followed by h8=Q#. That can be fixed by starting with Nxh6.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Going back to the initial position it's worth looking at possible black spoiler moves, moves which either deliver check or threaten check which delay the mate. We've already seen that Nxf6+. Also Ne3+ and Ba2 threatening Bxc4+ if black is given the opportunity. If the mate is going to involve the Bishop on h3 delivering the coup de grace then we also have to watch out for Rxg6 followed by Rg4 blocking the check.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That said the key move of Nxh6 solves a lot of these problems. It gets rid of the pesky rook and it pins the pesky knight on g4. Hence I think the first part goes like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;First part - mate in 3&amp;quot;]&#xA;[fen &amp;quot;5R2/p2k1p1P/1P1P1PPr/bPpKBN1p/1pR3n1/7B/2P2N1P/1b6 w KQkq - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Nxh6 Ba2 {threatening to disrupt with Bxc4+} 2. Rxf7+ {thank goodness this comes with tempo and black has no time for the disruptive check} Ke8 3. h8=Q#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, remove the f5 knight and try and mate in 2. The b7 push is obviously too slow so the obvious line to take is mating with the h3 bishop.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The obvious first try is Nxg4. The problem is that black is not obliged to take with hxg4 allowing Bxg4#. Instead black has the tricky Rxg6 followed by Rg4 to block the mate. Mate in 2 is denied.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So, how to stop this defence? The cunning answer is to take with the rook. Then Rxg6 can be answered by Rxg6# or, to rub it in, Rg5#. What about Ba2+? That was one of black's disruptor moves. Does that stop us? No! We can just move the rook back to c4, blocking the check and delivering a discovered mate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Second part - mate in 2&amp;quot;]&#xA;[fen &amp;quot;5R2/p2k1p1P/1P1P1PPr/bPpKB2p/1pR3n1/7B/2P2N1P/1b6 w KQkq - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Rxg4 (1. Nxg4? Rxg6 2. Ne3+ Rg4) hxg4 2. Bxg4# (1...Rxg6 2. Rxg6#) (1...Ba2+ 2. Rc4#)&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That then leaves this as the final problem. As @wimi points out the key here is to spot the possibility that black's last move could have been c7-c5 meaning that bxc6 en passant would be checkmate. Great spot by @wimi.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[title &amp;quot;Third part - mate in 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;[fen &amp;quot;5R2/p2k1p1P/1P1P1PPr/bPpKB2p/1p4n1/7B/2P2N1P/1b6 w KQkq - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. bxc6#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2020-11-23T10:25:43.877" LastActivityDate="2020-11-23T10:25:43.877" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33054" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33052" CreationDate="2020-11-22T19:42:07.873" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;First place to go is the Chess Archaeology web site, in particular the subsection&#xA;&amp;quot;Library&amp;quot; (URL: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chessarch.com/library/library.shtml&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;http://www.chessarch.com/library/library.shtml&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(You'll find two scans: one from Princeton, another from Stanford.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another useful source is the WorldCat library (URL: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.worldcat.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.worldcat.org/&lt;/a&gt;). While it does list printed copies as well as copies on microform or in digital form, you can easily search only for digital copies (usually listed as eBooks, eMagazines or eJournals)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this particular case, however, there seems to be no e-copies listed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24765" LastActivityDate="2020-11-22T19:42:07.873" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33055" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33056" CreationDate="2020-11-22T19:45:13.287" Score="7" ViewCount="1188" Body="&lt;p&gt;Long time ago I read about this strong GM who was one of Kasparov's analysts in the 90s. The thing is that if I search by &amp;quot;Yuri Dojoian&amp;quot; I only get a few results, only in Spanish media, &lt;a href=&quot;https://antoniogude.com/el-reinado-de-kasparov-1/&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;like this one&lt;/a&gt;. I'm almost sure there is another way to write his name, but I have no idea how could it be.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9179" LastActivityDate="2020-11-22T21:19:42.420" Title="Who is Yuri Dojoian, Kasparov's analyst in the 90s?" Tags="&lt;history&gt;&lt;kasparov&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33056" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33055" CreationDate="2020-11-22T21:19:42.420" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the player you are referring to is Yury Dokhoian. According to his &lt;a href=&quot;https://ratings.fide.com/profile/4100476/calculations&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE profile&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.olimpbase.org/Elo/player/Dokhoian,%20Yury.html&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Olimpbase profile&lt;/a&gt; he has not played competitive chess since 1994. According to his &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yury_Dokhoian&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Wikipedia page&lt;/a&gt; he was Kasparov's second for many years and later started working with Karjakin. &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessplayer?pid=17837&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Chessgames.com&lt;/a&gt; has 173 of his games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-11-22T21:19:42.420" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33057" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33059" CreationDate="2020-11-23T08:20:54.327" Score="9" ViewCount="1946" Body="&lt;p&gt;In a recent game, I forked a queen and rook with a knight. After seeing no immediate threats from 8. Qf4 I immediately captured with 8. ...Nxb3. Apparently this was quite a mistake (a 213 centipawn evaluation drop), but it's not clear to me why the material advantage from Nxb3 is inferior to Stockfish's recommendation of Nxc2, let alone &lt;em&gt;far&lt;/em&gt; superior.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[White &amp;quot;White&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Black &amp;quot;Black&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;[fen &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Bc4 { B20 Sicilian Defense: Bowdler Attack } b6 3. a4 Bb7 4. Qf3 e6 5. Ra3? { (-0.77 → -2.15) Mistake. d3 was best. } a6 6. Rb3 Nc6 7. Nh3? { (-2.78 → -5.30) Mistake. Re3 was best. } Nd4 8. Qf4 Nxb3? { (-5.02 → -2.89) Mistake. Nxc2 was best. } 9. Ng5?? { (-2.89 → -6.87) Blunder. Bxb3 was best. } f6 10. Nxe6 dxe6 11. Bxe6?! { (-5.59 → -10.58) Inaccuracy. Bxb3 was best. } Nd4 12. Bg4 Nxc2+ 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What am I missing here? Why shouldn't Nxb3 be played (or maybe, why is Nxc2 far superior)?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24659" LastActivityDate="2020-11-23T22:28:10.390" Title="Why is it a mistake to capture the forked rook?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;evaluation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33058" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33057" CreationDate="2020-11-23T08:39:00.123" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;A 213 &amp;quot;centipawn&amp;quot; loss can be critical in an equal position. If you still have a +9 position, it's irrelevant. In this case, I think the engine dislikes to take the rook right now because 8...b5 looks like a stronger move. If White removes the bishop, you can still take the rook, while 9.axb5 axb5 would make your ...Ra1 threat unstoppable&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastActivityDate="2020-11-23T08:39:00.123" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33059" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33057" CreationDate="2020-11-23T09:16:46.813" Score="8" Body="&lt;p&gt;The key point is that taking the rook reduces your positional advantage.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Your knight is active but the rook is passive;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;With your knight on &lt;code&gt;d4&lt;/code&gt; the squares the rook can move to are extremely limited. After &lt;code&gt;8. ... Nxc2+ 9. Kf1 h6&lt;/code&gt;, only &lt;code&gt;f3&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;g3&lt;/code&gt; are better squares for the rook. However, with the advancement of pawns on the king side, the queen will be chased away and the development of &lt;code&gt;Nf6&lt;/code&gt; will trap the rook. This will gain both the material advantage and the increasing positional advantage.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is reflected in the Stockfish evaluation as &lt;code&gt;Nxb3&lt;/code&gt; yields -2.3, with the -2 coming from the material whereas &lt;code&gt;Nxc2+&lt;/code&gt; yields -3.8.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14767" LastActivityDate="2020-11-23T09:16:46.813" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33060" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33064" CreationDate="2020-11-23T10:48:39.460" Score="2" ViewCount="1626" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chesstempo.com/chess-problems/78061&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;This puzzle on chesstempo&lt;/a&gt; caught my eye (we play as White):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;2b2rk/1p3ppp/r/p1p/3pP1Pq/1P1P/P3BPK/1RB1QR2 b - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Bg4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I reckon Black needs to try skewering the rook with the bishop that captured the pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I made a wrong move. It doesn't much matter to the question, yet I wanted to show this nice way Black may mate after my mistake:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;2b2rk/1p3ppp/r/p1p/3pP1Pq/1P1P/P3BPK/1RB1QR2 b - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Bg4 Bg4&#xA;2. Qg4 Kh2&#xA;3. Qh4 Kg2&#xA;4. Rg6 Kf3&#xA;5. Qg4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Anyway, the right move was this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;2b2rk/1p3ppp/r/p1p/3pP1Pq/1P1P/P3BPK/1RB1QR2 b - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Bg4 Rh1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I see no point to Bh3+ now, yet Black plays just that and gets the bishop captured:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;2b2rk/1p3ppp/r/p1p/3pP1Pq/1P1P/P3BPK/1RB1QR2 b - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Bg4 Rh1&#xA;2. Bh3+ Rh3&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The king protects the rook, therefore it shan't be captured by the queen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Why does Black play Bh3+?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21403" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2020-11-23T14:28:59.027" LastActivityDate="2020-11-23T20:10:49.723" Title="Why does Black play Bh3+?" Tags="&lt;puzzles&gt;&lt;defense&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33061" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33060" CreationDate="2020-11-23T11:15:59.790" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;You haven't understood the puzzle. The puzzle asks you to find the best move for white after Bxg4 by black. It does not ask you to find the best move for black after Rh1 by white.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Having found Rh1 for white the moves that follow are illustrative only. They do not show all the possible black replies and there is no suggestion that the line chosen for black is a lot better for black than the alternatives.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the computer's evaluation the position after 2...Bh3+ 3. Rxh3 Rg6+ will count as marginally better because the rook is more actively placed. The difference is irrelevant because both positions are equally lost.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-11-23T11:15:59.790" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33062" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33065" CreationDate="2020-11-23T17:05:16.510" Score="2" ViewCount="121" Body="&lt;p&gt;While watching this year's &lt;a href=&quot;https://youtu.be/f4qCYtkZMnU&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;2020 Champions Showdown Chess 9LX&lt;/a&gt; I noticed they gave players' ratings according to the URS or Universal Rating System. Which are the characteristics of this rating system?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3757" LastActivityDate="2020-11-23T20:10:57.950" Title="What is the Universal Rating System (URS)?" Tags="&lt;rating&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33063" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-11-23T18:40:40.047" Score="0" ViewCount="99" Body="&lt;p&gt;The position is a variation of a computer game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;8/3k1R2/2p1p3/2PpP3/3P1P2/6r1/4K3/8 b - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Can this position be won by white ABSENT the fifty move rule? I know this is mostly exotic, because a eleven , or nine pieces position will be considered a draw under current rules both in over the board chess and in correspondence chess. Nevertheless , I am curious to know. Can the fortress be broken , even if it takes more than 50 moves?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24709" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-11-23T21:47:06.960" LastActivityDate="2020-11-23T22:28:45.270" Title="A riddle just for curiosity" Tags="&lt;rook-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33064" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33060" CreationDate="2020-11-23T20:10:49.723" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;Black is going to lose the bishop regardless. White is attacking the queen in such a way that it will have to move (or be captured), and there are no available safe squares from which it can continue to protect black's bishop. After the queen retreats, white will be free to capture the bishop with his bishop. By playing Bh3 first, black can at least generate some small counterplay by opening up the file so his rook can come check the white king, while white's bishop remains on a somewhat passive square.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25405" LastActivityDate="2020-11-23T20:10:49.723" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33065" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33062" CreationDate="2020-11-23T20:10:57.950" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;http://universalrating.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Universal Rating System&lt;/a&gt; is an alternate rating system which, according to the project's web site:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The Universal Rating System™ (URS™ for short), is a revolutionary new&#xA;sport’s rating system designed to assess the relative strength of&#xA;participants across a wide variety of competitor vs competitor sports&#xA;or games.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The URS™ was developed as the result of a collaborative research&#xA;project funded by the Grand Chess Tour, the Kasparov Chess Foundation&#xA;and the Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;According to the project's &lt;a href=&quot;http://universalrating.com/faqs.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FAQ page&lt;/a&gt;, the major differences between URS ratings and FIDE Elo ratings are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are many differences between the URS™ and the FIDE system. The&#xA;most striking difference is that the URS™ calculates only one rating&#xA;for each player, informed by their results at all rates of play. This&#xA;published rating is the URS™ system's assessment of each player's&#xA;strength at Classical chess (defined as a rate of play where each&#xA;player has at least 2 hours for their first 60 moves). The URS™&#xA;recognizes that there is useful information about a player's&#xA;over-the-board chess strength in all game results regardless of the&#xA;time limit, and can therefore more effectively estimate a player's&#xA;Classical chess strength by also considering their results at games&#xA;played at faster time controls. As the speed of play increases, the&#xA;URS™ assigns less and less importance to the game results relative to&#xA;games played at slower time controls.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Furthermore, the URS™ is a weighted performance rating, calculated&#xA;across several years of previous game results for all players. Older&#xA;games are given less importance than more recent games, by applying an&#xA;exponential decay rate. Unlike traditional performance ratings, which&#xA;are based upon the opponents' rating at the time the game was played,&#xA;the URS™ constantly reassesses the strength of all opponents and&#xA;searches for the most likely set of current ratings for all players,&#xA;in order to best explain the observed results.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="7147" LastActivityDate="2020-11-23T20:10:57.950" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33066" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15100" CreationDate="2020-11-23T20:32:12.530" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;As these posts show -&amp;quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/32845/a-mysterious-mate-in-one&quot;&gt;A mysterious mate in one&lt;/a&gt;&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/33008/another-unusual-mate-in-one&quot;&gt;Another Unusual Mate in One&lt;/a&gt;&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/32979/mate-in-one-the-missing-king&quot;&gt;Mate in One the Missing King&lt;/a&gt;- Mate-in-Ones can be renewed. If it can be so in this very narrow field of problems, it can be everywhere. The only limit is our imagination.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4234" LastActivityDate="2020-11-23T20:32:12.530" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33067" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33057" CreationDate="2020-11-23T22:28:10.390" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Note, also, that Nxc2 is +1 on material while Nxb3 is +2 as the knight should be captured--I do not see why your opponent launched that futile attack and let the knight escape.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, along with that +1 material the king has to move, costing him several moves to get the rook out and the king to safety.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1296" LastActivityDate="2020-11-23T22:28:10.390" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33068" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33063" CreationDate="2020-11-23T22:28:45.270" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;The position very much looks to be a draw. The white king can't advance easily as the black rook stays on the third rank. All the maneuvers to bring back the white rook to help advance don't seem to work as both f4 and d4 can be weak. Furthermore the black king can stay on the d file to cover the e7 and c7 square while always having Kd7 if White attacks the weak e6 or c6 pawn from the side.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Therefore the only way to make progress for White is to play 0...Kd8 1.f5 exf5 2.Rxf5&#xA;Now White faces a similar problem. The d4 pawn is weak so as soon as White blocks with the rook on the third rank the black rook will move to the fourth rank and keep the d4 pawn attacked. For instance 2...Rh3 3.Rf3 Rh4 . To make progress White would have to block the fourth rank. However if White plays Ke3 Black can respond with Re4+ forcing the king to d3 from which it can not support a move like Rf4 blocking the fourth rank.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This of course is not a proof but I am very sure that for the reasons outlined here, the position is a draw under all circumstances.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24693" LastActivityDate="2020-11-23T22:28:45.270" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33069" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="23443" CreationDate="2020-11-23T23:52:47.053" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Starting new players at 1200 will distort the ratings and make it take longer ,  with a LOT more games played in total, for the ratings to settle down to anything near accurate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You should first have a big tournament where most all local players play a lot of rounds.  Swiss would work best if you have more players than you could have enough rounds for a RR.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then set initial ratings based on results not some PC approach where everybody starts with 1200.  Some players will be experienced and have very high actual ratings while some will be beginners whose actual strength is very low.  Starting them off equally is nonsense.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Statistically far better to rate each player based on each specific game rather than some so called average performance that might not reflect reality as well as each game individually does.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25408" LastActivityDate="2020-11-23T23:52:47.053" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33070" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-11-24T00:26:32.323" Score="3" ViewCount="1513" Body="&lt;p&gt;I consider myself to be an intermediate player. I understand the tactical motifs well and can solve quite a few tactical puzzles with relative ease. I have also dedicated time at working on end games and can handle the basic ones with major and minor pieces as well as the ones involving pawns decently.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Lately I have been paying a lot of attention at the tactical problems that I get wrong and I have noticed that for the most part, the reason of my mistakes is that I don't know how to correctly evaluate the resulting position correctly to pick the right move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example: I don't really have a diagram but the question is more general than specific so, please bear with me. In a recent one I found the correct first move and on the second one I chose to exchange a knight for a rook thinking I would end up with an advantage in quality. That turned out to be a mistake. The right answer was to take a bishop which made the queen to take my knight which was defended. I kept thinking &amp;quot;why on earth would the queen take the knight if it is going to be taken? It makes no sense&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I know that the right answer boils down to the specific position, even when analyzing it with the engine I could see that in this case, by taking the rook the advantage was completely lost and if the other side did not take with the queen, the advantage I had would rise exponentially.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My questions would be, how can I learn this stuff? What kind of sources do I have to look for? What subject should I Google? What kind of books, or better yet, titles can I read so that I can start understanding this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4327" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-11-25T02:16:50.570" LastActivityDate="2020-11-25T02:16:50.570" Title="How to keep improving when missing advanced knowledge prevents finding the answer to tactical puzzles" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33071" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33070" CreationDate="2020-11-24T02:22:36.117" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;In your example the opponent was forced to exchange his queen for a knight.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That usually means that&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;They will win material on top of that to minimize material loss (2 pieces and 2 pawns for a queen is materially better than just being a piece down). Converting material advantages is mostly a matter of endgame technique and then trading down into endgames. There is a new book by Gelfand &amp;quot;Technical Decision Making in Chess&amp;quot; which is dedicated to converting static advantages. Of course there are also decent free resources on the topic of converting material advantages.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The knight was a key attacking piece and the attack was not holdable. Seeing an attack and correctly judging it is not only a matter of tactics, but also understanding how to conduct an attack. On that topic I really liked &amp;quot;Attacking Manual&amp;quot; by Jacob Aagaard.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15478" LastEditorUserId="15478" LastEditDate="2020-11-24T02:29:46.517" LastActivityDate="2020-11-24T02:29:46.517" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33072" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33070" CreationDate="2020-11-24T03:24:41.530" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the most important thing to do right now is to clarify exactly what the problem you're having is. From the somewhat vague example you gave I have a suspicion, but I can't be sure. I think that your problem with the tactics is that the way you evaluate the resulting positions from the tactical sequences you calculate is too simplistic, in this case by being over-reliant on the material count while not taking other positional factors into account.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;From the way your example is phrased, it seems to me like you can understand that the resulting position from the correct solution is better than the one resulting from your solution &lt;strong&gt;when you compare the end positions next to one another&lt;/strong&gt;. So it might be a case of you knowing that you're solving a tactical problem, and therefore you assume that you're looking for a way to win material, causing you to &amp;quot;tunnel-vision&amp;quot; when solving these tactics exercises.&#xA;In this case, the solution to your problem is rather simple in nature: just be aware that finding the best continuation to a problem is not always the same as finding a way to win material, it's all about ending up in the best possible position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Another potential problem that could be the issue for you is that you stop your calculation too soon; sometimes it's necessary to calculate further than you originally expect to see why a continuation is good or bad, and if this is the case for you (which it could be, judging by your example) then you need to ask yourself why you stopped calculating at the point that you did. Why didn't you notice that you needed to calculate a few moves further? And if you were to calculate further, would you have been able to see what was wrong with your line? In this case, it is vital to be aware of this if you're ever going to fix the issue in the first place, and to appreciate the importance of calculating to the very end of the line, where the position has clarified to the point where it's easy to evaluate directly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In the end, I seriously doubt that all your problems with these more &amp;quot;advanced&amp;quot; tactics are based in a lack of &amp;quot;advanced knowledge&amp;quot; of positional chess. I think it has more to do with your approach/attitude to calculation might be somewhat misguided and/or overly simplistic. But in the end, this is hard to judge from one vague example, and I might be way off in my assessment of your particular case. In any case I felt that what I've stated here needed to be stated so that you are at least aware of some of the potential pitfalls with tactics that are easy to overlook if you're not aware of them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8300" LastActivityDate="2020-11-24T03:24:41.530" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33073" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="32910" CreationDate="2020-11-24T12:40:06.800" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think NNUE engines are right because after Ne6 black can play Rxd6 instead of taking knight(that exchanges all of his major pieces). he loses bishop after Rxd6 but his rook will remain and he has some chance to go on even if that is 1%.&#xA;but after Raa8 hxg5(the only move because khight on g5 supports king's scape way and there is checkmate threat) Rxc8 Rxc8 white will have a rook but black won't have any major piece and all of his remaining pieces will be pawns and king so his winning chance is less than the previous line I think&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25413" LastActivityDate="2020-11-24T12:40:06.800" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33074" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33076" CreationDate="2020-11-24T15:47:33.967" Score="1" ViewCount="131" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have started playing around with SCID and Arena to analyze my games and store interesting screenshots. I recently heard about the FEN notation which makes it conveninient to describe chess positions (previosuly I used to store screenshots of the board positions)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now I know that SCID can read a single FEN string and set up the described position from that string but as far as I understand, it cannot read a file containing multiple FEN positions, and iterate through them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What I would like to do is keep a database text file with interesting positions from my games or famous games or typical opening positions into a single file, one FEN string per line along with a short comment giving some more context and information about the position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So the file  would be something like&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1b6/4pKn1/8/1nPkqp1R/2pr3p/3b1pp1/P3Qp2/2BRr3     # comment 1&#xA;1B6/4pKR1/3b3p/3QN2p/1Rb2k2/3PpN1P/2q1P3/8        # comment 2&#xA;1b6/4pN1K/2qpQ1p1/R4n1p/1Prkb3/N2p1pB1/3P1n1r/8   # comment 3&#xA;1B6/4pN1p/7p/3P1k2/2p5/4P2K/4P3/2Q4N              # comment 4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is there some analogous file format to do this? Maybe PGN itself is good enough? Can SCID handle such a file with multiple FEN notations? Or is there some other software for reading such files and allowing me to iterate through the various positions described in that file (and hopefully allowing me to make some edits)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24634" LastActivityDate="2020-11-24T20:01:58.080" Title="Software for reading multiple FEN positions" Tags="&lt;fen&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33075" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33070" CreationDate="2020-11-24T17:57:18.150" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;To be honest you are not as advanced as you think you are.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you are talking about tactics then almost always there is a clear material advantage or mate resulting from doing the tactics.  How is it you are advanced and cannot see such an advantage?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In some cases the advantage may be positional.  Clearly your experience and positional understanding is lacking.  I know of no really good materials to teach you positional understanding although there may now be some on the internet.  It may just take a lot of playing to gather experience to appreciate the positional advantages  as well as material ones. When you finally understand that position is far more important than material you will be ready to grok those problems that you are getting wrong now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;OTOH those tactical problems on line do not always have the best solution just what somebody claimed was best.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For us to help you better then please provide specific positions and ask about those.  Also tell us what your FIDE rating is that makes you think you are at the advanced level you keep claiming you are.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Having played almost 70 years your comments sound like a kid of about 12 with helicopter parents telling them how great they are.  You might be a 40 year old with a phd  but you do not come across as an adult at all.  Especially when you keep asserting that there is some advanced knowledge out there if only we would tell where it was hidden then you could be a world class player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25417" LastEditorUserId="25417" LastEditDate="2020-11-24T18:03:31.500" LastActivityDate="2020-11-24T18:03:31.500" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33076" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33074" CreationDate="2020-11-24T20:01:58.080" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;A file that contains one FEN per line is a file format in itself. It's the file format used by test positions for chess engines. So engines definitely have some process to analyse all the positions in a FEN file.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Ermm... your FEN is missing the king-castling, move number and who is to move indicator -- you'll want those.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;An alternative would be to convert each FEN line into a PGN game -- The FEN line goes in the PGN header, e.g. [FEN &amp;quot;1b6/4pKn1/8/1nPkqp1R/2pr3p/3b1pp1/P3Qp2/2BRr3&amp;quot;], and the comment can just be a &amp;quot;Before move annotation&amp;quot;. So you could construct a minimal PGN game for each position -- and PGN is supported by absolutely every single piece of chess software out there. There is a minimal set of headers required for a valid PGN game, White, Black, Site, and Result. Plus that FEN header.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Scout around, maybe you can find a fen2pgn script. There was one a few decades ago.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25320" LastActivityDate="2020-11-24T20:01:58.080" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33078" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9782" CreationDate="2020-11-24T21:26:56.860" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;Could someone please confirm that he became a stronger player by using that method of studying?&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I can confirm, I was 2000-FIDE, struggling to beat players of the same rating. After a month of serious endgame study, I increased my rating to 2200 fairly quickly. Since then, I am continuously studying endgames.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A lot of players at that level have a gap in their knowledge of endgames, which becomes especially visible when they are low on time. By studying endgames myself I scored a lot of extra points by winning equal or holding lost endgame positions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So if you're at level 2000 or lower, I would advise to &lt;strong&gt;focus&lt;/strong&gt; on &lt;strong&gt;studying&lt;/strong&gt; endgames at your own time and refresh your knowledge on openings/strategy/something else while playing in tournaments.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some arguments for studying endgames:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Concrete evaluation. The position is a win/draw/loss with a clear explanation of why. This helps to build a rigorous understanding of the game. Contrast that with the phrase &lt;code&gt;in this opening white is slightly better&lt;/code&gt; with a subjective explanation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Everlasting knowledge. You learn once that the Lucena position is winning and this fact remains true forever. Now contrast this with a belief that &lt;code&gt;the Exchange Caro-Kann gives black an equality&lt;/code&gt; until someone finds a new idea how to play for an advantage with white.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Useful in practice when you're low on time. Even if you don't know the opening, you can spend a lot of time and come up with a decent move (not necessarily the best). In the endgame, you will be down to your last seconds. It's very unlikely you will find an accurate move with few seconds remaining by yourself - even the top players do not always find!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25420" LastEditorUserId="25420" LastEditDate="2020-11-25T11:40:13.783" LastActivityDate="2020-11-25T11:40:13.783" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33079" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-11-25T00:07:27.947" Score="3" ViewCount="87" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am not a chess player but I have a homework where I have to code a chess program. I would like to know if it is possible for a player's piece to be in check, the player to move out of check, and in turn put the other player in a stalemate, from just one move?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For example: White is in check -&amp;gt; White moves out of check -&amp;gt; Black is stalemated&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I haven't found any examples of it so far, but I also haven't found anything saying it's never possible, so if anyone can say either way that would be great!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25423" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-11-25T02:11:56.657" LastActivityDate="2020-11-25T02:13:16.770" Title="Can you move from one side being checked to other side in stalemate?" Tags="&lt;programming&gt;&lt;check&gt;&lt;stalemate&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33080" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33079" CreationDate="2020-11-25T01:02:19.937" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's possible, e.g.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;2Q4k/2R4b/8/8/8/8/K7/8 b - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1...Bg8+&#xA;2. Ka3?? 1/2-1/2&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-11-25T02:13:16.770" LastActivityDate="2020-11-25T02:13:16.770" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33082" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="20040" CreationDate="2020-11-25T07:12:59.503" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I believe that we can &amp;quot;visualize&amp;quot; the space, as the area of the board that is available to each player to safely maneuver their pieces because it is the area they control.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In my opinion, an easy way to count how much space corresponds to each player is to add the squares behind the pawn lines in which the pieces of their color can move, plus the squares controlled by the pawns in which the opponent can not recapture immediately with a pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thus, the player with black pieces has, for example, eight squares behind the pawn line, plus four squares that attack his pawns without the opponent having pawns that they can immediately recapture. A total of twelve squares (12 = 8 + 4).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Instead, the player with the white pieces has twelve squares behind his pawn line and his pawns control seven squares. A total of nineteen squares (19 = 12 + 7).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A difference of seven more squares in favor of the player with white pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="1766" LastActivityDate="2020-11-25T07:12:59.503" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33083" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33085" CreationDate="2020-11-25T07:16:19.233" Score="5" ViewCount="730" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the 2009 match between Judit Polgar and Evgeniy Najer in &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.365chess.com/game.php?gid=3707399&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Richard Riordan GM Blitz&lt;/a&gt; the following strange(?) opening sequence of the Najdorf was played&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[White &amp;quot;Judit Polgar&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Black &amp;quot;Evgeniy Najer&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Result &amp;quot;1-0&amp;quot;]&#xA;[fen &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d3 Nf6 4. d4 cxd4 5. Nc3 a6 6. Nxd4 e5 7. Be3 Be7 8. Nb3 &#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Black refuses to take the white knight on both move 5 and 7 but why? I see no horrible threat if the capture is made.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25182" LastActivityDate="2020-11-25T12:42:27.737" Title="Some strange moves in Polgar vs Najer (2009)" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33085" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33083" CreationDate="2020-11-25T08:08:52.940" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;The game Najer - Polgar, Richard Riordan GM Blitz, 2009 is from TWIC 767, along with the above sequence of moves. Sicilian Paulsen, White win, 78 moves. There are a large number of moveless games from the same tournament, so it looks like the event organisers had problems recording the game moves accurately.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25320" LastActivityDate="2020-11-25T08:08:52.940" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33086" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33083" CreationDate="2020-11-25T12:12:40.557" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I'd bet a lot of money that somehow one move from either side was stored incorrectly which makes the whole game incorrect.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;A possible correct version of this game may be 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 Nf6 4.Nc3 cxd4 5.Nxd4 a6 6.Be3 e5 7.Nb3 Be7 Or some other permutation of those moves (e.g. play 4...cxd4 one move earlier, I chose this order since it's closer to the game given).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The cause for this probably was some kind of error with the DGT board transmission.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24693" LastActivityDate="2020-11-25T12:12:40.557" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33087" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-11-25T13:03:39.673" Score="1" ViewCount="97" Body="&lt;p&gt;Looking at a human game between strong players, one of the variations reached the following endgame WHITE to move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;4Q3/8/2pK4/1p6/1P4k1/P7/8/7q w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Since Qxc6 is a draw (Lomonosov tablebases) is the endgame a draw? Or there is a sophisticated win for White in some way, maybe submitting the black King to a barrage of checks? Since my engine does NOT have tablebases incorporated into it I am in the complete dark. What does FinalGen say about this endgame?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24709" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2020-11-25T17:59:39.937" LastActivityDate="2020-11-25T17:59:39.937" Title="An interesting eight pieces Queen endgame" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;queen-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33088" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33087" CreationDate="2020-11-25T15:29:52.480" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Stockfish with tablebases gives flat 0.00 so it seems highly likely to be a draw. A problem for White is they can't even take the c6 pawn with the king, 1.Kc7 Qh2+ 2.Kxc6 is a draw. So since Black can just keep giving checks and force the white king on awkward squares this seems hard to ever be winning. (especially since Black can always threaten to pick up the a3 pawn making an immediate draw)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24693" LastActivityDate="2020-11-25T15:29:52.480" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33089" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-11-25T16:34:49.123" Score="3" ViewCount="125" Body="&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Homebase&amp;quot; is where all the surviving pieces are apparently on their starting squares. Here is a very easy new example proof game: can you find the unique shortest game that leads to this position?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;A.Buchanan 26-11-2020: shortest proof game?&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;rnbqkbnr/ppppppp1/8/8/8/8/PPPP1P1P/RN2K1NR w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Yes c1 is empty!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8201" LastEditorUserId="8201" LastEditDate="2020-11-26T08:55:22.860" LastActivityDate="2020-11-26T08:55:22.860" Title="How many moves needed to reach this position?" Tags="&lt;problems&gt;&lt;retrograde-analysis&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33090" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-11-25T17:11:36.577" Score="4" ViewCount="83" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have a chess GUI which I've recently been updating to do preemptive searches (that is, depth searches for all possible opponent moves) that I'd like to speed up, since the bot searches go to at least depth 16 for every move, and each move runs a new Stockfish 11 command line (with minimum settings) in a separate thread.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Now, I have some solutions for the threading issue, but one would involve knowing more chess math than I know now.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I noticed that, after a certain search depth, the PV's first move, and then first few moves, really don't change that often, and I'd like to know if there's a formula out there, similar to &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessprogramming.org/Pawn_Advantage,_Win_Percentage,_and_Elo&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;one that I used to calculate winning odds&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I considered the following:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Do a depth search of n on the position after hypothetical opponent move m.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Retrieve the pv for depth n.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Append it to a corpus.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Do a depth search of n+1 on the same position.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Retrieve the pv for depth n+1.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;If a text prediction algorithm using the corpus will produce n+1[pv][0:x], such that x is sufficiently large (needs more math) to be reliable, cease the depth searches and recommend n+1[pv][0].&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I'm thinking that there might be a simpler way of reaching a similar outcome, since pv[0] would have to arise every time in the text prediction.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What other Stockfish info might I want to consider in generating a statistical confidence that the recommendation need not search any deeper?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25434" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-11-25T18:20:34.343" LastActivityDate="2020-11-25T18:20:34.343" Title="Is there a mathematical way to determine whether going to depth n+1 would be x% likely to recommend the move at depth n?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;stockfish&gt;&lt;programming&gt;&lt;depth&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="12" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33091" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-11-25T17:19:35.147" Score="2" ViewCount="66" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've started to pick chess back up after a few years where I wasn't playing. (~1750 rating)  I can't figure out what to play as black against either d4 or e4&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;For a long time, I've been very happy with playing an English-Botvinnik setup as white.  I like the type of positions I get, I like focusing on the pawn breaks, the fianchettos, the manuvering, and often having attacking chances, but also just being able to play against some sort of pawn or structural weakness.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Originally, I played the KID and the Pirc, which seems like it makes sense, but I felt like I was too often on the defensive with the KID, and felt more cramped in general.  Also, I really hated the exchange lines.  The Pirc I felt had similar issues.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I tried to pick up the Sicilian Dragon to play something a little more dynamic. I kind of like when I actually get to play it, even if it isn't really that focused on the pawn breaks, but I feel like the overwhelming majority of the time, opponents at my level will play some sort of sideline.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Recently, I've tried to pick up the Leningrad Dutch.  It seems like it checks a lot of the boxes that I'm looking for,  I like that  it's less cramped, can be a bit aggressive, has a fianchetto, and plays for pawn breaks.  The only thing I'm not a huge fan of, is that depending on what the opponent plays, sometimes it's better to just transpose into a Classical Dutch or Stonewall.  There seems like a lot of theory to learn here.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Other things I've vaguely considered include:&#xA;Nimzo/QID: Lots of theory, more open positions(?), don't like giving away the bishop pair, feels like my queenside pieces don't have good homes from the few games I've tried, but maybe that's just because I don't know what I'm doing.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Alekhine's: Looks like all the bad Pirc positions where I messed up and let my opponent push the pawns too much.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Grunfeld/Benoni/Benko stuff: I don't know much about these, maybe there's something here I would like?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I think that's basically everything that sort of fits what I'd like to do, so I'm definitely open to revisiting something here, or being pointed in the direction of something else that I'm not anticipating as an answer.  I know the usual advice is play something outside of your comfort zone to improve your chess in general, but honestly, I'm not trying to become a titled player or anything, I just want something I can consistently play and enjoy because it gives me the types of positions I find most interesting and comfortable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25435" LastActivityDate="2020-11-25T17:19:35.147" Title="I cannot for the life of me settle on some openings for black" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;1.e4&gt;&lt;1.d4&gt;&lt;defense&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="3" ClosedDate="2020-11-25T19:34:22.743" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33092" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33089" CreationDate="2020-11-25T17:31:07.313" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;For a partial answer, here are a semi-unique sequence sin 11 moves. They are no doubt revealing of the true solution's strategy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 h5 2. Qxh5 Rxh5 3. g4 Re5 4. Bc4 Rxe4+ 5. Kf1 Re1+ 6. Kg2 Rxc1 7. g5 Re1 8. Be6 Rxe6 9. g6 Rxg6+ 10. Kf1 Rh6 11. Ke1 Rh8&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Or this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e3 h5 2. Qxh5 Rxh5 3. g3 Rh3 4. Bd3 Rxg3 5. Kf1 Rxe3 6. Kg2 Re1 7. Bf5 Rxc1  8. Bg4 Re1 9. Bh3 Re3 10. Kf1 Rxh3 11. Ke1 Rh8&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 h5 2. Qxh5 Rxh5 3. g3 Re5 4. Bh3 Rxe4+ 5. Kf1 Re1+ 6. Kg2 Rxc1 7. Kf3 Re1  8. Kg2 Re3 9. Kf1 Rxg3 10. Ke2 Rxh3 11. Ke1 Rh8&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-11-25T18:37:24.533" LastActivityDate="2020-11-25T18:37:24.533" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33093" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33089" CreationDate="2020-11-25T18:23:09.963" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have no idea about this kind of problems, but my guess would be something like this.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. g4 h5 2. Bg2 hxg4 3. Bf3 gxf3 4. Kf1 fxe2+ 5. Kg2 exd1=R 6. Kf3 Rxc1 7. Ke2 Re1+ 8. Kxe1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is that unique? I have no idea.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24693" LastEditorUserId="24693" LastEditDate="2020-11-25T19:14:31.880" LastActivityDate="2020-11-25T19:14:31.880" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33094" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33097" CreationDate="2020-11-25T22:06:10.420" Score="9" ViewCount="1619" Body="&lt;p&gt;Martin Gardner mentioned the following &amp;quot;chess&amp;quot; problem in his column, &lt;em&gt;Mathematical Games&lt;/em&gt;, for Scientific American (he got it from Smullyan, who learned about it from a high school math teacher):&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;... Assume that a game is played with the new rule that a knight can on a single turn move twice. It is not clear if this more powerful knight move is an advantage to the first or second player. The first player, White, offers to play the game without his queen. How can he be sure to win?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After thinking a bit, I could not make progress, so I look at the solution:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote class=&quot;spoiler&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt; White jumps queen's knight forward twice. Checkmate!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That's all it says. How is this a checkmate? I must be missing something.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25438" LastActivityDate="2020-11-26T08:52:03.917" Title="How to solve this puzzle of Martin Gardner?" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;problems&gt;&lt;puzzles&gt;&lt;mathematics&gt;&lt;unorthodox-pieces&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33095" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-11-25T22:12:14.117" Score="0" ViewCount="87" Body="&lt;p&gt;From &lt;strong&gt;&amp;quot;Modern Endgame Manual&amp;quot;&lt;/strong&gt; by &lt;em&gt;Mikhalchishin&lt;/em&gt;, the following position is analysed and determine to be a winning position for White.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is Mikhalchishin's analysis correct or does the defensive capabilities of modern engines make this a position a draw?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Event &amp;quot;Russian Championship Higher League&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Date &amp;quot;2013.06.23&amp;quot;]&#xA;[White &amp;quot;Boris Grachev&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Black &amp;quot;Daniil Dubov&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Result &amp;quot;1-0&amp;quot;]&#xA;[ECO &amp;quot;D47&amp;quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &amp;quot;2683&amp;quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &amp;quot;2638&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;1b4k1/p4p1p/5p2/2P1pB2/8/8/P4PPP/5K2 w - - 0 33&amp;quot;]&#xA;[EventDate &amp;quot;2013.06.19&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24709" LastEditorUserId="24511" LastEditDate="2020-11-26T07:25:58.147" LastActivityDate="2020-11-26T17:24:08.647" Title="A cramped opposite color Bishop endgame" Tags="&lt;bishop-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33096" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33094" CreationDate="2020-11-25T22:29:07.607" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Ok, I think I got it. Your first move is Nc3-Nb5, threatening Nxc7 and Nxe8 in its next move, and since Black can't move their King they just can't prevent check mate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: just to make it clearer, actually the first move is Nc3-Nb5+, since the Knight is attacking the king because of the special way it moves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9179" LastActivityDate="2020-11-25T22:29:07.607" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33097" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33094" CreationDate="2020-11-25T22:34:36.353" Score="12" Body="&lt;p&gt;According to the &lt;a href=&quot;https://handbook.fide.com/chapter/E012018&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE Laws of Chess&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.4 The objective of each player is to place the opponent’s king ‘under attack’ in such a way that the opponent has no legal move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;1.4.1 The player who achieves this goal is said to have ‘&lt;strong&gt;checkmated&lt;/strong&gt;’ the opponent’s king and to have won the game&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That means that if white has a knight which is 2 normal knight moves away from the opponent's king then the opponent's king is in check, under attack.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then consider white starting the game like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Nc3 null 2. Nb5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then you can see the black king is in check. On the knight's next move it can go Nb5-d6-e8. But there is no way for black to get out of check. Hence it is checkmate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-11-25T22:34:36.353" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33098" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-11-25T23:16:22.360" Score="8" ViewCount="527" Body="&lt;p&gt;I hope this question hasn't been asked before.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am looking for some examples where, say, the latest Stockfish or Komodo engine (or possibly some of the top NN engines) evaluates a position as plus or minus x for some time--possibly oscillating slightly near that point during that period--and then there is a big increase or drop in their evaluation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What might be a suitable &amp;quot;for some time&amp;quot; period? I want to say more than a minute, but not more than 1 hour. Also, what is a &amp;quot;big&amp;quot; change in evaluation? I am not so sure about that, but let's say something like 3.0.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am asking this question because, from my (very limited) experience, any dramatic changes in an engine's evaluation occur during the first 20 or so seconds. If an engine cannot find the deep tactics (or the deep positional play) during those first seconds then it is because the search tree has been pruned. (Am I right about this? I don't much about how chess engines operate.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edit:&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;The drastic change in the evaluation should be a consequence of the introduction of a move not previously considered by the engine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21893" LastEditorUserId="21893" LastEditDate="2020-11-26T01:45:17.893" LastActivityDate="2021-02-02T00:32:40.807" Title="Big changes in engine's evaluation after considerable time" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;evaluation&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33099" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33098" CreationDate="2020-11-26T00:40:46.027" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;This is a complicated position I had in a correspondence game. White to play and win. The engine evaluation rises and falls, occasionally hitting 0 again. Then it stays at roughly 1.5 for a long while until finally finding the breakthrough about 20 minutes in. Unsurprisingly, considering the full line is pretty insane.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;r5r1/1np3bk/1p1p4/3P4/bpP2PPp/P3N2P/1q1BQ2K/4R1R1 w - - 0 33&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. g5 Rge8 2. Qh5+ Kg8 3. Rg2 bxa3 4. Nf5 Rxe1 5. Bxe1 Bc2 6. Nh6+ Kh8 7. Ng4+ Kg8 8. Nf6+ Kf8 9. Nd7+ Ke7 10. Qg4 Nc5 11. g6 Rh8 12. Re2+ Kd8 13. Nb8 Ba4 14. Nc6+ Bxc6 15. dxc6 Qf6 16. Bf2 Re8 17. Ra2 Qe6 18. Bxh4+ Kc8 19. Re2 Kb8 20. Rxe6 Rxe6 21. Qg2 Re3 22. f5 Be5+ 23. Kg1 Rb3 24. Qa2 Bd4+ 25. Kf1 Rf3+ 26. Kg2 Rb3 27. f6 Rb2+ 28. Kf3 Rxa2 29. g7 Rg2 30. Kxg2 a2 31. g8=Q+ Ka7 32. f7 a1=Q 33. f8=Q Qg1+ 34. Kf3 Qd1+ 35. Kf4 Ne6+ 36. Qxe6 Qf1+ 37. Ke4 Qxf8 38. Qe7 Qxe7+ 39. Bxe7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24693" LastEditorUserId="24693" LastEditDate="2020-11-26T02:53:13.127" LastActivityDate="2020-11-26T02:53:13.127" CommentCount="8" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33100" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-11-26T03:18:26.643" Score="14" ViewCount="4557" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am 24 years old, and only recently got my interest in chess back. I used to play it on and off as a child, but never took it seriously.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Is it too late for me to start playing competitively? I'm not aiming to be GM or anything, and neither am I planning to make chess my life. I am just wondering if I can still qualify to participate in some tournaments here and there, maybe get a few awards, maybe have a ranking of some sorts, and possibly call myself a competitive chess player.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25440" LastActivityDate="2020-11-30T10:06:30.360" Title="Is it too late for me to get into competitive chess?" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;tournament&gt;" AnswerCount="7" CommentCount="8" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33101" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33100" CreationDate="2020-11-26T04:07:40.253" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Definitely not to late.&#xA;I know people who have taken up chess in retirement to reasonable club level success. There is literally nothing holding you back. Go get em.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24511" LastActivityDate="2020-11-26T04:07:40.253" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33102" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33100" CreationDate="2020-11-26T04:10:03.793" Score="13" Body="&lt;p&gt;Sure why not! The important thing is to enjoy the game and learn whatever life lessons you can take from it along the journey. Chess offers tremendous companionship and fun and that is what is more important than focusing on results (which will inevitably follow as you keep improving learn from your mistakes).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Make sure you keep a database of the games --- especially your victories! --- you play on online using softwares like SCID, and then submit it to computer analysis (via Stockfish available on lichess).  Learn where you went wrong during the game. I have improved tremendously myself over the past few months by following this process (having returned to chess only 2 months ago).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Focusing on improving a specific precisely defined skill like chess, I feel instills a growth mindset and set of habits that permeate other areas of life automatically.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And speaking of becoming a top player at a &amp;quot;late age&amp;quot; (if by that you mean physical age rather than mental age) then there is precedence! &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.quora.com/Is-there-any-famous-chess-player-or-grandmaster-who-started-late-like-in-their-20s-or-30s&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.quora.com/Is-there-any-famous-chess-player-or-grandmaster-who-started-late-like-in-their-20s-or-30s&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The important thing however I repeat is focusing on making sure that chess offers you enjoyment, a place to practice a growth mindset, companionship and a chance to make friends in both meatspace and cyberspace.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You might come across players online who have some sort of ego issues but these are precisley the players who only want to show off and will never improve past whatever miniscule talent they think they might have. It is one thing to be proud of your accomplishments but another thing to denigrate another person for playing worse chess. Stay away from people like these and build a healthy community of friends that you enjoy playing with and will help you improve.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Hope this helps!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24634" LastActivityDate="2020-11-26T04:10:03.793" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33103" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33100" CreationDate="2020-11-26T05:20:12.353" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is no reason you can't get into competitive chess unless you hold yourself back.&#xA;I played as a child and into my late teens and then stopped.  It wasn't until around 8-10 years ago that I picked it back up and playing in competitively in tournaments only recently.  I know the chances are really low that I'd become a GM but if I become a local good club player that is perfectly fine.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14760" LastActivityDate="2020-11-26T05:20:12.353" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33104" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33095" CreationDate="2020-11-26T07:38:11.600" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The analysis of this position seems quite reasonable based off an immediate glance of the board. Grachev has the advantageous position as he is first to move in this position which is essential for this end game play out. The c5 pawn is key to Grachevs success and without playing out the whole game immediately moving to defend it with the King is the most route to success. Dubov is incapable of promoting on the King side of the board and the double pawns do provide somewhat of a hinderance to Dubovs position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is effectively how the game rolled out to my understanding of it, Grachevs king charged at the c5 pawn, Dubovs and Grachevs Bishops began gobbling up pawns and White ultimately used the king to progress the queen side pawns on the A and C file to the point Dubov resigned.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In regards to the definitively analysing with modern engines. Using Komodo Dragon against itself for 10 games, in all 10 games White won. In this position, white is better in all key lines ranking from +3.53 (in the best line for White) to +1.4 in the worst line.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24511" LastActivityDate="2020-11-26T07:38:11.600" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33106" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33094" CreationDate="2020-11-26T08:52:03.917" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I guess that can White play 1. Nb1-a3-b5+ or Nb1-c3-b5+ or Nb1-a3-c4+, in order to be in range of the bK but not in range of the bKN.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I suppose we clarify that if the first knight move is a capture, the second move can still take place. Otherwise 1. ... d6! defends.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But what happens if the first knight move is a check? Does that mean that White doesn't get to make a second move? And does that affect the definition of check. Because wNb5/wNc4 cannot threaten to capture bK, as the first move wN-d6+ checks bK and that would terminate the turn!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If this is correct it means that a knight only gives check when one move away from bK. Can the original poster make clear how this works, please?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8201" LastActivityDate="2020-11-26T08:52:03.917" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33107" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33100" CreationDate="2020-11-26T09:06:38.817" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;It's not late. Starting early in only important if you aim at the very top. I've had a student who started in his forties and managed to enjoy hundreds of games of competitive chess, with somewhat decent results (he reached 1800 while having a full-time job and a family).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Join a chess club and play your first tournament as soon as you can. Also, what is your budget? If you can't afford sessions with a coach regularly, can you afford at least an occassional season to guide the training you'll do on your own? I'd offer my services but I'm not sure if my answer would be removed for self-promotion in that case. Anyway, the skills a serious chess player needs are, more or less:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Tactical awareness and accurate calculation: this is put shortly the ability to find the best moves &amp;quot;on the spot&amp;quot;, and predict its most direct consequences. You can work on this by solving puzzles on a site like &lt;a href=&quot;https://chesstempo.com&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;chesstempo.com&lt;/a&gt; or from a book. Reviewing your own games first by yourself, maybe later with a chess engine, will also help you find what opportunities you missed in your games. Consistency is key here. 90 minutes a week distributed in 15 minute sessions will be enough for you to feel the difference after 8-10 weeks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Theoretical endgames: only a few are required to survive, so this shouldn't take too much time. Once you know the most basic ones you'll be able to handle most practical situations. Can you mate a lonely king with just a rook? If you have the option of entering a king+pawn vs king endgame, can you know if that will be a win or a draw beforehand?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Technichal endgames: this is often mixed in with the &amp;quot;theoretical&amp;quot; ones but I like to make the distinction clear. If you reach a position like bishop+5 panws vs knight+4 pawns (on either side), how comfortable do you feel? Can you outplay most player near your skill level or do you feel like you are losing a lot of points at this stage?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Strategy: this is for many the most &amp;quot;beautiful&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;elegant&amp;quot; part of chess. Concepts like piece activity, king safety, weak squares, bad bishops and alike simplify the way we think about chess, guiding our decisions when there isn't a clear &amp;quot;tactical&amp;quot; reason to prefer a move over another.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Opening theory: since there are a few positions that will appear over and over again in your games, you'd do yourself a favour if you already know what the best moves are on each of them. For now, however, I'd stick to a more &amp;quot;strategic&amp;quot; approach, based on playing around solid concepts like development, king safety and control of the central squares.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Work on this and you'll go far! But remember that this is a long process and results won't be felt fast nor &amp;quot;linearly&amp;quot;. In other words, improvement will come gradually until you hit some &amp;quot;jump&amp;quot; at a certain point, then you'll feel like you're going backwards before another &amp;quot;jump&amp;quot;, then another stage of gradual improvement.... I think you get the point.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18809" LastActivityDate="2020-11-26T09:06:38.817" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33108" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-11-26T09:28:47.600" Score="1" ViewCount="256" Body="&lt;p&gt;Is there a standard way to learn to play blind? How should one go about becoming better at blind chess? Should it come &amp;quot;natural&amp;quot; to a player at some point?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am interested in knowing if it is a skill to learn or something that is simply a proof of a player's ability and so can't be learned before one reach like master level or something.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24909" LastActivityDate="2021-03-09T03:27:37.520" Title="How to learn to play blind" Tags="&lt;learning&gt;&lt;blindfold-chess&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33109" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-11-26T16:01:25.260" Score="-1" ViewCount="95" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Season 11 Superfinal Game 78 the following opposite color Bishop endgame was reached:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;8/2p1k3/1p6/p4B2/P2P1bP1/2P5/1P3K2/8 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In that Superfinal Stockfish smashed Houdini 20 wins versus 2 , but this endgame is interesting because , if Stockfish ( black) did draw it would have completed the Superfinal with a record of only one loss. I am not certain because the tabulates indicated Stockfish was in time trouble at this juncture of the game. Is the endgame a win or a draw? I ask to look (at least) past depth 48.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24709" LastEditorUserId="7297" LastEditDate="2020-11-26T18:54:22.197" LastActivityDate="2020-11-27T00:38:57.437" Title="A historical computer chess endgame" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33110" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33100" CreationDate="2020-11-26T17:18:55.887" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;How competitive? Your chances of becoming a GM are very low. You might reach IM if you spent enough time on the game, but there is no guarantee. You should be able to reach the expert level if you try, but even NM would be unlikely unless you don't have a life and only do chess.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As to tournaments, you can always play.  They have them for all levels of players.  As to winning awards -  you could win at your level in a section based on ratings and not 'open'.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Everybody who plays gets a rating.  You could certainly call yourself a competitive player if you actually played in sponsored tournaments by USCF or your national body.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With proper training, you should certainly be as good as most club players in a few years.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25449" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-11-27T23:34:33.377" LastActivityDate="2020-11-27T23:34:33.377" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33111" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33095" CreationDate="2020-11-26T17:24:08.647" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Being played by good players,  it sure looks like a win for white but it will take some work.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In real life anything can happen especially depending on the clock situation.  And it depends on how hard white wants to work to get that extra half point.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;And in positions like this there could often be a hidden gotcha that is not obvious until more moves are played so it could be a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25449" LastActivityDate="2020-11-26T17:24:08.647" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33112" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-11-26T19:21:56.463" Score="4" ViewCount="176" Body="&lt;p&gt;While trying to accurately describe the intended movement of the &amp;quot;doubled knight&amp;quot; in &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/33094/how-to-solve-this-puzzle-of-martin-gardner&quot;&gt;this chess puzzle&lt;/a&gt;, I realized that what I really wanted right at that instant was a &amp;quot;dictionary&amp;quot; that would let me look up the established name for a fairy chess piece based on its movement (or lack thereof).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Ideally, I'd like to be able to load up a graphical board like in &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/editor/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;lichess's editor&lt;/a&gt;, drag-and-drop pieces (including a placeholder for &amp;quot;my mystery fairy piece&amp;quot;) to create a position, and then mark subsets of the squares as &amp;quot;attacked&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;not attacked,&amp;quot; something like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.imgur.com/VGskK67m.png&quot; alt=&quot;&quot; /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and then the tool would tell me, &amp;quot;Ah, the piece you're referring to is commonly known as a 'Marseillais knight',&amp;quot; or whatever. (Note that I still don't know what my piece's name is.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Does such a tool already exist anywhere? I've found glossaries such as &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.theproblemist.org/dloads/Glossary.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this excellent one by Stephen Emmerson for the British Chess Problem Society&lt;/a&gt;, but nothing that would actually let me look up a piece by &amp;quot;allowed moves,&amp;quot; and certainly I've found nothing interactive.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(If, as I predict, no such tool exists yet, I'd be interested to hear about difficulties one might encounter in implementing such a tool, and good authoritative sources of fairy-piece names other than Emmerson's.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="14163" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-04-15T13:56:15.113" LastActivityDate="2021-04-15T13:56:15.113" Title="An online dictionary of fairy chess pieces indexed by move" Tags="&lt;software&gt;&lt;websites&gt;&lt;unorthodox-pieces&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33113" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33114" CreationDate="2020-11-26T20:18:05.240" Score="16" ViewCount="2995" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was playing chess against the computer and captured black’s queen.  All of a sudden, a black pawn appears out of thin air, one space behind the captured queen for a total of nine pawns, and moves multiple squares diagonally.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Rlflr.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Rlflr.png&quot; alt=&quot;board&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The computer calls this move “P @ e6,” but after half an hour of scouring the internet, I could not figure out what that means.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;1. |  h2 - h4 | Nb8 - c6 |&#xA;2. |  e2 - e4 |  e7 - e5 |&#xA;3. | Rh1 - h3 | Qd8 × h4 |&#xA;4. | Rh3 - h4 |   P @ e2 |&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How did this happen?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18907" LastEditorUserId="18907" LastEditDate="2020-11-27T04:24:41.770" LastActivityDate="2020-11-27T09:54:36.413" Title="How did a pawn appear out of thin air in “P @ e2” after queen capture?" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;pawns&gt;&lt;captures&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33114" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33113" CreationDate="2020-11-26T20:25:07.587" Score="27" Body="&lt;p&gt;You were playing the chess variant called &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crazyhouse&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;Crazyhouse&lt;/a&gt;. In this variant you can place pieces you captured, as one of your color anywhere on the board, instead of a normal move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I don't know the software you are using, but on Lichess the variant can be selected in the &amp;quot;Create a game&amp;quot; dialog. There should be something similar in your application.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Ni4M5.png&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/Ni4M5.png&quot; alt=&quot;Lichess&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8154" LastEditorUserId="8154" LastEditDate="2020-11-26T20:31:47.537" LastActivityDate="2020-11-26T20:31:47.537" CommentCount="7" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33115" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33109" CreationDate="2020-11-27T00:38:57.437" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I didn't put any effort into this however just letting the engine search, it seems to be winning for White, evaluation steadily rising:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;8/2p1k3/1p6/p4B2/P2P1bP1/2P5/1P3K2/8 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Ke2 c5 2. Kd3 cxd4 3. cxd4 Kd6 4. Kc4 Bh6 5. Be4 Bd2 6. Kb5 Kc7 7. Bh1 Be3 8. Kc4 Kd8 9. Bd5 Ke7 10. Bg8 Kd6 11. d5 Ke5 12. Kb5 Kd6 13. Bf7 Kc7 14. b4 axb4 15. Kxb4 Kd6 16. Kc4 Bf4 17. Bg8 Bc1 18. Kb4 Kd7 19. Be6+ Kd6 20. Kb5 Be3 21. Kc4 Bf4 22. Kd4 Bg3 23. Bc8 Ke7 24. Kd3 Bd6 25. Be6 Bh2 26. Kd4 Bf4 27. Ke4 Bg5 28. Kf5 Bd2 29. g5 Bc1 30. Bc8 Kd6 31. Bb7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;+- (6.25 ++)  Tiefe: 57/53   00:45:26  8834MN, tb=31896574&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can get the current version of Stockfish here &lt;a href=&quot;https://abrok.eu/stockfish/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://abrok.eu/stockfish/&lt;/a&gt; , then you can run your own searches.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24693" LastActivityDate="2020-11-27T00:38:57.437" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33116" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33117" CreationDate="2020-11-27T03:57:26.320" Score="3" ViewCount="1809" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was originally wondering why we don't see more torturous type of games among masters. For example, instead of proceeding to checkmate, the player in control methodically takes all pieces of his opponent before ending the game. This would be a more gratifying experience, especially if there was bad blood between the players. Then it dawned on me, that at the master level, a player usual resigns as soon as he knows he lost competitive influence on the outcome of the game, thus he avoids subjecting himself to that kind of &amp;quot;punishment.&amp;quot; But chess has a long history and perhaps I'm wrong and there is actually a few good instances of tortuous winning.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;h2&gt;Question&lt;/h2&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there such examples of torturous winning, where a grandmaster resists his urge to resign and lets the opponent take all of his pieces before he gets checkmated? Perhaps taking every piece before checkmating is extreme, I would also accept answers that could show a famous grandmaster game where a winning player exhibits &amp;quot;arrogance.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15939" LastEditorUserId="4418" LastEditDate="2020-11-27T08:45:47.037" LastActivityDate="2020-11-28T09:22:55.893" Title="Famous grandmaster games of &quot;torturous&quot; winning or flaunting out of arrogance?" Tags="&lt;history&gt;&lt;psychology&gt;&lt;grandmaster&gt;&lt;famous-games&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33117" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33116" CreationDate="2020-11-27T08:56:45.973" Score="16" Body="&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Are there such examples of torturous winning, where a grandmaster&#xA;resists his urge to resign and lets the opponent take all of his&#xA;pieces before he gets checkmated?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;No, there aren't, for the simple reason that that sort of behaviour would require both players to behave in an extremely childish manner and childish behaviour (e.g. &amp;quot;hope chess&amp;quot;) is something you have to eliminate to become good enough to become a grandmaster.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The aim of the game is to checkmate the opponent, not take all their pieces. Good players understand this. All grandmasters are very good players. Delivering checkmate gives most adult players and all strong players far more pleasure than taking all the opponent's pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What you do see sometimes amongst strong players, including grandmasters, is the player who is defeated by an unexpected tactical blow, which leads inevitably to checkmate, allowing the checkmate rather than resigning when it becomes clear what has happened. This is seen as particularly sporting behaviour. Normal behaviour would be to resign once it becomes clear. Spiteful behaviour would be to resign one move before checkmate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-11-27T08:56:45.973" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33119" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33098" CreationDate="2020-11-27T12:17:44.270" Score="7" Body="&lt;p&gt;This happens often enough in engine tournaments that viewers have coined the terms &amp;quot;boom&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;moob&amp;quot; (for &amp;quot;eval explodes away from 0&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;eval implodes towards zero&amp;quot; respectively).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here's the &lt;a href=&quot;https://tcec-chess.com/#div=vsob19&amp;amp;game=38&amp;amp;season=19&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;latest example of a boom&lt;/a&gt; from TCEC.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;8/kp6/6B1/p3p3/3r3P/q5P1/2Q2PK1/8 w - - 0 59&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Leela, playing White, boomed from -0.46 the move before to -1.91 after playing 59. h5. That means this position (or one of the moves slightly prior) very likely meets your criteria, if you let Leela think for a sufficiently long time.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You can also see from the principal variations of both engines that Leela did not anticipate Komodo's move on move 58 - Leela predicted 58...Qd5+, but Komodo played 58...Qxa3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you're looking only for booms of more than +3, off the top of my head, &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TCEC_Season_14#Game_85&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; was another memorable boom.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;7Q/8/P3n1p1/2p3k1/6b1/5pb1/8/5K2 w - - 1 59&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Leela, playing White, evaluated the position after 59.a7 as -0.06, then boomed to -14.28 after 59...Bf5 (Leela predicted 59...Nc7).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Edited to add&lt;/strong&gt;: here's &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TCEC_Season_19#Game_9&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;an example of a Stockfish moob from -1.38 to 0.00&lt;/a&gt; after thinking for 4 minutes on TCEC hardware.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;r4k1r/p1pb2bp/2pp1nq1/4P3/3P3Q/2N5/PPP3PP/R4RK1 w - - 3 16&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1.Rae1 Bf5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Stockfish had the Black pieces and its eval dropped after ...Bf5. &lt;a href=&quot;https://tcec-chess.com/#div=sf&amp;amp;game=9&amp;amp;season=19&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Link to game&lt;/a&gt; with both engines' PVs if you want to see those.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastEditorUserId="15223" LastEditDate="2020-11-27T18:26:54.570" LastActivityDate="2020-11-27T18:26:54.570" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33120" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33112" CreationDate="2020-11-27T17:15:41.503" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;The best tool (online, but not a web tool) was (note past tense) the list you referred to. You need to learn about movement rules (the square root notation, or x/y notation) and base piece movements, but then you can just search for movement rules. (In a few cases, you may need to update it first ...)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It is almost certainly not up-to-date anymore, though, even though it's only two years old, and that makes it non-best by the standards you set. Keeping it up-to-date as well as complete ... is probably a kind of job that very few people would do without being paid for it.  Do it once, yes. Do it for five years, ... doubtful.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some obvious issues:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some fairy pieces (generally called Mimics, but that term is not in the glossary as far as I can find) get their movement rules from other pieces on the board (see Imitator and Joker for two.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Some have movement rules that separate movement and attack. In, say, Rifle Chess they apply to all pieces, and may thus be seen as a general rule or condition, but individual rifle pieces have been observed. And many of the conditions described in the glossary can also be applied to individual pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So for pure movement, this might  work. But it would require the user to know beforehand that the piece is a pure 'mover', and not a mimic or another type of piece, or the lack of search find would be misinterpreted. That user is probably advanced enough to be able to go to Emmerson's list, or to Encyclopedia of Chess Problems and the relevant articles (Combined Pieces, Hoppers, Leapers, etc.), or perhaps the &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.chessvariants.com/index/mainquery.php?type=Piececlopedia&amp;amp;orderby=LinkText&amp;amp;displayauthor=1&amp;amp;displayinventor=1&amp;amp;usethisheading=Piececlopedia&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Piececlopedia&lt;/a&gt;. Even so, the probability is fairly high that the piece won't be listed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Fairy pieces are invented fairly rapidly: a 'piece finder' would not stay up-to-date more than about ... 6 months (guess)? Encyclopedia of Chess Problems warns that its list of combined pieces is far from complete.  So there's also a management problem: someone must keep all this updated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That also leads to the question of being 'authoritative'. As there's no clearinghouse for naming of fairy pieces, this means keeping track of names and discussions in all chess problem literature, probably to the level where actual chess problem activities would be hurt.  And one person would probably lose interest after some time, so there must be an active and working hand-over system to ensure it stays alive.  (The chess problem community is not known for doing that kind of thing well.---personal note)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I suspect that if there is a tool such as you describe, it will be short-lived. Instead, let the would-be searcher after fairy pieces create his problems without bother about terminology, and then send them to an appropriate fairy chess journal, and the editors will help with the piece names.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(I think it was J. Berger or perhaps Ph. Klett who said that unorthodox chess should be regarded as a disease. You may be seeing one of the effects of such disease ... :-)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Added: and it just strikes me that fairy chess boards, such as grid boards, or circular boards, or torus boards would probably also add to the complexity of identifying a mover piece.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;(Added again: I would not be surprised if there already was a sub-type of fairy chess problems, where the moves are listed, and the problem is to identify the fairy piece types  and their positions that make that solution 'correct'. Hm ... )&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24765" LastEditorDisplayName="user24765" LastEditDate="2020-11-27T18:53:58.553" LastActivityDate="2020-11-27T18:53:58.553" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33122" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-11-27T19:40:27.393" Score="0" ViewCount="26" Body="&lt;p&gt;In the game of chess for opening, there are several theories and for an endgame, the scenario is the same. What about the middle game? how to improve it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25474" LastActivityDate="2020-11-27T19:40:27.393" Title="How to improve middle game?" Tags="&lt;middlegame&gt;" AnswerCount="0" CommentCount="0" ClosedDate="2020-11-27T20:41:53.793" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33123" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33108" CreationDate="2020-11-27T21:42:44.627" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;As others have mentioned, the &amp;quot;normal&amp;quot; way to learn to play blindfold is to simply get better at chess. A strong amateur will be able to play a game blind without much specific training. This is due to &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chunking_(psychology)#:%7E:text=In%20cognitive%20psychology%2C%20chunking%20is,limited%20capacity%20of%20working%20memory.&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;chunking&lt;/a&gt;—being familiar with lots of patterns makes memorizing those patterns much easier.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;That being said, there are specific exercises which can help a weaker player play blindfolded:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol start=&quot;0&quot;&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Become extremely well versed in coordinates&lt;/strong&gt;. It is impossible to play Blind without this. See &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/training/coordinate&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this trainer&lt;/a&gt; for instance.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Tactics involving deep calculation&lt;/strong&gt;. Deep calculation while looking at a board is essentially the same muscle as holding a position in your head.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Quiz yourself on the color of each square&lt;/strong&gt;. This will help you get a feel for the board.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Mentally move single pieces around in your head&lt;/strong&gt;. Especially knights and bishops (long diagonals can be tricky). Write down 10 of these moves and check that they were legal afterwards. You should be able to do this reasonably quickly.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Practice&lt;/strong&gt;. Lichess has a Blindfold setting where the pieces vanish. Not quite as good as proper blindfold (you can still see the board...) but it's a good stepping stone.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="20581" LastActivityDate="2020-11-27T21:42:44.627" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33125" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33100" CreationDate="2020-11-27T23:16:38.913" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Not unprecedented for even world class players to only become serious after 20 years old; &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikhail_Chigorin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikhail_Chigorin&lt;/a&gt; coincidentally became serious also at 24 and only learned the moves at 16. However, incredibly rare and perhaps nowadays with kids getting world class competition from computers from as soon as they are old enough to learn the moves, it is much harder. Here is a suggestion that may not be popular: There is a variant known as &amp;quot;bughouse&amp;quot; which is played with two boards and 4 players, 2 on a team. When you take a piece as white, it is passed to your partner (who is black) and they can (instead of moving a piece) place the piece on the board. This is a completely legitimate form of chess that even top players enjoy. However, I happen to know that even grandmasters at standard chess are not necessarily great at bughouse and there is very little written about the game; what's more, a computer with a human partner would still be beatable. If your goal is to become a top player, bughouse might be a game to consider.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17420" LastActivityDate="2020-11-27T23:16:38.913" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33126" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15697" CreationDate="2020-11-27T23:23:52.620" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;It is certainly believed by many that castling is a &amp;quot;bad&amp;quot; move in bughouse (and if king side castling is weak, queen side in my experience can be much worse). But I have seen world class (2500+) BH players castle either side, probably more commonly k-side.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;One of the chief ways in which a castled king (on the king side) is attacked is via the H pawn and it is clear that defending that pawn is harder than most squares: The king protects it but that is surely not a very good protector because of course if the pawn is taken, the king is now on H2 or H7 and then is subject often to a mating attack. Since the H pawn is at the edge of the board, there are no squares to the left (or right if you are white) of it on which to place protectors. So basically H2/H7 is a very weak square and the poor king is right next to it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17420" LastEditorUserId="17420" LastEditDate="2020-11-27T23:39:18.253" LastActivityDate="2020-11-27T23:39:18.253" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33127" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="25217" CreationDate="2020-11-27T23:37:26.583" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am convinced that saccing a bishop (but not a knight) against opponent's KB2 (to use the old notation which works better when discussing BH sometimes) is reasonable simply because 1. a bishop is not that valuable in BH 2. your partner gets a pawn that can be plopped down anywhere and sometimes a pawn, placed on the 7th rank, is better than placing a B there.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But would 4 world class players play differently because the sac is basically unsound and the loss of the bishop is too much if the opponent defends right? I am not world class but I sure see top players making this sac against my team -- maybe if my rating was 300 points higher, they would not.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17420" LastActivityDate="2020-11-27T23:37:26.583" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33128" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="15718" CreationDate="2020-11-28T00:04:30.813" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I don't think nf3 is bad at all but the multiple moves to sac on f7 is using up too many tempi and also giving up a knight is different than saccing a b. i think against any team over 1500 or so a team on which white plays this opening would lose pretty consistently. a tempo is a very valuable thing in standard chess and probably more valuable even in BH.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="17420" LastActivityDate="2020-11-28T00:04:30.813" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33129" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33116" CreationDate="2020-11-28T05:23:58.150" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think you will find plenty of examples of such games, in time-controlled games where it is in the interest of the losing player to keep playing for three reasons:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;To try and flag the winning player on time - winning.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Time pressure could cause your opponent to blunder&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;To try and salvage a draw through a stalemate.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Eric Rosen who streams on youtube is one of those players who never accept draws and I don't think I've seen him resign in time-controlled games. He is famous online for &amp;quot;The Rosen Trap&amp;quot; where he gets his opponent to blunder a winning position into a drawn stalemate: &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NsKjIkYiiOA&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NsKjIkYiiOA&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;On a side note: I once played a much higher rated player in a 5 or 10-minute game and he was up 1 or 2 pieces, expecting me to resign (I think) and when I didn't he proceeded to block in my king, and promote each and every pawn of his into knights, then moved his knights[horses] back to his side of the board - in effect building himself a ranch. Like a cowboy. I did not manage a stalemate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;But those types of games are usually not a good source for learning material - except of course if you want to teach to never give up, never give in!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25297" LastEditorUserId="25297" LastEditDate="2020-11-28T05:55:25.677" LastActivityDate="2020-11-28T05:55:25.677" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33130" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33136" CreationDate="2020-11-28T08:00:18.890" Score="4" ViewCount="502" Body="&lt;p&gt;I've been playing a few puzzles for a couple of days, and I see that often the final move to chessmate is easy to spot, but earlier moves aren't (to me).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this case, for instance, why should I expect black to defend the king with the rook, rather than, say, eating it with the queen?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;4rk2/1bq2p1Q/3p1bp1/1p1n2N1/4PB2/2Pp3P/1P1N4/4RK1 w - - 0 2&#xA;&#xA;1. Bxd6 Re7 2. Qxf7&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25315" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-11-29T06:35:21.477" LastActivityDate="2020-11-29T12:31:34.053" Title="Why should I expect that black moves Rxd2 after I move Bxe3 in this puzzle?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;puzzles&gt;" AnswerCount="4" CommentCount="5" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33131" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-11-28T08:49:54.713" Score="5" ViewCount="308" Body="&lt;p&gt;Of all grandmasters past and present, what is the oldest age at which any of them started playing chess?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Define &lt;em&gt;started playing chess&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;The day that person played their first (&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIDE&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;FIDE&lt;/a&gt;, or equivalent) rated game&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="18029" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-12-04T23:16:32.047" LastActivityDate="2020-12-07T17:32:49.837" Title="What's the oldest age at which a grandmaster played their first rated game?" Tags="&lt;history&gt;&lt;fide&gt;&lt;statistics&gt;&lt;grandmaster&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" FavoriteCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33132" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33116" CreationDate="2020-11-28T09:22:55.893" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;Probably not what you're looking for, but you might still be interested in &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/study/VlIegy6E/XfqgyZCG&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;this game&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;[White &amp;quot;GM Andrew Tang&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Black &amp;quot;Leela Chess Zero&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 d5 4. cxd5 exd5 5. Bg5 Be7 6. e3 O-O 7. Bd3 c5 8. dxc5 Bxc5 9. Nge2 Be7 10. O-O Nc6 11. Rc1 h6 12. Bf4 a6 13. h3 Be6 14. Bh2 d4 15. Nxd4 Nxd4 16. exd5 Qxd4?? 17. Bh7+ Kxh7 18. Qxd4 Rad8 19. Qe3 Rfe8 20. Ne4 Bxa2 21. Nxf6+ Bxf6 22. Qf3 Bxb2 23. Rc2 Bd5 24. Qd3+ Be4 25. Qb3 Bxc2 26. Qxc2+ Kg8 27. Qxb2 b5 28. Be5 f6 29. Bxf6 gxf6 30. Qxf6 Rf8 31. Qg6+ Kh8 32. Re1 Rd7 33. Re6 Rg7 34. Qxh6+ Kg8 35. Rg6 Rxg6 36. Qxg6+ Kh8 37. Qxa6 b4 38. Qb6 b3 39. Qxb3 Rf7 40. Qg3 Rg7 41. Qxg7+ Kxg7 42. g4 Kf6 43. Kg2 Kg5 44. Kg3 Kg6 45. f4 Kf6 46. h4 Kg6 47. g5 Kh5 48. Kf3 Kg6 49. Kg4 Kg7 50. h5 Kh7 51. f5 Kg7 52. f6+ Kf7 53. Kf5 Kf8 54. g6 Kg8 55. Kg5 Kh8 56. Kh6 Kg8 57. g7 Kf7 58. Kh7 Kxf6 59. g8=Q Kf5 60. Qg6+ Ke5 61. Kg7 Kd4 62. h6 Ke5 63. h7 Kd4 64. h8=Q Kc4 65. Qhh5 Kb4 66. Qgg4+ Kc3 67. Qhh3+ Kb2 68. Qgg2+ Ka1 69. Qhh1#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/blog/WtzZAyoAALvE8ZSQ/gm-andrew-tang-defends-humanity-against-leela-chess-zero&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Writeup of the match including this game&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, this game only went on as long as it did because:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;It's ultrabullet. With 15 seconds on the clock you go for the guaranteed mate, not the fastest one.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Leela's a chess engine. It won't resign if it's not programmed to do so.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Humans should savour any opportunity they get to humiliate computers =)&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastActivityDate="2020-11-28T09:22:55.893" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33134" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33130" CreationDate="2020-11-28T11:19:49.703" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;You shouldn't, I don't think.  Black has other moves available, such as Be7.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You question may be 'Why did N. N. not list all legal moves by black after the key move in the solution of this puzzle?' Often, but not always, it's because one particular move appears (to N. N., in this case) to be extra difficult, or extra neat, and for that reason deserves to be stated. Or perhaps its because Re7 is the move N.N. expects most players to see for themselves, or so the solution after that might help most readers to find the remaining possibilities for themselves.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Without knowing the exact context is, it's difficult to be specific.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24765" LastActivityDate="2020-11-28T11:19:49.703" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33135" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33137" CreationDate="2020-11-28T11:27:26.337" Score="1" ViewCount="45" Body="&lt;p&gt;In Corona times, it is not so easy to train children over the board. When that was possible, we used a lot of mini games with fewer pieces and most of the times a different goal. To bring those mini games online is not so easy, due to many factors:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Known chess libraries like &lt;code&gt;chess.js&lt;/code&gt; (the most used Javascript library for chess) only allows standard games and does not support mini games.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Chess online sites like lichess.org have their set of games possible, and it is not at all easy to expand that.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Children should have a very simple web interface to start a game, play it, ...&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So I am thinking about creating something myself. I am sure I can come up with a simple web application to register, pair players, ..., but the hardest part (for me) is to check that the rules of chess are met. But this set of rules is not fixed. Here are some examples&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Some mini games don't have kings at all. This is not allowed in standard chess.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Some mini games treat the kings like normal pieces, so there is no chess, or even kings can be beaten.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Some mini games define the end of the game when the first piece is beaten. Or a pawn is promoted.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;One variant I know has as rule that knight moves as knight, but captures as bishop, and vice versae.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Some mini games are played on different sized boards.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;Some place pieces, that are not allowed to moved and / or captured.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;What I am looking for is a library (preferred Javascript) that allows to add easily additional rules, and define for each game which rules are mandatory. Do you have recommendations about this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3005" LastActivityDate="2020-11-28T11:56:57.163" Title="Library to program mini games" Tags="&lt;programming&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33136" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33130" CreationDate="2020-11-28T11:44:16.657" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;The point here is that none of Black's possible responses to 1. Bxd6 prevent 2. Qxf7#. Blocking with the rook or queen leaves it pinned, and blocking with the knight or bishop or capturing with the queen means that the black queen is no longer attacking f7. The puzzle just gives an example second move, with the implication that it doesn't matter which one they pick. (The fact that this example involves a pin makes 2. Qxf7 a little bit less obvious, so that's probably the motivation for that choice.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="21223" LastActivityDate="2020-11-28T11:44:16.657" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33137" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33135" CreationDate="2020-11-28T11:56:57.163" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/ianfab/Fairy-Stockfish&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Fairy-Stockfish&lt;/a&gt; supports configuration of chess variants at runtime, and it also has bindings for Python (pyffish) and Javascript (ffishjs) which can be used as libraries for chess variant game logic. E.g., &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.pychess.org/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;PyChess&lt;/a&gt; has very few game logic built in, and uses both bindings in backend and frontend for the variant rules.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you do not want to build something on your own, &lt;a href=&quot;https://chesscraft.ca/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;ChessCraft&lt;/a&gt; might be an alternative to be able to define and play variants directly in a UI.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15415" LastActivityDate="2020-11-28T11:56:57.163" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33138" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-11-28T15:34:46.937" Score="1" ViewCount="462" Body="&lt;p&gt;If the King makes it to the eighth rank and then back to the first rank, can he promote a piece like a pawn can when it reaches the eighth rank?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25486" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-11-28T16:37:17.630" LastActivityDate="2020-11-30T20:36:00.150" Title="The King's ability to promote a piece" Tags="&lt;rules&gt;&lt;pawn-promotion&gt;&lt;kings&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33139" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33138" CreationDate="2020-11-28T16:17:04.930" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;No. The whole point of the game, the way you win, is by checkmating the opponent's king. If your opponent could exchange the king for another piece then you would no longer be able to win.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In any case, all the pieces except the pawns can move backwards. Without promotion any pawn which reached the 8th rank and couldn't promote would no longer be able to move. That doesn't apply to all the other pieces.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;FIDE, the international chess federation publishes &lt;a href=&quot;https://handbook.fide.com/chapter/E012018&quot; rel=&quot;noreferrer&quot;&gt;the laws of chess&lt;/a&gt; on their website. The first 5 articles describe the rules for general play. The articles from 6 onwards describe additional rules which apply to official competitions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-11-28T16:17:04.930" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33140" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33130" CreationDate="2020-11-28T17:51:19.783" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think the more general issue is that a &lt;strong&gt;winning strategy&lt;/strong&gt; for you from a position P assigns each possible position where it is your turn some specific move, such that if you start at P and follow that strategy then you will win no matter what moves your opponent makes. A checkmate type of puzzle essentially asks you to find a winning strategy, which means that your strategy has to work against any possible opponent moves. Theoretically, you would have to analyze the entire &lt;strong&gt;tree&lt;/strong&gt; of possibilities from the given position, since after each move the other player typically has multiple possible moves. It is nevertheless usually the case that only a few lines of play (i.e. paths down the tree) are &lt;strong&gt;interesting&lt;/strong&gt;, because it is hard to find the winning moves along that line, or it is the longest the opponent can hold on before losing, or some combination of those factors. Furthermore, if it is a checkmate-in-k puzzle where k is not too small, there is no hope of being able to list out all the possible lines, so one has to select a few to show.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you try &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/training&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Lichess puzzles&lt;/a&gt;, the website only chooses a single possible opponent response against you, so technically it is not enough if you manage to reach the &amp;quot;you have solved the puzzle&amp;quot; state, because you only showed that you succeeded along one line. To really solve the puzzle, you must convince yourself that you can achieve at least as good an outcome in all possible lines of opponent play.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Similarly, the puzzle solution you quoted here merely showed one line, obviously assuming that you should be able to find the winning strategy in all other lines not shown. Saying that &amp;quot;should I expect black to ...&amp;quot; is simply erroneous, because solving this puzzle requires you to know how to win &lt;strong&gt;no matter&lt;/strong&gt; what black does!&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="9192" LastActivityDate="2020-11-28T17:51:19.783" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33141" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="26543" CreationDate="2020-11-28T19:08:46.777" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;Speculation is all well and good, but I wanted data. I selected an OTB quick tournament from February and compared final scores with initial quick and regular ratings. After removing any previously unrated players, (surprisingly, everyone who previously had a regular rating also previously had a quick rating) the scatterplots looked like this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/axemr.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/axemr.png&quot; alt=&quot;Scatterplots of score vs quick and regular ratings&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The regular ratings did appear to be slightly better predictors in this case than the quick ratings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, this is a rather small sample size (27 players in one 4-round tournament) and they aren't independent since the players were playing each other. By using score as a measure I'm ignoring strength of opponents. Also, some players received one half or full point bye, and this of course affected their final scores.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Then I took a blitz tournament at the same day and location. (Mostly chosen so I wouldn't have to re-look up the regular ratings of most of the players; there was a lot of overlap in the player pool between these two events.) After removing players with no previous blitz rating, and also removing a withdrawal and a late entry, I got this:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/kkndB.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/kkndB.png&quot; alt=&quot;Scatterplots of score vs blitz and regular ratings&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's a lot harder to say by looking whether the correlation is better between the blitz and the regular. Again, it's just one small tournament (10 rounds, and only 16 players after removing the ones without a previous blitz rating.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2020-11-28T19:08:46.777" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33142" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33143" CreationDate="2020-11-28T23:12:59.227" Score="7" ViewCount="1392" Body="&lt;p&gt;I was analyzing a recent game of mine, and I noticed something interesting. After I blundered back a bishop on move 16, the evaluation was -3.4, which is still strongly winning for Black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[White &amp;quot;White&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Black &amp;quot;Black&amp;quot;]&#xA;[Result &amp;quot;0-1&amp;quot;]&#xA;[WhiteElo &amp;quot;1700&amp;quot;]&#xA;[BlackElo &amp;quot;1500&amp;quot;]&#xA;[fen &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 c5 2. f4 { B21 Sicilian Defense: McDonnell Attack } b6 3. Nf3 Bb7 4. Nc3 a6 5. Bc4 e6 6. O-O d5 7. exd5 exd5 8. Be2 d4 9. Ne4?? { (-1.03 → -4.31) Blunder. Nb1 was best. } Bxe4 10. d3 Bb7 11. Ng5 Be7 12. Bf3 Nc6 13. Re1 Nf6 14. Qe2 O-O? { (-5.42 → -3.17) Mistake. Qd7 was best. } 15. Bxc6 Bxc6 16. Qxe7 Qd5 17. Nf3?! { (-3.25 → -5.04) Inaccuracy. Qe2 was best. } Rae8 18. Qc7 Rxe1+ 19. Kf2? { (-4.63 → -19.29) Mistake. Nxe1 was best. } Ree8 20. Qxb6 Ng4+ 21. Kg3 Ne3 22. Qb3 Nf5+ 23. Kf2 Qd7 24. Bd2 Bxf3 25. gxf3 Nh4 26. c4 Qh3 27. Qd1 Qxh2+ { White resigns. } 0-1&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;How is this so, given that the material had evened out? Obviously, if it's not due to material, it must be due to something positional, but even then I'm not very convinced. After move 16, White owns the e-file and maybe even the 7th rank. They also has a knight on g5 which, to me, is a bit worrisome (should it not be?), and it's supported by a pawn and a bishop. What merits such a strong evaluation for Black?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="24659" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-11-29T06:36:50.840" LastActivityDate="2020-12-08T00:23:06.833" Title="How come it's actually Black with the advantage here?" Tags="&lt;tactics&gt;&lt;positional-play&gt;&lt;evaluation&gt;&lt;calculation&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33143" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33142" CreationDate="2020-11-29T03:08:16.250" Score="9" Body="&lt;p&gt;White's actually quite close to busted in that position after 16...Qd5. Of the two points you bring up, note that White doesn't actually control the e-file because Black is ready to play a rook to e8 and drive White's major pieces away. The knight on g5 looks good, but it's also vulnerable to being kicked by ...h6 and it's not threatening anything yet. Otherwise, White's king is dangerously exposed on the long diagonal since Black already has a bishop on the diagonal and since White no longer has f3. Finally, White's queenside is undeveloped. Granted Black's a8-rook isn't developed either, but it can jump into the fray much quicker.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Consider, checkmate is threatened on g2 and White has only a few ways to defend it:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;17.Re2 is the easiest to refute because 17...Rfe8 wins either a rook or the queen.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;17.Nf3 is also terrible. Again Black plays 17...Rfe8, and after 18.Qc7 (or where else is White going to put the queen?) Black plays 18...Rxe1 19.Nxe1 (forced) 19...Rae8 (developing with tempo) 20.Nf3 (still forced) Re2. Black's pieces are overwhelming White's king while White's queen, bishop and rook are all spectators. An immediate threat is 21...Rxg2+ 22. Kxg2 Qxf3 and checkmate.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;That leaves 17.Qe2, which is the least evil but still not good enough. Black again plays 17...Rfe8, forcing 18.Ne4 (all other moves either lose material or get mated on g2), and then the Knight is pinned. Black has a variety of promising ideas such as 18...Qf5 intending to take on e4, or 18...Nd7 intending ...f5 to win material.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ul&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;By the way, it's striking how much of Black's advantage stems from the fact that White's queenside is undeveloped, and by extension the rook on e1 is undefended (once ...Rfe8 kicks the queen away). Move White's c1-bishop to d2, and Black's advantage drops to about -1.0.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15223" LastEditorUserId="15223" LastEditDate="2020-12-08T00:23:06.833" LastActivityDate="2020-12-08T00:23:06.833" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33144" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33142" CreationDate="2020-11-29T03:08:27.487" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;It seems that, for tactical reasons, White is going to have to give up material to stop Black's attack with best play from both sides. That seems to be why the evaluation is so in favor of Black.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;After move 16, White owns the e-file and maybe even the 7-rank.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Not really. After 16...Qd5, White must defend the mate threat somehow, and Black can then play a rook to e8 to drive the queen off of it (as was done on the game). White's undeveloped bishop also delays the other rook from helping, and that's critical in some lines - if that bishop were on d2 instead of c1 at move 16, Black's advantage would be very small. As it is, it's really Black who soon owns the e-file.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;He also has a knight on g5 which, to me, is a bit worrisome (should it not be?)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It could be kicked easily with h6, and h7 and f7 are defended, so it's not all that worrisome. (Especially since White &lt;em&gt;doesn't&lt;/em&gt; get the 7th rank to attack f7 from the side with rooks.) In any case it's going to be moving soon to help deal with Black's attack even if it isn't kicked. There's no way it can stay where it is; for example after 17.Qe2 Rae8 it has to move because 18.Qf2?? Rxe1+ loses immediately.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Beyond that, White's bishop is doing next to nothing and is blocked by the f4 pawn, while Black's is aiming right at White's king on the long diagonal. Black has more queenside space. There's a hole on e3 that Black could put his knight into (if he doesn't mind it being traded for the bishop) or he could just put it on g4 (Black can kick it with h3, but that would leave a permanent hole on g3.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastEditorUserId="12629" LastEditDate="2020-11-29T03:23:11.600" LastActivityDate="2020-11-29T03:23:11.600" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33145" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33147" CreationDate="2020-11-29T10:41:50.010" Score="3" ViewCount="183" Body="&lt;p&gt;After playing the following game, Stockfish advised me to play ...Nxd2 after white played Nd2 (which I did not play during the game).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;However, I am not sure why. Certainly, in the worst case, this is just an even exchange of material.&#xA;But is there any point in that move beyond that? Wouldn't moving the knight back to g5 be better as it controls the center?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &amp;quot;r1bqkb1r/ppp1pppp/2n5/8/3Pn3/2P5/PP1N2PP/R1BQKBNR b KQkq - 2 6&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25500" LastActivityDate="2020-12-02T02:58:44.657" Title="Why should black trade knights in this position?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;strategy&gt;&lt;beginner&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33146" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33130" CreationDate="2020-11-29T12:31:34.053" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;There is no genuine preference for any black response to white's winning move Bxd6. As always when checked there are three classes of move available: moving the king - no such moves; capturing the checking piece - one move Qxd6; and interposing a piece to block the check - four moves, Qe7, Re7, Be7 and Ne7. Tidily, the white response to all five of black's legal moves is Qxf7 mate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25501" LastActivityDate="2020-11-29T12:31:34.053" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33147" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33145" CreationDate="2020-11-29T15:03:21.963" Score="4" Body="&lt;p&gt;Computers have complex reasons for their move choices, however, in this position there is a simple rationale for exchanging knights.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;You need to think of two factors: are pieces moving to better (or worse) squares, and tempo (who is to move).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this position, if you play Nxd2, White gets to play Bxd2. So, you keep the move and White improves his bishop slightly and opens C1 for the rook. If you move the knight to f6, then nobody improves, but you lose the move. Note that you cannot play Ng5 because of h4.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;In this position losing tempo would be less desirable because White can use his move to play Ngf3 which stops you from playing e5! which is the key move in this position. If you keep tempo, then you can play 1...Nxd2 2. Bxd2 e5! This will improve your position by allowing you to challenge the center.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you play Nf6 and White stops e5 by playing Ngf3, then White definitely has the advantage because of having more places to put his pieces by virtue of controlling the center. You could easily find yourself in a lost position if White continues to dominate the center.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8673" LastEditorUserId="8673" LastEditDate="2020-11-29T15:41:01.067" LastActivityDate="2020-11-29T15:41:01.067" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33148" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="28467" CreationDate="2020-11-29T16:00:31.100" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you look at the &lt;em&gt;static&lt;/em&gt; evaluation of the position in Stockfish, White gets an advantage of 4.17. The top factors in this position are are:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;+1.23: King danger. This measures various things, like whether the king has a pawn shelter, how many checks are available, and how many pieces are threatening the area around the king.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;+0.77: Piece value bonus. This is the extra pawn.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;+0.76: Piece square table bonus. A bonus (or penalty) is given to each piece based simply on what square it's currently on. The knight on e5 is getting a bonus while the knight on b8 is getting a penalty.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;+0.48: Mobility. A measure of how many squares are available for each piece. Squares defended by enemy pawns are not counted, and for the queen squares defended by a weaker enemy piece are not counted.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;+0.38: Outpost bonus. The White knight on e5 gets a bonus for being on an outpost, and there's also a bonus for the other knight because it can reach the outpost on e4 in one move.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;There are also various smaller factors, like Black's isolated pawn, but these are the main factors in the static evaluation of this position.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastActivityDate="2020-11-29T16:00:31.100" CommentCount="1" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33149" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33151" CreationDate="2020-11-29T16:51:16.810" Score="13" ViewCount="4025" Body="&lt;p&gt;My partner and I are newbies, and recently found ourselves in this position:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;8/8/8/6kp/p5p/8/K/6Q w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I expected white would easily win because of the queen (and point) imbalance, but white never made time to free the king for the fight on the other side of the board, and there doesn't seem to be any way for the queen to handle that pawn-king cluster by herself.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;My question: how many pawns generally make up for a missing queen in the endgame?  According to the point system, black would need nine pawns, but that seems like too many to handle.  Or would a more skilled white player have no problem dispatching pawns at this stage?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25502" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-11-29T17:04:49.537" LastActivityDate="2020-11-29T18:46:10.580" Title="How many pawns make up for a missing queen in the endgame?" Tags="&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;pawns&gt;&lt;queens&gt;&lt;point-value&gt;&lt;material-balance&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33150" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33149" CreationDate="2020-11-29T18:29:49.377" Score="10" Body="&lt;p&gt;First of all, White wins in the diagram you provide, although it's not obvious at a glance how. White plays Qf2 first to stop the king from advancing. Black can't just sit there forever because the White king will eventually eat that a-pawn and come back, so they have to play h4, and then another pawn move. If Black plays g3, White responds with Qf3, and now the pawns can't safely advance. And if Black plays h3, White plays Qg3.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Surprisingly, Stockfish still says White is winning even if we give Black pawns on the fourth or fifth ranks on every file:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;8/8/8/3pppkp/ppp3p1/8/1K6/6Q1 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Of course, it depends on the position. Here, White's king is well positioned to stop the queenside pawns (for example, c3+ is met with Kc2, and then b3 allows Kxc3 while a3 allows Kb3, so none of those pawns can safely queen) while Black's king is on the other side. And the immediate Qe3+ helps a lot.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="12629" LastEditorUserId="12629" LastEditDate="2020-11-29T18:35:53.873" LastActivityDate="2020-11-29T18:35:53.873" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33151" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33149" CreationDate="2020-11-29T18:46:10.580" Score="26" Body="&lt;p&gt;The simple and obvious answer is that it all depends on the position of black's pawns and king. In general the further up the board the pawns the better for black provided the king is in contact with the pawns, preferably in front of them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Worth pointing out that the position you give is winning for white because the pawns aren't far enough forward. From what I said earlier it will be clear that white's first task is to separate black from the pawns, then win them.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is how it is done.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &amp;quot;8/8/8/6kp/p5p/8/K/6Q w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Qh2 {Cunningly not allowing the king to come forward} h4 2. Qe5+ Kg6 {Step 1 quickly accomplished. Black king separated from the pawns} 3. Qf4 Kh5 4. Qf5+ Kh6 5. Qxg4&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and it is game over.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Move the kingside 2 rows forward, however, and best play is a draw, although white can give black opportunities to go wrong. At the same time white has to make sure black can't promote a pawn by checking, pinning or threatening mate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[fen &amp;quot;8/8/8/8/p7/6kp/K5p/6Q w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. Qe3+ Kh2 {only move} (1...Kh4?? 2. Qf2+ Kg4 3. Ka3  Kg5 4. Qg3+ Kf6 {anything else and Qxh3 will be check} 5. Kxa4 {and the king is going to come over and take the pawns}) 2. Qf4+ Kh1 {another only move} (2...Kg1?? 3. Qg3 Kf1 (3...h2 4. Qe1#) 4. Qxh3 Kf2 5. Qh4+ Kf1 6. Qf4+ Ke1 7. Qg3+ Kf1 8. Qf3+ Kg1 9. Ka3 Kh2 10. Qf4+ Kh1 11. Qh4+ Kg1 12. Kxa4 Kf1 13. Qf4+ {and repeating the process is going to bring the white king over to help and deliver mate}) 3. Qf3 Kh2 4. Qf4+&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The two keys to playing these kinds of position are calculation and endgame knowledge. For instance in the second position it is key for black to stop white from winning the h pawn. That is because with just the g pawn black is lost. However replace the g pawn with either an h pawn or an f pawn and the position changes back into a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="4418" LastActivityDate="2020-11-29T18:46:10.580" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33152" PostTypeId="5" CreationDate="2020-11-29T19:33:21.430" Score="0" Body="" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-11-29T19:33:21.430" LastActivityDate="2020-11-29T19:33:21.430" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33153" PostTypeId="4" CreationDate="2020-11-29T19:33:21.430" Score="0" Body="This is the name for the move in which a pawn moves two spaces, which is only available on its home square.&#xD;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-11-29T19:33:21.430" LastActivityDate="2020-11-29T19:33:21.430" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33154" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33155" CreationDate="2020-11-30T01:36:46.650" Score="0" ViewCount="156" Body="&lt;p&gt;I had an interesting idea recently. While there are many proof games ending in checkmate or stalemate, why not both, I thought. So, thus I wondered, what is the fastest way to reach a position in which one side is forced to give either checkmate or stalemate?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;So far, my best result is a bulky &lt;strong&gt;26 moves,&lt;/strong&gt; or 52 plies. In the end, White must choose between Kb7# and Kc7# or Kc8=.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. a4 b5 2. axb5 g5 3. Rxa7 Ba6 4. bxa6 Bh6 5. f4 Nf6 6. fxg5 Nc6 7. h4 O-O 8. Rxa8 Nd4 9. gxh6 Nf3+ 10. Kf2 Ng5 11. hxg5 Qb8 12. Ke3 Qxb2 13. c4 Qxb1 14. Kd4 Qxc1 15. Kc5 c6 16. Kb6 c5 17. a7 Qxd1 18. d3 Qxf1 19. gxf6 Qxg1 20. g4 Qxh1 21. g5 Qb7+ 22. Kxb7 Rb8+ 23. Kxb8 d5 24. g6 d4 25. g7 e6 26. e4 e5&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-11-30T18:03:37.913" LastActivityDate="2020-11-30T18:03:37.913" Title="What is the fastest way to reach a position in which one side is forced to choose between checkmate and stalemate?" Tags="&lt;checkmate&gt;&lt;problems&gt;&lt;records&gt;&lt;stalemate&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" FavoriteCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33155" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33154" CreationDate="2020-11-30T06:41:38.800" Score="3" Body="&lt;p&gt;12 moves (24 plies), adapting Loyd's classic 19-ply help-stalemate:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. d3 a5 2. Qd2 Ra6 3. Qxa5 h5 4. Qxc7 Rah6 5. Qxb7 f6 6. Qxb8 d6 7. h4 Bf5 8. Rh3 Kf7 9. Qxd6 Bh7 10. Qe6+ Kg6 11. f4 Qxd3 12. Kf2 Qg3+&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;and White must choose between 13 Kxg3 stalemate and 13 Rxg3 checkmate.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8860" LastActivityDate="2020-11-30T06:41:38.800" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33156" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33157" CreationDate="2020-11-30T06:44:46.703" Score="4" ViewCount="188" Body="&lt;p&gt;I have created a chess engine in Python and now want to start using the endgame tables in syzygy. I have downloaded all the relevant files and is now ready to start.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I have found how to access the files in Python via e.g. the Python Chess module (&lt;a href=&quot;https://python-chess.readthedocs.io/en/latest/syzygy.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;link&lt;/a&gt;). It there explains how I can get the WDL and DTZ information from a FEN position, which could be handy at times. BUT what I really want is to know the move to make to win in that FEN position, and I have not been able to figure out how to obtain this information from the files. The information online is very limited and I hope someone can please guide me on how to do this?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25514" LastActivityDate="2020-11-30T07:15:54.510" Title="Obtaining the correct move from syzygy tablebases (Python)" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;tablebases&gt;&lt;python&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33157" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33156" CreationDate="2020-11-30T07:10:48.987" Score="2" Body="&lt;p&gt;I can't be absolutely certain, as these particular tablebases are unfamiliar to me.  However, in all other tablebases that I've used, from the Thompson and forward, you had, basically, to:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;generate all legal moves from the position,&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;for each move, make the move and look up the score for the resulting position, and then&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;select 'the right move' based on those retrieved scores, compared to the score for the starting position.&lt;/li&gt;&#xA;&lt;/ol&gt;&#xA;" OwnerDisplayName="user24765" LastEditorDisplayName="user24765" LastEditDate="2020-11-30T07:15:54.510" LastActivityDate="2020-11-30T07:15:54.510" CommentCount="6" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33158" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-11-30T08:34:48.270" Score="11" ViewCount="4884" Body="&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;8/8/8/8/3k1KB1/8/8/8 w - - 0 1&amp;quot;]&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I am new to chess and have no clue as to how to win this game. Which moves can be done with what is on the board in order to win? Could anyone explain?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25515" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-11-30T20:54:29.173" LastActivityDate="2020-12-05T11:28:02.980" Title="I'm new to chess-what should be done here to win the game?" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;endgame&gt;&lt;bishops&gt;&lt;kings&gt;&lt;bishop-endgame&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33159" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33158" CreationDate="2020-11-30T08:50:29.523" Score="35" Body="&lt;p&gt;This position is a draw, the game is over. It is not possible for either side to checkmate the other from this position, not even if the side with the bare king would try to help.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The same is true for king and knight vs king. A single knight or bishop without any pawns or other pieces is not enough to win the game.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;With king and &lt;em&gt;two&lt;/em&gt; knights vs king it is in theory possible to checkmate the other side, but it can't be forced. It's very easy to prevent the checkmate as the defending side. So that is essentially a draw too.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/q/4931&quot;&gt;Two bishops&lt;/a&gt;, or a &lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/q/59&quot;&gt;bishop and a knight&lt;/a&gt;, can force checkmate. It's not easy (especially bishop and knight, it has happened that a grandmaster fails to do it), but it can be done.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;It's a better idea to always keep a pawn or two on the board so you can promote one.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="924" LastEditorUserId="10983" LastEditDate="2020-12-02T07:32:30.227" LastActivityDate="2020-12-02T07:32:30.227" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33160" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33100" CreationDate="2020-11-30T10:06:30.360" Score="1" Body="&lt;p&gt;I think you ask the wrong question. Better: &amp;quot;What are my ambitions when I return to chess?&amp;quot; I have no idea what your innate talent is, what trainers you have and so on. As long as your ambition is &amp;quot;I want to have fun at chess&amp;quot;, it doesn't matter at all how strong you are. I was a FM once (OK, even if I dropped under 2100, I still am, but you know what I mean) and I'm burning for Corona getting the boot so I can return to the board. If that is your attitude, you find joy even with 1000 ELO.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="11144" LastActivityDate="2020-11-30T10:06:30.360" CommentCount="2" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33161" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-11-30T13:39:29.160" Score="8" ViewCount="240" Body="&lt;p&gt;Does a typical brute-force chess engine (e.g. Stockfish) hold its search tree in memory as it applies iterative deepening? If so how does it avoid running out of space? And if not, how does it store the results from each depth before it searches the next ply? It is my understanding that the evaluations from each depth are used to order the possible moves for the next depth, but where are these evaluations and their associated positions stored?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, do engines save the pseudo-legal moves they generate for each position, or do they re-run the move generation function each iteration of the search?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25518" LastEditorUserId="25518" LastEditDate="2020-11-30T14:37:00.593" LastActivityDate="2020-12-02T12:57:29.830" Title="Do Chess Engines hold their Search Tree in Memory?" Tags="&lt;engines&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33163" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33158" CreationDate="2020-11-30T20:30:06.060" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;If you look closely, the bishop only attacks on squares of a specific color (in this case, it's a light square bishop). As long as the opponent king steps on dark squares, it's impossible to 'check'mate the opponent king. During the endgame with very few pawns on the board, it is &lt;strong&gt;most likely&lt;/strong&gt; best to sacrifice your piece for an opponent's pawn, as they have very big potential of promoting. As said before by @RemcoGerlich, it's a good idea to keep more pawns on the board so you have more potential.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;As an example, if you have &lt;strong&gt;King + Pawn&lt;/strong&gt; vs &lt;strong&gt;King + Bishop + Pawn&lt;/strong&gt;, there's no point trying to exchange the pawns, as that would lead to a draw. You can instead take away your opponent's pawn with the bishop, leaving a &lt;strong&gt;King&lt;/strong&gt; vs &lt;strong&gt;King + Pawn&lt;/strong&gt; which hopefully would not lead to a draw.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25509" LastEditorUserId="25509" LastEditDate="2020-11-30T21:29:28.877" LastActivityDate="2020-11-30T21:29:28.877" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33165" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-12-01T02:08:30.207" Score="2" ViewCount="146" Body="&lt;p&gt;Just like the title says, is there a name for the line starting with 4.Ng5 in 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Nf6 4. Ng5 called?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Wikipedia article &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_Knights_Defense&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_Knights_Defense&lt;/a&gt;, does not give a name.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This Youtube video &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKoZkrBWDbU&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKoZkrBWDbU&lt;/a&gt; refers to 4.Ng5 as &lt;em&gt;The Knight Attack&lt;/em&gt;, but I searched for it and I don't see other references to &lt;em&gt;The Knight Attack&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Also, often people refer to 4.Ng5 as Fried Liver attack, which I believe is incorrect, since Fried Liver attack arises later in the game, after 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Nf6 4. Ng5 d5 5. exd5 Nxd5 6. Nxf7.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="307" LastActivityDate="2020-12-01T23:53:17.680" Title="Does 4.Ng5 in Two Knights Defense have a name?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;two-knights&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33166" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="12849" CreationDate="2020-12-01T03:49:35.010" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;longer games will help you improve as long as you practice your tactics, openings and most important when you play online in longer formats -&#xA;ENDGAMES.&#xA;Please practice your endgames and don't make the same mistake I did.&#xA;As for blitz, make sure to play a few games of that too. It helps for pattern recognition&#xA;Just don't play bullet. But if your playing for fun , just do whatever you want. Forget everything everyone said here.&#xA;Also, I don't mind arguments because I'm no coach.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25532" LastActivityDate="2020-12-01T03:49:35.010" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33167" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="9256" CreationDate="2020-12-01T03:59:43.323" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;short answer, yes.&#xA;But that does not mean that play no blitz.&#xA;try playing 7-8 blitz games but play all the other games&#xA;in longer times.&#xA;the myth that you improve by playing blitz is there because you can recognize more patterns and learn how to manage time trouble. Also you can cheat because of low time (the reason why gm play blitz. But even they played longer formats first).&#xA;For everything else longer games are better.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25532" LastActivityDate="2020-12-01T03:59:43.323" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33168" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33170" CreationDate="2020-12-01T04:41:53.280" Score="4" ViewCount="454" Body="&lt;p&gt;How quickly can a legal game reach a position where one side &lt;strong&gt;must&lt;/strong&gt;&#xA;give checkmate?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;This is in effect &lt;strong&gt;Evergalo&lt;/strong&gt;'s reading (see&#xA;&lt;a href=&quot;https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/33154/what-is-the-fastest-way-to-reach-a-position-in-which-one-side-is-forced-to-choos/33162#33162&quot;&gt;his (now deleted) answer&lt;/a&gt;)&#xA;of &lt;strong&gt;Rewan Demontay&lt;/strong&gt;'s Question 33154; that question actually asked&#xA;something else, but the selfmate question is nice too.  &lt;strong&gt;Evergalo&lt;/strong&gt; offered&#xA;a game that reaches such a position in 6.0 moves, i.e. after Black's 6th:&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e3 d6 2. Ke2 Qd7 3. Kd3 Qh3 4. Qh5 Kd7 5. Ke4 Ke6 6. d4 Qf5+ 7. Qxf5#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;I found a solution in 5.5, that is, after White's 6th move&#xA;(actually two very similar positions, which together can be reached in&#xA;660 ways according to Popeye 3.41).&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Is 5.5 moves the quickest possible?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;If so, are there other solutions in 5.5 ?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Has this puzzle appeared before?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8860" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-12-01T17:07:38.820" LastActivityDate="2021-05-26T20:49:06.987" Title="The quickest selfmate in 1" Tags="&lt;problems&gt;&lt;records&gt;&lt;selfmate&gt;" AnswerCount="2" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33169" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33161" CreationDate="2020-12-01T05:20:12.607" Score="0" Body="&lt;p&gt;Yes, they do. They also store the evaluation for each position in the tree. It is critical to store the previously examined positions, because otherwise the computer would have to waste time re-calculating positions that it had already evaluated. In fact, not only chess programs, but any search algorithm usually remembers its search tree, a technique called &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memoization#:%7E:text=In%20computing%2C%20memoization%20or%20memoisation,the%20same%20inputs%20occur%20again.&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;memoization&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The computer copes with limited memory by &amp;quot;pruning&amp;quot; its tree and removing lines that it considers least likely to be important.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;When a new position is calculated, it is given an evaluation score and the legal moves in that position are calculated.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="8673" LastActivityDate="2020-12-01T05:20:12.607" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33170" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33168" CreationDate="2020-12-01T06:09:23.217" Score="5" Body="&lt;p&gt;Going to the dusty databanks in my skull, this indeed has been written about before. It appears in &lt;a href=&quot;https://timkr.home.xs4all.nl/chess2/diary_8.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;Journey Entry #153&lt;/a&gt; of Tim Krabbe's Chess Diary. Since you define the ply count to the position before the selfmating move, the given examples are valid (although, Krabbe does not count the forcing move either, leading to counts of 5.0). This answers your second and third wonderings.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;Here are the given games, which, unsurprisingly, all have Fool's Mate setups. All are 5.5 moves, the same as yours. I can offer no proof of optimality, however. I do think, though, that it &lt;em&gt;seems&lt;/em&gt; unlikely that faster can be done.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Pim Blijlevens, Tim Krabbe's Website #153, 12/10/2001, PG in 6.0&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. f4 e5 2. g4 Ke7 3. Nc3 Kf6 4. Nf3 Kg6 5. Nd5 Nh6 6. Nh4+ Qxh4#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Pim Blijlevens, Tim Krabbe's Website #153, 12/10/2001, PG in 6.0&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA;1. e4 f5 2. Ke2 g5 3. Kf3 Nc6 4. Kg3 Nf6 5. Nh3 Nd4 6. Qh5+ Nxh5#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;&lt;hr /&gt;&#xA;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;[Title &amp;quot;Sasho Kalajdzievski, Tim Krabbe's Website #153, 12/11/2001, PG in 6.0&amp;quot;]&#xA;[FEN &amp;quot;&amp;quot;]&#xA;&#xA; 1. e4 h5 2. f4 g5 3. Kf2 f5 4. Kg3 gxf4+ 5. Kh3 a6 6. Qxh5+ Rxh5#&#xA;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="15543" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2021-05-26T20:49:06.987" LastActivityDate="2021-05-26T20:49:06.987" CommentCount="3" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33171" PostTypeId="1" AcceptedAnswerId="33172" CreationDate="2020-12-01T09:29:50.023" Score="0" ViewCount="132" Body="&lt;p&gt;I am a beginning chess player, and just had a look at lichess puzzle &lt;a href=&quot;https://lichess.org/training/61124&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;61124&lt;/a&gt;. The following contains spoilers.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;The solution to the puzzle is supposedly Rd4, then the follow-up move from white is Nb6, which I do not follow. Would Qb5 not make more sense from white's perspective?&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="10056" LastActivityDate="2020-12-01T09:33:50.217" Title="lichess puzzle 61124" Tags="&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;puzzles&gt;&lt;lichess&gt;" AnswerCount="1" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33172" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33171" CreationDate="2020-12-01T09:33:50.217" Score="6" Body="&lt;p&gt;After Qb3 or Qb5, black has the move Rb4 - kicking the queen away from the defense of the knight. In that line, white is losing a full piece. There is slightly more compensation by instead playing Nxb6 Rxc4 Nxc4 because at least there the black king is also exposed.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;&lt;p&gt;If you're ever confused on why the engine played the move it did, just turn on the analysis afterwards. Make the move that you expected the engine to play and see why that loses worse than what was actually played - that way you can learn without having to ask an online forum for help :P&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="3884" LastActivityDate="2020-12-01T09:33:50.217" CommentCount="4" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33175" PostTypeId="1" CreationDate="2020-12-01T18:51:09.353" Score="5" ViewCount="1874" Body="&lt;p&gt;What is the best way to respond in the French Defense to 2. e5? It has to be wrong to play this way. I am of the opinion that d5 is a good answer. I can find no reference to this move in MCO.&lt;/p&gt;&#xA;" OwnerUserId="25542" LastEditorUserId="15543" LastEditDate="2020-12-01T20:32:59.693" LastActivityDate="2020-12-02T13:30:14.213" Title="How do I respond as Black to 1. e4 e6 2.e5?" Tags="&lt;opening&gt;&lt;analysis&gt;&lt;learning&gt;" AnswerCount="3" CommentCount="0" ContentLicense="CC BY-SA 4.0" />
  <row Id="33176" PostTypeId="2" ParentId="33175" CreationDate="2020-12-01T19:38:11.940" Score="5" Body="&lt;ol&gt;&#xA;&lt;li&gt;e4 is an opening that controls d5. By playing e6 as black, you are fighting for d5 as well, without playing ...d5 immediately and risking your queen getting hit. With white playing e5, it's just a bad move. I don't understand why someone would play it, as it weakens control of d5 and f5, moves the same piece twice, and weakens the pawn overall. I can only see how e5 shapes kind of a premature &lt;code&gt;Advanced French C02&lt;/code&gt;, o